The "Iohannis", or, "De bellis Libycis" of Flavius Cresconius Corippus 0773482423, 9780773482425

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Front cover Credit: Scala/Ait Resource, NY 1. SOO14356 K15584 Color Transp. The Emperor Justinian and his Court. S. Vitale, Ravenna, Italy.

The I ohannis or D e B ellis L ibycis of F lavius Cresconius Corippus

Introduction and Translation by

George W. Shea

Studies in Classics Volume 7

The Edwin Mellen Press Lewiston*Queenston*Lampeter

Library of Congres* Cataloging-in-Publicatioo Data

Corippus, Flavius Cresconhu. [Johannis. English] The Iohanms, or, De bellis Libycis / o f Flavius Cresconhu Corippus / introduced and translated by George W. Shea, p. cm.—(Studies in classics ; v. 7) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7734-8242-3 1. E pe poetry, Latin-Translations into English. 2. Byzantine Empire—History-Justinian I, 527-565-Poetry. 3. Africa, North-History—To 647—Poetry. 4. Vandals—Poetry. I. Shea, George W. n. Title, m . Series. PA6375.C76J616 1998 873’ .01—dc21 98-39785 CIP This is volume 7 in the continuing series Studies in Classics Volume 7 ISBN 0-7734-8242-3 SCI Series ISBN 0-88946-684-X A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright

O

1998

George W. Shea

All rights reserved. For information contact The Edwin Mellen Press Box 450 Lewiston, New York USA 14092-0450

The Edwin Mellen Press Box 67 Queenston, Ontario CANADA LOS 1L0

The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd. Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT Printed in the United States o f America

This book is dedicated to the memory o f my parents Helen Brueckmann Shea and George A, Shea

CONTENTS Page P re fa c e ...........................................................................................................................vii In tro d u c tio n ............................ 1 The A u th o r......................................................................................................... 2 The T e x t.......................................................................... 4 Historical B ack g ro u n d ......................................................................................6 Corippus as Im perial A p o lo g ist.................................................................... 21 A daptation o f Classical Rhetorical Techniques . . ......................................28 Corippus’ Poetic Achievement .................................................................... 43 N otes .................................................. 51 T ra n slatio n ..................................................................................................... #............ 63 P re fa c e .............................................................................................................. 63 B o o k I ....................................... 64 B o o k l l .............................................................................................................. 81 Book HI ............................................................................................................96 Book I V .......................................................................................................... HO Book V ............................................................................................................ 130 Book V I ........................................................................................ 146 Book VII ........................................................................ 170 Book V m .............................................. 187 N otes .............................................................................................................. 208 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 211

V

PREFACE My interest in the Johannis or de Bellis Libycis o f the sixth century A frican poet Flavius Cresconius Corippus grew out o f my study o f Latin poetry with the late Gilbert Highet, Anthon Professor o f Latin at Columbia University. It resulted in my doctoral dissertation, which was submitted to that university in 1966. Four years later, in 1970, an excellent new Latin text o f Corippus was produced by the English classicists, J. Diggle and F.R.D. Goodyear and published by the Cam bridge University Press. I decided then to revise and publish the translation appended to my dissertation, using the new edition and the many new insights into Corippus' text which it provided. U nfortunately, adm inistrative duties which I assumed shortly after the appearance o f the Diggle and Goodyear edition forced m e to postpone this undertaking. Indeed, it has only been in recent years that I have been able to contem plate its completion. This volume contains my revised translation as well as a new introduction to the poem . The translation is based on the 1970 Cambridge text o f the poem. The revision o f my original translation has given me the opportunity to correct a num ber o f earlier errors and inaccuracies and to attempt a more readable prose version. M uch o f die introduction is also new, although I have incorporated large sections o f my 1966 dissertation into i t I have tried not only to make it m ore readable but also to give it a tighter structure by focusing first on Corippus' treatment o f the historical material and the strategy o f the Emperor Justinian and then on his role as apologist viz

viti

THE lOHANNlS OF CORIPPUS

for the Empire and the problems that this presented. In the last section, I have attempted to assess his performance as poet and propagandist. In doing this I have also incorporated into this study much o f what appeared in two o f m y earlier articles on Corippus: “Justinian's North African Strategy in the Iohannis o f Corippus” in

Byzantine Studies, 10, p t l (1983), 29-38, and “M yth and Religion in an Early Christian Epic” in Medieval Studies, XXXV (1973), 118-128. Even the edition o f Diggle and Goodyear presents a translator with many textual problems. The reasons for this is obvious: the text is corrupt or lacunose io many places and, since we must rely upon a single manuscript for much o f the poem, die passages in question resist definitive resolution. This problem is made even more complex by the fact that the appearance o f the Diggle and G oodyear text evoked many new conjectures by other students o f Corippus. W hile m any o f these are plausible, the absence of any other textual evidence makes their adoption problematic. I have, therefore, decided to follow the Diggle and Goodyear text except in two cases: A) when they leave the text in its corrupt state and when the context makes the sense of the passage clear and B) when I feel that a conjecture of my own or o f another critic is clearly preferable. In both o f these cases I have indicated in the notes the various emendations being followed. In a very few cases, where no clear emendation o f the Latin text is possible. I have sim ply filled in the sense indicated without noting this. These cases are very rare and generally involve no more than one or two missing words. I have included in the bibliography a number of articles which offer many plausible alternate emendations. I recommend these to my readers' attention. My failure to adopt these readings should not be construed as a negative judgment o f the conjectures offered. Rather, it reflects, as I noted above, my belief that a definitive resolution o f these cruces is not possible

viu

ix

PREFACE

given the textual evidence available, and my desire to stay as close as possible to the Diggle and Goodyear text, which is likely to be the one consulted by anyone using my translation. Readers should note that the bracketed line numbers at the top o f each page o f the translation refer to the Latin text and that lacunae in the text are indicated by a set o f asterisks. In closing I would like to express my gratitude both to the late Professor Gilbert H ighet and to Professor W illiam M. Calder III, who guided and encouraged my study o f Corippus. I would also like to acknowledge my debt to Fordham University, which, in providing me with a faculty fellowship, made the completion o f this book possible. To my colleagues at that University and to colleagues at the University o f New South Wales where I spent a portion o f my leave and finished this work I also extend my thanks for their assistance and support. Finally, to my wife, Shirley A shton Shea,

I extend my deepest appreciation for her patience,

encouragem ent and assistance in the preparation o f this te x t ♦

♦

ix

♦

INTRODUCTION For those interested in world order, in the forms which it has taken in Western history and in the rhetoric which has been employed to legitimize those forms, Corippus' epic, the Ioharmis or de Bellis Lybicis is a text o f considerable importance. The poem w as w ritten in the sixth century o f our era and deals w ith Justinian's attem pt to reconquer Africa. Specifically, it treats the wars undertaken by his

magister militiae, Iohannes Troglyta, in order to subdue the native Berber tribes who had risen in rebellion after the collapse o f the Vandal kingdom. The political and military situation which provides the background for the poem's narrative is complex but typical. A native people, itself in considerable political disarray, rises against the rule o f relatively recent invaders, and in that moment the dominant “world pow er/9 the resurgent eastern empire, takes advantage o f the resulting confusion by launching an attem pt to reassert its own hegemony over the region. In this action, one o f the last such attem pts made by the Roman Empire, Justinian's m otives and strategies recall those o f earlier Roman conquerors. As in the past, a will to dominate restless and troublesome nations on the periphery o f the Roman realm is reinforced by clear commercial and mercantile interests. In this case, however, the debellare superbos and parcere subiectis themes are informed not only by the traditional Roman argum ents for concordia based on lex but also by the imperatives imposed by the Christian faith whose guardian was the Emperor himself. Thus the actions o f Justinian in Africa in the sixth century looked not only backward to the conquests o f

1

THE iOHANNJS OF CORIPm

/

c r ie r thapmeisfon

w dl to foe European conquests o f oatafoofoafaiin

a miUemym laler. Wih ip power and economic garaaredkguM criby pkasbra w«W aider numdanirtby gcli^ ^

as well as hy a cococixx for foe souk

efthe recakaüMBiaod foercfeie èackwaid oaùvepeopks ^ The epic's clam to oar Mention docs am. however Ik in Ite history r. presents alone. Corifpussa^'himseilas JitftmiaD's Vergil. His poem is thetefoc 1beshea»kath»fo«naDt by which the imperial wUlaad its actions nee to he jnstii& in reading Ibis text, then, we are studyingthe author o f whtt ss foe fest Rums dynastie epic as he struggles to adopt the poetic techniques o f ins models to a polstieal aad hiesary probten that is at once similar and different He will need to adapt foe foetooc of tadtbonal epic poetry to the needs and sensibilities of b Christian realm and its court The working out of that adaptation deserves the attention of students of both ancient and modem poetics, particularly since it is in this case achieved by a native African of seemingly humble birth, a school teacher of Carthage, who may or may not have viewed the struggle he would describe in precisely foe same mosti terms as his powerful patrons.

The Author Facts about the life of this remarkable African poet must be drawn from iis works.'

His foil name. Flavius Ctesconius Canppis, upjeared in only one

foanuscripU foe B u d e n s k s , which is now lost; eisewhaceihe sm Esned to simply as Cooppus or Qeacomus

He was born m Afnca, profaabh around the h^mmng of

foe teth century, for he mentions his own advanced

panegyricwhich he

wrote k i honor o f ipfofi at the beginning o fth a t ^m pem ^KTcigii m AfD^irfS3 The exact place o f his birth and theregion fo which he spent his earlier years are nut known, htt h is piobdlk Ihm he Uved m foe amntryHide not dhrfrrnm Cartilage, 1he

INTRODUCTION

3

city to which he came later in his life to recite his epic. That he did not live in the city itself as a young m an is suggested in the preface o f his poem in which he states:

“quid quod ego ignarus\ quondam per rura locutus,/ urbis per populos carmina mitto palam T (Ioh.9Praef., 25-26).4 We know that he spent the earlier part o f his life as a teacher not only because o f his remarkable knowledge o f the Latin poets o f the classical age but also because he is referred to in the Codex Matritensis as Africanus

Grammaticus? He him self tells us that he wrote poetry before the composition o f his epic, but none o f it has survived, and so we can only guess that it may have been bucolic verse from Corippus' own statem ent that his muse was rustica.6 There can

«

be little doubt that Corippus witnessed many o f the events he describes in his epic, but whether he came to Carthage before or during the period in which they occurred

and w hether he was actually present on the campaigns o f John Troglyta we cannot know for certain. We do know, however, that he was in Carthage not long after the Roman victory over the natives, for it was in that city that he read some and possibly all o f his poem to the Roman leaders. Indeed, the com position and recitation o f the Iohannis may have been the reason for Corippus1departure from Africa and appearance in Constantinople, for in the preface to the epic he asks forafav o r.7 In any case, the next time we hear o f him he is in the capital, holding a position at the imperial co u rt He refers to this post as

,s

a principis officium but provides his readers with no further inform ation about its exact nature. He later refers to the importance o f writing in the work he does and, if he is not referring to the com position o f his second poem, the panegyric its e lf this may indicate that he was employed as a scribe.9 If he did hold a secretarial post, we can further conjecture that he may have worked in the office o f the Q uaestor A nastasius, to whom he dedicated his panegyric. Finally, it is not unlikely that he was .in some way concerned in his work with western and Africa affairs, for he mentions in the first book o f his panegyric two figures who were concerned with that

THE IOHANNIS OF CORIPPÜS

4

part of the empire: Thomas, probably the Prefect o f A frica,10 and M agnus, who may have been an auditor in Italy.11 Corippus wrote his paengyric not long after the death o f Justinian and die accession of Justin. Once again, he wrote to obtain a favor, this tim e constrained by some misfortune he had suffered. He speaks o f this misfortune in vague term s in the preface to his poem,12 but its exact nature cannot be determ ined. H is use o f the words nudatus propriis in his plea suggests the loss o f property, perhaps in Africa due to upheavals there, but his reference to vulnera is a m ystery.13 Partsch, one o f Corippus' earlier editors, placed the com position o f the panegyric at fee end o f AD 567.14 The poem is, in any case, fee last w e hear of Corippus. Whether or not he received fee Emperor's assistance w e cannot tell. We may assume, however, that, since he was advanced in age when he w rote his second poem, he died not long after its composition.

The Text As information about Corippus* life must be drawn largely from fee meager evidence which his poems provide, so those poems themselves have survived in fee form o f single manuscripts, fee loham is in fee Trhmltianus (14th c e n t), and fee

Panegyric in fee Matritensis (10th cent). The names o f two other m anuscripts which contained the Iohannis are known but both are now lo st The Casinensis was perhaps fee oldest, for it is mentioned in an eleventh century catalogue as w ell as in a catalogue from fee fifteenth century.15 What happened to it subsequently, however, we do not know. The second lost manuscript, the Budensis, was seen at B uda in fee beginning o f the sixteenth century by an author o f that period nam ed Cuspianus.16 Cuspianus included in his report a quotation o f the first five lines o f the epic's first book, a quotation which, for atim e, posed a serious problem for scholars. Cuspianus' quotation did not begin with fee word Victoriis, as the Casinensis w as said to have

INTRODUCTION

S

begun. It was in fact the discovery o f the third and surviving manuscript, the

Trivultianus, that solved the m ystery, for it made clear that the Casinensis included the Preface to the epic which does indeed begin w ith the word Victoriis and that the

Budensis either lacked the Preface or that Cuspianus chose not to quote its first lines but the opening lines o f the first book instead. The Trivultianus was discovered at the beginning o f the nineteenth century in the library o f the Count Trivulzi in Milan. It lacks two pages o f the text as well as the final lines o f the epic. Ignorance o f the existence o f the manuscript until so late a period is due to the fact that it had been mistakenly attributed to an Italian author o f the fourteenth century, Giovanni de Bonis di Arezzo. As a result, it had been grouped w ith his works until its discovery by M azzuchelli. In addition to the text provided by the Trivultianus, twenty-two lines o f the poem have survived in the Excerpta Veronensis, also o f the fourteenth century. Although it provides but a few lines, the Excerpta Veronensis does solve the problem o f how the poem was divided into books. The Trivultianus is divided into seven; the

Budensis is said to have contained eight From the Excerpta Veronensis we learn that the fourth book o f the Trivultianus was divided by at least one editor into tw o books at line 644. Four editions o f Corippus' poems appeared in the nineteenth century. The first is that o f M azzuchelli him self, which was published in 1820. It includes an introduction, the text, commentary and partial index. The next edition is that o f I. Bekker, w hich appeared in Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae in 1836. In addition to the text it includes introductions by Mazzuchelli, Ruiz, Dempster, Vonck and Foggini, as well as M azzuchelli's commentary and index. The third edition is that o f J. Partsch which appeared in Monumenta Germaniae Historica in 1879. It includes a valuable introduction by Partsch. The final edition o f the last century is that o f M. Petschenig, published in Berliner Studien in 1886. It includes a brief

6

THE IOHANNIS OF CORIPPUS

introduction by the editor, an index o f proper names and o f difficult or unusual words and Petschenig's interpretation o f many peculiar usages in the poems. In our own century one edition o f the loham is has appeared, that o f J. Diggle and F.R.D. Goodyear, published by the Cambridge University Press in 1970* These two editors divided the editorial task, Diggle taking the responsibility for the Preface and the odd-numbered books, Goodyear for the remainder. They assure their readers, however, that they scrutinized one another's work and that the text represents the best judgement o f both editors. Their edition is a relatively conservative one. A number o f lines are left unemmended and obelized, and there is a very filli discussion of textual difficulties in the apparatus, as well as indication o f the rare differences of opinion between the editors themselves. In addition to the brief preface, there is a bibliography, and an index of historical and geographical names, as well as a brief topical index. Prospective readers should be alerted to the fact that all o f the contents o f the volume are in Latin.

Historical Background Before turning to the campaign of John Troglyta, which constitutes the subject of Corippus' epic, it is necessary to review the events which preceded that campaign in order to place the narrative in its historical context. Fortunately, the history o f the period is dealt with not only by Corippus in his poem but also by Procopius in his de Bello Vandalico? Comparison o f the two authors' accounts will, therefore, enable the reader both to understand the sequence o f events more fully and to test the accuracy o f Corippus, who was, after all, writing with an eye to earning imperial favor. In addition to Procopius, a number o f other historians and chroniclers are also of assistance in identifying and dating the events in question, am ong them Marçellinus Comes,1* Paulus Diaconus,19 Jordanes,20 Victor T onnennensis21 and Marius Episcopus.22

7

INTRODUCTION

The earliest event treated by Corippus in his poem is the first revolt o f A ntalas and his native followers against the aged Vandal king, Hildimer. This account is given in the long speech o f the Roman tribune, Liberatus Caecilides (/