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A TEXTUAL NOTE ON PROPERTIUS 2.26.23*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

Alessio Mancini
Alessio Mancini*
Affiliation:
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
*
[email protected]
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Extract

      non, si Cambysae redeant et flumina Croesi,
      dicat ‘De nostro surge, poeta, toro’.
In these two lines Propertius is proud to say that his puella would not dismiss him for the fabulous treasures of some dives amator. The problem is caused by the interpretation of Cambysae as given in all the manuscripts; it is difficult to understand both as a genitive singular and as a nominative plural. This form of the genitive is not, in fact, recorded before Apul. Fl. 15.12, and the concurrent form Cambysis is even less common. Moreover, the Persian king Cambyses was not an example of opulence in Antiquity like the Lydian king Croesus, but of cruelty. The only passages where he is linked with the idea of richness are Apul. Mun. 26.13–15: Cambyses et Xerxes et Darius potentissimi reges fuerunt. Horum praepotentiam, quam ex opibus collegerant, lenocinium vitae effecerat celsiorem, and (indirectly) Juv. 14.328–31: Si nondum implevi gremium, si panditur ultra, | nec Croesi fortuna umquam nec Persica regna | sufficient animo nec divitiae Narcissi, | indulsit Caesar cui Claudius omnia, cuius | paruit imperiis uxorem occidere iussus, where we find apparently the same connection between Persian royalty and Croesus' richness that we read in Propertius' line.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 847 - 849
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank the anonymous referee and Professor Bruce Gibson for their useful suggestions.

References

1 It is found for the first time in Amm. 23.6.36 and later in Jerome, passim.

2 See e.g. [Theoc.] 8.53 with Gow's commentary ad loc.; Catull. 115.3; Ov. Tr. 3.7.42; Sil. 13.776.

3 The references to this Lydian river and its golden sands are very common in both Greek and Latin literature: see e.g. Soph. Phil. 394; Verg. Aen. 10.142; Prop. 3.18.28; Sen. Oed. 467; Otto, A., Die Sprichwörter und sprichwörtlichen Redensarten der Römer (Leipzig, 1890), 261Google Scholar.

4 This emendation was suggested independently by Housman too: see Heyworth, S.J., Cynthia: A Companion to the Text of Propertius (Oxford, 2007), 224Google Scholar.

5 For other suggested emendations see Heyworth's edition, Sexti Properti Elegos (Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar, ad loc.

6 D'Orville meant the Persian king. This emendation is found in his Miscellaneae observationes criticae novae in auctores veteres et recentiores in Belgio collectae & proditae, vol. 5 (Amsterdam, 1751), 304Google Scholar.

7 Cyrus et Cambyses ex radicibus Coraxici montis vicinis fontibus editi in diversa abeunt, perque Hiberas et Hyrcanos diu et multum distantibus alveis defluunt, post non longe a mari eodem lacu accepti in Hyrcanium sinum uno ore perveniunt.

8 Inter quas opibus et magnitudine moenium conspicuae sunt Heraclia et Arsacia et Europos et Cyropolis et Ecbatana sub Iasonio monte in terris sitae Syromedorum. Amnes has regiones praetereunt multi, quorum maximi sunt Choaspes et Gyndes et Amardus et Charinda et Cambyses et Cyrus.

9 See Cass. Dio 37.3.5: κἀντεῦθεν πρὸς τὸν Καμβύσην (sc. Πομπήιος) πορευόμενος ὑπὸ μὲν τῶν πολεμίων οὐδὲν δεινὸν ἔπαθεν.

10 After Propertius, this river is found in Ov. Met. 1.580 and 7.228 (but it is a conjecture in both cases); Luc. 6.373; V. Fl. 1.357.

11 The (few) mentions of this mountain in Greek literature are listed in Fedeli, P., Sesto Properzio: il primo libro delle elegie (Florence, 1980), 477Google Scholar.

12 I thank the anonymous reviewer who brought this very similar passage to my attention. In this line it is important to notice that Thebae is a persuasive emendation made by Scaliger and accepted by almost all the editors of Propertius, while all manuscripts have phoebi, showing here too the same misunderstanding (and the consequent corruption) of a nominative into a genitive.

13 For this meaning of redeo, see OLD s.v. 9; Ov. Pont. 4.6.67: utque Thyesteae redeant si tempora mensae; Mart. 11.5.5: si redeant veteres, ingentia nomina, patres.

14 On this topic see too Thomas, R.F., Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry: The Ethnographical Tradition (Cambridge Philological Society Supplementary Volume no. 7, Cambridge, 1982), 38Google Scholar.

15 See e.g. Prop. 1.6.13–14: an mihi sit tanti doctas conoscere Athenas | atque Asiae veteres cernere divitias. Other examples are listed by Bailey, D.R. Shackleton, Propertiana (Amsterdam, 1967), 271Google Scholar.