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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
On November 8, 1894, I read before the Cambridge Philological Society a paper in which the reading and the interpretation of this passage were discussed at length. A brief report of the paper was published in the Proceedings of the Society, Nos. 37–39, p. 16; and the cardinal correction (in v. 274) was received into the text of the Fasti which Professor G. A. Davies published in the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum. The Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society are indeed now among the periodical publications of which the Bibliotheca Philologica Classica takes account: but an acquaintance with their earlier numbers is the privilege of the elect, and the sole mention of the correction that I have seen is an entry in the diligent summary of Ovidian literature in the Jahresbericht vol. 109 p. 282 which runs as follows ‘VI 247 ut tangat ( = Text; st. et t. unnötig).’ Whether the correction is ‘needless’ is not for me to say; but there is excuse for thinking that those who wish to form a judgment on its character will not deem it needless to have the evidence before them.
page 198 note 1 My italics. I will take the opportunity of enlightening the summarizer as to the meaning of another of my emendations in the Fasti. On IV 799 sq. ‘an magis hunc morem pietas Aeneia fecit, | innocuum uictor cui dedit ignis iter?’ where the MSS. have uicto he asks ‘Was heisst uictor ignis?’ What it means will be seen from I 523 sqq. ‘uicta tamen uinces euersaque Troia resurges: | obruit hostiles ista ruina domos. | urite uictrices Neptunia Pergama flammae: | num minus hie toto est altior orbe cinis? | iam pins Aeneas sacra et sacra altera patrem | adferet; Iliacos accipe, Vesta, deos?’ The same idea of the flames being defeated in the hour of victory is to be seen in Manilius IV 32 sqq. ‘an, nisi fata darent leges uitaeque necisque, | fugissent ignes Aeneam, Troia sub uno | non euersa uiro fatis uicisset in ipsis?’ It is perhaps needful to add that it was not Aeneas who was ‘conquered’ but the Trojans. From Aeneas, as Manilius puts it, the fires ‘ran away.’ [For uictor applied to ignis Mr. Housman refers me to Verg. Georg. II. 307.]
page 200 note 1 subiecto. The observer is supposed to be at the centre. Hence the aer which surrounds the earth is below it at every point.
page 200 note 2 The words in acre clauso are naturally interpreted of the air inside the glass which according to Claudian Carm. min. 51. 1 ‘Iuppiter in paruo cum cerneret aethera uitro’ enclosed the model. But inasmuch as some have supposed from the following lines 7, 8 ‘inclusus uariis famulatttr spiritus auris | et uiuum certis motibus urget opus ‘that air (compressed) was the motive power employed, I think my readers may be glad to know the opinion of Professor Turner, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, upon this interesting point.
He writes: ‘My own view is that it is in the highest degree improbable that air was used as a motive power in the model. Such orreries are always moved by hand-cog-wheel work and a handle in modern times; and in early times probably each piece separately turned by hand. It is even difficult to conceive how they could be moved by compressed air. The idea in the mind of Ovid must have been (in my humble opinion) that Archimedes had managed to support a globe by air pressure from below (and all round it), which is impossible. In other words Ovid and other sightseers were deceived, or imperfectly remembered what they saw. If the globe was hung by a fine wire, or supported on a slender stem (as would be quite natural), it would be easy for a sightseer to overlook the wire and to think that the globe was hung in air. Especially if the glass cover was not easy to see through (? was glass very good in those days?). Moreover Archimedes, who doubtless believed the real Earth we live on to be supported on air in this way, may have exerted his well-known ingenuity to make the model appear so; e.g. he may have used a very fine wire intentionally. But in any case it must have been a “fake.”’
The orrery of Archimedes is discussed by Sir G. C. Lewis, Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 194, where besides the two verse passages already cited reference is made to Cic. Rep. 1. 14, N.D. II. 35, Plutarch Marcell. 28, Val. Max. 1. 1. 8, Sextus Empiricus Adu. Dogm. III. § 115 (Bekker), Lactantius Diu. Inst. II. 5, and Martianus Capella VI. § 583 (ed. Kopp) and by the writers of the papers cited in Wissowa-Pauly's Real-Encyclop. under the article Archimedes.
