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Some Ennian Phrases in the Aeneid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. M. Bowra
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Extract

Vergil's plagiarism has been a theme for critics ever since Perellius Faustus made an anthology of his ‘furta’ and Quintus Octavius Avitus com-piled eight volumes of Оμоιóτηɛσ, giving both the original passages and Vergil's adaptations of them (Suet. Vit. Verg. 45). Much of this literature has survived in the commentary of Servius and in Book VI. of the Saturnalia of Macrobius. The study of his imitations and plagiarisms throws much light on Vergil's methods and aims of composition, and has frequently been attempted in editions of his works. But one class of his plagiarisms differs considerably from the rest. Often in the Aenèid he incorporates phrases, either intact or slightly altered, from the Annales of Ennius. These differ from where he imitates Homer, because in them he does not have to translate from Greek into Latin and so remake the original into something new, and they differ, too, from his adaptations of some other earlier Latin poets, because Ennius was his only important forerunner who had written on the same heroic themes of war and the growth of Rome.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , April 1929 , pp. 65 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1929

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References

page 65 note 1 Cf.Regel, G., De Vergilio Poetarum Imitatore Testimonia Göttingen, 1907Google Scholar.

page 65 note 2 Cf. W. A. Merrill, Parallels and Coincidences in Lucretius and Vergil. University of California.

page 65 note 3 Cf.de Witt, N. W., The Dido Episode in the Aeneid. Chicago, 1907Google Scholar.

page 66 note 1 Cf.Cicero's, views on the change in the treatment 0r fina -s in Or. XVIII. 161: ‘ita non erat ea offensio in versibus quam nunc fugiunt poetae novi.’Google Scholar

page 66 note 2 References are to Vahlen's edition.

page 67 note 1 Cf.Lindsay, W. M.: Early Latin Verse, p. 125Google Scholar.

page 67 note 2 Vergil's version is nearer than Ennius' to the Homeric original:

άσπίσ ρ' άσπίδ' ɛρɛιδɛ, κόρυσ κόυν, άέρα δ' άνήρ (N. 131).

page 67 note 3 Lindsay, W. M., Early Latin Verse, p. 135Google Scholar, says: ‘Ennius clearly treats these syllables as half-long, scanning them long in one line, short in another.’ But the fact that Ennius only so lengthens before the caesura points to the lengthening being due to ictus metricus.

page 68 note 1 His nearest approach to it is:

‘nusquam amittebat oculosque sub astra’ tenebat' (Aen. V. 853).

page 68 note 2 Perhaps he had in mind the old Litany to the Tiber:

‘Adesto Tiberine Cum tuis undis’ quoted by Servius ad Aen. VIII. 72.

page 68 note 3 Dr. Steuart wrongly prints ‘fulgentibus here (The Annals of Ennius, p. 12).

page 70 note 1 Cf.Henry, , Aeneidea, II, p. 248Google Scholar.

page 73 note 1 Cf.Moseley, N., Characters and Epithets: A Study in Vergil's Aeneid, pp. 31–36Google Scholar.