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Lucilius and His Nose (Pliny, N.H., Praef. 7)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. D. Morgan
J. D. Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
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Extract

In his prefatory epistle dedicating his Naturalis Historia to Vespasian, the elder Pliny takes great pains to plead that his magnum opus (which at praef. 1 he compares with Catullus' nugae!) is unworthy of the emperor: ‘maiorem te sciebam, quam ut descensurum hue putarem’ (praef. 6). Continuing in this vein, Pliny goes on to say ‘praeterea est quaedam publica etiam eruditorum reiectio’, and appeals for support to the great Cicero: ‘utitur ilia et M. Tullius extra omnem ingenii aleam positus, et, quod miremur, per aduocatum defenditur’ (praef. 7). Cicero's aduocatus is the satirist Lucilius, from whom a mangled fragment in trochaic septenarii is then quoted: ‘nec doctissimis. Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Iunium Congum uolo.’ The sense of this fragment, which Pliny very probably quoted from the now-lost beginning of Cicero's preface to his De Re Publica, can be restored from Cicero, De Oratore 2.25: ‘nam ut C. Lucilius…dicere solebat ea quae scriberet neque ab indoctissimis se neque a doctissimis legi uelle, quod alteri nihil intelligerent, alteri plus fortasse quam ipse; quo etiam scripsit “Persium non curo legere” (hie enim fuit, ut noramus, omnium fere nostrorum hominum doctissimus), “Laelium Decimum uolo” (quem cognouimus uirum bonum et non illiteratum, sed nihil ad Persium): sic ego…’. This latter passage has allowed the former to be restored, to some extent exempli gratia, to the following form in Warmington's and Krenkel's editions of Lucilius

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , May 1992 , pp. 279 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1992

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References

1 Warmington, E. H. [ed.], Remains of Old Latin, iii (Lucilius, The Twelve Tables) (London, 1938), pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

2 Krenkel, W. [ed.], Lucilius, Satiren, ii (Leiden, 1970), pp. 344–5.Google Scholar

3 Jan, L. and Mayhoff, C. [edd.], C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVII, i (Leipzig, 1906), p. 3Google Scholar, cite as witnesses to this part of the preface E = Paris. Lat. 6795 (s. IX/X), a = Vindobonensis 234 (s. XII), d = Paris. Lat. 6797 (s. XII3/4), and e = Paris. Lat. 6796A (s. XIII), ‘a faithful copy of E’, in the words of Reynolds, L. D. in his article ‘The Elder Pliny’ in Texts and Transmission (Oxford, 1983), pp. 307–16Google Scholar, from whom I have taken these dates. See Olsen, B. Munk, L'Étude des Auteurs Classiques Latins aux XIe et XIIe Siècles, ii (Paris, 1985), pp. 243–73Google Scholar, for the particulars of several other MSS. (Munk Olsen's nos. 4, 12, 23, 29, 36, 38, 52, and 65), none earlier than s. XI, which preserve this passage. R = Florence, Bibl. Rice. 488 (s. IX2) also preserves the prefatory epistle, but unfortunately only from section 27 onward. It is even more unfortunate that none of the five s. V–VI MSS. (M, N, O, P, Pal.Chat.) nor any of the many other s. VIII–IX MSS. are available for the preface.

4 In the words of L. D. Reynolds, op. cit., p. 308.

5 Holland, P., The Historie of the World, Commonly called The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus, i (London, 1601)Google Scholar, [no pagination].

6 Bostock, J., The Natural History of Pliny, i (London, 1855), p. 3.Google Scholar

7 Littré, É., Histoire Naturelle de Pline, i (Paris, 1855), p. 2.Google Scholar

8 Rackham, H., Pliny, Natural History, i (London, 1938), p. 7.Google Scholar

9 Beaujeu, J., Pline L'Ancien, Histoire Naturelle, Livre I (Paris, 1950), p. 49.Google Scholar

10 W. Krenkel, op. cit., i. 61.

11 König, R. and Winkler, G., C. Plinius Secundus d. Ä., Naturkunde, i (Munich, 1973), p. 11.Google Scholar

12 Plinii Naturalis Historia, i (Pisa, 1984), p. 28.Google Scholar

13 Casaubon, I., De Satyrica Graecorum Poesi & Romanorum Satira (Paris, 1605), p. 276.Google Scholar

14 See the apparatus in Jan and Mayhoff's edition, op. cit., ad loc.

15 See Liddell and Scott, s.vv. μυκτήρ, μυκτηρίζω, μυκτήρισμα, μυκτηρισμός μυκτηριοτής. Although in the OLD no passage is listed where ‘nasus’ means ‘disdain’ (rather than ‘wit’, as at Seneca, Suas. 1.6, and Martial 1.41.18 and 12.88.1), the fact that ‘nasutus’ and its adverb ‘nasute’ mean ‘disdainful(ly)’ at Phaedrus 4.7.1 and Martial 13.2.1 (which are not properly recorded in the OLD) proves that ‘nasum’ did have ‘disdain’ as one of its meanings in Silver Latin. It would be natural to see this as a Graecism.

16 Alexandra, C. and Lemaire, N. E., Caii Plinii Secundi Historiae Naturalis Libri XXXVII, i (Paris, 1827), p. 10Google Scholar, ad loc.

17 See Jan, and Mayhoff, , op. cit., v (Leipzig, 1897), p. 213Google Scholar, ad loc.

18 von Urlichs, K. L., Die Quellenregister zu Plinius letzten Büchern (Würzburg, 1878), p. 11.Google Scholar

19 As observed above in n. 15, this meaning is not recorded in the OLD, yet another of its many deficiencies (cf. F. R. D. Goodyear's review at PACA 17 (1983), 124–36).Google Scholar

20 I should like to thank Ian Rutherford, Richard Tarrant, and Richard Thomas for their reactions to my supplement, as well as the lynx-eyed reader for CQ, who noticed that H. Fuchs, in the König–Winkler edition (supra n. 11), p. 383, anticipated me in suspecting the transmitted text, although Fuchs' own supplement ‘qui primus condidit ‹humilioris› stili nasum’ is not plausible.