The Classical Quarterly http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ Additional services for The Classical Quarterly: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here VEILED OR UNVEILED? (PLUT. QUAEST. ROM. 267B–C) J.L. HILTON and L.L.V. MATTHEWS The Classical Quarterly / Volume 58 / Issue 01 / May 2008, pp 336 ­ 342 DOI: 10.1017/S0009838808000323, Published online: 18 April 2008 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838808000323 How to cite this article: J.L. HILTON and L.L.V. MATTHEWS (2008). VEILED OR UNVEILED? (PLUT. QUAEST. ROM. 267B–C). The Classical Quarterly, 58, pp 336­342 doi:10.1017/S0009838808000323 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ, IP address: 146.230.128.50 on 06 Dec 2012 Color profile: Generic offset separations profile Black 150 lpi at 45 degrees 336 SHORTER NOTES ‘sexual wrestling’ or ‘sexual battle’.6 Since the idea is such a common one, there is of course no way of positively proving that Leucippe 5.3.5 echoes a tragic passage. However, as a look at n. 6 will confirm, use of wrestling-imagery to refer to the sexual act is rare: it is rather images of fighting or of training and exercising that prevail. Moreover, aside from Paulus Silentiarius, the use of π0μαιτνα! παμαιτυ@Κ and the like as euphemisms for sex seems to be limited to Aeschylus. In addition, π0μθξ `ζσοδτιοξ in Achilles Tatius contains an epithet which in tragedy occurs only in Sophocles (fr. 166 Radt λ2ζσοδιταξ 4ησαξ). It is not beyond belief, then, that Leucippe 5.3.5 may conceal a reminiscence of a tragic trimeter, e.g. × — παμαψξ `ζσοδτιοξ π0μθξ (Kovacs per litteras), which would preserve Tatius’ phraseology practically intact. There may, however, be a difficulty here, in that the only tragic instance of `ζσοδτιοΚ that is metrically unambiguous, namely S. fr. 277.1 Radt, scans with short first syllable (in S. fr. 166 the word is in crasi). This is, of course, no fatal objection per se, considering that `ζσοδυθ sometimes has a long first syllable (E. Ba. 225, 459; IA 1159; fr. 23.2, 26.1, 898,1 Kannicht). However, since Sophocles does not seem to use (fr. 1130.10 Radt is of uncertain authorship), a reconstruction involving π0μαιτνα might have more to recommend it. The putative Sophoclean original could have been e.g. `ζσοδιτοιτιξ νπμαλεGΚ παματνατιξ (the three-word trimeter may have attracted attention to a climactic moment), or perhaps `ζσοδτιοξ π0μαιτνα υ[δ) πενβαμAξ. There are, of course, numerous other possibilities. Université de Montréal VAYO S J. L I A P I S [email protected] doi:10.1017/S0009838808000311 6 Here are the parallels cited by West: Thgn. 1335–6 iμβιοΚ! SτυιΚ σ*ξ ηφνξ0ευαι ο4λαδε μρAξ! / εδψξ τcξ λαμD παιδG παξθν-σιοΚ; Eup. fr. 171.2 K.-A. ο<δ) ο4λαδ) μρVξ υPξ τεαφυο" ηφνξ0τειΚ δ0νασυα;; Ov. Her. 5.140–1 ille meae spolium uirginitatis habet, / id quoque luctando; Suet. Dom.22assiduitatem concubitus uelut exercitationis genus clinopalem uocabat; Apul. Met. 2.17 proeliare…comminus…derige et grassare nauiter et occide moriturus…hodierna pugna,and9.5(Veneris) colluctationibus; Paul. Sil. A.P. 5.259.5–7 λεM νTξ παξξφγwτιξ Hνιμ@τατα παματυσαιΚ / υα"υα ζ-σειΚ [i.e., bruises], iμβοφ παξυQΚ #πεσπ-υαυαι / SΚ τε πεσιπμ-ηδθξ 'γε π@γετιξ. We may add 4ηγειξ, a technical term from wrestling used with sexual innuendo in Herodas 1.18: see Headlam/Knox ad loc. VEILED OR UNVEILED? (PLUT. QUAEST. ROM. 267B–C) υα=Κ δT ηφξαιωGξ ο<δ) SμψΚ ω?ξ πιλαμ1πυετραι υPξ λεζαμ@ξn Lτυοσε=υαι ηο"ξ Sυι πσ*υοΚ νTξ ω-βαμε ηφξα=λα ΤπσιοΚ ΛασβμιοΚ π) 2υελξ! δε1υεσοΚ δT ΤοφμπλιοΚ Η0μμοΚ ζεμλφταν-ξθξ MδVξ λαυ1 λεζαμ?Κ υQ Lν0υιοξ! υσυοΚ δT ΠπμιοΚ ΤενπσAξιοΚ 2η*ξα 100 ρεψσ@ταταξ πιυ0ζιοξe Plut. Quaest. Rom. 267B–C. (Nachstädt, Sieveking, Titchener 1971). 95 Were women not at all allowed to veil their heads? At any rate it is recorded that Spurius Carvilius was the first to divorce his wife on account of her barrenness, that Sulpicius Gallus was 75 second to do so, after seeing his wife pulling her himation over her head, and that Publius Sempronius was the third – his wife had gone to watch the funeral games. Plutarch’s source for these anecdotes was in all probability Valerius Maximus. 25 Plutarch is known to have made use of the Roman moralist elsewhere in his 5 0 CAQ58-1-final-black.prn S:\Journals\classq\58-1\typeset\CAQ58-1-final.vp 09 April 2008 09:15:02 Plate: 335 of 398 Color profile: Generic offset separations profile Black 150 lpi at 45 degrees SHORTER NOTES 337 work.1 In the passage quoted above he has grouped together three anecdotes of high-handed behaviour by Roman husbands in the same order in which they appear in the Facta et Dicta Memorabilia: first, Spurius Carvilius’ divorce of his wife for not producing children (primus autem Sp. Caruilius uxorem sterilitatis causa dimisit, ‘Spurius Carvilius was the first to divorce his wife on account of her barrenness’, Val. Max. 2.1.4); second, Sulpicius Galus’ repudiation of his spouse for not wearing a veil (horridum C. quoque Sulpicii Galli maritale supercilium: nam uxorem dimisit, quod eam capite aperto foris uersatam cognouerat, ‘the marital arrogance of C. Sulpicius Gallus was also harsh – he divorced his wife, because he found out that she had gone about outdoors with her head uncovered’, Val. Max. 6.3.10); and, finally, the notice of separation served on his wife by Publius Sempronius (iungendus est his P. Sempronius Sophus, qui coniugem repudii nota adfecit, nihil aliud quam se ignorante ludos ausam spectare, ‘to these must be added Publius Sempronius Sophus, who issued his wife with a notice of divorce, for no other reason than she dared to watch the games without his knowledge’, Val. Max. 6.3.12). The first example is found at some remove from the second and third and was clearly selected by Plutarch as a further instance of arrogant behaviour by Roman men to add to the others, rather than being part of a ready-made group taken from a single passage. However, it is also conceivable that both Plutarch and Valerius Maximus encountered these cases in Varro’s De Vita Populi Romani, since Plutarch cites Varro in the passage immediately preceding the anecdote of Spurius Carvilius’ divorce (Quaest. Rom. 264D9), and Valerius also cites Varro on one occasion (3.2.24) and evidently made use of his material elsewhere.2 A further possibility is that information about Sulpicius Galus, if not about all three divorce cases, came from the treatise on dowries of his first-century descendant, the lawyer Publius Sulpicius Rufus, whom Aulus Gellius mentions as the source of his information about the Carvilius case (Noct. Att. 4.3, cf. Cic. Fam. 4.6.1). This tangled web of related texts is evidence of the strong interest aroused by the Carvilius incident, traditionally the first divorce in the history of Roman law. 3 More importantly for the purposes of the present note, it shows that the relationship between Plutarch and Valerius Maximus may not necessarily be a simple or unmediated one. 1 For the Quellenforschung on Valerius Maximus, see M. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility (Chapel Hill, 1992) 59–146. Support comes from C. Pelling, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London, 2002), 83; L.A.G. Moreno, ‘Paradoxography and political ideas in Plutarch’s Life of Sertorius’, in P.A. Stadter (ed.) Plutarch and the Historical Tradition (London, 1992), 150; L. van der Stockt, ‘Plutarch’s use of literature: sources and citations in the Quaestiones Romanae’, AncSoc 18 (1987), 281–92, at p. 286, citing A. Sickinger, De linguae latinae apud Plutarchum et reliquiis et vestigiis (Diss. Friburgi Brisgoviae, 1883), 65–6; J.L. Moles, ‘Fate, Apollo and M. Junius Brutus’, AJP 104 (1983), 249–56, at 252: ‘Plutarch certainly knew, and apparently sometimes used, Valerius Maximus’, quoting Brut. 53.5, where Plutarch cites Valerius as his authority for Porcia’s state of mind after the death of her husband, 100 to which may be added Marc. 30.5 where Plutarch cites Valerius on Hannibal’s treatment of Marcellus’ corpse. On the Roman Questions in general, see J. Boulogne, ‘Les Questions romaines de Plutarque’ in H. Temporini and W. Haase (edd.), ANRW 2.33.6 (Berlin, 1992), 4682–702; H.J. 95 Rose, The Roman Questions of Plutarch: A New Translation with Introductory Essays and a Running Commentary (New York, 1975 [reprint of Oxford, 1924 edition]). 75 2 Bloomer (n. 1), 114, suggests the connection between Valerius and Varro here. 3 The case is also discussed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2.25.7), Plutarch (Rom. et Thes. 6.4.6, Lyc. et Num. 3.6–7), and Aulus Gellius (17.21.44). For the legal significance of the case, see A. Watson, ‘The divorce of Carvilius Ruga’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis (1961) 243–58 = 25 Studies in Roman Private Law (London), 23–36. 5 0 CAQ58-1-final-black.prn S:\Journals\classq\58-1\typeset\CAQ58-1-final.vp 09 April 2008 09:15:03 Plate: 336 of 398 Color profile: Generic offset separations profile Black 150 lpi at 45 degrees 338 SHORTER NOTES In addition to the problem of the sources for the tale of Galus’ divorce, there is the possibility that the confusion is a result of a textual error in Valerius Maximus. There occurs in the MS tradition of Valerius a variation between capite aperto (‘with unveiled head’) and capite operto (‘with veiled head’); the latter is the reading given in the Paris MS of the Facta et Dicta Memorabilia.