Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus

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Symmachus and Boethius, medieval miniature

Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus († 525/26) was a late Roman politician, philosopher and historian.

Life

Symmachus came from one of the richest and most famous Western Roman senatorial families, whose members may have held high offices under Septimius Severus . He was the great-grandson of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus , but in contrast to him - as was customary at the time - a Christian, which is derived from a passage in the so-called Anecdoton Holderi , a fragment from a lost work of Cassiodorus .

Symmachus belonged to the city-Roman senatorial elite. He had held several high offices under Odoacer and then under Theodoric : he functioned as city prefect of Rome, attained the consulate in 485 (like his father in 446) at an apparently quite young age and had had the honorable title of patricius since 510 at the latest . Because of his brilliant career and personality, he was eventually regarded as the "head of the Senate" ( caput senatus ). He also had a permanent seat in the Colosseum and carried out construction work in Rome. During the so-called Laurentian Schism , he supported Pope Symmachus in 498 .

Symmachus was Boethius' father-in-law and was considered one of the most educated Romans of his time. He was famous for his wealth, his eloquence, his apparently very large library and his patronage . He tried to maintain the ancient Roman culture and was celebrated as the new Cato , who would surpass it through his Christian faith.

Under Odoacer (who had eliminated the empire in Italy in 476) and during the subsequent Ostrogothic rule, he had evidently cultivated a relaxed relationship with the Germanic lords of Italy and made a career. However, he was executed on charges of high treason in 525 or 526. Symmachus fell victim to the growing tensions at Theodoric's royal court between the pro-Gothic court party and the old senatorial elite, which often still had good relations with the Eastern Roman imperial court, and the tense relationship between Ravenna and Constantinople since 519.Symmachus thus shared his fate Son-in-law Boethius, who had made himself vulnerable through his clumsy behavior in the context of an indictment brought against the respected Senator Flavius ​​Albinus iunior by the royal referendarius Cyprianus . Boethius was deposed as magister officiorum Theodoric and finally executed in 524/26 for alleged high treason.

Literary activity

The Symmachus formed underwent not only the commentary of Macrobius to Dream of Scipio along with a descendant of Macrobius a text revision, he himself was also one of the last Latin historian in ancient tradition. The Historia Romana ( Roman history ) written by Symmachus shortly before his death, possibly with a Christian accent, in seven books is today completely lost, but apparently served as one of the models for the works of Jordanes . In the Getica des Jordanes, the latter expressly cites the history of Symmachus at least in one place. Accordingly, Symmachus wrote parts of the (in research very controversial) Historia Augusta , but apparently with Christian additions: The end of Maximinus Thrax brought Symmachus like Orosius into connection with his opposition to the Christians. One cannot overestimate the quality of the historian Symmachus.

Wilhelm Enßlin suggested that Jordanes relied even more on Symmachus in his other historical work (also known as Historia Romana ). Lieve Van Hoof and Peter Van Nuffelen, on the other hand, like several other modern researchers, are much more skeptical and reject such a “maximum draft”. Both also assume that the title of the work was not (as is usually assumed) Historia Romana , but only Historia .

Editions / translations

Entry in Clavis Historicorum Antiquitatis Posterioris (CHAP) .

  • Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen ( eds / translators) : The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300-620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2020, p. 146ff.

literature

Overview representations in manuals

Investigations

  • Alan Cameron : The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-974727-6 .
  • Wilhelm Enßlin : The Symmachus Historia Romana as a source for Jordanes. Munich 1949 ( PDF ).
  • Wilhelm Enßlin: Theodoric the Great. 2nd edition, Munich 1959.
  • Giovanni Polara: Memmio Simmaco e il teatro. In: Paulo Farmhouse Alberto, David Paniagua (Eds.): Ways of Approaching Knowledge in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Schools and Scholarship (= Studia classica et mediaevalia , Vol. 8). Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2012, ISBN 9783883097886 , pp. 158–176.
  • Giuseppe Zecchini: The end and legacy of Latin-pagan historiography. In: Andreas Goltz u. a. (Ed.): Beyond the borders. Contributions to late antique and early medieval historiography. Berlin u. a. 2009, pp. 91-105.
  • Giuseppe Zecchini: Ricerche di storiografia latina tardoantica. L'erma di Bretschneider, Rome 1993, p. 51ff.

Web links

Wikisource: Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ↑ Entry in Clavis Historicorum Antiquitatis Posterioris (CHAP) .
  2. ^ Text by Hermann Usener : Anecdoton Holderi. Bonn 1877, p. 3f. As a rule, research does not question the Christian creed, cf. for example Alan Cameron : The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford et al. 2011, p. 482; Giuseppe Zecchini: The end and legacy of Latin-pagan historiography. In: Andreas Goltz u. a. (Ed.): Beyond the borders. Contributions to late antique and early medieval historiography. Berlin u. a. 2009, pp. 91-105, here p. 91.
  3. ↑ On the official career cf. John Robert Martindale, John Morris: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire . Volume 2, Cambridge 1980, p. 1045.
  4. ^ Anonymus Valesianus II 92.
  5. ↑ CIL VI, 32162
  6. ↑ See John Robert Martindale, John Morris: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Volume 2, Cambridge 1980, p. 1046. On the cultural Roman environment cf. specifically Alan Cameron: The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford et al. 2011.
  7. ^ Hermann Usener: Anecdoton Holderi. Bonn 1877, p. 4: Symmachus [...] qui antiqui Catonis fuit novellus imitator, sed virtutes veterum sanctissima religione transcendit. On this point, see also Alan Cameron: The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford et al. 2011, p. 203.
  8. ↑ Cf. on this, Frank M. Ausbüttel: Theodorich der Große. 2nd Edition. Darmstadt 2012, p. 133ff .; John Moorhead: Theoderic in Italy. Oxford 1992, pp. 219ff .; Christoph Schäfer: The Western Roman Senate as the bearer of ancient continuity under the Ostrogothic kings (490-540 AD). St. Katharinen 1991, p. 240ff.
  9. ↑ Bruno Luiselli: Note sulla perduta Historia Romana di Q. Aurelio Memmio Simmaco. In: Studi Urbinati 49 (1975), pp. 529-535.
  10. ↑ For a summary, see Giuseppe Zecchini: Ricerche di storiografia latina tardoantica. Rome 1993, pp. 62-64.
  11. ↑ Jordanes, Getica 15, 83ff.
  12. ↑ Attempt at a reconstruction with Wilhelm Enßlin: Des Symmachus Historia Romana as a source for Jordanes. Munich 1949. Enßlin's thesis (which he later partially revised) was contradicted in recent research by Brian Croke, for example, but some researchers have now come to a similar result, cf. Giuseppe Zecchini: The end and legacy of Latin-pagan historiography. In: Andreas Goltz u. a. (Ed.): Beyond the borders. Contributions to late antique and early medieval historiography. Berlin u. a. 2009, pp. 91-105, here pp. 92f.
  13. ↑ Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen ( eds / translators) : The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300–620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge 2020, p. 148 ff.
  14. ↑ Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen ( eds / translators) : The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300–620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge 2020, p. 155.
personal data
SURNAME Symmachus, Quintus Aurelius Memmius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late antique philosopher and politician
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century
DATE OF DEATH 525 or 526