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Diminutives in Augustan Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. S. F. Gow
A. S. F. Gow
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

In the course of his dispute with Conington on the comparative merits of Catullus and Horace, Munro taxed the Augustans with having made the lyric of the heart impossible in Latin by their virtual exclusion of diminutives from the language of poetry; and, whether that is the result or no, the general fact that diminutives are rare in the serious poetry of the Augustan age is well known. The details, however, are less easy to come by. Stolz (Hist. Gr. d. lat. Spr., p. 574) and Stolz-Schmalz (hat. Gr., p. 834) devote a few unilluminating lines to the Stilistik of diminutives: otherwise the grammars and the treatises on diminutives known to me concern themselves only with forms and meanings. Except for a note by Professor Housman which, at 4. 927, sets out Manilius's diminutives, I know of no collections for any Augustan poet, and it is perhaps worth while therefore to state the facts. I have not indeed read through Augustan poetry for the purpose, but for some time past I have been in the habit of noting such diminutives as I have come across in the course of reading, and these lists I have now checked and amplified from the indexes to the authors concerned. My lists are probably not complete, but I hope they are sufficiently near it to present a true picture of the position.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 3-4 , June 1932 , pp. 150 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1932

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References

page 150 note 1 Criticisms and Elucidations, p. 235: cf. Sikes, E. E., Roman Poetry, p. 232Google Scholar.

page 150 note 2 Kessler, H., Die lat. Demin., Hilburghausen, 1869Google Scholar; Mueller, G., de ling. Lat. demin., Leipzig, 1865Google Scholar; Schwabe, L., de demin. Gr. et Lat., Giessen, 1859Google Scholar.

page 150 note 3 Especially in Ovid, for Lemaire's index, on which I am largely dependent, is not free from omissions.

page 150 note 4 The change of gender is not a certain criterion: see Kessler, p. 6.

page 153 note 1 Auunculus, whether diminutive or not, was by some thought below the dignity of Epic; Serv. ad Aen. 3. 343.

page 153 note 2 On asellus see Philol. 34. 153, C.Q. 24. 11. Capella is the ordinary Latin, at any rate in poetry, for the females of the domestic flock whatever their age or size; capra is used of Amalthea, on earth or translated, and of wild animals (A. 4. 152). Virgil twice uses capris of goats in general, the species, and the Thesaurus assumes it to be feminine. Circus in the astronomícal sense of circulus seems not to occur between Cicero and the fourth century. Of flagrum the only Augustan example known to me is Livy 28. 11. 6 (at Met. 4. 367 flagellum means the arm of a polyp). Forma for formula seems only late Latin.

page 153 note 3 Tabella has many uses, but much the commonest in these passages is tabellae in the sense of documents or writing tablets; in this sense it seems to be supplanting tabulae and to be entering class 3. In the sense of fan (Am. 3. 2. 38, A.A. I. 161) tabula is not in use.

page 153 note 4 E.g. lectulus at Prop. 4. 8. 35, Tr. 1. n. 38, seems to mean couch rather than bed; palliolum at A.A. 1. 734 hood rather than cloak.

page 153 note 5 As to classes 4 and 5 it may be noted that in English a number of words ultimately diminutive in origin denote articles of wear (e.g. bracelet, chaplet, corslet, doublet, gauntlet), and one or two, articles of daily use (e.g. goblet, mallet, napkin, pannikin, skillet). Among parts of the body buttock, gullet, knuckle are the only examples which occur to me. I doubt if any of these are felt as diminutives: they are, however, further from their positives than most of the Latin words in the two classes.

page 154 note 1 Varro, L.L. 9Google Scholar. 45, Charis, . Gr. I. 94Google Scholar.

page 154 note 2 The true diminutive Canicula, used twice by Horace and Manilius and once by Ovid, I have excluded as a proper name; since, however, the alternatives Canis and Sirius were open and preferred by Virgil, it perhaps deserves mention.

page 154 note 3 Cat. 25. I mollior cuniculi capillo, uel anseris medullula uel imula oricilla possibly suggests that Catullus also felt capillus to be diminutive. Other less conclusive figures from the Aeneid are, ancilia o)(famula, ministra, serua 8 in all: Stella 7)(astrum 20.

page 154 note 4 On the proposal to read uillulae at Hor. C. 3. 4. 10 see J. Phil. 17. 313.

page 154 note 5 I include this word because in one sense it was thought diminutive by ancient grammarians (e.g. Charis, . Gr. 1. 77Google Scholar), who distinguish a diminutive curriculus, car, from curriculum in other senses. If they are right, C. 1. 1. 3, Tr. 4. 8. 36, deserve a place in my lists, Aen. 8. 408 not. Q. Cic.,1. 16 (Baehrens, , F.P.R., p. 316Google Scholar), proves, however, that the word for car is neuter, and the presence of curriculum at C. I. 1. 3 and in the verse of M. Cicero, who avoids diminutives, makes it improbable that it is a diminutive at all.

page 155 note 1 Libellus is once or twice used in senses to which liber would be inappropriate—of letters (Her. II. 2, 17. 143) and a programme (A.A. I. 167): in the vast majority of examples, however, it is used of books of poetry, usually the poets' own, of single works or books (e.g. the Medicamina, A.A. 3. 206; the single books of the Ars, A.A. 3. 47; the Remedia, Rem. 1; a book of the Tristia, Tr. 5. 1. 1), or, more commonly, in the plural, of their writings. Since Propertius and Ovid both use liber of their own works also, i t cannot be said that liber would be inappropriate in these places, but the diminutive is in Ovid very much commoner.

page 155 note 2 E.g. uermis, uermiculus interchanged at 2. 871, 899; 3. 723, 728. Similarly anulus gives way to anellus in metrically inconvenient cases (6. 1008, 1014, 1024, 1039). There is little or no evidence of similar freedom in the Augustans. Fiscellam (B. 10. 71), fabellas (Tib. 1. 3. 85), luteolā (B. 2. 50), umiduli (A.A. 3. 629) are perhaps the most suspicious cases, but all admit of diminutive sense. The most that can be said is that in many places liber and libellus, oculus and ocellus, are equally admissible: and that in some other places a similar choice was open.

page 155 note 3 This question is busily discussed by Platner, Mr. in A.J.P. 16. 186Google Scholar and by de Labriolle, M. in Rev. Phil. 29. 276Google Scholar. Both provide lists of C.'s diminutives, and neither list is complete, though M. de Labriolle's includes mentula and tremulus.

page 156 note 1 Lucretius, half of whose diminutive adjectives denote size or number, has, I think, of this shape only umidulus (4. 632: Lachm).

page 156 note 2 I have noted only gemellus, paruulus, pauperculus, pusillus, quantulus, tantulus.

page 156 note 3 The proportions are, very roughly, Martial 1: 5, Juvenal 1: 7, Petronius 1: 9. In Persius and Phaedrus, whose diminutives are fewer, the numbers are about 7: 20 and 5: 30 respectively.

page 156 note 4 Eculeus (fr. 42) is, I think, his only certain diminutive.

page 157 note 1 In the Ciris, Copa, Culex, Dirae, Lydia, Moretum, I have noted, in addition to puella, the following diminutives: agellus (D.), araneolus (Cu.), asellus (Co.), capella (Cu., Ci., D., L.), capillus (Ci.), caseolus (Co.), casula (M.), corolla (Co.), hortulus (Ci.), labellum (Ci.), lectulus (Ci.), libellus (D.), mitella (Co.), nutricula (Ci.), ocellus (Ci., L.), osculum (Ci., Cu.), pistillus (M.), pupula (Cu.), recula (M.), spiculum (Ci.), Stella (Ci.), tabella (M.), uaccula (L.), uitecula (L.): aureolus (Cu.), jrigidulus (Ci.), paruulus (Ci., Cu., M.), tabidulus (Ci.).

page 157 note 2 Exceptions are musculus and, if you choose to count it, basiliscus in Lucan.

page 157 note 3 Exceptions are modulus (Buc. Einsid. I. 24, 35), rotulus (Calp. 7. 51). From Virgil's Bucolics Calpurnius borrows fiscella and, in the next century, Namatianus, labellum. The last poet has also uermiculus (Auc. 28).