Tag: Latin

Selected Works – Cicero

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Cicero was a prominent statesman, lawyer and orator at a time of great turbulence in the Roman empire. Born in 106BC and elected one of the two consuls in 63BC, he was at his prime when Julius Caesar became dictator following his invasion on 49BC, and whilst not one of the group that ultimately assassinated Caesar in 44BC it was generally known that he supported them. He is one of the most prominent men of letters of his time with over eight hundred existing examples and many of his speeches were published. We don’t by any means have everything he wrote but what we have is still a substantial body of work. This book starts with his opening speech in the prosecution of Gaius Verres for mismanagement during his time as Governor of Sicily. the Roman legal system at the time expected a very long speech, normally over a day, in such matters but Cicero gave a ‘shortened’ version (still 23 pages long) as he was concerned that with various public holidays coming up the trial could be postponed for months. It’s a good introduction to Cicero’s style as are the selection of twenty three letters that follow which include one from Caesar.

It is in the third section that we really see Cicero in full flow in the second of his fourteen speeches mainly given in the Senate against Anthony, although this particular speech was never delivered there, being published instead. This massive fifty three page speech established Cicero as a major opponent to Anthony, who had seized control of Rome following the death of Caesar. The series of speeches were known as the Philippic’s after Demosthenes’s denunciations of Philip II of Macedon and were so powerful that Cicero eventually convinced the Senate to declare Anthony an enemy of the state as Cicero attempted to gather support for Anthony’s son, Octavian, to stand against his father. The section below is just a small part of the second Philippic against Antony but gives a feeling of the enmity between the two men:

For what was left of Rome, Antony, owed its final annihilation to yourself. In your home everything had a price; and a truly sordid series of deals it was. Laws you passed, laws you caused to be put through to your interests, had never even been formally proposed. You admit this yourself. You were an auger, yet you never took the auspices. You were a consul, yet you blocked the legal right of other officials to exercise the veto. Your armed escort was shocking. You are a drink-sodden, sex-ridden wreck. Never a day passes in that ill-reputed house of yours without orgies of the most repulsive kind.

The book concludes with two of Cicero’s best known works, the third part of ‘On Duties’ and all of ‘On Old Age’. ‘On Duties III’ consists of eleven sections where Cicero endeavours to explain the preference for actions seen as right as opposed to ones which are simply advantageous and why an action which may appear advantageous but cannot be seen as right is never the correct thing to do. This book, along with the first two parts is addressed to Cicero’s son Marcus who was then in Athens and is a guide to moral behaviour. ‘On Old Age’ is a lot more fun to read, it is written as an imagined conversation between Cato the Elder, who was 84 at the time it is set in 150BC, with Scipio Aemilianus, then 35, and Gaius Laelius, also in his thirties. Cato expounds on the advantages of old age and a reconciliation to the fact that death cannot be far away, in Cato’s case the following year.

Cicero was murdered in 43BC aged sixty three as he was attempting to escape the wrath of Anthony, now reconciled with Octavian, and his head and hands, specifically requested by Anthony as punishment for writing the Philippics, were nailed to the Rostra in the Forum Romanum.

The translation is by noted classicist Michael Grant, Professor of Humanity at the University of Edinburgh and was the first of several translations, mainly of Cicero, that he undertook for both Penguin Books and the Folio Society. This has been the first time that I’ve read Cicero although I can’t imagine it will be the last, there are several Penguin Classics that cover more of his writings and The Folio Society have recently published a massive single volume 664 page collection.

I Hate and I Love – Catullus

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A collection of forty three poems by Gāius Valerius Catullus, a Roman poet born in 84 BCE and who died in 54 BCE, but in his short life he wrote a number of poems, 116 of which have survived to the present day. Penguin published a complete volume translated by Peter Whigham which I don’t possess however this selection from that larger volume is part of the Penguin Little Black Classics all of which I purchased when they came out. Catullus’s poetry is normally categorised nowadays into three main subject types, those dealing with his friends, those about a woman he loves but refers to only as Lesbia rather than her real name which was probably Clodia Metelli and the rest are largely described as invective or works attacking other people, which was quite a popular style at the time. This volume is mainly poems in the ‘friends’ or ‘Lesbia’ categories with just seven of the ‘invective’ style represented although over fifty of the surviving works are categorised as ‘invective’. An example of the invective style is poem 43 which attacks the girlfriend of Formianus.

Apologies but photographing the poems without breaking the spine of the book has led to the distortions in the images. The next poem that I want to select to illustrate the tone of Catullus is one which describes his desire to travel now that the warmer weather is here. I have deliberately selected three of the shorter works although few are what we would regard as long, but the descriptions of personal experiences and desires is what marks Catullus as one of the writers known collectively as poetae nov or ‘new poets’ as poetry moved away from the epic heroic style favoured before then. The works of Catullus were almost lost to us completely as a single manuscript was found in the Chapter Library of Verona around seven hundred years ago. This document was copied twice before it was again mislaid and one of the copies was in its turn copied twice before being lost. So the 116 poems have come down the centuries due to these three surviving precious documents.

That one feels very modern with Catullus looking forward to a holiday in Turkey and hoping to meet up with friends there. For my third example it has to be one of the famous Lesbia poems although not the best known, which is poem 5, as that extends over a page in this edition so is difficult to include here. But poem 51 expresses his desire for Lesbia and how he feels when in her company although it is worth pointing out that poem 85 refers to her husband so Catullus was probably one of several men she had affairs with, including Rufus the subject of invective poem number 77 written after Catullus found out about their relationship.

A few others are quite ribald so I don’t feel I can put them on this blog. Although I have certainly enjoyed reading the collection it does nowadays probably need to come with a warning regarding adult themes, The title by the way is from the opening line of the very short poem 85, which is just two lines long:

I hate and I love. And if you ask me how.
I do not know. I only feel it, and I’m torn in two

Catallus 85 translated by Peter Whigham

In Praise of Folly – Erasmus

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20200602 In Praise of Folly

Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote this, probably now his most famous work, in 1509 in Latin and the Folio Society edition that I have uses the Latin title as its cover design Moriae Encomium. By intention this title can also be read as In Praise of More because he dedicated it to his friend Sir Thomas More whom he was staying with in London at the time.

The book is split into sixty seven sections in this edition, although looking at other translations it is not always the case that these are numbered. The text I have was originally produced  for the Penguin Books edition translated by Betty Radice, used by permission by Folio. For a while this use of Penguin texts was relatively common at Folio so presumably they had a formal arrangement to do this. I liked the numbered sections in this text as it gives an easy way of referring to parts but as this is apparently not a standard I will use the opening line of a section if I need to specifically mention it along with the number. This translation also has short footnotes, when Erasmus wrote the book anyone likely to read it would have known the classical examples he refers to but nowadays this is far less likely so a quick guide as to where the quotation has come from and the relevance to the text is extremely useful.

Erasmus decided to make Folly the equivalent of a Greco-Roman goddess addressing the reader as though in a forum or theatre. She introduces herself and her faithful companions

And as for such my companions and followers as you perceive about me, if you have a mind to know who they are, you are not like to be the wiser for me, unless it be in Greek: this here, which you observe with that proud cast of her eye, is Philautia, Self-love; she with the smiling countenance, that is ever and anon clapping her hands, is Kolakia, Flattery; she that looks as if she were half asleep is Lethe, Oblivion; she that sits leaning on both elbows with her hands clutched together is Misoponia, Laziness; she with the garland on her head, and that smells so strong of perfumes, is Hedone, Pleasure; she with those staring eyes, moving here and there, is Anoia, Madness; she with the smooth skin and full pampered body is Tryphe, Wantonness; and, as to the two gods that you see with them, the one is Komos, Intemperance, the other Negretos hypnos, Dead Sleep. These, I say, are my household servants, and by their faithful counsels I have subjected all things to my dominion and erected an empire over emperors themselves.

What follows is, at least at the start, a gentle satire of the foolishness of mankind pointing out how Folly and her companions lead people astray but at the same time saying that the only truly happy people are babes, aged citizens in their dotage and others not fully in control of their mind because only they are not worn down by the cares and realities of life. There are many examples of how her or her companions have affected people for good or ill depending on how you interpret the results, and if the book remained in this vein it would still be well worth reading for the way it pokes fun at pomposity and self-indulgence, greed and wilful ignorance is as relevant today as it was back then. However by section 53, which in this translation begins ‘Then there are the theologians’ you can sense the tone changes. Erasmus is on tricky ground especially in 1509, Martin Luther was still eight years away from writing his Ninety-Five Theses and setting in train the Reformation with his attack on the Pope and other members of the Catholic hierarchy  for the selling of indulgences amongst other things that he regarding as debasing the Christian faith for profit, but Erasmus got in ahead of him.

This was in a time when the office of Pope could certainly be bought, and it cost a lot of money and contacts to work your way up the greasy pole, however the rewards were huge for those that got there. The selling of indulgences was a massive money spinner for the church and ultimately for the Pope himself and this was spreading discontent. What was surprising was that Erasmus felt safe to attack this at the time and not only turned out to be safe in the clever way that he presented his arguments but that his work was the equivalent of a best seller. Erasmus was not an early protestant but he recognised the excesses of the Catholic church and through this book was highlighting the problems that it faced. That he built up to this slowly is of no surprise bearing in mind the recriminations that he could have faced and the power of the church in enforcing discipline in the early sixteenth century.

What starts out as a harmless satire of mankind’s foibles turns into a denunciation of the money grabbing nature of the church at the time, but it is worth noting that Erasmus, and his friend Sir Thomas More, did not support the Protestant breakaway from the Catholic church, and in a roundabout way this would cost More his life as he did not attend King Henry VIII’s wedding to Anne Boleyn which marked the break of England from the Papacy. Erasmus however would be safe back in The Netherlands and would die of natural causes in 1536 having lived though the schism in the church the reasons for which he highlighted in this book but which he couldn’t have foretold.

 

On Britain and Germany – Tacitus

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20200505 On Britain and Germany

Back in January 1946 Penguin Books started a new series which is still going way beyond the dreams of the originators, that was Penguin Classics featuring all new translations of classic literature from around the world especially created for the series. They started in Greece with Homer’s Odyssey and the first Latin title was this one featuring two of the books by Tacitus, which was the fifth book in the series coming out in September 1948. On Britain and Germany is actually his two works Agricola and Germania and they were translated by Harold Mattingly who also wrote an extensive introduction along with the notes and glossary. His additional information in fact takes up almost half of the book at seventy six pages with Agricola being forty eight pages and Germania just forty.

Agricola

Representing Britain in this volume is Tacitus’s biography of his father in law Gnaeus Julius Agricola and whilst it does indeed include commentary on his seven years in charge of the conquest of most of Britain it does spends a significant amount of time back in Rome. Tacitus starts this work by stating that biographies are disapproved of in the current Roman society but that he will write this one anyway but unfortunately whatever his abilities as a historian way be revealed in his other works this is not a good example. He rarely states where any of the military actions he describes take place and his grasp of dates is also somewhat tenuous which makes working out what is going on quite tricky. He also has a rather odd idea as to the geography of Britain, stating that it is diamond shaped and not far from Spain with the island of Ireland being between the two countries.

This is where the text by Mattingly really comes into its own not only in the introduction, which prepares you for the lack of details but the notes which accompany almost every chapter clarify quite a lot of the text. One thing I really liked about this edition is that the notes are at the back of the book rather than at the bottom of the relevant pages, this allows the reader to more comfortably concentrate on the text and then pick up on the notes either as they go on or, as I did, complete Agricola and then read the notes. As stated above it is a fairly short biography so this is entirely practical.

Germania

Tacitus has barely started his description of Germania when he comes up with a sentence that I can safely assume is not one quoted by the German tourism authorities.

who would leave Asia, Africa or Italy to visit Germany, with its unlovely scenery, its bitter climate, its general dreariness to sense and eye, unless it were his home.

and a little later

The country in general, while varying somewhat in character, either bristles with woods or festers with swamps. It is wetter where it faces Gaul, windier where it faces Noricum and Pannonia.

He was remarkably polite about Britain in comparison, Noricum is modern Austria whilst Pannonia roughly equates to Hungary. After spending time being rude about the land he turns his attentions to the peoples and tribes of Germania, this is a place that includes not only present Germany but parts of France, Switzerland, the northern Netherlands and Poland. Beyond them is believed to be a great ocean rather than the Baltic Sea and the Romans seem to have almost no knowledge of Scandinavia. Rome appears to have only recently become aware of most of these peoples at the time of Tacitus and then only from contact through war so his descriptions of their lives are short of details and sometimes confused but he does discern a significant number of different tribes and kingdoms but does not ascribe what he would regard as civilisation to any of them other than the ones that have regular dealings with the Romans. His most damning assessment is applied right at the end of the short book with the little he has gathered regarding the Suiones (southern Swedes) and a neighbouring tribe that is only mentioned in Germania so is probably a misunderstanding by Tacitus of the same people or another part of Sweden.

Continuous with the Suiones are the nations of the Sitones. they resemble them in all respects but one – woman is the ruling sex. That is the measure of their decline, I will not say below freedom, but even below decent slavery.

Revisions

The book appears to have gained its original title in Penguin simply because it was translated soon after WWII finished and certainly in the notes Mattingly can be quite jingoistic at times for example in his opening line regarding Germania.

a detailed account of a great people that had already begun to be a European problem in the first century of our era, should still have a message for us in the twentieth.

It is clear that the choice of title was made to entice potential readers after the war whilst maybe calling it Agricola and Germania might not have done as much. Amazingly seventy four years after its first publication Mattingsly’s translation is still the one in the Penguin Classics catalogue, which now runs to well over a thousand titles, and most of the early titles have been completely replaced with updated translations. However it has been revised twice, initially presumably to replace the dated style of the introduction and notes but also to rename the book to the more useful ‘Agricola and Germania’ so that it is clearer what is actually included. The first revision was done by S.A. Handford and was published in October 1970, this book was renumbered from L5 to become L241 and the original version dropped. In 2009 it was revised again, this time by J.B. Rives and now has the ISBN 9780140455403 which makes it the equivalent of L540 when you breakdown the code and the Handford version is no longer available.

Conclusion

The book was very enjoyable and a good introduction to the works of Tacitus via two of his minor writings, what I now need to do is tackle his major works ‘The Annals’ and ‘The Histories’. Tacitus was a Roman senator so well placed to view the intrigues of the emperors and their rivals and this he covers in those more important works. Having the viewpoint from an insider of how the Roman empire was actually governed should be really interesting, I knew nothing about Tacitus before I read this book so I definitely need to find out more.

Ars Amatoria – Ovid

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Much better known for his work Metamorphosis, Ovid also produced this treatise on the technique for finding and importantly keeping the love of your life. That it also includes hints for hiding infidelity and some of the advice is a little too true to life for some of its readers two thousand years ago probably didn’t help when he fell out of favour with the Emperor and was exiled from Rome for the final sixteen years of his life.

20191119 Ars Amatoria 1

As the lovely Folio Society edition that I have is quarter bound in leather with a plain brown cover I have chosen not show the outside as it is rather dull but instead to have three extracts with the drawings by Victor Reinganum which decorate most of the pages, including the opening shown above where Ovid sets out what he hopes to achieve. The book was published in 1965 and uses the translation by B.P. Moore originally published by Blackie & Son Ltd. The font used is Poliphilus 13 point and I think suits the text admirably well. Unusually for Folio the book was reprinted just two years later which attests to its popularity.

The work consists of three short books, the first two are aimed at men trying to find a partner and get her interest (book 1) and then Ovid looks at how to keep her (book 2). The third book was written slightly later and is aimed at women looking for a man. Despite being over two thousand years old much of the advice given by Ovid is as good today as it was in Roman times. The first, and most obvious, but still got wrong many times, is that if you want to meet a woman then it is best to go to where they are, don’t hang around in places with your male friends, go to the parks or theatres. But remember you are not there just to watch the play.

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When you have found ‘the one’ then how to make sure she knows you are not only interested but are looking for more than just a friend is covered next, and then once a relationship has started make sure that she knows that she is the only one for you.

20191119 Ars Amatoria 2

The third book, for women hoping to secure a man, repeats the suggestion from the first book to go where they are although it point out that the sensible men that are also looking for women (and have read the earlier treatise) will be where she already is, so maybe start at the theatre. However there is also beauty advice, such as for make-up (basically don’t overdo it, use enough to enhance not redefine) and hair (pick a style that suits your face shape). The words about makeup are particularly poignant when you consider the very basic types available at the time which would degrade quite quickly in the Italian sun. I love the suggestion in the passage shown below that the morning beauty routine is best done away from the gaze of the man the lady is hoping to attract, after all why should he know what she has done to enhance her beauty.

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I don’t want to give the impression that Ovid is just covering beauty tips, there is much the same sort of advice given to the ladies as to the men in how to attract a mate and even what to do when you have got him. How to arrange messages between you when things are still not publicly known and you don’t want anyone else to know. This also applies to illicit trysts when secrecy is vital and he is not shy of making this clear in his text.

Overall the book(s) are a fun read and in places could be lifted straight into the advice columns of today. It’s a fascinating glimpse into an ancient past that perhaps is not that ancient after all.

A note on the translation used is probably useful here at the end of the review. Clearly Moore updated some parts, there are two references to cars for instance when leaving the vehicles as period would have been far less jarring. There are other lines where I felt the intrusion of the modern was out of place and disturbed the flow of the text. Having said that the translation is very readable apart from these examples and the deliberate attempt to keep notes to an absolute minimum (just two pages at the back which mainly name the character referred to when a reader in 2AD would have simply known who it was) makes it more a reading pleasure rather than an academic exercise. There is a translation available at Project Gutenberg which dates from 1885 but this is in prose rather than the verse employed by Moore and is a lot less fun to read so overall I’m glad I have this edition.