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Ennius and the ‘Isiaci Coniectores’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

M. S. Salem
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Extract

At the end of the first book of Cicero's De diuinatione there occurs a tantalising passage containing a specific mention of the ‘Isiac diviners.’ It used to be attributed to Ennius by the earlier editors of that author, but since the time of Bothe this view has not been generally accepted. The passage runs ‘non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem, non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos, non Isiacos coniectores, non interpretes somniorum; non enim sunt ii aut scientia aut arte divini.’ The text is sound and there is no variant reading for the words ‘Isiaci coniectores’ which interest us most particularly in this study. The Italian colour of the passage (cf. ‘Marsus augur, de circo astrologi’) excludes the possibility of a Greek origin, and the question is merely to whom, Ennius or Cicero, the words ‘Isiaci coniectores’ should be assigned. It must be admitted that the words ‘non habeo … divini’ are not metrical and it would be hopeless to defend them in their present form as the ipsissima verba of Ennius. But the possibility that they contain a more or less close paraphrase of Ennius is suggested by the use of ‘non habeo … nauci,’ a phrase which Cicero never used. ‘Isiacus’ too is a rare word, which does not appear elsewhere in Republican Latin (v. infra pp. 58, 59, n. 21 and 22).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , 1938 , pp. 56 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © M. S. Salem 1938. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Columna, Hieronymus, Q. Ennii poetae vetustissimi quae supersunt fragmenta (Naples, 1590), 346 and 349 ffGoogle Scholar. Scriverius, Petrus, Collectanea veterum tragicorum … quibus accedunt castigationes et notae uberiores Gerardi Ioannis Vossii, Leyden, 1620Google Scholar (Collectanea, 28, Castigationes, 44 f.).

2 Bothe, F. H., Poetae scenici Latinorum, I (Halberstadt, 1823), 62 f.Google Scholar; cf. O. Ribbeck, Tragicorum Romanorum fragmenta 3, 61; Lafaye, , Historie du culte des divinités d' Alexandrie (Bibl. des Écoles françaises d' Athènes et de Rome, xxxiii), 40, n. 3Google Scholar.

3 The only modern editor who prints the words ‘non habeo … somnium’ (sic) in verse from is W. A. Falconer, Cic. De diuinatione (Loeb Classical Library).

4 Vide Merguet, , Lexicon z. den philos. Schriften Cicero's, s.v. ‘nauci’ vol. ii, p. 650Google Scholar; Lexicon z. den Reden des Cicero, vol. iii, p.244.

5 Pease ad Cic. De diuinatione, i, 132Google Scholar (vol. i, p.366), note on ‘sed superstitiosi.’

6 G. Wissowa, RK 2 (1912), 64.

7 Dion. Hal., Ant. R., ii, 19, 5.

8 Livy, xxv, 1, 7; Fowler, W. W., Religious Experience of the Roman People, 324 f.Google Scholar; Grenier, A., The Roman Spirit of Religion, Thought and Art, tr. by Dobie (1926), 155Google Scholar.

9 Livy, xxxix, 8–17.

10 Livy, xl, 29, 3 ff.; Valerius Maximus, i, 1, 12; Pliny, NH, xiii, 13, 84–87Google Scholar; Plutarch, Numa, xxii, 7–8Google Scholar; Augustine, St., De ciuit. Dei, vii, 34Google Scholar.

11 SIG 3, 280, ll. 42–45.

12 P. Roussel, Les cultes égyptiens à Délas (Ann. de l'Est., publ. par la Faculté des Lettres de Nancy, 29–30), inscript. no. 1, p. 71 ff.

13 G. F. Hill, Coins of Sicily, 204 f.; Head, B. V., Hist. Num.2, 134, 187Google Scholar.

14 CIL i2, 698 (Puteoli); for the date of the older Iseum at Pompeii, see Nissen, , Pomp. Studien, 170, 174Google Scholar.

15 CIL i2, 986, 1263; Catullus, x, 26–27; cf. also Apuleius, Met., xi, 30Google Scholar.

16 Livy, Per. 55.

17 Pliny, NH xxi, 3, 10Google Scholar.

18 Val. Max., ix, 14, 3; Pliny, l.c.

19 Livy, l.c.

20 Lafaye, G., Revue de l'hist. des relig. xi, 327 ffGoogle Scholar.

21 The word ‘coniector’ is not found in the extant fragments of Ennius; it is used, however, by Plautus (Amph. 1128, Curc. 249, Poen. 444), the elder contemporary of Ennius.

22 My sincere thanks are due to Professor Mountford of the University of Liverpool who read the draft of this article and made a number of corrections and to the editors of the Thes. Ling. Lat. for giving me full references to all the passages where the word ‘Isiacus’ occurs. Apart from the passage under discussion (Cic., De diu. i, 132Google Scholar) the adjective ‘Isiacus’ is found in prose in Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum 2, 3, 27, 1; Scholia ad. Juv. ii, 92 (ed. Wessner, p. 24; ed. Jahn-Buecheler, p. 76), and vi, 539 (ed. Wessner, p. 108). In poetry it is met with in Ovid, Pont. i, 1, 52; Manilius, i, 918; Juvenal, vi, 489; Ausonius, De feriis Rom. (ed. Peiper, p. 105), 24; Ad Pontium Paulinnm (ed. Peiper, p. 286), 22. The word occurs as a noun in verse in Cyprianus of Nola, Carm. 32, 117Google Scholar (ed. Hartel, , CSEL, 30, 333Google Scholar). In prose ‘Isiacus’ is found as a substantive in Val. Max. vii, 3, 8; Pliny, NH, xxvii, 53Google Scholar; Suet., Domit. 1, 2Google Scholar; Min. Felix, Octavius 22, 1Google Scholar; SHA, Commodus 9, 6; CIL vi, 1780, xiv, 18, 302, 343, 352, 4290.

23 Lafaye, G., Hisioire du culte des divinités d' Alexandrie (Bibl. des Écoles franç. d'Athènes et de Rome xxxiii), 42Google Scholar: ‘C'est pourquoi [the severity of the Roman authorities in the case of the so-called Books of Numa] nous ne croyons pas que, du temps d'Ennius, on vît des prêtres d'Isis abordés et consultés publiquement par des citoyens’; cf. also Pease ad Cic., De diu. i, 132, p. 335Google Scholar (note 1: ‘Isiacos coniectores’).