Transformations of the world space: From Pliny’s Natural History to the Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium of C. Julius Solinus and the poem De Mirabilibus of Theodericus

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Transformations of the world space: From Pliny's Natural History to the Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium of C. Julius Solinus and the poem De Mirabilibus of Theodericus

A.E. Kuznetsov

Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia, Moscow)

Free University of Berlin (Germany, Berlin)

А.Е. Кузнецов

Московский государственный университет им. М.В. Ломоносова (Россия, Москва)

Свободный университет Берлина (Германия, Берлин)

Аннотация

world continuum allegory location

В статье рассматриваются два последовательно сделанных сокращения «Естественной истории» Плиния Старшего: «Собрание достопамятных вещей» Гая Юлия Солина и средневековое сокращение Солина, сделанное в стихах неким Теодериком. Основное внимание уделяется той части «Collectanea», в которой дается географический упорядоченный обзор Экумены, соответствующий книгам 3--6 Плиния. Географическая часть представляет особый интерес для понимания поэмы Теодерика. Анализ структуры текста позволяет выявить глубинные различия между исследуемыми авторами. Эти различия могут быть интерпретированы как изменения глобальных представлений о мировом географическом пространстве. Для Солина большой мировой континуум был основой для упорядочения почерпнутого у Плиния энциклопедического материала, который у Солина структурирован наподобие современной базы данных. Эта структура названа в статье ветвящимся каталогом. В отличие от Солина, Теодерик полностью утратил идею Мирового континуума. Он не упоминает большую часть географических названий, и названия больших областей за редкими исключениями опущены. При этом он демонстрирует непоследовательную тенденцию сводить сведения, взятые у Солина, к тематическим блокам. В целом Теодерик имел смутное представление о том, как устроен мир в географическом пространстве, поэтому он не мог распознать явные ошибки в своем экземпляре сочинения Солина, которые могли затронуть связность географического континуума. Пренебрежение географическим пространством можно объяснить тем, что поэма, вероятно, создавалась как многоуровневая аллегория, в которой географическая локализация не имела существенного значения.

Ключевые слова: античная география, средневековая география, диахрония пространств, пространство в литературе, критика текста, бестиарии, монстры в литературе, средневековая поэзия, Плиний Старший, Гай Юлий Солин

Abstract

Two successive abridgements of Pliny's Natural History are discussed in the paper: the Collectanea rerum memorabilium by C. Julius Solinus and a medieval abridgement of Solinus, made in verse by a certain Theodericus. The main attention is paid to the biggest part of the Collectanea which gives a geographical account of the Universe corresponding to Pliny's Books 3-6. The geographical part of the Collectanea is of particular interest for understanding the poem of Theodericus. An analysis of the text structures reveals deep differences between the studied authors. These differences can be interpreted as changes in global concepts of the World geographic space. For Solinus, the large World space was a basis for arranging the encyclopedic material drawn from Pliny, and he created a universal continuum of information that looks somewhat similar to the modern data-base structure: I call it the ramifying catalogue. In contrast to Solinus, Theodericus completely lost the idea of a World continuum. Theodericus does not mention the greater part of the geographical names, and names of large regions are all omitted, save for a few exceptions. Theodericus, however, shows a tendency to reduce the matter of the Collectanea to thematic units. Since Theodericus had but a very vague idea of how the World was arranged in geographical space, he could not recognize evident scribal errors of his copy of Solinus' work which affected the coherence of the geographical continuum. A neglect of the geographical space can be explained by the fact that the poem was probably intended to be read as a multilevel allegory where geographical localization would be of little importance.

Keywords: ancient geography, medieval geography, diachrony of space, space in literature, textual criticism, bestiary, monsters in literature, medieval poetry, Pliny the Elder, C. Julius Solinus

Theodericus and his poem

A poet who called himself Theodericus composed a versified paraphrase of the Collectanea rerum memorabilium of C. lulius Solinus¹. The poem has no .title, and I shall call it De mirabilibus Solinus' work exists in two versions. The earlier one is preserved in manuscripts defined by Mommsen [1895] as the first class. The earlier version is accompanied by a dedicatory letter where no title of the work is mentioned. The later version is found in manuscripts of the third class which contain a new dedicatory letter with the statement that the old title Collectanea rerum memorabilium should be suppressed, and the corrected work is to be called Polyhistor (p. 217, 17-21 Mommsen). The later version contains a few additions. Manuscripts of the second class have the same dedicatory letter as the first class, but they contain additions, often in common with the third class. Mommsen was convinced that the later version had been a work of an unknown grammarian [Ibid.: lxxxviii]. Against Mommsen's authority Peter L. Schmidt has argued that the second version can be considered a genuine work by Solinus [Schmidt 1995]. The problem of two versions is too large and complex to discuss here; suffice it to say that Theodericus used a manuscript of the second class (§ 10 below). It is important, however, to keep in mind that the text published by Mommsen was arranged as an edition of the `non-interpolated' first version, and a critical text of the second version to date has never been edited. For Mommsen did not distinguish between genuine additions of the corrected version and interpolations that appear in different mss. Selected additions of the third and second classes were printed by Mommsen separately, without the apparatus, under the title Codicum classium secundae et tertiae additamentapotiora [Mommsen 1895: 217-221]. The Collectanea were first printed in 1474 (GW M42824) with the preface of the first version. See [Schmidt 1995; Brodersen 2011; 2014] for a reliable bibliography on Solinus, and [Dover 2013] for the Renaissance reception. The poem has never been fully edited, and this paper is based on -- still unpublished -- critical edition prepared by Prof. Dr. Rainer Jakobi (Martin-Luther-Universitat, Halle-Wittenberg) and the author of this paper.. It is composed in 1186 leonine hexameters which are irreproachable from the point of view of quantitative prosody.

The best, and eventually the only reliable manuscript of De mirabilibus is the Codex Bruxellensis Regius BR 106 1 5-729 Manuscripts of the poem were listed by Mommsen in his edition of Solinus [Mommsen 1895: liii]. For the Codex Bruxellensis see [Kaffarnik 2011; Verweij 2015]. Besides De mirabilibus, the manuscript contains other large poetic compositions datable to the 11^th -- early 12^th cent.: a poem on the First Crusade by Gelo Parisiensis and the most full copy of the Carmen de Hastingae Proelio. The entire manuscript was first described by Frederic baron de Reiffenberg [1841]; he, and later Manitius, published some excerpts from the poem [Ibid.: 258-262; Manitius 1913: 160-162]., which was written in Trier in the third quarter of the 12^th century, but it is impossible to determine the distance in space and time that lay between this earliest copy and the original autograph. The manuscripts of De mirabilibus contain two other leonine poems that may have been composed by Theodericus: a description of the Tower of the Winds in Athens (from Vitruvius 1.6), and an Elegy on the death of Theodericus' dog (incipitflete canes Text: [Manitius 1914: 161-163; Ziolkowski, Putnam 2008: 481-485].). We cannot be sure about the authorship of these two works, but the author of the Elegy, if he was not Theodericus himself, must have known him personally. In the Elegy, a line from the Liber decem capitulorum of Marbode of Rennes (written after 1096) is quoted almost literally:

Flete canes, 57

Marbodus, Decem capitula, 4,114:

Morte sua vitam seruaverat ille poet$ (his death saved the life of the poet)

Morte sua vitam regis servasse mariti (her death saved the life of her spouse king)

This suggests that the floruit of Theodericus is likely to be dated back to the late 11^th -- early 12^th century.

A part of De mirabilibus (vv. 974-1093) is copied without the name of the author in a Vienna manuscript that contains a collection of geographical works (Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 507, 13^th cent.). The Vienna excerpt is entitled De monstris Indi^. Christian Hunemorder, who first published the Vienna fragment, failed to identify it with the selections from De mirabilibus, by then published [Hunemorder 1976: 271]. Hunemorder, however, has argued from textual evidence that the poet of De monstris Indi^ had drawn on the treatise Imago Mundi by Honorius Augustodunensis. The Vienna extract has been identified as Theodericus' work by Rainer Jakobi [2002]. Since the first version of Imago Mundi was finished in 1110 [Flint 1982: 40], and, in turn, De mirabilibus was abridged by an unknown poet called Ovidius some time before 1140 `Ovidius' was described and edited by [James 1913]. Jakoby has convincingly demonstrated that `Ovidius' depends on Theodericus [Jakobi 2002: 249]., Jakobi has concluded that the De mirabilibus was composed ca. 1120 [2002: 250]. It is a plausible assumption that a poetic work like the De mirabilibus is secondary to a prose composition on the same subject, if both are textually related to one another. But the true relation between the texts in question is difficult to establish, and inverse borrowing from Theodericus to Honorius cannot be excluded, in which case the date of Theodericus would be moved back the late 11^th century. Further consideration of this problem would require a detailed comparison of the two works that exceeds the scope of the present paper.

The poem itself contains almost nothing about Theodericus. We learn that he had a friend named Stephanus who encouraged him to finish De mirabilibus, and the Elegy states that the above mentioned dog was called Pitulus. These facts do not allow to draw any conclusions. The name Theodericus was very popular, and suggested identifications with known historical persons can only be regarded as highly uncertain The most widely accepted attribution is Thierry, the Abbot of St. Trond [Manitius 1913: 160], but Thierry died in 1107. The relation between De mirabilibus and Imago mundi is thus of crucial importance for identification of revealing the personality of Theodericus..

It is not easy to establish the genre of De mirabilibus more precisely than Lehrgedicht. In this paper I shall argue that Theodericus did not arrange his poem according to any principle of composition, as it was done in Imago Mundi, or in a Carolingian treatise, Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus [Haupt 1876], so it is not likely that Theodericus intended to compose an encyclopedic work.

Solinus: The structure of the universe, and the place of Rome in the World

Before we consider the abridgement, we need to consider its source, Solinus, whose work was itself an abridgement of Natural History, and we should always have Pliny in mind when studying his descendants, Solinus and Theodericus.

The Collectanea are divided into three parts. In the first one, Solinus narrates different stories referring to the foundation of Rome, and recounts at length the history of the Roman calendar until the calendar reform carried out by Augustus (Sol. 1.34-47 p. 9,9-11,22 Mommsen). Here Solinus drew largely on non-Plinian sources. The first part ends with a short discussion on Augustus (calamitiosior an beatior fuerit, Sol. 1.48-49 11,23-12,13 M ^ Plin. 7.145-150). The second part, in which the human being is dealt with, is based largely on the Book 7 of Natural History. This section contains, among other themes, a vast list of examples of Roman military fortitude, and catalogues of persons who became famous due to their moral virtues or eloquence (Sol. 1.102-127 26,6-31,5 M). Those people are in large part Roman too.

The third part is the biggest one. It gives a geographical account of the Universe corresponding to Pliny's Books 3-6. In this paper, I shall deal mainly with the geographical part of the Collectanea, because it is of particular interest for understanding Theodericus.

A relatively short treatise by Silinus and an even shorter poem by Theodericus still inherited from Pliny a feature of fundamental importance: the abridgments sought to offer a picture of the Universe. Pliny's Universe was essentially the Roman Universe, and this leads us to the question of how Rome is represented in the Historia Naturalis. Pliny gives a short description of Rome in the section on Italy (Plin. 3.66-67), but Rome of the Historia Naturalis was more than an item of a geographical catalogue, she was even more than the political center of a great empire. Rome was the unifying power of the World which gained dominance over an immense mass of individual phenomena, and created from that mass an actual, visible and palpable, universal nature Before Pliny, Ovid declared that Rome became equated with the World, Fasti 1, 85: luppiter arce sua totum cum spectet in orbem, | nil nisi Romanum quod tueatur habet (When from his citadel Jupiter looks abroad on the whole globe, naught but the Roman empire meets his eye) (trans. by Frazer); see [Woodart 2006: 254-249] for the deep religious background of this idea.. Rare and marvelous things had a particular importance for this cosmological system, because the Roman state absorbed natural and artificial mirabilia from every part of the World, and the City of Rome became a large depository of those signs of power The mirabilia are recognized as an important part of the `imperialistic' ideology of the Natural history [Naas 2011]. This aspect of the Roman attitude towards mirabilia recently has been studied, largely on the basis of the Natural History, in [Rutledge 2012].. Pliny usually finds it necessary to tell when an exotic creature became first known and seen in Rome, adding the names of magistrates in charge of the show, and this makes the Historia Naturalis similar to an inventory of an everlasting triumphal procession, triumphus ex mundo, as one may call it. Eventually, historical triumphs are frequently mentioned by Pliny throughout his Encyclopedia See [Murphy 2004: 154-160] on the importance of triumphs for Pliny., and they often give an occasion to introduce various notable facts and items, e. g., L. Caecilius Metellus `led many elephants' in his triumph in 250 BCE (Plin. 7.139). or the inhabitants of the land of Garamantes are numerated in an inventory of people and cities whose `names and pictures' (nomina ac simulacra) were shown in a triumph of L. Cornelius Balbus in 19 BCE (Plin. 5.37). Solinus preserves some of those statements Sol. 27.22 120,15 M: Scaevola and leones; 30.20 133,17 M: Caesar and camelopardis; 30.21 134,3 M: Pompeius and rhinoceros; 32.31 145,6-7 M: Scaurus and hippopotami and crocodili; 34.1 153,13 М: Scaurus and bones of a sea-monster (§ 7 below); 52.52 193,3 М: Pompeius and the hebenus wood; 53.30 201,7 М: large pearls were introduced in the time of Sulla. Pliny, however, does not state explicitly that Numidici ursi were first shown in a great spectacle arranged by L. Domitius Ahenobarbus on 17 Sept. 61 BCE: Sol. 26.10 115,13 M ^ Plin. 8.131. Sol. 8.3-7 61,19-62,11 M; Sol. 9.4-21 63,12-66,20 M; Sol. 27.9-12 117,7-17 M. From the large literature on the succession of world-empires [Ramosino 2005] is of particular importance in the Plinian context..

The Roman element is not only present in the Collectanea, but is even expanded in some points. Nonetheless, it is impossible to state that Solinus inherited from Pliny the idea of Rome as the center of power which dominated over the Universe. The first part of the Collectanea does include a vast discourse on the Roman past compiled largely from non-Plinian sources, but non-Plinian interpolations do not necessarily attest a particular interest in Rome, since they are found in other parts of the Collectanea, where Solinus speaks about the origins and history of other lands and nations. It will be enough to mention the excurses about Thracia (Sol. 8.3-7 61,19-62,11 M), Macedonia (Sol. 9.4-21 63,12-66,20 M), Carthage (Sol. 27.912 117,7-17 m), and the fabulous empire of Cilicia (Sol. 38.1-6 161,3-162,9 M), which are likely to reflect the idea of succession of world-empires¹¹. None of these interpolations are written from the point of view of Roman dominance, and Solinus might be similar in this regard to Pompeius Trogus Solinus gives only one direct reference to Pompeius Trogus, and it is borrowed from Pliny: Sol. 1.51 12,19 M ^ Plin. 7.33. [Seel 1982] remains the most lucid discussion ofthe universalism of Pompeius Trogus..

Solinus begins the geographical part with a long antiquarian discourse on the origins of Italian cities (2.2-18 31,9-36,8 M). He mentions Saturnia and laniculum (p. 32,1-2 M), but he does not mention Rome. It is reasonable to suggest that Soli- nus did not want to repeat what he had said about Rome in the initial chapters. The paradox is that Rome totally falls out from the geographical account of Italy, and, throughout the whole geographical part of the Collectanea, she is merely mentioned occasionally. It is worth observing that Carthage is treated in a similar way: Solinus says in the historical excursus, referred to above, that restored Carthage became `the next after Rome splendour of the World' (alterumpost urbem Romam terrarum decus, 117,7 M), nonetheless, the great city is omitted from the description of Africa, and, in the whole geographical part, no more than two accidental mentions are found: one emerges in a narration about the tomb of Hannibal in Libyssa (172,7 M), another in a story concerning the monstrous creatures (probably gorillas) captured by Hanno (211,5 M) [McDermott 1938: 51-55]. The mentions of Rome are more frequent According to the index of Mommsen's edition, there are about 20 occurrences of Roma, Romanus and Romani in the geographical part of the Collectanea., but they are equally accidental.

The presence of Rome in the world described by Solinus is significantly reduced compared to Natural History. On the other hand, stories about Rome are densely concentrated in the initial chapters of the Collectanea, wholly or mainly devoted to Roman history. This may suggest that the idea of Rome as the Universe was still shared by Solinus, but it was being moved toward a purely historical level, and Rome was associated with the past, rather than with the actually dominating cosmic power.

This approach to Rome is announced in the first version of the Preface: Solinus calls Rome `the head of the World' (caput orbis, Praef, 5 2,18 M), and claims that with Rome he will begin his compendium. Yet, states Solinus, `the most learned writers' left nothing untouched that could be spoken about as a new matter. Solinus does not want to repeat what was said in many old books, but he equally refuses to drop Rome altogether. The solution will be to write about the origins of Rome as reliably as possible (Praef., 7). Solinus carried out this program in good faith, and the chapters devoted to the early history of Rome appear to be the most original and non-Plinian part of the Collectanea.

A similar recusatio is used to introduce the description of Italy in the geographical part, and this section is filled mainly with antiquarian excurses mentioned above, but, as far as real information is concerned (2.19-50), Italy appears to be one of the most strictly compressed chapters of the Collectanea.

Solinus: A disposition of the World

The geographical part of the Collectanea is relatively large, but it covers only four books of Natural History. Solinus I presume that Solinus relied directly on the Natural History, and that he was entirely responsible for the composition and content of the Collectanea; see [Brodersen 2011: 71] on Mommsen's theory of intermediate sources., however, did not ignore the immense treasures of learning collected by Pliny in other books. He transformed Pliny's great encyclopedia into a short world-wide itinerary, and arranged geographically all the diversity of natural and human phenomena gathered from Pliny.

Solinus divided the world into large regions which are further described in the form of catalogues of smaller areas and geographical or chorographical objects, such as rivers and mountains. Each region is represented as an imaginary route through local areas, and, except for few breaks, all content of geographical chapters forms a continuous movement from Italy to the ultimate Eastern shores of Oec- umene, and back through India to the Atlantic shore, where Canaria islands are the last point of Solinus' geographical discourse (see AppendixIIto this paper) Klauss Geus has recently demonstrated that a geographical arrangement is employed in the Paradoxographus Vaticanus as a `secondary principle' subordinated to the thematic disposition [Geus 2016]..

Though the greater part of the World described in the Collectanea could never be visited by the Romans or the Greeks, Solinus steadily used expressions of route and travel to describe transgressions from one region or area to another, e. g. 46.4 177,16 M: hos terrarum ductus excepit Media `these movement of countries is picked up by Media'. In these points, Solinus sometimes speaks metaphorically about the travel of his `pen' Solinus could borrow the metaphor of journey from Pliny [Pavlock 2014], but for the Romans the linear route-pattern (called `hodological' by Pietri Janni [1984]) probably was the most common way of representing geographical space. See the survey of this problem in [Talbert 2008]., e. g.: 3.1 44,13 M;flectendus hinc stilus est: terrarum vocant aliae... (here the pen must change the way, for other lands call us); 33.44 147,13 M: nunc ab Aegypto provehamus stilum (now we are to carry the pen forward from Egypt); 56.4 206,3 M: tempus ad Oceani oras reverti, represso in Aethi- opiam stilo (now it is time to return [from Babylonia] to the shores of the Ocean, after I shall hold my pen back to Ethiopia).

Solinus followed Natural History in distributing lands and regions throughout his catalogue with the exception of a few important shifts Brodersen has argued that the arrangement of geographical matter in the Collectanea changed from the linear, largely litoral, pattern typical for Pliny and Pomponius Mella to a description of areas [Brodersen 2011: 72-86].. Still, the content of the geographical sections of the Collectanea differs significantly from Natural History.

Solinus used names of places as cells in which non-geographical items, such as animals, plants, stones, and exotic tribes, were located. Subordinated items can serve as host-entries at a lower level.

It is important to notice that connections established by Solinus between low level non-geographical units and their geographical host-entries are often arbitrary: hosts are not necessarily associated with subordinated items either in the natural order, or in Natural History. When Solinus seeks to create a general account of a creature which is not tied to a narrow geographical area (such as dolphins or bears, discussed below), he still gives a geographical localization.

Here I shall consider some examples that will further be helpful in understanding Theodericus.

Solinus says that the Propontis is particularly rich in dolphins, and this statement hosts a large collection of facts and stories about dolphins borrowed from Pliny (Sol. 12.3-12 78,3-80,6 M ^ Plin. 9.20-9.32). None of those items are located in the Propontis by Pliny, who in his section on dolphins does not mention the Propontis or Hellespont at all.

Similarly, Solinus anchored a survey of elephants (Sol. 25.2-15 111,3113,15 M) to the description of Tingitana in Mauretania. Pliny does state (5.18) that the province of Tingitana produces elephants, but the section on elephants belongs to another book of Natural History (Plin. 8.1-44).

In the chapter on bears, Pliny remembered the famous show of Numidian bears produced by Domitius Ahenobarbus (n. 9 above). This geographical reference allowed Solinus to put an entire Plinian chapter on bears under the hostentry Numidia (Sol. 26.3-10 114,11-115,16 M ^ Plin. 8.126-131), though the information about bears provided by Pliny had nothing to do with that land (Pliny mentioned the bear when discussing hibernating animals). Moreover, Pliny doubted whether the Numidian bear existed altogether, `because it is well known that there are no bears in Africa'. This phrase is, of course, omitted by Solinus, who went even further in manipulating his source text, so that he began the section on bears with a bold statement: Numidici ursi ceteris praestant rabie dumtaxat et villis profundioribus (Numidian bears surpass the others in ferocity, and, at least, in thicker fur) The phrase is wrongly marked as borrowed from Plin. 8.131 in Mommsen's edition..

While Pliny often puts information related to some item into different thematic parts of Natural History, Solinus accumulates it under one and the same host-entry. He thus interpolates into the section on bears an observation about how those beasts treated themselves for mandragora poisoning (Sol. 26.8 115,8-10M ^ Plin. 8.101).

A more complicated instance of contamination involves precious stones. In the book on mineralogy, Pliny created a large alphabetical list of stones which begins with the achates. He further mentioned different names and local varieties of the achates (37.139-142).

Solinus inserted this section into a description of Sicily, because the river Achates is situated there. The whole list of varieties of achates stones was transferred to that head-entry, though it contained the names of Crete, India and Cyprus, all of which were preserved by Solinus (Sol. 5.25-27). Solinus also added the description of a famous ring made of achates: he took this from another part of Book 37 of Natural History (Plin. 37.5).

Solinus returns to the theme of precious stones in the section on Mesopotamia (Sol. 37.7 sqq.), where a catalogue of gems is divided between four geographical entries which follow the movement from the upper reaches of Euphrates to the Persian Gulf: Euphrates, Chaldaei, Parthi, Persis. Stones mentioned here are in large part hosted by the entry Persis. This disorderly collection of minerals is gathered from different catalogues which Pliny included in Book 37, but the four hosting geographical entries are gathered directly from the alphabetical list of stones mentioned above. In the alphabetical list, Solinus found stones whose places of origin were occasionally referred to by Pliny:

mitrax (mithridax, Solinus) -- Persis (Plin. 37.173) sagada -- Chaldaei

(Plin. 37.181); zamilampis -- Euphrates (Plin. 37.189).

The location of myrrhitis in Parthia (myrrhites, Plin. 37.174) is transferred from another place in Natural History, where myrrhina is mentioned, Plin. 37.21:

oriens myrrhina mittit. inveniuntur ibi pluribus locis ... nec insignibus, maxime Parthici regni (the Orient produces myrrhina, where it is found in numerous places.... especially in the Empire of the Persians).

Here, Solinus failed to recognize that myrrhina (fluorspar, fluorite, blue John [Healy 1999: 228-235]), and myrrhites (a kind of bitumen) reported by Pliny were different minerals.

Pliny treated a geographical localization as non-obligatory information added to a few items of the catalogue of stones:

List of stones ^ sagada ^ Chaldaei

This subordination was inverted by Solinus:

List of areas ^ Chaldaei ^ sagada

Solinus follows the same approach in non-geographical sections as well. Pliny provides a list of enormously strong men (Plin. 7.81-83), among whom the famous Olympic victor Milo of Croton is mentioned. Solinus abridged this section (Sol. 1.75-77), but he found it necessary to attach the stone alectoria to the note on Milo, because Milo had used this stone to strengthen his body. As in the case of achates, Solinus inverted the order of items. For he found the alectoria in the same alphabetical list of stones (Plin. 37.144) where Pliny mentions Milo as an item of additional remarkable information:

Pliny: stones ^ alectoria ^Milo

Solinus: strong men ^ Milo ^ alectoria

The same approach is followed with regard to non-Plinian sources. From Book 4 of Natural History Solinus received the statement that the Borysthenes originated in the Land of the Neuri (Sol. 15.1 82,5 M ^ Plin. 4.88). Mention of the Neuri hosts a series of excerpts about peoples of Scythia from Pomponius Mela (2.1, 6-14), and other interpolations on the same matter collected from Pliny. This block of interpolations ends with a description of the Albani gathered from two different books of Natural History (Sol. 15.5 83,3 M ^ Plin. 6.38; 7.12). From here Solinus moves to that point of Book 8 where Albanian dogs are described (Sol. 15.6 83,7 M ^ Plin. 8.149). Further on, the entry about Albanian dogs hosts a collection of items about dogs taken from Book 8, but in Natural History they all precede the Albanian dogs (Plin. 8.142-148). Although the composition of this section is very complicated, it is clear that the Plinian text served as a substratum for all those interpolations.

Similarly, one of the great routes of the Collectanea begins with an overview of the Black Sea, proceeds to the Caspian region, and ends with the description of tigers and panthers that dwell in Hyrcania (Sol. 17.4-17.11 90,8 M-91,19 M). The last section is taken from Plin. 8.43-101. Here, Solinus inserts the second description of the Pontus and the Caspian region, which is borrowed from Books 4 and 6, and leads as far as the eastern borders of Germania. At the end of this section, however, Solinus returns to Book 8, almost at the same point where he has left it in Hyrcania, and describes the animals of Scythia (19.9-18 94,3 M-95,14 M ^ Plin. 8.101-120).

Solinus: A ramifying catalogue and patterns of memory

Solinus had to do meticulous and arduous work in order to rearrange the mass of names and facts he gathered from Natural History. As a result, he created a universal continuum of information that looks somewhat similar to a modern database structure. This structure, which may be called a ramifying catalogue, has a clear internal logic, and is likely to have been created with mnemonic purpose as a response to enormous size of Natural History.

Solinus' ramifying catalogue is indeed similar to the technique of topical memory first described by the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium (3.30-32), and later by Cicero (De Oratore 2.351-358) and Quintilian (Inst. 11.2,17-22) Visual and topical memory has been discussed in detail by [Elsner, Squire 2016].. The use of topical memory is likely to have been widely practiced in rhetorical schools. One should find a continuum full of remarkable `places', and then `put' in those places ideas to be remembered. So Cicero says, De Oratore: 2.354:

itaque eis, qui hanc partem ingeni exercerent, locos esse capiendos et ea, quae memoria tenere vellent effingenda animo atque in eis locis conlocanda; sic fore, ut ordinem rerum locorum ordo conservaret, res autem ipsas rerum effigies notaret atque ut locis pro cera, simulacris pro litteris uteremur (... persons desiring to train this faculty [i. e. memory] must select localities and form mental mages of the facts they wish to remember and store those images in the localities, with the result that the arrangement of the localities will preserve the order of the facts, and images of the facts will designate the facts themselves, and we shall employ the localities and images respectively as a wax writing tablet and the letters written on it -- trans. by Sutton and Rackham).

Topical memory relies on visualization, and exploits visual memory to deal with invisible things; visualized mental objects require a visible space This point is duly stressed by Cicero, De oratore 2, 357-358: ut res caecas et ab aspectus iudicio remotas conformatio quaedam et imago et figura ita notaret, ut ea, quae cogitando complecti vix possemus, intuendo quasi teneremus. His autem formis atque corporibus, sicut omnibus, quae sub aspectum veniunt, [...] sede opus est ... (things not seen and not lying in the field of visual discernment are earmarked by a sort of outline and image and shape so that we keep hold of as it were by an act of sight things that we can scarcely embrace by an act of thought. But these forms and things, like all the things that come under our view require an abode. -- trans. by Sutton and Rackham)., a substratum for places of memory. This large spatial continuum contains a number of smaller `places' disposed in a clear order: Quintilian, Inst. 11.2,18, recommends a big house with many inner rooms, but public buildings, and even pictures, and imaginary objects can also be used (Inst. 11.2,21). Each individual item to be remembered is stored in a place, such as a room, while a large continuum, such as a house, preserves the order of items. What is particularly important is that the recollection of individual items implies an imaginary movement from one place to another following the disposition of a large substratum space. Quintilian gives examples of `a long journey', and `a walk through a city' (in itinere longo et urbium ambitu, 11.2).

Topical memory needs a continuum, which itself must be visualized, such as those mentioned by Quintilian. In the case of the Collectanea, an obvious suggestion would be that Solinus used a global map which allowed him to construct an extremely complex, and in general consistent system of routes and geographical areas. In terms of the recommendations made by Quintilian, a map can be considered a kind of picture, maybe an imaginary one.

Though perhaps unexpected, this suggestion is not new: after having summarized Solinus' innovations in managing the large-scale geographical material, Brod- ersen allowed the possibility that, unlike the `mapless' Pliny and Pomponius Mela, “Solinus or his readers” might use a map [Brodersen 2011: 87].

Could Solinus use a world map as a wax tablet of memory?

A definite answer is impossible, but two further problems arise from this question.

The technique of topical memory appeals mainly to personal experience. Quintilian, however, speaks about a private house as a preferable locus of memory, and we know, that the Roman house had a standard plan, and this was also true of public buildings and the planning of ordinary Roman towns. Pictures mentioned by Quintilian could be understood as copies of well-known works of famous painters. It seems likely that objects with more or less uniform structure were used in rhetorical schools during the training of topical memory. Presumed world-maps are very ambivalent in this context. They existed in the 3^rd-4^th centuries when Solinus was active “... the pre-modern Greco-Roman world generally managed without maps” [Brodersen 2012: 109]. Brodersen has stressed elsewhere that “the first undisputed reference to a map on display dates to AD 297 [Brodersen 2011: 87]. The imaginary map in question is described by Eumenus, De instaurandis scholis, 20, 2 (Panegyr. Lat. 9[4]): [Brodersen 2011: 106; Campbell 2012: 80]. It must be added that Solinus' text does not allow one to distinguish between a painted map and an imaginary map (or a non-iconic representation of the disposition of the World)., and they must have been uniform, as far as the disposition of the main geographical regions and areas is concerned. But large maps were rare, so if Solinus could use a map as a substratum image, he could hardly appeal to a wide reading public. Meanwhile, a reader who does not have a sufficiently detailed idea of the coherent geographical universe, would find the Collectanea only a messy conglomeration of names and facts. Understanding Solinus requires an ability to follow his world-wide journey and to construct a mental universal space, perhaps without the help of visible maps, but a reader of the Collectanea must have had a global map in his mind.

The second problem concerns the non-geographical content of geographical host-cells which could not be intuitively clear to anyone but the author. For one may guess that the crocodile should be located in Egypt, but it is difficult to understand why the dolphin is anchored to the Propontis, or Persia serves as a cell for a catalogue of gems, and Africa (where no bears live) is a place where bears are described.

Eventually, it may be suggested that the Collectanea were originally written exclusively for the personal use of the author, and a narrow circle of his friends.

Solinus: Did he knew Rome?

At the transition point from the historical to anthropological part Solinus listed women who became famous for their extraordinary fertility. Here a certain Eutychis is mentioned, 1.52 12,21-23 M:

legimus Cn. Pompeium Eutychidem feminam Asia exibitam, quam constabat tricies enixam, cum viginti eius liberis in theatro suo publicasse (we have read that Gnaeus Pompeius required from Asia a woman called Eutychis, who was known to have given birth to thirty children, and he exposed her together with her twenty children to a public show in his theatre).

When we look at the corresponding text of Natural History, we find immediately that Solinus' version of the story indulges in a gross misrepresentation. For Pliny (7.34) says that, first, the marvelous woman died long ago, and it was at her funeral procession that she was accompanied by `twenty children', second, it was Eutychis' image that was exposed in the Theatre (more precisely, it stood in the Porticus Pompei) The statue of Eutychis was made by Periklymenos [Coarelli 1996: 365].:

Pompeius Magnus in ornamentis theatri mirabiles fama posuit effigies...

inter quas legitur Eutychis a XX liberis rogo inlata Trallibus, enixa XXX partus... (Pompey the Great among the decorations of his theatre placed images of celebrated marvels, ... among them we read of Eutychis who at Tralles was carried to her funeral pyre by twenty children and who had given birth 30 times... -- trans. by Rackham).

The deviation from Pliny cannot be explained by mere linguistic misunderstanding, and I would suggest, as a possibility, that for this passage Solinus used a corrupt text of Natural History, from which, at a minimum, the word rogo vanished: as a result, he could understand the Plinian phrase inlata Trallibus `brought to (the pyre) in Tralles' as `brought into (Rome) from Tralles', and rendered it as Asia exhibitam. Despite this dramatic error, Solinus provided an internally coherent and self-consistent text, which implies that he managed to get an idea of the case of Eytychis from his corrupt source manuscript. Solinus, of course, wrongly understood the situation inferred by Pliny as spectaculum, but it is not surprising that, living in 3^rd-4^th cent. AD, he did not realize that during the period of the late Republic a woman could not be exposed in a public show in a theatre. It is especially interesting to observe that Solinus' misunderstanding betrays his ignorance of how the Theatre of Pompey was actually built, and how its decoration was arranged, -- and ignorance of one of the most important and famous public buildings of Rome Discoveries of female statues in relatively good condition, which belonged to the Porticus Pompei [Coarelli 1996: 268-375], prove that the gallery of famous women in the Porticus existed until the end of Ancient Rome, and it might have been known to Solinus. -- The Theatre of Pompey has a rich literary history, see, e. g., [Pitcher 2012: 262]. I shall limit myself to one quotation closely related to the theme of Rome as the World. In a letter written by Cassiodorus, and addressed to Symmachus in the first years of the 6^th cent. the Ostrogothic king Theoderic stated regarding the grandeur of the Theatre, Cassiodorus, Varia 4.51,4 Mommsen: fecerunt antiqui locum tantis populis parem, ut haberent singulare spectaculum, qui mundi videbantur obtinere dominatum (the ancients built a place equal to such a people, so that those would have an exclusive spectacle, who were seen to obtain the power over the World). may call into doubt the Roman origin of Solinus suggested by Mommsen Quo loco libellus scriptus sit, ex ipso non intellegitur, nisi quod cum provinciae omnes memorentur, nulla emineat, inde conicere possis auctorem scripsisse Romae vel certe in Italia [Mommsen 1895: vi] ; for recent discussion see [Brodersen 2011: 64, n. 10].. Another point of misunderstanding (which might be a deliberate manipulation) lies in the verb legere. Solinus says legimus, which implies an unnamed written authority The same formula is used elsewhere in the Collectanea for anonymous references to Pliny, e. g. 15.7 83,7 M (Albanian dogs), 19.17 95,10 M (deer)., while Pliny surely meant titulus, an inscription which accompanied the statue, when he said effigies... inter quas legitur Eutychis.

Theodericus: The limits of visualization

The Collectanea gained an enormous and incomprehensible success in the Middle Ages, when its readers were deprived of a key capacity needed to understand Solinus' work: the ability to visualize the global geographical space. From this point of view, the Collectanea were the least suitable text to become a popular encyclopedia, and it seems that it was medieval love for obscurity and artificial complexity that made it one of the most widely read books. The lack of necessary visual support inspired copyists to add maps to Solinus' manuscripts [Brodersen 2011: 88]. Attempts to visualize the Collectanea led to the reverse influence of the Collectanea upon medieval cartography. Solinus was the most fruitful source of the great Hereford map (ca. 1300) The problem of the relationship between the Hereford Map and the Collectanea has been revisited in [Kline 2001]. The text of the Hereford map is available with a commentary in a new edition [Westrem 2001]., where we can see images of many mirabilia illustrated by inscriptions which heavily depend on the text of the Collectanea. A large part of the items mentioned by Theodericus is shown on the Hereford map, but Theodericus omitted many important objects and places (such as seas and great rivers) which were necessary constituents of even the most simple and schematic maps, and in no way did Theodericus attempt to give a general image of the world that could be suitable for cartographic representation. On the other hand, he preserved a number of minute items that would require the space of a large and detailed map in which to be visualized, but it is very unlikely that Theodericus could have something like the Hereford map at his disposal.

Single items could be easily represented as visual images, and, like the Hereford map, the poem can be interpreted as a space where the pictures of mirabilia are located See [Scully 2017] for the iconography of medieval maps, including the Hereford Map.. However, Theodericus apparently failed to manage the global continuum of the Collectanea, and the space implied by the poem is loosely structured and cannot be directly associated with any attested type of medieval maps. Theodericus is again `mapless', and the lack of an internal map is even more manifest in the abridgement by Pseudo-Ovidius (§ 1 above), which consists of short notes arranged as inscriptions to pictures.

Theodericus: The World without a center

Persistence of Roman memory

Global geography was not the only victim of simplification in Theodericus' poem. The first part of the Collectanea, which deals with Roman history, is totally removed from the De mirabilibus. The text of the poem proves that omission was not accidental or due to textual corruption. In the Prologue, Theodericus says that he intentionally begins with the second, anthropological part of the Collectanea:

34 principium sit homo mihi carminis ordine primo (let the human being be for me the beginning, the first unit in the disposition of the poem...)

The approach to the history of other nations is essentially the same. The historical notes and excurses of the geographical part are omitted. This may be demonstrated by looking at the section on India. Theodoricus was very interested in that main land of wonders, and the description of India is one of the largest in the poem (65 lines), but he does not say a single word about the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, as he does not mention the defeat of Darius (if we turn to Persia) or the numerous cities founded by Alexander. Solinus says about the land of Arbela that “Alexander's victory (scl. at Gaugamela) does not allow to miss this place” (quem locum victoria Alexandri Magni non sinit praeteriri, 46.1 174,5 M). But for Theodericus, the great historical importance of names and facts is likely to have been a reason to exclude them. His idea of mirabilia is generally limited to minor anecdotal matter, consequently, he preserved marginal episodes in which historical figures such as Alexander were involved. Alexander appears in an item about Lacon who was an extraordinarily quick messenger of the Macedonian king Th. 139 ^ Sol. 1.98 25,11 M ^ Plin. 7.84. Here Theodericus misunderstood his source: the runner's name was Anystis, and he was from Sparta: Lacon (Lacedaemonius, Plin.)., Alexander acts in two stories about animals: he examines Albanian dogs (Th. 313), and organizes a study of longevity of deer (Th. 366). It is difficult to understand why Alexander was erased from the story about a Babylonian dolphin Th. 286 ^ Sol. 12.70 79,13 M ^ Plin. 9.27.. Bucephalus, of course, is not silenced (Th. 953).

The Bucephalus episode Th. 952-963 ^ Sol. 45.8-9 174,15-175,8 М ^ Plin. 8.154; the name Bucephala was taken by Solinus from Plin. 6.77. is worth considering in detail, because it shows the rarest instance of Theodericus' intervention into Solinus' text.

quem crebro sqvq fera per discrimina pugn$

eripiens, Indi demum post pralia Pori

funeris exequias regali munere dignas

defunctus meruit sibi quas rex ipse peregit.

eius et ob nomen pr^claram condidit urbem

eque Buchefalam parili de nomine dictam

([Bucephalus] often snatched (Alexander) away from dangers of savage battles, at last, he died, and after the fight with Indian Porus, he deserved burial that the King would prepare for himself. Honoring the horse's name, the King founded a glorious city, called from the same name Bucephala).

Solinus added to the Plinian chapter about Bucephalos the statements that the horse had often saved Alexander, and that he had died in India. Theodericus brings in another detail, probably borrowed from Orosius Orosius, Hist. Adv. pag. 3,19,3-4 Zangemeister: ... Alexander cum ipso Poro singulariter congressus, occisoque deiectus equo, concursu satellitum praesentiam mortis evasit ... duas ibi condiddit civitates, Niceam et Bucephalam, quam de nomine equi sui ita vocari praecipt (... Alexander, when he met Porus himself in a single combat and fell from his horse which had been killed, escaped on coming death by the gathering of his bodyguards ... he founded two cities there, Nicaea and Bucephale, which he ordered to be called after the name of his horse -- trans. by Deferrari). Porus is not mentioned anywhere by either Pliny or Solinus., that Bucephalus was killed in the battle with Porus. The name of Porus is, indeed, superfluous in the story about the horse, unlike the account of the battle, narrated by Orosius, where the name of the Indian king was necessary. The most probable reason of this unexpected addition is that Theodericus wished to demonstrate his scholarly erudition; this might have been seen as ostentatious, because the original source texts of Solinus and Orosius were surely known to Theodericus' readers. I would suggest that, for the same reason, a large number of personal names were preserved in the poem. But whatever the motives behind Theodericus' choice in each particular case, his general tactics was certainly aimed at reducing information of historical value.

The second part of the Collectanea is paraphrased at length (Th. 39-170), but the section about moral and mental virtues vanished together with the large part of Roman personages, and we may suggest that Theodericus deliberately excluded Roman history from his abridgement. Looking ahead, I would say that the description of Italy, radically reduced by Solinus, almost disappeared from the poem.

Theodericus thus entirely abandoned the idea of Rome as the center of the World.

Theodericus, however, provides a nearly full chorographical account of Palestine (Th. 844-979). The completeness of this section could be due to the poet's religion, but nothing indicates that the Holy Land and Jerusalem were for Theodericus the center of the World, as Jerusalem is shown on the Hereford map Jerusalem on the Hereford map has been discussed inter alia by [Deam 2015: 16; Birkholz 2004: 17, 70]..