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Testing the Legend: Horace, Silius Italicus and the Case of Marcus Atilius Regulus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Gareth Williams
Gareth Williams*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

After Marcus Atilius Regulus made inroads into North Africa as consul in 256 B.C. during the first Punic War, the Carthaginians were apparently ready to negotiate a settlement, but Regulus offered terms so harsh that they were refused out of hand. At this point Xanthippus, the Spartan mercenary-general, arrived on the Carthaginian side and soon made an impact as a shrewd and uplifting leader, not least because, in a dramatic reversal of fortunes, he captured Regulus, by then proconsul, by ambush in 255. Regulus' subsequent fate, embellished in the later literary-historical tradition, was enshrined in die familiar version here represented by Valerius Maximus:

Sed quae ad custodiam religionis attinent, nescio an omnes M. Atilius Regulus praecesserit, qui ex victore speciosissimo insidiis Hasdrubalis et Xanthippi Lacedaemonii ducis ad miserabilem captiui fortunam deductus ac missus ad senatum populumque Romanum legatus, ut se et uno et sene complures Poenorum iuuenes pensarentur, in contrarium dato consilio Carthaginem petiit, non quid <em> ignarus ad quam crudeles quamque merito sibi infestos † deos † reuerteretur, uerum quia iis iurauerat, si captiui eorum redditi non forent, ad eos sese rediturum. potuerunt profecto di immortales efferatam mitigare saeuitiam. ceterum, quo clarior esset Atili gloria, Carthaginienses moribus suis uti passi sunt, tertio Punico bello religiosissimi spiritus tarn crudeliter uexati urbis eorum interitu iusta exacturi piacula.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 38 , 2004 , pp. 70 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2004

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References

1 RE II 2086-92Google Scholar Atilius 51; Broughton, T. R. S., The Magistrates of the Roman Republic 1 (New York, 1951) 200, 209.Google Scholar

2 Background: Scullard, H. H. in CAH2 VII.2 554-7Google Scholar with Lazenby, J. F., The First Punic War: A Military History (Stanford 1996) 97–110 Google Scholar and (more specialized on archaeology and topography) Fantar, Mh. F., ‘Régulus en Afrique’, in Devijver, H. and Lipinski, E., eds., Studia Phoenicia X: Punic Wars (Leuven 1989) 75–84.Google Scholar

3 Date (early May 255?): Walbank, F. W., A Historical Commentary on Polybius, 1 (Oxford 1957) 91 on 1.32.8.Google Scholar At De off. 3.99 ‘cum consul iterum in Africa … captus esset’ Cicero ‘is evidently using “consul” in the loose sense’ ( Dyck, A. R., A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis (Ann Arbor 1996) 622).Google Scholar

4 Sources: RE II 2087-92Google Scholar; Blättler, P., Studien zur Regulusgeschichte (Diss. Freiburg, Sarnen 1945 Google Scholar); Mix, E. R., Marcus Atilius Regulus: Exemplum Historicum. Studies in Classical Literature 10 (The Hague and Paris 1970).Google Scholar

5 E.g. Frank, T., ‘Two Historical Themes in Roman Literature’, CP 21 (1926) 311-14Google Scholar, and now Le Bohec, Y., ‘L'Honneur de Règulus’, Antiquités qfricaines 33 (1997) 87–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 So Diod. 24.12.1-3, possibly after Philinus (Frank (n. 5) 313, but cf. RE II 2089 Google Scholar); cf. Tuditanus, C. Sempronius ap. Gell. N.A. 7.4.4, Zon. 8.15.Google Scholar

7 Mix (n. 4) 39-40.

8 Walbank (n. 3) 93 on Pol. 1.35 (and cf. n. 6 above).

9 Walbank (n. 3) 92-3.

10 A son is historically known ( RE II 2092 Google Scholar Atilius 52; cos. 227, 217), but no Serranus, even though the name does belong to the ‘gens Atilia’ ( RE II 2094-5Google Scholar Atilius 57-71). Cf. Virg, . Aen. 6.844 Google Scholar ‘[quis taciturn relinquat] te sulco, Serrane, serentem’, of C. Atilius Regulus, cos. 257, allegedly sowing on his farm when called to the consulship, whence Serranus by ‘wishful “etymology” ( Austin, R. G., P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Sextus (Oxford 1977) 260).Google Scholar The name has been connected with Saranum, an Umbrian town (Austin, ibid), and with the river Sarnus in Campania (see Skutsch, O., The Annals of Quintus Ennius (Oxford 1985) 632)Google Scholar; or does Silius seek to exploit the possible Carthaginian associations of Serranus by (false) derivation from ‘Sarra’/‘Sarranus’, on which Skutsch ibid. (cf. Sil. 6.662 ‘Sarrana… caede’ ‘by slaughter of Carthaginians’, 11.2)?

11 Hardie, P. R., The Epic Successors of Virgil (Cambridge 1993) 9 Google Scholar, also detecting possible significance in his name (‘little king’): ‘the greatest Roman hero of his day but who presents the least risk of aiming at sole rule’.

12 Tubero, ap. Gell. N.A. 7.3 = fr. 8 PeterGoogle Scholar; cf. Val. Max. 1.8 ext. 19, Liv, . Per. 18 Google Scholar, Flor. 1.18.20 (further Bassett, E. L., ‘Regulus and the Serpent in the Punica’, CP 50 (1955) 11 n. 2).Google Scholar

13 Hardie(n. 11)4.

14 Apparently a Silian innovation in the Regulan tradition when Marus relates the capture to the serpent's killing (cf. 6.286 with Spaltenstein, F., Commentaire des Punica de Silius Italicus (livres 1 à 8) (Geneva 1986) 410)Google Scholar; for the serpent drawn as genius loci cf. Williams, R. D., P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quintus (Oxford 1960) 63 on 5.95.Google Scholar

15 Hardie(n. 11) 70-1; full demonstration in Bassett(n. 12).

16 Bassett (n. 12) 6: Hercules of course fought on the gods' side against the Giants (cf. 181-2); then two of his twelve labours (killing the hydra, 182-3; winning the golden apples of the Hesperides, 183-4).

17 Now Ripoll, F., La Morale Héroïtque dans les Épopées Latines d'Époque Flavienne: Tradition et Innovation (Louvain and Paris 1998) 126-8 on ‘Hercule et Régulus’.Google Scholar

18 Already Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G., Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford 1979) 171 Google Scholar after Bassett (n. 12) 1; on the extent of Silius' own Stoicism, Bassett, E. L., ‘Hercules and the Hero of the Punica’, in Wallach, L., ed., The Classical Tradition: Literary and Historical Studies in Honor of Harry Caplan (Ithaca, N.Y. 1966) 262-4.Google Scholar

19 Colish, M. L., The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. 2 vols. I: Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Leiden 1990) 30.Google Scholar

20 Bassett (n. 18 ‘Hercules …’) 266, drawing on Cic, . N.D. 3.42 Google Scholar ‘quartus [sc. Hercules, of six here distinguished] Iouis est <et> Asteriae Latonae sororis, qui Tyri maxime colitur, cuius Carthaginem filiam ferunt’, on which Pease, A. S., M. Tulli Ciceronis De Natura Deorum Libri Secundus et Tertius (Cambridge, Mass. 1958) 1056 Google Scholar: ‘as Carthage was an offshoot from Tyre, so this curiously personified form “Carthago”… is the daughter of its prominent deity’. Cf. Vessey, D. W. T., ‘The Dupe of Destiny: Hannibal in Silius, Punica III’, CJ 77 (1981-1982) 322 Google Scholar on claims that ‘the Barcid dynasty had a special devotion to Melqart’, with ‘coins minted in Spain appear[ing] to show Hannibal in the guise of that deity’.

21 Cf. 1.377-8 ‘Rutulo Murrus de sanguine (at idem / matre Saguntina Graius …)’; hence (Ripoll (n. 17) 114) a living symbol of ‘les origines historiques de Sagonte et l'union des races grecque et italienne’ (cf. 1.379).

22 The notion of Hannibal as ‘an anti-type of Hercules’ (Colish (n. 19) 284), an ‘emule devoye d'Hercule’ (Ripoll (n. 17) 112) or as ‘a counter-Hercules, just as Carthage is a counter-Rome’ (Vessey (n. 20) 323) easily arises from this dichotomy.

23 Further Subrt, J., ‘The Motif of the Alps in the Work of Silius Italicus’, LF 114 (1991) 224-31.Google Scholar

24 For Prodicus' story, Xen, . Mem. 2.1.21–34 Google Scholar, Cic, . De off. 1.118 Google Scholar with D'Agostino, V., ‘La Favola del Bivio in Senofonte, in Luciano e in Silio Italico’, RSC 2 (1954) 173-84.Google Scholar Scipio as Hercules: Anderson, A. R., ‘Hercules and his Successors’, HSCP 39 (1928) 31-7Google Scholar, Bassett (n. 18 ‘Hercules …’) 259, Colish (n. 19) 287-9, Ripoll (n. 17) 128-30.

25 Colish (n. 19)288.

26 Also likened to Bacchus (17.647-8); as Bacchus/Hercules, Silius' Scipio thus resembles Augustus (cf. Virg, . Aen. 6.801-5Google Scholar, Hor, . Carm. 3.3.9–15 Google Scholar, cited by Ripoll (n. 17) 129 n. 186).

27 Fabius as Hercules: Colish (n. 19) 286, Ripoll (n. 17) 118-23.

28 The ‘gens Fabia’ thus connected, via Evander's daughter, ‘con le origini più antiche di Roma’ ( Asso, P., ‘Passione Eziologica nei Punica di Silio Italico: Trasimeno, Sagunto, Ercole e í Fabii’, Vichiana 1 (1999) 85 Google Scholar). Cf. on Silius' uncorroborated genealogy Spaltenstein (n. 14) 435 on 6.627.

29 Colish(n. 19)286-7.

30 Acting dictator, a significant distinction: Liv. 22.8.6, 31.8-11.

31 Colish (n. 19) 287 (Regulus as Stoic sage), Ripoll (n. 17) 248.

32 Bassett (n. 12) 3; a similar line in e.g. Ahl, F., Davis, M. A. and Pomeroy, A., ‘Silius Italicus’, ANRW II 32.4 (Berlin/New York 1986) 2509, 2522-3Google Scholar, Hardie (n. 11) 9, 70, Ripoll (n. 17) 127-8.

33 Colish (n. 19)287.

34 Pol. 1.33-4, Diod. 23.14.

35 Dyck (n. 3) 622-3.

36 Cf. after Spaltenstein (n. 14) 413 on 6.326 Ripoll (n. 17) 241: ‘Silius a probablement inventé le motif de la ruse de Xanthippe pour excuser Régulus’.

37 On Flaminius, brave in death but foolish in military decision, Ahl et al. (n. 32) 2521-3.

38 Cf. Walbank (n. 3) 90 ‘the motivation here contradicts that in the rest of the tradition’, where ‘it is unanimously stated that the Carthaginians took the initiative [sc. with peace-terms] from weariness …’

39 Cf. Cilnius (for whom n. 44 below), of Fabius to Hannibal at 7.34 ‘non cum Flaminio tibi res …’

40 Further on Minucius and Fabius in dramatic interplay, Ahl et al. (n. 32) 2525-8.

41 Paulus and Varro (the latter vilified by Silius as a corrupt and cowardly demagogue of low origin): Ahl et al. (n. 32) 2528-36.

42 On this network of ship(wreck) imagery, Ahl et al. (n. 32) 2529.

43 So also the consul M. Claudius Marcellus is ambushed at 15.366-80 (esp. 369-70 ‘caeca fundente latebra / armatos in bella globos’), albeit honoured in death by Hannibal (15.381-96). Cf. 12.473-8 for Hannibal cynically seeking ‘famam nomenque … / mitificae mentis’ (473-4) by giving burial to Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, the Roman proconsul treacherously (475 ‘per insidias’) killed by his host, the south Italian Lucanians, all too ‘Carthaginian’ in their conduct.

44 Born in Tuscan Arretum (7.29-30; cf. Liv. 10.3.2); a coincidence that Maecenas was a Cilnius ( Tac, . Ann. 6.11 Google Scholar; cf. Spaltenstein (n. 14) 445 on 7.29 ‘rien ne suggère ici que Sil. pense à lui’)?

45 Sources and background: Ogilvie, R. M., A Commentary on Livy, Books 1-5 (Oxford 1965) 359-61Google Scholar on 2.48 with Richard, J.-Cl., ‘Historiographie et Histoire: L'Expédition des Fabii à la Crémère’, Latomus 47 (1988) 527-32Google Scholar. The tradition is divided on the number of Fabii, 300 or 306: Richard ibid. 537 and n. 26.

46 ‘circumuenientibus’ with its own revealing play (cf. Ov, . Fast. 2.195 Google Scholar ‘Veientibus armis’). For the ambush cf. Liv. 2.50.3 ‘consilium … insidiis ferocem hostem captandi’, 50.6 ‘insidias’ (pace Ogilvie (n. 45) 365), ‘ex insidiis’, Ov, . Fast. 2.214 Google Scholar ‘insidias’, 227 ‘fraude perit uirtus’, Gell, . N.A. 17.21.13 Google Scholar ‘circumuenti‘, D.H. 9.19.1-21.6 (two versions given).

47 Cf. now (with indirect implications for Silius' Regulus) Harries, B., ‘Ovid and the Fabii: Fasti 2.193-474’, CQ 41 (1991) 155-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, qualifying orthodox receptions of the Livian and Ovidian treatments (155 'It has been widely accepted that both Livy and Ovid reproduce a tradition which is wholly enthusiastic about the Fabii and their achievement at the Cremera’; ‘it is usual to see the trapping and slaughter of the Fabii in both Livy and Ovid as the triumph of guile and “fraus” over simple native virtue’) with a more criticial approach: ‘Ovid, I believe, echoes implicitly the criticism of the incautious and fatal “audacia” of the Fabii which is more directly noted in Livy’ (156).

48 Hence at 7.132-4 Hannibal fails in his many attempts to ambush Fabius (134 ‘inopinata … circumdare fraude'; cf. Liv. 22.12.7). At 7.273-5 Fabius turns the tables on Hannibal, entrapping him (7.275 ‘clausit’; cf. 308-9) and reducing the Carthaginians to dire straits (7.276-81) before Hannibal deviously works their escape (7.310-76). When Hannibal traps Minucius (7.583-4), only himself to be encircled by Fabius (7.590-1 ‘modo claudentes aciem nunc, extima cingens, / clausos ipse [sc. Fabius] tenet’), his earlier insistence on his superior cunning (7.336-7) looks less convincing. In this respect Livy's Hannibal is refreshingly candid: ‘Poenus receptui cecinit, palam ferente Hannibale ab se Minucium, se ab Fabio uictum’ (22.29.6).

49 Cf. 7.240 ‘magnum est, ex hoste reuerti’, 9.53-4, 15.323-4.

50 Cf. 16.603 ‘Fabius pater’; as the shepherd guarding his flock, Ahl et al. (n. 32) on 7.123-30 etc.

51 With ‘poenae’ (6.114) a telling play on ‘Poenus’ = ‘Carthaginian’. Hence also perhaps the ominous significance of periphrastic ‘nouo Phaethonte’ of the new day (rare: OLD ‘Phaethon’ 2) at the book's opening (6.3); is Serranus Phaethon-like in aspiring to emulate his ‘divine’ father?

52 Cf. of Hor, Regulus. Carm. 3.5.42 Google Scholar ‘capitis minor’, with Dyck (n. 3) 623-4 on Cic, . De off. 3.100 Google Scholar; interesting remarks on Regulus and postliminium now in Leigh, M., Comedy and the Rise of Rome (Oxford 2004) 75-7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 One tradition limits the mandate of Regulus' embassy to prisoner-exchange (e.g. Cic, . De off. 1.39 Google Scholar, 3.99 with Dyck (n. 3) 623), another (first attested in Liv, . Per. 18 Google Scholar) makes a negotiated peace the primary goal, prisoner-exchange secondary.

54 Hardie (n. 11) 70, Ripoll (n. 17) 472 and n. 23 for bibliography. Given that Silius alone in the Regulus-tradition gives (or invents?) his wife's name, it is perhaps no coincidence that Regulus, like Cato, is married to a long-suffering Marcia (Spaltenstein (n. 14) 419 on 6.403). Cato had divorced his Marcia to facilitate her marriage to the orator Q. Hortensius Hortalus (cos. 69), only to remarry her after Hortensius' death. In Lucan Marcia returns from laying Hortenius' ashes to rest to plead with Cato to take her back (2.338-49), and she moves him with her words (2.350 ‘hae flexere uirum uoces’); Regulus, utterly unmoved by his Marcia, outdoes Cato in his mastery of emotion.

55 On this characterization, Ahl et al. (n. 32) 2523-31.

56 Or worse. Cf. Spaltenstein (n. 14) 415 on 6.350: ‘le thème de la réparation du navire’ is here ‘absurde’ (the Carthaginians would naturally have boats at the ready).

57 Not looking back as the mark in the Punica of the risk-taking/reckless adventurer: 2.309-11 ‘respice, pro demens, … / Aegates Libyaeque procul fluitantia membra! / quo ruis … ?’ (Hanno tries to counter Hannibal's thirst for war with Rome by reminding him of Carthaginian losses in the first Punic War); 3.181 ‘respexisse ueto’ (Hannibal urged on to the invasion of Italy by Mercury in a dream). Does Silius draw the significance of (not) looking back from Virgilian experimentation with the motif (for which now Gale, M. R., ‘Poetry and the Backward Glance in Virgil's Georgics and Aeneid , TAPhA 133 (2003) 323-52)?Google Scholar

58 Ahl et al. (n. 32) 2522.

58 Cf. OLD ‘patientia’ 2c.

60 Ahl et al. (n. 32)2523.

61 And yet a hero tainted by the fact that he himself did not fight to the end but allowed himself to be captured in 255? But cf. Lowrie, M., Horace's Narrative Odes (Oxford 1997) 244 Google Scholar for vindicating remarks (Regulus ‘is not a pure model of “uirtus”, and to that extent serves as an even better corollary to the present: he recuperated his honour from an initial disgrace’).

62 Cf Warde Fowler, W., Roman Essays and Interpretations (Oxford 1920) 223-4Google Scholar after Mommsen, Th., Reden and Aufsätze (Berlin 1905) 168-84.Google Scholar With different emphasis, Nisbet, R. G. M. and Rudd, N., A Commentary on Horace: Odes, Book III (Oxford 2004) 82 Google Scholar: ‘In fact the poem looks forward to the ultimate defeat of Parthia, but by arguing against the ransom of prisoners it discourages any pressure for immediate results’.

62 Cf. Marconi, G., ‘Attilio Regolo tra Andronico ed Orazio’, RCCM 9 (1967) 44-5.Google Scholar

64 Cf. Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford 1957) 273 Google Scholar, West, D., Horace Odes III: Duke Periculum (Oxford 2002) 61.Google Scholar

65 Lyne, R. O. A. M., Horace: Behind the Public Poetry (New Haven and London 1995) 55-6.Google Scholar

66 So e.g. Mix (n. 4) 41-2 (n. 18 ‘an arch-conservative plea for conquest’); Williams, G., (i) Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford 1968) 441 Google Scholar and (ii) The Third Book of Horace's Odes (Oxford 1969) 58 Google Scholar; Seager, R., (i) ‘“Neu Sinas Medos Equitare Inultos”: Horace, the Parthians and Augustan Foreign Policy’, Athenaeum 58 (1980) 111-13Google Scholar and (ii) ‘ Horace and Augustus: Poetry and Policy’, in Rudd, N., ed., Horace 2000: A Celebration. Essays for the Bimiltenium (Ann Arbor 1993) 33 Google Scholar; Lowrie (n. 61) 243-4 (more nuanced).

67 Cf. Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 84 for the ablative absolute at the sentence's end suggesting ‘the language of officialdom’.

68 For the ambiguity spelt out, Seager (n. 66 (i)) 111, Lowrie (n. 61) 229; but cf. now Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 84 (“adiectis refers to the future; but H is not expressing doubt about either [the Parthians'] conquest or that of the Britons’).

69 Fraenkel (n. 64) 272, Nisbet, R. G. M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes, Book I (Oxford 1970) xxx, xxxii Google Scholar, Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 83.

70 Luther, A., ‘Zur Regulus-Ode (Horaz, C. 3,5)’, RhM 146 (2003) 10–22.Google Scholar Date of ‘publication’ of Odes I-III: Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 69) xxxv-vii, Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) xix-xx; publication together pace Hutchinson, G. O., ‘The Publication and Individuality of Horace's Odes Books 1-3’, CQ 52 (2002) 517-37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 Stevens, C. E., ‘Britain Between the Invasions (B.C. 54-A.D. 43): A Study of Ancient Diplomacy’, in Grimes, W. F., ed., Aspects of Archaeology in Britain and Beyond: Essays Presented to O. G. S. Crawford (London 1951) 332 Google Scholar; Brunt, P. A., JRS 53 (1963) 173 Google Scholar ‘the Britons had been nominal vassals of Rome since 54 B.C.’

72 See Brunt (n. 71) 173-4 with Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 69) xxxi (‘this process [sc. of embassies] may have begun in 27/6…’). Cf. also on Roman diplomatic manoeuvring in Britain itself Wacher, J. in CAH 2 X 505 Google Scholar ‘Deprived of military conquest, Augustus aimed at the maintenance of a balance of power between the major tribes …’

73 Stevens (n. 71) 340, albeit supposing (339-41) that Strabo dates the British embassies to A.D. 7 and later; but, for an earlier date, Brunt (n. 71) 173. Luther (n. 70) 14-15 andn. 23 invokes Aponius, In canticum canticorum 12 (= Liv. fr. 65 Jal) ‘In cuius apparitionis die, quod Epiphania appellatur, Caesar Augustus in spectaculis, sicut Liuius narrat, Romano populo nuntiat regressus a Britannia insula totum orbem terrarum tarn bello quam amicitiis Romano imperio pacis abundantia subditum’ to support his argument for settled relations with Britain by the mid-20s; cf. Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 69) xxxi on Aponius (‘… some muddle here, but perhaps a substratum of truth; if so, a suitable context for Augustus's announcement is his return from Spain in 24 B.C.’).

74 Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 69) xxxi: after 27/6 ‘there are no more poetic demands for conquest’.

75 Stevens (n. 71)338.

76 Gruen, E. S. in CAH 2 X 158.Google Scholar

77 Gruen, E. S. in CAH 2 X 158-60Google Scholar; Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 69) xxxii-iii, Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 80.

78 But Dio at 53.33.2 omits (Luther (n. 70) 16 n. 30) the standards captured from Decidius Saxa in 40 (cf. Aug, . R.G. 29.2 Google Scholar).

79 Zanker, P., The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor 1988) 186.Google Scholar

80 Gruen, E. S., ‘Augustus and the Ideology of War and Peace’, in Winkes, R., ed., The Age of Augustus. Publications d'Histoire de l'Art et d'Archéologie de l'Université Catholique de Louvain 44 (Providence, RI and Louvain 1985) 65 Google Scholar and n. 78, and in CAH 2 X 160 and n. 59; Zanker (n. 79) 186-8.Google Scholar

81 The statue's date, and the interpretation of specific images on the cuirass, remain controversial, but the Parthian theme is not in doubt; for background, Kleiner, D. E. E., Roman Sculpture (New Haven and London 1992) 63-7Google Scholar with Zanker (n. 79) 188-92 (188: ‘This is a marble copy of a bronze statue which must have been made in the years immediately following the victory over the Parthians’) and Gruen (n. 80) 61 and n. 54 for bibliography.

82 E.g. Virg, . Georg. 3.31 Google Scholar, Prop. 2.10.13-14, 3.4.5-6, cited with further examples by Gruen (n. 80) 64-5.

83 Cf. Carm. 1.2.21-4, 1.12.53-7, 1.21.13-16, 2.9.18–22 Google Scholar etc.; Seager(n. 66 (i)) for analysis.

84 See Gruen (n. 80) 54-5 (54 Augustus ‘pronounced no pacifist's creed but declared a warrior's achievement’). Cf. Nicolet, C., Space. Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1991) 19–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar on R.G. 25-33 (military and diplomatic achievements) as (pp. 19-20) ‘a lesson in political and military geography’, the world mastered in the Augustan text.

85 Gruen (n. 80) 67.

86 Seager(n. 66(i))113.

87 Argued by Meyer, H. D., Die Aussenpolitik des Augustus und die Augusleische Dichtung (Cologne 1961), but cf. the important review by Brunt (n. 71).Google Scholar

88 Gruen (n. 80) 67.

89 Brunt (n. 71) 172, 175.

90 Lowrie (n. 61) 254 on this ‘great emotion’, this ‘lyric manner of argumennt’.

91 For this paratactic emphasis, Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 90.

92 See Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 92, and cf. also 88 on 17 ‘periret’ (third vowel long) as an ‘archaic usage’ (further Marconi (n. 63) 27-9) and 93 on 42 ‘capitis minor’ as ‘a legal archaism’; ‘delubris’ (19), ‘often used affectively’ (OLD s.v), is also archaic in feel ( Dyck, A. R., A Commentary on Cicero, De Legibus (Ann Arbor 2004) 294 on 2.19.5)Google Scholar.

93 Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 95: ‘a “patronus” could advise his “clientes” on their legal problems … Here, as shown by “lite” [54], Regulus is pictured as arbitrating in a dispute between clients’.

94 Harrison, S. J., ‘Philosophical Imagery in Horace, Odes 3.5’, CQ 36 (1986) 504-5 n. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

95 Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 90.

96 Just as wool that is carefully prepared for dyeing holds fast the colour applied to it, so the guardians of the ideal city, if carefully selected and educated, will retain what they leam as if marked with indelible dye (429d-430b). If, with Harrison (n. 94) 502-4, the shades of technical medical language in ‘excidi’ and ‘reponi’ (503 ‘“uirtus”, like a dislocated limb, cannot be fitted back into position once “put out’”) are traced to a Stoic antecedent for Horace, ‘a Stoic image neatly counterbalances the Platonic simile of dyeing, and both give a welcome philosophical colour and tone to the weighty speech of Regulus’ (504).

97 ‘[T]he subject clearly is “lana”’ (Skutsch (n. 10) 637).

98 Skutsch (n. 10) 635 after Kornhardt, H., ‘Regulus und die Cannaegefangenen: Studien zum Romischen Heimkehrrecht’, Hermes 82 (1954) 115 Google Scholar; now Lowrie (n. 61) 252-3.

99 See Kornhardt (n. 98) 113-16.

100 Skutsch(n. 10)635.

101 See Kornhardt (n. 98) 115; Broughton (n. 1) 208-9, 213, 223.

102 ‘curia’ obelized by Nisbet (Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 84-5 for full discussion).

103 Omit ‘et’, to the effect of ‘the very word “ancilia”’? An attractive reading revived by Nisbet (Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 86-7).

104 Above, p. 88 and n. 68.

105 ‘praesens’ ‘a religious word’ that ‘also suggests efficacy’ (Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 83; cf. Clausen, W., A Commentary on Virgil: Eclogues (Oxford 1994)Google Scholar 47 on 1.41). Augustus not yet divine (cf. 2 ‘habebitur’) despite e.g. Virg, . Eel. 1.6 Google Scholar ‘deus nobis haec otia fecit’ (further Luther (n. 70) 11-12)? But perhaps ‘praesens’ with its special emphasis fully felt (i.e. divine Augustus will be held ‘present and effective’); or (Luther (n. 70)) a safe prophecy already amply fulfilled by the time of writing in 23?

106 Cf. Epod. 7.7-10, Carm. 1.21.15, 1.35.29-32, 3.4.33-6.

107 With ‘rege’ naturally a charged word for a Roman audience; Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 86.

108 As an inversion of the Roman ‘ius conubii’ and imperialist way (intermarriage controlled by Rome), Lentano, M., ‘I Suoceri Proibiti: Nota a Orazio, Carm. 3, 5, 5-12’, QUCC 79 (1995) 159-65Google Scholar (164 ‘E sempre Roma a concedere il “conubium”’).

109 On these symbols, Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 86-7.

110 West (n. 64) 60, and cf. n. 52 above.

111 In 5-6 ‘coniuge barbara’ best taken as an ablative absolute explaining ‘turpis’ (Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 84: ‘a disgraced husband, seeing that his wife is a barbarian’).

112 Cf. Hor, . Ep. 1.19.12–13 Google Scholar ‘siquis uoltu toruo …/… simulet… Catonem' with Mayer, R. G., ed., Horace: Epistles Book I (Cambridge 1994) 261 Google Scholar (the younger Cato more likely to be meant here; cf. of him Luc. 2.369 ‘tristis… maritus’).

113 Cf. on the irony Arieti, J., ‘Horatian Philosophy and the Regulus Ode (Odes 3.5)’, TAPhA 120 (1990)216 Google Scholar.

114 Above, n. 52; Kornhardt (n. 98) 93-5 on ‘Die sogenannte Selbstverbannung’.

115 Perhaps in contrast to the Roman captives in Parthia; Arieti (n. 113) 219 ‘Theirs is a life of ignoble sloth, not noble “otium”; they perform no “longa negotia” of law and order …’

116 So Arieti (n. 113)219.

117 Nisbet, R. G. M and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes, Book II (Oxford 1978) 95 on 2.6Google Scholar.

118 Lowrie(n. 61)255-6.

119 See Harrison (n. 94) 504-6.

120 For Tarentum's origin as a Spartan colony, Phalanthus the oecist allegedly in 706, Walbank, F. W., A Historical Commentary on Polybius, II (Oxford 1967) 108 on 8.33.9.Google Scholar

121 Harrison (n. 94) 506, citing Tyrtaeus fr. 10.1-2 West; cf. Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 96 on ‘Lacedaemonium’ (‘its connotations recall the unbending character of Regulus’).

122 Arieti(n. 113)217.

123 Background and sources: Briscoe, J. in CAH2 VIII.2 53-5Google Scholar.

124 See Capini, S., ‘Venafro e l'Alta Valle del Volturno’, in Capini, S. and Niro, A. Di, eds., Samnium: Archeologia del Molise (Rome 1991) 108-9Google Scholar; the Pentri were not among the Samnite tribes who went over to Hannibal ( Salmon, E. T., Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge 1967) 299–300 Google Scholar).

125 Capini (n. 124) 109. On the fortunes of Oscan, J. Whatmough, The Foundations of Roman Italy (London 1938)301-5Google Scholar.

126 CIL X 4875, 4894 Google Scholar. For Venafrum's pleasant associations cf. Carm. 2.6.15–16 Google Scholar with (on its famous olive-groves) Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 117) 103.

127 Background: Purcell, N. in CAH2 VI 389-94Google Scholar, Morel, J.P. in CAH2 - VIII.2 483-4Google Scholar.

128 For ‘Marsi’ providing ‘stalwart countrymen for the Roman army’, Nisbet and Rudd (n. 62) 86, also noting the name's connection with Mars (ironic at 3.5.9). For Apulus, , cf. Carm. 1.22.13–14 Google Scholar ‘militaris/Oaunias’ with Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 69) 269.

129 Arieti (n. 113)218-19.

130 Williams (n. 66 (i)) 441.

131 Witke, C., Horace's Roman Odes: A Critical Examination. Mnemosyne Supplement 77 (Leiden 1983)60.Google Scholar

132 Witke (n. 131)60.