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Proba's introduction to her Cento

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. P. H. Green
R. P. H. Green
Affiliation:
Glasgow University
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Extract

The cento of Proba has recently enjoyed a remarkable upsurge of scholarly interest. A welcome translation was provided in 1981, and an article of five years later, scrutinizing the evidence for its date and authorship, has aroused much controversy. In two recent contributions vindicating the traditional date new or more precise suggestions have been made about the poem's historical context. In between these, yet another article has argued, without confirming or refuting the revised dating and attribution, that in various ways the work reflects the interest of the aristocratic ladies of the Anician family. And now there is a second article by Danuta Shanzer, repeating many of her early points (not always with greater clarity) and adding some interesting new ones. All this sudden attention is not unmerited, for as Herzog observed long ago the work is not of the comic or trivializing kind that Ausonius envisaged in his comments on the genre and does not degrade Vergil but rather, at least in the often quoted words of its prefatory poem, ‘improves’ him.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 1997 , pp. 548 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

1 Clark, E. A. and Hatch, D.F, The Golden Bough, the Oaken Cross: The Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba(American Academy of Religion: Texts and Translations 5 [1981]).Google Scholar

2 Shanzer, D, ‘The Anonymous Carmen contra paganos and the Date and Identity of the Centonist Proba’, Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes32 (1986), 232–48.Google Scholar

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5 Shanzer, D., ‘The Date and Identity of the Centonist Proba’, Recherches Augustiniennes 27 (1994), 75–96. Her new comments affect Matthews’ dating rather than my own, and I confine myself to observing that the apparent reference in 11. 690–1 of the cento to controversy about the timing of Easter, discussed on pp. 91–6, need not refer to a particular year, but could just as easily relate to a time (such as the 350s or early 360s, to judge from the data assembled there), when uncertainty on this issue was particularly marked.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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8 Maroneml mutatum in melius, from the preface about to be discussed (11. 3–4).

9 For iubeoliussain such contexts, see Mynors on Vergil, G.3.41.

10 Sivan (n. 4), pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

11 Early 395 according to Sivan, before June 397 according to Green (n. 7, p. 562).

12 Shanzer (n. 2), pp. 234–5, and Sivan (n. 4), p. 146, whose words ‘it is worth noting that there is at least one archetypal lacuna in that part (at line 233), a tenuous but possible indication of different archetypes’, beggar the understanding.

13 Schenkl, K., Poetae Christiani Minores (CSELXVI: Leipzig, 1888), p. 523.Google Scholar

14 Line 42 may conceal a lacuna: see below

15 Add A.6.721 for miseros... dira cupido.

16 See Matthews (n. 3), pp. 291–9.

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19 As in Liv. 21.32.7 fama... qua incerta in mains veroferri solent;Verg. A.7.231/2 nee vestra fereturfama levis.

20 3 in Downey.

21 To the small collection of references cited by Green on Ausonius, Moselle405/6 add HA Antoninus Pius13.4 sine civili sanguine et hostili.

22 As in Ausonius III. 15/16, where tantum... spatiumis followed by quanta... tempora;and Cic. Div. in Caec41, where illius... temporisis followed by quo die.

23 There is a similar interpretation in the Loeb translation, and in R. Klein, Athenaeum57 (1979), 99, and Matthews, J.F, The Roman Empire of Ammianus(London, 1989), pp. 233–234. See also the translations quoted by P. de Jonge, A Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XVI(Groningen, 1972), adloc.Google Scholar

24 Jer. in Gal.1.8 se itaque et angetum nominatim posuit, alias vero absque nomine;Sulp. Sev. Chron.1.54.7 Godoliam eiusdem gentis praeposuit absque ullo insigni regio aut imperii nomine.

25 This could be claimed as an early example of the ‘senatorial’ interpretation of this event seen by D. Vera, ‘La Polemica contro l′abuso imperiale del trionfo: rapporti fra ideologia, economia e propaganda nel Basso Impero’, Rivista Storica dell′Antichita10 (1980), 89–132.Google Scholar

26 Aus. Ep.9b 35–52, CIL6.1752.4.

27 R. P. H. Green, CQ45 (1995), 555–556.Google Scholar

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29 On this see M. R. Cacioli, in her article ‘Addattamenti semantici e sintattici nel Centone Virgiliano di Proba’, SIFC41 (1969), 188–246, at 216–217; but it may be wrong to assume that the pseudo-Tertullianic carmen adversus Marcionemwas written before Proba.Google Scholar

30 Paulinus c 18.25–69, Prudentius, Hamartigenia931–966.

31 For this see Persius, prol. 14 and Bramble, J. C., Persius and the Programmatic Satire: A Study in Form and Imagery(Cambridge, 1974), p. 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Cf. also Lucret. 5.1199 vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras,and the proverbial lapidemque a sepulchro veneraripro deo(Cic. Plane.95).

33 Cf. schol. Aristoph. Plutus39.

34 Hardly a medieval forgery as maintained by Polara, G., Optatianus Porphyrius, Carmina I(Turin, 1973), pp. 4–6; this was always unlikely on stylistic grounds, and the chronological difficulties are well solved by T. D. Barnes, Constantine andEusebius(Harvard, 1981), pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

35 Lines 25–8 in poem 10 (Hartel), printed as App. B3 in Green.Google Scholar

36 petere e nemoribus out iugis(10.28). Various manuscripts gjvefonte,but their lines do not scan.

37 For example Tert. Apol.14, Minucius Felix, Octavius24, Aus. II 3.44.

38 ‘Stellvertretend’ is the word of R. Herzog, Die Bibelepik,Einfuhrung, p. LI, n. 160.

39 Shanzer (n. 2), p. 236. The text of this paragraph has suffered typographical corruption (the half-word ‘spe-’ has no continuation), but the thrust of her argument, repeated in (n. 5), pp. 88–89, is plain enough.

40 Poem 4 in Riese's Anthologia Latina,poem 3 in Shackleton Bailey's.

41 ‘It is not my task indeed to publicize my fame on the strength of words, thereby to seek some small acclaim from human favor’.

42 Ermini, F., II centone di Proba e lapoesia centonaria latina (Rome, 1909), p. 17.Google Scholar

43 Juvencus, Pref.17–18. See Van der Nat, P. G., ‘Die Praefatio der Evangelienparaphrase des Iuvencus’, in Boer, W. den, Nat, P. G. van der, Sicking, C. M. J., and Winden, J. C. M. van (edd.), Romanitas et Christianitas: Studia lano Henrico Waszink … oblata (Amsterdam, 1973), pp. 249–257.Google Scholar

44 Herzog, Die Bibelepik,Einfuhrung p. L, n. 156. Cf. also Paulinus of Nola, c 6.20–4.

45 Translated by Clark and Hatch as ‘That Vergil put to verse Christ's sacred duties let me tell’. According to Shanzer (n. 2, p. 232) Proba ‘used the words of Vergil to retell portions of the Old and New Testament’; for Sivan (n. 4, p. 141) her purpose is ‘to sing the praises of Christ in Virgilian verses’, for Charlet, J.-L. in Fontaine, J. and Pietri, C. (edd.), Le Monde latin antique et la Bible(Bible de Tous les temps, 2: Paris 1985), pp. 634–635, it is ‘montrer que Vergile a chante l′histoire sainte, et done inviter a lire la Bible a travers son oeuvre’. No help is offered by W. Kirsch, Die Lateinische Versepik des vierten Jahrhunderts(Berlin, 1989), p. 122.Google Scholar

46 Wiesen (n. 28), pp. 72 and 85.

47 See Green on Ausonius II 3.81.

48 S. J. Harrison, Vergil Aeneid 10(Oxford, 1991), adlocGoogle Scholar

49 Cf. Shanzer (n. 5), p. 86 for a different approach. But reference to Verg. A.9.777 suggests that there is nothing derogatory about the placing of the phrase arrna virum,and shows that the imperfect tense derives from Vergil. Ceciniwould not scan.