Review of Salzman and Roberts, Symmachus Letters Book 1

A review in Classical Review 65.1 (2015), which has just been pre-published online (copyright, The Classical Association). [UPDATE: the page numbers in the published version are 161-163]

SYMMACHUS, LETTERS 1

SALZMAN (M.R.), ROBERTS ( M.) (trans.) The Letters of Symmachus: Book 1. (Writings from the Greco-Roman World 30.) Pp. lxxii + 215. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Paper, US $34.95. ISBN: 978-1-58983-597-9. doi:10.1017/S0009840X14002406

Symmachus must be a strong contender for the most important Latin author of Antiquity to lack an English translation; the first complete translation in any modern language, J.-P. Callu’s Budé edition, was only completed in 2009. Since Symmachus’ prose is often challenging and allusive, it is a huge advance to have an English version of any of his œuvre (fragments of eight speeches, nine complete books and one fragmentary book of letters, and the Relationes he wrote to the emperors as prefect of Rome in 384–5; only the Relationes have been previously published in English, by R.H. Barrow [1973]). S.’s new work, with R. as co-translator, is therefore very welcome. The translation comes with S.’s lengthy introduction, introductory sections for each correspondent and letter, and detailed annotation covering dating, literary references, social nuance and prosopography: this material is frequently acute and always sedulously referenced but, as we shall see, not always accurate enough. The commentary is more detailed than Callu’s, but less so than that of the Italian commentaries on Symmachus’ letters (which do not yet include Book 1). The letters and the problems arising are made accessible to Latinless readers (it is perhaps unhelpful that the Relationes are called ‘State Papers’ and Horace’s Epistles ‘Letters’). However, a Latin text of each letter, based on Seeck and Callu, is included: this will be a convenience for scholarly readers. Though there is no apparatus, the more important variants are discussed in the notes.

The first book of letters is the most polished and interesting of Symmachus’ œuvre. Its 107 letters, mostly short, are organised by addressee. These are (1) the author’s father, Avianius Symmachus, prefect of Rome (=PVR) 364–365, who died as consul designate for 377; (2) the poet Ausonius, praetorian prefect (=PPo) 377–379, consul 379 (the book includes one letter each from Symmachus père and Ausonius); (3) Praetextatus, PVR 367–368, PPo 384, who died as consul designate for 385; (4) Petronius Probus, four times PPo between the 360s and 380s, consul 371; (5) Celsinus Titianus, the author’s brother, who died in office as Vicarius Africae, 380; (6) Hesperius, the son of Ausonius, PPo 377/8–380; (7) Antonius, PPo 376–378, consul 382; (8) Syagrius, PPo 380–381/2, consul 381. They are thus letters of the author’s youth (he was born in the first half of the 340s), all written before his urban prefecture, exclusively to family and high office holders. Some letters are literary (1.1–2, an exchange of verse compositions with his father; 1.14, praise of Ausonius’ poem on the river Mosel). Others have clear political agendas (1.13, praising the emperor Gratian’s first letter to the senate after his father’s death to its real author, Ausonius himself; 1.95, thanking Syagrius for the opportunity to read out news of imperial victories in the senate). Mostly, and especially in the second half of the book, he is studiously unrevealing: florid letters of recommendation and those simply keeping a correspondence going. The early date of the letters in Book 1, along with their disproportionately grand recipients, careful arrangement and conspicuous archaisms, led Callu in 1972 to conclude that Book 1 had been published by Symmachus in his lifetime. Two anepigraphic letters in Book 9, probably published long after Symmachus’ death, have been identified by S. Roda as addressed to Ausonius and Probus (9.88, included here, and 9.112, regrettably absent); Symmachus would have excluded them from Book 1 as inconsistent with his careful self-fashioning as his correspondents’ equal. S. supports and strengthens this consensus, also arguing that the structure of Books 1–7, of which the latter six were published posthumously by Symmachus’ son Memmius, was designed by Symmachus himself to reflect Varro’s Hebdomades.

The translation is generally very reliable and close to the Latin, with a particular sensitivity to the technical language of epistolary friendship (especially words like religio and frater, which do not have their usual meanings). Some minor corrigenda. At 1.1.3 l. 4, regum praetoria rexi is rendered ‘I ruled as the emperor’s praetorian’, which is too obscure even for verse: better to write ‘the emperors’ [pl.] praetorian prefect’. A line below, fastūs, pride, is translated as if it were fastos, calendar (actually, a reasonable emendation). At 9.88.3 word order should, I think, make amice an adverb. In 1.29 either the variant vigeret or Havet’s vegeret has been translated for the text’s vergeret. In 1.89.1, aptata has rightly been translated, but the text has aptatam.

A second impressive characteristic of this book lies in S.’s unfailingly insightful and illuminating portrayal of how these letters can serve as ‘windows into the social, political, and cultural landscape of the late fourth century’ (p. xvi). She makes real strides in nuancing Symmachus’ paganism, so often made the centrepiece of studies, and showing how far aristocratic culture tried to smooth over religious difference; she brings out details like Symmachus’ teasing of Praetextatus for preferring holidays to pontifical duties; she succeeds in making the superficially dull quite fascinating.

The book’s excellent qualities are marred, though not undermined, by a persistent flaw, that S. is not consistently accurate in dealing with the problems of chronology and prosopography. It must be acknowledged that no Symmachus scholar has ever been immune from error in these knotty and intractable areas; but too many errors have slipped through. For example, she reconstructs the fourth of Probus’ four prefectures, in Illyricum, Italy and Africa, as lasting from summer 383 to late 384 (p. 118), without noticing that she has allocated the same office to Praetextatus from May 384 until his death in December 384 (pp. 91–2; the death is ‘November or December’ on p. xxxv n. 113, but in fact, Cameron’s Last Pagans now confirms, as already argued by Cecconi, that Praetextatus probably died well before December). Other errors are contradicted by accurate statements of the facts elsewhere (suggesting that good editing should have caught them). For example, Gratian’s accession was 375 not 376 (p. 36; correct elsewhere). Ausonius was quaestor under Valentinian as well as Gratian (p. 36), so from 375 or earlier, but a start date of 376 is given at p. 164 and assumed in the dating of, for example, 1.28 (on a related note, Ep. 9.88, from the 360s, cannot possibly refer to his quaestorship, p. 37 n. 11). Symmachus Or. 5 was delivered not on 5 January 376 (p. xxx) but 9 January (correct elsewhere, including the footnote on the same page). Symmachus père was nominated consul for 377 but died before 1 January (correct on p. 1, contra p. 34 n. 1; but the inscription attesting gold statues of him is posthumous, from 377 not 376, p. xix). Symmachus’ brother Titianus died not in 381 (p. lii) but 380 (correct on p. xxxi and elsewhere). By S.’s reconstruction Syagrius was consul in 381, but for Ep. 1.102 he is suddenly only consul designate in that year (correct for the previous and following letters). The claim that in 394 Symmachus’ children ‘were married to the Nicomachi Flaviani’ (p. xli) is false: his daughter had wed the younger Flavianus but his son, a child in 394, did not marry into the family till 401 (rightly on p. xliv). Further prosopographical errors are more tangential. Olybrius (Probus’ father-in-law) is to be distinguished from his grandson of the same name (p. li n. 189). The Valentinus who was the dedicatee of the Codex Calendar of 354 would have been too old to be one of Symmachus' brothers (p. xx n.39). Further confusions involve the sequence of events in the coup that toppled Gratian in 383 (pp. 36, 146) and Jerome’s departure from Rome (p. lvii n. 212).

The pity of these and other slips is that S. makes numerous effective prosopographical points, and often improves on Callu in the dating of individual letters. However, perhaps because she has not got as deeply involved in these issues as she should, she has missed some open goals for dating various individual letters more precisely. Given the high quality of the translation, and the compelling picture of Symmachus and his social world, it would be excellent to have a second, improved edition; even without it, this is a valuable work.

Eduard Norden on Rutilius Namatianus

From E. Norden, Die römische Literatur, mit Anhang: Die lateinische Literatur im Übergang vom Altertum zum Mittelalter (sixth edition, 1961), 113-114.

In the year 408 the emperor Honorius permitted the execution of his First Minister and General, Stilicho, to whom he owed everything. Then the Visigoths, who no longer needed to tremble before this great military leader, broke into Italy and plundered Rome (410). The threatened catastrophe was deferred by Alaric’s death. Honorius gave Alaric’s successor Athaulf southern Gaul and northern Spain as a prize in order to save Italy. The Goths retreated pillaging to the land that had been delivered to them. The successor of Athaulf (died 415), Wallia, became the real founder of the Gothic state, based around Toulouse and in Spain, and joined in a loose federal relationship with the Roman empire. During these events there lived in Rome an aristocrat, Rutilius Namatianus, who deserves to be made known to a wider audience. He was from southern Gaul, but lived in Rome, where he held the highest offices of state; whether he was of the old belief or a Christian cannot be said with certainty, but his sentiments were notably patriotic. In autumn 416 he left Rome to look after his Gallic possessions, which were endangered by the aforementioned plundering of the Goths. When he had returned home, he described his journey in a long poem in elegiac metre. The fact that it has only survived incomplete must be considered a great loss, as it is an extremely important piece of writing in terms of cultural history, and also a notable achievement poetically. The language and metre are of a purity which even his contemporary Claudian did not reach, to say nothing of the Gallic poets of that time. Apart from the poet’s decided aptitude for portraying landscape and people vividly, what attracts us is his amiable, strongly personal manner. He lives and moves in the mighty memories of Rome. In his beautiful song in praise of the city, with which he opens his poem, he has the skill to enrich the rhetorical schema lyrically through personal touches, and thus transfers the warmth of his feeling to the reader; he promises the Regina mundi eternal life, even though she has been desecrated by the Goths. He shortens the wait at Ostia, from where he wanted to begin his northwards coastal journey, by gazing towards the distant city: Odysseus had yearned to recognize his home from rising smoke; he recognizes Rome from the brightness that hangs over the seven hills, since in Rome the sun had shined on him and there the day was clearer than elsewhere; with eyes not dry he bids farewell. The romantic tones of the modern traveller to Rome are heard in his verses, a brightness mixed with melancholy which contrasts refreshingly with the delusive belief with which the medieval pilgrim shyly wandered through the holy places following by a fantasy guide to Rome, the so-called book of mirabilia. Of high religious-historical interest are the attacks on Jews and monks, with whom he came into contact on his journey. The Jewish leaseholder of a villa (on the coast opposite Elba) where they had had to land, raised a huge complaint for the downtrodden grass in the park and begrudged them drinking water; so they then bombard him with curses; it is one of the most unrestrained expressions of anti-Semitism in antiquity since Juvenal, whom Roman aristocrats greatly enjoyed reading. The journey past a monastery (on a little island between Corsica and Elba) gives the poet occasion for an invective against the monks, the men who fled the light, who found joy in filth and misanthropy; that Christians too could thus abuse monasticism is elsewhere attest. There follows besides a second assault full of bitterness when he sails past another monastery. Through such passages the poet is able to draw in the reader and to raise his poem above the coincidental and personal. Earnest and full of feeling, this last poem stands on the grave of ancient culture.

Rutilius' Return 3: at Portus (1.165-204)

His hymn in praise of Rome ended, and still in tears, Rutilius leaves for Portus. His friend Rufius (Antonius Agrypnius) Volusianus accompanies him longer than any other before himself returning to Rome. Once at Portus, he waits for the weather to calm, while looking back at the serene skies above the eternal city.

The basin of Trajan's harbour at Portus, over half a kilometre wide.

After these words, we begin our journey. Friends accompany us. Eyes without tears cannot say “farewell.” And now, as the others go back to Rome, Rufius sticks to me as I leave, the living glory of Albinus his father. He derives his name from the ancient line of Volusus, and recalls the Rutulian kings, as witnessed by Vergil. To his eloquent tongue the palace was entrusted: in the flush of youth he had the honour of speaking in the emperor’s name. Previously as a lad he had ruled the Punic people as proconsul: he was an object equally of fear and of love to the Tyrians. Energy and dedication have promised him the highest rods of office: if it is right to trust in merit, he will be consul. At last I sadly compelled him unwillingly to walk back: divided in body, one mind still holds us. [1.178]

Then at last I stroll to the ships, where with two-horned brow divided Tiber cuts to the right. The channel on the left is avoided for its inaccessible sands: only the glory of receiving Aeneas remains. And now Phoebus had lengthened the span of the nighttime hours in the paler sky of the Scorpion’s Claws. We hesitate to try the salt sea and sit in port, and there is no shame enduring leisure when delays are thrust on us, while the westering Pleiades rage on the faithless gulf and while the anger of the gusty season falls. It gives pleasure to look back often at the nearby city and follow its mountains with diminishing sight, where our guiding eyes enjoy the pleasing region, while they think that they can see what they desire. And it’s not from telltale smoke that I recognize the place that holds the ruling citadel and the capital of the world – although Homer commends the signs of light smoke, whenever it rises to the stars from the beloved earth – but a brighter tract of sky and a serene zone signals the bright peaks of the seven hills. There are perpetual suns, and the very day that Rome makes for itself seems to be clearer. Often my astonished ears resound with the circus games; enthusiastic applause announces dull theatres. Familiar voices return from the resounding air – either because they come or because invented by love. [1.204]

Rutilius' Return 2: The Hymn To Rome

In the most famous passage of his poem, Rutilius tearfully bids farewell to Rome. He begins by addressing Roma as a goddess and worldwide power (1.47-66); he moves on to describe her ancestry and to contrast her to other empire (1.67-92); her buildings, waters, and climate are praised (1.93-114). Then he urges her to return to her former glories, here referring to the Gothic sack of the city seven years earlier: Rome, unlike other empires, is reborn because she can grow from suffering (1.115-140). He prays for the pacified world to send tributes to Rome (1.141-154), and for her to grant him, her former Prefect, a safe journey over the sea.

The Hymn has much in common with earlier literature: it fits the traditional patterns of a epibaterios logos, a speech of farewell; it is likely that Rutilius knew Aelius Aristides' second-century panegyric of Rome; it is certain that he took much from Claudian's work, especially Book 3 of De consulatu Stilichonis (written seventeen years before Rutilius' journey, in AD 400); and the Hymn is framed in the language of Ovid's exile poetry. But the combination of these elements is distinct and deeply moving.

In my next post, I'll discuss some of my choices about the Latin text translated here. For the first part, see here.

We fix abundant kisses on the gates that must be left behind; unwillingly our feet pass the holy threshold. With tears we beg forgiveness, and we make an offering with praise, as far as weeping allows our words to run: [1.43-46]

“Hear, fairest queen of your world, Rome taken up among the starry skies. Hear, mother of men and mother of gods: we are not far from heaven through your temples. You we sing and will always sing, while the fates allow: nobody can be safe and forgetful of you. Wicked oblivion will sooner blot out the sun than the honour due to you retreat from our heart: for you offer gifts the equal of the sun’s rays, wherever the encircling Ocean surges. For you Phoebus himself travels his course - Phoebus who contains everything – and in your lands he sends down his horses, risen from your lands. Africa did not slow you with her flame-wielding sands, the Bear armed with her ice did not repel you. As far as lifebringing nature has stretched towards the poles, so far is the earth open to your courage. You have made from many nations one fatherland: under your rule it has benefited the lawless to be captured. And while you offer the conquest a share in your own laws, you have made a city what was previously a world. [1.66]

As begetters of our race we acknowledge Venus and Mars, the mother of the sons of Aeneas and the father of the sons of Romulus. Victorious clemency softens armed strength: both names are appropriate for your character. Hence your equal pleasure in combat and in mercy, which overcomes those it feared, which loves those it overcame. She who discovered the olive-tree is worshipped, and he who invented wine, and the lad who first pressed ploughs to the earth. Medicine has won altars through Paeon’s skill, Alcides is held a god for his nobility. You too have embraced the world in lawbringing triumphs make all things live by a shared treaty. You, goddess, you every corner of the Roman world honours, and wears a peace-bearing yoke on free necks. All the stars which maintain their everlasting orbits have seen no fairer empire. What like this did it befall Assyrian arms to knit together? The Medes utterly overwhelmed their neighbours. The great kings of the Parthians and the Macedonians’ tyrants imposed laws on each other through various reversals. And for you at your birth there were not more souls or hands, but there was more counsel and judgment. Noble in the lawful causes of your wars and in peace without haughtiness, your glory reached the highest riches. What you rule is less than what you deserve to rule. You surpass your mighty destiny with your deeds. [1.92]

It is a task to number the monuments lofty with abundant trophies, as if one wished to count out the stars, and glittering shrines confuse the wandering gaze: I would have believed that the gods dwelt in such a way. Should I mention the streams hanging from an arch through the air, where scarcely Iris would left her rainbearing waters? These you would rather say were mountains which had grown up to the stars: Greece would praise such a work as that of the giants. Captured rivers are buried within your walls; lofty bathhouses consume whole lakes. And equally, the space within your walls is full and damp with its own springs and all resounds with native fountains. Hence a fresh exhalation tempers the summer air, and a clean flow quenches harmless thirst. Indeed for you a sudden torrent of hot waters broke the path of the Tarpeian when the enemy pressed. If it were still flowing, I might perhaps think it chance: a river which was going return under the earth flowed to bring aid. Should I mention the woods enclosed within ceilings, for the home-bred bird to play with varying song? The year never ceases to be soothed by your spring, and vanquished winter keeps safe your delights. [1.114]

Raise up the laurels in your hair, Rome, and reshape the old age of your hallowed head into verdant locks. Let golden diadems gleam on your tower-bearing helm and let the golden shieldboss pour forth perpetual flames. May the destruction of injustice conceal your sad fall; may contempt for pain close and knit your wounds. From your adversities it is customary to hope for fortunate things; you undergo enriching losses in the fashion of the heavens. The stars’ fires rise anew from their setting; you see the moon ended so that it can begin. Victorious Brennus’ punishment was not hindered by the Allia. The Samnite paid with slavery for his savage treaty. After many disasters, beaten, you put Pyrrhus to flight. Hannibal himself bewailed his successes. Things that cannot be sunk rise again with great force, and leap out higher when driven in to the deepest waves; and as a downturned torch takes up new strength, you seek the heights more brightly from your lowly fortune. Stretch forth your laws that will endure to Roman centuries, and you alone should not fear the distaffs of the fates, although with sixteen decades and a thousand years gone your ninth year beyond that is passing. The times that are left you are restricted by no limits, while the lands shall stand and the sky hold up the stars. What undoes other kingdoms restores you: the law of rebirth is to be able to grow from evils. [1.140

So come, may a victim, of the sacrilegious race, fall at last: may the trembling Goths bow down their treacherous neck. May pacified lands give rich tributes; may barbarian booty fill your august lap. Eternally may the Rhine plough for you, may the Nile flood for you, and may the fertile world nourish its nurse. Yes, and may Africa convey fertile harvests on you, rich in her own soil, but more so in your rains. And meanwhile may barns of grain rise high from Latian furrows, and fat presses flow with Hesperian nectar. May Tiber himself, wreathed with triumphal reeds, fit his servant waters to the uses of Romulus’ city, and from peaceful banks may wealthy trade be brought you, downriver from the country, upriver from the sea. [1.154]

Open, I pray the main calmed by Castor the twin; let Cythera’s goddess temper soften the road over the waters, if I did not displease you, when I administered the laws of Quirinus, if I cherished and consulted the holy fathers (for the fact that no criminal charges unsheathed my steel is not the prefect’s glory, but the people’s). Whether it be granted to end my life in my ancestral lands, or whether you will someday be restored to my eyes, I shall live fortunate and more blessed than anything I could pray for, if you would deign always to remember me.” [1.164]

Rutilius' Return 1: Book 1.1-42

Rutilius introduces his journey. The proem, lines 1-36, is divided equally, as the poet himself is, between his two homes, Rome and Gaul. Nothing could be more fortunate than to be a senator of Rome (1-18) -- but Gaul calls him back, because it has suffered from long wars, and he should be on the spot to rebuild (19-36). [These wars are usually defined as the barbarian invasions of 406 and onwards, and sometimes mysterious domestic dissidents, the Bagaudae, are added -- but in fact there had also been straightforward civil wars for much of the period]. Then a self-contained passage of six lines (37-42) explains why he made the journey by sea instead of land: here the Goths are explicitly mentioned -- who had been an independent presence in Italy from 408 to 412.

RUTILIUS CLAUDIUS NAMATIANUS ON HIS RETURN

You’ll marvel rather, reader, that my swift Return can so quickly do without the blessings of Romulus. What is long for those who venerate Rome for all time? Nothing is ever long that gives pleasure without end. How much and how often do I count those people blessed who have won the prize of being born on your fortunate soil! who, high-born offspring of noble Romans, heap on to their inborn glory the honour of the city! The seeds of virtues could not in other places more worthily be received from and passed to heaven. Fortunate also are those who, having won rewards close to the first, have obtained Latian homes! The venerable Senate is open to foreign merit and does not think strangers those who deserve to be hers. They enjoy the authority of the order and of their colleagues, and have a part in the Genius which they revere, just as through the heavenly poles of the world’s top, we believe there exists the council of the highest god. [18]

But my fortune is torn from these beloved shores, and the fields of Gaul summon their native—too disfigured indeed from long wars, but as less pleasant, so more to be pitied. The charge of ignoring your fellow citizens is less serious when they are untroubled: public losses demand private commitment. We owe tears in person to our ancestral roofs: toil brought on by distress often helps. It is not right any longer to ignore the long ruins, which the delay and suspension of help has multiplied. Now’s the time, on farms ravaged after cruel fires, to build even shepherd’s huts. No indeed, if the very springs could utter speech, and if our arbours could speak, they could press me on as I tarry and add sails to my longings. Now at last, with the embraces of the beloved city loosening, I am conquered and, scarcely, endure my belated journey. [36]

The sea has been chosen, since the paths of the land are soaked by rivers on the plains, and on the mountains are stiff with crags. After the Tuscan fields, after the Aurelian causeway suffered Gothic troops with fire and sword, and do not restrain the woods with lodgings or the rivers with bridges, better to entrust sails to the uncertain sea. [42]

Symmachus declines an invitation from Ausonius (Ep. 1.20)

In 378, Ausonius, already joint praetorian prefect of the whole western empire except Illyricum, was appointed consul for the following year by his former pupil, the emperor Gratian. He invited his old friend Symmachus to come and celebrate his inauguration. Symmachus was in Italy, Ausonius was in Trier, the capital of the prefecture of Gaul. It is unsurprising that Symmachus avoided a month’s journey to Germany in midwinter. He may also have calculated that an invitation to Trier was not as attractive as it might have been had the emperor still been there; but Gratian was in the Balkans, dealing with the crisis after the eastern emperor Valens’ defeat and death at the hands of the Goths.

The letter opens with an unmistakable allusion to Pliny the Younger’s thanksgiving for his consulship (Panegyric 1.1), no doubt hinting at the speech of thanks which Ausonius would make (in fact he wrote his Gratiarum actio not for 1 January, but later in 379). The panegyrical mode can also be found in section 2, where we see comparisons of other teachers of great men (the first, unnamed pair being Aristotle and Alexander).

Well and wisely our forefathers (as in other things of that age) placed temples to Honour and Virtue together with twin façade, thinking, just as we have seen with you, that where the prizes of Honour are, there too are the rewards of Virtue. But nearby, in fact devotion to the Latin Muses is turned towards a holy spring, because the journey to winning magistracies is often advanced by literature. These institutions of our forefathers are the story of your consulship; the seriousness of your morals and the antiquity of your teaching have borne you the dignity of a curule chair. 2. Many hereafter will strive for the fine arts as the seeds of praise and the mothers of honours, but to whom will befall a pupil so fortunate or so ready to remember his debt? Or are we unaware that that great man, for whom fortune flowed beyond his prayers, bestowed nothing on his master, the man of Stagira? Doesn’t the fact that Ennius got only a cloak from the Aetolian booty dishonour Fulvius? And indeed neither was the price of his liberal teachings repaid to Panaetius by the second of the Africani, nor to Opillus by Rutilius, or to Cineas by Pyrrhus, or to his Metrodorus by Mithradates of Pontus. But now, a most educated emperor, and generous with riches and honours, as though he has conveyed the first things on you as interest payments, goes beyond that to the capital of the loan.§

3. In this great happiness of mine, what words can I offer for the fact I cannot come? I fear that, interpreting my excuses wrongly, you will fail to believe how much I congratulate you. I wanted to come before your eyes in an instant, but, at the end of my strength, which sickness has long drained, I decided to avoid lengthy travels and uncomfortable lodgings, as well as the arrival of the cold weather and the shortening of the days, and all the other things which are opportune for importuning. If you have a regard for me in your heart, I beg you to be fair to me and to accept my excuse which I put forward.* May luck befall that I obtain my old position of favour; now, what is enough, let me avoid giving offense. Farewell.

§I am not sure I have fully understood the financial metaphor here.

*has adlegationes boni consulas, an untranslatable play on Ausonius’ status as consul.

Three more letters of Symmachus to Ausonius

Two letters of recommendation and a thank you letter for a favour. This is the bread and butter of Symmachus' correspondence. Ausonius is at the peak of his power, Praetorian Prefect and either consul or consul elect.

Ep. 1.19

People who have been deserted by their self-confidence accept my letters to use their recommendations. It’s different in this case. I have given my letter to my brother Potitus on condition that he recommends it to you. He is, you see, no differently from me, among the highest of your friends. When he has brought you to share his presence, I fear that you will think my evasion not pardonable. But if through my experience I have properly become acquainted with your toleration towards me, I think it will turn out that you won’t attack me, who has stayed behind, in comparison with the other person who has come, but that you will welcome him all the more for the sake of us both. Farewell.

The letter is assumed to have been written at the end of 378 to excuse Symmachus for not coming to Trier for Ausonius' inauguration as consul on 1 January 379. Potitus was appointed Vicar of Rome later in 379.

Ep. 1.21

I rejoice that I’m worth more to you than the rest, when you are so energetic that on your own initiative you take care of my problem and don’t await entreaties, but follow the mere rumour of my wishes. I have received the four passports which will be incredibly convenient for my goings and comings. May the gods reward you for such kindness, and, since nothing can be added to blessings which are perfected and raised in a heap, may they keep safe with you and in your possession what they gave you. Farewell.

This letter is assumed to be from 379, when Ausonius holds both the senior consulate and the Praetorian Prefecture; he has sent Symmachus passes for use on the cursus publicus.

Ep. 1.26

I am making use with you of the confidence which you have given me. You have long been sparing of letters, but I shall not imitate your example, since I know that, for a man who’s placed at the pinnacle of honours and who therefore looks after varied and mighty concerns, it is not so much enthusiasm that is lacking as opportunity. It’s of course the way of the world that we consider things neglected despite all efforts as pardonable. But I, sure as always of your love, will not abstain from my customary sense of obligation, and will count it as the highest favour and honour, if profit in some form could fall to the good friend who will give you this letter, in proportion to his considerable attentions towards us. Farewell.

From around the same date, though it could be earlier on in Ausonius' period of power from 376-9.

Symmachus' speech for Trygetius

Symmachus’ speeches were rediscovered in the early nineteenth century by Cardinal Angelo Mai. The manuscript is a fragmentary palimpsest from Bobbio, the same codex as gave us what we possess of Cicero’s De Re Publica and the letters of Fronto. None of Symmachus’ speeches survive complete.

This speech, we know from Ep. 1.44, was delivered on 9 January 376, just over a week after the events described in Ep. 1.13. The context is the same: the immediate aftermath of the accession of Gratian and a change of attitude towards the senate, and of his father’s return from temporary exile. The speech was to support the designation of the young son of his colleague Trygetius as praetor in ten years’ time. The praetorship was the office which in this period launched a senatorial career, in the holder’s late teens: it’s suggested that the games a praetor had to put on were so expensive that time that the family needed time to prepare. Symmachus appears to have hijacked this speech in order to thank the senate for his father’s recall, and to praise the young emperor in terms reminiscent of Pliny on Trajan. He later sent copies to many leading senators.

I am not aware of any previous translation into English. There is a German version by Angela Papst; and the speeches were translated in the fifth and final volume of Callu's Budé of Symmachus, published about a month ago. Symmachus' precise meaning is often hard to gauge. Any corrections gratefully received!

‘… from longing for (?) you [the senate] when we are away, from witnessing you, when we come. Nor do we fear Envy. She has felt and experienced how she benefited from hostility to my father. Now, he had of his own accord yielded to the convenience of a few though his modesty, and free of cares was cultivating his mind with literature in order to return to you a finer man. But this the most excellent order did not long tolerate: at once you besought him, as if from far away, that he should agree to return – you told him, I’d rather say, for the senate, when it asks, gives rather firm instructions. 2. This seemed too little for those who asked it. Especially noble men are sent to him as ambassadors, to convey and announce the public will. How great is this procession of your longing, which wanted its benefaction almost to seem like canvassing. I believe it was your will, that he should be called in some way by fetiales: only the rods and scared herbs were lacking. What you ask, conscript fathers, is sure to be followed and cannot be refused, but he was summoned as if he could have said no.

3. To you too, revered emperor, the highest of this praise should be offered: the man keeps a republic free, under whom something enviable is in the senate’s grant. This is why you are great, this is why you are outstanding, because you prefer to be first than to be alone. Whatever good men obtain, benefits your age. Many once dragged… [lacuna]… sighs, and, as though being loved were permitted only to emperors, trod down the merits of private citizens. But to me he seems truly the father of the fatherland, under whom the best man is not afraid to be praised. That too is the freedom from care of your time, that nobody thinks himself less in the prince’s eyes if the emperor prefers a second person to him. For what room is there for envy, since all are loved by you in their rightful place?

4. But that’s already more than enough about us! Let us give some effort, some time to Trygetius, a man who is a faultless senator, who desires that I should pray and prevail upon you, that the tenth year from now should be designated for his son to fill the duties of Praetor. If his willingness is to be examined, you ought to approve a senator who is generous; if his resources, you can impose nothing more. 5. It is fitting that I too be considered in this business, who am accustomed to offer thanks, who do not allow good deeds to be ignored. It’s right that favours are lent for the second time, when the first have been strong. Bind this man with a new debt, and me with a double…’

A letter to Ausonius (Symmachus Ep. 1.13)

Soon after 1 January 376, Q. Aurelius Symmachus wrote from Rome to Ausonius, who was serving as Quaestor to Gratian, now the senior emperor in the west. Perhaps, as with Festus, this has actually been published in English translation before, but if so I don't remember seeing it anywhere in complete form.

Symmachus to Ausonius

Joyfulness is accustomed to be eloquent and, spurning the narrows of a closed heart, to exult: as for you, my friend, good fortune has made you forget to write. This could not be a point for me to imitate, whom our Lord Gratian’s heavenly speech has filled with good hope and joyfulness. So I have not refrained for my own part from addressing a sluggard, because it’s my duty to do so, or my joy: our friendship suggested one of these options, public felicity the other. 2. If you can spare the time, please cast your mind back just a bit for my purposes.

Janus was opening the first Kalends of the year. We had come, a packed senate, into the curia that morning, before clear day could undo the dark of night. By chance a rumour had been brought, that the words of a longed-for prince had arrived far into the night. And it was true, for a courier stood there exhausted from his sleepless nights. We rush together when the sky was not yet white: with the lamps lit, the destinies of the new age are recited. Need I say more? We welcomed the light which we were still awaiting. 3. ‘Tell me’ you say – for this is important to hear – ‘what did the Fathers feel about that speech.’ May Nature herself answer with those wishes with which longed-for piety is heard. We know to embrace our blessings. If you can believe it, I even now suffer a certain indigestion of that joy of mine. Good Nerva, toiling Trajan, guiltless Pius, Marcus abounding in responsibility were helped by the times, which then did not know other morals: it is the nature of the prince that is a matter of praise now, then it was the blessing of olden times. Why, with order reversed, should we think these examples of outstanding traits and those remnants of an earlier age? 4. May Fortune preserve her blessing, and desire at least to save for the Roman name this beloved! Let the public joy be bitten by no witchcraft! You have heard everything – but only the very first tiny effusions from my lips. The glories of our curia will talk more fully with you. Then, when you find more written to you, think how much more eloquent are the thoughts of one man’s mind than all our effusions of applause. Farewell.

Symmachus Ausonio

Solet facundia esse laetitia et angustias clausi pectoris aspernata gestire; tibi, amice, scribendi officium oblivionem peperit res secunda. id mihi imitationi esse non potuit, quem domini nostri Gratiani caelestis oratio bonae spei et hilaritatis implevit. Ultro igitur adloqui residem non peperci vel officii vel gaudii mei gratia, quorum alterum familiaritas nostra, alterum felicitas publica suggerebat. 2. nunc si operae est, utendum mihi tantisper animum fac remittas. primores Kalendas Ianus anni aperibat. frequens senatus mature in curiam veneramus, priusquam manifestus dies creperum noctis absolveret. forte rumor adlatus est sermonem desiderati principis multa nocte venisse. et erat verum; nam tabellarius vigiliarum fessus adstabat. nondum caelo albente concurritur; luminibus accensis novi saeculi fata recitantur. quid multa? lucem, quam adhuc opperiebamur, accepimus. 3. dic mihi, inquies - nam id praestat audire - quid nostri patres super ea oratione senserunt? rerum tibi natura respondeat quibus suffragiis exoptata pietas audiatur. novimus bona nostra complecti. si credis, etiamnum illius gaudii mei quandam patior cruditatem. bonus Nerva, Traianus strenuus, Pius innocens, Marcus plenus officii temporibus adiuti sunt, quae tunc mores alios nesciebant: hic in laude est natura principis, ibi priscae munus aetatis. cur verso ordine ista optimarum artium putemus exempla et illa de saeculo priore vestigia? 4. beneficium suum fortuna tutetur et has saltem Romano nomini velit servare delicias! nullo fascino felicitas publica mordeatur! audisti omnia, de summo tenus ore libata; monumenta curiae nostrae plenius tecum loquentur. ubi cum plura scripta reppereris, aestima quanto uberiora unius mens optaverit, quam plausus effuderit. vale.

The Breviarium of Festus

The first post should doubtless be short. 6000 words, short? In its way. Festus' Breviarium, dedicated to the emperor Valens in 370, has not previously been translated into English, as far as I know. I shall hope to follow it up with comments on individual points. The text translated is Arnaud-Lindet's Bude, for the most part. 

Disclaimer: this is a tentative translation, undertaken at speed and intended as a guide to the content of the breviary. I have aimed to be literal not elegant. For example, I have adopted the late Roman usage of referring to countries which the Romans divided up into provinces in the plural (the Spains, the Mauritanias). Festus’ brevity led him to make some embarrassing mistakes, but not all the mistakes are his by any means. I have not had time to think carefully about all the textual problems. The existing editions do not offer a very translatable text, and it would be misleading to offer something smoother. Addendum 2 May 2021: I have altered the translation of the first sentence, as I have long accepted M.D. Reeve's demonstration that the authentic opening words are De breviario rerum gestarum populi Romani, which have wrongly been taken as part of the title. I also removed the gloss 'Constantinople' at 9.4, found only in part of the manuscript tradition. For my subsequent article on Festus, see here. 

1.1. That a briefing be prepared from the Breviarium of the deeds of the Roman people was Your Clemency's advice; I shall gladly obey the advice, as one who lacks the capacity to elaborate expansively; and following the practice of accountants, who express huge sums with abbreviated figures, I shall outline and not elaborate history. 2. So receive a work such as is totted up more briefly than words briefly spoken: so that you seem, glorious prince, not so much to read of the years and age [n.1] of the republic and the deeds of past time, as to count them. 

2.1. From the foundation of the city, then, up to the rise of Your Perpetuities, by which the rule of brothers became Rome’s lot with happier outcome, there are counted 1117 years. So under the kings are counted 243 years, under the consuls 467 years, under the emperors 407 years. 2. There reigned at Rome for 243 years kings seven in number. Romulus reigned 37 years, the senators, five days each, for one year, Numa Pompilius reigned 43 years; Tullus Hostilius reigned 32 years, Ancus Martius reigned 24 years; Priscus Tarquinius reigned 38 years; Servius Tullius reigned 44 years; Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was driven from the kingship in the 24th year. 3. The consuls from Brutus and Publicola down to Pansa and Hirtius were 916 [or 917?] in number, except those who by some chance were substitutes for the same year, over 467 years. For in nine year there were not consuls at Rome; in two years under the decemvirs, in three years under the military tribunes, and Rome was without magistrates for four years. 4. The emperors from Octavian Caesar Augustus down to Jovian were 43 in number over 407 years. 

3.1. To what extent Rome advanced under these three types of empire (that is, royal, consular, imperial) I shall briefly make known. Under the seven kings over 243 years, the Roman Empire did not advance further than Portus and Ostia, within the eighteenth milestone from the gates of the city of Rome, still small as she was and founded by shepherds, while neighbouring cities pressed around. 2. Under the consuls, among whom there were also occasionally dictators, over a total period of 467 years Italy up to beyond the Po was occupied, Africa was subdued, the Spains were added, the Gauls and Britains were made tributary. Out of Illyricum, the Histrians, Libyrnians and Dalmatians were tamed; the crossing to Achaea was made; the Macedonians were subdued; war was waged on the Dardanians, Moesians and Thracians, and as far as the Danube was attained. 3. In Asia the Romans first set their feet when Antiochus was expelled, when Mithridates was vanquished Pontus, his kingdom, was occupied; lesser Armenia, which the same man had held, was taken with arms; a Roman army reached into Mesopotamia; a treaty was entered with the Parthians; war was made on the Carduenians and Saracens and Arabs; all Judaea was vanquished; Cilicia, the Syrias came into the power of the Roman people; the kings of Egypt had been made federates. 4. Under the emperors over 407 years, when many emperors ruled and the republic’s Fortune was variable, there were added to the Roman world the Maritime Alps, the Cottian Alps, the Rhaetias, Noricums, [n.2] Pannonias and Moesias and the whole shore of the Danube was turned into provinces. [n.3] All of Pontus, Armenia minor, the whole of Oriens with Mesopotamia, Assyria, Arabia and Egypt passed beneath the laws of the Roman Empire. 

4.1. And the order in which the Roman state acquired the individual provinces is shown below. Sicily was made the first of the provinces. It was obtained by Marcellus the consul, when Hiero king of the Sicilians was vanquished. It was then ruled by Praetors, afterwards was entrusted to praesides: now it’s governed by consulares. 2. Sardinia and Corsica Metellus conquered; he triumphed over the Sardinians – the Sardinians often restarted the war. The government of these provinces had been joined, afterwards they had their own praetors, now they’re individually ruled by praesides. 3. Roman arms moved across to Africa for the defence of the Sicilians. Three times Africa returned to war; at the last, when Carthage had been destroyed by Africanus Scipio, it was made a province, and now is under proconsuls. 4. Numidia used to be held by friendly kings, but against Jugurtha war was declared, because he’d killed Adherbal and Hiempsal, the sons of King Micipsa; and when he had been ground down by Metellus, and captured by Marius, Numidia came within the power of the Roman people. 5. The Mauritanias were obtained by Bocchus. But when all Africa had been subdued, King Juba ruled the Mauri, and having been conquered in the course of civil war by Augustus Caesar he chose by his own wish to kill himself. 6. So the Mauritanias began to be ours and throughout all Africa six provinces were made: Africa herself, where Carthage is, is proconsular, Numidia is consular, Byzacium is consular, Tripolis and the two Mauritanias (i.e. Sitifensis and Caesariensis) are under praesides. 

5.1. The Spaniards we first helped against the Africans through Scipio. We acquired the Lusitanians when they made war again in Spain, thanks to Decimus Brutus, and we reached as far as the sea of Ocean at Cadiz. Afterwards Sylla was sent against the restless Spaniards and defeated them. 2. The Celtiberians in Spain often restarted hostilities, but the younger Scipio was sent and they were subdued with the sack of Numantia. Almost all the Spains, as a result of the war with Sertorius, were taken under jurisdiction through Metellus and Pompeius. Afterwards, his command having been prorogued for five years, they were tamed by Pompeius. At the last, also the Cantabrians and Astures, who were relying on the mountains for resistance, were destroyed by Octavian Caesar Augustus. 3. And throughout all the Spains there are now six provinces: Tarraconensis, Carthaginensis, Lusitania, Gallaecia, Baetica; across the strait too there is a province of the Spains on African soil, which is called Tingitana Mauritania. Of these Baetica and Lusitania are consular, the rest are under praesides. 

6.1. With the Gauls the Roman people had the gravest wars. The Gauls even used to occupy that part of Italy, in which Milan is now, as far as the river Rubicon; they were confident in their strength to such an extent that they made for Rome herself in war; after the slaughter of Roman armies they entered the walls of the city; they besieged the Capitolium, to whose citadel six hundred most noble senators had fled; these ransomed themselves from the siege with a thousand pounds of gold. Afterwards as the Gauls returned in victory, Camillus, who was in exile, defeated them with a host he had raised in the countryside; he took back the gold and the statues which the Gauls had captured. 2. With the Gauls many consuls, praetors and dictators engaged with various results. Marius expelled the Gauls from Italy, and having surmounted the Alps he fought successfully against them. With ten legions, which had three thousand Italian soldiers each, Gaius Caesar over nine years subdued the Gauls from the Alps up to the Rhine, engaged with the barbarians across the Rhine, crossed into Britain, in the tenth year made the Gauls and the Britains tributary. 3. There are in Gaul, Aquitaine, and the Britains eighteen provinces: the Maritime Alps, the province of Vienne, Narbonensis, Novempopulana, the two Aquitaines, the Graian Alps, Maxima Sequanorum, two Germanies, two Belgiums, two Ludgunenses; in Britain, Maxima Caesariensis, Flavia Caesariensis, first Britain, second Britain. 

7.1. We attacked Illyricum gradually from the sea-coast. The consul Laevinus first entered the Adriatic and Ionian Sea and took the cities on the shore. Crete was made a province by the proconsul Metellus, who was called Creticus. 2. When the Greeks fled into our protection we reached Achaia. The Athenians sought our help against Philip, king of the Macedonians. Achaia was long free under our friendships; at the last, when the emissaries of the Romans had been violated at Corinth, through the proconsul Lucius Mummius Corinth was captured and all Achaia was taken. The Epirotes, who at one time had even presumed with King Pyrrhus to cross to Italy, were vanquished and the Thessalians, together with the regions of the Achivi and Macedonians joined us. 3. Macedonia three times took up arms again, under Philip, under Perses, under Pseudophilip. Flamininus defeated Philip, Paulus Perses, Metellus Pseudophilip, and by their triumphs Macedonia was annexed to the Roman people. 4. The Illyrians, who helped the Macedonians, we conquered on the same occasion through the praetor Lucius Anicius, and accepted their surrender together with Gentius their king. The proconsul Curio subdued the Dardanians and Moesiaci, and became the first Roman commander to reach as far as the Danube. 5. Under Julius Octavianus Caesar Augustus a path was made across the Julian Alps. When all the Alpine peoples were conquered, the provinces of the Noricums joined. When Batho king of the Pannonians had been subdued, the Pannonias came under our sway. When the Amantini had been laid low between the Savus and Dravus, the Savian region and the country of the Second Pannonians were taken. 

8.1. The Marcomanni and the Quadi were driven from the country of Valeria, between the Danube and the Dravus, and a boundary between the Romans and barbarians was set up, running from Augsburg through Noricum, the Pannonias and Moesia. 2. Trajan conquered the Dacians under King Decebalus and made Dacia across the Danube on the land of Barbaria a province, which had a circumference of ten thousand miles, but it was lost under the emperor Gallienus, and through Aurelian, the Romans were removed thence and two Dacias were created in the regions of Moesia and Dardania. 3. Illyricus [n.4] has 18 provinces: two of the Noricums, two of the Pannonias, Valeria, Savia, Dalmatia, Moesia, two of the Dacias, Dardania, and in the Macedonian diocese there are seven provinces: Macedonia, Thessaly, Achaia, two Epiruses, Praevalis, Crete. 

9.1. On the occasion of the Macedonian war, the crossing was made into the Thraces. The Thracians were the most savage of all races. In the regions of the Thracians the Scordisci also lived, equal in cruelty and cunning. Many things of a fabulous nature are said about the savagery of the aforementioned, that they sometimes appeased their gods with sacrifices of captives, that they were wont to drink human blood in skulls. Often through them the Roman army was cut down. 2. Marcus Didius stopped the wandering Tracians, Marcus Drusus kept them within their own borders, Minucius laid them waste in the ice of the river Hebrus. Through the proconsul Appius Claudius those who inhabited Rhodopa were vanquished. The Roman fleet previously took the coastal cities of Europe. 3. Marcus Lucullus was the first to enter into conflict with the Bessi in the Thraces. He conquered Thrace herself, the heartland of the race; he subdued the Haemimontani; Eumolpias (now called Philippopolis) and Uscumada (recently named Hadrianople) he reduced to our sway; he captured Cabyle; he occupied the cities situated on the Black Sea: Apollonia, Calathus, Parthenopolis, Tomi, Hister. Reaching as far as the Danube he showed Roman arms to the Scythians. 4. So for the republic’s jurisdiction six provinces of the Thraces were acquired: Thrace, Haemimontus, Moesia inferior, Scythia, Rhodopa, Europa. In Europa the second citadel of the Roman world is now established. 

10.1. Now I shall unfold the areas of the dawn, and the whole East and the provinces set beneath the neighbouring sun, and which begetters laid the way for your rule, so that the enthusiasm which your clemency has for increasing the same may be spurred on all the more. 2. Asia became known to the Romans through the alliance of King Attalus, and we possess it by hereditary right, left to us in Attalus’ will. But so that the Roman people should have nothing which was not achieved through might, it was defended by our arms from Antiochus, the great king of the Syrians. On the same occasion, Lydia too, ancient home of kingdoms, Caria, Hellespont and the Phrygias came within the power of the Roman people under joint jurisdiction. 3. With the Rhodians and peoples of the islands, at first most hostile, we contended; afterwards we found the same people most faithful helpers. So Rhodes and the islands first were free, afterwards arrived at the habit of obedience at the clement invitation of the Romans and under Vespasian the province of the Islands was created. 

11.1. Pamphylia, Lycia and Pisidia were taken by Servilius acting as proconsul in the war against the pirates. 2. Bithynia we obtained from the will of the deceased King Nicomedes. 3. Gallograecia, that is Galatia (indeed the Galatians come from the Gauls, as the name echoes), we invaded for having brought help to Antiochus against the Romans. Mummius acting as proconsul pursued the Galatians and as they fled partly on to Mount Olympus, partly on to Mount Magaba (now called Modiacus), he pushed them down from the heights on to the plains, and having defeated them brought them into a perpetual peace. Afterwards the tetrarch Deiotarus held Galatia with our consent. At the last, under Octavian Caesar Augustus Galatia was brought into the form of a province and Lollius first governed it as a pro-praetor. 4. The Cappadocians first sought our alliance under King Ariathes and afterwards Ariobarzanes king of the Cappadocians was expelled by Mithradates and restored with Roman arms. The Cappadocians were always among our helpers and so honoured Roman greatness that in honour of Augustus Caesar Mazaca, the greatest city of Cappadocia, was named Caesarea. Finally under the emperor Claudius Caesar, when Archaelaus king of the Cappadocians had come to Rome and after lengthy detention there died, Cappadocia moved to the form of a province. 5. Pontus took the condition of province through Pompeius, when the Pontic king, Mithridates, had been defeated. Paphlagonia was held by King Pylaemenes, a friend of the Roman people. Often driven from it, he was restored to kingship by us, and when he died the status of province was imposed on the Paphlagonians. 

12.1. How Roman possession spread beyond the ridges of Mount Taurus will be shown, keeping to the geographical rather than chronological order which follows. Antiochus, most powerful king of Syria, brought fearsome war on the Roman people. He had three hundred thousand armed men; he even drew up his column with scythed chariots and elephants; he was vanquished by the consul Scipio, brother of Scipio Africanus, in Asia at Magnesia, and when peace was agreed he was allowed to reign within Taurus. His sons kept the kingdom, under the clientship of the Roman people; and when they died we took power in the provinces of the Syrias. 2. The Cilicians and Isaurians, who had allied themselves with pirates and marine brigands, were subdued by Servilius who had been sent as proconsul for the war on brigands; he first established a road over Mount Taurus. And he triumphed over the Cilicians and Isaurians and was surnamed Isauricus. 

13.1. Cyprus, well-known for her wealth, attracted the Roman people in their poverty into occupying her. A federate king ruled her, but so great was the treasury’s penury and so mighty the rumours of Cypriot wealth that a law was passed and Cyprus ordered to be confiscated. When this news was reported the Cypriot king took poison, so he would lose his life before his riches. Cato transported the wealth of Cyprus to Rome in boats. So we obtained sway over that island more greedily than justly. 2. Cyrene with the other cities of Libya Pentapolis we received by the generosity of the elder Ptolemy. We acquired Libya from the final wishes of King Appion. 3. All Egypt had been governed by friendly kings, but when Cleopatra was vanquished along with Antonius, it took the form of a province, in the times of Octavian Caesar Augustus; and it was Cornelius Gallus who first governed as a Roman judge among the Alexandrians. 

14.1. It was through the area of the Armenias that Roman arms were first sent across the Taurus under Lucius Lucullus. The Phylarchs of the Saracens surrendered beaten in Osrhoene. In Mesopotamia, Nisibis was captured by the same Lucullus. 2. Afterwards, through Pompeius, the same places were taken by arms. The Syrias and Phoenice were captured in war from Tigranes, king of the Armenians. The Arabs and Jews were defeated in Palestine. 3. At the last, under the principate of Trajan the diadem was taken from the king of greater Armenia, and through Trajan Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria and Arabia were made provinces and the Eastern frontier was established beyond the bank of the Tigris. But Hadrian who succeeded Trajan, envious of Trajan’s glory, voluntarily returned Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria and desired the Euphrates to stand midway between the Persians and Romans. 4. But later under the two Antonines, Marcus and Verus, and Severus Pertinax and other Roman princes, who fought against the Parthians with various outcomes, Mesopotamia was four times lost, four times recovered, 5. and in the times of Diocletian, the Romans had been defeated in the first engagement, but in the second battle King Narseus was overcome, his wife and daughters captured and guarded with the utmost protection of their honour; when peace was made, Mesopotamia was restored and the frontier redrawn beyond the bank of the Tigris, so that we acquired sway over five peoples established beyond the Tigris. This treaty agreement was kept and endured up to the time of the late emperor Constantius. 

15.1. I know now, famous prince, where your attention is heading. You are asking, of course, how often the arms of Babylonia and the Romans have clashed, and with what changed of fortune the pilum and the arrow have been matched. I’ll briefly count out the results of the wars. You will find that, from their trickery, the enemy have rejoiced in a few cases, but you will approve the fact that by their true virtue the Romans have always ended up the winners. 2. It was first Lucius Sylla as proconsul, that Arsaces king of the Parthians sent an embassy which asked and obtained the friendships of the Roman people. Lucius Lucullus pursued Mithridates, stripped of the kingship of Pontus, to Armenia. The Armenian king, Tigranes, who had seven thousand clibanarii and one hundred and twenty thousand archers, was vanquished by Lucullus with eighteen thousand Romans. 3. He stormed Tigranocerta, the greatest city of Armenia. He took Madena, a wealthy region of Armenia; he descended via Melitene to Mesopotamia; he captured Nisibis alongwith the king’s brother. When he was ready to march on the Persians, his successor replaced him. 

16.1. Gnaeus Pompeius, known for good fortune, was sent to the Mithridatic war, and, attacking Mithridates in lesser Armenia in a night battle, defeated him, and, with two and forty thousand of the enemy slain, he took his camp. Mithridates fled with his wife and two companions to the Bosphorus: there despairing of his situation he drank poison and when the strength of the poison had little effect, got a soldier of his to run him through with his sword. 2. Pompeius pursued Mithridates’ helper Tigranes king of Armenia: the man gave himself up to him at Artaxata, offering up his diadem. Mesopotamia, the Syrias and a certain part of Phoenice were taken from him; and he was allowed to reign within greater Armenia. 3. The same Pompeius set up Aristarchus as king of the Bosphorians and Colchians; he fought with the Albani; to Orhodes king of the Albani he granted peace after thrice defeating him; he received the surrender of Hiberia together with King Artaces; he vanquished the Saracens and Arabs; Judaea having been captured, he took Jerusalem; he struck a treaty with the Persians. On his way back, at Antioch, he sanctified the wood of Daphne with an additional grove, delighted by the loveliness of the place and the abundance of the waters. 

17.1. The consul Marcus Crassus was sent against the Parthians when they started war again. Crassus, when a legation was sent from the Persians and a request made for peace, said he would give his answer at Ctesiphon. At Zeugma he crossed the Euphrates and guided by a certain defector Mazarus he descended to an unknown and deserted part of the plains. There, with columns of archers flying around him on all sides under Silates and Surena the royal Prefects, the army was surrounded and overwhelmed by the mass of weapons. 2. Crassus himself, though he could almost have been taken alive when enticed to a parley, had escaped as the tribunes fought back, and trying to flee was killed. His head, cut off together with his right hand, was brought to the king, and treated as an object of scorn, to the extent that liquified gold was poured into his jaws. This was done so that, since burning with desire for plunder he’d refused to grant the king peace when asked, the flame of gold might burn his remains too when dead. 3. Lucius Cassius, Crassus’ quaestor, a vigorous man, collected the remains of his scattered army. He fought three times most impressively against the Persians as they broke into Syria and laid them waste, throwing them back over the Euphrates. 

18.1. Led by Labienus, who had been a member of the Pompeian faction and had fled to the Persians from defeat, the Parthians broke into Syria and occupied the whole province. Publius Ventidius Bassus, meeting the Persians who had invaded Syria under Labienus’ leadership at Mount Capros, put them to flight with only a few men, killed Labienus, chased the Persians and laid them low to the point of annihilation. In this battle he killed Pacorus, the king’s son, on the same day that Crassus had been killed, lest ever the death of a Roman leader should be left unavenged. Ventidius was the first to triumph over the Persians. 2. Marcus Antonius entered Media (now called Madena) and brought war on the Parthians, and in the first battles vanquished them. But afterwards, with two legions lost, when he was pressed by hunger, sickness and storms, he scarcely got the army back through Armenia with the Persians on his heels; he was at moments struck with such terror that he begged to be killed by his sword-bearer, so as not to come alive into the power of the foe. 

19.1. Under Octavian Caesar Augustus, Armenia plotted with the Parthians. Claudius Caesar, the grandson of Augustus, was sent with an army to the East. And when, in proportion to the greatness of the Roman name, he had easily suppressed everything, and the Armenians (who were stronger then) together with the Persians had surrendered to him, and following Pompeius’ practice Claudius Caesar was setting magistrates over the aforementioned peoples, a certain Donnes, whom Arsaces had set over the Persians, pretending a betrayal, offered him a book allegedly containing a list of treasuries. 2. While the Roman general read it carefully, he attacked Claudius with a knife and wounded him. The attacker was run through by the soldiers. Claudius returned to Syria because of the wound, and died. To make good such a daring crime the Persians then first gave hostages to Octavian Caesar Augustus and brought back the standards stolen under Crassus. Having pacified the tribes of the East, Augustus Caesar was also the first to receive an embassy from the Indians. 

20.1. Nero, the most shameful emperor endured by the Roman state, lost Armenia. At that time two Roman legions were sent under the yoke by the Persians and shamed their oaths, to the extreme disgrace of the Roman army. 2. Trajan, who after Augustus flexed the muscles of the Roman republic, took back Armenia from the Parthians, and, having taken the diadem of greater Armenia, he suppressed the kingship. He gave the Albani a king; he received the Hiberi, Bosphoriani and Colchians within the protection of Roman sway; he occupied the lands of the Osrhoenians and Arabs; he took the Cardueni and the Marcomdi; he captured and held Anthemusium, the best region of Persis, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Babylonia. 3. He advanced as far as the borders of India, after Alexander. He created a fleet in the Red Sea. He made provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, which, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates, is made fertile by channels of irrigation like Egypt. 4. It is sure that Hadrian envied Trajan’s glory. He was his successor in empire and voluntarily recalling the armies he gave up Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, and wished the Euphrates to stand midway between the Romans and the Persians. 

21.1. The two Antonini, Marcus and Verus (that is, the father-in-law and son-in-law), joint Augusti, were the first to hold the empire of the world with equal power. But the Antoninus who was younger of the two set out on a Parthian expedition; he performed with good fortune many great and mighty deeds against the Persians; Seleucia, a city of Assyria, he captured with four hundred thousand of the enemy; with huge glory he triumphed over the Persians together with his father-in-law. 2. Severus, African in origin, a most fierce emperor, strenuously overcame the Parthians, destroyed the Aziabeni, took over the Arabs of the interior and made Arabia a province. Surnames were won for him from his victories, for he was surnamed Aziabenicus, Parthicus, Arabicus. 3. Antoninus, surnamed Caracalla, the son of the emperor Severus was preparing an expedition against the Persians when he died a natural death at Edessa in Osrhoene, and he was buried there. 

22.1. Aurelius Alexander, as though reborn by some fate for the destruction of the Persian race, took up very young the helm of the Roman Empire. He gloriously vanquished the Persians’ most noble King Xerxes. This Alexander had as master of the books the jurisconsult Ulpian. He triumphed over the Persians at Rome with a spectacular procession. 2. Under Gordian, a prince fierce from the confidence of youth, the resurgent Parthians were crushed in vast battles. And while he returned victorious over Persia, by the deceit of Philip, who was his Praetorian Prefect, he was killed. The soldiers built a mound for him at the twentieth milestone from the camp which now stands at Circesium, and they lead back his funeral procession to Rome with the greatest attentions of veneration. 

23.1. It is unpleasant to recount the fortune of Valerian, an ill-omened prince. He took up the empire with Gallienus, since the army made Valerian and the senate made Gallienus emperor. In Mesopotamia fighting against the Persians Valerian was overcome by Sapor, king of the Persians, and, having been captured, grew old in shameful servitude. 2. Under Gallienus, after Mesopotamia had been invaded, the Persians had begun to lay claim on Syria, had not (shaming to report) Odenathus, a councillor of Palmyra, gathered a band of Syrian countrymen and fiercely resisted; and after several times putting the Persians to flight he not only defended our frontier, but even (astonishing to report) penetrated as far as Ctesiphon as avenger of the Roman Empire. 

24.1. To the emperor Aurelian’s glory Zenobia added, the wife of Odenathus. She, you see, following her husband’s death held the empire of the East under female sway. Aurelian defeated her, supported as she was by many thousands of clibanarii and archers, at Immae, not far from Antioch, and led her captive before his chariot in his triumph at Rome. 2. The emperor Carus’ victory over the Persians seemed excessively mighty to the supreme godhead; it must be thought to have led to the resentment of heavenly indignation. For Carus entered Persia and laid it waste as if nobody was resisting; he captured Coche and Ctesiphon, the most noble cities of the Persians. When, victorious over the whole race, he pitched his camp over the Tigris, he died struck by a thunderbolt. 

25.1. Under Diocletian’s principate a victory procession over the Persians was known. In the first encounter, although he had fought fiercely with a few men against a countless host, Maximianus Caesar retreated beaten and was met with such displeasure by Diocletian, that he ran before his wagon for some miles dressed in the purple. 2. And then, though he barely obtained approval to make up his army from the Dacian border-troops and again seek the outcome of Mars, in greater Armenia he himself as general with two horsemen scouted out the enemy, and suddenly surprising the enemy camp with twenty five thousand soldiers, he attacked the countless columns of Persians and slew them to the point of annihilation. 3. The Persian king, Narseus, fled; his wife and daughters were captured and guarded with great respect for their chastity. For this admirable deed, the Persians admitted that the Romans were superior not only in arms but also in morals. They gave back Mesopotamia with the regions across the Tigris. The peace that was made endured to our own memory, useful to the republic. 

26.1. Constantine, master of affairs, in the last period of his life prepared an expedition against the Persians. For his glory greater from pacifying tribes throughout the whole world, and from his recent victory over the Goths, he was falling on the Persians with all his columns. 2. At his coming the kingdoms of Babylon trembled so much that a legation of Persians was running to him in supplication, they promised to do his commands, and yet for the constant outbreaks, which they tried through the East under Constantius Caesar, they did not obtain forgiveness. 

27.1. Constantius fought against the Persians with mixed and more difficult outcome. Besides the light skirmishes of excubantes on the border, there were fiercer contests of Mars nine times, through his generals seven times; he himself was present twice. In fact, at the battles of Sisara, Singara and the second battle of Singara (where Constantius was present), and Sicgara (also Constantian) and when Amida was captured, the republic took a serious wound under this prince. 2. And on three occasions Nisibis was besieged by the Persians, but the enemy was affected by greater loss on his own side while he besieged. But in the battle of Narasara, where Narseus was killed, we departed the better off. 3. However, in the night battle of Elia near Singara, when Constantius was present, the outcome of all the campaigns would have been balanced, if with the ground and the night unfavourable, the emperor had been able to call back soldiers, who had been whipped to a frenzy, from fighting at an inopportune time. 4. Although they were unconquered in strength, with supplies of water against their thirst unforeseen, and evening now coming on, they attacked the camp of the Persians and having broken the defences occupied it, and with the king having been put to flight, while resting from battle they were panting to find water, with torches held before them: they were overwhelmed by a cloud of arrows, since they themselves stupidly provided lights shining through the night so that they could be aimed at more accurately. 

28.1. For Julian, a prince known for good fortune against external foes, moderation was lacking against the Persians. For he moved hostile standards against the Parthians with huge array, seeing he was the ruler of the whole world; he took a fleet prepared with supplies down the Euphrates. Vigorous in his outward journey, he received in surrender or took with his hand many towns and fortresses of the Persians. 2. When he had pitched his camp opposite Ctesiphon, on the bank of the Tigris and Euphrates (here joined), and had performed games on the plain during the day, to remove the enemy’s anxiety, in the middle of the night he suddenly placed soldiers in boats and transported them to the further shore. Struggling over steep ground, where the climb would have been difficult even by day and with nobody stopping them, they filled the Persians with sudden terror and, with the columns of the whole nation turned in flight, our soldiery would have entered the open gates of Ctesiphon victorious, had not the opportunity for plunder been greater than the concern for victory. 3. Having obtained such great glory, though he was warned by his companions about the return journey, he trusted more in his own purpose, and having burnt the ships, when led on by a defector who had presented himself for the purpose of deception, he pursued a short cut into Madaena, taking the right hand route on the far side of the Tigris with his soldiers’ flank exposed: he was wandering too carelessly along the column, when he was snatched from the view of his men by the dust which was aroused, struck through the groin as far as the base of the stomach, he was wounded. From losing too much blood, when despite his wounds he had restored the ranks of his men, he breathed out his hesitating soul, having talked at length to his followers. 

29.1. Jovian took over an army superior in battle but confounded by the sudden death of its lost emperor. While supplies were short and a lengthier return journey threatened, the Persians, with frequent raids now from the van now from the rear, raiding also the flanks in the middle, slowed down the movement of the column; 2. when some days had been used up, there was such reverence for the Roman name that the Persians talked about a peace first and the army, finished by hunger, was allowed to be led back, when conditions (as never happened before) costly to the Roman republic were imposed, so that Nisibis and part of Mesopotamia was handed over. To these Jovian, inexperienced in empire, acquiesced, being more desirous of kingship than of glory. 

30.1. Thenceforth with how great a voice should your deeds, unconquered prince, resound! I shall prepare myself for them though unequal to the task of speaking and weighed down by age. 2. Let only that good fortune remain, granted by God’s will and allowed by that friendly deity in whom you trust and to whom are entrusted, so that to this great victory over the Goths you may add the palm of peace in Babylon. 

 [1] annos ac aetatem vel sim, mss] annosam aetatem Arnaud-Lindet, maybe rightly. 

[2] Norici B, Noricae other mss, Norica A.-L. 

[3] provincias] some mss have -am. 

[4] sic.