Prudentius writes Crowns of the Martyrs XII, a poem on the martyrdom of the Apostles *Peter and *Paul (S00036 and S00008); the poem is cast as a conversation between the poet and a citizen of Rome on the saints' feast day, in which the interlocutor of Prudentius tells the story of the martyrdom of the Apostles and describes the places of their burial. Written in Latin in Calahorra (northern Hispania), c. 400. Overview of Peristephanon XII.
Evidence ID
E04274
Type of Evidence
Literary - Poems
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Major author/Major anonymous work
Prudentius
Liber Peristephanon, Poem XII
Summary:
The poem is a fictitious conversation between the speaking subject of the poem (the poet himself) and a citizen of Rome who explains to the poet the unusual atmosphere in the city as the result of the feast of the Apostles, Peter and Paul. According to the Roman, their feast is celebrated on the same day because they were martyred on the same day of the month but in different years. Then he gives an account of the inverted crucifixion of Peter and of the decapitation of Paul. Further on, the interlocutor of Prudentius describes the sites of burial of the Apostles, first that of Peter, then that of Paul. On their feast the Romans visit both cult places. Also the bishop of Rome performs the celebrations, first at St Peter's and later at St Paul's.
Text: Cunningham 1966, 379-381
Translation: Thomson 1953, 323-327
Summary: M. Szada
Liturgical ActivitiesBurial site of a saint - unspecified
Non Liturgical ActivityEcclesiastics - bishops
Eucharist associated with cult
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - unspecified
Cult building - independent (church)
Descriptions of cult places
Place of martyrdom of a saint
Non Liturgical ActivityVisiting graves and shrines
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Other lay individuals/ people
Crowds
Source
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348–after 405) was a Christian aristocrat from Calahorra in the Spanish province of Tarraconensis. He was a high official in the imperial bureaucracy in Rome, but withdrew from public life, returned to Calahorra, and dedicated himself to the service and celebration of God. Most of what we know about his biography comes from the preface to the ensemble of his works, which can be reliably dated to 404 (Cunningham 1966, 1-2), and other autobiographical remarks scattered throughout his works (for a detailed discussion, see Palmer 1989, 6-31). He composed several poetical works, amongst them the Peristephanon (literally, On the Crowns [of the Martyrs]), a collection of fourteen poems of different length describing martyrdoms of saints. We do not know exactly at which point in his literary career Prudentius wrote the preface (possibly at the very end, just before publication); for attempts at a precise dating of the Peristephanon, see Fux 2013, 9, n. 1.The poems in the Peristephanon, written in elegant classical metres, deal mainly with martyrs from Spain, but some of them are dedicated to saints of Rome, Africa and the East. The poems were widely read in the late antique and medieval West, and had a considerable influence on the diffusion of cult of the saints included. In later periods they were sometimes used as hymns in liturgical celebrations and had an impact on the development of the Spanish hymnody. Some indications in the poems suggest that they were written to commemorate the saints on their feast days, but Prudentius probably did not compose them for the liturgy of his time. Rather, they probably provided 'devotional reading matter for a cultured audience outside a church context' (Palmer 1989, 3; see also Chapter 3 in her book).
Discussion
The poem is written in the distichs formed of a greater archilochian and a iambic trimeter catalectic.Bibliography
Editions of the Peristephanon:Cunningham, M.P., Prudentii Carmina (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 126; Turnhout: Brepols, 1966), 251-389.
Bergman, J., Prudentius, Carmina (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 61; Vienna, 1926), 291-431.
Translations of the Peristephanon:
Eagan, C., Prudentius, Poems (Fathers of the Church 43; Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1962), 95-280. English translation.
Thomson, H.J., Prudentius, vol. 2 (Loeb Classical Library; London Cambridge, Mass: W. Heinemann; Harvard University Press, 1953), 98-345. Edition and English translation.
Further reading:
Fux, P.-Y., Prudence et les martyrs: hymnes et tragédie. Peristephanon 1. 3-4. 6-8. 10. Commentaire, (Fribourg: Academic Press, 2013).
Malamud, M.A., A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
Palmer, A.-M., Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
Roberts, M., Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The "Liber Peristephanon" of Prudentius (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993).
Record Created By
Marta Szada
Date of Entry
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain |
|---|
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