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Home , Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis

CHAPTER TWO

MACROBIUS’S COMMENTARY ON SCIPIO’S : ITS CAROLINGIAN USES FOR ASTRONOMY AND COSMOLOGY

A picture of the physical —the earth, the stellar sphere, and the intermediate ordered planets—appeared most clearly for the scholars of Charlemagne’s day in ’s lengthy commentary on ’s .1 Theodulf of Orleans, Alcuin, and others who knew this text must have appreciated its rm images of the circles of the celestial and terrestrial globes, the climatic zones of the earth, and the zodiacal and planetary orders. Diagrams of these topics were included in the Commentary and appear in most of the ninth-century manuscripts; Dungal seems to have used at least one such diagram when adapting the work of Macrobius to answer Charlemagne’s letter of astronomical inquiry in the year 811. While Macrobius did not provide the sort of detailed and technical information that Carolingians could or would nd in the works of Pliny, , and , his global picture, both literal and gurative, held great appeal and was excerpted many times.2 Just as a spherical earth implied the regular sequences of

1 The evidence of Freeman, “Additions and Corrections to the Libri Carolini,” p. 162, reveals the desire to include a direct reference to Macrobius’s classi cation of in the Libri Carolini ca. 793. One fragment of an eighth century manuscript and ten ninth-century manuscripts, often fragmentary or excerpted, of Macrobius’s Commentarii still survive. The earliest complete copy we now have, Paris 6370, copied at Tours prob- ably ca. 820, shows connections with various important centers and persons during the century; see the description in Pellegrin, “Manuscrits de Loup de Ferrières,” p. 11. In 811 the Irish monk Dungal made extensive use of the Commentarii in his letter to Charlemagne about astronomy. See Eastwood, “The astronomy of Macrobius.” 2 A brief and useful summary of the content of the commentary appears in the introduction to Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, trans. Stahl, pp. 9–23. Although each of the disciplines of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry/geography, astronomy, music) received extensive treatment by Macrobius, these were not the limits of his focus, for he stated clearly that he considered his Commentary to be an introduction to the whole of philosophy, its three branches being “moralis, naturalis et rationalis” (ethics, physics, and logic; at II.xvii.15). For an introduction to Macrobius and his , see Gersh, and , vol. 2, pp. 493–595, esp. 493–6 nn. 1–2, for bibliography. The Macrobian philosophical tradition in the is surveyed by Hüttig, Macrobius im Mittelalter, pp. 39–52 on the (see 32 chapter two day and night, of the seasons of the year, and of climatic variation, so the surrounding concentric spheres and sidereal circles led a reader to understand as well the association of certain constellations with certain times of the year and the separate paths of planets in orderly cycles of movement.

1. Concentric Spheres as a Home for Matter and Spirit

Macrobius described a cosmos of concentric spheres, from the central and spherical earth up through the seven planets to the outermost, stellar sphere. This world was composed of the four elements: earth, water, air, and re. ‘Fire’ and ‘aether’ he used indiscriminately, importing some attributes of the Aristotelian aether for this fourth and outermost matter among the cosmic spheres. Aether alone made up the cosmos from the lunar sphere outward, the other elements being con ned to the lower world. While he reviewed other teachings on the elemental makeup of the planetary spheres, his own view followed a Pythagorean- Platonic tradition which saw all planets and stars, from the moon upward, as divine and unchanging in nature, yet active in their effects upon our sublunar realm. In fact, the seven planetary spheres govern all things below (“inferiora omnia gubernarent”).3 The sublunar region is unable to produce a living body, and the celestial ethereal re alone can endow earthly beings with life, spirit, and vital heat. The matter of the celestial realm, ether, called eternal re as well, is clearly the matter of the moon as well as all above it, but the lunar sphere holds a transitional status. It is the only planet, according to Macrobius, that has no light of its own and needs the sun’s re ected light to become a luminary. With the regions of air, water, and earth directly below it,

the review of this work in , 84 (1993), 366–7). The scienti c content of Macrobius’s Commentarii is discussed by Stahl, Roman Science, pp. 151–69, esp. 156–64 on astronomy; also by Flamant, Macrobe, with speculative interpretations, chs. 7 (arithmetic), 8 (music), 9 (astronomy). The most recent introduction to the Commentarii is the extensive, detailed, and dependable work of Caiazzo, Lectures, a study of the background tradition and an edition of the twelfth-century glosses in Cologne 199; see pp. 13–57. 3 Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed. Willis (1970; reprinted 1994), pp. 46 (I.xi.5–6), 27 (I.vi.47). Hereafter I refer to this work as CSS. I retain as well the traditional numbering system of the edition of Jan, Commentarii in Ciceronis Somnium Scipionis (1848), and other editions. A French edition, translation, and commentary has been made by Armisen-Marchetti, Commentaire, 2 vols.