Download PDF | Andy Merrills - War, Rebellion and Epic in Byzantine North Africa_ A Historical Study of Corippus' Iohannis-Cambridge University Press (2023).
317 Pages
WAR, REBELLION AND EPIC IN BYZANTINE NORTH AFRICA
In around 550 the Latin poet Corippus composed his epic Iohannis to celebrate the forgotten wars of a Byzantine general against the ‘Moorish’ or ‘Berber’ peoples of North Africa. This book explores the rich narrative of that poem and the changing political, social and cultural environment within which he worked. It reappraises the dramatic first decades of Byzantine North Africa (533–550) and discusses the ethnography of Moorish Africa, the diplomatic and military history of the imperial administration, and the religious transformations (both Christian and ‘pagan’) of this period.
By considering the Iohannis as a political text, it sheds new light on the continued importance of poetry and literature on the southern fringes of imperial power, and presents a model for reading epic as a historical source. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details. andy merrills is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Leicester. He is the author of several books, including Roman Geographies of the Nile (Cambridge, 2017) and (with Richard Miles) The Vandals (2010). He has written many articles and book chapters on the history, archaeology and literature of late Roman, Vandal and Byzantine North Africa and was editor of the agenda-setting volume Vandals, Romans, and Berbers (2004).
Preface
The decision to write this book crept up on me somewhat unexpectedly. For several years, I had been struggling with historical questions surrounding the nature of ‘Moorish’ or ‘Berber’ societies in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries. The Iohannis is a central source for understanding these groups, but the more I worked with it, the less I seemed to understand. Corippus’ poem has long been exploited by historians and archaeologists of North Africa as an invaluable repository of information, and by a small number of brave philologists as a peculiar late flowering of Latin verse, but these two strands had rarely been reconciled.
Why precisely did Corippus write an epic about a minor military campaign that barely warranted notice outside Africa? If his intention was to celebrate imperial power (as is generally assumed), why did he do so in almost 5,000 hexameter lines, rather than using the conventional medium of panegyric? And why did he include within his work so many extended criticisms of imperial bureaucratic incompetence? If he sought to demonize ‘the Moors’ in a display of metropolitan chauvinism, why are figures like the ally Cusina presented in such laudatory terms? And if Corippus is to be trusted as a source on the complex ethnography of the frontier zone, how can we reconcile this with his evident debts to the literary tradition of Latin epic?
It seemed that the only way of approaching these questions was to look at the text itself and the historical circumstances of its production. And the appropriate medium for this was on a grand scale which Corippus himself might have appreciated; hence this book. Inevitably, this opened up a whole new raft of challenges. There are many difficulties with the text of the Iohannis, thanks to its unique transmission history. As discussed in Chapter 1, the poem has been the object of extensive philological scrutiny since its rediscovery at the start of the nineteenth century, and this process is ongoing. As a historian by training, rather than a late Latinist, my intention has been to discuss the Iohannis in its historical context, rather than consider strictly textual issues.
As such, I have necessarily leaned very heavily on the philological scholarship of others. Translations of passages from the text are my own, but I am enormously grateful to Paul Roche and especially Aaron Pelttari for their diligent help with Corippus’ frequently baffling Latinity. Aaron in particular has improved my halting English translations in every respect; his efforts have improved what follows considerably and set the discussion on much firmer foundations.
Throughout, I have used the edition of Diggle and Goodyear published by Cambridge University Press in 1970. This remains the standard complete edition of the epic, although revised editions of Books I, II, III, IV and VIII have now been published, and have also been consulted. In a small number of cases, I have followed the proposed readings of these editions; these are noted appropriately. I have consulted: the complete translations of G. W. Shea (into English), J. Didderen (into French) and Ana Ramírez Tirado (into Spanish), as well as the translations and commentaries of individual books and passages by Maria Assunta Vinchesi, Chiara Tommasi Moreschini, Vincent Zarini, Yves Modéran, Benjamin Goldlust and Peter Riedlberger. I have deferred to conventional English tenses for ease of understanding in my translation (Corippus often uses a vivid present tense in narrating past events, which can be confusing). In the absence of a reliable English translation of the Chronicle of Victor of Tunnuna, the few excerpts from that text are also my own.
For all other ancient texts, I have used published translations, which are marked accordingly. For clarity – and for the convenience of non-specialists – I have followed the book numbering and line ordering of Diggle and Goodyear (excepting a small number of cases which are identified in the notes). Peter Riedlberger and Giulia Caramico have recently demonstrated convincingly that Diggle and Goodyear were in error in their location of the end of Book IV and the start of Book V. In the absence of a widely available edition of the poem with the revised line numbers, however, I have deferred to conventional book and line numbering as a mercy to the reader. For the same reason, I have continued to refer to the poet as ‘Corippus’, despite Riedlberger’s persuasive suggestion that the manuscript evidence prefers ‘Gorippus’.
This may well be correct, but the small scholarly tradition that exists around Corippus conventionally refers to him by that name, and consistency and clarity seem of particular importance if he is not to be buried even further in obscurity. The same principles have determined my usage of proper names, ethnonyms and toponyms, both ancient and modern. Names have been transmitted in a range of different forms in the extant texts – not least as a result of transliteration into (and from) Latin, Greek and the various languages spoken in late antique Africa – and have often changed further as they are rendered by contemporary scholars into Arabic or into modern European languages.
Where common anglophone forms exist, I have used these (thus, Carthage, Justinian, Belisarius, Procopius and – as noted – Corippus); where modern conventions vary, I have tried to be consistent (Lepcis Magna, Guntharith, Antalas, Laguatan, Cusina). In some cases, different names are deliberately used for the same figure, depending on their status. Thus, Stotzas as the historical rebel as he appears in Procopius and the historical sources, but Stutias as he appears in the Iohannis. I have generally given the ancient place names where known, and the modern Arabic toponyms where these can be identified with confidence. In many cases, the locations mentioned in the Iohannis remain elusive, and these issues are acknowledged in the discussion.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the work that followed would not have been possible without the extraordinary support of many institutions, colleagues, friends and family. I am grateful to many people who have read and commented upon this work as it developed. Doug Lee, David Mattingly, Neil Christie, Paul Roche, Aaron Pelttari and the anonymous referees for Cambridge University Press all read the book in its entirety, and it has been much improved from their suggestions and criticism.
Robin Whelan, Simon Loseby and Dave Edwards all read multiple chapters (often multiple times) and were crucial to helping me formulate different arguments as they developed. For specific help on particularly knotty research questions, and for listening patiently to my incoherent ramblings over the past few years, I would also like to express my great thanks to: Dan Stewart, Nikki Rollason, Ollie Harris, Jamie Wood, Naoise MacSweeney, Conor Whately, Greg Hays, Ine Jacobs, Mark Rawlinson, Cori Fenwick, Gavin Kelly, Lisa Fentress, Anna Leone, Philipp von Rummel, Andy Morrison, Richard Miles, Bruce Hitchner, Mary Harlow, Sarah Knight, Jonathan Conant, Anne Rogerson, Roland Steinacher, Kai Francis, Matt Doyle, Laura Smith, Michael Wuk and Eric Blaum. Ideas and arguments within this book were first outlined and presented to audiences in conferences and seminar talks at Leicester, Lincoln, Rethymno, Tubingen and (in very embryonic form) Dumbarton Oaks: I am grateful to many people present at each for their comments and criticisms. Additionally, several aspects of this discussion were explored initially (and sometimes in more depth) in a range of articles, book chapters and handbook contributions over the past few years.
Full details of these publications can be found in a typically self-aggrandizing section of the bibliography, and need not be repeated here. Nevertheless, I am grateful to the editors and reviewers associated with these works for their help and patience, particularly Bruce Hitchner, Valentino Gasparini, Michael Stewart, Miriam Wagner and Philip Rance. Writing and researching this book would not have been possible without the support of the staff and students of the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester.
The bulk of the writing was done during a semester of study leave at the end of 2021, and I am grateful for the University and College support that allowed this to happen. Financial support to undertake library research was provided by the Society of Libyan Studies and by John Whitehouse and the Ancient North Africa research group at the University of Sydney, and I am grateful to both institutions for this.
Many of the most difficult sections of the text (both my own, and making sense of Corippus’) were worked out in the enormously congenial setting of the Gladstone Library in Hawarden. Working there feels like finding the cheat codes to a world of focused writing, and it is highly recommended: the Welsh rarebit is delicious too.
I leave my greatest debts until last. My partner, Julia Farley, has been an endless source of inspiration, stimulation and joy, and this book would have been unthinkable without her. She listened as the ideas contained within it slowly took shape, and supported its author with patience and love, even as she has undertaken far grander (and incomparably more important) projects of her own. In happier times, it would be dedicated to her outright. But I think she knows that. I first articulated the idea for this book, and made a firm statement that I was going to write it, while in conversation with family members in the sad circumstances of my father’s funeral in October 2018. In the tumultuous months and years since – in pandemic lockdown and out of it – Dad was never very far away.
An academic (and indeed a Cambridge University Press author) himself, he was very familiar with the joys and frustrations of balancing writing and the other parts of the job, of searching for the mot juste while being aware of the looming pile of marking still to be done. Without him as a role model and – until recently – as a source of enormous support and good sense, I could never have been doing a job that I love. I have written elsewhere about books and the process of grief, but this project was an important part of that too. He was in my mind as I planned, considered and wrote this book, and I dedicate it to him with great pride. In every sense this was written in his memory. I miss him.
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