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Cinna’s Trouser Snake – or the Biter Bit? Alternative Interpretations of Cinna fr. 12 FRP
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2015
Abstract
The only extant choliambic line by Cinna, comparing some action to a Psyllus doing something to an asp, is preserved by Aulus Gellius to illustrate that the adjective somniculosus can have the causative sense ‘sleep-inducing’ as well as the active one of ‘sleepy’. If Gellius is correct, then the simile’s missing verb is likely to have one of the Psylli, famed for their ability to lull snakes to sleep, doing just that to a ‘sleep-inducing asp’. The situation which would be compared to this must be that of someone receiving a taste of their own medicine. This would also account for the Psyllus’ imprecise epithet Poenus, which would pun on poena. If Gellius is wrong, and somniculosus means ‘sleepy’ as in almost all other instances in Latin, the combination of snake and sleep imagery, which can be paralleled separately in other texts, with the abusive choliambic metre might suggest that what is being compared to the asp is the flaccid penis of an impotent man.
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References
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2 ύπνωτικός can likewise mean ‘sleepy’ (e.g. Arist. Somn. Vig. 457a26) or ‘soporific’ (Hippoc. Mul. 2.201).
3 Watson, L.C., ‘Cinna and Euphorion’, SIFC 54 (1982) 93–110Google Scholar, quoting from 102, and see 98-9 on Cinna’s abnormal usages: somniculosus in our fragment, the passive inuigilata, fr. 13 FRP = 11 FLP/FPL, and adjectival nanus, fr. 11.2 FRP = 9.2 FLP/FPL).
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5 mustum is an emendation of the MSS multum, but a secure one.
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8 E.g. Non. 57 L. = 39.31 M.: populare significat populi amorem conciliare: unde populares dicti de uno populo amici. Pacuuius Chryse [fr. 79 R3 = 73 Schierl]: ‘atque, ut promeruit, pater mihi patriam populauit meam (‘populare means to win over the love of the people: because of this those who are the friends of the people alone are called populares. Pacuvius in the Chryses [writes]: “and, as it deserved, my father populauit my fatherland.’”) In fact, populauit is here employed in its usual sense of ‘laid waste’, expressing either irony (Schieri, P., Die Tragödien des Pacuvius. Ein Kommentar zu den Fragmenten mit Einleitung, Text und Übersetzung [Berlin 2006] 224CrossRefGoogle Scholar), or the paradox of Chryses’ half-Greek identity (Slater, N.W., ‘Religion and Identity in Pacuvius’ Chryses’ in Manuwald, G. [ed.], Identität undAlterität in der frührömischen Tragödie [Würzburg 2000] 315-23Google Scholar, at 321).
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11 At Plin. HN 8.93, the ability of the Psylli’s smell to put snakes to flight is used as a comparand for the Tentyrus islanders’ similar effect on crocodiles. Cf. Strab. 17.1.44.
12 Hermipp.Hist. fr. 58, ύπνηλόν … νώκαρ (‘a sleepy coma’), Nic. Ther. 189, but cf. άμυδρότατον δάκος άλλων (‘the most sluggish snake of all’) ibid. 158, with Gow, A.S., ‘Nicandrea’, CQ n.s. 1 (1951) 95–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 98, Carm. Bell. Aeg. 45-6, Luc. 9.701, 818, Plin. HN 21.182 (see also n. 13 below), 29.63-5, Plut. Ant. 51.8. Heliod. Aeth. 2.20.2 plays more generally on Thermouthis’ literal sleep’s becoming the sleep of death, as perhaps does Luc. 9.818, but it is probably no coincidence that the fatal bite is an asp’s.
13 There is an interesting parallel in Pliny’s description of the use of halicacabus root in curing asp-bites, though there it is their soporific power which is paradoxically lulled, rather than the asps themselves: aspidum naturae halicacabum in tantum aduersam, ut radice eius propius admota soporetur ilia sopore enecans uis earum, HN 21.182.
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19 Since Psyllus is the subject and aspidem the object of the simile, it is probable that the grammatical emphasis of the tenor was also on someone inflicting rather than receiving a taste of their own medicine. However, while there may have been comparable emphasis on the avenger in the rest of the poem (e.g. ‘May I inflict on you what you have inflicted on me.’ as opposed to ‘May someone do so.’), the essence of the biter bit topos means that much if not all of the focus would still centre on the figure who is being hoist with his own petard.
20 Plut. Cat. Min. 56.3. It is notable that Lucan calls them Marmaridae Psylli (9.894), which, if he is using the epithet with any degree of specificity, would locate them even further east, in Marmarica, between the Cyrenaica and Egypt.
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26 Cic. Verr. 2.3.12: . . . aut impositum uectigal est certum, quod stipendiarium dicitur, ut Hispanis etplerisque Poenorum quasi uictoriae praemium ac poena belli . . .(‘. . . either the tax imposed is fixed, which is called a ‘contribution’, as with the Spaniards and most of the Carthaginians, as if as a prize for victory or a penalty of war . . .’) Nep. Hann. 8.2: id ubi Poeni resciuerunt, Magonem eadem, qua fratrem, absentem adfecerunt poena. (‘When the Carthaginians learned this, they imposed the same penalty on Mago in his absence as on his brother’).
27 Despite the fact that, as noted above, most instances of somniculosus as ‘sleepy’ are from the first century CE, the combination of Cic. Sen. 36 with the Plautine adverb somniculose make it unlikely, despite Laberius, that its common meaning changed from ‘sleep-inducing’ to ‘sleepy’.
28 On impotence in Graeco-Roman literature, see esp. McMahon, J.M., Paralysin Cave: Impotence, Perception, and Text in the Satyrica of Petronius (Leiden 1998) 23–48Google Scholar, and the articles on individual texts cited in n. 49 below.
29 On the cultural specificity of metaphorical structures, see Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M., Metaphors We Live By (Chicago 1980) 22-4Google Scholar. On animal metaphors for the penis, see Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (Oxford 1991 [Yale 1975]) 126-9Google Scholar, Adams, J.N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London 1982) 30-4Google Scholar, McMahon, , Paralysin (n. 28) 131-43Google Scholar, (137-3 on snakes). Dog: Ar. Lys. 158, Plato Com. fr. 188.15 K-A, Marcus Argentarius, AP 5.105.4, Straton, AP 12.225.2, Hsch. s.v. κύων.
30 McMahon, , Paralysin (n. 28) 141Google Scholar n. 53 suggests that ‘the perception may have been more widespread than is evidenced in Latin literature.’
31 πολλάς δέ τυφλάς έγχέλυς έδέξω. Archil, fr. 189 West; 
Semon. fr. 8 West. See Gerber, D.E., ‘Eels in Archilochus’, QUCC 16 (1973) 105-9Google Scholar, West, M.L., Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin 1974) 179CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 Henderson, , Maculate Muse (n. 29) 127Google Scholar.
33 Henderson, Maculate Muse (n. 29) ibid., rather uncritically followed by McMahon, Paralysin (n. 28) 140.
34 Henderson, Maculate Muse (n. 29) ibid.
35 On penile metaphors in Straton, see Clarke, W.M., ‘Phallic Vocabulary in Straton’, Mnemosyne 47 (1994) 466-72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 470-1.
36 OLD s.v. imprimo 2. The entry cites, but (perhaps coyly) omits to quote, Lucil. fr. 72. Marx and Richlin, A., The Garden of Priapus, 2nd edn (Oxford [1st edn, Yale 1983]) 168Google Scholar, as well as OLD s.v. natrix 2 (this time quoting Lucilius) take the verb here in the same sense. Luc. 9.720, natrix uiolator aquae, may transfer the metaphorical connotations from the line of Lucilius back onto the literal snake, making it (sexually) ‘violate’ the water.
37 Adams, Latin Sexual Vocabulary (n. 29) 31. L & S s.v. 2B takes it so.
38 On ‘multiple-correspondence similes’, see West, D.A., ‘Multiple-Correspondence Similes in the Aeneid’, JRS 59 (1969) 40-9Google Scholar.
39 Philodemus, AP 11.30.3-4; Ov. Am. 3.7.16, 59-60, 65; Petron. 20.2, 129.8, 140.12.
40 It is difficult to be sure whether Romans employed the metaphor of the penis being ‘aroused’ as from sleep, excito is certainly used with words or euphemisms for penis (or pudenda at Juv. 6.196): Cic. Nat. D. 3.56 (natura); Cels. 7.25.1 (ea pars); Plin. HN 24.62 (genitale); Mart. 12.97.8 (mentula). However, the verb’s semantic range and extensive metaphorical usage is such that the image could be simply one of stirring, provoking, or exciting, without necessarily suggesting awakening.
41 E.g. Tib. 1.5.41; Ov. Am. 3.7.27-30 (cf. 79-80, in the puella’s voice); Petron. 128.3, 138.7. McMahon, , Paralysin (n. 28) 23Google Scholar, argues that Hermes’ advice at Hom. Od. 10.301 that Odysseus make Circe swear an oath 
(‘not to render you feeble and unmanly once you have stripped naked’) is a reference to magically-induced impotence.
42 For pederastic impotence: Straton AP 12.11; Scythinus AP 12.232; the παντά which Philostratus and Nemesenus each offer the respective poets presumably refers to penetrative as opposed to intercrural sex, rather than signifying a range of attempts at arousal. At Mart. 11.46.5, Mevius bothers culi as well as cunni.
43 Ov. Am. 3.7.73-4, Priap. 80.2, 83.34 (successfully!); Mart. 12.97.9. Cf. the impotent Mevius’ unsuccessful self-masturbation at Mart. 11.46.3-4. Comparable too is Horace’s insistence that the uetula will have to fellate him to produce an erection (Epod. 8.19-20). Although Watson (‘Horace’s Epodes: The Impotence of Iambos?, in Harrison, S.J. [ed.], Homage to Horace. A Bimillenary Celebration [Oxford 1995] 188–202, at 190Google Scholar) is, of course, correct that this is ‘not a failure to be aroused sexually, but a revulsion which precludes arousal’, and hence not strictly impotence, the use of alternative means to overcome that non-arousal, however caused, is in this respect analogous.
44 On this line, see Ingleheart, J., A Commentary on Ovid Tristia, Book 2 (Oxford 2010) 337Google Scholar ad loc.
45 Lyne, , ‘The Neoteric Poets’, CQ 28 (1978) 167-87CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 172, cites Ov. Tr. 2.435 without qualification alongside less problematic references to Catullus and Calvus as evidence that ‘[e]pigrams and polymetric versicles of erotic, humorous, insulting, and indeed multifarious occasional nature were a common interest among [the Neoterics].’
46 ‘[Hipponax] is the model in contradistinction to whom Callimachus composes his own choliambic verses.’ Acosta-Hughes, B., Polyeideia: the Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (Berkeley 2002) 32Google Scholar. On scazons in Catull. 31, see Morgan, , Musa Pedestris (n. 14) 124-30Google Scholar.
47 An obvious contemporary example of the latter is Catull. 8, on whose metrical ethos see Lavigne, ‘Catullus 8’ (n. 14).
48 Morgan, , Musa Pedestris (n. 14) 115-30Google Scholar. His further assertion of ‘the discernible tendency of expressions denoting weakness or disability to migrate to the “lame” or “limping” cadence of the line’ (126) is not, of course, evident in the extant line, unless the spondaic (or, strictly, trochaic, with final anceps) Psyllus has an unsuspected significance, and one can only speculate whether significant words, such as inertem or languit, were positioned in the privileged final sedes of other lines in the poem.
49 Fitzgerald, W., ‘Power and Impotence in Horace’s Epodes’, Ramus 17 (1988) 176-91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharrock, A., ‘The Drooping Rose: Elegiac Failure in Amores 3.7’, Ramus 24 (1995) 152-80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holzberg, N., ‘Impotence? It Happened to the Best of Them! A Linear Reading of the Corpus Priapeorum’, Hermes 133 (2005) 368-81Google Scholar.
50 An inclination to metapoetics would not be surprising in a Neoteric, Alexandrianising poet, and there is some evidence of this in the epigram on a copy of Aratus’ Phaenomena, fr. 13 FRP= 11 FPL/FLP, on which see esp. Hinds, S., ‘Cinna, Statius and “Immanent Literary History” in the Cultural Economy’, in Schmidt, E.A. (ed.), L’histoire littéraire immanente dans la poésie latine. Entretiens Hardt 47 (Geneva 2001) 221-65Google Scholar.
51 I am indebted to the helpful and incisive comments of Lindsay Watson and Antichthon’s two anonymous readers. They have substantially improved this article, but should not, of course, be held responsible for any remaining errors or flights of fancy.