Longinus

“ The author of the Treatise avows himself a Greek, and apologises, as a Greek, for attempting an estimate of Cicero. Longinus himself was the nephew and heir of Fronto, a Syrian rhetorician of Emesa. Whether Longinus was born there or not, and when he was born, are things uncertain. Porphyry, born in 233 A.D., was his pupil: granting that Longinus was twenty years Porphyry’s senior, he must have come into the world about 213 A.D. He travelled much, studied in many cities, and was the friend of the mystic Neoplatonists, Plotinus and Ammonius. ”

“ Except this only, and he sits upon his hard seat in the same composure as if at the head of the Senate.'
'Gracchus,' said Longinus in reply, 'is naturally great; he is a giant! the ills of life, the greater and the lesser, which assail and subdue so many, can make nothing of him. He is impenetrable, immovable. Then he has aided nature by the precepts of philosophy. ”

“ Longinus pointed. “And get back to your duties.”
“And who”—the fellow was glowering, his heavy jaw thrust out—“are you, by the gods, to be giving me orders?”
Aroused by the angry words outside the fire chamber, a man rushed from the near-by furnace-shed office. “Porcius, you insolent, blundering fool, put down that whip!” he bellowed. “Don’t you 144 know the centurion”—he gestured toward Longinus—“is the son of Senator Piso, who owns this plant? And the other one is his friend. Now you get back to your work!” ”

“ Longinus slowly shook his head. “No, Cornelius, I don’t see. Your argument seems completely fatuous to me. I cannot comprehend an all-powerful, good god who would permit men to do one another evil. I am convinced that the fact that the world is filled with men who are unjust and cruel and evil indisputably proves that no such god exists.” ”

“ Longinus, though a philosopher, is a man of the world, who sees through its ways as clearly as he does through the mysticism of Plato, and that asks for good eyes; and for the bishop--there is not so finished a gentleman in all the East. His appointments are not less exquisite than those of the highest noble either of Antioch or Palmyra. ”

“ We have seen the very wound made by the spear of Longinus; we have heard his familiar voice; we have received his blessing. Our number is our evidence; it cannot be possible that all of us have been deceived. It is surely he, O Roman soldier, unless the senses of the women and of ten honest men are far astray. ”

“ He glanced toward the window but quickly turned back to face Longinus. “Centurion, do you suppose”—perspiration was beading on the Procurator’s plainly frightened face—“he will be coming back soon from Galilee ... to Jerusalem, the Temple, to Antonia? By great Jupiter, Longinus”—he did not pause for the centurion’s reply—“help me escape him! Urge the Prefect to transfer me, send me to some post across the world from this frightful Judaea, to Gaul, Germania, even, by the gods, to Britannia!” His eyes were wild, his hands on the desk were shaking, and he clenched them into white-knuckled fists. ”

“ And love? Who can destroy love; who can defeat it? Yet can you put love in a basket and carry it from the shop? And who can measure a modius of love or weigh out twelve unciae?’” Calmly he regarded Longinus. “And I ask you, my friend, who can? What, after all, is more indestructible, unchangeable, immortal than the intangible?”
The “Palmyra” was moving around the river’s bend now and gaining speed as it came into the straight stretch at a point even with the right-angled turning of the city’s south wall. “But forgive me, Longinus,” Cornelius said lightly. ”

“ Longinus explained to the two soldiers who had brought him the message that he was being ordered to Rome by the Prefect Sejanus and instructed them to bear to Sergius Paulus a message he would write. In this note he informed the cohort commander of the assignment Sejanus had given him to come to Rome, although he made no mention of the money he would be delivering. He added that the Prefect had given him no details of the new assignment; he would write later from Rome. When he finished writing the communication, Longinus dismissed the two to return with it to Caesarea. ”

“ What! not Longinus? If he did, it would have been of little consequence; for he had no field of comparison, as we, knowing no literature but one—whereas we have a range of seven or eight. But he did not: Τὸ ὑψηλον, [6] or the elevated, in the Longinian [Pg 38] sense, expressed all, no matter of what origin, of what tendency, which gives a character of life and animation to composition—whatever raises it above the dead level of flat prosaic style. ”

“ The latter authority describes him as visiting the northern peoples of Europe and recording his travels in an epic poem, a fragment of which is given here by Longinus. The passage before us appears to be intended as the words of some Arimaspian, who, as belonging to a remote inland race, expresses his astonishment that any men could be found bold enough to commit themselves to the mercy of the sea, and tries to describe the terror of human beings placed in such a situation (Pearce ad. 1.; Abicht on Hdt. iv. 12; Suidas, s.v.) ”

“ It may help them realize what fate awaits those who thus oppose Rome’s authority and power.”
Longinus wondered what success Cornelius was having. Evidently he had been forced to pursue the fleeing revolutionaries a long way, perhaps even as far as Galilee, where they might expect to find haven among kinsmen and friends. No doubt the attackers of the Tetrarch’s party had separated in their flight from the soldiers of Cornelius. It would be particularly difficult, virtually impossible, in fact, to round up all the revolutionaries Bar Abbas had been leading, Longinus felt. ”

“ But here in the middle of the Forum, with confirmation of Rome’s might everywhere around....
“By all the gods, Cornelius. Can’t you see?”
The man carrying Longinus’ belongings whirled suddenly around. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he asked, “did you command anything of me?”
Longinus laughed. “No,” he answered. “I was just thinking aloud again. I must be growing old.” He reached down and picked up the glassware package. “But let’s be moving on. I’m anxious to get to my father’s house.” He pointed the directions. “Out that way and on through the Forum of Augustus to Via Longa. ”

“ Not valueless, to a generation which talks much about style and method in literature, should be this new rendering of the noble fragment, long attributed to Longinus, the Greek tutor and political adviser of Zenobia. ”

“ Longinus seems to have had great sensibility, but little discrimination. He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles. It was happily said that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from L’Esprit des Lois to L’Esprit sur les Lois. In the same manner the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not “Longinus on the Sublime,” but “The Sublimities of Longinus.” The origin of the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of inquiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. ”

“ He was a man of marked ability, of the broadest culture, and a thorough master of Greek style. Of his numerous writings we possess a large part of one beautiful work entitled περὶ ὕψους (often published) , and fragments of some others (e.g. in Eusebius’ Præp. Evang. XV. 21) . Longinus was the teacher of Porphyry before the latter went to Rome to study under Plotinus. Porphyry has made a mistake in classing Longinus with those other philosophers whose works Origen studied. He was a younger contemporary of Origen, and cannot even have studied with Ammonius until after Origen had left Alexandria. ”

“ The play upon the double meaning of κόρα, (1) maiden, (2) pupil of the eye, can hardly be kept in English. It is worthy of remark that our text of Xenophon has ἐν τοῑς θαλάμοις, a perfectly natural expression. Such a variation would seem to point to a very early corruption of ancient manuscripts, or to extraordinary inaccuracy on the part of Longinus, who, indeed, elsewhere displays great looseness of citation, confusing together totally different passages. ”

“ Medea is often sublime, and always touching. But it is not on these merits that our author lingers; he loves only the highest literature, and, though he finds spots on the sun and faults in Homer, he condones them as oversights passed in the poet’s “contempt of little things.”
Such for us to-day are the lessons of Longinus. He traces dignity and fire of style to dignity and fire of soul. He detects and denounces the very xxxi faults of which, in each other, all writers are conscious, and which he brings home to ourselves. He proclaims the essential merits of conviction, and of selection. ”

“ And in killing Longinus the minister, he basely slew Longinus the renowned philosopher, the accomplished scholar, the man of letters and of taste; the great man of the age; for you will not say that either in Rome or Greece there now lives his equal.'
'Fausta,' said Gracchus, 'you are right. And had Aurelian been any more or higher than a soldier, he would not have dared to encounter the odium of the act; but in simple truth he was, I suppose, and is utterly insensible to the crime he has committed, not against an individual or Palmyra, but against the civilized world and posterity ”

“ Be this as it may, somebody wrote the treatise and its first editor, Francis Robertello of Basle, in 1554 called him Dionysius Longinus; and so shall I, and have done with it, careless that other MSS than that used by Robertello speak of Dionysius or Longinus. Dionysius Longinus, then, in the 3rd century A.D.—some say in the 1st: it is no great matter—wrote a little book [Greek: PERI UPSOUS] commonly cited as "Longinus on the Sublime." ”

“ And now”—she did not wait for Claudia to answer her question—“the time has come for us to strike out for what both of us want. Soon Longinus will be going back to Rome, and more than likely this time he’ll have much to tell the Prefect.” ”

“ But conscience is never to be obeyed with ease, though the ease grows with the obedience. The book attributed to Longinus will not have missed its mark if it reminds us that, in literature at least, for conscience there is yet a place, possibly even a reward, though that is unessential. By virtue of reasonings like these, and by insisting that nobility of style is, as it were, the bloom on nobility of soul, the Treatise on the Sublime becomes a tonic work, wholesome to be read by young authors and old. ”

“ If we analyse and enumerate the endowments lavished by Nature on her "darling" of the Avon, we shall find, as in the case of Angelo, that he not only displays each separate gift, but that he displays each in its highest form and fullest measure. His own modesty may be permitted to envy this man's art or that man's scope, but never was envy more misplaced.
This is no rhapsody. Longinus tells us that an unassailable verdict upon the sublime must be the consensus of different ages, pursuits, tastes and walks in life. ”

“ Longinus belonged to all times and people, and by them will be avenged. Aurelian could not understand the greatness of his victim, and was ignorant that he was drawing upon himself a reproach greater than if he had sacrificed in his fury the Queen herself, and half the inhabitants of Palmyra. He will find it out when he reaches Rome. ”

“ Isn’t that true?”
“Cornelius, you’re a good soldier, but you’re in the wrong profession.” Longinus leaned forward and cracked his bronzed knuckles. “You should be writing poetry or lecturing classes in philosophy, or even”—he paused, and a grin spread across his face—“be acting as a priest in the Temple at Jerusalem.” Suddenly the smile was gone. “Of course a slave is valuable in proportion to what he can produce or the service he can provide. Aren’t we all valuable in that same proportion? We live awhile, work, love, hate, die. What do we leave? Only what we have produced. ”

“ Having satisfied his devotion in visiting the holy places in Jerusalem, he began to consider in what manner he should dedicate himself to God in a religious state. The dangers of living without a guide, made him prefer a monastery to a hermitage; and he therefore put himself under the direction of a holy man named Longinus, to whom his virtue soon endeared him in a very particular manner. A pious lady having built a church under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, on the high road to Bethlehem, Longinus could not well refuse her request, that his pupil should undertake the charge of it ”

“ I cou'd plead for my self what Longinus says on Works of this Nature, wou'd it not look like Arrogance, "That even the greatest Genius may sometimes sink into meanness, when the force of their Spirits is once exhausted: That its very difficult for height of Thought to sustain it self long in an equal Tenour; and that some Faults ought to be excused when there are more Beauties." ”

“ The following are the chief arguments against Longinus. (1) The treatise is not mentioned by any classical author, nor in any lists of the works attributed to him. (2) The evidence of the MSS. shows that doubts existed even in early times. In the most important (No. 2036 in the Paris Library, 10th century) the heading is Διονυσίου ἥ Λογγίνου, thus giving an alternative author Dionysius; in the Laurentian MS. at Florence the title has ἀνωνύμου, implying that the author was unknown. ”