Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius

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CLAUDIA

Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honoriu

ALAN CAMERON

Eucherius, Serena, Stilico (? and head of Maria inset between Eucherius' shoulder and ~erena's elbow) on a diptych (now in the cathedral treasure at Monza) issued in 396 mcommemoration of Euch · ' · lb .. k . enus promonon to tribune and notary. Fron1 R. De rue ' Dre Corrsulardiptychen, Vol. li (Waiter de Gruyten, Berlin)

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1970

PREFACE

© oXPOBD

VBRSI'fY pRBSS I 9 7 0 tJNl

A LARGE bo~k ?n ~ poet little read even in univer itic nlight seem to requ1re JU~tification, if not apology. I offer neither. Merely. as a uruqu~ ~storical source for a crucial period of ~oman hist~ry Claud1an s works have an outstanding value and 111terest. This has (of course) long been realized by historian , though no one has y~t submitte~ .thetn to the searching crutiny they deserve and reqwre. For a cntlcal assessment of so tend ntiou a. writer is a~. es~ential preliminary to the writing of a prop r history of Stihco s regency. It is because their authors did not write this book f1rst that even such acute and itnportant studi of the period asS. Mazzarino's Stilicone (1942) and E. Demougeot's De l' unite la division de l' empire r01nain (1951) go astray on a number of major points. My own interpretations of these points-which have 1 d n1e to a more balanced verdict on the aims and achieven1cnts of Stilicoflow in general from a principle of supretne simplicity: Claudian's poems must be read in chronological order. When a propagandist writing against a fast-changing political background says things later which he did not say at the time-or indeed eh ng s his story altogether after a year or so-we are surely justified in regarding at least one and probably both accounts with some

a

PJliNTBD IN GREAT BRITAIN AT TBB UNI VEJlSITY PRBSS, OXFORD BY VIVIAN RIDLER PJliNTBJl T O THB UNIVERSITY

susp1c1on. Earlier studies have suffered frotn two sorts of error in particular. They have combined details from different versions (e.g. the two accounts of the Gildonic war, separated by nearly three years) into one composite picture without inquiring. why they differ in the first place. And they have shown a cunous r luctance to query even the most flagr~t:t of Claudian's mi ~ pr sentations. No one, they argue, wnttng for contemp r n o contemporary events, would hav dared to tell a lie. rh know better nowadays. The events of August 1968, for gave a startling relevance to Claudian' s (preposterous, but

I'

CLA IC Jl 2 9 '11

Preface ,. 'ted' Stilico to intervene in its .East UlVl Claudian sel dom stoops to any·01 that the · g1osses over, Pt .d) d·dat J99· In any. case, h li . he twists, omtts, alfiirs Jll nu outng t e. d. . crude as an ter propagan tst. ~g so und. In short, a tnas than a propagandist. He is also sJcirtS aro . uch more r-. ul . h' h h claudian lS Ill R an poets', the rorm a m w lC e But 'I t of the om . . . to literary histortes. e than the as . postscnpts validity in this. approach . For t he .mor duly evoked 1t1 ts . f course, some . There ts, o d Latin poetry became once more m 4 4 decade between 39? an h ~ it had been in the Flavian age. It was the bands of Claudian w .a and it is arguable that Claudian not never to be the same da~am, ll . d but k.ille 1t as we · only revr~e h proach however, without which Claudian There ts anot · ertrue ap perspective. ' Not mere1y was h e b y b.trth cannot be seen m · k b £ . h had already composed poetry m Gree e ore k a Gree , e . il d b . changing his language with his do!Illc e an ecommg co~rt poet to Honorius. Indeed, while he stands alone among Latm poets of his age, he is but one among many in the Greek literary scene. Attention has often been called to the coincidence that the annals of Latin literature close, as they open, with a Greek-or rather two Greeks, Claudian and Ammianus Marcellinus. There ~more to it than coincidence. With characteristic insight the mcomparable Wilamowitz once included Ammian in a history of Greek literature- much to the m · d'1gnat1on · o f most subsequent studtlentsk, wfho never cease to stress the Roman characteristics and ou 00 0 Ammian' 5 his . tbelast fth R tory. And nghtly so. Certainly Ammian 'liltusoth e hoh~n historians. But distant (and worthy) heir . historiographical tradition Ammian'soug da e IS' the 0 nlYlivmg 1:. • • of the Ywas Greek· He 1S· a1so the nrst surv1vmg repregreat early B . h Q&IHraht'" that culmin ~zantme se ool of contemporary a simi1a ates m Procopius. fD the ~~us-figure. His Latin poems are our represen:g school of Greek professional poets . ttve member.

to

his Latin predecessors

is so

deep and so

It was not till the rest of the book was alr ady in th I nd f the Press that I realized the interest and even in1portanc f pursuing the story of Claudian' s influence on Medieval and Engli h literature. Add to this the fact that (apart frotn Manitius on th Medieval side) there are no collectauea or Vorarbeiten such s i t on the Fortleben of other Latin po ts to act as guid s thr ugh unfamiliar terrain, and it will be appreciated that tny concluding chapter is only intended as the m r st illu trative k tch. . Parts of the book have be n d livercd as 1 ctur t v n institutions in this country, the United States, and C nad ; have been awarded the Bayncs and Conington Priz s t L and Oxford respectively. My acknowledg mcnts to published works ar fully r c . in the annotation-often, alas, by way of rebuttal. ~ coul~ h that this had not b en necessary, but where my Vle . widely from those generall! h~ld, i~ would h b nus.LeaelllDR to sta,te thetn without full JUSttficat 11 '

preface the advice and encourageve benefited r~~ ds· Peter Brown, John chapt rs ha ed rnen . k umber of lea_rn oswyn Murray, Otto S utsch, fa n aido Mornighanoi teful to Oswyn Murray for ....ttnew~.' ~ t am particular ylgdra to the last chapter, and to MafOI1 wes.on1the track that e for their pamsta . king ass1s. . tne off Timothy Barnes • [J

ohn .MattheWS and J ce 'Wl"th the proofs.

1

Eucherius, Serena, Stilico

. .

f ll y crittcs m the five years odd go a m d. the most penetrattn b y wife Averil: at a first rea mg But . has een m d l) e book's gestanon . demic domestic, an materna fth o h 0 wn duttes, aca ' d. c. r on every weakness an mcon(snatched from er put her nnge . 1 . d she would at one: b h f pages heavy w1th a terat1ons an . in successlve ate es o . b k sutency . h that I dedicate this oo · sellotape. It 1S to er A. C.

:&Jford College, London JJ]uly 1969

CONTEN Fronti piece

Abbreviations

.

Stemma of the House ofTheodo iu

iv

Chronologia Claudianea

XV

I. THE POET FROM EGYPT

11. FROM PANEGYRIST TO PROPA ANDI T

I

30

Ill. TECHNIQUES OF THE PROPAGANDIST

46

IV. RUFINUS

63

V. GILDO VI. EUTROPIUS VII. ALARIC VIII. THE PAGAN AT A CHRISTIAN COURT

93

24 156 89

IX. CLAUDIAN'S AUDIENCE X. TECHNIQUES OF THE POET XI. DOCTUS POETA XII. CLAUDIAN AND ROME XIII. LAST DAYS XIV. CONCLUSION APPENDIXES A. B.

The date of the De Raptu Proserpinae The date of the Latin Gigantomachia: Cl u . Prudentius

lS3 305 34

3

Contents .. ' d Eunapius on Stilico s f .Antioch, an 474

c. ]).

Jo~t o the .Balkans dioons to o pe d Nonnus Triphiodorus an

48 3

BibliographY

490

Addenda

495

.,_,,inlUS

~-

Index

4 78

ABBREVIATIONS THE

following works are cited by author's name and page num ber on1 y:

Birt

T. Birt, preface to his edition of Claudian (1v1on. 1'-" Germ. H'ut., A uct. Ant. x, 1892 ).

Demougeot

E. J?emougeot, ~~ l'u~ite ala divisifj (line 54), where Koechly (violently, but not perhaps absurdly) proposed Taxa or ToTe for Tfj. One ~st point. It is notorious that 'later Greek epic became ~~CSSlvddy modre ~actylic. Of the 32 possible combinations of ~" r an spon ee 1n the he N most dactyli . hi d' . xameter, onnus uses only the 9 dorus is betra~ed :g:~t~ ~aul th~ ~ilentia~ only 6.3 Triphiohave more still Claud· y hls 17 vanetles: Qu1ntus and the Oppians Ian as only 12 0 f h ple 1s. really.too small b . . · nee more, o course, t e La . . , ut lt Is surely m h . .d cJi ~· Atlyptus (1952) £ ore t an a cotncl ence 1w:e (Le. ~or), '4S9, eebly emends to &yyeAov aVyf\s, 'messanurror.

..,.,...• .R..·L IT .... ~ Gebrauch des best'

"' ,~ 1 ) •mmten Art 'k 1 wich. B . .. 937 ' and cf. Appendix D 1 e s eatrage zur Kritik des N

'p. 479. onnos {1873), 4S f.

. m der nachklassischen

17

that Claudian' s favourite 10 comb in tions i elude all Nonnus' 1 favourite 9· So Claudian' s style is 1 ot unaffected by t1 ligl t but significant developments of his age. There is no trace yet of the n1ore minute metrical refinements of N onnus, of his restriction 01 the use of elision, of his tnonotonous regulating of the accent, t cae ura and line-end. But for all this there are unn1istakablc for hadowing of Nonnian style in the description of Aphroditc prep ring h r lf for battle. She used no conventional weapons, writ Claudi n gaily: Kvrrpts 8' o\h'e (3eAos cpepev oOO' oTrAov, clyACXlflV.

aAA~ eK61-lt3EV

She tidied her hair in front of the tnirror (44-6), dded (unheroic detail!) a touch of eye-shadow (47), and disarn1ed the giants with her come-hither look: Ei Se 71S a\rrfj OlJlJCX (3CxA01, CECIJflL'O.

But the most interesting passage is 50-1: ElXe yap cxvn1 1TAEYIJCX K6pw, S6pv lJCX30V, o