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Observations on The ‘Cornelia’ Elegy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. R. Hamilton
J. R. Hamilton
Affiliation:
Universtiy of Otago
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Extract

The text of lines 39–40 is open to three main objections: stimulantem pectu Achilli cannot be construed in its context; to refer tuas to Persen would involvi difficult, though not unexampled, change of person; and thirdly, and most serious, it is scarcely possible to believe that Cornelia could appeal to a king of Macedon to testify to the soundness of her morals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 3-4 , July 1957 , pp. 134 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1957

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References

1 I am deeply indebted to Professor G. P. Goold of the University of Cape Town for his searching criticism and for several valuable suggestions. He is not responsible for what remains.

2 Unless we are to regard Achilli, as Postgate suggests (Select Elegies, p. 235), as an extreme instance of a ‘Propertian’ genitive— ‘goading his breast to an Achilles' courage’.

3 Simulate appears always to mean ‘pretend to something’, or ‘lay claim to something one does not possess’

1 Five instances are collected by Butler and Barber on 2. g. 15–16. It is true that in four of the cases the second person pronoun is used, not the adjective, a construction which seems to me somewhat easier. The remaining instance occurs in the notoriously difficult ‘Paetus’ poem (3. 7) and there tua … ossa (v. 11) is followed in the next line by tibi.

2 Santen’s te, Perseu, in v. 39 provides a vocative, but the reference to Perseus is very abrupt, and Cornelia is still said to appeal to Perseus.

3 Schuster (Philologus, Ixxxi [1926], 478) does not meet this objection. Postgate (Select Elegies, p. 236) writes: ‘it is quite in keeping with Propertius’ manner to appeal to the conquered as witnesses to the con queror's glory’. This is true, but irrelevant here.

4 Journal of Philology, vi. 53 ff.

5 This is the reading of v and, if proavos is nominative, of μ also; in all probability, therefore, it stood in the text of N, which is lacking for vv. 17–76 of this elegy.

1 Housman characteristically called it ‘incoherent’. I cannot see that Claudian, , Lous Serenae, w. 42–43Google Scholar, affords any support for the emendation Afra: claram Scipiadum taccat Cornelia gentem | segue minus iactet Libycis dotata tropaeis may refer equally well to w. 38 and 43.

2 Journal of Philology, xxii. 108.Google Scholar

3 Sexti Properti quae supersunt omnia (1928), Adn. 16, p. 394. ‘pentameter praecedens ad caesuram habuit litteras—ros urgea-t; itaque post -nos facile potuit scribi urgea, illud postea n regno mutari.’

4 This view is supported by the reference to titulis in w. 32 and 38. I cannot accept Paimer's original view that aera nostra means ‘family coins’, although the surrender of Perseus to Aemilius Paullus is depicted on a denarius of Paullus Lepidus (Sydenham, The Coinage of the Roman Republic, No. 926).

5 This is true also if we accept Hoppe's conjecture atra which Schuster prints in die Peubner edition.

1 I know of Koppiers's arguments only from Butler and Barber (ad loc).

2 Sexti Properti Opera Omnia (1905), p. 398.Google Scholar

3 See Platnauer, M., Latin Elegiac Verse, P. 33 ff.Google Scholar

1 e.g. 1. II. 28–29 litora discidium | litora …; 1. 10. 16–17 possum aperire fores | et possum…