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Beyond Satire: Horace, Popular Invective and the Segregation of Literature*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2012

I. A. Ruffell*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow

Extract

Throughout its history, Latin Satire was engaged in acts of impersonation and masquerade. While written by and for members of an élite and highly literate class, it continually affected a low style in metre and diction, an aggressive engagement with or pointed withdrawal from contemporary social realities, and the partial or wholesale adoption of an authorial voice at some rungs below the highest of society. All this is well-known and relatively uncontroversial. What is also well-known is the way in which Roman satirists, especially Juvenal, were engaged in a dialogue with epic and other literary genres (including earlier satire). What is less accepted is that Roman satirists, not least Horace, were equally engaged in a dialogue with other non-literary or ‘subliterary’ traditions of verse. I shall be arguing that a primary intertext for the definition of Horace's poetry and poetic persona was the rich and varied contemporary tradition of popular invective poetry. I suggest that he is attempting to erect a cordon sanitaire between the genre of satire and these ‘unofficial’ or ‘folk’ forms, to segregate elite and popular culture, and to define his poetry as what we may anachronistically call literature.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright ©I. A. Ruffell 2003. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Gideon Nisbet, Costas Panayotakis, Catherine Steel, and Chloe Stewart for their help, encouragement and advice; the Journal's referees for their stimulating comments; and audiences in Oxford and Glasgow for their responses. I claim authorship of all mistakes.

References

1 For the modern invention of ‘literature’, see Eagleton, T., Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983)Google Scholar, esp. introduction and ch. 1; for the invention of ‘culture’, Williams, R., Culture and Society, 1780–1950 (1958)Google Scholar. For ‘unofficial’ or ‘folk’ literature, see Bakhtin, M., The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays (1981)Google Scholar, 3–83; idem, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (1984), ch. 4; idem, Rabelais and his World (1984).

2 Assigned or anonymous verse fragments are cited, unless otherwise stated, from Courtney, E. (ed.), The Fragmentary Latin Poets (1993)Google Scholar, henceforth FLP; some verses are also cited from Morel, W. (ed.), Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum praeter Ennium et Lucilium (1927)Google Scholar, and the third edition revised by J. Blansdorf (1995). Inscribed verse is cited primarily from F. Bücheler, Carmina Latina Epigraphica, rev. E. Lommatzsch (1926) [ = CLE], with reference also to the selection in E. Courtney (ed.), Musa Lapidaria: A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions (1995) [ = ML].

3 See the discussion of Freudenberg, K., The Walking Muse: Horace on the Theory of Satire (1993), 96100Google Scholar.

4 The most consistent expression of this is in the two works by Platonios, On the Differences in Comedy and On the Differences in Character of the Comedians. Although in their current form they are the products of Late Antiquity, Platonios' treatises are thought to reflect Hellenistic scholarship. For an accessible treatment of the reception of Old Comedy, see Storey, I. C., ‘Notus est omnibus Eupolis?’, in Sommerstein, A. H. et al. (eds), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (1993), 373–96Google Scholar; note also the important discussion of Janko, R., Aristotle on Comedy: Towards a Reconstruction of Poetics II (paper edn, 2002), both with bibliographyGoogle Scholar.

5 Freudenberg, op. cit. (n. 3), 86–92, surveys the disputes over both philosophical and political terrain.

6 ‘Metapoetic’ is used here in the sense of poetry that is self-consciously about its status as poetry. Compare the extended (and disputed) range of meanings of ‘metatheatre’ in Aristophanic studies, cf. Taplin, O., ‘Fifth-century tragedy and comedy — a synkrisis’, JHS 106 (1986), 163–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with bibliography. Note that although Horace's discussion of poetics is open, attempts to interpret this continue to rely as heavily on what he does as on what he actually says.

7 Knights 520–41.

8 Note in particular 1.4.48–53, with the father-son relationship that is a major component of New Comedy. For Horace's shift from Old to New, see Hunter, R. L., ‘Horace on friendship and free speech (Epistles 1.8 and Satires 1.4)’, Hermes 113 (1985), 480–90, esp. 486–7Google Scholar, who identifies the shift as beginning in earnest at line 26. For further interaction with Greek Comedy, Old and New, see also 2.3.6–12, cf. Persius 1.121–5. For the figures of New Comedy, see 1.2.19–22, 2.3.26 off, with further comments on stock figures below. For the moralizing trend in New Comedy, see, for example, Adelphone 413–20. Fundanius, another comedian writing in the tradition of New Comedy, is mentioned in 1.10.40–2 and is the major figure in the dialogue of 2.8.

9 1.4.103–6 (libertas derives from parental advice), 129–33 (Horace's friends show libertas in correcting him; see further Section III, below). In general, see the discussion of N. Rudd, The Satires of Horace (2nd edn, 1982), 86–131.

10 This observation is the starting-point of the analysis of Hendrickson, G. L., ‘Horace, Serm. 1.4: a protest and a programme’, AJP 21 (1900), 121–42Google Scholar, which remains a central provocation, even though his conclusions have been challenged by later critics.

11 Rudd, op. cit. (n. 9), 132–59.

12 Freudenburg, op. cit. (n. 3), especially ch. 1.

13 For Rufillus and Gargonius, see 1.2.25–7. For other cross-references between 1.4 and 1.1–3, see 1.4.114–15 (cf. 1.2.25ff.), 1.4.129–30 (cf. 1.3 passim).

14 Hunter, op. cit. (n. 8), 488.

15 Freudenburg, op. cit. (n. 3), 100.

16 For the political use of libertas in the period, see C. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate (1968).

17 Pace Freudenburg, op. cit. (n. 3), 102, who suggests that ‘Lucilian libertas was, in a sense, beyond criticism in 35 B.C. … the political and social rhetoric of the late Republic was antipathetic to any softened or restricted version of old republican libertas, which had become the watchword of republicans and Caesarians alike’. Contrast Henderson, J., ‘On getting rid of kings: Horace, Satires 1.7’, CQ 44 (1994), 146–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who stresses the inescapable chain of connotations stemming from the equally contentious rex in Sermones 1.7.

18 For Epicurean philosophy from this perspective, see Cicero, , de Finibus, esp. 1.23–5Google Scholar and the extensive critique in de Finibus 2. The exponent of Epicureanism, Torquatus, L. (for whom see D. Berry (ed.), Cicero: pro P. Sulla oratio (1996), 1720)Google Scholar, is something of an intellectual stooge (cf. Annas, J., Cicero. On Moral Ends (2001), xvxvi)Google Scholar. Relevant in this context is the joke made by Hortensius that he was ἄμουσος, ἀναφρόδιτος, ἀπροσδιόνυσος (Aul. Gell. 1.5.3).

19 Maecenas is the addressee of the collection in 1.1. See also in particular 1.5, 1.9, and 2.8. On 1.5 and 1.9 (and their silences), see the discussions of E. Gowers, ‘Horace, Satires 1.5: an inconsequential journey’, PCPS (199), 48–66, and Henderson, J., ‘Be a Lert (Your Country Needs Lerts): Horace, Satires 1.9’, PCPS 39 (1993), 6793Google Scholar, both with further bibliography.

20 I thus follow Hendrickson, op. cit. (n. 10), to the extent that I emphasize that distance is being put between Horatian libertas and that of (the original) Old Comedy, and that this is (in some sense) polemical, but Hunter and Freudenburg to the extent that there is an attempt to keep Old Comedy on board in some form. It is pointedly re-worked, not rejected. Hunter observes that ‘Like Old Comedy, Horaces's satires will enjoy παρρησία, but the meaning of the word has changed’ (op. cit. (n. 8), 488), but does not develop the implications.

21 For ‘swerving aside’, cf. Rudd, op. cit. (n. 9), 90.

22 Gowers, op. cit. (n. 19), esp. 60–1.

23 Quesnay, I. M. le M. du, ‘Horace and Maecenas: the propaganda value of Sermones I’, in T. Woodman and D. West (eds)Google Scholar, Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus (1984), 19–58; cf. Anderson, W. S., Pompey and his Friends (1963), 5782Google Scholar.

24 Suet., Gramm. 27. Cf. Raster, R., Suetonius. De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, edited with a translation and commentary (1995)Google Scholar. For Pitholaos' verses on Caesar, see Suet., Div. Iul. 75.5.

25 cf. anon. vs. Sallust (Quint. 8.3.29 = FLP, 145 = inc. poet. fr. 40 Bl.); Horace, Serm. 1.2.48.

26 For the early circulation of and/or scholarship on Lucilius, see Suet., Gramm. 2.4. For scepticism about the Pompeian associations of Lucilian satire, see also Rawson, E., Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (1985), 104–5Google Scholar.

27 Sevius Nicanor wrote autobiographical hexameters (Suet., Gramm. 5.1), Valerius Cato an autobiographical libellus called Indignatio as well as a commentary on Lucilius (see the opening lines of Horace, Sermones 1.10). The nature of the works by L. Abuccius (described as Luciliano charactere by Varro, de re rustica 3.2.17) and Varro Atacinus (Horace, Sermones 1.10.46–7) is wholly unclear. The voluminous output of the noted Pompeian, M. Terentius Varro, included four books of verse satire in addition to the more celebrated Menippea, according to Jerome's catalogue of his works, quoted and discussed by Ritschl, , RhM 12 (1857), 150–3Google Scholar. If this is right, we know nothing for certain about their content. Varro's eventful career included both reconciliation with Caesar and later proscription at the hands of Antony.

28 M. Coffey, Roman Satire (2nd edn, 1989), 4 and 274; cf. S. H. Braund, Roman Verse Satire (1992). Although Coffey claims (p. 4) that Quintilian's account shows that we have every major satirist except Turnus, the survey above shows that this is patently untrue. Quintilian's selective handling of ‘low’ Roman genres is elsewhere demonstrable in the case of Phaedrus, omitted entirely from his account of fable.

29 Septenarii in what became Books 25–26; septenarii and senarii together with hexameters in 28–29; elegiacs are collected in 22–24, and their chronology is unclear. For the problems over Lucilius' collections, see Coffey, op. cit. (n. 28), 38–42; Courtney, FLP, 7–21; Gratwick, A. S., ‘Ennius and Lucilius’, in Kenney, E. J. and Clausen, W. V. (eds), The Cambridge History of Classical Literature II (1982), 156–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Although there are some examples of more exotic metres, the three volumes of CLE reflect overwhelmingly the same split between senarius, septenarius, and elegy, and in particular in those poems that point to the lower end of the social (or literate) spectrum. (Hexameters tend to be used overwhelmingly for ‘official’ inscriptions.) For the affinities with drama, see below.

31 On the usual interpretation (cf. Palmer and Brown ad loc.), the pila is referring to a column of a public colonnade and either to a bookstall set up around it, or to a bookshop behind. The best evidence for this is Ars Poetica 373 (poor poets are not granted a columna), Martial 1.117.10–12 (who refers to the door-posts of a bookshop covered with adverts and/or tasters), and Martial 7.61.5 (who refers to a pillar heaped up with wine-bottles attached by chains, ‘catenatis … lagoenis’).

32 See Adams, J. N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (1982), 64–5Google Scholar for texts and discussion.

33 For disavowal of public production: see also 1.4.21–5, 69–78, 81–5, 93–103.

34 Rudd, op. cit. (n. 9), 101–2.

35 For discussion of this passage, see Fraenkel, E., Horace (1957), 128–33Google Scholar, who stresses the moralizing thrust of Horace's argument here; and Rudd, op. cit. (n. 9), 118–24, who discusses the personal and autobiographical dimensions, and relates this to a dispute over the importance of Lucilius, with the position of invective one element amongst many. Brown ad loc. suggests there is a criticism of the followers of the neoterics for exclusiveness in taste.

36 Freudenburg, op. cit. (n. 3), 168–70, addresses once more the identities of these characters, but whatever their identity and affiliations, both he and the ape, together with the neoterics, seem to be represented as the opposite (ignorant) of the virtues of Old Comedy — Old Comedy as presented through a Horatian filter, that is.

37 For which the key text is Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.1127b33–1128b4, discussed in detail both by Hunter, op. cit. (n. 8) and Freudenburg, op. cit. (n. 3).

38 Richlin, A., The Garden of Priapus (2nd edn, 1992)Google Scholar; Corbeill, A., Controlling Laughter. Political Humor in the Late Republic (1996)Google Scholar.

39 Named exponents of verse invective in addition to Catullus and Calvus include M. Furius Bibaculus (Tac., Ann. 4.34.5; Quintilian 10.1.96; cf. Serm. 1.10.36, 2.5.31; otherwise the composer of a Bellum Sequanicum); Pomponius? Papinius (FLP, 109), perhaps to be connected with a L. Papinius who composed Atellans; Manilius (FLP, 110); Domitius Marsus (FLP, 302–5); and Aulus Caecina (Suet., Div. Iul. 75.4–5). Some, at least, count as ‘literary’, or at least élite invective. From a more strictly literary tradition, note also parodies of Vergil (FLP, 284–6), by respectively anon., Numitorius, and ?Cornificius Gallus; and also the verses of anon, against Crassicius: Suet., Gramm. 18, cf. FLP, 306. For Catullus considered as part of a literary tradition of invective, see Richlin, op. cit. (n. 37), 144–56, W. M. Fitzgerald, Catullan Provocations: Lyric Poetry and the Drama of Position (1995), ch. 3.

40 Perhaps the Aulus Caecina of Suet., Div. Iul. 75.4–5 was from the rich Etruscan gens, cf. R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (1939), 82–3; Cato also wrote iambi against Scipio Metellus (Plut., Cato Min. 7). Cf. Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 94–5 for other possibilities. On élite obscene verse, see especially Pliny, ep. 5.3 and Fitzgerald, op. cit. (n. 39), 6–13.

41 Octavian, fr. 1 = Martial 11.20. For other references to his output, see Suet., Div. Aug. 85, Macrobius, Sat. 2.4.21 (‘fescennini’ on Pollio).

42 Sulla: Plutarch, Sulla 6.19 (Ziegler); Cato: Plutarch, Cato Min. 73; Clodius and Clodia: Cic., Q. fr. 2.3.2. See also the improvisation on Memmius, quoted in Cicero, de Oratore 2.240 ( = p. 109 Blansdorf). For other prominent targets, note Sarmentus (and Maecenas?), P. Ventidius Bassus, L. Plotius Plancus, L. Munatius Plancus, Lepidus, and T. Annius Cimber. See references and discussion below. For non-Roman contexts, see Cicero, In Verr. 2.3.77 (Sicily, against Verres), SH 1156–7 (Athenians against Sulla and Pompey; trochaic tetrameters catalectic); Dio 9.39.7–8 (Tarentum), 65.8.4–7 (Alexandria).

43 On these lines, see Hallett, J. P., ‘Perusinae glandes and the changing image of Augustus’, AJAH 2 (1977), 151–71Google Scholar, although I think she underplays their many targets. Syme's comment is entertaining here: ‘The propaganda of Octavianus, gross and mendacious, exaggerated the role of Fulvia both at the time and later, putting her person and her acts in a hateful light; and there was nobody afterwards, from piety or even from perversity, to redeem her memory.’ (Syme, op. cit. (n. 40), 208 n. 1).

44 ‘That the content of both subliterary and literary invective is the same must be the result of consistent societal stimuli and tendencies, not a cause/effect relation’ (Richlin, op. cit. (n. 37), 63). For a selection, see CLE 42, 44–50 (senarii); 230–3 (septenarii); 332–60 (hexameters); 924–57 (elegiacs); ML IID–E.

45 CLE 38–40; ?41.

46 CLE 930, 932.

47 CLE 931. For similar adverts in relation to the theatre and performance, see below; cf. ML IIG.

48 CLE 231 = ML 85 (with commentary). For a general metrical overview of inscribed verse, see ML, pp. 22–31. Later and more extreme examples are discussed in Adams, J. N., ‘The poets of Bu Njem: language, culture and the centurionate’, JRS 89 (1999), 109–34Google Scholar, with further bibliography.

49 For slaves, see, for example, CLE 100, 238, 403; the epitaphs of the Scipios are CLE 6–9 (senarii) and 958 (elegiacs); commentary in ML. An overview of the population of Latin epitaphs and their occupations is provided by Lattimore, R. D., Themes in Greek and Roman Epitaphs (1942), esp. 266–75Google Scholar. Cf. also Armstrong, H. H., Autobiographic Elements in Latin Inscriptions (1910)Google Scholar.

50 There are parallel takes on a freedman CLE 1115 and for a jilting woman CLE 1178. Note also the bad wishes upon the deceased's murderer CLE 1948. See Lattimore, op. cit. (n. 49), 123–5, 283. For abuse of the dead, see Kajanto, I., ‘On the freedom of expression in Latin epitaphs’, Latomus 27 (1968), 185–6Google Scholar.

51 de Ste Croix, G. E. M., The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1982)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 6. For an influential critique of totalizing models, see in particular Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C., Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (2nd edn, 2001)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 3, who stress the ‘overdetermined’ nature of ideology; Frow, J., Marxism and Literary History (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Richlin's account is less problematic in this respect.

53 Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 60–1; Corbeill, op. cit. (n. 38), ch. 5, esp. 195–7.

54 Cicero himself can be seen to exemplify this kind of manoeuvre. See C. E. W. Steel, Cicero, Rhetoric and Empire (2001), 181–9, esp. 188, who argues that the invective of the de provinciis consularibus 3–12 was, within a broader context of the renegotiation of hierarchies of power, about Cicero performing himrespect. self as an orator.

55 As a study of camp, the work of E. Newton, Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America (1979) is now dating, but remains central to more theoretical treatments such as J. Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1991).

56 The interpretation of subigo as a metaphor of sexual mastery follows Adams, op. cit. (n. 32), 155–6. An alternative interpretation from the working of leather, ‘to work (i.e. masturbate) someone’ is available, preferred by OLD s.v. subigo 8b.

57 CLE 483, a dedication to an artifex husband and father. Cf. M. L. Fele, Concordantiae in Carmina Latina Epigraphica (1988), s.v. artifex.

58 CLE 405 (where the grammatical and metrical flaws are only amplified by the attempt to weld an Ovidian quote into the first line), 572 (Bücheler suggests gladiators or huntsmen), 803.

59 There is some commentary in Lattimore, op. cit. (n. 49), 233–4. Compare the epigram for a dead charioteer from Tarraco (CLE 500 = ML 112), who though a pauper has an epitaph arranged through a whip-round by his colleagues (Lattimore) or fans (Courtney).

60 Closest is CLE 133.1: ‘Quisque praeteriens titulum scribtum legeris …’

61 For nomina ver[a, compare CLE 465 A 11, referring to the titulus. CLE 1191 is itself prefaced by just such a formal header.

62 CLE 477, epitaph of M. Publicus Unio. The selfpluming is, alas, woefully misplaced. Courtney makes a general observation that ‘… we find literary adornment grafted onto basically subliterary material, which is an interesting testimony to an aspiration, sometimes almost painful, towards culture’ (ML, pp. 9–10).

63 Indeed, if the supplement in 1. 3 is correct, then there seems to be a rather pointed reworking of Vergil's description of rustic poetry in the Georgics (versibus incomptis, 2.386) and/or of Horace's dissociation of a vir bonus et prudens from incomptis (sc. versibus) at Ars Poetica 445–6. For a range of technical uses of elegos, see, for example, Domitius Marsus fr. 6.3, Juvenal 1.4, Pliny, Ep. 7.2.3, 7.2.7. I am indebted to one of the journal's referees, who compares similar Ovidian disclaimers (e.g. the epigram that introduces the second edition of the Amores), for making me realize there was much more to this epigram than I had at first thought. The concluding claudit shows a further degree of self-conscious self-referentiality.

64 Invitations to perlegere also usually refer to the titulus, although it appears with another set of apparently modest versuculos in (the very fragmentary) CLE 1234.7, and with a carmen at CLE 2068.2.

65 A connection with Hesiod was first suggested by Leo (cited in Bücheler's apparatus ad loc).

66 cf. CLE 1451–7, 1482.

67 For sodales who are described as having come and wept, cf. CLE 1100.3, 1149.3.

68 Suet., Div. Iul. 73.1.

69 See Catharine Edwards, ‘Beware of imitations: theatre and the subversion of imperial identity’, in J. Elsner and J. Masters (eds), Reflections of Nero (1994), 83–97.

70 Compare Tac, Ann. 4.34.5 for Caesar's relationships with Bibaculus and Catullus.

71 Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 64–5.

72 Theorists from Aristotle to Freud to Raskin have stressed the importance of compression and cognitive shifts — the process of condensation and displacement — as the basis of a good joke. See Aristotle, Rhetoric 1412a19–b3; Freud, S., Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, translated and edited by Strachey, J. (1991 [1905])Google Scholar; Raskin, V., Semantic Mechanisms of Humor (1985)Google Scholar. Compare also the semiotic aspects of the work of Bakhtin.

73 Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 212.

74 Compare vers. pop. fr. 4, vers. tr. fr. 3, cf. vers. pop. fr. 7 (vulgo); vers. pop. fr. 9, cf. vers. tr. fr. 1. (vulgatum).

75 Harris, W. V., Ancient Literacy (1989)Google Scholar presents a minimalist case. I am somewhat sceptical about the comparative evidence he adduces, and emphasize that my thesis in no way depends on an assumption of ‘full“ literacy (i.e. competent reading and writing) amongst all consumers or producers of verse invective.

76 Compare the linking of twin vectors of public invective against Nero: ‘multa Graece Latineque proscripta aut uulgata sunt’, ‘many lines in Greek and Latin were written up or passed around’ (Suet., Nero 39.2).

77 Glossed as ‘house fronts and columns’ by Fraenkel, op. cit. (n. 35), 58.

78 See also CLE 194–6; for discussion, see Lattimore, op. cit. (n. 49), 125; ML 103a–d.

79 See the analysis of H. Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates and Municipal Life: Studies in Pompeian Epigraphy (1988).

80 Quoted and discussed in J. N. J. Palmer, The Logic of the Absurd: On Film and Television Comedy (1987), 52–3. I have encountered many variants.

81 cf. Yavetz, Z., Plebs and Princeps (1969)Google Scholar, ch. 2; Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 86.

82 Macrobius, Sat. 2.7.

83 Similarly, Cicero reports audience interpretation and response to a line from Diphilos with reference to Pompey (Ad Att. 2.19.3 [ = 39.3 Shackleton Bailey], cf. Val. Max. 6.2.9). For the importance of allegory in coded criticism in the literary tradition, see Ahl, F., ‘The art of safe criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJP 105 (1984), 174208Google Scholar; at the theatre, S. Bartsch, Actors in the Audience (1994), ch. 3; cf. also Edwards, op. cit. (n. 69). It is worth noting in passing that it was too explicit (gestural) reference that landed Datus in trouble with Nero (Suet., Nero 39.3).

84 Quoted by the scholia on Juvenal, Satires 5.3, which also give the Maecenas connection. The first plays on enrolment in the equites versus the brand of a slave, the second caps the equites' ring with heavy fetters, the third takes the name Sarmentus and puns on sarmentum ( = a stick of firewood). For insults against Maecenas, see Courtney, FLP ad loc. and pp. 276–81.

85 The sententiae in senarii of CLE 32–7 seem to derive at least in part from the stage. CLE 43 presents the beginning of aesopic fables in senarii. For entertainers and entertainment, see CLE 233, 358, 925–7, cf. 41, 359–60; ML IIG.

86 For Calvus' use of elegiacs, see fr. 17 on Caesar and fr. 18 on Pompey; for Bibaculus' use of the senarius, see fr. 3.

87 D. O. Ross, Style and Tradition in Catullus (1969), 115–69.

88 For the metre of Phaedrus and its relation to mime, see J. Wight Duff, A Literary History of Rome in the Silver Age (1927), 153–4; Currie, H. MacC., ‘Phaedrus the fabulist’, ANRW 32.1 (1984), 497–513, at 506–8Google Scholar (with bibliography).

89 Conventionally, septenarii and the other long metres of Roman Comedy are given the label ‘recitative’ on the analogy of modern opera; in fact we know next to nothing about the phrasing and performance of these verses beyond their musical accompaniment. For discussion of the evidence, see Duckworth, G. E., The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment (1952), 362–4Google Scholar; Beare, W., The Roman Stage (3rd edn, 1964), 219–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Lindsay, W. M., Early Latin Verse (1922), 281–5Google Scholar. A comparison with Old Comedy is remarked upon by a Latin grammarian (Marius Victorinus, Gramm. Lat. 6.78), but although we have a label, παρακαταλογή, that can be used for ‘recitative’ within Greek drama, the performance of the long metres is again disputed. See the discussion of A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd edn with addenda, revised by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis (1988), 156–67.

90 Plutarch, Pomp. 48.7, Cicero, ad Q. fr. 2.3, cf. Calvus fr. 18. See Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 86–7 for some discussion. For parody of Atellans, cf. the lampoon on Pupius, FLP, 107. The theme of vers. pop. fr. 3 FLP (on P. Ventidius Bassus) is recalled in Catalepton 10 and Horace, Epod. 4, but it is much reduced. CLE 95 borrows the language of wills. The general question of literary influence on popular verse lies outside the scope of this paper, but see, in the first place, the indices of Bücheler. As with the élite and popular abuse of Caesar and Pompey, the question of whether Octavian's ditty (fr. 1, above) influenced the abuse found inscribed on his soldiers' slingshots, or vice-versa, or they simply shared a common invective field is impossible to resolve. See further the discussion of Hallett, op. cit. (n. 43).

91 Dio 65.8.5 (A.D. 70). The metre is τοῦ κατακεκλασμένου τοῦ … ἀναπαίστου. The Tarentine abuse of L. Valerius Postumius and fellow envoys (Dio 9.39.8; 283 B.C.) was also a form of anapaestic.

92 Soldiers' songs — vers. pop. fr. 15 on Galba as general; for other references, see Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 94. For a chant supposed to derive from gladiatorial combat, see Versus populares in Caesarem et similia fr. 8 M, ‘non te peto, piscem peto; quid me fugis, Galle?’ Morel located this among the triumphal/political songs on Caesar in his collection, which may imply that he believed it to have some political reference (perhaps through the address of the gladiator/Gaul?). The metre is unclear: Morel takes it as ionic a maiore, rather than the first part of a pair of senarii, because of the lack of regular caesura, and because Galle is awkward to fit in at the start of the line (though, pace Morel, surely not impossible in some context).

93 Pliny, NH 1.144 = vers. triumph, fr. 4.

94 For triumphal verses, see Dialogic Imagination, op. cit. (n. 1), 58. See also Richlin, op. cit. (n. 38), 74–7.

95 For a survey of literature on carnival, see Goldhill, S., The Poet's Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (1993)Google Scholar, ch. 3.

96 For the problems of this passage, see Woodman ad loc. He translates, ‘And for that reason amongst their < customary > military jokes < the soldiers > who followed Lepidus' and Plancus' chariot amidst the abuse of the citizens took up this refrain’ (p. 154).

97 For the soldiers on the relationship with Cleopatra, see Dio 43.20.1–2, along with reference again to Bithynia and to the elevation of officers to the Senate. From a later context, compare vers. pop. fr. 16 on Otho moechus — the question there is whether Otho is plausible as a source of grandiose, compelling trans-gression. Sometimes a moechus is just a moechus.

98 See in particular Millar, F., The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mouritsen, H., Plebs and Politics in the Late Republic (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 de Ste Croix, op. cit. (n. 51), 357. For independent actions of soldiers and plebs urbana, see p. 358, nn. 24–5 (referring to Syme, op. cit. (n. 40), 118, 178–9, 180–1, 209, 217, 221, 231), 371.

100 de Ste Croix, op. cit. (n. 51), 362, referring specifically to Josephus, AJ 19.227–8 on the installation of Claudius.

101 Thus, against ridicule of Nero's domus aurea (vers. pop. fr. 14c = Suet., Nero 39.2) measure verse supporting Germanicus himself (vers. pop. fr. 12) or expressing optimism for Caligula (vers. pop. fr. 13).

102 vers. pop. frr. 7–9.

103 Cicero, fr. 4. Courtney classes this as ‘dubium’ (p. 156): ‘the perfectly well-attested name Vetto has to be emended, since Cicero could not have shortened the -o.’ For other verses on social climbing: vers. pop. fr. 11 b (Tiberius), vers. pop. fr. 16 (Otho); for other verses on the small size of property: fr. inc. 13, Bibaculus fr. 1.

104 For the tradition, see L. Watson, Arae: the Curse Poetry of Antiquity (1991). For the important and recurring figure of Canidia, see the excellent discussion by Oliensis, E., ‘Canidia, Canicula and the decorum of Horace's Epodes’, Arethusa 24 (1991), 107–38Google Scholar, with further comments below.

105 For frogs as citizens par excellence, see Phaedrus 1.2, 24, 30. For fable as ‘subaltern literature’, see La Penna, A., ‘La Morale della favola esopica come morale delle classi subalterne nell'antichitá’, Societá 17.2 (1961), 459537Google Scholar. For a more nuanced recent treatment, see J. Henderson, Telling Tales on Caesar: Roman Stories from Phaedrus (2001); alas, the poor frogs are marginalized even in this most iconoclastic of tellings (pp. 187–91).

106 F. R. D. Goodyear, ‘Phaedrus’, in Kenney and Clausen, op. cit. (n. 29), 624–6, at 625. Apparently this sort of thing, for Goodyear, is not allowed in ‘proper’ fable. ‘His fables contain elements of satire and “social comment”, not at all gentle: if he had chosen to write satire proper, he might have vied with Juvenal in trenchancy and bitterness’ (p. 624).

107 Aristotle, Poetics 1448a17, 1449a32–3. For Plato, βωμολοχία is involved in both the content and the reception of comedy (Republic 395e5–396a6, 606c2–9). Aristotle further elaborates (1449a32–7) by saying that it is specifically ugliness that is comic (provided the object is not presented as being in pain).

108 Sarmentus' servile origins are hinted at in 11. 55 and 65–7. On this passage, see Gowers, op. cit. (n. 19), 59.

109 So Henderson, op. cit. (n. 19); Oliensis, op. cit. (n. 104).

110 For Roman satire as within Bakhtin's category of the spoudogeloion, as a novelistic precursor, see Dialogic Imagination, op. cit. (n. 1), 21. It is worth noting that Bakhtin himself does not ascribe to these forms genuine polyphony. For his conception of dialogue within a monologic context, see Dostoevsky's Poetics, op. cit. (n. 1), 33–4, 178. He notes apropos of Shakespeare (one of his most important precursors) that ‘… drama may be multi-levelled, but it cannot contain multiple worlds; it posits only one, and not several, systems of measurement’ (p. 34).

111 I owe the reference to this passage and the harmonious metaphor to one of the anonymous referees.

112 Kiessling-Heinze ad loc. aptly compare vers.pop. fr. 12 on Germanicus: ‘salva Roma, salva patria, salvus est Germanicus’. I cannot help feeling that this has more potential for public chanting and demonstration than Horace's effort.

113 The following stanza also possibly incorporates and reworks the Arval Hymn (4.2.49–50, cf. CLE 1.16).