In lines 646–60 of his translation of Aratus’ Phaenomena, Germanicus narrates the story of Orion, the mythical hunter killed by a scorpion sent by Diana because of his attempt to rape the goddess, and then transformed into a star.Footnote ¹ In particular, line 651 describes Orion's hunting:

The wording of this verse caused some exegetical difficulties, centred around the expression angusto stipite, which seems inadequate as a definition of the mythical hunter's club, and moreover contradicts the corresponding passage in Aratus, where Orion's κορύνη is defined στιβαρά, ‘stout’.Footnote ² In both of the latest critical editions of Germanicus’ Aratea (dating back in reality to the seventies of the past century), by Le Boeuffle and Gain,Footnote ³ the text is emended: while Le Boeuffle accepted Orelli's conjecture ambusto for angusto,Footnote ⁴ Gain, following a suggestion by Housman, printed augustas, referring to siluas;Footnote ⁵ but neither conjecture appears to be particularly appropriate to the context. More recently Watt proposed to emend to robusto,Footnote ⁶ which would be a faithful translation of Aratus’ στιβαρῇ: this correction gives perhaps a better sense, but is palaeographically more removed from the transmitted reading and does not offer a plausible explanation of the origin of the corruption.

On the other hand, a convincing explanation of the meaning of the verse was provided already in 1898 by Thiele, who argued that angusto stipite should be considered a deliberate alteration by Germanicus of Aratus’ description, based on the observation of Orion's figure as portrayed in an astronomical illustration or celestial globe.Footnote ⁷ In the ancient images of the constellation known to us, Orion is in fact often armed with a pedum or λαγωβόλον, a thin curved stick used for hare-hunting,Footnote ⁸ as attested, for example, in the depiction of Orion on the so-called Farnese globe (which probably reproduces a model going back to Hipparchus),Footnote ⁹ as well as in some illustrations contained in several Aratean manuscripts, such as the Leidensis Vossianus lat. Q. 79 of Germanicus.Footnote ¹⁰ Thiele's idea was sarcastically dismissed by Housman, who objected that angustus stipes can in no way mean gracilis.Footnote ¹¹ But for once we can say that Housman was wrong. There are in fact a couple of examples in which the adjective angustus, referring to a weapon, assumes the exact meaning of ‘thin, narrow’. The first example is found in a passage of Tacitus, describing a kind of spear, with a short and narrow iron head, used by German peoples: Tac. Germ. 6.1 rari gladiis aut maioribus lanceis utuntur: hastas uel ipsorum uocabulo frameas gerunt angusto et breui ferro. The second and more interesting example, specifically of a club, narrower in the handle, then widening toward the end, comes from the grammatical treatise of Marius Plotius Sacerdos (third century a.d.?): Sacerd. Gramm. 505.27–9 Keil si fuerit rhopalius uersus, qui a monosyllabo uerbo incipiens gradatim crescit et ῥόπαλον, id est Herculis clauam, imitatur ab angusto et tenui in latitudinem desinens. These parallels, although later than Germanicus, confirm that angusto stipite can be understood in the sense of ‘with (his) thin club’, and that the transmitted wording can therefore be retained.

More generally, this verse offers a particularly clear and interesting example of the importance of astronomical illustrations for Germanicus’ translation. We know that, apart from celestial globes, illustrated editions of Aratus, furnished with images representing the different stars and constellations described by the poet, were produced in antiquity, probably even since the Hellenistic Age:Footnote ¹² and Germanicus could surely draw on this iconographic material—which in part passed also into our medieval manuscripts—in order to integrate or, as in this case, to correct the text of Aratus and his description of various constellations.Footnote ¹³