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TWO NOTES ON AURELIUS VICTOR'S LIBER DE CAESARIBVS (10.5 LAVTVSQVE AND 13.3 SATISQVE)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2024

Elia Rudoni
Elia Rudoni*
Affiliation:
Pacifica, CA, USA
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Abstract

At Aur. Vict. Caes. 10.5, the reading lautus should be retained; -que is a dittography and should be deleted. At 13.3, satis should be emended into sagatis. This article also provides a brief analysis of Victor's references to clothing and attempts to explain why he comments on the Dacian costume at 13.3, the only ethnographic reference to clothing in the entire work.

Keywords

textual criticismAurelius VictorTitusTrajanDaciansancient clothingpilleussagum
Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 5
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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References

1 Lipsius, J., De Amphitheatro (Antwerp, 1584), 16Google Scholar. On the noun lautus, see TLL 7.2.1069.3–7.

2 Klebs, E., ‘Lautus und Aurelius Victor, Caes. 10, 5’, Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie 7 (1892), 438–40Google Scholar.

3 Arntzen, J., Sexti Aurelii Victoris Historia Romana (Amsterdam, 1733)Google Scholar.

4 C.E.V. Nixon, ‘An historiographical study of the Caesares of Sextus Aurelius Victor’ (Diss., University of Michigan, 1971), 405.

5 Dufraigne, P., Aurélius Victor. Livre des Césars (Paris, 1975), ad locGoogle Scholar.

6 Bird, H.W., Aurelius Victor: Liber de Caesaribus (Liverpool, 1994), 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The issue is not mentioned in the commentary ad loc.

7 Nickbakht, M.A. and Scardino, C., Aurelius Victor (Leiden, 2021), 64 and 180Google Scholar.

8 A normal routine (see below) and a normal construction of the participle of lauo: cf. e.g. Tac. Germ. 22.1 lauti cibum capiunt; Plin. Ep. 6.16.12 lotus accubat, cenat; Apul. Met. 9.24.1 lauti cenam petebamus.

9 Cf. e.g. Suet. Tit. 10.2 and Cass. Dio 66.25.1–26.1 with C.L. Murison, Rebellion and Reconstruction. Galba to Domitian. An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History Books 64–67 (a.d. 68–96) (Atlanta, 1999), 199–201.

10 Plut. De sanitate 3. A disease complicated by unwise use of the baths before dinner must have been the official version of Titus’ death as provided by the court physicians: cf. F. Grosso, ‘La morte di Tito’, in M. Bonaria (ed.), ΑΝΤΙΔΩΡΟΝ Hugoni Henrico Paoli oblatum (Genova, 1956), 137–62, at 147.

11 Poisoning: here and Philostr. V A 6.32. Disease: Plut. De sanitate 3, Suet. Tit. 10.1, Eutr. 7.22, Epit. de Caes. 10.5. Cassius Dio (66.26.2) mentions both disease and murder, but not poison.

12 For further bibliography on Titus’ death: Murison, C.L., ‘The death of Titus: a reconsideration’, AHB 9 (1995), 135–42Google Scholar; Robiano, P., ‘Philostrate, sur la mort de Titus: essai d'interprétation’, Latomus 75 (2016), 482–7Google Scholar.

13 Commoners: Ter. Phorm. 339–42; Sen. Dial. 6.22.6; Ep. 83.5–6; Petron. Sat. 27–8, 130.7; Mart. 6.53.1–2, 11.52.1–4; Tac. Ann. 11.3.2, 15.52.1; Plin. Ep. 6.16.12; Apul. Met. 1.7.2–3, 2.11.4, 3.12.5–13.1, 5.3.1–3, 5.8.1–2, 5.15.1, 8.7.6, 8.29.2–3, 9.24.1. Emperors: Suet. Vesp. 21; HA, Alex. Seu. 30.5; Epit. de Caes. 9.15.

14 These celebrations are firmly dated to the spring/summer of the year 80: see Murison (n. 9), 199 on Cass. Dio 66.25.4 and 200 on 66.26.1. Admittedly, Dio's account is somewhat confused, and there exists the possibility that he may have erroneously thought that the Colosseum was dedicated in 81: cf. Murison (n. 9), 200 on Cass. Dio 66.26.1 and Murison (n. 12), 138. Victor may have thought the same, misled by Dio or some other source, but this is a rather speculative hypothesis and, however this may be, the problem of the odd coupling remains.

15 As was already clear to Servius in the fourth century: cf. his note on Aen. 2.37.

16 F. Pichlmayr, Sexti Aurelii Victoris Liber de Caesaribus. Editio stereotypa correctior editionis primae (Leipzig, 1970 [1911]); Dufraigne (n. 5); Festy, M., Sextus Aurelius Victor, Livre des Césars. Édition critique et traduction (Diss., Montpellier, 1991)Google Scholar; Colombo, M., ‘Due note danubiane’, Maia 59 (2007), 344–51Google Scholar. The emendations by early editors, Schott and Mommsen are quoted by one or more of the listed editions. Nixon (n. 4), 63 opts for obelization.

17 For sources and bibliography, see, for instance, Goette, H.R., Studien zu römischen Togadarstellungen (Mainz am Rhein, 1990), 2Google Scholar and n. 1.

18 Dacian captives wearing both a pilleus and a sagum figure prominently on the Arch of Constantine: see e.g. Ferris, I., The Arch of Constantine. Inspired by the Divine (Stroud, 2013)Google Scholar, plates nos. 1, 10, 39 (between pages 96 and 97) and pages 50–5, 140 n. 2. For Dacians wearing the sagum on Trajan's Column, see Coarelli, F., The Column of Trajan (Rome, 2000)Google Scholar, plates nos. 23–5, 28, 31, 40–1, 45–7, 68–9, 73–5, 79, 88, 105, 110–13, 146–9, 159–62, 169–70. Coins: BMCRE vol. 3 Trajan 839 = RIC II 543. Abundant materials on the iconography of the Dacians are now available in I. Nemeti, ‘Dacians in Roman art’, in S. Nemeti and D. Dana (edd.), The Dacians in the Roman Empire (Cluj-Napoca, 2019), 99–159.

19 D. Rascu, ‘The supposed extermination of the Dacians: the literary tradition’, in W.S. Hanson and I.P. Haynes, Roman Dacia. The Making of a Provincial Society (JRA Supplement 56) (Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 2004), 75–85, at 80–2 nn. 53–4.

20 Forbidden: 40.25. Inappropriate: 3.10, 3.12, 3.13, 5.5, 6.3 (on the implications: R. Laurence, ‘Investigating the emperor's toga: privileging images on coins’, in M. Harlow [ed.], Dress and Identity [Oxford, 2012], 69–81, at 77), 27.1, 39.6 (habitum = ‘clothing’, not ‘condition’; cf. J.A. Stover and G. Woudhuysen, ‘Aurelius Victor and the ending of Sallust's Jugurtha’, Hermathena 199 [2015], 93–134). Unusual or extravagant: 5.7, 21.1, 39.2. Nudity: 16.2, 21.3. Metaphorical: 14.1; 39.23.

21 Cf., for instance, Rothe, U., The Toga and Roman Identity (London, 2020), 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Starbatty, A., Aussehen ist Ansichtssache: Kleidung in der Kommunikation der römischer Antike (Munich, 2010)Google Scholar.

22 Cf., for instance, Stover and Woudhuysen (n. 20), 94–6 with some examples and bibliography.

23 P. von Rummel, Habitus Barbarus: Kleidung und Repräsentation spätantiker Eliten im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2007); Rothe (n. 21), 155–6.

24 For the pilleus as symbol of freedom and happiness, see Cleland, L., Davies, G. and Llewellyn-Jones, Ll., Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z (London and New York, 2007), 148Google Scholar and cf. e.g. Suet. Ner. 57.1. For the sagum, see the documentation in Cameron, Alan, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011), 289–92Google Scholar and cf. Oros. Hist. 5.18.15 uestis maeroris.