XII - CRITICAL MISCELLANIES

Summary

THE GRAECI ANNALES OF FABIUS PICTOR.

Cicero, De Divinatione, 1. § 43, says, hisque adiungatur etiam Aeneae somnium, quod in nostri Fabii Pictoris Graecis annalibus eiusmodi est, ut omnia quae ab Aenea gesta sunt, quaeque illi acciderunt, eafuerint, quae ei secundum quietem visa sunt. The words Graeci annales are usually explained as meaning ‘annals written in Greek.’ No doubt Dionysius (1. 6) mentions Fabius Pictor as one of the historians who had written in Greek on the early legends of Rome: but I submit that the words Graeci annales, if they are to be explained on the analogy of Romana historia and the like, should mean ‘Greek history’ not ‘history written in Greek.’ Cicero, Brutus, § 77, historia quaedam Graeca, scripta dulissime: Tusc. 5. § 112 (quoted by Jahn), Cn. Aufidius … Graecam scribebat historiam: but Brutus, § 81, A. Albinus, is qui Graece scripsit historiam. Graeca quaedam historia in the first of these passages I suppose to mean ‘a certain Greek story:’ Graecam historiam in the second to mean ‘Greek history’ in general. Compare Quintilian, 2. 4. 19, nam Graecis historiis plerumque poeticae similis licentia est. And it is certainly strange that Cicero should nowhere else mention the fact that Fabius Pictor wrote in Greek, but should always speak of him with Cato as exemplifying the baldness of early Latin prose. I am inclined to suppose that Fabius Pictor wrote the bulk of his great work in Latin, and that the Graeci Annales, or Greek history, formed a separate book, in which the story of Aeneas was contained.