THE HOME-COMING OF NAM.A.TIANUS.*

'THE study of Latin is less dominated than it was by the utilitarian spirit. Editions which are not meant for school or -college purposes occasionally appear. Much still remains to be done, and Oxford and Cambridge Colleges might help the work. Trinity College, Cambridge, made it possible for Dr. Frazer to finish his great translation of and commentary on Pausanias. Why should not one of the wealthier Colleges at Oxford give similar facilities for a worthy edition of the Elder Pliny ? Meanwhile we heartily welcome the work, necessarily disinterested, which is being done in this

direction. An excellent specimen of it is now before us.

Namatian—called Numatian by Mr. G. A. Simoox in his History of Latin Literature—has never before been -edited in this country. And yet his poem is full of interest, and is not without literary merit. To apply a test for which, commonplace as it is, something may be said, it is far more readable than the Punica of Silius Italicus or the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus.

Of Namatian himself we know very little, nothing, in fact, but what he tells us himself, except that his statement that he was Illagister Officiorunt (Commander of the Household Troops), is confirmed by the Codex Theoclosianus, if, as there is little reason to doubt, the reading " Numatius" should be corrected to " Nareatianus." He was a native of Gaul—Poitiers and Toulouse both claim to be his birthplace—and went to Rome, as did many provincial nobles, where an official career was open to him. He had the advantage of an excellent start, as his father, Lachanius by name, had won general respect as Governor of Tuscany. Namatian describes himself as moved to tears by the sight of the statue which the citizens of Pisa Lad erected in memory of him, and says that "AU Lydia adores Lachanius' fame As of a deity 'mid deities Born in the land."

("Lydia" is, of course, a reference to the legend of the Lydian origin of the Etrurians as related by Herodotus I. 94.) He became Magister Officioruin in 412 A.D., and Praefectus Urbis in 414, holding the latter office for something leas than a year. Here his dignities stopped. His name does not appear in the list of Consuls. Nor is it difficult to see what hindered his further advancement. He was a pagan, and, if we may judge Irons the language which he uses in his poem, a militant pagan. Rome was still the stronghold of the old faith, but even there the position of any prominent man who was a sincere adherent was full of difficulties. Prudent persons followed the example of Ausonius, whose creed was substantially paganism with a slight veneer of nominal Christianity. In 416 he seems to have had reasons for leaving Rome and returning to his native Gaul. Why he went, whether it was, as is commonly -supposed, to look after his ancestral property in that country, or to take up some official post, or simply because residence in Rome had become impossible, we do not know. One thing is clear ; he was in no hurry, and probably had a sufficiency of means. He left Rome in September, stayed at Ostia for fifteen days waiting for a favourable wind, and made -a leisurely journey along the Etta:mien coast, landing wherever some object of interest was to be seen. An average distance -of some twenty miles a day was accomplished. When he

• .Rut4ii Clattdii Namatiani de Rattan sue Libri Duo. Edited by Charles Haines %Leen% M.A. Translated into English Verse by George F. Savage. Armstrong, D.Lit. London: G. Dell and Sons. [7a ed. net)

reaches the mouth of the Arno he causes his ships—the plural should be noted—to be anchored, and pays a visit to a friend at Pisa. When the poem breaks off—at line 68 of Book IL—he has reached Luna, close to the northern boundary of Etruria, and some hundred and forty miles from Ostia. As he voyages he describes and comments on what he sees, and illustrates from history, not without an occasional reflection which shows a feeling for natural beauty. To us the most interesting passages are those in which he inveighs against the professors of the Christian faith. It must be noted, however, that this invective is levelled against the ascetic developments of Christianity. So when he passes the island of Gorgo (now Gorgona) he expresses himself with much bitterness about the fate of a relative of his own who had buried himself there in a hermitage. The passage is a favourable specimen of his verse :—

" Aversor se,opulos, damui monuments reeentis ; perditus hie vivo funere civis erat. nester enim nuper iuvenis maioribus amplis, nec censu inferior coniugiove minor, impulsus furiis. homines terrasque et turpem latebram credulus exul edit. infelix putat Wavle caelestia pasci, segue premit laesis saevior ipso deb."

Thus translated by Dr. Savage-Armstrong :— " I shun the cliffs, memorials as they are

Of late disaster; one of my own race

Here perished by a living death. For lately A high-born youth of our own nation, one Not lacking wealth or marriage-relatives, Driven by madness, man and earth forsook And, as a superstitious exile, sought

A shameful lurking-place. The ill-starred wretch

Deemed that the spark divine by squalor thrives, And on his own life laid more cruel stripes Than might the offended deities themselves."

He has nothing pleasant to say about the monks of whom the sight of Capraria (Cabrera) reminds him. But his fiercest reproaches are showered on the Jews. The party visit some

pleasure gardens at Faleria and are annoyed by the landlord- " querulus curam Judaeus agehat"—who wanted to be paid for some damage done. " Humanis animal dissociale cibis," the poet calla him. This is not adequately rendered by Dr. Savage-Armstrong's "an animal that spurns at human food," nor explained, as Mr. Keene suggests, by a Roman's contempt for the Jew's abhorrence of pork. It refers, we take it, to the Jew's unsocial habit, as it must have seemed, of eating by himself. Namatian concludes his invective by wishing that Judea had never been conquered. "The conquered presses on the conquering race,"—a curious illustration of a racial trouble which fifteen centuries have not made less acute. The poet had strong political opinions. Stilicho was his chief aversion.

He had been dead six years at least at the time of writing. but his memory is not spared. He was more odious than Alt-hies, who burnt the torch on which her son's life depended ; than Scylla, who cut the fatal lock from her father's head ; than Nero himself. Nero slew his mother, but Stilicho destroyed Rome, the mother of the world,— " Hie mundi matrem perculit, ille suam."

A less famous object of his aversion was a certain Lepidus. The whole family is condemned :- "A strange rotation 'tis in Latian annals Disaster from the sword of the Lepidi So oft occurs."

Lepidus, the democratic leader defeated in B.O. 78 at the Mulvian Bridge, the Triumvir " qui gessit sociis impia beila

tribus," a somewhat awkward expression, as, of course, his confederates were but two ; the Lepidus who conspired against

Octavian in B.C. 30; and the Lentulus who married Dric,alla and was executed by Caligula in A.D. 39 are successively

mentioned.

Namatian's verse, though far inferior to that of his great contemporary Claudian, is distinctly good. Here is a speci- men of his finest effort, the praise of Rome :— "To non flammigeris Libyo tardavit harenis, non arinata suo reppulit Ursa gelit quantum vitalis natura, totenclit in 3.1-eg, tantum virtuti pervia terra teas.

fecisti patriam diversis gentibus imam; profuit iniustis, to dominante, capi ; dumque offers victis proprii consortia inns, Urbem fecisti quad prius orbis crat."