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Propertius 3. 3. 7–12 And Ennius
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Among the difficulties in Propertius is the question whether to retain ‘cecinit’ in 3. 3. 7 or to adopt the conjecture ‘cecini’.
Propertius dreamed that he was reclining upon Helicon in a grove by Hippocrene and that he was able to compose a Roman historical epic:
Visus eram molli recubans Heliconis in umbra,
Bellerophontei qua fluit umor equi,
Reges, Alba, tuos et regum facta tuorum
(Tantum operis) neruis hiscere posse meis,
Paruaque tam magnis admoram fontibus ora
Vnde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit,
Et cecinit Curios fratres et Horatia pila
Regiaque Aemilia uecta tropaea rate
Victricesque moras Fabii pugnamque sinistram
Cannensem et uersos ad pia uota deos
Hannibalemque Lares Romana sede fugantes,
Anseris et tutum uoce fuisse Iouem,
Cum me Castalia speculans ex arbore Phoebus
Sic ait…
According to the paradosis 7–12 constitute a summary of Ennius' Annales. In that I case Propertius' failure to observe historical sequence (the Gaulish attack of 387 coming after the Second Punic War) is peculiar; nor is it defended securely by I supposedly parallel passages. More damaging, however, is that 8 must describe the triumph of L. Aemilius Paullus in 167, two years after the accepted date of Ennius' death. Hertzberg and Postgate claimed that it alludes to the defeat of Demetrius of I Pharos by a L. Aemilius Paullus in 219 (Polyb. 3. 16. 18, App. Illyr. 8); this is unlikely for some of the same reasons as the rival theory of Butler and Barber, which has found many adherents, that it refers to the victory over Antiochus' navy by L. Aemilius Regillus at Myonnesus in 190.
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References
1 The following are cited by author's name only: Enk, P. J., Ad Propertii carmina commentarius criticus (Zutphen, 1911)Google Scholar, Kambylis, A., Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (Heidelberg, 1965)Google Scholar, Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Propertiana (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar, Skutsch, O., ‘Notes on Ennius, V’ BICS 27 (1980), 103–8Google Scholar, Tränkle, H., Die Sprachkunst des Properz (Wiesbaden, 1960)Google Scholar, Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom (Wiesbaden, 1960)Google Scholar, the commentaries of Butler and Barber (Oxford, 1933), v Camps (Book 3, Cambridge, 1966), Hertzberg (Halle, 1843–5). Richardson (Norman, 1977), and Rothstein (Berlin2, 1920–4), and the notes by Postgate in Select Elegies (London2, 1884)Google Scholar and Maltby in Latin Love Elegy (Bristol, 1980)Google Scholar. Modern authorities overwhelmingly support ‘cecinit’ (Shackleton Bailey, Butler-Barber, Camps, Enk, Kambylis, Maltby, Tränkle, Wimmel), while ‘cecini’ has appealed to very conservative editors such as Rothstein, Schuster (Leipzig, 1954), and Tovar (Barcelona, 1963). I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for financial support of research on which this paper is based.
2 For Polster's transposition of 8 and 12, which corrects the order of events, see below. Scholars most frequently cite 3. 12. 25–36 as a jumbled summary of the Odyssey; since it summarizes in fact the wanderings of Odysseus without special reference to Homer, the poet may differ from him however he likes. Tränkle (102 f.) adduces another possible parallel in 3. 9. 49–52, where the death of Remus is mentioned before his youth (one could, however, adopt Peiper's transposition of 49 and 51). He might also have pointed to 3. 9. 53–6, where possible references to Augustus' triumph of 29 (53) and the Parthian settlement (54) come before Pelusium and Antony's suicide (55–6). Arguably, however, the themes of 3. 9. 49–56 are named not as parts of a continuous epic but as subjects for individual compositions and chronological order is therefore not necessary; one could also suggest that 53–4 are general references (cf. 3. 3. 41–6, cited below, where a general statement in 41 f. is followed by specific references in 43–6). Attempts to discern an organizing principle other than chronology in 3. 3. 7–12 read more like descriptions than explanations; cf. Rothstein on 7, Boucher, J.-P., Études sur Properce (Paris, 1965), 279Google Scholar.
3 It has been impossible to consult the long article of Martina, M. in Quaderni di filologia classica dell'università di Trieste 2 (1979), 14 ff.Google Scholar, which, according to Skutsch note 5, advances ‘strong reasons’ for making 8 refer to the transport of spoils after the victory of 190. I am informed, however, that Martina argues that Ennius sought to glorify L. Aemilius Regillus, the victor of Myonnesus, after the reconciliation of Ennius' patron, M. Fulvius Nobilior, and M. Aemilius Lepidus upon their sharing the censorship in 179; the two Aemilii were on good terms, and Regillus' victory was commemorated during the censorship. This does not survive the objection offered below, that the transport of the spoils after Myonnesus, even if it formed a part of the Annales, was too insignificant for enumeration among the highlights of the poem or of Roman history.
4 Hence ‘Aemilia’ may be pointed and not simply informative; Enk 209 f. cites Werffe for the curious objection that the ship belonged to Perseus, not Paullus.
5 Shackleton Bailey (followed by Trankle, Wimmel, Kambylis, Camps, and Maltby) proposed as the ‘least unsatisfactory view’ that Propertius confused the naval victory of 190 with Paullus' return; this seems unlikely in view of the disparity in the nature and importance of the two events. Hubbard, M. (Propertius [London, 1974], 79Google Scholar) suggests that Propertius simply never read to the end of the Annales. Others imagine purposeful incompetence, Richardson declaring that ‘Propertius is playing fast and loose’ with the material, Maltby that he produced a garbled account ‘to reflect his own lack of aptitude for epic subjects’.
6 For archaisms and Virgilian influence see Trankle 30–57. He well remarks (57) that Propertius does not simply follow Virgil in this but acts independently in the same manner, as is exemplified by ‘siluicola’ at 3. 11. 34. Virgil applies it to Faunus at A. 10. 551 (whence Ov. F. 4. 746 applies it to Pales, Stat. T. 5. 582 to multiple Fauni; its reference at A.L. 682. 6 is uncertain, but some mss. make Pan subject of the poem). His source was perhaps Ace. 237R2 ‘et nunc siluicolae ignota inuisentes loca’ (from the Bacchae, perhaps describing followers of Dionysus). The compound is found also in Naev. fr. 21 Morel ‘siluicolae homines bellique inertes’, arguably the source of Propertius' ‘siluicolis… uiris’. Priority is impossible to establish, but Propertius shows independent awareness of an archaic context; scholarly aemulatio in either direction is not to be excluded.
7 In order to justify ‘cecinit’ d'Anna, G. argued in Athenaeum 51 (1973), 355–76Google Scholar and RFIC 107 (1979), 243–51Google Scholar that the date of Ennius' death (traditionally given after Cic, . Brut. 78Google Scholar and Sen. 14 as 169) is not necessarily certain and that he might have lived to describe the truimph of 167; his search among the surviving fragments for traces of the campaign preceding the victory cannot be counted a success. For further arguments against d'Anna's theory see Pasoli, in RFIC 105 (1977)Google Scholar and Skutsch, in BICS 24 (1977), 6 fGoogle Scholar. and 27 (1980), 103 f.
8 For this early conjecture (the archetype read ‘ting(u)ere’) cf. Postgate 57, Enk 214, Shackleton Bailey 141.
9 Recorded by Dio 51. 21; the victory was celebrated on the first day of the triple triumph of 29, with Augustus as commander in chief sharing the credit. Postgate and Richardson prefer the more remote defeat of Ariovistus by Julius Caesar in 58 (BG 1. 52–3).
10 For this feature (and Propertius' use of it in 2. 1) cf. Wimmel 30–7.
11 This transposition is approved by Enk 211 but adopted only in Postgate's Corpus Poetarum Latinorum text (London, 1894)Google Scholar; it was anticipated by a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century corrector in Bibl. Vat. Chigi H. IV. 123. The dislocation was probably caused by a scribe's eye skipping from ‘fratres’ in 7 to ‘lacres’ in 11 (‘lacres’, no doubt from ‘laces’, was in the archetype; N corrupted it to ‘lacies’, while ‘lares’ in F is either a lucky slip of a careless scribe or a conjecture of Petrarch). Camps' objection to the transposition – ‘there is no evidence that the line-order has become dislocated in the MSS’ – involves a circular argument.
12 Skutsch has made a similar suggestion, noting (103 f.) that the reference to the kings of Alba Longa, who were not included in the Annales, suggests that ‘possibly… Propertius had the Annals in mind but… would want to add and correct’ and proposing that Aemilius' triumph of 167 is such an addition.
13 Kambylis 131–6 gives this and further objections. He argues that ‘cecini’ weakens the role of Ennius by making his name only a more precise definition of the kind of poetry which Propertius dreamed of writing. That seems to me an adequate role for him to play; it remains the same with ‘cecinit’, which reduces 7–12 to a flaccid expansion of a point without special importance in the elegy.
14 Commentators outdo each other in expounding ‘hiscere’ (4) as indicating ‘incoherent utterance’ (Postgate) or as ‘a strong word denoting effort’ (Butler-Barber); Maltby says that it ‘vividly recreates a dreamer's attempt at singing’, while Camps suggests connotations like ‘I thought that I could dare, with these (poor) powers of mine, to raise my voice (literally open my mouth)’. According to Nonius 120, 29, however, ‘hiscere est proprie loqui’, a statement confirmed by several examples given at OLD s.v. 2b. It appears to be an archaic usage revived by the Augustan poets and Livy; Ovid could use it without connotations of incoherence at M. 13. 231 ‘nec Telamoniades etiamnunc hiscere quicquam/audet’. Propertius naturally dreamed that he could compose an epic, not that he could barely squeak one out.
15 In 47–50 Calliope directs Propertius to become a praeceptor and teach others how to gain access to their puellae; it has been argued that erotodidaxis was prominent in Philitas' poetry: cf. Cairns, F., Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge, 1979), 27–9Google Scholar.