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P. Gr. Vindob. 29788C: hexameter encomium on an un-named emperor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Ronald C. McCail
Ronald C. McCail
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

It is now fifty years since Hans Gerstinger published the editio princeps of a Vienna papyrus containing hexameter poems by, as he believed, Pamprepius of Panopolis. Out of seven fragments Gerstinger, working with H. Ibscher, was able to restore one binion of a codex (P. Gr. 29788A-B). A separate leaf (P. Gr. 29788C) was presumed by the restorers to come from the same codex as the binion. The binion contains (1) a hexameter idyll evoking the successive moods of Nature on a day in spring or autumn, (2) a hexameter encomium on the patrician Theagenes of Athens, (3) letters nos. 80 and 90 by St. Gregory Nazianzen. Lines from another hexameter poem are partly legible on two fragments which together constitute the top of the first page of the binion. The only trace of an author's name in the binion is the genitive-ending ο]ụ in the title of the encomium on Theagenes. The separate leaf (P. Gr. 29788C) preserves some fifty lines from a second hexameter encomium, but has been torn in such a way that the line-beginnings are missing from the Verso and the line-endings from the Recto; the names of the author and the addressee have not survived. Gerstinger's opinion that the hand is the same throughout and the writing of a style current in the fifth and sixth centuries has not been challenged. It has seemed to me unnecessary to reproduce in fuller detail the description of the papyrus given in the editio princeps. Should this not be available to the reader, ample information may be found in the reviews by Maas, Körte and Keydell. Gerstinger's attribution of the poems to Pamprepius was greeted by these and other critics with reactions varying from reserve to trenchant scepticism. There is reason to connect the encomium on Theagenes with Pamprepius, since the two were in Athens at the same time, Theagenes as archon, Pamprepius as a grammaticus. But even if we accept that Pamprepius wrote the encomium, the idyll is of higher quality, as Keydell and Maas noted, and might well be the work of a different poet. Doubt concerning the attribution has persisted, and Gerstinger's title-page remains virtually the only place where the poems are ascribed without qualification to Pamprepius.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 98 , November 1978 , pp. 38 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1978

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References

1 Gerstinger, Hans, Pamprepios von Panopolis, Eidyllion auf die Tageszeiten und Enkomion auf den Archon Theagenes von Athen nebst Bruchstücken anderer epischer Dichtungen und zwei Briefe des Gregorios von Nazianz im Pap. Gr. Vindob. 29788A-C, in SÖAW, Philos.-hist. Kl. ccviii3 (Wien/ Leipzig 1928)Google Scholar. Pamprepios (A.D. 440–84) was an Egyptian rhetor and astrologer who, as a senator and quaestor sacri palatii, played some part in politics under the eastern emperor Zeno. Cf. the biographical reconstruction by Asmus, R. in Byz. Zeits. xxii (1913) 320Google Scholar. His horoscope has been identified in Cat. Cod. Astr. viii 4.221, ed. Cumont. Cf. Delatte, A. and Stroobant, P., ‘ĽHoroscope de Pamprépios’ in Bull. de la Cl. des lettres de ľAcad. Roy. de Belg. (1923) 58Google Scholar.

A text of the whole Pamprepius papyrus is being prepared by Prof. E. Livrea, who was kind enough to read this article and to put his work at my disposal. Our readings and interpretations differ in some points.

2 ‘Ein von einem dritten Blatte desselben Kodex stammendes Fragment…hat sich nachträglich noch zugesellt.’ Gerstinger 3.

3 Ibid. 5.

4 Maas, P. in Gnomon v (1929) 250Google Scholar; Körte, A. in Archivfür Papyrusforschung x (1932) 25Google Scholar; Keydell, R. in Byz. Zeits. xxix (1929–1930) 290Google Scholar.

5 Most sceptical was Graindor, P. in Byzantion iv (1929) 469Google Scholar.

6 Heitsch, E., Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit 2 (Göttingen 1963) i 108Google Scholar.

7 Heitsch, pl. E-F.

8 Viljamaa, T., Studies in Greek Encomiastic Poetry of the Early Byzantine Period (Helsinki 1968) 56–7, 101–4Google Scholar.

9 Cf. Priscian, Pan. 50–139Google Scholar, Proc. Gaz. Pan. 8–9. I cite Priscian and Procopius from the volume of the Bonn Corpus containing Dexippus etc., ed. Niebuhr.

10 Cf. Priscian, Pan. 184–92Google Scholar, Proc. Gaz. Pan. 19–20.

11 Cf. Priscian, Pan. 248–51Google Scholar.

12 Gerstinger's reconstruction ἀρ]γụρέη[ in Recto 4 was over-optimistic, see my linguistic commentary ad loc.

13 Cf. Priscian, Pan. 149–66Google Scholar, Proc. Gaz. Pan. 13.

14 The praetorian prefect Constantine who reconstructed the Anthemian wall lived not under Anastasius, as Viljamaa says, but under Theodosius II. Cf. Bury, J. B., History of the Later Roman Empire (London 1923) i 70Google Scholar.

15 Before 471, Keydell, in Kl. Pauly (Munich 1972) iv 154Google Scholar; under Zeno, Friedländer, P. in Hermes xlvii (1912) 58Google Scholar.

16 Though for an unsound reason. In Recto 10 Gerstinger read παλλ]ᾳκίης and took this as a reference to sexual intrigues at the court during the usurpation of Basiliscus, 475–6. Cf. Gerstinger 84. There is evidence for such intrigues, cf. Stein, E., Histoire du Bas-Empire (Bruges 1959) i 363Google Scholar. But this reading is not likely to be correct, and the text admits of another explanation, see below.

17 Monophysites of the sixth century did not accept the condemnation of Zeno's memory imposed by Justin I. Cf. Maspero, J., Histoire des Patriarches ď Alexandrie (Paris 1923) 20Google Scholar n. 1.

18 Much the same procedure was adopted by Kempen, C., Procopii Gazaei in imperatorem Anastasium Panegyricus (Diss. Bonn. 1918) xix ff.Google Scholar; and more recently by F. Cairns in the study of Theocritus Id. xvii included in his book Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh 1972) 105 ff.

19 Rhetores Graeci, ed. Spengel, L. (Lipsiae 1856) iii 368 ffGoogle Scholar. Menander's categories differ in some respects from those proposed by Aphthonius, ibid. ii 36 ff. For a discussion of the categories cf. Struthers, L. B. in HSCP xxx (1919) 49Google Scholar. Also Cairns loc. cit.

20 In Procopius these divisions occupy six chapters out of thirty, in Priscian forty-nine lines out of three hundred and twelve.

21 Men. 372. 25 ff.

22 I owe these references to Prof. A. J. Beattie, who discussed with me many lines of the text, and whose help I gratefully acknowledge.

23 Cf. Brooks, E. W., ‘The Emperor Zeno and the Isaurians’ in English Hist. Review viii (1893) 222 ff.Google Scholar; and Stein B-E ii 28 ff.

24 The Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, composed in Syriac A.D. 507, tr. W. Wright (Cambridge 1882) c. 16.

25 Joh. Ant. fr. 206–2, FHG. iv 617.

26 Jos. Styl. c. 13, Jordan., Rom. 352Google Scholar, cf. Brooks 228 n. 131.

27 c. 17: ‘Now because of the difficulty of the natural position of the fortress, it was also rendered wonderfully impregnable by the work of men's hands, and there was no path leading up to it save one, by which, because of its narrowness, not even two persons could ascend at once’.

28 Byz. Zeits. xxxvi (1936) 88 ff. Gottwald's identification is detailed and convincing. Cf. Lemerle, P. in Syria xl (1963) 320 n. 5Google Scholar.

29 Gottwald 92. Damascius, describing the aspect of the citadel, says: ‘On top the rock is flat and wide, underneath it tapers slightly, but still manages to support aloft in the air the broad mass above. In many places it overhangs the mountain which forms its base. Its appearance resembles that of an enormous neck supporting a gigantic and picturesque head’. When Pamprepius was executed inside the citadel, the executioner flung his head down the precipice and into the imperial camp below. Cf. Damascii Vitae Isidori Reliquiae, ed. Zintzen, C. (Hildesheim 1967) 174 and 245Google Scholar. On the staircase, cf. also M. Ancketilľs description in Davis, E. J., Life in Asiatic Turkey (London 1879) 44Google Scholar.

30 Ibid. Skizze 2, and n. 1. The grotto was described as ‘très grande’ by Ali Shan, L. M. in his topographical work Sissouan ou ľArméno-Cilicie (Venice 1899) 72Google Scholar.

31 Joh. Ant. fr. 214.10, FHG. v 28.

32 Ibid. 12.

33 Ibid. 11.

34 Joh. Ant. fr. 214.4, FHG. iv 620, says that Theoderic was recalled when at Nicomedia; but ibid. 6 he also says that Gothic troops were in the field after the battle. Theophanes A.M. 5977 says that Theoderic was not recalled until after the siege of Illus' castle had begun. Faced with this conflicting testimony Brooks 228 concluded that Theoderic missed the battle, but was still in the field afterwards. Perhaps he ignored the order to return until quite certain that desertion to Illus was unprofitable.

35 Perhaps we should read ἀπϵχώρισαν, cf. Lysias xvi 16.

36 Cf. Ancketill quoted by Davis 46.

37 The deaths of Verina, Marsus, and Illus' daughter Anthusa are recorded, and Pamprepius was executed. Cf. Brooks 229 f.

38 Joh. Ant. fr. 214.10, FHG. v 28.

39 Ibid. 12.

40 Written petitions were conveyed to and from the palace by the referendarii, Proc. An. xiv 11–12, cf. Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire 284–602 (Oxford 1964) iii 166Google Scholar, n. 24.

41 Malchus fr. 10, FHG. iv 119. Cf. Kaegi, W. E., Byzantium and the Decline of Rome (Princeton 1968) 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Malchus fr. 3, FHG. iv 114.

43 Cf. Stein B-E ii 60.

44 Marcellinus Com. an. 484.

45 Malchus fr. 20, FHG. iv 132. Cf. Asmus 328.

46 Malchus fr. 19, FHG. iv 130; Theoph. A.M. 5983. Stein B-E ii 75 n. 3 wishes to date Pelagius' execution in 486. But besides the testimony of Marcellinus Com. an. 490, Theoph. ibid. relates the murders of Cottaïs and Pelagius as the last events of Zeno's reign.

47 Cameron, A. in Hist, xiv (1965) 505–7Google Scholar. I accept Cameron's suggestion that the epic-poet Aetherius mentioned in the Suda s.v., and the Aetherius to whom Panolbius dedicated a poem, are identical.

48 Marcellinus Com. an. 485.

49 Cf. Stein B-E ii 30–1.

50 Theoph. A.M. 5985, 5986. Cf. Stein, B-E ii 84Google Scholar. It is possible that Diogenes was a relative of the empress Ariadne, cf. Mal. 493B, and Excerpt. lnsid. 167.28, where the name Diogenianus looks like an error for Diogenes.

51 Proc. Aed. iii 6.23: ἔνθεν δὲ ἰόντι ἐν ἀριστερᾷ πρὸς βορρᾶν ἄνεμον χωρός τίς ἐστιν, ὅνπερ καλοῦσιν οἱ ἐπιχώριοι Λογγίνου φοσσᾶτον, ἐπεὶ Λογγῖνος ἐν τοῖς ἄνω χρόνοις Ῥωμαίων στρατηγός, Ἴσαυρος γένος, στρατεύσας ἐπὶ Τζάνους ποτε τῇδε πεποίηται τὸ στρατόπεδον.

52 B-E ii 64.

53 On the location of Longini Fossatum, see Adontz, N., Armenia in the period of Justinian (Eng. tr. by N. G. Garsoian, Lisbon 1970) 53Google Scholar.

54 B.C. iv 3.15–17.1 quote from Downey's translation: ‘but they [sc. the Abasgi] have suffered most cruelly at the hands of their rulers owing to the excessive avarice displayed by them. For both their kings used to take such boys of their nation as they noted having comely features and fine bodies, and dragging them away from their parents without the least hesitation they would make them eunuchs and then sell them at high prices to any persons in Roman territory who wished to buy them. They also killed the fathers of these boys immediately, in order to prevent any of them from attempting at some time to take vengeance from the king for the wrong done their boys, and also that there might be in the country no subjects suspected by the kings. And thus the physical beauty of their sons was resulting in their destruction; for the poor wretches were being destroyed through the misfortune of fatal comeliness in their children. And it was in consequence of this that the most of the eunuchs among the Romans, and particularly at the emperor's court, happened to be Abasgi by birth’.

55 Concerning Longinus's two consulships, Stein points out that hitherto only emperors had held the consulship more than once, B-E ii 31, cf. ibid. 75, and my n. on Recto 22 ff.

56 Ibid. 18–21.

57 De Mag. iii 64.

58 Friedländer, P., Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius (Leipzig 1912) 284Google Scholar.

59 So Mango, C., The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (New Jersey 1972) 85Google Scholar.

60 See the very comprehensive article by Bloch, G. in Daremberg, C. and Saglio, E., Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines (Paris 1877–1919) I, ii 1479–81Google Scholar.

61 Aed. iii 1.26. Cf. Stein, B-E ii 31Google Scholar.

62 The word is variously spelt and accented. Du Cange glosses it under the heading πλουμί, πλουμμίον, πλούμμιν, πλουμίδι.

63 413B; καὶ φορέσας … χλαμύδα ἄσπρον ὁλοσήρικον, ἔχον ἀντὶ πορφυροῦ ταβλίου χρυσοῦν βασιλικὸν τάβλιον, ἐν ᾧ ὑπῆρχεν ἐν μέσῳ στηθάριον ἀληθινόν, ἔχοντα τὸν χαρακτῆρα τοῦ αὐτοῦ βασιλέως Ἰουστίνου, καὶ στιχάριον [=tunic] δὲ ἄσπρον παραγαύδιον, καὶ αὐτὸ ἔχον χρυσᾶ πλουμία βασιλικά, ὡσαύτως ἔχοντα τὸν χαρακτῆρα τοῦ αὐτοῦ βασιλέως, κτλ. So Theoph. A.M. 6015. The τάβλιον was a stripe sewn along the hem of the cloak, cf. Sophocles' Lexicon s.v. Malalas' words ἔχον … τάβλιον are an excellent gloss on Procopius' sentence χρυσῷ δὲ ἡ τῆς πορφύρας κατηλήλειπτο μοῖρα κτλ., ‘And the part where the purple should have been etc.‘, above. Both mean that the king's chlamys had a golden stripe along the hem instead of a purple one.

64 On ὑπόπτϵρος cf. linguistic commentary. There is a similar idea in A.P. xvi 39, on the far-flung activities of a later Longinus, who was a magister militum in 551.

65 Jos. Styl. c. 7–10, 18. Cf. Stein, B-E ii 64 n. 4Google Scholar.

66 Chabot, J. B., Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil des Synodes Nestoriens (Paris 1902) 532 f.Google Scholar, 536 f. ( = Not. et extr. des mss. de la Bibl. Nat. xxxvii 1902). Cf. Stein ibid.

67 Mal. 387B, Theoph. A.M. 5972, cf. Brooks 221.

68 Hist. Compen. i 662B. Cf. Capizzi, C., ĽImperatore Anastasio I (Rome 1969) 64Google Scholar.

69 Hist. Eccl. vii 1, tr. F. H. Hamilton and E. W. Brooks (London 1899) 149. Cf. Capizzi 74, n. 16.

70 HLRE i 401. Cf. Malchus, fr. 9Google Scholar, FHG. iv 118; Stein, , B-E ii 75Google Scholar. On Leo, cf. ibid. i 362 f.

71 Agathias Hist. iv 29.2, cf. A.P. ix 482 (id.). Malchus, fr. 9Google Scholar, FHG. iv 117 f.

72 Callimachus makes the successful crushing of a revolt one of the topics in his encomium on Ptolemy II, Del. 185–7.

73 Cf. Stein B-E ii 17.

74 Brooks 219 f. Cf. Candidus, fr. 1Google Scholar, FHG. iv 137; Malchus fr. 20, FHG. iv 132; Joh. Ant. fr. 211, 3–4, FHG. iv 619; Theod. Lect. i 37; Evagr. iii 26; Theoph. A.M. 5971. Also Stein, B-E ii 15 f.Google Scholar, and Bury, HLRE i 395Google Scholar.

75 ‘Vor 455’, RE 14.2.1529 (Ensslin); 457, without qualification, Kl. Pauly 3.996 (Lasserre).

76 H.E. iii 26, cf. A.P. 16.275 (Posidippus), with Gow and Page's n. ad loc.

77 κατεσμίκρυνε δὲ τὸν ἐνναετῆ χρόνον, ἵνα μὴ διὰ τῆς ἀναμνήσεως πλέον ποιήσῃ ἀγωνιᾶσαι τοὺς Ἔλληνας.

78 Cf. Pl. Alc. 2, 141d οῖμαι δέ σε οὐκ ἀνήκοον εἶναι ἔνιά γε χθιζά τε καὶ πρωϊζὰ γεγενημένα, ὅτε Ἀρχέλαον τὸν Μακεδόνων τύραννον τὰ παιδικὰ … ἀπέκτεινε, describing an event of 399 B.C., several decades before the imagined date of this spurious dialogue; Hierocl. ap. Stob. 39.36 τά τε χθιζὰ ταῦτα καὶ πρωϊζά.

79 Joh. Ant. fr. 214.2 Ἰλλοῦς…Μαρκιανòν ἀναζώννυσι. Nothing is heard of Marcianus thereafter, and Brooks 224 is doubtless right in concluding that he did not respond to Illus' overtures.

80 Cf. Heitsch 112, and ibid. pls. G and H.

81 Gerstinger 83, Körte 26.

82 cf. A.P. i 10.72; Romanos Cant. 23 ιη′ 3, ibid. 54 κβ′ 3; Georg, . Pisid, . In Restitutionem Sancti Crucis 47 ffGoogle Scholar. (p. 227 Pertusi).

83 Gaz., Joh.Descr. Tabulae Mundi 5, 19 ff.Google Scholar, 29 ff., 41 ff. (Friedländer, P., Johannes von Gaza u. Paulus Silentiarius 136–8)Google Scholar.