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Flaccus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Holt N. Parker
Holt N. Parker*
Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati, holt.parker@uc.edu
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Extract

The idea that ‘Horace repeatedly puns on his name’ has recently sprung up again. Flaccus we are told means ‘limp’ and Horace uses his name to make various jokes about impotence. This is a load of cobblers.

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Type
Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , December 2000 , pp. 455 - 462
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 Fitzgerald, William, ‘Power and impotence in Horace's Epodes’, Ramus 17 (1988), 176–91 at 190 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 7; Babcock, Charles L., ‘ Si certus intrarit dolor. A reconsideration of Horace's Fifteenth Epode’, AJPh 87 (1966), 413 Google Scholar; Cavarzere, Alberto, Orazio: Il libro degli epodi (Venice, 1992), 215–16Google Scholar; Mankin, David, Horace: Epodes (Cambridge, 1995), 239–40Google Scholar (who mistakenly cites Müller, Lucian, Q. Horatius Flaccus. Oden und Epoden [St Petersburg/Leipzig, 1900]Google Scholar, II.462, in support); Watson, L. C., ‘Horace's Epodes: the impotence of iambos?’, in Harrison, S. J. (ed.), Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford, 1995), 188 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 3, 195; West, D., Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes (Oxford, 1997), 138.Google Scholar

2 ‘Alludit ad adjectivum flaccus, quasi Horatius flaccidis et demissis auribus in re Venerea illi non satisfecisset; nam Flaccus ab auribus flaccidis mobilibusque deductum est’, cited from Mitscherlich, Christoph W., Q. Horatii Flacci Opera (Leipzig, 1800), 600 Google Scholar, whose only comment is ‘ohe!’

3 Kiessling, Adolf, Q. Horatius Flaccus: Oden und Epoden (Berlin, 1884), 417 Google Scholar ad Epod. 15.12: ‘spielt es mit dem Kontrast der Bedeutung, welche flaccus als Appellativum ursprünglich gehabt hat = flaccidus’. But in Kiessling, Adolf and Heinze, Richard, Q. Horatius Flaccus: Oden und Epoden (Berlin, 1914), 559 Google Scholar: ‘ein Spiel mit der ursprünglichen Bedeutung von flaccus “schlaff” scheint mir dem Ethos der Stelle nicht angemessen; auch hat sich die Bedeutung des Wortes längst auf “schlappohrig” eingeengt, was mit demissae auriculae (sat. I 9, 20) keineswegs identisch ist’ (repeated in the 9th edn, 1958, 554). Other recent supporters of a pun include Carrubba, Robert W., The Epodes of Horace. A Study in Poetic Arrangement (The Hague, 1969), 76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n. 114: ‘perhaps’; and Horsfall, Nicholas, ‘Three notes on Horace's Epodes’, Philol 117 (1977), 137–8.Google Scholar

4 Not attested outside Italic (Osc. nom. prop. Flakis, as if Latin Flaccius) and unlikely to be inherited Indo-European. See Ernout, Alfred and Meillet, Antoine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine (Paris, 1967), 237 Google Scholar; Walde, Alois and Hofmann, J. B., Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1956), 507–8.Google Scholar

5 Incorrectly Watson (n. 1), 188, n. 3: ‘Sceptics object that by the poet's day flaccus had become restricted [see Kiessling and Heinze, n. 3] to the sense “floppy-eared”…. Flaccus is, however, to be understood in its root sense of languidus.’ Watson helps make clear the predominant mode of argument: flaccus is equated with its derivative flaccidus (see below) which is glossed as languidus, which can be given erotic overtones. However, ‘buck-toothed’ is not the same as ‘projecting’, which does not equal ‘with an erection’.

6 The adjective flaccus seems to have dropped from daily use and it is far from clear that Flaccus, as a proper name, would be instantly etymologically transparent in daily use. Weaver (P. R. C.) is current English; Webster (T. B. L.) is not. But see Pliny below.

7 Cf. Pease, Arthur Stanley, Cicero: De Natura Deorum (Cambridge, MA, 1955), 1 Google Scholar 410 ad loc.

8 So flaccidus: Colum. 6.30.5, Plin. N.H. 8.205, Veg. Mulom. 1.1.2, Paul. Fest. 231 (Lindsay): ‘Plauti appellantur canes, quorum aures languidae sunt ac flaccidae et latius videntur patere’, all of ears; Plin. N.H. 15.127 of leaves; Apul. Socr. prol., Met. 7.8 of cloth/canvas; Lucr. 5.632 of a whirlwind. Flacceo: Lact. Orif. 8.8 of ears; Accius Trag. 3, Afran. Com. 65, Apul. Apol. 25, Cic. Q.F. 2.14.4 of speech or mental notions. Flaccesco: Colum. 12.7.4–5, Vitr. 2.9.2 of leaves; Cic. Brut. 93 of speech or mental notions; Pacuv. trag. 77 of waves. See TLL for citations.

9 Non. 157 (Lindsay = 101 Müller): ‘flaccet: languet, deficit. Lucilius lib. VII: “hie est Macedo, si †Agrionf† longius flaccet”’ (Lucil. 275 Marx = 294 Krenkel) might be sexual but the reading and context are uncertain. Note that even if this is a sexual scene, flaccet could not refer to the penis or mean ‘becomes impotent’, since even in Marx's reconstruction of the text, Macedo and Agrion are supposed to be pueri delicati, whose sexual service would not be to bugger Lucilius.

10 Babcock (n. 1, and following him Mankin, 240) claims that Martial is making this pun at 11.27.1: ‘ferreus es, si stare potest tibi mentula, Flacce’. This is cited out of the context which is not impotence but exaggerated disgust at a cheap mistress. Further, Flaccus is merely a filler addressee, who is never the object of mockery. Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Martial: Epigrams (Cambridge, MA, 1993)Google Scholar rightly does not even bother to translate it in 1.59.4. Martial uses the name (apart from the references to Horace) in twenty-one epigrams on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from poetry to lovers. He makes fun of other people's penises to Flaccus, not Flaccus’ to other people (7.82, 9.33). There is debate whether the name refers to a single person throughout but most of the mentions of the name seem to refer to a specific friend with circumstantial detail (e.g., 1.76, 8.45, 9.55, 9.90, 10.48). See Howell, Peter, A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial (London, 1980), 242–3Google Scholar and literature cited there; Shackleton Bailey, in the Index (with corrections). Further, since Martial's mother was a Flaccilla (5.34.1), Flaccus is perhaps supposed to be a relative.

11 Corbeill, Anthony, Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (Princeton, 1996), 57–98.Google Scholar

12 See Corbeill (n. 11), 57, for this point: Cicero puns on Bambalio but does not fear mentioning Balbus. For the perjorative cognomina, see Kajanto, Iiro, The Latin Cognomina (Helsinki, 1965).Google Scholar

13 Missing from the index to Metaformations (Ithaca, NY, 1985). Cavarzere (n. 1), 216, sees one at Fasti 5.375–7.

14 The first originated with Pontanus, see Gaisser, Julia Haig, Catullus and his Renaissance Readers (Oxford, 1993), 242–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It was revived in modern times by Genovese, E. N., ‘Symbolism in the passer poems’, Maia 26 (1974), 212–15Google Scholar and Gtangrande, G., ‘Catullus’ lyrics on the passer ’, MPhL 1 (1975), 137–46.Google Scholar For the second, Littman, Robert J., ‘The unguent of Venus’, Latomus 36 (1977), 123–8.Google Scholar Hallett, Judith P., ‘Divine unction: some further thoughts on Catullus 13’, Latomus 37 (1978), 747–8Google Scholar suggested instead that the unguentum served as a lubricant for (anal?) intercourse. See the sensible comments of Kilpatrick, R. S., ‘ Nam ungentum dabo: Catullus 13 and Servius’ note on Phaon (Aeneid 3.279)’, CQ 48 (1998), 303–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Jocelyn, H. D., ‘On some unnecessarily indecent interpretations of Catullus 2 and 3’, AJP 101 (1980), 421–41Google Scholar; Adams, J. N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore, 1982), 32–3Google Scholar; Thomson, D. F. S., Catullus (Toronto, 1997), 202–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, J. W., ‘Catullus' passer as passer ’, G&R 45 (1998), 188–94.Google Scholar

16 Nadeau, Yvan, ‘O passer nequam (Catullus 2, 3)’, Latomus 39 (1980), 879–80Google Scholar and id., ‘Catullus’ sparrow, Martial, Juvenal, and Ovid’, Latomus 43 (1984), 861–8; Hooper, Richard W., ‘In defence of Catullus’ dirty sparrow’, G&R 32 (1985), 162–78Google Scholar; Jana, Micaela, ‘When the Lamp is Shattered’: Desire and Narrative in Catullus (Carbondale/Edwardsville, 1994), 46–50 Google Scholar, rejects a crude Freudian penis in favour of a subtle Lacanian phallus.

17 Even redende Namen soon cease to be redende. How rapidly in the theatre do we come to hear Justice Shallow, Sirs Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek, Nick Bottom, et al., as just the characters’ names.

18 Cf. Jocelyn (n. 15), 426.

19 Robbins, R. H., Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar, no. 46,41–42 (Index 1299), text normalized. B.M. Sloane 2593 (f. 10b), early XV century.

20 OED, s.v. ‘cock’ sb.l, entries 12a and 20; first attested in 1618.

21 Note the moods and tenses: if there is any manhood—and there is (ind.), he will not endure, he will seek, he will not yield (fut.), even though he has been wronged (pf. part.), since resentment has already entered (fut. pf). Contra Watson (n. 1), 195, who misses the force of est and labels the sentence ‘highly provisional’. Mankin (n. 1), 241, rightly comments, ‘The clause is usually taken to mean “if a sure (cause of) grief shall have come”, i.e. if it can be proved that Neaera has been unfaithful. This would suggest that the matter is still in doubt.’ Contra Mankin, however, dolor is not cupido (Lucr. 4.1067 does not-show this) but ‘a feeling of resentment, indignation’ (OLD 3); so Porphyrio, ad loc.

22 Babcock (n. 1), 414. Possum can, of course, mean ‘get it up’ and Babcock cites Epod. 12.15 (potest) in support, but his other citations show the correct meaning of ‘more sucessful’ as a rival in love (so already in Porphyrio ad loc.): so Odes 3.9.2 (potior), also 4.1.17 (potentior), 4.10.1 (potens). As in these passages, Horace tells us explicitly that the basis of the rival's success is beauty or money (lines 17–22), not sexual stamina. Mankin (n. 1, ad loc.) rightly compares Sat. 2.5.76, Ep. 1.5.27, and Pl. Men. 359, Ter. Ph. 533; cf. H.'s use of impar in Epod. 11.18.

23 For example, Kiessling and Heinze (n. 3), 544; Grassmann, Victor, Die erotischen Epoden des Horaz (Munich, 1966), 153 Google Scholar (who rejects a pun on flaccus: n. 70); Hierche, Henri, Les Épodes d'Horace: art et signification (Brussels, 1974), 136 Google Scholar (cf. 112, 159); Cavarzere (n. 1), 215–16. Babcock, Fitzgerald, and Watson do not mention Cat. 8; Mankin only in passing.

24 So Fitzgerald (n. 1), 190, n. 7, as if constantior by itself could mean ‘with an erection’. One recalls the schoolboy howler ‘Be strong, girl: now Catullus is hard.’

25 Kiessling and Heinze (n. 3), and Grassmann (n. 23), citing Norden, Eduard, P. Vergilius Maro: Aeneis Buck VI3 (1927; repr. Stuttgart, 1995)Google Scholar on Aen. 6.510 for the uses of the third person.

26 Babcock (n. 1), 410.

27 A contrast with poems where a poet really does talk about his own impotence is instructive: cf. Ov. Am. 3.7, Tib. 1.5.39–44, Mart. 1.46.

28 Rudd, Niall, The Satires of Horace: A Study (Cambridge, 1966), 125 Google Scholar; Doblhofer, Ernst, Die Augustuspanegyrik des Horaz informalhistorischer Sicht (Heidelberg, 1966), 42–4Google Scholar; Horsfall (n. 3), though it is unclear what meaning he assigns to Epod. 15.12; Muecke, Frances, Horace: Satires II (Warminster, 1993), 17 Google Scholar, 104; apparently, Watson (n. 1), 188, n. 3. Ussani, Vincenzo, Le satire di Orazio (Napoli, 1916), 86 Google Scholar, 115 and Le lyriche di Orazio (Turin, 1922), I.41, for Epod. 15. Babcock (n. 1), 413, n. 26: ‘in this instance no erotic intention seems appropriate despite the potential of the last line’; see n. 33.

29 Fitzgerald (n. 1); Mankin (n. 1).

30 Rudd (n. 28); Muecke (n. 28), 104: ‘pricked’; Doblhofer (n. 28), 42: ‘im wörtlichem Sinne… gespitztes Ohr’, who wants to see a joke at every mention of the word ‘ear’ (43, n. 45, citing Ep. 1.18.70, Sat. 2.6.46); Fitzgerald (n. 1), 180, see below.

31 As the technical opposite of flaccus, see Col. 6.29.2; of horses.

32 From caesaries (Paul. Fest. 50.7 Lindsay); also ‘a caeso matris utero’ (Pliny N.H. 7.47; cf. Non. 566.25 Lindsay). Neither is historically correct, see Ernout and Meillet, s.v. Caesar, 84; Walde andHoffmann, s.v. caesaries, 133.

33 Fitzgerald (n. 1), 180–1 with n. 11. One wonders why nothing was made of sine nervis in line 2. Both ‘penetrate’ and ‘go through’ are incorrect and tendentious; per auris simply provides a different scansion to the more common in or adauris. So Horace, Ars 180, Lucr. 1.417, 6.777, Ov. Pont. 3.4.19, Sil. 4.260, 11.177, Verg. A. 1.375–6: ‘si vestras forte per auris / Troiae nomen iit’, without any sexual overtones.

34 Odes 4.6.44, the final line, imagined in the mouths of the chorus of the Carmen Saeculare, functioning as a sphragis. Ep. 1.14.5 to his bailiff: ‘certemus, spinas animone ego fortius an tu / evellas agro, et melior sit Horatius an res’. ‘Quinte’ in Sat. 2.6.37 is in the mouth of someone pestering him with unwarranted familiarity.

35 Horatius, nomen, and Caesar, cognomen, would have lost the parallelism.

36 Ritter, Franz, Q. Horatii Flacci Opera. Satirae et epistulae (Leipzig, 1856), 11 Google Scholar 130; Schütz, Hermann, Q. Horatius Flaccus. Satiren (Berlin, 1881), 139 Google Scholar: ‘So will er hier dureh den Namen wohl seine Person hinter den viel beschäftigten Kaiser bescheiden zurückstellen’; Müller, Lucian, Satiren und Episteln des Horaz (Vienna and Leipzig, 1891), 147 Google Scholar; Kiessling and Heinze (n. 3, 1958), 182: ‘Flacci, nicht mea, aus Bescheidenheit: ein unbekannter Flaccus und der mᾱchtige CÄsar, welch ein Unterfangen!’

37 The best overview is Adams, J. N., ‘Conventions of naming in Cicero’, CQ 28 (1978), 145–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Adams (n. 37), 154–5, and cf. 146, citing Cic. Dom. 22, where Clodius claims intimacy with Julius Caesar because he received a letter using only the cognomina, and analysis at 149–51.

39 Also Att. 16.16c.1 (407c SB), 9.26.2 (197 SB); not including imagined address by others. Cf. the interesting variations of names in imagined dialogue at Fam. 3.7.5 (71 SB). Propertius and Tibullus, of course, lacked cognomina.

40 And one that Horace has, of course, only because it belonged to the man who once owned his father, a fact that readers of Satires II would have known from Satires I.

41 So Babcock (n. 1), 413, n. 26; Fitzgerald (n. 1), 180 and cf. 187. For Fitzgerald all the Epodes are really allegories of civil war. There is a failure to follow through: if these are all references to Horace's name, why does not the same apply to mollis at Odes 1.37.18, 2.9.17, 2.12.3 (contrasted with warfare) or the other twenty-three uses? To the other sixteen occurrences of inerslinertia? To the other five occurrences of imbellusl To the hundreds of occurrences of vir, virtus, etc.?

42 My thanks to the Semple Fund of the University of Cincinnati and the reader for CQ from whom I have lifted a nice phrase.