Wood on the Silence of Sidonius

Ian Wood writes on Sidonius’ silence in his letters about activities mentioned in his epitaph:

Causarum moderans subinde motus
Leges barbarico dedit furori;
Discordantibus inter arma regnis
Pacem consilio reduxit amplo.

Ian Wood, ‘The Silence of Sidonius’, in: Alessandro Campus et al. (eds), Tempus Tacendi. Quando il silenzio comunica, Verona: Alteritas, 2023, 213-28.

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See also Wood 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021.

Montzamir on Sidonius’ Presumed Epitaph

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.

Romano on Ep. 9.14 Iuventii Martialis historia

Antonio Romano has come up with ‘A proposito della Iuventii Martialis historia’, Graeco-Latina Brunensia 28 (2023) 129-40.

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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).