The times, as the Nobel laureate once said, they are a-changin’. Not long ago, one could—indeed, one should—start a review on a work about panegyrics noting how that genre faced deep hostility from modern readers. The Panegyrici Latini, we were memorably told by William Alexander in 1944, were read by few, and those readers were themselves “mentally suspect”. Any cursory research on the past scholarship on panegyric (much helped by the labors of Roger Rees) will find similarly acerbic reactions; at their best, they are amusing, but not scholarly.
The much-neglected genre was studied in a more respectful, productive manner in MacCormack’s fundamental Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Nixon and Rodgers’s edition of the Panegyrici Latini attracted attention to the richness of this corpus, and Roger Rees’s pioneering work presented panegyrics as the complex constructions (not only literary) that they are. But by the early 2010s, one could still note that few followed in their footsteps in the English-speaking world.
That has fortunately changed, and for the better. From the mid 2010s, a veritable deluge of scholarship on the topic has emerged (in English, it precedes but can be exemplified by Omissi’s fundamental 2018 monograph on Roman usurpers). Combined with work in other languages, such as García Ruiz’s work on Julianic panegyrics and the recent Italian edition of the Elogio dell’imperatrice Eusebia by Adele Filippo, it can be safely asserted that the panegyric genre is no longer the ugly duckling of Late Antique Roman literature and society.
Even amidst this (recently) crowded field, the work of Alan Ross stands out. In a series of articles (and in books co-edited with Omissi and Burgersdijk) written in the last ten years, he has presented a consistent output of first-rate textual analysis, focusing mainly on panegyrics. A book on the topic was, for Ross, a question of ‘when’, not ‘if’; indeed, as per his Acknowledgments (p. xiii), the idea for the book under review came initially in 2015. The composition of the book was evidently delayed by what Ross delicately calls his “itinerancy”; the precarity of an early career scholar is damaging not only to scholars themselves but to the discipline as a whole.
The present book is an analysis of the panegyrics given to Constantius II by three individuals (Libanius, Themistius and Julian) from early 342 to late 358. It is divided into an Introduction, six individual chapters (separated into three parts), two transitions between parts and an epilogue.
Since Guy Sabbah’s foundational 1984 article on the Panegyrici Latini, much of the work done on the genre has focused on the questions of “why”, “how”, “for what” and “to whom”. Ross offers a different focus in his Introduction: his eye is fixed on the deliverers of the panegyrics themselves. A biographical focus, by itself, would be interesting enough, but Ross also asserts that panegyrics had an agonistic dimension. The panegyrists were reacting, and criticizing, their peers: this competition was part and parcel of the role of the panegyrist, “an active agent in political discourse in pursuit of his own ends” (p. 3). Thus, the three panegyrists under discussion (Libanius, Themistius and Julian), like all their peers, had their own agenda; and the abundance of sources for the period allows Ross to contextualize and historicize each speech. Despite a brief invocation of microhistory, he is mainly offering close readings of the speeches.
Part I of the book is titled “Provincial Teachers and Imperial Patronage”, and it deals with Libanius and Themistius’s early careers. In chapter 1, Ross deals with Libanius’s Oration 59, memorably described by Sabine MacCormack (and quoted by Ross) as “easily the most boring panegyric extant”. Not the least substantial of Ross’ achievements is to complicate this picture. If Libanius follows, more or less, the Menandrian model for this Oration, given in Nicomedia in 346 (in the presence of Constantius, contra the communis opinio), he precisely draws attention to the ways he is separating himself from the model. The four mutually exclusive ways a panegyrist might begin his speech are all given by Libanius, precisely because Constantius is so great. Ross also successfully draws attention to the plethora of intertextual allusions within the text, with references to Herodotus, Thucydides (here Libanius both uses the historiographical tradition in a novel way—“the Nicomedians provide opsis”—while distancing himself from the “authoritative and explicative persona” of standard ancient historiographical writing: p. 57) and Aristides. A shadow permeates this chapter, that of Libanius’ rival Bemarchius, writer of both panegyric and history: Nicomedia itself was fast becoming a provincial backwater, and Libanius’s presence in the city was due in no small part to the actions of his enemies (or so he tells us). But this allowed Libanius to present this speech to Constantius, and it probably kickstarted his fast return to Constantinople. Oration 59 may be boring at first glance, but Ross shows how Libanius manages to present himself as a master of the form in it.
In chapter 2, we follow the early career of Themistius, up to his accession to the highest echelons of Constantinopolitan society. This is perhaps the most tentative of all the chapters of this book: as Ross rightly notes, Alexander Skinner’s 2015 JRS article on that author’s Oration 1 “necessitates a wholesale revision of Themistius’ early career” (p. 75). He (in my mind) rightly follows Muriel Moser’s recent assertion that 350 was a fundamental date in the rise of the status of Constantinople as an imperial city. But these are stormy academic waters: while Ross does present a credible argument for the presentation of Themistius’s Oration 1 in Ancyra, in 342 and in the presence of Constantius, Marcos’ many objections to this are simply not mentioned (Marcos, 2023, p. 239-241; an appendix to this question would have been most useful). More successful is his close reading of this text, in which he separates Themistius from the influence of Dio and detects, interestingly, the influence of a Neoplatonic (or at least Neoplatonic-adjacent) politic discourse. The very mention of “Neoplatonism” might raise some eyebrows in certain quarters, but Ross’ analysis of the text reaffirms the utility of this concept. Also to be commended is the analysis on Themistius’s Oration 2, a much-neglected text.
In chapter 2, Ross presents a strong defense of the dating of Themistius’s Oration 1, but in the first transition he presents the strongest arguments for the dating of Julian’s Letter to Themistius to 355 (p. 118-119), in a way that seems decisive to me. He then proceeds to extricate the arguments of Themistius’ lost letter to Julian from the latter’s rather brusque response. In Ross’ eyes, this brusqueness comes from his conscious refusal to concede parity, even philosophical, of himself towards his imperial superior, instead of hostility towards Themistius’ assertions.
Part II of the book, “Emperor as Author”, analyzes two Julianic panegyrics. Chapter 3 deals with the Panegyric to Eusebia. Ross rightly notes the influence of Julian’s Letter to the Athenians and then asserts (this is key to his interpretation of Julian Caesar) that Julian’s panegyrics should not be read teleologically, that is, with Julian’s future usurpation in mind. Ross’ close reading is complemented by a brilliant contextualization of Eusebia herself (p. 142-149).
In chapter 4, Ross deals with Julian’s first panegyric to Constantius. He ably establishes the context of this speech, but I find this to be the most problematic chapter in this book. Ross intends to go against a scholarly consensus that sees this speech as indicative of tensions between Augustus and Caesar, and presents Julian as a conscious supporter of Constantius. This seems to me to go too far (others may disagree). To take one example: Ross makes much of the mention of Fausta by Julian, since “it served Constantius well to (…) rehabilitate his mother, especially as Fausta’s Roman connections were politically advantageous to Constantius”. But most of our testimony concerning the bloodcurdling rumors of incest between Fausta and Crispus, with murder and suicide to follow, comes later than Julian’s speech; nor do we see (as far as I know) a rehabilitation of Fausta’s memory in any contemporary source, either Western or Eastern. For once, Ross’ powers of contextualization seem to fail, at least to my eyes.
In the second transition, these powers clearly return: Ross takes the 1,000-word fragment that constitutes Themistius’ Oration 33 and establishes it as the beginning of a panegyric given in 352, thanks in part to the orator’s mentioning of a recent reform on bronze coinage (p. 232). Here we see the Constantinopolitan Senate in the highest spirits, with Constantius’s 350 reforms right behind it: it could conceivably be affirmed that Constantinople was the emperor’s, and the empire’s, city by then, especially by a Constantinopolitan philosopher.
The realities of the long period of Constantius’s residence in the west are given pride of place in chapter 5. Ross shows how Themistius’s Oration 4 manages to explain his presence in Antioch when imperial summons arrived to Constantinople, and his presence at Rome, proclaiming Oration 3, was the decisive moment of his career, elevating himself to a position which heretofore had more or less eluded him.
The final chapter deals with Julian’s famously problematic Second Panegyric to Constantius, which has consistently eluded interpretation. Ross dates the work precisely to 358-359; the infamous opening, wherein a rift is alluded to between Constantius and Julian by comparing them to Agamemnon and Achilles, is completed with the parallel between Briseis and Salutius; the work is, among other things, a response to the latter’s recall by Constantius. It is also read as an agonistical philosophical challenge to Themistius’s public self-presentation. It is not, pace past interpretations, a satire of or an expression of revolt against Constantius. Ross also follows Woudhuysen’s recent thesis to question many received truths concerning Julian’s Gallic campaigns, and uses the consequences to expound on Julian’s lost biblidion concerning it.
In our age of (not only) editorial barbarism, in which footnotes are discarded in favor of the Devil’s handmaiden, the endnote, it is a pleasure to, well, note that this book follows acceptable scholarly procedures. Among Ross’ many qualities is the ability to write a good, informative footnote: a good example, taken at random, are pages 182-183, wherein Ross presents 13 footnotes, all of them simultaneously informative and entertaining.
This book presents much to be argued about. Ross can be a little overzealous when asserting the agonistic nature of the panegyric text. Competition there might have been between the panegyrists, but the presence of an emperor was an awesome, terrifying occasion: in this Marcos is undoubtedly correct when he asserts that one of the primary functions of panegyrics, including the Julianic ones, was building consensus (Marcos, 2023, p. 06), and the competition surrounding the panegyrists had the result of reinforcing this consensus function. And many of Ross’s affirmations surrounding Julian are arguable—which is par for the course for Julianic studies, a scholarly area where agreement and consensus are a chimera. Not a few scholars will find his rejection of “teleological” readings of the Julianic panegyrics problematic; one might argue that Ross falls into a reverse interpretative pitfall, “irenizing” what was a complex and fraught relationship between Constantius Augustus and Julian Caesar.
But even when one disagrees with Ross’s conclusions, one must defend his learning and the cohesiveness of his presentation. Disagreement is inevitable when one enters both the lively study of panegyric and the even livelier study of Julian. And here one might realize an uncanny similarity between the agonistic panegyrists of the Later Roman Empire and the pugnacious scholars of our present age.
Bibliography
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García Ruiz, M.P. 2015. ‘Una lectura conjunta del primer Encomio a Constancio y el Encomio a Eusebia de Juliano.’ ExClass 19: 155–73.
MacCormack, S. 1981. Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Marcos, M. 2023. Emperors and Rhetoricians: Panegyric, Communication, and Power in the Fourth-Century Roman Empire. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
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Rees, R. 2012. Oxford Readings in Latin Panegyric. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Skinner, A. 2015. ‘Violence at Constantinople in A.D. 341–2 and Themistius, Oration 1.’ JRS 105: 234–49.
Woudhuysen, G, 2017. The Fall of the House of Constantine (c. 330-363 AD). Diss: Oxford.