Epigraphic Criticism and the Study of Forgeries: A Historical Perspective
by Lorenzo Calvelli
Mar 25, 2021
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Monsieur Lorenzo Calvelli, professeur à l'Université Ca'Foscari de Venise, nous a fait l'honneur de nous présenter la conférence "Epigraphic Criticism and the Study of Forgeries: A Historical Perspective", le lundi 22 mars 2021, sur Zoom.
Résumé
What is a forged inscription and how can it be used for historical research? This talk will address the study of the phenomenon of epigraphic forgeries by assessing the relevance of this specific category of sources. Fake inscriptions were already produced in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages, but their number began to rise dramatically from the Renaissance onwards. During the 19th century, an actual epistemology for epigraphic criticism was developed by Theodor Mommsen and the other editors of the Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Since then, most corpora and critical editions have, often implicitly, followed their scientific principles. After a general discussion of the history of scholarship related to epigraphic forgeries, I will present a case-study and examine a group of inscribed bronze tablets belonging to different European museums, whose authenticity I intend to challenge by tracing their history from the moment when they were first attested to present.
Transcript
Lorenzo Calvelli
Universite Ca'Foscar I de Venise
Epigraphic Criticism and the Study of Forgeries: A Historical Perspective
March 22, 2021
Midis De L'Institut D'Etudes Anciennes et Medievales De L'Universite Laval
Epigraphic Criticism and the Study of Forgeries.
A Historical Perspective
Epigraphic Database Falsae
Lorenzo Calvelli, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
University of Laval, IEAM Seminars, 22 March 2021
I would like to express my gratitude to Franz, to Martin, to Jonathan, and to all the organizers of the activities of the Institute D'Etudes Anciennes et Medievales. This invitation is really a great privilege for me, an extraordinary opportunity for discussing my research work. Especially since I hope to get some feedback on the topics that I'm going to present.
Before starting, let me just briefly introduce what I would like to discuss with you, and how I have decided to structure my talk. To begin with, I thought that it might be useful to spend some words on what exactly an epigraphic forgery is, and how this category of inscribed monuments and documents has been assessed so far. In the second part of my presentation I will focus specifically on a case study offered by a group of forged, inscribed, bronze tablets, to which I have recently devoted my attention.
Gilbert Bagnani, On Fakes and Forgeries, "Phoenix" 14, 1960, 244
An object may be declared a fake because
(a) it is much too good to be true
(b) it is much too bad to be true;
or because
(a) it is like countless other objects
(b) it is not like any known object;
or because
(a) it confirms an established theory,
(b) it explodes an established theory;
and so on and so forth.
So I'm going to start my presentation with a thought-provoking quote by a celebrated Italian Canadian archaeologist, Gilbert Bagnani. In an article published in 1960, Bagnani stated, "an object may be declared a fake because it is much too good or it is much too bad to be true; or because it is like countless other objects, or because it is not like any known object; or because it confirms an established theory, or because it explodes an established theory, and so on and so forth. So I think that Bagnani consciously gave a self-contradictory definition of forgery through which he meant to show that forgeries have always existed, and have always been created for very different purposes. So they're often very difficult to label and identify. Today, after centuries of classical scholarship, the shifting concepts of "fakes" and "forgeries" still represent a central aspect of the study of the Greek and Roman world. And even in my field -- that of classical epigraphy -- the role of forged texts and monuments is extremely strong and complex.
Livy [59 B.C.], IV, 16, 4
Sed ante omnia refellit falsum imaginis titulum paucis ante annis lege cautum ne tribunis collegam cooptare liceret. [Google translate: But first of all, he rejected the false title of the image, a few years ago, the law provided that he was not allowed to co-opt a colleague.]
But the most conclusive refutation of the forged inscription on his portrait is to be found in a provision of the law passed a few years previously, that it should not be lawful for tribunes to co-opt a colleague.
The tendency to forge inscriptions already existed in ancient Rome as early as in the mid 5th century BCE. In a passage of Livy's Book 4 -- you can see it on your screen -- we learned that a forged inscription --- Livy calls it, "____", was produced to demonstrate that Lucius Minutius had been a Tribune of the Plebs early in his career in 438 BCE.
We are told expressly that those who first wrote the history of Rome were Greeks, and their interest in things barbarian and Roman arose as a result of the intercourse between Greeks and Romans in the fifth century, when the Siciliotes and inhabitants of the Greek cities in southern Italy were necessarily brought into contact with the rising power of Rome. But though the earliest notices go back so far, it was not until the third century that Greek historians seem to have busied themselves especially with Rome, and the reason for this is easy to see. When in that momentous struggle between Greek and barbarian which culminated in the defeat of Pyrrhus, it became plain to every one that the seat of empire had been removed across the Adriatic, the clever Greek read the signs of the times and fell at once to describing, with or without knowledge, the beginnings and history of this new power. The form in which their narratives were put forth, determined all subsequent conceptions of the early history of Rome.
When these Greeks and their earliest Roman followers attempted to write the history of the first centuries of Rome, what had they in the way of records? The statement often made by the writers of the Ciceronian period, that all monumental records such as statues, laws and inscriptions of various sorts, had perished in the Gallic invasion, must be true for the most part, but supposing that some of these monuments were in existence -- and the discovery of the old inscription and surrounding structures in the Forum proves that some did survive -- it is hardly possible that they would have been used to any great extent in working out the history of the earliest times. The evidence of the few fragments that now remain from the early days agrees with what we should infer from arguments of another kind, in showing that, if there had been no destruction like that wrought by the Gauls, there would have been few monuments of a sort to afford reliable historical information of a remote period. There is therefore little account to be taken of matter outside of oral and written records. The banquet songs described by Cato were doubtless a familiar feature of daily life, but even without the distinct repudiation of Cicero and Livy, we should recognize at once their worthlessness as historical documents.
The Annales Maximi were according to Cato's statement a list of magistrates, prodigies, eclipses and the price of corn. But these meager lists cannot have made up those eighty rolls which Cicero describes and which contained the history of the city from the beginning down to 133 B.C., and which were diffuse enough to contain Piso's story of Romulus's use of wine. These Annales were written out long after the beginning of Latin literature, and owed their form and much of their content to the annals of the Greeks. In Pais's words, "The little that we know of them reveals such a direct imitation of the Greek writers, such abundance of words, or as we might better say, such garrulity, as suited the chatter of barbers [quelle ciancie di barbieri] which Polybius censures in Sosilus and Chaerea, the historians of Hannibal, but which did not suit in any way the redaction of state documents, compiled at a tolerably early date." No fragment of the Annales Maximi in our possession belongs to a redaction earlier than the third century. In short, after Pais's keen critique, it is difficult to see in them anything but a second century creation, based on the tradition of the great Roman families, the works of early Greek historiographers, and the earliest Roman poets like Ennius, and we must recognize the fact that "these fragments which have come down to us have nothing to do with the most ancient pontifical tablets which were little more than an illustration of the calendar."
The influence of Ennius, Naevius and other early Roman poets, if such there were, in shaping the legendary history of the early period, has probably been greatly underestimated. It can be shown further, that these poets drew their material for early times, as well as their inspiration from their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. It would be idle to discuss at length the characteristics of these Greeks who approached their subject with no intention or desire to learn the truth, but only to produce a skilfully constructed poem into which could be woven a vast mass of legend and myth, with the natural result that the product was characterized by pure imagination, duplication, and falsification. This compilation of the Annales Maximi during the second century, under the influence of the first Roman poets and annalists, gave rise to the formation of what is known as the "canonical" tradition of the origin and early history of the city, and this "canonical" form which was an attempt to correlate divergent accounts, seems to have been put into final shape by Varro in his systematization and arrangement of all existing knowledge.
Our own chief literary sources of information are three, Diodorus Siculus, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The two latter give in general the accepted official version, while Diodorus is apt to present divergent accounts, and is usually credited with a greater degree of independent judgment. Nevertheless, the evidence of all three has practically no first hand value. The stream cannot rise higher than its source.
Interesting illustrations of the way in which this early history was manufactured, abound on every hand. Monumenta of various sorts were made and attributed to the days of the Kings, as the lituus of Romulus, of which Cicero speaks in the De Divinatione 1 [II. 80.]: "So do not mention the lituus of Romulus which you say could not have been burned in the great fire;" and of which Plutarch says: "It was kept in the Capitol, but lost when Rome was taken by the Gauls; afterwards when the barbarians had quitted the city, it was found buried deep in ashes, untouched by the fire, whilst everything about it was destroyed and consumed." Pliny the Elder2 [N. H., XXXIV. 22-23.] describes the costume of statues of the time of Romulus and Numa, and says of the statues of the three Fates near the Rostra: "I should suppose that these and that of Attus Navius were the first erected in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, if it were not for the fact that the statues of the earlier kings were on the Capitol," -- although in a preceding chapter he had expressly stated that the first bronze statue at Rome was made from the property of Spurius Cassius. Livy tells3 [I. 12, 6.] how Romulus vowed the temple to Jupiter Stator in the battle between the Romans and Sabines, but in the tenth book4 [36, II.] he writes: "Meanwhile the Consul raising his hands to heaven, in a clear voice so that he might be heard plainly, vowed a temple to Jupiter Stator, if the flight of the Roman line should be checked," and a little later1 [X. 37, 15.] having noticed the discrepancy, he continues: "And in this battle a temple was vowed to Jupiter Stator, as Romulus had previously vowed one; but he had consecrated only a fanum, that is the site set apart for the temple." Varro, quoted by Macrobius,2 [I. 13, 21.] speaks of seeing a bronze tablet on which was engraved a law with regard to intercalary months, said to have been passed in the year 472 B.C. The most trustworthy account, however, refers this legislation to the year 191 B.C.
We may compare also the epigraphic fabrication related by Suetonius in describing the prodigies that happened at the death of Caesar.3 [Jul. Caes. 81.] A bronze tablet was found in the tomb where Capys was said to have been buried, on which was cut in Greek this prophecy: "When the bones of Capys shall be uncovered, a descendant of Julius shall be slain by the hands of his kinsmen, and soon afterwards avenged by great slaughter throughout Italy." And Suetonius continues: "The authority for this statement is Cornelius Balbus, a most intimate friend of Caesar, so that no one is to suppose it fabulous or fictitious."...
Furthermore, as the Romans themselves tell us, all their historians down to the time of Pompey belonged to distinguished families by relationship or clientage, and this very fact caused them to be at pains to exalt the history of their own clans, a fruitful source of fabrication. But there was another influence at work, and that was the desire to exalt the whole state, and its history. Hence the determined effort to give official sanction to the tradition that the Romans came of Trojan or Hellenic stock, and that they could trace their origin to a time as early as any of the Greek cities.
Two other factors in the formation of this artificial structure, the received story of the early days, were the duplication of events actual or alleged, and the influence of current political tendencies and theories. The duplication of events, that is the assigning of what happened at one time to another much earlier date, in either the same or a slightly disguised form, while not peculiar to Roman history, has there found its widest application. It is not among the least of Pais's services that he has brought out with proper emphasis the great importance of this factor. So numerous are the examples, such as the repeated stories of Manlius, and the explanations of the Lacus Curtius, that it would be useless to linger over them. The reasons for such duplication are patent at the first glance, among them the stereotyped character and conduct of those who belonged to the same house, the desire of succeeding generations to imitate the deeds of their ancestors, and the fact that so many of the clans seem to have assumed in successive years the command against the same foes. Variations in later versions seem usually to have been intentionally made, in order that suspicion might be averted. Consulships, dictatorships and censorships were boldly attributed to the ancestors of those who had held these offices in historical times, and so notorious was the practice that even Cicero and Livy protested against it. In consequence of this same impulse, events of a later date were thrown back into earlier periods, as the fabled treaty of 508 B.C. between Rome and Carthage, and the establishment of the censorship in the days of Servius Tullius. The same tendency which has assigned to Charlemagne the achievements of more than one man produced such types as Appius Claudius and Coriolanus.
The last factor in the fabrication of Roman history upon which much weight must be laid, is that of the political attitude of the historian and his hero. Cato, as is well known, tried to do something to counteract this evil, by refusing to mention the names of those of whom he was writing, but nothing could have been farther from the purpose of all other Roman historians. One has only to read Livy's account of perfectly historical persons and events, to see how he deliberately warped or suppressed the truth in order to depreciate the services of those who represented opposite political views. Modern colorless critical history was something entirely unsupposable to the Roman mind. Education in morals and good citizenship, the avowed object of the Roman historian, demanded an expression on his part of what he considered right and patriotic, and a condemnation of the opposite. To the most critical and truth-seeking of Romans, even a writer like Froude would have seemed not only culpably impartial but absolutely impossible.
These elements have been recognized in some degree by all historians since Niebuhr, but the extent of their application has varied. We have in general come to regard the history of the regal period as legendary so far as details are concerned, but no such view has prevailed with regard to the republic. It is true that Mommsen in his Roemische Forschungen laid down the lines along which the investigation should proceed, and in his essays on Coriolanus, Spurius Maelius, Spurius Cassius and Marcus Manlius, demonstrated the non-historical character of many of the tales from the period of the early republic, but in these particular cases, the subjects were such as would most naturally be derived from mythical sources. Neither in his history nor in his essays, does Mommsen cast any serious doubt upon the truth of the main features of the traditional history of the period between the expulsion of the Kings and the fall of the decemvirate. The attitude of most scholars previous to 1898, may be illustrated by that of Pelham and Shuckburgh in their histories published in 1893 and 1894. Pelham, after explaining the reasons why the history of the early republic is subject to some extent to the same suspicions as that of the regal period, and stating that the "details are of no historical value," proceeds to relate the course of events in such a way as not to suggest for a moment that he discredits the main features of the narrative. Shuckburgh is much less skeptical and gives his readers to understand that he is treating of what is genuinely historical.
Hardened as we have become to the process of having long cherished beliefs destroyed, and prone as we are to welcome innovations in all things, we cannot overcome a sense of dismay at reading statements like these of Pais:"We arrive therefore at the conclusion that the whole account of decemvirate, that is the creation of this magistracy, the sending of the embassy to Athens, the codification of the laws of the Twelve Tables, the circumstances and procedure with reference to Virginia, no less than the second secession of the plebs, the following passage of the Canuleian laws, and the revolution at Ardea, are the results of unskilful attempts to combine self-contradictory traditions, and have at bottom no historical or chronological value." ...
"In the case of all the history of Roman legislation before the decemvirate we are confronted with accounts not originally true and only altered by later changes, but produced by real and deliberate falsification.
"The pretended constitutional history of Rome, described by the annalists of the second and first centuries, is in direct opposition to the honest and sincere declaration of Polybius who asserted that it was difficult to explain the beginnings and successive modifications, and to foretell the future phases of the Roman constitution, since the institutions of the past, both private and public, were unknown."
This means that everything which has been handed down from the years before 440 B.C. is thoroughly discredited, and that the beginning of anything like genuine history must be placed after that date. It is doubtful if anything quite so destructive as this in the field of historical criticism has been effected for many years, and we are overpowered by the almost absolute negation involved. Painstaking labor and the utmost skill in the employment of great learning, have combined to produce a monumental work of the greatest importance, and one which forces itself upon the attention of all students of classical antiquity.
Process and results are precisely the same for both the regal and early republican periods, but let us look rather at the latter and examine briefly two or three of the main features in the narrative which has come down to us. Perhaps the most noteworthy event in the twenty years after the expulsion of the Kings, was the secession of the plebs to the Sacred Mount, which marked the culmination of the first stage in the struggle between plebeian and patrician, and resulted in the establishment of that most unique of Roman institutions, the tribuneship. The circumstances are familiar to all, how in the midst of wars with Aequians and Volscians, the plebs were put off again and again with false promises, until after the army had won a victory under the dictator Manius Valerius, and was encamped before the city, the Senate still refused to adopt the necessary reforms. Thereupon the army, by which we must suppose the plebeian part of it to be meant, marched in order to the Sacred Mount, or according to another version to the Aventine, and returned to the city only after their claims had been allowed, in part at least, and the tribuneship established. Half a century later, another secession is described. The decemvirs had refused to give up office, and had, it was alleged, caused Lucius Siccius Denitatus, a veteran of many campaigns, to be foully murdered, while the most notorious of the board, Appius Claudius, had by his attempt to carry off Virginia, forced her father to slay her in defense of honor. The army again marched to the Sacred Mount, nominated tribunes, advanced to Rome and occupied the Aventine. A compromise was negotiated by Valerius and Horatius, and the tribunate again established.
Now the very similarity of these two accounts is enough to arouse grave suspicion, and an investigation of all the attendant circumstances proves that the first secession is but an anticipation of the second, together with some features which repeat the story of the expulsion of the Kings. Thus of the two leaders in the secession, Lucius Junius Brutus and Caius Sicinius, the latter is but the duplication of C. Sicinius, one of the tribunes elected after the fall of the decemvirate, and both these again of that Sicinius who was tribune in 395 B.C., and after the taking of Veii proposed to emigrate thither from Rome and found a new state. The names of the tribunes, either when the establishment of the tribunate in 494 is spoken of, or the increase in their number in 471, or the reestablishment of the institution in 449, show by their identity or similarity, that they represent only repetitions and variations of the same tradition, and that the successive Sicinii or Siccii -- for these appear to be variants of the same name -- Icilii, etc., are due to this process of duplication. So Manius Valerius who pacified the plebs in 494 before the first secession, is the same person, and the occasion the same, that we find described in Livy,1 [VII. 39.] where he tells how in 342 the dictator M. Valerius Corvus checked the rage of the army by his eloquence, and again of the same occurrence in 302 or 300. In this latter year, moreover, this same Valerius, when Consul, caused the famous "lex de provocatione" to be again approved, which had been already passed twice in previous years, and always on the motion of members of this same family. That is, during the first two hundred years of the republic, the passage of the same measure was attributed to the efforts of the same family thrice, which means, of course, that the annalists who wrote under the inspiration of the Valerii, thrust this action of theirs further and further back.
-- The Credibility of Early Roman History, by Samuel Ball Platner
But what exactly is a forged inscription? It is difficult to offer a straight answer. Let me offer another example.
Padua, Palazzo della Ragione (medieval townhall). Alleged funerary monument of Livy
CIL V 2865
In 14th century Padua, a Roman funerary inscription was discovered commemorating a man called Pitocillidius. This person was immediately identified with the Roman historian Livy, who was known to have been a native of Padua. The inscription was praised by Humanus, even by Petrarch, and became the object of civic and intellectual devotion. It was eventually displayed -- where you can see it in this picture here -- in the main room of the town hall of the city, where it still hangs today. Only in the 16th century did scholars begin to realize that its text just commemorated a freed man called Titus Libius Hales, and not the ancient historian.
The Shadow of Livy: a cultural history of the tomb of Livy in late medieval Italy
by Daniele Miano
University of Sheffield
First Degree Congreso Internacional de Ciencias Humanas - Humanidades entre pasado y futuro. Escuela de Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Gral. San Martín, 2019.
In the nineteenth century, classical historicism looked at Livy and other classical historians, such as Thucydides, to find the roots of modern history writing, and it looked back at the late medieval discovers of the text of Livy, from Petrarch and Lovato Lovati to Lorenzo Valla, as its ideal predecessors. If reading and commenting on Livy was considered a foundation for historical science, the 19th century narrative of his rediscovery was one made of manuscripts, philology, and textual traditions, and one of the triumph of rationality over the authority of sources. In my paper I shall argue that the story of the rediscovery of Livy as a triumph of humanist rationality can be contrasted by a more cultural and anthropological narrative which focuses on rituals, myths, and embodiment. In the same period of the rediscovery of the text of Livy, the discovery in Padua of a Roman imperial inscription mentioning a certain Titus Livius led to the belief that this was the tombstone of Livy. At the same time, the Paduans discovered a body believed to be of the Trojan hero Antenor, the founder of the city according to Livy. Lovato Lovati was so enthusiastic of this discovery that he wrote an epitaph for the spectacular medieval tomb of Antenor still visible in Padua, and wanted to be buried next to the hero. Petrarch wrote a letter addressed to Livy while he was at the monastery of S. Giustina, where the alleged gravestone was kept. In the early Fifteenth century CE, the Paduans believed that they had discovered the body of Livy, and the local chancellor Sicco Polenton promoted the erection of a spectacular tomb for the historian. At the court of Alfonso of Aragon, where a young Lorenzo Valla cemented his scholarly reputation, there was the habit of the so-called ‘hour of the book’: the learned men of the court would gather with the king to read classical texts and comment on them. Lively arguments would originate in these occasions, and we know that the ‘hour of the book’ was essential to promote Valla’s work on the text of Livy. Alfonso’s love for Livy would go as far as to request from the Paduans to send to him a bone from the body of Livy, a request that they were happy to comply with, and that shows the quasi-religious veneration of the King for the historian. This shows that late Medieval Italy did not necessarily see a humanist foundation of future historical science, but rather the construction of the foundation myth of such science, that as all powerful myths was rooted in embodied, spatial practices focused around the tomb and the body of the historian, and ritualised practices such as ‘the hour of the book’.
But is this inscription a forgery? Of course it's not! It is a genuine inscription, whose interpretation was somehow forged, or rather forced, for a specific ideological purpose.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the creation of epigraphic forgeries became more and more frequent.
Giovanni Nanni called Annio da Viterbo (1432-1502): (1) author of the Antiquitatum variarum in 17 volumes; (2) monumental work of historical and archaeological forgery
Well-known forgers, like Annio da Viterbo and Pirro Ligorio,
Pirro Ligorio (1514-1583): (1) architect, painter; (2) author of the Libri delle antichita in 40 volumes; (3) produces thousands of epigraphic forgeries
produced thousands of false inscriptions, both on paper and on durable materials, like stone or metal.
Humanus [learned] began to realize that the diffusion of forgeries was particularly related with two factors: first, the impossibility of carrying out a personal inspection of the inscription, what we call today the autopsy, and the fact that inscribed objects are often brought from one place to another.
Fra Giocondo da Verona (ca. 1433-1515): (1) first develops the principle of autopsy (personal inspection) of inscribed monuments
In the late fourteen-hundreds, Fra Giocondo, was the first who understood the importance of carrying out an autopsy of the inscribed monuments. He then transcribed them in his epigraphic manuscripts.
Martin Smet (ca. 1520-1567): (1) realizes the problem of mobility of inscribed monuments
In the mid-sixteenth century, Martin de Smet complained about the mobility of objects and monuments which were frequently displaced from one antiquarian collection to another. Around the same time, thanks to the discovery of some juridical inscriptions on bronze, and of the capitolini fasti [Fasti Capitolini] in Rome, scholars began to realize that inscriptions could serve as antiquarian sources -- meaning that they could be used for better understanding ancient history, and integrating the narrative of ancient historians, such as Livi.
Jan Gruter, Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani in corpus absolutissimum redactae cum indicibus XXV, Heidelberg 1603 [Google translate: The ancient inscriptions of the whole Roman world reduced to an absolute corpus with 25 indexes, Heidelberg 1603]
The Flemish scholar Jan Gruter first attempted to publish a universal corpus of all the Greek and Latin inscriptions which were known in his days. This volume included approximately twelve thousand texts. So it was an amazing and pioneering enterprise. Yet it was also rather faulty, since Gruter never personally checked the inscribed monuments that he published. On the contrary, he reproduced earlier editions of epigraphic tests, or new transcriptions, which he received by mail, thanks to a huge network of correspondents all over Europe.
Final section devoted to Inscriptiones spuriae, adulterinae, supposititiae, fictitiae, etc. [Google translate: Spurious, counterfeit, suppositional, fictitious, etc.]
Opere jam absolotu nihil restabat, quam petere Lectoris plausum ac fauentiam: nisi viderem pluribus eam judicij essemodum, vt percursis Inscriptionisbus superioribus, statim exclamaturi essent, praeteritas nobis sereretect asve Epigraphas bonitatis edecumatae, & notatantumnon, si vinum essent, Pimianae. Talibus labris vt etiam sua essent lactucae, ensarraginemistam: quam ego tamen, vnag, mecum non pauct, hoc est Senatus Criticus sententiae melioris, merito suspicantur spurias, adulterinas, suppositias, fictitias, & quid non? [Google translate: The work was now completely finished, and nothing remained but to ask for the applause and favor of the Reader: if I had not seen that it was in the way of many judges, as having gone through the previous Inscriptions, they would immediately exclaim, the past will be restored to us as well as the Epigraphs of the well-decorated goodness, and not only noted, if they were wine, of Pimiana. With such lips, as if they were even their own lettuce, enragingism: which I, however, not a little with myself, this is the Senate Critic of the better opinion, are rightly suspected of spuriousness, forgery, suppositions, forgeries, and what not? ]
Gruter was also the first to devote a specific section of his Corpus to forgeries. At the end of this massive volume, he collected a group of about two hundred : spurious inscriptions. Yet there are many more false texts throughout his work, which he did not recognize as such.
Scipione Maffei (1675-1755)
Around the mid-18th century, Scipione Maffei, a learned nobleman from Verona, was the first to draw a set of rules for recognizing forged inscriptions.
Scipione Maffei's decalogue
Caput I. Canones traduntur ad fictitias inscriptiones Graece loquentes dignoscendas.
1. Inscriptionum Graece loquentium commentitiae paucae deprehenduntur.
2. Marmorum inspectio admodum conducit ad eorumdem veritatem explorandam.
3. Inscritionum verba ac continentia examinanda.
4. Inscriptiones recte describendae, cum ex literarum omissione vel permutatione errores non pauci oriantur.
5. Inscriptiones summa diligentia resolvendae.
6. Inscriptiones summa circumspectione emendandae vel supplendae.
7. Graecorum epigrammatum versio ardua ideoque saepissime in eorumdem translatione peccatum.
Caput II. Canones traduntur ad fictitias inscriptiones Latine loquentes internoscendas.
1. Antiquitatis indubitatum ferme argumentum est, cum inscriptiones in aeneis tabulis incisae repraesentantur.
2. Ad lapidearum inscriptionum explorandam fidem, marmoris genus, faciem coloremque inspicere oportet.
3. Ad scripturae observationem atque iudicium literarum transeundum est.
[Google translate: Chapter 1. Canons are given for identifying the fictitious inscriptions speaking in Greek.
1. Few of the inscriptions of Greek-speaking authors have been discovered.
2. The inspection of the marbles is very conducive to exploring their truth.
3. The words and contents of the inscriptions to be examined.
4. To copy the inscriptions correctly, since not a few errors arise from the omission or interchange of letters.
5. Addresses to be analyzed with utmost care.
6. Addresses to be amended or supplemented by the general survey.
7. A difficult version of the Greek epigrams, and therefore very often a sin in their translation.
Chapter II Canons are handed over to fictional English-speaking interns.
1. There is almost an undoubted proof of antiquity, when inscriptions are represented incised on bronze plates.
2. In order to investigate the reliability of stone inscriptions, it is necessary to examine the type of marble, the face and the color.
3. We must pass to the observation of scripture and the judgment of letters.
Maffei had developed a compulsive passion for Greek and Latin epigraphy. And his Decalogue strikes us for being incredibly modern: First of all, as an indispensable rule, Maffei clearly states that a good epigraphist must carry out autopsy of all inscribed monuments, what he calls a marmorum inspectio. He then calls for a close examination of the contents of inscriptions, verba ac continentia, for an impeccable transcription of each sign, and inscription is erected, describendae, for extreme carefulness in expanding abbreviations, summa diligentia resolvendae, as well as in proposing emendations and integrations, summa circumspectione emendandae vel supplendae.
So he also reminded us of the difficulty of translating inscriptions, especially those written in Greek: the versio. And he finally maintains the importance of petrographic and paleographic analysis, what he calls marmoris genus, facium coloremque, and scripturae observationem and judicium literaratum.
Verona, Museo Lapidario Maffeiano [Google translate: Verona, Maffeiano Lapidary Museum]
Maffei even displayed some fake inscription in his private museum in Verona, so that they could serve as a sort of teaching aid. Yet despite his attempts to isolate forgeries, their number kept increasing well into the 19th century.
Olaus Kellermann (1805-1837)
Bartolomeo Borghesi (1781-1860)
In a letter written to the young Danish scholar Olaus Kellerman, in 1835, the great Italian Epigraphist Bartolomeo Borghesi, complimented on the former's intention of setting up a corpus of Latin inscriptions. In the first place, because such a work would eventually help scholars to get rid of thousands of impostures and forged texts, which were still circulating in their days.
Th. Mommsen, CIL Denkschrift (1847): epigraphic criticism.
Ueber Plan und Ausfuhrung elses Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
by Theodor Mommsen, Doctor der...
Kellerman died young, and his project was revived by Theodor Mommsen, who gave way to a new science, namely "Epigraphic Criticism." Mummson fully described this method in his proposal for a Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, which he addressed to the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1847.
Th. Mommsen, CIL Denkschrift (1847)
III. Kritik der Inschriften.
A. Kritik der Achtheit.
Die Falschungen sind dreierlei Art.
1) Erstens geschehen sie von den Kunsthandlern [...]
2) Die zweite Klasse der Falsare sind die Municipal- und Provinzialschriftsteller, die zu mehrerer Ehre der Heimath Inschriften schmieden, gewohnlich auf dem Papiere. [...]
3) Die dritte Klasse endlich bilden die Falsare vom Handwerk, die es sich zum Specialgeschaft machten.
[Google translate: III. criticism of the inscriptions.
A. Criticism of Eighthness.
The falsifications are of three kinds.
1) First, they happen from the art dealers [...]
2) The second class of falsars are the municipal and provincial writers, who make inscriptions, usually on paper, in several honors of their homeland. [...]
3) Finally, the third class is formed by the falsars of handicrafts, who have made it their special business. ]
A full paragraph of his text was devoted to the critique of authenticity. In Mommsen's view, there were three different kinds of epigraphic forgeries. 1) Those deceitfully produced by antique dealers, 2) those created by local scholars, usually just on paper, to celebrate their homeland, and 3) those fabricated by professional forgers, which were also the most difficult to detect. And this was the case of Ligorio, towards whom both Borghesi and Mommsen had developed a real aversion.
Inscriptiones Regni Neapolitani Latinae
by Theodorus Mommsen
Inscriptiones Falsae Vel Suspectae.
Pars Prima.
[Google translate: Inscriptions of the Latin Kingdom of Neapolitan
by Theodore Mommsen
Fake or Suspicious Emails
First part.]
Mommsen put in place his principles in the addition of the Latin Inscriptions from the Kingdom of Naples, published in 1852. In his introduction to the work, which was dedicated to Borghesi, he developed his own set of rules for dealing with untrustworthy epigraphic documents. Mommsen's assumption was that inscriptions are, in the first place, fundamental documents for the study of the past. In his positivist view, history had to be an exact science. But in order to be so, it had to be written using objective and reliable primary sources. The latter included the text of Greek and Latin authors, but also, and perhaps above all, the text of ancient inscriptions which have come to us directly without the mediation of medieval copyists.
Mommsen's principles (leges) towards forged inscriptions
1) recepi inscriptiones omnes visas mihi et non visas, ineditas et ante qualicumque ratione editas, sinceras et suspectas et falsas.
2) in disponendis titulis primum falsos a veris secrevi.
3) legem secutus quae in foro obtinet, dolum non praesumi, sed probato dolo totum testem infirmari.
4) non tam inscriptiones singulas in iudicium vocavi, quam singulos auctores.
semel fur, semper fur!
[Google translate: 1) I received all the letters seen to me and not seen, unpublished and published before for any reason, sincere and suspicious and false.
2) in arranging the titles I first separated the false from the true.
3) Following the law which prevails in the market, fraud is not presumed, but when fraud is proved, the whole evidence is invalidated.
4) I did not so much call individual letters into judgment as individual authors.
once a thief, always a thief!]
it is better if a genuine inscription is edited among the forgeries, than the other way round.
It is well worth reading the rules which Mommsen set in treating epigraphic forgeries, because after over 150 years, they're still very, very influential. So I will perhaps read them in English translation, but you have the original text in front of you.
The first I included in my corpus -- all the inscriptions -- the ones that I saw, and the ones that I did not see: the unpublished ones, and the ones that were previously published, no matter in what way. The genuine ones, the suspect ones, and the fake ones.
Second Rule: the very first goal of the volume was to separate genuine inscriptions from forgeries.
In the third rule, uh, Mommsen, who was a jurist, recognized the principle of the so-called presumption of innocence, dolum nom praesumi. But he also stated that once the deceitful intent of an author had been proven, his entire credibility as a source, was invalidated, and his whole production must be labeled as forged. This is really a crucial point, which comes in also in the following point.
In point number four, he says, "I did not prosecute single inscriptions, but single authors." Meaning, that he challenged the trustworthiness of the whole production of those who had transcribed inscriptions. We can call it the principle of the "unreliability of the first witness." If the earliest transcription of an inscription comes from an author who had been identified as a forger, then no matter its contents, such an inscription must be false. So, in other words, Mommsen discarded the whole production of certain authors, like Ligorio, because he simply had no time for checking that all the inscriptions that these authors had copied, were genuine, or or false. He states that very clearly. And his conclusion is semel fur, semper ful: once a thief, always a thief. And also that it is better to to keep a genuine inscription among the forgeries, than the other way around. This is also very important. Because many inscriptions have been re-evaluated recently.
It is important to bear in mind that Mommsen decided to devote a specific section of his corpus to fake inscriptions. And in doing so, some fundamental help was offered by the decision on following a geographical order in presenting inscriptions.
Apparently -- yes, you can see it here - "Inscriptiones Falsae Vel Suspectae", Mommsen initially designed a sort of double degree of jurisdiction: Falsae and Suspectae. And this description also appears in a letter written in 1881 where these two categories are called "hell" and "purgatory" of inscriptions.
Forged inscriptions in the CIL: (1) falsae are mixed with the alienae (i.e. non-local), (2) the asterisk that makes the difference!; (3) CIL VI 1 vs. CIL VI 1*
As a matter of fact, in the CIL, this section was simply labeled as "falsae." So he got rid of the suspectae, and was paired with another category, that of the alienae, meaning those inscriptions which are kept in a place different from that for which they were originally conceived. The fact that both of these categories, falsae and alienae are marked by an asterisk, may often generate confusion among the non-specialists. Yet, it is quite clear why Mommsen decided to pair them. Because in his view, both of these categories could not be used as sources for historical reconstruction.
So I hope that this overview of the history of scholarship on epigraphic forgeries was useful to make you understand how diversified and capricious the section of the falsae in the CIL is.
The figures of the falsae vel alienae in the CIL (source: Antonella Ferraro, PhD dissertation, Pauda, 2015)
Falsae vel alienae (False or foreign) / / Totale (Total )
Roma / 3642 / 45076
Ostia / 460 / 5871
Regio I / 918 / 7220
Regio II / 258 / 2622
Regio III / 120 / 627
Regio IV / 247 / 3134
Regio V / 267 / 1216
Regio VI / 371 / 2905
Regio VII / 307 / 3082
Regio VIII / 175 / 1489
Regio IX / 243 / 716
Regio X / 619 / 6476
Regio XI / 169 / 2338
Sicilia / 48 / 584
Sardinia / 383 / 873
Germania Superior / 295 / 3529
Germania Inferior / 57 / 1555
Provincia Belgica / 295 / 1960
Provincia Lugdunensis / 96 / 1841
Aquitania / 273 / 2063
Gallia Narbonensis / 337 / 6014
Spagna / 488 / 5448
Illyricum / 254 / 5785
Europae provinciae grecae / 11 / 460
Aegyptus et Asia / 20 / 576
It should be stressed that it is a huge section. You can see some figures here taken from a recent doctoral dissertation. And like I said, Mommsen's approach was very influential, also for later corpora like the inscription ____.