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NEMO … NON NOSTRVM PECCAT (PETRON. SAT. 75.1). HABINNAS’ MAXIM RESTORED

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2019

Stefano Poletti*
Affiliation:
Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

Extract

In this short note I shall address a problem of word order in a passage of Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis by pointing out an attractive variant in the key codex Traguriensis, which has been neglected thus far.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this text was presented at the conference Un cantiere petroniano I (November 2017, Florence). I wish to thank the organizers (Mario Labate, Giulio Vannini and Giovanni Zago) and the participants for their comments. I am grateful also to Bruce Gibson, Stephen Harrison, Robert Jackson, Josine Schrickx, Ernesto Stagni and the anonymous reader for CQ for their helpful suggestions.

References

1 Müller, K., Petronii Arbitri Satyricon reliquiae (Munich and Leipzig, 19954; rev. ed. 2003), 73Google Scholar; Walsh, P.G., Petronius. The Satyricon. A New Translation (Oxford, 1997), 63Google Scholar.

2 In this regard the critical apparatuses of Müller's fourth edition (n. 1 above) and of other modern editions are a bit deceptive. It would be desirable to state explicitly that inquit is transmitted only by H and omitted by L and φ, as does Müller in his first edition: Müller, K., Petronius. Satyricon reliquiae (Munich, 1961)Google Scholar. More generally, the reader should perhaps be reminded more clearly of the particular traditional situation of the passage in L and φ (see below).

3 On double negation (negative pronoun + non), cf. Bertocchi, A., Maraldi, M. and Orlandini, A., ‘Quantification’, in Baldi, P. and Cuzzolin, P. (edd.), Constituent Syntax: Quantification, Numerals, Possession, Anaphora (Berlin and New York, 2010), 19174Google Scholar, at 74–9, with further bibliography. As is well known, there is a difference in meaning if the negation non precedes the pronoun: ‘When the negation precedes the indefinite (non nemo), the result is a partial affirmation (‘someone’); when the negation follows (nemo non), the result is a total affirmation, equivalent to a positive universal quantifier (omnes)’ (at 74). Petersmann, H., Petrons urbane Prosa (Wien, 1977), 233–4Google Scholar notices that this kind of double negation is not so common in Petronius and occurs ‘nur in der Rede der Ungebildeten’: Petron. Sat. 76.5 alteras feci maiores et meliores et feliciores, ut nemo non me uirum fortem diceret; 38.4–5 nam mulam quidem nullam habet quae non ex onagro nata sit. uides tot culcit[r]as: nulla non aut conchyliatum aut coccineum tomentum habet.

4 On the first editions of the Cena, see Schmeling, G. and Stuckey, J., A Bibliography of Petronius (Leiden, 1977), 18–19, 5768CrossRefGoogle Scholar and now the studies of Nicola Pace (collected in the volume Tragurii Fetus Mirabilis. Studi sulla controversia secentesca relativa al frammento di Petronio trovato in Dalmazia [Milan, 2019], which appeared when the present article was already in proofs): Pace, N., ‘Nuovi documenti sulla controversia seicentesca relativa al Fragmentum Traguriense della Cena Trimalchionis di Petronio’, in Pretagostini, R. and Dettori, E. (edd.), La cultura letteraria ellenistica. Persistenza, innovazione, trasmissione (Rome, 2007), 305–36Google Scholar; id., ‘Ombre e silenzi nella scoperta del frammento traurino di Petronio e nella controversia sulla sua autenticità’, in Moretti, P.F., Torre, C. and Zanetto, G. (edd.), Debita dona: studi in onore di Isabella Gualandri (Naples, 2008), 373–99Google Scholar; id., L'epilogo ignoto della controversia seicentesca sul frammento traurino di Petronio’, Studi Umanistici Piceni 31 (2011), 131–48Google Scholar; id., New evidence for dating the discovery at Traù of the Petronian Cena Trimalchionis’, in Pinheiro, M. Futre, Konstan, D. and MacQueen, B.D. (edd.), Cultural Crossroads in the Ancient Novel (Berlin and Boston, 2018), 209–21Google Scholar. The word order nostrum non of L and φ is found already in the editio princeps of the Cena (Padua, 1664), which ‘was printed from a hand-written copy made by Statileo himself [i.e. the discoverer of the Traguriensis] but altered in many places by the incompetent printer-editor Frambotti’ (Schmeling and Stuckey [this note], 18). More precisely, Annibale Gradari, director of the ‘scuola di Grammatica e di Umanità’ in Padua, was responsible for these alterations: cf. Pace (this note [2007]), 311–12; id. (this note [2008]), 383–5. The editio princeps of the Cena is here influenced by the excerpta longa-editions, as is apparent from a small detail: beside nostrum non, the editio princeps has dii, the reading of L, instead of dei, the reading of H and φ (Müller [n. 2] quotes the variant dii of L only in the critical apparatus of his first edition). On the influence of L on the Frambotti-edition, see Pace (this note [2007]), 311 n. 24. The text of the editio princeps is reproduced by later editions: J.C. Tilebomenus [i.e. J. Mentel], Anekdoton ex Petronii Arbitri Satirico, Fragmentum (Paris, 1664); Scheffer, J., T. Petronii Arbitri Fragmentum nuper Tragurii Dalmatiae repertum (Uppsala, 1665)Google Scholar; Reinesius, Th., T. Petronii Arbitri in Dalmatia nuper repertum fragmentum (Leipzig, 1666)Google Scholar; Arnold, C., T. Petronii Arbitri Fragmentum Traguriense (Nuremberg, 1667)Google Scholar; Hadrianides, M., Titi Petronii Arbitri Equitis Romani Satyricon, cum fragmento nuper Tragurii reperto (Amsterdam, 1669)Google Scholar, who quotes the reading of H in his note ad loc.; Boschius, J., Titi Petronii Arbitri Equitis Romani Satyricon (Amsterdam, 1677)Google Scholar; Nodot, F., Titi Petronij Arbitri Equitis Romani Satyricon (Cologne, 1691)Google Scholar. However, Lucio, G., Integrum Titi Petronii Arbitri Fragmentum (Amsterdam, 1670)Google Scholar—‘an exact reproduction of the Traù manuscript’ (Schmeling and Stuckey [this note], 18)—reports correctly the word order of H and indicates the discrepancy with the editio princeps in the collatio at page 69. On Lucio's edition and its useful collatio, see Pace (this note [2007]), 311–12 nn. 23–4; Pace (this note [2011]), 139–40. non nostrum is adopted also by the influential editions of P. Burman, Titi Petronii Arbitri Satyricôn (Utrecht, 17091; Amsterdam, 17432) and by Anton, G.C., Petronii Arbitri Satyricon (Leipzig, 1781)Google Scholar.

5 Bücheler, F., Petronii Arbitri Satirarum Reliquiae (Berlin, 1862)Google Scholar.

6 G. Schmeling (with the collaboration of A. Setaioli), A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius (Oxford, 2011), 315: ‘nemo … nostrum non (Lφ: non nostrum H; L and H at times show opposite word order)’. Gianotti, G.F., La Cena di Trimalchione. Dal Satyricon di Petronio (Acireale and Rome, 2013)Google Scholar, 468: ‘nostrum non è l’ordo verborum dei testimoni di Lφ; in H si legge non nostrum’. There is no comment on the problem in Smith, M.S., Petronii Arbitri Cena Trimalchionis (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar and in older editions of the Cena that have a commentary.

7 I quote from Håkanson, L., L. Annaeus Seneca maior. Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae divisiones colores (Leipzig, 1989)Google Scholar; the translation is from Winterbottom, M., Seneca the Elder. Declamations. Volume I: Controversiae, Books 1–6 (Cambridge, MA, 1974)Google Scholar. Other examples of nemo + non + partitive genitive: Suet. Iul. 75.2 (Caesar) nemini non suorum quem uellet unum partis aduersae seruare concessit; [Quint.] Decl. mai. 6.10 (ed. Håkanson) equidem, iudices, ut sentio, neminem non mortalium fauere hominis sepulturae conuenit, quia haec una res est, cuius exemplum ad omnes pertineat; [Quint.] Decl. min. 311.4 id quamuis nulli non uestrum existimo esse manifestum, quibusdam tamen confessis argumentis ostendere uolo. The construction is common also with the pronoun nullus: Sen. Consol. Pol. 14.3 nulla non harum; Plin. HN 2.146 nulla non earum; Suet. Tib. 66.1 nullo non damnatorum. Examples with ex are also of note: Sen. Ep. 121.13 nemo non ex nobis; Dial. 11.14.3 nemo non ex istisuiris. A general discourse on the double negation nemo non with partitive genitive goes beyond the scope of the present article.

8 On this point I think that it is enough to compare the very intricate construction at Petron. Sat. 67.1–2 […] sed narra mihi, Gai, rogo, Fortunata quare non recumbit?’ ‘quomodo nosti’ inquit ‘illam’ Trimalchio ‘nisi argentum composuerit, […]’. See Vannini, G., Petronii Arbitri ‘Satyricon’ 100–115: edizione critica e commento (Berlin and New York, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Petron. Sat. 102.3.

9 The excerpter of φ intervenes often quite heavily in the text; as we shall see below, it is possible that L depends on φ in this section. Another possibility is that the non was omitted before nostrum (haplography) and was reintegrated in the wrong position.

10 H. van Thiel, Petron: Überlieferung und Rekonstruktion (Leiden, 1971), 17–20. Van Thiel's reconstruction is endorsed by Reeve, M.D., ‘Petronius’, in Reynolds, L.D. (ed.), Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford, 1983), 295300Google Scholar, at 297 and Müller, K., Petronius. Satyrica-Schelmengeschichten (Munich and Zurich, 1983), 424Google Scholar. I am working on an article on the position of the Florilegium Gallicum in Petronius’ stemma. In general, I would like to point out that modern editors and commentators are quite vague, if not contradictory, on this respect, also because they are misled by the stemma of Müller (this note), 448, which is not fully compatible with van Thiel's reconstruction, adopted also by Reeve (this note). For the specific problem of 75.1, it is worth considering once again Schmeling's commentary (n. 6). When he comments: ‘nemo … nostrum non (Lφ: non nostrum H; L and H at times show opposite word order)’, he seems not to consider that L is possibly depending on φ in this point and, therefore, has no value in itself.

11 Müller (n. 10), 4312; Müller (n. 1), xix.