02-20-2013, 04:32 AM
Hmm, interesting, but very tricky - especially when using the (undated) Historia Augusta to try and date the (undated) Aethiopica, in turn to try and date the appearance of a literary topos!
Presumptious again, maybe, but I have a couple of problems with Bowerstock's analysis:
Or did they? The HA was supposed to have been written in the era of Diocletian or thereabouts. These African peoples would perhaps (like the Picts, in fact) fit into a late 3rd-early 4th C timeframe. If the Aethiopica was written then, it would still predate Julian...
But Julian's account is still 'improbable'. The siege of 351 (not 340 as I said above - whoops! There were three sieges, and details are a bit confused...) is described in the Acts of St Ephraim, also Zonares, Theophanes, Chronica Paschale, Theodoret and Gennadius (pace Dodgeon & Lieu). None of these authors describe Shapur creating a lake around the city and launching ships against the walls! The Mydonius is too small a river to make this remotely feasible.
Heliodorus, on the other hand, has his general diverting the Nile to form a lake around the besieged city to float his fleet upon - much more reasonable (if still fictional!).
So it seems more likely to me that Julian was beefing up his account of the 351 Nisibis siege (which everyone knew involved a river being diverted in some way) with additional material lifted from Heliodorus. Maybe it was an intentional and amusing literary reference? Perhaps his audience would have known of Heliodorus, and appreciated the allusion?
(Alternatively, of course, Julian could just have invented the details of Shapur's amazing naval assault on a desert city, and Heliodorus taken the idea and relocated it somewhere closer to a major river! Either way, it seems likely that one is quoting the other to some degree, and so both cannot be regarded as independent evidence on the clibanarii question.)
Presumptious again, maybe, but I have a couple of problems with Bowerstock's analysis:
Quote:it would have been anachronistic to place these peoples in a parade in the 3rd century (under the reign of Aurelian) or indeed even earlier... So scholarly opinion up to around the early 1970s seems to concur on a late 4th century date for the The Aethiopica based on the fact that both works linked a series of peoples together who historically existed as contemporaries in that period.
Or did they? The HA was supposed to have been written in the era of Diocletian or thereabouts. These African peoples would perhaps (like the Picts, in fact) fit into a late 3rd-early 4th C timeframe. If the Aethiopica was written then, it would still predate Julian...
Quote:Ehpreim matches exactly the description as written by Julian regarding the siege – and echoed in the fictional work of Heliodorus... The inference is obviously that Heliodorus is in fact echoing Julian as it would be improbable that Julian copied a work of fiction that miraculously predicted the siege of Nisibis in 351 AD.
But Julian's account is still 'improbable'. The siege of 351 (not 340 as I said above - whoops! There were three sieges, and details are a bit confused...) is described in the Acts of St Ephraim, also Zonares, Theophanes, Chronica Paschale, Theodoret and Gennadius (pace Dodgeon & Lieu). None of these authors describe Shapur creating a lake around the city and launching ships against the walls! The Mydonius is too small a river to make this remotely feasible.
Heliodorus, on the other hand, has his general diverting the Nile to form a lake around the besieged city to float his fleet upon - much more reasonable (if still fictional!).
So it seems more likely to me that Julian was beefing up his account of the 351 Nisibis siege (which everyone knew involved a river being diverted in some way) with additional material lifted from Heliodorus. Maybe it was an intentional and amusing literary reference? Perhaps his audience would have known of Heliodorus, and appreciated the allusion?
(Alternatively, of course, Julian could just have invented the details of Shapur's amazing naval assault on a desert city, and Heliodorus taken the idea and relocated it somewhere closer to a major river! Either way, it seems likely that one is quoting the other to some degree, and so both cannot be regarded as independent evidence on the clibanarii question.)
Nathan Ross
