This chapters examines the motivation and method of reuse of early Latin in the translations from Greek poetry of Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), the scholar to whom the study of fragmentary Republican Latin owes more than to anyone else in classical scholarship. The analysis focusses on the translations of Sophocles’ Ajax and of Lycophron’s Alexandra, which the young Scaliger produced a decade before his memorable edition of Festus’ De significatu uerborum (1576). The ancient lexicon was the main source of the obscure vocabulary that characterises Scaliger’s archaic Latin, the artificial construct of a style aimed at achieving a high register in the translation of Greek poetry. Recourse to the diction of the early Roman dramatists as a means of elevating the style had an authoritative precedent in Cicero. To latinise Lycophron’s exoteric diction Scaliger drew extensively on Festus’ glosses for rare usages and recondite synonyms. Other early-modern scholars who were engaged in the study of fragmentary Latin texts and their sources also used that variety of Latin for the purpose of translation of the Greek classics, and even for creative versification. ‘Early Latin’ is a style.

An overview of Cicero’s engagment with Latin poetry with discussion of Cicero’s preferential interest in certain poets over others. Discussion of Cicero’s quotation of different Latin poets (Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, Terence, Lucilius) and different genres of Latin poetry (epic, tragedy, comedy, satire), including Cicero’s aversion to the quotation of contemporary poets and neoterics. Discussion of Cicero’s own poetic compositions and practices of self-citation. An overview of Cicero’s quotation of Greek poets (Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Leonidas of Tarentum, Aeschylus, Callimachus, Hesiod, Menander, Pindar, Archilochus, Stesichorus) and proverbs. Discussion of Cicero’s Latin translations of Greek poets (Aratus, Euripides, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles). Discussion of Cicero’s quotations of poetry from memory versus from a book.