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The Career of Corippus Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Averil Cameron
Averil Cameron
Affiliation:
King's College London
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Extract

Among other recent attempts to correct what he takes to be Cameronian misconceptions, Barry Baldwin has reopened the question of a difficult passage in the panegyric to Anastasius the quaestor prefaced to Corippus' In laudem Iustini. His discussion perfectly correctly emphasizes the fragility of our knowledge of Corippus' life and background, but unfortunately it introduces certain misconceptions itself which make a rejoinder inescapable, especially since new arguments may be adduced.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , December 1980 , pp. 534 - 539
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

1 ‘The Career of Corippus’, CQ N.S. 28 (1978), 372–6; cf. also l‘Four Problems in Agathias’, Byz. Zeit. 70 (1977), 295–305,Google Scholar and ‘A Note on the Religious Sympathies of the Factions’, Byzantion 48 (1978), 275–6.Google Scholar

2 Besides the edition of the Iobannis by J. Diggle and F. R. D. Goodyear (Cambridge, 1970), those of the In laudem lustini by Averil Cameron (London, 1976) and U. J. Stache (Berlin, 1976). A Budé edition is promised also by S. Antès.

3 CQ N.S. 28 (1978), 373; page-references henceforth to Baldwin's work relate to this article unless otherwise specified. John remained magister militum Africae until at least A.D. 552, after which date he may have soon died (Diehl, C., L'Afrique byzantine (1896), p. 381). The recent work of Denys Pringle on military campaigns and fortification in Byzantine Africa (Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1979) sheds much light on Corippus' description of John Troglita's campaigns.Google Scholar

4 Especially shown in his delicate handling of the element of senatorial coup in Justin's accession and inauguration. The poem generally is written as an apologia for Justin.

5 p. 375. Baldwin questions whether Corippus' claim to have the support of Anastasius, Thomas, the praetorian prefect of Africa, Magnus the comes sacrarum largitionum, Theodorus the son of Peter the Patrician and himself magister officiorum in A. D. 566, and a certain Demetrius (lust. 1.15–27: there may have been more - the passage ends in a lacuna) is more than literary convention. But the point is that these are the men who put Justin on the throne and whose version Corippus is (presumably) paid to publicize.

6 p. 373.

7 It may seem equally unlikely that Procopius, as the author of the Wars, should have seemed suitable as a panegyrist of Justinian's buildings. But the experience of John the Lydian (De Mag. 3.28) makes clear Justinian's natural desire to win the services of any likely literary talent. Imperial panegyrical themes in the kontakia of Romanos have recently been emphasized by Topping, E. Catafygiotu (‘On earthquakes and fires’, Byz. Zeit. 71 (1978), 22–35). Corippus did not produce any work in honour of Justinian and perhaps indeed it was not Justinian who granted him this favour - see below.Google Scholar

8 p.372.

9 lobannis, pref., lines 25 f.: ‘quid <quod ego> ignarus quondam per rura locutus,/urbis per populos carmina mitto palam?/forsitan et fracto ponetur syllaba versu,/confiteor: Musa est rustica namque mea.’

10 line 1: ‘Victoris, proceres, praesumpsi dicere laudes …’ The name Cresconius is well represented among Christians in Roman Maier, Africa. J. L., L'Episcopat de l'Afrique romaine, vandale et byzantine (Rome, 1973), pp. 280Google Scholar ff., records two mid-sixthcentury Numidian bishops of that name, plus a Crisconius at the end of the sixth century and twenty-two or possibly twenty-three Cresconii among bishops present at the Council of Carthage in A.D. 411. We may be sure then of the poet's Christian and African background; equally there is no reason to attempt to identify him with the Cresconius who was the author of Canones, as one scribe does (see Partsch, ed., 1879, p. xliii). Names in -ius among African Christians - see Kajanto, I., Onomastic Studies in the early Christian Inscriptions of Rome and Carthage (Helsinki, 1963).Google Scholar

11 37–8: ‘rustica Romanis dum certat Musa Camenis,/ductorem nostrum fama per astra vehit.’ Cf. 11 ff. and especially 15–16: ‘Aeneam superat melior virtute lohannes,/ sed non Vergilio carmina digna cano.’

12 Baldwin, p. 372.

13 Literary energies went now more readily into opposing Justinian's attempt to enforce his position on the Three Chapters than into the occasional poetry which had provided a ‘safe’ because non-political outlet for some Romans under Vandal occupation.

14 First Belisarius, then Solomon set about restoring imperial rule and administration with great vigour, but in the years between the reconquest (A.D. 534) and the arrival of John Troglita (A.D. 546) the Byzantines were faced with military mutiny as well as Berber warfare. See Diehl, op. cit., pp. 51 ff., 33 ff.

15 Corippus, lob. 6.58–103; John led a procession which included Berber women riding on camels with their babies. Compal Ferrandus, Vita Fulgentii (ed. Lapeyre, 1929), 9 (Theodoric), 26 (Fulgentius).

16 See Gsell, S., Histoire ancienne de I'Afrique du Nord vi (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar, 24 ff.; Gautier, E. F., L'Islamisation de l'Afrique du Nord (Paris, 1927), pp. 172Google Scholar ff.; Julien, Ch., Histoire de I'Afrique du Nord i, 2nd edn. (Paris, 1956), 263 ff.Google Scholar

17 Though I am glad to find that D. R. Shackleton Bailey shares my own higher opinion of the panegyric (Gnomon 50 (1978), 449). Opinions of Corippus' worth tend to split between those of most editor who view him from the linguistic point of view (e.g. Goodyear, CR 28 (1978), 2578), and historians, who appreciate the value of his subject matter.

18 Pref, line 37.

19 Ibid., 41.

20 Ibid., 44–8. For this metaphor, see Topping, art. cit. (n. 7), p. 26 f. (the image of Christ the physician, but in the context of a quasi-imperial panegyric).

21 Ibid., 48, ‘pro munere carmina porto’.

22 Pan. Anast. 45. Cf. 48–9 ‘fessae miserere senectae,/vulneribusque meis solita pietate medere.’

23 Baldwin, p. 375, following Partsch.

24 lines 37 f. Cf. lust. 1.18–21 on the recent benefits of Thomas's rule in Africa.

25 lines 42–6: ‘quod labor indulsit, quod fessis provida Musis/alma per insomnes meruit vigilantia noctes,/hi sacri monstrant apices. lege, mime magister,/et causam defende mean. tibi sanctio vestrum/commendat famulum.’

26 lines 46–7: ‘vestro de fonte creatur/ rivulus iste meus.’

27 lines 47–8.

23 Pref., 48.

29 Evagrius, H. E. 5.2; Joh. Biclar., s.a. 568 [sic]: see my note on lust. 1.1.

30 A. P. 4.3.

31 Byz. Zeit. 70 (1977), 298–301.

32 A. P. 9.657, 658–9, 812–13; 1.36 is probably relevant too. See Averil and Cameron, Alan, ‘The Cycle of Agathias’, JHS 86 (1966), 6–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Various claims made in this article were challenged by McCall, R. C., JHS 89 (1969), 87–96, but not the dating.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Baldwin, art. cit., p. 301.

34 See e.g. Averil Cameron, 'The Early Religious Policies of Justin II., Studies in Church History 13 (1976), 51–67; ‘The Artistic Patronage of Justin II’, Byzantion (forthcoming).

35 CQ N.S. 28 (1978), 373 f. So too Stache, comm. ad IOC.

36 Baldwin, p. 373.

31 Ibid.

38 Also missed by Richmond, J., CR N.S. 28 (1978), 47–8. But for Felix, pius, laetus, sacer, and sanctus in the In laudem lustini see my notes on Pan. Anast. 33, 36, and 50.Google Scholar

39 Ed. Bell, H. I., Martin, V., Turner, E. G., and Berchem, D. van, The Abinnaeus Archive (Oxford, 1962).Google Scholar

40 P. Abinn. 1, 13, with the editors' note (p. 37).

41 Ibid., ‘the letter forms of the highly idiosyncratic imperial chancellery style have given their name to the documents written in them, imperial decrees, diplomas, letters etc.’

42 p. 375 n. 14. Stache also finds sanctio difficult (n. ad loc.).

43 p. 374, cf. 375.

44 Bell, Martin, Turner, van Berchem, intro., pp. 11 f.