A masculine island in Lucan

Extract

The description of Brundisium, Lucan, II, 610–27, concludes:

hoc fuga nautarum, cum totas Hadria vires
movit et in nubes abiere Ceraunia cumque
spumoso Calaber perfunditur aequore Sason.

Sason appears to be the small island just north of the Ceraunian headland off the west coast of Macedonia, modern Sasena (cf. Strab. vi, iii, 5, p. 281; Polyb. v, 110; Plin. H.N. III, 152; Ptol. III, 12 ad fin.), and it is taken in that sense by those editors who notice it. The description would fit such an island in a storm very well.

Two questions arise: (1) Why is the island called Calabrian? (2) Why is the epithet masculine?

(1) It would hardly seem reasonable to call an island ‘Calabrian’ in a geographical sense unless it were off Calabria. Lucan may have thought the island to lie farther out in the straits than it does (cf. Strab. loc. cit. μέση πως): ancient maps may well have so represented it (cf. Ptol.), certainly if medieval maps can be taken as a guide. His description might then be by hypallage for spumosus Calabro…(pace Palmer., Graec. Antiq. Descr. I, 33, ‘procul dubio quod Calabri olim incoluerant primi’).