Justin Stover | University of Edinburgh (original) (raw)

Books by Justin Stover

This book rediscovers a lost history of the Roman Empire, written by Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. ... more This book rediscovers a lost history of the Roman Empire, written by Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. 320-390) and demonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of his historical work. Though little regarded today, Victor is the best-attested historian of the later Roman Empire, read by Jerome and Ammianus, honoured with a statue by the pagan Emperor Julian and appointed to a prestigious prefecture by the Christian Theodosius. Through careful analysis of the ancient evidence, including newly discovered material, this book re-examines the two short imperial histories attributed to Victor in the manuscripts, known today as the Caesares and the Epitome de Caesaribus, and discusses a wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, from Sallust and Tacitus to Eunapius and the Historia Augusta.

By providing a new account of the original scope and scale of Victor’s Historia, this book revolutionises our understanding of the writing of history in late antiquity. Not only does it have profound implications for the transmission of Classical texts in the Middle Ages and the history of Classical scholarship, but it also solves some of the enduring mysteries of later Latin literature.

Ciceroniana On Line, Dec 31, 2021

CICERONIANA ON LINE V, 2, 2021 “Cicero digitalis” Atti del convegno a cura di Alice BORGNA, Méla... more CICERONIANA ON LINE V, 2, 2021
“Cicero digitalis” Atti del convegno a cura di Alice BORGNA, Mélanie LUCCIANO
Mélanie LUCCIANO, Introduction 251
Methodologies and Models 261
Justin STOVER, The Ciceronian Book and its Influence: A Statistical Approach 263
Todd COOK, What Would Cicero Write? — Examining Critical Textual Decisions with a Language Model 285
Amedeo Alessandro RASCHIERI, Federico BOSCHETTI, Cicerone incontra Euporia 297
Case Studies 311
Eva MENGA, Per un’edizione critica digitale del De natura deorum di Cicerone. Proposta di codifica con visualizzazione tramite EVT 313
Fernanda MAFFEI, Il digitale e i papiri ciceroniani: metodi e risorse 339
Marijke CRAB, Old Books, New Technologies. The Renaissance Transmission and Reception of Cicero’s Letters as a Case in Point 357
Cicero in the digital Classroom 375
Lidewij VAN GILS, Christoph PIEPER, «Cicero goes further». Reflections on a New Digital Commentary on Cicero’s Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino 377
Alice BORGNA, Conclusioni. Complesso, sfidante, ostico. In una parola: digitale 391
Comptes rendus – Recensioni 399
Christoph PIEPER, Bram VAN DER VELDEN (eds.), Reading Cicero’s Final Years: Receptions of the Post-Caesarian Works up to the Sixteenth Century. With Two Epilogues (K. MARCINIAK) 401
Tommaso RICCHIERI, Prima della Sicilia. Cicerone, Verrine 2,1. (De praetura urbana), 1-102, Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento (S. ROZZI) 407
Juan Carlos IGLESIAS-ZOIDO (ed.), Conciones ex historicis excerptae. Nuevos estudios sobre las antologías de discursos historiográficos (P. KONTONASIOS) 412
Lisa MAURICE (ed.), Our Mythical Education. The Reception of Classical Myth Worldwide in Formal Education, 1900-2020 (A. MANDRINO) 419
Bulletin bibliographique – Bollettino bibliografico (S. ROZZI) 425
Abstracts – Key Words 429

A New Work by Apuleius presents what may be the first lengthy Latin text from antiquity to be pub... more A New Work by Apuleius presents what may be the first lengthy Latin text from antiquity to be published in almost a century. Marshalling evidence from the text, intertextual relationships, stylistics, stemmatics, codicology, and philosophy, it lays out a compelling case for attributing this work--a summary of 14 of Plato's dialogues--to the second-century polymath Apuleius, author of the Apology, the Florida, the Metamorphoses, and the De Platone, an introduction to Plato for Latin readers.

First discovered by Raymond Klibansky, the text is transmitted in one important, but neglected, manuscript of Apuleius' philosophical works. In this volume, Stover reveals that this new work is in fact the lost third book of the De Platone, and provides the key to understanding Apuleius' use and interpretation of Plato. The volume demonstrates that the new work is one of the only extant examples of scholastic ephemera from antiquity, allowing us to see how Apuleius shaped his notes from reading Plato into an independent treatise. Situated between the Latin and Greek worlds as a Latin summary of a Greek text, the new work offers a fascinating insight into the practice of translation in the Latin world, the scholarly methods of antiquity, the development of Middle Platonism, and sheds new light on an under-appreciated facet of a celebrated author.

Papers by Justin Stover

The Journal of Medieval Latin, 2023

If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us. In recen... more If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us.

In recent years, a consensus has begun to develop that Einhard had read the Historia Augusta and that he used it in his Vita Karoli magni. In particular, scholars have argued that he must have drawn the rare word dicaculus from the text. In this article, we first review the history of the idea that Einhard had read the HA, then show how weakly grounded it is. In particular, we demonstrate that it is very unlikely that the text was his source for dicaculus. We conclude with some thoughts on the way that this might influence recent debate over the HA in the Carolingian period.

Revue d'Histoire des Textes, 2023

If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us. This stu... more If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us.

This study brings together the evidence for the circulation of an important monument of early medieval scholarship, the Scholia Vallicelliana to Isidore, which Claudia Villa brilliantly attributed to Paul the Deacon in 1984. Starting from the Vallicelliana manuscript itself, we proceed to bring together the disparate published scholarship on other traces of the text, most of which are linked to southern Italy and Monte Cassino itself – a fact which supports the attribution to Paul. We then adduce a new piece of evidence: an interpolated passage in a manuscript of Vindicianus’ Gynaecia, produced in Bavaria around 1200. This interpolation may give us evidence for the Scholia’s circulation north of Alps, or alternatively, might suggest that the interpolated text of Vindicianus was originally produced at Monte Cassino. In either case, however, this new find gives us some evidence that the text had an impact in Northern Europe.

This article examines the influence of Sallust on Hegesippus, the fourth-century historian and ad... more This article examines the influence of Sallust on Hegesippus, the fourth-century historian and adaptor of Josephus (commonly referred to as pseudo-Hegesippus). Analysis of the structure of his work reveals that Hegesippus strove to write in five books to mirror the Histories of Sallust. Consideration of the lengths of those books and of other evidence then shows that Sallust’s Histories were themselves written in five substantial books of c. 20,000 words. Finally, it is suggested that comparison of writers in the Sallustian tradition may be able to expand our knowledge of Sallust’s largely lost magnum opus

Journal of Roman Studies

Lurking in the Historia Augusta's life of the short-lived Emperor Carus is what appears to be... more Lurking in the Historia Augusta's life of the short-lived Emperor Carus is what appears to be a reference to the genuine contemporary poet Nemesianus and an extant work by him, the Cynegetica. Given the HA's predilection for ‘bogus authors’, this is rather surprising, but because some of what the HA says about Nemesianus is true, the otherwise unique details of his life and works that it provides have been generally accepted. We show first that the reference to the Cynegetica is an incorporated gloss in the text of the HA, one that reveals that the text was being read and studied in northern Francia. We then demonstrate that the name ‘Olympius’, which the HA gives to Nemesianus, is not authentic, offering an analysis of the text's onomastic habits more generally. We show that ‘Olympius Nemesianus’ is one of several invented authors in the HA, lent a superficial plausibility by borrowing the name of a real ancient writer. Finally, we reflect on the way that these conclusi...

The Journal of Roman Studies, 2022

Lurking in the Historia Augusta's life of the short-lived Emperor Carus is what appears to be a r... more Lurking in the Historia Augusta's life of the short-lived Emperor Carus is what appears to be a reference to the genuine contemporary poet Nemesianus and an extant work by him, the Cynegetica. Given the HA's predilection for ‘bogus authors’, this is rather surprising, but because some of what the HA says about Nemesianus is true, the otherwise unique details of his life and works that it provides have been generally accepted. We show first that the reference to the Cynegetica is an incorporated gloss in the text of the HA, one that reveals that the text was being read and studied in northern Francia. We then demonstrate that the name ‘Olympius’, which the HA gives to Nemesianus, is not authentic, offering an analysis of the text's onomastic habits more generally. We show that ‘Olympius Nemesianus’ is one of several invented authors in the HA, lent a superficial plausibility by borrowing the name of a real ancient writer. Finally, we reflect on the way that these conclusions might undermine two developing tendencies in the study of the Historia Augusta.

The Epitome de Caesaribus is universally assumed to be a work of the late fourth or early fifth c... more The Epitome de Caesaribus is universally assumed to be a work of the late fourth or early fifth centuries. In this article, we demonstrate that the Epitome was in fact compiled at some point after the middle of the sixth century, by showing on textual and philological grounds that it has drawn extensively on the Romana of Jordanes (written c. 551/2). We then explore some of the implications of this re-dating for our understanding of the text and its reception in late antiquity

One of the most curious manuscripts of the De uiris illustribus is Biblioteca dei Girolamini, XL ... more One of the most curious manuscripts of the De uiris illustribus is Biblioteca dei Girolamini, XL pil. VI, no. XIII. This manuscript has been thought either to go back to the early Veronese humanist Giovanni de Matociis, or to contain authentic ancient information. We demonstrate that the manuscript has nothing to do with Matoci, but is closely linked to Giacomo Filippo Foresti, a latefifteenth-century historian. Its chief feature of interest is that it shares some readings with another branch of the tradition of the DVI, the Corpus Aurelianum, thus providing new evidence for the circulation of that textUno de los manuscritos del De uiris illustribus (DVI) más curiosos es Nápoles, Biblioteca dei Girolamini, XL pil. VI, no. XIII. Entre los rasgos que se han asociado a este manuscrito se encuentran dos: que se remonta al temprano humanista veronés, Giovanni de Matociis, y que contiene información antigua auténtica. Demostramos que el manuscrito no tiene nada que ver con Matoci, sino qu...

The length of books in the era of the bookroll has never received more than sporadic attention. U... more The length of books in the era of the bookroll has never received more than sporadic attention. Using electronic counting methods, this study constructs statistical models of the Ciceronian book in three different genres, rhetoric, philosophy, and epistolography, and argues that Cicero's literary production marks an inflection point in the development of the Roman literary book, and whose book-model would influence literary production down to the age of Apuleius and Gellius.

Imitative Series and Clusters from Classical to Early Modern Literature, 2020

Classical Philology, 2020

tity and Deviance in the Saturae of Juvenal. PhD diss., University of Michigan. Hastings, James, ... more tity and Deviance in the Saturae of Juvenal. PhD diss., University of Michigan. Hastings, James, ed. 1908–26. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. New York. Henderson, Jeffrey. 1991. The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy. Oxford. Hendry, Michael. 1995–96. Iuuenalia. MCr 30–31: 253–66. Keane, Catherine. 2015. Juvenal and the Satiric Emotions. Oxford. Kißel, Walter. 2014. Juvenal (1962–2011). Lustrum 55. Göttingen. Krenkel, Werner. 1987. Figurae Veneris, II. WZRostock 36.6: 49–56. Kwintner, M. 1992. Plautus Pseudolus 782: A Fullonius Assault. CP 87: 232–33. Lentano, Mario. 1995. Le matrone e il simulacro. Giovenale 6.303–310. BStudLat 25: 74–89. Mencacci, Francesca. 1999. Päderastie und lesbische Liebe: Die Ursprünge zweier sexueller Verhaltensweisen und der Unterschied der Geschlechter in Rom. In Rezeption und Identität: Die kulturelle Auseinandersetzung Roms mit Griechenland als europäisches Paradigma, ed. Gregor Vogt-Spira and Bettina Rommel, 60–80. Stuttgart. Miller,...

Authorship studies have long played a central role in stylometry, the popular subfield of DH in w... more Authorship studies have long played a central role in stylometry, the popular subfield of DH in which the writing style of a text is studied as a function of its author’s identity. While authorship studies come in many flavors, a remarkable aspect is that the field continues to be dominated by so-called ‘lazy’ approaches, where the authorship of an anonymous document is determined by extrapolating the authorship of a document’s nearest neighbor. For this, researchers use metrics to calculate the distances between vector representations of documents in a higher-dimensional space, such as the well-known Manhattan city block distance. In this paper, we apply the minmax metric to the problem of authorship verification.

Ciceroniana On Line, Dec 31, 2021

The Journal of Medieval Latin, 2023

If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us. In recen... more If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us.

Revue d'Histoire des Textes, 2023

If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us. This stu... more If you would like to read a digital offprint of this article, please contact one of us.

Journal of Roman Studies

The Journal of Roman Studies, 2022

Imitative Series and Clusters from Classical to Early Modern Literature, 2020

Classical Philology, 2020

Journal of Roman Studies, 2020

This paper presents a new manuscript of part of theHistoria Augustafrom Erlangen, which vindicate... more This paper presents a new manuscript of part of theHistoria Augustafrom Erlangen, which vindicates a more than century-old hypothesis by E. Patzig: that the 1489 Venice edition of the work is textually valuable. On this basis, and building on the recent work of R. Modonutti, I present five new passages that are not printed in modern editions of theHA, six lacunose passages restored, and propose that the lost Murbach manuscript is the source. Armed with this new evidence, I re-examine the question of the great lacuna between theLives of Maximus and Balbinusand theLives of the Two Valerians, showing that it is a codicological — and not authorial — feature.

Exemplaria Classica, 2015