Terrarum orbi documentum: Augustine, Camillus, and learning from history

Augustinian Studies

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 59-74

  Conybeare, Catherine ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 79958586876     PISSN: 00945323     EISSN: 21537917     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/augstudies199930218     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. Vita Sebastiani 12,42 = Acta Sanctorum, Ian. 2.265-78.
2. All references to the City of God are to the text corrected from the Teubner edition by B. Dombart and A. Kalb, in CCSL 47. Citations are by book, chapter and line number in that edition; translations are my own.
3. Following H. Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics (Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1967) 650-66, who argues that Augustine probably had both a text of Livy himself and some sort of digest of exempla available to him.
4. On Augustine's resistance to this idea, and his failure to influence the interpretative tradition, see F. Paschoud, Roma Aeterna: Études sur le patriotisme romain dans l'Occident latin à l'époque des grandes invasions (Rome: Institut Suisse de Rome, 1967) 234-75, esp. 273: "Augustin ne fut guère compris ni suivi."
5. References to Livy are to the Oxford Classical Text of Ab Urbe condita libri 7-5, ed. R. M. Ogilvie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). Citations are by book, chapter, and paragraph number; once again, translations are my own.
6. Civ. 1, praef. 5-8: iam videamus, qua causa deus ... Romanum imperium tarn magnum tamque diuturnum esse voluerit.
7. The letter Ad Firmum is conveniently printed at iii-iv of the CCSL edition (cited above, n. 2); the quoted phrase is at line 30.
8. T. D. Barnes, "Aspects of the Background of the City of God" University of Ottawa Quarterly 52 (1982): 64-80, esp. 72f (repr. in his From Eusebius to Augustine [Aldershot: Variorum, 1994] no. XXIV).
9. Relatio 3,10: uno itinere non potest perveniri ad tarn grande secretum. The context, of course, is the Altar of Victory stand-off with Ambrose
10. The peroration to Civ. 4 picks up this contrast: Augustine's case may be proved de codicibus eorum, not just by reading in nostris (4,34,31-33). Notably, the category of recens memoria is omitted: see below on Augustine's emphasis on written tradition.
11. It is beyond doubt that Augustine was familiar with the fabulae/historia convention, for he engages with it explicitly at, e.g., Civ. 2,8. For the "traditional" nature of the dichotomy
12. see, e.g., Livy, praef. 6 (poeticis fabulis contrasted with incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis).
13. A similar association occurs in Civ. 3, when Augustine's systematic retelling of Roman history is flagged by further lexical references to Livy: note especially the use of the phrase ab Urbe condita at Civ. 3,9,27.
14. see, e.g., C. S. Kraus, '"No Second Troy': Topoi and Refoundation in Livy, Book V," Transactions of the American Philological Association 124 (1994): 267-89. Augustine restricts his use of urbs in Civ. 1-5 to specific references to Rome. An apposite question from Tim Cornell prompted me to reflect on this distinction.
15. Civ. 6,1,1-2; Livy 6,1,1; immensum opus adapted from Livy, praef. 4: res ... immensi operis. For a similar numerical staging-post
16. see Civ. 10,32,175: in decern istis libris; for Augustine's awareness of the importance of the grouping of his books
17. see Ad Firmum, lines 6-22. Note that the first pentad is suggested as a self-contained volume.
18. Thesaurus Linguae Latinae 5.1, col. 1449, cites Augustine's use of disputare here as equivalent to litigare, disceptare.
19. Descriptions from the prefaces of the respective works: Civ. 1, praef. 8; Livy, praef. 4.
20. See Civ. 2,17,31-11; 3,17,73-76; and 4,7,16-19, in which Camillus is, memorably, oblitus iniuriae, memor patriae.
21. Fatalis dux is an extremely unusual collocation in surviving Livy: he uses it elsewhere only of Scipio (Livy 22,53,6; 30,28,11).
22. Quotation from Civ. 5,8,2-3 (cases adapted); the passage from Seneca is at Civ. 5,8,14-18.
23. On voluntas as a source of individuation, see, e.g., S. MacCormack The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998) 125.
24. Direct comparison: Civ. 3,29,6-13; a glancing reference to the Gallic sack at 2,22,32-33.
25. Contrast, for example, Civ. 1,33,1: o mentes amentes! subject to the very corruption which Scipio feared for you; and the magnificent peroration addressed to the indoles Romana laudabilis, at Civ. 2,29.
26. On this phenomenon, see C. Edwards, Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
27. This is the context of non vi ... sed precibus: perhaps parallelled in Civ. 5,26,21-22, when weapons in battle are turned back magis orando quam feriendo.
28. Revealingly, in Sermon 81,9, which Augustine preached in the autumn immediately after the sack of Rome (Perler's dating), he recalls the words of Camillus: the city consists not merely in stone and timber-non de lapidibus et lignis-but in its people and their religious practices (PL 38.505).
29. Which, of course, reinforces the notion of Rome as more ideal than place. Kraus (n. 15) comments, "This is a very strange ending indeed" (285); she, however, explains it as "covertly recalling the enemy occupation" (287).
30. Compare also the gesture of L. Albinius, de plebe homo, who takes the Vestal virgins onto his cart when fleeing from the Gauls at Rome, acting salvo ETIAM TUM discrimine divinarum humanarumque rerum (Livy 5,40,10).
31. J. Moles, "Livy's Preface," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 39 (1993): 141-68.
32. Civ. 1, praef. 8-9: deus adiutor noster est
33. Civ. 1, praef. 12: the transcendent power of divina gratia donata celsitudo.
34. In case it seems that I am overemphasizing the role of a figure who does not, after all, play that large a part in the City of God, I would suggest that we may guess at Augustine's sympathy for Camillus from what he suppresses. There is no mention of Camillus's triumphal entry to Rome after his victory at Veii, in curro equis albis iuncto, "a chariot hitched up to white horses"-a gesture clarior quam gratior, "more conspicuous than welcome" (Livy 5,23,5-6). Moreover, there is no mention of the ignominious episode with which Camillus launches the defence of his patria, a nocturnal massacre of the Gauls (Livy 5,45).
35. The discussion in Civ. 10 shows that participation in God is crucial to Augustine's notion of citizenship in the City of God.
36. See Civ. 1,15,44-48, where he observes that a notion of virtus is needed which may be applied equally to a person and a civitas to make them beatus/a.
37. Civ. 5,12,11-13; veteres ... primique Romani, quantum eorum docet et commendat historia.
38. Sallust, Catiline 7,6; Civ. 5,12,16.
39. This is strongly reminiscent of Horace, Odes 3,9,24: tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens. If the echo is intentional, it reinforces Augustine's point about the Romans' "ardent love" of glory by transferring a topos from love poetry into historical writing.
40. Though of course Virgil, Aen. 6,853 is close behind this passage as well.
41. So, for example, in Civ. 5,19, where he distinguishes between the desire for humana gloria and that for dominatio: the former may be felt rightly, and to good effect-qui autem gloriae contemptor dominationis est avidus, bestias superat (Civ. 5,19,31-32).
42. Civ. 5,20,31; 5,24,24.