BMCR 2004.10.22, Simona Rota, Magno Felice Ennodio.

Simona Rota (ed.), Magno Felice Ennodio. Panegirico del clementissimo
re Teoderico (opusc. 1). Biblioteca di Cultura Romanobarbarica diretta
da Bruno Luiselli, 6.  Rome:  Herder Editrice e Libreria, 2002.  Pp.
479.  ISBN 88-85876-56-0.  EUR 75.00.

Reviewed by  Stefanie A.H. Kennell, American School of Classical
Studies at Athens and Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens
(skennell@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Word count:  1888 words
-------------------------------

Formerly, the only to get an idea of how any of the writings of Magnus
Felix Ennodius, bishop of Pavia (474-521), functioned as literary
products of the Latin West in the early sixth century was to sift
through the bibliographical notices in L'Anne/e Philologique looking
for articles in journals and Festschriften that analyzed this or that
minor work, usually poetic, in isolation. The major prose works,
especially the Vita Epifani and the Panegyricus dictus clementissimo
regi Theoderico, were left to the care of the historians. In the last
twenty years, for example, Maria Cesa has re-edited the Vita, equipping
it with an excellent Italian translation and commentary,[[1]] while the
Austrian scholar Christian Rohr has performed a like service in German
for the Panegyricus.[[2]] Nevertheless, the latter work went completely
unremarked in a 1998 collection of papers devoted to late antique
panegyric.[[3]]

What was still missing until now was a full treatment of Ennodius'
Panegyricus as a document of the literary and political culture of
Ostrogothic Italy. Simona Rota's (= R) contribution to the literature
on Ennodius handsomely makes up for this lack. This revised and
expanded version of R's 2000 thesis for the University of Rome (which
this reviewer has seen thanks to R, who generously sent her an
electronic copy) provides not only a revised text, Italian translation,
and paragraph-by-paragraph commentary for the Panegyricus but also a
thorough introduction to the cultural and political environment from
which this work arose and to which it spoke. Familiar with the full
range of Ennodius' writings and sensitive to the existence of multiple
pathways of influence and meaning, R places Ennodius' Greek models and
sources on an equal footing with the more obvious Latin ones. Her
introduction and commentary transmit a wealth of philological and
historical detail gleaned from an extensive bibliography containing
now-rare nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship as well as
many more recent Italian books and journals that are often difficult
for English-speaking scholars to find.

The volume is structured in such a way that fully half of it (188-427)
is devoted to text, translation, and commentary, while the other half
is divided between the introductory material, an appendix on parallel
sources, and the bibliography.

Beginning with the volume's epigraph, which is in Greek, the Foreword
(7-9) signals R's balanced approach to the issues inherent in trying to
edit and comment on the Panegyricus. The last two lines of Constantine
Cavafy's "Waiting for the Barbarians" ("And now, what shall become of
us? / These people were a sort of solution") convey a nice sense of the
ambiguities of evaluating late antique literary language and the
historical subject of the work at hand. R gives Rohr's edition due
credit for putting the study of this panegyric on a firmer footing,
palaeographically speaking, and sketches out the general plan of the
book before thanking a number of Italian and French scholars, together
with Rohr and this reviewer, for their help and advice.

R's Introduction (11-132) falls into five sections that aim to make the
Panegyricus as accessible to the reader as possible. The first section
(11-22) addresses the work's historical and cultural framework. R deals
frankly with the issue of Ennodius' personal history and involvement
with the Ostrogothic king. Thus, the panegyrist's description of the
dire state of affairs at the moment of Theoderic's arrival in Italy was
inspired by "obvious propagandistic motives" (13), while his sense of
style and civilizing mission are thoroughly representative of Italian
literary circles in the decades around the turn of the sixth century
(18-22).

The second section (22-35) ably discusses the questions of where and
when the Panegyricus was delivered. Dating is relatively easy. By
virtue of its position in the Ennodian corpus as transmitted by the
oldest manuscripts, which for the most part follow a demonstrably
chronological order, and its references to the capture of Sirmium and
the settlement of the Alamanni, the Panegyricus can "with good
probability" (25) be assigned to late spring 507. The circumstances of
composition and delivery, on the other hand, are considerably less
certain, as Ennodius left no obvious clues. After canvassing all the
scholarship since Sirmond's Paris edition of 1611 and scrutinizing
allusions inside the work itself, R concludes that it does show certain
characteristics of the gratiarum actio, perhaps in connection with
Faustus' return to favor (30). Unlike some of Ennodius' readers (most
recently Rohr), R is moreover willing to admit the possibility that the
Panegyricus was indeed delivered in front of Theoderic, noting that
Cassiodorus also recited discourses before the king and that the text
we have was certainly revised for publication (33).

The third section discusses the figure of Theoderic in the works of
Ennodius (35-57). While the unabashed triumphalism of the Panegyricus
is no surprise, R finds that Ennodius's works generally express
"clearly positive" views of Theoderic (36). From the early Vita
Epiphani (op. 80 Vogel) through the panegyric itself to the In Christi
signo (op. 458 Vogel), the king's essentially imperial virtues are
manifest: pietas, mansuetudo, felicitas,clementia, and sollicitudo,
joined with nobility of birth and meritorious acts, guarantee the
security, peace, and prosperity of Italy.[[4]] Embodying the Davidic
model of pious kingship, Theoderic is restorer of libertas and defender
of civilitas for Italy.

In the fourth section, entitled "The Panegyricus in its literary genre"
(57-99), R surveys the panegyrical tradition as observed in rhetorical
writing from Anaximenes and Isocrates to Menander Rhetor in Greek and
ps.-Cicero to the Panegyrici Latini and Symmachus in Latin to discuss
how Ennodius fits into it. Recognizing the importance of Menander
Rhetor's treatise "On epideictic" from our modern perspective, R is
careful to counsel her readers against supposing that it influenced
Latin writers directly; rather, Ennodius and his forerunners were part
of a larger scholastic tradition that had already assimilated the basic
principles of panegyrical composition. Equally at home with Greek and
Latin terminology, she proceeds to analyze how the various parts of the
Panegyricus follow or depart from the precepts of encomiastic writing,
first section by section (60-62), then viewed in relation to typical
elements of the genre (64-82). R returns to consider Theoderic's
imperial virtues and their opposites in late Latin panegyric, wherein
the bonus princeps and the tyrannus (84-86) are revealed through their
respective abundance or deficiency of clementia, pietas, liberalitas,
moderatio, and other essential merits.

R opens the fifth and last section of the Introduction, which is
concerned with the language and style of the Panegyricus (99-132), by
observing that Ennodius' talent for working in a variety of genres
means that his writings, be they poetry or prose, represent a synthesis
of the secular and the sacred. Although the literary culture of late
antiquity remained in large part classicizing, R notes that the urge to
astound one's audience with the most esoteric vocabulary, highly
wrought metaphors, and complex periods possible prevailed in official
situations where an elevated level of discourse was expected. She
accordingly gives us a philological introduction to Ennodius' manner of
expression that has great value, clearly and concisely updating Dubois'
century-old scrutiny of the writings.[[5]] R points out examples of
morphology and syntax as well as semantic habits characteristic of late
Latin and specifically of Ennodius, who exhibits a strong tendency to
abstraction and poetic constructions (100-111). Like Cassiodorus,
Ennodius considered rhetorical ornatus an indispensable part of the
educated man's verbal repertoire. R gives examples of all the figures
he deployed (111-117), as well as a survey of his stylistic models:
Vergil, Lucan, and Symmachus appear most prominently, although Horace,
Cicero, and the Latin panegyrists are also featured (118-131).

Before coming to the actual text of the Panegyricus, R includes an
appendix on the parallel Greek and Latin sources for the events
Ennodius relates, with introductory essays on each set of sources
(133-141) followed by the testimonia themselves in their original
languages (141-170) and brief remarks.

The text-critical notes are brief (173-185). R's text is based largely
on Rohr's 1995 edition, so that these notes refer only to major
departures from it, which occur in paragraphs 1, 2, 7, 16, 17, 19, 22,
23, 37, 39, 40, 43, 44, 47, 66, and 73. Sometimes she prefers the
reading of the majority of the manuscripts, as with agnoscis in 2,
dominatuum in 17, and feriendum in 44, but the views of one or more
previous editors more often prevail, as with stili in 2, apparatu
nobili in 39, and discursu in 66. Once, however, R takes the lead in
proposing an emendation, dextra in 43, which makes better sense of the
Latin and underlies her translation of the passage (181-182, cf. 207).

The actual text and translation (188-227) are presented with Latin and
Italian on facing pages. Since Italian is not my first language, I will
content myself with observing that R has tried to be as faithful as
possible to Ennodius' Latin in respect both to conveying its meaning
and to preserving its tone. On some occasions, R's translation is very
close indeed: "Tralascio i Sarmati, migranti con le loro tende, e
taccio il gran numero di conflitti annoverati tra i trofei" for
"Transeo Sarmatas cum statione migrantes et plebem conflictuum
numeratam sileo de tropaeis" at 35, and "Ora venga pure l' antichita\ e
vanti in coturnate narrazioni Alessandro, a cui procuro\ dovizia di
fama il talento di scrittori eloquenti, cosi\ che il suo encomio, in
realta\ povero di sostanza, sembra accrescersi grazie all'aiuto
dell'eloquenza" for "Eat nunc et coturnatis relationibus relationibus
Alexandrum iactet antiquitas, cui famae opulentiam peperit dos
loquentium, ut per adiutricem facundiam videatur crescere rebus mendica
laudatio" at 78.

The twenty-one sections into which the Commentary (231-427) is divided
do not altogether correspond to the structural outline provided in the
Introduction, clearly due to the vagaries of dissertation revision.
Thus, readers will find that the thematic divisions outlined earlier in
the book (61-62) as paragraphs 11-15, 16-18, and 70-73 have been
repartitioned as paragraphs 11-14 (259-273), 15-18 (273-284), 70
(389-390), 71 (390-394), and 72-73 (394-399). This irregularity,
however, does not diminish the value of the commentary R provides. Its
exemplary comprehensiveness is evident in her handling of three
passages. The first (261-263) brings out the resonances in Ennodius'
reference to Theoderic's civilitas in paragraph 11, while the second
(335-336) opens up the poetic allusions in Ennodius' depiction of the
morning of the battle at the river Adige in paragraph 41, and the third
(394-399) will materially aid the modern reader in understanding
Ennodius' choice of words in paragraphs 72-73 for relating the
settlement of the Alemanniae generalitas.

Bibliographical abbreviations (429-465) are not merely short titles,
but represent the volume's complete bibliography, divided into acronyms
for journals and standard reference works (429-431), editions and
translations of the Panegyricus (432), primary sources (432-435), and
modern secondary literature (435-465).

The volume ends with an index of names (467-475) and a general index
(477-479), the latter equivalent to the table of contents. Readers
should be aware that beginning with the text and translation on 188 and
ending with the commentary on 419, every page number listed in the
index is off by one or two physical pages. Though this fact may not
make section divisions much more difficult to find, it does suggest
that some difficulties arose during production. The text is generally
free of egregious errors, however, which is a good thing considering
the list price of this softcover book.[[6]]


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Notes:


1.   M. Cesa, Ennodio. Vita del beatissimo Epifanio. Biblioteca di
Athenaeum 6 (Pavia, 1988).

2.   C. Rohr, Der Theoderich-Panegyricus des Ennodius. MGH Studien und
Texte, Bd. 12 (Hannover, 1995).

3.   M. Whitby, ed. The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in
Late Antiquity. Mnemosyne Supp. 183 (Leiden, 1998).

4.   To these larger works, the verse op. 126 should be added Vogel:
S.A.H. Kennell, Magnus Felix Ennodius: A Gentleman of the Church (Ann
Arbor, 2000), 113-115.

5.   A. Dubois. La latinite/ d' Ennodius (Paris, 1903).

6.   The few typos and irregularities I did notice are concentrated in
the parallel source appendix and in the Bibliography, e.g. Vindobonens
(136, for Vindobonenses), praesentialis (144, for praesentalis),
adundantia (146, for abundantia), invenes (169, for iuvenes);
"Ausfu+rliche" (431, for Ausfu+hrliche), "Withby" (436, for Whitby),
"Baldson" (437, for Balsdon), "Brake" and "Bracke" in the same entry
(438), "einschlisslich" (446, for einschliesslich), "Kennel" (448), and
"Seek" (461, for Seeck), and two cases of otiose hyphenation,
"pr-oble\me" (447) and "His- | to-ria" (462).