Ora maritima
Ora maritima is a geographic didactic poem written in Latin by the poet Avienus in the middle of the 4th century .
Avienus is in the tradition of the ancient didactic poem, but his intention is not to impart knowledge, but to spread Greco-Roman education. The basis is an old Greek periplus and distances that appear at least exactly are mixed with mythical descriptions and the naming of cities that have long since disappeared. His intention is to represent the coast of the sea from the atlanticiis fluctes (= tides of the Atlantic) to the Maiotis (= Sea of Azov). However, only the description has survived, beginning in the west up to the area around Marseille .
swell
Sources given by Avienus
In his dedication, Avienus refers to Sallust's description of the Maiotis . However, this part of the work has been lost. In the following he lists 11 Greek authors, the oldest Herodotus (5th century BC), the youngest Thucydides (4th century BC), including Skylax of Caria. 3 of them are unknown. Excerpts from their surviving writings cannot be found in the others either.
He quotes twice from the report of the Carthaginian navigator Himilkon (verses 117-145, 383-411). He had dug up this report from ancient Punic annals.
Sources ascribed later
In his dedication Avienus speaks of the nostrum mare (our sea), i.e. the Mediterranean Sea , he equates Tartessos twice (verse 85, 269) with Gadir ( Cádiz ), i.e. describes the western Mediterranean area. However, many details do not match this, e.g. B. the travel time of 4 months of the Himilkon (verse 117) or the remarks on the summer solstice (verse 650-673). Several historians have therefore assumed that Avienus had a periplus that described the coast of France, England, Scandinavian countries, and even the Baltic Sea, without being entirely clear to him.
Karl Müllenhoff assumes that it is based on a centuries-old Greek script that has also been corrupted by editing. He assumes that the description extends to the north. In oestrymnides (verse 96) he sees Brittany , in insula albionum (verse 112) England.
Adolf Schulten holds the periplus of a Greek navigator from Marseille at the end of the 6th century BC. BC, possibly the Greek geographer Euthymenes , for the essential source. He vehemently rejects the equation of Tartessus with Gadir.
The German historian Dietrich Stichtenoth assumes that the report by Pytheas von Massalia is the basis and offers numerous name-related adjustments in his comments on the text, such as verse 90: Oestrymnischer ridge after Oestrymnier = Aestii = amber collector on the Baltic Sea.
content
After the dedication to Probus, for whom he is a fatherly teacher, Tartessus is the focus of the didactic poem from verse 85 to 429 . At the time of Avienus, Tartessus was a long destroyed city and a myth. Presumably a foundation of Asia Minor seafarers, it was overtaken by the Punic Gadir, who later settled . Later there were relations with the Ionian Phocaeans ( Herodotus , 1, 163). This is reflected in the myth of the robbery of the cattle of Geryon by Heracles , whose castle near Tartessus Avienus mentions (v. 264). The wide trade up to the Ostrymnischen islands (verse 113) and the wealth of the Tartessians (verse 423) are described. Now, however, the following applies:
nunc destituta nunc ruinarum ager est (verse 272)
now it is deserted, a heap of rubble.But
also in Roman times, Tartessus was used to designate the area west of Gadir and historical and mythical things are communicated by Pliny the Elder ( Naturalis historia , IV 120).
Then the poem moves through the Pillars of Hercules along the coast towards Marseille. Among the numerous names of places, tribes, and rivers are those that are also mentioned by other geographers, such as Abila and Calpe on Gibraltar (also with Pliny the Elder and Strabo ), as well as otherwise unnamed. The last part refers to the Rhone and is interpreted differently with regard to the listed local peoples.
Language and design
Avienus composed his poem in iambic senars . The language shows peculiarities in declination and syntax, the use of Greek forms and archaisms. He likes to use decorative accessories, such as the heroic deeds of Heracles. He quotes fabulous things from Himilko's report (verses 127–129):
Obire semper huc et hunc pontiferas
Nauigia lenta et languide repentia
Inter natare beluas
The monsters of the sea romp incessantly on all sides; Giant fish swim around the slow-moving ships.
Lore
The poem was not quoted and was soon forgotten. The text has only survived in one manuscript, which was also lost after the first printed edition in Venice in 1488 by Giorgio Valla and Vittore Pisani. It was not until the 19th century that the text found renewed interest because some historians assumed that its ancient sources reflected the reality of Europe's west Atlantic coast several centuries before our era (see “Sources ascribed later”). In 1893 the ancient historian Eduard Meyer drew up the work for information about the Atlantic and the Atlantic coast from Spain to England at the time of the late 2nd century BC. Chr. Approach.
Text editions and translations
- Adolf Schulten: AVIENI ORA MARITIMA, Barcelona / Berlin 1922
- Dietrich Stichtenoth: RUFUS FESTUS AVIENUS - ORA MARITIMA, Darmstadt 1968
literature
- Nikolaus Daigl: Avienus, studies of his language, his metrics and his relationship to Virgil. Erlangen 1903.
- Karl Müllenhoff : German antiquity. First volume, book I: The Phoenicians. Berlin 1890.
- Adolf Schulten: Tartessos , a contribution to the oldest history of the West. Hamburg 1950.
- Kurt Smolak : Postumius Rufius Festus Avienus. In: Reinhart Herzog (Hrsg.): Handbook of the Latin literature of antiquity. Volume five: restoration and renewal. The Latin literature from AD 284 to 374. CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-31863-0 , pp. 320-327.
Remarks
- ↑ Kurt Smolak: Postumius Rufius Festus Avienus , p. 322
- ^ Karl Müllenhoff: Deutsche Altertumskunde, pp. 77-88
- ^ Adolf Schulten: Tartessos , p. 64ff
- ↑ Dietrich Stichenoth: RUFUS FESTUS AVIENUS - ORA MARITIMA, p. 1
- ^ Adolf Schulten: Tartesso , pp. 26–40
- ↑ Nikolaus Daigl: Avienus, pp. 6–21
- ↑ Dietrich Stichtenoth: RUFUS FESTUS AVIENUS - ORA MARITIMA, p. 4
- ^ Eduard Meyer: History of antiquity. Volume 2, Division 2: The Orient from the twelfth to the middle of the eighth century. Fourth edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1965, p. 96 f. ( Online at zeno.org ).