Tag: onomastics

Stover & Woudhuysen and Sidonius in the HA

In a new article on ‘The Poet Nemesianus and the Historia Augusta‘, centred on onomastics in the Life of Carus (JRS 2022, open access), Justin Stover and George Woudhuysen, in passing (fn. 4), advocate some renewed confidence in the hypothesis that Sidonius Apollinaris is reflected in the HA:

‘The argument of Domaszewski (Die Personennamen bei den Scriptores historiae Augustae, Heidelberg, 1918: 19, here), that Aurelius Apollinaris was inspired by Sidonius Apollinaris, who did write about the deeds of Carus (Carm. 23.88–96), has been treated with greater contempt than it perhaps deserves’.

Sagittarius or Syagrius in Ep. 2.4?

Gavin Kelly published a blogpost titled ‘A textual and onomastic problem in Sidonius’:

In modern editions, Sidonius’ letter 2.4 is addressed to an otherwise unknown Sagittarius, who is asked to accept the friendship of Sidonius’ protégé Proiectus (also otherwise unknown) as the latter seeks to make an advantageous marriage with a girl of good family for whom Sidonius’ addressee has some sort of role of guardianship following her father’s death. But editions up to that of Lütjohann in 1887 had the letter addressed not Sidonius Sagittario suo salutem but Sidonius Syagrio suo salutem. Syagrius (or to be precise Siagrius) is the reading of the family of manuscripts from which the first edition of 1474 derived. Sagit(t)arius appeared in the majority of the manuscripts picked out by Lütjohann.

How to weigh up the contradictory evidence of the manuscripts?

Read on in Gavin’s blog