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Micro Allusions to Pliny and Virgil in Sidonius’s Programmatic Epistles

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  1. R.W. Mathisen, ‘The Theme of Literary Decline in Late Roman Gaul,’ Classical Philology, 83, 1988, pp. 45–52. W. Verbaal, ‘Een blijk van innerlijke waardigheid: Sidonius Apollinaris, Latijns dichter,’ Hermeneus, 83, 2011, pp. 110–114 (113). For Sidonius’s style see J. A. van Waarden, Writing to Survive: A Commentary on Sidonius Apollinaris Letters Book 7 Volume 1: The Episcopal Letters 1–11, Leuven, 2010, p. 135 ‘Sidonius is a veritable stylistic chameleon.’

  2. P. J. Geary, ‘Barbarians and Ethnicity,’ in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World, ed. G. W. Bowersock et al., Cambridge MA, 1999, pp. 107–29 (122). P. Heather, ‘The Barbarian in Late Antiquity: image, reality and transformation,’ in Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity, ed. R. Miles, London and New York, 1999, pp. 234–58 (236).

  3. Z. Pavlovskis, ‘Status and the late Latin epithalamia,’ Classical Philology, 60, 1965, pp. 164–77; M. Roberts, ‘The Use of Myth in Latin epithalamia from Statius to Venantius Fortunatus,’ TAPA, 119, 1989, pp. 321–43; G. Kelly, ‘Sidonius and Claudian’, in New Approaches to Sidonius Apollinaris, ed. J. A. van Waarden and G. Kelly, Leuven, 2013, pp. 171–94. R.K. Gibson ‘<CLARUS> Confirmed? Pliny, Epistles I.1. and Sidonius Apollinaris,’ Classical Quarterly, 61, 2011, pp. 655–9; R. K. Gibson, ‘Pliny and the Letters of Sidonius: From Constantius and Clarus to Firminus and Fuscus’, Arethusa, 46, 2013, pp. 333–55. R. K. Gibson, ‘Reading Sidonius by the Book’ in New Approaches to Sidonius Apollinaris, ed. J. A. van Waarden and Gavin Kelly, Leuven, 2013, pp. 195–220.

  4. Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae II.2; Pliny the Younger, Epistulae II.17; V.6, for which see L. Hutchings, ‘Travel and Hospitality in the Time of Sidonius Apollinaris,’ Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association, 5, 2009, pp. 65–74 (66–7); J. D. Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome, AD 407–485, Oxford, 1994, p. 10; Z. Pavloskis, Man in an Artificial Landscape, the Marvels of Civilisation in Imperial Roman Literature, Leiden, 1973, p. 48; C. Whitton, Pliny the Younger, Epistles Book II, Cambridge, 2013, p. 36; J. Visser, ‘Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. II.2: The Man and his Villa,’ Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture, 8, 2014, pp. 26–45.

  5. E. Geisler, ‘Loci Similes Auctorum: Sidonio Anteriorum,’ in Gai Sollii Apollinaris Sidonii epistulae et carmina, ed. C. Luetjohann, Berlin, 1887, pp. 351 – 416. That work drew on his dissertation E. Geisler, ‘De Apollinaris Sidonii studiis, PhD diss., University of Bratislava, 1884. Occasional indications may also be found in Sidonius Apollinaris, Opera, ed. J. Sirmond, Paris, 1614, e.g., p. 156.

  6. M. C. Fernández López, Sidonio Apolinar, humanista de la antigüedad tardía: su correspondencia, Murcia, 1994, pp. 269–74.

  7. R. E. Colton, ‘Echoes of Juvenal in Sidonius Apollinaris’, Res Publica Litterarum, 2, 1982, pp. 59–74. R. E. Colton, ‘Some Echoes of Martial in the Letters of Sidonius Apollinaris’, L’Antiquité Classique, 54, 1985, pp. 277–84. R. E. Colton, ‘Some Echoes of Persius in Sidonius Apollinaris’, The Classical Bulletin 64, 1988, pp. 49–52. R. E. Colton, Some Literary Influences on Sidonius Apollinaris, Amsterdam, 2000, p. i, has the most substantial indication of their purpose: ‘Sidonius delighted in displaying his familiarity with striking passages in the works of his literary predecessors, and their writings greatly enriched his own.’

  8. See, e.g., S. Mratschek, ‘Poetry in Prose: The Letters of Sidonius Apollinaris’, in A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide to Letter Collections in Late Antiquity, ed. C. Sogno et al., Berkeley, 2016, pp. 309–36; É. Wolff, ‘Sidoine Apollinaire lecteur de Martial’, in Présence de Sidoine Apollinaire, ed. R. Poignault and A. Stoehr-Monjou, Clermont Ferrand, 2014, pp. 295–304; Gibson, ‘<CLARUS>’ (n. 3 above), pp. 655–9; Gibson, ‘Pliny’ (n. 3 above), pp. 333–55. Gibson, ‘Reading’ (n. 3 above), pp. 195–220.

  9. J. Hernández Lobato, Vel Apolline muto: estética y poética de la Antigüedad tardía, Berne, 2012.

  10. Ibid., p. 536.

  11. Ibid., p. 16.

  12. G. Kelly, Ammianus, the Allusive Historian, Cambridge, 2008, pp. 209–11.

  13. Gibson, ‘<CLARUS>’ (n. 3 above), pp. 655–9; Gibson, ‘Pliny’ (n. 3 above), pp. 333–55. Gibson, ‘Reading’ (n. 3 above), pp. 195–220.

  14. S. Hinds, Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry, Cambridge, 1998, p. 19.

  15. H. Köhler, C. Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius Briefe Buch 1, Heidelberg, 1995, p. 106, notes that despite Sidonius’s claim here that he does not follow Cicero as a model and the almost complete absence of allusions to Cicero’s corpus, Cicero is the most named author. She lists Sidonius, Ep. II.9.5, II.10.5, IV.3.6, IV.15.3, V.5.2, V.13.3, VII.4.2, VIII.1.2, VIII.2.2, VIII.6.1, VIII.10.3 and VIII.11.3. See also B. Gibson and R. Rees, ‘Introduction: Pliny the Younger in Late Antiquity’, Arethusa, 46, 2013, pp. 141–65 (154 n. 17).

  16. Sidonius’s decision to put Cicero aside follows Pliny at Ep. IX.26.8, which is discussed in more detail below.

  17. All translations are the authors own, but draw at times upon others, principally W. B. Anderson, Sidonius: Poems and Letters I–II, London and Cambridge MA, 1956, and W. B. Anderson Sidonius: Letters III-IX, London and Cambridge MA, 1963.

  18. Julius Titianus the elder is described in the Historia Augusta, Maximinius Iunior 27.5 as one ‘qui dictus est simia temporis sui, quod cuncta esset imitatus’ which is closely reminiscent of Sidonius’s remark in Epist. 1.1 regarding Julius Titianus: ‘cum veternosum dicendi genus imitaretur, oratorum simiam.’ A. Richlin, ‘The Fragments of Terentia’, in Roman Literature, Gender and Reception, ed. D. Lateiner et al., New York, 2013, pp. 93–118 (93) labels his lost work as ‘a sort of prose Heroides’.

  19. E. R. Curtius, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, New York, 1953, p. 539.

  20. Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. I.1.2.

  21. Thesaurus linguae Latinae, s.v. imitatio, 1.1.b. D.A Russell, ‘De Imitatione,’ in Creative Imitation and Latin Literature, ed. D. West and T. Woodman, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 1–16 (1) argues that ‘imitation is a crucial part of all literary composition’.

  22. Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. I.1.2.

  23. Sidonius Apollinaris, Opera, II, editio multis partibus auctior et emendatior, ed. J. Savaron, Paris, 1609, p. 3: ‘veternosum dicendi genus, id est, antiquum et pene antiquatum’ (‘An out-dated mode of speaking, that is old and severely antiquated’). Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. veternosus, I. It implies neglect and can be used to describe someone afflicted with dropsy or lethargy.

  24. This would be hypocritical of Fronto given his own extensive use of archaisms, see E. Champlin, Fronto and Antonine Rome, Cambridge MA, 1980, pp. 45–7.

  25. The shift from the first person singular to the plural nos denotes a key change in the letter, as Sidonius assumes his position as the author. By changing how he refers to himself, Sidonius places greater emphasis on the adjective haesitabundos, which is intensified by the adverb perquam.

  26. Thesaurus linguae Latinae, s.v. haesitabundus. The verb haesitor similarly only occurs in Sidonius and Pliny, see R. Syme, ‘Minor Emendations in Pliny and Tacitus’, The Classical Quarterly, 30, 1980, pp. 426–8.

  27. S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, London, 1904, p. 37; A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny, A Historical and Social Commentary, Oxford, 1966, pp. 93–4.

  28. Pliny, Ep. I.5.2.

  29. W. C. McDermott, ‘The Ape in Roman Literature’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 67, 1936, pp. 148–67.

  30. E. Weislau, ‘Der Affe Als Nachahmer und Dieb’, Neophilologus, 64, 1980, pp. 161–70 (161). Cf. Horace Sermones I.10.18–19: ‘… simius iste / nil praeter Calvom et doctus cantare Catullum’ (‘That ape, skilled at singing nothing except Calvus and Catullus’). The tone of ‘iste simius’ clearly shows his disdain for those who mimic others shamelessly, for which see I. A. Ruffell, ‘Beyond Satire: Horace, Popular Invective and the Segregation of Literature’, The Journal of Roman Studies, 93, 2003, pp. 35–65 (42–43); A. Rutgers van der Loeff, ‘Quid Horatio cum Catullo?,’ Mnemosyne, 4, 1936, pp. 109–113 (109); S. H. Rutledge, ‘Delatores and the Tradition of Violence in Roman Oratory’, American Journal of Philology, 120, 1999, pp. 555–73 (562); N. B. Crowther, ‘Horace, Catullus, and Alexandrianism’, Mnemosyne, 31, 1978, pp. 33–44 (35); T. K. Hubbard, ‘Horace and Catullus: The Case of the Supressed Precursor in “Odes” 1.22 and 1.32’, Classical World, 94, 2000, 25–37 (26–28).

  31. Julius Titianus the elder is described in the Historia Augusta, Maximinius Iunior 27.5 as one ‘qui dictus est simia temporis sui, quod cuncta esset imitatus’ (‘who was spoken of as the ape of his time, because he imitated everything’).

  32. Pliny uses aemulatio to describe his attitude to Cicero, in Ep. IV.8.4 and I.5. There, aemulatio extends to cover more than literary imitatio, Pliny wants to be like Cicero, not just write like him.

  33. A. Reiff, ‘Interpretatio, imitation, aemulatio, Begriff und Vorstellung literarischer Abhängigkeit bei die Römern’, PhD diss., University of Cologne, 1959, p. 82; C. E. V. Nixon and B. S. Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini, Berkeley, 1994, p. 594; Apuleius, Florida 17.4: ‘non aemulati, sed secuti’ (‘not emulators, but followers’). Panegyricus Dictus Constantino Filio Constantii, 9.1.5: ‘sine aemulandi fiducia, cupidus imitandi’ (‘Without the assurance of emulating, there is desire for imitating’). It is difficult to read Sidonius’s remarks as a rebuke of Fronto himself as elsewhere Sidonius praises Fronto and throughout his letters adopts the archaizing practices of mid-second century authors like Apuleius, Gellius and Fronto. Fronto was also a distant ancestor of Sidonius’s friend Leo, see Champlin, ‘Fronto’ (n. 24 above) p. 152.

  34. Cicero was still read in late antique Gaul, as allusions in other authors suggest, such as Eucherius’s Epistola ad Paraenetica 721.D, which alludes to Cicero Pro Marcello §8.

  35. For this argument see Köhler, ‘Buch 1’ (n. 15 above), pp. 106–7; F. D. R. Goodyear, ‘Rhetoric and Scholarship’, in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Latin Literature, II, Cambridge, 1982, p. 677: ‘[Fronto’s] appraisal of Cicero is curiously anachronistic and biased. Cicero never troubled to enrich his vocabulary with choice, unlooked for words.’

  36. This is a common metaphor in classical literature for the process of composition.

  37. Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. I.1.3–4.

  38. Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. I.1.4. Prolepsis is common in late antique dedicatory letters; see G. Simon, ‘Untersuchungen zur Topik der Widmungsbriefe mittle alterlicher Geschichtsschreiber bis zum Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für Diplomatik, Schriftsgeschichte, Siegel und Wappenkunde, 4, 1958, pp. 52–119 (90).

  39. Sidonius has already alluded to this epistle by Pliny earlier in Ep. I.1, for which see above.

  40. Pliny’s sentiment ‘nihil … peccat’ draws upon Cicero’s reflections on rhetoric in the Brutus and Orator; for which see S. A. Gurd, Work in Progress, Literary Revision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome, Oxford, 2012, p. 121. A. M. Riggsby, ‘Pliny on Cicero and Oratory: Self fashioning in the Public Eye’, American Journal of Philology, 116, pp. 123–35 (125–8) argues for a connection in Pliny’s comments to Tacitus’s Dialogus. C. Whitton, ‘Quintillian in Brief: Modes of Intertextuality in Pliny’s Epistles’, Working Papers on Nervan, Trajanic and Hadrianic Literature, 1.6, pp. 1–19 (12) suggests Quintillian II.4.9 as a viable allusive target of Pliny’s remarks.

  41. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny (n. 27 above) p. 508.

  42. Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. VIII.1.3, IX.16.3, IX.3.6 and Carm. 24.99–101. See I. Gualandri, Furtiva lectio, Milan, 1979, p. 4.

  43. A. Loyen, Sidoine Apollinaire, II: Lettres, Paris, 1970 p. 3: ‘Sidoine était sensible très à la critique; il se plaint souvent de ses détracteurs’ (‘Sidonius was very sensitive to criticism; he often complains about his detractors’). The likening of literary criticism to a Scylla is found in poetry and oratory. Peirano 2009.187–90 provides a comprehensive list. Venantius Fortunatus’s use of the sea metaphor in his programmatic remarks, such as Carm. 9.7.25–30, may well draw upon Sidonius as a source for which see George 1995.92.

  44. M. Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity, Ithaca and London, 1989, pp. 338–42; J. Küppers, ‘Autobiographisches in den Briefen des Apollinaris Sidonius’, in Antike Autobiographien, ed. M. Reichel, Cologne, 2005, pp. 251–77 (254) is not quite correct, the myth of the Scylla for example features in Ep. 1.1, but the sentiment still holds that there are less mythological references in Sidonius’s prose letters ‘[man kann] im Gegensatz zu den carmina sich in den epistulae keine mythologischen Sujets bzw. Anspielungen auf solche finden’ (‘In contrast to the poems, in the epistles one can find no mythological themes or references to such’).

  45. Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. VII.18.1. Some manuscripts have desinet rather than desinam for Virgil Ecloga VIII.11; see P. Levi, ‘The Dedication to Pollio in Virgil’s Eighth Eclogue’, Hermes, 94, 1966, pp. 73–9 (76).

  46. Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. I.4.1, I.9.1, I.11.1, II.20, IV.24.1, VII.18.1, VIII.9.1.

  47. P. Thibodeau, ‘The Addressee of Vergil’s Eight Eclogue’, The Classical Quarterly, 56, 2006, pp. 618–23 (619).

  48. Ibid., p. 622.

  49. Like Sidonius in Ep. I.1 and VII.18, the poet claims to be responding to the addressee’s request at Eclogues VIII.11–12: ‘accipe iussis / carmina coepta tuis’; see J. Farrell, ‘Asinius Pollio in Vergil Eclogue 8’, Classical Philology, 86, pp. 204–11 (219).

  50. G. W. Bowersock, ‘A Date in the Eight Eclogue’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 75, 1971, pp. 73–80 (79). D. Mankin, ‘The Addressee of Virgil’s Eight Eclogue: A Reconsideration’, Hermes, 116, pp. 63–76 (73) argues that the line alludes to remarks in Greek texts directed at ‘a God or, at least, in some way, a superhuman’, but this does not affect the suitability of this phrase to Sidonius’s purpose.

  51. Virgil praises his tragedies at Ecloga VIII.10.

  52. Geisler, ‘Loci Similes’ (n. 5 above), pp. 354, 357–8, 374–5 and 379. The text for Sidonius’s epitaph, according to F. Prévot, ‘Deux fragments de l'épitaphe de Sidoine Apollinaire découverts à Clermont-Ferrand’, Revue de l’Antiquité Tardive, 1, 1993, pp. 223–9, notes that Sidonius’s death occurred during the reign of the Emperor Zeno which itself ended in 491. See also F. Prévot, ‘Sidoine Apollinaire et l'Auvergne’, in L’Auvergne de Sidoine Apollinaire à Grégoire de Tours: Histoire et archéologie, ed. B. Fizellier-Sauget, Clermont-Ferrand, 1999, pp. 63–80 (77–9). R. W. Mathisen, ‘Dating the Letters of Sidonius’, in New Approaches to Sidonius Apollinaris, ed. J. A. van Waarden and G. Kelly, Leuven, 2013, pp. 221–48 (223) dates Sidonius’s death to approximately 485; but this dating may be called into question by a recently manuscript that has an alternative text of the epitaph, which could date his death to 479, for which see L. Furbetta, ‘L’epitaffio di Sidonio Apollinare in un nuovo testimone manoscritto’, Euphrosyne, 43, 2015, pp. 243–54.

  53. This is discussed above in section I. Using an allusion to Virgil’s Ecloga VIII to imbed the nautical imagery in the last letter of Book VII is perhaps suggestive of Sidonius’s intent to add additional books.

  54. Roberts, ‘The Jeweled Style’ (n. 44 above), pp. 11–12.

  55. Cicero uses the comparison in several of his philosophical treatises, such as De divinatione II.6.15 where a doctor’s prediction of the progression of a disease is compared to a helmsman’s forecasting of the weather, see also De finibus III.7.23, De re publica I.62, V.5 and in a quotation of Scipio in Epistulae ad Atticum VIII.11. Other examples include Seneca, Epistulae 97.11; Apuleius, Florida 23.43; Rufinus’s translation of Origin 34.10; Augustine, Epistulae 63.2; and Jerome’s translation of Psalm 8:15. None of these texts compare the problems that a gubernator or medicus face to those that present to an author. The closest to Sidonius’s remarks is perhaps Quintilian II.17.24, who compares the difficulties that can confront a helmsman or a doctor, to those that may present to an orator, none of whom can stop doing what they are doing.

  56. M. W. Dickie, ‘Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.760–64’, American Journal of Philology, 96, 1975, pp. 378–90 (383–4). The same verb is used by Sidonius’s contemporary and occasional correspondent Claudianus Mamertus in his De statu animae 2.9 to describe his critics.

  57. Cf. Catullus 5.2–3: ‘rumoresque senum severiorum / omnes aestimemus assis.’ Loyen, Sidoine Apollinaire (n. 43 above) p. 3, took remarks like this to suggest that Sidonius was sensitive to criticism. Sidonius’s claim in Ep. IV.22.4 that he no longer cares about his reception is not consistent with his other remarks on this issue, such as those in Ep. IX.16.

  58. Mratschek, ‘Poetry in Prose’ (n. 8 above) p. 313.

  59. During this period, Gaul experienced a significant increase in literary output at the same time that authors, such as Sidonius, bemoaned its literary decline, for which see Mathisen, ‘Theme of Literary Decline’ (n. 1 above), pp. 45–52.

  60. Sidonius’s contemporary audience was in part defined by their ability to understand the subtle references to such works, and defined themselves by their ability to appreciate what W. A. Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities, New York, 2010, p. 39, described as ‘high literature [which was] often difficult and inaccessible to the less educated’. Ultimately, allusions rely on the reader’s inclination and ability to recognise and interpret them; see D. Fowler, ‘On the Shoulders of Giants: Intertextuality and Classical Studies’, Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici, 39, 1997, pp. 13–34 (15–19, 24–7).

  61. A similar aesthetic is evident in the poetry of Venantius Fortunatus who imitates this metaphor in Carmen IX.7.25–8.

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Hanaghan, M. Micro Allusions to Pliny and Virgil in Sidonius’s Programmatic Epistles. Int class trad 24, 249–261 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-017-0443-9

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