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L. Varius Rufus, De Morte (Frs. 1–4 Morel)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. S. Hollis
A. S. Hollis
Affiliation:
Keble College, Oxford
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Extract

Already an admired senior poet to Virgil in the Eclogues (9.35), Varius by the mid-thirties, B.C. had established himself as the leading epic writer of his day (Horace, Sat. 1.10.43–4). It is a sobering thought that we do not know even the titles of the serious hexameter works which had won him so high a reputation, except for de Morte, quoted four times by Macrobius (from whom we may gather that the poem was not split into more than one book).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , May 1977 , pp. 187 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

1 See Bardon, , La Littérature latine inconnue, vol. ii, pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

1 Rivista di filologia N.S. 37 (1959), 380–94.Google Scholar

3 The texts, with a summary of the voluminous scholarship on them, are conveniently reproduced by Gigante, M., Cronache ercolanesi 3 (1973), 86–7. Varius' name is certain in both fragments.Google Scholar

4 Bassi, D., Herculanensium Voluminum Quae Supersunt, Collectio Tertia, vol. i (Milan, 1914), 19 ff.Google ScholarGigante, , Ricerche filodemee (1969), pp. 63–122, discusses and annotates the most interesting portions.Google Scholar

5 e.g. Odes ii. 14.23 on the cypress (Gigante, , Ricerche filodemee, p. 111)–one can cite several other points of contact.Google Scholar

6 Philodemus over den Dood (Amsterdam, 1925), p. 96.Google Scholar

7 JRS 31 (1941), 154.Google Scholar

8 Momigliano, , op. cit. 153–4.Google Scholar

9 A point which Rostagni, (op. cit. 383) appears to overlook.Google Scholar

10 Morel, , FPL, p. 103 (from Martial 11. 20).Google Scholar

11 Morel would join them (supported by Wigodsky, M.Virgil and Early Latin Poetry, p. 103 n.507).Google Scholar

12 I would not argue that the de Morte must be later than March 43 (the date of the Twelfth Philippic); the catch phrase including ‘figere’ and ‘refigere’ could have been current during the previous year (cf. ‘fixit legem’ in ad Att. 14.12.1, which I quote later).

13 The basic discussion of Antony's agrarian legislation was by Sternkopf, W. in Hermes 47 (1912), 146–51.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Bailey on Lucr. 3.31–93 (vol. ii, p. 996) for the same idea in other Epicurean texts.

15 Bailey's text with commentary gives the same pattern in Lucretius 3.83. But it seems much more likely that ‘hunc’ in 3.83 picks up ‘hunc … timorem’ in 82, and that ’ (84) is corrupt.

16 Discussed by Momigliano, , op. cit. 154.Google Scholar

17 Professor Long points out that the taming of animals was a subject which interested Epicureans (cf. Huby, P., ‘The Epicureans, Animals and Free-will’, Apeiron 3 (1969), 17–19).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 A refusal to be diverted is also the essence in Silius' imitation of Varius fr. 4 (Punica 10.79–82).

19 The echo of Lucretius 3.37 ‘et metus ille foras praeceps Acheruntis agendus’ is obvious.

20 For comments and information I am indebted to Mr. E.W. Gray, Professor R.G.M. Nisbet, and Mr. David Sedley.