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M. Janse, Homerischemetriek.Oralepo?'ziein de praktijk,Did?ctica Classica Gandensia 38 (1998), 125-51. G.S. Kirk, The StructuralElements of Homeric Verse,in: The Iliad. A Commentary.Vol. I: Booh 1-4, 17-37 (Cambridge 1985). D. Korzeniewski, GriechischeMetrik (Darmstadt 1968). R. N?nlist, Homerische Metrik, in: J. Latacz (ed.), Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar. Prolegomena,109-14 (M?nchen 2000). E.G. O'Neill Jr., The Ucalization of Metrical Wordtypesin the GreekHexameter,YCS 8 (1942), 105-78. H.N. Porter, The Early GreekHexameter,YCS 12 (1951), 3-63. C J. Ruijgh, D'Hom?reaux originesproto-myc?niennes de b tradition?pique.Analyse dialectologiquedu bngage hom?rique,avec un excursussur b cr?ationde Valphabetgrec, in: J.P. Crielaard (ed.), Homeric Questions.Essays in Phibbgy, AncientHistory and Archaeobgy, 1-96 (Amsterdam 1995). CJ.M. Sicking, GriechischeVerslehre(M?nchen 1993). M. van Raalte, Rhythmand Metre. Towards a SystematicDescriptionof GreekStichic Verse (Assen 1986). M.L. West, GreekMetre (Oxford 1982). Homer's Meter, in: I. Morris & B. Powell (eds.), A New Companwnto Homer, ??, 218-37 (Leiden 1997). J.W. White, The Verseof GreekComedy(London 1912).
????
SIMULACRA DEORUM
(OVID,
HEROIDES
10.95)
Deserted by Theseus on a lonely island, the Ariadne of Ovid's Heroides 10 is terrified at the many possible threats to her life (79-98). In addition to fearing such animals as wolves (84), lions (85), tigers (86), and seals (87), she is afraid of being either killed (88) or enslaved (89-92) by other human beings. As she herself sums up the situation, ? mare, si terrasponectaque litara uidi, / multa mihi tenae, multa minantur aquae (93 f.).1) However, land and sea are not the only scary venues: Ariadne adds briefly, caelum restabat?timeo simulacra deorum! (95), before returning once more to the dangers posed by beasts (96) and men (97 f.). This passage has attracted a certain amount of scholarly discussion on account of textual and grammatical problems, as well as the perceived such as expunging a number its of content. Various remedies, absurdity of verses or positing a lacuna, have been suggested.2) In what follows, I shall be concerned with just one of the many issues surrounding these lines, the one that is, perhaps, the most intriguing: Ariadne's fear of the gods. The line caelum restabat?timeo simulacra deorum! raises three main questions: (1) How does this verse connect to what precedes and, especially, to what follows?; (2) Why is Ariadne afraid of the gods?; and (3) What are we to understand by simulacra deorum? As for (1), the mention of the gods arises out of Ariadne's astonishingly
? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003 Also available online - www.brill.nl
Mnemosyne,Vol. LVI, Fase. 3
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systematic approach to cataloguing the bad things that could happen to for that matter, to any deserted woman (quaecumque potest ulb her3)?or, relieta pati, 80). After her treatment of land and sea, the sky is next {caelum restabat, 95); having discussed animals and human beings, Ariadne logically turns to the gods.4) However, the transition from 95 to what follows is more than abrupt since destituor5) rabi?is praeda cibusque feris (96) shows no syntactic or semantic connection to the simulacra deorumjust mentioned. Of course, the assumption of a lacuna would do away with the harsh juxtaposition of the two lines. Still, it is a counsel of despair, and I, for one, am happy to ascribe the disjunction to Ariadne's state of mind: in her terror, the heroine moves quickly from fear to fear. Given that the gods present the most terrifying and unfathomable of dangers, she finds herself unable to dwell on the topic for long, and we could thus interpret her failure to further elaborate on it as a kind of aposiopesis. To move on to question (2), given the all-encompassing nature of Ariadne's fear, it is perhaps not too surprising that she is afraid of the gods as well, however unrealistic a threat from these quarters may appear. After all, most of the other dangers listed are improbable as well: it is highly unlikely that Dia is home to lions and tigers, seals are generally harmless creatures, and the possibility of being killed or enslaved is remote in view of the fact that the island is uninhabited (see 59 f.). Since Ariadne has, after all, betrayed her father and assisted in the killing of her brother, she may well be afraid of divine vengeance, and her mention of the gods is thus reasonably motivated from a psychological point of view.6) However, as Alessandro Barchiesi in particular has discussed, the reference to the heavenly gods serves an additional purpose, one of which Ariadne herself is not aware. In an instance of dramatic irony, v. 95 points ahead to the impending epiphany of Bacchus: as the reader knows, but Ariadne does not, the heroine will indeed, in a sudden turn of events, be confronted by a god from heaven, presumably right after the completion of her letter.7) Her unwitting allusion to this fact helps situate Ariadne in her own mythological story by hinting at her future beyond the moment of letter-writing and is but one of many cases in the Heroides where author and reader enjoy a kind of secret communication behind the back of the character herself.8) This leaves us with (3), the question of the meaning of nmulacra deorum. The most obvious meaning of the phrase would be 'images/statues of the but this makes in no sense the of context Heroides 10. are There gods',9) obviously no shrines of the gods on deserted Dia, and at any rate, Ariadne fears the nmulacra deorum from the sky, and it is hardly credible that she is afraid of flying statues. Some critics have therefore taken simulacra to mean 'visions', which makes reasonable sense and is probably what Ariadne herself has in mind.10) Still, the choice of word remains odd: simubcra in this sense are typically the ghosts of the dead, not apparitions of the gods,
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and the word nmubcrum in general implies the notion of 'image' or 'likeness', which does not seem fitting since Ariadne, we assume, is afraid of the gods themselves and not their pictures.11) Barchiesi has therefore suggested that nmulacra in 95 has the meaning of 'constellations' and foreshadows Ariadne's (or her crown's) future catasterism as the constellation Corona.12) I think it is possible that there is a hidden allusion of this kind, but it cannot be the primary meaning of the phrase since it would make no sense for Ariadne to say that she is afraid of the constellations. Also, the juxtaposition nmulacra deorum would be someare not in fact images of what surprising, given that most constellations gods.13) I believe that on the surface, simulacra deorum does indeed mean 'visions/ apparitions of the gods', but that Ovid has chosen the otherwise puzzling word simubcra for the purpose of making a learned and funny reference to Epicurean doctrine. As Lucretius describes in detail in the fourth book of De rerum natura, simulacra are the minuscule images that detach themselves continuously from the surface of objects and that, once they enter our eyes, bring about our vision of these objects. All things give off nmulacra, including, crucially, the gods: since, according to Epicurus, the gods live far removed in the so-called intermundia and in their perfect happiness never interfere with human affairs, the only way that we can be aware of their existence is through their simulacra, which reach our minds and allow us to form some idea of what the gods are actually like (cf. Lucr. 6.76 f.: de corpore quae soneto simubcra feruntur / in mentis hominum diuinae nuntia firis described in greater detail in 5.1169-82). mac, the phenomenon By having his Ariadne unwittingly use an Epicurean technical term, Ovid is making a joke similar to that of Vergil, Eclogue 2.27'. There, the Corydon, in talking about the (supposedly) not unfavorunsophisticated able mirror image of himself that he has seen in the sea, inadvertendy that of the absolute trustworrefers to another Epicurean commonplace, thiness of sense perception, when he remarks, si numquam fallit imago.1*) In must have been the second half of the first century BC, Epicureanism mainstream enough in Rome for readers to be able to pick up on such tenets. I suggest, however, casual allusions to the school's better-known that in the case of Heroides 10?unlike, perhaps, in the example from not is simulacra deorum simply an isolated joke, but is Vergil?the phrase expressive of an Epicurean subtext that runs through the letter as a whole. According to Epicurus, the two main scourges of mankind are fear of death and fear of the gods, crippling emotions from which Epicureanism endeavors to free its adherents. As a look at Ariadne's letter reveals, the heroine is a poor Epicurean since her mind is entirely dominated by the fear of death. Indeed, as scholars have pointed out, it is remarkable that in Ovid's version (quite unlike in its famous model, Catullus 64), Ariadne is far more concerned about the possibility of her own demise than upset at Theseus' unfaithfulness.15) It is her utter panic at the prospect of dying
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that makes her imagine the catalogue of (mosdy unrealistic) dangers mentioned above (79-98): as she describes it herself, visions of death flood her mind {occurrunt animo pereundi mille ?gurae, 81)16) and torture her with the very anticipation {morsqueminus poenae quam mora mortis habet, 82). She indulges in a fantasy of her final moments (119-22) and laments the fact that she will not be properly buried (123 f.)?a concern mocked by such Epicureans as Lucretius (3.870-93). Her final appeal to Theseus is for him not to be her causa necis (144) and to return to the island?if only to collect her bones {si prius occidero, tu tarnen ossa feres!, 152). If Ariadne's exaggerated fear of death is thus a textbook case of an unEpicurean frame of mind, it is not surprising that she should fall prey to that other most un-Epicurean emotion as well, namely fear of the gods. Her exclamation timeo simulacra deorum! ironically points to the very absurdity of that fear, from an Epicurean point of view at least: after all, the gods never interfere with human life, and all we have are their images, or simulacra. In addition, the reference to the nmulacra and to the theory of perception with that term picks up another leitmotif of associated Ariadne's letter and one that likewise has an Epicurean flavor: throughout Heroides 10, there is a constant stress on sense perception and on its reliability, or lack thereof. Starting with the realization that Theseus is no longer in bed with her (9-12; note Ariadne's pathetic reliance on the sense of touch, as she repeatedly stretches out her hand), the heroine finds herself in a situation where she is no longer sure whether she can trust her senses. It is especially verbs of vision, such as spedare, uidere, cernere, and adspicere, that abound in the letter:17) as Ariadne goes looking for Theseus (17 f., 27 f.), she sees what she never expected to see, namely, her lover's disappearing ship (29-32); her own attempts to make herself seen are in vain (39-42), and Theseus subsequendy fades from her vision (43-6); she then looks around on the island (49, 60, 93) and experiences fearsome 'visions' of death {occurrunt animo pereundi mille ?gurae, 81), not to mention her anticipation of the simulacra deorum (95); at the very end of the letter, she indulges in the fantasy that Theseus himself might be able to see her, if not with his eyes, at least with his mind (133-6), and creates a striking visual image of herself (137-50) in a vain attempt to get her lover to return (151 f.). In the course of the letter, Ariadne's 'vision' thus becomes more and more unrealistic and turns into mere imagination.18) In Epicurean theory, there is but a thin fine between actual sense perception and images that are purely 'in the mind': both are caused by simubcra, but the ones that affect the mind are finer in texture and enter the body not through the eyes (or other sense organs), but through the pores, and thus work on the mind direcdy (cf. Lucr. 4.722-31).19) Of course, a well-versed Epicurean would use his or her intellect to distinguish between reliable sense perception and empty imagination. By contrast, Ariadne gets carried away by the pereundi mille figurae that present themselves to her mind, to the effect
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that she is afraid even of simulacra deorum. Of course, the irony is that, as we all know, the heroine will, before long, be confronted by an actual perhaps, after reading Ariadne's letter, we will be somewhat god?though, less sure about the ontological status of Bacchus' epiphany. Could Ovid be hinting, by means of the expression simulacra deorum, at the possibility that Ariadne's famous divine encounter is just another absurd imagination of the heroine's terrified mind? Department of Classics,
[email protected]
Columbia
University
Katharina
Volk
1) I am quoting the Heroides from the Loeb text of G. Showerman and G.P. Goold (1977) and Lucretius from the OCT of C. Bailey (2nd ed., 1922). 2) The problems with the passage are summarized by M.D. Reeve, Notes on Ovid's Heroides, CQ, 23 (1973), 324-38, at 332 and A. Barchiesi, Problemid'interpretazbne in Ovidw: continuit?delle storie, continuazbnedei testi, MD 16 (1986), 77-107, at 96-8 (English translation of a slighdy revised form of the article in Speaking Volumes:Nanative and Intertextin Ovid and OtherLatin Poets (London 2001), 9-28); for various drastic solutions proposed, see A. Palmer, P. Ovidi Nasonis Heroides(Oxford 1898), ad be., W. Marg, Ovid, Heroides 10, 95/96, Hermes 88 (1960), 505 f., Reeve {op. cit.), 332, and RJ. Tarrant, Two Notes on Ovid, Heroides X, RhM 128 (1985), 72-5, at 73-5. 3) Cf. F. Verducci, Ovid's Toyshopof the Heart. Epistulae Heroidum (Princeton 1985), 273, Barchiesi 1986 (n. 2), 99, and L. Landolfi, Scribentis imago: eroineovidiane e bmento epistobre (Bologna 2000), 109 f. 4) That Ariadne is thinking of the sky as a possible route of escape (? la Daedalus, cf. Ars 2.37) is an idea mooted by P. Burmannus, Publii Ovidii Nasonis Opera Omnia, vol. 1 (Amsterdam 1727), ad be, who, however, regards the verse as spurious; cf. also the discussion in Palmer (n. 2), ad be, G. St?gen, Ovide, Her., X, 94-95, Latomus 19 (1960), 360, and Reeve (n. 2), 332 + n. 1. 5) The Loeb reads destitutor,which I assume is a typographical error. 6) Cf. Marg (n. 2), 506, St?gen (?. 4), and Barchiesi 1986 (n. 2), 100. 7) Barchiesi 1986 (n. 2), 101 f. and Postilb {su ??. her. 10, 89-95), MD 23 (1989), 173 f.; see also Marg (n. 2), 506, Verducci (n. 3), 275, F. Spoth, Ovids Heroidesah Elegien (Munich 1992), 91 n. 31 and 160, and Landolfi (n. 3), 110. By contrast, H. Jacobson, Ovid'sHeroides(Princeton 1974), 226 f. + n. 34 rejects the idea that v. 95 (or anything else in the poem) hints at the impending arrival of Bacchus. 8) This feature of the Heroidesis discussed in detail by Spoth (n. 7), 157-70. 9) Cf. P.E. Knox, Ovid, Heroides: Select Epistles (Cambridge 1995), ad loc. 10) See Palmer (n. 2), ad loc. ("probably phantoms, supposed divine, seen by Ariadne hovering in the air") as well as the translation of Verducci (n. 3), 240 ("phantom visions of the gods"). 11) Cf. Barchiesi 1986 (n. 2), 100. 12) See Barchiesi 1986 (n. 2), 100-2 and 1989 (n. 7), 173. 13) An interpretation somewhat similar to that of Barchiesi's is found in A. Hewig, Ariadne's Fearsfrom Sea and Sky (Ovid, Heroides 10.88 and 95-8), CQ 41 (1991), 554-6, at 555 f., who suggests (implausibly, in my opinion) that not only the nmulacra deorum,but also the animals and human beings mentioned in the following lines 96-8, are actually constellations.
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14) Cf. W. Clausen, A Commentaryon Virgil, Eclogues (Oxford 1994), ad be. 15) Cf. Verducci (?. 3), 275: "Ovid's Ariadne so clearly laments not the loss of Theseus but her own projected loss of life"; see also Jacobson (n. 7), 226: "her concern is for life, not love". 16) Cf. Knox (n. 9), ad be. 17) As Landolfi (n. 3), 84 f. points out, this is true also for Catul. 64.52-7. 18) On the heroine's increasing 'Wirklichkeitsverlust', see also Spoth (n. 7), 89-92. 19) Ariadne's description of how the many possibilities of death 'occur' to her, occurruntanimo pereundi milk ?gurae (81), has a distinctively Epicurean sound to it: the ?gurae are the various nmulacra (the word ?gurae is used of the simulacrain Lucr. of dying that are formed in the air (perhaps as a combination of 4.46)?images other, more 'realistic' nmulacra,just as the combination of the images of man and horse makes people imagine the existence of centaurs; cf. Lucr. 4.739-43) and then enter Ariadne's mind {occurruntanimo; cf., e.g., Lucr. 4.723, ueniant in mentem).
ANONYMI AUCTORIS INTERPRETATIO
HORATII
ODAE 1.1.
GRAECA1)
1. Interpretano primae Odae primo carminum Horatii poetae libro contentae, Danieli cuidam falso, mea quidem sententia, tributa uno nobis traditur teste, qui codex est Vaticanus Latinus 6848, membranaceus, saecc. de qua iam luculenXV-XVII exaratus. Codicis externam descriptionem, ter egit vir doctus Marcus Buonocore,2) libenter missam facimus; nec quidquam inest, meo quidem iudicio, in libri facie, quod nos iuvare possit. Interpretationem, cui subscriptum est nomen Danielis, viri non aHunde nobis noti,3) in folio 292v, ab exemplari quodam vetustiore, quod ad nos minus pervenit, descriptam legimus manu Iacobi Mercati, monachi silf. 293 contenta, Torquati Perotti vestrini, qui se ipse, in subscriptione blanda vanitate servum profitetur fuisse quique opus suum primis quinquaginta annis saecuh XVII egisse videtur.4) editionem mechanicam, 2. Intefretationis quam vocant, seu imaginem M. Buonocore5) primus edidit, qui ipse editionem obtulit photographicam, diplomaticam6) litterarum peritis, qui carmen critice inquirere vellent atque perpendere.7) Atqui, quamquam et ipse v.d. Buonocore, qua est doctrina, haud pauca animadvertit, tarnen non nulla neque omnino despicienda me mea voluit sors in carmine rursus atque rursus invenire legentem, ut praecipuas lectiones atque notas singulares hic putarim velut primitias a me philologis esse offerendas, neque amplius in posterum hoc esse differendum off?cium. Quam ob rem, eiusdem carminis nunc textum critice edere primum conatus sum. Si textum autem a Iacobo conscriptum respicias, pauca a nobis immutata inverties, eademque si eius modi essent, quae lectori vel inexercitato menda librario, non interpreti, tribuenda esse viderentur. Quae tarnen menda minus cauti esset soli librario tribuere, ea in textu reliquimus atque de eisdem aliquid in ima pagina adnotavimus. Maluimus enim nimiae ? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003 Also available online - www.brill.nl
Mnemosyne,Vol. LVI, Fase. 3
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