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CITRO OR CEDRO REFICIT? ON AN EMENDATION TO A FRAGMENT OF VARRO'S DE BIBLIOTHECIS (FR. 54 GRF FUNAIOLI)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 April 2024
Abstract
This paper discusses an earlier emendation to fr. 54 GRF Funaioli from Varro's De bibliothecis and argues that, while the text et citro refers to cedar oil, it should not be emended to et cedro. A comparison with a passage from Pliny the Elder (HN 13.86) is used to support the view presented in the article.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
I wish to thank Alessandro Garcea (Sorbonne Université) and Katharina Volk (Columbia University) for their helpful comments and suggestions, as well as William Edwards and Emma Ianni for discussing earlier drafts of this work. Many thanks to Bruce Gibson and the anonymous reader of The Classical Quarterly for improving the quality of this paper.
References
1 Hendrickson, T., ‘An emendation to a fragment of Varro's De bibliothecis (fr. 54 GRF Funaioli)’, CQ 65 (2015), 395–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Verdura, U., ‘Note sul De bibliothecis di Varrone’, BStudLat 52 (2022), 89–115Google Scholar.
3 The quotation occurs again in fr. 80 GRF Funaioli = Gramm. Lat. 1.131.23–4 Keil = 167.23–4 Barwick: glutine Varro De bibliothecis, ‘glutine’ inquit ‘et citro refecit’, quasi semine stamine. The text given by the manuscripts, and printed in modern editions, is citro; only the editio princeps emended it to cinere, as stated in Keil's apparatus criticus.
4 Hendrickson (n. 1), 397.
5 Hendrickson (n. 1), 396. His parallels include, among others: Sen. Tranq. 9.6 quid habes cur ignoscas homini armaria <e> citro atque ebori captanti?; Cato, fr. 185 Malcovati expolitae maximo opera citro atque ebore; Varro, Rust. 3.2.4 nuncubi hic uides citrum aut aurum?; Petron. Sat. 119.28–9 citrea mensa … imitator utilius aurum; and Plin. HN 5.12 luxuriae, cuius efficacissima uis sentitur atque maxima, cum ebori, citro siluae exquirantur; thus, he aims at showing that citron wood was used alongside other precious materials to condemn an excess of luxury.
6 Hendrickson (n. 1), 397 nn. 11–12 provides quotations from ancient authors on the usage of cedar oil in papyrus-related contexts; cf. also Cockle, W.E.H., ‘Restoring and conserving papyri’, BICS 30 (1983), 147–65Google Scholar, at 156–7.
7 Hendrickson (n. 1), 397.
8 On the Books of Numa, their discovery and the testimonia, cf. Peruzzi, E., ‘I libri di Numa’, in E. Peruzzi, Le origini di Roma (Bologna, 1973), 2.107–43Google Scholar.
9 Hemina, hist. fr. 35 FRH = fr. 37 Peter = fr. 40 Chassignet.
10 Modern editors, following the manuscripts, also print citratos; cf. Mayhoff, K. (ed.), Gaii Plini Secundi Naturalis historiae libri XXXVII (Leipzig, 1875), 2.333Google Scholar for Pliny; for Hemina, see Cornell, T. (ed.), The Fragments of the Roman Historians (Oxford, 2013), 3Google Scholar vols., 2.266–7, who also adds: ‘citratos: MSS’. In his edition, A. Ernout (ed.), Pline l'Ancien. Histoire Naturelle Livre XIII (Paris, 1956), 97 writes: ‘citratos: c'est la leçon de tous les mss., et Pl. songe sans doute au pouvoir insecticide que possèdent les feuilles du “pommier d'Assyrie” ou cédratier. … Les anciens éditeurs, avant Hardouin, lisaient cedratos … La correction est ingénieuse, mais inutile, quoique la confusion entre cedrus et citrus ne soit pas inconnue.’
11 On the general confusion between the two words, citrus and cedrus, cf. E. Forcellini and V. De-Vit, Totius Latinitatis Lexicon 2.217 s.v. citrus: ‘Nomen duarum arborum, quae specie inter se distinctae et a cedro diversae sunt, quamquam non desunt qui citrum et cedrum unam arborem esse putant’, which suggests that the Ancients mistook the two trees; and also Andrews, A.C., ‘Acclimatization of citrus fruits in the Mediterranean region’, Agricultural History 35 (1961), 35–46Google Scholar, at 42, who highlights the confusion that existed between the two names.
12 On this effect of Ringkomposition in Pliny's account on the history of papyrus (HN 13.68–70), see Verdura (n. 2), 99.
13 I explored this possibility in Verdura (n. 2), 96–9; contra, Hendrickson (n. 1), 395 writes about Pliny's passage on the history of writing materials that ‘such a history of papyrus could easily have fit in the De bibliothecis, but it could just as well have fit in some of Varro's voluminous other writings.’