1

Theodori Mommseni Epistulae ad Familiares Italicos*

MARCO BUONOCORE (ed.), THEODOR MOMMSEN E GLI STUDI SUL MONDO ANTICO. DALLE SUE LETTERE CONSERVATE NELLA BIBLIOTECA APOSTOLICA VATICANA (Universit di Roma La Sapienza. Pubblicazioni dellIstituto di Diritto Romano e dei Diritti dellOriente Mediterraneo LXXIX; Jovene Editore, Napoli 2003). Pp. 427.

The three towering achievements of Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), many will agree, are his youthful Rmische Gechichte (1st ed. 1854-56), his mature Rmisches Staatsrecht (eds. 1-3, 1871-88), and the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. The first is a monument of German letters, ultimately (in 1902) crowned with the Nobel prize for literature;1 the other recreates for the Romans their public law. But Gechichte is not merely a spirited and abrasive narrative, and Staatsrecht is not a mere collection of facts. They are orderly systems (a notion so beloved in nineteenth century Germany) of History and of Law. Mommsens History (though not the Roman history) came to a halt with the person of Caesar, whose legacy the author was not able to accommodate in his logical flow of events. The system of Staatsrecht also flows relentlessly and logically from several key concepts like imperium or potestas to embrace all facets of Roman public life. In its Bergriffswelt it is a work of supreme creation; and though many have disputed its very idea (and a plethora of individual points) it abides as challenge for scholars, a bleibende Herausforderung fr die Forschung,2 always to be utilized or confronted, never to be ignored or replaced. Both Geschichte and Staatsrecht were composed in the isolation of a scholars Kabinett; they feed on sources, and through their haughty silence they ignore or condemn (with rare exceptions) all secondary scholarship. How different the idea, and the execution of the Corpus! Editors of inscriptions dwell in dusty lapidaria and espy stones wherever they are extant. Stones vanish, but a portion of this inscribed universe has been preserved in copies made by the lovers of antiquities from the early Renaissance to the

2 present day, copies now secluded in the recesses of archives and libraries: thus, for an epigrapher, also excavations in museums and archives. Mommsen himself edited several volumes of CIL, and set the tone for the whole enterprise: each volume a monument of Fleissigkeit, each lemma a jewel of akribeia. A CIL lemma offers not just a description of a stone and the text of an inscription, but also the history of each monument, from its inception to its preservation or disappearance, and in that latter mournful case the lemma traces the stones often distorted shadow in manuscripts or books, always on guard against that epigraphical pest, il falsario. The CIL was the first example of modern big science, of wissenschaftlicher Grossbetrieb,3 of intricate international cooperation between scholars and institutions in all states that sprouted on the ruins of the Roman empire, and also in those countries beyond the empires old borders that offered the stones and bronzes a refuge (post-colonialists would call it robbery) in museums and collections. The field epigrapher must be an inveterate traveler, good with stones, and good with the people, for there is a world of contemporary scholars, collectors, local erudites, curators of museums and archives. They all are to be befriended, gained as collaborators, or cajoled and pacified. For the student foreign to the land of stones obstacles multiply: fluency in the language is required, and an intimate and sympathetic understanding of the local ways, past and present. Mommsen paid many visits to Italy, and he early conceived a love for the land and its people. His travel diary of 1844-45, when Mommsen was twenty seven years old, is a vivid testimony to that fascination.4 A budding poet in his youth,5 he was throughout his life an admirer of Italian poetry; we have from his pen renderings of Giosu Carducci (1835-1907), not a household name today but at the time hailed as the national poet of the united Italy.6 Toward the end of his life Mommsen professed in a letter (p. 289, no 166) that Italy has become for him una seconda patria.7 Friendships and acquaintances once gained had to be nourished, and Mommsens prolific correspondence speaks volumes of the man, his familiares, and their common interests. The present volume collects 222 letters preserved in the Vatican archives; they are addressed to nine correspondents8 over a long span of 55 years (1846-1901). They have been edited with akribeia and erudition by Marco Buonocore, Scriptor Latinus and,

3 since 2003, the chief archivist (archivista capo) of the Vatican Library, well known to the readers of JRA as an indefatigable and brilliant epigraphist.9 Mommsen could not have wished for an editor more attuned to his epigraphical interests. Letters without a commentary are only a raw material, fascinating but full of puzzles. Buonocore surrounds each letter with ample explanations, biographical notes, and rich bibliography. His commentary constitutes a veritable encyclopedia and prosopography of (mostly but not exclusively) German and Italian historians, epigraphers and antiquarians of the ottocento. It also offers a gateway to the manuscript riches of the Vatican library. The commendable indices contain lists of modern names, of passages of ancient authors, and above all of inscriptions, and thus provide riveting insights into the formation of particularly the Italian volumes of CIL. The introduction delineates the epoch, and its scholarly culture, and sets out the figures of the nine recipients of Mommsens letters. They are (in chronological order): Giulio Minervini (1819-1891), nos. 1-10 (from the years 1846-83); Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822-1894), nos. 11-148 (years 184793); Federico Odorici (1807-1884), nos. 149-57 (years 1854-67); Pasquale Villari (18271917), nos. 160-66 (years 1864-1903); Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823-1896), no. 167 (of 1875); Giulio Gabrielli (1832-1910), no. 168 (of 1878); Enrico Stevenson iunior (1854-1898), nos. 160-201 (years 1878-87); Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani (1845-1929), nos. 202-17 (years 1880-83); Matteo Ricci Petrocchini (1826-1896), no. 218 (ante 1883); Giovanni Mercati (1866-1957), nos. 219-22 (of 1901). Several of these names belong to the towering personages of Italian epigraphy and archaeology; but first brief comments on other correspondents. Mommsen devoted two of his early larger epigraphical publications to southern Italy (Iscrizioni Messapiche [1848], and Inscriptiones regni Neapolitani Latinae [1852]), and thus Minervini, an influential Neapolitan archaeologist and epigraphist (and director of the university library, 1867-86), was a natural correspondent (often addressed as carissimo amico). This epistolary warmth should not conceal the fact that Mommsen (as well observed by Buonocore) was rather critical of the Neapolitan erudites, too antiquarian for his taste, and yet he had to co-operate with them. The letters contain several references to inscriptions; particularly interesting are Mommsens observations

4 on Minervinis disquisition (1846) concerning a late antique chiodo magico, an inscribed magical bronze nail (no. 3, pp. 44-45).10 The letter to Fiorelli (Direttore and Soprintendente of the excavations in Pompei) concerns a practical matter: the distribution in Germany of Fiorellis book, just published, Descrizione di Pompei (1875). Moving to northern Italy, we encounter Odorici, student of Roman and Christian Brescia, in particular the author of 11 volumes of Storie bresciane. When Mommsen traced the inscriptions from Brixia ultimately included in CIL V, it was thus quite natural that he often turned for help to Odorici (but the contacts remained formal with the address form Egregio or Chiarissimo Signore). Similarly Gabrielli, a local scholar from Ascoli, was of great help to Mommsen in collecting the inscriptions from Asculum for CIL IX; this pregiatissimo amico was duly honored (in 1877) with the corresponding membership in the German Archaeological Institute in Rome. 11 The letter to Marchese Ricci Petrocchini (for the identification, see p. 23, n. 39) leads us to Macerata, also in Picenum; Mommsen searches (in vain) for an inscription that according to Borghesi was still in 1844 extant in the house of Marchese Ricci.12 The letters to Lanciani13 cover, oddly enough, only three years (1880-83), and concern various novit of Roman topography and epigraphy. Mommsens comments are very much worth reading, even today, particularly (nos. 202-203, pp. 347-53) on the sepulcrum of Sulpicii Platorini (i.e. of M. Artorius Geminus, as it is now referred to); Buonocore offers a further mine of topographical and prosopographical information. We arrive finally at the home of Buonocore, the Vatican Library, and the company of the scholars who adorned this repository of tradition in Mommsens time. The pride of place belongs to de Rossi, since 1843 Scriptor Latinus, in due course to be recognized as the founder of Christian archaeology.14 Mommsens 138 letters extend over the period of 46 years, and witness the advancement of both correspondents to the pinnacle of fame. They also document the path of scholarly collaboration, along which, as Mommsen put it in a letter of 1857 (no. 25, p. 111), lamicicia cammina col nostro lavoro; de Rossi reciprocated with the same animus.15 This is all the more remarkable as

5 their personalities, albeit united in the common embrace of the lapides, were so different: de Rossi, a devout Catholic,16 unflinching in his support for the lost cause of the papal state, and Mommsen, a radical, and an agnostic. Buonocore (p. 26) adduces a telling enunciation of Mommsens (from a letter of 1881, no. 95, pp. 192-93) Dovete saperlo e sentirlo, che io con ogni fibra del mio cuore rispetto la fede anche non mia, followed by an equally telling line La mia fede politica non meno santa che la fede religiosa. Buonocore does not pursue this delicate topic, and here his introduction and commentary, antiquarian masterpieces, reveal themselves as timid history. In point of fact, Mommsen was convinced that, in order to be scientific, one must overcome superstition that is, religion.17 As he put it poignantly already in 1837: Freiheit ist nur im Verzweifeln.18 Thus this particular meeting of minds and personalities was bound to remain on the level of stones and realia. But for that realm few meetings were ever more fruitful. The letters offer engrossing glimpses into the initia and the execution of the two collections that will forever dominate the epigraphic landscape, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and the Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae (cf. esp. pp. 2932). The idea of the former was in the air, but it was Mommsen who brought it down onto the terra firma, especially as set forth in his memorandum (of January 1847) presented to the Berlin Academy ber Plan und Ausfhrung eines Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.19 The collection ought to contain alle rmischen Inschriften (in another place: die smtlichen lateinischen Inschriften) until the end of antiquity (set at 600), and thus in principle also the Christian texts. But with this idea Mommsen was rather uncomfortable: this class of inscriptions Kenntnisse und Studien voraussetzt, die ... mehr von dem Theologen als von dem Philologen und Juristen erwartet werden knnen. And thus he reports with relief that pope Pius IX entrusted the Scrittore der Vaticana cav(aliere) Rossi with the collection of all Christian inscriptions from the city of Rome. In this way two separate Corpora were ultimately to be born, reproducing in stately volumes the split of late antiquity along the lines of competing religiones. The fate of the CIL was not yet assured. Various vicissitudes and intrigues had to be overcome, and the final agreement (bereinkunft) between Mommsen (and Wilhelm Henzen) and the Prussian Academy was signed only in March 1855.20

6 Mommsen met de Rossi for the first time in 1845 in the Vatican library; through the good offices of this scrittore he was able to make excerpts from epigraphical manuscripts.21 A high opinion was formed; and few years later in a letter to F. Odorici he wrote of de Rossi: fra gli epigrafisti viventi certamente non cede il passo se non alluno Borghesi (no. 154, pp. 277-78). Thus, it was quite natural that, even before the final arrangements were reached with the Berlin Academy, Mommsen invited de Rossi to act as one of the direttori of CIL, with a particular responsibility for the inscriptiones urbanae, the epigraphical manuscripts, and the provincial Christian inscriptions which, unlike those from the City, were to be included in the CIL (no. 22 of August 1853, pp. 105-107; cf. no. 31 of February 1862, pp. 120-21). To this cooperation Mommsen was to render homage in these words: Viam autem, per quam invia bibliothecarum tandem aliquando patefacta sunt, aperuit Johannes Baptista Rossius Italiae lumen mihique iam per annos fere triginta laborum socius et tam ineuntis aetatis quam maturae fidus amicus (CIL III,1 [1873], p. VI). The letters bring a rich harvest of epigraphical observations; and as this collection appeared in a Roman law series, we might, following Buonocore, call attention to points of intersection between epigraphy, Staatsrecht, and administrative history. First the newly found fragment of the painted fasti (nos. 12-14 [1849-50], pp. 66-78).22 Mommsen objects to the reading VESTAE AD SAXU; the notice must refer to the feast of 9 June celebrated in the shrine of Vesta in the Forum, but there is no sasso nearby! De Rossi replies that, indeed, one should rather read AD IANU, and Mommsen proceeds to wonder: which Ianus?, and answers: probably medius (pp. 75-77). Discussion continues. Degrassi (Inscr. It. XIII,2, p. 468) records favorably a suggestion: in fastis pictis viae Graziosa ... ianum prope situm, qui arcum Augusti antecessit, fortasse indicari, a suggestion anticipated (though ultimately rejected) by Mommsen: there were many iani in Rome, and molto probabile che un altro ne fosse vicino il tempio di Vesta (p. 72).23 Of great interest is the debate concerning the status of Capena, a city in southern Etruria (nos. 117-18 of 1884, pp. 226-30). In a paper published in 1883 de Rossi had argued that epigraphically attested descriptions of Capena as municipium Capena foederatum (CIL XI 3932), municipium Capenatiun foederatorum (3936), Capenates

7 foederati (3873, 3876 a), or simply tres civitates (3939), are to be taken to mean that Capena formed a confederation with two other communities. Mommsen strongly disagreed: the term foederatus, whenever it is attached to a community, always refers to an old alliance with Rome, and never to an association of two or more municipia. E. Bormann (CIL XI [1888], p. 571) also rejected de Rossis conceit, but the Italian scholar had his followers even in relatively recent times. They were on an errant expedition. Look at Camerinum: CIL XI 5631 (= ILS 432) records the renewal under Septimius Severus (in 210) of the ancient foedus between Rome and the Camertes, and some thirty years ago a document came to light recording an aedile Ficolensium foederatorum. It is now agreed that in this context the expressions foedus and foederati denote an old treaty with Rome, whether real or fictitious.24 Mommsen was there first, we now see. We move to later antiquity. Mommsen poses a question (no. 116 of 30 April 1884, pp. 224-26) concerning the famous ordo salutationis from Thamugadi in Numidia (CIL VIII 17896, dated to 362/63): Datemi qualche consilio sui coronati [who are listed in the ordo in the third place, lines 9-10], che sono in parte roba di Chiesa. Nella legge del 407, C.Th. 16,2,38 vi sono i coronati, assai oscuri finora, ma probabilmente i medesimi che vengono fuori dalla lapide africana. ... Ma in somma sta a vedere se nel vostro demanio non vi sia qualque categoria di officiales a cui convenga questa denominazione. De Rossi swiftly replied (on 14 May 1884): i coronati e i sacerdotes provinciae ... in tutti i documenti ecclesiastici del secolo quinto o quarto a me noti, sono sempre i sacerdoti pagani. Luso di chiamare coronati anche i chierici per ragione della tonsura (corona clericalis) assai tardo e circoscritto, non generale.25 An illuminating exchange: it shows how much Mommsen had still to learn of the late empire, and especially of its ecclesiastical component, and of how great and ready help in these studies was de Rossi. And what do we think today of the coronati in the ordo salutationis? A. Chastagnol (without referring to Mommsen or de Rossi) takes coronatus to denote the (annual) sacerdos provinciae, and consequently the plural coronati would refer to the current and former provincial priests, the sacerdotales and thus, by and large, he follows in the footsteps of de Rossi.26

8 Next, in a natural progression, Enrico (Henry) Stevenson, jr., a favorite student of de Rossi and, in the opinion of many, second only to his master. In 1882 he succeeded his own father (an Anglican convert to Catholicism) as Scriptor Graecus, and in 1886 was appointed Ispettore della Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra; in 1894, after de Rossis demise, he assumed the direction of the Nuovo Bulletino di Archeologia Cristiana. Stevenson inhabited two worlds: the world of manuscripts and the world of archaeology, inscriptions, and topography, particularly of Rome, Latium and the Sabina.27 His love were the catacombs and the martyrs; in 1879, together with several learned friends, he founded Collegium Cultorum Martyrum,28 a most un-Mommsenian preoccupation, but even here one can detect a thread leading to Mommsen. For the new association Stevenson composed a statute in Latin, a lex collegii, modelled on the Lanuvine lex collegii salutaris cultorum Dianae et Antinoi (and also the lex collegii Aesculapii et Hygiae), and we remember it was with these very inscriptions that Mommsen laid the foundations for his epigraphical fame.29 Such side glimpses Buonocore avoids, and Mommsens letters to the serious Stevenson are also pure epigraphy, but what a feast! Any user of CIL IX, X, and XIV, ought to study them; Mommsen rendered tribute to Stevensons cooperation in CIL IX, p. 472, but now we can fill in the details concerning the vicissitudes, restoration and interpretation of numerous epigraphs, many of them of more than of a fleeting interest. We have discussions (felicitously brought up to date by Buonocore) of (inter alia) CIL IX 4051 (Arcadius, Honorius and the revolt of Gildo), 4119 (the cursus of Sex. Tadius Lusius Nepos Paullinus), 4636 (the Sabine goddess Vacuna), 4976 (set up by the decuriones of Cures Sabini), 5731 (Iulia Domna), 5943 (a miliarium); X 6526 (an aqueduct in Cora), 6839 (a miliarium from the via Appia), 6849 (a rock inscription from Terracina); XIV 2960 (Capitulum Hernicorum); also VI 31722 and/or 31723 (Calpurnii Pisones and Crassi). After the demise of de Rossi and the premature death of Stevenson, Mommsen continued his amicable relations with the Vatican Library, but his focus has shifted. In his later years he turned his attention to later antiquity, and the three letters of 1901 addressed to the long-lived Giovanni Mercati (a future cardinal, and author of scores of

9 books in the field of classics and patristics) concern the other grand enterprise of the Berlin Academy, the Corpus ecclesiasticorum Graecorum, and the manuscripts of Rufinus version of Eusebius History.30 We conclude with Villari, an intellectual and dignitary of the Umbertine Italy, historian, publicist, academician and government official.31 Mommsen directed to him several recommendations concerning younger German scholars visiting Italy. But it is the last missive to Villari and chronologically the last letter in the corpus (no. 166, of 30 Jan. 1903) that stands out in its tone of resignation and foreboding. Mommsen declines an invitation to participate in the Congresso internazionale storico romano, and writes:mi fa sentire che la mia vita vissuta, e che non debbo domandare altro di essa che di finirla tranquillamente e senza vedere scoppiare le nuvole che oscurano il cielo tanto politico che letterario.

It was not given to Mommsen to depart in tranquillity: before the year was out he was to die, depressed, and almost blind32 fortunately, however, without seeing the gathering clouds explode in a war that obliterated the world in which he had lived. Nil desperandum. In a note to an unknown recipient (p. 281, no. 158) Mommsen penned this aphorism: Evanescunt auctores, manet scientia. How wrong he was with respect to Mommsen auctor, and how right with respect to scientia.33

10

*

Journal of Roman Archaeology 19 (2006) 739-45. Cf. H. Schlange-Schningen, Ein goldener Lorbeerkranz fr die Rmische Geschichte.

1

Theodor Mommsens Nobelpreis fr Literatur, in J. Wiesehfer (ed.), Theodor Mommsen, Gelehrter, Politiker und Literat (Stuttgart 2005) 207-223; G. Mettenklott, Mommsens Prosa Historiographie als Literatur, in A. Demandt, A Goltz and H. Schlange-Schningen (eds.), Theodor Mommsen. Wissenschaft und Politik im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin 2005) 163-80.2

See the essays collected in W. Nippel and B. Seidensticker (eds.), Theodor Mommsens langer

Schatten. Das rmische Staatsrecht als bleibende Herausforderung fr die Forschung (= Spudasmata 107 [Gttingen 2005]).3

Cf. R. vom Bruch, Mommsen und Harnack: Die Geburt von Big Science aus den

Geisteswissenschaften, in A. Demandt (supra n. 1) 121-41. In the letter of the Prussian academicians to the Swedish Academy proposing Mommsens candidacy for the Nobel prize for literature, he was described as vielseitiger, bis in die hchste Greisenalter frisch am Werk gebliebener Gelehrter, als Geschichtsschreiber, als O r g a n i s a t o r d e s w i s s e n s c h a f l i c h e n G r o s s b e t r i e b s , a rather surprising choice of words in a recommendation for a literary award.4

Gerold and Brigitte Walser, Theodor Mommsen. Tagebuch der franzsisch-italienischen Reise

1844/1845 (Bern Frankfurt a. M. 1976), the editio princeps. Only one thing viscerally displeased Mommsen, the papal ceremonies, especially the eunuch choir; cf. the entry for Palm Sunday 1845: Die Palmen sind aus Stroh geflochten .... geschmackloss wie alles, Tracht, Kostm. Die Kastratenstimmen unertrglich (p. 148); on another day Mommsen went to the Vatican um omnibus rationibus schimpfen zu knnen. ... Seit neun im Peter, um 12 das Fusswaschen! ... Die Ceremonie so gleichgltig und unschn wie mglich (p. 150). On Mommsens Reise (the Italian part of which lasted from November 1844 to May 1847), see L. Wickert, Theodor Mommsen. Eine Biographie II (Frankfurt am Main 1964) 43-199 and 244-378 (notes). Cf. p. 224: a reconstruction of the itinerarium.5

See Liederbuch dreier Freunde (Kiel 1843), i.e. of Theodor Mommsen, his co-eval Theodor

Storm (1817-1888), who went on to become a major figure of German letters, and his brother Tycho Mommsen (1819-1900), who had later a long career as Gymnasialprofessor (of classics) and Gymnasialdirektor. On Mommsens poetic escapades, see Wickert (supra n. 4) I (1959) 199-266 and 485-563 (notes), esp. on his translations of Italian poetry 253-62 (and 540-57). Interestingly, Carducci and Mommsen profoundly misunderstood each other, which shows how hard it is in eine fremde Kultur sich hineinzuleben. Cf. also H. Detering, Lehrjahre der Lyrik. Theodor Mommsen und Theodor

Storms literarische Anfnge, in J. Wiesehfer (supra n. 1) 31-50.6

Carducci was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1906. When in Rome both Carducci and

Mommsen frequented (apparently without there ever meeting) the salon of Ersilia Caetani contessa Lovatelli (1840-1925), a formidable figure, the first female socia of the Lincei, highly esteemed by Mommsen as an archaeologist and epigraphist. Cf. Buonocore 138, n. 396.7

Mommsens love for Italy, its culture, and language, can be interestingly contrasted with his

attitude to another part of the Roman empire: he exudes contempt for those scholars who de communis studiis eduntur Hungarico vel Serbico vel Valachico vel nescio quo alio eius generis idiomate ... quasi litterarum rem publicam condi vellent ad instar turris Babylonicae (CIL III,1 [(1873], p. VI).8

There are also two aphorisms sent to Ignoti, nos. 158 (see below in the text, in fine) and 159;

and the letter to Ricci is an official communication from the German Archaeological Institute but in the name of Mommsen.9

Cf. JRA 3 (1990) 317-20; 11 (1998) 459-62, 470-73 and 481. Cf. most recently G. Bevilacqua, Chiodi magici, Arch. Class. 52 (2001) 137 (no. 4) and 138

10

(fig. 8); 145-46 (text and translation).11

A more extensive carteggio Gabrielli-Mommsen was published by U. Laffi, Ricerche

antiquarie e falsificazioni ad Ascoli Piceno nel secondo ottocento (= Asculum II, tomo secondo [Pisa 1981]) 96-124.12

As Buonocore reports, a fragment of that inscription (CIL IX 5811 = ILS 82, referring to

clupeus virtutis of Augustus) was recently recovered and was soon to be published. See now S. Antolini, Laltare con il clupeus virtutis da Potentia, Picus 24 (2004) 9-28, esp. 16-27.13

Recovered by Buonocore from the voluminous codici Lanciani. Cf. also his Appunti di

topografia romana nei codici Lanciani della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana I-V (Roma 1997-2002).14

His major work of enduring fame was to be La Roma sotterranea cristiana I-III (Roma 1864,

1867, 1877). In this opus, and in other scripts (including his contribution to the Festschrift on the occasion of Mommsens 60th birthday) he dealt, inter alia, with the (presumed) legal position of Christian communities as funerary associations, thus entering the territory claimed by Mommsen in his early and still admired script De collegiis et sodaliciis Romanorum (Kiliae 1843) 87-127. On Mommsen, de Rossi, and the collegia, see the erudite and perceptive disquisitions by J. S. Perry, In honorem Theodori Mommseni: G. B. de Rossi and the collegia funeraticia, in C. F. Konrad (ed.),

Augusto Augurio (Stuttgart 2004) 105-22; The Roman collegia. The modern evolution of an ancient concept (Mnemosyne Suppl. 277 [Leiden-Boston 2006]) 21-60. For the development of Christian archaeology of decisive importance was also the foundation by de Rossi of Bullettino di archeologia cristiana (1863-1894); for its continuation, see below in the text.15

See pp. 6-8 (n. 11), where Buonocore collects (from unpublished letters) de Rossis expressions

of esteem and friendship.16

The Catholic Encyclopedia reports that De Rossi heard Mass every day and went to

Communion nearly every week. ... Every evening he gathered all the members of his household about him for the recitation of the rosary.17

Cf. S. Rebenich, Theodor Mommsen und Adolf Harnack. Wissenschaft und Politik im Berlin

des ausgehenden 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin 1997) 223-34; Perry, In honorem 107-12; The Roman collegia (supra n. 14) 40-49.18

Wickert (supra n. 4) I.107-108. For Mommsen and the checkered pre-history of the Corpus, see Wickert (supra n. 4) I.167-71,

19

193-94, and (notes) 366-70, 482; II.1-8, 105-109, 159-71, 185-97, and (notes) 225-33, 276-85, 341-60, 368-73; III (1969) 123-24; 255-72, and (notes) 466-69; 526-31. The memorandum is reprinted in A. v. Harnack, Geschichte der Kniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin II (Berlin 1900) 522-40; and also by G. and W. Walser as an appendix to Tagebuch (supra n. 4) 223-52.20

Of this grand enterprise de Rossi himself published only two volumes: Inscriptiones

Christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores, vol. I (with the imprint date Ab anno 1857 ad 1861}, and vol. II.1 (1888). Mommsen was impatient: cf. his letters of 1870 (no. 39, p. 131): da lungo tempo attendiamo il secondo volume delle iscrizioni: un debito a cui dovete pensare), and of 1881 (no. 93, p. 183): it is un santo dovere. A supplement by G. Gatti was published (posthumously) in 1915 (on Gatti, 1838-1914, cf. Buonocore 22, n. 35). In 1922 a nova series was initiated, still in progress; it has so far reached vol. X (1992).21

Wickert (supra n. 4) II.96-97. Now to be consulted in the edition of A. Degrassi, Inscr. It. XIII,2 (1963), no. 28, pp. 216-17:

22

Fasti viae Graziosa: [H Ve]st[alia], n(efastus) / [Fe]r(iae) Vestae ad Ianu(m).23

No further elucidation in LTUR 3 (1996) 92-94.

24

P. Veyne, Foederati: Tarquinies, Camrinum, Capne, Latomus (1960) 429-36; W.V. Harris, Rome in Etruria and Umbria (Oxford 1971) 86-89 (on Capena); S. Panciera, Ficolenses foederati, Rivista Storica dellAnticht 6-7 (1976-77) 195-213, esp. 210-11 {= Epigrafi, epigrafia, epigrafisti. Scritti vari editi e inediti I (Roma 2006) } (Ficulea was a small city in Latium).25

Buonocore (pp. 225-26, n. 679) reproduces this letter from a manuscript; two weeks later de

Rossi dispatched another letter concerning the coronati, also reproduced by Buonocore, and part of which Mommsen had included in his study Observationes epigraphicae XL: Ordo salutationis sportularumque sub imp. Iuliano in provincia Numidia, Ephemeris Epigraphica V (Heft 3 [1884] 62946 at 637 (= Gesammelte Schriften 8 [Berlin 1913]) 478-99 at 488. Expressing lingering doubts, he cautiously accepted de Rossis explication.26

A. Chastagnol, Lalbum municipal de Timgad (= Antiquitas III, 22 [Bonn 1978]) 80. Cf. Idem,

Sur les sacerdotales africaines la veille de linvasion vandale, LAfrica romana 5 (1988) 101-10.27

See Stevensons bibliography (composed by A. M. Nieddu) in Riv. Arch. Crist. 74 (1998) 15-

23. Cf. esp. Codices Palatini Bibliothecae Vaticanae (1886) and Inventario dei libri stampati palatinovaticani (2 vols. in 4 parts, 1886, 1889, 1891); and Mommsens felicitations on that occasion (no. 191, p. 338).28

Cf. A. M. Ramieri, Enrico Stevenson: cenni biografici ed inediti documenti dArchivio della

Commissione Archeologica Comunale, Riv. Arch. Crist. 74 (1998) 329-51, esp. 330-34.29

De collegiis (supra n. 14) 92-116, 130 (and the table). Cf. Perry, The Roman collegia (supra n.

14) 20-22, 28-40.30

Cf. B. Croke, Theodor Mommsen and the Later Roman Empire, Chiron 20 (1990) 158-89.

On the Kirchenvterkommission, see Rebenich, Theodor Mommsen und Adolf Harnack (supra n. 17) 129-223; esp. 198-210 on the editions of Eusebius (by E. Schwartz) and Rufinus (by Mommsen).31

So Buonocore (pp. 16-17); but he does not divulge what kind of history Villari prosecuted. His

two main works, immediately regarded as classic, dealt with Savonarola (1859-61) and Machiavelli (1877-82).32

See the gripping presentation of Mommsens last years by S. Rebenich, Theodor Mommsen.

Eine Biographie (Mnchen 2002) 215-21.33

{Rebenich (supra n. 32) 232, confidently asserts that we, one hundred years after Mommsens

death, weder seinen optimistischen Glauben in den wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt teilen noch das Erbe der Alten Welt als selbstndigen Bestandteil unserer Kultur verstehen. As to Kultur, a nebulous

concept, it is indeed so; as to Wissenschaft only soft intellectuals are queasy: if they do not believe in the progress of science let them go back to the medicine of Mommsens time. Science is about knowledge: and we know now much more of the ancient world and all other worlds than anybody ever knew in the past, and we shall know more and more. Of course, it all may only be a blind alley, as so often in evolution.}