The Ancient Lives of Virgil: Literary and Historical Studies 9781910589618

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Introduction / Philip Hardie
1. Between Biography and Commentary: The Ancient Horizon of Expectation of VSD / Irene Peirano Garrison
2. Fashioning the Poet: Biography, Pseudepigraphy and Textual Criticism / Andrew Laird
3. Biography and Virgil's Epitaph / Ahuvia Kahane
4. The Vita Phocae: Literary Context and Texture / Stephen Harrison
5. Larger Than Life: The Elevation of Virgil in Phocas' Vita Vergiliana / Scott McGill
6. Cameo Roles: Virgil in Ovidian Biography / Nora Goldschmidt
7. The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages / Fabio Stok
8. The Historical Truth of Vergil's Recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD §27) / Hans Smoleanaars
9. Sinning against Philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil / Anton Powell
Index

Citation preview

THE ANCIENT LIVES OF VIRGIL

T HE

A NCIENT L IVES OF

V IRGIL L ITERARY AND H ISTORICAL S TUDIES edited by

Anton Powell and

Philip Hardie

The Classical Press of Wales

First published in 2017 by The Classical Press of Wales 15 Rosehill Terrace, Swansea SA1 6JN Tel: +44 (0)1792 458397 www.classicalpressofwales.co.uk Distributor I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 6 Salem Rd, London W2 4BU, UK Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7243 1225 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7243 1226 www.ibtauris.com Distributor in North America ISD, 70 Enterprise Drive, Suite 2, Bristol, CT 06010, USA Tel: +1 (860) 584-6546 Fax: +1 (860) 516-4873 www.isdistribution.com © 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-1-910589-61-8 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset by Louise Jones, and printed and bound in the UK by Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion, Wales ––––––––––––––––– The Classical Press of Wales, an independent venture, was founded in 1993, initially to support the work of classicists and ancient historians in Wales and their collaborators from further afield. More recently it has published work initiated by scholars internationally. While retaining a special loyalty to Wales and the Celtic countries, the Press welcomes scholarly contributions from all parts of the world. The symbol of the Press is the Red Kite. This bird, once widespread in Britain, was reduced by 1905 to some five individuals confined to a small area known as ‘The Desert of Wales’ – the upper Tywi valley. Geneticists report that the stock was saved from terminal inbreeding by the arrival of one stray female bird from Germany. After much careful protection, the Red Kite now thrives – in Wales and beyond.

CONTENTS Page Preface

vii

Introduction Philip Hardie

ix

1 Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD Irene Peirano Garrison 2 Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism Andrew Laird

1

29

3 Biography and Virgil’s epitaph Ahuvia Kahane

51

4 The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture Stephen Harrison

73

5 Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana Scott McGill

93

6 Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography Nora Goldschmidt

115

7 The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages Fabio Stok

133

8 The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) Hans Smolenaars

153

9 Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil 173 Anton Powell 199

Index

v

PREFACE To claim this volume as ‘counter-current’ might be an error of understatement. The poetry of ‘gentle Virgil’ is in our own day contested by different schools of interpretation in ways sometimes far from gentle. The concept of noster Vergilius, ‘our Virgil’, may seem to have dissolved along with the term ‘our’. And the Ancient Lives of the poet occupy an especially awkward and unstable position. They remain formative for scholars’ idea of the man while being vigorously dismissed, on prominent modern authority, as almost wholly unreliable both on his life and its relation to his poetry. Amid such diversity of opinion and of method, to seek to establish a constructive set of dialogues on the Ancient Lives of the poet may seem, to most specialists, perverse. Yet that is the ambition behind the present volume. It has been our aim, above all, to draw those who see themselves as philologists into conversation with others who identify as historians. This may involve addressing an uneasy sense in historians that, for themselves at least, the literary genres represented by the Ancient Lives may be unattainable ground, on which the historian in consequence should not attempt to construct. Accordingly the book begins with fundamental studies of genre applied to the two most remarkable of the Lives, the Suetonian-Donatan in prose and the poem by Phocas. For the philologist, on the other hand, there is to be feared a coarse historical determinism whereby the qualities of Virgil’s poetry are deemed to be largely explicable by his personal history and – above all – by political circumstances. The closing, more historical, chapters of this book attempt, therefore, to show due sensitivity to the genre and limitations of the Suetonian-Donatan Life while seeking to produce engaging new argument concerning the historical Virgil. Other chapters here treat the post-Classical reception of the Ancient Lives. In addition to their intrinsic interest, they serve to bridge the earlier philological chapters and the more obviously historical contributions which follow. By demonstrating the wide and enduring influence of the Ancient Lives, into the Middle Ages and Renaissance, they may aid the recognition of how lively that influence remains today. Such is the strength of anti-biographic currents in present-day Virgilian studies that scholars may sometimes lose sight of the fact that a fundamental communis opinio concerning the poet – the dates of his birth and death –

vii

depends wholly on detail given in the Ancient Lives. More speculatively, we may also ask whether surviving ideas about the poet’s temperament, about pervasive themes in his poems, rely in part on unavowed argument from the Ancient Lives. The assumption that Virgil, unlike (it seems) his fellow-poet Horace, had (probably) not been a partisan soldier in the civil wars which structured his age, may rely on an argument from silence: that had he been so, we should have heard about it from the Ancient Lives. The perennial idea of a detached, gentle and humane Virgil, in our day especially productive in work from the Harvard School of interpretation, may thus be a construction on which philologists and historians have converged while each working, albeit in different degrees and with different methods, from both the poems and the Ancient Lives. That the present project could initially take the form of a conference at the University of Cambridge was due to its being championed by Philip Hardie. Virgilian analyst of the first order and notable in a conflicted field for his non-partisan fair-mindedness, he was uniquely placed to identify contributors and to guide their work: sine quo non. His co-editor (who resisted as long as he could Philip’s insistence on the order in which editors’ names should appear) can only hope that the volume which he has made possible will not disappoint. Anton Powell

Swansea, November 2017

INTRODUCTION Philip Hardie The essays in this volume are based on papers delivered at a conference on ‘The Ancient Lives of Virgil: History and Myth, Sources and Reception’, held at the Classics Faculty of the University of Cambridge, 5–7 September 2013. The conference and the resulting volume are a contribution to the new wave of scholarship on, and criticism of, ancient poets’ lives. Until quite recently studies in this field were characterized by a sharp dichotomy: either the ancient lives were mined for such nuggets of historical fact as might be contained within them, in order to enable the modern scholar to construct what might be known or reasonably surmised about the biographies of the poets, or they were regarded as little more than fantasies based on the practice of reading events and characters in a poet’s works as direct reflections of the author’s own life history.1 In the case of Virgil, this resulted in the assertion by one of the giants of modern Virgilian scholarship, Nicholas Horsfall, that most of what is contained in the main ancient Life of Virgil, the Vita Suetoniana-Donatiana (VSD), is ‘not biographical fact, as we understand it, but either explication of V.’s text in biographical terms, or defence of the poet against criticism.’ 2 In the last couple of decades the terms of the discussion have shifted. Scholars have looked beyond the dichotomy of either historical truth or historical falsification, and have renounced the habit of judging ancient biographical writing by the expectations of modern biography. Instead the approach is increasingly to consider the lives within their own cultural contexts, and as part of the larger reception of texts within antiquity.3 In this volume Irene Peirano Garrison sets out to reconstruct the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD, and shows that biographical allegory, so far from being merely an expedient for narrating the life of a writer for which there may have been little other evidence, has deep roots in ancient literary criticism. That Suetonius’ Life of Virgil, from his otherwise mostly lost De Poetis, should have ended up, in the form of VSD, at the head of the fourth-century commentary of Aelius Donatus betokens an important continuity between biography and commentary. This is particularly so in the case of pastoral poetry: Servius’ commentary contains many examples of biographical allegory, some of which Servius accepts and some of which he rejects. Servius follows closely the exegetical practice of the ancient scholia on Theocritus’ Idylls, and that scholiastic tradition was obviously

ix

Philip Hardie available to Virgil himself, who will have guided his own allegorization of the dramatis personae of his pastoral stage accordingly (a point that is also made in this volume by Anton Powell). Andrew Laird shares with Peirano Garrison a preference for thinking of the ancient lives not as historiography but as a form of exegesis of Virgil’s poetry, akin to literary criticism. Laird draws attention to links between biographies of poets and pseudepigraphy: both manifest an interest in the personal voice of the poet, as expressed, for example, through the ille ego proem to the Aeneid and in epitaphs. A further link between biography and poetic imitation is seen in the linking, in Phocas’ late antique verse life of Virgil, of the technique of the literary scholar with emulation of the poet, in a shared kind of inuentio. Laird concludes a discussion of the connection between the ille ego proem and Ovid’s prosthesis of an elegiac prologue to the Metamorphoses in Tristia 1.7 with the provocative suggestion that VSD’s famous report of Virgil’s deathbed wish to burn the Aeneid is another biographical fiction based on a literary work, but in this case a work not by Virgil, the subject of the Life, but by Ovid. If Laird is correct, the ancient biographer’s fascination with the personal voice of the poet has fabricated a Virgilian personal voice on the basis of a first-person statement in another poet. Andrew Laird draws attention to VSD ’s obsession with epitaphs, those small-scale texts designed for, or as if designed for, inscription which monumentalize in brief compass the whole of a life. Most famous of VSD ’s epitaphs is that for the poet himself: Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. cecini pascua, rura, duces.

Whether or not this couplet was actually inscribed on Virgil’s tomb, it is very possibly the oldest surviving text in the Virgilian biographical tradition. Ahuvia Kahane submits the epitaph to minute scrutiny, looking both at formal precedents in the Greek epitaphic tradition, and at the reception of the Virgilian epitaph, clearly well known in antiquity. Kahane then raises larger questions about the epitaph as a ‘site of memory’ for someone so famous that his posthumous survival is not dependent on a single inscribed stone, and about the place of the couplet in the generic spectrum that links epitaph and biography. Two complementary contributions by Stephen Harrison and Scott McGill turn the spotlight on the Vita Phocae, written by the grammarian Phocas at the turn of the fifth century, and the only surviving metrical life of Virgil. It is clearly derivative of VSD, and thus can have no independent value as a historical source. Yet it can tell us much about ancient

x

Introduction biographical traditions and about the literary culture of late antiquity. The pointed use of verse rather than prose allows a poetic licence in the addition of new marvels attendant on the birth of the Wunderkind, drawn from Virgil’s own fourth Eclogue and from the story of the bees that covered the lips of Plato with honey at his birth. Phocas magnifies the already strong element of praise in ancient biographical writing, in what amounts to a pagan hagiography of the great Roman poet. As something approaching a verse paraphrase of the prose Life, the Vita Phocae is comparable to late antique verse paraphrases of the Bible, or to the verse paraphrases of Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St Martin by Paulinus of Périgueux and, later, Venantius Fortunatus. As we move from late antiquity into the Middle Ages, biographical traditions continue to form an important part of the reception of Virgil’s poetry. At the beginning of that reception Ovid, whose own poetry is constantly informed by a response to the Virgilian texts, had also positioned himself by reference both to Virgil’s self-constructed literary career and, possibly, also to details of the life of Virgil (if, for example, we resist Andrew Laird’s argument that the story about Virgil’s wish to burn the Aeneid is derived from Ovid’s claim that he had burned the Metamorphoses, rather than the other way round). Nora Goldschmidt looks at two examples of the interaction between poets’ lives and literary interpretation, cases where Virgil has a ‘cameo part’ in the story of Ovid’s life. In the first, from a medieval accessus (introduction) to Ovid’s Tristia, the plot of the legend of ‘Virgil in the Basket’ is transferred to Ovid. The implicit love rivalry between Ovid and Virgil reflects the literary rivalry that marks Ovid’s relationship with Virgil’s poetry; and Ovid’s broken leg, the result of Virgil’s removing some rungs of the ladder on which Ovid had thought to climb up for a liaison with Augustus’ wife Livia, reflects the laming of Ovid’s Virgilian epic ambition at the beginning of the Amores. In the second example, Ben Jonson’s Poetaster, a play whose characters include Virgil and Ovid, as well as other Augustan poets, reception through literary adaptation and translation combines with the ancient biographical traditions about Virgil and Ovid to make a heady brew that projects messages about Jonson’s perceptions of his own life and works. Fabio Stok discusses the complex transmission of VSD in the Middle Ages. He shows that after its reappearance in the ninth century it had a limited circulation, until its rediscovery by humanists in the late fourteenth century. Stok considers the factors that determined this limited reception: the length of VSD, the medieval liking for a more schematic kind of accessus, and the fact that much of the information in VSD seems to have held little interest for medieval readers. Other medieval Lives of Virgil,

xi

Philip Hardie although largely derivative of VSD, reveal a different set of interests, which include the elaboration of Virgil’s mother’s dream that she would give birth to a laurel branch which would take root and spring up into a great tree, a dream which is now interpreted by Lucretius, appearing as the mother’s brother; a Christianizing anxiety about the report of Virgil’s homosexuality; and a tendency to rewrite the Roman civil wars from the perspective of medieval kings and dynasties. Hans Smolenaars and Anton Powell both mount a revisionist attack on what has come to be the prevailing consensus that either VSD contains nothing that is historically reliable, or that that question is not one that need interest the modern student of ancient life-writing. Hans Smolenaars argues, against Nicholas Horsfall’s extreme skepticism as to the veridicity of VSD, that for those details which are not obviously the stuff of the traditional legends and miracles found in poets’ or artists’ lives, there is no good reason a priori to deny historicity. Where there is some correspondence between a report in the Life and a feature in Virgil’s texts, we cannot exclude the possibility that life is reflected in poetry, rather than poetry being used to fabricate biography. Smolenaars concludes with a detailed reconstruction of the likely route and timetable of Octavian’s return from the east to Rome for his triple triumph in 29 BC, in order to show that the report in VSD 27 that Virgil read the Georgics to Octavian over four days at Atella before the triumph is well within the bounds of possibility. Anton Powell, wearing the hats of both philologist and historian, points out that VSD frequently refers explicitly to sources other than the works of Virgil; that there are other significant elements in the Life that could not easily be constructed out an allegorization of the texts; and that students of the surviving Suetonian Lives of Emperors do not routinely dismiss their contents as mere fabrication. Where many modern readers of VSD attempt to drain the Life of any reliable historical content, Powell boldly reads into its reticence on the role of Augustus in generating and funding the Aeneid the trace of an Augustan manipulation of the materials from which Suetonius wrote his life. More than that, on the basis of Augustus’ record in the probable disposal of other enemies and awkward customers, eminent poets among them, Powell detects between the lines of VSD reason to speculate (no more) that Augustus contrived the death of Virgil, in order to ensure the publication of the great Augustan poem that its author might otherwise have consigned to the flames. Suspicion of the veracity of anything in VSD is replaced with a suspicious reconstruction of the most sensational ‘fact’ about the life and death of the poet.

xii

Introduction Notes 1 The intervention that imposed this as the prevailing way of reading ancient poets’ lives was Mary Lefkowitz’s The Lives of Greek Poets (Baltimore, 1981). 2 Horsfall, N. ‘Virgil: his life and times’, in id. (ed.) A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Leiden, 1995) 1–25, at 4. 3 Important studies and edited volumes along these lines include Graziosi, B. Inventing Homer: The early reception of epic (Cambridge 2002); De Temmerman, K. and Demoen, K. (eds) Writing Biography in Greece and Rome. Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge, 2016); Hanink, J. and Fletcher, R. (eds) Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, artists and biography (Cambridge, 2016); Goldschmidt, N. Afterlives of the Roman Poets: Biofiction and the reception of Latin poetry (Cambridge, forthcoming).

xiii

1 BETWEEN BIOGRAPHY AND COMMENTARY: THE ANCIENT HORIZON OF EXPECTATION OF VSD Irene Peirano Garrison 1. Introduction We scarcely need Michel Foucault to remind us of the complex thread that runs between the interpretation of texts and readers’ construction of authorial figures: ‘these aspects of an individual which we designate as an author..., are projections, in terms always more or less psychological, of our way of handling texts: in the comparisons we make, the traits we exact as pertinent, the continuities we assign, or the exclusions we practice’.1 Such fluidity between interpreter, author and text is nowhere more visible – and to some extent nowhere more contested – than in the ancient biographical tradition surrounding Greco-Roman authors. While some are keen to maintain the possibility of salvaging a layer of truth in these texts, many scholars have argued that the tradition as a whole is fundamentally built on biographical allegories, that is, on information extrapolated from the texts of poets whose work is read as reflecting the character, life and biography of their creator.2 According to Nicholas Horsfall, for example, most of what is in the Life of Virgil is ‘not biographical fact, as we understand it, but either explication of V.’s text in biographical terms, or defence of the poet against criticism’.3 In the wake of New Criticism’s lack of faith in the possibility of reducing a text to its author’s intention, the tendency on the part of ancient readers to see a continuum between on the one hand the text and on the other the character, life and biography of its creator is often dismissed as ‘fallacy’, with modern critics setting up an opposition between the credulity of ancient readers and the skeptical rigor of modern scholarship. As Constanze Güthenke reminds us in a paper on the biographical in early 20th century Classical Philology, scholarship on biographies of ancient authors is a ‘form of commentary on the role and identity of the scholar’.4 Here the debate about the historicity of the biographical work of ancient scholars clearly reflects an anxiety about the possibility of accessing ancient authors and the role of the modern interpreter in reconstructing the past.

1

Irene Peirano Garrison To some extent, however, the question thus posed – are biographies reliable historical documents or fictions? – is structured around a false dichotomy. To begin with, narrative and the tropes around which we organize it are best approached as interpretative tools.5 They do not replace or stand in opposition to ‘hard facts’; nor can the latter exist outside of the narratives used to convey them. To investigate, as I will do, ancient biography around narrative tropes is not necessarily to deny the biographies any ‘historical’ value but simply to point out the role of authorial texts in shaping and selecting the stories about authors that a given reading community chooses to tell.6 As Barbara Graziosi has argued in relation to the influence of the Greek Lives on Horace’s construction of his own autobiography, the clear-cut separation between fact and fiction is highly anachronistic when one considers the role that the fictional plays in shaping reality.7 We cannot know whether Horace really dropped his shield at Philippi (C. 2.7.10 relicta non bene parmula) as Archilochus says he did (fr. 5 West) or whether he in fact narrowly escaped being hit by a tree (C. 2.13) much like Simonides who almost died in the collapse of the house of the Scopadae (Simonides fr. 510 Campbell; cf. Callimachus fr. 64.1–15 Pf.). But we do know that these episodes feature in his work because they provide a means to claim his status as the Roman lyricus vates. In other words, biographical allegory is a practice that structured encounters between Greek authors and Roman readers for whom the biographical tradition accompanying the texts of their Greek predecessors was as much part of the latter’s oeuvre as the works themselves. As Joe Farrell has argued in a recent paper on the influence of Theocritean commentaries on Virgil’s Bucolics, Virgil’s aspiration to be the Roman Theocritus extended to the self-conscious construction of a biographical persona to mirror the character of Theocritus that scholiasts pieced together from an allegorical reading of his work.8 To re-use Kirk Freudenburg’s analysis of Horatian persona, Virgil’s Theocritean mask is ‘not a means of his hiding what is real, but the very means of his self realization’.9 In this reading, a poet’s work includes his life and in turn his life becomes synonymous with his work.10 The realization of the ‘allegorical’ nature of ancient poetic biographies has opened the doors to a productive approach to these texts as documents of cultural and literary reception history.11 While the ways in which the Lives can be useful to us in capturing the values of ancient audiences continue to be explored, there is a lingering question about the meaning of biographical readings and biography for those audiences. For among other things, the fallacy model fails to provide for ancient poetic Lives what Hans Robert Jauss has defined as ‘the horizon of expectations’ of a text, that is

2

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD the structure of norms and expectations in and within which the work of the biographers was received by its ancient readers.12 Uncovering this unique, historically-situated system of generic and literary expectations is a pressing question in the study of poetic Lives. In order to rephrase the question of poetic biography as a problem of literary reception within antiquity – the meaning and function of the Vitae tradition for ancient audiences – it is necessary to make some important critical shifts. First and foremost, we must move away from the notion of biographical allegory as ‘fallacy’. The work of Graziano Arrighetti on Greek biography and Raymond Starr on allegory in the reception of the Bucolics has been pivotal in establishing that contrary to what the word ‘fallacy’ suggests, biographical allegory is not a trick or a mistake but an ingrained interpretative strategy with deep intellectual roots in ancient literary criticism.13 Above all, however, understanding the horizon of expectations of the Lives of poets means paying attention to issues of genre, literary form and to the reading context in which they were found. To some extent, we are inhibited by the lack of evidence: the Hellenistic biographies which Horace and Virgil were reading have come down to us in later and abridged versions preserved in the manuscript tradition, and earlier sources such as Alcidamas Mouseion are preserved (but presumably also transformed) only in much later texts.14 Nothing but the work on rhetoricians and grammarians survives of Suetonius and our reconstruction of the De Poetis is mostly based on the Lives preserved in the late antique scholiastic tradition. In the case of the Virgilian Vita, the literary context in which it was read in the form in which we have it was the commentary tradition. Thus while it is commonly referred to as the work of the early-2nd-century biographer Suetonius and hence known as the Vita Suetonii vulgo Donatiana (VSD), in its current form the text is found in the corpus of the fourth-century commentator Aelius Donatus and functioned as a preface to his now lost commentary. Because Donatus states elsewhere that he followed Suetonius, there is evidence to believe that the Vita goes back at least in part to that of the 2nd century biographer and yet, as we will see, the placement at the head of the commentary signals a lasting continuity between biography and authorial text. A crucial interpretative question looms large: what, if anything at all, can the fate of the Lives in the work of ancient scholars tell us about them as texts? What can transmission and reception contribute to the study of the ‘originals’?15 Typically, the late antique reception of the Life of Virgil in Donatus and Servius is treated as a hindrance to the reconstruction of the original Suetonian text of the Life. The commentary, to which the Vita functions as a preface, is treated as simply the place where the more

3

Irene Peirano Garrison valuable work of the Roman biographer ‘ended up’. By contrast, this paper attempts to take seriously the commentary as a reception context for the Vita. I begin by tracing the obvious traffic between biographical interpretation in the scholia and biographical allegory in VSD. As we will see, the Servian scholia offer a wealth of reflections on biographical allegory as a critical method and are a lab in which to observe in uiuo the process of biographical allegory that we see reflected in VSD. Although I am not claiming that the commentary is and always was the only reception context for biographies of poets, I will try to show that the physical proximity of the two must be grappled with if we wish to decode the horizon of expectation of ancient readers. It is only if we de-familiarize ourselves from the modern construct of biography as a self-standing, historically credible, study of the life of an author that we can appreciate the Vitae in their ancient literary context and view their late antique placement at the head of the commentary not as an aberration but as indicative of their role as creative forms of commentary, addition to and continuation of canonical texts. 2. Biographical allegory and the pastoral genre The most notorious example of biographical allegory in the Virgilian tradition is the story, first attested in Martial, and found in its most elaborate form in VSD, that when Octavian was looking for land to resettle his veterans, Virgil had his farm confiscated and subsequently reinstated – in some versions by Octavian himself, in others by Asinius Pollio, Alfenus Varus or Cornelius Gallus.16 According to VSD, Virgil wrote the Bucolics to praise the three latter political figures who had protected his land:17 mox cum res Romanas inchoasset, offensus materia ad Bucolica transiit, maxime ut Asinium Pollionem, Alfenum Varum et Cornelium Gallum celebraret, quia in distributione agrorum, qui post Philippensem victoriam veteranis triumvirorum iussu trans Padum dividebantur, indemnem se praestitissent. After he began a work on Roman history, defeated by the subject-matter he turned to the Bucolics, especially so that he could praise Asinius Pollio, Alfenus Varus and Cornelius Gallus because, at the time of the distribution of the fields beyond the Po which were being apportioned to the veterans at the request of the triumviri after the victory at Philippi, these men had saved his property. (VSD 19)

It has been recognized for some time that these stories about land expropriation found in the biographical tradition apply to Virgil’s life the situation depicted in Bucolics 1 and 9.18 In the allegorical interpretation of the biographers, the main characters of these two poems, Tityrus and Menalcas, who lost their land to a foreign usurper and are forced into exile, stand for

4

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD Virgil: in the same way as Tityrus in Bucolic 1 had his land reinstated by a deus, the poet is saved by the kind intervention of a powerful friend. The tradition of biographical allegory of Virgil’s works is discussed explicitly for the first time in Quintilian with reference to the Bucolics:19 in the section of his work devoted to figures, he gives several examples of the trope of allegory (allegoria) and illustrates the non-metaphorical kind with the example of Menalcas whom he reads as standing in for Virgil. Allegoria, quam inversionem interpretantur, aut aliud verbis, aliud sensu ostendit, aut etiam interim contrarium. Prius fit genus plerumque continuat, is tralationibus, ut ‘O navis, referent in mare te novi fluctus: o quid agis? Fortiter occupa portum’, totusque ille Horati locus, quo navem pro re publica, fluctus et tempestates pro bellis civilibus, portum pro pace atque concordia dicit. Tale Lucreti ‘avia Pieridum peragro loca’, et Vergili ‘sed nos inmensum spatiis confecimus aequor, et iam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla’. Sine tralatione vero in Bucolicis: ‘certe equidem audieram, qua se subducere colles incipiunt mollique iugum demittere clivo, usque ad aquam et veteris iam fracta cacumina fagi, omnia carminibus vestrum servasse Menalcan’. Hoc enim loco praeter nomen cetera propriis decisa sunt verbis, verum non pastor Menalcas sed Vergilius est intellegendus. Allegory, which people translate as inversio, presents one thing by its words and either (i) a different or (ii) sometimes even a contrary thing by its sense. The first type generally consists of a succession of metaphors, as in [Horace, C. 1.14] in which he represents the state as a ship, the civil wars as waves and storms, and peace and concord as the harbor. So also in Lucretius [1.926] and in Vergil [Georgics 2.541–2]. A form without metaphor is seen in the Bucolics [Buc. 9.7–10]. In this passage, everything is explicit in the words except for the proper name, but it is not the shepherd Menalcas but Vergil who is meant. (Quintilian, IO 8.6.44–7, Trans. D. A. Russell)

Quintilian’s approach is allegorical in its most original sense: refusing to accept pastoral characters such as Tityrus and Menalcas as fictional creations divorced from reality, it takes the text to mean something other (allos) than what it says (agoreuein). Some allegories, Quintilian says, are conveyed through metaphors, as for example Horace’s Odes 1.14, in which the ship is an allegory of the state. Others are non-metaphorical as for example the reference to Menalcas whom Quintilian reads as a mask for Virgil. The real referents are assumed to be the author and his contemporaries and the events of the poems are seen to represent, albeit indirectly, the biography of its author. In Quintilian’s view, the reference to Menalcas’ preservation of the land through poetry in Buc. 9.10 (omnia carminibus vestrum servasse Menalcan) is a covert allusion to a historical event, namely the process whereby Virgil recovered his confiscated farm through his writing of the Bucolics.

5

Irene Peirano Garrison This tendency to look for real, historical counterparts behind the characters of the Bucolics is as old as the poems themselves:20 in his De Grammaticis, Suetonius reports that during the reign of Tiberius and Claudius the grammarian Remmius Palaemon boasted that Virgil predicted that he, Palaemon, would be a great connoisseur of poetry when he named the judge of the poetry context in Bucolic 3 after him (De Gramm. 23: nomen suum in Bucolicis non temere positum sed praesagante Vergilio, fore quandoque omnium poetarum ac poematum Palaemon iudicem). According to DS, Asinius Gallus recognized himself behind the character of the puer of Buc. 4 (DS ad Buc. 4.11: Asconius Pedianus a Gallo audisse se refert, hanc eclogam in honorem eius factam). Biographical allegory is a widespread interpretative practice in VSD and in the Servian commentaries. The latter contribute to the fictional account of Virgil’s life with their own variants as well as both supporting and at times resisting the constructs of VSD. It is without question that the Bucolics gave rise to some of the most prominent instances of biographical allegory in VSD. For example, both VSD and the scholium to Bucolic 2 speculate on the real-life identity of the couple Alexis and Corydon in that poem. While the former asserts that Alexis was a boy slave belonging to Asinius Pollio (VSD 9: libidinis in pueros pronioris, quorum maxime dilexit Cebetem et Alexandrum, quem secunda ‘Bucolicorum’ ecloga Alexim appellat, donatum sibi ab Asinio Pollione), the scholiast presents more than one alternative: either Alexis is Caesar himself or a slave of either Caesar or Asinius Pollio (Servius, ad Buc. 2 praef.). The character of Silenus in Bucolic 6 was also a subject of speculation: the scholium to Buc. 6 reports that Virgil introduces his teacher Siro through the character of Silenus (Servius, ad Buc. 6.13.1: et quasi sub persona Sileni Sironem inducit loquentem). Daphnis, whose death is mourned in Buc. 5, is identified with Virgil’s brother Flaccus in the VSD, while Servius reports that the figure was identified with Julius Caesar by some and with Quintilius Varus by others.21 As DS puts it when it identifies Gallus’ Lycoris in Buc. 10 with Cytheris, ‘it is allowed to poets to use different names for different people’ (DS, ad Buc. 10.2 LYCORIS pro Cytheris: licet enim poetis alia nomina pro aliis ponere). Moreover, the Servian commentary to the Bucolics also provides a wealth of information about biographical allegory as a critical practice. Servius professes that allegorical readings must be practiced sparingly and with restraint (Servius, ad Buc. 1.1 non ubique sed tantum ubi exigit ratio). His flexible approach is evident, for example, in his reading of the same poem: when Tityrus declares that freedom came to him in his old age ‘after [his] beard started falling whiter under the barber’s blade’ (Servius, ad Buc. 1.28 candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat), the scholiast recognizes the impossibility of fitting this statement with the fact that the Bucolics were the first work of

6

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD Virgil written when the man was twenty eight years old. Therefore, Servius writes, ‘either there is a change in character so that we must understand that a countryman is speaking here, and not Virgil through allegory...or there is a change in subject so that whiter applies to freedom, not to the beard’ (Servius, ad Buc. 1.28: aut mutatio personae est, ut quendam rusticum accipiamus loquentem, non Vergilium per allegoriam...aut certe est mutanda distinctio, ut sit non barba candidior sed libertas).22 When in Buc. 9.5 Moeris proclaims that ‘destiny is unstable’ ( fors omnia versat ), Servius warns that the line is offensive to Augustus if read allegorically in that it alleges that his success can change. One must therefore posit a switch to the persona of the countryman (Servius, ad Buc. 9.5: fors omnia versat nisi hoc ad personam rusticam redigas, aspere contra Augustum dictum est, cuius felicitatem, sicut omnia, dicit posse mutari).23 While he fully subscribes to the reading which took Tityrus and Menalcas as allegories of the poet, Servius reports other instances of biographical allegory which he does not endorse. Particularly interesting in this regard is Servius’ treatment of the allegorical possibilities of Bucolic 3: as Servius reports, the attempted theft of a goat, which Menalcas denounces at Buc. 3.16–20, is interpreted by some as a reference to a tragedy written by Virgil and stolen by the tragedian Varius’ wife with whom Virgil allegedly was having an affair. The theft of the goat, a tragic symbol par excellence, is interpreted as an allusion to the plagiarism of the tragedy which the wife presented as her own (Servius, ad Buc. 3.20). Although this story is not in VSD, the notice of Varius’ plagiarism of the Thyestes is (VSD 48) and so is Virgil’s alleged sexual encounter with Plotia Hieria (VSD 10–11).24 According to Servius, ‘it is better to interpret the passage in a simple way: allegorical readings must be refuted in bucolic poetry unless as we said before they boil down to some need pertaining to the lost land’ (Servius, ad Buc. 3.20: sed melius simpliciter accipimus: refutandae enim sunt allegoriae in bucolico carmine, nisi cum, ut supra diximus, ex aliqua agrorum perditorum necessitate descendunt).25 Even a cursory look at the Theocritean scholia will reveal that early Theocritean critics speculated much over the real identity of the characters in the Idylls and the bio-allegorical methods employed by Virgilian readers have obvious similarities with the strategies adopted by scholars of Virgil’s predecessor.26 In his preface, Servius clearly states that the allegorical use of pastoral was Virgil’s invention: forced by the historical circumstances to thank Augustus for restoring his farm, he diverged from Theocritus and his non- figurative (simplex) use of the genre.27 Yet, as Kathryn Gutzwiller has argued, Servius’ contention that Virgil’s use of allegory departs from Theocritus’ ‘simple’ style is skewed and polemically aimed at ‘showcase[ing]

7

Irene Peirano Garrison the “advance” of their own poet’.28 On the contrary, it can be shown that Servius’ preoccupation with allegorical identification is ultimately indebted to the Theocritean scholia. To start with, Servius’ characterization of the pastoral genre according to the Platonic distinction between genres – dramatic, narrative or mixed – almost duplicates verbatim the discussion of the generic status of the Idylls in the scholia.29 Thus in the introduction to Bucolic 3, Servius states that in this poem the poet himself does not speak but rather that the poem belongs to the dramatic genre in which characters (introductae personae) take center stage: whereas other Bucolics, such as, for example, poem 4, feature only the voice of the poet, others, such as Bucolics 1 and 3, are dramatic and others still, such as Bucolic 10, are mixed, featuring both the voice of the poet and that of Gallus.30 This passage is almost a translation of Anec. Est. 6.31 Moreover, the Life of Theocritus, which prefaces the scholia, derives both the poet’s patronymic and the information about his teachers from details of the poems.32 In the first instance, the character of Simichidas in Idyll 7 is read as the mouthpiece of the poet, and on that basis, Theocritus’ father is believed to have been called Simikhos, though the Life also reports that some explained Simichidas as a reference to the poet’s snub nose.33 No surprise then that the critic Munatius used the reference to the speaker’s snub nose in Idyll 3.8 to identify that character with the poet, Theocritus.34 However, a second hypothesis reported in the scholium to Idyll 3 identifies the speaker with Battus of Idyll 4 who speaks of his love for Amaryllis (4.38–40). Thus, where possible, the scholia draw connections between characters with the same names: could the Menalcas of Idyll 9 be the same as that of Idyll 8?35 The scholia also duly note when the speakers cannot be identified.36 It has been argued that the allegorical identification of Tityrus with Virgil, which is at least as old as Martial, was encouraged by Virgil himself when he effectively self-identified with his Tityrus in the opening of Bucolic 6 (6.4 pastorem, Tityre). It is obvious, however, that the identification Virgil=Tityrus cannot be sustained throughout on the basis of Virgil’s text: in the sphragis at the end of Georg. 4, Virgil refers to himself as the one who sang the Bucolics there identified with the first line of the poem ‘Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi ’. Moreover, it has been observed that it is Menalcas, the other character identified in the scholia as the mouthpiece of the poet, who lays claim to authorial status: thus in 5.86–7, the poem which concludes the first half of the collection, Menalcas refers to himself as the author of Bucolics 2 and 3 by quoting their openings. Moreover, while Menalcas is absent in Bucolic 9, Lycidas and Moeris attribute to him songs that resemble respectively Bucolic 3 (9.23–6) and 1 (9.26–9). Menalcas’ double role as a character (in Buc. 3) and an author (in Buc. 5 and 9) sets up

8

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD the possibility of reading the poems through the autobiographical lens familiar from the Theocritean scholia and we may even wonder whether Virgil’s practice of authorizing the poems through internal quotation can be seen as a direct answer to the criticism leveled by the scholia at a poem such as Idyll 3 in which the proso¯pon of the speaker is not clear. Finally, there are cases in which when Virgil is close to a Theocritean original, the Latin scholia’s speculations ad loc. are reminiscent of the preoccupation of the Greek scholars in their notes to the relevant Theocritean intertext. Lycidas’ statement of inferiority at Buc. 9.35–6 – neque adhuc Vario videor nec dicere Cinna/ digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores – is modeled on Simichidas’ statement at Id. 7.39–41 (‘I am as yet no match in song either for the great Sicelidas from Samos or from Philetas, but vie with them like a frog against grasshoppers’). Whereas Virgil chooses two historical characters – Varius and Cinna – only one of Theocritus’ models, namely Asclepiades, is named directly while the other is referred to as the ‘Sicilian’. The latter is identified in the scholia and in the Life with Asclepiades of Samos who unsurprisingly is thought to be one of Theocritus’ teachers (Sch. Id. 7.40c Ἀσκληπιάδην φησὶ τὸν Σάµιον τὸν ἐπιγράµµατα γράψαντα, οὗ δοκεῖ ἀκουστὴς γεγονέναι). Back to Servius, since an allegorical reading was pre-empted by Virgil’s explicit naming of Cinna and Varius, Servius concentrates on the identity of the goose which does not match up to the musical swans. Just as the scholia to Theocritus speculate over the identity of the poets whom the young Simichidas (aka Theocritus) recognizes as superior to him, so Servius sees a covert allusion to the poet Anser, a protégé of Antony who is alleged to have donated him a farm (ad Buc. 9. 36 et alludit ad Anserem quondam, Antonii poetam, qui eius laudes scribebat).37 More intriguingly, the admirer of Mopsus’ song, the unknown figure of Stimichon – Buc. 5.55 iam pridem Stimichon laudauit carmina nobis – is glossed by DS as a reference to either Maecenas or Theocritus’ father.38 3. Biographical allegory beyond pastoral This ancient tradition of allegorical interpretation of the Bucolics reflected in VSD thus continues the work of the first Theocritean scholiasts who construct pastoral as a form of historical allegory. In this reading, the shepherds of the poems are understood to stand in for historical characters including the author himself and pastoral is thought to be about something other than itself.39 This figurative after-life of the genre has been studied in connection with the later tradition of the pastoral masquerade by Annabel Patterson in her book Pastoral and Ideology, in which the author traces the multi-faceted process through which Virgilian pastoral once read as political allegory

9

Irene Peirano Garrison functioned in its long reception as ‘a figure for the relationship between poet and political patronage’.40 However, the efforts of Theocritus’ scholiasts to identify Simichidas as Theocritus or the biographers’ reading of Menalcas as Virgil in disguise find their roots in Hellenistic scholarship. Biographical allegory was particular prominent in the case of lyric poets whose use of the first-person ‘lyric I’ encouraged allegorical readings. Thus, as Mary Lefkowitz has demonstrated, the phenomenon has a counterpart in the ancient commentators’ efforts to interpret Pindar’s references to competition as a hidden hint towards his own rivalry with Bacchylides.41 However, other genres are not immune from allegorical interpretation. Thus select passages in the Homeric poems are also interpreted autobiographically: Nestor (Schol. a,b in Hom. Il. 1.249) and Demodocus (Porp. On Od. 8.63) are read as figures of the author, while the scholia see Helen’s tapestry as a veiled reference to Homer’s rhetorical skills (Schol. bT Il. 3.126–7 ex.). The tragic scholia trace Euripides’ use of the chorus and of various characters as his personal mouthpieces:42 Hippolytus’ vegetarian diet is seen as a veiled self-reference by Euripides (Schol. Eur. Hipp. 953), while Andromache is thought to communicate the poet’s criticism of the Spartans (Schol. Eur. Andr. 445). In short, similar pointed correspondences between scholia and Lives on issues of bio-allegorical interpretation are common in the biographical and scholarly traditions of Classical and Archaic Greek poets. Similarly, on the heels of the practice of Theocritean scholars, the Bucolics were mined for bio-allegorical clues which were generously used to construct biographical fictions in VSD and the Servian scholia. However, a similar, albeit more nuanced process, is at work in the reception of the Aeneid and the Georgics. One famous passage in the latter in particular was especially susceptible to biographical allegory: at the end of Georgic 2, Virgil speaking in the first person, asks the Muses to inspire him with knowledge of the workings of the heavens and only as an alternative to bless him with the peace of the countryside. Throughout the commentary on this section of the text, Servius is especially conscious that the use of the first person might invite an allegorical reading. Thus in his note on the passage where the ‘I’ is first used by the author, Servius specifically cautions against biographical reading, stating that ‘by referring to himself [Virgil] means anyone’ (Servius, ad Georg. 2.475 suam autem personam pro quocumque ponit).43 However, despite this warning, his reading of Virgil’s depiction of the countryside is unmistakably biographical: 2.493 DEOS QUI NOVIT AGRESTES qui abstinet ciuicis malis et aut rura habitat aut cum suis numinibus rura describit.

10

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD 2.493 HE WHO KNOWS COUNTRY GODS he who is free from civil discord and either lives in the fields or describes it with his own powers. (Servius, ad Georg. 2.493)

The passage is textually problematic but enough remains to gauge that Servius’ interpretation emphasized the country as a refuge from civil discord in ways that echo the biographical anecdote de agris found in VSD and in the scholia to the Bucolics. Moreover, the digression at the end of Georgic 2 was subject to the kind of reading that the scholiast is discouraging. The Lucretian coloring of the text from the Georgics helps to characterize this figure who understands the universe (Georg. 2.490 felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas) specifically as an Epicurean philosopher/poet and no surprise that it formed the basis for the widely found notice of Virgil’s Epicureanism. In Aen. 6, for example, Servius names Siro as Virgil’s Epicurean teacher (Servius, ad Aen. 6.264: ex maiore autem parte Sironem, id est magistrum suum Epicureum sequitur) and as his source for the discussion of the soul in the Underworld.44 Similarly, the notice in VSD about Virgil’s lack of talent in oratory (VSD 15 egit et causam apud iudices unam omnino nec amplius quam semel: nam et in sermone tardissimum ac paene indocto similem fuisse Melissus tradidit) foists on Virgil the author the attributes of the man gaping at the rostra at Georgic 2.508–10 (hic stupet attonitus rostris, hunc plausus hiantem per cuneos geminatus enim plebisque patrumque corripuit) as well as Anchises’ puzzling disavowal of oratory in Aen. 6.849–50 (orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent ).45 Moreover, the notice about Virgil’s father being a bee-keeper in the Vita (VSD 1 apibus curandis) is obviously a deduction based on Virgil’s choice of agricultural topics in the Georgics. The Servian commentary to the Aeneid is sparing in its recourse to biographical allegory. However, one of the points of contact between VSD and Servius is on the topic of recitation: Servius, ad Aen. 6.884 relates the story of Virgil’s recitation of Aeneid 6 to Octavia and Augustus also found in the VSD (32–4) albeit with some differences – in the latter, Octavia faints, whereas in Servius Virgil interrupts the recitation.46 Also relevant is Servius’ recurrent emphasis in the commentary on the verecundia of Aeneas and his moralistic reading of Dido’s culpa in book 4. For in the Servian Vita, Virgil is explicitly defined as verecundissimus thus taking on the traits associated with his epic protagonist in the commentary.47 In addition, on at least one occasion, an allegorical reading in VSD is possibly being ‘resisted’ in the commentary: VSD 22 (as well as Gellius 17.10.2) reports that Virgil ‘produced poetry in the manner of a she-bear, bringing into shape by licking it’ (non absurde se more ursae parere dicens et lambendo demum effingere). This detail cannot but be related to Virgil’s depiction on the shield

11

Irene Peirano Garrison of Aeneas in Aen. 8 of the she-wolf licking Romulus and Remus into shape.48 DS and Servius notes on this passage are interestingly divergent: whereas DS relates the primary meaning of fingere as ‘to create by art’, Servius interprets the phrase CORPORA FINGERE LINGUA as meaning ‘she cleans their bodies with her tongue’.49 Though neither mention the biographical anecdote, it is possible that Servius is attempting to resist the biographical reading of the line found in the Vita. 4. Biographical allegory as narrative commentary In trying to move away from the modern picture of biographical allegory as an inherently fallacious interpretative strategy, I chose to focus on its intellectual roots in Hellenistic literary criticism. In the process, the context in which bio-allegorical readings were practiced is beginning to move into focus. Thus my analysis of the Virgilian exegetical and biographical tradition has repeatedly insisted on the intellectual traffic between commentaries and Vitae on topics of biographical interest. Most interestingly, as in the case of the Greek scholia, the Servian commentaries are a kind of living lab in which one can observe the process of biographical allegory in its development. For example, Damoetas’ caveat that ‘a snake is hidden in the grass’ (Buc. 3.93 latet anguis in herba) is read as a veiled warning to the people of Mantua: the snakes are the armed soldiers hiding in the fields (Servius, ad Buc. 3.93: allegoria est: nam videtur hoc ad Mantuanos dicere, qui inter milites versabantur armatos, quos, sicut angues, mortem inferre posse, non dubium est ). Moreover, Menalcas’ injunction to his sheep not to trust the river-banks (Buc. 3.94–5 non bene ripae creditur) is read allegorically as an allusion to a biographical incident in which Virgil supposedly saved his life from the attack of the centurion Arrius who had taken over his farm by throwing himself into the river Mincius.50 Another version of this story is found in the introduction to Bucolic 9, in which the strife to which Moeris refers as having been narrowly avoided by Menalcas is constructed in the sources cited by DS as an allusion to the altercation that ensued between Virgil and Clodius and nearly resulted in the former’s death.51 Both of these notes in Servius and DS find a counterpart in VSD 20 where Virgil is said to have narrowly avoided death at the hands of a veteran in an argument over the fields (a quo in altercatione litis agrariae paulum afuit quin occideretur). Although neither the Vita nor the scholia ad loc. mention the connection, the idea of a litis agraria may well have arisen from an allegorical reading of Aen. 12.898 where the stone hurled by Turnus is said to have been used before to settle a quarrel over the fields (limes agro positus litem ut discerneret aruis). The continuity of methods and interests between commentary and Vita is reflected in the physical proximity of the two: thus the so-called Vita

12

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD Suetoni Donati (VSD) is actually the preface to the now lost commentary on the Bucolics by Donatus. Of Donatus’ commentary only the dedicatory letter to Munatius, the Vita and the introduction to the commentary to the Bucolics are preserved. In the Vita, Donatus says that the commentary is traditionally structured in two parts: the section introducing the commentary (ante opus) and the commentary proper (explanatio in ipso opere). The former consists of the vita and an introduction which deals with issues such as title, authenticity, intention etc. (VSD 47 quoniam de auctore summatim diximus, de ipso carmine iam dicendum est, quod bifariam tractari solet, id est ante opus et in ipso opere...).52 The Vita of Servius is a more succinct version of VSD and similarly features as an introduction to the commentary: Servius, pr. in Aen. in exponendis auctoribus haec consideranda sunt: poetae vita, titulus operis, qualitas carminis, scribentis intentio, numeros librorum, ordo librorum, explanatio. This scheme becomes canonical in the Middle Ages where commentaries are preceded by introductions known as accessus ad auctores which contain vitae as well as other information on title and authorial intention.53 The presentation of Donatus’ text as a self-standing biography (as opposed to a biographical note belonging to a larger introduction to his commentary) is one made by modern editors on the assumption that Donatus’ section de auctore reproduces the biography of Virgil in Suetonius De poetis. It is hard to gauge the structure of the latter because all that remains are vitae of various poets accompanying the authors’ editions which scholars believe have been excerpted from Suetonius’ work.54 This work was the opening section of a larger work, De viris inlustribus of which only the sections on rhetors and grammarians have come down to us, albeit incompletely, through a single manuscript.55 The evidence for Donatus’ dependence on Suetonius rests on two passages. First, Donatus himself acknowledges that the section de auctore from his Life of Terence is taken from Suetonius.56 Secondly, in the letter which dedicates the commentary, Donatus says that he has closely followed his sources (10–12): Ael. Donatus L. Munatio suo salutem. Inspectis fere omnibus ante me qui in Vergilii opere calluerunt, brevitati admodum studens quam te amare cognoveram, adeo de multis pauca decerpsi, ut magis iustam offensionem lectoris expectem, quod veterum sciens multa transierim, quam quod paginam compleverim supervacuis. agnosce igitur saepe in hoc munere conlativo sinceram vocem priscae auctoritatis. cum enim liceret usquequaque nostra interponere, maluimus optima fide, quorum res fuerant, eorum etiam verba servare. quid igitur adsecuti sumus? hoc scilicet, ut his adpositis quae sunt congesta de multis, admixto etiam sensu nostro, plus hic nos pauca presentia quam alios alibi multa delectent.

13

Irene Peirano Garrison After having looked at almost every author versed in Vergil’s work before me, I have excerpted in a concerted effort to be brief (I know you appreciate that), so few things out of the many that I would rather expect the justified indignation of the reader because I have knowingly skipped a lot of information from older authors, than because I have filled a page with unnecessary matter. In this work of a collector, you may frequently recognize the authentic voice of an ancient authority. Of course I was free to put in my own views: but I have preferred in good faith to retain the words also of those to whom the ideas belonged. So what did we achieve? This, to be sure, that by presenting what we have collected from the massive material, mixed with our own understanding, the few things presented here give us more pleasure than others have from the many things written down elsewhere. (Donatus, Ep. ad Mun. 1–15 Brugnoli-Stok, trans. Copeland and Sluiter (2009) 99)

The commentator’s job, Donatus argues, is that of a collector (munus collativum) who faithfully culls (decerpsi) the best views without changing the original wording and yet the commentator readily admits that he has mixed in his own thoughts (admixto etiam sensu nostro). While based on the evidence above it is safe to say that Donatus may have followed Suetonius to some degree, the extent of his dependence on the text of the De poetis is hard to recover and has long been debated.57 The Vita of Virgil does not acknowledge its dependence on Suetonius in the same way as the Vita of Terence and the mixing of sources described in the Epistula would seem to be specifically concerned with the multi-layered and multi-authored style of writing of the commentary in opere, not necessarily the section in auctore.58 All editors in practice agree that parts of the Donatan Vita must be interpolated: only the most recent editors of the Vitae Vergilianae – Brugnoli and Stok – aim at producing an edition of the Lives centered on their existence and development in late antiquity and print the best reconstructable text for each commentary that preserves them. By contrast, most previous editors of the Donatan Vita, such as Rostagni (1946), Götte-Bayer (1959) and Hardie (1966), considered the section on Virgil’s detractors (VSD 46 in Brugnoli-Stok) as the end of Suetonius’ text and omit the rest from their edition as Donatus’ own contribution.59 Similarly, readers of Suetonius in the popular Loeb edition are presented with the Donatan text of the Vita suitably purged of sections 47ff. that are considered Donatan additions. Even if we assume that Donatus’ own contribution begins at section 47, the presentation of the text of the Vita as a self-standing biography and the privileging of the Suetonian original over the late antique accretions ignore the issue of potential interpolations and omissions by Donatus of Suetonius’ text, as for example the story about the posthumous publication of the Aeneid by Varius and Tucca which is widely believed to be a Donatan

14

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD addition.60 It also obscures obvious connections between the different sections of Donatus’ text: most notably, Donatus’ discussion of pseudepigrapha at the beginning of the section de carmine (VSD 48 Brugnoli-Stok) picks up where ‘Suetonius’ allegedly ended – namely with Virgil’s contention that it is easier to take Hercules’ club than to steal a line from Homer. On the assumption that in their current form the Virgilian Vita and those of the other Roman poets reproduce Suetonius’ lost biographical work, these texts have been excerpted and read as self-standing entities separate from the poet’s text and its exegesis. It is important to stress that I am not claiming that the commentary is and always was the only reception context for biographical material surrounding Virgil. But de-familiarizing ourselves from the idea of biography as a self-contained and independent account of a life may help us bring into sharper focus Suetonius’ own project. Among the sources cited by VSD are authors such as Asconius Pedianus (10; 22–4; 26–33; Servius ad Buc. 3.105; DS ad Buc. 4.11; ad Buc. 1.18), author of a work against Virgil’s detractors, and biographical anecdotes are attributed to friends of the poet in Gellius (NA 17.10.2).61 Clearly, we must draw a distinction between biographical anecdotes, which can find their way in a variety of genres, and vita/bios. Yet this is not to say that the genre of vitae should be unproblematically viewed against the background of modern notions of biography.62 A key passage to determine the generic affiliations of Suetonius De poetis comes from Jerome, who explicitly acknowledges the Roman biographer as a model for his own Liber de viris illustribus, a chronological survey of ecclesiastical writers from the apostles to his own present day. Reminiscent of the ordering of short biographies of notable literary men in a chronological pattern in Suetonius De grammaticis et rhetoribus, Jerome’s work is prefaced by a letter to his dedicatee Dexter in which he states that he is following Suetonius Tranquillus in doing for writers on scripture what his model had done for the literary men among the gentiles: Hortaris me, Dexter, ut Tranquillum sequens, ecclesiasticos Scriptores in ordinem digeram et quod ille in enumerandis Gentilium litterarum Viris fecit Illustribus, ego in nostris faciam, id est, ut a passione Christi usque ad decimum quartum Theodosii imperatoris annum, omnes qui de Scripturis sanctis memoriae aliquid prodiderunt, tibi breviter exponam. Fecerunt quidem hoc idem apud Graecos, Hermippus peripateticus, Antigonus Carystius, Satyrus doctus vir, et longe omnium doctissimus Aristoxenus musicus. Apud Latinos autem Varro, Santra, Nepos, Hyginus, et ad cuius nos exemplum provocas, Tranquillus. You have urged me, Dexter, to follow the example of Tranquillus in giving a systematic account of ecclesiastical writers, and to do for our writers what

15

Irene Peirano Garrison he did for the illustrious men of letters among the Gentiles, namely, to briefly set before you all those who have published any memorable writing on the Holy Scriptures from the time of our Lord’s passion until the fourteenth year of the Emperor Theodosius. A similar work has been done by Hermippus the peripatetic, Antigonus Carystius, the learned Satyrus, and most learned of all, Aristoxenus the Musician, among the Greeks, and among the Latins by Varro, Santra, Nepos, Hyginus, and by him through whose example you seek to stimulate us, – Tranquillus. ( Jerome, De vir. ill. Pr.)

It is possible, though not certain, that Jerome found this list of Greek and Roman predecessors in Suetonius’ preface.63 In turn, it is likely that Suetonius followed Varro’s now lost De poetis.64 Regardless, Jerome’s genealogy of the genre is not very informative when it comes to the Suetonian De poetis. Hermippus, Satyrus and Aristoxenus are the main representatives of what Friedrich Leo described as the ‘Alexandrian’ type of biography which, according to Leo, originated in the scholarly environment of the library and which Suetonius supposedly took over and applied to his portrayal of the emperors.65 Antigonus is probably to be identified with the scholar from Pergamum who wrote in the middle of the third century and who, together with Aristoxenus and Hermippus, wrote primarily about the lives of sages, philosophers and law-givers.66 Of these scholars mentioned in Jerome, only Hermippus and Satyrus wrote about the lives of poets: Hermippus seems to have written on Euripides (FGrHist. IV fr. 84) and Hipponax (FGrHist. IV fr. 55), though whether the latter was a biographical work remains unclear.67 Satyrus of Callatis is author of a Life of Euripides cast in dialogue form, fragments of which survive on papyrus.68 If anything, we are learning that while not shying away from biographical anecdotes, the Peripatetic peri bio¯n literature was more concerned with the right way of life (bios) than with biography in the modern sense of a description of the life of an individual from birth to death.69 Although as we have seen, little is known of Suetonius De poetis, there is an important element of continuity between what we know of this work and the placement of the Vita as a preface to the commentary which is lost in the editorial leap of faith involved in excerpting VSD from its late antique context. Due to the fragmentary nature of the textual evidence it is easy to miss the degree to which Suetonian poetic biography was intimately involved with literary criticism.70 As we can glean from a summary of its preface found in Isidore (Or. 8.7.1–2=fr. 1 De poet. Rostagni), the now lost Suetonian De poetis began with a discussion of the origin of poetry: Cum primum homines exuta feritate rationem uitae habere coepissent seque ac deos [suos] nosse, modicum cultum ac sermonem necessarium commenti

16

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD sibi, utriusque magnificentiam ad religionem deorum [suorum] excogitauerunt. igitur ut templa illis domibus pulchriora et simulacra corporibus ampliora faciebant, ita eloquio etiam quasi augustiore honorandos putauerunt laudesque eorum et uerbis inlustrioribus et iocundioribus numeris extulerunt. id genus quia forma quadam efficitur, quae ποιότης dicitur, poema uocitatum est, eiusque factores poetae. When people first began to possess a rational way of life, having shaken off their wildness, and to come to know themselves and their gods, they devised for themselves a humble culture and the speech required for their ideas, and devised a greater expression of both for the worship of their gods. Therefore, just as they made temples more beautiful than their homes, and idols larger than their bodies, so they thought that the gods should be honored by speech that was, as it were, loftier, and they raised up their praises with more brilliant words and more pleasing rhythms. This kind of thing was given the name poem ( poiema) because it is fashioned with a certain beauty known as poiotes and its makers were called poets. (Or. 8.7.1– 2=fr. 1 De poet. Rostagni, trans. Barney et al.)

This evolutionary account of poetry assumes the critical distinction between poiema – a poem – and poiesis – the act of composing poetry – which is repeatedly found in Hellenistic literary criticism.71 Furthermore, this bipartite structure, in which a brief discussion of the ars (techne) is followed by a chronological survey of the artifices (technitai), is at work in De grammaticis et rhetoribus, the only surviving section of the De viris illustribus.72 It is clear, however, that the beginning of the De poetis was far more involved in questions about the ars than the De gramm. et rhet. is with the origins of grammar and rhetoric: according to Rostagni, the entirety of Isidore Etymologies 8.7 is drawn from Suetonius’ preface to the De poetis.73 Reifferscheid went so far as attributing to Suetonius a lengthy passage from Diomedes Ars Grammatica book 3 on the distinction between different genres of poetry which only incidentally mentions Suetonius as a source.74 Regardless, it is clear that, as Varro had done before him, Suetonius in the De poetis tackled questions of poetic theory and discussed the origin of the art of poetry. Such a combination of theory and biography would not have been unique from what we can tell of Hellenistic biography. In the biography of Euripides, Satyrus quoted a saying of Aristophanes which sums up the very method of biographical allegory: ‘he [Euripides] is what he represents his characters as saying’ (Satyrus, Life of Euripides 39.9 ὁ γοῦν Ἀριστοφάνης φησὶν ὥσπερ ἐπ’ αὐτῶι τούτωι κεκληµένος τοἷα µὲν ποιεῖ λέγειν τοῖός ἐστιν). In this text too, close bio-allegorical readings of the author’s text are interspersed with literary criticism in a narrative arranged not in chronological order but around topics (per species or kata genos).75

17

Irene Peirano Garrison Finally, this is not the place to consider in full how the bio-allegorical readings of VSD fit into Suetonius’ procedure elsewhere in the De Poetis but suffice it to say that, from what we can tell from its scant fragments which survived in Jerome’s adaptation of Eusebius’ world history entitled Chronicon, synchronism and biographical allegory – devices borrowed from the Greek Lives of poets – clearly played a major role in the biographies of early Roman poets. The near synchronicity of the deaths of Naevius and Plautus (fr. 5 Rostagni and cf. Cicero, Brutus 60 for the Varronian origin of this chronology) and the note about Accius’ recitation of his work to the old Pacuvius (fr. 10 a and b Rostagni) remind one of Suetonius’ use of the death of Ennius as a watershed between grammar as a native pursuit and the arrival of Greek grammatica with Crates (Suetonius, De Gramm. 1–2) or of the notice according to which Virgil received the toga virilis the same year (55 BC) in which Lucretius passed away (VSD 5). We can trace this move towards synchronism further back to Hellenistic scholarship, as for example in the respective chronology of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides whereby the latter was born on the day of the battle of Salamis (Vita Eur. 4) in which Aeschylus participated (Vita Aesch. 10–12), while Sophocles led the chorus in celebration of the victory (Vita Soph. 3).76 Biographical allegory was also employed, as for example in the description of Ennius’s death by arthritis (fr.6.b Rostagni).77 Precisely because the Vita is so involved with literary criticism, its placement at the head of the commentary is far from random. Rather, as we have seen, commentary and Vita share common intellectual and methodological objectives: first of all, biographical anecdotes preserved in the Vita respond to biographical clues in the text; secondly, the commentary produces its own biographical deductions or at times replicates those found in the Vita. Provocatively, we might say that VSD could well be approached as a form of biographical commentary in narrative form, that is a series of allegorical readings of the poems organized around a mixture of chronological and ethical rubric-heads.78 Indeed, as Craig Gibson has argued in relation to Didymus’ De Demosthene, a work that blends biography and commentary, ‘the rigid distinction between the ancient “commentary” and “monograph” adopted by modern scholars is incapable of capturing the realities of scholarly production in antiquity’.79 5. Conclusion To conclude, in exploring the commentary as a foil and context for poetic biographies, we are facing a troubling and uncomfortable fluidity in the ancient boundaries between poetry and biography and further between on

18

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD the one hand fiction and on the other supposedly ‘fact-based’ genres such as history, commentary and biography. The image of the Vita as a selfstanding, historically accurate description of an author’s life threatens to obscure some important differences between ancient poetic biography and the modern biography. In order to understand the meaning of biography and biographical allegory for ancient audiences, we need to reorient in fundamental ways our appreciation of the horizon of expectations of the genre in antiquity. First, the business of poetic biography was intimately connected with literary criticism. Thus, rather than taking the placement of VSD at the head of the commentary as an accident of transmission – the place where the text ended up – we would do better to approach the physical and literary contiguity of biography and commentary as a symptom of the former’s affinity to practices of commentary, literary criticism and imitatio. Secondly, the process whereby the biographical persona of the author is constructed through allegorical readings of his oeuvre is part of a wider trend towards a form of ‘writerly’ (as opposed to ‘readerly’) reception in which canonical texts are not viewed as fixed and untouchable but are routinely rewritten, expanded and continued.80 Rather than taking the Vita as at best ‘borrowing from’ and at worst as ‘stealing from’ the text of the poets, we would do better to approach poetic biography as a compilation of allegorical readings arranged by topic and chronology into a narrative. If approached as a textually engaged commentary in narrative form rather than stigmatized as a failed narrative, the Virgilian Vita can be read as an integral part of the creative approach to texts that characterizes much of ancient scholarship. Notes 1 Foucault, ‘What is an author?’, 237 cited from Burke 1995. 2 Fletcher and Hanink 2016; Lefkowitz 2012; Hardie and Moore 2010; Horsfall 1995; Fairweather 1974 and 1984; Brugnoli 1990. For more recent assessment of biographical allegory in the Vitae Vergilianae see Peirano 2012, 105–116 and 197–204. 3 Horsfall 1995, 4. 4 Güthenke 2016, 3. 5 On this point, see Kraus 2010, especially 415–16. 6 See Most 1995, on the relation between reading contexts, reception and the text of Sappho. 7 Graziosi 2009, esp. 160: ‘the point is not so much that of sifting fact from fiction, but of recognizing the patterns that shape both poetry and life’. 8 Farrell 2016. 9 Freudenburg 2010, 272. 10 See also Farrell 2002. 11 See above all the seminal work of Graziosi (2002). 12 Jauss 1982, 3–45.

19

Irene Peirano Garrison 13 Podlecki 1969; Arrighetti 1987, 141–80 on Chamaeleon and Satyrus; Starr 1995; Schorn 2004; Klooster 2011; Momigliano 1971, 65–100. 14 Alcidamas’ work is thought to be the source behind The Contest of Homer and Hesiod which in its present form dates to the Antonine period: see West 1967; Richardson 1981 and Graziosi 2001. 15 On the larger theoretical question see Porter 2007. 16 Cf. Servius Buc. Praefatio 2.25–3.14. For a full list of sources, see Diehl 1911, 51–3. 17 The text of the VSD is cited from the edition of the Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae edited by Brugnoli and Stok. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 18 See Starr 1995; Bowersock 1971; Diehl 1911, 54ff.; Funaioli 1930, 332–8; Korenjak 2003 and Levis 1993 for the history of biographical allegorizing of the Bucolics. 19 But see also Martial 8.55, Juvenal 7.69, Calpurnius Siculus 4. For a similar ancient definition of allegoria see the 1st century BC handbook on figures Trypho Trop. 193.9 (Spengel): Ἀλληγορία ἐστὶ λόγος ἕτερον µέν τι κυρίως δηλῶν, ἑτέρου δὲ ἔννοιαν παριστάνων καθ’ ὁµοίωσιν ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον, οἷον ἧς τε πλείστην µὲν καλάµην χθονὶ χαλκὸς ἔχευεν. On allegoria in general see Lausberg 1998, § 895–901; Hardie 1986, 26–32 and Struck 2004. 20 Korenjak 2003 and Levis 1993. 21 Servius, ad Buc. 5.20: alii dicunt significari per allegoriam C. Iulium Caesarem, qui in senatu a Cassio et Bruto viginti tribus vulneribus interemptus est...alii volunt Quintilium Varum significari, cognatum Vergilii. 22 The possibility of the allegorical interpretation giving way to a more literal reading is already adumbrated by Servius ad Buc. 1.27 where the statement about gaining freedom is applied with difficulty to Virgil who was a free man. 23 On the use and meaning of persona in Servius see Clay 1998, 37–40 and in general on persona theory in ancient literary criticism see also Mayer 2003. 24 McGill 2014. 25 Cf. Servius, ad Buc. 2.73 where he dismissed the old allegorical reading (antiqua allegoria) of Alexis as Augustus with similar observations: sed melius simpliciter accipimus hunc locum; nam nihil habet quod possit ad Caesarem trahi. 26 On the relation between Virgil, Servius and the Theocritean scholia see Farrell 2016; Wendel 1920, 48–73; Mühmelt 1965; Posch 1969; Keeline 2009. 27 Servius, Buc. Praefatio: aliquibus locis per allegoriam agat gratias Augusto vel aliis nobilibus, quorum favore amissum agrum recepit. in qua re tantum dissentit a Theocrito: ille enim ubique simplex est, hic necessitate compulsus aliquibus locis miscet figuras, quas perite plerumque etiam ex Theocriti versibus facit, quos ab illo dictos constat esse simpliciter. 28 Gutzwiller 1991, 182. 29 Wendel 1920, 57–8. The narrative or diegetic character of some of the Idylls is mentioned repeatedly by the Theocritean scholiasts: e.g. Schol. Theoc. 8 arg. a: Τὰ µὲν πράγµατα ἐπὶ Σικελίας, ὁ δὲ λόγος ἐκ τοῦ ποιητικοῦ προσώπου; Schol. Theoc. 12 arg. a: ὁ δὲ λόγος ἐκ τοῦ ποιητικοῦ προσώπου πρὸς ἐρώµενον; Schol. Theoc. 15 arg.: παρέπλασε δὲ τὸ

ποιηµάτιον ἐκ τῶν παρὰ Σώφρονι Ἴσθµια Θεωµένων καὶ κεχωρισµένον ἐστὶ τοῦ ποιητικοῦ προσώπου. ἔθος δὲ εἶχον οἱ κατ’ Ἀλεξάνδρειαν ἐν τοῖς Ἀδωνίοις διακοσµήσαντες τὰ εἴδωλα τοῦ Ἀδώνιδος µετὰ τῶν νοµιζοµένων ἐπὶ τὴν θάλασσαν κοµίζειν. 30

Servius, ad Buc. 3 Praef.: novimus autem tres characteres hos esse dicendi: unum, in quo tantum poeta loquitur, ut est in tribus libris georgicorum; alium dramaticum, in quo nusquam poeta loquitur, ut est in comoediis et tragoediis; tertium, mixtum, ut est in Aeneide: nam et poeta illic et introductae personae loquuntur. hos autem omnes characteres in bucolico esse convenit carmine, sicut liber etiam iste demonstrat. 31 Anec. Est. 6 ὅτι πάσης ποιήσεως τρεῖς ἐχούσης χαρακτῆρας, διηγηµατικόν, δραµατικὸν

20

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD καὶ µικτόν, τὸ βουκολικὸν ποίηµα µῖγµά ἐστι παντὸς εἴδους, ὥσπερ συγκεκραµένον τῇ ποικιλίᾳ...ἔστι δὲ δραµατικὸν µὲν τὸ µηδαµῇ γε ἐµφαῖνον τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ ποιητοῦ, διηγηµατικὸν δὲ τὸ διόλου ἐµφαῖνον, µικτὸν δὲ τὸ πῇ µὲν ἐµφαῖνον, πῇ δὲ οὔ. 32 33

On the Life of Theocritus and see Bulloch (2016). Life of Theocritus Θεόκριτος ὁ τῶν βουκολικῶν ποιητὴς Συρακούσιος ἦν τὸ γένος,

πατρὸς Σιµίχου, ὡς αὐτός φησι VII 21· Σιµιχίδα, πᾷ δὴ τὸ µεσαµέριον πόδας ἕλκεις; ἔνιοι δὲ τὸ Σιµιχίδα ἐπώνυµον εἶναι λέγουσι δοκεῖ γὰρ σιµὸς εἶναι τὴν πρόσοψιν. Cf. Sch. ad Id. 7.21 a. 34 Sch. Theoc. Id. 3.1a: τὸ πρόσωπον οὐκ ἔστι φανερὸν τὸ λέγον. καὶ οἱ µέν φασιν αὐτὸν τὸν Θεόκριτον εἶναι διὰ τὸ σιµὸν καταφαίνεσθαι· οἱ δὲ Βάττον αἰπόλον τινά, ὃν ἐν τῷ Αἴγωνι εἰσάγει τῆς Ἀµαρυλλίδος ἐρῶντα. 35 Schol. Theoc. Id. 9.1/2b: ἰστέον, ὅτι ἢ τὸν αὐτὸν ὃν προεῖπε Μενάλκαν καὶ πάλιν φησί τότε γὰρ ἴσως ἔνεµε µῆλα (VIII 2), νῦν δὲ βόας ἢ ἕτερον Μενάλκαν βουκόλον. 36 Schol. Theoc. Id. 5 arg. b: δραµατικώτερον δέ ἐστι τὸ εἰδύλλιον τοῦ ποιητικοῦ προσώπου µὴ ἐµφαινοµένου; Schol. Theoc. Id. 3.1a: τὸ πρόσωπον οὐκ ἔστι φανερὸν τὸ λέγον. 37

Brugnoli (1979). DS, ad Buc. 5.55: quidam per Stimichonem Maecenatem accipiunt; nonnulli Stimichonem patrem Theocriti dicunt. 39 Payne 2007, 146–69. 40 Patterson 1987, 25. 41 E.g. Schol. Ol. 2.158c αἰνίττεται δὲ εἰς Σιµωνίδην; schol. Nem. 3.143: δοκεῖ δὲ ταῦτα τείνειν εἰς Βακχυλίδην and see Lefkowitz 1975, and 1980. 42 Nünlist 2011, 132. 43 Servius issues similar warnings ad Georg. 1.456; 3.435. 44 Cf. ad Buc. 6.13; Catalepton 5; Ciris 3. 45 Horsfall 1998, 9 and see Peirano 2012, 111–116 for how this reading informs the pseudo-biographical Catalepton 5. 46 Servius, ad Aen. 6.884: et constat hunc librum tanta pronuntiatione Augusto et Octaviae esse recitatum, ut fletu nimio imperarent silentium, nisi Vergilius finem esse dixisset. Cf. Servius, ad Aen. 4.323: dicitur autem ingenti adfectu hos versus pronuntiasse, cum privatim paucis praesentibus recitaret Augusto: nam recitavit primum libros tertium et quartum~VSD 32. 47 Ad Aen. 1.561; 1.737; 8.374; 10.18. Cf. Vita Verg. Servii 150 Brugnoli-Stok: adeo autem verecundissimus fuit ut ex moribus cognomen acciperet and Pliny the Elder NH 7.114 Divus Augustus carmina Vergili cremari contra testamenti eius verecundiam vetuit, maiusque ita vati testimonium contigit quam si ipse sua probavisset. On Virgil’s verecundia and Servius see Kaster 1980. 48 Aen. 8.631–4: procubuisse lupam, geminos huic ubera circum/ludere pendentis pueros et lambere matrem/impauidos, illam tereti ceruice reflexa/mulcere alternos et corpora fingere lingua. 49 DS, ad Aen. 8.634 fingere tamen et formare aliquid et ad integram faciem arte producere significat; inde fictores dicuntur qui imagines vel signa ex aere vel cera faciunt. Servius, ad Aen. 8.634 FINGERE id est tergere. 50 Servius, ad Buc. 3.94: NON BENE RIPAE CREDITUR: allegoria ad illud quod supra diximus pertinens quia post acceptos agros ab Arrio centurione paene est interemptus nisi se praecipitasset in fluvium; cf. Servius, Praef. in Buc. 3.5ff.: Ad quem accipiendum profectus, ab Arrio centurione, qui eum tenebat, paene est interemptus, nisi se praecipitasset in Mincium: unde est allegoricos [3.95] ‘ipse aries etiam nunc vellera siccat ’. 51 DS ad Buc. 9.1: cum immunitatem agrorum Vergilius impetrasset, lis est exorta de finibus inter eum et eos qui in proximo agros acceperant: ex quibus Clodius quidam dixit se omnem litem amputaturum interfecto Vergilio. Quem poeta stricto gladio se insequentem fugit in tabernam carbonariam. Et beneficio institoris ex alia parte emissus servatus est. 38

21

Irene Peirano Garrison 52

On this scheme see Mansfeld 1994, 40–42. Quain 1945 and Minnis 2010, 9–39. 54 Beside VSD, other suspects include the Vita of Terence (transmitted by Donatus but attributed by him to Suetonius), on which see Beare 1942 and Davis 2014, the Vita of Horace, on which see Horsfall 1998 and Graziosi 2009, Lucan on which see Fantham 2011, Cowan 2011, and Juvenal, on which see Jones 1986. 55 On the De poetis, we are still relying on the editions of Reifferscheid (1860) and Rostagni (1944) and the work of Paratore (2007) though the latter has been recently re-edited by Questa with a new foreword by Barchiesi. On Suetonius De viris illustribus see Wallace-Hadrill 1983, 50–9; Kaster 1995, xxiii–xxix. 56 Donatus,Vita Ter. 8: haec Suetonius Tranquillus. In accordance with the scheme above, the remainder of the Vita of Terence deals with the work (tituli). 57 Summary of the problem in Naumann 1981 and 1990 and Horsfall 1995, 3–4. 58 Pace Naumann 1981, 185 ‘it is difficult to see, let alone to show reason, why Donatus should not have followed Suetonius in the Vita of Virgil as he did in that of Terence’. 59 VSD 47 quoniam de auctore summatim diximus, de ipso carmine iam dicendum est is considered Donatus’ own addition and a transition to the second section of his commentary ante opus. 60 Stok 2010 110–112; Jocelyn 1990; Horsfall 1995, 22. Many have noticed the blatant inconsistencies in VSD’s account of Virgil’s will and explain it as the product of Donatus’ clumsy rewriting: VSD 39 (egerat cum Vario...) and 41 (edidit autem auctore Augusto Varius) mentions Varius alone as Virgil’s posthumous editor and seems to suggest that Virgil did not stipulate anything in his will regarding the Aeneid. By contrast, VSD 37 and 40 mentions Varius and Tucca as testamentary executors. In addition, VSD 37 cites an epigram of one Sulpicius Carthageniensis who is usually identified as the poet-scholar Sulpicius Apollinaris, teacher of Aulus Gellius, whose floruit postdates Suetonius: Brugnoli 1988 and Stok 2008. For a list of passages that have been suspected by different scholars of being Donatan interpolations see the list collected in Brugnoli-Stok xv–xviii. 61 See Brugnoli 1990. 62 On the relationship between ancient bios and modern biography see Cooper 2002. 63 A. Rostagni 1944, xiiff. 64 On Varro see Dahlmann 1963 and Rostagni 1944, xii–xviii. Fragments in Funaioli, Grammatica Romanae Fragmenta fr. 298–302. 65 See 132ff. On this list as well as the limitations of Leo’s distinction see 69–98, especially 69–71 and Cooper 2002. See also, 73–89. 66 On Antigonus see Hägg 2012, 89–93; text in Dorandi 1999. On Aristoxenus see Hagg 2012, 69–77; Rocconi 2008; text in Kaiser 2010 and Wehrli 1967. 67 See Bollansée 1999b, ad fr. 55. On Hermippus in general see Bollansée 1999a and Hägg 2012, 84–9. 68 Schorn 2004, and West 1974. 69 Verhasselt 2016; Hägg 2012, 94; Schorn 2012, 416–18; Cooper 2002. 70 A point forcefully made by Arrighetti 2006, 271–8 and see also Hägg 2012, 77–84. 71 For the history of this concept in Hellenistic literary criticism see Greenberg 1961 and on the importance of this distinction for Horace Ars Poetica see Brink 1963, 3–14. 53

22

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD 72 Dahlmann 1963, 5–27 on the Hellenistic origins of this scheme and its development in Varro and Cicero Brutus and De Inventione and Horace, AP 391–401. For this scheme in Suetonius De gram. et rhet. see Kaster 1995, 42–3. 73 See Rostagni 1948 and 1944, 4–6; Dahlmann 1963, 11–12. Etym. 8.7.3–11 contains a discussion of the etymologies of vates, lyric, tragedy and satire and a discussion of three Platonic modes of poetry (simple, dramatic and mixed). 74 Reifferscheid fr. 3=Keil 482,14–492,14. 75 The importance of ethos over chronology as a principle of arrangement has been studied by Stefan Schorn in relation to Satyrus’ Euripidean bios: Schorn 2004, 51 ‘Der Begriff bios umschreibt bei Satyros mehr die Lebensweise einer Person als ihr Leben als Abfolge von Ereignissen in chronologischer Reihenfolge’ and cf. 26. See also Schorn 2012; Giordano 1990; Podlecki 1969, 123–4 on Chamaleon. 76 On synchronism in Roman literary history see Feeney 2007, 15. 77 Cf. Ennius Sat. 64 Vahlen with Grilli 1978. 78 A suggestion paradoxically already advanced by Momigliano who reductively dismissed the Chamaeleontic method as being closer to commentary than biography: Momigliano 1972, 70. For a comparable exploration of the fluidity of biography, commentary and canonical text in ancient Judaism see Najman 2010, 45–69 with reference to Jubilees. 79 Gibson 2002, 54 and see Schorn 2012, 417. 80 This distinction between ‘writerly’ (texts that invite creative intervention) and ‘readerly’ works (texts that resist it and are regarded as sacred and fixed) is famously articulated by Barthes 1974, esp. 4–5.

Bibliography Arrighetti, G. 1987 Poeti, eruditi e biografi : momenti della riflessione dei Greci sulla letteratura, Pisa. 2006 Poesia, poetiche e storia nella riflessione dei Greci, Pisa. Barthes, R. 1974 S/Z: An essay, New York. Beare, W. 1942 ‘The Life of Terence’, Hermathena 59, 20–29. Bollansée, J. 1999a Hermippos of Smyrna and his Biographical Writings: A re-appraisal, Leuven. 1999b Hermippos of Smyrna, FGrHist. IV A3, Leiden. Bowersock, G. 1971 ‘A date in the Eighth Eclogue’, HSCP 75, 73–80. Brink, C. 1963 Horace on Poetry: Prolegomena to the literary Epistles, Cambridge. Brugnoli, G. 1979 ‘Anseres de Falerno depellantur’, Linguistica e letteratura 4, 345–68. 1990 ‘La tradizione biografica virgiliana’, ‘Vitae Vergilianae’ in Enciclopedia Virgiliana vol.5, Rome, 575–88. 1998 ‘Sulpicius Apollinaris’, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana vol.4, Rome, 1068–1071. Bulloch, A. 2016 ‘The Life of Theocritus’, Hermes 144, 43–68. Burke, S. 1995 Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern. A Reader, Edinburgh.

23

Irene Peirano Garrison Clay, D. 1998 ‘The theory of the literary persona in Antiquity’, MD 40, 9–40. Cooper, C. 2002 ‘Aristoxenos Peri bion and Peripatetic biography, Mouseion 2, 307–39. Cowan, R. 2011 ‘Lucan’s thunder-box: scatology, epic and satire in Suetonius’ Vita Lucani’, HSCP 106, 301–313. Dahlmann, H. 1963 Studien zu Varro De poetis, Wiesbaden. Davis, J. 2014 ‘Terence interrupted: literary biography and the reception of the Terentian canon’, AJP 135, 387–409. Diehl, E. 1911 Die Vitae Vergilianae und ihre antiken Quellen, Bonn. Dorandi, T. 1999 Antigone de Caryste. Fragments, Paris. Fairweather, J. 1974 ‘Biographies of ancient writers’, Ancient Society 5, 231–75. 1984 ‘Traditional narrative, inference and truth in the Lives of Greek poets’, Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 4, 315–69. Fantham, E. 2011 ‘A controversial life’, in Brill’s Companion to Lucan, P. Asso (ed.), Leiden. 3−20. Farrell, J. 2016 ‘Ancient commentaries on Theocritus Idylls and Virgil’s Eclogues’, in Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre, B. Gibson and C. Kraus (eds), Oxford, 397–418. (2002) ‘Greek lives and Roman careers in the classical Vita tradition’, in European Literary Careers: The author from Antiquity to the Renaissance, P. Cheney and A. De Armas (eds), Toronto, 24–46. Feeney, D. (2007) Caesar’s Calendar: Ancient time and the beginnings of history, Berkeley. Fletcher, R. and Hanink, J. (eds) 2016 Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge. Freudenburg, K. 2010 ‘Horatius Anceps: persona and self-revelation in satire and song’, in A Companion to Horace, G. Davis (ed.), Malden, 271–90. Funaioli, G. 1930 Esegesi Virgiliana antica, Milan. Gallo, I. 1997 Studi sulla biografia greca, Naples. Gibson, C. 2002 Interpreting a Classic: Demosthenes and his ancient commentators, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Giordano, D. 1990 Chamaeleontis Heracleotae Fragmenta, Bologna. Graziosi, B. 2001 ‘Competition in wisdom’, in Homer, Tragedy and Beyond: Essays in honour of P. E. Easterling, F. Budelmann and P. Michelakis (eds), London, 57–74.

24

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD Inventing Homer: The early reception of epic, Cambridge. ‘Horace, Suetonius and the Lives of the Greek poets’, in Perceptions of Horace: A Roman Poet and his Readers, L. B. T. Houghton and M. Wyke (eds), Cambridge, 140–60. Greenberg, N. A. 1961 ‘The use of poiema and poiesis’, HSCP 65, 263–289. Grilli, A. 1978 ‘Ennius Podager’, RIFC 106, 34–38. Güthenke, C. 2016 ‘ ‘‘Lives” as parameter: the privileging of ancient lives as a category of research, c. 1900’, in Fletcher and Hanink (eds). Gutzwiller, K. 1991 Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The formation of a genre, Madison. Hägg, T. 2012 The Art of Biography in Antiquity, Cambridge. Hardie, P. 1986 Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium, Oxford. Hardie, P. and Moore, H. 2010 Classical Literary Careers and Their Reception, Cambridge. Horsfall, N. 1995 ‘Virgil: His Life and Times’ in id. ed., A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Mnemosyne Suppl. 151, Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1–25. 1998 ‘The first person singular in Horace’s Carmina’, in Style and Tradition: Studies in honour of Wendell Clausen, P. Knox and C. Foss (eds), Stuttgart, 40–54. Ippolito, A. 2005 ‘Hermippus’ in Lexicon of Greek Grammarians of Antiquity. Web access 06-21-2016 http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/lexicon-ofgreek-grammarians-of-antiquity/hermippus Jauss, H. 1982 Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, Minneapolis. Jocelyn, H. 1990 ‘The ancient story of the Imperial edition of the Aeneid ’, Sileno 16, 263–78. Jones, C. P. 1986 ‘Suetonius in the Probus of Valla’, HSCP 90, 245–251. Kaiser, S. 2010 Die Fragmente des Aristoxenos von Tarent, Hildesheim. Kassel, R. 1966 ‘Kritische und exegetische Kleinigkeiten II’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 109, 1–12. Kaster, R. 1980 ‘Macrobius and Servius: verecundia and the grammarian’s function’, HSCP 84, 219–262. 1995 C. Suetonius Tranquillus De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, Oxford. Keeline, T. 2009 ‘De scholiorum in Theocritum veterum usu apud Vergilium in Bucolicis.’ M.A. thesis, Washington University, St. Louis. Klooster, J. 2011 Poetry as Window and Mirror: Positioning the poet in Hellenistic poetry, Leiden and Boston. 2002 2009

25

Irene Peirano Garrison Korenjak, M. 2003 ‘Tityri sub persona: Der antike biographismus und die bukolische Tradition’, Antike und Abendland, 49, 58–79. Kraus, C. 2010 ‘Historiography and biography’ in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies. A. Barchiesi and W. Scheidel (eds), Oxford, 403–19. Levis, R. 1993 ‘Allegory and the Eclogues’, Electronic Antiquity 1.5. Lefkowitz, M. R. 1975 ‘The influential fictions in the Scholia to Pindar’s Pythian 8’, CP 70, 173–185. 1980 ‘Autobiographical fiction in Pindar’, HSCP 84, 29–49. 2012 The Lives of the Greek Poets, London, 2nd edition. Leo, F. 1901 Griechisch-römische Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form, Hildesheim. Mansfeld, J. 1994 Prolegomena: Questions to be settled before the Study of an Author or Text, Leiden. Mayer, R. G. 2003 ‘Persona Problems. The Literary Persona in Antiquity Revisited’, MD 50, 55–80. Minnis, A. 2010 Medieval Theories of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, London, 2nd edition. Momigliano, A. 1971 The Development of Greek Biography, Cambridge, Mass. Most, G. 1995 ‘Reflecting Sappho’, BICS 40, 15–38. Mühmelt, M. 1965 Griechische Grammatik in der Vergilerklärung, Munich. Najman, H. 2010 Past Renewals: Interpretative Authority, Renewed Revelation and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity, Leiden and New York. Naumann, H. 1981 ‘Suetonius’ Life of Virgil: the present state of the question’, HSCP 85, 185– 87. 1990 ‘La Vita Vergilii Donatiana e le sue dirette dipendenze’, ‘Vitae Vergilianae’ in Enciclopedia Virgiliana vol. 5, Rome, 571–75. Nünlist, R. 2009 The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and concepts of literary criticism in Greek Scholia, Oxford. Paratore, E. 2007 Nuova ricostruzione del De poetis di Suetonio. New edition edited by C. Questa with introduction by A. Barchiesi, Urbino. Patterson, A. 1987 Pastoral and Ideology: Virgil to Valéry, Berkeley. Payne, M. 2007 Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction, Cambridge. Peirano, I. 2012 The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake: Latin pseudepigrapha in context, Cambridge.

26

Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of VSD Pirovano, L. 2006 Le Interpretationes Vergilianae di Tiberio Claudio Donato. Problemi di retorica, Rome. Podlecki, A. 1969 ‘The Peripatetics as literary critics’, Phoenix 23, 114–137. Porter, J. 2008 ‘Reception studies: future prospects’, in A Companion to Classical Receptions, L. Hardwick and C. Stray (eds), Oxford, 469–81. Posch, S. 1969 Beobachtungen zur Theokritnachwirkung bei Vergil, Innsbruck. Quain, E. 1945 ‘The Medieval accessus ad auctores’, Traditio 3, 215–264. Reifferscheid, A. 1860 C. Suetoni Tranquilli praeter Caesarum libros reliquiae, Leipzig. Richardson, N. 1981 ‘The Contest of Homer and Hesiod and Alcidamas’ Mouseion’, CQ 31, 1–10. Rocconi, E. 2008 ‘Aristoxenus Tarentinus’ in Lexicon of Greek Grammarians in Antiquity, F. Montanari and L. Pagani (eds), Leiden. Rostagni, A. 1948 ‘Il proemio di Suetonio De poetis presso Isidoro alla luce della precettistica’ in Mélanges de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes offerts à J. Marouzeau par ses collègues et élèves étrangers, Paris, 509–23. 1944 Suetonio De Poetis e biografi minori, Turin. Schorn, S. 2004 Satyros aus Kallatis : Sammlung der Fragmente mit Kommentar, Basel. 2012 ‘Chamaeleon: biography and literature Peri tou deina’ in Praxiphanes of Mytilene and Chamaeleon of Heraclea: Texts, translation and discussion, A. Martano, E. Matelli and D. Mirhady (eds), New Brunswick, 411–44. Starr, R. A. 1995 ‘Vergil’s Seventh Eclogue and its readers: biographical allegory as an interpretative strategy in antiquity and late antiquity’, CPh 90, 129–38. Stok, F. 2008 ‘Sulpicius Apollinaris/Carthaginiensis: un’identità problematica’, in Incontri Triestini di Filologia Classica VII, L. Cristante and I. Filip (eds), Trieste, 201–18. 2010 ‘The Life of Virgil before Donatus’ in A Companion to Virgil’s Aeneid and its Tradition, J. Farrell and M. Putnam (eds), Malden, 107–120. Struck, P. 2004 Birth of the Symbol: Ancient readers at the limits of their texts, Princeton. Verhasselt, G. 2016 ‘What were works peri bion: a study of the extant fragments’, Philologus 160, 59–83. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1983 Suetonius: The scholar and his Caesars, London. Wehrli, F. 1967 Die Schule des Aristoteles: Texte und Kommentar, II: Aristoxenos, 2nd ed., Basel.

27

Irene Peirano Garrison Welsh, J. 2011 ‘Accius, Porcius Licinus, and the beginnings of Latin literature’, JRS 101, 31–50. Wendel, C. 1920 Überlieferung und Entstehung der Theocrit Scholien, Berlin. West, M. L. 1967 ‘The Contest of Homer and Hesiod’, CQ 17, 433–50. West, S. ‘Satyrus the Peripatetic or Alexandrian’, GRBS 15, 279–87. Wimsatt, W. K. and Beardsley, M. C. 1949 ‘The affective fallacy’, The Sewanee Review 57, 31–55.

28

2 FASHIONING THE POET: BIOGRAPHY, PSEUDEPIGRAPHY AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM 1 Andrew Laird In an essay on the person in Greek biography, Arnaldo Momigliano pinpointed a problem with the way ancient historians were prone to portray character on the basis of evidence, when it came to their lives of poets: The Greek biographers faced the question of how the characters of a poet could be deduced from his poems in the same spirit in which they faced the problem of how the character of a general could be deduced from his victories on the battlefield.... In both cases what is at stake is the validity of inferences from events to character.2

The trouble, as Momigliano pointed out, is that one cannot infer anything about the character of Euripides from his tragedy Hippolytus in the same sort of way as the Athenians were able to make inferences about the character of Miltiades from his performance as a general at Marathon. That observation was in accord with the spirit of Mary Lefkowitz’s Lives of the Greek Poets, cited in Momigliano’s discussion – and it still reflects much current thinking about all ancient poetic biography.3 Some more recent scholarship, exemplified by a couple of contributions to this volume, is reviving consideration of the value of the ancient lives of poets as veridical testimony. The Lives of Virgil, like Virgil’s own poetry, make mention of historical people, places and events and can thus to some degree be read as discourses of evidence which are subject to refutation or verification.4 Such an approach, however, should be regarded as a line of historical rather than literary enquiry: the importance of Nicholas Horsfall’s reminder that ‘know[ing] next to nothing of Virgil’s “life and times”... matters little if at all to our understanding of the poetry’ rests not so much on scepticism about the reliability of the ancient sources (though that may be open to question), but on recognition that the study of poetry and literature has always been distinct from the study of history and historical concerns.5 Moreoever, setting a text in the historical or biographical ‘context’ of its author by making use of supposed data from that text itself is perilously circular.6

29

Andrew Laird The aim of the present chapter is to attempt a re-evaluation of the Latin tradition of the Virgilian Lives, not as historiography, but as a form of exegesis of Virgil, conceived as something akin to literary criticism.7 Inferences made about the poet Virgil from his poetry will be explored in relation to pseudepigraphy – as a theme and as a practice in ancient Virgilian biography, and also as a parallel to such biography.8 The opening discussion will then consider the role of pseudepigraphy in the foundational Vita Suetonii vulgo Donatiana (hereafter ‘VSD’ or ‘Suetonius’) and some revealing points of contact this text has with the Culex (I). Further connections between Virgilian pseudepigraphy and biography will emerge from a synoptic examination of the verse passages cited in the VSD and in Phocas’ verse life of Virgil (II). The final part of the chapter (III) will highlight the broader role of pseudepigraphy in constructions and interpretations of poetry made by scholars today as well as in antiquity – suggesting its affinity to the modern practice of textual criticism.

I John Carew Rolfe’s popular text and translation of Suetonius’ life of Virgil in the Loeb Classical Library could not include the last part of the VSD (47–66), which was inserted as a kind of coda to the biographical narrative.9 That may well be why the account in the VSD of how to introduce a study of an author’s poetry is so rarely discussed. There the subject of ‘what is usually treated before the work’ [quod tractari solet ante opus] is treated as follows: Ante opus titulus causa intentio. Titulus, in quo quaeritur cuius sit, quid sit; causa, unde ortum sit et quare hoc potissimum ad scribendum poeta praesumpserit; intentio, in qua cognoscitur, quid efficere conetur poeta... [48] Quamvis igitur multa φευδεπίγραϕα id est, falsa inscriptione sub alieno nomine, sint prolata, ut Thyestes tragoedia huius poetae, quam Varius suo nomine edidit, et alia huiusmodi, tamen Bucolica liquido Vergilii esse minime dubitandum est, praesertim cum ipse poeta, tamquam hoc metuens, principium huius operis et in alio carmine suum esse testatus sit dicendo: carmina qui lusi pastorum audaxque iuventa, Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi [G. 4.565–6] Before the work is the title, the cause and the intention. Through the title it may be discerned whose the work is and what it is; from the cause, its provenance and most importantly why the poet undertook to write it; and from the intention what the poet is striving to achieve... [48] So although there are many pseudepigraphic writings: that is to say works

30

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism put out under another’s name by being falsely signed (like this poet’s Thyestes which Varius published under his own name or other examples of this sort), there is no doubt that the Bucolics are clearly by Virgil, especially since the poet himself, as though fearing it was in question, attested in another poem that the beginning of the work was his, saying: I played at shepherd’s songs and bold with youth, Tityrus, I sang of you under the cover of a spreading beech

Here the inferral or construction of the author is at stake: it is made clear that treatment of the title, the cause, and the intention of the work should be conducted before one gets onto the work itself. Yet as the elucidation of the Bucolics later provided in the VSD will show, its account of Virgil’s title, or authorial identity, and of the cause and the intention of his poetry comes from a reading of the poems themselves. The idea of pseudepigraphy is introduced too: pseudepigrapha are defined as ‘works put out under another’s name by being falsely signed’. The example of the Thyestes is confusing, however: it seems at first to convey that the play was really by Virgil and passed off by Varius as his own, when, historically it was really by Varius.10 The point must be that some people falsely attributed the Thyestes to Virgil, since the Bucolics are contrastingly affirmed as being unequivocally by the poet. The evidence for that comes from the testimony at the end of the Georgics (4.565) in which Virgil referred back to his Bucolics as ‘shepherd’s songs’, carmina pastorum. Earlier in the VSD, the Catalepton, Priapea, Epigrammata, Dirae, Ciris, Culex and Aetna had been canonised as works of Virgil, whilst it was acknowledged that there was debate about the Aetna.11 Was the authentication of these texts consistent with the criteria set out later, here in 47? In this context it is worth noting that the first verse of the Culex: Lusimus, Octaui, We have played, Octavius,

somewhat resembles the very verse of the Georgics (4.565) which was used to authenticate the Eclogues themselves. Perhaps the Culex is to be deemed authentic on this basis. There might be a similar thought underlying Suetonius’ comment (VSD 69) that the Bucolics began, not with Eclogue 1.1 (as we have it), but with the opening of Eclogue 6: sed sunt qui dicant, initium Bucolici carminis non ‘Tityre’ esse, sed: Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere uersu Yet there are those who say that the beginning of the Bucolic poem is not ‘Tityrus’ but: She first thought to play in Syracusan verse

31

Andrew Laird This observation might have been an attempt to account for the intensive evocation of the proem of Eclogue 6 in the opening of the Culex: Lusimus, Octaui, gracili modulante Thalia atque ut araneoli tenuem formauimus orsum; lusimus: haec propter Culicis sint carmina dicta omnis et historiae per ludum consonet ordo notitiaeque ducum uoces, licet inuidus adsit. quisquis erit culpare iocos Musamque paratus, pondere uel Culicis leuior famaque feretur. posterius grauiore sono tibi Musa loquetur nostra, dabunt cum securos mihi tempora fructus. ut tibi digna tuo poliantur carmina sensu. Latonae magnique Iouis decus, aurea proles, Phoebus erit nostri princeps et carminis auctor... ...Et tu, cui meritis oritur fiducia chartis, Octaui uenerande, meis adlabere coeptis, sancte puer, tibi namque canit non pagina bellum

5

10

25 Culex 1–12, 24–6

Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere uersu nostra, neque erubuit siluas habitare, Thalia cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem uellit, et admonuit: ‘Pastorem, Tityre, pinguis pascere oportet ouis, deductum dicere carmen.’ nunc ego (namque super tibi erunt qui dicere laudes Vare, tuas cupiant, et tristia condere bella) agrestem tenui meditabor harundine Musam. non iniussa cano. Si quis tamen haec quoque, si quis captus amore leget, te nostrae, Vare, myricae te nemus omne canet; nec Phoebo gratior ulla est quam sibi quae Vari praescripsit pagina nomen. Eclogue 6.1–12

Thus it could be that the density of allusion led to the idea that the Bucolics once began with the sixth Eclogue. The second half of the first verse of the Culex, gracili modulante Thalia [‘with slender Thalia marking the measure’], though not a direct echo of any Virgilian verse, could not be more evocative of the poet. The verb modulari occurs twice in the Eclogues (5.14, 10.51) and the collocation gracili modulatus is found at the end of the opening verse of the spurious pre-proemium or ‘Incipit’ to the Aeneid: ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus auena I am he who once played pastoral songs on a slender reed.

32

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism Like that Incipit, the Culex incorporates all of Virgil’s genuine works, perhaps at the same time signalling their legitimacy. Glen Most and many earlier critics have pointed out how it emulated the Eclogues, Georgics and the Aeneid in chronological succession – the latter principally through the poem’s preoccupation with katabasis.12 The tomb inscription Virgil supposedly wrote for himself and the Incipit which could be read as having a sepulchral feel, might also have had a part to play in determining the peculiar emphasis, if not on death in general in the Culex, then on the epitaphic utterance which brings the poem to an end: Parue Culex, pecudum custos tibi tale merenti funeris officium uitae pro munere reddit Culex 413–14 Little Gnat, a shepherd renders to you, as you merit it, the rite of burial in return for the gift of life.

The couplet, quoted through the whole tradition of the Lives up to the fifteenth century, usually followed a summary of the poem it had concluded: deinde...Culicem, cum esset annorum XXVI. cuius materia [18] talis est: pastor fatigatus aestu, cum sub arbore obdormiuisset, et serpens ad illum proreperet, e palude culex praeuolauit atque inter duo tempora aculeum fixit pastori. at ille continuo culicem contriuit et serpentem interemit, ac sepulchrum culici statuit et distichon fecit: Parue Culex, pecudum custos tibi tale merenti funeris officium uitae pro munere reddit Next came...and the Culex, when he was twenty-six years old. [18] This is its subject: when a shepherd worn out by the hot weather had fallen asleep under a tree and a snake crept up to him from a marsh, a gnat flew out and stung the shepherd between the temples. He straightaway squashed the gnat and killed the snake, and then set up a tomb for the gnat and composed this couplet: Little Gnat, a shepherd renders to you, as you merit it, the rite of burial in return for the gift of life VSD 17–18

It is interesting to consider why the gnat’s epitaph might have found its way into the VSD in the first place, given that there are so many verses from Virgil’s authentic corpus which could have been included instead. It may be because the epitaph had provided an epitome to the Culex as a kind of mise en abîme within the poem, and the lead-in to the inscription also called attention to writing and to the contradiction of enunciation through the written word:

33

Andrew Laird tum fronte locatur elogium, tacita firmat quod littera uoce Culex 411–12 Then upon the face of the tomb is placed a eulogy, which the written word fashions with silent speech.

The paradox of the epitaph, of any epitaph, is of course that it speaks for one who is dead and who cannot speak. The conceit also picked up Culex verse 26 – canit non pagina bellum [‘my page does not sing of war’]. Thus fronte could be important from a metaliterary perspective: as well as ‘face’ or ‘façade’ the word was used for the outer end of a book roll or frontispiece close to which an Incipit could be found – sometimes with a portrait of the author.13 While Virgil’s own katabasis narratives in Georgics 4 and Aeneid 6 might account for his authority as a necragogue in later antiquity and in medieval vision literature, well before Dante, the Culex may have had a formative part to play in that tradition – which drew attention not just to Virgil as an authority on the underworld, but repeatedly to his status as a speaker who is dead himself.14

II The gloom of the tomb also pervades the VSD. Below are assembled all the complete lines of verse that are quoted in the text so that they can be viewed together: (i) Monte sub hoc lapidum tegitur Ballista sepultus. nocte die tutum carpe, uiator, iter [17] Epitaph: Anth. Lat. 261 (ii) Parue culex, pecudum custos, tibi tale merenti funeris officium uitae pro munere reddit [18]

Epitaph: Culex 413–14

(iii) Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite Grai: nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade [29]

Prop. 2.34.65–6

(iv) Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. cecini pascua rura duces. [36]

Epitaph of Virgil

(v) Iusserat haec rapidis aboleri carmina flammis Vergilius, Phrygium quae cecinere ducem. Tucca uetat Variusque simul; tu, maxime Caesar, non sinis et Latiae consulis historiae. infelix gemino cecidit prope Pergamon igni, et paene est alio Troia cremata rogo [38] (vi) Ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus auena carmina et egressus siluis uicina coegi,

34

Anth. Lat. 653

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism ut quamuis auido parerent arua colono, gratum opus agricolis, at nunc horrentia Martis arma uirumque cano [42]

Incipit of Aen.

(vii) Tityre, si toga calda tibi est, quo tegmine fagi? [43] Parody of Ecl. 1.1 (viii) Dic mihi, Damoeta: cuium pecus, anne Latinum? Non. uerum Aegonis nostri sic rure loquuntur [43] Parody of Ecl. 3.1–2 (ix)

Carmina qui lusi pastorum audaxque iuuenta, Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi. [48]

Geo. 4.565–6

(x) Sicelides Musae, paulo maiora canamus [64]

Ecl. 4.1

(xi) Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi [69]

Ecl. 1.1

(xii) Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem [69]

Ecl. 10.1

(xiii) Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere uersu [69]

Ecl. 6.1

(xiv) Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi [72]

Ecl. 1.1

Such a synoptic perspective on the verse quotations in the VSD reveals some things which have not been remarked upon before: (a) The first eight of the fourteen verse passages quoted in the Life are not by Virgil at all; (b) The first five are not in Virgil’s hexameters, but in elegiac couplets, with (i), (ii) and (iv) being self-contained epigrams. (c) The first real Virgilian verses, from the Georgics, only come after the biographical narrative, as the narrator goes on to address the authenticity of Virgil’s works; the quotations of first lines from Eclogues 4, 1, 10 and 6, and again, Eclogue 1, do not serve as biographical data: they are simply used to reinforce observations about the cause, order and metre of the bucolic poems. (d) Three of the eight verse passages in the narrative of Virgil’s life are epitaphs: the first for Ballista, the second for the gnat of the Culex, and the third for the poet himself. (e) Those epitaphs are in italics, along with the other passages which have an epitaphic quality or funereal innuendo. That obviously applies to the verses attributed to Sulpicius of Carthage about the death of Virgil and his request to burn the Aeneid; both the Incipit and the sphragis to the Georgics also have a lapidary quality – the Incipit and the tomb inscription for Virgil were probably inspired by this sphragis: the recurrence of Parthenope, a word not found elsewhere in Virgil, excavates a sepulchral significance that might be discerned in these closing lines of Georgic 4.

35

Andrew Laird All the quotations attributed to Virgil in the VSD show an interest in his persona or personal voice and all of the passages quoted are in the first person. On those bases it could be held that the selection is appropriate and sensible: after all, some scholars have been under the false impression that the Incipit, the Mantua me genuit epitaph, and even the Culex, were no less authentically Virgilian than the last verses of the Georgics. Furthermore, in contrast to some Greek biographies of poets, it can at least be said for the VSD that none of the narrative of Virgil’s life is derived from quotations of characters, or from utterances which are not imputed to the voice of the author himself: for Virgil’s Latin biographers, poetic imitators and pseudepigraphers alike, the same passages provide touchstones to enable them to get to the essence of their subject. That community between biography and poetic imitation is highlighted by the fascinating verse life of Virgil by Phocas. Scott McGill has shown how this was built on Donatus’ life, with elements of the prose narrative being infused with imitation of Virgil himself, so that the account of the poet’s childhood is adorned with description of the child in Eclogue 4.15 Verses 70–90 of Phocas’ life exhibit an eerie correspondence to a few compact sentences in the VSD chapters 17–20. In three quite different ways Phocas’ composition appears self-consciously to lend weight to the contention that biography of Virgil, poetic imitation of Virgil, and Virgilian pseudepigraphy have more in common than has often been recognised. Phocas handles in his own fashion the report in the VSD that Virgil ‘made a beginning in the art of poetry and composed a distich on Ballista’ [Poeticam puer adhuc auspicatus in Ballistam...distichon fecit]. Phocas’ telling here is more elaborate and detailed: Incidit titulum iuvenis, quo pignera vatis edidit Phocas, Vita 69–70 The young man cut an inscription through which he published his tokens as a poet.

The word titulus had, however, been introduced as a technical term in the VSD 47: ‘Through the title’ we were told, ‘it may be discerned whose the work is and what it is’ [titulus...in quo quaeritur cuius sit, quid sit ]. The point Phocas is making about this Ballista poem is that it reveals the identity of the author, and that through this couplet Virgil’s hallmark as a vates was made public, becoming known to readers. The other sense of titulus in Latin as a title in the honorific sense as simply ‘fame’ may also be in play: ‘The young man made his reputation...’ Phocas seems to have used that sense of the word in the prefatory stanzas to Clio:

36

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism Tu senescentes titulos avorum flore durantis reparas iuventae Phocas, Vita 13–14 You restore with the flower of lasting youth the ageing honours [titulos] of our ancestors.

So Incidit titulum iuvenis could also be translated ‘The young man cut a name for himself’. In any case, that is adding a lot more to the simple, almost negligible biographical datum we were given in VSD 17. The way Phocas next plays on the hallmark [pignera] of Virgil’s real identity is relevant too: nos tamen hoc breuius, si fas simulare Maronem Phocas, Vita 73 We too can do this for a bit, if it is allowed to simulate Maro.

The verse biographer then shows how he can produce at least one couplet of his own in a similar vein, ringing the changes on the titulus, the very evidence for the authenticity of Virgil’s work.16 A further irony is that an elegiac couplet can never be a simulation of a poet who wrote in hexameters. Phocas appears unaware of this as he follows the VSD in quoting the elegiac couplet which closed the Culex as his next example of Virgil’s verse. The VSD put the two verses in their literary context by making clear that the shepherd in the poem had composed them. But Phocas introduces the couplet closing the Culex in a biographical context – as an early landmark in Virgil’s poetic career: Hinc culicis tenui praelusit funera versu: Parve Culex, pecudum custos tibi tale merenti funeris officium uitae pro munere reddit Phocas, Vita 84–6 (quoting Culex 413–14) Then in delicate verse he made his first play with the gnat’s death: Little Gnat, a shepherd renders to you, as you merit it, The rite of burial in return for the gift of life.

Verse 84 is hard to translate but it suggests that the Culex was a prelude or prolusion – implicitly to a more serious composition. The opposition between tenuis and gravis frames the Culex and the cognates of the verb ludere recur especially in the proem of the Culex.17 Thus in this briefest of comments on the poem, Phocas is deftly imitating it himself. That shows he read the Culex, while it is not clear that Suetonius had actually done so: what is said about the poem in the VSD could have been gleaned from hearsay.

37

Andrew Laird Best of all, though, Phocas conjoins the technique of the literary scholar with emulation of the poet, as he turns to Virgil’s renowned works: Musa refer quae causa fuit componere libros. Phocas, Vita 91 Muse, relate what was the cause of the books he composed.

This is obviously a playful echo of the epic question in the proem to the first book of the Aeneid: Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso... Aeneid 1.8 Muse, recall to me the causes, what divine power was so wounded...

which launched the account of the reasons for Juno’s grudge against the Trojans. But Phocas’ verse also recalls the VSD which held that a poetic opus also has a cause. The causa is to be treated after the titulus, before discussion of the work itself. This kind of causa is of necessity outside the text: ‘whence the work arose and most importantly why the poet undertook to write it ’ [causa, unde ortum sit et quare hoc potissimum ad scribendum poeta praesumpserit VSD 47], but it is in part inferred from the text. This is duly explored by Phocas in his account (verses 95–120) of the motive for composing the Eclogues, which embellishes and expands the account of the author’s will in the VSD. The life of Phocas is a unique and unusual document but it shows how poetic emulation of Virgil and writing Virgilian biography can overlap more generally: the excavation of Virgil’s past is a context for poetic activity, involving inventio for a poet as well as a biographer. A work like Phocas’ Vita is an exercise in poetic imitation and pastiche of Virgil – not pseudepigraphy. The same could be said of the Culex and Catalepton which do in fact give signals they are not by Virgil.18 But it remains to consider pseudepigraphy per se, because it involves issues common to both biography and pastiche, and because pseudepigraphy is indispensable to both kinds of writing. III In the VSD 48 pseudepigrapha were defined as ‘works put out under another’s name by being falsely signed’ [ falsa inscriptione sub alieno nomine, ... prolata]. Signatures are now usually conceived as subscriptions at the end of texts – but in antiquity a pseudepigraphon, a ‘pseudo-epigraph’ – a false inscription – was really more proper to the title or heading of a document.

38

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism Pseudepigraphy therefore does not have to be the result of lengthy labour: a few strokes of the pen at the top of a manuscript can change the whole way its contents are interpreted: a simple inscription can assign Varius’ Thyestes to Virgil (or vice versa). An author can also be his or her own best pseudepigrapher: anyone who renovates an old conference paper by changing its title is engaging in this practice. Ovid’s account of his attempt to recycle his own poetry in Tristia 1.7 is an important example which has an obvious bearing on the VSD and other Virgilian Lives. In that poem in the Tristia, Ovid explains that he burnt his Metamorphoses once he knew he was forced to leave Rome:19 haec ego discedens, sicut bene multa meorum, ipse mea posui maestus in igne manu. utque cremasse suum fertur sub stipite natum Thestias et melior matre fuisse soror, sic ego non meritos mecum peritura libellos imposui rapidis uiscera nostra rogis: uel quod eram Musas, ut crimina nostra, perosus, uel quod adhuc crescens et rude carmen erat. Tristia 1.7.15–22 These verses, upon my departure, like so many other things of mine, I sadly threw on the fire with my own hand. Just as, they say, in burning the brand and burning her son, the daughter of Thestius proved a better sister than a mother, so I placed to perish with me these undeserving books, my very own flesh and blood, on a fierce funeral pyre: either because I detested the Muses, my accusers, or because the poem was crude in form and still growing.

But Ovid then lets on that several copies were made of his work after all: quae quoniam non sunt penitus sublata, sed extant (pluribus exemplis scripta fuisse reor), nunc precor ut uiuant et non ignaua legentem otia delectent admoneantque mei. Tristia 1.7.23–6 The verses were not totally destroyed: they survive (several copies of the writings, I think, were made) Now I pray they live, and that my studious pursuits may give the reader delight, and serve as a reminder of me.

The poet is afraid nonetheless that the Metamorphoses will make a bad impression if it lacks further finishing touches. So he proposes some new verses to be placed at the head of the first book of the epic:

39

Andrew Laird nec tamen illa legi poterunt patienter ab ullo, nesciet his summam siquis abesse manum. ablatum mediis opus est incudibus illud, defuit et coeptis ultima lima meis. et ueniam pro laude peto, laudatus abunde, non fastiditus si tibi, lector, ero. hos quoque sex uersus, in prima fronte libelli si praeponendos esse putabis, habe: orba parente suo quicumque uolumina tangis, his saltem uestra detur in urbe locus. quoque magis faueas, non haec sunt edita ab ipso, sed quasi de domini funere rapta sui. quicquid in his igitur uitii rude carmen habebit, emendaturus, si licuisset, eram. Tristia I.7.27–40 Yet they can’t be read patiently by anyone who’s unaware they lack the final hand. That work was taken from me while on the anvil and the writings lack the last touch of the file. I ask forgiveness not praise, I’ll be praised in full, if you don’t despise me, reader. These six verses too, if on the brow of the first book you consider them worth placing, take them: Whoever you are who touch these book rolls bereft of their parent, to them at least let there be granted a place in your city. And that you may be more indulgent, they were not published by him, but snatched away, as it were, from the funeral pyre of their master. Whatever defect in them this crude poem has, I would have been about to correct – if it had been allowed.

Ovid’s references to the burning of his poetry in his Tristia are instances of a common motif. A declamatory exercise by the Elder Seneca, for instance, has several speakers consider an imaginary deliberation: Deliberat Cicero, an scripta sua comburat promittente Antonio incolumitatem, si fecisset [‘Cicero deliberates whether he should burn his writings: Antony promises his safety if he does so’].20 That example is of special interest because it sets up a clear competition between the needs of the mortal author on the one hand and the claims of his readers on the other. In spite of the general prevalence of this topos in Greek and Roman literature, there is still a widely held assumption that Ovid’s conceit of burning the Metamorphoses was specifically based on his knowledge that Virgil had wanted to commit the Aeneid to the flames.21 Yet we have no explicit testimony for Virgil’s wish to this effect before Suetonius – and it is notable that Ovid never makes any reference to Virgil when he considers

40

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism the destruction of his own epic. Pliny (NH 7.114) states that ‘Augustus prohibited Virgil’s poems/poetry [carmina] from being burned countering the modesty of his will and testament, so that greater credit accrued to the poet than if he had himself endorsed them’. There is no mention of the Aeneid: the carmina could designate other poems, or indeed all of Virgil’s verse. This passage, which comes in a sequence of exemplary stories glorifying Romans, has been overinterpreted in the light of the later VSD. The assumption that Ovid was thinking of Virgil may well be based on Ovid’s poetic emulation of Virgil – and it provides a nice example of how – in our own time as well as in antiquity – a poet’s literary practice can prompt conjecture about his life and career.22 There are grounds for giving serious consideration to the possibility that Ovid’s conceit of burning the Metamorphoses was what ultimately prompted the earliest testimony we have that Virgil wanted to ‘cremate’ the Aeneid.23 Ovid’s remarks at Tristia 1.7.28 that his works lacked ‘the final hand’ [his summam...abesse manum] are echoed in language used in the VSD to describe Virgil’s intended finalisation of the Aeneid: anno aetatis quinquagesimo secundo impositurus Aeneidi summam manum statuit in Greciam et in Asiam secedere VSD 35 When he was about to put the final hand to the Aeneid in his fifty-second year, he decided to retire to Greece and to Asia.

The first specific report of Virgil’s request to have the Aeneid burned comes in the VSD. It is embedded in an elegiac poem – attributed to the apocryphal Sulpicius of Carthage – which is quoted in the text. That poem itself uses expressions that were employed by Ovid in Tristia 1.8: De qua re Sulpicii Carthaginiensis exstant huismodi uersus: Iusserat haec rapidis aboleri carmina flammis Vergilius, Phrygium quae cecinere ducem. Tucca uetat, Variusque, simul tu, maxime Caesar, Non sinis et Latiae consulis historiae. Infelix gemino cecidit prope Pergamon igni, Et paene est alio Troia cremata rogo.

VSD 38

On that matter the following verses of Sulpicius of Carthage survive: The destruction of these verses by hungry flames was bidden by Virgil: verses which sang of the Trojan leader. Tucca prohibits it, and Varius; so too do you, greatest Caesar, You do not allow it and so protect the history of Latium Unhappy Troy almost fell by a second fire And Troy was almost burnt on a further pyre.

41

Andrew Laird The verse quotation is followed by an account in prose, which elucidates what is conveyed by the poem: [39] egerat cum Vario, priusquam Italia decederet, ut si quid sibi accidisset, Aeneida combureret; at is ita facturum se pernegarat. igitur in extrema ualetudine assidue scrinia desiderauit, crematurus ipse; uerum nemine offerente, nihil quidem nominatim de ea cauit. [40] ceterum eidem Vario ac simul Tuccae scripta sua sub ea conditione legauit, ne quid ederent, quod non a se editum esset. [41] edidit autem auctore Augusto Varius, sed summatim emendata, ut qui uersus etiam imperfectos, si qui erant, reliquerit... [39] He had arranged with Varius before he left Italy that if anything should happen to him, that he should burn the Aeneid; but Varius had insisted he would not do it; so at the end of his life he continually asked for his writing tablets, intending to burn them; but when no one brought him anything, he left no specific provision about the poem. [40] But he entrusted his writings to the same Varius and to Tucca on the condition that they would not publish anything which he would not publish himself. [41] Varius did publish it, on Augustus’ authority, but only glancingly corrected it so that he left even the unfinished verses as they were...

This offers slightly more than a gloss on the poem. But one detail given here which was not hinted at in Sulpicius’ verses – that Virgil had made his wishes clear to Varius before he left Italy – could be constructed by reconciling the events conveyed by those verses with the information already relayed by Suetonius about Virgil’s itinerary in 35. Another new detail in VSD 41 – that Varius only made some light corrections to the text – could simply be inferred from the verses of the Aeneid which are de facto unfinished. The segue into 42 may also be significant: Suetonius then goes on to transmit the pseudepigraphic preproemium or Incipit to the Aeneid – after a discussion of the incomplete verses in the poem: that contiguity and associative connection as well as the echoes of diction from Tristia 1.8.17–20 in the passage above suggest a connection between Ovid’s own auto-pseudo-epigraphic verses and the Incipit attributed to Virgil: Nisus grammaticus audisse se a senioribus aiebat, Varium duorum librorum ordinem commutasse, et qui nunc secundus sit in tertium locum transtulisse, etiam primi libri correxisse principium, his uersibus demptis: ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus auena carmina et egressus siluis uicina coegi, ut quamuis auido parerent arua colono, gratum opus agricolis, at nunc horrentia Martis arma uirumque cano. [43] obtrectatores Vergilio numquam defuerunt, nec mirum, nam nec Homero quidem.

42

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism The grammarian Nisus used to say he had heard from older people that Varius had switched the order of two books, moving what had once been the second into third place, and also that he had corrected the beginning of the first book by removing these verses: I am he who once composed poetry in a pastoral strain, and then coming from the woods I compelled the neighbouring fields to obey their owner, however demanding. That work was pleasant for farmers, but now of Mars’s bristling arms and of the man I sing. [43] Virgil never lacked detractors, and no wonder: Homer certainly was not short of them either.

Richard Tarrant has rightly noted in his OCT preface that the Metamorphoses has no unfinished verses as the Aeneid does.24 But the fact that such texts were copied by hand in antiquity meant that they were in one respect more like websites than printed books: the opportunity to change, update, and improve them would have been tempting.25 Ovid makes clear he wants the Metamorphoses to live on after his own death – and this is hinted at in verse 38 where he says that the books of his poem were snatched away from what might be called his funeral. Thus the Metamorphoses are an extension, and an image of himself. By providing his new preface to the work, he seeks to inject his own personality or presence into that entire poem, and to control and change the way we look at its contents. Overall Ovid connects himself, as he is now, to the Metamorphoses in three ways: by echoing it; by infusing it with a new and more personal voice and by conceiving his epic as a posthumous work. The Virgilian Incipit, for all that it focuses on the poet rather than the poem, takes after Ovid’s epigraph in some important ways. It too echoes the composition it introduces; it too infuses the Aeneid with a new and more personal voice; and it too could have the effect of projecting Virgil’s epic as a posthumous work which is already outliving its author. That Incipit should not be seen as a malevolent hoax. It is tempting to use the modern idea of literary forgery to label poems in the Appendix Vergiliana – which represent a deliberate and overt attempt by ancient readers to reproduce the manner and style of a reputable model. But in the imperial period, Roman training in declamation required students to engage in prosopopoeia, the business of impersonating orators and literary authors. This sort of school exercise, outlined by Quintilian, explains why we find so many extensions and elaborations of verses by Virgil in the Latin Anthology – and it also explains some of the interpolations which have crept into manuscripts of ancient authors. These modest compositions are sometimes valuable as a form of critical illumination or commentary.

43

Andrew Laird The Incipit to the Aeneid, however, is no run of the mill interpolation. It represents a response not just to the opening lines of the epic, but to all of Virgil’s work: it has been suggested that one of its likely purposes was to canonise the poems of his that were genuine. Whoever wrote the Incipit probably sought to help readers understand what followed, rather than mislead them. Whoever wrote the Incipit is only doing what Virgil did in the famous lines which end the Georgics. There Virgil usefully named himself as author of the Eclogues, as Suetonius pointed out in the VSD. So whoever wrote the Incipit did the best thing possible to secure the ultimate authority for his words: by impersonating the author, Virgil himself. This is not so very different from the activity of the textual critic who, in making conjectures to reconstruct the correct reading of a lost word or passage, is effectively impersonating the author he or she is editing. It is worth noticing how textual critics, in describing their practices, appeal to intentionalism which often amounts to a kind of biographical fiction: ‘Virgil had in mind’, ‘What Ovid means’, ‘Cicero was obviously thinking’ and so on.26 The particular importance of the pseudepigraphic verses of the Incipit, – and for that matter the Mantua me genuit epitaph – for the biographical tradition is that they invigorate the work of the poet with his personal voice. They facilitate and make more plausible the process of inference from the author’s works to the author himself, or from opus to intentio. That is why Virgilian verses in a personal voice were quoted to support the biographical narrative in the VSD, and not what we would think of as Virgil’s real poetry. This point can be briefly illustrated: Ovid asked for the new verse epigraph he had composed to be placed on the frons of the Metamorphoses. That word for ‘face’ or ‘forehead’ can designate one of the flat ends at the beginning or end of a papyrus roll: frons was used for the inscribed facade of the gnat’s tomb in the Culex. Martial mentions the first leaf of a codex which depicted Virgil’s face – a custom which endured into late antiquity and the middle ages – and the opening pages of Roman book rolls may have displayed a portrait of the author on the opening page.27 The fifth-century Rome Manuscript of Virgil also includes portraits of the poet to precede specifically those Eclogues which were written in the poet’s own voice; and the codex of the earlier Vatican Virgil probably had a medallion painting of the poet on the first page.28 This all suggests that the identity and the presence of an author were very prominent to an ancient reader, who might have been prone to regard even narrative epics like the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses as the expression of a particular individual.29 One only need think of the difference made to the whole tone and meaning of a cookery book which has the beaming face of a celebrity chef on the front cover. The way that a visual likeness of the author

44

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism amplifies his voice might also explain why pseudepigrapha like the Incipit to the Aeneid came about in the first place. It has often enough been noted that the wording of Ille ego qui ‘I am that man’ would make a very satisfactory subscript to a picture of Virgil on the frons of an early copy of his epic.30 Conclusions It may be a category mistake to regard texts like the Latin Lives of Virgil as primarily historical: Suetonius’ biographies of poets and rhetoricians, which seem to follow those of his predecessors in adhering to the Greek encomiastic tradition, nowadays might be regarded as being a good deal nearer to hagiography than to documentary report.31 The present discussion has sought to rehabilitate the Virgilian Lives by showing that they are more comparable to verse elaborations of Virgil’s poetry like the Culex, or even to modern textual conjectures. The thing all these activities share is a preoccupation with the causa, cause, the intention or presence that lies behind the poet’s output. The positing or construction of a speaker or writer’s identity or presence – what analytical philosophers of mind coyly call ‘attitudes’ – is an inevitable element of interpreting and making sense of all kinds of discourse. Without such construction, reading and conversations could not take place, as the philosopher of mind Donald Davidson pointed out: We could not begin to decode a man’s sayings if we could not make out his attitudes towards his sentences, such as holding, wishing or wanting them to be true. Beginning from these attitudes, we must work out a theory of what he means, thus simultaneously giving content to his attitudes and to his words. In our need to make him make sense, we will try for a theory that makes him consistent, a believer of truths, and a lover of the good (all by our own lights, it goes without saying).32

Yet there is still a tendency to forget that the author is always constructed from the text. The reader gets to the cause, from the effect, by a process of inference. So it is still the pattern in editions, commentaries, and translations of classical poets, that discussions of authorship, dating, and the life of the author come first: in the introduction. This is always the case – even though all such material for the introduction, more often than not, is derived from the text of the poetry that is to follow. The VSD made clear that the title, cause, intention of a work and the poet himself are all to be treated before the work itself. The same goes for texts in the Appendix Vergiliana, which were composed in the light of Virgil’s actual works and derived from them: they are passed off as the poet’s juvenilia – so that they too could, in theory at least, be bound and presented as prolegomena to edition of the Eclogues,

45

Andrew Laird Georgics and Aeneid. Shorter examples of pseudepigraphy (such as Virgil’s epitaph, the Incipit to the Aeneid and Ovid’s elegiac preface for the Metamorphoses) are prefatory, in accordance with the ancient definition and etymology of pseudepigrapha. The textual critic’s practice of conjecture is a bit different because it mostly bears on the form and presentation of a poet’s actual diction, but it remains the case that a poet can only be effectively impersonated by an editor who has become thoroughly familiar with all his oeuvre: it would not be inappropriate in principle for emendations of the Eclogues to be influenced by a verse in the Aeneid. There are thus some similarities between the way modern editors reconstruct texts and facts according to their philological methodologies on the basis of what they find in ancient testimonies (manuscripts, quotations etc.) and the way in which ancient pseudepigraphers and biographers constructed their texts on the basis of the sources and models that were available. For both ancients and moderns, prejudices and partiality can be as influential as the surviving evidence: some scholars today, like the pseudepigraphers of antiquity, can go beyond reflecting on those authors who have excited their interest, on occasions venturing to emulate and speak for them.

Notes 1 I am grateful to Niklas Holzberg, Gianni Guastella, Philip Hardie and Anton Powell for many helpful comments and suggestions, even if they could not all be adequately addressed in what follows. 2 Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Marcel Mauss and the Quest for the Person in Greek Biography and Autobiography’, in The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, ed. M. Carrithers, S. Collins and S. Lukes (Cambridge, 1985), 83–92. 3 Mary R. Lefkowitz, Lives of the Greek Poets second edn. (Baltimore, 2012). For bibliography on the Virgilian Lives, see Nicholas Horsfall, A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Mnemosyne Supplement 151 (Leiden, 1995), 1–25; Niklas Holzberg Vergil. 4 Vitae Vergilianae: Eine Bibliographie (Munich, 2005): http://www.niklasholzberg.com/ Homepage/Bibliographien.html. 4 Compare Powell in this volume: ‘Does [Horsfall]... mean that...Virgil’s naming of Maecenas, Augustus, Antonius and Actium is not part of the poetry?’ The significance of historical names in poetic or fictional texts, though, is not primarily historical: compare Aristotle’s remark (Poetics 1451b10) that ‘poetry is like philosophy though it attaches proper names’, and D. C. Feeney, ‘Epilogue’ to C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman eds, Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World, (Exeter, 1993), 234. See further G. Frege’s classic study ‘Sense and Reference’, in Conceptual Notation and Related Articles, ed. T. W. Bynum (Oxford, 1972) and Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Oxford, 1980). 5 Nicholas Horsfall, Companion to the Study of Virgil (Leiden, 1995), 1. Hans Smolenaars’ ascription (in this volume) of the ‘objective’ approach to New Criticism, characterising it as a methodological fashion, akin to reader-response theory,

46

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism structuralism or deconstruction, discounts the consensus, across Aristotelian/classical, medieval, Renaissance and neo-classical (as well as modernist) theory and criticism, that the category of the literary or poetic is independent of the historical or biographical. See further M. H. Abrams, ‘Poetry, Theories of’ in New Princeton Encylopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton, 1993), 942–54; Andrew Laird ‘Reinventing Virgil’s Wheel’ in Classical Literary Careers and their Reception, ed. Philip Hardie and Helen Moore (Cambridge, 2010), 144 n. 26, 157–9. 6 There are legions of examples of Virgil’s poems being contextualised ‘historically’ in the light of the poems themselves but the practice has its problems: Don Fowler, Roman Constructions (Oxford, 2000), 1–4, 5–33. Such a reflexive approach to contextualisation is applied to the VSD by Smolenaars in this volume: having argued that the meeting in Atella between Octavian, Agrippa and Maecenas (VSD 27) was the same conversation between the three men as that reported in Dio Cassius Book 52, Smolenaars then relies on the VSD itself to argue that Virgil, who had just finished his Georgics, was there too. 7 Compare the discussions in Richard Fletcher and Johanna Hanink (eds) Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, Artists and Biography (Cambridge, 2016). 8 Niklas Holzberg ed., Die Appendix Vergiliana: Pseudepigraphen im literarischen Kontext (Tübingen, 2005) and Irene Peirano, The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake: Latin Pseudepigrapha in Context (Cambridge, 2012) have drawn attention to the importance of pseudiepigraphy in Latin literature. 9 Suetonius Volume 2 ed. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass., 1914). There have been 48 editions. 10 See Fernandelli in this volume. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 10.1.98 claimed that Varius’ Thyestes could compete with Greek plays; the play was attributed to Varius when praised by Tacitus in Dialogus 12. On these and other references to Varius see A. E. Housman, ‘The Thyestes of Varius’ CQ 11 (1917), 42–8, reprinted in Classical Papers of A. E. Housman, ed. F. R. D. Goodyear vol. 3, 941–9; H. D. Jocelyn, ‘The fate of Varius’ Thyestes’, CQ 30 (1980), 387–400. 11 VSD 19: scripsit etiam, de qua ambigitur, Aetnam [‘he also wrote the Aetna: about that there is debate’]. 12 Glen Most, ‘The ‘Virgilian’ Culex’ in Michael Whitby, Philip Hardie, Mary Whitby ed. Homo Viator: Classical Essays for John Bramble (Bristol, 1987), 199–209; M. Bonjour, ‘Culex’ in Enciclopedia Virgiliana i (Rome, 1985), 948–9; D. O. Ross ‘Culex and Moretum as Post Augustan Literary Parodies’ HSCP 79 (1976), 235–63; D. Güntzschel, Beiträge zur Datierung des Culex, Orbis Antiquus 27 (Münster, 1972) has also been influential in arguing that the Culex was written by a Virgilian impersonator in the 30s AD. See also F. Leo, Culex: Carmen Virgilio Ascriptum (Berlin, 1891), and A. Klotz, ‘Zum Culex : Verfasser und Zeit’ Hermes 61 (1926), 28–48, along with C. Plésent’s text and commentary, Le Culex: Poème pseudo-virgilien (Paris, 1910) and Le Culex: Étude sur l’alexandrianisme latin (Paris, 1910). Finally, W. Ax, ‘Die pseudovergilische ‘Mücke’ – ein Beispiel römischer Literaturparodie?’, Philologus 128 (1984), 230–49 regards the poem as a ‘forgery’ attacking Virgil and Augustus, but discerns a Virgilian narrative structure (237–8). 13 See further notes 27, 28 and 30 below. 14 Andrew Laird, ‘The Poetics and Afterlife of Virgil’s Descent to the Underworld: Servius, Dante, Fulgentius and the Culex’, Proceedings of the Virgil Society (24) 2001,

47

Andrew Laird 49–80; ‘Recognizing Virgil’ in Creative Lives, ed. Johanna Hanink and Richard Fletcher (Cambridge, 2016), 75–99. 15 Scott McGill, ‘Another man’s miracles: recasting Aelius Donatus in Phocas’ Life of Virgil’ in From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians. Later Roman History and Culture, 284–450 CE (Cambridge, 2010), 153–70, and this volume Chapter 5. 16 The subsequent couplets on Ballista in the sole manuscript of Phocas’ life are probably interpolated: verses 75–83 have been deleted by Refferscheid and other editors. 17 Culex 2: atque ut araneoli tenuem formauimus orsum; Culex 6–8: quisquis erit culpare iocos Musamque paratus,/pondere uel culicis leuior famaque feretur./ posterius grauiore sono tibi Musa loquetur; Culex 35: mollia sed tenui pede currere carmina. Forms of ludere are found in Culex 1, 3, 4, 19, 36. 18 Niklas Holzberg, ‘Impersonating Young Virgil: The author of the Catalepton and his libellus’, MD 52 (2004) 29–40. Similarly the poet of the Culex does not fully assume the role of Virgil, until verse 8 (often read as a pledge that the Aeneid would follow). Not only does the Culex echo all the works of Virgil (with fewer phrasal resemblances linking his authentic works to each other than those which link all those works to the 414 lines of the Culex), there are also pointed echoes of Ovid on which full understanding of the poem’s construction depends. 19 Stephen Hinds, ‘Booking the return trip: Ovid and Tristia 1’ PCPS 211 ns. 31 (1985), 13–32 contains an important discussion of this poem; see also Niklas Holzberg, ‘Playing with his Life: Ovid’s ‘Autobiographical’ References’, in Peter Knox (ed.) Oxford Readings in Ovid (Oxford, 2006), 51–68. 20 Seneca, Suasoria 7; R. Kaster ‘Becoming CICERO’ in P. Knox and C. Foss, Style and Tradition: Studies in Honour of Wendell Clausen (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1998), 248–63. 21 See J. Farrell, ‘Ovid’s Virgilian Career’ MD 52 (2004): 41–55; Jan Ziolkowski and Michael C. J. Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years (New Haven, 2008), 420–2. 22 W. R. Barnes, ‘Virgil: The Literary Impact’ in Horsfall, Companion, 257–67, provides an important account of Virgil’s influence on Ovid and the Metamorphoses. 23 Niklas Holzberg, Vergil. Der Dichter und sein Werk (Munich 2006), 16; Heinrich Naumann, ‘Die Vergil-Legende’, Mnemosyne 35 (1982): 148–53 at 150: ‘Das ‘Zweite Testament’ mit dem Verbrennungsgebot duerfte seine Entstehung Ovid (Trist. I, 7, 15) verdanken’. 24 Tarrant, Praefatio, P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses (Oxford, 2004). 25 These questions are explored in Shane Butler, The Matter of the Page: Essays in search of ancient and medieval authors (Madison, 2011); Richard Tarrant, ‘The Reader as Author: Collaborative Interpolation in Latin Poetry’, in J. N. Grant ed. Editing Greek and Latin Texts (New York, 1989), 121–62. 26 R. G. M. Nisbet ‘How textual conjectures are made.’ MD 26 (1990) 65–91 is a good account of the procedures. Don Fowler’s review, in Greece & Rome 40 (1992) 226–36, of A. J. Woodman and J. G. F. Powell eds, Author and Audience in Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1992) memorably called attention to the hazards of intentionalism for general interpretation. 27 Craig Kallendorf, ‘The Virgilian Title Page as Interpretive Frame’, Princeton University Library Chronicle (2002) 64: 15–50. 28 D. Wright, The Vatican Vergil: A Masterpiece of Late Antique Art (Berkeley, Los

48

Fashioning the poet: biography, pseudepigraphy and textual criticism Angeles, Oxford, 1993); The Roman Vergil and the Origins of Medieval Book Design (London, 2001). 29 This is developed in Laird, ‘Recognizing Virgil’ (n. 14 above). 30 E. Brandt, ‘Zum Aeneis-Prooemium’, Philologus 82 (1928): 331–35 first suggested this; compare G. P. Goold, ‘Servius and the Helen Episode’, HSCP 74 (1970): 101–68, cited with brief discussion in Boris Kayachev, ‘Ille ego qui quondam: Genre, Date, and Authorship’, Vergilius 57 (2011) 75–82 at 76 n. 4. 31 Jerome (Suetonius, Reliquiae 3 ed. Refferscheid) identified Suetonius’ predecessors as Varro, Santra, Nepos and Hyginus. Little is known of Santra’s and Varro’s endeavours in this genre, but Nepos’ lives are indebted to Greek encomiastic biography and Aulus Gellius (1.14.1) reports that Hyginus wrote a work on ‘illustrious men’ (de vita rebusque inlustrium virorum) in several books. 32 Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford, 1980), 222.

49

3 BIOGRAPHY AND VIRGIL’S EPITAPH Ahuvia Kahane 1. Virgil’s epitaph, Mantua me genuit..., is a skilful and compact poetic composition that claims to speak in Virgil’s own voice but was probably composed by another poet. The epitaph is a verbal monument that frames and defines Virgil’s literary canon, but it lies ‘outside’ of that canon and is not the source of his immortal fame. It may have been inscribed on the poet’s tomb, but it has not survived in material epigraphic form and only comes to light in retrospect, several centuries after the poet’s death, in the Vita Suetonii Vulgo Donatiana and the literary tradition of Virgil’s biography. The text itself is biographic, ‘I was born, I lived, I died, I sang’. It is an epitaphic verse ‘life’ within a ‘life’ in prose.1 In what follows, I want to take a closer look at this text as a record of life, as words between, and, as we shall see, beyond epitaph and biography. I propose to view the result less as an elusive hybrid creation or as a play on genre (which, in any case, is never pure), and instead as a simpler kind of direct marker, a functional place-holder or reference-point for the transition between life and ‘after life’.2 2. Occasional information about the life of Virgil appears in his work (in the Georgics, in the letters to Augustus, etc.). Some further details are provided by his contemporaries and in later sources.3 Yet despite his rise to fame already in life, despite his central place in the curriculum and in the canon and despite antiquity’s active interest in biography in both the Roman world and its Greek models, Virgil’s prolific biographic tradition seems slow to bloom before the mid-4th century. The Vita Suetonii Vulgo Donatiana is probably based on Suetonius’ De Viris Illustribus, dating to the late 1st or early 2nd century CE, but ‘there are no signs that any actual biographies of Vergil existed before Suetonius’, not even by Hyginus, perhaps the most important biographer of the Augustan age.4 Mantua me genuit is an epitaph, but given the scarcity of early narratives of Virgil’s life, we might view its verse – composed perhaps in close proximity to the poet’s death, whether by himself or by another – with biographic interest:5 Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces.

51

Ahuvia Kahane Mantua gave birth to me, the Calabrians snatched me away, Parthenope now Holds me; I sang of pastures, plowlands, and leaders.

Elements of biography and autobiography are common in epitaphs and in the carmina epigraphica in particular, in Greek (EG 247, 293; IG XII 5.310, etc.) and even more so in Latin (CIL VIII 211; CIL VIII 212–13; CIL V 37965, etc.).6 In Virgil’s case, the contents of such elements are distinct. Yet, as we shall see, Virgil’s epitaph seems to give the formal structure of biography unusual emphasis, as if acknowledging the text’s late generic literary surroundings rather than its proclaimed character as a funerary inscription in stone. 3. Natural life follows a linear, teleological timeline. It is framed by birth (before which, from the perspective of the subject, there is ‘nothing’) and death (after which, from the same perspective, there is ‘nothing’).7 Biographic narrative follows an identical path. It is ‘an account of the life of a man from birth to death’.8 This may seem obvious, but it is not the ‘natural’ temporal structure of a tale. It is, rather, a generic strategy. The ‘more philosophical’ poetic forms, such as tragedy, are narratives of life too, but they focus on selective events (best limited to ‘a single revolution of the sun’, Aristotle suggests).9 Tragedy does not record events from birth to death or does so in a highly selective manner and, for essential generic reasons, never in linear sequence.10 History follows linear timelines but, qua history, deals with more than individuals.11 Epic’s wide perspectives, and especially those of the Iliad and Odyssey, the foundations of the narrative tradition of the West, contrast sharply with biography, even if we concentrate on the poem’s protagonists. The Iliad starts in medias res and focuses on just one episode in Achilles’ life. The Odyssey is the tale of ‘a man’, but equally a paradigmatic example of how narrative and acts of recollection and narration reorder the structure of natural story-time.12 Of the complex temporalities in Virgil’s work or in the work of his contemporaries, we need say little here except that we cannot reduce them to simple ‘natural’ timelines.13 The use of time in biographic writing can be as complex as in any other genre, yet biography’s formal guise is artless imitation of personal chronology.14 It claims the very words ‘life’, vita and βίος, as its own, as if life-events and the words that describe them are one.15 The formal parity between the structure of narrative time in biographic texts and the structure of ‘real-life’ time is one of the means by which life narratives assert their generic claims to verisimilitude, authority and truth. 4. Like biography, epitaphs record facts and events, but their fundamental monumental message is different, often, for example, ‘praise of the dead’16 and their temporality, let me suggest, is of a different kind. Consider, for

52

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph example, the well-known epitaph to Claudia (CLE 52 =ILLRP 973=ILS 8403=CIL VI 15346).17 Hospes, quod deico, paullum est, asta ac pellege. heic est sepulcrum hau pulcrum pulcrai feminae. nomen parentes nominarunt Claudiam. suom mareitum corde deilexit souo. gnatos duos creauit. horunc alterum in terra linquit, alium sub terra locat. sermone lepido, tum autem incessu commodo. domum seruauit. lanam fecit. dixi. abei. Stranger, my message is short. Stand by and read it through. Here is the unlovely tomb of a lovely woman. Her parents called her Claudia by name. She loved her husband with her whole heart. She bore two sons; of these she leaves one on earth; under the earth has she placed the other. She was charming in converse, yet proper in bearing. She kept house, she made wool. That’s my last word. Go your way.

The inscription begins with a conventional appeal to the passer-by and a deictic self-reference, heic est sepulcrum.18 Details of Claudia’s life follow quickly, starting with her name: nomen parentes nominarunt Claudiam. Yet already these words adopt something of a non-biographic perspective. We learn about Claudia’s entry into social being, but not about Claudia’s birth, the ‘natural’ beginning of her biological life and a sine-qua-non element of biographic timelines.19 Even more significantly, the inscription offers no verbal narrative of Claudia’s death. Needless to say, epitaph has no meaning without death. Yet this text, like many other funerary inscriptions, marks the end of life by its reflexive reference to the act of reading ( pellege) and by acknowledging both itself as text and the tomb as material objects. In funerary monuments, death is a fact, a permanent state, not a momentary event within a narrative. The epitaph’s words mark the tomb as the essential sign of death, as a literal piece of stone, a non-narrative and nonreplicable presence. The references in the epitaph thus remind us that ‘the monument is the message.’ This monument compresses time, past, present and future, into a single, unchanging material point in space that eschews the linear, finite temporality of biography’s narrative. Other elements within the epitaph contribute to this effect. The descriptions of Claudia’s speech (sermone lepido) and her bearing (incessu commodo) mark generic qualities, not specific moments in time (ellipsis of the existential verb may add ‘atemporal’ emphasis in cases like this). We learn that Claudia loved her husband (suom mareitum corde deilexit souo) and was the mother of two sons, (gnatos duos creauit ), that ‘she kept house’ (domum seruauit) and ‘made wool’ (lanam fecit). These statements (expressed

53

Ahuvia Kahane by means of the retrospective perfect tense) mark the current relevance of events that have taken place before Claudia’s death and the moment of inscription.20 Yet we cannot arrange the individual actions they describe on an axis of time in a causal or sequential order of ‘befores’ and ‘afters’. Time and death are of the utmost importance in epitaphs. However, in epitaphs, linear biographic structure is of secondary significance. The epitaphic text is not a story of the subject’s life but an ethical and emotive portrait meant to guide our feelings and judgement once life has ended: Claudia knew her place in the household. She performed her duty with devotion. She lived the exemplary, and in this sense ‘timeless’ (an example represents a general condition), life of a Roman matron.21 Pace the ubiquity of detail in this and similar funerary inscriptions, its underlying temporality is non-biographic, perhaps even anti-biographic. Let me briefly emphasise this perspective by means of one more wellknown epitaph (CLE 990=ILS 1949=CIL XIV 2298):22 Libertinus eram, fateor, sed facta legetur patrono Cotta nobilis umbra mea, qui mihi saepe libens census donauit equestris, qui iussit natos tollere quos aleret, quique suas commisit opes mihi semper et idem dotauit natas ut pater ipse meas, Cottanumque meum produxit honore tribuni, quem fortis castris Caesaris emeruit. quid non Cotta dedit? Qui nunc et carmina tristis haec dedit in tumulo conspicienda meo. I was a freedman, I confess; but in death I have been honored by my patron Cotta. He generously gave to me an equestrian’s fortune. He ordered me to raise my children, he helped support them, and he was always generous to me with his money. He provided dowries for my daughters as if he were their father. He obtained for my son Cottanus the rank of military tribune which he proudly held in the imperial army. What did Cotta not do for us? And now he has with sadness paid for this message which can be read on my tombstone.

Marcus Aurelius Zosimus’ epitaph provides a wealth of biographical details about the deceased. Zosimus was a freedman of Cotta Messalinus. Cotta was generous to Zosimus and his children (iussit natos tollere quos aleret) and gave Zosimus’ daughters dowries (dotauit natas). Cotta secured the advancement of Zosimus’ son Cottanus with the rank of tribune (Cottanumque meum produxit honore tribuni ), and so on. Yet even those events mentioned in the epitaph which we might have arranged in temporal order are here presented less as points on a narrative/temporal axis and more in the manner of ethical exempla and as praise, not even of the dead, but of Cotta’s

54

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph generosity (note that Cotta is the grammatical subject of the verbs). Furthermore, like Claudia’s epitaph, Zosimus’ monument does not offer a narrative of his birth or his death. As in Claudia’s epitaph, death is acknowledged in a statement that points to the physical tomb: Cotta, who gave Zosimus everything (quid non Cotta dedit?), is the one who nunc carmina tristis/haec dedit in tumulo conspicienda meo. The monument as non-verbal object, here marked by an implied deictic reference ([hoc] tumulo...meo) and the visual emphasis (carmina...haec...conspicienda),23 give material presence potent emphasis. By convention, these are ‘epitaphic’ rather than ‘biographic’ features. Biography has ethical, emotive or judgemental qualities too, but it is incomplete without a factual narrative of birth and death. It cannot abandon the formal temporal structure of its narrative without losing its generic guise. 5. With these observations in mind, we can revisit the formal structure of Virgil’s epitaph. In content, it is an almost prosaic arrangement of biographic places, events and literary titles that foregrounds temporal sequence. Unlike, e.g., Claudia’s lanam fecit, the details seem to make little explicit reference to ‘timeless’ ‘ethical’ characterization.24 Birth is explicitly mentioned. Death perhaps a little less so, but is marked verbally within a ‘narrative’ rather than by a funerary object. The list of place-names in the epitaph corresponds to, and imitates, the biological and geographic sequence of the beginning and end of Virgil’s life. The epigram then repeats this sequence, retracing the linear biographic order of time by means of the paraphrased titles of Virgil’s early, middle and late poetic works.25 In a formal, structural sense, the text is a condensed ‘life’ and literary biography, too short, of course, to be of practical biographic use and thus not a biography but a biographic emblem. 6. This type of biographic gesture is less common though not unattested in epitaphs. Consider, for example, the following 5th century BCE epitaph from Eretria in Euboia (CEG 77=IG XII 9.286=GV 862):26 Πλειστίας. Σπάρτα µὲν πατρίς ἐστιν, ἐν εὐρυχόροισι Ἀθάναις ἐθράφθε, θανάτο δὲ ἐνθάδε µοῖρ’ ἔχιχε.

Pleistias. Sparta is his country; he was bred in broad-wayed Athens, and the lot of death befell him here.

The epitaph names Pleistias’ homeland and the place in which he grew up and finally records his place of burial in a linear, progressive sequence. As in Virgil’s epitaph and unlike the funerary inscriptions of Claudia or Zosimus, this epitaph’s narrative of death allows the words to function as a compelling and seemingly biographic point of closure.27 Yet this inscription maintains distinct epitaphic gestures. Friedlander, for example, notes:28

55

Ahuvia Kahane Seemingly a record of facts... But ‘Sparta is his country’ is more than would be a mere ‘he was born in Sparta’, just as the second verse contains a formula of the elegy which passed from Callinus 1.15...through Tyrtaeus 5.5 to the famous interchange between Mimnermus 6.2 and Solon 22.4. Thus, sentiment transmutes the bare statements [my emphasis].

Further poetic resonance appears in the use of εὐρύχορος, ‘spacious’. In Homer and Pindar, the epithet describes various cities, but Lacedaemon in particular.29 Whatever the epithet’s exact meaning here, it qualifies ‘spacious’ Athens and offers a contrast to Sparta or perhaps to Pleistias’ present place of burial. Readers can bring their own emotions into any text. But the allusive nature of this epitaph invites this response. In contrast, Virgil’s text, pace its 1st person poet-author and skilful composition, is more reserved. The periphrastic substitutes for Virgil’s poems (partly required by the metre) have poetic resonance, but their function is largely denotative.30 Pleistias’ inscription contains at least one other essential feature that distinguishes it from Virgil’s epitaph. We are told that Fate found Pleistias ἐνθάδ’, ‘here’. As in the epitaphs above and in countless others, the deictic reference binds the inscribed text and its utterance to a specific location in space and thus to the tomb itself as a unique non-verbal sign.31 Deixis marks the character of the inscription as an epitaph and as a sign of death and it indirectly separates the text from many of its re-enactments (for example, ‘here’, on a written page). Once removed from its original surroundings or transcribed in a book, ἐνθάδ’ loses its presence and its ‘living’ funerary function. It becomes a scholarly item that no longer marks the place of Pleistias’ remains. Virgil’s epitaph uses deixis too, tenet nunc Parthenope. Nunc appears in many other epitaphs, such as Zosimus’, of course. Yet in Virgil’s epitaph, nunc is not in any way dependent on a physical location. The epitaph’s reference is as precise if we are standing next to his tomb shortly after the time of his death as it is if we are standing in central London today. Nunc marks as many ‘nows’ as there are moments of reading, anytime and thus also anywhere. In each of them it remains true that the poet ‘now’ rests at Parthenope.32 VSD (36) suggests that the epitaph was inscribed on the tomb. This conforms to our normative expectation: epitaphs, whether we believe them to be authentic funerary inscriptions or later compositions, are meant to be written on tombs. Yet there is no material evidence of the epigram’s existence in stone. The text is preserved only in the literate biographic tradition. This may be an accident of historical transmission, but it points again to a biographic rather than to an epitaphic function and it underscores the tension between the characteristics of these two forms.

56

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph Consider another funerary inscription that highlights biographic content, the epitaph to an otherwise unknown Claudia Grapte (GV 2036.13–14): Πατρὶς µέν µοι Ἔδεσσα, τὸ δ’ οὔνοµα Κλαυδία Γράπτη· Κεῖµαι δ’ ἐνθάδ’ ἐγώ, σύνγαµος οὖσα Τίτου.

My homeland is Edessa, my name is Claudia Grapte. I lie here, the wife of Titus.

The text records Claudia’s homeland, her name and the place of her death – κεῖµαι is very similar in this sense to tenet. Yet in typical epitaphic style and as in the previous inscription, the verbal statement of death is marked by the indexical ἐνθάδ’. The spatial deictic binds the text to the place of the inscription and to the tomb as non-verbal epitaphic, rather than biographic signs. We might add that, as in Virgil’s epitaph, the final part of the inscription describes the distinct personal attribute of the deceased, in this case the fact that Claudia was Titus’ spouse. But whereas Virgil’s professional achievements replicate the linear temporal order of his life, the concluding hemistich of Claudia Grapte’s elegiac has a timeless ethical quality. It focuses on her status as a man’s wife, not on her life as a narrative sequence. 7. Virgil’s epitaph was much admired by later readers. It was used both as a model for schoolroom exercises and more loosely for other epitaphic verse.33 Not surprisingly, no matter how ingenious their change of words, schoolroom variants tended to preserve the distinctive character of the epitaph and to highlight both its linear, biographic temporal structure and its emphatic repetition, as in the following exercise from the Duodecim Sapientes (4/5th c. CE? 507 Riese):34 Tityron ac segetes cecini Maro et arma virumque. Mantua me genuit, Parthenope sepelit. I Maro sang of Tityrus and of arms and the man. Mantua gave me birth, Parthenope buried me.

Order of the literary-historical and the geographic/biographic elements has been reversed in the interest of innovation, but the epitaph’s underlying biographic essence and its temporal structure have been preserved. Significantly, when Virgil’s verses form a looser model for the epitaphs (real or fictitious) of others, the biographic structure of the Virgilian source tends to be blurred or even lost. Alongside direct allusion – commonly a repetition of the distinct initial hemistich in the form ‘[place-name] me genuit ’ – we find a reversion to more distinct epitaphic habits, as, for example, in the amusing monument for the hound Margarita (CE 1175 = CIL VI 29896):35

57

Ahuvia Kahane Gallia me genuit, nomen mihi divitis undae concha dedit, formae nominis aptus honos. docta per incertas audax discurrere silvas collibus hirsutas atque agitare feras, ... sed iam fata subii partu iactata sinistro, quam nunc sub parvo marmore terra tegit. Gaul sired me, the shell of the rich sea gave me my name: the honour of that name is becoming to my beauty. Taught to roam unexplored woodlands with courage and to chase hirsute game in the hills, ... ... But I have already met my fate, stricken down during ill-omened whelping – me, whom earth now covers under this little marble plaque.

Though the opening directly invokes Virgil’s epitaph, what follows is an epitaphic ‘naming statement’ and a description of timeless essential qualities, ending with the generic epitaphic indexical link that binds the text to a specific place and to the ‘little marble stone’ that marks the hound’s resting place. Lucan’s fictive epitaph (668 Riese) similarly invokes Virgil’s opening words.36 Like the epitaphs of several other ancient poets, it is a literary composition, not an epigraphic document:37 Corduba me genuit, rapuit Nero, proelia dixi, quae gessere pares hinc gener inde socer. continuo numquam direxi carmina ductu, quae tractim serpant: plus mihi comma placet. fulminis in morem, quae sint miranda, citentur: haec uere sapiet dictio, quae feriet! Cordoba gave birth to me, Nero snatched me away, I told of battles in which peers fought each other, a father-in-law on this side, a son-in-law on that. I never directed my lines along an uninterrupted course to crawl along slowly: I much prefer the short phrase. Like a lightning bolt, let what deserves admiration be set forth. That word is truly wisest, that strikes home.

The epitaph borrows some of the distinctive elements of the Virgilian formula, the ‘[place-name] me genuit’ and ‘[person/s] rapuit/rapuere’, as well as the reference to the poet’s works, but pays no heed to the temporal structure of Virgil’s epitaph. The biographic sequence is abandoned, already in the first line, and never resumed. 8. It would seem, then, that Mantua me genuit, maintains an unusual position in relation to a wide range of other epitaphs and epitaphic discourse. Virgil’s poem is lucid and well-wrought, yet strangely displaced. It speaks of the dead and is set in the conventional elegiac form of epitaphic

58

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph discourse. It is located in the immediate context of Virgil’s death by VSD and the biographical tradition and described as a text inscribed on the poet’s tomb. Yet it seems to neglect some of the typical features of its claimed genre as epitaph, and to emulate some of the essential generic characteristics of its biographic surroundings and the tradition of its transmission. But, again, let us stress, as biography, Virgil’s epitaph is of little use, perhaps of no use at all, because of its brevity and even more so because it is embedded, precisely, within more detailed biographic prose narratives. It is clearly both an epitaph and a biography, yet neither epitaph nor biography. Where, then, in the generic spectrum should we place this text? In the concluding part of this essay, I want to try to answer this question by looking at some of the basic relations between the epitaph’s dedicatee and its readers. Doing so, I suggest, points to a simpler and more functional role for Virgil’s epitaph, one that disarms its internal generic conflict and can thus account for its uncontroversial popularity within the tradition.38 9. Figures such as Pleistias, Claudia Grapte or Zosimus were known only to a small group of members of their family, household or locale. Those who set up monuments on their behalf (or the dedicatees themselves, if they set up their own tombs before death) knew at first hand the kind of details recorded in an epitaphic inscription.39 An epitaph, whether containing stronger or weaker biographic elements, was often needed simply to remind the world of the existence of someone who was otherwise unknown and who, without an epitaph, might descend into total oblivion.40 Matters are different when the dead are already known to the world. Fame brings closer together those who knew the dead when they were alive and those who did not. Consider very briefly a prominent example, the elogia of the Scipiones (CIL I2 6–15).41 The first lines of Lucius Cornelius Scipio’s epitaph (CIL I2 9=CLE 6=ILLRP 310) suggest: ‘this one man, very many at Rome concur, / was of good men the best’ (honc oino ploirume coseniont R[omai /42 duonoro optumo fuise uiro / Luciom Scipione). There are different degrees of fame, of course. Lucius Scipio was not the most famous member of his family, but he was more famous than, for instance, Claudia Grapte. Some Romans knew him in life. Others, who did not, may have heard of his military conquests (cepit Corsica Aleriaque urbe), of the temple he had dedicated to the Winds (dedet Tempestatibus aide mereto[d.) and so on. To the degree that Cornelius Scipio was publicly known, the information inscribed on his tomb will have functioned less as a vessel or repository preserving unknown content about him and more as the marker of a ‘place’, a ‘site of memory’, literal or in the mind, which his admirers might recognize, which they could visit or invoke, and to which they could

59

Ahuvia Kahane bring their own knowledge of the man, their own offering, as it were.43 We should note that the epitaph to Scipio Africanus, the most famous of the Scipiones, is missing from this group of inscriptions.44 His statues may have been present in the Tomb of the Scipiones, though he himself was probably buried in the more private surroundings of Liternum. Africanus’ fame was, of course, greater than any single monument and was kept alive in many other sites of memory, in Roman life, literature and public consciousness.45 By and large, then, the greater an individual’s fame, the more it is preserved by means of more diverse, more numerous and more powerful commemorative practices, and the less a short material inscription, epitaphic or biographic in character, or any other material monument fixed in one place, can function, or needs to function, as a site or vessel that contains memory within it. We are dealing with a scale of renown and monumentality defined, at one end, by mortal anonymity and fixed material signs of death (including inscriptions) and at the other end, if taken far enough, by ‘imperishable fame’ and even by apotheosis and divinity. 10. A particularly clear illustration of this principle and its implication for epitaphs and for sites that memorialize famous individuals is the following 3rd cent. CE (perhaps later) inscription from Delphi (GV 1092): Τρωὰς µοι πατρίς, Ἀχιλλεὺς δ’ οὔνοµα ἐκλήθην· ὀκτωκαιδεκέτης τέρµ’ ἱκόµαν βιοτᾶς.

The Troad is my homeland. My name was Achilles. At eighteen, I reached the end of my life.

Young Achilles from the Troad was not a famous man. No other known monuments, traditions or texts preserve details of his life. Only the epitaph saves him from death’s total oblivion though it hardly does much more than that.46 The contrast between this poor young man and his illustrious namesake could not be greater. In poetry, the heroic Achilles did have a tomb, on the accounts in the Odyssey (24.72–84) and in the Aethiopis (Proc., Chrest. 198–201). These poetic facts were later projected onto the landscape: ‘the hero’s mythological afterlife has had a material world afterlife’.47 Yet ‘it is clear that different people in different places constantly reconceived traditional conceptions of Achilles’ burial and afterlife’. Achilles’ tomb in the Troad was ‘curiously mobile’ and, of course, he had tombs elsewhere.48 If one of these tombs ever contained the ashes of an Achilles, they nevertheless did not function as mere funerary receptacles. Furthermore, no epitaphic inscription to the hero of the Iliad survives in these sites. Such an epitaph is both unlikely and unnecessary. Achilles’ memory is inscribed in a longer and better-known verbal tradition that preserves the hero’s ‘imperishable fame’.49 Even if a funerary inscription

60

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph had been composed for Achilles, it could not have functioned as an ordinary epitaph but as what we have termed above as a ‘site of memory’, a site, literal, or in the mind, of active veneration and worship. Not surprisingly, some of Achilles’ hero cult sites have yielded short inscriptions bearing his name. In these, however, the name is in the dative, not in the nominative or the genitive case as is normal in epitaphs.50 Achilles’ inscriptions are not meant to remind us who he was. Achilles’ pre-existing fame is a premise for these texts which are, precisely, votive dedications, markers of his hero cult. 11. Like Achilles from the Troad and unlike the distant, heroic son of Peleus, Virgil had a historical existence which, if he was to keep it, had to be marked in a more-historical rather than mythical form with a single notional material tomb. Yet unlike the youth from the Troad and the obscure dedicatees of many funerary inscriptions, Virgil’s public profile in life and his fame in death extended well beyond the scope of ordinary mortals. Pliny the Younger in his letter to Caninius Rufus, famously describes Silius Italicus’ veneration of Virgil (3.7.8):51 Multum ubique librorum, multum statuarum, multum imaginum, quas non habebat modo, uerum etiam uenerabatur, Vergili ante omnes, cuius natalem religiosius quam suum celebrabat, Neapoli maxime, ubi monimentum eius adire ut templum solebat. In each [of the houses of Silius Italicus] he had quantities of books, statues, and portrait busts, and these were more to him than possessions – they became objects of his devotion, particularly in the case of Virgil, whose birthday he celebrated with more solemnity than his own, and at Naples especially, where he would visit Virgil’s tomb as if it were a temple.

Silius Italicus worshipped Virgil and visited his tomb ut templum. If Virgil’s epitaph was inscribed on the tomb, Italicus would have seen it. The wellknown 2nd century graffito MANTUAMEGEN – in the Basilica Argentaria in Rome suggests that other visitors may have seen it too.52 Yet Pliny’s witness also indicates that Mantua me genuit could not have functioned as an epitaph in any narrow, conventional sense of the word. Silius Italicus would have known a great deal more about Virgil than the epitaph says. It is not needed as a vessel for biographic fact, nor is it needed as a marker that a poet by the name of Virgil once existed. What is more, given the nature of the Roman school curriculum and the status of Virgil’s poems as set texts in the teaching of Latin since the Augustan period, we may assume that not only Silius Italicus but almost anyone who was literate enough to read the words would have recognized the identity of the man behind the epitaph on the tomb. Amongst readers of Latin, no man was more famous than Virgil.

61

Ahuvia Kahane What Silius Italicus like other admirers of Virgil needed was not a temple but a site like a temple, ut templum; not a tomb or an epitaph, but something like those objects. Virgil was a mortal and a historical figure. He was born, he lived and he died, as the epitaph and his biography indicate. Like other great mortal historical figures, he needed the idea of a tomb as one of his sites of memory. Silius Italicus celebrated Virgil’s life and marked his death on the site of Virgil’s monument on the occasion of the day Virgil was born (NB: a ‘biographic’ date; in contrast, mythic traditions do not record a birthday for Achilles or for gods). Yet Virgil was no ordinary mortal. He was a divinus poeta.53 His fame was not and could not be contained exclusively in one place or in one object. As, for example, Pliny’s evidence indicates, Silius Italicus surrounded himself with a variety of objects, ‘books’, ‘statues’, ‘portrait busts’. These, we might say, are sites of memory by which to mediate his veneration of the poet. If Virgil’s tomb did bear an epitaphic inscription, that epitaph ‘could not’ and need not have been constrained by the localized characteristics (such as spatial deixis) of ordinary epitaphs. What Virgil’s devotees needed was not a sign to tell the world that someone by the name of Virgil had once lived or that he was such-and-such but a summary emblem by which they could recognize the illustrious object of their admiration, a marker that would function as a mediating point, in space or in the mind, to which they could bring their many offerings. This, let me suggest, is exactly what the epitaph in its compact ‘biographic’ form does. It functions as the semblance of an epitaphic sign and as a biographic emblem of Virgil’s life. We do not have clear evidence about the historical circumstances of the production of the epitaph or its early reception. But if the text were not inscribed on Virgil’s tomb at the time of his death, it would have had to be invented retroactively as an ‘inscription’. 12. Epitaphic monuments sometimes try to remind us of the core of the dead man’s identity by the kind of object they are. A sailor (like Elpenor in the Odyssey, for example) might have an oar as his monument; an equestrian statue can mark the tomb of a general. Virgil was a poet. The otherwise conventional verse-form of his epitaph is thus particularly appropriate as his identifying mark. Furthermore, as Rome’s greatest poet and perhaps as the man who knew his own life best, Virgil would seem to be best suited to compose a verse epitaph for himself. Of course, as many commentators note, speaking in the first person, the epitaph could not have been written by Virgil without the poet’s foreknowledge of his own death. As Andrew Laird, for example, says:54 The retrospective knowledge about his own death and burial which is put into the poet’s mouth enhances a paradox which is a feature of epitaphs: they present the words of someone who is no longer there to speak.

62

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph We might have expected the Virgilian tradition, always attentive to detail, to acknowledge this paradoxical state in some way. There may be some nuanced hints of the problem in the biographies (e.g., Jerome replaces VSD’s composuit with the verb dictauerat, which may suggest composition in advance or uncharacteristic extemporized composition). Yet Virgil’s ancient readers never seem openly troubled by these difficulties nor, for example, by the dependent question of whether the epitaph’s skilful verse is, or is not, part of the poet’s canonical corpus. How can we explain such apparent ‘indifference’? Virgil’s short epitaph, as I have tried to suggest, is above all a brief, memorable, quotable ‘site of memory’. Its primary function is not as poem or as a receptacle for information or even as a mark of praise for the dead, but as a ‘place-marker’ that allows us to focus our veneration and rehearse what we know of ‘our’ poet, the one within us, whose verse many seasoned admirers and indeed even some idle schoolboys, then, and now, will have been able to recite by heart. Like the epitaph of a man of fame, these funerary verses are a point of transition between Virgil’s life and his afterlife. Like a biography, they offer us the assurance that this is a verbal site dedicated to Virgil, the poet we know. If the epitaph was not composed by Virgil, if it was not inscribed on his tomb, it nevertheless does good service in the biographical tradition as the compressed emblem of a ‘life’, a mise-en-abîme that represents VSD and Virgilian biography itself. Virgil’s biographic tradition, let us note in conclusion, is, in fact, curiously ‘un-biographical’ in its most distinct biographic feature, the temporal structure of its narrative. VSD and other biographies do not end with Virgil’s death or with his epitaph, just as the ‘afterlife’ of Virgil’s Aeneid does not end with the poet’s wish to burn the poem. The Vita recounts how the epic was saved and how, after Virgil’s death (the end of his biographic life), Varius changed the beginning of the Aeneid by ‘subtracting these biographic lines’: Ille ego qui quondam...Virgil’s biography, Virgil’s ‘life’ and ‘Virgil’s epitaph’ are still being written moment by moment in the many ‘nows’ of his afterlife. A short inscription can only emulate this ongoing temporal sequence with precision if it is less, or more, than what it seems to be.

Notes 1 For the epitaph, see Vita Suetonii Vulgo Donatiana (VSD) 36. Pease 1940; Fringes 1998. Text: Brugnoli and Stok 1997, 34; cf. Brugnoli and Naumann 1990; Naumann 1981. Translation: Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 193. For VSD, see Horsfall 1995a; bibliography (N. Holzberg and S. Lorenz) in Bayer 2002, 339–61. For the tomb, Capasso 1983; Trapp 1984. Early readers: e.g., 2nd century graffito in the Basilica

63

Ahuvia Kahane Argentaria, ‘MANTUAMEGEN-’ (Della Corte 1933, 115; Van Buren 1934, 478–80, Fig. 4). Later readers: Stat. Silv. 4.4.51–5; Mart. 11.48; 11.50; Pliny Ep. 3.7.8; the anonymous epitaph to Lucan, Anth. Lat. 485c/668 (date?): Corduba me genuit, rapuit Nero, praelia dixi and other imitators; see Pease 1940; Hoogma 1959: 221; Fringes 1998 and brief comments further below. 2 The basic effect, I suggest, is not quite a Kreuzung of genres (Kroll 1924) though it certainly involves some ‘generic enrichment’ (Harrison 2007, with an overview of genre). Questions of literary form and its ‘horizons of expectation’ ( Jauss 1970; etc.) play a key role in the reception of the epitaph but, apart from a few observations in the notes, I do not propose to consider theoretical aspects of genre in this essay. 3 See the entries on biography in Enciclopedia virgiliana; The Virgil Encyclopedia; Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 2–178; Putnam 2010; etc. See also Stok 2010. For the letters, see Tacitus, Dial. 13.2; Macrobius, Sat. 1.24.11; Priscian 2: 533.13 (K). 4 Stok 2010, 108. Cf. Paratore 2007. For Suetonius as biographer see Power and Gibson 2014. 5 ‘...the earliest extant vita of the poet’ (Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 178). Translation id. Further below, uncredited translations are mine. 6 See Bodel 2001, 39–41; Lattimore 1942, 266–300; Gallatier 1922, 95–105; Armstrong 1910. For examples see (Greek) Kaibel 1878 (EG ); Robert 1948; Merkelbach and Stauber 1998–2005; Peek 1955 (GVI ), 1957; Vérilhac 1978–82; (Latin) Bücheler and Lommatzsch 1930 (CLE); Engström 1912; Lissberger 1934; Cugusi 1996; Courtney 1995; Mayer, Miró et al. 1998. 7 Following, e.g., an Aristotelian conception of the movement of natural time (Physics IV. 219b, etc.). For other forms of mapping temporality, see Zerubavel 2003. 8 Momigliano 1993 (1971), 11. Also Hägg 2012, 4: ‘Biography is typically a narrative form: it relates the history of a person from birth to death’, citing Eagleton 1993 on ‘the remorseless linearity of biographical time’; Swain 1997, 1–2: ‘Biographical texts are texts which furnish detailed accounts of individuals’ lives. They may be complete, from birth to death, or sectional, and partial. True biography [my emphasis] tends to the former.’ General overview in Lee 2009. 9 Poet. 1449b.12–3. 10 Time in tragedy: Easterling 2014; Cairns and Scodel 2014. 11 See Krauss 2005; Möller and Luraghi 1995. 12 For epic time, see Purves 2010; plotlines and discussion in Kahane 2012. 13 Recent discussions: Schwindt 2005 with contributions by Hardie, Nellis, Hinds and others; Kennedy 2013. 14 See Hägg 2012, 1–9, ultimately stressing the linearity of biography (above, n. 8); more generally, Lee 2009; Holroyd 2003. 15 The term biography uncouples the synonymy of life and a ‘life’, but it is unattested in antiquity, with the exception of Damascius, Vit. Isidori 8.6 (=Photius, Bibl. 242, referring to the practice of writing philosophical biography). See Momigliano 1993 (1971), 12; Cox 1983, 6 n.11. Hägg 2012, 379 treats the change as ‘incidental’, where, in fact, its emergence marks a key moment in the development of historical consciousness; see, e.g., Giddens 1991; Tillyard 2008. 16 Day 1989, 16, of early Greek grave epigrams, but also characteristic of Latin funerary inscriptions. For a suggestive though often uncritical survey of epitaphic themes, see Lattimore 1942.

64

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph 17

See Willems 2011; Kleiner and Matheson 2000; Suerbaum 1997; Pociña 1988; Massaro 1992, 78–114. Translation: Warmington 1940, 13. 18 For deixis as a characteristic element of epitaphs, see below and Tsagalis 2008, 21–26. For a linguistic summary of deixis, see Lyons 1995, 293–311. 19 See Lattimore 1942, 271 in the chapter ‘Biographical Themes’. For naming as the beginning of a social life, see Peradotto 1990, 98 (following Kripke 1980, 300). 20 Cf. Pinkster 2015, 442. The semantics of the Latin perfect and its aspect are notoriously difficult; see Haverling 2002. 21 Hersch 2010, 122: ‘...whatever talents in this craft the deceased woman actually possessed, the brief notice lanam fecit said to the passerby of her grave “she was virtuous”.’ Cf. Scodel 1992, 27: ‘the person who writes in a permanent medium is asking others, whom he does not know and whose viewing of what he writes is completely unforeseeable, to give their voice to him and to speak not randomly, but what he has determined.’ 22 Landrea 2011, 571–2; Popova 1968 (with reference to Tibullus, El. 2.5.19; 2.3.52); Gallatier 1922, 154, 165. 240. Translation: Shelton 1988, 203 with minor variations. 23 In contrast, without either a formal (‘here’) or an implicit (‘my tomb’) spatial deictic, the reference of Virgil’s ‘Parthenope’ can be either ‘this place, Parthenope’ or ‘Parthenope, far, far away’. 24 Parthenope may allude to Virgil’s nickname Parthenias (VSD 11; cf. McAuley 2016, 385–6), but this remains highly specific to Virgil. Compare, e.g., the ‘Cretan’ origins in Odysseus’ made-up biographies. 25 Cf. Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 179. Internal repetition of linear temporal structure may suggest metapoetic reflection on biography. 26 See Lausberg 1982, 156–7; Fringes 1998, 90. Translation: Friedländer 1948, 82. 27 ‘Dieses Zusammenfallen von Lebensweg und Ablauf des ED [Einzeldystichon] gibt dem Ganzen eine zwingende Geschlossenheit...Lebensende und Gedichtende fallen zusammen’ (Lausberg 1982, 157). 28 Friedländer 1948, 82; cf. Walker 2004, 227 29 Od. 13.414; 15.1; Nem. 10.52. In Homer, of other cities too, e.g., Il. 2.498; 9.478; 23.299. 30 Using poetic language to describe Virgil’s poetic works could be seen as an act of gilding the lily. 31 Cf. Tsagalis 2008, 22–26. 32 Compare, e.g., CIL 9.1837 (Helvia Prima; see Pociña 1988; date: Garrod 1913). The epitaph refers, in visual terms, to the site, nostri uoltus derigis inferieis, ‘(You... passerby)...who turn your looks to these my funerary gifts.’ It ends (l. 7) with temporal deixis: nunc data sum Diti longum mansura per aeuum, ‘now I have been given to Dis...’ But the combined effect relies heavily on ‘the proximity of the body’ (Vout 2008, 292, with further discussion of this epitaph). 33 For schoolroom use, see Horsfall 1995b. For epitaphic imitations, see Hoogma 1959, 221. 34 Discussion of this and other later imitations in Fringes 1998, 90–91; for the Duodecim Sapientes versions see Riese 1906, Nos. 507–18. 35 Fringes 1998, 93–4; full list of examples in Hoogma 1959, 221. Translation: P. Kruschwitz, https://thepetrifiedmuse.blog/2015/04/14/the-master-and-margarita/, accessed Jan 30, 2017.

65

Ahuvia Kahane 36

Pease 1940, 180; Fringes 1998, 92; Tucker 1991. For the epitaphs of Ennius, Pacuvius, Plautus and other poets, see Courtney 1993, 47–50; Lausberg 1982, 275–84. 38 Technically, we could speak of characterizing the epitaph as a ‘perlocutionary act’. See Austin 1962, 101: ‘Saying [or writing] something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience [or readers], or of the speaker [or writer], or of other persons: and it may be done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them’. 39 ‘The kind of information epitaphs provide is precisely what those who attend a funeral already know.’ Scodel 1992, 57. 40 Thus, e.g., Ulpian, Dig. 11.7.2.6: monumentum est quod memoriae servandae gratia. 41 For discussion, see Coarelli 1972; Wachter 1987, 337–40; van Sickle 1987; Torregaray 1998; Coarelli 2007. 42 Or R[omane, thus, ‘many Romans concur’. 43 Nora 1996, xvii: ‘A lieu de mémoire is any significant entity, whether material or nonmaterial in nature [my emphasis], which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community’. 44 It is hard to say exactly what this group of epitaphs contained over the course of time. Other epitaphs in the group were probably altered at one point or another. See Flower 2006, 56–7 and n. 45 for further references; Tatum 1988. 45 Lieux de mémoire only emerge when ‘there are no longer milieux de mémoire, real environments of memory’ (Nora 1989, 7). 46 Cf. other ‘unknowns’ named Achilles: GV 353; 393; 443 (to a gladiator, ‘who overcame many with his bloody hands’); 1104; 1806, etc. 47 Burgess 2009, 111. 48 Burgess 2009, 112; Cf. Hupe 2006. For a shrine to Achilles in Thera, see Sigalas and Matthaiou 2000–3 (and SEG LI 1031–46). 49 Although fame of this type, as Hardie 2012 shows in detail, always wavers between ‘renown’ and ‘rumour’. 50 See Burgess 2009, 111–131. Catalogue of dedicatory inscriptions to Achilles Pontarches: Hupe 2006, 215–33. 51 For discussion, see Boyle 1993, 233; Henderson 2002, 116–7. Translation: Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 62. 52 See n. 1, above. 53 Servius Aen. 3.349; cf. Tacitus, Dial. 13, 20. Macrobius, Sat. 1.24.13; etc. 54 Laird 2009, 7. 37

Bibliography Armstrong, H. H. 1910 Autobiographical Elements in Latin Inscriptions, Baltimore. Austin, J. L. 1962 How to Do Things with Words, Cambridge, Mass. Bayer, K. 2002 Suetons Vergilvita: Versuch einer Rekonstruktion, Tübingen. Bodel, J. 2001 ‘Epigraphy and the Ancient Historian’, in id., ed., Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from inscriptions, London and New York, 1–58.

66

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph Boyle, A. 1993 Roman Epic, New York. Brugnoli, G. and Naumann, H. 1990 ‘Vitae Vergilianae’, in F. Della Corte, ed., Enciclopedia Virgiliana, Rome, vol. 5, 570–88. Brugnoli, G. and Stok, F. 1997 Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, Rome. Bücheler, F. and Lommatzsch, E. 1930 Carmina Latina epigraphica, Leipzig. Burgess, J. 2009 The Death and Afterlife of Achilles, Baltimore. Cairns, D. and Scodel, R., eds 2014 Defining Greek Narrative, Edinburgh. Capasso, M. 1983 Il Sepolcro di Virgilio, Naples. Coarelli, F. 1972 ‘Il sepolcro degli Scipioni’, Dialoghi di Archeologia 6, 36–106. 2007 Rome and Environs: An archaeological guide, Berkeley. Courtney, E. 1993 The Fragmentary Latin Poets, Oxford. 1995 Musa Lapidaria: A selection of Latin verse inscriptions, Atlanta. Cox, P. 1983 Biography in Late Antiquity: A quest for the Holy Man, Berkeley. Cugusi, P. 1996 Aspetti letterari dei Carmina Latina epigraphica, Bologna. Day, J. W. 1989 ‘Rituals in stone: early Greek grave epigrams and monuments’, JHS 109, 16–28. Della Corte, M. 1933 ‘Le iscrizioni graffite della ‘Basilica degli Argentari’ sul Foro di Giulio Cesare’, Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 61, 111–30. Eagleton, T. 1993 ‘First Class Fellow Traveller (review of French, S., Patrick Hamilton: A Life, 1993)’, London Review of Books 15, 12. Easterling, P. E. 2014 ‘Narrative on the Greek tragic stage’, in D. Cairns and R. Scodel, eds, Defining Greek Narrative, Edinburgh. Engström, E. 1912 Carmina Latina epigraphica post editam collectionem Büchelerianam in lucem prolata, Gothenburg. Flower, H. 2006 The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and oblivion in Roman political culture, Chapel Hill. Friedländer, P. 1948 Epigrammata. Greek Inscriptions in Verse: From the beginnings to the Persian Wars, Berkeley.

67

Ahuvia Kahane Fringes, I. 1998 ‘Mantua me genuit – Vergils Grabepigramm auf Stein und Pergament’, ZPE 123, 89–100. Gallatier, E. 1922 Étude sur la poésie funéraire romaine d’après les inscriptions, Paris. Garrod, H. W. 1913 ‘The epitaph of Helvia Prima’, CQ 7, 58. Giddens, A. 1991 Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford. Hägg, T. 2012 The Art of Biography in Antiquity, Cambridge. Hardie, P. 2012 Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western literature, Cambridge. Harrison, S. J. 2007 Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace, Oxford. Haverling, G. 2002 ‘On the semantic functions of the Latin Perfect’, in M. A. Bolkestein, C. H. M. Kroon, H. Pinkster, H. W. Remmelink and R. Risselada, eds, Theory and Description in Latin Linguistics: Selected papers from the 11th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Amsterdam, 153–67. Henderson, J. 2002 Pliny’s Statue: The Letters, self-portraiture & Classical art, Exeter. Hersch, K. K. 2010 ‘The Woolworker Bride’, in L. Larsson Lovén and A. Strömberg, eds, Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality, Cambridge, 122–35. Holroyd, M. 2003 Works On Paper: The craft of biography and autobiography, London. Hoogma, R. P. 1959 Der Einfluss Vergils auf die Carmina Latina epigraphica, Amsterdam. Horsfall, N. M. 1995a ‘Virgil: His Life and Times’, in id., ed., A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Leiden, 1–27. 1995b ‘Virgil’s impact at Rome: the non-literary evidence,’ in id., ed., A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Leiden, 249–55. Hupe, J., ed. 2006 Der Achilleuskult im nördlichen Schwartzmeerraum vom Beginn der griechischen Kolonisation bis in die römische Kaiserzeit. Beiträge zur Akkulturationsforschung, Rahden. Jauss, H. R. 1970 ‘Literary history as a challenge to literary theory’, New Literary History 2, 7–37. Kahane, A. 2012 Homer: A guide for the perplexed, London. Kaibel, G. 1878 Epigrammata graeca ex lapidibus conlecta, Berlin. Kennedy, D. 2013 Antiquity and the Meanings of Time: A philosophy of ancient and modern literature, London.

68

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph Kleiner, D. E. E. and Matheson, S. B. 2000 ‘ “Her Parents Gave her the Name Claudia”’ in D. E. E. Kleiner and S. B. Matheson, eds, I, Claudia II: Women in Roman art and society, Austin, 1–16. Krauss, C. S. 2005 ‘Historiography and biography’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., A Companion to Latin Literature, Malden, 241–56. Kripke, S. A. 1980 Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, Mass. Kroll, W. 1924 Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur, Stuttgart. Laird, A. 2009 ‘Virgil: reception and the myth of biography’, CentoPagine 3, 1–9. Landrea, C. 2011 ‘M. Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messallinus: un noble sous les julio-claudiens’, Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome 123, 557–79. Lattimore, R. A. 1942 Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs, Urbana. Lausberg, M. 1982 Das Einzeldistichon: Studien zum antiken Epigramm, Munich. Lee, H. 2009 Biography: A very short introduction, Oxford. Lissberger, E. 1934 ‘Das Fortleben der römischen Elegiker in den carmina epigraphica’, Dissertation, Tübingen. Lyons, J. 1995 Linguistic Semantics: An introduction, Cambridge. Massaro, M. 1992 Epigrafia Metrica Latina di Età Repubblicana, Bari. Mayer, M., Miró, M. and Velaza, J. 1998 Litterae in titulis, tituli in litteris: elements per a l’estudi de la interacció entre epigrafia e literatura en el món Romà, Barcelona. McAuley, M. 2016 Reproducing Rome: Motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Statius, Oxford. Merkelbach, R. and Stauber, J. 1998–2005 Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten, Munich and Leipzig. Möller, A. and Luraghi, N. 1995 ‘Time in the writing of history: perceptions and structures’, Storia della storiografia 28, 3–15. Momigliano, A. 1993 The Development of Greek Biography, Cambridge, Mass. Naumann, H. 1981 ‘Suetonius’ Life of Virgil: the present state of the question’, HSCP 85, 185–7. Nora, P. 1989 ‘Between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire’, Representations 26, 7–25. 1996 ‘From lieux de mémoire to realms of memory’, in id. and L. D. Kritzman, eds,

69

Ahuvia Kahane Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French past, New York and Chichester, Vol. 1. Paratore, E. 2007 Una nuova ricostruzione del ‘De poetis’ di Suetonio, Urbino. Pease, A. S. 1940 ‘Mantua Me Genuit ’, CP 35, 180–82. Peek, W. 1955 Griechische Vers-Inschriften, Berlin. 1957 Verzeichnis der Gedicht-Anfäng und vergleichende Übersicht zu den griechischen VersInschriften I, Berlin. Peradotto, J. 1990 Man in the Middle Voice: Name and narration in the Odyssey, Princeton. Pinkster, H. 2015 The Oxford Latin Syntax, Oxford. Pociña, A. 1988 ‘Hilar, parir y llorar: los elogia de Claudia, Helvia Prima y Eucaris’, in A. Pociña and J. Garcia González, eds, Studia graecolatina Carmen Sanmillán in memoriam dicata, Granada, 349–61. Popova, Z. 1968 ‘Pour dater les Carmina Latina epigraphica – Buecheler 990, 55 et 960’, Eirene 7, 57–66. Power, T. and Gibson, R. K. eds 2014 Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives, Oxford. Purves, A. C. 2010 Space and Time in Early Greek Narrative, Cambridge. Putnam, M. 2010 ‘Some Virgilian unities’, in P. Hardie and H. Moore, eds, Classical Literary Careers and their Reception, Cambridge, 17–39. Riese, A. 1906 Anthologia Latina I 2 [2], Leipzig. Robert, H. 1948 Hellenica: recueil d’épigraphie, de numismatique et d’antiquités grecques. Vol. IV, Epigrammes du Bas-Empire, Paris. Schwindt, J. P., ed. 2005 La représentation du temps dans la poésie augustéenne/Zur Poetik der Zeit in augusteischer Dichtung, Heidelberg. Scodel, R. 1992 ‘Inscription, absence and memory: epic and early epitaph’, Studi Italiani di filologia classica 10, 57–76. Shelton, J. A. 1988 As the Romans Did: A sourcebook in Roman social history, Oxford. Sigalas, C. I. and Matthaiou, A. P. 2000–3 ‘Ἐνεπίγραφα ὄστρακα ἀπὸ τὸ Ἡρῷον τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως στὴν Θήρα’, Horos 14–16, 259–68. Stok, F. 2010 ‘The Life of Vergil before Donatus’, in J. Farrell and M. C. J. Putnam, eds, A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and Its Tradition, Oxford, 106–20.

70

Biography and Virgil’s epitaph Suerbaum, W. 1997 ‘Denkmalschändung einer stolzen Römerin? Zu einer Neuinterpretation des Epitaphs für Claudia’, Anregung: Zeitschrift für Gymnasialpädagogik 43, 366–80. Swain, S. 1997 ‘Biography and biographic in the literature of the Roman Empire’, in M. W. Edwards and S. Swain, eds, Portraits: Biographical representations in the Greek and Latin literature of the Roman Empire, Oxford, 1–38. Tatum, W. J. 1988 ‘The epitaph of Publius Scipio reconsidered’, CQ 38, 253–8. Tillyard, S. 2008 ‘Biography and modernity: some thoughts on origins’, in K. Sharpe and S. N. Zwicker, eds, Writing Lives: Biography and textuality, identity and representation in Early Modern England, Oxford, 29–34. Torregaray, E. P. 1998 La elaboración de la tradición sobre los Cornelii Scipiones: Pasado histórico y conformación simbólica, Zaragoza. Trapp, J. B. 1984 ‘The Grave of Vergil’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 47, 1–31. Tsagalis, C. 2008 Inscribing Sorrow: Fourth-century Attic funerary epigrams, Berlin. Tucker, R. A. 1991 ‘The alleged Neronian epitaph for Lucan’, Latomus 50, 176–83. Van Buren, A. W. 1934 ‘News items from Rome’, AJA 38, 477–90. Van Sickle, J. B. 1987 ‘The elogia of the Cornelii Scipiones and the origin of epigram at Rome’, AJPh 108, 41–55. Vérilhac, A.-M. 1978–82 Paides aôroi. Poésie funéraire, Athens. Vout, C. 2008 ‘The funerary altar of Pedana’, in J. Elsner and M. Meyer, eds, Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, Oxford, 288–315. Wachter, R. 1987 Altlateinische Inschriften: Sprachliche und epigraphische Untersuchungen zu den Dokumenten bis etwa 150 v. Chr., Berne. Walker, K. G. 2004 Archaic Eretria: A political and social history from the earliest times to 490 BC, London and New York. Warmington, E. H. 1940 Remains of Old Latin, Vol IV: Archaic Inscriptions, Cambridge, Mass. Willems, I. 2011 ‘Eine perfekte Frau? Die Grabinschrift der Claudia und ihre Einsatzmöglichkeiten im Unterricht’, Der altsprachlische Unterricht: Latein, Griechisch 54, 24–30. Zerubavel, E. 2003 Time Maps: Collective memory and the social shape of the past, Chicago.

71

Ziolkowski, J. M. and Putnam, M. 2008 The Virgilian Tradition: The first fifteen hundred years, New Haven.

72

4 THE VITA PHOCAE: LITERARY CONTEXT AND TEXTURE Stephen Harrison 1. Introduction This chapter considers the literary texture and affinities of the comparatively neglected Vita Phocae, the only surviving metrical life of Vergil, written in late antiquity in 107 Latin hexameters, prefaced by six Sapphic stanzas; it argues that the Vita has considerable intrinsic interest as a highly allusive poetic text, and that it can be related in intriguing ways to various other literary forms of its period, especially as a verse version of a type of text normally composed in prose. The main part of what follows will consist of a commentary on the poem (with translation) which brings out its sources and literary connections, followed by a conclusion which considers its place in late antique literary history.1 2. The Vita Phocae 2 The Vita (as I shall call it) is preserved in a single ninth-century manuscript (Paris, Bibl.Nat. cod.lat. 8093)3 and seems to derive most of its material from the prose Vita Donati (VD henceforward), with some use of other versions.4 Its attribution in the manuscript to Phocas, a grammaticus known to have been working in Rome at the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries CE,5 seems plausible enough.6 To this same author is attributed a work Ars de nomine et verbo (GLK 5.410–39), which uses Andrus and Petrus as examples, apostolic names which suggest Christian affinities;7 the profession of grammaticus fits both the learned level and the paraphrastic aspect of the Vita, though we still do not know whether verse composition in general or verse paraphrase of prose texts in particular featured significantly in Roman education.8 It is prefaced by six Sapphic stanzas, which are unfortunately omitted in the only modern edition in a major text series,9 but provide a useful index of the high cultural level of the author with many literary allusions, which match those of the Vita; there is no reason to believe the Vita and the preface are not by the same hand, especially since Phocas’ grammatical treatise Ars de nomine et verbo (above) has a verse preface in six elegiac couplets (one of its hexameters is alluded to in line 7 of the Sapphic

73

Stephen Harrison preface, see my commentary below). Sapphics are an unusually ambitious metrical choice for such a function, showing that the author can imitate not only the hexameters of Vergil in the main text of the Vita, but also a key metre of Horace in its preface, thus recalling the two greatest Augustan poets. I now give a complete text of the Vita and its preface with accompanying translation and annotation listing selected sources, followed by discursive discussion drawing some conclusions from this data.10 The following notations of the sources have particular significance: material marked in bold indicates an exact or close verbal parallel, material which is underlined does not occur in Brugnoli’s commentary, while material which is marked with an initial asterisk (*) occurs in the same metrical position. For convenience, the Sapphic preface is dealt with separately first, then the main hexameter text in appropriate sections. Preface o vetustatis memoranda custos, regios actus simul et fugaces temporum cursus docilis referre, aurea Clio, tu nihil magnum sinis interire, nil mori clarum pateris, reseruans posteris prisci monumenta saecli condita libris.

Guardian of antiquity deserving of praise, Skilled at reporting the acts of kings And the fleeting courses of time, Golden Clio, You permit nothing great to pass away, 5 Allow nothing famous to perish, saving The remembrances of the past age for future men, Preserved in books. sola fucatis uariare dictis You alone cannot colour your pages paginas nescis, sed aperta quicquid With words of deception, but whatever 10 ueritas prodit, recinis per aeuum Open truth brings forth, you re-echo simplice lingua. for ever With unlying tongue. tu senescentes titulos auorum You repair the fading honours of ancestors flore durantis reparas iuuentae, With the flourishing of lasting youth, militat uirtus tibi, te notante Virtue fights battles for you, at your crimina pallent. denunciation 15 Crimes grow pale. tu fori turbas strepitusque litis You escape the crowds of the forum and the din effugis dulci moderata cantu, Of the court, being well-shaped by sweet singing, nec retardari pateris loquellas Nor do you permit speech to be slowed compede metri. By the fetters of metre. 20 his faue dictis! retegenda uita est Favour these words! The life of the Etruscan poet uatis Etrusci modo, qui perenne is shortly to be revealed, he who has claimed Romulae uoci decus adrogauit Eternal glory for the speech of Romulus carmine sacro. Through sacred song.

74

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture Lucan 4.654 aevi velocis custos, famosa vetustas, Statius Thebaid 1.630–1 memor incipe Clio,/saecula te quoniam penes et digesta uetustas. 2 Terentianus Maurus de metris 2205 at qui cothurnis regios actus tenent 2–3 fugaces/temporum cursus: Horace Odes 2.14.1–2 fugaces.../...anni, 3.30.5 fuga temporum, Cicero Fam. 6.5.2 temporum cursus. docilis = doctus: Horace Odes 4.6.43–4 *docilis modorum/vatis Horati Horace Odes 1.12.2 Clio [similarly addressee of a Sapphic ode; for a further echo see 11 below] 5 Martial 8.38.10 nomen non sinis interire Blaesi 6 Martial 8.80.2 nec pateris, Caesar, saecula cana mori 6–7 Quintilian 3.7.18 ingeniorum monumenta quae saeculis probarentur, 11.1.10 posterorum se iudiciis reservans. 7 Manilius 1.729 = 4.542 saecula prisca Phocas Ars de nomine et verbo GLK 5.410.1 ars mea multorum est, quos saecula prisca tulerunt. 8 Apuleius Metamorphoses 1.1.9 glebae felices libris felicioribus conditae, Ausonius Ep. 8.23 tot saecula condita chartis. 10–11 Valerius Maximus 3.2.ext.9.15 veritas aperta 11 Horace Odes 1.12.3 cuius recinet* iocosa 12 Lucan 8.73 femina tantorum titulis insignis auorum 14 Cicero Div.1.17 [hexameter = De Cons.Suo 6.75] a flore iuventae, Rufinus Hist. Mon.1 florem...reparare gratissimae iuventutis 16 Statius Silvae 5.2.100 palleret crimine 17 Horace Odes 3.29.12 strepitumque Romae, Cicero Brutus 317 forique strepitus, Seneca Dial. 6.26.41 fora litibus strepere 18 Cicero De Oratore 2.34 qui enim cantus moderata oratione dulcior inveniri potest? 20 Horace Odes 4.11.24 compede vinctum* 21 Ovid Ex Ponto 3.3.95 si dubitem faveas quin his, O Maxime, dictis 22–3 Horace Odes 3.25.3 aeternum meditans decus 23 Horace Carmen Saeculare 47 Romulae genti*, Odes 4.14.40 decus arrogavit 24 Horace Odes 3.11.24 carmine mulces*, 4.11.35 carmine curae*, Carmen Saeculare 4 tempore sacro*, Ovid Remedia 252 sacro carmine. 1

Horace’s Sapphic lyrics (unsurprisingly) are the most evident models, especially for phrases used in the same metrical position (see notes on 2–3, 4, 11, 20, 23, 24); the poem also is fully Horatian in its metrical practice, e.g. placing of caesurae after the fifth syllable of the Sapphic hendecasyllable in every line, limited elision (only one example in 24 lines here at line 21; cf. e.g. Odes 1.10, two in twenty lines). Two consecutive stanzas begin with tu, just as in the similarly hymnic Odes 2.19 and 3.21. The classical authors cited are those which were regularly read in late antiquity: Cicero, Ovid, Lucan (but no Vergil, reserved for the main hexameter part), Martial and Statius; possible echoes of Manilius and Apuleius show a broader range of reading which would suit a grammaticus. More interesting are the indicators of late antique date: the citation of the

75

Stephen Harrison second-century grammarian Terentianus Maurus (2; another trace of Phocas’ profession?), the likely citation of Ausonius (8), and that of the Christian writer Rufinus of Aquileia from the second half of the fourth century (14), as well as the phrase shared with Phocas’ own grammatical work (7). The language is resolutely classical in this preface, with no evidently late usages. This invocation to Clio identifies her as the muse of historical prose; that this was usual at the time of the Vita seems clear from the first of the nine late antique hexameters on the functions of the nine muses found in the Codex Salmasianus and attributed to Florus: Clio saecla retro memorat sermone soluto, ‘Clio tells of the ages looking backwards in prose discourse’.11 In classical poetry Clio can be addressed as the recorder of supposedly historically important events (Horace Odes 1.12.2, Ovid Fasti 6.801, Valerius Flaccus 3.14, Statius Thebaid 10.630–1 memor incipe Clio,/ saecula te quoniam penes et digesta uetustas, possibly echoed here). Here, however, the address in a verse work of a muse clearly perceived in late antiquity as belonging to prose would seem to point to the unusual generic move made by the Vita in conveying the established ‘historic’ prose material of Vergilian biography in a new form of hexameter verse. As we shall see at the end of this paper, this is a move parallel to contemporary late antique biblical epics, which likewise transform traditional prose materials into hexameter form. The characterisation of Clio as not allowing speech to be trammelled by the fetters of metre (20 compede metri ), while recalling Horace’s famous comments in a similarly Sapphic ode on Pindar’s supposed freedom from metrical constraint (Odes 4.2.11–12 numerisque fertur/lege solutis), also suggests the exceptional paraphrastic enterprise in the Vita of turning prose into verse; this modification is also perhaps suggested by the apparent citation in line 2 of Terentianus Maurus’ secondcentury hexameter treatise on metre, another example of a traditional prose subject unusually turned into verse. The suggestions that Clio does not use deliberate distortion (9 fucatis dictis) and keeps away from the din of the forum’s courts (17 fori turbas strepitusque litis) point to another literary genre, that of forensic oratory, contrasting the two in the matter of content and function: history is expected to recount events truthfully, oratory to manipulate them for its own purposes.12 This contrast is perhaps confirmed by the citation of Cicero’s De Oratore at line 18: the great orator’s claim that nothing is more musically charming than oratory is here counteracted by the notion that this musical charm belongs to Clio’s genre of history. I now turn to the main hexameter section of the Vita. As already suggested, the Vita Donati (VD) seems to be the main source, though other

76

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture Vergilian lives and commentaries are used (fully documented by Brugnoli), and we can conveniently set the contents of the Vita against its material: 1–5 6–19 20–38 39–67 68–89 90–101 102–107

rhetorical praise of Vergil parentage and pre-birth omens ~ VD 1–5 birth and surrounding omens ~ VD 1–5 education and coming to Rome ~ VD 14–19 the beginning of his poetic career ~ VD 25, 58–66 his poems in order ~ VD 19–21, 25 final journey and illness ~ VD 35

As we shall see below, the Vita is certainly transmitted in an incomplete state and surely included the poet’s death in its original form. 1–5 rhetorical praise of Vergil Maeonii specimen uatis ueneranda Maronem Mantua Romuleae generauit flumina linguae. quis facunda tuos toleraret, Graecia, fastus, quis tantum eloquii potuisset ferre tumorem, aemula Vergilium tellus nisi Tusca dedisset?

5

Honoured Mantua bore Maro as the model of a Homeric poet, Streams of the tongue of Romulus. Who would endure your disdain, eloquent Greece, Who could have borne such pride of discourse, Were it not that the Tuscan land in rivalry had given us Vergil? 1 2 3 4 5

Ovid Tristia 1.6.21 Maeonium vatem [of Vergil]; Maeonia/o* Vergil Aeneid 4.216, 9.456, Maronem* Statius Silvae 2.6.20, Juvenal 6.436, Martial 14.186.1 VD 36 Mantua* me genuit, Sapphic preface (above) 23 Romulae voci, (Romuleus found at Vergil Aeneid 8.654), [Tibullus] 3.6.39 Cnosia, Theseae quondam periuria linguae*. Ovid Fasti 3.102 Graecia, facundum sed male forte genus, Vergil Aeneid 11.287 Dardanus et versis lugeret Graecia* fatis, Grattius Cynegetica 319 et sequeris demens alienam, Graecia,* culpam. Silius Punica 15.689 tantosque in corde tumores Tibullus 1.7.57 Tuscula tellus

Here the syntax of lines 1–2 seems strange, as the translation shows: Mantua ought to be the parent of both Maro and his streams of eloquence, and the plural flumina (even if poetic) appears odd in apposition with the singular Maronem. But flumina seems to be confirmed by the evident source in Columella (1 pr.30, on the eloquence of Homer) nec parens eloquentiae deus ille Maeonius uastissimis fluminibus facundiae suae posteritatis studia restinxerat.13 Vergilian echoes begin here, along with a recall of the opening hexameter of the supposed epitaph of Vergil in the VD (line 2; the full original runs

77

Stephen Harrison Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc/Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces). The sequence of tenses in 3–5 is inconsistent: it would be worth considering tolerasset for toleraret, an easy error (for the same form see Livy 37.12.1, for pertolerasset Lucretius 5.316, for tolerasse Lucan 4.387). The rivalry with Greece14 suits the era of late antiquity and the division of the empire into Latin-speaking West and Greek-speaking East, and fits (as Brugnoli notes) with Phocas’ own views in his Ars de nomine et verbo (GLK 5.438.32–33), where he attacks the claims of Greeks that their language is richer: his etiam Graecorum iactantiam, si quam de copia sermonis exercent, refutamus, quod haec propria nequeunt explanare. 6–19 the poet’s parentage and omens before his birth huic genitor figulus Maro nomine; cultor agelli, ut referunt alii, tenui mercede locatus, sed plures figulum. quis non miracula rerum haec stupeat? dives partus de paupere vena enituit, figuli suboles nova carmina finxit. mater Polla fuit, Magii non infima proles, quem socerum probitas fecit laudata Maroni. haec cum maturo premeretur pondere ventris, ut solet in somnis animus ventura repingens anxius e vigili praesumere gaudia cura, Phoebei nemoris ramum fudisse putavit, O sopor indicium veri! nil certius umquam cornea porta tulit. facta est interprete lauro certa parens onerisque sui cognoverat artem.

10

15

His father was a potter, Maro by name, or a cultivator of the land, As others report, hired out for a small wage, But most say a potter. Who would not be astonished At such a miraculous turn of events? A rich issue shone forth from a poor vein, The scion of a potter invented new poems. His mother was Polla, the far from lowly issue of Magius, Whom his much-praised honesty made Maro’s father-in-law. She, when she was pressed by the weight of her belly at full term, Since the anxious mind, depicting things to come in dreams, Is used to anticipate joys from the worry of waking life, Thought that she had brought forth a branch of the grove of Apollo, O sleep-vision indicating truth! The gate of horn never Brought forth anything more certain. The mother was fully informed By the message of the bay, and realised the skill of the burden she bore. 6 8 9

Ovid Fasti 5.499 angusti cultor agelli* Vergil Georgics 4.441 miracula rerum* Ovid Ex Ponto 2.5.21 uena quod paupere manat

78

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture Vergil Eclogues 3.86 facit nova carmina, 4.49 deum suboles Vergil Aeneid 6.322 deum certissima proles* Juvenal 1.74 probitas laudatur et alget Ovid Metamorphoses 9.685 maturo pondere ventrem Lucretius 4.1097 ut bibere in somnis* ut solet* Ovid, often Ovid Metamorphoses 15.65 vigili perspexerat omnia cura, Juvenal 6.189 gaudia curas*, repingo first here in Latin, later twice in Venantius Fortunatus. 16 Statius Thebaid 3.353 Bebrycii nemoris* 18 Vergil Aeneid 6.893–4 portae ...quarum altera fertur/cornea 19 Ovid Metamorphoses 6.148 cognoverat illam*

10 11 12 13 14 15

In lines 6–7 English translation requires ‘or’, but the asyndeton expressing an alternative seems acceptable in Latin, especially with a semi-colon preceding.15 In these lines generally we see some classicising elements of elegant word-order and euphony: for example, the two verbs symmetrically enclosing line 10 (a Vergilian technique: cf. e.g. Eclogues 1.29, Georgics 4.36, Aeneid 1.402), or the alliterative pairing premeretur pondere in line 13 (cf. e.g. Panegyricus Messallae 41 iusta pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra). We find much the same range of classical authors as before: Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Statius, Juvenal, with the addition of Lucretius (who will appear again) and one item of late antique vocabulary (repingo, otherwise first found in Venantius (Vita Martini 1.170, 1.245) in the sixth century). Some adaptations are neat and/or ironic: the metal-mining metaphor of lines 9– 10 successfully reworks its Ovidian original where vena refers to a water-channel, while the nova carmina of line 10 ascribe to Vergil what he had equally encomiastically ascribed to Pollio, and in line 12 Juvenal’s famous apophthegm about virtues being praised but neglected is inverted: Magius’ virtue is indeed praised and thus attracts a son-in-law in Vergil’s humble but discriminating father Maro. The reference to the gate of horn of Aeneid 6 and its connection with true rather than false visions is Phocas’ own contribution; all the other material is recognisable from VD. 20–38 the poet’s birth and surrounding omens consule Pompeio vitalibus editus auris et Crasso tetigit terras, quo tempore Chelas iam mitis Phaethon post Virginis ora receptat. infantem vagisse negant; nam fronte serena conspexit mundum, cui commoda tanta ferebat. ipse puerperiis adrisit laetior orbis; terra ministravit flores et munere verno herbida supposuit puero fulmenta virescens. praeterea si vera fides (sed vera probatur), laeta cohors apium subito per rura iacentis

79

20

25

Stephen Harrison labra favis texit dulces fusura loquelas. hoc quondam in sacro tantum mirata Platone indicium linguae memorat famosa vetustas. sed Natura parens properans extollere Romam et Latio dedit hoc, ne quid concederet uni. insuper his genitor, nati dum fata requirit, populeam sterili virgam mandavit harenae, tempore quae nutrita brevi dum crescit in omen, altior emicuit cunctis, quas auxerat aetas.

30

35

Produced to the life-giving breezes in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus He touched the earth at the time when the Sun, now mild, Receives the Scorpion’s Claws behind the face of Virgo. They say that as a baby he did not wail: for it was with serene brow That he saw the universe, to which he was bringing such great benefits. The world itself smiled with greater joy at his coming to birth: The earth supplied flowers, and greening in the gift of spring Set a grassy support under the young boy. Further, if the assurance is true (and it is proved true indeed), A joyful band of bees suddenly arose in the country, and as he lay there, Covered with honeycomb the lips that were to pour out such sweet speech. Only long ago in the case of holy Plato does famous antiquity Admiringly tell of this indication of eloquence. But Mother Nature, hastening to extol Rome, Gave this benefit too to Latium, lest it make any gift to only one person. In addition to this his father, asking after his son’s destiny, Entrusted to the barren sand a branch of poplar, Which gained sustenance in a short time until it grew into a prodigy, And shone higher than all that age had made to grow. 20 21 22 23 25 26 27 28 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 38

Lucretius 3.405 vitalis suscipit auras, 3.577 = 5.857 vitalibus auris Manilius 5.119 quo tempore* natis [same theme of season of birth] Vergil Georgics 1.336 frigida Saturni sese quo stella receptet*. Vergil Aeneid 4.511 virginis ora, * Calpurnius Siculus 5.46 fronte serena* Petronius Satyrica 122.1.181 laetior orbe,* Ovid Metamorphoses 1.740 artior orbis* Vergil Aeneid 11.71 [florem] non iam mater alit tellus uirisque ministrat, Statius Thebaid 4.452 munera uerni* virescunt* Lucretius 1.252, Vergil Georgics 1.55 Lucan 1.192 si vera fides* Vergil Aeneid 5.842 funditque has ore loquelas Vergil Georgics 1.352 hoc quondam* Lucan 4.654 famosa vetustas (cf. preface line 1) Lucan 10.238 natura parens Ovid Ex Ponto 4.16.9 quique dedit Latio carmen regale, Seuerus Vergil Aeneid 10.800 genitor nati, 2.506 fata requiras* Vergil Georgics 1.70 sterilem ... harenam, Ovid Heroides 5.115 harenae...mandas Vergil Aeneid 8.162 cunctis altior ibat

80

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture Again there are some stylistic elegances, such as words of similar sound and shape beginning consecutive lines (29 laeta, 30 labra) and juxtaposed alliteration (38 auxerat aetas); one rare lexical item is found ( fulmentum, a prosaic word found in Varro and Vitruvius). The astronomical details in lines 21–22 are an addition to the prose lives, and (as Brugnoli notes) seem to be drawn from poetic sources, combining Vergil’s own suggested astral location for the similar Libra-born future Augustus (Georgics 1.33–4 qua locus Erigonen inter Chelasque sequentis/panditur) with Lucan 2.691–2 iam coeperat ultima Virgo/Phoebum laturas ortu praecedere Chelas, (where January seems to be described with autumnal astronomy),16 with Phaethon meaning ‘sun’ as at Aeneid 5.105; whatever receptat refers to astronomically (an issue I will not broach here), this verb is found (reflexively) in an astronomical context in the same metrical position in the Georgics (as noted on 22 above). This learned poetic colour is both appropriate to the verse form of the Vita and indicative of its likely educational context of composition. The baby’s remarkable lack of crying and the miraculous tree are established themes in the prose lives, but the spontaneous generation of flowers at the boy’s birth comes appropriately from Vergil’s own poetic work, the fourth Eclogue (4.18–20, 4.23, though with no close verbal parallels), thus making the poet’s own birth fulfil his own prophecy about the coming arrival of a special child (the Vergilian verbal echo here is actually from Aeneid 11, see on 26 above). As Brugnoli notes, the Vita is the only Vergilian life to apply to the poet the story about the application of honey to the baby’s lips usually told of Plato, but this anecdote is available in well-known Roman sources (most extensively in Cicero De Divinatione 1.78 At Platoni cum in cunis parvulo dormienti apes in labellis consedissent, responsum est singulari illum suavitate orationis fore, the likely source for the Vita; see also Valerius Maximus 1.6 ext.3, Pliny NH 11.55 for briefer versions). Neatly, the prophecy of the poet’s future eloquence echoes a Vergilian description of divine persuasive speech (Somnus to Palinurus in Aeneid 5: see on 30 above), and Nature’s gift of Vergil to Italy appropriately recalls Ovid’s description of the poet Cornelius Severus’ contribution to Roman literature (see on 34 above), while the miraculous height of the magic tree looks back to the height of Vergil’s heroic Anchises (see on 38 above). 39–66 the poet’s early education and coming to Rome Haec propter placuit puerum committere Musis Et monstrare uiam uicturae in saecula famae. Tum Ballista rudem lingua titubante receptum Instituit primus, quem nox armabat in umbris Grassari solitum. crimen doctrina tegebat; Mox patefacta viri pressa est audacia saxis.

81

40

Stephen Harrison Incidit titulum iuvenis, quo pignora vatis Edidit: auspiciis suffecit poena magistri. ‘Monte sub hoc lapidum tegitur Ballista sepultus; Nocte die tutum carpe viator iter.’ Nos tamen hoc brevius, si fas simulare Maronem: ‘Ballistam sua poena tegit; via tuta per umbras.’ [‘Hic Ballista iacet: certo pede perge viator’. ‘Carcere montoso clausus Ballista tenetur: Securi fraudis pergite nocte, viri.’ ‘Quid trepidas tandem gressu pavitante, viator? Nocturnum furem saxeus imber habet.’ ‘Ballistae vitam rapuit lapis, ipse sepulcrum Intulit; umbra nocens pendula saxa tremit’ ‘Crimina latronis dignissima poena coercet: Duritiam mentis damnat ubique lapis’.] Hinc Culicis tenui praelusit funera versu: ‘Parve culex, pecudum custos tibi tale merenti Funeris officium vitae pro munere reddit’. Tum tibi Sironem, Maro, contulit ipsa magistrum Roma potens proceresque suos tibi iunxit amicos. Pollio Maecenas Varus Cornelius ardent; Te sibi quisque rapit, per te victurus in aevum.

45

50

55

60

65

It was on account of this that it was decided to entrust the boy to the Muses And to show him the way to a fame that would live into future ages. Then Ballista took him all uncouth with halting tongue And taught him first, Ballista whom each night armed in the shadows, A habitual robber – his learning was concealment for his crimes; In time this man’s daring was suppressed by stoning. The young man inscribed an epitaph, in which he showed The makings of a poet: the punishment of his master was sufficient initial impetus. ‘Ballista is covered in burial under this mound of stones: Make your way safely by night and day, traveller’. But we will do this more briefly, if it is right to do a version of Vergil: ‘Ballista is covered by his punishment; the way is safe through the shadows’. [‘Ballista lies here: carry on with secure foot, traveller’. ‘Ballista is held shut in a mountainous prison: Carry on by night free from ambush, men’. ‘Why do you tremble with fearful step, traveller? A stone shower holds the nocturnal thief’. ‘A stone took away the life of Ballista, and itself Piled on him his tomb: his guilty ghost trembles at overhanging rocks’. ‘A most just penalty constrains the crimes of the bandit: Rock all around condemns the hardness of his mind’]. After this he wrote in prefatory manner about the death of the Gnat in slim verse:

82

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture ‘Little gnat, the guardian of the sheep renders to you who deserve this The service of a funeral in return for the gift of life’. Then, Maro, mighty Rome itself gave you Siro as master And joined its leading men to you as friends. Pollio, Maecenas, Varus and Cornelius Gallus are all aflame: Each takes you for himself, destined to live for ever through you. Lucan 1.584 haec propter* Juvenal 14.3 monstrare uias* Lucan 8.74 mansurae in saecula famae [8.73 is cited in Vita preface 12, see above] 41 Ovid Tristia 3.1.21 lingua titubante locutus* 44 Statius Silvae 5.3.49 audacia saxa* 48 [Ovid] Nux 136 carpe, viator, holus* 50 Vergil Aeneid 10.819 uita per auras* 60 Culex 35 tenui decurrens carmina uersu 62–63 = Culex 413–14 [the last two lines of the poem] 64 Horace Epistles 2.1.61 Roma potens 39 40

This section contains relatively fewer obvious allusions to classical Latin texts, apart from the quotation of and allusion to the Culex (thought Vergilian in late antiquity)17 in lines 60–62; there are again euphonic features such as alliteration (39 propter placuit puerum, 40 uiam uicturae). The material about the poet’s supposed bandit-tutor Ballista comes from VD, as does his epitaph in an elegiac couplet, with its original metre preserved amid the surrounding hexameters (47–8 = VD 17). This metrical mix is unusual indeed and not to be found in standard classical authors; in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, notionally inscribed distich epitaphs which would most naturally have been in elegiacs are automatically presented in the poem’s normal hexameters (2.327–8, 14.443–4). Some imperial Roman epitaphs of high literary level, however, do mix hexameters with occasional elegiac couplets (cf. e.g. Courtney 1995, 177, 189, 193), and this similar metrical combination is perhaps a reminder that we are dealing with a text from late antiquity. I also agree with all modern editors that although the elegiac couplet of lines 47–8 is genuinely part of the Vita, being selfconsciously rendered in line 50 into the ‘correct’ hexameter metre for the poem, the further hexameter version and four elegiac couplets in lines 51–59 are interpolated: they provide alternative versions of the epitaph of 47–8 already found in 50, and are inappropriate in the context. Here we may again see the influence of late antique literary culture. We know from the poems of various earlier dates collected in the sixth-century Codex Salmasianus that writing such variant versions of epitaphs was a common exercise: for example, we have five versions of elegiac epitaphs for Pompey, four of which are distichs (Anthologia Latina 396–400 SB), while the original version of the Ballista epitaph itself appears (255 SB) amongst

83

Stephen Harrison a series of non-epitaph elegiac distichs of various kinds hopefully attributed to Vergil in the same collection (250–57 SB). It looks as if a copyist has incorporated a similar sequence of variations into the text of the Vita as added alternatives for the rewriting of lines 47–8 in line 50. In line 60 praelusit we have a possible allusion to the prose preface to the first book of Statius’ Silvae, where the poet justifies his lighter work as a prelude to the Thebaid by reference to the Culex as a prelude to the Aeneid: sed et Culicem legimus et Batrachomachiam etiam agnoscimus, nec quisquam est inlustrium poetarum qui non aliquid operibus suis stilo remissiore praeluserit; both passages have praeludo with an internal accusative indicating the prefatory work. The hexameter quotation of the last two lines of the Culex is also drawn from the prose life tradition (61–2 = Culex 412–13 = VD 18), as are the mentions of Siro and the patrons of line 65 (VD 19). 67–89 the beginnings of the poet’s literary career Musa refer: quae causa fuit componere libros? Sumpserat Augustus rerum moderamina princeps. Iam necis ultor erat patriae, iam caede priorum Perfusos acies legitur visura Philippos. Cassius hic Magni vindex et Brutus in armis Intereunt. victor nondum contentus opimis Emeritas belli spoliis ditasse cohortes, Proscripsit miserae florentia rura Cremonae Totaque militibus pretium concessa laborum Praeda fuit: violenta manus bacchata per agros. Non flatus, non tela Iovis, non spumeus amnis, Non imbres rapidi, quantum manus impia, vastant. Mantua tu coniuncta loco sociata periclis; Non tamen ob meritum miseram vicinia fecit. Iam Maro pulsus erat, sed viribus obvius ibat Fretus amicorum clipeo, cum paene nefando Ense perit. quid, dextra, furis? quid viscera Romae Sacrilego mucrone petis? tua bella tacebit Posteritas ipsumque ducem nisi Mantua dicat! Non tulit hanc rabiem doctissima turba potentum. Itur ad auctorem rerum: quid Martius horror Egerit, ostendunt qui tam miseranda tulisset, Caesaris huic placido nutu repetuntur agelli. Muse, tell us: what was the reason for composing his books? Augustus had taken up the direction of affairs as chief citizen, He was already the avenger of his father’s murder, already An army was being chosen which was destined to see Philippi soaked with the blood of earlier victims. Here Cassius, avenger of Pompey, and Brutus perished

84

70

75

80

85

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture In battle. The victor, not yet content to have enriched his retired troops With the richest spoils of war, proscribed the flourishing country of poor Cremona And the whole place was given to soldiers as a reward for their labours As plunder; a violent band raged through the fields. Not winds, not the weapons of Jupiter, not a foaming river, Not rapid downpours wreak such destruction as this impious band. Mantua, you, being linked in location, were part of its perils; It was not by your deserving that vicinity made you miserable. Vergil was already driven out, but he opposed that force Relying on the shield of his friends, when he almost perished By a wicked sword. Why do you rage, right hand? Why do you Seek Rome’s vitals with your sacrilegious sword? Posterity Will be silent about your wars, and your general himself, unless Mantua proclaims you! That most cultured band of influential people did not endure this madness: They went to the master of the state, showing what the horror of war Had done, and exactly who he was who had endured such miserable treatment. At Caesar’s favouring nod the poet’s fields were recovered for him. 67 Horace Epistles 1.8.2 Musa rogata refer, Vergil Aeneid 1.8 Musa, mihi causas memora, 10.90 quae causa fuit* 69 Silius Punica 4.111 caede priorum* 70 Vergil Georgics 1.490 Romanas acies iterum uidere Philippi 73 Horace Epodes 17.60 ditasse [the only classical example of this form] 74 Vergil Eclogues 9.28 miserae...Cremonae, * Germanicus Aratea 141 florentia rura 76 Ovid Tristia 2.106 praeda fuit*, Vergil Aeneid 10.41 bacchata per urbes 77 Lucan 7.197 tela Iouis*, Vergil Aeneid 2.496 spumeus amnis* 78 Statius Thebaid 5.190 manus impia* 79 Vergil Eclogues 9.28 Mantua uae miserae nimium uicina Cremonae 81 Vergil Aeneid 9.431 sed uiribus* 82 Vergil Georgics 1.278 nefando* 83 Lucan 8.556 quid uiscera nostra* 86 Vergil Aeneid 2.407 non tulit hanc speciem * 89 Vergil Eclogues 9.3 agelli*

Stylistic ornament is again evident: in 70 we find a line-enclosing alliterative noun-adjective pair (perfusos...Philippos), and a non-alliterative pair in the same position in line 73 (emeritas...cohortes); such pairings are a mark of the neoteric hexameter style of Catullus 64 and Eclogue 4, no doubt derived from the latter (cf. 4.4, 4.5, 4.17, 4.21, 4.47) given the Eclogues context here and the fact that we find no secure imitations of Catullan hexameters elsewhere in the Vita. We also find four-fold rhetorical anaphora of non (77–8) and alliteration of similarly shaped words (80 meritum miseram).

85

Stephen Harrison The Vita’s choice to explore here in detail the historical background of the Eclogues (rather than that of later works) reflects a similar emphasis in an extensive separate section of VD (58–66), and follows its information closely (see Brugnoli). Unsurprisingly, the Eclogues provide some of the language here as well as the subject-matter; noteworthy also is the citation of Germanicus’ Aratea, a rarer poem which nevertheless found readers in late antiquity (cf. e.g. Lactantius Institutes 1.21.28, 5.5.4). As Brugnoli notes, the metaphor of the ‘shield of friends’ may echo an early Christian transferred use, deriving ultimately from the Vulgate (Psalms 90[91].5 scuto circumdabit te veritas eius, Eph. 6.16 in omnibus sumentes scutum fidei; cf. Tertullian De Patientia 14 clipeoque patientiae, Cyprian Epistles 30.6 fidei...clipeum, TLL 3.1351.74–1352.10). Though these examples are all coupled with abstract nouns in the genitive rather than a collective plural, it is not impossible that this is a rare trace of Christian discourse in the Vita. 89–101 his major poetic works in order His auctus meritis cum digna rependere vellet, Invenit carmen, quo munera vincere posset. Praedia dat Caesar, quorum brevis usus habendi: Obtulit hic laudes, quas saecula nulla silescunt. Pastores cecinit primos. hoc carmine consul Pollio laudatur ter se revocantibus annis Composito. post haec ruris praecepta colendi Quattuor exposuit libris et commoda terrae Edocuit geminis anno minus omnia lustris. Inde cothurnato Teucrorum proelia versu Et Rutulum tonuit. bis sena volumina sacro Formavit donanda duci trieteride quarta.

90

95

100

Since he, enriched by these due rewards, wished to make worthy reciprocation, He designed poetry, through which he was able to surpass any gifts. Caesar gave him an estate, whose possession is brief: The poet offered praises, which no ages bring to silence. His first subjects of song were shepherds. In this poetic work Composed as the years called themselves back three times Pollio the consul is praised. After this he set out precepts For tilling the land in four books, and taught all the benefits of the earth In one year less than a pair of lustra. Then he thundered out the battles of the Trojans and Rutulians In verse of tragic buskin; he shaped twice six rolls To be given to the sacred leader in four periods of three years. 90 Statius Thebaid 7.379 dignasque rependere* grates 91 Manilius 4.39 vincere posset* 93 Ovid Tristia 5.14.33 per saecula nulla* tacetur, Tristia 2.151 silescunt*

86

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture 94 Vita Donati 36 [epitaph on tomb] Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc/Parthenope; cecini pascua rura duces 95 Vergil Aeneid 1.234 uoluentibus annis,* Valerius Flaccus 6.409 revocantibus* axes 96 Vergil Georgics 1.121, 4.118 colendi* 97 Lucan 1.283 geminis ... lustris* 99 Martial 5.5.8 grande cothurnati pone Maronis opus, Ovid Amores 2.18.18 deque cothurnato,* Ibis 45 proelia versu* 100 Vergil Aeneid 10.445 at Rutulum* (similarly genitive) 101 Statius Thebaid 7.93 trieteride* multa

Once again we find some effective alliteration (double pairs in line 94, a single pair in line 101); there is one unusual lexical usage, the transitive silesco (93) which is elsewhere intransitive. Here the Vita is probably imitating the similar transitive use of the simple form sileo which is found in classical Latin poetry with a litotic negative in similar contexts of praise: cf. Horace Odes 1.12.21 neque te silebo, 4.9.30–1 non ego te meis/chartis inornatum silebo, Vergil Aeneid 10.793 nec te, iuuenis memorande, silebo.18 Similarly, the reflexive use of revoco in marking time in connection with annus (95) seems to relate to analogous poetic contexts: cf. Laus Pisonis 19–20 et prius aetheriae moles circumvaga flammae/annua bis senis revocabit mensibus astra, Manilius 4.255 nascentemque facis revocatis lucibus annum. The periods of composition for the three works seem to match the three, seven and eleven of VD (25); though a lustrum is usually five years, the word can be used by Statius (a favourite model in the Vita) inclusively of the four-year periods between Olympic games, Eleis...lustris (Statius Silvae 2.6.72);19 note that Statius is also the source of the similarly Greek time-indication at 101 trieteride quarta. In line 99 the Vita refers to the Aeneid as a tragic poem; this recalls Martial (see above), but may also echo Servius’ commentary on Aeneid 7.1 et re vera tragicum opus est, ubi tantum bella tractantur, pointing to the traumatic war of the work’s second half. 102–107 his journey to Greece and final illness Sed loca, quae vulgi memoravit tradita fama, Aequoris et terrae statuit percurrere vates, Certius ut libris oculo dictante notaret. Pergitur: ut Calabros tetigit, livore nocenti Parcarum vehemens laxavit corpora morbus. Hic ubi languores et fata minacia sensit...

105

But the places over sea and land which the report of the crowd Has handed down and recorded, the poet decided to travel through, So that he might make more certain notes in his books from the dictation of his eye.

87

Stephen Harrison The journey proceeded: when he reached the Calabrians, through the destructive jealousy Of the Fates a violent disease loosened his body. When he realised his exhaustion and that death threatened... 105 VD 36 Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere 106 Vergil Georgics 4.252 tristi languebunt corpora morbo*, Ovid Ars 3.74 laxantur corpora rugis.

This last section contains few obvious echoes of classical verse models, except that the description of the poet’s disease neatly echoes his own account of plague amongst the bees in Georgics 4; the journey to Greece is treated so allusively that the unwary reader might think that the poet only got as far as Calabria (which he traditionally reached on his return). The text breaks off suddenly, leaving the poet fatally ill but not dead, and there is nothing about his testamentary wish to burn the Aeneid, prominent in the prose lives; there may not have been more than a few lines more in the Vita, but its end is clearly missing. The poet’s motivation for his final journey of checking the locations in his poem by autopsy is not found in the prose lives, and perhaps appeals to the likely scholastic context of composition: the grammaticus is reminding his students of the virtues of verification. 3. Literary form and generic connections The life of Vergil was written at various lengths in prose in late antiquity and the early medieval period, from a single paragraph to the multiple pages of Donatus (VD).20 As already noted, the Vita is the only known verse version of this tradition; as a verse life of the poet it could in some ways be considered a considerable expansion in hexameters of the poet’s supposed elegiac self-epitaph, cited at VD 36, which it alludes to in lines 2, 94 and 105 (Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc/Parthenope: cecini pascua rura duces). Though it is not a Vergilian cento, its frequent lifting of phrases from Vergil and other hexameter poets shows some affinity with that kind of writing, especially popular in the late antique period.21 More generally, its character as a verse version of a prestigious prose tradition (and its verse preface) can be interestingly linked to the late antique genre of hexameter biblical paraphrase.22 Juvencus’ gospel exposition Libri Evangeliorum (c.330 ) presents four books of hexameters with a 27-line general preface in the same metre, while Sedulius’ Carmen Paschale (first half of the fifth century) has five books of hexameters on the deeds and sayings of Jesus prefaced by eight elegiac couplets, and the two hexameter books of Arator’s Historia Apostolica [= Acts] (544 CE) are prefaced by fifteen elegiac couplets addressed to Pope Vigilius. Such verse prefaces in a ‘lesser’

88

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture metre to the main hexameter work begin with Persius (choliambics) and are particularly common in the late antique hexameter works of Prudentius (usually iambic) and Claudian (usually elegiac). We should also compare the versification of another prestigious Christian prose form, the saint’s life. Prose hagiography probably emerged in the mid-third century with the Vita Cypriani attributed to Pontius,23 but there is no evidence for verse paraphrase of saints’ lives until the fifth century CE, when Sulpicius Severus’ prose life of St Martin of Tours of c.400 CE was versified in hexameters by Paulinus of Périgueux (in six books, without a preface), to be followed a century later by Venantius Fortunatus in the same metre (in four books, with a preface in hexameters).24 These works have clear links with the Vita Phocae in both form (hexameter with preface) and content (biography of venerated individual). This piece hopes to have shown that the Vita Phocae is a worthwhile work of late antique poetry, providing an allusive and sometimes elegant example of an exercise of paraphrasing in hexameter verse a prestigious prose tradition and the praise of an admired individual, which can be fruitfully compared with the emergence of verse biblical paraphrase and of verse hagiography in the same period. As such it serves as an intriguing example of a bridge between pagan and Christian literary culture in the period around 400 CE.25 Notes 1 I am much obliged to Philip Hardie for kindly securing a copy of Brugnoli 1984 for me, and to John Trappes-Lomax for his helpful comments on this piece. For a complementary and more discursive assessment of the Vita Phocae see Scott McGill’s chapter in this volume, which looks largely to its reworking of the Vita Donati. 2 For the standard modern text see Brugnoli and Stok 1997, 163–9, for a commentary and Italian translation Brugnoli 1984, for a convenient Latin text and English translation Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 209–12, and for literature on the Vita to 2004 see Holzberg 2005, also available online at http://www.niklasholzberg.com/Homepage/ Bibliographien.html (accessed 13.1.2016) and Scott McGill’s chapter in this volume. 3 See Brugnoli 1984, X. 4 See Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 206, McGill 2010, and (especially) Scott McGill’s chapter in this volume. 5 See Kaster 1997, 339–41 6 See Brugnoli 1984, V–VIII. 7 Cameron 2011, 589 regards it as certain that the Vita Focae was written for Christian readers. See further my commentary on line 82 below. 8 See e.g. Roberts 1985, 71 n.39, Springer 1988, 17–18. 9 Hardie 1954. 10 The text cited here is that of Brugnoli and Stok 1997, where a complete apparatus is available (I have occasionally varied their orthography and punctuation). In my annotations I add some material to the commentary of Brugnoli 1984, which predates

89

Stephen Harrison electronic searching of texts and is essentially an index fontium, though I do not include all his parallels. For another modern English translation of the whole Vita (including the preface) see Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 205–12. 11 Anthologia Latina 76.1 Shackleton Bailey. 12 For this distinction and a sceptical analysis see Woodman 1988. 13 On Vergil as a Roman Homer see further Scott McGill’s chapter in this volume. 14 On this aspect of the Vita see further Scott McGill’s chapter in this volume. 15 In line 7 John Trappes-Lomax suggests to me locati for locatus (the verb can apply to renting land or hiring a labourer: OLD s.u. 7a, 7b), but Phocas is probably echoing VD 3 where the poet’s father is said to be a mercennarius or hired labourer, socially lower than a small farmer. 16 See Fantham 1992, 216. 17 For the reception of the Culex in antiquity see Seelentag 2012, 9–17. 18 John Trappes-Lomax suggests silebunt; the future tense is attractive given the classical parallels for the litotes, and it would solve the issue of the unique transitive, but it is hard to see how the common verb would have been corrupted into the more select one (even with the reminiscence of Tristia 2.151). 19 See van Dam 1984, 432. 20 The full range can be seen in the splendid collection by Ziolkowski and Putnam 2008, 179–403 (for full critical Latin texts see Brugnoli and Stok 1997). 21 See e.g. McGill 2011. 22 See e.g. Roberts 1985, Green 2006. 23 See Montgomery 1996. 24 For these works see further Roberts 2002. 25 For such links see especially Cameron 2011. Bibliography Brugnoli, G. 1984 Foca: Vita di Virgilio, Pisa. Brugnoli, G. and Stok, F. 1997 Vitae Vergilianae antiquae, Rome. Cameron, A. 2011 The Last Pagans of Rome, Oxford. Courtney, E. 1995 Musa Lapidaria: A selection of Latin verse inscriptions, Atlanta. Fantham, E. 1992 Lucan: De Bello Civili II, Cambridge. Green, R. P. H. 2006 Latin Epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator, Oxford. Hardie, C. G. 1954 Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, Oxford. Holzberg, N. 2005 Vergil 4. Vitae Vergilianae: Eine Bibliographie, Munich. Kaster, R. 1997 Guardians of Language, Berkeley. McGill, S. 2010 ‘Another man’s miracles: recasting Aelius Donatus in Phocas’s Life of Virgil’, in id., Sogno, C. and Watts, E. (eds) From the Tetrarchs to the

90

The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture Theodosians: Later Roman history and culture, 284–450 CE, Cambridge, 153–170. 2011 Virgil Recomposed: The mythological and secular Virgilian Centos in Antiquity, Oxford 2005. Montgomery, H. 1996 ‘Pontius’ Vita S.Cypriani and the making of a saint’, Symbolae Osloenses 71, 195–215. Roberts, M. 1985 Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity, Liverpool. Roberts, M. 2002 ‘Venantius Fortunatus’s Life of Saint Martin’, Traditio 57, 129–87. Seelentag, S. 2012 Der pseudovergilische Culex: Text – Übersetzung – Kommentar, Wiesbaden. Springer, C. 1988 The Gospel as Epic in Late Antiquity: The Paschale Carmen of Sedulius, Leiden. Van Dam, H.-J. 1984 P. Papinius Statius Silvae Book II: A commentary, Leiden. Woodman, A. J. 1988 Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, London and Sydney. Ziolkowski, J. and Putnam, M. (eds). 2008 The Virgilian Tradition: The first fifteen hundred years, New Haven.

91

5 LARGER THAN LIFE: THE ELEVATION OF VIRGIL IN PHOCAS’ VITA VERGILIANA Scott McGill The biographer Phocas sings the life of Virgil, and not simply because he writes the only verse biography of the poet that we have from antiquity. A grammarian and teacher at Rome as well as the author of the grammatical treatise Ars de nomine et verbo, Phocas dates probably to the late fourth or early fifth century CE.1 His hexameter Vita, with a 24-line preface of six Sapphic stanzas, tells in a little over a hundred lines Virgil’s life story from his birth nearly up to his death; a concluding lacuna claims the account of his final days after he contracts a fatal illness while setting off on a journey to revise the Aeneid.2 The evidence is good that Phocas took the fourth-century Aelius Donatus (VSD)3 as his model for Virgil’s biography.4 At times, however, he departs from the Donatan model to add material of his own. This includes two miracles, one imported from Virgil’s fourth Eclogue and one from the Life of Plato, with which he augments the account in VSD 3–5 of the prodigies that accompanied the birth of the poet. As I have discussed elsewhere, the new prodigies were a means of making Virgil appear even more divinely touched as an author than he seemed in Donatus. Phocas was after more than simple variation on the VSD : he wished to celebrate his subject, to sing him, with greater vehemence than his model did.5 In this chapter, I will examine other passages where Phocas departs from Donatus and adds fresh details to his Vita out of the same encomiastic impulse that animates his treatment of the miracles. It is well known that there was a close connection in antiquity between biography and praise and that ancient biographers and biographical stories often treated poets as heroes.6 The VSD demonstrates those laudatory, heroizing impulses as a piece of exemplary biography: it is premised on the idea that Virgil was an exceptional author who occupied a central position in the cultural history of Rome, and it focuses on the formation and manifestations of that public identity.7 Phocas takes the same approach to Virgil as a postVSD author. Yet he goes further than Donatus and other Virgilian biographers in glorifying the poet, by developing details in the VSD and by

93

Scott McGill incorporating into his biographical poem material from outside the Donatan framework. My intention is to identify what those details are and how they exalt Virgil. I will also consider what Phocas’ laudatory turns reveal about his approach to writing his biography. Phocas shows a marked tendency toward rhetorical and literary embellishment, through which he recurrently shapes information about Virgil so that it serves his encomiastic ends. Received biographical facts are used to convey the truth of Virgil’s greatness; Phocas gets creative with the biographical content of the VSD to support his narrative and rhetorical strategies, which include asserting the merits and eminence of his subject.8 As a consequence, Phocas’ Vita both responds to the VSD and stands apart from it in the biographical tradition – and, thus, in the reception history of Virgil – as a work presenting its own flattering vision and version of his authorial identity.9 Homeric Virgil Phocas begins his Vita at the beginning, with Virgil’s birth. His first step is to identify Mantua as the place where the poet was born. This follows Donatus, who opens his biography with the words P. Vergilius Maro Mantuanus, ‘Publius Vergilius Maro, of Mantua.’ Yet Phocas is expansive where Donatus is economical. His treatment casts a splendid glow over Mantua as well as over Virgil, who appears as a sublime poet and the primary figure in Latin letters and speech (25–6):10 Maeonii specimen vatis veneranda Maronem Mantua Romuleae generavit flumina linguae. Revered Mantua produced the embodiment of the Maeonian poet, Maro, the river of the Roman tongue.

With the words Maeonii specimen vatis...Maronem, Phocas gives voice to a very common idea in Latin culture through late antiquity, that Virgil was Homerus Romanus, the Roman counterpart to Homer, and so an author of the highest quality and authority. He then links the two further when he places a second accusative, flumina, in apposition with Maronem. From the Hellenistic Age, Homer was compared to Oceanus, the source of all rivers and springs, as a way of representing his foundational place in Greek literature and his influence on later authors. The image had a long life in the Greek tradition, occurring through late antiquity and into the medieval period, and also found its way into Latin texts.11 Context indicates that Phocas was thinking along those lines, only to apply the Homeric water imagery to Virgil. Certainly it seems reasonable to suppose that, in a passage equating Homer and Virgil, Phocas connected an established Homeric

94

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana motif to the Latin poet as a way of associating them.12 The biographer not only states that Virgil is a specimen of Homer but also imports language that he knew was traditionally Homeric in order to have Virgil re-embody him in a specific manner. Perhaps Phocas was even aware of the use of the Homeric ocean-imagery to figure his influence on Greek rhetoric. Quintilian provides an example in Book Ten of the Institutio Oratoria (10.1.46): hic enim, quemadmodum ex Oceano dicit ipse omnium amnium fontiumque cursus initium capere, omnibus eloquentiae partibus exemplum et ortum dedit (just as he himself says that the course of every river and spring takes its beginning from Ocean, he provided a model and an origin for every part of eloquence). As Homer had been the wellspring for Greek eloquentia, so Virgil stands as the flumen of the Latin tongue. By embellishing the VSD in this fashion, Phocas reveals immediately his interest in glorifying Virgil. His birth, it is implied, makes his town veneranda, ‘revered,’ while he stands as the outstanding Roman poet, as supreme in his tradition as Homer was in his. The Virgil that comes into view in these opening lines is, moreover, a grammarian’s Virgil. As a teacher, Phocas would have known the poet as a central author in the grammatical curriculum, and he would have used Virgilian poetry – particularly the Aeneid – to instruct his students in the ways of Latin.13 As a biographer, meanwhile, he opens his text by highlighting Virgil’s authority in the area of language. Like Homer, the leading author in the Greek curriculum,14 Virgil is the source from which the Latin lingua flows, which is a way of saying that he is the source from which all should learn and draw. The temptation is to suppose that Phocas began his biography in this way because he intended it for school use while also putting it into general circulation, much as he wrote his grammatical treatise Ars de nomine et verbo for students and a wider audience.15 This would suggest that he shaped the start of his poem in part to impress upon students that Virgil was the important figure that the curriculum made him out to be. But at the very least, Phocas emerges at the opening of the Vita as someone whose experiences in the schools influenced how he introduced Virgil. The grammarian in the biographer shines through, as Phocas presents Virgil with a teacher’s emphasis on his lingua. Phocas follows up his opening description of Virgil with two rhetorical questions that do not appear in the VSD. Such questions are a favorite device by which Phocas invests his narrative with emotion, emphasis, and drama. In lines 27–9, he combines them with an apostrophe – another emotive figure to which he is partial16 – and with alliteration in order to express his anger toward facunda Graecia, ‘eloquent Greece’:

95

Scott McGill quis facunda tuos toleraret Graecia fastus, quis tantum eloquii potuisset ferre tumorem, aemula Vergilium tellus nisi Tusca dedisset? Who could tolerate your arrogance, eloquent Greece, who could bear such pride in eloquence, had not the rival Etruscan land given birth to Virgil?

According to Phocas, the Greeks are intolerably haughty about what they have achieved in the area of rhetoric.17 The word tumor refers not to the bombast of their style, but to their odious boasting about their excellence in that field. Underscoring the message is an allusion to Aeneid 11 in line 28: Phocas adapts Turnus’ angry words to Drances, proinde tona eloquio (solitum tibi) meque timoris/argue tu, Drance (so thunder on in eloquence, as you are accustomed to do, and charge me with fear, Drances, Aen. 11.383–4), with eloquio changed to eloquii and timoris to tumorem. The allusion equates the Greeks with Drances, an insufferable windbag in Turnus’ bitter estimation. Later in the Vita, Phocas writes in similarly emulative terms when he deals with the Greek world. After describing how bees covered the baby Virgil’s lips with a honeycomb and remarking that antiquity also found the same miracle in connection with Plato (52–6)18 – this is one of the two prodigies mentioned earlier that Phocas adds to his text – he states that ‘mother Nature, hastening to raise up Rome, gave this [miracle] to Latium as well, lest she grant anything to one [recipient] only’ (set Natura parens properans extollere Romam/et Latio dedit hoc, ne quid concederet uni, 57–8). As in lines 27–9, Phocas rebuts any charge of Roman inferiority to Greece, viz., the home of Plato, to whom uni refers; in fact, Nature makes Rome as great as Greece, in that it grants it Virgil, with his honeyed speech, as Plato’s counterpart. In his treatise Ars de nomine et verbo, moreover, Phocas refers to rebutting boastful Greeks who, he indicates, think that they know things they do not (his etiam Graecorum iactantiam...refutamus, quod haec proprie nequeunt explanare [with these we also refute the boasting of the Greeks, because they cannot rightly explain these things], GL [Keil] 5.438.32–439.1). The edgy attitude that Phocas repeatedly displays toward Greece and Greek arrogance indicates some real animus on his part. The rhetorical questions in lines 27–9, therefore, would appear to constitute a moment where we can identify the narrator’s irritation with the poet’s own feelings. However personal Phocas’ displeasure was, his principal purpose in voicing it at the start of his poem is to bring about the continued elevation of Virgil as the Roman answer to Homer. It is true that Phocas has the Tuscan land producing Virgil to counter Greek boasting, not Homer himself. But this message develops from that of the first two lines, that Virgil was just as great as his Greek counterpart. In Phocas’ version of events, the birth of Virgil was an agonistic event, through which the

96

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana ‘Etruscan land’ rose to challenge Greek claims of rhetorical preeminence, by producing in Virgil a poet equal to Homer, the fount of Greek eloquentia. Phocas’ use of aemula to describe the tellus Tusca resembles Silius Italicus, who applies the same adjective to depict Mantua’s rivalrous relationship to Smyrna, which he considered to be Homer’s birthplace (Mantua...Smyrneis aemula plectris [Mantua...that vied with the lyre of Smyrna], Pun. 8.593–4). The attitude toward Virgil in each text is similar: Silius supposes that Virgil is every bit the poet Homer was, while Phocas champions him as an author of Homeric stature who was as important to the Latin tongue as Homer was to the Greek.19 Like Silius, Phocas writes as a Virgilophile: he reshapes biographical material to celebrate Virgil, so that the poet’s significance in the areas of language and rhetoric greet the reader of the Vita. His is an encounter with both the VSD and with the Virgil of the schools, whose role and utility in that setting are retrojected into the account of his birthplace. The opening of Phocas’ Vita thus offers up two levels of biographical information: it identifies Virgil’s home and then spins out from that detail thoughts on his standing and value as an author. Birth is not destiny Phocas continues to add new details to the framework of the VSD in subsequent lines. His topic is the identity of Virgil’s father (30–4): huic genitor figulus Maro nomine, cultor agelli, ut referunt alii, tenui mercede locatus, sed plures figulum. quis non miracula rerum haec stupeat? dives partus de paupere vena enituit: figuli suboles nova carmina finxit.

30

His father was a potter named Maro, or, as others report, a farmer of a small plot, hired for a meager price – but to most a potter. Who would not be astonished at such miraculous events? A rich child shone forth from a poor vein; the child of a potter molded unexpected poems.

Phocas’ passage modifies and expands upon Donatus’ account of the same subject (VSD 1): P. Vergilius Maro Mantuanus parentibus modicis fuit ac praecipue patre, quem quidam opificem figulum, plures Magi cuiusdam viatoris initio mercennarium. Publius Vergilius Maro, of Mantua, had parents of humble origins, and especially his father, whom some men consider a potter,20 while more consider him at first the hired man of a certain Magus, a minor government official.21

The clearest sign that Phocas was looking to Donatus is his construction alii...sed plures, which corresponds to Donatus’ quidam...plures. His use of

97

Scott McGill mercede, meanwhile, would seem to come from mercennarium, while the adjective tenui answers Donatus’ statement that Virgil’s father was ‘especially humble’.22 Yet Phocas shows independence from Donatus even as he relies on him. Although he preserves the binary structure in quidam...plures, he reverses the substance of Donatus’ minority and majority opinions and claims that most identify Virgil’s father as a potter, while only some consider him a small farmer.23 This is a moment where Phocas corrects his model. He provides unmistakable evidence of his turn to Donatus when he points out that there is some disagreement over the elder Maro’s occupation, but proceeds to contradict that source over what was the dominant position, to which he himself subscribes.24 By having majority opinion consider Virgil’s father a potter and endorsing that view, Phocas makes possible the wordplay on figuli and finxit in line 34. The question arises whether he altered Donatus simply out of wish to set up the pun, without being guided by a concern for truth. In that case, the treatment of the elder Maro’s occupation would have been a moment where Phocas demonstrates indifference to factual accuracy as a biographer. In ancient literary biography generally, adherence to historical truth, to giving the actual facts of a person’s life, could give way to other concerns and motivations that the author might have. The details of a life were fungible, and they could be changed and even fictionalized in order for the biographer to make a point that he desired.25 Phocas’ correction of Donatus has the look of the free and creative use of the biographical record, without prioritizing truth-value. Being accurate about the occupation of Virgil’s father was secondary to creating the opportunity for play on figuli and finxit. Phocas thought of a way to round off the section on Virgil’s father in striking fashion, and he had to reverse Donatus in order to make that happen, irrespective of who was actually right about majority opinion or about the occupation of Virgil’s father. He might have even believed that Donatus was correct on the matter while still feeling himself able to contradict the Donatan account for his own purposes. Whatever Phocas’ understanding of the truth of his statement on the occupation of Virgil’s father, the attention he calls to the miracle (miracula rerum)26 that Virgil sprang from such a man shows again that his interests extended beyond laying out biographical information. Phocas wishes to emphasize the greatness of Virgil by contrasting it with his origins, and he uses a rhetorical question and two paradoxes in lines 32–4 to make his point. The first paradox, that ‘a rich child shone forth from a poor vein’ (dives partus de paupere vena/enituit), resembles an epigram of the fourthcentury CE Ausonius on the Sicilian king Agathocles (Ep. 9, Green). The

98

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana poem describes how Agathocles used to mix wealth and poverty together by combining expensive and cheap dinnerware and has the king explain his actions by stating, ‘I who am the king of Sicily was born a potter’s son’ (rex ego qui sum / Sicaniae, figulo sum genitore satus, Ep. 9.5–6). Ausonius then ends the epigram by laying out the moral of the story (Ep. 9.7–8): fortunam reverenter habe, quicumque repente dives ab exili progrediere loco. Bear good fortune modestly, whoever you are who will suddenly advance as a rich man from a humble place.

The parallels with Phocas are striking: Agathocles and Virgil are sons of figuli, and in both poems, someone dives emerges from very straitened circumstances.27 But there is also a significant difference between the two texts in how dives is used. Unlike Ausonius, whose subject is strictly material wealth, Phocas gives the word two meanings: Virgil will become financially rich despite being born into poverty, and he will be rich in talent despite coming from an unliterary father.28 Vena, therefore, on the one hand operates like the English ‘blood’ to describe Virgil’s parental origins, and on the other hand operates like the English ‘vein’ and equates the elder Maro with a supply or store of ability.29 The miracle is both that Virgil rose to wealth from such humble beginnings and that he had such great literary skills even though he drew nothing from his father in that area. When Phocas proceeds to use the collocation figuli/finxit to generate his second paradox, he continues through theme and variation to call attention to the wonder of Virgil’s genius. According to Aelius Theon, wordplay involving names, nicknames, or homonyms was an acceptable means of praising someone, provided that it was not too vulgar or laughable.30 Phocas similarly uses wordplay for laudatory ends, although he focuses on the occupation of Virgil’s father rather than on his name. By creating the paronomastic paradox he does, he makes his praise of Virgil that much more pointed and, thus, that much sharper in force and effect. Virgil did what no one could have expected in rising from such a lowly background to produce sublime poetry.31 Once more in the opening lines of his Vita, then, Phocas builds on the details of Virgil’s birth to celebrate the writer that he would grow to be. This is a matter of embellishing and altering material found in the VSD. Phocas treats that text as an expandable and adaptable frame, to which he was able to add coloring and details in order to highlight the greatness of Virgil. The point is to relate not just who the poet was, but what he was; Phocas affirms Virgil’s canonical standing, which is also, for a teacher, to affirm his curricular standing. The start of the Vita clearly establishes

99

Scott McGill the idealizing and idolizing quality of the text. Phocas perpetuates the biographical narrative handed down in the tradition, but also departs from it to invest his poem with its own encomiastic features. The immortal Virgil Phocas devotes the next section of his poem down to line 64 to the prodigies that attended Virgil’s birth and infancy. In literary biography, authors often embellished their accounts of their subjects’ childhood with anecdotes anticipating the subject’s later greatness.32 Phocas does this when he includes the two new prodigies mentioned in the introduction. The biographer preserves Donatan material – the symbolic dream of Virgil’s mother about the laurel branch,33 the newborn Virgil’s calm, and the fastgrowing poplar tree that was planted at Virgil’s birth – but adds what he must have known were fictional episodes to heighten the aretalogical message.34 Phocas’ entire handling of Virgil’s birth and infancy is thus an extended advertisement for his subject. From his opening lines to his final prodigy, Phocas emphasizes in different ways the extraordinary future that awaited the baby Virgil. The miracles in Donatus offer signs of that future, and Phocas expands upon his model to heighten the message that Virgil was destined for great things as a poet.35 The rest of Phocas’ Vita covers Virgil’s education (65–88) and the writing of the Eclogues (91–120), Georgics, and Aeneid (121–5).36 The poem then breaks off during the account of how Virgil went abroad to revise the Aeneid, only to contract a fatal illness (126–31). This is to bypass a good amount of material in the VSD,37 as well as to compress greatly Donatus’ account of the writing of the Georgics and Aeneid. It was not at all unusual to reduce Virgil’s biography; the Vitae of Servius, Philargyrius, and Probus are all shorter than the VSD. But how Phocas goes about this indicates the areas of Virgil’s life story that held greater and lesser appeal to him. His interests lay primarily in the poet’s childhood up to the end of his schooling and in the genesis of the Eclogues, which receives substantially more attention than the composition of the Georgics and Aeneid. The focus on education when treating a subject’s childhood was standard in biography.38 The story of the events that led to the writing of the Eclogues, meanwhile, looks to have appealed to Phocas because of its dramatic content.39 As is well known, that story is the product of allegorical readings of Eclogue 1 and 9 that see Virgil himself behind characters in those poems.40 The poet is said to have been a victim of the land confiscations of the late 40s BCE, which Augustus (Octavian at the time) instituted after he and Mark Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius to avenge the assassination of Julius Caesar. Relying on his powerful friends, Virgil

100

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana subsequently got his land back and then wrote the Eclogues in significant part to thank and honor those men. Phocas retells that story at some length, taking as his primary model VSD 60–3, where Donatus, in the introduction to Virgil’s Eclogues that follows his biography, discusses why Virgil wrote the poems.41 Several verbal echoes link the accounts of Phocas and Donatus.42 Most conspicuously, Phocas’ fretus amicorum clipeo (relying on the shield of his friends, 106) resembles Donatus’ fretus et amicitia quorundum potentium (relying on the friendship of certain powerful men) in VSD 63. Phocas also parallels Donatus in using victor for Augustus (96, VSD 62) and repetere for restoring land (113 and VSD 60).43 Finally, when Phocas begins his account by asking the Muse to relate the reason why Virgil wrote his poems (Musa, refer quae causa fuit componere libros, 91), he turns to the same word, causa, with which Donatus opens his discussion of why Virgil wrote the Eclogues (restat ut, quae causa voluntatem attulerit poetae Bucolica potissimum conscribendi, considerare debeamus [it remains necessary for us to consider what cause prompted the poet’s wish to compose the Eclogues first], VSD 58). Phocas’ invocation to the Muse derives from a second model as well: Virgil’s Aeneid 1.8, where the narrator calls upon the Muse to tell him what produced Juno’s anger toward the Trojans (Musa, mihi causas memora). At other points in his passage, Phocas further imitates epic models, including more lines in the Aeneid and Lucan’s Bellum Civile, as well as other poetic predecessors.44 These moments of intertextuality illustrate how Phocas, in turning the VSD account into a poem, relied upon previous poetry for literary embellishments to add aesthetic value, to elevate the tenor of the passage, notably by lending it epic dignity, and to increase its emotional force. Phocas is interested in presenting an episode in Virgil’s life, but he is not only interested in that: he wishes to produce quality, compelling verse, and he recasts poetic models within his Donatan frame in order to do that. Those models also include Virgil’s Eclogues. Phocas twice imitates Eclogues 9.28: Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae (Mantua, alas, too near to wretched Cremona). In line 98, he adapts Virgil’s line to describe the confiscations in Cremona (proscripsit miserae florentia rura Cremonae [he proscribed the thriving lands of wretched Cremona]); a few lines later (103–4), he returns to it in an apostrophe to Mantua (Mantua, tu coniuncta loco, sociata periclis:/non tamen ob meritum miseram vicinia fecit [Mantua, you were close to that place, you shared in the danger; but undeservedly, proximity made you wretched]). The debts to Virgil plausibly reflect Phocas’ allegorical reading of Eclogue 9: their appearance in Virgil’s biography suggests that it and the rest of the poem belong to the poet’s personal experience.45 But Phocas’ imitations primarily invest his verses

101

Scott McGill with emotional weight, generating pathos through the adjective miser and, in lines 103–4, through apostrophe, and by making it clear that Mantua, and thus Virgil, suffered wrongly in the confiscations, and due only to geography.46 Added details that underscore the greatness of Virgil are not prevalent in the sections of Phocas’ Vita on the origins of the Eclogues.47 Nevertheless, such details do appear. Examples come in lines 89–90: Pollio Maecenas Varus Cornelius ardent, te sibi quisque rapit, per te victurus in aevum. Pollio, Maecenas, Varus, Cornelius were ablaze; each grasps you for himself, in order to live forever through you.

The subject is how the leading citizens Asinius Pollio, Maecenas, Alfenus Varus, and Cornelius Gallus sought to bring Virgil into their circles when he came to Rome. Phocas’ principal source is VSD 19, on how Virgil turned to writing the Eclogues especially to praise Pollio, Varus, and Gallus (maxime ut Asinium Pollionem, Alfenum Varum, et Cornelium Gallum celebraret).48 Maecenas, meanwhile, comes from VSD 20, which describes how Virgil wrote the Georgics in honor of that patron (deinde scripsit Georgica in honorem Maecenatis). Phocas goes his own way, however, by referring to when Virgil first attracted the attention of Pollio, Maecenas, Varus, and Gallus in Rome, and by stating that those leading citizens ( proceres, 88) ‘were ablaze’ (ardent, 89) for Virgil. While the social position of the four personages in itself reflects well on Virgil, on the principle that he must have been special to earn the interest of such men, the new attention to their emotions through the verb ardeo further glorifies him, in that it conveys how exceptional the great men considered him to be.49 When Phocas proceeds to state that each of the men seized Virgil for himself, so that each would live forever through him (te sibi quisque rapit, per te victurus in aevum, 90), he gets at the dynamics of the patron-client relationships and explains why the proceres were so eager to have Virgil in their circles: they saw in him someone who, through his poetry, could grant them eternal fame.50 In Phocas’ version of VSD 19 and 20, the immortality, and so, by implication, the greatness of Virgilian verse is an added theme. The patrons recognize what literary history came to bear out: Virgil would be a classic for all time. Phocas again portrays Virgil as an immortalizing poet in lines 107–9, while treating the land confiscations that led, ultimately, to the Eclogues.51 The subject is one of Augustus’ soldiers who, when driving Virgil from his land, nearly killed the poet.52 Departing from the VSD and adding lines that contain still more examples of rhetorical question and apostrophe, Phocas angrily asks the soldier why he raged and sought to kill Virgil:

102

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana quid dextra furis? quid viscera Romae sacrilego mucrone petis? tua bella tacebit posteritas ipsumque ducem nisi Mantua dicat! Why do you rage, hand? Why do you aim for the vitals of Rome with your unholy sword? Posterity will pass over your wars in silence if Mantua does not tell of them and your leader himself!

Phocas suggests that Virgil’s death would have brought a kind of death to the soldier and to Augustus himself, rather than the immortality that they enjoyed through the poet. For if Virgil had been killed, Phocas says, he – referred to by the metonymy Mantua53 – would never have written the poetry that preserved for posteritas, for the ages to come, the soldier’s bella and dux. Phocas’ ideas resemble those found in a poem in the Anthologia Latina (AL 672.15–16 Riese) on how the Aeneid was saved from being burned and, thus, destroyed: illum, illum Aenean nesciret fama perennis, docta Maroneo caneret nisi pagina versu. Everlasting fame would not know him, Aeneas, if the learned page did not sing him in its Virgilian verse.

Like Phocas’ passage, these lines play upon the unthinkable loss of Virgil’s poetry: destruction almost claims the Aeneid before it can live on forever and make its subject eternally known. The two poems can be viewed in tandem for how they respond to and reinforce Virgil’s status as a writer of everlasting works.54 Phocas sees in Virgil’s poetry the same kind of commemorative power that the epic Aeneid possesses in the Anthologia poem – and, with bella (108), he appears to anticipate the Georgics and Aeneid, since the natural reference is to wars fought successfully under Augustus’ command (cf. G. 3.26–33, Aen. 8.678–728).55 The turn to rhetorical figures shows that he is after emotional effect, which rests upon a vision of counterfactual literary history: the idea that Virgil might have died before he could write his poetry is shaped to elicit outrage and horror. The underlying sense is of how much would have been lost. Phocas conveys that Roman literary culture came close to not having what Virgil wrote and, thus, to losing works that will endure for future ages – a prediction that, of course, affirms the excellence of that poetry. Virgil was nearly killed before he could become immortal, thereby granting eternal life to his would-be murderer and that man’s dux. Phocas returns to the idea that Virgil’s poetry will forever endure toward the end of his section on the Eclogues, when he states that Virgil wrote them to thank Augustus for restoring his land to him (116–17):56

103

Scott McGill praedia dat Caesar, quorum brevis usus habendi: obtulit hic laudes, quas saecula nulla silescunt. Caesar bestows land, whose possession is brief; this one offered praise that no age keeps silent.

In Phocas’ pointed formulation, the poet provides something more worthwhile than the prince does;57 Virgil offers up praise that will last forever, while Augustus grants a gift that belongs to this fleeting world. The lines vary the detail in VSD 64 that the Eclogues were written in praise of Caesar and other leading men (in laude Caesaris et principum ceterorum).58 Phocas identifies the Eclogues as poetry of praise but also acclaims the work itself by calling attention once more to its immortality. A parallel to Phocas’ message appears in a poem by the fifth-century CE Sidonius Apollinaris, in a preface to his verse panegyric on the emperor Majorian (Carm. 4.5–8): sed rus concessum dum largo in principe laudat, caelum pro terris rustica Musa dedit; nec fuit inferius Phoebeia dona referre: fecerat hic dominum, fecit et ille deum. But while she praised a generous princeps for land granted, the rustic Muse gave heaven in return for earthly things; nor was repayment with the gifts of Phoebus a mean matter; this one made him a master, that one made him a god.

Both Sidonius and Phocas contrast their poetry with Virgil’s Eclogues.59 Yet each uses the contrast to a different purpose. For Sidonius, the aim is to advertise his panegyric and to flatter Majorian; he suggests that the emperor will live on as an object of his praise just as Augustus lives on as a god in the Eclogues. Phocas, meanwhile, seeks to praise Virgil himself and, thus, to add another laudatory grace note to his biography of the poet. With the Eclogues, Virgil gives more than he received; he transcends Augustus by honoring him in poetry great enough to transcend time. At three points in his treatment of Virgil’s Eclogues, then, Phocas calls attention to the poet’s eternal life while recounting the events of his life. While the elevation of Virgil is not as conspicuous in that section as it is in the passages on Virgil’s origins and birth, it remains a concern of the biographer, and one that leads him to add items to his Donatan template. How Phocas departs from the VSD reveals his interests and his goals. An emulative desire to outdo Donatus might have been part of his motivation. But the key thing was to have the biography perform more intensely the act of honoring Virgil. For Phocas, this was a fundamental why and wherefore of writing his Vita. Phocas equated Virgil the man with Virgil the poet,

104

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana and he wanted to give his readers a particular image and impression of his subject, to have them come away with a powerful sense that Virgil was a great figure – indeed, the great figure – in Latin literary history. Conclusion: the great(er) Virgil Phocas did not work in an open biographical tradition, or one constantly reinvented on an oral and sub-literary level and marked by extreme inclusiveness.60 Rather, he had the VSD as his guide. Yet as Phocas demonstrates, the Virgilian biographical tradition as established by the VSD was far from static, and it left room for an author to put his own stamp on it. For Phocas, an important part of this was celebrating the greatness of Virgil in ways that went beyond the VSD. Did the verse form of his Vita lead Phocas to feel he had particular license to modify and add to the VSD? It seems possible that he understood poetry to give him audendi potestas, the ability to dare different things and to move toward creative development of some of the Donatan material.61 His treatment of the land confiscations is a prime candidate for that way of thinking, especially given the echoes of earlier poetry in the passage. While VSD 60–3 is the primary model for longer treatment, Phocas poeticizes as well as epicizes that passage; and it stands to reason that he was exploiting the possibilities that, he understood, his verse form gave him. Perhaps the laudatory additions to the VSD in that passage and elsewhere are another manifestation of that mindset. Phocas would have understood that, as a poet, he had freedom of invention,62 and he would have repeatedly exercised that freedom to extol his subject.63 In the preface to his Vita, Phocas invokes the Muse of history Clio,64 thereby affiliating his biography (as well as poetry) with history and suggesting that he had an obligation to present the traditional facts and events that made up Virgil’s life – and there is no good reason to doubt that Phocas understood at least most of what he found in the VSD to be true.65 But that obligation was not absolute. Phocas understood not only that he could stray from the expository frame that Donatus provided, but also that his purposes transcended biographical narration and extended to celebrating and magnifying the poet in ways that the VSD did not. It is not that Phocas repeatedly introduced what he knew to be fiction into his Vita; that approach is limited to his two new prodigies,66 although he also might well have fudged majority opinion about the occupation of Virgil’s father, and might well have been indifferent to whether his statement on that occupation was actually true. But he did feel free to elaborate on the given biographical data, doing so for literary and stylistic reasons and to meet his laudatory aims – purposes that could overlap. When Phocas departs from

105

Scott McGill the VSD in order to add encomiastic details, he shows that his reading of Virgilian poetry influenced his writing of his Virgilian Vita. In this version of how Virgil’s texts mediated between his life and his Lives,67 Phocas creates a document of reception, in which an ancient reader responds to, and perpetuates, Virgil’s position as a canonical great. Phocas’ sense of Virgil’s grandeur is already evident in his preface. In its opening two stanzas, he states that Clio is skilled at recalling the deeds of kings (regios actus, 2) and that she allows nothing great (magnum, 5) or notable (clarum, 6) to die.68 The clear implications are that Clio is the Muse of works that handle grand, heroic topics and that Phocas will himself be treating similarly lofty material. Phocas is then explicit about Virgil’s excellence in the final stanza of the preface (21–4): retegenda vita est vatis Etrusci modo, qui perenne Romulae voci decus adrogavit carmine sacro. Now the life of the Etruscan poet is to be revealed, who claimed eternal glory for the Roman language through his sacred poetry.

It is at first glance striking to find Virgil’s poetry described as a carmen sacrum when Phocas was, in all likelihood, a Christian.69 Yet it would be a form of the ecclesiastical fallacy, or the failure to differentiate between lay Christians and professed ecclesiastics, to be shocked at Phocas’ language or to disapprove of it.70 Phocas was a Christian, but he was writing a lay poem. In that context, the sacral language is simply a metaphor, operating like the English ‘divine’ to describe something of exceptional, sublime quality.71 Through it and the stanza as a whole, Phocas makes it clear that his subject was someone who occupied a special place in Roman literature and culture. His statement of intent anticipates his approach in the Vita itself, where he repeatedly exalts Virgil. The poet is not simply the subject of the text, but the hero of it, including at moments where Phocas adds to the VSD to make him another Homer, a central figure in the areas of language and rhetoric, an author divinely favored and destined for greatness, and someone whose work would live forever. Notes 1 On Phocas, including his probable dates, see PLRE 2.881 s.v. ‘Phocas,’ Brugnoli 1984, vi–viii, and Kaster 1988, 339–41. 2 Phocas’ Vita (like other ancient Virgilian biographies) thus meets a defining criterion of ancient biography by covering the life of an individual from birth to death. On that criterion, see Momigliano 1993, 11 and Hägg 2012, 2.

106

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana 3

Vita Suetonii vulgo Donatiana. I subscribe to the view that Donatus largely reproduced now the lost Virgilian Vita of Suetonius. For bibliography on the subject, see McGill 2010, 154 n. 4, to which I add Naumann 1990, 571–5 and Stok 2010, 107–8. 4 Other critics who consider Donatus to have been Phocas’ source include Naumann 1938, 371–2, Hardie 1954, vii–viii, Brugnoli 1984, vi–viii, Vidal 1991, 806, Callu 1997, 370, and, tentatively, Stok 2010, 119. This sets the terminus post quem for Phocas’ poem. (A reference to Phocas by the grammarian Priscian [fl. 500 CE], meanwhile, establishes the terminus ante quem.) In my view, therefore, Mazhuga 2003 is mistaken in placing Phocas before Donatus and contending that Phocas relied upon Suetonius. It would also be perverse to suppose that Donatus relied upon Phocas, if the latter predated the former. Either Suetonius’ or Donatus’ biography is surely the long-form prose model for the shorter and, as a biographical poet, anomalous Phocas. The parallels between Donatus and Phocas, therefore, are due either to the reliance of each on Suetonius or to Phocas’ reliance on Donatus. I will present evidence for the second of these explanations later in the chapter (cf. n. 41, which echoes McGill 2010,154). The VSD is very likely the template for other late antique biographies as well; see Stok 2010, 119–20. 5 McGill 2010, 153–69. 6 Momigliano 1993, 15, Pelling 1990, 217, Hägg and Rousseau 2000, 1–2 and 15–16, and Peirano 2012, 96–7. 7 On exemplary biography, see Lee 2009, 21–2: ‘They [Exemplary biographies] want to impress the reader with the sense of a personality or an event of importance. All are interested in the effects of a life on others, whether disciples, victims, a nation, or posterity... There is no conception of a private or interior life. ...They all present their central figures, for good or ill, as exceptional and influential.’ The VSD does contain material on Virgil’s appearance, health, personality, and sexual habits (VSD 8– 13). But the majority of the text is devoted to his identity as an author – how that identity was foretold, formed, manifested, and received. 8 I echo De Temmerman 2016, 13, on biography more broadly. 9 On biography as a form of reception, see now Hanink and Fletcher 2016, esp. 7–9. 10 I use the text of Brugnoli 1997, 163–9 for Phocas and of Stok 1997, 15–56 for the VSD. Phocas’ biography proper starts at line 25 in Brugnoli’s text, after the 24-line preface in Sapphics; I use his line numbers. 11 Williams 1978, 88–9 and 98–9 and Lefkowitz 1981, 24. The image occurs later in Byron’s Don Juan, Canto 7, Stanza 80. 12 This also strongly supports the idea that the reading flumina is the correct one, rather than the conjectures fulmina and lumina found in Brugnoli’s apparatus criticus. 13 On Virgil in the schools, see Bonner 1977, 213–14, Kaster 1988, esp. 169–96, and Horsfall 1995, 250–1. 14 Bonner 1977, 212–13 and Cribiore 2001, 194–7. When Quintilian uses the fluvial imagery for Homer, his subject is the education of the future orator; that education, he says, ought to begin with Homer. 15 Kaster 1988: 339. For a different perspective on the relationship between Phocas’ biographical poem and the schools, see Vidal 1991. 16 Vidal 2002, 664. 17 The adjective facunda signals that the subject is Greek eloquence in rhetoric.

107

Scott McGill The word was a recurrent epithet for Greece; see Brugnoli 1984, 8, who cites as examples Ovid, F. 3.102, Martial, Ep. 7.32.1, and Ausonius, Ordo urb. nob. 15.4. 18 On the bee prodigy in Plato and other ancient biographies, with a brief mention of Phocas (183), see Lefkowitz 2016. 19 Also similar in content to Phocas is a message that appears within a 346-line (!) recusatio of the fifth-century CE Sidonius Apollinaris. Among the things that Sidonius tells his addressee Magnus Felix he will not find in his work is the poetry ‘that Mantua, defying Homer, added to Latin utterance’ (non quod Mantua contumax Homero/adiecit Latiaribus loquelis, Carm. 9.217–18). While there is no overlap in language, the two authors portray Virgil’s birthplace in analogous terms and connect Virgil to the Latin language. 20 A figulus was a maker of earthenware vessels or of bricks. Horsfall 1995, 5 translates the word in VSD 1 as ‘bricklayer’; I use ‘potter’ as a more general term, since neither the VSD nor Phocas specify what Virgil’s father made. 21 For viator meaning ‘an agent employed on official errands by Roman magistrates and other officers; also by colleges, public bodies, etc.,’ see OLD s.v. ‘viator’ 2. 22 Tenui also appears in the late antique Vita of Philargyrius I (Virgilius Maro Mantuanus parentibus modicis fuit ac praecipue patre tenui ). Philargyrius’ principal model is clearly the VSD; I am inclined to suspect that he added tenui from a second source, and quite possibly Phocas himself. On the treatment of Virgil’s father in the ancient biographical tradition, see Mayer 1975. 23 The indication, therefore, is that Phocas understood mercennarius in VSD 1 to signify a hired worker on a farm. This is a reasonable inference, especially since VSD 1 goes on to relate that Virgil’s father, now the son-in-law of the viator, proceeded to buy up woodlands and to tend bees, although the occupation to which mercennarius refers is not entirely certain. 24 I echo Thomas 1986, 185, on ‘correction’ as a type of allusion (or, as he would call it, reference). 25 See Pelling 1990, 214–20 (who rightly notes on p. 219–20 that fiction is more prominent in ancient literary biography than in ancient political biography), Peirano 2012, 75, and De Temmerman 2016, 13–14. 26 The phrase is Virgilian (G. 4.441), but is found more widely meaning mirae res (TLL viii.1057.10–16). 27 It is tempting to posit imitation, presumably on the part of Phocas. But Phocas of course would have found figulus in VSD 1; consequently, the parallel in genitor figulus/figulo genitore, while marked, cannot support confident speculation. The other similar details, meanwhile, could certainly have arisen independently of each other. It bears noting that Phocas’ de paupere vena (33) resembles Ovid’s vena quod paupere manat (Pont. 2.5.21), on a water-channel; cf. Harrison in this volume (p. 79). 28 For dives = ‘rich (in abstract qualities), well-endowed (with mental or similar qualities), talented,’ see OLD s.v. ‘dives’ 4. 29 The latter meaning of the word is paralleled in Horace, Ars P. 409–10: ego nec studium sine divite vena, / nec rude quid prosit video ingenium (I do not see the benefit of study without a rich vein of talent or of ability that is untrained). 30 Peirano 2012, 150. 31 As my translation indicates, I take novus to signify that Virgil’s poetry came as a surprise and was unforeseen (cf. OLD s.v. ‘novus’ 4), given his background. It could

108

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana suggest as well, however, that the poetry was out of the ordinary and even unheard of (cf. OLD s.v. ‘novus’ 3). In both cases, the adjective implies that it was very strange to find someone whose father was a potter creating the great poetry he did (and the resemblance between ‘potter’ and ‘poetry’ nicely reflects the resemblance between figulus and fingo). 32 Pelling 1990, 213–14; cf. Hägg 2012, 6. 33 Phocas identifies Virgil’s mother as Polla (35); in this, he departs from VSD 3, which does not name her. The Vita attributed to Probus calls her Magia Polla, while Servius’ Vita calls her Magia. VSD 1 identifies Virgil’s father-in-law as Magus; Magia clearly derives from that. 34 The first added prodigy is that the earth produces a lush and flowery cradle for the baby Virgil; this is clearly based on Ecl 4.18–23. The second is the prodigy of the honeycomb, mentioned earlier. Only with these prodigies does Phocas add new biographical content to his Vita; otherwise, he expands upon existing material. This suggests that Phocas understood the account of the prodigies to differ from the rest of the biography, in that it lay open to entirely new anecdotes in ways that other sections did not. On the clear fictionality of the new miracles, see McGill 2010, 161–3 and 167–9. 35 The point is explicit in the anecdote derived from Plato, in which bees make a honeycomb on Virgil’s lips: Phocas calls the miracle an indicium linguae (56), a sign of the verbal excellence Virgil will possess. Phocas also connects the miracles and Virgil’s future as a poet when he states that, because of them (haec propter, 63), Virgil’s parents committed him to the Muses and showed him the way to eternal fame (63–4). 36 Phocas states that it took Virgil nine years to write the Georgics (geminis anno minus...lustris, 122) – assuming that he uses lustrum for a five-year period; Harrison in this volume (p. 87) proposes that, with lustrum, Phocas means four years – and twelve years to write the Aeneid (trieteride quarta, 125). VSD 25 asserts that the Georgics were written in seven years and the Aeneid in eleven. See Stok 2010, 119–20. On lines 89–90, see n. 48 below. 37 Thus VSD 6–16 and much of 22–34 are missing from Phocas. The account of Virgil’s juvenilia in the VSD (17–19) is also significantly shorter in Phocas. How much Phocas reproduced from VSD 36–46 is uncertain, meanwhile, because of the concluding lacuna; but it seems assured that the lacuna does not claim a significant amount of text. 38 Pelling 1990, 220. 39 Comparetti 1997, 150 notes that ‘more than one poet’ (he rightly cites Martial, Ep. 8.56 and Sidonius, Carm. 4) found inspiration in the story of Virgil’s experiences in the land confiscations. Phocas would seem to be another example of this. 40 With my use of the word ‘allegorical,’ cf. VSD 66: illud tenendum esse praedicimus, in Bucolicis Vergilii neque nusquam neque ubique aliquid figurate dici, hoc est per allegoriam (I declare that it must be borne in mind that neither nowhere nor everywhere in Virgil’s Eclogues is something said figuratively, that is, through allegory). For similar observations about the need to be judicious when reading the Eclogues allegorically, see Servius ad Buc. 1.1. 41 Because Phocas follows Donatus here (the introduction [called the expositio Donati ] does not trace back to Suetonius), it is very reasonable to suppose that he turned to that same model elsewhere in his biography. Cf. n. 4. VSD 19 also covers the topic of the confiscations briefly.

109

Scott McGill 42

In what follows, I restate McGill 2010, 154 n. 7. The Vita Philargyriana I also has some of the same language (victor Augustus [10], merito carminum fretus [15]). Following Stok 2006, esp. 60–1 and 78, I maintain that the parallels between Phocas and Philargyrius are due to the fact that they both relied upon Donatus. 44 See Vidal 1991, 810–11, Harrison in this volume (p. 75). Phocas also cites Lucan nine times in his Ars de nomine et verbo, a number equaled only by citations of Virgil; so Kaster 1998, 340. 45 This was how Servius (Vit. 4.6, ad Buc. praef. 2.25–3.14) read Ecl. 9.28; cf. DServius ad Buc. 9.28, with Peirano 2012, 108–9. 46 Alliteration of m and v also contributes to the pathos. Donatus likewise explains that Mantua suffered the confiscations only because of its proximity to Cremona (VSD 62). 47 None occur, meanwhile, in the section on Virgil’s education. 48 Lines 89–90 appear between the section on Virgil’s education and the section on the land confiscations. But because they include figures who, in VSD 19, lay behind the Eclogues, and because Phocas later (118–19) notes that Pollio is praised in that Virgilian collection, the lines can be grouped with the passage on the genesis of Virgil’s bucolic poetry (although they also, through Maecenas, anticipate the writing of the Georgics). 49 Relevant here is the way that Phocas paints Virgil’s powerful friends in a flattering light at line 110, where he describes them as a doctissima turba potentum, a ‘very learned crowd of powerful men’. By implication, of course, their learning reflects that of Virgil; they recognize in him what they themselves possess. 50 I understand victurus as a future participle of purpose. Even if it does not have that function, however, my reading holds: in that case, it is implicit but clear that what makes the men so enthusiastic about Virgil is his poetic ability, which, if he writes about them, will grant them a form of immortality. 51 For another reference to Virgil’s poetic immortality, see line 64 of Phocas’ Vita, mentioned earlier: et monstrare viam victurae in saecula famae (and to show [him] the path to fame that would live forever). 52 The soldier is identified as Arrius the centurion in VSD 63; Phocas keeps him anonymous. 53 This is a nice touch, given the subject matter of the land confiscations and the presence of Mantua in that account. 54 It has been suggested that AL 672 Riese derives from the final lost section of Phocas’ Vita (Naumann 1990, 571, Comparetti 1997, 151). This seems unlikely to me: AL 672, at 42 lines with a lacuna, would constitute a departure from the narrative frame of the VSD not in keeping with Phocas’ method. For another poem on Virgil’s wish to destroy the Aeneid, see AL 242 Riese (235 Shackleton Bailey); the work appears in a sixth-century anthology of poems preserved in the Codex Salmasianus. 55 Cf., too, Aen. 6.792–805, on the spread of empire under Augustus, who brings peace through victory in war. Bella could refer to the land confiscations (cf. Ecl. 9.11–12, tela inter Martia), which Phocas treats as a continuation of the civil war (96–100; cf. Ecl. 1.71–2). But the tone of 108–9 suggests otherwise: the reference seems to be to triumphant wars that Augustus fought and Virgil commemorated, not to the darkness of civil war (a war that Virgil handles obliquely in the Eclogues). Phocas’ soldier would thus stand in for those who generally fought for Augustus. 43

110

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana 56

VSD 63 states only that Virgil was recommended to Augustus by the reputation ( fama) of his poetry. (The Vita Philargyrii II varies this by stating that Virgil won back his land due to his ‘extraordinary talent’ [summum ingenium].) 57 See, too, line 115: invenit carmen, quo munera vincere posset (he found a poem, by which he might be able to surpass the gifts). 58 The same point is made at VSD 19; but it makes sense that Phocas had VSD 64 in mind after his clear reliance upon VSD 60–3. 59 Sidonius sets up the contrast by referring to Tityrus in the first line, in a clear example of allegorical reading in which Tityrus stands for Virgil: Tityrus ut quondam patulae sub tegmine fagi/volveret inflatos murmura per calamos,/praestitit adflicto ius vitae Caesar et agri (so that long ago Tityrus might roll out his soft notes through the reed he blew through under the cover of a spreading beech tree, Caesar offered him in his distress the right to life and land, Carm. 4.1–3). 60 On such open biography, see Hägg 2012, 99–147, which is indebted to Konstan 1998. 61 I derive audendi potestas from Horace, Ars P. 9–10: pictoribus atque poetis/quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas (for painters and poets, there was always equal power to dare anything at all). 62 My language echoes Dewar 1996, xxv, who calls attention to the ‘greater freedom of invention generally permitted the poet.’ 63 Worth mentioning here is the third stanza of Phocas’ preface (9–12), in which he states that the Muse Clio does not know how to vary pages with ornate words (fucatis dictis), but rather echoes plainly (simplice lingua) what bare truth (aperta veritas) sets forth. This is to assert the truth-value of the biography. Obviously, however, in practice Phocas did not confine himself to plain speech, but rather dressed up his language in various ways, including through the use of poetic diction, rhetorical figures, and imitation. 64 See the previous note, as well as the passage cited in n. 68. Clio is, more specifically, the Muse of historical prose; Phocas signals that prose is expected, which is to highlight his unusual turn to verse (see Harrison in this volume, p. 76). Phocas, therefore, speaks to a topic of significant interest in antiquity and in modern scholarship: the relationship between biography and history. See, e.g., Momigliano 1993, 1–7, Sonnabend 2002, 4–7, McGing and Mossman 2006, x–xii, and Hägg 2012, 3–4 and 95–7. 65 There is no ancient writer who at all takes the skeptical view of Horsfall 1995 toward the factual accuracy of much of the biography. Certainly, moreover, the events surrounding the origin of the Eclogues were widely taken to be true. The one area where Phocas could well have identified fiction in the VSD is in the account of the prodigies; see McGill 2010, 162–3. 66 See n. 34 above. 67 As is well known, details ascribed to Virgil’s biography (including, of course, the story about his experiences in the land confiscations) were derived from biographical readings of his poetry. The thinking was that Virgil’s poetry held keys to reconstructing Virgil’s life. Cf. Horsfall 1995 68 O vetustatis memoranda custos,/regios actus simul et fugaces/temporum cursus docilis referre,/ aurea Clio,/tu nihil magnum sinis interire,/nil mori clarum pateris, reservans/posteris prisci monumenta saecli/condita libris (o guardian of the past, worthy of recollection, skillful at

111

Scott McGill recording both regal deeds and the fleeting motions of time, golden Clio, you allow nothing great to perish, nothing notable to die, preserving for posterity the monuments of a distant age that were written down in books), 1–8. It bears noting that Clio was long associated with the celebration and immortalization of heroic deeds in different genres, including those of poetry; cf. Peirano 2012, 90 n. 58. 69 Kaster 1988: 340. 70 I derive ‘ecclesiastical fallacy’ from Cameron 2004, 343–4. 71 I echo Cameron 2011, 589, on the use of sacer to describe Virgil’s Aeneid in Macrobius’ Sat. 1.24.13. For sacer meaning ‘worthy to be regarded as divine, sublime,’ see OLD s.v. ‘sacer’ 9.

Bibliography Bonner, S. F. 1977 Education in Ancient Rome From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Brugnoli, G. 1984 Foca: Vita di Virgilio, Pisa. 1988 ‘Osservazioni sulla Vita Vergilii di Foca’, Maia 40, 153–7. 1997 ‘Vita Focae’ in Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, ed. G. Brugnoli and F. Stok, Rome, 155–69. Callu, J. P. 1997 ‘A la frange de l’histoire: cinq textes ou paratextes de l’antiquité tardive’, Numismatica e antichità classiche 26, 365–84. Cameron, A. 2004 ‘Poetry and literary culture in Late Antiquity’ in Approaching Late Antiquity: The Transformation from Early to Late Empire, ed. S. Swain and M. Edwards, Oxford, 327–54. 2011 The Last Pagans of Rome, Oxford. Comparetti, D. 1997 Vergil in the Middle Ages, trans. E. F. M. Benecke, Princeton. Cribiore, R. 2001 Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, Princeton. De Temmerman, K. 2016 ‘Ancient biography and the formalities of fiction’ in Writing Biography in Greece and Rome, ed. K. De Temmerman and K. Demoen, Cambridge, 3–25. Dewar, M., ed. 1996 Claudian: Panegyricus de sexto consulatu Honorii Augusti, Oxford. Green, R. P. H., ed. 1999 Ausonii opera, Oxford. Hägg, T. 2012 The Art of Biography in Antiquity, Cambridge. Hägg, T. and Rousseau, P. 2000 ‘Introduction’ in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. T. Hägg and P. Rousseau, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1–28.

112

Larger than life: the elevation of Virgil in Phocas’ Vita Vergiliana Hanink, J. and Fletcher, R. 2016 ‘Orientation: what we mean by “creative lives” ’ in Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, artists and biography, ed. J. Hanink and R. Fletcher, Cambridge, 3–28. Hardie, C., ed. 1954 Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, Oxford. Horsfall, N. 1995 ‘Virgil: His Life and Times’ in id. ed., A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Mnemosyne Suppl. 151, Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1–25. 1995 ‘Virgil’s impact at Rome: the non-literary evidence’ in id. ed., A Companion to the Study of Virgil, 249–55. Kaster, R. 1988 Guardians of Language: The grammarian and society in Late Antiquity, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London. Konstan, D. 1998 ‘The Alexander Romance: The cunning of the open text’, Lexis: Poetica, retorica e comunicazione nella tradizione classica 16, 123–38. Lee, H. 2009 Biography: A very short introduction, Oxford. Lefkowitz, M. R. 1981 The Lives of the Greek Poets, Baltimore. 2016 ‘On bees, poets and Plato: ancient biographers’ representations of the creative process’ in Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, Artists and Biography, ed. J. Hanink and R. Fletcher, Cambridge, 177–97. Mayer, M. 1975 ‘El oficio del padre de Virgilio y la tradición biográfica virgiliana’, AnFil 1, 67–92. Mazhuga, V. 2003 ‘A quelle époque vivait le grammairien Phocas?’, RPh 77, 67–77. McGill, S. 2010 ‘Another man’s miracles: recasting Aelius Donatus in Phocas’s Life of Virgil ’ in From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture, 284–450 CE, ed. S. McGill, C. Sogno, and E. Watts, Cambridge, 153–69. McGing, B. and Mossman, J., eds 2006 The Limits of Ancient Biography, Swansea. Momigliano, A. 1993 The Development of Greek Biography, Cambridge, Mass. Naumann, H. 1938 ‘Suetons Vergilvita’, RhM 87, 334–376. 1990 ‘Vitae Vergilianae’ in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, vol. v, Rome, 571–88. Peirano, I. 2012 The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake: Latin pseudepigrapha in context, Cambridge. Pelling, C. B. R. 1990 ‘Childhood and personality in biography’ in Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature, ed. C. B. R. Pelling, Oxford, 213–44.

113

Scott McGill Sonnabend, H. 2002 Geschichte der antiken Biographie von Isokrates bis zur Historia Augusta, Stuttgart and Weimar. Stok, F. 1997 ‘Vita Donatiana’ in Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, ed. G. Brugnoli and F. Stok, Rome, 9–56. 2006 ‘Stemma Vitarum Vergilianarum’ in Studi sulle Vitae Vergilianae, ed. G. Brugnoli and F. Stok, Pisa, 59–78. 2010 ‘The Life of Vergil before Donatus’ in A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its Tradition, ed. J. Farrell and M. C. J. Putnam, Malden, 107–20. Thomas, R. F. 1986 ‘Virgil’s Georgics and the art of reference’, HSCP 90, 171–98. Vidal, J. L. 1991 ‘La Vita Vergiliana de Focas: Biografía y poesía de escuela’, ExcPhilol. I, 801–12. 2002 ‘Intención de autor y estilo de la época en la composición de la vita Vergilii de Focas’ in Scripturus Vitam: Lateinische Biographie von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart: Festgabe für Walter Berschin zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. D. Walz, Heidelberg, 663–72. Williams, F., ed. 1978 Callimachus: Hymn to Apollo, Oxford. Ziolkowski, J. M. and Putnam, M. C. J. 2008 The Virgilian Tradition: The first hundred years, New Haven and London.

114

6 CAMEO ROLES: VIRGIL IN OVIDIAN BIOGRAPHY Nora Goldschmidt Virgil’s poetry has been the subject of one of the richest traditions of reception in the history of literature. Yet the poet’s Nachleben does not consist merely in the ‘afterlife’ of his texts: it consists, too, in the reception of the poet’s life and the biographical traditions about it. According to Donatus (VSD 133–137), Virgil composed his own miniature biography with his dying breath, and from that moment of legendary autobiography if not before, life-writing about Virgil thrived and multiplied. One reception tradition of Virgilian lives closely follows the ancient Vitae, especially the life of Donatus. Donatus and the augmented Renaissance version commonly known as Donatus auctus were regularly printed in editions of Virgil up until the mid-nineteenth century, yoking text and biographical paratext together.1 Readers were thereby encouraged to make the interpretative link between text and biography, establishing a pattern of reception which has persisted into the modern period, influencing readings of Virgil from Hermann Broch’s Der Tod des Vergil (1945) to Gabriel Josipovici’s ‘Vergil Dying’ (1979).2 Running parallel to the Donatan tradition, however, another equally influential tradition of Virgilian lives characterizes the poet’s biographical reception. Stemming partly from the perceived magical properties in Virgil’s texts – witnessed most notably in the sortes Vergilianae (‘Virgilian lots’), the practice of opening Virgil’s works at random in order to predict the future – the image of the poet possessed with magical powers expanded in the medieval and early modern periods into popular legend, creating a proliferation of fictional biographies of Virgil which depicted his various adventures as a necromancer and a womanizer, visiting a magnetic mountain on a boat drawn by griffins, transforming himself into a horse to please one lady, and using his magical powers to exact revenge when scorned by another.3 Yet even in some of the most fabulous of these stories, the reception of Virgil’s life is not wholly independent from the reception of Virgil’s texts. Recent scholarship on ancient biography has shown that ancient lives, and particularly the lives of the Greek and Roman poets, should be seen not as

115

Nora Goldschmidt a species of history – a genre whose so-called ‘facts’ can be dismissed because they are extrapolated from the ancient poems themselves – but, rather, as a species of literary interpretation.4 Life-writing, in other words, can fruitfully be seen as a creative mode of reading ancient texts, and this is clearly the case for the reception traditions of the lives of Virgil. Virgil self-consciously fashioned his own poetic career in his texts and was early on identified on a semi-biographical level with his work. Some of the ‘facts’ in the ancient Vitae can already be seen to take up the implicit invitation extended in Virgil’s texts by constructing the life from the work in such details as the confiscation and return of Virgil’s land, the apicultural endeavours of the poet’s father, or the miraculous bounty of nature sprouting from the earth to cushion the infant poet.5 As Virgil’s Nachleben progresses, moreover, the longer view of reception often reveals an increasingly intricate link between text and biography. Whether or not, in Charles Martindale’s memorable formulation, ‘we cannot get back to any originary meaning wholly free from subsequent accretions’,6 what is clear in Virgil’s reception history is that the subsequent accretions to Virgil’s texts and the subsequent accretions to his biography often interact in surprisingly fruitful ways. Among the most fascinating examples of this multi-layered biographicalcum-textual reception history are those which cluster around the link between Virgil and Ovid. Though Ovid claimed that he ‘only saw’ Virgil in his lifetime (Vergilium uidi tantum, Tr. 4.10.51), he bound his poems reactively and intertextually to Virgil’s. Picking up on the relationship encoded in Ovid’s texts, later readers often read the two corpora together, so much so that Virgil and Ovid can be seen as an identifiable ‘couple’ in the landscape of reception.7 This chapter examines some of the ways in which traditions about Virgil’s life interact with Ovid’s early reception of Virgil’s texts. It focuses in particular on two examples of the biographical meeting of the Virgilian-Ovidian couple, each of which taps into a different branch of the Virgilian lives: one a medieval accessus found on the margins of a manuscript of the Tristia and the other an early modern play set in Augustan Rome, Ben Jonson’s Poetaster. Drawing simultaneously on the multiform traditions of Virgilian biography as well as on the early reception of Virgil’s texts in Ovid’s oeuvre, these examples bring to the fore the essential dynamics involved in biographical reception. In both, Virgil is given a walk-on part – a cameo role – in the story of Ovid’s life, and in both that cameo becomes an opportunity to interrogate the complex traditions of biographies and literary texts involved in the reception history of Virgilian lives.

116

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography I. Virgil on the margins Ovid’s texts had long ago yoked themselves to Virgil’s in an implicit narrative of poetic succession and emulation, from the opening word, arma, of his debut in Amores 1.1 echoing the first word of Virgil’s Aeneid, to the ‘little Aeneid ’ at the end the Metamorphoses.8 From the 9th century, however, a textual presence impersonating the original ‘Ovid’ posthumously continued this practice, cementing the close relationship between the two poets established in antiquity. In a series of prefaces to books of the Aeneid known as the argumenta Aeneidos, found in manuscripts from the 9th century onwards (accompanied by a pseudoepigraphic semi-autobiographical verse preface attributing them to Virgil’s younger contemporary), ‘Ovid’ constructs his poetic career vis-à-vis Virgil’s:9 Vergilius magno quantum concessit Homero, tantum ego Vergilio, Naso poeta, meo. Nec me praelatum cupio tibi ferre, poeta; ingenio si te subsequor, hoc satis est. As much as Virgil gave way to the great Homer, so much have I, the poet Ovid, given way to my Virgil. Nor do I desire, poet, to claim that I am preferred to you: if I am second to you in talent, that is enough.

Echoing Statius, who took inspiration at Virgil’s tomb (Silvae 4.4.55) and instructed his epic, Thebiad, to ‘follow far off’ in Virgil’s footsteps (tu longe sequere et uestigia semper adora, Theb. 12.817), Ovid, in the guise of posthumous editor and textual commentator, places himself in Virgil’s shadow as a ‘follower’ of the poet of the Aeneid (si ingenio te subsequor, hoc satis est ). This combination of curatorship and literary rivalry also underlies other pseudoepigraphy by Ovid’s medieval Doppelgänger. Filling in the perceived gaps in Ovid’s poetic career to make it follow more closely the model of Virgil’s own, he composes poems on a flea (De pulice) and a louse (De pediculo) to parallel the pseudo-Virgilian Culex;10 he writes an epitaph on Virgil,11 and a short piece lamenting the potential loss to literary history that would have been effected had the Aeneid been burned, a lament which is in turn quoted in the mid-fourteenth century Vita Vaticana II.12 The story of all-too-close poetic rivalry which is implied in these Ovidian fakes turns into full-blown biographical narrative in a remarkable thirdperson fictional life of Ovid in which Virgil makes a cameo appearance. Like most poetic biographies in the medieval period, it is found in an academic context, in the form of a so-called accessus: an introduction to a work, often associated with a commentary and frequently copied around the manuscript of the text itself, a substantial part of which included a biography – in various degrees of imaginative fiction – of the poet.13

117

Nora Goldschmidt Coming sometimes quite literally en frange du texte,14 and crucial to the ways in which medieval readers approached the ancient works they read, the relationship between life and text, and life as textual interpretation, is powerfully brought to the fore, as the life becomes a ‘paratext’ to the poems themselves.15 This particular accessus is known from two manuscripts, one a fourteenth-century codex of the Tristia now in Paris,16 and one a miscellany (containing material from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries), currently in Munich, which displays minor differences from the Paris version.17 Composed as part of an introduction to the Tristia, the Paris version is inscribed directly onto the manuscript of Ovid’s text. The key part of the Paris accessus reads as follows: Ovidius igitur de ingenuis parentibus extitit oriundus et in Liviam Augusti uxorem anhelavit quam in libro sine titulo sub falso nomine Corinnam vocavit, unde illud: ‘Moverat ingenium’ etc., et alibi: ‘Nichil nisi non sapiens possum timidusque vocari, hec duo sunt [animi] nomina vera mei’. In consultis pronosticis Ovidius ad territos [read ‘turritos’] imperatricis talamos per scalam eneam ascendebat. Coactus autem necessario, pre nimio timore, per sua vestigia repedare, quosdam de scala gradus Virgilius abstulerat fraudolenter. Ovidius ergo non ore suo facinus suum sed cruris fractione demonstravit. Unde Ovidius de cetero Virgilium habuit odio. Cum igitur in hoc contemporaneos suos commendet, Virgilio detrahit, unde illud: ‘Virgilium tantum vidi.’18 And so Ovid, who was born of noble parents, passionately loved Augustus’ wife, Livia, whom he called Corinna by a fake name in the book ‘without a title’ [i.e. the Amores]: for this reason, Ovid wrote: ‘My genius had been stirred [by a woman sung throughout Rome, whom I called (not by a real name) Corinna]’,19 and elsewhere ‘no terms except ‘senseless’ and ‘timid’ can be applied to me: these are the two true words of my soul’.20 Ignoring the omens, Ovid was climbing up to the empress’s turreted chamber on a bronze ladder. He was compelled by the call of nature (because he was so timorous) to retrace his steps, but Virgil had deceitfully removed some rungs from the ladder. Ovid therefore announced his crime not by his mouth but by breaking his leg. This is the reason why Ovid hated Virgil, and why in this poem, although he commends his contemporaries, he disparages Virgil: and that’s why he writes, ‘I only saw Virgil’.21

What is immediately striking about this narrative is that it evokes popular medieval traditions of poetic biography; but while Ovid is the protagonist in this accessus, the popular story is, in fact, immediately recognisable as a stock theme in the medieval lives not of Ovid, but of Virgil, in an episode commonly known as ‘Virgil in the Basket’, one of a number of tales of Virgil’s amorous adventures, often involving the exercise of magical powers.22 According to this legend, Virgil fell in love with the emperor’s

118

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography daughter. Agreeing to an assignation, the princess used a basket and a pulley to hoist the poet up to her turreted bedchamber, but instead of letting her would-be lover into her bedroom, she left him hanging in the basket half way up the tower to be the object of public ridicule for the whole of the following day. To readers familiar with the ‘Parthenias’ of the Donatan tradition (tam probum fuisse constat, ut Neapoli ‘Parthenias’ uulgo appellaretur, VSD 11; Donatus auctus, 22), the story now seems recherché, but for medieval readers it was central to the grammar of popular tradition about Virgil’s life. Sometimes told together with a sequel in which Virgil employed magic to exact revenge, the story of ‘Virgil in the Basket’ was popular all over medieval Europe and beyond, with versions appearing in several different languages and in various contexts from a carved capital in the Church of St Pierre, Caen to design motifs in the bric-à-brac of elite daily life.23 In this transferred version, taking his own statements in the argumenta quite literally, Ovid follows in the footsteps of his older poetic rival (te subsequor) to visit the empress’s turreted bedchamber in the dead of night. In the Munich version where he is said to climb an invisible ladder (scala invisibili ), Ovid also takes on some of Virgil’s traditional magic powers.24 But the link with Virgil’s texts as well as Virgil’s lives is more deeply embedded in this accessus, since this miniature biography is also fundamentally tied in with the reception of Virgil’s texts in the Ovidian corpus.25 Ovid had described in a fictional autobiographical vignette at the opening of Amores 1.1 how, as he tried to challenge the Aeneid by writing a poem on arma (1.1.1, the first word both of Amores 1.1 and of the Aeneid ), one of his ‘feet’ ( pes) was removed by Cupid (unum surripuisse pedem, Am. 1.1.4). That ‘limp’ is here given its concrete biographical realisation in Ovid’s broken leg (cruris fractione), contracted as he attempted to follow the path already trodden by the poet of the Aeneid. Moreover, in its immediate context, the Paris version of this accessus functions primarily as a paratext to the Tristia, on whose margins it is inscribed.26 Therefore one of the poems to which it is a paratext is Ovid’s own life-narrative, Tristia 4.10. As the author of the accessus well perceived, behind that poem, too, lies Virgil’s life and work. Ovid’s autobiography begins with the words ille ego qui, ‘I am he’, which, for medieval readers, would immediately evoke the incipit to the Aeneid, believed to have been written by Virgil, found in the ancient lives,27 and commonly written into manuscripts of the Aeneid as the opening words of the epic.28 Like Ovid’s poem, the Virgilian pre-proem is composed in autobiographical mode and summarizes in miniature his literary career:

119

Nora Goldschmidt ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus auena carmina et egressus siluis uicina coegi ut quamuis auido parerent arua colono, gratum opus agricolis, at nunc horrentia Martis I am he who once tuned my song on a slender reed, then, leaving the woodland, compelled the neighbouring fields to serve the farmer, however grasping, a work welcome to farmers: but now of Mars’s bristling...

The opening subtext in Tristia 4.10 implicitly sets Ovid up as Virgil’s literary and biographical twin (ille ego qui ). Yet Virgil is paradoxically absent in the text of the poem. The Aeneid has no place in Ovid’s potted literary history of Rome (Tr. 4.10.41–50) and as to the Aeneid’s author, Ovid claims that he only saw him: Vergilium uidi tantum (Tr. 4.10.51). The idea that Ovid only saw Virgil might be true in biographical terms (Virgil died when Ovid was twenty-four), but it makes no sense in poetic terms. Virgil looms large in Ovid’s oeuvre, and although Ovid does not openly disparage Virgil (Virgilio detrahit ), Vergilium uidi tantum, quoted as the pay-off to this accessus, is an implicit admission of anxiety of influence. The logical fact that Virgil could never have been on the scene of Ovid’s exile is ignored or never really considered; but in poetic terms, as a biography of Ovid, putting Virgil as a love rival on the scene of Ovid’s error, just as he is everywhere in Ovid’s carmina as a poetic rival, makes perfect sense. Appropriating popular biographical tradition about Virgil, therefore, one poet’s life is made to fill in the riddling gaps in the other’s. At the same time, Ovid’s error is also explained in literary critical terms by a sensitive textual reading of the dynamics of poetic succession at work in Ovid’s texts.29 In doing so, this accessus brings to the fore currents in the reception of the life and text of Virgil that are just as important in understanding Virgil’s biographical afterlife as the ‘pure’ Donatan tradition. Drawing simultaneously on the pre-Suetonian-Donatan reception of the texts in the works of Ovid and on contemporary biographical legend, this short but remarkable text exemplifies some of the ways in which Virgil’s life in reception can be a far richer proposition than the reception of the ancient Vitae alone might suggest. II. ‘Rome’s honour’ and ‘licentious Naso’: Lives on stage in Ben Jonson’s Poetaster Although the legends of Virgil evoked in the Paris-Munich accessus continued to influence popular tradition in the early modern period, the ancient life of Donatus which began to appear in its augmented form from the early fifteenth century, shaped biographical receptions of the poet in particularly fundamental ways.30 It is as a Donatan character that Virgil

120

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography makes his second cameo appearance on the stage of Ovid’s life in Ben Jonson’s Poetaster. First performed in London in 1601, Jonson’s play is a crucial chapter in the biographical reception of Roman poets. Centrally concerned with the ‘poetics of personation’, Poetaster, in part, engages in the contemporary ‘War of the Theatres’, a series of on-stage attacks between Jonson and his theatrical rivals, John Marston (figured in Poetaster as ‘Crispinus’) and Thomas Dekker (Poetaster’s Demetrius).31 Yet even as it presents early modern lives on stage, Jonson’s play is also centrally preoccupied with ancient lives, dramatizing the lives of Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Tibullus and Gallus as read from their works and the ancient biographical traditions about them.32 Set in a version of Augustan Rome overlaid with Elizabethan London, Jonson’s play operates on double plot. One narrative is squarely targeted at the ‘War of the Theatres’ and concerns Crispinus, the ‘poetaster’ of the title, and the hack writer Demetrius Fannius, who have set out to attack Horace (a partial cover for Jonson himself), ‘taxing him falsely of self-love, arrogancy, impudence, railing, filching by translation, etcetera’ (V.iii.223–5). This plot is resolved in the trial of Act V, scene iii (the ‘Arraignment’ of the play’s alternative title), when Crispinus is sentenced to take a pill that forces him to regurgitate the turgid language from which he fashions his mediocre poetry. The second narrative strand in Poetaster centres on Ovid. The first character to appear on stage, a fact that famously annoyed Algernon Swinburne since it obscured the question of whom the play was really ‘about’, Poetaster presents Ovid’s biography in dramatic form.33 He is first glimpsed at the start of his literary career, composing the Amores and attempting to hide his poetic labours from his father, who prefers him to study law (I.i–ii), and the play follows the narrative of Ovid’s biography, from his love affair with Augustus’ daughter Julia to his ultimate exile ‘on pain of death’ (IV.vi.56). Moving away from earlier preoccupations with the contemporary allegory, recent scholarship on Poetaster has increasingly turned its attention to detailed analysis of Jonson’s use of ancient texts, translations of which make up a substantial portion of the play.34 Rather than a form of ‘plagiary’, translation itself is now seen as a central theme of Jonson’s play:35 ancient texts, it is now fully acknowledged, are at the heart of Poetaster. Yet for early modern readers just as much as for their medieval counterparts, those ancient texts were inextricable from their biographical paratexts. Early modern editions of Roman poets – including those that survive from Jonson’s own library – contained prefatory lives of the poets as a matter of course, implicitly directing readers to view the poet’s work through the lens of the traditions of his life. In addition, the primary texts Jonson

121

Nora Goldschmidt chooses to focus on, from Ovid’s Amores 1.15 and Tristia 4.10 to Horace’s Satires 1.9 and 2.1, are themselves fundamentally concerned with autobiographical self-fashioning, making Poetaster a play centrally concerned with Roman poets’ lives. This biographical preoccupation comes to the fore right from the outset. The first words Ovid speaks are the close of the semi-autobiographical Amores 1.15 (‘then when my body falls in funeral pyre/my name shall live and my best part aspire’, Poetaster I.i.1–2), the whole of which he reads out at the end of the scene (I.i.43–84). The scene itself dramatizes an autobiographical statement from this poem, ‘that I study not the tedious laws/And prostitute my voice in every cause’ (I.i.47–8; Amores 1.15.5–6), combined with a longer version of the story in Tristia 4.10, both acknowledged by Jonson as his sources in the ‘Apologetical Dialogue’ printed in the Folio edition of the play:36 inque suum furtim Musa trahebat opus. saepe pater dixit ‘studium quid inutile temptas? Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes.’ motus eram dictis, totoque Helicone relicto scribere temptabam uerba soluta modis. sponte sua carmen numeros ueniebat ad aptos, et quod temptabam scribere uersus erat. (Tristia 4.10.20–6) And stealthily the Muse kept on drawing me to do her work. Often my father said, ‘Why do you try a profitless pursuit? Even Homer left no wealth.’ I was influenced by what he said, and completely forsaking Helicon, I tried to write words free from rhythm; yet of its own accord song would come upon suitable metre, and whatever I tried to write was verse.

In Jonson’s opening scene, Ovid’s father comes on stage, speaking, in part, the script already written for him in Tristia 4.10.37 Ovid may try to turn his attention to the study of law, but as he says to Tibullus – speaking in couplets while all the other characters speak in prose as if to prove the point – law cases ‘run from my pen/Unwittingly, if they be verse’ (II.iii.8–9), quoting Tristia 4.10.25–6 (sponte sua carmen numeros ueniebat ad aptos,/et quod temptabam scribere uersus erat ), a sentiment echoed by Ovid Senior: ‘Why, he cannot speak, he cannot think out of/poetry’ (I.ii.108–9). As well as Ovid’s autobiographical self-fashioning, Jonson also stages the biographical traditions about Ovid, and in particular, speculations about the causes of Ovid’s exile found in the quasi-biographical contexts of the commentary tradition. As creatively interpreted in the Paris-Munich accessus, a putative love affair with Augustus’ daughter Julia, identified by commentators as the ‘real’ presence behind the ‘Corinna’ of the love elegies, was the chief candidate for Ovid’s error, a hypothesis echoed in

122

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography Jonson’s own edition of Ovid.38 Jonson’s Ovid duly enacts the plot of his biographical tradition. He ‘veil[s] bright Julia underneath that name [Corinna]’ (1.iii.37), and it is explicitly because of his affair with Julia that he is banished from court: Licentious Naso, for thy violent wrong, In soothing the declined affections Of our base daughter, we exile thy feet From all approach to our imperial court, On pain of death. (IV.vi.52–6)

Presenting in nuce the narrative of Ovid’s biography, Poetaster thus takes us from the poet’s first literary endeavours to his exile and departure here, as he becomes the ‘licentious Naso’ (52) of the biographical tradition, whose appetite for the ‘declined affections’ (53) of the emperor’s daughter led to his exile ‘on pain of death’ (56). The final act, by contrast, shifts the focus to Virgil. Ensconced at the heart of the court from which Ovid has lately been banned, Virgil, ‘Rome’s honour’ (V.i.69; 71), takes a central role in the play’s dénouement, presiding as ‘praetor’ (V.iii.157) over the ‘arraignment’ of the play’s close in Augustus’ name (V.iii), ‘authorizing the author who presides over the judgement of the authors’.39 Jonson knew and used Donatus’ life or the augmented version,40 and the Virgil staged in Poetaster is arguably a vivified version of Donatus. A ‘rectified spirit’ (V.i.100), like Donatus’ ‘Parthenias’ (VSD 11 Donatus auctus 22),41 Jonson’s Virgil is ‘almost too perfect’.42 As the Donatan tradition narrates, ‘whatever he asked from Augustus, he never received a rebuff ’, quaecumque ab Augusto peteret, repulsam numquam habuit, Donatus auctus, 24), an image echoed in the dependent shorter life found in Jonson’s Folio copy of Pontanus’ edition of Virgil: 43 inter amicos eius principem locum vendicat Augustus, cui haesit in visceribus: adeo, ut sua cum eo de magnis rebus consilia communicaret, familiarissime eum adhiberet, petenti nihil negaret. Among Virgil’s friends, the first place was claimed by Augustus, to whom he was very close: so much so, that Augustus would communicate to him his deliberations on important affairs, consult him with great familiarity and deny him nothing for which he asked.

Jonson elaborates this close relationship between Augustus and Virgil in the Vitae into a scene of courtly favouritism. Echoing his position in imperial favour in the biographical tradition, Virgil is seated at Caesar’s right hand as soon as he enters the stage, ‘where ‘tis fit/that Rome’s honour, and our own, should ever sit’ (V.i.70–1; cf. V.ii.23–4), and in an

123

Nora Goldschmidt exaggeration of the preference shown him in the Vitae, the poet is welcomed by the princeps with rhetorical extravagance, suggesting a near identity between the poet and the prince: Caesar and Virgil Shall differ but in sound; to Caesar, Virgil, Of his expressed greatness, shall be made A second surname; and to Virgil, Caesar (V.ii.2–5).44

A key passage from Donatus further provides the basis for the action of Virgil’s main appearance in Poetaster (V.i–ii): 45 Augustus vero, cum iam forte expeditione Cantabrica abesset, supplicibus atque etiam minacibus per iocum litteris efflagitaret, ut sibi de Aeneide, vel prima carminis hypographa vel quodlibet colon mitteret, negavit; cui tamen multo post, perfecta demum materia, tres omnino libros recitavit, secundum, quartum et sextum. (Donatus auctus, 46) Indeed, when Augustus (for, as it happened, he was away on his campaign in Cantabria) demanded of him in his letters, with entreaties and also jokingly with threats, ‘that he send to him the first draft of the Aeneid or some section of it’, Virgil denied his request. Much later, when he had refined his subject matter, he finally recited three books and no more for Augustus: the second, fourth, and sixth.

Jonson condenses the ancient biographical narrative into a single episode. As in Donatus, Virgil is asked by the princeps to show the Aeneid (‘Where are thy famous Aeneids? Do us grace/To let us see, and surfeit on their sight’, Poetaster V.ii.6–7). Initially refusing the request (‘Worthless are they of Caesar’s gracious eyes... . I will not show them’, Poetaster V.ii.8; 13; cf. Donatus auctus, 46), Augustus insists that Virgil reveal his work supplicibus atque etiam minacibus per iocum litteris (‘Virgil is too modest/Or seeks in vain to make our longings more’, Poetaster V.ii.14–17). The poet duly produces the manuscript on stage (‘then in such due fear/As fits presenters of great works to Caesar,/I humbly show them’, Poetaster V.ii.15–17), speeding up the process of revision in Donatus (multo post, perfecta demum materia, ‘much later when he had refined his subject matter’), and the episode ends with Virgil reciting a portion from a book of the Aeneid, condensing the ‘three books’ (tres...libros) specified in Donatus to a short passage, Aeneid 4.160–88, Jonson’s translation of which makes up the closing lines of V.ii (lines 56–97). Dramatized with Jonson’s ‘fleshly pencils’ (V.i.115), therefore, Donatus’ text is transformed into ‘a human soul made visible in life’ (V.ii.18) on the Elizabethan stage. Yet as Jonson and his classically educated audience

124

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography would have known, coming after the Ovid plot, Virgil’s presence is a historical anachronism. So what is Virgil doing here? On a superficial level, the two dramatized lives serve to contrast with each other. Taking the moment from the Virgilian Vitae which shows the relationship between Virgil and Augustus at its most intimate, Poetaster juxtaposes it with one of the most famous turns by a ruler against a poet, the relegation of Ovid to Tomis in AD 8. While ‘Licentious Naso’s’ louche activities incur Augustus’ ire, Virgil’s ‘sacred lines’ (V.iii.146) are received with unmitigated favour, so much so that the princeps declares his nominal identity with the poet of the Aeneid, suggesting that he would add ‘Virgil’ as a ‘second surname’ (V.ii.2–5).46 The two poets never meet in the play and, unlike Horace for whom Ovid’s behaviour is excusable as ‘innocent mirth,/And harmless pleasures bred of noble wit’ (IV.viii.12–13), Virgil implicitly condones Caesar’s ban when, in the comic dénouement of the Poetaster plot, he describes the princeps’ judgement as ‘fair and just’ (V.iii.130) and acts as the executor of his command. But the apparent dichotomy evident on the surface of these staged biographies is not as stable as at first it may seem. Poetaster is deeply invested in interrogating the relationship between the poet and state power. Though partly celebrating the world which he also criticized and later taking on the role of public censorship himself, Jonson’s relationship with state authority was a complex one.47 In a play whose epilogue was originally suppressed ‘by Authoritie’,48 and whose dedication recalls the necessity of Richard Martin’s intervention ‘with the highest Justice in the Land’, Jonson’s version of the Ovid-Virgil ‘couple’ in Poetaster operates, in part, within that political dynamic. While Virgil is put almost literally on a pedestal, sitting on a chair apparently not just next to (V.i.69–71) but above Caesar’s (V.ii.24–7),49 similarities between ‘Rome’s honour’ and his ‘licentious’ younger contemporary are implicitly suggested in Jonson’s text. On an intertextual level, Jonson’s extended translations from both Ovid and Virgil in the framing acts of Poetaster are supersaturated with echoes of Christopher Marlowe. Ovid’s recital of Amores 1.15 in Poetaster I.i.39–80 and Marlowe’s version of the same poem, banned and burned in the Bishop’s bonfire of 1599,50 are so close ‘that no one who knew the earlier version could mistake the allusion’;51 but Marlowe also underlies Jonson’s translation of Virgil: his hyper-Virgilian play, Dido, Queen of Carthage – written for and performed by the same theatre company as Poetaster – permeates Jonson’s version of Aeneid 4.160–88 in Poetaster V.ii.56–97.52 Moreover, the content of the passage Virgil chooses to recite, the apparently sexual meeting of Dido and Aeneas in a cave, comes dangerously close to the preoccupations of ‘Licentious Naso’. Although

125

Nora Goldschmidt the Dido episode could be read allegorically as a kind of Virgile moralisé, an equally prevalent allegorical tradition accompanied Ovid’s works, too, and the idea that the passage Virgil reads in Poetaster offers ‘an excellent lesson in moral restraint and purpose – a perfect balance to Ovid’s demonstration of debased...sensuality’ ostensibly preferred by the play cannot be taken at face value.53 However much Caesar’s actions and words may draw distinctions between Virgil and Ovid, the two poets, in the end, are textually closer than the action – and the biographical traditions on which it is based – suggests.54 As Ovid claimed in the autobiographical intertexts which underwrite Act I, he ‘only saw’ Virgil, whose Aeneid ‘shall be read/While Rome of all the conquered world is head’ (I.i.67–8; Amores 1.15.25–6). Now transferred to mirror political concerns about the role of the poet in Elizabethan London, the rivalry written into Ovid’s early reception of Virgil is given its concrete realisation through Jonson’s creative biographical reading, as Virgil once again intrudes as an animate life into Ovidian biography. The cameo, as a cinematic technique, can be a central motif of defamiliarization; Hitchcock or Godard walk across the screen and suddenly the work reveals its own fictionality, laying bare the principles on which it functions. The effect is to impinge upon – but not to break completely – the audience’s suspension of disbelief. We think about the fictionality and artifice of the film even as we are still engrossed in its narrative fiction. Chronologically out of joint, Virgil’s unexpected appearance on the stage or page of Ovid’s life has a similar effect, crystallizing several key issues. As he walks onto the scene of another biographical tradition, Virgil’s cameo role brings to the fore the fictionality of biography as a creative mode of reading. In doing so, it highlights the network of traditions surrounding the figure of the poet. Virgil’s life in reception is complex and multiform, encompassing the ancient Vitae and the Virgilian legends as well as the early reception of Virgil’s texts. As these fictional biographies show, the reincarnation of the poet in biographical form cannot be understood without the textual afterlives – from Ovid to Donatus to the poet’s medieval adventures – that help to constitute ‘Virgil’ in reception.

Notes 1 On the longevity of the printing history of the lives in editions of Virgil’s texts, see Ziolkowski (1993), 28; Putnam and Ziolkowski (2008), 345. Cf. Wilson-Okamura (2010), 54 on the prevalence of Donatus auctus in Renaissance editions. 2 See Ziolkowski (1993), 203–222 on Broch, and 228 on Josipovici and Donatus. On the reception of the Vita Donati in the middle ages, see Stok in this volume, Ch. 7.

126

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography 3

For the sortes Vergilianae, see Comparetti (1997), 47–8; Putnam and Ziolkowski (2008), 829–30. Quasi-magical episodes in the ancient lives such as the omens at Virgil’s birth (VSD 2–5; Vita Focae 50–55) would also have contributed to the emergence of this tradition. For the Virgilian legends, see Putnam and Ziolkowski (2008); Spargo (1934); Comparetti (1997). 4 See, e.g., Graziosi (2002); Borghart and De Temmerman (2010); De Temmerman and Demoen (2016); Fletcher and Hanink (2016); also Peirano Garrison and Laird (this volume). From the perspective of reception, see Goldschmidt (forthcoming). 5 This volume, pp. 4–5, 7, 139, 144, 156–7, 175–6, 184 and also Goldschmidt (2013). 6 Martindale (1993), 7. 7 For an overview of the ‘couple’ Ovid and Virgil, see Clément-Tarantino and Klein (2015). 8 See, e.g., Papaioannou (2005). 9 Anth. Lat., praef., 1–4. The argumenta themselves are older than the preface, which only appears in extant mss from the 9th century (Marpicati (2000), 150–1). Hexter (2011), 296, notes that, though the preface might be older, ‘[i]t would certainly make sense if this gesture, at once bringing Ovid on the scene but relegating him to a subordinate status, is datable to the aetas Vergiliana’. See further Hexter (1999), n.43 and esp. Marpicati (1999) and (2000). 10 On the biographical elements in the Culex, see Laird in this volume, pp. 31–4, 36–8. 11 Or perhaps a biography: Ghisalberti (1946), 26 n. 6. 12 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1577, folios 49r–50v, verses, quos alii dicunt ab Ovidio mandato imperatoris compilatos. On Ovidian pseudoepigraphy, see esp. Lehmann (1927); Lenz (1972); Knox (2009); Hexter (2011). 13 accessus are also found separately and in collections of accessus ad auctores. For the typical mise-en-page, see esp. Munk Olsen (2009), 19–35. 14 Lejeune (1975), 45. 15 On paratexts, see Genette (1987); (1997); Jansen (2014a). On Ovid’s original paratexts to his own work, see esp. Martelli (2013) and Jansen (2014b). For the wealth of similar paratextual material in the Renaissance reception of the Heroides, see White (2009), esp. 13. 16 Bibliothèque nationale, MS lat. 8255. 17 Munich, Clm 631f.: the note itself seems to date from the fourteenth century: Hexter (1986), 103; for text and transcription, see Hexter (1986), 221–5. 18 Transcription Ghisalberti (1946), 50. 19 Tr. 4.10.59. 20 Pont. 2.2.17. 21 Tr. 4.10.51. 22 Spargo (1934), 137–197; Koch (1957); Putnam and Ziolkowski (2008), 874–90. 23 See further Ross (1948) for the depiction on an early fourteenth-century marriage casket and Smith (1990) on a fourteenth-century capital and tapestry, with Putnam and Ziolkowski (2008), 458–9. 24 The transference of Virgilian life-narratives to Ovid is not uncommon (Klopsch (1967), 35; Trapp (1973), 41), and the basket story was even transferred to other literary figures, including Kristan von Hamle: Putnam and Ziolkowski (2008), 460.

127

Nora Goldschmidt 25

The Munich version of the accessus is riddled with quotations from the poems. The accessus is found in the manuscript of the Tristia and appears to come after the commentary: Coulson and Roy (2000), no 269, p. 87. On the hybrid codex containing the Munich version, see Hexter (1986), 103 n. 73. 27 VSD 42; Vita Servii, Brugnoli and Stok (1997), 154. 28 For compelling arguments that the Virgilian pre-proemium (whether or not it was written by Virgil himself) was in circulation by the time Ovid wrote these lines, see Farrell (2004) and Kayachev (2011). The lines may have been transmitted not as an incipit but rather in the frontispiece as an epigram under a portrait of the author. 29 On the fascination with the riddle of the causes of Ovid’s exile in medieval scholastic accessus, see Ghisalberti (1946). 30 For the first appearance of augmented Donatan life between 1426 and 1437, see Stok (1991), 197–200. 31 Jonson claimed to have ‘writ his poestaster on’ Marston: Ben Jonson to William Drummond (1619), Informations, 216–18; Bevington, Butler and Donaldson (2012), 8. On the ‘poetics of personation’, see Steggle (1998), 35 with 35–9 on Poetaster. 32 For full discussion, see Goldschmidt (forthcoming), Chapter 2. 33 Swinburne (1899), 25. 34 The most notable passages of extended translation are the whole of Ovid’s Amores 1.15 (= Poetaster I.i.39–80), Horace’s Satires 1.9 (= Poetaster III.i, III.ii and III.iii.1–7) and Satires 2.1 (= Poetaster III.v), and an extended passage of Virgil’s Aeneid 4.160–88 (= Poetaster V.ii.56–97). 35 Moul (2010), 135–72; Tudeau-Clayton (1998); (2002); Schmidt (2013). 36 ‘Apologetical Dialogue’, 107–8; 110–11 (quotation with marginal notes in the 1616 Folio edition). 37 I.ii.79–83 paraphrases Tristia 4.10.22 and I.2.118–19, Tristia 4.10.27. 38 McPherson (1974), 75, no. 136: Raphael Regius’ 1586 edition of the Metamorphoses including Quaedam de P. Ovidii Vita which is rather more circumspect about the affair: Cum vero ad Juliam Augusti filiam sub Corynnae nomine lascivas de amoribus Elegias scripsisse, deprehensus foret in exilium, annos quinquaginta natus, ab Augusto ipso fuit reiectus, in Pontoque relegatus; Regius’ edition is bound together with the rest of the works edited by Jacobus Micyllus. 39 Hardie (2013), 304. 40 McPherson (1974). For Jonson’s edition of Virgil, see Tudeau-Clayton (1998), 115 and for the Donatan life, Bevington, Butler and Donaldson (2012), 9. 41 Cain (1995), 15. 42 Cain (1995), 15. 43 Pontanus (1599), 2. 44 Cf. Bevington, Butler and Donaldson (2012), ad loc. 45 Text and numbering follow Brugnoli and Stok (1997), translation (lightly adapted) Putnam and Ziolkowski (2008), 356–69. The passage is virtually identical with VSD 31–2. 46 It is in fact Ovid, impersonating Jupiter, who claims to have given ‘Augustus’ (whose original name, Gaius Octavius, never appears in the play) his surname (IV.v.175). 47 Burt (1993), with, esp., 6–7 on Poetaster. 48 Poetaster, 1602 Quarto, ‘To the Reader’. 26

128

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography 49

Cain (1995), 220. It is possible that John Davies’ epigrams, with which Marlowe’s elegies were bound, may have been the primary cause of the censure: Stapleton (2010), 221. 51 Riddell (1988), 40. 52 Moul (2010), 159–65. 53 Moul (2010), 160. 54 Even the phrase ‘Rome’s honour’ (V.i.69; 71) used repeatedly by Caesar to characterise Virgil echoes the language used by Jonson’s Ovid at the moment of exile: Moul (2010), 163. For further destabilising biographical intertexts in the play, notably from Suetonius’ Vita diui Augusti, see Goldschmidt (forthcoming), Chapter 2. 50

Bibliography Bevington, D, Butler, M. and Donaldson, I., eds 2012 The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, Volume 2: 1601–1606, Cambridge. Broghart, P. and De Temmerman, K., eds 2010 Biography and Fictionality in the Greek Literary Tradition, Special issue of Phrasis 51.1. Burt, R. 1993 Licensed by Authority: Ben Jonson and the discourses of censorship, Ithaca and London. Cain, T., ed. 1995 Poetaster, Ben Jonson, Manchester and New York. Clark, J. G., Coulson, F. T. and McKinley, K. L., eds 2011 Ovid in the Middle Ages, Cambridge Clément-Tarantino, S. and Klein, F., eds 2015 La représentation du «couple» Virgile-Ovide dans la tradition culturelle de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Lille. Comparetti, D. 1997 Virgil in the Middle Ages, trans. E. F. M. Benecke with a new introduction by J. Ziolkowski, Princeton. Coulson, F. T. and Roy, B. 2000 Incipitarium Ovidianum: A finding guide for texts related to the study of Ovid in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Turnhout. De Temmerman, K. and Demoen, K., eds 2016 Writing Biography in Greece and Rome. Narrative Technique and Fictionalization, Cambridge. Farrell, J. 2004 ‘Ovid’s Virgilian career’, Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 52, 41–53. Fletcher, R. and Hanink, J. 2016 Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, artists and biography, Cambridge. Ghisalberti, F. 1946 ‘Medieval biographies of Ovid’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 9, 10–59.

129

Nora Goldschmidt Goldschmidt, N. 2013 ‘Virgil: A guide to selected sources’, (forthcoming) Afterlives of the Roman Poets: Biofiction and the reception of Latin poetry, Cambridge. Graziosi, B. 2002 Inventing Homer: The early reception of epic, Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. 2013 ‘The Augustanism of Ben Jonson’s Poetaster’, in M. Labate and G. Rosati, eds, La costruzione del mito augusteo, Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften vol. 141, Heidelberg, 303–15. Hexter, R. 1986 Ovid and Medieval Schooling: Studies in Medieval school commentaries on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, Epistulae ex Ponto and Epistulae Heroidum, Munich. 1999 ‘Ovid‘s body’, in J. J. Porter, ed., The Construction of the Classical Body, Ann Arbor, 327–54. 2007 ‘Ovid and the Medieval exilic imaginary’, in J. F. Gärtner, ed., Writing Exile: The discourse of displacement in Greco-Roman Antiquity and beyond, Leiden, 209–36. 2011 ‘Shades of Ovid: Pseudo- (and para-) Ovidiana in the Middle Ages’, in Clark, Coulson and McKinley, eds, 284–309. Jansen, L. 2012 ‘Ovidian paratexts: editorial postscript and readers in Ex Ponto 3.9’, Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 68, 81–112. Jansen, L., ed. 2014a The Roman Paratext: Frame, text, readers, Cambridge. 2014b ‘Modern covers and paratextual strategy in Ovid’, in Jansen (2014a), 262–281. Kayachev, B. 2011 ‘Ille ego qui quondam: genre, date, and authorship’, Vergilius 57, 75–82. Koch, G. F. 1957 ‘Vergil im Korbe’, in W. Gramberg, ed., Festschrift für Erich Meyer zum 60. Geburtstag, Hamburg, 105–21. Lehmann, P. 1927 Pseudo-antike Literatur des Mittelalters, Leipzig. Lejeune, P. 1975 Le pacte autobiographique, Paris. Lenz, F. W. 1972 ‘Zu den mittelalterlichen Pseudo-Ovidiana’, in M. Albrecht and E. Zinn, eds, Ovid, Wege der Forschung, vol. 92, Darmstadt, 546–66. Marpicati, P. 1999 ‘Gli Argumenta Aeneidos pseudo-ovidiani (AL 1–2 Shackleton Bailey). Un esempio di paratestualità didattica [1]’, Schol(i)a 1.2, 119–131. 2000 ‘Gli Argumenta Aeneidos pseudo-ovidiani (AL 1–2 Shackleton Bailey). Un esempio di paratestualità didattica [2]’, Schol(i)a 2.1, 147–164. Martelli, F. K. A. 2013 Ovid’s Revisions: The editor as author, Cambridge.

130

Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography Martindale, C. 1993 Redeeming the Text: Latin poetry and the hermeneutics of reception, Cambridge. McPherson, D. 1974 ‘Ben Jonson’s library and marginalia: an annotated catalogue’, Studies in Philology 71, 1–106. Moul, V. 2010 Jonson, Horace, and the Classical Tradition, Cambridge. Munk Olsen, B. 2009 L’ étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles. 4,1, La réception de la littérature classique : travaux philologiques, Paris. Papaioannou, P. 2005 Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623–14.582 and the reinvention of the Aeneid, Berlin. Pontanus, J., ed. 1599 Symbolarvm libri xvii, qvibvs P. Virgilii Maronis Bvcolica, Georgica, Aeneis ex probatissimis avctoribus declarantvr, comparantvr, illvstrantvr, Augsburg. Putnam, M. C. J. and Ziolkowski, J., eds 2008 The Virgilian Tradition: The first fifteen hundred years, New Haven. Riddell, J. 1988 ‘Ben Jonson and “Marlowes mighty line’’’, in K. Freidenreich, R. Gill, and C. B. Kuriyama, eds, ‘A Poet and a filthy Play-maker’: New Essays on Christopher Marlowe, New York, 37–48. Schmidt, G., ed. 2013 ‘Enacting the Classics: translation and authorship in Ben Jonson’s Poetaster’, in id., ed., Elizabethan Translation and Literary Culture¸ Berlin, 111–146. Smith, S. L. 1990 ‘The Power of Women topos on a fourteenth-century embroidery’, Viator 21, 203–28. Spargo, J. 1934 Virgil the Necromancer: Studies in the Virgilian legends, Cambridge, Mass. Stapleton, M. L. 2010 ‘Marlowe’s First Ovid: Certaine of Ovids Elegies’, in S. K. Scott and M. L. Stapleton, eds, Christopher Marlowe the Craftsman: Lives, stage, and page, Farnham, 137–48. Steggle, M. 1998 Wars of the Theatres: The poetics of personation in the age of Jonson, Victoria, BC. Stok, F. 1991 Prolegomeni a una nuova edizione della Vita Vergilii di Suetonio-Donato, Rome. Swinburne, A. 1899 A Study of Ben Jonson, London. Tudeau-Clayton, M. 1998 Jonson, Shakespeare and Early Modern Virgil, Cambridge. 2002 ‘Scenes of translation in Jonson and Shakespeare: Poetaster, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Translation and Literature 11, 1–23. White, P. 2009 Renaissance Postscripts: Responding to Ovid’s Heroides in sixteenth-century France, Columbus, Ohio.

131

Nora Goldschmidt Wilson-Okamura, D. S. 2010 Virgil in the Renaissance, Cambridge. Ziokowski, T. 1993 Virgil and the Moderns, Princeton.

132

7 THE VITA DONATI IN THE MIDDLE AGES Fabio Stok 1. The Vita Donati (or Vita Suetoniana-Donatiana: hereafter VSD),1 is the main source of Virgil’s biographical tradition. It is largely a reproduction of the Virgilian Life of Suetonius,2 and is therefore considered the source from which all the surviving Lives derive.3 Also the medieval knowledge of Virgil’s biography derives largely from VSD, but its reception in the Middle Ages is in a way paradoxical. On the one hand its topics are reproduced by the various medieval Lives. On the other hand, it cannot of course be said that VSD was well known during the Middle Ages: after its reappearance in the ninth century it had a limited circulation in the following centuries and remained almost unknown in the late Middle Ages, before being rediscovered by the Humanists at the end of the fourteenth century.4 The problem, in this context, is first to detect the reasons for the limited medieval circulation of VSD; second to identify the ways in which the Donatian biographical material spread during the Middle Ages and the phenomena of selection and distortion which affected the material itself. It would first be necessary to consider the transmission of VSD from late Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The Life was placed at the beginning of Aelius Donatus’s Commentary to Virgil, written in the middle of the fourth century.5 It was therefore highly likely that it would be lost together with the Commentary, when the latter was replaced during the fifth century by that of Servius. Unlike the Commentary, the Life survived together with Donatus’s preface to the Bucolics, which was incorporated in the Life.6 One of the oldest manuscripts of VSD, the Lat. 11308 of Paris BNF (copied in the ninth century probably at Reims), also contains the dedicatory letter of the Commentary, addressed by Donatus to a certain Munatius.7 Goold correlated the survival of VSD and the Letter to Munatius with the use of Donatus’ Commentary by the compiler of the so-called Servius Danielis, the enlarged version of the Virgilian Commentary by Servius, arguing that VSD was added as an introduction to the Servius Danielis.8 But Murgia rightly objected that the Paris manuscript has nothing to do with the Servius Danielis.9

133

Fabio Stok If we consider the content of the ms. Paris 11308 and that of the other surviving manuscript of the ninth century (the ms. 172 of the Burgerbibliothek of Berne), we must assume that the transmission of the VSD was connected, rather than with the tradition of the Servius Danielis, with that of the Commentary to the Bucolics and Georgics attributed to ‘Philargyrius’ (or ‘Philagrius’).10 The manuscript of Paris contains the two versions of the commentary to the Bucolics properly attributed to Philargyrius (together with the so called Brevis expositio of the Georgics); the manuscript of Berne, copied at Fleury-sur-Loire, contains the version of the same commentary known as Scholia Bernensia.11 The Philargyrian commentary was compiled in some Irish abbey in the British Isles or on the Continent. The presence of the name ‘Adamnanus’ in the first Philargyrian version (in the scholium to ecl. 3.90) confirms this insular transmission of the commentary, but the identification of the insular compiler of Philargyrius with Adamnán, biographer of Saint Columba and abbot of the monastery of Iona in 679–704 remains hypothetical. 12 Another Irish clue is the name ‘Fatosus’, mentioned in the subscription of the first Philargyrian recension: it is a latinization of the Irish name ‘Toicthech’.13 That the commentary was put together in some Irish monastery, perhaps Iona, is confirmed by the presence of Old Irish glosses14 and by paleographical clues.15 It remains uncertain from where the Irish monks recovered the VSD and the ancient exegesis.16 That the survival of the VSD was connected with that of the Philargyrian Commentary is also suggested by the so-called Vita Philargyriana I (= VPhI),17 the Life of Virgil which is added as an introduction to the largest version of the Commentary to the Bucolics. It was copied, apart from the Paris 11308, in two other manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries.18 This Life is largely a reproduction of the VSD, with some alterations and additions. A chapter was modified utilizing Isidore,19 an important clue for the dating of the Life, because Isidore was well known in the insular culture from the seventh century.20 Also the other Philargyrian Life (= VPhII), which introduces the shorter version of the Commentary, uses a chapter of the VSD21 (the rest is based on Servius and on the Virgilian entries of the Chronicon by Jerome), confirming that the VSD was available in the context in which, in the seventh or eighth centuries, the Philargyrian Commentary was assembled. Furthermore, apart from its utilization for VPhI and VPhII, the VSD was copied in the manuscripts of the Commentary together with other Virgilian material: in the Paris 11308 VSD it was copied after the Brevis Expositio of the Georgics; in the Berne 172 before the Commentary, together with the Vita Bernensis I (= VBI).

134

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages It remains uncertain whether the Virgilian Commentary by Aelius Donatus was also available with the VSD and the Letter to Munatius in the insular milieu in which the Philargyrian Commentary was assembled. Rand’s opinion (above, n.8) that the VSD was used by the Compiler of the Servius Danielis to replace the Vita Serviana (= VS) at the beginning of the commentary is groundless. But one of the oldest manuscripts of the VSD, the Berne 172 (known as Floriacensis), is also the most important witness of the Servius Danielis and its compilation is attributed to a compiler to whom the Commentary by Donatus was available, ‘whether or no he lived in Ireland’.22 The later manuscript tradition of the VSD spread from the surviving copy in the milieu of the Philargyrian compiler.23 As I have already observed, this tradition is rather limited. In addition to the two oldest, four copies were produced during the X–XI centuries in France,24 and four in Germany.25 Only one manuscript was copied at the beginning of the twelfth.26 They are mostly Virgilian manuscripts, only in a couple of cases of the German branch is the VSD copied with the Commentary of Servius.27 It is a very limited circulation compared to that of other Virgilian Lives of Late Antiquity: there are almost fifty surviving medieval manuscripts of VS, more than thirty of VBI. There are several medieval Lives, as we will see, variously derived from the older tradition. This limited reception of the VSD was influenced by various factors, which should be examined in more detail. 2. A first factor is the comparative length of the VSD. It was considered too long and detailed for school use as early as the fifth century: VS, though perhaps originally longer than the surviving version, was certainly more concise and basic than the VSD (Servius’s more concise approach may be seen by comparing his preface to the Bucolics with Donatus’; Donatus’ Commentary must also have been longer than that of Servius, if we assume that it was used by the compiler of the Servius Danielis). All the other ancient and medieval Lives of Virgil are not as long as Donatus’s. The problem was accentuated by the fact that, in the manuscript tradition, as has been seen, the Life included the Preface to the Bucolics. That the length was considered a problem is also confirmed by the selective and summarizing approach of the revised versions of the VSD: as in the case of the above-mentioned VPhI, which omits several sections of the Life and of the Preface. Moreover, some manuscripts of the VSD reveal the propensity of the copyists to abridge and shorten it.28 Another abridged version of the VSD is the so-called Excerptum, which circulated to a certain extent in the twelfth century,29 when the original version seems to have disappeared. The Excerptum also reduced the VSD by more than half of its length and its omissions are in part the same as VPhI. The whole

135

Fabio Stok first part of the VSD, about Virgil’s family and birth, is replaced by VBI, one of the most copied Virgilian Lives among medieval manuscripts. The Excerptum, furthermore, is attributed in the manuscripts to Donatus, whereas in those of the ninth and tenth centuries the VSD is anonymous.30 In addition to the above-mentioned VS and VBI, another competitor of the VSD was Jerome, who in his Chronicon collected basic information on the life of Virgil (birth, education, death and epitaph)31 directly from the same source used by Donatus, that is Suetonius.32 Several medieval Lives are collections of the Virgilian information provided by Jerome.33 A second factor which limited the diffusion of the VSD was its configuration, which is, to a great extent, typical of the biographies by Suetonius. In fact, for Donatus, the biographical interest was subordinated to the exegetical intention: in the preface to the Bucolics he affirms that he has written about the author summatim, that is briefly.34 This summatim was more programmatic than actual, because he (fortunately) mainly reproduced his source, that is Suetonius. It is important, however, that for Donatus’s exegetical purposes the life of the author had to be dealt with briefly. Servius went a step further: as far as he was concerned, the life of the author is only one of the seven parts of the exegesis: in exponendis auctoribus haec consideranda sunt: poetae vita, titulus operis, qualitas carminis, scribentis intentio, numerus librorum, ordo librorum, explanatio (‘in explaining authors, the following topics must be covered: the life of the poet, the title of the work, the nature of the poem, the intention of the writer, the number of books, their order, and their exegesis’).35 All topics already discussed by Donatus (VSD 47), who, however, dealt with the life separately from the other topics. Servius’s scheme influenced the medieval tradition of the accessus, that is the introduction to an author or a work. A scheme of Virgilian accessus is attributed by some manuscripts36 to John Scotus Eriugena, the Irish theologian and philosopher whom Charles the Bald, about 845, called to be in charge of the Palatine School. This is a scheme based on periochae, ‘systematic questions’ (Greek peristaseis):37 it includes seven questions on the author and his work formulated both in Greek and in Latin (conforming to the Greek interests of Eriugena): τις/quis (‘who?’), τι/quid (‘what?’), διατι/cur (‘why?’), πως/quomodo (‘how?’), ποτε/quando (‘when?’), που/ubi (‘where?’), ποθεν/unde (‘from where?’) o quibus facultatibus (‘with what skills?’). Unlike the scheme of Servius, which preserved, even though in a summarized form, the biographical unity of the life, that of Eriugena split the life in several sections whose interrogative form suggested simple answers. In the surviving Lives38 the answers generally have a three-fold form, taking their cue from the three works of Virgil: What did he write?

136

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages Three works. Why did he write? To give praise to Pollio and Maecenas and Octavian. How did he write? In the humble, middle and grand styles. Where did he write? In Cremona, Naples, Rome. What skills did he use? Those belonging to the people he imitated, namely Theocritus, Hesiod and Homer. Only two questions excluded the threefold form: ‘when he did write’, which introduces the answer ‘at the time of Augustus’ (VT adds: ‘not long before the time of the Incarnation of the Lord’);39 and the question ‘who?’, which gave some room for information about the life of the author. But in two Lives this space is precisely delimited: in PV we read that de vita autem poetae pauca sunt dicenda, quia nec talis fuit ut imitari debeat, nec ut in aeterna memoria reponi debeat (‘Few things must be said about the life of the poet, because he was not such a man that one should imitate him nor that his life should be kept in eternal remembrance’).40 This statement probably masks reservations about some aspects of the life of Virgil, as will shortly be seen. A similar statement is made by the compiler of PT, who gives the etymology of the name ‘Virgilius’, dictus a virgula populi quae, sicut in vita eius legitur, cum, eo nato, in loco puerperii eius secundum morem provinciae depacta fuisset, brevi ita convaluit, ut multo satas populos quam celerrime ex crescendo adaequaverit (‘so called from the virga of poplar that, as we read in Virgil’s biography, had been planted upon his birth and in the place of his birth, according to the custom of the province, and then grew so much in so short a time that, due to its growth, as quickly as possible it equalled in height the poplars planted long before’). After this paraphrase of VSD 5 (that is the biography to which he refers) the compiler of this Life adds: Cetera de vita eius, quae hoco loco dicenda sunt, quia in expositore eius Servio leguntur et in Bucolicis succincte iam prelibata sunt, quia plurimum habent verbositatis et parum utilitatis, praetermittimus (‘We pass over the other things that are to be said about this life at this point, since we read about them in Virgil’s commentator Servius; moreover they have already been given concisely in the Bucolics, and they are very wordy but hardly useful’).41 The reference is to VS, copied with the Servian Commentary in the same manuscript. The compiler knew (and used) VSD, but his judgment was that the Donatian Life was too long and also not useful. It is possible that these statements derive from the same Eriugena, who would have thus justified his schema in comparison with the ancient Life. Certainly the scheme attributed to Eriugena was the most selective, reducing the biography to a little basic information. But not all agreed with this reductive approach. The compiler of VGI42 was aware of Eriugena’s scheme, but prefers to use the above-mentioned schema of Servius, and collects biographical information not only from Servius but also from VSD. Other Lives of the ninth century expand on the

137

Fabio Stok biographical matter using a different schema from that attributed to Eriugena: Minnis called it a ‘shortened version’ of Eriugena’s scheme43 being based on only four themes instead of seven, that is locus, tempus, persona and causa scribendi (‘place’, ‘time’, ‘person’ and ‘reason for writing’). But it is not, it should be stated, a reduction of Eriugena’s scheme: the four-fold scheme had already been used in the exegetical tradition of late antiquity.44 What is noteworthy, in the Lives we are examining, is that two of these arguments, ‘person’ and ‘reason for writing’, reveal, as we will see, a narrative longer than that of the ‘Eriugenan’ Lives. The ‘shortened schema’ is used by six Lives of the ninth and tenth centuries.45 Their common features presuppose a common source, compiled in some Irish monastery of France, probably in the first half of the ninth century.46 Like the Lives based on Eriugena’s scheme, these Lives also prefer the three-fold series applied to the three Virgilian works. VV, for the argument ‘time’, recovers from VS (or VSD) the information about the years Virgil needed to compose his three works (three for the Bucolics, seven for the Georgics, and eleven for the Aeneid ). Besides the three-fold series already proposed by Eriugena’s Lives (styles, authors), VM, VNI, VL and VV (and also VPhII) list the three partes scientiae (‘parts of knowledge’) touched on by Virgil’s works: physics by the Bucolics, ethics by the Georgics, and logic by the Aeneid (like the division of philosophy in Isidore orig. 2.24.3); VNI and VV the three genera carminis (‘types of song’), humile, medium, and magnum or sublime (already in VSD 58, also in VPhII and VGI); VL adds the three caracteres or modi locutionum (‘type of dialogue’), that is dramatic, narrative, and mixed (also in VPhI and in the Philargyrian Commentary to the Bucolics, at the head of every eclogue). The search for triads is overdone by VL, which lists the three names of the town of Parthenope: Parthenope, Cumae and Neapolis. The outlines of the ‘shortened version’ are present also in the Life copied in a manuscript arranged by Martin Hibernensis (819–875),47 an Irish scholar active in Laon (site of an Irish ‘colony’ which was certainly in contact with John Eriugena).48 Differently from the other Lives of this group, VLaon quotes some parts of the VSD.49 The only other Life of the ninth century which directly uses the VSD is the Vita Parisina (VPar),50 whose compiler however also knew a Life based on the ‘shortened version’. Different from the ninth-century schemes is the Life that introduces the unpublished Commentary to the Bucolics, attributed by some manuscripts to a certain Master Anselm (or Ansell), sometimes identified with the biblical commentator and theologian Anselm of Laon (died 1117).51 This compiler started from Servius’s scheme (he did not seem to know the VSD), but he divided the theme ‘life’ into five parts, revealing a certain interest in

138

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages biographical matter: a quo est natus, ubi natus est, ubi studuit, quale mores habuit, quid composuit (‘from whom he was born, where he was born, where he studied, what morals he had, and what he composed’). For the biographical content Master Anselm largely used VS, inserting references to Virgil by Horace and Juvenal (we will examine these quotations later), showing a biographical approach which will become dominant in the late Middle Ages. 3. Most of the information given by the medieval Lives comes ultimately from the VSD, but they often reveal changes, interpolations and distortions. The compilers of VGI, VPar and Master Anselm believe that the name of Virgil’s father was Figulus, while in the VSD the word figulus signifies the profession of the father, that is potter. This may be the result of a mistaken reading of the text of the VSD, but also shows the curiosity of the medieval reader concerning the name of Virgil’s father. A curiosity satisfied by VM and VNI, for which the name of Virgil’s father is Stimichon:52 clearly their source identified Virgil’s father in the homonymous shepherd mentioned in Bucolics 5.55. It is an identification probably suggested by that of Daphnis, a character of the same eclogue, with Virgil’s brother Flaccus (affirmed by VSD 14 and by the Servian exegesis). From the VSD the compiler could also know that Virgil lost his father when he was an adult, that is after the death of Flaccus53 (the Philargyrian comment to ecl. 5.22 deduces that the mother Maia died shortly after the death of the son Flaccus). We can conjecture that this compiler was disappointed by the VSD, which does not give the name of Virgil’s parents. He therefore searched for the name of Virgil’s father in the Bucolics (that of the mother was provided by Servius). The compiler of VNII, probably noting the incongruity between this version and that of the VSD (which he certainly knew), wrote: quis pater eius fuit incertum est (‘It is uncertain who his father was’).54 This case leads us to consider the third and most important of the factors which limited the medieval diffusion of the VSD, the degree of interest in the information it contained. From this selective approach to the VSD there emerges a portrait of Virgil obviously different from that delineated by Suetonius and adopted by Donatus. It should be borne in mind, in this regard, that more than half of the information provided by the VSD was not taken up by the medieval Lives and therefore remained almost unknown. This is the case for the whole final part of the Donatian Life, regarding Virgil’s detractors. This part was of very little interest to medieval readers: VPhI summarizes this part retaining only the comparison between the Homeric verses and the club of Hercules. The Excerptum omits the whole section.

139

Fabio Stok Other parts of the VSD almost ignored by medieval tradition are those regarding the recitations of the Bucolics and the composition of the Georgics and the Aeneid (also the comparison of Virgil’s poetic composition with the lick of the she-bear, a topic beloved by Jerome).55 Also the list of Virgil’s early works, despite having been given by Servius, does not seem to have aroused interest among medieval readers: only the distich on Ballista is quoted by VGI and VNII (VGI also quoted the distich of the Culex). The first Life which seems to be interested in the Appendix is that of Master Anselm, who quotes part of the Servian list and adds the Moretum, but warns that they were modica carmina, to which Virgil then added his three great works.56 In other cases Donatian information is selected and developed with insertions and interpolations. Suetonius in his biographies gave great importance to the prodigies which occur at the birth of a famous man. VSD 3–5 recounts three prodigies about the birth of Virgil. The first is a predictive dream of his mother: that she would give birth to a laurel branch (laureum ramum), which would take root when it touched the earth and would spring up on the spot into a full-grown tree full of diverse fruits and flowers (quem contactu terrae coaluisse et excrevisse ilico in speciem maturae arboris refertaeque variis pomis et floribus). The following day she had a baby on the ground, in a ditch (in subiecta fossa partu levata est). The second prodigy occurs at Virgil’s birth, when the child had a mild face, instead of crying. The third is the marvellous growth of the poplar shoot (virga populea) immediately planted in the place of the childbirth (eodem statim loco depacta ita brevi evaluit tempore, ut multo ante satas populos adaequavisset). The prodigy gave rise to a cult practised by Mantuan pregnant women (summa gravidarum et fetarum religione). The second prodigy, that of the child’s mild face, was virtually ignored by medieval readers (it is omitted both from VPhI and from the Excerptum). Instead, the first prodigy, that of the mother’s dream, became very popular, but in a new narration of the Lives based on the ‘shortened version’ (it forms the major part of the theme ‘person’).57 The typical Suetonian version of the VSD appeared, however, unsatisfactory for the compiler who rewrote the story and for his idea of predictive dreams: there was no interpreter to reveal the meaning of the dream to the mother. This compiler perhaps also believed that a woman would not be able to interpret her dream by herself. In the new version the interpreter of the dream is the poet Lucretius, the brother of Virgil’s mother Maia. This version also omits an important detail of the original version, the earth, in which the branch takes root (an indication of Virgil’s birth in a ditch, the following day). In the new version the laurel branch (virga/virgula laurea) grows to the size of a terebinth and Lucretius interprets it as a prediction of imperial

140

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages greatness, the laurel being an imperial symbol (VNI: mater eius pregnans... vidit se ipsam enixam fuisse virgulam lauream, quae tam cito in virgam lauream coram crevit magnitudine teribinti. Maia retulit Lucretio fratri suo poetae claro).58 But Lucretius knows that the child cannot become emperor or warlord, because he is not of noble blood. Only nobles can be warlords. He therefore predicts, from the laurel, that the child will become a famous poet and that it is therefore appropriate to present him, after he is born, to poets (VM: Paries cito filium, qui licet non de magno sit genere, habebitur tam clarus aut de aliquo artificio aut de poematibus aut de quolibet opere mirandum unde, nato illum oportet poetis exhiberi). He also commands his sister to name the child Virgilius, as she had dreamt a virga (VM: quia virgam vidisti, a virga Virgilius vocabitur). In the original version Virgil’s mother dreams of a ramus, not a virga. The virga is taken from the third prodigy, in which however there is no reference to the name of Virgil, which at the time of Suetonius was Vergilius, not Virgilius (the etymology of Virgilius from virgula is proposed for the first time at the beginning of the sixth century by the grammarian Priscianus, inst. 4.31). The reason for the rewriting of the story seems to be clear. But why Lucretius? It is moreover very unlikely that the compiler would have read the poem of Lucretius. The only explanation I can think of is that the name of Lucretius has been taken from the following section of the VSD, where Lucretius passed away the same day that Virgil assumed the toga virilis. This synchronism is generally ignored by the medieval Lives,59 which prefer to adopt the version of Jerome, who does not refer to Lucretius ( Jerome’s version derives from Suetonius, who did not mention Lucretius: the synchronism is in fact interpolated by Donatus). The compiler of the story seems to have been impressed by the presence of Lucretius: his death when Virgil was a boy made it seem plausible that he could have been the poet’s uncle, as well as an influential interlocutor of his sister who asks him about her dream. The third Donatian prodigy was a kind of duplication of the first, regarding a virga populea instead of a ramus laureus. Furthermore it gave rise to a pagan cult, a point obviously omitted by medieval readers (the whole prodigy is omitted both from VPhI and from the Excerptum). The virga, as we have seen, is adopted in the new version of the first prodigy, because it gave an etymology for the name Virgilius. The third prodigy is remembered only by the few Lives which directly use the VSD: PT II (in which it is quoted only to refute the utility of the Life: see above), VN II (in which the virga populea becames an undefined ‘bough’, which grew and ‘served as an indication of great renown’),60 and VLaon (which is undecided as regards the version of the VSD and that of the medieval compiler).

141

Fabio Stok Together with information on the assumption of the toga, the VSD and Jerome relate that Virgil studied in Cremona, Milan and Rome. A different list of educational places is provided by Servius, who quotes Cremona, Milan and Naples. Suetonius had probably omitted Naples in order to avoid mentioning Virgil’s Epicurean studies. The Medieval Lives ignore Virgil’s Epicureanism (despite knowing about it from Servius’ Commentary).61 Between the version of VSD / Jerome and that of VS the Lives of the ‘shortened version’ (VM, VNI, VV) prefer the former,62 probably because it was confirmed by the well known VBI, according to which Virgil studied at the Roman school of the rhetor Epidius. The solution adopted by VG III is anomalous: it proposes the list Mantua/ Cremona/Ravenna/Rome, perhaps echoing the imperial role of Ravenna in the fifth century. However, the compiler of this Life had a weak geographical knowledge, because he later writes that Virgil went to Parthenope, a ‘city in Calabria’ (civitas Calabriae), died in Brindisi, a ‘city in Campania’ (civitas Campaniae), and was then taken to Naples.63 An exception to this trend is Master Anselm, who not only adopts the Servian list Cremona / Milan / Naples, but also adds Athens,64 deducing that Virgil studied in Greece from the Horatian Ode 1.3, addressed to a Vergilius leaving for Athens. Anselm’s innovation would be very successful (it was accepted by the influential Life copied in the Ms. Vatican Pal. Lat. 1695).65 It is noteworthy that Anselm did not consider the possibility of identifying the voyage of the Horatian Virgil with Virgil’s last trip to revise and correct the Aeneid. The story is told by the VSD, but also this part of the biography, as we will see, is largely ignored by the medieval compilers. Medieval readers were more interested in another topic, not developed by the ancient Lives: that of the places where Virgil composed his works. This topic is suggested by the interrogative ‘where?’ included in Eriugena’s schema, in which the answer was ‘in Cremona, Naples and Rome’ (like PT and PV). It is not clear why Virgil would have composed the Bucolics in Cremona: perhaps because he had been expelled from his farm and took refuge in the town of his early education? Or because Cremona is mentioned as the home of Virgil’s father in catalepton 8.6? For the composition of the Georgics in Naples the source is obviously the final lines of the poem, where Virgil says he composed his work in Parthenope. That the Aeneid was written in Rome was suggested by the reason why he wrote the poem, to praise Augustus, who obviously lived in Rome. According to the Lives of the ‘shortened version’ both the Bucolics and Georgics were composed in Parthenope (PBII, VV, VM, VL); the Aeneid in Rome for VL and VLaon, in Mantua for VV and VNI. Both localizations are considered by VM and PBIII and the latter explains the grounds of the

142

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages doubt: Virgil would have written the Aeneid in Rome, because he was at the service of Augustus; but in Georgics 3.10–13 he states the intention of writing the poem in Mantua.66 Another explanation is provided by VLaon, which links the composition of the works with the story of the requisition: Virgil wrote the Bucolics and Georgics in Parthenope ‘when he was in exile’, the Aeneid in Mantua after his return from exile.67 Another biographical problem worth examining is that of Virgil’s character and particularly of his morality, a subject which, even in late Antiquity, seems to have provoked anxiety in his readers. Suetonius proposed one of his typical paradoxical contrasts between Virgil’s moderate consumption of food and alcohol and his sexual propensity, particularly to boys: cibi vinique minimi, libidinis in pueros pronioris (‘he was sparing of food and wine. With regard to sexual pleasure, he was too partial to boys’). Virgil’s homosexuality was obviously deduced from the Bucolics and particularly from the identification of the shepherd Alexis of ecl. 2 with a boy presented to Virgil by Asinius Pollio. The VSD goes on to report Plotia Hieria’s account to Asconius Pedianus, according to which Virgil had refused a sexual triangle proposed by Varius Rufus (probably an item of gossip suggested by their shared Epicureanism). Finally, the VSD gives an appreciation of Virgil’s customs: he was so modest, that he was commonly known in Naples as Parthenias (‘virginal’). This information was presented by Servius in a form which would be more acceptable to Christian readers: Virgil was ‘very modest (verecundissimus) and excellent in all his life (omni vita probatus), but suffered from a disease (uno tantum morbo laborabat): he was not able to control his lust (impatiens libidinis)’. By reducing sexuality to a disease Servius saved Virgil’s good name. Moreover, in the Life, he does not specify what Virgil’s sexual preferences were and in the Commentary he refers not only to Pollio’s gift of two boys, but also to that of a girl from Maecenas. Medieval compilers tend to overlook this unpleasant matter. The episode recounted by Plotia Hieria is omitted both in VPhI and the Excerptum, and the medieval Lives ignore it. Some manuscripts of the VSD reveal cases of censorship: in the ms. of Munich clm 305 the words in pueros were erased; in the Vatican lat. 1575 the whole sentence libidinis in pueros pronioris is encrypted.68 The Excerptum omits it, while VPhI paraphrases it: neque minimae libidinis in pueros proprios, sed proni amoris. The Philargyrian comment to ecl. 2.1 presupposes the same moralizing interpretation, which de-sexualizes Virgil’s approach to boys: Vergilius dicitur in pueros habuisse amorem, nec enim turpiter eum diligebat (‘it is said that Virgil had love for his boys, indeed he did not love him obscenely’: the reference is to Alexis, the boy loved by Corydon identified with the boy Alexander given to Virgil by Asinius Pollio).

143

Fabio Stok The other medieval Lives generally leave out this topic. Only VPar sumarizes the portrait of the VSD defining Virgil libidinosus in pueros (but also morum severus and ingenio sagacissimus). VGI and VLaon reproduce Servius, as does Master Anselm, who confirms the Servian statement quoting Iuvenalis’ reference to Virgil’s delightful boy (sat. 7.69), that is Alexis. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Dominican Nicholas Trivet writes that Virgil was impatiens libidinis, but adds that he was so occulte (‘secretly’).69 Commenting on ecl. 2 he warns readers, like Servius, against interpreting turpiter (‘obscenely’) Corydon’s love for Alexis70. Another biographical problem connected with the exegesis of the Bucolics was that of the land expropriation suffered by Virgil. On this matter, the VSD gives two versions, the first from Suetonius’s Life, the second in the Donatian preface to the Bucolics.71 In the first version, Virgil avoids the expropriation ordered after the battle of Philippi thanks to his protectors Asinius Pollio, Alfenus Varus and Cornelius Gallus (quia in distributione agrorum, qui post Philippensem victoriam veteranis triumvirorum iussu trans Padum dividebantur, indemnem se praestitissent) and he writes the Bucolics to thank them. Afterwards Virgil is threatened with death by a veteran, but is saved by Maecenas and he writes the Georgics to thank him (qui sibi mediocriter adhuc noto opem tulisset adversus veterani cuiusdam violentiam, a quo in altercatione litis agrariae paulum afuit quin occideretur). Suetonius presupposes a chronological exegesis of the Bucolics, according to which the events of the first and the ninth eclogues would come later. Donatus’ version only considers the ninth eclogue: Virgil’s farm is expropriated by the veteran Arrius, who attempts to kill him, but the poet recovers his farm thanks to Maecenas and the triumviri agris dividendis (that is the three personalities mentioned by Suetonius). The Donatian version was preferred by Servius, by Phocas, and also by the compiler of VPhI, who omits the Suetonian version and replaces it with that of Donatus. Suetonius had correctly dated the expropriations after Philippi, Donatus more generically after the Civil War following the death of Caesar. Servius identifies it with the war between Antony and Augustus and dates the expropriations after the battle of Actium – an anachronism which shifts this Virgilian episode from 41 to 31 BC and is inherited by the medieval tradition, according to which Cremona and Mantua were punished with confiscations for having supported Antony against Augustus.72 A detailed picture of the war is outlined by the Lives based on the ‘shortened version’, in accordance with the theme ‘reason for writing’.73 The story begins with the war between two kings of Italy, Julius Caesar who ‘was ruling in Italy’ and Brutus Cassius, ‘who was ruling the twelve

144

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages peoples of the Etruscans, that is, the lower parts of Italy and inherited those of Virgil’, that is the region of Mantua (VM: Tempore igitur quo Iulius Caesar regnabat in Italia, Brutus Casius XII plebes Tuscorum regebat, id est inferiores partes Italiae partesque Virgilii iudicabat).74 After Caesar’s victory the kingdom is inherited by Augustus,75 who fights against the rebel consul Antony and his wife Cleopatra. Virgil is Antony’s advisor and goes with him to Alexandria (VM: Antonius Alexandriam pergit habens consiliarium et poetam Virgilium in comitatu). After Actium Augustus gives the lands of Mantua to his soldiers and one of them, Claudius Arrius, attempts to kill Virgil. But Virgil is protected by his friends, puts himself at the service of Augustus and writes the Aeneid (VM: amici et condiscipuli Virgilii, consules Caesaris et poetae...suaserunt Virgilium ut per laudem Caesaris peterent hereditatem suam). The story is rewritten in the medieval perspective of historical and political events. For these Lives, the Civil Wars become wars between kings or dynasties. Also of interest is the role of the poet, who is obviously seen at the service of a king. Before entering the service of Augustus Virgil must have been at the service of another prince, that is of Antony at the Egyptian court. The transfer from the court of the defeated to that of the winner is easy, because the poet offers the prince his own skills and abilities. The friends who introduced Virgil to Augustus are listed: Aemilius Macer, Quintilius76 Varus, Maecenas, Cornelius Gallus and Asinius Pollio. Except Maecenas, quoted in the Georgics, the others are all mentioned in the Bucolics: the ‘Varus’ of ecl. 6 and 9 is identified as Quintilius by Servius in ecl. 5.20 (in VSD 19 Virgil writes the Bucolics to praise Alfenus Varus, together with Asinius Pollio and Cornelius Gallus). The Philargyrian Commentary to ecl. 5.1 identifies Aemilius Macer with the character of Mopsus. As in a medieval court, Virgil has friends but also enemies: a list of the latter is proposed by the same Lives (except VLaur), including Bavius, Maevius, and Cornificius. Bavius and Maevius are mentioned in the Bucolics (3.90); the Philargyrian Commentary terms them as detractors. Cornificius is identified by the Philargyrian Commentary with the shepherd Amynthas (in the scholium to ecl. 2.39) as with Menalcas, who is exactly defined as an ‘enemy’ of Virgil (in the scholium to ecl. 3.1). The idea of the poet at the service of kings explains the lack of interest on the part of the medieval Lives for an important chapter of the VSD: the story of the last trip and of the poet’s instruction to burn his unfinished poem after his death. The story of the trip is omitted by VPhI; the Excerptum summarizes it but leaves out Suetonius’ information on Virgil’s will. The attempt to burn the Aeneid is reported by Servius (eam moriens praecepit incendi) but not by Jerome, who only reports that Varius and Tucca

145

Fabio Stok edited the Aeneid on condition that they added nothing (Aeneidum postea libros emendarunt sub lege ea, ut nihil adderent).77 Generally, in the medieval Lives, Virgil dies and his poem is published thanks to Augustus: the story of the posthumous edition of the Aeneid is ignored both by the ‘Eriugenan’ Lives and by those based on the ‘shortened version’. VGI, PBII and VAur78 take the information from Servius, VNI from Jerome. Master Anselm derives the information that Virgil wanted to burn his poem from Servius, but emphasizes the saving role of Augustus, instead of the betrayal of Virgil’s wishes: ‘prevented by death, he neither corrected nor published the Aeneid. He ordered that it be burned by fire (praecepit incendi igne). Augustus, lest so great a work perish, engaged two most skilled men (viros duos peritissimos) to correct it with the stipulation that they add nothing of their own, but that they trim the superfluous parts’.79 Varius and Tucca become, in this version, two anonymous learned men at the service of a prince, as Virgil had been before his death. In this lack of interest in Virgil’s autonomy and free will the medieval Lives seem especially distant from the contemporary reception of Virgil. Abbreviations PBI = Periochae Bernenses I (VT 236–37) PBII = Periochae Bernenses II (VT 237–42) PT = Periochae Tegernseenses (VT 243–45) PV = Periochae Vaticanae (VT 246–48) VBI = Vita Bernensis I (VT 249–50) VBII = Vita Bernensis II (VT 250–51) VBIII = Vita Bernensis III (VT 251–52) VGI = Vita Gudiana I (VT 252–56) VGII = Vita Gudiana II (VT 256–59) VGIII = Vita Gudiana III (VT 259–60) VL = Vita Leidensis (VT 260–63) VLaon = Vita Laonensis (Contreni 1972, 17–21) VM = Vita Monacensis I (VT 263–69) VNI = Vita Noricensis I (VT 278–80) VNII = Vita Noricensis II (280–81) VPar = Vita Parisina (VVA 257–59) VPhI = Vita Philargyriana I (VT 212–20) VPhII = Vita Philargyriana II (221–25) VS = Vita Serviana (VT 202–05) VSD = Vita Suetoniana-Donatiana (VT 181–99) VT = The Virgilian Tradition. The First Fifteen Hundred Years, J. M. Ziolkowski and M. C. J. Putnam eds, New Haven / London 2008. VV = Vita Vossiana (VT 289–92) VVA = Vitae Vergilianae antiquae, G. Brugnoli and F. Stok eds, Rome 1997.

146

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages Notes 1 Text and translation in VT 182–99. 2 Horsfall 1995, 3; Stok 2010, 107–8. 3 See the stemma vitarum in Upson 1943, 110; Hardie 1966, XXVII; Stok 1991b, 220. 4 Stok 1991a, 77–80. 5 Stok 2012, 466–7. 6 Life = VSD 1–46; Preface = VSD 47–72. 7 Cf. VT 643–4. There are no other manuscript copies of the Letter, which seems to have been ignored in the following centuries; but in the ninth century an anonymous compiler used it for his parodic Vita Donati grammatici (mss. Berne 189 and Kassel Philol. 4° 1). The compiler worked in the Irish milieu of Reims and Auxerre (see Conte 2005). 8 Goold 1970, 119–21 (that the VSD was copied before the Servius Danielis had already been proposed by Rand 1916, 163). 9 Murgia 1974, 258–61: the glossary on Aen. 1–5 copied after the Letter and VSD does not have a direct link with Servius Danielis; this part of the manuscript, furthermore, was originally independent from the first part, in which the Letter and VSD are comprised (cf. Murgia 1975, 26–35). 10 He is identified commonly as a grammarian active in Milan in the fifth century (see Kaster 1988, 284–85). In the manuscripts the forms of the name are ‘Filargirius’ and ‘Flagrius’: Philargyrius is the form commonly adopted, but Philagrius seems the most defensible considering fifth-century prosopography. 11 The affinity of the two commentaries had already been noted by Thilo 1860, 119–38, but Hagen published them separately (Hagen 1867 and 1902, 1–320). A new edition limited to the Georgics 1.1–42 has been published by Cadili 2003. 12 Thilo 1860, 133. The identification was accepted by Funaioli 1930, 38; Goold 1970, 119–20 and others. However, scepticism was expressed by Herren 1981, 136; Lambert 1986, 88–90 and Miles 2011, 28–9. 13 Miles 2011, 28. 14 Daintree 1985; Lambert 1986. 15 Beeson 1932. 16 Thilo 1860, 133 believed that it was included among the manuscripts carried from Italy to England in the sixth century. Funaioli 1930, 38–39 conjectured that it was brought from the Bobbio Abbey, founded by the Irish Saint Columbanus in 614. Herren 1981, 137 thought of a transfer from Visigothic Spain to Ireland in the seventh century. 17 Text in VT 212–20. 18 Paris BNF lat. 7960 and Florence Laur. 45.14. 19 See the edition of VPhI in VVA: p. 183.9–16 merges VSD 51 with Isid. orig. 1.19.16 (see Stok 2014–15, 221–3). 20 Herren 1980. 21 VVA p. 191.17–22: VSD 19–20 (see Stok 2014–15, 236–7). 22 Goold 1970, 105. 23 See Stok 2015. 24 Paris BNF lat. 7930 and 16236; Vatican Ottob. lat. 3313; Reg. lat. 1495. 25 Sankt Gallen 862; Oxford Bodl. Laud. 117; Munich Clm 305; Munich Clm 21562 (copy of the previous). 26 Vat. Lat. 1575, from France or Italy.

147

Fabio Stok 27 The manuscripts of Sankt Gall and Oxford, connected also in the stemma (together with the Vat. Lat. 1575): cf. Stok 1991a, 42. 28 So particularly the Munich Clm 305. 29 Five manuscripts: Leiden BPL 92A (France); London BL Add. 32319A (perhaps England); Klosterneuburg 742 (perhaps Germany); Munich Clm 14420 (Germany); Bruxelles lat. 10017 (France). Text in VVA 61–70. 30 The name of Donatus is present only in the later Vat. Lat. 1575. 31 The Virgilian entries of the Chronicon are collected in VT 199–201. 32 But for one of the entries, that relative to the posthumous publication of the Aeneid, Jerome did not use Suetonius, but Donatus or another source of late Antiquity. 33 The Vitae Gudianae II and III (= VGII and VGIII: ms. Gud. F. 70 of Wolfenbüttel); Vita Bernensis II (= VBII: ms. Berne 167); Jerome is used also by VPhII and other Lives. Bayer 1970, 655 called these Lives ‘compilationes’. 34 VSD 47: Quoniam de auctore summatim diximus, de ipso carmine iam dicendum est, ‘Seeing that we have spoken generally about the author, now it is time to speak about the poem itself’ (VT 195). 35 VT 203–4. 36 Gud. Fol. 70; Vat. Reg. 1669; Berne 165. 37 The ultimate source for this system was the Greek rhetor Ermagoras of Temnos (circa 150 BCE.); his model was developed in Western Europe by Augustine and Alcuin. See Frakes 1988. 38 They are: the Periochae Bernenses I (= PBI, Berne 165, ninth century Tours); the Periochae Vaticanae (= PV, Vat. Reg. lat. 1669, ninth century, perhaps Fleury; Paris BNF lat. 8069, eleventh century); and the Periochae Tegernseenses (= PT, Munich Clm 18059, eleventh century, Tegernsee). 39 VT 245. 40 VT 247. 41 VT 245. 42 = Vita Gudiana I (Wolfenbüttel Gud. Fol. 70, ninth century, Lyon). 43 Minnis 1988, 17. 44 Irvine 1994, 121–2. 45 They are: the Periochae Bernenses II (= PBII) and the Vita Bernensis III (= VBIII) (both in ms. Berne 167, from Brittany); the Vita Monacensis I (= VM, Munich Clm 15514, from Germany); the Vita Noricensis I (= VNI, Sankt Paul im Lavanttal 25.2.31b, from Reichenau); the Vita Leidensis (= VL, Montpellier Fac. de méd. 358 and Leiden Voss. lat. F. 79, from Southern France); and the Vita Vossiana (= VV, Leiden Voss. lat. F. 12 from Rheims or Fleury). In the stemma of Hardie 1966, XXVII they are represented as ‘Irish Lives’. 46 Upson 1943, 109. 47 Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 468 (ed. facsimile: Contreni 1984). The text of the Life (= VLaon) was published by Contreni 1972, 17–21. 48 See Contreni 1978, 81–111. 49 VSD 3–5 and 68. 50 Paris BNF lat. 7925, from Limoges. 51 See VT 717–21. More recently this commentary has been attributed to Hilarius of Orléans (a teacher in Angers from 1105 to 1123) by De Angelis 1997, 96 and Bognini 2005. The Life premised to the commentary to the Bucolics was published by Bayer 1970, 260–60 and attributed to Anselm of Laon by Brown 1988, 82 (text also

148

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages in VT 230–36). Some biographical references are detectable also in the accessus to the Aeneid, published as Expositio Monacensis III by Bayer 1970, 268–72 and as ‘Anselm of Laon’ by Baswell 1995, 313–4 (see also 63–8). 52 ‘Istimicon’ in VM. 53 Brugnoli 1991, 148–9. 54 VT 280–1. 55 See VT 201–2. 56 VT 234. 57 VM, VNI, VV. The story is also known to VGI, VPar and Master Anselm (in the accessus to the Aeneid ). 58 VGI also knows the original version and is therefore doubtful about the nature of the bough: virga lauri sive, ut alii dicunt populi ‘shoot of laurel or, as others say, of the poplar tree’ (VT 253–4). 59 Only VN II proposes a synchronism, but different from that of the VSD: according to this Life Virgil was born ‘three years before the poet Lucretius died’ (VT 281). 60 VT 281. 61 The only ancient Life which refers to Virgil’s Epicureanism is the so called Vita Probiana, but it was unknown throughout the Middle Ages. 62 The Servian list is adopted by VGI, the medieval Life which is the most dependent upon VS. 63 VT 259–60. 64 VT 234. 65 Brown 1988, 85. 66 VT 240. 67 Contreni 1972, 19. 68 See VVA 21app. 69 Nascimento – Díaz de Bustamente 1984, 71. 70 Ibidem 87. 71 VSD 19; 60–3. See Stok 2013. 72 VGI, VGII, VM, VNI, VL, VV, VLaon, Master Anselm. Only the argumentum Bucolicorum of VPhII gives the right chronology, but like the other Lives it also speaks of bellum civile contra Cassium Brutum, identifying Caesar’s two murderers in one person. 73 VM, VL and VLaon. 74 This information about the Tuscans was probably derived from Servius, who interprets the twelve holes seen by Aeneas in the armour of the dead Pallas, after his fight with the Etruscan Mezentius, as allusions to the division of the Etruscan people in twelve parts (ad Aeneid 11.9; see also the scholium to 2.278: propter duodecim populos Tusciae). 75 VM: post victoriam Iulius captam moriens regna nepoti suo Octaviano sorori suae Octaviae filio tradidit. Very similar to the dynastic transition depicted by the Philargyrian Commentary to ecl. 4.17: quod Iulius Caesar orbem terrarum pacasse videtur, qui Augustum sororis suae filium heredem imperatoremque reliquit. 76 As in VNI and VV; VLaon reads Quintinus, VM and VL Gentilius, as does the summary of the Bucolics published by Funaioli 1932, 388 from the ms. Wolfenbüttel Gud. lat. 70. 77 VS: Augustus...hac lege iussit emendare, ut superflua demerent nihil adderent tamen. 78 The Vita Aurelianensis, ms. Orléans, Bibl. Mun. 259, tenth century (VT 248–9). 79 VT 234.

149

Fabio Stok Bibliography Baswell, C. 1995 Virgil in medieval England. Figuring the Aeneid from the Twelfth Century to Chaucer, Cambridge. Bayer, K. ed. 1970 Vergil-Viten (with Vergil, Landleben, ed. J. and M. Götte), Munich. Beeson, C. H. 1932 ‘Insular symptoms in the Commentaries on Virgil’, SM 5, 81–100. Bognini, F. 2005 ‘Per il commento virgiliano ascritto a Ilario di Orléans: a proposito delle «glose» al sesto libro dell’«Eneide»’, ACME 58, 129–73. Brown, V. 1988 ‘A Twelfth-Century Virgilian miscellany-commentary of German origin (Vatican Ms. Pal. Lat. 1695)’, in Scire litteras. Forschungen zum mittelalterlichen Geistesleben, S. Krämer and M. Bernhard, eds, Munich, 73–86. Brugnoli, G. 1991 ‘Stimichon’, GIF 43, 143–50 (repr. in Brugnoli and Stok 2006, 89–96). Brugnoli, G. and Stok, F. 2006 Studi sulle Vitae Vergilianae, Pisa. Cadili, L. ed. 2003 Scholia Bernensia in Vergilii Bucolica et Georgica II.1, Amsterdam. Conte, S. 2005 ‘Vita Donati grammatici: testo, trasmissione e milieu culturale’, GIF 57, 285–311. Contreni, J. J. 1972 ‘A propos de quelques manuscrits de l’école de Laon au IXe siècle : découvertes et problèmes’, Le Moyen Age 78, 5–39. 1978 The Cathedral School of Laon from 850 to 930. Its Manuscripts and Masters, Munich. 1984 Codex Laudunensis 468: A ninth-century guide to Virgil, Sedulius, and the liberal arts, Turnhout. De Angelis, V. 1997 ‘I commenti medievali alla Tebaide di Stazio: Anselmo di Laon, Goffredo Babione, Ilario d’Orléans’, in Medieval and Renaissance Scholarship. Proceedings of the Second European Science Foundation Workshop on the Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, N. Mann and B. Munk Olsen eds, Leiden / New York / Cologne, 75–90. Daintree, D. 1985 ‘glosse irlandesi’, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana II, Rome, 774–76. Frakes, J. C. 1988 ‘Remigius of Auxerre, Eriugena, and the Graeco-Latin CircumstantiaeFormula and Accessus ad Auctores’, in The Sacred Nectar of the Greeks. The Study of Greek in the West in the Early Middle Ages, M. W. Herren ed., London, 229– 55. Funaioli, G. 1930 Esegesi virgiliana antica. Prolegomeni alla edizione del commento di Giunio Filargirio e di Tito Gallo, Milan. 1932 ‘Chiose e leggende virgiliane del Medio Evo’, SM 5, 154–63.

150

The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages Goold, G. P. 1970 ‘Servius and the Helen Episode’, HSCPh 74, 101–68. Hagen, H. ed. 1867 ‘Scholia Bernensia ad Vergili Bucolica et Georgica’, JCPh suppl. 4, 673–1014. 1902 Appendix Serviana [= Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergili carmina commentarii III.2], Leipzig. Hardie, C. ed. 1966 Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, Oxford (1st edn. 1954). Herren, M. 1980 ‘On the earliest Irish acquaintance with Isidore of Seville’, in Visigothic Spain: New approaches, E. James ed., Oxford, 243–50. 1981 ‘Classical and secular learning among the Irish before the Carolingian Renaissance’, Florilegium 3, 118–57. Horsfall, N. 1995 ‘Virgil: His Life and Times’, in id. ed. A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Leiden, 1–25. Irvine, M. 1994 The Making of Textual Culture. ‘Grammatica’ and Literary Theory 350–1100, Cambridge. Kaster, R. A. 1988 Guardians of Language. The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London. Lambert, Y. 1986 ‘Les gloses celtiques aux commentaires de Virgile’, Etudes Celtiques 23, 81–128. Miles, B. 2011 Heroic Saga and Classical Epic in Medieval Ireland, Woodbridge. Minnis A. J. 1988 Medieval Theory of Authorship. Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, Aldershot (1st edn London 1984). Murgia, C. E. 1974 ‘Donatian Life of Virgil, DS, and S’, CSCA 7, 257–77. 1975 Prolegomena to Servius 5 – The Manuscripts, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London. Nascimento, A. A. and Díaz de Bustamante, J. M. eds 1984 Nicolas Trivet Anglico, Comentario a las Bucolicas de Virgilio, Santiago de Compostela. Rand, E. K. 1916 ‘Is Donatus’s Commentary on Virgil lost?’, CQ 10, 158–64. Stok, F. 1991a Prolegomeni a una nuova edizione della Vita Vergilii di Svetonio-Donato, Rome. 1991b ‘Stemma Vitarum Vergilianarum’, Maia 43, 209–20 (revised version in Brugnoli and Stok 2006, 59–78). 2010 ‘The Life of Vergil before Donatus’, in Vergil’s Aeneid and Its Tradition, J. Farrell and M. C. J. Putnam eds, Malden, 107–20. 2012 ‘Commenting on Virgil, from Aelius Donatus to Servius’, Dead Sea Discoveries 19, 464–84. 2013 ‘Triumviri agris dividensis: una leggenda virgiliana’, Argos 36, 9–27. 2014–15 ‘Philargyrius biografo di Virgilio’, Revue des Études Tardo-Antiques 4, 217–40.

151

Fabio Stok 2015

‘Donatus, Philargyrius, and the Archetypus of the Vita Vergili ’, GIF 67, 181–89.

Thilo, G. 1860 ‘Beiträge zur Kritik der Scholiasten des Vergilius’, RhM 15, 119–54. Upson, H. R. 1943 ‘Medieval Lives of Virgil’, CPh 38, 103–11.

152

8 THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF VERGIL’S RECITATION OF THE GEORGICS AT ATELLA (VSD § 27) Hans Smolenaars In this chapter I will discuss a most intriguing paragraph in the Life of Vergil, composed by Suetonius and Donatus (referred to as VSD). Some scholars, and in particular Horsfall, deny just about every bit of truth in this Vita. Some of their arguments are open to discussion, others demonstrate a strong tendency for circular reasoning and others again seem to reflect personal prejudice. I will first discuss some of these arguments and then proceed to analyse in greater detail the famous story – told only in VSD – about Vergil’s alleged recitation of the Georgics to Octavian in Atella (VSD §27). I will argue that from a historical point of view Octavian’s delay in travelling to Rome would fit very well the events of the summer of 29 BC. Apart from adding truth to VSD, the acceptance of Vergil’s recitation would add to a better understanding of some of the key passages in the discussion on the chronology of the Georgics, a problem that is generally considered to be a ‘locus quasi desperatus’.* When I was a student at Amsterdam University in the early sixties, we were not supposed to study texts such as the Vitae. We were taught to study literature as if it were a self-contained, self-referential object, as proclaimed by New Criticism, and we strongly believed in Wellek and Warren’s Theory of Literature, announcing the ‘autonomy’ of literary texts. In this ‘objective’ approach to literature, there was no place for affective, intentional and certainly not for biographical fallacies. Works of art were not supposed to be reflections of the lives of their authors and ‘the words on the page’, therefore, should be isolated from their biographical and historical contexts. This ‘objective’ approach was advocated by most classical scholars throughout the 1960s and well into the1970s, and we classicists had a great time. Since we hardly have any biographical information at our disposal, we were all of a sudden ahead of our time! All we had to do was dismiss the snippets of biographical information that had survived from antiquity as mere biographical fallacy from the past.

153

Hans Smolenaars No more Vitae Vergilianae, which had been such a welcome source for many scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. Times have changed since then and I think that after Horsfall’s severe criticism of the biography in VSD (1995; 2006), it is time to take a fresh, but critical and cautious, look at the reliability of Vergil’s biography. I will certainly not make a plea in favour of reintroducing the biographical approach of traditional historical philology, but on the other hand I am not prepared to reject categorically any information in the Vita as untrustworthy per se. Leo (1903), Vollmer (1909) and Diehl (1911) argued that biographical data in the Vita were drawn by the ancient commentators both from the original texts and the allegorical interpretations of these texts. Büchner (1959) justly disagrees and asks the following questions: how could VSD in favour of an allegorical interpretation deduce from the Eclogues the names of the ‘pueri’ mentioned in §9 as Cebes and Alexander? And Daphnis in Buc. 5 may be interpreted as Julius Caesar (Servius ad Buc. 5.20) or as Vergil’s brother (Philargyrius 5.1), but does this explain that VSD in §14 is familiar with the brothers’ names, Flaccus and Silo? After Büchner, however, scholars went even further in trying to identify the ‘sources’ for the ‘suspect’ biographical material, as I will demonstrate below. I will restrict myself to the Vita that was originally composed by Suetonius in de Poetis (lost), and ‘published’ by Donatus ca 412–20 (Götte and Bayer (1958)), or perhaps 429–33 (Naumann in EV ). No important information seems to have been added in the period between Suetonius’ version of the Life and Donatus’. So also Horsfall. The main source for this argument is Donatus himself in his dedicatory epistle to Lucius Munatius: Inspectis fere omnibus ante me qui in Virgilii opere calluerunt, brevitati admodum studens quam te amare cognoveram, adeo de multis pauca decerpsi, ut magis iustam offensionem lectoris exspectem, quod veterum sciens multa transierim, quam quod paginam compleverim supervacuis. Agnosce igitur saepe in hoc munere collaticio sinceram vocem priscae auctoritatis. Cum enim liceret usquequaque nostra interponere, maluimus optima fide, quorum res fuerant eorum etiam verba servare. After reviewing almost all those who before me were skilled in the work of Vergil, in pursuit of the conciseness I have come to know you love so much, I have excerpted a few details from many in such a way that I rather expect the reader’s justified outrage for knowingly having left out many elements from the ancients than for having filled a page with redundant information. Recognize therefore often in this work of compilation the truthful voice of ancient authority. For although we were permitted to make insertions of our own throughout, we preferred to preserve with the utmost fidelity even the words of those to whom the content belonged.

154

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) Unless the author is an inveterate liar, he sounds like an honest and conscientious scholar, and certainly not the type of person to present fantastical stories drawn from all kinds of literary sources as the truth. We may add that Suetonius, his main source, had access to Augustus’ unpublished correspondence, like Pliny and Quintilian, and in his De Vita Caesarum often claims autopsy of original autograph material; see also VSD §31. Therefore, Donatus seems to dispose of a sound basis for his ‘work of compilation’. According to Horsfall (2006, xxii–xxiii) no reasoned objections have been offered to his earlier critique (Horsfall, 1995) and thus: If I (...) was right, then not one word, not one single detail transmitted in the VSD (...) can be used as evidence in the present argument, or at least not without specific defence and justification, for that text is a work of attractive romance (...) a mere congeries of inventions, fictions and embroideries, sprinkled with stray citations from documents (not necessarily false) and occasional, almost embarrassing facts, each requiring justification and explanation for its almost freakish survival.

I gladly accept the challenge of this provocative verdict. First I will take a close look at some biographical events in VSD as discussed by Horsfall and other disbelievers1 in order to understand the methodology of his approach. Subsequently, I will discuss §27 and §35 of the Life in order to demonstrate that at least some parts of VSD may be accepted as important historical evidence. Horsfall meets the requirements following from his own thesis that each fact in VSD requires ‘justification and explanation for its almost freakish survival’, but his hunt for parallel texts – whether still existent or not – to be identified as the sources for VSD’s ‘fantasies’ is not always convincing and tends to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I readily admit that in some cases my explanation has no greater cogency than the opposing view, for lack of decisive arguments on either side. In these cases, I agree with Horsfall that actual truth cannot be sustained or denied (1995, 5). For example: VSD §3 Praegnans eum mater somniavit enixam se laureum ramum, quem contactu terrae coaluisse et excrevisse ilico in speciem maturae arboris refertaeque variis pomis et floribus. ac sequenti luce cum marito rus propinquum petens ex itinere devertit atque in subiecta fossa partu levata est. While she was pregnant with him, his mother dreamed that she gave birth to a laurel branch, which struck root when it touched the earth and sprang up on the spot, so that it looked like a full-grown tree, stuffed with diverse fruits and flowers. And the following day, while she was making for the

155

Hans Smolenaars neighbouring fields with her husband, she turned off the path and in an adjacent ditch gave birth to the child.

It is perhaps unusual, but not impossible that his mother dreamt of giving birth to a laurel branch, a clear prophecy of future power. In Herodotus (I 107–8) for example, Astyages dreamt that his daughter Mandane urinated so much as to overflow the whole of Asia; later, after her marriage to Cambyses, Astyages dreamed that from the private parts of his daughter grew a vine, and the vine spread over all Asia. He was right about interpreting his visions as announcing his downfall at Xerxes’ hands. The story of his dreams may have been real or not, but in our case the combination of the mother’s dream with the humble ditch as the place of Vergil’s birth in the Vita, may make us feel entangled in the literary conventions of hagiography. In this case I would be quite happy to refrain from any judgment about the reliability of the dream and the ditch, the more so since it is unlikely that such events, if true, will have had much influence on the consequent life of the child. The same may be true of the ‘modici parentes’ in §1, like the ‘ditch’ or a ‘stable’ a conventional element in hagiographic texts. But it is more difficult, I think, to decide on the father’s professional activities in §1. ...egregieque substantiae silvis coemendis et apibus curandis auxisse reculam. ...that he had built up a fortune of no mean substance by buying up woodlands and apiculture admirably well. (transl. Wilson-Okamura 2008)

Horsfall assumes that the ‘fact that his father bought woodland must derive from Geo. 2.426–33; that he kept bees is a transparent theft from Geo. bk. 4.’ (1995, 5). It will appear below that such identification of ‘sources’ is used by Horsfall to undermine any trust in VSD’s reliability. His identification of Geo. 2.426–33 as source for §1, however, is very unconvincing, since Vergil’s lines (2.420–57) are not about buying woodland, but about the spontaneous growth of olives, fruit-trees, etc. Likewise, his explanation of VSD’s testimony about keeping bees (Geo. 4.51–314) lacks any proof. Like the propagation of trees, bee-keeping is an essential element in treatises on agricultural affairs, cf. Varro R. III xv.i–xvi.35, Columella IX ii–xvi, and, therefore, we are not surprised to find it also in the Georgics. But also life itself may provide material for poetic treatment and we cannot rule out that the father’s activities in real life did influence his son’s traditional passages on trees and bees in the Georgics. Horsfall’s approach does not take into account literary tradition, generic conventions and poetic transformation of real-life events as constituent elements for poetry. The latter implies that the poetic form as we have it may contain references to events not known to us, but perhaps still known to scholars like Suetonius, Servius and Donatus. Obviously, we should be very careful

156

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) about this, but we should not stop, I think, at the identification of a literary ‘source’ and consider a poetic line or passage as fallen from a clear blue sky. From the trees and bees in Geo. II and IV and other cases we can draw the first ‘rule’ (my term) of Horsfall’s approach: (1) If we find in Vergil’s own poetry a topic/subject-matter similar to a biographical element in VSD, we should consider the information in VSD as a historical extrapolation from Vergil’s poetry. Horsfall’s second ‘rule’ (below) may be deduced from his dealing with the cub-metaphor in §22. The bear-cub metaphor in VSD §22 in his opinion is taken (by VSD) from the description of the she-wolf in Aen. 8. 634. In this case, we also have the testimony by Gellius (17.10.2) for the same dictum, citing the poet’s amici familiaresque: ‘in the accounts which they have left us of his talents and his character’. Here Horsfall seems to hesitate, but only for a moment: ‘But one might wish that the dictum was not so close to Aen. 8.634 (...) and was not in content a commonplace of peripatetic zoology’ (1995, 15–6). Actually, the resemblance is not so strong that it might be taken as proof of the fictional character of Vergil’s statement quoted in VSD. – The phrase in VSD is about a she-bear and is quoted as Vergil’s metaphor for his creating, reducing and carefully polishing his carmen, the Georgics: §22 non absurde carmen se more ursae parere dicens et lambendo demum effingere saying that he brought his poem into being in a fashion like the bear’s and gradually licked it into shape – In Aen. 8.632 we are looking at the famous she-wolf and her (human) twins, part of the decoration of the temple-doors, as depicted on Vulcan’s Shield: ...lupam, geminos huic ubera circum ludere pendentis pueros et lambere matrem impavidos, illam tereti cervice reflexa mulcere alternos et corpora fingere lingua. ...the mother-wolf, around her teats the twin boys hung playing, and mouthed their dam without fear; she with shapely neck bent back, fondled them by turn, and moulded their limbs with her tongue. (transl. Fairclough)

Apart from this change of species, the mother in Aen. 8.632 (matrem), in this case the she-wolf, is object of lambere, the twins licking their mother, who (illam), as in VSD, licks her cubs into shape. The fact that both VSD and Gellius’ quotation refer to his metaphorical use of the she-bear when writing the Georgics, could perhaps be taken as

157

Hans Smolenaars proof that Gellius is quoting from Suetonius’ Life. In that case we, admittedly, are left with only one source. But if we want to argue that the metaphor in VSD is an extrapolation from the Shield, we should be prepared to assume that Suetonius/VSD would (1) have changed the shewolf from Aen. 8 into the (2) metaphor of the she-bear and (3) would have concentrated the double action of mother (mulcere, fingere) and twins (lambere) on the Shield in that of the metaphorical she-bear only (lambendo...effingere). This almost looks like a clever adaptation of a Vergilian phrase by a poet like Statius, and I, therefore, prefer the following explanation: Vergil often used the ‘commonplace from zoology’ as a metaphor in his daily life when writing the Georgics; later he turned it into the loving picture of Aen. 8, weaving together the ‘commonplace’, the ‘historical’ lupa and her human twins, Vulcan’s masterpiece of visual art and his own poetry, into this elegant portrait of Rome’s famous icon.2 Horsfall’s approach in this case might be summarized in my second ‘rule’: (2) If we can find in VSD a similarity of phrasing with Vergil’s own poetry, we should consider the information as an extrapolation and reject it as not true. But according to Horsfall, not only correspondences between content and phrasing of VSD and Vergil’s own poetry should be distrusted, but also similarities with texts of other poets. For instance, he argues, following Brugnoli (EV 5*578), that Vergil’s stomach-trouble in VSD §8: in plerumque a stomacho et a faucibus ac dolore capitis laborabat he frequently suffered pains in his stomach, throat and head

might be a deduction from Horace’s trip to Brundisium (Serm. I.5.49; Horsfall 1995, 6). One might just as well argue that Vergil, like many Italians even today, actually did suffer from gastric pains. Let us deduce from this and other similar cases my ‘rule’ 3: (3) Similarities in VSD with texts of other poets arouse suspicion about their reliability. Having undermined VSD’s trustworthiness with these and similar arguments, Horsfall takes the next step, which we may call his fourth ‘rule’: (4) Sometimes an account may look trustworthy, but should be rejected anyway. For example, the important account of Vergil’s methods of writing the Aeneid in VSD §24: Ac ne quid impetum moraretur, quaedam inperfecta transmisit, alia levissimis versibus veluti fulsit, quos per iocum pro tibicinibus interponi aiebat ad sustinendum opus, donec solidae columnae advenirent.

158

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) ...and lest anything should impede his momentum, he would let certain things pass unfinished; others he propped up, as it were, with lightweight verses, joking that they were placed there as props, to hold up the edifice until the solid columns arrived. (transl. Wilson-Okamura)

According to Horsfall, this account might be trustworthy if not for the following obstacle: ‘why would these lines alone be trustworthy in a fanciful text?’ (2006, xxii). This rhetorical question is a clear case of begging the question. Horsfall and others act as prosecutors building a case against the accused (VSD) in order to damage its reputation. Hence it is implied that other aspects of the suspect are not reliable either and should not be trusted. If we were to follow this highly subjective ‘rule’ (4), we would regrettably lose this important and unique information about Vergil’s methods of writing. An even more important example of this criterion (4) is Horsfall’s severe doubt about VSD §35, dealing with Vergil’s last voyage to Greece and return to Italy in 19 BC: §§35–6 Anno aetatis quinquagesimo secundo impositurus Aeneidi summam manum statuit in Graeciam et in Asiam secedere triennioque continuo nihil amplius quam emendare ut reliqua uita tantum philosophiae uacaret. Sed cum ingressus iter Athenis occurrisset Augusto ab oriente Romam reuertenti, destinaretque non absistere atque etiam una redire, dum Megara uicinum oppidum feruentissimo sole cognoscit, languorem nactus est, eumque non intermissa nauigatione auxit ita, ut grauior aliquanto Brundisium appelleret, ubi diebus paucis obiit XI Kal. Octobr. Cn. Sentio Q. Lucretio coss. (36) Ossa eius Neapolim translata sunt tumuloque condita, qui est via Puteolana intra lapidem secundum. In his fifty-second year,Virgil decided to retire to Greece and Asia [Minor], in order to put the finishing touches on the Aeneid. He meant to do nothing but revise for three straight years, so that the remainder of his life would be free for philosophy alone. But while he was making his way, in Athens he met up with Augustus, who was returning to Rome from the East. He decided not to part from the emperor and even to return with him. While he was getting to know the nearby town of Megara, he fell seriously ill under the blazing sun and added so much to his disorder by the uninterrupted crossing 3 that when he put ashore at Brundisium his condition was considerably worse. He passed away there, after a few days, on 21 September [19 BC], during the consulships of Gnaeus Sentius and Quintus Lucretius. His bones were transported to Naples, and buried under a mound, which is on the road to Pozzuoli, less than two miles out from the city. (transl. WilsonOkamura)

Horsfall agrees on the date of death and the site of the tomb, but does not accept the story about the journey to Greece (2006, xxiii): ‘Vergil’s

159

Hans Smolenaars unrealised plan for a journey to Greece towards the end of his life, has been given a motive apparently relevant here: to tidy up the details in bks 2–3 with a bit of autopsy’.4 According to him, this is ‘the last thing a Stubengelehrter would want to do’. So, he presupposes Vergil to be a scholarly recluse and for this reason refuses to believe the story about Vergil’s last voyage to and from Greece.5 Other details of this story in VSD are explained away as follows: three years is a stock figure, three years for revision is in keeping with labor limae and therefore neoteric inheritance, the planned devotion to philosophy is a familiar theme, etc. (1995, 21). Thus, every element of §§35–6 would point to Vergil’s voyage as a fantasy. In support of this theory, Horsfall looks for possible sources and wonders whether VSD perhaps had in mind stories such as Sulla asking Atticus to return to Italy with him (Nepos Att. 4.2), whether VSD really thinks that travelling in Greece and Asia might help revision better than a stay in a quiet library, or whether Suetonius was thinking of his own account of the death of Terence: egressus est neque amplius rediit. SD 80), thus ‘revealing the grave anachronism of Italians going on long cultural visits to Greece’ (1995, 21; also Della Corte EV 5**92).6 For this alleged ‘anachronism’, Horsfall refers to Rawson (1985, 6ff.), where however it is argued that travelling and studying in Greece was rare in the first half of the 1st century, but after 67 BC ‘the Grand Tour was perhaps almost obligatory for young men of the upper class’. Instead of suspecting VSD of a grave anachronism here, it would be better to acknowledge that Vergil as a student, like Cicero, Caesar, Horace, Octavian and many others, spent some time in Greece or Asia for the purpose of sightseeing and studying rhetoric and philosophy. If we do, we find support in Horace’s Ode I 3; if not, we have to assume that Vergil’s travel to Greece in Horace’s poem is fictional too. This Ode is among other things a propempticon (‘sending-off’ poem), addressed to the ship to preserve Vergil on his voyage to Attica: Hor. Carm. I 3. 5–8 navis, quae tibi creditum debes Vergilium: finibus Atticis reddas incolumem precor et serves animae dimidium meae. I entreat you, ship, which owes Vergil,/entrusted to you to bring him safe to Attic realms/and preserve half of my soul.

Horsfall suggestively asks: ‘Did Horace C 1.3 refer to an earlier journey by Vergil, or was it a source for this [the last] one?’ Since Odes 1–III was published in 23 BC, Horace is no doubt referring to an earlier (than the last) journey by Vergil. But Horsfall actually poses the question whether it was

160

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) VSD that took the historical (Horace I 3) journey in or before 23 BC as source and turned it into the tragic last voyage in 19 BC, which never took place. His answer to this is affirmative and thus provides further proof of VSD’s alleged fantasies. Naumann (EV 5*577) even suggests that ‘il languor que prende V. (...) durante la navigatio dalla Grecia a Brindisi (...) potrebbe pur avere interpretato (G. Brugnoli 1987) il finibus Atticis reddas incolumen augurale (...) come un augurio andato a male.’ In my opinion, this kind of reasoning is extremely difficult to accept. One has to admit that Vergil’s decision to abort his plan for a 3-yearjourney and to return to Italy aboard Augustus’ ship is rather sudden and unexpected, as is already pointed out by Diehl (1911, 18).7 The happy and emotional reunion in Athens of these two good friends after three years of separation (see below), the violent political troubles at Rome and the planned festivities for the celebration of Caesar’s safe return may be adduced as possible explanations. But these are pure speculations. Whatever the explanation, Augustus’ return to Rome, after his inauguration in the Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone in Athens in the summer of 19 BC, is attested by Dio Cassius 54.10 and RG 12. But even such an attested historical event can of course be differently construed. Horsfall suggests8 that VSD took advantage of the occasion to combine Augustus’ return to Italy, mid-September 19 BC, with Vergil’s death in Brundisium (waiting for his arrival?) on 21 September 19 BC, and turned it into the most famous story of Latin literature: Octavian sailing to Italy with Vergil dying on board. David Wishart tried to do one better in his highly creative novel I Virgil, in which Vergil intends to sabotage his Aeneid and for this very reason was poisoned by Augustus. Also Anton Powell argues elsewhere in this volume that Vergil may have died by the hands of Augustus, a hypothesis he supports with concepts from criminology as precedent, motive and opportunity. In spite of these explanations, I see no compelling argument why Vergil in 19 BC would not have embarked on his (last) journey to Greece, decided to return aboard Augustus’ ship – for reasons no longer accessible – fallen ill in Megara during a visit shortly before the departure and died a few days later in Brundisium. §35...obiit XI Kal. Octobr. [=21 September] Cn. Sentio et Q. Lucretio coss. He died on 21 September 19 BC during the consulship of Cnaeus Sentius and Quintus Lucretius

Atella and the dating of the Georgics According to VSD §25, Vergil composed his poems over the following periods: Bucolica triennio, Georgica VII, Aeneida XI perfecit annis.

161

Hans Smolenaars In my opinion, the Georgics was finished after Octavian’s victory at Actium (2 September 31 BC), as is apparent from the references to events in 30 BC, and before the triple triumph of 13–15 August 29 BC, that would otherwise have been mentioned. Scholars object that Vergil in that case would have been working on Book 2 in 30 BC and still would have two more books to go in a rather short period (if finished in 29).9 This argument typically ignores (a) the information about Vergil’s methods of work as described in VSD §22, rejected by Horsfall and others, (b) the fact that especially prooemia and finales of books are favourite parts for later adaptations and additions, and (c) the possible intention of anticipation. Martin (EV 2.666ff.) for instance argues that the reference to a victory over the ‘Britanni’ in Geo. 3.24–5 would be derisive (‘irrisoria’) and almost offensive (‘quasi offensiva’) to the emperor, since such a victory never took place. For that reason, he argues that the date of publication should be 27 instead of 29 BC and that we must assume that Vergil only at that time was convinced that a victory would be won and did anticipate that victory. The date 27 BC would, of course, make the recitation at Atella in VSD yet another fantasy. I do not consider this line of reasoning very convincing. Why would Vergil anticipate this victory, which never took place, in 27 and not in 29 or 34 BC? And if these lines referring to Octavian’s plans for an expedition in 34 BC (repeated in 27 and 26 BC, but never realized), had been an insult to Augustus, the two hexameters could have been removed without any syntactic trouble and leaving no trace in 29 BC or together with the alleged substitution of the laudes Galli in or after 27. But they were not removed, and the ‘Britanni’ in my opinion did still anticipate their defeat in 29 and even in 27 BC. Other objections to this early date (29 BC) are easily refuted: – Geo. 3.28–9 refer to the ships’ beaks dedicated by the victor at either Actium (Dio 51.19) or in Rome. – In 2.170–2 nunc refers to Octavian’s stay in the East in 30 BC: maxime Caesar/qui nunc extremis Asiae iam victor in oris/ ...avertis Romanis arcibus Indum, ...and thee, greatest of all, O Caesar, who already victorious in Asia’s farthest bounds, now drivest the craven Indian from our hills of Rome – just as the use of the present in the finale Geo. 4.560–62: ...Caesar dum magnus ad altum/fulminat Euphraten. ...while great Caesar thundered in war by deep Euphrates.

In short, I see no need to assume on these and similar grounds an edition in 27 BC, or an edition of books 1 and 2 separately in 29 BC, to which later books 3 and 4 would have been added (see Martin EV 2.666ff.). Therefore,

162

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) I will start from the hypothesis that the Georgics was completed by August 29 BC, ‘Gallus’ included. I chose VSD §27 for further analysis because the information is hotly debated and very relevant from a historical and literary point of view. This paragraph may help us to decide whether or not VSD may be trusted in cases where circumstantial support from other sources is available. In this case, the triple triumph on 13–15 August 29 BC is a well-attested historical fact (RG 4; Aen. 8.714–28; Dio 51.21). The emperor’s delay at Atella, after his return from the East in 29 BC, however, is mentioned only in VSD §27, and so is Vergil’s alleged recitation of the Georgics: Georgica reverso post Actiacam victoriam Augusto atque Atellae reficiendarum faucium causa commoranti, per continuum quadriduum legit suscipiente Maecenate legendi vicem quotiens interpellaretur ipse vocis offensione. When Augustus [still Octavian] had returned after his victory at Actium and lingered at Atella to treat his throat, Vergil read the ‘Georgics’ to him four days in succession, Maecenas taking his turn at the reading whenever the poet was interrupted by the failure of his voice.

The account is slightly bizarre (both Octavian and Vergil suffering a bout of laryngitis) but very interesting from a political and cultural point of view at the same time. Did Octavian, only a few days before his triple triumph on 13–15 August, really allow himself ample time to listen to the ideological poem on the farmer’s life by his – admittedly – favourite poet? Rostagni (1944 ed. De poetis) claims the story is true: Augustus was also ill after his triumph according to Dio 51.22.9 and the detailed elements of the story ‘sono particulari assolutamente veridici, che per loro natura risalgono a fonte contemporanea.’ As for Maecenas’ presence, Rostagni is right to consider the assumption that Geo II 39 tuque ades... would have been the actual ‘source’ here, which is therefore yet another proof of VSD’s fantasy, an ‘ipotesi assurda’. This hypothesis is repeated by Naumann (EV 5.577). Horsfall (1995, 17) points out that the poet’s laryngitis is already mentioned at VSD §8. In his view this fact is suspicious (‘rule’ 3) and he explains the repetition as follows: ‘both might derive from Augustus’ own [laryngitis], which might have been recorded in his de vita sua’, Augustus’ no longer existent autobiography. Highly speculative, one might say, and to my mind no valid objection to this paragraph on laryngitis in VSD has yet been offered. So let us take a closer look at the story and decide whether the historical context would make such a meeting at Atella at least possible and perhaps even plausible. Horsfall is right in thinking that ‘four books in four days, unbroken’ is disquieting; ‘this is an exceedingly gentle pace, to be borne by the most enfeebled reader, involving less than an hour “on stage” per day’. However, per continuum quadriduum should not be taken

163

Hans Smolenaars as ‘for four days unbroken/continuously’ but as ‘for four days in a row, successively’, (OLD 4, TLL sv 726f.), for which cf. e.g. Liv. 2.42.8 post tres continuos consulatus, 33.46.7 (about a law which states that judges should be elected for one year each) neu quis biennium continuum iudex esset, Col. Arb. 2.1 nec hoc uno tantummodo anno facit, sed continuis tribus...vindemiis easdem vites inspicit (‘this he does not merely one year, but inspects the same vines at three... successive vintages’). So why ‘disquieting’? It takes about an hour and a half to recite one book of the Georgics at a gentle, dramatic pace. So, Vergil could recite the four books in four successive days, perhaps after dinner. And if you already have a sore throat, the recitation of about 550 hexameters each day would aggravate your trouble considerably. Timeline of Octavian’s whereabouts in 30–29 BC We had better start from a different angle and look at Octavian’s whereabouts between Actium 2 September 31 BC and his triple triumph on 13–15 August 29, in order to decide whether the meeting at Atella could have taken place at all from a chronological point of view. After Actium, Octavian travels eastwards through Macedonia and central Greece to reward, or to punish, rulers and cities for having supported Antonius (Dio 51.2.1–2). Part of the army stayed behind in order to protect Actium. Most enemy ships were destroyed, but one copy of each type was preserved for the construction of the War-Memorial. In the first week of October 31 BC, Octavian is initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries (Dio 51.4.1), withdraws into his winter-quarters at Samos, but is compelled to hastily cross to Italy in December/January, because of serious problems with the veterans he had sent ahead. The journey to Brundisium in winter is dangerous. In Suetonius’ account (Aug. 17), Octavian was twice struck by storms, lost some of his Liburnian galleys and the ship in which he was sailing had its rigging carried away and its rudder broken off.10 After successful negotiations for 27 days, Octavian returned to Asia: see Suet. Aug. 17.3, Dio 51.4.6–7, Tac. Ann. 1.42.3. In the summer of 30 BC Octavian made for Egypt by way of Asia and Syria. He captured Alexandria on 1 August 30. Suetonius (Aug. 18) informs us that Octavian in 30 BC, after his visit to Alexander’s tomb in Egypt, founded Nikopolis (=Actium) and initiated the Actian Games: Quoque Actiacae uictoriae memoria celebratior et in posterum esset, urbem Nicopolim apud Actium condidit ludosque illic quinquennales constituit et ampliato uetere Apollinis templo locum castrorum, quibus fuerat usus, exornatum naualibus spoliis Neptuno ac Marti consecrauit. To extend the fame of his victory at Actium and perpetuate its memory, he founded a city called Nicopolis near Actium, and provided for the

164

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) celebration of games there every five years; enlarged the ancient temple of Apollo; and after adorning the site of the camp which he had occupied with naval trophies, consecrated it to Neptune and Mars. (transl. Rolfe)

The plan to found a new city in order to celebrate the victory of Actium, may date back to winter 30 BC, but only after the conquest of Egypt could the plans be executed, because of the huge spoils from Egypt collected in 30 BC. Dio 51.1 elaborates on the same story: He also founded a musical and gymnastic contest, which included horseracing, to be held every four years (...) and he named it Actia. Besides, he established a city on the ground where he had pitched his camp; this was effected by bringing together some of the neighbouring peoples and evicting others, and the place was named Nicopolis. On the spot where his tent had stood, he built a plinth of square stones, which was ornamented with the rams of the captured ships, and erected on it a shrine for Apollo, which was open to the sky. But these things were done later. (transl. Scott-Kilvert)

In this paragraph, Dio first records the events that took place ‘later’, i.e. after the capture of Alexandria in 30 BC. The planning and building of the city of Nicopolis will have taken time and the synoecism must have been initiated during the winter or spring of 30 BC (Murray 1989, 126), if the city was to be officially dedicated in 29 BC (id. 129). In 29 BC the podium of Divus Julius’ temple in Rome is decorated with the beaks from Actium. On 11 January the Senate in Rome closed the temple of Janus Geminus with the proud pronouncement: pace parta terra marique. According to Murray’s convincing reconstruction, this text was added soon after to the one already planned on the Campsite Memorial at Actium. Murray even concludes that the blocks were already in place at that moment, so that the added letters of the new inscription are cut across two blocks instead of spaced to fall in one block or the other, which offers clear evidence of the late stage of these additions.11 According to Dio (51.20), a triumph is decided in Rome for Octavian’s victories, among many other honours: ‘All this took place in the winter’ (of 29 BC). In 51.21 we are told: ‘In the course of the summer Caesar crossed over to Greece and to Italy’. Dio’s ‘In the course of the summer’ is our only indication about the timing of Octavian’s voyage to Greece on his way to Rome. As for the route, Octavian probably sailed up the western coast of Greece to Corcyra, then to Apollonia (Murray 1989, 128, n.24), like Cicero (below) and most travellers were used to do. He would have passed Nicopolis on his way back to Rome. But no mention is made of any Actian Games in 29, or of Octavian’s possible presence at such or similar festivities. Therefore, the dating of the first Actia is problematic. Hieronymus (under the year 29),

165

Hans Smolenaars Cassiodorus (year 30) and Syncellus (year 30) all connect the foundation of Nicopolis with the first celebration of the Actian Games (Murray 1989, 29, n.5 and 26); Wardle ad Suet. Aug. 18.2). In subsequent years the games were held on 2 September, the anniversary of the battle. However, the implied data in the text of the inscription (imperator septimum and consul quintum), the fact that these 3 chronographers all link the first games with the official foundation, and the fact that Octavian had probably sailed by Nicopolis just prior to his triumphal entry in Rome (13–15 August), make it ‘almost certain’ (I quote from Murray) ‘that Nikopolis, the Actia and the two [also in Ephesus?] war memorials were dedicated within the span of a few days in early August 29 BC.’ In conclusion: the official dedication ceremony occurred almost two years after the battle, with Octavian ‘most likely’ (Murray) in attendance, ‘a week or two before 13 August 29’. It seems reasonable to assume that Octavian, passing by on his way to Rome, was present at this simple inauguration of the city and perhaps the first celebration of the Actian Games. If accepted, this will narrow down the data for Octavian’s crossing to Brundisium, to listen to the alleged recitation of the Georgics at Atella and be present at the eve of August 12 before the gates of Rome. A triumphator must arrive the day before ante urbem, as is indirectly confirmed by Aeneas’ arrival on 12 August, the festival of Hercules, foreshadowing in hindsight Octavian’s arrival in 29 on the same day: Aen. 8.102ff. Forte die sollemnem illo rex Arcas honorem Amphitryoniadae magno diuisque ferebat ante urbem in luco.12 It chanced that on that day the Arcadian king paid wonted homage to Amphitryon’s mighty son and the gods in a grove before the city. (transl. Fairclough)

Murray points at the large-scale orchestration of Octavian’s arrival back to the shores of Italy and his triumphant entry into Rome: ‘The whole spectacle lasted many days. One can imagine the boat loads of participants that poured into Rome from the East in the weeks before August 13.’ The logistics must certainly have started much earlier, but leaving this aside, what about Octavian’s journey itself to Italy? If we stick to his presence at the festivities at Nikopolis, perhaps in early August (Murray), this would leave him about 12 days to arrive at Rome. Is this possible? And more important here, what about the alleged delay of four days at Atella? As stated before, the common route between Greece and Italy involved sailing up the western coast of Greece to Corcyra (Corfu), then to

166

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) Apollonia and from there crossing to Brundisium. When Cicero returned to Italy from the East in 57 BC, he took the same route, ad Att. IV 4 (73 Sh.B.). In this letter to Atticus, Cicero gives a brief account of his voyage from Dyrrachium to Rome, about 10 September 57, shortly after the meeting of the senate on 8 September: Prid. Non. Sext. Dyrrachio sum profectus, ipso illo die quo lex est lata de nobis. Brundisium veni Non. Sext. (...) a. d. VI Id. Sext. cognovi, cum Brundisi essem, litteris Quinti fratris mirifico studio omnium aetatum atque ordinum, incredibili concursu Italiae, legem comitiis centuriatis esse perlatam. I left Dyrrachium on 4 August, the very day on which the law for my recall was put to the vote. I landed at Brundisium on the Nones of August (on the fifth). On 11 August, while at Brundisium, I learned by letter from Quintus that the law had been carried in the Assembly of Centuries amid remarkable demonstrations of enthusiasm by all ranks and ages and with an extraordinary concourse of country voters. (transl. Shackleton Bailey)13

In this account, Cicero left Dyrrachium on August 4 and landed at Brundisum on the fifth. The voyage took less than two days. On August 8 (Wilkinson), or 11 (Sh.B.), while still at Brundisium, he receives the message from Quintus (sent on August 4) saying that he is recalled from exile, upon which he leaves for Rome immediately. Let us take a closer look at the voyage of Octavian from Actium to Rome. The distances are the following according to the very helpful site http://orbis.stanford.edu/#.To travel in August from Nikopolis to Brundisium and then via Capua/ Atella to Rome, a distance of 1109 km, would take 10.1 days in a fast carriage. – Nikopolis to Brundisium, 385 km: In August and at maximum speed with a small military transport you would need 3.3 days. Cicero’ voyage (above) took less time, but he travelled a shorter distance, from Dyrrachium to Brundisium:169 km. Octavian’s Liburnians will have been much faster than the more usual galleys in the calculations of Stanford.edu and he may well have covered the distance in, say, 1.5 days and one night. – Brundisium to Rome via Capua/Atella (south of Capua), about 589 km: We travel along the ‘highway’ Via Appia. According to Stanford.edu one can do this journey comfortably in 8.1 days on horseback, with horse relay in 2.2 days. Since Octavian for the greater part will follow the Via Appia, probably in a fast carriage, this leg would take no more than, say, 4 (to Atella) +2.5 (to Rome) =6.5 days.

According to this calculation, Octavian would have left Nicopolis on 5 August at the latest, in order to arrive before Rome in time on the eve of August 12. If he did so, the meeting at Atella is impossible, and besides, he

167

Hans Smolenaars would have run huge risks on account of the imminent dangers of storm and shipwreck on the seas between Corfu and Brundisium, as he had experienced himself twice before (Suet. Aug. 17.3; cf. also Plin. NH 7.45,148). Even if we skipped Atella as a nonsensical fantasy of the Vita, Octavian would have had to depart from Nikopolis some days earlier, in order to have extra time in case of any setback. Even a triple triumphator would not take the risk of arriving too late. If he had decided to do so, he would have left on the first of August, directly after the – as yet simple – festivities of the inauguration of the new city, travelled at high speed and thus would have built in a margin to arrive at Rome on time. Fortunately, this time his voyage was a success and Octavian could spend the four days he had as a margin on better and more important things at Atella. By my reckoning: – Octavian leaves Nikopolis on the first of August in the afternoon, sails through the night and arrives at Brundisium in the evening of 2 August. Messages are sent to Vergil and Maecenas to meet at Atella (between Capua and Naples, not a long trip for Vergil!) on 6 August. – he leaves Brundisium in the morning of 3 August and arrives at Atella in the afternoon of 6 August. This calculation would allow Vergil to recite on that same evening and the three following days, 7 through 9 August. – Octavian leaves Atella for Rome (199 km) in the morning of 10 August and arrives ante urbem on the eve of 12 August, accompanied presumably by Vergil, who later evoked the triple triumph in his description of the Shield in Aen. 8.714–28. In my opinion, §27 of VSD might well be telling the truth about a meeting at Atella. Also Horsfall assumes that ‘the story is possibly based on Augustus’ autobiography’ (Companion 13). Octavian after his successful journey had four days at his disposal. During these four days he, perhaps also Agrippa and for sure Maecenas, listened to Vergil reciting his Georgics, a poem with a great impact on politics and social reforms. This meeting at Atella in the first half of August 29 presupposes the poem to be in definitive form. If Servius’ story about the laudes Galli were true, the panegyric of Gallus was recited as well, later to be replaced by the Orpheus episode, after Gallus was accused of treason and had committed suicide in 27.14 Vergil’s recital was an exciting event, but I think not the only reason for this meeting. If ‘Atella’ took place, a conference might have been planned beforehand to discuss the political situation and the future of the empire. Such a discussion is reported in great detail by Dio Cassius in

168

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) book 52. 1–40, about what kind of state was to be preferred, monarchy (Maecenas) or republic (Agrippa). After his absence of three years and only one week before his triple triumph, Octavian used this opportunity for urgent deliberations with his close friends and to listen to his favourite poet. Conclusion In my opinion, VSD does contain important historical information, on condition that we distinguish the traditional hagiographic and miraculous elements in Vergil’s early childhood and adolescence from the historical and political events that affected and influenced his life as an adult and committed poet. I have argued that the recitation of the Georgics at Atella and Vergil’s return to Italy aboard Augustus’ ship and his subsequent death at Brundisium may well have occurred as described in this, our only, source. In my opinion, if these and similar events fit in with the contexts of actual history, as I hope to have demonstrated, they should be accepted as true, until evidence to the contrary is provided, and not the other way round. Horsfall and other disbelievers explain biographical events in VSD from passages in Vergil’s own poetry. If such a ‘source’ is identified, the event is considered as not true. This search for ‘sources’ is perhaps useful, but certainly does not exclude the possibility that Vergil’s poetry itself was inspired – among other influences and his own poetic genius – by these same biographic events. For instance, VSD §14 informs us about the loss of his two brothers, Silo and Flaccus, the latter lamented as ‘Daphnis’ according to Servius in Ecl. 5.20. VSD is the only source for these losses and their names. These tragic biographic events may have contributed to the elaborate and sad description of the ox mourning over his brother’s sudden death in Geo. 3.517–26, and thus may echo in a somewhat distant manner Vergil’s grief over his personal losses.15 In this case, the fact that VSD knows of the brothers’ names points to knowledge of an external source (so Büchner) rather than recalling Horace’s cognomen as is argued by Horsfall in Companion 9. VSD may have recognized some of these and similar transformations of biographical events in Vergil’s text, but also seems to have access to further information, such as Augustus’ autobiography,16 Suetonius’ Life and the studies he refers to in his dedicatory Letter to Lucius Munatius (above), all of these lost to us. Whereas Horsfall and others use the identified ‘sources’ of VSD in order to deny the truth of the information involved, I prefer not to press for a conclusion from a biased opinion about the credibility of the Vita, but to look for evidence to the contrary of that information and accept its truth until we have proven otherwise.

169

Hans Smolenaars Notes * I would like to express here my gratitude to Philip Hardie for inviting me to the conference on the Vitae in Cambridge and to both editors of this volume for their encouragement and patience. Penny Sandford kindly corrected my English and Fanny Struyk, as always, never seemed tired of listening to my variable speculations on the required methodology to approach the ‘truth’ of this complex text. I thank Anton Powell and the anonymous reader for their useful critical remarks and suggestions. 1 I will concentrate mainly on Horsfall, since his arguments do conveniently imply most of his predecessors. 2 For a metapoetical reading of these lines see Philip Hardie 1986, 349–50. 3 Wilson-Okamura’s translation ‘His journey was suspended, but to no avail’ is not in the Latin. In general, this translation should be handled with care. 4 The latter is a suggestive translation of Della Corte in EV V**, 91: ‘Il nuovo itinerario...pare vada collegato col proposito di un’autoscopia dei luoghi di Eneide secondo e terzo’. 5 Similarly, in an earlier discussion with him in Groningen, I could not convince him that Vergil ever visited Lake Avernus and the famous Sibyl’s cave in Cumae, only 10 km from his house near Naples, whereas I certainly can imagine myself that Vergil would have wanted to visit the nearby location of the first part of his Aeneid VI. 6 EV V**, 92 note 1, ‘factum est ut Sulla nusquam ab se dimitteret cuperetque secum ducere’, e V., profitando dell’offerta, decise non solo redire, ma etiam una redire. 7 According to VSD, Vergil fell ill after the decision to travel back to Italy. Diehl (1911, 18) argues that this order of events makes the story even more unlikely. One could think of different explanations, for instance: the time of departure from Athens was settled after some days, and Vergil in the meantime visited Megara, famous for its philosophical schools. Della Corte may be right to assume that also Augustus with ships and all had arrived at Megara (EV V 2**92). If you would travel from there to Italy you would have to take the diolkos at Corinth in order to reach the Corinthian Gulf, perhaps time-consuming but certainly less dangerous than sailing along the coast of the Peloponnesus. 8 1995, 21. Vergil died on September 21, ‘paucis diebus’ after his disembarcation at Brundisium on, let us assume, 18 September. The ‘ara Fortunae Reducis’ was voted on 12 October, the day of Augustus’ arrival at Rome; RG 12. He may or may not have left dying Vergil behind and in Campania was met by ‘the most important magistrates with some of the praetors and plebeian tribunes with consul Quintus Lucretius’ (ibid.). This escort and the festivities along the way to Rome surely slowed him down considerably. 9 So for instance René Martin EV 2, 665ff. 10 It is difficult not to think here of Hor. Carm. I 14 O navis..., modelled on Alcaeus’ allegorical poem on the ‘Ship of State’. If we are right in doing so, Horace’s immediate impulse was not a perverse determination to write allegory (so Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc. 1970, 181, but rather a remarkable mixture of a historical event, Octavian’s voyage to Brundisium in the winter of 31/30 BC, also mentioned by Suet. Aug. 17.3, Dio 51.4.3, and allegorical transformation. Germanicus experienced a similar storm in this region and visited Actium in order to repair his ships, Tacitus Ann. 2.53–4. 11 The Dedication Text from Octavian’s Campsite Memorial has been reconstructed as follows, copied with some simplifications from Murray’s convincing reconstruction: Imp. Caesa]r Div[i Iuli ]f vict[oriam consecutus bell]o quod pro [r]epublic[a] ges[si]t in hac region[e con]sul [quintum i]mperat[or se]ptimum pace parta terra [marique

170

The historical truth of Vergil’s recitation of the Georgics at Atella (VSD § 27) Nep]tuno [et Ma]rt[i c]astra [ex] quibu[s ad hostem in]seq[uendum egr]essu[s est navalibus spoli]is [exorna]ta c[onsacravit 12 See Binder, 1971, 42ff. 13 Shackleton Bailey notes that letters normally took seven to nine days to reach Brundisium from Rome, a distance over land of 540 km (360 miles). He thinks five days incredibly short, particularly as the messenger could not have made an early start on the 4th. Therefore, he reads ‘11’ (days) for mss ‘8’. However, according to the site Orbis (www.Stanford edu) , the distance Rome-Brundisium can be covered in 8.8 days by ship (1179 km) and in 2.2 days (540 km) over land with horse relay. 14 According to Horsfall, referring to Wilkinson (1969, 110f.), this panegyric, not of the victor of Actium, would have caused considerable embarrassment: ‘so grave a lapse of taste and discretion could never, in 29, have been contemplated by a poet of intelligence and high standing’ (1995, 87). 15 Horsfall’s suggestion that ‘Silo’ also is a fantasy, being a cognomen of several minor literary figures since Seneca Rhetor, is not helpful, nor is Servius ad Buc. V 20 a demonstration of growing confusion about the possible allegorical interpretation of that passage, as Horsfall wants us to believe. 16 See also Horsfall 1995, 13. Bibliography Binder, G. 1971 Aeneas und Augustus. Interpretationen zum 8. Buch der Aeneis, Meisenheim am Glan. Brugnoli, G. and Stok, F. 1997 Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, Rome. Büchner, K. 1959 P.Vergilius Maro, Stuttgart (reprint of the article PW 8A). Cooley, A. E. 2009 Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Cambridge. Diehl, E. 1911 Die Vitae Vergilianae und ihre antike Quellen, Bonn. EV 1984–91 Enciclopedia Virgiliana (6 vols.), Rome. Götte, J. and Bayer, K. 1958 Vergil, Aeneis und die Vergil-Viten, Munich. Hardie, P. 1986 Virgil’s Aeneid, Cosmos and Imperium, Oxford. Horsfall, N. 1995 A Companion to the Study of Vergil, Leiden. 2006 A Commentary on Aeneid III, Leiden. Leo, F. 1903 ‘Vergils erste und neunte Ecloge’, Hermes 38, 1–18. Murray, W. M. and Petsas, P. M. 1989 ‘Octavian’s campsite memorial for the Actian War’, TAPhA 79, 4. Rawson, E. 1985 Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic, London. Smith, C. and Powell, A. eds

171

Hans Smolenaars The Lost Memoirs of Augustus, Swansea. Vollmer, F. 1909 ‘Lesungen und Deutungen’, SBAW 9.2, –11. Wardle, D. Suetonius, Life of Augustus, Oxford. Wellek, R. and Warren, A. 1949 Theory of Literature, New York, Wilkinson L. P. 1969 The Georgics of Vergil, Cambridge. Wilson-Okamura, D. 1966 Donatus, Aelius, Life of Virgil, (rev. 2008). Online Virgil.org. Wishart, D. 1995 I, Virgil, London.

172

9 SINNING AGAINST PHILOLOGY? METHOD AND THE SUETONIAN-DONATAN LIFE OF VIRGIL Anton Powell As modern study of Antiquity divides into deeper and increasingly independent specialisms, perhaps few texts have been so affected as the Ancient Lives of Virgil, and notably the most regarded of them, the Life now known as the Suetonian-Donatan (VSD, in what follows). It will be argued here that the assessment of this text requires the application at once of two modern disciplines which fewer and fewer scholars are bold enough to combine: literary criticism and historical source-criticism. It may appear that in recent scholarship the more impressive grasp of the subject has been that of the literary critics; that historians trained in source-criticism have preferred to neglect VSD, a text for the understanding of which a mastery of Virgil’s poems is clearly essential. We shall suggest now that unchallenged dominance has led to a sense that one discipline is selfsufficient, and that this suffisance has come to involve hasty dismissal of rival viewpoints. The close study of genre by modern analysts of literature has contributed importantly to thinking about the Lives of Virgil. In particular, concern with allegory has illuminated VSD. But so prominent has become the focus on allegory that, as we shall argue, this legitimate philological topic has led to the neglect of the many elements in VSD which do not lend themselves to allegorical analysis. Again, students of political history might be surprised to see how low the credit of Suetonius as a source has sunk among recent analysts of VSD. As part of a more general endeavour to promote the reintegration of Classics,1 an attempt will here be made to include and to build on some of the undoubted achievements of modern philology in its study of VSD, while challenging its tendency to exclude the approach of historians. We shall argue that a more respectful approach to VSD may lead to surprising results relevant both to philology and to history. The Ancient Lives of Virgil are, it is commonly feared by philologists, largely constructed by unreliable inference from Virgil’s own poems. In the article on Virgil by Don and Peta Fowler in the Third Edition

173

Anton Powell of OCD, it is written that ‘Much (but not all) of the information in them [sc. the extant Ancient Lives] derives from interpretation of the poems (including the spurious ones in the Appendix Vergiliana), and few details, however circumstantial, can be regarded as certain’ (1996, 1602). The authors conclude broadly and negatively, assimilating iconographic and biographic representations of the poet: A number of portraits of Virgil are known...: there is no reason to believe that any are based on a genuine likeness, but the [literary] tradition describes him as a valetudinarian who never married and preferred sex with boys (variously identified amongst the characters of the poems). All of this, naturally, tells us more about Roman constructions of gender and culture than about ‘the man Virgil’. (1996, 1603)

The tone encourages comprehensive dismissal: on one point the authors write, ‘like everything else in the [ancient biographic] tradition, this may or may not be true’ (p.1603). Disrespect may have bred carelessness, both in logic and even in the representation of VSD’s text.2 The authors’ correct statement, that ‘not all’ of the information in the Ancient Lives is derived from interpretation of the poems, is confined to parentheses, and not subsequently explored. Their statement that ‘few details [in the Ancient Lives]...can be regarded as certain’ is pitched negatively, and appears to contradict the claim that everything in the biographic tradition ‘may or may not be true’. The few certain details are not identified. It is legitimate to wonder what these details are, and what is the information in the Lives which the authors concede does not derive from interpretation of the poems. On what historiographic criteria may certain material be considered more promising for the student of Virgil’s work and life? In the Fowlers’ article, the dates of the man Virgil are given as 70–19 BC, without any indication of doubt. Nor is any indication given of the source for those dates. That source is the ancient biographic tradition: most notably VSD sections 2 and 35 state respectively that the poet was born Cn. Pompeio Magno M. Licinio Crasso primum coss. and died Cn. Sentio Q. Lucretio coss.3 Here, then, VSD contains material of which it apparently should not be said that it ‘may or may not be true’. Nicholas Horsfall in 1995 had published a learned, often helpful, review of the historical value of the VSD and of the other, briefer, ancient biographies. Much cited, it is now perhaps the most influential survey in English concerning the (un)reliability of the ancient Lives. Horsfall concludes (1995, 24), ‘It may now be apparent that very little external information indeed may legitimately be used in the understanding of Virgil and his work.’ He finds Suetonius, as in his view the real author of most of this Life, on particular points ‘guilty of simple stupidity’ (1995, 20) and

174

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil ‘but a step from unabashed fantasy’ (1995, 19). Horsfall’s method consists largely of detecting, with impressive learning, a great number of tenuous resemblances between, on the one hand, claims about the man – and boy – Virgil in the ancient Lives and notably in VSD and, on the other hand, elements of the poet’s known works or other ancient references to him, and then asserting that items of the first category were, or may have been, derived by unreliable construction from things in the second set. Thus, for example, ‘That his father bought woodland must derive from G.2.426-33; that he kept bees is a transparent theft from G.4.’ (on which see Smolenaars, this volume p. 156); ‘that...his mother was named Magia Polla might be an ingenious fantasy extrapolated from the source of Jerome’s “Nigidius Figulus; Pythagoricus et Magus” (after Suetonius)’ (1995, 5). However, Horsfall’s own ingenuity when dismissing is not matched by conscientiousness in accepting. Thus he accepts (1995, 5) the claim at VSD 2 that ‘Virgil was born on 15 Oct. 70 BC’: this precise date ‘should not be questioned: the cult of the birthday, in life and posthumously, is security enough’. Of VSD’s date for the poet’s death Horsfall writes simply: this is ‘unassailable’ (1995, 21). The sceptical tone which predominates elsewhere in the paper may mislead. On a surprising number of matters, as we shall see, Horsfall does take seriously non-allegorical material in VSD; lacking, however, is a candid admission of how extensive and significant is the material which in his view should be retained. Rather, Horsfall writes elsewhere of ‘occasional, almost embarrassing facts, each requiring justification and explanation for its almost freakish survival’ (2006, xxii–xxiii). Embarrassment may have consequences for scholarship; an uninhibited examination may be needed, of why for the historian of Virgil certain apparently awkward material deserves to be privileged. Now, there is good reason for the historian to place some confidence in the date of Virgil’s death. Even in his lifetime the poet had an impressive reputation, as witness most clearly the lines of the contemporary Propertius (2.34.65f.) about Virgil’s preparing a work greater than the Iliad. Later, a character in Tacitus’ Dialogus (13.2) described a popular audience which, on hearing verses of Virgil during a spectacle, ‘rose as one’ to acclaim Virgil, who was present, ‘as if he were Augustus’ (Dial. 13.2: populus...surrexit universus et...Vergilium veneratus est sic quasi Augustum). Virgil’s death would, very shortly after it occurred, be seen widely as important and thus very likely would be committed promptly to record. The same cannot be said of the date of birth. Given that chronology is an unusually vulnerable aspect of memory, why do Virgil’s dates, and especially his year of birth, as given so firmly both by the Fowlers and by Horsfall, resist the general scepticism which characterizes both studies? One may even suspect that having to

175

Anton Powell admit ignorance of such fundamental information about so significant a figure would have been unacceptably alarming. In other words, wishful thinking may be at work: literary history has perhaps been written à la carte. Horsfall is right not to discount the general possibility that correct elements of biography may have been generated by ancient allegorical readings of Virgil’s poems, because the poet certainly allegorized in verse. Horsfall writes (1995, 12), ‘Virgil himself openly invited the readers of Buc. to some degree of allegorical exegesis (5.86f, 6.3f.): that was indeed how they were read by contemporaries (Prop. 2.34.67ff) and during the first century AD (Mart. 8.56.8, Quint. 8.6.47...).’ The principle could indeed be expressed more pointedly: Virgil’s allegorising himself in verse as a character in an earlier poem of his own is performed with almost the greatest possible clarity when, with appropriate symmetry from this eminently architectural poet,4 the closing line of the Georgics reprises the opening line of the Eclogues. A singer at the start of the Eclogues is now referred to with the poet’s own name: now it is not Tityrus but ‘Vergilius’ with a verb in the first person who sings patulae...sub tegmine fagi (G. 4.563–6 with E. 1.1f.). And since ‘Tityrus’ later in E1 describes himself as receiving protective patronage from a young man at Rome with divine attributes (and now widely and persuasively interpreted as Octavian), while Virgil in the Georgics repeatedly names (above, n.4), and advertises his dependence on, Maecenas, Octavian’s chief minister , the idea in VSD 19 that the poet personally, like his character Tityrus, had been shielded by the landcommissioners of Octavian, and protected in his land-holding, is hardly eccentric. Dio’s record (48.8; cf. Powell 2008, 194), that Octavian did occasionally relent in his transfers after Philippi of small landowners’ property to veteran soldiers, accords interestingly, and is noticed too rarely in discussions of fanciful allegory affecting Virgilian biography. When sweeping scepticism is applied to records in VSD that elements of Virgil’s private life are referred to allegorically in his poetry – that a young male love-object of his, Alexander, appears in E. 2 under the name of Alexis (VSD 9; E. 2.1 etc.) and that the poet’s dead brother Flaccus is lamented under the name of Daphnis (VSD 14; cf. E. 5)5 – one should note a certain bias imposed by our ancient material. References by Virgil to historical public figures of his own day, whose existence is confirmed by external sources, are made in the poems in various ways. There is explicit exact naming, as e.g. with Maecenas in the Georgics and Augustus in the Aeneid. There is lightly changed naming utterly clear in its reference: thus Atys, young friend of Aeneas’s son, with explicit reference to the Atii, Augustus’ maternal ancestors (Aen. 5.568f.), and the sacrificing Potitius (Aen. 8.269, 281) referring to Octavian’s fellow consul Potitus Valerius

176

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil Messalla who sacrificed in his honour in 29 BC (Dio 51.21.1).6 There is implicit but again utterly clear – for contemporaries – parallelism between episodes involving the mythical Aeneas and the historical Octavian, as Aeneas’ lingering and respectful visit to Actium (Aen. 3.278-88),7 and his elaborate sacrifice to marine divinities for fair winds when about to embark from eastern Sicily.8 By definition, any references in the poems to private, relatively obscure, elements of Virgil’s life are not susceptible of the same degree of external verification. But, given that the references to public figures are certain, not to admit a strong possibility that Virgil made similar, now obscure, and sometimes allegorical references to his private life would be bold indeed. Indeed, given the perils for the Roman poet’s reputation in the long run, and perhaps even for his personal safety, of making clear and complaisant references to a regime which might – through illness, battle or assassination – swiftly perish, the relative safety of making references to obscure personal circumstances might make allegory on the latter subject more congenial to the poet than reference to public figures. The reception-habits of Virgil’s contemporaries should indeed be given primacy in our own interpretation. Irene Peirano Garrison demonstrates in the present volume (Ch. 1) that there existed in Virgil’s day a welldeveloped system of interpreting Theokritos’ bucolic poems as allegory concerning the poet himself. From which we may now perhaps infer that, however far-fetched such allegorical interpretation of the Roman era may have been for the interpretation of the Greek poet, since Theokritos was the principal generic model of the Eclogues Virgil may very well have wished to add a corresponding play of allegory, concerning himself as bucolic poet, to the games of generic mimicry in which in all his principal works he excelled. For the interpreter, contemporary or modern, of Virgil’s poetry the problem was indeed not whether to detect allegory concerning Virgil the man, but in Horsfall’s words (1995, 12; echoing Servius’ commentary on Eclogues 1.1), ‘where to stop’. It follows that questions of possible allegory should be addressed not with sweeping scepticism, but by traditional case-by-case examination. At this point, the present study may itself all but stop its detailed reference to allegory, and turn to elements in VSD which seem not to have been generated by allegoric interpretation. Such elements are many. By studying them we may, by normal processes of source-criticism, find grounds for treating that Life more respectfully and indeed for constructing from it. That Suetonius was the author of most of this text is now widely accepted, reasonably enough. The present study will make detailed comparison with other work attributed to Suetonius, and will suggest certain positive consequences for our evaluation of the Life if Suetonius

177

Anton Powell was its main author. But we shall also be concerned to evaluate VSD from internal evidence, and not to rely on the assumption that Suetonius wrote it. Students in other areas have found Suetonius far from stupid or valueless. In general there seems a certain fair-mindedness about the biographer: in reading his Lives of the Caesars, unlike works of Tacitus or Plutarch, we are not often made to feel that historical biography resembles a branch of rhetoric or moral philosophy, that we are being shepherded towards a predesigned conclusion. There is something rather calm, at times reassuringly miscellaneous, about Suetonius’ presentation of material. Moral considerations, however, do structure much of Suetonius’ work, sometimes in a way which involves striking resemblance to VSD. So with sections 9 and 11 of the Life where it is stated that Virgil, while his lust for boys was somewhat excessive, ‘was certainly in all other aspects of his life generally recognized as so virtuous in his countenance and cast of mind that...’ (Cetera sane vita et ore et animo tam probum constat ut...). Similar in structure and language is Suetonius’ summary on Augustus’ moral character (DA 72 1): ‘It is generally recognised that in all other areas of his life he exercised supreme self-control and was never suspected of any vice’ (In ceteris partibus vitae continentissimum constat et sine suspicione ullius vitii.) One obvious aid for the historian, in exploring how far information in our Life may not be derived from Virgil’s poems, is the number of occasions on which VSD refers by name to a source other than Virgil. Here are the references which involve the naming of such a source, following the order in which they occur. s. (9–)10 Asconius Pedianus – that is, the still-respected commentator of the mid 1st century AD whom we may know best in connection with Cicero – is cited for the detail that one Plotia Hieria in her later life repeatedly told the story of how Virgil stubbornly refused the chance to have sex with her. The author of the Life contrasts the popular story (vulgatum est ) that the pair did indeed have a relationship. (In passing we may note that if a woman refused by a celebrity was happy to mention it, there seems a good chance that she saw the story as reflecting unambiguously not on her own charms or status but on the celebrity’s taste. Here, then, may be a hint on Virgil’s perceived sexuality.) 16 One Melissus is cited as source of the report that Virgil’s manner of speaking was slow and sounded almost uneducated. (This, it is usually thought, is Maecenas Melissus, freedman of Maecenas and librarian of Augustus: Suet. De Grammaticis, 21.) 29 ‘Seneca’ (Rhetor) is cited as reporting that the poet Iulius Montanus frequently described Virgil as having a voice and a delivery capable of dignifying otherwise undistinguished lines of verse.

178

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil 30 Propertius is quoted, for the prediction that Virgil would produce a poem greater than the Iliad. How intrigued might we be by the two lines of verse given here, how differently might we value this Life, if the lines happened not to have survived in our own texts of Propertius (2.34.65f.). 31 The author claims to cite the actual words of a letter written to Virgil by Augustus, along with the circumstances in which it was written – during Augustus’ absence because of the Cantabrian War, that is in the period 26–24 BC, in which the emperor demanded (efflagitaret: imperfect: that is firmly and perhaps repeatedly) that he be sent either an initial sketch (prima carminis ὑπογραφή) or any substantial section (κῶλον) of the Aeneid. This striking claim to have access to the exact terms of private imperial correspondence, because unexplained, would come most naturally from Suetonius, secretary ab epistulis under Hadrian – and indeed the verb efflagitare is characteristic of Suetonius (cf. Ner. 38.3; Tib. 12.3; Dom. 3.1). In his Life of Titus (5.2), Suetonius wrote of soldiers making demands with a ‘combination of pleading and (even) threats’ (suppliciter nec non et minaciter efflagitantes). With corresponding terms and structure, the author of the VSD states here that the emperor’s ‘demands by letter were made in terms which combined pleading and even humorous threats’ (supplicibus atque etiam minacibus per iocum litteris). From a historian’s viewpoint, this looks like gold: we shall return to it. 34 A freedman and scribe (librarius) of Virgil, named Eros, is cited – albeit on the testimony of unnamed others (tradunt) – as having told, again repeatedly (referre solitum), of the circumstances in which two half-lines, specified, were completed by the poet. Again the ultimate informant, Eros, is assigned an age: he was near the end of his long life (exactae iam senectutis). 42 Nisus grammaticus is recorded as having claimed to have heard from older people that Varius (Virgil’s literary executor) changed the order of two books of the Aeneid, numbers 2 and 3, as well as suppressing four autobiographic lines at the start of the poem, preceding arma virumque cano. And finally, at s.46 there is further reference to Asconius Pedianus, this time as author of a text defending Virgil against his detractors. Asconius here is said to have quoted Virgil defending himself against charges of plagiarising Homer, and to have mentioned the poet’s plan to go into retreat (secedere, again a characteristically Suetonian term) so as to prune his work to protect it against malevolent critics. The density here of citations of named sources is much higher than we find, for example, in Thucydides, or indeed in biographies written by Suetonius’ contemporaries, Tacitus and Plutarch. We may also be impressed by our author’s (or authors’) care with chronological indications, as they affect the accessibility and the value of the material cited. Augustus was

179

Anton Powell writing letters or a letter to Virgil (rather, perhaps, than summoning him) because he was away in Spain, at war. The testimony of Plotia Hieria and of Eros was given late in their lives, we are told; this again may have been meant to attest significantly to the quality of that evidence: positively, because it might shorten the chain of transmission between the ultimate source and Suetonius himself (if he was the author), negatively perhaps as making clear that it was subject to the vagaries of old memory. In the case of Nisus grammaticus, the author of the Life tells us about the chain of transmission, involving Nisus’ older contemporaries. Our author also sees the significance, easy to miss with hindsight, of Propertius’ early – indeed prophetic – salute to Virgil’s achievement. And he seems to lay proper emphasis on the contemporary, documentary, quality of Augustus’ correspondence. Certainly the first impression given by these citations is of a responsible writer (or writers), with some acumen in source-criticism. Other significant aspects of our ‘Suetonian’ Life not easily discounted as constructions from supposed allegory are as follows: We are told (13) that Virgil had a house at Rome next to the gardens of Maecenas. This report is, on historians’ normal criteria, promising: it concerns information likely to have been of contemporary interest, and publicly verifiable over a long period. It should also be suggestive for literary critics: it plays directly into the principal modern debate about Virgil, involving members of the Harvard School and their belief that the poet of the Aeneid intended, subtly, to devalue Augustus. Here may be a concrete indication of the high favour, moral and material, which the poet enjoyed in court circles. Maecenas was far more than a mécène, more than the chief orchestrator of literary opinion. He was, until perhaps the last years of Virgil’s life (cf. Suet. DA 66), the emperor’s most trusted minister in crises of politics and security.9 He presumably lived in one of the most chic, best guarded, and most expensive, areas of Rome. Would the poet bite the hand which so elegantly housed him? Also at s.13, along with the reference to Virgil’s house near Maecenas’ gardens on the Esquiline, we read that the poet possessed ‘nearly 10 million sesterces, through the generosity (liberalitates) of friends’. Horsfall (1995, 8) refers to this passage for the claim that Virgil ‘was worth ten million sesterces’. But the biographer was more exact, writing prope (‘nearly’) that amount. A less careful writer than the author(s) of VSD might well round up. Compare Probus, who does just that in his Life of the poet (ll.15f.): usque ad sestertium centies. Instead, there is in our Life at least a claim to be meticulous, to what we might call the precision of imprecision; the explicit approximation may equally hint at imprecise information scrupulously acknowledged or at exact figures known to the author but here rounded for

180

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil obvious reason. Who were the generous friends? Maecenas, from context, is one obvious probability (cf. Martial 8.56), whether or not at Augustus’ bidding. So, of course, is Augustus himself, directly. Probus, in the passage already noted, is blunt: Augustus was the source of the 10 million (ab Augusto usque ad sestertium centies honestatus est). Augustus is named in the previous sentence of VSD, in connection with a proposed gift: at s.12 we read that Virgil ‘could not bear to accept’ an offer from Augustus to confer on him the property of an exiled man, probably an enemy of Octavian-Augustus. However, nowhere in VSD is Augustus named as the source of Virgil’s actual wealth. The question of Virgil’s material, and so perhaps moral, circumstances touches most modern analysis of the poet’s work. The way the question is treated in the influential evaluation of VSD by Horsfall is thus of particular importance. Horsfall does not make a substantive argument against the general financial picture given by this Life. He may even seem to accept it in one crucial respect when he writes, of the 10 million, ‘the sum may well…be based ultimately on the poet’s will’ (1995, 8). However, he then makes a sudden shift away from the question of VSD ’s truthfulness by warning of the danger of misinterpreting that text if it be true. He writes that the information about the poet’s wealth ‘does not make V[irgil] the paid spokesman, the mercenary mouthpiece of an imperialistic regime’. This somewhat passionate representation of an extreme position (a rewarded partisan, for example, need not be dependent on treasure for his loyalty) involves, I believe, a clear example of important information from the Life being not refuted but refused, of being treated à la carte. Horsfall argues that the recorded ‘liberalitates cannot be large and frequent cash handouts: that would have been rank bad manners at Rome, for donor and recipient... Inheritances, then, are the obvious source, though we remain ignorant of who these wealthy, deceased, generous friends might have been.’ (1995, 8) This account of possible sources of Virgil’s wealth seems significantly incomplete. It excludes the possibility of occasional large gifts in kind (compare the offer of the exile’s property), or indeed in cash. By directing attention instead to the possibility of inheritance from the deceased – that is, from those no longer able to exert direct influence on the poet – Horsfall momentarily takes seriously the evidence of the Life concerning the amount of Virgil’s wealth, while artificially downplaying the chance that Octavian-Augustus, who outlived Virgil, was a main source of it. Contemporary counter-evidence is not admitted. We have the testimony of Horace (Ep. 2.1.245–7) who writes of ‘your gifts (tua...munera)...accepted (n.b: tulerunt) by your beloved poets Virgil and Varius’.10 To whom is this addressed? To Augustus, Caesar (line 4 etc.). Horace’s words are eminently

181

Anton Powell relevant to the financial information in VSD but are not here mentioned by Horsfall.11 His priority seems to be, not to evaluate VSD so much as to defend against a certain view of the poet’s intentions in writing. This, it happens, is a motive he himself identifies in discounting ancient biographical testimony on Virgil: ‘All else...is not biographical fact, as we understand it, but either explication of Virgil’s text in biographical terms or defence of the poet against criticism.’ (1995, 4) More generally, Horsfall writes (1995, 1), ‘If we turn out to know next to nothing of Virgil’s “life and times”, that matters little if at all to our understanding of the poetry.’ Does that mean, strictly, that he thinks Virgil’s prominent naming (for example) of Maecenas, Augustus, Antonius and Actium is not part of the poetry? These, and other recent political phenomena identified by the poet, were indeed part of his life and times, on one obvious definition. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this sweeping claim is that the author expected a readership of modern literary specialists to find it acceptable. In a later work, his commentary on Aeneid 3 (2006, ad 3.97), he writes: ‘Virgil has passed, little though some like it, ...to...solidly Augustan panegyric language’. Authoritative here is Horsfall’s testimony to the influence of distaste in modern Virgilian criticism: ‘little though some like it’ (our emphasis). Reluctance to contemplate Virgil’s material, by implication political, circumstances extends beyond the Harvard School. There is a lasting polyphony of modern critics, in various traditions, claiming that Virgil was not writing propaganda in a professional spirit, a polyphony of which I have tried elsewhere to make an anthology (Powell 2008, 7–10). One may suspect, but not perhaps prove, that what protects from critical scorn this particular near-orthodoxy about Virgil is the fact that it works to the poet’s credit, according to modern values: that is, it spares us the embarrassment of confronting a masterly poet whose work is structured by a form of political engagement we may find deeply uncongenial. Some critics, such as leaders of the Harvard School who proudly recall their own politics of opposition to the Vietnam War, may find problematic the overt politics of Virgil, the poet’s pro-regime statements. Others may have a general aversion to seeing politics in poetry. But what makes these two distinct tendencies so influential today is that they are allied in their aversion to the idea of a loyalist Virgil. They thus have a shared interest in devaluing the evidence of VSD about Virgil’s living next to Maecenas’ property. Poets may be allowed to be either political and subversive, or apolitical, but not loyalists of an established regime. Reluctance to take seriously Virgil’s overt support for the Julian regime may be reduced if the literary critic will perform the historian’s manoeuvre,

182

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil of seeking to view history without hindsight, to reflect on how insecure for contemporaries was the outlook for the Augustan regime (see below, pp. 186–7). There may even be found something romantically courageous in a poet’s commitment in the 20s BC to a young man who had been widely loathed, militarily inept and of uncertain health. Virgil was far from being – in the phrase used by Syme of Horace (1939, 299) – ‘safe and subsidized in Rome’. Conspicuous subsidy and privilege, as living close to Maecenas, was itself a form of danger. A trace of related apprehension, which seems to have resisted the pressure of hindsight in our sources, may be found in the Life of Horace ascribed to Suetonius. Here the biographer claims to quote an expression of anger (irasci me) by Augustus against Horace for not mentioning him enough in his writings: ‘Are you afraid that after our time it may be held against you that you and I seem to have been close?’ (an vereris ne apud posteros infame tibi sit, quod videaris familiaris nobis esse?) Is there any further sign of input into VSD from Augustus? As already noted, at s.12 we read that Virgil ‘could not bear to accept’ an offer from the ruler to confer on him the property of an exiled man, evidently an enemy of Augustus – or of Octavian. Here we badly need to know more about chronology; public disapproval of the Julian chief, and disbelief in his prospects, may have been most intense, and certainly are more clearly recorded, of his early years.12 What is likely to have been the source for this information about Virgil’s refusal, which seems to concern a private offer? Virgil himself might have told, but the mere offer was seriously invidious, if not compromising. Augustus’ private papers seem rather more likely as a source, but this of course is speculation. At s.27 comes the episode in which Virgil and Maecenas read the Georgics to Octavian (the Life says ‘to Augustus’, but gives the chronological link with Actium) at Atella. Hans Smolenaars examines this episode constructively elsewhere in the present volume (Ch. 8). There is similar detail given for the episode in which Virgil gave the famous reading from the Aeneid to the emperor, after the death of Marcellus (of 23 BC); as he read, Octavia, mother of the dead youth, fainted (s.32), though we note the anonymising fertur. Augustus is again centrally involved in the account of Virgil’s journey to the east in the poet’s 52nd year, in which he met the emperor at Athens (we are not told whether by design), changed his plans and went so far (etiam) as deciding to return to Italy with him. And then, after Virgil’s death, Varius published the Aeneid, on the emperor’s authority, auctore Augusto (s.41), and the poet’s will left a quarter of his wealth to – Augustus (s.37). It may be legitimate to make a distinction, concerning the Life, between incidents and episodes – that is between the briefest of happenings and others. There will, inevitably, be some grey area between the categories.

183

Anton Powell But if we see, for example, Virgil’s reported refusal of the exile’s property, or of Plotia’s favours, as perhaps the briefest of incidents, and, on the other hand, the two readings at court, the journeying to and from Athens and the poet’s death and posthumous publication as episodes, because somewhat more fully described, and containing more developments, we may see that in the episodes, as distinct from the incidents, Augustus is often central. (On this categorisation, the pressure on the poet from Augustus in Spain might seem grey area, depending on whether one or more letters were involved.)13 The Augustan episodes are all given some chronological location – as is the affair of Augustus’ delicately threatening correspondence. But people’s memories and memoirs will privilege rulers. Is there any reason to think that the Augustan material prominent in our Life came mainly from Augustus or his agents? First, inconclusive of course but interesting, is the fact that nothing here concerning Augustus is on the face of it to the ruler’s discredit. Contrast Suetonius’ Life of that emperor (DA 27.3; 68; 70), with its detail of the ‘multiple, burning unpopularity’ which Octavian experienced in the triumviral period.14 On the other hand, how obviously – if at all – does the Augustan material in the Life of the poet tell in the emperor’s favour? He offered the poet the exile’s wealth – but it was not accepted, and so did not help Virgil materially. Augustus is, we have seen, not named as one of the poet’s generous benefactors. Given the near-certainty (as witness Horace) that he was such a benefactor, and that readers might be expected to find the matter very interesting, this omission is itself suggestive. Horsfall writes on this subject (1995, 12), ‘Suetonius’ mechanical and anachronistic approach to dedications, patronage and the like has been noted’. However, when VSD describes the high politics, the ‘patronage and the like’, affecting the poet’s three great works, there may be a significant anomaly, a distinctly unmechanical variation, concerning OctavianAugustus. On the Eclogues, we read that Virgil was ‘concerned mainly to honour – maxime ut...celebraret – Asinius Pollio, Alfenus Varus and Cornelius Gallus’, who had saved him from loss over the land distributions after Philippi (s.19). The Georgics, we are told, were written in honorem Maecenatis (s.20), Maecenas having protected the poet, at that time not very well known, against the near-fatal violence of a veteran soldier. The composition of Eclogues and Georgics, then, is in each case explained immediately by VSD as an act of recompense by the poet, of officium we might say. Not so with the Aeneid. Here the author of the Life begins with comment on its genre, before describing once more its author’s main aim (quod maxime studebat, s.21), which was – and the expression is remarkable – ‘to embrace at the same time the origin of the city of Rome and of Augustus’ (Romanae simul

184

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil urbis et Augusti origo contineretur). The parallelism in the syntax, with both Romanae...urbis and Augusti dependent on origo, reinforced by simul, welds Rome and its ruler in the most honorific way imaginable. But there is no explicit mention of thanking or honouring Augustus for services to the poet personally. Perhaps our author(s) saw no need to be explicit; the matter was clear enough. But there is a further difference: unlike the previous two cases, there is no reference here to personal beneficia from ruler to poet. Such thoughts cannot be far away from most readers. The refused offer of wealth from Octavian-Augustus had been mentioned nine sections earlier, with the reference to the generosity of unnamed amici and to Maecenas. And the clearly implicit relation of beneficium and officium in the case of the two previous poetic works has predisposed the reader to think of a similar link concerning the Aeneid and Augustus. Is there political rhetoric behind our author’s style? Has a simple statement on the Aeneid as written for Augustus been deliberately withheld by the biographer or his source? To see how such matters might have been dealt with less artfully, we should glance again at the Life of Virgil by Probus. Here we are told of the poet that, ‘having begun (ingressus) the Aeneid during the Cantabrian War, which likewise cost him a huge amount of work, he was honoured by Augustus with as much as 10 million sesterces’ (ll.14-16). The implication of a paid commission is clear; or at the very least, the inference by the reader is natural. There is a further difference in expression between VSD and Probus, again concerning Augustus. VSD (38) includes six lines of verse attributed to one ‘Sulpicius Carthaginensis’, referring to Virgil’s order that the Aeneid be burned, and to Tucca, Varius and Augustus (maxime Caesar) as having forbidden this.15 The biographer’s own voice refers rather to Augustus as ordering, after the poet’s death, that Varius publish the poem (41). The danger from which the Princeps might have saved the work is made clear, implicitly, in VSD, with the famous and circumstantial detail about the poet’s desire, pressing and persistent, to have it burned (39), a desire said to have been expressed before he left Italy ‘if anything should happen to him’, as well as later on his deathbed. But it is left to Probus to be brutally clear: ‘the Aeneid was saved by Augustus’ (Aeneis servata est ab Augusto) (l.22). VSD, then, does not press as it might have done the claims that Augustus had a prime responsibility for generating, funding and preserving the Aeneid. Does that tend to exclude the chance that Augustus directly inspired the way these matters are presented in the Life? The rhetoric of the emperor was frequently far from simple. There is a clear pattern of naïve deviousness: Christopher Pelling has seen in Augustus’ fragmentary

185

Anton Powell Memoirs a ‘rhetoric of honesty’ (2009, 57). There apology is prominent, as especially for causing deaths (F14, F16, cf. F316 and Suet. DA 27.2 on Augustus’ paenitentia), and Suetonius in his Divus Augustus (66.2) records apologetic words of the Princeps concerning the death of the poet Gallus. Consider also the modesty of which he boasts in the Res Gestae: he restored public buildings at Rome, he writes, ‘without writing my own name on any of them’, sine ulla inscriptione nominis mei (s.20). He simply inscribed the fact in the Res Gestae, at prominent sites around the empire. Might we not see a similar restraint behind VSD? The text consistently avoids the direct claim that, to put it bluntly, Augustus was largely, indeed crucially, responsible for the existence of the Aeneid, but the implication, concerning the emperor’s positive role, can hardly be missed. In VSD (37) we are given figures for the apportionment of Virgil’s estate in his will: Maecenas received 1⁄12, Augustus however received 3 times as much, ¼. Was this repayment, reflecting the proportion of sums the poet had received in his lifetime? Now, if this detail too was itself inspired by an august source, we may see a similar motivation to that of the claim in the Res Gestae about not writing Augustus’ name on public buildings: Augustus did not want to claim explicitly that he was the authority financing and dictating, in some sense, the Aeneid, but as with the temples he could not quite resist telling people that really he had been rather helpful. But why might Augustus wish to soft-pedal his creative claim on the Aeneid ? Modern scholarly assertions of Virgil’s moral independence of the regime have had an unintended consequence. They dwell, in various ways but with shared embarrassment, on the regime’s possible influence on the poem. They deflect attention from thoughts of how the poem may have affected the regime. Simply, the Aeneid is likely to have been exceptionally valuable to Augustus. We might infer as much from a variety of considerations: the poem’s sheer literary quality, and its scale, were public proof of restored vitality after the civil wars. Virgil in the Georgics explicitly figured a future poem of his as a temple, with Caesar (Octavian) – at its centre: In medio mihi Caesar erit templumque tenebit (3.16). A written temple, in the minds of poet and honorand, might be far from a deuteros plous: the poem, unlike a physical building, might circulate across the empire. Its early general fame strongly suggests that the regime valued it; addressing Augustus, Ovid referred – in whatever spirit – to the poem as ‘your Aeneid’ (Tristia 2.533),17 and indeed based an argument here on the premise that Virgil’s poem was dear to the emperor. We should not here press – for fear of apparent circularity – the evidence from VSD of Augustus’ intense impatience to have the work. With hindsight we may miss how insecure the regime was around 20 BC.

186

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil Augustus had recently (23 BC) been – again – seriously ill and had, it seems, expected to die. The general who, after Octavian’s own abject personal failures at First Philippi and Tauromenium, had won the crucial campaigns against Sextus Pompeius and Antony, Agrippa, had withdrawn – perhaps in a negative spirit (though Syme 1939, 342) – to the eastern empire, until recalled in 21. Maecenas, on whom Octavian had relied as a political chief at Rome following his own inflammatory failings there, was, it seems, no longer fully trusted after the conspiracy of the consul Terentius Varro Murena in 23 (Suet. DA 66.3). Maecenas’ fall from favour, if such it was, may have deprived Virgil of what is known in modern Russia as his ‘roof’, political protection at a high level. Maecenas’ fall from grace may even have entailed suspicion of any who, like Virgil, had been close associates of Maecenas. But Augustus, once he knew the contents of the Aeneid, would be aware that it offered him and a possible dynasty of his descendants a deeply dignified and reassuring poetic prophecy, addressing exactly the main question of the age: Would the regime last? We have seen in VSD the idea that Virgil yoked Rome and Augustus in respect of their origins, their past. This intimate linkage might make an implicit point about the conjoined future of Rome and Augustus more systematically and insidiously than any explicit claim, as e.g. about aurea saecula of the future. Now, if what Augustus valued above all was the prophecy about his regime, coming from such a noble source as Virgil, might it not be rather important to avoid the direct admission that the noble source had issued the prophecy after being lavishly paid by Augustus? Tacitus later would evaluate reports auguring success for another new regime, one which also issued precariously from extensive civil war, that of Vespasian: a main criterion for the historian was, that the reports of miraculous and prophetic events were maintained without mendacio pretium, reward for lying (Hist. 4.81). And yet how tempting for the Princeps to stress that he had treated the poet well. With this qualification perhaps: that, rather than the ruler himself having recruited or suborned Virgil, Virgil – as we read repeatedly in VSD – had come to him: to read his poetry, twice, to return with him from Athens to Italy. The delicate threats, from emperor to poet, were, we recall, recorded of the emperor’s private correspondence. Let us return to what I suspected to be gold for historians: the report of sustained demands, threats of a kind, from Augustus to the poet. Here is an apparent conflict of interests, between poet and patron. The logic should be taken further, though inevitably speculation is involved. We are told by our Life (35), with testimony from Asconius (46), that Virgil planned to go abroad for three years to polish his work, and thereafter to

187

Anton Powell dedicate his time exclusively to philosophy, that is – perhaps – to give up poetry altogether. But then at Athens he met Augustus and, changing his plan, decided etiam to backtrack to Italy with the emperor. Our author(s) saw how remarkable that was; that is the point of the word etiam. Now, I hope I am not being misled by my modest experience of today’s world of publishing. But normally in that world, if the publisher or editor of a cherished project, one long – indeed impatiently – awaited and heavily subsidised, one already at an advanced stage, indeed with its existence advertised (compare Propertius’ two lines), were to learn that the author intended to go far away for years to polish, and then to give up writing, there would be trouble. The interests of publisher and editor, indeed their credibility and authority, would be in play. If a tardy author, trying to escape abroad, were to meet his publisher and return unexpectedly with him, we should – if we knew no more – suspect that he returned under pressure. Augustus, however, was not a normal publisher. He was a politician, an autocrat whose own life was always at stake. Three years is a long time in politics even now; it was far longer in the ancient state of medicine. Augustus was also a killer and punisher. In the long political massacre of the late 40s delicately known, in part from modern embarrassment, as ‘the proscriptions’, Octavian was according to Suetonius the most persistent of the triumvirs and the most consistently merciless (DA 27.1–2); later, as emperor, he would consign even his own daughter to enduring and severe punishment. And Virgil was, according to our Life – and to earlier testimony – no ordinary tardy author. He was planning to have his work burned, according to a tradition considerably earlier than VSD (Plin. NH 7.114), probably in conscious defiance of the emperor’s passionate wish. Did Augustus know as much? Even if he knew only that the poet planned to delay for years, he had a motive for...extreme action. He had taken fatal measures against the poet Gallus (27/6 BC); the apology recorded by Suetonius involves an apparently self-pitying utterance of Augustus about this, lamenting that his position excluded him from indulging, as others might, the faults of friends (DA 66.2). I suggest that we should wonder, not claim as probable but suggest as a serious possibility, in accordance with the logic of our Life, that Augustus may have, in the cases of Gallus and of Virgil, sinned twice against philology. Dying ‘not long afterwards’ For the hypothesis that Augustus had Virgil killed there would be, in criminological terms, first ‘form’, precedent – the suspect is known to be a prolific killer; then motive, the desire to secure a politically precious manuscript from an author who according to VSD had a record of

188

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil intransigence and according to Pliny and to detailed information in VSD (39) was planning to have his work destroyed; then opportunity – Virgil was reportedly in Augustus’ company shortly before his health collapsed. If the event here hypothesised had indeed happened, surely we should have read some trace, at least, of ancient suspicion? There is none. But if we feel that such an argument from silence should be decisive, it is perhaps because we have not appreciated the transformation in political writing, that is in our sources, which occurred after 32 BC. This is obviously not the place to dilate. But consider the state of our information about two capital events which define the Augustan period: the campaign of Actium and the death of Cleopatra. Historians now candidly despair of reconstructing the outline of the Actium campaign; in Syme’s words (1939, 296f.), ‘The true story is gone beyond recall’.18 Pelling (1996, 59) has suggested that there may hardly have been a battle, and that if there was Antony and Cleopatra should arguably be seen as the victors. And yet this (now) mysterious and at the time spectacular confrontation had as witnesses tens of thousands of Roman citizens, who participated in it and had at the time some idea of its importance. And Cleopatra herself: we have, in contrast, long, detailed, fairly concordant and thus persuasive narratives of how she died, under Octavian’s control, indeed under his guard, in a private chamber. She (may have) killed herself by snake, just as Octavian advertised not long afterwards in his triumph (Plut. Ant. 86.3, and see below). Here traditionally historians have – usually – been more sanguine about the possibility of seeing what actually happened.19 I suggest that this modern optimism is perverse, and that Octavian-Augustus is at the root of an inversion of the republican order of access to historical knowledge. Under that order, the more witnesses an event had, the more likely we are to know about it. But under the Augustan order, publiclywitnessed events tended to be intractable for the regime’s propaganda, too exposed to widespread if private disbelief of any official, distorted, version, and thus likely to be lost from the record or frankly mystified. (Consider the role of Apollo and his bow at Actium, in Book 8 of the Aeneid, 704f.) It is precisely the inaccessibility for the public of Cleopatra’s death that made it suitable to convert into ‘Augustan history’. There may be an analogy with the death of Virgil. Now, there is a pattern of prompt deaths involving those who, innocently or not, became acute embarrassments or obstructions for OctavianAugustus. These deaths are to be distinguished from the ‘proscriptions’. They are not commonly collected as a significant group by modern scholars. Most of them are not imputed by our sources to OctavianAugustus, though some are. Rather, what these recorded deaths share is

189

Anton Powell their timing, the proximity of Octavian-Augustus, and an obvious interest on his part in having the men concerned out of the way. A rapid survey of them may prove significant alike for the history of politics and the history of literature. The deaths in question will be given in (perhaps approximate) chronological order:20 In 43, after Antony’s army had been defeated at Mutina by a force jointly commanded by two consuls and by the young Octavian, both consuls (Hirtius and Pansa) died at the scene or, in the words of both Suetonius and Dio, ‘not long afterwards’. This gave rise to contemporary suspicion, that Octavian had had them killed – thereby leaving himself in sole command of the victorious army (Tac. Ann. 1.10, Suet. DA 11, Dio 46.39.1). The suspicions involved detailed allegations about poison and a suborned doctor, one Glyco (Cic. Ad Brut. 1.6), and were serious enough to cause the latter’s imprisonment. The consul Q. Pedius, he of the Lex Pedia for the prosecution of Julius Caesar’s killers, as an informal massacre by Octavian and his fellow triumvirs began at a moment in 43 attempted vigorously to limit the killing. Appian describes this as ‘contrary to the intention of the triumvirs’, who had wider plans – for the formal ‘proscriptions’. Appian records that Pedius ‘died of fatigue, the following night’ (BC 4.6.26). A Praetor, Quintus Gallius, who had incurred Octavian’s suspicion, died ‘a little later’ – according to Suetonius (DA 27.4, cf. App. BC 3.95.394f.), his eyes were dug out by Octavian’s own hand. Octavian, however, explained that Gallius died mysteriously while going into exile. Tiberius Claudius Nero, after ceding his pregnant wife Livia to Octavian and becoming father by her of a second son, died ‘not long afterwards’ (Suet. Tib. 4.3).21 This man had been an enemy in arms of Octavian; had he lived, he might have been expected to retain influence over Livia’s sons, the young Tiberius and Drusus, and perhaps even over Livia herself. Her marrying Octavian was an eminently political act, if not forced; who could be sure where her loyalties lay? One M. Oppius, little regarded by modern historians but of considerable interest to Appian (BC 4.41.172-4) and Dio (48.53.4-6), posed exquisite embarrassment to Octavian.22 Oppius, as popularly believed, rescued his father who had been proscribed by Octavian and his fellow triumvirs. The manner in which he reportedly did so, by physically carrying the old man from Rome, challenged Octavian’s connection with the myth of Aeneas. Now it was the Julian warlord who was the persecuting enemy while his opponent Oppius was cast in the role of pius son saving his father, as Aeneas had Anchises; Appian noted the resemblance. Oppius the son

190

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil became the darling of the Roman crowds who detested the ‘proscriptions’. He was – apparently against his own (wise) inclination – elected aedile, with popular subscription of funds. Oppius, it might be claimed, was the true counterpart of Aeneas; Octavian was as disconnected morally from his remote ‘ancestor’ Aeneas as he was from his immediate ‘ancestor’ Julius Caesar in the matter of strategic competence. An oppositional claim that ‘You’re no true Julian, no son of Caesar!’ would be no mere captious slogan; it would go to Octavian’s credibility as one who might establish an enduring regime. M. Oppius died ‘not long afterwards’, while public feeling in his favour was still intense (Dio 48.53.5f, s.a. 37); the authorities (in a Rome controlled by Octavian) obstructed attempts to give him honoured burial. Domitius Ahenobarbus, inveterate opponent in arms of Octavian, deserted Antony, reached Octavian’s camp – and died of illness ‘not long afterwards’ (Dio 50.13.6), ‘within a few days’ (in diebus paucis, Suet. Nero 3). And, almost finally, there was the military tribune Ofellius who in 36 led mutinous demands for land and money for Octavian’s victorious soldiers after the defeat of Sextus Pompey. The mass of soldiers cried out in his support: ‘Caesar [Octavian] left the platform in anger...and next day [our emphasis] Ofellius had disappeared, and it was not known what had happened to him.... Thereafter, from fear, the army [applied pressure] without any individual spokesman...’ (Appian BC 5.128-9.532–4). Where our sources are defective, the historian may well – like Kremlinologists, police or medical epidemiologists – look to patterns in events, especially to the timing and circumstances of public events, and above all of death, an event well defined and very difficult to hide for long. But if, in the case of Virgil, Augustus was determined on speedy publication which the author was obstructing, why not simply seize the manuscript and publish it despite the author? To have left a proud and indignant author alive in such circumstances would have risked the emergence of a damaging narrative, on the authority of the poet himself (considerable authority, if Tacitus is correct in his report that Virgil had been hailed publicly ‘as if he were Augustus’), according to which the published version represented a text preferred by, if not contaminated by additions from, the ruler. The matter of authorial control of detail may just have been of lively importance between emperor and poet. The poet forbade additions, we are told (VSD 40), when bequeathing his manuscript to Varius and to Tucca. Whom would he think likeliest to wish for, and be in a position to impose, such additions? Varius went on to publish the Aeneid at Augustus’ bidding, auctore Augusto: VSD 40f. Even without the testimony of the ancient Lives, Virgil’s support for Octavian-Augustus and closeness to his minister Maecenas are explicit and evident to all in his own

191

Anton Powell texts. The question of the poet’s moral independence was bound to occur to contemporaries. The emperor would therefore have an interest in seeking to minimise suspicion on that subject. We have already seen from VSD reason to suspect that Augustus was intelligently concerned to assure readers of the independence of the Aeneid ’s resounding and sweeping prophecy in the Julian cause. It is even conceivable that the tradition of Virgil’s forbidding additions was conceived in the Augustan interest, with a naïve deviousness such as we have already seen in the Res Gestae (sine ulla inscriptione nominis mei ) – to assure the world that no words of the poet’s had been dictated by the ruler: sine ulla adscriptione..., as it were. Rather than risk a public quarrel with the wilful poet, someone of Augustus’ mentality might surely have conceived a simpler solution. A consideration which should perhaps appeal to others, but has no persuasiveness for the present writer, would derive from the theory of the Harvard School, widely accepted in recent years, that Virgil wrote with studied ambiguity, if not with predominant negativity, about the morality of the Augustan regime and its legendary forebears. Literary critics approving this theory have not generally examined its implications for Virgil’s diplomatic relation with Augustus. Even the questions whether Augustus would have realized that he was being – on the theory – memorably subverted, and what his reaction might have been, have not commonly been treated, even though they bear directly on the plausibly of the ‘Harvard’ theory in general. The present writer has argued elsewhere (2008, passim and especially 283–90; 2009), that the negativity in the Aeneid emphasised by the Harvard School served, where real, as apologia for the past, and therefore as reassurance for the future, of Octavian-Augustus; it was in keeping with the Princeps’ own tendency to literary apologia, as witnessed by fragments of his voluminous autobiography.23 For the present argument, if Augustus did indeed cause Virgil’s death, it was chiefly because the poet’s authorial delays had become, with the work all but finished, an unbearable – even insulting – obstruction to the circulation of politically invaluable prophecy. Virgil’s magnificent assertion of the antiquity of the foundational Julian line (crucially, the idea that Aeneas was ancestor of the Iulii pre-existed Augustan propaganda: Suet DJ 6.1 with Perret 1942, 561ff.), and thus of a prospective Julian future, was too precious to be endangered. Simply, the poem had become more valuable than the poet. But for those modern critics tempted by romance, by the idea of poet as daring rebel against an immoral and dangerous regime, the possibility that Augustus and his advisers knew very well what disloyalty Virgil was committing and might exact a high price for it, may logically impose itself. In that case, Augustan

192

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil determination to publish the Aeneid would presuppose a view that the poem, even with its alleged ‘Two Voices’, might yet on balance do the regime more good than harm. We should return, in ending, to the possible analogy between the death of Virgil and that of Cleopatra. Her death forms the most famous case of an embarrassing and obstructive person who died not long after coming into contact with Octavian-Augustus. There is, among modern historians, an important minority who suspect that Cleopatra’s death was contrived by Octavian: perhaps the most accessible expression of this view is by Tarn in the old Cambridge Ancient History (1934, 109); see also Pelling in the second edition of that work (1996, 64). If one considers for a moment, resisting hindsight about the 45-year reign now beginning, how menacing the survival of Cleopatra would be for Octavian’s image in 30 BC, the future restorer of the republic sparing the Hellenistic queen who had been accepted as lover or wife by the two other great Caesarians, Julius Caesar and Antony, one begins to understand Octavian’s problem. And if one thinks, as most do, that Octavian in his own terms had to kill ‘Ptolemy and Caesar’, Caesarion, the acknowledged heir of Cleopatra by...a certain father: how not to kill the – in consequence – implacably hostile mother too? But how could Caesar’s adopted son kill Caesar’s former lover and the mother of his child? How Caesarian an action would that seem? How convenient, indeed how necessary, was a prompt death – such as suicide – for which Octavian was not to blame! Now what has all this to do with accounts of Virgil’s death? Just this. Any politically alert contemporary would see Octavian’s interest in having Cleopatra dead. Indeed, when skeletal, vulgate news of developments in Egypt was diffused in Italy in 30 – that Antony was dead, that Antony’s son was dead, that Cleopatra’s son was dead, and that Cleopatra...had also died at the time – a unifying hypothesis, that all died at the will of the victor, would surely be in the air. And yet, as far as I can discover, not one ancient text mentions even a suspicion that Octavian contrived her death. And suspicion is the crucial idea here. We should not claim that Augustus contrived the death of Virgil, or that it is certain that he contrived the death of Cleopatra. But since in the case of the queen widespread contemporary suspicion was inevitable, and since that suspicion is not transmitted in our ancient accounts, not by Plutarch, by Dio, or by the contemporary Strabo who all write with interest about the manner of her death, we cannot argue from ancient silence about any suspicion that Augustus suppressed Virgil. Virgil was not, at the time, as conspicuous a character as Cleopatra, and Augustus’ difficulties with him were deeply obscure as compared with Octavian’s conflict of interest with, indeed official hostility to, Cleopatra.

193

Anton Powell If Virgil’s death was, like Cleopatra’s, Augustus’ doing, successfully hushed up with counter-narrative about sudden illness in the one case, suicide by snake in the other, there may finally be an irony. For Virgil himself helped propagate the story about Cleopatra and snakebite: at Aen. 8.697 he writes ominously of Cleopatra at Actium ‘not yet noticing the twin snakes behind her’. This tale of suicide was evidently Augustus’ preferred version, adopted by his poets (Prop. 3.11.53f., Hor. Od. 1.37.26–32; similarly Livy Per. 133, Vell. 2.87.1), and enacted in his triumph over Cleopatra (Plut. Ant. 86.3). Arguably Virgil should have known better: not known what really happened to Cleopatra, though he had enough grounds for suspicion, but known that he couldn’t know, and that Augustus’ line about suicide was utterly untrustworthy. Yet not only did Virgil adopt the snakes in Aeneid 8; arguably in creating his Dido, another aggressively suicidal African queen who by her seductiveness had threatened to disrupt Julian destiny, part of his purpose was to establish – by analogy (this time, blatant) with the past in the Roman way24 – a politically convenient image of Cleopatra. If Virgil’s own death was itself murder, subsequently obfuscated, that might give a special meaning to ‘poetic justice’. Conclusions What gives the study of the ancient Lives of Virgil much of its importance, its generality, is this: methods used to analyse, and effectively to discount, information in the Lives are cognate with methods now commonly used in studying Virgil’s own texts. We have seen it suggested that ‘very little external information indeed may legitimately be used in the understanding of Virgil and his work’ and that knowledge of ‘Virgil’s “life and times”… matters little if at all to our understanding of the poetry’ (see above, p. 174, 182). It may be that the author of those words had in mind only the information on Virgil, his life, work and historical circumstances, that is drawn from ancient biographies. But the unqualified breadth of those expressions strictly embraces all of the Roman history which most affected Virgil, from whatever sources that history may be known. And if that history is claimed to matter little for ‘our understanding of the poetry’, two terms cry for definition: ‘poetry’ and ‘our’. Otherwise they may appear impregnably circular, and mean no more than ‘those aspects of verse which appeal to such modern readers as are disinclined to analyse ancient politics’. Academic historians of Greece were reminded in recent times (by Nicole Loraux, 1980) that ‘Thucydides was not a colleague’. Similarly one should reflect that neither Virgil himself nor his ancient biographers were philologists of a modern kind.

194

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil Elements of VSD not readily discounted as constructions from Virgil’s poetry are more numerous than commonly admitted, and cohere to suggest a biographer sensitive to the qualities of the evidence he deployed, of his sources. There is much that is suggestive of Suetonian authorship. However, VSD ’s record of the last decade of the poet’s life is heavily biased towards events linking him to the ruler, treats Augustus without any clear negativity, and concerns a period in which Augustan control over politically sensitive information was highly effective both in invention and suppression. Criteria which we should use to privilege VSD ’s record of Virgil’s being housed next to land of Augustus’ minister on the Esquiline, that the information concerned a matter of widespread, contemporary interest and was exposed to public verification, should also be applied to VSD’s account of the poet’s last weeks of life. What Virgil said or did on his deathbed, or indeed the terms of his will, could be witnessed by few and were thus exposed to Augustan invention or suppression. The record of his wish to burn the Aeneid may conceivably even have been invented to create a noble role for the ruler in the sad events: he saved the poem. But what is less likely to be invention is what could be confirmed by many: that the famous Virgil had left Italy, met the ruler in Athens, come back promptly to Italy and soon afterwards died. From this we might infer, with some support from VSD’s testimony to earlier impatience of Augustus over the poet’s slowness, that Virgil’s leaving Italy might well alarm the emperor, who was heavily invested in the prompt publication of the Aeneid. And, like others who were in a position to oppose moral authority to the power of OctavianAugustus, Virgil died – verifiably – not long after being in his company. In this matter Augustus, let us stress again, may have been innocent. But a careful examination of the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil may at the very least reinforce our evidence for one conclusion: that the poet lived in a profoundly menacing, as well as occasionally promising, political climate. The present study could not extend to a general review of how Augustus treated eminent poets. But, from diverse sources, some of them contemporary, there arises a concordant picture. Augustus expressed anger against Horace; he apparently exiled Ovid; he engineered the death of Gallus and he threatened Virgil. The Capitol did indeed lie close to the Tarpeian Rock; the link was organic. The privileges, and at least in the case of Gallus (governor of Egypt) the political trust, which the ruler conferred on leading poets might engender an intense feeling of betrayal where a poet eventually seemed to fail his patron. The moral and intellectual authority which attached to a revered poet might in addition be irritating or even threatening to a ruler who claimed to be supreme arbiter in moral and political matters.

195

Anton Powell For Virgil, to be hailed by the general public ‘as if he were Augustus’ incurred a risk.25 Scholars who downplay evidence, as in the Ancient Lives of Virgil, for the profoundly favoured treatment, material and moral, of certain poets effectively obscure the danger which accompanied such status. Seeking to elevate an author to suit our contemporary tastes, making him – in the case of Virgil – oppositional or apolitical, may be to degrade him in other respects, to ‘sin against philology’ in a modern way. Both tendencies may obscure part of the poet’s achievement, and impoverish our readings of his works. For to navigate such treacherous waters, singing the regime’s song while avoiding both contemporary resentment and also rejection by posterity (especially when the Julian dynasty came to grief), might itself be a feat of poetic diplomacy, a literary achievement of the highest order, involving poetic ingenuity and even moral courage. Disciplined, inclusive, philology may contemplate such realities calmly and constructively. Notes This paper owes much to the learned advice of Philip Hardie and John TrappesLomax. They should certainly not be thought to agree with all of it. 1 For example, Stahl 2016, Powell 2008. 2 The OCD article states (p.1603), translating VSD 35, ‘in the 42nd year of his life, intending to finish the Aeneid, he decided to go off to Greece and Asia Minor...’. Our texts of VSD read rather, ‘Anno aetatis quinquagesimo secundo’: that is in the poet’s 52nd, not 42nd, year. 3 For the date of birth, the Lives by Phocas (ll.20–22) and Probus concur with VSD; the latter also has the poet dying ‘in his 51st year’. 4 See, for example, Powell 1998, index under ‘Virgil, architecture’. A most striking example is the precisely symmetrical naming of Maecenas in the Georgics: in Books I and 4 at l.2 of each, and in Books 2 and 3 at l.41 of each. 5 Cf. Powell 2008, 202–7 on very different allegorical theories concerning Daphnis. 6 Morgan 1998, 176f. 7 See Stahl 1998 and Powell 2008, 90f. 8 Aen. 5.772–7 with Appian BC 5.98.406; Powell 2008, 98–100. 9 Appian BC 5.99.414, 112.470, cf. 92.385; Dio 51.3.5, Velleius 2.88; Powell 2008, 238f. 10 Contrast Brink’s commentary ad loc. (1982) for other testimony from Antiquity concerning Augustus’ lavish financing of poets. 11 If Horsfall is right to see certain gifts to a poet in Virgil’s day as not in good taste, that might explain why Horace, in the passage quoted (l.246), asserts that Augustus’ gifts to Virgil came multa dantis cum laude, ‘brought great acclaim for the giver’. 12 Powell 2008, 23–5 and index under ‘Octavian’. 13 Horsfall (1995, 18) notes that Virgil reportedly wrote to Augustus about the latter’s ‘many letters’ to him ( frequentes a te litteras accipio): Macrob. Sat. 1.24.11. 14 Powell 2008, index under ‘Octavian’.

196

Sinning against philology? Method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil 15 Horsfall (1995, 22) for references to dispute about the identity of this poet, and to doubt about whether Suetonius could have included the lines quoted in VSD. 16 Fragments of Augustus’ lost Memoirs are numbered as in T. J. Cornell (ed.), Fragments of the Roman Historians. Generally on Augustus’ use of apologia for his earlier deeds as Octavian, Powell 2009. 17 Ovid here refers to Virgil as ille tuae felix Aeneidos auctor, ‘That famous and successful author of your Aeneid ’; is the word felix perhaps a reference inter alia to the financial rewards received by Virgil from the emperor? Such an innuendo would suit the context, in which Ovid insists on Augustus’ favouring of Virgil. 18 For other modern references, Powell 2013, 195 n.13. 19 The present writer has dealt more extensively with this subject at Powell 2013, 179–95. 20 The following paragraph is in part a version of Powell 2013, 291. 21 ‘Shortly afterwards’?: at Tib. 6.4, Suetonius records that Tiberius at the age of nine, i.e. in 33 BC, pronounced a public eulogy on his dead father, which may cast doubt on the meaning, or accuracy, of ‘not long afterwards’. 22 On Oppius, Powell 2008, 62f. 23 On apologia generally in the fragments of Augustus’ Memoirs, see the various contributors to Smith and Powell (eds) 2009. 24 Griffin 1985, 190-3. 25 The evidence (Suet. DA 85) that Augustus made considerable but apparently vain efforts to shine as a poet, his tragic Ajax being obliged to ‘fall on his sponge’, may even confirm the possibility that the emperor had special sensitivity where literary prowess was concerned.

Bibliography Brink, C. O. 1982 Horace on Poetry: Epistles Book II, Cambridge. Fowler, D. and Fowler, P. 1996 ‘Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)’ in OCD (third edn.), Oxford, 1602–7. Griffin, J. 1985 Latin Poets and Roman Life, London. Horsfall, N. M. 1995 ‘Virgil: His life and times’ in id. (ed.) A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Leiden, 1–25. 2006 A Commentary on Aeneid III, Leiden. Loraux, N. 1980 ‘Thucydide n’est pas un collègue’, Quaderni di Storia 12, 55–81 (English translation in J. Marincola, ed., Greek and Roman Historiography, Oxford, 2011, 19–39). Morgan, L. 1998 ‘Assimilation and civil war: Hercules and Cacus, Aeneid 8’ in H.-P. Stahl (ed.), Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan epic and political context, Swansea, 175–97. Pelling, C. 1996 ‘The triumviral period’ in Cambridge Ancient History (2nd edn.), vol. 10, Cambridge, 1–69. 2009 ‘Was there an ancient genre of “autobiography”. Or, Did Augustus know

197

what he was doing?’ in C. Smith and A. Powell (eds), The Lost Memoirs of Augustus, Swansea, 41–64. Perret, J. 1942 Les origines de la légende troyenne de Rome, Paris. Powell, A. 2008 Virgil the Partisan: A study in the re-integration of Classics, Swansea. 2009 ‘Augustus’ age of apology: an analysis of the Memoirs’ in C. Smith and A. Powell (eds), The Lost Memoirs of Augustus, Swansea, 173–94. 2013 ‘Anticipating Octavian’s failure: from Tauromenium to the death of Cleopatra’ in id. (ed.), Hindsight in Greek and Roman History, Swansea, 171–99. Smith, C. and Powell, A. (eds) The Lost Memoirs of Augustus, Swansea. Stahl, H.-P. 1997 ‘Political stop-overs on a mythological travel-route: from battling harpies to the battle of Actium (Aen. 3.268–93)’ in id. (ed.), Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan epic and political context, Swansea, 37–84. 2016 Poetry Underpinning Power. Vergil’s Aeneid: The epic for emperor Augustus. A Recovery Study, Swansea. Syme, R. 1939 The Roman Revolution, Oxford. Tarn, W. W. (and Charlesworth, M. P.) 1934 ‘The war of the East against the West’ in Cambridge Ancient History, vol.10, Cambridge, 66–111.

198

INDEX accessus 116–120, 122, 127 n.9, 128 n.29, 136 Accius, Lucius 18 Achilles (obscure young man from Troad) 60–1, 66 Achilles (Trojan War hero) 60–1 Actian Games 164–8 Actium (battle) 144–5, 161–6, 170 n.11, 177, 182–3, 189, 194 war memorial at 164–5, 170 Adamnán 134 Aelius Theon 99 Aeneas 11–12, 125, 166, 177, 190–2 as ancestor of Gens Iulia 192 Aeschylus 18 aetas Vergiliana 127 n.9 Aethiopis 60 aetiology 100 afterlife of a hero 60 of a poet 51, 115–116, 126 of Virgil 120 Agathocles 98–9 agricultural treatise 156 Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius 168–9, 187 Alcaeus 5, 170 n.10 Alcidamas 20 n.14 Alcuin 148 n.37 Alexander (allegedly Virgil’s lover) 143, 154, 176 Alexander the Great 164 Alexandria 145, 164–5 Alexis 6, 143–4, 176 Alfenus Varus 4, 83, 102, 144–5, 184 allegory ch1 passim, 100–1, 121, 126, 154, 170 n.10, 171 n.15, 173, 175–7, 180 allusion 56–7, 73, 78, 83–8, 101, 108 n.24, 116, 125 Amphitryon 166 Amynthas 145

anachronism 125–6, 160, 184 analytical philosophy 45 Anchises 11, 81, 190 Andromache 10 Andrus 73 Anselm of Laon 138–46 Anser (poet) 9 Anthologia Latina 43, 84, 90, 103, 110 Antonius, Marcus 9, 100, 144–5, 164, 182, 187–93 apiculture 11, 116, 156–7, 175 Apollo 78, 104, 164–5, 189 Apollonia 165–7 Apologetical Dialogue (Poetaster) 122 apotheosis 60, 104 Appendix Vergiliana 31–3, 43–5, 140, 174 Appian 178, 190–1 Apuleius, Lucius 75–6 Arator 89 Arcadia 166 Archilochus 2 Argumenta Aeneidos 117, 127n.9 Aristophanes 17 Aristoxenus 16 Arraignment 121–3 Arrighetti, G. 3 Arrius, Claudius 12, 85, 102–3, 110, 144–5, 184 Asclepiades of Samos 9 Asconius Pedianus 15, 143, 178–9, 187 Asinius Gallus, Gaius 6–8 Asinius Pollio, Gaius 4–6, 79, 83, 86, 102, 137, 143–5, 184 astrology 80 Astyages 156 Atella 47 n.6, ch8 passim, 183 Athens 55–6, 142, 159, 161, 170 n.7, 183, 188 Atii 176 Attica 160

199

Index Atticus 160, 167 Atys 176 Augustine 148 n.37 Augustus ancestry see Gens Iulia apologia 192 as audience of Aeneid 11 as audience of Georgics see Atella as author of Ajax 196 n.25 as avenger of Julius Caesar’s murder 85, 100 as benefactor of Virgil 181–195 as possible killer of Cleopatra 189 campaigns in 31–29 BC 164 centrality in VSD 184, 194 circumstances of birth 81 connection with myth of Aeneas 187, 190–4 correspondence 179–187 De Vita Sua 163, 168–9, 192 expected victory over the Britons 162 in Aeneid 176, 182 in Poetaster 123 indignation against poets 161, 183 initiation in Eleusinian Mysteries 161, 164 land confiscations see land confiscations literary interests 160, 168–9, 185–7 military ineptitude 183, 187, 191 moral character 178, 186 publication of Aeneid 145–6, 185–95 relationship with Virgil ch9 passim possible responsibility for Virgil’s death 161, 188–194 suspicious deaths of opponents 189–195 triple triumph 162–8 Ausonius, Decimus 75–6, 98–9 authentication 31, 35–6 authorial attribution 31, 33, 39, 45, 136 authorial identity 31, 37, 44, 51, 94, 107 n.7, 115–6 authorial intention 1, 30–1, 38, 44–5, 115, 182 authorial self-reference 10, 43 autobiography 9, 52, 65 n.24, 115–7, 119, 122

Bacchylides 10 Ballista 35–6, 47 n.16, 82–4, 140 Basilica Argentaria 61 Battus 8 Bavius (enemy of Virgil) 145 Bayer, K. 154 biblical epic 76, 88 bio-allegorical reading 12, 17–18 biographical anecdote 15, 100 sources 159 biographical intertext 129 biographical paratext 115, 118–9, 121 biographical reading 2, 12, 101, 153–4, 169, 182 biography as fiction 2, 19 n.7, 98, 105, 111 n.65 as exegesis 1–2, 16–19, 30, 116–21, 126, 136, 176 as history 105, 116, 178 as moral philosophy 178 as poetic emulation 38 as rhetoric 178 as unity of life 136 distortion 105, 139, 144–5 generic features ch3 passim, 115 Greek 3, 45 historical value 45, ch8 passim in verse 73 interaction with commentary 18–19, 23 n.78 relationship with epigram 46, 56 temporal structure 54–7 verisimilitude 1–2, 29, 52, 98, 111 nn.63 & 65, 153–5 Bishop’s bonfire (1599) 125 bowdlerisation 143 Brink, C.O. 196 n.10 Britanni 162 Broch, Hermann 115, 126 Brown, V. 148 n.51 Brugnoli, G. 14, 74, 77–8, 81, 86, 106 n.1, 158 Brundisium 142, ch8 passim Brutus Cassius 144, 149 n.72 Brutus, Marcus Iunius 85, 100 Büchner, K. 154

200

Index burning poetry 40–1 for Virgil’s wish to burn the Aeneid, see Virgil Caen, church of St. Pierre 119 Caesar, Gaius Iulius 6, 100, 144–5, 154, 160, 190–3 Caesarion 193 Calabria 51, 88, 142 Callimachus 2 Callinus 56 Calpurnius Siculus, Titus 80 Cambyses 156 cameo role ch6 passim Campania 142 Caninius Rufus 61 canon 43, 51, 61, 63, 93–5, 99, 102–7 Cantabrian War 124, 179–80, 184–5 Capitol 195 Capua 167–8 Cassiodorus 166 Cassius, Gaius Cassius Longinus 85, 100 Catalepton 38, 142 Catullus, Gaius Valerius 85–6 cause (causa, of a literary work) 30–8, 45, 101, 138, 144 Cebes 154 celebrity chef 44 cento 88 character inference 29–30 Charles the Bald 136 choliambic metre 89 Christian literature 89, 106 Christianising discourse 85–9, 106, 141 chronology 23, 179, 184 linear 52–58 Church of St Pierre, Caen 119 Cicero, Marcus Tullius Ad Atticum 160, 165–7 Ad Brutum 190 Brutus 75 De Diuinatione 75, 81 De Oratore 75–6 Cicero, Quintus Tullius 167 Cinna 9 Civil War 144

classical models 75, 122 classicism 75–9, 95 Claudia (dedicatee of funerary inscription) 53–5 Claudia Grapte 57–9 Claudian, Claudius Claudianus 89 Cleopatra 145, 189, 193–4 Clio 36, 74–6, 105–6, 111 n.63 Clodius 12 codex see manuscript tradition Codex Floriacensis 134–5 Codex Laonensis 138 Codex Parisinus 73 Codex Romanus 44 Codex Salmasianus 76, 84, 110 Codex Vaticanus 44 Columba, Saint 134 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus 77, 156, 164 commentary tradition 3–4, 12–14, 117, ch7 passim commentator 14 conjectural emendation 44–8 Contest of Hesiod and Homer 20 n.14 Corcyra 165–8 Corduba 58 Corinna 118, 122 Corinth, Gulf of 170 Cornelius Nepos 16, 49 n.31, 160 Cornelius Severus 81 Cornificius 145 Corydon 6, 143–4 Cotta Messalinus 54–5 Cottanus 54 Courtney, E. 83 Crassus, Marcus Licinius 80, 174 Crates 18 Cremona 85, 101, 137, 142–4 Cretan tales 65 n.24 Crispinus 121 Culex ch2 passim, 83–4, 117, 140 reception 90 n.17 Cumae 138, 170 n.5 Cupid 119 Cyprian 86–9 Cytheris 6

201

Index Damoetas 12 Dante 34 Daphnis 6, 139, 154, 169, 176 Davidson, D. 45 Davies, John 129 n.50 De pediculo 117 De pulice 117 declamation 43, 57–61, 84–8, 93 deixis 55–7, 65 n.23 Dekker, Thomas 121 deliberations about future of Roman state 169 Della Corte, M. 160, 170 n.7 Demeter 161 Demetrius Fannius 121 Demodocus 10 desexualisation 143 Dexter 15 Dido 11, 125–6, 194 Dido Queen of Carthage (Marlowe) 125–6 Didymus 18 Diehl, E. 154, 161, 170 n.7 Dio Cassius 47, 161–8, 176, 190–3 Diomedes 17 direct quotation 83 divine inspiration 36, 62, 93, 99 Domitius Ahenobarbus 191 Donatus auctus ch6 passim Donatus, Aelius as compiler of VSD 3, 13, 22 n.60, 36, 93, 107 n.4, 115, 136–141, 153 commentary on Virgil 133–6 preface to the Bucolics 133–6, 144 Vita Terenti 13, 22 Drances 96 Drusus, Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus 190 Duodecim Sapientes 57 Dyrrachium 167 ecclesiastical fallacy 106, 112 n.70 Edessa 57 Egypt 164–5, 193 elegiac verse 37–41, 56–62, 83–9, 122 Elizabethan theatre 121–9 Elpenor 62

emulation 38–46, 57, 93–7, 104, 117–120, 126 encomium 45–9, 79, 93–4, 100, 106 encryption (codicology) 143 Ennius 18 Ephesus 166 epic 52, 76, 88 epic dignity 101–6 Epicureanism 11, 142–3, 149 Epidius 142 epigram 35, 52–6, 64, 98–9, 129 n.50 epitaph as declamatory exercise 34, ch3 passim, 83–9, 117, 136 generic features 55–9 metrical features 83 temporal structure 58 epitaphic paradox 34, 62–3 erasure (codicology) 143 Eretria 55–9 Eros 179–180 Esquiline Hill 180, 194 ethos 17 primacy over chronology in biographical writing 17, 23 n.75 Etruria 77, 96–7, 106, 145 Etruscan poet (epithet of Virgil) 74 Euphrates 162 Euripides 10, 16–17, 29 Eusebius 18 Excerptum (abridgement of VSD) 135–145 authorial attribution 136 exegetical scheme 136–142 four-fold see shortened schema exempla 54, 93, 107 external verification of biographical details 177 extrapolation from Virgil’s poetry 106, 111 n.67, 116, 143, 154–8, 169, 173–180, 194 fame of a poet 141 of an individual 59–61, 102 Farrell, J. 2, 128 n.28 Fatosus see Toicthech

202

Index Feeney, D. 23 n.76 fictionalised account 98–105, 118, 174 Figulus (supposed name of Virgil’s father) 139 Flaccus (Virgil’s brother) 6, 139, 154, 169, 176 Fleury-sur-Loire 134 florilegium 118 Florus 76 fluidity of historical record 105 Foucault, M. 1 Fowler, D. 47 n.6, 173–5 Fowler, P. 173–5 Freudenburg, K. 2 Friedländer, P. 55–6 frontispiece 44, 119, 128 n.28 Gallius, Quintus 190 Gallus, Gaius Cornelius 4, 83, 102, 121, 144–5, 162, 168, 184–8, 195 Gardens of Maecenas 180 Gate of Horn 79 Gaul 58 Gellius, Aulus 15, 22, 49, 157 gender, constructions of in antiquity 174 generic conflict 52–3, 59, 64 generic move 76, 88–9, ch5 passim genre 8, ch3 passim, 76, ch5 passim, 138 Platonic conception 8 gens Iulia 192–4 Germanicus Julius Caesar 170 Aratea 85–6 Ghisalberti, F. 128 n.29 Gibson, C. 18 Glyco 190 Godard, Jean-Luc 126 Golden Age 187 Goold, G.P. 133 Götte, J. 154 grammaticus 73, 88, 93–5, 134, 147 n.10 Grattius 77 Graziosi, B. 2, 19 n.7 Greece language 78 perceived rhetorical superiority 95–7 philosophical schools 160, 170

rivalry with Rome 78, 95–7 tour of, by Romans 160 Güthenke, C. 1 Gutzwiller, K. 7 Hadrian, Publius Aelius Hadrianus Augustus 179 Hägg, T. 64 n.8, 106 hagiography 45, 89, 156, 169 Hardie, P.R. 170 n.2 Harvard School 153, 180–2, 192 Helen 10 Helicon 122 Hellenistic kingdoms 193 Hellenistic scholarship 3, 10, 16–18 hendecasyllable 75 Hercules 15, 139, 166 Hermagoras of Temnos 148 n.37 Hermippus 16 hero cult 61 Herodotus 156 Heroic Age 61 Hesiod 20 n.14, 137 hexameter 37, 73–7, 83–9, 93, 101, 164 Hieronymus 165 Hilarius of Orléans 148 n.51 Hippolytus 10, 29 Hirtius, Aulus 190 historical source criticism ch9 passim historicism 29, 46 n.4, 47 n.6, 182 historiography 30, 52, 76, 105, 111, 174–180 Hitchcock, Alfred 126 Homer 10, 15, 20 n.14, 56, 77, 94, 117, 122, 137, 139 foundational status 94–97, 106, 107 n.14 Iliad 61, 179 Odyssey 60–2 Homeric water imagery 94–97, 107 n.14 honeycomb 96, 108 n.18 Horace 75–9, 121, 125, 139, 183, 195 Ars Poetica 111 n.61 Carmen Saeculare 75 Epistles 83–5, 181–2 Epodes 85 metre 74–5

203

Index katabasis 34 Kayachev, B. 128 n.28 Kremlinology 187, 191

Odes 2, 5, 75–6, 87, 142, 160–1, 170 n.10, 194 Satires 122, 158 Horsfall, N. 1, 29, 46 n.5, 111 n.65, ch8–9 passim humble birth 98–9, 141 Hyginus, Gaius Iulius 16, 49 n.32, 51 I Virgil (novel by David Wishart) 161 iambic verse 89 imitation 36–8, 41–3, 75, 87–8, 101, 117–122, 177 Incipit (spurious pre-proem to the Aeneid) 32–6, 42–5, 63, 119, 128 n.28, 179 insular scriptorium 134–5 interpolation 14, 22 n.60, 35–6, 42–5, 63, 83–4, 128 n.28, 139–141 as form of exegesis 42–5 interpretative link between text and biography 115–6, 176 intertextuality ch4 passim, 101, 116, 120, 129 Virgil and Theocritus 9, 137, 177 invisible ladder 119 Iona 134 Irish, Old 134 Irish monasteries of France 138 Isidore of Seville 16, 134 division of philosophy 138 Iulius Montanus 178 Janus Geminus 165 Jauss, H.R. 2 Jerome Chronicon 18, 136, 140–6, 165 Liber de uiris inlustribus 15–16, 49 n.31, 63 Vulgate 86 Jonson, Ben ch6 passim Josipovici, Gabriel 115 Julia (Augustus’ daughter) 118–123, 188 Julian regime ch9 passim Juno 38, 101 Juvenal 77, 83, 139, 144 Juvencus, Gaius Vettius Aquilinus 88

Lacedaemon see Sparta Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus 86 Lake Avernus 170 land confiscations 4, 12, 85, 100–3, 116, 142–4, 176, 184, 188 Laon 138–40 laryngitis 163–4 Latinitas 95 Laudes Galli 168 laurel branch 100, 140–1, 155–6 Laus Pisonis 87 Lefkowitz, M. 10, 29, 108 n.18 Leo, F. 16, 154 Letter to Munatius (Donatus) 133, 147 n.7 Libra 81 Liburnian galley 164–7 Life of Euripides 16 Life of Theocritus 8, 21 n.33 literary criticism 16–19, 30, 173 Hellenistic 12 in late antiquity 19, 38 literary culture: bridge between Pagan and Christian 83–9 literary forgery 43 literary form 64 n.2, 88–9 literary tradition 60 Liternum 60 litis agraria 12 litotes 87 ‘Little Aeneid’ (Ovid) 117 Livia 118, 190 Livy, Titus Liuius 78, 164, 194 London 56 as setting for Poetaster 121–6 Lucan, Marcus Annaeus Lucanus 75–87, 101 fictive epitaph 58 Lucretius, Quintus 159, 161, 170, 174 Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus 11, 18, 79–80, 140 as interpreter of Virgil’s mother’s dream 140–1

204

Index as Virgil’s uncle in medieval tradition 140–1 Lycidas 9 Lycoris 6 ‘lyric I’ 10 lyric poetry 10, 75 Macer 145 Macedonia 164 Maecenas, Gaius 9, 83, 102, 137, 143–5, 163–9, 176–181 Maeonia 77, 94 Maevius (enemy of Virgil) 145 Magia Polla 78, 100, 109 n.33, 155–6, 175 dream 100 Magius 78–9 Magnus Felix 108 n.19 Magus 97, 109 n.33 Maia 139–141 dream 140 Majorian, Flauius Iulius Valerius Maiorianus 104 Mandane 156 Manilius, Marcus 75, 80, 87 Mantua 12, 51, 57–8, 61, 77, 85–8, 94–7, 101–3, 108 n.19, 140–5 Mantuan pregnant women 140–1 MANTVAMEGEN (graffito) 61 manuscript tradition 39–46, 73–6, 84, 116–9, 133–8, 142 of the Aeneid 44, 119 Marathon (battle) 29 Marcellus, Marcus Claudius Marcellus Aeserninus 183 Margarita (a hound) 57–8 marginalia 117 Marlowe, Christopher 125–6, 129 n.50 Maro the Elder (Virgil’s father) 11, 78, 97–9, 105, 108 nn.23–31, 116, 139, 156, 175 Mars 164 Marston, John 121 Martial, Marcus Valerius Martialis 4, 44, 75–7, 87, 176, 181 Martin Hibernensis 138 Martin of Tours 89

Martin, R. 162 Martindale, C. 116 Master Anselm see Anselm of Laon Mazhuga, V. 93, 107 n.4 medieval court politics 145 medieval re-writing of Civil War 145 medieval vision literature 34 medieval Vitae ch7 passim Megara 159–161, 170 n.7 Melissus, Gaius Maecenas 178 memory 59–63, 180 sites of 59–63 Menalcas 5–12, 145 metre 74–5, 83, 89, 93 metrical foot 119 metrical mix (of hexameters and elegiac distichs) 83 Milan 142, 147 n.10 Miltiades 29 Mimnermus 56 Mincius (a river) 12 Minnis, A.J. 138 miraculous growth of poplar shoot 80–1, 93, 100, 116, 137–141 modi locutionum 138 Moeris 7, 12 Momigliano, A. 29, 64 n.8 Montanus, Julius 178 monumentality 59–60 Mopsus 145 moralistic reading 11 Moretum 140 mortality 62, 103–4 Most, G. 33, 47 Munatius, Lucius 8, 13, 133–5, 147 n.7, 154, 169 Murgia, C.E. 133 Murray, W.M. 165–6, 170 n.11 Muse 10, 36, 74–6, 101, 104–6, 111 n.63 Mutina (battle) 190 myth 61, 187–90 Naevius, Gnaeus 18 Naples 61, 119, 137–8, 142, 159, 168 narrative commentary 12 narrative tropes 2

205

Index Naso see Ovid Naumann, H. 107 n.4, 154, 161 neoteric poetry 85–6, 160 Nepos see Cornelius Nepos Neptune 164 Nero (emperor) 58 Nero, Tiberius Claudius 190, 196 n.21 Nestor 10 New Criticism 1, 46, 153, 182 Nicopolis 164–8 Nisbet, R.G.M. 48 n.26 Nisus (grammarian) 42, 179–180 noble birth 141 Nux (pseudo-Ovidian poem) 83 objective approach to literature 153 Oceanus 94–5, 107 n.14 Octavia 11, 183 Octavian see Augustus Odysseus 65 n.24 Ofellius (military tribune) 191 Old Irish 134 Oppius, Marcus 190–1 oratory 11, 76 Orpheus 168 Ovid possible affair with Julia 123 Amores 87, 117–122 amorous adventures in medieval tradition 119, 128 n.38 Ars Amatoria 88 as morally corrupt 126 as rival to Virgil in love 120 autobiography 117–9 biography in accessus 118 emulation of Virgil 116–120 Epistulae ex Ponto 75–9 exile 39, 121–5, 195 Fasti 76–9 Heroides 81 Ibis 87 imagined magical powers 119 in Poetaster 123 medieval impersonators 117 Metamorphoses 39–43, 79–80, 117 reception of Virgil 116–125 Remedia Amoris 75

Tristia 39–41, 77, 83–7, 116–122, 186, 196 n.17 Ovidius maior (father of Ovid) 121–2 Pacuvius, Marcus 18 Palaemon, Remmius 6 palaeography 134 Palatine School 136 Palinurus 81 panegyric 89, ch5 passim, 137, 142, 182–5 Panegyricus Messallae 79 Pansa, Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus 190 papyrus roll 44 paraphrase biblical 88–9 in verse 73–6, 89 parody of medieval biographical tradition 147 n.7 paronomastic paradox 99 partes scientiae 138 Parthenias 65 n.24, 119–123, 143 Parthenope 35, 51–7, 65 n.24, 138–143 pastiche 38 pastoral landscape 11 pastoral poetry 4–11, 31–5, 156, 177 as political allegory 9 patron-poet relationship 10, 102, 145, ch9 passim Paulinus of Périgueux 89 Pedius, Quintus 190 Peleus 60–1 Pelling, C. 185, 189, 193 Peloponnese 170 n.7 Peri Bion literature 16 periochae 136–146, 148 n.37 Peripatetic School 16 Persephone 161 Persius, Aulus Persius Flaccus 89 petitio principii 29, 45, 153, 159, 186 Petronius, Gaius Petronius Arbiter 80 Petrus 73 Phaethon 81 Philargyrius 100, 110 n.43, 134–9 commentary on the Bucolics 134–5 insular transmission of commentary 134–5

206

Index Philippi (battle) 2, 85, 100, 144, 176, 184–7 philology 46, 154, 173 Phocas Ars de nomine et uerbo 73–8, 93–6 Christian audiences 89 contradiction of sources 98 dating 107 n.4 lacunose text 88 preface to the Vita 74, 77 Vita 30, 36, ch4–5 passim Pindar 10, 56, 76 plagiarism 7, 121 plague amongst bees 88 Plato 8, 80–1, 93–6, 108 n.18 Plautus 18 Pleistias 55–9 Pliny the Elder 40, 81, 168, 188–9 Pliny the Younger 61, 155 Plotia Hieria 7, 143, 178–184 Plutarch 178–9, 189, 193–4 Poetaster (Ben Johnson) ch6 passim poetic immortality 102–6 poetic impersonation see imitation poetic justice 194 poetic licence 105, 111 n.61 poetic ornamentation 79, 83–7, 94, 99, 101–105, 137 poetic prophecy 187, 192 political history 173, 178 political strife 161 politics in poetry 9, 182–8, 192 Pompeius, Sextus 187, 191 Pompey, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus 80, 84–5, 174 Pontanus 123 Pontius 89 poplar tree, cult of 140–1 post-classical diction 83, 93 posthumous work 43 Potitius (Aeneid 8) 176 Potitus Valerius Messalla 176 pottery 78, 98–9, 139 Powell, A. 161 precision of imprecision 180 preface 13, 45, 74, 77, 84, 117, 133–136, 144

non-authorial 117, 121 in metre other than hexameters 89, 93 Priscian 64 n.3, 107 n.4, 141 Probus 100, 180–5, 196 n.3 prodigy 80–1, 93, 97–100, 105, 116, 137, 140–1, 155–6 propaganda 181–192 Propertius 175–6, 179–180, 188, 194 proscriptions 85, 188–91 prosopopoeia 43–6 Prudentius, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens 89 pseudepigraphy 15, ch2 passim, 51, 117, 127 n.9 ‘Ptolemy and Caesar’ 193 Puteoli (Pozzuoli) 159 Quintilian 5, 43, 75, 95, 107 n.14, 155, 176 Rand, E.K. 135 Ravenna 142 Rawson, E. 160 recension 134 reception 2–4, 15, 94, 106, ch6–7 passim, 177, 186 early modern period 121–6 Middle Ages 118–9, 133–5, 146 contemporary 146 Regius, Raphael 128 n.38 Reifferscheid, A. 17 Reims 133 Remus 12 Res Gestae 186, 192 rhetorical school 57–8, 84, 160 rhetorical strategy 94 Rolfe, J.C. 30 Rome 142–3, 166–7, 180–2, 194 in Augustan times 116, 121 Romulus 12, 75–7 Rostagni, A. 14, 163 Rufinus of Aquileia 75–6 Rutulians 86 Salamis (battle) 18 Samos 164 Santra 49 n.31

207

Index Sapphic stanza 73–7, 93 Satyrus of Callatis 16–17 Scholia Bernensia 134, 145 scholia Homeric 10 Servian 4, 10 Theocritean 7, 10 tragic 10 school curriculum 61, 95, 135 Scipio, Lucius Cornelius 59 Scipio, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus 60 Scorpio 80 Scotus Eriugena, John 136–146 Second Triumvirate 190 Sedulius 88 Seneca the Elder (Marcus Annaeus Seneca) 40, 75, 171, 178 Sentius, Gnaeus 159, 161, 174 Servius, Marcus Seruius Honoratus commentary 3–15, 87, ch7 passim, 154–6, 169, 171 n.15, 177 exegetical scheme 136–8 preface to the Bucolics 135 Vita see Vita Seruiana Servius Danielis 133–5 Shackleton Bailey, D.R. 167, 171 n.13 she-bear metaphor 140, 157–8 Shield of Aeneas 12, 158, 168 Shield of Friends (metaphor) 86 Ship of State (Alcaeus) 5, 170 n.10 shortened schema (of Eriugena’s Life) 138–146 Sibyl 170 n.5 Sicily 177 Sidonius Apollinaris 104, 108 n.19, 111 n.59 Silenus 6 Silius Italicus 61–2, 77, 85, 97 Silo 154, 169, 171 n.15 Simichidas 8–10 Simonides 2 Siro 6, 11, 83–4 Smyrna 97 Solon 56 Sortes Vergilianae 115, 127 n.3 Sparta 55–6

spurious verses see interpolation state power, poet’s relationship to 125, 161–9, ch9 passim Statius, Publius Papinius Siluae 75–7, 83–7, 117, 158 Thebaid 76, 80, 84–7, 117 Stimichon 9, 139 Strabo 193 sublime poetry 94, 99, 106, 141 Suetonius, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus as principal source of Donatus 13, 177–180, 194 as principal source of Jerome Chronicon 136, 148 n.32 De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus 6, 15, 18, 22 n.55, 178 De Poetis 14–17, 22 n.55, 133, 143–5, 154–160, 169, 183 De Viris Inlustribus 13–15, 51 De Vita Caesarum 155, 164, 168, 178–9, 184–7 Diuus Augustus 129 n.54, 178, 186–190, 196 n.25 Diuus Iulius 192 moral considerations 178 presentation of material 178 Tiberius 190, 196 n.21 suicide by snake 189, 194 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 160 Sulpicius of Carthage 22 n.60, 35, 41–2, 185 Sulpicius Severus 89 Swinburne, A. 121 Syme, R. 183–9 Syncellus 166 synchronism 18, 141, 149 n.59 Syria 164 systematic questions see periochae Tacitus Annals 164, 170 n.10, 178–9, 190 Dialogus 64–6, 175, 191 Histories 187 Tarn, W.W. 193 Tarpeian Rock 195 Tarrant, R. 43

208

Index Tauromenium 187 teleology of natural life 52 Temple of Augustus (in Georgics) 186 Temple of Diuus Iulius 165 Temple of the Winds 59 temporality ch3 passim terebinth 140 Terence, Publius Terentius Afer 13, 22 n.56, 160 Terentianus Maurus 75–6 Terentius Varro Murena, Aulus 187 Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus 86 textual criticism 30, 44 textual lacuna 88, 93, 110 n.54 Theocritus 2, 7–10, 21 n.33, 137, 177 father 9 generic status 8 influence on Virgil 2, 9 life and times 8 scholia 7, 10, 21 n.34 Theodosius 16 Theory of Literature (Wellek and Warren) 153 Thomas, R.F. 108 n.24 Thucydides 179 Tiberius (emperor) 190 Tibullus, Albius 77, 121 title (titulus) 30–39, 45 Titus (husband of Claudia Grapte) 57 Tityrus 4–8, 31, 57, 111 n.59, 176 allegorical identification with Virgil 8 toga uirilis 18, 141 Toicthech 134 Tomis 125 tragedy 16–18, 52, 87 Trivet, Nicholas 144 Troad 60–1 Trojans 86, 101 Tucca 14, 22 n.60, 42, 145–6, 185, 191 Turnus 12, 96 Tyrtaeus 56 unpoetic lexis 81–3 urination (over whole of Asia) 156 Valerius Flaccus, Gaius 76, 87 Valerius Maximus 75, 81

Varius, Lucius Varius Rufus (poet) 7–9, 14, 143, 181, 185 as executor of Virgil’s will 22 n.60, 42, 145–6, 179, 183, 191 correction of the Aeneid 42, 63, 145–6, 179, 191 Thyestes 31, 39 Varro, Marcus Terentius 16–17, 49 n.31, 81, 156 Varus, Quintilius 6, 145 Velleius Paterculus 194 Venantius Fortunatus 79, 89 Vespasian (emperor) 187 Via Appia 167 Vietnam War 182 Vigilius (Pope) 89 Virgil, Publius Vergilius Maro Aeneid 33–5, 38, 43–5, 63, 77–87, 96, 100–3, 117–126, 138–146, 157–166, 176–179, 184, 187–9, 194 Eclogues 2–5, 13, 31–8, 44–5, 79–86, 93, 100–4, 134–145, 154, 161, 176–7, 184 Georgics 31–8, 44–5, 51, 79–81, 85–8, 100, 103, 138–145, ch8 passim, 175–6, 183–6 acclaimed similarly to Augustus 175, 195 amorous adventures (imagined) 115–119 ancient readers 63 anticipation of later greatness 100 as favourite of Augustus 123–5, 129 n.54, 163, 169, 180 as fount of Roman eloquence (Homerus Romanus) 77, 81, 94, 97, 106, 107 n.17 as historical figure 61–2 as propagandist poet 181–192 biographical tradition 59–63, 76–7, 88, 94, 100, 105, 115–9, 133–9, 145, 174 birth 61–2, 77–81, 94–100, 136, 140, 155, 174–5 canonical status 61–2, 93–9, 102–6, 195 childhood 36, 100 death 77, 100, 136, 146, 159–161, 170 n.8, ch9 passim

209

Index detractors 14, 139, 179, 182 education 77, 100, 136 Epicureanism 11, 142–3, 149 n.161 farm 4, 145 fictive epitaph 33, 44–5, 51, 55–8, 61–3, 78, 88, 117, 136 final journey 42, 77, 88, 93, 100, 142–5, 159–161, 169, 183–4, 187–9, 194–5 Greece, visit to 160, 187–8 house at Rome 180–2, 194 humble origins 77–8, 97–9 illness 88, 100, 158–9, 170 n.7, 189, 194 imagined magical powers 115–9 in Poetaster 121–3 in the Basket 118–9, 127 n.24 intention to devalue Augustus? 180 life and times 93, 101–5, 182 material circumstances 99, 180–6 methods of composition 159, 162 morality 123–6, 137, 143, 178 motives for writing Aeneid 185 near death see Arrius private life 177 reception 94, 133, 145–6, 175–7, 186 recitation of Aeneid 183 recitation of Georgics see Atella reinstatement of land 85, 101–4, 111, 116, 143, 176 request that Aeneid be burnt 35, 40–42, 63, 88, 103, 117, 145–6, 161, 185, 188, 194 sexuality 115, 143–4, 174–8 studies in Greece 142 will 22 n.60, 42, 145–6, 181–6 Virgilius: etymology 137, 141 Virgilophilia 97 Virgo 80 Vita Philargyriana 134–145

Vita Probiana 149 n.61 Vita Seruiana 138, 143 Vita Suetoniana-Donatiana, see VSD Vitruvius, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio 81 Vollmer, F. 154 VSD (Vita Suetoniana-Donatiana) abridged version see Excerptum as fiction 168, 174–6 as preface to Donatus’ commentary 13, 133 as preface to Servius Danielis 133 as source for medieval Vitae 138–9 humanist rediscovery 133 iconographic representations of 44, 128 n.28 interpolation 14, 22 n.60 lack of interest among medieval scholars 139–145 medieval diffusion 139 reception ch6 passim, 133–135, 143 reliability ch8 passim, 174, 180 shortcomings 135–9 source naming 178–9 sources of biographical data 154–9 transmission 133–5 value as historical source 137–145, 174–5, 180 Vulgate see Jerome Vulcan 158 War of the Theatres 121 Warren, A. 153 Wellek, R. 153 Wishart, David 161 Xerxes 156 zoological commonplace 140, 157–8 Zosimus, Marcus Aurelius 54–9

210