Intertestualità ed esegesi in un commentatore tardoantico al Somnium

Abstract

The Carthaginis rhetor Eulogius (Aug. De cura pro mortuis gerenda, CSEL XII 642.12-13) devoted himself, probably between 388 and 420, to the writing of a libellus, entitled Disputatio de Somnio Scipionis, commissioned by an unknown consularis provinciae Byzacenae named Superius, vir clarissimus atque sublimis as well as doctissimus. The treaty of the orator almae Karthaginis Favonius takes the form of a quite refined dissertation, elaborating an exegesis of a learned nature and of a philosophical-didactic structure, which represents, in order of importance, the second Late Antique commentary to the Somnium. It appears to be connected with Macrobius’ much more extensive Commentarii Libri Duo by philological and exegetical evidence that makes the work of Augustine’s disciple an extremely interesting source not only as far as the indirect tradition of the Somnium is concerned, but also with regard to the Virgilian vein of Late Antique Neoplatonic exegesis. Thus, the Disputatio de Somnio Scipionis proves itself worthy of consideration both in the context of the widespread coeval exegetical tendency of Neoplatonic matrix, as well as in the mannerist recovery of the main motifs of Ciceronian rhetoric.