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THREE TEMPLES IN LIBANIUS AND THE THEODOSIAN CODE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

Christopher P. Jones
Christopher P. Jones*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
[email protected]
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Extract

In Libanius' speech For the Temples (Or. 30), sometimes regarded as the crowning work of his career, he refers to an unnamed city in which a great pagan temple had recently been destroyed; the date of the speech is disputed, but must be in the 380 s or early 390 s, near the end of the speaker's life. After deploring the actions of a governor appointed by Theodosius, often identified with the praetorian prefect Maternus Cynegius, Libanius continues (30.44–5):

Let no-one think that all this is an accusation against you, Your Majesty. For on the frontier with Persia (πρὸς τοῖς ὁρίοις Περσῶν) there lies in ruins a temple which had no equal, as one may hear from all who saw it, so very large was it and so very large the blocks with which it was built, and it occupied as much space as the city itself. Why, amid the terrors of war, to the benefit of the city's inhabitants, those who took the city gained nothing because of their inability to take the temple as well (τοῖς ἑλοῦσι τὴν πόλιν οὐκ ἔχουσι κἀκεῖνον προσεξελεῖν), since the strength of the walls defied every siege-engine. Besides that, one could mount up to the roof and see a very great part of enemy territory, which gives no small advantage in time of war. I have heard some people disputing which of the two sanctuaries was the greater marvel, this one that has gone, or one that one hopes may never suffer in the same way, and contains Sarapis. But this sanctuary, of such a kind and size, not to mention the secret devices of the ceiling and all the sacred statues made of iron that were hidden in darkness, escaping the sun – it has vanished and is destroyed.

Jacques Godefroy (Gothofredus), best known for his edition of the Theodosian Code, also produced the editio princeps of the speech For the Temples, supplying a Latin translation and extensive notes. He hesitated whether to identify the city in question with Apamea in Syria or with Carrhae, ‘urbs superstitione Gentilicia tum referta’, but opted for a third choice: Edessa, the capital of Osrhoene. In doing so he took for granted that a law of the Theodosian Code (16.10.8), in which the emperors order that a pagan temple in Osrhoene remain open, referred to the same temple; I shall argue below that this is incorrect. Opinion continues to be divided, though with a majority favouring Edessa. But this lay some ten or fifteen miles from the border with Persia, whereas Carrhae was directly on it, and is much more likely than Edessa to have had a temple from which one ‘could observe a vast area of enemy country’. The principal deity of Carrhae (Harran) was Sîn, the Moon God, said by some sources to be male, by others to be female. Describing how Caracalla was assassinated while on a pilgrimage to the god, Cassius Dio says that he had ‘set out from Edessa for Carrhae’, and was murdered on the way: according to Herodian, he was staying in Carrhae when he decided to go in advance of his army ‘and to reach the temple of the Moon, whom the local people greatly revere: the temple is a long way from the city [presumably Carrhae], so as to require a (special) journey’. Another emperor to visit the sanctuary was Julian on his march into Babylonia. Theodoret of Cyrrhus alleges that ‘he entered the sanctuary honoured by the impious’ and cut open a human victim, a woman suspended by the hair, in order to obtain an omen of his future victory.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 860 - 865
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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References

1 See most recently Jiménez Sánchez, J.A, Latomus 69 (2010), 1092–3Google Scholar, placing the speech in 390.

2 PLRE 1.235–6. Thus already Gothofredus in his edition, Libanii antiocheni Pro templis gentilium non exscindendis, ad Theodosium M. imp. Oratio (Geneva, 1634), 59–60.Google Scholar

3 Gothofredus (n. 2), 59, and more decisively in his edition of the Code (vol. 6 [Leipzig, 1743], 300–4). Gothofredus is followed by Reiske, J.J., Libanius: Orationes et declamationes (Altenburg, 1784)Google Scholar, 298, by Förster, R., Libanii Opera (Leipzig, 1911)Google Scholar, 3.111, and by Norman, A.F., Libanius: Selected Works 2 (Cambridge, MA and London, 1977)Google Scholar, 141 note b.

4 Caracalla: Cass. Dio 79.5.4; Hdn. 4.13.3–4. Julian: Amm. Marc. 23.3.2; Theod. Hist. Eccl. 3.26.2–3 (ed. Bidez, J. [Berlin, 1960], 205)Google Scholar. For a survey of Carrhae and its environs: Lloyd, S. and Brice, W., Anat. Stud. 1 (1951), 77–111Google Scholar (there is a confusion on p. 90, ‘The temple of the Sun which Theodosius destroyed in A.D. 382 may or may not have been at Harran’); see further Green, T.H., The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 114 (Leiden, 1992), 22–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with earlier bibliography; Fehérvári, G., Enc. Islam 3 (1971 2), 227–30Google Scholar; den Boeft, J. et al. (edd.), Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXIII (Groningen, 1998)Google Scholar, 37; Kessler, K., Neue Pauly 5 (1998), 166–7Google Scholar; Bowersock, G.W., Brown, P., Grabar, O. (edd.), Guide to Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA and London, 1999)Google Scholar, 484.

5 Norman translates ‘that were hidden in its shadow far from the sunlight’, but that would require σκιᾷ rather than σκότῳ. I have preferred the majority reading κέκρυπτο to V's κέκρυπται, adopted by Norman.

6 Ruf. Hist. Eccl. 2.23, tr. Amidon, P.R., The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia (New York and Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar, 81.

7 Lloyd and Brice (n. 4), 79–80.

8 For the castle and the hill, see the map in Lloyd and Brice (n. 4), 85.

9 Fowden, G. in CAH 13 (1998), 554–5Google Scholar. Cf. Bosworth, C.E., Enc. Iran. 12 (2004)Google Scholar, 13: ‘Emperors tended to leave the town alone because of its strategic position in the region of Osroene, adjacent to the frontier with their enemies, the Sasanian Persians.’

10 Theodoret: Hist. Rel. 17, 5, with the note of Canivet, P. and Leroy-Molinghen, A., Sources Chrétiennes 234 (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar, 41. Chosroes: Procop. Bella 2.13.7; on the background, Bury, J.B., History of the Later Roman Empire (London, 1923 2)Google Scholar, 2.98.

11 Tardieu, M., ‘Sabiens coraniques et “Sabiens” de Harran’, Journal Asiatique 274 (1986), 1–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; in disagreement, Lane Fox, R. in Smith, A. (ed.), The Philosopher and Society in Late Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Brown (Swansea, 2005), 231–44Google Scholar and, simultaneously, Watts, E., Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 45 (2005), 285–315Google Scholar.

12 Only known from this reference: PLRE 1.660, Palladius 11.

13 Cod. Theod. 16.10.8: Pharr, C., The Theodosian Code (Princeton, 1952)Google Scholar, 473. Cf. also the translation of Rougé, J., Code Théodosien, Livre XVI, Sources Chrétiennes 497 (2005)Google Scholar, 437.

14 Taking publici consilii auctoritate with decernimus, Pharr following Gothofredus (n. 5), understands it to refer to the imperial consistory: Rougé (n. 13), taking it with patere, translates ‘sous l'autorité du conseil de la cité’.

15 For the chain of steps intervening between an original law and its appearance in the Code, see now Harper, J.K., CQ 60 (2010), 613–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Amm. Marc. 23.2.7–8. For Julian's avoidance of Edessa: Lib. Or. 18.214 (Norman, Libanius: Selected Works 1 [Cambridge, MA and London, 1969]Google Scholar, 422), Sozom. Hist. Eccl. 6.1.1 (ed. Bidez, J. [Berlin, 1960], 233)Google Scholar, Theod. Hist. Eccl. 3.26.2 (ed. Parmentier, L. [Berlin, 1954 2], 205)Google Scholar; Zosimus says that he went to Edessa, 3.12.2, but the text may be corrupt (cf. Paschoud, Fr. [ed.], Zosime 2.1 [Paris, 1971], 105–6Google Scholar). On Anthemusia, Fraenkel, S., RE 1 (1894), 2369–70Google Scholar; on Batnae, id., RE 3 (1897), 140–1Google Scholar; Streck, M., RE Suppl. 1 (1903)Google Scholar, 245; den Boeft, J. et al. , Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXIII (Groningen, 1998)Google Scholar, 32; Barrington Atlas 67 G3. This Batnae is not to be confused with the lesser Batnae in Syria (Tel-Batnân), where Julian had also stayed (Ep. 98, pp. 181–2 Bidez [Budé], pp. 202–4 Wright [Loeb]); on this Batnae, Cumont, Fr., Études Syriennes (Paris, 1917), 19–22Google Scholar; Barrington Atlas 67 F4.

17 For a useful summary of views, Rougé (n. 13), 436 n. 1.

18 For the religious atmosphere of Edessa, Drijvers, H.J.W., Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, EPRO 82 (Leiden, 1980), 175–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., Theol. RE 9 (1982), 277–88Google Scholar, esp. 285–6; for Julian's avoidance of it, above, n. 16.

19 Or. 19.48, ed. Förster (n. 3), 2.407, Norman (n. 3), 298.

20 Or. 20.27, ed. Förster (n. 3), 2.433–4, followed by Norman (n. 3), 330.

21 For Emesa, Benziger, I., RE 5 (1905), 2496–7Google Scholar; Elisséeff, N., Enc. Islam 3 (1971 2), 397–402Google Scholar; Colpe, C., Neue Pauly 3 (1997), 1008–9Google Scholar; Barrington Atlas 68 C4. On the date of the annexation, Sartre, M., The Middle East under Rome (Cambridge, MA and London, 2005), 76–7Google Scholar, and for the division under Severus, Millar, F., The Roman Near East 31 bc – ad 337 (Cambridge, MA and London, 1993), 121–2.Google Scholar

22 As always, I am grateful to Glen Bowersock for his advice, and additionally to the referee for CQ.