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Notes on Some Passages of Lucan*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. Hudson-williams
A. Hudson-williams
Affiliation:
Aberystwyth
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Extract

The text of each passage commented on is that of Housman except where otherwise stated. The following editions of Lucan or other works concerned with him are indicated by the scholar's name only: (i) Text: A. E. Housman (Oxford, 1926). (ii) Text with commentary: F. Oudendorp (Leiden, 1728); P. Burman (Leiden, 1740); C. H. Weise (Quedlinburg and Leipzig, 1835); C. E. Haskins (London, 1887); R. J. Getty, Book 1 (Cambridge, 1940).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , December 1984 , pp. 452 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

1 Editions, with commentary, of Book 1 by: P. Lejay (Paris, 1894), P. Wuilleumier and H. Le Bonniec (Paris, 1962).

2 Caesar is mentioned as having ten legions in Plut, . Pomp. 58Google Scholar.

3 I read it with most edd. for et preferred by Housman; note exit in Ov. M. 7. 778 (see n. 5), as well as Sil. 10. 10–12, to which H. refers.

4 A variation of Virg. G. 1. 309 ‘stuppea torquentem Balearis uerbera fundae’.

5 Cf. 3. 710 f., Ov. M. 4. 709 ‘Balearica torto funda…plumbo’, 7. 776–8 ‘non ocior illo|hasta nee excussae contorto uerbere glandes|nec…calamus…exit’, Sil. 1. 314, Stat, . Th. 7. 338Google Scholar.

6 It is welcomed, however, by Samse, R. (Rh.M. 88 [1939], 172)Google Scholar as indicating that ausi…populi denotes the Aedui and their kin (with whom many have assumed Lucan to be confusing the Arverni; see Getty p. xlii, and, more recently, Braund, D. C., CQ 30 [1980], 420–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who is sceptical); so strained an interpretation seems improbable.

7 TLL ii. 728. 9 ff. cites Sidonius as the first to use Aruernus as adjective: note Epist. 3. 2. 1 populus Aruernus (so 7. 1. 2). In Luc. 1. 421, vice versa, we find the adjective Tarbellicus used for the noun.

8 But populi in Lucan has a range of meaning: cf. 10. 280 ‘Cambyses longi populos peruenit ad aeui’, sc. Macrobios.

9 TLL s. ortus 1066. 40 ff.

10 ‘Conversely’ he adds, ‘588 in aere = per aera’; but in these two expressions the preposition preserves its normal sense; they are not equivalents, per = in with accus. is a different matter.

11 None of the passages adduced by Cortius exemplifies the alleged use of per: e.g. in Sen, . N.Q. 2. 40. 1Google Scholar ‘cui per angustissimum fuga est’, Clem. 1. 12. 5 ‘temptabunt fugam per ipsa, quae fugerant’, per has its normal sense.

12 Arch. Lot. Lex. 6 (1889), 267 fGoogle Scholar.

13 For colloquial or late usage in Lucan, cf. 9. 766 f. ‘parua modo serpens, sed qua non ulla cruentae|tantum mortis habet’, where qua represents an ablative of comparison dependent on tantum used in place of a comparative (e.g. plus; cf. 9. 703): see Housman, ad loc., Hofm–Szant. 110 bGoogle Scholar. An apparent instance of et in apodosis occurs in 5. 430 f. ‘ut primum…tument, et...cecidere’ (various conjectures); see Hofm.-Szant. 482. Dubious is the reading 1. 642 nulla sine lege (somewhat favoured by Löfstedt, , Synt. ii. 211 n. 1)Google Scholar, where sine may well be a gloss on the other reading nulla cum l. (cf. non cum 1. 341, 7. 96).

14 ‘per loci est, refugit sol per orientem’ Francken, C. M. (ed.), Lucan, (Leiden, 1896–1897)Google Scholar.

15 CR 11 (1897), 41Google Scholar.

16 reuocant Cybeben is very different from the cited Virg, . G. 4. 282Google Scholar, A. 1. 214 reuocant uires and 235 reuocato a sanguine Teucri.

17 For this usage, cf. 2. 150 ‘certatum est, cui ceruix caesa parentis|cederet’ (i.e. caesio ceruicis), 3. 125, 738 ‘uox fauces nulla solutas|prosequitur’ (faucium soiutionem), etc.

18 The sacred implements (cf. Ov. loc. cit. sacra), of which the knife, ferrum, was one, were included in the washing ceremony.

19 Contrast Virg, . A. 4. 118 fGoogle Scholar. ‘ubi primos crastinus ortus|extulerit Titan’, i.e. ‘at tomorrow's early sunrise’.

20 Translation of Lucan, (Bonn's Classical Library, 1853)Google Scholar.

21 Many of Sulpitius' notes are recorded in the 1551 (Frankfurt) edition of Lucan and in Oudendorp.

22 See OLD s. primus 6; Vollmer on Stat. S. 1. 4. 73; Heuvel, H. (ed.), Statius, , Thebais Book 1 (Zutphen, 1932), on 1. 200Google Scholar.

23 Translation of Lucan, (Penguin Classics, 1956)Google Scholar.

24 Otherwise 10. 435 ‘Aegyptum primo quoque sole calentem’, Virg, . A. 6. 255Google Scholar.

25 AJP 55 (1934), 51 fGoogle Scholar.

26 J. P. Postgate (ed.), Lucan 7 (19132), revised by O. A. W. Dilke (Cambridge, 1960).

27 The passages appealed to by Ehlers (p. 516), 6. 122 ff., 10. 295 ff., do not seem to me of comparable oddity.

28 Note the curious reading of P in 367, viz. non hie (hie in ras.) for obsita: the relic of a marginal comment such as u(ersus) non hie aptus?

29 We cannot accept Bourgery-Ponchont's unnatural interpretation of pignora d. as ‘garants de leur union’ (thus explained: ‘il s'agit…des témoins du mariage’).

30 Gell. 6. 12. 3 ff. refers to the practice. See RE VI. A. 2. 1652. 33 ffGoogle Scholar.

31 ‘more illorum Sabinorum, qui facti fuere ciues Romani. Quirites enim a Curibus Sabinorum oppido dicti sunt, qui Romuli tempore in urbem habitatum se contulerunt’. Cf. Varro, L.L. 6. 68Google Scholar.

32 A Commentary on Livy Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar. As the examples from Livy are unknown to Lucan's commentators, so is Lucan's ex. apparently unknown to those of Livy.

33 Quoted in RE loc. cit. (without mention of Lucan).

34 Tradition held that Romulus and the Sabine king Tatius exercised joint rule over the combined peoples (Liv. 1.13. 8).

35 Conjectures include geminis (Bentley), iunctis (Housman; actually read by Duff), multiscastris (Hosius). Blatt's, F. belief (C&M 20 [1959], 54–6)Google Scholar that lustris = annis is not supported by any parallel from the classical period.

36 D. Gagliardi (ed.), Lucan 7 (Florence, 1975).

37 Many of Guyet's comments are printed in Oudendorp's edition, pp. 886–910.

38 E.g. Fraenkel 528; Anderson, W. B., CR 41 (1927), 32Google Scholar; Helm 169; Ehlers.

39 Cf. 2. 435 f. ‘donee confinia pontus|solueret incumbens terrasque repelleret aequor’, 5. 434 f., 443–5, 2. 12 f. ‘fors incerta uagatur|fertque refertque uices et habet mortalia casus’.

40 Used as a verb in 5. 99 ‘flammis urguentibus Aetnam|undat apex’.

41 Some (e.g. Haskins) even follow the odd explanation of a ‘lata castra posuit’ (cf. ’il installa son camp’, Bourgery–Ponchont).

42 Similarly, TLL s. indulgeo 1252. 10 ff.

43 I commented on 10. 323–6 in AJP 97 (1976), 134–7Google Scholar, where I compared Sidon, . Carm. 13. 1–2Google Scholar.

44 Cf. Val. Fl. 8. 352 ‘[Medea] leuat maria ardua’, Curt. 4. 3. 17; likewise, tollere and erigere Luc. 5. 599 f., 6. 27.

45 Cf. , Virg.A. 6. 48 fGoogle Scholar. ‘pectus [Sibyllae] anhelum,|et rabie fera corda tument’.

46 Contrast the routine language of [Sen, .] H.O. 710–12Google Scholar ‘ut fractus austro pontus etiamnum tumet,…ita mens adhuc uexatur excusso metu’.

47 Duff, with ‘they lie down upon the ground’, seems to have missed the point.

48 Similarly, TLL s.v. 1152. 24 f., OLD s.v. 10b.

49 For the use in Virgil of words which may suggest a twofold meaning, see Quinn, K., Virgil's Aeneid, A Critical Description (London, 1968), 394 ffGoogle Scholar., e.g. A. 3. 94–6 (ubere laeto), 12. 85 f. (lacessunt pectora plausa).

50 Livy uses the word gladius ninety times, ensis once only, 7. 10. 9; Statius uses ensis ninety-nine times, gladius once, Th. 3. 583 (see TLL s. ensis 608. 38 ff.). Note indeed Housman's comment on the abl. sing, form of the comparative adjective at 9. 996: ‘semel Lucanus 7. 162 metri causa maiori. In 5. 240 ‘nullo nam Marte’ we have the only instance in Lucan of postponed nam (P. Barratt's commentary on Lucan 5 (Amsterdam, 1979) ad loc). See too my note in CQ 30 (1980), 127Google Scholar.

51 alti cannot here refer to high birth, as the specified members of the turba nocens include patricians (e.g. Catiline).

52 See TLL s.v. 1776. 72 ff.

53 Otherwise Duff: ‘Drusus, the demagogue’.

54 Lucan is thinking primarily of M. Livius Drusus, tribune 91 B.C.; he is linked with the Gracchi also in Rhet. Her. 4. 31 and Octavia 882–9 (Norden, on Virgil, , A. 6. 824)Google Scholar.

55 In their translations, Bourgery-Ponchont, Duff, and Ehlers all limit l. inmodicos to Drusos, and ausos i. to Gracchos. Graves makes clear what Lucan had in mind: ‘All the darlings of the popular party were delighted…including M. Livius Drusus, and the Gracchi whose extravagant programme and intemperate acts he copied’.

56 E. C. Wickham (ed.), Horace, vol. I (Oxford, 18963), on Od. 2. 15. 18–20, notes these and other exx. from Horace. See too Hofm.-Szant. 835 fin.

57 PCPhS 205 (n.s. 25, 1979), 48.

58 J. P. Postgate (ed.), Lucan 8 (Cambridge, 1917).

69 See Postgate, ad loc., , Kühn.-Steg. i. 13. A. 2Google Scholar.

60 But indignatur is certainly attractive: indignatus might indeed be the work of participially obsessed copyists (cf. G's reading in 9. 482 noted below), joining, like many edd., atque - pressit.

61 Arguing, no doubt, ‘non bene ex aequo positis procumbendi timendi constringendi uerbis’.

62 Cf. too 3. 542 f. ‘turn caerula uerrunt|atque in transtra cadunt et remis pectora pulsant’, where the last two clauses are in sense subordinate to and illustrative of the first.

63 Cf. 5. 381–4 ‘[Caesar] petit trepidam…Romam|…summo[que] dictator honori|contigit et laetos fecit se consule fastos’, where the last two clauses both denote that C. was made consul; 9. 324–7 ‘turn [Auster carbasa] eripuit nautis…[uelaque] spatium uicere carinae|atque ultra proram tumuit sinus’, both clauses = ‘the sails stretched out in front of the ship’.

64 The poets like to use fugio, recedo, and other verbs to denote the disappearance of land from sight (in Val. Fl. 4. 645 ‘uident discedere montes’, sometimes cited, the montes, sc. Symplegades, do move). In Luc. 5. 457 ‘[dies] mouit…Ceraunia nautis’, the land seems to come nearer.

65 A pretty example of tautological language is Stat, . Th. 1. 573 fGoogle Scholar. ‘felix [filia regis], si Delia numquam|furta nee occultum Phoebo sociasset amorem’ (Delia codd., dulcia Müller, deuia Baehrens).

66 Here belongs too 9. 773–6, where Sabellus, the victim of a seps, dissolves into a small puddle of slime. Housman and Ehlers (p. 556) fret unduly over 774 f. ‘nee, quantus toto de corpore debet,|effluit in terras’. The subject can only be Sabellus (763–5), or rather what now represents S., a flow of corruption, yet still S.; he is regarded simultaneously as both. The description has a worthy successor in 796 ‘ipse [Nasidius] latet penitus congesto corpore mersus’ (considered by Housman less durum).

67 Cf. Suet.Aug. 18. 1, where Augustus visits the tomb of Alexander: ‘conditorium et corpus Magni Alexandri…corona aurea imposita ac floribus aspersis ueneratus est’.

68 ‘faciles praebere alimenta carinae|nunc pice, nunc liquida rapuere incendia cera’.

69 Cf. ‘the ships which came crowding in to the assault’ (Graves),‘den dicht aufgeschlossenen Booten’ (Enters): ships under sail would be worse than useless if crowded together.

70 See his discussion in Hermes 93 (1965), 378 fGoogle Scholar.; also J. E. Atkinson's commentary on Curtius, Books 3–4 (Amsterdam, 1980), ad loc.