ment in the Scholiast, which is balanced by a later statement that some in the Scholiast's day said the lines were Persius' own. XI. 3 (4). 13. Expectes et sustineas, Auguste, necesse est: Nam tibi quod solvat non habet arca Iovis. Expectes: You, Augustus, must wait for a time and forbear: for after paying Domitian, Jupiter will have nothing left for you'. Surely Domitian himself is the Augustus spoken of. IX. 31 (32). Cum comes Arctois, &c. I do not pretend to understand this epigram: but I would suggest that the goose had been a live one, that Velius had fixed on it as a victim before the war began, and had made it swallow a silver coin for each month, the eighth having already been swallowed before the news came that the war was over, and that the bird was then killed and perhaps stuffed, the coins being taken out and fastened to its beak. Vv. 5, 6 could hardly be understood except of a living bird: and 'extis condita' can surely have but one meaning: while 'argento' would naturally refer to the silver coin, in which the real value of the offering might be considered to consist. By the way, has Mr Paley given the exact point of Vibius Crispus' famous answer to the question whether any one was with Domitian, 'ne musca quidem', 'i.e., to be transfixed with a pin'? I had always supposed it to be 'He is quite alone: not even a fly with him, for he has killed them all'. IX. 51 (52). 7, 8. Et si iam nitidis alternus venit ab astris, Pro Polluce mones Castora ne redeat. Et si iam, &c., and if now, by a compact like that between Castor and Pollux, he has come from the stars to take his turn with you on earth that you may take his in the sky, you act like a Pollux advising Castor not to return. You beg him to stay wholly on earth, declaring your readiness to resign life here for ever in his behalf'. I do not think this can be right. It assumes that Lucanus' brother has come down to the shades, 8 Journal of Philology. VOL. II. whereas the point of the epigram lies in his being still alive: it talks of him as coming from the stars, whereas he would be coming from the earth and it gives an unnatural sense to 'redeat'. The early commentators seem substantially right in their explanation. Lucanus is in the shades: Pollux has just arrived there to take the turn of Castor: Lucanus presents to Castor a higher ideal of brotherly devotion, and urges him not to go back to the sky in his brother's place, but remain where he is, as he himself is ready to do on his brother's account. Or 'alternus' may be Castor, who has just arrived, Pollux having gone at once: Lucanus seizes an early opportunity of impressing on him that when the next opportunity of change comes, he ought not to take advantage of it. In any case 'pro Polluce' goes with 'redeat'. A similar contrast between the affection of these two brothers and that of Castor and Pollux had already been drawn, Book 1. Ep. 36. IX. 52 (53). 1-3. Si credis mihi, Quinte, quod mereris, Ut nostras amo Martias Kalendas. Quod mereris: this clause follows amo tuas Apriles Kalendas'. Is there any difficulty in taking the words, as the natural order suggests, after 'Si credis mihi', 'if you believe an assertion which your desert warrants'? IX. 64 (65). 8. Illi securus vota minora facit. 'Illi: to the original Hercules he offers prayers of less importance, when indifferent as to the result; or perhaps, without feeling anxious lest it should be refused'. The Delphin explanation seems better: 'quia Hercules non aegre feret a se minori deo peti minora quam a Domitiano deo maiori'. 9. 74 (75). 'On a cerea imago, or bust of a young man, which the father had represented as an infant, lest the real likeness should awaken too keen regrets. Ep. 487 (1x. 76 or 77) is on the same subject'. This appears to be the ordinary interpretation: but I see nothing in either epigram to necessitate the supposi tion which it involves. The most natural meaning would seem to be that a picture (why are we to suppose it to be a 'cerea imago'?) had been painted of the youth while he was an infant, but that after his death the father declined to have one drawn of him as he had appeared in later years. 'Pictura' in both epigrams I take not as a painting but as the art of painting. Comp. Book x. 33, where, as Mr Paley rightly says, we hear of a picture taken of Antonius as a youth, which continued to be the only likeness of him, though he lived long after. IX. 98 (99). Vindemiarum non ubique proventus Cessavit, Ovidi: pluvia profuit grandis : 'Water is so much more valuable, in a season of drought, than wine that Coranus, a shrewd old vintner, has made a hundred gallons of it'. Can this be the meaning? Martial is not speaking of a dry, but of a wet season, and his meaning seems to be that the rain has not been altogether bad for the wine trade, as it has enabled the vintners to adulterate their wine more freely. The joke is not unlike one which is sometimes made in dry seasons, that you can get no milk because the cows and the pumps are both dry. Book I. 56, which Mr Paley compares, is, as he says, on the same subject, but the point is different, the season being described as so wet that the vintners could not sell unadulterated wine if they would: Book III. 56 and 57, to which we are also referred, are not parallel at all. x. 17. 6. Appia, quid facies, si legit ista Macer? 'Ista seems incorrect: it should rather be haec, these epigrams of mine. Ista should refer to via Appia, and then it would mean the libelli mensorum, which is against the sense'. There can be no doubt, I think, that iste' is repeatedly used by Martial when there is no reference to any person supposed to be addressed. See Book 1. 40 (41). 1; ib. 70 (71). 18 (where the explanation in Mr Paley's note, that the book is speaking to the poet, cannot be true); IV. 49. 1, 10; vI. 76. 4. In all these places 'hic' might be substituted without altering the sense. In later Latin I believe it is used without scruple for 'hic'; and so we may suppose that the change in its meaning came in gradually. At the same time there are passages in Augustan writers where it is exceedingly difficult to give it its usual force: Horace, Epist. 1. 6. 67, 'Si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti; si non his utere mecum': Virg. Aen. XI. 537, ‘Neque enim novus iste Dianae Venit amor': where to render 'iste' 'this of which I am telling you' is simply to confess that the word is used improperly. There is a later note in this edition, on Book XI. 2. 8, where Mr Paley says 'iste' is virtually equivalent to 'hic', and appeals to the medieval usage, though he still tries to bring out the reference to a second person. X. 57. Argenti libram mittebas: facta selibra est, Sed piperis. Tanti non emo, Sexte, piper. "The patron's annual gift to his client has come down to half a pound (not of silver but) of pepper. That, says the poet Tаρà πроodoxíav, is not enough to buy-pepper with'. Surely the point is that Martial pretends to regard the half pound of pepper as intended to be an equivalent to the pound of silver, and says, 'I would rather have the silver, for I am not accustomed to give so much for my pepper as that'. X. 58. 3. Et quod inhumanae Cancro fervente cicadae Non novere nemus. 'Inhumanae, sulky, unlike others of their kind'. Is it not rather meant as a constant epithet of the cicadas, which make themselves troublesome by their noise wherever they are found? (And so I see the Variorum Commentary takes it.) x. 65. 11. Nobis fistula fortius loquetur. 'Fistula, a doubtful reading. The MSS. have filia....The sense may be, I cannot imitate such a squeaking voice: my reed pipe could do that better than I'. I do not know whose conjecture 'fistula' may be, as it is not mentioned either in Schneidewin's Apparatus Criticus or in the Delphin and Variorum edition: but I should imagine the author of it must have meant 'my windpipe will utter louder sounds than that'. x. 70. 5. Non resalutantes video nocturnus amicos. 'The sense is, at night I have to see friends who do not come to return me the morning's call'. The reading is not certain, the MSS. having 'nunc', and 'non' being a correction of Schnei der's. If 'non' is right, the sense seems to be 'I get up at night to salute friends who pay me no visit in return', referring to the early hour at which the morning salutatio' was made, like the well-known lines of Juvenal, Sat. v. 19 foll. (comp. Book x. 82. 2). This then will be Martial's account of the beginning of his day. The seventh line 'Nunc ad luciferam signat mea gemma Dianam' seems to refer to an engagement between the early 'salutatio' and the 'prima hora'; but whether it simply means 'I sign a document by moonlight', or 'I go at morning twilight to sign at Diana's temple' I do not venture to decide. x. 73. 7, 8. A te missa venit: possem nisi munus amare, Marce, tuum, poteram nomen amare meum. 'If I could not regard the gift, I could have regarded the name of the donor, Marcus, which he holds in common with myself'. So apparently the commentators: but the sense scarcely seems inherent in the words. Can Antonius have had the name of Martial embroidered on the toga? x. 77. Nequius a Caro nihil unquam, Maxime, factum est, Saeva nocens febris saltem quartana fuisses! 'The worst thing Dr Carus ever did was that dying of a fever. The fever too was greatly to blame: it should at least have been an acute and painful quartan attack, that the patient might have been reserved for his own doctoring'. 'De Caro |