The centrepieces of the Last Historians of Rome project are the team’s new
critical editions of the five historians we are studying, and for me in
particular, the biggest task is to edit
Ammianus Marcellinus, the longest and greatest of the five. But we are also producing translations:
at the moment, Justin Stover and George Woudhuysen are polishing off
Aurelius Victor, and I am in the very final stages of the translation of Ammianus, which has
occupied me for many years, off and on. The translation is for Robert
Strassler’s
Landmark
series, will be published by Oxford University Press in New York, and is a
collaboration with Michael Kulikowski: he is the volume editor and responsible
for everything that isn’t the translation – the introduction, notes, lavish maps
and illustrations, and appendices – as well as for working over the translation
with me and making sure that it is as stylish and readable and clear as
possible.
Right now, however, rather than discussing style, readability, or the
explanatory help for readers which we hope will make this markedly more
accessible than previous translations, I am going to discuss the most
fundamental task of a translation: working out what the original actually means.
Something can have been translated many times but there will be occasional
passages where translators go different ways – or where they all go one way but
might be wrong. There is a rider, especially in the case of texts in ancient
languages that survive because people made a series of manuscript copies:
namely, that you need to be willing to ask ‘Is this actually the original?’
Let
me give three examples from the first surviving book of Ammianus Marcellinus’
history, though it is one of the later ones I translated, at the start of this
year (I started with the books that had the benefit of commentaries by the Dutch
team of Den Boeft, Den Hengst, Drijvers and Teitler). In the first case, I
translate in a way different from everybody else. In the second, I concluded
that what I was translating was not the original and that some text has been
lost. In the third, I spent time wondering if the transmitted text was correct,
before concluding that it was but that it didn’t mean quite what I had
originally thought – and I found that though most translators had gone slightly
astray, two Italian translations had nailed it.
1. How to fight the Isaurians (14.2.7)
The Romans of the fourth century thought that there were baying
barbarians encircling their empire’s frontiers. The Isaurians were an exception
– they were barbarians inside the empire, in the rugged heart of the Taurus
Mountains in central Anatolia. Isauria was a province, but some of its
population were prone to raiding their prosperous neighbours and fighting Roman
troops.
Isauria as imagined in the late Roman Notitia Dignitatum; copy made in Basel,
1436 (Oxford, Canon. Misc. 378)
In chapter 2 of book 14, Ammianus gives a memorable account of Isaurian raids in
the year 353, which begin as retaliation when some Isaurians were thrown to the
wild beasts in the amphitheatre at Iconium (Konya). There is an unforgettable
story of their capture of merchant shipping at anchor off the Cilician coast
–the attackers climbing silently up the ropes by night and slaughtering the
sailors without mercy. In neighboring Lycaonia, they keep defeating small Roman
garrisons, in part by their extraordinary surefootedness and speed in the
uplands. Ammianus continues (14.2.6):
And at times, our infantrymen were compelled to climb up high cliffs in order to pursue them, and even if they reached the mountaintops, grasping at thickets or brambles when their feet slipped, still they could not, in the narrow and trackless places, extend a battle line or gain a firm footing despite all their powerful efforts, since the ubiquitous enemy rolled broken rocks on to them from above; they either made a perilous withdrawal downhill or else, battling bravely in their desperate necessity, were flattened by the vast weights crashing down.
The problem lies in
the following section, which I give first in Rolfe’s translation and then in
Latin (14.2.7):
Therefore extreme caution was shown after that and when the marauders began to make for the mountain heights, the soldiers yielded to the unfavourable position. When, however, the Isaurians could be found on level ground, as constantly happened, they were allowed neither to stretch out their right arms nor poise their weapons, of which each carried two or three, but they were slaughtered like defenceless sheep.
Quam ob rem circumspecta cautela obseruatum est deinceps,| et cum edita montium petere coeperint grassatores,| loci iniquitati milites cedunt;| ubi autem in planitie potuerint repperiri,| quod contingit assidue,| nec exertare lacertos| nec crispare permissi tela quae uehunt bina uel terna| pecudum ritu inertium trucidantur.|
This is Rolfe’s
translation, and it is more or less the same as all others of which I am aware.
The problem is, however, that except for obseruatum est the main verbs are in
the present tense, and the verbs in the subordinate clauses are either perfect subjunctive following cum iterativum or present. Ammianus does sometimes use the historic present main verb,
but if it was talking about events in the past, he would at least have put quod
contingit assidue, ‘which constantly happens’ in the perfect (and even though
the perfect contigit would be an easy emendation we know that he did write
contingit, since the perfect would require a different word order, assídue
cóntigit, to make the prose rhythm work). It seems that Ammianus is talking
about a permanent change in Roman strategy towards the Isaurians in response to
their experience in 353, nearly forty years before:
Accordingly, it has been the practice since that time to show circumspection and care; whenever the raiders start making for the highest uplands, the soldiers give up in the face of the unequal terrain. But whenever the Isaurians happen to be caught on the plain – which constantly happens – they are given no chance to thrust out their strong arms or to hurl the two or three javelins each of them carries, and they are slaughtered like helpless cattle.
2. Warding off the Isaurians near Laranda
Somewhat later, after
a setback against the legions wintering at Sidē, the Isaurians arrive by a back
route near Laranda, modern Karaman (we can tell from the prose rhythm that
Ammianus pronounced it Láranda, following the Greek accentuation). There they
attack some wealthy villages but are beaten off. Again I give Rolfe’s
translation and the Latin text (14.2.12):
There they were refreshed with food and rest, and after their fear had left them, they attacked some rich villages; but since they were aided by some cohorts of cavalry, which chanced to come up, the enemy withdrew without attempting any resistance on the level plain; but as they retreated, they summoned all the flower of their youth that had been left at home.
Ibi uictu recreati et quiete,| postquam abierat timor,| uicos opulentos adorti| equestrium adiumento cohortium, | quae casu propinquabant, | nec resistere planitie porrecta conati| digressi sunt, | retroque cedentes| omne iuuentutis robur relictum in sedibus acciuereunt.|
Rolfe’s translation
accurately captures what the passage must mean, but does not escape from the
awkwardness (‘they were aided’ must in context mean ‘the villages’, as the
equestrian cohorts are assuredly Roman troops). If we look at Ammianus’ other
uses of adiumento, ‘with the help of’, followed by a genitive, it is quite clear
that we need reference to the action in which they helped and probably also the
actors whom they helped. It seems an inescapable conclusion that a few words
have been lost after adorti. As a minimum, one might suggest et aegre repulsi (‘and were with difficulty held off’), perhaps better et ab incolis aegre repulsi (‘and were with difficulty held off by the inhabitants’). Best of all might
be if repulsi were replaced by a participle ending in -ti so that we could
explain the loss of the words as an eye-skip, a scribe having jumped from
the ending of adorti from a similar ending a little later. I will be very
grateful for suggestions!
There they recovered their strength with food and sleep, and once their fear had left them, they attacked some opulent villages, but were with difficulty driven off, with help from some cavalry cohorts who happened to be nearby. And they made no attempt to resist on the broad plains, but withdrew, and, as they retreated, they called up all the strong young men who had been left at home.
3. Senior
officers with mixed loyalties (14.10.7-8)
But lo and behold, there arrived all of a sudden an informant with expertise in these regions, and after taking a payment he showed them a shallow place by night where the river could be forded. And with the enemy’s focus elsewhere, the army would have been able to cross here, not expected by anybody, and to create devastation everywhere, were it not that a few individuals from that nation, quibus erat honoratioris militis cura commissa, informed their countrymen of this attack through secret messengers – or so some thought. 8. At any rate, this suspicion blotted the reputation of Latinus the Count of the Domestici, Agilo the Tribune of the Stables, and Scudilo the commander of the Scutarii, who were respected at that time as if they carried the Republic in their own hands.