Under Attila's Gaze | Hacker News Reader

Under Attila's Gaze

quillette.com

60 pointsdoat15 comments

Extremely interesting, I'm intrigued at the idea of preserving fragmentary historical accounts by weaving them into a semi-fictional narrative (which I suppose is something that ancient historians themselves frequently did).

> Maximinus and I looked at each other, and I recall that I shrugged my shoulders unhelpfully.

Is the author taking playful liberties with the metafictional "translation" here, or is the gesture of shrugging your shoulders actually attested in Roman times?

The first few episodes of "Vikings" owed a lot to Ahmad ibn Fadlan, but I think the use of source material went steadily downhill from there. "Roma Sub Rosa" correlated well with my classes for the first few books, but I don't know how they've held up in light of any more recent scholarship.

Chirologia/Chironomia are more oriented to hand gestures rather than whole body, but they might have some clues. Roman orators had a set of stock poses (the memes of the day?), so maybe Cicero actually said something about shoulder shrugging in the "delivery" part of De Inventione? It's certainly a gesture that would have read well in the back rows, had they used it.

EDIT: maybe also somewhere in Quintilian? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutio_Oratoria

Intersting quesiton. I did a search about for source texts/articles and couldn't find anything. ( http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:19... )

The only thing I saw that might be about it is in Quintillian, which doesn't interpret it exactly as we would - seeing it more as a servile gesture:

"humerorum raro decens adleuatio atque contractio est; breviatur enim cervix et gestum quendam humilem atque servilem et quasi fraudulentum facit, cum se in habitum adulationis, admirationis, metus tingunt." ( http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLi... )

"It is, as a rule, unbecoming to raise or contract the shoulders. For it shortens the neck and produces a mean and servile gesture, which is even suggestive of dishonesty when men assume an attitude of flattery, admiration or fear." ( https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilia... )

It's not completely clear to me from a cursory glance if he isn't talking about posture rather than the gesture though shrugs

> Is the author taking playful liberties with the metafictional "translation" here

Yes. Unless there is another version of the text, unknown to me, on which the translation is based, the Ancient Greek sentence reads as follows:

Ἡμῶν δὲ τὴν ἄλογον ἀποθαυμαζόντων ἐρώτησιν καὶ ἐς ἀλλήλους ὁρώντων, διετέλουν πρὸς ὄχλου τῆς ἀποκρίσεως ἕνεκα γινόμενοι.[1]

Literally, I would translate it like this:

"About this illogicality marvelling we asked ourselves and looked at each other and finally gave to the group the following answer."

[1] Source: Prisci Pantitae Fragmenta 8.: Exc. De leg. Rom. 47-71, published in: Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol 4., Paris 1851 -- Digital facimile at https://books.google.de/books?id=quBFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA77 and professional digital transcription at https://www.dfhg-project.org/DFHG/index.php?volume=Volumen%2...

Anyone who enjoyed this, might also like "All the Horses of Iceland". It's a fictional work, but written by a medieval scholar. It's set in the 9th century where a Norse trader travels through an alternative central Asia.

http://sarahtolmie.ca/horsesReviews.html

I love that this account survives, not least because the embassy to Attila was made to argue about some missing bowls.

Interesting that it was still seen as obvious that the emperor was a God, given that Theodisus II's grandfather had made christianity the state religion.

Most people wouldn't really have a concept of what a "state" was.

The concept of state sovereignty wouldn't come about until (approximately) the Treaty of Westphalia, but Romans of this time period would have certainly understood what the government-prescribed religion is

At this point the Roman Empire was Christian. The Emperor was no longer considered a god. They were now considered chosen by God to lead the faithful on Earth.

The Scythians raised a cup in toast to their King Attila, and Maximinus proposed that the toast should also be to our lord Theodosius. At this, Bigilas spoke out, saying that it was not right that a god and a man should be compared in such a way.

I would not assume that our modern understanding of Christian orthodoxy totally applies. Christianity is a syncretic religion nearly everywhere.

Since it is in the context of a panegyric, it should not be taken as a literal theological statement, but as poetic language. However, I would agree that it is some reverberation of the emperor cult, even 68 years after the Edict of Thessalonica.

Note also that Roman emperors could be given the epithet "Divus" ("the divine") after their death well into the Christian era. The German Wikipedia has a list: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divus Although Theodisus II is not included, there appear two East-Roman emperors after him: Leo (†474) and Anastasius (†518).

If it was purely poetic language, why the Roman objection to Atilla being compared to a God? Feel like there has to be more to it than that.

The "dispute" was about status, not a simple ontological fact. The Roman did not grant Attila the same rank as Theodosius. Calling him "God" means that Theodosius has the highest rank possible, but Attila not.

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