Danuta Shanzer

Dating the baptism of Clovis: the bishop of Vienne vs the bishop of Tours

This article reexamines the text and interpretation of three crucial passages in Avitus of Vienne’s Ep. 46, the only contemporary document attesting the baptism of Clovis, and one passage in Gregory of Tours’Decem Libri Historiarum. The following conclusions relative to the date and circumstances of the baptism can be drawn. A. Avitus addresses Clovis not as if he was a pagan convert, but as if he was a recent Arian sympathiser, possibly even a catechumen. 2. There is no allusion to Cloviss honorary consulship in Ep. 46, hence no terminus post quem of 508. 3. The populus adhue nuper captivus cannot be the Alamans or the newly-converted Franks. Cloviss letter to the Bishops of Aquitaine and Avituss known involvement in the ransoming of prisoners-of-war are adduced to suggest that the populus may most plausibly be identified with Catholic Gallo-Roman captives taken in the Franco-Visigothic war of 507. If this is right, it provides a terminus post quem, of 507 and suggests a baptism in Christmas 508. 4. Gregory of Tours’ account of the Alamannic war is reexamined, and the following conclusions reached: the account fuses a “Clotilde-spool” and a “Constantinian-spool;” the battle against the Alamanni must date to late 506 (evidence from Cassiodorus and Ennodius); but Gregory himself did not know when it took place in absolute terms, and his relative chronology may well be unreliable. Thus the date of the battle and the date of conversion can be uncoupled. The most probable terminus post quem remains the freeing of the populus captivus, probably after the war of 507. The article ends by reexamining the implications of Cloviss and Avituss relationship and correspondence.

The Anonymous Carmen contra paganos and the Date and Identity of the Centonist Proba

Le Centon de Proba est plus tardif quon ne le pense| il se situe entre 385 et 388 (et non en 362)| il doit etre non pas de Faltonia Betitia Proba, mais dAnicia Faltonia Proba| le Centon utilise le Carmen contra Paganos qui est au plus tot de 385, semble-t-il, et qui reste anonyme (contre F. Dolbeau, ibid., 1981| B5, 36, 1982, no 590) (CPL 1431)

The battle of Vouillé, 507 CE : where France began

This volume highlights the heretofore largely neglected Battle of Vouille in 507 CE, when the Frankish King Clovis defeated Alaric II, the King of the Visigoths. Clovis victory proved a crucial step in the expulsion of the Visigoths from Francia into Spain, thereby leaving Gaul largely to the Franks. It was arguably in the wake of Vouille that Gaul became Francia, and that France began. The editors have united an international team of experts on Late Antiquity and the Merovingian Kingdoms to reexamine the battle from multiple as well as interdisciplinary perspectives. The contributions address questions of military strategy, geographical location, archaeological footprint, political background, religious propaganda, consequences (both in Francia and in Italy), and significance. There is a strong focus on the close reading of primary source-material, both textual and material, secular and theological.

Voices and Bodies : The Afterlife of the Unborn

This article discuses the fate of a special class of child, the unborn, in the afterlife, as well as the gradual criminalization of abortion in Antiquity. Particular attention is paid to a possible prohibition of abortion in Orphism that may underpin the nekyiai in P. Bon. 4. and Vergil Aen. 6. Then it turns to depictions of the aborted in the Apocalypse of Peter and its late antique offspring to show how the aborted fetus gradually acquires a visible body and an articulate voice. At the same time, the theology of sentiment works out its solutions to mitigate the problem of the innocent in hell. The fate of the almost bodiless fetus in the Resurrection became a bone of contention by the early 5th C. The satirical questions posed Christians about the resurrection of the unborn may first have been raised by Porphyry. His interest in the embryo and its ensoulment in the Pros Gauron are adduced as evidence. Attention is drawn to Augustines doubts about the status and fate of the human embryo, and some reasons are suggested about why he hesitated to adopt an unambiguous human from conception position. In the 5th C., after the Pelagian controversy, attention began to shift from the unborn to the unbaptized, who dominate the nekyiai of the Middle Ages. The rise of the Mizuko kuyo cult in Japan shows astonishing parallels to what happened in Late Antiquity.

Review Article: Felix Capella: Minus sensus Quam Nominis Pecudalis

Martianus Capella composed his encyclopedia of the seven liberal arts in the late fifth century under the Vandals in Carthage. The work is attested immediately by Fulgentius who, if one can believe a medieval catalog, may even have composed a commentary on the first two books of the De nuptiis.2 The work was known to Boethius around 524, when he composed the De (onsolatione philosophiae,j and was later corrected ex mendosissimis exvemplarihus by Securus Melior Felix in Rome in 534 4 Cassiodorus had heard of it, but was unable to obtain a copy;5 so, too, Gregory of Tours, although his knowledge of the precise contents of the books on the disciplinae was shaky.6 At least the third book of the De nuptiis was known to insular scholars such as Tatwine and the Anonymus ad Cuimnanum by the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth century.] The whole work surfaces at the beginning of the ninth century

Text, image, and translations: The marriage of philology and botticelli?

ConclusionTo summarize. Moretti’s introduction is valuable. Examples help, and this reviewer would have welcomed a detailed comparison of Buonaccioli’s and Pona’s translations, mistakes and triumphs, strengths and weaknesses, in one or more telling or fine passages. One might have suggestedDe Nuptiis 1.9–10, thedefectus oraculorum.More analysis of the translations would have been desirable, but while whoever writes the introduction must clearly be a Martian, the most suitable critic of the translaions themselves should be familiar with early modern Italian literature too. Now that both Buonacciolis and Ponas translations are generally availabe, we can look forward to further investigation both of their text, their context, and their influence.

Haijo Jan Westra, ed., with the assistance of Christina Vester, The Berlin Commentary on Martianus Capella's “De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii,” Book 1 . (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 20.) Leiden, New York, and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1994. Pp. xlii, 362.

Acknowledgements Prolegomena to the Edition of Post-Carolingian Commentaries on Martianus Capellas De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Books I-II Notes on the Text, Author, Date and Place of the Commentary Abbreviations The Commentary Index

94.50.

the triumviral period, such an error would be appalling; but from the perspective of five centuries, an error of a few years in explaining the background of a poem must have seemed trivial. And this error helps us to understand his explanation of the opening of Eclogue 8: it was not that Servius had, or his sources had, any knowledge of Augustus Illyrian campaign of 35, but that he understood the reference to Illyria as a clear allusion to the war of Actium. And given that interpretation, it is obvious that Augustus was the only person whom Virgil could have been addressing. The explanation proposed here of Servius comments on the opening of Eclogue 8 is not without its difficulties; in particular, we might wish that he had made an explicit reference to Actium in his note on Eclogue 8. 6. Even without that confirmation, however, it may serve to show that Servius, even when he is wrong, is not necessarily inconsistent or perverse. Modern scholars tend to turn to ancient commentaries for assistance in interpreting specific passages of the texts on which they commented, and that is probably as it should be. But rather than singling out for ridicule those particular notes that are, in the light of modern scholarly techniques, false or misguided, it is far more profitable to try to understand a commentary like that of Servius in its own context and by its own standards. By doing so, we may not learn more about Virgil, but we will at least learn to understand the methods and character of a late antique scholar.8