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A Neronian Exclamatory Phrase

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Allan Kershaw
Allan Kershaw
Affiliation:
Penn State University
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Extract

Since Rose collected Petronius' ‘adaptions of Lucan’ found in the Bellum Civile, there has been renewed contention as to whether these adaptations are real or imagined, with George, Sullivan, and now Slater leading the debate.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 1991 , pp. 559 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 Rose, K. F. C., The Date and Author of the Satyricon (Leiden, 1971)Google Scholar; George, P. A., ‘Petronius and Lucan De Bello Civili’, CQ 24 (1974), 119–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, J. P., Literature and Politics in the Age of Nero (Ithaca, 1985)Google Scholar; Slater, Niall W., Reading Petronius (Baltimore, 1990)Google Scholar. Cf. also Elaine Fantham in Kennedy, George A. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 1: Classical Criticism (Cambridge, 1989), 281–2.Google Scholar

2 This association might well go back to Horace's ‘Roman Ode’ 3.5 where we find pro curia inversique mores! (7), and o pudor (38). In Ovid (Her. 9.111) the later MSS. and Heinsius prefer pro pudor to o; Bentley, in his note on Odes 3.5.38, chides Heinsius for his preference.

3 It is worth adding here that Lucan seems to have been fond of ‘exclamatory pudor’ as other variants show: pro dira pudoris / funera (4.230–1); pro superum pudor (8.597).

4 The question of authorship is still debated, see (e.g.) Sullivan, pp. 177f. and the references there. Carlo, Prato, Gli Epigrammi Attribuiti a L. Anneo Seneca (Rome, 1964)Google Scholar, in his note on pro, characterises the exclamation as ‘molto in uso nell'età imperiale’ (p. 137). His list of examples of pro pudor is unreliable; he omits Seneca, Nat. 4B.13.8, and Petronius 81.5; Statius does not use the expression at Theb. 10.165, but he does do so at 10.874.

5 I thank the anonymous referee for helpful criticisms and suggestions.