A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CORIPPUS.
agree. After this the Romans sent the ten chief
men of the Senate, and then all the priests and
augurs. But Coriolanus would not listen to them.
Then, at the suggestion of Valeria, the noblest matrons of Rome, headed by Veturia, and Volumnia,
the wife of Coriolanus, with his two little children,
came to his tent. His mother's reproaches, and
the tears of his wife, and the other matrons bent
his purpose. He led back his army, and lived in
exile among the Volscians till his death. On the
spot where he yielded to his mother's words, a
temple was dedicated to Fortuna Muliebris, and
Valeria was the first priestess.
Such is the substance of the legend. The date
assigned to it in the annals is B. c. 490. Its inconsistency with the traces of real history which
have come down to us have been pointed out by
Niebuhr, who has also shewn that if his banishment be placed some twenty years later, and his
attack on the Romans about ten years after that,
the groundwork of the story is reconcileable with
history. The account of his condemnation is not
applicable to the state of things earlier than B. c.
470, about which time a famine happened, while
Hiero was tyrant of Syracuse, and might have been
induced by his hostility to the Etruscans to send
corn to the Romans. Moreover, in B. c. 458, the
Volscians obtained from the Romans the very
terms which were proposed by Coriolanus. "The
list of his conquests is only that of a portion of
those made by the Volscians transferred to a
Roman whose glory was flattering to national
vanity." The circumstance that the story has
been referred to a wrong date Niebuhr considers
to have arisen from its being mixed up with the
foundation of the temple to Fortuna Muliebris.
The name Coriolanus may have been derived from
his settling in the town of Corioli after his banishment. Whether he had any share in bringing
about the peace of 458, Niebuhr considers doubtful. (Plut. Coriolanus; Liv. ii. 34-40; Dionys.
vii. 20-viii. 59; Niebuhr, vol. ii. pp. 94-107,
234-260). [C. P. M.]
CORIPPUS, FLA'VIUS CRESCO'NIUS.
In the year 1581 a work issued from the press of
Plantin at Antwerp, edited by Michael Ruiz, a
Spaniard, and bearing the title Corippi Africani
Grammatici friagmentum carmiinis in laudem imperatoris Justini Minoris; Carmene panegyricum in
laudem Anastasii quaestoris et magistri; de laudibus
Justini Aaugusti Minoris heroico carmine libri IV.
The two former, of which the first is imperfect, are
extremely short, and in reality are merely the preface and epistle dedicatory of the third, which
extends to nearly 1600 hexameter lines, and is a
formal panegyric, conceived in all the hyperbolical
extravagance of the Byzantine school, in honour of
the younger Justin, who swayed the empire of the
East from A. D. 565 to 578. Ruiz asserts, that
these pieces were faithfully copied from a MS.
more than 700 years old; but of this document he
gives no description; he does not state how it had
come into his possession, nor where it was deposited;
it has never been found; and no other being known
to exist, the text depends upon the editio princeps
alone.
Corippus, in the preface above mentioned, refers
to a poem which he had previously composed upon
the African wars.
Quid Libycas gentes, quid Syrtica proelia dicam
Jam libris completa umeis?

CORIPPUS. 853
Now, Johannes Cuspianus "De Caesaribus et Imperatoribus" declares, that he saw in the royal
library at Buda a poem in eight books entitled
Johannis by Flavius Cresconius Corippus, the subject of which was the war carried on against the
Africans by Johannes Patricius, and he quotes the
first five lines beginning
Signa, duces gentesque feras, Martisque ruinas.
Moreover, we can prove from history that Cuspianus was at Buda between the years 1510 and 1515.
Secondly, it is known that as late as 1532 a MS.
"De Bellis Libycis" was preserved in the monastery of the Monte Casino, bearing the name of
Cresconius, the first word being " Victoris." This
does not correspond, it will be observed, with the
commencement given by Cuspianus; but the difference, as we shall soon see, is only apparent. Both
of the above MSS. have disappeared and left no
trace behind them. Lastly, in the Vallicellan
library at Rome is a MS. of the tenth century,
containing a collection of ancient canons, to which
the transcriber has prefixed the following note:
" Concordia Canonum a Cresconio Africano episcopo
digesta sub capitulis trecentis: iste nimirum Cresconius bella et victorias, quas Johannes Patricius
apud Africam de Saracenis gessit, hexametris versibus descripsit," &c. From this it was inferred
by many scholars, that Cresconius must have flourished towards the end of the seventh century,
since we learn from Cedrenus that, in 697, the
Arabians overran Africa, and were expelled by a
certain Johannes Patricius despatched thither by
the emperor Leontius; hence also Corippus and
Cresconius were generally distinguished from each
other, the former being supposed to be the author
of the panegyric upon Justin, the latter of the
Concordia Canonum and the poem " de Bellis
Libycis." Various other conjectures were formed
and combinations imagined which are now not
worth discussing, since a great portion of the doubt
and difficulty was removed by Mazuchelli in 1814,
who discovered the long-lost Johannis in the library of the Marquis of Trivulzi at Milan,.where
it had been overlooked in consequence of having
been inserted in the catalogue as the production of
a Johannes de Aretio, who lived towards the close
of the 14th century, and who appears to have transcribed it into the same volume with his own barbarous effusions. The Praefatio to this Johannis
begins
Victoris, proceres, praesumsi dicere lauros,
while the first lines of the poem itself are the same
with those quoted by Cuspianus, thus establishing
the identity of the piece with that contained in
the MSS. of Buda and Monte Casino, and enabling
us to determine the full name of the author as
given at the head of this article. The theme is a
war carried on in Africa against the Moors and
Vandals during the reign of Justinian, about the
year 550, by a proconsul or magister militiae
named Johannes, who is the hero of the lay. The
campaign in question is noticed by Procopius
(B. V. ii. 28, B. G. iv. 17) and Paulus Diaconus.
(De Gestis Longobard. i. 25.) Of Johannes we
know nothing except what we are told by Procopius and by the poet himself. Hie was the brother
of Pappus; had served along with him on two
previous occasions in Africa, under Belisarius in
533, and under Germanus in 537; his father was