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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In his very valuable study of generic patterns in ancient poetry Francis Cairns assigns Propertius 2.28, [Tib.] 3.10 (4.4), and (tentatively) Ovid Am. 2.13 to the genre Soteria, that is works of congratulation and thanksgiving on the recovery from illness (or rescue from danger) of a friend, and he sees the resemblances between the poems as due to the elegists’ attempts to produce ‘dramatized’ examples of the genre, with the situation developing from the girl's illness at the beginning of the poem to her recovery at the end (Francis Cairns, Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh, 1972), pp.153–7). Cairns's arguments and interpretation of the poems should, I feel, be scrutinized carefully, especially since his classification of the poems has been accepted recently without demur by at least one scholar (Jennifer Moore-Blunt ‘Catullus XXXI and Ancient Generic Composition’, Eranos 72 (1974), 118 and n.50).
page 394 note 1 As the Soteria necessarily presupposes recovery from the illness, Ovid, Am. 2.13, will not properly conform, since Corinna is still ill at the poem's conclusion. Cairns therefore argues that ‘the concluding cure [is] omitted in accordance with the principles of omission (sc. of one or more of the genre's primary elements)’ (Cairns, p.157).
page 394 note 2 On the textual problems of Book 2, see now Margaret Hubbard, Propertius (London, 1974), pp.41 ff. For an excellent discussion of 2.28 from a ‘unitarian’ viewpoint see Hubbard, pp.47 ff.. see also Godolphin, F. R. B., ‘The Unity of Certain Elegies of Propertius’, AJP 55 (1934), 62–6,Google ScholarWhite, R. E., ‘The Structure of Propertius 2.28. Dramatic Unity’, TAPA 89 (1958), 245–61.Google Scholar For the ‘separatists’ viewpoint, see Barwick, Karl, ‘Catullus c. 68 and eine Kompositionsform der römischen Elegie’, WJA 2 (1947), 8–9,Google ScholarKnoche, U., ‘Gedanken zur Interpretation von Properzens Gedicht 2.28’, Miscellanea Properziana (Assisi, 1957), 49–70.Google Scholar
page 394 note 3 Op. cit. (previous note), pp.65-6.
page 394 note 4 Margaret Hubbard, op. cit., p.53. The further argument put forward by Knoche (op. cit., p.54) that Propertius would not, in a prayer to Jupiter, go on to address, as he does, Persephone and Hades (47–8) is circular in that it assumes that the poem is in toto a prayer to Jupiter.
page 395 note 1 In 35–8 Propertius is apparently resorting to magic as a cure for Cynthia. However, Rose, H. J. (‘On Propertius 2.28.35–8’, Ut pictura poesis: Studia Latina P. J. Enk Oblata (Leiden, 1955), pp.167–73) has argued that the magic used here always has erotic purposes and is never associated with healing. He may well be right in his suggestion that the lines do not belong to the poem. Margaret Hubbard's suggestion that Propertius’ magic is intended to cure Jupiter of his love for Cynthia (the real reason for her sickness) is ingenious but perhaps somewhat far-fetched (Hubbard, op. cit., p.55).Google Scholar
page 395 note 2 This is the structure suggested by R. E. White, who rightly argues that Cynthia is not represented as cured until 59–60 since ‘47–58 throughout gives the appearance of a plea for something unattained rather than of thanks for something granted’ (White, op. cit., p.257).
page 395 note 3 Cf. A.P. 5.6.3–4 (Callim.), Plato, Symp. 183 B, Philebus 65 c, Ovid, Ars. 1.631–6, Am. 1.8.85–6, Tib. 1.4.21–6. The theme goes back at least to Hesiod; cf. Apollodorus, 13thl. 2.5.
page 395 note 4 This has been suggested by Margaret Hubbard (op. cit., p.54), who wishes to see the transition to this new ‘diagnosis’ made in the exempla of 177 ff. The difficultywith this is that while lo (17–18), Callisto (23–4), and Semele (27) (who, according to Hubbard, though ‘not formally in the list of exempla of course belongs to it’) are examples of women with whom Zeus had affairs, Ina (19–20) and Andromeda (21–2) are not. Rather than doctor the text, it seems better to assume, with Camps (Vol. 2, p.188), that ‘the point being made in all this passage is that the heroines received, after much suffering, rich recompense.’ The suggestion of Zeus’ love for Cynthia as a cause of the illness then begins at 27–8 ‘narrabis Semelae, quo sis formosa periclo/credet et illa, suo docta puella malo’, the association of Cynthia's plight with that of Semele being made clear not only by the suggestion that Semele will believe Cynthia because of her own experiences but also by the expression ‘suo docta puella malo’ (for by 2.28 we have become accustomed to the idea of Cynthia as a docta puella: cf. 1.7.11, 2.11.6, 2.13.22: also 2.3.20). It could, however, be argued that the new ‘diagnosis’ is to be thought of as arising from the last of the preceding exempla, Callisto (23–4).
page 395 note 5 Reading ei mibi with Damsté (accepted by Barber). Cairns argues that the ending of [Tib.] 3.10 (4.4) is ‘an excellent argument for retaining the et mibi of the mss – with its erotic implications’ (Cairns, p.156). However, as we shall see, the end of [Tib.] 3.10 (4.4) is addressed to Apollo, not Cerinthus (as Cairns believes), and is not erotic. Hubbard seems to me to be right in claiming that ‘the rueful diminuendo [sc. of 61–2] restores the mood of the opening lines’ (Hubbard, p.57).
page 396 note 1 Constance Carrière, (The Poems of Tibullus (Indiana, 1968), p.101) sees it as a ‘first-person’ poem, with Sulpicia praying, in the third person, to Apollo for herself (‘Come near, Apollo, come and make me well’ she translates the first line). Nothing in the poem suggests that it should be so interpreted.Google Scholar
page 396 note 2 On Pseudo-Tibullus’ verbal parallels with the other elegiac poets in [Tib.] 3.8–12 (4.2–6) see Bréguet, Esther, Le Roman de Sulpicia: Elegies IV.2–12 du Corpus Tibullianum (Geneva, 1946), pp.267–75. This particular example, however, is overlooked by Bréguet.Google Scholar
page 396 note 3 The prayer-formulae of the opening lines require no comment, but as far as I am aware it has not been observed that the wish for the trouble to be directed elsewhere in 7–8 (‘et quodcumque Mali est et quidquid triste timemus/in pelagus rapidis evehat amnis equis’) is paralleled in other prayers: see Nisbet and Hubbard on Odes 1.28.27 and note especially Orph. H. 36.16 
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page 396 note 4 On the transposition see Hartman, J. J., ‘De Tibullo Poeta’, Mnemosyne 39 (1911), 381–3.Google Scholar
page 397 note 1 See K¨hner-Stegman 1.119.7.
page 397 note 2 ‘Phoebe, fave.’ For fave in identical circumstances (i.e. while the girl is still ill) cf. Ovid, Am. 2.13.21.
page 397 note 3 For tristis in this erotic sense, cf. Prop. 1.6.9, 1.10.21, Tib. 1.8.28. See also Pichon, René, Index Verborum Amatoriorum (Paris, 1902), s.v. triste (p.283).Google Scholar
page 397 note 4 ‘Frustra credula turba sedet’ clearly refers to the rivals of Cerinthus who are now exclusi amatores: see Hartman, op. cit., p.382, who comments. ‘nihil unquam legi festivius: adsidet Sulpiciae foribus amatorum turba, sed frustra credunt miseri unquam sibi apertum iri ianuam’. For credula turba cf. Ovid, Rem. Am. 686.
page 397 note 5 For fave in prayers, see Appel, G.De Romanorum Precationibus (Giessen, 1909), p.125.Google Scholar
page 397 note 6 Felix, Cairns notes (p.252 n.31), sometimes has an erotic meaning; cf. Pichon op. cit., s.v. felix, to which Cairns refers. The point is, however, that felix only takes its erotic colouring from the context and will not impart an erotic flavour to an otherwise non-erotic context.
page 398 note 1 On sapores, see Bréguet, op. cit., p.186 n.1, who rightly states ‘cc qu'il [Apollo] apporte avec lui, ce sont des moyens de guirir: son pouvoir personnel (medicas manus), des remèdes(sapores) et des formules magiques (cantus).
page 398 note 2 It is, however, true, as Bréguet notes (p.309), that Apollo is similarly equipped in the Soteria Rutili Gallici (Statius, Silvae 1.4.60 ff.).
page 398 note 3 Both Isis and Ilithyia are, of course, particularly appropriate in the circumstances, Isis for her associations with the demi-monde and Ilithyia as a goddess of childbirth.
page 398 note 4 On this see Watts, W. J., ‘Ovid, the Law and Roman Society on Abortion’, Acta Classica 16 (1973), 89–101. Watts concludes that the poems are ‘neither effective as pamphlets … nor readable as literature … but they are interesting as documents in the history of ideas.’ This seems rather hard on Ovid. Watts, moreover, seems unaware of the parallels for Ovid's anti-abortion stance in Theophylactus and Chariton, which may well suggest that this was a rhetorical theme and that Ovid's arguments were perhaps derived therefrom.Google Scholar
page 398 note 5 Heinemann, Max, Epistulae Amatoriae quomodo cohaereant cum Elegiis Alexandrinis (Diss. Berlin, 1919), p.70.Google Scholar
page 399 note 1 On this theme see Bréguet, Esther, ‘In una parce duobus: th`me et clichés,’ Hommages à L. Herrman (Collection Latomus 44 (1960)), 205–14. Bréguet traces the theme back to the speech of Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium.Google Scholar
page 399 note 2 Ovid was obviously taken by the theme; cf. also Her. 11.60, 20. 233–4; Met. 9.780, 11.388, and especially 3.473 (an ingenious application of it to the story of Narcissus).
page 400 note 1 Cairns, pp.73–4.
page 400 note 2 The only topos I have been able to find occurring in the elegiac poems and any one of the Soteria listed by Cairns is the ‘in una parce duobus’ theme, which appears (albeit in a rather different form) at Himerius, Orat. 45.2:
page 400 note 3 
page 401 note 1 See Yardley, J. C., ‘Sick-Visiting in Roman Elegy’, Phoenix 27 (1973), 283–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 401 note 2 For the remains of the story, see frs. 67–75 Pf. Fr. 74 Pf. seems to be from a soliloquy of Acontius on the subject of Cydippe's illness 
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page 401 note 3 See Cairns, Francis, ‘Propertius 1.18 and Callimachus Acontius and Cydippe’, CR. N.S. 19 (1969), 131–4.Google Scholar
