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Propertius 4. 1. 9

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. S. Watt
Affiliation:
King's College, Aberdeen

Extract

Most modern editors adopt one or other of two readings: (1) quot gradibus domus ista Remi se sustulit! olim / unus erat etc.; (2) qua gradibus domus ista Remi se sustulit, olim / unus erat etc. It is true that a large number of steps leading up to a temple is an indicationof its magnificence; cf. Ovid, Pont. 3. 2. 49 f. templa manent hodie vastis innixa columnis, / perque quater denos itur in ilia gradus. Nevertheless in this context qua is more probable than quot, in view of the local relative clauses in line 1 (quamaxima Roma est) and line 3 (ubi Navali slant sacra Palatia Phoebo).

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1975

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References

1 The alternative quo (‘to what height’), with the same construction, has sometimes been advocated, but is less convincing.

2 In his edition of Propertius Book iv (Cambridge, 1965).Google Scholar

3 e.g. 3. 3. 15 f quid tibi aim tali, demeru, est Amine? quis te / carminis heroi tangere iussit opus? Such examples, and other cases of sense-stops in the last two feet of the hexameter, are conveniently collected in the ‘Index metricus et prosodiacus’ appended to Schuster's Teubner text (p. 177 of the 1954 edition).

4 I do not regard an quae at I. 12. 9 as beginning a new sentence.

5 And not to the (or a) casa Romuli.