Àngel Rodríguez García writes on ‘Episcopal Correspondence in Fifth-Century Gaul: Leadership in Times of Crisis’, centered on Sidonius, in an edited volume (Not) All Roads Lead to Rome: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Mobility in the Ancient World (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2023), 168–178.
See the publisher’s catalogue
Now online the Sidonius manuscript Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, Rep. I 48. It contains the Epistulae and the Panegyrics of Anthemius and (partly) Majorian (Carm. 1-5.21) (late 12th or 13th cent.). It is number D21 in Dolveck’s census, Sidonius Companion p. 516.
Find the link on the Manuscripts page.
Sidonius’ Presumed Epitaph: Two Manuscripts, Two Fragments of Stone, and Many Questions
The Sidonius Companion announced an article by Patrice Montzamir on the epitaph ‘attributed to Sidonius Apollinaris’ (p. 15 with n. 13). It is here now, finalised on behalf of the Companion project and published on the sidonapol.org website courtesy the author. It explores in depth all we know about the epitaph to reach the following conclusion:
Before the discovery of CP 347, the situation, as stated above, was relatively simple because we had only one witness of the full text of the epitaph attributed to Sidonius. With this new manuscript and its different readings, many questions have reappeared. I think there are serious reasons to doubt the dating given by the manuscripts. Firstly, because the date of the twelfth of the Kalends of September is only found in the martyrologies of Clermont and we have no proof of it before the tenth century, whereas the oldest martyrologies place Sidonius at the tenth. Secondly, because the text of the epitaph better suits Sidonius’ son, even though his biography is incomplete. Of course, without the full stone of the epitaph, we will never be totally sure. For the moment, weighing everything, I am inclined to think that the epitaph attributed to Sidonius is rather the epitaph of his son, Apollinaris, or maybe, but less probably, their shared epitaph.
The article also comprises several illustrations and tables as annexes. The entire dossier is available for download here.
Antonio Romano has come up with ‘A proposito della Iuventii Martialis historia’, Graeco-Latina Brunensia 28 (2023) 129-40.
Download here
Abstract: In a letter to his friend Burgundio (Sidon. epist. 9.14), who was about to write a laus Caesaris, Sidonius Apollinaris drew up a short list of the works written on Caesar that Burgundio had to face: scripta Patavinis … voluminibus, opera Suetonii, ephemeris Balbi, and finally a Iuventii Martialis historia. If the mention of Livy, Suetonius, and Balbus is not surprising, the name Iuventius Martialis (or Vivencius in the Parisinus Latinus 9551) raises some problems: first the identification and, subsequently, the nature of his work on Caesar. Following an ancient hypothesis of identification as Quintus Gargilius Martialis, this paper aims to discuss this suggestion by placing it in the political and cultural context of the end of the Severan age, during the reign of Severus Alexander.
N.B. See also J.S. Reid, ‘Note on the Introductory Epistle to the Eighth Book of Caesar’s Gallic War’, CP 3 (1908) 441-5 on pp. 443-5, which Romano does not mention (JvW).
Willum Westenholz has reviewed Judith Hindermann’s commentary on Letters Book 2 in Plekos 21.06.2023.
‘… an excellent resource for undergraduates and newcomers to Sidonius, but is has less to offer to the specialist.’
Now out in e-book: Joshua Hartman and Helen Kaufmann (eds), A Late Antique Poetics? The Jeweled Style Revisited, Bloomsbury Academic (hardback available 13 July).
‘The poetry of the late Roman world has a fascinating history. Sometimes an object of derision, sometimes an object of admiration, it has found numerous detractors and defenders among classicists and Latin literary critics. This volume explores the scholarly approaches to late Latin poetry that have developed over the last 40 years, and it seeks especially to develop, complement and challenge the seminal concept of the ‘Jeweled Style’ proposed by Michael Roberts in 1989. While Roberts’s monograph has long been a vade mecum within the world of late antique literary studies, a critical reassessment of its validity as a concept is overdue.
This volume invites established and emerging scholars from different research traditions to return to the influential conclusions put forward by Roberts. It asks them to examine the continued relevance of The Jeweled Style and to suggest new ways to engage it. In a joint effort, the nineteen chapters of this volume define and map the jeweled style, extending it to new genres, geographic regions, time periods and methodologies. Each contribution seeks to provide insightful analysis that integrates the last 30 years of scholarship while pursuing ambitious applications of the jeweled style within and beyond the world of late antiquity.’
Helen Kaufmann, ‘Identity in Latin Verse Autobiography’, in: L. Roig Lanzillotta, J.L. Brandão, C. Teixeira and Á. Rodrigues (eds), Roman Identity: Between Ideal and Performance, ASH 8, Turnhout: Brepols, 2022, 71–90, includes Sidonius Carm. 41 (Ep. 9.16.3) in her discussion of verse autobiographies.
Open access BrepolsOnline
Henning Ohst reviews Joop van Waarden’s Mnemosyne article ‘Leafing Through Pliny With Sidonius’ in Forum Classicum 66 (2023) 62-64.
Out now, in Edinburgh Studies in Later Latin Literature, Giulia Marolla’s commentary on Sidonius Letters Book 5, Part 1. It covers the first half of this book from a philological, literary and historical perspective:
— providing the first commentary on Book 5 of Sidonius’ Letters
— including a newly edited Latin text and a new English translation
— contributing to an overall understanding of Sidonius’ literary output as a whole
— offering a comprehensive and innovative study of key historical data, especially prosopography and dating of the letters.
Enjoy a 30% discount with the promo code NEW30. Here is to the publisher’s catalogue
