which is unclassical or obscure. The expressions animum advertere, "to observe," animum inducere, "to think," seem to belong to the conventional terminology of those days. After fecerunt in 1. 3 we ought perhaps to add D. E. R. I. c. i. e. “de ea re (patres) ita censuerunt" (cf. Cic. ad Fam. VIII. 8). The L. Cornelius, the son of Cnæus, who is mentioned as prætor in the inscription quoted above, is the same L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, whose sarcophagus is one of the most interesting monuments at Rome. The inscription upon that monument expressly states that he had been prætor. All the extant epitaphs of the Scipios have been given by Bunsen (Beschreibung der Stadt Rom, III. pp. 616, sqq.), who does not, however, enter upon any criticism of the text. They are as follows. (a) Epitaph on L. Cornelius Scipio, who was consul in A. U. C. 456. Cornelio' Cn. F. Scipio Cornéliús Lúcius | Scípió Barbátus Gnaívod pátre prognátus | fórtis vír sapiénsque, Quoíus fórma vírtu teí parísuma fuit. Consul censor Aidílis | quí fuit apúd vos, Taùrásiá' Cisaúna' | Sámnió' cépit, Subígit ómne Loúcana' | ópsidésque abdoúcit1. (b) Epitaph on the son of the above, who was ædile in A. U. C. 466; consul, 494. L. Cornelio' L. F. Scipio Aidiles. Cosol. Cesor. Hònc oíno' ploírumé co séntiónt R[ománi] Duònóro' óptumó' | fúíse víro' Lúciom Scipióne'. Filiós Barbáti Consól, Censór, Aidíles | híc fuet a[púd vos]. 1 See Arnold, History of Rome, II. p. 326. 2 Bunsen, 1. 1.: "In return for the delivery of his fleet in a storm off Corsica he built a temple of which Ovid speaks (Fast. IV. 193): Te quoque, Tempestas, meritam delubra fatemur, Quum pene est Corsis diruta classis aquis." (c) Epitaph on the Flamen Dialis P. Scipio, son of the elder Africanus, and adoptive father of the younger1. Queì ápice', insígne diális | fláminís gesístei, (d) Epitaph on L. Cornelius Scipio, son of Cn. Hispallus, grandson of Calvus, the conqueror of Spain, and nephew of Scipio Nasica: L. Cornelius Cn. f. Cn. n. Scipio. Magna sapientia Posidet hoc saxsum, quoiei vita defecit non The same passage is quoted by Funccius, de Origine et Pueritia L. L. p. 326. 1 As this epitaph seems to deserve a translation, and as no one, so far as I know, has exhibited it in an English dress, the following attempt may be accepted in the want of a better: The priestly symbol deckt thy brow: Honour, and fame, and noble birth, A lengthened span, endowed with these, Of thy time-honoured knightly line 2 Bunsen, 1. 1. : "Cicero bears testimony to the truth of these noble words in his Cato Mag. § 11: Quam fuit imbecillus Africani filius, is qui te adoptavit? Quam tenui aut nulla potius valetudine? Quod ni ita fuisset, altera ille exstitisset lumen civitatis; ad paternam enim magnitudinem animi doctrina uberior accesserat." Honos. Honore is hic situs quei nunquam (e) Epitaph on Cn. Cornelius Scipio, brother of the preceding: Cn. Cornelius Cn. f. Scipio Hispanus Pr. Aed. Cur. Q. Tr. mil. II. Xvir sl. judik. Xvir sacr. fac. Virtutes generis mieis moribus accumulavi, Progeniem genui, facta patris petiei : Majorum obtenui laudem ut sibei me esse creatum (f) Epitaph on L. Cornelius Scipio, son of Asiaticus, who was quæstor in 588: L. Corneli L. f. P. n. Scipio quaist. Tr. mil. annos gnatus XXIII Mortuos. Pater regem Antioco' subegit. (9) Epitaph on a son of the preceding, who died young: Cornelius L. f. L. n. Scipio Asiagenus Comatus annoru' gnatus XVI. (h) Epitaph of uncertain date, but written in very antique characters: Aulla [sic] Cornelia. Cn. f. Hispalli. It will be observed, that in these interesting monuments we have both that anusvárah, or dropping of the final m, which led to ecthlipsis (e. g. duonoro' for bonorum), and also the visarga, or evanescence of the nominative s (as in Cornelio for Cornelius). The dipththong ai is not always changed into ae, and gnatus has not lost its initial g. We may remark, too, that n seems not to have been pronounced before s: thus we have cosol, cesor, for consul, censor, according to the practice of writing cos. for consul (Diomed. p. 428, Putsch). Epitaph (e) has Xvir sl. judik,, i. e. decemvir slitibus judikandis, where we not only observe the initial s of s[t]li[t]s = streit, but also the k before a in judikandis. The phraseology, however, does not differ in any important particulars from the Latin language with which we are familiar. The metre in which the three oldest of these inscriptions are composed is deserving of notice. That they are written in Saturnian verse has long been perceived; Niebuhr, indeed, thinks that they "are nothing else than either complete nenias, or the beginnings of them" (H. R. I. p. 253). It is not, however, so generally agreed how we ought to read and divide the verses. For instance, Niebuhr maintains that patre, in a. 2, is "beyond doubt an interpolation;" to me it appears necessary to the verse. He thinks that there is no ecthlipsis in apice', c. 1; I cannot scan the line without it. These are only samples of the many differences of opinion, which might arise upon these short inscriptions: it will therefore, perhaps, be desirable, that a few general remarks should be made on the Saturnian metre itself, and that these remarks should be applied to the epitaphs before us, which may be placed among the oldest Latin specimens of the Saturnian lay'. That the Saturnian metre was either a native of Italy, or naturalised there at a very early period, has been sufficiently shown by Mr. Macaulay (Lays of Ancient Rome, p. 23). It is, perhaps, not too much to say, that this metre,—which may be defined in its pure form as a brace of trochaic tripodiæ, preceded by an anacrusis,—is the most natural and obvious of all rhythmical intonations. There is no language which is altogether without it; though, of course, it varies in elegance and harmony with the particular languages in which it is found, and with the degree of literary advancement possessed by the poets who have written in it. The Umbrians had this verse as well as the Latins; at least there can be no doubt that the beginning of the VI. Eugubine Table is pervaded by a Saturnian rhythm, though the laws of quantity, which the Latins borrowed from the Greeks, are altogether neglected in it. The following may serve as a sample : Esté perskló aveís a sériatér enétu. Pàrfá kurnáse dérsva | peíqu peíca mérstu, Poei ángla áseriáto est | éso trémnu sérse. These verses are, in fact, more regular than many of the Latin specimens. The only rule which can be laid down for the genuine Latin Saturnian is, that the ictus must occur three times in each member of the verse2, and that any thesis, except the 1 Livy's transcript of the inscription of T. Quinctius is confessedly imperfect; the historian says: "his ferme incisa litteris fuit" (VI. 29). 2 To this necessity for a triple recurrence of the ictus in the genuine last, may be omitted (see Müller, Suppl. Annot. ad Fest. p. 396). The anacrusis, at the beginning of the line, is often necessary in languages which, like the Latin and our own, have but a few words which begin with an ictus. When the Greek metres became established among the Romans, it would seem that the conventional pronunciation of many words was changed to suit the exigencies of the new versification, and no line began with an anacrusis, unless it had that commencement in the Greek model: but this appears not to have been the case in the genuine Roman verses, which begin with an unemphatic thesis whenever the convenience of the writer demands such a prefix. We have seen above (§ 2), that the first trochaic tripodia of the Saturnius cum anacrusi, and even an amphibrachys (= trochæus cum anacrusi1), Italian metre I would refer the word tripudium = triplex pulsatio. Pudio meant "to strike with the foot," "to spurn" (comp. re-pudio). The fact is alluded to by Horace, III. Carm. 18, 15: "gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor ter pede terram." 1 In the common books on metres this would be called a single foot, i. e. an amphibrachys. It appears to me that many of the difficulties, which the student has felt in his first attempts to understand the rules of metre, have been occasioned by the practice of inventing names for the residuary forms of common rhythms. Thus, the last state of the logaœdic verse is called a choriambus; and the student falls into inextricable confusion when he endeavours to explain to himself the concurrence of choriambi and dactyls in the commonest measures of Horace's odes. Some commentators would persuade us that we are to scan thus: Maecenas atavis edite regibus; and Sic te diva potens Cypri. But how can we connect the rhythm of the choriambus with such a termination? If we examine any of the Glyconics of Sophocles, who was considered a master in this species of verse, we shall observe that his choriambi appear in contact with dactyls and trochees, and not with iambi. Take, for instance, Ed. Col. 510, sqq.: δεινὸν | μὲν τὸ πάλαι || κείμενον ἤδη κακὸν | ὦ ]] ξεῖν ̓ ἐπεγείρειν || τί ] τοῦτο | τᾶς δειλαίας απόρου φανείσας | ἀλ γήδονος ο ξυνέστας | μὴ πρὸς ξενίας ἀνοίξης τᾶς | σᾶς, πέπον, ἔργ ̓ ἀν αιδῆ || τό τοι πολὺ καὶ μηδαμὰ λήγον || χρήζω, ξέν', ὀρθὸν ἄκουσμ ̓ ἀκοῦσαι. || Here we see that the rhythm is dactylic or trochaic-these two being considered identical in some metrical systems—and that the long syllable after the dactyl is occasionally equivalent to the ictus of the trochee. |