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Propertius 3.11.33–38 and the Death of Pompey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. L. Butrica
J. L. Butrica
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland
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Extract

In the midst of his fulminations against Cleopatra, Propertius denounces her land of Egypt in the following ‘wholly admirable parenthesis:’

Noxia Alexandria, dolis aptissima tellus

Et totiens nostro Memphi cruenta malo,

Tres ubi Pompeio detraxit harena triumphos!

Toilet nulla dies hanc tibi, Roma, notam.

Issent Phlegraeo melius tibi funera campo

Vel tua si socero colla daturus eras.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , May 1993 , pp. 342 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

1 The following are cited by author's name only: the commentaries of Beroaldus (from the edition of Zuan Tacuino (Venice, 1500)), Butler (London, 1904), Butler and Barber (Oxford, 1933), Camps (Book 3; Cambridge, 1966), Fedeli (Book 3; Bari, 1985), Hertzberg (Halle, 1843–5), Paley (London, 1872), Richardson (Norman, 1977), and Rothstein (Berlin, 1898), as well as Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Propertiana (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar. The quotation is from Butler and Barber, p. 289.

2 Among its descendants L alone preserves this; P has the further corruption ‘Re tibi’, while F's ‘Haec libi’ seems to be a ‘correction’ by Petrarch.

3 My knowledge of Passerat's view derives from the variorum edition of Simon Gabbema (Utrecht, 1659).

4 I have seen it mentioned only in the commentary of Burman-Santen (Utrecht, 1780), which cites in its support only the passage from Claudian before rushing on to consider the difficulties of the following couplet.

5 Selections from Tibullus and Propertius (Oxford,1900)Google Scholar.

6 Commentators resist the notion that Propertius could be suggesting execution here rather than surrender, but it is difficult to see how a Roman reading ‘colla’ could fail to recall Pompey's decapitation. The passage of Lucan cited below suggests that a Roman could indeed conceive Pompey dying at Caesar's hand and could believe such a death preferable to one by a servile hand (see also n. 7).

7 The idea that death is less disgraceful by a free Roman's hand than by an Egyptian slave's is also implicit in Seneca, S. 6.6 ‘Quid indignamur in Ciceronem Antonio licere quod in Pompeium Alexandrino licuit spadoni?’