that ‘Capitolini Fasti, ut antiquiores, et florentissimi sane tem poris: ita praeclariores sunt, et m axim o in precio habendi...’.^^ W hile asserting the value of the Fasti as evidence, therefore, Marliani, Borghini and Pighius felt that it was necessary to justify th eir practice.
A nother great epigraphic discovery of the sixteenth century, the Res gestae of the em peror Augustus, had considerably less immediate im pact." O n 28 M arch 1555, three envoys from F erdinand I of Austria, Augerius Busbequius, A ntal Verantius and F ranz Zay, arrived at A nkara on their way to the O ttom an court at Amasya. T here m em bers of the party found and copied a long inscription in six columns on the inner walls of an ancient building. The earliest surviving transcription we have, made by Johannes Belsius, Verantius's secretary, for H ans Dernschw am , a G erm an m erchant w ith the ambassadors, seems to derive from an archetype copied at this tim e."
" S. Pighius, A nnales (1599), i sig. [**4]v. Pighius here suggests that th e date o f creation o f the Fasti is an im portant factor in assessing their reliability. Elsewhere, he seems to have also considered this them e. In a letter o f 1566 that Cardinal Granvelle w rote to F u lvio O rsini (BA V Vat. lat. 4105, fol. 44r, as an attachment to a letter o f 20 A ugust 1566 (fols. 42-3), quoted b y P. D e N o lh a c, ‘Lettere inedite del Cardinale de G ranvelle’, p. 251 n. 4), he enclosed a n ote Stephanus Pighius had made o n a recently-discovered extra fragm ent o f the Fasti. Pighius pointed ou t that it included a record o f tw o trium phs n ot m entioned in other sources, and w en t on, ‘de quibus cum apud alios auctores expressam m entionem non reperiem, silentium p otius agere, quam meris niti coniecturis volui; in tanta enim historiae eius tem poris penuria palpitare velut in tenebris necesse fuisset.’ H is use o f the pluperfect subjunctive here seems to refer to th e tim e in w h ich th e Fasti w ere originally inscribed, and if so, dem onstrates Pighius’s sensitivity to th e conditions in w hich th e contents o f the Fasti w ere researched.
" F or the details o f the discovery and transm ission o f the inscription, I am indebted to 2 . von Martels, ‘T he D iscovery o f the Inscription o f th e Res Gestae D iv i A u gu sti’ and W . C ouvreur, ‘Le déchiffrem ent du m onum ent d ’A n cyre’.
" T he co p y made for D ernschw am is preserved as fols. 24-9 o f his Tageshuch in th e Fiirstl. und Grafl. Fuggersches Familien- und Stiftungs-Archiv, D illingen. See W. C ouvreur, ‘Le déchiffrem ent du m on u m en t d ’A n cyre’, esp. pp. 81-5; Z. von Martels, ‘T he D iscovery o f th e Inscription o f the Res Gestae D iv i A ugusti’, n. 33; Had. Augerius Gislenius Busbequius, cols.394-8. T. M om m sen, Res gestae d iv i Augusti, pp. xviii-xix, attributes this co p y to Busbequius. Belsius does seem to have tried to m ake a co p y direct from the stone him self, having recognised that the inscription contained details o f A ugustus’s achievem ents, but w rote that he w as prevented b y crow ds from transcribing the w h ole. H is co p y for D ernschw am preserves som e parts o f th e text in detail, indicating h o w m any lines had been destroyed, and n oting the large ‘I’s; other parts are n ot in capitals, and he admits that
D espite the efforts made by members of the embassy to copy the inscription, knowledge of it did no t reach the scholarly com m unity until nearly tw enty years later. In fact, it was only w hen he was a m em ber of Maximilian Fs court in Vienna that Busbequius appears to have appreciated the im portance of any transcription made on the e m b a s s y B u s b e q u iu s was in V ienna from 1566 to 1570 and again from 1571 to 1574, and, as we saw in the first chapter, the court attracted a num ber of scholars interested in the classical w orld in this period, including Strada, Lipsius and Pighius. It seems that it was in talking to the last of these that Busbequius rem em bered the inscription that his party had transcribed in Ankara. In 1574 Pighius w rote to Karel Rijm, then the imperial ambassador in C onstantinople, but also a fellow-graduate of the Collegium trilingue at Louvain and w ith Pighius at Rom e in the 1550s.*^ H e described his w ork on w hat was to become the Annales, and reminded Rijm that Suetonius had m entioned that Augustus had ensured that a record of his achievements was inscribed at Rome.^^ A copy of this w ould clearly be useful for his research, and he had heard that it m ight exist. Pighius inquired of Rijm w hether a copy m ight be acquired, ‘C um igitur ornatissimus ac bonarum artium amantissimus vir, D. Augerius a Busbecke m ihi persuaserit A ncyrae, - in Galatia, - adhuc tem poris extare et se vidisse magnas breviarii rerum gestarum D. Augusti reliquias antiquissimis m armoris parietibus insculptas; spemque fecerit eas descriptas haberi inde p o s s e . . R i j m replied to Pighius in N ovem ber of that year, m entioning that Busbequius had also asked for a copy, but that the tw o m en’s requests had not reached him before his preparations to depart from his post: he w ould willingly have sent his ow n ‘picto r’, he w rote, but instead had passed the request on to tw o merchants and his successor.^’
the co p y w as made in haste. See 2 , v o n Martels, ‘T he D iscovery o f the Inscription o f th e Res Gestae D iv i A u gu sti’, p. 150; L. Tardy and É. M osk ovszk y, ‘Zur E ntdeckung des M onum entum
A ncyranum ’, abb. la , illustrate the first page o f Belsius’s transcription.
Busbequius’s w ritten account o f the discovery, in th e form o f a letter, does n o t date from his tim e in T urkey, but rather from betw een 1581 and 1589, as v o n Martels show s {Augerius Gislenius Busbequius, pp. 52-102 and ‘T he D iscovery o f th e Inscription o f the Res Gestae D iv i A u gu sti’, p.
150). In that account, Busbequius is w ell aware o f the inscription’s significance. ^ O n R ijm , see the notes o f S. de V riendt in the edition o f R ijm ’s Reyse va n Bruussele.
Suetonius, y4«gMst«5, ch. 101.
H . D e V och t, Stephani V inandi Pighii epistolarium , n o. 206 p. 340 (6 A ugust 1574).
H . D e V och t, Stephani V inandi Pighii epistolarium , n o. 220 p. 361 (1 N o v em b er 1574), ‘Q u od ad A ncyranas reliquias attinet, de quibus & ipse quoque clarissimus, om nique virtutum genere
Pighius and Busbequius were not the only men to appreciate the im portance of the inscription in Vienna. Later, Carolus Clusius, another scholar there at the time, recalled that he had asked Busbequius for a copy of the inscription w hen he was in the city: ‘C um Illustris H eros Augerius Bousbequius Viennae ageret, meo rogatu om nes schedarum fasciculos evolvit, ut A ncyranarum Tabularum exemplar ab ipso... exceptum, inveniret, quod mihi traderet, sed frustra: postea enim succurrit, id alicui, cuius nom en excidisset, m utuo datum, et non restitutum .’^° T he recipient of Busbequius's copy may have been Sambucus, also at Vienna: the latter w rote to Pighius at the end of August 1574 prom ising to that a copy of the ‘A ncyrana’ w ould arrive w ithin four days; w hen Pighius replied shortly afterwards, he had no t had a copy, and reminded Sambucus that he w ould like it before he left the city.^* Clusius claimed to have seen a copy in Sambucus’s possession.^^
Even w ith this new scholarly attention, knowledge of the inscription did not circulate widely. Laevinius Torrentius, for example, another Collegium trilingue graduate, resident in Rom e between 1552 and 1556, and in epistolary contact w ith classical scholars from the Low C ountries, did not m ention the inscription in his com m entary on Suetonius of 1578.^^ By the same year, however, Busbequius had managed to recover his copy. Andreas Schott went to live w ith him in Paris that year, and included a copy of the inscription Busbequius had
cum ulatissim us vir D . Bousbequius noster m ihi scribit, m axim opere d oleo adeo sero, ac in ipso prope discessus m ei vestigio, de his ad m e perscriptum esse. N a m nisi istae vestrae literae me iam plane ad iter accinctum deprehendissent, cupidissim e sane id & tibi & D . B ousbequio, cui om nia debeo, & Uteris & rei ipsae dedissem, ut A ncyram pictorem m eum m itterem , qui quicquid illud esset, inspiceret & describeret. Q u o d vero in tanta tem poris angustia p o tu i, rem hanc mandavi duobus m ercatoribus amicis, & com m endavi etiam singularibus verbis, am plissim o m ihique coniunctissim o V iro D . Baroni U ngnadio, successori m e o ...’.
C lusius’s letter is edited by Lipsius in M. Sm et, Inscriptionum liber, auctarium, p. 22, under details o f th e inscription.
H . D e V och t, Stephani V inandi Pighii epistolarium , no. 208 p. 343 (30 A ugust 1574), ‘Ancyranam om n in o intra 4 dies habebim us’; no. 209 p. 344, an undated letter, ‘D e A ncyranis laetissima nuncias, atque utinam hie ante discessum m eum videre et sim ul obiter conferre liceat’. T he letters are also edited in H . Gerstinger, D ie Briefe, pp. 160-1.
M. Sm et, Inscriptionum liher, auctarium, p. 22, ‘...exem plar quod apud D . I. Sambucum ... vidi, nullum versuum num erum , nihil quidquam sim ile observatum habere deprehendi.’
supplied him w ith in his 1579 com m entary on Aurelius V ictor/* Lipsius then included it in his appendix to Smet’s collection of inscriptions using a copy th at Verantius (an original m em ber of the embassy to the O ttom ans) had acquired. Lipsius had this copy through the offices of Clusius, w ho had received it from V erantius’s nephew in 1576. Clusius’s sensitivity to the line divisions and sizes of the letters in the inscription are evident in the note he sent to Lipsius w ith details of the inscription, and, as we saw in chapter 3, he drew Lipsius’s attention to the relevance of the inscription for the latter’s w ork on pronunciation.^® H e had even managed to have V erantius’s copy checked by a new ambassador to the O ttom ans against a version made by tw o Germans w ho had been in A nkara, despite the violence which was inflicted upon the inscription by T urkish soldiers.^*
This rather lengthy account of the history of the discovery of the text shows that in com parison w ith the Fasti, the inscription of the res gestae did not receive rapid dissemination, despite being first discovered by western scholars less than ten years after the
Andreas Schott, D e v ita et m oribus Im peratorum rom anorum , pp. 69-77. T his w ork w as dedicated to Busbequius, and Schott w rote that he com posed it ‘hortatu tu o ’, w h ile he w as in Busbequius’s ‘fam ilia’ (pp. 4-5). O f the inscription, he w rote that, ‘Augerius Busbequius, V, C. in B yzantina legatione A ncyrae in lapides incisum , quantum à Turcica vastatione reliquum factum est, describendum cura vit; & nobiscum hum aniter com m unicavit.’ (p. 69).
See ch. 3, p. 97 above.
See the letter given by Lipsius under the inscription (M. Sm et, Inscriptionum liber, auctarium, p. 22): ‘A n to n ii Verantii, A rchiepiscopi Strigoniensis examplar... sequutus sum , u ti ab eius nepote Fausto V erantio... accepi anno 1576: propterea versuum in singulis paginis num erum , characterum form am , vocabulorum divisiones, atque interdum repetitiones, ut in ipsius exem plari erant, observavi, existim ans expressum esse ad norm am Tabularum quae A ncyrae s u n t .... A n n o autem
1584, proficiscenti C onstantinopolim , C. V. Lew enclaw io cum M ag.co D n . H en rico de
Liechtenstain Caesareo Legato, Verantii exemplar dedi, ipsum pro nostra am icitia obnixe orans, ut si per occasionem A ncyram proficisceretur, diligenter cum Tabulis illis conferret, et an per om nia responderet, observaret. Ille quidem , ob gravem Legati m orbum , quo etiam istic extinctus est, id praestare n o n potuit: sed binos N o b iles G erm anos B yzantii invenit, qui superiore hiem e A ncyrae fuerant, et quae in Tabulis incisa diligenter exceperant.’ C lusius com pared th e tw o , concluding that ‘A lioq u i eorum exemplar m inus integrum fuit Verantiano: corrum puntur enim quottidie
Tabularum characteres Turcarum m ilitum insolentia, praesertim cum C hristianos eas Inscriptiones excipere conspiciunt, quod binis illis N ob ilib u s Germ anis describentibus accidit.’ Lipsius thanked Clusius for his cop y w hen announcing the publication o f his edition o f Sm et’s w ork in a letter o f 14 January 1588 {ILE 88 01 14).
Fasti. T he reflects the inaccessibility of the site and the fact that it was no t discovered by publishing antiquarian scholars, but also dem onstrates the im portance of epistolary contact. U ntil a scholar w ho regularly w rote to others got hold of a copy of the text, or until it was printed, inform ation about it was not spread. W hat are interesting for o ur purposes here are the term s used to refer to the inscription w hen it was cited in scholarly w orks. U nlike the Fasti, for the res gestae there seemed to be explicit testim ony in a classical text. T he passage of Suetonius, of which Pighius had reminded Rijm, referred to an ‘indicem rerum a se gestarum, quem [Augustus] vellet incidi in aeneis tabulis, quae ante M ausoleum statuerentur.’ The inscription began w ith the words RERVM GESTARVM DIV I AVG VSTI [...] INCISARVM IN DVABYS A H A EN EIS PILIS QVA E SV N T R O M A E PO SITA E EXEM PLAR, and there seemed to be no doubt that the inscription was a copy of w hat Suetonius mentioned. Lipsius proposed that the text of Suetonius be emended on the basis of the inscription, since the inscription refers to ‘pili’ where Suetonius had ‘tabulae’.^ In addition, it seemed that the circumstances in w hich the inscription was made were recorded. In w orks of 1583, both Ludovico C arrio and Joseph Scaliger refer to a passage in Josephus, where A nkara is called the com m on gift of Asia, and both assume th at the tow n was dedicated to Augustus to explain w hy the inscription was made.^®
M ore im portantly, the text of Suetonius identified an author for the text of the inscription, and it was cited as Augustus’s words. The text itself confirm ed this impression, as it was in the first person. As well as editing it for Smet’s collection, Lipsius made regular use of the inscription, beginning in w orks published in 1580, and referred to Augustus as the author. H e argued that in his reign the em peror increased the num ber of recipients of the corn-dole, w riting ‘Id, praeter in D ione, diserte scriptum aut scalptum in lapidibus priscis qui Ancyrae
^ J. Lipsius, A d A nnales commentarius^ p. 10, having quoted the beginning o f the inscription, ‘Ex quo haud tem ere collegerim dixerim que, in Suetonio scribendum , in aeneis pilis, n on tabulis. D e eadem re loq u i utrum que, id quidem clarum est.’