in eodem genere alii callidi, sed impoliti et consulto rudium similis et imperitorum. The other class, and here clearly Horace belongs, is thus described: alii in eadem ieiunitate concinniores, id est faceti, florentes etiam et leviter ornati. Here callidi suggests the shrewdness or adroitness in argument so characteristic of the Socratic method. Similarly, in the de oratore I:93 Charmadas, in arguing for the dialectical rhetoric of the Stoics, uses the term callide in contrast with copiose evidently of the shrewd restraint and argumentative adroitness practised by all true masters of the plain style, who prefer to lure their opponent to his own defeat rather than to overwhelm him by the wealth of their resources. A closer application to Lucilian satire may be made of the phrase consulto rudium similis, for certainly his use of the term oxédiov as a description of his satires because of their hasty construction is admirably paraphrased by these words. Impolitus, connoting a lack of polish, may perhaps be used for the indifference to the labor of the file, so characteristic of Lucilius, who certainly is not pressa oratione limatus. As for the imperitorum, we may notice Lucilius' affectation of speaking not as a doctus or expert poet, but as a man of general culture who addresses his friends. This point of view appears in such a passage as book XXVI:592, in the pretense of Lucilius of dreading the judgment of Scipio and Rutilius, while he writes for the people of Tarentum, Consentia, and Sicily, untutored in Latin. On the other hand, the second nuance, although somewhat less definitely, may be applied to Horatian satire. The writers who follow this nuance still work in the same dry medium in eadem ieiuntate but they are concinniores or as we should say better craftsmen. By this quality of concinnitas is meant a beauty of style produced by the skilful ordering of words and clauses, in short the curiosa felicitas, which constitutes Horace's undying claim to fame. The term seems indeed to be synonymous with iunctura, as we may see by comparing Quintilian IX:4, 32. The importance of iunctura is especially emphasized by Horace himself in the Ars Poetica 47 as a nice tool in the hands of the poet: Dixeris egregie notum si callida verbum Horace is also facetus, a term associated with the permissible genus liberale iocandi and as such peculiarly applicable to Horace, but which may be used as in Quintilian IV:3, 20 simply in the sense of decor or appropriateness and a certain cultivated taste (exculta quadam elegantia). Finally he permits polish in moderation (leviter ornati) an excellent characterization of the quality of urbanitas, of which Horace makes so much. This term urbanus" probably developed as a technical rhetorical term towards the close of the republic as the result of the discriminating linguistic studies of the Roman Atticists. It connoted not only wit and cleverness, but also to a much greater degree elegance and refinement. Now this conception of the urbanus, and the related, but in some respects different, type of the epwv stand in pretty close relation to the theory of the plain style. The term urbanitas implies a type of humor worthy of the λeuepos or should we rather say of the κàλós κȧyalós the alert and intelligent citizen of the Greek city state? But refined humor does not exhaust its meanings. We may rather argue that just as Latinitas is the equivalent in the technical vocabulary of the Stoic rhetoric for Ελληνισμός so urbanitas is the equivalent for αστειότης. In fact in the Ciceronian and Augustan ages this term sums up better than any other the ideals which the Roman Atticists associate with the plain style. Hence, Horace in satire I:10, 9 ff. associates the urbanus definitely with the plain style because he restrains his strength (parcentis viribus). Even in the linguistic sense there is an element of urbana dissimulatio about this more finished nuance of the plain style, owing to its studied simplicity, a simplicity which looks easy of attainment, but in reality demands the constant use of the file. It is just here that the related conceptions of the urbanus and the elpwv with their narrower relations to wit and humor interpenetrate the theories of technical composition. Horace understands this perfectly.75 Thus Pedius 74 Compare Hendrickson in C. P., XII: 88-92. "It can be definitely established, I believe, that Horace's criticisms upon the satires of Lucilius in his satires 1:4, I:10; and II:1, are in the main Poplicola and Messala sweat out their cases in an effort to sustain a standard of pure Latinity I: 10, 27. But the clearest statement of what we may call the principle of linguistic irony is in the Ars Poetica 240 ff.: ex noto fictum carmen sequar ut sibi quisque speret idem sudet multum frustraque laboret In short, the stylistic method, ideals, and ironic humor of Socrates admirably fit the refined procedure of Horatian in distinction from Lucilian satire. This insinuating advance into his subject and into the hearts of his readers is admirably characterized by the rhetorical application of irony to the plain style of the sermo made by Cicero in the de oratore III:203: tum illa, quae maxime quasi inrepit in hominum mentis, alia dicentis ac significantis dissimulatio; quae est periucunda, cum in oratione non contentione, sed sermone tractatur. Persius must clearly have had this ideal of the eipwv in mind when he gave his immortal characterization of Horace as a satirist: omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico tangit et admissus circum praecordia ludit. the result of his adherence to the more refined nuance of the plain style we have been describing. THE OLIVE CROWN IN HORACE, CARM. I:vii, 7 As a parallel to the lines italicized in the foregoing portion of Horace, Carm. I:vii, most editors cite Lucretius, I:927 ff.: iuvat integros accedere fontis atque haurire, iuvatque novos decerpere flores W. A. Merrill, however, in his investigation On the Relation of Horace to Lucretius1 makes the statement that the two passages have little in common. The parallel is denied by Schoell,' who sees a reminiscence of the Horatian passage in Ovid, Trist. I:vii, 33-4: hos quoque sex versus in prima fronte libelli si praeponendos esse putabis, habe. To Schoell fronti of the Horatian passage refers neither to the brow of the poets or enthusiasts implied in lines 5 and 6 nor to that of the goddess Pallas, but line 7 undique decerptam fronti praeponere olivam is the description of the frontispiece, so to speak, of the book that deals with the glories of the city of Pallas. A more unpoetic interpretation could hardly be imagined, and while the verbal resemblance at first seems to be rather close, fuller reflection will show a considerable gap between fronti prae1 University of California Publications, Classical Philology, I:120. 2 Archiv f. lat. Lex., VII: 441 f. ponere of Horace and in prima fronte libelli-praeponendos of Ovid. What the passage seems to need, therefore, is to be set free from the distorting influence of doubtful parallels and to be interpreted in the light of the context, the poem itself, and the facts of ancient life. The crux of the passage is obviously to be found in the interpretation of the phrase fronti praeponere. Assuming that the text is sound (the conjectures of Erasmus, Gale, and Bouhier will be mentioned later), and that praeponere here does not differ widely from imponere, the interpretations of the passage may be most conveniently approached through that of fronti. Besides the interpretation of fronti given by Schoell as stated above three others seem possible: 1) fronti refers to the brow of the poets or authors implied in quibus (5), opus is a literary work. (Bentley) 2) fronti refers to the brow of intactae Palladis (5), opus means studium "interest." (Düntzer) 3) fronti refers to the brow of the eulogists of Athens, who need not necessarily be poets or authors, opus means studium "interest." (Ritter) The choice would seem to be a rather close one between 2 and 3; the present investigation would essay to show that 2 deserves greater prominence than it has hitherto been given. HISTORICAL REVIEW OF INTERPRETATIONS As far as known it was Erasmus who first perceived that the real difficulty with the passage centered in praeponere (7). Finding no parallel for praeponere in the general sense of imponere, Erasmus and his followers assigned to it the more general meaning anteponere, praeferre "prefer," and emended the line to read undique decerptae frondi praeponere olivam, "to prefer the olive to leafage plucked from every (other) source, which, on the testimony of his pupil Glareanus, Erasmus interpreted "omnibus arboribus praeponere solent olivam, arborem Atheniensibus gratam, quasi diceret, quidam otium litterarium, quod Athenis est, omnibus voluptatibus anteferre non dubitant." Others have interpreted the reading of Erasmus more simply as follows: ceterarum omnium urbium laudibus Athenarum praeconium praeferunt. |