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SOME LATIN FUNERARY FORMULAE WITH OBITVS AS A DIRECT OBJECT: ORIGIN, MEANING AND USE*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2016

Iveta Adams
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Extract

This paper is about several little-known Latin funerary formulae of some interest. It is also intended as an addition to the growing literature on what are now called in English ‘support verbs’, with special focus on facio.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , December 2016 , pp. 525 - 539
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Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Nigel Vincent for providing some important references to secondary literature, Harm Pinkster for allowing me access to his book on Latin syntax (which was still forthcoming at the time of writing this article), David Langslow for help with medical texts, Anna Chahoud for helping me obtain items of bibliography, John Briscoe for guiding me around The University of Manchester Library, and especially J.N. Adams for invaluable comments and ideas on various points in the article. I am also grateful to the editors of CQ and the anonymous referee for the journal for their helpful suggestions on improving the text.

References

1 www.manfredclauss.de.

2 Obeo ‘to die’ (OLD s.v. 8) comes from obeo mortem/diem ‘to meet one's death/final day’: see OLD s.v. obeo 7, TLL X.2.45.81–46.14.

3 On support verbs in Latin see e.g. Rosén, H., Studies in the Syntax of the Verbal Noun in Early Latin (Munich, 1981), 132–44Google Scholar, with a list of examples on pp. 131–5 (for the same phenomenon described here as ‘accusative-passive periphrasis’ in which ‘the verbal noun [is] in the accusative as object of verbs such as facere, dare, occasionally capere, ferre’, with special reference to Early Latin); Flobert, P., ‘Les verbes supports en latin’, in Bammesberger, A. and Heberlein, F. (edd.), Akten des VIII. internationalen Kolloquiums zur lateinischen Linguistik (Heidelberg, 1995), 193–9Google Scholar; R. Hoffmann, ‘Funktionsverbgefüge im Lateinischen’, in Bammesberger and Heberlein (this note), 200–21; Pinkster, H., The Oxford Latin Syntax, vol. I: The Simple Clause (Oxford, 2015), 74–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with further bibliography. For periphrastic phrases of this type with facio in particular see Moreda, S. López, Los grupos lexemáticos de ‘facio’ y ‘ago’ en el latín arcaico y clásico: studio structural (Salamanca, 1987), 64–8 (‘FACIO II’)Google Scholar.

4 For medeor used in the same way with the dative of morbus cf. Cic. De or. 3.132: an tu existimas … fuisse tum alios medicos, qui morbis, alios qui uulneribus, alios qui oculis mederentur?; see further TLL VIII.520.78–80.

5 For odi = ‘to have an aversion to’ see OLD s.v. Cf. also Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford, 1957), 263 Google Scholar, on the ‘reduced force’ of odisse = aspernari or spernere.

6 Löfstedt, E., Philologischer Kommentar zur Peregrinatio Aetheriae (Darmstadt, 1970), 164 Google Scholar.

7 Trans. H.M. Hubbell, Loeb.

8 Trans. W. de Melo, Loeb.

9 See Bailey's, Shackleton (Epistulae ad Quintum fratrem et M. Brutum [Cambridge, 1980], 206–7 ad loc.)Google Scholar note on the QFr. phrase quoted here: ‘“I shall work wonders” (“bring the house down” T.-P. [= Tyrrell–Purser]); cf. De orat. 1.152 haec sunt quae clamores et admirationes in bonis oratoribus efficiunt.’

10 N.H. Watt (Loeb) translates ‘You have seen the carnage, the stone-throwing, and the banishments for which he was responsible’, but see Nisbet, Robert G., M. Tulli Ciceronis De domo sua ad pontifices oratio (Oxford, 1939), 132 Google Scholar on fugas: ‘not “banishments” but “stampedes” (in the streets of Rome): cf. Pis. 28 lapides, fugae’. On fugae in the In Pisonem passage just cited Nisbet, Robin G.M., M. Tulli Ciceronis In L. Calpurnium Pisonem oratio (Oxford, 1961), 92 Google Scholar says: ‘the rioters scattered the populace’.

11 Woodman, Trans. A.J., Sallust: Catiline's War, the Jugurthine War, Histories (London, 2007)Google Scholar.

12 Baños, J.M. Baños, ‘Verbos soportes e incorporación sintáctica en latín: el ejemplo de ludos facere ’, Revista de Estudios Latinos 12 (2012), 37–57 Google Scholar, discussing another case of a facio-phrase with a double meaning, ludos facere = ‘to organize/celebrate games’ in Latin of all periods and ludos facere = ‘to play a joke (on)’ in the Plautine expression in which the phrase takes a second (personal) object, ludos facere aliquem (‘to make a fool of someone’, OLD s.v. ludus 4a), establishes criteria for identifying ludos facere = to play a joke (on)’ as a support construction. However, since the subject of the article is support verbs and syntactic incorporation in Latin as exemplified by ludos facere + object, his categories seem mainly to be specific to support-verb phrases displaying such syntactic incorporation in particular, the replaceability criterion aside.

13 Huddleston, R. and Pullam, G.K. (edd.), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Cambridge, 2002), 290–6, at 291CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The Cambridge Grammar (n. 13), 291.

15 Trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Loeb.

16 Example quoted by Pinkster (n. 3), 74. Trans. H.B. Ash, Loeb.

17 Trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (his letter 404).

18 Another factor that could condition the non-replaceability of a support-verb phrase with a simple verb is the syntactic construction governed by the nominal phrase, which might not be possible with the related verb: see Spevak, O., The Noun Phrase in Classical Latin Prose (Leiden, 2014), 252–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Spevak (253) quotes for example spem habeo in, where spem habeo would not be replaceable with spero as the simple verb does not take in.

19 Compare, in a similar vein, The Cambridge Grammar (n. 13), noting that ‘the light use of … [such] verbs contrasts with their ordinary use, where they have their full semantic content, as in She gave him an orange; I made a paper-hat; He had a Rolls-Royce; We took all we could find’ (291).

20 Baños Baños (n. 12), 50.

21 The Cambridge Grammar (n. 13), 291.

22 Above, p. 526. For obeo = ‘to die’ in funerary inscriptions see e.g. Diehl's indices to ILCV (vol. III) s.v.

23 Trans. G.P. Goold, Loeb.

24 In his OCT edition of Propertius, S. Heyworth prints mortem obitura ; this, as explained in the apparatus, is Heinsius's emendation for the MS mortem habitura (as accepted in earlier editions).

25 Thus Kroll, W., ‘Die Sprache des Sallust’, Glotta 15 (1927), 280–305, at 302Google Scholar, on fugam faciunt in Sal. Iug. 53.3; cf. also Hofmann, J.B. and Szantyr, A., Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik (Munich, 1965), 755–6Google Scholar.

26 In medical writings, see e.g. Caelius Aurelianus, Celeres passiones 1.77, p. 66.8–9 Bendz ut sanguinis detractio fiat (cf. detrahere sanguinem at Tardae passiones 1.49, 1.141, 5.23, pp. 456.25, 514.6, 868.4 Bendz), 1.111, p. 84.17 Bendz si … fuerit facta humoris detractio (cf. 2.74, p. 176.2–3 Bendz humore … detracto), 3.68, p. 332.21 Bendz infusi et destillati liquoris in os recursio per nares fiet (cf. 2.46, p. 158.15 Bendz accurrere materiam ac deinde ad caput recurrere; Tardae passiones 2.185, p. 656.27–8 Bendz recurrens ex bracchio … sanguis), etc. For the (rarer) active use of facio in this way in medical texts cf. e.g. Celeres passiones 3.164, p. 388.21 Bendz facere dirumptionem intestinorum; Cassius Felix XVIII.5 Fraisse incisuram facies, XXXVII.1 Fraisse siquidem (passio) ad pulmonem faciat decursum (the last two examples are quoted by Langslow, D.R., Medical Latin in the Roman Empire [Oxford, 2000], 387, as 27.14 and 81.18 [Rose])Google Scholar.

27 Langslow (n. 26), 383–4 (my emphasis).

28 Langslow (n. 26), 412.

29 Langslow (n. 26), 415.

30 Langslow (n. 26), 415–16. On ‘nominalizations’ of the type sanguinis detractio, emissio, missio as characteristic of medical writers and contexts, and an explanation for this, see also D.R. Langslow, ‘The doctor, his actions, and the terminology’, in Gaide, F. and Biville, F. (edd.), Manus medica (Aix-en-Provence, 2003), 25–35, esp. 27–8Google Scholar.

31 Didactic literature: e.g. Cato, Agr. 30 sementim facturus eris; Varro, Rust. 1.34 uindemiam facere; historiography: e.g. Claudius Quadrigarius, F 6.15 Cornell ( Cornell, T.J. [ed.], The Fragments of the Roman Historians, vol. II: Texts and Translations [Oxford, 2013], 500 Google Scholar) ea congressio … facta est.

32 sententiolas edicti cuiusdam memoriae mandaui, quas uidetur ille peracutas putare: ego autem qui intellegeret quid dicere uellet adhunc neminem inueni. ‘nulla contumelia est, quam facit dignus.’ … quid est porro facere contumeliam? quis sic loquitur?

33 quae ille quidem fecerit schemata, an idem uocari possint, uidendum, quia recepta sint. nam receptis etiam uulgo auctore contenti sumus: ut nunc eualuit rebus agentibus, quod Pollio in Labieno damnat, et contumeliam fecit, quod a Cicerone reprehendi notum est. The negative attitude persisted into later times: see J.N. Adams on the two editions of the early medieval Annales Regni Francorum, in the first of which ‘circumlocutions comprising facio + object as the equivalent of a more precise verb’ are frequently used (alongside some similar expressions with habeo), while in the second they are usually eliminated (‘The vocabulary of the Annales Regni Francorum ’, Glotta 55 [1977], 257–82, at 278–9Google Scholar). The first edition is in poor Latin showing no sign of the Carolingian revival of learning. The second has been ‘corrected’ along classical lines, and the corrector(s) must have disapproved of facio-periphrases.

34 For other examples from Classical Latin see e.g. Caes. BGall. 2.33.2 deditione facta, BCiv. 2.25.7 qua pronuntione facta; Plin. Ep. 8.10.1 neptem tuam abortum fecisse; Livy 21.50.2 facere certamen, 6.9.11 magna caedes fugientium … est facta, 26.23.8 nominatio in lucum eius non est facta; Vitr. 9.1.11 cum faciant eae stellae regressus et morationes, 9.1.15 (canales) in quibus hae cogantur circinationem facere.

35 Löfstedt (n. 6), 162–8.

36 Wilkinson, J., Egeria's Travels: Newly Translated with Supporting Documents and Notes (London, 1971)Google Scholar translates: ‘next day we renewed our supply of water’.

37 A late parallel to our obitum facere = ‘died’ may possibly be seen in the funerary inscriptions on the wall of the absis maxima of the basilica built by the bishop Euphrasius in Parentium (modern Poreč in Croatia), Inscriptiones Italiae X.2 95–182 (end of sixth century). As noted by the editors (pp. 45–6), all of these inscriptions with just a few exceptions display the same form: at the beginning the day and month (of death) are indicated, followed by obitum (written in full in several epitaphs) or obiit, and the name of the deceased at the end. TLL (s.v. obitus II.A.1), quoting nos. 120, 124, 155 ‘et saepius’, suggests that obitum in these epitaphs might be explained either as the object of fecit (understood) (obitus = ‘death’), or as a deponent perfect participle of obeo, with no distinction of gender; the TLL is non-committal about the alternatives. The variation between obitum and obiit in the inscriptions from the basilica makes it tempting to take obitum there as obitum [sc. fecit], but given that obitus = ‘dead’ is common in inscriptions (see I. Mednikarova, ‘The use of Θ in Latin funerary inscriptions’, ZPE 136 [2001], 267–76, esp. 273–4 with nn. 36–9), the alternative suggestion in TLL cannot be ruled out either.

38 On the form Crescensa for Crescentia see below, p. 534 with n. 47.

39 Cf. also Lupas, L., ‘Denumirile mormîntului în latina’, Studii Clasice 5 (1963), 111–35, at 124, 131Google Scholar; Diehl ad ILCV 3052b: ‘nota obitum = sepulcrum uel depositio’; Löfstedt, E., Late Latin (Oslo, 1959), 146–7 n. 2Google Scholar.

40 Löfstedt (n. 39), 144–56. See also Hofmann and Szantyr (n. 25), 745–51, with further bibliography.

41 See TLL s.v. oratio ‘caput alterum: cum notione precandi’, C.I ‘metonymice i.q. domus orationis, oratorium’ (TLL IX.2.89.1–15).

42 Löfstedt (n. 39), 146–7 with n. 2.

43 Lupas (n. 39), 131.

44 For in pace used as here with fecit, fecerunt sim. as a common Christian formula see Diehl in the indices to ILCV (vol. III) s.v. pax III.B (‘de pace biblica’) f, p. 380, with examples.

45 For the nominative plural in -os alongside the nominative plural feminine in -as as a rare late feature see Adams, J.N., Social Variation and the Latin Language (Cambridge, 2013), 252 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Roval, F., ‘L'estensione dell'accusative in latino tardo e medievale’, AGI 90 (2005), 54–87 Google Scholar; Herman, J., ‘Les ardoises wisigothiques et le problème de la différenciation territorial du latin’, in Callebat, L. (ed.), Latin vulgaire, latin tardif IV: Actes du 4e Colloque international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif, Caen, 2–5 septembre 1994 (Hildesheim, Zürich and New York, 1995), 63–76 Google Scholar.

46 Quoted by Adams (n. 45), 121.

47 See Adams (n. 45), 120–3, esp. 121 n. 37, where he refers to Svennung as ‘citing as the earliest example of the phenomenon CIL XV.2612 Marsia(nenses), said to be of the third century’.

48 BCHT (1938–40), 210.

49 M.L. Leschi dates this inscription to the third century a.d. on the basis of the third-century date of the cemetery to which it belongs, adding that ‘l'absence de toute mention de tribu sur les tombes de vétérans citoyens romains est un nouvel argument en faveur de cette époque’ (BCHT [1936–7], 45).

50 See e.g. Väänänen, V., Introduction au latin vulgaire (Paris, 1981 3), 29–30 Google Scholar.

51 See Prinz, O., De o et u vocalibus inter se permutatis in lingua Latina: quaestiones epigraphicae (Halle an der Saale, 1932), 94, with examplesGoogle Scholar.

52 Cf. e.g. CIL VI 13506 (Θ Baloniae N. l. Secundae uix(it) an(nos) XXVI), 20947 (Θ  P. Furius P. f. Celer uix(it) a(nnos) XXI), 23299 (Θ C. Octauius Sp. f. Col. Paetus u(ixit) a(nnos) XVI); also CIL VI 38547, XII 4487, XIII 275, etc. On the use of theta in Latin funerary inscriptions see Mednikarova (n. 37), 267–76; for Republican inscriptions in particular see Kruschwitz, P., ‘Der Gebrauch von Θ in republikanischen Grabinschriften’, ZPE 138 (2002), 109–12Google Scholar.

53 Trans. E.S. Foster, Loeb.

54 Originally published by Leveau, P. in BAA 5 (1971–4), 133–4Google Scholar, with a photo in fig. 104.