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On some Tibullian Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. P. Postgate
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Extract

Dissatisfied with current views upon the exordium of Tibullus II. i. (vv. 1–24), I proposed in Selections from Tibullus (1903) to make the occasion of the poem the Sementiuae Feriae instead of the Ambarualia. This proposal, criticised, amongst others, by Mr. Warde Fowler in an interesting article in the Classical Review (xxii. 1908, pp. 36 sqq.), I have now abandoned (ib. p. 40 b). But the difficulties which led me to break away from previous exegesis still remain, and to them I address myself in the present article.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , April 1909 , pp. 127 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1909

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References

page 127 note 1 Horace, Odes, I. iv., is especially interesting in ploughthis connexion. He refers to Fauoniusin 1. I, ‘grata uice ueris et Fauoni.’ A Iamb is mentioned in 12, and in 3 the cattle are no longer in sheds or the ploug man by the fire (‘ neque iam stabulis gaudet pecus aut arator igni’).Google Scholar

page 129 note 1 I have printed the MS. reading amari, as the present point is not thereby affected, but Amori, dat. like agrishere, is extremely probable.

page 129 note 2 For this, it would seem, the more exact diminutive came later into vogue; Sen. Dial.ii. 6 ‘cogita orumnos modestia delectari, uernularumlicentia.’ A transition in use seems indicated in Pliny, N.H.22. 44, where uerna uernulaare used of the same person in the same context.

page 129 note 3 It is important to observe that here, the only other place where Tibullus uses uerna, it must refer to a child.

page 129 note 4 Mr. Fowler apparently takes ludatas generally indulging in ‘jollification,’ but in Tibullus, when applied to adults, it would more naturally have the erotic sense of i. 3. 64 and 1. 87 of the present poem.

page 130 note 1 Tibullus ‘is thinking of some local summer festival otherwise unknown to us’(Mr. Fowler, I.e. p. 40 b.The italics are mine).Google Scholar

page 130 note 2 For Tibullus's sympathy with children see, besides the two places just quoted, i. 10. 16 and ii. 5. 91 sqq.Google Scholar

page 130 note 3 Prof. Cartault's argument, Tibulle(1909), p. 73 ‘ son nom peut etre fictif, mais, comme e'est un nom courant de courtisane, l'hypothese est peu vraisem-blable,’ is unconvincing. If Neaerawas for this reason unsuitable to be adopted as a soubriquet, it was for the very same reason unsuitable to be retained, contrary to custom, as a real name. Lygdamus, we may feel sure, would not stray from the convention [I take the opportunity of correcting an error in my review of Prof. Cartault's A fropos du Corpus Tibullianum, Classical Quarterly, 1908, p. 225 n. At iv. i. (Pan.)86 his intention was to read ‘ fontis ubi’(as I said it should be), but his printer made it uti].Google Scholar

page 131 note 1 Kohn, J., Altlateinischt Forschungen, p. 86 (on coniunx)Google Scholar, and Sturtevant, E. H., Classical Philology, i. pp. 213 sqq.Google Scholar