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Technical Chronology and Astrological History in Varro, Censorinus and Others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. T. Grafton  and
N. M. Swerdlow
A. T. Grafton
Affiliation:
Princeton University
N. M. Swerdlow
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

Technical chronology establishes the structure of calendars and the dates of events; it is, as it were, the foundation of history, particularly ancient history. The chronologer must know enough philology to interpret texts and enough astronomy to compute the dates of celestial phenomena, above all eclipses, which alone provide absolute dates. Joseph Scaliger, so we are told, was the first to master and apply this range of technical skills:

Of the mathematical principles on which the calculation of periods rests, the philologians understood nothing. The astronomers, on their side, had not yet undertaken to apply their data to the records of ancient times. Scaliger was the first of the philologians who made use of the improved astronomy of the sixteenth century to get a scientific basis for historical chronology.

So Mark Pattison.

This verdict can be challenged on a number of grounds. The one relevant at present is simple: Scaliger himself claimed far less. He certainly said that technical chronology had been untouched in modern times — not an entirely fair judgement — but in antiquity it had been practised in exactly the manner he considered proper, or so he believed. In particular he singles out Censorinus, whose De die natali drew extensively on Varro's lost Antiquitates rerum humanarum, books 14–19, for information on chronology.

Students of Varro have long appreciated the importance of Censorinus. His dry and compact treatise offers Varronian views on etymology, the human life-span, and the course of history itself, all couched in language so jejune as to suggest that he added little or nothing to what he read.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , December 1985 , pp. 454 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

1 Pattison, M., Essays (1909) 1, 131Google Scholar.

2 See, e.g., Censorinus, , Le jour natal, tr. Rocca-Serra, G. (1980), v–xiGoogle Scholar.

3 Here and elsewhere we use the edition by N. Sallmann (1983).

4 This list implies that Censorinus drafted at least the chronological sections of his work between 25 June and 28 August 238. The point is not new — see W. Kubitschek in P.-W. s.v. Aera — but deserves repetition, as most recent writers have not fully understood it. Sallmann, for example, infers that the terminus ante quem is 21 July 238 (Hermes, iii, 1983, 235 n. 9Google Scholar).

5 The correction of the text from XII kal. Aug. to XIII was made by Scaliger, , Opus novum de emendatione temporum (1583), 138Google Scholar (ed. 1629, 490 CD).

6 A late, non-astronomical work that uses the era of Nabonassar for chronological purposes is the detailed introduction to Ptolemy's Royal Canon in Syncellus, , Chronographia 388–90Google Scholar Dindorf. This presumably goes back to Panodorus, who was in turn using Theon's recension of Ptolemy's Handy Tables. See Gelzer, H., Sextus Julius Africanus und die Byzantinische Chronographie 2.1 (1885), 215–16Google Scholar. The importance — and uniqueness — of its occurrence in Censorinus 21 are well discussed by Ideler, L., Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie (1825–1826), 1, 107–8Google Scholar.

7 See the recent discussion by Toomer, G. J., Ptolemy's Almagest (1984), 10–11Google Scholar.

8 See, e.g., Schanz, M., ‘Suetons Pratum’, Hermes 30 (1895), 425–6Google Scholar; Hahn, A., De Censorini fontibus (1905), 46Google Scholar; Rocca-Serra (n. 2 above), 59. It is not included in Peter's collection of fragments and is not discussed in Franceschi, F., ‘Censorino e Varrone’, Aevum 28 (1954), 393–418Google Scholar.

9 21.6: ‘secundum quam (= Varro's) rationem nisi fallor hic annus… ab olympiade prima millensimus est et quartus decimus… ’

10 The word diversarum in 21.5 is too strong to refer merely to the synchronisation of Olympiads with years a.u.c. The diversae civitates (so MSS; text diverse) of 19.4–6 include the Egyptians, Arcadians, Carians, and Acarnanians; cf. 21.12: ‘cum…conditorum voluntates non minus diversae sint quam opiniones philosophorum’. But of the eras that follow the founding of Rome and the beginning of the Olympics, only those of Nabonassar and Philip are likely to come from Varro.

11 He gives the Roman date XI kal. Mai.

12 In what follows, we are not concerned with the correct date of the foundation of Rome or the multifarious scholarly traditions about it. For a detailed discussion see Leuze, O., Die römische Jahrzählung (1909)Google Scholar. The best-known dates are

21 April Ol. 6.3 (753 b.c.) — Varro

21 April Ol. 6.4 (752 b.c.) — Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1.75.

13 On the eclipse see Ginzel, F. K., ‘Finsterniss-Canon für das Untersuchungsgebiet der römischen Chronologie’, SB Berlin (1887), 1122–3Google Scholar. Oppolzer numbers for eclipses come from Oppolzer, Th. v., ‘Canon der Finsternisse’, Denkschr. Akad. Wien, Math.-naturwiss. Kl. 52 (1887)Google Scholar. The time of the conjunction in Oppolzer is about 9.40 a.m. at Rome, a bit late for the third hour of the day if it begins at sunrise, as is conventional in the Egyptian calendar.

14 See esp. Almagest 4.1, 6.10.

15 Neugebauer, O., A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (1975), 521–8Google Scholar; Parker, R. A. and Neugebauer, O., ‘A Demotic lunar eclipse text of the First Century b.c.’, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. 125 (1981) 312–27Google Scholar.

16 See Toomer (n. 7 above), 287 ff.; Neugebauer (n. 15 above), 129 ff.

17 On the 273-day interval see Neugebauer, O., ‘Decem tulerunt fastidia menses’, AJP 84 (1963), 64–5Google Scholar = Neugebauer, , Astronomy and History (1983), 358–9Google Scholar; Neugebauer (n. 15 above), 1036.

18 Note that Cicero seems to make the same error in De divinatione, not long after Tarutius cast Rome's nativity.

19 Using Hunger, H. and Dvorak, R., ‘Ephemeriden von Sonne, Mond und hellen Planeten von — 1000 bis –601’, Denkschr. Akad. Wien, Phil.-hist. Kl. 155 (1981)Google Scholar, which make the dating of the horoscope a simple matter. The positions according to Lydus are from the edn. by R. Wuensch (1898), 8, 5–14.

20 Unger, G. F., ‘Romulusdata’, Jb. f. cl. Phil. 135 (1887), 409 ff.Google Scholar, took the horoscope as fitting October 4, which he took as the date not of the foundation but of the conception of Rome. One wonders exactly how Romulus brought that about. Neither this nor any other assessment known to us is based upon a strict dating for the horoscope.

21 Neugebauer (n. 15 above), 781 ff.

22 Bouché-Leclercq, A. gives an astrological analysis of the horoscope in L'Astrologie grecque (1899), 369Google Scholar, but he uses the version given by the Barberini recension of Lydus, which is not the correct one.

23 Cf. Censorinus 18.10 (note that Sallmann, 's solidus, p.43Google Scholar line 5, from Cholodniak, is certainly wrong; read solum or solos), for what could well be a summary of Varro/Tarutius on the Egyptian calendar.

24 The only scholar known to have mentioned Nabonassar is Berosus, who is quoted as having done so in the Armenian version of the Chronicle of Eusebius (FGrHist 680 F 3), and who seems to have thought that Nabonassar made away with the records of earlier kings so that the Chaldean king-list would start with him (so a fragment quoted in Syncellus, loc. cit. n. 6 above = FGrHist 680 F 16; Jacoby considered this spurious, but cf. Burstein, S. M., The Babyloniaca of Berossus (1978), 22)Google Scholar. There is no solid evidence to show that Berosus or his Greek contemporaries used astronomical data for scholarly ends; nor did the era of Nabonassar ever become a bench-mark for the Greek chronographers whose work is attested. See in general Croke, B., ‘The origins of the Christian world chronicle’, History and Historians in Late Antiquity (1983), 116–31Google Scholar; Mosshammer, A. A., The Chronicle of Eusebius and Greek Chronographic Tradition (1979)Google Scholar.

25 Traditionally Suetonius has most often been made to do duty as the more recent source; but the evidence about his work is far too scanty to prove anything.

26 This is not the only passage in Censorinus that has been too hastily declared non-Varronian. His description of the Julian calendar reform (20.8–10) recounts what Caesar did in some detail but omits the colourful story of how the pontifices misunderstood and corrupted it (cf. Macr. Sat. 1.14). It presumably comes from a source contemporary with the reform, one which could only include Caesar's enactment, not its results. On chronological grounds alone Varro is the likeliest candidate; whether Censorinus or someone else embellished it we cannot tell.

27 Cf. Peter, H., ‘Die Epochen in Varros Werk de gente populi Romani’, RhM N.F. 57 (1902), 231–51Google Scholar; Rocca-Serra, loc. cit. (n. 2 above). The approving terms in which Censorinus describes Vettius suggest that Varro esteemed his views highly.

28 See e.g. 17.3 (‘poetae quidem multa incredibilia scripserunt, nec minus historici Graeci, quamvis eo<s> a vero par non fuit decedere’).

29 See e.g. 17.4–6, 13–15, 18.2–4, 19 passim, for characteristic mélanges of fact and fancy; admittedly not all modern scholars have taken these at their true worth.

30 Augustine, , De civitate Dei, ed. Vives, J. L. (1522), 550Google Scholar.

31 J. Temporarius, as quoted by Erasmus, H. J., The Origins of Rome in Historiography from Petrarch to Perizonius (1962), 52–3 n. 6Google Scholar.

32 Muhamedis Alfragani Arabis Chronologica et astronomica elementa (1590), 418Google Scholar.

33 De ratione temporum…liber unus (1551) 121Google Scholar on 21.4–6, 9–10.

34 Scaliger, J. J., Lettres françaises inédites, ed. de Larroque, P. Tamizey (1879), 113, 115, 117Google Scholar.

35 Liber de epochis seu aeris temporum et imperiorum (1578), 54–5Google Scholar. For chronological purposes Crusius sets Christ's passion at the arbitrary but convenient date 1 January a.d. 33. To turn his years before the passion into years b.c. one need only subtract 32.

36 Scaliger, , De emendatione temporum (n. 5 above), 209Google Scholar.

37 Since the period of 7,980 years is arrived at by multiplying the three constituent cycles — 7,980 is the lowest common multiple of 19, 28, and 15 — every year within it will have a unique combination of positions in the lesser cycles.

38 Crusius (n. 35 above), 61–2; quotation 62. This analysis anticipates a great deal of what the several German scholars who wrote profusely on this question in the later nineteenth century managed to achieve.

39 Scaliger (n. 5 above), ed. 1629, 396 B.

40 Apianus, P., Astronomicum Caesareum (1540) E iivGoogle Scholar. His main source, naturally, is Solinus.

41 Ibid. Dv, E iiv, E ivv. We give Apianus' revised figures here:

It is odd that the wide divergence between his results and those of Tarutius provoked Apianus into making sharp comments (Quid igitur Lucium Tarutium fascinavit…?) but did not lead him to abandon faith in the basic importance of the horoscope or even to question its relevance to the Parilia.

42 Crusius (n. 35 above), 57.

43 Ibid. 57–60. In fact the first eclipse is not that mentioned by Julius Obsequens, 43 (the correct one is Oppolzer 2625, 19 July 104 b.c.); but the error has no effect on the dating of the foundation.

44 Scaliger (n. 5 above), 213 = ed. 1629, 388D–389A.

45 M. Manilii Astronomicon, ed. Scaliger, (1600)Google Scholar, Castigationes et notae 359. Unger (n. 20 above) also notices the significance of the interval. For Scaliger's final verdict on the whole matter see the Isagogici chronologiae canones in his Thesaurus temporum (1658 2), 289Google Scholar. Here he remarks that Cato set the foundation in Ol. 6.4, Varro in Ol. 6.3 ‘idque quod nugatorium est, ex apotelesmate L. Tarrutii Firmani’.

46 It is worth noting that Crusius discussed Vettius' prediction of the length of Roman history. He remarks that Rome fell to Alaric in a.u.c. 1163 and to the Vandals c. a.u.c. 1209, both dates close to the ‘fatalis terminus’ set by Vettius. But the sentence with which Crusius connected the prediction and the events does not suggest credulity on his part: ‘Quantum vero hisce divinationibus tribuendum sit, non est huius loci explicare: nos historica prosequemur’ (n. 35 above, 143).

47 Our thanks to the editors of CQ and to N. Horsfall, G. Most, O. Neugebauer, D. Pingree, E. Rawson and G. Toomer for information and criticism.