The Cambridge History of Classical Literature ed. by E.J. Kenney, W.V. Clausen (review)

186 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS E.J. KENNEY, W.V. CLAUSEN (edd.). The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Volume 2, Part 5: The Later Prtnclpate. London and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1982. Pp. vi, 154. Paper (1983) U.S. $12.95. ISBN 0-521-27371-4. What is liThe Later Principatell ? A quick poll of my colleagues revealed that not one of them took it to be what the editors of the volume meant by the phrase. Their guesses ranged from the last part of Augustus' reign to the period of the Antonine Emperors, whereas the Introductory to The Later Principate seems to define it as the period "roughly from the middle of the third century to the middle of the fifth century A.D. II (p.l). I say IIseemsll because amongst (or rather at the very end of) all the authors and works covered in this part there appears Apuleius, a solitary secondcentury writer. If the editors could treat both the title and the Introductory in such a flexible manner, could they not equally profitably have reached forward to include at least Cassiodorus and Boethius? Neither, of course, wrote during the Later Principate or, as it is more commonly called, Later Empire. But their works are germane to a survey of late antique literature, and capriciousness need, in a good cause, not be confined to ignoring chronology. Robert Browning wrote the Introductory, but he can hardly be held responsible for these pecularities. Clearly he was introducing those chapters for which he himself was responsible. Rather, the pecularities are one small example of the editorial inconsistency which bedevils the whole volume on Latin literature and which has been discussed in detail by A. J. Woodman in LCM 7.7 (1982) 102-8. It also illustrates a type of supercilious carelessness still common amongst classicists when considering the later Roman Empire. The Later Principate is divided into eight chapters: Introductory, 10 pages; Poetry, 31; Biography, 10; History, 23; Oratory and Epistolography, 7; Learning and the Past, 8; Minor Figures, 4; Apuleius, 13. It is concluded by an Epilogue of 7 pages, an Appendix of Authors and Works (badly outdated on some, e.g. Ammianus Marcellinus, and inadequate on others, e.g. Orosius); a Metrical Appendix; lists of abbreviations and works cited in the text; and an index. The first seven chapters are by Robert Browning, the eighth and the Epilogue by P.G. Walsh. Walsh's chapter on Apuleius is a concise and useful summary, and especially salutary in its insistence that the Metamorphoses be considered in the context of all Apuleius' surviving works. There is, however, some lack of clarity (p.97) in the discussion of the relationship between the Metamorphoses and the short story, the Onos, which survives amongst the works of Lucian. Incidentally, the ~~hho~nf:g:; [~;~~:e~70\0 C~~:id~~:a~00r6eh~~~Sfew~hi~~e ;~~i~~edFf~t~~i~ part only by the eight for Claudian (all works) and Ammianus Marcellinus, and are not exceeded. The Epilogue is a brief (perhaps too brief) survey, structured generically, of the influence of the major classical Latin authors BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 187 during the Middle Ages. It is thus an epilogue to the whole volume, and not merely to this part. Since most of The Later Principate is by Robert Browning, it stands or falls on~ contribution. Professor Browning is a distinguished byzantinist whose scholarship is marked by clarity, discretion and good sense. As one would expect, his Introductory is a masterly survey of the background to the literature that he discusses, which emphasises the drift apart of the two parts of the Empire at the period and the provincialisation of culture in the West. The first section of his chapter on History sets out clearly the Greek background to the latin historiography of the later Empire (pp.50-53) I while the rest of the chapter offers a brief discussion of the works that survive. Most attention is given to Ammianus Marcellinus (pp.61-67), and the result is a conventional summary of scholarly views as of about 1975. Unfortunately, some of these have been made out of date by the expanding industry on Ammianus...