Arguments concerning the Testimonium Taciteum.

[Ben C. Smith]

The Bracciolini conspiracy theory that wanted people to believe that the Tacitus manuscript was a forgery is a sad crock that requires renaissance writers to be experts in the intricacies and ideosyncracies of the antiquated Beneventan script and to invent thousands of—to modern scholars—historically verifiable facts contained in the manuscript. The view is absurd.

Which Tacitus 'manuscript' are you referring to? Annals 15.44? Book 15 in toto? Annals 11-16? all the extant Annals?

Well, the successful total forgery would have to involve both principal manuscripts of the Annals, right?

1. Laurentian 68.1, the (first) Medicean manuscript, containing Annals 1-6.
2. Laurentian 68.2, the second Medicean manuscript, containing Annals 11-16.

And I think that is exactly what Ross argued: that Bracciolini forged both manuscripts.

[spin]

The Bracciolini conspiracy theory that wanted people to believe that the Tacitus manuscript was a forgery is a sad crock that requires renaissance writers to be experts in the intricacies and ideosyncracies of the antiquated Beneventan script and to invent thousands of—to modern scholars—historically verifiable facts contained in the manuscript. The view is absurd.

Which Tacitus 'manuscript' are you referring to? Annals 15.44? Book 15 in toto? Annals 11-16? all the extant Annals?

Tacitus' Annals has come to us in large fragments. The first two fragments from the same manuscript 1-4 & 5-6 are from a German Abbey (copied in the 9th c.), known to be in the possession of Francesco Soderini in 1508 and it was printed in Rome in 1515 by Filippo Beroaldo il Giovane. The big fragment Ann.11-16 which holds the TT was what was in the Beneventan script (that Boccaccio was known to have seen, circa 1360, but the evidence suggests that it was his friend Zanobi da Strada who removed it from Montecassino). I know about the claim that Bracciolini forged the second manuscript.

Bound in the same volume as the manuscript of Ann 11-16 & His 1-5 were at least two other works copied at Montecassino in the same Beneventan script, Apuleius and Varro ("De Lingua Latina"). Wonder if Bracciolini added them gratis.

[MrMacSon]

You still haven't answered my question as to what component of the Tacitus 'manuscript' you are referring to as the 'Bracciolini conspiracy theory': a large part of Annals, or just 15.44.

I think it's unlikely that Bracciolini forged much of it, given the text type. But it is possible he interpolated 15.44.

Note the footnote to Arthur Drews commentary that "We are therefore strongly disposed to suspect that the passage (Annals, xv, 44) was transferred from [the Chronicle of] Sulpicius to the text of Tacitus by the hand of a monastic copyist or forger" -ie. footnote 67 -

67 In his De l'Authenticity des Histoires et des Annales de Tacite Hochart points out that, whereas the Life of St. Martin and the Dialogues of Sulpicius were found in many libraries, there was only one manuscript of his Chronicle, probably of the eleventh century, which is now in the Vatican. Hence the work was almost unknown throughout the Middle Ages, and no one was aware of the reference in it to a Roman persecution of the Christians. It is noteworthy that Poggio Bracciolini seems by some lucky chance to have discovered and read this manuscript (work quoted, p. 225). Cf. Nouvelles Considerations, pp. 142-72.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Witn ... te_note-67

Note "Poggio Bracciolini seems by some lucky chance to have discovered and read this manuscript" -ie. the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus.

So Poggio Bracciolini had possession of both of these aligned texts -ie. Tacitus' Annals 15.44 and Chronicle 2.30.6-7 of Sulpicius Severus.

.

[spin]

I think it's unlikely that Bracciolini forged much of it, given the text type. But it is possible he interpolated 15.44.

A modified Poggio Bracciolini hypothesis! That doesn't explain the fact that the copyist (be it a forger or not) wrote an "e" instead of an "i" which was then corrected as manuscript mistakes usually were close to the time of copying. Did Bracciolini forge the mistake at the same time?

[MrMacSon]

A modified Poggio Bracciolini hypothesis! That doesn't explain the fact that the copyist (be it a forger or not) wrote an "e" instead of an "i" which was then corrected as manuscript mistakes usually were close to the time of copying. Did Bracciolini forge the mistake at the same time?

The copyist who wrote the "e" was an unwitting office junior. Bracciolini corrected it, in his Library, with a pen.

or it was done before the books were re-discovered

[spin]

A modified Poggio Bracciolini hypothesis! That doesn't explain the fact that the copyist (be it a forger or not) wrote an "e" instead of an "i" which was then corrected as manuscript mistakes usually were close to the time of copying. Did Bracciolini forge the mistake at the same time?

The copyist who wrote the "e" was an unwitting office junior. Bracciolini corrected it, in his Library, with a pen.

or it was done before the books were re-discovered

You should realize this Bracciolini stuff is just piffle. I've already supplied the trajectory for the Beneventan texts via Boccaccio. He had the text before Bacciolini was born. You are left asserting forgery of the TT onto him with no evidence whatsoever.

[MrMacSon]

You should realize this Bracciolini stuff is just piffle. I've already supplied the trajectory for the Beneventan texts via Boccaccio. He had the text before Bacciolini was born. You are left asserting forgery of the TT onto him with no evidence whatsoever.

Yes, the Bracciolini stuff is likely to be piffle. But we don't know exactly what was in the texts Boccaccio had. The texts weren't published until the mid-late 15th century. All I'm doing is establishing possibility via issues common to these texts. If there were interpolations in Annals 15.44 they could have happened anywhere from when Sulpicius wrote, through their time in the Abbey, to the time they were published, including when they were with Bracciolini. I don't see how the trajectory for the Beneventan texts via Boccaccio shows when the final draft was written. If minor changes had been made, as per Jay Raskins' suggestions, they might be hard to detect.

[Peter Kirby]

The term Christianos may have originally been Chrestianos, with an e instead of an i.

The significance of this has long been exaggerated by a certain range of infidel. First, if one took the time to familiarize oneself with the Beneventan script, it is obviously Chrestiani:

1. The script uses digraphs, two letters together, one of which is "ri", the form of which can be seen in the word "Christus" (and Tyberio) in the line below "Chrestiani".
2. There is too much space after the present "i", enough to finish an "e".
3. The bulge on the following "s" is at the height where an "e" in the script would join and not at the height where there was a preceding "i". (See "inuisos" two words before "Chri/estiani".

There is no doubt about the original copy featuring an "e", but the significance of that is not considered in relation to the "Christus" in the following line. A corrector has fixed the orthography of "Chrestiani" and a copy was usually read them corrected where necessary. Had the source text read "Chrestiani", the corrector of the new text had little reason to correct it. The tendency was to leave the copy as close to the original as possible. The fact that Christus is written correctly according to the habits of users of the Beneventan script, points to the fact that it belongs to the good copy, ie there is no hope that the word was "Chrestus".

So why did we end up with "Chrestiani"? My understanding is that we were dealing with a French copyist, in whose language at the time the term was chrestien. See part 1b of the section "Étymol. et Hist." at the bottom of this. This seems to have been a case of scribal fatigue, automatically starting with the form the copyist was familiar with. The sound change "i" > "e" was a verified independent change in French. (It was "christiens" a century earlier, noted in the link.)

There is no mileage to be gained by fixating on the "e" in "Chrestiani" here. It is a mediaeval manifestation and its value is merely tendentious speculation.

I agree.

The Bracciolini conspiracy theory that wanted people to believe that the Tacitus manuscript was a forgery is a sad crock that requires renaissance writers to be experts in the intricacies and ideosyncracies of the antiquated Beneventan script and to invent thousands of—to modern scholars—historically verifiable facts contained in the manuscript. The view is absurd.

I agree.

I tend to agree on the first, and I fully agree on the second.

But...

Had the source text read "Chrestiani", the corrector of the new text had little reason to correct it. The tendency was to leave the copy as close to the original as possible.

"Little reason," but not none? "Tendency," but not absolute rule?

What if the corrector of the text knew about the very kind of mistake that we're discussing here, regarding the French versus the Latin, and wanted to make a conjectural emendation (of sorts) on the assumption that the exemplar had been corrupted (in spelling)?

We find that:

there is no hope that the word was "Chrestus"

Well and good. But is there not a little hope that the word in the exemplar was "Chrestiani"? We say that there is:

no mileage to be gained by fixating on the "e" in "Chrestiani" here

But is it not at least plausible that this is an earlier state of the text, even the text of Tacitus?

If so, is there not at least some "mileage" in being aware of that plausibility, based on the manuscript we have and other information?

Some think that Tacitus might have deliberately used both spellings, Chrestiani and Christus, to form the contrast between what people called them and what the founder of their name was called, in a sort of understated comment on the error. If we relegate the spelling to a medieval error, then we might take that possibility off the table prematurely.

[spin]

You should realize this Bracciolini stuff is just piffle. I've already supplied the trajectory for the Beneventan texts via Boccaccio. He had the text before Bacciolini was born. You are left asserting forgery of the TT onto him with no evidence whatsoever.

Yes, the Bracciolini stuff is likely to be piffle. But we don't know exactly what was in the texts Boccaccio had. The texts weren't published until the mid-late 15th century. All I'm doing is establishing possibility via issues common to these texts. If there were interpolations in Annals 15.44 they could have happened anywhere from when Sulpicius wrote, through their time in the Abbey, to the time they were published, including when they were with Bracciolini. I don't see how the trajectory for the Beneventan texts via Boccaccio shows when the final draft was written. If minor changes had been made, as per Jay Raskins' suggestions, they might be hard to detect.

The Beneventan orthography places the latest time to the prior iteration of the text: the current manuscript has a clear copyist error in the middle of the section we believe is not Tacitean. The time range for a potential interpolator to work was between that of the dissemination of the chronicle of Sulpicius Severus and that prior iteration. That's a fairly big window, perhaps 500 years.

[spin]

Had the source text read "Chrestiani", the corrector of the new text had little reason to correct it. The tendency was to leave the copy as close to the original as possible.

"Little reason," but not none? "Tendency," but not absolute rule?

One can only talk about the rules of the profession. Aberrant behavior can't be accounted for and cannot be assumed.

What if the corrector of the text knew about the very kind of mistake that we're discussing here, regarding the French versus the Latin, and wanted to make a conjectural emendation on the assumption that the exemplar had been corrupted?

The corrector would have worked with the source text. Otherwise there would be no way to notice many errors.

We find that:

there is no hope that the word was "Chrestus"

Well and good. But is there not a little hope that the word in the exemplar was "Chrestiani"? We say that there is:

no mileage to be gained by fixating on the "e" in "Chrestiani" here

But is it not at least plausible that this is an earlier state of the text, even the text of Tacitus?

If it were in the source text for the copy, why did the corrector change it?

If so, is there not at least some "mileage" in being aware of that plausibility, based on the manuscripts we have and other information?

Some think that Tacitus might have deliberately used both spellings, Chrestiani and Christus, to form the contrast between what people called them and what the founder of their name was called, in a sort of understated comment on the error. If we relegate the spelling to a medieval error, then we might take that possibility off the table prematurely.

This works on the acceptance of Chrestiani going back to Tacitus and so one attempts to explain the apparent problem.

But then, I'm strongly of the opinion that the text of Ann. 15.44 after "the conflagration was the result of an order" is not attributable to Tacitus. I've given seven pointers to the fact which Ben C. cited in the O.P. and if urged could probably find more.