The late antique author and bishop of Pavia, Magnus Felix Ennodius (474-521), had been neglected in research for nearly one century, contrary to his contemporaries Boethius and Cassiodorus. Only within the last ten years, a couple of scholars have rediscovered this elaborate witness of a time, when late Roman and Ostrogothic traditions flourished side by side under the reign of King Theoderic the Great. The reason for Ennodius' neglect can be found easily: the author always used a tremendously sophisticated language; the highly educated bishop Arnulf of Lisieux, living in the twelfth century, described him as an insoluble knot, as an Innodius.
Most of the recent studies have been dedicated to the major works of Ennodius, such as the Panegyricus Theoderico regi dictus, the Vita Beati Epiphanii episcopi Ticinensis or some of his poems, whereas the large number of letters and Dictiones had been hardly discussed. Stephanie Kennell has undertaken to fill this lacuna and has now presented a biography mostly based on these works. It is the very first biography on Ennodius in English and the first large one since the three volumes Ennodio by Francesco Magani came out in 1886. In addition to that, an English translation of the letters (two volumes) has been announced by the author to be published at the end of this decade.
In her "Introduction" (pp. 1-3) and her first chapter entitled "Looking for Ennodius" (pp. 4-42), Kennell argues to understand Ennodius by reading his whole corpus, as it is preserved in most of the manuscripts following a rough chronological order. Contrary to this order, Jacques Sirmond in his edition of the corpus (Paris 1611) and, following him, Wilhelm Hartel (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 6, Vienna 1882) had distributed the works into nine books of Epistulae, ten Opuscula miscella, Dictiones and two books of Carmina. Following the original order of the works, the stream-of-consciousness format (p. 2) with its mixture of prose and poetry, would enable the reader to discover Ennodius and his works in the material context, textually and archaeologically. By doing so, we can see that certain phrases or motifs recur in a variety of genres and situations. On the other hand, comprehending the material context also means allowing for the real things that inspired Ennodius' reactions-- buildings, people, legal documents, marvels of technology. In examining the language and style of the corpus, we have to interpret rhetorical figures not only as quasi-autonomous verbal constructions but also as responses to and representations if the real world. So, Kennell sums up, the secret of understanding Ennodius is that most of our difficulty in following his trains of thought comes not because the works are fraught with intellectual abstractions but because they convey highly topical material with exquisite elegance (3).
The first chapter mainly consists of an outline of his biography, based on Ennodius' own works and his epitaph (CIL 5.2, 6464 = ILS 2952). Most of the biographical information about his childhood and youth can be found in the so-called Eucharisticon, a "letter to God" (24), written in 511 when recovering from a grave illness. For the adult Ennodius, Kennell also refers to passages from the Vita Beati Epiphanii episcopi Ticinensis, to the Libellus pro synodo and to his letters. Ennodius wrote most of his works before he became bishop of Pavia. So we hardly know anything about the time after 513, just about his delegations to the Byzantine court in 515 and 517, trying to end the Acacian schism. Kennell treats these last years of Ennodius' life in a short chapter entitled "Postscript: Silence and Sainthood" at the end of her book (pp. 214-224), mostly referring to the so- called Collectio Avellana and to the Liber Pontificalis.
Kennell tries to replace three types of images: firstly the tradition of Ennodius as a career clergyman and nascent saint, secondly the approach by the spirit of academic thoroughness analyzing specific elements of the corpus with exemplary historical and literary-critical rigor, and finally the division between the writer and clergyman by rendering him into three to produce pedagogical, ecclesiastical, and political Ennodii, each with his own selection of works. "Like Humpty Dumpty," Ennodius needs putting back together again. By looking at the totality of Ennodius' works, one is able to say some things about them and their author as representative of their age (17-18).
It is very hard to understand Ennodius' works, in particular the numerous letters, when reading them as single pieces or when reading them only from the addressees' point of view. So, Kennell suggests reading his letters "through what he writes about rather than through the people to whom he writes" (32). In this way, medium and message intertwine, as Kennell shows with a sample of letters. So, the only way to understand Ennodius is to read him on his own terms.
The whole chapter 2, "The Divinity of Letters" (pp. 43-84) is dedicated to prove this approach. For Ennodius, communication was the essential activity, as not only the letters, but also the declamatory pieces testify. An intelligent command of rhetoric was still a necessary constituent of full participation in civilized Roman society. Ennodius demonstrates the utility and pleasure to be had from expressing oneself appropriately on a variety of subjects. Ennodius compares education, as a basis of cultivated life, frequently to agriculture, using a wide range of metaphors.
Chapter 3 is entitled "Living in a Material World" (pp. 85-127) and deals with a variety of topics. Kennell tries to point out that Ennodius' works are definitely not mannerist literary games without any relevant content. On the contrary, he is fascinated by landscapes, by buildings, and many other things. His writings about selected facets of his environment provide a textual complement, at once objective and subjective, to the tangible, nonverbal record of artifacts, architecture, and human remains. In his day Ennodius articulated what his contemporaries saw, and to some extent how they saw it (85).
The fourth chapter, "Family's Boons, Kinship's Bonds" (pp. 128- 167), deals with the vocabulary of familial relationships, which constitute a prominent feature in Ennodius' works. Most of his correspondence is addressed to or concerns persons with whom he was somehow related. So, Kennell presumes, a greater degree of intimacy attends Ennodius' blood relationships; letters to relatives sound a happier, more cordial note than those to business acquaintances. In a little excursus, Kennell searches for the roots of the name Ennodius and suggests that his ancestors originally came from a Greek speaking area, where also a goddess named Ennodia can be found. Nevertheless, there is hardly any notice of Ennodius' family in the whole corpus; only his sister Euprepia received seven letters, together with her son Lupicinus. His nephew Parthenius, the son of another unnamed sister, is the addressee of a Dictio. In addition to his blood relationships, Ennodius wrote to a couple of persons, who can be classified as relatives of choice (Wahlverwandte), especially members of the family of Fl. Anicius Probus Faustus Niger, who had been consul in 502. Kennell comes to the conclusion, that "Ennodius' choice of words for each correspondent is illuminating" (148). His fictional families offer us a different perspective on relationships because of the thematic choices Ennodius made (151). In a second part of the chapter, Kennell turns to the 15 academic Dictiones to encounter relationships of an unquestionably fictional type. By analyzing these works as a group, Kennell leaves her main proposal: to read Ennodius as a corpus. Also this section deals with familiarity, because most of the declamatory exercises are built around conflicts between fathers, mothers, and sons.
The final larger chapter, "Speaking Out for the Faith" (pp. 168-213) leads back to the subtitle of the whole book and deals with aspects of Ennodius' life and work that were concerned with his responsibilities as a Christian and, more strictly, as a member of the Catholic clergy. Kennell accurately examines what Ennodius thought about the duties of a bishop, in particular of the bishop of Rome. Her analysis consists of a new and convincing reading of several Dictiones, which were written for episcopal anniversaries and other celebrations of the church, of the so-called Libellus pro synodo, when Ennodius became one of the most important spokesmen of Pope Symmachus against his enemy Laurentius, and of the In Christi nomine, a letter concerning the Acacian schism and presumably "a preliminary exercise for the missions to Constantinople" (202). For treating problems of heresy and schism in the East, Ennodius adopted an unusual strident tone. Kennell raises the question if it is, however, indicative of a generally unfavorable attitude toward Greeks (206). Indeed, there can be found some more parallels of anti-Greek prejudices in the Vita Beati Epiphanii episcopi Ticinensis and in the Panegyricus Theoderico regi dictus, whereas Ennodius' view on other non-Catholics, such as on Arianism, remains pragmatic.
A concordance of opus numbers (between Vogel's and Sirmond's / Hartel's editions), a general bibliography, and an index enable the reader to enter the book also with specific questions. Nevertheless, it would have been appropriate to divide the long chapters into subchapters as well and to finish them with a little summary. Necessarily, Kennell has not been able to answer all possible questions about the author and historical person, but in any case she has presented a challenging book, which will serve as a starting point for further discussions and research.