Possanza, 'Fragmentary Latin Poets', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9510
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9510-possanza-fragmentary
@@@@95.10.6, Courtney, Fragmentary Latin Poets
Edward Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xxv, 504. $85.00. ISBN
0-19-814775-9.
Reviewed by Mark Possanza -- University of Pittsburgh
Travelers in the bleak terrain of Fragmenta Poetarum
Latinorum (Romanorum in Baehrens' edition) are
accustomed to being abandoned by their guides in a hostile
environment and to fending for themselves under the impassive
gaze of those sphinx-like texts; the sheer exertions of survival
seemed to preclude the possibility of doing anything more with
these ruins than gawking at them. But now there is a trustworthy
guide in E. Courtney and his Fragmentary Latin Poets which
brings the traveler to an oasis where seven centuries of Latin
poetic fragments can be read in ease and comfort, fragments
ranging in length from individual words,
subductisupercilicarptores (a definition of reviewers) and
phrases, lassas clunes (the end product of reviewing) to
the 78 lines of Cicero's Consulatus Suus. The principles
of selection are clearly stated in the preface (pp.vii-viii):
primitive non-literary verse, the saturnians of Livius and
Naevius, and Latin translations of Greek texts made for purposes
of quotation are justifiably excluded. These omissions will prove
insignificant for the majority of readers, especially when they
discover the riches that lie in store, including fragments not
found in earlier collections. A helpful index of authors on pp.
xiii-xiv makes it clear at a glance what fragments are not
included in the editions of Baehrens, Morel and Buechner's
revision of Morel. Most notable among the additions are the minor
works of Ennius, the Carmen de Bello Actiaco and the poems
of Tiberianus. Although one cannot quarrel with the editor's
overall design of producing a collection of fragments that
"consist[s] of verse written on principles showing some degree of
identifiable continuity from the second century BC to the fourth
AD" (pref. p. vii), I myself regret the absence of examples of
saturnians and the carmen-style from the beginnings of Latin
poetry because their absence may create the false impression that
the victory of Ennius and his tribe in thoroughly hellenizing
Roman poetry will seem, like the victory of Octavian, an
historical necessity; an evolutionary progress that had to take
place if Roman writers were to produce literature' as defined by
Greek texts. The survivors of the defeated party are so few and
of course so seemingly primitive by the standards of later
achievements that it is easy to forget that the literary
sophistication and artistry of Livius and Naevius, so brilliantly
detailed by Leo, Fraenkel and Mariotti, reveal both a depth and a
seriousness in their conception of poetic composition which
expose Ennius's jibe at the saturnian for the hollow piece of
self-serving advertisement that it is.
The editor makes a threefold contribution to the scholarly
investigation of these fragments: first, revised texts which
offer numerous improvements; second, informative
literary-historical discussions of authors, works and fragments
(see, for example, Marcus Cicero 148-152, Varro of Atax 235-238,
Cornelius Gallus 259-262, Ennius's Epicharmus 30-31,
Porcius Licinius's "Poenico bello secundo..." 83-86 and the
longer notes interspersed among the fragments of Bibaculus,
Calvus and Cinna 192-224); and third, the commentary itself which
deals with the whole range of philological problems one
encounters in fragmentary texts. The editor assumes a scholarly
competence in his readers. This is not a book for beginners.
In an edition of fragments arrangement of material and page
layout count for much. FLP succeeds well in bringing order
and clarity to the presentation of texts produced over a span of
seven centuries and in constructing around them the literary
historical context that integrates the fragments into the
established system of periods, trends and lines of development.
The authors are arranged in chronological order. In general the
editor employs the following format of presentation: an
introductory section on the life and works of the author, when
these are known; then the fragments, embedded in the contexts in
which they are quoted and accompanied by an apparatus criticus
when the transmission warrants one (translations of Greek texts
are matched with their originals); and finally the commentary
which may be followed, in the case of difficult and controversial
fragments, by a general discussion of problems and opinions. The
reader will find many variations on this format as the editor
responds to the special circumstances of a given poet's fragments
and balances the competing claims of the integrity of the
author's fragmentary corpus, genre, chronology and literary
history.
Courtney's flexibility in matters of arrangement is an
important feature of his editorial technique which will, I think,
despite certain minor inconveniences to the reader, enhance the
value of the book as a contribution to the study of Latin poetry.
The amatory epigrams of Valerius Aedituus, Porcius Licinus and
Lutatius Catulus, for example, are all presented together "to
maintain the integrity of the following excerpt from Gellius"
(p.70); and these in turn are followed, in violation of a
strictly chronological order, by a poem of Loreius Tiburtinus,
also on an erotic theme, to bring out the similarity in treatment
and subject matter with the more famous poems of Aedituus,
Licinus and Catulus. Such an arrangement provides, on the one
hand, a clear picture of the circumstances of transmission in
Gellius's Noctes Atticae, and, on the other, a textual
environment that fosters comparative analysis.
In preparing the following comments I employed myself in those
areas where I thought I would be most useful. The Fragmentary
Latin Poets is a book whose scholarly range cannot be fully
explored in a review and whose value, as it increases with use,
will continue to manifest itself in new researches which it will
inspire and for which it will serve as a lasting foundation.
Naevius's epitaph, p.47. Itaque in 3 requires
explanation as Suerbaum pointed out (Untersuchungen zur
Selbstdarstellung aelterer roemischer Dichter [Hildesheim
1968] 36). It is not immediately apparent why the statement that
people at Rome have forgotten how to speak Latin after the death
of Naevius follows as inference or consequence from the statement
that the Camenae would weep for Naevius if it were lawful to do
so. The word order of the first two lines is noteworthy: the
juxtaposition of immortales mortales is repeated, with
specific reference, in divae Camenae / Naevium poetam, the
words of these two phrases being in chiastic arrangement. The
editor sees the alliterations in the second cola of these lines
(e.g. loquier lingua Latina) as the work of an imitator
"sowing with the whole sack" p.48. I'm not so sure that these
alliterations are markedly different from what we find in the
Bellum Poenicum (in Mariotti's numeration):
prima...Proserpina puer 14; ...prognatus Pythius Apollo 15;
vicissatim volvi...victoriam 25; scopas...sagmina sumpserunt 32;
magnae metus tumultus pectora possidit 42; patrem suum supremum
optumum appellat 46.
Ennius's epitaph, p.43. Suerbaum's suggestion that Ennius's
"nemo me lacrimis decoret..." is a response to Naevius's epitaph
is worth mentioning. With its triple alliterations (funera
fletu faxit, volito vivos...virum) corresponding to the
alliterations of the second cola of the first and last lines of
the Naevian epitaph, it does have the sound of a parodic riposte.
At any rate Ennius effectively deflates the superbia
Campana of his predecessor. Ennius is happy to take the poet
of the Bellum Poenicum at his word: when Naevius died, his
poetry died with him since, as the poet himself admits, the
people at Rome have forgotten how to speak Latin: Ennius and his
poetry continue to live on the lips of men.
Parietal inscription of Loreius Tiburtinus, p.79. At some
inconvenience to the reader the editor prints a text without
supplements for the fragmentary beginnings of the lines, leaving
the reader to retrieve them from a paragraph in which the
supplements are discussed. With the adoption of Buecheler's
no]n in line 2 the speaker, who is being consumed by the
fire of love, lamely asserts that his eyes, and not the speaker
himself, are responsible for arousing the flames of passion: ui
me oculei postquam deducxsistis in ignem / no]n ob uim vestreis
largificatis geneis; Courtney's translation, "After you, eyes,
have forcibly dragged me into the fire, it is not because of
force exerted by me on you that you indulge your lids [i.e. with
tears]." I would prefer to read vos]n' and punctuate as a
question: "After you, eyes, have violently dragged me into the
fire, is it you who because of your violent behavior indulge your
lids [with tears]? The speaker is perplexed at the paradoxical
behavior of his eyes: they are both perpetrator and victim; after
leading the speaker into the fire of passion, they now shed tears
because of what they have done. The paradox is further developed
when the speaker says that the tears burn his face.
Matius's translation of the Iliad, frg.2 p.100. "Use of
a scholion in translating Homer has been detected in Livius
Andronicus also (H. Fraenkel, Hermes 67 (1932), 306), but
that idea runs up against the difficulty that, so far as we know,
no commentaries on Homer existed when Livius translated the
Odyssey..." In fairness to Fraenkel it must be noted that
he was careful, unlike those who have adopted his conclusions, to
specify a pre-Aristarchan date for the material used by
Livius ("dass zwei Homerscholien auf voraristarchische Zeit
datiert sind" p.308), a conclusion which implies, as Courtney
himself says, that "...Livius was using a traditional explanation
of the schools later incorporated in scholia." See Pfeiffer,
History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968) 212 with
n.6.
Laevius, frg.11 p.127. Housman's discussion of the phrase
ponti maria, cited on 127, has an important supplement in
Timpanaro's "Lucretiana" in Contributi di filologia e di
storia della lingua latina (Rome 1978) 171-174. To the Greek
examples may be added Archilochus 8.1 (West).
Headnote to the fragments of M. Tullius Cicero, p.151. "He
[Cicero] also rejects (except for Aratea 3, reproducing
Aratus' own rhythm) the spondaic hexameters favoured by Aratus
himself, Lucretius, and Catullus." This statement is potentially
misleading in two respects. First, the spondee in Aratea 3
is due to a proper name Orionis (W)RI/ONOS, Aratus 518), a
usage for which there is Homeric and Hesiodic precedent (on the
line ending W)RI/ONOS see Opera 598, 615, 619). Therefore
the example is of no real significance for Cicero's metrical
practice and does not constitute an exception to Cicero's
avoidance of spondaic hexameters. Second, it is strange to read
that Lucretius, mentioned in the company of Catullus, favored
spondaic hexameters: Lucretius has 31 such hexameters in a poem
of 7,415 lines; Catullus has 30 of them in a poem of 407 lines. A
reference to Norden's discussion of spondaic lines in his
commentary on Aeneid 6 (pp.441-446) would have been
helpful. Here it seems appropriate to mention another metrical
phenomenon that comes up in connection with Cicero's
Aratea on p.241 where the editor writes that Cicero's only
correption reproduces that of his original. The reference is
Aratus 152, E)THSI/AI EU)REI/ PO/TW|= Aratea frg.22,
etesiae in vada ponti. Lucretius has the same correption, 6. 716.
The license is again due to the use of a proper name.
Quintus Tullius Cicero, text p.179, Wakefield's emendation
flamina, adopted by the editor, is made certain by the
association of the blowing of Zephyr/Favonius with the beginning
of spring;
commentary p.180 on line 10, "Cf. Marcus 119 denudat foliis
ramos (sc. the sun)." The subject of denudat on line
12 is Canis meaning either the constellation Canis Major or the
star Canicula (Sirius); " Winter breathing out the rays of
Capricorn' is a daring phrase." The Latin is "bruma gelu glacians
iubar it (it Schenkl est cod.) spirans Capricorni."
To take spirans with bruma is more than daring when
one considers parallels like Marcus Cicero's Aratea 58-59,
gelidum valido de pectore frigus anhelans / corpore semifero
magno Capricornus in orbe; and 110, nec vero toto spirans de
corpore flammam [Canis]; and in Quintus's fragment, 6, Leo
proflat ferus ore calores. From these passages it is clear that
it is the constellation figure that is imagined as breathing out
the weather that is characteristic of the season it heralds and
not the other way around. Better to take iubar Capricorni
as subject, spirans as a circumstantial participle
modifying iubar, with gelu glacians as its object
and bruma est as the predicate: "The stellar radiance of
Capricorn, when it breathes out freezing ice [i.e. when occupied
by the sun], is the winter solstice." English cannot, however,
reproduce the full calendric significance of bruma,
winter solstice/shortest day of the year.' For bruma in
the specific sense of cardo hiemalis in cursu solis' see
TLL 2.2207. 11; compare also Lucretius, 5.616, Aegocerotis
brumalis adeat flexus and Aratus 286, AI)GO/KERWS I(/NA I)\S
TRE/PET) H)ELI/OIO. That this specific meaning of bruma is
the appropriate one for the context is confirmed by the fact that
the poet describes the effect of equinox and solstice on the
length of daylight: the equinoxes in Aries and Libra make day and
night equal; the summer solstice in Cancer marks the beginning of
decreasing hours of daylight; the winter solstice in Capricorn
marks the beginning of increasing hours of daylight when the sun
turns to its northward journey.
p.181, on line 18, "Arcera is an old-fashioned word for
Plaustrum." It also carries an acoustic echo of the Greek
A)/RKTOS. For the words Arcera...quem servans...Bootes
there is an interesting parallel in Supplementum
Hellenisticum, no.391, 8-9, BOW/THS A)/TON A)PO[S]KOPE/WN.
C. Iulius Caesar, p.187-188, the editor treats with some
impatience the question whether a Julius Caesar' mentioned in
Firmicus Maternus's astrological handbook as the source of a few
verses' relevant to astrology is the Dictator or Germanicus
Caesar, son of Drusus and translator of Aratus's
Phainomena. According to Courtney Firmicus is referring to
"the astronomical work written by Julius Caesar in connection
with his reform of the calendar" and that "in this work Caesar
quoted a few verses (Greek or Latin?) written by someone else."
Macrobius's description of this work as "non indoctos
libros," quoted by Courtney, flatly contradicts Firmicus's
introductory statement that Latin authors have produced no
introductory libri on the elements of astrology but only
"paucos versus". The identification of the verses in
question hangs on the realization that Firmicus is interested in
material that can be used for basic instruction in astrology and,
since he has a strong nationalistic concern for the Latin
contribution to this science, he is interested in material
written in Latin. The possibility of Greek poetry quoted by
Caesar is, I think, ruled out. Moreover his work on the calendar
can also be ruled out because, apart from its publication in
libri, it would not provide instruction in the science of
astrology. As becomes clear in a latter passage (8.5.3) closely
related to 2 praef. in thought and language, in which
Courtney agrees that the Caesar mentioned by Firmicus is
Germanicus Caesar, the "paucos versus" of Caesar and the
"pauca" of Cicero that are relevant to instruction in
astrology are none other than the lines of Aratus's
Phainomena describing what are known as the paranatellons,
constellations that rise and set simultaneously with zodiacal
constellations (559-731). This information is important to
astrologers because it allows them to determine the risings and
settings of zodiacal constellations when these are not directly
observable. In Firmicus's estimation this section of the
Phainomena amounts to "paucos versus" because it is
very brief in comparison to his own lengthy exposition. Since
Firmicus's subject in this section of his work is the
paranatellons, there can be no doubt that this is the part of
Aratus's poem he has in mind. It fits all the requirements of
Firmicus's description in 2 praef. and in 8.5.3 and it was
translated into Latin by Cicero and Germanicus Julius Caesar.
Unless we want to ascribe a translation of Aratus to the
Dictator, we must conclude that in both passages Germanicus
Caesar is meant. To whom Firmicus thought he was referring is
another matter.
Varro Atacinus, pp.240-241, frg. 5, it should be mentioned
that the point of the passage is to give an aition for the
name of the Idaean Dactyls. Varro's use of scholia in his
translation is well documented in Maria Goetz, De
Scholiasticis Graecis Poetarum Romanorum Auctoribus Quaestiones
Selectae (Jena 1918):
p.245, frg. 14, on lines 5-6, "mirabile uisu and
patulis have been added to Aratus, the former weakly, the
latter with good pictorial effect." Looking up at the heavens is
the attitude of man, not of beasts who are fashioned prone. When
one observes bos suspiciens caelum, it is indeed cause for
wonder. Varro wins praise for the naturalistic detail of
naribus patulis but the scholia on this line can't say
enough about the sensitivity of bovine MUKTH=RES (cf. OI(
BO/ES... DIAXA/SKONTAS E)/XONTES TOU\S MUKTH=RAS):
line 7, the metaphor in decerpsit odorem deserves
comment.
Cornelius Gallus, p.266, on line 4-5,
templa...legam. Nisbet's interpretation of these lines is, I
think, to be preferred [JRS 69 (1979) 142-143]. He
translates (143): "I shall read of temples the richer for being
hung with your trophies." The editor's interpretation of
templa legere as to read the inscriptions on temples"
finds little support in the phrase sepulcra legens
(Cicero, Senec. 21) because the latter phrase apparently
had currency as part of a general admonition (ut aiunt)
about the harmful effect of that activity on memory and because
it occurs in the context of a discussion about remembering names,
and sepulcra are an important source of names. In the
phrase templa...legam, however, there is lacking that
obvious connection between inscription and object inscribed,
which sustains the metonymic use of sepulcra. Moreover,
the addition of deivitiora argues against inscriptions on
temples.'
p.269 on lines 50-51, "I follow those who take Chalcidico
uersu to mean elegiac meter', said to have been invented by
Theocles of Chalcis (see QUCC 63 (1990), 107) I must
confess that when I read this note I was completely ignorant of
the identity and literary significance of Theocles of Chalcis.
Though no doubt I was alone in my ignorance, some readers may
find Coleman's note in his commentary on Eclogue 10.50
more informative. See also the important discussion of Farrell,
Vergil's Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient
Epic (Oxford 1991) 33-60, esp. 48.
Albinovanus Pedo, p.317, ire is explained as a
prolative infinitive after audaces. But this combination
of adjective + infinitive usually has an epithetic quality (e.g
Horace C. 1.3.25, audax omnia perpeti gens humana) which
seems inappropriate in this context, given the peculiar set of
circumstances in which the soldiers are caught and the unusual
length and specificity of the description, per non concessas
audaces ire tenebras / ad rerum metas extremaque litora mundi.
Carmen de Bello Actiaco, p.339, line 47, percutit is
printed in the text but according to the facsimile and Riese's
Anth. Lat. the transmitted reading is perculit and
percutit is Kreyssig's conjecture.
Lentulus Gaetulicus, p.345, line 1 of poem, read aera
for aeru:
p.346, on lines 2-3, in explaining the phrase Lycaonius
Bootes the editor has inadvertantly transferred
Lycaonius from Bootes to the Wain (Ursa Major):
"Lycaonius because of its other identification as the
Great Bear = Callisto," in which case it would have to be
Lycaonia. Bootes is called Lycaonius because he is
the grandson of the Arcadian King Lycaon and the son of Callisto.
The traveler returns from the land of disiecta membra
and truncated forms with a much improved understanding of the
monuments, with a renewed enthusiasm for textual excursions off
the beaten track, and perhaps with a better sense of the
fragility of the material word: the continued survival and
transmission of a literature are not guaranteed by mechanical
means of reproduction and multiple copies.