Gruchius. 56. Onuphrius Panvinius, a man of vast learning and industry, but of less discriminating judgment, and who did not live to its full maturity, fell short, in his treatise, De Civitate Romana, of what Manutius (from whom, however, he could have taken nothing) has achieved on the same subject, and his writings, according to Grævius, would yield a copious harvest to criticism.[972] But neither of the two was comparable to Sigonius of Modena,[973] whose works on the Roman government not only form an epoch in this department of ancient literature, but have left, in general, but little for his successors. Mistakes have of course been discovered, where it is impossible to reconcile, or to rely upon, every ancient testimony; and Sigonius, like the other scholars of his age, might confide too implicitly in his authorities. But his treatises, De Jure Civium Romanorum, 1560, and De Jure Italiæ, 1562, are still the best that can be read in illustration of the Roman historians and the orations of Cicero. Whoever, says Grævius, sits down to the study of these orations, without being acquainted with Sigonius, will but lose his time. In another treatise, published in 1574, De Judiciis Romanorum, he goes through the whole course of judicial proceedings, more copiously than Heineccius, the most celebrated of his successors, and with more exclusive regard to writers of the republican period. The Roman Antiquities of Grævius contain several other excellent pieces by Sigonius, which have gained him the indisputable character of the first antiquary, both for learning and judgment, whom the sixteenth century produced. He was engaged in several controversies; one with Robortellus,[974] another with a more considerable antagonist, Gruchius, a native of Rouen, and professor of Greek at Bordeaux, who, in his treatise, De Comitiis Romanorum, 1555, was the first that attempted to deal with a difficult and important subject. Sigonius and he interchanged some thrusts, with more urbanity and mutual respect than was usual in that age. An account of this controversy, which chiefly related to a passage in Cicero’s oration, De Lege Agraria, as to the confirmation of popular elections by the comitia curiata, will be found in the preface to the second volume of Grævius, wherein the treatises themselves are published. Another contemporary writer, Latino Latini, seems to have solved the problem much better than either Grouchy or Sigone. But both parties were misled by the common source of error in the most learned men of the sixteenth century, an excess of confidence in the truth of ancient testimony. The words of Cicero, who often spoke for an immediate purpose, those of Livy and Dionysius, who knew but imperfectly the primitive history of Rome, those even of Gellius or Pomponius, to whom all the republican institutions had become hardly intelligible, were deemed a sort of infallible text, which a modern might explain as best he could, but must not be presumptuous enough to reject.
[972] In Onuphrio Panvinio fuerunt multæ literæ, multa industria, sed tanta ingenii vis non erat, quanta in Sigonio et Manutio, quorum scripta longe sunt limatiora.
Paulus Manutius calls Panvinius, ille antiquitatis helluo, spectatæ juvenis industriæ ... sæpe litigat obscuris de rebus cum Sigonio nostro, sed utriusque bonitas, mutuus amor, excellens ad cognoscendam veritatem judicium facit ut inter eos facile conveniat. Epist. lib. ii. p. 81.
[973] It appears from some of the Lettere Volgari of Manuzio, that the proper name of Sigonius was not Sigonio, but Sigone. Corniani (vol. vi. p. 151) has made the same observation on the authority of Sigone’s original unpublished letters. But the biographers, as well as Tiraboschi, though himself an inhabitant of the same city, do not advert to it.
[974] The treatises of Robortellus, republished in the second volume of Gruter’s Lampas, are full of vain glory and affected scorn of Sigonius. Half the chapters are headed, Error Sigonii. One of their controversies concerned female prænomina, which Robortellus denied to be ancient, except in the formula of Roman marriage, Ubi tu Cajus, ego Caja; though he admits that some appear in late inscriptions. Sigonius proved the contrary by instances from republican times. It is evident that they were unusual, but several have been found in inscriptions. See Grævius, vol. ii. in præfatione.
Sigonius on Athenian polity. 57. Besides the works of these celebrated scholars, one by Zamoscius, a young Pole, De Senatu Romano (1563), was so highly esteemed, that some have supposed him to have been assisted by Sigonius. The latter, among his other pursuits, turned his mind to the antiquities of Greece, which had hitherto, for obvious reasons, attracted far less attention than those of ancient Italy. He treated the constitution of the Athenian republic so fully, that, according to Gronovius, he left little for Meursius and others who trod in his path.[975] He has, however, neglected to quote the very words of his authorities, which alone can be satisfactory to a diligent reader, translating every passage, so that hardly any Greek words occur in a treatise expressly on the Athenian polity. This may be deemed a corroboration of what has been said above, as to the decline of Greek learning in Italy.
[975] Nonnulla quidem variis locis attigit Meursius et alii, sed teretiore prorsus et rotundo magis ore per omnia Sigonius. Thesaur. Antiq. Græc. vol. v.
Patrizzi and Lipsius on Roman militia. 58. Francis Patrizzi was the first who unfolded the military system of Rome. He wrote in Italian a treatise, Della Milizia Romana, 1583, of which a translation will be found in the tenth volume of Grævius.[976] It is divided into fifteen parts, which seem to comprehend the whole subject: each of these again is divided into sections; and each section explains a text from the sixth book of Polybius, or from Livy. But he comes down no lower in history than those writers extend, and is consequently not aware of, or but slightly alludes to, the great military changes that ensued in later times. On Polybius he comments sentence by sentence. He had been preceded by Robortellus, and by Francis, Duke of Urbino, in endeavouring to explain the Roman castrametation from Polybius. Their plans differ a little from his own.[977] Lipsius, who some years afterwards wrote on the same subject, resembles Patrizzi in his method of a running commentary on Polybius. Scaliger, who disliked Lipsius very much, imputes to him plagiarism from the Italian antiquary.[978] But I do not perceive, on a comparison of the two treatises, much pretence for this insinuation. The text of Polybius was surely common ground, and I think it possible that the work of Patrizzi, which was written in Italian, might not be known to Lipsius. But whether this were so or not, he is much more full and satisfactory than his predecessor, who, I would venture to hint, may have been a little over-praised. Lipsius, however, seems to have fallen into the same error of supposing that the whole history of the Roman militia could be explained from Polybius.
[976] Primus Romanæ rei militaris præstantiam Polybium secutus detexit, cui quantum debeant qui post illum in hoc argumento elaborarunt, non nescient viri docti qui Josephi Scaligeri epistolas, aut Nicii Erythræi Pinacothecam legerunt. Nonnulli quidem rectius et explicatius sunt tradita de hac doctrina post Patricium a Justo Lipsio et aliis, qui in hoc stadio cucurrerunt; ut non difficulter inventis aliquid additur aut in iis emendatur, sed præclare tamen fractæ glaciei laus Patricio est tribuenda. Grævius in præfat. ad 10mum volumen. This book has been confounded by Blount and Ginguéné with a later work of Patrizzi entitled Paralleli Militari, Rome, 1594, in which he compared the military art of the ancients with that of the moderns, exposing, according to Tiraboschi (viii. 494), his own ignorance of the subject.