speaks of Callimachus (Am. i. 15. 14) as Quamvis ingenio non valet arte valet, and Ennius (Trist. ii. 424) as ingenio maximus, arte rudis, he is, no doubt, mainly thinking of trained and cultured versification: though he may have also had in mind the curious and recondite erudition of which Callimachus had a large, and Ennius a small, share. Cicero, in De Orat. ii. 147, contrasts acumen with ratio quam licet si volumus appellare artem and diligentia, thinking probably of the Greek triad, φύσις, ἐπιστήμη, μɛλérŋ (Plat. Phaedr. 269 D): cp. De Orat. ii. 30. Q. Fr. ii. 11. 1. Iam pridem istum canto Caesarem. This is the only place, as far as I know, in classical prose where cantare is used in the general sense of praising a person without any accessory idea of the praise being in verse. In post-classical Seneca, Ep. 79. 15, we have canere used in this sense, (Epicurus) cum amicitiam suam et Metrodori . . . cecinisset. In the passage of Cicero there can be no allusion to the poem which Cicero wrote on Caesar, for it does not appear to have been, as yet, projected (cp. Q. Fr. ii. 13. 2, iii. 1. 11: 8. 3: 9. 6); nor to the poem on Cicero's consulship: for, though Caesar approved of that poem up to a certain point (Q. Fr. ii. 13. 2: 15. 5), it does not seem to have contained any special laudation of Caesar. Q. Fr. ii. 11. 2. Eodem igitur die Tyriis est senatus datus frequens frequentes contra Syriaci publicani. Vehementer vexatus Gabinius exagitati tamen a Domitio publicani, quod eum essent cum equis prosecuti. The publicani appear to have accused Gabinius on other grounds, and also because he left his province in order to restore Ptolemy Auletes. The result was that Syria was harassed by pirates,' and it became difficult, on 1 Dio Cass. xxxix. 56. 5, катAλITÒV οὖν ἐν τῇ Συρίᾳ Σισένναν τε τὸν υἱὸν κομιδῇ νέον ὄντα καὶ στρατιώτας μετ' HERMATHENA-VOL. XI. F αὐτοῦ πάνυ ὀλίγους τὴν μὲν ἀρχήν, ἐφ' ἧς ἐτέτακτο, τοῖς λῃσταῖς ἔτι καὶ μᾶλλον ἐξέδωκεν : cp. § 1. that account, to collect the taxes. The president of the court, Domitius, censured the publicani for having countenanced the expedition of Gabinius to Egypt by escorting him part of the way on his departure. Q. Fr. ii. 11. 3. Comitialibus diebus, qui Quirinalia sequuntur, Appius interpretatur, non impediri se lege Pupia, quo minus habeat senatum, et quod Gabinia sanctum sit, etiam cogi ex Kal. Febr. usque ad Kal. Mart. legatis senatum cotidie dare. Ita putantur detrudi comitia in mensem Martium. It is very uncertain by what process of reasoning Appius established his point (cp. Mommsen, St. R. iii. 922, note 2). It must have had some plausibility, for otherwise the comitia would not have been put off. Possibly the Lex Pupia, while enacting, as a general rule, that the senate could not be held on comitial days, had a saving clause, making an exception for cases of urgency; and cases of the senate's being held on a comitial day are found. Again, the Lex Gabinia stated that, on every day in February, audience of the senate should be devoted to foreign embassies until their affairs were settled. Lange (R. A. iii. 233) speaks of the Lex Gabinia as de senatu legatis ex Kal. Febr. usque ad Kal. Mart. quotidie dando. If that was actually the form of the law, it probably meant every day on which a meeting of the senate was allowable; but Appius, who was so eager for purposes jobbery to have all these embassies heard, may have argued that cotidie meant strictly, 'every day,' comitial or non-comitial. of Fam. vii. 5. 3. Totum denique hominem tibi ita trado de manu (ut aiunt) in manum tuam istam et victoria et fide praestantem. Simus enim putidiusculi, quamquam per te vix licet: verum, ut video, licebit. Translate putidiusculi, a trifle affected.' The idea is ' Cp. 'The Correspondence of Cicero,' vol. iii., pp. 299, 300. of something that causes a feeling of unpleasantness, not nearly so strong as nauseous' or 'sickening,' but somewhat in that direction. It is especially applied by Cicero to offensive precision': cp. De Orat. iii. 41, nolo exprimi litteras putidius, nolo obscurari neglegentius: Off. 1. 133, litterae neque expressae neque oppressae ne aut obscurum esset aut putidum; but also of any kind of affectation, e.g. Brut. 284, si quis eos qui nec inepte dicunt nec odiose nec putide Attice putat dicere, is recte nisi Atticum probat neminem: insulsitatem enim et insolentiam tanquam insaniam quandam orationis odit, cp. De Orat. iii. 51: Orat. 27, cum etiam Demosthenes exagitetur ut putidus: Att. 1. 14. 1. Vereor ne putidum sit scribere ad te quam sim occupatus. Here the affectation is shown in the somewhat grandiloquent phrase, manum tuam istam et victoria et fide praestantem. For stilted phrases stigmatised as putida, cp. Orat. 26, 27. In the writers of the Empire, the word has generally a stronger meaning, and may be translated, 'stale,' 'nauseous': cp. Hor. Sat. ii. 7 21, quorsum haec tam putida tendunt: Petron. 73, at ne sic quidem putidissimam eius iactationem licuit effugere: Martial, iv. 20. 4 (of an old woman who tried to make herself look young), altera putidula. Q. Fr. ii. 13. 1. A. d. III. Non. Iunias. quo die Romam veni, accepi tuas litteras, datas Placentia: deinde alteras postridie, datas †Blandenonne, cum Caesaris litteris. It is curious that C. F. W. Müller should not have even mentioned the emendation of Sigonius for Blandenonne, 1 Seneca, too, uses it in this sense (Ep. 75. 1), Minus tibi accuratas a me epistulas mitti quereris. Quis enim accurate loquitur, nisi qui vult putide loqui? Plato expresses the idea of putide by miкрóν, Gorg. 485 B, ÖTAV δὲ σαφῶς διαλεγομένου παιδαρίου ἀκούσω πικρόν τί μοι δοκεῖ χρῆμα εἶναι καὶ ἀνιᾷ μου τὰ ὦτα. though, of course, it is by no means certain. Sigonius suggested Laude Nonis. Laus Pompeia, on the site of Lodi Vecchio, not far from the modern Lodi, was some twenty-four Roman miles from Placentia; and Caesar and Quintus may very well have despatched letters from it. But if nonne conceals Non., I think we must transpose it to follow postridie. It would be much better, however, to read una, as is suggested by Boot (Obs. Crit., pp. 35, 36), who compares the passage, a few lines below, Litterae vero eius una datae cum tuis. Boot, however, does not adopt the reading Laude, and prefers to stand by the view that Blandeno is a town in the valley of the Po, not elsewhere mentioned: so does Hülsen in Pauly-Wissowa, iii. 557. But Mommsen (in C. I. L. v., p. 696) admits the possibility, though not the certainty, of Laude: for though the town is not elsewhere mentioned in classical authors, it occurs often in the Itineraries. Att. iv. 16. Considerable difficulties arise as to the date of this letter. In § 6 (= Ep. 17. 2 of the pre-Mommsenian arrangement), we read that Scaurus had been prosecuted by Triarius. The date of that prosecution has been fixed absolutely by Asconius, 131 (= p. 17. 1 ed. Kiessling and Schoell), postulatus <est> apud M. Catonem praetorem repetundarum, ut in Actis scriptum est, pridie Nonas Quinctiles post diem tertium quam <C> Cato erat absolutus. This necessitates the alteration of iii. to iiii. Nonas in 15. 4: and, if the Mommsenian arrangement of Ep. 16 is to hold, we cannot date 16 earlier than July 6. Rauschen (p. 54) thinks that § 6 is part of a letter which Cicero wrote between 16 and 15, and appeals to the mutilation of 18, and the generally disordered state of the letters at the end of Att. iv. He thinks the remainder of 16 was written shortly before July 4th, when Cato had not yet been acquitted on the charge of violating the Fufian law, and Procilius had been condemned (16. 5 compared with 15. 4). The symmetry of the Mommsenian arrangement of the letters in Att. iv., and the order which can be given them by a mere interchange of sheets of the archetype, make us pause before we disturb that arrangement; and such mere interchange of sheets removes much difficulty elsewhere in the correspondence, as Gurlitt has so admirably shown in his elaborate treatise Die Archetypus der Brutusbriefe in the Jahrb. der klass. Philol. 1885 and 1892. If we could suppose that 16, §§ 1-5, was written on July 1st or 2nd, and that 16, §§ 6, 7, was added at midday on July 6th, the following arrangement of events will appear possible July 1st or 2nd. Cicero wrote 16, §§ 1-5. 3. Challenge of jurymen in case of Drusus (16. 5). ,, 7-8. Cicero at Reate (15. 5). There are not wanting examples of letters which received additions on days later than the day on which they were begun. A good instance is Q. Fr. iii. 1, which was commenced (§§ 1-14) at Arpinum between Sept. 14 and 18, and received three several additions (§§ 14-19 20-22: 2325), at Rome, between Sept. 20 and 28. At this time Atticus was in Epirus, and was meditating a journey into Asia, so that we can well suppose that messengers were not despatched to him every day. |