THEBAID 6.22
At the start of Book 6, the poet compares the funerary games for Opheltes, presented as an unarmed preparation for war, to a class of sailors who train in calm waters before setting out to sea. The end of the simile reads (6.21–2):Footnote 1
The transmitted discunt in 6.22 contradicts the sentiment conveyed by the simile—namely, that the tranquillus lacus provides the sailors with a safe environment to hone their craft. How, then, should they ‘learn actual perils’?Footnote 3 Fortgens suggests that pericula be understood in a sense akin to temptationes or experimenta (OLD 1).Footnote 4 This usage occurs, for example, at Ter. Eun. 476–7 fac periclum in litteris | fac in palaestra, in musicis (‘test him in literature, test him at sports and music’), Cic. Diu. Caec. 27 sed tute tui periculum fecisti? and Tac. Ann. 14.28.1 ut … eiusdem pecuniae periculum facerent. But these examples point to the flaw in Fortgens’s suggestion: the proposed meaning of the word only appears in the expression periculum facere.Footnote 5 Moreover, the presence of ipsa is not accounted for. Allowing for an adversative function of atque (‘and still’), discunt may have been introduced through corruption caused by a superficial interpretation of the context. If we emend the verb to desunt, the line expresses the contrast drawn between ipsa pericula and the safety of a lacus: ‘they explore the rudder and the light oars, and yet actual perils are absent’. desunt appears in the final position on two other occasions in the Thebaid (5.109 and 12.705). What is more, the simile would now seem to carry an ironic note in keeping with Statius’ paradoxical style: the purportedly harmless environment of the games will be as perilous as war for those participating in the chariot race, the boxing match and the wrestling bout.Footnote 6
THEBAID 6.224
After the pyre of Opheltes has been kindled, the Argive army performs a funerary procession (decursio funebris) around the rogus. When they have made three leftward rounds, Amphiaraus calls them back (6.221–4):
I am here concerned with the last sentence. Criticizing its ‘jarring inelegance’ (presumably taking aim at the accumulation of ablatives with only one finite verb), Hall proposed emending gyro et to gyrant.Footnote 7 His conjecture is improbable: non-participial forms of gyro appear only in Late Antiquity, and the verb’s single occurrence before the Vetus Latina (Plin. HN 5.62 ad effigiem Macedonicae chlamydis orbe gyrato) carries a somewhat different meaning (‘make round’).Footnote 8 His suspicion of hac (‘by this route’), on the other hand, seems more justified: it is not clear what exactly the adverb describes. If the word describes the direction of the procession, its inclusion would be otiose (‘they return in this direction [that is, rightward] brandishing their lances’). Even if hac is taken to refer to the manner of the procession (‘and so [they] return with quivering spears’, Mozley translates)Footnote 9 —a doubtful usage found possibly at Plaut. Stich. 463, where Gelasimus reports a favourable omen (item me spero facturum: augurium hac facit ‘I hope to act in this way: my omen makes it so’)—the sentence does not become any easier to understand. Hall’s conjecture (ac) can only be accepted if we follow his emendation of gyro et. It seems, rather, that hac has taken the place of a temporal adverb. I propose that tunc should be read. Compare Prop. 4.1a.36 tunc (hac MSS) ubi Fidenas longa erat isse uia, where Ritschl’s tunc (accepted by modern editors) solves the same problem.Footnote 10
