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The Giants in the Poem of Naevius
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
When we examine recent discussions about this fragment from the first book of the Bellum Poenicum (19 Morel, 44–6 Warmington, 7 Marmorale), we find an agreement such as otherwise is rare in classical studies. In many countries many scholars, old and young, have adopted Hermann Fränkel's view (Hermes LXX, 1935, 59 ff.) that the passage was inspired by certain sculptures which Naevius had seen at the temple of Zeus Olympios at Acragas. But whereas Fränkel himself drew only cautious conclusions (he assigned the fragment to the story of Aeneas and considered more than one possible way in which it might be connected with that story), several among his followers jumped to the history of the year 262 B.C. and used the fragment as a cornerstone for the reconstruction of the main narrative of the Bellum Poenicum.
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- Copyright © Eduard Fraenkel 1954. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 See e.g. Strzelecki, L., ‘De Naeviano belli Punici carmine,’ Rozprawy Wydz. filolog. T. LXV, no. 2, 1935Google Scholar, 11, ‘nihil obstat quominus hoc fragmentum e narratione de Agrigento obsesso haustum esse credamus’; Marmorale, E. V., Naevius poeta, 1st ed. (1945), p. 90 * f.Google Scholar, 2nd ed. (1950), p. 32 f.; Rowell, H. T., A. J. Philol. 68, 1947, 35Google Scholar, ‘we may therefore conclude that Naevius described the siege and fall of Agrigentum in Book 1,’ etc.; Bruère, R. T., Class. Philol. 47, 1952, 39Google Scholar, ‘The fragment [Inerant signa expressa …] is assigned by Priscian to the first book of the Bellum Punicum and indicates that the siege of Agrigentum in 262 B.C. was here included’: Grimal, P., RÉA 53, 1951, 364Google Scholar, ‘l'importance accordée par Naevius … à la description du temple de Zeus Olympien à Agrigente.’
2 Not many Latinists will be prepared to accept Professor Warmington's translation of quo modo Titani, ‘in the fashion of Titans.’
3 Morel is right in putting three dots after filii Terras.
4 See Bentley's note on Horace, Odes 2, 19, 23.
5 See Appendix.
6 See H. Fränkel, p. 59 f.
7 Pfeiffer, on Callim. fr. 119, 2 (vol. 1, p. 134)Google Scholar, after defending his poet against an ancient charge of confusing Giants and Titans, observes ‘vera “confusio” solum apud scriptores Graecos posterioris aetatis et apud Latinos’.
8 cf. Puchstein, P-W 11, 2107.
9 E. S(pangenberg), Ennii Annalium fragmenta, 1825, 195, observed, ‘Atlantes nonnisi in hoc Naevii versu occurrunt. Idem videntur esse, qui Gigantes.’
10 These Telamones “waren hauptsächlich nackte männliche Kolossalfiguren von 7.68 m. Höhe, die vor einer Wand stramm aufrecht stehend auf dem Kopfe eine Last trugen’ (Koldewey und Puchstein, Die griechischen Tempel in Unteritalien, 1, 158). Some pictures of the preserved pieces of the Telamones can be found in P. Marconi, Agrigento (1929), 62 and 169 ff., and, in a better reproduction, in the same writer's article in Dedalo, 12, 1932, 166–71. For the discussion on the place which the Telamones occupied at the temple see Cook, A. B., Zeus III, 2 (1940), 1171 f.Google Scholar, and add Krischen, Arch. Anz. 1942, 2 ff.
11 See Q. Enni …fragmenta … conlecta … ab Paullo G.F.P.N. Merula, Lugd. Bat. 1595, p. L, where the lines of our fragment are quoted, with the comment ‘γιγαντομαχίαν … depingunt’.
12 For a bibliography see e.g. Waser, P-W, Suppl. 111, 701 ff. There are two recent monographs by Vian, Francis, Répertoire de Gigantomachies figurées, etc., Paris, 1951Google Scholar, and La guerre des Géants, 1952.
13 The article ‘exprimo’, Thes. l. L. V, 2, 1788, 22, merely reproduces Morel's note.
14 Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft 9, 1842, 191Google Scholar. Bergk says in the text that the fragment of Naevius is ‘the description of the gigantomachy and titanomachy in the temple of Jupiter at Agrigentum’, and in a footnote he quotes Diodorus 13, 82, 4, τῶν δὲ στοῶν … τῷ κάλλει διαφερούσις, i.e. the passage describing the gigantomachy on the East pediment of the temple (Diodorus, it is true, does not speak of a pediment but says ἐν τῷ πρὸς ἕω μέρει; however, the fact that ἐν τῷ πρὸς δυσμάς the capture of Troy was represented seems to exclude the possibility of metopes being thought of). When Marmorale, , Naevius poeta, 2nd ed., p. 30Google Scholar, says ‘secondo il Bergk la descrizione doveva riguardare un tempio di Agrigento, ma non ne aveva dato una prova esplicita’, it appears that he knows the reference to Bergk in Klussmann's edition (1843) of Naevius, p. 46, but has not read Bergk himself. No one familiar with the sad condition of most Italian libraries will blame him for that, but then he ought not to have criticized the great scholar.
15 See now especially Salis, v., ‘Die Gigantomachie am Schilde der Athena Parthenos,’ Jahrb. des Inst. 55, 1940, 90 ffGoogle Scholar.
16 Klussmann and Vahlen in their editions of Naevius quote Niebuhr.
17 cf. e.g. Apoll. Rhod. 1, 730 ἐν μὲν ἔσαν κτλ., 735 ἐν δ᾽ ἔσαν κτλ., Quint. Smyrn. 6, 200 ἐν μὲν ἕσαν κτλ., 260 ἐν δ᾽ ἄρ′ ἔην κτλ. I had noticed these passages (it was easy enough) when I found in Maximilian Mayer's book, Die Giganten und Titanen, 1887, 267 f., this remark: ‘In dem Punier-Krieg des Naevius …, wo die Worte vorkommen: inerant signa … filii Terras, wird man zunächst immer an einen Schild denken müssen, wie man sich denn auch sogleich an das ἐν δ᾽ ἔσαν der herkömmlichen Schildbeschreibungen erinnert sieht.’—The expression is not, of course, confined to ἐκφράσεις of shields; see e.g. Moschus, Europa 44 ἐν μὲν ἔην κτλ., 50 ἐν δ᾽ ἦν κτλ.
18 He quotes the passage ‘Inerant signa expressa’, etc., a second time (Gramm. 11, 217, 10), as evidence fer the form Titanus, and here he stops at the end of 1. 2, Atlantes. The omission of 1. 3 may be intentional or may have occurred in the course of the transmission of Priscian's text.