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DID DAMASUS WRITE THE CARMEN CONTRA PAGANOS? THE EVIDENCE OF ET
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 August 2016
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In Alan Cameron's long-awaited and epoch-making study The Last Pagans of Rome, a typically erudite and stimulating chapter is devoted to the anonymous poem generally known today as Carmen contra paganos (CCP), written in the late fourth or (some have argued) early fifth century. This poem (of 122 lines)—of which the text is still in many places uncertain, in spite of a wealth of critical attention from the time when it was brought fully to light by Delisle in 1867 to the present day—is a blistering invective against worshippers of the traditional gods and their practices, and against one person in particular, whose identity has been much debated. Cameron has brought forward a battery of strong arguments, many of them new, against the claims of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, for a long time the front runner, whose name used to be given confidently in the poem's title, and, like Ellis and Cracco Ruggini, has strongly championed the claims of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, the grandee who was consul designate for the year 385 but did not live to take up the office.
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References
1 A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011), 273–319.
2 Delisle, L., ‘Note sur le manuscrit de Prudence no 8084 du fonds latin de la Bibliothèque impériale’, Bibliothèque de l’école des Chartes 28 (1867), 297–303 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 The most convenient modern edition is in D.R. Shackleton Bailey (ed.), Anthologia Latina 1.1 (Stuttgart, 1982), 17–23, from which quotations will be taken.
4 For a detailed bibliography, see the footnotes in Ruggini, L. Cracco, ‘En marge d'une “mésalliance”: Prétextat, Damase et le Carmen contra paganos’, Comptes rendues des séances de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 142 (1998), 493–516 Google Scholar; Ruggini, L. Cracco, ‘Il paganesimo Romano tra religione e politica (384–94 d. C.): per una reinterpretazione del Carmen contra paganos ’, Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Memorie Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 8.23 (Rome, 1979), 1–141 Google Scholar; and Cameron (n. 1), 273–85.
5 On Flavianus, A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale and J. Morris (edd.), The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (= PLRE) (Cambridge, 1971), 1.347–9.
6 On Praetextatus, PLRE 1.722–4.
7 On Damasus, see ‘Damasus I’, in OCD 4 (Oxford, 2012); Ch. Pietri, ‘Damasus’ in A. di Berardino (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the Early Church (trans. W.H.C. Frend) (Cambridge, 1992), 218–19; J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome (London, 1975), 81–90.
8 Dolbeau, F., ‘Un nouveau catalogue des manuscrits de Lobbes aux XI-XII siècles’, RecAug 13 (1978), 3–36 Google Scholar.
9 Dolbeau showed that CCP is imitated in the work of Hériger of Lobbes, in ‘Damase, le Carmen contra paganos et Hériger de Lobbes’, REAug 27 (1981), 38–43 Google Scholar.
10 Courtney, E., ‘Supplementary notes on the Latin Anthology’, C&M 40 (1989), 197–211 Google Scholar, at 203.
11 Notably Cracco Ruggini, ‘En marge’ (n. 4), and Shanzer, D., ‘The anonymous Carmen contra paganos and the date and identity of the centonist Proba’, REAug 32 (1986), 232–48Google Scholar.
12 Jerome, De uiris illustribus ciii, Damasus, Romanae urbis episcopus, elegans in uersibus componendis ingenium habuit. The ‘many short works in the epic metre’ also mentioned by Jerome there have not survived. In this article Damasus is throughout the writer of the ‘epigrammata’—that is, the epitaphs and elogia of martyrs and others.
13 On such pseudepigrapha, see R. Herzog, Die Bibelepik der lateinischen Spätantike 1: Formgeschichte einer erbaulichen Gattung (Munich, 1975), xxv–xxxi.
14 Cameron (n. 1), 311–14.
15 The notion of formulae perhaps suits Damasus rather better than CCP, where it is arguably more a matter of repeating or recycling the occasional phrase or constructing a similar line. In one case (Cameron [n. 1], 311 and n. 186), the scribe could well have been responsible (latrator Anubis, 100).
16 The verses of Damasus number a little over 320 (some lines are not quite complete, hence the imprecision) or, for the present purpose, allowing for lines reused, just over 300; in CCP there are 122 lines in most editions. The ratio of their lengths is thus very close to 5:2.
17 Courtney (n. 10) wonders if any other pope ever read Petronius.
18 Cameron (n. 1), 314.
19 M. Ihm, Damasi Epigrammata (Accedunt pseudo-Damasiana aliaque ad Damasiana inlustranda idonea) (Leipzig, 1895); Ihm, M., ‘Die Epigramme des Damasus’, RhM 50 (1895), 191–204 Google Scholar; Ihm, M., ‘Zu lateinischen Dichtern: das Carmen Flavianum (Cod. Paris. 8084)’, RhM 52 (1897), 208–2Google Scholar.
20 A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, with an appendix, Tituli Damaso falso tributi vel ad damasianos spectantes (Vatican City, 1942). Ferrua was principally an archaeologist, and, as he says, not a philologist, but his carefully prepared text is essential.
21 aspice et is found in Verg. G. 2.114, but this passage is not included among the Virgilian models referenced by Damasus’ editors (Aen. 2.604, 6.855, 10.481: aspice alone in all cases). The reading aspice ut has been suggested to me (cf. Verg. Aen. 6.855–6 and Ecl. 5.6–7, where a verb in the indicative mood follows), but perhaps this would be too much of a flourish to be typical of Damasus’ opening lines.
22 G.B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores, 2 vols. (Rome, 1857–1888). Damasus’ verses exist in the manuscripts of various syllogae, collections of inscriptions probably recorded by pilgrims, as well as on the tombs themselves, where they were inscribed by the calligrapher Filocalus, and their fragments. For the rest of this poem we have both kinds of testimony.
23 There is hiatus in 79.5 Ihm, but that epigram was judged inauthentic by him; Ferrua rejected it altogether. It is highly unlikely, but perhaps not inconceivable, that aspicis was a medieval emendation of original aspice.
24 Ferrua (n. 20), 215.
25 Ihm in fact derived this from Terribilinius, who is acknowledged in the edition of A. Merenda, S. Damasi Papae opuscula et gesta cum notis M. M. Sarazani iterum collecta … (Rome, 1754) (this edition is also that used in Migne's Patrologia Latina).
26 Ihm, ‘Die Epigramme’ (n. 19), 196. In his edition he is certain (pro certo habeo) that et is part of a verb.
27 Ferrua (n. 20), 168 does, however, rather confusingly, suggest circumstances in which Damasus might have written it.
28 See note 25.
29 Ferrua (n. 20), 53 (‘cuius rei rationem non reperio’).
30 Ihm, ‘Die Epigramme’ (n. 19), 194; ‘Damasi Epigrammata’ (n. 19), 2, where suggested allusions to other authors are summarized; and J. Fontaine, ‘Damase Poète théodosien: L'imaginaire poétique des Epigrammata’, in D. Mazzoleni (ed.), Saecularia Damasiana. Atti del convegno internazionale per il XVI centenario della morte di Papa Damaso I (Vatican City, 1986), 115–45, at 130–7. In Late Latin writers a short a is sometimes lengthened before a word beginning with qu-; this has nothing to do with ‘grammarians’ wiles’ (Ferrua [n. 20], 104), a comment evidently based on an obscure statement by L. Mueller, De re metrica poetarum Latinorum (Leipzig, 1894), 382–3 and 443, that Venantius and others were metricorum praestigiis decepti. Grammarians explain poetic usage, and rarely influence it, deliberately or otherwise.
31 Cameron (n. 1), 315 gives figures for the use of -que in various other poems.
32 Shackleton Bailey (n. 3).
33 In line 14 the writer borrows the phrase arma Iouis fugiens from Verg. Aen. 8.320, and in line 15 ueneratur shows the influence of Virgil's adorat (Aen. 1.48), on which see next note.
34 Like Virgil's Juno, the derisive author of CCP is commenting on the actual situation; he shows no awareness of the variant adoret attested by Quint. Inst. 9.2.10, and by Servius in three places (G. 4.502, Aen. 2.79, 12.11). Croke and Harries, in their valuable study of this and other polemical literature of the time (B. Croke and J. Harries [edd.], Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Rome: A Documentary Study [Sydney, 1982], 80–3), translate the above text; Cameron treats the verb as present subjunctive (‘would venerate’). The difference in meaning is minimal.
35 TLL 5.2.890,79. No mention is made of the CCP passage (not all direct quotations of a word or phrase are given in the TLL).
36 R.G. Austin speaks of this passage's ‘querulous and angry tone’, and comments on the et in Verg. Aen. 4.215 with the single word ‘indignantis’.
37 Croke and Harries (n. 34), 80–3; A. Bartalucci, ‘Contro I Pagani’ Carmen cod. Paris. lat. 8084 (Pisa, 1998).
38 E. Löfstedt, Philologischer Kommentar zur Peregrinatio Aetheriae (Darmstadt, 1962 [repr.]), 43. An example is tot de diis spolia, quot de gentibus et tropaea (Min. Fel. Oct. 25.6).
39 Putting the figures for Damasus first in each case, the figures given by Cameron are for ac 1: 1 or 2? (better, ‘2 or 3?’, for surely [line] 39 must be added to 72 and 116 [see below]); for atque 2: 0; for -que 45: 26. Cf. note 16.
40 But it is not a common feature in late antique writers: Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola, among others, have averages as high as classical writers.
41 The full stop here, used by Shackleton Bailey, Cameron and (in his text) Bartalucci, may not be needed. My solution is translated below.
42 It must be stated immediately that the uses of the Latin imperfect subjunctive do not include anything equivalent to the English ‘would’ which is used of repeated actions in the past (as in ‘a frog he would a-wooing go’); hence the warning square brackets.
43 According to Cameron ([n. 1], 275, and cf. 315 n. 209), the writer of CCP has ‘an unaccountable predilection for imperfect subjunctives’, but this is questionable. If the use of imperfect subjunctives on average once in five or six lines is a predilection—and many passages of other authors that I have sampled have far fewer examples of it, and none has more or even as many—then the author of CCP may be said to have a predilection; but it is not an obviously unaccountable one, and the author is not given to eccentric usage (as Cameron has it). The imperfect subjunctive is used after cum (in its commonest sense of ‘when’, ‘since’) at least six times, and with quod (‘because’) once; after a relative pronoun, in what is often called a ‘generic’ usage, four times, or five times if one adds in donaret at 79, before which quibus is probably to be understood; after ut (in a clause of purpose) twice, or thrice if one adds in fecit … curaret (line 85), where there is what some would call the omission of ut (this construction is common in Latin). In line 33 we seem to have an example of the kind of question mentioned below (in the words of LHS 2.338, ‘unwilligen’ [‘polemischen Fragen’]). These are all regular usages. The text and the sense of line 31 are uncertain, as they are in line 49 (discussed below). Apart from the two lines under discussion here, that leaves the three examples in lines 40–43, certainly to be explained all in the same way—perhaps as a kind of ‘attraction’ after uellet.
44 Baehrens, E., ‘Zur lateinischen Anthologie’, RhM 32 (1877), 211–25Google Scholar, at 222; and Poetae Latini Minores (= PLM) (Leipzig, 1881), 3.286–92, at 288.
45 Mähly, J., ‘Nachtrag zu vorstehender Recension’, Zeitschrift für Österreichischen Gymnasien 22 (1871), 584–90Google Scholar, at 585.
46 Baehrens, ‘Zur lateinischen Anthologie’ (n. 44), 215, and PLM 3.286–92, at 288.
47 If parallels are needed to this placing of -que, there is reddereque in Tib. 1.3.34 and others (M. Platnauer, Latin Elegiac Verse [Cambridge, 1951], 93). In line 83 the manuscript gives mittereque, and no one has suggested mittere et.
48 Cameron translates perditus as ‘in his infamy’, and no doubt that was in the poet's mind; but the translation of Croke and Harries, with its hint of Latin love-elegy to match adulter, seems more apt.
49 The writer probably meant the Parthenium mare, part of the eastern Mediterranean, referred to by Ammianus (14.8.10, 22.15.2 and 22.16.9) and Macrobius, Sat. 7.12.35. The nymph Parthenope, and the city of Naples named after her, had no part in the Europa myth; she originally lived in the land of Sidon (Ov. Met. 2.840).
50 Morel, C., ‘Le poème Latin du ms. 8084 de la Bibliothèque impériale’, Revue Critique d'Histoire et de Littérature 4 (1869), 300–4Google Scholar, at 302.
51 Ellis, R., ‘On a recently discovered Latin poem of the fourth century’, Journal of Philology 1 (1868), 66–80 Google Scholar, at 79. No reason is given by Ellis for choosing ac rather than the equally frequent et.
52 G. Dobbelstein, ‘De carmine Christiano codicis Par. 8084’ (Diss., University of Louvain, 1879), 11 and 46.
53 Baehrens, ‘Zur lateinischen Anthologie’ (n. 44), 215, and PLM 3.286.
54 Better sense would be given by ministrum (Haupt).
55 On ‘[would]’, see n. 42. Line 50 may belong to the sentence that follows.
56 Ellis (n. 51), 74.
57 Priapus, made by the country labourer from a pear-tree, is intended, as Shackleton Bailey notes. (Such a lowly object joins the pantheon.) There are helpful parallels in Bartalucci.
58 Cameron (n. 1), 315.
59 Cameron (n. 1), 313–14.
60 Cameron (n. 1), 313. This is also noted, from Ihm's index, by Shanzer (n. 11), 246. In this article Shanzer analyses the similarities of CCP and Damasus, but her arguments that CCP, which she dates to 384, must have been written before Proba's cento and that the centonist was not Faltonia Betitia Proba but Anicia Faltonia Proba (her granddaughter) have been found unconvincing: see Green, R.P.H., ‘Proba's cento: its date, purpose and reception’, CQ 45 (1995), 551–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Green, R.P.H., ‘Which Proba wrote the cento?’ CQ 58 (2008), 264–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latter article also comments on the article of Barnes, T.D., ‘An urban prefect and his wife’, CQ 56 (2006), 249–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which champions Shanzer's identification of the centonist. See also Cameron (n. 1), 327–37. My attention has been drawn to a new piece of evidence on this matter, which is presented with brief comment in the Appendix below.
61 Also at 44.3, 46.10, 47.5, 61.7, besides the above passage. The same observation is made by Shanzer (n. 11).
62 Although nocendi has often been suspected because of the unusual type of elision, no remedy has been found, and probably none is necessary.
63 The punctuation here, as elsewhere, is Shackleton Bailey's, and reflects doubts about the interpretation of this line.
64 Cameron (n. 1), 313 and n. 193, using P. and J. Courcelle, Lecteurs paiens et lecteurs chrétiens de l’Éneide (Paris, 1984), 539–48. Cf. Shanzer (n. 11), 246.
65 The use of the last two words, with artes, that is later made by Claudian (c.m. 30.233) does not help.
66 Cameron (n. 1), 298–9.
67 See among others R.F. Thomas, Reading Vergil and his Texts: Studies in Intertextuality (Ann Arbor, 1999), 114–41, especially 130–2; G. Kelly, Ammianus Marcellinus: The Allusive Historian (Cambridge, 2008), 21.
68 Shanzer (n. 11), 246.
69 Cameron (n. 1), 313, Shanzer (n. 11), 246.
70 Cameron (n. 1), 314. Cameron's rehabilitation of the earlier date is convincing ([n. 1], 327–37).
71 Cameron (n. 1), 314 and n. 199. The words used by Prudentius at C. Symm. 2.179 (cf. K. Müller [ed.], Petronius Satyricon Reliquiae [Munich and Leipzig, 2003], xxxii) may have become a commonplace, while at Jerome, Ep. 130.19 the attribution of a line to Petronius is likely to be a mistake (Müller [this note], 183). Müller also records eight fragments from Fulgentius and one from Isidore.
72 F.E. Consolino, ‘Macrobius’ Saturnalia and the Carmen Contra Paganos’, in R. Lizzi Testa (ed.), The Strange Death of Pagan Rome (Turnhout, 2013), 85–107, at 94–107.
73 Cameron (n. 1), 315–16: ‘It is never possible to ascribe an anonymous work to a known writer with absolute certainty.’
74 The long quotation from Cameron (n. 1) on pages 106 and 107 has no closing quotation marks; it in fact ends at the paragraph break on page 107. Perhaps unintentionally, it scoops up the unhelpful details about other copulative words already mentioned in this article (n. 39).
75 See E. Norden (ed.), P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI (Darmstadt, 19574), Anhang XI 2 (a), 456–8.
76 I wish to thank Dr Luke Houghton, CQ's anonymous referee and the editors Bruce Gibson and Costas Panayotakis for their help.
77 Lucarini, C.M., ‘La tradizione manoscritta del centone di Proba’, Hermes 142 (2014), 349–70Google Scholar.