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PAPERS ON QUINTILIAN AND ANCIENT
DECLAMATION
Frontispiece. Professor Michael Winterbottom, Corpus Christi Professor of Latin
Emeritus, University of Oxford.
Photograph courtesy of the Oxford Geology Group.
Papers on
Quintilian and Ancient
Declamation
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
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© Michael Winterbottom 2019
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2019
Impression: 1
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Editor’s Introduction
¹ Winterbottom per litteras (28 August 2017). ² See here p. 218 n. [3].
³ Winterbottom (2017c), 403 (my italics). For all abbreviations see the general bibliography
below, pp. 351 61; articles and chapters reprinted in this book are referred to as A.1, A.2 . . . ,
book reviews as R.1, R.2 . . . For full details of MW’s publications alluded to throughout these
pages, see the complete list below, pp. .
viii Editor’s Introduction
Quintilian would never subsequently fade from MW’s horizon; nor would the
Latin texts of the Anglo-Saxon Middle Ages, the object—since MW’s early
years—not of a side interest but of a whole ‘parallel career’, deserving a survey
in its own right.⁴ By the early 1970s, however, MW (then Tutorial Fellow in
classics at Worcester College, Oxford [1967–92]) was working intensively in
the field that had aroused his interest since his undergraduate days: decla-
mation. The study of Roman declamation, in particular, was not so much
dormant as nearly non-existent in those years. The texts themselves were often
barely intelligible: some of the relevant editions (any explicit mention may
charitably be dispensed with) were among the most defective that classical
scholarship has ever produced; and only a few aids were available for the
interpretation of the genre (most notably Stanley Bonner’s evergreen Roman
Declamation (1949)). A drastic and beneficial change was effected by four
great scholars: Lennart Håkanson, Donald Russell, D. R. Shackleton Bailey,
and MW; by 1989, thanks to them, first-rate editions of all the main texts in
the field of Roman declamation, and a better understanding of the whole
genre, were at last at hand.
Unlike Håkanson and Shackleton Bailey, MW did not concentrate his work
in declamation ‘only’ on ecdotic tasks: his Elder Seneca for Loeb (1974), and
the massive commentary accompanying his edition of the ‘Quintilianic’
Minor Declamations (1984), splendidly showcase his gift for deep and clear
elucidation—even of the most difficult and corrupt texts. In the same years, in
a number of seminal papers he set out to shed fresh light on the relationship
between rhetorical precepts (Quintilian’s in primis) on the one hand,
declamatory theory and practice on the other; and in Russell’s footsteps he
investigated the interaction between Greek and Roman declamation—the book
on Sopatros (1988, with Doreen Innes) being the largest, but by no means the
only, product of this effort. What is really striking, throughout these researches,
is MW’s unprecedented breadth of view. He has written on declamation from
Gorgias up to Ennodius, singling out (mostly for the first time) constants and
variables over the centuries. This he has done thanks to his admirable learning,
but also to his being immune to all the stock assumptions which would have
hampered progress. See for instance his words on the ‘early stages’ of decla-
mation in Rome:
It was not that declamation somehow became more important in the course
of the first century . Our impression that it does is largely a delusion, re
sulting from the accidents of our evidence. Declamation will have come to Rome
with the Greek teachers who brought rhetoric there in the second century . . . .
[It] did not increase in importance in the first century: it merely remained
⁴ This will be given in a volume containing a selection of MW’s medieval papers, to be edited
by Roberto Gamberini and published by SISMEL (Florence).
Editor’s Introduction ix
important, and perhaps became, in schools less austere than Quintilian’s, more
extravagant in conception.⁵
Without MW’s work, our whole understanding of ancient declamation would
now be much more narrow and superficial.
Between the 1970s and the 1990s, the indefatigable scholar—in spite of his
ever growing teaching duties, to which we owe a valuable anthology of Roman
Declamation (1980)—found time for fundamental research in various other
domains. First of all, he consolidated his reputation as a specialist in manu-
script traditions and critical editions, with his OCT texts of Tacitus (Opera
minora, 1975) and Cicero (De officiis, 1994). This was ‘obviously’ accompa-
nied by a number of papers and book reviews (on which latter see below); but
special mention should be made of the many entries MW wrote for the
standard work on Texts and Transmission edited by Leighton Reynolds in
1983. For decades now, a student’s first approach to the textual tradition of
many a Roman author or work has—beneficially—been, more often than not,
one of the admirable surveys contributed by MW to this book.
Ancient literary criticism is another recurrent field of study for MW:
the anthologies he prepared with Donald Russell have fully deserved to be
standard since their publication (1972, 1989). More occasional—but no less
serious—interest has been lavished on a number of authors, mostly for textual
and exegetical issues: Virgil in primis, but also Lucretius, Ovid, Apuleius,
Cyprian, Ambrose . . . And the medieval favourites have always been there of
course, with William of Malmesbury in the front row.
Meanwhile MW was appointed Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford
(1992), a tribute to his rank among the leading living classicists. In 2000, one
year before his retirement, the present writer (very timidly) contacted him, to
involve him in the Cassino project of re-editing the 19 Major Declamations
ascribed to Quintilian in individual volumes, with translation and commen-
tary (1999–). MW declined taking on one or more declamations himself, but
generously accepted to comment on the single volumes. The amount and
quality of his contributions to each book in this collection (from 2005 on) call
for special emphasis. It is very often ‘Winterbottom per litteras’ who finally
heals or gives sense to a passage vexed for centuries, throughout these excep-
tionally difficult texts.
All the same, the Maiores remained for several years only a side interest for
MW; but in general, declamation and ancient rhetorical texts (with their
teaching procedures) came to the forefront of his scholarship as a classicist⁶
throughout the 2000s—an activity more intensive than ever since his
⁷ On this demanding enterprise, carried out en équipe, see the editors’ prefaces in Håkanson
(2014) and (2016). MW has provided a sensible appraisal of Håkanson’s scholarship (in
Håkanson (2016), ), and has himself brought to publication the most complicated piece
of his Nachlass (Håkanson Winterbottom (2015)).
⁸ Cf. e.g. the opening words of Winterbottom (1978), 685 (= R.3 below, p. 322): ‘These two
volumes . . . follow closely upon the first, and they share the merits and demerits of their
predecessor. The text makes no pretension to novelty. The translation is fluent and generally
accurate. The notes are informative. The apparatus criticus is a disaster.’
⁹ Reeve (2000), 204 n. 51. ¹⁰ Such as Winterbottom (1985) and (1997).
Editor’s Introduction xi
In the field of Greek and Roman declamation, this book is more inclusive.
Only a few items have been left out, mostly long papers involving textual
(re-)editions.¹¹ All other relevant articles and reviews have been reprinted
here, on authors and topics ranging from classical Greece to the Latin Middle
Ages (A.2, 4, 6–8, 14, 16, 20–3; R.1, 5–6, 9–12); room has been made also for
the introduction to the 1988 book on Sopatros (A.10): this impressively
learned and wide-ranging piece makes indispensable reading for anyone
working on ancient declamation. Finally, the overall scope of the volume
suggested the inclusion of two important short papers on rhetorical terms
and concepts (A.11–12); and a brilliant survey of some striking novelties on
the ancient rhetorical curriculum (A.17).
Those who are familiar with MW’s scholarship may wonder if one of his
basic tenets has been given sufficient consideration in this book:
I have a few rigid principles in life, but one is never to speak or write on a Latin
subject without mentioning prose rhythm.¹²
No specific article or book review on prose rhythm is included here, but each
selected item does contain at least a case in point, and some papers feature
detailed discussions.¹³ Those crystal-clear pages make one regret that MW has
more frequently confined himself to brief mentions: his lucidity would have
been particularly welcome in this field, as important as it is difficult (and
nowadays neglected).
All items are here reprinted according to uniform editorial guidelines, and
in the process misprints have been removed, OLD has been referred to
throughout according to the second edition (2012), a few formal adjustments
(e.g. in cross-references) have been made, and occasional clarifications or
references to new standard editions have been entered (in square brackets).
The author has also worked in a number of addenda or corrigenda to some
papers, mostly at their end, when some crucial point had to be made or a
recent bibliographical item stood out for its relevance. In general, however, no
attempt has been made at systematic updating: this would have implied re-
writing the contributions, uprooting them from the historical and intellectual
context in which, and for which, they were conceived.
To conclude, something must be said about the last paper in the present
collection (A.24). This brilliant new assessment of the manuscript tradition of
the Major Declamations has been written expressly for this book, and it results
from MW’s current main commitment: a Loeb edition of the Maiores. He is
officially in charge of the translation and part of the notes (I am handling the
* * *
This book would have never been produced without the unselfish and enthu-
siastic help constantly provided by Francesca Nocchi and Giuseppe Russo: my
deep gratitude goes to them both. Special thanks are also due to Stephen
Harrison, who facilitated and guided contacts with OUP, and was ever prompt
with advice and support; and to OUP itself, for accepting and felicitously
bringing to publication an anything but easy book. In recent years I have had
the privilege of meeting Donald Russell, enjoying his generosity, and profiting
from his advice also in relation to this book: it is a pleasure to thank him most
warmly for all this. Auctori amicoque carissimo Michaeli, qui semper mihi
praesto fuit in hoc opere absolvendo, postremas reddo easque maximas gratias:
sit hic libellus longae nostrae eximiaeque amicitiae pignus.
A. S.
Bari
June 2018
Publications of Michael Winterbottom
BOOKS
1. M. Fabi Quintiliani Institutionis oratoriae libri duodecim, 2 vols. (Oxford,
1970).
2. Problems in Quintilian (London, 1970).
3. & D. A. Russell, Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford, 1972).
4. Three Lives of English Saints (Toronto, 1972).
5. The Elder Seneca. Declamations, 2 vols. (Cambridge [Mass.] and London,
1974).
6. & R. M. Ogilvie, Cornelii Taciti Opera minora (Oxford, 1975).
7. Gildas. The Ruin of Britain and Other Works (London and Chichester,
1978).¹
8. Roman Declamation. Extracts Edited with Commentary (Bristol, 1980).
9. The Minor Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian (Berlin and New York, 1984).
10. William of Malmesbury. On Lamentations (Turnhout, 2013).
11. & R. M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury. The Miracles of the Blessed
Virgin Mary (Woodbridge, 2015).²
*12. & D. Innes, Sopatros the Rhetor, with an introduction by
M. Winterbottom (London, 1988) (*pp. 1–20).
13. & D. A. Russell, Classical Literary Criticism (Oxford, 1989).
14. & M. Brett, C. N. L. Brooke, Hugh the Chanter. The History of the Church
of York 1066–1127 (Oxford, 1990).
15. & M. Lapidge, Wulfstan of Winchester. Life of St Æthelwold (Oxford, 1991).
16. M. Tulli Ciceronis De officiis (Oxford, 1994).
17. & R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury. Gesta regum
Anglorum, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1998).
18. & R. M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury. Saints’ Lives (Oxford,
2002).
19. & T. Reinhardt, Quintilian. Institutio oratoria. Book 2 (Oxford, 2006).
A R T I C LE S A N D CH A P T E R S IN
MISCELLANEOUS V OLUME S
³ ‘with the assistance of R. M. Thomson’. Vol. 2 (Introduction and Commentary) was also
published in 2007; the title page read: ‘by R. M. Thomson with the assistance of M. Winter
bottom’.
Publications of Michael Winterbottom xv
76. & M. Deufert, J. F. Gaertner, ‘Critical notes on the Heroides’, Hermes 130
(2002), 502–6.
*77. ‘Ennodius, Dictio 21’, in B.-J. and J.-P. Schröder (eds.), Studium
declamatorium. Untersuchungen zu Schulübungen und Prunkreden von
der Antike bis zur Neuzeit (Munich and Leipzig, 2003), 275–88.
78. ‘The Language of William of Malmesbury’, in C. J. Mews,
C. J. Nederman, and R. M. Thomson (eds.), Rhetoric and Renewal in the
Latin West 1100–1540. Essays in Honour of John O. Ward (Turnhout,
2003), 129–47.
79. ‘Grillius on Cicero’s De inventione’, CQ 54 (2004), 592–605.
80. ‘Perorations’, in J. G. F. Powell and J. Paterson (eds.), Cicero the Advocate
(Oxford, 2004), 215–30.
*81. ‘Something new out of Armenia’, Letras clássicas 8 (2004), 111–28.
82. ‘An edition of Faricius, Vita S. Aldhelmi’, JML 15 (2005), 93–147.
*83. ‘Approaching the end: Quintilian 12.11’, AClass 48 (2005), 175–83.
84. ‘Faricius of Arezzo’s Life of St Aldhelm’, in K. O’Brien O’Keeffe and
A. Orchard (eds.), Latin Learning and English Lore. Studies in Anglo-
Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, vol. 1 (Toronto, Buffalo and
London, 2005), 109–31.
*85. ‘Declamation and philosophy’, Classica (Brasil) 19 (2006), 74–82.
*86. ‘Quintilian 12.11.11–12’, CQ 56 (2006), 324–5.
87. ‘Cyprian’s Ad Donatum’, in S. Swain, S. J. Harrison, and J. Elsner (eds.),
Severan Culture (Cambridge, 2007), 190–8.
88. ‘Bede’s castella’, Quaestio Insularis 10 (2009), 1–7.
89. ‘Conversations in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica’, in E. Dickey and
A. Chahoud (eds.), Colloquial and Literary Latin (Cambridge, 2010),
419–30.
90. ‘William of Malmesbury and the Normans’, JML 20 (2010), 70–7.
91. ‘Bede’s homily on Benedict Bishop (Hom. 1.13)’, JML 21 (2011),
35–51.
92. ‘On ancient prose rhythm: the story of the dichoreus’, in D. Obbink and
R. Rutherford (eds.), Culture in Pieces. Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour
of Peter Parsons (Oxford, 2011), 262–76.
93. ‘De vita patris’, in D. Damschen and A. Heil (eds.), Brill’s Companion to
Seneca (Leiden and Boston, 2014), 695.
94. ‘Moving the goal posts: the re-writing of medieval Latin prose texts’, Ars
edendi Lecture Series 3 (2014), 29–48.
*95. ‘William of Malmesbury’s work on the Declamationes maiores’, S&T 12
(2014), 261–76.
96. ‘The earliest passion of St Alban’, InvLuc 37 (2015), 113–27.
97. & †L. Håkanson, ‘Tribunus Marianus’, in L. Del Corso, F. De Vivo, and
A. Stramaglia (eds.), Nel segno del testo. Edizioni, materiali e studi per
Oronzo Pecere (Florence, 2015), 61–90.
xviii Publications of Michael Winterbottom
SE LE C T ED R E V IEWS
⁴ This is the first in a long series of reviews in CR, only a few of which are listed here.
Publications of Michael Winterbottom xix
⁵ This is the first in a long series of reviews of patristic texts in this journal, not listed here.
⁶ Other reviews of Christian texts appear in later issues of this journal.
xx Publications of Michael Winterbottom
‘Cicero and the middle style’, in J. Diggle, J. B. Hall, and H. D. Jocelyn (eds.),
Studies in Latin Literature and its Tradition in Honour of C. O. Brink (Cam-
bridge, 1989) [= Cambridge Philological Society, Supplementary Volume 15],
125–31. (A.11)
‘Quintilian and the vir bonus’, Journal of Roman Studies 54 (1964), 90–7.
© Michael Winterbottom, 1964. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society
for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Reprinted with the permission of
Cambridge University Press:
http://www.cambridge.org/rights/permissions/authors.htm. (A.1)
‘An emendation in Calpurnius Flaccus’, Classical Quarterly 49 (1999),
338–9. © The Classical Association, 1999. Reprinted with the permission of
Cambridge University Press:
http://www.cambridge.org/rights/permissions/authors.htm. (A.14)
xxii Acknowledgements
‘Quintilian 12.11.11–12’, Classical Quarterly 56 (2006), 324–5. © The
Classical Association, 2006. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge Uni-
versity Press:
http://www.cambridge.org/rights/permissions/authors.htm. (A.19)
Reviews
C. H. BECK
Reviews
L E S BE L L E S LE T T R E S
‘On impulse’, in D. Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric.
Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford,
1995), 313–22. Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press:
https://global.oup.com/. (A.12)
W A LTE R D E G R U Y T E R GM B H
‘Ennodius, Dictio 21’, in B.-J. and J.-P. Schröder (eds.), Studium declamato-
rium. Untersuchungen zu Schulübungen und Prunkreden von der Antike bis
zur Neuzeit (Munich and Leipzig, 2003), 275–88. © 2003 by K. G. Saur Verlag
GmbH, Munich and Leipzig (now De Gruyter). (A.16)
‘The editors of Calpurnius Flaccus’, in M. Dinter, C. Guérin, and M. Martinho
(eds.), Reading Roman Declamation. Calpurnius Flaccus (Berlin and Boston,
2017), 141–60. © Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2017. (A.22)
The publisher and editors apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list.
If contacted they will be pleased to rectify these at the earliest opportunity.
1
Sit ergo nobis orator quem constituimus is qui a M. Catone finitur, vir bonus
dicendi peritus, verum, id quod et ille posuit prius et ipsa natura potius ac maius
est, utique vir bonus.¹ Why did Quintilian insist so strongly on the moral
qualities of the orator? The question has not been persistently enough asked.
Austin, for example, thinks that it is only ‘a steadfast sincerity of purpose
throughout’ that redeems the first chapter of Book 12 from ‘mere moralizing’.²
And it only takes the problem a stage further back to say that this is a matter of
Stoic influence.³ Even if Posidonius did formulate in connection with rhetoric
a maxim on the lines of Strabo’s οὐχ οἷόν τε ἀγαθὸν γενέσθαι ποιητὴν μὴ
πρότερον γενηθέντα ἄνδρα ἀγαθόν,⁴ we must still ask why Quintilian troubled
to give this Stoic view such new prominence. After all, oratori . . . nihil est
necesse in cuiusquam iurare leges.⁵ And it is clear that Quintilian realized that
he was innovating. Cicero, he writes, despite the width of his conception,
thought it enough to discuss merely the type of oratory that should be used by
the perfect orator: at nostra temeritas etiam mores ei conabitur dare et
adsignabit officia.⁶ This is perhaps to schematize the contrast a little over-
dramatically. Cicero had certainly written in the De oratore: quarum virtutum
expertibus si dicendi copiam tradiderimus, non eos quidem oratores effeceri-
mus, sed furentibus quaedam arma dederimus.⁷ But there is no doubt that
Cicero was not primarily concerned with the moral aspect. As the leading
orator of his day, he may have thought it indelicate or superfluous to stress
that the perfect orator must be a good man. Moreover, it was not clear that
the troubles of Cicero’s day were the result of morally bad orators: one had to
⁸ Cic. Brut. 224. The Gracchi are also mentioned. Quintilian takes over these examples
(2.16.5).
⁹ Tac. Dial. 1.1. ¹⁰ Tac. Dial. 8.1.
¹¹ The eloquence of the delatores is discussed by Froment (1880), 35.
¹² Tac. Ann. 13.42. If Tacitus invents, his invention is of archetypal significance. See also Syme
(1958), 331 2. It will be obvious how much I owe to this book.
¹³ Tac. Ann. 1.74.2; Syme (1958), 326 n. 5.
¹⁴ Sources for him are gathered in Meyer (1842²), 545 61 [= Balbo (2007²), .223 43]; Schanz
Hosius (1935⁴), .345 ff.
¹⁵ Quint. 10.1.117; 12.10.11. ¹⁶ Tac. Ann. 1.72.3. ¹⁷ Quint. 11.1.57.
¹⁸ Sen. Con. 3.pr.5.
Quintilian and the vir bonus 5
often mentioned, it is almost always to stress his biting wit and his hatred of
pomposity. Turn, however, to the Dialogus: here, in the big speech of Aper, an
attack is developed on those who habitually reckon Cicero, Caesar, and other
Republican orators superior to the orators of Aper’s own day.¹⁹ Aper quibbles
about the exact meaning of antiqui in this context, and then asserts that new
circumstances breed new styles of oratory. It was all very well for the ‘admirers
of antiquity’ to draw a sharp line and to proclaim that with Cassius came the
deluge.²⁰ They might say that Cassius was the one who had first diverged from
the straight and narrow path; but in fact Cassius knew very well what he was
doing. Times had changed. Under the Republic audiences were still impressed
by a smattering of philosophy and by rhetorical subtleties prescribed in the
dry-as-dust handbooks of Hermagoras and Apollodorus. Once this excitement
wore off, there was need for new methods, a vigorous attempt to stave off
boredom and monotony. It was on purpose—and for cogent reasons—that
Cassius had taken a new course.
What exactly had Cassius put in the place of the old techniques? Messalla’s
reply to Aper in the Dialogus is significant here. Messalla doesn’t deny that
Cassius was a notable orator, though his speeches had plus bilis . . . quam
sanguinis. This is much what Quintilian said in his brief notice of Cassius.²¹
But, Messalla goes on, Cassius was the first to despise organization, and cast
aside modesty of language;²² he was so eager to strike that he often fell over in
the process: a brawler, no true fighter. We may add the evidence of the Elder
Seneca. Everything in Cassius’ oratory had a direct purpose—omnia intenta,
aliquid petentia.²³ It was strong stuff, elegant, ingentibus plena sententiis.
Cassius relied rather on his native wit than on his education.²⁴ He declaimed
occasionally, but he was under no illusions about the value of declamation.
In scholastica quid non supervacuum est, cum ipsa supervacua sit?²⁵
It is not impossible that in the Dialogus Tacitus is replying to Quintilian on
the topic of Cassius Severus.²⁶ Admittedly, Quintilian did not, in the Institutio,
assert that Cassius started the decline of Roman oratory. The orators men-
tioned in 10.1.113 ff. are treated atomically, analysed for the virtues they may
illustrate rather than fitted into trends and patterns. But there is a good chance
that in the earlier De causis corruptae eloquentiae Quintilian did take a more
historical line. From 2.4.41–2 we know that he discussed there whether or not
¹⁹ Tac. Dial. 16.4. ²⁰ Tac. Dial. 19.1. ²¹ Quint. 10.1.116 17; cf. Tac. Dial. 26.4.
²² Tac. Dial. 26.5; cf. Quint. loc. cit.: Cassius lacked gravitas and consilium.
²³ Sen. Con. 3.pr.2.
²⁴ Sen. Con. 3.pr.4: maioris ingenii quam studii; cf. Quint. 10.1.117: ingenii plurimum.
²⁵ Sen. Con. 3.pr.12.
²⁶ I have no new arguments with which to rejuvenate the hoary topic of the date of the
Dialogus. This article proceeds on the assumption that it post dates Quintilian’s De causis.
Cf. Syme (1958), 112 ff.
6 Papers on Quintilian and Ancient Declamation
suasoriae and controversiae were invented by Demetrius of Phaleron. Now
Cicero²⁷ remarks on the agreeable but academic virtues of Demetrius. He it
was who primus inflexit orationem et eam mollem teneramque reddidit. Quin-
tilian himself recalls this:²⁸ Demetrius primus inclinasse eloquentiam dicitur.
It is not then impossible that Quintilian’s De causis gave a historical sketch of
both Greek and Roman oratory; in both there was a clear point where decay
started—the time of Demetrius and the time of Cassius: equally, in both, new
educational techniques, centred upon declamation, played a leading part in
causing this decay.²⁹
If this is correct, Aper’s speech in the Dialogus takes on a further signifi-
cance. Admirers of the ancients, such as Quintilian, he implies, are irrevocably
stuck in the past: they don’t see that Cassius Severus was not an end but a new
and hopeful start. They think you can get by, as in the old days, with a little
philosophy and a lot of rhetorical rules. They think that audiences will put up
with speakers who spend all day on their feet.³⁰ No more pertinent criticism of
Quintilian’s general position could be imagined. In reply, Messalla is allowed
to say, as Quintilian would have said, that Cassius fell below his predecessors
but excelled his successors.³¹ But even he cannot explain why the old days
should be thought relevant, even if they were indisputably better.
If Quintilian was one of those who attributed to Cassius Severus the drastic
change in the direction of oratory in the first century, it becomes necessary to
make it quite clear what Cassius was being blamed for. Messalla tells us at Dial.
26.5: Primus enim contempto ordine rerum, omissa modestia ac pudore ver-
borum . . . non pugnat sed rixatur. And we may recall Aper’s speech,³² where
the new style started by Cassius is connected with the abandonment of
rhetorical subtleties and pedantic rules, quidquid . . . aridissimis Hermagorae
et Apollodori libris praecipitur. Cassius relied on his ingenium rather than on
training, and he despised declamation. Quintilian’s De causis, it may be
conjectured, defended training, asserted that declamation, properly carried
out, was advantageous,³³ and demanded a return to the Ciceronian virtues of
respect for education and for rhetorical dogma. The De causis, in this light,
paved the way for the Institutio, where the despised longa principiorum
praeparatio et narrationis alte repetita series et multarum divisionum ostenta-
tio et mille argumentorum gradus were painstakingly recapitulated. It was a
plea too for the wider education that people such as Aper so scorned.
³⁴ Tac. Ann. 4.52 and 66. ³⁵ Dio Cass. 59.19. ³⁶ Quint. 12.11.3.
³⁷ Quint. 12.10.11; 10.1.118. ³⁸ Quint. 6.3.81. ³⁹ Quint. 5.7.7.
⁴⁰ Quint. 5.7.7. ⁴¹ Quint. 5.10.79. ⁴² Tac. Dial. 8.3. ⁴³ Tac. Dial. 12.2.
⁴⁴ Tac. Ann. 16.29.1. ⁴⁵ Tac. Ann. 16.33.2.
8 Papers on Quintilian and Ancient Declamation
powerful, inter claros magis quam inter bonos:⁴⁶ and men remembered that he
too had been a delator.
In the fourth book of the Histories⁴⁷ Tacitus gives a brilliant picture of the
attack on Marcellus and Crispus in the senate during the early days of
Vespasian’s reign. After a well-received speech by the fierce Curtius Montanus,
Helvidius Priscus took up the attack, the Senators approving: Quod ubi sensit
Marcellus, velut excedens curia, ‘Imus,’ inquit, ‘Prisce, et relinquimus tibi
senatum tuum. Regna praesente Caesare.’ Sequebatur Vibius Crispus, ambo
infensi, vultu diverso, Marcellus minacibus oculis, Crispus renidens . . . ⁴⁸ Crispus,
that agreeable man,⁴⁹ might well smile: perhaps he knew what was going to
happen: Mucianus’ long speech in favour of the delators next day, and the
sudden melting of senatorial free-speech.⁵⁰ It is clear that the new régime had
put its shield over Marcellus and Crispus. But, as Tacitus half-tells us in the
Dialogus,⁵¹ the deal was not merely one-sided. Rich, powerful, and eloquent
delatores were essential to the running of the new Flavian administration.
Vespasian could only trust a limited circle, especially if the senate proved
hostile. He could use his relations: appoint Titus to the Jewish command,
Domitian praetor,⁵² give military posts to Arrecinus Clemens, Caesennius
Paetus, and Petilius Cerealis.⁵³ But this was not enough. The delatores were
a ready-made answer. They could be thrown to their enemies in the senate if
they caused trouble. Meanwhile, they could work. Marcellus became procon-
sul of Asia, for three years, then, for a second time, consul, in 74. Vibius
Crispus governed Africa and Tarraconensis, besides his cura aquarum. An-
other proconsul of Africa was Paccius Africanus, accuser of the Scribonii
under Nero, who like Marcellus and Crispus had come under fire in the senate
in 70.⁵⁴ Silius Italicus passed on from Neronian delation to a Flavian procon-
sulship of Asia.⁵⁵ The delatores were now not merely powerful, they had long
been that. Now they were positively members of the Establishment. It was not
so much that they were ‘eager to repair their credit’:⁵⁶ rather that Vespasian
both needed them and had a hold over them.
This was not merely a passing phase of Vespasian’s reign. Admittedly, Eprius
Marcellus came to a sudden end in 79, after involvement, real or apparent, in a
conspiracy against the throne (significant, this, of the heights to which delatores
could by now aspire: and of the basic insecurity of their position). But Vibius
Crispus was still making his elegant jokes under Domitian,⁵⁷ and the emperor’s
⁴⁶ Tac. Hist. 2.10.2. ⁴⁷ Tac. Hist. 4.41 ff. ⁴⁸ Tac. Hist. 4.43.3.
⁴⁹ Quint. 10.1.119: delectationi natus. ⁵⁰ Tac. Hist. 4.44.1 2. ⁵¹ Tac. Dial. 8.3.
⁵² Tac. Hist. 4.3.7.
⁵³ Syme (1958), 594 5, where the references for Marcellus and Crispus, and for other dela
tores, also appear.
⁵⁴ Tac. Hist. 4.41.4. ⁵⁵ Plin. Ep. 3.7.3. ⁵⁶ Syme (1958), 594.
⁵⁷ Suet. Dom. 3.1.
Quintilian and the vir bonus 9
pronouncement, princeps qui delatores non castigat, irritat⁵⁸ affected petty
accusers rather than the mighty. A new generation of delatores flourished—
Fabricius Veiento, notably, and Catullus Messallinus, linked in Juvenal’s con-
cilium satire and again in Pliny, who witnesses that Veiento was favoured even
by Nerva—and that Catullus no doubt would have been had he lived.⁵⁹ It is not
surprising that Trajan’s ruthless stamping out of delatores was the subject of
some sections in Pliny’s Panegyricus.⁶⁰ Yet even under Trajan one of the most
important accusers of all lived on, and had influence—Marcus Aquillius
Regulus, spanning dynasties and generations, still factious, feared and courted
after the death of Domitian.⁶¹ He had ruined noble families under Nero, while
still unknown. Attacked in the unruly senate of early 70, he, like Marcellus and
Crispus, survived: perhaps for the same reason, perhaps thanks to the efforts of
his brother, the Messalla who appears in the Dialogus. ‘[H]is subsequent
conduct,’ writes Syme,⁶² ‘though highly objectionable, [did] not involv[e] him
in the prosecution of any notable members of the senatorial opposition.’ But he
launched savage attacks on the memories of Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius
Senecio, two Stoic victims of Domitian’s last years: and Regulus’ hand may
have been at work in their actual ruin. Periculum foverat, says Pliny⁶³ in
connection with Rusticus; and he remarks that Regulus’ crimes under Domi-
tian were no less heinous than those under Nero, merely better concealed.⁶⁴ We
do not have details of Regulus’ official career, though he was consul at some
time unknown; no doubt he was more prominent in the forum, less in the
palace, than Marcellus and Crispus. And, correspondingly, we hear far more of
his oratory. Martial, a diligent admirer, praises his eloquence, remarks on
his ingenium, and emphasizes his celebrity as a defender.⁶⁵ One remembers
Suillius’ claim to use his oratory tuendis civibus: and one is sceptical. More
illuminating are the letters of Pliny, which draw Regulus with bold impres-
sionistic strokes. He emerges as a new version of Cassius Severus. Let us recall
Severus, his anger, his enthusiasm for accusation and abuse, the oratory that
had omnia intenta, aliquid petentia, but lacked order, brawling instead of
fighting: a man who despised rhetorical doctrine, maioris ingenii quam studii.
Compare with him Regulus, as we see him through the eyes of Pliny (and Pliny,
we remember, was a pupil of Quintilian): imbecillum latus, os confusum,
haesitans lingua, tardissima inventio, memoria nulla,⁶⁶ nihil denique praeter
ingenium insanum . . . ⁶⁷ Relevant to Quintilian also the next words: et tamen eo
impudentia ipsoque illo furore pervenit ut orator habeatur. What would Quin-
tilian have thought of this prostitution of oratoris illud sacrum nomen?⁶⁸
⁵⁸ Suet. Dom. 9.3. ⁵⁹ Plin. Ep. 4.22; cf. Syme (1958), 4 6. ⁶⁰ Plin. Pan. 34 ff.
⁶¹ Plin. Ep. 1.5.15. ⁶² Syme (1958), 77. ⁶³ Plin. Ep. 1.5.2. ⁶⁴ Plin. Ep. 1.5.1.
⁶⁵ For his eloquence e.g. Mart. 5.28.6; his ingenium 5.63.4; his abilities in defence e.g. 4.16.6.
⁶⁶ Clear references to at least three of the rhetorical partes listed by Quint. 3.3.1: inventione,
dispositione, elocutione, memoria, pronuntiatione.
⁶⁷ Plin. Ep. 4.7.4. ⁶⁸ Quint. 12.1.24.
10 Papers on Quintilian and Ancient Declamation
We may add the violence of Regulus’ language: he called Rusticus ‘that Stoic
ape’, Vitelliana cicatrice stigmosum.⁶⁹ ‘You recognize the style of Regulus’,
commented Pliny wryly. And, what is more, Regulus himself knew what his
oratory was like. He enjoyed contrasting himself with Pliny: Tu omnia quae
sunt in causa putas exsequenda; ego iugulum statim video, hunc premo.⁷⁰ There,
uniquely and memorably, speaks the violent oratory of the delatores. On
another occasion Regulus contrasted Pliny with Satrius Rufus, cui non est
cum Cicerone aemulatio et qui contentus est eloquentia saeculi nostri.⁷¹ Regulus,
in fact, was not just a violent and unscrupulous orator. He could see himself in
a wide literary context, and recognize that he, and orators like him for nearly a
hundred years, were for good reasons quite unlike Cicero. It was not that
Cicero was a bad orator: but merely that times had changed. Pliny was going
the wrong way—towards a dead past.
All this of course reminds us irresistibly of the Dialogus. ‘To defend the
modern style in oratory, the author introduces, as it were, a purified and
sympathetic Regulus, namely Marcus Aper.’⁷² But there is no need to narrow
the case down so much. Aper stands for all the orators of his type that the
century produced. Aper, Tacitus tells us, had attained fame in eloquence
ingenio et vi naturae,⁷³ rather than by education (institutio is the word,
perhaps significantly). But he was learned enough in his way, he despised
literature rather than was ignorant of it.⁷⁴ Now this is almost exactly what
Aper later says of Cassius Severus, non infirmitate ingenii nec inscitia litte-
rarum transtulisse se ad aliud dicendi genus . . . sed iudicio et intellectu.⁷⁵ And
even Regulus habebat studiis honorem.⁷⁶ All were purposeful and intelligent
men: and it is impossible to be sure that Tacitus felt no sympathy for the case
they put up.⁷⁷
How did Quintilian react to all this? I have suggested above that the
Institutio in general is an answer to the Apers of the day who thought
rhetorical doctrine outdated: and it can now be seen that Regulus was one
important contemporary representative of this view. Regulus, however, as still
living is not mentioned by name in the Institutio. What must now be noticed is
that Quintilian equally omits to connect with any of the names he mentions
the characteristics common to Regulus and, it might seem, many of his delator
predecessors: contempt for rhetorical rules, violence of language, increasing
political influence, moral failings of the first order. When it is remembered
that the delatores were the most important oratorical phenomenon of the
century, it becomes clear that Quintilian is glossing over the extent to which he
⁷⁸ Syme (1958), 109 n. 1. ⁷⁹ Quint. 10.1.119; cf. 12.10.11; 5.13.48. ⁸⁰ Juv. 4.81.
⁸¹ Quint. 10.1.119: melior. ⁸² Quint. 2.11.1. Cf. Winterbottom (1964c), 120 ff.
⁸³ Quintilian is never loath to use insanity to explain or abuse the excesses of contemporary
rhetoric, cf. 2.12.9: iactatione gestus, motu capitis furentes, and often elsewhere. So even the sage
Chilon, according to Diogenes Laertius 1.70, λέγοντα μὴ κινεῖν τὴν χεῖρα· μανικὸν γάρ. We have
seen Pliny, echoing his master, talk of Regulus’ furor. Madness, now as always, was connected
closely with inspiration, and if the ‘naturalists’ boasted that they were speaking impetu, they were
perhaps taking up the criticism of their opponents and making a virtue of it (for impetus of
inspiration cf. e.g. Ov. Pont. 4.2.25: Impetus ille sacer qui vatum pectora nutrit. See too Quint.
10.7.14, where Cicero is quoted as saying that according to old orators a god is present in
successful extemporary effusion). [This issue is much expanded in A.12 below.] Behind Quinti
lian’s use of ratio to mean method at 2.2.4 (cf. 7) may lurk the implication that the Institutio
offered reason in place of the madness that now prevailed (Ov. Met. 14.701: postquam ratione
furorem / vincere non potuit).
⁸⁴ Quint. 2.11.2 3.
⁸⁵ Sen. Con. 3.pr.4 and 2: maioris ingenii quam studii . . . ingentibus plena sententiis (sc.
oratio); Tac. Dial. 26.5: contempto ordine rerum.
12 Papers on Quintilian and Ancient Declamation
In the next chapter, however, Quintilian moves away from the declamation
school. The transition is imperceptible, but the change is clear: there is
mention of the litigant,⁸⁶ and of audience reaction in court.⁸⁷ We now have,
parallel with the naturalist declaimer, the naturalist orator. He is compared
with a gladiator rushing without training in rixam.⁸⁸ We shall remember that
Messalla in the Dialogus⁸⁹ makes exactly the same criticism of Cassius Severus.
Moreover, the naturalist orator, ineruditus as he is, is overprone to abusive-
ness:⁹⁰ so too Cassius Severus (plus bilis . . . quam sanguinis), so too Regulus
(Agnoscis eloquentiam Reguli). ‘And so’, says Quintilian, ‘let them be called
ingeniosi so long as it is understood that this is not a word we could use in
praise of anyone who was truly eloquent.’⁹¹ Here then Quintilian comes to
grips with his real adversaries: those who thought there was no point in
rhetorical rules. ‘Let us congratulate them’, he concludes ironically. ‘They
are eloquent without work, without method and without discipline.’ These
three qualities were what Quintilian proposed to put into the Institutio, and
they constituted a good deal of what he recommended in it. We can now see
whom he is criticizing, the spiritual descendants of Cassius Severus: and
among these, at least by implication, may be numbered the delatores, and in
particular Regulus himself.⁹²
But more generally than this, the whole background of delator eloquence
that has been sketched above throws light on much that might seem irrelevant
or academic in the Institutio. Half of the second book, for example, consists of
quaestiones about the status of rhetoric. Is it an art? (c. 17). If so, what kind of
art—a good one, or merely a neutral one: is it a virtus? (c. 20). Is it utilis?
(c. 16). Does nature or education contribute more to the great speaker? (c. 19).
All these questions, of course, had for long been discussed by writers on
rhetoric. But Quintilian goes over them again, and at length, because they
were topics of the moment. People were actually saying, and had for years
been saying, that rhetoric was a mere knack, to be picked up by experience in
the courts, a matter of ingenium schooled only by practice. Quintilian had at
⁹³ Tac. Dial. 7.4. ⁹⁴ Tac. Hist. 1.2.3. ⁹⁵ Tac. Dial. 12.2. ⁹⁶ Tac. Ag. 45.1.
⁹⁷ Quint. 2.20.2. ⁹⁸ Quint. 4.1.22.
⁹⁹ Quint. 12.7.3. Also in Book 12, note the emphasis on pecuniariae quaestiones in which
veritas had to be defended against calumnia by the good orator.
¹⁰⁰ The Institutio was ‘presumably published before Domitian’s death in 96. At least it seems
unlikely that if the murder had taken place before publication the complimentary passages would
have been allowed to remain’ (Colson (1924), n. 5).
¹⁰¹ Plin. Pan. 34.1. So, it is true, did Columella (1.pr.9). ¹⁰² Quint. 1.12.16.
14 Papers on Quintilian and Ancient Declamation
fuerit si facultatem dicendi sociam scelerum, adversam innocentiae, hostem
veritatis invenit.¹⁰³ It was on these convictions that Quintilian based his
assertions that the orator must be a good man, skilled in speaking. And it
will be no coincidence that Herennius Senecio drew the moral when he
described a contemporary orator as vir malus dicendi imperitus.¹⁰⁴ That con-
temporary was Marcus Aquillius Regulus.
A postscript may be added. Quintilian thought his age rich in rhetorical
talent;¹⁰⁵ there could be great orators once again, if the lessons of the Institutio
were thoroughly learnt. In a way he was wrong; ironically, with the crushing of
the delatores, Trajan seemed to kill oratory also. When Regulus died Pliny
found himself writing with a conscious paradox that he missed the man,
despite everything.¹⁰⁶ In the same mood, Tacitus wrote in the Agricola¹⁰⁷ of
stagnation under the first years of Trajan—the numbness and inertia of the
new peace. There was room only for panegyric now, and the driest of legal
advocacy: only occasionally the spice of a trial for misdemeanours in the
provinces.¹⁰⁸ There was, basically, nothing to do in the senate: Sunt quidem
cuncta sub unius arbitrio, qui pro utilitate communi solus omnium curas
laboresque suscepit.¹⁰⁹ And this is exactly the wistful note of Maternus’ last
speech in the Dialogus: Quid enim opus est longis in senatu sententiis, cum
optimi cito consentiant? Quid multis apud populum contionibus, cum de
republica non imperiti et multi deliberent, sed sapientissimus et unus?¹¹⁰ In
these circumstances Quintilian’s view of the orator as one whose primary task
it was to ‘guide the counsels of the senate and bring the errant people back to
better courses’¹¹¹ was absurdly out-of-date. Oratory could no longer have its
traditional¹¹² political justification.
¹¹³ Except, apparently, by Martianus Capella RLM p. 453.1 Halm [= 3.432 Willis].
¹¹⁴ So Fortunatianus RLM p. 81.5 Halm [= p. 65.5 Calboli Montefusco]; Cassiodorus RLM
p. 495.5 Halm; Isidore RLM p. 507.16 Halm.
2
The text of the Controversiae and Suasoriae of the Elder Seneca is very corrupt.
For thirty years at the end of last century it was a happy hunting ground
of critical endeavour. Many wounds were healed; many remain. Others,
however, were inflicted by the very scholars who sought to heal. Where
declaimers so cunning and elusive as those excerpted by Seneca are at play,
and where, so often, one has to make up one’s own context for isolated
epigrams, the greatest care has to be taken in emendation. Is one curing—or
merely misunderstanding?
It is easy to be hypnotized by past emendations once they achieve the
sanctity of print. One of the principal tasks of a new editor¹ of the Elder
Seneca would be, with a clear head, to sift through the discoveries of the past,
and appraise their varying merits. To take a few examples at random. In
Con. 1.1 a son has been disinherited by his father and adopted by his uncle;
now his uncle too is disinheriting him. The declaimer sings the son’s virtues:
Quam multi patres optant similem filium! Bis abdicor.² ‘Any other father
would be glad to have me—yet I get disinherited, twice!’ No very distinguished
epigram, but a point. Yet Vahlen’s ab his abdicor was accepted by Müller and
continued into Bornecque; it is infinitely feebler. In Con. 1.2 a priesthood is
T H E MA N U S C R I P T S
⁶ A flagrant instance in the poem of Albinovanus Pedo (Suas. 1.15 (529.19 M.)): . . . audaces
ire . . . / †asperum† metas extremaque litora mundi. V gives hesperii (sic), Haupt, finely, ad
rerum.
⁷ Müller (1887), .
⁸ I give a trivial but typical example. The quarrelsome Scaurus litiganti similior quam agenti
cupiebat evocare aliquam vocem adversariorum et in altercationem pervenire (Con. 10.pr.2
(447.10 M.)). Does not pervenire jar? It is V’s word; AB give vervenire. Did not the archetype
give that too, by corrupt reduplication for venire?
⁹ For those who see point, as I do not, in calculating the length of the line in the archetype this
passage will be of service. So will the anticipation of (carce)re vixerunt at Con. 9.2.1 (382.13 M.).
¹⁰ Hagendahl (1936), 312 13.
Problems in the Elder Seneca 19
matter. Then E continues the sentence dominas suas rapere: the right sense
(cf. below: Cum omnes servi dominas suas vitiassent and esp. 7.6.13 (325.12
M.): tyrannus permisit dominas rapere, non coegit), and with no linguistic
objection (for the infinitive see 7.6.13 (325.12 M.) again). But AB omit the
words, V has a stop-gap: dominabus suis nubant. These words are perversely
ignored by the editors, according to Hagendahl: ‘Quo rarior est forma illa
dominabus . . . eo minus est, quod putemus eam interpolatam esse.’ On the
contrary: the rarer the form, the more we require a Senecan parallel. None is
forthcoming. And why nubant?¹¹—it is clear from everything in the con-
troversia that the decree allowed rape, while the father who wanted his
daughter to marry the ex-slave was going beyond the decree: plus servo
dominus permisit quam tyrannus.¹² An interpolation, then, and one that
reeks of its later date: -abus was particularly affected in the fourth century
and later.¹³ The Thesaurus cites dominabus¹⁴ from Baudonivia’s life of
St Radegund (c.600).
Hagendahl appends a summary list, again instructive. a, ad, in, de, sub, per,
et, si, sed, ut, quae, quam, se, me, non are found in V when AB omit them: a
total of thirty instances,¹⁵ all the simplest and most necessary of additions,
often with parallelism nearby to show the way. Hagendahl can register only
seven more substantial items. They are worth examining individually.
Con. 2.1.28 (122.15 M.): Cestius illo colore: quos abdicatione non potuit
terrere, putat se castigaturum adoptione. ‘Non ille tuum filium concupiscit: suos
corrigit. Dum illos correctos (correptos V: om. AB) putaverit, te satis minatum
abdicabit.’ Cum (so C. F. W. Müller) will be right for dum. And if we give me
for te (so Bursian) we get the good sense that it is the son who has done the
threatening. But it is perfectly on the cards that Seneca wrote: cum illis
putaverit me satis minatum, abdicabit. And even if he did not, the fact remains
that correctos¹⁶ is the simplest and dullest addition: it picks up corrigit from the
sentence before. The interpolator may be at work; he may even be wrong.
At Con. 7.3.1 (298.10 M.) I am prepared to believe that V had reus vivet:
vivet transmitted to it, despite AB’s omission of one vivet. But the extreme ease
with which the word could be coincidentally omitted reduces the value of this
instance. The same is true of 9.1.11 (378.20–1 M.), where V gives beneficium
twice, correctly, AB only once, and of 9.2.9 (385.22 M.) atqui quid interest
¹¹ Quite apart from the fact that the word is properly used of women (as Mr M. D. Reeve re
minded me).
¹² Con. 7.5.2 (319.15 M.). ¹³ Kühner Holzweissig (1912), 419 21.
¹⁴ TLL s.v. domina 1935.22.
¹⁵ But delete Con. 1.1.3 (17.6 M.), where non sit is probably wrong. At 2.6.4 (178.12 M.)
coercet vitia qui provocat might stand as a question without non.
¹⁶ The interpolator may even have written correptos, as V gives it. Corrigo and corripio were
constantly confused, at least in certain forms, and medievals may not have sharply distinguished
between their meanings.
20 Papers on Quintilian and Ancient Declamation
convivium in forum an forum (an forum om. AB) in convivium attrahas,
though this might be within the range of the alert emender. The case at 9.5.3
(415.12 M.) is helpful here: filios quos perdidisti non quaeris, quem quaeris non
perdidisti. AB omit quem quaeris, understandably, but we know from 9.5.6
(421.6 M.) that Votienus said just this. V gives quaeris quem: the mark of the
interpolator, ignorant of the term homoeoteleuton but alert to sense.
Two final items. The gods, says one declaimer, have given their verdict in
favour of an ex-captive and ex-prostitute who wishes to be a priestess: inter tot
pericula non servassent illam dii nisi sibi (Con. 1.2.19 (40.15 M.)). All well. Yet
V tacks on servata fuisset; the Excerpta add servaturi fuissent. Both interpolate;
and, what convicts both, in different terms. Then at 7.2.3 (291.4 M.) we have
Non magis quisquam alius occidere Ciceronem potuit praeter Popillium praeter
Ciceronem defendere. The evident gap was filled by interpolation in V with the
ungrammatical quam nemo pupillium after Popillium. Thomas was right to
stress that V, or a forebear, is merely inventing, and right too, I think, to plug
the gap with quam quisquam alius Popillium.¹⁷
The matter does not quite end there, for Hagendahl’s list admits of expan-
sion. I can give a further twenty-two cases (there may be a few more).
Significantly the pattern is very similar. The majority are small words, that a
corrector could have added with ease. Thus ut (Con. 1.1.17 (25.9 M.); 2.4.1
(161.6 M.); 10.4.11 (486.1 M.): all essential to obvious constructions), an
(1.7.11 (77.10); 6.th. (558.7 M.): both ‘formulaic’), in (2.1.34 (126.6 M.)),
non (2.6.7 (180.11 M.); 10.1.7 (461.3 M.)), a(b) (2.7.9 (191.5 M.); 7.5.14
(318.4 M.)), de (7.6.2 (331.1 M.)), eo (9.pr.4 (371.20 M.), between usque and
ut), cum (9.2.24 (393.2 M.), to support a pluperfect subjunctive), and si (2.4.13
(160.13 M.); 10.3.11 (477.19 M.)). Of the others, 1.6.1 (63.16 M.) spei merely
completes an anaphora (perhaps unnecessarily, despite support from the
Excerpta); 2.5.19 (174.11 M.) publicis is dictated by the contrast with privatis;
while at 9.5.17 (421.18 M.) a sentence starting multa referam quae Montani-
ana Scaurus vocabat and proceeding uno hoc contentus ero cries out for a
negative (ne, C. F. W. Müller), which the interpolator fumbled with non. At
Suas. 1.1 (520.6 M.), the completion of post omnia oceanum nihil does call for
some critical sense (omnia <oceanus post> V), but this could be a case of
coincidental error in AB.
As to the three remaining cases: At Con. 1.5.7 (61.18 M.) the discussion is of
three possible choices. Both girls choose death, both marriage, or one mar-
riage, one death. Corruption has pruned this to aut nuptias optabunt aut
altera mortem altera nuptias. Proceeding, AB give¹⁸ optaverunt, non poterit
fieri quod utraque volet: uno modo poterit fieri quod utraque volet, si utraque
mortem optaverit. It was left to modern scholars to supplement the opening
¹⁹ Though it is true that below utraque is followed, as is more proper, by a singular verb.
²⁰ The corrector of the Toledo manuscript rightly restored the sentence thus: Abdico, inquit.
Hoc pater verus! Quid ab eo qui adoptabit sperare possum?
²¹ Contrast the sort of omissions that mark off A from BV (Suas. 1.14 (529.9 11 M.) quis
mihi ponam), B from AV (Con. 1.8.8 (87.6 M.) patrem quia), V from AB (Con. 9.4.9 10
(407.14 16) possit patrem). Those gaps could not be filled by conjecture.
²² I do not enquire about the relationship between D and the corrector of T. That does not
affect the present argument. But see Hagendahl (1936), 313 14.
²³ Con. 10.4.9 (484.16 M.).
22 Papers on Quintilian and Ancient Declamation
always, is lost, but the declaimer has clearly been talking of Romulus and
Remus. The subject can be suppressed, and the dative be understood, till we
come to lupa and to ad infantes in the next sentence. That is certain. Less clear
10.4.12 (486.13 M.): Illi singulos exponunt, tu omnes debilitas: illi spem, tu
instrumenta vivendi detrahis. Here tu instrumenta vivendi is the contribution
of D; tu is right—for the rest we cannot know.²⁴
Clearly, the E(xcerpta), for all the adaptation which they have undergone,²⁵ are
vital to the constitution of the text of the corresponding Controversiae where
those are extant. And editors since Bursian have naturally made use of them
for this purpose. But they have not always resisted the temptation to assume
that words present in the excerpta must be inserted in the main text if they are
lacking there. At Con. 9.2.3 (383.11 M.) we have in the main text the excellent
epigram: Facilius est ut qui alia meretrici dederit homicidium neget quam ut
qui hoc quoque dederit quicquam. Müller adds negarit from E 9.2 (435.16 M.);
Bursian did better to add another neget. But E is making sure the reader
understands—and providing a proper clausula (hence the form?). We do not
need to follow.
Editors are not always careful in comparing the main text with E. In Con.
7.1.24 (285.23 M.) Hispanus’ colour is twice given, thus: Hispanus duro colore
usus est: Hoc, inquit, supplicium tamquam gravius elegi . . . et hoc colore per
totam declamationem usus est, ut diceret hoc se tamquam gravius elegisse. E,
summarizing this, gives: Hispanus, duro colore usus, hoc se tamquam gravius
elegisse dixit supplicii genus.²⁶ Müller uses this as a justification for adding
supplicii genus in the main text after elegisse:²⁷ speciously.
Other cases may be more disputable. Tyrannus suspicatus est nescio quid
istum de tyrannicidio cogitare, sive isti aliquid excidit, sive magna consilia non
bene voltus (benivolis ABV) exigunt (so AB: exibuit V). So the main text at
Con. 2.4.13 (161.16 M.). E gives: . . . sive non bene tegit vultus māgnă cōnsĭlĭă.²⁸
That may certainly stand in E—and Kiessling was wrong to suggest texit. What
of the main text? Should not the generalizing present appear there also?²⁹
²⁴ But we may guess: illi <vitam, tu> spem detrahis. For loss of hope as worse than loss of life
see Cic. Catil. 4.8: Eripit . . . spem, quae sola hominem in miseriis consolari solet etc. A verb may
have dropped out of the illi clause.
²⁵ Hagendahl (1936), 299 ff. ²⁶ E 7.1 (348.21 2 M.). ²⁷ Con. 7.1.24 (286.7 M.).
²⁸ E 2.5 (198.26 M.).
²⁹ So Castiglioni (1927), 117, suggesting vultus contegit. Cf. Sen. Thy. 330 1 multa sed trepidus
solet / detegere vultus.
Problems in the Elder Seneca 23
Perhaps then tegit; or, bearing in mind exigunt, tegunt (cf. Cic. De orat. 2.148
voltus . . . perspiciamus omnis, qui sensus animi plerumque indicant).
At Con. 10.4.6 (482.21 M.) Fuscus appeals to the judges to pity a group of
cripples in court just as they pitied them individually on the streets: Misere-
mini horum, iudices, [et] misereri etiam singulorum soletis. E has: Miseremini
omnium, iudices, quorum singulorum misereri soletis.³⁰ Müller compromises
in the main text with Miseremini horum omnium, iudices, quorum misereri
etiam singulorum soletis. We may well do without quorum—two parallel
clauses give a good bite. And I think we should do without horum as well;
it will be ABV’s corruption of omnium (which is itself, of course, essential to
the contrast).
At Con. 9.5.14 (420.6) Varius’ epigram for the grandfather who kidnapped
his grandson after two previous grandsons had died is thus given by the main
text: Quae est ista aut tam (aut tam AB: aucta V) praepostera? Quaerere tuos a
tertio incipis. Something is clearly missing, and E confirms: Quae ista est tam
sera pietas, tam praepostera? Quaerere tuos a tertio incipis.³¹ The logic of this is
right. The father’s desire to get his third son back shows affection that is both
late in the day and topsy-turvy, not ‘si tardive ou si intempestive’ (Bornecque).
We should therefore delete aut in the main text (dittography between -a and t-),
and supplement merely tam <sera pietas, tam>, not, keeping the aut, <sera
pietas aut tam> (so editors since Bursian).
As to the manuscript tradition of the Excerpta, I can only judge from the
information in Müller’s apparatus. Müller’s own judgement is that by far the
best manuscript is the Montepessulanus (M), because it alone ‘interpolationi-
bus, quibus reliqui scatent, prorsus liber sit . . . nec tamen reliquos neglexi, cum
et complura in M perierint et satis multa in M perperam scripta ex uno vel
altero recentiorum codicum medelam accipere viderem.’³² In a sense the
supremacy of M should, I think, be put more highly. But the impression that
it contains almost all the evidence of value is artificially heightened by the
activities of the ‘recent’ corrector called by Müller M³, who saves the manu-
script from many errors³³ not found in other manuscripts, and may, in part,
have been drawing on those other manuscripts. It would be wrong to suppose
that all the other manuscripts descend from M. But so much more reliable is
M in general that it is always worth pausing before rejecting its readings.
Thus at E 6.6 (262.17 M.), where the main text is not available, an advocate
is replying on behalf of a wife accused of poisoning and adultery, partly
because she had said of her daughter ‘She will die sooner than be married’:
exciderunt illi verba quae non minus quam pater filiam luget. This makes
³⁰ E 10.3 (513.15 M.). ³¹ E 9.5 (442.15 M.). ³² Müller (1887), .
³³ Often trivial or orthographical. M³ also introduces errors (sometimes available in other
manuscripts): e.g. at random E 1.3 (95.18 M.) dubitari <non> (M³P); E 2.7 (203.5 M.) animus
(M³P); E 7.7 (356.15 M.) nec (M³P).
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secrets which are treasured in his breast, I come to proclaim myself
his slave, his apostle, his martyr.”
The divinity did not respond, but after a long silence, the same
voice asked:—“What does the partner of thy long wanderings
intend?”
“To obey and to serve,” answered Lorenza.
Simultaneously with her words, profound darkness succeeded the
glare of light, uproar followed on tranquillity, terror on trust, and a
sharp and menacing voice cried loudly:—“Woe to those who cannot
stand the tests!”
Husband and wife were immediately separated to undergo their
respective trials, which they endured with exemplary fortitude, and
which are detailed in the text of the memoirs. When the romantic
mummery was over, the two postulants were led back into the
temple, with the promise of admission to the divine mysteries. There
a man mysteriously draped in a long mantle cried out to them:
—“Know ye that the arcanum of our great art is the government of
mankind, and that the one means to rule them is never to tell them
the truth. Do not foolishly regulate your actions according to the rules
of common sense; rather outrage reason and courageously maintain
every unbelievable absurdity. Remember that reproduction is the
palmary active power in nature, politics, and society alike; that it is a
mania with mortals to be immortal, to know the future without
understanding the present, and to be spiritual while all that
surrounds them is material.”
After this harangue the orator genuflected devoutly before the
divinity of the temple and retired. At the same moment a man of
gigantic stature led the countess to the feet of the immortal Count de
Saint-German, who thus spoke:—
“Elected from my tenderest youth to the things of greatness, I
employed myself in ascertaining the nature of veritable glory. Politics
appeared to me nothing but the science of deception, tactics the art
of assassination, philosophy the ambitious imbecility of complete
irrationality; physics fine fancies about Nature and the continual
mistakes of persons suddenly transplanted into a country which is
utterly unknown to them; theology the science of the misery which
results from human pride; history the melancholy spectacle of
perpetual perfidy and blundering. Thence I concluded that the
statesman was a skilful liar, the hero an illustrious idiot, the
philosopher an eccentric creature, the physician a pitiable and blind
man, the theologian a fanatical pedagogue, and the historian a word-
monger. Then did I hear of the divinity of this temple. I cast my cares
upon him, with my incertitudes and aspirations. When he took
possession of my soul he caused me to perceive all objects in a new
light; I began to read futurity. This universe so limited, so narrow, so
desert, was now enlarged. I abode not only with those who are, but
with those who were. He united me to the loveliest women of
antiquity. I found it eminently delectable to know all without studying
anything, to dispose of the treasures of the earth without the
solicitation of monarchs, to rule the elements rather than men.
Heaven made me liberal; I have sufficient to satisfy my taste; all that
surrounds me is rich, loving, predestinated.”
When the service was finished the costume of ordinary life was
resumed. A superb repast terminated the ceremony. During the
course of the banquet the two guests were informed that the Elixir of
Immortality was merely Tokay coloured green or red according to the
necessities of the case. Several essential precepts were enjoined
upon them, among others that they must detest, avoid, and
calumniate men of understanding, but flatter, foster, and blind fools,
that they must spread abroad with much mystery the intelligence that
the Count de Saint-Germain was five hundred years old, that they
must make gold, but dupes before all.
The truth of this singular episode is not attested by any sober
biographer. If it occurred as narrated, it doubtless served to confirm
Cagliostro in his ambitious projects. The change which had taken
place in the adventurer since his second visit to England is well
described by Figuier. “His language, his mien, his manners, all are
transformed. His conversation turns only on his travels in Egypt, to
Mecca, and in other remote places, on the sciences into which he
was initiated at the foot of the Pyramids, on the arcana of Nature
which his ingenuity has discovered. At the same time, he talks little,
more often enveloping himself in mysterious silence. When
interrogated with reiterated entreaties, he deigns at the most to draw
his symbol—a serpent with an apple in its mouth and pierced by a
dart, meaning that human wisdom should be silent on the mysteries
which it has unravelled.... Lorenza was transfigured at the same time
with her husband. Her ambitions and deportment became worthy of
the new projects of Cagliostro. She aimed, like himself, at the glory
of colossal successes.”
The initiates of the Count de Saint-Germain passed into Courland,
where they established Masonic lodges, according to the sublime rite
of Egyptian Freemasonry. The countess was an excellent preacher
to captivate hearts and enchant imaginations, her beauty fascinated
a large number of Courlandaise nobility. At Mittau, Cagliostro
attracted the attention of persons of high rank, who were led by his
reputation to regard him as an extraordinary person. By means of his
Freemasonry he began to obtain an ascendency over the minds of
the nobles, some of whom, discontented with the reigning duke, are
actually said to have offered him the sovereignty of the country, as to
a divine man and messenger from above. The Italian biography
represents him plotting with this end in view. “He pretends,” say the
documents of the Holy Inquisition, “that he had virtue enough to
resist the temptation, and that he refused the proffered boon from
the respect due to sovereigns. His wife has assured us that his
refusal was produced by the reflection that his impostures would
soon be discovered.” He collected, however, a prodigious number of
presents in gold, silver, and money, and repaired to St Petersburg,
provided with regular passports. But the prophet soon found that a
sufficiently brilliant reputation had not preceded him, and he,
therefore, simply announced himself as a physician and chemist, by
his retired life and air of mystery soon attracting attention.
His assumption of the rôle of physician leads to a brief
consideration of the miraculous cures which have been attributed to
him. They are generally referred to a broad application of the
principles and methods of Mesmer, his contemporary. They were
performed without passes, iron rods, or any of the cumbrous
paraphernalia of his rival in the healing art; he trusted simply to the
laying on of hands. Moreover, he did not despoil his patients, but
rather dispensed his wealth, which now appeared unlimited, among
the poor, who flocked to him in great numbers as his reputation
increased. The source of this wealth is not accurately known, but it is
supposed to have been derived from the Masonic initiates, whose
apostle and propagandist he was.
Many of the miraculous cures which Cagliostro performed in
Germany spread widely, and in Russia he was soon surrounded by
the curious. Lorenza played her own part admirably; she answered
discreetly and naturally, making the most outrageous statements
with apparently complete unconsciousness. The physician-chemist,
besides his healing powers, had his reputation as an alchemist and
adept of the arcane sciences. The supposed restoration in a
miraculous manner of the infant child of an illustrious nobleman to
health exalted him to the pinnacle of celebrity, and his extravagant
pretensions, assisted, as they powerfully were, by the naïve beauty
of his wife, were beginning to be taken seriously, but the combined
result of an amour between Lorenza and Prince Poternki, Prime
Minister and favourite of the Czarina, Catherine, and the discovery
that the nobleman’s child had been apparently changed, caused
them to depart hastily with immense spoils towards the German
frontier.
They tarried at Warsaw for a time, and there the Italian biographer
tells us that Cagliostro made use of all his artifices to deceive a
prince to whom he was introduced, and who was exceedingly
anxious to obtain, with the help of the pretended magician, the
permanent command of a devil. Cagliostro puffed him up for a long
time with the expectation of gratifying this preposterous ambition,
and actually procured presents from him to the amount of several
thousand crowns. The prince at length perceiving that there was no
hope of retaining one of the infernal spirits in his service, wished to
make himself master of the earthly affections of the countess, but in
this too he was disappointed, the lady positively refusing to comply
with his desires. Finding himself thus balked in both his attempts, he
abandoned every sentiment but revenge, and intimidated our
adventurer and his wife so much by his menaces that they were
obliged to restore his presents.
The veracity of this account is not, however, beyond suspicion,
and other of his biographers represent Cagliostro proceeding directly
to Francfurt and thence to Strasbourg, into which, more wealthy and
successful than ever, he made a triumphal entry. The distinguished
visitor, the Rosicrucian, the alchemist, the physician, the sublime
count, had been expected since early morning by the bourgeois of
the old town, and the following extraordinary account in the
Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes has been given by an
anonymous biographer.
“On the 19th of September 1780, in a public-house just outside
Strasburg, surrounded by a group of humble tipplers, who stared
from the little window at the vast crowd collected below them, there
might have been remarked the countenance of a bald and wrinkled
man, some eighty years of age, and evidently of southern origin; this
was the goldsmith Marano. Successive failures, and debts which he
did not see fit to liquidate, had forced him to leave Palermo, and he
had established himself in his former trade at Strasbourg. Like the
rest of the townsfolk he had come out to behold the phenomenal
personage whose arrival was expected, and who made a greater
sensation than many a powerful monarch. He had come by way of
Germany from Varsovia, where he had amassed immense riches,
said popular rumour, by the transmutation of base metals into gold,
for he was possessed of the secret of the philosophic stone, and had
all the incalculable talents of an alchemist.”
“By my faith,” said a hatter, “I am indeed happy since I am
destined to behold this illustrious mortal, if indeed he be a mortal.”
“’Tis asserted,” added a druggist, “that he is a son of the Princess
of Trebizond, and that he has withal the fine eyes of his mother.”
“Also that he is a lineal descendant of Charles Martel,” said a town
clerk.
“He dates still further back,” put in a rope-maker, “for he took part
in the marriage feast of Cana.”
“Beyond doubt then, he is the wandering Jew!” exclaimed Marano.
“Still better, some credible persons assert that he was born before
the deluge.”
“What hardihood! Yet suppose he is the devil.”
These notions here reproduced with fidelity, and which were
adorned by the most extravagant commentaries, were actually at
that period in general circulation among the crowd. Some regarded
the mysterious Count Cagliostro as an inspired saint, a performer of
miracles, a phenomenal personage outside the order of Nature. The
cures attributed to him were equally innumerable and unexplainable.
Others regarded him merely as an adroit charlatan. Cagliostro
himself boldly asserted that all his prodigies were performed under
the special favour and help of heaven. He added that the Supreme
Being had deigned to accord him the beatific vision, that it was his
mission to convert unbelievers and reinstate catholicism, but in spite
of this exalted vocation he told fortunes, taught the art of winning at
lotteries, interpreted dreams, and held séances of transcendental
phantasmagoria.
“But,” contended the rope-maker with much animation, “a man
who converses with angels is never the devil.”
“Is he in communication with angels?” cried Marano, struck by the
circumstances. “In that case I must see him at all costs. How old is
he?”
“Bah!” said the druggist, “as if such a being could have an age! He
looks about thirty-six.”
“Oh!” muttered the goldsmith. “What if he were my rascal? My
rascal should now be thirty-seven.”
As the hoary Sicilian ruminated over his lamentable past, he was
roused by a tumult of voices. The supernal being had arrived, and he
passed presently in the road, surrounded by a numerous cortege of
couriers, lacqueys, valets, &c., all in magnificent liveries. By his side,
in the open carriage, sat Lorenza or Seraphina Feliciani, his wife,
who seconded with all her ability the intrigues of her husband, whom
reasonable people regarded as a wandering member and emissary
of the masonic templars, his opulence insured by contributions from
the different lodges of the order.
A great shout rose up when Count Cagliostro passed before the
inn. Marano had recognised his man, and flying out had contrived to
stop the carriage, shouting as he did so—“Joseph Balsamo! It is
Joseph! Coquin, where are my sixty ounces of gold?”
Cagliostro scarcely deigned to glance at the furious goldsmith; but
in the middle of the profound silence which the incident occasioned
among the crowd, a voice, apparently in the clouds, uttered with
great distinctness the following words: “Remove this lunatic, who is
possessed by infernal spirits!”
Some of the spectators fell on their knees, others seized the
unfortunate goldsmith, and the brilliant cortege passed on.
Entering Strasburg in triumph, Cagliostro paused in front of a large
hall, where the equerries who had preceded him had already
collected a considerable concourse of the sick. The famous empiric
entered and cured them all, some simply by touch, others apparently
by words or by a gratuity in money, the rest by his universal
panacea; but the historian who records these things asserts that the
sick persons thus variously treated had been carefully selected, the
physician preferring to treat the more serious cases at the homes of
the patients.
Cagliostro issued from the hall amidst universal acclamations, and
was accompanied by the immense crowd to the doors of the
magificent lodging which had been prepared against his arrival. The
élite of Strasburg society was invited to a sumptuous repast, which
was followed by a séance of transcendental magnetism, when he
produced some extraordinary manifestations by the mediation of
clairvoyant children of either sex, and whom he denominated his
doves or pupils. The unspotted virginity and innocence of these
children were an indispensable condition of success. They were
chosen by himself, and received a mystical consecration at his
hands. Then he pronounced over a crystal vessel, filled with water,
the magical formulæ for the evocation of angelic intelligences as
they are written in the celestial rituals. Supernal spirits became
visible in the depths of the water, and responded to questions
occasionally in an intelligible voice, but more often in characters
which appeared on the surface of the water, and were visible to the
pupils alone, who interpreted them to the public.
Contemporary testimony establishes that these manifestations, as
a whole, were genuine, and there is little doubt of the mesmeric
abilities of Cagliostro, who had probably become acquainted in the
East with the phenomena of virginal lucidity, especially in boys, and
had supplemented the oriental methods by the discoveries of
Puséygur, which were at that time sufficiently notorious.
For three years Cagliostro remained at Strasburg and was fêted
continually. Here he obtained a complete ascendency over the mind
of the famous cardinal-archbishop, the Prince de Rohan. His first
care, on taking up his abode in the town, was to prove his respect for
the clergy by his generosity and zeal. He visited the sick in the
hospitals, deferentially participated in the duties of the regular
doctors, proposed his new remedies with prudence, did not condemn
the old methods, but sought to unite new science with the science
which was based on experience. He obtained the reputation of a
bold experimenter in chemistry, of a sagacious physician, and a
really enlightened innovator. The inhabitants of the crowded quarters
regarded him as a man sent from God, operating miraculous cures,
and dispensing riches from an inexhaustible source with which he
was alone acquainted. Unheard-of cures were cited, and alchemical
operations which surpassed even the supposed possibilities of the
transmutatory art.
Anything which savoured of the marvellous was an attraction for
the cardinal-archbishop, and he longed to see Cagliostro. An
anonymous writer states that he sought an interview with him again
and again unsuccessfully; for the cardinal-prince of trickery divined
even at a distance the character of the prince-cardinal, and
enveloped himself in a reserve which, to the imagination of his dupe,
was like the loadstone to the magnet. Others represent him,
however, courting the favour of the great ecclesiastic’s secretary, and
so obtaining an introduction. At the first interview he showed some
reserve, but permitted certain dazzling ideas to be glimpsed through
the more ordinary tenour of his discourse. After a judicious period he
admitted that he possessed a receipt for the manufacture of gold and
diamonds. A supposed transmutation completed his conquest of the
cardinal, and the Italian historian confesses that he accordingly
lavished immense sums upon the virtuous pair, and to complete his
folly, agreed to erect a small edifice, in which he was to experience a
physical regeneration by means of the supernal and auriferous elixir
of Cagliostro. The sum of twenty thousand francs was actually paid
the adept to accomplish this operation.
Doubtless during his sojourn at Strasburg he propagated with zeal
the mysteries of his Egyptian Freemasonry, and at length, laden with
spoils, he repaired to Bordeaux, where he continued his healing in
public, and then proceeded to Lyons, where for the space of three
months he occupied himself with the foundation of a mother-lodge,
and, according to the Italian biographer, here as elsewhere, in less
creditable pursuits. At length he arrived at Paris, where, says the
same authority, he soon became the object of general conversation,
regard, and esteem. His curative powers were now but little
exercised, for Paris abounded with mesmerists and healers, and the
prodigies of simple magnetism were stale and unprofitable in
consequence. He assumed now the rôle of a practical magician, and
astonished the city by the evocation of phantoms, which he caused
to appear, at the wish of the inquirer, either in a mirror or in a vase of
clear water. These phantoms equally represented dead and living
beings, and as occasionally collusion appears to have been well-
nigh impossible, and as the theory of coincidence is preposterous,
there is reason to suppose that he produced results which must
sometimes have astonished himself. All Paris at any rate was set
wondering at his enchantments and prodigies, and it is seriously
stated that Louis XVI. was so infatuated with le divin Cagliostro, that
he declared anyone who injured him should be considered guilty of
treason. At Versailles, and in the presence of several distinguished
nobles, he is said to have caused the apparition in mirrors, vases,
&c., not merely of the spectra of absent or deceased persons, but
animated and moving beings of a phantasmal description, including
many dead men and women selected by the astonished spectators.
The mystery which surrounded him abroad was deepened even
when he received visitors at home. He had lived in the Rue Saint
Claude, an isolated house surrounded by gardens and sheltered
from the inconvenient curiosity of neighbours. There he established
his laboratory, which no one might enter. He received in a vast and
sumptuous apartment on the first floor. Lorenza lived a retired life,
only being visible at certain hours before a select company, and in a
diaphanous and glamourous costume. The report of her beauty
spread through the city; she passed for a paragon of perfection, and
duels took place on her account. Cagliostro was now no longer
young, and Lorenza was in the flower of her charms. He is said for
the first time to have experienced the pangs of jealousy on account
of a certain Chevalier d’Oisemont, with whom she had several
assignations. Private vexations did not, however, interfere with
professional thaumaturgy, and the evocation of the illustrious dead
was a common occurrence at certain magical suppers which
became celebrated through all Paris. These were undoubtedly
exaggerated by report, but as they all occurred within the doubtful
precincts of his own house of mystery, they were in all probability
fraudulent, for it must be distinctly remembered that in his normal
character he was an unparalleled trickster, that the genuine
phenomena which he occasionally produced were simply
supplements to charlatanry, and not that his deceptions were aids to
normally genuine phenomena.
On one occasion, according to the Mémoires authentiques pour
servir à l’histoire du Comte de Cagliostro, the distinguished
thaumaturgist announced that at a private supper, given to six
guests, he would evoke the spirits of any dead persons whom they
named to him, and that the phantoms, apparently substantial, should
seat themselves at the banquet. The repast took place with the
knowledge and, it may be supposed, with the connivance of
Lorenza. At midnight the guests were assembled; a round table, laid
for twelve, was spread, with unheard-of luxury, in a dining-room,
where all was in harmony with the approaching Kabbalistic
operation. The six guests, with Cagliostro, took their seats, and thus
the ominous number thirteen were designed to be present at table.
The supper was served, the servants were dismissed with threats
of immediate death if they dared to open the doors before they were
summoned. Each guest demanded the deceased person whom he
desired to see. Cagliostro took the names, placed them in the pocket
of his gold-embroidered vest, and announced that with no further
preparation than a simple invocation on his part the evoked spirits
would appear in flesh and blood, for, according to the Egyptian
dogma, there were in reality no dead. These guests of the other
world, asked for and expected with trembling anxiety, were the Duc
de Choiseul, Voltaire, d’Alembert, Diderot, the Abbé de Voisenon,
and Montesquieu. Their names were pronounced slowly in a loud
voice, and with all the concentrated determination of the adept’s will;
and after a moment of intolerable doubt, the evoked guests
appeared very unobtrusively, and took their seats with the quiet
courtesy which had characterised them in life.
The first question put to them when the awe of their presence had
somewhat worn off was as to their situation in the world beyond.
“There is no world beyond,” replied d’Alembert. “Death is simply
the cessation of the evils which have tortured us. No pleasure is
experienced, but, on the other hand, there is no suffering. I have not
met with Mademoiselle Lespinasse, but I have not seen Lorignet.
There is marked sincerity, moreover. Some deceased persons who
have recently joined us inform me that I am almost forgotten. I am,
however, consoled. Men are unworthy of the trouble we take about
them. I never loved them, now I despise them.”
“What has become of your learning?” said M. de —— to Diderot.
“I was not learned, as people commonly supposed. My ready wit
adapted all that I read, and in writing I borrowed on every side.
Thence comes the desultory character of my books, which will be
unheard of in half a century. The Encyclopædia, with the merit of
which I am honoured, does not belong to me. The duty of an editor is
simply to set in order the choice of subjects. The man who showed
most talent in the whole of the work was the compiler of its index, yet
no one has dreamed of recognising his merits.”
“I praised the enterprise,” said Voltaire, “for it seemed well fitted to
further my philosophical opinions. Talking of philosophy, I am none
too certain that I was in the right. I have learned strange things since
my death, and have conversed with half a dozen Popes. Clement
XIV. and Benedict, above all, are men of infinite intelligence and
good sense.”
“What most vexes me,” said the Duc de Choiseul, “is the absence
of sex where we dwell. Whatever may be said of this fleshly
envelope, ’twas by no means so bad an invention.”
“What is truly a pleasure to me,” said the Abbé Voisenon, “is that
amongst us one is perfectly cured of the folly of intelligence. You
cannot conceive how I have been bantered about my ridiculous little
romances. I had almost confessed that I appreciated these puerilities
at their true value, but whether the modesty of an academician is
disbelieved in, or whether such frivolity is out of character with my
age and profession, I expiate almost daily the mistakes of my mortal
existence.”