No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2019
The verse hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus (Juv. 1.144) has long fuelled considerable debate and discussion among classical scholars. This hexameter occurs in the passage of the first satire that describes the aspect of the patron-client relationship where the rich patron, ignoring the plight of his poor and hungry clients, enjoys a sumptuous but deadly feast. After dining on delicacies such as boar and peacock, he bathes on a bloated stomach, causing him to die suddenly and apparently intestate, and causing those angry at being deprived of their legacy to cheer at his funeral (1.140b–6):
I wish to thank: Ian Highet, Gilbert Highet's grandson, representing the Gilbert Highet Estate, for authorizing me to publish Highet's paper on Juv. 1.144; CQ’s editor Bruce Gibson for his warm reception of this article when I first approached him and for his cogent suggestions once it was accepted for publication; and CQ’s anonymous reader for his/her incisive suggestions, including this comment: ‘[Highet provides] an attractive textual suggestion. Unsurprisingly the emendation is fully in Juvenal's style—one would expect nothing else from Highet.’
1 For information about the life and career of Gilbert Highet, see Ball, R.J., ‘Gilbert Highet and the classical tradition’, in his The Classical Papers of Gilbert Highet (New York, 1983), 1–14Google Scholar, and his ‘Gilbert Highet and Classics at Columbia’, in Columbia Magazine (Fall 2001), 14–20Google Scholar, reprinted in de Bary, W.T., Kisslinger, J. and Mathewson, T. (edd.), Living Legacies at Columbia (New York, 2006), 12–25 and 654Google Scholar.
2 See Highet, G., Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar for an examination of the life, work and influence of Juvenal, which includes a separate chapter devoted to each of his sixteen satires. See also Ball (n. 1 [1983]), 349–78 for a bibliography of Highet's publications, which includes twenty-one books and roughly a thousand articles, ten or twelve related to Juvenal.
3 In this undated paper, Highet refers to a book published in 1972 (n. 14 below), and when he became seriously ill in 1977, he could no longer pursue scholarly research—leading one to conclude that he must have completed this paper sometime between 1973 and 1976.
4 For two key articles on the controversy that erupted in mid twentieth century scholarship on the biographical approach vs the persona-theory, see Anderson, W.S., ‘Anger in Juvenal and Seneca’, California Publications in Classical Philology 19 (1964), 127–95Google Scholar, reprinted in id., Essays on Roman Satire (Princeton, 1982), 293–361CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Highet, G., ‘Masks and faces in satire’, Hermes 102 (1974), 321–37Google Scholar, reprinted in Ball, R.J., The Classical Papers of Gilbert Highet (New York, 1983), 268–86Google Scholar.
5 At two points in his paper, I have inserted three spaced asterisks (as he sometimes did in his publications) to indicate a pause and a transition to another section—not to indicate that he had intended to provide additional material or that additional material had accidentally dropped out.
6 Gilbert Highet Papers, Box 30 (Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library).
7 [See above for the text of this passage in Latin, containing the problematic 1.144. RJB]
8 The theme in that passage is not dissimilar: a man may easily die suddenly after dinner.
9 [For scholars who favour this meaning, see Cloud, J.D., ‘Satirists and the law’, in Braund, S.H. (ed.), Satire and Society in Ancient Rome (Exeter, 1989), 49–67, esp. 58Google Scholar (‘The old man dies suddenly without having had time to make his will’); Braund, S.M., Juvenal: Satires, Book 1 (Cambridge, 1996), 106Google Scholar (‘death comes so quickly he does not have time to make a will’); Nappa, C., Making Men Ridiculous: Juvenal and the Anxieties of the Individual (Ann Arbor, 2018), 47–9, esp. 48 n. 31Google Scholar, who follows Cloud ‘if the line is not interpolated and intestata is genuine’. RJB]
10 [For two scholars who arrive at exactly the same conclusion as Highet—even though they could not have known what Highet was thinking and Highet could not have known what they were thinking—see Courtney, E., A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (London, 1980), 114Google Scholar: ‘If intestata has its normal sense “intestate” (3.274) it makes nonsense of the line (italics mine)’, and see Green, P., Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (London, 1998 3), 127Google Scholar: ‘As Courtney rightly insists (114), intestata (“intestate”) at line 144 is illogical as an epithet for senectus (“old age”).’ RJB]
11 See Friedländer, C.D., D. Iunii Iuvenalis Saturarum Libri V (Leipzig, 1895), 158Google Scholar; see also de Labriolle, P. and Villeneuve, F., Juvénal: Satires (Paris, 1921), 11Google Scholar.
12 [I have spelled the poet's name as Vergil (not Virgil)—the spelling Highet insisted on using to avoid what he regarded as a medieval misspelling (for Highet's detailed defense of this spelling, see his The Classical Tradition [Oxford, 1949], 74 and 584 n. 13Google Scholar). RJB]
13 See Szantyr, A., Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik (Munich, 1965), 782–3Google Scholar for the section titled ‘Hendiadyoin’, where Szantyr points to Juv. 1.72 with a fine note by Friedländer [(n. 11), 145–6, who applies ‘Hendiadyoin’ to Juvenal's per famam et populum. RJB]
14 See Housman, A.E., ‘Elucidations of Latin poets: I. Juvenal 1.132–146’, CR 13 (1899), 432–4, esp. 433Google Scholar, reprinted in Diggle, J. and Goodyear, F.R.D. (edd.), The Classical Papers of A.E. Housman, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1972), 2.489–91, esp. 491Google Scholar. Cimbros stragemque in Juv. 8.251 is not in contradiction to this: it expresses two distinct aspects of the carrion feast—the gigantic bodies and the huge number of corpses.
15 See Housman (n. 14 [1899]), 434, reprinted in Housman (n. 14 [1972]), 491, and his D. Iunii Iuvenalis Saturae (Cambridge, 1905 1 and 19312), 6 in 1905 and 1931Google Scholar editions, in which he compares Juvenal's use of intestata senectus with Martial's use of rara senectus (6.29.7) and summarizes his view with the comment ‘intestata, adeo inuisitata ut teste careat’. [See Ferguson, J., Juvenal: The Satires (New York, 1979), 12 and 122Google Scholar, who accepts Housman's interpretation since it ‘gives point to senectus and parallels Mart. 6.29.7’; but see Courtney (n. 10), 114, who believes that Juvenal would not have used intestata in Housman's sense, adding that ‘the adverb intestato is employed much less harshly by Pompon. fr. 113’. RJB]
16 [But see OLD 2 s.v. intestatus, which lists three occurrences of this word in Plautus, where it has the meaning ‘without witnesses’: Curc. 622 (Phaedromus’ use of intestatus), Curc. 695 (Cappadox's use of intestatum) and Mil. 1416 (Pyrgopolinices’ use of intestatus). Yet, this rare meaning occurs in comedy—in Curc. 622 and Mil. 1416, it even has the double sense of ‘without witnesses’/‘without testicles’—supporting Highet's belief that Juvenal's audience, hearing intestata in connection with death, would give it its normal meaning. RJB]
17 See Nicholson, R.A., ‘On Juvenal, 1.132–146’, CR 14 (1900), 53Google Scholar.
18 This is suggested by A. Mancinelli in his commentary (Venice, 1492). It is quoted by Hofius, K., Bemerkungen zu Juvenal (Wesel, 1891), 3–5, esp. 4Google Scholar.
19 See Madvig, J.N., Adversaria critica ad scriptores Graecos et Latinos, 3 vols. (Copenhagen, 1871–84), 3.249–50Google Scholar.
20 [The only reference to a scholar's work in Highet's paper without a footnote. For Weidner's emendation, see his D. Iunii Iuvenalis Saturae (Leipzig—not 18731, 48 but 18892, 17), where he says fort. intempesta in his apparatus criticus without additional explanation. RJB]
21 See Corelli, E.C., ‘On Juvenal, Sat. 1.144’, CR 19 (1905), 305Google Scholar [who actually translates intentata as ‘untried’ or ‘unreached’. See also Courtney (n. 10), 114, who regards intentata (the scribal spelling for intemptata) as ‘the least implausible solution, though it is rather weak’; Rudd, N., Juvenal: The Satires (Oxford, 1991), 7 and 146Google Scholar, who accepts intentata, translating it as ‘cancelled’ or ‘unsampled’; and Green (n. 10), 7 and 127, who, picking up on Courtney's comment, suggests interrupta (‘interrupted’). RJB]
22 See Slater, D.A., ‘Conjectures’, CR 27 (1913), 158–60, esp. 160Google Scholar [where he suggests intercepta while making this statement: ‘That is why old age is denied to men’. RJB]
23 See Allen, S., ‘On Juvenal, Sat. 1.144’, CR 27 (1913), 216Google Scholar. No doubt thinking of frondes inter … legendas in Verg. G. 2.366, Allen translated his interlecta senectus as ‘old age nipped in the bud’, an oxymoron which might have amused Juvenal himself.
24 See Mayor, J.E.B., ‘Notes on Plin. Ep. 1.5.3 and on Juvenal 1.144–6’, Journal of Philology 13 (1885), 230–2, esp. 231–2Google Scholar.
25 [See Dickens, C., A Christmas Carol (London, 1843), stave 4Google Scholar, where the Ghost of Christmas Future gives Scrooge a glimpse of his own funeral and the behaviour of those attending it. RJB]
26 [Although Highet analyses four ways in which scholars have tried to resolve the problem plaguing this passage, a fifth category of proposals exists, where scholars regard one or more lines in it as an interpolation, not written by Juvenal and needing to be deleted from the text.
Knoche, U., D. Iunius Iuvenalis Saturae (Munich, 1950), 6Google Scholar deletes lines 144 and 145 in their entirety (from hinc to cenas [see above for the Latin text of these verses])—verses Knoche encloses in brackets to identify them as interpolations.
R.G.M. Nisbet tries to resolve the difficulty by proposing two solutions set out in three articles: (1) Nisbet's deletion of line 144 in his review of K. Müller's Petronii Arbitri Satyricon and Clausen's, W.V. A. Persi Flacci et D. Iuni Iuvenalis Saturae, in JRS 52 (1962), 227–38, esp. 234Google Scholar, reprinted in Harrison, S.J. (ed.), R.G.M. Nisbet: Collected Papers on Latin Literature (Oxford, 1995), 6–28, esp. 20–1Google Scholar; (2) Nisbet's deletion of most of line 144 and the first word of line 145 (from subitae to it) in his article ‘Notes on the text and interpretation of Juvenal’, in N. Horsfall (ed.), Vir Bonus Discendi Peritus: Studies in the Celebration of Otto Skutsch's Eightieth Birthday = BICS (Supplement 51, 1988), 86–110, esp. 87–8, reprinted in Harrison (this note), 227–60, esp. 229–30; (3) Nisbet's reiteration of his proposal of 1988 in his article ‘How textual conjectures are made’, MD 26 (1991), 65–91, esp. 81–2Google Scholar, reprinted in Harrison (this note), 338–61, esp. 352–3, where he continues to maintain that most of line 144 and the first word of line 145 constitute an interpolation.
Willis, J. (ed.), D. Iunii Iuvenalis Saturae sedecim (Leipzig, 1997), 8Google Scholar includes Nisbet's proposal of 1988 in his idiosyncratic Teubner edition, where he tries to justify in his preface the deletion of over three hundred verses, all italicized as interpolations.
Although Highet can no longer speak for himself, I can report and agree with his advice to his graduate students, that, even with a problematic text like Juvenal's, instead of deleting a verse as an interpolation, one should try to emend it with as little alteration as possible. RJB]
27 Persius was elaborating on a suggestion he found in Hor. Epist. 1.6.61: crudi tumidique lauemur.
28 See Polstorff, H., In Iuvenalis satiras observationes criticae (Güstrow, 1896), 4–5Google Scholar. [Although Polstorff's emendation seems syntactically acceptable, Highet may have regarded it as too bold or too awkward to provide a satisfactory solution to the problem posed by line 144. RJB]
29 [Suetonius refers to the death of Lepidus using only the phrase post necem consulis; Pliny provides the cause, saying that, after his divorce, Lepidus died Appuleiae uxoris caritate. RJB]
30 [Although Highet uses nex in a sense not normally found in the nominative case (as shown by the passages he cites from Ovid to Suetonius), he does draw on a valid meaning of this word by citing appropriate passages that demonstrate the use of that meaning in other cases. RJB]
31 [Highet's emendation senum nex not only provides 1.144 with the kind of striking twist that Juvenal sometimes uses at the end of his verses but with the kind of rhythmic jolt that Juvenal occasionally employs in that location, which contributes to the power of his poetry.
In this regard, Juvenal occasionally concludes his verses with one-syllable nouns like nex, such as lex (7.102), rex (5.14, 5.137 and 14.255), lux (12.1 and 14.105) and uox (9.78 and 11.111), and with other one-syllable words fuelling the rhythmic jolt, such as bos (10.268), dic (6.279 and 10.338), uas (7.119) and mus (6.339, where Juvenal's unde fugit mus may have been inspired by Horace's ridiculus mus in Ars P. 139).
Furthermore, Juvenal's fugit mus exemplifies the poet's occasional practice of concluding his verses with a two-syllable word followed by a one-syllable word—the formula adopted by Highet for his emendation of 1.144: for Juvenal's end-of-verse two-syllable word/one-syllable word rhythmic jolt, see 2.115, 3.305, 4.140, 5.72, 5.166, 6.339, 6.395, 6.440, 6.457, 6.649, 7.194, 8.36, 8.98, 8.191, 8.215, 8.232, 10.240, 10.310, 10.349, 14.38, 14.105, 14.226, 14.316 and 15.98. RJB]
32 [For scribal abbreviations, such as a macron over a ‘u’ to designate a missing final ‘m’ (senū in the final sentence of Highet's paper), see Bischoff, B., Latin Paleography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, translated by Croinin, D.O. and Ganz, D. (Cambridge, 1990), 150–68, esp. 151, 157 and 163CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cappelli, A., Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane, revised by Geymonat, M. and Troncarelli, F. (Milan, 2011 7), xi–lix, esp. xvii, xxiv, xxviii, xxxix and xliiiGoogle Scholar. RJB]
33 [In an undated draft of his paper—the only previous extant draft, which looks almost like the final version now published in CQ—Highet concluded with a paragraph he decided not to use in the final version, a paragraph that effectively rounds out and reinforces his argument and that I have decided to reproduce in this note as follows: ‘The cause of the corruption might well be a copyist's misreading of the phrase in an early manuscript which had no divisions between words. An important number of the corruptions in Juvenal are due to misreadings of such a manuscript. The scribe who saw INTESTATASENVMNEX would be assisted by AMICTVS in line 142 in misreading and miscopying INTESTATASENECTVS’. RJB]
34 See Highet (n. 2), 173 for a list of Juvenal's favourite Roman poets, including Ovid.
35 Although excessive guzzling may cause a person's death even in the prime of life, it causes the death of an elderly man in the above context, whether one accepts senectus or senum nex. Although the plural senum may seem to point to the death of more than one person, it need not be interpreted in the above context any more literally than the plural mortes in the very same line.