A Note on Varro Atacinus (13 + 23 Blänsdorf)

Abstract

One conjecture is proposed on the text of Varro’s Bellum Sequanicum (23 B = 106 H = 1 C), dulci … sapore for dulcis  …  saporis, and a handful of variant readings are reconsidered in a fragment of the Chorographia (13 B = 112 H = 17 C = 16 M).

Keywords:

• Latin
• fragment
• emendation
• textual criticism

The fragments of Varro Atacinus are not quite so badly transmitted as those of certain other poets, but a handful of corrupt passages they do contain, some of which, had we the rest of their context, would probably emend themselves. In the following notes I purpose to examine two such fragments, one in Varro’s Bellum Sequanicum (23 Blänsdorf = 106 Hollis = 1 Courtney), the other in his Chorographia (13 Blänsdorf = 112 Hollis = 17 Courtney = 16 Morel). I give for the former passage the text and apparatus of Blänsdorf, Büchner, and Morel (2011, 240), and for the latter the text of Hollis (2007, 167–168) with an apparatus composite of both. Translations are my own.

• P. Terentius Varro Atacinus, Bellum Sequanicum (23 Blänsdorf = 106 Hollis = 1 Courtney):

Prisc. GLK II 497: inuenitur etiam … pellicuit … P. Varro Belli Sequanici libro II:

deinde ubi pellicuit dulcis leuis unda saporis

pellicuit RD¹: pollicuit uel prolicuit plerique codd.

Then, when the light/sweet wave of sweet/light flavour enticed … 

leuis unda or dulcis unda? dulcis saporis or leuis saporis? Says Courtney (1993, 238): “The line shows the conformation favoured at this time, verb, two adjectives and two nouns, the latter arranged abBA.” But to compose lines of the shape abBA was only a tendency, not a rule. It can hardly be relied upon here as a sure guide to the syntax, not least because the neoteric poets just as frequently arranged their nouns and epithets in the order abAB: Cinna 2 B lucida quom fulgent alti carchesia mali, 3 B atque anquina regat stabilem fortissima cursum, Caluus 11 B cum grauis ingenti coniuere pupula somno, Catul. 64.1 Peliaco quondam prognatae uertice pinus. Only S. Hoffer (2007, 309), in his disquisition upon the use of “double hyperbaton” in Latin poetry, seems to appreciate the difficulty of the double agreement: “deinde ubi pellicuit dulcis leuis unda saporis is unusually ambiguous, perhaps a sign of the early experimental period of this style”. Experimentalism will not do for an explanation. If the contiguous juxtaposition of two epithets with identical endings, such that either epithet could be construed with either noun, was “experimental”, it was an experimental failure. The degree of grammatical ambiguity inherent to dulcis leuis unda saporis finds no parallel in the poetry of later authors.

Aesthetical considerations do not much help to explain or resolve the difficulty. At least I can discern no obvious play in the interchangeability of the epithets, which seems rather a fault than a trick of style. L. Alfonsi (1945, 77–78) considered the sibilance of dulcis leuis unda saporis as an example of Ennian-style consonance, whereby the repetition of -s apparently conveyed “il senso di levità dell’onda”. That is not all fancy: the Roman poets certainly did use sibilance when describing rivers (cf. e.g. Tib. 1.7.13–14 an te, Cydne, canam, tractis qui leniter undis/caeruleus placidis per uada serpis aquis). But I am not convinced that Varro would have here sacrificed grammatical perspicuity for the sake of an effect which he could have achieved by other means.

Clearer sense and syntax may be gained by supposing that Varro wrote not dulcis … saporis, genitive of quality, but rather dulci  …  sapore, instrumental ablative: “Thereupon, when the light water enticed with its sweet flavour … ” The error dulcis for dulci would be one of anticipation before leuis, the error saporis for sapore either a Perseverationsfehler also due to leuis or a corrective interpolation consequent to dulci becoming dulcis. For pellicio with an instrumental ablative, see Stewart, TLL 10.1.998.46–10.1.998.47, and compare Cic. De or. 243 multo maiorem partem sententiarum sale tuo et lepore et politissimis facetiis pellexisti and Clu. 13.2 animum adulescentis, nondum consilio ac ratione firmatum, pellexit eis omnibus rebus quibus illa aetas capi ac deleniri potest. For sapore employed as an instrumental ablative, compare Lucr. DRN 2.400–401 ferique/centauri foedo pertorquent ora sapore. Let it not be said that the circumstance of this line’s being a fragment determines against emendation: there is no construction conceivable which could follow this verse and justify the ambiguity or render an ablative ungrammatical.¹

• P. Terentius Varro Atacinus, Chorographia (13 Blänsdorf = 17 Courtney = 112 Hollis = 16 Morel):

Isid. nat. 10: de quibus [sc. quinque zonis] Varro ita dicit:

ut quinque aetherius zonis accingitur orbis

ac uastant imas hiemes mediamque calores,

sic terrae extremas inter mediamque coluntur,

quas solis ualido numquam †ut auferat† igne

1 ut Hollis, coll. Ov., Met. 1.45–7: at Isid. : a Salom. : et Beda | aetherius AMS, Fontaine : aetheriis V : aetheriis PEKL || 2 hiemes Isid. : hiemis Salom. || 4 quas Grialus : qua Scaliger : quam codd. | ualido] calido Scaliger : rabido Baehrens | numquam] non iam D. A. Russell | ut] uis La Bigne : uia Lunelli : rota Scaliger : iubar Courtney | auferat] ferueat Traglia post Scaliger : adserat Salom. : atterat Wuellner : efferat Buechner : hauriat Nisbet : torreat Hollis | quas ictus … uerberat Capponi | igne uel ignem codd. Isid. : ignes Salom.

As the celestial sphere is girt by five zones and winters blast the lowest zones and heat the middle zone, so are the lands between the furthest zones and the middle zone inhabited, which the < … > of the sun never < … > with its powerful fire.

I think Hollis has the text of this fragment right in essentials. ut for at in v. 1 is the slightest of changes and gives to sic in v. 3 the purpose which it cries out for.² Printing aetherius against aetheriis (Courtney) and aethereis (Blänsdorf) is also surely right: orbis requires this epithet to make clear the difference between the celestrial sphere in vv. 1–2 and the terrestrial sphere in vv. 3–4. Moreover, aetherius instead of aethereis happily avoids a most inelegant homoeoteleuton with zonis, and there is a parallel for its collocation with orbis in Manil. 1.802 altius aetherii quam candet circulus orbis. In these two respects Hollis’ text gets the better of Courtney’s and Blänsdorf’s, but in the final line of the fragment no editor gives what the author must have said.

Verse 4 has yet to be printed as it was written, though all the materials for an accurate reconstruction are to hand. Modern editions differ thus:

qua solis ualido numquam uis ferueat igne (Blansdörf)

quas solis ualido numquam †ut auferat† igne (Hollis)

quas solis ualido †numquam ut† auferat igne (Courtney)

quam of the MSS is impossible, for it is the temperate zones, not the torrid, which the sun fails to scorch “with its powerful fire”. Grial’s quas is a slight correction, simply explained (s misread as final m, or assimilated to mediam in the verse preceding), and supplies the wanted object of auferat. As the relative clause is still without a subject, La Bigne’s uis is a necessary and highly probable emendation for ut of the MSS: the difference between them is but one minim and one easily confused letter (t for s). Courtney and Hollis seem to accept this emendation, Courtney comparing for the collocation uis solis Lucr. 4.326 (cf. also 5.497), Hollis perceiving in ualido  …  uis an example of Lucretian-style alliteration. I therefore fail to see why they should include ut within the bounds of their obeli. The alternatives which they consider printing, Scaliger’s rota and Courtney’s iubar, are considerably further from the ductus and considerably worse in sense: “force” goes better with “powerful fire” than does either “wheel” or “ray”. uis solis moreover is defended by the close lexical parallel of Columella, Rust. 12.6.2 omnem enim mucorem uis solis aufert et odorem bonum praebet (of brine); cf. also 4.22.6 uim solis, Cic. De Div. 2.89 ui solis, and Quint. Curt. 9.1.11 uim solis. The combination of uis with aufert in the aforecited passage of Columella may give a degree of support to the transmitted verb, auferat, whose authenticity many have impugned, and which Courtney alone of modern editors retains. What secures it is Kraggerud’s citation apud Büchner (1982, 126) of Lucr. 5.204–5, where it bears the sense “to remove (from human access)”:

inde duas porro prope partis feruidus ardor

assiduusque geli casus mortalibus aufert.

Further parallels for this sense are collected by the OLD s.v. aufero 7b “to make inaccessible; (of geographical features, with dative) to separate (from)”. Given all this evidence, I cannot understand why Blänsdorf should print Traglia’s ferueat, or for what reason Hollis should reject Kraggerud’s Lucretian parallel in favour of so palaeographically distant alterations as torreat and hauriat. The only remaining quibble with the text quas solis ualido numquam uis auferat igne is the potential oddness of numquam, as Courtney (1993, 251) remarks: “numquam too seems odd, as if polar and equatorial regions were sometimes habitable”. But that is not a weighty objection: the opposite of numquam need not be aliquando, but could just as well be semper. So Virgil describes the equatorial region in G. 1.234: semper sole rubens et torrida semper ab igne; and so the anonymous poet of the Panegyricus Messallae (=  [Tib.] 3.7) describes the polar zones in v. 157: quippe ubi non umquam Titan super egerit ortus, “where the sun does not ever show forth his risings”.³ It is probable that the fourth verse of this fragment was followed by a hexameter in which the corresponding effects of frost and cold weather were described, so as to establish an adequate balance to solis ualido … uis … igne (cf. 2 hiemes … calores). For a supplement Courtney proffers <gentibus humanis, glacie non Arctos iniqua>, Hollis <nec semper glacies adstringat frigore et imbri>. Editors would do well to indicate the missing line with < … > and allude to its content in the apparatus or commentary.

Acknowledgements

I am much indebted to Egil Kraggerud and Monika Asztalos for their comments and criticisms of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 If an instrumental ablative were to follow in the next verse, dulci  …  sapore would be ablative of quality.

2 Hollis (2007, 186). His parallels for the comparison invoked by ut (esp. Ov. Met. 1.45–7) are fully convincing.

3 Unless we write super ingerit ictus, comparing Luc. 8.645 ingeris ictus and App. Verg. Moretum 43, 97 super ingerit. ortus is so mistaken at Tib. 1.1.27, where Bentley’s ictus must be read.