The Authorship of the Hercules Oetaeus
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here The Authorship of the Hercules Oetaeus Walter C. Summers The Classical Review / Volume 19 / Issue 01 / February 1905, pp 40 - 54 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00991261, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00991261 How to cite this article: Walter C. Summers (1905). The Authorship of the Hercules Oetaeus. The Classical Review, 19, pp 40-54 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00991261 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 09 Apr 2015 40 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. familiar to Horace, which may be illustrated 2, 4, 72-3, where the same change of persons by ' ordo-ordinis ' in 41, 2 : see also Keller's occurs, may remove this ; and the senten- note (Epilegomena, 1879) on Epist. 2, 1,101, tious tone of the gastronomic professor is which he would with Lachmann read after not unlike that which Horace archly assumes 107; and so Wilkins and the Corpus (1893). in parts of the Ars Poetica. But the change (2) 128 (Difficile est proprie, etc.) is surely of person may have offended some Siop&onjs, the starting point of a new topic. Horace and suggested a removal of the lines to a has done with the subject of rj6r], and starts passage written in the first person. a fresh paragraph abruptly and sententiously. (2) As noticed above, communia and This is the manner of the Ars Poetica publica materies are terms in legal use. throughout; it is also the manner of our own Justinian (Inst. ii. 1) gives a series of classical poets, as Pope and Cowper; but methods by which property is acquired in in the Ars Poetica, the opening words are, such things, and Horace's lines as to publica as pointed out by Orelli on this passage, materies might be a parody of some earlier and more generally by Professor Nettleship, text book of law (see Roby, Roman Private (Journal of Philology, xii, p. 52) upon the Law, iv. 3). de medio sumptis would stand in express authority of Porphyrion, quoted from a legal context, but such phrases are more the writer of some Greek handbook, Neopto- often quoted in a literary or general use. In lemus of Parium or another. I do not wish Epist. 2, 1, 168 'ex medio quia resarcessit' to say a word upon the interpretation of is said of Comedy. Is it possible that this this vexed passage, except, for the sake one line (243) rightly stands before 244, but of clearness, to express concurrence in should immediately follow 239 ? It would Orelli's (and Dr. Johnson's) view of the then point and conclude the advice given meaning of ' communia '; and to add that to the Satyric dramatist to give some dignity such difficulty as may be felt in the use of to his quasi-comic subjects. 'So much the two legal words ' communia ' and ' pub- dignity is (or will be) given (in my Satyrie lica' with a different reference must be at drama) to themes drawn from common life.' least softened by the widening of the inter- The variant ' accedet,' which ia found in a val between them by three or four lines. tenth century MS., would make this easier. If it be granted that the lines in question The three lines 240—2 are complete in them- would read well after 130, can any plausible selves, and might have originally followed account be given of their removal to where 130, though our ear misses the familiar they now stand 1 cadence of the sequence of the fourth. If Apart from any mechanical process by this hypothesis were correct, the SiopOwrrjs which lines might be removed from their would have had a motive for bringing place and reappear at an interval of 110 vv.1 together the two ' tantum' lines. there are two considerations, which may be The 8tojD0am?s himself is hypothetical, set down for what they may be worth :— though Epist. 2, 1, 101, seems to suggest (1) Schiitz finds a difficulty in the change his handiwork ; and I fear that my two from the second person of 128—130 to the suggestions, taken together, do not amount first person of 240. A comparison of Sat. to a ' vera causa,' but possibly some one else 1 Such as that suggested by Chr. Brennan for may be willing to strengthen them. Aeschylus, Journ. Phil, xxii, p. 62. A. O. PEICKARD. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE HERCULES OETAEUS. G. RICHTEE was the first to subject the Whilst his investigations led him to Hercules Oetaeus to a systematic examina- answer the question in the negative, Leo, tion 1 with the object of deciding as to who in the first volume of his edition had whether it was written by Seneca 2 or not. gone far more thoroughly into the points 1 De Sen. tragoediarum auetore, Bonn, 1862. involved, came to the conclusion that 11. 1- 2 The Senecan origin of the seven playa which 705 came from Seneca. This position how- precede H.O. in the Florentine MS. (H.F., Tro., ever has been shaken by G. Tachau, who Phoen., Phaed., Oed., Ag., Thy.) is assumed through- has shewn s that the choral passage 104—172 out this paper. To these seven the expression ' the other plays' applies throughout. 3 Philol. 1888, pp. 378 sqq. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 41 exhibits the very features which led Leo parallelisms he cites cannot come from one to reject the latter portion of the play.1 and the same author. But on p. 53 he is More recently P. Melzer2 has attempted less confident and says that he is aware to maintain the Senecan origin of the that his examples do not prove that the whole work. He believes that we have parallels came from different hands—they only the rough sketch, full of duplicate only shew that if Sen. wrote the H.O. scenes between which Seneca would have passages, he did so after he had written, e.g., eventually had to make his choice. Richter the Hercules Furens, so that the immaturity himself, in the new Teubner edition of the of youth cannot be pleaded in explanation plays, writes on p. 319 : of the weaknesses of the play. Again, some of the points raised under (B) are by no Argumenta a Leone prolata acriter impugnauit ac maximam partem uel infirmauit uel diluit means decisive—least of all, the examples P. Melzer . Neque noua Pauli Barthii Lip- ' he gives of the illogical and feeble character siensis argumentatio per litteras mecum commu- of some of the writing. Leo's failure to nicata eo ualet ut stare possit Leonis sententin. press home his attack here is the more sur- prising as one of the most, obvious differences The conversion, at least in part, of the between H.O. and the other plays is the scholar who first took the trouble to investi- monotony, the absolute lack of point, and gate seriously the question might so easily the effort to make up for this by mere rant lead to a general acquiescence in what I which certain parts of it display. Of this regard as an absolutely impossible position however I shall say more anon : I pass now that I feel bound to put forward a solution to the third and last point in which Leo's to which the study of the play had driven method fails to satisfy me. It is not until me before I had seen any of the literature p. 69 that we learn that his criticisms apply on the subject, and in which the perusal with force only to 706 sqq. (' eorum quae of that literature has only confirmed me. attulimus perpauca nee e grauioribus ilia ad A summary of Leo's arguments will give hanc partem [1-705] pertinere'): in the a good idea of the main points involved. next few pages he proceeds to gloss over The peculiarities of H.O. fall under two and minimise any blemishes which he has heads: (A) frequent resemblances in thought previously pointed out in the other portion and expression to passages of the other of the play. So abrupt a turn is calculated plays, especially the Hercules Furens, and to weaken the reader's faith in his guide. (B) weakness and generally un-Senecan As an actual fact Leo quietly drops all character of the style and thought. A mention of some of these blemishes, forgets noteworthy example under (A) is the 3 to remind us that H.O. 484 comes almost passage 1402 sqq., shewn by Leo to be direct from the Phaedra, that H.O. 361 ' paene cento ex Hercule f urente decerptus contains an example of that use of forsilan et inepto loco insertus.' Very characteristic with a present tense which he previously too is the repetition of complete (or practi- regarded as important enough to merit a cally complete) iambic lines from other page or more of investigation, that in H.O. plays. Under (B) we get slovenliness of 63 genus stands for genus humanum in just grammatical construction, metrical pheno- the same way as it does in three passages mena, such as the shortening of the first of the rejected part of the play. If these syllable of Hebrus, Cyclas, and fibra, laxity omissions are fatal to our belief in Leo's and weakness of thought, poverty of lan- sense of equity, still more fatal to our faith guage (evinced by frequent repetition of a in his theory is the fact that the blemishes word or phrase) and peculiarities of style in the first part are much more numerous (especially of vocabulary).