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 Vollmer's Statius' Silvae P. Papinii Statii Silvarum Libri, herausgegeben und erklärt von Friedrich Vollmer. Leipzig, Teubner. 1898. 16 Mk. A. Souter The Classical Review / Volume 12 / Issue 06 / July 1898, pp 314 - 315 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00032650, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00032650 How to cite this article: A. Souter (1898). The Classical Review, 12, pp 314-315 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00032650 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 12 Apr 2015 314 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. VOLLMEE'S STATIUS' SILVAE. P. Papinii Statii SUvarum Libri, herausge- viii., 1893,1894), but a complete collation of geben und erklart von FBIEDBICH VOLL- the SUvae is yet unpublished, and for this MER. Leipzig, Teubner. 1898. 16 Mk. we must wait till the edition of Krohn appears, unless some one anticipate him. WE have to thank Herr Teubner, perhaps Those who know the SUvae best will be least the greatest benefactor of classical scholar- likely to quarrel with the statement (p. 36, ship in our century, for this new Statius, repeated p. 37) 'Gronovs recensio ist die which will certainly supply a long felt want. beste, die wir haben'; the Teubner text of The editor, Vollmer, is favourably known by Baehrens is exceedingly careless, disfigured a tract on laudalionesfunebres. Students of by more than his usual number of useless the SUvae have hitherto had to rest content conjectures, the MS. reading having to be with Markland, where criticism is the strong- restored sometimes as often as six times on est feature, or the four-volume edition of one page. Then comes an Appendix on ' The our author published in London a century Wars of Domitian.' It is unfortunate that ago, which however pleasant to the use is the editor had not seen Gsell's excellent behindhand now, especially in the depart- monograph till this was written. ment of history and antiquities. Editions The text follows (pp. 55-202), and beneath of single SUvae have indeed been published it are printed select various readings, and from time to time during the present century also passages echoed by and imitated from as doctor's dissertations, <fec, but it is obvious the SUvae. A good deal has been done al- that a complete collection of such cannot ready for the imitations, for example, by take the place of a harmonious commentary Peiper's Ausonius, Liitjohann's Sidonius, to the whole. and Birt's Claudian. The text is mainly and The book opens with an Introduction rightly conservative. We shall confine our- (pp. 1-52) dealing with (1) Statius' Life and selves to a few remarks of approval or disap- Works, (2) Appreciation and History of the proval of the treatment of selected passages, SUvae, including an account of the MSS. by letting it be fully understood that we believe Moritz Krohn of Zittau, who is to bring out this to be the very best text of the poems the new text of the SUvae in the Bibliotheca yet published, i. 1, 1: geminata "Vollmer Teubneriana. The former contains a valu- and vulg. This is a very slight alteration of able chronology of the several SUvae and MSS. gemmata, which I would keep. also of the collected books, and will prove Cf. lucem coruscam (v. 71) and the general very useful alongside of Friedlander's treat- expression in Gsell 127 that the architecture ment of the same subject in the Sittenge- of the period showed ' un gout exag6r6 pour schichte, vol. iii. In the second chapter the les mat6riaux pre'cieux, la surcharge de l'or- speed with which the poems were written is namentation.' i. 1, 25: MSS. discit et should rightly insisted on, and many scholars have be kept with Skutsch, who styles discitw a been guilty both of shortsighted criticism worthless conjecture, i. 2, 202 : the con- and waste of time in the attempt to construct jecture coeptique labores was also made by finished poems from the text we have. The Macnaghten (Journ. of PhUol. 19, 130). later authors who have alluded to or imi- i. 5, 39 : the editor has given up his former tated Statius are next enumerated. It ap- conjecture quasqtie Tyros niueas and now pears (p. 34) that with the sixth century reads cumque Tyri niueas. i. 6 is the most knowledge of the poems disappears, and it is difficult, and perhaps the most interesting not till the discovery of a codex by Poggio of all the poems. The editor has given up that we hear of them again. This codex has line 8 (laeti Caesaris ebriamque *parten) and unfortunately been lost, and the readings of line 15 (et quo percoquit *aebosia cannos) in it which are written in a copy of the despair. In no poem are the defects of our editio princeps (now in the Corsinian Library MSS. more conspicuous, and long pondering at Borne) are not so numerous as we should over it but serves to make its readings more like. The best extant witness to the text is mysterious. In line 17 the editor keeps the codex Matritensis (saec. xv., Bibl. Nazion. gaioli in the sense of ' gebackene Mannlein,' M 31), which has bound up with it, among and probably this is allowable, though no other works, the poem of Manilius. Of the parallel is produced. The ordinary reading latter Prof. Robinson Ellis has given a col- molles caseoli is however powerfully supported lation in the Classical Review (vols. vii. and by Plaut. Capt. 851 mollem caseum, and L. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 315 Pomponius Bononiensis, v. 62 (Ribbeck, constitutes the fourth volume in Lemaire's com. fr. ed. 3) caseum molle. The editor has edition. It is pleasant to find a number of omitted to mention that line 38 is a remin- references in the notes to Prof. Mayor's iscence of Lucan vii. 411 hunc uoluit (Roma) Juvenal. The name Violentilla is rightly nescire diem, (the day of Pharsalus). On ii. derived from uiolentus (p. 237); Martial 5, 9 it should have been stated that the line was wrong in dubbing her 'lavOU (uiola). is from Verg. IX. 553 (fera) saltu supra At the end of the notes is an appendix uenabula fertur. ' Prosodisches und •Metrisches.' Pp. 561- The commentary fills pp. 207-560, and is 598 embrace the two excellent indexes made preceded by two and a half important pages by H. Saf tien, the first, one of proper names, of bibliography, where the editor might which will save the reader the trouble of have included the convenient monograph turning to the anonymous index at the end of P. Rasi, Be L. Arruntio Stella poeta of Kohlmann's Thebais, and the second, an Patavino (Patavii, 1890). We have nothing index to the introduction and commentary, but praise for this lengthy and valuable which we venture to prophesy will be found commentary, including, as it does, notes serviceable in the study of other silver from Biicheler, to whom the book is worthily authors. This edition is to be cordially re- dedicated, and employing the full resources commended to British and American of an up-to-date and splendidly equipped scholars, and may encourage some new classical library. If we might single out readers to approach the SUvae, the matter one feature more than another, it would be of which is of considerable importance, the large number of passages in the neg- even though their style be careless and lected Thebais and Achilleis, which are excessively allusive. referred to in illustration of usage. This A. SOUTEB. will be found useful even by those who Aberdeen. possess the splendid index uerborum which THE 'THOUGHTS' OF M. AURELIUS. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself. An becomes upon the surface impersonal and colourless. But as tone and manner grow familiar, the individu- English translation with Introductory ality of the writer becomes distinct, intense, and Study on Stoicism and the Last of the unmistakable. Self-repression does not obliterate Stoics. By G. H. RENDALL, M.A., Litt.D. the lines of personality, but unifies and in a manner Macmillan. 1898. 6s. augments their effect; and the thoughts " To Him- self" become the one authentic testimony and record of philosophy upon the throne . Behind the mask LOVERS of the latest and most lovable of of monarchy the man's lineaments are disclosed ; we Stoics will welcome this translation as a overhear the wistful affections and the lone regrets, worthy rendering of their favourite author. the sense of personal shortcoming and wasted en- deavour, the bitterness of aspirations baffled and The translator is in thorough sympathy with protests unheeded, the confessions of despondency his subject; he is well equipped, as is shown and sometimes of disgust, we realise the exhausting in the Introduction, with the learning which tedium of "life at Court lived well," the profound is required for understanding him; and he ennui of autocracy in its enforced companionship with intrigue and meanness and malice and self- is moreover master of an English style seeking, the stern demands of duty hampered by which, in its grave and quiet beauty, re- power and realised in renunciation, the pride and flects back the tone of thought of Aurelius patience, the weakness and the strength, the busy far better than his own perplexed and loneliness, the mournful serenity, the daily death in life of the Imperial sage " (p.