Reading 1 (Braund Lat Lit) What is Latin literature? — Chapter notes (condensed)

3.1 So far we have taken a direct plunge into two classic and central texts, one in poetry and one in prose, from what is usually regarded as the greatest period or 'Golden Age' of Latin literature. Virgil's Aeneid and Livy's enormous history of Rome were written at around the same time, under the emperor Augustus, and in some ways the two works share the same world view. This is a good enough place to start thinking about what Latin literature is - but it is essential that this is viewed only as a starting place. Before proceeding any further, we shall pause to ask what is contained under this apparently innocuous label 'Latin literature'. The answer will take us on a geographical and historical tour ranging all over the Mediterranean and through perhaps sixteen or more centuries of time. It will provoke further questions, about the people who wrote these texts and the people they wrote them for. Once we have taken this tour, we will be better able to reflect upon our preconceptions about what 'Latin literature' is as a preparation for thinking about what the study of Latin literature involves (Chapter 4).

Starting point for thinking about Latin literature: Virgil (Aeneid) and Livy (History) from the Augustan era.
They share a worldview rooted in the same historical moment but are used here as a launching point to interrogate the label 'Latin literature'.
Purpose of the tour: to explore what is contained under the label, across geography, time, authors, audiences.
Outcome: to challenge preconceptions and prepare for chapters on what the study of Latin literature involves.

3.2 First, deconstruction of the monolithic term 'Latin literature' invites reflection on the complexities that can be hidden by labels.

Latin refers to the Indo-European language originating in Latium (central Italy) and spreading with Roman power through the western Mediterranean; still used today in the Vatican.
The earliest identifiable Latin is on a brooch from Praeneste (modern Palestrina), dated to the second half of the seventh century BCE.
Classical Latin is the written form of the Roman dialect used for official and literary texts; Vulgar Latin was the everyday speech that evolved into the Romance languages: Italian, Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese.
Language changes over time and place; the Latin studied in schools is almost always Classical Latin, focused on authors from roughly the 1st century BCE to the 1st century CE.
Even though Classical Latin persisted for centuries, people continued to use Classical Latin alongside Medieval Latin.
Examples of Latin written outside the classical period include Petrarch (pastoral poetry in Latin, 14th c.), English dramatists of the 16th century writing in Latin, and Landivar (eighteenth century Jesuit from Guatemala) writing a long poem in Latin in the style of the Aeneid.

3.3 Literature too dominates the curriculum, although there are masses of other types of text in Latin which survive from antiquity. for example law codes, curses, epitaphs on graves, and inscriptions on statues and buildings. In fact, it is not clear that 'literature' forms a watertight category. How should we define Augustus' record of his achievements (Achievements of the Divine Augustus), which after his death was inscribed on bronze pillars outside his mausoleum at Rome, with copies displayed in the provinces of the Roman empire? Does this carefully composed text qualify as a work of literature or not? I use this example to suggest that the term 'Latin literature' may involve some arbitrary inclusions and exclusions. What is more, we should remember that modern expectations of widespread literacy, in the west at least, do not apply to the ancient world. It is clear that levels of literacy varied widely according to time and place, but what is certain is that literary sophistication was always a prerogative of the elite.

The breadth of Latin texts includes not only literary works but also official inscriptions, legal texts, curses, epitaphs, and architectural/statue inscriptions.
The label 'literature' may include or exclude texts by arbitrary criteria.
Literacy in the ancient world varied by time and place; literary sophistication tended to be a prerogative of the elite.

3.4 Classical Latin has been described by the linguist Robert Coleman as 'a highly artificial construct which must be regarded linguistically as a deviation from the mainstream of the language, namely Vulgar Latin'. Its very artificiality gives it a homogeneity which to some extent allows the authors who use it to transcend time and place. They seem to form a tightly-knit community of whom most are familiar with earlier Latin literature, which intensifies the impression of artificiality, a topic which will be explored in Chapter 11, especially 11.13-15. The apparent homogeneity of literary Latin is perhaps surprising given that very few of its authors came from Rome. Many of them originated in Italy - so, for example, Virgil and Livy, the authors we met in Chapters 1 and 2, came from Mantua (modern Mantova) and Patavium (modern Padua), towns in the north of Italy. The poet Catullus from the previous generation came from nearby Verona. His older contemporary, the orator and politician Cicero (106-43 BCE), came from the small town of Arpinum to the southeast of Rome. Others came from other parts of the Roman empire. Moving to the first century CE, the philosopher and dramatist Seneca and his nephew Lucan, the epic poet, came from Corduba (modern Córdoba) in Spain, while the two Plinys, the author of the encyclopedic Natural History and his nephew, author of the Letters, came from Comum (modern Como) in Cisalpine Gaul. In the second century, Apuleius, the peripatetic professor and author of the first fully fledged Roman novel, came from Madaura in north Africa. The fourth century historian Ammianus Marcellinus was born in Tyre and the epic and panegyrical poet Claudian of a generation later came from Alexandria. The few who came from Rome itself include Julius Caesar and the sixth century philosopher Boethius.

Classical Latin is described as a highly artificial construct that deviates from Vulgar Latin, producing a perceived homogeneity.
This homogeneity helps Latin authors form a trans-temporal, cross-regional literary community.
Most authors studied did not come from Rome; origins spanned Mantua, Padua, Verona, Arpinum, Corduba, Como, Madaura, Tyre, Alexandria, etc.
The spread of education among the male elite and its Rome-centric nature contributed to this linguistic uniformity.

3.5 How does the homogeneity of Classical Latin sit with this geographical diversity of origin of authors? This homogeneity is largely due to the education which was shared by the male elite, centred at Rome, and disseminated throughout the empire among the provincial elites as a tool of empire. Many of the authors listed above visited the capital for shorter or longer periods or even made it their home. not least because it was the intellectual and cultural as well as the political and economic centre of the empire. The artificiality of Classical Latin meant that it was an exclusive form of discourse. Very few women received the highest level of education and very few seem to have had the opportunity to write, or, more importantly, to perform in public, whether that meant reciting poetry or prose or delivering speeches as lawyers or orators. Those that did were certainly of the elite, for example, Sulpicia, the niece of Messalla the patron of poetry in the Augustan period, who wrote love poetry (which survives) and the younger Agrippina (15-59 CE), the mother of the emperor Nero, who wrote her memoirs (which do not survive). The status of male authors was generally high, either through their own origins or through their association with powerful men in the system of 'friendship' (amicitia) that pervaded Roman society. Roman history offers a number of cases of powerful men attracting an entourage of thinkers and writers, including Scipio Aemilianus in the mid-second century BCE, and of course Augustus in the late first century BCE, acting through his friend and associate Maecenas. The phenomenon of patronage will be discussed further in Chapter 7.4, 7-14, 17-19.

Education and Rome-centered cultural power created linguistic homogeneity across a diverse set of origin regions.
The elite male education system and patronage networks (amicitia) shaped who wrote and what was written.
Women had limited access to elite education and public literary activity.
Patronage connections linked authors to powerful patrons (e.g., Maecenas with Augustus).

3.6 The informal organization of the production of literature in these circles and coteries consisting of the friends and protegés of important men is sometimes reflected directly in the way that authors assert the values of their friends and patrons. Satire is a case in point: in the second century BCE the satirist Lucilius attacks the political enemies of his friend and patron Scipio, while around a century later Horace's Satires can be read as a defence of his patron Maecenas and by extension the young Octavian (the future emperor Augustus). Celebration of the values of an 'in-group' can be seen in other ways too. For example, in Poem 84 Catullus, writing in the 50s BCE, attacks a man called Arrius for putting the letter 'h' in the wrong places:

'Hadvantages' said Arrius, meaning to say
'advantages' and 'hambush' meaning 'ambush',
hoping that he had spoken most impressively
when he said 'hambush' with great emphasis.
His mother, her free-born brother and his maternal grandparents, I believe, all spoke like that.
Posted to Syria he gave the cars of everyone a rest.
They heard those same words smoothly and gently spoken and had no fear thenceforward of such aspirates, when suddenly there came the dreadful news that after Arrius arrived the Ionian waves, Ionian no more, became 'Hionian'.
Catullus 84 (adapted from Guy Lee) is cited as an example of in-group linguistic play and social signaling.
The idea of a 'club' of writers who share linguistic and social norms is reinforced.

3.7 Arrius clearly doesn't have what it takes to join the 'club' of Catullus' smart set at Rome, who pride themselves on their exclusive linguistic, literary, cultural and social standards. We find a positive version of the same attitude in a poem by Statius written in Domitian's court circle towards the end of the first century CE, in which he praises a Roman born in Libya for the purity of his accent:

Your speech is not Punic, nor your bearing; your outlook is not foreign: Italian you are, Italian.
In the City [= Rome] and among the Roman knights there are foster-children to do Libya credit. (Statius Lumber 4.5.45-8, adapted from Kathleen Coleman)
Quintilian notes the expectation that provincial accents be assimilated to a Roman standard:
If possible our voice and all our words should have the flavour of a nursling of this city, so that our speech may seem to be genuinely Roman and not just presented with Roman citizenship. (Quintilian, Training of the Orator 8.1.3)
Urbanitas derives from urbs, the city of Rome; Latin writers, wherever they come from, write in a Roman voice.
The passages show pressure toward assimilation of provincial accents at Rome.
Quintilian’s emphasis on a Roman voice highlights the ideology of a pan-Roman elite culture.

3.8 So which texts, if any, fail to conform to the model of Classical Latin? It depends what standards are applied. To some ears, Livy, who came from Padua, failed the test with his north Italian Latin. He was evidently lambasted for his Patavinitas, his native Italian accent, by some ancient critics (Quintilian Training of the Orator 1.5.55-6 and 8.1.3) his 'Paduosity', in Kraus' clever rendering. But generally, the division is made according to genre and above all according to chronology. Most of the works classed as 'literature' are relatively elevated in tone. Occasionally, in genres like comic drama and novelistic-type prose we get glimpses of Latin as spoken by a wider section of the population. A good example is the chat between several freedmen (that is, men who were formerly slaves) at a dinner party in the proto-novel Satyrica written by Nero's courtier Petronius.

'Please, please,' broke in Echion the rag-merchant, 'be a bit more cheerful. "First it's one fing, then another," as the yokel said when 'e lost 'is spotted pig. What we ain't got today, we'll 'ave tomorrow. That's the way life goes. Believe me, you couldn't name a better country, if it 'ad the people. As things are, I 'ave to say, it's 'aving a rough time, but it ain't the only place. We mun't be soft. The sky don't get no nearer wherever you are. If you were somewhere else, you'd be talkin' 'bout the pigs walkin' round ready-roasted back 'ere." (Petronius Satyrica 45, adapted from J. P. Sullivan)
Another might be the kinds of insults hurled by characters in Plautus' comedies: Calidorus: "Smother him with curses." Pseudolus: "I'll tongue-twist you…you… you disgusting man!" Ballio: "Granted." Calidorus: "You… wicked man!" Ballio: "Correct." Pseudolus: "You scourgeable scoundrel!" Ballio: "Undoubtedly." Calidorus: "Grave-robber!" Ballio: "Gallows-meat!" (Plautus Pseudolus 359-61, adapted from E. F. Watling)
These examples show how liturgical and social forms conditioned the difference between high literary Latin and vernacular/colloquial forms.
Plautus provides a vivid snapshot of Latin in its early stage, while being deeply engaged in delivering political and social commentary through adapted Greek originals.
Plautus is described as translating from Greek originals; a notable self-conscious claim about linguistic and cultural hybridity: "Philemon wrote the play and Plautus has translated it into barbarian." (Plautus Three-dollar Day 19)

3.9 Plautus is not alone is representing himself as 'translating" from Greek originals. The first name in Latin literary history is Livius Andronicus, who is seen as the creator of Latin literature and who was probably a Greek slave freed by his Roman owners. We are told that he 'translated' the Odyssey into Latin, using not the hexameter of the Greek original but the native Italian Saturnian metre, and that he produced a comedy and a tragedy at the Roman Games in 240 BCE. His dependence on Greek originals is striking, but so is his use of the Italian metre. The same choice of metre is made by his contem- porary, the epic poet Naevius, who composed an epic poem about the First Punic War. Unfortunately, only a tiny number of fragments of Livius and Naevius survive. This tension between Greek and Italian influences is one of the key notes of the early history of Latin literature, as we see when we glance at the second century BCE,

Livius Andronicus is regarded as the creator of Latin literature; translated the Odyssey into Latin, using Saturnian metre (not Greek hexameter); produced drama in 240 BCE.
Naevius followed with epic about the First Punic War; both Greeks and Italians influenced early Latin literature; only fragments survive.
The early history of Latin literature is characterized by a tension/interaction between Greek and Italian (Italic) influences.

3.10 Plautus is not alone in representing a hybrid origin in Latin literature. Livius Andronicus, who is seen as the creator of Latin literature, was likely a Greek slave freed by Roman owners. He translated the Odyssey into Latin, using Saturnian metre; 240 BCE. Naevius also used Greek influences (epic about the First Punic War). Fragments survive. The tension between Greek and Italian influences is a key note of early Latin literature.

Reiterates the Greek-Italian influence binary in early Latin literature.

3.11 Naevius' combination of mythology and history was developed by Ennius (239-169 BCE) in his epic poem, Annals. But Ennius, who was from south Italy and spoke Greek and his local Oscan as well as Latin, broke with his predecessors in developing a Latin form of the Greek hexameter for his epic. This was no easy task, as the Latin language is not ideally suited to fit this metre. This single decision had a crucial influence on the entire future of Latin literature: it sub- ordinated the native Italian influences to Greek influences and set Latin literature in a permanent relationship with Greek literature, as we shall see in Chapter 5 (for example, 5.8) and especially Chapter 14.

Ennius (239-169 BCE) develops a Latin form of the Greek hexameter in his epic Annals.
Ennius was from south Italy and spoke Greek and Oscan as well as Latin.
This adaptation subordinated Italic influences to Greek influence, shaping the future relationship of Latin to Greek literature.
The move has long-range consequences for Latin literary history as a whole.

3.12 In comparison with Classical Latin, Ennius' Latin looks archaic and unsophisticated, for example, the heavily alliterative line o Tite tute Tati tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti! (fragment 108) "Thyself to thyself, Titus Tatius the tyrant, thou tookest those terrible troubles" (in E. H. Warmington's translation). Such a judgement is, of course, unfair. Every writer should be judged by the standards of their age. Ennius was wrestling to adapt the language to his chosen forms of poetry - not just epic, but also tragedy and comedy, satire and epigram. In these different genres, he presents a range of styles. Again, we have only fragments, which makes it hard to draw firm conclusions. We can do better in the case of his contemporary, Plautus. The twenty of his plays that survive, nearly all adaptations of Greek comedies with a strong admixture of native Italian forms of drama, exhibit an astonishing range of verbal pyrotechnics, including a fair smattering of colloquial speech alongside exuberant parody of epic and tragedy. In contrast, his younger contemporary, the comic dramatist Terence, who was attached to the circle of Scipio (discussed in Chapter 7.9-16), developed a purer and more literary form of Latin for his comedies in imitation of his model Menander's Greek - and in anticipation of what we call Classical Latin. It is perhaps no surprise to learn that, although Terence claims he had some difficulties holding the audience in the theatre against rival attractions such as a tightrope walker, boxers and gladiators, his plays were used in schools as set texts from an early date, to judge from the existence of commentaries on the plays.

Ennius' Latin shows archaic features; the line "o Tite tute Tati tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti!" is a heavily alliterative example.
Ennius wrestled with adapting language to epic genres: epic, tragedy, comedy, satire, epigram; fragments limit firm judgments.
Plautus survives with about 20 plays; these are mostly adaptations of Greek comedies with Italian elements; they show wide verbal innovation and some colloquial speech.
Terence, a later contemporary, develops a purer, more literary Latin modeled on Menander; his plays are used in schools with commentaries.

3.13 By contrast with comedy, satire is a genre which the Romans claimed to have invented, without any model in Greek literature. Its carliest exponents, Ennius and later in the second century BCE Lucilius, created a robust and versatile form capable of reflecting everyday speech as well as parodying elevated poetry. Prose was later to develop than verse, as in the history of Greek literature. The crucial name here is Cato the Censor (234-149 BCE), a dominant figure in the political and cultural life of Rome in the first half of the century. His major innovation was the writing of Roman history in Latin previously Greek had been the medium but his only work that survives is a treatise on agriculture, clearly a topic close to the heart of the Roman elite, whose wealth and leisure was essentially based upon land-ownership.

Romans claim to have invented satire; early exponents Ennius and Lucilius.
Satire as a vehicle for everyday speech and parody of elevated poetry; development of prose lags behind verse.
Cato the Censor (234-149 BCE) writes in Latin about Roman life; his surviving work is De Agri cultura (On Agriculture).
Agriculture treats topics close to Roman elites (land ownership and management).

3.14 I have already indicated that our knowledge of this period and of the early literary history of Rome is severely hampered by the limited evidence that survives. So many works by so many authors that would illuminate those early stages of the development of Latin literature are lost. The same kind of limitation applies throughout the history of Latin literature. In short, it is sobering to realize that the majority of ancient literature has not survived into the modern age. How do we know this? From ancient works in which authors are listed and evaluated. For example, in a fragment from the first century BCE, a writer called Volcacius Sedigitus gives his top ten comic dramatists (preserved by Gellius, Attic Nights 15.24), as follows: in first place Caecilius Statius, then Plautus, Naevius, Licinius, Atilius, Terence, Turpilius, Trabea, Luscius and in tenth place Ennius, 'because of his great antiquity. Of these, we have complete plays only by Plautus and Terence.

Our knowledge of early Rome's literature is limited by loss of works.
Sedigitus' top ten list (1st century BCE) illustrates how much is lost and how some authors survive only in fragments or references.
We only have complete plays from Plautus and Terence among those listed.

3.15 A quotation from the famous ideal school curriculum for the trainee orator laid down by the professor of rhetoric, Quintilian, at the end of the first century CE is similarly revealing. After asserting the pre-eminence of Virgil among Roman epic poets he continues:

All our other poets are a long way behind. Macer and Lucretius are definitely worth reading, but not for the formation of style, the substance of eloquence. Both handle their themes with elegance, but Macer is uninspiring and Lucretius difficult. Varro of Atax gained his reputation through a translation but should not be despised, although his language is not rich enough to develop powers of eloquence. Let us revere Ennius like those groves which are sacred because of their age, where the huge ancient trees do not so much possess beauty as inspire awe. Other poets are closer in time and more useful for our purposes. Ovid is playful even when he writes epic and is too much in love with his own talent, but still deserves praise here and there. On the other hand, Cornelius Severus, even though he is a better versifier than poet, could have claimed second place rightfully if he had written the whole of his 'Sicilian War' in the same style as his first book. Premature death prevented Serranus from reaching his peak, but his youthful works show enormous talent and devotion of the right kind amazing in someone so young. Our recent loss in Valerius Flaccus is considerable. Saleius Bassus' talent was spirited and creative, but it did not mature with age. Rabirius and Pedo are not unworthy of attention if one has the time. Lucan is fiery and passionate and extraordinary for his epigrammatic phrases and, to express my true feelings, more suited for imitation by orators than by poets. (Quintilian, Training of the Orator 10.1.87-90)
Quintilian’s appraisal names poets whose works survive and notes the large holes in the canon; Lucretius, Ovid, Valerius Flaccus, and Lucan are among those with surviving works.
The passage highlights the selective memory of ancient literary canons and the emphasis on eloquence in rhetoric education.

3.16 Their survival was dependent upon the process of transmission from antiquity to the modern world, a process which was in turn governed by a combination of more or less conscious selection and chance. Before we can survey the hazards involved in the transmission of ancient texts, it is important to understand the physical nature of a 'book' in antiquity along with the means of publication'. In the time of Catullus or Virgil or Livy, a book did not closely resemble what we call a book today. It consisted of a long roll of papyrus with writing in columns, which was held in both hands and rolled horizontally from right to left. In the first century CE the modern form of book was invented. This was the codex, made from sheets of parchment fastened together at one edge. Initially these were just used as notebooks, but the adoption of the codex by Christians from the second century onwards guaranteed that it would become the standard form for the book and, by the fourth century, the vast majority of literary texts were in this form. They were, of course, all written by hand—which explains our term, manuscript. Until the (western) invention of the printing press in 1440, 'publication' of a text involved the creation of multiple copies. Slaves were set to work on this task, either by the author himself or by 'publishers' and 'booksellers'. In later centuries, the task of copying fell to the monks in the monasteries where the manuscripts were housed. The physical aspects of the book turn out to be highly relevant to questions of survival from antiquity.

Book forms evolved from papyrus scrolls to the codex in the 1st century CE.
Codex adoption by Christians from the 2nd century onward ensured its dominance by the 4th century.
Manuscripts were copied by hand, often by slaves or monks, until the invention of the printing press in 1440.
The material form of books (rolls vs codices) has direct implications for survival and transmission of texts.

3.17 Survival depended partly upon the physical state of the text. A text could easily be damaged - the beginning and end of the papyrus roll were particularly vulnerable, for example. Or, if a text was written on an expensive piece of parchment, it ran the risk of being washed off so the parchment could be reused. It could be affected by mould, by bookworms, by water and above all by fire. Many texts that we would have treasured were lost when the libraries which housed them burned down and when the monasteries where they were later kept and copied went up in flames during the depredations of the sixth to eighth centuries, the so-called Dark Ages. But survival also depended upon questions of choice and taste.

Texts faced physical threats: damage to papyrus ends, parchment reuse, mould, pests, water, fire.
Fires and monastery destruction during the Dark Ages caused many losses.
Editorial and cultural choices (taste, demand) influenced which texts were preserved.

3.18 Copying a manuscript was a slow and laborious business and would only be undertaken for a good reason. At every period, there were reasons why a text might not be re-copied. Some texts, like Virgil's Aeneid and the plays of Terence, were valued more or less consistently for their own sake or as pedagogic tools or both. This is proved by the existence from early times of scholarly commentaries written to illuminate these texts, such as the fourth century commentaries on Terence and Virgil by Donatus and Servius and the commentary by Macrobius on Cicero's story of the dream of Scipio (discussed at Chapter 5.26) which closes his On the Republic, a commentary which ensured the preservation of that text. Others rose and fell in favour, with some falling so far that they disappeared completely. This is a story of a series of bottlenecks. I have already mentioned the change from papyrus roll to codex form: this was the first major bottleneck and not all texts made it. Then came the radical shift brought about by the rise of Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries. Some of the 'pagan' texts of Latin literature, those which could be recuperated by Christianity, for example the Aeneid, survived, while others, such as some erotic poetry, did not. Another bottleneck occurred during the Dark Ages of the sixth to eighth centuries on continental Europe, when the political, economic and cultural situation meant that few new copies were being made and when parchment was so precious that it was reused. At such a time, religious texts took priority over pagan or secular texts. The so-called Carolingian revival under the emperor Charlemagne (768-814 CE) saw the establishment of schools attached to monasteries and the preservation (i.e. copying) of much of extant Latin literature, but the fragmentation of the empire in the ninth and tenth centuries again posed a renewed threat. The humanistic values of the Renaissance finally shifted secular literature out of the hands of the church, but even after the advent of printing - Latin texts appeared in print from the 1470s on - manuscripts were still being lost.

Copying manuscripts was gradual and motivated by perceived value (literary and pedagogical).
Donatus, Servius, Macrobius illustrate the role of scholia in preserving texts.
Bottlenecks in transmission included: shift to codex, Christianization, Dark Ages, Charlemagne’s revival, Renaissance humanism, and printing.
Some texts survived because they could be Christianized or repurposed; others did not survive due to secular content.

3.19 It is worth pausing for a moment to review a few of the losses - whether from chance or design - that we know of. First, authors of whom nothing survives: Pollio's tragedies would illuminate Seneca's dramas and if the empress Agrippina's memoirs had been preserved, they would have shed a fascinating light upon the events of the reigns of Claudius and Nero presented so negatively by Tacitus. Then, 'missing' works by extant authors: the polymath Varro's encyclopedic treatise on ancient Roman customs and religious observance is probably the most lamented lost work of Republican prose, while in verse Ovid's tragedy Medea would feature on many wish-lists. Then there are texts that survive only in fragmentary form, either by being cited by later writers or because the text is literally fragmentary. Much of Carly Latin poetry survives in the form of brief quotations in later grammarians, often chosen to illustrate an abnormal Latin usage and always isolated from their original context. This applies to Ennius' epic poem, Annals, and to his tragedies and comedies and to the satires of Lucilius, for example. In the case of Gallus, the friend of Virgil and creator of the genre of love elegy, all that survives (apart from one pentameter cited by a geographer) are a few lines on a papyrus from the sands of Egypt dating from perhaps the 20s BCE. More fragments may yet come to light from Egypt and from papyri from the libraries in Herculaneum in the Bay of Naples through the careful work of experts that is currently in progress.

Notable losses include Pollio’s tragedies and Agrippina’s memoirs.
Varro’s encyclopedia on Roman customs and religion is a lamented lost Republican prose work.
Ovid’s Medea is a commonly wished-for lost tragedy.
Much poetry survives only as fragments or brief quotations in later grammarians (often out of context).
Gallus, a friend of Virgil, is known mainly from fragments; some lines survive from a papyrus in Egypt (20s BCE).
Ongoing rediscovery from papyri and other ancient sources continues to fill gaps.

3.20 Sometimes, complete manuscripts seem to have been partially damaged at a later stage. So, what we have of Petronius' proto-novel, Satyrica, probably consists of Book 15 with parts of Books 14 and 16: only a small proportion of the whole, which may have been twenty books or more. In the case of the imperial historian Tacitus, the absence of the later books of his Histories and the middle books of his Annals is much lamented. In a few cases, we know enough about the history of a text about which manuscripts were in existence and where (we know this from the catalogues of holdings in monasteries) to appreciate how precarious its survival was. A case in point is the poetry of Catullus, which was virtually unknown during the Middle Ages and in 1300 may have existed on a single copy. A similar story applies to the love poet Propertius. A copy of Cicero's important philosophical essay On the Republic, designed as a Roman response to Plato's Republic, survived complete only until the seventh century, when the text was washed off so the codex could be reused for Augustine's commentary on the Psalms. Modern scholars have been able to recover some of Cicero's work from this palimpsest (which means a parchment 'scraped again').

Some texts survive in damaged or partial forms; Satyrica (Petronius) likely survives as Book 15 with fragments of 14 and 16.
Tacitus: later books of Histories and middle books of Annals are missing; survival depends on manuscript history.
Catullus' poetry was nearly unknown in the Middle Ages and may have survived on a single copy by 1300; Propertius similarly fragile.
Cicero’s On the Republic survived completely until the 7th century, after which the parchment was reused for Augustine’s Psalms commentary; palimpsest recovery has allowed partial restoration.

3.21 This brief glimpse of the hazards facing Latin texts in the process of transmission from antiquity to the era of the printing press might make it seem miraculous that so much has survived, more or less intact. But in the era of printing too we see similar principles of selection at work. Some texts are in vogue for decades or more, while others go for years without receiving attention from scholars and almost disappear from view, although the fact that there are numerous copies ensures their survival until periods when they are appreciated again. So for example, Valerius Maximus' collection of Memorable Acts and Sayings (first century CE), an immensely popular work throughout the Middle Ages and later, received no modern translation into English until the recent edition for the Loeb Classical Library. Different intellectual climates and educational priorities in different places value different texts. Currently, the narrowest focus is perhaps in England, where it is unusual to study any texts outside the period 90 BCE-120 CE. By contrast, students in continental Europe regularly study the Consolation of Philosophy which Boethius wrote in prison in the early sixth century.

Printing era continued to shape canon via selection and popularity, not necessarily timeless value.
Valerius Maximus was widely read in the Middle Ages but did not receive a modern English translation until recently.
England tends to focus on a narrow window (roughly 90 BCE to 120 CE); continental Europe often engages with later works such as Boethius (early 6th century).

3.22 New technology does not necessarily help. It is a wonderful fact that much of Latin literature is now available on CD-ROM and on the Internet, so making a whole library available at home to anyone interested, but this alone cannot supply new readers if Latin is out of fashion. Academics and the academic presses make decisions about which texts are suitable as set texts and merit attention. Editions and translations of these are commissioned, while other texts languish. Fashions change and even the canon of 'classic' texts changes. This might invite us to think hard about the texts that we study under the rubric of 'Latin literature' and about the concept of "the classic", a concept enshrined in the ideology of the Great Books course taught in some US universities. The canon can be regarded "at one extreme as a conspiracy of the ruling elite (seen as the self-perpetuation of the DWEMS Dead White European Males) and at the other as a collec- tion of masterpieces that transcend history", to quote from Charles Martindale's discussion of 'the classic of all Europe' - namely, Virgil. We would do well to ask who makes judgements and selections of 'classic' status, on what criteria and with what agenda, conscious and subconscious. It should by now be obvious that the creation of any canon of 'classic' texts, recommended texts, set texts, is fraught with hazard for the texts that are excluded. It is only recently that the prejudice that values texts from the so-called Golden Age of Latin literature (basically the Augustan period) over the 'Silver Latin' texts of the Carly empire has been challenged, with the rehabilitation of authors like Lucan and Statius. And yet Dante in the fourteenth century admired Lucan and Statius as among the best of the Latin poets. At any rate, I hope it is safe to predict that questioning the validity of the canon will remain an important strand of scholarship in Latin literature in the twenty-first century.

Digital age expands access but does not guarantee readership or canon acceptance.
Canon formation depends on institutional decisions (editors, publishers) and shifting educational priorities.
England vs continental Europe: different historical focal points in Latin literature.
The Great Books/“classic” concept is contested: canons can reflect power structures (e.g., Dead White European Males) or universal masterpieces; debates about inclusion/exclusion continue.
Dante’s praise of Lucan and Statius shows a long memory of authors outside the traditional Augustan canon.

Reading 1 (Braund Lat Lit) What is Latin literature? — Chapter notes (condensed)

3.2 First, deconstruction of the monolithic term 'Latin literature' invites reflection on the complexities that can be hidden by labels.

3.15 A quotation from the famous ideal school curriculum for the trainee orator laid down by the professor of rhetoric, Quintilian, at the end of the first century CE is similarly revealing. After asserting the pre-eminence of Virgil among Roman epic poets he continues:

Further reading and study