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Vergil, Horace, Tibullus: Three Collections of Ten

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Eleanor Winsor Leach*
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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As examples of the Roman poetry book composed of ten poems, Vergil's Eclogues, Horace's Sermones 1 and Tibullus' first book of Elegies are conspicuous for their similarity of form, all three containing poems of uniform metre and comparable length. Although we cannot be certain that these were the first or only ten poem books in the history of Latin poetry, we cannot help but notice the circumstances that draw them together: their close succession within the space of a decade, their identical positions as the first major publication of each author's career and the well-documented personal association between Horace as central figure of the succession and his two fellow poets, especially his close friendship with Vergil at the time he was composing the Satire Book. While inconclusive in themselves, these circumstances are an inducement to look closely at such similarities of compositional design as the books themselves may show.

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Research Article
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Copyright © Aureal Publications 1978

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References

1. Rudd, Niall, Lines of Enquiry: Studies in Latin Poetry (Cambridge, 1976), 120–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar, raises this question in remarking on the relative abundance of collections formed of ten poems or multiples of ten. As Quinn, Kenneth, Catullus: An Interpretation (London, 1972), 11–13Google Scholar, reminds us, the size of these finished collections must greatly have been influenced by that of the papyrus roll, but the need to limit a collection to 800–1000 lines is no reason in itself for dividing it into ten poems. Rudd suggests that Vergil, if not influenced by Gallus, might have perceived in his collection of Theocritus the ten that were mera rustica (as Servius classifies them), but John Van Sickle’s discussion of Vergil’s use of poetic order in his reworking of the Theocritean concept of genre, Theocritus and the Development of the Conception of Bucolic Genre,’ Ramus 5 (1976), 18–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives a sufficient basis for perceiving the rationale of a ten poem book within the Eclogues themselves.

2. Sermones 1. 5.40–48; C. 1.3; Ep. 1.4. The friendship of Horace and Tibullus has recently been discussed by Putnam, M. C. J., ‘Horace and Tibullus,’ CP 67 (1972), 81–88Google Scholar.

3. Clausen, Wendell, ‘Callimachus and Latin Poetry,’ GRBS (1964), 193Google Scholar, puts the theoretical basis for such studies succinctly: ‘… each Eclogue is enhanced somehow by its position — this effect was achieved, I have no doubt, by a certain amount of rewriting — and, taken together, the ten have an additional beauty and sense.’ Rudd (above, n. 1), 119–144, conducts an analytical survey of several principles scholars have proposed as bases for the architecture of the Eclogues and a few for Sermones 1, albeit with some skepticism concerning their contribution to an understanding of the poems. He proceeds on the principle that a satisfactory theory of architecture would have to comprehend all aspects of the poems’ design. That no single pattern of arrangement does answer to this qualification is a point now acknowledged by those who have most recently discussed the book’s structure and these newer theories in differing ways take account of multiple correspondences among the poems. Thus Boyle, Anthony, The Eclogues of Vergil Translated with Introduction, Notes and Latin Text (Melbourne, 1976), 10–16Google Scholar, proposes five mutually compatible patterns of design in a discussion that makes room for the observations of previous scholars and goes beyond them to place particular emphasis on the linear development of the book. John Van Sickle’s newly published The Design of Vergil’s Bucolics (Rome, 1978) creates a new synthesis of numerical pattern, style, genre, theme and character in its discussion of an evolutionary poetics as the basis of the design. The most thoroughgoing studies of Horatian arrangement in Book 1 are Van Rooy, C. A., ‘The Arrangement and Structure of Satires in Horace’s Sermones, Book I with More Special Reference to Satires 1–4,’ Acta Classica 11 (1968), 32–72Google Scholar; Arrangement and Structure of the Satires in Horace’s Sermones, Book 1: Satires 5 and 6,’ Acta Classica 13 (1970), 45–60Google Scholar. Coffey, Michael, Roman Satire (London, 1976), 81Google Scholar, suggests that Horace adopted the simple fact of a ten poem book from Vergil, but without the ‘elaborate artifice of arrangement’ that would have been ill-suited to a book of informal conversations. The major study of Tibullus’ structure is Littlewood, R. J., ‘The Symbolic Structure of Tibullus, Book I,’ Latomus 29 (1970), 661–669Google Scholar, but Helena Dettmer’s ‘The Arrangement of Tibullus’ Books I and II’ (forthcoming in Philologus) adds new thematic correspondences between poems to those which Littlewood perceived and strengthens the earlier argument for a symmetrical design in Book 1.

4. A brief, new discussion of this point with particular emphasis on literary and political controversy is in Sullivan, John, Propertius: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, 1976), 67–69Google Scholar.

5. Ross, David, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy and Rome (Cambridge, 1975), 4Google Scholar: ‘The Roman poet was no longer a translator or an imitator, but a new, and again, individual voice within an established succession.’

6. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5. 1448–1457, places particular emphasis upon progress in the arts within the context of an otherwise ambivalent history of human development. In particular, Horace’s concept of the modern poet as a stylistic reformer reflects the philosophieial model of a theory of progress. For general discussion of ancient theories of cultural history see Cole, Thomas, Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology, APA Philological Monographs 25 (Western Reserve University, 1967Google Scholar); Gombrich, E., Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton, 1972), 116–145Google Scholar; Lovejoy, A. O. and Boas, George, Primitvvism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935Google Scholar).

7. Rudd, Niall, The Satires of Horace (Cambridge, 1966), 100–101Google Scholar, finds elements of verbal economy in Lucilius that call into question the severity of Horace’s criticisms. Michael Coffey (above, n. 3), 58–62, gives particular emphasis to the artistic qualities of Lucilian style.

8. This traditionally accepted idea rests upon Servius’ identification of E.10.46 ff. as a reflection of, or quotation from, Gallus’ own verse, but David Ross (above, n. 5), 85–106, has made new sense of old discussions by his argument that Gallus’ development of a subjective style out of the traditional, Alexandrian, self-exposition of the mythological lover occurred within the compass of his four books of Amores. Thus in beginning his book with self-exposition, Tibullus would want to show the lineaments of a character conspicuously different from that which Gallus had arrived at by the end of his four books.

9. Allen, Archibald, ‘Sunt qui Propertium Malint,’ in Sullivan, J. P., ed., Critical Essays in Roman Literature: Elegy and Lyric (London, 1962), 108Google Scholar, accomplished for classical literary criticism the banishment of the autobiographical fallacy with his argument: ‘The personality of the [Roman elegiac] poet is determined by the style in which writes.’ On such a premise Ross (above, n. 5), 1, states that ‘the poets purposely constructed fictional personae having no relationship to their real lives.’ But Ross himself stresses the personal quality of the poetic voice with the concomitant arguments that Roman elegy was a constantly evolving form that never dictated a standard persona. The distinction between personality and persona is quite often a difficult one to make and in such cases not always useful to interpretation. This point has best been recognized in Horatian studies. The discussion by Anderson, William, ‘Autobiography and Art in Horace,’ in Galinsky, Karl, ed., Perspectives of Roman Poetry (Austin, Texas, 1974), 33–56Google Scholar, provides a well-balanced view of the poet’s transformation of demonstrably autobiographical material into artistic statement.

10. The relationship of Tibullus’ poetry to his background is extensively treated by Riposati, Benedetto, Introduzione allo studio di Tibullo (2nd ed. Milano, 1967Google Scholar).

11. Kenneth Quinn (above, n. 1), 50, describes the order within the two groups of short poems 1–60 and 69–116, as a ‘kind of contrapuntal structure’ in which the Lesbia poems contrast with other groups treating a common subject or theme (Gellius; Iuventius, etc.). As Quinn’s discussion shows, several of these groups contain at least a poem about poetry (e.g., 14, 35, 16, 116), but Quinn proposes no programmed succession for these poems about poetry, nor am I, at the moment, able to discern one.

12. Anderson, William, ‘The Form, Purpose and Position of Horace’s Satire 1.8,’ AJP 93 (1972), 4–13Google Scholar.

13. Skutsch, Otto, ‘Symmetry and Sense in Vergil’s Eclogues,’ HSCPh. 73 (1969), 151–159Google Scholar.

14. Littlewood (above, n. 3), 664, speaks of symmetry as a general principle of Augustan poetic arrangements, noting that Tibullus had worked out a pattern more in keeping with his own principles of art than imitative of Vergil. Lacking the correspondence of forms that is one of the major features of Vergil’s ring-composition, Tibullus’ pattern must, of course, rest entirely upon correspondences in content. In the light of the numerical confirmation that Skutsch finds for the symmetries of the Eclogues, one may want to consider the possibility of a similar pattern in Elegies I:

The sums of lines in the ‘thematic’ poems 1 and 10 and 4 and 7 equal 146 (P.) and 148 or 148 (L./G.) and 148 respectively, while the symmetrically paired groups of amatory poems form an evenly ascending line number sequence of 162, 172, 182. Perhaps there is a pattern here, but, having outlined it, one can scarcely be confident that it is more deliberate than accidental, while the possibilities of lacunae in the poems render the calculations unreliable. All the same, Professor Dettmer (above, n. 3) does argue for a deliberately contrived numerical pattern which she bases upon the sum of the distichs in corresponding poems and a second pattern formed by the difference between their line numbers. In Sermones 1 there is definitely no numerical pattern.

15. Heinze, Kiesling, Q. Horatius Flaccus Satiren, 8th ed. (Berlin, 1961), XXIIGoogle Scholar, proposes this division into three triads. The affinities within the first triad are discussed by Van Rooy (above, n. 3); the unities procured by anecdotal form and the contest theme in the third triad are explored by Anderson (above, n. 12), 10–13.

16. John Van Sickle made these points in ‘Questions of Arrangement in Vergil’s Eclogue Book,’ a paper delivered to the CASUS Conference on Vergil, October 1977. In a revised and further developed form they appear in his monograph The Design of Vergil’s Bucolics (above, n. 3), 79–84.

17. The point is self-evident in the center oriented megalographies of Boscoreale and the newly discovered Villa Oplontis. See Lehmann, Phyllis Williams, Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Cambridge, Mass., 1953Google Scholar), and de Franciscis, Alfonso, ‘La Villa Romana di Oplontis,’ in Andreae, B. and Kyrieleis, H., ed., Neue Forschungen in Pompeji (Essen, 1974), 9–38Google Scholar.

18. Anderson, ’s discussion, ‘The Roman Socrates: Horace and his Satires,’ Sullivan, J. P., ed., Critical Essays in Roman Literature: Satire (London, 1963), 1–39Google Scholar, presents the satirist’s persona as a completely consistent one, never identical with the real Horace, and yet he remarks on the greater use of self-irony in poems 4, 5, 6 and 9. Reckford, Kenneth, Horace (New York, 1969), 30Google Scholar, considers the first three satires less successful as poems than the later pieces in the book suggesting that Horace ‘never fully identified himself with the diatribe preacher.’

19. Van Sickle, John, ‘Epic and Bucolic (Virgil, Ecl. i; Theocritus, Id. VII),’ Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 19 (1975), 71–72Google Scholar, and ‘Vergil’s Sixth Eclogue and the Poetics of Middle Style,’ Abstracts of the Papers Read at the 108th Annual Meeting of the APA (New York, 1976), 58–59, describes these shifts in stylistic terms, but with somewhat the same effect.

20. Coffey (above, n. 3), 81, describes a general movement from moralizing and argument in the first half of the book to entertainment in the second.

21. Richardson, L. jr., Propertius: Elegies 1–1V (Norman, Oklahoma, 1977), 146Google Scholar, gives a concise description of the relationship between the book and this first poem which is intended, as he says, ‘to introduce us to the world of Propertius’ poetry with dramatic abruptness.’

22. Thus Ross (above, n. 5), 160, remarks upon Tibullus 3 as ‘a demonstration of the ineffectiveness of the various resources available to the elegiac poet.’ In Leach, , Vergil’s Eclogues: Landscapes of Experience (Ithaca, New York, 1974), 146–152Google Scholar, 170–182, I have commented upon the traditional bucolic separation between city and country as an aspect of the limitations of genre apparent in Eclogues 2 and 3.

23. In Leach, ‘Nature and Art in Vergil’s Second Eclogue,’ AJP 87 (1966), 427–45, I assigned these lines to the Eclogue Poet thus making his criticisms of Corydon frame the poem, but the attribution of the lines has been a longstanding subject for debate (see my bibliography loc. cit.) and I now think for the good reason that Vergil meant to leave the speaker uncertain and the resolution of the poem ambiguous.

24. Dessen, Cynthia, ‘On the Sexual and Financial Mean in Horace’s Sermo 1.2,’ AJP 89 (1968), 200–208Google Scholar, shows clearly the relationship between this poem and Horace’s philosophical commonplaces, but without fully exploring the witty implications of the poet’s adapting an amoral subject to a moralizing frame of reference. Curran, Leo C., ‘Nature, Convention and Obscenity in Horace, Satires 1.2,’ Arion 9 (1970), 220–245Google Scholar, is also concerned with the poet’s moral purpose (to his mind a backhanded defense of matrimony), but gives particular attention to the role of obscene language in acknowledging ‘the natural inevitability of sex.’

25. Rudd (above, n. 7), 27, mentions that the second and third satires open with passages on inconsistency; such emphasis of this theme, I believe, points towards the satirist’s own demonstration of the difficulties of maintaining moral consistency in his social criticism. Attempts to make sense of the structure of Satire 3 are conspicuous by their absence from most discussions of Horace, although scholars often refer to particular features of the poem (e.g., Rudd, op. cit. 33–35, on metaphor). Coffey (above, n. 3), 72–73 makes a valiant effort to discover some coherent scheme in the poem observing a division into two topics: ‘tolerant forbearance of the faults of friends, and more generally, the need to distinguish between degrees of moral culpability.’ The ethical basis of the discourse is, he suggests, Epicurean and the closing section an attack on the rigid ethics of the Stoa. This description is an accurate one, but notably does not broach the difficult subject of the philosopher king.

26. Putnam, Michael, Tibullus: A Commentary (Norman, Oklahoma, 1973), 70Google Scholar, ad 1.2.67 ff., suggests that the ferreus Me who left Delia for war may well be the speaker himself and the campaigns of vs. 69 Messalla’s eastern campaigns. Accordingly the lover is stultus because, by his absence, he has left his place for another to fill. Copley, Frank, Exclusus Amator: A Study in Latin Love Poetry, APA Philological Monographs No. 17 (Baltimore, 1956), 91–107Google Scholar, treats the poem as a para-clausithuron sung by the drunken lover at the door. To my mind the monologue is that of the lover reciting his woes in a company of friends, one of whom in vs. 89 undiplomatically laughs.

27. Bright, David F., ‘A Tibullan Odyssey,’ Arethusa 4 (1971), 197–214Google Scholar, who develops this idea very explicitly comparing Tibullus’ use of myth with that of Catullus in C. 68, points out that the elegist’s withdrawal from reality into fantasy makes him in fact the opposite of the hero Odysseus.

28. A fuller discussion of Vergil’s use of the Platonic myth of the lawgiver to shape the role of his Roman child is in Leach, E. W., ‘Eclogue 4: Symbolism and Sources,’ Arethusa 4 (1971), 167–184Google Scholar.

29. Anderson (above, n. 9), 34–41, shows Horace’s use of literary allusion (to Demea’s speech in Adelphoi, 412 ff.) in shaping the homily of the elder Horace as a refinement of reality through art. The liberal son who thus softens the portrait of his rigid, dogmatic father by touches of humor is demonstrating his individuality and independence both as a man and as a poet.

30. The discussion of the poem and its Lucilian source in G,. Fiske, C., Lucilius and Horace: A Study in the Classical Theory of Imitation (Madison, Wis., 1907Google Scholar: rep. Hildesheim, 1966), 306–316, which is based upon the author’s interpretation of Friedrich Marx’ text, C. Lucili Carminum Reliquiae, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1905Google Scholar), remains the fullest comparative study, but Anderson (above, n. 18), 7–9, provides a strong interpretation of themes of the public vs. the private life and friendship vs. politics. Coffey (above, n. 3), 81, suggests that Horace employs these themes to tease readers expecting political revelations from the poem.

31. Van Sickle, John, ‘The Unity of the Eclogues: Arcadian Forest, Theocritean Trees,’ TAPA 98 (1967) 503Google Scholar.

32. The purpose of Lucilius’ journey, to inspect his estates in Sicily, is discussed by Marx (above, n. 30), II, 45, ad vs. 105.

33. Rudd (above, n. 7), 61, finds that these comments typify ‘the way in which a victim of the discomforts of travel enjoys reliving his woes’ and comments on the satire’s ‘delightful combination of Roman urbanitas with the humor of rustic Italy.’

34. Coffey (above, n. 3), 230, n. 57, cites the parallel, but only as ‘an ironic allusion to Lucretius’ earnest treatment of the subject.’

35. Littlewood (above, n. 3), 664–665, sees in the poems two stages of emotion that follow upon disillusionment, the one ‘mournful, pathetic and pleading’ yielding thereafter to cynicism and bitterness.

36. Or as Gotoff, Harold puts it, ‘Nunc levis est tractanda Venus,’ HSCPh 78 (1974), 238Google Scholar, the poet’s simplicity provides a good excuse for his failure in love.

37. The wit and ironies of this poem are fully discussed by Gaisser, Julia H., ‘Structure and Tone in Tibullus 1.6,’ AJP 92 (1971), 202–216Google Scholar.

38. Two different lines of thought have dominated interpretation of this poem. Either the piece is primarily a literary catalogue as Ross (above, n. 5), 36–38, has recently reaffirmed, or else a rather serious philosophical treatment of some kind of disorder in human nature, a view most fully developed by Segal, C. P., ‘Eclogue 6 and the Problem of Evil,’ TAPA 100 (1969), 407–435Google Scholar. Divergent as they are, the two camps have one common opinion: that Eclogue 6 is in some manner a poem about poetry. Boyle, A. J., ‘A Reading of Vergil’s Eclogues,’ Ancient Pastoral: Ramus Essays in Greek and Roman Pastoral Poetry (Berwick, Victoria, 1975), 108–109Google Scholar, 111–112, brings out the tension between chaotic love in the songs and Silenus’ role as ideal poet/teacher, while Van Sickle (above, n. 3), 146–148, differs from previous interpreters in his view of the poem as an answer to Eclogue one and a definition of a new ‘middle’ style. Both regard the Eclogue as a new beginning for the second half of the book.

39. Anderson (above, n. 9), 34–41.

40. Julia H. Gaisser, ‘Tibullus 1.7: A Tribute to Messalla,’ CP 66 (1971), 221–229, mentions Catullus 64.383, a line that is closer, verbally, to Tibullus’ than those of Eclogue 4; yet I believe that the allusion directs our attention above all to the eclogue because its hero, although immature, is a benefactor rather than a destroyer (as is the Catullan Achilles).

41. My former colleague, David Konstan, suggests that this geographical catalogue means to suggest the representations of conquered regions appearing in Messalla’s triumphal pageant. The use of pictorial evidence in connection with Roman triumphs is well attested (Livy 24.16.19; 41.28.10; Pliny NH 35.22–25), and the suggestion obviates the need to see Tibullus as a participant in all of Messalla’s campaigns. He in fact has his part in Messalla’s glory as he recreates the triumphal ceremony in verse.

42. Ball, R. J., ‘The Structure of Tibullus 1.7,’ Latomus 34 (1975), 729–744,Google Scholar argues that diplomatic rather than strictly military campaigns are listed to make this ‘Callimachean’ elegy a representation of the ‘peaceful side of Messalla’s career,’ but I believe that it is not necessary for the pacific theme to have a factual basis since a transformation from conquest to peace is effected by the poem itself.

43. Gaisser (above, n. 40), 226–227, speaks of an identification of Bacchus and Osiris created by Osiris’ appearing in Bacchus’ garb. At the same time she observes that Tibullus has brought Bacchus on stage in token of Messalla’s own love of wine and festivity. These points will also hold true for my argument that the common ground of Bacchus and Osiris is the same as the common ground of Tibullus and Messalla.

44. See Frischer, B. D., At tu aureus esto: Eine Interpretation von Vergils 7. Ekloge (Bonn, 1975Google Scholar), 49.

45. Anderson (above, n. 12), 10–13.

46. Ross (above, n. 5), 162, sees this broadening of perspective in the tenth poem,.

47. Littlewood (above, note 3).

48. Ross (above, n. 5), 112–113.

49. As in Catullus, an important Propertian topic is the reflection of the speaker’s love in addresses to various friends, and these choices of addressee figure in the design of the book. See Otis, B., ‘Propertius’ Single Book,’ HSCP 70 (1965), 1–44Google Scholar.