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Archaic Latin Verse

Archaic Latin Verse 

Mario Erasmo

University of Georgia

2004 • 1-58510-043-9 • paper • 110 pages •  6 x 9 • $24.95

Early Latin verse fragments arranged by genre.

|  About the Author  |  Contents  |  Preface  |

 Description                                             

Selections from oral verse, Livius, Naevius, Ennius, and others (Caecilius, Accius, Pacuvius, and Lucilius).

 Author                                                    

Mario Erasmo is an Associate professor at the University of Georgia . He received his PhD from Yale and has special interests in Roman drama, funerary studies and early Latin poetry.

 Table of Contents                                   

        Preface 
        Editions of Fragments
        Introduction
I.      Oral Poetry: Carmina, Versus Populares
II.      Verse Epitaphs
III.     Epic I -- Saturnian Verse: Livius Andronicus, Naevius
IV.    Tragedy I: Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Ennius
V.     Epic II -- Hexameter Verse: Ennius
VI.    Comedy: Caecilius Statius
VII.   Tragedy II: Pacuvius, Accius
VIII.   Satire: Lucilius
         Commentary

 Preface                                                   

The earliest Roman poems survive only in fragmentary form. What fragments that do survive are often overlooked in the classroom due to the difficulty of incorporating them into survey courses of Latin literature or courses devoted to epic poetry. In large part this is due to the absence of an available edition that focuses exclusively on this material. W.W. Merry’s Selected Fragments of Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1898), which includes only a sampling of the early fragments, is now out of print and somewhat outdated for college classroom use. E. Diehl’s Poetarum Romanorum Veterum Reliquiae (Berlin, 1911, reprinted 1967), A. Ernout’s Recueil de Textes Latines Archaïques (Paris, 1957), which includes both prose and verse selections, and W. Morel’s Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum (Stuttgart, 1927, reprinted 1963), do not include a commentary. Monographs on individual poets also offer challenges for classroom use: commentaries devoted to Naevius’ Bellum Punicum are in Latin (W. Strzelecki, Cn. Naevii Belli Punici Carminis quae supersunt, Lipsiae, 1964), or Italian (Marino Barchiesi, Nevio epico, Padova, 1962; Scevola Mariotti, Il Bellum Punicum e l’arte di Nevio, Roma, 1955; and Enzo V. Marmorale, Naevius Poeta, Firenze, 1953). Ennius has fared better in English with excellent commentaries on the Annales (Otto Skutsch, The Annals of Q. Ennius, Oxford, 1985), the tragedies (H.D. Jocelyn, The Tragedies of Ennius, Cambridge, 1967), and other poems (E. Courtney, Fragmentary Latin Poets, Oxford, 1993); but these are too detailed (and costly) to assign for survey courses, where only a few class sessions might be devoted to archaic poets. Other tragic and comic texts are found in non-English editions or in English but with no commentary: L. Mueller, Livi Andronici et Cn. Naevi Fabularum Reliquiae (Berlin, 1885); Otto Ribbeck, Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta: Vol. 1 Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (TRF) (Lipsiae, 18973); with commentary in his Römische Tragödie (Leipzig, 1875) and comic fragments in his Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta: Vol. 2 Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Lipsiae, 1898); M. Valsa, Marcus Pacuvius Poète Tragique (Paris, 1957); I. D’Anna, ed., M. Pacuvii Fragmenta (Roma, 1967); P. Magno, Marco Pacuvio, i frammenti con intro., trad., comm. (Milano, 1967); Q. Franchella, Lucii Accii tragoediaraum fragmenta (Bologna, 1968); V. D’Anto, I frammenti delle tragedie di L. Acio (Lecce, 1980); J. Dangel, Accius Oeuvres (fragments) (Paris, 1995); and E.H. Warmington’s Loeb editions: Remains of Old Latin, Volumes 1-4 for the texts and translations of all archaic authors. For Lucilius’ fragments, F. Marx’s C. Lucilii Carminum Reliquiae (Amsterdam, 1904), contains a commentary in Latin.

The aim of this text is to make select fragments of archaic Latin verse available to students by providing the most accessible selections arranged by genre, rather than author, with brief explanatory and grammatical notes necessary for a first translation. I highlight the influence of the carmen on subsequent Latin poetry; Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius on Vergil’s Aeneid and Horace’s Odes; the dramatists on Seneca; Caecilius on the development of Roman comedy; and Lucilius on the satires of Horace and Juvenal. I follow the chronological order of literary developments within genres which has inevitably led to a sequential listing of some works when a synchronistic development across genres is more accurate. Since the plays of Plautus and Terence are available in detailed commentaries, they are not included here. I do not provide an apparatus criticus or cite the ancient sources for the fragments since these are provided by the cited editions.

This reprinting contains corrections and a few minor additions to the commentary. My aim remains to provide a text that allows teachers maximum flexibility in providing their own interpretation to students when incorporating these fragments into their translation courses. Students should consult texts listed in the bibliography for more detailed commentaries.

                                                                            -- June, 2004