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Neméthy's Ciris Ciris epyllion pseudovergilianum. Edidit, adnotationibus exegetiris et criticis instruxit Geyza Némethy, academiae litterarum Hungaricae sodalis. Budapestini, sumptibus academiae litterarum Hungaricae. 1909. 8vo. Pp. 159. 3 kronen.
A. E. Housman
The Classical Review / Volume 23 / Issue 07 / November 1909, pp 224 - 226 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00003930, Published online: 27 October 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00003930
How to cite this article: A. E. Housman (1909). The Classical Review, 23, pp 224-226 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00003930
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 132.239.1.231 on 12 Apr 2015 224 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW comments on the name, it is not clear where earlier editors, wherever derived from, is Mco8otov comes from ; from Koechly Ma>A.au>u shown to be correct; and as Modaeus was would appear to be the MS. reading. In any not a character of much importance, his case, as the MwScuos of the B.M. fragment occurrence in both the B.M. fragment and the was evidently an Indian (since Bombus and ' Dionysiaca' is a link of some value, and other followers of Dionysus were shooting at perhaps tends to support Kenyon's con- him), it seems fairly certain that he and the jecture that these epic fragments are from Mw&uos—Mci>A.(uo$ of the ' Dionysiaca' were the 'Bassarica.' the same person. Thus the reading of the H. I. BELL.
REVIEWS
NEMETHY'S CIRIS.
Ciris epyllion pseudovergilianum. Edidit, ad- sidera fallas' he derives from Hor. carm. ii notationibus exegetiris et criticis instruxit 8 10 sq. 'fallere (i.e. peierando) taciturna noctis signa'; on 73 ' coniugium . . . uio- GEYZA N^METHY, academiae litterarum Hungaricae sodalis. Budapestini, sumpti- lauerat Amphitrites' (Neptunus in Scyllae bus academiae litterarum Hungaricae. amore) he says 'ex Catull. 67 23-4 "sed 1909. 8vo. Pp. 159. 3 kronen. pater illius gnati uiolasse cubile Dicitur " et Ou. am. ii 7 17-8 " Cypassis Obicitur CONSIDERING how serious a business it is to dominae contemerasse torum,"' as if fathers edit the appendix Vergiliana, and how much were married to their sons or maids to their care and labour and capacity would be mistresses. He trusts to printed texts, and needed to make any signal advance on the they yield him parallels which are illusory. studies of the nineteenth century, it is sur- For example on 165 he has this note: prising that so many scholars should think ' gelidis Edonum Bistonis oris, ex Lucr. iv themselves called upon to undertake the 830 (he means 545) " et gelidis cycni nocte task. The last four years have brought us oris ex Heliconis " et Calu. fr. 11 B "frigida one whole edition and the best part of iam celeri superata est Bistonis ora "' (four another; here begins a third, and there is a lines below he repeats this verse and calls it fourth preparing. One opens these successive ' Calu. fr. Ius 12 ed. Baehrens' for variety). volumes without expecting much, and if the I will give what the MSS give, and we shall new editors merely abandoned the gratuitous see what happens : '•gelidis Edonum Bistonis errors of the old it might well content one; honoris, ex Lucr. iv 545 "et ualidis necti but the three last texts of the Ciris are before tortis ex Heliconis" et Calu. fr. 12 B me, and in u. 90 they all present as usual "frigida iam celeris uergatar uistinis ora."' that time-honoured absurdity, the conjecture On the other hand he misses parallels which somnta sunt. deserve citation. At 27 "*felix ilia dies' he Mr Nemethy, like Mr Curcio, provides does not quote laud. Bis. 159 or Aetn. 636, his recension with a commentary, and fully but he does quote Manil. v 568 'felix ilia half of it is devoted to the collection of dies redeuntem ad litora duxit,' though verbal parallels. These are very numerous, anyone who reads that verse in its context and some of them, I suppose, have never and attemps to make sense of it will discover been adduced before : certainly some should that ilia agrees with litora. At 71 'infelix never be adduced again. At 14.1 he reads uirgo' he quotes Manil. v 587, Verg. buc. ' nulli non' and compares Verg. georg. iv 97 (he means 47 and 52), and 'Calu. fragm. 453 'non . . . nullius'; 432 'forma uel 9 (ed. Lucian. Mueller),' but he forgets 167 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW of the Ciris itself: then when he comes to omnes and no more), decusque (i.e. mirificum 167 he forgets both 71 and his note on it, saecli genus et, modo uelis, decus) and. the and quotes only 'Calu. fragm. 9,'—this time lacuna are mine. Mr Nemethy avoids the ' (ed. Baehrens).' • worst mistake of the current editions, edita In its explanatory part the commentary is for est data,' but he commits worse of his less puerile than Mr Curcio's, but still own: elementary and superficial. Nothing hitherto quod si mirificum (sophiaey nemus omne (tenerern} obscure is elucidated (for the interpretation (mirificum, Valeri, modo sit tibi nosst libido), of 360, though right, is not new), and grave si me iam somma sapientia pangeret arce, difficulties are let pass unnoticed or shoul- quae tribus antiquis heredibus est data consors . . . dered aside by the rudest alterations. There are 14 pages of ' adnotationes criticae,' in I need not remark on the artless violence of which things already said in the commentary svphiae and Valeri nor on the absurdity of are said over again, and parallels which were one man occupying a whole grove; but who cited at full length are cited at full length a are these three joint heirs of the citadel of second time. But the MSS are nowhere wisdom? The three legatees of Epicurus, enumerated, and lections are taken indis- ' Hermarchus, cui scholam, et Amynomachus criminately from all. The crudest interpola- Timocratesque, cui (he means quibus) rent tions of L and U,—blandaeque for laudate, familiarem reliquit.' cateruas for marinas,—are printed without But it is at 125 that he appears in the mention of a variant. Within the first worst light. A few years ago he proposed in hundred lines the conjectures suspexit 7, Verg. buc. iv 47 the conjecture ' Concordes libeat 20, currum 26, exterrita 48, uiserit 50, stabili fatorum nemine Parcae' instead of patria 53, infestare uoraci 57, castae 73, uixit numine. It was objected that ' Concordes eratgue 86, are smuggled into the text behind stabili firmarant numine Parcae' occurred the reader's back. If Mr Nemethy, for any in the Ciris. Now therefore he corrupts reason or for none, is dissatisfied with the this verse to match the other, formarant tradition, he will change curae to sumant, nemine, and so deprives u. 124 of its con- cetos to uestros, lauro to rircum, inde alias to struction. hinc feminis, aereas (i.e. aerias) turres to Concerning the authorship of the Ciris Phoebeas t. (though there was only one turris Mr Nemethy holds the least tenable of all Phoebea), 'studio iadabat inani' to seruabat opinions: he ascribes the work to a 'falsarius' (in spite of Verg. buc. ii 5), and 'diem who wished to pass it off as Virgil's. If I mortalibus a/mum' to egit (in spite of Aen. v wished to pass off as Virgil's a composition 64). He says that 215 ' caeruleas sua furta of my own, I should not describe myself in prius testatur ad umbras' which is simplicity its second verse as a disappointed politician, itself, ' expticari nequit,' and writes auras, as nor besprinkle it from end to end with those if that were easier. He alters hie to ac in diminutive forms which Virgil did his best to 490 because ' sensu caret,' though it has the banish from poetry. Mr Nemethy's ability same sense as in Catull. 64 269. At 508, to determine the authorship of a Latin poem for et tamen, correctly used, he substitutes at may be estimated from his pamphlet on tatnen, used incorrectly, in the opinion that catalept. xiii. He prints in that piece these the latter is adversative and the former is three iambic trimeters, two of which owe not. His first page will furnish a fair sample their peculiarities to his own conjectures,— of his procedure. The verses 12-15 should stant in uadis caeno retentae turbido, probably run somewhat as follows: neque in culinam ad uncta nouendialia, cinaede Pediati tuae liquere opes,— quod si, mirificum genus 0 Mes(salla decusque) mirificum saecli (modo sit tibi uelle libido), and he assigns it, thus embellished, to si me iam summa sapientia pangeret arce, Horace. (quae .....> Works of this sort are little better than quattuor antiquis heredibus est data consors . . . # interruptions to our studies, and Mr o Messalla is Mr Leo's (the MSS have Nemethy was ill-advised in attempting a task NO. ccv. VOL. xxm. p 226 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW so much beyond his powers. It appears afford a pleasure whose Croatian name I do from his preface that he is an ardent.and not know, but whose German name is even flamboyant Hungarian patriot; so to Schadenfreude. Germans and Croats his book may possibly A. E. HOUSMAN.
BURY'S GREEK HISTORIANS.
The Ancient Greek Historians. By J. B. scepticism, Prof. Bury holds, is wholly pre- BURY, Litt.D., LL.D., Regius Professor Sophistic, and learnt from Ionia; sometimes, indeed, he takes 'the inventions of Ionian ofModernHistoryatCambridge. London: esprit' too seriously. Both his faith and his Macmillan & Co. 1909. Pp. x, 281. doubt are naif and instinctive. The greatest 75. 6d, net. complaint against him is his incompetence in THIS volume, which contains the Lane Lec- military history. tures delivered at Harvard last year, gives ' a Prof. Bury will have none of ' Thucydides historical survey of Greek historiography Mythistoricus.' Mr. Cornford denies Thu- down to the first century B.C.' It displays cydides either a clear idea of causation or the same brilliant power of expounding the the vocabulary to express it. (How, by the results of a mass of erudition which appears way, can one translate ainov 8' ty ov\ r) in the author's History of Greece; and to 6\iyav6punria TOVOVTOV oarov i) aj(jyr)iJ.a.Tia, that work it forms a valuable supplement, i. 11, without allowing to the writer both revealing the foundations upon which the the notion of cause and the recognition building was erected. Indeed, the History of economic factors in history ?) Prof. Bury may be thought to go too far in concealing admits the shifting meanings of alrCa and the processes of construction. For example, Trp6