Latin Panegyric by Roger Rees

Abstract

464 BOOK REVIEWS 35. This is not immediately noticeable since the glosses are separated by vast stretches of commentary; those students who most need help will be the least inclined to dig through the lemmata in search of help on vocabulary and grammar , which, however, is handsomely provided. Almost never did I think a reading was just wrong (but see ad 1.8.39, 47). The book well serves the advanced studentsand their instructorswhoconstitute thisseries’readership. As for today’s usual problem, I read every word and found a total of five typographical errors in the commentary, all in punctuation but one (318, line 4, for “H.’s” read “His”—Cicero’s, not Horace’s). There is, oddly, a typo in the Latin text at 5.31 (optimus has slipped in before atque, echoing line 27), and assisto at 6.114 is mysteriously italicized. In short, a miracle of accuracy in the current deplorable state of book production. Morris Zapp’s monumental work on Jane Austen, he hoped, would put an end to all further writing on the subject.4 After reading this commentary, it is hard to think what could be left to say about Horace Satires I; whatever it iswill certainly be much better-informed than before Gowers. AMYRICHLIN University of California, Los Angeles, richlin@humnet.ucla.edu ◊ Latin Panegyric. Edited by ROGER REES. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi + 430. Hardcover,£76.00/$150.00. ISBN 978-0-19-957671-5. Paper, £29.50/$55.00. ISBN 978-019 -957672-2. dited by Roger Rees, this volume contains sixteen previously published essays spanning a century of international scholarship on the “Twelve Panegyrics”: Pliny’s gratiarum actio to Trajan and eleven Panegyrici for emperors from Maximinian to Theodosius. Rees provides a valuable resource for newcomers and veterans alike by threading together essential readings on imperial praise. 4 David Lodge, Changing Places (London, 1975) 35. E BOOK REVIEWS 465 The volume consists of “Introductions” (three chapters, 3–74), “Pliny’s Panegyricus” (six chapters, 77–220), and “Gallic Panegyrici” (eight chapters, 223– 386). These are followed by a bibliography (387–423) and a brief index (427– 30). Words and phrases in the ancient and modern languages are translated, while numbers in brackets throughout indicate the original pagination of the essays. The rich editorial introduction traces panegyric from Pindar and Thucydides to Mamertinus and Venatius Fortunatus, and surveys ancient and modern responses to praise-giving in various contexts (epinician, funerary, forensic, philosophical, etc). From the discovery of the XII Panegyrici Latini manuscript in 1433 to the present, recurrent research themes include the Classical, Hellenistic, and Republican models of the speeches, their intended audiences, the divergences between their original delivery and their written version, the relationship between panegyrist and emperor, and the panegyrist’s professed “sincerity.” Rees discerns a dominant, moralizing approach to panegyric and maps it onto shifting political landscapesand social sensibilities.A striking such example is the contrast between the enthusiastic reception of Pliny’s Panegyricus in early European royal courts and itscondemnation bytwentieth century criticism (15–16). Rees’ introduction is followed by Mynors’ 1964 preface to the OCT edition of the XII Panegyrici, which clarifies and has since authorized the manuscript tradition . Pichon (1906) respondsto the German scholarship of the late-nineteenth century, which postulated a single author for the unattributed Panegyrici. Drawing on paleography, stylistics, and autobiographical references in the speeches, Pichon establishes the Panegyrici as the product ofdiverse Gallicauthors. Section II, on the Panegyricus, variously explores Pliny’s laudatory ethics. Radice (1968) hesitantly endorses Pliny’s innovation in elaborating and publishing “stock themes,” and she claims the speech as a source for Pliny supplementary to his Letters. Braund (1998) identifies Cicero’s praise of Pompey and Caesar as nascent panegyrics influencing Seneca’s de Clementia and Pliny’s Panegyricus. Braund also underlines the normative function of Ciceronian and Senecan praise, now a guiding principle for reading Pliny and his Late Antique successors. Fantham (1999) detects in the speech oral formulae transmitting the oaths exchanged between Trajan, the senate, and the consuls; through ritualistic language Pliny solemnizes and authorizes his praise. Morford (1992) defends the respectability of the Panegyricus...