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Dr. Wissowa on the Argei 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 Dr. Wissowa on the Argei W. Warde Fowler The Classical Review / Volume 16 / Issue 02 / March 1902, pp 115 - 119 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00205519, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00205519 How to cite this article: W. Warde Fowler (1902). Dr. Wissowa on the Argei. The Classical Review, 16, pp 115-119 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00205519 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.228 on 12 Apr 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 115 the deflecting force of cognate words which berg's recension j it is certainly in dis- hegan with pot- succeeded finally in detach- agreement with the usage of Celsus as ing potus from the now isolated bibo, and already pointed out. The second is Valerius made it possible on the one hand for the Maximus 2. 4. 5 ' calefactamque aquam prodigious bibitus to spring up, and on the pueris bibendam dedit qua potata' e.q.s. other for Priscian to declare that the par- Here there is very good MS. authority for ticiple of poto was potus. pota. Valerius uses potauit in its proper To sum up : potum, potus, polurus, is for sense at 3, 6. 6. In Pliny N.H. 20. 136 classical Latin the proper supine and par- ' ad crapulae grauedines decocuntur folia ticiples of bibo (and of poto if used in the poturis' (potaluris E, d) either variant is simple sense of drinking) ; potatum, potatus, correct as Latin. potaturus of poto in its own frequentative I have set forth the facts relating to the sense. Thus ' mecum i potatum' Plaut. classical usage of these two indispensable Pseud. 1327; ' tamquam leuia quaedam uina verbs because they are widely ignored. I do nihil ualent in aqua, sic Stoicorum ista not claim that they are altogether unknown. magis gustata quam potata delectant' Cic. For example, after I had discovered for Tusc. 5 § 14 (pota would have been im- myself the true supine of bibo I found in possible); 'potaturus est apud me' Ter. M. Brenouf 's Les ffellenistnes dans la Syntaxe Phorm. 837. Latine p. 268 and n. (2) ' Le supine n'6tait Of the two exceptions to the classical pas usite pour certains verbes; ainsi bibitum usage that I have noticed in the texts of qui ne fut employe que tres tard...Il etait the writers of classical times one is Celsus remplace par potum ou potatum. Col. 12. < 4. 19 ad fin. where potata was condemned for 51. 3 dabitur potatum imbecillis bubusl a gloss by Targa and is omitted in Darem- Virg. Buc. 7. 11,' quoted above. of poto (=potum do) ibr which see Rb'nseh Ilala «. J. P. POSTGATE Vulgata, p. 376. 1 I hare not been able to find this place. DE. WISSOWA ON THE ARGEI. (IN PAULA'S RealrEncychpadie, ED. 2, VOL. I. PP. 689 foil.) THIS important article, if (as seems to be May 15 (according to Dionysius).1 Of the case in Germany) its conclusions be the first of these rites we know nothing accepted, goes far to solve an old and pro- certainly, though in Varro L.L. 5. 45-54 we voking difficulty in Roman religious antiqui- have fragments of what seems to be an ties. The section on this subject in my itinerary for the use of a procession going ' Roman Festivals' was written, and indeed round the sacella. Of the second we have rewritten, before *,he article reached me; tolerably explicit accounts; we know that and had I fully grasped the importance of the Pontifices (and according to Dionysius Dr. Wissowa's treatment of the subject I the o-rpanyyot) were present at the ceremony, should doubtless have written it a third also the Flaminica Dialis in mourning, and time. This, however, I failed to do until that the Vestals themselves cast the simul- after my book was in print. Now, after acra into the river. The connexion between most carefully considering Dr. Wissowa's the two rites is not absolutely certain, but arguments and conclusions, I feel compelled has generally been assumed as a fact since to make a few observations on them. Jordan wrote his chapter on the Argei in his It will be remembered that there are two Romische Topographie (II. 237 foil.). Nor rites at Rome connected with the name is it certain that the number of sacella and Argei; (1) in all probability a procession the number of simulacra was the same; this round 24 (or perhaps 27) sacella or sacraria cannot be proved from the text of Varro (cp. Argeorum, on March 16 and 17; (2) the L.L. 5. 45 and 7.44). Dr. Wissowa concludes casting of 27 (or possibly 24, or according that the number in each case was 27, to Dionysius 30) simulacra hominum made 1 The references will be found in fall in Wissowa's of rushes into the Tiber from the pons sub- article, and the most important in my Roman Festivals, licius on May 14 (according to Ovid) or p. Ill foil." I 2 116 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. following Mommsen's somewhat cautious revival of this etymology is this : Mommsen, note in Staatsrecht III. 125; this is the when writing the third volume of his conclusion which best suits his own views,1 Staatsrecht, applied to Willamowitz-Mol- and we may provisionally accept it, remem- lendorf for an opinion about the word, bering, however, that it is not a certainty. and part of the latter scholar's reply Thus it would seem that we have no very is quoted on p. 123 of that volume. One secure foundation for conjectures as to the sentence only seems to contain anything real meaning of either of the rites. But like a definite pronouncement; it runs since the appearance, first of Jordan's thus ' Ein Name fur das Hellenenvolk ist chapter, and secondly of that of Dr. Mann- das Wort nie gewesen,hochstens in Anschluss hardt in his Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, an Homer von Dichtern, zum Beispiel von some new light seemed to be thrown on the Ennius im Medea-prolog, so verwendet wor- mystery. We began to believe (1) that den.' Next H. Diels, in his valuable book on the sacella were the centres of some ancient the Sibylline oracles (p. 44, note) amplified ' Cultusordnung' of the districts which be- this sentence while endeavouring to show came the four Servian regions: (2) that the that the name Apyeioi came to Rome through casting of the simulacra into the Tiber was the Sibylline "oracles : this is the amplifica- a rite of very primitive character, possibly tion : ' Willamowitz (bei Mommsen I.e.) a rain-spell, which may be compared with hat richtig vorgehoben dass der Name (i.e. many strikingly similar ceremonies now Argei) griechischen TJrsprungs ist ('Apyeloi), familiar to anthropologists. Dr. Wissowa's und bei den Griechen nur in der von explanation is altogether different, and as Homer abhangigen Poesie synekdochisch fiir startling as it is interesting. It may be "EXkr]V€<s eintreten kann. Geht man von briefly stated thus. Both rites are of late diesem Fundament aus, so ist, mein' ich, der date, probably of the third century B.C., and Schluss zwingend, dass nur auf dem Wege of Greek origin: they are not survivals of griechischen Orakelpoesie, die ja mit epis- primitive custom or worship, as the ' com- chen Materiale wirtsnhaftet, die Argei in parative anthropologists' 2 would persuade dea Romischen Cult, und von da in die us. Probably (he writes) at some date Sprache iibergegangen sein kann.' Dr. between the first and second Punic war, a Wissowa now goes yet a step further, quoting Sibylline oracle directed that, in order to Diels as having proved the equation Argei = assuage a famine or pestilence, twenty-seven 'Apyetoi, and approves his conclusion that Greeks (the traditional enemies of Rome, there must have been an oracle in the third as he calls them) should be sacrificed by century ordering the sacrifice of twenty- being cast into the Tiber. If I understand seven Argei = Greek captives. In spite of him rightly, he believes that these victims these developments, a cautious inquirer will were first detained for a while at certain be apt to think that we are after all much points in the four Servian regions, so as to as we were about the etymology of the spread their healing influence throughout the name. I am quite unable to see that either city (this would be the origin of the March Willamowitz, Diels, or Wissowa have rite) : and that two months later they were proved anything either as to the history or taken in procession to the pons sublicius, the etymology of the word Argei. No and there sacrificed by drowning. He parallel instance of its use has been dis- conjectures that the actual sacrifice only covered, in the Sibylline oracles or else- occurred on the first occasion, and that where ; and the equation with 'Apyeioi is substitutes, in the form of the simulacra, as hypothetical as ever. The etymology took their place regularly in subsequent may be a little more likely than others, years. (see however H. Nettleship, Contributions to Latin Lexicography, s.v.), but an uncertain The evidence brought together for this etymology is of no practical use without a revolutionary theory is somewhat compli- history of the word — and that history is cated : but the leading points in it seem to in this case not forthcoming.
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