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| Livio Andronico |
Corso (4 ore) di
cultura latina da tenere, in inglese, nel Pontificio Ateneo Salesiano il 14
luglio dalle 9, 30 a studenti polacchi e cinesi.
Mi scuso per la
povertà del mio inglese ma devo insegnare la cultura latina ed è sufficiente
che quanto dico sia comprensibile a chi mi ascolta o mi legge.
Se non lo fosse,
avvisatemi per favore: dum doceo, disco,
while I teach, I learn.
I Lezione pp. 1-5
The origins of literature and of the laws. Odusīa
and the XII tables
The first
latin literature was born as translation of greek literature: Livio Andronico (born 272) in III
century before Christ translates jOduvvsseia in Odusīa:
[Andra moi e[nnepe,
Mou'sa, poluvtropon, o}ς mavla pollav (I, 1).
The first
line translated in latin is: Virum mihi
Camēna, insĕce versutum.
the man
sing to me, Muse, versatīle, who very much- (was forced to wander and suffer
and so on)
Latin
literature continues to translate and imitāte the greeks models in following
centuries.
A latin
writer, author of I cent. a. C., Quintiliano (35-95) writes: satira quidem tota nostra est”[1], the satīre is certainly all ours.
Lucilio
(180-102) was the first author of satires, the second was Orazio (65- 8) who Lucilium fluere lutulentum et esse aliquid
quod tollere possis putat, thinks that Lucilio flow muddy and in his work
there is something that you can take away. So Orazio refined the genre that
went on with Persio (34-62) and Giovenale (60-130). The metre of satire is
hexameter.
Quintiliano,
a pedagogist, claims the satiric genre as autochthonous roman. The second genre
in the classification of autochtonia, according to Quintiliano, is elegy,
poetry whose theme, subject predominant among latin writers is love: elegīa quoque Graecos provocamus (Institutio oratoria, X, 93), also in
elegy we can challenge the greeks authors. The most important elegiac poets are
Cornelio Gallo (69-26 a. C.), Tibullo (54-19), Properzio (49-15), Ovidio (43-
17 a. C.), defined lascivus, dissolute,
by
Quintiliano. For instance he writes that to know girls the men must go to
theater, where the women spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae"[2] , come in order to see and come to
be seen themselves.
In fact the
christian authors as Tertulliano (150-220) and Agostino (354-430) condemned the
theatrical performances. Saint Agostino in his book Confessiones[3] (Co nfessions) calls his youthful
passion for theater miserabilis insania, deplorable madness, insanity,
(III, 2).
The metre
is elegiac couplet. May be we’ll deal later with these genre more autochtonous.
Well, apart
from satire and elegy epic poetry, dramatic genre, tragedy and comedy, lyric
poetry are all imitations, even if with variations, of Greek models. On the
other hand, much part of English and generally European literature depends on
Greek patterns: one can think of connection among Plutarco (through Amyot and
T. North who translated the greek author, the first into french, the second
form french to english) and Shakespeare, or to remember the mythical method of
T. S. Eliot who, in a famous review[4] of Ulixes[5] by Joyce, defined the mythical
method in opposition to narrative method as the way to give a form, one shape,
and a meaning, a significance, to this huge panorama of vulgarity and anarchy
that is the contemporaneous world.
"Instead of narrative method, we may now use
the mythical method ". Mythical means comparative.
His poems The waste land (1922) is full of
quotations from classical writers.
I mean that
through the mediation of latin language, the greek culture and literatur has
strongly influenced all the European culture. As regards language, 75 words on
hundred of English language have an etymological relationship with latin words.
English is a Germanic language “neo latin ad
honorem”.
Translation
of greek masterpieces was in origin a training to reach a certain originality.
Nevertheless,
there are also assertions of superiority of some part of the latine culture,
especially of juridical culture. With regard to laws, Cicero (106-43 b. C.)
boasts the Code of Twelve Tables of half V century b. C,: duodecim tabularum leges collected by decemviri legibus scribundis.
He writes: bibliothecas me hercule omnium philosophorum unus mihi videtur
XII tabularum libellus [...] et auctoritatis pondere et utilitatis
ubertate superare » (De oratore,
I, 44, 195)
I think that the small book of XII tables
surpasses in weight, importance of authority and richness of utility the
libraries of all philosophers.
In the word
utilitas we can recognize the
pragmatism of latin culture.
Cicero
thinks that XII Tables are the kind of good law, as the roman Constitution, is
the best
In the
first book of Res publica of Cicero
(I, 45) the character of Scipio junior says that the best form of government is
genus moderatum et permixtum tribus,
the constitution moderate and mixed with three kinds: monarchy, aristocracy and
democracy, id est, that’s to say: consules, senatus, populus.
This idea
comes from Polibio (200-118) and his mikth; politeiva, mixed constitution.
Tito Livio (59 b. C. -17 a. C.) in age of Augustus calls
these ancient roman Code fons omnis
publici privatique iuris (III, 34, 6) , the source of all public and private
law.
One of this
laws contains the crādle, birthplace of Mafia and of Italian bad use, rotten
custom, of recommendation, introduction: it says: “Patronus si clienti fraudem fecerit, sacer esto " VIII, 2, if
the patron, the godfather, will defraud, cheat, the client, follower, he must
be damned, cursed.
See also the
first Ecloga of Bucolica (carmina) pastoral poetry, of augustan poet Virgilio
(70-19): it is the history of a reccomandation: the shepherd Meliboeus has lost
his expropriated lands given to veteran soldiers of triumvirs after the battle
of Filippi (42 b. C.). Well, the second shepherd, Tityrus, alter ego of
Virgilio, went to Rome where he knew Ottaviano, and for intercession of him had
again his fields.
The laws of
XII tables are very hard: they provide death penalty for the thief who steals
in the night: Si nox furtum faxit, si im
occisit, iure caeso esto (VIII, 12) Is archaic latin. If one steals in the
night, if the man robbed kills him, it is legal.
It is’nt quite outdated: Salvini, leader of Lega
party, requests the same in these days.
Another article
(V, 1) order: “Feminas, etsi perfectae
aetatis sint, in tutela esse, exceptis virginibus Vestalibus, women, also
when they become grown up, adult, must be under guardianship, except (save,
but) virgin vestals (priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of hearth, of home)
This
subordinate condition of the women begins to change only from the second
century b. C.
Cato senior, the censor (in 184 b. C.) who speaks
in senate against women who, in 195 b. C. manifest against a sumptuary law (lex Oppia) that after the battle of
Canne (216) had ordered restrictions to the luxury of women. But Cato speaks
against every emancipation of women. He is afraid of it.
"Maiores nostri nullam, ne privatam quidem
rem agere feminas sine tutore auctore voluerunt, in anu esse parentium,
fratrum, virorum (...) date frenos impotenti naturae et indomito animali et
sperate ipsas modum licentiae facturas (...) omnium rerum libertatem,
immo licentiam , si vere dicere volumus, desiderant" (Tito
Livio 59 b. C.-17 a. C. , Ab urbe condita
libri 142, XXXIV, 2, 11-14), our ancestors did non want that women could handle
any business not even private without a curator, guardian; they had to remain
under the check of fathers, brothers, husbands (…) relax the brakes, the reins,
to a nature so intemperate, to a unruly, riotous creature and after you can
hope (ironically) that they will give alone, spontaneously, a limit to the liberty
(…) they want, they miss freedom, rather, liberty in all fields, if we want to
call it with the right name.
In this
beginning of II century the women began to free themselves, but in the V cent.
b. C. all the family was still subject to the power of father in family: patria potestas, was very strong: almost
a slavery of the sons.
The article
IV, 2 orders: Si pater filium ter
venumdit, filius a patre liber esto, if the father sells thrice the son,
the son must be free from father.
The ten
legislators of biennium 451-450 b. C., decemviri,
were removed with accusations of tyranny because their laws constituted anyway
a limit to patrician’s power, but several centuries later Cicero writes that the greek legilslators Licurgo, Dracone, Solone,
were inferiors and “ tum facillime
intelligetis quantum praestiterint nostri maiores prudentiā ceteris gentibus
si cum illorum Lycurgo et Dracone et
Solone nostras leges conferre volueritis” (De oratore I, 197) then you can very easily understand how much our
ancestors were superior to all people in wisdom if you want to confront our
laws with Licurgo (Spartan), Dracone (Athenian), Solone (Athenian) of those
(greeks).
Incredibile est enim, quam sit omne ius civile
prater hoc nostrum inconditum ac paene ridiculum, in fact is unbelievable how much is every
civil right but this ours, confused and almost ridiculous
Anyway
those three greek legislators were glorified and almost deified, while Appio
Claudio, leader of decemviri was accused of violence against the girl Virginia
and he had to go into exile and, committed for trial, killed himself. (cfr.
Livio, III, 33 ss.).
All the
same the juridic culture is one of the prides of Latin writers.
The relative value of the laws
Tacito (50-120) supports in polemic that law is less
strong than the custom: “Nemo illic vitia
ridet, plusque ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges (Germania[6],
19), nobody there (in Germany) mocks vices and good customs are worth there
more than good laws somewhere else
The polemic
of Tacito is against the new laws: he thinks that the XII Tables duodecim tabulae were finis aequi iuris (Annales, III, 27) the last fair laws, afterwards they became too
many, untill, in his time corruptissima
re publica, plurimae leges, more corrupt is the State, more numerous are
the laws.
In the IV
book of Annales (36) Tacito writes: leves ignobiles poenis adficiebantur, only not important non
famous persons were struck by the law. This happened under Tiberio (14-37) and
continued later. The Annales were
written after 105 a. C.
See
Plutarco (46-125), Life of Solone (5,
2, 4) where Scytian Anacarsi says to athenian legislator (was elected and
nominated a[rcwn,-archon-
nomoqevth"-
legislator- kai; diallakthv" –reconciling-in 594 b. C.) that his laws are similar to
spider’s webs: they retains only little and weak animals.
CONTINUA
tocco giovanna
RispondiElimina