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Cornua and Frontes in [Tibullus] 3.1.13
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The transmitted text of line 13, ‘inter geminas…frontes’, has long presented an anomaly in the description of the decorated papyrus roll. If, in the context of book production, frons means the flat, round cross section located at either end of the rolled up book (TLL 6.1.1362, 84) and if cornu means an ornamental projection attached to the ends of the umbilicus and extending beyond the plane of the frons, then the transmitted text is a physical impossibility. For it is the frontes that lie between the cornua and not the other way round. In the words of Heyne's paraphrase: ‘geminae frontes inter duo cornua, non duo cornua inter geminas frontes.’ Emendation is required not only because an author is unlikely to be inaccurate or imprecise about the physical details of his book but also because the transmitted text can be salvaged only by recourse to tortuous theories about the meaning of cornu and frons, about their locations with respect to one another, and about the interpretation of inter with geminas.
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References
1 The best analysis of these terms is Blümner's, H. ‘Umbilicus und cornua’, Philologus 73 (1914–1916), 426–45Google Scholar; the line in question is discussed on pp. 436–7 where Blümner's conjectures intra. A full bibliography of the controversy about the meaning of cornua is given in Besslich, S., ‘Die “Hörner” des Buches. Zur Bedeutung von cornua im antiken Buchwesen’, Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 1973, pp. 44–50Google Scholar but his conclusions are not always reliable. Brief discussion, with good bibliography, of cornua and frons in Kenney's, E. J. ‘Books and Readers in the Roman World’ in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Vol. 2: Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1982), p. 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Heyne, C. G., Albii Tibulli carmina, Libri tres4 (Leipzig, 1817).Google Scholar In the paraphrase Heyne is for the moment assuming with J. H. Voss that frontes = the top and bottom edges of the roll (‘bases cylindri’). Heyne himself, following P. Burman's somewhat confused note on Tristia 1.1.11, wrongly explains frontes as the exterior and interior of the protocollon. But after giving his explanation Heyne then confesses perplexity at the meaning of the transmitted text.
3 Appendix Tibulliana (Berlin/New York, 1990).Google Scholar
4 Observations et indices in Tibullum (Leipzig, 1817) pp. 269–70Google Scholar, vol. 2 of Heyne's commentary in n. 2 above.
5 Normally when a preposition is separated from its noun by one or more words, it is immediately preceded by an adjective in agreement with the noun: Vergil, Ecl. 1.24, ‘alias inter caput extulit urbes’: 5.84Google Scholar, ‘saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles’: see also 9.35. More intricate are the following examples of the interlocking word order of two noun-adjective pairs and a preposition: Propertius 3.2.12, ‘camera auratas inter eburna trabes’; 4.8.31Google Scholar, ‘altera Tarpeios est inter Teia lucos’.
6 This line is usually quoted as the only evidence for frontes pictae. But in Seneca, dial. 9.9.6, the words ‘cui voluminum suorum frontes maxime placent titulique’, in addition to being a sarcastic statement to the effect that the books were never opened, may also suggest that the frontes and tituli were painted, especially since their owner wants to display them in decorative cases, ‘armaria 〈e〉 citro atque ebore.’ And in Martial 3.2.8–9, ‘et frontis gemino decens honore/pictis luxurieris umbilicis’, frontis gemino decens honore may refer to painted frontes rather than function as an anticipation of pictis umbilicis, since the poet is describing a deluxe roll bedecked with every possible ornament.
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