in their own counsels,"" and elsewhere, "Even as they did not like to retain me in their knowledge, I gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." Command me, I beseech thee, O Lord, that I may cry out against them, and perchance they may be converted.

O Roman pontiffs, the model of all crimes for other pontiffs! O wickedest of scribes and Pharisees, who sit in Moses' seat and do the deeds of Dathan and Abiram! Will the raiment, the habiliments, the pomp, the cavalry, indeed the whole manner of life of a Caesar thus befit the vicar of Christ? What fellowship has the priest with the Caesar? Did Sylvester put on this raiment; did he parade in this splendor; did he live and reign with such a throng of servants in his house? Depraved wretches! They did not know that Sylvester ought to have assumed the vestments of Aaron, who was the high priest of God, rather than those of a heathen ruler.

But this must be more strongly pressed elsewhere. For the present, however, let us talk to this sycophant about barbarisms of speech; for by the stupidity of his language his monstrous impudence is made clear, and his lie.

"We give,” he says, "our imperial Lateran palace”: as though it was awkward to place the gift of the palace here among the ornaments, he repeated it later where gifts are treated. "Then the diadem;" and as though those present would not know, he interprets, "that is, the crown." He did not, indeed, here add “of gold," but later, emphasizing the same statements, he says, "of purest gold and precious gems." The ignorant fellow did not know that a diadem was made of coarse cloth or perhaps of silk; whence that wise and oft-repeated remark of the king, who, they say, before he put upon his head the diadem given him, held it and considered it long and exclaimed, "O cloth more renowned than happy! If any one knew you through and through, with how many anxieties and dangers and miseries you are fraught, he would not

1 Ps. lxxxi, 12.

2 Rom. i, 28, with the person of the verb changed.

E

vellet tollere." Iste non putat illud nisi ex auro esse, cui circulus aureus nunc cum gemmis apponi a regibus solet. Verum non erat rex Constantinus, nec regem appellare, nec regio se ritu ornare fuisset ausus. Imperator Romanorum erat, non rex. Ubi rex est, ibi respublica non est. At in republica multi fuerunt etiam uno tempore imperatores; nam Cicero frequenter ita scribit: M. Cicero imperator illi vel illi imperatori salutem: licet postea peculiari nomine Romanus princeps, ut summus omnium, imperator appelletur.

4

"Simulque phrygium, nec non superhumerale, videlicet lorum quod imperiale circumdare solet collum." Quis umquam phrygium Latine dici audivit? Tu mihi dum barbare loqueris videri vis Constantini aut Lactantii esse sermonem. Plautus in Menaechmis1 phrygionem2 pro concinnatore vestium posuit. Plinius phrygionas3 appellat vestes acu pictas, quod earum Phryges fuerint inventores. Phrygium vero quid significat?5 Hoc non exponis, quod obscurum; exponis quod est clarius. Superhumerale ais esse lorum, nec quid sit lorum tenes; non enim cingulum ex corio factum, quod dicitur lorum, sentis circumdari pro ornamento Caesaris collo: hinc est quod habenas et verbera vocamus lora; quod si quando dicantur lora aurea, non nisi de habenis quae auratae collo equi aut alterius pecudis circumdari assolent intelligi potest. Quae te res, ut mea fert opinio, fefellit, et cum lorum circumdare collo Caesaris atque Silvestri vis, de homine, de imperatore, de summo pontifice, equum aut asinum' facis.

"Verum et chlamydemR purpuream, atque tunicam coccineam.” Quia Matthaeus ait chlamydem coccineam, et Ioannes vestem purpuream, utrumque voluit hic eodem loco coniungere. Quod si idem color est, ut Evangelistae significant, quid tu non fuisti contentus alterum nominasse, ut illi contenti fuerunt: nisi accipis purpuram, ut nunc imperiti loquuntur, genus panni serici colore 2 Hutten. frygionem; MS.

1 Menechinis; MS.

3 Correct form is phrygionias. Bonneau omits this whole sentence.

care to pick you up; no, not even if you were lying on the ground!" This fellow does not imagine but that it is of gold, with a gold band and gems such as kings now usually add. But Constantine was not a king, nor would he have dared to call himself king, nor to adorn himself with royal ceremony. He was Emperor of the Romans, not king. Where there is a king, there is no republic. But in the republic there were many, even at the same time, who were "imperatores" [generals]; for Cicero frequently writes thus, "Marcus Cicero, imperator, to some other imperator, greeting": though, later on, the Roman ruler, as the highest of all, is called by way of distinctive title the Emperor.

"And at the same time the tiara and also the shoulder-band,that is the strap that usually surrounds our imperial neck." Who ever heard "tiara" [phrygium] used in Latin? You talk like a barbarian and want it to seem to me to be a speech of Constantine's or of Lactantius'. Plautus, in the Menaechmi, applied “phrygionem" to a designer of garments; Pliny calls clothes embroidered with a needle "phrygiones" because the Phrygians invented them; but what does "phrygium" mean? You do not explain this, which is obscure; you explain what is quite clear. You say the "shoulderband" is a "strap," and you do not perceive what the strap is, for you do not visualize a leather band, which we call a strap, encircling the Caesar's neck as an ornament. [It is of leather], hence we call harness and whips "straps": but if ever gold straps are mentioned, it can only be understood as applying to gilt harness such as is put around the neck of a horse or of some other animal. But this has escaped your notice, I think. So when you wish to put a strap around the Caesar's neck, or Sylvester's, you change a man, an Emperor, a supreme pontiff, into a horse or an ass.

"And also the purple mantle and scarlet tunic." Because Matthew says "a scarlet robe," and John "a purple robe," this fellow tries to join them together in the same passage. But if they are the same color, as the Evangelists imply, why are you not content, as they were, to name either one alone; unless, like ignorant folk today, you use "purple" for silk goods of a whitish color? The 1 Matt. xxvii, 28; John xix, 2.

albo? Est autem purpura piscis, cuius sanguine lana tingitur, ideoque a tinctura datum est nomen panno, cuius color pro rubro accipi potest, licet sit magis nigricans et proximus colori sanguinis concreti, et quasi violaceus. Inde ab Homero atque Virgilio purpureus dicitur sanguis et marmor porphyritum,' cuius color est simillimus amethysto; Graeci enim purpuram porphyram vocant. Coccineum pro rubro accipi forte non ignoras; sed cur faciat coccineum cum nos dicamus coccum, et chlamys quod genus sit vestimenti, iurarem te plane nescire.

2

Atque ut ne se3 longius persequendo singulas vestes mendacem proderet, uno semel verbo complexus est, dicens; "omnia imperialia indumenta." Quid! Etiamne illa quibus in bello, quibus in venatione, quibus in conviviis, quibus in ludis amiciri solet? Quid stultius quam omnia Caesaris indumenta dicere convenire pontifici?

Sed quam lepide addit; "Seu etiam dignitatem imperialium praesidentium equitum"! "Seu" inquit. Distinguere duo haec invicem voluit, quasi multum inter se habeant similitudinis, et de imperatorio habitu ad equestrem dignitatem delabitur,* nescio quid loquens. Mira quaedam effari vult, sed deprehendi in mendacio timet, eoque inflatis buccis et turgido gutture dat sine

mente sonum.

"Conferentes ei etiam imperialia sceptra." Quae structura orationis! Qui nitor! Qui ordo! Quaenam sunt sceptra ista imperialia? Unum est sceptrum, non plura; si modo sceptrum gerebat imperator. Num et pontifex sceptrum manu gestabit? Cur non ei dabimus et ensem et galeam et iaculum?

“Simulque cuncta signa atque banna.” Quid tu “signa” accipis? Signa sunt aut statuae, unde frequenter legimus signa et tabulas

1 porphiritum; MS.

3 si; Hutten.

5 mendatio; MS.

2 amethisto; MS.

4 dilabitur; Hutten, Bonneau.

"purple" [pupura], however, is a fish in whose blood wool is dyed, and so from the dye the name has been given to the cloth, whose color can be called red, though it may rather be blackish and very nearly the color of clotted blood, a sort of violet. Hence by Homer and Virgil blood is called purple, as is porphyry, the color of which is similar to amethyst; for the Greeks call purple "porphyra." You know perhaps that scarlet is used for red; but I would swear that you do not know at all why he makes it "coccineum" when we say "coccum," or what sort of a garment a "mantle" [chlamys] is.

But that he might not betray himself as a liar by continuing longer on the separate garments, he embraced them all together in a single word, saying, "all the imperial raiment." What! even that which he is accustomed to wear in war, in the chase, at banquets, in games? What could be more stupid than to say that all the raiment of the Caesar befits a pontiff!

1

But how gracefully he adds, "and the same rank as those presiding over the imperial cavalry." He says "seu" ["or" for “and”].1 He wishes to distinguish between these two in turn, as if they were very like each other, and slips along from the imperial raiment to the equestrian rank, saying-I know not what! He wants to say something wonderful, but fears to be caught lying, and so with puffed cheeks and swollen throat, he gives forth sound without sense.

"Conferring also on him the imperial sceptres." What a turn of speech! What splendor! What harmony! What are these imperial sceptres? There is one sceptre, not several; if indeed the Emperor carried a sceptre at all. Will now the pontiff carry a sceptre in his hand? Why not give him a sword also, and helmet and javelin?

"And at the same time all the standards and banners." What do you understand by "standards" [signa]? "Signa" are either statues (hence frequently we read "signa et tabulas" for pieces

1 Here, as was common in medieval Latin, "seu" is the equivalent of "et," and means "and." Valla's criticism is correct, but might go further in fixing the time of the forgery. Cf. supra, p. 91, note 1.