Name der Zeitschrift: Philologus Jahrgang: 160 Heft: 2 Seiten: 322-336.

This article presents, as a case study, the various inconsistencies which occur in the prosopographical entries concerning Simplicius, one of Sidonius’ most frequent addressees. Through the exegesis of passages of letters addressed to him (Epist. 3.11, 4.4, 4.7, 4.12, 5.4) and of passages believed to concern him (Carm. 24.89; Epist. 2.9 and 5.7), it argues for a revision of the common identification of Simplicius as brother of Apollinaris and Thaumastus, and for a re-evaluation of the sources which supposedly lead (...) to this conclusion. Some cautionary remarks on the unchecked use of prosopography as a tool are followed by a hypothesis concerning the identity of this addressee of Sidonius. (shrink)

Studies on temporality in Sidonius’ letters have so far been dominated by narratological approaches. This article proposes an additional perspective by focusing on social and ethical dimensions of time issues. Drawing from scholarship on both imperial epistolography and ancient timekeeping, I develop a framework for studying temporal-behavior patterns as negotiations of elite habitus. Many letters that provide insights in temporal habits (chronotypes) define also in- and out-groups based on temporal conventions (chronotopes). Time management displays a life order Sidonius (...) can approve or disapprove of. The motif of the clepsydra illustrates this connection between temporal habits and senatorial ethos most vividly. (shrink)

Sidonius Apollinaris’ Epist. 3.12 tells how one day, while leaving Lyons, he caught a couple of gravediggers about to violate his grandfather Apollinaris’ grave, which had become unrecognizable over time. He instructs the addressee, his nephew Secundus, to restore the tomb mound and provide it with a stone for which he attaches the text. Whereas this letter is usually interpreted as a piece of self-promotion by the author for his filial piety and expert storytelling, this article suggests that there (...) is a significant subtext to be found in Lucan's Pharsalia which makes the letter first and foremost a rehabilitation of Apollinaris while strongly suggesting that the latter was executed. There follow some rather more tentative thoughts trying to grasp the precise critical moment in time for this rehabilitation. It is argued that this could be Sidonius’ departure for Clermont, in 469/470 to take on the episcopate, after his term as City Prefect of Rome and a stay in Lyons with Bishop Patiens. The letter is aimed at bolstering family cohesion in the conflict of interests between Auvergne and Provence and at securing Sidonius’ position as incumbent bishop. (shrink)

In latec.e.467 Sidonius Apollinaris journeyed from Lyon to Rome. An account of his journey appears inEpist. 1.5. Sidonius made his way to the city by boat and imperial post horses, arriving during the nuptial celebrations of the Emperor Anthemius’ daughter Alypia and the barbarian potentate Ricimer. The wedding linked Ricimer, who had held significant political power in the interregnum after the death of Libius Severus (461–465), to the new emperor in the West, Anthemius, whom the eastern Roman emperor, (...) Leo I, had just appointed. (shrink)

In his panegyric of Avitus, his father-in-law, the poet Sidonius gives a vivid and often detailed picture of the career of the future emperor from his boyhood until he gained the supreme power in the West in the year 455, which he owed to his ability and accomplishments in warfare, diplomacy and administration. He also enjoyed strong support from both Goths and Gauls, and his repeated success in managing the volatility and the aspirations of the Goths is a major (...) theme. This short note seeks to contribute to the understanding of his emergence as Augustus by proposing a new interpretation of a pivotal passage (lines 519–24), quoted below. The context can be briefly given. Sidonius has painted a graphic picture of the reaction among the Goths to the news of the Vandal capture of Rome in the year 455 (lines 441–57). In the ensuing assembly of Gothic elders Avitus (who happens to be with them at Toulouse at this moment) gives a speech that vigorously praises peace (lines 458–86), and this is favourably received. There follows a speech from the Gothic king, Theoderic II, in which he puts his own strong case for an agreement between Goths and Gauls, and seeks to persuade Avitus to fill the vacuum in Rome and Italy caused by the recent death of the emperor Petronius Maximus and take the name of Augustus (lines 489–518). (shrink)

In 1967 Alan Cameron published a landmark article in this journal, ‘The fate of Pliny'sLettersin the late Empire’. Opposing the traditional thesis that the letters of Pliny the Younger were only rediscovered in the mid to late fifth century by Sidonius Apollinaris, Cameron proposed that closer attention be paid to the faint but clear traces of the letters in the third and fourth centuries. On the basis of well-observed intertextual correspondences, Cameron proposed that Pliny's letters were being read by (...) the end of the fourth century at the latest. That article now seems the vanguard of a rise in scholarly interest in Pliny's late-antique reception. But Cameron also noted the explicit attention given to the letters by two earlier commentators—Tertullian of Carthage, in the late second to early third century, and Eusebius of Caesarea, in the early fourth. The use of Pliny in these two earliest commentators, in stark contrast to their later successors, has received almost no subsequent attention. (shrink)

Whatever fond hopes their author may have entertained when he published them, the Letters of the younger Pliny did not meet with an appreciative public. The first, indeed almost the only, writer before modern times to have read them with care and to have signalled his admiration by imitation is Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Auvergne in the late fifth century.

Roman agriculture suffered traumatic changes during the 2nd century B.C. The traditional farmers who tilled their few acres and served family, gods and community were being squeezed out by large estate owners using slaves for investment farming. Politicians, scholars and poets tried to revive the ancestoral rustic life.In 133 B.C. the Gracchi legislated land reform to relieve the distress of the farmer soldiers who had won the empire. Although their efforts led to political confrontation that deteriorated into civil war, programs (...) for the traditional farm became a permanent part of government policy from the late Republic until the end of the empire in 476 A.D.Scholars and poets made a contribution to the revival of agriculture with knowledge for improving the farm and by encouraging an agrarian mentality. The agricultural manuals (e.g. Cato (c. 150 B.C.), Varro (c. 50 B.C), and Columella (c.65 A.D.), defined the nature of the desirable farm and gave practical advice. Profit was the goal, but good farming practices made for pleasure and virtue as well. The image of the ancestoral farmer was perpetuated as was the notion that farming was the only honorable and respectable occupation for a Roman gentleman.In the Augustan Age (34 B.C.—14 A.D.) poets were encouraged by the government to adopted a rustic theme in hopes it would stimulate a return to the land and aid in the rebirth of Rome and Romans. In the GeorgicsVirgil begins with the practical details of farming, but uses myth and philosophy to explore the nature and meaning of life. He admits that Jove made life perilous. But Jove also gave man the art of agriculture and with hard work man could know the pleasure of a simple, virtuous, productive life.Horace directed his poetry against the allure of city life and in praise of rustic living. Epicureanism and Stoicism, in the guise of life on the farm, could show that although fate was unpredictable, the world was orderly and, if one recognized and accepted its limits, one could make a garden of the world and live a simple but happy life.By 300 A.D. Rome missed the peasant-farmer-soldier and by the 470's life had returned to an agrarian condition. Bishop Sidonius, trying to furnish meaning and perspective for the emerging new age, resorted to the Roman agricultural traditions still cherished as that world disappeared. (shrink)