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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
post rorem, ‘after the dew’, seems nonsense and Shackleton Bailey has not unreasonably proposed post florem, comparing for the idiom Columella RR 2. 11. 10 diebus quadraginta, quibus post florem ad maturitatem devenit. But ros here stands for ros marinus, ‘rosemary’, as in Vergil, Georg. 2. 212–13:
nam ieiuna quidem clivosi glarea ruris
vix humilis apibus casias roremque ministrat.
The poet is not presenting us with a piece of botanical information about the relative seasons of the violet and rosemary; he means rather that all flowers wither and fade, one after the other. Four specific examples illustrate his point. For the collocation of these same four flowers see Ovid, Met. 12. 410–11:
ut modo rore maris, modo se violave rosave
inplicet, interdum canentia lilia gestet
1 Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Towards a Text of ‘Anthologia Latina’. Cambridge Philological Society supplementary volume no. 5 (Cambridge, 1979), p. 12Google Scholar.
2 Some have questioned the meaning ‘rosemary’ for ros in Vergil, loc. cit. Thus Heyne commented ‘Ros marinus quidem, frutex, a Servio intelligitur, quem alii sequuntur. Sed nondum locum vidi, in quo ille simpliciter ros apellaretur.’ The present passage from the Anth. Lat. provides the parallel desiderated. See also Pliny, , HN 24. 101Google Scholar.