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Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Richard Hunter
Richard Hunter
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge
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Extract

In a famous passage of the third book of the Georgics (3.209–41) Vergil describes two bulls fighting over a formosa iuuenca; the bull which is at first beaten goes off to recover and prepare, returning to attack again its arrogant opponent. The description of the bull's training blends the toughness of early man, the playfulness of a young animal, the suffering of the exclusus amator and the preparations of a human athlete:

ergo omni cura uiris exercet et inter

dura iacet pernox instrato saxa cubili

frondibus hirsutis et carice pastus acuta, 230

et temptat sese atque irasci in cornua discit

arboris obnixus trunco, uentosque lacessit

ictibus, et sparsa ad pugnam proludit harena.

(Georg. 3.229–34)

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , December 1989 , pp. 557 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

1 cf. Thomas, R. F., Virgil, Georgics, II (Cambridge, 1988), on 229–31Google Scholar.

2 cf. Aen. 5.365. Thomas, however, refers the verse to ‘the sanding of the oiled body in wrestling’.

3 Sen. Contr. 3 pr. 13, Sen. EM 117.25.

4 cf. Aen. 5.473 ‘hie uictor superans animis tauroque superbus’.

5 cf. Philostratus, , Gymn. 52Google Scholar, where however what is at issue is the effect of actual sex rather than of sexual longing, and Rousselle, A., Porneia: on Desire and the Body in Antiquity (Oxford, 1988), pp. 12–15Google Scholar. There is a close parallel to this in the folklore of modern boxing.

6 ⋯δμ⋯ς and related words are frequently used of young girls, and Vergil may be exploiting this resonance.

7 At Aen. 5.399 Entellus sarcastically refers to the prize as a pulcher iuuencus, cf. formosa iuuenca.

8 Quoted by Schol. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 2.88–9a.

9 For Ovid's later use of the Trachiniae passage cf. Borner, F., ‘Der Kampf der Stiere’, Gymnasium 81 (1974), 503–13Google Scholar, and note on Met. 9.46.

10 It is tempting to believe that the fact that ancient boxing ‘gloves’ were made exclusively of ox-hide (cf. Philostratus, , Gymn. 10)Google Scholar has had an important influence in the creation of this image.

11 cf. Il. 17.520–4, Arg. 4.471. Rather similar is Lucretius 1.92 of Iphigenia, ‘muta metu terram genibus summissa petebat’; the action suits both a terrified girl and a sacrificial victim.

12 cf. Arg. 3.1370, Theocr. 22.99, Horn. Il. 23.847, 869.

13 cf. Rütten, F., De Vergilü studüs Apollonianis (diss. Münster, 1912), p. 19Google Scholar. arduus in line 480 may be another (cf. line 426) reflection of Arg. 2.90–1, but cf. Eur. El. 840.

14 cf. Rütten, op. cit. (n. 13), pp. 16–19Google Scholar and Williams' notes on the Aeneid passage. The reference to Amycus in line 373 directs our attention to Apollonius and Theocritus.

15 cf. Putnam, M. C. J., Virgil's Poem of the Earth (Princeton, 1979), pp. 194–5Google Scholar.

16 The association of Poseidon with bulls – witnessed most dramatically in the death of Hippolytus – is also important here and in the Georgics passage.

17 The simile is later instantiated in the narrative at 2.580–7.

18 cf. Arg. 2.806–8, 4.593, 649–53, and the remarks of Rose, A. R., WS 97 (1984), 125Google Scholar.

19 Apollonius' account of Jason's struggle with the bulls very likely contains echoes of Callimachus' Hecale. This lends colour to the suggestion (cf. Thomas ad loc.) that Georg. 3.232–4 is indebted to Call. fr. 732 Pf., πολλ⋯ μ⋯την κερ⋯εσσιν ⋯ς ỉ⋯ρα Өυμ⋯ναντα, a verse of uncertain authorship which has been ascribed, with some probability, to the Hecale.

20 For Apollonius' influence on the Georgics, cf. the brief survey of Briggs, W. W. in Temporini, H. and Haase, W. (edd.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt ii 31.2 (Berlin/New York, 1981), pp. 955–8Google Scholar.

21 ‘Three Notes on Alexandrine Poetry’, Hermes 102 (1974), 38–46, at 38–41Google Scholar.

22 Fränkel, H., Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Munich, 1968), p. 157Google Scholar, had cited Eur, Bacch. 543–4Google Scholar in this connection, but he did not pursue the parallel.

23 I am grateful to Michael Reeve for his comments on an earlier version of this note.