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Cantores Euphorionis again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Christopher Tuplin
Christopher Tuplin
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

Why cantoribus? The reference of the phrase cantores Euphorionis has been much discussed, by the author of this note among others. But what is the sense of cantores? The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Lewis and Short, and the Oxford Latin Dictionary variously classify Tusc. 3.45 as an instance of cantor in the special sense of ‘supporter’, ‘imitator’, or ‘eulogist’. Recently, however, W. Allen suggested that this may be to read too much into the word: ‘… cantor could well have the standard meaning of personal and private recitation of poetry. Since sometime cantare and legere have a semantic identity, however, it may be possible that the word cantores in hi cantores Euphorionis has a meaning no more momentous than that of lector. ’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , December 1979 , pp. 358 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

1 See my ‘Cantores Euphorionis’ in Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 1976 (= ARCA ii, ed. and publ. by Cairns, F.) (Liverpool, 1977), 1 ff.Google Scholar

2 TLL: ‘de poetarum asseclis vel imitatoribus; Lewis and Short: ‘extoller, eulogist’; OLD: ‘one who sings the praises of’. For the interpretation ‘imitator’ cf. also recently Lyne, R.O.A M., CQ N.S. 28 (1978), 174 n. 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 TAPA 103 (1972), 14.Google Scholar

4 Sat. 1.3.129; 1.2.3.

5 e.g. Cic. Sest. 118 (on which see below); Hor. AP 155; Sen. Epist. 84.10; Suet. Calig. 54; Arnob. Nat. 2.38; Prud. contra Symm. 2.647;Paul. Fest. 34; Diomed. GL 1.488,1; Reisch, , RE iii. 1499.Google Scholar

6 Cf. Jocelyn, H.D., The Tragedies of Ennius (Cambridge, 1967), p. 29.Google Scholar

7 For the metaphorical interpretation cf. C. O. Brink on Ars Poetica 155.

8 Cf. e.g. Sest. 75–82 passim.

9 Thus ‘Cantores Euphorionis’ (cit. n. 1), pp. 1–4. This is of course not to say that as a term of literary criticism or is not depreciatory, only that it is not personally insulting. Thanks are due to Robin Seager, Josette Jackson, Oliver Lyne, and Professor R. G. M. Nisbet for casting their several critical eyes over an earlier draft of this note.