Aulus Gellius, the Noctes Atticae, and the Literary Logic of Miscellany Under the High Roman Empire
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Aulus Gellius, the Noctes Atticae, and the Literary Logic of Miscellany Under the High Roman Empire By Scott Jared DiGiulio A.B. Harvard University, 2009 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2015 © Copyright 2015 by Scott J. DiGiulio This dissertation by Scott J. DiGiulio is accepted in its present form by the Department of Classics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date John Bodel, Director Recommended to the Graduate Council Date Stratis Papaioannou, Reader Date Felipe Rojas Silva, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii CURRICULUM VITAE Scott J. DiGiulio was born on July 2, 1987 in New York City, New York. In 2009, he received an A.B. in Classics from Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude with highest departmental honors; his senior thesis, “The Mask of the Alien: Attitudes Towards Foreigners in Satiric Literature Under the Roman Empire,” received the Pease Prize for Excellence in a Thesis on a Latin topic. He entered Brown University in the fall of 2009; during his graduate work, he presented several papers at the annual meetings of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (2013), the American Philological Association (2014), and the Society for Classical Studies (2015). He participated in the summer session of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2011), the Lincoln College Summer School in Greek Palaeography (2012), and was selected as a fellow of the Advanced Seminar in the Humanities at Venice International University in 2013-2014. iv PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has developed over the course of several years and has benefited from the insights and support of many individuals from its inception. The greatest debt is owed to John Bodel, with whom I first embarked on the project of reading Gellius as a special topic in the spring of 2011; he has dedicated innumerable hours to the development of this dissertation, which has benefited greatly from his guidance over the last several years. Likewise, this project has been strengthened greatly by the perceptive commentary of my readers, Stratis Papaioannou and Felipe Rojas. I am additionally grateful to the remainder of the faculty and staff of the Classics Department at Brown Univeristy for being a source of constant encouragement and intellectual stimulation. Additional debts are owed to many others who read various parts of this thesis while it was in development. At an early stage, David Konstan read and offered valuable feedback upon several chapter drafts, as did William Fitzgerald, who also provided me with the manuscript of a talk he delivered at Brown University in September 2012 that helped to direct some of my own thinking about parts and wholes in Gellius. Alessandro Barchiesi and Kathleen Coleman also read chapters and offered invaluable input. Audiences at the 2012 meeting of CAMWS, the 2014 meeting of the APA, and the 2015 meeting of the SCS provided helpful commentary on various sections. I am especially grateful to Joseph Howley, who shared several unpublished manuscripts, as well as reading and offering keen commentary upon much of this dissertation—the project would be much the poorer if not for his valuable insights and generosity. Within Brown University, I have benefitted from the support of many others. I could not have asked for a better group of graduate colleagues and friends in my cohort, v who have supported not only my scholarly work, but also my personal well-being over the last six years. The members of the Mellon workshop “Cultures of Performance in the Post-Classical Mediterranean” (and the previous iterations of this working group) provided several opportunities to test out ideas in a collegial and always thought- provoking setting. Jeri DeBrohun invited me to test several arguments at her seminar “Allusion and its Discontents,” and I received valuable feedback from her as well as the students of the seminar. I am deeply grateful to Lauren Ginsberg, Timothy Haase, Leo Landrey, Mitchell Parks, Byron MacDougall, and Dominic Machado in particular, all of whom have been constant sources of encouragement that has proven invaluable time and again. Additionally, I thank my parents, Lori-Jo and George, and my sister, Gabrielle: their love, concern, constant support has helped me keep everything in perspective throughout this process. Last, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Courtney Thompson. She has been a pillar of support throughout the composition of this dissertation (and, indeed, my entire time at Brown). Her love, encouragement, and especially her patience have made all the difference in the completion of this project. Her insightful questions have always pushed me to think about the bigger picture; her editing has contributed to the lucidity of my writing; and her intellectual enthusiasm and curiosity has served as a source of inspiration. She has steered me around many dangerous rocks as my copilot, and I dedicate this thesis to her. Throughout I follow the abbreviations of the Oxford Classical Dictionary for ancient sources and those of L’Année Philologique for modern periodicals. Unless otherwise noted, all translations (and mistakes) are my own. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: READING MISCELLANY AND THE NOCTES ATTICAE 1 Previous Approaches to the NA 9 Overview of the Present Study 19 Reading, Materiality, and the Transmission of the NA: Some Preliminary Remarks on Approaching the Text 23 CHAPTER 1: FRAMING THE TEXT, FRAMING THE READER: ACCESSING THE NA THROUGH ITS PARATEXTS 31 Genette’s Paratextuality and the Reader of the NA 35 Reading from the Outside-In: The Title 39 Crossing the Threshold: The Preface 50 Reading from the Top Down: The Table of Contents 72 The Table of Contents in Latin Reference Literature 74 Alternative Tables of Contents and Reading in the High Roman Empire 83 Reading Lemmata with their Chapters 89 Conclusion 104 CHAPTER 2: ORDINE RERUM FORTUITO: STRUCTURE, MEANING, AND INTRATEXTUAL CONNECTIONS IN THE NA 106 Gellius’ Strategies of Reading (Gellius): A Second Reading of the Preface 111 A Model of Critical Reading: Plutarch’s De Audiendis Poetis and De Recta Ratione Audiendi 118 Navigating the Maze: Gellius’ Deictic Markers and Fashioning Connections Between Chapters 129 The Effect of Paired Chapters 141 Structures Writ Large: Intratextual Links in Book 2 153 The Poetic Patterning of Book 1 161 Bridging the Gap: Cross-Book Connections 175 Conclusion 181 CHAPTER 3: HOW TO READ A BOOK: INTRATEXTUAL PROSAICS AT WORK IN NA BOOK 3 185 Through the Looking Glass: The Intersection of Philology and Antiquarianism 190 Shifting Definitions of Virtus and Roman Identity 215 A Horse of a Different Color: The equus Seianus and Chromatic Recall 220 Varro’s Voice: 3.14, 3.2, 3.16 and time 230 A Question of Character: Favorinus’ Return in 3.19 246 Conclusion 256 vii CHAPTER 4: GELLIUS AND MODELS OF GENTLEMAN SCHOLARSHIP: PLINY, TACITUS, AND SENECA 258 Gellius and the Reception of Seneca—A Case Study of Imperial Literary Criticism 263 Gellius and Tacitus: The Sounds of Silence 284 At home with Pliny: Gellius’, Pliny the Younger’s, and Seneca’s Villas 311 Conclusion 337 CONCLUSION 341 BIBLIOGRAPHY 352 viii INTRODUCTION: READING MISCELLANY AND THE NOCTES ATTICAE In the midst of a discussion on Stoic apatheia in the ninth book of his De Civitate Dei, Augustine paraphrases what he believes to be an excellent illustration of his point: in libris quibus titulus est Noctium Atticarum, scribit A. Gellius, vir elegantissimi eloquii et multae undeccumque scientiae, se navigasse aliquando cum quodam philosopho nobili Stoico. Is philosophus—sicut latius et uberius, quod ego breviter adtingam, narrat A. Gellius—cum illud navigium horribili caelo et mari periculosissime iactaretur, vi timoris expalluit. In the books that are titled Noctes Atticae, Aulus Gellius, a man of most elegant style and much learning of every sort, writes that one day he sailed with a certain well-known Stoic philosopher. This philosopher—Gellius tells more fully and more richly what I will sketch out briefly—when that ship was tossed about most perilously when the sky and sea were turning stormy, the philosopher turned pale with fear. (August. De civ. D. 9.4) This anecdote, which is related by Gellius at Noctes Atticae 19.1, serves to enliven Augustine’s otherwise direct exposition of Stoic doctrine; in fact, he has selected to quote it here precisely because Gellius had written it so stylishly. At Quaes. in Hept. 1.30, he likewise paraphrases the passage, concluding by instructing his secretary to look up the relevant passage after abridging it from memory (sed considerandum est quemadmodum hoc dicat A. Gellius, et diligenter inserendum). In the latter instance, Augustine approaches this passage of Gellius differently. No longer commenting on the style or Gellius’ learning, instead he uses this discussion to augment his discussion, ripe to be plucked and then reintegrated into his own work.1 His Gellius, then, appears to be a mine 1 Grafton 2004, 320. On Augustine’s paraphrase of Gellius, see Brachtendorf 1997, 297-300, detailing Augustine’s development of the terminology for the passions and his use of Gellius to move beyond Ciceronian models; Sorabji 2000, 375-382, arguing that Gellius’ paraphrase of Epictetus ultimately leads Augustine to misunderstand the Stoic psychology of the emotions; and Nisula 2012, 283-239, which draws on Sorabji and compares Gellius’ and Augustine’s terminology in their respective treatments. O’Donnell 1 of sources to improve his own work rather than an author to be read in his own right, despite his high praise for Gellius’ treatment of the Stoic philosopher on the sea voyage.