Roger Pearse

Would someone with access to the Proquest database of theses, kindly obtain an electronic copy of this thesis for me?

THE "CARMEN AD QUENDAM SENATOREM": DATE, MILIEU, AND TRADITION
by BEGLEY, RONALD BRUCE Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1984, 303 pages; AAT 8415790

Drop me a private message and I'll send you my email address.

The work covers the conversion of a senator back to paganism and the cult of Cybele.

Many thanks,

Roger Pearse

hatsoff

My NIU account gives me access to all NIU theses in Proquest, but not those theses submitted at other universities. I have to wonder if this is standard--that only someone with a Chapel Hill account could download the pdf in question.

It's selling for $43 (+tax/shipping?) in hardcopy. I did not see it available in pdf or any other electronic format at all.

The abstract, if you find it to be of any use, is as follows:

This dissertation is an investigation of the date, milieu, addressee, authorship, transmission and influence of the Carmen ad quendam senatorem (Clauis patrum no. 1432).

The first chapter examines the scholarship on the Carmen, particularly the view that it was written at Rome during the Eugenian rebellion of 393-4 and illustrates a climate of disaffection' from Christianity in senatorial circles.

The second chapter enumerates the difficulties of this dating. An examination of the key sources fails to substantiate Bloch's notion of an intense pagan resurgence in the capital, attended by disaffection and apostasy.

The third chapter addresses the problems in Cracco Ruggini's recent attempt to assign the Carmen to the period between 383-390. She fails to establish that a wave of apostasies from Christianity took place in the period after Gratian's death, that the Carmen presupposes the existence of a coalition of Arians, Jews and pagans, or that this period saw a resurgence of bloody sacrifice. On the other hand, her persuasive identification of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus as the subject of the Carmen aduersus paganos (Clauis patrum no. 1431) strengthens the case for assigning the Carmen to the 380s.

The fourth chapter presents new evidence which supports Cracco Ruggini's conclusions about the poem's date and milieu. The poet displays familiarity with Juvenal's Satires; it was precisely during the 380s that Christian writers in Gaul and Italy began to quote him extensively. The poet's recourse to formal verse satire becomes more intelligible when the Carmen is placed side by side with Jerome's prose satires of the 380s. The description of paganism in the poem bears a relation to the underlying realities of Roman paganism at that period. The Carmen displays affinities with Probus' funeral epitaph at St. Peter's and Damasus' Elogium S. Tiburtii.

The fifth chapter examines the transmission of the Carmen. The earliest surviving manuscripts of the poem were copied at Carolingian centers in southern Gaul early in the ninth centurty, particularly at Lyons and her satellites. A number of indications suggest that the poem passed from Italy to southern Gaul by way of the Iberian peninsula, perhaps in an anthology of early Christian poetry.

Bart Ehrman is at Chapel Hill, I think, and his email is on his website. Maybe he could help out. Alternatively, you could call up the Chapel Hill library and ask them to email you a copy.

Roger Pearse

Many thanks indeed. I had not realised that the dissertation wasn't available in full. How very provoking.

I'll ask the Chapel Hill library, but I don't know if they will cooperate. I've just had a funny experience at Boston College, who want me to write to some religious order for permission before they will email me a thesis from 1937! Library staff can be funny people. But worth a try!