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Classis Numerosa: Juvenal, Satire 7. 151
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
What is the meaning of numerosa? From the fifteenth-century commentaries of Valla and Mancinelli to the most recent translation of Juvenal into English, by Peter Green, interpreters are in nearly unanimous agreement that numerosa describes a particular annoyance of the rhetor's unrewarding life, namely, the large size of his classes. A few commentaries, however, touch upon another interpretation, although without defending it. Pearson and Strong, after translating numerosa as ‘overgrown’, continue: numerosa might mean “in rhythmical cadence”, referring to the sing-song implied in cantabit. H. P. Wright too sees a possibility that the adjective might describe a musical or sing-song style of declaiming. A brief examination of Juvenal's purpose here and a consideration of some passages from other writers will show that ‘sing-song’ is certainly the primary meaning intended here and probably the only one.
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References
page 506 note 1 Valla's gloss runs: numerosa multitudo declamantium; Mancinelli comments: discipulorum acies ac numerus. Green's trans. (Baltimore, 1967), gives: ‘You must possess iron nerves / To sit through a whole large class's attack on “The Tyrant”.’ Cf. Highet, G., Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford 1954), 108Google Scholar: ‘He [Juv.] says that schoolmasters are kept busy, with crowded classes.’
page 506 note 2 Thirteen Satires of Juv., ed. by Pearson, C. H. and Strong, H. A. (Oxford, 1887), pt. 2, p. 65.Google Scholar
page 506 note 3 Satires of Juv., ed. by Wright, H. P., (Boston, 1901), 81.Google Scholar
page 506 note 4 Thirteen Satires of Juv., ed. by Mayor, J. E. B, 4th edn. (London and New York 1889), i. 306.Google Scholar
page 506 note 5 Quint. 1. 2. 15–29.
page 506 note 6 Quint. 1. 2. 29 and 10. 5. 21.
page 507 note 1 We are assuming that the subject of the verbs legerat, perferet, and cantabit is classis or the individual pupil. Clarke, M. L., who once suggested Vettius as the subject {CP lxiii [1968], 42–4)Google Scholar, became less certain when he found evidence in the Hermeneumata pseudodositkeana that ‘the grammar-school boy had to perform twice, once seated and once standing’. See CP lxiii (1968), 295–6.Google Scholar If Vettius were the subject, the verbs would probably be in the second person. Knoche finds the subject by reading idem, with several MSS., for isdem in line 153.
page 507 note 2 Oral. 56. 187. Cf. ibid. 57. 195.
page 507 note 3 Ibid. 59. 201 and 65. 230.
page 507 note 4 Ibid. 23. 77 and 62. 210.
page 507 note 5 Ibid. 8.27 and 18. 57; De orat. I. 23. 105.
page 507 note 6 Suas. 2. 10.
page 507 note 7 Ep. 114. 1.
page 507 note 8 Tac. Dial. 26; Pliny Ep. 2. 14.
page 508 note 1 Quint. 1. 8. 2.
page 508 note 2 Quint, ii. 3. 57. Cf. also Dio Chrys. Orat. 32. 68; On the Sublime 41; Philostatus, , Vit. Soph. pp. 513 and 620.Google Scholar See Norden, E., Die Antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig and Berlin, 1915), i. 294–5Google Scholar and Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation (Liverpool 1949), 21–2.Google Scholar
page 508 note 3 Auct. ad Herennium 3. 11. 19 ff., ed. Caplan, H. (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1954), 189 fr.Google Scholar On the prime importance of pronuntiatio and its central place in rhetorical education see Cicero, Brutus 38. 142, Orat. 17. 56, De Orat. 3. 56. 213; Quint. 11. 3. 6.
page 508 note 4 Auct. ad Herennium 3. 11. 19–20; Cicero, , Brutus 38. 141Google Scholar; Quint. 11. 3. 1.
page 508 note 5 Satires of Juv., ed. by Duff, J. D. (Cambridge, 1898), 287.Google Scholar