We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 March 2016
The dating of Catalepton 9 has been the central issue of scholarship on that poem. The more particular questions of the poem's authorship, the identity of the addressee, and its chronological relation to other texts, both depend on and contribute to ascertaining the date of composition. The clearest exposition of the problem remains that by Richmond. Evidence provided by Catalepton 9 falls into two categories: literary and historical. Literary evidence encompasses two kinds of data: various formal features of the text and intertextual links with other poetry. While the poem's metre, language and style suggest a relatively early date of composition (before the Eclogues), the close textual parallels with the Eclogues, interpreted as borrowings from rather than sources of Virgil's poetry, point in the opposite direction. Historical indications are likewise ambivalent. On the one hand, it seems likely that the addressee is M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (cos. 31 b.c.) and, further, that the occasion of composition is his (only) triumph in 27 b.c. (Catalepton 9.3 uictor adest, magni magnum decus ecce triumphi). On the other hand, the allusions to his military achievements (4–5, 41–54) are both too vague and exaggerated, and, if taken literally, do not fit well our Messalla at any particular point of his career (nor any other known member of the family). Richmond, following Birt and followed by Schoonhoven, believed that at least some of the historical references are ‘intended to be prophetic’. More recently, Peirano has attempted to explain this lack of precision by arguing that Catalepton 9 is not a real-life panegyric but a later biographical fiction, the real focus of which ‘is to be found […] in the relationship that the poem constructs between Virgil and his patron’.
1 Another major issue is, of course, the poem's text, which is uncertain at some crucial places. Catalepton 9 is in need of a modern textual and literary commentary. R.E.H. Westendorp Boerma, P. Vergili Maronis libellus qui inscribitur Catalepton (Assen, 1949–63), 2.1–27 is the best available option, but should be used along with T. Birt, Jugendverse und Heimatpoesie Vergils: Erklärung des Catalepton (Leipzig, 1910), 89–114 and P. Jahn, Catalepton IX (Mantova, 1930). I use G.P. Goold's text from his revision of H.R. Fairclough, Virgil: Aeneid VII–XII; Appendix Vergiliana (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 490–6; textual problems are only discussed when necessary.
2 Richmond, J., ‘Catalepton 9’, MPhL 3 (1978), 189–201 Google Scholar.
3 Birt (n. 1), 95; Schoonhoven, H., ‘The “Panegyricus Messallae”: date and relation with Catalepton 9’, ANRW 2.30.3 (1983), 1681–707Google Scholar, at 1703.
4 Richmond (n. 2), 198.
5 I. Peirano, The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake: Latin Pseudepigrapha in Context (Cambridge, 2012), 126.
6 Cf. I. Peirano, ‘Authenticity as an aesthetic value: ancient and modern reflections', in I. Sluiter and R.M. Rosen (edd.), Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity (Leiden, 2012), 215–42, esp. 218: ‘the refutation of the authenticity of texts or parts thereof has often gone hand in hand with aesthetic condemnation: spurious texts are often labelled as artistically and technically inferior, and conversely texts or parts thereof that are considered aesthetically inferior are more easily believed to be spurious.’ ‘Authentic’ is to an extent interchangeable with ‘original’ and ‘early’, while ‘spurious' with ‘derivative’ and ‘late’.
7 The encomiastic / epinician rhetoric of Catalepton 9 is itself a Hellenistic trait. As is argued by R. Papke, ‘Panegyricus Messallae und Catalepton 9: Form und gegenseitiger Bezug’, in P. Kraft and H.J. Tschiedel (edd.), Concentus hexachordus: Beiträge zum 10. Symposion der bayerischen Hochschullehrer für Klassische Philologie in Eichstätt (24.–25. Februar 1984) (Regensburg, 1986), 123–68, at 134–45, the opposition between Messalla's activities as a poet and his activities as a warrior follows the structure of the βασιλικὸς λόγος with its division between πράξεις κατ’ εἰρήνην and πράξεις κατὰ πόλεμον. An interesting parallel for the double role of Messalla is found in a third-century b.c. epigram that praises Ptolemy Philopator as τὸν ἄριστον | ἐν δορὶ καὶ Μούσαις κοίρανον (SH 979.6–7: cf. Cat. 9.8 maximus); on the epigram, see D.L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, 1981), 465. The topos of deliberation (Cat. 9.9–10 hoc itaque insuetis iactor magis, optime, curis, | quid de te possim scribere, quidue tibi) is paralleled in Theocritus' encomium for Ptolemy Philadelphus (17.11–12 τί πρῶτον καταλέξω; ἐπεὶ πάρα μυρία εἰπεῖν | οἷσι θεοὶ τὸν ἄριστον [cf. optime] ἐτίμησαν βασιλήων). The opening exhortation to the Muses (Cat. 9.1–3 pauca mihi, niueo sed non incognita Phoebo, | pauca mihi, doctae, dicite, Pegasides. | uictor adest …) evokes Berenice's request to celebrate her (and her ancestors') equestrian victories at the beginning of an epigram by Posidippus (78.1–3 Austin-Bastianini εἴπατε, πάντες ἀοιδοί, ἐμὸν κλέος, […] | γνωστὰ λέγειν, ὅτι μοι δόξ[α …] | ἅρματι μὲν γάρ μοι προπάτωρ Πτολεμαι̃ος ἐνίκα). Finally, the idea of a victory terra marique (Cat. 9.4 uictor, qua terrae quaque patent maria) finds a parallel in an epigram, probably from the fifth century b.c., on a victory over the Persians by land and sea (Anth. Pal. 7.296.4 ἔργον ἐν ἠπείρῳ καὶ κατὰ πόντον ἅμα, though the wording is perhaps more reminiscent of Anth. Pal. 6.182.4 ἴδρι τὰ καὶ γαίης, ἴδρι τὰ καὶ πελάγευς).
8 Cf. Birt (n. 1), 97–8.
9 Jahn (n. 1), 26. The patronymic Ἀκρισιώνη is attested in Homer only once, and it does not reappear in poetry till Nonnus (Dion. 30.270), except in a fragment of Euphorion (SH 418.42 ὃν Διὶ χρυσ[είῳ … ]αιῃ τέκεν Ἀκρισιώνη)—which may conceivably be among the models of Catalepton 9 (cf. Διὶ χρυσείῳ and imbre Iouem: a detail absent in Homer).
10 Moreover, the patronymic Inachis more naturally evokes Inachus' daughter Io than Danae, who is several generations distant (note also that the only Greek context, till Nonnus [Dion. 31.40, 48.4], is Moschus, Europa 44 Ἰναχὶς Ἰώ): the reader is thus tempted to think of yet one more of Zeus's lovers.
11 J.D. Reed, ‘Continuity and change in Greek bucolic between Theocritus and Virgil’, in M. Fantuzzi and T. Papanghelis (edd.), Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden, 2006), 209–34, at 209 n. 1 mentions but rejects the possibility that some of Messalla's bucolics survive in the Theocritean corpus.
12 It seems largely irrelevant whether Idyll 8 is genuinely Theocritean. Virgil knew it, possibly assuming it to be a work by Theocritus, though cf. H. Bernsdorff, ‘The idea of bucolic in the imitators of Theocritus, 3rd–1st century bc’, in Fantuzzi and Papanghelis (n. 11), 167–207, at 168–9 n. 9. For all our present purposes, therefore, it can be taken as Theocritean.
13 Westendorp Boerma (n. 1), 17 takes the iuuenis to be Theocritus. But Birt (n. 1), 102 may be right: ‘Der trinakrische Jüngling ist schwerlich Theokrit, sondern der Sgl. steht kollektiv: „Lieder, wie sie die sizilischen jungen Leute lieben“.’ Westendorp Boerma objects that doctus is not a suitable epithet for a shepherd. As Jahn (n. 1), 23 pointed out, however, doctus can be paralleled with Theoc. 8.3–4 ἄμφω ἀνάβω, | ἄμφω συρίσδεν δεδαημένω, ἄμφω ἀείδεν. In fact, the two interpretations do not have to be mutually exclusive, especially in view of the tendency to read Theocritean poetry biographically; cf. M. Fantuzzi, ‘Theocritus' constructive interpreters, and the creation of a bucolic reader’, in Fantuzzi and Papanghelis (n. 11), 235–62, at 253–5. Trinacriae doctus … iuuenis could thus mean ‘Theocritus in the disguise of a Sicilian shepherd’.
14 Though not stated explicitly, the competitive character of their song exchange is hinted at by certatim at 21 and 22.
15 Cf. Jahn (n. 1), 10–11 and 23; M. Lipka, Language in Vergil's Eclogues (Berlin, 2001), 187–8.
16 K. Büchner, P. Vergilius Maro: der Dichter der Römer (Stuttgart, 1956), 58 takes 9.14 lingua … Cecropia to describe the style of Messalla's Latin poetry. Westendorp Boerma (n. 1), 15 is right to reject this reading. It has also been argued that Messalla can hardly have written bucolics in the Attic dialect, instead of the Doric used by Theocritus: G.O. Hutchinson, Greek to Latin: Frameworks and Contexts for Intertextuality (Oxford, 2013), 144–5; cf. Peirano (n. 5), 128–9. But we have fragments of a narrative bucolic poem written in the epic dialect: see H. Bernsdorff, Das Fragmentum Bucolicum Vindobonense (P. Vindob. Rainer 29801): Einleitung, Text und Kommentar (Göttingen, 1999), 24–5. And ‘Cecropian’ (‘old Athenian’) may include, or even specifically imply, the language of Homer, who was thought an Athenian by a number of ancient scholars: see F. Pontani, ‘Ex Homero grammatica’, in S. Matthaios, F. Montanari and A. Rengakos (edd.), Ancient Scholarship and Grammar: Archetypes, Concepts and Contexts (Berlin, 2011), 87–103, at 91–2.
17 It is obviously impossible to determine the relative chronology of Messalla's and Virgil's bucolic poems in a direct way. It cannot be excluded that the chronological order is Virgil — Messalla — Catalepton 9. But, as will be argued later, Catalepton 9 may be roughly contemporary with the Eclogues; and it also seems reasonable to place the composition of ‘Cecropian poems' during or shortly after Messalla's study at Athens in 45–44 b.c.
18 In the same way as Verg. G. 3.172 faginus axis is intended to evoke Il. 5.838 φήγινος ἄξων. See J.J. O'Hara, Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 1996), 63 and 243–4; cf. more recently Cairns, F., ‘Virgil's lime-wood yoke (Georgics 1.173–4)’, CQ 63 (2013), 434–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 435.
19 Cf. Frank, T., ‘Il nono Catalepton dell’ Appendix Vergiliana’, RFIC 59 (1931), 1–11 Google Scholar, at 6; D. Gall, Zur Technik von Anspielung und Zitat in der römischen Dichtung: Vergil, Gallus und die Ciris (Munich, 1999), 63 n. 54.
20 Cf. Bernsdorff (n. 12), 180 n. 60.
21 As well as of 3.58–9 incipe, Damoeta; tu deinde sequere, Menalca. | alternis dicetis; amant alterna Camenae.
22 Though, of course, it should be borne in mind that a similar context may have existed in Messalla's bucolics.
23 For alternus used of elegiac metre, see OLD s.v. 1c. Though Ovid seems to be the earliest author to use it in this sense.
24 Note the use of aorist in Theoc. 8.61 ταῦτα μὲν ὦν δι’ ἀμοιβαίων οἱ παῖδες ἄεισαν: it is only the elegiac part that is over, but the song exchange continues in hexameters, till 81 ὣς οἱ παῖδες ἄεισαν (the same aorist).
25 Whether the speaker is Daphnis or Menalcas, has been disputed: see e.g. White, H., ‘On the structure of Theocritus' idyll VIII’, MPhL 4 (1981), 181–90Google Scholar.
26 Priscian, for example, explicitly states that sal is derived from ἅλς (GL 2.32.19–2.33.1 Keil): [the letter S] saepe pro aspiratione ponitur in his dictionibus, quas a Graecis sumpsimus, ut semis, sex, septem, se, sal: nam ἥμισυ, ἕξ, ἑπτά, ἕ, ἅλς apud illos aspirationem habent in principio.
27 I shall later discuss the implications of this context for Catalepton 9 in greater detail.
28 This would no doubt be anticlimactic; moreover, Cyrene stands for Callimachus by metonymy, whereas ‘the Greek sea’ for ‘Greek poetry’ would be a metaphor.
29 Note for comparison that Val. Fl. 3.422 sale purpureo alludes to Il. 16.391 ἅλα πορφυρέην: cf. Edgeworth, R.J., ‘“Off-color” allusions in Roman poetry’, Glotta 65 (1987), 134–7Google Scholar.
30 This technique is, of course, by no means unique to Catalepton 9; a good example is Tib. 1.8.10 saepeque mutatas disposuisse comas alluding to Callim. Lav. Pall. 22 πολλάκι τὰν αὐτὰν δὶς μετέθηκε κόμαν: see S.J. Heyworth, ‘Looking into the river: literary history and interpretation in Callimachus, Hymns 5 and 6’, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker (edd.), Callimachus II (Groningen, 2002), 139–60, at 145–6.
31 Note A. Cameron, Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton, 1995), 479–80.
32 O.L. Richmond, Sexti Properti quae supersunt opera (Cambridge, 1928), 82; Westendorp Boerma (n. 1), 27.
33 Cf. Hutchinson, G.O., ‘The Catullan corpus, Greek epigram and the poetry of objects’, CQ 53 (2003), 206–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 212, suggesting that Catullus 65 introduces the entire elegiac sequence; cf. further M.B. Skinner, Catullus in Verona: A Reading of the Elegiac Libellus, Poems 65–116 (Columbus, 2003), xxvi; Breed, B.W., ‘Maximum orality: Catullus 65 and Propertius 2.13’, MD 70 (2013), 37–62 Google Scholar, at 38.
34 In turn, Silius draws on Catalepton 9 when he speaks (5.78–9) of a Coruinus, Phoebea sedet cui casside fulua | ostentans ales proauitae insignia pugnae.
35 In a comparable way, it has been argued, the wider context of Verg. Aen. 4.460 inuitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi, a line modelled on Catull. 66.39 inuita, o regina, tuo de uertice cessi, takes account of Catullus' Greek original: cf. e.g. Reed, J.D., ‘Another Greek pun in the Aeneid ’, Mnemosyne 61 (2008), 300–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 See A. Harder, Callimachus, Aetia: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford, 2012), 2.807–9.
37 Harder (n. 36), 2.808.
38 Cf. Callim. fr. 54i.7 (Harder) νίκης σύμβολον Ἰσθμιάδος (of the celery wreath), with Harder's comment ([n. 36], 2.478): ‘Expressions with σύμβολον apparently were popular with Callimachus.’ Note that the fragment comes from the Victoria Berenices.
39 That is, pugna a pugno: cf. R. Maltby, A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds, 1991), 507, s.v. pugna.
40 On the former point, see Westendorp Boerma (n. 1), 13. Oenides is usually assumed to be Diomedes; but Richmond (n. 2), 195 and Peirano (n. 5), 131 argue for Meleager.
41 Schoonhoven (n. 3), 1705. This tradition may conceivably originate from Antimachus' Thebaid (note fr. 6 Τύδης τ’ Οἰνείδης); in Statius, Tydeus wins the wrestling (Theb. 6.826–910).
42 Westendorp Boerma (n. 1), 15. The ‘Pylian old man’ is no doubt Nestor. The reading Phrygium at 15 is textually uncertain; even if it is correct, the identity of this ‘Phrygian’ is far from obvious. It can perhaps be argued that Phrygium is not an antonomasia, but alludes to King Phrygius of the aition. But since the reading is uncertain, I only discuss the significance of Nestor.
43 Text from Harder (n. 36), 1.257.
44 Harder (n. 36), 2.690 and G. Massimilla, Callimaco, Aitia: libro terzo e quarto (Pisa, 2010), 408 mention no earlier examples.
45 Especially if we assume for Catalepton 9 a relatively early date of composition.
46 Harder (n. 36), 2.690.
47 Cf. Harder (n. 36), 2.689.
48 Harder (n. 36), 2.28.
49 See esp. H. Donohue, The Song of Swan: Lucretius and the Influence of Callimachus (Lanham, 1993), 1–34.
50 See e.g. Donohue (n. 49), 30.
51 On the line's grammar, cf. A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams (Cambridge, 1965), 2.80: ‘The translators take ἔπος to be the subject of the verb and Μούσας (acc. plur.) to be its object. We suppose Erinna to be the subject, ἔπος to be object, and Μούσας to be gen. sing., possibly possessive (the Muse's brief epic) but more probably ablative on the analogy of τυγχάνειν and δέχομαί τί τινος (received it from the Muse).’ Just as Erinna was given her βαιὸν ἔπος (which glosses παυροεπής) by one of the Muses, so the poet of Catalepton 9 asks them for pauca.
52 Moreover, by placing pauca in the same initial position as παυροεπής (not just at the beginning of a line, but of the whole poem), the poet of Catalepton 9 may have intended to stress their etymological connection. Note for comparison that Verg. Ecl. 4.31 pauca tamen suberunt priscae uestigia fraudis is translated in the Oratio Constantini as παῦρα δ’ ὅμως ἴχνη προτέρας περιλείπεται ἄτης.
53 The pentameter is clearly related to that of Antipater's epigram (Anth. Pal. 7.713.2 ἀλλ’ ἔλαχεν Μούσας τοῦτο τὸ βαιὸν ἔπος), but their relative chronology is uncertain. Though suggesting no specific date for Anth. Pal. 9.190, Page (n. 7), 343 considers it ‘competently phrased in Alexandrian style’.
54 Even though, as Virgil's model in Gallus demonstrates, the two are related (fr. 145.6–7 Hollis): tandem fecerunt carmina Musae | quae possem domina deicere digna mea.
55 Note that three of the five are transmitted together; it is not unlikely that, at some point of their textual history at least, the remaining two may have been part of the same sequence.
56 Page (n. 7), 346: ‘The epigram is beautifully phrased, and may confidently be assigned to an Hellenistic author of the period 250–150 b.c.’
57 It has caused some disagreement whether the Latin context refers to the Muses' or the poets' choir, but Westendorp Boerma (n. 1), 13 is probably right that the two can hardly be strictly distinguished. Yet the adjective (sanctos) rather suggests the former possibility; cf. Hes. Sc. 201 ἐν δ’ ἦν ἀθανάτων ἱερὸς χορός.
58 Cf. e.g. Gow and Page (n. 51), 2.80: ‘The first couplet […] suggests that the epigram was intended to stand at the head of her chief poem.’
59 Pace Gow and Page (n. 51), 2.138, ‘possibly to be inscribed at the head of the poem’.
60 Cf. A.S. Hollis, Fragments of Latin Poetry c.60 bc–ad 20 (Oxford, 2007), 163: ‘Here […] the scholars are represented as lovers of the girl after whom the poem is called.’ Cf. further F. Cairns, Sextus Propertius: The Augustan Elegist (Cambridge, 2006), 116.
61 Cairns (n. 60), 116 n. 44.
62 Cf. also R. Cowan, ‘Valerius Cato, Callimachus and the very large girl (Ticida fr. 103 FRP)’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History XVI (Brussels, 2012), 94–100, who argues that Ticida's fragment echoes Callimachus' critique of Antimachus' Lyde—which, of course, has many points of contact with Asclepiades' praise of that poem.
63 On the meaning of σεμνοτέρη, see A. Sens, Asclepiades of Samos: Epigrams and Fragments (Oxford, 2011), 216–17.
64 Cf. recently Klein, F., ‘Une réponse ovidienne à Asclépiade? Hypothèse d'une allusion à l’épigramme sur la Lydé d'Antimaque (AP IX, 63) dans le certamen de Pallas et Arachné (Met. VI)’, Dictynna 7 (2010)Google Scholar, with further references.
65 Prop. 2.34.87–8 haec quoque lasciui cantarunt scripta Catulli, | Lesbia quis ipsa notior est Helena involves comparison, but only with one other woman (Helen).
66 As Sens (n. 63), 214 points out, it is probable that ‘Antimachus' own poem compared Lyde with other, better-born Greeks' in a more detailed fashion, which would provide a fuller parallel for the catalogue of heroines in Catalepton 9. It may also not be irrelevant to note that a fragment, possibly from Antimachus' Deltoi (SSH 79A), speaks of Lyde as ἀθ]ανάταισιν ἴσην: see Cameron (n. 31), 303–4.
67 The text of line 43 is uncertain; cf. below.
68 Cf. C.L. Caspers, ‘The loves of the poets: allusions in Hermesianax fr. 7 Powell’, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker (edd.), Beyond the Canon (Leuven, 2006), 21–42, at 24.
69 Maltby (n. 39), 456, s.v. patior.
70 Caspers (n. 68), 23–5.
71 Caspers (n. 68), 24.
72 On the importance of Hermesianax's fragment for shaping the tradition of Latin love elegy, cf. J. Farrell, ‘Calling out the Greeks: dynamics of the elegiac canon’, in B.K. Gold (ed.), A Companion to Roman Love Elegy (Chichester, 2012), 8–24, at 14–17.
73 On the ascription of this fragment to Antimachus, see V.J. Matthews, Antimachus of Colophon: Text and Commentary (Leiden, 1996), 258.
74 See recently Gauly, B.M., ‘Poseidipp und das Gedichtbuch: Überlegungen zur Sphragis und zum Mailänder Papyrus’, ZPE 151 (2005), 33–47 Google Scholar.
75 The text, preserved on a wax tablet, is uncertain at many crucial places. I follow the edition of C. Austin and G. Bastianini, Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia (Milan, 2002), 148.
76 The tablet's text is συναείσαδε. Diels's συναείσατε seems more attractive than συναείρατε printed by Austin and Bastianini.
77 The Muses' epithet (Κασταλίδες) is restored conjecturally; but the wording is closely paralleled in βαίνετε, Κρηνιάδες (113.15 A.-B.). Cf. further ἁγναί, βαίνετε, θυγατέρες (116.8 A.-B.), which has the same syntactical pattern as doctae, dicite, Pegasides (epithet — imperative — vocative).
78 In Catalepton 9 niueo means ‘snow-white’, whereas in Posidippus νιφόεντος is literally ‘snowy’. A few lines later, however, Posidippus repeats the adjective in the sense ‘snow-white’ (12 νιφόεντ<α>).
79 Lloyd-Jones, H., ‘The Seal of Posidippus’, JHS 83 (1963), 75–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 87. What he does not note is that the enjambement is paralleled in Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.213–14 χάριν νύ τοι, ὦ ἄνα Λητοῦς | υἱέ, καὶ ἀργαλέοισιν ἀνάπτομαι ἐν καμάτοισιν (spoken by Phineus); note also the similarity in sound between υἱέ, καὶ ἀργαλέοισιν and υἵ’ ἑκάεργε). It can perhaps be speculated that Apollonius' Phineus (2.188 βάκτρῳ σκηπτόμενος ῥικνοῖς ποσίν) is a parody of Posidippus' self-portrayal in the sphragis (24 ἀσκίπων ἐν ποσσί).
80 See Lloyd-Jones (n. 79), 85–7; Gauly (n. 74), 39.
81 Cf. P. Giannini, ‘Il proemio, il sigillo e il libro di Teognide: alcune osservazioni’, in R. Pretagostini (ed.), Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all'età ellenistica: Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili (Rome, 1993), 1.377–91, at 388.
82 Cf. Giannini (n. 81), 388; cf. further G. Nagy, ‘Theognis and Megara: a poet's vision of his city’, in T.J. Figueira and G. Nagy (edd.), Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis (Baltimore, 1985), 22–81, at 28.
83 Cf. A.L. Ford, ‘The seal of Theognis: the politics of authorship in Archaic Greece’, in Figueira and Nagy (n. 82), 82–95, at 86.
84 Cf. Ford (n. 83), 84, who similarly interprets the use of the proverb in Theognis as a statement of the traditional nature of poetry.
85 We may wonder if the presence of one of the Graces among Messalla's divine co-authors (60 Cynthius et Musae, Bacchus et Aglaie: if Aglaie is the correct reading) is a pointer to Theognis 15 Μοῦσαι καὶ Χάριτες.
86 For a collection of examples, see Lieberg, G., ‘Les Muses dans le papyrus attribué à Gallus’, Latomus 46 (1987), 527–44Google Scholar, at 529 n. 10.
87 This consciousness comes to the foreground in an especially prominent way in the allusion to Theoc. Id. 8, the only poem in the Theocritean corpus that inserts into a text written in hexameters an elegiac section. It seems useful to speak of elegiac ‘super-genre’, encompassing both elegy and epigram: cf. G. Hutchinson, ‘Genre and super-genre’, in T.D. Papanghelis, S.J. Harrison and S. Frangoulidis (edd.), Generic Interfaces in Latin Literature: Encounters, Interactions and Transformations (Berlin, 2013), 19–34. On points of contact between Latin elegy and Hellenistic epigram, see recently the edited volume by A. Keith (ed.), Latin Elegy and Hellenistic Epigram: A Tale of Two Genres at Rome (Newcastle, 2011), and in particular Keith's own contribution, ‘Latin elegiac collections and Hellenistic epigram books’, 99–115.
88 Common words: Cat. 9.1 pauca < Anth. Pal. 7.713.1 παυρο(επής); 1 niueo < Posidipp. 118.3 A.-B. νιφόεντος (and 12 νιφόεντ<α>?); 5 pugnae < Callim. Aet. fr. 110.13 *πυγμῆς; 8 choros < Anth. Pal. 7.12.6 χορούς; 44 patria < Hermesian. fr. 3.32 πατρίδος; 45 pati < Hermesian. fr. 3.31 παθών; 62 sales < Theoc. Id. 8.56 ἅλα. Proper names: 1 Phoebo < Posidipp. 118.1 Φοίβου; 16 Pylium < Callim. Aet. fr. 80.21 Πυλίου; 33 Semele and Acrisione < Il. 14.323 Σεμέλης and 319 Ἀκρισιώνης.
89 Greek loan-words in Latin were a popular topic in linguistic discussions: see e.g. Maltby, R., ‘Varro's attitude to Latin derivations from Greek’, PLLS 7 (1993), 47–60 Google Scholar.
90 On the concept of sal in Latin rhetoric and poetics, see recently Strässle, T., ‘De arte salis: von der Modellierung einer stofflichen Poetologie in der römischen Rhetorik’, A&A 51 (2005), 97–119 Google Scholar.
91 Cf. Strässle (n. 90), 102–3.
92 Peirano (n. 5), 120–32; cf. Schoonhoven (n. 3), 1705; Hutchinson (n. 16), 145 n. 19.
93 On Messalla's life, see R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford, 1986), 200–16; J. Hammer, Prolegomena to an Edition of the Panegyricus Messallae: The Military and Political Career of M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (Albany, 1925).
94 Frank (n. 19) argues that Catalepton 9 was composed between the indecisive first battle and the second battle won by Octavian.
95 The mention of Eryx at 6 has been interpreted as a hint at this campaign: see White, H., ‘Textual problems in Horace and Virgil’, Veleia 23 (2006), 379–89Google Scholar, at 388.
96 One could speculate that this may have prompted the possible prophetic elements in Catalepton 9 (cf. below); Tibullus 2.5 is a parallel to an extent, as it celebrates Messallinus' becoming an augur.
97 See R. Syme, History in Ovid (Oxford, 1978), 118. This may provide a terminus post if the text is correct: 9.44 tam procul hoc gnato. Though of course it is not impossible that Messalla had earlier another son who did not survive infancy.
98 Contrast Tibullus 1.7.
99 Birt (n. 1), 94–5.
100 Schoonhoven (n. 3), 1703: ‘I think the anticipatory character of the poem comes out already in v. 1 where the curious phrase pauca mihi, niueo sed non incognita Phoebo (dicite, Pegasides) alludes to Apollo's quality as the god of prophecy.’ The Posidippean intertext, which prominently features Apollo in that role (118.13–14 A.-B. τοίην ἐκχρήσαις τε καὶ ἐξ ἀδύτων καναχήσαις | φωνὴν ἀθανάτην, ὦ ἄνα, καὶ κατ’ ἐμοῦ), may give support to this interpretation.
101 Richmond (n. 2), 200.
102 Richmond (n. 2), 200. The unmetrical reading of the other branch of the tradition (castra foro, castra urbi) has been variously emended so as to refer to Messalla alone.
103 T.K. Arnold, A Practical Introduction to Latin Prose Composition (London, 1850), 2.163. Cf. more recently C. Kroon, ‘Latin particles and the grammar of discourse’, in J. Clackson (ed.), A Companion to Latin Language (Chichester, 2011), 176–95, at 184: ‘Latin nam signals that its host unit has a subsidiary function with regard to some other, communicatively more central, discourse unit. Depending on the context, the more specific relationship may be evidence, […] or justification, motivation, elaboration, explanation, exemplification, and the like.’
104 Richmond (n. 2), 196, cf. 198–9. Cf. also Birt (n. 1), 95; Syme (n. 93), 203–4.
105 Richmond (n. 2), 199.
106 Richmond (n. 2), 201.
107 Thus e.g. Westendorp Boerma (n. 1), 24: ‘modo … modo … modo, eadem iteratione triplici, qua poeta versibus superioribus (saepe) delectatus est.’
108 OLD s.v. nunc 5: ‘(w. ref. to the immediate future) In the time following the present’.
109 See Syme (n. 97), 50.
110 As recently argued by Knox, P.E., ‘Milestones in the career of Tibullus’, CQ 55 (2005), 204–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar Tibullus 1.7 may in fact have been written in anticipation of the triumph in as early as 29 b.c.
111 The metaphor facta decus parient is paralleled in 1.7.9 non sine me est tibi partus honos.
112 The parallel is noted in Maltby, R., ‘Technical language in Tibullus’, Emerita 67 (1999), 231–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 240–1.
113 Cf. Davies, C., ‘Poetry in the “circle” of Messalla’, G&R 20 (1973), 25–35 Google Scholar.
114 Cf. Richmond (n. 2), 189–93.
