No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
QUOTATIONS OF LUCAN AND THE INDIRECT TRADITION: TEXTUAL NOTES ON THE BELLVM CIVILE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2024
Abstract
This article deals with the contribution of the indirect tradition to establishing the text of Lucan's Bellum ciuile. First, the methodological basis for the use of quotations is outlined, and then five passages from the Bellum ciuile are discussed. The variant readings which appear in the indirect tradition constitute important points that have been wrongly neglected by most editors of Lucan's poem.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
References
1 Shackleton Bailey, D.R., Marcus Annaeus Lucanus De bello civili libri X (Stuttgart, 1988)Google Scholar. The sigla used in this article, however, are taken from the edition of Badalì, R., Lucani opera (Rome, 1992)Google Scholar.
2 Pascucci, G., ‘La tradizione indiretta nella trasmissione dei testi antichi’, Quaderni dell'AICC di Foggia 1 (1981), 27–36Google Scholar, at 27.
3 Tarrant, R.J., Texts, Editors and Readers. Methods and Problems in Latin Textual Criticism (Cambridge, 2016), 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 ‘P. Chiesa, Elementi di critica testuale (Bologna, 2012²), 105–6.
5 The naming of a wind together with uentus is, however, not impossible in Latin (see Plin. HN 18.333 uentumque Aquilonem Borean Graecis dictum), but it is rather a prosaic expression.
6 See e.g. Luc. 2.457.
7 This is a translation for the concept used by G. Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (Florence, 1952²), 191.
8 See e.g. Sen. Tro. 1160–1.
9 These two notions are associated elsewhere by Lucan: Luc. 4.756 pectora rauca gemunt (see also Sil. Pun. 2.245).
10 See Lactant. Plac. Theb. 2.655 quoting Luc. 4.363–4, with the variant reading uultu menteque serenus. mente is a metrical stopgap used to make the quoted line complete, since the first word of the verse, dixerat, is omitted in the quotation.
11 The reading miscuit can be read in MS F, while MSS E and N omit the final verb of the quotation.
12 This is the reading of MSS F and G; MS C of Servius auctus has the reading impleuit.
13 The reading implebit is in MSS M and Z.
14 See e.g. Luc. 3.545 quoted by Prisc. Gramm. Lat. 2.330.2 Hertz with puppem and Gramm. Lat. 3.53.20 Hertz with puppim.
15 nomen is the reading in MSS G, U, V and B.
16 See further N. Laubry, ‘Les «coups de foudre» de Jupiter et l'exportation de la religion romaine en Gaule’, Gallia 73 (2016), 123–44, at 134, who demonstrates this on the basis of epigraphic documentation. The defence of the nomen variant by R. Schilling, ‘IVPPITER FVLGVR: à propos de deux lois archaïques’, Publications de l’École Française de Rome 22 – Mélanges de philosophie, de littérature et d'histoire ancienne offerts à Pierre Boyancé (Rome, 1974), 681–9, at 684 n. 1 is less convincing.
17 See Ov. Ars am. 1.203 date numen eunti, Sen. HO 1982 nouumque templis additum numen canam.
18 P. Roche, Lucan De Bello Ciuili Book I (Oxford and New York, 2009), 350.
19 Valerius Flaccus (1.626) uses the ablative murmure maesto to evoke the fear-filled complaint of the Argonauts in the face of a storm. The same is true of Ps.-Seneca's Octavia (923), where the expression maestum … murmur refers to a complaint.
20 Hedicke, E., Studia Bentleiana. 6.2. Lucanus Bentleianus (Freienwald, 1911), 7Google Scholar.
21 TLL 8.0.48.15–30. Moreover, the adjective maestus is not appropriate to the description of prayers, unless they take the form of lamentations or complaints: see, for example, Val. Flac. 3.601 lacrimis maestisque … uotis.
22 Van Andringa, W., Archéologie du geste. Rites et pratiques à Pompéi (Paris, 2021), 49–51Google Scholar suggests that maesto refers, through the prayer, to the gloomy character of the place in which the lightning is buried.
23 Luc. 1.616 palluit … Arruns and 1.618 terruit ipse color uatem.
24 On silent or whispered prayers, i.e. inaudible to the audience witnessing the ritual, see Corre, N., ‘La prière secrète du pontife ou Silence et murmure, des gestes vocaux signifiants dans la tradition religieuse romaine’, RBPh 95 (2017), 39–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I believe that Laboissière's hypothesis that murmur refers to the noise made by lightning as it enters the earth is erroneous, because both the syntax and the context imply that murmur describes the way in which Arruns speaks: de Laboissière, J.-L., ‘Mémoire sur les connaissances des anciens dans l'art d’évoquer et d'absorber la foudre’, Mémoires de l'Académie de Nîmes (1822), 304–23, at 313Google Scholar.
25 Corre (n. 24), 46.
26 Moreover, the word tacito echoes the secrecy of the place in which the lightning was buried. See Van Andringa (n. 22), 50.
27 The text is thus cited in various modern articles devoted to the rite of burial of lightning: see Schilling (n. 16); B. Rémy and A. Buisson, ‘Les inscriptions commémorant la chute de la foudre dans les provinces romaines de la Gaule. À propos d'un nouveau document découvert à Saint–Geoire-en-Valdaine (Isère)’, Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise 25 (1992), 83–104, at 85 n. 5; Corre (n. 24).
28 See Ov. Met. 6.203 tacito uenerantur murmure numen.
29 OLD s.v. 8.
30 Another approach would be to assume that both maesto and tacito have preserved traces of a lost original reading. tacito would preserve the meaning of that lost reading and maesto would be palaeographically close to it; this would then lead us to support the conjecture muto, suggested by G. Liberman (EPHE Paris) during a discussion we had. This conjecture (which can be supported by N. Heinsius's note on Ov. Met. 1.762, where he suggests the emendation mutum murmur for Ov. Met. 14.280–1) produces a satisfactory meaning, but does not seem superior to the reading tacito.
31 Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 172 (Aeneid Books 1–5) and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 7929 (Aeneid Books 6–12).
32 For an extensive list of these witnesses, see R.A. Kaster and C.E. Murgia, Serviani in Vergili Aeneidos libros IX–XII commentarii (New York, 2017), 1–2.
33 See e.g. Verg. Aen. 3.290 and 5.778 certatim socii feriunt mare; Luc. 4.424–5 aequor … ferit; Stat. Theb. 5.480 (primoque ferit dux uerbere pontum).
34 ‘Il sogetto è, ovviamente, remigium’: P. Esposito, Marco Anneo Lucano. Bellum civile (Pharsalia). Libro IV (Naples, 2009), 215.
35 OLD s.v. 2.
36 I have printed in bold type the text of Servius Danielis.
37 EMICAT: enatat, ‘LAUNCHES: floats’, Suppl. adn. 4.133.
38 Esposito (n. 34), 110–11 presents the terms of the debate with precision and clarity.
39 Housman, A.E., M. Annaei Lucani Belli ciuilis libri decem (Oxford, 1926)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Shackleton Bailey (n. 1), ad loc.; G. Luck, Lukan. De bello civili. Der Bürgerkrieg (Stuttgart, 2009), ad loc.
40 Oudendorp, F., M. Annaei Lucani Cordubensis Pharsalia. Siue Belli ciuilis libri decem (Leiden, 1728)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Burman, P., M. Annaei Lucani Pharsalia cum commentario Petri Burmanni (Leiden, 1740)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Francken, C.M., M. Annaei Lucani Pharsalia cum commentario critico (Amsterdam, 1896–7)Google Scholar, ad loc.
41 Hecquet-Noti, N., ‘SVPERENATARE: à propos d'une variante dans le ‘De bello ciuili’ de Lucain (4,133)’, MH 58 (2001), 93–8Google Scholar, at 94.
42 Flor. Ep. 2.13.59 or also Ps.-Caes. BAlex. 18.3 (with adnatare).
43 nunc age, congestis crescat fortissima lignis | machina, quae surgens fluctus superenatet omnes, Avitus 4.239–40.
44 Luc. 4.135.
45 Asso, P., A Commentary on Lucan, De Bello Civili IV (Berlin and New York, 2010), 141Google Scholar.
46 Lucan uses other neologisms in his epic. See e.g. editor in Luc. 2.423 and the note by F.H.M. van Campen, M. Annaei Lucani De Bello Civili liber II: een commentaar (Amsterdam, 1991), ad loc.
47 The idea that the two-word spellings super emicat and super enatat are correct and can be an alternative which avoids the neologism criticized by P. Asso must be abandoned. See C.F.W. Müller, Syntax des Nominativs und Akkusativs im Lateinischen (Leipzig, 1908), 142–3 and G. Liberman, Stace, Silves (Paris, 2010), note on Silv. 1.1.33.
48 One could, however, argue that the reading superenatat is a legacy of Lucan's glosses (especially of the Supplementum adnotationum quoted above), inserted in Servius’ commentary. I cannot discard this possibility, but I have to acknowledge that the reading superenatat is more satisfying concerning navigation.
49 See e.g. Aetna 245.
50 See TLL 10.1.194.11–25.
51 See Plin. HN 19.4; Plin. Ep. 35.1; Prop. 2.21.13. On the relevant marine vocabulary, see L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1971), 241–2. On the sipara, see Graser, B., ‘Untersuchungen ueber das Seewesen des Alterthums’, Philologus 25 (1867), 136–284, at 220Google Scholar.
52 See Ov. Ars am. 3.500; Juv. 1.149–50; Plin. Ep. 8.4.5.
53 See Luc. 8.185–6 quo nunc pede carbasa tendi nostra iubes; 8.254 tendens carbasa and 9.45 tendentes uela carinae.
54 Sen. Ep. 77.1 solis enim licet siparum intendere, quod in alto omnes habent naues.
55 Arr. Epict. diss. 3.2.18.
56 He points out, however, that in the apparatus criticus two manuscripts consulted by G. Kortte would have presented the reading exciuere. See M. Hertz, Prisciani Grammatici Caesariensis Institutionum grammaticaum libri XVIII (Leipzig, 1855), 477.
57 See e.g. Luc. 3.291 and 4.669.
58 See, however, Luc. 5.597 where the verb is used to announce the summoning of dangers.
59 TLL 5.2.1245.82–3.
60 TLL 4.36.48.
61 tot inmensae comites missura ruinae | exciuit populos, ‘[fortune] mobilized so many people to send them as companions to a tremendous ruin’, Luc. 3.290–1.