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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2016
Near the end of the first book of his De reditu the poet Rutilius is delayed in Triturrita, on the Tuscan coast, because of the dark and stormy weather. The South-West Wind with its dripping wings—says the poet in an Ovidian imitation—does not cease from summoning pitch-black clouds and obfuscating the sun's light for several days (631–2). Elegant images of constellations (633–8)—perhaps not just ornamental, but also indicating the dates and the duration of the delay—and the reference to the tempestuous sea and to two possible explanations of ocean's tides (639–44) round the first book off (1.631-9):
632 negare B: necare VR
I would like to thank CQ's anonymous referee for the critical comments.
1 Ov. Met. 1.264-5 madidis Notus euolat alis, | terribilem picea tectus caligine uultum.
2 On the double meaning of dies as measure of time and as daylight, see C.H. Keene, Rutilii Claudii Namatiani De reditu suo libri duo (London, 1907), 225; E. Doblhofer, Rutilius Claudius Namatianus. De reditu suo siue Iter Gallicum (Heidelberg, 1972–1977), 2.258.
3 See the discussion in A. Cameron, JRS 57 (1967), 36–7; Doblhofer (n. 2), 258–9 and, especially, A. Fo, Rutilio Namaziano. Il ritorno (Turin, 1992), 119–20.
4 All of them twentieth-century editors.
5 This has been glossed or translated by scholars as follows: J. Vessereau, Cl. Rutilius Namatianus (Paris, 1904), 66: ‘dérober le jour’; Keene (n. 2), 225: ‘denies daylight’; E. Merone, Rutilius Claudius Namatianus. De reditu suo (Naples, 1955), 167: ‘oscurare il giorno’; E. Castorina, Claudio Rutilio Namaziano. De reditu (Firenze, 1967), 127: ‘sottrarre un giorno dietro l'altro’; Doblhofer (n. 2), 1.135: ‘verwehrt … der Westwind einen Tag um den anderen’; Fo (n. 3), 45: ‘negarci continui giorni’; S. Pozzato and A. Rodighiero, Claudio Rutilio Namaziano. Il ritorno (Turin, 2011), 251: ‘sottrarci giorni su giorni’.
6 On Rutilius' textual tradition, see Doblhofer (n. 2), 1.57–71; M.D. Reeve, ‘Rutilius Namatianus’, in L.D. Reynolds (ed.), Texts and Transmission. A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford, 1983), 339–40; Fo (n. 3), 133–7; J.-L. Charlet, ‘Histoire résumée du texte et des éditions de Rutilius Na(u)mati(an)us’, Vita Latina 173 (2005), 57–65.
7 See G. Heidrich, Claudius Rutilius Namatianus (Vienna and Leipzig, 1912), 25 and Doblhofer (n. 2), 1.70, but note also the cautious remarks on the relationships among VBR expressed by Reeve (n. 6), 340, and the tripartite stemma recently proposed by Charlet (n. 6), 65.
8 In fact, negare also happens to be the usual lectio facilior of necare in many textual traditions (for instance, Plaut. Most. 479, Colum. 4.24.19, Sen. Dial. 7.18.2, Cypr. Patient. 16).
9 So Wolff, É., ‘Retour sur quelques problèmes du De reditu suo de Rutilius Namatianus’, REL 84 (2006), 258–73Google Scholar, at 263.
10 Already criticized by Pozzato who defends negare (see S. Pozzato and A. Rodighiero [n. 5], 295).
11 See É. Wolff (with S. Lancel and J. Soler), Rutilius Namatianus. Sur son retour (Paris, 2007), 102 and, for a fuller discussion, Wolff (n. 9), 263–4.
12 Both the insistent reference to water-related terms (madidis, udae, imbre, fluctibus, madidam, procelloso, roscida) and the Ovidian imitation from the first book of the Metamorphoses point in this direction.
13 See W. Meyer-Lübke, Romanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 19353), s.v. necare. The best and most thorough contributions to the history of neco are those of Adams, J.N., ‘The uses of neco I’, Glotta 68 (1990), 230–55Google Scholar and id., ‘The uses of neco II’, Glotta 69 (1991), 94–123 Google Scholar; Adams charts the usage of necare from its origins as ‘a general word which could encompass killing by whatever means’ (this note [1990], 255) to later specialized meanings.
14 See also TLL 5.2.563.12–30, s.v. eneco. It might be relevant to those who want to gloss necare with dies in the Rutilian verse as ‘drown’ that mergere can be used of heavenly bodies which seem to dip into the sea (TLL 8.831.31–46, s.v. mergo; to the listed passages add the variant reading Apolline merso in Stat. Silv. 5.3.12, a reading that is discussed by B.J. Gibson, Statius Silvae 5 [Oxford, 2006], 273–4, in his commentary, but not accepted in the Latin text).
15 See Adams (n. 13 [1991]), 97–8; contra, E. Löfstedt, Late Latin (Oslo, 1959), 192.
16 Broadly understood, because we cannot be sure about what nuance or nuances really prevailed in every single listed case from the point of view of the Latin speaker.
17 The verb eneco is attested in a similar sense (see TLL 5.2.563.31–40), as are other verbs of killing, such as occido and perimo.
18 See OLD s.v. neco 2b. Further examples are Petr. Chrys. Serm. 106.2; Ps. Opt. Porf. 22.6 (in the embedded verse), 22.13–14; Greg. M. in evang. 15.3.
