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Hardy's Edition of Pliny's Correspondence with C Plinii Caecilii Secundi epistulae ad Traimnum imperatorem cum eiusdem responsis. Edited, with notes and introductory essays by E. G. Hahdy, M.A. London. Macmillan. 1889. 8vo. pp. xii, 251. 10s. 6d.

John E. B. Mayor

The Classical Review / Volume 4 / Issue 03 / March 1890, pp 120 - 124 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00189814, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00189814

How to cite this article: John E. B. Mayor (1890). The Classical Review, 4, pp 120-124 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00189814

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.212 on 25 Apr 2015 120 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.

HARDY'S EDITION OF PLINY'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH TRAJAN.

C Plinii Caecilii Secundi epistulae ad Traim- Latinity. If to these two editions, and the num imperatorem cum eiusdem responsis. slighter work of J. M. Gesner, as edited by Edited, with notes and introductory es- G. H. Schafer, lie had added the colossal says by E. G. HAHDY, M.A. London. Mac- commentary of Schwarz on the panegyric millan. 1889. 8vo. pp. xii, 251. 10s. 6d. and Lagergren's dissertation on the life and language of Pliny, he might safely have Mr. HARDY is to be congratulated on the neglected the German notes of Moritz (not choice of his subject, both in this volume Moritz, as we read p. 74) Doring (Freyberg and in the edition which he promises of Plu- 1843), which have received undue attention tarch's lives of Otho and Gnlba. from him and from other English editors. He has been fortunate enough (see his Any one who will verify Doring's citations article in the Journal of Philology, vol. xvii) through a few letters, will learn to distrust to discover in the Bodleian a volume con- his guidance. taining the editions of Beroaldus (1498) and For the famous letters on. the Christians, Avantius (1503, part of the correspondence Mr. Hardy's choice of authorities is especi- with Trajan) together with a transcript of ally unfortunate. ' For my notes and es- the letters wanting in both collections. It say on the Christians, I have consulted the seems certain that this Bodleian volume was dissertations of Bandouin (read Baudouin) used by Aldus as copy for the first Aldine and Vossius; Aube, Histoire des Persecutions ; edition (1508). Even Keil's larger edition and Schiller's Gesckichte der Kaiserzeit.' thus receives a welcome supplement from Schiller and Aube are notoriously weak on Mr. Hardy's collations. the side of ecclesiastical history; a few The mass of new material brought to light hours' study of the sober critics Kortholdt in chiefly from inscriptions, and digested by the 17th century, Boehmer, Mosheim, Lard- Mommsen and Marquardt (Mr. Hardy I ner in the 18th, would have enabled our think always, certainly seventeen times, editor to form a clearer and more consistent writes Marquadt; if any consonant in this view of the bearing of Trajan's rescript than clumsy name is superfluous, surely it is the he conveys to the reader who compares his d or t), suggested to Mr. Hardy the illustra- scattered utterances on the subject. tion of the litterae inlitteratissimae (he On p. 12 we read : ' This reply made Christianity writes (p. vi) a single t in each word ; p. 29, a definite political offence, and laid down the prece- where he gives the reference, has the right dent which in fact characterised the subsequent per- spelling) of the official correspondence between secutions.' P. 62 : ' Trajan commends Pliny's past procedure, Trajan and Pliny. It is a great convenience and distinctly lays it down that all who are charged to have collected at the foot of the page by responsible accusers and prove to be Christians, on what must else be sought in several costly refusing to deny the name, and, as a test of bona fides, volumes. Even possessors of the best old to worship the state gods, are to be executed. This, then, is the first distinct and legal ordinance made editions will be grateful for the saving of respecting the Christians. It amounts, there is no time and labour which this work offers to doubt, to an edict of proscription. The profession of them. Christianity, as such, if proved on satisfactory grounds, was a punishable offence....That the edict Mr. Hardy complains that Pliny's letters opened out the possibility of a legal persecution there to Trajan 'have hitherto received compara- is no doubt, for it was quite within the competence tively scanty notice from editors and scho- of the governor to invite accusations though he could not initiate them.' lars.' It% would have been well for the solidity of his undertaking, if he had used p. 63 : ' With regard to the application of the edict, I think it is quite clear that it related not the labours of such pioneers as exist. He to the empire as a whole, but to Bithynia only. betrays no acquaintance with the elaborate Trajan's own words, 'nequein universum aliquid... edition of Gottlieb Cortius and P. D. Longo- constitui potest,' partly imply this, but apart from lius (Amst. 1734, 4to), with its index of this, without definite evidence, it would be quite in- admissible to suppose that a rescript given to a par- words and the valuable elucidations (for the ticular governor in answer to particular questions so-called Tenth Book) of Rittershusius, Buch- could be applied beyond the province about which it ner, Longolius : in this work, and in that of was written.' [Yet the corpus iuris and Haenel's G. E. Gierig (Leipz. 1802 8vo.) almost all collection have no meaning except by virtue of this difficulties, of matter or of language, are supposition.] ibid. ' Trajan's rescript is really little more than a fully discussed by masters of Silver Age supplement to his previous edict concerning the THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 121

hetaeriae in Bithynia, and really did not touch Theomuthis, but p. 89 rightly "Thermuthin.' p. 92 Christianity as a religion at all.' cf. p. 243. a (summary of ep. 7) 'home'for 'nome.' p. 92b three false accents, p. 94b ' Quintitius' for ' Quiuti- It is melancholy, in the nineteenth cen- lius.' p. 97a bis ' vindematio.' p. 100 title to ep. tury, to find on epp. 96 97 the loose cita- 11 'media' for 'rnedici.' p. 113b 'Gierig cites.' Not Gierig, but Doring in reply to Gierig. p. 116 tions of Catanaeus or Baudouin reproduced on letter 23 should be cited 70, on the same subject. without attempt at verification. Thus ' Ul- p. 118a an impossible accent ofpeiToi. p. 119b three pian' (p. 211), ' Hieronymus in Ghron. monsters Taiou. rapids, rphs (for irpSs). p. 134b Euseb:, 'Tertullian' (p. 212), 'Prudent. ' numerals enclosed by two vertical and one horizon- tal line are multiplied by 100,000, and those by a passione Vincentii,' 'Tertullian' (p. 213), single horizontal line, by 1000.' A fine example of 'Tertullian,'' Euseb. Eccl. Hist. V,'' Iosephus zeugma, p. 160b hit. p. 165a 'atrociosa.' p. 202b Ant. lud. 14/ 'Philo,' 'DioCass.' (p. 214), Kex^mpxhKas- tk-vttia. p. 212b ' exprobatis.' 'ex- ' Ulpian lib. viii, de officio Procons. cap. 1,' probavit.' p. 214b Tertullian [add ' de ieifin. 17']... implies that abuses crept in, ' Apud te agape in sae- ' again,' ' in the persecution in Gaul under culis [1. caccabis] fervet: fides in cullnis calet: spes Marcus Aurelius it is said,' ' Tertullian to in ferculis iacet.' The context ought to have guarded Scapula,' 'Doring appositely quotes Pru- our editor from this slip. p. 216b fyire

torquere licebit in eorum etiam caput qui eius ccnrn - § 1 aides sacras et ojxra publica circumire poris eraut.' Again, ' Divus Hadrianus rescripsit a inspiewndi gratia. suspectissimo incipiendum et a quo facillime potest verum scire iudex crediderit.' It would be easy to add illustrations which have escaped the commentators. Thus ep. Few readers will take the pains to ascer- 10 § 1 episttdae is used like litterae and tain that the latter quotation is from dig. orwrroXai, of a single letter. See my note on XLVIII 18 1 § 2, where book eight of the III 9 § 13 and ind. ep. 23 § 2 saeculi tui specified treatise of Ulpian is cited, but not nitor. Tac. d. 22 laetitiam nitoremjwe chapter one. The former quotation, though nostrorum temporum. given in inverted commas, contains, not the precise text of Ulpian, but Baudouin's sum- In conclusion I would recommend the mary of his teaching (Mr. Hardy himself letters regarding the Christians as a worthy corrupts licebat to licebit). To Baudouin also theme for a monograph. Any one who will is due ' cap. 1,' for which no authority exists. digest the whole literature will, I believe, At least none is known to Otto Lenel prove beyond possibility of cavil, that it (Palingenesia iuris civilis, Lips. 1889, II would have required a more skilful forger 966-991) who has collected with great exact- to compose the correspondence of Pliny and ness the extant fragments of Ulpian's book. Trajan than to compose the nine books of miscellaneous correspondence; and that, as A somewhat similar freedom is taken with Aldus said long ago, letters 96 and 97, far Ulpian's words on ep. 96 § 1 p. 211a: from being an interpolation, establish the The general duty which, as UJpian says, was in- cumbent en all provincial governors, ' statim atque genuineness of the entire collection. in aliquem (sic) celelirem civitatem vel provinciae [F.S.—The best criticism of these letters, caput proconsul venit, debere sedes sacras circumiie known to me, is the latest—in Neumann's atque iaspicere.' Der romische Stoat und die allgemeine Kirclie This is from book II of the de officio pro- bis auf Diocletian (Leipz. Veit), of which consulis (II 968 Lenel, dig. 116 7 pr.) si in the first volume has just appeared.] ediam quam (v. 1. aliquam) celebrem civitatem vel provinciae caput advenerit, . . . debet . . . JOHN E. B, MAYOR.

BURY'S HISTORY OF THE LATER . A History of the Later Roman Empire, from Polybius than to piece out the history of Arcadius to Irene (395 A.D. to 800 A.D.), Heraclius from the turgid sentences of by J. B BUEY M.A., Fellow and Tutor Theophylact or the curious iambics of George of Trinity College, Dublin. (Macmillan ife of Pisidia. But if history is to be studied Co. : 2 vols. 8vo.) seriously as a science it will not be possible for the student to confine his reading to MR. BUEY'S volumes are an important and books distinguished by their literary ex- valuable contribution to our knowledge of a cellence ; and the more repulsive the material period, the history of which has been too the greater is the credit due to an author much neglected by scholara It may be who, like Mr. Bury, has patiently and labor- safely said that, for a student of the History iously dug it for us out of the mine and of the World, Imperial Rome—whether we wrought it into historical form. apply that name to the city by the Tiber or It will be seen from the title that the book to the daughter-city by the Bosphorus—is deals with the four great transitional cen- far more important than Republican Rome ; turies between Theodosius and him whom yet how many an undergraduate who knows we used without fear to speak of as Charle- every detail of the Second Punic War would magne, that is to say between the so-called fail to give a satisfactory account of the ' Downfall of the Western Empire' and its great event which marked the reign of restoration by the King of the Franks. Constantino Pogonatus ! How much there was that was wrong and Of course this partial treatment of history misleading in this view of the matter is fully is to some extent explained by the immense explained by the author in his preface. He difference between the literary excellence of is a loyal follower of Bryceand Freeman, and the earlier and the later historians. It is it may be said that one great purpose of his far pleasanter to follow the footsteps of book is to show the thorough continuity of Hannibal under the guidance of or the Empire, and to explain how completely