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[TIBULLUS] 3.7.175: AN EMENDATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2020

Boris Kayachev
Boris Kayachev*
Affiliation:
Wolfson College, Oxford
*
boriskayachev@gmail.com
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Extract

The anonymous panegyrist concludes his prediction of Messalla's future achievements by prophesying that, after his deeds are duly honoured with triumphs, Messalla will be titled the Great (175–6):

      ergo ubi praeclaros poscent tua facta triumphos, 175
      solus utroque idem diceris magnus in orbe.

175 praeclaros A: per claros Scaliger | poscent A: ierint F: tulerint Dyer: cierint Lachmann: noscent uel scierint Postgate: peperint Nencini

Line 175 contains a well-known textual problem: A (cod. Ambrosianus R. 26 sup., the oldest complete manuscript, apparently the archetype of all complete manuscripts) offers a text that is linguistically unobjectionable, but produces a weak sense; F (Fragmentum Cuiacianum, the only other independent witness, no longer extant) seems to express a more appropriate idea, but in a way that is not idiomatic. Hence the conjectures.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 901 - 904
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.

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References

1 Still, most editors print either A's or F's reading; to cite some: poscent: Postgate, J.P., Tibulli aliorumque carminum libri tres (Oxford, 1915 2), 65Google Scholar; Lee, G., Tibullus: Elegies (Leeds, 1990 3), 92Google Scholar; ierint: Lenz, F.W. and Galinsky, G.C., Albii Tibulli aliorumque carminum libri tres (Leiden, 1971 3), 155Google Scholar; G.P. Goold, in his revision of Cornish, F.W., Postgate, J.P., Mackail, J.W. (transl.), Catullus Tibullus Peruigilium Veneris (Cambridge, Mass., 1988 2), 320Google Scholar; Luck, G., Albii Tibulli aliorumque carmina (Stuttgart, 1988), 94Google Scholar; Tränkle, H., Appendix Tibulliana (Berlin, 1990), 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luca, E. De, Corpus Tibullianum III 7: Panegyricus Messallae (Soveria Mannelli, 2009), 34Google Scholar; Flach, D., Tibull und seine Fortsetzer (Darmstadt, 2015), 158Google Scholar. Fulkerson, L., A Literary Commentary on the Elegies of the Appendix Tibulliana (Oxford, 2017)Google Scholar does not cover [Tib.] 3.7.

2 Note e.g. that Lee (n. 1), 93 translates A's text as ‘when your achievements earn their splendid Triumphs’.

3 As is shown by Dixon, H., ‘The discovery and disappearance of the Fragmentum Cuiacianum of Tibullus’, RHT 1 (2006), 37–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, F has four potentially independent witnesses, of which the two more important ones are Scaliger's collation in a copy of the Plantine Catullus Tibullus Propertius (Antwerp, 1569), now in Leiden University Library (shelf mark 755 H 23), and his reports of F's readings in Scaliger, J., Castigationes in Catullum, Tibullum, Propertium (Paris, 1577)Google Scholar; the other two are Gryphius's anonymous Catullus Tibullus Propertius (Lyons, 1573), and the anonymous marginal annotations in a copy of Catullus Tibullus Propertius Multis in locis restituti (Paris, 1534), now in Bern University Library (Bongars VI 155). In the Castigationes Scaliger presents per claros as his own suggestion ([this note], 159: ‘Liber optimus habebat ierint, non poscent. Ergo legendum per claros’). His collation reads both ierint (attributed to ‘c. c.’ = ‘codex Cuiacianus’) and per claros (without ‘c. c.’): this may imply either that per claros is actually Scaliger's conjecture, or that he merely omitted to write ‘c. c.’ when collating and then erroneously assumed that it was his own conjecture (cf. Dixon [this note], 67). The 1573 edition does not feature F's readings for line 175, but the variants noted in Bongars's copy of the 1534 edition include both per claros and ierint, which may support the assumption that per claros was F's reading. Finally, J. Cujas, ‘Recitationes in libros IV. priores codicis Iustiniani’, in id., Appendix (Paris, 1658), 545–922, at 622 seems likewise to imply that F read per claros (‘veteres habent membranae. ergo vbi [sic] per claros ierunt [sic] tua facta triumphos’), though of course this testimony may not be accurate.

4 Tränkle (n. 1), 242, adducing two parallels, Ov. Her. 16.269 nostra per has leges audacia fortiter isset and Quint. Inst. 1.8.7 [comoedia] per omnis et personas et adfectus eat, but both are simply irrelevant, since they have ire per in a quite different idiomatic sense (OLD s.v. eo 1 13b ‘to be influenced by, act in accordance with [an example or model]’; TLL 5.2.648.5–12 ‘sequi per exempla alicuius [in vita aut arte]’); cf. Kenney, E.J., Ovid Heroides XVI–XXI (Cambridge, 1996), 115Google Scholar.

5 See the examples in TLL 5.2.647.76–648.1, e.g. Tac. Dial. 32.2 per omnis eloquentiae numeros isse, Arnob. Adu. nat. 4.26 Iuppiter … infamis est isse per innumeras species, Prudent. C. Symm. 1.619–20 nec … per debita culmina mundi | ire uiros prohibet.

6 Cf. in general G. Luck, Review of Tränkle (n. 1), GGA 246 (1994), 70–86, at 74: ‘Hier kommt man ohne scierint (Postgate) nicht aus […]. Andere Erklärungen („wenn deine Taten glänzende Triumphe durchlaufen haben“ übersetzt Tr.) lassen sich sprachlich nicht rechtfertigen’.

7 Cf. Juv. 8.107 plures de pace triumphos.

8 [G. Dyer,] Albii Tibulli opera omnia (London, 1822), 317 (‘tulerint forte fortuna vera est lectio’).

9 Taking tulerint tua facta as ‘your deeds will have brought you’ (OLD s.v. fero 23 ‘To give, convey, bestow’?) may be an option too, though I find it less attractive.

10 Lachmann, C., Albii Tibulli libri quattuor (Berlin, 1829), 62Google Scholar.

11 Postgate (n. 1), 65.

12 Cf. e.g. Catull. 78.3–4 nam te omnia saecla | noscent, Ov. Pont. 3.2.98 laudarunt omnes facta.

13 Cf. e.g. Ov. Rem. am. 706 signa deum nosco per sua, German. Arat. 378 [ignes] per appositi noscuntur lumina signi, Luc. 2.6 noscant uenturas ut dira per omina clades.

14 Nencini, F., Il Tibullo ambrosiano e la critica tibulliana (Milan, 1929), 39Google Scholar.

15 [Tib.] 3.7 and Catal. 9 also have many points of contact outside these passages; see e.g. P. Sommer, De Vergilii Maronis Catalepton carminibus quaestionum capita tria (Halle, 1910), 50–9.