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Notes on Claudian's Invectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan Cameron
Alan Cameron
Affiliation:
Bedford College, London
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Extract

The text of Claudian has received little serious attention since the great edition of Theodor Birt in 1892 (MGH Auct. Ant. x). The Teubner edition of the following year is by a pupil of Birt, J. Koch, and, though it is a handy text with a useful preface, it cannot really be used independently of Birt. After that, apart from two not very substantial contributions by J. P. Postgate (C.Q. iv [1910], 257–62)

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , December 1968 , pp. 387 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1968

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References

page 387 note 1 For those unfamiliar with this massive work, it may be useful to point out that it was in the press for a number of years, and the text, preface (230 pages alone), and index were compiled at different times; thus Birt will often retract or modify in the preface or index an opinion expressed in the text or apparatus. There is an index to the passages discussed in the preface at pp. ccxxvii–xxx.

page 387 note 2 TAPhA lxxvii (1940), 57 f., Ixxvi (1941), 237f., lxxix (1948), 87f.;Google ScholarAJPh lxviii (1947), 63 f., lxix (1948), 62 f. I shall be discussing many aspects of both poems myself in a book on Claudian to be published shortly by the Clarendon Press.Google Scholar

page 388 note 1 Not merely are there close verbal parallels between the two passages. The subjectmatter is the same: the Epicurean, who does not need to fear the just retribution of God for his misdeeds. Realization of this strongly undermines the central thesis of Gennaro, S. (Lvcrezio e l'apologetica latina in Claudiano [Catania, 1958], passim), that Claudian was directly imitating Lucretius here, and a fortiori his wider claim that Claudian was deeply influenced by Epicureanism. See further my book referred to above.Google Scholar

page 390 note 1 Cf. Ovid, , Met. 8. 788,Google Scholar ‘est locus extremis Scythiae glacialis in oris’, a parallel missed by Birt, but noted by Eaton, A. H., The Influence of Ovid on Claudian (Diss., Washington, 1943), p. 14.Google Scholar

page 401 note 1 i.e. made out he had never had any masters, disowned them (so Andrews, ad loc, and Bieler, L., Lustrum ii [1957], 262), not ‘forgot his former masters’ (Platnauer).Google Scholar