Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T21:02:09.040Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ON HORACE'S PYRAMIDS (C. 3.30.1–2)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2014

Michael B. Sullivan
Michael B. Sullivan*
Affiliation:
Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper contends that Horace's comparison of his completed poetic monument to pyramids at the end of Odes 1–3 is both figurative and literal insofar as we possess ample art historical, literary and papyrological evidence from antiquity for the stacking of an appropriate number of book (sc)rolls in ‘pyramidal’ form. Most notable in this regard is the dedication to Delian Apollo of a triangular casket containing the ten books of Aristarchus' edition of Alcaeus, whose resonances with the Pythagorean τετρακτύς, and implications for Horace's own oeuvre, are duly explored.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 60 , 30 April 2014 , pp. 100 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Figure 3 Late Roman (4th century CE) marble sarcophagus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Brummer and Ernest Brummer, in memory of Joseph Brummer, 1948 (48.76.1) is reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

References

Works cited

Ast, F. (ed.) (1817) Theologumena arithmeticae, Leipzig.Google Scholar
Barchiesi, A. (2007) ‘ Carmina: Odes and Carmen saeculare ’, in Harrison, S. J. (ed.) The Cambridge companion to Horace, Cambridge, 144–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birt, T. (1907) Die Buchrolle in der Kunst: archäologisch-antiquarische Untersuchungen zum antiken Buchwesen, Leipzig.Google Scholar
Burkert, W. (1972) Lore and science in ancient Pythagoreanism, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Camodeca, G., and Del Mastro, G. (2002) ‘I papiri documentari ercolanesi (P.Herc.MAN.): Relazione preliminare’, Cronache ercolanesi 32, 281–96.Google Scholar
Campbell, D. A. (ed. and tr.) (1982–93) Greek lyric (5 vols), Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Davies, P. J. E. (2000) Death and the emperor: Roman imperial funerary monuments, from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius, Cambridge.Google Scholar
de Falco, V. (ed.) (1922) Iamblichi Theologoumena arithmeticae, Leipzig.Google Scholar
Farrell, J. (2007) ‘Horace's body, Horace's books’, in Heyworth, S. J. (ed.) Classical constructions: papers in memory of Don Fowler, Oxford, 174–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feeney, D. (1993) ‘Horace and the Greek lyric poets’, in Rudd, N. (ed.) Horace 2000, a celebration: essays for the bimillennium, London, 41–63.Google Scholar
Fowler, D. (2000) ‘The ruin of time: monuments and survival at Rome’, in (id.) Roman constructions: readings in postmodern Latin, Oxford, 193–217.Google Scholar
Frischer, B. (1983) ‘ Monumenta et arae honoris virtutisque causa: evidence of memorials for roman civic heroes’, Bullettino della Commissione archeologica del Governatorato di Roma 88, 51–86.Google Scholar
Fuchs, H. (1962) ‘“Nun, o Unsterblichkeit, bist du ganz mein …” Zu zwei Gedichten des Horaz’, in von Beckerath, E. et al. (eds.) ΑΝΤΙΔΩΡΟΝ: E. Salin zum 70. Geburtstag, Tübingen, 149–66.Google Scholar
Gaifman, M. (2012) Aniconism in Greek antiquity, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galinsky, K. (1996) Augustan culture: an interpretive introduction, Princeton.Google Scholar
Gibson, B. J. (1997) ‘Horace, Carm. 3.30.1–5’, CQ 47, 312–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoche, R. (1866) Nicomachi Geraseni Pythagorei introductionis arithmeticae libri II, Leipzig.Google Scholar
Kahn, C. H. (2001) ‘The Pythagorean tradition in Rome’, in (id.) Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: a brief history, Indianapolis, 86–93.Google Scholar
Lowrie, M. (2009) Writing, performance, and authority in Augustan Rome, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyne, R. O. A. M. (2005) ‘Horace Odes Book 1 and the Alexandrian edition of Alcaeus’, CQ 55, 542–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGowan, E. P. (1995) ‘Tomb marker and turning post: funerary columns in the archaic period’, AJA 99, 615–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, E. A. (2009) ‘Writing paraphernalia, tablets, and muses in Campanian wall painting’, AJA 113, 569–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbet, R. G. M., and Hubbard, M. (eds.) (1970) A commentary on Horace, Odes Book I, Oxford.Google Scholar
Nisbet, R. G. M., and Hubbard, M. (eds.) (1978) A commentary on Horace, Odes Book II, Oxford.Google Scholar
Nisbet, R. G. M., and Rudd, N. (eds.) (2004) A commentary on Horace, Odes Book III, Oxford.Google Scholar
Nolan, C. (2002) ‘Music theory and mathematics’, in Christensen, T. (ed.) The Cambridge history of Western music theory, Cambridge, 272–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, D. (1955) Sappho and Alcaeus, Oxford.Google Scholar
Pugliese Carratelli, G. (1950) ‘L'Instrumentum scriptorium nei monumenti pompeiani ed ercolanesi’, in Maiuri, A. (ed.) Pompeiana, Naples, 266–78.Google Scholar
Starr, R. J. (1987) ‘The circulation of literary texts in the Roman world’, CQ 37, 213–23.Google Scholar
Strauss Clay, J. (2010) ‘Horace and Lesbian lyric’, in Davis, G. (ed.) A companion to Horace, Chichester, 128–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarán, L. (ed.) (1981) Speusippus of Athens: a critical study with a collection of the related texts and commentary, Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (1988) The theology of arithmetic: on the mystical, mathematical, and cosmological symbolism of the first ten numbers, attributed to Iamblichus, Grand Rapids, MI.Google Scholar
Zetzel, J. E. G. (2007) ‘The influence of Cicero on Ennius’, in Fitzgerald, W. and Gowers, E. (eds.) Ennius perennis: The Annals and beyond, Cambridge, 1–16.Google Scholar