Since there's a lot of talking going on about how we should investigate history, potentially claiming that sources are useless and therefore it's not even necessary to read them, I propose here an article by the same guy who opened the wonder box of Pompeii.
Am I talking of my 'hero' KD? Nope, I'm talking about historian
Andreas Tschurilow.
The article is called
'Pliny's letters' (
Письма Плиния) and here is the translation from Russian. This is a major example on why it should be mandatory to read primary sources, aside their possible corruption through the centuries.
Pliny's letters to Tacitus
The very first manuscript of the letters of Pliny the Younger known to us, which also contains both known letters about the eruption of Vesuvius, is traditionally dated to around 1478. At the same time, it is believed that until 1419 this text was generally unknown to anyone, until it was discovered, under mysterious circumstances, in Venice by the humanist and collector of ancient manuscripts Guarino from Verona (Guarino Veronese, 1370-1460). Guarino studied Greek for several years in Constantinople, from where he brought, together with his friends Giovanni Aurispa and Francesco Filelfo, about fifty manuscripts of Diosthenes, Lucian, Dio Cassius, Xenophon, Strabo, Diodorus, Plato and the Platonists, translated from Greek into Latin all the manuscripts of Strabo, fifteen manuscripts of Plutarch and published an Elementary Latin Grammar. In addition, he is famous for discovering the manuscripts of Cicero,
It is believed that the letters could have come to him from the keeper, the cleric of the Cathedral of Verona, Giovanni Matociis (Giovanni de Matociis), also known as sexton Giovanni Mansionario, who died around 1337, i.e. long before Guarino, who first divided one Pliny into two, an uncle and a nephew. The same Matotius allegedly authored the work Historia imperialis, a compilation of biographies of the emperors of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Charlemagne (Tolstoy) and Gesta Romanorum Pontificum, preserved only in fragments.
Giovanni (Johannes) Matocius in many ways anticipated the aspirations of the humanists of the Renaissance. Among the treasures of the library of his cathedral, he discovered one of the best manuscripts of the letters of Pliny the Younger. With her help, he decided to put an end once and for all to the medieval confusion between the author of these letters and his uncle, Pliny the Elder, author of the Natural History. Matocius rightly decided that it could not be that a person describes his own death in letters. So the letters belong to someone else, judging by the name, some close relative. It would seem, what doubts could there be? The younger Pliny writes - "uncle". So also Pliny. However, this division of Pliny into two was revealed to the world as a discovery. Why?
According to, in particular, Girolamo Tartarotti, Giovanni was confused by the conflict between some of the letters and other sources. The fact is that the younger Pliny described in a letter to his friend Tacitus how his uncle, being the commander of the fleet, died trying to help the victims of the eruption of Vesuvius [Pliny (Tacitus) 6.16.]. And Giovanni also refers to this letter without going into details. But nevertheless, for some reason, he preferred the statement of Suetonius to these eyewitness accounts, albeit not a contemporary of the events, but possessing unconditional authority. According to Suetonius in the transmission of Matotius, Pliny the Elder died while observing the eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily and, they say, he was buried there.
"Nam, ut dicit Suetonius idem in libro De Viris Illustribus, dum idem Plinius legiones in Siciliam duceret, eruptione fauillarum ab Aetna eructantium praefocatus interiit anno vitae suae quinquagesimo sexto, et in Sicilia tumulatur: cui consonat Plinius nepos eius in praefrumata epistula ad Mac , "Miraris quod tot volumina multaque in his scrupulosa homo occupatus absoluerit. Magis miraberis, si scieris illum aliquandiu causas dictitasse, et decessisse anno sexto et quinquagesimo."
"For, as Suetonius writes in the book On Famous Men, Pliny, when he brought his legions to Sicily, from the smoldering ashes erupted from Etna, he suffocated and died in the fifty-sixth year of his life and was buried in Sicily; according to the above-mentioned letter of Pliny's nephew Macru [Pliny (Bebiy Makr) 3.5.7]: "You are surprised that so many books, and often devoted to difficult and confusing questions, could be completed by a busy person. You will be even more surprised to learn that he was engaged in judicial practice for some time and died at the fifty-sixth year".
In the version that has survived to us, Suetonius does not have a word about Sicily, but almost word for word the version of Pliny's death, allegedly voiced by his nephew in his letter to Tacitus, is transmitted, which causes even greater suspicion of forgery.
"PLINIUS SECUNDUS Novocomensis equestribus militiis industrie functus procurationes quoque splendidissimas et continuas summa integritate administravit, et tamen liberalibus studiis tantam operam dedit, ut non temere quis plura in otio scripserit. "Naturalis Historiae" XXXVII libros absolvit Periit clade Campaniae cum enim Misenensi classi praeesset et flagrante Vesubio ad explorandas propius causas liburnica pertendisset, nec adversantibus ventis remeare posset, vi pulveris ac favillae oppressus est, vel ut quidam existimant a servo suo oc aestu deficiens ut necem sibi maturaret oraverat."
“Pliny Secundus from Novy Komus adequately served the military service due to the riders, with remarkable honesty he occupied several brilliant procuratorships in a row, and finally he devoted himself so zealously to the noble sciences that hardly anyone wrote more than he did at his leisure. So, he collected at 20 books describing all the wars that were fought with the Germans, and then compiled 37 books of "Natural History". He died in the Campanian disaster. Commanding the Misen fleet, he rode the Liburnian galley during the eruption of Vesuvius in order to closer explore the causes of the event, but the opposite wind prevented him return, and he was covered with ashes and ashes, or, as some believe, was killed by his slave, whom, exhausted from the heat, he asked to hasten his death.
It is possible that Tacitus gave Suetonius to read the letters addressed to him by Pliny the Younger, and he used them as a source of information for his series “The Life of Remarkable People”, but, most interestingly, Tacitus himself did not use this information, and Suetonius never mentions in his writings Tacitus!
What manuscript, unknown to us today, was used by Matocius and, most importantly, where did it go after his death?
And here the Padua humanist Sicconio Polentone, who by 1437 prepared the first History of Latin Literature in 18 volumes, comes under suspicion. According to Berthold Louis Ullmann, Cicco, due to the large amount of work for the History he conceived, took the path of least resistance and, after copying from the list of Suetonius De Viris Illustribus that he had in a single copy of everything that he wanted to include in his book , destroyed the list to prevent possible subsequent accusations of plagiarism.
But, not everything is so simple. After all, Matocius, putting Suetonius at the forefront, could not but be familiar with the letters of Pliny the Younger, to which he himself refers, except that, unfortunately, he does not quote them! Did he not pay attention to the inconsistency in the description of the place of death of Pliny the Elder by Suetonius and Pliny the Younger? Perhaps in the XIV century the texts of Pliny's letters to Tacitus, as well as the texts of Suetonius, differed from those canonized to this day?
At the beginning of the fourteenth century it was quite common in northern Italy to publish a series of biographies of famous people. Francesco Petrarch creates in Latin a collection of biographies of famous characters of antiquity, De viris illustribus (On illustrious men), which has remained unfinished. Similarly, Petrarch's friend Giovanni Colonna composed his version of De viris illustribus before leaving Avignon for Rome in 1338. Another of Petrarch's friends, Guglielmo Pastrengo, even wrote two works about the lives of famous people De viris illustribus and De originibus.
In addition, the humanists of the 14th century, influenced by the newfangled current of imitation of ancient authors such as Cicero (Ad Atticum, Ad Familiares) and Pliny, practiced writing dialogues in letters. Moreover, it was almost impossible to distinguish which of them was really authentic, and which was a remake. Geri from Arezzo (Geri d'Arezzo (Gerius Frederici de Aretio) 1270 - 1339) was especially successful in this matter. In his written dialogues, he often quotes or imitates Seneca, Juvenal, but especially Pliny. In a letter to Bartolomeo Oliari, Cardinal of Padua, in 1395, Coluccio Salutati, chancellor of Florence and the leading humanist of his generation, praises Geri as the greatest imitator of his time, Pliny the Younger, and "the first cultivator of eloquence" after centuries of rhetorical decline.
In the house of Coluccio Salutati and under his leadership, a youth circle was organized, from which came the largest humanists of the next generation - Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Poggio Bracciolini, Pietro Paolo Vergerio.
We will return to some of them later, but for now it should be noted that of the entire epistolary work of Jerry, only six letters have survived. Everything else has disappeared from literary circulation by our time. It is possible that some of his letters were later added to the collection of letters of Pliny the Younger and even edited by them.
Another (different?) manuscript of Pliny was allegedly brought to Verona in 1326 by Simon da Arezzo, who had previously served in the papal curia in Avignon. In Verona, he worked until 1337, as a canon. This Code, through the Order of the Dominicans in Arezzo, to whom Simon bequeathed his library, later ended up in the hands of Coluccio Salutati and is still kept in Florence.
It is noteworthy that Petrarch, known for his scrupulous and critical approach to primary sources, does not mention Pliny the Younger in a single word, despite the fact that his friends, such as Gulelmo Pastrengo, quote him. And he, most likely, was not even aware of the existence of Pliny's letters. But he stayed for a long time in the library of Verona, in which he copied Cicero in 1345 and where the same Simon da Arezzo put Titus Livius on the table for him. Did Petrarch not find in the same library the letters of Pliny, neither those used by Matotius, nor those brought from Avignon by Simon? Something doesn't quite fit here. Although, perhaps, Matotius used the manuscript of Pliny brought by Simon from Avignon.
It can certainly be assumed that Johannes Matocius mixed up something with Suetonius and included Pliny the Elder in the quote about Sicily by mistake, but four years after his death, a florilegium (anthology) Flore moralium auctoritatum appears in Verona, richly flavored with quotations from ancient authors and , including from Suetonius and in an absolutely identical interpretation with the revelations of Matotius.
The conclusion suggests itself that the florilegium was compiled from the same sources used by Matotius in the same library of Verona. Le Historiae imperiales has survived to this day in three manuscripts, two of which are in the Vatican. They are all copies of the fifteenth century, and no original manuscript of Matotius, including that Brevis de adnotatio duobus Pliniis in which he divides the Plinies in two, is found in Verona itself.
Maybe Jerry and Simon from Arezzo are the same person?
That which cannot be.
What is most interesting is that 70 km from Etna there is the city of Messina.
Messina (Italian: Messina, Sit. Missina, Latin: Messana, Greek: Μεσσήνη) is a city in the Italian region of Sicily, the administrative center of the province of the same name. The third largest city on the island of Sicily.
Also an ancient port and a well-known stop of the Roman fleet, Messina is very consonant with Miseno. In addition, Messina has a direct connection with Campania (see Mamertines).
"... Uncle was in Mizen and personally commanded the fleet..."
In connection with the version of the death of Pliny the Elder in Sicily as a result of the eruption of Etna, which took place in an alternative version of Suetonius, we will carefully consider Pliny's letter to Tacitus (6.16).
Pliny writes:
“My uncle had already basked in the sun, doused himself with cold water, had a bite to eat and lay down to study; he demands sandals and rises to a place where this amazing phenomenon could best be seen. A cloud (those who looked from afar could not determine which mountain it arose; that it was Vesuvius, they later recognized), in its shape it most of all resembled a pine tree ... "
Here the explanation that it is Vesuvius that is erupting is taken in brackets. It can be assumed that this is a late insert. On what basis? At least on such that I personally was in Mizen and that looking from there it is impossible to confuse Vesuvius with any other mountain. Vesuvius from there - as in the palm of your hand and uncle did not need to climb to a higher place to see it. Moreover, at such a distance, even a hundred meters, the difference in the height of the observation point above sea level does not play any significant role in improving the view.
But if the uncle was not in Mizena, where he "personally commanded the fleet", but in Messina in Sicily, then it would really be difficult for him looking from there to determine which mountain a cloud resembling a pine appeared over.
Further, the uncle, for the sake of interest, ordered to cook liburnik and was
about to leave the house when he received a letter from Rektina, wife of Tasius: frightened by the impending danger (her villa lay under a mountain, and it was possible to escape only by sea), she asked her uncle to take her out of this terrible situation."
Pliny does not specify how long Uncle Pliny surveyed the surroundings and how soon he was preparing for the departure of the Liburnian, but to get from the foot of Vesuvius to Misen, the messenger from Rektina would need to drive his horse at a trot, turning into a walk, more than 40 km along the coast. And it's less than 4 hours. Forty kilometers at a gallop, the horse simply will not stand it, it will die. Yes, and Roman roads do not have a gallop.
"He changed his plan: and what the scientist undertook was completed by a man of great soul; he ordered the quadriremes to be brought out and he boarded the ship, intending to help not only Rektina, but also many others (this beautiful coast was very populated)."
Pliny does not specify the time required to equip the quadrireme, but in any case it turns out that when Uncle Pliny finally “spread out” to go to rescue Rektina, the day was drawing to a close. But to swim uncle to the scene, even in a straight line, it was necessary 30 km. And this, at an average speed of 5 knots (1,852 km / h), means at least another 3 hours. August 24 in Naples at 19 pm it is already dark. And if you believe other lists of Pliny's letters, where the eruption of Vesuvius occurred in November, then it is already dark there at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. At night, as far as I know, they did not swim in those days.
Then Pliny makes another strange clarification, also similar to far-fetched:
"He was in the Stabiae, on the opposite coast (the sea juts into the land, forming a gradually rounded, curved coastline)."
What kind of Stabiae were meant on the opposite coast, if the Stabiae on the Peutinger map are marked on the same coast as Pompeii, i.e. to the right of the mouth of the Sarno River? Well, Pliny the Younger does not mention Pompeii and Herculaneum either. Probably in the 14th century, when Pliny was forged (or remade), they still did not know anything about their death, Dion Cassius would be "found" later, but there are no such cities in Sicily.
PS
On the Internet, I accidentally clashed about this with an assistant professor of classical studies at one of the universities of Indiana.
Pedar W. Foss s.
Translating Pliny’s letters about Vesuvius, pt. 4. A Strange Cloud
In fact, with a Latin teacher, as I understand it, a good teacher of good Latin. So, in his blog, he analyzes the Latin of the letters of Pliny the Younger with a thorough reference to what is described with the traditional interpretation of those legendary events. To my bewilderment about the obvious presence in the 14th century. different edition of the writings of Suetonius, which has sunk into oblivion, he answers:
So this means that the Elder and the Younger are two different people (I bet that agreeing on age at death is exactly what "cui consonat" refers to). In letters 6.16 and 6.20, Pliny does not actually name his uncle by name, and it is not required, because it is obvious to Tacitus to whom he is writing E. T. Merrill, in the Classical Journal 1910 (vol. 5.2, pp. 175-88), says (p. 181): "Again, in the same paragraph of the Adnotatio, he quotes Suetonius Tranquilius, who authoritatively asserts that Pliny the Elder suffocated on the ashes of Mount Etna, and at the same time calmly refers to Pliny's letter Ep. VI. 16, in which Pliny, as he must have known, tells a very different story. Mansionarius, of course, knew that Campania was not Sicily and Vesuvius was not Etna. But, as was the case with Vincent [another scientist] quoted aptly, "the various parts of his apparently somewhat overworked brain did not always work together." In short, Mansionarius knew better, but was not able to clearly comprehend the reconciliation of these two stories about the death of Pliny the Elder in this passage. He was obsessed with proving that there were, in fact, two Plinies."
In short, Mansionary, in his opinion, was a complete idiot out of his mind. It is obviously easier to explain historical inconsistencies in this way.
"Before the early 14th century, there seems to have been no systematic approach to the collection, evaluation and sorting of manuscripts for ordering, error detection, authorial reliability, etc. In the absence of any internal evidence in the Natural History or Letters, there may not have been nothing explicit to show that there were more than one "Pliny" authors. Of course, we cannot say that at that time there was a consistent tradition of critical approach in classical science. So I bet there was a lot of confusion and a general lack of consistent (that is, arguments and proofs tested over time) of the authorship of many texts Perhaps Mansionarius had another version of Suetonius' Life of (Elder) Pliny. There were many manuscripts that disappeared in the next couple of hundred years (or rather became " so that I can talk about it more competently. Thank you Andreas."
To my critical remarks about the dubious geographical reference of the events described, the discrepancy between the reality of the calculation of the time for the implementation of a possible rescue action, the associate professor replied as follows:
The GoogleEarth program offers a perspective landscape at ground level, but everything is not so clear from there. Compared to the fact that it was then around noon, which is the worst time of the day for viewing distant objects, your photos were taken on a clear day at sunset, at a significant elevation, so that Vesuvius simply has to stand out from the sky.
- Messana in Sicily was not the headquarters of the Roman fleet at this time, and has not maintained a significant number of naval vessels since the revolt of Sextus Pompey in 36 BC. There was no command post there. We know from many archaeological, epigraphic and textual evidence that Misenum was a port for the Roman fleet. Messanae (locative form) also cannot be corrupted into Miseni, and there are no options for this part of the text anyway.
- Regarding the distance and endurance of the horses, the characteristics of the ships and the required time... Yes, the sunset was around 7 pm that day, but it must have been quite dark due to the eruption. If Pliny set off at 3 pm, by evening he would have been close enough to shore to realize that he was due to return at 5 pm, so that he had enough time to sail southeast with a fair wind to come to Stabiae for dinner (not to mention the fact that the Romans knew how to walk at night and walked). But we should not go into too much detail, especially since we do not have enough accurate data.
- There is no mention of Pompeii and Herculaneum either here or there. We cannot operate on negative evidence, bearing in mind that the description of the cities that died from the volcano was not the purpose of the letters; their purpose was to describe the honor of Pliny the Elder on the threshold of life and death.
We have a ninth century manuscript (M) containing these letters, which is our best source (Medician - approx. Auth.), anticipating all speculation about a later forgery / redaction. It would take an unprecedented amount of evidence to accept the (now lost) texts of Suetonius quoted by a single 14th-century priest. instead of the well-documented handwritten tradition of Pliny's letters that we have today. Finally, there is no reason for this."
In this he is right. Why stir up the past? After all, it has already settled down so well ... Well, the arguments I cited in support of the political and mercantile interests of the humanists of that time in forgeries of manuscripts with cross-references in them to historical figures that never existed completely ruined his mood.
"
I'm not going to drag out the discussion and continue to argue about the visibility (of Vesuvius) or describe all my trips to the Gulf of Naples for research. It's great that you prefer conspiracy theory and medieval forgeries. I don't see any evidence for this and I'm not going to argue about negative evidence therefore, just as there is no reasonable motive for the alleged forgeries, there is no possibility or motive for reproducing such an accurate description with details of the Plinian eruption during the period of time when the mountain was at rest, from the end of the 13th century to 1631 (as well as Etna). it just doesn't fit. Cheers."
In fact, it turns out that my opponents basically have no more evidence than I have mine. It's just that their scale is outweighed by the centuries-old volume of stratifications of literary creativity of a quasi-academic nature. Breaking through this mass is not easy, but possible. And there it turns out that the king is naked.
