Rutilius Namatianus : Jérôme Carcopino avait raison !

Ratti, Stéphane

doi:10.4000/anabases.3986

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“…Note also a curiosity, Stéphane Ratti's republication of Carcopino 1963 in the French electronic journal Anabases with a short prefatory article entitled 'Rutilius Namatianus: Jérôme Carcopino avait raison!' (Ratti 2012b). He explains how Carcopino's arguments had been definitively confirmed by the discovery of the Turin fragments.…”

Section: De Reditu Suo As a Poème à Clémentioning

confidence: 97%

Rutilius Namatianus, Melania the Younger, and the Monks of Capraria

Kelly

2021

Late-Antique Studies in Memory of Alan Cameron

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The elegiac poem of Rutilius Namatianus De Reditu Suo, 'On his Return', which describes his sea-voyage from Rome to his native Gaul in the autumn of 417, left little impact in Antiquity. 1 But ever since its rediscovery in 1493, it has charmed readers, a late antique poem admired even by those who do not generally love late antique poetry. Rutilius' metre and language are classicizing, his debt to Vergil and Ovid is plain, and he is the last Latin poet we know to have been a pagan; these facets, combined with his poignant praises of the Roman world-empire in his hymn to Rome, gave him a nostalgic place at the end of many histories of Latin literature. In part because of the poem's sense of place and landscape on the voyage up the Italian coast, it has been particularly popular in Italy, where it has even inspired a film. 2 The last pagan Latin poet, perhaps the last pagan prefect of Rome, seems a most appropriate topic with which to honour Alan Cameron. 3 Alan's most important scholarly contribution on our poet came in an early article of 1967: 'Rutilius Namatianus, St. Augustine, and the Date of the De Reditu Suo'. 4 Rutilius was writing -or at least his poem is set -in the 1169 th year of Rome (1.135-6): 'although with a thousand years and sixteen decades completed, your ninth year besides is passing'. 5 But given uncertainties in the calendar which it is not necessary to elaborate here, there has been debate as to how to interpret this information. It was long thought that Rutilius' voyage belonged to the autumn of 416. Jérôme Carcopino had argued that the actual date was 417, while in his book on Rutilius of 1961 Italo Lana argued for 415. 6 Alan followed Carcopino, but refined the latter's argument from astrological references and added an allusion It is an honour to offer this piece in affectionate memory of Alan Cameron. The names of all those who have heard versions of this piece and have made useful comments elude me, but I would like to acknowledge help of various sorts from Cornelia van der Poll, Kate Cooper, Fabio Guidetti, Michael Hendry, Calum Maciver, and Adriano Russo, as well as from this book's editors.1 Sidonius is Rutilius' only certain reader from Antiquity (e.g. Brocca 2003Brocca -2004, though suggestions have been made about possible echoes in the Epigrammata Bobiensia; Russo 2019 has now identified the influence of Rutilius on the verse of Paul the Deacon in the late eighth century.2 Claudio Bondì, De reditu -il ritorno (2004).3 Whether you consider Rutilius the last known pagan prefect of Rome (he held the office briefly in mid-414) will depend on whether you accept Alan Cameron's argument for the Christianity of his friend Volusianus, appointed prefect during Rutilius' journey (1.415-428, and see n. 11 below). 4 Cameron 1967b; see also Cameron 1970, 250-1. 5 Quamuis sedecies denis et mille peractis annus praeterea iam tibi nonus eat.

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Section: De Reditu Suo As a Poème à Clémentioning

confidence: 97%