Wiener Studien – Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie, Patristik und lateinische Tradition, Band 136/2023

Discussion of 46 textual problems in Chariton’s Kallirhoe, Books 1–4.

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The article deals with a recent German translation of the Cynegetica, and examines several corrupted and/or difficult passages. A few loci of the poem are emended (2,392; 2,498; 3,199), and of others a new interpretation is offered. Several variae lectiones (in the following: vv.ll.) of the manuscripts of the Cynegetica are also investigated.

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This paper offers an overview and analysis of the main sources on peacocks and their interactions with humans, as portrayed in Greek and Latin literature. Based upon a brief scrutiny of Aristotle’s Historia animalium as an important Greek testimony, it takes into account scientific and miscellany literature such as Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia and Aelian’s De natura animalium as well as the work of Roman agricultural writers (in particular Varro’s De re rustica, Columella’s De re rustica and Palladius’ Opus agriculturae). Closely connected to agricultural approaches are sources on the use of these birds in Roman cuisine (e.g. Petronius’ Satyrica). Light is also shed on the symbolic function of peacocks, especially in the context of poetry; one particularly interesting case in this regard are Martial’s Epigrams (13,70, 14,67 and 14,85, plus 3,58 and 5,37). Furthermore, the occurrence of peacocks in the genre of the fable (esp. in Aesop, fab. 219, Phaedrus, fab. 1,3 and 3,18, and Babrius, fab. 65) is examined. From the diversity of these sources, a complex and differentiated picture of the perceptions of peacocks among the Greeks and Romans and of their interactions with them emerges.

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The text of a vexed passage in Plautus’ Persa, Saturio’s laudatio to his parasitic ancestors (vv. 53–64), variously emended by editors, is first established paleographically after examining the manuscript tradition. Next, Saturio’s expression duri capitones is explained as a calque of νήστιδες κεστρεῖς “fasting mullets” – a proverbial expression in Greek for starving parasites often found in New Comedy. It is argued that the joke survives translation into Latin only because alternate connotations are recruited to facilitate the creation of a pun on the Roman cognomen Capito. Alternately, the expression duri capitones is interpreted as a word play on caput durum, a phrase synonymous with impudens, which enables Saturio to differentiate himself from other parasite-types, especially from the quadruplator who represents in the Roman context the comic stock character of the sycophanta.

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Caesar’s Commentarii de bello civili show a significantly higher occurrence of γνῶμαι than his books on the Gallic war. I argue that this difference in style is due to the different goals of the two works: in De bello civili Caesar has to convince the reader that he was loyal to Roman values while Pompey was not, therefore maxims have, as Aristotle prescribes (Rh. 2,21,16), the function of creating a moral “common ground” with the reader and to show that the author is “a man of good character”.

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In this paper I will discuss three passages in Calpurnius Siculusʼ first Eclogue whose text is disputed: In Calp. ecl. 1,35 Jan van Vlietʼs conjecture fatis has nearly erased the transmitted fagis from both editorsʼ and interpretersʼ memory, in 1,57 a simple scribeʼs error has led to otherwise unsubstantiable guesses about a substantive *discordium, and in 1,76 the splitted transmission which has both fervit and servit can be decided in favour of the latter by a closer look at the context.

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The paper deals with the Roman villae rusticae which Ausonius describes in his Mosella (283–348). Although actually a rich Villeggiatura existed in Gallia Belgica, no closer correspondence can be found between text and topography. There are, however, intertextual relations to Statius’ descriptions of villas. This can be explained as a threefold fictional transformation of real landscape: Ausonius keeps a fluvial perspective, i.e., he is interested in the architectural structures only as far as they are linked to the Moselle. Furthermore, the author, by means of intertextual allusions, evokes a literary and mythological Mediterranean landscape, which is, so to speak, transferred to Gaul. Finally, covering up the actual devastations, which had recently affected the Villeggiatura, Ausonius anticipates the imperial efforts of reconstruction.

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Did the knowledge of Greek language in the western half of the Roman Empire, especially as regards Symmachus and his peers, undergo a sharp decline in the fourth century? Did the Greek speaking, well-learned bilinguals of the eastern half usually content themselves with just a basic knowledge of Latin? This paper reads anew some passages of contemporary authors in order to gain useful clues about both issues; our reading focuses on Symm. epist. 1,15. The eventual purpose, as for the prosopography of Latin authors and the history of literary culture in the fourth century, is to show that there were others like Ammianus Marcellinus and Claudian amongst the well-learned provincials from the Greek speaking East.

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In antiquity the default state of a volumen was seen as unrolled or unfurled (sc. open), books (volumina) being rolled up for storage and unrolled for reading. But Jerome employs the verb replicare and Rufinus revolvere for the act of closing a scroll. Neither is thus in conformity with the established usage of these verbs (sc. for opening a volume). These two marked variant expressions regard the default state as rolled-up, to be unrolled for reading and subsequently rolled up for storage. Each author compares the eschatological prophecy of Isaiah (34,4), which threatens that god will roll (up) the heaven like a volumen, to a second biblical passage: Jerome to the creation of the universe (Gen. 1,1), and Rufinus to the Apocalypse of John (6,14). In the context of the opening of the “book with seven seals”, Rufinus quoted, Isaiah’s prophecy about rolling up the heavens and promises another book, the “book of life” that will be opened up at the Last Judgement.

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Johannes Trithemius (1462–1518) was a German Benedictine abbot who wrote books on many varied topics: theological problems, literary history, cryptography, monastic history, Frankish history, and the history of the Holy Roman Empire. Chapter I discusses Trithemius in general terms and introduces his Compendium sive Breviarium primi voluminis chronicarum sive annalium de origine regum et gentis Francorum (Mainz 1515), in which he described 45 generations of rulers of the Franks between ca. 440 B.C.–440 A.D., followed by 17 generations of Merovingian kings. He claimed as his source the manuscript of a certain Hunibaldus, an author who allegedly lived in the times of Clovis I (ca. 480–511 A.D.). In fact, Trithemius himself had invented both his author and his manuscript. Chapter II presents Trithemius’ fictitious history of the Franks in the context of the desire of Emperor Maximilian I to have august royal forbears related to the Trojans (Troja-Legende). It discusses the theories brought forward by modern scholars to explain why Trithemius (or anyone, for that matter) could have engaged in such outrageous historical forgery. Chapter III provides the first annotated translation of a part of the biographical sequence in which Trithemius presents the history of the Franks. The author shows how, with the help of which sources and to what purpose this forgery was perpetrated. Chapter IV discusses how Trithemius’ “Hunibaldus” was received in contemporary and later genealogy and historiography. While Trithemius was criticized from the start as an unreliable historian, he also found many credulous readers down through the 19th century. It also becomes clear how ideas about the ancestors of the Habsburgs developed before finally finding their present form.

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This paper analyses the possible causes of the replacement of certain Latin particles in the text of De Tristitia Christi, the only original Morean manuscript available. In contrast to those who have seen More’s way of proceeding as a kind of excessive and fastidious concern with the choice of a specific particle, the current analysis seeks to show that the author must have possessed a fine knowledge of the possibilities and implications of the particles he uses. The application of the theoretical framework of Functional Discourse Grammar and its distinction of levels (grammatical, textual and situational) helps to identify and explain some of the reasons underlying More’s final choices here. In addition, it is also possible to see the role that various different criteria – stylistic, communicative, lexical, etc. – play in the selections of the author, who took great care to ensure that the message he wanted to convey was indeed clearly rendered.

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