The Cosmography of Aeticus Ister- fifth century AD



Aethicus Ister (Aethicus of Istria) was the protagonist of the 7th/8th-century Cosmographia written by a man of church Hieronymus. It describes the travels of Aethicus around the world, and includes descriptions of foreign peoples in usually less than favourable terms. There are also numerous passages which deal directly with the legends of Alexander the Great


Aethicus alphabet
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The Medieval Review 13.04.01
Herren, Michael W. The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister: Edition, Translation, and Commentary. Turnhout: Brepols, 2011. Pp. cxix, 360. $124.00. ISBN: 978-2-503-53577-7.
Reviewed by:
Natalia Lozovsky

lozovsky@yahoo.com

The so called Cosmography of Aethicus Ister is one of the most difficult and puzzling early medieval texts. Posing as St. Jerome, an anonymous eighth-century author claims that his description of the world was largely based on the work by an otherwise unknown Scythian philosopher Aethicus. The two narrators, "Hieronymus presbyter" and Aethicus, take turns describing the structure of the universe and travels to known and unknown lands, also discussing other random subjects, such as types of ships and alphabet. Written in idiosyncratic Latin, the Cosmography has the appearance of a serious scholarly treatise, and it also parodies certain conventions of the contemporary learned discourse. The first modern edition of this text was produced by Otto Prinz in 1993. [1] The Cosmography, however, has been an object of intense study since the appearance of its earliest editions in the 1850s. The text's sources, Latinity, and literary characteristics have been thoroughly investigated; ingenious hypotheses concerning its goals, authorship, and time of composition have been proposed and rejected. [2] Many problems still remain, beginning with the anonymous author's language, strongly deviating from classical Latin and full of rare or invented words. Until now, this text has never been fully translated into any modern language and much of the research has been published in German. Professor Herren's book, based on his research of many years, is a significant milestone in the study of the Cosmography. The book includes a detailed 113-pages introduction, a new critical edition of the text, a translation, and a comprehensive commentary.

The introduction begins with a useful summary of the current state of the question and goes on to explore all aspects of the text, from its sources, language, and literary features to hypotheses concerning authorship to the principles of the new edition. Most scholars nowadays seem to agree that the Cosmography should be classified as a literary forgery, and the introduction meticulously investigates the text's narrative structure and literary features. Further developing arguments that he proposed in his earlier work, Herren demonstrates how the anonymous author deliberately employed different style for each of his both chief characters and used other narrative devices, such as telescoping of time (xvii). After analyzing the contents of the work, Herren turns to exploring how the anonymous author worked with his sources, classifying the usage into five broad categories, from works cited verbatim to sources that inspired the style and structure of the work. The conclusion that the anonymous author used a relatively small number of books appears well-founded. Herren's evidence shows that while Isidore's Etymologies and the Bible were most extensively used, other sources (which may have included a Latin translation of Cosmas Indicopleustes' Topographia Christiana provided only a narrow range of quotations. This evidence also suggests that the anonymous author may have made excerpts of potentially useful works while travelling to various libraries (lv).

Herren's hypothetical reconstruction of the milieu in which the work was composed and of the author's life is both imaginative and solidly grounded in historical investigation. On the basis of dated sources and internal references to contemporary events, the Cosmography is dated not much later than 727, the publication date of the Liber Historiae Francorum, a source which the anonymous author definitely used (lxi). Herren further suggests that the author travelled extensively through Western Europe (including Ireland and England), collecting excerpts for a future work. For the work's composition the author would require a good library that had copies of Isidore's Etymologies and Orosius' Histories, as well as more rare books. After examining various possibilities, Herren comes to a convincing conclusion that Bobbio, a continental center that had good connections to monastic libraries in the region of Lake Constance and historical Bavaria, is an attractive candidate (lxxiii). From Herren's tentative chronology of the anonymous author's life, there emerges an intriguing figure, a man who may have started out as an indentured shipwright, then escaped and wandered through Francia, Ireland and England. That man received some education at a monastic school and may have been involved in ecclesiastical administration. After he settled down at Bobbio, he completed his Cosmography and died probably around 740 (lxxvii).

This reconstruction finds further support in the next section of the introduction that discusses the anonymous author's Latinity. Herren gives a detailed analysis of the text's linguistic features, with a particular emphasis on morphology, syntax, and vocabulary as the areas that had previously received less attention. Demonstrating that his linguistic data are consistent with those of literary texts from Francia and northern Italy produced between the late sixth and later eighth century, Herren argues that from the standpoint of language the Cosmography should be placed in the context of continental works such as the Liber Historiae Francorum and the Chronicle of Fredegar (xcix-c).

The new edition is based on the same manuscripts as the recent edition by Prinz (namely, the five oldest witnesses to the text that date from the late eighth century to the last quarter of the ninth century), but it differs in its approach. In order to bring more clarity to the Latin text, Herren goes further than Prinz, addressing many omissions and lacunae that Prinz had left alone and correcting a larger number of erroneous readings. The new edition also has a different punctuation that makes it easier for the reader to follow the Latin. The major changes made to Prinz's text are helpfully listed (cx-cxii). Herren's editorial decisions serve to clarify the text without correcting it according to classical norms. Rather than seeing the errors as a product of faulty transmission, Herren accepts that some of them may have been made by the author himself, and some may have been intended as neologisms. [3] For instance, where in one case Prinz choses the more familiar reading "philosophorum" (Prinz, p. 152.14), Herren follows the manuscripts that have "philosophomorum" (58b.11), translating the word as "the lovers of false wisdom." In his commentary, he suggests that this word, formed from three Greek roots, was intended to complement or gloss the reference to 1 Cor. 1.20 (220).

The translation successfully conveys the ways in which the anonymous author expressed himself. It follows the difficult Latin as closely as possible, reflecting the author's stylistic devices and explaining his errors and deficiencies. The detailed commentary further guides the reader by discussing textual problems, pointing out sources, identifying toponyms. The commentary reveals many details that had not been noticed before, expanding, among other things, our understanding of humor in the Cosmography. So, in one instance, the anonymous author refers to "Tullius and Cicero" as if they were two different persons. While exploring the possibility that the anonymous author made an error because he misunderstood a number of passages in Macrobius, Herren also suggests that this may be seen as the author's silly joke (xliii, 242).

With this volume, Professor Herren has brought the studies of the Cosmography to a new level. His masterful interpretation of the text opens new directions of inquiry, and it may generate useful debates. The book also makes important contributions to a broad range of questions, from the fine points of early medieval Latin to the history of scientific thought to the practices of editing difficult texts.

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Notes:

1. Otto Prinz, ed., Die Kosmographie des Aethicus, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 14 (Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1993).

2. One of the most radical recent hypotheses was proposed by Vittorio Peri, "La Cosmographia dell' Anonimo di Histria e il suo compendio dell' VIII secolo," in Vestigia: Studi in onore di Giuseppe Billanovich, ed. Rino Avesani et al. (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1984), 503-558. For refutation, see Patrick Gautier Dalché, "Du nouveau sur Aethicus Ister?: A propos d'une théorie récente," Journal des savants 3-4 (1984): 175-186. Note that in the book under review the latter author's name is cited incorrectly.

3. Michael Herren, "Is the Author Really Better than his Scribes?: Problems of Editing Pre-Carolingian Latin Texts," The Ars edendi lecture, The Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 21 September 2010 (available online at http://medievaltexts.utoronto.ca/2012/01/papers-from-the-ars-edendi- workshop-2010/).

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Æthicus Ister

http://www.voskrese.info/spl/XethicIster.html
Date unknown
Christian cosmological writer, noted for his almost unreadably complex Latin style. (The work claims to have been translated by St. Jerome from a "Scythic" language.) Because "Ister" means "Danube", Æthicus is assumed to have had ties to Central or Eastern Europe, and Romanian historians have claimed him as a Daco-Romanian. Western scholars, on the other hand, usually consider him Irish on the basis of his style and content, presumably one of the Irish Orthodox missionaries to the Continent. Older scholarly sources confidently identify him as St. Virgil O'Neal, who worked in Austria and was wrongly accused of heresy partly on the basis of his unusual geographical theories, but more recent authors seem less convinced of this identification.

- From Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography. With a partial synopsis of the Cosmography. --- Isidore of Seville
- Heinz Löwe: Ein literarischer Widersacher des Bonifatius, Virgil von Salzburg, und die Kosmographie des Aethicus Ister, (1952). Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1952.
- Heinz Löwe: Die "Vacetae insolae" und die Entstehungszeit der Kosmographie des Aethicus Ister, (1975). Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters (31): 1.
- Ian Wood: Aethicus Ister -- an exercise in difference, (2000). in W. Pohl and H. Reimitz, eds., Grenze und Differenz im frühen Mittelalter, [Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences].
Æthicus Ister's Special Alphabet:
- Heinz Löwe: Aethicus Ister und das alttürkische Runenalphabet (1976). Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters (32): 1.
- Otto Prinz: Untersuchungen zur Ueberlieferung und zur Orthographie der Kosmographie des Aethicus, (1981). Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters (37): 474.
- D. A. Trifonov: Aethicus Ister's Alphabet. --- Bulgarian Alphabets
WORKS:
- Cosmographia:
  - Die Kosmographie des Aethicus, Latin text edited by Otto Prinz. MGH (QGM) 14, 1993.

4

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Cosmographia aethicus ister, ed. Karl August Friedrich Pertz (Berlin 1853) [Google Books]

https://books.google.com/books?id=H2wDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA96&dq=Cosmographia+aethicus+ister&as_brr=1&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Cosmographia%20aethicus%20ister&f=false

EBOOK-Free In Latin

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‘Lucan’ and ‘Aethicus Ister’

Richard Pollard

+ Author Affiliations

Trinity College, Cambridge
http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/1/7

THE Cosmographia of Aethicus Ister, edited most recently by Otto Prinz,¹ is really something of a misnomer. The text as we have it purports to be written by Saint Jerome, who is editing the work of a pagan philosopher known as Aethicus Ister.² It is clear that this ‘editor’ could not possibly be Jerome (and hence I will call him pseudo-Jerome) if only from the sources he uses, such as Isidore of Seville (d. 636),³ if not for his barbarous Latin. The story is essentially one of a travelogue, where pseudo-Jerome describes Aethicus Ister voyaging around the known world, from Ireland to Greece and beyond, making note of customs, culture, and wildlife. The account is fanciful without doubt, as it includes visits with non-existent races, such as the Cynocephali, passages on the wonders of Alexander the Great, and rather silly linguistic jaunts, such as remarkable amounts of alliteration.

The Cosmographia, has been variously dated and located over the course of the past 150 years. In the Middle Ages, pseudo-Jerome fooled his audience into accepting his identity claim, a deception that amazingly lasted until the nineteenth century.⁴ The theory that held the greatest sway in the mid twentieth century was that of Heinz Lowe, who posited that author of the Cosmographia was none other than Virgil, bishop of Salzburg. He considered the work an ironical piece against Boniface, who had accused him of maintaining the existence of the Antipodes.⁵ This argument began to fall from favour when close examination of the manuscript evidence indicated that the archetype⁶ was likely composed prior to 750, and perhaps rather before, conflicting with the known dates of Virgil's activity.⁷ Recent scholarship on date has ranged all over the map, though the current manuscript knowledge grounds it somewhat

University of Chicago Library

Guide to Aethicus Ister, Aethici Philosophi Schytae Cosmographia 1850-1853

Descriptive Summary

Title:	Aethicus Ister. Aethici Philosophi Schytae Cosmographia
Dates:	1850-1853
Manuscript Number:	Crerar Ms 148
Size:	308 p. (30.5 cm.)
Repository:	Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.
Abstract:	Manuscript study after the Cosmographia, a seventh-century fictitious compilation in six books, purporting to be an abridged Latin translation by St. Jerome of an original Greek text. Transcribed by Karl Pertz, from Leipziger Stadtbibliothek Manuscript 89, with notes of variant readings from ten other manuscripts, in margins.

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Open for research. No restrictions.

Citation

When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Aethicus Ister, Aethici Philosophi Schytae Cosmographia, Crerar Ms 148, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Scope Note

Manuscript study after the Cosmographia, a seventh-century fictitious compilation in six books, purporting to be an abridged Latin translation by St. Jerome of an original Greek text. Transcribed by Karl Pertz, from Leipziger Stadtbibliothek Manuscript 89, with notes of variant readings from ten other manuscripts, in margins. Illustrated with four copies on trace paper, of calligraphy from Leipzig Manuscript 89, pasted on heavy cream paper. Identified on title page: "Ex codici Lipsiensi saeculi VIIII in descripsit Carolvs Pertz." Inscribed on title page, in different, 19th century hand: "Die Kosmograph‹e des Istrier Aithikos. ed. Wuttke, 1853. 2 Aug. 1854..." (This manuscript is probably a research document for B765.A25P4, Karl Augustus Friedrich Pertz, (1828-1881), De Cosmographia Ethici, Libri Tres (Berlin: Sumptibus Friderici Nicolai, 1853). Compare to PA8232.A3W9, Henrich Wuttke, ed., Cosmographiam Aethici Istrici ab Hieronymo... (Leipzig: Dyk'sche Buchhandlung, 1853/54).) Ex libris: "Karl Ehrenburg, Wurzburg." Bound in marbled paper over boards.

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Subject Headings

Aethicus Ister. Cosmographia

Aethicus Ister, Cosmographia

Cosmographia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aethicus Ister (Aethicus of Istria) was the protagonist of the 7th/8th-century Cosmographia written by a man of church Hieronymus. It describes the travels of Aethicus around the world, and includes descriptions of foreign peoples in usually less than favourable terms. There are also numerous passages which deal directly with the legends of Alexander the Great.^[1]

Sources[edit]

In terms of sources, the Bible and Isidore of Seville (d. 636) form the lion's share of Pseudo-Jerome's allusions. It was once argued that Hieronymus work had provided source material for Isidore, but this was disproven by Dalche (1984). These sources, and the others, are presented in a very paraphrased form and are rarely made reference to directly. The work is also filled with many fictional sources, which makes Hieronymus similar to Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, an Irish pseudo-grammarian of the 7th century. Whether there is any relationship between the two has been considered by Herren (1994) but the evidence is not conclusive in proving a certain, direct connexion between the authors.

The title "Aethici Cosmographia" was first incorrectly given a work published 1575 by Josias Simmler and later by Grovonis 1696. The text has some identical geographic observations but the framing is completely different, in this case more of name in lists. It has been supposed that the writer is Julius Honores (even later called Psudeo-Aethicus) mentioned by Cassiodorus in "Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum(25)" as Julius Honorius Crator.

Criticisms[edit]

The Latin of the work is sometimes vulgar and facile, other times cryptic and opaque, owing in part to Hieronymus's extremely difficult vocabulary of Graecisms and Latin/Greek compounds. (See Herren, 2001). Anagram games, and etymological 'jokes' (e.g. using the verb 'monstrare' followed by the noun 'monstrum', then the verb 'demonstrare') and other ludic elements are found throughout. The Latin spelling of the work seems to suggest also that the author was a Merovingian Frank(Prinz, 1993), but the idea of "Merovingian" spellings has recently been attacked as an unreliable measure of origin. Furthermore, only one manuscript of the work appears to have been written in Tours, while the majority can been traced to centres in what is now Germany (Prinz, 1993).

Hieronymus may have been associated with the Frankish translator of Pseudo-Methodius (Petrus Monachus). There are several passages which seem to be borrowed one way or another, suggesting perhaps a parallel relationship rather than one of dependence. Nevertheless, Hieronymus' knowledge of Greek (a rare feat in Western Europe at the time) may indicate an association with the Canterbury school of Archbishop Theodore in the late 7th century. See a recent article by Michael Herren (in Nova de Veteribus) on a possible Anglo-Saxon connection for Hieronymus. What seems clear is that Hieronymus was not limited to a single locale throughout his working lifetime.

Bibliography[edit]

Editions[edit]

The Cosmograpahy of Aethicus Ister: Text, Translation, and Commentary, ed. Michael W. Herren, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011).
Die Kosmographie des Aethicus, ed. O. Prinz, MGH (Munich: 1993).
Aethici Istrici Cosmographia ab Hieronymo ex Graeco Latinum breviarium redacta, ed. H. Wuttke (Leipzig: 1854).
Éthicus et les ouvrages cosmographiques intitulés de ce nom, ed. A. d'Averzac (Paris: 1852).
(Partial) Aethici Istri Cosmographi Origo Francorum, ed. B. Krusch, in MGH SS rer. Merv. VII (Hanover: 1919).

Studies[edit]

J.G. Dalché, "Du nouveau sur Aethicus Ister? A propos d'une théorie récente", Journal des savants, 3-4 (1984), pp. 175-186.
G. Hays, "'Important if True': Lucan's Orpheus and Aethicus Ister', in Notes and Queries, (2010) [contra the interpretation by R. Pollard "'Lucan' and 'Aethicus Ister'", Notes and Queries, 53 (2006), pp. 7-10].
M. Herren, "Aethicus Ister and Virgil the Grammarian", in Mélanges François Kerlouégan (Paris: 1994), pp. 285-288.
M. Herren, "The ‘Greek Element’ in the Cosmography of Aethicus Ister", Journal of Medieval Latin, 11 (2001), pp. 184-200.
M. Herren, "The ‘Cosmography’ of Aethicus Ister: Speculations about its date, provenance, and audience", in Nova de Veteribus, eds. A. Bihrer and E. Stein (Munich: 2004), pp. 79–102.
K. Hillkowitz, Zur Kosmographie des Aethicus, I (Bonn: 1934); II (Frankfurt: 1973).
H. Löwe, Ein literarischer Widersacher des Bonifatius. Virgil von Salzburg und die Kosmographie des Aethicus Ister (Wiesbaden: 1952).
I. Wood, "Aethicus Ister: An exercise in difference", in Grenze und Differenz im frühen Mittelalter, eds. W. Pohl und H. Reimitz (Vienna: 2000), pp. 197-208.

References[edit]

Jump up^ See A. Anderson, Alexander's gate, Gog and Magog, and the enclosed nations (Cambridge MA: 1932)

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NESTOR VORNICESCU „Un filosof străromân de la Histria“

Aethicus Histricus un filosof străromân de la Histria

Cosmografia se păstrează astăzi într-o versiune avrebiată datînd din secolul al VIII-lea. Aethicus este recunoscut ca autor şi al altor scrieri, ale căror texte nu s-au păstrat. Ne interesează aceste lucrări îndeosebi, penbtru că este vorba de opera unui adevărat om de cultură străromân, multulateral, un erudit care a văzut lumina zilei în părţile Histriei doborgene – în Scythia Minor a acelei vremi –, o operă asupra căreia în lucrările de specialitate de până acum nu găsim date, elemente de elucidare.

Filosoful străromân Aethicus Histricus, de viţă nobilă – cum spune Cosmografia – (nobile prosapia parentum), a putu fi un descendent al clasei conducătoare a cetăţii şi a regiunii Histria (Histriae regione) din Scythia Minor (nationae scythica) pe la jumătatea secolului al IV-lea. În capitolul XXII din Cosmografie, Aethicus precizează că s-a născut în Histria (ille Histria se exortum). Şi-a făcut educaţia şi a fost instruit în şcolile vremii din partea locului, în această cetate pontică, iar dacă provenea din clasa conducătoare a putut primi şi o instrucţie particulară, cu profesori de literatură clasică latină şi greacă, Dar nu este exclus ca, asemenea altor fii ai Daciei Pontice din secolele anterioare sau posterioare, să fi urmat şi cursuri academice la şcolile înalte ale timpului, din Asia Mică, din Grecia, sau din alte părţi ale lumii – ale acelei lumi cunoscute pe atunci –, mai ales că a călătorit foarte mult, s-a informat şi nu a păstrat toate informaţiile şi cunoştinţele numai pentru sine, destinîndu-le cunoaşterii de către contemporani şi urmaşi. îl interesa aşadar posteritatea cunoştinţelor pe care le acumulase. A fost filosof, explorator, călătorind departe – probabil însoţit de alţi histrieni –, a fost neguţător de aur şi de pietre scumpe, în această calitate a cutreierat lumea cunoscută pe atunci, străbătînd, împreună cu discipoli ai săi, ţinuturi din Europa, Asia şi Africa. Urmărea cu predilecţie să cerceteze neamurile care se găseau în afara sferei de cultură greco-romană, neamuri care nu erau menţionate nici de scrierile care alcătuiau Vechiul Testament.

Timp de peste cinci ani, Aethicus Histricus a stat în părţile Greciei, la Atena şi în alte cetăţi din Grecia continentală şi din insulele greceşti şi a purtat discuţii cu filosofii timpului. Acelaşi lucru l-a făcut şi în Spania, timp de un an. A călătorit apoi spre nord, în ţinuturi pe care la acea dată nu le străbătuseră nici geografii greci şi romani. A cunoscut neamurile germanice continentale, ca şi pe cele din insulele şi peninsulele din Marea Nordului şi din Marea Baltică. A călătorit în Danemarca, Finlanda, Norvegia, Suedia şi, probabil, în Groenlanda. în călătoriile sale în răsărit şi sud a cunoscut Armenia, unde a stat timp de un an, a călătorit la Porţile Caspice – Alania şi Marea Caspică –, iar spre nord pînă la «Marea îngheţată». A cunoscut ţinutul Meso-potamiei, Mongolia, India, Izvoarele Gangelui din Himalaia, călătorind pe Gange cu o navă proprie, continuînd apoi călătoria pe apă pînă în Ceylon. întoarcerea spre casă a făcut-o prin Babilonia, Arabia, Canaan, Egipt şi Libia.

Despre toate acestea s-au păstrat date şi detalii în Cosmografia lui Aethicus, abreviată. Dar cum am putea cunoaşte care i-a fost itinerarul în întregimea lui, care au fost observaţiile lui asupra ţinuturilor străbătute şi asupra neamurilor întîlnite acolo? Pentru că Aethicus prezenta şi date aproape amănunţite despre viaţa popoarelor pe care le-a cercetat, cultivate sau unele considerate sălbatice, despre zeii lor, despre moravuri, despre meşteşugul construirii navelor, despre virtuţile războinice, despre arme şi sisteme strategice, despre bogăţiile acelor ţinuturi, aur, fier, pietre scumpe, grîne, animale etc. – aşadar, munca sa a fost de adevărată cercetare etnologică, la nivelul şi în condiţiile posibile atunci, cu un remarcabil simţ al investigaţiei.

Se crede că acest adevărat jurnal de călătorie, sub titlul de Cosmografie, a fost alcătuit în limba latină, la Histria dobrogeană. Numeroase aspecte ale Cosmografiei atestă inteligenţa autorului, dar şi anvergura preocupărilor sale, în baza culturii vaste pe care şi-o însuşise. Avea spirit inventiv şi aptitudini de arhitect – a consemnat în scris proiectul unui pod la Haellaes-pont, în termeni enigmatici. în cîteva locuri din Cosmografie a consemnat lucruri enigmatice, folosind literele alfabetuluùebra-ic, grecesc şi. latin, aşezînd la mijloc litere ale alfabetului propriu, cunoscut astăzi în lume sub titlul Alfabetul Aethicus – alfabet cu litere şi denumiri proprii.

Cosmografia şi Alfabetul lui Aethicus Histricus s-au răspîndit, după uzanţa epocii, prin copii-manuscrise.

Cosmografia cuprindea date, în special geografice, care nu se mai găseau în nici o altă lucrare din literatura greco-romană. Iar Alfabetul este deosebit faţă de alfabetele cunoscute pînă atunci : Alamon, Becah, Cathu, Delfoy, Efothu, Fomethu, Garf ou, Hethmu, Iosithu, Kaithu, Lethfu, Malathy, Nabaleth, Ozechi, Chorizech, Pithirin, Salathi, Intalech, Thothymos, Azathot, Reque, Irchoni, Zothychin (vezi figurile 6, 7 şi 8).

În secolele VI–VII, un exemplar din Cosmografia lui Aethicus Histricus a ajuns în ţinuturile din sudul Spaniei şi acolo, Arhiepiscopul Isidor al Sevillei, în momentul în care a alcătuit lucrarea sa cu caracter enciclopedic numită Etimologii, a folosit multe date care se găseau numai în Cosmografia lui Aethicus Histricus.

Aceşti autori daco-romani de limbă latină, originari de la Dunărea de Jos, au dus pînă departe, în lumea cunoscută pe atunci, faima ţinuturilor pontico-danubiene, aducînd contribuţii valoroase la cultura universală a epocii.

La Dunărea de Jos, în sudul Moldovei, în Transilvania – cum dovedeşte între altele inscripţia de la Biertan –, în ţinuturile dintre Dunăre şi Carpaţii Sudici, în secolele IV–V populaţia autohtonă daco-romană vorbea latineşte. Aceasta este şi o dovadă a prezenţei şi continuităţii străromânilor în spaţiul vechii Dacii. Se vorbea o limbă romanizată intens şi se scria în limba latină a timpului, aşa cum această limbă se utiliza şi în alte părţi ale Imperiului roman. La daco-romanii care acum primiseră şi creştinismul – în epoca etnogenezei lor – o mare parte a terminologiei bisericeşti teologice a fost luată direct din latineşte şi s-a păstrat ca atare, constituind şi o mărturie dintre cele mai evidente a continuităţii daco-romane. Limba latină a acelor «sciţi», ca Aethicus Histricus, loan Cassian, loan Maxenţiu, Dionisie Exiguul, era o limbă latină a romanităţii orientale conţinînd unele influenţe din mediile unde circulaseră autorii respectivi.

Operele scrise în limba latină şi inscripţiile de la Dunărea de Jos din epoca străromână formează, după cum spune Părintele profesor Ioan G. Coman, «un testimoniu irecuzabil al romanizării Daciei, în frunte cu Scythia Minor» – Dacia romanizată era integrată în romanitatea orientală, iar limba latină şi credinţa ortodoxă au constituit «pîrghiile puternice ale continuităţii».

După cum dovedeşte opera lor folosirea limbii latine este incontestabil dominantă, chiar în condiţiile influenţelor greceşti inerente datorită cetăţilor de la Pontul Euxin şi prin contactele strìnse cu Bizanţul începînd cu secolul IV. Latina era nu numai limba de cultură ci şi limba vorbită de straturile largi ale populaţiei daco-romanizate. Referindu-se la Scythia Minor şi la alte regiuni romanizate învecinate, eruditul Nicolae Iorga arată că în bună măsură şi poporul care vorbea latina determina folosirea de către scriitori a limbii latine, chiar clacă ei ar fi putut să-şi redacteze lucrările şi în limba greacă, de pildă.

Opera lui Aethicus, ca şi cea a celorlalţi cărturari străromâni, este expresia apartenenţei culturale şi lingvistice a locuitorilor acestui ţinut la romanitatea răsăriteană. Cultura şi limba latină a acestor locuri a putut îmbrăca forme superioare şi s-a exprimat în opere originale, fiind asimilate multe dintre tradiţiile materiale şi spirituale geto-dace. Latinitatea şi unitatea limbii române de astăzi sînt mărturii de mult recunoscute ale originii daco-romane a poporului român, ale permanenţei şi etnogenezei sale în limitele teritoriale ale Daciei lui Burebista.

Scriitorii străromâni au îmbogăţit cu demente ale vechii civilizaţii romanitatea orientală, dar şi pe cea occidentală, nu numai prin posteritatea operei lor, dar chiar în epocă. Cînd nu au circulat chiar ei între cele două arii de cultură – cu atîtea elemente fundamentale comune – au circulat operele pe care le-au elaborat. Aceşti scriitori au fost şi au rămas tot timpul «sciţii» de la Dunărea de Jos, adică daco-romanii din acel spaţiu accesibil şi pe uscat şi pe mare. Ei, fie se declarau daco-romani, fie acceptau fără motive preconcepute denumirea de «sciţi» – cum este şi cazul lui Aethicus Histricus, cel care avusese atîtea prilejuri să-şi prezinte singur numele, cognomenul, ca şi renumele în îndepărtatele ţinuturi pe care le-a străbătut.

Constituind caracterul esenţial al limbii şi al culturii noastre, latinitatea a fost «stimulentul energiei noastre etnice», după formularea profesorului Radu Vulpe, aşa cum prin fiinţa noastră, prin strînsa legătură cu pămîntul Patriei am păstrat virtuţile străbunilor geto-daci în structura specifică a poporului nostru.

După cum ne dovedesc şi operele scrise străromâne, procesul romanizării s-a prelungit după secolul al III-lea şi s-a extins peste marginile fostei Dacii Traiane, dînd o fizionomie culturală şi lingvistică unitară întregului spaţiu carpato-danubiano-pontic, cu o tenacitate redutabilă oricînd în fata vicisitudinilor istoriei.

NESTOR VORNICESCU

https://nestorvornicescu.wordpress.com/pagini-din-opera/%E2%80%9Eun-filosof-straroman-de-la-histria%E2%80%9C/