Notes on Ausonius Prof. Burd. 16.9 ff. (Peiper), Publilius Syrus 341, and Martial xi.50 (49)

Extract

This passage is discussed in AJPb 97 (1976), 252, by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, who rightly draws attention to the ‘absurdity’’ of exilii specie sepositos and observes that ‘Ausonius must be saying that the brothers were banished in fact, though not in name’’. Shackleton Bailey's solution is to replace exilii with bospitii, which gives excellent sense, but, even on the assumption of psychological error by a scribe, which is how Shackleton Bailey explains the corruption, may seem rather hard to credit. An easier solution might be to write auxilii for exilii: in appearance Constantine's brothers were being helped and protected, in reality confined in exile.