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Two conjectures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Stephen Heyworth
Stephen Heyworth
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

Horace, Carm. 1.12.33-40:

      Romulum post hos prius an quietum
      Pompili regnum memorem ac superbos
      Tarquini fascis dubito an Catonis nobile letum. 35

      Regulum et Scauros animaeque magnae
      prodigum Paulum superante Poeno
      gratus insigni referam Camena
      Fabriciumque. 40
      34 ac Hamacher an codd. 35 anne Curti Bentley
      35-7 catenis nobilitatum Regulum Hamacher

There seems little point in rehearsing at length the arguments of Bentley, Housman (CP 94-6), and others: Cato has no place amongst the ancient kings of Rome. Nisbet and Hubbard make a case for Horatian eulogy of the republican, but not for the gross disruption of Horace's poetic history. They incline towards emendation. However, Hamacher's conjecture is rejected because it ‘disrupts the pattern of three-stanza groups and substitutes a clumsy and artificial phrase for what is crisp and incisive’, and Bentley's ‘more plausible’ suggestion because ‘nobile letum is so applicable to Cato's suicide’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 30 , 1984 , pp. 72 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

NOTES

1. However, they do not face Housman's argument that Ep. 1.19.13-14 and Virg. Aen.8.670 would be referred to the elder Cato, were it not for this passage.