CHAPTERlWO

LMUS ANDRONICUS

Inuentio. The Rediscovery of the Odyssey and the Invention of a Poetic Language

The Right Word in the Right Place

"Tell me, 0 Goddess of Song, of the clever man"1 Virum mihi, Camena, insece uersutum. The first line of epic is intriguing in several respects. Livius does not adopt the hexameter, which is the traditional of Greek epic. He chooses the Saturnian, which is more familiar to his Roman public,2 and his experience with Greek allows him to create his own type of Latin Saturnians. Since with

1 Translation: E.H.Warmington, Remains of , vol. 1. (London, 1936). Text: Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum, ed. W.Morel (Lipsiae, 2nd ed., 1927); new ed. by J.Bliinsdorf (Stuttgart, 1995); E.Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford, 1993). Bibi.: G.Broccia, Ricerche su Livio Andronico epico (Padova 1974); K.Biichner, " und die erste kiinstlerische Ubersetzung der europiiischen Kultur", SO 54 (1979): 37-70; R.Cappelletto, "Livio Andronico, Odyssea fr. 31 Mor (=22 Mar.)", RFIC 112 (1984): 413-416; G.Erasmi, "The Saturnian and Livius Andronicus", Glotta 57 (1979): 125-149; E.Fraenkel, "Livius", RE Suppl.5 (1931): 598-607; H.Friinkel, "Griechische Bildung in altromischen Epen I," Hermes 67 (1932): 303-311; H.Flashar, "Formen der Aneignung griechischer Literatur durch Ubersetzung", Arcadia 3 (1968): 133-156; S.M.Goldberg, "Saturnian Epic: Livius and Naevius", in: Boyle, AJ. (ed.) Roman Epic (London and New York, 1993): 19-36;].M. Kearns, "l:eµvo-rr1c; and Dialect Gloss in the Odusia of Livius Andronicus", A]Ph 111 (1990) 40-52; F.Leo, Geschichte der riimischen Literatur, vol. I (Berlin, 1913): 55-75; S.Mariotti, Livio Andronico e la traduzione artistica (Milan, 1952); E.Neu, "Uber• setzung-Moglichkeiten und Grenzen ", Humanistische Bildung 9 ( 1985): 55-92; A.Ronconi, "Sulla tecnica delle antiche traduzioni latine da Omero," SIFC, n.s. 34 ( 1962): 5-20;__ A.Seele, Riimische Ubersetzer. Niite, Freiheiten, Absichten. Verfahren des literarischen Ubersetzens in der griechisch-riimischen Antike (Darmstadt, 1995); G.A. Sheets, "The Dialect Gloss, Hellenistic Poetics and Livius Andronicus", A]Ph 102 ( 1981) 58-78. 2 As our material is scarce and heterogeneous (where are the limits between "rough Saturnians" and "solemn prose"?), there is no unanimity among scholars concerning the origin (lndo-European, Italic, Greek) and the nature of this metre (syllabic, tonic, quantitative). The most probable guess is that the Saturnian had initially been an accentual verse with fairly fixed boundaries between words (see my History of Roman Literature [Leiden, 1997): 43 f. with a diagram and bib!.), but was then interpreted in terms of Greek quantitative metrics; this development began very early, with Livius Andronicus himself, who was, of course, imbued with Greek culture. 34 CHAPTER TWO

Ennius the hexameter became the standard metre of Latin epic, we need not discuss here the nature of the Saturnian at length. It is, nevertheless, useful to take note of two basic facts. First, despite differences in interpretation, all scholars agree that in the Saturnian metre the boundaries (and the number) of words within each line are relevant.1 We will see in a moment that some principles of poetic arrangement of words, which can be observed in the fragments, would set the tone for Latin epic and even survive the change of metre. Second, the Saturnian line falls into two parts which differ slightly from each other.2 There is an interplay between a "rising" and a "falling" part of the line. A similar bipartite structure will also prevail later on in the Latin hexameter. A long distance hyperbaton like uirum ... uersutum was much less common in old Latin than it was in Greek. We know that Latin prose admitted hyperbaton only under certain, well-defined conditions3 and that because of the early impact of Greek rhetoric, orators enjoyed slightly greater freedom than historians in this respect. In Livius' first line, however, Greek influence does not explain every• thing. First, he would not have ventured to reproduce the word order of his model, if the Latin language had not offered him some natural basis for doing so. After all, hyperbaton is one of those features which popular and poetic language have in common. Its function is to emphasize the unity of a given sentence.4 Second, Livius gives greater

1 G.Erasmi (quoted above, n. 1, p. 33): 149: "It seems evident from the preced• ing analysis that the Saturnians of Livius tend to be characterized if not defined by either a pyramidal construction that allows for concentrical reading or by verse divided into two cola usually linked by , often characterized by rhyme correspondence." Moreover, her article contains pertinent observations on the differences between Livius and Naevius. 2 S.M.Goldberg (quoted above, n. 1, p. 33) observes that, in ca. 125 Latin Satur• nians, each line is divided by a caesura into two slightly different cola, with the second half being shorter than the first by 1-3 syllables. Often the name of the father is placed before the caesura, whereas filius or jilia appears after it; thus, the caesura is bridged to some degree. Ends of sentences tend to coincide with the ends oflines. 3 A.W.Ahlberg, "De traiectionis figura ab antiquissimis prosae scriptoribus Latinis adhibita", Eranos 11 (1911): 88-106. 4 Colloquial hyperbata are found in Cato's De agricultura. The following quota• tions from W.Wundt are enlightening: "In a sentence like magna dis immortalilrns habenda est gratia, the entire expression (which is rather long) is tied together to form a unit by the words magna gratia which are related to each other both logically and grammatically. This unit renews, as it were, the basic unity of an overall idea and puts it before our eyes" ( Viilkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungs• gesetu von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. Vol. 2: Die Sprache. 2nd Part [Leipzig, 3rd edi• tion, 1912]: 367). Ibid. 370: "Of course, it is difficult to decide in each single case if