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Three cruces in Juvenal1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Hendry
Michael Hendry
Affiliation:
Arlington, Virginia
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Extract

A. E. Housman has written that the context of Juvenal 5.140 is ‘the most obscure in Juvenal’ (p. xxxii). I am primarily concerned with the following five lines, but the entire passage (132–145), and its position in the poem, must also be examined.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , May 1998 , pp. 252 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1998

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References

2 Braund notes that the different courses ‘are dealt with more and more economically and elliptically as the poem accelerates to the crowning humiliation, that the humble clients never receive the main meat dish and are left still sitting there in hungry anticipation at the end of the poem’ (p. 307). I would add that the increasing scale of the interruptions, which also appear at shorter intervals, reinforces the effect: as Trebius' hopes for meat, for enjoyment, for anything at all, wither, the narrator's sarcastic remarks take over.

3 The fact that the words and the food are mingled, that the friendly words are all concerned with the food, perfectly suits the theme of the satire.

4 As a self–contained gnome, line 140 does not affect the structure, and may be deleted or not without affecting my argument.

5 I suspect that Housman was thinking of them in particular when he called the context of 140 ‘obscure’, since the preceding lines are fairly straightforward.

6 Duff and Tennant (pp. 85f) add other cogent objections, which I will not repeat here. Some editors (e.g. Knoche and Willis) prefer to to PRFO's tune, but the context (dominus tamen et domini rexl si uis fieri) certainly describes the hypothetical rich Trebius, and it is difficult to read nunc in 141 as anything but a contrast, unless we allow worries about Virro's motivation in 141–145 to distract us from the syntactical question. Housman prints tune and recommends it over tu in the preface of his second edition (p. xlvi), but adds ‘except that the divergence points to turn’. Though it makes no difference to my argument, I wonder whether the pointed pairing with nunc might have inclined Juvenal to prefer tune over the more euphonious turn.

7 Of course, triplets are just about the least likely way for Trebius to fulfil the requirements of the ius trium liberorum and acquire enough heirs to cause even the greediest captator to lose hope. No doubt Juvenal chooses them because the suddenness of the financial catastrophe is so much more dramatic. If Trebius' heirs arrive one at a time in the usual way, it will only delay his arrival at the condition depicted in 141–145.

8 Ferguson contends that the privileges of the ius trium liberorum would make Trebius a more attractive client. This is refuted in detail by Tennant (p. 86 and n. 11), whose arguments I will not repeat here.

9 Highet, G., Juvenal the Satirist: A Study (Oxford, 1954), p. 1450. Also: ‘If he would not even speak to the father, he certainly would not play with the children.’Google Scholar

10 The anonymous referee suggests that the inconsistency may be intentional: ‘Of course, his visiting Trebius conflicts with how Trebius portrays him–but could there be a glimpse of the (dare I say it?) reality behind Trebius’ complaint here, that the patron actually does the bare minimum for a rather mercenary and unpleasant client, such as Trebius exposes himself to be, more and more, as the poem progresses?' I find this intriguing, and would like to believe it–the characterization of Trebius is certainly sound–but see no other evidence that Trebius underestimates the character of Virro.

11 He seems at first to be saying that sua Mycale is Trebius' wife, but his explanation goes on to make it clear that she must be Virro's.

12 Manso, J. C. F., Vermischte Abhandlungen und Aufliige (Breslau, 1821), ch. X, ‘Observationes in D. Junii Juvenalis satiras’, pp. 219–52, at p. 234. A. Serafini's interpretation (Studio sulla Satira di Giovenale [Florence, 1957], p. 199) is similar, though his words are slightly vague and he might plead narrative focalization: ‘Non so se con maggiore gentilezza si poteva esprimere, in si breve spazio, la gioia del padre per i bambini che gli rallegrano la casa con il loro lieto cinguetto: ipse loquaci/gaudebit nido (5, 142)’Google Scholar

13 In this satire alone, the manuscripts confuse second– and third–person verbs in lines 10 (possit P'RFKZ: is VU) and 134 (fieres ]fieret F). The second passage is the more pertinent, since it involves a change from second to third person and produces nonsense.

14 ‘One noteworthy case in which he goes on for too long is at 8.124.’ The best Friedlaender; can do in defence differs little from an attack: ‘Nur der Reiz, den es fur Juvenal hatte, das; Vorausgehende in eine Sentenz zusammenzufassen, erklart diese sonst unbegreifliche Tautologie.’

15 Courtne, E., ‘The interpolations in Juvenal’, BICS 22 (1975), 147–62, at 152–3, reproduced, with changes, in his commentary. toGoogle Scholar

16 I use ‘sententious’ here in the ancient or etymological sense, not the modern pejorative sense. The change in meaning from Seneca to Polonius is very nearly 180°.

17 T. Hogg, Interpolationen bei Juvenal? (Dissertation, Freiburg i. Br., 1971), pp. 160–3, provides the fullest discussion of the possibilities for deletion, listing them, in decreasing order of likelihood, as follows: (1) Pasquali and Griffith delete only 124a, keeping both 123b and 124b as author variants. Housman considers this possible but not likely. (2) Lachmann, followed by Jahn, Housman, and Clausen, deletes 124. However, it is a pity to part with spoliatis aera supersunt (though I will part with one–third of it). (3) Hermann, followed by Vianello, Jachmann, and Knoche, deletes 123b–4a (all four of the listed weapons) as an ‘explikative Binneninterpolation’. This is die neatest solution in that it removes all of one alternative and none of the other, but it is again a pity to part with scutum gladiumque relinques. A fourth option, which Hogg relegates to a footnote (p. 160, n. 4), is Leo's proposal to delete two whole lines (122b–4a), leaving only cwandum inprimis ne magna iniuriafiatl fortibus et miseris: spoliatis arma supersunt: no one seems to have followed him. Besides Friedlaender and Courtney, those who accept the redundancy, however reluctantly, include Duff, Labriolle–Villeneuve, Martyn, and Ferguson, to look no further.

18 In ‘The transmission of Juvenal's text’, BICS 14 (1967), 38–50, at 41–42, Courtney argues that the silence of the scholia proves little or nothing in any passage.Google Scholar

19 If this were prose, the problem would be simpler (or appear so) but in verse we are only permitted to delete entire lines or multiples of lines, though any deletion may of course begin in mid–line, like Hermann's of 123b–4a. Even in the Aeneid and Seneca's tragedies, which provide the only exceptions to this rule, otiose line–endings may be deleted, but not line–beginnings.

20 This is one of the additions to the discussion of 8.121–4 in his commentary.

21 While granting that the presence of two problems in one passage is a sign that they are likely to be connected, this is not inevitable, and it seems to me that in this case they are quite separate and have different solutions.

22 The weapons named are nearly always symbolic in contemporary English usage, as in operations Desert Shield and Desert Scimitar, but that is because the weapons are now obsolete.

23 Courtney notes that the Romans did not disarm conquered provincials.

24 In 22.69–98, Eurymachos and Amphinomos draw their swords to rush Odysseus, calling on the other suitors to follow, and in 22.310–29 Odysseus uses the dead Agelaos' sword to kill Leiodes. Telemachos has both sword and spear at 21.431–34, and his sword is also mentioned at 21.117–18.

25 The second class also has ocreae, the first both ocreae and lorica, with clipeus instead of scutum.

26 Kurfess, A. M., ‘Juvenal und die Sibylle’, HJ 76 1956, 79–83, quotes a similar list from the Sibylline Oracles, 3.729–30). It is intriguing to see a Sibyl connected with a list of weapons not unlike Juvenal's, but the lists are not identical (Juvenal's provincials are bowless) and the resemblance would be more significant if Juvenal's list did not have even closer parallels in Homer and Livy. With or without , Juvenal and the oracle simply list the four or five most important ancient weapons, ‘weapons of four sorts’, , as Housman and the oracle put it.Google Scholar

27 As CofFey, M. puts it, ‘to propose a deletion is sometimes to evade the difficulty’ (‘Juvenal Report for the Years 1941–1961’, Lustrum 8 [1963], 161–215, at 179).Google Scholar

28 The referee argues that taking aera as ‘bronzes’ unnecessarily complicates my argument, and Dr Heyworth prefers the sense ‘small change’. They may well be right, and I should probably have deleted most of the preceding paragraph, but will let it stand, since I am not yet persuaded and readers may prefer to decide for themselves.

29 Most of the passages collected in TLL 1037.73–82 where forms of aes are used in the sense ‘arma’ are either singular (aes), or complex (e.g. Silius' cassidis aera, 1.401), or both, but Vergil provides two exceptions: ardentis clipeos atque aera micantia cerno (A. 2.734), atra late horrescit strictis seges ensibus, aeraque fulgentl sole lacessita et lucent sub nubila iactant (A. 7.525–7). Of course, the first might be set aside as hendiadys, the second as referring primarily to the metal rather than the weapons made from it, but the two will provide at least partial parallels for my conjecture.

30 Pliny treats iron as the standard metal for weapons and other practical uses (N.H. 34.138–9).

31 Tibullus seems to attribute bronze weapons to barbarian armies in a contemporary context: at nobis aerata. Lares, depellite telis (1.10.25). However, it is hard to be certain, since a lacuna has swallowed up the following pentameter and hexameter.

32 And far less appropriate as ‘small change’, if we accept the interpretation outlined in n. 28.

33 J. A. Willis (per litteras) adds that aera would introduce a nice mock–epic touch: ‘ to use “bronze” to mean weapons would be one of Juvenal's little tongue–in–cheek epic allusions’. I am grateful to Professor Willis for his encouragement and advice.

34 Presumably the latter, if the scribe was thinking of Ovid, A.A. 3.1–2, where the words occur in the same sedes: Arma dedi Danais in Amazonas; arma supersunt,/quae tibi dem et turmae, Penthesilea, tuae. I do not think the resemblance is striking enough to prove that Juvenal is imitating Ovid; those who do may count this as a decisive point in favour of the paradosis. There is also some resemblance in thought to Lucan's arma tenentil omnia dat, qui iusta negat (1.348–49), but again I do not think that it is close enough for Lucan's arma to guarantee the word in Juvenal.

35 That is why I reject Hermann's deletion of 123b–4a. Although it interrupts the list of metals, the list of weapons in 123b–4a is still necessary to clarify the train of thought.

36 For rubeta in 70, Griffith, cf. J. G., ‘Frustula Iuvenaliana’, CQ. 19 (1969), 379–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 I assume (with Courtney, quoted above) that the sententia consists primarily of the last three words, though one of my three is different. Of course, Juvenal actually says that his words are not a sententia but the simple truth. However, like Courtney, I cannot help taking them as a kind of sxtper–sententia, with all of the characteristics of the breed except rhetorical exaggeration.

38 A. E. Housma, review of H. L. Wilson's edition, CR 17 (1903), 465–8 = Classical Papers 2.611–16; J. G. Griffith, ‘A matter of an adverb in Juvenal’, Festinat Senex: Essays in Greek and Latin Literature and Archaeology (Oxford, 1988), pp. 78–80; R. G. M. Nisbet, ‘Notes on the text and interpretation of Juvenal’, BICS Supplement 51 (1988), 86–110, reprinted in Collected Papers on Latin Literature (Oxford, 1995), pp. 227–60.

39 The problem is that the participles do not fit the main sentence: Tiberius is the one taking vengeance, but neither uictus nor male defensus, while Sejanus, uictus and therefore necessarily male defensus, was taking vengeance on no one. (I pass over Madvig's interpretation, which Courtney rightly dismisses as ‘incredibly frigid’. He attributes the Sejanus interpretation to Hertzberg, not available to me, and rejects it as ‘equally frigid’, which seems a little harsh.)

40 On the other hand, the referee argues that uictus is not the mot juste, and so may well be corrupt, unless it refers to some lost play on the theme.

41 Juvenal refers to the madness of Ajax in the next book: hie boue percusso mugire Agamemnona credit! aut Ithacum (14.286f).

42 Ruperti puts it well: ‘Praeclara comparatio Tiberii, qui post interitum Sejani, immanis belluae hominisque furibundi instar, in omne civium genus crudelissime saeviit, (v. Suet. Tib. c. 61. et 62.) cum Ajace furente. Forte etiam satiricus poeta respexit turn stultam ignaviam, turn innocentiam Romanorum, quos insectatus est tyrannus, tamquam pecora essent, non homines.’ When we think of the fate of Sejanus' young daughter, raped and then strangled by the executioner because execution of virgins was inauditum (Tac. Ann. 5.9), we see that the Sophoclean parallel is quite inadequate to express the honors of Tiberian Rome.

43 Male defensus has much the same meaning, with the participle more or less equivalent to a present passive, in Lucan 6.176–8: caput obterit ossaque saxol ac male defensum fragili conpage cerebrum/ dissipat. Alab is the usual preposition with exigere poenas and similar phrases, though the OLD's examples (s.v. exigo 8.a–c) are all from prose.

44 It is possible that ripa also contributes to the metaphor, if we think of a herd of thirsty cows or sheep crowding the banks of a river.

45 The ablative would not necessarily have been safeguarded by a, which would make some sense as an exclamation: a! male defensus. As so often before, I am grateful to Dr Heyworth and the anonymous referee for their extremely helpful questions and objections, which were not confined to the notes in which they are named.