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ILLINOIS 

CLASSICAL 

STUDIES 


VOLUME  X.l 
SPRING  1985 


J.  K.  Newman,  Editor 


ISSN  0363-1923 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

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DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  CLASSICS 


^1 


tio 


ILLINOIS 

CLASSICAL 

STUDIES 

VOLUME  X.l 

Spring   1  985 

J.  K.  Newman,  Editor 


Patet  omnibus  Veritas;  nondum  est  occupata; 

multum  ex  ilia  etiam  futuris  relictum  est. 

Sen.  Epp.  33.  1 1 


SCHOLARS  PRESS 

ISSN  0363-1923 


ILLINOIS  CLASSICAL  STUDIES 
VOLUME  X.l 


©1985 

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ADVISORY  EDITORIAL  COMMITTEE 

David  F.  Bright  Howard  Jacobson 

Harold  C.  GotofF  Miroslav  Marcovich 

Responsible  Editor:  J.  K.  Newman 


The  Editor  welcomes  contributions,  which  should  not  normally  exceed 
twenty  double-spaced  typed  pages,  on  any  topic  relevant  to  the 
elucidation  of  classical  antiquity,  its  transmission  or  influence.  Con- 
sistent with  the  maintenance  of  scholarly  rigor,  contributions  are 
especially  appropriate  which  deal  with  major  questions  of  interpre- 
tation, or  which  are  likely  to  interest  a  wider  academic  audience. 
Care  should  be  taken  in  presentation  to  avoid  technical  jargon,  and 
the  trans-rational  use  of  acronyms.  Homines  cum  hominibus  loquimur. 

Contributions  should  be  addressed  to: 
The  Editor, 

Illinois  Classical  Studies, 
Department  of  the  Classics, 
4072  Foreign  Languages  Building, 
707  South  Mathews  Avenue, 
Urbana,  Illinois  61801 

Each  contributor  receives  twenty-five  offprints. 


Preface 


This  issue  inaugurates  the  tenth  year  of  our  journal,  founded  in  1976 
by  Professor  Miroslav  Marcovich.  The  Editor  and  Editorial  Committee 
are  grateful  to  the  School  of  Humanities,  and  its  Director,  Professor 
Nina  Baym,  for  continued  interest  and  support. 

Once  again,  I  must  thank  Mrs.  Mary  Ellen  Fryer  for  her  labors  in 
putting  on  line  our  contributors'  texts.  Mr.  Carl  Kibler  of  the  Printing 
Services  Office,  University  of  Illinois,  supervised  the  PENTA  side  of 
our  operations  with  his  usual  common  sense  and  perseverance. 

Frances  Stickney  Newman's  unceasing  toil  made  the  whole  thing 
possible. 

J.  K.  Newman 


Contents 


1 .  The  Date  of  Herodotus'  Publication  1 
DAVID  SANSONE,  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

2.  How  Did  Pelasgians  Become  Hellenes?  Herodotus  1.56-58    11 
R.  A.  McNEAL,  Northwestern  University 

3.  Particular  and  General  in  Thucydides  23 
ALBERT  COOK,  Brown  University 

4.  Esse  Videatur  Rhythm  in  the  Greek  New  Testament 

Gospels  and  Acts  of  the  Apostles  53 

J.  K.  NEWMAN,  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

5.  Notes  on  the  Meaning  of  KoXoKvuTrj  67 
J.  L.  HELLER,  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

6.  Longus  and  the  Myth  of  Chloe  119 
BRUCE  D.  MacQUEEN,  Purdue  University 

7.  Chariton  and  Coptic  135 
GERALD  M.  BROWNE,  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

8.  The  First  Sighting  Theme  in  the  Old  Testament  Poetry 

of  Late  Antiquity  139 

MICHAEL  J.  ROBERTS,  Wesleyan  University 

Appendix:  Graduate  Studies  in  Classics 

Have  They  a  Future?  157 


1 


The  Date  of  Herodotus'  Publication 


DAVID  SANSONE 


The  communis  opinio  regarding  the  time  at  which  Herodotus  published 
his  researches  into  the  causes  and  progress  of  the  conflict  between 
the  Greeks  and  the  Persians  is  that  the  work  which  we  now  refer  to 
as  The  Histories  was  brought  before  the  public  between  approximately 
430  and  425  B.C.,  the  latter  date  being  regarded  as  a  secure  terminus 
because  of  certain  alleged  references  in  Aristophanes'  Acharnians, 
produced  at  the  Lenaea  in  that  year.'  This  view  has  recently  been 
challenged  by  Charles  W.  Fornara,^  who  uses  arguments  both  negative 
and  positive  to  show  that  Herodotus  was  still  writing  his  history  after 
425.  On  the  one  hand  Fornara  argues  that  the  passages  in  Aristo- 
phanes which  have  been  considered  to  be  allusions  to  Herodotus' 
work  do  not  in  fact  presuppose  a  familiarity  with  the  writings  of  the 
historian;  on  the  other  he  seeks  to  show  that  certain  passages  in 
Herodotus  require  the  assumption  that  they  were  composed  late  in 
the  decade  of  the  420s.  I  should  like  here  to  examine  Fornara's 
argument  in  order  to  see  whether  a  revision  of  the  traditional  view 
is  called  for.  I  will  concentrate  on  one  of  the  passages  that  Fornara 


'  E.g.  F.  Jacoby,  RE  Suppl.  2  (1913),  col.  232;  Schmid-Stahlin,  Geschichte  der 
griechischen  Literatur  I^  (Munich  1934),  p.  591;  J.  L.  Myres,  Herodotus.  Father  of  History 
(Oxford  1953),  pp.  15-16;  most  recently  J.  Hart,  Herodotus  and  Greek  History  (London 
1982),  p.  174. 

^  "Evidence  for  the  date  of  Herodotus'  Publication,"  yourrza/  of  Hellenic  Studies  91 
(1971),  pp.  25-34  and  "Herodotus'  Knowledge  of  the  Archidamian  War,"  Hermes 
109  (1981),  pp.  149-56.  The  latter  is  in  response  to  criticisms  by  J.  Cobet,  Hermes 
105  (1977),  pp.  2-27. 


2  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

discusses,  namely  the  apparent  reference  to  the  first  book  of  Hero- 
dotus at  Acharniayis  523  ff.,  because  I  believe  that  it  admits  of  a 
definitive  statement.  The  lines  in  question  come  from  Dicaeopolis' 
great  speech  in  which  he  justifies  his  private  peace-treaty  with  the 
Spartans  on  the  grounds  that  the  Spartans  are  not  wholly  responsible 
for  the  present  hostilities.  In  giving  his  version  of  the  origin  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War  Dicaeopolis  first  recounts  the  consequences  of  the 
Megarian  Decree  and  then  continues: 

KOii  TavTa  yiiv  br)  aixupa  KaizixCipia' 

■Kbpvrjv  bl  "ELixaidau  IbvTic,  M.e'^apcxbe 

vtaviai  KXeiTTOvai  fiidvaoKOTTa^or  525 

K^id'  OL  Meyapriq  obvumc;  Tre(f)vaLyy(i}neuoi. 

ai'T€^eKX(\l/ai'  ' kairaaiaq  iropuaq  bvo' 

Kaurevdeu  apxri  tov  iroXejiov  KaTeppayrj 

"EXK-qaL  iracnv  €k  rpLcbu  XaiKaoT pioiv . 

These  lines  are  regularly  regarded  as  a  parody  of,  or  at  least  an 
allusion  to,  the  account  with  which  Herodotus  opens  his  history, 
according  to  which  certain  unnamed  Persians  allegedly  attributed  the 
origin  of  the  hostilities  between  the  Greeks  and  Persians  to  the  series 
of  abductions  that  involved  lo,  Europa,  Medea  and  Helen.  But  those 
who^  consider  the  passage  in  Aristophanes  to  be  a  reference  to 
Herodotus  tend  not  to  present  arguments  that  would  make  this 
assumption  convincing,  and  Fornara  deserves  credit  for  insisting*  that 
more  is  needed  than  a  bald  assertion  of  the  comic  playwright's 
dependence  upon  the  historian.  Fornara  does  not  commit  himself  to 
identifying  the  reference  in  Aristophanes'  lines — to  be  fair,  Fornara 
is  not  concerned  to  do  so,  but  merely  to  show  that  the  reference  is 
not  to  Herodotus — but  he  does  hint  at  "the  obvious  possibility  that 
verses  523  ff.  allude  to  the  Telephus  of  Euripides."^  Since  there  are 
undoubted  parodies  of  the  Telephus  in  Dicaeopolis'  speech,  it  is  not 
unreasonable  to  look  to  Euripides  as  the  source  of  these  lines  in 

^  H.  Stein  ad  Hdt.  I.  4;  J.  van  Leeuwen  ad  Ach.  524  ff.;  W.  Nestle,  Philologus  70 
(191 1),  p.  246;  W.  Rennie  ad  Ach.  528;  Jacoby  (above,  note  1);  Schmid-Stahlin  (above, 
note  1);  J.  E.  Powell,  The  History  of  Herodotus  (Cambridge  1939),  p.  77;  Myres  (above, 
note  1);  P.  Pucci,  Memorie  dell'  Accademia  Nazionale  dei  Lincei  series  8,  vol.  10.5  (1961), 
p.  283;  W.  G.  Forrest,  Phoenix  17  (1963),  pp.  7-8;  R  Rau,  Paratragodia  (Zetemata  45, 
Munich  1967),  p.  40;  G.  E.  M.  de  Ste.  Croix,  The  Origins  of  the  Peloponyiesian  War 
(Ithaca  1972),  p.  240;  K.  J.  Dover,  Aristophanic  Comedy  (Berkeley  1972),  p.  87;  H.-J. 
Newiger,  Yale  Classical  Studies  26  (1980),  p.  222;  L.  Edmunds,  ibid.,  p.  13;  Hart  (above, 
note  1),  pp.  174-75. 

*  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies  (above,  note  2),  p.  28  and  Hermes  (above,  note  2),  pp. 
153-55. 

^Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies  (above,  note  2),  p.  28. 


David  Sansone  3 

Aristophanes.  Indeed,  this  has  been  suggested  previously  but,  again, 
without  anything  resembling  a  decisive  argument.^ 

How  are  we  to  decide,  then,  whether  Ach.  523  fF.  are  a  parody  of 
Herodotus  or  of  Euripides'  Telephus?  Let  us  look  first  at  what  we 
know  of  the  latter,  to  see  whether  we  can  find  anything  in  Euripides' 
tragedy'  that  might  have  prompted  these  lines.  The  speech  of 
Dicaeopolis  from  which  the  lines  come,  like  the  speech  of  Mnesilochus 
in  Thesmophoriazusae  (466-519),  is  obviously  based  on  the  speech  in 
Euripides'  play  in  which  the  disguised  hero  addresses  an  audience 
that  is  hostile  to  the  argument  which  he  advances.  Thus  we  run  the 
risk  of  arguing  in  a  circle,  since  the  evidence  we  must  use  to  reconstruct 
Telephus'  speech  is  precisely  the  speech  of  Dicaeopolis,  the  relation- 
ship of  which  to  its  original  we  are  seeking  to  determine.  But  we  are 
fortunate  in  possessing  the  speech  of  Mnesilochus  as  well,  as  it  provides 
us  with  an  independent  check  on  our  reconstruction.  To  begin  with, 
it  is  safe  to  assume  that  those  elements  which  the  speeches  of 
Dicaeopolis  and  Mnesilochus  share  have  a  common  origin  in  the 
speech  of  Euripides'  Telephus.^  Euripides'  hero  appeared  in  disguise, 
lest  the  Greeks  discover  his  true  identity  and  recognize  his  personal 
motivation  in  urging  the  Greeks  not  to  make  war.  And  so  Dicaeopolis 
and  (with  much  greater  dramatic  relevancy)  Mnesilochus  deliver  their 
speeches  in  disguise.  Both  Aristophanic  characters  begin  their  speeches 
in  a  similar  fashion.  Mnesilochus  {Thesm.  469-70)  and  Dicaeopolis 
{Ach.  509)  attempt  to  ingratiate  themselves  with  their  potentially 
hostile  audiences  by  asserting  that  they  too  hate  "the  enemy,"  re- 
spectively Euripides  and  the  Spartans.  Mnesilochus  {Thesm.  472)  and 
Dicaeopolis  {Ach.  504)  further  identify  themselves  with  their  audience 
by  adopting  a  confidential  tone  and  saying,  in  effect,  "We  are  alone. 
There  is  no  danger  that  the  enemy  will  find  out  what  we  say  here. 
Therefore  we  can  speak  frankly."  Both  Mnesilochus  {Thesm.  473)  and 
Dicaeopolis  {Ach.  514)  do  then  speak  frankly  and  raise  the  awkward 
question  of  whether  "we"  are  justified  in  assigning  all  the  blame  to 
"the  enemy."  The  remainder  of  each  speech  then  consists  of  the 

^  E.  Schwartz,  Quaestiones  lonicae  (Rostock  1891),  p.  10;  W.  J.  M.  Starkie  ad  Ach. 
524  ff.;  A.  Rostagni,  Rivista  di  filologia  e  di  istruzione  classica  5  (1927),  pp.  323-27 
(although  he  does  not  rule  out  the  possibility  of  Herodotean  influence  as  well). 

'  For  the  fragments,  see  C.  Austin,  Nova  Fragmenta  Euripidea  in  Papyris  Reperta 
(Berlin  1968),  pp.  66-82.  Reconstructions  of  the  play  in  E.  W.  Handley  and  J.  Rea, 
The  Telephus  of  Euripides  {Bulletin  of  the  histitute  of  Classical  Studies  Supplement  5, 
London  1957);  F.  Jouan,  Euripide  et  les  legendes  des  Chants  Cypriens  (Paris  1966),  pp. 
222-44;  Rau  (above,  note  3),  pp.  19-50;  T.  B.  L.  Webster,  The  Tragedies  of  Euripides 
(London  1967),  pp.  43-48. 

®  It  does  not,  of  course,  follow  that  elements  unique  to  one  speech  or  the  other 
do  not  derive  from  the  speech  of  Telephus. 


4  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

speaker's  reasons^  for  believing  that  "we"  are  acting  precipitately 
and  for  regarding  the  actions  of  "the  enemy"  as  justifiable.  Mnesi- 
lochus  ends  his  speech  {Thesm.  518-19  =  Eur.  fr.  711  N)  with  the 
rhetorical  question,  "Why  are  we  angry  with  Euripides  when  we  have 
suffered  nothing  worse  than  we  ourselves  have  done?"  Dicaeopolis 
ends  his  {Ach.  555-56  =  Eur.  fr.  710  N)  by  suggesting  that,  mutatis 
mutandis,  "we"  would  have  acted  just  as  "the  enemy"  has  done.'" 

Now,  when  we  attempt  to  recover  the  Euripidean  original  on  which 
Aristophanes'  two  parodies  are  modeled,  it  is  essential  that  we 
understand  who  "the  enemy"  is  whose  actions  Telephus  sought  to 
justify.  In  other  words,  when  Mnesilochus  {Thesm.  473)  asks  ri  raOr' 
exovaai  Keivov  aiTLOineOa;  and  Dicaeopolis  (Ach.  514)  ri  ravra  Tovq 
AaK(ji)vaq  aiTLo^neda;  what  was  the  object  of  the  verb  in  the  Euripidean 
line  to  which  these  lines  refer?  In  their  reconstruction,  based  on  van 
de  Sande  Bakhuyzen,  Handley  and  Rea"  paraphrase  this  section  of 
Telephus'  speech,  "Why  do  we  blame  Telephus/the  Trojans?"  But 
Euripides  must  have  written  either  the  one  or  the  other, '^  and  it 
ought  to  be  possible  to  decide  which.  The  choice  is  easy.  In  the 
fragments  that  can  be  attributed  to  Telephus'  speech,  Telephus  is 
named  twice  (frr.  707  and  710  N),  Paris  and  the  Trojans  not  at  all. 
What  Telephus  is  concerned  to  do  (apart  from  finding  a  cure  for  his 
wound)  is  to  dissuade  the  Greeks  from  attacking  his  own  territory  in 
reprisal  for  the  reverse  which  they  had  earlier  suffered  at  his  hands. 
He  does  this  by  showing  that  Telephus  was  justified  in  his  attack 
upon  the  Greeks  inasmuch  as  it  was  the  Greeks  who  had  initiated 
the  hostilities  and  who  had  acted  wrongly  in  so  doing.  Just  so 
Mnesilochus  seeks  to  dissuade  the  women  at  the  Thesmophoria  from 
attacking  Euripides  by  showing  that  the  women,  by  their  immoral 
behavior,  provoked  and  deserved  Euripides'  verbal  attacks  upon  them. 
And  so  Dicaeopolis  seeks  to  dissuade  the  Athenians  from  prosecuting 
the  war  against  the  Spartans  by  showing  that  the  Athenians  (or,  at 

^  Note  yap,  Ach.  515,  Thesm.  476. 
'"  Perhaps  Telephus'  speech  ended: 

TOP  di  TflX((f>OU 

ovK  olontada;  Kara  dfi  dvnovfiida 

iradbuTic,  ovdh  nd^ov  77  bibpaKonc; 
"  Above  (note  7),  p.  34. 

'^  Or,  perhaps,  "the  Mysians"  or  "Paris."  Perhaps  merely  "the  barbarians."  Lest 
anyone  suggest,  following  Thesm.  473,  that  Euripides  wrote  n  ravr  ixovni;  kupop 
aiTiwutda;  it  should  be  pointed  out  that  this  idiom,  which  differs  from  6%'^  +  ptcpl. 
(W.  J.  Aerts,  Periphrastica  [Amsterdam  1965],  p.  160),  does  not  seem  to  be  tragic  and 
is  Hkely  colloquial:  An,  Av.  341;  Eccl.  853;  1151;  Lys.  945;  Nub.  131;  509;  Ran.  202; 
512;  524;  Men.,  5am.  719;  Eubul.  107.  6;  Greek  Literary  Papyri  &T .  22  Page;  P\.,Euthyd. 
295C;  Gorg.  490E;  497A;  Phdr.  236E. 


David  Sansone  5 

least,  some  of  them)  were  at  fault:  first  they  imposed  a  boycott  upon 
Megara  and  then  they  abducted  the  Megarian  courtesan  Simaetha. 
It  is  at  this  point  that  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  Aristophanes  is 
parodying  a  passage  in  Telephus'  speech  in  which  "the  disguised  hero 
seems  to  have  thrown  contempt  upon  the  motives  which  had  induced 
the  Greeks  to  undertake  a  campaign  against  Troy.'"^  That  is  to  say, 
when  Dicaeopolis  speaks  of  the  abductions  of  Athenian  and  Megarian 
courtesans,  his  words  are  based  upon  a  passage  in  Euripides'  tragedy 
in  which  Telephus  referred  to  the  abduction  of  Helen.  But  this  is  a 
specious  view  for,  while  Euripidean  characters  are  known  to  cast 
discredit  upon  the  causes  of  wars  (and  in  particular  of  the  Trojan 
War),  there  is  a  fatal  objection  to  the  assumption  that  Telephus 
included  a  reference  to  the  rape  of  Helen.  Apart  from  the  fact  that, 
as  we  saw  above,  Telephus  is  concerned  to  mitigate  Greek  hostility, 
not  toward  the  Trojans,  but  toward  himself  and  the  Mysians,  mention 
of  Paris'  crime  can  only  detract  from  Telephus'  main  point,  namely 
that  the  Greeks  were  in  the  wrong. '^  Thus  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  that  Ach.  523  ff.  had  anything  corresponding  to  it  in  Euripides' 
Telephus. 

But  if  we  can  eliminate  Euripides,  does  it  follow  that  Ach.  523  ff. 
are  a  parody  of  Herodotus?  Obviously  it  is  not  a  necessary  inference 
and,  indeed,  other  possibilities  have  been  explored.  E.  Maass'^  im- 
plausibly proposed  the  suggestion  that  Aristophanes  is  here  parodying 
Herodotus'  source  and,  more  recently,  D.  M.  MacDowell'^  has  argued 
that  the  lines  are  not  parody  at  all,  but  rather  represent  Aristophanes' 
comic  version  of  the  actual  causes  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.  I  am 
not  prepared  to  argue  over  the  actual  causes  of  the  Peloponnesian 
War,  but  I  do  think  it  worthwhile  to  quote  MacDowell's  reasons  for 
denying  that  Aristophanes  is  parodying  Herodotus: 

It  is  most  unlikely  that  many  Athenians  were  familiar  enough  with 
[Herodotus'  book]  to  be  able  to  recognize  a  parody  of  one  particular 
part  of  it  unless  Aristophanes  had  given  very  obvious  signals  indeed 

'*  Starkie  ad  Ach.  524  fF.  Similarly  Handley  and  Rea  (above,  note  7),  p.  35  and 
Jouan  (above,  note  7),  p.  234. 

'''  One  could,  perhaps,  envision  Telephus  attempting  to  deflect  Greek  hostility 
from  the  Mysians  by  convincing  the  Greeks  that  the  Trojans,  not  the  Mysians,  had 
wronged  them.  But  this  is  unlikely  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Telephus  is  Priam's  son- 
in-law.  Indeed  P.  Oxy.  2460  fr.  10  seems  to  preserve  part  of  a  scene  in  which  Telephus 
attempted  to  avoid  acting  as  the  Greeks'  guide  in  their  expedition  against  Troy, 
presumably  on  the  grounds  of  his  relationship  with  the  Trojan  royal  family;  so 
Handley  and  Rea  (above,  note  7),  pp.  7  and  37;  Jouan  (above,  note  7),  p.  240;  Rau 
(above,  note  3),  p.  26. 

'5  Hermes  22  (1887),  pp.  590-91. 

'«  Greece  &  Rome  30  (1983),  pp.  149-54. 


6  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

to  warn  them  that  a  parody  of  Herodotos  was  coming.  But  in  fact 
there  are  no  such  signals.  Dikaiopolis  does  not  mention  the  name  of 
Herodotos;  nor  does  he  mention  the  Persians  or  the  Phoenicians  or 
the  Trojans  or  any  of  the  other  people  who  occur  in  Herodotos' 
opening  pages.  He  mentions  three  prostitutes,  but  that  would  hardly 
have  made  the  Athenians  think  of  all  those  daughters  of  kings.  Above 
all,  Dikaiopolis  does  not  use  any  Herodotean  vocabulary  or  turns  of 
phrase.  Whereas  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  speech  do  quote  a  few 
words  from  Euripides,  the  middle  does  not  quote  any  words  from 
Herodotos.  There  is  really  nothing  in  the  speech  which  bears  any 
resemblance  to  Herodotos  at  all.'' 

MacDowell  is  right  to  demand  that  specific  parallels  be  pointed  out, 
but  his  final  sentence  contains  a  considerable  exaggeration.  For  surely 
it  must  be  considered  a  "resemblance"  between  Ach.  523  flF.  and  Hdt. 
I.  1-4  that  both  attribute  the  origin  of  a  great  war  to  the  abduction 
of  a  woman  and  to  the  subsequent  abduction  of  two  further  women.^^  For, 
according  to  the  Persians  whom  Herodotus  cites,  the  barbarians  first 
abducted  lo  and,  later,  the  Greeks  abducted  Europa  and  Medea. 
Aristophanes  comically  transforms  these  daughters  of  kings  into  three 
harlots,  making  the  causes  of  the  war  even  more  ludicrous.  As  far  as 
verbal  similarity  is  concerned,  it  is  not  true  that  "Dikaiopolis  does 
not  use  any  Herodotean  vocabulary  or  turns  of  phrase."  The  resem- 
blance between  Hdt.  I.  2.  1  {ram a  /lev  dr]  laa  Trpbc,  laa  (t0i  yeveadaf 
ixera  5e  ravra  .  .  .)  and  Ach.  523-24  (/cai  ravra  fiev  8rj  afiLKpa 
KcxinxocipLa-  Trbpvriv  8e .  .  .)  has  often  been  noted,  but  its  real  significance 
has  not  been  recognized.  For  the  particle  combination  nev  drj  is  quite 
rare  in  Aristophanes.'^  While  the  word  dr)  itself  occurs  some  three 
hundred  times  in  Aristophanes,  I  am  able  to  find  it  following  p,ev 
only  here  and  in  four  other  places.  And  the  combination  is  used  in 
a  way  that  is,  if  not  unparalleled  in  Aristophanes,  at  least  strikingly 
unusual.  It  is  here,  to  quote  Starkie's  note  ad  loc,  "used  in  summing 
up,  so  as  to  pass  on  to  another  subject."  It  is  not  so  used  at  Thesm. 
805,  where  its  use  is  characterized  by  Denniston  (above,  note  19) 

"  MacDowell  (previous  note),  p.  151.  Similarly  Fornara,yowr?za/  of  Hellenic  Studies 
(above,  note  2),  p.  28:  "there  is  no  trace  of  verbal  similarity.  Yet  I  think  that  we  have 
a  right  to  expect  it  in  a  case  such  as  this." 

'*  This  point,  which  also  tells  decisively  against  the  view  that  we  are  here  dealing 
with  an  Aristophanic  reference  to  Euripides'  Telephus,  was  first  made  by  G.  Perrotta, 
on  page  108  of  an  article  that  is  too  rarely  consulted  in  this  connection:  "Erodoto 
parodiato  da  Aristofane,"  Rendiconti  dell'  Istituto  Lombardo  di  Scienze  e  Lettere  59  (1926), 
pp.  105-14.  Cobet  (above,  note  2),  p.  11  note  46  also  rightly  points  out  that  this 
motif  is  attested  only  in  Aristophanes  and  Herodotus. 

'^  Ach.  523  is  the  only  example  cited  from  Aristophanes  by  J.  D.  Denniston,  The 
Greek  Particles  (2nd  ed.  Oxford  1954),  p.  258. 


David  Sansone  7 

396  as  "progressive,"  nor  at  Plut.  728-29,  where  we  find  Kal  ■Kpoira 
ixev  drj  .  .  .  eireLTa.  In  uvv  nev  yap  8r}  {Lys.  557)  the  drj  is  not  to  be 
taken  with  /xev;  rather  it  emphasizes  yap,  as  in  Xenophanes  1.  1  West 
vvv  yap  8rj.^°  The  only  real  parallel  in  Aristophanes  for  the  usage  at 
Ach.  523  is  to  be  found  at  Plut.  8:  Kal  ravra  fiev  8r]  ravra.  rco  81 
Ao^ia.  ...  On  the  evidence  of  [Aesch.]  P.  V.  500,  Hdt.  I.  94.  1  and 
III.  108.  4,  however,  this  may  represent  a  common,  stereotyped 
expression. 

So  the  phrasing  of  Ach.  523  stands  out  as  being  uncharacteristic 
of  Aristophanes.  But,  uncommon  as  the  usage  is  in  the  comic  poet, 
''ixev  8t)  is  frequently  used  by  the  historians,"  according  to  Denniston 
(above,  note  19),  "as  a  formula  of  transition,  the  (xev  clause  often 
summing  up  the  preceding  section  of  the  narrative."  Denniston  cites 
seven  passages  from  Herodotus,  five  from  Thucydides  and  one  from 
Xenophon.  We  are  fortunate  to  possess  J.  E.  Powell's  reliable  Lexicon 
to  Herodotus,  which  informs  us  exactly  how  frequent  the  combination 
is.^'  Not  only  is  the  combination  exceedingly  common  in  the  historian 
but,  with  Powell's  help,  it  does  not  take  us  long  to  discover  that  its 
most  common  use,  as  at  I.  2.  1,  is  as  a  formula  of  transition. ^^  That 
this  is  a  characteristically  Herodotean  locution  is  made  even  clearer 
by  a  comparison  of  the  usage  of  the  fifth-century  tragedians.  The 
combination  ^ei'  8r}  occurs  only  ten  times  in  the  surviving  works  of 
each  of  the  three  dramatists, ^^  and  in  only  a  handful  of  instances 
(e.g.  Aesch.  Pers.  200,  Eur.  Ale.  156,  Hec.  603,  Suppl.  456,  Hel.  761) 
is  it  employed  as  a  formula  of  transition.  Therefore,  while  we  cannot 
say  that,  when  he  uses  the  combination  at  Ach.  523,  Aristophanes  is 
"parodying"  Hdt.  I.  2.  1,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  he  is  using  a 
characteristically  and  recognizably  Herodotean  idiom.  And  this,  com- 
bined with  the  fact  that  the  idiom  does  occur  in  the  passage  concerned 
with  reciprocal  abductions  and  with  the  fact  that  the  motif  of 
reciprocal  abductions  is  known  to  occur  only  in  Herodotus  and 
Aristophanes,  makes  all  but  inescapable  the  conclusion  that  the  poet 
is  parodying  the  historian's  account  of  the  origin  of  the  hostilities 
between  Greeks  and  barbarians. 

But  this  is  not  in  the  least  surprising.  For  there  is  other  (although, 
I  believe,  less  convincing)  evidence  in  the  Acharnians  of  Aristophanes' 

^°  For  -yap  dij  see  Denniston  (previous  note),  p.  243. 

^'  Cambridge  1938.  Under  the  heading  8r]  A. Ill  we  find  that  Herodotus  uses  the 
combination  fih  677  390  times. 

"  In  the  first  20  pages  of  Book  I  alone:  2.  I;  9.  1;  II.  I;  14.  I;  21.  1;  26.  3;  32. 
1;  36.  I. 

"  In  Aeschylus  only  Pers.  200,  Eum.  106  and  fr.  102  M  without  a  preceding  ye; 
in  Sophocles  only  Ant.  150,  162,  Phil.  350  and  1308  without  a  preceding  aWa. 


8  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

knowledge  of  Herodotus'  work.^^  And  there  is  also  good  reason  to 
believe  that,  in  his  Cresphontes,  a  tragedy  which  was  produced  at  about 
the  same  time  as  Acharnians,  Euripides  was  influenced  by  a  passage 
in  Herodotus'  fifth  book.^^  Finally,  Fornara  presents  an  excellent 
argument  to  the  eff^ect  that  Herodotus'  influence  is  to  be  found  in 
Euripides'  Electra.^^  Now,  Fornara  believes  that  this  play  was  produced 
in  414  B.C.,  which  date  gives  no  more  support  to  his  view  that 
Herodotus'  history  was  published  at  the  end  of  the  Archidamian  War 
than  it  does  to  the  traditional  view,  that  it  was  published  in  the  first 
half  of  the  420s.  But  in  fact,  to  date  Electra  to  413  or  414  is  to 
ignore  the  potent  arguments  of  G.  Zuntz,^'  who  shows  that  the  play 
belongs  rather  in  the  period  422-416.  Thus  we  have  a  fair  amount 
of  evidence  for  the  influence  of  Herodotus  on  works  of  literature 
produced  in  the  decade  between  426  and  416  B.C.  Fornara  dismisses 
this  evidence  because,  as  he  believes,  Herodotus  was  still  writing  his 
history  at  the  time  of  the  Peace  of  Nicias.  But  what  Fornara  and,  in 
his  attack  on  Fornara,  Cobet  fail  to  perceive  is  that  there  is  no 
inconsistency  between  Herodotus'  influence  on  works  written  around 
425  and  his  continuing  to  write  after  421.  The  passages  in  Acharnians 
which  are  likely  to  be  references  to  Herodotus  are  references  to 
Book  I.  Fornara  plausibly  explains  Euripides'  reference  to  Helen  at 
El.  1280-83  as  inspired  by  Herodotus'  account  of  Helen  in  Book  II. 
Euripides'  Cresphontes  alludes  to  a  Herodotean  passage  in  Book  V.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  reject  this  evidence  and  all  that  it  implies  in  order 
to  accept  Fornara's  view  that  Herodotus  refers  in  his  history  to  events 
that  occurred  after  424.  According  to  Fornara,  Herodotus  included 
a  passage  that  "was  written  after  the  death  of  Artaxerxes  and  very 
probably  after  421"  in  Book  VI;  he  refers  to  the  Athenian  occupation 
of  Cythera  (424)  in  Book  VII;  he  implies  that  the  Archidamian  War 

^*  See,  in  addition  to  the  works  cited  in  note  3  above,  Perrotta  (above,  note  18) 
and,  especially,  J.  Wells,  Studies  in  Herodotus  (Oxford  1923),  pp.  169-82. 

2^  Compare  Eur.  fr.  449  N  with  Hdt.  V.  4.  2.  The  cogent  arguments  by  R. 
Browning  {Classical  Review  11  [1961],  pp.  201-02)  for  Euripides'  dependence  are 
rejected  on  insufficient  grounds  by  Fornara,  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies  (above,  note 
2),  p.  25  note  3.  For  the  date  of  Cresphontes,  see  Webster  (above,  note  7),  p.  137;  V. 
di  Benedetto,  Euripide.  Teatro  e  societa  (Turin  1971),  pp.  133-35;  O.  Musso,  Euripide. 
Cresfonte  (Milan  1974),  p.  xxvii.  All  date  the  play  sometime  in  the  period  428-423 
B.C. 

^^  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies  (above,  note  2),  pp.  30-31.  His  view  of  the  date  of 
Eur.,  EL:  p.  30  note  12. 

"  The  Political  Plays  of  Euripides  (Manchester  1955),  pp.  64-71.  Most  scholars  now 
share  Zuntz's  view;  see  A.  Lesky,  Die  tragische  Dichtung  der  Hellenen  (3rd  ed.  Gottingen 
1972),  pp.  392-93,  with  bibliography  Electra  is  associated  with  Cresphontes  on  metrical 
and  thematic  grounds:  Webster  (above,  note  7),  pp.  4,  136  ff. 


David  Sansone  9 

had  come  to  an  end  by  the  time  he  wrote  Book  IX. ^^  If  Fornara  is 
right,^^  we  need  only  believe  that  a  portion  of  Herodotus'  history 
equivalent  to  what  we  now  know  as  the  first  four  books  and  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  was  written  and  "published"  before  the  mid- 
420s  B.C.,  and  that  Herodotus  continued  to  compose  and  make 
available  to  the  public  the  remainder  of  his  history,  "in  substantially 
the  same  order  in  which  we  now  have  it,"^°  until  some  time  around 
the  end  of  the  Archidamian  War. 

University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

^^  See  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies  (above,  note  2),  pp.  32-34;  Hermes  (above,  note 
2),  pp.  149-51. 

^^  I  must  admit  that  1  find  decision  difficult.  On  these  three  passages,  see  also 
J.  A.  S.  Evans,  Athenaeum  bl  (1979),  pp.  146-47,  who  is  less  convinced  than  is  Fornara 
of  the  unambiguousness  of  the  evidence.  Recently  R.  Meridor  {Eranos  81  [1983],  pp. 
13-20)  has  plausibly  shown  that  certain  elements  of  the  plot  of  Euripides'  Hecuba 
(produced  before  423  B.C.;  for  the  date,  see  Lesley  [above,  note  27],  p.  330)  were 
suggested  to  the  poet  by  events  that  occurred  in  Sestos  after  the  end  of  the  Persian 
War,  when  Xanthippus  allowed  the  people  of  Elaeus  to  punish  the  Persian  Artayctes. 
If  she  is  right  to  argue  that  Euripides  knew  of  these  events  from  reading  of  them  in 
Herodotus  (IX.  116-20),  then  we  are  forced  to  admit  that  the  final  section  (and, 
therefore,  perhaps  all)  of  Herodotus'  work  was  published  before  the  nMd-420s.  But 
it  is  not  unlikely  that  this  anecdote  concerning  Pericles'  father  circulated  in  Athens 
in  versions  other  than  that  of  Herodotus. 

*°  R.  Lattimore,  Classical  Philology  53  (1958),  p.  18. 


How  Did  Pelasgians  Become  Hellenes? 
Herodotus  I.  56-58 


R.  A.  McNEAL 


These  chapters  are  a  nightmare.  Anyone  who  comes  unwarned  upon 
Herodotus'  first  ethnographic  digression  is  bound  to  share  Reiske's 
despairing  judgment:  "Haec  de  vetusta  nationum  duarum  principum 
Graeciam  incolentium  origine  narratio  obscura,  intricata  et  inconstans 
maleque  cohaerens  esse  videtur.'"  Suddenly  the  sunlit  landscape  of 
the  tale  of  Croesus  disappears,  and  we  are  plunged  into  the  fog  and 
quicksand  of  an  antiquarian  mire.  What  is  wrong?  Clearly  Herodotus 
is  none  too  precise  about  his  theories.  This  much  it  may  be  fair  to 
say.  But  these  chapters  also  bristle  with  major  textual  and  grammatical 
problems. 

This  paper  is  a  discussion  of  four  separate  topics:  textual  emen- 
dation, narrative  structure,  vocabulary  and  grammar,  and  Herodotus' 
own  logic.  What  ties  all  these  topics  together  is  their  relevance  to 
internal  criticism,  that  is,  the  establishment  of  the  text.  What,  in 
short,  does  the  text  say? 

Apart  from  trying  to  clarify  an  important  but  very  difficult  passage, 
I  want  to  emphasize  the  necessity  of  recognizing  internal  and  external 
criticism  as  separate  operations.  To  establish  a  text  is  one  thing;  to 
discuss  its  significance  in  the  light  of  other  sources  is  something  else. 
The  historian  can  of  course  be  his  own  textual  critic;  but  the  editing 
of  a  text  has  to  precede  its  use  as  a  historical  document.  Failure  to 


'  J.  J.  Reiske,  Animadversionum  ad  Graecos  Auctores,  Vol.  Ill  (Lipsiae  1761),  p.  87. 


12  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

make  this  distinction  has  caused  unnecessary  problems  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  chapters  56-58. 

1 .  The  Initial  Antithesis 

The  first  problem  (56.  2)  has  been  recently  treated  elsewhere.^  We 
are  to  read  Tama  yap  rjv  ra  TrpoKeKptixeua  Q'dvea)  to  apxotlov,  to  nlv 
lieXaayLKOv,  to  be  'EXXtjulkov  edvoq. 

Croesus  discovered  that  the  Spartans  and  the  Athenians  were  the 
most  powerful  peoples  of  Greece,  the  former  Doric  and  the  latter 
Ionic.  "The  Spartans  and  Athenians  were  of  old  the  pre-eminent 
nations,  the  one  Pelasgian,  the  other  Hellenic.  The  former  never 
migrated,  but  the  latter  moved  a  good  deal."  This  reading  involves 
(1)  Porson's  substitution  of  edvea  for  eovTa  and  (2)  the  use  of  the 
medieval  punctuation.^ 

Herodotus  gets  off  to  a  bad  start  by  insisting  on  an  antithesis  which 
is  dubious  at  best  and  which  even  he  will  shortly  confound.  The 
Spartans  were  Doric,  Hellenic,  and  migratory.  The  Athenians  were 
Ionian,  Pelasgian,  and  stationary.  The  repeated  to  fxev  refers  first  to 
the  Athenians,  then  to  the  Athenians  who  were  once  Pelasgians. 

Despite  some  good  arguments  in  favor  of  this  interpretation  of  to 
nev,  the  best  argument  remains  to  be  made.  Lines  23-27  of  Hude's 
Oxford  text  show  a  carefully  contrived  chiastic  structure  which 
immediately  explains  the  seeming  difficulties  of  reference  beginning 
with  TO  ixkv  lieXacyLKov. 

A:  Lacedaemonians 

B:  Athenians 

A:  Doric 

B:  Ionic 

B:  Pelasgian 

A:  Hellenic 

B:  Stationary 

A:  Migratory 

Chapters  56-69  constitute  a  so-called  digression  embedded  within 
the  logos  of  Croesus.  Having  mentioned  the  result  of  Croesus' 
inquiries,  that  is,  the  conclusion  of  the  story,  Herodotus  goes  backward 
to  sketch  the  historical  events  which  will  justify  his  statement  that, 
in  Croesus'  time,  the  Spartans  and  Athenians  were  the  most  powerful 

^  R.  A.  McNeal,  "Herodotus  1.56:  A  Trio  of  Textual  Notes,"  American  Journal  of 
Philology  102  (1981),  pp.  359-61,  where  see  relevant  bibliography. 

*  J.  W.  Blakesley,  Herodotus  (London  1854),  p.  37,  makes  a  simple  transposition: 
Ta  TpoKiKpin'tva  TO  apxoiiov,  kovra  kt\. 


R.  A.  McNeal  13 

of  the  Greek  peoples.  Retrospective  narrative,  as  van  Groningen  has 
called  it/  begins  with  the  end  point  and  then  works  forward.  By  its 
very  nature  the  narrative  assumes  a  circular  form,  beginning  where 
it  ends.  Thus  in  chapter  69  Croesus,  having  learned  why  the  Spartans 
because  of  their  past  were  more  powerful  than  the  Athenians, 
concludes  an  alliance  with  them.  The  narrative  then  resumes  the 
statement  of  events  in  their  proper  temporal  sequence. 

But  chapters  56-58  play  a  special  part  in  this  narrative.  A.  G. 
Laird  deserves  credit  for  having  seen  this  point  over  fifty  years  ago.^ 
Chapters  59-64  give  us  a  tale  of  the  establishment  of  Peisistratos' 
tyranny  at  Athens,  and  65-68  the  early  history  of  Sparta.  Chapters 
56-58  form  an  introduction  to  this  larger  digression.  Having  estab- 
lished an  initial  antithesis  in  56.  1-2,  Herodotus  expands  this  antithesis 
twice,  once  in  56.  3-58  and  again  in  59-68.  The  following  pattern 
emerges: 


Primitive  Dorian  movements:     56.  3 
Primitive  times  in  Athens:     57-58 


B:     Peisistratos'  tyranny:     59-64 
A:     Early  Sparta:     65-68 

The  early  wanderings  of  the  Hellenes  who  were  to  become  Spartans 
follow  directly  on  the  statement  that  the  Dorians  were  migratory. 
Then,  abruptly  shifting  to  the  second  term  of  his  antithesis,  Herodotus 
speculates  on  the  original  language  of  the  Pelasgians,  some  of  whom 
would  become  Athenians:  rjvTtva  de  yXccaaau  kt\.  All  of  chapters  57 
and  58  refers  to  the  Pelasgians  and  their  relationship  with  the  early 
Athenians.  There  is  no  question  of  original  Hellenes  becoming 
Pelasgian,  or  of  the  Dorians  as  a  whole  emerging  from  some  barbaric 
Pelasgian  ancestry. 

2.  Creston  I  Croton 

The  major  difficulty  with  the  start  of  chapter  57  is  the  vexed  question 
of  WikaoyOiv  tCov  virep  Tvparjvu^p  KprjdTobva  ttoXlp  oU^bvTOiv.  Dissatis- 
faction with  the  state  of  the  text  began  at  least  as  early  as  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  it  is  not  hard  to  see  why.  Herodotus  himself  always  uses 
Tvpar)voi  to  refer  to  Etruscans  in  Italy.  If  we  read  KpoTo^va,  or 
KpoTooua,  that  is  Cortona  in  Etruria,  then  his  Pelasgians  are  to  be 
thought  of  as  having   migrated  in   the  past   to   Italy,   where   they 

■*  B.  A.  van  Groningen,  La  Composition  Litteraire  Archa'ique  Grecque  (Amsterdam 
1958),  esp.  pp.  57-58. 

^  A.  G.  Laird,  "Herodotus  on  the  Pelasgians  in  Attica,"  American  Journal  of  Philology 
54  (1933),  pp.  97-119. 


14  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

maintained  their  non-Greek  language  down  to  the  fifth  century.^ 
Thus  Herodotus'  use  of  "Tyrsenians"  can  be  made  consistent. 

But  the  argument  from  internal  consistency  cuts  two  ways.  Though 
there  is  no  mention  of  a  town  of  Creston  in  Thrace  which  must  be 
wholly  independent  of  Herodotus,  the  historian  himself  does  else- 
where mention  a  town  of  Creston  in  Thrace  (V.  3)  and  says  that 
Xerxes'  army  twice  passed  through  Thracian  Crestonia,  which  lay 
east  of  Mygdonia  and  the  river  Echeidorus  (VII.  124;  VIII.  116). 
These  statements  at  least  are  quite  compatible  with  a  Thracian  Creston 
in  chapter  57.  And  of  course  Thucydides,  who  knew  the  north 
Aegean  well,  says  specifically  (IV.  109)  that  the  Crestonians  living  in 
Thrace  were  Pelasgian  and  Tyrrhenian. 

The  major  reason  why  editors  want  to  change  the  text  of  Herodotus 
is  to  bring  it  into  conformity  with  that  of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus 
(I.  28  and  29).'  Dionysius,  in  discussing  the  origins  of  the  Etruscans, 
quotes  Hellanicus,  who,  in  his  Phoronis,  had  equated  the  Pelasgians 
and  Etruscans  (fr.  4).  Having  been  expelled  from  Greece,  the  Pelas- 
gians captured  the  city  of  Croton,  from  which  they  began  their 
settlement  of  the  country  now  called  Tyrrhenia.  Presumably  Hero- 
dotus, though  he  prefers  to  derive  the  Etruscans  from  Lydia  (I.  94), 
had  some  knowledge  of  Hellanicus'  view  that  the  Pelasgians  once 
lived  in  Thessaly  and  migrated  to  Italy.  Hence  the  text  of  Herodotus 
must  have  read  "Croton"  and  "Crotoniatai." 

This  line  of  argument  is  perverse.  Herodotus  nowhere  else  men- 
tions the  town  of  Croton  in  Etruria  and  nowhere  else  says  anything 
about  Pelasgians  migrating  to  Etruria.  Indeed,  the  Lydians  under 
Tyrsenus  came  "to  the  Umbrians."  If  Herodotus  is  going  to  be  made 
a  partner  with  Hellanicus  in  the  equation  of  Pelasgians  and  Etruscans, 
some  rather  dubious  assumptions  have  to  be  made  about  the  rela- 
tionship of  their  texts  in  antiquity.  To  say  that  the  reading  of 
Herodotus  "...  deriva  evidentemente  da  una  correzione  forse  ancora 
ignorata  o  giustamente  repudiata  da  Dionigi,  sotto  I'influenza  del 
luogo  di  Thucydide  IV,  109  .  .  ."®  is  to  resort  to  purely  futile 
speculation.  We  simply  have  no  knowledge  of  the  history  of  either 

^  H.  Stephanus  (ed.),  Herodoti  Historiarum  Libri  IX^  (Paris  1592),  p.  23.  "Crotona" 
and  "Crotoniatai"  appear  only  in  the  marginal  commentary  to  the  Latin  translation 
which  accompanies  the  Greek  text. 

■^  Lionel  Pearson,  Early  Ionian  Historians  (Oxford  1959),  p.  158;  F.  de  Ruyt,  "La 
citation  d'Herodote,  I,  57  par  Denys  d'Halicarnasse,  I,  29,  au  sujet  de  Crotone 
pelasgique  et  des  Etrusques,"  LAntiquite  Classique  7  (1958),  pp.  281-90;  V.  Costanzi, 
"Cortona  non  Crestona  presso  Erodoto  1,57,"  Athenaeum  N.S.  6  (1928),  pp.  205-14. 
Both  articles  have  full  bibliography. 

^  Costanzi,  op.  cit.,  pp.  205-06. 


R.  A.  McNeal  15 

text  before  the  Middle  Ages  (papyrus  fragments  do  not  affect  the 
argument  here),  and  it  makes  no  sense  to  say  that  a  manuscript  of 
the  one  author  was  used  at  some  time  in  antiquity  to  "correct"  and 
thereby  falsify  a  manuscript  of  the  other  author.  The  only  reasonable 
course  is  to  leave  Herodotus'  "Creston"  alone  unless  there  is  some 
legitimate  palaeographical  reason  for  making  a  change. 

Mere  internal  consistency  will  not  suffice  as  a  reason  since,  as  I 
have  already  indicated,  Herodotus  will  be  inconsistent  with  some 
other  part  of  his  text  in  either  case.  Indeed,  his  carelessness  in  matters 
of  consistency  is  so  notorious  that  few  readers  will  be  troubled  by 
one  more  nod. 

There  is  of  course  no  manuscript  evidence  for  anything  but 
"Creston."  MS  b  does  read  KprjTicpa.  Though  perhaps  a  falsification 
of  "Croton,"  this  is  just  as  likely  a  mistake  for  "Creston."  Thus  there 
is  no  help  here. 

Changing  the  text  to  make  it  refer  to  Italy  is  the  usual  course;  but 
some  historians,  who  accept  Thrace,  still  want  to  introduce  unnec- 
essary emendations.  Reiske  set  the  fashion  for  this  alternative  by 
reading  vTrep  Tvpr-qvCbv,  a  city  in  Macedonia.^ 

What  this  textual  crux  illustrates  very  well  is  one  oC  the  more 
dubious  legacies  of  the  Lachmannian  school  of  editing — the  tendency, 
one  might  almost  say  the  psychological  need — to  force  a  text  into 
submission  at  all  costs.  Not  content  to  leave  a  problem  unresolved, 
the  radical  critic  rushes  to  bend  the  text  into  compliance  with 
predetermined  views.  Readers  who  are  willing  in  this  case  at  least  to 
tolerate  a  measure  of  ambiguity  are  in  the  minority.'" 

3.  Fifth-century  Pelasgians 

Whatever  position  one  takes  on  the  problem  of  Creston,  this  textual 
crux  has  no  real  bearing  on  the  logic  of  the  chapter.  Herodotus  sets 

^  Reiske,  loc.  cit.  The  following  are  desperately  and  needlessly  elaborate  attempts 
to  save  the  manuscripts'  "Creston":  H.  Riedel,  "Ad  Locum  Herodoti  1.57,"  Neue 
Jahrbiicher  fur  Philologie  und  Paedagogik  4  (1836),  p.  594,  who  omits  virlp;  E.  Schwartz, 
Quaestiones  Herodoteae  (Rostock  1890),  p.  7,  who  reads  vTtp  QA\)'ybovir]c,  x^P'n<i)\  W. 
Christ,  "Griechische  Nachrichten  Liber  Italien,"  Sitz.  d.  phil.  und  hist.  Klasse  bay.  Akad. 
der  Wissens.  zu  Milnchen  (1905),  pp.  92-95,  who  omits  UTrep  TvparivwD  as  a  gloss;  Erik 
Wiken,  "Tvpavvoi  bei  Herodot  1.57,"  Hermes  73  (1938),  pp.  129-32,  who  understands 
Tipffjjm  as  the  inhabitants  of  Mygdonian  Tipaai,  but  does  not  change  the  text's 
TvparivOiv. 

'"  A.  della  Seta,  "Erodoto  ed  Ellanico  suU'  origine  degli  Etrusci,"  Rendiconti  dell' 
Accademia  del  Lincei  28  (1919),  pp.  173-82,  gives  a  number  of  complex  arguments 
for  the  retention  of  the  manuscript  reading.  Also  in  favor  of  retention  is  J.  Berard, 
"La  question  des  origines  etrusques,"  Revue  des  Etudes  Anciennes  51  (1949),  p.  218. 


16  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

out  to  make  a  linguistic  judgment  on  the  basis  of  two  groups  of  fifth- 
century  Pelasgians:  (1)  tCov  .  .  .  Kprjarcbva  .  .  .  oUtovTOiV.  those  of 
Creston,  who  once  were  neighbors  of  the  present  Dorians  when  the 
Dorians  still  inhabited  Thessaliotis  (here  Herodotus  gives  the  Dorians 
a  name  which,  by  his  own  admission,  they  did  not  have  until  they 
had  entered  the  Peloponnesus!);  and  (2)  rcor  IIXaKiTjj/  t€  koL  XKvXaKriP 
.  .  .  oUrjoavToiv.^^  the  settlers  of  Plakie  and  Skylake  on  the  Hellespont, 
who  were  once  dwellers  with  the  Athenians  and  (with)  other  com- 
munities which,  though  once  Pelasgian,  changed  their  name. 

A  serious  grammatical  problem  is  involved  with  oaa  aWa  UeXaa- 
ytKct  .  .  .  fiere^aXe.  All  modern  editors  take  the  first  three  words  as 
the  equivalent  of  ocXXuiv  iroXLaixarcov  and  make  the  clause  a  third 
group  of  fifth-century  Pelasgians.  Supposedly  Herodotus  is  also  in- 
cluding in  his  linguistic  judgment  some  other  groups  of  Pelasgian 
speakers  whose  position  he  does  not  specify.  Thus  oaa  ocXXa  .  .  . 
TToXiaixaTa  is  effectively  a  third  genitive  dependent  on  toIcl  vvp  en 
eovai. 

But  this  reading  is  wrong.  Herodotus  is  saying  that,  just  as  some 
Pelasgians  moved  away  from  the  Athenians,  who  then  changed  their 
name,  so  other  Pelasgians  lived  elsewhere  in  the  southern  Aegean  in 
the  early  days  and  retreated,  allowing  their  former  communities  to 
take  on  a  new  character  and  new  names.  The  Peloponnesus,  for 
example,  was  once  full  of  Pelasgians.  The  Arcadians  too  were  once 
Pelasgian,  but  changed  their  name  and  language  (I.  146).  Herodotus 
seems  to  be  consistent  in  his  view  that  ancient  Pelasgia,  or  what  would 
become  the  later  Greece,  had  many  communities  which,  like  Athens, 
were  to  see  far-reaching  ethnic  changes  with  the  appearance  of  the 
Hellenes. 

The  phrase  oaa  aXXa  .  .  .  TroXiaixara  is  the  equivalent  of  aXXoic, 
TToXianaaL  oaa  and  ought  to  be  connected  closely  with  ' Ad-qpaioLai. 

4.  The  Mechanism  of  Cultural  Change 

Herodotus'  second  group  of  Pelasgians,  the  settlers  of  Plakie  and 
Skylake,  is  the  source  of  much  trouble.  What  relationship  had  these 
Pelasgians  with  the  Athenians,  with  whom  they  once  dwelt? 

This  second  group,  originally  resident  in  the  south  Aegean,  was 
pushed  aside  by  the  arriving  Hellenes;  and  some  of  them  went  to 
the  north  Aegean,  where  Herodotus  found  their  descendants  in  his 

"  The  MSS  read  rfiv  UXaKiriv.  P.  Wesseling,  Herodoti  Halkarnassei  Historiarum  Libri 
IX  (Lugdunum  Batavorum  1763),  p.  26,  prefers  (Tajj/)  tV  H.  P.  P.  Dobree,  Adversaria, 
ed.  by  G.  Wagner,  (Berlin  1874),  pp.  1-2,  suggests  twv  U.  The  latter  is  the  modern 
consensus. 


R.  A.  McNeal  17 

own  time.  The  Pelasgians  of  Plakie  and  Skylake  had  come  from 
Athens,  where  they  had  resided  for  some  unspecified  time.'^  The 
inhabitants  of  Athens  before  this  departure  were  autochthonous,  that 
is,  Pelasgian  and  non-Greek.  A  body  of  them  went  off  to  the  north 
Aegean,  where  they  and  their  descendants  maintained  their  aboriginal 
character  and  language  in  foreign  surroundings  right  down  to  the 
fifth  century.  But  the  inhabitants  of  Athens,  presumably  because  of 
the  contact  which  they  had  with  the  Hellenes  who  came  to  live  with 
them,  adopted  a  Greek  character.  This  change  involved  language  of 
course,  but  it  must  have  involved  much  else.  Unfortunately  Herodotus 
does  not  specify  what  else  the  change  consisted  in. 

Over  against  this  idea  must  be  set  the  words  oi  ovvolkol  eyevopro 
' AdrfvaioL(TL.  This  clause  is  totally  at  variance  with  the  notion  of  a 
unified  body  of  autochthonous  Pelasgian  Athenians.  Indeed,  Hero- 
dotus seems  to  be  thinking  of  two  separate  groups  of  people.  The 
Pelasgians  are  almost  resident  aliens.  Precisely  the  same  confused 
interpretation  appears  in  II.  51.  2,  where  the  Pelasgians  "dwell  with" 
the  Athenians,  just  as  the  latter  are  passing  into  the  Hellenic  body: 
'Adr]vaioLaL  yap  rjdr]  rrjULKavTa  eq  "EWrjvaq  reXeovat  HeXaayol  avvoiKOi 
iyevovTo  eV  t^   X^PV^  ^^^^  "^^P  '^'^^  "EWrjvic,  rjp^avTo  vofiiadriuai. 

Herodotus  is  inconsistent  about  the  Pelasgian  background  of  the 
Athenians.  He  is  probably  conflating  different  traditions  without 
reconciling  them,  something  which  he  does  often  enough  elsewhere. 
The  notion  of  Pelasgians  as  a  distinctly  separate  group  of  resident 
aliens  appears  again  in  greater  detail  at  VI.  137,  where  there  is  no 
question  of  a  unified  Athenian  population,  some  part  of  which 
departed  from  the  main  body  for  a  new  home  in  the  northern 
Aegean.  In  Book  VI  Herodotus  clearly  thinks  that  the  Pelasgians 
were  a  separate  population  of  guest  workers,  however  autochthonous, 
and  were  then  expelled  because  of  their  rapacious  behavior.  That  I. 
57  and  VI.  137  should  give  different  versions  of  the  Athenians' 
Pelasgian  past  is  no  surprise.  What  is  surprising  is  the  confusion  which 
runs  through  the  relatively  short  account  in  chapter  57:  within  the 
space  of  four  lines  appear  two  separate  definitions  of  "Pelasgian." 

5,  The  Meaning  of  to  'EXXtjulkov 

The  next  major  problem  is  the  subject  of  the  participle  airoaxi-oOev. 
This  participle  must  refer  to  ro  'EXXtivlkov,  since  no  other  subject  is 
introduced  after  the  start  of  the  chapter.  But  what  is  meant  by  to 
'EXXrjPLKov}  Since  at  least  the  time  of  Valla's  Latin  translation  of  1474, 

'2  Laird,  op.  ciL,  p.  102. 


18  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

the  phrase  has  been  universally  understood  to  mean  "the  Greek 
nation,"  or  "the  Greeks."  But  it  really  means  "the  Greek  part,"  or 
"element."  And  yet  "the  Greek  part"  of  what?  Surely  Herodotus 
means  the  Greek-speaking  Athenians.  The  population  consisted  of 
an  aboriginal  part  which  spoke  a  Pelasgian  language  and  an  intrusive 
Greek-speaking  part.  With  the  departure  of  at  least  some  of  the 
Pelasgians,  the  population  as  a  whole  came  to  speak  and  to  be  Greek. 
Thus  a  Pelasgian  town  became  Hellene.  Herodotus  refers  to  the 
Athenians  in  their  new  role  as  Hellenes.  After  the  departure  of  the 
Pelasgians,  the  Athenians  were  weak,  but  later  grew  in  numbers  and 
power.  Laird  is  right  to  say  that  we  do  not  have  here  a  digression  on 
the  growth  of  the  Hellenic  people  generally,  but  we  are  dealing  with 
an  increase  in  the  power  of  the  Athenians  prior  to  the  time  of  internal 
strife  and  the  foundation  of  the  tyranny.'^  Thus  chapter  58  is 
concerned  with  the  Athenian  half  of  the  introductory  antithesis,  not 
with  the  Spartan  half.  There  is  no  question  here  of  a  discussion  of 
the  Dorians  or  of  their  supposed  origin  from  a  Pelasgian  people. 

Indeed,  Herodotus  nowhere  derives  the  true  (that  is,  original) 
Hellenes  from  a  barbarian  background.  They  are  remarkably  pure 
in  their  origins.  Except  for  the  Cynurians  (VIII.  73),  the  Dorians  do 
not  attach  to  themselves  any  barbarian  peoples. 

That  the  phrase  to  'EXXrjvLKov  is  partitive,  that  it  can  include  more 
or  fewer  Greeks  as  the  context  demands,  is  evident  from  the  difficult 
and  commonly  misinterpreted  sentence  in  I.  60.  3:  cVei  ye  a-rceKpid-q 
Ik  TraXairepov  tov  ^ap^apov  edveoq  to  'EXXtivlkov  ebv  Kal  de^LU)Tepou  /cat 
evridirjq  r^Xidiov  airrjXXay nevop  /jlocXXov  ("they  contrived  a  device  by  far 
the  silliest  that  I  can  discover  since  the  time  when,  in  the  distant 
past,  TO  'EXXr]VLK6v  was  distinguished  from  the  barbarian  nation  by 
being  [eou]  more  clever  and  more  free  from  idle  folly").  The  correct 
interpretation  in  this  sentence  is  not  "the  Greek  nation"  as  a  whole, 
but  "the  Greek  part"  of  the  Athenians.  The  Athenians'  separation 
from  the  Pelasgians  {^ap^apov  edveoq)  set  them  on  the  road  to  greater 
cleverness.  One  can  expect  folly  from  barbarians,  but  not  from 
Athenians  once  they  transcended  their  barbarian  origins.'* 

'Ubid.,  p.  113. 

'■•  1  follow  the  reading  of  MS  b  and  of  Aldus,  which  is  the  modern  consensus. 
The  Florentine  MS  A,  together  with  P  and  c,  gives  to  ^ap^apov  tdvoq  tov  'EWjjj/uoC', 
which  must  be  wrong.  Whatever  credit  Herodotus  gives  the  barbarians,  he  does  not 
believe  that  they  are  superior  in  intelligence  to  the  Greeks.  In  this  regard  Paul 
Shorey,  "A  Note  on  Herodotus  1.60,"  Classical  Philology  15  (1920),  pp.  88-91,  rightly 
refutes  Wilamowitz.  But  Shorey's  interpretation  of  the  final  clause  of  the  sentence 
{a  Koi  TOTi  yt  ovTOt.  iv  'Adrjvaioim  rotm  irpuTOiai  Xcyonevotai  (ivai  'E\Xr]vu}p  <jo<t)ir]ii  yirixoivwvTaL 
TOiabt)  is  strangely  labored.  Believing,  as  many  do,  that  tVti  yi  is  causal,  he  makes  a 


R.  A.  McNeal  19 

6.  A  Case  for  Editorial  Conservatism 

If  the  issue  of  to  'EX\r]PtK6v  is  satisfactorily  resolved,  there  remains 
one  last  major  textual  problem.  I  give  below  the  readings  of  the  two 
important  manuscripts  A  and  b,  just  as  the  relevant  text  appears. 
The  Roman  family  of  manuscripts,  chiefly  D  and  R,  omits  this  part 
of  the  Histories. 

A.   av^rjrai  eq  wXridoq  rOiv  edveoov  ToXXcbv  iiaXicrTa  TrpoaKexit^PVKOToov 
avTO)  Kal  aXXixiv  edveoiv  (3ap^apo)v  avxvOiV 

b.    av^r]TaL  eq  irXridoq'   tccu  edveoiu  ttoXXcov  naXiara  Trpo(TKix<^PW'oTOiv 
avTih  •  Koi  aXXo)v  edveonv  ^ap^apccu  avxvoiV 

Aldus  has  the  same  text  as  b,  but  replaces  the  first  two  upper,  or 
full,  stops  with  commas.  This  text  continued  to  be  printed  until 
Gronovius'  edition  of  1715,  when  the  comma  after  irXridoq  was  placed, 
for  no  reason  that  I  can  discover  in  Gronovius'  notes,  after  iroXXcbp.^^ 

Modern  attempts  to  improve  the  text  fall  into  three  main  categories: 
(1)  Matthiae's  simple  deletion  of  tccu  edp'eoov  ttoXXCop  as  a  gloss  of 
edveoiv  ^ap^apcov  avxvOiv;  (2)  Reiske's  Ic,  irXfidoc,  Idviu^v  tzoXXov  naXtcrTa, 
Trpo(jKex<j^P'>T<oTOi)u  ktX.;  and  (3)  Sauppe's  iq  TrX^doq  edvtoiv  ivoXXdv, 
(JiiXaayihv)  fiaX.  irpoa.  ktX.,  a  course  adopted  by  Stein  and  Hude. 
Legrand  inserts  UeXaaycbv  before  ttoXXcoj'.'^ 

Sauppe's  option,  which  is  the  modern  consensus,  is  the  most  violent. 
The  fact  that  it  has  no  manuscript  support  is  perhaps  the  best 
argument  against  it.  But  the  redefined  subject  of  diaxpoiTai,  aizoax^odtv, 
av^rjTat  provides  further  ground  for  rejecting  HeXaaycop.  Is  Hero- 

Koi  .  .  .  Toiahi  a  second  and  even  stronger  confirmation  of  the  judgment  implied  in 
iVT]df:aTaTov.  The  clause  ti  kou  .  .  .  Toiadt  is  supposed  to  mean  "inasmuch  as."  This 
clause  does  mark  even  stronger  surprise  or  indignation  on  the  part  of  Herodotus. 
But  both  clauses  are  temporal.  Reiske  at  least  understood  this  point,  though  he 
unnecessarily  wanted  to  emend  fVti  yt  to  eireiTt  (loc.  ciL).  How  absurd,  says  Herodotus, 
if  even  then  [at  a  time  when  the  Greek  element  had  long  been  separated],  the 
Peisistratidai  could  concoct  such  a  scheme  in  the  hope  of  deceiving  the  Athenians, 
said  to  be  foremost  in  wisdom  among  the  Greeks. 

'*  Aldus  Manutius  (ed.),  Herodolou  Logoi  Ennea  (Venice  1502);  J.  Gronovius  (ed.), 
Herodoti  Halicarnassei  Historiarum  Libri  IX  (Lugdunum  Batavorum  1715).  The  notes 
are  more  readily  accessible  in  Wesseling,  op.  cit.,  p.  62  (Notae  Gronovii). 

'^  Reiske,  loc.  cit.;  Aug.  Matthiae  8c  Henr.  Apetzius  (eds.),  Herodoti  Historiarum  Libri 
IX  (Lipsiae  1825-26),  Vol.  II,  p.  286;  H.  Stein  (ed.),  Herodotos^,  Vol.  I  (Berlin  1901 
[1869]);  C.  Hude  (ed.),  Herodoti  Historiae\  Vol.  I  (Oxford  1927);  Ph.-E.  Legrand  (ed.), 
Herodote,  Histoires,  Vol.  I,  Clio  (Paris  1932).  The  reading  which  Stein  first  attributes 
to  H.  Sauppe  is,  I  presume,  correct.  But  herein  lies  a  problem.  Despite  long  effort, 
I  could  not  verify  this  attribution  in  those  of  Sauppe's  works  available  to  me.  Given 
the  mass  of  his  writings  and  their  obscure  locations,  this  failure  is  not  surprising.  But 
Stein  surely  knew  whereof  he  spoke. 


20  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

dotus  telling  us  that,  after  the  initial  departure  from  Athens  of  the 
Pelasgians,  the  Athenians  grew  powerful  because  of  the  adhesion  of 
more  Pelasgian  tribes?  He  may  imply  such  an  idea  because  the  terms 
"Pelasgian"  and  "barbarian"  have  a  habit  of  being  synonymous  for 
him.  But  he  nowhere  states  specifically  that  the  Athenians  themselves 
later  gained  Pelasgian  adherents  after  passing  into  the  ranks  of  the 
Hellenes.'^  He  does  say  that  the  lonians  as  a  whole  (I.  146)  were  a 
notoriously  motley  group  who  had  all  sorts  of  diverse  origins,  but 
the  Hellenized  Pelasgians  who  constituted  the  population  of  Athens 
grew  to  power  precisely  in  proportion  as  they  gave  up  their  Pelasgian- 
barbarian  character  and  language.  The  point  which  Herodotus  seems 
to  want  to  make  is  that  after  the  Pelasgians'  departure,  still  other 
barbarians  helped  the  Athenian  people  to  grow.  Who  were  they?  He 
does  not  say.  But  Sauppe's  I[.O^aay(bv  is  misleading  and  unnecessary. 

The  most  conservative  editorial  treatment  of  this  passage  (and  the 
best  way  to  deal  with  it)  would  do  no  more  than  enclose  the  words 
TOiv  through  naXiara  in  daggers  to  alert  the  reader  to  a  possible 
crux.  The  corruption,  if  corruption  there  really  is,  lies  here.'® 

But  can  we  do  any  better?  I  suggest  the  following:  e'q  irXfidoc,  to 
(yvv  €tC)  iroXXov,  fxaXLora  ktX.  As  a  variant  of  Reiske's  solution,  this 
conjecture  tries  to  remove  the  dubious  tccv  edvioiv  and  to  change  the 
punctuation  to  show  just  how  Herodotus  understood  naXiara. 

If  one  keeps  the  manuscript  reading  of  A  and  b,  then  the  words 
Tcbv  idp'eccp,  the  worst  problem,  must  be  either  dependent  on  irXridoq 
or  they  must  be  the  first  part  of  a  compound  subject  in  a  genitive 
absolute.  In  either  case  idpeo^v  has  to  be  explained.  What  are  these 
many  mysterious  tribes  which  have  attached  themselves  to  the  Hellene- 
Athenians?  Herodotus  nowhere  mentions  them,  and  a  search  through 
the  tangle  of  Athenian  mythology  will  not  reveal  them.  Of  course 
precisely  the  same  argument  can  be  applied  against  aXXuv  edv€(x>v 
I3ap^apu)v.  These  tribes  too  must  remain  a  mystery,  whatever  we  do 
with  the  preceding  words.  Even  Sauppe's  conjecture  will  not  solve 
this  latter  problem. 

"  Laird,  op.  rit.,  passim,  is  correct  to  dismiss  the  theory  of  Myres  and  Meyer  that 
there  was  a  late  Pelasgian  migration  into  Attica,  after  the  departure  of  some  of  the 
autochthonous  inhabitants.  Herodotus  at  least  nowhere  says  that  Pelasgians  came  to 
Attica.  The  theory  of  Myres  can  be  traced  at  least  as  far  back  as  H.  Riedel,  op.  cit., 
p.  592. 

'*  I  include  the  adverb  only  because  E.  Powell,  Herodotus  (Oxford  1949),  Vol.  II, 
p.  688,  wants  to  omit  it.  I  find  nothing  offensive  in  its  presence. 


R.  A.  McNeal  21 

7.  Conclusion 

This  journey  through  the  wastes  of  textual  criticism  may  bore  the 
historian,  but  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to  basics  if  we  are  to  have 
any  hope  of  understanding  this  digression.  I  have  tried  to  assemble 
the  evidence,  and  in  particular  to  see  how  the  text  has  been  interpreted 
over  the  centuries.  Apart  from  playing  the  antiquarian,  I  have  set 
out  the  possible  avenues  which  alternative  explanations  might  take. 

Implicit  in  this  handling  of  the  evidence  is  a  very  conservative 
editorial  method:  the  text  should  be  left  alone,  even  at  the  expense 
of  ambiguity,  unless  there  are  good  palaeographical  reasons  for  making 
changes. 

What  has  emerged  from  an  analysis  of  the  textual  problems  and 
of  Herodotus'  own  logic  are  some  ethnographical  theories  which  may 
not  suit  our  own  modern  taste.  Herodotus  gets  himself  into  verbal 
difficulties  because  on  the  one  hand  he  wants  to  establish  an  antithesis 
between  Spartans  and  Athenians  and  carry  it  into  the  distant  past, 
and  because  on  the  other  hand  he  has  to  square  this  contrast  with 
the  respective  traditions  of  these  two  peoples.  Autochthonous  Pelas- 
gian  Athenians  must  somehow  become  Greek.  They  do  so  by  adopting 
the  new  language  of  the  intrusive  Hellenes.  As  for  i\m  Hellenes 
themselves,  they  were  always,  since  the  time  of  their  divine  and 
heroic  begetters,  a  recognizable  body  of  people.  As  flawed  as  these 
ideas  may  be,  we  should  at  least  accord  Herodotus  the  credit  which 
he  deserves  for  a  truly  intelligent  and  honest  inquiry,  in  the  best 
Ionian  tradition,  into  what  clearly  was  for  him  a  very  difficult  problem. 
The  wonder  is  that  he  managed  as  well  as  he  did. 

Northwestern  University 


Particular  and  General  in  Thucydides 

ALBERT  COOK 

1 

Herodotus  disentangled  prose  sufficiently  from  myth,  setting  Thu- 
cydides a  standard  of  comprehensiveness  and  purity  that  he  could 
better  only  by  a  more  rigorous  purity.  If  indeed  Herodotus  is  included 
in  the  nameless  writers  whose  principles  he  abjures  (I.  20-22),  he 
abjures  not  all  of  Herodotus,  but  rather,  among  other  things,  Her- 
odotus' penchant  for  the  exotic  and  for  fails  divers.  Thucydides' 
pejorative  for  him,  tivdOibtc,,  "story-like"  or  "mythy,"  can  certainly  be 
stretched  to  cover  Herodotus'  sense.  It  is  because  he  exercises  a 
somewhat  loose  control  on  particulars  that  with  Herodotus,  or  those 
like  him,  the  details  "prevail  into  the  mythy." 

Thucydides  states,  as  he  inserts  his  statement  of  principles  between 
the  "Archaeology"  and  the  account  of  the  war,  that  he  rests  upon 
inference  {tekmerion),^  and  also  on  inference  with  a  rigorous  linear 
connection  to  his  subject,  "all  inferential  data  in  order"  {travTl  e^ijq 
TeKnr]pio),  literally,  "every  datum").  "All"  points  out  explicitly  that 
every  particular  detail  is  sifted,  taken  with  "inferential  data."  Taken 


'  A.  W.  Gomme,  A  Historical  Commentary  on  Thucydides  (Oxford  1959-  ),  I,  p.  135, 
on  20.  1:  "It  should  be  remembered  that  TeKfiripiov  is  not  evidence  but  the  inference 
drawn  from  the  evidence."  The  rigor  Thucydides  marshalled  when  sifting  evidence 
for  a  particular  fact  shows,  for  example,  in  his  use  of  Homer's  authority  for  the 
relation  of  the  Greeks'  early  defenses  to  their  later  ones  in  the  Trojan  War,  as  Edwin 
Dolin  lucidly  and  complexly  demonstrates  ("Thucydides  on  the  Trojan  War:  a  Critique 
of  the  Text  of  1.1 1.1,"  Han>ard  Studies  m  Classical  Philology,  86  [1982],  pp.  1 19-49). 


24  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

with  "in  order"  it  starts  to  remind  us  that  Thucydides'  focus  will 
shortly  change  and  that  everything  he  says  will  bear  still  more  directly 
on  the  war. 

Writers  who  do  not  follow  this  recommended  process  may  be  poets 
(TTOiTjTai),  an  activity  that  engages  them  in  setting  up  another  kind 
of  order:  they  write  not  e^riq  but  Koa/xovvTeq  (21.  1),  an  "ordering" 
that  is  at  the  same  time  an  adorning,  in  a  dead  spatial  metaphor  that 
implies  a  comprehensive  "kosmos"  and  not  a  linear  sequence.  Poets 
are  here  coupled  with  those  whom  the  reader,  after  Herodotus  had 
written,  and  in  the  climate  Havelock  describes  in  Preface  to  Plato,^ 
might  be  tempted  to  distinguish  from  poets.  These  are  the  logographoi 
or  "prose  writers,"  who  also  put  their  material  into  order.  Their 
procedure  of  doing  so  is  designated  by  yet  a  different  locution, 
^vuedeaav,  "put  together."  The  three  terms  of  ordering  (e^^q,  Koanovurec,, 
^vvedeaav)  align  the  three  types  of  writers  according  to  the  principle 
on  which  they  organize  their  material.  Thucydides  is  a  fourth  kind, 
and  it  may  be  said  that  he  here  emphasizes  testing  his  data  rather 
than  ordering  them  himself  because  his  ordering  must  evolve  in  the 
long  presentation  he  is  beginning. 

The  Xoyoypa(f)OL  "put  together"  their  material,  Thucydides  says, 
so  as  to  be  more  attractive  to  the  hearer — and  the  term  "hearer" 
assimilates  them  back  to  the  more  automatic  persuasiveness  of  oral 
reception.  The  term  Trpoaayooyorepov,  "more  attractive  of  access," 
also  comes  close  to  a  notion  of  fails  divers.  They  are  "more  attractive 
than  true,"  and  Thucydides  then  returns  in  this  passage  to  his  single 
explicit  positive  criterion,  the  checking  of  evidence,  datum  by  datum. 

It  is,  to  be  sure,  by  his  account,  a  distance  in  time,  and  not  in 
space  or  in  logical  ordering,  that  will  make  presented  data  "prevail 
with  incredibility  into  the  my  thy"  (airiffTouc,  eirl  to  fivdccdeq  eKuevLKrjKOTo). 
The  compound  verb  iKvePLKrjKOTa,  which  might  also  be  rendered  "win 
over,"  indicates  a  dynamic  process.  The  writer  whom  Thucydides 
rejects  gradually  succumbs  to  a  "mythy"  element  in  his  data  by  failing 
to  scrutinize  them.  As  if  in  still  fuller  deference  to  what  he  has 
articulated  here,  he  couples  his  declaration  in  the  next  chapter,  that 
he  has  constructed  or  reconstructed  the  speeches  on  reliable  evidence, 
with  the  assertion  that  in  any  case  they  bear  directly  on  the  war.  Both 
of  these  statements  may  be  taken  as  an  implied  rejection  of  Herodotus' 
scope.  Thucydides'  term  ^-qTrjinq,  inquiry  by  scrutiny,  steps  up  the 
rigor  of  Herodotus'  historia,  "investigation,"  a  term  Thucydides  wholly 

2  Eric  Havelock,  Preface  to  Plato  (Cambridge,  Mass.  1963). 


Albert  Cook  25 

avoids  using. ^  As  for  his  initial  look  at  events  remote  in  time, 
Thucydides  has  already  shown  them  to  bear  directly  on  the  factors 
of  the  war.  His  opening  is  similar  to  Herodotus',  except  that  Herodotus 
begins  almost  at  once  with  a  narrative  as  a  causal  explanation. 
Herodotus,  after  setting  his  theoretical  premises  briefly,  at  once  begins 
by  sifting  stories  in  the  search  of  a  single  cause  for  the  enmity  between 
Europe  and  Asia  so  as  to  account  for  the  beginning  of  the  Persian 
War.  He  settles  on  a  single  particular,  Croesus,  "pointing  out  this  one 
man"  {tovtov  arjur^paq).  It  is  from  that  vantage  that  he  gets  into  his 
narrative:  "pointing  out  this  one  man  I  shall  proceed  into  the  further 
presentation  of  my  account"  {eq  to  izpooo)  tov  Xbyov,  I.  5). 

Thucydides,  by  contrast,  makes  no  attempt  as  he  sets  up  his 
background  to  make  a  particular  datum  carry  the  burden  of  his 
general  account.  He  stays  on  the  plane  of  factorial  semi-abstraction 
until  he  reaches  the  point  in  time  and  space  that  immediately  involves 
his  particular  war,  deferring  even  the  fifty  years  preceding  it,  the 
Pentekontaetia,  till  somewhat  later.  In  the  "Archaeology,"  though  the 
particular  details  are  subject  to  the  dimming  and  mythologizing 
falsification  of  time,  Thucydides  has  proceeded  by  what  he  calls  "most 
explicit  signs"  {einipaueaTaTitiv  arintio^v),  "sufficiently"  {aTroxp<j^vT<jo<;, 
21.  1).  This  final  adverb  suggests  that  in  this  instance  he  has  contented 
himself  with  something  like  a  minimum  of  data,  but  after  having 
tested  evidence  that  did  prove  testable.  A  sufficient  condition  has 
been  met  for  moving  from  particular  to  general.  The  signs  were 
"explicit" — for  those  who  could  test  them.  Again,  if  this  is  a  revision 
of  Herodotus,  it  is  still  very  much  along  Herodotus'  lines,  except  for 
the  adjustment  of  particular  to  general,  though  it  could  be  asserted 
that  Herodotus,  even  when  he  doubts,  does  not  usually  hint  that 
evidence  is  at  a  low  state  of  verifiability.  And  the  possibility  here 
implied  by  Thucydides,  that  evidence  might  somehow  be  at  once 
scanty  and  adequate  for  explicit  reading,  puts  him  in  a  diff^erent 
realm  from  Herodotus  by  raising  the  criterion  not  just  of  verifiability 
but  of  sufficiency  {airoxp<j^fT(joq). 

None  of  this  is  directly  counter-mythological,  though  it  works  even 
harder  than  Herodotus  does  the  counter-mythological  substructure 
of  its  organizational  principle.  This  principle  tests  a  relation  between 
particular  and  general,  whereas  the  myth  is  always  easily  both  par- 
ticular (Oedipus  or  Apollo)  and  general  (man  or  god).  Applying  the 
myth,  as  the  poet  does,  requires  intelligence  but  not  testing.  On  the 
contrary,  the  poet  is  free  to  invent  within  the  outlines  of  his  story,  as 

^  I  have  discussed  the  conditions  implied  by  Herodotus'  use  of  iaTopirj  in  Albert 
Cook,  Myth  and  Language  (Bioomington,  Indiana  1980),  pp.  69-106. 


26  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

well  as  to  emphasize  some  aspect  of  a  known  story.  The  historian 
must  establish  the  aspects  of  a  story  that  has  happened  but  that  he 
must  coordinate  from  scratch.  Plato  strains  his  dialectic,  as  it  were, 
to  restore  myth's  easy  congruence  between  particular  and  general 
without  recourse  to  story,  except  as  a  supplement  or  as  a  movement 
onto  another  plane.  For  Plato,  connections  between  the  planes, 
between  dialectic  and  myth,  are  left  mysterious,  and  the  philosopher's 
enterprise  is  neither  confined  nor  fully  defined  by  story-bound  pattern 
types.  The  ideas  are  in  heaven,  but  they  are  history-less,  unlike  either 
men  or  gods. 

None  of  this  is  exactly  counter-mythological  either.  Thucydides  is 
of  course  still  more  negative  than  Plato  on  the  uses  of  myth  as  a 
factor  in  the  progress  of  his  main  narrative.  "Having  prevailed  into 
the  mythy,"  the  abjured  practice  of  others,  suggests  also  for  them  an 
intellectual  process — one  which  logically  could  include  Plato's — to 
mediate  that  which  has  been  allowed  to  become  "mythy."  Such  a 
softening  of  rigor  would  work  against  Thucydides'  task-in-hand. "* 

Thucydides  leaves  Herodotus'  ethnographic  inquiries  almost  wholly 
behind.  He  does  not  need  those  particulars.  He  differs  from  Herodotus 
more  notably  in  that  restriction  than  he  does  in  his  attitude  towards 

■•  It  is  startling  that  Cornford  (F.  M.  Cornford,  Thucydides  Mythistoricus  [London 
1907])  used  this  sentence  as  the  epigraph  for  a  work  that  then  goes  on  effectually 
to  misread  its  strictures.  With  the  benefit  of  modern  thematic  analysis  we  may  make 
the  story  of  Pausanias  (I.  129-35)  conform  to  a  mythic  pattern,  as  Cornford  does, 
but  Thucydides  does  not.  Still  less  would  he  effectually  capitalize  onraTri  as  the  goddess 
"Deception"  in  the  first  events  surrounding  Alcibiades  (V.  35  ff.). 

For  the  overall  "mythic"  cast  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  itself,  Cornford  offers  a 
convenient  reference  point  to  deny.  This  contemporary  of  Freud,  as  we  may  say,  saw 
in  Thucydides'  History  a  sort  of  return  of  the  repressed.  As  everyone  realizes,  we 
cannot  seek  the  sense  of  this  work  in  a  crude  equation  of  Athens'  downfall  through 
v^pic,  and  arr)  with  that  in  Greek  tragedy.  Indeed,  the  formula  does  not  work  too 
well  for  Greek  tragedy  either.  Thucydides  is  not  mythistoricus.  For  one  thing  the  word 
aTTj  does  not  occur  once  in  the  whole  of  his  work  (A),  and  the  six  references  to  u/3pii; 
are  all  limited  to  a  very  specific  occasion.  This  is  Thucydides' — and  for  that  matter 
the  historian's — normal  use  of  such  abstractions,  even  though  there  is  a  slight  poetic 
cast  to  Thucydides'  vocabulary  (B).  But  whatever  the  dominant  substratum  we  attribute 
to  Thucydides'  narrative,  the  relation  he  establishes  between  particular  and  general 
in  his  narrative  radically  divorces  it  from  the  procedures  of  myth-evocation. 

(A)  I  have  tried  to  deduce  the  implications  of  the  exclusively  poetic  use  of  arri  in 
Albert  Cook,  Eyiactment:  Greek  Tragedy  (Chicago  1971),  pp.  69-76.  For  further 
examination  of  the  personal  psychological  implications  of  this  complex  word,  see 
William  F.  Wyatt,  Jr.,  "Homeric  Ate,"  American  Journal  of  Philology  103  (1982),  pp. 
247-76. 

(B)  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  was  the  first  to  notice  the  poetic  cast  of  Thucydides' 
vocabulary,  which  is  also  touched  on  by  Gomme  {op.  cit.,  I,  p.  235,  note  on  ayav  in 
I.  75.  1).  See  also  John  J.  Finley,  Jr.,  Thucydides  (Cambridge,  Mass.  1942),  p.  265. 


Albert  Cook  27 

the  gods.^  Thucydides  does  differ  from  Herodotus  in  addressing  a 
collective  action  that  was  going  to  be  a  failure  rather  than  a  success. 
It  was  also  going  to  transform  the  Greek  world,  for  the  time  being, 
much  more  radically  that  the  larger-scale  Persian  conflicts  did.  Since 
he  could  not  have  known  these  two  large  results  when  he  set  himself 
the  task  of  writing  his  history,  his  initial  vantage  could  not  have  been 
conditioned  by  Cornford's  sense  of  a  tragic  sense  in  him.  Still,  it  is 
well  to  keep  Cornford  in  mind,  though  at  a  distance,  if  we  wish  to 
get  a  sense  of  how  Thucydides,  like  his  younger  contemporary  Plato, 
took  the  tack  of  rejecting  much  previous  discourse  and  much  of  the 
previous  conditions  thereof,  as  an  impetus  for  his  own.  In  the 
complicated  dispute  that  he  reports  over  the  Athenians'  drawing 
water  in  sacred  temple  precincts  when  the  Boeotians  themselves 
abstained  (IV.  97-98),  Thucydides  intrudes  no  doubt  about  the  many 
factors  implicit  and  explicit.^  One  factor  stated,  indeed,  is  that  the 
Athenians  and  the  Boeotians  share  the  same  gods  (IV.  97.  4).  Nor 
does  Thucydides  question  the  myth  of  Tereus  (II.  29)  when  he 
distinguishes  a  different  Tereus  in  the  background  of  Sitalkes.  He 
actually  provides  the  detail  that  poets  have  memorialized  the  night- 
ingale incident,  asserting  in  the  same  sentence  that  the  distance 
between  the  countries  would  make  a  closer  origin  plausible  {^iKoq)  for 
the  better-known  Tereus.  As  the  scholiast  says,  "It  is  significant  that 
here  alone  he  introduces  a  myth  in  his  book,  and  then  in  the  process 
of  adjudication"  (Sio-Toif^cof,  literally  "doubting").^  The  significance 
would  lie  not  in  confirming  his  rejection  of  myth,^  and  still  less  in 
his  subordination  to  it,  but  rather  in  the  austerity  of  a  focus  that 
rarely  allows  a  myth  to  obtrude.  Still,  in  this  one  instance,  the  veracity 
of  a  mythical  past  is  used  as  a  tool  to  sift  facts;  when  he  later  brings 
in  the  myth  of  Alcmaeon,  it  serves  to  define  a  region.  Even  a  myth 
will  do  as  a  focusing  particular. 

^  Though  Herodotus  is  more  explicit  in  this  and  other  ways,  the  actual  differences 
between  the  two  historians  with  respect  to  the  gods  are  relatively  minor.  As  Syme 
points  out,  in  Thucydides  an  appeal  to  the  gods  often  fails  (Ronald  Syme,  "Thucy- 
dides," in  the  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy  48  [1962],  pp.  39-56,  esp.  p.  52).  But 
that  is  true  in  Herodotus  as  well,  with  the  frequent  elaborate  mismatching  of  oracle 
to  circumstance. 

^  Gomme,  ad  lac. 

'  Quoted  in  Gomme,  II,  p.  90,  ad  loc. 

^  See  also  II.  15.  1,  "in  the  time  of  Cecrops."  As  Gomme  says  (ad  loc,  II,  p.  48), 
"Another  example  to  show  that  Thucydides  did  not  doubt  the  truth,  in  outline,  of 
the  Greek  'myths,'  though  he  might  interpret  the  story  in  his  own  way." 


28  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 


In  the  reckoning  of  time  and  the  marking  of  stages  for  his  History, 
Thucydides  abstracts  his  work  at  once,  demarcating  time  as  related 
just  to  his  event-series;  he  numbers  the  years  according  to  the  war, 
usually  by  summers  and  winters.  "And  the  eleventh  year  ended  for 
the  war,"  he  says  (V.  39).  This  particular  time  there  is  a  tinge  of 
ironic  emphasis  in  the  statement,  since  it  marks  events  after  the 
"Peace  of  Nicias"  in  421.  The  flat  statement  works  to  keep  his 
progression  relentlessly  even.  His  movement  forward  implies  a  prior 
reasoning:  "If  anyone  were  to  doubt  that  the  war  continued  just 
because  a  much-broken  treaty  of  truce  was  in  force,  I  will  use  the 
word  war,  as  I  did  before,  to  characterize  this  particular  year  too." 
Such  sentences  as  "And  the  eleventh  year  ended  for  the  war"  place 
a  purely  temporal  mark  on  the  event-series,  coming  as  they  do 
regularly  but  unpredictably  in  the  work,  and  sometimes  with  his  own 
name  attached  to  them.  Their  neutrality  reinforces  their  inexorability. 

This  writer  of  prose  has  left  behind  him  the  ambition  of  Herodotus 
or  of  Ion  of  Chios.  He  can  rest  with  his  method,  and  with  his  verbal 
means.  The  relation  between  oral  and  written  is  not  a  problem  for 
him,  as  it  is  posed  in  the  Phaedrus  of  Plato  and  felt  all  through  Plato's 
work,  or  as  it  must  have  been  for  Heraclitus.  Nor  is  Thucydides' 
prose  simply  a  convenient  instrument,  as  for  Lysias,  Protagoras,  and 
the  medical  writers.  Thoroughly  grounded  in  his  principle  of  testing, 
Thucydides'  written  account  can  then  re-include  the  oral,  and  spec- 
tacularly, in  the  form  of  the  complexly  structured  speeches  of  the 
work.  His  principle  of  testing  reassures  him  to  the  point  where  he 
asserts  he  can  reconstruct  these  speeches,  if  necessary,  on  the  basis 
of  reports  of  what  the  main  arguments  would  have  been  ("the  way 
each  of  them  seemed  to  me  to  have  spoken  most  likely  what  was 
needed  {to.  deovra  iiaXidT'  eiirelp]  about  what  the  present  situation 
each  time  was,"  I.  22).  Such  a  confidence  implies  that  the  oral,  to  be 
congruent  with  the  written  and  narrated,  need  not  be  poetic.  The 
memorable  need  not  be  poetic. 

Plato's  speeches,  of  course,  are  by  contrast  not  remembered.  They 
are  Active  reports  of  conversations  imagined  to  have  taken  place. 
Plato's  initial  fiction  corresponds  to  Thucydides'  reality.  Thucydides 
asserts  that  in  their  essentials  these  speeches  really  did  take  place. 
The  essentials  are  points  in  an  argument,  which  thereby  and  therewith 
are  put  on  a  par  with  other  historical  happenings,  the  X67ot  with  the 
epya — and  in  this  passage  he  contrasts  the  two  terms,  words  and 
deeds.  This  pair  remains  a  key  duet  of  terms  throughout  his  work. 
The  speeches  show  that  a  sequence  of  points  in  an  argument  is  a 


Albert  Cook  29 

sequence  of  constated  particulars.  The  enchained  generalities  and 
abstractions  for  which  the  speeches  are  notable  actually  attest  to  their 
verifiability.  The  generalities  guarantee  that  the  particulars  have  been 
tested  by  sifting. 

What  was  spoken  in  the  past,  then,  assimilates  to,  as  well  as  assesses, 
what  was  done  in  the  past — so  long  as  it  is  within  the  living  attention 
span  of  the  writing  historian. 

This  vision  of  the  public  experience  arises  from  a  new  privacy  of 
the  literary  act.  The  philosopher,  the  poet,  the  tragedian,  and  even 
the  medical  writer,  had  an  audience  defined  somewhat  by  social  sub- 
grouping  and  personal  contact,  or  else  by  a  ritualized  occasion.  If 
Heraclitus  was  a  private  writer,  he  would  seem  to  have  taught,  and 
he  is  said  to  have  laid  his  book  in  the  temple  of  Artemis.  In  carrying 
out  lessons  before  a  band  of  faithful  auditors,  Socrates,  and  Plato 
himself,  conform  to  the  pre-Socratic  prototype  for  the  thinker's 
communication  channels.  The  historian,  however,  from  Hecataeus 
on,  is  committed  not  only  to  prose  but  to  the  written  book  freed  of 
such  social  constraints.  The  exile  of  Thucydides  here  offers  a  literary 
dimension  as  well  as  a  vantage  for  research.  He  intensifies  these 
conditions.  He  has  no  immediate  audience  for  his  book,  but  a  long 
wait.  And  a  certain  randomness  defines  his  potential  readership;  he 
has  no  theatre  or  academy  or  group  of  poetry  enthusiasts  or  ritual 
throng  or  law  court  in  which  it  will  be  taken  up. 

It  is  in  the  act  of  writing  history  that  the  comparatively  free 
audience-expectation  of  the  modern  book  suddenly  comes  into  ex- 
istence. 

Moreover,  while  Herodotus  undergoes  a  comparable  wait,  and 
compasses  a  long  work  in  comparable  privacy,  he  can  expect  some 
national  accolade  from  the  very  success  of  the  Panhellenic  effort  he 
so  fully  accounts  for.  There  is  a  tradition  that  he  read  his  work  aloud 
to  general  acclaim.  As  with  Livy,  there  is  an  element  of  patriotism 
in  his  history.  Thucydides,  however,  resembles  the  gloomy  Tacitus. 
Even  before  the  failure  of  the  war,  since  as  he  in  effect  tells  us  he 
set  himself  the  task  before  knowing  its  outcome,  his  testing  of  factors 
implies  a  neutrality  towards  the  parties  that  has  a  sharper  cutting 
edge  than  Herodotus'.  Thucydides'  vision  of  public  events,  while 
highly  generalizable,  is  intensely  private  and  personal,  the  more  so 
that  its  generalities  are  based  not  on  a  prior  social  code,  and  not 
even  on  Herodotus'  neutral  ethnographic  stance,  but  on  the  writer's 
principle  of  inference  as  it  governs  the  enunciation  of  factors.  Thu- 
cydides proposes  no  community,  as  Plato  does,  and  in  a  sense  he  does 
not  himself  describe  a  community,  though  he  lets  others  do  so. 
Brasidas  is  as  noble  as  Pericles,  and  there  is  more  in  his  actions  than 


30  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

the  specifically  Spartan.  Instead,  Thucydides  provides  a  basis  in  action 
for  the  principles  on  which  community  rests,  though  unlike  Machia- 
velli  he  does  not  turn  explicitly  to  such  questions.  The  high  degree 
of  communal  energy  that  characterizes  Athens  in  Pericles'  Funeral 
Oration,  on  the  evidence,  is  a  momentary  increment  from  the 
prosperity  whose  evolution  is  described  in  the  Archaeology  and  the 
Pentekontaetia.  As  Schadewaldt  says,  Thucydides  "indicates  general 
horizons  for  events  {das  Geschehen)  and  carries  within  himself  a  mode 
of  the  theory  of  categories.  Both  aspects  determine  the  picture 
Thucydides  offers  us  ...  in  tension  with  each  other."^ 

The  social  implications  of  the  "achievement  laid  up  forever,"  the 
KTrina  iq  aui,  lodge  Thucydides  in  a  lonely  universality,  even  though 
KTTina  in  its  regular  Homeric  and  post-Homeric  sense  suggests  personal 
use  in  a  social  context.  Looking  personally  backwards,  his  events  have 
to  have  been  lived  through  in  order  to  have  validity,  and  they  must 
be  tested  in  order  to  have  general  relevance.  Looking  ahead,  their 
effectiveness  is  indifferent  with  respect  to  the  group  that  might  be 
imagined  as  consulting  the  History. 

Yet  in  one  sense  Thucydides  is  conservative  and  by  implication 
community-minded.  His  narrative  concentrates  on  military  history, 
to  as  great  a  degree  as  the  Iliad  does.  In  this  Thucydides  is  closer  to 
Homer  than  Herodotus  was.  For  the  military  hero  that  a  poet 
celebrates,  too,  the  poem  is  a  perpetuation  of  his  fame  to  generations 
that  might  otherwise  forget,  as  Pindar  reminds  us.  The  poem,  too, 
is  a  KTTifia  iq  aui.  What  Thucydides  memorializes,  however,  are  events 
not  only  unique  but  also  explicitly  patterned  and  exemplary.  So  are 
Homer's  events,  to  be  sure,  but  the  poet,  in  his  social  role  at  least, 
seems  to  be  organizing  the  pattern  to  enhance  the  uniqueness,  whereas 
for  Thucydides  it  is  the  other  way  around.  Homer  already  took  the 
giant  step  of  transforming  the  sort  of  battle  frieze  to  be  seen  on 
Mycenean  reliefs,  late  geometric  vases,  and  later  on  classical  pedi- 
ments. He  transformed  this  persistent  Near  Eastern  celebratory  focus 
on  awesome  clashes  by  setting  organizational  principles  over  the  clash. 
Thucydides  goes  Homer  one  better  by  abstracting  these,  but  clashes 
are  still  far  more  particularized  in  his  history  than  the  clashes  in 
Herodotus.  Thucydides  is  a  military  historian  to  the  degree  that  the 
coherence  of  so  striking  a  cultural  tribute  as  the  Funeral  Oration 
becomes  a  problem  for  the  interpreter. 

Thucydides'  concentration  on  military  operations  also  throws  them 

^  Wolfgang  Schadewaldt,  Die  Anj'dnge  der  Geschichtsschreibung  bei  den  Griechen 
(Frankfurt  1982),  pp.  251-52. 


Albert  Cook  3 1 

into  perspective  through  the  touching  in  of  power  motives,  the  more 
strikingly  that  the  military  is  so  preponderant. 

In  depicting  military  events,  Thucydides  is  linear,  but  also  expan- 
sive. The  same  thorny  problem-states — Thebes,  Corinth,  Corcyra, 
Potidaea,  Platea,  Mytilene,  Amphipolis,  Syracuse — keep  turning  their 
thorns  to  the  event.  A  complex  particular  moves  in  time  towards 
generality.  Yet  in  the  imposition  of  power  considerations,  Thucydides' 
view  seems  to  be  at  once  cyclical  and  general.  The  same  factors  keep 
applying;  the  course  from  inception  of  campaign  or  attack  to  reso- 
lution keeps  taking  place.  He  demonstrates  the  fact  that  failure  or 
success  may  not  be  clear,  and  he  is  consequently  careful  to  point  out 
those  occasions  when  both  sides  claim  victory.  In  Thucydides  the 
word  "circle,"  KmXoq,  is  always  just  spatial,  though  he  uses  the  verb 
KVKXov/jiaL  in  a  way  that  combines  the  linear  and  the  cyclical.  The 
verb  implies  making  linear  progress  in  getting  past  something  by 
using  a  circling  movement. 

If  we  cannot  press  the  buried  metaphors  in  Thucydides  so  far,  the 
sense  he  creates  of  constant  ratiocination  invites  us  to  look  for  it  in 
his  very  diction. 


The  war  is  involved  uninterruptedly,  though  with  unpredictable 
particular  variations,  in  a  forward  linear  flow.  Thucydides  shows  it 
at  every  point  gathering  up,  and  pulling  against,  assumptions  and 
causes — to  such  a  degree  that  defining  his  use  of  terms  such  as 
acTLa  ("cause")  and  -Kpo^aoLc,  ("pretext")  entails  intricate  comparisons 
and  discriminations. '°  In  Herodotus  the  large,  understood  forces 
pause,  as  it  were,  for  stocktaking.  In  Thucydides  they  never  rest  from 
their  dynamic  interaction.  The  spreading  pool  of  ignorance  about 
the  past  that  Thucydides  stresses  can  be  taken  to  imply  some  ignorance 
about  the  present.  And  ignorance,  signally  the  Athenian  ignorance 
about  the  complexity  of  politics  in  Sicily,  operates  itself  as  a  factor, 
dynamically.  The  speeches  exhibit  the  tension,  and  the  syntactic 
intricacy,  of  trying  to  construct  present-oriented  rationales  for  specific 
behaviors.  This  is  true  even  of  Pericles'  Funeral  Oration  (II.  35-46). 
Its  high  abstractions  and  graceful  definitions  are  aimed  toward  the 
propaganda  purpose  of  boosting  morale;  Pericles'  opening  backward 
look  at  the  past  superiority  of  Athens  is  adduced  as  a  factor  in  giving 
the  Athenians  an  extra  edge  in  the  coming  conflicts.  Pericles  ends 
the  speech  in  a  well-nigh  Hitlerian  injunction  to  replace  the  dead 

'"  Gomme,  I,  p.  153;  II,  pp.  154-55. 


32  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

soldiers  with  living  children  who  may  grow  up  to  fight  for  Athens 
(II.  44.  3). 

Still,  there  remains  always  such  a  surplus  of  factors  and  emphases 
that  they  get  out  of  hand — not  counting  such  natural  disasters  as  the 
plague,  which  follows  very  soon  after  this  oration.  It  brings  about 
still  more  deaths,  deaths  that  only  most  tangentially  can  be  connected 
to  the  war.  The  multiplicity  of  factors  jerks  the  linear  flow  ahead,  as 
is  shown  in  pairs  or  larger  groups  of  speeches — the  normal  case.  A 
second  speaker  will  show  this  as  against  the  first  speaker,  by  his 
reliance  on  inevitably  diff"erent  emphases  and  possibly  different  fac- 
tors, even  when  the  geopolitical  assumptions  are  the  same.  The 
speeches  show  general  and  particular  in  the  process  of  refocusing 
their  relations. 

Such  is  the  pressure  from  many  quarters  that  events  tend  to  outrun 
Thucydides'  linear  account  of  them.  Often  something  has  happened 
which  his  unavoidable  focus  at  one  point  has  kept  out  of  his  narrative 
in  its  proper  sequence.  Occasionally,  and  revealingly,  he  violates  strict 
chronological  order."  So,  in  a  specific  instance,  the  very  relaxedness 
that  a  new  peace  implies,  and  the  necessity  to  realign  forces  once 
they  are  not  firmly  marshalled  against  one  another,  leaves  participants 
in  a  position  of  overreaching  themselves  through  an  inevitable  inca- 
pacity to  cover  all  the  factors.  This  is  the  case  at  the  beginning,  when 
Athens  incurs  the  wrath  of  Sparta  by  trying  to  manage  forces  at  the 
perimeter  of  her  league.  It  is  the  case  after  the  peace  of  Nicias  once 
again,  when  in  420  many  states — Argos  and  its  confederacy,  the 
Athenians  and  Alcibiades  personally,  the  Boeotians,  the  Corinthians, 
the  Megarians,  and  the  Spartans — all  re-expose  themselves  by  ne- 
gotiations in  more  than  one  direction. 

Those  Spartans  "who  most  wanted  to  dissolve  the  treaty"  (V.  36) — 
thus  calling  into  play  the  factor  of  internal  factionalism,  as  Alcibiades 
will  soon  effectually  do — secretly  urge  the  Boeotians  and  the  Cor- 
inthians first  to  ally  themselves  with  Argos  (and  its  allies),  and  then 
subsequently  with  Sparta.  This  project,  if  it  were  to  be  actualized,  as 
often  in  Thucydides,  would  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone  for  these 
hostile  Spartans:  it  would  offend  the  Athenians  by  violating  the 
condition  of  the  truce  that  no  new  alliances  be  formed,  and  by 
forming  them  it  would  strengthen  Sparta.  However,  on  their  way 
home  the  Boeotians  (V.  37)  encounter,  again  privately,  some  Argives 
who  are  waiting  there  for  the  purpose  of  urging  the  very  same 
alliance;  persuasion  is  not  necessary.  Back  home  the  rulers  of  Boeotia 

"  Ibid.,  I,  p.  209,  on  I.  57.  6,  with  examples. 


Albert  Cook  33 

endorse  this  policy,  but  the  four  councils  that  constitute  the  decision- 
making group  in  Boeotia  see  it  differently: 

irplv  bt  Tovc,  5pK0vq  yeveadai  oi  BoLU)Tapxoci  tKoivoiaap  ralq  reaaapm  fSovXatq 
Tihv  BoL(jiT<hv  TavTa,  aurep  airav  to  Kvpoq  e'xoucrij',  /cat  irocpffvovv  yeveadai. 
opKOvq  TOiq  TroXeaiv,  ooai  ^ovXourai  tV  (h(t)eXia  acpiai  ^vpoixvvvai.  oi  8'  Iv  roCic, 
PovXalq  T(hv  Boi(iiTU)u  ovTeq  ov  irpoabexovrai  top  Xoyov,  dedLoreq  nrj  ivavTia 
KaKibaip,ovioLc,  iroirjauai,  Tolq  eKeipu)u  cecpeoTchaL  Kopifdioiq  ^vuoupvvTfq-  ov  yap 
UTZov  avTolq  oi  ^OLUTOcpxoit  ra  eK  rfiq  AaKebainovoq,  on  TCbv  re  i<f)bpoiv  KXib^ovXoq 
Koi  'EiPaprjq  Kot  oi  (jAXoi  Trapaivovaiv  'Apyeiwv  izpCoTOv  Koi  Kopivdiicu  yevofxfi^ovq 
^vnp,axovq  varepov  fxera  rcor  AaKebaLiiodcj^v  yiyveadai,  oiOfxeuoi  ttjj'  0ovXr]v, 
Kocv  fXT]  a-Kicaiv,  ovk  aXXa  \py)(t)iu<jdai,  ri  a  acpiai  irpobiayvopTeq  irapaivomiv. 
Icq  bl  avTiarr}  to  Trpayp.a,  oi  jxlv  Kopiudioi  Kal  oi  airb  Qpq  Krjq  irpia^aq 
onrpaKTOi  airriXdou,  oi  be  (SoiojTapxoii  ntXXovTeq  irpoTepov,  a  TavTa  eireiaav,  koi 
Trjv  ^vpfiaxioiu  -rreipaaeadai  irpbq  'Apydovq  iroidv,  ovk€ti  iar]veyKav  irepl 
'Apydcou  iq  Taq  ^ovXaq,  ovbe  iq  to  "Apyoq  Tovq  irpea^aq  ovq  VTziaxovTO  eirenirov, 
aixeXeia  be  Tiq  evrjv  kol  btaTpi/Sfi  tCjp  iravTOiv. 

Before  these  oaths  could  be  carried  out  with  Corinthian,  Megarian, 
and  Thracian  envoys,  the  Boeotian  rulers  publicized  these  events  to 
the  four  councils  of  the  Boeotians,  who  carry  the  whole  authority, 
and  advised  them  to  carry  out  oaths  with  those  cities  who  would  wish 
to  swear  a  common  oath  for  defense  {dxpeXia).  But  those  who  were  in 
the  Boeotian  councils  did  not  accept  this  rationale  (Xbyop;  also  "speech"). 
They  feared  to  act  in  opposition  to  the  Spartans  by  swearing  a  common 
oath  with  the  Corinthians,  who  had  defected  from  them.  For  the 
Boeotian  rulers  did  not  tell  the  councils  the  events  in  Sparta,  that 
among  the  Ephors  Kleoboulos,  Xenares,  and  their  friends  had  advised 
alliances  with  the  Argives  and  Corinthians  to  be  carried  out  first  and 
then  alliances  with  the  Spartans.  They  thought  that  the  councils  in 
deliberation  (Lit.,  singular,  iSovXrj),  even  if  they  did  not  tell  them  this, 
would  not  vote  otherwise  than  they  themselves  had  determined  be- 
forehand and  advised.  But  when  the  affair  took  a  contrary  position, 
the  ambassadors  from  Corinth  and  Thebes  went  off  without  success, 
and  the  Boeotian  rulers,  who  had  previously  intended,  if  they  had 
persuaded  them  of  this,  to  try  to  make  an  alliance  with  the  Argives 
as  well,  no  longer  brought  anything  about  the  Argives  before  the 
councils,  nor  did  they  send  to  Argos  the  ambassadors  they  had 
promised,  but  there  was  a  certain  lack  of  care  {aneXeia)  and  delay  in 
all  these  matters.  (V.  38) 

"Lack  of  care"  and  "delay"  are  constant  threats  in  the  tension 
between  the  forward  progress  of  events  and  the  instability  of  factors 
pressing  upon  them.  And  shortly,  in  fact,  Alcibiades  plays  a  double 
game  by  courting  both  Sparta  and  Argos,  which  is  itself  playing  the 
double  game  of  courting  both  Athens  and  Sparta.  Alcibiades  is  actually 
playing  a  triple  game,  because,  by  lying  himself,  he  tricks  the  truthful 


34  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

Spartan  envoys  into  looking  like  liars  before  the  Athenian  Assembly 
(V.  44-45).  But  then  another  factor,  one  from  the  different  realm  of 
natural  catastrophes,  supervenes  over  this  already  complicated  situ- 
ation. "But  an  earthquake  occurring  before  anything  had  been 
confirmed,  this  assembly  was  adjourned." 

In  the  war  a  state  is  itself  a  complex  factorial  entity.  The  weight 
or  permanence  of  one  such  factorial  entity — say  Corcyra  or  Sicily — 
cannot  be  assessed  in  its  magnitude  of  importance  with  relation  to 
that  of  another  entity,  until  after  the  fact.  Corcyra  in  the  first  place 
could  not  have  been  assessed  beforehand  as  incurring  the  set  of 
events  that  would  place  it  at  the  center  of  the  conflict  between  Athens 
and  Sparta  over  her  handling  of  Epidamnus  (I.  25-56),  which  drew 
the  Spartans'  protesting  attention  and  helped  precipitate  the  huge 
war.  Four  years  and  a  vast  complex  of  events  later,  this  trouble  spot, 
as  it  turns  out,  re-erupts,  and  the  same  set  of  dominoes  tumbles 
against  one  another  in  a  different  order — Epidamnus-Corcyra-Cor- 
inth-Athens — this  time  centering  on  the  sort  of  internal  struggle 
between  oligarchy  and  democracy  (III.  69-85)  that  later  develops  as 
a  parallel  threat  to  Athens  itself.  Corcyra  is  caught  as  an  entity  in  a 
linear  sequence  of  power-events,  whose  unstable  timing  of  recursion 
in  a  stable  repertoire  of  factors  is  guaranteed  by  the  steadiness,  and 
the  dynamism,  among  those  factors.  A  census  of  the  relevant  factors 
would  include  Corcyra's  (or  any  other  entity's)  geographical  distance 
from  a  friendly  or  a  hostile  power,  its  relation  to  colonial  ties,  both 
originally  (Corcyra  is  a  colony  of  Corinth)  and  as  it  develops  (Epi- 
damnus is  a  colony  of  Corcyra).  Financial  status,  too,  is  an  important 
factor,  stressed  by  Thucydides  in  the  "Archaeology":  the  ability  of  a 
state  to  translate  its  resources  into  an  army,  a  navy,  and  defensive 
installations.  There  are,  further,  the  local  political  factions,  and  also 
a  state's  prior  relations  to  such  more  powerful  entities  as  Athens  or 
Sparta,  as  well  as  the  history  of  the  state's  prior  role  in  the  common 
effort  of  the  Persian  War.  A  state's  geography  comes  into  play 
somewhat  differently,  too,  through  its  relation  to  war  operations  in 
close  or  distant  theatres,  and  even  to  holding  operations  on  or  near 
its  own  terrain. 

By  adducing  all  these  factors  and  at  the  same  time  often  keeping 
them  implicit,  Thucydides  allows  for  their  permutation,  for  the 
subjection  of  their  particular  manifestation  to  the  linear  progression, 
and  also  for  their  coordination  into  usually  unstated  generality.  The 
factors  are  never  quiescent  and  never  isolated,  he  implies — even 
though  his  conception  obliges  him  to  be  silent  about  them  when,  as 
inevitably  on  these  very  grounds,  his  attention  is  drawn  elsewhere. 
The  naivete  of  the  Athenians  in  not  seeing,  and  in  not  listening  to 


Albert  Cook  35 

Nicias  about,  the  inevitable  interplay  of  such  factors  on  the  large 
Sicilian  terrain,  is  implied  by  what  has  already  been  shown  to  bear 
on  the  picture.  If  this  is  so  with  little  Corcyra,  all  the  more  so  with 
huge  Sicily.  The  roll-call  of  the  Sicilian  allegiances  as  they  have  shaped 
up  (VII.  57-58)  carries  with  it  an  implied  demonstration  of  how 
force,  racial  ties,  prior  allegiances,  prior  colonial  ties,  and  geographical 
proximity  all  permute  beyond  the  power  of  Athens  to  control  them, 
or  even  to  influence  them  very  much. 

As  against  the  interrelations  of  the  political  entities  in  Herodotus, 
which  happen  pretty  much  on  a  binary  or  a  ternary  basis,  those  in 
Thucydides  permute  in  the  face  of  a  common  but  relentlessly  evolving 
situation  that  presses  on  each  state  diff^erently  but  on  all  alike.  The 
forces  are,  as  it  were,  centripetal,  in  spite  of  the  geographically 
centrifugal  relations — often  across  much  water  or  over  rugged  moun- 
tains— of  the  Greek  states.  The  relations  in  Herodotus  may  be 
themselves  called  centrifugal:  a  state,  once  it  has  solved  a  stress  point, 
is  left  to  itself  for  a  while  in  a  stable  condition.  There  is  no  general 
center  of  common  interest  or  high  permutation  of  factors  between 
Persia  and  Ionia,  or  between  Persia  and  Lydia.  And  for  the  big 
conflict  mainland  Greece  has  pretty  much  been  left  out,  except  for 
occasional  consultations,  until  Persia  turns  by  elimination  in  her 
direction.  State  marriage  in  Herodotus  (never  except  remotely  in 
space  or  time  for  Thucydides)  may  involve  a  number  of  state-groups, 
as  that  of  Astyages  involves  the  Medes,  the  Persians,  the  Lydians,  the 
Scythians,  the  Cilicians,  and  the  Babylonians  (Herodotus  I.  73-77).'^ 
But  the  factors  are  static,  and  separable.  As  these  peoples  go  their 
separate  ways,  or  take  up  their  places  within  the  Persian  Empire,  they 
tend  to  stay  in  place. 

The  speeches,  either  antithetical  or  propagandistic  in  character, 
serve  to  externalize  the  counterpoise  of  forces  in  the  History.  Just  so 
the  forces  drawn  up  for  conquest  will  meet  either  prevailing  or 
succumbing  counter-forces.  But  then,  whichever  the  case  may  be, 
other  forces  will  be  operating  against  them.  And  the  speeches  are 
oriented  to  the  military  action  their  own  situation-orientation  and 
usually  their  antagonistic  stance  serve  to  mirror.  The  speeches  address 
the  war;  they  are  the  speeches  of  those  "either  about  to  make  war 
or  already  in  it"  (I.  22). 

This  practical  relation  of  the  speeches  to  force,  and  their  subjection 
to  force  as  in  some  ways  just  another  manifestation  of  it,  diff~erentiates 
Thucydides  from  debaters  in  the  law  courts,  from  philosophers  like 
Protagoras  and  tragedians  like  Euripides,  with  whom  he  has  been 

'^  Albert  Cook,  Myth  and  Language,  pp.  158-62. 


36  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

compared.'^  Any  lawyer  is  less  involved,  any  philosopher  more 
theoretical,  any  speaker  in  a  tragedy  more  oriented  to  his  own 
subjective  needs,  than  the  speakers  in  the  History.  Even  Alcibiades, 
the  most  self-centered  of  his  actors,  must  try  to  force  a  yield  of 
personal  gain  out  of  collocating  unremittingly  public  factors.  Those 
are,  therefore,  the  forces  to  which  he  addresses  himself,  like  everybody 
else  in  Thucydides.  In  this  sense  we  can  almost  see  the  leaders  in  the 
History  bringing  to  bear  upon  events  the  critical  view  of  the  historian 
himself.  And,  though  he  may  not  offer  the  abstract  political  science 
of  Machiavelli,  he  does  indeed  show  a  "latent  systematization  of 
power."'*  The  generalities  are  always  being  tested,  from  the  very  first 
sentence  of  the  History,  by  the  particulars  held  in  a  tension  that 
reveals  the  force  organizing  them. 

In  the  History  a  speaker  may  be  said  to  aim  at  an  equilibrium,  a 
stability  among  factors.  "Stable"  {^e(3aLoq)  is  a  favorite  term  of 
Thucydides.  He  has  Pericles  say  that  the  Spartans,  as  farmers,  will 
offer  their  bodies  rather  than  their  material  resources  {xpvuaTa), 
because  the  latter  "would  not  be  stable  against  the  possibility  of  being 
exhausted"  (I.  141.  5).  The  envoys  of  threatened  Mytilene,  speaking 
at  the  Olympic  banquet  upon  Sparta's  urgency,  speak  of  a  "stable 
friendship,"  while  twice  invoking  aperr]  in  international  relations. 
They  go  on  to  say  that  if  all  states  were  independent,  they  themselves 
would  have  been  "more  stable  against  innovating"  (III.  10).  In  urging 
death  for  the  men  of  the  rebel  city,  Cleon  declares  "the  worst  thing 
of  all  is  when  nothing  remains  stable  in  what  we  are  concerned 
about"  (III.  37.  3).  Brasidas'  excellence  creates  a  "stable  expectation" 
that  others  will  be  like  him  (IV.  81.  3).  In  the  upheavals  and 
proscriptions  caused  in  412  by  the  Four  Hundred,  a  "stable  mistrust" 
is  created  (VIII.  66.  5). 

Moreover,  as  these  quotations  illustrate,  the  term  "stable"  is  applied 
under  the  most  diverse  circumstances.  There  is  no  set  of  general 
principles  that  would  allow  Thucydides  to  enunciate  laws  governing 
stability.  In  military  operations — and  they  are  his  subject — he  may 
give  specific  tactical  rationales,'^  but  he  is  not  only  silent,  as  Gomme 
points  out,  about  the  relation  of  tactics  to  strategy.  He  must  be  silent, 
except  about  specific  factors  at  a  given  place  and  time,  on  the  principles 
we  may  deduce  from  the  History.  Especially  is  this  the  case  in  a 
Panhellenic  conflict  taking  place  in  what  might  be  called  a  weak 

'*  See  Finley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  46-70. 

'■*  This  is  Schadewaldt's  phrase,  by  way  of  qualifying  Reinhardt's  and  Schwartz's 
comparisons  of  Thucydides  to  Machiavelli. 
'^  Gomme,  I,  p.  19. 


Albert  Cook  37 

macro-system:  Corcyra,  Corinth,  Potidea,  Naupactus,  Thebes,  Samos, 
Lesbos,  Melos — to  say  nothing  of  the  various  Sicilian  states — all  are 
subject,  taken  together,  to  an  idiosyncratic  congeries  of  factors,  even 
if  the  factors  taken  singly  are  the  same.  It  is  a  stable  fact  that  they 
will  be  unstable,  and  variously  unstable.  The  tension  between  general 
and  particular  operates  unpredictably  in  accordance  with  predictable 
laws.  The  weak  macro-system  is  balanced,  by  contrast,  against  what 
might  be  called  a  micro-system  that  is  stable  or  at  least  potentially 
stable,  based  on  the  internal  organization  of  a  given  state  by  itself, 
whether  small  like  Melos  or  large  like  Athens  and  Sparta.  And  the 
event-moment  in  space  and  time — say  the  siege  of  Mytilene — is  itself 
a  stable  micro-system,  rendered  in  turn  unstable  by  the  incursion  of 
other  systems.  This  is  borne  out  vividly  by  what  Dover  calls  "the 
complexity  of  classification"  in  the  lineup  of  combatants  before  the 
Sicilian  conflict.'*' 

Buildups  have  a  tendency,  as  in  this  impressive  one,  to  work  up  to 
a  grand  slam  of  alliances.  Since  the  kind  of  equilibrium  which  will 
obtain  at  a  given  moment  is  unpredictable,  in  the  linear  progression 
of  the  History  the  length  and  complexity  of  a  buildup  may  be  cut 
short  at  any  time.  So  in  one  among  other  earlier  intrusions  of  Athens 
into  Sicilian  affairs,  twenty  ships  are  sent  in  the  summer  of  427  to 
aid  Leontini  against  Syracuse;  and  then  the  Athenians  establish 
themselves  at  Rhegium.  Thucydides  reports  this  buildup  right  after, 
and  implicitly  as  a  consequence  of,  the  petering  out  of  the  Corcyrean 
rebellion.  He  makes  his  transition  by  the  lightest  of  contrasting 
particles,  a  5e.  Such  a  hi  introduces  the  next  transition  qualifying  and 
curtailing  this  buildup;  the  second  plague  in  Athens;  and  then 
earthquakes.  Consequently  it  might  be  said — this  time  a  niv  marks 
the  transition — that  the  Athenians  turn  away  from  their  original 
purpose  when  they  attack  the  islands  off  Sicily  (III.  88),  and  unsuc- 
cessfully. Then  the  following  summer  they  do  prevail  at  Mylae  and 
win  Messina,  other  events  intervening  to  give  the  buildup  and 
deployment  a  still  further  twist.  Finally  for  this  campaign  they  sail 
from  Sicily  to  Locris,  an  action  they  perform  in  implied  concert  with 
a  prior  Athenian  force  there  (III.  96-98),  and  become  masters 
{iKpoiT-qaav)  of  Locris.  The  whole  final  development  is  swift  enough 
to  be  recounted,  as  though  by  interrupted  aftermath,  in  a  single  not 
lengthy  sentence  (III.  99). 

The  balance  between  predictable  factors  and  their  unpredictable 
development  correlates  with  the  principle  governing  the  speeches, 

'®  A.  W.  Gomme,  A.  Andrewes,  and  K.  J.  Dover,  A  Historical  Commentary  on 
Thucydides  (Oxford  1970),  IV,  pp.  433-36,  on  VII.  57-59. 


38  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

which  take  up  a  fourth  of  Thucydides'  text.  Cornford  makes  the 
distinction  in  the  speeches  between  "infiguration,"  or  fitting  in  what 
is  already  known,  and  "invention,"  or  adding  new  matter."  As  the 
Corinthians  say  while  pressing  their  case  for  war  at  the  beginning, 
"war  least  of  all  proceeds  on  specified  conditions  (fVi  pr]Tolq),  but 
manages  the  many  factors  (to;  iroXXa)  of  itself  according  to  contingency 
{TapcxTvyxavouy  (I.  122). 

This  stated  rule  succeeds  in  a  simultaneous  declaration  and  ironic 
qualification,  a  contradiction  of  effects  it  can  embed  because  the 
"contingency"  can  be  predictable  if  seen  for  its  factors  or  unpre- 
dictable if  seen  for  the  impossibility  of  knowing  what  direction  the 
particular  combination  of  their  multiplicity  (to:  iroXXa)  may  take.  The 
Corinthians  are  in  fact  here  revealing  their  ignorance  and  overcon- 
fidence — traits  which  elsewhere  in  Thucydides,  as  here,  accompany 
bloodthirstiness.  Here  we  have  the  curious  mechanism  of  whistling 
in  the  dark  by  calling  the  dark  dark.  The  speeches  are,  in  Schwartz's 
words,  "willed  showpieces  {Glanzleistungen)  of  his  political-rhetorical 
thinking."'*  In  them  the  intelligence  of  the  historian  converges  with 
the  intelligence  of  the  participants.  He  attains  his  pitch  by  assuming 
they  can  rise  to  his  intelligence  on  occasion.  He  envisages  an  intricacy 
in  their  thought  comparable  to  his  own  by  putting  it  on  the  same 
plane  as  his  own.  "Intelligence,"  ^vueaiq,  is  a  special  word  for  Thu- 
cydides, and  as  he  uses  it  the  prefix,  ^vv  ("together")  is  active.'^  It  is 
an  active  intelligence,  brought  to  bear  on  keeping  particular  events 
open  to  the  possibility  of  the  sort  of  general  subsumption  that  the 
historian  brings  it  to  bear  on  his  narrative.  Twice  Thucydides  pairs 
the  term  with  aperri  (IV.  81.  2;  VI.  54.  5).  Intelligence  here  allows 
for  the  "reckoning  by  probability"  {(LKa^eiv,  eiKoq),  and  for  an  attempt 
to  avoid  that  "irrationality"  (irapaXoyov)  that  characterizes  human 
life  generally  (VIII.  24.  5)  and  especially  wars  (III.  16;  VIII.  24;  II. 
61).  Intelligence  is  the  chief  safeguard  against  that  which  it  cannot 
reach  to,  the  "unapparent"  {to  ci(l)aueq).  The  long  range  is  distin- 
guished from  the  short.  It  is  only  after  his  death,  on  a  long  range, 
that  the  long  range  of  Pericles'  "foresight"  becomes  apparent.  The 
Spartans  expect  it  to  be  the  short  war  they  have  no  firm  grounds  for 

"  Cornford,  op.  cit.,  p.  132. 

'^  Eduard  Schwartz,  Das  Geschkhtswerk  des  Thukydides,  (repr.  Hildesheim  1960),  p. 
27. 

'^  See  Walter  Miiri,  "Beitrag  zum  Verstandnis  des  Thukydides"  (1947),  in  Hans 
Herter,  ed.,  Thukydides  (Darmstadt  1968),  pp.  135-69.  Syme,  op.  cit.,  remarks  on 
Thucydides'  predilection  for  the  term.  An  expansive  examination  of  this  and  related 
"psychological"  words  is  given  in  Pierre  Huart,  Le  Vocabulaire  de  V Analyse  Psychologique 
dans  I'oeuvre  de  Thucydide  (Paris  1968). 


Albert  Cook  39 

conjecturing,  thus  expectation  being  against  "good  sense"  or  "the 
best  opinion"  {-Kapa  yv6inr}v,  V.  14).  Tvoi^r]  is  a  term  Thucydides  uses 
well  over  a  hundred  times,  more  than  twice  as  many  times  as 
Herodotus.  In  this  term  intelligence  is  conceived  as  an  activated 
natural  faculty,  often  spoken  of  as  "applied"  (irpocrexft")  to  the 
particulars  of  a  situation. 

Nicias,  in  the  debate  before  the  Sicilian  expedition,  declares  that 
his  reasoned  speech  would  be  weak  {aadeprjq  6  Xbyoq)  if  he  did  not 
try  to  avoid  speaking  against  his  best  opinion  (VI.  9.  3).  Pericles  links 
the  possibility  of  stability  to  the  active  use  of  intelligence: 

Overconfidence  (aiTxrjM")  can  come  about  through  lucky  ignorance 
even  for  a  coward,  but  disdain  is  our  resource  who  can  rely  on  good 
sense  (yvc^nri)  to  prevail  over  our  enemies.  And  under  equal  fortune 
an  intelligence  {^vueaiq)  on  which  his  superiority  of  feeling  depends 
will  provide  a  more  tenacious  daring;  and  it  relies  less  on  hope,  which 
is  the  strength  of  someone  without  resources,  than  it  does  on  good 
sense  from  the  resources  it  has,  a  good  sense  whose  foresight  is  more 
stable.  (II.  62.  4-5) 

This  complicated  sentence  at  its  conclusion  comes  down  hard  on 
three  key  words:  "good  sense's  more  stable  foresight,"  r}q  (=  yvoi^nriq) 
(SelSaiorepa  r]  irp'ovoia.  Mere  Hope,  eX-jriq,  is  often  given  a  pejorative 
cast  in  Thucydides. 

In  the  stylistic  flow  of  Thucydides'  own  presentation,  these  defi- 
nitions of  the  mind  at  work  on  events  crop  up  with  special  saliency 
in  the  speeches.  They  evidence  a  high  self-consciousness  in  the 
speakers.  In  the  narrative  they  tend  to  cap  a  presentation,  as 
Regenbogen^°  points  out  of  the  moment  when  the  Athenian  ships 
are  setting  sail  and  "the  foreigners  and  the  rest  of  the  crowd  came 
for  the  spectacle  as  to  a  conception  {diauoia)  that  was  sufficient  [to 
draw  so  large  a  crowd]  and  incredible"  (VI.  31).  The  term  I  have 
rendered  "conception",  diavoLa,  is  hard  to  translate  here.  Presumably 
the  unprecedentedly  large  fleet  is  visible  evidence  of  a  thought  process 
in  the  leaders  of  Athens.  It  is  the  result  of  thought,  not  thought 
itself,  the  usual  sense  of  diavoia.  Thucydides  has  been  consistently 
proceeding  at  a  level  of  factor-collocation  that  would  justify  the  odd 
transfer  here  from  thought  to  what  it  produces.  As  for  the  crowd, 
the  sight  is  "sufficient"  to  draw  them  {a^i,6xp^<^v),  but  at  the  same 
time  "incredible."  The  crowd  has  a  somewhat  easier  thought  process 
than  the  leaders,  that  of  wonder,  and  their  reaction  may  be  taken  as 
part  of  a  cautionary  series  with  the  earlier  dissuasions  of  Nicias  and 
the  much  earlier  warnings  of  Pericles  against  such  expeditions. 

^"  Otto  Regenbogen,  Kleine  Schriften  (Munich  1961). 


40  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

In  his  repeated  corrections  about  the  overthrow  of  the  Pisistratidae 
(I.  20;  VI.  54-59),  Thucydides  uses  a  particular  fact,  the  distinction 
between  Hippias  and  Hipparchus,  as  the  thread  which  will  provide 
the  proper  sequence  for  an  interactive  situation.  "Factual  accuracy," 
Edmunds  emphasizes,  "is  not  the  sufficient  condition  for  history  in 
the  Thucydidean  sense,  but  only  the  necessary  condition  for  to  (Ta(t)ec," 
("that  which  is  clear"). ^'  The  rebels  from  Mytilene  use  the  same  term 
during  a  summary  moment  of  their  defense  at  Olympia:  "Possessing 
such  demonstrable  grounds  {■Kpo(j)aa€iq)  and  motives  {airiac^,  O  Spar- 
tans and  allies,  we  revolted;  they  are  clear  enough  to  make  our 
hearers  know  {yvihvat)  that  we  have  acted  in  accordance  with  sound 
inference  (fi/coTcoq)"  (III.  13).  Here,  actually,  the  term  "clear"  is  an 
adjective,  <ja<t>dc„  applied  to  two  terms  themselves  intricate,  separately 
and  in  relation  to  each  other,  Trpo(f)aaeLq  and  airiac,.  Further,  aa^xlq 
here  gathers  up  and  organizes  a  whole  interlocking  set  of  intellections: 
the  lengthy  ones  of  the  Mytileneans,  the  inference  of  the  Spartans 
and  their  allies,  and  the  Mytileneans'  thought  that  what  they  have 
thought  will  make  the  Spartans  and  their  allies  think  {yv^uai)  they 
have  carried  out  their  thought  on  sound  inferential  grounds  (eiKOTOoq). 

Nathan  Rotenstreich  speaks  of  "a  paradox  implicit  in  historical 
knowledge.  This  knowledge  is  always  causal,  yet  it  is  not  based  on 
material  laws."^^  Thucydides  works  his  way  steadily  and  alertly  through 
this  paradox.  "Pretext"  is  a  more  ordinary  sense  of  irpoipaaLC,  in 
Greek^^  and  "cause"  of  airto;.  Taking  the  terms  that  way,  they  would 
provide  a  ladder  of  certainty  for  the  principals  in  the  History.  But 
they  cannot  be  taken  just  that  way.  The  ladder  is  always  collapsing 
because  the  situation  changes  so  radically  and  frequently  as  to  suggest 
at  once  the  inadequacy  of  these  intellections  and  the  presence  of 
some  force  of  the  same  type  beyond  the  reach  of  summary,  though 
comprised  of  the  same  factors.  For  all  their  alertness,  the  Mytileneans 
do  not  extricate  themselves.  Nor  in  the  whole  History  do  the  Athenians 
either.  Later,  replying  to  the  Athenian  claim  that  the  weak  go  to  the 
wall  (V.  89),  the  Melians  enunciate  Thucydidean  principles,  "It  is 
useful  for  you  not  to  dissolve  the  common  good,  but  for  what  is 
sound  (eLKora)  to  be  also  just  for  the  one  who  from  time  to  time  finds 
himself  in  danger;  and  for  one  who  is  persuasive,  even  when  what 
he  says  is  somewhat  short  of  accuracy  (aKpi^eia),  to  be  able  to  have 
the  advantage  of  them"  (V.  90).  Still  they  are  massacred. 

^'  Lowell  Edmunds,  Chance  and  Intelligence  in  Thucydides  (Cambridge,  Mass.  1975), 
p.  155. 

^^  Nathan  Rotenstreich,  Between  Past  and  Present  (New  Haven  1958),  p.  296. 

^^  See  note  12  and  Albert  Cook,  The  Classic  Line  (Bloomington,  Indiana  1966), 
pp.  70-71. 


Albert  Cook  41 

"Everything  that  has  to  do  with  war  is  difficult,"  Hermocrates  tells 
the  Sicilians  (IV.  59).  Archidamus  says  much  the  same  thing  to  the 
Spartans,  "Things  having  to  do  with  war  are  unclear"  (adrfXa,  II. 
11.  4).  Gomme  observes  that  the  reflection  is  a  recurrent  one  in  the 
History,^'^  and  Thucydides,  from  the  beginning,  adduces  the  terms 
"clear"  and  "unclear"  as  alternate  characterizations  for  the  disposi- 
tions of  particular  events. 


The  elusive  factors  bear  impersonally  on  states,  but  it  is  men  who 
personally  make  the  decisions  that  activate  them.  The  contrast  be- 
tween factors  and  persons,  brought  to  a  head  in  Thucydides'  method, 
carries  within  it  at  once  a  permanent  disparity  and  a  perilous  reso- 
lution. Such  a  contrast  is  another  aspect  of  the  oscillation  between 
clarity  and  its  opposite.  Men  are  generalizing  particulars  in  a  particular 
situation  governed  by  general  factors.  Thus  is  a  comparable  inter- 
action in  Herodotus  made  dynamic.  Resolution  into  clarity,  in  a  sense, 
always  bears  on  the  situation  Thucydides  depicts,  since  the  factors 
can  only  be  activated,  and  thereby  raised  as  it  were  to  the  second 
degree,  by  being  taken  up  in  the  calculations  of  participants.  After 
the  peace  of  Nicias,  and  on  the  heels  of  a  calculated  rapprochement 
with  Argos,  the  Spartan  ambassadors  who  go  to  Boeotia  decide  to 
return  the  Athenian  prisoners  they  have  been  given  and  to  announce 
the  razing  of  Panactum  to  the  Athenians,  who  had  been  promised  it 
back  (V.  42).  The  diff"erent  interpretations  put  by  the  Athenians  and 
by  the  Spartan  envoys  upon  this  double  announcement,  and  the 
diff"erent  weight  given  to  each  event,  precipitate  a  hostility  that 
immediately  opens  a  path  for  Alcibiades  and  his  rivalry  with  Nicias 
(V.  43). 

Events,  by  their  very  nature  as  crystallizations  of  decisions,  lead 
to  persons,  and  to  particular  kinds  of  persons.  The  Spartans  may  be 
slow  and  the  Athenians  swift,  as  the  Corinthians  tell  the  Spartans  (I. 
70-71).  However,  the  clarity,  the  resignation,  and  even  the  particular 
brand  of  selfishness  in  Nicias,  transcend  national  boundaries  and 
heavily  qualify  the  notion  that  he  is  weak.  Thucydides  rarely  expresses 
estimates  of  his  persons  directly^^  and  when  he  does  so,  he  is,  as  it 
were,  assessing  the  man  as  by  himself  an  extraordinary  factor,  as  in 
the  praise  of  Themistocles  (I.  138)  or  the  cautionary  words  about 
Alcibiades  (VI.  15). 

^■*  Gomme,  II,  p.  13,  ad  loc. 

25  H.  D.  Westlake,  Individuals  m  Thucydides  (Cambridge  1968),  p.  15. 


42  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

Leaders,  in  fact,  under  whatever  form  of  government,  are  clearly 
shown  in  Thucydides  to  determine  initiatives.  They  manage  the 
forces  to  which  in  turn  they  cannot  help  being  subject.  These  forces 
include  other  leaders;  Nicias  loses  to  Alcibiades  the  debate  over  the 
Sicilian  expedition,  and  he  reconciles  himself  to  it,  leading  the 
expedition.  But  then  he  is  subject  to  another  constraint  on  the  lives 
of  statesmen.  Unless  they  have  the  precocious  gifts  of  an  Alcibiades, 
they  will  be  along  in  years  when  at  the  helm.  And  war  itself  increases 
the  risks  of  mortality.  Nicias  suffers  through  the  Sicilian  expedition 
and  dies  there,  as  Pericles  had  died  and  Archidamus,  Demosthenes 
and  Brasidas,  Phormio  and  Cleon. 

Precocity  brings  with  it  another  risk,  which  Alcibiades  has  come 
to  stand  for  more  than  anyone  else,  the  risk  of  brilliant  narcissism. 
He  might  trick  the  Spartan  envoys,  but  over  the  long  run  a  man's 
character  shows.  It  was  inevitable,  whatever  his  guilt,  that  he  would 
be  accused  of  the  sacrilege  against  the  herms  and  the  Mysteries. 
Thucydides  underscores  this  inevitability  by  giving  us  insufficient 
evidence  to  decide  his  guilt  either  way,  where  usually  it  is  accuracy 
in  just  this  sort  of  affair  that  he  seeks.  The  fact  that  Alcibiades  is 
accused,  as  he  inevitably  would  have  been,  impels  this  rapid  and 
adaptive  politician  to  avoid  probable  death  by  fleeing  when  the 
Athenians  send  to  have  him  returned  for  trial.  Other  Athenians  had 
fled  to  avoid  prosecution,  not  always  so  successfully.  And  later 
Alcibiades  repeats  this  success,  slipping  away  from  a  Spartan  death 
sentence  to  the  entourage  of  Tissaphernes.  He  would  inevitably  be 
using  his  talents  to  intrigue  with  the  Persians  and  with  the  Spartans. 
And  through  the  irony  of  developments  he  escapes  the  disastrous 
Sicilian  campaign  he  had  urged,  contriving  his  way  back  finally  into 
the  good  graces  of  the  Athenians. 

The  forces,  at  every  point,  are  there  to  be  managed,  and  the  very 
change  of  their  configuration  from  present  moment  to  present 
moment  provides  a  clever  man  with  the  opportunity  to  take  them 
up  without  necessarily  being  impaired  by  the  way  he  had  done  so 
before.  Finally  Alcibiades'  selfishness  and  skill  at  diplomacy  come 
into  their  own  under  the  conditions  that  prevail  after  the  Sicilian 
disaster,  in  the  eighth  book.  This,  as  Westlake  reminds  us,  is  "packed 
with  reports  of  secret  negotiations  and  intrigues."^** 

The  disintegration  of  the  Athenian  empire  provides  a  decentrali- 
zation of  forces  that  permits  playing  one  force  against  another  without 
effective  checks.  In  this  way  the  person  of  Alcibiades,  at  this  moment 
in  the  war,  functions  doubly  as  an  agent  upon  the  factors  and  as  a 

^^  Ibid.,  p.  231. 


Albert  Cook  43 

mirror  of  where  they  stand.  Indeed,  the  very  mode  by  which  agency 
combines  with  mirroring  will  differ.  Pericles'  particular  bearing  on 
the  general  situation  is  resumed  into  the  speeches  that  exhibit  him. 
These  speeches  exemplify  a  particular  phase  of  the  war  and  serve  as 
agencies  to  influence  a  particular  kind  of  policy — or  not  to  influence, 
since  they  are  partially  unheeded."  "When  he  died  his  foresight 
about  the  war  was  still  further  recognized"  (II.  65).  For  Nicias,  and 
for  the  dark  events  around  Syracuse,  the  man  and  the  time  are 
characterized  first  by  a  reasoned  speech  not  forceful  enough  to 
prevail,  and  finally  by  the  relative  silence  of  desperate  defensive 
maneuvers.  The  individual  in  this  instance  would  seem  to  have 
developed  under  the  pressure  of  circumstances,  since  at  an  earlier 
moment  Thucydides  has  asserted  that  Nicias  urged  the  peace  "to 
leave  a  name  to  later  time"  (V.  16). 

Thucydides'  managed  silences  too,  as  Reinhardt  and  Schadewaldt 
have  emphasized,^®  preserve  that  neutrality.  "What  [your]  nature 
always  willed  has  been  tested  to  the  point  of  truth"  (III.  64.  4:  a 
.  .  .  i\  (f)vcnc,  aul  i^ovXero)  are  in  the  Greek  plural  and  particular.  The 
literal  meaning  is  "The  things  which  your  nature  always  wished." 
The  wish  is  general,  and  the  truth  is  singular,  a  generalizing  abstraction 
{to  aXr]6€(;).  So  the  Boeotians  say  to  the  Plataeans,  but  the  notion  will 
apply  to  the  whole  History.  Most  of  Thucydides'  uses  of  0ucri(;  "nature" 
mean  "human  nature."  And  of  the  twenty  times  he  uses  (f)V(nq, 
"human"  or  its  equivalent  is  attached  in  nine.  This  quality,  however, 
is  not  taken  for  granted,  nor  does  it  operate  on  the  surface.  It  must 
be  "tested  to  the  truth"  by  the  participants,  and  overridingly  by 
Thucydides  himself,  whose  History  constitutes  such  a  testing. 

Nor  is  war  a  special  case.  "Many  difliculties  (ttoXXq;  Kal  x^^ctto;) 
fell  upon  the  cities  in  the  uprising,"  he  says  of  the  Corcyrean 
Revolution,  "occurring  and  always  bound  to  occur  so  long  as  the 
nature  of  man  is  the  same,  though  more  peaceful  and  changing  in 
their  forms  according  to  how  the  particular  transformations  of  events 
{^vvTVxi-o)v)  may  impinge  {e(t)i.(TT<huTaLy'  (III.  82.  2).  "For  all  things  by 
their  nature  (7re0uKf)  do  indeed  diminish"  (II.  64.  3),  Pericles  reminds 
the  Athenians  at  the  moment  when  he  is  assuring  them  that  the  glory 
of  their  empire  will  survive  in  memory.  Nature,  necessity  {apajKr}), 
and  customary  behavior  {to  eioodoq)  are  linked  in  his  presentation.^^ 

Thucydides'  neutrality  extends  even  to  the  presentation  of  himself 

^^  See  Peter  R.  Pouncey,  The  Necessities  of  War:  A  Study  of  Thucydides'  Pessimism  (New 
York  1980),  and  Gomme,  II,  p.  195. 

2*  Schadewaldt,  op.  cit.,  p.  301,  and  Gomme,  1,  pp.  25-29;  also  Karl  Reinhardt, 
Das  Vermdchtnis  der  Antike  (Gottingen  1960). 

29  Walter  Muri,  op.  cit.,  pp.  155  ff. 


44  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

in  the  third  person  both  as  a  writer  and  as  a  participant  (IV.  104.  4), 
and  it  is  significant  that  in  his  "second  preface"  Thucydides  adopts 
for  a  few  sentences  the  grammatical  sleight  of  an  imagined,  neutral 
observer.  "If  someone  does  not  consider  the  intervening  truce  to  be 
accounted  war,  he  will  not  judge  rightly.  Let  him  look  to  how  it  is 
discriminated  by  the  events,  and  he  will  find  it  not  a  likely  thing 
{ovK  eUbq  ov)  for  it  to  be  assessed  as  peace"  (V.  26.  2). 

The  elaborate  negatives  here,  and  the  six  different  verbs  for  mental 
sifting,  establish,  as  though  through  syntactic  struggle,  the  neutrality 
of  viewpoint  that  Thucydides  everywhere  aims  at.  A  sense  of  the 
severity  with  which  he  maintains  this  steadiness  of  view  impends  upon 
this  neutrality,  and  a  sparkling  clarity  of  presentation  holds  his  details 
in  unwavering  coordination.  The  neutrality  heightens  the  relational 
interaction  between  general  and  particular. 

Many  constraints  bear  on  the  historian's  task  generally,  and  some 
obligation  to  preserve  neutrality  is  one  of  them.  Neutrality  is  the 
attitudinal  aspect  of  the  obligation  to  narrate  events  "wie  sie  eigentlich 
gewesen."  Another  constraint  obliges  him  to  report  only  facts  he  can 
be  reasonably  sure  were  the  case.  This  is  Thucydides'  "accuracy" 
(aKpi^eta).  Still  another  constraint  obliges  him  to  select  them  for  some 
kind  of  congruence  to  his  purpose,  as  Thucydides  is  a  military 
historian.  Another  constraint  inhibits  the  historian  from  avoiding  a 
mediation  of  his  events,  inducing  him  to  adjudicate  between  general 
and  particular  in  any  case.  He  is  obliged  to  steer  somewhat  clear  of 
what  could  be  taken  for  bare  reportage.  On  the  one  hand  he  must 
suspend  judgment  while  suspending  his  long-range  connections.  On 
the  other  hand  mediation  requires  that  he  not  give  just  a  flat  summary 
of  events;  he  must  not  simply  offer  a  chronicle.  The  balance  of 
mediation  obliges  the  historian  to  steer  a  constant  middle  course 
between  tract  and  chronicle.  Thucydides  not  only  understood  this 
requirement,  as  Herodotus  had.  The  speeches  offer  him  an  indirect, 
"doubled"  mode  of  introducing  interpretation  while  maintaining 
neutrality. 

In  this  sense  he  must  hold  to  the  narrative,  and  his  skillful 
management  of  all  these  constraints  strengthens  his  narrative,  allowing 
it  to  take  on  details  for  which  the  necessity  cannot  be  argued  on  any 
logical  framework.  In  the  case  of  Thucydides,  these  details  sometimes 
stun  through  similarity;  particulars  worked  on  by  a  coordinating 
intellection  evolve  into  generality.  The  narrative  of  the  Sicilian 
campaign  would  presumably  carry  a  comparable  sense  of  the  action 
if  it  were  divested  of  half  its  details,  and  yet  the  extra  details,  what 


Albert  Cook  45 

I  have  elsewhere  called  "the  visionary  filler,"^"  do  not  diffuse  the 
narrative,  but  rather  sharpen  it;  the  particulars  function  as  cumulative 
demonstration,  and  in  the  narrative  mode  a  sense  of  their  necessity 
does  not  vanish  once  a  general  view  is  sensed. 

In  any  case,  before  the  investigation  of  the  theoretician,  the  hard 
outline  of  what  we  would  call  an  "event"  disappears. ''  As  Koselleck 
argues,  history  "as  such"  has  no  object  at  all,  a  condition  that  makes 
"bare  history  originally  a  metahistorical  category."^^ 

Any  historian  is  thus  pulled  in  two  directions  by  the  particular  and 
by  the  general,  and  the  mystery  of  his  task  resides  in  striking  a 
balance  between  them  that  will  operate  along  a  narrative  line.  As 
Paul  Ricoeur  says,  "it  is  the  place  of  universals  in  a  science  of  the 
singular  that  is  at  issue,"^'  though  even  the  word  "science"  is 
misleading  here,  since  in  the  historical  narrative  hypothesis  and 
conclusion  are  fused  together.  There  is  a  mix  of  the  two  in  the 
ongoing  narrative  that  the  historian  mediates,  and  may  mediate 
differently  within  a  given  work.  Particular  and  general  have  a  different 
relationship  in  the  speeches  of  Thucydides^*  and  in  the  more  directly 
narrative  portions.  The  speeches  have  a  double  role  as  explanatory 
pauses  establishing  a  general  case,  and  as  subsumed  particulars  globally 
aligned  with  the  details  of  action,  along  the  lines  of  Thucydides' 
constant  distinction  between  X6701  and  i.p^a,  words  and  deeds. 

Thucydides'  statements  about  persons  or  events  are  briefer  than 
his  narrative  presentation  of  them.  This  seeming  disproportion  or 
spareness  of  interpretation  actually  creates,  together  with  the  man- 
agement of  other  constraints,  a  sense  that  a  general  view  is  being 
gradually  furthered.  It  permits  Thucydides  sharply  to  enunciate  what 
all  successful  historians  must,  the  partial  synecdoche  that  constitutes 
his  Kjr\\ia  e'q  aWi.  Particular  events  have  to  have  been  selected  for 
some  general  aim  for  them  not  to  be  a  chaotic  mass.  The  selection 
is  partial  even  of  those  the  historian  can  know — for  Thucydides  only 
those  that  have  not  been  inescapably  lost  in  the  dimness  of  time.  As 

'^  Albert  Cook,  Mjih  and  Language,  pp.  178-83. 

^'  Paul  Veyne,  Comment  on  ecrit  I'histoire  (Paris  1971),  pp.  18-38. 

^^  Reinhart  Koselleck,  in  Theorie  der  Geschichtswissenschaft  und  Praxis  des  Geschichts- 
unternchts,  ed.  Werner  Conze  (Stuttgart  1972),  pp.  10-28. 

"  Paul  Ricoeur,  The  Contribution  of  French  Historiography  to  a  Theory  of  History 
(Oxford  1980),  p.  19. 

^^  N.  G.  L.  Hammond,  "The  Particular  and  the  Universal  in  the  Speeches  of 
Thucydides,"  in  The  Speeches  in  Thucydides  (Chapel  Hill  1973),  pp.  49-59.  Aristotle 
makes  too  facile  a  judgment  about  this  relationship  by  a  simple  contrast  between 
poetry  and  history,  "poetry  tells  us  rather  the  universals,  history  the  particulars" 
{Poetics  1451  b  2-3).  I  have  discussed  this  question  in  Myth  and  Language,  p.  299,  note 
6. 


46  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

particulars  they  suggest  a  generality  to  which  they  relate;  they  are 
inescapably  synecdochic.  But  the  synecdoche  does  not  operate  the 
way  it  does  in  poetry;  there  is  no  whole  for  which  the  parts  can 
stand.  The  whole  is  only  adumbrated,  and  the  synecdoche  remains 
only  partial,  mediating  perpetually  between  general  and  particular. 

This  mediation  entails  a  sense  of  irony,  and  all  or  nearly  all 
successful  historians  are  ironic  in  ways  that  are  also  partial.  One  event 
is  bound  to  throw  another  into  an  ironic  light,  or  the  historian  offers 
us  just  a  chronicle.  The  overlooking  of  Pericles'  advice,  the  escape 
of  Alcibiades  from  the  war  he  had  urged,  the  fruitlessness  of  the 
articulations  of  the  Melians  to  save  their  lives,  the  failure  of  the 
overweening  Athenians  in  Sicily — the  ironies  of  event  multiply  in 
Thucydides,  who  rarely  makes  an  out-and-out  ironic  remark.  Some 
irony  in  the  historical  narrative  is  unavoidable  through  the  initial 
chaos  of  the  referent,  and  yet  an  overall  irony  is  impossible  if  the 
historian  retains  the  order  of  the  referent  as  a  goal.  The  ironies  play 
over  the  work  as  a  sort  of  multiple  running  check  against  sliding 
back  to  mere  particulars  or  against  wholly  backing  some  oversimpli- 
fying generality  that  would  undo  the  tension  of  the  narrative.  The 
interpretative  touch  of  ironic  statement  in  later  historians  such  as 
Tacitus  or  Gibbon  or  Burckhardt  will  jog  the  narrative  along.  Thu- 
cydides, we  may  say,  shows  his  earliness  in  the  intensity  by  which  he 
stiffly  refrains,  by  and  large,  from  such  touches. 

The  speeches,  again,  serve  to  double  the  ironic  possibilities,  not 
only  between  event  and  event,  but  between  what  is  said  and  what 
happens,  between  Xbyoc,  and  epyov.  Any  speech,  as  a  complex  of 
ratiocinative  recommendations  aimed  at  the  future,  is  bound  to  be 
tested  by  that  future,  and  bound  to  miss  its  mark  somewhat,  generating 
the  implied  irony  of  contrast.  And  even  if  the  speech  hits  its  mark, 
there  is  the  irony  that  still  the  speech  may  not  be  heeded,  as  Nicias' 
speech  is  not.  There  is  generally  an  impelling  onward  movement 
toward  conquest  through  the  whole  History,  against  which  any  speech, 
or  any  sequence  of  speeches,  protests  in  vain.  So  there  may  be  said 
to  obtain  a  further,  deeper  irony  between  momentary  if  tensely 
reasoned  arguments  and  silent,  overriding  motives.  The  Athenians 
do  not  listen  to  Pericles  when  he  recommends  restraint  about  cam- 
paigns, at  his  point  of  maximum  prestige  and  maximum  social 
authority.  "Your  knowledge  {linaTrinr))  is  better  than  another  force 
that  has  good  fortune  {(iVTvxov(Tr]<^''  (VII.  63.  4).  So  Nicias  says  to 
troops  whose  morale  is  low  as  the  Sicilians  are  pressing  them  hard. 
Not  only  does  the  disastrous  outcome  render  these  words  ironic. 
Thucydides'  own  principles  do,  since  "knowledge,"  here  meaning 
military  skill,  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  know  that  it  will  be  a  decisive 


Albert  Cook  47 

factor  only  if  other  factors  are  equal.  This  is  what  Pericles  had  insisted 
long  before,  weighing  up  the  whole  balance  of  factors,  and  there  is 
the  irony  that  Nicias,  who  seems  to  be  imitating  Pericles,  is  inadequate 
to  his  model.  Of  the  factors  that  count,  it  is  precisely  strength  or 
force  (pwjLiTj)  and  happenstance  {tvxv)  that  figure  large. 

So  particular  is  the  narrative  of  Thucydides  that  it  often  stays  close 
to  the  maximum  point  of  particularity.  In  its  onward  flow,  however, 
it  pauses  most  notably  for  the  speeches,  which  do  not  halt  the  action 
but  poise  on  the  brink  of  futurity  and  decision.  They  themselves, 
seen  not  as  ruminations  over  the  events  but  as  themselves  an  event, 
particularize  still  further.  They  are  given  not  word  by  word  as  uttered, 
but  word  by  word  to  delineate  the  arguments  presented.  This  makes 
each  clause,  and  sometimes  each  word,  a  microscopic  encapsulation 
of  dialectical  relations  between  particular  and  general.  Their  reference 
is  to  a  moment  in  an  idea,  and  as  such  the  terms  in  the  speeches 
present  a  double  face.  With  respect  to  their  referents  they  are 
reconstructively  concrete,  and  their  character  as  signs  must  work 
more  actively  just  because  the  individual  words  are  constructive 
rather  than  reported.  But  the  actual  words  are  abstract  with  respect 
to  their  lexical  origin,  and  also  with  respect  to  their  syntactic  function. 

Because  of  his  onward  flow,  and  his  intermittent  nervous  adduction 
of  qualifying  abstraction,  Thucydides  is  not  felt  to  be  slipping  from 
particular  to  general,  or  from  concrete  to  abstract.  He  can  get  back 
again  very  fast.  For  this  reason,  as  well  as  for  those  Finley  gives, ^^  he 
operates,  in  a  sense,  midway  between  the  paratactic  {Xe^Lq  eLpofievr]) 
and  the  hypotactic  or  subordinate  (Xe^iq  KaTecrTpanixivr]).  Actually, 
even  to  describe  him  so  may  obscure  the  fact  that  the  coordinates 
on  which  he  operates  permit  of  the  occasional  combination  of  these 
two  styles,  but  not  for  their  discrimination.  His  partial  synecdoche 
makes  him  always  potentially  a  subordinator,  but  the  stringing  of  one 
event  onto  another  in  the  narrative  line  pulls  against  this  tendency. 

To  use  Lloyd's  terms  for  persistent  tendencies  in  Greek  thought,^^ 
Thucydides  implicitly  subsumes  both  the  polarity  that  would  make 
him  subordinate  his  particulars  under  a  general  heading  and  the 
analogy  which  would  make  him  coordinate  them.  Polarity  and  analogy 
are  readapted  to  the  constantly  testing  linearity  of  his  presentation. 
In  the  sentences,  frequent  in  his  work,  which  seem  to  derive  from, 
and  distort,  the  isocola  formalized  as  stylistic  desiderata  by  Gorgias, 
the  balances  between  clauses  are  almost  always  subverted.  The  feeling 

**  Finley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  253-69. 

*^  G.  E.  L.  Lloyd,  Polarity  and  Analogy:  Two  Types  of  Argumentation  in  Early  Greek 
Thought  (Cambridge  1966). 


48  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

given  by  Thucydides'  wrenching  style  is  of  too  much  pressing  upon 
the  sentence  to  be  distributed  out  in  even  clauses.  Only  in  the 
tendentious  argumentation  of  an  advocate  uttering  a  speech  will  they 
be  pressed  into  balance,  or  in  the  high  piety  and  enthusiasm  of 
Pericles'  Funeral  Oration.  And  even  in  such  instances  the  abstractions 
brought  into  balance  are  themselves  terms  not  usually  polarized. 

The  compression  of  thinking  into  these  terms  individually  shows 
in  their  somewhat  unusual  contrast  collectively.  Dionysius  of  Halicar- 
nassus  takes  Thucydides  to  task  for  a  number  of  stylistic  sleights.  All 
of  these  could  be  redescribed  as  distortions  of  language  into  imbalance 
under  pressure:  the  substitution  of  noun  for  verb  and  of  verb  for 
noun;  of  active  for  passive  and  of  passive  for  active;  the  change  of 
tenses;  the  frequent  use  of  parentheses  and  involution;  the  substitution 
of  person  for  thing  and  thing  for  person.  Dionysius  speaks,  too,  of 
Thucydides'  enthymemes.  These  logical  proofs  with  one  term  left 
out  will  serve  well  to  indicate  the  onward  "slippage"  of  Thucydides' 
demonstration. 

As  Wille  says  of  Thucydides,  "Formal  analogies  can  cover  actual 
differences,  while  actual  analogies  are  concealed  in  formal  varia- 
tions."^^ This  happens  especially  when  he  is  moving  from  more 
particular  to  somewhat  less,  and  from  concrete  description  to  abstract 
reflection,  as  spectacularly  in  his  transition  to  general  observations 
after  the  Corcyrean  rebellion: 

iraaa.  re  ib'ta  KareaTr]  Oavarov,  Koi  oCov  ()>L\d  iv  too  toiovtu  yiypeadaL,  ovdeu 
OTi  ov  ^vve^T]  Kot  en  Tzepairepw.  kou.  yap  TraTtjp  Tratda  aireKTeii/e  koi  ccko  T<hv 
iepibu  airea-rcuivro  koi  irpbq  avTotq  (kthvopto,  oi  be  riveq  Koi  irtpioiKobonj]da>T€c, 
ev  Tov  Aiovmov  tw  iepCb  airedavov. 

OijTwq  wfiT]  (^)  CTamc,  TTpovxoipriae,  koH  ebo^e  p,ak\ov,  bibri  Iv  Totq  irpojTr} 
iyeuero,  eirel  varepov  ye  koI  irav  coq  eiTrelv  to  'EXXrfVLKO'  (kiptjOt},  8ia4>opu}v 
ovau}v  eKaaTaxov  Totq  Te  TCt)i>  8r}p,uv  irpoaTaTaLc,  Tovq  'Adrjvaiovc,  eirayeadai  Kai 
Totq  oXiyoLq  TOvq  AaKedaiixouiovq.  koi  ev  fiev  eiprjur)  ovk  ocv  exbuToiv  irpb(f)aaiu 
ovd'  eToijxoov  TzapaKaXelv  amovq,  iroXenovu'evuiv  8e  kol  ^vufxaxioiq  onia  eKaTepoiq 
Tfi  tCjp  evaPTiwp  /caxaxrei  kol  a4>iaiv  avTotq  eK  tov  ovtov  irpoairoifiaet  paSiojq 
at  eiraydoyal  Totq  veu)Tepi^eLV  ti  ^ovXojxevoiq  eiropi^ovTO.  koi  eireireae  iroXXa  kol 
XOiXeira  KaTa  araaiv  Toiq  irbXeai. 

Every  form  of  death  occurred,  and  as  is  wont  to  happen  in  such  cases, 
there  was  nothing  that  did  not  transpire  and  yet  more  extremely.  Yes, 
and  father  slew  child,  and  people  were  dragged  from  the  temples  and 
killed  near  them,  and  some  were  walled  up  and  died  in  the  temple  of 
Dionysus. 

So  the  raw  strife  proceeded,  and,  because  this  was  the  first  example 

"  Gunter  Wille,  "Zu  Stil  und  Methode  des  Thukydides"  (1963)  in  Hans  Herter, 
ed.,  op.  at.,  p.  691. 


Albert  Cook  49 

of  it,  it  seemed  even  worse  than  it  was;  later,  practically  the  whole  of 
the  Greek  world  was  stirred  up,  because  in  every  state  quarrels  gave 
occasion  to  the  democratic  leaders  to  ask  for  aid  from  Athens,  to  the 
oligarchs  to  ask  Sparta.  In  peace,  without  the  excuse  and  indeed 
without  the  readiness  to  summon  them;  but  in  war  and  with  an  alliance 
at  hand  for  either  side,  to  injury  for  their  enemies  and  to  advantage 
for  themselves,  inducements  were  easily  furnished  to  those  wishing  to 
innovate.  Many  were  the  calamities  that  befell  the  Greek  states  through 
this  civil  strife.  (III.  81.5-82.2:  Gomme,  revised) 

Intermediate  abstraction  has  already  begun  in  the  sentence  about  the 
father  kilhng  the  son.  This  is  not  one  instance  but  a  type  case  of 
which  there  could  have  been  more  than  one  instance,  though  one 
single  salient  instance  of  horror,  the  w^alling  up  of  suppliants  in  the 
temple  of  Dionysus,  brings  the  sentence  to  its  climax.  The  typification 
of  the  first  instance  modifies  the  horror  of  the  last,  while  the  actuality 
of  the  last  instance  concretizes  the  whole  passage  even  further.  There 
is  also  a  shift  between  singular  and  plural  for  the  verb  here,  and  for 
"temple"  {kpbv),  though  the  cases  are  suspended  differently  between 
particular  and  general. 

The  jump  to  much  higher  generalization  in  "raw  strife"  (d>/u^ 
crTaatg)  reveals,  and  incorporates,  the  horror  Thucydides  controls 
and  compresses  his  diction  while  his  syntax  forces  into  extreme 
torsions  here.  He  goes  on  to  describe  another  kind  of  slippage  than 
the  one  his  mastery  is  enlisting,  a  slippage  of  diction: 

iaraaia^e  re  ovv  to.  rdv  irbXeciiu,  koi  ra  e<l>vaTepi^0PTa  irov  Trvara  tup 
irpoyevoiiei'uv  iroXv  iirecpepe  Tr)v  VTrepPoXfjv  tov  KaivovaOai  raq  diavoiaq  rdiv  t' 
i'inX'ti.py](Ji(jov  Tztpnex^W^'-  x^oti  't^^  Tip.(ji)piuv  cxToiria.  kol  Tr)v  auidvtap  a^iuaiv 
TU)v  ovopoLTOiv  iq  TO.  epya  avTrjWa^av  rfi  diKaio^aei.  roXpa  /xev  yap  aXbyiaToq 
audpda  (t>LX(Taipoq  iuopiadr],  neXXtjaiq  8t  Trpopr]dfiq  deiXia  evTpeirrjq,  to  8e  achcppof 
TOV  avoivbpov  trpbax'lP'^y  "^^^  '''o  T^poq  airap  ^vveTOv  eVt  trap  apyop. 
So  as  the  affairs  of  the  cities  kept  going  into  revolt,  the  later  outbreaks, 
by  knowledge  of  what  had  gone  before  were  marked  by  ever-increasing 
novelty  of  rationales,  shown  both  in  the  ingenuity  of  attack  and  the 
enormity  of  revenge.  They  changed  the  customary  validation  of  terms 
as  men  claimed  the  right  to  use  them  to  suit  the  deeds:  unreasoning 
daring  was  termed  loyal  courage;  prudent  delay  specious  cowardice; 
moderation  the  cloak  of  timidity;  and  understanding  of  the  whole  to 
be  in  everything  inactive.  (82.  3:  Gomme,  revised) 

"As  men  claimed  the  right  to  use  them"  translates  the  single  term 
dLKaiixxriq,  "adjudication,"  a  term  usually  applied  to  court  actions,  and 
sometimes  to  the  punishment  assigned  after  judgment.  All  these 
senses  tinge  Thucydides'  use  without  modifying  it.  This  word  refuses 
to  refer  to  that  which  it  describes  and  unwittingly  exemplifies — the 


50  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

"judgers"  are  "judged"  by  Thucydides,  and  even  self-punished  by 
destroying  the  use  of  the  language  to  get  them  out  of  such  later 
enterprises  as  the  Sicilian  Expedition  or  the  rule  of  the  Four  Hundred. 
Under  such  stress,  however,  the  language  must  respond  by  a  corre- 
sponding compactness  and  agility,  as  in  this  extraordinary  case  Thu- 
cydides is  exemplifying  when  he  takes  the  fairly  unimportant  Cor- 
cyrean  rebellion  as  a  typifying  instance.  When  he  gets  to  still  bigger 
and  more  crucial  events,  he  cannot  digress  for  so  long. 

The  increasing  pressure  not  to  digress  confines  Thucydides'  pres- 
entational variation  simply  to  relativizing  his  linear  detail.  Sometimes 
he  offers  a  great  deal  of  detail,  in  campaigns  important  for  the  war 
or  for  their  emblematic  force.  Less  often  he  scales  down  the  amount 
of  detail  he  gives.  We  cannot  be  sure  that  his  omission  of  speeches 
in  Book  Eight  indicates  incompleteness  and  not  the  writer's  decision 
to  foreshorten  from  this  point  on.  Having  been  initiated  to  the 
argumentative  processes  of  speeches,  the  informed  reader  is  in  a 
position  to  make  do  with  summaries  so  as  to  move  forward  more 
cogently. 

The  principle  of  relevance  in  the  History  operates  simply  at  first; 
every  detail  must  relate  to  the  one  all-embracing  war.  But  the  History 
starts  out  at  a  higher  level  of  complexity  and  generality  than  the  one 
it  maintains,  since  Thucydides  delays  his  prefatory  theoretical  remarks 
till  after  the  "Archaeology"  and  delays  the  Pentekontaetia  till  after 
the  beginnings  of  conflict.  The  shifts  from  one  to  another  of  these 
four  initial  units  might  tempt  a  critic  to  provide  schematizations,^® 
but  the  onward  pressure  of  events  will  undo  such  large-scale  structural 
deductions.  Thucydides  cannot  be  found  to  have  invented  a  structure 
more  complex  than  his  implied  rule  of  explaining  only  what  time  has 
brought  new  to  the  conditions  of  the  war.  He  could  have  built  the 
History,  after  all,  on  a  version  of  Herodotus'  more  complex  pattern, 
the  intertwining  of  distant  with  close  time-frames  and  ethnographic 
monographs  with  narratives.  As  it  is,  his  narrative  almost  mimetically 
changes  course  as  the  war  changes  course.  The  Olympian  viewpoint 
of  the  Archaeology  and  the  Pentekontaetia  cannot  be  brought  in  to 
provide  a  Herodotus-like  expansive  disquisition  about  Persian  politics 
in  Book  Eight. 

By  that  point  Thucydides  has  established  his  theoretical  control 
over  the  factors  governing  the  narrative.  Those  come  as  a  gradual 
revelation,  and  their  increasing  explicitness  reinforces  the  simple  but 

^*  Schadewaldt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  391-94.  Schadewaldt  diagrams  the  narrative  according 
to  three  foci  of  exposition,  "Wesensdeutung,"  "Machtmotiv"  and  "Pathologie  Athens." 


Albert  Cook  51 

elusive  near-pattern  he  is  singlemindedly  elaborating.  The  synecdoche 
can  only  be  partial,  but  its  theoretical  force  holds. 

Plato,  and  later  Aristotle,  devised  categories  that  would  solve 
problems  about  the  relation  of  general  and  particular.  In  the  History 
Thucydides  offers  an  ongoing  instantiation  of  how  one  kind  of  relation 
evolves  between  general  and  particular  through  a  complex  temporal 
sequence. 

Brown  University 


Esse  Videatur  Rhythm  in  the 

Greek  New  Testament  Gospels  and 

Acts  of  the  Apostles 

J.  K.  NEWMAN 


A  recent  book'  has  raised  again  the  important  exegetical  question  of 
rhetoric  and  the  Christian  New  Testament.  But  the  topic  of  prose 
rhythm  is  advanced  there  only  to  be  dismissed  on  the  grounds  that 
"evidence  from  inscriptions  and  papyri  seems  to  indicate  that  long 
and  short  syllables  were  often  not  accurately  and  systematically 
differentiated  in  the  pronunciation  of  koine  Greek."  Later,  when  the 
Lord's  Prayer  is  found  to  display  identifiable  clausula  endings,  for 
the  author  this  still  does  not  make  extensive  analysis  of  New  Testament 
prose  rhythms  of  more  than  debatable  value. 

No  doubt  these  difficulties  exist.  But  evidently  it  was  possible  for 
writers  of  formal  Hellenistic  prose  to  pay  attention  to  prose  rhythms. 
One  need  look  no  further  than  Plutarch.^  The  difficulty  seems  to  be 
that  the  authors  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of  the  Gospels  in 
particular,  are  not  regarded  as  capable  of  that  degree  of  sophistica- 
tion.^ 

Already  so  great  a  scholar  as  Eduard  Norden  presents  a  classic 

'  George  A.  Kennedy,  New  Testament  Interpretation  through  Rhetorical  Criticism  (Chapel 
Hill  and  London  1984).  Particular  allusion  is  made  here  to  pages  30  and  59. 

2  F.  H.  Sandbach,  Classical  Quarterly  33  (1939),  pp.  194-203,  with  special  reference 
to  the  work  of  A.  W.  de  Groot. 

'  Understanding  is  not  helped  by  the  blanket  use  of  the  term  "koine  Greek"  for 
the  often  very  subtle  and  complex  language  of  the  New  Testament.  It  has  about  as 
much  value  to  the  literary  historian  as  "Silver  Latin"  for  anything  post-Augustan. 


54  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

example  of  this  failure  to  read  the  evidence.  In  the  first  volume  of 
his  Antike  Kimstprosa'*  Norden  supplies  an  analysis  of  the  long  Greek 
inscription  discovered  in  1890  and  erected  in  the  first  century  B.C. 
by  King  Antiochus  of  Commagene.  He  notes  that  there  are  49 
occurrences  of  cretic/trochaic  combinations  of  which  19  are  resolved 
into  the  esse  videatur  pattern.  The  inscription  as  a  whole  is  for  him 
"a  dithyramb  in  prose,"  a  fine  illustration  of  the  second  Asian  style 
described  by  Cicero.^ 

Elsewhere,*^  Norden  speaks  approvingly  of  an  article  proposing  that 
the  documents  of  early  Christianity  should  not  be  considered  part  of 
literary  history  because  they  do  not  make  use  of  the  forms  of  real 
literature.  He  supplies  another  long  comparison  of  the  synoptic 
Gospels  with  one  another  in  an  effort  to  show  that  Luke  is  a  more 
conscious  stylist  than  his  peers.  But  even  so  he  prefaces  his  remarks 
with  the  statement  that  "Die  Evangelien  stehen  vollig  abseits  von  der 
kunstmaf3igen  Literatur." 

In  fact,  the  Gospels  are  most  carefully  constructed  examples  of 
Greek  dialogic  literature,  which  is  exactly  the  tradition  evoked  by 
Justin  when  he  calls  them  aironvrjuoveviiaTa.''  They  and  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  use,  in  telling  contexts,  the  very  rhythm  that  Norden 
regards  as  characteristic  of  the  elaborate  Asian  style.  St.  Mark's 
version**,  for  example,  of  the  Cry  from  the  Cross  (a  quotation  from 
Psalms  22)  is:  'OQeoq  nov  6  Qeoc,  ixov,  etq  tl  iyKareXiTreq  tie;  (15:34).  A 
comparison  with  Matthew  27:46  is  instructive.  St.  John  leads  into  the 
Last  Word  with  iravTa  TeTeXearm,  (19:28).  The  Voice  that  interrupts 
St.  Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus  also  uses  the  first  paeon  and 
spondee:  I,aov\  XaovX,  ri  /tie  Sico/cetq;  (Acts  9:4;  cf.  22:7;  26:14). 

When  Pilate  is  nettled  by  Christ's  refusal  to  speak,  Matthew  makes 
him  ask:  Oi56ei/  dnroKpivt}  .  .  .  ;  (26:62).  Like  the  Cry  from  the  Cross 
in  Mark,  this  is  an  important  "dialogic"  example.  In  the  very  next 
chapter  of  the  same  Gospel,  the  plan  to  let  the  brigand  Barabbas  go 
free  while  Jesus  is  put  to  death  calls  for  a  spondaic/trochaic  admixture 
that  duly  culminates  in  an  esse  videatur  clausula:  iva  aLTrjaicuTai  top 
BapafS^av,  tov  8e  'Irjaovv  dnroXeacoaip  (27:20).  The  contrast  between 
the  rhythms  of  the  two  long  verbs,  and  the  isocolic  parallelism  linking 
the  proper  names,  is  noteworthy. 

*  Fifth  edition,  repr.  Stuttgart  1958,  pp.  140  ff. 

^  Brutus  325:  I'erbis  volucre  atque  incitatum,  quali  nunc  est  Asia  tota,  nee  fiumine  solum 
orationis  sed  etiam  exornato  et  faeto  genere  verborum. 

^  Op.  cit.,  II,  pp.  479  ff.  The  quotation  is  from  p.  480. 
^  Norden,  p.  481. 

*  The  New  Testament  is  cited  throughout  from  the  text  prepared  for  the  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society  by  E.  Nestle  and  G.  D.  Kilpatrick  (repr.  London  1962). 


J.  K.  Newman  55 

These  initial  examples  from  familiar  passages  suggest  that,  for  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament,  the  stereotyped  clausula  still  had 
significant  life.  A  list  of  further  examples,  which  does  not  of  course 
claim  to  be  complete,  repays  study. 

I.  Matthew 

6:19  and  20  ^pCbaiq  A^arifci,.  .  . 

From  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  A  nuance  of  irony  and  contempt, 
whose  repetitions  remind  us  of  similar  tricks  in  Ovid,^  for  the  man 
who  amasses  this  world's  goods?  See  the  following  instance. 

6:24  Tov  erepov  Kara4)povr\a€L' 

(Cf.  Luke  16:13.)  Also  from  the  same  context.  "You  cannot  serve 
two  masters." 

6:30  OX)  TToXXo)  naWov  vfiocc,,  dXiyoTnaroi; 

(Cf.  8:26;  16:8.)  A  fourth  example  from  chapter  6.  Here  certainly 
there  is  an  ironic  and  impatient  note  in  this  "dialogic"  question 
directed  at  those  who  doubt  Providence.  '0X176x1(7x01,  of  which  the 
Rabbinical  ktn  'mnh  looks  like  a  caique,  is  first  attested  in  this  passage. 
Compare  Luke  12:28,  below. 

When  this  rhythm  next  occurs  in  Matthew,  we  are  in  the  middle 
of  a  rebuke  by  Christ  to  the  disbelieving  cities: 

11:20  OTL  oi3  fi€Tev6ri<Tap- 

Cf.  11:21  TraXat  av  Iv  aaKKU)  Kal  o-ttoSoj  neTePorjaap. 

and  Luke  10:13,  in  the  same  context,  where  the  insertion  of  a 
participle  leaves  the  rhythm  intact:  -KoKai  av  Iv  oocKKOi  Kal  (tttoSoj 
Kadiffievoi  nereporiaap. 

Two  chapters  later,  the  end  of  the  world  and  the  Last  Judgment 
are  in  view: 

13:47  eK  iravTO<^  y^povc^  avpayayovatf 

Another  note  of  ironic  disgust  and  condemnation? 

19:20  Tavra  irapra  i<t>vXa^a' 

^  E.g.  Metamorphoses  III.  353  (positive)  and  355  (negative),  exactly  the  pattern  of 
this  passage  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 


56  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

If  the  hiatus  is  tolerable,'"  the  Rich  Young  Man  here  confidently 
(over-confidently?)  asserts  his  own  blameless  conduct.  With  the  rhythm 
may  be  compared  ovTO(i  6  reXoivric,-  (Luke  18:11),  the  prayer  of  the 
self-righteous  man. 

The  effect  of  Pilate's  Oidev  6fK0Kpivr\  .  .  .  ;  (26:62),  and  of  'lr]aovv 
dt-KoktauxTLV  (27:20)  was  already  noted. 

A  last  example  from  Matthew  is  furnished  by 

28:17  Kol  tdovTeq  avrov  irpoaeKvvrjaav,  ol  bt  idiaTaaav. 

An  emotional  profession  of  faith  by  those  who  found  themselves  able 
to  believe.  Yet  even  this  implies  a  dialogue.  "Some  were  in  two 
minds"  (internal  debate)  and  certainly  Jesus  is  himself  to  speak  shortly. 

What  is  striking  in  all  the  examples  adduced  here  from  Matthew 
is  the  element  of  reproof  and  even  savage  satire  found  in  them.  At 
the  end,  the  believers  are  balanced  by  the  doubters.  This  pattern  of 
meaning  is  not  maintained  by  the  other  Gospels,  but  I  suggest  that 
it  gives  some  indication  of  the  primitive  levels  on  which  this  rhythm 
draws. 

II.  Mark 

3:4     ayadov  Troi^o-ai  ^  Ka/co-TroiTjaai,  ypvxhv  (Tccaai  rj  ot-KOKTuvai;  oC  be 
i(nu}Tr(x>v. 

A  tense  confrontation,  again  therefore  an  intended  dialogue,  but  one 
in  which  one  of  the  parties  refuses  to  participate.  The  passage  gains 
in  pathos  from  the  realization  of  this  refusal,  betrayed  by  the  rhythms. 
Contrast  Pilate's  Oibev  ^iroKpivr)  .  .  .  ;  where  however  Christ  does  at 
long  last  break  his  silence. 

4:29  Trape<TTrfK€v  6  depiafioc,. 

Cf.  TrapecrrriKev  6  rpvynroc,  (LXX  Joel  3:13).  The  end  of  the  world:  cf. 
Matt.  13:47,  already  quoted. 

8:24  wc,  b'dvbpa  bpd  TrepLiraTOVUTaq. 

The  blind  man  begins  to  recover  his  sight.  A  moment  of  extreme 
emotional  release,  perhaps  with  some  metamorphosing  comedy  in  it. 

'"  And  if  it  is  not,  the  heroic  clausula  has  its  own  history! 


J.  K.  Newman  57 

9:7  O^Toq  iariv  6  Tioq  nov  6  icyairrjToqj  .  .  . 

The  solemn  revelation  of  Christ's  divinity.  Compare  John  1:32  and 
33,  and  36,  below. 

10:32     Kal    rjv    wpoayoop    avTOvq    b     'l-qaovq,    Koi    idafifiovvro,    ol    be 
ocKoXovSovpreq  l4>o0ovvTO. 

Religious  awe  (dScfi^oq)  and  fear,  the  expression  aided  by  homoeote- 
leuton  and  isocolon  (10;  5;  11)  as  well  as  by  the  paeonic/trochaic 
rhythm.'' 

12:27        ovK  €(TTLP  Qebq  ueKpCbv  aXXa  i^oovrcop.  iroXu  -KXapctade. 

Another  tense  confrontation:  see  3:4,  above.  It  is  this  emotion  which 
perhaps  allows  us  to  ride  over  (or  at  least  to  attenuate  in  some  way) 
the  period  after  ^6}pt(jop.  Contrast  Matthew  22:29,  where  irXapaade  is 
used  in  the  same  scene,  but  no  attempt  is  made  to  exploit  the  paeonic 
rhythm. 

12:44  oXop  top  0iop  airriq. 

The  climax  of  the  pathetic  story  of  the  Widow's  Mite.  Contfast  the 
handling  of  the  same  story  in  Luke  21:4. 

13:11  Kol  orap  ayojaip  vfiotq  TrapabLboPTeq,  .  .  . 

The  Christians  threatened  with  persecution.  Compare  fieXXa  trapa- 
biboadaL  (Luke  9:44),  quoted  below. 

13:28  €'77uq  to  depoc,  laTiP' 

Cf.  c'77u<;  TO  depoq  ioTiP'  at  Luke  21:30.  The  end  of  the  world.  Cf. 
4:29  above. 

15:34  dc,  tI  iyKUTiXiTrkc,  iie; 

The  anguished  Cry  from  the  Cross.  A  supreme  example  of  this 
rhythm  in  dialogic  question. 

"  The  effect  of  the  periphrastic  V  irpoaywv,  which  throws  the  stress  onto  the 
subject  of  the  first  clause,  should  also  be  noted:  cf.  H.  B.  Rosen,  "Die  'zweiten' 
Tempora  des  Griechischen:  Zum  Pradikatsausdruck  beim  griechischen  Verbum," 
Museum  Helveticum  14  (1957),  pp.  133-54.  See  the  article  by  Gerald  M.  Browne, 
below. 


58  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

III.  Luke 

1:29  \by(x)  durapaxOVi  '<^oc^^  duXoyi^ero  iroTa-rrbq  tir]  b  acnraanbq  ovroq. 

The  Annunciation.  Evidently  another  instance  of  dialogic  mental 
turmoil. 

2:35  Kapdicop  diaXoyiafioi. 

The  prophecy  of  Simeon,  and  reminiscent  of  1:29.  With  the  noun 
biaXoytcT^ioL  may  be  compared  the  verb  buXoyi^eTo  there.  It  looks 
very  much  as  if  the  more  style-conscious  Luke  begins  his  Gospel  with 
what  Formalists  call  a  "denudation  du  procede,"  a  "laying  bare  of 
the  device"  by  which  esse  videatur  rhythm  is  expressly  associated  with 
dialogue,  with  internal  dialogue  in  particular. 

6:9  ^  KaKoiroviiam,  .  .  . 

Cf.  Mark  3:4  above. 

6:23  and  26  oi  -Karkptz,  airoiv. 

(Cf.  Acts  7:52.)     Denunciation. 

7:6  eiropevero  avv  ajJroiq. 

On  the  way  to  cure  the  centurion's  servant.  This  is  perhaps  a  first 
example  of  a  type  which  could  be  catalogued  as  "scenery."'^  The 
actual  phrase  may  not  refer  to  anything  very  striking,  but  its  rhythm 
establishes  a  certain  mood  which  conditions  the  reader  to  expect  the 
marvelous. 

7:22     TV^Xol  avafiXeirovcnv,  x^oXoi  irepiTraTomiP,  Xeirpol  Kadapi^ovTai, 

Christ's  message  to  John's  disciples,  displaying  a  double  example  of 
the  paeonic  rhythm,  aided  by  isocolon  (7;  7;  7)  and  homoeoteleuton, 
of  which  there  is  more  in  the  context.  Cf.  Mark  10:32,  above. 

8:5  /cm  KaTciraTrjdrj,  .  .  . 

The  fate  of  the  seed  that  fell  by  the  wayside. 

9:44  fieXXei  -KapabiboaBai  .  .  . 

'^  I  borrow  this  term  from  G.  N.  Knauer,  who  uses  it  in  Die  Aeneis  und  Homer 
(Gottingen  1964)  to  describe  those  occasions  when  Virgil  evokes  a  background  rather 
than  any  particular  characterization  from  Homer  for  his  actors. 


J.  K.  Newman  59 

We  have  already  met  this  rhythm  in  a  similar  context  (Mark  13:11, 
quoted  above).  No  doubt  for  the  earliest  Christians  it  had  a  special 
resonance. 

10:13  Kadrjuevoi  fiereporiaap. 

Cf.  exactly  the  same  rhythm  in  the  same  context  at  Matthew  11:21, 
quoted  above. 

11:18  ei  de  koI  6  HiaTava<;  €0'  kavTOv  buii^piaBri,  .  .  . 

Cf.  below,  12:51.  Here,  an  impossible  suggestion  is  derided.'^ 

11:22  avTOV  hahihuiaiv. 

The  same  context,  the  same  notion  of  violence. 

11:40  eauiOev  iiroi'qciv; 

More  tense  confrontation. 

12:28  VM«?>  dXiyo-KtaToi.  • 

Cf.  Matthew  6:31,  quoted  above. 

12:51  fj  dianepiafiop. 

More  violence.  "I  have  not  come  to  bring  peace,  but  division." 

15:6  fiov  TO  dcTToXwXoq. 

and 

15:7  aixapTooXui  tieravoovvTi  .  .  . 

Pathos  and  joy  over  the  lost  sheep.  Compare 

15:10  a/xapTooXo)  neravoovPTi. 

16:13  erepov  KaTa^fpopiiau. 

Compare  Matthew  6:24,  exactly  the  same  rhythm  in  the  same  context. 

'^  Not  so  much  perhaps  "And  if  Satan  also  .  .  ."  ("Equally,  if  Satan  is  divided," 
according  to  the  New  English  Bible)  as  "Even  granted  that  Satan.  .  .  ."  For  the  force 
of  ei'.  .  .  Kcd  here,  cf.  R.  Jebb's  appendix  to  his  edition  of  Sophocles,  Oedipus  Tyrannus 
(3rd  ed.,  Cambridge  1893),  p.  224,  on  v.  305:  the  usage  would  come  under  Jebb's 
(3):  J.  D.  Denniston,  The  Greek  Particles  (repr.  Oxford  1970),  p.  303. 


60  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

16:26  fJi'V^i^)  (KeWev  irpoq  ^/ttaq  diairepojaLV. 

The  gulf  fixed  between  heaven  and  hell.  The  cretics  here  leading 
into  the  paeonic/trochaic  clausula  would  do  credit  to  Cicero.''' 

18:8  iriaTLv  ^irl  ttjc,  yriq; 

An  anguished  question  about  the  end  of  the  world. 

18:11  ovTOq  6  TeXajj/Tjq" 

A  quiver  of  contempt  in  the  voice  of  the  self-righteous  man,  engaged 
in  prayer  (=  dialogue  with  God).  Compare  the  Rich  Young  Man  in 
Matthew  19:20  quoted  above. 

21:30  iyyvc,  to  dtpoq  iariv 

The  end  of  the  world.  Cf.  Mark  13:28,  the  same  context  and 
quotation. 

24:17     Tivic,  oi  Xbyoi  odroi  ovq  avTL0a\\eTe  irpoc,  dik\T]\  \\ovc,  TrepnraTOVPTec^ 

An  extraordinary  instance  of  the  double  occurrence  of  this  rhythm 
in  a  dialogic  question,  here  preparing  the  way  for  the  revelation  of 
the  Resurrection. 

IV.  John 

1:22  tI  Xeyeic,  Trepi  aeavrov; 

Exactly  the  technique  just  noted  in  Luke.  John  the  Baptist  is  asked 
to  identify  himself.  His  declaration  will  prepare  the  way  for  Christ. 

Now  four  examples  follow  in  quick  succession. 

1:32  TO  Upevfia  KaTa0alpov  .  .  . 

Cf.  1:33  TO  Tlviiinoc  KaTafiaivov  \\  kol  fievov  ^tt'  u^tov. 

The  revelation  of  divinity  calls  for  the  same  rhythms  as  at  Mark  9:7 
and  Luke  24:17,  noted  above.  Cf.  fourthly 

1:36  TOJ  'ItjcoO  TrepnraTOVvTi  .  .  . 


'''  Cf.  Tw  6i    'Ij/ctoOj/  onroXiauaiv,  Matthew  27:20,  cited  above.  Compare  Cicero, 
Verrhie  V.  16.  40:  mfamiam  fugerit  quam  sin(e)  ulla  voluptate  capiebat. 


J.  K.  Newman  61 

the  recruitment  of  the  first  disciples. 

4:8  Tpo<t>ac,  dtyopaawaiv. 

Jesus  is  exhausted  and  thirsty,  and  is  about  to  make  an  unexpected 
revelation  of  himself  to  the  Samaritan  woman  at  Jacob's  well.  A 
"scenic"  use,  which  nevertheless  sets  the  stage  for  a  long  dialogue, 
not  without  some  touches  of  humor. 

4:47  riixeWep  yap  dtTroBvrjOKUv. 

The  royal  official's  son  saved  from  death.  John  is  attracted  by  this 
rhythm  with  this  verb:  cf.  rjneWev  6nzodvr)OKuv  (12:33)  and  W^^^^v 
dtiroBvrjGKeLV  (18:32).  With  this  may  be  compared  tv  ry  anapria  vfioiP 
dcTTodapeiade  (8:21)  and  nrj  okov  to  Wvoq  dcTroXriTai  (1 1:50). 

11:29  ^PX^TO  irpoc,  a^rov 

Lazarus'  sister  Mary  goes  out  to  meet  Jesus.  Scenery  for  a  resurrection. 
Cf.  iiropevero  <tvv  airolc,  (Luke  7:6),  quoted  above,  and  the  disputed 
8:2,  discussed  below. 

13:7  7J/a)<T7j  6e  nera  ravra. 

A  promise  of  future  revelation  made  at  the  Last  Supper,  with  a  telling 
verb. 

19:7-8     .  .  .  Tiov  OeoO  iavrov  iTroirjarev.  "Ore  o^v  rjKovaeu  6  IleiXarog 
TOVTov  Tov  Xoyov,  fxaWop  l4>o^r\B't\. 

At  the  trial,  and  therefore  in  a  dialogue.  Religious  foreboding  and 
fear  leads  to  the  use  of  esse  videatur  rhythm  in  consecutive  sentences. 
Cf.  Mark  10:32  and  Luke  24:17,  quoted  above. 

19:28  -KUPTa  TereXeaTai.,  .  .  . 

The  end  approaches. 

20:23  .  .  .  KparriTi,  KtKp6iTr\PTai. 

The  conferring  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  interesting  that  the  rhythm 
is  associated  with  the  negative  pole. 

The  list  of  examples  in  John  has  not  included  the  often  questioned 
opening  of  chapter  8,  where  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  is  forgiven. 
In  fact,  this  passage  shows  three  interesting  usages  of  this  rhythm. 
At  the  beginning 


62  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

8:2  ^PX^TO  irpoq  airov.  .  .  . 

sets  the  scene.  We  expect  something  extraordinary.  Exactly  the  same 
phrase  introduces  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus  (1 1:29),  quoted  above. 
Then  two  "dialogic"  examples  follow.  Christ  asks  the  sinner  if 
anyone  has  condemned  her: 

8:10  ovdeic,  ae  KareKpivev; 

And  when  she  answers  No,  he  rejoins: 

8:11  Ovde  iyoo  ae  KaraKpivu)' 

The  repetition  is  reminiscent  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount:  cf. 
Matthew  6:19  and  20,  quoted  above.  The  question  in  itself  recalls 
that  of  Pilate  (Matthew  26:62),  and  its  so  different  sequel. 

V.  Acts 

1:2  l^eKkl^aTio)  dcv€ki\ii<i>Br\' 

The  Ascension. 

2:1  byiox)  iirl  to  airo' 

2:47  Kad'  rjfiepav  iirl  to  airb. 

The  Descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  first  preaching  of  the  Gospel. 
A  striking  instance  of  ring  composition,  marked  both  by  recurrence 
of  vocabulary  and  of  rhythm,  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  chapter 
2,  suggesting  that  here  the  division  into  chapters  owed  to  Langton 
(1214)  and  the  medieval  Paris  Bible  corresponded  to  something  in 
the  author's  purpose. 

7:32         ePTpofioq  5e  yevb^evoq  McoUcr^c;  ovk  eroXixa  Karavoriaai. 

From  the  speech  made  by  Stephen.  The  revelation  at  the  Burning 
Bush.  A  dialogue  with  God. 

7:43  iireKeiva  Ba/SuXoji'oq. 

Prophetic  denunciation,  also  from  the  speech  of  St.  Stephen. 


7:51 


01  Trarepeq  umw,* 


Yet  another  use  of  the  paeon  in  an  indignant  question.  Compare 
Luke  6:23  and  26,  quoted  above. 


J.  K.  Newman  63 

7:57  dixodvtiadbv  iir*  airbv,  .  .  . 

and 

8:2  KOTTtTOv  ixe'Yav  ^ir'  aOra). 

The  beginning  and  end  of  Stephen's  execution,  marked  by  recurring 
rhythms  as  in  Acts  2.  With  the  first  phrase  may  be  compared  21:32, 
below,  where  Paul  is  rescued  from  a  similar  onslaught. 

9:5:  cf.  22:7;  26:14     SaouX  l^aovX,  tI  ne  diccKeiq; 

Although  the  rhythm  is  slightly  varied  (to  give  a  pherecratean),  we 
may  note  in  the  same  passage: 

9:5  'Irjo-oOq  ov  av  dicoKeic; 

(Cf.  26:15,  but  contrast  22:7.)  The  question  and  answer,  with  their 
repeated  verb,  are  strongly  reminiscent  of  John  8:10-11,  quoted 
above. 

9:24  a^TOP  dcveXojcnv 

A  plot  to  kill  St.  Paul.  St.  John's  fondness  for  this  rhythm  in  deadly 
contexts  is  comparable. 

9:38  irpbq  avTOv  vapaKoXovPTec,, 

The  background  to  a  resurrection. 

10:6  oLKia  irapa  dakaaaap. 

Cf.  10:32  ^vp(T€<*)c,  irapa  daXaaaap. 

Scenery  at  the  crucial  discovery  that  even  Gentiles  may  receive  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

12:10  Kol  (vdeooc,  aireaTri  6  ScyyeXoc,  Air'  airov. 

The  rhythm  here  marks  the  end  of  the  story  about  Peter's  miraculous 
release  from  prison.  Compare  16:37,  quoted  below. 

12:22  6  de  drifioq  iTre(f>6}pei,,  Seoi)  (poovrj  koL  ovk  audpo^Trov. 

The  Voice  of  God  has  already  evoked  this  rhythm:  Mark  9:7  and 
Acts  9:5.  Here  of  course  it  is  the  prelude  to  a  horrible  death, 
described  by  the  agricultural  compound,  applied  with  devastating 
irony  to  a  man,  aK(ii\r}Kb^piCToc,. 


64  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

14:3  eVl  to?  Xoyu)  rriq  xo^Pi-Toq  adrov,  .  .  . 

The  background  to  the  signs  and  portents  mentioned  shortly  in  the 
context.  A67W  is  telling.  There  is  still  dialogue. 

16:26  rjveoix^Vc^ocv  Sk  irapaxpwoc  ctl  Bvpai  iraaaL,  .  .  . 

The  symbolic  opening  of  the  doors. '^ 

16:37  ^^ayayerctxrav. 

Indignant  protest.  Part  of  a  dialogue  concluding  the  miraculous 
rescue.  The  similar  rhythm  at  the  end  of  Peter's  rescue  (12:10)  may 
be  compared. 

19:4  ^oiTTTLffna  neravoiac,,  .  .  . 

This  picks  up  a  rhythm  often  employed  by  the  Gospels  with  this 
particular  concept:  cf.  Matthew  1 1:20  and  21;  Luke  10:13  and  15:10. 

21:23        (Lalv  rjfuu  avdpec,  reaaapec,  evxw  ^xovrec,  ^<t>*  eavrCbv 

A  religious  context,  and  of  course  the  start  of  Paul's  fateful  involve- 
ment with  the  authorities.  See  22:29,  below. 

21:29-30 

.  .  .  €iar\yay€V  6  IlaOXoq.  €KLvi]dr\  re  i]  tv'oXlc,  oXrj  Kal  eyevero  avvSpour} 
Tov  Xaov,  Kal  eiriXa^onevoL  tov  HavXov  (lXkov  avrbv  e^co  tov  Upov, 
Kal  evdecoq  UXdadriaav  at  dvpai. 

The  background  to  a  riot,  with  the  sentence  following  the  esse  videatur 
rhythm  marked  by  isocolon  (21;  20;  10)  and  homoeoteleuton.  The 
closing  of  the  doors  is  also  a  symbolic  detail.  The  similar  verb  helps 
to  link  this  closing  with  the  earlier  scene  at  Philippi  (16:37,  quoted 
above),  where  however  the  doors  were  opened. 

21:32  Karedpanev^^  ^ir'  a^TOV(i' 

The  same  context.  A  Roman  tribune  to  the  rescue.  Contrast  7:57, 
the  attack  on  Stephen,  cited  above. 

'^  Cf.  O.  Weinreich,  "Gebet  und  Wunder"  in  Genethliakon  Wilhelm  Schmid  (Stuttgart 
1929),  II  Abhandlung  (Turoffnung),  pp.  280  fF.,  esp.  320  ff. 

'^  Allowing  muta  cum  liquida  to  make  position,  as  it  does  so  often  in  Hellenistic 
literary  Greek,  e.g.  in  the  Gyges  fragment:  see  K.  Latte,  "Ein  antikes  Gygesdrama," 
Eranos  48  (1950),  p.  138.  Cf.  ethnos,  John  1 1:50,  quoted  above. 


J.  K.  Newman  65 

22:29     evd€(i)q  ovv  airtaTqaav  air'  avrov  ol  /xeXXovrec,  a^rov  dcveTot^eiv 
The  continuing  story  of  Paul  and  the  Roman  authorities. 

24:10  ifiavTov  dciroXoyovnai,  .  .  . 

A  flourish  in  the  course  of  the  very  first  sentence  of  St.  Paul's  apologia 
before  Felix,  perhaps  an  extempore  response  to  the  careful  rhetoric 
of  the  opposition's  Tertullus. 

25:7  ovK  iaxvop  <5f7ro6ci^ai,  .  .  . 

An  echo  of  the  heated  arguments  before  Festus'  tribunal. 

25:12  Kaiaapa  €TnK€K\r]aaL,  eirl  Kaiaapa  Tcop€var\. 

The  solemn  judicial  (and  therefore  dialogic)  sealing  of  Paul's  fate. 
All  the  majesty  of  the  Empire  is  now  to  be  engaged,  with  what  fateful 
consequences  for  the  Church! 

26:5  €^t\aa  ^apiaaloc,. 

Paul's  apologia  before  Agrippa,  fraught  with  memories  and  emotions. 

The  New  Testament  is  of  course  filled  with  marvels,  head-on 
challenges,  reversals.  There  are  many  such  passages  where  one  might 
expect  esse  videatur  rhythm,  and  where  it  does  not  occur.  There  are 
parallel  passages,  where  one  Evangelist  uses  it,  and  another  does  not. 
But  these  negatives  (which  of  course  do  not  prove  that  no  other 
rhythms  are  used)  cannot  outweigh  the  positive  evidence  presented, 
which  all  suggests  that  this  rhythm  conveys  a  sense  of  excitement 
and  agitation:  the  excitement  of  the  Voice  of  God;  of  miracle,  even 
of  resurrection  from  the  dead,  of  the  end  of  the  world;  of  the  threat 
of  death;  of  angry  confrontation  and  denunciation;  and  then  again 
of  pathos  and  forgiveness. 

Time  and  again  in  our  lists  we  encountered  this  rhythm  in  dialogue, 
actual  or  implied,  and  this,  I  would  like  to  suggest,  is  its  basic  usage. 
Its  occurrence  in  rhetoric  is  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  rhetoric 
is  stereotyped  dialogue,  sometimes  mechanized  to  the  point  of  ab- 
surdity. The  advantage  of  studying  esse  videatur  in  the  New  Testament 
is  that  it  enables  us  to  catch  this  rhythm  in  still  living  interchange, 
(which  is  nevertheless  "kunstmafiig").  Hence  the  importance  of  those 
instances  which  occur  in  questions:  Christ  confronting  his  adversaries 
in  debate;  with  the  woman  taken  in  adultery;  wondering  if  at  the 
end  there  will  still  be  faith  left  on  earth;  before  Pilate;  before  God 


66  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

on  the  Cross;  after  the  Resurrection  teasing  his  disciples  on  the  road 
to  Emmaus;  addressing  Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus. 

But  of  course  in  the  Gospels  and  Acts  this  is  also  religious 
interchange,  and  here  there  is  {pace  Norden)  a  link  with  the  Com- 
magene  inscription.  When  we  read  there  Tr]v  boi.bTr)Ta  (2),  Iv  ayiooi 
X6(f)U)L  KadoaLOjdelq  (4),  dainovoov  ein<f)aueiaiq  (7),  eviavaiov  eoprrfv  (8), 
€70)  Kadoai<jO(Taq  (9),  a^iooq  eViTcXetxco  (11),  we  find  something  of  the 
same  tension  and  emotion.  The  King  however  expects  from  his 
audience  only  a  respectful  silence.  Study  of  the  New  Testament  helps 
us  to  understand  the  enormity  of  his  claim.'' 

Our  investigation  has  implications  therefore  for  more  than  the 
interpretation  of  the  New  Testament.  Already  Norden  compares  the 
style  of  the  Commagene  inscription  with  some  of  Cicero's  floridity, 
and  certainly  esse  videatur  was  laughed  at  as  early  as  Tacitus'  Dialogus.^^ 
There  are  pages  where  this  rhythm  appears  to  run  riot. 

But  Cicero  knows  how  to  control  this  mannerism  too,'^  and  rather 
than  join  Tacitus'  Aper  in  accusing  the  great  orator  of  automatism 
we  must  explain  his  fondness  for  these  clausulae  partly  by  studying 
particular  effects,  partly  by  the  nature  of  his  audience,  and  of  the 
dialogic  occasions  of  which  he  was  so  fond  (including  the  altercatio), 
and  partly  by  the  difference  of  culture  between  the  Romans  and  the 
peoples  among  whom  the  Asian  style  developed.  This  requires  especial 
attention  to  the  Roman  (and  Ciceronian)  propensity  for  the  comic 
and  satirical,  which  meant  that  what  emerged  as  serious  and  religious 
elsewhere  for  them  took  the  stage  (still  therefore  in  "dialogic"  guise) 
as  farce,  parody  and  wit.  Something  of  this  older  spirit  is  still  preserved 
in  Aristophanes'  use  of  this  particular  rhythm, ^°  and  with  this  may 
be  associated  the  primitive  element  of  satire  and  denunciation  found 
notably  in  St.  Matthew.  But  these  large  vistas  open  to  another  day. 

University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

"  Cf.  (jToiia  r  iv4>r]fioi>  awac,  i^oaiomBw,  Eur.  Bacchae  69-70.  Yet  it  is  precisely  this 
play  which  illustrates  the  closeness  of  the  religious  and  the  comic. 

'8  C.  23.  1.  Cf.  Quintilian  IX.  4.  73;  X.  1.  18,  adduced  by  Norden,  pp.  927-28. 

'^  Cf.  G.  Panayiotou,  Consistency  and  Variation  in  Cicero's  Oratorical  Style,  diss.  Urbana 
1984  (available  on  microfilm),  especially  pp.  1 1 7-25  and  245-47.  Professor  Panayiotou 
compares  two  pairs  of  speeches,  the  Pro  Caecina  and  the  De  Imperio  Cn.  Potnpei,  the 
Pro  Caelio  and  the  Pro  Balbo,  both  delivered  around  the  same  time,  to  show  how  the 
esse  videatur  clausula  is  more  common  in  the  De  Imperio  and  the  Pro  Caelio.  The 
frequency  of  this  clausula  in  the  comic  Pro  Caelio  is  enlightening. 

^^  See  A.  M.  Dale,  The  Lyric  Metres  of  Greek  Drama  (2nd  ed.,  Cambridge  1968),  pp. 
97-103.  The  rhythms  of  Lysistrata  781  ff.  (a  negative  parable  forming  part  of  an 
agon)  and  805  ff.  (a  counter-example)  may  be  compared  with  the  effects  registered 
here. 


Notes  on  the  Meaning  of 

KoXoKVVTT] 
J.  L.  HELLER 


[0.01]  Dio  gives  an  account  (LX.  35)  of  the  hypocrisy  of  Agrippina 
and  Nero  after  the  death  of  Claudius — the  man  whom  they  had 
murdered  and  then  pretended  to  mourn  with  a  state  funeral  and 
laudation  delivered  by  Nero  but  composed  by  Seneca  (Tac.  Ann. 
XIIL  3),  and  later  with  an  offical  consecratio  {Ann.  XIIL  2)  or 
deification — which  includes  the  witty  comment  of  Seneca's  brother 
Gallio  on  their  accomplishment.  Tucked  parenthetically  into  this 
account  comes  the  now  famous  sentence:  "Seneca  too  was  the  author 
of  a  composition  which  he  called  ' k-woKoXoKvvTixxTLc,  as  if  it  were  a 
kind  of  immortalization."  The  formation  and  meaning  of  this  strange 
word  have  been  discussed  endlessly.  Most  scholars  believe  that  it  was 
applied  as  a  title  to  the  extant  wickedly  satirical  parody  of  dramatic 
narrative  in  prose  and  verse  (which,  however,  is  titled  differently  in 
the  manuscripts),  and  that  Seneca  coined  it  as  a  comic  substitute  for 
'ATTo^ecoati;,  the  Greek  word  which  might  have  been  expected  from 
the  conversation  in  the  central  part  of  the  satire  and  is  actually  used 
in  the  title  of  the  Sangallensis:  Divi  Claudii  'Atto^cojo-k;  per  satiram. 
But  why  did  he  base  his  comic  formation  on  koXokvvtt},  the  Attic 
form  of  KoXoKvvdr],  which  LSJ  defines  as  the  plant  called  by  Duchesne 
(1786)  Cucurbita  maxima,  whose  large  round  fruit  we  call  a  pumpkin 
or  squash,  the  Germans  (Riesen-)  Kiirbis,  the  French  courge  or  potiron, 
the  Italians  zucca  {commune  or  da  mangiare)?  Various  answers  have 
been  given.  What  we  may  call  the  prevailing  view  has  been  restated 
in  a  recent  article  {Harvard  Studies  in  Classical  Philology  82  [1978], 


68  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

265-70)  by  H.  Eisenberg,  "Bedeutung  und  Zweck  des  Titels  von 
Senecas  'Apocolocyntosis'. " 

[0.02]  Referring  to  the  useful  survey  of  M.  Coffey  and  the  fundamental 
work  of  O.  Weinreich/  Eisenberg  concludes  (270)  that  Seneca  in- 
scribed his  newly  coined  Greek  word  as  a  formal  title  for  his 
composition  because  he  wished  to  stimulate  his  readers,  to  arouse 
their  curiosity  and  put  them  in  the  right  frame  of  mind  for  the 
reading  of  the  satire,  and  to  let  them  understand  that  what  they  held 
in  their  hands  was  directed  against  Claudius,  a  travesty  of  his  deifi- 
cation. Though  the  readers  might  be  disappointed  on  finding  that 
the  satire  did  not  contain  (265)  any  transformation  into  a  kolokynte — 
as  the  obvious  analogy  with  apotheosis  might  lead  them  to  expect — 
and  though  the  single  word  of  the  title  did  not  mention  Claudius 
(267),  the  sophisticated  aristocracy  of  the  court,  for  whose  entertain- 
ment the  work  was  designed  (266),  would  understand,  as  they  read 
along,  the  joke  in  this  title.  They  would  know  that  the  Greek  word 
kolokynte  had  special  prominence  only  in  a  few  expressions  which 
became  proverbial,  the  vyuarepov  KoXoKvvTaq  of  Epicharmus  and 
Sophron  and  the  rj  Kpivov  ri  koXokvpttju  of  Diphilus  and  Menander 
(269  with  footnotes  14  and  15;  Eisenberg  does  not  refer  to  the 
delightful  fragment  of  Epicrates  ridiculing  the  philosophers  who  were 
attempting  to  define  the  word,  on  which  see  Coffey,  Roman  Satire, 
168).^  And  here  the  vegetable  stands  as  the  embodiment  of  health 
or  a  symbol  of  life  as  a  lily  was  of  death.  But  in  Latin  the  equivalent 
cucurbita  had  the  extended  meaning  Dummkopf  or  "stupid"  in  popular 
speech  (Apul.  Met.  I.  15.  2  and  Petron.  39.  13  are  cited  [270]  from 
Weinreich),^  and  Seneca's  readers,  remembering  (269)  the  laughter 
which  had  greeted  Nero's  laudation  (Tac.  Ann.  XIII.  3)  of  Claudius' 
providentia  and  sapientia,  and  finding  in  the  satire  itself  many  references 
(e.g.  1.  1;  4.  1,  V.  2;  7.  3;  8.  3)  to  Seneca's  real  opinion  of  the  opposite 

'  Lustrum,  6  (1961),  239-71;  Coffey's  views  are  repeated  without  much  change  in 
chapter  9  of  his  book,  Roman  Satire  (London  and  New  York  1976).  See  also  O. 
Weinreich,  Senecas  Apocolocyntosis,  die  Satire  aufTod,  Himmel-  und  Hollenfahrt  des  Kaisers 
Claudius  .  .  .  (Berlin  1923),  especially  p.  11  for  a  list  of  Greek,  Latin,  Italian,  English, 
and  German  expressions  in  which  the  word  for  Kiirbis,  a  large  globular  vegetable,  is 
applied  to  a  person,  implying  his  empty-headedness  or  stupidity. 

^  Eisenberg  also  neglects  to  mention  the  Aristophanic  taunt  {Nub.  327,  Xrifwic, 
KoXoKwrmc,  which  R.  Kilpatrick  (in  Class.  Journ.  74  [1979],  193-96)  coupled  with  the 
separative  function  of  aire-  in  some  Greek  denominative  verbs  in  order  to  suggest 
that  Seneca's  title  implies  that  the  deified  Claudius  was  being  relieved  of  the  pumpkin- 
like impediments  to  his  vision. 

^  Here  Eisenberg  wisely  omits  Juvenal's  ventosa  cucurbita  (14.  58;  see  below,  1.01) 
which  Weinreich  had  listed  on  his  p.  1 1. 


J.  L.  Heller  69 

qualities  of  the  fxcopoc,  Claudius,  could  not  fail  to  grasp  the  point  of 
the  title.  In  an  airoKoXoKvvTooaLq  Claudius  would  attain  "die  Gestalt 
der  cucurbita'  (270),  a  derisive  name  (i.e.  Dummkopfas  inferred  from 
Petronius  and  Apuleius)  which  already  applied  to  him  "wegen  seiner 
Torheit" — an  altogether  appropriate  transformation.  Thus  the  single 
word  of  the  title  is  interpreted  by  Eisenberg,  not  so  much  as 
"transformation  into  a  fool,"  for  Claudius  was  already  that  in  his 
lifetime,  as  "transformation  (by  means  of  deification)  of  a  fool  (i.e. 
Claudius),"  or  as  C.  F.  Russo  put  it,  not  "trasformazione  in  una  zucca" 
but  "deificazione  di  una  zucca"  or  "zucconeria  divinazzata."''  And 
thus  Eisenberg  would  explain  (though  he  did  not  mention  them)  the 
popular  renderings  of  the  title  as  Verkurbissung'  or  Pumpkinification.^ 

[0.03]  Before  reaching  this  conclusion,  Eisenberg  had  rejected  some 
other  theories  about  the  formation  of  the  title,  namely  (268,  note 
11)  H.  Wagenvoort's  1934  proposal  that  it  was  modelled  on  the 
poorly  attested  a-Kopa(t)avibo3aLq,  and  (265)  that  of  J.  Gy.  Szilagyi,  who 
in  1963  suggested  aTro^ioxnc,,  meaning  "departure  from  life"  with 
reference  to  Nero's  joke  (Suet.  Nero  33)  that  when  Claudius  ceased 
morari  inter  homines  he  also  ceased  to  be  a  fool  (morari).  As  for  the 
ingenious  article  by  A.  N.  Athanassakis  {Trans.  Am.  Philol.  As.  104 
[1974],  11-22),  Eisenberg  (266)  welcomes  his  idea  that  "in  satire  we 
must  always  watch  for  the  double-entendre"  (see  also  Athanassakis' 
previous  article.  Classical  Philology  68  [1973],  292-94),  but  remains 
cool  to  the  suggestion  that  at  the  end  of  this  satire,  when  Claudius 
is  passed  around  rapidly  from  one  person  to  another  in  the  infernal 
court — what  Coffey  {Lustrum  6,  247)  called  his  final  degradation — 
he  is  very  much  like  the  large  round  ball  with  which  Romans  exercised 
at  the  baths  (see,  e.g.,  Petron.  27),  so  that  he  is  indeed  transformed 
figuratively  into  something  resembling  a  pumpkin  or  kolokynte.  In 
turn  Athanassakis  had  been  cool  (12)  to  Russo's  (and  thus  Eisenberg's) 
interpretation  of  the  title. 

*  Coffey  {Roman  Satire,  note  10),  pointing  out  that  "deification  of  a  pumpkin"  is 
still  open  to  objection,  refers  to  p.  18  of  the  4th  edition  (Firenze  1964)  of  Russo's 
useful  Latin  text  with  Italian  commentary.  The  objection  to  Weinreich's  1923  theory 
(namely  that  apokolokyntosis  could  not  mean  "transformation  into  a  fool"  because 
Claudius  was  already  that  in  his  lifetime)  was  raised  by  the  Czech  scholar,  F.  Stiebitz, 
in  an  essay  included  (391-99)  in  a  Festschrift  {Mvrina)  for  J.  Zubateho  (Praze  1926). 

^  See  the  Tusculum  edition  and  translation  by  W.  Schone  (Miinchen  1957):  Seneca 
Apokolokyntosis,  Die  Verkurbissung  des  Kaisers  Claudius,  with  a  vignette  of  a  round 
pumpkin  on  the  title  page. 

^  First  used  by  C.  Merivale  in  his  History  of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire  (1850-62); 
adopted  by  R.  Graves  for  his  translation  in  an  Appendix  to  his  novel,  Claudius  the 
God  (London  1934). 


70  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

[0.04]  And  Athanassakis  had  not  neglected  considerations  of  botanical 
and  medicinal  science.  While  here  favoring  the  interpretation  of 
kolokynte  as  the  fruit  of  Cucurbita  maxima  (see  above,  0.01),  he  had 
noted  (16)  that  Wagenvoort  in  1934  had  specified  that  the  implement 
of  the  title,  which  he  explained  as  addressed  to  Claudius  and  saying 
in  effect,  me  radicasti  tu  (you  punished  me  with  a  radish)  quidem  (when 
you  exiled  me),  iam  te  cucurbitabo  (now  I'll  pay  you  back  with  something 
more  painful),  was  the  pointed  tip  of  the  swelling  fruit  of  Lagenaria 
vulgaris  (Seringe  [1825],  elevating  Linnaeus'  Cucurbita  lagenaria  to  a 
genus),  what  we  call  a  (bottle-)  gourd  or  calabash,  the  Germans 
(Flaschen-)  Kiirbis,  the  French  cougourde  or  calebasse,  the  Italians  zucca 
{da  vino  or  dal  collo),  and  the  Spaniards  calabaza.  He  had  referred 
{ibid.,  footnote  16)  to  the  important  article  by  F.  A.  Todd,  "Some 
Cucurbitaceae  in  Latin  literature"  {Classical  Quarterly  37  [1943],  101-11), 
which  also  looked  to  the  fruit,  this  time  dried  and  empty,  of  a  small 
bottle-gourd  (see  below,  1.02  and  Figure  4)  in  order  to  explain  the 
title  of  the  satire  and  certain  other  passages.'  Then  at  the  beginning 
of  his  article  (12)  Athanassakis  had  noticed  the  sensational  letter  to 
the  Sunday  Times  of  London  for  May  18,  1958,  "New  light  on  an 
old  murder,"  by  Robert  Graves.  "Graves  assumed  that  the  kolokynte 
of  our  title  is  the  purgative  colocynth,  a  dangerous  alkaline  poison, 
and  that  the  meaning  of  the  title  [no  longer  to  be  rendered  "Pump- 
kinification,"  as  he  had  done  20  years  before:  see  note  6  above]  is: 
deification  by  means  of  a  colocynth."  See  Coffey  {Lustrum,  6,  253) 
for  criticism:  such  an  interpretation  is  impossible  linguistically;  the 
idea  had  been  suggested  long  ago  in  the  Animadversiones  of  the 
humanist  physician  H.  Junius  (1511-75)  and  was  soon  refuted  by 
Heinsius  and  Fromond.  But  Athanassakis  found  it  interesting  as 
leading  to  a  cluster  of  his  double-entendres.  For  the  purgative  derived 
from  the  plant  which  Pliny  called  cucurbita  silvestris  or  colocynthis  and 
we  call  Bitter  Apple,  see  below,  1.02  and  Figure  6. 

[0.05]  For  the  nature  of  the  poison,  called  colocynthine  by  the 
pharmacists  who  isolated  it  in  1948,  classicists  can — and  by  all  means 
should — turn  to  an  article  in  the  (Harvard)  Botanical  Museum  Leaflets, 
No.  5  (1973),  213-44,  by  F  Deltgen  and  H.  G.  Kauer.  They  were 
refuting  an  earlier  article  {Leaflets,  No.  3  [1972],  101-28)  by  the 
scholarly  mycologist,  R.  G.  Wasson,  who  had  examined  the  circum- 
stances of  "The  death  of  Claudius,  or  Mushrooms  for  murderers." 
After  a  very  entertaining  discussion  of  the  use  of  various  species  of 
Amanita  in  various  fictional  or  pseudo-historical  murders  (including 

'  See  Coffey  {Lustrum,  6,  254)  and  my  article,  pp.   181-92  in  Homenaje  a  Antonio 
Tovar  (Madrid  1972).  esp.  p.  191. 


J.  L.  Heller  71 

acute  criticism  of  the  late  Dorothy  Sayers'  The  Documents  in  the  Case), 
Wasson  had  accepted  Graves'  suggestion  that  colocythine,  adminis- 
tered per  clysteram  (Suet.  Claud.  44.  3),  might  have  done  the  trick 
after  the  dinner  of  poisonous  mushrooms  had  failed.  In  their  laborious 
reply,  Deltgen  and  Kauer  take  up  Wasson's  points  one  by  one  and 
demolish  them  on  various  grounds,  historical,  philological,  and  phar- 
macological. In  particular,  an  impossibly  large  amount  of  raw  fruit 
would  have  had  to  be  processed  to  produce  a  lethal  dose,  and 
colocynthine  is  not  a  rapid  poison;  in  fact  there  is  no  record  of  a 
person's  actually  dying  from  it.  They  conclude  by  endorsing  Russo's 
version  of  the  title  (zucconeria  divinazzata)  rather  than  English  "Pump- 
kinification"  or  German  Verkurbissung.  They  have  noted  the  botanical 
definition  (Cucurbita  maxima)  in  LSJ  (see  0.01)  and  they  have  accepted 
the  old  claim  (on  grounds  indicated  in  0.02)  that  "every  educated 
Roman  of  the  time  knew  that  the  Greek  word  stood  for  the  Latin 
cucurbita,  which  was  a  commonly  used  metaphor  for  'fool'  or  'mad- 
man'. " 

[0.06]  But  in  so  doing  Deltgen  and  Kauer  neglected  a  very  important 
point  made  by  Wasson  when  objecting  to  Graves'  former  "Pumpkin- 
ification."  "The  botanist,"  he  says  (125),  "is  rendered  uncorrifortable 
by  an  anachronism;  the  pumpkins  and  squashes  were  introduced  into 
Europe  in  the  16th  century,  being  native  to  America.  The  Mediter- 
ranean shores  knew  other  cucurbits,  but  not  the  pumpkins  and 
squashes."  If  this  is  really  so,  all  the  interpretations  o(  aroKoXoKvuTOjaiq 
in  terms  of  pumpkins  will  have  to  be  discarded,  and  the  botanical 
definition  in  LSJ  as  Cucurbita  maxima  must  be  rejected.  Actually  it 
has  been  superseded  already  in  the  recent  etymological  dictionaries 
of  Frisk  and  Chantraine,  who  define  KoXoKvvdt]  as  Lagenaria  vulgaris.^ 
The  philological  evidence  which  supports  this  conclusion  will  be 
discussed  later  on  (see  2.03).  Here  we  must  look  briefly  at  the 
botanical  and  archaeological  evidence,  much  of  it  published  in  Ger- 
man, which  the  British  scholarly  botanist,  who  drew  up  the  botanical 
definitions  for  LSJ  during  or  just  before  the  First  World  War,  may 
perhaps  be  forgiven  for  ignoring  in  favor  of  French  scholarship.^ 

^  Hj.  Frisk,  Griechisches  etymologisches  WUrlerbuch  (Heidelberg  1954-70),  says  "Flas- 
chenkiirbis,"  Lagenaria  vulgaris;  P.  Chantraine,  Dictionnaire  etymologique  de  la  langue 
grecque;  histoire  des  mots  (t.  2,  Paris  1970),  had  "gourde,  calebasse,  Lagenaria  vulgaris, 
dont  le  fruit  seche  servait  de  bouteille." 

^  This  was  Sir  WiUiam  Thiselton-Dyer,  F.R.S.  See  Sir  Henry  Jones'  preface  to  the 
1940  edition  of  LSJ,  noting  (p.  vii)  that  Dyer  had  already  communicated  a  number 
of  his  identifications  to  Sir  Arthur  Hort  for  use  in  the  Loeb  Classical  Library  edition 
(1916)  of  Theophrastus'  Historia  Plantarum.   Three   installments  of  Dyer's   notes 


72  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

[0.07]  Our  purpose  is  to  determine,  if  possible,  the  places  of  origin — 
whether  Old  World  (Europe,  Africa,  and  Asia)  or  New  World  (the 
Americas,  Indonesia,  and  Australia) — of  the  family  of  cultivated  plants 
known  as  Cucurbitaceae  or  (for  short)  cucurbits.  The  pioneering  work 
in  the  field  of  plant  geography  was  done  by  the  French  botanist, 
Alphonse  de  Candolle,  whose  Origine  des  plantes  cultivees  (Paris  1883) 
has  become  a  classic,  translated  into  many  languages.  His  methods 
stressed  first  of  all  the  location  of  wild  or  semi-cultivated  varieties 
and  only  secondarily  and  with  caution  their  classical  or  vernacular 
names,  because  identification  of  their  species  was  often  problematical. 
Of  more  importance  was  the  archaeological  evidence  derived  from 
ancient  paintings,  mosaics,  and  sculptured  monuments  or  from  pic- 
tures in  medieval  manuscripts  and  early  Renaissance  herbals.  Since 
Candolle's  time  the  various  kinds  of  evidence  have  been  greatly 
enlarged  by  research  in  the  records  kept  by  early  explorers  and  by 
the  observation  of  botanists  who  are  now  included  regularly  on  the 
staffs  of  archaeological  expeditions.  The  resultant  conclusions,  which 
differ  considerably  from  Candolle's,  were  summarized  in  1932  by 
Elisabeth  Schiemann  in  her  authoritative  Entstehung  der  Kulturpflanze, 
published  at  Berlin  as  Bd.  Ill,  Teil  L  of  the  Handbuch  der  Vererbungs- 
wissenschaft  edited  by  E.  Baur  and  M.  Hartmann;  see  especially  her 
tremendous  bibliography  (336-75),  her  introductory  chapter  on 
methods  of  inquiry,  and  her  pages  (237-42)  on  "Cucurbitaceen." 
This  is  the  first  section  of  a  chapter  (237-50)  on  "Weitere  amerikan- 
ische  Kulturpflanzen"  which  also  discusses  the  Tomato  and  Tobacco. 
See  also  p.  64,  Tabelle  9,  III,  for  the  spread  from  America  to  Africa 
and  thence  to  Europe  of  the  three  species  of  Cucurbita  {C.  Pepo, 
moschata,  and  maxima)  which  have  been  called,  in  distinction  to 
Linnaeus'  Cucurbita  lagenaria  (and  the  minor  relative  which  Pliny 
called  cucurbita  silvestris,  see  0.03  above  and  1.02  below),  the  true 
cucurbits  {echte  Kiirbisse),  i.e.  the  pumpkins  and  squashes  mentioned 
by  Wasson.  In  general,  Schiemann's  conclusions  have  been  accepted 
with  only  minor  corrections  by  later  handbooks'"  and  special  studies, 
and  Wasson's  claim  of  anachronism  is  fully  sustained. 

[0.08]  The  case  oi Lagenaria  vulgaris  Seringe  (now  known  as  Lagenaria 

defending  his  choices  appeared  in  the  Cambridge /owrna/  of  Philology,  beginning  on 
pages  195  of  Vol.  33  (1917)  and  78  and  290  of  Vol.  34  (1918),  including  one  on 
sikya  (34,  297-99)  which  is  instructive  on  his  misconceptions,  and  another  on  kolokynte 
(34,  303-05). 

'"  E.g.,  R.  Mansfeld,  Vorlaufiges  Verzeichnis  landwirtschaftlich  oder gartnerisch  kultivierter 
Pflanzenarten  {Die  Kulturpflanzen  .  .  .  Beiheft  2,  Berlin  1959),  "Cucurbitaceae,"  417-32; 
Flora  Europaea,  ed.  T.  G.  Tutin  and  others,  vol.  2  (Cambridge  1968),  297-99. 


J.  L.  Heller  73 

siceraria  Molina  [1782]  since  the  1930  article  by  Standley  in  Publ. 
Field  Mus.  [Chicago],  sen  hot.  3,  435)  is  peculiar  in  that  it  seems  to 
have  been  cultivated  from  very  early  times  in  both  the  New  and  Old 
Worlds.  A  recent  article  by  Richardson  has  collected  and  reviewed, 
area  by  area,  the  evidence  from  the  earliest  archaeological  remains 
of  Lagenaria  in  an  attempt  to  evaluate  "the  hypotheses  that  have 
been  formulated  to  explain  its  world-wide  pre-Columbian  distribu- 
tion.'"' He  concluded  (1)  that  Lagenaria  is  not  a  monotypic  genus 
but  enjoyed  an  ancient  pantropical  distribution,  (2)  that  human 
utilization  oi  Lagenaria  is  at  least  15,000  years  old  in  the  New  World 
(S.  America,  Peru)  and  12,000  years  in  the  Old  World  (Africa,  Egypt), 
(3)  that  these  dates  are  far  too  early  to  suggest  transoceanic  diffusion 
by  man,  though  drifting  from  Africa  or  Asia  may  have  occurred,  (4) 
that  the  earliest  Lagenaria  used  by  man  was  probably  a  wild  plant  in 
the  context  of  a  hunt-and-gather  society,  and  (5)  that  Lagenaria  was 
domesticated  independently  in  the  Old  and  New  Worlds. 

[0.09]  Assertions  about  the  homeland  of  the  true  cucurbits  have  been 
more  controversial.  In  the  English  translation  of  his  Origine  (1886), 
Candolle  added  a  paragraph  admitting  the  cogency  of  the  arguments 
raised  by  his  American  critics,  Asa  Gray  and  J.  H.  Trumbull,  and 
based  on  the  names  and  descriptions  of  plants  reported  by  early 
travelers  in  America,  to  the  effect  that  squashes  and  pumpkins  had 
been  known  in  Mexico  long  before  the  arrival  of  Columbus.  He 
maintained,  however,  that  Cucurbita  maxima  at  least  was  originally  at 
home  in  Africa,  and  this  opinion  was  accepted  by  Dyer  (see  above, 
note  9).  Dyer  also  noted  some  evidence,  brought  out  later  than 
Candolle,  which  favored  an  origin  in  ancient  India.  This  evidence 
was  countered  by  Schiemann  when  she  noted  in  her  1932  book  (240) 
that  in  America  the  cultivated  forms  were  sharply  divided  geograph- 
ically (C.  maxima  in  South  America,  Peru  to  Bolivia;  C  moschata  in 
Colombia  and  Venezuela  to  Mexico;  C.  Pepo  the  same  as  moschata  but 
extending  as  far  north  as  Texas),  whereas  in  Asia  their  ranges  overlap, 
the  absence  of  geographical  separation  indicating  an  imported  culture. 
For  the  counter  to  Candolle's  claim  for  Africa  see  our  next  paragraph 
(0.10);  here  we  note  that  well  before  Schiemann  other  German 
scholars  had  reached  the  negative  conclusion  that  the  true  cucurbits 
were  not  among  those  garden-plants  whose  existence  can  be  traced 
in  reliable  records  from  Pliny  on,  right  through  the  Middle  Ages 
(the  Capitulary  of  Charlemagne)  to  Albertus  Magnus  and  the  earliest 

"J.  B.  Richardson  III,  Economic  Botany,  26  (1972),  265-73.  See  also  T.  W.  Whitaker 
and  G.  N.  Davis,  Cucurbits:  Botany,  Cultivation,  and  Utilization  (London  and  New  York 
1962),  passim. 


74  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

illustrated  herbals.  The  leader  here  was  R.  von  Fischer-Benzon  in 
his  Altdeutsche  Gartenflora  (Kiel  and  Leipzig,  1894),  discussing  the 
history  of  the  Cucurbitaceae  on  pages  89-92.  This  was  soon  taken  up 
by  the  philologist  Otto  Schrader  in  the  first  edition  (Strassburg,  1901) 
of  his  Reallexikon  der  indogermanischen  Altertumskunde  (see  p.  483). 
Then  in  the  fifth  edition  (1887)  of  Victor  Hehn's  deservedly  popular 
Kulturpflanzen  und  Hausthiere  .  .  .  (first  published  in  1870,  with  a 
third  edition  in  1877  which  Candolle  rather  enviously  disparaged  in 
his  preface  of  1886),  the  botanist  A.  Engler  noted  that  the  homeland 
of  the  true  cucurbits  (e.g.  C.  Pepo)  was  most  likely  in  America,  and 
in  the  seventh  edition  (1902)  Schrader  added  (319)  the  statement 
"dass  die  echten  Kiirbisse  den  Alten  noch  fremd  waren."  These 
opinions  were  repeated  by  Orth  in  the  R-E,  bd.  7  (1912)  on  "Gurke" 
and  bd.  11  (1922)  on  "Kiirbis,"  but  Dyer  failed  to  see  any  of  them. 
So  too  most  recent  classicists  (except  Wagenvoort  and  Todd),  misled 
by  the  definition  in  LSJ,  have  missed  this  important  point.  This 
includes  Weinreich,  Russo,  Coffey,  and  others,  including  myself  in 
my  former  article  (see  note  7).  But  with  a  sure  hand.  Frisk  (above, 
note  8)  pointed  to  the  Reallexikon  of  Schrader  and  Nehring  (1917-23). 

[0.10]  Candolle's  argument  for  an  African  homeland  had  been  based 
on  the  report  of  a  single  traveler  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Niger.  In 
a  thorough  review  of  all  the  botanical  evidence  for  and  against  an 
"American  Origin  of  the  Cultivated  Cucurbits,"  Whitaker'^  has  shown 
how  weak  this  evidence  is  in  the  face  of  the  numerous  investigations 
of  related  species  in  the  Americas,  and  he  has  added  the  negative 
evidence  of  the  late  appearance  of  these  species  in  European  herbals 
of  the  sixteenth  and  even  seventeenth  century,  from  which  he  supplies 
eight  figures  in  two  plates.  His  argument  would  be  stronger  if  he 
had  also  compared  earlier  herbals.  Candolle  had  examined  one  such, 
a  Herbarius  Pataviae  Impressus  (1485),  which  he  had  reported  (in  his 
English  Origin,  247)  as  containing  a  recognizable  figure  of  Lagenaria 
vulgaris  but  not  (256)  of  Cucurbita  Pepo  or  C.  maxima.  But  Whitaker's 
arguments,  when  added  to  those  of  the  German  authorities,  are 
convincing  enough.  I  know  of  only  one  dissenting  argument,  that  of 
Don  and  Patricia  Bothwell.  In  their  recent  book.  Food  in  Antiquity 
(London  1969),  they  say  (127-28):  "The  genus  Cucurbita  seems  to 
be  about  as  confusing  as  that  of  Lagenaria,  for  whilst  many  species 
may  be  counted  definitely  American  in  origin,  it  seems  likely  that 
one,  the  pumpkin  {Cucurbita  maxima)  was  already  wild  in  Africa  before 
European  or  American  contact  was  made  there,  and  indeed  some  of 

'2  T.  W.  Whitaker,  Annals  of  the  Missouri  Botanical  Garden,  34  (1947),  101-11.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  he  does  not  refer  to  Schiemann  or  any  of  the  German  authorities. 


J.  L.  Heller  75 

the  Greek  and  Roman  references  to  cucurbita  would  fit  in  well  with 
this  genus."  That  is,  they  are  still  accepting  both  Candolle's  argument, 
which  I  think  has  been  discredited,  and  the  botanical  definition  of 
KoXoKvudr]  in  LSJ,  which  followed  Candolle  and  was,  I  believe,  a  serious 
mistake  on  the  part  of  Thiselton-Dyer. 

[0.11]  Here  we  should  acknowledge  that  the  lexical  definition  in  LSJ 
is  simply  "round  gourd,"  followed  by  the  botanical  name,  Cucurbita 
maxima.  Previous  editions  of  Liddell  and  Scott's  Lexicon  had  said  "the 
round  gourd  or  pumpkin,  Lat.  cucurbita,  the  long  one  being  called 
(TLKva."  This  is  unobjectionable,  going  back  to  a  passage  in  Athenaeus 
as  interpreted  in  the  great  Thesaurus  of  Stephanus  (see  below,  2.02) — 
except  that  the  implied  equivalence  of  "gourd"  and  "pumpkin"  seems 
curious  to  an  American  reader.  But  to  an  Englishman  this  would  be 
quite  natural.  Candolle  in  his  English  Origin  headed  the  section  on 
Cucurbita  maxima  (249)  with  the  word  "Gourd,"  though  it  was 
"Potiron"  in  the  original  French.  And  just  before  this,  where  the 
section  on  Lagenaria  vulgaris  (245)  is  headed  by  the  words  "Gourd 
or  Calabash,"  he  placed  a  footnote:  "The  word  gourd  is  also  used  in 
English  for  Cucurbita  maxima.  This  is  one  of  the  examples  of  the 
confusion  in  common  names  and  the  greater  accuracy  of  scientific 
terms."  The  Century  Dictionary  and  Cyclopedia  (New  York  1889)  notes 
that  formerly  gourd  designated  the  fruit  of  various  cucurbitaceous 
genera,  including  melons,  pumpkins,  squashes,  etc.  as  well  as  gourds 
themselves,  but  now,  in  a  restricted  sense,  the  fruit  of  Lagenaria 
lagenaria  or  the  plant  itself.  There  are  other  examples  of  this  old- 
fashioned  usage.  One  of  the  best  occurs  in  the  History  of  Merivale 
(above,  note  6).  In  explaining  his  novel  term  "Pumpkinification"  for 
Seneca's  skit,  he  refers  (in  a  footnote  on  p.  463  of  the  fifth  volume 
of  the  New  York  edition,  1864-79)  to  "the  number  of  unwieldy  and 
bloated  gourds  which  sun  their  speckled  bellies  before  the  doors"  in 
modern  Rome,  "to  form  a  favorite  condiment  to  the  food  of  the 
poorer  classes." 

[0.12]  The  history  of  the  word  "pumpkin"  is  also  very  pertinent 
here.  Dictionaries  trace  it  back  to  medieval  Latin  pepon,  through  Old 
French  pompon  and  earlier  English  pompion,  applied  to  any  large 
round  fruit,  e.g.  a  melon  (compare  also  English  pippin).  And  classical 
lexicographers  (e.g.  Steieron  "Melone"  in  the  R-E  29  [1931],  562-67; 
Schrader  and  Nehring  [1917-23,  above,  0.09];  and  of  course  LSJ 
and  Frisk)  trace  the  medieval  pepon  back  through  Latin  sources  all 
the  way  to  the  Greek  adjective  Tre-Ko^v,  properly  meaning  "ripe  or 
mature"  but  applied  metaphorically  in  Homer  and  Hesiod  to  persons 
in  mild  or  affectionate  reproach  (o)  -Ki-wov,  II.  VL  55,  IX.  252;  Hes. 


76  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

Th.  544,  560,  etc.).  The  adjective  was  frequently  attached  to  the 
noun  aiKvoq,  "cucumber"  (Hp.,  Morb.  III.  17,  Vict.  II.  55,  PI.  Com., 
fr.  64.  4,  etc.)  in  a  phrase  indicated  the  (sweet)  melon,  which  would 
not  be  eaten  until  fully  ripe,  whereas  cucumbers  were  eaten  green, 
whether  raw  or  cooked.  The  adjective  was  also  substantivized  in 
Greek  and  was  recognized  by  Pliny  as  the  name  for  an  unusually 
large  (Nat.  XIX.  65)  and  salubrious  (XX.  11)  variety  of  cucumis, 
probably  the  watermelon,  which  was  known  in  ancient  Egypt  and 
was  called  Cucurbita  Citrullus  by  Linnaeus,  and  Citrullus  lanatus  by 
Thunberg  in  1794.  Steier  also  notes  that  Pliny's  description  (XIX. 
67)  of  the  golden  color  and  sweet  odor  of  the  small  quince-like  fruits, 
called  melopepones,  of  another  variant  oi  cucumis  (which  Pliny  thought, 
mistakenly,  had  appeared  spontaneously  in  Campania)  is  strikingly 
apt  for  the  sweet  melon.  Later  the  originally  Greek  compound  (e.g. 
/nTjAoTTfTrcof,  Galen  VI.  566)  was  shortened  to  melones,  whence  come 
Linnaeus'  trivial  name  {Cucumis)  Melo  and  the  familiar  words  in  the 
modern  vernaculars.  But  the  word  pepo,  which  continued  to  denote 
the  watermelon,  was  sometimes  applied  to  other  fruits  of  similar 
shape  (compare  Fuchs'  Pepones  in  my  Figure  8,  identified  by  modern 
botanists  as  fruits  of  Cucumis  Melo),  whence  come  the  various  words 
in  the  modern  vernaculars  noted  above  and  Linnaeus'  somewhat 
arbitrary  {Cucurbita)  Pepo,  which  even  Candolle  admitted  was  probably 
at  home  originally  in  America. 

[0.13]  In  the  sections  which  follow,  I  propose,  first,  to  examine 
lexicographically  all  the  contexts  in  which  the  word  cucurbita  occurs, 
especially  in  the  writings  of  St.  Jerome  (where  I  think  several 
expressions  need  clearing  up),  in  order  to  determine  the  range  and 
relative  familiarity  of  its  meanings,  whether  literal,  figurative,  or 
transferred,  which  cluster  around  its  central  meaning,  i.e.  a  plant, 
Lagenaria  vulgaris,  or  one  of  its  fruits.'^  Secondly,  since  Candolle  said 

"  The  woodcut  illustrations  of  plants  in  my  Figures  3-7  are  reproduced  through 
the  courtesy  of  the  Hunt  Botanical  Library  of  Carnegie-Mellon  University,  from  two 
rare  books  in  their  collection.  The  first  (Figure  3)  is  from  Lobelius  (Matthias  de 
rObel).  Plantarum  seu  Stirpium  hones  (Antverpiae  1581),  p.  641  at  the  right-hand 
side.  Whitaker  (see  note  12)  agrees  with  Candolle  that  this  is  "the  first  illustration 
of  a  plant  that  is  definitely  referable  to  C.  maximal  The  other  figures  are  drawn 
from  the  1549  octavo  edition  {Vivae  Imagines)  of  the  De  historia  stirpium  Commentarii 
(Basileae  1542)  of  Leonhart  Fuchs.  Secure  identifications  of  its  plants  were  made  by 
T.  A.  Sprague,  /  Linn.  Soc.  London,  Botany,  48,  545-642,  from  which  we  note  the 
following:  my  Figures  4  and  5,  Lagenaria  vulgaris  Seringe;  6,  Citrullus  Colocynthis  (L.) 
Schrader;  7,  Cucumis  Melo  L.  But  Fuchs'  pages  402  and  403  (not  shown  here)  have 
recognizable  figures  of  Cucurbita  Pepo  L.,  labeled  respectively  Cucumer  turcicus  and  C. 
marinus,  and  in  both  cases  said  {Commentarii,  702)  to  be  recent  introductions  into 


J.  L.  Heller  11 

flatly  {Origin,  246)  "Greek  authors  do  not  mention  the  plant,"  though 
he  recognized  Lagenaria  vulgaris  in  passages  from  Columella  and 
Pliny  describing  cucurbita  (see  below,  1.25  and  26),  I  propose  to 
examine  similarly  some  (but  by  no  means  all)  of  the  Greek  contexts — 
especially  those  in  Athenaeus  which  preserve  fragments  of  Greek 
comedy  (see  above,  0.02) — in  which  the  word  koXokvvtt]  (or  -vudrj)  or 
KoXoKvura  (or  -vda)  or  one  of  its  derivatives  is  used.  I  hope  to  show 
that  in  the  range  of  their  meanings  the  words  are  not  incompatible 
with  Latin  cucurbita  and  the  nature  of  Lagenaria.  Here  Alexandrian 
papyri  and  at  least  one  painting  from  Herculaneum  will  be  useful  in 
demonstrating  that  the  plant  and  its  fruits  were  well  known  to  the 
Romans  of  Seneca's  time.  Then  in  the  third  and  last  section  I  will 
return  to  the  problem  of  apocolocyntosis.  Directing  attention  to  the 
end  of  the  satire,  where  the  divine  Claudius  becomes  a  very  minor 
civil  servant  in  the  underworld,  I  will  suggest  (as  I  did  in  my  former 
study,  see  note  7)  that  here  he  was  being  made  over  into  something 
very  much  like  a  living  plant,  still  useful  but  to  the  wrong  people 
and  in  very  humble  circumstances.  This  would  be  a  figurative  trans- 
formation (as  Athanassakis  suggested)  and  "a  kind  of  immortaliza- 
tion." But  I  cannot  believe  Eisenberg's  assertion  that  Seneca  applied 
his  coinage  to  the  satire  as  a  formal  title.  Everything  suggests  that  it 
circulated  among  its  first  readers  anonymously  and  with  no  more 
title  than  its  opening  words:  Quid  actum  sit  in  caelo.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the 
word  was  uttered  in  a  private  conversation  (like  the  other  comments 
reported  by  Dio),  in  answer  to  a  question  about  the  satire  and  in 
somewhat  rueful  acknowledgment  of  his  authorship. 

I.  St.  Jerome  on  Cucurbita 

[1.01]  In  his  Commentary  (c.  406  A.D.)  on  Amos  (II.  5,  p.  289 
Vallarsi;  Migne  25,  col.  1042)  St.  Jerome  was  concerned  with  God's 
action  in  raising  the  salt  waters  of  the  seas  by  means  of  heavenly  heat 
and  then  transforming  them  into  the  sweet  savor  of  the  rains.  In  this 
action,  he  says,  God  is  instar  medicinalis  cucurbitae,  quae  calore  superioris 
gyri  humorem  et  sanguinem  sursum  trahit.  The  fine  simile  was  cited  in 
Mayor's  invaluable  note  {Thirteen  Satires  of  Juvenal,  vol.  2,  1881)  on 
the  phrase  ventosa  cucurbita  (14.  58),  together  with  references  to 
ancient  medical  writers  who  describe  the  implement,  necessarily  made 
of  fire-resistant   material   (metal,   bone,   baked  clay,   or   glass)  and 

Germany;  but  there  is  no  figure  of  Cucurbita  maxima.  The  first  illustration  of  C. 
moschata,  according  to  Candolle  and  Whitaker,  came  in  Rheede's  Hortus  indicus 
malabaricus  (1688),  more  than  a  century  after  Fuchs. 


78  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

prescribe  its  application  by  means  of  fire,  which  exhausts  the  air 
within  the  instrument  and  draws  blood  and  the  less  material  agent 
of  disease  from  the  affected  parts  of  the  body,  including  (Celsus,  III. 
1 8)  the  back  of  the  head  in  cases  of  mental  derangement — which  is 
precisely  what  Juvenal  implies  here.  In  modern  practice  the  hypo- 
dermic syringe  has  replaced  the  implement  and  the  more  dangerous 
expedient  of  venesection,  but  both  methods  of  drawing  blood  were 
still  popular  in  eighteenth-century  Europe,  and  for  the  ancient  world 
archaeology  has  revealed  many  examples  of  the  actual  metallic 
implements  or  their  outlines  in  vase  painting  or  in  relief  on  sculptured 
stone  or  stamped  coins.'"*  The  implements  are  quite  small,  ranging 
from  three  to  six  inches  in  overall  height  and  from  two  to  four  inches 
in  gross  diameter,  measured  at  the  base  of  the  swelling  top,  which  is 
either  conical  in  profile  (as  in  my  Figure  I)  or  more  or  less  perfectly 
semicircular.  Below  this  diameter  the  neck  or  collar  of  the  instrument 
stretches  downward  for  a  couple  of  inches,  ending  in  a  rounded  lip 
where  the  mouth  of  the  instrument,  ranging  from  a  bare  inch  in 
diameter  to  2V2  inches,  would  fit  nicely  over  the  skin  of  the  patient. 
Jerome's  "heat  of  the  upper  circle"  fits  admirably  both  the  sun  in 
the  sky  and  the  burning  lint  or  oil  in  the  swelling  globe  of  the 
instrument — provided  that  it  is  visualized  hanging  empty  by  a  ring 
on  the  wall  of  a  surgeon's  office.  In  actual  use,  of  course,  the  implement 
was  applied  horizontally;  otherwise  whatever  burned  inside  would 
fall  down  on  the  skin  of  the  patient.  Compare  Paul  of  Aegina  (VI. 
41,  cited  by  Milne,  p.  102)  and  the  famous  riddle  (I  saw  a  person 
gluing  bronze  to  a  man  with  fire)  in  which  x<x\Kbv  KoXXr^aaura  is 
explained  (Arist.  Rhet.  III.  2,  1405  b  1;  cf.  Plut.  Conv.  [Moralia,  154 
b]  and  Athen.  X.  452  b)  as  aiKvav  irpoa^aXouTa. 

[1.02]  The  terms  applied  in  antiquity  to  this  vessel,  known  in  modern 
times  as  a  cupping-glass  {Schr'dpfkopfm  German,  ventosa  in  Italian  and 
Spanish,  and  ventouse  in  French),  were  studied  long  ago  by  G. 
Helmreich  {Archiv  f.  lat.  Lexicogr.  u.  Gramm.  1  [1884],  321-23).  In 
Greek  it  was  usually  called  OLKva  (as  above)  and  in  Latin  cucurbita 
because  in  shape  it  resembled  a  small  pyriform  gourd.  Compare  my 
Figure  4,  where  two  little  gourds  can  be  seen  at  the  left  of  and  below 

'■^  See  text  and  illustrations  in  J.  S.  Milne,  Surgical  Implements  in  Greek  and  Rornan 
Times  (Oxford  1907),  T.  Meyer-Steineg  and  K.  Sudhoff,  Geschichte  der  Mediiin  im 
Uberblick  mil  Abbildung  (Jena  1921),  and  John  Scarborough,  Roman  Medicine  (Ithaca 
1969).  The  extensive  collection  of  the  modern  Greek  physician  K.  P.  Lampros  {Peri 
sikyon  kai  sikyaseos  para  tois  archaiois,  a  Festschrift  for  Ernest  Curtius,  Athens,  1895) 
is  known  to  me  only  through  the  review  by  R.  Fuchs  in  Wochenschr  f.  klass.  Phil.  12 
(1895),  458-61. 


J.  L.  Heller  79 

the  large  gourd  labeled  by  Fuchs  (p.  209)  Cucurbita  maior  or  Grosz 
Kiirbsz.  Thus  Scribonius  Largus  and  (much  later)  Caelius  Aurelianus 
use  the  expressions  cucurbitam  adfigere,  apponere,  or  adhibere,  where 
the  Greek  expression  in  Hippocrates  and  elsewhere  was  regularly 
aiKvrjv  TrpoafiaXtiv.  But  since  products  of  the  plant  cucurbita  were  also 
utilized  in  various  medicinal  preparations  (see,  e.g.,  Pliny,  Nat.  XX. 
16-17),  certain  authors  tried  to  distinguish  the  implement  linguisti- 
cally. In  Celsus  the  plant  and  its  fruit  remained  cucurbita,  but  the 
implement  of  similar  shape  was  called  cucurbitula  regularly  (see  the 
Thesaurus  for  references).  The  diminutive  was  often  used  by  later 
writers  in  this  sense,  so  that  it  became  the  regular  technical  term  for 
the  implement  in  modern  medical  Latin. '^  But  Scribonius  Largus 
(106)  and  others  following  him  had  also  used  the  diminutive  to  denote 
the  cucurbita  silvestris  or  colocynthis  (Pliny,  Nat.  XX.  14-15;  cf.  Diosc. 
IV.  176  [Wellmann]  KoXoKVuda  aypia  or  aLKva  ttlkpSc  or  KoXoKvvdiq), 
Coloquinte  or  Bitter  Apple,  a  plant  which  is  cultivated  today  in 
various  warm  regions  (northern  Africa,  Cyprus,  southern  India)  for 
its  dried  fruits,  which  contain  a  drastic  purge  (as  noted  by  both  Pliny 
and  Dioscorides),  and  for  its  oil-bearing  seeds;  see  my  Figure  6  (Fuchs 
2 1 2).  Hence  Pliny  and  Juvenal  found  it  necessary  to  add  an  aeljective 
to  cucurbita  in  order  to  designate  the  implement,  Pliny  medicinalis  in 
a  passage  {Nat.  XXXII.  122-23)  that  compares  the  use  of  natural 
leeches  (hirudines)  and  of  the  instrument  for  drawing  blood,  and 
Juvenal  ventosa,  as  we  have  seen.  Pliny's  adjective  denotes  the  instru- 
ment in  a  few  places  among  later  writers  on  medicine,  including  St. 
Jerome's  contemporary,  Theodorus  Priscianus  (once  only,  IV,  p.  110 
N.  according  to  Helmreich),  but  never  became  a  regular  designation. 
Juvenal's  ventosa,  however,  which  Helmreich  thought  was  drawn  from 
popular  speech,'*^  was  taken  up  by  others.  Helmreich  cites  12  places 
in  Theodorus  Priscianus  where  the  simple  cucurbita  denotes  the 
instrument,  six  places  where  ventosa  is  joined  to  cucurbita,  and  five 
places  where  ventosa  alone  is  used.  But  in  later  Latin  translations 
from  the  Greek  of  Alexander  of  Tralles  and  Oribasius  the  trend  is 
reversed:  cucurbita  is  rare,  ventosa  more  frequent,  until  it  emerges  as 
the  technical  term  in  the  Romance  languages. 

[1.03]  We  can  conclude  that  in  using  the  term  medicinalis  cucurbita 

'^  E.g.  the  physician  Leonhart  Fuchs  added  his  translation  of  a  Hbellus  of  Galen, 
De  hirudinibus,  reimlsione,  cucurbitula,  et  scarificatione,  to  his  translation  with  commentary 
on  the  related  work,  De  curatione  per  sanguinis  missionem  (Lugduni  1546). 

'^  Most  children  learn,  as  I  did  near  beaches  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  that  if  one 
holds  any  concave  object,  an  open  shell  or  a  cup,  or  even  a  cupped  hand,  over  his 
ear  loosely,  he  will  hear  a  wind  or  the  roar  of  the  surf.  Compare  Lucan's  phrase  (IX. 
349)  ventosa  concha. 


80  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

Jerome  had  been  consulting  his  copy  of  Pliny,  and  we  shall  soon  find 
evidence  that  he  drew  from  Pliny  on  earlier  occasions,  when  he  was 
speaking  of  the  plant  rather  than  the  instrument  whose  shape  resem- 
bled a  small  fruit  of  the  plant.  Mayor,  however,  concluded  his  long 
note  by  pointing  to  a  cut,  printed  by  Rich,  which  he  said  represented 
an  instrument  actually  "made  out  of  a  pumpkin,  preserved  in  the 
Vatican  library,"  and  we  must  examine  this  bit  of  information  before 
going  on.  The  cut,  shown  in  my  Figure  2,  is  taken  from  the  once 
deservedly  popular  illustrated  Dictionary  of  Roman  and  Greek  Antiquities 
by  Anthony  Rich,  whose  article  (in  his  3rd  edn.,  London  1873)  reads 
as  follows: 

CUCURBITA  and  cucurbitula  {KoXoKvvdri,  olkvo).  A  pumpkin,  or  gourd; 
thence,  a  cupping-glass,  which  the  ancients  made  out  of  these  fruits 
(Juv.  Sat.  14.  58)  as  well  as  of  horn  or  bronze  (Celsus  ii  11).  The 
example  represents  an  ancient  original  made  out  of  a  pumpkin,  now 
preserved  in  the  Vatican  Library,  and  published  by  Rhodius. 

But  most  of  this  is  misinformation.  The  object  was  never  in  the 
Vatican  Museums,  and  the  woodcut  which  Rich  copied  was  not 
published  by  the  learned  Danish  physician,  Johan  Rhode,  who  died 
at  Padua  in  1659.  After  a  deal  of  searching  in  various  libraries  I 
found  it  in  an  edition  of  Celsus'  eight  books  De  medicina  (which  also 
contained  Rhode's  Vita  Celsi),  published  at  Amsterdam  in  1687.  Here 
on  p.  562  the  cut,  supplied  by  the  editor,  Th.  J.  van  Almeloveen, 
illustrates  one  of  three  bronze  and  seven  figuline  cucurbitulae  cata- 
logued (p.  80)  in  the  Antiquitates  Neomagenses  (Nijmegen,  1678)  by 
Johannes  Smetius  (father  and  son).  Unfortunately,  as  I  am  told  by 
the  director,  A.  V.  M.  Hubrecht,  of  the  present  Museum  van  Romeins 
Nijmegen,  the  entire  collection  was  sold  in  1703  to  the  Kurfiirst  of 
the  Pfalz.  Later  it  was  dispersed  among  various  museums  in  Germany, 
and,  while  some  of  the  bronzes  have  been  located  at  a  museum  in 
Mannheim,  this  distinctive  vessel  was  not  one  of  them.  Finally,  the 
object  has  the  shape  of  a  small  gourd  (see  again  Figure  4),  not  a 
pumpkin.  Except  that  its  neck  is  closed  and  an  open  mouth  has  been 
made  at  the  opposite  bulbous  end,  it  is  not  unlike  the  bronze 
implement  of  Figure  1,  and  it  would  work  just  as  well.  The  object 
may  still  exist  and  it  may  be  genuinely  ancient,  but  it  was  probably 
made  of  baked  clay  if  not  of  bronze,  and  Rich's  statement  about  its 
manufacture  has  no  foundation.  The  article  in  the  great  Dictionnaire 
of  Daremberg  and  Saglio,  which  superseded  Rich,  does  not  mention 
him  or  his  cut  and  explains  the  semantic  shift  of  cucurbita  and 
cucurbitula  from  courge  or  gourde  to  ventouse  just  as  we  have  done 


J.  L.  Heller  81 

above  (1.02),  because  the  instrument  was  sometimes  made  "en  forme 
de  gourde." 

[1.04]  Before  going  on  in  Jerome  we  digress  to  discuss  one  of  the 
passages  alleged  by  Eisenberg  (above,  0.02)  and  others  to  mean 
Dummkopf.  This  is  in  Trimalchio's  reading  of  the  horoscope  (Petron. 
39.  1 2):  in  aquario  copones  et  cucurbitae.  Since  only  people  are  mentioned 
as  being  born  under  the  various  signs,  cucurbitae  cannot  have  its  literal 
meaning,  and  since  most  of  the  people  are  obnoxious  in  one  way  or 
another,  the  meaning  "fools"  or  "blockheads"  has  been  read  into 
cucurbitae.  But  Friedlaender  in  his  translation  (1906)  had  rendered 
the  word  as  Schrbpjkopfe ,  giving  the  implement  a  figurative  meaning, 
"persons  who  bleed  or  fleece  one."  I  think  this  must  be  right.  The 
metaphor  is  confirmed  by  the  novel  personal  name  2i/cua:<;,  applied 
in  jest  to  a  fawning  parasite,  one  of  those  ellogimoi  kolakes,  who  clung 
to  the  hand  of  his  indolent  patron,  according  to  a  story  from  Clearchus 
of  Soli  reported  by  Athenaeus  (VI.  257  a).  Gulick  in  his  Loeb 
translation  (1930)  quite  missed  the  point  when  he  rendered  the  name 
as  "Cucumber"!  People  who  cling  like  leeches  are  still  proverbial.  In 
Jacobean  England  the  older  figure  was  applied  to  student  drudges: 
"Still  at  their  books,  they  will  not  be  pull'd  off;  /  They  stick  like 
cupping-glasses.' ' ' ' 

[1.05]  Our  next  set  of  references  in  St.  Jerome  concerns  the  plant 
in  the  Biblical  story  of  Jonah  which  the  Lord  appointed  to  provide 
shade  for  Jonah  (yulg.  Ion.  4:6)  as  he  sat  under  the  bower  or  booth 
{umbraculum,  ibid.  4:5)  which  he  had  made  for  himself  to  the  east  of 
the  city  of  Nineveh,  watching  to  see  what  would  happen  to  it.  Jonah 
was  grateful  for  the  shade  of  the  plant  (4:6).  But  at  dawn  the  next 
day  the  Lord  appointed  a  worm  to  attack  the  plant  (4:7)  so  that  it 
withered  away.  Then  when  the  sun  rose  the  Lord  aroused  a  hot, 
burning  wind  and  the  sun  beat  down  on  the  head  of  Jonah  until  he 
was  in  great  distress  {aestuabat,  4:8)  and  begged  to  die.  And  the  Lord 
said  to  Jonah,  "Do  you  think  you  are  right  to  be  so  distressed  {irasci, 
4:9)  over  a  plant?"  And  when  Jonah  replied,  "Yes  I  am  right  to  be 
distressed  even  to  death,"  the  Lord  answered,  "You  grieve  over  a 
plant  (4:10)  for  which  you  did  not  labor,  neither  did  you  make  it 
grow,  which  came  into  being  in  one  night  and  perished  in  one  night, 
and  am  I  not  to  pity  {non  parcam,  4: 11)  that  great  city  Nineveh?" 

[1.06]  In  the  five  places  above  where  the  word  "plant"  occurs  in  the 
Revised  (American)  Standard  Version  of  the  Old  Testament  (1952), 

"  Lines  from  a  play  by  Fletcher  (and  others)  cited  in  the  Century  Dictionary  and 
Cyclopedia  (1889)  under  "Cupping-glass." 


82  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

the  version  of  the  LXX  had  KoXoKvvda  (or  -vra).  This  had  been 
rendered  as  cucurbita  in  the  Old  Latin  versions  which  St.  Jerome 
followed  in  the  translation  from  the  LXX  which  he  prefixed  to  his 
Commentary  on  the  relevant  verses  of  Jonah;  see  the  recent  (1956) 
and  excellent  text  edited  by  P.  Antin,  pages  108,  113,  and  115 
(Vallarsi  425-28,  Migne,  PL  25,  1147-50).'^  Thus  it  was  recognized 
that  this  rapidly  climbing,  shade-producing  plant  was  called  in  Latin 
cucurbita  and  in  Greek  kolokyntha.  Compare  also  Ambr.  Hex.  V.  11. 
35;  Aug.  Gen.  ad  lit.  IX.  14,  Epist.  102  (4  times  in  sections  30-36: 
CSEL  34,  p.  570.  15,  574.  15  and  19,  and  576.  11);  and  Jerome 
himself  in  his  dedicatory  preface  to  Chromatius  (Antin  p.  54:  quod 
.  .  .  cucurbitae  sit  delectatus  umbraculo). 

[1.07]  If  the  Christian  Fathers  needed  documentation  for  these  two 
characteristics  of  the  evidently  familiar  plant  cucurbita,  they  could 
have  found  it  in  a  passage  of  Pliny  {Nat.  XIX.  69-70)  which  is 
confirmed  by  another  in  Columella  (X.  378-80).  Both  authors  de- 
scribe cucumis  and  cucurbita  together.  Pliny  asserts  that  the  nature  of 
both  growing  plants  is  such  that  they  are  eager  to  reach  aloft  {natura 
sublimitatis  avida)  and  often  do  climb  {scandentis),  fastening  themselves 
by  means  of  their  creeping,  whip-like  shoots  {reptantibus  flagellis)  to 
the  rough  places  on  walls  {per  parietum  aspera),  rapidly  {velocitas 
pernix) — provided  they  do  have  some  support  {vires  sine  adminiculo 
standi  non  sunt) — all  the  way  to  the  roof  {in  tectum  usque),  where  they 
cover  the  vaults  {camaras)  and  sheds  {pergulas)  or  (in  Columella) 
trellises  {trichilas)  with  gentle  shade  {levi  umbra).  Hence,  Pliny  adds 
(70),  there  are  two  kinds,  a  genus  camararium  and  a  genus  plebeium 
in  which  it  (the  plant)  creeps  along  the  ground  {quo  humi  repit).^^  In 
the  former  kind,  Pliny  continues,  a  heavy  weight  (i.e.  the  fruit)  hangs 
balanced  motionless  in  the  breeze  {libratur  pondus  inmobile  aurae), 
dangling  (i.e.  from  the  camara)  on  a  surprisingly  slender  foot-stalk 
{mire  tenui  pediculo).  And  he  adds  that  the  growth  o{  cucurbita  too  (i.e. 
the  fruit,  like  the  fruit  oi cucumis,  whose  shape  is  artificially  controlled; 
see  65,  crescunt  qua  coguntur  forma)  is  controlled  {crescit  qua  cogitur 
forma)  by  wicker-work  sheaths  placed  over  the  withering  flowers  so 
that  the  figure  of  a  writhing  serpent  is  often  produced,  but  if  the 
fruit  is  allowed  to  hang  free  {libertate  vero  pensili  concessa)  it  has  been 

'^  Saint  Jerome  sur  Jonas,  introduction,  texte  latin,  traduction  et  notes  de  Dom 
Paul  Antin,  O.S.B.,  moine  de  Liguge  (Paris  1956;  Sources  Chretiennes,  No.  43). 
Antin  (p.  7)  dates  the  Commentary  to  396,  the  translation  from  the  Hebrew  to 
391-94. 

'^  Or,  if  we  adopt  Mayhoff 's  conjecture  and  translate:  in  which  it  (the  fruit)  grows 
along  the  ground  {quo  humi  crescit). 


J.  L.  Heller  83 

known  to  attain  a  length  of  nine  feet.  With  this  the  lines  of  Columella 
(X.  378-80)  are  to  be  compared:  Turn  modo  dependens  trichilis,  modo 
more  chelydri  /  sole  sub  aestivo  gelidas  per  graminis  umbras  /  intortus 
cucumis  praegnasque  cucurbita  serpit.  Here  the  epithet  for  cucurbita 
suggests  the  swelling  belly  of  the  cupping-vessel  (Figures  1  and  2) 
and  the  pyriform  shape  of  Fuchs'  Grosz  Kurbsz  (Figure  4).  The  longer 
cylindrical  form  may  be  seen  in  Fuchs'  Lang  Kurbsz  (Figure  5)  and 
the  frail,  slender  peduncle  is  apparent  in  both  sixteenth-century 
figures. 

[1.08]  But  when  St.  Jerome  came  to  translate  from  the  Hebrew  in 
what  has  become  the  Vulgate  Version,  he  substituted  the  word  hedera 
for  cucurbita  in  the  five  places  noted  above  (1.06).  This  was  to  involve 
him  in  a  long  controversy — what  he  later  called  {Epist.  115.  3  =  Aug. 
81.3)  ridicula  cucurbitae  quaestio — with  St.  Augustine  and  others  who 
in  general  objected  to  Jerome's  use  of  Hebrew  sources  which  were 
at  variance  with  the  familiar  Latin  phrases  based  on  the  version  of 
the  LXX  which  had  served  the  apostles  and  the  early  church  so  well. 
This  particular  problem  has  been  discussed  repeatedly  and,  given  the 
nature  of  an  age-old  story,  is  perhaps  insoluble.  Hence  the  Revised 
Version  used  the  neutral  word  "plant"  (rather  than  the  "gourd"  of 
the  King  James  Version  or  the  "ivy"  of  the  Douay  translation)  with 
a  footnote:  Heb.  qiqayon,  probably  the  castor-oil  plant.  Commentators 
on  the  Bible  and  on  the  plants  of  the  Bible  (e.g.  H.  W.  and  A.  L. 
Moldenke,  Waltham,  Mass.  1952)  generally  agree,  identifying  the 
plant  as  Ricinus  communis  L.^° 

[1.09]  The  conflict  with  St.  Augustine  began  in  394  when  "the 
younger  man,  wishing  to  open  relations  with  the  renowned  scholar 
of  Bethlehem,  made  the  disastrous  mistake  of  sending  Jerome  a  letter 
questioning  certain  aspects  of  Jerome's  scholarship."^'  The  first  of 
these  was  Jerome's  project  of  translating  the  OT  prophets  from  the 
original  Hebrew  rather  than  from  the  LXX.  Augustine  thought  this 
was  both  unnecessary  and  imprudent  (see  above).  The  second  was 
Jerome's  opinion,  expressed  in  his  Commentary  on  Galatians  and 
due  ultimately  to  Origen,  that  the  scene  in  which  Paul  rebuked  Peter 
(Galatians  2:11-21)  for  his  continued  observance  of  the  Old  Law, 
was  only  a  rhetorical  device.  Augustine  worried  that  if  this  were 

^°  See  also  R.  Delbrueck,  Probleme  der  Lipsanothek  in  Brescia  (Bonn  1932),  who  on 
p.  23  collects  the  evidence  for  each  of  the  three  possibilities  for  Jonah's  Sf/ja/^fn/^/flnzf. 

^'  D.  Wiessen,  St.  Jerome  as  a  Satirist  (Ithaca  1964),  p.  235.  See  also  F.  Cavallera, 
Saint  Jerome,  sa  vie  et  son  oeuvre,  premiere  partie  (Louvain  and  Paris  1922),  I,  297-306 
and  II,  47-50.  The  correspondence  of  the  two  saints  has  often  been  reviewed;  for 
references  see  Wiessen,  p.  235,  note  127. 


84  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

accepted  it  would  legitimize  the  use  of  lies  in  teaching  and  would 
ruin  Christian  morality.  But  this  letter,  entrusted  to  the  priest  Pro- 
futurus,  who  died  soon  afterward,  was  never  delivered.  Subsequently 
(c.  398),  Augustine,  encouraged  by  a  letter  from  Jerome  reporting 
on  his  efforts  to  separate  the  bad  from  the  good  in  Origen,  repeated 
his  former  query  about  Galatians  and  added  some  new  ones,  tactfully 
asking  for  Jerome's  advice.  This  letter  too,  carried  by  a  certain  monk 
Paul,  went  astray;  so  that  rumors  from  Rome  reached  Jerome  at 
Bethlehem  that  Augustine  was  attacking  him.  Further  correspondence 
ensued  between  the  arrogant  and  suspicious  Jerome — see  Wiessen 
(note  21  above)  for  examples  of  his  tone — and  the  respectful  but 
persistent  Augustine,  until  in  403  Augustine  sent  copies  of  his  two 
former  letters,  including  the  one  which  Profuturus  had  failed  to 
deliver.  In  his  accompanying  letter  71  (=  Hier.  Epist.  104)  Augustine 
brought  up  (§  5)  the  now  famous  incident  at  the  African  town  of 
Oea  (modern  Tripoli),  in  order  to  drive  home  the  practical  dangers 
of  departing  from  the  familiar  versions  of  the  LXX.  After  the  reading 
of  Jerome's  new  version  of  Jonah  from  the  Hebrew,  a  great  tumult 
arose  in  the  congregation,  especially  from  the  Greeks  who  claimed 
that  the  reading  was  false  in  one  respect  to  what  they  all  knew  by 
heart.  The  bishop  was  compelled  to  submit  the  question  to  some 
Jews.  And  they,  whether  out  of  ignorance  or  malice  (here  Augustine 
indicates  his  sympathy  for  Jerome!),  reported  that  the  Hebrew  rolls 
were  in  accord  with  what  the  Greek  and  (Old)  Latin  texts  said.  Then 
the  bishop,  fearing  to  lose  his  hold  on  the  congregation,  had  an- 
nounced publicly  that  the  new  reading  was  at  fault.  Thus,  Augustine 
concluded,  even  you  can  sometimes  make  a  mistake.  But,  he  adds, 
we  all  appreciate  your  great  efforts  in  translating  the  Gospel  from 
the  Greek. 

[1.10]  Towards  the  end  of  his  letter  of  the  following  year  (112.  22 
=  Aug.  75.  22),  in  which  Jerome  replied,  soberly  and  at  length,  to 
Augustine's  criticisms,  he  reverts  to  the  episode  at  Oea  and  acknowl- 
edges that  the  word  in  question  was  hedera,  which  he  had  substituted 
for  cucurbita.  This  point,  he  says,  had  come  up  many  years  before 
through  a  person  whom  he  calls,  curiously,  both  Cornelius  and  Asinius 
PoUio.  Here  he  is  alluding  to  the  ponderous  jesting  (which  we  will 
examine  later,  1.23)  with  which,  in  his  Commentary  on  Jonah  (dated 
to  396  by  Antin,  see  note  1 8)  he  had  introduced  his  serious  explanation 
of  his  procedure  in  translating  verse  6  of  chapter  4.  We  can  conflate 
the  two  passages,  following  the  Commentary  but  enclosing  supple- 
ments from  the  letter  within  pointed  brackets. 

In  place  of  cucurbita  or  hedera  in  the  Hebrew  (roll)  we  read  ciceion, 


J.  L.  Heller  85 

which  in  Syriac  or  Punic  is  called  ciceia.  It  is  a  kind  of  bush  or  shrub 
(genius  virgulti  vel  arbusculae)  having  (broad)  leaves  like  those  of  the 
grape  vine  (pampinus)  and  a  very  dense  shade.  Supporting  itself  by  its 
own  trunk, ^^  it  grows  very  copiously  in  Palestine,  especially  in  sandy 
places,  and  marvelously,  if  you  have  cast  a  seed  on  the  ground,  it  is 
warmed  quickly  to  germinate  and  rises  to  a  tree,  and  within  a  few 
days  what  you  had  seen  as  a  blade  of  grass  {herba)  you  now  see  as  a 
shrub  {arbuscula).  For  this  reason  we  too,  at  the  time  when  we  were 
translating  the  prophets  [i.e.  391-94,  see  note  18],  desired  to  write 
this  very  word  of  the  Hebrew  tongue  (expressed  more  clearly  in  the 
letter:  "When  translating  word  for  word,  if  I  had  desired  to  set  down 
ciceion,  no  one  would  understand  it,  .  .  ."),  since  Latin  speech  had  no 
word  for  this  kind  of  tree  [but  see  1.12  below].  But  we  feared  that 
the  grammatici  would  find  an  opportunity  to  comment  and  would 
chatter  about  "Indian  beasts"  or  "Boeotian  mountains"  or  other 
marvels  of  that  sort,  [and  so]  we  followed  the  old  translators  who  also 
rendered  the  word  as  hedera,  which  in  Greek  is  called  Kio-aoq,"  since 
they  had  nothing  else  to  say. 

Here  the  parallel  explanation  in  the  letter  continues  the  multiple 
condition  which  began  in  the  insertion  above  (ending  "no  one  would 
understand  it")  with: 

if  I  should  write  cucurbita,  I  would  be  saying  what  is  not  in  the  Hebrew, 
[and  therefore]  I  actually  wrote  hedera,  so  as  to  agree  with  the  other 
translators. 

The  letter  then  adds  a  little  joke  about  the  Jews'  testimony  to  the 
bishop  at  Oea  (see  below,  1.14). 

[1.11]  The  Commentary  continues: 

Let  us  then  examine  the  story,  and  before  its  mystical  sense  [see  below, 
1.29]  let  us  study  its  literal  meaning.  [The  plants]  Cucurbita  and  hedera 
are  of  such  a  nature  that  they  creep  along  the  ground  {ut  per  terrain 

^^  Here  Antin  notes  (p.  Ill)  that  the  words  suo  trunco  se  were  supplied  by  Martianay 
(1704)  and  Vallarsi  (1734-42)  from  the  letter,  where  the  phrase  is  fitted  to  sustinens 
less  awkwardly  than  in  the  Commentary:  cilo  consurgit  in  arbusculain  absque  ullis 
calamorum  et  hastilium  adminiculis,  quibus  et  cucurbitae  et  hederae  indigent,  suo  trunco  se 
sustinens. 

^^  I.e.,  the  old  translators  of  the  Hebrew,  knowing  only  that  the  word  ciceion 
represented  some  kind  of  shade-producing  plant,  rendered  it  as  kissos,  which  came 
over  into  Latin  as  hedera.  The  very  first  sentence  of  the  explanation  in  the  letter 
actually  named  Aquila  as  one  of  the  translators  who  used  the  Attic  form  kittos. 
Deibrueck  (see  note  20)  notes  that  Field's  edition  (1871-75)  of  the  fragments  of 
Origen's  Hexapla  cites  Symmachus  for  Kiaabc,  but  places  Aquila  and  Theodotion  under 
Ricinus  as  reading  KiKtCiv.  See  Jerome's  preface  In  Ezram  (as  cited  by  Cavallera  [see 
note  21],  II.  108),  referring  to  these  three  Ebionite  translators  as  collected  in  Origen's 
Hexapla . 


86  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

reptent)  and  do  not  seek  higher  places  unless  they  are  supported  by 
poles  or  props  ifurcis  vel  adminiculis).  How  then,  when  the  prophet 
was  unaware  of  it,  did  cucurbita,  springing  up  in  a  single  night,  offer 
him  a  shady  place  {umbraculum)  when  by  nature  it  had  no  capacity  to 
spring  aloft  {in  sublime  consurgere)  without  sheds  (pergulis)  or  canes 
{calamis)  or  upright  shafts  {hastilibus)?  Whereas  ciceion,  while  it  provided 
a  miracle^'*  in  its  sudden  growth  and  showed  the  power  of  God  in  the 
safeguard  of  the  green  shady  place  {in  protectione  virentis  umbraculi), 
[simply]  followed  its  own  nature. 

A  few  sentences  later  (Antin,  p.  213),  Jerome  shows  his  affection  for 
ciceion  in  the  phrase  "our  modest  little  tree  {nostra  arbuscula  modica), 
quickly  springing  up  and  quickly  withering." 

[1.12]  Evidently  Jerome  was  proud  of  his  knowledge  of  the  three 
plants.  His  reason  for  rejecting  cucurbita  (=  kolokyntha)  in  this  context 
appears  to  be  clear,  and  he  could  claim  support  from  Pliny  if  he 
needed  it.  Compare  the  sentence  above  (1.07),  vires  sine  adminiculo 
standi  non  sunt,  with  the  sheds  {pergulae),  the  adminicula  and  other 
props  in  both  the  Commentary  (1.11)  and  the  letter  (note  22).  As 
for  hedera  (=  kissos  or  kittos),  probably  the  common  English  ivy,  as  we 
call  it,  or  what  Linnaeus  called  Hedera  Helix,  he  could  rely  on  general 
knowledge  for  its  need  of  external  support. ^^  But  on  ciceion,  suo  trwico 
se  sustinens,  he  made  at  least  one  mistake:  the  Romans  did  have  a 
name  for  it.  See  Pliny,  Nat.  XV.  25,  discussing  the  oils  produced  from 
trees: 

Next  comes  the  oil  [whose  processing  and  use  in  lamps  he  describes 
subsequently]  from  cici,  a  tree  which  is  very  common  in  Egypt  [cf.  kiki, 
an  Egyptian  word  in  Hdt.  II.  94] — some  call  it  croton  [cf.  KporCiv  Tpr. 
HP  I.  10.  1,  III.  18.  7,  from  the  resemblance  of  the  oil-bearing  seeds 
to  insect  ticks,  KporOiveq  as  in  Dsc.  I.  77],  others  sili  [attested  only  here, 
but  cf.  (TtCTeXi  Kvirpiov,  Dsc.  IV.  161],  others  sesamon  silvestre  [only  here, 

^''  The  plant  (see  1.08  above  and  note  20)  is  known  in  Germany  as  W'underbaum 
(Stadler  in  the  RE  under  "Ricinus"),  but  there  it  is  only  an  ornamental  shrub,  planted 
annually,  whereas  in  really  warm  climates,  as  in  the  Sudan  and  Abyssinia  but  probably 
not  in  Palestine,  it  grows  to  be  a  tree  12-15  meters  high:  see  Antin's  long  note  (p. 
Ill)  quoting  P.  Fournier,  who  approves  Jerome's  account  as  perfectly  just,  especially 
on  the  point  of  rapid  growth  when  water  is  present  and  equally  rapid  withering 
when  it  is  not. 

^^  This  is  implied  by  Pliny  when  he  mentions  (XVI.  152)  a  rigens  hedera  which 
alone  among  all  the  kinds  of  ivy  can  stand  without  support,  though  he  adds,  curiously, 
ob  id  vocata  cissos.  For  helix  as  the  name  of  a  prominent  species  of  hedera,  see  Pliny 
XVI.  145-49.  Hence  Linnaeus  capitalized  his  specific  epithet;  it  is  a  noun  and  not 


J.  L.  Heller  87 

but  cf.  ^.  agreste,  Dsc.  lat.  IV.  156  =  gr.  IV.  161]^^ — and  there  not 
long  since;  also  in  Spain  it  comes  forth  suddenly  {repente  provenit)  with 
the  height  of  an  olive-tree,  with  pithy  stalks  {caule  ferulaceo),  leaves 
like  those  of  grape  vines,  seeds  like  those  of  graceful  and  yellow 
grapes.  Our  people  call  it  ricinus  from  the  resemblance  of  the  seed 
(to  the  insect  ricinus,  as  above).  The  seeds  are  boiled  in  water  and  the 
floating  oil  is  skimmed  off;  but  in  Egypt.  .  .  ." 

[1.13]  Other  Romans,  then,  were  familiar  with  the  nature  of  the 
castor-oil  plant  under  its  Egyptian  name  kiki  or  its  Latin  name  ricinus 
(=  Greek  kpot6)v).  And  Jerome  should  not  have  said  that  the  Greeks 
had  no  other  word  than  kissos  for  ciceion  (i.e.  qiqdyon  in  the  modern 
transcription;  see  note  23).  Of  course  St.  Jerome  was  genuinely 
concerned  to  get  at  the  literal  and  spiritual  meaning  of  the  original 
Hebrew,  but  this  part  of  his  explanation  does  not  ring  true,  and  it 
did  not  convince  St.  Augustine,  as  we  will  see  (1.18).  I  cannot  help 
suspecting  that  Jerome  had  some  other  reason  for  rejecting  cucurbita 
besides  its  need  for  external  support — an  objection  which  applies  also 
to  hedera,  as  he  freely  admits;  that  he  substituted  hedera  as  equivalent 
to  Greek  kissos  in  the  belief  that  Aquila  or  others  of  the  early  translators 
mentioned  by  Origen  had  rendered  the  Hebrew  correctly;  and  that 
only  afterward,  when  he  had  learned  from  his  Palestinian  informants 
about  the  nature  oi  ciceion,  did  he  come  up  with  this  device,  in  which 
he  ignored  Pliny's  evidence,  whether  deliberately  or  through  par- 
donable forgetfulness,  and  also  transferred  that  artificial  umbraculum 
of  verse  5  (which  Jonah  had  built  for  himself,  1.05)  to  the  natural 
shady  place  or  shade  {umbra)  made  by  his  shrub  ciceion  in  verse  6 
(above,  1.11).  But  he  underestimated  the  power  of  the  tradition  in 
which  the  congregation  at  Oea  and  many  others  (as  we  will  see,  1.19) 
visualized  the  rapidly  climbing  cucurbita — and  not  any  hedera — as 
attached  to  the  umbraculum  of  verse  5,  a  bower  or  trellis  as  in  Pliny 
and  Columella. 

[1.14]  Returning  to  letter  1 12,  we  note  that  where  we  left  off  (above, 
1.10)  Jerome  continues: 

But  if  those  Jews  of  yours,  whether  in  malice,  as  you  say  [see  1.09], 
or  in  ignorance,  said  that  the  reading  in  the  Hebrew  rolls  agrees  with 
what  is  contained  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  books,  it  is  clear  that  either 
they  could  not  read  Hebrew  writing  or  told  a  wilful  lie  in  order  to 
make  the  cucurbitarii  seem  ridiculous. 

^^  These  references  come  from  J.  Andre's  invaluable  Lexique  des  termes  de  botanique 
en  latin  (Paris  1956).  I  have  checked  with  those  in  LSJ. 


88  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

The  substantivized  adjective  occurs  nowhere  else,  but  Souter^'  follows 
the  TLL  in  seeing  here  the  people  who  grow  gourds  (i.e.  the  fruits 
of  the  plant  cucurbita).  They  would  be  ridiculous,  from  Jerome's  point 
of  view,  because,  poor  fellows,  they  had  to  support  their  plants  on 
poles  or  trellises,  which  his  ciceion  did  not  require.  For  the  largest 
and  best  fruits  were  those  which  hang  down  from  the  plant  as  it 
climbs  upward:  see  Pliny  and  Columella  cited  above  (1.07),  and  add 
Pliny,  Nat.  XIX.  61: 

Quaedam  iacent  crescuntque,  ut  cucurbitae  et  cucumis;  eadem  pen- 
dent, quamquam  graviora  multo  lis  quae  in  arbore  gignuntur; 

and  XIX.  73: 

Cibis,  quo  longiores  tenuioresque,  et  gratiores  [sunt  cucurbitae],  et 
ob  id  salubriores  quae  pendendo  crevere. 

Compare  the  riddle  of  Symphosius  headed  Cucurbita  (no.  440). 

[1.15]  Columella  tells  us  (XI.  3.  50)  that  if  we  are  producing 
commercial  fruit  we  should  choose  seeds  from  the  neck  of  the  stored 
cucurbita,  quo  prolixior  et  tenuior  fructus  eius  nascatur,  qui  scilicet  maius 
ceteris  invenerit  pretium.  Diocletian's  Edict  (6.  26,  27)^®  lists  two  grades 
of  cucurbitae  (both  at  the  same  price),  the  first  ten  to  a  bundle,  the 
second  twenty  to  a  bundle.  They  are  followed,  incidentally,  by  two 
grades  of  cucumeres  (28,  29)  with  the  same  distinction  (10  to  20),  and 
two  grades  of  the  evidently  larger  melopepones  (two  to  four)  and  one 
grade  of  pepones  (four  to  a  bundle),  all  of  them  at  the  same  maximum 
price.  (For  the  Latin  names  of  the  fruits  see  above,  0.11,  and  for 
their  Greek  equivalents,  below,  2.01.) 

[1.16]  At  this  point  we  may  diverge  to  add  the  culinary  uses  of 
cucurbita  to  the  medicinal  uses  already  noted  (1.02,  citing  Pliny,  Nat. 
XX.  16-17  as  an  example  which  could  be  extended  by  other  passages 
on  its  dietary  value:  Cels.  II.  20,  24,  27;  Anthim.  56,  and  for  specific 
remedies,  Scrib.  Largus  39;  Pliny,  Nat.  XXVIII.  205;  Chiron.,  Mu- 
lomed.  61.  18  [Oder]  and  several  other  late  medical  and  veterinary 
writers  cited  by  the  TLL).  While  the  elder  Pliny  had  some  doubts 
about  the  digestibility  of  the  fresh  fruit  (compare  Celsus,  II.  18.  3), 
he  does  say  (XIX.  71)  that  as  food  (cibus)  it  was  saluber  ac  lenis  pluribus 
modis.   Commenting  on  this  recommendation,  Andre  notes^^  that 

"  A.  Souter,  A  Glossary  of  Later  Latin  to  600  A.D.  (Oxford  1949).  Cavallera  (above, 
note  21),  p.  304,  thinks  cucurbitarii  refers  to  the  Christians,  "le  terme  hebreu  ne 
repondant  d'aucune  maniere  a  la  'citrouille'  [!j  des  Septante." 

^®  See  now  the  excellent  edition  of  S.  Lauffer,  Diokletians  Preisedikt  (Berlin  1971). 

^^  Again  (see  note  26)  J.  Andre,  L alimentation  et  la  cuisine  a  Rome  (Paris  1961), 
42. 


J.  L.  Heller  89 

Apicius  (III.  4.  1-8,  IV.  5.  3)  has  no  fewer  than  nine  recipes  involving 
cucurbitae,  including  one  for  "gourde  farcie."  The  younger  Pliny 
{Epist.  I.  15)  includes  cucurbitae  among  the  plain  home-grown  foods 
on  his  own  table,  which  his  friend  Septicius  had  avoided,  in  spite  of 
the  good  conversation  he  would  have  had  there,  in  order  to  dine 
elsewhere  on  imported  delicacies  like  ostrea,  vulvae,  echini,  and  Gadi- 
tanae  (fici).  We  can  compare  Gellius  (XVII.  8.  2)  on  the  philosopher 
Taurus  at  Athens  whose  sober  dinners  usually  consisted  entirely  of 
a  pot  of  Egyptian  lentils  (see  Andre,  39)  mixed  with  a  finely  chopped 
cucurbita.  That  Roman  aristocrats  generally  regarded  cucurbita  as 
cheap  food  is  shown  in  Martial's  epigram  (XI.  31)  on  a  certain 
Caecilius,  mockingly  called  Atreus  cucurbitarum  because  he  cut  them 
up  into  a  thousand  parts  like  the  sons  of  Thyestes,  so  that  with  the 
help  of  his  baker  and  butler  he  could  serve  up  an  entire  dinner 
composed  of  gourds  in  various  shapes,  forms,  and  disguises,  all  at 
the  cost  of  a  single  penny  {as).  But  by  the  fourth  century  the  fruits 
were  a  familiar  article  of  diet  for  everyone.  Compare  Arnob.  Nat. 
IV.  10  and  VII.  16,  Diocletian's  Edict  above,  and  Augustine,  Serm. 
247.  2  and  C.  Faust.  {CSEL  25)  VI.  4,  where  he  twice  personifies  the 
fruits  cucurbitae  and  even  speaks  of  the  person  who  breaks  his  fast 
on  a  Sabbath  and  steals  into  a  garden  to  cut  down  the  fruits  from 
their  vines  as  a  murderer,  homicida  cucurbitarum — surely  an  echo  of 
Martial's  mocking  phrase  above! 

[1.17]  Soon  after  Jerome's  long  reply  in  letter  112  (=  Aug.  Epist. 
75),  he  dispatched  another  letter  (115  =  Aug.  81),  much  shorter  and 
rather  apologetic,  at  the  close  of  which  he  hoped  that  if  Augustine 
had  read  his  Commentary  on  Jonah  he  would  not  take  up  again  that 
ridiculous  question  o^  cucurbita  (see  1.08).  Then  in  a  final  sentence 
he  adds,  "But  if  the  friend  who  first  attacked  me  with  the  sword  has 
been  repulsed  by  my  pen,  your  sense  of  humanity  and  justice  will 
blame  him  if  he  attacks  me  again,  but  if  he  does  not  reply,  you  will 
allow  us  to  joust  {ludamus)  on  the  field  of  the  Scriptures  without 
mutual  injury."  As  Cavallera  saw  (see  note  17,  I,  p.  304),  the  "friend" 
must  be  Rufinus  of  Aquileia,  who  had  attacked  Jerome  in  his  Apologia 
(two  books  in  401)  and  had  been  repulsed  after  Jerome's  two-book 
Apologia  by  a  vitriolic  third  book  (401  or  402).  The  quarrel  between 
the  two  former  friends  had  been  deplored  by  Augustine  (Epist.  73. 
6  =  Hier  Epist.  110.  6)  but  continued  on  Jerome's  part  even  after 
the  death  of  Rufinus  in  41 1.^° 

'"  See  Wiessen  (above,  note  21),  225-35,  and  Cavallera,  II,  131-35.  See  also  F. 
X.  Murphy's  scholarly  biography,  Rufinus  of  Aquileia  (Washington  1945),  passim  and 
esp.  p.  155. 


90  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

[1.18]  Then  in  405  St.  Augustine  finally  replied  in  a  long  letter 
{Epist.  82  =  Hier.  1 16)  to  St.  Jerome,  reviewing  all  the  points  at  issue 
between  the  two  of  them  and  firmly  rejecting  Jerome's  contentions 
in  his  letter  112  (see  1.09  above).  At  the  end  of  the  letter  (§  35)  the 
bishop  of  Hippo  informs  the  solitary  scholar  at  Bethlehem,  as  politely 
as  possible,  that  he  will  not  allow  Jerome's  version  of  the  Hebrew  to 
be  read  in  churches, 

lest  we  introduce  something  new  contrary  to  the  authority  of  the 
LXX  and  thus  create  a  great  stumbling-block  for  the  understanding 
of  Christians,  whose  ears  and  hearts  have  been  accustomed  to  hear 
that  version  which  was  approved  even  by  the  apostles.  Whence  that 
bush  (virgultum)  in  Jonah,  if  in  the  Hebrew  it  is  neither  hedera  nor 
cucurbita  but  something  else  which  stands  firmly  upright  on  its  own 
trunk  and  requires  no  props  (adminicula)  for  its  support,  I  should  now 
prefer  to  be  read  as  cucurbita  in  all  Latin  versions,  for  I  do  not  think 
the  LXX  would  have  used  this  word  unless  they  knew  the  plant  was 
something  like  it. 

And  Augustine  closes  {Epist.  82.  36)  by  urging  Jerome  to  write  back 
his  own  opinion  of  all  this,  while  promising  to  take  good  care  in  the 
future  that  his  letters  to  Jerome  would  reach  him  before  anyone  else, 
who  might  divulge  their  contents.  Here  Augustine  apologizes  for  the 
misadventure  of  the  letters  carried  by  Profuturus  and  the  monk  Paul 
(see  above,  1.09).  But  if  he  really  expected  any  admission  from  St. 
Jerome,  he  was  disappointed.  So  far  as  we  know,  Jerome  did  not 
answer  this  letter,  though  some  years  later  he  did  join  forces  with  St. 
Augustine  "in  a  common  battle  against  the  Pelagian  heresy"  (Wiessen 
[above,  note  21],  240). 

[1.19]  Here  we  should  note  that  Jerome's  Commentary  on  Jonah  had 
also  been  read  by  Rufinus,  and  that  he  had  referred  to  that  virgultum 
in  much  the  same  context  as  St.  Augustine  and  only  a  few  years 
before  him.  This  was  in  the  course  of  his  Apologia  of  401,  where 
Rufinus  was  defending  himself  against  charges  brought  by  Jerome 
and  was  raising  the  counter  charge  that  Jerome's  translations  from 
the  Hebrew  were  introducing  new  elements  to  the  confusion  of 
Christians  whose  ears,  in  Jerome's  own  words,  for  four  hundred  years 
had  been  filled  with  versions  based  on  the  LXX,  but  now  were  being 
told  to  set  aside  familiar  things  like  the  story  of  Susannah  as  untrue 
and  the  song  of  the  three  holy  children  as  not  worthy  to  be  sung  in 
church.  And  with  cutting  sarcasm  he  adds: 

Now  after  four  hundred  years  the  truth  of  the  Law  comes  forth  to 
us  as  purchased  from  the  Synagogue.  Now  that  the  world  has  grown 
old  and  all  things  are  hastening  toward  their  end,  let  us  write  on  the 


J.  L.  Heller  91 

tombs  of  our  ancestors,  so  that  they  themselves,  who  had  read 
otherwise,  will  know  that  Jonah  did  not  have  the  shade  of  a  cucurbita 
but  of  hedera,  and  again,  since  that  is  the  wish  of  the  Legislator,  not 
hedera  either,  but  of  a  different  shrub  {alterius  virgulti).^^ 

As  Vallarsi  saw,  Rufinus  was  referring  to  the  sculptured  scene  of 
Jonah  sleeping  under  gourds  {sub  cucurbitis  dormientis,  i.e.  the  fruits 
hanging  down  from  a  leafy  vine  stretched  on  supports  over  his  resting 
body)  which  was  often  found  in  the  tombs  of  early  Christians.  The 
sculpture  ought  to  be  changed,  Rufinus  suggests,  and  the  dead  ought 
to  be  warned  by  an  inscription  that  Jonah  was  not  resting  under  the 
shade  of  a  cucurbita  but  of  the  hedera.  Vallarsi  refrained  from  noting 
the  further  correction  made  by  Jerome  in  his  Commentary  on  the 
shrub,  and  of  course  he  toned  down  Rufinus'  scornful  Legislator  to 
the  conventional  5.  Doctor,  but  Vallarsi  and  Rufinus  were  quite  right 
in  pointing  to  the  numerous  scenes  of  "Jonah  resting"  in  early 
Christian  art,  especially  as  sculptured  in  relief  on  sarcophagi  of  the 
late  third  century,  and  Jerome  must  have  been  mortified  by  this 
public  reminder  of  his  unfortunate  neglect  of  a  good  Christian  custom. 
Nowhere  does  he  even  allude  to  this  charge,  but  I  suspect  that  it  did 
supply  one  motive  for  his  continued  attacks  on  Rufinus  even  after 
his  death. 

[1.20]  My  Figure  8  is  reproduced  (by  permission  of  the  Hirmer 
Fotoarchiv  Miinchen)  from  the  Praeger  paperback  edition  (New  York 
1963)  of  Ar^  of  the  Byzantine  Era,  by  D.  T.  Rice,  his  Figure  8.  It  is  a 
detail  from  an  ivory  diptych,  one  leaf  of  which  is  now  in  the  Ravenna 
Museum,  having  come  from  a  monastery  at  Murano,  where  it  had 
served  as  a  book  coven  ^^  On  the  bottom  panel  of  this  leaf  (see  Rice's 
Figure  7)  the  story  of  Jonah  is  represented  in  two  scenes,  Jonah 
shown  being  cast  overboard  from  a  ship  on  the  right,  and  on  the 
left,  resting  with  "the  whale  beside  him,"  according  to  Rice's  caption 
(actually  the  snapping  mouth  resembles  rather  an  Egyptian  crocodile). 
In  his  text  (p.  18)  Rice  admires  the  leaf  as 

illustrative  art  at  its  peak.  One  would  associate  such  competence  with 
a  great  city,  such  as  Alexandria;  the  angular  poses  and  the  expressive 
gestures  are  distinct  from  what  was  being  done  at  Constantinople. 

^'  Apologia  contra  Hieronymum,  II,  39  in  the  new  (1961)  critical  edition  by  M. 
Simonetti,  but  chapter  35  in  Vallarsi  (p.  391)  and  Migne,  PL  21,  p.  614.  The  sarcastic 
comment  is  not  mentioned  in  Murphy's  summary  of  chapters  32-36,  p.  147. 

^^  See  also  his  Masterpieces  of  Byzayitine  Art  (Edinburgh  Festival  Society,  1958),  no. 
6:  Ivory  Book  Cover,  early  6th  century,  Ravenna,  Museo  Nazionale.  Here  Rice  refers 
to  the  places  where  parts  of  the  other  leaf  may  be  found;  and  he  assigns  this  work 
either  to  Palestine  or  Egypt. 


92  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

And  in  the  detail,  where  the  hanging  gourds  certainly  resemble  those 
of  Fuchs'  Lang  Kurbsz  (his  p.  211,  my  Figure  5),  my  botanical 
consultants.  Dr.  Frederick  Meyer  of  the  U.S.  National  Arboretum  in 
Washington  and  Prof.  Charles  Heiser  of  Indiana  University,  made  no 
difficulty  about  identifying  the  plant  as  the  bottle-gourd  vine,  now 
called  Lagenaria  siceraria  (Molina)  Standley  (see  above,  0.08).  They 
agreed  on  the  shape  of  the  gourds  and  the  general  posture  of  the 
plant,  while  Heiser  added  that  the  leaves  as  shown  resembled  his  own 
drawing  of  leaves  (his  Figure  1)  in  his  article,  "Variation  in  the  Bottle 
Gourd."^^ 

[1.21]  But  there  is  difficulty  if  we  regard  this  scene  and  the  many 
others  of  "Jonah  resting,"  mostly  without  the  "whale,"  which  are 
known  in  paintings  from  catacombs  or  from  sculptured  sarcophagi,^"* 
as  illustrations  of  the  Biblical  story.  In  the  first  place,  Jonah  is  usually 
shown  lying  down  on  a  couch  or  cushion,  either  by  the  sea  or  in 
some  countryside  where  he  is  surrounded  by  animals  or  other  rustic 
figures,  not  sitting  down  or  standing  before  his  shed  somewhere  east 
of  Nineveh,  long  after  his  release  from  the  great  fish.  In  the  second 
place,  he  is  regularly  shown  naked,  without  clothing  of  any  kind. 
These  features  have  been  explained  in  various  ways.  Anthropologists 
and  historians  of  religion  have  compared  other  versions  in  classical 
and  oriental  folk  tales  of  what  most  scholars  now  believe  was  a  very 
old  and  widely  diffused  story^^ — though  Jerome  and  his  Christian 
contemporaries  of  course  accepted  it  as  a  unit,  literally  the  word  of 
God  expressed  through  the  historical  prophet — and  have  found  traces 
in  Rabbinic  and  Islamic  sources^''  of  tales  in  which  Jonah  lost  his 

^^  Pp.  121-28  in  Tropical  Forest  Ecosystems  in  Africa  and  South  America,  ed.  Betty  G. 
Meggers  and  others  (Washington,  1973). 

^''  See  the  collections  made  long  ago  by  J.  Wilpert,  Le  pitture  delle  catacombe  romane 
(2  vols.,  1903)  and  /  sarcofagi  cristiani  antichi  (3  vols.,  1929-36).  Antin  (see  note  18), 
in  his  note  on  "i'iconographie  cemeteriale"  on  p.  33,  observes  that  in  the  paintings 
Jonah  is  shown  naked  and  lying  down  in  his  shady  spot  some  33  times,  being  cast 
up  by  the  monster  about  26  times,  and  being  thrown  overboard  and  swallowed  by 
the  monster  about  15  times.  I  thank  the  director.  Miss  Rosalie  Green,  of  the  Index 
of  Christian  Iconography  at  Princeton  University,  which  of  course  includes  much 
more  than  Wilpert's  paintings,  for  giving  me  (in  1976)  the  following  count  of  the 
three  leading  scenes:  Jonah  cast  overboard,  240  examples;  Jonah  cast  up  on  land, 
330;  and  Jonah  resting  under  the  gourd-vine,  250  examples,  mostly  before  A.D.  700. 

'^  E.g.,  H.  Schmidt,  Jona,  Eine  Unlersuchung  zur  vergleichenden  Religionsgeschichte 
(Gottingen  1907;  Uwe  Steffen,  Das  Mysterium  von  Tod  und  Auferstehung:  Formen  und 
Wandiungen  des  Jona-Motifs  {Gottingen  1963). 

'^  See  Delbrueck's  1952  book  (above,  note  20),  pp.  22-24.  I  add  that  Delbrueck 
believed  that  the  richly  decorated  and  so-called  Lipsanothek  (i.e.  a  reliquary  containing 
leipsana  or  remains  of  the  dead),  which  he  was  describing,  was  originally  a  kind  of 


J.  L.  Heller  93 

clothing  as  a  result  of  being  roasted  inside  the  whale  and  needed  a 
period  of  rest  and  recreation  after  that  exhausting  experience." 
Archaeologists  and  historians  of  art,  however,  have  looked  for  classical 
themes  in  literature  (metrical  epitaphs)  and  plastic  art  (sarcophagi 
and  other  memorials)  which  expressed  the  hope  for  a  happy  life  after 
death,  so  that  Jonah's  nudity  on  the  sarcophagi  is  explained  by  the 
copying  of  antique  pagan  models  (in  which  the  heroes  of  mythology 
were  regularly  nude)  in  ateliers  of  the  third  century  which  catered 
to  the  pseudo-rustic  tastes  of  wealthy  city-dwellers.  Christian  and 
pagan  alike.  Engemann  and  others  have  pointed  to  a  terra  cotta 
plaque  in  the  Louvre  which  shows  a  nu/de  Dionysus  sleeping  in  a 
posture  remarkably  similar  to  Jonah's  on  a  sarcophagus  in  Berlin.'® 
It  was  only  necessary  to  change  the  bunches  of  grapes  in  the  arbor 
above  Dionysus  to  gourds,  and  the  sleeping  figure  becomes  Jonah. 

[1.22]  Possibly  it  was  these  scenes  on  sarcophagi  to  which  Rufinus 
(1.19)  referred,  but  closer  relationship  to  the  canonical  story  has 
been  seen  in  catacomb  paintings  which  show  Jonah  reclining  in  the 
usual  posture  but  under  a  four-posted  pergola  from  whose  rafters 
the  gourds  dangle.'^  On  the  other  hand,  the  dangling  gourds  by 
themselves,  without  visible  reference  to  Jonah,  can  be  seen  in  frag- 
ments of  sculpture  found  in  catacombs  and  engraved  below  and  to 
the  left  of  a  late  third-century  inscription  commemorating  a  certain 
Galatilla."*"  Can  these  gourds  have  been  intended  as  a  visual  symbol 
of  the  "sign  of  Jonah"  promised  long  before  (Mt.  12:40)?  1  doubt  it. 

treasure-chest  for  an  aristocratic  lady  of  the  first  half  of  the  third  century.  Like  the 
much  later  ivory  at  Ravenna,  it  does  not  belong  to  sepulchral  art. 

"  See  A.  Stuiber,  Refrigerium  interim  (Bonn  1957,  no.  11  in  the  series  "Theo- 
phaneia,"  in  which  Delbrueck's  monograph  was  no.  7),  esp.  pp.  137-42,  stressing  the 
importance  of  the  single  scene  of  "Jonah  resting"  and  referring  it  to  a  belief  shared 
by  Jews  and  early  Christians  alike.  Stuiber's  views  were  somewhat  clarified  in  a  short 
article  by  E.  Stommel,  "Zum  Problem  der  friihchristlichen  Jonasdarstellungen,"ya/ir/>. 
/  Antike  u.  Chrislentum,  1  (1958),  112-15.  But  objections  to  Stuiber's  thesis  were 
raised  by  clerical  scholars  in  the  Rivista  di  Archeologia  cristiana,  L.  De  Bruyne,  34 
(1958),  87-118,  and  A.  Ferrua,  38  (1962),  7-69. 

^*  See  J.  Engemann,  Untersuchungen  zur  Sepulkrahymbolik  der  spdteren  romischen 
Kaiserzeit  (Munster,  1973;  Erganzungsband  2,  Jahrb.  f.  Antike  u.  Christentum),  esp. 
70-84  and  Taf.  33  c  (side  of  a  sarcophagus  in  Berlin,  Staatliche  Museen)  and  35  a 
(terra  cotta  plaque  in  the  Louvre).  The  central  part  of  the  sarcophagus  and  the 
whole  of  the  plaque  can  also  be  seen  in  Tafel  8  (c  and  a  respectively)  which  illustrates 
Stommel's  article  (above). 

'^  See  Ferrua's  1962  article  (above,  note  37),  figure  5  (p.  12).  Antin's  note  (above, 
note  34)  also  refers  to  "un  Jonas  sous  pergola"  in  an  earlier  article  (by  Josi)  in  the 
izme  Rivista  5  (1928),  198. 

'"'  Ferrua,  p.  47,  figs.  27-29.  The  inscription  (figure  29)  is  a  fragment  from  the 
catacomb  at  Pretestato. 


94  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

This  is  only  one  of  the  many  things  we  do  not  know,  and  I  close  this 
unsatisfactory  commentary  on  Rufinus'  criticism  by  saying  that  I 
know  of  no  artistic  representation  at  all  of  Jerome's  ciceion  and  only 
one  of  his  hedera,  and  that  one  very  late.  A  pair  of  drawings  in  a 
fourteenth-century  manuscript  Biblia  pauperum  shows  Jonas  (so  la- 
beled) emerging  from  the  mouth  of  the  great  fish  with  a  branch  of 
ivy  leaves  at  the  right  side  of  the  picture.  As  expected,  he  is  nude, 
but  he  is  also  bald  as  a  baby,  though  he  had  a  good  head  of  hair  in 
the  drawing  at  the  left  where  he  is  shown,  wrapped  in  a  cloak,  being 
shoved  into  the  mouth  of  the  monster.*'  Here  the  reading  of  St. 
Jerome's  Vulgate  is  preserved,  but  the  long  artistic  tradition  which 
represented  Jonah  resting  after  his  ordeal  is  almost  unanimous  in 
preferring  the  bottle-gourd  plant,  what  Linnaeus  called  Cucurbita 
lagenaria,  as  providing  him  with  shade. 

[1.23]  Returning  to  Jerome's  Commentary,  I  reproduce  Antin's  text 
(which  hardly  differs  from  Vallarsi's  in  Migne,  except  for  the  punc- 
tuation) of  the  "ponderous  jesting"  (above,  1.10)  which  precedes  his 
serious  explanation  for  his  change  of  cucurbita  to  hedera  in  verse  6  of 
chapter  4:  In  hoc  loco,  he  says, 

quidam  Canterius  de  antiquissimo  genera  Corneliorum 

sive,  ut  ipse  iactitat,  de  stirpe  Asinii  PoUionis, 

dudum  Romae  dicitur  me  accusasse  sacrilegii 

quod  pro  cucurbita  hederam  transtulerim: 

timuit  videlicet  ne  5 

si  pro  cucurbitis  hederae  nascerentur 
unde  occulte  et  tenebrose  biberet         non  haberet. 
Et  revera  in  ipsis  cucurbitis  vasculorum 

quas  vulgo  saucomarias  vocant, 
sclent  apostolorum  imagines  adumbrari  10 

ex  quibus  et  ille  sibi  non  suum  nomen  adsumpsit. 
Quod  si  tarn  facile  vocabula  commutantur 
ut  pro  Corneliis  seditiosis  tribunis 

Aemilii  consules  appellentur, 
miror  cur  mihi  non  liceat  15 

hederam  transferre  pro  cucurbita. 
Sed  veniamus  ad  seria.  .  .  . 

*'  See  Abb.  4  in  an  article  by  E.  M.  Vetter  and  W.  A.  Buist,  pp.  127-38  in  the 
Heidelberg  University  magazine,  Ruperto-Carola,  bd.  46  (Juni  1969).  Through  hints 
in  Schmidt  and  Steffen  (above,  note  35),  the  authors  trace  the  loss  of  Jonah's  hair 
to  a  medieval  variant  in  the  myth  of  Heracles'  rescue  of  Hesione.  See  Tzetzes,  Schol. 
ad  Lycophr.  34,  and  Frazer's  note  in  the  Loeb  Apollodorus  (I,  p.  207):  "Tzetzes  says 
that  Hercules,  in  full  armour,  leaped  into  the  jaws  of  the  sea-monster,  and  was  in  its 
belly  for  three  days  hewing  and  hacking  it,  and  that  at  the  end  of  the  three  days  he 
came  forth  without  any  hair  on  his  head." 


J.  L.  Heller  95 

[1.24]  Dudum  in  line  3  means  "recently"  (as  Antin  notes),  i.e.  shortly 
before  the  composition  of  the  Commentary  in  396  but  after  the 
publication  of  the  translation  from  the  Hebrew  in  391-94  (see  above, 
note  18).  This  squares  with  the  ante  annos  plurimos  of  Jerome's  letter 
(112.  22)  of  404,  in  which  he  blames  a  person  whom  he  calls  both 
Cornelius  and  Asinius  Pollio  (see  1.10),  clearly  the  same  person  who 
is  graced  here  (line  1)  with  the  ridiculous  nickname  Canterius  (line 
1,  or  as  in  Vallarsi,  Cantherius).  See  Antin's  notes  for  the  degrading 
connotations  of  the  four  names  here,  also  Piganiol  in  Antin's  note 
on  our  line  13,  where  seditiosi  tribuni  is  so  outrageously  applied  to 
the  patrician  Cornelii  that  the  reader  knows  that  Jerome  must  be 
inventing  freely.  His  purpose  in  creating  all  this  business  of  names, 
apart  from  his  usual  technique  as  a  satirist  (see  Wiessen  [note  21], 
esp.  200-12),  is  revealed  in  lines  12-16  above:  if  words  can  be 
changed  so  readily  in  these  names,  why  shouldn't  I  be  allowed  to 
change  cucurbita  to  hedera}  In  line  1 1  Jerome  implies  that  his  critic 
on  this  occasion,  which  he  reports  only  by  hearsay  (dicitur,  line  3), 
was  a  cleric  who  had  taken  his  new  name  from  one  of  the  apostles. 
One  thinks  of  the  monk  Paul  who  carried  Augustine's  second  critical 
letter  (above,  1.09)  to  Rome  rather  than  to  Jerome  in  Bethlehem, 
but  his  misadventure  did  not  happen  until  after  398.  And  it  seems 
likely  that  Jerome  had  no  specific  person  in  mind.  See  Cavallera  (note 
21  above),  II,  106-09,  who  notes  Jerome's  expressions  in  various 
prefaces  for  the  unnamed  people  who  criticized  him  for  preferring 
Hebrew  texts  to  the  LXX,  but  also  that  later  on  he  named  Palladius 
as  the  chief  calumniator. 

[1.25]  As  usual  in  his  attacks  on  the  clergy,  Jerome's  first  charge 
(lines  5-8)  involves  luxurious  living.  His  critic  was  afraid  that  if 
hederae  were  grown  instead  of  cucurbitae  he  would  not  have  anything 
from  which  to  drink  in  secret  and  in  some  dark  corner.  Ivy  would 
offer  cover  for  clandestine  tippling  but  not  a  container  for  the  wine — 
precisely  the  function  which  gave  the  plant  its  modern  names.  In  the 
two  sentences  which  precede  Columella's  directions  for  choosing 
seeds  for  the  production  of  the  longer  cylindrical  fruit  (see  above, 
1.07  and  1.15),  he  tells  us  (XI.  3.  49)  that  seed  chosen  from  the 
middle  part  of  the  stored  cucurbita  will  produce  fruit  of  larger  size 
{incrementi  vastioris),  and  that  these  fruits  are  quite  suitable  for  use  as 
containers  {ad  usum  vasorum),  like  the  cucurbitae  from  Alexandria, 
once  they  have  been  dried  out  {cum  exaruerunt).  In  the  parallel  passage 
in  verse  (X.  383-88;  see  above,  1.07  for  the  preceding  lines  in  which 
cucumis  and  cucurbita  are  characterized  together).  Columella  had 
recommended  the  same  choice  of  seed  as  above  for  the  production 


96  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

of  larger  fruit  with  swelling  belly,  and  here  he  mentions  more  uses 
for  the  product  (385-88):  sobolem  dabit  ilia  capacem  /  Naryciae  picis, 
aut  Actaei  mellis  Hymetti,  /  aut  habilem  lymphis  hamulam,  Bacchove 
lagoenam,  /  turn  pueros  eadem  fluviis  innare  docebit.  From  the  woody 
rind  of  the  dried  fruit  (see  Pliny  below)  can  be  made  a  container  for 
pitch,  a  vessel  for  honey,  a  water-bucket,  or  a  bottle  for  wine;  or 
even  air-tight  floats  with  which  boys  learn  how  to  swim.  Hence 
Linnaeus  (Species  plantarum  [1753],  1010)  gave  the  epithet  lagenaria 
in  the  margin  opposite  his  first  species  of  the  genus  Cucurbita,  citing 
Morison's  Historiae  Oxoniensis  pars  secunda  (1680)  for  an  illustration 
and  the  name  Cucurbita  lagenaria,  flore  albo.^^  And  the  common  English 
name  for  the  plant  is  Bottle-Gourd  (no  doubt  in  use  long  before 
Morison),  the  Germans  call  it  Flaschenkurbis,  and  the  Italians  Zucca 
da  vino,  dal  collo,  or  (from  floats  smaller  than  Columella's)  da  pescare. 

[1.26]  Pliny's  discussion  of  kitchen-garden  plants  {hortensia,  see  his 
§  73,  cited  below)  begins  (XIX.  61)  by  noting  the  posture  of  the 
fruits  cucurbitae  and  cucumis  (plural,  cited  above,  1.14)  and  distin- 
guishing their  physical  composition:  cucumis  cartilagine  et  came  constat, 
cucurbita  cortice  et  cartilagine;  cortex  huic  uni  maturitate  transit  in  lignum. 
(Note  this  as  a  second  unique  feature  [see  note  42]  of  Cucurbita 
lagenaria.)  It  continues  the  characterization  of  these  two  important 
plants  in  a  long  discussion  (64-74)  in  which  Pliny  describes  now 
cucumis,  now  cucurbita,  but  mostly  the  two  together  (see  1.07  above), 
but  on  the  uses  o{  cucurbita  he  is  quite  clear  (XIX.  71):  cucurbitarum 
numerosior  usus  [sc.  quam  cucumerum],  et  primus  caulis  in  cibo,  atque  ex 
eo  [sc.  partes,  i.e.  fructus]  in  totum  natura  diversa  [i.e.  the  parts  (fruits) 
which  come  after  the  stalks,  being  of  a  different  nature  altogether]; 
nuper  in  balnearum  usum  venere  urceorum  vice  [i.e.  pitchers  or  hamulae 
for  carrying  water  in  baths],  iampridem  vero  etiam  cadorum  ad  vina 
condenda  [i.e.  jars  for  storing  wine].  And  a  little  later  (73)  he  notes 
how  those  fruits  which  were  not  cut  down  for  eating  (compare  Aug. 
C.  Faust,  cited  above,  1.16)  when  green  (and  the  rind  was  still  soft; 
compare  7 1 :  cortex  viridi  tener,  deraditur  nihilominus  in  cibis)  are  prepared 
to  serve  as  containers:  eas  quae  semini  non  serventur  ante  hiemem  praecidi 
non  est  mos;  postea  fumo  siccantur  condendis  hortensiorum  seminibus  et 
rusticae  supellectili.  That  is,  after  the  onset  of  cold  weather  when  the 
fruits  have  stopped  growing  and  the  rinds  are  becoming  hard  and 
woody  (61  above),  they  are  cut  down;  later  they  (the  empty  rinds) 
are  dried  in  smoke  in  order  to  form  storage  jars  for  the  seeds  of 
kitchen-garden  plants  and  homemade  utensils.  Compare  Columella 

*^  Bauhin  in  his  famous  Pinax  (1623)  had  also  noted  the  white  flower  as  a  distinctive 
feature  of  the  plant,  which  he  called  Cucurbita  oblonga,  flore  albo,  folio  molli. 


J.  L.  Heller  97 

on  cucurhitae  from  Alexandria  (above,  1.25).  Some  of  the  possibilities 
latent  in  that  rustica  supellex  and  all  the  steps  in  the  modern  process 
are  indicated  in  the  unsigned  article  on  "Gourd"  in  the  Britannica 
(11th  edn.): 

The  remarkable  fruit  [of  Lagenaria  vulgaris]  first  begins  to  grow  in 
the  form  of  an  elongated  cylinder,  but  gradually  widens  toward  the 
extremity,  until,  when  ripe,  it  resembles  a  flask  with  a  narrow  neck 
and  large  round  bulb;  it  sometimes  attains  a  length  of  7  ft.  When 
ripe,  the  pulp  is  removed  from  the  neck,  and  the  interior  cleared  by 
leaving  water  standing  in  it;  the  woody  rind  that  remains  is  used  as  a 
bottle;  or  the  lower  part  is  cut  off"  and  cleared  out,  forming  a  basin- 
like vessel  applied  to  the  same  domestic  purposes  as  the  calabash 
(Crescentia)  of  the  West  Indies;  the  smaller  varieties,  divided  lengthwise, 
form  spoons. 

[1 .27]  The  drying  of  the  gourds  by  means  of  smoking  is  not  mentioned 
here,  nor  by  Lucian  (Vera  Hist.  II.  37)  when  he  describes  how  the 
Kolokynthopeiratai  make  their  60-cubit  long  irXoia  KoXoKvvBiva  by  drying 
out  a  gourd  (surely  not  a  pumpkin  here!),  and  then  hollowing  it  out 
and  stripping  it  of  its  contents,  but  whether  or  not  the  emptied  rinds 
were  hung  in  a  smokehouse,  they  certainly  must  have  been  bung  up 
to  dry  somewhere  under  cover.  The  drying  rinds  of  cucurbitae  would 
have  been  a  familiar  sight  in  many  an  ancient  household,  even  in  the 
kitchens  of  wealthy  city-dwellers,  and  I  suggest  that  this  explains  the 
remark  of  Psyche's  envious  sister  (Apul.  Met.  V.  9)  when  she  complains 
that  her  own  husband  is  older  than  her  father,  balder  than  a  cucurbita, 
and  weaker  than  any  male  child.  For  the  surface  o{  Lagenaria  vulgaris, 
unlike  that  of  other  cultivated  cucurbits,  is  described  by  botanists  as 
smooth  and  glabrous.  Probably  that  is  also  the  point  of  the  indignant 
remark  of  the  porter  {Met.  I.  15),  "You  may  want  to  die,  but  I  don't 
have  the  head  of  a  cucurbita  so  as  to  die  for  you."  The  rind  of  a 
drying  gourd  might  look  like  a  head,  and  its  emptiness  would  certainly 
suggest  thoughtlessness  or  stupidity,  as  critics  from  Weinreich  to 
Eisenberg  have  insisted.'*'  I  do  not  deny  this,  and  I  can  add  one  other 
place  in  which  cucurbita  is  coupled  with  emptiness  in  a  derisory 
context.  This  is  in  the  Latin  translation  of  the  important  work  Contra 
Haereses  of  St.  Irenaeus,  the  probably  Syrian-born  bishop  of  Lyons 
in  the  late  second  century,  just  about  200  years  before  St.  Jerome 
and  almost  contemporary  with  Apuleius.  In  a  paragraph  of  his  first 

■•^  The  best  modern  analogue,  I  think,  is  provided  by  P.  Robert,  Dictionnaire 
alphabetique  et  analogique  de  la  langue  franqaise  (Paris  1966)  when  he  notes  under  the 
word  Carafe,  which  means  ordinarily  "vase  destine  a  contenir  un  liquide,"  that  it  is 
used  in  popular  speech  of  an  "homme  sans  intelligence":  "Quelle  carafe!"  people 
say. 


98  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

book  (I.  11.  4  in  Massuet's  numbering),'*''  Irenaeus  undertakes  to 
parody  a  fundamental  tetrad  of  Valentine's  gnostic  aeons  (series  of 
emanations): 

There  is  a  certain  royal  Proarche  (pro-principle)  which  is  Proanennoetos 
(pro-inconceivable),  a  Proanypostatos  (pro-unsubstantial)  virtue,  Propro- 
cylindomene  (pro-prostrating  itself).  With  it  there  is  a  virtue,  which  I 
call  cucurbita;  with  this  cucurbita  there  is  a  virtue,  which  in  itself  I  call 
perbiane  (absolute  void).  This  cucurbita  and  perinane,  since  they  are  a 
unity,  have  issued  (emiserunt),  without  sexual  action  {cum  non  emisissent), 
a  fruit  that  is  visible  on  all  sides,  edible,  and  tasty,  and  common  speech 
calls  this  fruit  cucurnis.  With  this  cucumis  is  a  virtue  of  the  same  power 
as  itself,  which  in  itself  I  call  pepo.  These  virtues,  cucurbita  et  perinane, 
et  cucumis,  et  pepo,  have  issued  the  remaining  host  of  Valentine's 
ridiculous  pepones. 

The  reason  why  Irenaeus  chose  these  three  names  from  the  vegetable 
world,  which  he  rightly  asserts  are  much  more  credible  than  Valen- 
tine's, being  in  everyday  use  and  understood  by  everyone,  is  revealed 
towards  the  end  of  the  next  paragraph,  where  (p.  107  in  Harvey) 
the  last  word  is  used  in  its  Homeric  sense  in  what  Harvey  saw  was 
probably  a  parody  of  //.  II.  235:  O  pepones,  sophistae  vituperabiles  et 
non  veri.  The  fruit  pepo,  then  (see  above,  0.10),  was  the  melon  (TTfTroji'), 
cucumis  the  cucumber  (tri/cuoq),  and  cucurbita  the  bottle-gourd  {koXo- 
Kvvdrj).  And  I  can  see  no  reason  for  his  equating /?^rman^  with  cucurbita 
unless  he  thought  that  the  sight  of  drying  and  emptied  gourds  would 
be  as  familiar  to  people  everywhere  as  they  evidently  were  to  his 
fellow  Syrian  Lucian. 

[1.28]  Here  we  do  have  a  second  passage,  replacing  the  one  in 
Petronius  which  we  have  removed  (above,  1.04)  from  Eisenberg's 
note  (above,  0.02),  in  which  cucurbita  might  be  interpreted  as  Dumm- 
kopf.  But  our  object  here  is  to  note  the  frequency  and  familiarity  of 
the  word  in  all  its  meanings,  and  we  return  now  to  the  discussion  of 
St.  Jerome's  jesting  preface  to  his  serious  explanation  (above,  1.23). 
"And  in  fact,"  he  resumes  in  lines  8-11,  "people  are  accustomed  to 
engrave  the  likenesses  of  the  apostle  (from  whom  he  drew  the  name 
that  is  not  his  own),  in  ipsis  cucurbitis  vasculorum  quas  vulgo  saucomarias 
vocanty  Jerome  had  just  been  referring  to  the  cucurbitae  which  could 
be  used  as  vessels  to  hold  wine  (see  above,  1.26),  but  these  were 
made  of  the  woody  rinds  of  bottle-gourds  and  could  not  hold  the 

*''  Page  106  in  the  edition  by  W.  Wigan  Harvey  (Cantabrigiae  1857).  For  the 
eastern  origin  of  Irenaeus  and  the  date  of  his  Greek  work,  see  Harvey's  preliminary 
observations,  cliii  and  clxiii,  and  clxiv  for  the  use  by  Tertullian  of  the  Latin  translation, 
which  must  have  been  made  immediately. 


J.  L.  Heller  99 

elaborate  engraving  of  the  beechwood  cups  pledged  by  Menalcas  in 
Vergil,  Eel.  3.  37-39,  much  less  the  chasing  or  engraving  of  the  well- 
known  metallic  vessels  here  called  vascula.  I  think  Antin  (above,  note 
18)  was  right  in  translating  "sur  les  panses  de  ces  vases,"^^  though 
he  lets  the  relative  clause,  which  he  renders  "nommes  communement 
saucomariae,"  follow  "ces  vases"  directly.  But  the  antecedent  of  quas 
is  not  vasculorum  but  cucurbitis,  and  if  the  reader  will  turn  back  to 
Pliny's  names  for  the  two  kinds  of  cucurbita  (and  apparently  of  cucumis 
too,  above,  1.07),  he  will  find  that  the  first  was  the  climbing  plant, 
called  genus  camararium  because  it  reached  up  to  the  vaults  or  camarae. 
In  place  of  that  strange  and  hitherto  unexplained  word  saucomarias, 
which  Antin  said  he  found  in  all  the  MSS  he  had  seen  (none  of  them 
earlier  than  the  ninth  century),  we  should  surely  read  camararias. 
Then  in  that  case,  when  Jerome  said  quas  (i.e.  cucurbitas)  vulgo 
camararias  vacant,  his  authority  for  that  vulgo  would  have  been  simply 
Pliny;  compare  above,  1.03.  But  for  some  reason  (see  above,  1.13) 
Jerome  refused  to  admit  that  the  plant  which  provided  shade  for 
Jonah  was  a  cucurbita. 

[1.29]  And  there  is  one  more  jest  which  St.  Jerome  could  not  resist 
making  as  he  began  his  mystical  interpretation:  Ad  personam  vero 
Domini  Salvatoris  .  .  .  (Antin,  112).  He  quotes  his  version  of  Isaiah 
1:8  ("And  the  daughter  of  Zion  will  be  left  like  a  booth  [tabernaculum] 
in  a  vineyard  and  like  a  lodge  in  a  cucumber-field")  and  comments 
on  the  phrase  velut  casula  in  cucumerario,  "let  us  say,  since  we  have 
not  found  [the  word]  cucurbita  in  any  other  place  in  Scripture,  that 
wherever  cucumis  grows,  there  usually  grows  cucurbita  also."  What  is 
asserted  as  fact  is  rather  Jerome's  inference  from  Pliny's  sometimes 
confusing  account  (see  above,  1.07  and  1.26);  here  we  should  add 
Pliny's  directions  for  the  annual  planting  of  both  cucumis  and  cucurbita 
(XIX.  69),  which  are  also  named  together  in  the  parallel  passage  of 
Columella,  XI.  3.  48.  The  inference  would  be  supported  by  several 

*^  See  the  article  on  "burette"  in  the  Diet,  d'arch'eol.  chret.  et  de  liturgie  (Ca- 
briol-Leclercq-Marrou),  t.  2,  col.  1354.  Fig.  1747  shows  a  circular  bronze  bottle 
shaped  much  like  the  water-canteen  which  hikers  suspend  over  a  hip,  except  that 
one  side  is  completely  flat  while  the  other  swells  out  to  a  greater  extent.  The  neck 
is  much  longer  than  on  a  canteen.  Antin  refers  at  the  end  of  his  note  3  (p.  110)  to 
this  vase,  found  in  a  tomb  at  Concevreux;  but  he  does  not  mention  the  fact  that 
Leclercq  thought  that  its  local  designation  as  "gourde"  was  scarcely  appropriate.  But 
the  swelling  side,  which  is  what  Jerome  calls  cucurbita  vasculi  is  not  unlike  a  vertical 
half  of  a  pyriform  gourd  as  seen  in  Fuchs'  p.  209  (my  Figure  4).  No  date  is  given 
for  this  vessel,  but  others  are  known  from  the  fourth  or  fifth  century,  slender  and 
with  long  necks,  made  of  terra  cotta,  with  painted  surface  and  various  scenes  and 
symbols. 


100  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

other  passages,  especially  in  poetry,  where,  if  the  one  plant  or  its 
fruit  is  mentioned,  the  other  trails  along  immediately;  see  Prop.  IV. 
2.43;  Priap.  51.  17;  Colum.  X.  234  and  380.  Thus  Jerome  makes  a 
jocular  concession  to  his  reader.  He  will  not  leave  cucurbita  altogether 
out  of  consideration,  though  he  has  removed  it  from  the  text  of 
Jonah,  the  only  place  in  Scripture  where  he  had  found  it.  But  since 
a  derivative  of  cucumis  is  found  in  Isaiah,  and  since  cucurbita  regularly 
goes  along  with  cucumis,  the  reader  is  free  to  suppose  that  Isaiah  was 
also  talking  about  cucurbita.  What  is  really  notable  here  is  that  in 
introducing  his  concession  {Ad  personam  .  .  .  Salvatoris,  ne  penitus 
propter  (f)L\oKo\bKvvdov  cucurbitam  relinquamus.  .  .  .  Et  dicamus  .  ■  ■) 
Jerome  has  coined  a  new  Greek  word  which  has  not  been  noticed  in 
LSJ  and  which  Antin  (above,  note  18)  thought  (112,  note  3)  was  a 
ridiculous  word,  echoing  the  Apocolocyntosis  of  Seneca.  It  is  possible 
that  Jerome  had  been  reading  Seneca's  skit,  but  altogether  unlikely 
that  he  had  been  reading  Roman  history  in  the  Greek  of  Dio  Cassius, 
our  only  source  for  the  word  (see  above,  0.01).  On  the  other  hand, 
he  was  perfectly  capable  of  forming  a  new  Greek  word,  which  on 
the  analogy  of  </)iX6o-o0O(;  and  countless  others  must  mean,  simply,  "a 
lover  of  KoXoKvvdrj,"  i.e.  of  the  fruits  which  supply  tasty  food,  not  so 
very  different  from  the  cucurbitarii  or  "growers  of  cucurbits"  in  Epist. 
112  (above,  1.14).  In  other  words,  it  is  on  account  of  some  reader 
who  may  be  a  cucurbit-lover  that  Jerome  does  not  abandon  cucurbita 
altogether.  And  actually  on  other  occasions,  when  he  was  not  dis- 
cussing the  Hebrew  text  but  its  spiritual  meaning  (see  above,  1.06 
on  the  preface,  Antin  54,  and  at  Antin  107  on  4.  5  and  115  on  4. 
9),  Jerome  himself  uses  the  word  cucurbita  of  Jonah's  shade-plant, 
accommodating  his  vocabulary  to  his  readers'  preference. 

[1.30]  For  most  of  the  time  in  St.  Jerome  and  his  contemporaries  the 
word  cucurbita  denotes  a  commercially  grown,  edible  fruit:  compare 
especially  Jerome's  cucurbitarii  in  Epist.  112,  (f)LXoKo\6Kvvdoq  at  Antin 
112  (just  above),  cucurbitae  camarariae  (no  longer  saucomariae)  at  Antin 
109  (above,  1.28),  Diocletian's  Edict  (above,  1.15),  and  Augustine's 
homicida  cucurbitarum  {C.  Faust.  VI.  4,  1.16  above).  On  one  occasion, 
however  (see  1.25  above),  Jerome  alluded  to  the  wine-bottles  which, 
according  to  Columella  and  Pliny,  could  be  made,  along  with  other 
homemade  utensils  {rustica  supellex),  from  the  woody  rinds  of  mature 
fruits  after  they  had  been  emptied  of  their  contents  and  thoroughly 
dried  (see  1.26) — passages  from  which  Linnaeus  drew  the  specific 
epithet  {Cucurbita)  lagenaria  and  in  which  Candolle  recognized  the 
plant  which  Seringe  called  Lagenaria  vulgaris.  And  we  have  suggested 
that  it  was  the  familiar  sight  of  the  smooth-skinned  bottle-gourds. 


J.  L.  Heller  101 

hanging  dried  and  empty  from  the  rafters,  which  lies  behind  Apuleius' 
figures  (Met.  I.  15  and  V.  9)  and  Irenaeus'  coupling  of  cucurbita  and 
perinane  (see  above,  1.27).  Jerome  also  knew  the  use  of  the  implement 
which  we  call  a  cupping-glass  (see  1.01)  and  he,  following  Pliny  (1.02), 
called  a  medicinalis  cucurbita — a  linguistic  transfer  owing  to  the  simi- 
larity of  its  shape  to  that  of  the  gourds  when  small  (1.03).  And  next 
we  saw  (1.04)  that  cucurbitae  in  Petronius  (39.  12)  is  probably  a 
figurative  application  of  the  transferred  name  of  the  implement  to 
people  whom  Trimalchio  and  his  guests  considered  obnoxious. 

[1.31]  So  far  we  have  been  noting  the  cases  in  which  cucurbita  refers 
primarily  to  a  part  of  the  plant,  its  fruit.  But  in  the  sections  which 
follow  (1.05-1.22)  cucurbita  refers  to  the  whole  plant.  According  to 
the  Old  Latin  translations  of  the  book  of  Jonah,  made  from  the 
Greek  versions  by  the  LXX,  this  was  specifically  the  bottle-gourd 
vine,  the  plant  which  grew  up  rapidly  and  provided  grateful  shade 
for  Jonah,  only  to  be  withered  through  the  agency  of  a  worm  at 
God's  bidding.  But  in  his  new  translation  from  the  Hebrew  text,  St. 
Jerome  had  substituted  the  word  hedera,  at  the  same  time  declaring 
that  the  plant  was  not  really  the  broad-leaved  ivy  but  a  different 
shrub,  called  ciceion  in  the  Hebrew,  which  grew  frequently  in  Palestine 
and  could  rise  upward  without  external  support.  Various  people  had 
protested  vigorously  against  the  substitution  of  something  else  for 
cucurbita,  which  they  thought  was  most  appropriate  to  the  performance 
of  the  plant  in  the  traditional  story.  St.  Augustine  had  not  been 
convinced  (1.18  above)  by  Jerome's  explanation,  and  Rufinus  had 
ridiculed  it  (1.19),  pointing  to  the  importance  of  the  plant  cucurbita 
as  a  symbol  in  sepulchral  iconography.  I  have  stated  reasons  (1.12-13) 
for  doubting  certain  points  in  Jerome's  explanation — not  that  he  was 
wrong  about  the  reading  of  the  Hebrew  text  or  the  nature  of  the 
plant  ciceion — and  I  have  voiced  a  suspicion  that  he  had  some  other 
reason  for  rejecting  the  traditional  cucurbita.  This  would  be,  I  now 
think,  that  the  gourd  was  one  of  the  garden-products  which  were 
sought  out  by  luxury-loving  clerics  who  should  have  been  content 
with  ordinary  bread  (cibarius  panis)  and  plain  drinking  water  instead 
of  delicate  cococtions  like  contrita  holera  betarumque  sucus;  see  the 
passage  {Epist.  52.  12)  from  the  letter  to  Nepotianus  which  Wiessen 
(above,  note  21)  cites  (p.  79)  as  an  example  of  true  satire  for  a 
Christian  purpose,  the  reformation  of  the  clergy.  Jerome  does  not 
mention  cucurbitae  here  in  his  list  of  delicacies  {caricae,  piper,  nuces 
.  .  .  simila,  mel,  pistatia,  tota  hortorum  cultura),  but  they  are  prominent 
in  Arnobius'  lists  {Nat.  IV.  10  and  VII.  16)  of  strange  foods  favored 
by  pagan  superstition.  It  is  also  possible  that  Jerome  knew  about  and 


102  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

recoiled  from  the  purgative  property  of  Pliny's  cucurbita  silvestris  or 
colocynthis  (above,  1.02).  If  so,  there  is  irony  in  his  recommendation 
of  the  plant  Ricinus  communis,  the  oil  from  whose  seeds  was  used  at 
the  time  (see  Pliny  above,  1.12)  mainly  for  burning  in  lamps  but  now 
as  a  purgative.  (And  Galen  among  ancient  physicians  knew  and 
extolled  this  cathartic  use  of  the  plant  called  kiki;  see  Kiihn  [Galeni 
Opera,  xii,  p.  26],  who  translates:  Ricini  fructus  quemadmodum  purgat, 
detergit  ac  digeritf).  But  we  cannot  know  about  this,  and  our  object 
here  has  been  merely  to  show  that  all  the  connotations  of  the  word 
cucurbita  in  Jerome  were  known  also  to  Pliny  and  others  in  the  time 
of  Seneca,  and  that  very  few  of  them  were  pejorative.  It  can  be  said 
that  the  plant  which  Linnaeus  called  Cucurbita  lagenaria  was  regarded 
then — as  it  still  is — as  a  provider  of  goods  and  services  for  man. 


II.  Athenaeus  on  koXokvvttj 

[2.01]  Candolle  had  said  (see  above,  0.12)  that  Greek  authors  do  not 
mention  the  plant  Lagenaria  vulgaris,  though  he  recognized  this  plant 
in  Roman  descriptions  of  cucurbita  which  stressed  the  woody  nature 
of  the  matured  fruits'  rinds  and  their  use  for  homemade  utensils. 
But  we  have  just  seen  that  the  word  cucurbita  in  the  Old  Latin  versions 
of  the  book  of  Jonah  translates  KoXoKvuda  in  the  LXX,  that  Jerome 
himself  invented  the  term  (ptXoKoXoKvvdoq  referring  to  a  lover  of 
cucurbitae,  that  Lucian  {Vera  Hist.  II.  37;  see  above,  1.27)  shows  how 
the  Kolokynthopeiratai  made  their  KoXoKVvdiva  irXola  from  the  dried 
and  emptied  rinds  of  fruits  which  are  evidently  identical  with  the 
cucurbitae  described  by  Pliny  and  Columella,  and  that  the  Latin 
translation  of  Irenaeus'  work  (above,  1.27)  uses  the  successive  terms 
cucurbita,  perinane,  cucumis,  and  pepo,  presumably  rendering  the  terms 
of  the  original  Greek  parody  of  Valentine's  tetrad,  which  would  be 
KoXoKvvBr],  biOLKevov  (or  a  new  coinage  -KepLbiaKtvov),  cfckvoc,  and  -Ke-Ku^v. 
And  here  we  can  add  the  Greek  names  of  the  fruits  whose  prices 
were  set  by  Diocletian's  Edict  (6.  26-32,  see  note  28  and  above, 
1.15):  cucurbitae:  KoXoKVvdar,  cucumeres:  (xiKvor,  melopepones:  ixrjXoireiropeq; 
pepones:  Treirouei;.  And  the  glosses  (references  in  the  TLL)  regularly 
have  cucurbita  for  koXokvuBt]  or  KoXoKvuda  and,  vice  versa,  koXokvpOt) 
or  KoXoKvura  for  cucurbita  (or  cucuruita),  except  that  there  are  a  few 
traces  of  the  Scholium  on  luven.  14.  58:  cucurbita  oLKva — which  is 
quite  correct:  see  1.01  and  note  14. 

[2.02]  Clearly,  then,  koXokvuBt}  and  cucurbita  were  lexical  equivalents 
at  least  from  the  second  century  on.  But  we  can  trace  their  equivalence 


J.  L.  Heller  103 

much  farther  back  through  various  passages  in  Athenaeus.  He  made 
a  critical  distinction  (II,  59  a),  which  we  have  noted  (above,  0.11) 
was  the  basis  for  the  definition  in  the  Thesaurus  of  Stephanus  and 
thence  in  the  successive  editions  of  Liddell  and  Scott  until  it  was 
changed  in  the  new  edition  (LSJ).  "The  people  of  the  Hellespont," 
he  said,  "distinguish  long  gourds,  which  they  call  ai/cuat,  from  the 
round  ones,  which  they  call  KoXoKvuraiy  This  is  supported  by  a 
sentence  in  Aristotle,  who  says  {Hist.  An.  IX.  14,  616  a  22)  that  the 
(supposed)  floating  nest  of  the  (mythical)  halcyon  is  shaped  approxi- 
mately like  the  sikyai  which  have  long  necks.  For,  although  the  generic 
word  for  gourds  in  the  Attic  dialect  was  koXokvvtt]  (Athen.  II,  59  c; 
compare  the  heading  KoXoKvvTai  at  58  f)  there  were  exceptions,  as 
in  Aristotle,  in  various  authors  quoted  by  Athenaeus,"*^  and  in  a  third- 
century  papyrus  from  El  Fayum  preserved  at  the  Sorbonne.*'  Here, 
in  lines  18-21,  an  agent  reports  to  his  superior  that  the  oil-dealer 
Mares  had  brought  to  him  a  certain  person  who  had  two  sikyai  and 
...  a  lekythos,  in  which  .  .  .  (the  rest  is  illegible).  Hombert  translated 
GLKvaq  j8'  as  "deux  calabasses";  LSJ  explain  the  word  as  ''gourd  used 
as  a  calabash,"  quite  reasonably  in  view  of  Pliny's  and  Columella's 
containers  (cucurbitae,  above,  1.25;  note  Columella's  Alexandrian 
cucurbitae)  for  water  and  wine.  Thus  we  now  have  documentary 
evidence  from  the  pre-Christian  era  that  gourds  of  a  certain  shape 
were  in  fact  bottle-gourds,  fruits  of  Lagenaria  vulgaris.  And  referring 
back  to  the  nickname  l^iKvac,  in  Athenaeus  VI,  257  a  (above  1.04), 
citing  the  third-century  historian  Clearchus  and  to  the  discussion  of 
cucurbita  when  applied  to  the  cupping-instrument  (1.02-03),  we 
cannot  doubt  that  the  word  sikya,  in  this  application,  was  also  a 
linguistic  transfer  or  Ubertrag  from  its  use  as  applied  to  a  bottle-gourd 
of  a  certain  shape.  If  we  suppose  that  the  critical  shape  was  similar 
to  that  of  a  cucumber,  then  it  is  likely  that  aiKva  is  an  arbitrary 
feminine  variant  of  the  older  word  aiKvoc,  (or  aiKvoq)  or  aUvq  (attested 

''^  Euthydemus  of  Athens  (Athen.  II,  58  f)  called  kolokynle  an  "Indian  sikya" 
because  the  seed  was  imported  from  India;  Menodorus,  a  student  of  Erasistratus  and 
friend  of  Hikesius  (Athen.  II,  59  a),  said  that  among  kolokyntai  there  was  the  Indian 
kind,  also  called  sikya,  which  was  usually  boiled,  and  the  kolokynle  proper,  which  was 
also  baked  {koL  o-KTarai),  and  in  a  significant  passage  from  the  poet  Nicander  of 
Colophon  (to  be  discussed  a  little  later),  Athenaeus  (IX,  372  c)  assures  us  that 
Nicander  referred  to  kolokyntai  though  he  called  them  sikyai. 

"^  No.  391,  first  published  in  1925  by  M.  Hombert,  Rn:  beige  de  Phil,  et  d'Hist.  4, 
652-60,  no.  8,  and  reprinted  by  F.  Bilabel  in  the  third  volume  of  the  Sammelbuch 
(1927),  no.  7202,  and  thus  cited  by  LSJ. 


104  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

for  Alcaeus,  Athen.  Ill,  73  e);  Frisk  places  the  three  words  side  by 
side  in  his  etymological  dictionary."*^ 

[2.03]  Thanks  to  a  papyrus  published  in  1931  and  not  noticed  in 
LSJ  until  its  1968  Supplement,  we  now  have  documentary  evidence 
that  the  gourd  called  KoKoKvvdt]  (or  KoXoKvvda)  could  also  provide  a 
homemade  utensil  and  therefore  should  be  identified  as  the  fruit  of 
Lagenaria  vulgaris.  It  comes  in  a  new  compound,  KoXoKvvdapvTaiva, 
defined  in  the  Supplement  as  "scoop  or  dipper  made  of  a  gourd," 
which  stands  in  line  7  of  No.  78  in  the  Papyri  landanae  (in  fasc.  5, 
1931).  The  word  is  clearly  anapaestic,  like  some  other  words  for  rare 
objects  in  earlier  and  later  lines  of  the  papyrus,  and  the  Nachtrdge  of 
the  editors  suggest  that  the  versifier  was  Parthenius  rather  than 
Callimachus,  in  whose  works  such  doubled  words  are  rare.  Frisk  and 
Chantraine  both  give  this  new  compound  prominence  in  their  dis- 
cussion of  kolokynthe  as  Lagenaria  vulgaris;  see  above,  0.05  and  note  8. 

[2.04]  Another  passage  in  Athenaeus,  also  headed  koXokvvtt)  (IX,  372 
b),  can  be  connected  with  Pliny's  cucurbita,  i.e.  Lagenaria.  Here 
Athenaeus  tells  of  the  party's  wonderment  when  fresh  kolokyntai  were 
served  to  them  in  wintertime.  There  follows  an  extended  passage 
from  the  Horae  of  Aristophanes  (Kock  1,  536-38)  which  notes  the 
appearance  in  midwinter  markets  of  many  kinds  of  comestibles  and 
flowers  out  of  season,  including  aiKvoi,  ^brpvq  and,  later  on,  koXokvptul 
and  yoyyvXib^q,  to  the  amazement — or  disapproval — of  moralizing 
gods,  one  of  whom  comments  sarcastically  that  Athens  has  been  made 
over  into  Egypt.  Again  the  guests  wonder  (Athenaeus  resumes,  372 
d)  how  they  could  be  eating  kolokyntai  in  the  middle  of  January,  for 
they  were  fresh  (xXoopai)  and  retained  their  natural  flavor.  Then  they 
remembered  that  cooks  knew  of  tricks  to  preserve  such  vegetables, 
and  Ulpian,  when  pressed  by  Larensis  to  recall  the  practices  of  the 
ancients,  quotes  some  lines  from  the  Georgica  of  Nicander  of  Colophon 
(frg.  72  Schneider),  telling  how  sikyai  (he  really  means  kolokyntai, 
Athenaeus  makes  Ulpian  say)  should  be  cut  into  strips,  sewed  together 
on  a  string,  dried  in  the  open  air  and  then  hung  over  smoke,  so  that 
in  winter  the  servants  may  have  enough  to  eat,  filling  their  capacious 
pot  with  strings  of  well-washed  aLKvr)  and  other  vegetables.''^  This 

■•*  See  note  8  above.  In  the  same  way,  the  KoXoKvvdi(;  of  Dioscorides  (IV.  176,  see 
1.02  and  0.03  above)  is  to  be  considered  an  arbitrary  variant  of  KoXoKvvda. 

*^  My  paraphrase  owes  less  to  Gulick's  translation  (see  above,  1.04;  Gulick  was 
confused  also  in  his  notes  on  the  heading  kolokynte)  than  to  Gow's  {Nicander,  ed.  A. 
S.  F.  Gow  and  A.  F.  Scholfield;  Cambridge  1953),  where  the  fragment  is  also  no.  72. 
Gow  uses  "gourds"  to  translate  both  kolokyntai  and  sikyai  and  in  his  first  index  identifies 
both  words  botanically  as  Cucurbita  maxiyna,  following  (see  his  Introduction,  p.  25) 


J.  L.  Heller  105 

method  of  preserving  kolokyntai  for  later  consumption  can  be  com- 
pared with  a  sentence  in  Pliny  (XIX.  74)  which  follows  directly  after 
his  sentence  (quoted  above,  1.26)  about  the  smoking  and  drying  of 
the  gourds  destined  for  seed-containers  and  rustica  supellex.  "A  means 
of  preserving  them  (i.e.  cucurbitae)  for  food  has  been  discovered," 
and  he  goes  on  to  describe  two  methods,  the  first  of  which,  in  brine 
{muria),  can  also  be  applied  to  cucumis;  compare  the  Geoponica,  XII. 
19.  15  on  aiKvoL  and  17  on  KoXoKvurai.  For  the  second  method  I  give 
Rackham's  translation  (Loeb  Pliny,  5,  1950)  of  Mayhoff's  Teubner 
text  (1892): 

but  it  is  reported  that  gourds  also  can  be  kept  green  in  a  trench  dug 
in  a  shady  place  and  floored  with  dry  hay  and  then  with  earth. 

This  is  not  exactly  Nicander's  method,  but  what  matters  is  that  the 
successive  authors,  Nicander,  Pliny,  and  Athenaeus,  were  all  referring 
to  methods  of  preserving  the  young  edible  gourds  in  a  dry  state  for 
eating  at  a  later  date:  usque  ad  alios  paene  proventus,  says  Pliny,  and 
his  preceding  sentence  was  one  of  those  by  which  Candolle  recognized 
the  fruit  of  Lagenaria  vulgaris.  We  can  add  that  a  contemporary  of 
Athenaeus,  the  physician  Galen  of  Pergamum,  also  commended  the 
dried  flesh  of  kolokynthai,  the  seeds  having  been  removed,  for  plea- 
surable eating  in  winter:  see  his  essay,  De  alimentorum  facultatihus,  in 
Kiihn's  edition,  vol.  6,  p.  559;  also  in  another  essay  (Kiihn  6,  p.  785), 
after  the  flesh  had  been  cut  into  small  pieces  and  dried  so  that  it 
would  not  rot. 

[2.05]  In  defense  of  Candolle's  failure  to  recognize  Lagenaria  vulgaris 
in  any  Greek  source  that  was  available  in  his  time,  it  can  be  said  that 
the  statements  of  Theophrastus  in  his  De  historia  plantarum  (Loeb 
edition  by  Hort,  1916)  and  De  causis  plantarum  (Loeb  edition  by 
Einarson  and  Link  in  1976)  have  been  more  baffling  than  illuminating 
on  the  botanical  identity  of  his  plants,  especially  those  for  which  he 
uses  the  names  sikyos,  sikya,  and  kolokynte  {-nthe  once,  at  C.P.  II.  8.  4). 
Kolokynte  is  paired  frequently  with  sikyos  but  sometimes  with  sikya,  and 
on  two  occasions  {H.P.  I.  13.  3  and  VII.  2.  9)  all  three  words  occur 
together:  6  aiKVOc,  Kal  rj  koXokvptt]  Kal  ^  aiKva.  Thus  there  was  some 
reason  for  Dyer  (see  note  9)  to  make  a  distinction  between  kolokynte 
and  sikya  and  for  Hort  to  adopt  it  in  his  botanical  index  for  the  three 
words,  respectively  "Cucumber  {Cucumis  sativus),  Gourd  (Cucurbita 
maxima),  and  Bottle-gourd  {Lagenaria  vulgaris)."'   Previous  scholars 

Thiselton-Dyer  in  LSJ,  not  without  expressing  some  doubt  in  general  and  in  the 
index  under  kolokynte  adding  Emmanuel's  guess:  Citrullus  colocynthis,  i.e.  the  Bitter 
Apple! 


106  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

indeed  had  diverged  widely  in  their  identifications,  as  may  be  seen 
in  the  index  of  Wimmer's  Didot  edition  (1866).  For  the  three  names 
above  the  index  gives  the  interpretations  of  K.  Sprengel  (as  deduced 
from  his  translation  of  and  commentary  on  the  H.P.,  Altona,  1822) 
and  of  C.  Fraas  {Synopsis  plantarum  florae  classicae  .  .  .  Munchen, 
1845).  In  tabular  form  they  read: 

sikyos  kolokynte  sikya 

Spr.        Melone,  i.e.  Gurke,  i.e.  Kiirbiss,  i.e. 

Cucumis  Melo  L.  Cucumis  sativus  L.       Cucurbita  Pepo  L. 

Fr.  Cucumis  sativus  L.       Cucurbita  Pepo  L.        Cucumis  Melo  L. 

Here  we  may  note  the  comment  of  Sprengel  in  his  Altona  edition 
on  H.P.  VII.  1.  2  (which  is  echoed,  more  emphatically,  in  Hehn's 
Kulturpflanze  [7th  edn.,  1902],  p.  310;  see  above,  0.08)  and  even  by 
Schiemann  (above,  0.06,  p.  237): 

Indessen  ist  es  sehr  schwer,  mil  Bestimmheit  sich  iiber  diese  Bedeu- 
tungen  [i.e.  of  sikyos  and  kolokynte,  also  sikyos  pepon  (see  above,  0.10 
and  1.27)]  zu  erklaren,  da  die  Alten  die  Namen  haufig  verwechseln. 

This  was  in  1822,  and  Sprengel  went  on  to  cite  passages  from 
Athenaeus,  Dioscorides,  Galen,  and  the  Geoponica.  Then,  a  century 
later,  even  as  Schiemann  was  writing  in  1932,  the  changes  of  name, 
apparent  in  quotations  in  Athenaeus  and  Galen  from  Diodes  of 
Carystus  and  Speusippus,  and  in  Theophrastus  himself,  were  being 
exploited  by  Steier  in  the  article  "Melone"  in  the  RE,  bd.  29  (1931), 
cols.  562-67,  in  order  to  suggest  that  the  sikya  of  Theophrastus  might 
indeed  be  the  Melon,  Cucumis  Melo,  as  in  Fraas  above.  This  is,  of 
course,  possible,  but  Steier  nowhere  refers  to  the  still  earlier  and 
usual  meaning  o{  sikya  as  cupping-instrument  (see  above,  1.02)  and 
in  fact  at  col.  563  he  is  quite  mistaken  when  he  thinks  that  the  phrase 
at  neyaXai  aiKvai.  in  the  Hippocratean  Corpus  {Art.  48,  Littre  4,  p. 
214)  refers  to  a  plant  or  the  product  of  a  plant  (melon).  He  has  failed 
to  notice  that  the  next  word  in  the  phrase  is  Trpoa^aXXonevaL,  the 
regular  term  (see  above,  1.02)  for  the  attachment  of  a  cupping- 
instrument.  The  truth  seems  to  be  (above  2.02)  that  the  word  sikya 
in  the  sense  "cupping-instrument"  was  transferred  from  an  arbitrary 
variant  of  sikyos  which  indicated  a  bottle-gourd  of  a  certain  shape, 
and  that  Theophrastus  was  careless  in  applying  it,  apparently,  to  a 
plant  distinct  from  Lagenaria.  For  at  C.  P.  I.  10.  4  he  speaks  of  the 
weakness  in  climbing  of  "the  so-called  sikya"  {rfiq  oiKvac,  KaXovfxevrjq), 
and  here  Einarson  and  Link,  who  follow  Hort  and  LSJ  in  relating 
sikya  to  the  bottle-gourd,  comment  on  the  oddity  of  the  "so-called": 


J.  L.  Heller  107 

perhaps,  they  say,  it  was  thought  to  be  named  from  sikya,  a  cupping 
iron,  although  the  cupping  iron  was  actually  named  from  the  gourd. 
[2.06]  All  this  was  slippery  business,  but  now  that  we  have  documen- 
tary evidence  from  the  papyri  that  the  gourds  called  sikyai  (see  2.02) 
and  those  called  kolokyntai  (2.03)  were  slightly  different  products  of 
essentially  the  same  plant  (i.e.  Lagenaria),  I  think  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
nothing  in  the  prose  writers  before  Athenaeus  indicates  that  either 
of  these  names  must  refer  to  something  else.  With  this  in  mind  we 
can  proceed  to  examine  some  of  the  contexts  in  Athenaeus  which 
draw  from  the  comic  poets.  We  begin  with  one  of  the  two  which 
became  proverbial  (see  above,  0.02).  In  his  second  book,  p.  59  c, 
Athenaeus  cites  a  line  from  Epicharmus  (frg.  154,  Kaibel):  vyLonrepov 
Bt]v  cVti  KoXoKvuraq  iroXv.  This  is  cited  as  a  proverb  by  Zenobius  (VI. 
27),  and  we  know  from  Demetrius  On  Style  {De  eloc.  127  and  162) 
that  Sophron  (frg.  34,  Kaibel)  had  also  used  the  expression  in  a  comic 
exaggeration  {hyperbole).  Manuscripts  vary  with  respect  to  the  form 
of  the  comparative  {vyioiT-,  vyioxxr-,  or  vyuar-)  but  the  gender  is 
regularly  neuter,  and  we  can  probably  set  aside  as  too  late  and 
somehow  confused  the  masculine  form  in  which  the  Suda  (Adler  3, 
1945)  under  kolokynte  gives  the  proverb:  KoXoKvvTr]<;  vyuGrepiJq.  Lexi- 
cographers have  attempted  explanations  based  on  Epicharmus,  usually 
joining  his  expression  with  the  other  proverb.  Thus  Liddell  and  Scott 
(6th  edn.,  1869)  say,  under  kolokynthe  defined  as  the  round  gourd  or 
pumpkin  (see  above,  0.10):  "proverbially  of  health,  from  its  fresh 
juicy  nature  (citing  Epicharmus),  as  a  lily  was  of  death  .  .  .  (citing 
Diphilus)."  LSJ,  however,  place  the  two  proverbs  under  the  KoXoKvvda 
aypia  of  Dioscorides  (IV.  76),  which  it  rightly  defines  (see  above, 
1.02)  as  colocynth,  Citrullus  Colocynthis,  explaining  it  as  "symbolic  of 
health,  from  its  juicy  nature,  vyiojTepov  KoXoKvvTaq  Epich.  154,  Sophr. 
34;  as  a  lily  was  of  death,  rj  koXokvuttju  rj  Kpivov  living  or  dead,  Diph. 
98,  cf.  Men.  934."  The  assignment  of  both  proverbs  under  Colocynthis 
or  Bitter  Apple  seems  very  strange,  and  in  my  next  paragraph  I  will 
try  to  show  that  the  second  expression  (from  Diphilus  and  Menander) 
belongs  under  Lagenaria  as  usual,  but  I  think  the  assignment  of  the 
first  proverb  is  correct,  though  not  exactly  as  a  symbol  of  health. 
The  Sicilian  dramatists,  especially  Sophron  who  mimed  everyday  life, 
may  have  shown  a  mother  urging  a  reluctant  child  to  take  a  purgative 
or  some  bitter  potion,  and  saying,  "Drink  this.  It's  good  for  you, 
healthier  than  the  plant  kolokynte y^^  This  would  be  an  exaggeration 

^^  This  of  course  would  be  long  before  Dioscorides,  using  the  new  form  in  short 
alpha,  separated  the  species  called  a-ypla  from  KoXoKwda  (ddodLfioc,  (II.  134,  Wellmann). 
See  again  my  Figure  6  (Fuchs  212)  for  the  small  globular  fruits  of  Coloquint  or 
Bitter  Apple. 


108  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

indeed,  first  because  it  was  not  the  plant  but  the  juice  of  the  fruit  of 
Citrullus  Colocynthis  which  was  so  promotive  of  health,  and  secondly 
because  the  comparative  degree  of  the  adjective  vytric,  "healthy  in  all 
respects"  is  substituted  for  the  comparative  degree  oivyuivbc,  "healthy 
for  you,  wholesome."  But  this  substitution  evidently  took  hold  in  the 
speech  of  comedy,  for  LSJ  cite  the  expressions  vyuarepoq  6n(l)aK(K, 
Com.  Adesp.  910  and  vyuarepoc,  KpoTibvoc,,  Men.  318  (where  Strabo, 
VI.  1.  12,  had  KpoTcoi'oq).  Here  OM0a^  is  the  unripe,  bitter-tasting 
grape,  and  Kpordv  is  the  bush  or  tree,  Ricinus  communis,  from  whose 
seeds  our  castor  oil  is  prepared  (see  above,  1.12  and  1.31).  But  then 
Aelian,  Rust.  Epist.  10,  combines  the  expressions  of  Menander  and 
Sophron,  using  the  proper  adjective:  vyuLvorepoq  earaL  KpoTcbuoq  8r}Trov 
Kal  KoXoKvuTTjq.  Hercher  {Epist.  Graeci,  p.  19)  renders  the  first  noun 
correctly  as  ricinus  and  the  second  as  cucurbita,  which  is  correct  if  we 
add  Pliny's  silvestris  (see  1.02  above);  and  the  reference  is  clearly  to 
the  wholesome  purgatives  derived  from  the  two  plants.  But  we  end 
this  paragraph  by  noting  that  Aelian's  fictional  farmer  has  been 
advising  a  friend  to  castrate  an  oversexed  boar  which  has  been  a 
nuisance  on  his  farm,  and  then,  after  explaining  in  some  detail  how 
he  would  treat  the  wounded  animal  and  restore  it  to  health  and 
better  behavior  in  the  future,  he  inserts  the  comic  expressions  as 
above.  But  in  this  context  vyuarepoq  would  have  been  the  proper 
word!  It  would  seem  that  Aelian  was  more  interested  in  correcting 
the  style  of  his  predecessors  than  in  the  consistency  of  his  own  style. 

[2.07]  For  the  other  proverb  we  have  two  full  lines  (Diphilus,  frg. 
98,  Kock)  preserved  by  Zenobius  (IV.  18): 

ep  rinepaiaiv  avrov  kivTO.  aoL,  yipov, 
deXci)  Trapaax^'^v  rj  KoXoKVVT-qv  t)  Kpivov. 

The  same  contrast,  titol  Kpivov  ^  koXokvvtt^v,  is  said  {Prov.  Coisl.  253) 
to  have  been  used  by  Menander  and  is  counted  by  Kock  as  his  frg. 
934;  compare  Meineke's  frg.  1033.  The  speaker  in  Diphilus  appears 
to  be  a  trusted  servant  or  friend  who  had  undertaken  to  accompany 
the  elderly  man's  son  on  some  dangerous  mission  and  now  promises 
to  bring  him  back  within  seven  days  as  (figuratively)  either  a  kolokynte 
or  a  krinon.  Since  the  paroemiographers  (see  also  Diogenian.  V.  10 
and  Apostol.  VIII.  45)  all  refer  to  the  ancient  practice  of  arranging 
lilies  over  the  dead  (see,  e.g.,  Vergil,  Aen.  VI.  883),  so  that  the  usually 
white  lily  (Theophr.,  H.P.  VI.  6.  8,  Theocr.  11.  56)  would  symbolize 
death,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  somehow  the  flower  of  the 
plant  kolokynte  here  symbolizes  life,  and  the  expression  means  (see 


J.  L.  Heller  109 

LSJ  above)  "living  or  dead."^'  I  cannot  explain  how  the  symbolism 
arose,  but  it  is  pertinent  to  remember  that  the  flower  of  the  Lagenaria, 
alone  among  the  cucurbits,  was  white.  See  above,  note  42;  and  note 
that  Whitaker  and  Davis  (above,  note  1 1),  who  use  the  name  "White- 
Flowered  Gourd"  rather  than  the  traditional  "Bottle-Gourd,"  describe 
its  flowers  (p.  17)  as  "white,  showy,  and  borne  singly  on  very  long 
peduncles  that  rise  above  the  foliage."  The  long  stem,  which  can  be 
seen  clearly  in  Fuchs'  woodcut  (his  p.  211,  my  Figure  5),  and  the 
pretty  white  flower  would  invite  comparison  with  the  lily  and  make 
some  sort  of  symbolic  contrast  almost  inevitable. 

[2.08]  A  few  other  passages  in  Greek  literature  make  some  positive 
contribution  towards  our  conclusion  that  kolokynte  usually  denotes  the 
"White-Flowered  Gourd"  known  in  Latin  as  cucurbita.  Aristotle  {Hist, 
animal.  II,  591  a  16)  says  that  among  fish  only  the  saupe  or  salp  (^ 
aaXirr])  is  captured  with  a  gourd  {drjpeveTaL  koXokvpOt}).  D'Arcy  Thomp- 
son in  the  Oxford  Aristotle  (4,  1910)  suggests  in  his  note  that  the 
gourd  was  not  the  bait,  but  a  float  used  to  support  the  line  until  the 
fish  was  exhausted.  He  refers  to  a  modern  authority  on  fishing,  but 
he  might  have  compared  Columella's  line  (X.  388,  cited  above,  1.25) 
about  the  floats  which  help  boys  learn  to  swim.  Martial's  epigram 
about  Atreus  cucurbitarum  (XI.  31,  see  above,  1.16)  reveals  the 
aristocratic  Roman  disdain  for  what  they  regarded  as  cheap  food. 
The  same  attitude  is  expressed  much  later  in  an  epigram  (A.  P.  XI. 
371)  by  Palladas,  the  gloomy  schoolmaster  of  Alexandria  and  pagan 
contemporary  of  Jerome,  who,  I  suspected  (see  above,  1.31),  felt 
otherwise:  cucurbitae  were  among  the  luxury  foods  which  the  plain 
clergy  should  avoid.  But  Palladas  derides  a  wealthy  host  who  desires 
to  display  his  silver  plate  at  a  banquet  but  serves  on  it  only  poor  fare, 
for  which  he  uses  a  novel  expression,  ^porvv  rrfv  KoXoKvudiada.  Patton 
in  the  Loeb  Anthology  (1926)  translated  it  "pumpkin  pie,"  perhaps 
following  Dyer's  guidance  in  Hort's  Theophrastus  (1916)  but  also 
reflecting  a  similar  disdain,  which  was  aff'ected,  formerly  at  least,  by 
the  British  in  general,  for  a  favorite  American  dish. 

[2.09]  Returning  to  the  contexts  in  Athenaeus,  we  note  some  others 
which  can  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  Lagenaria  vulgaris  (for  nothing 

^'  The  ancient  tradition  (see  the  paroemiographers)  focused  primarily  on  to  rriq 
KoXoKvuTTic,  avdoq,  but  rather  as  symbolizing  ra  a8r]\a,  since  (they  say)  it  was  uncertain 
whether  it  would  come  up  as  far  as  a  lily  or  would  bear  fruit.  Only  afterward  do 
they  continue  with  the  arrangement  of  lilies  over  the  dead,  adding  the  quite 
unsupported  assertion  that  the  ancients  also  arranged  the  flowers  of  kolokynte  over 
the  healthy.  This  may  be  an  inference  from  the  other  proverb,  which  has  certainly 
influenced  modern  lexicographers. 


110  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

prevents  us;  see  above  2.06)  rather  than  Cucurbita  maxima;  and  in 
them  v^e  will  find  nothing  very  surprising  or  derogatory  about  the 
fruits  that  are  indicated.  The  first  of  these  is  from  the  comic  poet 
Hermippus  (frg.  79,  Kock):  Tr^v  Ke(t)a\r]v  oarju  ex^L,  oarjv  koXokvvttiu. 
This  was  the  first  of  several  quotations  by  which  Athenaeus  showed 
(II,  59  c)  that  Attic  writers  used  only  the  one  word  {kolokynte)  for  all 
the  varieties  of  gourd,  some  of  which  others  called  sikya  (above  2.02). 
Many  have  seen  in  the  notable  size  of  this  person's  head  a  reference 
to  the  large  globular  fruit  which  we  call  pumpkin  and  the  Germans 
Kiirbis  (see,  e.g.,  Weinreich  cited  in  note  1  above),  but  of  course  the 
large  pyriform  bottle-gourd  (see  my  Figure  4),  viewed  upside  down, 
would  fit  the  verbal  picture  here  equally  well  and  even  better  the 
famous  picture  of  Pericles  sketched  by  Cratinus  (frg.  71,  Kock,  from 
Plut.  Pericl.  13),  "the  squill-headed  Zeus  with  the  Odeum  on  his 
head."  In  neither  passage,  moreover,  is  there  any  hint  of  ridicule  for 
a  large-headed  man  as  being  thereby  empty-headed  or  stupid. 

[2.10]  Next  after  Hermippus,  Athenaeus  cites  (59  c)  a  line  from  the 
comic  poet  Phrynichus  (frg.  61,  Kock):  t)  txa^iov  n  nupov  ry  koXokvvtiov, 
noting  that  he  uses  the  diminutive  hypocoristically.  In  fact  the  context 
shows  rather  more  affection  for  kolokynte,  as  being  a  favorite  comestible 
like  maza,  than  any  indication  of  size.  Gulick  translates  "pumpkin," 
but  this  could  be  a  small  fresh  gourd^^  or,  perhaps,  a  slice  of  one, 
dried  and  smoked  as  described  by  Nicander  (above,  2.04).  The 
diminutive  form  KoXokwOlov  was  also  applied  as  a  nickname  {epiklesis) 
to  a  certain  Theodotus  who  held  high  office  in  the  court  of  Justinian 
(Procop.  Anecd.  IX.  37).  This  was  cited  by  Weinreich  among  the 
passages  in  which  there  was  a  connotation  of  stupidity,  but  the 
diminutive  may  well  have  been  affectionate  and  need  mean  no  more 
than  in  Phrynichus — something  as  good  as  a  barley-cake.  There  is 
another  possibility,  which  I  pass  over  quickly,  that  the  long  neck  of 
the  bottle-gourd  (see  Aristotle  cited  above,  2.02,  and  the  smaller 
dangling  gourd  seen  in  the  center  of  my  Figure  8)  was  perceived  as 
phallic  in  shape  and  may  have  led  to  the  colloquial  and  obscene 
meaning  which  the  word  colocyntha  evidently  has  in  the  sixth  line  of 
the  Oxford  fragment  of  Juvenal's  sixth  satire,  that  is,  a  vir  membrosus 
or  moechus,   according   to   Todd.^^   But   if  this   was   the   source   of 

^^  Compare  the  smaller  grade  (20  to  a  bundle)  oi cucurbita  =  KokoKvvOa  in  Diocletian's 
Edict,  6.  27  (above,  1.15).  LaufTer  in  his  notes  cites  a  true  diminutive  from  an  account 
book,  P.  Ryl.  IV.  629.  166  (317-24  ad.):  koXo/cw^iw;/  (5p.)  a'. 

^'  In  the  third  part  of  his  article  on  the  Cucurbitaceae,  Class.  Quart.  37  (1943), 
108-11.  Todd  rejects  the  evidence  on  certain  ancient  medical  implements,  made 
from  the  emptied  necks  of  small  dried  gourds  and  certainly  phallic  in  shape,  which 


J.  L.  Heller  1 1 1 

Theodotus'  nickname,  it  is  not  unknown  for  diminutives  to  be  applied 
Kar'  avTi4)paGiv  (compare  Robin  Hood's  Little  John)  or  for  subor- 
dinates to  boast,  affectionately  and  proudly,  of  their  leader's  sexual 
prowess  (compare  the  word  of  Caesar's  soldiers  for  him,  Suet.  51). 
And  in  any  case,  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  pumpkins. 

[2.11]  Lastly,  we  may  examine  the  Aristophanic  taunt  {Nub.  327) 
XT/juaq  KoXoKvvTaic,,  since  Kilpatrick  (above,  note  2)  has  brought  it  up, 
interpreting  the  noun  in  the  usual  way  as  "pumpkins"  and  connecting 
it  with  Seneca's  word  apocolocyntosis.  The  phrase  is  colloquial  exag- 
geration, like  our  "to  weep  buckets,"  since  \r\tir)  in  the  Hippocratic 
Corpus  {Vet.  med.  19,  Progr.  2)  denotes  the  humor  or  rheum  that 
gathers  in  the  corner  of  the  eye  (so  LSJ,  translating  the  phrase  "to 
have  one's  eyes  running  pumpkins").  But  the  large  pyriform  bottle- 
gourds  would  fit  the  exaggeration  just  as  well,  and  if  we  think  of  the 
urcei  made  from  Pliny's  cucurbitae  (above,  1.26)  or  the  KoKoKvvBapv- 
ratva  of  the  papyrus  (above,  2.03),  then  they  would  fit  perfecdy  both 
with  our  expression  and  with  a  proverb  cited  by  Hesychius  (A  862, 
Latte,  2,  p.  593),  which  combines  Lucian's  phrase  (C.  Indoct.  23) 
xvrpacq  Xrjixav  (cf.  Diogenian.  V.  63)  with  this  of  Aristophanes. 

III.  Apocolocyntosis  Reconsidered 

[3.01]  The  conclusion  which  we  may  draw  from  all  these  references 
in  Greek  literature  from  the  fifth  century  B.C.  through  the  fourth 
Christian  century  (and  beyond)  is  that  the  fruits  of  the  White-Flowered 
Gourd,  whether  called  kolokynthai  or  sikyai,  were  very  well  known 
both  as  edible  fruits  and  as  the  source  from  which  various  kinds  of 
utensils  could  be  made.  No  literary  evidence  shows  that  the  fruits 
were  what  we  call  pumpkins  or  squashes,^"*  and  only  one  proverbial 
expression  (see  2.06)  suggests  that  the  word  kolokynte  sometimes 
referred  to  the  Bitter- Apple,  classed  by  modern  systematists  as  one 
of  the  Cucurbitaceae  and  containing  in  its  juice  a  drastic  purgative. 

Housman  drew  from  Hippocrates  in  support  of  his  comment  on  the  passage  in  his 
1905  edition  of  Juvenal,  and  works  (I  think  quite  rightly,  though  he  need  not  have 
rejected  the  douche-like  implements  as  unfamiliar)  to  show  that  the  Quintio  of  certain 
Pompeian  inscriptions  was  not  a  cognomen  but  a  term  of  abuse,  and  further,  that  it 
was  a  shortened  form  of  coloccyntha,  comparing  French  coloquinte. 

^''  The  rebuke  given  to  the  future  emperor  Hadrian  (Dio,  Epit.  LXIX.  4:  a-KtKBf 
Koi  TOic.  KoXoKwrac,  ypa<i>t)  has  been  understood  (see  Coffey,  Lustrum,  6,  248)  as  referring 
to  pumpkins,  but  nothing  shows  that  it  must  be  so  interpreted,  and  it  has  been 
translated  as  "gourds."  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  the  appearance  of  kolokyntai  among 
other  vegetables  with  swelling  body  (ojKOq)  whose  meaning,  when  seen  in  dreams,  is 
discussed  by  Artemidorus  (I.  67). 


112  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

The  Bothwells  (0. 10  above)  were  led  astray  by  the  botanical  definition 
in  LSJ  and  by  the  equivalence  in  England  of  the  words  pumpkin  and 
gourd.  And  Wasson  was  quite  right  (0.05)  in  asserting  the  view  held 
by  botanists  of  the  American  origin  of  the  pumpkins  and  squashes. 

[3.02]  A  few  papyri  from  Egypt  will  bring  the  plant  called  KoKoKwra 
(or  KoXoKvvTT])  a  little  closer  to  Rome  and  the  time  of  Seneca.  In  this 
respect  the  Zenon  papyri,  all  of  the  third  century  B.C.,  are  especially 
notable.  At  this  time  a  plant  called  kolokynta  was  much  cultivated  in 
Egypt  for  its  edible  fruit,  regarded  as  a  vegetable  {Xaxoi^vov):  e.g. 
KoXoKvvrac,  {PSI  6,  553.14),  last  in  a  long  line  of  comestibles  owned 
by  Zenon  in  Arsinoe,  preceded  just  above  line  14  by  a  heading, 
Xaxocvoi  iravToda-Ka.  Others  of  the  Zenon  papyri  are  brought  to  our 
notice  by  the  article  in  LSJ:  PCair.  Zen.  292.  132  and  139  (seeds  of 
kolokynte  handed  out  to  Zenon's  peasants),  300.  3  (I  am  to  report  tovc, 
Tre^uTfUKoraq  clkvov  rj  KoXoKvvTav  r\  Kpomxvov),  and  especially  33.  14 
(a/LiTreXou  .  .  .  Ko\oKvu[divr]q]  in  a  list  of  fruit-trees  and  vines  taken  as 
a  gift  from  the  orchard  of  Lysimachus).  While  none  of  these  is 
indicated  specifically  as  Lagenaria,  as  the  sikyai  of  the  Sorbonne  papyrus 
(above,  2.02)  and  the  kolokyntharytaina  of  the  Pap.  landanae  certainly 
are,  they  are  at  least  significant  in  that  the  colocynthine  vine  would 
hardly  produce  a  pumpkin  {Cucurhita  maxima),  as  LSJ  would  have  it. 

[3.03]  And  now,  thanks  to  the  great  kindness  of  Professor  Wilhelmina 
Jashemski  of  the  University  of  Maryland,  I  can  report  positive  evidence 
from  the  area  of  Naples,  a  region  which,  like  Egypt,  was  familiar  to 
Seneca,  that  the  plant  which  botanists  now  call  Lagenaria  siceraria 
(Molina)  Standley  (see  above,  0.08)  was  cultivated  there  in  antiquity 
and  that  its  fruits,  which  are  still  grown  there  and  are  popular  as 
food,  are  depicted  in  at  least  two  paintings  on  the  walls  of  houses 
excavated  at  Herculaneum.  Mrs.  Jashemski,  whose  twenty  years  of 
research  as  historian  and  archaeologist  on  The  Gardens  of  Pompeii, 
Herculaneum,  and  the  Villas  Destroyed  by  Vesuvius  have  recently  been 
crowned  by  the  publication  (New  Rochelle,  N.  Y.  [Caratsas  Bros.], 
1980)  of  a  magnificently  planned  and  illustrated  book  titled  as  above, 
has  allowed  me  to  see  and  copy  a  color  photograph  taken  by  her 
husband  Stanley  in  the  summer  of  1971.  It  is  not  included  in  the 
illustrations  of  her  book,  and  cannot  be  satisfactorily  reproduced 
here,  but  I  can  give  a  verbal  description  which  has  been  checked 
both  by  Dr.  Jashemski  and  her  botanical  assistant.  Dr.  E  G.  Meyer  of 
the  National  Arboretum  in  Washington,  who  for  some  years  has  been 
trying  to  help  her  identify  all  of  the  plants  in  carbonized  material, 
wall-paintings,  mosaics,  and  sculpture.  Before  doing  this,  it  will  be 
well  to  note  that  an  earlier  report  on  the  plants  seen  in  the  paintings, 


J.  L.  Heller  113 

published  by  Dr.  Orazio  Comes  in  the  1879  commemorative  volume, ^^ 
had  mentioned  some  other  Cucurbitaceae,  including  Cucurbita  Pepo 
alongside  several  of  Cucurbita  lagenaria.  Drs.  Jashemski  and  Meyer 
have  not  been  able  to  locate  any  of  these  paintings  either  in  the 
Museo  Nazionale  or  in  situ  on  the  walls  of  houses,  or  in  the  many 
published  collections  of  paintings  and  mosaics  from  that  source.  Dr. 
Meyer  believes  that  all  of  them,  called  by  Comes  Zucca  and  described 
as  yellow  or  yellowish  in  color  and  in  varying  shapes  which  nevertheless 
agree  well  with  those  known  from  modern  specimens,  were  varieties 
of  Lagenaria.  In  other  words,  none  of  the  pictures  listed  by  Comes 
can  be  used  as  evidence  for  the  pre-Columbian  existence  in  the  Old 
World  of  Cucurbita  Pepo  or  Cucurbita  maxima. 

[3.04]  Both  of  the  paintings  still  visible  on  walls  at  Herculaneum 
show  small  gourds,  brownish  or  yellowish  in  color,  standing  in  glass 
bowls,  in  company  with  other  objects,  as  if  ready  for  eating  or 
cooking.  The  one  of  which  1  have  a  photograph  is  a  panel  on  the 
south  wall  of  the  portico  in  the  Casa  di  Cervi  (IV.  21).^^  Inside  the 
glass  bowl,  vividly  portrayed  in  three  curving  and  high-lighted  zones, 
which  seems  to  stand  on  the  lower  shelf  of  a  two-tiered  open  cabinet 
seen  in  illusory  perspective  as  if  fixed  to  the  wall,  there  can  be  seen 
an  elongated  gourd  with  curved,  narrow  neck  (which  extends  outside 
the  wide  mouth  of  the  bowl)  and  slightly  bulbous  lower  end,  and 
another  vegetable  object,  fully  bulbous  in  shape,  which  props  up  the 
lower  end  of  the  gourd.  To  the  left  of  the  bowl  are  seen  two  more 
gourds  apparently  resting  flat  on  the  shelf,  though  deterioration  of 
the  wall  and  painting  has  obscured  the  lower  left  corner  of  the 
cabinet.  Similar  deterioration  at  the  lower  right  corner  makes  it 
uncertain  whether  or  not  another  globular  object  is  to  be  seen  there. 
A  leaf  is  visible  but  unidentifiable.  Drs.  Jashemski  and  Meyer  think 
that  the  globular  object  inside  the  bowl  may  be  a  pear,  but  they  are 
sure  that  the  two  globular  fruits  shown  on  the  upper  shelf  are  cherries 

^^  See  pp.  177-250  in  Pompeii  e  la  regione  sotterrata  del  Vesuvio  yielV  anno  LXXIX 
(Napoli  1879).  The  article  was  also  issued  as  a  separate  in  1879  and  was  noticed  (not 
without  some  doubts  as  to  the  accuracy  of  its  findings)  by  Candolle,  Fischer-Benzon, 
and  others;  later  a  German  translation,  Darstellung  der  Pflanzen  in  den  Malereien  von 
Pompeji,  was  published  at  Stuttgart  in  1895  and  was  summarized  by  the  expert 
botanist  L.  Wittmack  in  an  article,  pp.  38-66  in  a  Beiblatt,  no.  73  (1903),  to  the 
Botanische  Jahrbiicher,  preceding  his  own  report  on  the  carbonized  seeds  and  other 
remains  of  plants  found  at  Pompeii  and  stored  in  the  Museo  Nazionale  at  Naples. 
Wittmack  did  not  recognize  any  seeds  of  Cucurbitaceae. 

^^  Dr.  Jashemski  locates  the  other  one  (in  a  letter  dated  Oct.  2,  1977)  on  a  wall 
of  the  Samnite  house  (V  1-2).  It  "shows  two  gourds  in  a  glass  bowl.  The  gourds  are 
brownish  in  color,  but  Fred  agrees  that  they  are  Lagenaria." 


114  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

(because  their  stems  are  joined  in  this  and  similar  paintings  elsewhere), 
despite  the  fact  that  they  appear  to  be  as  large  as  the  (?)  pear  below 
them  (since  cherries  are  disproportionately  large  in  numerous  other 
paintings).  Dr.  Meyer  assured  me  in  a  letter  dated  March  17,  1976: 

The  plant  [i.e.  Lagenaria  siceraria]  is  most  certainly  still  cultivated  in 
Italy.  In  fact,  it  is  a  widely  eaten  vegetable  in  the  Naples  area.  I  saw 
it  grown  in  the  environs  of  Pompeii,  I  have  photographs  of  it,  and 
we  had  it  served  to  us  in  our  restaurant  one  day.  The  same  plant  is 
cultivated  in  the  U.S.A.,  but  only  as  a  curiosity. 

He  went  on  to  tell  of  a  snake-gourd  six  feet  long  which  he  was  asked 
to  identify  and  later  saw  covering  the  lady's  back  fence;  with  this  we 
can  compare  Pliny's  9-foot  cucurbita  (see  above,  1.07).  And,  he  added, 
"It  is  the  only  white-flowered  gourd  I  know  of,  and  on  this  character 
alone,  it  is  easily  identified." 

[3.05]  It  is  well  to  be  reminded  here  of  the  varied  and  sometimes 
fantastic  shapes  of  the  gourds  (fruits)  of  this  plant,  which  must  have 
been  familiar  to  Seneca  and  the  Romans  of  his  time,  whether  they 
called  it  kolokynte,  as  likely  in  the  Greek-speaking  areas  of  southern 
Italy  and  Egypt,  or  cucurbita  as  elsewhere.  According  to  Heiser  in  his 
article,  "Variation  in  the  Bottle-Gourd"  (see  above,  1.20,  and  note 
33),  the  largest  fruit  produced  in  his  experimental  fields,  which  used 
seeds  procured  from  companies  located  in  various  parts  of  the  world, 
was  of  the  pyriform  type  (from  Ghana,  but  see  Fuchs'  cut  p.  209  and 
my  Figure  4)  and  weighed  150  pounds  (this  from  a  letter  to  me 
dated  June  7,  1976),  but  there  were  snake  types  ("Variation,"  p. 
123),  cylindrical  forms  (see  Fuchs'  cut  p.  211  and  my  Figure  5), 
bottle  types  and  others  whose  use  as  containers  was  known  to 
Columella,  Pliny,  and  St.  Jerome  (above,  1.25)  but  is  now  dwindling 
("Variation,"  p.  121)  with  the  coming  of  tin  cans,  glass,  and  plastic." 
The  gourds  that  can  be  seen  in  the  paintings  at  Herculaneum  resemble 
in  shape  the  gourds  that  hang  over  Jonah's  shoulder  in  my  Figure 
8,  except  that  there  is  a  more  pronounced  curve  to  the  neck  of  the 
one  in  the  glass  jar,  but  in  size  they  must  be  considerably  smaller, 

"  Whitaker  and  Davis  (above,  note  1 1)  describe  (p.  5)  the  archaeological  materials 
found  at  Huaca  Prieta  on  the  coast  of  northern  Peru  and  dated  to  the  fourth 
millennium  B.C.,  as  having  been  "used  for  containers  of  various  sorts,  e.g.  work 
baskets,  water  bottles,  dippers,  jars,  dishes,  etc.  Many  fragments  were  found  that  had 
evidently  been  used  as  scoops  or  ladles.  Some  of  the  forms  with  long  necks  were 
used  as  fish-net  floats.  Others  were  used  as  rattles  for  ceremonial  purposes,  and  still 
others  were  made  into  whistles."  If  one  asks  how  the  modern  investigators  knew 
what  the  prehistoric  gourds  were  used  for,  the  answer  must  be  from  the  uses  to 
which  contemporary  people  put  similar  objects. 


J.  L.  Heller  115 

representing  edible  fruits  whose  rinds  were  still  soft  (see  Pliny,  Nat. 
XIX.  71,  cited  above,  1.26).  And  this  shape  and  size  may  well  have 
been  responsible  for  the  phallic  impression  which  Todd  (above,  2.10 
and  note  53)  thought  led  to  the  obscenity  of  colocyntha  in  the  Oxford 
fragment  of  Juvenal.  It  would  also  fit  well  with  Wagenvoort's  speci- 
fication (see  above,  0.04)  of  the  implement  which  in  his  theory 
replaced  the  radish  in  the  traditional  punishment  of  adulterers.  And 
it  would  not  be  very  different  from  the  critical  shape  which  we 
supposed  (above,  2.02)  led  to  the  arbitrary  variant  of  sikyos  (i.e. 
cucumber)  which  was  transferred  to  the  implement  called  sikya  in 
Greek;  though  it  was  the  bulbous  end  of  a  small  bottle-gourd  (see 
Fuchs  p.  209  and  my  Figure  4)  which  we  compared  (1.02)  to  the 
bronze  cupping-instruments  which  Pliny  and  St.  Jerome  called  me- 
dicinales  cucurbitae  because  of  their  resemblance  to  the  fruits  of  the 
plant  (above,  1.03). 

[3.06]  Returning  at  last  to  Seneca's  coinage,  I  think  we  have  shown 
that  the  word  kolokynte  would  mean  to  him  and  his  readers,  not  the 
product  of  any  plant,  such  as  a  pumpkin  or  Riesenkurbis  or  Cucurbita 
maxima,  but  primarily  the  plant  itself,  a  species  of  Lagenaria  which 
was  very  well  known  to  them  as  an  annual  plant  grown  from  seeds 
and  cultivated  in  Italy  as  well  as  Greece  for  its  food,  for  the  medicinal 
value  of  the  fruits  and  other  parts  of  the  plant,  for  the  usefulness  of 
the  containers  and  other  household  goods  which  could  be  made  from 
the  dried  and  woody  rinds  of  the  fruit,  for  the  aesthetic  pleasure, 
even  to  the  populus  minutus  of  the  city  (see  especially  the  moralizing 
passage  in  Pliny,  Nat.  XIX.  51-59),  of  watching  a  seed  develop  rapidly 
into  a  trailing  or  climbing  plant  with  beautiful  white  flowers,  and 
which,  if  it  reached  the  top  of  a  fence  or  trellis,  would  provide  the 
further  service  of  welcome  shade  in  the  summer  It  was  the  manifold 
utility  of  this  familiar  plant,  coupled  with  its  very  humble  and  ordinary 
status,  which  in  my  former  essay^^  I  thought  would  apply,  metaphor- 
ically at  least,  to  the  whole  of  the  satire  and  especially  to  its  end,  the 
final  degradation  suff^ered  by  Claudius.  Rejected  by  decree  of  the 
Olympian  senate,  he  is  escorted  by  Mercury  back  to  Rome  and  then, 
eventfully,  to  the  underworld.  At  length  he  is  brought  to  the  infernal 
bar  and  condemned  by  Aeacus  to  play  at  dice  with  a  perforated 

^®  "Some  points  of  Natural  History  in  Seneca's  Apocolocyntosis"  pp.  181-92  in 
Homenaje  a  Antonio  Tovar  (Madrid  1972).  Reviewing  other  hypotheses  about  the  title, 
I  had  rejected  Todd's  theory  (in  the  second  part  of  his  article  [pp.  103-08]  in  Class. 
Quart.  37,  1943)  that  Claudius  was  represented  as  a  dice-box  {fritillus)  incarnate,  on 
the  grounds  that  this  figure,  though  quite  possible  if  we  think  with  Todd  of  a  small 
husk  oi  Lagenaria  vulgaris,  is  forgotten  at  the  very  end  of  the  satire. 


116  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

fritillus — a  novel  penalty  obviously  suggested  by  the  myth  of  the 
Danaids  but  peculiarly  fitting  for  Claudius.  But  Claudius  has  just 
begun  to  serve  this  sentence  when  in  rapid  succession  (the  point 
emphasized  by  Athanassakis,  see  above,  0.03)  he  is  claimed  by  Caligula 
as  a  former  imperial  slave  but  then  disowned  and  donated  like  a  hot 
potato  (as  we  would  say)  back  to  Aeacus,  who  gives  him  in  turn  to 
his  freedman  Menander  (the  Athenian  dramatist?)  to  serve  as  his 
secretary  for  hearing  lawsuits.  This  ending,  I  suggested,  could  sym- 
bolize the  opinion  held  of  Claudius  during  his  lifetime  by  the  senatorial 
aristocracy.  He  was  industrious,  learned  (in  a  dull  way)  and  decorative 
if  somewhat  undignified,  and  though  capricious  (like  the  fantastic 
shape  of  some  of  the  gourds)  still  useful — but  to  the  wrong  people, 
the  un-Roman  rabble  in  the  provinces,  the  newcomers  in  the  city 
who  were  displacing  the  old  aristocrats,  and  above  all  to  the  freedmen 
who  were  really  his  masters.  Here  Claudius  was  being  made  over, 
not  really  into  a  god  {apotheosis)  but  into  something  like  a  bottle- 
gourd  vine  (apocolocyntosis),  immortalized  and  perennial. 

[3.07]  This  interpretation  of  the  word  as  a  figurative  designation  (i.e. 
the  deified  Claudius  is  like  an  immortal  gourd-vine)  will  seem  a  bit 
feeble  and  lacking  in  satiric  bite  to  those  who  believe,  I  think  rightly, 
that  Seneca's  motive  for  his  merciless  exposure  of  the  physical 
peculiarities,  as  well  as  the  weaknesses  of  the  deceased  emperor's 
character,  was  quite  personal.  No  doubt  he  desired  to  be  avenged 
for  the  painful  exile  which  Claudius  had  inflicted  on  him.  This  was 
well  expressed  in  Wagenvoort's  interpretation  (above,  0.04)  of  the 
title.  But  once  we  accept  Dio's  word  ovonaaaq  (0.01)  as  indicating  a 
formal,  written  title  for  a  work  in  which  there  is  no  actual  transfor- 
mation, it  becomes  necessary  to  look  for  something  satiric  or  derog- 
atory in  the  underlying  KoXoKvuTrj  =  cucurbita,  as  Eisenberg  has  done 
(0.02),  and  to  set  aside  both  the  normal  meanings  of  these  words  and 
the  titles  which  are  actually  found  in  the  manuscripts.  I  therefore 
suggest  that  apocolocyntosis  was  not  the  formal  title,  but  an  off"-hand 
characterization  uttered  by  Seneca  somewhat  later  and  in  answer  to 
a  question  (see  above,  0.13),  at  a  time  when  he  was  beginning  to 
regret  his  flattery  of  Nero  and  to  feel,  once  his  old  grudge  had  been 
satisfied,  that  Claudius  had  not  been  so  bad  after  all.  Seneca  was 
soon  to  extol  dementia  as  a  moral  virtue  and  he  might  have  been 
transferring  from  books  to  men  that  quality  which  the  younger  Pliny 
{Epist.  III.  5.  10)  admired  in  his  uncle:  dicere  etiam  solebat  nullum  esse 
librum  tarn  malum  ut  non  aliqua  parte  prodesset. 

University  of  Illinois  at  Urbayia-Champaign 


J.  L.  Heller  117 

Editor's  Note:  The  following  items  should  be  added  to  the  list  of 
Professor  Heller's  publications  printed  in  ICS  VIII  (1 983),  pp.  168-72: 

1.  Studies  in  Linnaean  Method  and  Nomenclature  (Verlag  Peter  Lang 
AG,  Frankfurt-Bern-New  York  1983),  ix  +  328  pp. 

2.  "Notes  on  the  Titulature  of  Linnaean  Dissertations,"  Taxon  32 
(1983),  pp.  218-52. 

3.  "Conrad  Gessner  to  Leonhart  Fuchs  October  18,  1556,"  Huntia 
5  (1983),  pp.  61-75  (with  Frederick  G.  Meyer). 

4.  "Index  to  Zoological  Sources,"  in  William  Steam  and  Alwyne 
Wheeler  (edd.),  A  Guide  to  Linnaeus'  Zoology  (to  be  published  by 
the  Oxford  University  Press  for  the  British  Museum  [Natural 
History]). 


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Figures  4  and  5.  Lagenaria  vulgaris  Seringe.  Fuchs,  Vivae  Imagines 
(1549),  pages  209  and  211. 


«2  Cotocynthis,  ^>^'-^-*-f*ft: 

(Toloqutnt. 


Figure  6.  Citrullus  Colocynthis  (L.)  Schrader.  Fuchs,  page  212. 


Pfcbert. 


405 


^ 


Figure  7.  Cucumis  Melo  L.  Fuchs,  page  405. 


Figure  8.  Jonah  resting  under  the  gourd- vine.  Detail  from  an  ivory 
book-cover  in  Ravenna.  Rice,  Art  of  the  Byzantine  Era,  Figure  8;  by 
permission  of  Hirmer  Fotoarchiv,  Munchen. 


6 

Longus  and  the  Myth  of  Chloe 

BRUCE  D.  MacQUEEN 


It  had  been  a  very  difficult  night  for  the  Methymnean  expedition. 
True,  they  were  laden  with  spoils,  and  they  even  had  a  captive:  an 
uncommonly  beautiful  shepherdess  named  Chloe.  But  when  they 
tried  to  rest  for  the  night,  scarcely  a  mile  from  the  scene  of  their 
easy  victory  over  the  unarmed  and  unprepared  Mytilenean  shepherds, 
their  sleep  was  disturbed  by  terrifying  prodigies  and  portents.  Day- 
break brought  no  relief,  and  the  entire  army  was  on  the  verge  of 
panic'  Then  their  general-in-chief,  Bryaxis,  fell  suddenly  asleep  at 
midday;  and  when  he  awoke,  his  report  was  strange  and  unsettling. 
He  had  seen  a  vision  of  the  god  Pan,  who  had  upbraided  him  for 
his  and  his  soldiers'  depredations.  To  disturb  the  peace  of  Pan's 
favorite  pasturelands  was  bad  enough,  and  worse  to  desecrate  the 
grotto  of  the  Nymphs;  but  the  worst  crime  of  all  was  to  lay  violent 
hands  on  Chloe,  "irapdevou  i^  riq  "Epcoq  iivdou  iroLriaai  deXei."^  Pan's 
orders  to  Bryaxis  had  been  peremptory  and  unambiguous:  on  pain 
of  instant  annihilation,  he  was  to  release  Chloe  and  all  the  livestock 
his  army  had  seized.  Bryaxis,  still  shaking  from  the  vividness  of  his 
dream-vision,  ordered  that  all  these  things  be  done  as  the  god  had 
commanded.  And  so  it  was  that  Chloe,  accompanied  by  all  the  sheep 
and  goats  (whose  horns  had  sprouted  ivy  in  honor  of  the  occasion). 


'  Pun  intended. 

^  Longus,  Daphnis  and  Chloe  II.  27.  All  quotations  from  Longus  are  taken  from 
the  Teubner  edition  of  M.  D.  Reeve  (Leipzig  1982);  further  references  will  be 
incorporated  into  the  text. 


120  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

returned  home  unscathed,  to  the  limitless  delight  of  her  lover, 
Daphnis,  and  the  happy  satisfaction  of  her  family  and  neighbors. 

Longus'  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  unlike  the  other  Greek  romances,^  is 
not  replete  with  vividly  dramatic  episodes,  a  fact  which  makes  this 
scene,  the  abduction  and  rescue  of  Chloe,  all  the  more  striking. 
Nowhere  else  in  all  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  is  the  irony  with  which 
Longus  handles  the  familiar  conventions  of  the  romance  more  ob- 
vious. Any  reader  of  Chariton,  or  Heliodorus,  or  Achilles  Tatius  will 
at  once  recognize  the  familiar  motif  of  the  abducted  heroine;  but  no 
sooner  has  Longus  led  us  into  this  familiar  territory  than  he  confounds 
us  by  introducing  a  god  to  rescue  Chloe,  and  by  surrounding  the 
narrative  with  patently  Dionysian  imagery.''  So  striking  indeed  is  the 
Dionysian  flavor  of  this  and  other  passages  that  some  scholars  (par- 
ticularly Kerenyi,  Merkelbach,  and  Chalk)  have  taken  the  mysteries 
to  be  at  the  very  core  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe;  that  is,  they  have  argued 
that  the  course  of  the  two  lovers'  erotic  education  parallels  or 
represents  the  experiences  of  an  initiate  into  one  or  another  of  the 
mystery  cults.  But  criticism  on  Longus  has  moved,  by  and  large,  in 
other  directions,  and  the  "initiation"  thesis  has  found  few  new 
adherents  in  more  recent  years. ^ 

It  is  certainly  not  the  central  purpose  of  the  present  study  to 
resuscitate  (or,  for  that  matter,  to  euthanize)  the  initiation  thesis.  But 
it  seems  to  me  that,  in  the  process  of  moving  beyond  an  obsession 
with  mystical  symbolism,  at  least  one  important  clue  to  Longus' 

'  I  deliberately  beg  (or  rather  postpone)  the  question  of  whether  or  not  Daphnis 
and  Chloe  is  a  romance,  not  because  I  consider  the  matter  unimportant,  but  rather 
because  the  issue  transcends  the  scope  of  this  article.  See  the  discussions  of  the 
romance/novel  problem  by  William  E.  McCulloh,  Longus,  Twayne  World  Authors 
Series  96  (New  York  1970),  p.  22  and  pp.  79-90;  Arthur  Heiserman,  The  Novel  before 
the  Novel  (Chicago  1977),  p.  4  (including  note  2  on  page  221)  and  pp.  130-45;  the 
second  chapter  of  Ben  Edwin  Perry's  The  Ancient  Romances:  A  Literary-Historical  Account 
of  their  Origins,  Sather  Classical  Lectures  37  (Berkeley  and  Los  Angeles  1967);  and  J. 
W.  Kestner,  "Ekphrasis  as  Frame  in  Longus'  Daphnis  and  Chloe,"  Classical  World  67 
(1973),  p.  168. 

■•  See  H.  H.  O.  Chalk,  "Eros  and  the  Lesbian  Pastorals  of  Longus,"  Journal  of 
Hellenic  Studies  80  (1960),  p.  41;  McCulloh,  pp.  13-15  and  p.  93;  Heiserman,  p.  138; 
R.  Merkelbach,  Roman  und  Mysterium  in  der  Antike  (Munich  1962);  and  Karoly  Kerenyi, 
Die  griechische-orientalische  Romanliteratur  in  religionsgeschichtlicher  Beleuchtung:  Bin  Ver- 
such  (Tubingen  1927). 

^  For  a  detailed  refutation  of  the  initiation  thesis,  see  M.  Berti,  "Sulla  interpre- 
tazione  mistica  del  romanzo  di  Longo,"  Studi  Classici  e  Orientali  16  (1967),  343-58; 
M.  Geyer,  "Roman  und  Mysterienritual,"  Wiirzberger  JahrbUcher  fur  die  Altertums- 
wissenschaft  n.  f.  3  (1977),  pp.  179-96;  and  Heiserman,  pp.  140-45.  No  one  denies 
the  presence  of  religious  symbolism  in  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  but  most  critics  now  see 
this  as  ancillary  to  Longus'  literary  methods  and  goals. 


Bruce  D.  MacQueen  121 

intentions  has  been,  if  not  left  behind,  at  least  excessively  demystified. 
Pan,  it  will  be  recalled,  tells  Bryaxis  in  Book  II  that  Eros  wishes  to 
make  a  fivOoq  of  Chloe.  For  Kerenyi,  Chalk,  and  the  others,  to  make 
a  nvdoc,  of  Chloe  is  to  make  her  an  initiate.*'  More  recent  scholarship 
has  either  reinterpreted  the  phrase  -rrapdeuou  e'^  riq  "Epojq  fMvdou  iroiriaai 
deXei,  or  passed  over  it.  To  Heiserman,  for  example,  the  nvdoq  of 
Chloe  is  the  text  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  itself,  which  makes  of  fxvdop 
TTOLriaai  a  fairly  sophisticated  example  of  romantic  irony.'  But  I  wish 
to  argue  here  that  the  phrase  means  rather  more  than  that;  that  it 
is,  in  fact,  fully  as  programmatic  as  the  initiation  theorists  supposed. 
Specifically,  I  hope  to  show  here  that  Longus  proceeds,  in  a  very 
specific  and  traceable  way,  to  make  of  Chloe,  not  an  initiate,  but 
rather,  quite  literally,  a  nvdoq. 

The  first  step  in  the  process  of  discovering  what  the  nvdoc,  of  Chloe 
really  means  is  to  make  a  connection  that,  to  my  knowledge,  no 
previous  study  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  has  made.  Few  aspects  of  Longus' 
work  have  generated  as  much  critical  comment  as  the  three  aiTta 
that  appear  at  I.  27,  II.  34,  and  III.  23.^  In  each  of  the  three  stories 
(respectively,  those  of  Phatta,  Syrinx,  and  Echo),  a  mortal  maiden  or 
Nymph  is  transformed  after  a  confrontation  with  some  sort  of  male 
antagonist.  Several  things  seem  to  be  agreed  upon  by  all:  first,  that 
these  stories,  though  they  appear  to  be  digressive  and  are  homologous 
to  the  learned  digressions  found  in  the  other  romances,  are  in  fact 
closely  bound  to  the  development  of  the  plot;  that  there  is  an 
increasing  level  of  violence  in  the  stories;  and  that  Chloe  is  in  some 
sense  to  be  identified  with  all  three  "mythical"  heroines.  There  has 
also  been  some  recognition  that  all  three  airia  occupy  similar  struc- 
tural positions  in  their  respective  books. ^  But  no  one  seems  to  have 

«  See  Chalk,  p.  45. 

'  See  Heiserman,  p.  138.  "Romantic  irony,"  as  used  here,  means  the  calling  into 
question,  by  the  text  itself,  of  that  "willing  suspension  of  disbelief"  necessary  to  the 
operation  of  fiction,  usually  by  a  deliberate  breaking  or  manipulation  of  the  point 
of  view.  Despite  the  name,  romantic  irony  (so  called  from  its  prevalence  in  the 
Romantic  novels  of  early  nineteenth-century  Europe)  is  not  commonly  found  in  the 
other  Greek  romances,  but  it  is  definitely  a  salient  feature  of  Longus'  style.  For  the 
concept  of  romantic  irony,  I  am  indebted  to  a  public  lecture  by  Professor  Lilian  R. 
Furst,  entitled  "Irony  and  Romantic  Irony,"  delivered  on  April  6,  1983,  in  West 
Lafayette,  Indiana.  For  further  discussion,  see  Prof.  Furst's  forthcoming  book,  Fictions 
of  Romantic  Irony. 

^  See  Marios  Philippides,  "The  'Digressive'  Aitia  in  Longus,"  Classical  World  74 
(1980),  pp.  193-99;  Stavros  Deligiorgis,  "Longus'  Art  in  Brief  Lives,"  Philological 
Quarterly  53  (1974),  pp.  1-9;  the  article  by  Kestner  cited  above;  and  the  discussions 
of  the  aiTia  by  Chalk,  p.  40,  and  McCulloh,  pp.  65-66. 

^  See  the  articles  by  Deligiorgis  and  Kestner. 


122  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

realized  or  developed  the  possibility  that  the  phrase  -jrapdevov  i^  riq 
"Epax;  fivdov  vroi^aai  deXet  is  a  direct  allusion  to  the  three  aiTia.  The 
implications  of  this  perception  for  the  interpretation  of  Daphnis  and 
Chloe  are,  in  my  opinion,  profound.  My  intention  here  is  to  work  out 
those  implications;  more  specifically,  to  show,  by  a  close  examination 
of  the  structure  oi  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  how  Longus  uses  the  replication 
of  framing  devices  in  Books  I  through  III  to  create  the  ^l\)^oc,  of  Chloe 
in  Book  IV. 

The  analysis  of  narrative  structure  is  fraught  with  peril  for  the 
incautious  critic.  A  safe  course  must  somehow  be  steered  between 
the  Scylla  of  imposing  an  a  priori  structural  scheme  on  the  text  and 
the  Charybdis  of  perversely  refusing  to  see  what  is  manifestly  there. 
The  present  study  attempts  to  find  that  safe  course  in  an  inductive, 
rather  than  deductive,  approach.  My  contention  is  that  Longus  repeats 
certain  groups  of  themes  and  images  in  essentially  chiastic  order,  so 
that  a  kind  of  frame  is  created  around  each  fivdoc;.  that  is,  ring 
composition.  Certain  of  the  correspondences  out  of  which  these  rings 
are  built  are  obvious;  others  become  apparent  only  when  the  structure 
of  surrounding  rings  invites  us  to  look  for  correspondence.  Some 
readers  will  certainly  refuse  to  accept  one  or  another  of  the  corre- 
spondences I  will  list,  and  others  will  just  as  certainly  find  some  that 
I  seem  to  have  omitted  or  overlooked.  But  the  overall  scheme  is,  I 
believe,  sound  enough  that  it  does  not  stand  or  fall  upon  one  or  two 
correspondences. 

Two  further  caveats  seem  to  be  in  order.  In  no  way  do  I  mean  to 
suggest  that  Longus'  structure  is  a  rigid  or  perfectly  symmetrical  one; 
those  who  might  want  geometrical  or  numerological  precision  and 
significance  will  be  disappointed.  Nor  would  I  care  to  argue  that  the 
structural  scheme  I  will  outline  here  is  anything  more  than  a  device. 
I  am  not  a  structuralist.  In  and  of  itself,  it  means  nothing  that  Longus 
uses  ring  composition.  Rather,  the  structure  points  to  certain  thematic 
relationships  that  a  strictly  linear,  diachronic  reading  of  Daphnis  and 
Chloe  might  fail  to  reveal;  and,  in  so  doing,  that  structure  gives  us 
the  key  to  the  novel. 

My  procedure  will  be  as  follows:  for  each  of  the  first  three  books, 
I  will  begin  by  presenting  a  schematic  diagram  of  the  ring  that  frames 
the  fxvBoq  of  that  book.'°  I  will  then  proceed  to  briefly  explain  any  of 
the  correspondences  listed  in  the  diagram  that  are  either  especially 

'°  Considerations  of  space  and  the  limits  of  the  subject  forbid  me  to  develop  here 
the  structural  analysis  oi  Daphnis  and  Chloe  beyond  the  framing  of  the  tivBoi.  I  believe 
I  have  detected  one  other  ring  in  each  book,  which  seem  to  frame  some  sort  of 
a-yuv.  It  also  seems  to  me  that  this  whole  structure  is  prefigured  in  the  Prologue. 
These  points  I  hope  to  develop  in  a  future  article. 


Bruce  D.  MacQueen  123 

difficult  or  especially  interesting.  What  we  will  see  in  Book  IV  is  that 
the  episode  of  Lampis'  abduction  of  Chloe  and  her  rescue  by  Gnathon 
is  framed  by  the  narrative  in  a  way  that  is  precisely  parallel  to  the 
ring  pattern  established  in  the  first  three  books.  Once  the  narrative 
has  thus  suggested  that  we  juxtapose  that  particular  episode  to  the 
IxvdoL  of  Books  I-III,  the  significance  of  the  second  abduction  and 
rescue  of  Chloe,  which  might  easily  be  overlooked  in  all  the  excitement 
of  the  recognitions  and  reconciliations  in  Book  IV,  should  become 
clear. 

BOOK  I 

A.  Chloe  watches  Daphnis  bathe  (24.  1)." 
B.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  play  games  (24.  2-3). 

C.  Daphnis  teaches  Chloe  to  play  the  pipe  (24.  4). 
D.  The  grasshopper  is  captured  and  sings  (26.  1-2). 

E.  The  myth  of  Phatta  (27.  1-4). 
D'.  Daphnis  is  captured  and  cries  out  (28.  1-2). 
C.  Dorcon  teaches  Chloe  to  play  the  pipe  (29.  1-2). 
B'.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  bury  Dorcon  (31.  2-3). 
A'.  Daphnis  watches  Chloe  bathe  (32.  1-4). 

The  beginning  and  ending  of  this  ring  are  clearly  marked  by 
parallel  incidents.  At  24.  1,  Chloe  sees  Daphnis  taking  a  bath  in  the 
stream,  and  the  sight  of  his  naked  body,  which  had  earlier  caused 
her  to  fall  into  that  peculiar  affliction  of  which  she  does  not  yet  know 
the  name,  moves  her  with  its  beauty: 

17  ^lh  yap  yv^ivov  dpu)aa  top  ^ol^vlv  cV  adpovu  eueirnrTe  to  KaWoq,  Koi  irrjKiTO 
HT)8ev  avTOV  fiepoc,  fiintl/aadai  dwaixevrj  .  .  . 

At  32.  1,  the  situation  is  reversed,  and  Daphnis,  for  the  first  time, 
sees  the  perfection  of  Chloe's  undraped  form: 

Koi  avTT)  t6t(  TTpccTOu  Aa4>ui.8oq  opwvToq  eXovaaro  to  aCj/xa,  XevKOv  kol  Kadapov 
virb  KOiXXovq  Koi  ovdlu  XovTplhv  eq  KotXXoq  btbp,tvov  .  .  . 

The  connection  between  B  and  B'  is  admittedly  tenuous;  I  have 
included  it  here  because  at  31.  3,  Daphnis  and  Chloe  place  on  the 
grave  of  Dorcon  the  garlands  they  had  made  at  24.  2. 

The  correspondence  between  the  grasshopper's  intrusion  (D)  and 

"  Arabic  numerals  in  parentheses  refer  to  the  relevant  passages  of  the  text. 


124  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

that  of  the  pirates  (D')  may  also  seem  tenuous,  but  becomes  clearer 
if  both  passages  are  read  carefully.  Indeed,  this  correspondence  is 
not  original  with  me:  Deligiorgis  was  the  first  to  point  out  how  the 
grasshopper  and  the  pirates  frame  the  aiTLov  of  the  wood  dove  (i.e. 
Phatta,  Greek  (i>aTTa)^'^ 

To  the  exegesis  of  the  txvdoc,  itself  I  have  little  to  add.'^  The  maiden 
Phatta  is  confronted  by  a  male  antagonist;  she  vies  with  him,  is 
overcome,  and  is  then  transformed  by  divine  intervention  into  a  bird, 
who  continues  to  mourn  her  loss  in  her  song.  That  Chloe  is  to  be 
identified  with  this  hapless  girl  is  made  abundantly  clear  by  the  way 
the  story  is  introduced:  r}v  Trapdevoq,  irapdeue,  outo;  KaXrj  Kal  event  ^ovq 
ToXXaq  ovT(x)q  iv  vXy  ...  (I.  27.  2).  As  Deligiorgis  has  noted,  the  motif 
of  cattle  trained  to  obey  musical  commands,  which  is  central  to  the 
aiTLov,  plays  a  prominent  role  in  the  narrative  that  follows;  and  the 
fact  that  Chloe  rescues  Daphnis  by  playing  a  certain  tune  upon  the 
shepherd's  pipe  thus  further  identifies  her  with  Phatta.'^ 

BOOK  II 

A.  Pan  keeps  his  promise  (28.  1-3). 

B.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  are  reunited  in  the  fields  (30.  1). 

C.  A  goat  is  sacrificed  to  Pan  (31.  2). 

D.  Chloe  sings  and  Daphnis  plays  (31.  3). 

E.  The  old  men  brag  about  their  youth  (32.  3). 

F.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  entreat  Philetas  to  play  (33.  1). 

G.  Tityrus  is  sent  to  fetch  the  pipe  (33.  2). 

H.  The  myth  of  Syrinx  (34.  1-3). 

G'.  Tityrus  returns  with  the  pipe  (35.  1). 

F'.  Philetas  plays  the  pipes  (35.  3). 

E'.  Dryas  dances  a  Dionysiac  dance  (36.  1-2). 

D'.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  dance  the  parts  of  Pan  and  Syrinx 
(37.  1-2). 

C.  Philetas  offers  his  pipe  to  Daphnis  (37.  3). 

B'.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  are  reunited  in  the  fields  (38.  3). 

A'.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  exchange  oaths  of  fidelity  (39.  1-6). 

'^  Deligiorgis,  pp.  1-2. 

'3  See  Philippides,  pp.  195-96;  Heiserman,  p.  136;  Chalk,  p.  40. 

'''  Deligiorgis,  p.  4. 


Bruce  D.  MacQueen  125 

The  opening  and  closing  of  this  ring  are  not  so  apparent  as  in 
Book  I.  Still,  there  are  important  connections  between  A  and  A'. 
Pan's  intervention  and  rescue  of  Chloe  is  preceded  and  announced 
by  the  Nymphs,  who  appear  to  Daphnis  in  a  dream,  and  assure  him 
that  Pan,  despite  the  fact  that  Daphnis  and  Chloe  have  paid  him  no 
attention,  will  save  Chloe. '^  We  have  already  seen  how  dramatically 
Pan  keeps  his  promise.  At  39.  1,  however,  Chloe  alludes  to  the 
fickleness  of  Pan  {debc,  b  Hav  IpoiTLKoc,  ean  Kal  ainaToq);  and  since 
Daphnis  had  already  identified  himself  with  Pan  in  the  mimetic  dance 
at  37.  1,  Chloe  feels  justified  in  asking  him  to  swear  an  oath  of 
fidelity.  At  both  A  and  A',  then,  the  issue  of  male  fidelity  is  raised. 
No  resolution  occurs  here,  however;  indeed,  Daphnis  will,  after  a 
fashion,  break  his  oath,  and  the  consequences  of  his  sexual  infidelity, 
though  not  at  all  what  one  might  expect,  will  prove  to  be  profound.'^ 

Daphnis  is  a  goatherd,  and  so  the  goat  offered  to  Pan  at  31.  2  in 
thanksgiving  for  Chloe's  deliverance  is  "his"  animal  in  a  more  or  less 
totemic  sense.  The  offering  up  of  the  goat  to  Pan  (C)  is  answered  by 
the  transmission  of  potency,  symbolized  in  Pan's  instrument,  the 
avpLy^,  to  Daphnis. 

The  correspondence  D-D'  is  based  on  the  complementapy  roles 
played  by  the  two  lovers  making  music  together. '^ 

At  32.  3  (E)  and  36.  1  (E'),  old  men  recall  their  youth.  In  the  first 
instance,  the  old  men  of  the  vicinity  exchange  stories  of  their  youthful 
exploits;  in  the  latter,  Dryas,  Chloe's  presumed  father,  dances  the 
kind  of  dance  no  one  expects  an  old  man  to  do.'® 

Others  before  now  have  noted  that  the  aiTiov  of  Syrinx  introduces 
an  element  of  violence — more  specifically,  the  threat  of  rape — that 
is,  or  seems  to  be,  missing  from  the  Phatta  story  in  Book  I.'^  The 
very  explicit  identification  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  with  Pan  and  Syrinx 
at  37.  1  brings  this  threat  to  bear  directly  on  Chloe.  Chloe  responds 
by  demanding  an  oath  of  fidelity  from  Daphnis;  but  it  is  clear  that 
she  does  not  fully  understand  the  nature  of  the  threat  that  hangs 
over  her.  On  one  level,  indeed,  Chloe  had  already  faced  the  threat 
of  rape  at  the  hands  of  the  Methymneans.^°  But  her  subsequent 
behavior  gives  no  hint  that  she  really  knows  any  more  now  about 

'^  Daphnis  and  Chloe  II.  23.  4. 

'^  See  below. 

'^  This  depends,  of  course,  on  our  understanding  "music"  as  broadly  as  the  Greeks 
understood  novaiKT]. 

'^  Dryas'  dance  reminds  one  of  the  absurd  and  almost  pathetic  behavior  of  the 
aged  Cadmus  and  Tiresias  in  the  first  episode  of  Euripides'  Bacchae. 

'9  Phiiippides,  p.  196;  McCulloh,  pp.  65-66. 

20  Phiiippides,  ibid. 


126  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

the  sexual  nature  of  male  aggression  than  she  knew  before.  Otherwise, 
much  of  what  follows  in  Daphnis  and  Chloe  would  have  little  point. 

BOOK  III 

A.  The  rams  pursue  the  ewes  (13.  1). 

B.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  try  to  consummate  their  relationship 
(14.  1). 

C.  Lykainion  asks  Daphnis  for  help  (16.  1-4). 

D.  Lykainion  propositions  Daphnis  (17.  1-3). 

E.  Lykainion  teaches  Daphnis  a  lesson  (18.  3). 

F.  Lykainion  explains  why  Daphnis  should  not  yet 
apply  the  lesson  he  has  learned  (19.  2-3). 

G.  Daphnis  decides  not  to  use  his  knowledge  on 
Chloe  (20.  2). 

H.  A  ship  sails  by,  carrying  fresh  fish  for  the 
tables  of  the  rich  in  Mytilene  (21.  1-4). 

I.  Daphnis  knows  what  an  echo  is,  but  Chloe 
does  not  (22.  1). 

J.  Daphnis  tries  to  learn  the  tunes  (22.  1). 

K.  Chloe  hears  the  echoes  (22.  2). 

L.  Chloe  promises  ten  kisses  (22.  4). 

M.  The  myth  of  Echo  (23.  1-5). 

L'.  Chloe  pays  her  debt  (23.  5). 

K'.  Daphnis'  voice  echoes  (23.  5). 

J'.  Daphnis  practices  piping  (24.  2). 

r.  Daphnis  knows  how  to  consummate  their 
relationship,  but  Chloe  does  not  (24.  3). 

H'.  Suitors  come  for  Chloe,  bearing  rich  gifts 
(25.  1). 

G'.  Dryas  stalls  the  suitors  (25.  3). 

F'.  Myrtale  explains  why  Daphnis  cannot  marry  Chloe 
yet  (26.  4). 

E'.  The  Nymphs  appear  to  Daphnis  and  give  him  in- 
structions (27.  2). 

D'.  Daphnis  asks  for  Chloe's  hand  in  marriage  (29.  2). 


Bruce  D.  MacQueen  127 

C.  Dryas  goes  to  ask  Lamon  and  Myrtale  to  allow  the  marriage 
(30.  2). 

B'.  Daphnis  acts  like  a  husband  (33.  1-3). 

A'.  Daphnis  fetches  the  apple,  over  Chloe's  objections  (34.  1). 

The  correspondence  A-A'  depends  upon  our  perception  of  the 
sexual  overtones  of  the  scene  at  34.  1,  wherein  Daphnis  fetches  an 
apple  from  the  very  top  of  a  tree  and  brings  it  down  to  Chloe — 
who,  it  should  be  noted,  would  rather  he  had  not.  Both  the  description 
of  the  apple  (Kal  ev  firiXou  iireKeLTO  Iv  amolc,  ocKpoLq  aKporarov,  fieya 
Kol  KaXop  Kal  tCjv  iroXXibu  tt)v  tvo^biav  eviKa  fiouou  .  .  .  III.  33.  4)  and 
Chloe's  attempt  to  prevent  Daphnis  from  plucking  it  are  reminiscent 
of  a  fragment  of  Sappho's: 

oioi'  TO  yXvKVfiaXov  ipevderai  ocKpu  iir'  va8u), 
ocKpov  iv'  ocKpoTOCTO),  XiKoidovTO  61  p.aXodpoTrr]eq' 
ov  pav  iKXdXadovT ,  aXA'  ovk  ibvvavT   eirLKeadaL.'^* 

At  both  A  and  A',  then,  males  are  in  pursuit  of  females. 

The  correspondence  B-B'  is  suggested  by  the  contrast  between 
the  ignorance  and  ineptness  Daphnis  displays  at  14.  1,  and  the  self- 
aware  confidence  of  his  conduct  at  33.  1. 

Deligiorgis  was  the  first  to  point  out  the  correspondence  H-H'.^^ 
Twice  already  men  have  come  from  the  sea  to  plunder,  pillage,  and 
kidnap;  indeed,  the  sea  seems  to  have  no  other  symbolic  function  in 
Daphnis  and  Chloe  than  to  import  trouble.  This  particular  ship  may 
seem  to  pose  no  threat  to  the  lovers'  tranquillity;  but  it  is  not  long 
before  suitors  come  to  Dryas  for  Chloe's  hand,  and  the  threat  of 
separation  adumbrated  by  the  ship  at  21.  1  becomes  real.  This 
correspondence  is  further  strengthened  by  the  contrast  struck  in  both 
passages  between  Daphnis'  servile  status  and  the  wealth  of  his  real 
or  potential  rivals. 

Both  I  and  I'  develop  a  theme  that  dominates  the  psychological 
development  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  after  Daphnis'  encounter  with 
Lykainion  at  18.  3.^^  In  both  passages,  Daphnis  knows  something  that 
Chloe  does  not.  In  fact,  the  kind  of  essential  equality  that  existed 
between  them  before  has  been  disrupted  by  Daphnis'  initiation,  guided 

2'  Fr.  105a  (Lobel-Page).  The  resemblance  is  noted  by  McCulloh,  pp.  75-76; 
Philippides,  p.  197;  and  others. 

^^  Deligiorgis,  pp.  3-4. 

^^  See  D.  N.  Levin,  "The  Pivotal  Role  of  Longus'  Daphnis  and  Chloe,"  Rivista  di 
Studi  Classici  25  (1977),  pp.  5-17;  Chalk,  p.  44,  seems  to  understand  Lykainion's 
function,  but  not  the  effect  her  lessons  have  on  the  relationship  between  Daphnis 
and  Chloe.  See  also  McCulloh,  p.  67. 


128  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

by  Lykainion,  into  the  mysteries  of  sexuality.  The  superior  knowledge 
that  Daphnis  displays  at  I  and  I'  reflects  the  knowledge  of  sex  he  has 
chosen,  temporarily,  to  conceal. 

The  immediate  frame  for  the  myth  of  Echo  in  Book  III  is  very 
similar  to  the  framing  of  the  Syrinx  story  in  Book  II:  in  both  instances, 
someone  makes  a  promise  before  the  story  is  told  and  fulfills  it 
afterward. 

The  (Tirapayixbq  of  Echo  is  the  most  violent  by  far  of  the  three 
ahia.  As  Chalk  and  others  have  noted,  Longus'  version  of  the  myth 
of  Echo,  which  is  utterly  different  from  the  more  familiar  Ovidian 
version,  resembles  the  airapaynoi  of  Orpheus  or  Zagreus.^*  That 
Chloe  is  to  be  identified  with  Echo  in  some  sense  is  made  clear  in 
several  ways:  first,  she  has  already  been  identified  with  the  heroines 
of  the  first  two  aiTia,  Phatta  and  Syrinx;  secondly.  Echo,  like  Chloe, 
Tp((f)eTai  UTTO  lSvn(f)icv  .  .  .  (23.1);  and  finally,  the  bloodshed  of  the 
(Tirapaynoq  recalls  Lykainion's  admonition  that  Chloe,  being  a  virgin, 
will  cry  out  and  bleed  (19.  2-3).  All  this  could  easily  lead  us  into  a 
psychoanalytical  jungle  from  which  we  might  not  easily  extricate 
ourselves;  and  indeed,  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  present  study  to 
work  all  this  out.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  Chloe  is  admonished  by  this 
story  (and,  implicitly,  by  its  teller)  to  yield  her  virginity  gracefully 
when  the  proper  time  comes. 

And  this  leads,  finally,  to  Book  IV  and  the  nvdoq  of  Chloe: 

BOOK  IV 

A.  Chloe  flees  to  the  woods  in  fear  (14.  1). 

B.  Daphnis  looks  like  Apollo  tending  Laomedon's  sheep  (14.  2). 

C.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  feast  together  (15.  4). 

D.  Daphnis  is  promised  to  Gnatho  (17.  1-19.  2). 

E.  Astylus  fetches  Daphnis  and  presents  him  to  his  father; 
he  is  richly  dressed  for  the  first  time  (20). 

F.  Dionysophanes  tells  how  he  came  to  expose  Daphnis 
(24.  1-4). 

G.  Rumor  reports  that  Dionysophanes  had  found 
a  son  (25.  3). 

H.  Daphnis  dedicates  his  pastoralia  (26.  2-4). 

I.  The  myth  of  Chloe  (27.  1-32.  2). 

2"  Chalk,  p.  42;  Deligiorgis,  pp.  3-4;  McCuUoh,  p.  66. 


Bruce  D.  MacQueen  129 

H'.  Chloe  dedicates  her  pastoralia  (32.  3-4). 

G'.  Mytilene  rejoices  that  Dionysophanes  has  found 
a  son  (33.  3). 

F'.  Megacles  tells  how  he  came  to  expose  Chloe  (35. 
1-5). 

E'.  Chloe  is  fetched  and  presented  to  Megacles,  dressed 
in  fine  clothes  for  the  first  time  (36.  1-3). 

D'.  Chloe  is  given  to  Daphnis  in  marriage  (37.  1-2). 

C.  Daphnis  and  Chloe  feast  together  (38.  1). 

B'.  A  temple  is  built  to  Eros  the  Shepherd  (39.  2). 

A'.  Chloe  learns  the  lesson  (40.  1-3). 

It  was  to  be  expected,  and  should  now  be  apparent,  that  the 
pattern  of  concentric  rings  established  in  Books  1  through  III  is 
carried  through  here  into  Book  IV.  Once  again,  Longus  uses  paired 
motifs  and  images  to  convert  a  linear,  diachronic  narrative  into  a 
synchronic  frame. ^^  The  ring  begins  and  ends,  as  it  should,  with 
Chloe.  At  14.  1,  she  flees  to  the  woods  in  an  excess  of  childish, 
maidenly  fear  at  the  advent  of  such  an  important  personage  as 
Dionysophanes.  At  40.  1-3,  however,  she  learns  at  last  on  to.  iwl  rriq 
vXrjq  yevoneva  r]V  iroLnevojv  iraiyvia. 

The  correspondence  B-B'  is  based  on  the  image  of  a  divinity  in 
an  unusual  guise.  At  14.  2,  Longus  alludes  to  the  well-known  story 
of  Apollo  tending  Laomedon's  sheep;  the  whole  point  of  the  story  is 
the  incongruity  of  the  God  of  Light  serving  as  a  shepherd.  At  39.  2, 
we  encounter  another  divinity  who  is  almost  as  unlikely  a  shepherd 
as  Apollo:  Eros.^^ 

The  contrast  between  the  pederastic  "marriage"  contemplated  by 
Gnathon,  which  indeed  precipitates  the  denouement  of  Daphnis  and 
Chloe,  and  the  long-awaited  marriage  of  the  two  young  lovers  at 
37.  1,  which  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  plot,  is  an  important  one.^'  Eros 
always  has  two  sides,  two  natures:  one  fertile  and  benevolent,  the 
other  appetitive  and  brutish.  It  may  well  be  that  Longus'  final 
statement  about  Eros  is  that  human  happiness  depends  upon  the 
channeling   of  the   power   of  Eros   into   constructive,    perhaps 

^^  For  the  relationship  of  the  temporal  and  the  spatial  in  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  see 
the  article  by  Kestner  cited  above;  see  also  M.  C.  Mittelstadt,  "Longus,  Daphnis  and 
Chloe,  and  Roman  Narrative  Painting,"  Latomus  26  (1967),  pp.  752-61. 

^^  Note  also  the  incongruity  of  Pan  the  Soldier 

2'  Chalk,  pp.  46  and  51;  Heiserman,  pp.  141-42. 


130  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

(pro)creative,  outlets. ^^  In  this  connection,  it  may  be  of  importance 
that  Gnathon  later  redeems  himself  by  rescuing  Chloe  from  the 
clutches  of  Lampis. 

Nothing,  to  my  mind,  makes  Longus'  penchant  for  the  chiastic 
arrangement  of  narrative  details  more  obvious  than  the  sequence 
EF-F'E'.  At  23.  2,  Daphnis,  now  dressed  as  the  young  nobleman  he 
has  been  discovered  to  be,  is  presented  to  his  new-found  father, 
Dionysophanes;  chapter  24  consists  of  the  latter's  account  of  how  he 
had  come  to  expose  his  infant  son.  But  the  sequence  of  narrative 
and  presentation  is  exactly  reversed  in  the  case  of  Chloe:  Megacles 
tells  the  assembled  company  (at  35.  1-5)  how  he,  too,  had  once  been 
compelled  to  expose  a  child;  only  when  his  story  is  over,  however,  is 
that  child,  Chloe,  presented  to  her  real  father  (36.  1).  Like  Daphnis, 
before,  she  is  now  seen  resplendent  in  the  rich  dress  of  the  class  to 
which  she  was  born. 

In  Books  I  through  III,  the  immediate  frame  of  the  ixvdoq  has  been 
rather  obvious. ^^  Any  reader  who  has  caught  on  to  Longus'  methods 
cannot  fail  to  notice  the  careful  parallelism  of  the  events  narrated  at 
H  and  H':  epravda  b  Aa(t)PLq  avpadpoiaaq  iravTa  tol  -KOLixevLKO.  KTr^fxara 
dteveifieu  avadrinara  Tolq  deolc,  .  .  .  (26.  2);  .  .  .  Kal  avertdu  kol  XXor] 
TO.  eavrfjc,  .  .  .  (32.  3).  And  it  is  precisely  the  carefulness  of  that 
pairing  that  isolates  and  defines  the  aiTiov  of  Book  IV:  the  ^ivBoc,  of 
Chloe.  For  if  we  assume  that  the  correspondence  H-H'  is  the 
immediate  frame,  then  the  portion  of  the  text  that  intervenes  is  in 
the  precise  structural  position  in  Book  IV  occupied  by  the  aiTia  of 
Phatta,  Syrinx,  and  Echo  in  Books  I-III.  This  observation  virtually 
demands  that  the  passage  27.  1  -  32.  2  be  set  into  juxtaposition  to 
those  aiTLa.  Such  a  juxtaposition  produces  some  remarkable  results: 

1.  In  Books  I-III,  the  aiTiov  centers  on  a  young  unmarried  woman; 
Phatta  is  a  shepherdess,  and  Syrinx  and  Echo  are  nymphs.  Chloe 
is  a  young  unmarried  woman,  a  shepherdess  who,  as  an  infant, 
was  found  in  a  grotto  sacred  to  the  Nymphs,  and  who  has  clearly 
been  under  their  special  protection. 

2.  In  Books  I-III,  the  female  protagonist  is  threatened  by  a  male 
antagonist.  Phatta  is  confronted  by  a  young  boy  who  sings  more 
sweetly  than  she  does,  while  the  two  nymphs  are  both  pursued 

2«  Chalk,  p.  51;  Philippides,  p.  199;  Mittelstadt,  "Love,  Eros,"  pp.  320-32.  Like 
Heiserman,  p.  131,  I  do  not  find  Longus'  ideas  about  Eros  especially  original  or 
profound;  unlike  him,  howeser,  I  do  not  belive  that  a  concern  with  "ideas"  as  such 
informs  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  for  reasons  that  will  become  apparent. 

^^  See  Deligiorgis,  whose  remarks  on  framing  adumbrate  much  of  the  present 
discussion. 


Bruce  D.  MacQueen  131 

by  Pan.  Chloe  is  abducted  by  the  brutish  Lampis,  a  disappointed 
suitor. 

3.  In  Books  I-III,  there  is  a  moment  when  all  seems  lost,  and  the 
male  aggressor  is  on  the  point  of  victory.  The  anonymous  shep- 
herd boy  in  Book  I  enjoys  unalloyed  victory,  but  Pan  is  ultimately 
disappointed  in  his  hopes;  similarly,  Lampis  seems  about  to  gain 
his  prize  when  Gnathon,  quite  unexpectedly,  redeems  himself  by 
saving  Chloe. 

4.  The  female  protagonists  in  Books  I-III  are  all  transformed  as  a 
result  of  their  various  encounters  with  male  aggression.  All  three 
become  "musical" — they  make  pleasing  sounds.  All  are  common, 
not  to  say  ubiquitous,  natural  phenomena.^"  The  transformation 
of  Chloe  is  somewhat  more  complex.  Dryas,  Chloe's  presumed 
father,  is  motivated  by  her  abduction  to  present  the  jvoopiafxaTa 
he  had  found  with  her  when  she  was  a  baby;  her  true  identity 
remains  a  mystery,  but  it  is  clear  that  she  is  no  shepherd's  daughter. 
The  last  obstacle  to  her  marriage  to  Daphnis  has  been  removed, 
and  the  nature  of  her  "musical"  transformation  is  revealed.  She 
will  become  a  wife. 

All  this  seems  to  suggest  that  a  yvv-f]  is  somehow  to  be  compared 
to  a  dove,  a  reed  pipe,  or  an  echo.  The  point  of  connection,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  music,  or,  more  specifically,  the  delight  induced  by  music. 
As  noted  above,  all  three  transformed  maidens  become  sources  of 
sweet  sounds,  and  it  is  precisely  through  their  confrontations  with 
male  aggression  that  they  become  so.  Chloe,  as  a  result  of  her 
particular  confrontation  with  male  aggression,  becomes  a  married 
woman,  a  wife,  whose  primary  function  in  life  (at  that  time  and  place) 
will  be  to  please  her  husband.^'  To  Daphnis,  then,  she  is  a  Ktriixa 
Ttp-Kvbv.  Put  baldly: 

wife  :  husband  ::  music  :  hearer 

That  a  Greek  wife  was  her  husband's  KTri/xa,  an  asset  to  be  possessed, 
would  be  a  self-evident  truth  to  any  ancient  Greek  audience.  That 
the  marks  of  her  excellence  would  be  the  delight  she  gave  her 
husband  is  less  obvious;  indeed,  such  an  assumption  might  seem  to 
rest  on  shaky  ground.  Even  a  passing  reference  to  Pomeroy's  well- 

**•  Deligiorgis,  p.  6. 

"  Recent  experience  has  taught  me  that  a  disclaimer  of  sorts  may  well  be  necessary 
here.  Whether  or  not  one  approves  of  the  view  of  marriage  and  the  role  of  wives 
here  ascribed  to  Longus,  such  a  view  is  entirely  consonant  with  the  prevailing  attitudes 
in  antiquity  on  this  matter.  Those  who  are  offended  by  all  this  have  a  quarrel  with 
Longus,  not  with  me. 


132  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

known  book  on  the  role  of  women  in  ancient  Greece  will  suggest 
that  a  wife,  even  a  "good"  wife,  was  not  necessarily  expected  to  give 
erotic  pleasure  to  her  husband,  who  would  presumably  look  elsewhere 
for  that.^^  But,  as  Mittelstadt  points  out,  by  the  second  century  of 
our  era  new  ideas  were  emerging.^^  The  other  Greek  romances  had 
long  since  set  the  pattern  of  erotic  attraction  culminating  in  marriage. 
So  Longus  cannot  really  be  credited  with  any  fundamentally  new 
vision  of  marriage. 

But  there  is  still  something  quite  new  about  the  ixvdoq  of  Chloe, 
the  building  of  a  narrative  around  the  transformation  of  a  girl  from 
Tapdevoq  to  yvur].  It  has  already  been  suggested  by  others  that  Longus 
dwells  upon  precisely  that  aspect  of  erotic  development  so  much 
taken  for  granted  by  the  other  romances:  the  flowering  of  attraction 
into  erotic  passion. ^^  What  is  prelude  in  most  of  the  other  romances 
has  here  become  the  primary  theme.  Thus  marriage  is  not  {pace 
Chalk  et  al.)  a  metaphor  for  initiation,  but  rather  the  reverse:  initiation 
is  a  metaphor  for  marriage.  The  evocations  of  and  allusions  to  the 
mysteries  that  pervade  Daphnis  and  Chloe  are,  structurally  and  the- 
matically,  subservient  to  the  theme  of  marriage. 

This  is  not  to  say,  however,  that  the  final  significance  of  the  /ivdoc, 
of  Chloe  lies  in  the  transformation  that  marriage  represents.  Marriage 
is  not  the  "privileged  layer"  of  interpretation,  but  rather  points 
beyond  itself  to  the  theme  with  which,  I  would  contend,  Daphnis  and 
Chloe  is  most  closely  concerned:  the  theme  of  literature.  For  the  Krfina 
Tepirvov  that  Longus  promises  in  the  Prologue  and  delivers  in  Book 
IV  is  not  a  wife  for  Daphnis,  but  a  novel  for  us,  the  readers. 

.  .  .  TtTTapaq  ^i^Xovc,  i^eiroi'-qaanrji',  avadrjixa  fih  "^poJTi  Koi  NOM^aiq  Koi 
Uavi,  KT^na  de  repizvov  izaaiv  ccvQ pd-KOic,,  o  kox  voaovvra  laa^Tm,  kol  Xvirovpepov 
TrapapvOrjaerai,  tov  Ipaadevra  avapprjaei,  top  ovk  epaadipra  it po-xaibtma. 
(Prologue  3) 

Another  member,  then  must  be  added  to  the  earlier  analogy: 

music  :  hearer  ::  wife  :  husband  ::  story  :  reader 

What  binds  together  music,  wife,  and  story  is  the  figure  of  Chloe:  a 
wife-to-be,  who  is  identified  with  a  series  of  musical  maidens,  and 
becomes  a  nWoq. 

One  of  the  great  problems  for  any  writer  of  narrative  in  antiquity 
was  the  problem  of  validation.  Ancient  readers  were  simply  not 
prepared  to  accept  out-and-out  fiction;  only  in  comedy  did  an  author 

'^  S.  Pomeroy,  Goddesses,  Whores,  Wives,  and  Slaves  (New  York  1975). 
"  Mittelstadt,  "Love,  Eros,"  pp.  305  fF. 
3^  Ibid. 


Bruce  D.  MacQueen  133 

enjoy  any  sort  of  freedom  in  contriving  a  plot.  For  the  Roman  comic 
poets,  who  clearly  felt  compelled  to  follow  plot  lines  borrowed  from 
the  Greeks,  even  that  freedom  was,  if  not  denied,  at  least  abridged. ^^ 
And  when  prose  fiction  first  began  to  appear  in  the  Greco-Roman 
world,  it  did  so  rather  fearfully  and  quite  tentatively  at  first.  In  the 
"Ninus  Fragment,"  we  see  traces  of  a  fictional  plot,  but  the  story, 
oddly,  is  built  around  well-known  mythological  characters.  The  first 
romance  to  survive  intact,  Chariton's  Chaireas  and  Kallirhoe,  purports 
to  be  a  "true"  story,  and  the  heroine  is  made  out  to  be  the  daughter 
of  the  Syracusan  crrpaT-qyoq  Hermocrates.  Achilles  Tatius'  Leukippe 
and  Kleitophon  is  a  first  person  narrative,  ostensibly  told  to  the  authorial 
persona  by  Kleitophon.  One  might  argue  that  Longus,  too,  feels 
compelled  to  find  some  external  point  of  reference  in  order  to 
validate  his  narrative.  His  work  is  presented  as  an  extended  ekphrasis; 
and  there  is  also  the  e^r}yrjTr]q  consulted,  the  Prologue  says,  by  the 
author.  But  the  fact  remains  that  Longus,  in  the  Prologue,  clearly 
represents  his  work  as  his  own  creation — i^eirovnaaiJLrjv,  he  says, 
"finxi."  The  story  derives  its  validation,  not  from  any  mythical  or 
historical  (or  pseudohistorical)  datum,  but  from  itself,  from  its  own 
construction.  In  fact,  the  whole  structure  I  have  described  above 
shows  that  Longus  has  chosen  to  make  his  own  myth.  Whatever  we 
may  think  of  the  result,  the  fact  remains  that  mythopoesis  (or,  to  be 
more  precise,  the  separation  of  mythopoesis  from  tradition)  is  the 
essence  of  that  newness  which  the  term  "novel"  connotes,  and 
constitutes  an  essential  beginning  for  the  conception  of  fiction. 

What  the  ^ivdoq  of  Chloe  finally  means,  then,  is  the  emancipation 
of  fiction.  The  judgment  of  McCulloh,  that  Daphnis  and  Chloe  is  "the 
last  great  creation  in  pagan  Greek  literature,"  takes  on  a  deeper 
significance  perhaps  unsuspected  by  McCulloh. ^^  The  great  writers 
of  both  Greek  and  Roman  literature  derive  their  power,  then  and 
now,  from  their  ability  to  evoke  from  their  respective  cultural  tra- 
ditions a  voice  that  speaks  to  and  from  the  collective  psyche,  which 
is  embodied  in  that  tradition.  When  Longus,  in  Greek,  and  Apuleius, 
in  Latin,  almost  simultaneously  develop  the  project  of  writing  nar- 
ratives that  are  not  derivative  from  tradition,  we  are  clearly  standing 
at  the  threshold  of  a  new  era. 

It  is,  then,  precisely  in  the  manner  of  its  formation  that  the 
significance  of  the  nvBo<;  of  Chloe  lies.  There  is  conscious  irony  in 
Pan's  telling  Bryaxis  that  Eros  will  make  a  iivQoq  of  Chloe.  For  it  is 

'*  I   leave  aside  the  issue  of  contaminatw,  which  would  not  be  an  issue  if  the 
observation  just  made  were  not  sound. 
3^  McCulloh,  p.  15. 


134  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

indeed  Eros,  within  the  Active  frame  of  reference,  who  controls  the 
action,  but  it  is  Longus  who  has  made  the  nvdoq.  Chloe  becomes  the 
wife  of  Daphnis,  but  it  is  we,  the  readers,  who  have  the  Krrifia  repirvop, 
which  is  Daphnis  and  Chloe  itself.  When  we  see  further  how  Longus 
has  used  three  "myths"  (in  the  ordinary  sense)  to  make  a  fourth  of 
his  own  creation,  we  begin  to  see  how  and  why  Longus,  far  from 
immersing  us  in  a  story,  maintains  a  certain  distance  from  it  all.  He 
does  not  hide  his  brush  strokes,  because  that  would  defeat  his  purpose. 
What  we  are  really  seeing  is  not  a  simple  tale  of  incredibly  simple 
children,  but  the  very  act  of  literary  creation,  and  the  genesis  of 
fiction. 

Purdue  University 


Chariton  and  Coptic 


GERALD  M.  BROWNE 


Knowledge  of  Coptic,  its  linguistic  analysis  and  the  literature  that 
survives  in  it,  furthers  our  understanding  of  two  passages  in  Chariton, 
removing  the  need  to  tamper  with  the  text  of  the  first,  and  supporting 
emendation  of  the  second. 

(1)  7.  5.  5  (p.  105.  4  Blake')  avrrj  5e  rjv  (^)  KaWipori  airavTrjaaaa 
■KpC^TTj  Yitpaibdiv. 

Cobet  proposed  insertion  of  i),  paleographically  easy  but  linguistically 
unnecessary.  The  pattern  of  expression,  r]v  .  .  .  airaPTrjaaaa,  invites 
comparison  with  that  studied  by  H.  B.  Rosen,  "Die  'zweiten'  Tempora 
des  Griechischen:  Zum  Pradikatsausdruck  beim  griechischen  Ver- 
bum,"  Museum  Helvetkwn  14  (1957),  pp.  133-54.  Thanks  to  the 
efforts  of  H.  J.  Polotsky,^  whose  work  serves  as  the  basis  for  Rosen's 
investigation,  we  know  that  Coptic  employs  two  special  constructions 
in  order  to  give  prominence  to  an  element  of  a  sentence  other  than 
its  verb;  the  choice  between  these  constructions  depends  on  whether 
the  emphasis  is  on  an  adverbial  phrase  (resulting  in  a  so-called  "second 


'  W.  E.  B\ake,  Chnritonis  Aphrodisiensis  de  Chaerea  et  Callirhoe  a)fiatoriarum  narrationum 
lihri  octo  (Oxford  1938). 

2  See  especially  Etudes  de  syntaxe  copte  (Cairo  1944),  of  which  pp.  20-96  deal  with 
"les  temps  seconds"  and  include  a  sketch  of  the  cleft  sentence  (57-65).  Polotsky 
expanded  his  treatment  of  the  latter  in  "Nominalsatz  und  Cleft  Sentence  im  Kop- 
tischen,"  Orientalia  31  (1962),  413-30,  which  appeared  after  Rosen's  article.  Both  of 
Polotsky's  studies  are  reprinted  in  his  Collected  Papers  (Jerusalem  1971),  pp.  102-207 
and  418-35,  respectively. 


136  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

tense")  or  on  a  subject  or  object  (resulting  in  a  cleft  sentence).  Thus, 
if  in  the  hypothetical  utterance 

npa)Me    oyh2    zm    phi 
The-man  stays  in-the-house 

special  prominence  is  to  be  given  to  the  adverbial  phrase,  the  following 
transformation  appears: 

epe    np(DMG    oyuz    2M    nui 

The-fact-that-f  (is)  in-the-house  the-man-stays 

I.e.  It  is  in  the  house  that  the  man  stays  (Second  Tense) 

If,  in  the  same  utterance,  the  emphasis  falls  upon  the  subject,  a 
different  construction  is  used: 

npcoMe  n(6)  eroYHg  2M    nHi->npcDM6    hgtoyhz     2M    phi 

The-man-is  who-stays  in-the-house 

I.e.  It  is  the  man  who  stays  in  the  house  (Cleft  Sentence)^ 

Rosen  shows  convincingly  that  Ancient  Greek  too  has  a  means  of 
shifting  emphasis  away  from  the  verb  (apart  from  use  of  particles 
and  modification  of  word-order),  viz.  replacement  of  the  verb  with 
a  periphrasis  involving  eLfii  and  a  participle.  E.g.  6  audpo^iroq  nevei.  ev 
TTj  oLKLOi  may  be  converted  into  6  audpoiiroq  icTL  ixevo^v  iv  ttj  oikloc, 
which  can  mean  either  "it  is  in  the  house  that  the  man  stays"  (cf. 
Herodotus'*  I.  146.  3  ravra  8e  rjp  yivbueva  ev  MiXtjto;  "it  was  at  Miletus 
that  these  events  took  place"^)  or  "it  is  the  man  who  stays  in  the 
house"  (cf.  III.  63.  4  ol  /xayoL  ecai  rot,  iiraveaTeoiTeq  "ce  sont  les  mages, 
qui  se  sont  souleves  contre  toi"*^).  Regarding  this  second  Herodotean 
passage,  Rosen  writes:  "der  von  den  Herausgebern  gemachte  Zusatz 
von  (^oi)  nach  toi  ist  also  [i.e.  after  a  list  of  similar  passages]  nicht 
angebracht"  (147).  The  structural  similarity  between  ol  jxayoL  dai  tol 
eTraveaTeCiTec,  and  avrr]  be  riv  KaXXipor)  airavTrjaaaa  in  Chariton  is 
striking,  and  the  latter  passage  no  more  requires  (j?)  after  ^v  than 

'  For  numerous  examples  of  both  second  tenses  and  cleft  sentences  in  Coptic,  see 
the  studies  of  Polotsky  cited  in  the  preceding  note,  and  see  also  notes  4  and  7  below. 

■*  Rosen  concentrates  on  Herodotus,  but  on  pp.  151-53  he  suggests  that  his 
observations  apply  to  Ancient  Greek  in  general;  cf.  also  Acts  25:10  karwq  iirt  tov 
ffffnaToc,  Kaiaapoc,  eifu,  rendered  in  Coptic  as 

eixaepxT    2i     rbrma    Rnfpo 

"it  is  at  the  court  of  Caesar  that  I  stand"  (see  Polotsky,  Etudes,  p.  44);  for  karwt;  .  .  . 
a'Mt  note  Rosen's  remark  "dass  .  .  .  kein  Zwang  besteht,  die  beiden  Komponenten 
der  zusammengesetzten  Form  zu  juxtaponieren.  Auch  die  Ordnung  der  Komponenten 
ist  beliebig"  (p.  137).  See  also  note  7  below. 

^  Rosen,  p.  146;  the  translation  is  by  Rawlinson  (Rosen,  p.  141). 

^  Rosen,  p.  147;  the  translation  is  by  Legrand  (Rosen,  p.  141). 


Gerald  M.  Browne  137 

does  the  former  need  tol  (oi).  For  Chariton's  usage  elsewhere,  note 
especially  8.  6.  9  (p.  122.  5)  avrbq  yap  rjv  ireinaTevnevoc,  tov  aXXov 
OToKov  dcTTo  KuTrpou.^ 

(2)  7.  5.  9  (p.  105.  22-23)  nal  evdvq  epyou  eyevero  b  Xoyoq. 

Hercher  conjectured  eyevero  for  the  manuscript  reading  eyivero.  A 
precise  parallel  in  support  of  eyevero  appears  in  the  Coptic  Gnostic 
Treatise  On  the  Origin  of  the  World  (Nag  Hammadi  Codex  II  116. 
3-4): 

TTTGYNoy   AnGca)xx6   ojiDne   TToyeproN 

immediately  her  word  became  a  deed. 

The  use  of  Perfect  I  in  Coptic  shows  that  its  Vorlage  had  eyevero; 
eyivero  would  have  resulted  in 

TTtgynoy    N6pencca)AX6   a)CDne   TToyeproM   .» 

University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

^  Cf.  also  St.  Athanasius,  Vita  Antomi  (Migne,  PG  26  [1887]  912  A  14.-15)  6  St 
Kvpioc,  riv  ocvTW  (l>v\aTTiiiv,  which  the  excellent  Coptic  translation  (for  which  see  my 
article  in  Greek,  Roman  and  Byzantine  Studies  12  [1971],  pp.  59-64)  renders  as  a  cleft 
sentence: 

nxoeic   A6    nenTA.q2A.p62     epo't 

"and  it  was  the  Lord  who  guarded  him"  (G.  Garitte,  5.  Antonii  vitae  versio  sahidica, 
CSCO  117,  Scrip,  copt.  4.  1  [1949],  53.  14-15). 

»  Cf.  Polotsky,  "The  Coptic  Conjugation  System,"  Orientalia  29  (1960),  396  §9  (= 
Collected  Papers,  p.  242). 


8 


The  First  Sighting  Theme  in  the 
Old  Testament  Poetry  of  Late  Antiquity 

MICHAEL  J.  ROBERTS 


Until  recently  the  biblical  poetry  of  late  antiquity  has  received  little 
attention  from  scholars.'  The  major  reason  for  this  neglect  has  been 


'  A  number  of  monographs  on  individual  authors  appeared  around  the  turn  of 
the  century — mostly  on  the  problems  of  the  biblical  text  forms  used  or  the  imitation 
of  pagan  poets — but  with  one  exception — a  largely  descriptive  work  on  the  Genesis 
paraphrases  (Stanislas  Gamber,  Le  livre  de  la  Genhe  dans  la  poesie  latine  au  V"'  siecle 
[Paris  1899])— no  work  of  synthesis  was  produced.  Only  recently  have  a  number  of 
works  begun  to  supply  this  need.  Two  German  studies  deserve  special  mention,  Klaus 
Thraede's  article  on  the  "Epos"  in  the  Reallexikon  fur  Antike  und  Christentum  5 
(Stuttgart  1962),  cols.  983-1042,  and  Reinhart  Herzog's  Die  Bibelepik  der  lateinischen 
Spdtanlike:  Formgeschichle  einer  erbaulichen  Gattung,  of  which  at  the  time  of  writing  only 
volume  one  has  appeared  (Munich  1975),  dealing  with  Proba,  Juvencus,  the  Hepta- 
teuch paraphrase  and  Paulinus,  C.  6.  Jacques  Fontaine's  Naissance  de  la  poesie  dans 
Voccident  chretien:  esquisse  d'une  histoire  de  la  poesie  chretienne  du  IIP  au  VF  siecle  (Paris 
1981)  contains  a  chapter  on  Juvencus,  pp.  67-80,  and  a  survey  of  the  other  biblical 
poets,  pp.  241-64.  For  the  Old  Testament  paraphrases  a  pair  of  articles  by  Kurt 
Smolak  should  be  mentioned:  "Lateinische  Umdichtungen  des  biblischen  Schop- 
fungsberichtes"  in  Studia  Patristica,  vol.  12,  Papers  Presented  to  the  Sixth  International 
Conference  on  Patristic  Studies  Held  in  Oxford  1971,  pt.  1,  Texte  und  Untersuchungen  zur 
Geschichte  der  altchristlichen  Literatur  1 15  (Berlin  1975),  pp.  350-60,  and  "Die  Stellung 
der  Hexamerondichtung  des  Dracontius  (laud,  dei  1,  1 18-426)  innerhalb  der  latein- 
ischen Genesispoesie,"  in  Antidosis:  Festschrift  fur  Walther  Kraus  zum  70.  Geburtstag 
(Vienna  1972),  pp.  381-97.  More  summary  treatments  are  contained  in  J.  M.  Evans, 
Paradise  Lost  and  the  Genesis  Tradition  (Oxford  1968),  pp.  107-42;  Charles  Witke, 
Numen  Litterarum:  The  Old  and  the  New  in  Latin  Poetry  from  Constantine  to  Gregory  the 
Great,  Mittellateinische  Studien  und  Texte  5  (Leiden  1971),  pp.  145-232,  and  Dieter 
Kartschoke,  Bibeldichtung:  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  epischen  Bibelparaphrase  vonfuvencus 
bis  Otfrid  von  Weissenburg  (Munich  1975),  pp.  15-123.  In  addition,  a  number  of  more 


140  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

aesthetic:  the  perceived  opposition  between  the  form  of  the  poems, 
derived  as  it  is  from  pagan  epic,  and  their  biblical  content;  form  and 
content  have  been  felt  to  be  in  irreconcilable  conflict.^  But,  in  fact, 
this  blend  of  Christian  and  classical  was  very  much  in  accordance 
with  contemporary  taste.  In  this  respect  the  biblical  poems  are  typical 
of  much  of  the  literature  of  late  antiquity.  To  appreciate  the  poems 
properly,  therefore,  they  must  be  seen  against  the  intellectual  back- 
ground of  the  time,  not  in  the  light  of  aesthetic  preconceptions 
derived  from  the  study  of  classical  literature  or  the  biblical  original.^ 
Such  an  open-minded  approach  is  likely  to  be  doubly  fruitful.  Schol- 
arship, by  concentrating  on  the  interplay  between  Christian  and 
classical  in  the  biblical  poems,  can  hope  to  learn  much  about  the 
reception  of  the  classical  tradition  in  the  Christian  West,  and  at  the 
same  time  introduce  some  light  and  shade  into  the  almost  uniformly 
dark  picture  of  the  biblical  epic  that  has  hitherto  been  presented. 
The  present  article  draws  attention  to  a  group  of  passages  in  the  Old 
Testament  poems  which  illustrate  their  twofold  inspiration  (classical 
and  Christian). 

The  passages  in  question  are  Claudius  Marius  Victorius,  Alethia  2. 

specialized  studies  by  German,  Dutch,  and  Italian  scholars  have  contributed  to  the 
understanding  of  individual  works. 

The  present  article  elaborates  on  remarks  made  in  my  Ph.D.  dissertation,  The 
Hexameter  Paraphrase  in  Late  Antiquity:  Origins  and  Applications  to  Biblical  Texts  (Urbana 
1978),  pp.  322-23.  In  the  present  article  I  have  preferred  the  term  "first  sighting" 
theme  to  "distant  views"  theme,  as  being  more  accurate,  if  less  suggestive.  A  revised 
version  of  the  dissertation  has  recently  been  published;  Roberts,  Biblical  Epic  and 
Rhetorical  Paraphrase  in  Late  Antiquity,  ARCA  Classical  and  Medieval  Texts,  Papers 
and  Monographs  16  (Liverpool  1985),  but  it  omits  the  pages  which  deal  with  the 
"first  sighting"  theme. 

^  Cf.  the  references  collected  and  discussed  by  Herzog,  pp.  Ix-lxv.  Domenico 
Comparetti,  Vergil  in  the  Middle  Ages,  trans.  E.  F.  M.  Benecke  (2nd  ed.  1908;  repr. 
Hamden,  Conn.  1966),  pp.  158  and  160,  expresses  with  unusual  clarity  the  traditional 
attitude  of  scholars  to  these  poems:  "Christianity  was  never  at  its  ease  when  arrayed 
in  the  forms  of  ancient  poetical  art,  and  the  ability  of  its  various  poets  could  never 
do  more  than  slightly  diminish  the  strangeness  of  its  appearance.  Not  unfrequently 
indeed  the  contrast  between  the  matter  and  the  form  would  have  been  positively 
ridiculous  to  anyone  not  blinded  by  the  fervour  of  religious  faith,"  and  "To  versify 
the  Gospels  meant  ...  to  take  away  from  the  simple  narrative  its  own  proper  poetry 
by  tricking  it  out  in  a  way  repugnant  to  its  nature.  .  .  .  Poetry  was  merely  looked 
upon  as  versified  rhetoric." 

^  I  am  here  thinking  of  criticisms  which  contrast  the  fetching  simplicity  of  the 
biblical  narrative  with  the  rhetorical  elaboration  of  the  poetic  version,  interpreted 
as  tasteless  mutilation  of  the  original.  Cf.  the  second  passage  from  Comparetti  cited 
in  the  previous  note. 


Michael  J.  Roberts  141 

6-26  and  2.  528-39;'*  Avitus,  De  spiritalis  historiae  gestis  3.  197-208;^ 
and  Dracontius,  Laudes  Dei  1.  417-26.*'  (The  poem  of  the  African 
poet  Dracontius,  though  primarily  non-biblical,  contains  in  the  first 
book  a  lengthy  version  of  Genesis  1-3,  as  an  illustration  of  God's 
mercy  towards  the  human  race.)  All  four  passages  have  in  common 
that  they  describe  reactions  to  a  strange,  new  environment.  Alethia 
2.  6-26  and  Avitus  3.  197-208  describe  the  first  parents'  reaction 
to  their  expulsion  from  Paradise;  Alethia  2.  528-39  Noah's  reaction 
to  the  new  world  after  the  Flood;  and  Laudes  Dei  1.  417-26  the  first 
parents'  fearful  response  to  the  onset  of  night.  Each  passage  may  be 
described  as  paraphrastic  amplification  of  the  biblical  text.  In  ac- 
cordance with  the  principles  of  the  paraphrase  the  sense  of  the 
original  is  retained;  its  elaboration  is  rather  a  matter  of  elocutio  than 
inventio^ — the  poet  takes  his  point  of  departure  from  the  biblical  text 
and  seeks  to  give  more  forceful  expression  to  the  spiritual  content 
of  the  text.  Since  the  discussion  will  initially  center  on  the  two  passages 
from  the  Alethia,  I  quote  them  here.^ 

*  The  Alethia  was  most  probably  written  in  the  third  decade  of  the  fifth  century; 
cf.  Pieter  Frans  Hovingh,  Claudius  Marius  Victorius,  Alethia,  la  priere  et  les  vfrs  1-170 
du  livre  I,  (diss.  Groningen  1955),  pp.  22-23  and  45.  For  the  form  of  the  name 
(Victorius  rather  than  Victor)  see  Hovingh,  pp.  15-16.  Hovingh's  arguments  are 
accepted  by  Helge  Hanns  Homey,  Studien  zur  Alethia  des  Claudius  Marius  Victorius, 
(diss.,  Bonn  1972),  p.  7,  and  Herzog,  Die  Bibelepik,  p.  xxiii. 

^  The  date  of  composition  of  the  De  spiritalis  historiae  gestis  is  not  definitely  known. 
The  last  decade  of  the  fifth  century  is  the  period  most  commonly  given.  For  the  title 
see  Avitus,  Ep.  51  (80.  21-22  Peiper)  "De  spiritalis  historiae  gestis  etiam  lege  poematis 
lusi." 

^  Dracontius  was  a  contemporary  of  Avitus.  The  Laudes  Dei  is  generally  thought 
to  have  been  written  in  the  first  half  of  the  last  decade  of  the  fifth  century  (see  P. 
Langlois,  "Dracontius,"  Reallexikon  fiir  Antike  und  Christentum  4  [Stuttgart  1959],  cols. 
253-54,  who  nevertheless  believes  a  later  date  is  possible). 

^  On  the  need  to  retain  the  sense  of  the  original  see  Quintilian  I.  9.  2  "paraphrasi 
audacius  vertere,  qua  et  breviare  quaedam  et  exornare  salvo  modo  poetae  sensu 
permittitur,"  speaking  of  a  prose  paraphrase  of  verse.  Provided  that  an  expansion  of 
the  original  text  introduced  no  material  alteration  therein  and  could  be  classified  as 
stylistic  enhancement  rather  than  fresh  invention,  no  contravention  of  paraphrastic 
principles  was  involved.  Stylistic  amplification  might  be  broadly  interpreted  to  include, 
for  instance,  lengthy  digressions,  which  were  viewed  as  an  ornament  of  style.  The 
progymnasmata  were  largely  exercises  in  such  rhetorical  amplification.  Among  them 
figured  the  ethopoeia,  which,  we  shall  see,  influenced  the  paraphrastic  amplifications 
here  discussed.  On  the  theory  of  the  paraphrase  see  further  Roberts,  Biblical  Epic, 
pp.  5-36. 

^  The  text  followed  is  that  of  Hovingh,  Claudii  Marii  Victorii  Alethia,  Corpus 
Christianorum  Latinorum  128  (Turnhout  1960),  pp.  148  and  165-66,  who  follows  Arie 
Staat,  De  Cultuurbeschouwing  van  Claudius  Marius  Victor:  Commentaar  op  Alethia  II  1-202 
(diss.,  Amsterdam  1952).  Hovingh's /?/««?  for  plana  (2.  14)  is  clearly  a  misprint  though 
adopted  without  comment  by  Homey  (above,  note  4),  p.  34. 


142  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X. 


Alethia  2.  6-26 


Postquam  sacratis  decedere  iussus  uterque 

sedibus  ac  regnis  genitalia  contigit  arva 

et  propria  stetit  exul  humo,  miserabile,  quali 

ore  rudes  stupeant  tarn  Barbara  rura  coloni, 

quae  non  frugifero  distincta  stipite  vernant.  10 

Nee  species  iuvat  ulla  soli,  sed  bruta  coacto 

pondere  congeries  nee  lecta  mole  locata  est. 

Ardua  caute  rigent,  silvis  depressa  laborant, 

plana  latent  herbis,  horrescunt  edita  dumis. 

Heu  quibus  haec  spectant  oculis,  quo  pectore  cernunt,       15 

quorum  animis  paradisus  inest!  Neque  causa  doloris 

una  subest,  quod  cunctorum  iam  plena  malorum 

se  pandit  facies,  sed,  quod  meminere  bonorum. 

Nunc  honor  ille  sacri  nemoris  maiore  sereno 

inradiat,  nunc  divitias  cumulatius  edit  20 

silva  beata  suas,  nunc  pomis  dulcior  usus 

nectareusque  sapor,  vivis  nunc  floribus  halat 

tellus^  et  absenti  tristis  perstringit  odore. 

O  quam  non  eadem  meritis,  paradise,  rependis! 

Te  magis  extollit  conlatio  deteriorum  25 

et  peiora  facis,  miseris  quae  sola  supersunt. 

Alethia  2.  528-39 

At  dominus,  mundi  sortitus  regna  secundi, 

cuncta  Noe  gaudens  oculis  ac  mente  capaci 

accipit  atque  animum  nequit  exsaturare  replendo  530 

et  cupido  raptim  perlustrans  omnia  visu 

ut  nova  miratur.  Noto  fulgentior  ortu 

et  mage  sol  rutilus,  ridet  maiore  sereno 

laeta  poll  facies  et  desperata  virescunt 

fetibus  arva  novis.  Sed  adhuc  versatur  imago  535 

ante  oculos  tantae  semper  memoranda  ruinae, 

inter  aquas  quid  pertulerint,  quid  munere  sacro 

et  non  pertulerint,  fremeret  cum  verbere  saevo 

pontus  et  inlisas  contemneret  area  procellas. 

Homey,'"  in  his  dissertation  on  the  Alethia,  has  noted  the  thematic 
similarity  between  these  passages.  He  sees  them  as  inspired  by  two 
philosophical  topoi,  later  taken  over  by  Christian  exegesis.  The  first 
is  that  of  man  as  the  contemplator  mundi / caeli;  the  notion  that  by 
visual  contemplation  of  the  universe,  and  especially  the  heavens,  man 

^  For  the  correptio  of  the  final  syllable  of  tellus  see  also  Alethia  3.  561. 
'"  Homey,  pp.  34-55,  where  the  evidence  for  these  philosophical  topoi  will  be 
found. 


Michael  J.  Roberts  143 

may  ascend  to  the  spiritual  contemplation  of  God.  This  idea,  as 
Homey  shows,  goes  back  to  Hellenistic  philosophy,  but  was  adapted 
by  Christian  writers  to  their  own  concept  of  the  divine.  The  second 
philosophical  topos  derives  from  attempts  to  explain  the  existence  of 
evil  in  the  world;  evil,  it  is  said,  exists  so  that  man  may  have  a 
yardstick  of  comparison  the  better  to  appreciate  what  is  good.  Here 
Homey  quotes  Alethia  2.  25-26:" 

Te  magis  extollit  conlatio  deteriorum 

et  peiora  facis,  miseris  quae  sola  supersunt. 

The  influence  of  such  concepts,  especially  the  former,  certainly 
cannot  be  ruled  out.  As  Homey  effectively  shows  in  his  dissertation, 
the  influence  of  philosophical  doctrines,  as  filtered  through  Christian 
exegesis,  is  all-pervasive  in  the  Alethia.  Indeed,  it  is  clear  from 
elsewhere  in  the  poem  that  Claudius  Marius  Victorius  was  familiar 
with  the  notion  of  man  as  contemplator  mundi / caeli  (1.  153-58  and 
423-31).  But  neither  philosophical  topos  accounts  for  the  feature  that 
the  two  Alethia  passages,  and  the  passages  in  Avitus  and  Dracontius, 
have  in  common:  that  is,  that  each  describes  the  reactions  of  a 
spectator  (or  spectators)  when  confronted  for  the  first  time  Vith  a 
strange  environment.  Nor  does  the  function  of  the  passages  corre- 
spond to  that  of  the  philosophical  topoi.  Claudius  Marius  Victorius  is 
not  concerned  to  stress  the  relationship  between  the  contemplation 
of  nature  and  the  contemplation  of  God;  still  less  does  he  seek  to 
justify  the  existence  of  evil.  As  Homey  recognizes,'^  the  passages 
serve  a  literary  function:  to  amplify  the  changes  experienced  by  the 
first  parents  and  Noah  and  thereby  lend  emotional  force  to  the 
narrative. 

The  passages  serve  the  purpose  of  rhetorical  amplification.  It  is  in 
rhetorical  rather  than  philosophical  topoi,  therefore,  that  their  inspi- 
ration should  be  sought.  A  parallel  may  be  found  in  a  group  of 
ethopoeiae  of  the  form  "what  would  'someone'  say  on  first  seeing 
'something'.  "  Hermogenes'^  recommends  the  subject  "what  would  a 
farmer  say  on  first  seeing  a  ship?"  (21.  12-13  Rabe;  cf.  Priscian's 
translation  of  Hermogenes,  558.  17-18  Halm).'^  Perhaps  the  closest 

"  Ibid.,  pp.  49-50. 

'2  Ibid.,  pp.  50,  53,  and  55. 

"  The  authenticity  of  Hermogenes'  Progymnasmata,  which  I  here  cite,  is  doubtful; 
cf.  Hugo  Rabe,  Hermogenis  Opera,  Rhetores  Graeci,  vol.  6  (Leipzig  1913),  pp.  iv-vi. 
There  is  no  reason  to  deny,  however,  that  the  work  accurately  reflects  educational 
practice  of  late  antiquity. 

'''  Accius'  Medea  (381-96  Warmington  =  Cicero,  N.D.  II.  35.  89)  contained  a 
speech  on  this  subject,  which  in  turn  appears  to  derive  from  a  narrative  motif  in 
Apollonius  of  Rhodes'  Argonautica  IV.  316-22. 


144  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

parallel,  however,  is  a  subject  referred  to  by  Aphthonius  (fourth 
century),  "what  would  an  inlander  say  on  first  seeing  the  sea?"  (35. 
5-6  Rabe);  an  exercise  on  this  subject  is  preserved  among  sample 
exercises  attributed  to  Nicolaus  of  Myra  (1.389.5-24  Walz).'^  Like 
the  passages  in  the  biblical  epic,  such  ethopoeiae  concern  the  first 
sight  of  an  unfamiliar  object  or  environment.  The  speaker  of  the 
ethopoeia  may  be  expected  to  feel  a  sense  of  alienation,  or  psycho- 
logical distance,  from  his  new  environment,  just  as  the  first  parents 
and  Noah  do  in  the  passages  under  discussion.  Such  subjects  un- 
doubtedly appealed  to  the  student  and  rhetor  because  of  the  imagi- 
native effort  required  to  put  oneself  in  the  situation  of  the  speaker 
and  because  of  the  opportunity  offered  to  invent  striking  new  turns 
of  thought  in  describing  the  observer's  reaction  to  the  strange 
environment. 

It  seems  probable,  then,  that  the  first  sighting  theme  was  suggested 
to  the  biblical  poets  by  this  class  of  ethopoeiae,  with  which  they 
would  be  familiar  from  the  schools.  Claudius  Marius  Victorius  was, 
as  we  know,  a  rhetor  in  Marseilles  (Gennadius,  De  viris  illustribus  61). 
The  biblical  poets'  choice  of  narrative  rather  than  direct  speech  to 
convey  their  characters'  reaction  to  the  new  environment  can  be 
attributed  to  two  factors.  The  first  is  a  probable  reluctance  to 
introduce  speeches  not  sanctioned  by  the  biblical  original;  Claudius 
Marius  Victorius  certainly  avoids  such  non-biblical  speeches  (only  two 
examples),  although  Avitus  is  freer  in  this  respect.  More  importantly, 
the  use  of  narrative  rather  than  direct  speech  permitted  greater  visual 
immediacy  (ivapyeia).  Ancient  theory  recognized  that  such  visual 
immediacy  worked  particularly  strongly  on  the  emotions,  and  that  it 
could  be  achieved  by  the  description  not  only  of  visual  detail,  but 
also  of  the  effect  a  sight  had  on  an  observer.'^  Both  Claudius  Marius 
Victorius  and  Avitus  often  use  such  psychological  description  as  an 
affective  technique.'' 

'^  For  these  sample  exercises  and  their  relation  to  Nicolaus  (a  fifth-century 
rhetorician)  see  Joseph  Felten,  Nicolai  Progymnasmata,  Rhetores  Graeci,  vol.  11  (Leipzig 
1913),  p.  xxvii,  and  Willy  Stegemann,  "Nikolaos,"  RE,  17.  1  (Stuttgart  1936),  cols. 
451-57,  who  attributes  the  exercises  to  Aphthonius. 

'^  For  the  affective  force  of  ivapyaa,  the  vivid  description  of  visual  detail,  see 
Quintilian  VI.  2.  32:  "ivapyaa,  quae  a  Cicerone  inlustratio  et  evidentia  nominatur, 
quae  non  tarn  dicere  quam  ostendere,  et  adfectus  non  aliter  quam  si  rebus  ipsis 
intersimus  sequitur";  for  the  description  of  a  spectator's  reaction  as  achieving  the 
same  purpose  see  Quintilian  VIII.  3.  70  "contingit  eadem  ciaritas  {sc.  ivapyiia)  etiam 
ex  accidentibus:  'mihi  frigidus  horror/membra  quatit  gelidusque  coit  formidine 
sanguis'  [Aen.  III.  29-30]  et  'trepidae  matres  pressere  ad  pectora  natos'  "  [Aen.  VII. 
518]. 

"  For  mstsince  Alethia  I.  382-84,  2.  93-94,  108-15,  134-35,  3.  173-81,  374-76; 


Michael  J.  Roberts  145 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  procedures  used  in  such  "first  sighting" 
themes.  The  only  example  available  is  the  exercise  attributed  to 
Nicolaus  of  Myra  on  the  subject  "what  would  an  inlander  say  on  first 
seeing  the  sea?",  a  subject  which  Aphthonius  (35.  4-6  Rabe)  classes 
among  rjOLKoi  -qdoirouaL,  that  is  ethopoeiae  designed  to  reveal  the 
^doc,  (the  characteristic  frame  of  mind)  of  the  speaker.  Thus,  in  the 
exercise  of  "Nicolaus,"  the  landlubber  reveals  his  naivete  when 
confronted  with  an  unfamiliar  element,  the  sea:  "I  was  at  a  loss  to 
understand  the  marvel  {to  davixaaiop  Kpivetv  rjirbpriKa,  1.389.10  Walz). 
The  biblical  poets,  on  the  other  hand,  employ  the  "first  sighting" 
theme  for  purposes  of  Tradoq;  to  reveal  the  emotions  of  the  observer 
in  a  particular  situation.  But  one  technique  is  common  to  "Nicolaus" 
and  the  poets:  the  use  of  comparison.  As  might  be  expected,  the 
landlubber,  confronted  by  the  sea,  compares  it  to  elements  that  are 
familiar  to  him,  the  air  and  land:  "it  does  not  maintain  the  character 
of  air,  for  it  is  not  elevated  overhead:  it  cannot  remain  motionless 
like  the  earth"  {aepoq  (t)vaLP  ov  biaoeaoiKtv,  ov  yap  virep  KecpaXrjc,  ())epdixeuov 
aiperar  fxeveiv  ovk  otbtv  oooTrep  r}  777,  1.389.11-13  Walz).  In  a  similar 
fashion  the  observers  in  the  biblical  poems  compare  their  strange, 
new  environment  with  the  familiar  one  it  has  replaced,  ^uch  a 
comparison  naturally  engenders  the  "Kontrast  von  aul3erer  Wirk- 
lichkeit  und  innerer  Vorstellung,  die  aus  der  Erinnerung  schopft" 
noted  by  Homey.'®  The  objective  reality  of  the  new  situation  contrasts 
with  subjective  reminiscence  of  the  former  state.  The  biblical  poets 
exploit  the  emotive  possibilities  of  such  a  contrast,  although,  as  we 
shall  see,  the  subjectivity  of  the  observers'  reaction  is  stressed  more 
by  Avitus  than  by  Claudius  Marius  Victorius.  It  should  be  remem- 
bered, however,  that  in  instituting  this  comparison  they  are  conform- 
ing to  standard  rhetorical  procedure  for  the  first  sighting  theme. 

As  already  noted,  Homey  explains  Alethia  2.  25-26, 

Te  magis  extollit  conlatio  deteriorum 

et  peiora  facis,  miseris  quae  sola  supersunt, 

as  a  reference  to  a  philosophical  argument  justifying  the  existence  of 
evil:  by  comparison  with  evil  man  appreciates  the  good.  I  have  already 
suggested  that  I  find  this  explanation  implausible,  if  only  because  the 

in  De  spiritalis  hisloriae  gestis  especially  to  characterize  the  villains  of  the  narrative,  2. 
35-86  (the  Devil),  4.  11-85  (the  generation  before  the  flood),  5.  75-80,  98-101, 
497-500  (the  Pharaoh). 

'^  Homey  (above,  note  4),  p.  53. 


146  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

present  context  shows  no  concern  with  the  justification  of  evil. '^  If 
we  are  to  judge  by  Avitus  3.  203  "utque  hominum  mos  est,  plus, 
quod  cessavit,  amatur,"  the  notion  that  "absence  (or  rather  loss)  makes 
the  heart  grow  fonder"  was  a  proverbial  one.^*'  The  phrase  conlatio 
deteriorum,  which  Homey  cites  in  support  of  his  argument,  is  suscep- 
tible of  another,  and  I  believe  a  better,  interpretation.  Conlatio  (collatio) 
is  a  technical  term  of  rhetoric  (cf.  the  passages  cited  in  the  Thesaurus 
Linguae  Latinae  3:  1579.  14-33).^'  Collatio  involves  the  comparison 
of  one  thing  with  another  on  the  basis  of  similarity  (Cicero,  Inv.  I. 
30.  49  "collatio  est  oratio  rem  cum  re  ex  similitudine  conferens") 
or,  in  later  theory  (Quintilian  V.  11.  30-31),  dissimilarity.  Such 
comparisons  may  be  viewed  as  argument  and  thus  included  in  inventio 
or  as  stylistic  adornment  and  included  in  elocutio  (Quintilian  VIII.  3. 
77).  Thus  in  late  antiquity,  Cassiodorus,  in  his  Psalm  Commentary, 
commenting  on  Ps.  11:7,  says  "quod  schema  graece  syndesmos  dicitur, 
latine  collatio,  quando  sibi  aut  personae  aut  causae  sive  ex  contrario 
sive  ex  simili  comparantur"  (CCL  97:  120.  144-146).  Comparison 
was  also  a  recognized  means  of  rhetorical  amplification,  one  of  the 
four  genera  amplificationis  (Quintilian  VIII.  4.  3  and  9-14).  That 
Claudius  Marius  Victorius  consciously  uses  comparison  in  the  passage 
quoted  as  a  means  of  rhetorical  amplification  is  clear  from  a  second 
rhetorical  terminus  technicus  in  Alethia  2.  25,  the  verb  extollit.  The 
Thesaurus  quotes  ample  evidence  for  this  technical  usage  {ThLL  5.2: 
2038.  55-75).  It  is  especially  common  in  the  context  of  rhetorical 

'^  Homey  (p.  53)  does  not  suggest  this  is  the  case,  but  speaks  of  the  literary 
exploitation  of  the  philosophical  topos:  "Die  'conlatio'  macht  es  technisch  moglich, 
zwei  kontrastierende  Landschaftsbilder  ohne  Uberleitung  dicht  nebeneinander  zu 
stellen.  .  .  ."  Economy  of  explanation  favors  my  interpretation  of  conlatio  deteriorum; 
a  literary  procedure  is  explained  by  literary  considerations. 

^°  The  closest  parallel  I  have  noted  is  A.  Otto,  Die  Sprichworter  und  sprichwortlichen 
Redensarten  der  Romer  (Leipzig  1890),  p.  113,  no.  533:  Publilius  Syrus  103  "Cotidie 
est  deterior  posterior  dies";  Seneca,  Phaedra  775-76  "horaque/semper  praeterita 
deterior  subit,"  reminiscences,  according  to  Otto,  of  the  Greek  proverb  atl  ra  irtpvai 
jSfXno)  (Diogenian.  2.  54;  Macarius  1.  31).  Cf.  also  Hans  V^^kher,  Proverbia  sententiaeque 
latinitatis  medii  aevi:  lateinische  Sprichworter  und  Sentenzen  des  Mittelalters  in  alphabetischer 
Anordnung,  Carmina  medii  aevi  posterioris  latina,  2,  6  vols.  (Gottingen  1963-69),  3:  pp. 
114-15,  no.  16558b  "nescit  habens,  quod  habet,  donee  desistat  habere"  and  16565 
"nescit  homo  vere,  quid  habet,  nisi  cessat  habere."  The  notion  of  conlatio  is,  it  is 
true,  missing  from  the  Avitus  passage  (cf.  Homey,  Studien  lur  Alethia,  p.  54,  note  17), 
but  note  the  grammatical  comparatives  in  the  proverbs  cited  by  Otto. 

^'  Alethia  2.  25  is  listed  in  the  Thesaurus  Linguae  Latinae  3:  1578.  81-82,  as  an 
instance  of  the  non-technical  use  of  collatio  in  the  sense  of  "comparison."  I  hope  my 
argument  will  demonstrate  that  the  technical,  rhetorical  sense  of  the  term  was 
uppermost  in  Claudius  Marius  Victorius'  mind  when  he  composed  the  passage  in 
question. 


Michael  J.  Roberts  147 

elaboration,  and  is  indeed  found  twice  in  Quintilian's  discussion  just 
quoted  (VIII.  4.  9  and  15).  The  first  passage  concerns  the  use  of 
comparison  as  a  means  of  amplification: 

Quae  [amplificatio]  fit  per  comparationem  incrementum  ex  minoribus 
petit.  Augendo  enim  quod  est  infra  necesse  est  extollat  id  quod 
superpositum  est. 

Quintilian  is  here  speaking  of  a  comparison  based  on  similarity  rather 
than  contrast,  as  in  the  Alethia  passages,  but  it  is  clear  that  a  subject 
can  be  "elevated"  either  by  comparison  with  something  that  is  similar, 
but  inferior,  to  it  or  with  something  that  is  opposite  to  it.  In  the 
latter  case  the  comparison  serves  not  only  to  amplify  the  superior 
but  also  to  diminish  the  inferior.  This  is  the  rhetorical  principle  that 
underlies  Alethia  2.  25-26. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  analyze  the  function  and  development 
of  the  first  sighting  theme  in  Claudius  Marius  Victorius  and  his 
successors  in  the  biblical  epic.  Alethia  2.  6-26  describes  the  first 
parents'  reaction  to  their  expulsion  from  Paradise.  It  proceeds  by 
means  of  a  comparison  based  on  the  contrast  between  their  barbarous 
new  environment  and  the  luxuriant  vegetation  of  Paradise,  thereby 
diminishing  the  former  and  amplifying  the  latter  (as  indicated  by  the 
use  of  the  comparatives  maiore,  cumulatius  and  dulcior,  19-21).  Each 
description  is  filled  out  with  ecphrastic  detail  in  accordance  with 
Quintilian's  precept  (VIII.  4.  14)  "quae  si  quis  dilatare  velit,  plenos 
singula  locos  habent" — in  Butler's  translation  "all  comparisons  afford 
ample  opportunity  for  further  individual  expansion,  if  anyone  should 
desire  so  to  do."  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  comparison  is  not  introduced 
merely  to  amplify  the  description  of  Paradise.  It  is  here  used,  in  a 
fashion  typical  of  the  first  sighting  theme,  for  affective  purposes:  to 
indicate  the  emotional  state  of  the  observers.  The  whole  passage  is 
designed  as  an  rfdoiroua  Tradr}TtKr],  albeit  narrative  in  form.  The  poet 
frequently  refers  to  the  emotions  of  the  first  parents  (stupeant,  9; 
iuvat,  11;  doloris,  16;  tristes,  23;  miseris,  26 — cf.  miser abile ,  8,  which 
sets  the  tone  for  the  passage).  The  arrangement  of  the  passage  follows 
the  sequence  of  the  first  parents'  emotions:  initial  shock  at  their  new 
environment  (8-14),  which  calls  to  mind  the  splendor  of  Paradise 
(15-18),  described  in  ecphrastic  detail  (19-23).  The  final  three  lines 
act  as  a  summarizing  conclusion  (24-26).  Homey  has  rightly  noted 
that  the  element  of  subjective  remembrance  lends  particular  affective 
force  to  the  description  of  Paradise.  The  ecphrastic  detail  contained 
in  both  descriptions  serves  a  similar  purpose  (note  especially  the  many 
words  with  strong  emotive  connotations:  bruta,  rigent,  laborant,  hor- 
rescunt,  beata,  vivis). 


148  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

Two  sections  in  this  passage  deserve  further  comment.  The  first 
is  2.  6-8: 

Postquam  sacratis  decedere  iussus  uterque 
sedibus  ac  regnis  genitalia  contigit  arva 
et  propria  stetit  exul  humo  .  .  . 

The  phrase  "genitalia  contigit  arva"  presents  some  problems.  The 
compilers  of  the  Thesaurus  {ThLL  6.2:  1813.  51-53)  hesitate  over 
the  correct  interpretation:  "homo  e  paradiso  pulsus,  arva  quae  ei 
fruges  procrearant?  an:  quibus  ipse  procreatus  erat?"  As  Staat  rightly 
emphasizes, ^^  \^  genitalia  anticipates  the  future  fertility  of  the  land,  it 
is  out  of  place  in  a  passage  that  stresses  the  barrenness  of  the  first 
parents'  surroundings.  The  second  alternative  must  be  the  correct 
one.  Staat  further  draws  attention  to  the  tradition  that  Adam  was 
created  outside  Paradise,  into  which  he  was  introduced  by  God  after 
his  creation  (cf.  Gen.  2:8  and  15).^^  The  phrase  is  naturally  used, 
then,  by  Claudius  Marius  Victorius  of  the  land  outside  Paradise,  into 
which  the  first  parents  are  now  driven.  It  is  all  the  more  surprising 
therefore  that  Staat  misunderstands  the  phrase  "propria  stetit  exul 
humo."  He  translates  "van  het  eigen  erf  verbannen,"  and  in  the  notes 
specifically  takes  propria  humo  to  refer  to  Paradise.  But  the  phrase 
propria  .  .  .  humo  is  an  evident  reference  to  man's  creation  de  humo 
terrae  (cf.  Gen.  2:7,  quoted  by  Isidore,  Etym.  11.  1.  4,  in  the  form 
"Et  creavit  Deus  hominem  de  humo  terrae'').  Claudius  Marius  Victorius 
was  undoubtedly  familiar  with  the  frequently  repeated  etymology  of 
homo  from  humo  natus,  an  etymology  already  known  to  pagan  antiquity, 
although  dismissed  by  Quintilian  (I.  6.  34)  as  false. ^'*  By  Staat's  own 
argument,  the  phrase  propria  .  .  .  humo  can  only  refer  to  the  land 
outside  Paradise.  The  translation  of  the  phrase  in  question  must  be 
"he  was  an  exile  in  his  own  land."  The  land  is  his  own  (propria) 
because  he  was  born  from  it.  Such  a  paradox  (propria  :  exul)  is  very 
much  in  the  manner  of  Claudius  Marius  Victorius.  The  interpretation 
is  further  confirmed  by  the  parallelism  with  the  phrase  "genitalia 

22  Staat  (above,  note  8),  pp.  31-35. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  33. 

^*  For  this  etymology  see  Thesaurus  Linguae  Latinae  6.3:  2871.  50-63  and  3122. 
48-55.  F.  H.  Colson  remarks  in  his  note  on  the  Quintilian  passage,  M.  Fabii  Quintiliani 
Institutionis  Oratoriae  Liber  I  (Cambridge  1924),  p.  87,  that  "this  derivation  appears 
to  be  found  (apart  from  later  and  Christian  sources)  only  in  Hyginus,  Fables  220,  the 
date  of  which  is  very  uncertain."  Cf.  also  Servius  ad  G.  2.  340. 


Michael  J.  Roberts  149 

contigit  arva."  I  suspect  that  the  poet  intended  the  phrase  propria 
.  .  .  humo  to  explain  the  otherwise  rather  opaque  genitalia  .  .  .  arua.^^ 
The  second  section  worth  attention  is  2.  13-14. 

Ardua  caute  rigent,  silvis  depressa  laborant, 
plana  latent  herbis,  horrescunt  edita  dumis. 

Staat  comments  on  the  "artistic  construction"  of  these  verses. ^^  The 
combination  of  formal  regularity  with  inconcinnity  in  detail  is  very 
much  to  the  taste  of  the  period.  We  need  only  compare  a  line  from 
another  Gallic  poet  of  the  early  fifth  century,  the  pagan  Rutilius 
Namatianus  {De  reditu  suo  1.  38):  "plana  madent  fluviis,  cautibus  alta 
rigent. ''^'^  The  two  passages  are  similar  in  language  (the  words  italicized) 
and  construction  (note  especially  the  artfully  varied  word  order  in 
the  individual  cola).  The  sentence  in  the  Alethia  reads  like  an  attempt 
to  imitate  and  outdo  the  pagan  poet.  This  is  not  impossible  since  the 
two  poets  were  contemporaries  and  both  probably  from  Gaul.^^  It  is 
more  likely,  however,  in  the  light  of  the  opposite  religious  convictions 
of  the  poets,  that  the  similarity  is  attributable  to  the  common  literary 
taste  of  late  antiquity,  as  it  was  transmitted  to  both  pagan  and  Christian 
by  the  schools  of  grammar  and  rhetoric. ^^  The  description  of  landscape 

^^  Arx'a,  "fields,"  is  a  bold  metonymy  for  the  earth  from  which  Adam  was  created. 
I  suspect  the  poet  was  influenced  by  the  desire  to  incorporate  a  Virgilian  reminiscence 
{Geo.  III.  136,  genitali  arvo),  a  reminiscence  that  was  all  the  more  attractive  because 
it  was  capable  of  a  specifically  Christian  interpretation.  The  incorporation  of  such 
pagan  poetic  locutions  into  a  new  context  not  infrequently  occasions  some  awkward- 
ness of  expression.  Examples  are  given  by  A.  Hudson-Williams,  "Virgil  and  the 
Christian  Latin  Poets,"  Papers  of  the  Virgil  Society  6  (1966-67),  pp.  19-20,  and  Thraede, 
Studien  zu  Sprache  und  Stil  des  Prudentius,  Hypomnemata  13  (Gottingen  1965),  p.  15, 
note  34.  The  phrase  genitali  amo  is  used  figuratively  by  Virgil  of  the  mating  of  horses 
and  by  Ausonius  {Ed.  7.  1 1)  of  childbirth;  in  Juvencus  (4.  65)  genitalibus  arvis  means 
"native  land"  (parallels  cited  by  Hovingh  ad  loc). 

^®  Staat  (above,  note  8),  p.  40. 

^'  The  parallel  has  escaped  the  attention  of  previous  commentators.  Hovingh,  ad 
loc,  following  Heinrich  Maurer,  De  exemplis  quae  Claudius  Marius  Victor  in  Alethia 
seculus  sit  (diss.  Marburg  1896),  p.  117,  notes  only  the  parallel  with  Valerius  Flaccus 
4.  671,  ardua  cautes  (to  which  should  be  added  Seneca,  Ag.  539,  ardua  ut  cautes). 

^*  The  De  reditu  suo  is  thought  to  have  been  written  in  the  second  decade  of  the 
fifth  century.  According  to  Alan  Cameron,  "Rutilius  Namatianus,  St.  Augustine  and 
the  Date  of  the  De  Rtditu,"  Journal  of  Roman  Studies  57  (1967),  pp.  31-39,  Rutilius 
set  out  from  Rome  on  the  journey  described  in  his  poem  in  October  417.  Vollmer, 
"Rutilius  Claudius  Namatianus,"  RE,  ser.  2,  1.1  (Stuttgart  1914),  col.  1253,  remarks 
of  Rutilius'  Nachleben:  "Des  R.  Gedicht  hat  keine  weite  Verbreitung  gefunden;  nicht 
einmal  bei  einem  Landsmann  wie  Venantius  Fortunatus  findet  man  seinen  Namen 
oder  Spuren  seiner  Verse." 

^^  Rhetorical  influence  on  the  De  reditu  sua  is  widespread;  cf.  Vollmer,  cols. 
1250-51. 


150  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

in  each  case  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  stylized  and  conventional; 
it  is  a  part  of  the  poetic  lingua  franca  of  the  period. 

The  second  passage  in  the  Alethia  (2.  528-39)  follows  a  pattern 
similar  to  the  first. ^^  Again  it  exploits  a  comparison  based  on  contrast; 
the  account  begins  with  a  description  of  the  new  environment,  which 
calls  to  mind  the  old  (535-36);  the  superior  environment  is  described 
with  grammatical  comparatives  (fulgentior,  mage  rutilus,  maiore)  and 
ecphrastic  detail.  Only  in  one  respect  does  the  passage  differ.  It  is 
now  the  new  environment,  the  world  after  the  Flood,  that  is  amplified 
by  comparison  with  the  previous  state  of  things.  The  relationship  is 
the  reverse  of  that  in  the  earlier  passage,  where  it  was  the  first 
parents'  previous  existence  that  was  amplified.  There  is  a  correspond- 
ing change  in  the  emotional  tone  of  the  passage.  In  the  description 
of  the  first  parents'  reaction  to  their  expulsion  from  Paradise  the 
word  miserabile  (2.  8)  was  the  key  word;  here  it  is  gaudens  (2.  529, 
cf.  also  cupido  .  .  .  visu,  531;  for  emotive  language  miratur,  ridet,  laeta, 
desperata,  ruinae,  saevo). 

Avitus,  like  Claudius  Marius  Victorius,  uses  the  first  sighting  theme 
of  the  first  parents'  expulsion  from  Paradise  (3.  197-208).^' 

Turn  terris  cecidere  simul  mundumque  vacantem 

intrant  et  celeri  perlustrant  omnia  cursu. 

Germinibus  quamquam  variis  et  gramine  picta 

et  virides  campos  fontesque  ac  flumina  monstrans,  200 

illis  foeda  tamen  species  mundana  putatur 

post  paradise  tuam;  totum  cernentibus  horret 

utque  hominum  mos  est,  plus,  quod  cessavit,  amatur. 

Angustatur  humus  strictumque  gementibus  orbem 

terrarum  finis  non  cernitur  et  tamen  instat.  205 

Squalet  et  ipse  dies,  causantur  sole  sub  ipso 

subductam  lucem,  caelo  suspensa  remoto 

astra  gemunt  tactusque  prius  vix  cernitur  axis. 

The  passage  was  evidently  written  with  the  corresponding  passages 
in  the  Alethia  in  mind.  The  phrase  "celeri  perlustrant  omnia  cursu" 

'"  In  addition  to  the  parallels  in  construction  discussed  in  this  paragraph,  note 
also  the  verbal  reminiscence  maiore  sereno  (2.  533  =  2.  19;  cf.  Homey,  [above,  note 
4],  p.  50,  note  3). 

^'  I  quote  from  the  edition  of  Rudolf  Peiper,  Alcimi  Ecdicii  Aviti  Viennensis  episcopi 
Opera  quae  supersunt,  Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica,  Auctores  Antiquissimi,  6.  2  (Berlin 
1883). 


Michael  J.  Roberts  151 

recalls  Alethia  2.  531  "cupido  raptim  perlustrans  omnia  visu"'^  and 
the  apostrophe  of  Paradise  (3.  202)  is  paralleled  by  Alethia  2.  24-26 
in  an  identical  context.  But,  unlike  the  earlier  poet,  Avitus  describes 
the  new  environment  in  favorable  terms  (199-200).^^  It  is  only  by 
contrast  with  Paradise  that  it  seems  ugly.  The  comparison  Avitus 
introduces  is  based  on  similarity  not  opposition.  In  a  manner  analogous 
to  the  argumentum  a  minore  the  beauty  of  Paradise  is  amplified  by 
comparison  with  an  ideal  landscape  (199-200),  which  yet  seems  mean 
after  the  first  parents'  former  existence  (201-203).^'' 

The  comparison  then  shifts  ground  to  one  based  on  opposition 
(204-208).  The  new  and  old  environments  are  now  compared,  not 
as  in  the  Alethia,  by  means  of  successive  descriptions,  but  in  a  single 
description  of  the  new  environment,  which  yet  refers  allusively  to 
the  former  {angustatur  .  .  .  strictum  .  .  .  subductam  .  .  .  remoto  .  .  . 
tactusque  prius).  We  have  seen  that  it  is  characteristic  of  first  sighting 
themes  in  the  Alethia  for  an  element  of  subjective  reminiscence  to  be 
present  in  the  description  of  the  former  environment.  This  subjectivity 
extends  in  Avitus  to  the  description  of  the  new  world  outside  Paradise. 
The  reader  is  already  alerted  to  the  fact  that  the  spectators'  impression 
of  their  new  environment  does  not  correspond  to  objective  reality 
by  the  contrast  between  vv.  199-200  and  "Illis  foeda  tamen  .  .  . 
putatur"  (201).  This  theme  is  picked  up  and  developed  in  the  second 

^^  Salvatore  Costanza,  Avitiana  I:  I  modelli  epici  del  "De  spiritalis  historiae  gestis" 
(Messina  1968),  p.  81,  compares  Silius  Italicus  2.  248-49  "cursu  rapit  .  .  .  membra/ 
et  celeri  fugiens  perlustrat  moenia  planta."  Hovingh  on  Alethia  2.  531  cites  Virgil, 
Ae7i.  IV.  607,  omnia  lustras,  VI.  887,  omnia  lustrant;  Avienus,  Aral.  27,  omnia  lustrans; 
Claudian,  VI  Cons.  Hon.  412,  omnia  lustrat;  In  Rufin.  2.  496-97,  visu  .  .  .  jlustrat; 
Ovid,  Met.  VII.  336,  omnia  visu;  and  Statius,  Theb.  V.  546-47,  omnia  visu  j lustrat.  Two 
further  passages  from  the  Achilleis  of  Statius  may  be  compared:  I.  126,  "lustrat  Thetis 
omnia  visu,"  and  I.  742,  "interea  visu  perlustrat  Ulixes."  In  the  light  of  these  many- 
parallels  it  may  seem  rash  to  suppose  a  reminiscence  of  the  Alethia  in  the  passage  of 
the  De  spiritalis  historiae  gestis.  The  thematic  similarity  between  the  two  passages, 
however,  lends  some  credibility  to  this  suggestion.  I  have  argued  elsewhere  {Biblical 
Epic,  pp.  102-104,  123  and  218)  that  Avitus  was  influenced  in  the  choice  and 
treatment  of  his  subject  by  the  Alethia. 

^^  The  description  is  perhaps  somewhat  in  conflict  with  that  contained  in  God's 
malediction  of  Adam  (3.  157-66) — in  spirit  if  not  in  letter.  The  former  passage, 
however,  concerns  the  earth's  suitability  for  cultivation,  the  latter  its  immediate 
appearance. 

^^  For  this  form  of  amplification  by  comparison  see  Quintilian  VIII.  4.  9,  quoted 
above.  Quintilian  maintains  a  distinction  between  this  and  the  argumentum  a  minore, 
although  the  distinction  seems  to  lie  in  function  rather  than  thought  (VIII.  4.  12, 
"Illic  enim  probatio  petitur,  hie  amplificatio").  For  the  comparison  a  minore  used  to 
arouse  pathos  see  Macrobius,  Sat.  IV.  6.  1,  "nempe  cum  aliquid  proponitur  quod  per 
se  magnum  sit,  deinde  minus  esse  ostenditur  quam  illud  quod  volumus  augeri,  sine 
dubio  infinita  miseratio  movetur." 


152  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

half  of  the  passage.  On  the  one  hand,  the  limit  of  the  earth  is  not 
seen,  yet  seems  to  press  in  on  the  first  parents  (204-205);  on  the 
other  hand,  the  heavens  are  hardly  visible  (206-208),  although  the 
world  here  being  described  is  that  of  everyday  human  existence  in 
which,  as  the  reader  knows,  the  heavens  are  clearly  visible.  Avitus 
emphasizes  that  the  picture  of  the  new  environment  contained  in 
lines  204-208  is  not  based  on  visual  observation  but  on  the  psycho- 
logical reaction  of  the  first  parents.  Their  mental  state  is  mirrored 
in  their  sense  of  oppression  at  the  shrinking  of  earth's  confines 
(204-205)  and  their  sense  of  alienation  at  the  removal  of  the  heavens 
(206-208).  As  in  the  Alethia,  the  narrative  ethopoeia  reflects  the 
emotions  of  the  first  parents  (cf.  gementibus  .  .  .  causantur  .  .  .  gemunt).^^ 
But  Avitus  is  not  simply  content  to  use  objective  description  of  the 
new  environment  as  a  counterpoint  to  the  first  parents'  emotions. 
Rather  the  description  itself  is  distorted  by  and  thereby  subjectively 
embodies  the  emotions.  Here,  still  more  than  in  the  Alethia,  we  might 
invoke  the  notion  of  man  as  the  contemplator  mundi/dei;  man's  sin 
has  led  to  his  expulsion  from  Paradise  and  consequent  alienation 
from  the  universe.  He  no  longer  sees  the  world  correctly.  But  the 
theme  of  man's  relationship  to  nature  is  an  important  one  throughout 
the  De  spiritalis  historiae  gestis  and  goes  beyond  the  single  idea  of  man 
as  the  contemplator  mundi.^^ 

The  last  passage  to  be  discussed  is  Dracontius,  Laudes  Dei  1. 
417-26." 

Mirata  diem,  discedere  solem 
nee  lucem  remeare  putat  terrena  propago 
solanturque  graves  lunari  luce  tenebras, 

sidera  cuncta  notant  caelo  radiare  sereno.  420 

Ast  ubi  purpureo  surgentem  ex  aequore  cernunt 
luciferum  vibrare  iubar  flammasque  ciere 
et  reducem  super  astra  diem  de  sole  rubente, 
mox  revocata  fovent  hesterna  in  gaudia  mentes; 

^^  Avitus  makes  little  attempt  to  avoid  verbal  repetitions  of  the  form  gementibus 
(204)  .  .  .  gemunt  (208);  cf.  in  the  present  passage  cernentibus  (202),  cernitur  (205), 
cernitur  (208).  The  verb  causor  in  the  sense  of  conqueror  is  confined  to  late  Latin. 

^^  Man's  relationship  to  nature  is  at  the  center  of  Books  4  and  5,  as  it  is  of  1-3. 
In  each  of  the  last  two  books  human  sinfulness  precipitates  a  natural  catastrophe, 
the  Flood  and  the  drowning  of  the  Egyptians  in  the  Red  Sea. 

^^  I  follow  the  text  of  Friedrich  Vollmer,  Dracontii  De  Laudibus  Dei  .  .  .  ,  Poetae 
Latini  Minores  5  (Leipzig  1914),  which  differs  from  his  earlier  text  in  the  Monumenta 
Germaniae Historica,  Auclores  Antiquissimi,  14  (Berlin  1905),  only  in  the  spelling /wa/^rurra 
for  Luciferum.  The  edition  of  Francesco  Corsaro,  De  laudibus  dei  libri  tres  (Catania 
1962),  has  not  been  available  to  me. 


Michael  J.  Roberts  153 

temporis  esse  vices  noscentes  luce  diurna  425 

coeperunt  sperare  dies,  ridere  tenebras. 

The  episode  has  no  sanction  in  the  biblical  text.  Dracontius  alone  of 
the  biblical  poets  thinks  to  describe  Adam  and  Eve's  reaction  to  the 
first  nightfall.  Here  there  are  not  one,  but  two  comparisons  involved, 
both  between  contrasting  environments.  The  first  is  between  the 
daylight  and  night  (417-20),  the  second  between  night,  as  described 
in  lines  417-20,  and  the  new  dawn  (421-23).  Dracontius  thus 
introduces  temporal  progression  into  the  first  sighting  theme,  which 
had  been  treated  statically  by  Claudius  Marius  Victorius  and  Avitus. 
The  progression  is  a  cyclical  one  (from  light  to  darkness  to  light) 
which  is  reflected  in  the  emotions  of  the  first  parents  (424-26). 

More  detailed  analysis  will  illustrate  how  Dracontius  manipulates 
a  standard  rhetorical  theme  to  serve  his  Christian  purpose.  By 
transposing  the  creation  of  Eve  to  the  sixth  day  (360-401),  the  poet 
has  legitimized  the  assumption  that  a  day  passed  between  the  creation 
of  the  first  parents  and  the  temptation  and  Fall.  Rather  than  simply 
using  a  formula  of  time  to  indicate  the  passing  of  the  day,  Dracontius 
employs  poetic  idiom  and  reminiscence  to  describe  night^ll  and  the 
coming  of  a  new  dawn.  Line  420,  as  Vollmer  notes,  is  a  conflation 
of  two  lines  of  Virgil:  Aen.  III.  515  "sidera  cuncta  notat  tacito  labentia 
caelo"  and  III.  518  "cuncta  videt  caelo  constare  sereno."  The 
description  of  dawn  is  a  typical  poetic  periphrasis,  with  its  reference 
to  the  morning  star  (luciferum),  synonymic  amplification  {vibrare  iubar 
jlammasque  ciere)  and  imperfect  tricolon  (422-23;  the  construction  is 
varied  in  the  final  member). ^^  The  successive  verbs  of  emotion  and 
perception  {putat  [sc.  propago],  418;  solantur,  419;  notant,  420;  cernunt, 
421;  fovent,  424)  emphasize,  however,  that  the  sequence  of  events  is 
seen  through  the  eyes  of  the  first  parents.  There  are,  in  fact,  two 
parallel  sequences  described  in  this  passage:  in  the  natural  world 
from  light  to  darkness  to  light  again;  and  in  the  emotions  of  the  first 
parents  from  wonder  to  despair  (relieved,  it  is  true,  by  the  light  of 
the  moon  and  stars,  but  note  the  emotive  word  graves)  to  confident 
rejoicing.  The  interconnection  between  the  two  processes  is  made 
clear  in  the  final  line  (426,  "sperare  dies,  ridere  tenebras"),  which 
not  only  ends  the  passage  in  epigrammatic  form  (isocolon  with 
antithesis),  but  also  recalls  the  beginning  of  the  section  ("mirata  diem, 

^*  For  references  to  the  rising  and  setting  of  stars  and  other  heavenly  bodies  in 
such  poetic  periphrases  of  time  see  Quintilian  I.  4.  4,  "qui  {sc.  poetae)  .  .  .  totiens 
ortu  occasuque  signorum  in  declarandis  temporibus  utuntur."  The  association  of  iubar 
with  the  morning  star  is  traditional,  going  back  to  Ennius,  Ann.  559  (Warmington; 
cf.  Thesaurus  Linguae  Latinae  7.2:  571.  80-84  and  572.  18-30). 


154  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

discedere  solem")  in  rhythm  and  vocabulary.^^  The  return  of  daylight 
can  now  be  confidently  expected  when  night  falls;  darkness  is  no 
longer  an  object  of  dread  (graves  .  .  .  tenebras,  419),  but  of  scorn 
(ridere  tenebras,  426).  Smolak,  in  an  article  on  the  hexaemeron 
paraphrase  in  Dracontius'  Laudes  Dei,'^°  rightly  detects  Christian  light 
symbolism  in  this  passage.  The  dispelling  of  darkness  by  light  always 
had  soteriological  connotations  for  a  Christian  reader.  Dracontius 
shapes  the  whole  episode  round  the  antithesis  between  light  and 
darkness.  By  emphasizing  the  first  parents'  reaction  to  the  alternation 
of  light  and  dark,  and  the  eventual  triumph  of  light,  he  elaborates 
the  passage  into  a  vignette  of  Christian  edification. 

The  passages  cited  from  the  Old  Testament  paraphrase  illustrate 
the  interplay  in  the  biblical  epic  between  Christian  patterns  of  thought 
and  traditional  rhetorical  modes  of  expression.  The  first  sighting 
theme,  derived  from  the  school  exercise  of  ethopoeia,  is  employed 
by  three  Old  Testament  poets  to  give  expression  to  Christian  emotion. 
Each  passage  proceeds  by  comparison,  a  technique  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  characteristic  of  this  theme.  But,  if  the  procedures  are 
traditional,  the  passages  depend  for  their  unity  on  characteristically 
Christian  thought  and  feeling.  The  contrasts  between  Paradise  and 
the  world  outside  Paradise,  between  the  world  before  and  after  the 
Flood  or  between  night  and  day  already  carry  a  strong  emotional 
connotation  for  the  reader,  which  each  poet  tries  to  direct  and 
enhance  by  means  of  modes  of  expression  derived  from  the  pagan 
schools.  Such  a  complex  relationship  between  Christianity  and  the 
classical  tradition  is  characteristic  of  much  of  the  biblical  poetry  of 
late  antiquity.  To  dismiss  the  poems  on  the  grounds  of  the  irrecon- 
cilable conflict  between  Christian  content  and  classical  form  is  to 
dismiss  from  the  very  start  what  the  biblical  poets  have  attempted  to 
achieve.  As  I  hope  will  be  clear,  an  appreciation  of  the  contributions 
made  to  these  poems  by  the  two  cultural  traditions  is  likely  to  lead 
to  a  more  nuanced  view  of  the  biblical  epic  as  a  whole  and  a  readiness 
to  admit  the  possibility  of  something  other  than  conflict  between  the 

'^  Both  lines  contain  a  weak  third-foot  caesura  preceding  the  word  dies  j  diem.  In 
both  the  penultimate  word  is  an  infinitive,  though  of  different  metrical  pattern. 

''°  Smolak,  "Die  Stellung"  (above,  note  1),  p.  393.  For  light  symbolism  in  Christian 
Latin  poetry,  see  Herzog,  Die  allegorische  Dichtkunst  des  Prudentim,  Zetemata  42 
(Munich  1966),  pp.  52-84,  and  Die  Bibelepik  (above,  note  1),  pp.  139-40.  For  the 
symbolic  value  of  the  dispelling  of  night  by  the  light  of  day  see  Tertullian,  Res.  Cam. 
12,  with  the  comments  of  Christian  Gnilka,  "Die  Natursymbolik  in  den  Tagesliedern 
des  Prudentius,"  in  Pietas:  Festschrift  fur  Bernhard  Kotting  (Miinster  Westfalen  1980), 
pp.  414-15.  Lucretius  V.  973-81  presupposes  a  theory  that  primitive  men  feared 
day  might  not  return  when  night  fell  (cf.  Manilius,  169,  Statins,  Theb.  IV.  282-83). 


Michael  J.  Roberts  155 

two  traditions.  No  one  should  expect  an  aesthetic  equivalent  of  the 
biblical  text;  that,  given  the  methods  used,  would  be  impossible.  But 
neither  should  the  biblical  poems  be  dismissed  simply  as  rhetorical 
exercises  whose  subject  happens  to  be  biblical;  that  would  be  radically 
to  underestimate  the  contribution  to  the  poetry  of  Christian  thought 
and  feeling  aroused  by  the  biblical  text  to  be  paraphrased. 

Wesleyan  University 


APPENDIX 

Graduate  Studies  in  Classics 
Have  They  a  Future?* 


This  topic  is  propounded  for  your  consideration  existentially,  as  part 
of  a  personal  puzzlement,  and  not  simply  as  an  abstract  thesis  suggested 
by  a  disinterested  love  of  "truth."  This  confession  may  perhaps  justify 
a  personal  and  existential  beginning. 

My  first  serious  training  in  Classics  was  at  Exeter  College,  Oxford. 
As  is  well  documented,  Oxford  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  was  divided  by  a  great  debate.  The  protagonists  were  Mark 
Pattison,  Rector  of  Lincoln  College,  and  Benjamin  Jowett,  Master  of 
Balliol.  Pattison  had  noted  the  enormous  strides  that  were  being 
made  in  contemporary  Germany  by  a  university  system  which  set  a 
premium  on  the  seminar,  on  research  papers,  on  publications,  on 
science.  Jowett,  the  head  of  a  famous  and  influential  College,  saw 
the  aim  of  education  as  the  equipping  of  soldiers,  statesmen,  civil 
servants  to  run  Britain  and  the  Empire.  To  that  task  Pattison's  German 
model  had,  he  believed,  little  relevance.  His  Oxford  contemporaries 
agreed  with  him.  It  took  the  Great  War  of  1914-18  with  all  its 
traumas,  and  ultimately  the  arrival  in  Oxford  of  Eduard  Fraenkel, 
to  alter  old  ideas  about  the  place  of  the  Classics  in  the  education  of 
a  gentleman. 

Old  ideas  die  hard,  especially  in  Oxford.  In  a  recent  conversation, 
the  new  Kennedy  Professor  of  Latin  at  Cambridge,  formerly  Fellow 


*  This  paper  was  presented  by  the  Editor  in  his  capacity  as  Chairman  of  the 
Midwest  Conference  of  Classics  Chairmen  to  the  annua!  meeting  of  the  Conference 
at  Northwestern  University  in  October  1984.  The  privately  expressed  approval  of 
some  scholars,  and  the  imminent  appearance  of  a  Latin  translation  by  Glareanus  in 
Hermes  Americanus,  suggested  that  the  publication  of  a  revised  version  of  the  original 
might  be  timely. 


158  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

of  Exeter  College,  Oxford,  reminded  me  that  he  was  probably  the 
last  of  the  "undoctored"  generation  of  dons  who  went  straight  into 
College  fellowships  with  nothing  more  than  their  B.  A.  degrees,  and 
who  acquired  any  more  specific  and  technical  training  for  their 
profession  "on  the  job."  Let  it  be  freely  admitted  that  many  of  them 
acquired  it  very  handsomely! 

American  education  never  quite  made  the  mistake  that  Oxford 
made,  in  spite  of  its  often  markedly  Anglophile  nature.  Basil  Gild- 
ersleeve  is  so  clearly  the  product  of  German  discipline.  So  is  the 
systematic  thoroughness  of  Goodwin's  Moods  and  Tenses,  even  the  old 
Lewis  and  Short,  all  the  outgrowth  of  the  best  interaction  between 
American  energy  and  German  guidance.  The  protracted  seminar, 
the  lengthy,  footnoted  term  paper,  the  "publish  or  be  damned" 
mentality:  these  are  among  the  first  shocks  administered  to  the  migrant 
from  the  British  to  the  American  campus.  Of  course,  as  one  looks  at 
the  awful  record  of  British  economic  incompetence  since  1945  and 
indeed  since  Pattison's  day,  this  American  seriousness  is  salutary  and 
necessary.  Paradoxically,  I  now  want  to  ask  if  it  is  going  to  destroy 
the  Classics. 

Classical  studies  are  in  the  last  resort  concerned  with  the  under- 
standing of  the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome.  I  make  this  anodyne 
statement  because  I  have  heard  a  colleague  murmur  in  approval  of 
someone  that  he  was  "thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  literature," 
when  in  fact  what  he  meant  was  that  someone  had  read  a  lot  of 
articles  about  a  particular  aspect  of  one  author.  But  even  this  anodyne 
statement  carries  with  it  some  revolutionary  implications.  It  means, 
for  example,  that  Classics  is  not  primarily  archeology,  or  even  the 
study  of  Greco-Roman  civilization,  except  insofar  as  both  these 
occupations  offer  sidelights  on  the  literatures,  on  the  authors.  My 
anodyne  statement  certainly  means  that  codicology,  paleography, 
textual  criticism  and  all  the  rest  of  that  invaluable  discipline  of  ekdosis 
are  ancillary  to  the  understanding  of  the  texts.  It  takes  a  profound 
awareness  of  literary  possibilities  to  justify  a  single  conjecture  in  a 
major  author  by  this  time.  The  first  rule  is:  leave  the  transmitted 
text  alone  until  you  understand  it! 

I  want  now  to  advance  a  second  anodyne  statement.  This  one  I 
justify  (as  I  could  have  justified  my  first)  by  reference  to  the  Alex- 
andrian Museum.  If  we  think  of  the  first  and  even  second  generations 
of  Alexandrian  scholars — Philetas,  Callimachus,  Apollonius  of  Rhodes, 
Eratosthenes — the  amazing  thing  is  that  so  many  of  them  were  poets 
as  well  as  scholars.  Callimachus  indeed  took  issue  even  with  Plato, 
and  said  that  he  was  incapable  of  judging  poetry.  We  grasp  something 
of  his  views  on  Pindar  by  studying  the  opening  of  the  third  book  of 


Appendix  159 

the  Aetia.  By  studying  the  end  of  the  Argonautica  we  know  where 
Apollonius  thought  the  Odyssey  ended.  For  these  scholar-poets,  learn- 
ing was  the  handmaid  of  literary  creativity. 

A  vastly  important  corollary  follows  from  the  belief  evinced  by 
these  early  Alexandrians  that  scholarship  and  creativity  are  not  to  be 
divorced.  This  is  that  the  evidence  of  poets  about  what  authors  mean 
is  just  as  important  as  the  evidence  of  more  formal  literary  history 
and  scholarship.  Where  poetic  genius  is  transcendent,  the  evidence 
is  correspondingly  superior.  The  greatest  commentator  on  Virgil  is 
Dante,  the  greatest  commentator  on  Ovid — Shakespeare.  Dante's 
Comedy  is  a  paradoxical  work  to  have  emerged  from  the  "searching" 
of  the  Aeneid  to  which  its  author  refers.  It  is  paradoxical  because,  as 
scholars,  we  bring  certain  expectations  about  epic  to  high  and 
continued  poetry  which  Dante's  oddly  named  Comedy  flouts.  But 
Dante  quite  decidedly  rejected  conventional  expectations  when  he 
declined  Giovanni  del  Virgilio's  invitation  to  write  a  conventional 
eulogistic  epic,  and  declined  it  in  an  Eclogue.  Poor  fellow,  he  evidently 
had  not  read  K.  Ziegler's  Das  hellenistische  Epos  might  be  one  rejoinder, 
for  then  he  would  have  understood  what  he  was  missing.  Another 
rejoinder  might  be  that,  when  he  used  an  Eclogue  to  reject  conventional 
epic,  he  was  being  faithful  to  the  truest  essence  of  the  Virgilian 
tradition  by  repeating  the  pattern  of  Virgil's  own  sixth  Eclogue.  And 
when  he  wrote  a  Comedy,  with  its  metamorphoses,  its  communia  verba, 
its  lyricism,  its  topsy-turvy  world,  its  prophetic  time,  its  vatic  indig- 
nation, its  visionary  and  alogical  glories,  perhaps  he  was  telling  us 
something  about  the  understanding  of  the  Aeneid  which  was  missing 
from  the  handbooks  of  scholars  and  officially  constituted  defenders 
of  tradition  such  as  Vida  or  J.  C.  Scaliger,  who  praise  Virgil's  poem 
for  its  splendid  diction  and  ideal  characters,  letting  enthusiasm  blur 
judgment.  There  would  not  have  been  need  for  R.  Heinze's  Virgils 
epische  Technik  which,  elementary  though  it  is,  marks  an  epoch  in  the 
return  to  grasping  what  Virgil  did,  if  Latinists  had  read  more  Dante, 
more  Milton. 

It  can  be  seen  that  I  am  pleading  for  a  view  of  classical  study 
which  cannot  be  limited  by  arbitrary  dates  like  410  or  even  1453. 
Every  new  author  of  merit  affects  the  way  in  which  the  existing 
canon  of  authors  is  perceived,  since  his  novelty  adds  a  fresh  dimension 
to  understanding.  There  is  a  continuous  work  of  criticism  of  the 
"Classics"  going  on  therefore,  but  it  is  not  by  professional  scholars. 
Only  a  classical  training  which  is  a  humanistic  training  will  open  our 
eyes  and  ears  to  this  perpetual  dialogue. 

Professional  scholars  sometimes  behave  as  if  every  item  of  infor- 
mation about  the  ancient  world  were  of  equal  importance.  The  only 


160  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

thing  is  to  define  an  area  of  expertise  so  far  unexplored  by  the 
majority,  so  that  one  need  not  fear  challenge  or  anticipation.  This  is 
quite  mistaken.  We  are  not  limiting  our  view  of  antiquity  when  we 
spend  our  time  on  its  major  authors,  for  what  makes  them  major  is 
precisely  their  imaginative  range.  The  energy  given  over  to  Corippus 
or  Flavius  Merobaudes  is  only  worthwhile  if  it  can  be  shown  how 
these  two  poets  illustrate  and  respond  to  a  continuing  tradition. 
Otherwise,  the  class  would  be  infinitely  better  employed  reading 
Boccaccio  or  Ariosto. 

It  follows  that  a  definition  of  classical  scholarship  is  needed  which 
does  justice  to  the  Alexandrian  ideal  of  the  scholar-poet.  A  large 
part  of  our  audience  comes  these  days  from  an  educational  back- 
ground which  is  anti-foreign.  At  a  recent  conference  on  "The 
International  Dimension  of  the  University"  a  speaker  explained  how 
the  U.  S.  Foreign  Service  washes  out  any  quirky  concern  with  alien 
cultures  which  its  recruits  may  have  picked  up.  A  Ph.  D.  in  Turkish, 
we  were  told,  who  has  the  luck  to  get  a  job  with  the  Service,  soon 
finds  out  that,  if  he  is  to  attract  attention  and  promotion,  he  must 
be  a  regular  golf-playing,  partying  citizen.  After  a  few  years  his 
knowledge  of  Turkish  is  growing  pretty  dim.  Then  he  is  ready  to 
move  up.  Eventually,  he  hardly  remembers  where  Turkey  is.  Then 
he  is  really  hot. 

Another  speaker  remarked  that  big  corporations  rarely  find  it 
worth  their  while  to  hire  American  experts,  say,  in  Arabic.  The 
Corporation  is  not  interested  in  Arabic  per  se,  only  in  business 
prospects.  If  there  is  any  tiresome  insistence  on  the  local  language, 
a  local  hiring  will  be  made.  The  Corporation  is  content  to  be 
interpreted  to  the  native  culture  always  by  foreigners,  through  foreign 
eyes. 

In  that  case,  I  really  can't  see  the  point  of  the  kind  of  scholarship 
which  fixes  attention  on  minutiae  and  refuses  any  sort  of  concession 
to  contemporary,  English-speaking  society.  First  of  all,  such  an  attitude 
ill  equips  us  for  teaching  courses  to  undergraduates  who  are  heading 
towards  jobs  that  will  be  anything  but  academic,  and  whose  eyes  are 
set  on  professional  goals.  If  we  know  why  we  are  studying  Latin  and 
Greek,  we  can  easily  give  an  account  of  our  stewardship.  If  we  are 
only  interested  in  settling  hoti's  business,  we  shall  be  tongue-tied  on 
the  podium.  I  have  distantly  heard  of  departments  that  carry  pro- 
fessors like  this,  around  whom  the  rest  of  the  faculty  must  tiptoe 
because  they  are  engaged  in  serious  research,  and  must  not  be 
interrupted  by  the  vulgar  concerns  of  students  from  agriculture  or 
engineering.  I  am  not  sure  it  is  fair  to  the  rest  of  the  faculty,  and 


Appendix  161 

not  sure  either  how  much  chance  younger  academics  with  similar 
attitudes  have  of  getting  jobs  in  this  day  and  age. 

I'm  not  even  sure  that  what  such  people  do  is  "serious  research." 
Does  "serious"  mean  "divorced  from  the  concerns  of  contemporary 
men  and  women"?  The  anti-foreign  bias  of  which  I  spoke  presumably 
arises  from  just  such  a  perception  of  other  cultures,  that  they  and 
those  interested  in  them  are  irrelevant  to  the  way  we  live  here. 
Should  we  train  our  students  to  reinforce  that  perception?  Won't  it 
eventually  have  dire  consequences  in  State  Legislatures? 

Such  an  attitude  clearly  ill  equips  our  students  for  jobs  outside  the 
traditional  academic  fields.  The  former  Headmaster  of  Eton,  Dean 
C.  A.  Alington,  once  defended  the  study  of  the  Classics  on  the 
grounds  that,  without  them,  we  have  no  adequate  knowledge  of  what 
men  have  done  and  thought  and  suffered.  But  how  many  seminars 
on  Thucydides  take  the  imparting  of  that  kind  of  moral  awareness 
as  their  aim?  How  quickly  do  we  get  bogged  down  in  the  Tribute 
Lists  and  the  topography  of  Syracuse!  Surely  those  things  are  impor- 
tant, but  only  as  ancillaries  to  the  larger  vision,  the  record  of  human 
idealism,  folly,  ambition,  greed,  endurance.  But  a  studen^  who  has 
learned  not  to  be  afraid  of  wrestling  with  Thucydides'  contorted 
Greek,  who  is  not  surprised  by  human  behavior  either  for  good  or 
ill,  who  knows  the  value  of  measuring  difficulties  before  an  enterprise 
is  under  way,  and  who  believes  that  a  good  rule  is  to  get  there  firstest 
with  the  mostest,  who  has  suffered  in  the  stone  quarries  with  the 
Athenian  captives  and  has  made  up  his  mind  not  to  add  to  the  sum 
of  human  misery  by  maltreating  his  colleagues  and  his  clients:  such 
a  recruit  might  be  treasured  by  a  Corporation  that  had  not  the 
slightest  interest  in  the  Classics  in  themselves.  And  a  student  who 
thought  of  the  Classics  as  an  introduction  to  human  behavior  might 
not  regard  himself  as  leaving  his  proper  sphere  if  he  were  to  enter 
the  Corporation's  service. 

I  want  to  follow  therefore  the  Socratic  maxim  of  going  where  the 
argument  leads.  Nobody  more  than  I  curled  his  lip  with  greater 
disdain  of  those  old  academic  fogies  who  in  our  day  still  bleated 
about  the  true,  the  good  and  the  beautiful.  What  an  amazing  contrast 
to  their  datedness  was  afforded  by  the  bustling  Eduard  Fraenkel, 
who  at  Corpus  began  lecturing  while  still  outside  in  the  corridor, 
who  knew  all  the  answers  to  all  the  questions,  who  poured  scorn  on 
his  adversaries,  who  once  said  to  a  brilliant  undergraduate:  "Mr.  X, 
you  have  read  books  of  which  most  of  the  dons  here  have  not  even 
heard  the  names."  But  in  my  old  age  I  no  longer  see  the  question  in 
such  black  and  white  terms! 

Fraenkel  himself,  of  course,  was  much  given  to  quoting  Petrarch 


162  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

or  Shakespeare  to  illustrate  a  point,  and  his  insomnia  was  regularly 
solaced  by  reading  Dante.  His  dogmatism  in  the  lecture-room  was 
largely  inspired  by  his  feeling  that  it  really  mattered  what  a  particular 
passage  meant.  It  would  be  utterly  unfair  to  align  him  with  the 
representatives  of  "pure"  scholarship,  to  whom  every  last  paring  of 
Augustus'  fingernails  is  as  valuable  as  his  views  on  poetry.  What  he 
wanted,  like  his  master  Wilamowitz,  was  an  informed  commitment  to 
classical  literature,  but  still  a  commitment. 

It  was  from  another,  not  German  but  German-trained  professor 
(and  Fellow  of  Exeter  College),  Constantine  Trypanis,  that  I  first 
heard  the  name  of  Werner  Jaeger  and  his  theory  of  the  "Third 
Humanism."  Jaeger  wrote  at  a  time  when  Germany  was  reeling  under 
the  effects  of  the  defeat  of  1918  and  the  disappearance  of  the 
monarchy.  He  believed  that  classical  studies  should  have  an  effect  on 
public  behavior,  even  on  public  policy.  Although  he  went  into  exile 
soon  after  Hitler's  accession,  he  has  been  criticized  as  some  sort  of 
embryo  Nazi.  But  there  is  a  nucleus  of  truth  in  his  theory  that 
classical  studies  cannot  be  content  with  being  a  matter  of  mere 
intellectual  curiosity.  When  we  read  about  the  fate  of  Achilles  or 
Oedipus,  we  will  be  reading  utterly  differently  from  the  Greeks 
themselves  if  all  that  happens  is  that  we  get  an  idea  for  an  article. 
Plato  did  not  expel  the  poets  from  his  Republic  because  they  inspired 
notes  in  Classical  Philologyl  I  say  this  of  course  with  all  due  respect. 

Perhaps  it  is  here  that  we  can  most  fruitfully  reconcile  the  two 
opposing  poles,  as  they  have  sometimes  seemed,  of  Wissenschaft  and 
humanitas.  The  greatest  scholars  have  certainly  been  the  masters  of 
a  learning  which  puts  one  to  shame.  But  they  have  not  typically 
deployed  that  learning  on  trivialities.  I  am  thinking  of  someone  like 
Eduard  Norden,  or,  in  a  somewhat  different  area,  Leo  Spitzer  or  E. 
R.  Curtius.  In  his  commentary  on  the  sixth  book  of  the  Aeneid, 
Norden  at  times  translates  bits  of  Virgil  into  Greek  verse  to  make 
his  point.  Even  Fraenkel  sent  an  article  to  Housman  preceded  by 
some  quite  elegant  Greek  elegiacs.  There  is  a  critical  moment  at 
which  scholar  and  poet  coalesce.  Callimachus  described  it  as  an 
encounter  with  Apollo.  Do  our  students  feel  that  we  have  encoun- 
tered, and  been  changed  by,  Apollo?  Are  they  changed  in  their  turn? 
Do  they  think  of  Classics,  thanks  to  our  example,  not  just  as  litterae, 
but  as  litterae  humaniores? 

As  with  most  wars,  we  can  in  the  end  see  that  the  issues  are  not 
quite  so  clear-cut  as  my  original  account  of  the  debate  between 
Pattison  and  Jowett  may  have  suggested.  Pattison  was  right  to  call 
attention  to  the  superior  role  of  the  German  system  in  a  world  where 
economic  empires  would  replace  those  won  by  the  sword.  Jowett 


Appendix  163 

however  was  not  wrong  when  he  urged  that  Classics  of  all  disciplines 
could  never  become  merely  another  area  of  research,  along  with 
Home  Economics  or  Veterinary  Science.  The  classicist  should  be 
someone  who  understands  where  our  civilization  came  from  and  what 
it  is  all  about;  but  what  it  is  all  about  now,  not  what  it  was  all  about 
in  an  age  long  dead.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  classicist  trained  to  be 
alert  to  this  double  dimension  will  both  be  able  to  take  his  place  in 
the  classroom  in  front  of  students  who  are  fully  aware  of  the  modern 
world  (at  least  in  their  own  estimation),  but  not  of  any  other,  for  he 
will  have  some  allegiance  to  both:  and  to  find  a  job  in  industry  or 
business,  because  he  will  be  able  to  relate  in  a  human  way  to  those 
around  him,  thanks  to  his  training  as  a  humanist. 

I  also  think  that,  even  in  pure  scholarship,  such  a  classicist  will 
make  more  progress  in  understanding  than  his  blinkered  rivals.  Here, 
I  would  like  to  cite  once  again  a  passage  from  Machiavelli: 

When  evening  comes,  I  return  home  and  enter  my  writing-room.  At 
the  door  I  take  off  these  everyday  clothes,  full  of  mud  and  filth,  and 
dress  in  royal,  courtly  garments.  Clad  fittingly,  I  enter  the  ancient 
courts  of  the  men  of  old,  and  there  find  a  kindly  welcome.  There  I 
feed  on  that  food  which  alone  is  mine,  and  for  which  I  was  born. 
There  I  am  not  ashamed  to  converse  with  them,  and  to  ask  the 
reasons  for  their  actions.  And  they,  in  their  humanity,  give  me  answer, 
and  for  four  hours  I  do  not  feel  any  vexation,  I  forget  every  toil,  I 
do  not  fear  poverty,  I  lose  my  dread  of  death,  I  transform  myself 
entirely  into  them. 

(Letter  to  F.  Vettori,  December  1513). 

Machiavelli  was  a  philosopher,  historian  and  poet.  He  has  given  an 
adjective  to  most  modern  languages,  and  perhaps  part  of  his  fruitful 
dialogue  with  the  ancients  was  his  familiarity  with  their  language.  He 
asked  the  right  questions  because,  inspired  by  umanita,  he  wasn't 
continually  glancing  at  his  watch  and  the  right-hand  page  of  his  Loeb. 
And  again,  I  don't  mean  to  deny  that  Renaissance  authors  used 
translations.  But  the  unerring  judgment  with  which  even  a  genius 
who  was  no  scholar,  William  Shakespeare,  seized  on  the  essence  of 
the  classical  experience  in  order  to  reflect  it  back  in  his  ideas  and 
language  suggests  that  these  children  of  a  humanistic  age  meant 
something  different  by  "reading"  a  text  from  the  hasty  perusal  which 
is  too  often  for  the  modern  scholar  the  preliminary  to  getting  down 
to  the  real  meat  of  the  encounter,  the  interpretative  article  which 
tells  the  rest  of  us  what  to  think.  I  don't  know  what  is  going  to 
happen  to  the  endless  articles  poured  out  in  our  day  about  this  small 
point  and  that.  I  sometimes  wonder  what  they  have  to  do  with 
humane  education. 


164  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.l 

But  what  concrete  proposals  stem  from  all  this?  The  first  is  that 
we  should  revive  a  German  tradition  which  has  been  curiously 
neglected  in  the  Midwest,  and  that  is  the  peregrination  of  students 
from  campus  to  campus  in  search  of  outstanding  teachers.  A  system 
should  be  devised  which  permits  the  exchange  of  graduate  students 
between  Classics  Programs,  so  that,  without  losing  credit  or  ultimate 
allegiance  to  their  home  Departments,  students  who  are  unencum- 
bered by  family  ties  can  know  what  is  being  offered  in  other 
Universities  and  take  advantage  of  it  in  some  way  that  will  mean  no 
extra  financial  burden.  It  is  not  a  question  of  encouraging  transfers 
or  poaching,  simply  a  matter  of  broadening  horizons. 

Secondly,  areas  of  research  should  always  be  treated  within  the 
larger  context  of  civilization  and  its  traditions.  We  should  take  our 
commitment  to  modern  foreign  languages  seriously.  More  basically, 
we  should  ask  our  students  to  demonstrate  fluency  with  Latin  and 
Greek,  not  just  constipated  sluggishness  and  inaccuracy.  I  believe  I 
heard  that  some  classical  journals  refuse  to  publish  articles  in  Latin. 
It  is  outrageous.  In  the  age  of  the  taperecorder  there  is  a  golden 
opportunity  to  put  back  the  aural/oral  dimension  of  classical  literature 
which  is  disastrously  missing  from  some  of  our  commentaries.  Where 
are  the  plays  which  Renaissance  students  would  have  put  on  in  the 
original?  No  doubt  there  were  some  unintentionally  hilarious  mo- 
ments. But  at  the  end  of  it,  the  more  gifted  at  least  could  certainly 
write  very  convincing  Latin! 

Thirdly,  collaboration  with  sister  departments  on  campus  should 
be  the  norm.  Perhaps  as  a  result  of  this  some  areas  of  purely  classical 
research  interest  will  lie  neglected.  I  don't  think  this  is  very  important 
in  a  time  when,  if  we  don't  do  something,  all  areas  of  classical  research 
may  lie  neglected.  Many  classicists  bring  very  poor  critical  principles 
to  bear  on  the  texts  they  read,  so  that  one  has  to  keep  re-establishing 
the  point,  for  example,  that  a  poetic  and  a  real  "I"  are  not  necessarily 
the  same,  or  that  consistency  is  not  necessarily  as  important  a  virtue 
as  persuasiveness,  or  that  the  author's  intention  is  his  work  of  art, 
and  not  something  which  he  may  or  may  not  have  said  to  his  barber. 
Do  we  take  kindly  to  the  idea  that  a  seminar  in  the  English  Department 
might  be  a  useful  introduction  to  a  course  in  Latin  elegy? 

One  of  the  sister  departments  with  which  communication  has  been 
shamefully  neglected  in  traditional  views  of  classical  education  is 
Religious  Studies.  Secular  Greek  scholarship  can  facilitate  the  under- 
standing of  the  New  Testament,  for  example,  in  the  appreciation  of 
rhythms  (what  the  Formalists  call  "sound  gesture")  and  subtle  tense 
usages.  And  awareness  of  religious  vocabulary  can  do  much  to  illumine 
what  so-called  pagan  authors  are  trying  to  say:  for  example,  when 


Appendix  165 

they  use  "weight"  as  a  synonym  for  "glory,"  or  employ  the  notion, 
so  essential  to  the  Roman  way  of  looking  at  the  world,  of  metamor- 
phosis, of  the  present  as  bigger  and  better  than  the  past.  Lucan 
makes  Caesar  test  the  will  of  heaven  by  putting  out  to  sea  in  Amyclas' 
boat  in  the  teeth  of  several  gales.  He  makes  him  dine  at  the  scene 
of  Pharsalia  in  view  of  his  defeated  foes.  These  are  religious  ideas. 
Thucydides  says  that  the  bravado  of  the  Athenian  fleet  about  to  leave 
for  Sicily  filled  spectators  with  thambos.  This  word  is  also  religious. 
An  increasingly  secular  age  like  ours  is  in  danger  of  losing  a  whole 
dimension  from  the  picture  which  the  ancient  world  presents. 

Another  point  of  contact  between  classical  study  and  the  most 
pressing  contemporary  reality  is  Arabic.  A  book  like  The  Genius  of 
Arab  Civilization  (MIT  Press,  2nd  edn.  1982)  opens  one's  eyes  to  the 
zeal  with  which  Arab  scholars  assimilated  and  advanced  Greek  math- 
ematics, astronomy,  medicine,  philosophy,  in  spite  of  the  diff"erence 
of  language.  When  I  was  standing  in  the  little  cathedral  square  of 
Syracuse  a  year  or  two  ago,  outside  a  church  which  still  rests  on  the 
pillars  of  a  Greek  temple,  our  guide  gestured  towards  the  Archbishop's 
palace  and  remarked  that  the  Library  was  crammed  with  unread 
Arabic  manuscripts.  As  late  as  the  eighteenth  century  the  classical 
languages  were  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew  and  Arabic.  What  did  the 
nineteenth  century  do  to  us? 

Satis  superque.  My  title  asked:  will  graduate  studies  in  Classics 
survive?  I  hope  not,  if  we  mean  by  that  the  continuance  of  the  worst 
features  of  the  present.  Will  litterae  humaniores  survive?  We  must  bend 
our  energies  to  the  task  of  ensuring  that  they  do,  for  without  them 
nothing  is  left. 


CORRIGENDA 

The  following  list  of  errata  has  been  supplied  by  Professor  Hermann 
Funke  to  his  article,  "Zu  Claudians  Invektive  gegen  Rufin,"  ICS  IX 
(1983),  pp.  91-109: 


p- 

103, 

line     3 

for  vor  read  von 

p- 

103, 

line     9 

for  Goter  read  Goten 

p- 

103, 

line  16 

for  Ludianaffare  read  Lucianaffare 

p- 

106, 

line  12 

for  verfasste  read  veranlasste 

p- 

106, 

line  16 

for  diesem  read  dessen 

p- 

106, 

line  21 

for  zur  read  zum 

p- 

107, 

line  15 

for  von  read  vor 

ILLINOIS  CLASSICAL  STUDIES 


ILLINOIS 

CLASSICAL 

STUDIES 


VOLUME  X.2 
FALL  1985 


J.  K.  Newman,  Editor 


ISSN  0363-1923 


ILLINOIS 

CLASSICAL 

STUDIES 

VOLUME  X.2 

Fall  1985 
J.  K.  Newman,  Editor 


Patet  omnibus  Veritas;  nondum  est  occupata; 

multum  ex  ilia  etiam  futuris  relictum  est. 

Sen.  Epp.  33.  11 


SCHOLARS  PRESS 

ISSN  0363-1923 


ILLINOIS  CLASSICAL  STUDIES 
VOLUME  X.2 


©1986 

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ADVISORY  EDITORIAL  COMMITTEE 

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Responsible  Editor:  J.  K.  Newman 


The  Editor  welcomes  contributions,  which  should  not  normally 
exceed  twenty  double-spaced  typed  pages,  on  any  topic  relevant  to 
the  elucidation  of  classical  antiquity,  its  transmission  or  influence. 
Consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  scholarly  rigor,  contributions  are 
especially  appropriate  which  deal  with  major  questions  of  interpreta- 
tion, or  which  are  likely  to  interest  a  wider  academic  audience.  Care 
should  be  taken  in  presentation  to  avoid  technical  jargon,  and  the 
trans-rational  use  of  acronyms.  Homines  cum  hominibus  loquimur. 

Contributions  should  be  addressed  to: 
The  Editor, 

Illinois  Classical  Studies, 
Department  of  the  Classics, 
4072  Foreign  Languages  Building, 
707  South  Mathews  Avenue, 
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Each  contributor  receives  twenty-five  offprints. 


Contents 


1.  Pindar  and  Callimachus  169 

J.  K.  NEWMAN,  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

2.  Epicurus  Vaticanus  191 
MIROSLAV  MARCOVICH,  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

3.  Indirect  Questions  in  Old  Latin:  Syntactic  and 

Pragmatic  Factors  Conditioning  Modal  Shift  195 

LAURENCE  STEPHENS,  University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 

4.  Caesar's  Bibracte  Narrative  and  the  Aims  of 

Caesarian  Style  215 

MARK  F.  WILLIAMS,  Southwest  Missouri  State  University 

5.  Entellus  and  Amycus:  Vergil,  Aen.  5.  362-484  •     227 

MICHAEL  B.  POLIAKOFF,  Wellesley  and  Cologne 

6.  The  Lover  Reflected  in  the  Exemplum:  A  Study  of 
Propertius  1.  3  and  2.  6  233 

FRANCIS  M.  DUNN,  North  Carolina  State  University 

7.  A  Reconsideration  of  Ovid's  Fasti  261 
CHRISTOPHER  MARTIN,  University  of  Virginia 

8.  Siliana  275 

W.  S.  WATT,  Aberdeen,  Scotland 

9.  Leopards,  Roman  Soldiers,  and  the  Historia  Augusta  281 
BARRY  BALDWIN,  University  of  Calgary 

10.  Three  Notes  on  Habeo  and  Ac  in  the  Itinerarium  Egeriae        285 
CLIFFORD  WEBER,  Kenyon  College 

11.  On  the  Survival  of  an  Archaic  Latin  Case  Form  in  Italo- 

and  Balkan-Romance  295 

PAUL  A.  GAENG,  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 


Pindar  and  Callimachus 

J.  K.  NEWMAN 


This  immensely  important  topic  touches  at  least  three  themes:  one  is 
Pindar's  place  in  literary  history,  the  second  is  the  real  nature  of 
Callimachus'  literary  ambition,  and  the  third  is  the  literary  tradition 
that  reached  the  Romans  from  Alexandria.  ^ 

I 

Pindar's  Muse  has  often  found  herself  in  uncongenial  company.  The 
difficulties  of  his  supposedly  sublime  language  and  of  a  dialect  which 
scholars  like  to  term  "Doric,"  the  allusiveness,  the  apparendy  casual 
and  inconsequential  interjections,  the  datedness  of  the  athletic  ideal — 
all  these  features  have  secured  his  poems  entry  to  a  literary  limbo 
which  they  have  shared  with  dreary  official  manifestos  or  rhapsodic 
gush.  Readers  of  Lebrun  or  Tennyson  will  understand  the  point.' 

A  recent  study  has  argued  that  a  truer  appreciation  of  Pindar's  art 
associates  the  odes  with  the  spirit  of  Comus,  carnival."  A  victory  was 
an  occasion  for  family  and  civic  rejoicing.  Pindar's  patrons  had  done 
something  public.  Their  reward  was  public  recognition.  In  Greek 
society,  this  recognition  took  predetermined  forrns.  It  is  on  these 
forms   that   Pindar  built.    He   spells   this   out  quite  clearly  by   his 

'  The  "poetic  failure"  of  other  Pindaric  experiments  by  Dorat  and  Ronsard  is  noted 
by  R.  R.  Bolgar,  The  Classical  Heritage  (repr.  New  York  1964),  pp.  323  ff.  The  humanist 
tradition  in  Germany  is  discussed  by  T.  Gelzer  in  "Pindarverstandnis  und  Pindariiber- 
setzung  im  deutschen  Sprachbereich  vom  16.  bis  zum  18.  Jahrhundert,"  Geschichte  des 
Textverstdndnisses  am  Beispiel  von  Pindar  und  Horaz,  Wolfenbiitteler  Forschungen  12,  ed. 
Walther  Killy  (Munich  1981):  cf.  p.  97  (Lonicer). 

^J.  K.  Newman,  F.  S.  Newman,  Pindar's  Art:  Its  Tradition  and  Aims  (Hildesheim- 
Munich-Zurich  1984),  pp.  38  ff.,  235  ff. 


170  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

continual  use  of  the  xa)|i-  root.  In  particular,  the  programmatic 
declaration  in  Olympian  3  (vv.  4-9)  unites  both  komic  and  verbal 
aspects  of  the  poet's  art  as  the  most  immediately  recoverable  parts  of 
the  garland  that  constitutes  his  song. 

Laughter  may  be  uncomfortably  close  to  tears.  The  art  of  our  age 
has  made  us  familiar  with  the  melancholy  clown  (Picasso,  Rouault). 
Franz  Dornseiff  speaks  of  Pindar,  along  with  Job,  and  another 
"comic"  author,  Dante,  as  one  of  the  "great  outsiders"  of  civilization."^ 
If  this  is  true,  it  is  apparent  that  it  is  simply  another  way  of  saying  that 
Pindar  felt  the  isolation  imposed  on  any  artist  with  particular  sensitiv- 
ity, and  DornseifTs  list  is  proof  that,  though  prophets  may  lack  honor, 
they  do  not  lack  influence.  In  Pindar's  case  however  there  has  been  a 
tendency  to  associate  what  has  been  seen  as  his  outsider  status  with  a 
belief  in  his  marginal  relevance  to  the  mainstream  of  Greek  poetry, 
and  this  in  turn  implies  that  from  the  broad  current  of  the  European 
tradition  he  is  hardly  visible.'^ 

Such  a  view  could  be  shown  to  be  wrong  by  a  simple  enumeration 
of  references  to  Pindar  in  later  centuries.  Callimachus  tried  to  revive 
precisely  the  Pindaric  epinician.  Virgil  and  Horace  imitated  him.  The 
Augustan  elegists  borrowed  from  his  imagery.  St.  Gregory  Nazianzen 
still  remembers  a  tag.^  But  the  essence  of  Pindaric  influence  does  not 
lie  in  externals.  Pindar  is  important  because,  with  consummate 
genius,  he  exploited  the  personal  art  of  the  lyric  at  the  beginning  of  a 
period  when  the  person  was  becoming  all-important.  He  has  classical 
rank  because  he  canonized  a  class. 

This  argument  is  contradicted  by  the  widely  held  modern  notion 
that  Pindar,  with  Simonides  and  Bacchylides,  represents  a  style  of 
public,  choral  lyric  in  the  fifth  century  which  must  be  sharply 
distinguished  from  the  older  private  and  personal  monody  of  poets 
like  Sappho  and  Alcaeus.  Horace  perhaps  lends  color  to  some  such 
distinction.  His  master  is  Alcaeus,  while  Pindar  stands  at  the  unattain- 

'  Pindars  Stil  (Berlin  1921),  p.  73. 

''  Compare  the  tone  of  Wilaniowitz'  "Abschluss":  Pindaros  (Berlin  1922),  pp.  445  ff. 
The  tendency  to  associate  Pindar  with  the  faded  poetry  of  the  eighteenth  century  (the 
"Theban  eagle"  and  so  on)  attests  the  same  point.  In  fact,  Pindar  never  refers  to  himself 
as  an  eagle:  Pindar's  Art  (above,  note  2),  p.  1 14,  note  4.  On  the  general  question  of 
Pindaric  influence,  cf.  D.  S.  Carne-Ross,  Pindar  (New  Haven  1985). 

^  For  Pindar  and  Gregory  Nazianzen  see  Anlfi.  Pal.  VIII.  220.  At  Aiitli.  Pal.  IX.  175 
Palladas  sells  both  Pindar  and  Callimachus.  The  two  are  associated  again  by  Tertullian, 
de  Corona  1.  When  the  hrst  modern  edition  of  Pindar  appeared  at  Venice  in  1513, 
the  two  poets  were  again  bound  together.  Cf.  Milton's  "Those  magnifick  Odes  and 
Hymns,  wherein  Pindarus  and  Callimachus  are  in  most  things  worthy  .  .  ."  {The  Reason 
of  Church  Government  urg'd  against  Prelaty,  1641). 


J.  K.  Newman  171 

able  limit.  But,  even  in  Horace,  the  distinction  is  not  to  be  pressed. 
Horace  does  in  fact  pindarize,  and  Alcaeus  cannot  be  so  private  if  he 
serves  as  a  model  for  the  Roman  freedman's  son  promoted  to  vatic 
dignity.  In  the  context  of  more  general  literary  history,  if  it  is  foolish 
to  ignore  the  conventions  that  overlie  the  supposedly  private  feelings 
of  Sappho,  it  is  equally  foolish  to  concentrate  on  the  conventions 
found  in  Pindar  to  the  exclusion  of  the  private  feelings  which  may  be 
supposed  in  him  also.  A  man  looks  at  life  differently  from  a  woman, 
but  that  is  hardly  the  basis  for  a  demarcation  between  two  types  of 
lyric.^  All  these  poets  took  pre-literary  forms  and  interpreted  them  in 
literature. 

Pindar  has  been  dismissed  as  no  great  thinker,  even  though  his 
vocabulary  at  least  shows  traces  of  the  revolution  taking  place  in  his 
day.  Study  shows  that  a  number  of  themes  constandy  recur  in  the 
odes:  god  and  man;  achievement  and  idleness;  individual,  family, 
city;  light  and  darkness;  fame  and  obscurity;  poet  and  posterity;  time 
and  eternity.  This  is  no  token  of  intellectual  poverty.  Some  of  the 
greatest  writers  have  composed  essentially  the  same  work  all  their 
lives.  But  it  is  the  token  of  polar  thinking,  and  polar  thinking  is  the 
hallmark  of  "pathetic"  structure.''  Here  lies  the  secret  of  Pindar's 
classical  supremacy.  Because  he  was  an  observer  at  the  feast,  because 
he  clung  to  a  belief  in  the  testing  value  of  action  rather  than  wordy 
debate,  because  his  art  was  threatened  with  extinction  by  social  and 
other  changes,  his  poetry  received  an  emotional  impulse  which  drove 
it  to  the  heights,  and  paradoxically  made  it  the  vehicle  of  the  very 
individualism  it  sought  to  combat. 

The  tendency  of  the  human  heart  to  oscillate  between  contrasting 
extremes  under  emotional  stress  scarcely  needs  confirmation.  At  a 

^  The  "personal"  beginning  to  every  kind  of  poetry  is  always  what  F.  Schleiermacher 
calls  its  Keimentschluss:  Pindar's  Art  (above,  note  2),  pp.  13  and  17.  Obviously  the 
distinction  between  monody  and  chorody,  whatever  its  intrinsic  worth,  had  no 
influence  on  the  formation  of  the  Alexandrian  canon  of  "Pindarus  novemque  lyrici." 
N.  S.  Greenbaum  remarks  in  Yazyk  drevnegrecheskoy  khorovoy  liriki  (Pindar)  (Kishinev 
1973),  p.  92,  that  the  language  of  Pindar's  epinicians  in  particular  seems  to  make  more 
use  of  Aeolic  elements  than  his  other  poems,  i.e.  it  latches  onto  the  so-called  personal 
tradition. 

'  The  term  is  S.  M.  Eisenstein's:  e.g.  Izbrannye  Proizvedeniya  III  (Moscow  1964),  pp. 
61-62.  Compare  Dornseiffs  phrase  "Die  grossen  Pathetiker  wie  Pindar"  {Pindars  Stil,  p. 
23)  and  his  "polare  Ausdrucksweise"  (p.  102  and  note  1).  See  further  E.  Thummer, 
Pindar:  Die  hthmischen  Gedichte  I  (Heidelberg  1968).  pp.  135-137  and  145  ff.,  "Der 
Kontrast";  A.  Kohnken,  Die  Funktton  des  Mythos  bei  Pindar  (Berlin-New  York  1971), 
Index,  5.  V.  "Kontrast  und  Antithese";  and  in  general  H.  Frankel.  Dichtung  und 
Philosophie  des  friihen  Griechentums  (Munich  1969-^),  Index,  p.  603,  "Denken  und 
Empfinden  in  Gegensatzen." 


172  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

certain  stage  of  oscillation,  a  phenomenon  occurs  which  has  been 
variously  described  as  a  catharsis,  a  Durchbruch  or  "breakthrough,"  a 
"leap  into  another  dimension."  The  characteristic  feature  of  the 
agitated  and  antithetical  language  in  which  all  this  finds  expression  is 
its  desire  to  communicate  feeling  rather  than  the  bald  information 
that  would  satisfy  cold  curiosity.  Such  speech  is  in  a  hurry  {Semper  ad 
eventum  festinat  in  Horace's  phrase).  What  it  says  therefore  will  be 
selected  as  well  as  polarized;  just  enough  will  be  expressed  to  lead  up 
to  the  breakthrough,  which  will  also  be  a  break-off.  The  poet  will 
leave  his  emotionally  charged  picture  before  our  imagination  as  he 
draws  out  in  gnomai  its  religious  significance,  as  he  perhaps  begins  to 
speak  of  his  own  role  or  that  of  his  patrons.**  The  explanation  is  that, 
once  he  has  established  the  effect  that  he  sought,  he  can  confidently 
leave  his  audience  to  elaborate  its  details,  indeed  he  must  allo\y 
something  for  them  to  do  in  this  way  if  they  are  to  be  involved  with  his 
poetry.  A  "bitty,"  staccato,  impressionistic  manner,  far  from  being  a 
defect,  is  absolutely  basic  to  this  type  of  writing.^ 

The  leap  into  another  dimension  will  not  however  be  a  simple 
matter  of  interrupting  the  flow  of  narrative.  It  is  a  term  that  applies  to 
many  levels  of  lyric  art.  At  a  very  minor  level  it  explains,  for  example, 
why  Pindar  personifies  abstractions,  or  speaks  of  one  sense  in 
language  appropriate  to  another.  At  a  major  level,  it  explains  the 
poet's  interest  in  both  myth  and  music. 

Myth  is  the  shaky  ladder  by  which  the  human  climbs  into  eternity. 
Pindar's  use  of  this  device,  shared  with  Plato,  has  often  been  appreci- 
ated but  perhaps  less  often  understood.  Myth  is  for  him  not  only 
decoration,  and  not  only  amusement.  It  is  the  evocation  of  a  univer- 
sally valid  though  only  partially  apprehended  order,  with  which  the 
temporal  is  briefly  and  incongruously  united.  This  in  itself  makes  the 
Grundgedanke  of  burning  significance  in  those  odes  that  contain  a 
myth.  Why  this  myth?  And  why,  within  the  penumbra  of  incommen- 
surability, these  details? 

Music  is  the  means  that  raises  the  spoken  word  bevond  itself  into  a 
dimension  where  emotion  can  enjoy  untrammelled  range.  Under  the 
pressure  of  emotion  we  repeat  ourselves,  since  we  are  not  primarily 
communicating  what  happened,  but  rather  the  intensity  of  our 
feelings  about  it.  It  is  why  repetition  is  music's  most  characteristic 
procedure,  and  why  Pindar  writes  strophes. 

*  A  technique  well  described  with  respect  to  Nemean  1  by  L.  Illig,  Zur  Fonii  der 
Pindarischen  Erzdhlung  (Berlin  1932),  pp.  12  ff. 

'  Cf.  Theophrastus,  quoted  by  Demetrius,  De  Eluc.  226:  Callimachus  f  r.  57  Pt.  (now 
attributed  to  the  "Victoria  Berenices"). 


J.  K.  Newman  173 

An  analysis  which  forgets  that  in  Pindar  the  word  constandy  breaks 
through  to  more  than  spoken  resonance,  and  doubly  so  where  it  may 
have  been  reinforced  by  some  special  effect  in  the  music  or  the  dance, 
can  be  no  analysis  at  all.'°  The  poetry  in  fact  consists  basically  of  these 
two  polarities:  masses  of  words  are  deployed  and  articulated  by  an 
emotionally  loaded  traffic  baton,  the  poet's  lyre  or  flute.  These  words 
occur  in  the  order  of  pathetic  discourse,  and  acquire  a  further  pathos 
from  being  sung." 

No  list  of  similarities  therefore  between  one  ode  and  another, 
whether  by  the  same  poet  or  someone  else,  can  really  answer  the 
problem  posed  by  each  unique  poem.  The  structuralist  effort  to  find 
an  archetypal  pattern  in  the  epinicians  is  legitimate.  But,  like  all  this 
neo-Kantianism,  it  runs  the  risk  of  misunderstanding  its  founder's 
doctrine.  Kant  believed  in  the  epistemological  function  of  the  catego- 
ries, but  he  also  believed  that,  unfertilized  by  contact  with  the 
schemes,  the  categories  must  remain  barren  shells.  In  the  tension 
between  the  universal  and  the  particular  is  where  the  poetry  lies.'"^ 

If  we  had  the  kind  of  conductor's  score  that  Pindar  prepared,  it 
would  have  contained  his  text,  plus  musical  annotation,  plus  marks  of 
expression,  dynamics  and  rhythm  to  be  a  guide  to  the  presenters. 
Within  a  given  ode,  certain  words  would  enjoy  a  particular  promi- 
nence. Thematically  interlaced,  they  would  in  themselves  be  a  many- 
hued  garland  for  their  recipient.  But  they  would  by  no  means  exhaust 
the  significance  of  their  poem.  That  rich  context  of  symbol  and  music, 
image  and  echo,  narrative  and  reflection,  sobriety  and  laughter 
forever  eludes  the  straining  ear. 

In  the  history  of  any  art,  tradition  is  an  ambiguous  word.  Brahms  is 
indebted  to  Beethoven  and  Bach.  But  who  could  deduce  the  work  of 
any  one  of  these  masters  from  a  study  of  the  other  two?  Who  could 
expect  to  find  in  later  literature  an  exact  replica  of  Pindar?  But  who 
would  argue  from  that  absence  to  complete  absence? 

Commentators  both  ancient  and  modern  have  been  impressed  by 


'°  See  W.  Mullen,  Choreia:  Pindar  and  Dance  (Princeton  1982).  He  is  following  a  line 
of  inquiry  already  sketched  by  A.  Boeckh,  Kleine  Schriften  V,  ed.  P.  Eicholtz  and  E. 
Bratuscheck  (Leipzig  1871),  pp.  260  and  263. 

"  The  musical  resonance  of  the  poems,  now  lost  (but  not  wholly),  is  especially 
attested  by  O.  3.  8  and  P.  1.  2-4. 

'"  This  is  where  "topos"  criticism  is  particularly  defective.  What  interests  us  can 
never  be  merely  what  Pindar  shares  with  others,  but  rather  what  makes  him  a  unique 
poet,  and  each  ode  a  unique  poem.  See  the  article  by  Yu.  Tynianov  in  Theorie  de  la 
litterature,  ed.  T.  Todorov  (Paris  1965),  pp.  120-37,  "De  revolution  litteraire." 


174  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

Pindar's  apparent  kinship  with  the  epideictic  orator.'^  A  far  more 
impressive  case  might  be  made  out  for  his  resemblance  to  Plato.'''  His 
relevance  to  poetry  after  his  time  would  be  this:  at  the  moment  when 
blandly  naive,  "objective"  narrative  technique,  whether  on  mythical  or 
historical  themes,  was  becoming  impossible,  he  offered  the  pattern 
for  an  emotionally  charged,  pathetic  structure,  which  could  support 
all  the  weight  and  balance  of  the  poet's  own  personality.  To  a  poetry 
that  could  no  longer  expect  musical  accompaniment,  he  showed  how 
to  find  the  lyrical  overbalance  into  the  transrational,  and  in  particular 
he  showed  this  extra  dimension  to  the  sophisticated  epic. 

This  makes  the  study  of  Pindar's  myths  crucial.  They  are  not 
ragged  specimens  of  inconsequential  tale-telling  by  a  poet  whose  chief 
interests  lay  elsewhere.  They  are  not  incidental  to  literary  history. 
They  exhibit  on  the  contrary  the  classical  form  of  what  is  so  often 
supposed  to  be  post-  or  even  anti-classical. 

This  was  already  forgotten  in  antiquity.  The  eleventh  Pythian,  for 
example,  addressed  by  Pindar  to  a  Theban  victor,  is  a  peculiarly 
interesting  case.'"^  What  can  the  bloody  tale  of  Agamemnon's  murder 
by  his  wife,  who  is  in  turn  murdered  by  her  own  son,  have  to  do  with  a 
victory  in  the  boys'  footrace?  "He  has  elaborated  the  encomium  well 
enough,"  remarks  an  ancient  dominie  drily,  "but  after  that  his 
digression  is  quite  inappropriate  to  the  occasion."'^ 

This  is  a  good  example  of  the  overlaying  of  the  living  response  to 
Pindar's  real  tradition  by  rhetorical  catchwords,  not  least  in  its  failure 
to  understand  how  Pindar  uses  the  word  eyicomium  himself.  What 
indeed  in  the  first  Olympian  has  the  sin  of  Tantalus  to  do  with  Hiero's 
victory?  What  an  unfortunate  note  to  strike  in  a  poem  of  celebration, 
and  how  much  the  poet  appears  conscious  of  his  and  our  embarrass- 
ment! The  way  out  of  that  "embarrassment,"  which  is  of  course 
simply  a  poetic  feint,  lies  in  understanding  that  Pindar's  art  is 
essentially  one  of  antithesis.  Tantalus  and   Pelops  are  juxtaposed 


'^  A.  Clroiset,  La  Poesie  de  Pindare  (Paris  1895'),  pp.  158-59  (Dionysius  of  Halicar- 
nassus);  E.  L.  Bundy,  Studio  Pindarica  I  (Berkeley-Los  Angeles  1962),  p.  33. 

■'•  E.  des  Places,  Pindare  et  Platon  (Paris  1949):  E.  Donl,  "Pindar  und  Platon,"  Wiener 
Studien  83  (1970),  pp.  52-65:  Pindar's  Art  (above,  note  2),  index,  s.  v.  "Plato." 

"  Cf.  W.  J.  Slater,  "Pindar's  Myths:  Two  pragmatic  explanations,"  in  Arktouros 
(Berlin-New  York  1979),  pp.  63-68;  F.  S.  Newman,  "The  Relevance  of  the  Myth  in 
Pindar's  Eleventh  Pythian,"  Hellenika  31  (1979),  pp.  44-64.  The  poem  both  shows 
Pindar  at  his  most  "personal,"  and  indicates  in  what  a  modified  sense  "personal"  must 
be  understood. 

^^  Scholia  Vetera  in  Pitidari  Carmnia.  ed.  \.  B.  DnKhniann  (repr.  .\msterdam  1967), 
II,  p.  257. 


J.  K.  Newman  175 

because  life  is  a  matter  of  choices,  and  the  Tantalus  myth  is  altered, 
not  because  Pindar  really  cares  to  censor  the  current  version  (which 
he  presupposes),  but  because  the  version  he  substitutes  gives  him  the 
chance  to  point  his  moral  more  sharply.  Is  there  a  similar  juxtaposi- 
tion of  opposites  in  the  eleventh  Pythian} 

There  is.  The  murder  of  Agamemnon  and  the  priestess  bride  of 
Apollo  whom  he  has  forced  to  serve  his  lust  is  linked  with  the 
destruction  of  Troy  by  the  very  periphrasis  used  for  Cassandra, 
AaQ6avi6a  xoqqv  riQidfxoi)  (19).  Both  city  and  king  are  ultimately 
destroyed  by  sisters,  Clytaemnestra  and  Helen.  Private  mischief  has 
public  consequences.  It  is  a  truth  evident  in  the  roughly  contempo- 
rary second  Pythian  (30  ff.),  and  of  which  the  civic  body  needs 
continual  reminding. 

But  all  individual  action  is  not  necessarily  mischief.  As  in  the  first 
Olympian,  there  is  a  choice.  Clytaemnestra  and  Helen,  the  wicked 
sisters,  have  brothers.  Castor  and  Polydeuces,  models  of  deferential 
self-sacrifice,  as  the  ode  emphasizes.  Their  mutual  devotion  leads 
them  by  turns  to  the  shrine  on  earth  where  they  receive  the  prayers  of 
their  community,  and  to  Olympus.  The  blind  self-seeking  of  Clytaem- 
nestra led  only  to  the  shadowy  shore  of  Acheron. 

Once  the  essentially  pathetic  structure  of  Pindar's  version  of  the 
strenger  Satz  is  grasped,  this  ode  no  longer  assumes  a  place  apart  in 
the  poet's  achievement.  It  can  be  predicted  that  he  is  going  to  use  the 
excuse  provided  by  the  need  for  an  exordium,  whose  actual  contents 
may  be  quite  elastic,  to  establish  a  series  of  motifs,  in  essence  to  deploy 
a  number  of  words,  some  of  which  will  be  taken  up  again  and 
developed  as  the  poem  proceeds.  These  motifs,  recognized  by  their 
repetition,  are  what  in  essence  the  poem  is  about:  they  form  its 
Grundgedanke . 

They  will  depend  for  their  effect  on  antithesis.  At  the  opening  of 
the  eleventh  Pythian,  motifs  are  presented  of  daughters  of  Thebes, 
fair  women  rewarded  by  divine  status;  of  Heracles;  of  Apollo  and  his 
prophets;  of  Harmony,  Law  and  Justice;  of  a  family  proving  its  worth 
yet  again  by  a  noble  deed  performed  for  the  general  glory. 

The  myth  then  shatters  all  this  with  rude  dissonance.  A  father's 
hearth  is  no  longer  honored.  Instead,  a  father  is  butchered  (jiaxQcpav, 
14;  JiaxQog,  17),  and  only  a  nurse  keeps  her  upright  mind.  Daughters 
of  Thebes  sang  in  honor  of  the  god;  the  daughter  of  Priam  is  slain 
(xoQai,  1;  xoQQV,  19).  Family  quarrels,  family  misdeeds  were  at  the 
root  of  the  trouble  and,  when  great  families  go  down  in  this  way,  the 
whole  community  loses  an  ideal  of  behavior.  The  heroines  (7)  of 
Thebes  are  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  dying  hero  (31)  Agamemnon. 


176  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

The  Iheban  shrine  of  Apollo  and  its  prophetic  priests  are  offset  by 
the  nctVTig  xoga  (33:  cf.  xoQai,  1;  [lavxicMV,  6)  whose  death  is  directly 
attributed  to  Agamemnon  and  associated  with  the  rape  of  Troy,  fired 
for  Helen  and  so  robbed  of  its  delicacy.  Orestes  is  rescued  (we  return 
to  the  beginning  of  the  story)  only  to  continue  its  bloody  pattern. 

Taking  back  the  introduction  in  this  way,  negating  its  values,  the 
mythical  narrative  ("paramyth")  cannot  simply  be  concerned  to  tell  a 
tale.  Far  from  being  ragged,  it  has  an  extremely  formal  structure 
(cpovEtJOHEVOU,  17;  (fiovaic,,  37),  which  makes  it  all  the  more  surprising 
that  its  central  section  should  be  occupied,  not  by  narrative  at  all,  but 
by  two  rhetorical  questions  and  the  poet's  reflection  on  them.'^  What 
were  Clytaemnestra's  modves  for  her  denial  of  all  wifely  pity  to  her 
husband?  Was  it  the  slaughter  of  Iphigenia  by  the  Euripus,  far  from 
her  homeland,  which  stung  her  to  rouse  her  heavy  anger?  The 
Euripus  was  famous  in  antiquity  for  flowing  two  ways,  and  this  story 
too  has  a  double  application.  Agamemnon's  Trojan  foray  began  with 
the  slaughter  of  his  child.  It  ended  with  the  slaughter  of  Priam's  child 
(made  into  his  symbolic  last  act).  Agamemnon's  dead  daughter  led  to 
dead  Priam,  to  dead  Agamemnon  and  to  Priam's  dead  daughter. 
Iphigenia/Cassandra;  Agamemnon/Priam;  Helen/Clytaemnestra; 
Castor/Polydeuces;  and,  it  may  be  added,  Thebes/Troy/Amyclae:  the 
carnival  motif  of  pairs  and  doubles  seems  particularly  visible  in  this 
ode,  as  indeed  it  will  be  in  the  whole  later  narrative  tradition,  and  not 
least  in  the  Aeneid. 

The  second  question  too  has  a  double  relevance.  Was  it  Clytaem- 
nestra's nightly  couchings  that  inspired  her,  asks  the  poet.  But  in  this 
context  Clytaemnestra  was  hardly  the  only  wife  to  be  led  astray  by  an 
adulterer.  Her  sister  Helen,  who  will  be  mentioned  shortly,  was  just  as 
bad,  and  in  his  reflections  Pindar  himself  generalizes  Clytaemnestra's 
sin  in  a  way  which  has  puzzled  commentators  who  have  not  under- 
stood either  the  essential  ambiguity  of  the  undifferentiated  primitive, 
or  the  paradigmatic  nature  of  his  story. 

What  is  interesting  about  both  questions  is  that  they  provoke  a 
social  answer  (jio^^ixai,  28)  from  the  poet.  When  greatness  decays,  he 
begins,  envious  meanness  is  noisy.  The  line  that  says  this  in  the  second 
epode  (6  bt  xajiTiXd  Jiv^cov  acpavxov  Pq^iiel,  30'^)  contrasts  with  tqltov 
EJii  OTECpavov  irtaxQtpav  (3aA,d)V  in  the  first  (v.  14),  with  la  |Aev  <£v> 


'^  They  have  a  parallel  oi  course  in  Homer's  question  at  the  opening  ot  the  Hind  (v. 
8),  and  in  Virgil's  at  the  opening  of  the  Aeneid  (v.  1  1),  and  this  is  important  in  the 
understanding  of  Pindar's  poetic  intent. 

"*  Contrast  \iiya  6e  pge^ei  of  the  man  of  power  in  the  Eiresione:  Fmdar's  Art,  p.  62. 


J.  K.  Newman  177 

aQiiaoL  xaXXCvLXOi  indXai  in  the  third  (v.  46),  and  with  oi  xe,  dva^ 
no'kvbevmc,,  uloi  Oewv  (v.  62)  in  the  fourth.  The  foul  breath  of 
obscuring  rumor  blasts  all  these  aspirations. 

Those  who  believe  that  Victorianism  was  discovered  in  the  age  of 
Victoria  will  be  surprised  to  note  how  clearly  Pindar  links  this  kind  of 
moral  looseness  with  the  decline  of  a  civic  ideal.  The  great  chieftain's 
family  troubles,  his  eye  for  a  pretty  girl,  are  matters  which  nowadays 
would  call  from  an  "official  biographer"  for  a  discreet  reticence.  Like 
Apollonius  Rhodius,  like  Homer  and  Virgil,  but  not  we  may  suppose 
like  the  authors  of  the  cyclic,  pseudo-Homeric  propaganda  epic 
favored  by  the  Telchines,  the  poet  Pindar  boldly  thrusts  the  problem 
of  sex  and  heroism  before  the  attention  of  his  audience.  He  is  not  ill- 
bred  or  salacious  enough  to  pry  into  the  bedroom  for  scandal's  sake. 
But  he  is  concerned  to  point  out  that  such  offenses  affect  more  than 
the  offenders.  In  stripping  the  homes  of  the  Trojans  of  their  delicacy, 
Agamemnon  particularizes  his  deadly  act  on  Cassandra.  This  is  the 
barest  realism.  But  the  Trojans  themselves  had  been  fired  over 
Helen. '^  The  mutual  interplay  of  personal  and  public  sin,  of  Eros  and 
Ares,  prevents  any  convenient  escape  into  historians'  generalities.  It  is 
the  lesson  of  the  Aeneid's  fourth  book. 

Once  the  universal  relevance  of  the  myth  is  understood  in  this 
way — it  teaches  that  lust  is  the  expense  of  spirit  in  a  waste  of  shame — 
there  is  no  need  to  look  for  those  detailed  allegorical  applications 
which  so  intrigued  older  commentators.  Immorality  upsets  public 
order.  Horace  will  repeat  the  theme.  Both  Greek  and  Roman  poet 
were  addressing  their  own  communities.  In  this  sense,  both  are 
writing  "personal"  poetry. ^^ 

Aware  of  the  harsh  home-truths  he  has  been  dispensing,  the  poet 
concludes  his  lesson  when  he  has  still  almost  half  his  poem  to  write. 
Putting  into  play  a  comic  ego,  he  pretends  to  have  been  led  astray 
from  the  proper  path.  This  is  exactly  that  "Alexandrian,"  self- 
conscious  aspect  of  his  poetry  which  showed  itself  as  early  as  the  tenth 
Pythian  ^'  convention  which  gives  notice  of  being  convention,  art 
which  knows  it  is  artifice.  Has  Pindar  taken  the  wrong  turning  at  a 
crossroads  (v.  38)?  He  is  the  polar  counterpart  of  Heracles  (v.  3),  who 
took  the  right  one  '^^  Has  his  skiff  been  blown  off  course  (vv.  39-40)? 

'^  Retaining  the  transmitted  jtuQwdevTCOV  at  v.  33. 

^°  Pindar  is  1*5101;  ev  xoivu)  oTa>.eig,  O.  13.  49. 

2'  Vv.  51  ff.:  Pmdar's  Art,  pp.  43-44,  81-82. 

^^  Modern  scholarship  on  the  ancient  motif  of  the  "two  ways"  is  listed  in  Bibliographie 
zurAntiken  Bildersprache ,  ed.  V.  Poschl  and  others  (Heidelberg  1964),  p.  584.  The  idea  of 
a  morally  dividing  XQioSog  was,  for  example,  important  to  the  Pythagoreans:  E.  R. 


178  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

It  is  the  polar  counterpart  of  all  those  ships  guided  aright  by  Castor 
and  Polydeuces  (vv.  61-62)."^  The  very  phrases  in  which  the  poet 
asserts  his  predicament  cement  the  two  halves  of  his  poem  firmly 
together.  Like  the  Euripus,  they  flow  both  back  and  forth. 

As  in  the  first  Olympian,  though  at  greater  length,  the  last  part  of 
the  poem  draws  together  and  personalizes  the  themes  presented 
more  largely  in  his  introduction  and  myth.  The  family  of  the  victor 
Thrasydaeus  is  contrasted  with  the  Atreidae:  its  fire  is  one  of  glory  (v. 
45:  cf.  33),  its  gossip  (jioX.i)(paia)v,  v.  47:  cf.  xaxoXoyoi,  28)  one  of 
praise.  But  the  admonitory  note  creeps  back  again  as  the  poet,  using 
the  "preacher's  I"  to  identify  himself  with  his  young  patron,  prays  for 
contentment  with  what  is  possible  and  devotion  to  the  common  weal. 
Here,  he  takes  up  the  reflections  of  the  myth  on  prosperity,  jealousy 
and  the  city  quite  openly,  and  develops  his  thought  with  the  help  of 
an  antithesis  between  the  political  concepts  of  f\ovx^o.  and  v^Qic,  (v. 
55).  In  the  first  Olympian,  Pelops  had  to  accept  his  mortality  before  he 
could  find  the  only  real  immortality  permissible  for  a  man.  In  this 
ode,  though  both  Agamemnon  and  the  victor  reach  the  same  dark 
bound  of  death  (axxctv  naq  eijoxiov,  21;  jieXava  6'  dv  eaxaTidv, 
56^"*),  one  will  surely  find  a  fairer  fame. 

From  this  challenging  reflection  Pindar  leaps  back  into  the  realm 
of  myth,  this  time  not  to  the  cruel  bloodiness  of  the  Atreidae,  but  to 
the  world  of  gracious  loveliness  invoked  as  the  ode  began.  A  stronger 
note  is  sounded  now,  as  heroes  replace  heroines,  as  the  self-sacrificial 
Castor  and  Polydeuces  replace  their  murderous  and  lustful  sisters. 
The  surly,  muttered  gossip  of  the  jealous  is  drowned  by  the  everlast- 
ing music  of  the  poet's  song,  bestowed  upon  those  who  have  deserved 
it. 

The  nature  of  the  "personal"  element  in  Pindar's  epinicians  is  now 
more  visible.  The  poet  does  not  of  course  keep  a  diary  in  verse.  What 
he  says  is  conditioned  by  traditional  forms  of  social  etiquette  and 
expectations.  But  how  he  deploys  his  material  is  determined  by  his 
personal  attitudes  and  responses.  We  may  guess  that,  in  an  ode 

Dodds,  Plato,  Gorgins  (Oxford  19.59),  p.  375.  It  may  have  become  associated  with 
Heracles  in  some  early  xatdpaoi?  of  the  type  used  by  Virgil  in  Aeneid  VI :  cf.  partes  ubi  se 
via  findit  in  ambas,  540.  Pindar  himself  seems  already  to  have  developed  this  theme: 
Snell-Maehler,  Puidarus.  Pars  11  (1975).  pp.  109-10  on  Thretws  VII.  However,  J. 
Alpers.  Hercules  in  Bivio  (diss.  {;ottingen  1912),  argues  that  the  motif  was  not  known 
before  Prodicus  (p.  9). 

"  The  Dioscuri  appear  as  saviors  of  mariners  as  early  as  Hym.  Horn.  XXXIII.  7  ff.: 
cf.  Snell-Maehler,  op.  cit.,  p.  5  on  Isth.  fr.  6c. 

^*  A.  Turyn's  text  (repr.  Oxford  1952)  has  been  followed  at  v.  56. 


J.  K.  Newman  179 

addressed  by  a  Theban  to  a  Theban  victor  at  a  time  of  national  crisis, 
these  feelings  were  more  than  usiially  engaged.  The  demand  for 
Solonian  moderation  in  civic  affairs"''  is  inherited  by  the  poet,  shared 
by  him  with  other  moderates  in  his  city,  and  at  the  same  time  part  of 
his  personal  outlook.  The  terms  "subjective"  and  "objective"  become, 
on  this  analysis,  rather  inapposite.  What  is  important  is  the  unique 
amalgam. 

If  the  story  that  Pindar  studied  under  Lasus  of  Hermione  in  late 
sixth-century  Athens  is  true,  he  may  have  picked  up  his  Solonian 
wisdom  in  the  city  of  its  origin.  His  teacher  seems  to  have  been 
interested  in  the  kind  of  literary  experiment  critics  label  as  "deca- 
dent.""^ The  early  twelfth  Pythian,  the  only  surviving  tribute  to  a  non- 
athletic  victor,  paid  homage  to  the  civilizing  influence  of  art  (xexva,  y. 
6)  with  the  aid  of  vocabulary  (kznxov,  v.  25)  and  ideas  (eijqev,  v.  22)"^ 
which  anticipate  those  of  Alexandria,  and  in  it  Athene  was  promi- 
nent. Were  in  fact  these  two  great  centers  of  Greek  culture  closer  than 
has  been  thought?  Did  the  Alexandrians  set  Pindar  at  the  head  of 
their  lyric  canon  not  only  because  of  the  force  of  his  genius,  but 
because  they  saw  in  him  the  outline  of  a  poetic  which  they  were  eager 
to  make  their  own? 

Roman  Alexandrianizing  poets  were  fond  of  claiming  to  be  "first," 
of  using  what  scholars  call  "pnmii^-language."  Pindar  uses  such 
language  too,  of  Athene  and  Terpander,  but  also  of  himself.  The 
fourth  Pythian  looks  like  a  virtuoso  effort  to  make  lyric  outdo  epic.  At 
the  climax  of  its  myth  (vv.  241  ff.),  the  poet  speaks  of  the  difficulties  of 
gaining  the  golden  fleece  even  after  Aeetes'  challenge  had  been  met: 

And  at  once  the  wondrous  child  of  the  sun  told  of  the  shining  fleece, 
and  where  the  sword  blows  of  Phrixus  had  stretched  it  out.  He  was 
hoping  that  this  toil  at  least  would  baffle.  For  it  lay  in  a  thicket,  and 

^^  Cf.  "Pindar,  Solon  and  Jealousy:  Political  Vocabulary  in  the  Eleventh  Pythian" 
/CS  VII  (1982),  pp.  189-95. 

^^  At  least  according  to  Rehm  in  RE  12:  1,  col.  888:  "Der  Hymnus  auf  Demeter 
schloss  den  Buchstaben  a  aus,  Athen.  IX  467a,  X  455c,  XIV  624e.  .  .  ."  We  may 
compare  the  asigmatic  Odyssey  of  Tryphiodorus  and  other  Byzantine  Vtrtuosenstucke 
mentioned  by  A.  Lesky,  A  History  of  Greek  Literature  (Eng.  tr.  J.  Willis  and  C.  de  Heer, 
London  1966),  pp.  815-16. 

^^  "Invention"  is  very  important  to  Pindar:  cf.  O.  3.  4:  13.  17:  N.  8.  20:  Encomia  fr. 
125.  1-2.  Cf.  in  general  E.  R.  Curtius,  Europdische  Literatur  und  lateinisches  Mitlelalter 
(Bern  1948),  p.  533.  The  exaltation  of  Athene  in  P.  12  anticipates  the  Alexandrian 
exaltation  of  Isis,  in  answer  to  Euhemerus'  rationalism,  as  the  foundress  of  all  human 
arts:  M.  Nilsson,  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Religion  II  (Munich  1961),  pp.  289  and  627 
ff.:  cf.  p.  573,  Minervam. 


180  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

clung  to  the  savage  jaws  of  a  serpent  that  in  bulk  and  length  outdid  a 
fifty-oared  ship  finished  by  blows  of  iron  tools. 

The  suspense  is  complete,  and  the  double  reference  to  sword  blows 
and  iron  blows  (vv.  242,  246)  guides  our  imagination  towards  the 
expected  contest,  in  which  the  personified  fleece,  clinging  to  the 
serpent's  jaws,  seems  itself  destined  to  be  an  adversary. 

This  is  exactly  the  critical  moment  chosen  by  Pindar  to  frustrate 
expectation.  Instead  of  giving  an  account  of  the  heroic  struggle,  he 
blandly  digresses  to  talk  about  his  art: 

It  is  long  for  me  to  travel  along  the  cart  road,  for  time  presses,  and  I 
know  a     short  path:  to  many  others  I  am  a  leader  in  the  poet's  craft. 

The  Alexandrian  terms  of  this  remark  (^laxQci,  a^ia^ixov,-^  pgaxiJV, 
JioXXolot,  oocptag)  would,  in  Callimachus,  provoke  irritation.  But  what 
we  must  see  is  that  the  breakaway,  which  is  also  a  breakthrough  into 
another  dimension,  is  itself  exactly  the  short  path  of  which  the  poet  is 
speaking.  While  we  are  impatiendy  waiting  to  hear  what  happened 
between  Jason  and  the  serpent,  we  reconstruct  the  story  for  ourselves. 
We  do  the  poet's  job  for  him,  presumably  to  our  own  satisfaction,  and 
so,  when  he  resumes,  he  can  be  content  with  the  baldest  of  remarks, 
can  indeed  displace  the  narrative  emphasis  from  the  struggle,  which 
is  dismissed  in  the  single  word  xiEtve  (v.  249),  to  its  aftermath: 

He  slew  the  fierce-eyed,  spangle-backed  snake  with  arts,  O  Arcesilas, 
and  stole  Medea  with  herself,  the  murderess  of  Pelias,  and  they 
plunged  into  the  waters  of  Ocean  and  the  Red  Sea,  into  the  tribe  of 
Lemnian  women,  murderers  of  men. 

The  climaxing  apostrophe  to  Arcesilas  follows  the  static  description  of 
the  serpent.  Only  the  emphatic  verbs  opening  their  clauses  (xxeIve, 
xkEy^Ey)  are  provided  to  trigger  our  imaginations  here.  The  rest  is 
baffling.  Slew  it  with  arts?  But  whose?  Stole  Medea  with  heiself? 
Murderess  of  Pelias?  And  how  did  they  get  away  from  Aeetes  and  his 
pursuing  minions?  The  central  deed  of  the  entire  Argonaut  adven- 
ture is  wrapped  in  obscurity  and  foreboding  ((pov6v,  250;  dv6QO- 
q)6va)v,  252).  Is  this  Red  Sea  perhaps  red  with  blood? 

In  a  brilliant  passage  L.  Dissen  long  ago  set  out  the  differences 

'"  The  Tiva  at  v.  247  is  presumably  pregnant  rather  than  diffusive,  as  in  the 
examples  noted  in  Pindar's  Art,  p.  48. 

^"^  N.  6.  53-54  (where  Pindar  follows  the  cart  track)  is  only  in  apparent  contradic- 
tion: Excov  neJiExav  is  a  crucial  qualification,  used  by  Pindar  to  escape  from  the  trite 
story. 


J.  K.  Newman  181 

between  the  narrative  technique  of  the  fourth  Pythian  and  that  of 
conventional  epic.^^  Pindar's  aim  in  the  myth  is  to  glorify  Jason,  not  to 
trace  the  details  of  a  familiar  story: 

Neque  enim  res  et  facta  ipsorum  causa  narrat,  sed  propter  id  quod 
docere  vult,  et  movet  non  multitudine  rerum,  sed  gravitate. 

Dissen  is  also  interested  in  Pindar's  use  of  antithesis: 

Mox  in  oratione  publica  lasonis  ne  de  dignitate  admirabili  dicam, 
affectus  plenus  est  locus,  ubi  iuvenis  narrat  ut  olim  eum  infantem 
timore  tyranni  in  fasciis  extulerint  quasi  mortuum  e  domo  paterna  inter 
eiulatum  feminaruni.  Et  observa  in  fine  orationis  haec  poni,  ut  aculeos 
relinquant  in  animis  audientium;  post  quae  discedit  continuo  ad  hos 
ipsos  tarn  diu  non  visos  parentes.  lanique  huic  tristi  praeteritarum 
rerum  memoriae  opponitur  laetitia  paternae  domus  et  cognatorum 
undique  accelerantium,  conviviumque  per  sex  dies  continuatum;  sunt 
etiam  in  epica  poesi  oppositiones  plurimae,  ut  par,  sed  lyrica  in  ea  re  ars 
est  ingeniosior. 

Oppositio,  what  Dornseiff  was  later  to  call  Pindar's  polare  Ausdrucks- 
weise,  is  a  basic  feature  of  pathetic  structure,  as  defined  by  Eisenstein. 

The  selectivity  of  this  allusive  style,  which  has  its  own  interest  in 
aetia,  permits  us  to  see  Pindar  as  the  master  of  an  art  already 
Alexandrian.  He  lends  to  Callimachus  both  images  and  attitude.  It  is 
Pindar  who  prides  himself  on  his  own  originality,  and  who  rejects  the 
schoenus-lengxh  of  his  predecessors'  song  {Dithyramb  II,  p.  74,  Snell- 
Maehler): 

riQiv  nev  EQjie  oxoivoTevEia  t'  aoi6a 

6i^xjQd(x(3a)v 
xal  TO  oav  xl(36yiXov  avdQcbjioioiv  ajro  axondxcov,  .  .  . 

This  public  literary  argumentation  has  a  long  history,-^'  but  in 
particular  it  anticipates  the  Preface  to  Callimachus' A^/m  (vv.  17-18):^^" 

eXXete  BaoxaviTig  oXoov  yivoc,  aridi  6e  xexvT] 
XQivexE,  (if]  oxoivcp  neQoi6i  xriv  oocpiriv' 

^^  Pindari  Carmina  (Gothae  et  Erfordiae  1830),  I,  pp.  LIV  ft.  The  quotations  are 
from  pp.  LVII  and  LVII-LVIII. 

""  It  is  part  of  the  comic  agon,  developed,  for  example,  in  the  contest  between 
Aeschylus  and  Euripides  in  Aristophanes'  Frogs.  Pindar's  older  Theban  contemporary 
Corinna  wrote  a  poem  about  two  contending  mountains;  Page,  FM(r  6.")4.  Later  it 
became  the  troubadours'  tenzone  and  was  even  taken  up  by  Dante  into  the  Purgaturio 
(canto  24):  cf.  the  Certamen  Homeri  et  Hesiodi. 

^^  Pindar's  rejection  of  length  is  also  demonstrated  by  O.  13.  41-42  and  98;  P.  4.  247 
ff.;  P  8.  29-30;  N.  4.  33  and  71;  N.  10.  19;  /.  1.  60  ff.;  fr.  140b.l2. 


182  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

This  anticipation  must  condition  our  understanding  of  Paean 
VI lb,  printed  by  Snell-Maehler  as: 

xEXa6r|oaO'        u^vouq,  10 

'0|.ir|()ou  [6e  |.i-n  TQi]j[x6v  xax'  aixa^iTOV 
lovxeg,  o.[}X  aX]XoTQiai5  av'  iKJioig,  .  .  . 

At  line  12  here,  the  restoration  ahX  contradicts  the  sense.  Pindar 
cannot  urge  the  avoidance  of  Homer's  worn  cart  track,  and  then  go 
on  to  recommend  his  chorus  to  travel  on  others'  horses,  especially  if  at 
vv.  13-14  he  told  them  they  have  their  own  chariot.  The  6£  restored 
in  V.  11  is  quite  superfluous,  and  the  imperative  in  v.  10  is  uncertain. 
If  the  syntax  of  the  expression  in  verse  10  triggered  the  negative  oi) 
rather  than  ^r|,  verses  11-12  may  have  read: 

'0|xr|Qov  [\itv  ov  tqi]kt6v  xat'  aixa^ixov 
lovxeg,  o[i)6'  a^JXcxQiaig  av'  iJtjroig,  .  .  . 

With  this,  the  supplement  proposed  in  Snell-Maehler: 

ZTiii  ai)[xol  eg  Ji]xav6v  aQ(xa 
Moiaa[iov  dve(3a]nev.  .  .  . 

coheres  very  well,  and  reminds  the  reader  not  only  of  A^^ia-preface  25 
ff.  but  also  of  Propertius'  great  programmatic  elegy  at  the  beginning 
of  Book  III,  written  under  the  auspices  of  CaUimachus  and  Philetas, 
but  under  the  patronage  of  Apollo  and  Bacchus. ^^ 

II 

CaUimachus  concerned  himself  directly  with  the  myth  on  which  the 
fourth  Pythian  is  based  in  his  lamhoi  (fr.  198  Pf.),  where  he  related  the 
victory  of  Polycles  of  Aegina  in  the  Hydwphoria,  founded  in  memory 
of  the  Argonauts  who  once  landed  on  that  island  in  search  of  water. 
In  this  instance,  it  seems  plausible  to  say  that  he  was  giving  an 
example  of  what  Aristophanes  calls  "reduction,"  in  a  play  which 
shows  how  much  "Alexandrian"  vocabulary  was  current  in  Athens  a 
century  after  Pindar  had  been  there. -^'*  In  an  age  suspicious  of 
bombast,  in  which  poet  and  musician  had  parted  company,  Callima- 

'^  Cf.  O.  9.  80-81 :  Eir|v  eTLigrjoieKfj?  dvayeloOtti  /  JTp6oq)OQoq  ev  Moioav  6icpQtp  .  .  . 
At  O.  6.  85-86  water  and  weaving  images  are  combined:  cf.  Prop.  III.  1.  5-6. 
Propertius  restores  the  sense  of  public  pomp  and  pride  to  imager\  lie  uitimatelv 
inherits  from  Pindar  (water  drinking,  chariot  riding  and  so  on),  Inii  significantK 
without  abandoning  his  claim  to  be  the  Roman  Clallimachus. 

^'*  Frogs  941.  M.  Puelma  Piwonka,  Luriliu.s  uud  Kallnnarhos  (Frankfurt  1949).  pp.  32!^ 
ff.,  gives  a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  what  may  have  been  CaUimachus'  purpose. 


J.  K.  Newman  183 

chus  still  apparently  thought  that  the  epinician  was  relevant.  He  was 
perhaps  aided  by  the  reflection  that  the  comic  spirit  of  such  poetry 
favored  this  lightening  of  its  load. 

But  the  epinician  also  made  its  appearance  in  the  Aclia,  perhaps  at 
the  start  of  the  third  book.  The  Nemean  victory  of  Queen  Berenice 
was  celebrated  in  an  elegy  of  suitably  Pindaric  abruptness,  adorned 
with  a  myth  narrating  the  foundation  of  the  games. "^"^  Since  this  myth 
contained  a  section  called  by  modern  scholars  "Muscipula,"  "The 
Mousetrap,"  evidently  a  certain  wit  was  manifest  in  its  treatment.  So 
too  was  a  novelty  reminiscent  of  the  first  Olympian?^ 

There  was  also  another  elegiac  epinician,  honoring  the  victory  at 
the  Isthmus  of  Sosibius.  Its  date  is  uncertain,  but  if  this  Sosibius  was 
already  active  in  the  early  years  of  the  third  century,  it  could  be  that 
Callimachus  actually  began  his  poetic  career  by  experimenting  with 
this  type  of  poetry,  perhaps  as  a  means  of  securing  the  attention  of  a 
powerful  patron.  He  certainly  shows  awareness  of  the  Pindaric 
manner  (fr.  384.  37-39  Pf.): 

aybqac,  ox  ov  deioavteg  edcoxajxev  f\bv  pofioai 

VT]6v  e'jTi  rX.auxfi5  xd)[.iov  ayovxi  jpQih 
'Aqx^^oXo^'  vixalov  ecpi3|iviov'  .  .  . 

The  masterful  use  of  alliteration  and  assonance,  and  the  emphatic 
position  of  'Aqx^^^oX^^'  '^^'^  proof  of  the  poet's  genius. ''^ 
Pindaric  too  is  the  emphasis  on  witness  {loc.  cit.  48-49):^^ 

xeIvo  ye  \\x\\  i6ov  ariTog,  6  :itaQ  nobi  xat^exo  Nel^od 
VEiaxLCp,  Kaoiriv  Elg  ejiixoo^og  akd  .  .  . 

Here  the  victor  evidently  proceeded  in  komic  fashion  as  far  as  the 
mouth  of  the  Nile  to  make  an  offering  in  the  temple  of  Zeus  Casius. 
But,  although  we  can  see  how  carefully  Callimachus  studied  the 
epinician  style,  both  in  its  mannerisms  and  in  its  origins  (e.g.  its 
association  with  the  dead,  fr.  384.  30  Pf.^^),  these  imitations  are  too 

^^  The  text  given  in  Hugh  Lloyd-Jones  and  Peter  Parsons,  edd.,  Supplementum 
HeUenisticum  (BerHn-Nevv  York  198.S),  nos.  254-69,  pp.  100  ft.,  is  also  discussed  by- 
Parsons  in  Zeitschrift  fiir  Papyrologie  und  Epigraphik  25  (1977),  pp.  1  ft'.:  cf.  especially  p. 
46.  Parsons'  suggestion  that  this  epinician  elegy  at  the  start  of  Book  III  stood  in  some 
sort  of  correlation  with  the  Coma  Berenices  at  the  end  of  Book  IV  tallies  with  the  sidereal 
language  of  M  2.  1 1-12.  After  all,  where  was  the  Nemean  lion  to  be  seen? 

'^  See  Lloyd-Jones  and  Parsons,  op.  cit.,  p.  134  ad  v.  33  on  p.  103,  oi)X  WQ  i)6eoiioiv: 
"ex  his  conicias,  Calliniachum  fabulam  novam  miram  commemorare,  immo  novissi- 
mam." 

^^  Cf.  O.  9.  1,  'Aqxl^oXO^-  4,  xto|i,dt,ovTi. 

^^  Pindar's  Art,  p.  6,  note  1  1. 

-^' Cf.  O.  M.  Freudenberg,  Mif  i  Lileratura  Drevnosti  (Moscow  1978),  pp.  54  ff. 


184  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

traginentary  to  allow  any  very  reliable  conclusions  about  structure.  If 
the  poet  chose  to  echo  Pindar  in  his  programmatic  utterances 
however,  we  may  perhaps  look  further  in  his  poetry,  following  a  hint 
already  thrown  out  by  Dornseiff.'*"  The  first  Fiymn  is  particularly 
instructive.  Pindar's  imagination  was  often  triggered  by  a  pun,  and 
the  second  Olympian  may  be  inspired  by  the  proper  name  Rhea, 
"flowing.'"*'  But  so  may  this  Hymn.  This  might  explain,  for  example, 
the  extraordinary  digression  at  vv.  18  ff.,  in  which  the  poet's  imagina- 
tion flashes  back  to  some  primeval  Greek  desert  landscape,  when  the 
great  rivers  of  later  days  were  still  hidden  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 
Rhea's  Moses-like  gesture  (vv.  30-31)  in  bringing  forth  water  from 
the  rock  parallels  her  bringing  forth  of  baby  Zeus  (toxolo,  v.  16;  texe, 
V.  29).  In  this  celebration  of  the  komic  theme  of  parturition  and  birth, 
Zeus'  first  nurse,  Neda,  is  fittingly  commemorated  by  a  stream  (vv. 
37-41). 

The  hymn  is  eventually  manipulated  more  obviously  in  favor  of  a 
laudandus,  Ptolemy.  The  king  has  indeed  already  been  hinted  at  in  v.  3 
(6ixaajt6A.ov:  cf.  vv.  82-83).  The  pre-eminence  accorded  to  the  god 
by  his  elders  (60  ff.),  as  it  were  the  Diadochoi  of  Cronus,  mirrors  that 
accorded  to  his  earthly  counterpart.  It  was  not  the  chance  of  the  lot, 
but  merit,  which  determined  the  excellence  of  both. 

But  can  Ptolemy  only  resemble  Zeus  when  Zeus  is  no  longer  an 
infant?  Can  the  myth  of  Zeus'  birth,  the  token  of  water  and  fertility 
that  were  to  transform  a  parched  Azenis  into  pastoral  Arcadia,  be 
"irrelevant"  to  the  encomium,  to  use  the  language  of  Pindar's  ancient 
critics?  It  is  in  fact  Pindar's  art  which  teaches  us  to  look  further  in 
Callimachus. 

The  importance  of  water  in  Egypt  needs  no  emphasis.'*"  From  time 
immemorial  the  Pharaohs,  whose  successors  the  Ptolemies  were,  had 
been  lords  of  the  Nile  and  displayed  the  symbols  of  that  office.  If 
Rhea's  gesture  reminds  the  modern  reader  of  Moses  at  Meribah,  it 
must  be  remembered  that,  according  to  one  tradition,  Moses  was 
"learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians.'"*'*  The  birth  of  baby  Zeus 

""  Pindnrs  Stil,  p.  85:  cf .  Die  mrhaische  Mythenerznhhmg  (Berlin-Leipzig  1933),  pp.  74 
ff.  and  especially  p.  77:  "Seine  (i.e.  Callimachus')  Hymnen  miissen  neu  behandelt 
werden  auf  ihre  Beziehungen  zur  Chorlyrik." 

•*'  Pindar's  Art.  pp.  166.  176. 

■*"  "The  River  of  Kgypt  is  empty,  men  cross  oxer  the  water  on  foot."  This  is  quoted 
from  an  Egyptian  papyrus  by  jack  Lindsay,  Men  and  Cfods  on  the  Roman  Nile  (London 
1968),  p.  10.  Compare  Callimachus,  Hy.  1.  2.5-26.  In  his  brilliant  reconstruction  of  life 
in  Alexandria,  Wilamovvitz  notes  (Die  hellenistische  Dirlitiing.  repr.  Berlin  1962.  I,  p. 
153):  "Quelle  und  Bach  kannte  ein  Alexandriner  nur  aus  Biichern." 

'*^  NT  Acts  7:22.  Moses'  name  is  Egyptian.  A  modern  commentary  on  the  Bible 
tentatively  suggests  that  it  could  have  been  L;sir-mosis,  "Osiris  is  born":  cf.  Ra-meses, 


J.  K.  Newman  185 

signalled  abundance  of  water  for  Arcadia.  Could  not  the  birth  of 
Ptolemy  signal  the  same  for  Egypt?  Could  not  the  divine  child 
foreshadow  the  grown  champion,  exactly  as  in  the  first  Nemean}'^'^ 
Thus  the  first  part  of  Callimachus'  Hymn  would  have  a  connection 
both  with  traditional  motifs,  and,  in  this  particular  instance,  with  the 
yearnings  of  the  Greek  Alexandrian  community,  locked  in  its  flat  and 
arid  prison."*^ 

But,  like  Pindar  before  him,  Callimachus  is  not  content  with  even 
this  degree  of  double-entendre.  In  the  first  Olympian,  a  fiction  may  be 
observed  which  calls  into  question  its  own  status.'*^  Callimachus  shares 
Pindar's  self-consciousness.  He  asks  at  the  start  oi^ Hymn  I:  "Which  of 
the  two,  father,  have  told  lies?"  (v.  7).  "The  Cretans  are  always  liars!" 
(v.  8):  a  tag  from  Epimenides  is  enough  to  settle  the  question.  But 
poetic  lies  become  important  again  later  in  the  poem.  "Ancient  bards 
were  not  at  all  truthful"  (v.  60).  The  old  story  of  the  division  of  earth, 
sky  and  underworld  by  lot  must  be  rejected  as  silly.  "May  I  tell  lies  that 
are  likely  to  persuade  the  ear  of  my  listener!"  (v.  65  \i)8D6oi|ir]v;  cf. 
ty^EVoavTO,  v.  7).  The  poet  is  opening  himself  to  the  charge  that 
persuasion  rather  than  truth  is  his  aim."*^  Such  sophisticated  art  does 
not  mind.  It  is  consistent  with  this  legerdemain  that,  although  it  is 
Zeus'  deeds  which  give  him  superiority  (v.  66),  the  poet  refuses,  in  this 
hymn  to  Zeus,  to  sing  of  them  (v.  92).  Evidently  they  have  been 
sufficiently  replaced  by  what  we  have  heard  of  the  deeds  of  Ptolemy. 
Pindar,  using  baiboXkoj  in  the  first  Olympian  both  of  the  false  stories 
he  ostensibly  rejects  and  of  his  own  art  (vv.  29  and  105),  had  pointed 
the  way  to  this  ambivalence. 

"Ra  is  born":  see  La  Sagrada  Escritura,  I,  Pentaleuco,  Director  Juan  Leal  S.  J. 
(Madrid  1967),  p.  312.  Osiris  was  eventually  identified  with  the  Nile  god  Hapi:  H. 
Bonnet,  Reallexikon  der  dgyptischen  Religionsgeschichte  (Berlin  1952),  p.  528.  Moses' 
striking  of  the  rock  to  produce  water  (OT  Exodus  17:2  ff.,  Numbers  20:2  ff.:  for  the 
gesture  see  E.  R.  Dodds  on  Euripides,  Bacchae  704-05,  and  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Argon. 
IV.  1446)  is  on  both  occasions  associated  with  the  Israelites'  desire  for  Egyptian 
comforts.  His  response  may  have  been  to  prove  that,  like  Osiris  (see  Bonnet's 
illustration),  he  too  could  pour  out  water  from  a  rocky  cave. 

"^  Pindar's  Art,  p.  72. 

''^  The  spirit  of  the  Arcadian  pastoral  and  its  idealized  landscape  is  already  lurking 
in  the  background  to  all  this.  Ptolemy  I's  invention  of  Sarapis  (=  Osiris  /  Apis),  whose 
cult  image  looked  like  Zeus  (H.  Idris  Bell,  Cults  and  Creeds  in  Graeco-Roman  Egypt, 
Liverpool  1953,  p.  19),  may  also  be  an  influence  at  work  in  Callimachus'  poem.  Pindar 
had  already  hinted  at  the  equation  Zeus  /  king:  Pindar's  Art,  pp.  128  and  230.  He  had 
also  described  the  huge  god  whose  moving  feet  caused  the  flooding  of  the  Nile  (fr. 
282),  a  passage  that  looks  like  a  reminiscence  of  the  Egyptian  colossal  statues  of 
Rameses  II  at  Abu  Simbel. 

^  Pindar's  Art,  p.  160. 

'*''  A  debate  still  alive  as  late  as  Petrarch's  doctrine  of  poetric  Veritas:  Africa  ix.  90  ff. 


vv.     1-9 

Prooimion:  Zeus'  immortality 

9  lines 

vv.  10-27 

His  birth.  Rhea's  search  for  water 

18  lines 

vv.  28-36 

Water  found.  Neda  receives  the  child 

9  lines 

vv.  37-54 

Rhea's  thanks.  Zeus  in  Crete 

18  lines 

vv.  55-59 

Zeus'  privileges 

5  lines 

vv.  60-64 

Poetic  fictions 

5  lines 

vv.  65-69 

Zeus'  attributes 

5  lines 

vv.  70-75 

His  choice  of  kings 

6  lines 

vv.  76-90 

Privileges  of  kings,  especially 

of  Ptolemy 

15  lines 

vv.  91-96 

Coda 

6  lines 

186  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

The  lyrical  balance  of  the  first  Hymn  may  be  seen  from  this  table: 

27  lines 
27  lines 

21  lines 


21  lines 


For  Pindar,  the  exponent  of  the  aiJOiriQa  aQjxovia,  the  individual 
words  counted.  For  Callimachus,  in  this  first  Hymn,  it  seems  that 
syllables  were  important: 

143  scanned  syllables 
285  scanned  syllables 
143  scanned  syllables 
285  scanned  syllables 
339  scanned  syllables 
337  scanned  syllables 

It  is  even  possible  that  the  poet,  like  Pindar,  set  important  proper 
names  at  significant  intervals.  Between  TLzv  (v.  7)  and  Teir)  (v.  10)  53 
syllables  may  be  counted,  exactly  the  same  number  as  between  'Petri 
(v.  10)  and'PeCrig  (v.  13).  This  'PeCr]^  is  then  separated  by  118  syllables 
from'  Vtx\  (v.  21),  and  this  "Pt\\  is  followed  116  syllables  later  by  'PetT] 
(v.  28).  Between  jitv  (=  Rhea,  v.  35)  and  Zzv  (v.  43)  stand  117 
syllables.  Between  Zei)  (v.  46)  and  Kgovog  (v.  53)  stand  another  117 
syllables.  119  syllables  divide  this  Kgovog  from  KQOvt6Tiai  (v.  61). 

We  could  perhaps  already  have  guessed  that  in  this  art,  with  its 
word-play,  its  repetitions,  its  euphony,  in  short  all  the  tricks  of  the 
Gorgianic,  but  also  carnival,  repertoire,  numerical  balances,  whether 
of  line  or  longer  veise  paragraph,  would  make  themselves  felt  to  the 
inner  ear,  and  that  this  felt  responsion  would  evoke,  for  both 
Callimachus  and  his  later  admirers  whether  in  Greece  or  Rome,  the 
atmosphere  of  music.  This  constitutes  one  of  the  most  vivid  parts  of 
the  Pindaric  legacy. 

To  understand  the  role  of  the  carnival  already  in  Pindar  is  to  see 
that  even  Callimachus'  sixth  Hymn  is  in  a  similar  tradition.  Like 
Tantalus,  Erysichthon  breaks  the  rules  of  social  etiquette,  and  is 


vv.      1- 

-9 

vv.    10- 

-27 

vv.  28- 

-36 

vv.  37- 

-54 

vv.  55- 

-75 

vv.  76- 

-96 

J.  K.  Newman  187 

appropriately  punished  by  becoming  a  castout  from  society,  his 
appetite  perpetually  unsatisfied.  The  myth,  with  its  roots  in  popular 
folktale,  is  linked  with  the  main  narrative  by  what  at  the  time  of 
mention  looks  like  a  picturesque  detail  (v.  6) — a  typically  Pindaric 
device."*^  The  worshippers  paradoxically  celebrate  the  feast  of  the 
goddess  of  earth  and  grain  by  fasting,  as  she  herself  fasted  when  in 
sorrowful  search  for  her  daughter.  Callimachus  ultimately  refuses  to 
tell  this  painful  story  (v.  17),  after  he  has  carefully  reminded  us  of  its 
details,  exactly  as  Pindar  refuses  to  tell  the  traditional  story  of 
Tantalus  and  Pelops  after  reminding  us  of  its  details  (0.  1.  52-53). 
Erysichthon,  who  thought  he  could  intrude  on  nature  as  appetite 
dictated,  becomes  the  parody  of  his  own  lusts,  forced  to  decline  the 
very  good  cheer  he  fancied  he  was  going  to  enjoy.  Eventually,  a  king's 
son,  he  sits  begging  at  the  crossroads.  There  is  a  religious  truth 
underlying  all  the  humor. 

Distances  between  certain  references  to  Demeter  bear  some  rela- 
tionship, provided  we  return  to  Pindar's  method  of  word  count  and 
omit  ^lev,  6e,  xe,  ye,  xai.  Whether  this  more  Dorically  flavored  poem 
inspired  a  return  to  an  older  technique  is  uncertain: 

AdfxaTeQ  (v.  2)  +  42  words  gives  Aaiiatega  (v.  8) 
ded  (v.  29)  +  42  words  gives  AanatQog  (v.  36). 

The  contrast  between  piety  and  impiety  is  made  by  the  Pindaric 
means  of  repeated  language,  in  which  distances  between  words  also 
seem  to  play  a  part.  The  goddess  did  not  eat  (£6eg,  v.  12)  and  luckless 
Erysichthon  ate  more  than  he  wished  (l6ovxi,  v.  89).  The  same 
point  is  made  with  another  repeated  verb  at  vv.  16  and  108  (cpdyeg  / 
eq)aYEv).  The  following  intervals  between  words  of  eating  are  notable: 

£6e5  (v.  12)  +  24  words  gives  (payee;  (v.  16) 
Poaxe  (v.  104)  +  24  words  gives  Ecpayev  (v.  108). 

Compare: 

elXa:iivav  (v.  84)  +  24  words  gives  f\a^ie  (v.  88). 

In  the  poet's  pious  prayer,  poag  (v.  136)  echoes  |3(Ji)v  (v.  108;  cf. 
poag,  v.  20,  (3oi3(3qcootl5,  v.  102).  Erysichthon,  by  trespassing  onto 
forbidden  territory,  is  condemned  to  persist  fruitlessly  in  his  offense, 
like  Ugolino  in  Dante's  Inferno,  also  part  of  an  instructive  comedy. 
His  original  sin  of  greed  {balxaq  .  .  .  aiiv  .  .  .  OD|iaQ£ac;  d^d),  vv.  54- 
55)  becomes  his  essence.  The  repetition  of  bale,  from  v.  54  at  vv.  63 

*^  Pindar's  Art,  p.  157,  note  22. 


188 


Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 


and  69  and  at  the  very  end  of  the  myth  (v.  1 
lesson. 

Although  the  text  of  the  poem  is  damaged 
at  least  an  oudine  of  symmetry  as  follows: 

vv.  1-23  Introduction 


15)  hammers  home  the 
,  it  is  possible  to  discern 


1-6 

7-9 

10-12 

13-16 

17-23 


Start  of  procession 
Hesperus 

Demeter's  hardships 
Her  wanderings 
Her  gifts  to  men 


vv.  24-1 15  Myth  of  Erysichthon 

vv.  24-30  Demeter's  grove 

vv.  31-36  Erysichthon's  onset 

vv.  37-39  The  poplar 

vv.  40-45  Demeter's  intervention 

vv.  46-49  Her  speech 

vv.  50-55  Erysichthon's  reply 

vv.  56-58  Demeter's  reaction 

vv.  59-64  Her  sentence 

vv.  65-67  Erysichthon's  sickness 

vv.  68-71  His  symptoms 

vv.  72-75  His  parents'  embarrassment 

vv.  76-82  His  mother's  excuses 

vv.  83-86  Further  excuses 

vv.  87-93  Plight  of  Erysichthon 

vv.  94-97  Family  grief 

vv.  98-1 10  Prayer  of  Triopas 

vv.  111-115  Final  fate  of  Erysichthon 

vv.  1 16-138  Conclusion 

vv.  116-117  The  poet's  prayer 

vv.  118-127  Instruction  and  assurance 

vv.  128-133  More  instructions 

vv.  134-138  Final  prayer 


7  1: 
6  1 
3  1 
6  1 
41 
61 
3  1 
61 
3  1 
41 
41 
71 
41 
71 
41 
13  1 
51 


2f 

10  1 

6  1 

5  1 


nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 

nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 

nes 
nes 
nes 
nes 


23  lines 


16  lines 


16  lines 


16  lines 


22  lines 


22  lines 


23  lines 


In  this  scheme,  verses  116-17  have  been  taken  as  marking  the 
beginning  of  the  conclusion,  and  not  as  the  end  of  the  myth  (as  in 
Pfeiffer).  The  analogy  with  Pindaric  mannerisms  in  these  lines,  such 
as  the  use  of  the  first  person  pronoun  (£|itv  .  .  .  e^iot),  the  renewed 
invocation  of  the  laudanda,  and  the  prayer,  shows  that  in  reality  we 
have  a  typically  Pindaric  "second  praise.'"*^  This  may  prove  that  the 


VV.  Schadewaldt  notes  these  mannerisms  in  Pindar:  Der  Aufbau  des  Pindarischen 
Epimkion  (Halle  1928),  p.  300  and  note  6  (use  of  first  person),  p.  284  and  note  4 
(invocation  of  the  laudandm),  p.  29.5  and  note  2  (prayer). 


J.  K.  Newman  189 

epinician,  as  Hermann  conjectured,  originated  in  the  hymn  to  the 
gods,  and  therefore  that  Pindar  sometimes  rather  awkwardly  adapted 
it  to  the  praise  of  human  victors.  But  it  may  also  prove,  in  an  age  when 
the  distinction  between  the  human  and  the  divine  was  becoming  all 
too  often  blurred,  that  Callimachus  took  the  tricks  of  the  epinician 
and  adapted  them  to  the  hymn,  and  this  is  where  the  novelty  and 
piquancy  of  his  achievement  may  lie. 

Ill 

What  the  Romans  took  from  Greek  Alexandria  therefore  requires  far 
more  careful  definition  than  has  been  customary.  They  took  in  the 
first  place  an  art  that  was  komic,  carnivalized,  that  dislocated  experi- 
ence and  expectation  in  order  to  estrange  perception.  This  explains 
the  importance  of  Laevius'  multi-faceted  Erotopaegnia,  and  earlier  of 
the  extraordinary  medley  presented  by  the  satires  of  Lucilius.  It  also 
explains  the  continuing  relevance  of  Pindar,  to  Virgil,  to  Horace,  to 
Propertius,  but  even,  in  an  earlier  generation,  to  Catullus.  Statins  still 
advertises  his  Pindaric  studies.  Like  the  author  of  the  eleventh 
Pythian,  Ovid  still  sails  a  poetic  skiff. ''^ 

But  the  most  powerful  impulse  given  by  Pindar  was  paradoxically 
towards  epic.  In  the  fourth  Pythian  Pindar  deployed  an  ambition 
consciously  epic  in  its  scope.  But  even  the  eleventh  Pythian,  its  myth 
ringed,  questioning,  metamorphosing,  could  hold  a  lesson  for  Virgil- 
ian  narrative  technique.  The  Alexandrians,  so  often  thought  to  have 
been  interested  only  in  Kleinkunst,  in  fact  communicated  a  new  epic 
impulse  to  their  Roman  disciples,  setting  it  for  reasons  of  their  own 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Boeotian  poet,  Hesiod.  The  Ascraean 
Georgics,  which  also  pay  homage  to  Pindar  in  precisely  one  of  their 
most  ambitious  and  yet  most  Alexandrian  passages,  the  proem  to 
Book  III,  were  the  essential  preparation  for  the  Aeneid.  These  matters 
of  complex  literary  inheritance  have  been  discussed  more  fully 
elsewhere.^' 

University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

^°Cf.  Curtius,  Europdische  Literatur  etc.  (above,  note  27),  pp.  136  ff.  The  motif  is 
eventually  picked  up  by  Dante. 

-^'J.  K.  Newman,  The  Classical  Epic  Tradition  (Madison,  Wisconsin  and  London 
1986). 


Epicurus  Vaticanus 


MIROSLAV  MARCOVICH 


While  preparing  a  critical  edition  of  Diogenes  Laertius  for  the 
Bibliotheca  Teubneriana,  I  have  collated  recently  the  Gnomologium 
Vaticanum  Epicureum  as  preserved  in  cod.  Vat.  gr.  1950,  saec.  XIV, 
fol.401''-404^.  The  Vatican  collection  of  the  aphorisms  of  Epicurus 
was  first  published  by  Karl  Wotke  (in  1888),  then  by  Peter  Von  der 
Muhll  (Teubner,  1922),  followed  by  Cyril  Bailey  (Oxford,  1926), 
Graziano  Arrighetti  (Turin,  1960;  1973),  and  finally  by  Jean  Bollack 
(Paris,  1975).' 

On  this  occasion,  I  shall  limit  myself  to  trying  to  solve  an  old 
problem — the  corrupt  text  of  the  last  two  aphorisms  of  the  collection 
(Nos.  80  and  81).  I  think  aphorism  No.  80  should  read  as  follows 
(printed  here  correctly  for  the  first  time): 

New  JTQcoTTi  acoTTiQiag  [loiga  \y\Q,  rjXixiag  xy\Qy\oiz,  xai  cpt^Xaxf]  xwv  jravta 
IJ-oXdvovtcov  xatd  tag  EJTi{^u|i,Lag  xdg  oloTQa)6Eig. 

For  a  young  man  the  best  means  of  preserving  his  well-being  is  to  watch 
over  his  youth  and  to  guard  against  whatever  defiles  (stains  or  spoils) 
everything  because  of  "the  maddening  desires." 

On  fol.404''  of  V,  our  aphorism  opens  with  a  v'w,  which  can  hardly 

'  Karl  Wotke  and  Hermann  Usener,  "Epikureische  Spruchsammlung,"  Wiener 
Studien  10  (1888)  175-201  (Greek  text,  pp.  191-198);  Epicuri  Efmlulae  tres  et  Ratae 
Sententiae,  ed.  P.  Von  der  Miihll  (Teubner,  Leipzig  1922;  repr.  Teubner,  Stuttgart 
1966),  pp.  60-69;  Cyril  Bailey,  Epicurus:  The  Extant  Remains  (Oxford  1926;  repr. 
Hildesheim  1970),  pp.  106-119  and  37.5-388;  Epicuro,  Opere:  Introduzione,  testa  critico, 
troduzione  e  note  di  (iraziano  Arrighetti  (Turin  1960;  2nd  ed.,  1973),  pp.  138-157  and 
505-520;  Jean  Bollack,  La  pensee  du  plaisir.  Epicure:  textes  moraux,  cominentaires  (Paris,  Les 
Editions  de  Minuit.  1975),  pp.  409-563. 


192  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

be  anything  else  but  vecp,  "for  a  young  man."  There  are  two  more 
instances  of  an  Epicurean  ethical  aphorism  opening  with  Neog 
without  the  article.  Aphorism  No.  17  from  our  collection  reads:  Ov 
VEog  [laxaQioxog,  aXka  yeQCOV  pepicaxcog  xa^^wg.  And  a  similar  apho- 
rism by  Metrodorus  Epicureus  (ap.  Stobaeus  H.  31.  67  Wachsmuth) 
reads:  Neog  ev  KoXvxzXeoi  ^Q(h[iaoi  xal  Jioxolg  exi  bk  aq)Qo6LOioi5 
avaoTQe^)6[ievoc,  XeXr]^Ev  Eavxov  ev  xto  Oeqei  xriv  x^alvav  xaxaxQL(5a)v. 

Consequently,  the  reading  veto  seems  to  me  to  be  as  safe  as  it  is 
palaeographically  possible.  Wotke,  however,  saw  in  the  manuscript  a 
P.. (I)  ("P..(JL)  soil  V[aticanus]  geben").  Von  der  Miihll,  F.:.'co  ("prima 
littera  aut  T  aut  P  fuisse  videtur"),  and  BoUack,  P...a).  They  then 
engaged  in  improbable  conjectures.  Wotke  and  Bailey  adopted  W. 
von  Hartel's  e'oxiv,  while  Von  der  Muhll  printed  yEVvaitp  and  conjec- 
tured YVT]ai(p.  But  Konstantin  Horna  (in  1931)"  correctly  suggested 
V£(p,  and  Arrighetti  adopted  it.  In  brief,  the  readings  of  Wotke,  Von 
der  Muhll,  Bailey  and  BoUack  are  wrong. 

The  second  word  of  our  aphorism  is  a  clear  jiqcoxt].  It  was  printed 
by  Wotke  (Bailey  and  Bollack),  but  omitted  by  Von  der  Muhll,  Horna, 
and  Arrighetti.  Probably  they  relied  upon  the  misleading  entry  in 
Wotke's  apparatus  criticus,  which  reads:  ""Eoxlv  jiqooxti]  P..a)  soil  V 
geben  :  verb.  H[artel];  man  konnte  auch  IlaixnQcbxTi  vermuten."  But 
in  fact  V  has:  v.'o)  jiQcbxr).  The  expression,  f)  JiQobxri  ^lolQa,  moreover, 
is  of  significance.  It  means,  "the  first  role,"  "the  best  way,"  "the  safest 
means." 

Finally,  the  closing  picturesque  expression  of  our  aphorism — al 
en;ii&Tj|iiai  al  olaxQcbdEig — is  a  deliberate  reminiscence  of  Plato  on  the 
part  of  Epicurus  {Tim.  91  b  6;  Laws  V,  734  a  4).^ 

Now,  this  vivid  Platonic  metaphor — "the  gadfly-like  desires,"  which 
sting  man  to  madness,  converting  him  into  an  irrational  animal — may 
help  us  to  solve  the  other  textual  problem  at  the  end  of  our  collection. 
Perhaps  a  similar  poetic  picturesque  expression  is  hiding  in  the 
corruption  of  aphorism  81.  I  would  like  to  suggest  the  following 
reading  of  this  aphorism. 

Ov  Xvei  xr]v  Tfjg  ^^X'H?  xagaxriv  ovbk  tt]v  a^ioXoyov  ajtoyevva  x^Qciv 
auTE  JtXoTJTog  tKctQxwv  6  neyioTog  oud'  f)  naQa  tolg  jioXkoic,  xifAT]  xal 
KeQipXex^^ig  out'  dXXo  xi  xwv  jiaQcx  xdg  olC^)Qdg  <aKX>EXOvq  alxiag. 

The  disturbance  of  the  soul  cannot  be  dispelled  nor  the  genuine  joy  be 
created  either  by  the  possession  of  the  greatest  wealth,  or  by  the  esteem 
and  admiration  one  may  enjoy  in  the  eyes  of  the  populace,  or  by 


'  Wiener  Studien  49  (1931),  34. 

'  As,  e.g.,  Bollack.  (p.  560)  had  pointed  out. 


Miroslav  Marcovich  193 

anything  else  deriving  from  the  wretched  unlimited  motives  (or  causes 
of  desires). 

For  the  suggested  OLl;DQdg  <a7i'K>eTOV(;  the  manuscript  seems  to 
offer,  at,vQ)o  exovo.  Wotke  read  a^i^QtaixoDg,  Von  der  Muhll,  dt,iJQi- 
oi{el)xovc„  and  Bollack,  at^.Q.oiTOVc,.  Now,  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
our  scribe  wrote  in  aphorism  No.  2,  ddavaxog,  for  the  correct,  6 
Mvaxog,  I  would  think  that  d^iJQlo  could  be  none  other  than  the 
poetic  expression,  ol^i^QCig,  "wretched,  toilsome,  dreary,  or  trouble- 
causing."  As  for  the  etovo,  I  think  it  is  lacunose,  being  the  ending  of 
another  attribute  of  the  keyword,  al  alxiai,  "the  motives  or  causes  of 
desires."  The  manuscript  abounds  in  similar — two  to  three  letters 
long — lacunae.  For  example,  in  aphorism  No.  14  the  word  xa  (  = 
xiJQiog)  is  missing  (extant  in  Stobaeus);  in  aphorism  No.  43  cp8i6E  .  .  . 
is  a  sure  (pEL6e<odai>  (from  Demosthenes  24.  172);  in  aphorism  No. 
55  our  scribe  offers  x6  yevog  for  the  correct  x6  YE<YO>v6g  (Usener); 
in  aphorism  No.  63  he  writes  xaOdQiog  for  the  correct  xa^aQL6<xri>g 
(Von  der  Muhll);  in  aphorism  No.  67  he  omits  <[ir\>  after  the  word 
x6  jiQdYl^a  (Usener),  and  so  on. 

Consequently,  the  suggested  supplement,  <dji?^>£XOD5  for  the 
transmitted  exodo,  seems  to  be  in  accord  with  the  scribe's  practice. 
"Aji^Exog  is  a  suitable  poetic  synonym  for  Epicurus'  key  terms  djiEiQog 
and  doQioxog,  when  applied  to  the  motives  or  causes  of  desires,  as  is 
the  case  with  our  aphorism.  Its  sense  is  "boundless,  unlimited, 
immense,"  with  the  overtone,  "excessive,  and  thus  harmful."  Consid- 
er these  similar  expressions  of  Epicurus:  Aphorism  No.  8  from  our 
collection  (  =  Ratae  ^^ententiae,  No.  15),  'O  xfjg  (pvoEU)^  nlovTOC,  xal 
WQtoxai  xal  EiJjioQtoxog  eoxiv,  6  be  xwv  xevcov  6o^d)v  Eig  qjieiqov 
exjitJixEi;  Aphorism  No.  63,  6  6l'  doQiaxiav  EXJtiJixtov;  Aphorism 
No.  59,  "AjiXrioxov  oi)  yaoxriQ,  wojieq  ol  jioXkoi  tpaoiv,  ahX  r\  66^a 
li^EDdrigiJjiEQ  xoij  <xfig>  7010x965  doQioxou  JiXYiQcbjiaxog;  Ratae  Senten- 
tiae  No.  10,  x6  JiEQag  xwv  EJiiduniwv;  No.  20,  'H  [lEv  odQ^  djt£Xa(3E  xd 
JiEQQxa  x\\z,  fi6ovf)g  ajiEiQa.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  "unlimited  and  excessive 
desires"  is  also  clearly  expressed  in  the  word  ODVEiQOVXEg  of  Epicurus' 
Letter  to  Menoeceus  132,  Oi)  yaQ  Jtoxot  xal  xtb^ioi  ouvEiQOVXEg  oi)6' 
djioXaiJOEig  JiaL6a)v  xal  Y^vaixoov  oi)6'  Ix^iJcov  xal  xd)v  dXXwv  60a 
q)£QEL  JioXuxEXfjg  XQdjiE^a  xov  f)6i)v  yevvd  (3tov.  .  .  .  The  word  implies, 
"continuous  pleasures,  night  after  night." 

For  the  suggested  reading,  Jiagd  xdg  oll^uQdg  <hiiK>txovz,  aixiag, 
scholars  usually  follow  Usener's  emendation,  Jiagd  xdg  ddioQioxoi^g 
alxiag.  So  did  Wotke,  Bailey,  Arrighetti  and  others.  This  reading, 
however,  does  not  find  support  in  the  manuscript.  Incidentally, 
ddiOQtaxog   would    mean,   "undefined,   indefinite,   loose,"   and   not 


194  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

"unlimited,  boundless."  That  is  why  I  find  Bailey's  commentary  on 
the  text,  T(I)v  Jiaga  tag  a.biOQioTOV(;  alxiag,  unconvincing;  it  reads: 
"lit.  'things  connected  with  unlimited  causes',  i.e.  causes  of  unlimited 
desire,  such  as  there  is  for  wealth,  honour,  power,  ^c.'"* 

One  final  note  on  the  sense  of  Jiaga  here.  Contrary  to  Bollack's 
recent  comment,  "il  est  preferable  de  faire  Jiagct  signifier  au  dela  de,  en 
dehors  de  .  .  .  ,""^  I  think  that  Tiaga  with  accusative  usually  means  in 
Epicurus,  "owing  to,  due  to,  depending  on."  Compare,  e.g.,  Letter  to 
Pythocles  ill,  xr\v  xe  ctcpaviaiv  xoijicov  yivEo^aL  Jiaga  xaq  avxixei^ievaq 
xai)xatg  alxiag;  or  Ratae  Sententiae  No.  29,  al  ejii'&aj^LaL  al  Jiagd  xEvfiv 
66^av  ytvofxevai;  and  especially  No.  30,  .  .  .  naqa  X8vr]v  66^av  aiJxai 
(al  EJiidujiiai)  ytvovxai,  xal  oi)  jcaga  xr)v  kavxdiv  cpijoiv  ov  6iaxeovxaL 
bXkoL  naQOi  xfjv  xov  av^^QWjiou  xevodo^iav. 

University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 


*  Op.  cit.  (above,  note  1),  pp.  119  and  388. — The  conjecture  suggested  by  Emil 
Thomas,  Hermes  27  (1892),  35,  abyioxvQioxovQ,,  "worauf  man  sich  nicht  stiitzen  kann," 
"unreliable,"  is  palaeographically  even  less  likely  (in  addition  to  the  fact  that  this  word  is 
documented  nowhere). 

^  Op.  at.  (above,  note  1),  p.  562  f. 


Indirect  Questions  in  Old  Latin: 

Syntactic  and  Pragmatic  Factors  Conditioning 

Modal  Shift 


LAURENCE  STEPHENS 


1.  Introduction 


In  Old  Latin  the  original  indicative  of  a  direct  question  is  not 
universally  shifted  into  the  subjunctive  to  form  an  indirect  question. 
Sometimes  modal  shift  occurs,  e.g.  PI.  Merc.  103,  vosmet  videte  quam 
mihi  valide  placuerit,  and  sometimes  it  does  not,  e.g.  PI.  Pseud.  \8,face 
me  certuni  quid  tihist.  (cf.  Cic.  Fac  me  certiorem  quando  adfuturus  sis).  Can 
particular  conditions  be  discerned  that  favor  modal  shift?  Are  there 
rules  governing  modal  shift  in  Old  Latin,  or  is  it  in  a  stage  of  more  or 
less  free  variation?  Scholars  such  as  Bennett,'  Lindsay,"  and 
Woodcock^  seem  to  suggest  the  latter  view  when  they  claim  that  both 
the  indicative  and  the  subjunctive  are  found  side  by  side  in  indirect 
questions  depending  on  the  same  main  verb.  Six  or  seven  cases  are 
commonly  cited:  ?\.  Amph.  17;  Cist.  57;  Most.  199  and  969;  Pers.  515; 
Ter.  Andr.  650;  and  Hecyr.  873-74.  All  of  these  cases  have  been 
disputed,  notably  by  Becker'*  and  Gaffiot.''  Gaffiot's  interpretation  of 

'  C.  E.  Bennett,  Syntax  uf  Early  Latin  J.  The  Verb  (Boston  1910),  p.  121. 

'  W.  M.  Lindsay,  Syntax  of  Plautus  (Oxford  1907),  p.  66. 

^  E.  C.  Woodcock,  A  New  Latin  Syntax  (Cambridge.  Mass.  1959),  p.  134. 

''  E.  Becker,  De  syntaxi  interrogatiunvm  obliquarum  apud  priscos  scriptores  Latinos. 
Studemunds  Studien  1  (1873),  pp.  113-314. 

'  F.  Gaffiot,  "Quelques  cas  d'interrogation  indirecte,"  Revue  de  Fhtlulogie  28  (1904), 
41-55. 


196  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

the  indicatives  at  PI.  Amph.  17,  Most.  969  and  Pers.  515  as  relative 
clauses  seems  rather  forced  but  raises  an  important  methodological 
point.  Interrogative  pronouns  are  distinct  from  relatives  only  in  some 
cases.  Any  preliminary  analysis  of  the  use  of  the  indicative  must  be 
limited  to  forms  that  are  clearly  interrogative.  At  PI.  Cist.  57  velis  is 
most  likely  not  an  instance  of  modal  shift,  but  a  potential  subjunctive 
used  like  veliyn.  {Cist.  57  belongs  to  Class  la  discussed  below  in  section 
2.)  This  raises  another  methodological  point:  any  preliminary  analysis 
of  modal  shift  must  be  limited  to  subjunctives  that  cannot  be  ascribed 
to  independent  uses  in  direct  questions.  The  remaining  cases  of 
indicatives  occurring  alongside  subjunctives  have  been  analyzed  as 
independent  exclamations  or  direct  questions.  I  agree  with  Braun- 
lich  ^  that  these  interpretations  seem  rather  unnatural,  and  I  do  not 
wish  to  argue  that  modal  shift  in  Old  Latin  is  governed  by  absolute 
and  categorical  rules  and  that  there  is  no  variation.  Rather,  we  should 
remember  that  there  are  about  two  thousand  potentially  dependent 
interrogative  clauses  in  Old  Latin,  and  these  six  or  seven  cases  should 
be  assessed  in  the  light  of  the  regularities  and  tendencies  which  obtain 
in  that  large  corpus.'' 

Wackernagel^  suggested  that  Old  Latin  modal  shift  was  a  gradient 
phenomenon,  depending  on  the  degree  of  dependency  of  the  inter- 
rogative clause:  "je  dezidierter  .  .  .  das  Abhangigkeitsverhaltnis  ist, 
um  so  eher  der  Konjunktive  gebraucht  wird."  Wackernagel,  however, 
did  not  specify  how  the  Abhdngigkeitsverhdltnis  is  to  be  assessed:  is  it 
syntactic,  semantic,  or  somehow  pragmatic  and  stylistic,  or  a  combina- 
tion of  some  or  all  of  such  factors?  Some  twenty  years  before 
Wackernagel,  Delbriick^  reached  exactly  the  opposite  conclusion. 
Pointing  to  apparently  contrasting  pairs  such  as  PI.  True.  499,  vide  quis 
loquitur  tarn  propinque.  (an  example  belonging  to  Class  1  discussed  in 
section  2),  and  PI.  Amph.  787,  vide  sis  signi  quid  siet,  (an  example 
belonging  to  Class  2  discussed  in  section  2),  Delbriick  asked: 

Wie  erklart  sich  diese  Anwendung  des  Subjunktivs?  Aus  der  Natur  des 
Abhangigkeitsverhaltnisses  kann  sie  nicht  folgen,  denn  bei  demselben 

*  A.  F.  Braunlich,  "The  Indicative  Indirect  Question  in  Latin"  (diss.,  Chicago  1929), 
pp.  XX,  16-17,  34. 

''  From  data  supplied  by  Bennett  (Syntax  of  Early  Latin),  I  calculate  that  only  19%  of 
the  ca.  1064  clearly  dependent  word  questions  in  Old  Latin  are  unshifted.  This 
proportion  is  sufBciently  small  to  suggest  that  it  is  the  retention  of  the  indicative,  and 
not  modal  shift,  that  is  the  more  restricted  variant. 

^J.  Wackernagel,  Vorlesmigen  iiber  Syntax  I  (Basel  1926),  p.  243. 

^  B.  Delbruck,  Vergleichende  Syntax  der  indogermanischen  Sprachen  3  (Strassburg  1900). 


Laurence  Stephens  197 

Verhaltnis  zeigen  sich  ja  auch  Indikative;  auch  nicht  aus  der  Natur  des 
Modus,  denn  sonst  wiirde  dieselbe  Anwendung  sich,  wohl  auch,  in  den 
verwandten  Sprachen  finden. 

Since  there  was,  in  his  opinion,  no  synchronic  regularity  in  Old  Latin 
modal  shift,  Delbriick  concluded  that  scholars  should  concentrate  on 
the  historical  linguistic  processes  through  which  modal  shift  arose  in 
Latin.  I  hope  to  show  in  this  article  that  just  the  reverse  research 
strategy  is  the  productive  one:  by  formulating  a  more  adequate 
synchronic  account  we  will  be  able  to  discover  new  aspects  of  the 
diachronic  processes  involved  in  the  development  of  modal  shift. '^ 

The  only  comprehensive  study  of  Old  Latin  modal  shift  is  that  of 
Eduard  Becker."  This  work  is  an  essential  starting  point  for  any 
study,  and  my  paper  is  clearly  much  indebted  to  it.  Becker's  work, 
however,  is  marred  by  a  tendency  to  emend  away  examples  that  do 
not  fit  his  arguments,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  to  what  extent  he 
succeeded  in  developing  an  explicit,  consistent,  and  systematic  theory. 
For  such  a  theory  we  must  turn  to  Haiim  Rosen's  recent  study. ''^ 
Rosen  advances  the  hypothesis  that:  "it  takes  a  verb  of  inquiry  (or 
response  to  an  inquiry  .  .  .)  to  cause  modal  shift." '^  The  full  set  of 
conditions  disjunctively  sufficient  for  Old  Latin  modal  shift  as  pro- 
posed by  Rosen  can  be  organized  into  four  classes  and  these  arranged 
to  reflect  increasing  generalization  of  the  domain  of  modal  shift,  with 
clear  diachronic  implications,  which,  however,  Rosen  does  not  dis- 
cuss: (1)  the  verb  of  the  main  clause  expresses  an  inquiry,  e.g.  rogo  at 
PI.  Pers.  635,  die  PI.  Bacch.  555,  narra  Ter.  Eun.  562;  (2)  a  response  to 
an  inquiry,  e.g.  dixi  PI.  Cure.  608,  scio  PI.  Capt.  1007;  (3)  reception  of  a 
response  to  an  inquiry,  e.g.  audivi  PI.  Amph.  745,  ex  hoc  .  .  .  scio  PI.  Capt. 
295;  (4)  ignorance  or  uncertainty,  even  when  no  desire  to  know  is 
expressed,  e.g.  nescire  passim,  interrogative  verbs  of  knowing,  e.g.  PI. 
Poen.  1121,  verbs  of  knowing  when  dependent  on  an  expression  of 
causation  or  intent,  e.g.  PI.  As.  140,  memorare  as  causative  o[  meminisse. 
However,  as  will  emerge  from  my  presentation  of  the  data  in  section 
2,  Rosen's  theory  is  not  only  incapable  of  explaining  the  full  range  of 
variability  in  the  philological  record,  but  is  also  simply  contradicted  in 

'°  Braunlich  (above,  note  6),  xvii-xxviii,  provides  a  useful  discussion  of  scholarship 
on  the  question  up  to  1920. 

"  De  syntaxi  interrogationum  obliqiiarum  (above,  note  4). 

'"  Haiim  B.  Rosen,  "On  some  grammatical  and  functional  values  of  the  subjunc- 
tive," in  Hannah  and  Haiim  B.  Rosen,  Oti  Moods  and  I^cum's  of  the  Latin  Verb  (Munich 
1980). 

'-''  Rosen,  op.  cit.,  p.  8. 


198  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

a  large  number  of  cases.  For  a  full  discussion  of  this  theory  see  my 
review  of  the  Rosens'  book.'"* 

2.  Preliminary  data  analysis 

The  work  of  Becker  and  Rosen  has  shown  that  an  adequate  account 
of  the  factors  that  condition  modal  shift  must  consider  the  utterance 
involving  the  question  (henceforth  Q-clause)  and  its  associated  verb  in 
relation  to  the  speech  situation  portrayed  and  to  its  discourse  func- 
tion. Of  the  various  criteria  that  have  been  employed  for  classifica- 
tion, the  following  appear  to  be  the  most  useful  for  a  preliminary 
organization  of  the  data:  (1)  In  what  sort  of  utterance  is  the  Q-clause 
involved? — inquiry,  exclamation,  command,  etc.;  (2)  If  in  an  inquiry, 
is  the  speaker  inquiring  about  the  Q-clause  or  about  its  associated 
verb?  (3)  If  the  inquiry  is  about  the  Q-clause,  does  the  speaker  want 
an  immediate  answer?  (4)  If  a  command,  what  is  the  addressee 
commanded  to  do? — find  out,  inquire  about,  make  a  statement  about 
or  simply  consider  the  Q-clause;  (5)  Is  the  topic  of  the  Q-clause  either 
established  in  the  discourse  or  present  in  the  speech  situation?  (6) 
What  is  the  syntactic  status  of  the  verb  associated  with  the  Q-clause? 
In  what  follows,  the  major  classes  of  verb  plus  Q-clause  that  result 
from  these  criteria  are  given  brief  labels.  These  labels  are  intended 
not  as  complete,  formal  definitions,  but  as  approximate,  descriptive 
mnemonics.  Tables  1-4  provide  representative  examples  in  addition 
to  those  cited  in  the  text.  Table  1  provides  examples  of  Q-clauses 
associated  with  verba  videndi,  Table  2  verba  sciendi,  Table  3  verba 
dicendi,  and  Table  4  verba  rogandi.  In  any  one  class  only  a  few 
examples  can  be  given  of  often  scores  of  similar  cases. 

2.1.  Class  la:  simple  inquiries. 

The  simplest  type  of  utterance  involving  a  Q-clause  and  associated 
verb  is  the  class  of  inquiries  made  by  the  speaker  concerning  the  Q- 
clause  to  which  he  wants  an  immediate  answer  and  in  which  the  topic 
of  the  Q-clause  is  present  or  established  in  the  discourse.  A  good 
example  of  this  class  is  PI.  True.  499,  cited  by  Delbruck  and  quoted  in 
section  1.  It  comes  from  the  beginning  of  Act  II,  scene  vi.  Strato- 
phanes  has  just  entered  and  given  a  speech.  Phronesium  asks  the 
question  of  her  maid  Astaphium,  who  answers  in  the  following  lines. 
Here  vide  introduces  a  simple  inquiry  to  which  Phronesium  expects 
an  immediate  answer.  The  topic  of  the  question  is  obviously  present 

''' L.  D.  Stephens,  Review  of  Hannah  and  Haiim  B.  Rosen  (above,  note  12), 
Language  58  (1982),  905-907. 


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at  hand  to  the  speakers.  In  all  cases  of  imperative  forms  ofvidere  used 
in  this  way,  even  when  the  literal  meaning  of  seeing  is  not  involved,  as 
at  Rud.  1002  in  Table  1,  modal  shift  regularly  does  not  occur  in  the  Q- 
clause.  As  Tables  2-4  show,  imperative  verbs  of  saying,  first  person 
present  tense  verbs  of  asking,  and  expressions  such  as  scire  volo  and/ac 
sciam  are  also  used  to  introduce  such  simple  inquiries.  This  fact 
proves  that  the  distinction  between  verba  videndi,  sciendi,  dkendi,  and 
rogandi  is  not  relevant  to  the  conditioning  of  modal  shift. 

Subclass  lb:  simple  inquiries  with  prolepsis. 

Subclass  lb  is  identical  to  la  simple  inquiries,  except  that  the 
sentences  in  lb  all  show  prolepsis  (or  anticipatio).  The  subject  of  the  Q- 
clause  has  been  removed  from  the  Q-clause  and  turned  into  an 
accusative  dependent  on  the  associated  verb.  Modal  shift  regularly 
applies  in  subclass  lb  irrespective  of  the  type  of  associated  verb. 

Subclass  Ic:  double  inquiries. 

In  subclass  Ic  the  speaker  is  still  making  an  inquiry  about  the  Q- 
clause  to  which  he  wants  an  immediate  answer,  but  he  is  also  asking 
whether  his  addressee  will  answer  the  question  simultaneously  being 
asked.  Modal  shift  regularly  occurs  in  subclass  Ic.  • 

Subclass  Id:  conjoined  inquiries. 

In  subclass  Id  the  imperative  verb  of  saying  is  syntactically  connect- 
ed by  a  conjunction  with  another  imperative  which  is  not  a  verb  of 
saying.  Modal  shift  regularly  applies  in  subclass  Id.  But  for  future 
reference  note  Id'  in  Table  3  where  two  verbs  of  saying  are 
coordinated  and  there  is  no  modal  shift  in  the  Q-clause. 

Subclass  le:  subordinated  inquiries. 

In  subclass  le  the  verb  of  saying  continues  to  introduce  a  question 
the  speaker  wishes  to  be  answered,  but  the  verb  is  part  of  a  final 
clause.  Modal  shift  regularly  occurs  in  subclass  le. 

2.2.  Class  2:  inquiries  about  Q-clauses  with  topics  not  present. 

Class  2  differs  from  class  la  simple  inquiries  in  that  the  topic  of  the 
Q-clause  is  not  immediately  present,  so  that  the  person  questioned 
cannot  give  an  immediate  response.  This  is  obvious  when  there  are 
two  imperatives  "go  and  see"  as  at  Ter.  Heaut.  871  in  Table  1,  but  it  is 
also  the  case  when  only  vide  occurs,  as  at  PI.  Most.  309,  where 
Philematium  tells  the  slave  to  get  dice,  which,  of  course,  are  not  on 
stage.  PI.  Amph.  787,  cited  by  Delbriick,  belongs  to  this  class.  Impera- 
tive verbs  of  asking  can  also  be  used  this  way,  and  a  related  usage  is 
found  when  the  speaker  intends  to  turn  the  attention  of  the  addressee 
to  the  question  he  is  about  to  ask,  as  at  Rud.   1148  with  the  future 


204  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

imperative,  in  Table  3.  Note  that  Daemones  actually  calls  for  an 
answer  from  Palaestra  four  lines  later  at  1 153:  locfuere  nunciam,  puella. 
Volo  scire  is  used  exactly  the  same  way  at  PI.  True.  779  in  Table  2; 
Callicles  only  commands  a  response  nine  lines  later:  loquere  tu.  Modal 
shift  regularly  applies  in  class  2. 

2.3.  Class  3:  question  descriptions. 

In  class  3  the  speaker  is  not  addressing  the  Q-clause  to  a  second 
person  in  order  to  obtain  an  answer;  rather  he  is  describing  a  question 
he  has  already  asked  or  one  that  he  will  ask  or  find  out  about  at  a  later 
time.  With  the  second  person  indicative  verbs  of  asking,  the  speaker  is 
describing  or  presenting  his  addressee  as  asking  a  question.  Class  3 
regularly  has  modal  shift. 

2.4.  Class  4:  commands  to  inquire  or  find  out. 

In  class  4  the  speaker  is  not  asking  a  question  to  obtain  an  answer  at 
all,  but  is  directing  a  second  person  to  find  out  or  to  consider 
something  for  the  second  person's  sake.  This  is  particularly  clear  in 
the  whole  interchange  between  Periplectomenus  and  Sceledrus  at  PI. 
Mil.  535--37: 

Pe.  vin  scire  plane?  Sc.  cupio.  Pe.  abi  Intro  ad  vos  domum. 
continue,  vide  sitne  istaec  vostra  intus.  Sc.  licet, 
pulchre  admonuisti. 

Modal  shift  regularly  occurs  in  class  4. 

2.5.  Class  5:  statements. 

Subclass  5a  consists  of  simple  declarative  statements:  no  question  is 
being  asked,  no  command  given.  Modal  shift  regularly  occurs  in  class 
5a.'^ 

Subclass  5b  consists  entirely  of  the  first  person  singular,  present 
indicative  5^0  immediately  preceding  the  Q-clause.  In  these  sentences 
scio  is  neither  syntactically  coordinated  nor  subordinated;  it  is  never 
qualified  or  intensified,  nor  is  it  used  in  contrast  with  nescio  or  other 
verbs  of  ignorance  and  doubting.  So  far  as  the  discourse  function  of 
subclass  5b  utterances  is  concerned,  it  differs  from  5a  in  that  they  are 
all  anticipations  of  a  second  person's  words,  sometimes  forestalling  an 
objection  as  at  Aul.  174.  Additional  examples  with  the  indicative  are: 
PI.  Bacch.  78  and  Mil.  36.  Modal  shift  usually  does  not  occur  in  subclass 
5b  in  Plautus,  but  note  Epid.  577  in  Table  2  with  modal  shift.  In 
Terence  and  later  authors,  however,  subclass  5b  seems  always  to  have 
modal  shift,  and  thus  is  merged  with  5a. 

'"^  See  the  apparatus  criticus  at  Ter.  Ad.  996. 


Laurence  ^Stephens  205 

2.6.  Class  6:  exclamations  about  present  topics  introduced  by  inter- 
rogative forms. 

In  class  6  we  have  the  interrogative  forms  viden  and  scin,  but  here  it 
is  not  used  in  an  inquiry,  i.e.  the  speaker  is  not  asking  whether  a 
second  person  actually  does  see  or  know  what  the  topic  of  the  Q- 
clause  refers  to.  In  fact  with  indeyi  the  topic  of  the  Q-clause  is  present 
at  hand  in  the  action  on  stage.  Furthermore  the  Q-clause  fimctions  as 
an  exclamation.  This  is  particularly  clear  in  Palinurus's  exclamation  at 
PI.  Cure.  186-88  in  Table  1.  (He  completes  his  exclamation  with  the 
sentence  nequeunt  complecti  satis.)  Modal  shift  does  not  occur  in  class  6. 

2.7.  Class  7:  inquiries  about  the  associated  verb. 

Class  7  differs  from  class  6  in  that  the  speaker  is  actually  inquiring 
whether  a  second  person  sees  or  knows.  There  are  apparently  no 
cases  with  the  form  viden,  but  non  vides  is  common,  as  is  scin.  We  can 
compare  the  similar  use  oi  audin  as  at  Ter.  Hec.  78  in  Table  1:  Scirtus 
is  not  on  stage,  but  in  the  house,  and  Parmeno  is  genuinely  inquiring 
if  Scirtus  has  heard  what  he  ordered  him  to  do.  Modal  shift  regularly 
occurs  in  class  7. 

2.8.  Class  8:  exclamations  about  present  topics  introduced  by  impera- 
tive forms. 

In  class  8  we  have  imperative  rather  than  interrogative  verb  forms. 
As  in  class  6  the  Q-clause  may  be  an  exclamation  regarding  something 
on  stage  (8a)  or  a  topic  already  described  in  discourse  (8b).  A  good 
example  of  8b  is  PI.  Stick.  410  in  Table  1,  where  Epignomus  had  just 
described  how  his  financial  success  had  got  him  back  in  the  good 
graces  of  his  father-in-law  Antipho.  Modal  shift  does  yiot  occur  in  class 
8. 

2.9.  Class  9:  presentations  of  new  topics. 

In  class  9  the  topic  of  the  Q-clause  is  not  already  established  in 
discourse.  For  example,  at  Ter.  Andr.  825  in  Table  1  Chremes  spells 
out  what  he  means  by  quam  iniquo'  sis  in  his  following  remarks  to  Simo. 
Modal  shift  regularly  occurs  in  class  9. 

2.10.  Class  10:  commands  to  make  statements. 

Finally  in  class  10  the  speaker  commands  a  second  person  to  tell 
something  to  a  third  person  or  persons.  Modal  shift  regularly  occurs 
in  class  10. 

3.  Preliminary  Generalizations 

To  summarize  the  results  of  section  2,  modal  shift  regularly  does  not 
apply  to  class  la  simple  inquiries,  class  5b  scio  anticipations,  class  6 
exclamations  about  present  topics  introduced  by  interrogative  forms, 


206  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

and  class  8  exclamations  about  present  topics  introduced  by  impera- 
tive forms.  In  all  the  other  classes  modal  shift  regularly  applies.  A 
number  of"  preliminary  generalizations  concerning  regularities  in 
modal  shift  emerge  from  the  foregoing  classificatory  scheme:  (1) 
Modal  shift  always  applies  to  Q-clauses  associated  with  third  person 
and  non-interrogative  second  person  indicative  verb  forms;  (2)  When 
the  topic  of  the  Q-clause  is  not  present  or  already  introduced  into  the 
discourse,  modal  shift  regularly  applies,  regardless  of  the  associated 
verb  form;  and  (3)  When  the  associated  verb  is  involved  in  certain 
syntactic  relations,  for  example  subordinated  in  a  final  clause,  coordi- 
nated with  imperatives  of  verbs  other  than  verba  dicendi,  or  governing 
a  proleptic  object,  modal  shift  regularly  applies  to  the  Q-clause, 
regardless  of  the  status  of  the  utterance  or  other  criteria.  These 
generalizations  and  the  very  fact  that  the  cases  with  modal  shift  could 
be  separated  from  the  cases  without  it  on  the  bases  of  externally 
defined  criteria  show  that  there  must  be  some  coherent  and  substan- 
tive principles  at  work.  It  remains  to  determine  what  is  directly 
relevant  and  what  is  redundant  and  how  factors  of  syntactic  structure 
may  interact  with  function  in  discourse  to  condition  modal  shift. 

4.  Considerations  of  Speech  Act  Theory 

Since  it  has  been  established  that  Old  Latin  modal  shift  is  conditioned 
by  speech  situation  and  discourse  function  (i.e.  conditioned  by 
pragmatic  factors)  as  well  as  by  syntactic  factors,  it  is  reasonable  to 
investigate  the  relevance  of  the  theory  of  speech  acts  as  developed  by 
J.  L.  Austin  and  popularized  by  J.  R.  Searle.'^  It  is  obvious  that  in 
actual  discourse  a  speaker  does  far  more  than  merely  make  state- 
ments: he  can  promise,  cajole,  advise,  warn,  introduce  new  topics, 
order,  request,  exclaim,  ask  questions,  and  so  on.  In  fact,  the  sort  of 
acts  just  indicated  are  varieties  of  one  of  three  simultaneous  acts 
involved  in  speaking.  Austin  distinguished  "locutionary  acts,"  the 
making  of  an  utterance,  from  "illocutionary  acts,"  the  acts  performed 
simply  by  making  an  utterance  (asking,  promising,  exclaiming,  etc.), 
and  both  of  these  from  "perlocutionary  acts,"  the  results  intended  by 

'^  The  literature  on  speech  acts  has  become  enormous  since  J.  L.  Austin's  How  to  Do 
Things  with  Words  (Oxford  1962),  and  especially  since  J.  R.  Searle's  Speech  Acts 
(Cambridge  1969).  An  admirable  presentation  is  given  by  John  Lyons  {Semantics  2 
[Cambridge  1977],  pp.  725-86).  See  also  S.  C.  Levinson,  Pragmatics  (Cambridge  1983), 
pp.  226-83.  My  arguments  do  not  depend  on  any  specific  version  of  speech  act  theory 
and  will  remain  valid  on  an  approach  which  seeks  to  subsume  speech  act  theory  under 
more  general  pragmatic  theories  of  utterance  function  and  intent. 


Laurence  Stephens  207 

making  an  utterance,  such  as  obtaining  an  answer.  I  shall  argue  that  it 
is  the  illocutionary  status  of  the  verb  associated  with  the  Q-clause  that 
is  crucially  involved  in  determining  whether  modal  shift  takes  place. 
There  is  a  distinction  to  be  drawn  between  linguistic  form  and 
structure  on  the  one  hand  and  the  use  of  that  structure  in  discourse 
on  the  other.  As  noted  in  the  descriptions  of  class  6  exclamations 
introduced  by  interrogative  forms  and  class  7  inquiries  about  the 
associated  verb  (in  which  that  verb  is,  of  course,  also  interrogative  in 
form),  not  every  use  of  an  interrogative  form  such  as  scin  or  audin 
involves  the  illocutionary  act  of  questioning.  In  English,  if  we  say  at 
the  dinner  table  "Could  you  pass  me  the  salt?"  we  are  making  a 
request,  not  asking  a  question.  From  the  perlocutionary  point  of  view, 
we  intend  to  get  the  person  to  pass  the  salt,  not  to  answer  yes  or  no. 
The  actual  illocutionary  force  is  that  of  a  request;  the  grammatical 
form  determines  only  the  incidental  illocutionary  force.  Such  indirect 
speech  acts  are,  of  course,  associated  with  considerations  of  politeness 
and  the  tone  that  the  speaker  wishes  to  adopt. '^  Similarly  in  an 
utterance  such  as  rogo,  quid  est,  rogo  does  not  make  a  statement;  it  is 
part  of  the  illocutionary  act  of  asking  the  question;  it  is  a  performative 
verb.  Performative  verbs  can  serve  to  make  the  illocutionary  force  or 
an  utterance  explicit.  When  they  do,  they  are  always  first  person, 
primary  tense  (and,  interestingly,  in  English  never  progressive  in 
aspect).  Performative  verbs  need  not  be  overtly  present.  Quid  est?  also 
has  the  illocutionary  force  of  a  question.  Quid  est?  is  a  primary 
performative;  rogo  quid  est  an  explicit  performative.  If  primary  and 
explicit  performatives  are  not  completely  identical  in  meaning,  they 
are  nevertheless  very  similar.  In  fact  performative  verbs  resemble  in  a 
number  of  ways  what  are  called  parenthetical  verbs  used  in  making 
statements.  In  the  utterance  "John  will  be  here  at  eight  o'clock,  I 
think"  the  words  "I  think"  are,  as  Urmson  says,  "Used  to  modify  or 
weaken  the  claim  to  truth  implied  by  a  simple  assertion."'^  They  do 
not  serve  to  describe  the  speaker's  act  of  cognition.  Similarly  in  the 
utterance  "I  ask  you,  what  would  you  have  done?"  the  performative 
verb  "ask"  makes  explicit  the  illocutionary  force — perhaps  indicating 

'^  In  general  an  indirect  speech  act  can  be  performed  by  stating  or  questioning  one 
of  the  felicity  conditions  on  an  explicit  speech  act;  see  D.  Gordon  and  G.  Lakoff, 
"Conversational  postulates,"  Papers  fmm  the  Seventh  Regional  Meeting  of  the  Chicago 
Linguistic  Society  (Chicago  1971),  63-84.  This  principle  seems  to  be  a  language  (culture) 
universal;  see  P.  Brown  and  S.  Levinson,  "Universals  in  language  usage:  politeness 
phenomena,"  in  E.  Goody,  Questions  and  Politeness:  Strategies  in  Social  Interaction 
(Cambridge  1978),  56-311. 

'^J.  O.  Urmson,  "Parenthetical  verbs,"  Mmd  61  (1952),  480. 


208  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

I  am  asking  a  real  question,  not  just  posing  a  rhetorical  one.  Such 
performative  verbs  can  be  characterized  as  modulations  of  the 
illocutionary  force  of  the  utterance  in  which  they  appear.  The 
important  point  is  that  verbs  can  be  illocutionary  modulations  only 
when  they  partake  of  at  least  the  same  general  illocutionary  force  as 
the  rest  of  the  utterance  would  in  their  absence.  We  can  see  this  very 
clearly  when  we  contrast  an  utterance  like  "I  asked  you  what  you 
would  have  done."  This  is  a  report,  a  description  of  the  speech  act  of 
questioning;  it  is  not  itself  a  question,  and  "asked"  is  not  an  illocution- 
ary modulation  of  the  Q-clause.  For  future  reference  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  Lyons  has  suggested  that  "it  is  .  .  .  possible  that  the  surface 
structure  status  of  a  performative  main  verb  should  be  accounted  for 
by  a  grammatical  rule  which  operates  on  two  juxtaposed,  or  paratacti- 
cally  associated,  clauses,  neither  of  which  is  subordinate  to  the 
other."'^ 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  failure  of  modal  shift  was  restricted 
to  just  the  following  classes:  la  (simple  inquiries),  5b  (scio  anticipa- 
tions), 6  (exclamations  about  present  topics  introduced  by  interroga- 
tive forms),  and  8  (exclamations  introduced  by  imperative  forms).  All 
of  these  classes  share  a  common  characteristic.  The  verb  associated 
with  the  Q-clause  partakes  of  the  same  illocutionary  force  as  the  Q- 
clause  could  have  by  itself.  This  status  of  the  associated  verb  is  most 
obvious  for  the  first  person,  present  tense  indicative  verbs  of  asking  of 
class  la.  Interrogo  at  PI.  Amph.  438  and  rogo  at  Pseud.  97 1  in  Table  4  are 
(in  spite  of  Lindsay's  punctuation)  typical  first  person,  present  tense 
forms  used  as  direct  performative  verbs  in  explicit  performative 
utterances.  The  relevance  of  the  illocutionary  status  of  the  associated 
verb  is  established  by  the  minimal  contrast  provided  by  the  morpho- 
logically identical  forms  interrogo  and  rogo  as  used  in  class  3  question 
descriptions,  where  modal  shift  occurs.  At  PI.  Cap.  509  and  True.  650 
neither  rogo  nor  interrogo  can  be  performatives,  for  both  are  historical 
presents  used  to  narrate  previous  acts  of  questioning.  The  illocution- 
ary force  of  these  utterances  is  constative,  i.e.  they  are  statements,  not 
questions.  Consequently  rogo  and  interrogo  cannot  here  be  illocution- 
ary modulations  of  the  Q-clause  (or  its  unshifted  form).  Unlike  rogo 
and  interrogo,  the  verbs  of  saying,  seeing,  and  knowing  of  class  la  are 
not  simple,  direct  performatives.  They  are  all  imperative  forms  (or 
involving  volo,  expeto  and  the  like),  but  their  illocutionary  force  is  not 
that  of  a  command  or  request  to  do  anything  more  than  what  is 
implicit  already  in  the  act  of  asking  a  question.  This  fact  enables  us  to 

"*  Lyons  (above,  note  16),  p.  782. 


Laurence  Stephens  209 

explain  why  the  questions  of  class  la  simple  inquiries  are  all  restricted 
to  topics  that  are  immediately  present.  A  genuine  question  cannot  be 
felicitously  asked  of  a  person  who  could  not  reasonably  be  assumed  to 
know  the  answer.  If  the  topic  were  not  present  or  known  to  the 
addressee,  this  condition  of  felicity  would  not  be  met,  and,  as  a  result, 
the  imperatives  would  not  introduce  questions,  but  necessarily  be 
actual  commands  to  see  or  observe.  Such,  of  course,  is  precisely  the 
status  of  the  imperatives  in  class  2  inquiries  about  topics  not  present 
where  modal  shift  regularly  applies.  Thus  class  2  provides  another 
minimal  contrast  with  class  la  that  confirms  the  hypothesis  that  it  is 
the  status  of  the  associated  verb  as  an  illocutionary  modulation  that 
blocks  modal  shift. 

Class  6  (exclamations  about  present  topics  introduced  by  interroga- 
tive forms)  and  class  8  (similar  exclamations  introduced  by  imperative 
forms)  show  a  parallel  relationship  between  their  verbs  and  the 
associated  Q-clauses.  In  these  utterances,  unlike  those  of  class  la 
(simple  inquiries),  the  Q-clause  does  not  partake  of  the  illocutionary 
force  of  questioning;  rather  these  utterances  are  exclamations  or 
presentations  of  discourse  topics.  We  have  already  seen  that  the 
interrogatives  in  class  6  are  used  indirectly  and  that  they  are  equiva- 
lent in  illocutionary  force  to  the  imperatives  of  class  8.  Now  the  act  of 
making  an  exclamation  or  presenting  a  topic  in  discourse  necessarily 
involves  bringing  the  topic  to  the  attention  of  the  addressee.  There  is 
no  additional  illocutionary  force  to  viden  and  vide  in  classes  6  and  8; 
they  are  not  autonomous  commands  or  questions.  This  fact  allows  us 
to  explain  why,  just  as  in  class  la  simple  inquiries,  the  topic  of  the  Q- 
clauses  in  classes  6  and  8  concerns  matters  present  on  stage  or 
established  in  discourse.  One  of  the  conditions  for  the  felicity  of  a 
simple  exclamation  is  that  the  addressee  can  reasonably  be  assumed  to 
know  what  it  is  that  is  being  exclaimed  about.  This  condition  is  not 
met  in  class  9,  and,  consequently,  the  imperatives  in  9  have  the 
illocutionary  force  of  a  command  to  pay  attention  or  consider 
something  new.  Thus  a  minimal  contrast  parallel  to  that  between  class 
la  simple  inquiries  about  present  topics  and  class  2  inquiries  about 
absent  topics  obtains  between  classes  6  and  8  on  the  one  hand  and 
class  9  on  the  other. 

The  status  of  the  associated  verb  as  an  actual  command  and  not  an 
illocutionary  modulation  of  the  Q-clause  is  obvious  also  in  class  10 
(commands  to  make  statements).  Here  the  imperatives  of  the  verbs  of 
saying  are  genuine  commands  to  tell  or  describe  something  to  a  third 
person.  The  imperatives  of  verbs  of  asking  of  class  4  (commands  to 
inquire  or  find  out)  are  exactly  parallel. 


210  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

The  relation  of  the  imperatives  of  verbs  of  asking  in  class  2 
(inquiries  about  topics  not  present)  to  those  same  forms  in  class  4  is 
instructive.  In  class  2  the  addressee  is  ordered  to  ask  a  question  of  a 
third  party  with  the  perlocutionary  intent  that  he  inform  the  speaker; 
in  class  4  the  speaker  has  no  such  perlocutionary  object  in  mind.  Since 
modal  shift  is  obligatory  in  both  classes,  it  is  clear  that  perlocutionary 
differences  are  not  relevant  to  modal  shift.  This  fact  permits  us  to 
unite  the  interrogative  verbs  of  saying  of  class  Ic,  where  the  speaker 
actually  wants  an  answer  to  the  question  implicit  in  the  Q-clause,  with 
the  interrogative  forms  of  verbs  of  seeing  of  class  7,  where  there  is  no 
inquiry  implicit  in  the  utterance.  The  illocutionary  force  of  the 
associated  verb  in  both  classes  is  interrogative,  but  in  respect  to  the 
second  person  action  of  the  verb,  not  only  that  of  the  Q-clause.  Thus 
these  interrogatives  cannot  be  illocutionary  modulations. 

Of  the  ten  major  classes,  only  class  5  (statements)  remains  to  be 
discussed.  In  class  5a  the  associated  verb  has  constative  illocutionary 
force,  i.e.  it  is  making  a  statement.  Consequently,  these  verbs  cannot 
be  modulations,  since  making  a  statement  cannot  be  done  by  asking  a 
question.  Furthermore,  we  can  unite  class  3  question  descriptions 
with  class  5a  statements  all  as  constative  utterances. 

Class  5b  {scio  anticipations)  requires  some  discussion.  This  class 
constitutes  a  special  sort  of  speech  act.  The  illocutionary  force  of^ scio  is 
not  constative  as  in  5a.  The  speaker  is  not  really  asserting  his 
knowledge;  rather,  he  is  anticipating  the  second  person's  next  re- 
marks or  forestalling  objections.  This  distinction  emerges  in  the 
contrast  between  PI.  Men.  764**,  which  is  clearly  a  class  5a  constative 
utterance,  and  PI.  Aul.  174  or  Stick.  1 12.  The  same  anticipatory  force 
oi scio  is  also  found  when  the  verb  is  not  associated  with  a  Q-clause,  as 
at  PI.  Merc.  164  ff.,  where  Charinus  interrupts  Acanthio.  Note  that5f?o 
is  followed  by  oratio  recta. 

Ac.  immo  es — Ch.  scio  iam,  miserum  dices  tu.  Ac.  dixi  ego  tacens. 

Thus  in  class  5b,  scio  is  also  a  modulation  of  the  utterance's  illocution- 
ary force.  The  relationship  between  scio  and  its  associated  Q-clause  in 
class  5b  is  parallel  to  that  between  sci7i  and  its  associated  Q-clause  in 
class  6.  This  parallelism  is  particularly  clear  in  the  case  of  echo-retorts 
such  as  PI.  Poen.  1318.  Consequendy  the  two  classes  may  be  united,  at 
least  for  Plautus.  It  is  important,  however,  to  point  out  that  class  5b 
does  not  exist  in  Terence  as  a  block  to  modal  shift.  At  Ter.  Heaut.  626 
ff.  Chremes  is  clearly  anticipating  what  his  wife  Sostrata  is  about  to  say 
concerning  her  child,  yet  the  interrupdon  shows  modal  shift: 


Laurence  Stephens  211 

So.   Meministin   me  ess(e)   gravidam  et  mihi  te   maxumo  opere  edicere, 

si  puellam  parerem,  nolle  toUi?  Ch.  scio  quid  feceris: 

sustulisti. 

In  fact,  already  in  Plautus  there  is  probably  variation  in  modal  shift  in 
these  anticipatory  utterances,  since  PI.  Epid.  bll  in  Table  2,  which  has 
modal  shift,  seems  fairly  certainly  to  belong  to  class  5b.  Thus  in  class 
5b  we  have  evidence  for  syntactic  change  in  progress  in  Plautus  that  is 
already  complete  in  Terence. 

To  summarize:  in  all  cases  where  modal  shift  fails  to  apply,  the  verb 
associated  with  the  Q-clause  is  a  modulation  of  the  illocutionary  force 
that  the  Q-clause  would  have  if  used  independently.  This  rule  allows 
us  to  explain  why  failure  of  modal  shift  is  found  only  in  association 
with  primary  tense  verb  forms  in  the  first  person  and  the  imperative 
or  interrogative  form  having  indirect  illocutionary  force;  it  is  only  in 
these  forms  that  verbs  can  be  used  as  illocutionary  modulations  of  a 
Q-clause. 

5.  Grammatical  Conditioning  of  Modal  Shift 

We  must  now  consider  whether  there  is  any  purely  gramr»atical 
conditioning  of  modal  shift  in  addition  to  the  conditioning  deter- 
mined by  the  illocutionary  status  of  the  associated  verb.  The  subclass- 
es lb  (inquiries  with  prolepsis),  Ic  (double  inquiries).  Id  (conjoined 
inquiries),  and  le  (subordinated  inquiries)  were  initially  grouped 
together  with  la  (simple  inquiries)  on  the  basis  of  shared  perlocution- 
ary  force  and  distinguished  in  syntactic  terms.  We  have  seen,  howev- 
er, that  perlocutionary  force  is  irrelevant  to  modal  shift,  and  further 
that  class  Ic  modal  shift  can  be  explained  by  the  actual  illocutionary 
force  of  the  associated  verb.  Furthermore,  the  contrast  of  PI.  Pers.  664 
at  Id'  in  Table  3  (without  modal  shift)  shows  that  the  syntactic 
structure  of  coordinated  imperatives  is  not  sufficient  by  itself  to  entail 
modal  shift.  Rather,  in  Id'  the  two  imperatives  eloquere  actutum  atque 
indica  are  pleonastic;  both  of  them  have  the  same  illocutionary  force 
and  are  equally  modulations.  Thus  Id'  can  be  united  with  class  la 
(simple  inquiries).  In  subclass  Id  itself,  however,  the  imperative  verb 
of  saying  is  coordinated  with  an  imperative  that  expresses  a  genuine 
command,  for  example  redduc  uxorem.  Thus  these  imperative  verbs  of 
saying  also  express  actual  commands  to  speak.  As  a  result  subclass  Id 
can  be  united  with  class  2  (inquiries  about  topics  not  present),  where 
the  imperatives  also  have  the  illocutionary  force  of  actual  commands. 
We  come  closer  to  genuine  syntactic  conditioning  in  subclass  le,  but 
only  in  the  sense  that  a  verb  subordinated  in  a  final  clause  cannot  have 


212  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

the  sort  of  illocutionary  force  required  if  it  is  to  be  a  modulation  of  the 
utterance  as  a  whole. 

This  leaves  us  with  subclass  lb  (inquiries  with  prolepsis  of  the 
subject  of  the  Q-clause).  The  utterances  in  class  lb  do  not  seem  to 
differ  from  those  of  la  from  the  point  of  view  of  speech  act  theory: 
they  all  involve  acts  of  questioning.  This  is  quite  clear  when  we 
compare  Pistoclerus's  question  to  Mnesilochus  at  PI.  Bacch.  555,  die 
niodo  hominem  qui  sit,  with  his  question  at  Bacch.  553  also  addressed  to 
Mnesilochus,  and  having  exactly  the  same  force,  opsecro  hercle  loquere, 
quis  is  est?  The  only  difference  between  these  sentences  is  that  the  one 
at  Bacch.  555  shows  prolepsis,  or  anticipatio;  the  subject  of  the  Q- 
clause,  homo,  has  been  moved  out  of  the  Q-clause  and  made  the  object 
of  the  associated  verb.  At  Bacch.  553,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pronoun 
is  remains  within  the  Q-clause  as  its  subject.  Prolepsis  is  described  in 
modern  generative  grammar  as  the  transformation  called  Raising  to 
Object.  In  analyzing  the  syntactic  conditions  on  modal  shift  we  must 
be  careful  to  distinguish  similar  surface  syntactic  structures  which  do 
not  result  from  Raising  to  Object.  For  example  at  PI.  Pseud.  261  Jiosce 
saltern  hunc  quis  est  cannot  be  a  case  of  prolepsis,  since  noscere  is  not 
used  absolutely  by  Plautus,  and  consequently  there  is  no  modal  shift. 
It  is  not  entirely  certain  that  modal  shift  is  obligatory  with  prolepsis  in 
the  sense  of  Raising  to  Object,  cf.  PI.  Pseud.  1184  chlamydem  hanc 
commemora  quanti  conductast.  Commeniorare,  however,  differs  from  dicere 
in  the  senses  in  which  it  can  take  a  direct  object,  so  that  it  would  be 
possible  to  argue  that  PI.  Pseud.  1184  is  not  a  genuine  case  of 
prolepsis.  A  categorical  distinction  should  probably  not  be  insisted  on, 
and  variation  in  modal  shift  might  be  expected  in  cases  where  either 
syntactic  analysis  is  possible. 

While  prolepsis  (in  the  sense  of  Raising  to  Object)  appears  to  be  a 
purely  syntactic  factor  that  conditions  modal  shift  in  Old  Latin,  the 
association  between  these  two  syntactic  processes  may  have  been 
pragmatic  in  origin.  Prolepsis  is  typically  a  topicalizing  transforma- 
tion, i.e.  it  is  typically  used  to  highlight  the  noun  phrase  topic  of 
discourse  by  moving  it  to  an  earlier,  more  exposed  position.  This 
function  can  be  seen  quite  clearly  at  PI.  Trin.  871  ff.  The  Sycophanta 
has  been  knocking  on  the  door  of  the  senex  Charmides.  Charmides 
steps  out  and  asks  him 

quid,  adulescens,  quaeris?  quid  vis?  quid  istas  pultas? 
and  the  Sycophanta  finally  answers  with  the  sentence 

Lesbonicum  hie  adulescentem  quaero  in  his  regionibus 
ubi  habitet. 


Laurence  Stephens  213 

The  prolepsis  of  Lesboyiicum  immediately  introduces  the  topic  of  the 
inquiry.  The  Sycophanta's  utterance  can  be  regarded  as  a  complex 
speech  act:  a  statement  in  answer  to  Charmides'  question,  the 
introduction  of  a  topic  (obviously  unknown)  to  Charmides,  and  finally 
a  question  about  that  topic.  Such  an  utterance  satisfies,  on  several 
counts,  the  conditions  we  have  already  established  as  sufficient  to 
cause  modal  shift.  Since  a  large  number  of  utterances  showing 
prolepsis  would  be  involved  in  topic  introduction  and  would,  there- 
fore, already  require  modal  shift,  the  characteristic  conditions  for 
analogical  extension  would  be  established;  modal  shift  could  be 
readily  generalized  to  other  utterances  showing  prolepsis,  probably 
along  a  scale  of  discourse  saliency,  leading  to  modal  shift  in  cases  such 
as  PI.  Bacch.  555.  PI.  Pseud.  1 184,  just  discussed,  could  be  taken  as 
evidence  for  this  hypothesis  of  a  hierarchy  of  saliency.  At  PI.  Pseud. 
1 184  the  topic  is  present  in  the  discourse  situation — chlamydem  hanc — 
so  that  this  utterance  meets  the  illocutionary  criteria  sufficient  to 
block  modal  shift. 

Having  formulated  the  hypothesis  that  modal  shift  is  blocked  by 
the  status  of  the  associated  verb  as  an  illocutionary  modulation,  we 
can  see  that  where  modal  shift  fails  to  apply  we  do  not  have  in  fact 
indirect  questions  in  the  sense  of  oratio  obliqua  at  all,  but  rather 
genuine  speech  acts  of  questioning,  exclaiming,  and  so  on.  On  the 
other  hand,  where  the  associated  verb  is  not  an  illocutionary  modula- 
tion of  the  Q-clause,  the  clause  really  is  an  indirect  question,  exclama- 
tion, etc.  Accordingly  we  can  formulate  a  rule  that  brings  Old  Latin 
closer  to  Classical  Latin  than  has  been  previously  appreciated:  in  Old 
Latin  modal  shift  is  obligatory  in  all  indirect  questions.  On  this 
approach  Old  and  Classical  Latin  differ  not  in  the  syntax  of  indirect 
questions,  but  in  the  definition  of  what  constitutes  indirect  questions. 
In  Old  Latin  indirect  question  status  is  defined  pragmatically  in  terms 
of  the  illocutionary  status  of  the  associated  verb;  in  Classical  Latin  it  is 
generally  defined  in  terms  of  the  surface  syntactic  structure. 

We  can  see  that  more  was  involved  in  the  evolution  of  the  syntax  of 
indirect  questions  out  of  paratactic  structures  than  a  purely  syntactic 
process  of  generalization  from  deliberative  questions.  The  evolution 
was  conditioned  by  pragmatic,  speech  act  factors,  and  already  by  the 
time  of  Plautus  we  see  the  beginnings  of  the  stage  that  will  lead  to  the 
situation  in  Classical  Latin.  In  Old  Latin  a  substantial  number  of  all  Q- 
clauses  associated  with  verbs  were  already  subject  to  modal  shift, 
whether  for  reasons  of  illocutionary  status  or  for  the  syntactic  reason 
of  prolepsis.  A  re-analysis  of  the  conditioning  factors  as  syntactic  was 
the  next  step.  We  have  seen  evidence  of  two  areas  in  which  this  re- 


214  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

analysis  began.  Regular  modal  shift  in  subclass  lb  inquiries  with 
prolepsis  introduced  a  purely  syntactic  condition.  Modal  shift  was 
then  generalized  proceeding  through  similar  syntactic  structures  such 
as  those  produced  by  Equi-NP  Deletion.  The  second  area  is  the 
restricted  class  of  scio  plus  Q-ciause  anticipations  of  class  5b.  This 
subclass  was  open  to  interpretation  as  declarative  sentences  like  5a 
and  the  extension  of  modal  shift  further  encouraged  by  the  over- 
whelming frequency  of  modal  shift  in  Q-clauses  associated  with  all 
other  occurrences  of  forms  of  scire. 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


Caesar's  Bibracte  Narrative 
and  the  Aims  of  Caesarian  Style 


MARK  F.  WILLIAMS 


The  distinctive  characteristics  of  Caesarian  prose  style  are  widely  if 
imperfectly  known,  but  Caesar's  merits  as  a  stylist  are  still  argued. 
Paradoxically,  much  of  the  debate  has  as  its  origin  the  domination  of 
our  standards  of  good  Latinity  and  good  prose  style  by  Cicero,  who 
himself  praised  the  style  of  Caesar's  commentarii  in  a  well-known 
passage  from  the  Brutus  (§262).  Whether  Cicero  is  being  disingenuous 
in  this  passage  is  debatable,'  but  the  fact  remains  that  Cicero 
commended  the  prose  style  of  the  political  enemy  over  whose 
assassination  he  later  gloated  unashamedly.  The  Brutus  passage  does 
not  seem  to  be  ironic;"  and  the  fact  that  Cicero's  praise  of  Caesarian 
style  does  not  appear  to  follow  from  the  dictates  he  lays  down 
regarding  good  historical  style  may  be  attributed  to  the  generic 
differences  between  history  and  commentarii? 

Until  recently  Caesarian  prose  style  has  fared  less  well  at  the  hands 
of  modern  critics  than  it  did  at  the  hands  of  Caesar's  contemporary 
enemies.  For  example,  Netdeship  prefaces  his  harsh  condemnation  of 


'  H.  C.  Gotoff,  "Towards  a  Practical  Criticism  of  Caesar's  Prose  Style"  (Illinois 
Classical  Studies  IX.  1  [Spring,  1984],  pp.  1-18),  p.  2,  note  3,  raises  the  possibility  that 
Cicero  may  be  "grovelling"  in  the  Brutus  passage. 

~  But  see  P.  T.  Eden,  "Caesar's  Style:  Inheritance  versus  Intelligence,"  Glotta  40 
(1962),  pp.  74-1 17,  esp.  pp.  74  ff.,  on  the  possibility  that  Cicero  is  referring  ruefully  to 
the  reception  accorded  his  own  commentarii. 

^  Not  even  Livy  fulfilled  the  demands  Cicero  made  upon  historical  style  (in,  for 
example,  De  or.  2.51-64);  but  most  literary  manifestos  are  more  honored  in  the  breach. 
See  T.  J.  Luce,  Livy.  The  Composition  of  His  Histoiy  (Princeton  1977),  pp.  181  ff. 


216  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

Caesar  both  as  an  individual  and  as  a  stylist  with  the  assertion 
(impossible  to  prove)  that  "while  much  of  Cicero's  writing  has  come 
down  to  us  in  its  most  finished  shape,  nothing  of  Caesar's  remains  but 
his  most  carelessly  written  work."  He  continues: 

h  must  be  pointed  out  that  (Cicero's  success  was  not  due  merely  to  his 
having  mastered  the  laws  of  prose  rhythm,  nor  merely  to  his  general 
power  as  a  stylist.  His  mind  was  of  the  poetical  and  imaginative  order, 
while  Caesar's,  manly,  sound,  and  robust,  was  without  a  touch  of 
poetry.  Strength  of  passion  Caesar  lias,  but  no  imagination.'' 

It  is  a  truism  that  Caesar  was  not  a  Ciceronian,  but  too  many  critical 
evaluations  of  Caesarian  style  issue  from  canons  of  taste  that  are 
basically  Ciceronian,  with  predictable  results.  For  example,  although 
he  avoids  the  more  extreme  Ciceronian  prejudices  of  Nettleship,  J.  J. 
Schlicher,  in  his  otherwise  excellent  analysis  of  Caesarian  style,  taxes 
the  first  book  of  the  Bellum  GalUcum  with  being  o\'er-precise  and 
argumentative,  with  using  an  old-fashioned  mode  of  expression,  and 
with  being  not  yet  adapted  to  a  narrative  technique."^  Such  a  view  of 
Caesarian  prose  style  presupposes  (although  Schlicher  does  not  say 
so)  a  sort  of  stylistic  evolution  that  moved  ineluctably  from  the  old 
annalists  to  Ciceronian  periodicity,  with  Caesar — at  least  in  BG  I — 
certainly  looking  to  the  past,  perhaps  ruefully  looking  forward  to  a 
stylistic  future  he  was  not  yet  capable  of  fitting  into.  This  is  an 
assumption  hard  to  credit  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  leading  orators  of 
the  late  Republic,  but  it  is  the  assumption,  I  think,  that  lies  at  the  heart 
of  most  TuUiocentric  analyses  of  Caesar's  prose  style. 

Even  a  fairly  strict  reliance  upon  empirical  analysis  of  Caesar's  style 
does  not  render  one  immune  from  Ciceronian  prejudices;  even  P.  T. 
Eden,  despite  his  attempts  to  stand  upon  empirically  firm  groiuid  in 
his  analysis  of  Caesar's  stylistic  debt  to  the  annalists,  falls  prey  to  his 
own  preference  for  Cicero: 

The  style  and  syntax  of  Caesar,  or  at  any  rate  that  hnmemc  number  of 
stylistic  and  syntactic  practices  he  shares  ivith  Cicero,  have  long  since  been 
consecrated  as  paradigms.  They  have  become  the  standards  to  which 
the  Latinity  of  others,  Roman  jurists  no  less  than  modern  students,  is 
explicitly  or  implicitly  referred.  This  canonical  status  is  no  doubt 
endrely  justifiable  .  .  .  [my  italics].*' 

"  H.  Nettleship,  "The  Historical  Development  of  C:iassical  Latin  Prose,"  fournal  of 
Philology  15  (1886),  p.  47. 

'  J.  J.  Schlicher,  "The  Development  of  Caesar's  Narrative  Stvle,"  Classicol  Philology 
21  (1936),  pp.  212  ff. 

^Eden,  op.  nl.,  p.  74. 


Mark  F.  Williams  217 

This  is  not  to  say,  however,  that  Eden's  critique  is  without  merit.  The 
great  strengths  of  Eden's  analysis  are,  first,  his  attempt  at  a  sort  of 
"empirical  fair-mindedness"  and,  second,  his  constant  recognition 
that,  in  comparing  the  literary  remains  of  Caesar  and  Cicero,  one  is 
comparing  (at  least)  two  very  different  literary  genres.  Eden's  analysis 
of  Caesar  and  the  meager  remains  of  the  old  annalists  leads  him  to  a 
conclusion  that  is  probably  correct  and,  interestingly,  almost  directly 
opposed  to  Nettleship's:  "[T]he  early  annalist  manner  is  generally  dry 
and  monotonous,  but  it  does  carry  with  it  an  undeniable  impression 
of  passionless  objectivity.  This  suited  Caesar's  needs  exacdy:  he  would 
be  his  own  most  detached  judge  and  expositor."^  Eden  therefore  sees 
in  Caesar's  style  the  result  of  a  conscious  choice:  the  avoidance  of 
obvious  exornatio  and  the  suppression  of  extreme  rhetorical  flourishes 
were  means  to  an  end,  as  was  the  text  of  the  work  itself.  This  is  a  fair 
conclusion,  so  far  as  it  goes:  it  treats  Caesar  as  an  artist  rather  than  as 
a  self-serving  polidcal  hack;  but  beyond  that,  Eden  does  not  give 
Caesar's  early  prose  style  much  credit  when  compared  to  the  capabili- 
ties of  the  "comprehensive  Livian  period."  For  example,  in  dealing 
with  Caesar's  tendency  to  repeat  key  words  and  phrases  (about  which 
I  shall  have  something  to  say  later),  Eden  says: 

Caesar  is  notoriously  guilty  of  such  close  repetitions  [as  BG  I.  49.  1- 
3]  .  .  .  .  [T]he  repetition  is  due  neither  to  carelessness  nor  to  a  desire  for 
accuracy,  but  occurs  simply  because  Caesar  took  no  pains  to  avoid  it.  In 
fact  here  we  glimpse  the  basic  substratum  of  Caesar's  annalistic  style, 
running  directly  from  writers  like  Calpurnius  Piso,  outcrops  of  which 
continue  to  manifest  themselves  up  to  the  end  of  Caesar's  work.** 

The  metaphor  is  instructive  (to  say  nothing  of  phrases  like  "notori- 
ously guilty"):  by  Eden's  standards,  the  BG  contains  boulders  of 
clumsiness  that  lurk  beneath  its  otherwise  almost  featureless  surface, 
"outcrops"  of  uncouth  repetition  that  make  it  hard  for  the  reader  to 
plough  through.  While  Cicero  would  no  doubt  have  appreciated  the 
agricultural  metaphor,  it  does  not  jibe  well  with  Eden's  conclusion 
(quoted  above,  note  7);  moreover,  such  criticisms,  at  their  worst, 
tempt  the  uncritical  reader  to  dismiss  Caesar  (at  least  in  the  early 
books  of  the  BG)  as  little  more  than  a  slavish  though  effective  follower 
of  an  outmoded,  pre-Ciceronian  style;  at  its  best,  Eden's  view  of 
Caesarian  style  gives  the  impression  that  Caesar  either  had  a  tin  ear 
or,  worse,  was  indifferent  to  the  sound  of  his  writing. 

What  is  needed  is  an  analysis  of  Caesarian  style  that  takes  account 

^  Eden,  op.  cit.,  p.  94. 
^  Eden,  op.  at.,  p.  83. 


218  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

both  of  the  appeal  of  the  annalists  for  Caesar  and  of  the  aims  Caesar 
had  in  bucking  the  trend  in  Latinity  represented  by  Cicero.  If  we  take 
it  as  given  that  Caesar  was  not  incapable  of  something  resembling  the 
"comprehensive  Livian  period"  even  in  the  early  books  of  the  BG,  we 
must  answer  the  question  what  the  effect  of  Caesar's  stylistic  choice 
was — even  if  we  agree  with  Eden  as  to  its  purpose.  W.  Richter  and, 
more  recently,  H.  C.  Gotoff  have  begun  to  address  this  point.  Richter 
observes  that  Caesar's  aim  is  to  make  motives,  assumptions  and 
consequences  understandable  as  a  logical  complex  which  presents 
Caesar  "als  kritischen  Beobachter  eines  Kampfverlaufes.  .  .  .  [D]ie 
Kunst  des  Darstellers  spiegelt  den  Meister  der  Befehlstechnik."*^ 
Correct  as  this  analysis  is — and  Richter,  to  his  credit,  uses  BG  I  in  this 
passage — the  observation  derives  not  from  Caesar's  prose  style  per  se: 
Richter  does  not  show  how,  for  example,  Cicero  (had  he  been  so 
minded)  could  not  have  taken  the  same  material  and  achieved  the 
same  result  in  his  own  fashion.  Gotoff,  on  the  other  hand,  treats  the 
nuts  and  bolts  of  Caesarian  style  in  much  detail,  analyzing  the 
complex  subtlety  and  flexibility  Caesar  achieves  even  in  the  early 
books  of  the  BG.  '^  But  nearly  all  of  Gotoffs  examples  are  drawn  from 
the  second  and  fourth  books  of  the  BG,  and  most  are  comparatively 
short  passages — on  the  order  of  one  or  two  sentences.  Significantly, 
the  two  examples  he  chooses  from  BG  I  illustrate  the  purpose  behind 
a  lack  of  balance  between  an  ablative  absolute  phrase  and  the  main 
clause  of  the  sentence  (I.  41)  and  periodicity  of  a  sort  not  often 
associated  with  Caesar  (I.  6).  In  short,  Gotoff  has  shown  both  what  is 
Caesarian  about  Caesar  and  the  style's  artistic  capabilities. 

I  propose  to  take  the  methods  of  Richter  and  Gotoff  and  apply 
them  to  a  longer,  continuous  passage  of  early  Caesarian  prose: 
Caesar's  account  of  his  fight  with  the  Helvetians  at  Bibracte  {BG  I.  23 
IF.).  This  engagement,  fought  in  58  B.C.,  was  Caesar's  first  major 
battle  as  commander  in  Gaul  and,  as  he  saw  it,  his  victory  broke  the 
back  of  a  dangerous  invasion  that  could  have  jeopardized  Roman 
control  of  the  province."  In  this  narrative  Caesar  faced  the  difficult 
task  of  describing  a  personal  triumph  and  an  historically  pivotal  battle 

^  Will  Richter,  Caesar  als  Darsteller  seiner  Taten  (Heidelberg  1977),  p.  149. 

'°  H.  C.  Gotoff,  loc.  cit.\  the  author  also  remarks  (p.  4,  note  14)  on  the  "carefully 
controlled  rhetorical  ornamentation  and  ethopoiia  that  makes  Book  I  perhaps  the  least 
typical  part  of  the  Caesarian  corpus." 

"  S.  Reinach,  "Les  communiques  de  Cesar"  {Revue  de  philologie  39,  1915),  pp.  29-49, 
raises  the  possibility  that  Caesar's  campaign  against  the  Helvetians  was  a  "picked"  fight 
and  that  the  Helvetian  migration  actually  proved  no  threat  to  Roman  interests.  See  also 
Richter,  op.  cit.,  ch.  4,  §4. a,  "Der  Ausbruch  des  Helvetierkrieges,"  pp.  102-16. 


Mark  F.  Williams  219 

in  terms  that  would  enhance  his  dignitas  but  at  the  same  time  give  as 
little  offense  as  possible  to  those  at  Rome  who  already  viewed  his 
command  with  mistrust  and  apprehension.'*^  Thus  Caesar  was  obvi- 
ously concerned  with  the  impression  his  account  would  make  at 
home,  and  we  should  probably  believe  that  he  was  pulled  in  different 
directions  by  aims  that  would  appear,  on  the  surface  at  least,  mutually 
exclusive.  There  are  also  curiosities  of  style  in  this  passage  that  seem 
to  be  flaws  when  they  are  considered  in  the  light  of  Ciceronian 
"norms."  Perhaps  the  most  immediately  obvious  example  is  the 
repetition  of  certain  verbs  and  their  derivatives:  iacio  (six  times),  mitto 
(nine  times)  and  fero  (five  times) — and  all  within  the  space  of  about 
two-and-a-half  Oxford  pages. '^  But  we  must  not  judge  these  repeti- 
tions and  other  stylistic  "quirks"  too  harshly,  especially  if  (1)  our 
standard  of  what  constitutes  a  quirk  is  based  upon  Cicero''*  and  (2)  we 
fail  to  look  for  a  possible  reason  for  Caesar's  having  written  as  he  did. 
That  Caesar  was  trying  in  his  account  of  Bibracte  to  enhance  his 
public  image  will,  I  think,  be  granted  without  argument.  What  I  seek 
to  prove,  and  what  will  provoke  argument,  is  that  Caesar's  Bibracte 
narrative  succeeds  as  a  work  of  prose  art. 

Postridie  eius  diei,  quod  omnino  biduum  supererat  cum  exercitui 
frumentum  metiri  oporteret,  et  quod  a  Bibracte,  oppido  Aeduorum 
longe  maximo  et  copiosissimo,  non  amplius  milibus  passuum  xvm 
aberat,  rei  frumentariae  prospiciendum  existimavit:  iter  ab  Helvetiis 
averut  ac  Bibracte  ire  contendit.  Ea  res  per  fugiiivos  L.  Aemili, 
decurionis  equitum  Gallorum,  hostibus  nuntiatur.  Helvetii,  seu  quod 
timore  perterritos  Romanos  discedere  a  se  existimarent,  eo  magis  quod 
pridie  superioribus  iocis  occupatis  proelium  non  commisissent,  sive  eo 
quod  re  frumentaria  intercludi  posse  confiderent,  commutato  consilio 
atque  itinere  converso  nostros  a  novissimo  agmine  insequi  ac  lacessere 
coeperunt.  (23.  1-3) 

At  the  beginning  of  his  Bibracte  narrative,  Caesar  immediately 
makes  a  distinction  between  the  Roman  strategy  and  that  of  the 

'"  Caelius  reported  to  Cicero  in  June,  51,  some  of  the  rumors  circulating  in  Rome 
concerning  Caesar's  campaign  (Ad  fam.  VIII.  1.  4).  While  commentaries  or  dispatches 
by  the  commander  probably  would  not  have  won  over  Caesar's  harshest  critics  in  the 
senate  and  elsewhere,  they  would  have  helped  to  allay  the  sort  of  fears  that  Caelius 
mentions. 

'"^  All  references  to  the  BG  in  this  paper  are  to  the  Oxford  Classical  Text  of  Du 
Pontet. 

"''  Though  it  is  well  known  that  Cicero  wrote  a  commentarius  about  his  own  actions 
against  the  conspiracy  of  Catiline  which  he  himself  thought  needed  stylistic  "touching 
up." 


220  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

Helvetians.  It  was  (and  is)  a  none-too-glamorous  fact  of  military  life 
that  an  army  must  be  provisioned  while  it  is  in  the  field.  The  first 
concern  Caesar  faces  as  a  commander  is  the  insurance  of  an  adequate 
food  supply  for  his  forces.  Logically,  reasonably,  he  keeps  his  logistics 
in  mind  (23.  1)  and  breaks  off  his  pursuit  of  the  enemy  before  putting 
himself  at  a  potentially  dangerous  disadvantage.  The  construction  of 
23.  1  reflects  the  commander's  ratio:  an  ablative  of  time  for  temporal 
accuracy  and  transition  fn^m  the  previous  sentence,  followed  by  a 
balanced  pair  of  quud  clauses,  followed  by  another  balanced  pair  of 
main  clauses  in  asyndeton.  Such  balancing  is  a  conscious  effect,  of 
course,  and  its  purpose  is  to  reveal  to  the  reader  at  once  the  options 
that  lay  open  to  Caesar  as  a  commander  and  the  logical,  most  prudent 
course  of  action  given  the  circumstances.  What  the  reader  is  supposed 
to  think  is  that  no  other  course  of  action  lay  open  to  Caesar  which 
would  not  have  jeopardized  the  success  of  the  mission. 

The  logical  and  likely  suppositions  of  23.  1  are  continued  to  23.  2,  a 
short,  smoothly-flowing  period  that  shifts  the  reader's  focus  from  the 
Roman  point  of  view  to  that  of  the  Helvetians.  Despite  the  change  in 
perspective,  23.  3  reinforces  the  idea  of  Caesar's  providentia  signified 
in  23.  1.  In  23.  3  we  have  yet  another  straightforward  periodic 
sentence  whose  structure  is,  like  that  of  23.  1 ,  built  around  a  complex 
of  quod  clauses.  The  period  begins  with  an  explicit  statement  of  the 
subject,  Helvetii  (necessary  because  the  sentence  begins  in  asyndeton 
and  the  subject  of  the  prior  sentence  was  ea  res);  next  comes  a  pair  of 
explanatory  quod  clauses  (the  first  of  which  is  expanded  by  an 
additional  quod  clause'^)  which  give  the  most  likely  possibilities  to 
account  for  the  sudden  change  in  the  enemy  plan;  after  the  quod 
clauses  comes  a  pair  of  ablatives  absolute,  and  finally  the  main  clause, 
for  which  we  have  been  waiting  from  the  start. 

Thus  we  see  that  in  23.  1-3  Caesar  sets  forth  in  well-balanced 
sentences  the  state  of  affairs  just  prior  to  the  battle  (whose  prelimi- 
nary skirmishes  are  described  in  23.  4).  Like  any  good  commander 
Caesar  takes  stock  of  his  own  situation  and  tries  to  account  for  that  of 
the  enemy.  We  should  note,  however,  that  despite  the  fact  that  the 
intelligence  controlling  the  presentation  and  the  activities  described 
in  23.  1-3  is  unmistakably  Caesar's,  Caesar  is  nowhere  named  in  §23. 
Significantly,  he  is  not  named  until  24.  1,  where  the  emphasis  shifts 
from  the  strategic  to  the  tactical,  from  planning  on  a  grand,  rational 
(and  somewhat  impersonal)  scale  to  planning  on  a  smaller  scale  that 

'^  Contrast  23.  1,  where  the  quod  clauses  are  more  equally  balanced. 


Mark  F.  Williams  221 

allows  for  greater,  more  detailed  analysis  of  personal  motives  and 
actions. 

Postquam  id  animum  advertit,  copias  suas  Caesar  in  proximum  collem 
subducit,  equitatumque  qui  sustineret  hostium  impetum  misit.  Ipse 
interim  in  colle  medio  triplicem  aciem  instruxit  legionum  quattuor 
veteranorum  [ita  uti  supra];  sed  in  summo  iugo  duas  legiones  quas  in 
Gallia  citeriore  proxime  conscripserat  et  omnia  auxilia  collocari,  ac 
totum  montem  hominibus  compleri,  et  interea  sarcinas  in  unum  locum 
conferri,  et  eum  ab  eis  qui  in  superiore  acie  constiterant  muniri  iussit. 
Helvetii  cum  omnibus  suis  carris  secuti  impedimenta  in  unum  locum 
contulerunt;  ipsi  confertissima  acie,  reiecto  nostro  equitatu,  phalange 
facta  sub  primam  nostram  aciem  successerunt.  (24.  1-4) 

In  23.  1-3  the  reader  is  invited  to  survey  the  strategic  situation  and 
to  make  of  it  what  he  will;  by  contrast,  in  24.  1-3  we  see  Caesar's 
tactical  response  to  a  new  and  perhaps  unexpected  situation:  the 
Helvetians  decide  to  fight.  The  Roman  commander  is  here  at  his  most 
decisive  (subducit/ misit/ instruxit/ iussit);  the  impression  of  his  decisive- 
ness is  heightened  by  the  (corresponding)  tetracolon  of  passive 
infinitives  in  24.  3  (collocari/ compleri/ conferri/muniri),  all  depending 
upon  the  final  iussit.  Quick  action  is  required;  the  enemy  whom 
Caesar  has  earlier  (§22)  failed  to  engage  is  now  ready  for  a  fight,  and 
the  smoothly  flowing  syntax  of  24.  1-3  reflects  the  speed  with  which 
Caesar  prepares  to  give  battle;  it  also  reflects  the  ease  with  which 
Caesar  changes  his  plans  to  take  advantage  of  an  unexpected  situa- 
tion. 24.  1  is  short  and  ultimately  periodic  (due  to  the  postponement 
oi  misit);  24.  2  differs  from  its  predecessor  in  the  middle  position  (!)  of 
its  main  verb  (instruxit).  The  third  sentence,  24.  3,  is  longer  by  almost  a 
third  than  the  first  two  taken  together,  and  its  periodicity  is  the  more 
noticeable  for  the  tetracolon  of  passive  infinitives  all  waiting  upon 
iussit,  as  noted  above.  The  writing  is  as  lucid  as  Caesar's  tactics  are 
conventional:  high  ground  has  always  been  advantageous  in  battle. 
But  in  this  part  of  the  BG  Caesar  is  concerned  with  more  than  a 
matter  of  conventional  tactics:  he  is  keeping  in  mind  both  what  the 
enemy  might  be  thinking  about  the  Roman  willingness  to  fight  (see 
23.  3),  and  the  tactics  the  enemy  might  be  expected  to  use  once  the 


'^  M.  Rambaud,  L'art  de  la  deformation  histonque  dans  les  commentaires  de  CJ-sar  (Paris 
1953),  p.  41,  quotes  Jullian's  observation  that  Caesar  followed  monotonously  conven- 
tional tactics  as  a  matter  of  habit.  Rambaud  rightly  comments:  "L'eminent  historien 
n'avait  pas  songe  que  les  manoeuvres  dont  il  reproche  a  Cesar  la  monotonie  sont  des 
necessites  militaires  de  tons  les  temps." 


222  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

battle  is  joined.  Here  again  we  are  reminded  of  Caesar's  providentia, 
which  is  further  emphasized  when  (24.  4)  the  Helvetians  virtually 
doom  their  brave  effort  in  advance  by  forming  a  phalanx  for  a 
difficult  uphill  charge.  24.  4  is  in  effect  a  brief  recapitulation  of  the 
previous  sentences,  for  the  Helvetians  carry  out  what  must  have  been 
a  universal  pre-battle  maneuver  before  forming  their  phalanx;  thus, 
in  the  first  half  of  24.  4  Caesar  can  afford  to  be  brief.  His  brevity 
continues  in  the  last  half  of  the  sentence,  where  the  preliminary 
skirmishes  of  the  engagement  are  rendered  with  simple  compactness 
in  ablatives  absolute.  24.  4  is  also  noteworthy  for  the  occurrence  of  a 
verb  formed  from  iacio,  in  the  ablative  absolute  reiecto  nostra  equitatu. 
As  noted  above,  forms  oi  iacio  are  repeated  six  more  times  from  24.  4 
to  27.  2;  though  such  repetitions  may  appear  dull  or  at  least 
bewildering,  they  are  artfully  used  in  this  narrative  and  emphasize  in 
the  end  the  personal  nature  of  Caesar's  triumph. 

Caesar  primum  suo,  deinde  omnium  ex  conspectu  remotis  equis,  ut 
aequato  omnium  periculo  spem  fugae  tolleret,  cohortatus  suos  proe- 
lium  commisit.  Milites  e  loco  superiore  pills  missis  facile  hostium 
phalangem  perfregerunt.  Ea  disiecta,  gladiis  destrictis  in  cos  impetum 
fecerunt.  Gallis  magno  ad  pugnam  erat  impedimento  quod  pluribus 
eorum  scutis  uno  ictu  pilorum  transfixis  et  colligatis,  cum  ferrum  se 
inflexisset,  neque  evellere  neque  sinistra  impedita  satis  commode 
pugnare  poterant;  multi  ut  diu  iactato  bracchio  praeoptarent  scutum 
manu  emittere  et  nudo  corpora  pugnare.  Tandem  vulneribus  defessi  et 
pedem  referre  et,  quod  mons  suberat  circiter  mille  passuum,  eo  se 
recipere  coeperunt.  (25.  1-5) 

It  our  gaze  is  progressively  narrowed  from  the  strategic  to  the 
tactical  in  §§23  and  24,  we  find  that  at  25.  1  we  are  invited  to  consider 
Caesar's  personal  bravery  in  the  face  of  battle.  By  sending  away  his 
own  horse  as  well  as  those  of  his  staff,  Caesar  shows  his  willingness  to 
undergo  the  same  risks  that  his  legionaries  will  face.  Beginning  here 
at  25.  1,  we  note  several  repetidons  of  verb  forms  already  noted: 
commisit  (25.  1),  missis  (25.  2),  disiecta  {ibid.).  25.  1  is  periodic,  though 
brief;  25.  2  (printed  rightly  as  two  separate  sentences  in  modern  texts) 
communicates  most  of  the  violence  of  the  battle  in  ablatives  absolute, 
with  the  outcome  of  the  engagement  given  alliteratively  in  the  main 
clause  {phalangem  perfregerunt).  The  syntax  of  these  first  three  sen- 
tences (25.  1-2)  is  simple  and,  again,  smooth-flowing;  but  when  in  25. 
3-4  Caesar  shifts  our  gaze  to  the  Helvetians,  the  syntax  suddenly 
changes:  the  periodic,  easy-going  syntax  of  the  prior  sentences  is 
abandoned  as  the  main  clause  of  25.  3  comes  first  with  magno  in  a  mild 
hyperbaton.  There  follows  yet  another  quod  clause  (the  sixth  since  23. 


Mark  F.  Williams  223 

1)  that  is  periodic  in  nature  (ablative  absolute — cum  clause — correlat- 
ed pair  of  infinitives  [the  second  of  which  is  expanded  with  its  own 
ablative  absolute]  depending  upon  poterant);  25.  4  is  a  result  clause 
with  ut  in  hyperbaton.  Where  the  syntax  of  25.  1-2  clearly  reflects  the 
relative  ease  with  which  the  Romans  beat  back  the  Helvetian  phalanx, 
that  of  25.  3-4  reflects  the  confusion  brought  upon  the  enemy  by 
Caesar's  tactics.  Thus  the  commander's  ratio  and  providentia  of  §24  are 
vindicated  in  25.  5. 

Capto  monte  et  succedentibus  nostris,  Boil  et  Tulingi,  qui  hominum 
milibus  circiter  xv  agmen  hostiuni  claudebant  et  novissimis  praesidio 
erant,  ex  itinera  nostros  latere  aperto  aggressi  circumvenere,  et  id 
conspicati  Helvetii,  qui  in  montem  sese  receperant,  rursus  instare  et 
proelium  redintegrare  coeperunt.  Roman!  conversa  signa  bipertito 
intulerunt:  prima  et  secunda  acies,  ut  victis  ac  summotis  resisteret; 
tertia,  ut  venientis  sustineret. 

Ita  ancipiti  proelio  diu  atque  acriter  pugnatum  est.  Diutius  cum 
sustinere  nostrorum  impetus  non  possent,  alteri  se,  ut  coeperant,  in 
montem  receperunt,  alteri  ad  impedimenta  et  carros  suos  se  contuler- 
unt.  Nam  hoc  toto  proelio,  cum  ab  bora  septima  ad  vesperum  pugna- 
tum sit,  aversum  hostem  videre  nemo  potuit.  (25.  6  —  26.  2) 

There  is,  however,  an  unexpected  turn  of  events  when  the  Boii  and 
Tulingi  counterattack  and  throw  the  Romans  into  some  confusion.  If 
there  is  a  point  in  the  Bibracte  narrative  where  Caesar  tacitly  admits 
to  a  lapse  in  his  preparations,  this  is  it.  In  order  to  preserve  his  victory 
Caesar  must  split  his  triple  battle  line,  thus  weakening  his  forces. 
Though  Caesar  does  not  say  so  forthrighdy  (the  battle  was  merely 
anceps),  there  was  a  grave  danger  that,  with  his  lines  weakened  thus 
and  split  up,  the  Helvetians  could  easily  have  broken  through,  had  it 
proved  possible  for  them  to  reform  their  phalanx  (though  whether 
they  could  in  fact  have  reformed  it  depends  upon  how  many  of  them 
had  lost  their  shields  [cf.  25.  1-5];  a  phalanx  lacking  in  shields  is  a 
decidedly  inferior  fighting  force).  The  syntax  of  25.  6-7  reflects  this 
changed  state  of  affairs:  where  the  actions  of  the  enemy  are  earlier 
described  in  choppy,  starting-and-stopping  ablatives  absolute  and 
subordinate  clauses  (see  especially  25.  3  ff.),  now  we  have  the 
Helvetian  action  described  in  smooth,  parallel,  periodic  sentences 
(depending  upon  circumvenere  and  coeperunt,  respectively),  and  the 
Roman  side  is  described  in  abrupt,  choppy  phrases  (25.  7). 

Thus  Caesar's  syntax  reflects  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  battle  even 
before  26.  1  sums  up  in  words  what  the  reader  intuitively  felt  to  be  the 
case  before.  In  26.  2  Caesar  pays  an  ungrudging  compliment  to  his 
gallant  enemy;  the  reader,  perhaps,  does  not  see  at  first  that  in  noting 


224  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

the  enemy's  stubborn,  almost  fanatical  bravery  Caesar  calls  attention 
to  that  of  his  own  soldiers,  and  to  his  ability  to  change  tactics  quickly, 
when  the  situation  demands  it. 

Ad  niultam  noctem  etiam  ad  impedimenta  pugnatum  est,  propterea 
quod  pro  vallo  carros  obiecerant,  et  e  loco  superiore  in  nostros  venientis 
tela  coiciebant,  et  non  nulli  inter  carros  rotasque  mataras  ac  tragulas 
subiciebant  nostrosque  vulnerabant.  Diu  cum  esset  pugnatum,  impedi- 
mentis  castrisque  nostri  potiti  sunt.  Ibi  Orgetorigis  filia  atque  unus  e 
filiis  captus  est.  Ex  eo  proelio  circiter  hominum  milia  cxxx  superfuer- 
unt,  eaque  tota  nocte  continenter  ierunt:  nullam  partem  noctis  itinere 
intermisso  in  finis  Lingonum  die  quarto  pervenerunt,  cum  et  propter 
vulnera  militum  et  propter  sepulturam  occisorum  nostri  triduum 
morati  eos  sequi  non  potuissent.  Caesar  ad  Lingonas  litteras  nuntiosque 
misit,  ne  eos  frumento  neve  alia  re  iuvarent:  qui  si  iuvissent,  se  eodem 
loco  quo  Helvetios  habiturum.  Ipse  triduo  intermisso  cum  omnibus 
copiis  eos  sequi  coepit. 

Helvetii  omnium  rerum  inopia  adducti  legatos  de  deditione  ad  eum 
miserunt.  (26.  3  -  27.  1) 

It  is  now  (26.  3)  dark,  and  the  battle  rages  still  around  the  Helvetian 
baggage  train,  but  with  an  ironic  reversal  of  roles.  Where  before  (25. 
2-3)  the  Romans  had  used  high  ground  to  advantage  in  breaking  the 
inidal  charge  of  the  Helvetian  phalanx,  the  Helvetians  now  use  high 
ground  to  advantage  in  putdng  up  stiff  resistance  to  an  uphill  Roman 
attack.  In  26.  3  there  are  three  more  repetitions  of  forms  of  iacio:  the 
Gauls  pro  vallo  carros  obiecerant;  they  tela  coiciebant  at  the  advancing 
Romans;  finally  they  inter  carros  rotasque  mataras  ac  tragulas  subiciebant 
nostrosque  vulnerabant — the  first  of  only  two  mentions  Caesar  makes  of 
Roman  casualties.'''  Another  fierce  fight  ensues  before  the  Romans 
finally  capture  the  baggage  train  and  put  to  flight  those  of  the  enemy 
who  are  able  to  escape. 

The  syntax  of  26.  1-4  is  simple  and  straightforward  but  repetitive 
in  the  extreme.  Not  only  do  we  have  the  three  recurrences 
of  derivatives  of  iacio  mentioned  above,  but  we  also  see  several 
repetitions  of  other  words:  diuldmtius  (26.  1  bis,  26.  4),  forms  of  pugno 
(the  impersonal  passive  forms  subsuming  most  of  the  violence  in 
these  paragraphs,  26.  1,  2,  3,  4),  and  impedimenta  (26.  1,  3,  4).  The 
repeated  vocabulary  and  the  short,  abrupt  syntax  are  reflective  of  the 
exhaustion  on  both  sides  after  so  many  hours  of  what  must  have  been 
a  nasty  fight;  thus,  the  forthright  statement  in  26.  5b  that  the  Romans 
were  too  tired  to  pursue  the  Helvetians  without  several  days  of  rest  is 
anticipated  syntactically  in  26.  1-4.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  indicative  of 
the  completeness  of  the   Roman   victory   that   the   Helvetians  are 

'^  The  other  mention  is  in  26.  5. 


Mark  F.  Williams  225 

compelled  to  flee  for  four  days  straight,  nullam  parteyn  noctis  ithiere 
intermisso  (26.  5),  while  the  Romans  rest  and  nurse  their  wounded.  In 
the  description  of  the  aftermath  of  the  battle  there  is  one  further 
repeated  verb  that  is  significant:  as  just  noted,  the  Helvetians  flee 
both  day  and  night;  Caesar,  on  the  other  hand,  litteras  nuntiosque  misit 
to  the  Lingones  and  then  ipse  triduo  intermisso  follows  with  his  army 
(26.  6),  in  stark  contrast  to  the  necessary  haste  of  the  enemy.  Finally, 
balancing  the  litteras  nuntiosque  misit  of  26.  6,  the  Helvetii .  .  .  legatos  de 
deditione  ad  eum  miserunt  (27.  1). 

Qui  cum  eum  in  itinera  convenissent  seque  ad  pedes  proiecissent 
suppliciterque  locuti  flentes  pacem  petissent,  atque  eos  in  eo  loco  quo 
tum  essent  suum  adventum  exspectare  iussisset,  paruerunt.  (27.  2) 
The  final  surrender  of  the  Helvetians  takes  place  in  27.  2.  The 
sentence  is  refreshingly  periodic  after  so  long  a  stretch  of  short, 
choppy  sentences  and  phrases;  it  eloquently  emphasizes  the  triumph 
of  Roman  arms  and,  more  importantly,  of  the  Roman  commander 
(Caesar  is  mentioned,  directly  or  indirectly,  four  times  in  27.  2; 
contrast  this  with  the  relative  scarcity  of  Caesar's  self-references  in  the 
early  portions  of  the  narrative).  27.  2  begins  with  a  resumptive 
relative — a  construction  that  Caesar  allows  himself  at  only  one  other 
part  of  the  Bibracte  narrative'^ — and  goes  immediately  into  a  cum 
clause  with  yet  another  tetracolon  of  verbs.  This  cum  clause  is  worth 
examining  closely,  for  the  first  three  verbs  it  controls  form  a  tricolon 
whose  subject  is  Helvetii  {convenissentlproiecissentl petissent);  the  foinlh 
verb  (iussisset)  has  as  its  subject  Caesar.  Immediately  after  the  fourth 
verb  of  the  cum  clause  the  sentence  comes  to  a  definitive  end,  as  does 
the  battle  itself,  with  the  verb  every  commander  would  like  to  use  of 
his  foes:  paruerunt.  Of  course  this  sentence  is  unbalanced,  with  the 
shortest  of  main  clauses  weighing  in  against  a  ponderous,  complicated 
cum  clause;  but  the  syntax — and  it  is  straightforward  syntax — reflects 
the  discomfiture  of  the  Helvetians,  just  as  choppy,  non-periodic 
syntax  reflected  the  ebb  and  flow  of  battle  earlier  in  the  narrative. 
Also,  the  placement  of  paruerunt  makes  the  sentence  ultimately 
periodic. 

The  personal  nature  of  Caesar's  triumph  is  emphasized  in  a  subtler 
way,  too,  by  the  seventh  and  last  repetition  of  a  derivative  of  lacio  (in 
the  cum  clause).  The  enemy  who  a  few  days  earlier  had  thrown 
together  wagons  as  a  wall,  and  thrown  volleys  of  spears  and  wounded 
many  Roman  soldiers  (26.  3),  now  throw  themselves  at  Caesar's  feet  to 
beg  for  peace.  Thus  Caesar,  as  noted,  emphasizes  the  personal  nature 
of  his  victory,  but  at  the  same  time  the  precautions  he  takes  to  ensure 

'**  The  other  resumptive  relative  is  found  in  26.  6  {qui  si  iuvissent .  .  .).  Eden  (of),  cil., 
p.  87)  complains  of  a  "plethora  of  resumptive  pronouns  and  adverbs"  in  Caesar. 


226  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

that  the  Helvetian  homeland  remain  free  of  migrating  Germans  (28. 
4  ff.)  emphasize  his  continued  devotion  to  the  constitutional  responsi- 
bilities of  his  office. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  personal  propaganda  in  Caesar's 
account  of  his  battle  at  Bibracte,  but  the  self-glorification  takes  the 
form  of  irresistibly  logical  examples  of  Caesarian  pruvidentia  and  ratio 
put  at  the  disposal  of  the  Roman  state.  This  has  the  effect  of  making 
any  praise  of  the  commander  seem  merited  but  unsought;  the  reader 
is  led  to  agreement  by  the  narrative's  lucidity  and  by  its  author's 
forthrightness,  which  are  in  turn  effects  (as  Eden  saw)  vouchsafed  by 
the  absence  of  obvious  rhetorical  exornatio. 

While  it  is  right  to  search  out  Caesar's  debts  to  the  old  annalists, 
and  to  examine  his  prose  style  as  it  developed  and  was  influenced  by 
the  changing  standards  of  the  day,  it  is  not  right  to  regard  the  early 
books  of  the  BG  merely  as  dry,  rigid  experiments  undertaken  by 
Caesar  on  the  path  to  his  development  of  a  more  serviceable  prose 
style.  Instead,  these  early  writings  should  probably  be  regarded  as  the 
culmination  of  the  old  annalistic  genre — a  style  which  it  behooved 
Caesar  to  adopt  but  which  he  was  not  forced  into  following  uncritical- 
ly. Indeed,  one  should  ask  what  became  of  the  "comprehensive  Livian 
period"  after  Livy:  the  severities  and  plainness  of  an  Atticist  style 
must  have  jibed  well  with  the  old,  purely  Roman  style  of  the  annalists; 
the  unadorned,  choppy,  yet  subtly  effective  style  of  Caesar  commend- 
ed itself  to  the  enemies  of  Ciceronianism'^  and  might  well  have  had  as 
much  influence  upon  apologists  for  the  principate  as  Cicero  had 
upon  adherents  of  republicanism.  But  if  the  style  and  content  per  se  of 
Caesar's  Bibracte  narrative  tell  us  anything  about  Roman  prose,  it  is 
that  descriptive  subtlety  and  the  achievement  of  a  difficult  rhetorical 
goal  did  not  always  require  a  Cicero.  When  we  incorrectly  and 
unreasonably  exclude  the  early  books  of  the  BG  from  consideration  as 
anything  other  than  examples  of  narrative  primitiveness  pure  and 
simple,  we  fall  into  a  Caesarian  trap — no  less  than  the  Helvetians 
did.^« 

Southwest  Missouri  State  University 

'^  See  R.  Syme,  "History  and  Language  at  Rome."  Diogenes  85  (1974),  p.  5;  reprinted 
in  Roman  Papers,  vol.  iii  (Oxford  1984,  pp.  953-61),  p.  956. 

'"  An  early  version  of  this  paper  was  read  before  the  Missouri  Classics  Association  in 
Columbia,  MO,  to  which  audience  I  should  like  to  express  my  appreciation.  Thanks  are 
due  also  to  Professor  H.  C.  Gotoff  and  to  Professor  Curtis  Lawrence,  who  kindly  read 
through  earlier  drafts.  The  appearance  of  their  names  here  does  not  necessarily  imply 
that  they  agree  with  the  contents  of  my  argument;  of  course,  I  alone  am  responsible  for 
any  errors  that  remain. 


Entellus  and  Amycus:  Vergil,  Aen.  5.  362-484 


MICHAEL  B.  POLIAKOFF 


Commentators  have  previously  noted  that  Vergil's  description  of  the 
boxing  match  between  Dares  and  Entellus  {Aen.  5.  362-484)  fre- 
quently echoes  the  details  and  language  of  Apollonius  Rhodius' 
account  of  Polydeuces'  fight  with  Amycus  {Argonautica  2.  30-97);' 
already  in  late  antiquity,  Servius  ad  Aen.  5.  426  emphasized  (not 
without  exaggeration)  the  extent  of  Vergil's  borrowing  from  the 
Argonautica  in  this  episode:  est  autem  hie  lotus  locus  de  Apollonio 
translatus.  It  has  not  been  noted,  however,  how  remarkably  Vergil 
actualizes  Apollonius'  description  of  Amycus  as  ^ovxvnoo,  ola  (2.  91) 
when  he  has  Entellus  slay  the  bull  he  had  won,  nor  has  anyone 
considered  the  implications  of  Vergil's  allusions  to  his  Alexandrian 
model.  Vergil  describes  the  boxing  match  in  rich  ethical  tones,  and  in 
the  present  argument  I  aim  to  demonstrate  that  he  did  not  use 
Apollonius  in  merely  a  decorative  or  conventional  manner,  but  for 
clearly  chosen  thematic  purposes.  While  one  level  of  the  story, 
supported  by  references  to  the  Homeric  boxing  matches  in  //.  23.  651 
ff.  and  Od.  18.  1  ff.,  consistently  makes  Entellus  a  figure  of  noble 
restraint,  the  allusions  to  Apollonius  create  an  antithetical  pattern, 
linking  him  with  the  ogre  Amycus.  This  deliberate  paradox  stresses  a 
theme  which  surfaces  repeatedly  in  the  Aeneid — that  the  corrupting 
forces  of  anger  and  violence  take  hold  easily  and  in  unexpected 
places,  and  that  responsible  people  must  constantly  labor  to  subdue 
them. 


'  R.  D.  Williams,  P.  Verglli  Maroms  Aetieidos  Liher  Qiuntus  (Oxford  1960),  provides 
the  most  thorough  collection  of  parallels  to  Apollonius  (and  Homer  as  well):  most  of 
the  parallels  discussed  in  this  paper  are  noted  by  Williams. 


228  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

The  beginning  of  the  episode  tends  to  raise  the  expectation  that  we 
will  have  a  simple  story  of  an  arrogant  Dares  confronting  the  noble 
older  competitor,  Entellus,  and  most  commentators,  in  fact,  have 
interpreted  the  whole  of  the  narrative  from  this  perspective."^  Dares 
rushes  into  the  contest  without  hesitation  and  demands  that  Aeneas 
give  him  the  prize  and  not  keep  him  waiting,  quae  finis  standi?  quo  me 
decet  usque  teneri?  (5.  384).^  Entellus  does  not  rush  to  the  fight,  and  his 
initial  reluctance  is  in  contrast  with  his  opponent's  rude  boldness, 
improbus  iste  I  exsultat  (5.  397-98).  Vergil  carefully  selects  and  adapts 
elements  from  the  match  of  Epeios  and  Euryalos  in  //.  23.  651-99  and 
that  of  Odysseus  and  Iros,  Od.  18.  1-107,  to  reinforce  the  motif  of  the 
triumph  of  reason  over  rashness.  Homer's  Epeios  had  jumped  to  the 
contest,  grasping  the  first  prize  (23.  664-67),  threatening  to  crush  any 
man  who  dared  oppose  him,  and  turned  his  boast  into  reality, 
knocking  his  opponent  senseless.  Dares  resembles  Epeios  insofar  as 
he  comes  boldly  to  the  match  and  grasps  the  horn  of  the  bull  offered 
as  the  prize  (5.  368,  382),"*  but  the  outcome  of  Vergil's  fight  is  exacdy 
the  opposite  of  that  which  Homer's  contest  leads  us  to  expect. 
Whereas  Epeios'  opponent  leaves  the  ring  badly  injured  (23.  696-99), 
in  Aen.  5.  468-70,  it  is  not  Dares'  opponent  who  exits  so  ingloriously, 
but  bold  Dares  himself:  genua  aegra  trahentem  I  iactantemque  utroque 
caput  crassumque  cruorem  I  ore  eiectantem  mixtosque  in  sanguine  dentes. 
Even  in  the  world  of  sport,  Vergil  rejects  willful  belligerence,  and 
reverses  his  Iliadic  model  to  articulate  this  theme.  It  is  appropriate 
that  Entellus  gain  some  of  the  resonances  of  Odysseus,  for  that 
Homeric  hero  is  also  an  older  man,  and  is  similarly  reluctant  to  fight 
at  first,  but  once  involved  proves  a  formidable  pugilist:  Vergil's 
allusion  invokes  a  figure  whose  inidal  patience  and  self-control  reflect 

~  There  has  been  general  agreement  in  Vergilian  scholarship  that  Entellus'  victory 
represents  the  triumph  of  a  noble  character.  R.  Heinze,  VergiLs  epische  Technik^  (Leipzig 
1914),  pp.  154-55,  sees  Entellus  as  a  character  "psychologisch  vertieft,"  sensitive  to 
Eryx'  memory  and  his  own  former  reputation,  who  fights  against  a  defiant  ("trotzig") 
opponent.  Cf.  also  B.  Otis,  Vergil,  A  Study  in  Civilized  Poetiy  (Oxford  1963),  pp.  98,  274; 
W.  S.  Anderson,  The  Art  of  the  Aeneid  (Englewood  Cliffs  1969),  p.  53;  R.  .•\.  Hornsby, 
Patterns  of  Action  in  the  Aeneid  (Iowa  City  1970),  pp.  1 14-15. 

'  Williams,  op.  cit.  (above  note  1),  p.  118,  saw  in  the  phrase  effert  ora  (5.  368-69)  a 
gesture  of  "arrogant  defiance";  J.  Conington,  P.  Vergili  Marunis  Opera'*  (London  1884), 
pp.  365-66,  however,  claimed  that  Vergil  merely  meant  effert  caput,  and  a  similar 
interpretation  appears  in  W.  M.  Lindsay,  Classical  Quarterly  25  (1931),  144-45,  which 
discusses  Donatus'  commentary  on  Ter.  Her.  33,  pugilum  gloria. 

*  One  should  also  note  that  in  //.  23.  681-82  Diomedes  must  pressure  Euryalos  to 
challenge  Dares;  similarly  Acestes  has  to  persuade  Entellus  to  fight  (5.  387).  The 
reluctant  Euryalos  loses,  the  reluctant  Entellus  wins.  See  the  discussion  of  F.  Klingner, 
Vergil  (Zurich  1967),  p.  474. 


Michael  B.  PoliakofF  229 

upon  Entellus  in  a  complementary  way.  So  like  Odysseus  before  his 
fight  with  the  bullying  Iros  {Od.  18.  1-107),  Entellus  strips  for  the 
contest  and  reveals  his  strong  limbs:  cpaive  bk  nr\QOVC,  I  ndkovc,  te 
^-EyaXoug  xe,  cpctvEv  6£  ol  eijqee?  (Lfioi  /  aTr|6£a  te  axiPagoi  te 
PgaxiovEg  (18.  67-69),  rnagnos  membrorum  artus,  magtia  ossa  lacertosque  I 
exuit  (5.  422-23)."''  The  selection  of  boxing  gloves,  moreover,  shows 
Entellus  giving  up  the  personal  advantage  of  using  his  deadly  caestus, 
and  in  so  doing  renouncing  the  wanton  destruction  these  gloves 
cause.  Dares  is  dumbfounded  (5.  406)  and  frightened  (5.  420)  when 
he  sees  the  caestus  of  Eryx,  which  Entellus  throws  into  the  contest  area, 
and  shrinks  away  from  these  murderously  weighted  weapons,  terga 
bourn plumbo  insuto  ferroque  rigebant  (5.  405);  Entellus,  however,  readily 
offers  to  use  equal  and  less  threatening  thongs.^  Vergil  anachronisti- 
cally  makes  the  caestus  which  Roman  pugilists  commonly  wore  in  his 
own  day  part  of  an  older  era,  that  of  Herakles  and  Eryx,  in  order  to 
allow  the  characters,  led  by  Entellus,  to  demonstrate  their  enlighten- 
ment in  abandoning  the  savage  customs  they  have  inherited.'' 

Many  other  details  in  the  passage,  however,  suggest  that  both  the 
characterizations  and  the  ethical  issues  are  more  complex.  In  the 
extensive  allusions  to  Apollonius'  boxing  match  Vergil  refuse's  to 
equate  Entellus  with  the  valiant  demigod  Polydeuces  and  Dares  with 
the  hideous  aggressor  Amycus:  instead  he  subtly  but  thoroughly 
clothes  Entellus  with  the  trappings  of  Amycus,  and  Dares  with  those 
of  Polydeuces.  We  learn  that  Dares  once  defeated  and  killed  a  boxer 
from  Amycus'  people,  as  Polydeuces  had  done  to  king  Amycus 
himself  (5.  371-74).  Coming  to  their  boxing  contest,  Dares,  like 
Polydeuces,  exercises  his  arms  (though  not  without  a  great  amount  of 

^  Cf.  Klingner,  op.  at.  (above  note  4),  p.  475.  Th.  Ladevvig,  C.  Schaper.  P.  Deuticke, 
Vergils  Gedichte^^,  II  (Berlin  1912),  p.  214,  also  note  that  virtm  animusque  m  pecture 
praesens  echoes  Od.  18.  61,  XQadiT]  xal  9tJ^ibg  ayrivajQ. 

^  On  Greek  boxing  gloves  and  the  Roman  caestus  cf.  J.  Jiithner,  Ober  antike 
Turngerdte,  Abhandlungen  des  archaeologisch-epigraphischen  Seminares  der  Univer- 
sitat  Wien  12  (Vienna  1896),  pp.  65-95;  E.  N.  (iardiner,  Greek  Athletic  Spurts  and  Festivals 
(London  1910),  pp.  402-1 1.  One  realizes  at  once  by  looking  at  the  boxers  depicted  on 
the  mosaics  from  the  Baths  of  Caracalla  (now  in  the  Vatican  Museinn) — to  name  one  of 
several  archaeological  monimients  which  show  the  Roman  caestus — that  \'ergil  is  not 
exaggerating  when  he  speaks  of  lead  and  iron  in  the  gloves. 

"^  E.  N.  Gardiner,  op.  cit.  (above,  note  6),  pp.  431-32,  attributes  this  anachronism  to 
Vergil's  "Roman  ideas,"  namely,  that  "murder  and  bloodshed  are  the  very  essence  of  a 
fight.  Therefore,  as  the  heroes  of  the  past  excelled  the  men  of  today  in  physical 
strength,  they  must  have  excelled  them  in  the  bloodiness  of  their  fights  and  the 
murderous  brutality  of  their  weapons."  This  seems  to  be  a  serious  misevaluation  of 
Vergil.  For  a  discussion  of  the  possible  thematic  purposes  of  anachronisms  in  the 
Aeneid,  cf.  F.  H.  Sandbach,  Proceedings  of  the  Virgil  Society  77  (1965-66),  26-38. 


230  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

show),  a  precaution  that  neither  Entellus  nor  Amycus  takes:  nr\ke  bk 
XEiQag  /  :n;£iQdl;cov  .  .  .  /  ov  |iav  am  "A^ivnog  jiEigrioaTO  (2.  45-48), 
ostenditque  umeros  latos  alternaque  iactat  I  bracchia  protendens  et  verberat 
ictibus  auras  (5.  376—77).  Dares  further  resembles  Polydeuces  in 
testing  his  opponent's  tactics:  am]\i.a  6'  al\pa  vorjoag  /  Kvy\iaxir\y ,  fj 
xaQTOC,  ddatog  f)  te  xeQei^wv  (2.  76-77),  nunc  hos,  nunc  illos  aditus, 
omnemque  pererrat  I  arte  locum  et  variis  adsultibus  inritus  urget  (5.  441—42), 
while  Amycus  and  Entellus  stand  motionless  (Arg.  2.  78  and  Aen.  5. 
437  tF.).  Turning  now  to  Entellus,  one  notes  that,  like  Amycus,  he 
wears  a  double  cloak:  £QE|j.viriv  6ijiiuxa  X,cojtriv  (2.  32),  dupHcem  .  .  . 
amictum  (5.  421).  Both  figures  attempt  a  knockout  blow  from  abo\e 
and  fail  {Arg.  2.  90-92;  Aen.  5.  443-45): 

Ev0a  6'  ejteix'  "  A|iDxog  |i£v  en   dxQoxdxoioiv  aegBEig 
pouTiJJiog  ola  nobeoai  xavvaaaxo,  xd6  6e  (3aQEiav 
Xeiq'  EJil  oi  Keki\iiE,e\.  6  6'  diooovxog  VTiioxr]  .  .  . 

ostendit  dextram  insurgens  Entellus  et  alte 
extulit,  ille  ictum  venientem  a  vertice  velox 
praevidit  celerique  elapsus  corpore  cessit;  .  .  . 

Finally,  Entellus  pursues  Dares  round  the  area  of  competition  as  the 
ogre  chased  Polydeuces:  (he,  oyE  Tvv6agL6riv  cpo^Ecov  ejxet'  ovbi  |iiv 
Eta  /  6r]0iJVEtv  ...  (2.  74—75),  praecipitemque  Daren  ardens  agit  .  .  .  I  nee 
mora  nee  requies  (5.  456  ff.).  By  the  end  of  the  fight,  Entellus  is  caught 
up  in  the  emotions  of  the  match  and  becomes  totally  enraged  and 
savage,  saevire  animis  .  .  .  acerbis  (5.  462),  and  he  leaves  the  bout  an 
arrogant  victor  superans  .  .  .  superbus  (5.  473). 

A  catalogue  of  places  where  Vergil's  allusion  to  a  literary  model 
substantially  affects  the  reader's  appreciation  or  even  understanding 
of  the  passage  would  be  very  long.*^  Many  of  the  correspondences 
between  Entellus  and  Amycus  are  subtle  features  of  behavior  and 

**  Some  few  examples  and  references  must  suffice  here.  Geo.  1.  429-33  has  an 
acrostic  Ma-Ve-Pu,  speUing  the  beginnings  of  Vergil's  names,  a  learned  footnote  to 
Aratus  and  Callimachus,  Ep.  27  Pf.  (cf.  David  O.  Ross,  Jr.,  Backgrounds  toAugusta)i  Poetn 
[Cambridge  1975],  pp.  28-29,  with  further  bibliography).  R.  S.  Scodel  and  R.  F. 
Thomas,  American  Journal  of  Philology  105  (1984),  339,  discuss  a  more  subtle  but 
thematicaily  important  usage:  Geo.  1.  509,  Geo.  4.  561,  and  Aen.  8.  726  refer  to 
Callimachus,  Hymn  to  Apollo  108,  and  as  in  their  Callimachean  model,  their  mention  of 
the  Euphrates  River  comes  exactly  six  lines  from  the  clo.se  of  their  respective  books, 
showing  a  progression  from  a  threatening  to  a  tamed  Euphrates  River.  R.O.A.M.  Lyne, 
"Lavinia's  Blush,"  Greece  is'  Rome  30  (1983),  55-64.  discusses  the  significance  of  the 
reference  to  Menelaus'  wound  (//.  4.  141  ff.)  in  Aen.  12.  64-70.  For  further  examples 
and  discussion,  cf.  G.  Knauer,  Die  Aeneis  und  Homer,  Hypomnemata  7  (Gottingen 
1964),  esp.  pp.  162-63,  339  with  n.  1,  5;  J.  K.  Newman,  Augustus  and  the  New  Poetiy, 
Coll.  Latomus  88  (Brussels  1967),  pp.  242-45;  258-59;  G.  Williams,  Technique  and  Ideas 
in  the  Aeneid  (New  Haven  and  London  1983),  pp.  82-87,  93. 


Michael  B.  Poliakoff  231 

dress,  but  the  pattern  is  consistent  and  obviously  deliberate,  a  clear 
sign  that  Vergil  has  a  point  to  make:  his  paradoxical  use  of  figures 
from  the  Argonautica  highlights  the  corrupting  effects  that  violence 
works  upon  Entellus. 

The  episode  concludes  with  an  emphatic  rejection  of  uncontrolled 
violence.^  The  enraged  Entellus  has  begun  to  show  a  strong  affinity  to 
the  figure  of  Amycus,  but  when  the  fight  becomes  too  heated,  Aeneas 
intercedes  and  stops  it,  and,  restrained  by  Aeneas,  Entellus  reverses 
this  process  of  assimilation  to  the  ogre.  Whereas  Amycus  tried  to 
strike  Polydeuces,  rising  like  an  ox-slayer  ((3ouTi)Jiog  ola,  2.  91),  now 
Entellus  with  a  blow  of  his  fist  slays  the  bull  given  to  him  as  a  prize, 
offering  it  as  a  better  victim  to  honor  Eryx  than  the  death  of  his 
human  opponent  (5.  483-84): 

banc  tibi,  Eryx,  meliorem  animam  pro  morte  Daretis 

persolvo 
Some  commentators  have  seen  sarcasm  in  Entellus'  words, '°  though 
this  seems  unsuited  to  the  context.  Whether  or  not  they  are  sarcastic, 
however,  the  substitution  of  an  animal  for  a  human  victim  sho\^^s  the 
restoration  of  balanced  and  judicious  behavior  where  previously  the 
affinity  that  Entellus  had  shown  for  Amycus  demonstrated  that  the 
descent  to  savagery  is  an  ever-present  danger." 

Wellesley  and  Cologne 

^  We  should  also  note  that  earlier  in  this  episode  the  story  of  Eryx,  Entellus'  boxing 
master,  changes  from  a  tale  of  just  punishment  to  one  of  pathos.  In  other  mythological 
accounts,  Eryx  covets  Herakles'  cattle  or  abuses  strangers  (cf.  Serv.  ad  Aen.  1.  570; 
Apollod.  2.  5.  10):  here  he  is  honored  and  acknowledged  as  ihe  germanus  of  Aeneas  (5. 
412,  cf.  5.  23-24),  and  his  fatal  encounter  with  Herakles  is  called  tristem  (5.  411). 

"'James  Henry,  Aeneidea  \\\  (Dublin  1881),  p.  121,  argues  that  Entellus'  words  are 
"the  brutal  scoff  of  the  conqueror",  that  "the  Romans  were  not  so  delicate  and  refined 
as  to  say,  or  to  think,  it  was  better  to  spare  the  human  being  and  kill  the  beast." 
Conington,  op.  cit.  (above,  note  3),  p.  377,  concurs,  while  Williams,  uj).  rit.  (above,  note 
1),  pp.  135-36,  refuses  to  decide  whether  Entellus'  words  show  humanity  or  brutal 
sarcasm.  In  my  opinion,  the  context  heavily  favors  a  demonstration  of  humanity — 
avoiding  promiscuous  destruction  of  human  life  is  a  serious  issue  throughout  the 
episode — and  certainly  Vergil  was  sufficiently  delicate  and  refined  to  hold  the  senti- 
ments that  Henry  finds  unthinkable  in  Rome. 

"  Sadly,  the  civilized  values  of  this  episode  do  not  ultimatelv  triumph.  Later  the 
offerings  will  not  be  vicarious  animals,  but  human  beings:  in  11.81  ff.  Aeneas  arranges 
human  sacrifices  for  Pallas'  funeral.  In  12.  296,  moreover,  when  fighting  disturbs  the 
truce,  Messapus'  words  recall  the  boxer's  dedication  of  the  bull,  but  in  a  grim  and 
exaggerated  reversal,  for  Messapus  describes  the  Roman  whom  he  slays  on  the  altar  as 
melior  magnis  data  victima  divis.  The  restraint  of  the  boxing  contest  is  gone,  and  instead 
Messapus  observes  the  fatal  wound  with  the  taunt  heard  in  the  Roman  arena  when  a 
gladiator  fell,  hoc  habet  (cf.  Oxford  Latin  Dictio)taiy  s.v.  habeo  16.d,  which  cites  in  addition 
to  this  passage  Ter.  An.  56,  Sen.  Ag.  901,  PI.  Mas.  715). 


6 


The  Lover  Reflected  in  the  Exemplum: 
A  Study  of  Propertius   1.  3  and  2.  6 

FRANCIS  M.  DUNN 


A  mythology  reflects  its  region.  Here 
In  Connecticut,  we  never  lived  in  a  time 
When  mythology  was  possible — But  if  we  had — 
That  raises  the  question  of  the  image's  truth. 
The  image  must  be  of  the  nature  of  its  creator. 
It  is  the  nature  of  its  creator  increased, 
Heightened.  It  is  he,  anew,  in  a  freshened  youth 
And  it  is  he  in  the  substance  of  his  region. 
Wood  of  his  forests  and  stone  out  of  his  fields 
Or  from  under  his  mountains. 

Wallace  Stevens' 

Like  every  other  aspect  of  his  poetry,  Propertius'  use  of  mythology 
has  been  widely  debated.*^  The  frequency  and  variety  with  which 
mythological  allusions  occur  in  the  elegies^  raise  a  number  of  ques- 

'  Wallace  Stevens,  "A  Mythology  Reflects  its  Region,"  in  The  Palm  at  the  End  of  the 
Mind,  ed.  by  Holly  Stevens  (New  York  1972),  p.  398. 

^  A  useful  summary  of  the  bibliography  from  1838  to  1965  is  given  by  Godo  Lieberg 
in  "Die  Mythologie  des  Properz  in  der  Forschung  und  die  Ideaiisierung  Cynthias," 
Rheinuches  Museum  112  (1969),  31 1-47  (  =  Lieberg  1969).  The  works  cited  are  divided 
according  to  their  view  of  Propertius'  use  of  myth:  Gruppe  (1838),  Denne-Baron 
(1850),  Benda  (1928),  Schanz-Hosius  (1935)  and  Rostagni  (1956)  are  negative:  Haupt 
(1876),  Plessis  (1884),  Rothstein  (1898),  La  Penna  (1951),  Desideri  (1958)  and  Luck 
(1961)  are  mixed;  and  Hertzberg  (1843),  Heinze  (1918),  Schone  (191 1),  Allen  (1939). 
Alfonsi  (1945),  Boyance  (1953),  Kolmel  (1957),  Grimal  (1963)  and  Boucher  (1965)  are 
favorable.  More  recent  studies  include  Macleod  (1974),  Sullivan  (1976),  La  Penna 
(1977),  Lechi  (1979),  Lyne  (1980),  Verstraete  (1980),  Bollo  Testa  (1981)  and  Whitaker 
(1983).  Full  references  will  be  given  below  when  these  works  are  cited. 

^  A  catalogue  of  all  the  occurrences  and  the  ways  in  which  they  are  introduced  is 
given  by  Wilhelm  Schone  in  De  Propertii  ratione  fabulas  adhibendi  (Leipzig  1911).  A 


234  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

tions:  for  example,  how  much  does  the  use  of  myth  owe  to  the 
influence  of  Greek  literature,'*  and  how  far  did  it  become  a  vehicle  for 
Augustan  propaganda?"^  But  the  question  most  often  raised,  and  to 
which  this  paper  will  give  a  partial  answer,  concerns  the  role  which 
mythology  plays  within  the  poems.  In  general,  critics  have  given  three 
types  of  answers,  namely,  (a)  that  references  to  mythology  provide 
ornament  and  coloring;  (b)  that  they  bestow  authority  and  a  sense  of 
truth;  and  (c)  that  they  are  formal  poetic  devices.  These  categories  are 
not  mutually  exclusive,^  nor  do  critics  of  Properdus  always  favor  one 
interpretation  over  the  others.^  Yet  much  of  the  discussion  concern- 
ing mythology  in  Propertius  seems  to  center  on  the  opposition 
between  (a)  and  (b).  Thus  Gruppe  (1838)  regarded  myth  as  "ein 
fremder  Zierath  und  vollig  aiisserlicher  Schmuck,"^  while  Hertzberg 
(1843)  opposed  such  a  view^  and  emphasized  the  poet's  hteral 
acceptance  of  mythology.'^  More  recently,  Allen  (1962)  opposed  the 
view  of  mythology  as  decorative"  when  he  argued  for  its  role  in 
bestowing  authority: 

In  primitive  societies  it  is  a  function  of  myth  to  provide  authoritative 
sanction  for  custom  and  belief.  In  an  advanced  society  it  may  remain  as 

catalogue  of  important  occurrences  in  Greek  and  Latin  poetry  is  given  bv  H.  V.  Canter 
in  "The  mythological  paradigm  in  Greek  and  Latin  poetry,"  American  Journal  of 
P/jzYo/ogT  54  (1933),  201-24. 

"  For  an  excellent  discussion  see  Pierre  Boyance,  "Properce,"  in  L'infiuence  grecque 
sur  la  poesie  latine  de  Catulle  a  Ovide  (Entretiens  sur  I'antiquite  classique  2,  Vandoeuvres- 
Geneve:  Fondation  Hardt,  1956)  (  =  Boyance  1956). 

"''  See  Maria  Luisa  Angrisani,  Properzio  ha  politica  e  mitologia  (Quaderni  della  Ri\ista 
di  Cultura  Classica  e  Medioevale  15,  Rome  1974). 

^  Boyance  1956  (n.  4),  for  example,  regards  myth  as  an  ornamental  element,  "une 
surcharge  d'erudition,"  which  is  appropriated  by  the  poet  as  a  formal  device  and 
"permet  au  contraire  au  poete  de  mieux  exprimer  sa  personnalile"  (p.  193). 

^  Thus  J.  P.  Sullivan  {Propertius:  A  critical  introduction  [Cambridge  1976])  defines  the 
three  functions  of  mythology  in  poetry  as  narrative,  symbolic  and  ornamental.  Sullivan 
suggests  that  Propertius  usually  uses  myth  symbolically,  but  often  lapses  into  excessive 
use  of  myth  as  ornament  (pp.  132-33). 

^  O.  F.  Gruppe,  Die  riimische  Elegie,  Leipzig  1838  (the  citation  is  from  Lieberg  1969 
[n.  2],  p.  312). 

^  "Fabularum  autem  usus  longe  diversus  in  oratione  pedestri  atque  in  carmine.  Illic 
enim  ornatus  saepe  gratia  adscitae  inter  figuras  rheloricas  referuntur;  hie  ipsius  sunt 
argumenti  pars,"  Wilhelm  Hertzberg,  Sex.  Aurelii  Propertii  Elegiarum  Lihri  Qiiattuor.  3 
vols.  (Halis  1843-45),  vol.  1,  p.  72. 

'"  "[N]on  vanae  sunt  et  exsangues  figurae,  sed  quae  sanctorum  somniorum  et 
deorum  immortalium  fide  .satis  roboris  atque  nervorum  accipiant,"  Hertzberg  (n.  9), 
vol.  1,  p.  77. 

"  Immediately  before  the  passage  quoted  below  he  says  "The  question  which 
requires  consideration  is  this:  Is  mythology  simply  a  decorative  and  ennobling  element 
or  is  it  an  essential  part  of  his  poetry?" 


Francis  M.  Dunn  235 

a  body  of  universally  respected  truth,  establishing  the  validity  of  the 
fundamental  assumptions  upon  which  the  ordering  of  society  is 
based.  .  .  .  Since  Propertius,  like  Cicero,  regarded  myth  as  symbolically 
true,  as  providing  known  and  accepted  examplification  [sic]  of  known 
and  accepted  principles,  he  found  in  myth  a  means  of  expressing 
universal  and  absolute  truth,  a  standard  of  validity  more  real  than  any 
single  and  isolated  experience.''^ 

Lyne  (1980)  in  his  turn  reacted  against  this  emphasis  on  the  truth- 
value  of  myth'^  by  presenting  a  new  statement  of  its  ornamental 
function: 

It  was  wntruth  rather  than  absolute  truth:  attractive  fiction  to  brighten 
the  tedious  truth  of  house  walls  and  everyday  lives.  The  myths  opened 
on  to  a  fabulous  world:  a  world  oifabulae,  where  beings  more  beautiful, 
attractive,  or  terrible  than  real  beings  lived  lives  out  of  this  world;  a 
romantic  world,  in  a  defined  sense.''* 

The  opposition  between  these  two  interpretations'^  is  most  clearly 
expressed  by  the  contrast  between  the  "universal  truth"  of  Allen  and 
the  "untruth"  of  Lyne.  Yet  however  much  they  differ  concerning  the 
truth  or  untruth  of  the  mythical  world,  both  agree  in  one  important 
respect.  Both  interpretations  regard  this  mythical  world  as  external  to 
the  poem,  and  as  giving  to  the  poem  (which  is  otherwise  complete)  a 
greater  degree  of  validity.  In  one  case  this  is  the  validity  of  universal 
truth,  and  in  the  other  the  validity  of  romantic  fantasy;  but  in  both 
interpretations  this  mythical  world  provides  an  objective  standard 
shared  by  the  poet  and  the  reader,  a  common  ground  to  which  the 
poet  can  appeal  to  give  his  poem  greater  depth  and  authority. 

The  third  approach  to  this  question  follows  a  different  tack 
altogether.  In  fact  the  issue  of  the  truth  of  the  mythical  world 
becomes  irrelevant  if  we  regard  it  as  a  formal  device,  as  simply  a 
means  of  poetic  expression.  Rothstein  (1898)  argued  that  in  his  use  of 

'^  P.  130  in  Archibald  W.  Allen,  "Sunt  qui  Propertium  malint,"  in  Critical  Essays  on 
Roman  Literature:  Elegy  and  Lyric,  ed.  byj.  P.  Sullivan  (Cambridge,  Mass.  1962),  pp.  107- 
48. 

'^  A  few  lines  before  the  passage  quoted  below  he  says  "[Classical  myths]  did  not 
offer  a  'means  of  expressing  universal  and  absolute  truth,'  as  some  scholars  think," 
quoting  the  same  passage  in  Allen. 

'"  R.  O.  A.  M.  Lyne,  The  Latin  Love  Poets  (Oxford  1980)  (  =  Lyne  1980).  p.  86. 

'^  Both  Hertzberg  (note  9  above)  and  Allen  (note  12  above)  suggest  that  our  choice 
must  be  one  or  the  other.  View  (a)  is  represented  also  by  S.  Desideri  in  "II  preziosisnio 
mitologico  di  Properzio,"  Giornale  Italiano  di  Filologia  11  (1958),  327-36.  View  (b)  is 
argued  also  by  Luck,  p.  122  (Georg  Luck,  The  Latin  Love-Elegy,  2nd  ed.,  London  1969), 
and  Grimal,  p.  195:  "il  finit  par  decouvrir  la  valeur  divine,  ontologique,  de  I'amour ' 
(Pierre  Grimal,  L' Amour  a  Rome,  Paris  1979). 


236  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

mythology  Propertius  "zeigt  .  .  .  sich  gerade  darin  als  der  eigentliche 

Vollender  der  Dichtungsgattung,"  and  concluded: 

es  ist  ein  wichtiger  und  bezeichnender  Unterschied  zwischen  der 
modernen  Erotik  und  der  des  Properz,  dass  diese  vorwiegend  durch 
die  als  belebt  und  mitempfindend  vorgestellte  Natur,  die  des  Properz 
durch  Erinnerung  an  Schopfungen  der  Kunst  den  Kreis  ihrer  Darstel- 
lung  zu  erweitern  sucht.'^ 

This  view  of  mythology  as  an  element  of  poetic  technique  was 
developed  more  fully  by  Alfonsi  (1945)'^  and  Boucher  (1965),'^ 
resulting,  as  Lieberg  observes,  in  "eine  radikale  Umwertung."'*^ 
Indeed  recent  studies  on  mythology  in  Propertius^°  tend  to  follow  the 
procedure  announced  by  Whitaker:  "In  general  I  shall  simply  take 
for  granted  that  mythological  exempla  are  an  integral  part  of  the 
elegists'  poems.  My  central  concern  will  be  rather  the  manner-  in  which 
each  of  the  elegists  employs  myth.""'  The  emphasis  of  these  studies 
varies  considerably,  from  a  rhetorical  (Lechi")  to  a  statistical  ap- 
proach (Bollo  Testa"^),  yet  all  are  reacting  against  the  view,  implicit  in 
the  previous  interpretations,  that  mythology  is  something  external  to 
the   poem.^'*  The   result   is   a   shift   towards   the   other  extreme:"^ 

'*  Max  Rothstein,  Die  Elegten  des  Sextus  Propertius  (Berlin  1898),  p.  xxxvi. 

"  Luigi  Alfonsi,  L'elegia  di  Properzio  (Pubblicazioni  dell'Univ.  Cattolica  del  S.  Cuore, 
n.s.  7.  Milan  1945)  (  =  Alfonsi  1945). 

'^Jean-Paul  Boucher,  Etudes  sur  Properce  (Paris  1965). 

''Lieberg  1969  (n.  2),  p.  319. 

^°  For  example  Verstraete  begins:  "As  has  been  better  recognized  by  critics  over  the 
last  few  decades,  Propertius  uses  his  images  and  illustrations  from  the  world  of  myth  as 
a  real  and  often  brilliantly  imaginative  reflection  of  the  multiple  permutations  of  his 
experience,"  p.  259  in  B.  C.  Verstraete,  "Propertius'  use  of  myth  in  Book  Two,"  Studies 
in  Latin  Literature  a7id  Roman  Histon,  vol.  2,  ed.  by  Carl  Deroux  (Collection  Latomus  168, 
Brussels  1980),  pp.  259-68. 

-'  Richard  Whitaker,  Myth  and  Personal  Experience  in  Roman  Love-Elegy  (Hypomne- 
mata  76,  Gottingen  1983),  p.  14. 

^^  France.sca  Lechi,  "Testo  mitologico  e  testo  elegiaco.  A  proposito  deU'exemplum  in 
Properzio,"  Materiali  e  Discussioni  per  I'analisi  dei  testi  classici  3  (1979).  83-100. 

"  Cristina  Bollo  Testa,  "Funzione  e  significato  del  mito  in  Properzio.  Interpreta- 
zione  di  dati  statistici,"  Qjuaderni  Urbinati  di  Cultura  classica  37  (n.s.  8,  1981),  135-54. 

-''  Thus  Bollo  Testa  (n.  23):  "I'uso  del  mito  in  Properzio  .  .  .  non  e  infatti  un 
elemento  estraneo,  giustapposto,  ma  nasce  e  si  muove  con  il  mutare  dell'ispirazione"  (p. 
141),  and  Whitaker  (n.  21):  "mythology  is  by  no  means  something  extraneous  to  Roman 
love-elegy,  but  is  on  the  contrary  very  closely  bound  up  with  both  its  main  purposes  and 
essential  elements  of  its  style"  (p.  14).  Compare  aLso  Kolmel,  p.  3  (Bernward  Kolmel,  Die 
Funktion  des  Mytlwlogischen  in  der  Dichtung  des  Properz,  Diss.  Heidelberg  1957),  Macleod, 
p.  82  (C.  W.  Macleod,  "A  use  of  myth  in  ancient  poetry."  Classical  Quarterly  24  [1974], 
82-93),  and  Verstraete  (n.  20),  p.  261. 

"This  is  clearest  in  Bollo  Testa  (n.  23)  and  Whitaker  (n.  21),  whose  discussions 
center  on  the  various  formal  relations  between  myth  and  context. 


Francis  M.  Dunn  237 

mythology  is  viewed  simply  as  one  of  many  formal  devices  by  which 
the  poet's  meaning  is  expressed.  Rather  than  a  source  of  truth  or  a 
source  of  untruth,  it  is  a  neutral  medium  which  the  poet  may  exploit 
as  he  pleases.  The  myth  conveys  this  larger  meaning,  but  has  no 
meaning,  no  independent  function  of  its  own. 

As  was  noted  above,  these  three  interpretations  are  not  mutually 
exclusive.  It  would  be  astonishing  if  they  were,  and  surprising  if  in 
using  myth  as  form  (that  is,  in  using  it  as  a  poetic  device)  Propertius 
did  not  also  make  full  use  of  its  content  (namely  its  power  to  convey 
authority  and  coloring).  Although  Boucher  is  primarily  interested  in 
mythology  as  a  means  of  expression,"^  he  notes  that  this  expression 
must  be  indirect,  since  the  world  of  myth  also  has  a  life  of  its  own: 

La  mythologie  constitue  un  autre  monde  riche  et  complexe  ou  se 
trouvent  des  etres  connus,  caracterises  par  leurs  aventures,  constitues 
en  personnages  qui  ont  une  realite  propre:  elle  fournit  a  lelegiaque  un 
moyen  d'expression  indirecte.'^ 

In  reading  a  given  elegy  we  must  take  into  account  all  three  kinds  of 
interpretation."*^ 

I  intend  to  show  in  the  following  sections  of  this  paper  that  ohe  of 
the  ways  in  which  myth  becomes  an  important  means  of  expression 
for  Propertius  is  by  an  original  and  rather  surprising  manipulation  of 
its  other  role  as  an  objective  standard  of  truth.  Rather  than  referring 
to  an  independent  and  external  world,  and  thus  providing  added 
color  or  authority,  it  refers  instead  to  the  subjective  experience  of  the 
lover.  In  the  first  poem  we  will  look  at  (1.  3),  a  series  of  mythical 
exempla  purports  to  describe  the  poet's  mistress,  but  instead  de- 
scribes the  situation  and  feelings  of  the  lover.  In  the  second  poem  (2. 
6)  a  similar  series  of  exempla  seems  to  introduce  a  condemnation  of 
the  poet's  mistress,  but  reveals  instead  the  conflicting  feelings  of  the 
lover.  In  both  cases  mythology  is  not  a  neutral  poetic  device,  but 
achieves  its  effect  by  reversing  the  objective  function  which  it  so  often 
performs.  That  "other  world"  of  absolute  truth  and  of  fantasy  is  seen 
to  be  no  more  than  a  revelation  of  the  lover's  experience,  and  this  lack 
of  an  objective  standard,  this  subjective  solipsism,  contributes  to  the 
intensity  of  Propertius'  poetry. 

"^  He  concludes:  "La  mythologie  constitue  ainsi  un  moyen  privilegie  de  composer 
une  reussite  artistique  et  d'exprimer  les  sentiments,"  Boucher  (n.  18),  p.  267. 

"Boucher  (n.  18),  p.  240. 

^^  For  an  interesting  historical  explanation  of  this  complex  quality  of  myth  in 
Roman  poetry,  see  H.  Dorrie,  "Sinn  und  Funktion  des  Mythos  in  der  griechischen  und 
romischen  Dichtung,"  Rheinisch-W estfdlische  Akndemie  der  Wissemchaften  [Geisteswiss.] 
Vortrage  G  230  (Opladen  1978). 


238  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

This  specific  subjective  use  ot  exenipla  is  quite  different  from  the 
general  function  of  mythology  in  portraying  personal  experience. 
The  latter  is  "subjective"  only  in  the  most  general  sense  of  the  term — 
in  that  the  elegy  as  a  whole,  and  the  use  of  myth  within  the  elegy,  are 
concerned  with  representing  the  feelings  and  experiences  of  the 
lover. ~^  The  use  of  exempla  which  I  will  describe  is  a  very  specific — 
and  surprising — technique.  The  mythological  comparisons  fail  or  fall 
short  in  their  basic  referential  function  of  alluding  to  a  separate 
mythological  world.  By  referring  instead  to  the  lover's  own  feelings 
(1.  3),  or  by  denying  the  reference  they  purport  to  make  (2.  6),  these 
exempla  are  subjective  in  the  specific  sense  that  their  reference  is  to 
the  speaker's  own  frame  of  mind,  and  not  to  a  separate  mvthical 
world.^^' 

Finally,  it  will  be  noted  that  the  exempla"^'  which  begin  2.  6,  and  are 
discussed  below,  are  not  mythological  but  historical.  However,  (1)  I 
will  argue  that  the  women  in  these  exempla  belong  more  to  legend 
than  to  history,  and  (2)  my  concern  here  and  in  what  follows  is  not 
with  the  nature  of  mythology  per  se,  but  with  the  ways  in  which  the 
poet  refers  to  the  mythological  world.  Exempla  which  refer  to  fabled 
women  of  the  past  are  therefore  equally  illustrative  of  the  poet's 
manner  and  technique. 

One  of  the  ways  Propertius  uses  mythology  to  portray  his  own 
feelings  and  experiences  is  by  reversing  the  objective  relation  it 


"  Kolmel  (n.  24),  for  example,  is  using  the  more  general  sense  of  the  term  when  he 
concludes  that  Propertius  "bemachtigte  sich  des  Exempels  .  .  .  um  sie  fiir  seine 
subjektive  Dichtung  zum  stilistischen  Ciesetz  zu  erheben"  (p.  44).  Likewise  Fedeli  is 
referring  to  the  general  portrayal  of  emotions  when  he  observes  that  in  Catullus,  as  in 
Propertius,  "il  mito  non  e  sempre  trattato  in  modo  'oggettivo,'  alia  maniera  alessan- 
drina:  in  lui  compare  gia  il  nuovo  modo  di  sentirlo  che  sara  tipico  della  poesia  elegiaca" 
(Paolo  Fedeli,  "Properzio  1,  3.  Interpretazione  e  proposte  sull'origine  dell'elegia  latina," 
Museum  Helveticum  31  (1974),  23-41  [  =  Fedeli  1974],  p.  39). 

•^°  The  nature  of  this  mythical  world  is  not  important  to  my  argument,  only  the  fact 
that  the  reader  assumes  it  to  exist.  Interpretations  (a)  and  (b),  as  I  have  represented 
them,  are  two  extremes  in  a  spectrum  of  possible  views. 

"  The  exemplum  is  one  of  many  means  by  which  a  poet  makes  reference  to  myth. 
Kolmel  (n.  24)  identifies  three  types  of  reference:  paraenesis,  auxesis  and  apodeixis 
(pp.  46-107);  and  La  Penna  presents  a  similar  division  into  paradigm,  analogy  and 
antithesis  (Antonio  La  Penna,  L'integrazione  difficile.  Un  proplo  di  Properzio  [Piccola 
Biblioteca  Einaudi  297,  Turin  1977],  p.  20.5).  A  much  more  detailed  division  into  ten 
categories  is  proposed  by  Bollo  Testa  (n.  23),  p.  143.  The  term  "exemplum"  is  used  with 
considerable  imprecision,  and  Lechi  (n.  22)  proposes  to  define  it  more  clearly  by 
distinguishing  between  "exemplum"  and  "comparison"  (pp.  84-85).  According  to  this 
distinction,  the  o|)ening  passages  of  1.3  and  2.6  should  both  be  called  comparisons 
rather  than  exempla,  but  I  will  continue  to  u.se  the  familiar  term. 


Francis  M.  Dunn  239 

usually  establishes.  This  subjective  use  of  exempla  is  a  highly  sophisti- 
cated technique,  and  it  creates  an  almost  obsessive  concern  with  the 
subjective  nature  of  experience;  in  both  these  respects  mythology  in 
Propertius  is  indeed  the  image  of  its  creator. 

I 

To  illustrate  Propertius'  use  of  exempla  we  will  turn  first  to  elegy 
1.  3,"^-  which  begins  with  the  famous^^^  series  of  mythological  compari- 
sons (1.3.1-8): 

Qualis  Thesea  iacuit  cedente  carina 

languida  desertis  Cnosia  litoribus; 
qualis  et  accubuit  primo  Cepheia  somno 

libera  iam  duris  cotibus  Andromede; 
nee  minus  assiduis  Edonis  fessa  choreis 

qualis  in  herboso  concidit  Apidano: 
talis  visa  mihi  moUem  spirare  quietem 

Cynthia  non  certis  nixa  caput  manibus  .  .  . 

This  is  a  highly  suggestive  way  to  begin  a  poem.  Not  only  is  the  siting 
of  the  poem  left  undefined,'*'*  but  the  reference  of  the  exempla  is 
postponed. ^"^  The  three  mythical  vignettes  are  introduced  as  similes 
(with  repeated  qualis),  but  the  point  of  connection  is  not  established 
until  afterwards  in  line  7  (talis).  The  result  is  that  for  a  brief  moment 


The  bibliography  on  this  poem  is  extensive.  In  "L'elegia  1.3  di  Properzio," 
Giornale  Italiano  di  Filologia  14  (1961),  308-26  (  =  Lieberg  1961),  Godo  Lieberg  gives  a 
useful  review  and  analysis  of  important  discussions  up  to  1957,  namely  Birt  (1895),  E. 
Reitzenstein  (1936),  Keyssner  (1938),  La  Penna  (1951),  Alfonsi  (1953)  and  Kolmel 
(1957).  Hering  (Wolfgang  Hering,  "Properz  1.3,"  Wiener  Studien  85  [1972],  45-78) 
gives  a  briefer  review  of  the  literature  of  the  following  decade,  namely  Lieberg  (1961), 
Allen  (1962),  Otis  (1965),  Klingner  (1965),  Curran  (1966)  and  Wlosok  (1967).  More 
recent  discussions  of  this  poem  include  Lyne  (1970),  Fedeli  (1974),  Harmon  (1974), 
Giangrande  (1974),  Cairns  (1977),  Petersmann  (1978)  and  Baker  (1980).  Full  refer- 
ences will  be  given  when  these  works  are  cited. 

"  The  elegy  was  made  even  more  famous  in  the  German  world  by  Goethe's 
adaptation  "Der  Besuch,"  and  the  two  poems  are  compared  by  E.  Reitzenstein,  pp.  43- 
44  (Erich  Reitzenstein,  Wirklichkeitsbild  and  Gefuhlsentwicklung  bei  Properz  (Philologus 
Supplementband  29.2,  Leipzig  1936),  by  Fraenkel,  p.  55  (Eduard  Fraenkel,  "Die 
klassische  Dichtung  der  Romer,"  in  Das  Problem  des  Klassischen  und  die  Antike,  ed.  by 
Werner  Jaeger,  2nd  ed.,  Stuttgart  1961,  pp.  47-73),  and  by  Klingner,  pp.  442-43 
(Friedrich  Klingner,  "Properzens  Elegie  Qualis  Thesea,"  in  Romische  Geisteswelt,  Munich 
1965,  pp.  430-43). 

^^  Thus  E.  Reitzenstein  (n.  33),  p.  43.  Compare  Klingner  (n.  33),  p.  437. 

^^  Thus  Curran,  p.  190  (Leo  C.  CAuran,  "Vision  and  Reality  in  Propertius  1.3,"  y(de 
Classical  Studies  19  (1966),  189-207). 


240  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

these  vignettes  are  suspended,  free  of  context,  until  the  comparison  is 
made  with  the  real  woman  Cynthia.  Commentators  have  aptly  noted 
the  "idyllic  beauty"-^^  of  this  scene,  a  beauty  which  is  shattered  by  the 
following  couplet  (9-10): 

ebria  cum  multo  traherem  vestigia  Baccho, 
et  quaterent  sera  nocte  facem  pueri. 

The  speaker  drags  his  drunken  footsteps  into  the  narrative  as  if  he 
were  dragging  muddy  boots  across  a  carpet.  This  rude  awakening^^ 
anticipates  a  later  one  when  the  sleeping  Cynthia  wakes  up:  "The 
idyllic  vision  wakes,  and  not  only  wakes  but  talks,  and  not  only  talks 
but  nags."^*^  Much  of  the  poem  centers  on  this  contrast  between  the 
subjective  vision  of  the  drunken  lover  and  the  objective  reality  of 
Cynthia. ^^  It  is  important  to  note  that  this  contrast  is  enacted  rather 
than  described;  we  view  the  sleeping  Cynthia  through  the  eyes  of  the 
drunken  lover,  and  are  brought  back  to  our  senses  just  as  rudely  as 
he. 

This  subjective  vision  is  first  developed  in  the  opening  exempla. 
We  realize  (although  not  until  line  9  or  10)  that  this  scene  of  idyllic 
beauty  is  not  so  much  a  description  of  the  way  Cynthia  is,  as  an 
impression  of  the  way  she  seerns  to  the  drunken  lover. "^^  The  simile  is 

-^''Hubbard,  p.  21  (Margaret  Hubbard,  Propertim,  London  1974).  Compare  Allen 
(n.  12),  p.  133:  "this  scene  of  calm  and  of  mythic  beauty,"  and  Wlosok,  p.  333  (Antonie 
Wlosok,  "Die  dritte  Cynthia-Elegie  des  Properz  (Prop.  1.3),"  Hermes  95  [  1 967],  330-52). 
Fraenkel  (n.  33),  however,  emphasizes  "die  Steigerung  ins  Grossartige"  (p.  65). 

"  Thus  Allen  (n.  12),  p.  133:  "the  realistic  character  who  burst  in  upon  the  sleeping 
girl,"  and  compare  Lyne,  p.  69  (R.O.A.M.  Lyne,  "Propertius  and  Cynthia:  Elegy  1.3," 
Proceedings  of  the  Cambridge  Philological  Society  196  [1970],  60-78  [  =  Lyne  1970]).  Curran 
(n.  35),  p.  198,  notes  the  complementary  shifts  in  tone  (as  the  language  becomes  more 
natural)  and  in  attitude  (as  the  speaker  reflects  upon  his  own  situation). 

-'**  Hubbard  (n.  36),  p.  21. 

^'  Allen  (n.  12),  pp.  133-34,  reverses  this  contrast,  taking  myth  as  objective  and  the 
narrative  as  subjective  (as  noted  by  Curran  [n.  35],  p.  189,  note  1).  The  contrast  is 
internalized  by  Lieberg  1961  (in  psychological  terms  as  an  inner  conflict,  [n.  32],  p.  324) 
and  Harmon  (as  two  aspects  of  the  fantasy  of  the  drunken  lover,  p.  161  in  Daniel  P. 
Harmon,  "Myth  and  Fantasy  in  Propertius  1.3,"  Tram.  Am.  Phil.  Ass.  104  [1974],  1  DI- 
GS), while  it  is  externalized  by  Hering  (as  the  different  points  of  view  of  man  and 
woman  [n.  32],  p.  77).  The  contrast  between  subjective  vision  and  objective  reality  is 
more  clearly  staled  by  Curran  (who  regards  it  as  ironic  [n.  35],  p.  189),  Wlosok  (who 
regards  it  as  tragic  [n.  36],  p.  352)  and  Hubbard  (who  emphasizes  "the  otherness  of 
lover  and  beloved"  [n.  36],  p.  22).  According  to  Lyne  1970  this  contrast  is  a  romantic 
one,  and  is  the  general  purpose  of  the  poem  (n.  37),  p.  61. 

''"This  is  well  expressed  by  E.  Reitzenstein  (n.  33):  "die  drei  Vergleiche 
.  .  .  nicht  objektiv  vom  Erzahler  her,  sondern  aus  dem  Eindruck  des  Beschauers  heraus 
gegeben  werden,  dessen  Stimmung  damit  gezeichnet  wird"  (p.  44).  Compare  Wlosok 


Francis  M.  Dunn  241 

subjective,  and  its  subjective  nature  is  made  explicit  by  the  terms  of 
the  comparison  {talis  visa  mihi),'^^  though  at  first  we  may  not  take  these 
terms  literally.  But  the  simile  is  subjective  in  a  much  more  important 
manner.  As  Curran  observes,  "the  identification  of  Cynthia  with  the 
heroines  entails  a  complementary  identification  of  Propertius  with 
the  appropriate  gods  and  heroes.'"*"  Thus  in  the  first  exemplum  he 
"fancies  himself  Bacchus  discovering  Ariadne  on  Naxos  after  she  has 
been  abandoned  by  Theseus.  ...  In  the  context  of  the  second  ex- 
emplum, Propertius  would  play  Perseus  to  Cynthia's  Andromeda.'"*^ 
And  in  the  third'*'*  he  is  Pentheus"*^  spying  upon  a  Maenad."^^  In  other 

(n.  36),  p.  341.  Many  details  of  this  subjective  impression  are  colored  by  the  fact  that  the 
lover  is  drunk  (see  pp.  253-58  in  Robert  J.  Baker,  "Beauty  and  the  Beast  in  Propertius 
1.3,"  Studies  in  Latin  Literature  and  Roman  Histoi-y,  vol.  2,  ed.  by  Carl  Deroux  (Collection 
Latomus  168,  Brussels  1980,  pp.  245-58),  and  Alfonsi  suggests  that  his  drunkenness 
gives  the  myths  a  sense  of  unreality  (Luigi  Alfonsi,  "Una  elegia  di  Properzio.  Una  forma 
di  arte,"  Studi  Romani  1  [1953],  245-54  [  =  Alfonsi  1953],  p.  246).  However,  compare 
note  91  below. 

'"  Compare  Kolmel  (n.  24),  p.  130,  Curran  (n.  35).  p.  196  and  Wlosok  (n.  36),  p. 
341. 

''^  Curran  (n.  35),  p.  196.  This  identification  is  reinforced  by  the  corresp^ding 
scenes  in  the  visual  arts  (see  below). 

^^  Curran,  pp.  196-97. 

'*'*  Curran  (p.  197)  will  not  draw  the  logical  conclusion  in  the  case  of  the  third 
exemplum:  "the  ferocity  and  violence  usually  associated  with  the  Maenads  are 
discreetly  suppressed.  .  .  .  Indeed,  this  exemplum  at  first  seems  to  set  the  stage  for  that 
drama,  so  often  played  out  in  mythology,  of  a  girl  or  nymph,  alone  and  asleep  in  the 
country,  who  is  discovered  by  a  vigorous  god  or  hero."  But  the  first  exemplum  manages 
to  set  just  that  stage  without  being  so  misleading.  Curran  would  separate  the  lover's 
fantasy  of  himself  as  a  hero  from  his  fear  of  Cynthia's  anger,  but  both  are  indissolubly 
present  in  the  third  example. 

'*^  I  call  him  Pentheus  for  the  sake  of  discussion.  The  approaching  male  figures  in 
the  visual  arts  are  anonymous  satyrs,  divinities  or  men  (see  note  55  below).  In  literature 
the  most  famous  individual  to  look  upon  the  sleeping  Bacchantes  was  Pentheus, 
although  the  legend  of  Orpheus  was  similar  in  many  respects  (in  Ovid  Met.  1 1 .  69  the 
Maenads  are  given  the  same  epithet  Edonidas).  I  am  sure  that  Propertius  had  in  mind 
both  the  Pentheus  story  and  the  anonymous  painted  figures. 

*^  Of  these  three  identifications,  the  first  is  most  generally  acknowledged.  While 
Lieberg  1961  (n.  32)  argues  that  the  role  of  the  lover  is  implied  in  all  three  exempla  (p. 
316),  Wlosok  (n.  36)  agrees  that  "der  Dichter  sieht  sich  selbst  als  erscheinenden 
Dionysos"  (p.  342),  but  denies  him  a  similar  role  in  the  second  or  third  exemplum  (pp. 
335,  340).  Wlosok,  followed  by  Hering  (n.  32),  p.  51,  goes  on  to  conclude  that  the 
identities  of  the  mythical  figures  are  secondary:  "Das  bedeutet,  dass  die  drei  nicht  als 
beliebige  Heroinen  fungieren,  sondern  dass  die  bezeichnete  Situation  zum  Vergleich 
steht"  (p.  334).  The  reason  for  beginning  the  poem  with  these  exempla  then  becomes 
quite  vague:  "Dies  alles  ist  mehr  angedeutet  als  ausgesprochen"  (p.  341).  Of  these  three 
identifications,  the  first  is  also  most  significant  later  in  the  poem.  Both  Lieberg  (p.  324) 
and  Wlosok  (p.  342)  note  the  tension  between  the  lover's  identification  with  Dionysos  in 


242  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

words,  we  have  to  take  the  point  of  comparison  in  an  even  more  literal 
manner:  Cynthia  was  talis  visa  to  the  speaker  as  Ariadne  was  to 
Bacchus,  as  Andromeda  was  to  Perseus,  and  as  the  bacchante  was  to 
Pentheus.  But  each  woman  was  not  "looked  upon"  in  the  same  way.'*^ 
Bacchus  looked  on  Ariadne  with  desire,  aroused  by  her  beauty  and 
vulnerability;  Perseus  looked  on  Andromeda  with  a  mixture  of"  desire 
and  chivalrous  solicitude;  and  Pentheus  viewed  the  bacchante  with 
conflicting  emotions  of  prurience  and  fear.  All  these  emotions  are 
appropriate  to  Propertius  as  he  comes  upon  the  sleeping  Cynthia,"*^ 
and  the  mythic  exempla  create  not  so  much  a  description  of  Cynthia's 
appearance  as  a  specific  suggestion  of  the  lover's  feelings  as  he  sees 
her. 

My  argument  so  far  relies  upon  the  distinction  between  the 
idiomatic  ("is")  and  literal  ("seems")  meaning  of  the  comparison  {talis 
visa  mihi),  and  the  accompanying  distinction  between  the  idyllic 
descriptions  of  the  sleeping  women  in  the  beginning  of  the  poem,  and 
the  realistic  intrusion  of  the  lover  which  follows.  In  both  cases  we  are 
forced  to  a  reassessment  of  what  has  come  before.  But  if  the  male 
figure  is  not  mentioned  as  part  of  the  exemplum  (as  on  this  interpre- 
tation he  must  not  be),  how  are  we  made  aware  of  his  relevance?  The 
verbal  and  thematic  allusions  within  the  poem  will  be  discussed  below; 
perhaps  even  more  important  are  the  allusions  which  the  exempla 
make  to  the  visual  arts.  Since  the  seminal  articles  by  Birt'*^  and 


the  beginning  of  the  poem,  and  Cynthia's  identihcation  of  him  with  Theseus  at  the  end. 
This  complex  thematic  conflict  is  much  simplihed  by  Grimal  (n.  15):  "Le  sommeil 
mystique  qui  separe  Ariane  des  embrassements  de  Thesee  et  lui  promet  ceux  de 
Dionysos,  ravit  le  poete  et  I'inquiete  a  la  f'ois.  Lorsque  Cynthie  s  eveillera,  sera-t-elle 
toujours  sienne?"  (pp.  194-95). 

''^  Compare  the  much-quoted  observation  of  Hertzberg  (n.  9):  "Non  xXi'naxa 
mutatis  similibus  continent,  sed  variis  visionibus  dormientis  Cynthiae  imaginem  ab 
omni  parte  illustrant.  Solitudinem  enim  Ariadna  significat, — optatam  diu  quietem 
Andromeda,  profundum  somnum  Baccha  toto  corpore  resoluta"  (vol.  3,  p.  13).  As  the 
second  sentence  makes  clear,  however,  he  is  concerned  only  with  external  attributes. 
Bollo  Testa  (n.  23)  restates  this  in  more  subjective  terms:  "Questi  elementi  tratti  del 
mito,  piu  di  altri,  riescono  a  visualizzare  la  scena  ofTerta  agli  occhi  di  Properzio  e  a  darci 
un'idea  di  cio  che  egli  percepi  della  quies  di  Cinzia"  (p.  140).  As  we  will  see,  these 
perceptions  can  be  defined  more  preciselv. 

Curran  (n.  35)  does  not  distinguish  among  them:  the  exempla  describe  a  woman 
who  "is  recumbent,  sleeping,  abandoned,  exhausted,  possibly  even  making  love,  being 
rescued,  drunk  or  hysterical,  or  in  some  similar  state;  we  are  given  no  inkling  which, 
but  are  simply  invited  to  contemplate  this  heroic  world"  (p.  190). 

"•'  Theodor  Bin,  "Die  vaticanische  Ariadne  und  die  dritte  Elegie  des  Properz," 
Rheinisches  Museum  50  (1895),  31-65  and  161-90. 


Francis  M.  Dunn  243 

Keyssner,''*'  the  part  played  by  works  of  art  in  the  beginning  of  this 
poem  has  been  almost  universally  recognized.^'  As  Boucher  observes, 
"les  elements  plastiques  sont  des  moyens  d'expression  et  toute  la  piece 
est  nourrie  de  visions  artistiques  qui  s'integrent  a  une  place  precise 
dans  la  trame  du  recit."^~  Thus  the  first  exemplum  recalls  scenes  in 
which  Dionysus  comes  upon  Ariadne  sleeping  by  the  shore,"  the 
second  recalls  scenes  in  which  Perseus  rescues  Andromeda  from  the 
cliff,^"^  and  the  third  recalls  scenes  in  which  a  male  figure  approaches  a 
Bacchante  in  a  meadow.^^  Each  scene  involves  both  a  male  and  a 

^*^  Karl  Keyssner,  "Die  bildende  Kunst  bei  Properz,"  Wiirzburger  Stiidioi  zur  Alter- 
tumwissemchaft  13  (1938),  169-89. 

^'  An  exception  is  Hering  (n.  32),  who  argues  that  since  the  exempla  do  not 
reproduce  these  painted  scenes  exactly  (p.  51),  their  concern  is  only  with  the  general 
situation:  "Gegenstand  der  Vergleiche  der  ersten  sechs  Verse  sind  nicht  die  Personen 
des  Mythos  bzw.  die  Situationen"  (p.  60). 

"Boucher  (n.  18),  p.  54. 

^'  An  exhaustive  catalogue  is  given  by  Keyssner  (n.  50),  pp.  1 74-75.  There  are  three 
types  ol  scenes:  (A)  Theseus  leaving  the  sleeping  Ariadne,  (B)  Dionysus  approaching 
the  sleeping  Ariadne,  and  (C)  the  sleeping  Ariadne  alone.  The  third  group  consists 
only  of  statues;  thus  all  painted  versions  show  her  with  one  (sometimes  both)  ot^these 
lovers.  As  Keyssner  notes,  the  theme  of  sleep  was  "mit  Theseus  wie  mit  Dionysos  in 
gleicher  Weise  verkniipft,  so  dass  dem  Kunstler  reiche  Abwechslungs-  und  Entfal- 
tungsmoglichkeit  geboten  war"  (p.  173). 

^'*  References  are  given  by  Keyssner  (n.  50),  p.  179;  see  also  Wlosok  (n.  36),  pp.  334- 
35.  Wall-paintings  show  either  (A)  Perseus  chivalrously  leading  Andromeda  away  by 
the  hand,  or  (B)  the  two  lovers  leaning  together  and  looking  at  Medusa's  reflection  in 
water.  The  first  group  is  more  common,  and  includes  an  example  in  which  Perseus 
admires  the  beauty  of  Andromeda.  Since  Andromeda  is  not  shown  sleeping,  there  is 
much  debate  about  Propertius'  model.  Keyssner  (p.  179)  suggests  that  he  has  simply 
combined  the  Perseus  scene  with  the  common  motif  of  a  sleeping  woman.  Boucher  (n. 
18)  argues  that  "Properce  fait  ici  allusion  a  une  peinture  que  nous  ne  connaissons  plus" 
(p.  54),  and  is  followed  by  Lieberg  1961  (n.  32),  p.  316,  and  Whitaker  (n.  21),  p.  91. 
Curran  (n.  35),  on  the  other  hand,  suggests  that  the  scene  is  entirely  original:  "By  using 
this  word  [accubuit]  here,  he  boldly  fuses  the  moment  of  Perseus'  discovery  of 
Andromeda  with  the  consummation  of  their  marriage,  ignoring  the  time  Perseus  had 
to  spend  in  dealing  with  Andromeda's  suitors  and  kinsmen"  (p.  197).  He  is  followed  in 
this  view  by  Harmon  (n.  39),  p.  154.  Cairns,  on  the  other  hand,  argues  that  the  scene  is 
makeshift:  "Propertius  wanted  three  myths  to  make  up  the  standard  Alexandrian 
pattern.  So  he  devised  a  third  exemplum,  that  of  Andromeda,  which  was  in  strict  terms 
inadequate  in  comparison  with  the  other  two  but  which  he  placed  between  the  other 
two  in  order  to  disguise  its  inadequacy"  (p.  352  in  Francis  Cairns,  "Two  unidentified 
Komoi  of  Propertius.  1.3  and  2.29,"  Emerita  45  [1977],  325-53).  For  my  own  view  see 
note  56  below. 

^^  References  are  given  by  Keyssner  (n.  50),  pp.  177-78,  who  cites  also  Ovid,  Am.\. 
14.  20-22  {purpurea  iacuit  semisupina  toro;  I  tuvi  quoque  erat  neclecta  decern,  ut  Thracia 
Bacche,  I  cum  temere  in  viridi  gramine  lassa  iacet)  and  Plutarch  249  E-F.  In  painting  the 
Bacchante  is  usually  portrayed  in  lush  surroundings,  and  is  always  observed  by  another 
figure,  whose  identity,  however,  often  cannot  be  determined. 


244  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

female  figure;  and  the  fact  that  Andromeda  is  typically  shown  awake 
rather  than  sleeping  should  remind  us  that  the  sleeping  posture  is  not 
the  only  thing  about  Cynthia  that  arouses  the  lover's  interest.^^  As 
Whitaker  points  out,  it  is  the  allusion  to  painting  which  allows  the  poet 
to  move  from  exempla  of  a  sleeping  woman  to  the  approach  of  her 
lover:  "By  casting  them  [his  mythological  exempla]  in  a  form  which 
would  immediately  call  to  his  audience's  mind  certain  well-known 
paintings,  he  is  able  to  move  on  to  a  new  theme — his  own  drunken 
amorous  approach  to  his  mistress — simply  by  drawing  that  audience's 
attention  to  a  further  detail  of  the  pictures  he  has  evoked. "^^  What  I 
intend  to  show  is  that  this  introduction  of  a  new  theme  is  very 
subjective  (in  that  it  portrays  the  lover's  emotions,  and  not  just  his 
"drunken  amorous  approach")  and  very  specific  (in  that  it  delineates 
the  varied  aspects  of  these  emotions). 

In  fact,  the  mythological  examples  which  begin  this  poem  may  be 
described  as  subjective  both  in  function  and  in  manner.  They  are 
subjective  in  function  (or  content)  in  that  the  point  of  the  comparison 
is  not  "is  like"  but  "seems  like."  Indeed  their  function  is  radically 
subjective  in  that  although  the  exempla  purport  to  describe  an 
objective  fact  ("She  is  like")  they  do  not  even  describe  an  appearance 
("She  seems  like"),  but  simply  state  a  subjective  impression  ("I  feel") 
which  no  longer  has  any  formal  connection  with  the  other  term  of  the 
comparison. ^^ 

The  exempla  are  also  subjective  in  manner  (or  form)  in  that  they 
do  not  state  a  connection,  but  imply  one.  We  have  noted  that  the 
connection  which  does  apply  is  that  between  the  appearance  of  the 
sleeping  woman,  and  the  emotions  which  her  appearance  arouses. 
But  we  cannot  know  until  at  least  line  9  or  10,  when  the  drunken  lover 


As  Klingner  (n.  33)  notes,  the  point  of"  resemblance  between  the  three  episodes  is 
the  male  figure's  "Liebesblick  auf  die  Schone"  (p.  437).  The  gaze  of  love  is  an  important 
theme,  and  is  repeated  in  the  exemplum  of  Argus  and  lo  (Curran,  n.  35,  p.  201). 
However,  the  primary  associations  of  the  Perseus  and  Andromeda  scene  are  chivalrous 
deeds  rather  than  gazing  or  sleep  (see  also  below),  and  this  difference  draws  attention 
to  the  romantic  associations  of  this  episode.  Although  his  emphasis  is  different,  Lyne 
1970  (n.  37)  makes  a  similar  argument:  "the  discrepancies  between  Cynthia's  and 
Andromeda's  situation,  which  have  worried  some  commentators,  are  intentional  and 
significant  on  a  subtle  level"  (p.  68). 

^'^  Whitaker  (n.  21),  p.  92.  Compare  the  observations  of  Lyne  1970  (n.  37)  that  while 
in  the  exempla  themselves  "Propertius  is  concerned  with  the  sleeping  heroines  as  single 
figures"  (p.  67),  the  "ominous  omissions"  of  the  male  figures  acquire  importance  later 
in  the  poem  (pp.  67-68). 

^^  We  could  .say  that  the  subjective  impression  (desire)  is  cau.sed  by  the  objective 
appearance  (beauty),  but  this  would  be  an  a.ssertion  of  causality,  not  of  similarity  {qualis 
.  .  .  talis). 


Francis  M.  Dunn  245 

stumbles  on  the  scene,  that  this  is  the  way  in  which  we  should 
understand  the  examples.'''^  There  is  a  strong  hint  in  the  portrait  of 
the  bacchante,^^  but  even  here  we  must  wait  until  the  third  example. 
Thus  the  relevance  of  the  mythic  exempla  is  not  given  but  must  be 
reconstructed  subjectively  by  the  reader. 

We  have  so  far  considered  this  passage  as  a  unit,  and  have  treated 
all  three  exempla  as  contributing  to  a  single  effect.  But  while  their 
general  function  is  the  same,  each  vignette  is  different  and  each 
corresponds  to  a  different  complex  of  emotions.  As  a  result  the 
opening  passage  is  more  profoundly  subjective  in  that  it  corresponds 
not  to  a  single  vision  or  fancy  of  the  drunken  lover,  but  to  a  dynamic 
series  of  emotions  which  he  experiences  upon  seeing  his  mistress.^' 
Rather  than  an  objective  description  of  the  lover's  (subjective)  state  of 
mind,  the  series  of  varied  emotions  provides  us  with  a  subjective 
impression  of  his  response  to  seeing  her.  In  a  paradoxical  way  this 
movement  is  also  objective,  in  that  it  precisely  anticipates  the  move- 
ment of  the  poem  as  a  whole.  The  remainder  of  the  poem  falls  into 
three  sections :^^  1 1-20  where  the  lover  approaches  Cynthia  impelled 

^^  The  proper  term  for  this  is  e  sequentibus  praecedentia.  Williams,  p.  73  (Gordon 
Williams,  Figures  of  Thought  in  Roman  Poetry,  New  Haven  1980),  uses  the  term  in 
connection  with  this  passage,  but  only  to  describe  thematic  anticipation,  such  as  the 
anticipation  of  Cynthia's  anger  by  the  figure  of  the  bacchante. 

^  The  interest  of  the  bacchante,  ever  since  Euripides'  Bacchae  (especially  the  first 
messenger's  speech,  677-774),  lay  not  so  much  in  her  appearance  as  in  the  chance  that 
she  might  awake  and  attack  her  viewer.  Propertius  makes  full  use  of  this  in  the  final 
section  of  the  poem.  Compare  Luck  (n.  15):  "the  Maenad  suggests  the  outbreak 
.  .  .  of  which  she  is  capable"  (p.  122),  and  Lyne  1980  (n.  14),  pp.  99-100. 

^'  Harmon  (n.  39)  describes  as  "unfortunate"  the  observation  by  Hertzberg  that  the 
three  exempla  do  not  form  a  climax  (see  note  47),  and  cites  the  continued  acceptance  of 
this  view  (p.  155  with  note  18).  He  goes  on  to  argue  that  the  exempla  form  a  priamel, 
with  the  "Maenad  as  the  climactic  member  of  the  list"  (p.  157),  since  her  drunk  and 
ecstatic  condition  is  closest  to  that  of  the  speaker  himself.  However,  I  find  nothing 
which  identifies  the  Maenad  as  his  "altera"  (p.  165),  especially  given  the  sense  of 
distance  between  the  lovers  (Wlosok,  n.  36,  p.  352).  See  below. 

"  This  division  is  quite  close  to  those  of  Lyne  1970,  n.  37  (1-10,  11-20,  21-30,  31- 
33,  34-46)  and  Curran,  n.  35,  p.  190  (1-10,  1 1-20,  21-34,  35-46),  and  also  similar  to 
that  of  E.  Reitzenstein,  n.  33,  p.  46  (1-10,  1 1-20,  21-30,  31-34,  35-40,  41-46),  which  is 
followed  by  Lieberg  1961  (n.  32),  p.  313.  The  unusual  division  of  Wlosok,  n.  36,  p.  351 
(1-12,  13-20,  21-26,  27-34,  35-46),  which  is  followed  by  Hering  (n.  32),  p.  73,  is 
criticized  by  Fedeli  1974  (n.  29),  pp.  23-24.  Compare  pp.  1 12-13  in  Paolo  Fedeli,  Sesto 
Properzio.  II  primo  libra  delle  elegie,  Accademia  Toscana  di  Scienze  e  Lettere  "La 
Columbaria,"  Studi  53  (Florence  1980)  (  =  Fedeli  1980).  Fedeli  argues  against  this  strict 
symmetrical  structure  on  the  grounds  that  it  contradicts  the  neoteric  canon  of  JtoixiXia. 
Petersmann,  pp.  954-55  (Gerhard  Petersmann,  "Properz  \.2>" Latomm  37  [1978],  953- 
59),  criticizes  the  undue  emphasis  Wlosok  places  on  the  ring  structure  of  the  poem,  and 
proposes  a  two-part  structure  (1-30,  35-46)  wherein  the  speaker  and  Cynthia  both 


246  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

by  desire,  21-33  where  he  gives  her  gifts  and  shows  his  concern,  and 
34—46  where  she  wakes  up  and  sharply  rebukes  him.  This  movement 
of  the  poem  from  desire  to  solicitude  to  fear  of  assault  is  exactly 
paralleled  by  the  opening  exempla.^^ 

Bacchus  and  Ariadne  /  lines  1 1-20.  The  principal  emotion  associat- 
ed with  the  mythological  scene  is  desire,  — perhaps  (given  the  god's 
nature)  a  drunken  desire,  but  certainly  desire  mixed  with  admiration 
for  her  beauty.  In  the  following  scene  the  speaker  is  likewise  impelled 
by  desire,  and  in  lines  15—16  has  every  intent  of  obeying  his  impulse. 
The  similarities  are  in  fact  more  specific.  In  the  first  case  the  god  of 
wine  and  love  comes  upon  a  sleeping  woman;  in  the  second  the 
drunken  lover,  compelled  by  Love  and  Wine  {hac  Amor  hac  Liber,  14), 
comes  tipon  his  sleeping  mistress.  In  both  cases  we  may  also  assume 
that  the  desire  was  heightened  by  the  vulnerability  of  the  sleeping 
woman.  Furthermore,  just  as  Dionysus  usually  approaches  Ariadne 
with  a  thronging  tliiasos,^^  the  lover  approaches  his  mistress  ac- 
companied by  pueri  (10)  shaking  torches  like  a  thiasos^^  or  a  crowd  of 
Cupids:^^  Finally,  as  Boucher  observes,*^^  the  substitution  of  Bacchus 
for  vinum  in  line  9  {ebria  cum  multo  traherem  vestigia  Baccho)  emphasizes 
that  the  drunken  lover  is  here  playing  the  role  of  Dionysus  discover- 
ing Ariadne.  However  in  the  myth  the  god  will  have  his  way,  while  the 
lover  stops  short,  fearing  his  mistress'  anger,  and  is  frozen,  all  eyes, 
like  Argus  watching  lo.^^ 

Perseus  and  Andromeda  /  lines  21-33.  The  principal  emotion 
associated  with  this  mythical  scene  is  Perseus'  chivalrous  concern  for 

move  from  distance  to  closeness  (see  esp.  his  diagram  on  p.  959).  His  analysis  in  many 
respects  resembles  that  of  Reitzenstein. 

"  Coincidental  support  for  this  interpretation  is  given  by  Lyne's  division  of~  the 
poem.  His  divisions  closely  correspond  to  my  own  (see  previous  note),  and  his 
descriptions  of  them  suggest  a  similar  progression  of  emotions:  "A  Real  Temptation," 
"  'Tendres.se'  and  Pathos,"  "[The  Real  Cynthia]"  (pp.  70,  72,  75). 

^  (Compare  Catullus  64.  251-53  {volitabat  lacchus  .  .  .  te  quaerens.  Ariadiia,  tuoque 
incensus  amore)  and  Ellis'  note  on  the  frequent  portrayal  of  Dionysus,  Eros  and  Ariadne 
in  vase  painting  (p.  280,  Robinson  Ellis,  A  Commentary  on  Catullus,  Oxford  1889). 
Wlosok  (n.  36)  notes:  "Wie  Diony.sos  ist  Properz  vom  Anblick  der  schonen  Schliiferin 
hingerissen  und  in  Liebesleidenschaft  zu  ihr  entflammt"  (p.  342). 

^^  For  examples  in  art,  see  Wlo.sok.  (n.  36),  p.  337.  note  4,  and  in  literature  compare 
Catullus  64.  252  f.:  lacchus  I  cum  thiaso  Satyrorum  et  Nysigenis  SiloiLs. 

'^Thus  Lieberg  1961  (n.  32),  p.  321. 

*•'  Thus  Lyne  1970  (n.  37),  p.  63. 

''*' Boucher  (n.  18),  p.  243. 

^''  The  comparison  comes  unexpectedly  (Lyne  1970,  n.  37,  pp.  70-71),  and  Argus' 
amazement  at  the  strange  appearance  of  lo  (igywtis  cornibus)  anticipates  the  lover's 
amazement  at  Cynthia's  sanntia  (Hering,  n.  32,  p.  64). 


Francis  M.  Dunn  247 

Andromeda,  or  rather  a  mixture  of  concern  and  love7"  The  emotions 
of  the  speaker  in  the  second  section  are  the  same:  he  straightens  her 
hair,  gives  her  gifts,  and  fears  for  her  well-being  even  in  her  dreams. 
In  particular,  the  mythological  scene  in  art  is  typified  by  romantic 
gestures,  such  as  Perseus  leading  Andromeda  by  the  hand,  or  the  two 
lovers  leaning  together  (see  note  54  above),  while  the  scene  with 
Cynthia  is  filled  with  romantic  gestures  and  tokens,  such  as  placing 
the  wreath  on  her  forehead  and  offering  her  apples.  '  Finally, 
Propertius'  treatment  of  the  Andromeda  myth  is  unusual  in  portray- 
ing the  woman  asleep,^"  and  this  difference  is  emphasized  by  pri mo  .  .  . 
somno  (3),  the  only  mention  of  sleep  in  the  series  of  exempla.  In  a 
similar  manner  the  peculiar  atmosphere  of  "hopeless  tenderness"'''*  in 
the  scene  with  Cynthia  depends  on  the  theme  of  sleep,  both  in  the 
rejection  of  the  lover's  gifts  {ingrato  .  .  .  somno,  25)  and  in  his  concern  at 
her  uneasy  sleeping  (27-30).  Once  again  a  chief  difference  is  that 
Perseus  is  successful,  while  the  gifts  and  concern  of  the  lover  are 
ineffectual.  As  he  lingers  over  her,  he  is  interrupted  and  upstaged 
by  the  concern  of  the  lingering  moon  {lima  moraturis  sedula  luminibus, 
32)7^ 

Pentheus  and  Maenad  /  lines  34-46.  The  emotions  of  Pentheus 
when  viewing  the  Maenads  were  a  combination  of  prurient  desire  and 
fear  at  their  savagery.^''  The  same  combination  of  emotions  is  felt — 


^°  See  especially  Maiuri,  p.  81  ("Like  a  knight-errant  of  the  age  of  chivalry,  Perseus 
saved  the  fair  Andromeda  from  the  jaws  of  a  sea-monster,  and  a  large  picture  dealing 
with  this  incident  was  found  in  the  House  of  the  Dioscuri"),  and  the  plate  on  p.  79 
(Amedeo  Maiuri,  Roman  Painting,  trans,  by  Stuart  Gilbert,  Geneva  1953).  Keyssner  (n. 
50)  comments  on  the  idyllic  atmosphere:  "Von  einen  Nachzittern  schweren  Erlebens  ist 
in  diesen  Bild  nichts  zu  spiiten"  (p.  179). 

^'  As  Lyne  1970  (n.  37)  notes,  "in  lines  21f.  and  24ff.,  Propertius  is  not  just  giving 
presents  to  Cynthia,  which  he  has  brought  back  from  the  party,  but  is  performing  two 
conventional  gestures  of  love"  (p.  72).  On  the  placing  of  a  wreath,  compare  Gian- 
grande,  pp.  31-32  (G.  Giangrande,  "Los  topicos  helenisticos  en  la  elegia  latina,"  Emerita 
42  [1974],  1-36),  and  on  the  apples  compare  Enk's  note  on  line  24.  Curran  (n.  35)  notes 
that  "in  describing  the  draping  of  the  garlands  and  bestowal  of  other  gifts  upon  an 
unresponsive  recipient,  Propertius  introduces  a  subtle  variation  on  the  theme  of  the 
exclusus  amator"  (p.  203).  For  an  interesting  interpretation  of  the  entire  elegy  as  a 
variation  on  this  theme,  see  Cairns  (n.  54). 

^^  See  note  54  above. 

^'Lyne  1970  (n.  37),  p.  72. 

'''*  Baker  (n.  40)  remarks  upon  "the  attribution  to  a  more  or  less  personified 
moonlight  of  an  attitude  properly  belonging  to  Propertius  himself^'  (p.  246). 

'^  As  of  course  in  Bacchae  (note  60  above).  Compare  Wlosok  (n.  36):  "Damit  ist 
darauf  hingedeutet,  dass  ihre  Erregung  durch  den  Schlaf  nur  iiberdeckt  ist  und  beim 


248  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

throughout  the  poem — by  the  lover  viewing  Cynthia:  he  desires  her 
intensely,  yet  fears  her  anger  when  awoken.  This  conflict  is  most 
clearly  expressed  in  lines  17-18  in  words  that  are  equally  suited  to  the 
mythological  situation: 

non  tamen  ausus  eram  dominae  turbare  quietem, 
expertae  metuens  iiirgia  saevitiae. 

In  this  case,  however,  the  whole  poem  corresponds  in  emotion  to  the 
scene  of  the  Maenad,  while  the  final  passage  depicts  that  savage 
outburst  which  the  lover  had  been  fearing.^^  The  fury  of  the  woman 
when  awakened  corresponds  to  the  fear  of  that  fury  in  the  mythologi- 
cal exemplum.  Once  more  there  is  also  a  certain  lack  of  correspon- 
dence. While  in  the  mythological  version  the  awakened  Maenads 
destroy  Pentheus,  Cynthia's  violent  outburst  quickly  subsides^^  and 
the  fierce  Maenad  becomes  instead  a  Penelope  waiting  for  Odysseus^** 
or  an  Ariadne  abandoned  by  Theseus. ^^ 

The  opening  series  of  exempla  is  therefore  dynamic  in  that  it 
portrays  a  sequence  of  emotions  from  desire  to  solicitude  to  fear  of 
assault,  and  it  is  profoundly  subjective  in  that  this  anticipates  the 
sequence  of  emotions  experienced  by  the  lover  as  he  views  his 
sleeping  mistress.  The  series  of  exempla  does  not  form  a  climax,  just 
as  the  emotions  associated  with  them  are  of  equal  importance. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  a  crescendo  of  tone,  building  towards  the 
Maenad  in  one  case,  and  Cynthia's  outburst  in  the  other.  Sechi 
observes  "un  crescendo  di  movimento  nel  succedersi  di  questi  tre 
quadri,  che  si  articolano  su  tre  verbi:  iacuit,  accubuit,  concidit."^''^  But 
there  is  more  to  this  progression.  Just  as  the  sleep  of  Ariadne  is 

Erwachen  wieder  losbrechen  kann.  Das  ist  der  entscheidende  Aspekt  dieses  mytholo- 
gischen  Beispiels"  (p.  340). 

^^  A  comparison  of  the  woken  Cynthia  with  the  Maenad  is  made  also  by  Curran  (n. 
35),  p.  200,  Wlosok  (n.  36),  p.  348  and  Williams  (n.  59),  p.  72.  Klingner  (n.  33),  p.  439, 
points  out  that  Cynthia  is  quite  unlike  a  Maenad  at  the  end  of  her  speech,  but  it  is  her 
initial  outburst  {tandem  .  .  .  improbe  .  .  .)  which  reveals  the  woman  he  had  feared. 

^''  For  the  change  in  mood  see  E.  Reitzenslein  (n.  33),  pp.  45-46  and  Wlosok  (n.  36), 
pp.  347-50.  Giangrande  (n.  71)  ascribes  this  change  to  Propertius'  "Weiberpsycholo- 
gie"  (pp.  34-35).  Lyne  1970  (n.  37),  however,  regards  the  speech  as  a  sustained  attack, 
with  simply  "a  change  of  tactics"  at  the  end  (p.  76).  Klingner  (n.  33),  on  the  other  hand, 
regards  the  whole  as  a  "sanfte  Klage"  (p.  439). 

'^^  Thus  E.  Reitzenstein  (n.  33),  p.  44,  and  Wlosok  (n.  36),  p.  350. 

^'Thus  Lieberg  1961  (n.  32),  pp.  322-24,  Curran  (n.  35),  pp.  20.5-06  and  Wlo.sok 
(n.  36),  p.  349.  Compare  note  46  above. 

""  Margherita  Sechi,  "Nota  a  Properzio  1.3,"  Mnta  6  (1953),  208-13,  p.  209. 


Francis  M.  Dunn  249 

contrasted  with  her  earlier  lament  (Thesea  .  .  .  carina,  desertis  litoribus),^^ 
that  of  Andromeda  is  contrasted  with  her  earlier  hardships  {libera  iam 
duris  cotibus),^^  and  the  sleep  of  the  Bacchante  is  contrasted  with  her 
previous  ecstasy  (assiduis  .  .  .  fessa  choreis)  which  at  any  moment  may 
break  forth  again.^-^  This  contrast,  which  is  strongest  in  the  third 
exemplum,  is  applied  also  to  Cynthia  in  the  following  couplet,  as  she 
lies  posed  between  sleeping  and  waking  {non  certis  .  .  .  manibus).^^  The 
sections  which  follow  likewise  build  towards  the  awakening  of  Cyn- 
thia, first  in  the  lover's  fear  of  waking  her  (17-18),^^  and  then  in  his 
concern  at  her  uneasy  sleep  (27-30).^^  Her  awakening  in  the  final 
section  of  the  poem  both  confirms  this  sequence  and  reinforces  the 
similarity  between  Cynthia  and  the  Maenad. 

We  began  by  observing  that  much  of  this  elegy  centers  on  the 
contrast  between  the  subjective  vision  of  the  lover  and  the  objective 
reality  of  Cynthia,  a  contrast  which  is  expressed  in  part  by  the 
difference  between  the  heroines  in  the  exempla  and  the  real  Cynthia 
of  the  narrative.  At  the  end  of  the  poem,  however,  these  distinctions 
become  blurred.  Cynthia  seems  to  enter  the  mythical  world:  she 
resembles  a  Penelope  or  Ariadne,^^  she  sings  to  the  lyre  of  Orpheus 
{Orpheae  .  .  .  lyrae,  42),  and  is  described  in  language  which  strongly 
resembles  the  opening  exempla  {fessa,  42,  deserta,  43).*^^  In  the  case  of 
the  lover,  there  is  a  similar  contrast  between  the  heroic  role  implied  in 
the  exempla  and  the  role  he  actually  plays  in  the  following  sections  of 
the  poem.  In  the  first  two,  the  drunken  lover  fails  where  Dionysus 
and  Perseus  had  succeeded;  but  in  the  third,  the  lover  is  spared  where 
Pentheus  and  Orpheus  were  destroyed.  This  surprising  reversal,^^  by 
which  the  real  situation  of  the  lover  is  superior  to  that  of  the  mythical 
figure  implied  in  the  exemplum,  also  blurs  the  contrast  between  the 

^'  See  Wlosok  (n.  36),  pp.  338-39,  who  points  out  the  echoes  of  Ariadne's  lament  in 
Catullus  64.  On  the  relation  between  the  two  poems,  see  also  Klingner  (n.  33),  p.  435, 
Curran  (n.  35),  pp.  196-97  and  Ross,  pp.  54-57  (David  O.  Ross,  Backgrounds  to 
Augustan  Poetry:  Gallus,  Elegy  and  Rome,  Cambridge  1975). 

^~  Compare  Wlosok  (n.  36),  p.  335. 

^^  See  notes  60  and  75  above. 

*■*  Compare  Lyne  1970  (n.  37),  pp.  68-69,  and  Williams  (n.  59),  p.  72.  Curran  (n. 
35),  on  the  other  hand,  suggests  a  contrast  between  this  "imminent  threat  of 
movement"  and  "the  heroines  frozen  like  works  of  art"  (p.  195). 

^^  Thus  E.  Reitzenstein  (n.  33),  p.  46. 

^^  Thus  Wlosok  (n.  36),  p.  347. 

^"^  See  notes  78  and  79  above. 

*^Thus  Curran  (n.  35),  pp.  205-06.  Compare  Allen  (n.  12),  p.  133. 

*'  Such  reversals  are  among  the  many  hellenistic  topoi  in  the  poem  noted  by 
Giangrande  (n.  71).  For  a  broader  study  of  Propertius'  models  see  Fedeli  1974  (n.  29). 


250  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

two  realms,  and  suggests  that  vision  and  reality  may  have  more  in 
common  than  we  expected. ^^ 

The  exempla  which  begin  1.  3  do  not  describe  an  objective 
situation  so  much  as  present  the  viewer's  subjective  impressions;  they 
do  this  in  such  a  way  as  to  anticipate  the  development  of  the  poem  as  a 
whole;  and  they  finally  reveal  a  surprising  coincidence  between  their 
subjective  and  objective  functions.^' 


II 

Elegy  2.  6^"  begins  with  a  series  of  exempla  similar  to  that  which 
begins  1.3: 

Non  ita  complebant  Ephyraeae  Laidos  aedis, 

ad  cuius  iacuit  Graecia  tota  fores; 
turba  Menandreae  fuerat  nee  Thaidos  olim 

tanta,  in  qua  populus  lusit  Erichthonius; 
nee  quae  deletas  potuit  componere  Thebas, 

Phryne  tarn  multis  facta  beata  uiris. 
quin  etiam  falsos  fingis  tibi  saepe  propinquos, 

oscula  nee  desunt  qui  tibi  lure  ferant.  (2.  6.  1-8) 

^  Compare  the  observation  of  BoUo  Testa  (n.  23)  that  in  this  poem  myth  "assume 
una  doppia  funzione:  spiega  e  condiziona  insieme  la  realta,  le  da  sue  sembianze"  (p.  140 
note  7). 

^'  Thus  the  exempla  combine — and  blur — "subjective"  and  "objective"  functions. 
For  Kolmel  (n.  24),  however,  the  subjectivity  of  the  exempla  is  absolute:  "Nur 
undeutlich  wird  die  schlafende  Gestalt  erhellt,  ...  da,  es  ist  Ariadne,  das  wohlbekannte, 
geliebte  Bild!  Der  Trunkene  erschrickt,  schliesst  die  Augen,  offnet  sie  wieder:  es  ist 
Andromeda,  nein,  eine  Bacchantin!"  (p.  131).  Kolmel  is  taking  to  an  extreme  the 
observation  of  Alfonsi  1953  (n.  40)  that  the  unreality  of  the  heroines  owes  something  to 
the  drunkenness  of  the  lover  (p.  246).  Harmon  (n.  39)  goes  further,  and  argues  that  the 
whole  poem  is  a  "drunken  reverie"  (p.  152).  However,  the  only  indication  that  the 
narrative  is  imagined  is  the  absence  of  a  phrase  such  as  "to  the  couch"  in  line  9  (p.  152), 
while  there  is  every  indication  that  it  describes  an  objective  situation  (compare  note  37 
above). 

'^  The  bibliography  for  this  poem  is  much  smaller  than  for  1.  3.  Apart  from  the 
commentators,  the  fullest  discussions  are  in  R.  Reitzenstein,  pp.  215-220  (R.  Reitzen- 
stein,  "Properz-Studien," //frw«  31  [1896].  185-220),  Bovance  1942.  pp.  57-62  (Pierre 
Boyance,  "Surcharges  de  redaction  chez  Properce,"  Revue  des  Etudes  Latines  20  [1942], 
54-69)  and  Williams  (n.  59),  pp.  82-85.  See  also  Copley,  who  discusses  the  symbolic  use 
in  this  poem  of  the  lover's  door  (pp.  75-76  in  Frank  O.  Copley,  Exclusus  Amator.  A  Study 
in  Latin  Love  Foeti-y,  Philological  Monographs  published  by  the  American  Philological 
Assoc.  17,  [Madi.son]  1956).  I  will  refer  to  editions  and  commentators  simply  by  name: 
for  fuller  references  see  Fedeli  1980  (n.  62),  pp.  19-26  and  Hanslik,  p.  xxiii  (Rudolf 
Hanslik,  Sex.  Fropertii  Elegiarum  Libri  IV,  Leipzig  1979).  Citation  of  commentators  is  ad 
loc,  unless  otherwi.se  indicated. 


Francis  M.  Dunn  251 

While  the  examples  here  are  taken  not  from  mythology  but  from 
history ,^^  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  describe  all  three  as  legendary.  Lais 
was  immortalized  in  the  painting  of  Apelles,  Thais  in  the  plays  of 
Menander,  and  Phryne  in  the  inscription  of  Alexander.^"*  The  use  of 
the  Greek  forms  of  their  names  {Laidos,  Thaidos,  Phyyne)  and  of 
allusive  geographical  epithets  (Ephyraeae,  Erichthonius)  reinforces  the 
impression  that  the  poet  is  alluding  not  to  a  factual  past  but  to  a  quasi- 
mythological  realm. ^^  The  resemblance  to  the  beginning  of  1.  3^^  goes 
further  than  this:  both  poems  begin  with  a  series  of  three  exempla,^'^ 
each  of  which  describes  a  legendary  woman,  and  in  both  poems  this 
opening  passage,  despite  its  function  of  providing  a  comparison  with 
Cynthia,  is  somewhat  detached  from  its  context. 

Let  us  look  at  this  second  feature  more  closely.  In  2.  6  the 
connection  of  the  examples  with  their  context  is  severed  completely: 
they  form  a  single  sentence,  and  at  line  7  a  new  sentence  begins  with 
nothing  to  complete  the  terms  of  comparison  {non  ita  .  .  .)  introduced 
in  the  exempla.^^  But  if  the  examples  are  left  dangling  with  respect  to 
their  context,  there  is  also  a  lack  of  connection  within  them.  The  first 
(non  ita  complebant)  lacks  a  definite  subject,^^  and  if  we  supply^  one 
from  the  following  line  {Graecia  tola)  it  does  not  agree  in  number.  The 
second  comparison  is  expressed  in  different  terms  {turba  .  .  .fuerat  nee 
.  .  .  tanta),  and  is  fragmented,  postponing  the  term  of  comparison 


'^  A  difference  Rothstein  considers  exceptional,  p.  179. 

^'*  In  the  cases  of  Thais  {Menandreae,  3)  and  Phryne  (deletas  potuit  componere  Thebas,  5) 
the  poet  makes  clear  reference  to  this  immortalization.  Apelles  is  not  mentioned,  but 
Lais  was  best  known  by  this  portrait;  see  Enk,  pp.  95-99. 

^^  The  comparisons  should  therefore  be  regarded  as  mythical  exempla  rather  than 
historical  nagabeiyyiaxa.  The  latter  were  heavily  favored  by  Latin  prose  writers;  see 
Alewell  (Karl  Alewell,  Uber  das  rhetorische  naQ&buy\x,a.  Theorie,  Beispiehammlungen, 
Veniiendung  in  der  roihischen  Literatur  der  Kaiserheit,  Leipzig  1913).  On  the  distinction 
between  mythical  and  historical  comparisons  see  also  Lechi  (n.  22),  pp.  86-87,  whose 
definition  of  the  latter  ("avere  lo  status  della  res  vera")  would  not  apply  to  the  legendary 
women  of  this  poem.  This  is  not  to  deny  the  considerable  difference  in  tone  between 
these  exempla  and  those  of  1.  3,  as  is  noted  by  Alfonsi  1945  (n.  17),  p.  39. 

^  Noted  briefly  by  Williams  (n.  59),  p.  82.  La  Penna  (n.  31)  compares  the  beginning 
of  2.  14,  which  is  similar  to  2.  6  rhetorically,  but  is  more  "monumental"  (p.  230). 

^'  Alfonsi  1945  (n.  17)  observes  that  the  use  of  myth,  and  especially  of  such  series  of 
two,  three  or  four  exempla,  is  more  common  in  Book  2  (p.  45). 

^^  Verstraete  (n.  20),  pp.  264-65  (without  making  mention  of  this  poem),  notes  that 
in  Book  2  mythic  exempla  are  more  often  introduced  without  explicit  forms  of 
comparison.  Giardina  proposes  a  lacuna  after  line  6  on  the  grounds  that  the 
comparison  is  not  completed. 

^'^  Compare  Camps:  "the  subject  is  an  unspecified  "they,"  identified  by  the  context 
as  Lais'  admirers." 


252  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

(tanta)  until  the  second  line.  In  the  third  example  the  comparison  is 
expressed  in  different  terms  again  {tarn  multis  facta  beata  viris),  and  the 
change  of  subject  from  the  lovers  to  the  woman  {nee  quae  .  .  .)  further 
weakens  the  connection  with  the  preceding  example.  The  effect  of 
hesitancy  and  confusion  is  further  heightened  when  the  sentence 
breaks  off,  and  the  speaker  begins  anew  with  qum  etiam. 

This  disconnectedness  is  not  just  syntactic.  The  couplet  following 
the  exempla,  however  paranoid  in  emphasis  {falsos  fingis  .  .  .  propin- 
quos),  allows  us  to  infer  the  point  of  the  comparison:  the  number  of 
Cynthia's  lovers  can  be  compared  to  that  of  the  great  legendary 
courtesans.  The  six  hues  which  follow  (9-14)  elaborate  on  this 
paranoid  fear,  but  do  so  in  a  manner  which  contradicts  the  preceding 
exempla:  if  he  is  jealous  of  everything  {omnia  me  laedent)  and  asks  her 
forgiveness  {ignosce  timori),  then  the  suspicion  implied  by  these  exem- 
pla must  simply  be  another  of  his  delusions.'^"  The  elegy's  opening 
statement  ("Cynthia  is  worse  than  the  greatest  of  prostitutes")  has 
been  repudiated  by  the  speaker  himself;  and  it  is  because  this 
statement  is  couched  in  figurative  language  (the  exemplum),  and 
because  of  its  hesitancy  and  disconnectedness  that  this  repudiation  is 
possible.  The  exemplum  is  therefore  subjective  in  that  the  statement 
which  it  conveys  may  not  be  true,  but  simply  a  delusion  of  the 
speaker.  It  does  not  describe  the  way  things  are,  but  the  conflicting 
emotions  with  which  he  views  them. 

By  contrast  with  the  exempla  in  1.3,  those  in  2.  6  are  ostensibly 
objective,  and  are  only  seen  to  be  subjective  in  what  follows.  The 
comparison  is  objective  in  function  (or  content)  since  it  asserts  the  fact 
of  Cynthia's  immorality  ("Cynthia  is  more  unfaithful  than  A,  B  and 
C").  It  remains  objective  in  the  following  passage;  the  lover's  renunci- 
ation is  not  "Cynthia  appears  more  unfaithful  than  A,  B  and  C"  but  "It 
is  not  true  that  Cynthia  is  more  unfaithful.  .  .  ."  It  is  not  the  comparison 
itself  which  is  subjective,  but  the  understanding  of  it:  is  it  true  or  a 
delusion?  which  should  we  believe?  The  renunciation  of  the  original 
comparison  renders  its  function  fundamentally  subjective  since  we 
are  uncertain  whether  there  is  any  truth  to  it  at  all. 

The  comparison  is  also  objective  in  manner  (or  form)  since, 
although  the  syntax  stops  short  of  direcdy  identifying  Cynthia  with 
the  legendary  courtesans,  both  terms  of  the  comparison  are  given. 


'°°  Williams  (n.  59)  likewise  observes:  "The  apology  (9-14)  shifts  blame  away  from 
Cynthia  and  consequently  the  women  in  the  comparisons"  (p.  83).  But  the  implication 
of  this  is  not  (or  not  yet)  that  "man's  sexual  lust  is  at  fault"  (p.  83);  me  lencr  in  cunis  et  sine 
voce  puer  is  the  voice  not  of  moral  rectitude  but  of  self-delusion. 


Francis  M.  Dunn  253 

However,  after  the  comparison  has  been  renounced  by  the  speaker, 
and  his  contradictory  statements  have  been  left  unreconciled,  the 
reader  must  infer  the  emotional  confusion  which  this  represents.  The 
conflict  of  utterances  is  an  objective  correlative  to  his  conflict  of 
emotions,  and  the  latter  must  be  completely  supplied  by  the  reader. 
There  is  no  clear  indication  why  we  should  understand  this  confusion 
in  one  way  rather  than  another,  rendering  the  manner  of  comparison 
also  fundamentally  subjective. 

Elegy  2.  6  falls  into  four  parts:  three  main  sections  (1-14,  15-24, 
25-36)  and  a  conclusion  (37-42).'"'  Each  part  follows  the  pattern  of 
veiled  assertion  followed  by  repudiation,  replicating  the  structure  of 
the  opening  passage.  In  the  second  section  the  veiled  assertion  is 
contained  in  the  first  couplet  (15-16): 

his  olim,  ut  fama  est,  uitiis  ad  proelia  uentum  est, 
his  Troiana  uides  funera  principiis; 

It  is  assumed  that  we  know  the  nature  of  the  speaker's  complaint  {his 
.  .  .  uitiis,  his  .  .  .  principiis),  but  these  terms  are  unclear,  and  our 
uncertainty  is  only  increased  by  the  impersonal  construction  {ad 
proelia  uentum  est;  compare  the  vague  construction  in  line  1,  noted 
above).  Since  wanton  promiscuity  is  more  of  a  "vice"  than  fearful 
jealousy,  and  since  Helen,  not  Paris,  was  traditionally  blamed  for 
causing  the  Trojan  War,  we  must  infer  that  the  couplet  compares  the 
promiscuity  of  Cynthia  {his  .  .  .  uitiis)  with  that  of  Helen  {his  .  .  . 
principiis).  But  the  following  lines,  although  apparendy  continuing 
this   theme   {eadem  dementia),   directly   contradict   it.'      The   veiled 

'°'  Hertzberg  (n.  9)  gives  a  slightly  different  scheme:  1-22,  23-24,  25-36,  and  37- 
42,  with  the  first  section  falling  into  three  parts:  1-8,  9-14  and  15-22  (vol.  3,  pp.  103- 
04). 

'''^  The  contradiction  can  be  removed  if  we  follow  Schone  (n.  3),  who  explains: 
"Vocibus  igitur  'his  vitiis'  v.  15  (quibus  respondent  verba  'eadem  dementia'  v.  17)  non 
amicae  levitatem,  sed  virorum  immodestiam  poeta  significat,  quam  ut  explanet  fabulas 
offert  Paridis  Helenam  abducentis,  Centaurorum  Hippodamiam  appetentium,  Roman- 
orum  Sabinas  rapientium.  lam  vero  hoc  perspecto  intelleges  neque  primo  exemplo 
respici  propria  Cynthiae  vitia  neque  ceteris  omnino  demonstrari  morum  perversitatem 
(sic  Rothst.  ad  v.  15  et  17),  sed  omnes  fabulas  pariter  esse  idoneas  ad  nimiam  virorum 
licentiam  confirmandam"  (pp.  17-18).  However,  this  interpretation  (followed  by  Enk, 
Camps  and  Verstraete  [n.  20],  p.  264)  does  not  explain  how  lines  15-16  could  possibly 
suggest  male  lust  when  the  myth  itself,  and  the  poem  so  far,  both  deal  with  female 
infidelity.  The  contradiction  must  therefore  remain,  although  it  may  be  accounted  for 
in  slightly  different  ways.  Rothstein  regards  the  movement  from  female  infidelity  to 
male  lust  as  a  broadening  of  the  theme:  "wahrend  man  bei  his  vitiis  noch  an  den 
Leichtsinn  der  Helena  denken  kann,  der  zu  Cynthias  jetzigem  Verhalten  die  niythische 
Parallele  bildet,  hat  sich  hier  die  Vorstellung  erweitert  zu  der  allgemeinen  Missachtung 


254  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

condemnation  of  female  immorality'"^  is  superseded  by  an  explicit 
condemnation  of  male  immorality  in  the  rapes  of  the  Lapiths  and  the 
Sabines  (17-21).  The  repudiation  is  direct  {tu  criminis  auctor)  but 
outlandish  {per  te  nunc  Romae  quidlibet  audet  Amor),  as  was  the  repudia- 
tion in  the  preceding  section.  The  final  couplet  of  this  section'"'* 
anticipates  the  poem's  conclusion  by  paradoxically'"''  combining  these 
themes  (23-24): 

felix  Admeti  coniunx  et  lectus  Vlixis, 

et  quaecumque  uiri  femina  limen  amat! 

One  could  argue  either  that  Admetus  and  Ulysses  were  blessed  in 
having  faithful  wives  or  that  Alcestis  and  Penelope  were  blessed  in 
having  faithful  husbands,  but  the  couplet  manages  to  combine 
both.'"^  Both  of  the  myths  in  the  first  line,  as  well  as  the  moral  in  the 
second  line,  could  only  support  the  first  of  these  meanings,  and  the 
implication  that  the  woman  should  be  faithful.  The  couplet  is  made  to 
bear  the  second  meaning  only  because  of  the  contradictory  change  of 

der  bestehenden  Verbindungen,  auch  auf  seiten  der  Manner,  und  diese  erweilerte 
Vorstellung  leitet  allmahlich  zu  den  politischen  Betrachtungen  iiber"  (p.  181).  The 
change  from  Helen  to  Paris  as  the  culpable  party,  however,  is  a  reversal  rather  than  an 
expansion,  and  the  exaggeration  in  19-22  (see  below)  underlines  this  reversal.  The 
technique  is  better  explained  by  Boyance  1942  (n.  92):  "dans  une  premiere  redaction, 
qui  correspondait  a  une  premiere  humeur  du  poete,  ces  baisers  suspects  etaient  des 
baisers  coupables:  his  vitiis,  de  telles  fautes  ont  provoque  les  grandes  malheurs  de  la 
legende.  Mais,  a  une  seconde  lecture,  le  poete  a  surtout  songe  au  manque  de  certitude 
qui  etait  le  sien.  II  n'y  a  la  peut-etre,  s'est-il  dit,  qu'une  apparence,  que  lombre  dune 
conduite  fautive"  (p.  58).  "II  s'ensuit  peut-etre,  dans  I'expression,  une  legere  incoher- 
ence au  vers  16  avec  le  his  vitiis  qui  nous  oblige  a  nous  ressouvenir  du  vers  6;  mais  la 
faute  est  bien  rachetee  par  ce  que  le  poeme  gagne  de  saveur,  a  meler  aux  plaintes  et  aux 
accusations  les  retours  sur  lui-meme"  (p.  59).  An  explanation  of  this  phenomenon  as  a 
rhetorical  technique  is  given  by  Williams  (n.  59),  pp.  82-83.  He  calls  this  figure 
"arbitrary  assertion  of  similarity,"  and  gives  his  analysis  a  sound  theoretical  basis  (see 
esp.  Chapter  2),  but  does  not  explain  the  significance  of  this  device  in  this  poem. 

'"^  Butler  and  Barber  thus  explain  his  vitiis  as  "Unchastity,  not  jealousy,"  but  with  no 
discussion. 

'"'*  Enk.  transposes  these  lines  so  that  23-24  follow  after  25-26,  but  has  not  been 
followed  by  other  editors.  Butler  and  Barber  agree  that  they  "break,  the  argument," 
while  Bailey  argues  that  "some  of  the  transitions  [in  23-42]  are  undeniably  abrupt,  but 
none  taken  singly  is  beyond  defence"  (D.  R.  Shackleton  Bailey,  Propertinna,  (Cambridge 
1956,  p.  72). 

'"'  R.  Reitzenstein  (n.  92)  describes  it  somewhat  differently:  "Der  Ausruf  erleichtert 
dies  Durchbrechen  eines  streng  logischen  (iedankenbaus"  (p.  218),  the  purpose  being 
to  avoid  offending  his  mistress  (compare  note  1 16  below). 

'"*' A  further  contradiction  between  this  view  of  the  past  as  a  better  age,  and  the 
opposite  view  expressed  in  15  ff.,  is  noted  bv  Schone  (n.  3),  p.  65,  and  Rothstein  (ii.  16), 
p.  181. 


Francis  M.  Dunn  255 

subject  ifelix  .  .  .  quaecumque);  in  the  first  line  this  change  of  subject 
involves  a  clever,  almost  outlandish,  use  of  metonymy  (Admeti  coniunx 
etlectus  Vlixis)}^'^ 

The  third  section  begins  and  ends  with  a  veiled  reference  to  the 
immorality  of  women  (25-26;  35-36):'°^ 

templa  Pudicitiae  quid  opus  statuisse  pueliis, 
si  cuiuis  nuptae  quidlibet  esse  licet? 

sed  non  inimerito  uelauit  aranea  fanum 
et  mala  desertos  occupat  herba  deos. 

In  this  section,  as  in  the  first,  the  condemnadon  of  Cynthia  and  of 
female  infidelity  is  "veiled"  only  insofar  as  it  is  couched  in  figural 
language,  namely  the  rhetorical  question  and  the  metonymy  of 
temples  for  morals.  As  before,  this  condemnadon  is  repudiated  and 
the  responsibility  placed  instead '^^  on  men  and  male  immorality,  in 
particular  the  painters  of  obscenas  tabellas  in  houses.  This  shift  is  once 
more  facilitated  by  the  impersonal  construction  of  the  initial  assertion 
{quid  opus,  quidlibet  esse  licet),  and  again  the  reversal  is  outlandish."*^  Not 
only  are  neglect  of  the  gods  and  the  decline  of  morality  due  t§  the 


Rothstein  acknowledges  "die  Harte  des  Ausdrucks,"  which  he  regards,  however, 
as  the  result  of  a  double  metonymy  by  which  Alcestis  and  Penelope  are  substituted  for 
the  morality  of  a  bygone  age:  "Gliicklich  sind  nicht  die  Personen,  die  genannt  werden, 
sondern  die  ehelichen  Verhaltnisse,  in  denen  sie  leben." 

'°^  As  will  be  clear  from  my  discussion,  I  see  no  reason  to  alter  the  text  by 
punctuating  after  immerito.  Rothstein,  Barber,  Enk  and  Hanslik  add  an  exclamation 
mark,  while  Camps  prints  the  line  without  punctuation:  "The  point  will  then  be  that  the 
gods'  temples  are  neglected  with  good  reason  because  the  gods  have  shown  themselves 
indifferent  to  the  conduct  of  men  by  not  punishing  and  checking  evil  practices  such  as 
those  indicated  in  31-34."  But  surely  the  blame  is  laid  on  women,  not  on  the  gods: 
spider-webs  and  weeds  have  overrun  the  temples  because  piety  and  chastity  have 
disappeared.  Williams  (n.  59)  also  retains  the  line  without  punctuation,  but  without 
discussion  (p.  83).  For  a  further  defense  of  the  received  text  see  Boyance  1942  (n.  92), 
pp.  59-62,  and  compare  the  similar  remarks  of  Alfonsi  1945  (n.  17),  p.  30. 

'°^  Compare  Rothstein's  observation  that  the  poet  uses  this  moral  discussion  to  veil 
his  condemnation  of  Cynthia  (note  1 1 1  below),  and  his  similar  observation  that  "der 
Dichter  auch  schon  vorher  (v.  19)  das  Bestreben  gezeigt  hat,  nach  dem  Urheber  aller 
dieser  Verirrungen  zu  suchen  und  ihn  fiir  sein  personliches  Schicksal  verantwortlich  zu 
machen"  (p.  183). 

"°  Boucher  (n.  18)  observes  that  "Properce  est  le  seul  elegiaque  qui  ait  applique  a  la 
peinture  le  theme  de  reugexfig,  qui  ait  formule  des  maledictions  contre  son  inventeur" 
(p.  46),  and  this  original  use  of  the  motif,  together  with  "the  abruptness  with  which  the 
subject  of  erotic  pictures  is  brought  in"  (Camps,  p.  95),  gives  further  emphasis  to  this 
reversal.  The  completeness  of  the  reversal  suggests  that  the  poet  is  not  simply 
embarking  on  a  digression,  as  is  suggested  by  Boyance  1942  (n.  92),  p.  62. 


256  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

painting  of  dirty  pictures,  but  the  Golden  Age  is  redefined  as  the  time 
before  they  were  invented  {tuvi  paries  nulla  crimine  pictus  erat)V^  This 
section,  like  the  preceding  one,  ends  with  a  couplet  which  combines 
both  implications  of  the  passage.  The  obvious  meaning  of  35-36  is 
that  spider-webs  and  weeds  have  overrun  the  temples  deservedly — 
because  female  fidelity  and  morality  are  no  longer  upheld.  But  the 
ambiguity  of  expression  {sed  non  immerito:  what  precisely  is  the  crime, 
and  who  precisely  is  to  blame?),  and  the  absence  of  a  clear  connection 
with  the  preceding  attack  on  the  painters  of  obscene  pictures,"" 
mean  that  the  attribution  of  blame  is  left  open;  the  fault  may  be 
Cynthia's — or  her  lover's — or  perhaps  even  the  gods'. "'^  It  should  be 
noted  that  in  the  first  and  third  sections  the  condemnation  is  veiled 
and  couched  in  figurative  language,  while  its  repudiation  is  not.  By 
contrast,  the  entire  second  section  is  couched  in  figural  language  and 
the  condemnation  there  is  "veiled"  in  that  it  is  deliberately  ambigu- 
ous. We  should  note  further  that:  (1)  the  specific  condemnation  of 
Cynthia  is  now  more  veiled  (in  the  first  section  the  disconnected 
exemplum  helps  obscure  the  reference  to  her  [etiam  .  .  .  tibi,  7];  in  the 
second  and  third  sections  there  is  no  reference  to  her  at  all);  and  (2) 
the  tone  of  the  condemnation  is  now  less  veiled  (while  the  first  section 
is  largely  personal,  and  the  second  entirely  mythological,  the  third  is 
overtly  moral). 

The  conclusion  of  the  poem  is  in  two  parts  (37-42):"'* 


'"  Rothstein  observes  that  "Unzweifelhaft  sind  diese  moralischen  Betrachiungen 
durch  die  gleichzeitigen  Reformversuche  des  Augustus  angeregt"  (p.  179).  R.  Reitzen- 
stein  (n.  92)  perhaps  takes  this  too  far:  "So  wenig  es  mir  einfallen  kann,  das  Lied  des 
Properz  als  reines  Tendenzgedicht  mit  politischen  Zweck  zu  betrachten,  so  mochte  ich 
doch  die  Ubereinstimmung  mit  dem  officiosen  Dichter  [Horace]  ebensovvenig  fiir 
zufallig  erklaren"  (p.  220).  As  Rothstein  continues:  "aber  der  Dichter  spricht  doch  auch 
hier  nicht  als  Moralist,  sondern  als  ein  Liebender  .  .  .  der  den  Tadel,  den  er  gegen 
seine  Geliebte  nicht  offen  auszusprechen  wagt,  in  die  Form  einer  allgemeinen  Erorter- 
ung  uber  einen  damals  viel  besprochenen  (iegenstand  kleidet"  (p.  179).  Compare 
Boyance  1942  (n.  92),  p.  61. 

"^  Compare  Boyance  1942  (n.  92):  "Le  vers  35  se  raccorde  mal,  lui  aussi,  avec  ce  qui 
le  precede  immediatement"  (p.  59),  who  cites  the  problems  it  has  caused  commentators 
(p.  59,  note  1,  to  which  should  be  added  R.  Reitzenstein's  suggestion  of  a  lacuna  [n.  92], 
pp.  219-20). 

"''Thus  Camps  (see  note  108  above),  who  is  presumably  following  Bovance  1942 
(n.  92):  "puisqu'ils  [les  Dieux]  n'ont  pas  su  mieux  defendre  la  vertu  des  femmes 
romaines,  ils  ont  merite  leur  abandon,  en  fait  I'abandon  du  sanctuaire  de  Pudicitia"  (pp. 
61-62).  This  third  possibility,  however,  is  not  clearly  expressed,  and  cannot  be  insisted 
upon. 

"'*  The  phrase  me  ducet  has  been  suspected,  primarily  because  "the  change  from  iios 
to  me  is  needlessly  awkward"  (BuUer  and  Barber,  p.  201).  But  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the 


Francis  M.  Dunn  257 

quos  igitur  tibi  custodes,  quae  limina  ponam, 

quae  numquani  supra  pes  inimicus  eat? 
nam  nihil  inuitae  tristis  custodia  prodest: 

quam  peccare  pudet,  Cynthia,  tuta  sat  est. 

nos  uxor  numquam,  numquam  me  ducet  amica: 
semper  amica  mihi,  semper  et  uxor  eris. 

It  begins  with  figural  language,  a  rhetorical  question  whose  implica- 
tion is  that  the  faithfulness  of  women  cannot  be  enforced.  This  veiled 
assertion  is  spelled  out  in  the  following  line,  and  its  restatement  in  the 
pentameter  incorporates  the  theme  of  male  immorality:  she  who  is 
faithful  is  safe  enough  (i.e.  from  unwanted  male  lovers).  The  contra- 
dictory theme  is  worked  into  the  assertion  without  repudiating  it,  and 
this  first  overt  expression  of  criticism  is  made  clearer  and  more 
forceful  by  naming  Cynthia  for  the  first  time.  This  conclusion  leads  us 
to  expect  that  he  will  place  some  demand  upon  Cynthia's  faithfulness, 
but  once  more  we  are  surprised  by  a  reversal:  in  the  final  couplet  tl^e 
speaker  substitutes  an  exaggerated  declaration  of  his  own  fidelity.""^ 
Each  section  of  the  poem  begins  with  a  veiled  criticism  of  Cynthia, 
an  implied  condemnation  of  her  unfaithfulness  which  take^  on 
progressively  stronger  moral  overtones.  But  each  section  then  contin- 
ues with  an  outlandish  or  exaggerated  repudiation  of  this  sugges- 
tion,''* whether  his  paranoid  suspicions  of  the  little  baby  {me  tener  in 
cunis  etsine  uocepuer,  10),  his  blaming  Romulus  for  modern  decadence 


awkwardness  is  deliberate.  If  me  intrudes,  it  does  so  in  order  to  emphasize  once  more 
the  unnatural  way  in  which  the  spealter  places  the  burden  of  fidelity  on  himself. 
Hertzberg  and  Paganelli  retain  me  ducet,  while  most  editors  read  seducet.  Enk.  and 
Richardson  transfer  the  final  couplet  to  the  following  poem. 

"^  Rothstein  regards  the  substitution  as  calculated  to  secure  Cynthia's  reform: 
"Dem  leichtfertigen  oder  mindestens  verdachtigen  Treiben  Cynthias  stellt  der  Dichter 
als  versohnenden  Abschluss,  der  der  Bitte.  die  dieses  ganze  Gedicht  enthalt,  grosseren 
Nachdruck  geben  soil,  die  Versicherung  seiner  eigenen  unwandelbaren  Treuen 
gegenuber"  (p.  185).  Alfonsi  1945  (n.  17)  gives  a  more  psychological  explanation:  "di 
questa  fluttuazione  ed  incertezza  e  documento  il  continuo  ondeggiare  dellelegia  che  si 
chiude  cosi  repentinamente  nella  attestazione  d'affetto  che  e  Tunica  certa  e  da  cui  ha 
avuto  spunto  ed  origine  il  contrasto  profundo  dei  sentimenti"  (p.  41). 

"*  Compare  Rothstein,  who  regards  the  veiled  condemnations  as  skirted  or  avoided 
rather  than  repudiated:  "So  sehr  das  Gefiihl  der  Eifersucht  das  ganze  Gedicht 
beherrscht,  so  bemuht  sich  der  Dichter  doch,  alle  verletzenden  Vorwiirfe  und 
schroffen  Forderungen  zu  vermeiden"  (p.  178).  Very  similar  is  R.  Reitzenstein  (n.  92): 
"Solcher  Argwohn  muss  die  Geliebte  kranken,  und  doch  kann  der  Dichter  ihn  nicht 
unterdrucken.  So  sucht  er  ihn  denn  in  der  feinsten  Weise  zu  motivieren,  ohne  doch 
Cynthia  dahei  zu  verletzen.  Hierdurch  hestimmt  sich  der  ganze  Gang  desfolgenden  Gedichtes'  (p. 
217). 


258  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

{per  te  nunc  Romae  quidlibet  audet  Amor,  22)  or  his  polemic  against  the 
"inventor"  of  pornography  {quae  manus  obscenas  depinxit  prima  tabellas, 
27).  In  each  case  the  attempt  to  shift  blame  from  Cynthia  to  himself 
and  other  men  has  a  ludicrous  effect,"^  and  in  the  conclusion  the 
burden  of  remaining  faithful  is  shifted  from  Cynthia  to  himself  in 
a  similarly  exaggerated  manner  {semper  arnica  mihi,  semper  et  uxor  ens, 
42).'"^  We  are  not  given  a  simple  explanation  for  this  self-censure;  it 
may  be  an  aspect  of  the  lover's  pathological  condition  (if  so,  she  is 
asked  to  excuse  him:  ignosce  timori,  13);  it  may  be  the  practical 
consideration  that  he  stands  to  alienate  and  lose  her  by  direct  criticism 
(such  as  he  directs  against  Romulus:  tu  criminis  auctor,  19);  it  may  be 
the  observation  that  society  influences  our  morals  {ilia  puellarum 
ingenues  corrupit  ocellos,  29);  and  it  may  be  the  generous  impulse  of  the 
lover  to  undertake  whatever  obligation  will  spare  hurting  or  pressur- 
ing his  mistress  {semper  amica  mihi,  semper  et  uxor  eris,  42).  Within  the 
poem  these  are  simply  vague  suggestions,  and  we  are  not  expected  to 
choose  between  them. 

The  speaker,  for  whatever  reason,"^  repeatedly  shifts  blame  from 
Cynthia  to  himself, '"°  and  the  power  of  this  poem  derives  from  his 
being  too  much  the  victim  of  his  conflicting  emotions  to  know  where 
blame  truly  belongs.  This  fundamental  subjectivity,  the  inability  to 
trust  his  own  reactions  to  Cynthia's  conduct,'"'  is  first  clearly  ex- 
pressed  in   the   opening   section,   in   the   disconnectedness   of  the 


Compare  Boucher  (n.  18)  on  lines  7-8:  "I'expression  ironique — qui  voile 
I'inquietude  fondamentale — derive  du  materiel  de  la  comedie"  (p.  430). 

'"*  On  the  earlier  anticipation  of  this  theme  of  marriage,  see  Williams  (n.  59),  p.  84. 

"^  I  have  suggested  several  reasons,  but  all  are  psychological  in  the  sense  that  they 
reveal  the  speakers  frame  of  mind.  I  therefore  cannot  agree  with  the  conclusion  of  La 
Penna  (n.  31):  "invece  che  con  Taccusa  e  con  I'indignazione  I'elegia  si  chiude  con 
I'espressione  patetica  della  dedizione:  il  passaggio  da  un  polo  alPaltro  avviene  attraverso 
un  lento  processo  in  cui  la  componente  retorico-discorsiva  ha  questa  volta  un'impor- 
tanza  maggiore  di  quelle  strettamente  psicologica"  (p.  231).  Compare  Hertzberg  (n.  9): 
"Lyricum  paene  totum  carmen  est"  (vol.  3,  p.  103). 

'-"  A  significant  difference  between  this  poem  and  1.  3  is  that  here  the  speaker  shifts 
blame  onto  himself  (or  men  in  general),  while  in  1.3  he  blames  a  third  partv:  "It  is  the 
Gods,  Amor  and  Liber,  then,  who  are  made  to  bear  responsibilitv  for  the  idea  of  the 
rape"  (Lyne  1970  [n.  37],  p.  70),  and  "at  the  last  moment  he  blames,  not  Cynthia 
herself,  but  sleep  [v. 25]  for  the  unresponsiveness  of  his  loved  one"  (Lyne  1970,  p.  72). 
This  corresponds  to  the  different  kind  of  subjectivity  presented  in  the  two  poems  (see 
below). 

'"'  Compare  Boucher's  expression  "rin(|uieiude  fondamentale."  in  note  1 17  above, 
and  the  discussion  of  Alfonsi  1945  (n.  17):  "qui  si  tratta  delle  incertezze,  degli 
abbandoni,  delle  riprese  di  un  cuore  dibattentesi  tra  posizioni  opposte  e  discordant!"  (p. 
41). 


Francis  M.  Dunn  259 

exempla  and  their  repudiation  in  the  lines  which  follow.  The  subjec- 
tive use  of  exempla  at  the  beginning  of  this  poem  thus  sets  the  tone 
and  anticipates  the  structure  of  the  whole  elegy.'"" 

Both  of  these  poems  begin  with  a  series  of  mythological  or 
legendary  exempla  which  are  used  in  a  subjective  manner.  In  the  first 
poem  these  examples  are  used  to  suggest  not  an  objective  situation 
but  the  changing  emotions  and  impressions  of  the  drunken  lover. 
The  subjective  nature  of  these  impressions  is  emphasized  by  contrast 
with  the  objective  presence  of  Cynthia.  In  the  second  poem  the 
examples  convey  a  condemnation  which  may  (or  may  not)  be  simply  a 
delusion  of  the  infatuated  lover.  The  subjective  nature  of  this 
condemnation  is  emphasized  by  the  contrast  of  implied  assertion  with 
extravagant  repudiation.  In  both  cases  the  subjectivity  of  the  lover's 
experience  is  an  important  part  of  the  poem  as  a  whole.  In  the  first  his 
impressions  are  subjective  in  that  they  are  (or  seem  to  be)  indepen- 
dent of  the  objective  reality  of  his  mistress.  The  comparison  contained 
in  the  exempla  is  a  subjective  one.  In  the  second  his  impressions  are 
more  fundamentally  subjective  in  that  there  is  (or  seems  to  be)  no  way 
of  deciding  between  contradictory  impressions.  The  objective  com- 
parison contained  in  the  exempla  is  contradicted  by  the  speaker 
himself.  The  mythical  and  legendary  exempla  do  not  achieve  their 
effect  by  alluding  to  external  realms  of  truth  or  romance  (though  they 
may  do  these  things  as  well);  their  effect  is  in  the  manner  in  which  they 
are  used,  the  suspension  or  disconnectedness  which  make  the  exem- 
pla— and  the  poena  as  a  whole — a  figure  for  the  subjectivity  of  the 
lover's  experience.'"^ 

North  Carolina  State  University 


'^^  It  is  because  this  self-doubt,  the  assertion  followed  by  contradiction,  comes  to 
structure  the  whole  poem  that  "the  cumulative  effect  of  a  series  of  abrupt  transitions  is 
almost  overwhelming."  But  this  effect  is  deliberate;  it  does  not  follow  that  "the  sequence 
of  thought  is  so  far  from  clear  that  it  is  hard  to  resist  the  conviction  that  the  text  has 
been  mutilated"  (Butler  and  Barber,  p.  200).  Compare  the  observation  by  Hertzberg  (n. 
9):  "Aestuantes  huius  elegiae  affectus  et  transitus  praeruptiores  dubitationem  criticis 
moverunt,  an  hie  vel  illic  saeculorum  iniuria  mancus  esset  et  turbatus  versuum  ordo.  .  .  . 
Nee  tamen  absonum  videatur  totius  dispositionis  figuram  proponere,  quo  rectius  nexu 
sententiarum  perspecto  interpretari  singulos  locos  liceat"  (vol.  3,  p.  103). 

'"  Verstraete  (n.  20)  notes  that  "myth  comes  to  assume,  in  the  poet's  mind,  the 
emotional  dimensions  of  his  own  experience.  It  is  in  the  second  book  that  this  continual 
interpenetration  of  mythical  and  present  reality  may  be  most  clearly  felt"  (p.  259). 
Although  he  does  not  discuss  2.  6  in  any  detail,  his  general  observations  are  consonant 
with  my  own  findings,  and  the  differences  I  have  noted  between  I.  3  and  2.  6. 


A  Reconsideration  of  Ovid's  Fasti 


CHRISTOPHER  MARTIN 


We  have  come  a  long  way  from  Michael  Verinus's  fifteenth-century 
estimate  of  Ovid's  Fasti  as  "illius  diuini  uatis  liber  pulcherrimus."' 
Those  who  now  consider  the  elegy  from  a  literary  standpoint  general- 
ly see  it  as  little  more  than  momentary  flashes  of  genuine  poetry 
against  a  chaotic,  weak  background."  Ironically,  one  of  the  poem's 
chief  modern  exponents.  Sir  James  George  Frazer,  has  through  his 
very  approach  helped  to  establish  the  work  as  an  antiquarian  curios- 
ity, and  the  Fasti  fades  into  obscurity  among  the  anthropological 
oddities  it  treats.^  But  though  we  may  never  recover  the  Florentine 
humanist's  enthusiasm,  we  cannot  so  easily  walk  around  a  work 
squarely  and  stubbornly  rooted  in  the  middle  of  the  Ovidian  canon. 


Cited  in  Edgar  Wind,  Pagan  Mysteries  in  the  Renaissance,  rev.  edn.  (New  York  1967), 
p.  114n. 

*■  For  example,  comparing  the  Fasti's  style  with  that  of  the  Metamorphoses,  Brooks 
Otis  comments  that  the  diverse  tales  of  the  former  were  only  loosely  strung  together  by 
the  calendar  format,  and  that  "Such  'links'  were  themselves  a  sign  of  discontinuity  .  .  ." 
{Ovid  as  an  Epic  Poet,  2nd  edn.  [Cambridge  1970],  p.  333).  L.  P.  Wilkinson  also 
complains  of  the  fragment's  "haphazard"  structure  and  its  shallowness,  concluding  that 
"Ovid  was  interested  primarily  in  rhetorical  or  literary  effect,  and  only  secondarily  in 
truth"  (Ovid  Recalled  [Cambridge  1955],  pp.  269  and  266).  Similarly,  Hermann  Frankel 
condemns  the  endeavor  because  "to  versify  and  adorn  an  almanac  was  not  a  sound 
proposition  in  the  first  place."  The  critic  finally  decides  that  one  might  best  read  the 
Fasti  "as  if  it  were  a  book  for  children"  {Ovid:  A  Poet  Betxveen  Two  Worlds  [Berkeley  and 
Los  Angeles  1945],  pp.  148  and  149).  In  his  Histoii  in  Ovid  (Oxford  1978),  Ronald  Syme 
notes  this  last  judgment  and  suggests  that  Ovid  himself  would  perhaps  concur  with  the 
adverse  reaction  (p.  36). 

^  See  the  massive  four-volume  commentary  appended  to  his  edition  and  translation 
of  the  poem  (London  1929). 


262  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

In  the  following  pages,  I  wish  to  suggest  an  approach  which  might 
further  an  appreciation  of  the  poem,  examining  it  as  a  reflection 
upon  the  contrast  between  the  often  arbitrary,  obscure  conceptualiza- 
tions by  which  man  orders  his  existence,  and  the  eternal  regularity  of 
the  stars.  The  calendar,  itself  a  human  construct  based  upon  the 
ordered  motion  of  the  heavens,  provides  an  appropriate  focus  for  this 
meditation.  Without  denying  that  the  state  of  the  text  as  we  have  it 
prevents  definitive  assertions,  I  think  we  can  in  this  way  outline  a 
thematic  thrust  which,  once  recognized,  transforms  the  fragment 
from  a  disjointed,  superficial  narrative  to  the  first  movement  of  a 
coherent,  perhaps  even  quietly  profound,  consideration  of  order, 
time,  and  permanence. 

The  Fasti's  numerous  technical  inaccuracies  prove  the  poet  no 
astronomer,  "being  a  townsman  writing  a  work  of  literature  for 
townsmen  who  had  long  since  regulated  their  lives  by  looking  at 
calendars  instead  of  stars. '"^  Yet  Ovid  defines  man  in  Metamorphoses 
1.  84—86  as  a  congenital  stargazer,^  and  never  loses  sight  of  the 
constellations'  value  as  signa.  Although  W.  R.  Johnson  alone  strikes 
me  as  treating  the  Fasti's  intellectual  seriousness  fairly,  I  disagree  with 
his  conclusion  that  the  poet  can  find  no  focus  once  the  religious  motif 
disintegrates.^  Ovid  fully  recognized,  from  the  very  inception  of  his 
calendar  poem,  that  he  would  be  writing  about  "illusions  and  disen- 
chantments,"  all  grounded  in  the  shifting,  arbitrary  nature  of  many 
human  beliefs  and  practices,  whose  origins  and  rationales  are  seldom 
clear;  but  he  also  saw  that  this  instability  is  finally  balanced  by  the 
recurrent  stellar  cycles.  Whatever  sacred  sites  or  myths  humans  may 
design,  these  are  all  secondary  to  the  eternal  symbols  of  genuine 
constancy  circling  far  above  our  world.  Thus  Ovid  punctuates  his 
work  repeatedly  with  references  to  the  monthly  astronomical  motion, 
a  subtle  counterpoint  to  the  frequently  "entropic"  narrative  units. ^ 
Far  from  having  nothing  to  do  with  the  thematic  progression,  these 

"  Wilkinson,  p.  265. 

"''  Pronaque  cum  spectent  animatia  cetera  terramjos  homini  sublime  dedit  caelumque  uiderel 
iussit  et  erectos  ad  sidera  tollere  uultus.  .  .  .  The  last  line  of  this  passage  is  itself  echoed  in 
Fasti  2.  75.  Franz  Bonier,  in  the  commentary  to  his  two-volume  edition  of  the  Fasti 
(Heidelberg  1957-58)  notes  the  parallel,  Bd.  2,  p.  87. 

^  W.  R.  Johnson,  "The  Desolation  of  the  Fasti,"  Classical  Journal  74  (1978),  7-18. 

^  Recent  scholarship  has  demonstrated  a  certain  structural  order  within  individual 
parts  of  the  overall  "blur"  Ovid  depicts.  For  the  most  recent  assessment  see  L.  Braun, 
"Kompositionskunst  in  Ovids  Tasti',"  in  Aufstieg  und  Niedergang  der  romischen  Welt  2.  31. 
4  (1981),  2344-83.  For  a  summary  of  earlier  work,  consult  John  Barsby,  Ovid  (Oxford 
1978),  pp.  28-29  and  his  notes. 


Christopher  Martin  263 

terse,  epigrammatic  interjections  recall  to  the  reader  that,  however 
jumbled  the  antiquarian  lore  surrounding  any  given  festivity  may  be, 
the  true  indicators  of  permanence  and  order  remain  fixed  in  their 
celestial  paths;  as  such,  the  passages  constitute  a  possible  bridge  to 
what  Richard  Lanham  calls  the  characteristic  "hole" — the  lack  of  a 
central,  controlling  principle — in  the  middle  of  the  Ovidian  text.^ 

The  Fasti's  opening  couplet,  charged  with  an  epic  urgency,  estab- 
lishes the  program  the  poet  will  follow  in  both  the  elegy's  opening 
segment  and  the  poem  as  a  whole:  "Tempora  cum  causis  Latium 
digesta  per  annum  /  lapsaque  sub  terras  ortaque  signa  canam"  (1.1- 
2).^  Besides  tempora  (the  times,  the  measure)  and  "causes,"  he  will  treat 
the  ultimate  source  or  cause  of  all  temporal  order,  the  signa  by  which 
we  mark  the  passage  of  time  itself.  But  as  Ovid  sets  out  to  fulfil  this 
plan,  he  confronts  us  immediately  with  an  image  of  the  arbitrary, 
transient  nature  of  humanly-fashioned  "order."  Speaking  of  the 
original  ten-month  format  of  the  Roman  calendar,  the  narrator 
humorously  addresses  its  designer,  "scilicet  arma  magis  quam  sidera, 
Romule,  noras,  /  curaque  finitimos  uincere  maior  erat"  (1.  29-30). 
Unmindful  of  stellar  motion,  the  ancients  instead  founded  iheir jatio 
for  allotting  this  specific  amount  of  time  to  the  year  upon  human 
physical  and  social  functions,  such  as  the  gestation  period  for  an 
infant  or  a  widow's  prescribed  term  of  mourning  (1.  33-36).  However 
reasonable  this  may  have  seemed  to  the  planners,  the  structure  of 
Romulus's  calendar  proves  inadequate,  and  has  Lo  be  adjusted  by 
Numa. 

Since  the  year  begins  with  January,  we  are  not  surprised  when  the 
poet  turns  to  the  month  proper  to  find  him  invoking  Janus.  It  soon 
becomes  clear,  however,  that  this  god's  primacy  in  the  Fasti  goes 
beyond  his  eponymous  status.  The  twin-faced  deity  in  fact  partici- 
pates in  the  same  kind  of  duality  active  at  the  poem's  core:  just  as  the 
stellar  and  human  orders  constitute  the  calendar,  so  Janus's  visage 
attests  to  his  position  as  both  a  guardian  of  divine  boundaries  and  a 
symbol  of  arbitrary,  chaotic  form.  At  his  coming,  the  narrator 
dismisses  the  legal  wrangling  which  distinguishes  fasti  from  nefasti, 
described  at  1.  45-62,  and  directs  attention  to  the  sacrificial  fires  in  a 


^  Richard  A.  Lanham,  The  Motives  of  Eloquence:  Literary  Rhetoric  in  the  Renaissance 
(New  Haven  and  London  1976),  p.  50.  On  the  epigrammatic  dimension  of"  the 
astronomical  passages  see  C.  Santini,  "Motivi  Astronomici  e  Moduli  Didattici  nei  'Fasti' 
di  Ovidio,"  Giornale  Italiano  di  Filologia  27  (1975),  1-26. 

^  All  quotations  from  the  Fasti  refer  to  Bomer,  with  minor  typographical  adjust- 
ments. 


264  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

line  which  could,  curiously,  refer  to  the  etherial  "fires,"  the  stars,  as 
well(l.  73-76): 

lite  uacent  aures,  insanaque  protinus  absint 

iurgia!  differ  opus,  liuida  turba,  tuum! 
cernis,  odoratis  ut  luceat  ignibus  aether, 

et  sonet  accensis  spica  Cilissa  focis? 

But  we  learn  that  if  Janus's  birth  at  the  beginning  of  time  corresponds 
to  the  establishment  of  universal  order,  his  two  faces  serve  as  a 
reminder  of  the  degree  of  disorder  in  his  own  being.  The  god  himself 
indicates  this  in  the  description  of  his  origins  (1.  111-14): 

tunc  ego,  qui  fueram  globus  et  sine  imagine  moles, 

in  faciem  redii  dignaque  membra  deo. 
nunc  quoque,  confusae  quondam  nota  parua  figurae, 

ante  quod  est  in  me  postque,  uidetur  idem. 

More  importandy,  the  chaotic  aspect  encoded  in  his  appearance 
carries  over  to  the  various  causae  he  offers  the  poet.  For  example,  the 
variant  explications  of  the  god's  shape  which  effectively  answer  the 
questions  posed  at  lines  89-92  also,  when  taken  together,  exhibit  a 
certain  incongruity.  After  making  the  statement  just  quoted,  Janus 
goes  on  to  say  that  he  assumes  the  double  visage  because  of  his  position 
as  heaven's  porter  (133-40).  His  360°  vision  may  make  him  an 
appropriate  candidate  for  the  job,  but  the  janitorial  function  is  hardly 
the  cause  of  his  form.  The  slight  confusion  here  is  perhaps  highlight- 
ed by  the  mock-serious  stance  of  the  god,  who  begins  with  the 
statement  sum  res  prisca  (103)  and  concludes  by  noting  that  his  two 
faces  prevent  him  from  "losing  time"  twisting  his  neck  to  observe 
those  who  come  and  go  (143-44).  He  again  falls  to  inconsistency  later 
when,  after  launching  into  a  vituperative  harangue  against  modern 
greed  suggesting  that  money  has  become  an  acceptable  sacrifice 
because  it  is  so  highly  overvalued  by  men,  he  concludes  that  the  gods 
actually  enjoy  the  gold  (223-26).  By  the  end,  Janus  confuses  the 
details  of  his  own  function  outright:  at  lines  279-82,  he  states  that  his 
gates  are  closed  in  peacetime  in  order  to  hold  peace  in;  at  lines  121- 
24  he  had  indicated  that  the  closed  doors  prevent  war  from  bursdng 
forth.  Here,  as  we  will  see  throughout  the  poem,  the  causae  listed  are 
for  the  most  part,  whether  offered  by  man  or  god,  multiple  and 
potentially  contradictory. 

However,  as  human  constructs  break  down  and  even  the  reason  of 
the  deities  becomes  muddled,  the  poet  turns  to  the  stars  in  the 
ensuing  encomium  of  the  astronomer's  vocation.  When  Janus  takes 
his  leave,  the  narrator  interjects,  "Quis  uetat  et  Stellas,  ut  quaeque 


Christopher  Martin  265 

oriturque  caditque,  /  dicere?  promissi  pars  sit  et  ista  mei"  (1.  295-96). 
He  praises  the  "happy  souls"  whose  contemplation  of  the  stars  has 
lifted  them  above  the  impediments  and  subjects  that  hinder  and 
preoccupy  mortals  (1.  297-306): 

felices  animae,  quibus  haec  cognoscere  primis 

inque  domus  superas  scandere  cura  fuit! 
credibile  est  illos  pariter  uitiisque  locisque 

altius  humanis  exseruisse  caput, 
non  Venus  et  uinum  sublimia  pectora  fregit 

officiumque  fori  militiaeue  labor, 
nee  leuis  ambitio  perfusaque  gloria  fuco 

magnarumque  fames  sollicitauit  opum. 
admouere  oculis  distantia  sidera  nostris 

aetheraque  ingenio  supposuere  suo. 

Through  this  study  men  are  able  to  reach  the  sky:  "sic  petitur  caelum, 
non  ut  ferat  Ossan  Olympus  /  summaque  Peliacus  sidera  tangat  apex" 
(307-08).  Next  to  their  office,  all  other  human  activity  seems  as  futile 
as  the  giants'  attack  on  the  gods.  Finally,  though  the  signa  "wander," 
the  astronomers'  understanding  of  their  regular  motion  permits  ws  to 
"measure  out"  or  chart  the  heavens:  "nos  quoque  sub  ducibus  caelum 
metabimur  illis  /  ponemusque  suos  ad  uaga  signa  dies"  (309-10).  Not 
accidentally,  the  encomium  directly  introduces  the  first  of  many 
constellation  notices  (311-14): 

ergo  ubi  nox  aderit  uenturis  tertia  nonis 

sparsaque  caelesti  rore  madebit  humus, 
octipedis  frustra  quaerentur  bracchia  Cancri: 

praeceps  occiduas  ille  subibit  aquas. 

Thus  the  poem's  first  movement,  capped  by  the  simple  surety  of  this 
statement,  lends  the  stellar  signs  a  peculiar  eminence.  The  signa, 
which  alone  sweep  out  the  flow  of  all  tempora,  preside  over  the 
uncertain,  makeshift  causae. 

The  further  the  reader  proceeds,  the  more  dissatisfied  he  becomes 
with  the  various  aetiological  quests.  On  the  one  hand,  the  encyclope- 
dic multiplicity  of  causae  surrounding  certain  of  the  subjects  only 
forces  us  to  realize  the  arbitrariness  of  human  ingenuity.  Any  number 
of  reasons  might  be  concocted  to  explain  a  particular  phenomenon, 
each  one  as  good  as  another;  as  such,  the  value  of  explication  erodes 
considerably.  An  example  of  this  begins  at  1.  317,  where  Ovid 
attempts  to  discern  the  rationale  behind  the  term  "Agonal,"  and 
comes  up  with  no  fewer  than  five  possibilities.  He  opts  for  the  last  as 
the  true  one  without  offering  any  justification  for  his  choice,  saying 


266  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

simply  "ueraque  iudicio  est  ultima  causa  meo"  (332).  In  the  discussion 
of  sacrificial  traditions  that  follows,  on  the  other  hand,  the  causae 
he  discovers  for  the  animal  slaughter  seem  sufficiently  flimsy  to  excite 
a  comic  sympathy  for  the  fates  of  the  sheep  and  oxen  (1.  383—84)  and, 
later,  the  geese  (453-54).  Hyperion  is  propitiated  with  a  horse,  for 
instance,  "ne  detur  celeri  uictima  tarda  deo"  (386).  The  sacrifice  of 
the  various  animals  to  their  respective  deities  appears,  ultimately,  as 
frivolously  random  a  matter  as  the  source  of  "Agonal."'" 

Seldom  in  the  Fasti  can  the  poet  settle  on  one  derivation,  and  aut 
becomes  a  presiding  word.  When  tracing  the  source  of  the  Lupercal 
ritual  at  2.  267—424,  he  completes  one  legend  only  to  declare,  "adde 
peregrinis  causas,  mea  Musa,  Latinas,  /  inque  suo  noster  puluere 
currat  equus"  (359-60).  The  Latin  explanation  will  do  as  well  as  the 
Greek,  no  preference  ventured.  Similarly,  in  the  description  of  Anna 
Perenna's  festival  in  Book  3,  the  poet  states,  "quae  tamen  haec  dea  sit, 
quoniam  rumoribus  errat  /  fabula,  proposito  nulla  tegenda  meo" 
(543-44),  and  proceeds  to  mention  six  different  identities  for  the 
goddess.  Discussing  the  Parilia  in  Book  4,  the  narrator  actually 
expresses  intimidation  at  the  proliferation  of  causae:  "turba  facit 
dubium  coeptaque  nostra  tenet"  (784).  Ovid's  scholarship,  as  I  think 
he  is  well  aware  and  intends  to  convey,  recurrently  dissolves  into 
guesswork.  Men  are  capable  of  fashioning  any  number  of  reasons  for 
their  ritual  behavior;  no  one  can  hope  to  hght  upon  the  single  "true" 
aetiology  amid  the  diffusion  of  mutually  coherent  legends. 

The  most  salient  instances  of  this  multiplicity  occur  at  the  begin- 
nings of  Books  5  and  6,  where  the  goddesses  dispute  the  derivations 
of  the  months'  names.  If  the  poet  was  intimidated  by  the  number  of 
causae  surrounding  the  Parilia,  he  feels  completely  abashed  at  the 
opening  of  5  (1-6): 

Quaeritis,  unde  putem  Maio  data  nomina  mensi? 

non  satis  est  liquido  cognita  causa  mihi. 
ut  Stat  et  incertus,  qua  sit  sibi,  nescit,  eundum, 

cum  uidet  ex  omni  parte  uiator  iter, 
sic,  quia  posse  datur  diuersas  reddere  causas, 

qua  ferar,  ignoro,  copiaque  ipsa  nocet. 

Three  Muses  speak  up,  each  claiming  respectively  that  May  takes  its 
name  from  "Majesty,"  ''jnaiores,"  and  "Maia."  In  truly  politic  manner, 
the  poet  quietly  records  each  version  of  the  story,  refusing  to  pass 

'°  For  an  extended  treatment  of  this  difficult  portion  of  the  Ovidian  text  see 
Eckhard  Lefevre,  "Die  Lehre  von  der  Entstehung  der  Tieropfer  in  Ovids  Fasten  I, 
335-456,"  Rheinmhes  Mmeumfiir  Philolugie  1 19  n.F.  (1976),  39-64. 


Christopher  Martin  267 

judgment  (108-10).  Ovid  finds  himself  in  a  similar  position  exactly 
one  book  later;  and  here  again,  he  shifts  the  burden  of  decision  to  the 
reader:  "Hie  quoque  mensis  habet  dubias  in  nomine  causas:  /quae 
placeat,  positis  omnibus  ipse  lege"  (6.  1-2).  The  contending  deities  in 
6  are  Juno,  who  claims  June  was  named  for  herself,  luventas  (Hebe), 
who  holds  that  "lunius  est  iuuenum"  (88),  and  Concordia,  who 
attributes  the  name  to  the  "junction"  of  Tatius's  and  Romulus's 
kingdoms.  At  the  end,  the  poet  pohtely  withdraws,  noting  that 
"perierunt  iudice  formae  /  Pergama;  plus  laedunt,  quam  iuuet  una, 
duae"  (99-100).  In  this  poem  of  peace,  he  eschews  all  strife.  All  the 
proffered  causae  appear  sensible,  and  he  would  be  as  foolish  as  Paris 
to  select  among  them. 

Once  we  recognize  the  intentional  aspect  of  the  chaos  in  the  poem, 
we  can  perhaps  see  the  Fasti  as  participating,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Metamorphoses,  in  what  Johnson  has  called  the  counter-classical  sensi- 
bility.'* Augustus's  leadership  will  supposedly  restore  the  golden  age 
of  our  origins  that  the  work  ostensibly  celebrates.  The  emperor  strives 
to  preserve  the  ancient  shrines  from  decay  (2.  57-64),  and  his  efforts 
have  resulted  in  the  mille  Lares  established  throughout  the  city  (5. 
145-46).  But  the  narrator  prefaces  this  last  point  with  a  note  that 
"multa  uetustas  /  destruit:  et  saxo  longa  senecta  nocet"  (5.  131-32), 
and  mentions  a  few  lines  later  "bina  gemellorum  quaerebam  signa 
deorum:  /  uiribus  annosae  facta  caduca  morae"  (143-44).  And,  far 
more  important,  there  is  the  nature  of  the  poem  itself:  the  praise 
Ovid  offers  Augustus  as  the  guardian  of  the  sacred  rituals,  I  think, 
hardly  stands  up  in  context  against  the  flood  of  confusion  and 
obscurity  rushing  all  about  its  foundations.  In  the  background  seems 
to  lie  the  implication  that  Caesar  cannot  ultimately  hope  to  resuscitate 
or  maintain  the  abstruse  mythic  structures  in  the  face  of  human 
frailty  and  time's  eroding  power.  The  obsequious  gesture  harbors  a 
more  subtle  skepticism. 

But  in  order  to  gain  a  sense  of  stability  in  the  midst  of  this  chaos,  we 
need  only  look  to  the  skies,  as  Ovid  makes  plain  in  Book  3  where  he 
again  brings  up  the  crafting  of  the  original  calendar,  which  the  early 
Romans'  ignorance  of  astronomy  dooms  to  fail  (99-104): 

nee  totidem  ueteres,  quot  nunc,  habuere  kalendas, 

ille  minor  geminis  mensibus  annus  erat. 
nondum  tradiderat  uictas  uictoribus  artes 

Graecia,  facundum,  sed  male  forte  genus: 

"  W.  R.Johnson,  "The  Problem  of  the  Counter-Classical  Sensibility  and  its  Critics," 
California  Studies  in  Classical  Antiquity  3  (1970),  123-51. 


268  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

qui  bene  pugnabat,  Romanam  nouerat  artem, 
mittere  qui  poterat  pila,  disertus  erat. 

This  is  less  a  snide  invective  against  the  effeminate  Greeks  than  a 
comic  indictment  of  the  Roman  emphasis  on  arma.  (We  recall  the 
statement  at  the  Fastis  outset,  "Caesaris  arma  canant  alii,  nos  Caesaris 
aras  ..."  [1.  13],  and  the  astronomers'  disdain  for  warfare.)  The  poet 
continues  (105-12): 

quis  tunc  aut  Hyadas  aut  Pleiadas  Atlanteas 

senserat  aut  geminos  esse  sub  axe  polos, 
esse  duas  Arctos,  quarum  Cynosura  petatur 

Sidoniis,  Helicen  Graia  carina  notet, 
signaque  quae  longo  frater  percenseat  anno, 

ire  per  haec  uno  mense  sororis  equos? 
libera  currebant  et  inobseruata  per  annum 

sidera.  .  .  . 

Instead,  we  have  the  ironic  reduction  of  lines  113-14,  "non  illi  caelo 
labentia  signa  tenebant,  /  sed  sua,  quae  magnum  perdere  crimen 
erat."  Romulus's  people  ground  their  ten-month  calendar  in  the  same 
kind  of  arbitrary  thought  process,  delineated  in  lines  121-134, 
standing  behind  most  ordering  constructs.  But  only  the  stars  accu- 
rately measure  the  year's  length,  and  Caesar  revises  the  calendar:  "ille 
moras  solis,  quibus  in  sua  signa  rediret,  /  traditur  exactis  disposuisse 
notis"  (161-62). 

Once  the  reader  grasps  the  centrality  of  the  stars  to  the  fabric  of 
the  work,  he  begins  to  realize  that,  far  from  being  mere  clumsy  or 
even  distracting  junctures,  the  astronomical  references  serve  as  subtle 
reminders  of  the  eternal  certainty  and  order  of  stellar  motion, 
contrasting  with  the  often  confused  aetiological  lore.  Even  the  form 
of  these  references  holds  significance:  they  are  (as  Carlo  Santini 
observes'-)  mostly  brief,  epigrammatic  statements;  as  such,  they  stand 
in  contradistinction  to  the  aetiologies'  protracted  catalogues  or  leg- 
ends. This  becomes  clear  if  we  reconsider  the  first  book.  Ovid 
prefaces  the  long  passage  treating  the  Agonal  rite  and  animal 
sacrifice,  mentioned  above,  with  the  two  short  references  to  the 
constellations  of  the  Crab  (311-14)  and  the  Lyre  (315-16).  Likewise, 
after  the  narrative  has  run  its  course,  the  poet  suddenly  interjects, 
"interea  Delphin  clarum  super  aequora  sidus  /  toUitur  et  patriis 
exserit  ora  uadis"  (457-58).  Following  the  problematic  section,  this 
terse,  simple  expression  seems  to  recall  the  reader  to  the  surety  of 

'^  Santini  (above,  note  8),  10-11. 


Christopher  Martin  269 

celestial  recurrence.  And  just  as  this  reference,  coupled  with  the 
subsequent  line's  "Postera  lux  hiemem  medio  discrimine  signat" 
(459),  completes  the  frame  begun  at  31 1-16,  it  also  initiates  the  frame 
for  the  next  narrative  unit,  which  in  turn  ultimately  lapses  into  a  set  of 
three  astronomical  notations  in  lines  651-56.  Moreover,  in  these  last 
passages  the  Muse  herself  rebukes  the  poet  for  seeking  regularity  in 
the  wrong  places:  "utque  dies  incerta  sacri,  sic  tempora  certa 
.  .  ."(661). 

Moving  on  to  the  second  book,  we  see  how  the  stellar  references 
continue  to  counter  the  often  dubious  mythological  narrative.  Febru- 
ary opens  with  a  discussion  of  the  purgation  rituals  from  which  the 
month  supposedly  derives  its  name,  rites  which  the  poet  asserts  were 
founded  on  extremely  tenuous  preconceptions:  "ah!  nimium  faciles, 
qui  tristia  crimina  caedis  /  fluminea  tolli  posse  putatis  aqua!"  (2.  45- 
46).  But  after  we  learn  that  the  entire  placement  of  the  month  has 
shifted,  and  hear  briefly  of  Caesar's  "glory"  (which  was  nevertheless 
unable  to  preserve  the  shrines  of  Sospita),  we  appropriately  encoun- 
ter at  hues  73-78  the  unshifting  certainty  of  the  constellations: 

Proximus  Hesperias  Titan  abiturus  in  undas  * 

gemmea  purpureis  cum  iuga  demet  equis, 
ilia  nocte  aliquis  tollens  ad  sidera  uultum 

dicet  "ubi  est  hodie,  quae  Lyra  fulsit  heri?" 
dumque  Lyram  quaeret,  medii  quoque  terga  Leonis 

in  liquidas  subito  mersa  notabit  aquas. 

Naturally,  the  stars  themselves  provide  bases  for  mythological 
imagination;  even  Romulus's  ignorant  tribe  attributed  deity  to  them 
(3.111-12).  Beginning  in  2,  Ovid  elaborates  on  the  tales  behind  the 
constellations.  But  again,  as  with  the  rest  of  the  myths,  the  stories 
project  an  aura  of  uncertainty.  For  example,  the  dolphin  wins  its 
place  among  the  stars  "seu  fuit  occultis  felix  in  amoribus  index, 
/  Lesbida  cum  domino  seu  tulit  ille  lyram"  (2.  81-82).  In  the  fourth 
book,  similarly,  the  narrator  posits  variant  reasons  why  only  six  of  the 
seven  Pleiades  can  be  seen  (171-78);  nor  can  he  definitely  settle  on 
the  nature  of  the  Hyades  at  5.  159-82  or  the  Bull  at  5.  603-20.  Ovid's 
point  is  precisely  that,  whatever  names  are  assigned  to  these  guides, 
or  whatever  stories  or  rites  grow  up  around  them,  the  constructs 
remain  secondary  to  the  simple  factuality  of  the  stellar  cycles.  Aetio- 
logical  study  can  only  go  so  far;  the  poet  is  always  left  to  look  to  the 
sky  for  a  picture  of  true  order. 

Repeatedly  the  narrator  directs  our  eyes  upward.  In  Book  3  he 
seems  to  pun  on  the  forms  of  suspicio.  Trying  to  work  out  the 


270  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

significance  of  the  name  "Veiouis"  etymologically,  he  concludes,  "uis 
ea  si  uerbi  est,  cur  non  ego  Veiouis  aedem  /  aedem  non  magni 
suspicer  esse  louis?"  (447-48).  But  he  immediately  continues:  "iam- 
que,  ubi  caeruleum  uariabunt  sidera  caelum,  /  suspice"  (449-50). 
Suspicion  or  conjecture  gives  way  to  observation  of  the  stars.  Like- 
wise, the  flurry  of  possibilities  surrounding  the  feast  of  Anna  Per- 
enna,  coupled  with  the  assassination  of  Caesar,  fades  into  a  brief 
reference  to  the  Scorpion  at  3.  711-12.  Subsequendy,  the  poet  turns 
to  the  "star  of  the  Kite"  (3.  793-94)  after  running  into  difficulties 
determining  the  reason  for  the  "toga  libera"  in  the  Bacchic  festival, 
and  to  the  sun's  entry  into  the  sign  of  the  Ram  (3.  851-52)  after  the 
confusion  over  "Minerua  Capta"  at  835-48. 

Read  in  this  light,  the  Fasti  becomes  a  modest  celebration  of  the 
heavenly  perfection  standing  above  all  mortal  formulation.  The  poet 
may  wonder  at  human  ingenuity,  may  be  fascinated  by  mythic  or 
historical  lore,  may  partake  in  the  rites  deemed  sacred  by  men;  but  he 
remains  always  acutely  aware  of  human  limitation  in  the  presence  of 
eternal  order.  A  particularly  stiking  demonstration  of  this  occurs  at  4. 
377-86,  where  the  narrator  meets  an  old  soldier  at  the  games 
honoring  the  anniversary  of  Caesar's  victory  at  Thapsus.  Johnson 
notes  that  the  old  man,  as  "a  sudden  remnant  of  the  vague,  vanished 
past," 

knows  something  about  this  day,  this  occasion,  and,  knowing  something 
about  the  past,  perhaps  he  also  knows  something  about  the  present  and 
the  future  that  a  younger  man  cannot  know.  A  thunderstorm  inter- 
rupts the  old  veteran's  speech,  and  the  conversation  that  was  to  have 
taken  place,  that  might  have  illumined — what? — is  suddenly  ended.  .  .  . 
This  moment  is  a  paradigm  of  all  the  moments  in  the  poem  .  .  .  when 
we  seem  on  the  verge  of  an  illumination  only  to  find  that  the  truth  that 
we  thought  we  had  glimpsed  has  faded  back  into  the  incomprehensible 
welter  of  days  and  their  vanishing,  uncertain  rituals  and  meanings.'"^ 

I  differ  from  Johnson  in  that  I  think  this  exemplary  moment  does  not 
signal  a  point  of  poetic  dissolution  in  the  text,  but  in  fact  illustrates 
Ovid's  theme  perfectly.  Whatever  the  old  man  might  say,  he  can 
impart  nothing  more  than  the  same  kind  of  hmited  information 
accumulated  elsewhere  in  the  poem.  The  narrator,  by  the  same  token, 
can  discover  nothing  more  than  what  he  already  knows:  namely,  that 
the  order  governing  our  lives  always  was  and  always  will  be  located 
solely  in  the  stars.  We  note  that  the  two  speakers  are  parted  when 
"pendula  caelestes  Libra  mouebat  aquas"  (386).  And  appropriately, 

'^Johnson  1978,  10. 


Christopher  Martin  271 

an  abrupt  reminder  of  the  continuity  of  stellar  motion  immediately 
ensues:  "Ante  tamen,  quam  summa  dies  spectacula  sistat,  /  ensiger 
Orion  aequore  mersus  erit"  (387-88). 

Also  in  Book  4,  Ovid  has  the  distraught  Ceres,  seeking  the 
whereabouts  of  her  abducted  daughter,  direct  her  inquiries  ultimate- 
ly not  to  the  nymph  Arethusa,  as  related  in  the  Metamorphoses  (5.  487 
ff.),  but  to  the  heavens,  turning  first  to  the  Hyades  and  then  to  the  sun 
(4.  575-84). ''^  At  the  opening  o^  Fasti  5,  the  poet  again  moves  from 
the  confusion  obscuring  the  naming  of  May  to  the  rising  of  Capella  at 
lines  1 1 1-14.  In  like  manner,  after  the  controversy  over  the  rationale 
for  the  name  "June"  and  the  discussion  of  the  numerous  rites  and 
temples  in  the  first  part  of  Book  6,  we  come  to  this  reduction:  "haec 
hominum  monimenta  patent:  si  quaeritis  astra,  /  tunc  oritur  magni 
praepes  adunca  louis"  (195-96).  Near  the  conclusion  of  the  same 
book,  Ovid  turns  from  myth  and  history,  and  from  the  quiet 
reminder  of  our  own  mutability  at  lines  771-72,  to  a  humorous  glance 
at  the  sky  (785-90): 

Ecce,  suburbana  rediens  male  sobrius  aede 

ad  Stellas  aliquis  talia  uerba  iacit:  ^ 

"zona  latet  tua  nunc  et  eras  fortasse  latebit: 
dehinc  erit,  Orion,  aspicienda  mihi." 

at  si  non  esset  potus,  dixisset  eadem 
uenturum  tempus  solstitiale  die. 

Regardless  of  the  transience  of  human  ritual,  the  mortality  of  humans 
themselves,  or  even  the  capacity  of  the  individual  inebriated  amid  his 
own  festivities  to  recognize  their  precise  implications,  the  stars  shine 
sdll. 

Thus,  these  breakages  in  the  narrative  flow  initiated  by  the  Lyre, 
the  Dolphin,  the  Bear,  and  the  rest  which  pass  persistendy,  if 
furtively,  by  the  reader,  are  instrumental  to  the  point  Ovid  wishes  to 
make.  As  Lanham  asserts,  this  poet  "was  not  bad  at  transitions";'"''  if 
the  junctures  seem  dissonant,  then  we  must  focus  on  the  possible 
meanings  behind  these  particular  points  of  emphasis.  While  it  is 
dangerous  to  speculate  on  what  might  have  happened  in  the  remain- 
der of  an  unfinished  work,  we  can  reasonably  posit,  based  on  further 
comparison  with  the  Metamorphoses,  that  the  role  of  the  stars  might 
have  become  more  explicit  as  the  poem  drew  on  to  its  close.  Reading 

'''Just  as  the  transformation  element  of  the  Arethusa  story  squared  better  with  the 
Metamorphoses  theme,  so  the  more  "standard"  version  of  this  multiform  myth  (see,  for 
example,  the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter)  accommodated  the  Fasti's  celestial  focus. 

'^  Lanham  (above,  note  8),  p.  60. 


272  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

the  myths  of  change  catalogued  in  the  Metamorphoses,  one  would 
hardly  see  the  poem  as  dealing  with  permanence.  Yet  when  we  reach 
the  final  book,  we  realize  that  immutability  is  precisely  the  poet's 
topic:  in  spite  of  all  the  turmoil,  only  forms  change  (so  the  Pythagore- 
an tells  us)  while  an  essence  endures,  remains  constant,  a  revelation 
which  itself  transforms  our  reading  of  the  verse  up  to  this  point  (15. 
252—58).'^  Perhaps  Ovid  would  have  established  a  similar  element  in 
the  Fastis  conclusion,  pointing  out  the  stars  as  the  central  stabilizing 
factors.  We  should  note  that,  as  the  old  man  in  the  Metamorphoses 
turns  his  speech  towards  the  subject  of  permanence,  he  states  (15. 
147-52): 

iuuat  ire  per  aha 
astra,  iuuat  terris  et  inerti  sede  relicta 
nube  uehi  ualidique  umeris  insistere  Atlantis 
palantesque  homines  passim  et  rationis  egentes 
despectare  procul  trepidosque  obitumque  timentes 
sic  exhortari  seriemque  euoluere  fati! 

Maybe  the  heavens  themselves  were  the  only  bridge  spanning  the 
"gulf  separating  primitive,  mythical  Rome  from  the  Rome  of  Virgil- 
ian  propaganda."'^  The  narrative  chaos,  matched  against  celestial 
continuity,  sets  up  this  very  contrast  in  the  Fasti  between  the  transient 
and  the  lasting. 

Therefore,  Frankel  and  Otis  miss  the  point  when  they  fault  the 
poet  for  attempting  ostentatiously  to  exhibit  "profound  learning,"'^ 
or  subordinating  the  various  story  lines  to  "curious  embellishments 
and  learned  asides."'^  "Learning"  is  precisely  the  thing  Ovid  ques- 
tions throughout  his  calendar  poem.  The  information  which  fills  out 
the  months,  some  of  it  profuse  and  some  spare,  some  interesting  and 
some  tedious,  cumulatively  counts  for  little  in  the  grand  sweep  of 
time.  The  Fasti  shares  with  the  Metamorphoses  a  fascination  with 
uncertainty  and  confusion  counterpointed  by  a  reaching  for  perma- 
nence. Here  the  permanence  is  located  in  the  endless  recurrence  of 
the  years,   measured  by  the  eternal  regularity  of  the  stars.   The 

'^  The  precise  intention  behind  the  Pythagorean  passage  remains  a  major  critical 
issue.  See  Johnson  1970  (above,  note  11),  138  ff.,  and  G.  Karl  Galinsky,  Ovid's  "Met- 
amorphoses": An  Introduction  to  the  Basic  Aspects  (Oxford  1975),  pp.  104-107  and  n.  37 
on  p.  109.  However,  our  attitude  toward  the  speaker  need  not  affect  the  present  argu- 
ment: regardless  of  the  old  man's  ultimate  status,  the  point  he  makes  does  offer  the  reader 
one  other  way  to  digest  the  compendium  of  myth  encountered  up  to  the  final  book. 

'^  Lanham,  p.  50. 

'**  Frankel,  p.  146. 

'^  Otis,  p.  52. 


Christopher  Martin  273 

astrological  element  diminishes  the  relevance  of  any  earthly  matters. 
The  starry  signa,  themselves  the  source  of  our  tempora,  finally  stand 
above  the  causae  he  lists  at  such  careful,  insignificant  length. ^° 

This  last  point  leads  to  a  final  question,  namely,  why  did  Ovid 
protract  this  "insignificant"  narrative  to  such  a  degree?  The  idea  of 
confusion  or  impermanence  might  have  been  conveyed  as  effectively 
in  much  less  space.  I  would  suggest  here  that,  despite  the  ultimate 
futility  involved,  human  ingenuity  delighted  the  poet,  who  took  care 
to  record  those  myths  and  rituals  which  man  constructs  to  help  him 
cope  with  the  earthly  confusion  he  finds  all  around  him.  Critics  have 
argued  that  the  Metamorphoses  is  "about  people  telling  stories  and  how 
telling  stories  is  one  of  the  things  that  people  do  in  order  to  get 
through  it  all,""'  that  the  "point  is  not  to  hierarchize — there  are  no 
hierarchies  here,  and  no  perspectives  either — butjust  to  keep  going."  "^ 
I  think  the  narrative  dimension  of  the  Fasti  at  root  partakes  of  the 
same  spirit.  Ovid  never  condemns  the  aetiological  quest. ~^  He  simply 
wishes  to  demonstrate  its  tenuous  foundation.  That  is,  men  have 
established  rituals  by  which  they  live  their  lives,  and  the  legends 
behind  these  rites  are  shifting  and  obscure.  The  poet  derives  from  his 
investigation  not  only  a  degree  of  amusement,  but  also  a  genOine 
feeling  of  sympathy  and  wonder  at  the  sheer  diversity  of  the  mind  in 
its  attempt  to  justify  human  order,  an  order  whose  prime  feature  is  its 
problematic  multiplicity  rather  than  any  sort  of  unified  truth. 

The  coherence  of  the  Fasti,  then,  is  grounded  in  the  poet's 
meditation  on  and  celebration  of  the  element  of  certainty  overshad- 
owing the  human  constructs  occupying  the  foreground  of  his  work. 
Though  Ovid  never  finished  enough  of  the  poem  to  enable  us  to 
determine  the  extent  to  which  his  project  might  have  succeeded,  I 


^°  We  may  note  how  this  antithesis  between  chaotic  human  explication  and  stellar 
certainty  distinguishes  the  Fasti  from  its  ostensible  model,  Callimachus's  Actia.  In 
contrast  to  Ovid's  skeptical  overtones,  the  Greek  poet  offers  alternative  responses  to 
specific  aetiological  questions  on  only  two  occasions  of  which  we  are  aware  (fragments  6 
and  79  Pf.),  and  has  the  Muse  resolve  the  earlier  of  these  in  a  presumably  definitive 
manner.  As  a  result,  Callimachus's  sole  reference  to  a  constellation  in  fragment  110 
presents  no  discernible  tension  with  his  poem's  general  sense  of  "Hesiodic"  authorita- 
tiveness. 

"'  Gordon  Braden,  The  Classics  and  English  Renaissance  Pueh-y:  Three  Case  Studies  (New 
Haven  and  London  1978),  p.  52. 

"  Lanham,  p.  59. 

^^  For  a  discussion  of  the  narrator's  persona  in  the  poem,  see  Jean-Marc  Frecaut, 
L'esprit  et  I'humour  chez  Ovide  (Grenoble  1972),  chap.  5,  and  John  F.  Miller,  "Ritual 
Directions  in  Ovid's  Fasti:  Dramatic  Hymns  and  Didactic  Poetry,"  Classical  J outiial  75 
(1980),  204-14. 


274  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

think  we  are  nonetheless  capable  of  discerning  what  the  chief 
thematic  thrust  was  to  be:  as  all  around  us  may  change,  including  the 
names  of  the  gods  we  worship  and  the  reasons  for  which  we  worship 
them  as  we  do,  the  stars  remain  as  eternal  guides,  reminders  of  the 
one  unambiguous  form  of  order.  This  realization  provided  the  poet, 
it  seems,  with  a  sense  of  confidence;  there  was  something  above  the 
frequently  obtrusive  pedantry  of  this  world  that  made  it  all  tolerable, 
even  enjoyable.  If  anything  killed  the  Fasti,  I  do  not  think  it  was,  as 
Johnson  suggests,  an  internal  sadness  uncovered  in  the  course  of 
composition,  but  the  sadness  of  Tomis.  In  the  bitterness  of  exile,  the 
reflection  upon  universal  order  gives  way  to  the  more  individualized 
poignancy  of  the  Tristia. 

I  would  venture  a  guess  that  Ovid  could  only  smile  at  the  fact  that, 
barely  fifty  years  after  publication,  Frazer's  voluminous  commentary 
"is  being  outdated  by  advances  in  anthropological  method  and  in 
comparative  religion.  .  .  ."^'^  Perhaps  only  when  the  reader  lays  aside 
the  book  late  at  night,  and  himself  glances  out  at  the  same  stars  which 
overlooked  Romulus  and  Ovid,  Verinus  and  Frazer,  can  he  fully 
appreciate  what  the  author  of  the  Fasti  was  trying  to  say.  It  is  a  poem 
whose  incompletion  we  may  very  much  regret. 

University  of  Virginia 

^"^  Barsby  (above,  note  7),  p.  29n. 


8 


Siliana* 


W.  S.  WATT 


The  following  editions  are  referred  to:  G.  A.  Ruperti  (Gottingen 
1795-98);  W.  C.  Summers  (in  Postgate's  Corpus  Poetarum  Latinorum, 
vol.  2,  London  1905);  J.  D.  Duff  (Loeb  edition,  London  1934).  . 

Heinsius  =  N.  Heinsius,  in  A.  Drakenborch's  edition  (Utrecht 

1717). 

S.  B.  =  D.  R.  Shackleton  Bailey,  Classical  Quarterly  9  (1959),  173- 

80. 

Delz  =  J.  Delz,  Gnomon  55  (1983),  211-20. 

4.  248:        Crixus,  ut  in  tenui  spes  exiguumque  salutis, 
armat  contemptu  mentem  necis. 

With  exiguum  one  must  presumably  supply  est;  so  TLL  5.  2.  1477. 
67.  This  is  not  satisfactory  for  two  reasons:  (a)  one  would  expect  salutis 
to  be  governed  by  spes,  (b)  exiguus  is  a  natural  epithet  for  spes.  Both  of 
these  considerations  still  apply  if  (with  Summers  and  some  of  the 
early  editors)  one  believes  that  a  line  has  been  lost  after  248.  I  suggest 
that  exiguae  {spes  being  plural,  as  frequently  in  Silius)  would  be  an 
improvement,  despite  the  tautology  with  in  tenui. 

6.  485:  exposcunt  Libyes,  nobisque  dedere 

haec  referenda,  pari  libeat  si  pendere  bellum 
foedere  et  ex  aequo  geminas  conscribere  leges. 

Regulus  addressing  the  Roman  senate. 


*  I  am  very  grateful  to  Professor  J.  Delz  for  commenting  on  an  earlier  version  of 
these  notes. 


276  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

"The  Carthaginians  demand  .  .  .  that  you  should  weigh  this  war  in 
equal  scales"  (Duff).  I  say  nothing  about  this  translation  of  pari 
foedere;  what  is  even  more  startling,  indeed  impossible,  is  that 
exposcere  should  be  construed  with  si  instead  of  with  ut.  I  suggest  libeat 
suspendere,  referring  to  a  truce  which  would  in  due  course  be 
followed  by  a  treaty  of  peace  [conscribere  leges).  With  exposcunt  libeat 
compare  16.  601  f.,  "deturque  potestas  /  orat,"  and  Livy  2.  35.  5, 
"exposcentes  .  .  .  donarent."  Silius  may  have  had  in  mind  Lucan  4. 
531  f.,  "temptavere  prius  suspense  vincere  bello  /  foederibus." 

7.  515:       dividitur  miles  Fabioque  equitumque  magistro 

imperia  aequantur.  penitus  cernebat  et  expers 
irarum  senior  magnas  ne  penderet  alti 
erroris  poenas  patria  inconsulta  timebat. 

penitus  LOV:  gemitus  F 

Fabius's  reaction  to  the  division  of  power  between  himself  and  his 
Master  of  Horse. 

"penitus  cernebat,  vor  allem  ohne  Objekt,  ist  kein  Latein,"  Delz  (p. 
220).  gemitus,  although  it  is  not  the  paradosis,  is  much  more  likely  to 
be  right:  Fabius  groaned  at  the  mistake  which  his  country  was  making 
and  feared  its  consequences.  But  he  kept  his  temper  and  (presum- 
ably) suppressed  his  groans;  Summers's  retinebat  or  Fosigaiesfrenabat 
would  seem  to  give  the  sense  which  is  required,  but  neither  is 
palaeographically  probable.  Better,  I  suggest,  clau{d)ebat;  cf.  Lucan  8. 
634,  "claude,  dolor,  gemitus"  (with  Postgate's  note);  Silius  himself 
uses  claudere  with  metus  (6.  381)  and  with  pavor  (10.  377). 

8.  502:       sed  populis  nomen  posuit  metuentior  hospes, 

cum  fugeret  Phrygios  trans  aequora  Marsya /r^no5 
Mygdoniam  Phoebi  superatus  pectine  loton. 

The  Marsi  in  central  Italy  derive  their  name  from  the  Phrygian 
Marsyas,  who  was  forced  to  flee  after  being  defeated  by  Apollo  in  a 
musical  contest;  in  the  usual  version  of  the  story  he  did  not  flee  but 
was  flayed  alive  by  Apollo. 

The  vulgate  is  Phrygias  .  .  .  Crenas  (=  Aulocrene  in  Phrygia),  but 
this  conjecture  is  (to  my  mind  convincingly)  disposed  of  by  L. 
Hakanson  (Silius  Italicus:  kritische  und  exegetische  Bemerkungen,  Lund 
1976,  p.  21),  who  proposes  Phrygios  .  .  .fines:  a  possible  solution,  but 
not  one  which  commands  instant  assent.  I  suggest  Phrygius  (so 
Ruperti)  .  .  .  poenas:  Marsyas  fled  from  the  punishment  (presumably 
flaying)  which  threatened  him  as  a  result  of  his  defeat  by  Apollo.  The 


W.  S.  Watt  277 

nominative  Phrygius  is  an  easy  change,  and  is  appropriate  to  the 
context  (an  Italian  people  derives  its  name  from  a  Phrygian  fugitive); 
and  poenas  assumes  the  quite  common  confusion  of  p  and  f  (some 
examples  are  given  by  Hakanson,  p.  15). 

8.  604:        nee  non  cum  Venetis  Aquileia  superfuit  armis. 

From  Silius's  "gathering  of  the  clans"  for  the  battle  of  Cannae. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  superfuit  (FL)  is  the  paradosis  and  supei-fluit 
(OV)  a  further  corruption.  I  think  there  is  equally  little  doubt  that 
Silius  wrote  supen>enit\  prosaic  though  it  is,  this  is  the  mot  juste  to 
express  the  sense  {OLD  sense  2b);  Venetis  is  an  adjective  with  armis,  as 
is  pointed  out  by  Delz  (p.  220).  The  corruption  o^venit  to  fuit  is  found 
in  Cicero's  Letters  {Alt.  4.  4.  1;  8.  IID.  4;  10.  16.  1)  and  no  doubt 
elsewhere. 

9.  649:  abrumpere  cuncta 

iamdudum  cum  luce  libet,  sed  comprimit  ensem 
nescio  qui  deus  et  meme  ad  graviora  reservat. 

From  a  soliloquy  of  Varro  at  the  batde  of  Cannae. 

I  agree  with  S.  B.  (p.  174)  in  replacing  meme  with  a  pyrrhic  word 
followed  by  me,  and  suggest  et  ma{la)  me,  comparing  Seneca,  Oed.  31, 
"cui  reservamur  malo?" 

10.  228:     squalentem  rumpens  ingestae  torvus  harenae 

ingreditur  nimbum  ac  ritu  iarn  maris  Hiberi 
carmina  pulsata  fundentem  barbara  caetra 
invadit. 

At  the  battle  of  Cannae  Paulus  breaks  through  a  thick  cloud  of 
sand  and  slays  a  Spaniard  called  Viriathus. 

''ritu  moris  mira  dictio.  Forte  leg.  ritu  victoris,"'  Ruperti.  Postgate, 
followed  by  Summers  and  Duff,  preferred  to  replace  ritu  iayn  by  the 
man's  name  Viriathum.  Against  both  of  these  readings,  apart  from 
palaeographical  considerations,  it  can  be  objected  that  iam  should  not 
be  dispensed  with  (the  Spaniard  was  already  celebrating  victory);  ritu 
also  appears  sound,  since  Silius  is  particularly  fond  of  that  word  with  a 
genitive  (or  adjective  equivalent  to  a  genitive).  So  it  must  be  moris  that 
is  corrupt;  I  suggest  M a rtis,  "after  the  fashion  of  Spanish  warfare,"  i.e. 
Spanish  fighters;  cf.  11.  24  Tyrio  Marti  =  "Poenis."  The  corruption  of 
Martis  to  moris  is  easy  enough  in  itself  but  here  it  has  been  helped  by  a 
psychological  factor:  ritu  has  suggested  to  a  scribe  its  synonym  mos. 

11.  291:     namque  lovem  et  laetos  per  furta  canebat  amores 


278  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

Electraeque  toros  Atlantidos,  unde  creatus, 
proles  digna  deum,  turn  Dardanus. 

It  might  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  otiose  turn  than  this  one.  It  looks 
to  me  as  if  it  had  been  inserted  to  fill  the  gap  left  by  the  loss  of  another 
monosyllable,  perhaps  sit. 

11.  356:     hoc  iugulo  dextram  explora;  namque  haec  tib'i  ferrum, 

si  Poenum  invasisse  paras,  per  viscevd  ferrum 
nostra  est  ducendum. 

A  Capuan  father  threatens  to  interpose  his  own  body  if  his  son  tries 
to  assassinate  Hannibal. 

Heinsius  found  the  repetition  oi  ferrum,  at  the  end  of  two  consecu- 
tive lines,  "elegant."  In  Proceedings  of  the  Cambridge  Philological  Society 
13  (1967),  23  f.  A.  Ker  disagrees,  and  thinks  that  one  ferrum  must  be 
corrupt;  he  tentatively  proposes, fili  in  356.  Better,  I  suggest,  saevum,  if 
change  is  required;  for  this  epithet  oi  ferrum  see  13.  284,  Lucan  7. 
313,  Seneca,  Thy.  573.  The  two  words  are  not  unlike. 

12.  630:     tandem  post  clades  socium  caelique  ruinam, 

non  hoste  in  nimbis  viso,  non  hoste,  referri 
signa  iubet  castris. 

Hannibal  is  thwarted  by  a  terrible  storm  in  his  attack  on  the  city  of 
Rome. 

One  of  the  two  occurrences  of  hoste  must  be  wrong.  It  has  been 
usual  to  replace  the  second  by  ense,  which  is  an  impossibly  feeble 
guess.  Much  better  is  Blass's  urbe,  in  support  of  which  one  could 
adduce  614  f.,  "hostique  propinquo  /  Roma  latet."  Another  possibility, 
I  suggest,  is  sole  (preferably  replacing  the  first  occurrence  oUwste);  cf. 
612  f.,  "caelumque  tenebris  /  clauditur  et  terras  caeco  nox  condit 
amictu";  contrast  637  (when  the  storm  ends),  "serenato  clarum  iubar 
emicat  axe." 

12.  684:     rursus  in  arma  vocat  trepidos  clipeoque  tremendum 
increpat  atque  tuenust  imitatur  murmura  caeli. 

The  subject  is  Hannibal. 

The  old  correction  armis  has  usually  been  accepted,  despite  arma  (in 
a  different  sense)  in  the  previous  line,  and  despite  the  fact  that  it 
repeats  clipeo.  Other  suggestions  are  amens,  tumens,  fremens,  sonans, 
minis.  Better  than  any  of  these,  I  think,  would  be  tonans;  cf.  9.  423 
(also  of  Hannibal),  "ingentis  clipei  tonitru  praenuntiat  iram,"  13.  10 
(words  of  Hannibal),  "armorum  tonitru"  (half  metaphorical).  Unelid- 


W.  S.  Watt  279 

ed  atque  is  not  a  serious  objection;  Silius  has  17  instances  of  this,  of 
which  seven  are  in  the  second  foot. 

14.  580:     nee  mora  quin  trepidos  hac  clade  inrumpere  muros 

signaque  ferre  deum  templis  iam  iamque /wm?/, 
ni  subito  importuna  lues  inimicaque  pestis 
invidia  divum  pelagique  labore  parata 
polluto  miseris  rapuisset  gaudia  caelo. 

After  a  victory  at  sea  the  Romans  would  have  made  an  immediate 
assault  on  the  city  of  Syracuse  but  for  a  sudden  outbreak  of  plague. 

It  makes  good  sense  to  take  fuisset  as  the  equivalent  of  licuisset;  so 
already  Ruperti,  referring  to  1.  163,  "sistere  erat";  this  would  be  an 
extension  of  the  impersonal  use  of  est  or  erat  dealt  with  by  Hofmann- 
Szantyr,  Lat.  Synt.  u.  Stil.,  p.  349.  There  is  therefore  no  need  for 
Heinsius's  emendation  ruisset  (sc.  Marcellus),  which  in  any  case  is  open 
to  the  objection  that,  although  Silius  is  very  fond  of  ruo,  he  never 
construes  it  with  an  infinitive. 

In  583  there  is  no  doubt  that  S.  B.  (p.  179)  is  right  in  taking  p^/a^^z 
labore  parata  with  the  following  gaudia,  not  with  the  preceding  pestis, 
but  it  is  not  clear  that  invidia  divum  should  likewise  be  taken  thus  (in 
what  sense  was  the  victory  at  sea  won  "through  the  jealousy  of  the 
gods"?).  It  is  much  more  probable  that  invidia  divum  goes  with  what 
precedes;  in  that  case  it  would  appear  that  a  line  has  dropped  out 
after  582,  e.g.  pestis  I  (orta  graves  rnultis  morhos  mortesque  tulisset)  I  invidia 
divum,  pelagique  etc. 

15.  51:  aberunt  sitis  aspera  et  haustus 

sub  galea  pulvis  partique  minore  labores. 

Pleasure  (Voluptas)  promises  Scipio  freedom  from  the  hardships  of 
military  life. 

For  the  last  three  words  S.  B.  (p.  180)  lists  nine  conjectures  of 
previous  scholars,  none  of  which  he  likes,  and  then  adds  three  more 
of  his  own.  All  twelve  are,  in  varying  degrees,  remote  from  the 
paradosis.  Yet  good  sense  can  be  obtained  at  the  cost  of  little  more 
than  the  insertion  of  one  letter:  preti(o)que  minore  labores,  "toils  that  are 
poorly  rewarded"  (Silius  is  quite  fond  of  pretium  in  this  sense).  I 
hesitate  to  suggest  that  Silius  may  have  remembered  Lucan  1.  282  (a 
disputed  line),  "par  labor  atque  metus,  pretio  maiore  petuntur." 

15.  726:  tunc  aversi  turgentia  colla 

disicit  ense  Mosae;  percussit  pondere  terram 
cum  galea  ex  alto  lapsum  caput,  at  residentem 
turbatus  rapuit  sonipes  in  proelia  truncum. 


280  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

Livius  slays  a  tall  Gaul  in  a  cavalry  engagement. 

turgentia  colla  is  appropriate  of  a  snake  (2.  546)  but  not  obviously  of 
a  human  being;  Duffs  notion  that  it  refers  to  goitre  is  quite  fantastic. 
Hemsms,'' &  fugientia  is  a  poor  conjecture,  despite  2.  250,  terga  fugientia, 
and  8.  1,  cedentia  terga. 

Read  surgentia,  "towering  aloft"  on  his  horse;  cf.  715,  procerae  .  .  . 
cohortes,  and  728,  ex  alto.  For  this  meaning  of  surgere  cf.  OLD  sense  7 
and  Silius  1.  103,  "surgentes  .  .  .  flammas,"  5.  133  f.,  "vertice  surgens  / 
triplex  crista,"  6.  598  (of  Jupiter),  "Albana  surgens  (=  alius  or  sublimis) 
.  .  .  arce." 

16.  170:     Massylis  regnator  erat  ditissimus  oris 

nee  nudus  virtute  Syphax;  quo  iura  petebant 
innumerae  gentes  extremaque  litore  Tethys. 

If  sound,  quo  must  mean  a  quo;  so  Ruperti,  quoting  Curtius  5.  7.  8, 
"regia  totius  Orientis,  unde  tot  gentes  antea  iura  petebant";  but  quo 
cannot  mean  U7ide.  Summers  adopts  Schrader's  quern,  but  the  use  of 
peto  with  two  accusatives  is  very  doubtful;  see  C.  F.  W.  Miiller,  Synt.  d. 
Norn.  u.  Akk.  (Leipzig  and  Berlin  1908),  148  f.  I  can  only  suggest  that 
quo  is  a  stopgap  to  repair  the  loss  of  hinc. 

Aberdeen,  Scotland 


9 


Leopards,  Roman  Soldiers,  and  the 
Historia  Augusta 

BARRY  BALDWIN 


'Ajio  SuQiag  fiexQL  Tcb^irig  GTiQioiiaxa),  6ia  y^l^  xal  eaXdoar]q,  -vftuxxog 
xal  fijAEQag,  bzbz\iivoz,  bena  Xeojiagboic,,  6  eoxiv  oiQaxioDTixov  Tdy^ia. 

Thus  Ignatius,  in  the  opening  sentence  of  his  Fifth  Letter  to  the 
Romans,  describing  his  journey  in  captivity  and  expectations  of 
martyrdom.  Or,  as  Jerome,  De  Vir.  Illustr.  16  {PL  23.  635A),  renders 
the  key  words,  ligatus  cum  decern  leopardis,  hoc  est,  militibus  qui  me 
cvstodiunt,  translating  (it  should  be  noted)  a  Greek  text  whose 
reference  to  the  soldiers  at  the  end  of  the  sentence  is  different, 
reading  as  it  does  xoi^xeoxi  oxQaxicbxaig  xolg  cpuXaooouoi  ^ie.  As  a 
convenience  to  readers,  I  might  mention  that  this  point  is  obscured  in 
the  TLL's  notice  oHeopardus,  where  also  Jerome's  decern  is  misreported 
as  duobus. 

This  passage  bothered  Kirsopp  Lake,  the  Loeb  editor  of  Ignatius, 
who  felt  that  "leopards"  was  the  name  of  a  regiment,  the  following 
words  in  the  Greek  being  an  explanatory  gloss.  But,  as  he  admitted, 
there  is  no  evidence  for  any  such  nomenclature,  rich  though  Roman 
military  slang  was  in  such  contexts.'  Ignatius  is  probably  being 
figurative,"  as  his  opening  verb  0r|Qio^ax(Ji)  implies.  He  could  well 
have  been  trying  a  conscious  variant  on  figurative  uses  of  other 
animals  in  Christian  literature,  e.g.,  the  lion  in  Paul,  II  Timothy  4:17. 


'  See  the  examples  collected  by  R.  MacMullen,  Soldier  and  Civilian  in  the  Later  Ronuni 
Empire  (Harvard  1963),  pp.  166-67. 

"  Also  the  view  of  Arndt  Sc  Ciingrich,  ,4  Greek— English  Lexicon  of  the  Xeiv  Testament  and 
Other  Early  Christian  Literature  (2nd  edn.,  Chicago  1979),  p.  471. 


282  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

Such  an  explanation  does  not  detract  from  the  linguistic  interest  of 
the  passage.  If  we  may  trust  the  dictionaries,  this  is  the  first  occur- 
rence of  "leopard"  in  both  Greek  and  Latin.  LSJ  adduce  only  Galen  5. 
134  (Kuhn),  Edict.  Diodet.  8.  39,  and  Theognostus,  Canon  98.  Lampe's 
Patristic  Greek  Lexicon  adds  to  the  present  passage  only  Acta  Philippi 
96  and  the  seventh  century  Joannes  Climacus,  Scala  Paradisi  7  {PG  88. 
81 2D).  All  the  examples  collected  by  the  TLL  are  late,  whilst  Lewis  &: 
Short  quote  only  two  passages  from  the  Historia  Augusta,  and  the 
Oxford  Latin  Dictionary  merely  a  couple  of  inscriptions.  Furthermore, 
the  Ignatian  passage  is  the  only  figurative  example  in  Greek,  and 
there  is  none  in  Latin. 

The  Roman  soldiers  who  provoked  Ignatius  to  this  apparent 
artistic  innovation  will  almost  certainly  have  been  the  so-called  diogmi- 
tae,  a  tough  crowd  of  vigilantes  or  enforcers,  hardly  deserving  LS/'s 
mild  description  of  them  as  "mounted  policemen."^  LSJ ,  who  spell  the 
word  6ia)YH£LTT]g,  adduce  only  CIG  3831  a8;  this  is  altered  in  their 
Supplement  to  OGI  511.  10,  actually  the  same  inscription  via  Ditten- 
berger's  OGIS,  with  the  addition  of  a  second  inscription  from  Pisidia, 
published  by  Louis  Robert,  Bulletin  de  Correspondcmce  Hellenique  52 
(1928),  407-09.  It  is  striking  that  all  four  of  the  examples  in  Lampe 
(who  spells  it  6i(jL)YM'i^t^^'5)  come  from  martyrologies.'^  To  give  the  best 
example,  Polycarp  was  arrested  by  a  joint  force  of  diogmitae  and 
cavalry  (the  distinction  is  to  be  noted)  who  were  sent  out  to  find  him 
"with  the  usual  arms  as  though  against  a  brigand."" 

The  Latin  equivalent  diogmitae  (which  may  justify  the  orthography 
of  Lampe  over  that  of  LSJ)  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Oxford  Latin 
Dictionary.  Both  Lewis  &  Short  and  the  TLL  are  confined  to  the  same 
two  passages.  Ammianus  Marcellinus  27.  9.  6  relates  how  Musonius, 
the  vicarius  of  Asia  in  368,  tried  to  combat  the  brigands  of  Isauria 
adhibitis  semermibus  paucis,  quos  Diogmitas  appellant.  It  may  be  notable 
that  the  historian,  who  says  that  Musonius  was  compelled  to  use  this 
posse  because  the  regular  soldiers  were  enfeebled  by  luxury,  finds  it 
necessary  to  explain  the  term. 

The  other  passage  is  in  the  Historia  Augusta.  In  his  Life  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  (21.  7),  'Julius  Capitolinus',  having  said  that  the  emperor 
created  bands  of  Volones  (armed  slaves),  Obsequentes  (armed  gladia- 

^  For  discussions  of  their  quality  and  functions,  with  concomitant  bibliography,  cf. 
Fiebiger's  notice  in  RE  5,  col.  784,  Robert,  loc.  cit.,  and  now  B.  Shaw,  "Bandits  in  the 
Roman  Empire,"  Past  ^  Present  105  (1984),  18,  n.  35. 

"M.  Poly.  7.  1;  M.  Pion.  15.  1,  7;  M.  Agap.  2.  1. 

'  Text  and  translation  in  H.  Musurillo,  Acts  of  the  Christian  Martyrs  (Oxford  1972), 
pp.  6-7;  the  last  words  in  the  Greek  constitute  a  quotation  from  Matthew  26:55. 


Barry  Baldwin  283 

tors),  and  reformed  bandits  from  Dalmatia  and  Dardania,  adds  the 
laconic  sentence  armavit  et  Diogmitas.  The  word  is  absent  from 
Lessing's  Lexicon  to  the  Historia  Augusta  perhaps  because  he  treated  it 
as  a  proper  name.^  This  account  has  been  accepted  at  face  value  by 
the  best  modern  authority/  and  may  be  authentic,  given  the  undoubt- 
ed existence  oi  diogmitae  at  that  time.  Yet  one  has  to  wonder  what  the 
chances  are  of  the  Historia  Augusta  independently  coming  up  with  the 
only  extant  Latin  use  of  the  term  outside  Ammianus,  especially  when 
we  notice  how  a  crude  alliteration  {Dalmatiae  .  .  .  Dardaniae  .  .  .  Diogmi- 
tas) is  thereby  achieved,  also  that  the  biographer's  account  opens  with 
an  ablative  absolute,  instante  sane  adhuc  pestilentia,  as  does  that  of 
Ammianus,  deploratis  novissime  rebus,  luxuque  adiumento  militari  mar- 
cente.  Conceivably,  then,  we  have  here  yet  another  small  link  in  the 
chain  of  details^  that  betrays  the  fraudulent  nature  of  the  Historia 
Augusta. 

University  of  Calgary 

^  As  does  the  Loeb  text  of  Magie;  in  Hohl's  Teubner,  it  is  printed  with  a  small  "d." 
^  A.  R.  Wirley,  Marcus  Aurelius  (London  1966),  p.  218,  also  in  his  Penguin  translation 

of  the //A. 

^  As  put  together  by  many  scholars  over  the  years  since  Dessau.  A  bibliography  is 

here  unnecessary;  HA  fanciers  know  where  to  look. 


10 

Three  Notes  on  Habeo  and  Ac  in  the 
Itinerarium  Egeriae 

CLIFFORD  WEBER 

I.  Habeo  =  Habito  (20.  7)  « 

The  frequentative  habito  is  the  usual  Latin  word  for  "reside,"  but  in 
pre-Classical  texts  this  idea  is  occasionally  expressed  by  the  simplex 
habeo.  Of  the  latter  usage  there  is  one  example  in  the  third-century 
Sacra  Argeorum  quoted  by  Varro,'  but  otherwise  it  is  limited  to 
drama:  nine  times  in  Plautus,"^  twice  in  Naevius,  and  once  each  in 
Accius  and  Afranius.  By  100  B.C.,  however,  this  usage  would  appear 
to  have  become  obsolete,  for  not  only  is  it  never  attested  in  any 
Classical  text,  but  subsequendy  the  grammarian  pseudo-Placidus 
states  that  habeo  =  "reside"  "nunc  frequentative  tantum  dicitur."^  In 
Late  Latin,  to  be  sure,  isolated  examples  are  to  be  found:  one  in 
Apuleius,"^  one  in  Dictys  Cretensis,  and  one  in  Paulinus  of  Nola. 
Nevertheless,  two  examples  drawn  from  a  poet  and  from  an  archaizer 
like  Apuleius  are  not  sufficient  to  establish  the  survival  of  habeo  = 
habito  in  post-Classical  Latin,  nor  is  an  isolated  instance  in  Dictys.''  A 
search  for  additional  late  examples,  moreover,  would  not  appear  to 
hold  much  promise.  In  the  entry  on  habeo  in  the  Thesaurus  Linguae 


'  Ung.  5.  50. 

^Textual  conjectures  would  add  three  more  examples  in  Cure.  44,  Mm.  308,  and 
Poen.  1093. 

^  Lindsay,  Glossana  Latma,  IV  (Paris  1930),  H  15  (p.  64). 

''Two  '\f  habeo  in  Apol.  21  (p.  25.  4  van  der  Vliet)  is  intransitive. 

'  The  same  goes  for  CIL,  VI,  38274  from  Etruria,  which  is  of  unknown  date  and  in 
any  case  displays  a  modicum  of  literary  knowledge. 


286  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

Latinae^  the  lexicographer  unequivocally  declares,  "Locos  dedi  om- 
nes." 

In  Itinerarium  Egeriae  20.  7,  however,  this  sentence  is  found: 

.  .  .  mox  de  nocte  petierunt  heremum  et  unusquisque  eoruni  monas- 
teria  sua,  qui  ubi  habebat. 

As  long  ago  as  1912,  in  his  review  of  Lofstedt's  commentary  on  the 
Itinerarium^  Schmalz  recognized  (without,  however,  expressly  draw- 
ing attention  to  the  fact)  that  in  this  passage  habebat  is  best  taken  to 
mean  "reside."  Otherwise,  an  ellipse  of  monasterium  suum  must  be 
assumed.  Thus,  whatever  may  be  the  correct  analysis  oi^  qui  ubi  in  the 
above  sentence,  there  can  be  little  doubt  about  the  equivalence  of 
habebat  to  habitabat,  so  that  qui  ubi  habebat  means  something  like  "each 
wherever  he  happened  to  be  living,"  as  Schmalz  took  it.  This  instance 
in  Itinerarium  Egeriae  20.  7  should  be  added,  then,  to  the  examples  of 
habeo  =  habito  cited  in  the  Thesaurus,  "locos  dedi  omnes"  notwithstand- 
ing. Another  fact,  however,  is  more  important.  Taken  together  with 
Dictys  Cretensis  4.  15,  this  passage  demonstrates  that  habeo  =  "reside" 
was  still  in  current  use  as  late  as  the  late  a.d.  300s.  Thus,  as  it  appears 
in  Apuleius  and  Paulinus  of  Nola,  this  usage  is  not  a  case  of  literary 
affectation  but  is  rather  current  idiom.  It  also  affords  an  especially 
clear  illustration  of  the  so-called  "classical  gap."  Amply  attested  in 
pre-Classical  drama,  habeo  =  "reside"  then  disappears  from  view  for 
the  next  two  centuries,  but  not  because  it  became  obsolete.  On  the 
contrary,  though  rejected  by  Classical  and  Silver  purists,  the  use  of 
habeo  in  this  sense  lived  in  the  non-literary  language  of  everyday  life.^ 
This  is  the  reason  why  it  reappears  in  Late  Latin,  after  the  breakdown 
of  the  complex  stylistic  canon  which  had  earlier  distinguished  every- 
day speech  from  acceptable  literary  usage. 

n.IbiHabet  =  II  y  a  (4.  4) 

It  is  common  knowledge  that  the  impersonal  use  of  habet  with  an 
accusative,  first  appearing  in  Late  Latin  in  the  a.d.  300s,  is  the 
linguistic  ancestor  of  French  il  y  a  ("there  is,"  "there  are")  and  the 
parallel  expressions  in  Spanish  (hay),  Catalan  (hi  ha),  and  Italian  (I'i  ha, 
ci  ha).  In  the  French  expression  the  adverb  y  is  optional  until  the 


^Col.  2401.  13. 

'^  Berliner  philologische  W ocheyischnft  32  (1912),  .549-61. 

**  Lofstedt  implicitly  recognized  this  fact  in  Ernnos  7  (1907),  67,  where  he  has  this 
comment  on  Dictys  Cretensis  4.  15:  "Dass  habere  =  hahitare  bei  einem  Spatlateiner  nicht 
beanstandet  werden  darf,  braucht  kaum  hervorgehoben  zu  werden."  How,  four  years 
later,  did  he  miss  the  same  usage  in  Itinerarium  Egeriae  20.  7? 


Clifford  Weber  287 

1700s,  but  in  all  the  languages  preserving  impersonal  liahet  +  ace, 
examples  containing  this  adverb  or  one  of  its  cognates  are  attested 
from  the  earliest  period  on.^  Of  ibi  habet,  however,  the  primordial 
Latin  expression,  only  one  example  has  been  identified,  and  that, 
found  in  chapter  19  (p.  145.  19  Geyer)  of  Theodosius'  De  situ  terrae 
sanctae,  is  no  earlier  than  the  a.d.  500s: 

ibi  habet  dactalum  Nicolaum  maiorem,  ibi  et  Moyses  de  saeculo 
transivit,  et  ibi  aquas  calidas  sunt  ubi  Moyses  lavit  et  in  ipsas  aquas 
calidas  leprosi  curantur. 

It  is  clear,  moreover,  that  even  in  this  passage  ibi  habet  is  far  from 
being  a  fixed  expression.  Impersonal  habet  is  here  only  one  of  the 
three  verbs  which  are  used  with  ibi,  the  full  semantic  value  of  which  is 
indicated  not  only  by  its  specific  reference  to  a  particular  city,'^  but 
also  by  its  anaphora  at  the  head  of  three  successive  cola.  Indeed,  the 
occurrence  of  ibi  with  impersonal  habet  in  this  passage  is  largely 
fortuitous"  and  fails  in  any  case  to  prove  that  ibi  habet  had  solidified 
even  as  late  as  the  a.d.  500s. 

In  the  Itinerarium  Egeriae,  however,  there  is  a  significant  example  of 
ibi  habet  +  ace.  which,  though  rendered  correctly  in  more  than  one 
translation,  otherwise  appears  to  have  gone  unnoticed  (e.g.,  in  the 
Thesaurus  Linguae  Latinae^-).  This  example,  moreover,  dates  to  the  late 
300s,  and  thus  it  establishes  that  the  exact  Ladn  equivalent  oi  il  y  a  is 
in  fact  coeval  with  impersonal  habet  without  ibi,  even  if,  to  be  sure,  the 
latter  is  considerably  more  common.  The  passage  in  question  is  this  in 
Itinerarium  Egeriae  4.  4: 

In  eo  ergo  loco,  licet  et  lectum  non  sit,  tamen  petra  ingens  est  per  girum 
habens  planitiem  supra  se,  in  qua  stetisse  dicuntur  ipsi  sancti;  nam  et  in 
medio  ibi  quasi  altarium  de  lapidibus  factum  habet. 

^  Walther  von  Wartburg,  Franzosisches  etymologisches  Wbrterbuch  4  (Basel  1952),  364. 
Presumably  this  is  true  of  Portuguese  also,  even  though  modern  Portuguese  hn  is 
unique  in  preserving  habet  +  ace.  without  ibi. 

'°  Viz.  Livias,  visited  by  Egeria  in  10.  4-7.  The  anaphora  of  ibi  in  Theodosius  is 
reminiscent  of  the  string  of  five  sentences  in  succession  which  Egeria  introduces  with 
the  phrase  Hie  est  locus  ubi  or  some  variant  thereof.  The  reminiscence  can  hardly  be 
coincidental. 

"  The  clause-position  oi habet  immediately  after  ibi  (cf.  transivit,  lavit,  and  curantur  in 
final  position)  may  be  due  to  the  tendency  of  mono-  and  dissyllabic  forms  of  common 
verbs  to  fall  into  enclitic  position.  See  Jacob  Wackernagel,  Indo-Gcnn.  Forsch.  1  (1892), 
pp.  95-97  =  Kleine  Schriften  1'  (Gottingen,  1969),  pp.  427-29;  Raphael  Kiihner  and 
Carl  Stegmann,  Ausfuhrliche  Grammatik  der  lateinischen  Sprache  2"  (Hanoxer  1912), 
p.  602;  J.  B.  Hofmann  and  Anton  Szantyr,  Lateinische  Syntax  unci  Stili.'.tik  (Munich 
1965),  pp.  404-06. 

'2  S.v.  habeo,  col.  2461.  78  -  2462.  1 1. 


288  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

To  paraphrase:  "In  that  place,  even  though  no  passage  of  Scripture 
referring  to  it  is  read,  there  is  a  large  round  rock  which  is  flat  on  top. 
There  [i.e.,  on  the  flat  summit]  the  holy  ones  are  said  to  have  stood  [  = 
resided?],  and'^  in  the  middle  of  that  space  there  is  a  sort  of  altar 
made  of  stones." 

What  is  the  subject  of  habet  at  the  end  of  this  passage?  To  judge 
from  the  silence  of  Lofstedt  and  others,  petra  ingens  is  understood  as 
its  subject,  and  hence  habet  is  not  impersonal.  This  analysis,  however, 
is  mistaken  for  at  least  three  reasons: 

1.  The  rock  habet  planitiem  supra  se,  and  this  planities,  in  turn,  in  medio 
altarium  habet.  Thus,  if  habet  has  a  subject,  that  subject  is  planities,  not 
petra.  Earlier  in  the  clause,  however,  demonstrative  ibi  is  equivalent  to 
in  planitie,  and  hence  planities  also  is  eliminated  as  subject  of  habet. 

2.  In  the  relative  clause  and  all  that  follows  it,  Egeria  is  concerned 
solely  with  the  planities.  Even  in  her  nonchalant  prose,  to  return 
abruptly  to  the  petra  in  the  final  word  in  the  sentence  would  require  at 
the  very  least  a  pronominal  reference  to  that  effect. 

3.  Egeria  has  a  penchant  for  losing  the  syntactical  thread  established 
at  the  beginning  of  a  sentence.  Indeed,  this  is  so  marked  a  characteris- 
tic of  her  writing  that  anacolutha  are  ubiquitous  in  the  Itinerarium. 
The  following  examples  are  both  typical  and  similar  in  structure  to 
the  sentence  under  discussion: 

.  .  .  ita  tamen  ut  lapis  cum  corpore  non  moveretur  in  alio  loco  sed  ibi  ubi 
inventum  fuerat  corpus  positum  esset.  ...  (16.  6) 

Here  the  insertion  of  the  relative  clause  ubi  inventum  fuerat  corpus  is 
sufficient  to  cause  the  authoress  to  forget  lapis,  which  is  the  grammati- 
cal subject  of  both  verbs  in  the  antithesis.  She  thus  writes  positum 
instead  of  positus. 

Nam  ecclesia  quam  dixi  foras  civitatem  .  .  .  ,  ubi  full  primitus  domus 
Abrahae,  nunc  et  martyrium  ibi  positum  est.  .  .  .  (20.  5) 

After  two  relative  clauses  ecclesia  is  forgotten  and  left  without  any 
grammatical  connection  with  the  rest  of  the  sentence — a  so-called 
"nominativus  pendens." 

Tunc  statim  illi  sancti  dignati  sunt  singula  ostendere.  Nam  ostenderunt 
nobis  speluncam  illam  ubi  fuit  sanclus  Movses  cum  iterato  ascendisset  in 
montem    Dei   ut   acciperet   denuo   tal)ulas,    posteaquani    priores   illas 

'■^  In  the  combination  of  continuative  nam  and  el  =  ctiam.  which  occins  occasionalh 
in  Cicero  and  very  often  (26  times)  in  Egeria,  et  is  otiose. 


Clifford  Weber  289 

fregerat  peccante  populo,  et  cetera  loca,  quaecumque  desiderabamus 
vel  quae  ipsi  melius  noverant,  dignad  sunt  ostendere  nobis.  (3.  7) 

The  grammatical  subject  of  both  sentences  is  illi  sancti,  but  the 
digression  on  the  Sinai  cave  is  of  such  length  and  complexity  that  a 
return  to  this  subject  has  to  be  signaled  with  ipsi,  and  ostenderunt  nobis 
preceding  the  digression,  by  now  forgotten,  is  subsequently  repeated 
as  dignati  sunt  ostendere  nobis. 

For  these  reasons,  to  return  to  the  passage  before  us,  neither  petra 
nor  planities  can  be  the  subject  of  habet.  This  verb  is  rather  the 
impersonal  habet  which,  occurring  twice  elsewhere  (1.2  and  23.  2)  in 
the  Itinerarium  Egeriae,  eventually  became  firmly  established  in  several 
Romance  languages.'"*  In  this  passage,  moreover,  is  found  the  ibi 
which,  though  presupposed  by  all  Romance  expressions  except 
Portuguese  ha,  nevertheless  occurs  in  only  one  of  the  Latin  examples 
heretofore  identified. 

Thus,  impersonal  ibi  habet  +  ace,  the  exact  Latin  equivalent  of 
French  il  y  a  etc.,  is  unambiguously  attested  as  early  as  the  late  300s. 
This  terminus  post  quern  is  more  than  a  century  earlier  than  that 
previously  established,  and  no  later  than  the  earliest  examples  of  the 
same  construction  without  ibi.  To  judge  from  its  use  in  the  Itinerarium 
Egeriae,  moreover,  impersonal  ibi  habet  +  ace.  is  subject  to  the  same 
conditions  in  Late  Latin  as  govern  its  use  in  primeval  Romance.  There 
the  adverb  always  refers  to  a  specific  place,  and  thus  it  is  not  used  if 
such  a  place  in  otherwise  indicated,  or  if  extent  of  time  is  referred 
to.'^  Correspondingly,  in  Itinerarium  Egeriae  4.  4  ibi  refers  specifically 
to  the  planities  atop  the  petra  ingens,  but  in  1.  2  and  23.  2,  where  habet 
indicates  extent  of  space  (the  logical  and  usual  antecedent  of  extent  of 
time),  ibi  is  not  to  be  found. 

III.  Ac  Tertia  Die  (6.  1,23.  1) 

It  is  typical  of  Egeria's  repetitious  style  of  writing  that  in  chapters  1- 
23  there  is  a  certain  sentence-pattern  which  recurs  no  fewer  than 
seven  times.  The  pattern  in  question  consists  of  these  elements  in  this 
order: 

''*  There  is  no  weight  in  the  objection  that,  so  soon  after  habem  planitiem  earlier  in 
the  sentence,  habere  is  unlikely  to  be  repeated  in  a  different  sense.  In  27.  5,  for  example, 
similiter  is  used  as  a  sentence-connective  =  "likewise,"  only  to  be  followed  four  words 
later  by  the  didvtrh  similiter  =  "in  the  same  way."  In  21.  I  locus  recurs  three  times  within 
two  sentences,  and  each  time  in  a  different  sense:  first  "passage  of  Scripture,"  then 
"place,"  and  finally,  as  the  adverb  loco,  "there." 

'^  Wartburg,  Etymologisches  Worterbuch  4:364. 


290  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

A.  Clause-initial  sentence-connective,  whether  word  or  phrase  (fol- 
lowed once  by  an  enclitic  personal  pronoun) 

B.  Ablative  die  preceded  by  an  ordinal  numeral  {alia  =  secunda) 

C.  Participial  clause  (missing  in  two  cases) 

D.  Perfect  active  indicative  of  rogo,  venio,  or  pemenio  in  the  first 
person. 

Without  exception  in  chapters  1-23  every  sentence  that  contains  an 
ordinal  numeral  +  die  conforms  to  this  pattern,  viz., 

1.  Et  alia  die,  maturius  vigilantes,  rogavimus  (4.  8) 

2.  Et  inde  alia  die,  subiens  montem  Taurum  et  faciens  iter  iam  notum 
per  .  .  .  ,  perveni  (23.  7) 

3.  Inde  denuo  alia  die,  facientes  aquam  et  euntes  adhuc  aliquantu- 
lum  inter  montes,  pervenimus  (6.  1) 

4.  Ac  tertia  die,  inde  maturantes,  venimus  (6.  1) 

5.  Ac  tertia  die  perveni  (23.  1) 

6.  Ac  sic  ergo  alia  die,  transiens  mare,  perveni  (23.  8) 

7.  Ac  sic  ergo  nos  alia  die  mane  rogavimus  (16.  7). 

It  is  noteworthy  that  although  they  conform  to  type  in  all  other 
respects  (only  the  absence  of  a  participial  clause  in  no.  5  is  at  all 
anomalous),  the  two  citations  containing  tertia  die  differ  from  all 
others  in  respect  to  element  A.  In  all  other  citations  this  element  is 
subject  to  some  variation.  Indeed,  only  ac  sic  ergo  occurs  more  than 
once,  and  it  is  common  throughout  the  Itinerariurn,  occurring  31  times 
in  all.  In  both  cases,  however,  of  tertia  die,  far  separated  though  they 
are  in  the  text,  ac  functions  as  element  A.  If  this  fact  per  se  is  not 
particularly  remarkable,  it  surely  becomes  so  when  considered  togeth- 
er with  the  general  incidence  of  ac/atque  in  the  Itmerarium.  As  part  of 
the  fixed  expressions  ac  sic  ergo,  ac  sic,  and  ac  si,^^  this  conjunction 
occurs  53  times.  In  four  other  cases  it  connects  syntactically  parallel 
pairs  in  three-word  phrases  like  viri  ac  feminae.^^  Otherwise  aclatque  is 


'*  That  ac  had  no  semantic  autonomy  ("valence")  in  these  expressions  is  especially 
clear  in  the  case  of  ac  si,  the  eventual  univerbation  of  which  is  indicated  by  its  Romance 
descendants:  Old  French  eissi,  Proven(;al  aissi,  Spanish  mi.  and  Portuguese  assun. 

'^  To  this  category,  by  way  of  comparison,  belong  28  of  36  instances  of  ac  in 
Tertullian's  Apologeticum  and  De  anima.  In  its  other  eight  occurrences  ac  is  part  of  a 
formula  {ac  per  hoc  three  times,  nirsus  ac  nasus  twice,  and  novus  ac  novus,  ac  si,  and  seme! 
[sic]  ac  once  each). 

Aside  from  one  instance  of  simul  atque  and  four  of  alms  atqite  alius,  all  the 
occurrences  of  atque  in  these  texts  fall  into  the  same  two  categories  as  in  the  Itinerariurn 
Egeriae:  three-word  phrases  like  illuminator  atcfiie  deductor,  composed  of  two  syntactical- 
ly parallel  (and  often  morphologically  identical)  words  joined  by  atque  (47  examples). 


Clifford  Weber  291 

found  only  four  times,  not  including  daggered  atque  in  27.  5.  Thus,  of 
the  apparently  unrestricted  use  of  aclatque  there  are  only  four 
examples,  and  in  half  of  them  this  rare  conjuction  is  part  of  the 
phrase  ac  tertia  die  falling  at  the  beginning  of  a  sentence.'^  Conversely, 
these  two  instances  of  ac  tertia  die  amount  to  half  of  all  occurrences  of 
tertia  die.^^ 

If  it  is  reasonable  to  ask  why  an  otherwise  rare  conjunction  is  found 
in  both  of  the  above  citations  in  which  tertia  die  occurs,  at  least  one 
need  not  wonder  why  ac  is  in  general  not  part  of  Egeria's  active 
vocabulary.  Since  ample  documentation  already  exists  concerning  the 
formal,  literary  tone  of  aclatque  as  compared  with  et  in  particular,"^ 
here  a  few  statistical  data  will  suffice.  In  Cato's  speeches  aclatque  is 
common,  but  rare  in  the  De  agricultura.  In  Cicero  too  it  is  commonest 
in  the  speeches.  In  the  pseudo-Caesarian  Bellum  Hispaniense  it  is 
limited  to  a  single  instance  of  ac  si.  The  same  is  true  of  the  vernacular 
passages  in  Petronius,  but  in  the  verse  passages,  meager  by  compari- 
son, aclatque  occurs  no  fewer  than  30  times.  It  is  rare  in  Vitruvius,  the 
phrase  dextra  ac  sinistra  (cf.  Egeria's  viri  ac  feminae  etc.)  accounting  for 
half  of  all  examples,  and  rare  as  well  in  Commodian  and  the 
Mulomedicina  Chironis.  In  Phaedrus,  with  one  possible  exception,  it  is 
limited  to  simul  ac,  and  among  the  inscriptions  found  at  Pompeii 
before  1911  there  are  no  examples  at  all.  This  statistical  evidence  of 
the  early  obsolescence  o{  aclatque  appears  corroborated,  moreover,  by 
the  following  remark  of  an  admirer  of  Cato  in  Fronto  Epistulae  2.16: 

Uni  M.  Porcio  me  dedicavi  atque  despondi  atque  delegavi.  Hoc  etiam 

ipsum  "atque"  unde  putas?^' 


and  formulae  composed  oi  atque  and  an  adverb  or  conjunction  (atque  adeo  and  atque  ita 
[cf.  Egeria's  ac  sic  and  ac  sic  ergo]  nine  times  each,  atque  exinde  three  times,  and  atque  inde 
[cf.  Egeria's  et  inde  above],  atque  illic,  and  atque  utinam  once  each).  It  is  noteworthy  that 
the  phonology  of  these  two  categories  conforms  to  entirely  different  norms.  In  the 
formulae  constituting  the  second  category,  the  word  following  atque  begins  with  a  vowel 
in  all  24  instances  without  exception,  but  among  the  47  examples  belonging  to  the  hrst 
category,  this  is  the  case  in  no  more  than  seven.  This  striking  discrepancy  demonstrates 
that  the  expressions  belonging  to  the  second  category  are  all  formulae  inherited  from 
the  time  when  atque  was  generally  restricted  to  use  before  words  beginning  with  a 
vowel.  Finally,  ac  is  never  used  at  the  beginning  of  a  sentence  (cf.  Egeria's  practice),  but 
atque  appears  13  times  in  this  position. 

'^  In  the  other  half  atque  is  found,  viz.,  in  18.  I  and  21.  1. 

•^  The  other  two  are  in  25.  1 1  and  49.  3,  and  only  in  the  latter  at  the  beginning  of  a 
sentence  (Item  tertia  die). 

^°  For  particulars  see  Hofmann  and  Szantyr,  Lateinische  Syntax,  pp.  476-78  and  the 
bibliography  cited  there. 

^'  It  is  not  impossible,  however,  that  the  Calonism  in  question  here  is  not  the  use  of 
aclatque  per  se,  but  rather  the  particular  use  of  atque  before  consonants,  for  which  see 


292  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

It  is  clear  enough,  then,  why  aclatque  does  not  belong  to  Egeria's 
active  vocabulary.  Why,  then,  in  both  of  its  occurrences  above,  is  tertia 
die  in  particular  preceded  by  this  formal,  literary,  and  even  vaguely 
grandiloquent  conjunction,  which  otherwise  is  used  without  restric- 
tion in  only  two  places  in  the  entire  text?  The  answer  follows  from  the 
nature  of  the  conjunction  itself.  If  aclatque  is  a  word  unique  to  the 
written  language,  then  ac  tertia  die  is  likely  to  be  a  quotation  or  a 
paraphrase,  even  if  unconscious,  of  some  written  text  with  which  the 
authoress  is  familiar.'"  In  the  vernacular,  moreover,  as  has  just  been 
shown,  aclatque  had  long  been  virtually  extinct  and  must  therefore,  by 
Egeria's  day,  have  had  a  distinctly  archaic  ring.  This  consideration 
leads  to  a  liturgical  text  as  the  likeliest  source  of  ac  tertia  die,  for 
however  unaffected  and  straightforward  the  Latin  of  Christian  writ- 
ers may  have  been,  the  language  of  Christian  worship  was  quite 
another  matter. 

.  .  .  Latin  used  in  the  liturgy  displays  a  sacral  style.  The  basis  and 
starting  point  of  Liturgical  Latin  is  the  Early  Christian  idiom,  which, 
however,  .  .  .  has  taken  on  a  strongly  hieratic  character,  widely  removed 
from  the  Christian  colloquial  language.  .  .  .  Liturgical  Latin  is  not 
Classical  Latin,  but  neither  is  it,  as  is  so  often  said,  the  Latin  which  was 
considered  decadent  by  educated  people.  The  earliest  liturgical  Latin  is 
a  strongly  stylized,  more  or  less  artificial  language,  of  which  many 
elements  .  .  .  were  not  easily  understood  even  by  the  average  Christian 
of  the  fifth  century  or  later.  This  language  was  far  removed  from  that 
of  everyday  life.^^ 

"And  on  the  third  day.  .  .  ."  Even  for  a  believer  less  thoroughly 
steeped  in  Scripture  and  liturgy  than  Egeria,  it  would  have  been  a 
natural  reflex  to  express  this  idea  by  using  the  elevated  expression 
with  which  many  a  sacred  text  must  have  referred  to  this  central  event 
in  the  life  of  Christ,  and  in  the  belief  of  Christians  everywhere.  As  far 
as  Egeria  in  particular  is  concerned,  her  propensity  for  adopting 


Bertil  Axelson,  Unpoelische  Worter  (Lund  1945),  pp.  82-85,  and  J.  A.  Richmond,  Glotta 
43  (1965),  78-103,  esp.  80,  82,  93-94.  Me  dedicavi  ac  despondi  ac  delegavi  might  have 
occasioned  no  comment,  at  least  not  concerning  the  conjunction. 

^^  In  this  connection  it  is  significant  that  in  18.  1,  one  of  the  two  instances  of  the  free 
use  of  ac/ a  tque  ]usl  mentioned,  atque  is  followed  immediateh  bv  a  Biblicism  drawn  from 
Deut.  28:1 1,  for  which  see  below. 

^^  Christine  Mohrmann,  Liturgical  Latin:  Its  Ongnt.s  and  Character  (London  1959),  pp. 
53-54. 


Clifford  Weber  293 

Scriptural  and  liturgical  modes  of  expression  has  been  well  docu- 
mented.^"* To  cite  only  a  few  among  many  examples,  the  phrases  in 
nomine  Dei,  which  she  uses  five  times,  iubente  Deo,  occurring  eight 
times,  and  gratias  agentes  Deo,  found  once  (in  16.  7),  are  all  formulae  of 
prayer  which  have  become  part  of  Egeria's  normal  pattern  of  speech. 
When  she  mentions  Biblical  Egypt  in  5.  9,  she  calls  it  terra  Aegypti,  its 
designation  in  the  Vulgate  and  in  her  own  quotation  of  Gen.  47:6  in 
7.  9.  Contemporary  Egypt,  however,  she  calls  simply  Aegyptum  in  3.  8 
and  7.  1,  for  example.  In  4.  2,  referring  to  the  flight  of  Elijah  from 
King  Ahab,  she  adopts  the  Biblicism  fugere  a  facie  +  gen.,  which,  since 
it  occurs  at  least  fotn-  times  in  the  Vulgate  translation  of  the  Psalms, 
Ziegler"^  has  suggested  was  familiar  to  Egeria  from  its  frequency  in  the 
pages  of  her  psaltery.  Yet  another  example  has  heretofore  gone 
unnoticed.  In  18.1,  writing  of  her  stopover  in  Hierapolis  in  Syria,  she 
characterizes  that  city  as  abundans  oynnibus  and  thus  adopts  the 
phraseology  of  the  Vulgate  at  Deut.  28:1 1."^^ 

In  short,  quite  apart  from  explicit  references  to  specific  passages  of 
Scripture,  Biblical  turns  of  phrase  so  permeate  the  Itineranum  Egeriae 
that  they  have  left  their  stamp  on  the  language  of  the  entire  work.  In 
many  cases,  moreover,  Egeria's  familiarity  with  these  Biblicisms  will 
have  been  indirect,  due  more  to  their  occurrence  in  her  liturgy  than 
to  her  own  Scriptural  erudition."^  Nevertheless,  whether  she  is 
quoting  a  specific  text  or,  as  is  more  likely,  using  an  expression 


^'*  "Elle  fait  usage  d'un  certain  langage  devot,  caracterise  par  des  expressions  plus  ou 
moins  onctueuses,  empruntees  a  la  Bible,  soit  aux  textes  rebattus  de  la  liturgie' — 
A.  A.  R.  Bastiaensen,  Obserx'atwns  sur  le  vocabulaire  liturgique  dans  L'llineiaire  d'Egene 
(Nijmegen  1962),  p.  181.  See  also  Joseph  Ziegler,  Biblica  12  (19:^1),  163-64,  176-77, 
184-85,  190  ("Neben  den  direkten  Zitaten  des  Alten  Testaments  begegnen  uns  in  der 
Peregrinatio  noch  viele  freie  Anspielungen  und  biblische  Wendungen,  die  den  ganzen 
Sprachcharakter  des  Biichleins  nachhaltig  beeinflusst  haben"— p.  176). 

^^Ibid.,  177. 

^^  "Abundare  te  faciet  Dominus  omnibus  bonis."  With  abundare  onmibm  here  ci. 
abundare  in  omnibus  (Eccles.  10:30,  II  Cor.  1 :7)  and  abundare  in  omne  (II  Cor.  9:8,  9: 1 1). 
This  and  other  correspondences  between  Egeria's  language  and  the  text  of  the  Vulgate 
should  not,  however,  be  taken  to  imply  that  the  Vulgate  and  Egeria's  Bible  are  one  and 
the  same.  On  the  contrary,  direct  quotations  from  her  Bible  indicate  that  the  latter,  like 
the  Itala  in  general,  was  more  similar  to  the  Septuagint  than  to  any  other  extant  text.  In 
quotations  from  the  New  Testament  she  comes  much  closer  to  the  Vulgate,  but  that  is 
because  there  Jerome  by  and  large  preserved  the  text  of  the  Itala.  See  ibid.  165,  167, 
187,  197. 

^^Ibid.,  177,  184-85,  188,  190. 


294  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

common  to  a  multitude  of  texts  with  reference  to  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ,  in  neither  case  can  it  be  known  precisely  what  this  text  or  these 
texts  may  have  been."*^ 

Kenyon  College 


"**  In  the  Vulgate  New  Testament  the  phrase  ct  tertia  die  (in  Luke  24:7,  et  die  tertia) 
occurs  in  eight  places  (Matt.  16:21,  17:22,  and  20:19,  Luke  9:22,  13:32,  and  18:33, 
John  2:1,  and  Acts  27:19),  and  in  five  of  these  it  refers  to  the  Resurrection.  There  is  no 
instance  of  ac  in  place  of  et,  however,  either  in  the  Vulgate  or  in  the  Itala.  Tertullian 
and  Irenaeus  are  the  only  Latin  fathers  who  quote  any  of  the  above  verses  (Luke  9:22  in 
Tert.  Adv.  Marc.  4.  21.  7  [et  post  tertium  diem]  and  Irenaeus  Adv.  haereses  3.  16.  5  [et  die 
tertio],  and  Matt.  16:21  ibid.  3.  18.  4  [et  tertia  die]),  and  there  also  only  et  is  found. 

In  the  Roman  missal  tertia  dies  with  reference  to  the  Resurrection  occurs  only  in  the 
creed,  which  has  et  resurrexit  tertia  die.  In  all  other  extant  creeds,  however,  there  is  no 
conjunction  at  all.  In  the  Leonine  Sacramentary  tertia  dies  does  not  occur.  Finallv,  in  the 
supplements  to  the  Corpus  Christianorum  entitled  "Instrumenta  lexicologica  Latina."  no 
parallel  for  Egeria's  ac  tertia  die  is  to  be  found. 


11 


On  the  Survival  of  an  Archaic  Latin  Case 
Form  in  Italo-  and  Balkan-Romance 

PAUL  A.  GAENG 


Among  the  vexatae  quaestiones  of  historical  Romance  morphology,  the 
origin  and  development  of  Italian  and  Rumanian  third  declension 
plurals  in  l-\l  from  Lat.  /-es/  (e.g.,  It.  nionti.  Rum.  niunli  derived  from 
Lat.  MONTES)  is  still  high  on  the  list.  In  his  recent  Proto-Romance 
Morphology  (Amsterdam-Philadelphia  1983),  Robert  A.  Hall,  Jr.  sup- 
ports the  widely  accepted  explanation  to  account  for  this  develop- 
ment when  he  says  that  these  plurals,  which  seem  to  point  back  to 
Proto-Romance  /-i/,'  are  the  result  of  an  analogical  replacement  of 
earlier  /-es/  by  /-i/  under  the  influence  of  the  second  declension 
MURI-type  plurals  rather  than  a  phonetic  development,  that  is,  the 
closing  of  Lat.  [e]  to  [i]  brought  about  by  the  following  [s].  The 
implication  of  this  statement  is  that  there  are  essentially  two  hypothe- 
ses, phonological  versus  analogical  development  of  /es/>/-i/,  to  ac- 
count for  these  plurals.  The  arguments  underlying  these  theoretical 
positions  may  be  briefly  summarized  as  follows:^ 


'  It  should  be  recalled  that  Hall's  "Proto-Romance"  is  a  theoretical  construct,  and 
that  he  deals  with  a  reconstructed  morphology  based  on  the  earliest  Romance 
attestations  rather  than  with  evidence  culled  from  Vulgar  Latin  texts  and  inscriptions. 

^  The  literature  dealing  with  the  problem  of  3rd  decl.  plurals  in  Italian  and 
Rumanian  is  quite  extensive,  since  all  manuals  and  studies  on  the  historical  morphology 
of  these  languages  make  reference  to  it.  Among  the  essays  specifically  devoted  to  the 
problem  at  hand,  the  following  should  be  mentioned:  Robert  L.  Politzer,  "On  the  origin 
of  Italian  plurals,"  Romanic  Review  43  (1952),  272-81,  and  "V^ulgar  Latin  -es  Italian  -i" 
Italica  28  (1951),  1-5;  Paul  Aebischer,  "La  finale  -i  des  pluriels  italiens  et  ses  origines," 
Studi  linguistici  italiani  2  (1961),  73-111;  Francesco  Sabatini,  "SuU'origine  dei  plurali 


296  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

(a)  The  change  to  It.  ccmi.  Rum.  cii7ii  from  Lat.  CANES  is  the  result  of 
an  analogical  pull  exerted  by  plurals  of  the  o-declension  nouns  (as 
in  It.  il  gallo  versus  i  galli)  and  the  need  to  differentiate  singular 
from  plural,  since  Lat.  CANE(M)  and  CANES  would  have  given 
It.  cane  and  Rum.  ciine  in  both  singular  and  plural  (after  the  loss  of 
/-s/,  a  phonological  development  shared  by  both  Italo-  and  Bal- 
kan-Romance). A  contributing  factor  influencing  the  change  of 
final  /-e/  to  l-\l  may  also  have  been,  so  the  argument  goes,  the 
analogical  pressure  that  the  definite  article  (in  the  guise  of  a 
weakened  demonstrative)  and  the  adjecdve  must  have  exerted  in 
a  construction  of  the  illi  bojii  canes  type,  changing  it  to  illi  bom  cam. 
The  same  desire  to  differentiate  singular  from  plural  would,  then, 
also  explain  the  l-'il  plural  ending  of  3rd  decl.  feminine  nouns, 
e.g.,  CLAVES>It.  chiavi,  Rum.  chei} 

(b)  The  change  to  It.  cani,  Rum.  cmii  from  Lat.  CANES  is  a  purely 
phonetic  development,  with  /-s/  causing  the  closing  (palatahza- 
tion)  of  final  /e/  to  /i/:  /-es/  becoming  /-is/  and,  finally,  /-i/  after  the 
loss  of /-s/."*  As  an  alternative  to  the  closing  influence  of /-s/  on  the 


italiani:  il  tipo  in  -/,"  Studi  linguistiri  italiani  5  (1965),  5-39;  Sextil  Pu:5cariu,  "L'ne 
survivance  du  latin  archaique  dans  les  langues  roumaine  et  italienne,"  Mehniges  Aiitoiiw 
Thomas  (Paris  1927),  359-65;  I.  §iadbei,  "Persisten^a  cazurilor  latine  in  Romania 
orientala,"  Melanges  Mario  Roques  (Paris  1952),  231-40;  Maria  Iliescu,  "Nota  cu  privire 
la  pluralul  -i  din  romana  §i  din  italiana,"  Aiialele  Unwersitd(ii  din  (Craiova  (§tiinle 
filologice)5  (1977),  15-17. 

^  The  analogical  explanation  of  Lat.  /-es/>It.  /-i/  of  3rd  decl.  plurals  is  closely 
associated  with  the  German  scholar  Gerhardt  Rohlfs  {Historische  Grammatik  der  italienis- 
clien  Sprache  und  Hirer  Miuidarten  [Bern  1949],  II,  pp.  49-52),  although  he  is  by  no 
means  the  first  one  to  propose  it.  Among  his  predecessors  concerned  with  the  problem 
one  must  single  out  the  Italian  scholar  Francesco  D'Ovidio  who,  after  first  entertaining 
the  likelihood  of  a  connection  between  an  OLat.  FONTIS  nom.  pi.  and  It.  fonli 
{Sull'origine  deWunica  forma  flessionale  del  name  [Pisa  1872],  pp.  45-46),  changed  his  mind 
in  favor  of  an  analogical  extension  of  2nd  decl.  nominatives  to  those  of  the  3rd 
declension:  "e  fuor  dubbio  che  catii  ecc.  sono  formati  analogicamente  su  MULl,  BON  I, 
ecc."  ("Ricerche  sui  pronomi  personali  e  possessivi  neolatini,"  Archiviu  glottologico  italiano 
9  [1886],  25-101).  So  far  as  Rumanian  is  concerned,  H.  Tiktin  (RumanLsclm  Elementar- 
buch  [Heidelberg  1905],  pp.  80-81)  and  O.  Densusianu  {Histoire  de  la  la)igue  roumaine 
[Paris  1901-1938],  II,  p.  166)  must  be  singled  out  as  early  supporters  of  the  analogical 
theory.  More  recent  advocates  of  this  theory  have  been  Al  Rosetti  (Istoria  limbii  romane 
[Bucharest  1978"],  II,  p.  42),  I.  Siadbei  and  M.  Iliescu  (see  above,  note  2). 

■*  In  essence,  this  hypothesis  rests  on  W.  Meyer-Liibke's  phonological  "law"  accord- 
ing to  which  Lat.  /-es/>lt.  /-i/  (e.g.,  Lat.  FLORES>It.  pori)  (Italienische  Grammatik 
[Leipzig  1890],  p.  60).  Politzer.  in  an  attempt  to  refine  the  hypothesis  of  a  phonetic 
development  to  account  for  this  change,  suggested  that  in  the  final  syllable  there 
occurred  a  neutralization  of  the  front  vowels  in  late  Vulgar  Latin  resulting  in  a  single  lei 
phoneme  in  that  position  with  an  [i]  allophone  developing  before  /-s/  and  that,  with  the 


Paul  A.  Gaeng  297 

preceding  /e/,  the  vocalization  of  the  final  consonant,  i.e.,  turning 
/-s/  into  the  semivowel  /-j/,  may  also  be  envisaged,  paralleling  the 
/s/>/j/  evolution  in  monosyllables  (e.g.,  Lat.  TRES>OIt.,  Rum. 
trei):  /-es/>/-ej/>/-i/,  with  the  reduction  of  the  diphthong  in 
polysyllables,  whereas  in  stressed  position  (monosyllables)  it  is 
preserved.^ 

In  a  footnote.  Hall  notes  that  "Puscariu  (1927)  ascribed  the  Italian 
and  Roumanian  /-i/  to  the  OLat.  ending  /-i-s/  of  the  pure  ?-stems,"^  a 
hypothesis  that  the  Italian  savant  D'Ovidio  had  already  entertained 
over  a  century  ago  (see  above,  note  3)  before  he  changed  his  mind  15 
years  later  (ibid.).  Struck  by  the  frequent  alternation  of  orthographic 
-es  and  -is  in  nominative  and  accusative  functions  in  both  consonant 
and  i-stems  occurring  in  Latin  authors^  and  inscriptions  {e.g.^parentesl 
parentis;  sorores/sororis;  parte  si  partis),  Sextil  Pu§cariu,  the  well-known 
Rumanian  scholar  of  the  first  half  of  our  century  and  the  first  one,  to 
my  knowledge,  to  deal  with  the  origin  and  development  of  3rd  deck 
plurals  in  Italian  and  Rumanian,  advanced  the  hypothesis  that  the 
OLat.  /-es/  of  i-stems  had  persisted  in  the  spoken  language  and  that 
after  the  fall  of  I -si  the  l-\l  prevailed  as  a  morphological  marker  of  all 
masculine  nouns  under  the  influence  of  second  deck  masculines 
where  the  l-\l  plural  morpheme  is  etymological.^  Feminine  nouns, 
under  the  influence  of  those  of  the  first  deck,  preserved  the  l-d 
ending  (>/-es/)  somewhat  longer,  as  evidenced  in  medieval  literary 


eventual  fall  of  this  consonant,  final  [i]  was  phonemesized  as  a  necessary  morphological 
distinction  between  singular  and  plural  (cf.  his  article  in  Italica  cited  above  in  note  2). 

^  Cf.  Heinrich  Lausberg:  "Ini  Mittel-  und  Sudit.,  im  Vegliot.  und  im  Rum.  wird  -v  zu 
[i]  das  hinter  betontem  Vokal  (in  Einsilbern)  erhalten  ist,  hinter  unbetontem  Vokal  (in 
Mehrsilben)  mit  diesem  verschmilzt  (meist:  a  +  i>  e,e  +  i>  i,i  +  i>  i) .  .  "  {Roviaimche 
Sprachwissenschaft,  II:  Komonantismus  [Berlin  1967^],  p.  82).  In  his  Beitrdge  zur 
romanischen  Lautlehre  (Jena-Leipzig  1939),  Gunther  Reichenkron  advanced  a  four-stage 
development  of  Lat.  /-es/>/-i/,  involving  vocalization  of  /-s/,  as  follows: 
/-es/>/-is/>/-ij/>/-i/  (p.  42). 

^  Op.  cit.,  p.  45. 

^  Varro  notes  that  people  said  hae  puppis,  restis  side  by  side  with  hae  puppes.  restes  and 
"in  accusando  hos  monies,  fontes"  as  well  as  has  montis,fonlis  as  reported  by  Aebischer,  art. 
cit.  (above,  note  2),  p.  100.  Cf.  also  Ferdinand  Somnier,  Hcuidhuch  der  kiteimschen  Laut- 
und  Formenlehre  (Heidelberg,  1914-*'),  p.  382. 

^  ".  .  .  le  maintien  des  pluriels  en  -i  de  la  troisieme  decl.  en  ital.  et  en  roum.,  a  cote 
de  quelques  reliques  en  -e,  prouve  que  I'hesitation  entre  -es  et  -Is,  constatee  a  lepoque 
latine  archaique,  s'est  perpetuee  dans  le  parler  populaire  de  I'ltalie  et  des  contrees 
danubiennes."  {art.  cit.  [above,  note  2],  p.  362). 

'  Although  Pu§cariu  is  not  explicit  as  to  the  causes  of  the  eventual  change  of  the 


298  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

It  is  worth  noting  that  despite  his  firm  belief  in  "une  continuite 
entre  les  pluriels  archaiques  en  -IS  et  les  pluriels  italiens  et  roumains 
en  -f  (p.  363),'"  Pu§cariu  gives  the  force  of  analogy  its  due  since,  as  he 
admits,  "les  formes  a  flexion  [sont]  soumises  a  I'influence  de  I'analo- 
gie"  (p.  361).  He  rejects,  however,  the  hypothesis  of  a  phonetic /-es/>/ 
-Is/>/-i/  evolution,  claiming  that  "il  m'a  toujours  paru  etrange  que  s 
final  ait  pu  avoir  en  tombant  une  autre  influence  sur  IV  precedent  que 
m  final"  (p.  361)." 

The  frequent  alternation  of  orthographic  -es  and  -is  that  Pu§cariu 
observed  suggests  that  there  must  have  been  a  free  variation  of  two 
expression  elements  on  the  morphological  level,  since  it  has  been 
generally  recognized  that  this  alternation  occurs  only  in  3rd  decl. 
plurals.'^  Scholars  who  have  analyzed  Late  Latin  documents  and 
charters  from  the  Italian  area  have  found  that  the  -is  orthography  was 
widespread  in  the  plurals  of  3rd.  decl.  nouns,  regardless  of  their 
stem.      Except  for  a  passing  reference  to  inscriptional  material  in 


feminine  pi.  in  /-e/  to  /-i/,  it  must  be  assumed  that  it  occurred  under  the  influence  of 
masculines,  aided  by  the  desire  to  keep  singular  and  plural  apart. 

'"^  This  chronological  continuity  is  also  acknowledged  by  Carlo  Tagliavini:  "al 
plurale,  specialmente  all'accusativo,  troviamo  larghe  tracce  di  -is  per  -es,  cio  che 
dimostra  la  continuazione  sviluppatasi  nel  Latino  arcaico"  {Le  origini  delle  Ungiie  neolatine 
[Bologna  1969'],  p.  208). 

"  C.  H.  Grandgent,  a  staunch  supporter  of  the  theory  of  analogy,  has  levelled 
similar  criticism  against  the  alleged  closing  influence  of  /-s/  on  the  preceding  vowel, 
calling  it  "a  conjectural  phonetic  principle  at  variance  with  familiar  linguistic  experi- 
ence" totally  unsupported  by  direct  evidence.  The  American  scholar  wonders,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  "why  should  -s,  which  was  always  feeble  in  Latin,  work  such  a  miracle?" 
("Unaccented  Final  Vowels  in  Italian,"  Melanges  Antoine  Thomas  [Paris  1927],  pp.  187- 
93).  It  may  be  more  than  just  a  coincidence  that  Pu§cariu's  most  virulent  critics  are  those 
who  invoke  phonetic  criteria  to  explain  the  Lat.  /-es/>/-i/  development  in  Italian  and 
Rumanian.  Cf.  Bengt  Lofstedt,  Studien  iiber  die  Sprache  der  langobardischen  Gesetze 
(Stockholm  1961),  pp.  39-47;  F.  Sabatini,  art.  cit.  p.  34,  above  note  2. 

'~  What  adherents  of  the  "phonological  theory"  seem  to  have  failed  to  recognize, 
however,  is  that  the  orthographic  alternation  of  -es  and  -is  reflects  a  morphological 
phenomenon  (formal  variation  of  /-es/  and  /-is/)  and  that  the  phonetic  factor  (such  as 
the  closing  influence  of /-s/)  is  irrelevant. 

'^  In  their  analysis  of  the  Codice  Diplomatico  Lombardo,  the  Politzers  conclude  that  "in 
the  nominative  plural  of  the  third  declension,  the  distribution  of  -es  and  -is  follows  no 
pattern  and  seems  to  indicate  that  the  endings  were  completely  interchangeable" 
(Frieda  N.  and  Robert  L.  Politzer,  Romance  Trends  in  7th  and  8th  Centiay  Latin  Documents 
(Chapel  Hill  1953),  p.  28.  The  same  phenomenon  is  also  observed  by  B.  Lofstedt  in  his 
study  of  the  language  of  the  Edictum  Rotharii:  "Betreffs  der  Verwendung  von 
-IS  statt  -es  im  Edikt  ist  ferner  zu  beachten,  dass  in  den  altesten  Hss.  -is  ebenso  haufig  im 
Nom.  wie  im  Akk.  -es  ersetzt  und  ebensooft  bei  Kons.  Stiimmen  eintritt"  (op.  cit.,  p.  39). 
P.  Aebischer  also  finds  confirmation  of  this  fact  in  medieval  Latin  charters  examined  bv 


Paul  A.  Gaeng  299 

determining  whether  the  Classical  Latin  -IS  ending  survived  in  the 
postclassical  period  or  not,  a  more  systematic  examination  of  inscrip- 
tional  resources  to  see  if  they  could  yield  some  clue  to  solving  this 
controversial  problem  still  remained  to  be  done. 

The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  an  attempt  to  show,  by  drawing  on 
evidence  culled  from  inscriptions  exclusively,  that  not  only  did  this 
Old  Latin  ending  survive,  but  that  in  this  particular  context  Lat.  /-es/ 
and  /-Is/  may  be  looked  upon  as  variants  of  the  3rd  decl.  nominative 
and  accusative  plural  morpheme,  and  that  they  reflect  a  continuation 
and  extension  of  the  alternation  between  consonant  and  ?-stems  in 
Classical  Latin.  The  inscriptional  data  are  drawn  from  a  corpus  of 
funerary  prose  inscriptions  published  in  Ernst  Diehl's  Inscriptiones 
Latinae  Christianae  Veteres  covering  the  Italian  Peninsula,  Dalmatia, 
and  the  Danubian  Provinces.''*  In  order  to  give  inscriptional  evidence 
greater  weight  for  the  documentation  of  -is  spellings  in  3rd  decl. 
nominatives  and  accusatives,  I  have  attempted  to  give  a  comparative, 
quantitative,  and  chronological  presentation  of  the  -esl-is  orthograph- 
ic alternation,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  yield  some  interesting  results 
and,  thus,  contribute  to  the  resolution  of  a  problem  that,  to* date, 
remains  largely  unsolved.'^ 

Here,  then,  is  a  numerical  summary  showing  the  ratio  between  -es 
and  -is  spellings  in  both  nominative  and  accusative  cases,  based  on 
dated  epitaphs: 


century 

-es 

-IS 

(a)  Danubian  Provinces 

IV 

2 

3 

V-VI 

0 

0 

(b)  Dalmatia 

IV 

5 

1 

V-VI 

2 

I 

(c)  Northern  haly 

V 

10 

11 

VI 

5 

7 

(d)  Central  Italy 

IV 

26 

2 

V 

6 

2 

VI 

3 

6 

him:  "les  formes  en  -es  de  la  troisieme  declinaison  ont  passe  dans  leur  majorite  a  -is  .  .  . " 
(art.  ciL,  p.  104). 

''*  Since  I  am  only  concerned  with  developments  in  Italo-  and  Balkan  Romance,  my 
corpus  is  limited  to  3296  inscriptions,  broken  down  as  follows:  Danubian  Provinces  (the 
inner  provinces  of  Noricum,  Pannonia,  Dacia,  Moesia,  Thracia,  and  Macedonia):  83; 
Dalmatia:  212;  No.  Italy:  418;  Ce.  Italy:  280;  So.  Italy:  485;  and  Rome:  1818. 

'^  Approximately  40  percent  of  all  inscriptions  from  the  Italian  area  are  dated,  but 
only  about  20  percent  in  the  Eastern  Provinces.  Because  of  the  scanty  material  from  the 
latter,  fifth  and  sixth  cent,  inscriptions  are  lumped  together.  Note  also  that  in  No.  Italy 
there  are  no  dated  inscriptions  before  the  fifth  cent. 


2 

4 

7 

3 

10 

18 

68 

42 

29 

15 

3 

12 

300  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

(e)  Southern  Italy  IV 

V 
VI 

(f)  Rome  IV 

V 
VI 

Many  of  the  orthographic  changes  in  this  material  involve  the  form 
mensis  (for  CLat.  MENSES)'^  as  well  as  an  alternation  in  the  spelling  of 
substantivized  adjectives  of  the  octobrisloctobres  type.  But  there  are 
plenty  of  other  examples  of  -is  for  -es  spellings  (as  well  as  -es  for  -is 
where  we  would  expect  the  latter  in  regular  z-stems)  in  both  nomina- 
tive and  accusative  functions.  The  same  alternation  observed  in  non- 
dated  epitaphs  supports  the  data  concerning  the  alternation  of  -esl-is 
in  dated  inscriptions.  Here  are  a  few  illustrative  examples  taken  at 
random: 

coniuncti  amantis  se  bene  dicere  debent  (1336,  4th  cent.,  Noricum) 

parentis  dolientis  .  .  .  ficierunt  (847,  No.  Italy)'^ 

fratris  se  bibi  .  .  .  fecerunt  (4146F,  a.  400,  Rome) 

de  filius  [=filios]  ipseius  qui  superstitis  sunt  (2372,  Rome) 

de  tres  fratris  cursoris  (38 IB,  Rome) 

cum  .  .  .  sororis  suas  (808A,  Rome) 

inter  innocentis  (2500B,  Rome),  etc. 

An  interesting  example  of  the  concurrent  use  of  -es  and  -is  occurs 
in  the  following  accusative  absolute  construction:  locum  emerunt presen- 
tis  omnis  fossores  (3761,  Rome). 

The  data  presented  in  this  summary  show  a  clear  trend  in  the 
direction  of  the  -is  spelling,   particularly  in  the  Centro-Southern 

'*  It  has  been  suggested  that  in  the  numerous  instances  in  which  viemi^  is  preceded 
by  armis,  as  in  vixit  annis  LII  mesh  VIII  (Diehl  3252A),  the  -is  spelling  may  be  due  to  an 
orthographic  assimilation  to  the  form  annis.  (Cf.  B.  Lofstedt,  op.  cit.,  p.  41.)  This  is  not 
the  case.  A  careful  count  has  revealed  that  in  more  than  half  of  the  instances  in  which 
the  form  mensis  (also  spelled  mesis  and  messis)  was  found  it  is  preceded  bv  annum  and 
annos  (or  annm).  In  fact,  it  is  not  unusual  to  find  cases  where  annis  is  followed  by  metises, 
e.g.,  vixit  annis  L  menses  sex  (Diehl  1329).  Without  meaning  to  deny  the  likelihood  of 
such  an  orthographic  analogy,  I  believe  the  evidence  does  not  seem  to  suggest  it; 
rather,  it  would  seem  that  the  -esl-is  alternation  is  independent  of  what  precedes  or 
what  follows.  The  concurrent  use  of  menses  and  mensis  in  the  same  inscription  (Diehl 
376 In) — both  times  preceded  by  annos,  incidentally — only  confirms  my  contention  that 
the  apparently  interchangeable  use  of  orthographic  -es  and  -is  reflects  a  variation  on  the 
level  of  form. 

"  The  form  pareyitis  occurs  quite  frequendy  in  late  4th/early  .5th  cent.  Italian 
epitaphs  in  nominative  function.  It  is  also  found  in  the  Eastern  Provinces. 


Paul  A.  Gaeng  301 

Italian  area,  with  75  percent  of  all  3rd.  decl.  nominatives  and 
accusatives  in  the  area  of  Rome  by  the  sixth  century,  suggesting  that  it 
may  well  have  been  the  focal  point  of  the  survival  of  OLat.  /-Is/  in  the 
popular  language,  whence  it  spread  to  other  Latin-speaking  areas.  In 
any  event,  this  kind  of  evidence  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  Grand- 
gent's  statement  that  "apparently  -es  crowded  out  the  rarer  -is  which 
left  no  sure  traces,"'^  or  the  view  that  the  l-isl  ending  of  ?-stems  had 
become  "moribund"  by  the  early  third  century  a.d.'*^  Quite  the 
contrary  would  seem  to  be  the  case.  Inscriptional  data  suggest  that  not 
only  did  a  free  variation  between  /-es/  and  /Is/  persist  throughout  the 
Vulgar  Latin  period  (echoing  what  must  have  been  a  similar  alterna- 
tion between  consonant  and  ?-stem  plurals  in  Classical  Latin)  but  that 
/-Is/  also  gained  considerable  ground,  taking  the  upper  hand  in  the 
Roman  area  by  the  sixth  century.  It  is  this  persistence  of  OLat.  /-Is/  in 
inscriptions  (which,  after  all,  are  more  faithful  and  reliable  monu- 
ments of  everyday  speech  habits  than  would-be  charters  or  other  legal 
documents^^)  that  led  Pu§cariu  to  argue  that  /-Is/  had  lived  on  in  the 
spoken  language  and  that,  after  the  fall  of  /-s/,  final  I'll  prevailed  as  a 
morphological  marker  of  all  3rd  decl.  masculine  nouns  under  the 
influence  of  2nd  decl.  masculines  where  l-\l  is  etymological.  Thus,  the 
hypothesis  of  a  chronological  connection  between  OLat.  /-Is/  and  3rd. 
decl.  plurals  in  /-i/  and  the  analogical  extension  of  the  "masculine 
declension"  come  to  complement  each  other,  in  that  what  speakers 
felt  to  be  the  plural  pattern  in  l-'xl  eventually  helped  resolve  an  age-old 
conflict  between  Lat.  /-es/  and  /-is/,  a  conflict  extending  well  into  the 
Italian  and  Rumanian  phases,^*  in  favor  of  the  l\l  plural  marker  in 
modern  Italian  and  Rumanian. 

The  parallelism  between  the  Italian  and  Eastern  Latin  develop- 
ments becomes  evident  when  we  consider  that  the  Eastern  Provinces 
were,  in  the  main,  colonized  by  Italic  immigrants  from  the  lower 
social  strata  who  brought  with  them  their  rustic  speech  habits.'^"  It  is 


'*  Cf.  C.  H.  Grandgent,  An  Introduction  to  Vulgar  Latin  (Boston  1907).  p,  152. 

''  Cf.  M.  Iliescu,  art.  cit.,  p.  15;  also  B.  Lofstedt,  op.  cit.,  p.  40. 

^°  B.  Lofstedt,  be.  cit. 

^'  "II  y  avait  done  en  latin  une  oscillation  entre  la  desinence  -IS  (a  loiigine  justifiee 
seulement  pour  les  accusatifs  des  radicaux  en  i)  el  -ES.  Cette  oscillation  apparail  chez 
les  ecrivains  classiques,  apres  menie  que  la  granimaire  eut  declare  correcte  la  forme  en 
-ES.  La  meme  hesitation  entre  -IS  et  -ES  s'apergoit  dans  les  inscriptions  et  elle  continue 
jusque  dans  I'italien  {le  vile  et  le  viti)  et  le  roumain  {care,  pace  a  cote  de  ran.  pact)" 
(Pu§cariu,  art.  cit.,  p.  363). 

^^  Cf.  Walther  von  Wartburg,  Die  Ausgliederung  dcr  romanischoi  Spradnriuine  (Bern 
1950).  p.  22. 


302  Illinois  Classical  Studies,  X.2 

not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  early  attestations  of  plural  forms  in 
/-is/  on  written  monuments  from  the  East  also. 

Unless  one  refuses  to  admit,  as  Pu§cariu's  critics  do,"^^  that  certain 
"vulgar"  or  "rustic"  features  of  speech  could  well  have  been  transmit- 
ted from  an  archaic  Latin  period  to  the  Romance  languages  "im 
Dunkeln  der  Volkssprache" — to  borrow  Karl  Meister's  expression'^'* — 
there  is  solid  evidence  to  support  the  hypothesis  of  a  chronological 
continuity  between  /-Is/  of  Old  Latin  z-stems  and  the  modern  plural 
outcome  of  Italo-  and  Balkan-Romance  languages. 

University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign 

"  See  above,  note  19. 

*'*  "Altes  Vulgarlatein,"  hidogermanische  Forschungeii  26  (1909),  p.  89. 


Corrigendum 


The  following  erratum   has  been  noticed  by  Professor  Gerald   M. 

Browne  in  his  article  "Chariton  and  Coptic,"  ICS  X  (1985),  pp.  135- 

37: 

p.  136,  line  8,  should  read:  The-fact-that-the-man-stays  (is)  in-the- 

house 


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Illinois  Classical  Studies  XI  (1986)  will  be  a  double  issue,  dedicated  to 
Problems  of  Greek  Philosophy. 

Contributors  will  include: 

J.  A.  Arieti,  A  Dramatic  Interpretation  of  Plato's  Phaedo 

E.  Asmis,  Psychagogia  in  Plato's  Phaedrus 

G.  M.  Browne,  Ad  Themistium  Arabum 

J.  M.  Dillon,  Proclus  and  the  Forty  Logoi  of  Zeno 

B.  Inwood,  Anaxagoras  and  Infinite  Divisibility 
T.  Irwin,  Socrates  the  Epicurean? 

M.  Marcovich,  Plato  and  Stoa  in  Hippolytus'  Theology 

G.  B.  Matthews,  Aristotelian  Explanation 

R.  Mohr,  Forms  as  Individuals:  Unity,  Being  and  Cognition  in  Plato's 

Ideal  Theory 

T.  M.  Robinson,  The  Timaeus  on  Types  of  Duration 

L.  Taran,  The  First  Fragment  of  Heraclitus 

T.  Tracy,  Two  Views  of  Soul.  Aristotle  and  Descartes 

L.  G.  Westerink,  Leo  the  Philosopher:  Job  and  Other  Poems 

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