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DE NOVIS LIBRIS IUDICIA H. ERKELL, Augustus, Felicitas

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DE NOVIS LIBRIS IUDICIA H. ERKELL, Augustus, Felicitas DE NOVIS LIBRIS IUDICIA H. ERKELL, Augustus, Felicitas, Fortuna. Lateinische Wortstudien. Goteborg, Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1952. 191 p. Pr. cor. 14. This book really gives far more than the title suggests. Studies of three words indeed, but not in a lexicological sense, for the author attempts an analysis of the significance which these words had for the Roman mind, especially in the last century of the Republic. Personally I do not hesitate to put these Woytstudien on a par with the famous articles by R. Heinze on Auctoyitas and Libertas. There is today among the writers on Ancient History a tendency to seek (and find) behind the narratives of the Roman historians a hidden ideology, vaguely indicated non-rationalistic ideas, and allusions which are said to reveal the real purpose of their work. Dr. Erkell confronts these constructions with the facts, exactly .interpreting and carefully analysing what these autors actually said, guarding himself against any "Hineininterpretieren"; and the result, though at first sight somewhat flat and negative, is startling: these far reaching conclusions and seemingly brilliant observations are exposed as being mostly phantasy, in some cases barely possible, in others flatly contrary to the testimonies of our sources, or, at the least, highly improbable. Part Ia deals with the use of the word augustus in the first decade of I.ivius. I give the conclusion in the author's own words: "Die Ansicht Stiiblers dass sich augustus fast überall in der ersten Decade auf die Person des Kaisers beziehe, entbehrt also jeder Stftze. I.ivius hat mehrmals auf Augustus hingewiesen, aber klar und deutlich, mit Nennung seines Namens". The second chapter, Optimus Augur, denies that the contem- porary Roman heard hidden connexions between the name of Augustus and Augur or Auctor (even if the word originally derives from the same root). Here too, in my opinion, the autor has proved his case: "dass wir fberhaupt keinen Beweis dafür besitzen, dass die Zeitgenossen einen sachlichen Zusammenhang zwischen Augur und Augustus gefihlt hatten, und dass dies im Gegenteil sehr unwarscheinlich ist. Soviel wir wissen, verband auch auctor mit augustus nur der Gleichklang". In part II Erkell shows that to the Romans lelix and felicitas, meant the "luck" given by the Gods to him who deserves their aid by his MMs and piety. The later use of the words Pius Felix in the imperial titles naturally follows as a result of the use of 343 these words in classic I.atin. Certainly the Romans were super- stituous and susceptible to magic, but there is no reason to believe that, when using the words Felix and Felicitas, they thought about magical forces that should be expressed by these words. The best-known Roman who gave himself the name Felix is Sulla. Erkell points out that the Romans themselves refused to accept Sulla as an example of f elicitas, because of his bloody career, which made it impossible for them to ascribe his success to divine aid. The widely accepted view that Sulla himself believed. (or feigned to believe) that he was the special protege of Venus, and that his Greek surname Epaphroditus (latine Venustus) is a. translation of Felix, as suggested by Mommsen and many others, lacks proof. There is no certain indication that Sulla had Venus as his own protecting goddess. J. Carcopino, in his highly praised book Szilla ou la monarchie manqu?e, deduced from the name Felix and all that this word is said to have meant, that Sulla must have aimed at a monarchical position and sought to deify himself in the eyes of the people and his soldiers: this hypothesis has been subjected by Dr. Erkell to careful criticism and is literally destroyed. Very unkind, but fully justified, are the closing words of this chapter: "diese ganze 'Schilderung zeugt davon, welch ein Romanschriftsteller in Car- copino verloren gegangen ist" (p. 103). The third and last part is devoted to the word Fortuna. Erkell formulates the problem in the following words: ,,(die) romische Fortuna nahm nie eine so iberragende Stellung ein wie die Tyche im Osten. Sie begegnet uns aber oft genug bei den romischen Autoren und stellt damit den I.eser fur die Frage: in wiefern hat sich der Autor diese Vorstellung zu eigen gemacht, d.h. ist sie dem R"mer . wirklich ein literarisches Motiv, oder ist sie ihm zur Weltanschauung geworden ?" By way of introduction to the analysis of the Roman authors he gives a summary of the use of Tyche by the most important Greek historians, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius. He arrives, in my opinion rightly, at the conclusion, that these Greeks-even Polybius, in open contradiction to other Hellenistic writers-do not assign an important role to a Goddess Tyche in their historical works. It is the task of the historian to understand the trend of history as a work of logos and ratio, not to depict moving scenes of the frailty of human luck as the result of the working of a wilful Goddess Chance. The Roman authors Sallustius, Caesar and I.ivius are, even when using the word Fortuna, of the same opinion. Certainly the Romans frequently speak about the I.uck of a general or statesman; continuous success used to breed in them the conviction that this I.uck would hold, for omina in .
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