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Notes on the text of Catullus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

R. G. M. Nisbet
R. G. M. Nisbet
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Extract

The text of Catullus is notoriously corrupt, and though much has been healed, something remains to be done. An article may still be useful if it encourages scepticism and speculation. I have found Baehrens the best commentator for this particular purpose; for information about the manuscripts I rely on Mynors. The text printed is that of V where I wish to discuss it, but it is sometimes silently altered where I do not. Textual variants are mentioned only where they are relevant to the argument.

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Type
Article Commentary
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 24 , 1978 , pp. 92 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

NOTES

1. Parts of this paper were read to the Cambridge Philological Society on 2nd March 1978, and parts earlier in the University of Manchester. I am grateful to all those in both places who helped me to clarify my views.

2. CPh 5 (1910) 217Google Scholar.

3. This point is seen by J.P. Postgate, who talks of the added offence in nitenti (CPh 7 (1912) 1Google Scholar). Phillimore and Postgate are not refuted by Fay, E.U., CPh 8 (1913) 301–3Google Scholar.

4. The above interpretation is one of several heard simultaneously by Baker, S., CPh 53 (1958) 243–4Google Scholar; as he thinks that cum has hints of the preposition, his article is unrewarding.

5. See also Offermann, H., Eranos 73 (1975) 58–60Google Scholar.

6. Cic., Phil. 5.53Google Scholar, Planc., Fam. 10.24.2Google Scholar, Ov., A.A. 1.131Google Scholar‘Romule, militibus scisti dare commoda solus’, TLL III 1928. 78 ff.Google Scholar

7. BICS 16 (1969) 38Google Scholar, developing observations by Zicàri, M., SIFC 29 (1957) 252–3Google Scholar.

8. Enn., Trag. 112Google Scholar J. ‘liberum quaesendum causa’ is legal and already archaic.

9. Pointed out by Skutsch, O., BICS 23 (1976) 19Google Scholar. However in the passage under discussion he observes that mihi cannot go with quaeso, which is autonomous, nor with commoda (which he regards as imperative) as it would then be too emphatic; accordingly he takes it with inquit.

10. JPh 21 (1893) 184Google Scholar = Classical papers 294-5 (with 635); he also cites Lucr. 1.670-1.

11. Experiments: nine essays on Catullus for teachers, ed. Greig, C. (Cambridge Schools Classics Project 1970), 25Google Scholar.

12. Hom., Il. 15.46Google Scholar, Hes., Op. 208Google Scholar, Herodas 5.43 (with Headlam's parallels).

13. See Lange, L., ‘Redivivus und recidivus’ in Studien zur griechischen und lateinischen Grammatik, ed. Curtius, G. and Brugman, K., X 2 (1878) 225–55Google Scholar (I owe this reference to Professor Kenney).

14. irrecidivis, presumably in the sense of ‘unreviving’, was implausibly proposed by J.F. Gronovius and Heinsius.

15. TAPhA 90 (1959) 238–42Google Scholar, reprinted in Quinn, K., Approaches to Catullus (1972) 166–70Google Scholar. For sexual hints in the poem see also Khan, H. AkbarCPh 64 (1969) 88–97Google Scholar (greatly exaggerated), J. Glenn, ibid. 65 (1970) 256-7.

16. Housman, , Classical papers 626Google Scholar, describes Ellis's at 63.9 as a false quantity.

17. For exceptions see Denniston on Eur., El. 1014Google Scholar.

18. See I.C. Cunningham's edition (1971) 215.

19. For Petronius Probus see Amm. Marc. 27.11, RE I 2205–7Google Scholar, Prosopography of the later Roman empire I 736–40Google Scholar, Matthews, J., Western aristocracies and imperial court (1975) 37–8, 98, 186–7Google Scholar (his patronage of Ambrose), 195-7 (his mausoleum in St. Peter's).

20. CIL VI 1751Google Scholar = ILS 1265 ‘litterarum et eloquentiae lumini’.

21. CIL V 3344Google Scholar = ILS 1266 ‘disertissimo atque omnibus rebus eruditissimo patrono’.

22. When the writer of the Historia Augusta says that a prophecy promising greatness to later Probi has not yet been fulfilled (Prob. 24.3 ‘sed adhuc neminem vidimus’), ‘what he is up to is clear. A joke – and the flimsy pretence that he is writing in an earlier age’ (Syme, R., Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (1968) 164Google Scholar).

23. Schenkl in his edition of Ausonius records six imitations of Catullus (though not this one).

24. Cf. Eubulus 67.8-9 (I owe this reference to Mr. R. Hunter).

25. I have an uncomfortable feeling that I have met this conjecture somewhere, but I am unable to trace its source.

26. Spenser, , Epithalamium 315–6Google Scholar.

27. Axelson, B., Unpoetische Wörter (1945) 72Google Scholar. The position of earum is inadequately supported by 64.122 ‘ut eam devinctam lumina somno’.

28. Kühner-Stegmann I 87, Wackernagel, J., Vorlesungen über Syntax I (1926) 95Google Scholar.

29. Liverpool Classical Monthly 1 (1976) 111Google Scholar (developing Ellis's arguments on Pelasgians).

30. Kühner-Stegmann I 237.

31. See further Müller, C.F.W., RhM 55 (1900) 636–7Google Scholar, Fraenkel, E., Horace (1957) 84–5Google Scholar.

32. Kroll also cites 64.288-9 ‘altas fagos ac recto proceras stipite laurus’; but here fagos is a more substantial word and only one colon is involved.

33. Cf. Liv. 22.48.4 ‘inter acervos caesorum corporum’.

34. I cannot trace the source of this conjecture, but doubt whether it is my own.

35. See Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor., Carm. 1.32.11Google Scholar, with bibliography there cited.

36. The poem is probably addressed to L. Manlius Torquatus, praetor 49 (RE XIV 1203–7Google Scholar); ‘Allius’ in the more public second part would then be a ‘cover-name’. Hortensius described Torquatus as ἄμουσος (Gell. 1.5.3); this may be the rebuttal of some claim of his own to be a protégé of Venus and the Muses (Gellius's comment, subagresti … ingenio, is an unlikely story about the Torquatus of the De Finibus). Cf. also 61.191-2 ‘neque te Venus neglegit’.

37. After writing this article I found that Weber (cited in Merrill's Teubner edition) had proposed non ulla usque. But it is more courteous for Catullus to mention his own failure ‘so far’ (hucusque) rather than his friend's continuing entreaties (usque).

38. Cf. also 33 ‘nam quod scriptorum non magna est copia apud me’. This is generally taken to refer to previous scriptores, but there are advantages in thinking of Catullus's own scripta (thus Quinn); copia would then have the same reference at the beginning and end of this group of lines (33-40).

39. Mnem. n.s. 6 (1878) 307Google Scholar ‘iteratio v. iuverit aliquantum displicet’.

40. Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini III 373Google Scholar.

41. The hiatus is implausible (Goold, G., Phoenix 12 (1958) 108CrossRefGoogle Scholar). tanta in Agius might suggest ‘a quo sunt primo plurima nata bona’; plurima (which would echo 153 ‘huc addent divi quam plurima’) could have fallen out after primo. Alternatively one could try sunt uno plurima (cf. una in Agius) or sunt primo tot mihi.

42. Manitius, M., Geschichte der lat. Lit. des Mittelalters I (1911) 581–2Google Scholar, Poet. Lat. Aev. Car. III 369–88Google Scholar, IV 937-43, Lehmann, P., Corveyer Studien, ABAW 30.5 (1919) 4–9Google Scholar.

43. Schenkl, H., JKPh Suppl. 24 (1898) 387–414Google Scholar, Richmond, J.A., The Halieutica ascribed to Ovid (1962) 1–2Google Scholar.

44. Lowe, E.A., Codices Latini antiquiores X (1963) 1474Google Scholar.

45. Sabbadini, R., Scoperte (1905) 139–40, 165–6Google Scholar.

46. Studi in onore di L. Castiglioni 1027-57.

47. Agius, op. cit. 417, uses the word femella, which occurs in classical Latin only at Cat. 55.7; yet as Ullman points out, the word lies behind old French ‘femelle’ (whence ‘female’).

48. See Brink on Hor., A.P. 165Google Scholar.

49. densi gives an odd impression of traffic-jams (as Haupt and Baehrens saw), and even multi (cf. Call., Ep. 28.2Google Scholar) seems unsuited to this remote highway. Perhaps Catullus wrote properi; if the word was once corrupted to populi, anything might then have happened.

50. Editors prefer the early proposal lasso, but the elided adjective ought to combine with sudore rather than with viatori. Baehrens's salso (cf. Virg., Aen. 2.173-4Google Scholar ‘salsus … sudor’) gives a good contrast with dulce.

51. Aesch., Ag. 900–1Google Scholar, Asclepiades, , A.P. 5.169.1-2Google Scholar.

52. T.P. Wiseman, in his interesting re-appraisal of these problems, argues that the malodorous and gouty Rufus cannot be identical with a dancer as accomplished as Caelius, (Cinna the poet (1974) 106–7Google Scholar). Yet ancient invective sometimes derived its appeal from its inappropriateness: why was Socrates said to accept fees for his tuition?

53. NJPhP 121 (1880) 486Google Scholar. See now also Kaster, R.A., Philologus 121 (1977) 308–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who reports that apte was already conjectured in a MS.

54. Housman, , CQ 3 (1909) 244–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Classical papers 790-4, citing 39.20, 99.6.

55. Clausen, W., GRBS 5 (1964) 190–1Google Scholar.

56. Les deux livres de Catulle (1957); yet as the reading is ignored both in the apparatus and the translation, it must be counted a happy accident.