¹ I should like to acknowledge gratefully a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities that allowed me to research and write this paper; also the advice of my colleague at Wesleyan University, Professor Clark Maines, and of Professor Carole Newlands of the University of California, Los Angeles. My thanks, too, to the members of the Princeton Late Antiquity seminar, to whom I presented this paper in the fall of 1993, for their lively discussion and helpful suggestions, especially to Professors Peter Brown, Slobadan Ćurčić and Wolf Liebeschuetz.Google Scholar

The following books and articles will be referred to in abbreviated form by author only: Brennan = Brian Brennan, “The Career of Venantius Fortunatus,” Traditio 41 (1985): 49–78; George = George, Judith W., Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul (Oxford, 1992); Hosius = Carl Hosius, Die Moselgedichte des Decimus Magnus Ausonius und des Venantius Fortunatus, 2nd ed. (Marburg i. H., 1909); Koebner = Richard Koebner, Venantius Fortunatus: seine Persönlichkeit und seine Stellung in der geistigen Kultur des Merowinger-Reiches, Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance 22 (Leipzig, 1915); Navarra = Leandro Navarra, “A Proposito del De Navigio Suo di Venanzio Fortunato in rapporto alla Mosella di Ausonio e agli ‘itinerari’ di Ennodio,” Studi storico-religiosi 3 (1979): 79–131; Meyer = Wilhelm Meyer, Der Gelegenheitsdichter Venantius Fortunatus, Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, phil.-hist. Klasse, N.F. 4.5 (Berlin, 1901). For Fortunatus's education and early career, see Koebner, 10–12; Navarra, 81–86; Brennan, 50–53; and George, 22–23. I quote the poetry of Fortunatus from the edition of Friedrich Leo, Opera Poetica, MGH. AA. 4.1 (Berlin, 1881), and Ausonius from Green, R. P. H., The Works of Ausonius (Oxford, 1991).Google Scholar

² Manitius lists imitations of these poets in an appendix to Leo's edition. In a series of articles Sven Blomgren has augmented this list: “De Venantio Fortunato Vergilii aliorumque poetarum priorum imitatore,” Eranos 42 (1944): 81–88; “De Venantio Fortunato Lucani Claudianique imitatore,” Eranos 48 (1950): 150–56; “De Papinii, P. Statii apud Venantium Fortunatum vestigiis,” Eranos 48 (1950): 57–65, and “De locis Ovidii a Venantio Fortunato expressis,” Eranos 79 (1981): 82–85.Google Scholar

³ The Paulinus he mentions is the author of a verse work on Martin and, therefore, must be Paulinus of Périgueux. Fortunatus certainly knew the poetry of Paulinus of Nola, however. The two Paulini were confused by Gregory of Tours (Glor. conf. 108; Virt. Mart. 1.2) and Fortunatus probably also intends to allude to the earlier poet. For Fortunatus's imitation of Arator, see Sven Blomgren, “Ad Aratorem et Fortunatum adnotationes,” Eranos 72 (1974): 151–55.Google Scholar

⁴ Blomgren, “De Papiniii, P. Statii … vestigiis,” 62–64.Google Scholar

⁵ Hosius provides an edition with commentary of Ausonius's poem and of Fortunatus 3.12, 10.9, and the Moselle section of 3.13. Navarra studies the relation of Fortunatus 10.9 with the Mosella. Fortunatus's poem is described by George (158) as “a variation on the theme of Ausonius’ Mosella.”Google Scholar

⁶ For the date see Meyer, 14, Koebner, 66–67 (both of whom date the poem to after Fortunatus's move to Poitiers in 567); Brennan, 59–60; and George, 137, n. 30.Google Scholar

⁷ Vine-clad slopes (implied by the word super in this poem) feature in all Fortunatus's Moselle poems, but not in the description of any other rivers. (I do not include 6.8 among Moselle poems since it contains no landscape description or reference to the river by name, though a Moselle river journey provides the backdrop for the poem.) Ausonius attributes the same feature to the Garonne (Ordo Urbium Nobilium 138).Google Scholar

⁸ Schneider, Lambert, Die Domäne als Weltbild: Wirkungstrukturen der spätantiken Bildersprache (Wiesbaden, 1983), esp. 124–57.Google Scholar

⁹ Ibid. Schneider (130–34) distinguishes between crops and husbandry, hunting for animals and birds and fishing, air, water, and land, and wild and tame animals in the mosaics from the “Maison de Virgile” in Sousse and the Villa of the Laberii in Uthina, Tunisia.Google Scholar

¹⁰ “Et cum audissent vocem Domini Dei deambulantis in paradiso ad auram post meridiem.” The adjective levis is the standard poetic epithet for aura (ThLL 2.1478.24–28).Google Scholar

¹¹ For Paradise as a plantation or garden, see Jean Daniélou, Primitive Christian Symbols, trans. Donald Attwater (London, 1964), 25–41 (cf. Mic. 4:4), and Gregory of Tours, Vit. patr. 12 præf. For the association of “living water” with Paradise and baptism see Jacques Fontaine, “Le pélérinage de Prudence à Saint-Pierre et la spiritualité des eaux vives,” Orpheus 11 (1964): 248–58 (= Études sur la poésie latine tardive d'Ausone à Prudence (Paris, 1980), 468–78). Such language is appropriate both to the salvation Christians aspire to after death and to the ideal community of Christians within the Church, under the protection of its bishops, into which individuals enter through baptism. For the Church as a vineyard, see Leclercq, H., “Vigne, Vignoble,” DACL 15 (Paris, 1953), cols. 3113–18.Google Scholar

¹² On this subject, see Reinhart Herzog, “Metapher—Exegese—Mythos: Interpretationen zur Entstehung eines biblischen Mythos in der Literatur der Spätantike,” in Terror und Spiel: Probleme der Mythenrezeption, ed. Manfred Fuhrmann (Munich, 1971), 157–85. The development is a longstanding one, but is particularly frequent in Fortunatus, where biblical and religious subjects provide exempla and topoi for secular contexts.Google Scholar

¹³ Meyer, 11, 25; Koebner, 21; Brennan, 57–59.Google Scholar

¹⁴ “Urbs munita nimis, quam cingit murus et amnes/pontificis merito stas valitura magis.” For the text, see Sven Blomgren, “In Venantii Fortunati Carmina Adnotationes Novae,” Eranos 69 (1971): 108–09, who restores the amnes of the manuscripts for Leo's amnis. Google Scholar

¹⁵ Carm. 3.13.3 lambit odoriferas vernanti gramine ripas: Aus., Mos. 26 gramineas, amnis viridissime, ripas. Google Scholar

¹⁶ Compare alterius vires implet et ipse perit (Carm. 3.13.8) with celerant in te consumere nomen (Mos. 353) and, of the combination of Rhine and Moselle, accedent vires (434). But see, too, Lucan 1.400–01, 4.22–23, and 6.375, for the topos of the tributary losing its name. It is also worth noting that Fortunatus attributes to the tributary, the Seille (Salia), the clarity of stream that is a quality of the Moselle in Ausonius (55–74).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Like 3.12, 3.13 begins with a four-line vignette, in which all the verbs describe in near-synonymous terms the action of the river (pelagus … relaxat, movet … aquas, lambit … ripas, lavat herbarum … comas). The second couplet differs from the first only in that it describes the effect of the river on the banks.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Roses are associated with the luxurious appointment of banquets, and the luxuriance of an ideal landscape, especially in springtime. They are also associated with a happy existence after death. See Schneider, , Die Domäne als Weltbild (n. 8 above), 50, with further bibliography.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Compare Fortunatus Vita Martini S. 3.379, vernantia prata, which includes pastureland and flowering field: pars pastus …, pars floreus agger;/sed … bove pastus, flore comatus, 380–81. The word is used to describe land by a river also in 1.19.2 and in this poem in verse 3.Google Scholar

²⁰ I use ecphrasis as a technical term of rhetoric to mean a worked-up passage of description (not necessarily of a work of art). Both the impression of exhaustivity and the capacity of such a passage to be encapsulated in a single word or phrase are remarked on by Quintilian (8.3.66–69); cf. Michael Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), 40–46. This quality of description is not unique to texts written in the classical rhetorical tradition. Philippe Hamon, in his study of description primarily in the French nineteenth-century realist novel, Introduction à l'analyse du descriptif (Paris, 1981), has identified a similar pattern: descriptive passages, according to him, oscillate between enumeration and résumé (50); they introduce into a text not only a semiological, but also more generally a taxonomic competence (54). For the classifying impulse in classical landscape description, see Eleanor Leach, The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton, 1988), 73–143. Dagmar Stutzinger, “… ambiguis fruitur veri falsique figuris: Maritime Landschaften in der spätantiken Kunst,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 30 (1987): 109–12, remarks on the tendency in late antiquity to see landscape as a microcosm or imperium in miniature.Google Scholar

²¹ Hosius, ad loc.: Ovid Met. 15.710, generosos palmite colles; Claudian Carm. Min. 31.39, lateant sub palmite colles; Orientius 1.131, vestitur palmite collis. The last of the Moselle poems has the line palmite vestitos hic respicis undique colles (10.9.31). In late Latin poetry, poetic citations or common locutions often contribute an unusual degree of visual detail.Google Scholar

²² Menander Rhetor (first treatise) includes under the topoi of a laus urbis that it is well-watered and surrounded by rivers (347.7–9; cf. 349.25–30). The speaker should consider the location of a city with relation to mountains and plains (347.7; cf. 349.14–25). In the second treatise (387.11–13), the praise of a country (the example is Troy) includes description of its rivers, mountains, plains, crops, and trees, while a city may be praised for its walls and fortifications (417.22–23). This topos of the laus urbis manages the transition to the laus episcopi in Fortunatus's poem. (I use Russell, D. A.'s and Wilson, N. G.'s edition and translation of Menander Rhetor [Oxford, 1981].) For landscape as a metaphor for the Christian community united under the protection of a bishop, see n. 11 above.Google Scholar

²³ Gauthier, Nancy, L’évangélisation des pays de la Moselle: La province romaine de Première Belgique entre Antiquité et Moyen Age (IIIe-VIII siècles) (Paris, 1980), 185, citing the arguments of Kurt Böhner, Die fränkischen Altertümer des Trierer Landes, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1958) 1: 300–04, identifies the location as Niederemmel, just downstream from Neumagen. Hosius, 97–99, after a long note surveying earlier opinions, decides the location cannot be identified on the evidence available.Google Scholar

²⁴ The division, like all such schemes, is not hard and fast: 21–22 is a transitional couplet organized around the antithesis between past (natural) and present (architectural) landscape and lines 39–42 lack any reference to architecture or engineering.Google Scholar

²⁵ Variations on vertice … summo can be found in Virgil (Aen. 2.682), Ovid (Met. 4.731, 6.204, 7.702, 12.433), Statius (Theb. 5.481) and Claudian (Stil. 3.240). The combination collibus uva(s) occurs in Virgil (Ecl. 9.49) and Statius (Silv. 2.2.103).Google Scholar

²⁶

This is a difficult text and I cannot be sure I have understood it correctly: iugera tecta putes can also be translated “you would imagine the roof extended for acres.” Hosius, ad loc., understands ordinibus ternis of vertical extension (“three storeys”). I am more inclined to take it of horizontal extension, perhaps three porticos, or three aisles; Gauthier, L’évangélisation, 184 speaks of three wing (“trois ailes”)—see, too, Böhner, Die fränkischen Altertümer, 1: 302. It is possible, also, to think of the aula of line 29 and the machina of 31 as identical or separate structures. For a discussion of this passage see Gauthier, 183–85. Böhner, 1: 301–05, argues that the structure described in lines 27–36 is in the valley of the Moselle, and is distinct from the castellum on the mountain top. The interpretation is ingenious, but does not take into account super (30) and postquam ascendas (32).

²⁷ The parallel is noted by Hosius, ad loc. Though the two passages have only one word in common, their parallel syntactical structure and common subject matter are convincing evidence of imitation. For oblectant animos, see Ovid R.A. 169; mollia prata is a common poetic locution (Virgil, Ovid, Statius, Claudian).Google Scholar

²⁸ It is worth noting that the lines devoted to the mons at the beginning of the poem show a special elaboration. All of them depend syntactically on near-synonymous verbal phrases: mons … tumescit (words from the root tum- are favorites of Fortunatus in natural description, cf. Navarra, 127–28), levat … caput (cf. Carm. 10.9.8), cacumina tollit and regnat apex. The phrase rupibus expositis finds a parallel in Statius Achil. 1.448, while intonsa of heavily forested mountains is a Virgilian metaphor (Ecl. 5.63, Aen. 9.681). For intonsa cacumina, see Statius Theb. 6.105.Google Scholar

²⁹ See Hudson, A.-Williams, “Virgil and the Christian Latin Poets,” Proceedings of the Virgilian Society 6 (1966–67): 19–20, for similar instances of awkwardness in incorporating poetic language.Google Scholar

³⁰ See John Percival, The Roman Villa: An Historical Introduction (London, 1976), 174–76. Stephen Johnson, Late Roman Fortifications (Totowa, N.J., 1983) 226–44, notes the prevalence of hill-top fortifications in the region of Trier in the late empire. The distinction between such fortifications and a defended villa on a hill-top site is not clear-cut. Johnson believes such sites may have provided alternative seats for bishops when danger or invasion threatened.Google Scholar

³¹ Paulinus of Nola Carm. 26.234, munitissima turris (of St. Felix); Passio Symphoriani 8 (PG 5:1468A). In 4 Mach. 13:6–8, the seven martyrs are compared to seven towers; cf. Ambrose Iac. 2.11.53.Google Scholar

³² Gauthier, , L'évangelisation, 184, speaks of “la chapelle consacrée aux saints et des magasins d'armes.” Gregory of Tours Vit. patr. 17.4 records Nicetius's special devotion to the saints.Google Scholar

³³ Helmet, shield, and breastplate all have biblical precedent: Eph. 6:14–17;1 Thess. 5:8. In his Vita Marcelli, Fortunatus compares the saint's staff, with which he kills a serpens immanissimus, with a ballista: “Ecce propugnaculum patriae in uno consistere sacerdote, qui fragili baculo fortius hostem edomuit quam si balistae transissent” (10.48; MGH. AA. 4.2 [Berlin, 1885]). For a literal catapult owned by a bishop compare Theodoret H.E. 5.36, of the bishop of Erzerum; Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, 1992), 151.Google Scholar

³⁴ Of a lancea shot by a ballista: “sed pandens perque arma viam perque ossa relicta/morte fugit: superest telo post vulnera cursus” (Lucan 3.467–68).Google Scholar

³⁵ Cf. Prudentius Perist. 12.43–44, speaking of the bishop of Rome, with the Gospel injunction to Peter, first bishop of Rome, in mind (John 21:15–17, pasce oves meas): “pastor oves alit ipse illic gelidi rigore fontis, / videt sitire quas fluenta Christi.”Google Scholar

³⁶ For the bishop as vinitor, see Carm. 5.2.35–40, and n. 11 above. A close verbal parallel between the two poems makes a spiritual interpretation very probable for 3.12 also: vinea culta viret quo fuit ante frutex (3.12.40); atque racemus adest quo fuit ante frutex (5.2.40). The garden of the widowed queen Ultrogotha, which gives a foretaste of the landscape of Paradise (6.6.2, 21–22), contains shady vines (3–4) and apple trees (6, 16), which had been planted by King Both, Childebert I. are taken as guarantees of the king's enjoyment of celestial bliss. Bishops might also provide protection and sustenance in this life. Nicetius, with his two predecessors, Eucherius and Maximin, defended Trier from the plague, according to Gregory of Tours (Vit. patr. 17.4). See Brian Brennan, “The Image of the Merovingian Bishop in the Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus,” Journal of Medieval History 18 (1992): 115–39, esp. 117–19 and 130–31.Google Scholar

³⁷ The distinction between the two halves of the poem is not hard and fast, however; tutus (4) seems to anticipate the protection brought to his flock by Bishop Nicetius and his sanctorum locus, and the farmers’ vision of a future harvest (agricolae pascunt oculos de messe futura, 15) cannot be entirely agricultural in significance, given the frequency of Fortunatus's references in his poetry to a “harvest of souls.” Nicetius's own background is uncertain. Martin Heinzelmann, Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien: Zur Kontinuität römischer Führungsschichten vom. 4. bis 7. Jahrhundert, soziale, prosopographische und bildungsgeschichtliche Aspekte, Beihefte der Francia 5 (Munich, 1976), 174, believes on the basis of his name that Nicetius was a Gallo-Roman aristocrat, while Gauthier, L'évangelisation, 172–77, citing undiplomatic language in his letters to secular rulers, thinks he may have been of relatively modest social origin. For the importance of the cult of the saints to the power of Frankish bishops, see Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981), 119–25.Google Scholar

³⁸ Meyer, 22; Koebner, 109; Brennan, 76, who expresses reservations about the traditional dating of the poem and the identification of the reges of line 1 as Childebert and his mother Brunhild; George, 182–85.Google Scholar

³⁹ Meyer, 72–73.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ George, 182.Google Scholar

⁴¹ For the parallels, see Hosius, ad loc., and Navarra, 106. Ausonius Mos. 284, pendentes saxis instanti culmine villae is also thematically parallel to Fortunatus. The locution culmina villarum, or the like, is common in poetry, however (Silius 15.534, Martial 4.64.10, Juvenal 14.89; Hosius, ad Mos. 20).Google Scholar

⁴² Cf. Navarra, 106; Hosius, ad Mos. 168, and Fortunatus 10.9.19. The closest parallels are Ovid Met. 8.334, concava vallis, and Claudian III Cons. Hon. 47, valles et concava. Google Scholar

⁴³ The element of contrast is underlined by ereptum (11) and fugiens pelagus (12). Ausonius, Mos. 34–36, denies that the Moselle has rapids. Commentators generally say that he only has the stretch of the Moselle in mind downstream from Trier, although his Latin is not qualified in this way. The combination patulos … campos is frequent in late Latin poetry: Silius 4.136, 6.143; Avienus Descriptio Orbis Terrae 424; Claudian Rapt. 1.221; Prudentius Perist. 11.211; Paulinus of Périgueux 4.255 and 5.18; Sidonius C. 7.585.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The meaning of Fortunatus's per exclusas … undas (15) is established by Aus. Mos. 36–38, “extantes medio non aequore terras/interceptus habes, iusti ne demat honorem / nominis, exclusum si dividat insula flumen.”Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Navarra (108–09) compares Fortunatus's emergence from the rapids to a vision of open plains and delightful countryside with the similar psychology of Ausonius's emergence from the Hunsrück into the Moselle valley. I would be more inclined to say this psychological progression directs the structure of section I as a whole with a graduated movement (obstacle—smooth sailing; smooth sailing—obstacle) until the final emergence into Ausonian scenery with 17–20.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ The walls of Trier were a specially prominent feature of the city: see Aus. Ordo Urbium Nobilium 32, lata per extentum procurrunt moenia collem, with Green's note (n. 1 above) ad loc.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ I say “ambiguous ruins of Trier” because such evidence of past glory could reflect credit on a city; cf. Sidonius Carm. 23.67–68 (on Narbo): “tu pulsate places fidemque fortem/oppugnatio passa publicavit” and 74–87 (ruins are like scars on a brave veteran). Hence Fortunatus's ipsa ruina potens (24).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Lines 41–42 are a marginal case, with a less pronounced antithetical structure.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ I would argue that such overtones are present in Ausonius's villa description. See Michael Roberts, “The Mosella of Ausonius: An Interpretation,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 114 (1984): 349–50, reprinted in Manfrid Joachim Lossau, ed., Ausonius, Wege der Forschung 652 (Darmstadt, 1991), 258–59; and Carole Newlands, “Naturae Mirabor Opus: Ausonius's Challenge to Statius in the Mosella,” TAPA 118 (1988): 403–19.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See Roberts, , The Jeweled Style (n. 20 above).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Poetic locutions: 31 palmite vestitos … colles (see n. 27 above); 32 pampineas ventilat aura comas; Ovid Am. 1.7.54 populeas ventilat aura comas, and for ventilat aura alone, Silius 16.443, Rutilius 1.244; 33 ordine vites, Virgil Ecl. 1.73; 35 horrentia saxa, Ovid Met. 4.778; 41 vinitor uvas, Virgil Ecl. 10.36, Sedulius C.P. 1.91.Google Scholar

Metaphors, rare words and unusual usages (the categories are, of course, not discrete): parturiunt, saxaque vina fluunt (30); supercilium (34), of the brow of a hill ultimately derived from Virgil G. 1.108; regula picta (34), pariunt (37); vineta … calvo sub monte comantur (39).Google Scholar

⁵² Contrast delicias oculis habui (43), referring to the previous visual description, with aure bibente melos (52), anticipating the passage to follow. George (184–85) is wrong, I think, to understand 51–62 as a description of the poet's own singing; aure bibente indicates that he is listening not performing (see Meyer, 22). I also differ with her translation of verse 62, invenit et semper quo sua cura iuvet. I would translate “and he finds that in which his own care may give pleasure,” not “take pleasure,” parallel to quo recreet populum in the previous line.Google Scholar

⁵³ For a fuller interpretation of this passage in the Ausonian context, see Roberts, “The Mosella,” 350–51 = Lossau, Ausonius, 259–61; the wording of 293–94 is based on Statius Silv. 1.3.29–31. See Newlands, , “Naturae Mirabor Opus,” 416–17.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ For the verbs reddebant (54) and respondit (56), compare Ausonius Mos. 223 and 190 (of visual reflection).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ In the couplet “delicias oculis habui dapibusque cibatus,/haec iucunda tenens, navita regna sequens” (43–44), I am inclined to understand haec iucunda as referring to delicias and therefore to associate dapibusque cibatus with regna sequens. Google Scholar

⁵⁶ For personification in Ausonius's catalogue of fish, see 79, 96, 101, and 131. The salmon is included in Ausonius's catalogue (97–105), but there are no verbal parallels with Fortunatus's poem.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ It is often said that in the following couplet Fortunatus characterizes the youthful joy of the young ruler in his rich haul of fish (Hosius, ad loc., elaborated on by Brennan, 76). I do not see this in the Latin; the change between singular and plural subjects is not unusual in Fortunatus (see Sven Blomgren, Studia Fortunatiana, 2 vols., [Uppsala, 1933], 1: 117–18, who nevertheless follows Hosius in his interpretation of this passage). Rex can be understood as synecdoche for reges, especially after the singular verb in the previous line. The joy of the monarchs has a panegyric point; it guarantees the happiness of the company as a whole and communicates itself to the entire kingdom. See Marc Reydellet, La Royauté dans la littérature latine de Sidoine Apollinaire à Isidore de Séville, Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 243 (Rome, 1981), 337–41.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ On banquets in the rhetorical tradition and for characterization, see Quintilian 4.2.123–24 and 8.3.66; Rutilius Lupus 2.7 (the figure of characterismos). In his Vita Martini S. (2.58–121), Fortunatus elaborates Sulpicius Severus's account of a banquet given by the Gallic usurper Maximus into a set-piece description, contrasting secular and religious status. For a banquet of a Germanic ruler, see Sidonius Ep. 1.2.6 (the Visigothic king Theoderic). In works of art dining scenes feature on a number of villa mosaics studied by Schneider, Die Domäne als Weltbild (n. 8 above), 110–16. They provide the context for display and enjoyment of the luxus available to the villa-owner from his estate.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Visus (2), cernere (11), patet (24), prospicimus (25), respicis (31), delicias oculis habui (43), but with the possible exception of speciosi (67), no further words of seeing until videns (75), pascens … oculos (76), spectacula (79).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Cf. Carm. 7.2.4., hinc satias verbis, pascis et inde cibis, addressed to Gogo, for a verbal and stylistic parallel and a further metaphorical sense of “feeding.”Google Scholar

⁶¹ See Stutzinger, “… ambiguis fruitur veris falsisque figuris” (n. 20 above), 113–15; Smith, Jonathan Z., To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987), 90–92, 103–04, and 114–17.Google Scholar

⁶² The exception seems to demand an explanation. I suggest, tentatively, that the abandonment of the poet to the pleasure of music and its unifying harmony marks the last stage in his psychological integration into the royal entourage. From this point of view the first person is appropriate, as the last evidence of an independent persona. (There is only one first person verb in the poem after this, pergo [64], a neutral journey word.)Google Scholar

⁶³ Just as in the description of cultivated landscape references to agricultural laborers figure only as visual color (see Stutzinger, “… ambiguis fruitur veris falsisque figuris,” [n. 20 above], 114–15). Fortunatus's picture of the vine-harvester hanging on the overhanging rocks is typical in this respect (10.9.41–42; cf. Aus. Mos. 163–68); colonis (10.9.35) is virtually metonymy for cultura. Google Scholar

⁶⁴ For the history of springtime description as as a metaphor for the joy of a wedding, see Michael Roberts, “The Use of Myth in Latin Epithalamia from Statius to Venantius Fortunatus,” TAPA 119 (1989), especially 345–47. See also Fortunatus Vita Martini S. 3.379–87 (= Sulpicius Severus Dial. 2.10.4) for the interpretation of landscape in terms of Christian allegory.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ For the ambiguity of Ausonius's poem, see Roberts, “The Mosella” (n. 49 above), 343–53. Schneider, Die Domäne als Weltbild (n. 8 above), in his study of fourth-century mosaics and silverware, has amply demonstrated the existence of a cultural system against which Ausonius's poem (and Sidonius's villa descriptions) need to be understood.Google Scholar