This publication certainly fills a gap in German studies of Late Antiquity. A complete German translation of the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris was long overdue, after the high standards set by Anderson/Warmington (1936/1965) in English and Loyen (1970) in French. One comes to K.'s translation, therefore, with high expectations, which are more than met.
In addition to the translation of Sidonius' nine books of letters this nicely crafted but rather expensive book consists of a short introduction, a select bibliography and a general index. The book is carefully edited, with only the occasional typo (e.g. p. xx ‘es [ist] sicher nicht falsch’; p. 81 ‘Entgege[n]kommen’; p. 120 §(3) is missing; p. 173 ‘durch eine[n] Stoß’). Printing only the German text may be an indication that the readers envisaged by the author are not only students and scholars but a wider Latinless audience. In fact, what K. delivers is certainly more than common Übersetzungsdeutsch. She masters Sidonius' challenging Latin both in verse and prose with particular sensitivity. Her translation is reliable and close to the Latin, though the German sometimes bears an antiquated touch (e.g. 2.10.4 ‘auf gleichem Grund von Golde’; 2.13.6 ‘Spezereien’ for unguenta; 5.2.1 ‘Frauenzimmer’).
K. has also made the effort to render the poems, which are included in the letters, in the original metre. This, as well as the decision to reproduce Sidonius' ornate style and pictorial language in German, is of course laudable, but does not always help the reader to understand the difficult Latin. Some of the poems are in places especially obscure (e.g. 2.10.4 ‘und in mancherlei farbig-bunten Formen / flicht sich im Mosaik des Saphirs Bläue / lebhaft grünend durch die glasierten Steinchen’).
Inclusion of the Latin text would certainly have been an added convenience for scholarly readers. K. surprisingly uses the edition of Mohr (1895) instead of the usually preferred Loyen (1970). The same scholarly readership will also find the brief introductory chapters rather disappointing. K. shortly outlines Sidonius' biography (p. vii–xvi), literary characteristics (p. xvii–xxv) and the reception of his letters (p. xxvi–xxx), but with very few references. The select bibliography at the end of the book seems more arbitrary than concise. The opportunity to paint a broader picture of Sidonius, his social world and the cultural and political landscape of Gaul in the fifth century has been missed here. Certainly missing is an appropriate contextualisation of Sidonius' ‘Briefkunst’ within the epistolary culture of Late Antiquity, since many of the features K. emphasises as pertaining to Sidonius' language are likewise to be found in the works of epistolographers such as Ausonius, Avitus of Vienne or Ennodius.
The notes to the text are intentionally kept basic. Here too, one sometimes wished for more (e.g. at 3.5.3 the phrase ‘von Beruf her mein Sohn’ is only intelligible when one is reminded that Sidonius here speaks as bishop).
Given the overall high quality of the translation these (largely self-imposed) limitations do not undermine the importance of this publication. The book will serve as a useful tool for German scholars of Late Antiquity and may attract a broader public to this interesting author.
