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The Oxford Avianus The fables of Avianus edited, with prolegomena, critical apparatus, commentary, excursus, and index by Robinson Ellis, M.A., LL.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, University Reader in Latin. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. 1887. 8vo. pp. xliv, 151. 8s. 6d.
John E. B. Mayor
The Classical Review / Volume 1 / Issue 07 / July 1887, pp 188 - 193 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00182332, Published online: 27 October 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00182332
How to cite this article: John E. B. Mayor (1887). Review of L. Frazier, and J. De Villiers 'Language processing and language acquisition' The Classical Review, 1, pp 188-193 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00182332
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 132.239.1.230 on 13 Apr 2015 188 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 16, e.g. irwppw and vurja-eoiv would not bethat mentioned by Mr. Scott on p. 41, likely to occur in inscriptions earlier than which is an odd combination of both systems 100 A.D. But et for i and vice versd is a (pap. 1414). On pp. 29, 30, Mr. Scott is common interchange from 100 B.C. onwards. surely right in reading (in what seems to be The peculiar substitution of i?a for «a in the conclusion of a lecture by Philodemus) words like eTT(/j.e\rja, eva-eftr/a, which became KOI T?I% KaXyjs M(i)A.i^TOD fj.r/ aTroaravTi SiairavTO'; extremely common in Augustan times (circa Eip^iwo), and in translating ' Irenaeus, who B-c. 35-A.D. 50) all through Greece, and after- has never abandoned fair Miletus.' Why, wards entirely ceased, has been often however, he should conjecture the phrase accounted for by the influence of the Latin ' to abandon fair Miletus' to have been a e (in Medea, THE OXFORD AVIANUS. The fables of AVIANUS edited, with prolego- others have analysed the mosaic of Ammi- mena, critical apparatus, commentary, ex- anus, need condensation in one exhaustive cursus, and index by ROBINSON ELLIS, commentary, and that current texts may M.A., LL.D., Fellow of Trinity College, gain by the aid of Madvig and other recent Oxford, University Reader in Latin. Oxford critics. at the Clarendon Press. 1887. 8vo. pp. Ellis has but one predecessor as an inter- xliv, 151. 8«. 6d. preter of Avianus, Hendrik Cannegieter The publication in 1883 of Mr. Rutherford's (24 Febr. 1691—21 Aug. 1770). He is not, Bahrius determined the present edition of I think, ungenerous, when he says : Ariaaus. Judged by modern standards, Cannegieter per- FOB several years Mr. Ellis, in the study of formed his task only tolerably well. His Maximianus and Orientius, has been led to notes are cumbrous and loaded with useless citations, as well as unnecessary or improbable the neglected writers of the decline. He conjectures. justly complains that interpretation has not kept pace with criticism even in Germany. Yet, having carefully studied Cannegieter's 'No adequate edition of Ammianus exists.' book from the first page to the last, I wish With due gratitude to the excellent editors to say a word on his behalf. Avianus was Lindenbrog and the two De Valois (to say his first publication, and he continued to nothing of James Gronov), we must allow publish for thirty-five years after its appear- that the monographs in which Hertz and ance. I learn from the Dutch Biographical THE CLASSICAL EEVIEW. 189 Dictionary of Van der Aa that thirty years dispares offeruntur. qui fieri potest ut on ago his papers, including additions to his unum contrariis adfectionibus iuduamus ?) he published works, were in the hands of the has in mind the traveller blowing hot and family Burghgraaf at Franeker. Will some cold (fab. 29 22 tarn diversa duo qui simul Dutch correspondent make inquiries on the ora ferat). Indeed the language of Sym- spot? machus more nearly resembles St. James Ellis quotes the criticisms of Wopkens, 3 9-12. Again, when Ellis, after Unrein, and his reply to Cannegieter's defence, and makes Macrobius (Conim. I 2 § 7 fabulae, also the notes of that master of Latin quarum nomen indicat falsi professionem. poetry, Fr. Guyet.1 In the same volume cl. §§ 9, 10) allude to the words in our with the two latter pieces (Misc. obss. crit. fabulist's dedication fabularum lextus oc- VIII, Amst. 1737, pp. 1-20) appeared Canne- currit, quod in his urbane concepta falsitas gieter's defence, where he points out e.g. deceat et non incumbat necessitas veritatis, that fab. 7 4 and fab. 25 6 both end with I doubt whether Clinton would have built the words rictibus ora trahens. These notes a chronological argument on such a founda- have apparently escaped Ellis. Indeed I have tion. To me both writers suggest the school found in the older commentary not a few illus- definition of fiWostfabula, Xoyoi i/reuSi)? EIKOM- trations which I had searched for in vain in £w ak-qduav (Aphthon. progymn. 1), fabula the new ; some of these I give below, marked est, in qua nee verae nee veri similes res with an asterisk. Cannegieter was a grateful continentv/r (Cic. inv. I § 27. cf. Philostr. disciple of the great Perizonius (see p. 159 in Ellis p. 50). ' cuius me disciplinis formatum esse, in With regard to sins of prosody Avianus prima felicitatis parte pono, nee merita is here successfully cleared from not a few. obliviscar unquam') and bequeathed his Possibly he allowed a syllable, short by interest in the later Latin to his pupils, position, at the end of the first half of the the elder and younger Arntzenius, as may pentameter; but no great violence need be be seen in their successive prefaces. His done in order to correct the ten examples own preface to Avianus displays to the life which occur. Of other faults we may get. the busy hive of that Dutch school, which it rid of velis in one place 23 10 (Lachmann's is now the fashion to disparage, but which conjecture is wrongly given on p. xxiv.) by has rendered lasting service to accurate reading: scholarship. sice deurn, busti seu decus esse velis. In his Prolegomena Ellis treats of the age of Avianus (or Avienus, for he identifies The chapter on the diction and syntax of him with one of the company in Macr.), the Avianus will be of service to grammarians prosody of the fables, diction and syntax, and lexicographers. Of mss. eleven have the mss. been collated throughout by the editor (one With many recent critics he holds that Paris, three Oxford, two Peter house, four the Theodosius of the dedication is the British Museum, one Treves, one St. Gallen author JYlacrobius, and proves (as Canne- fragment) and others examined. The Gale gieter had done most convincingly) that ms. was collated by Munro for Bahrens. he cannot have been either of the emperors Various readings are given at the foot of Theodosius. So far Ellis is on solid ground. the page. A strict adherence to Cobet's Going on, he is wise beyond what is written. rules might perhaps have lightened the For I cannot think that Ausonius (Grat. margin so far as to make room for auctores Act. § 41 habes ergo consiliatorem et metuis et imitatores, which a sound tradition (as e.g. proditorem) alludes to fab. 26 11 12 : in Schenkl's Calpurnius) now places imme- diately under the text. In the commentary nam quamvis rectis constet sententia verbis, Bodleian mss. of a Greek paraphrase are suspectam home rabidus consiliator habet; cited. or that where Symmachus complains (ep. I I add a few illustrations. 101) of the difficulty of congratulating a P. 1 1. 2 in utroque litterarum genere. Add consul's appointment while lamenting a to my note on Iuv. xv 110 Sidon. c. 25 brother's death (duae niihi simul personae (= 23 p. 582 Baret) 236 cornmercia duplkis loquellae. Ov. a. a. II 122 linguas.. .duas. 1 Ellis nowhere states where these are to be found. Egger Hist, de la Critique 540. They are among the adversaria of Jo. SchefJ'er of Fab. 2 13 exosae pass, the passage of Strassburg (who derived them from Nic. Heins) and Macrobius is cited again on 33 6 ; also, with fill pp. 423-6 of the volume cited. I was put on the right scent by Fabricius-Ernesti Bibl. Lat. Teuffel this of Avianus, and six other examples, by makes no mention of Guyet. Georges, whose lexicon would, if consulted, 190 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. have relieved this commentary of much un- of this phrase in the hands of index-makers necessary repetition. Georges has not the we may learn a salutary lesson. Cannegieter's following Liberat. breviar. 24. Clem, recogn. index generally gives phrases, not single I 5. words, but here he, as well as Ellis, has Fab. 3 4 emonuisse inserted in text by quid and mirum as two separate articles. conjecture (codd. prae-). When we remember Even Forcellini supplies only two examples, that lexicons are compiled, sometimes with- the hackneyed one from Horace, and one ' out verification, from indexes, and that often from Ovid. Of the following references I (e.g. in this book) the index gives no hint had registered only those from Seneca and that the word lacks ms. authority, it becomes Tertullian ; the rest I have gathered by the evident that only absolute certainty, proved aid of indexes, mostly of the Delphin type, by general acceptance, should entitle con- necessitating the examination of every ex- jectural aTra£ Xeyo/jLeva to a place in the textampl. e of mirum. I learnt that the majority So below, 10 5, praeflant (for praestant of of Latin writers eschew the phrase, and that codd., perflant Ashb.), though praestant is nee mirum is much more usual. Cic. Verr. excellently expounded in the note. ib. note v § 6. de domo § 1 quare quid est mirum, on ver. 3 ' Prud.' add ' perist.' si..A Prop, iv (v) 4 39 and 41. Ov. her. Fab. 3 11 12 15 85. (Paris Oenonae 69). fasti vi 289. Pont, in ,4 63. Manil. iv 886. Curt, v 5 nam stultum nimis est, cum tu pravissima § 12. x 1 § 33 (both q. .m. est). Cf. iv 11 § 4 temples, ecquid m. est, si... ? Sen. de ira n 31 § 4 alterius censor si vitiosa notes. (q. m. est). prov. 4 § 12. Stat. s. n 1 175. I agree with Wopkens in taking this ' as a v 3 162. Tert. adv. Marc, n 2 p. m. general reflexion' (the Clarendon printers Mamertin. genethl. Maxim. 14 f. q. enim insist on ct, ' reflection'). In the note, not m. si... ? Inc. panegyr. Constantio Caes. 6 has fallen out between would and then. q. erit m., si... 1 Auson. epitaph, her. 9 4. Fab. 4 1 Cannegieter excellently defends Fab. 114 (de duabus ollis) ad sidera cl. 15 praesentia numina. Cf. fab. 8 5 6. sed diiiersa duas ars et natura creavit, Fab. 4 2 apud magnum.. .Iovem would be aere prior fusa est, altera facta luto. more natural. It occurred to me that ficta was required Fab. 4 13 requiescere membra transitive in opposition to fusa, before I saw tha,tficta also Ign. Trail. 12. has equal authority with facta and is read Fab. 6 7 nee se iactat cessisse 'a little by Bahrens. See Justin 36. 4. 4 (of Attalus) forced for et se non cessisse iactat.' See ai hoc studio aerariae artis fabricae se tradit Drakenb. on Liv. XXXII 10 § 6. Fabri on cerisque fingendis et aere fundendo procu- Liv. XXII 22 § 4. Ov. am. I 6 72. Plin. ep. dendoque oblectatur. Ill 14 § 7. Kiihner lat. Gr. n 657. Fab. 11 7 Fab. 8. Here, as throughout, we crave a larger comparison of fables and proverbs. ne tamen elisam confringeret aerea testa, Even a select bibliography of the later iurabat solidam longius ire viam. literature of ancient fable would have been The vast majority of mss. read testam, which acceptable. At any rate Leutsch's note is required by the opposition to aerea (ptta). should have been cited (Paroem. II 441-2, I do not understand solidam viam, whereas Apostol. VIII 43 ij Ka/Ji.r]\os iiri8v//.tf