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TheArgonautica of Valerius Flaccus.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

The Flavian writers of epic verse took their business seriously enough and seldom permitted themselves anything that might pass for an allusion to contemporary events: so much so that only an ingenuity that runs a risk of being perverse can wrest from them much more than what they have themselves chosen to say in their dedications or invocations. Where the man survived to complete and edit his work, such a dedication, the last thing to be written, more or less bears on its face the date of publication. The proem of the Thebaïs of Statius and the ‘Flavian Panegyric,’ which Silius Italicus inserted in the third book of his Punica thus reveal, to within a year, when the whole of the one and a portion of the other were given to the world, viz. in 91–2 and in 92–3 respectively. With an unfinished work the case is different; indeed, the very presence of that panegyric might sufficeto prove that though Silius had reached the end, in a fashion, when he finished his seventeenth book, he did not truly complete his poem or himself publish it as a whole. In order to determine at what date he got as far with his poem as he ever did, some other source of information is therefore desirable. Similarly with the Argonautica. Valerius Flaccus does not appear to have composed any more than the eight books that have come down to us, nor is he known to have published any part of them save, if at all, by recitation. It is for this reason that the proem, with its invocation of Vespasian, to all appearance as still living, has always been taken to be, not a later insertion, but an integral part of the first book, and thus a clear indication of the date at which Valerius began his task.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1929

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References

page 129 note 1 III. 208.

page 129 note 2 Zur Erklärung u. Kritik des V.F. in Philologus XLVIII., 1889, p. 647Google Scholar; I. 563 and I. 836 are quite inconclusive, and, if ‘altus ab Alba Iuppiter’ (II. 304) is to be taken as a hint of the Emperor Domitian in his Alban Villa, what do we make of the sinister phrase ‘Albani… yranni’ (V. 258)?

page 129 note 3 Mentioned but not quoted in Butler, , Post Augustan Poetry, p. 181Google Scholar, and Schanz3 II. 2, p. 136.

page 130 note 1 Compare Theb. IX. 438; Pun. XVII. 487.

page 130 note 2 VI. 162, 231.

page 130 note 3 Hist. I. 79, ‘ubi per turmas advenere vix ulla acies obstiterit. sed turn umido die et soluto gelu neque conti neque gladii, quos praelongos utraque manu regunt, usui, lapsantibus equis et catafractarum pondere. id principibus et nobilis simo cuique tegimen, ferreis lamminis aut praeduro corio consertum,… neque enim scuto defendi mos est.’

page 130 note 4 Tac, . Ann. VI. 35Google Scholar, ‘se quisque stimulant ne pugnam per sagittas sinerent: impetu et comminus praeveniendum. uariae hinc bellantium species, cum Parthus sequi vel fugere,… Sarmatae omisso arcu, quo brevius valent, contis gladiisque ruerent.’

page 130 note 5 Plates XXIII, and XXVII–XXVIII. In Plate XXIII, the position of the hand indicates that a contus is to be supplied.

page 131 note 1 Rostovtseff, , Hist. of Decorative Painting in S. Russia (in Russian), Plate LXXXIV. 3Google Scholar.

page 131 note 2 Rostovtseff, Iranians and Greeks, Plates XXVIII. and XXIX.

page 131 note 3 XVII. 12, 2, ‘hastae longiores et lorica ex cornibus rasis.’

page 131 note 4 That confusion should still survive is less to be excused: P.W., R.-E., s.v. Sarmatae, col. 2549, states that the Sarmatians carried javelins and the bow and arrows as well as lance and sword.

page 131 note 5 Strabo VII., p. 302.

page 131 note 6 P.-W., R.-E., s.v. Sarmatae, col. 2545.

page 131 note 7 Strabo VII., p. 306, καὶ;ἐδόκουν;είναι;μάχιμοι;πρὸς;μέντοι;συντεταγμένην;ϕάλαγγα;και πλισμένην;καλῶς;τὸ;βάρβαρον;ϕῦλον;ἀσθενὲς;πᾶν;ἐστι;και;τὸ;γυμνητικόν;' … χρῶνται;δὲ; μοβοΐνοις;κράνεσι;και;θώραξι,;ϒερροϕόροι,;ἀ;μυντήρια;δ;έχοντες;καί;λόϒχας;καὶ;τόξον;και;ξΙϕος.

page 132 note 1 Tristia V. 12, 28. ‘iam didici Getice Sarma ticeque loqui.’

page 132 note 2 The text cited is that of Kramer (Teubner, 1913) or, for that matter, Thilo's (1863): the intervening editors, Schenkl (1871), Baehrens (1875), and Langen (1895), have laid violent hands on the last two lines of this passage.

page 132 note 3 The horseman on a rock-carving from the Venissei Valley (Laufer, B., Chinese Clay Figures, Part I., Chicago, 1913, fig. 35)Google Scholar, has certainly something very much like a thong hanging to one of his spear-grasping hands.

page 133 note 1 Cf. VI. 253.

page 133 note 2 Baehrens, ‘rescripsi id quod a sententia unice flagratur, “reponi”;’ Langen, ‘itaque scripsi “refingi,” i.e., in pristinum statum restitui.’

page 133 note 3 ‘Wenn sich ein Dichter so etwas gestatten darf, dann gibt es für ihn kein Gesetz mehr’ (Studien zu V.F., p. 291, in Wiener Sitzungsberichte, 1871). In his edition of the same year he encloses line 238 in brackets.

page 133 note 4 So Baehrens and Langen.

page 133 note 5 Pun. XV. 684.

page 133 note 6 XIX. II, 6.

page 134 note 1 Cos. Stil. I. III, non falce Gelonus, non arcu pepulere Getae, non Sarmata conto.

page 134 note 2 Plut, . Aemil. 25Google Scholar, 3.“ Ὃτε γὰρ Άντώνις ᾀπἑστη Δμετιααὶ πλὺς πτλεμς ἀπὸ Γερμανίας πρσεδᾶτ τῆς Ῥώμης ταρατγμἑνης τλ.

page 135 note 1 Kramer's text: in line 15, ‘genti’ V: ‘gentis’ cod. Bon. The grounds for Haupt's conjecture centum (which has found its way into some texts) are not valid: he says, ‘“cultus deum” dicuntur divini honores, sed “genti” omnia turbat ac pervertit, (Hermes III., p. 215)Google Scholar; this is by no means the case.

page 135 note 2 This was seen by Schenkl, (o.c., p. 274)Google Scholar; Langen's contention that ille indicates the ‘remote person’ and thereby Titus, who was not at Rome but still at Jerusalem, is perhaps an example of the ‘feines Sprachgefühl’ which Hosius praises in him (Neue Jahrbücher, 1899, p. 116).

page 136 note 1 First pointed out by Köstlin, , and used by him as evidence for his view that though the Argonautica was begun in 71–2Google Scholar. the proem was revised in the fourth or fifth year of Domitian, (Philologus XLVIII., 1889, p. 650)Google Scholar.

page 136 note 2 Suet, . Dom. I. 1Google Scholar.

page 136 note 3 The earliest clear references to it occur in the ninth book of Martial and the fourth book of the Silvae of Statius.

page 137 note 1 Vollmer's, theory, Rheinisches Museum XLVI., 1891, pp. 343 sqGoogle Scholar.