Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T21:59:52.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Notes on Lucan 101

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Nigel Holmes
Nigel Holmes
Affiliation:
York
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Describing Caesar's feast in Alexandria, Lucan comments on the folly of the Egyptians in displaying their riches to him, an armed guest already waging civil war, when even the more virtuous and austere Roman generals of antiquity - Fabricius, Curius and Cincinnatus - would be tempted to take such wealth in triumph for their country.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , May 1993 , pp. 266 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Luck, G., Lukan, der Biirgerkrieg (Berlin, 1985),Google Scholar ‘sich an den Schatzen der Welt durch ihren Untergang zu bereichern’;Schmidt, M. G., Caesar und Kleopatra, philologischer und historischer Kommentar zu Lucan, 10, 1–171 (Frankfurt, 1986)Google Scholar, ad loc, ‘Die ambivalente Stellung des Genetivsmundi scheint nicht unbeabsichtigt: Fur Caesar zahlt einzig der Burgerkrieg…zu dessen Fortfuhrung er bisher die Reichtumer dieser Welt gesucht hatte (opes mundi quaesisse), ohne deren Zerstorung zu achten(mundi… ruina). Der Genetivmundi in seinem Bezug zu opes undruina konstituiert also eine paradoxe Pointe.’

3 Cf. 2.251ff. quemque suae rapiunt in proelia causae, hos polluta domus legesque in pace timendae, hos ferro fugienda fames mundique ruinae permiscenda fides.

4 PCPhS 205 (1979), 48–9.

5 For the usage‘ quoi’, see Hakanson, loc. cit.; Quint.Inst. 1.7.27. As Housman notes,‘ quod’ can be understood from ‘cui’ for line 167; cf. Luc. 10.456f.

6 O.L.D. s.v. (6).

7 Luc. 6.437 ‘odoratae…aera pinnae’; Auson. 82.4 ‘Seplasiae aere’.

8 Plin.Nat. 12.86; Herodot. 3.113; Diod. Sic. 3.46.4.

9 Schmidt, ad loc, argues for ‘externae’ on the similar grounds that both ‘externae’ and ‘vicinae’ are genitive.

10 Compare particularly Sid. Ap.Epist. 2.13.7 ‘spumarent Falerno gemmae capaces inque crystallis calerent unguenta glacianbus’ and Luc. 10.159ff.:

11 Lucan usesprodere to similar effect in 10.179–81: quodcumque vetustis insculptum est adytis profer, noscique volentes prode deos.Hieroglyphic inscriptions, unreadable to Greeks and Romans, were paradoxically both published and concealed. It has been pointed out to me that the same paradoxical use of ‘fas’ with betrayal can also be found in the reminiscence that Guietus detected in our passage of Virg.Aen. 2.157 where Sinon claims ‘fas mihi Graiorum sacrata resolvere iura’.

12 For the dependence of Lucan and Lydus on Nat. quaest. 4a, see, H.Diels, ‘Seneca and Lucan’, Abhandlungen der Kgl. Pr. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 1885Google Scholar(= Diels, H., Kleine Schriften, ed.Burkert, W. (Darmstadt, 1979), pp.379–408)Google Scholar. Lucan's use of the Nat. quaest. is denied, unconvincingly, byPichon, R., Les Sources de Lucain (Paris, 1912), pp.42ff.Google Scholar;Eichberger, A., Untersuchungen zu Lucan, der Nilabschnitt im zehnten Buch des bellum civile (Diss., Tubingen, 1935)Google Scholar.

13 The rain theory is in the lost portion of the Nat. quaest.; cf. Lyd. Demens. 4.107, p. 106.8ff. (Wuensch); p. 106.16ff. (Wuensch). The damming theory is at Nat. quaest. 4a.2.22. For details and parallels, see Bonneau, D., La Crue du Nil (Paris, 1964), pp.152–9; pp. 195–208Google Scholar; Diels, pp. 11–13; Rehm, , R.E. XVII, p. 584Google Scholar, 49ff.

14 Heitland, W. E., ‘Notes on the Text of Lucan’, CR 9 (1895), 156Google Scholar.

15 A text of Anon. Flor. can be found at the end of Book 2 of Athenaeus in the edition of J. Schweighaeuser (Strasburg, 1801).

16 Lucan certainly knew of and used this aspect of the theory, as we see in 246f. (cited above). Here, however, the reference explains itself and has purpose in pointing a contrast between the river's expected outlet (‘ponti’) and its forced direction (‘in campos’).

17 ‘litora enim intellige mans, per quae Nilus effluit, quaeque fluctibus suis perrumpit. Venti igitur feriunt ostia Nili, ex adverso flantes, atque ita fluctus eius resistere h.e. longius morari cogunt.’

18 For the use of ‘fluctus’ of the river's waters, cf. in a similar context Luc. 3.230ff.: Ganges, toto qui solus in orbe ostia nascenti contraria solvere Phoebo audet et adversum fluctus inpellit in Eurum.

19 Op. cit., pp. 58f.

20 T.L.L. iv, p. 620, 76ff.; particularly Liv. 10.4.11.

21 Val. Flacc. 2.478 ‘ecce’; 5.91 ‘emicuit’; Luc. 1.580 ‘visi’; 2.481 ‘conspexit’.

22 Helm, R., Lustrum 1 (1956), p.203Google Scholar.

23 As it does unambiguously at Sil. 8.650.

24 Cf. Virg.Aen. 6.536.

25 SeeT.L.L. viii, p. 585, 36ff.; cf. Lucr. 6.723 (also describing the Nile's origins) ‘exoriens penitus media ab regione diei’; Virg.Georg. 3.303 ‘ad medium conversa diem’.

26 Cf. also Herodot. 2.31; Plin.Nat. 5.51; Luc. 10.274f.

27 Duff, ‘Cleopatra has seized the palace’; Bourgery, A./Ponchont, M., Lucain, La Guerre Civile II (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar, ‘ Cl⋯op⋯tre s’est emparee du palais’; Ehlers, W., Lucanus, Bellum civile, der Biirgerkrieg (Munich, 1973)Google Scholar, ‘Kleopatra hat den Palast besetzt’; Luck, ‘Kleopatra hat sich des Palasts bemachtigt’; Badali, R., La Guerra Civile (Turin, 1988)Google Scholar, ‘Cleopatra si e impossessata del palazzo’.

28 Cf. 10.360 ‘expugnare’; Pelling on Plut. Ant. 28.1 ἣρπασεν; App. Bell. civ. 5.8.

29 Duff, ‘i.e. betrayed by Cleopatra to Caesar, and then given away by Caesar to Cleopatra, who had only a disputed right to share the throne’; Bourgery/Ponchont, ‘Pharos n'a pas ⋯t⋯ seulement livr⋯e ⋯ C⋯sar: il en a fait cadeau’; Luck,‘ Kleopatra hat Agypten an Caesar verraten, und er hat es ihr dann zum Geschenk gemacht’; Badali, ‘Non soltanto e stata consegnata con il tradimento da Cleopatra a Cesare, ma da questo addiritura donata alia regina’.

30 Cf. 10.81, ‘du m donare Pharon, dum non sibi vincere mavolt’; Dio 42. 41. 1.

31 ‘Nee solum prodita est Aegyptus, quatenus Ptolemaeo nobisque competit, eo quod intromissa est in regiam Cleopatra, sed etiam eidem Cleopatrae ab Caesare dono data.’

32 Cf. 10.56–8:se parva Cleopatra biremi corrupto custode Phari laxare catenas intulit Emathiis…tectis.

33 Cf. Luc. 10.509 ‘claustrum…pelagi Pharon’; Caes.Bell. civ. 3.112.4 ‘Us…invitis, aquibus Pharus tenetur, non potest esse propter angustias introitus in portum’;Bell. Alex. 26.2.

34 Weise, ad loc.: ‘verum reliqui interpretes sic: tu vero solu cessas armatus accurrere et opprimere Cleopatram.’

35 10.393; 10.402ff.

36 This might in turn make a somewhat weaker punctuation after ‘pendet’ desirable; a comma rather than a semicolon would avoid leaving ‘pendet’ isolated within the sentence.