The extant MSS. of the Pervigilium Veneris, which all derive from a single archetype, are unanimous in their reading at line 74. Yet, as is widely agreed, this reading cannot be correct. The poet is describing the descendants of Venus.

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

As is well known, this poem, which stood in the Anthologia Latina, is preserved in two MSS. only, the Salmasian and the Pithoean , Nos. 10318 and 8071 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; ‘the handwriting dates’ the former ‘as written at the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century; the other…is about two hundred years later in date. Modern scholars regard both MSS. as traceable to a common archetype, probably of the sixth century’ . At (...) first sight these MSS. seem quite untrust-worthy, for they differ from each other in more than one hundred words, while the scribe of S copied the refrain incorrectly twice, the scribe of T twice as often. Strangely enough, however, these variations are comparatively unimportant, for most of them disappear when the spelling of the two clerks is assimilated to some recognized usage. Each manuscript in turn corrects the other in many of these passages, and conjecture has successfully emended nearly all of the remainder—the variation S peruiclanda, T peruigila in v. 47 is perhaps the only passage of this kind which still causes anxiety. The grave corruptions of the text are found in passages in which the MSS. are in agreement; they agree exactly in five lacunae, T having an additional one; in two or more misplaced passages; in the placing of the refrain, with all of which matters I deal below; they agree exactly in an error in the title ‘Peruirgilium’ for ‘Peruigilium,’ and in about twelve lines, of which vv. 51 and 79 have almost certainly been preserved in an incorrect form. (shrink)

In February 54b.c. Cicero concludes a missive to his brother with a passing and – for us – tantalizing remark:Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum veneris. virum te putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris; hominem non putabo. Quintus had, it seems, readDe rerum natura, or at least parts thereof, just before he left Rome for an undisclosed location nearby, and he shared his enthusiasm with his brotherper codicillos. Meanwhile, he was corresponding with (...) Julius Caesar, whose staff in Gaul he was about to join. When, a few months later, he was stationed with Caesar, he was involved in another literary affair, this time concerning his brother who wrote to him, inquiring about his autobiographicalDe temporibus suis:quo modo nam, mi frater, de nostris versibus Caesar? nam primum librum se legisse scripsit ad me ante, et prima sic ut neget se ne Graeca quidem meliora legisse; reliqua ad quendam locum ῥᾳθυμότερα (hoc enim utitur verbo). dic mihi verum: num aut res eum aut χαρακτὴρ non delectat?(Q.fr.2.15.5). (shrink)

In [gallier], general results (due to Coppo, Dezani and Veneri) relating properties of pure lambda terms and their typability in some systems with conjunctive types are proved in a uniform way by using the reducibility method.This paper gives a very short proof of the same results (actually, one of them is a bit stronger) using purely arithmetical methods.

Catullus' cunning dinner invitation to Fabullus continues to generate a rich variety of interpretations of its memorable central image, the promised gift of a certain unguentum Veneris . Three Latomus articles, by Littman, Hallett, and Case, have explored possible origins of and uses for that mysterious substance, suggesting, for example, that it might even contain female secretions with powerful aphrodisiac properties, or some other unmentionable sexual lubricant.

It was observed by Curry that when λ-terms can be assigned types, for example, simple types, these terms have nice properties . Coppo, Dezani, and Veneri, introduced type systems using conjunctive types, and showed that several important classes of terms can be characterized according to the shape of the types that can be assigned to these terms. For example, the strongly normalizable terms, the normalizable terms, and the terms having head-normal forms, can be characterized in some systems and Ω. The (...) proofs use variants of the method of reducibility. In this paper, we present a uniform approach for proving several meta-theorems relating properties of λ-terms and their typability in the systems and Ω. Our proofs use a new and more modular version of the reducibility method. As an application of our metatheorems, we show how the characterizations obtained by Coppo, Dezani, Veneri, and Pottinger, can be easily rederived. We also characterize the terms that have weak head-normal forms, which appears to be new. We conclude by stating a number of challenging open problems regarding possible generalizations of the realizability method. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Minerva Rava An Torva?Anastasios G. Nikolaidis1. Ovid Ars 2.659: Si paeta est, Veneri similis, si torva, Minervaetorva Merkel: flava R in marg. cum plerisque codd.: rava Heinsius: parva R cum aliquot dett.: fulva F.2. Priapea 36.4: Minerva torvo lumine est, Venus paetotorvo scripsi: flavo libri edd. vett.: flava et post hoc verbum commate interpunxit De Rooy (probant Vollmer, Clairmont, Parker): ravo Haupt: glauco Antonius.IMost codices for line 2.659 of (...) Ovid's Ars amatoria give flava in place of torva, but this reading does not suit the context (Ovid is suggesting ways of moderating the flaws of one's puella), which requires a word with a negative connotation.1 Among the proposed emendations, Heinsius' rava has been adopted by almost all editors of the Ars, but the elusive meaning of this adjective, in conjunction with its very limited use by the Latin poets and some other considerations that I explore below, allow us to look at this emendation afresh. In fact, apart from its appearance in the two lines under discussion, ravus seems to have been employed only on two other occasions, and only by Horace; and in one of them it is not the only codices reading (see note 11 below).2As a color term, ravus suggests a grey-yellowish or grey-bluish tinge, which corresponds to the implications of the Greek.3 The Greek word, however, was more extensively employed (see the respective [End Page 81] entries in LSJ and OLD) and more varied in meaning. With reference to eyes, for example, charopos appears to denote either the color of the iris (mostly in prose) or the flash, the glow of the gaze (nearly always in poetry; see note 5), which in turn may be due either to exuberant joy4 or-albeit not as frequently-to unrestrained fury.5 It appears, however, that in reference to human eyes charopos is a more or less complimentary term,6 whereas in reference to the eyes of animals, it carries rather negative overtones, whether it describes the color of the eyes or thegleam in them.7 We can thus account for the last explanation of charopos in Hesychius' Lexicon (). It seems that the connotation of the fierce glare, the awe-inspiring gaze, passed, at least to a small extent (see references in LSJ), from animals to humans, so that in a Lucian passage the goddess Athena is disparagingly depicted as charope (Dial. deor. 23.1: ).8 [End Page 82]It would follow, then, that rava, as applied to Minerva in the Ars amatoria passage, cannot refer to the color connotations of charopos (for these are positive)9 but only to the notion of a fierce glare, as is indeed appropriate to the warlike Athena.10 It may not be accidental, after all, that just before the first appearance of Athena in Homer (A 206), it is the glaring eyes of the goddess, not their color, that we encounter: (A 200; cf. Eustathius's commentary).11 On the other hand, one could argue that the eye color that the Greeks liked (charopon) was one that the Romans disliked (in which case rava would be appropriate), but the only evidence for this comes from the two passages we are discussing here.12 [End Page 83]In my view, the shortcoming in the puella that Ovid wants moderated is her grim, sullen countenance, her glaring look, not the color of her eyes. This is somewhat corroborated by the paeta of the first hemistich (again a kind of look, not color)13 and the comparison with Athena, who, as a war goddess, would have looked fierce. Yet, the adjective rava is not only used nowhere else by Ovid in any context;14 it is never attributed to Athena/Minerva/Pallas throughout Latin poetry.15 Even in Lucretius 4.1161, where the context is almost identical with that of Ars amatoria 2.659, Athena is only indirectly described as caesia (which translates see Aul. Gell. 2.26.19 and cf. André 1949, 178f.), a quality that is actually never attributed to Minerva by Latin poets (see Carter 1902, 113).16 By contrast, the adjective torvus... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminine Role Designations in the Comedies of PlautusZ. M. PackmanThere is a considerable degree of inconsistency in the role designations applied to female characters in the list of personae published with each of the Plautine comedies in the standard modern editions. My purpose here is to compare these role designations as they appear in modern editions with the designations attested by the scene headings of the manuscripts, identifying and (...) where possible accounting for discrepancies, and to propose, on the one hand, a general reading of the system of female role designations as assigned in the manuscripts, and, on the other, a critique of modifications introduced by modern editors. Editions chiefly referred to are the Oxford Classical Texts and the Teubner and Budé series. 1 For role designations in manuscripts I have depended on the text and apparatus of Friedrich Leo (1895–96) as well as the apparatus of the Budé texts.To begin with the role of matrona: of all characters so designated in the OCT, only one—the nameless wife of the local Menaechmus in Menaechmi—is so called also in both the Teubner and the Budé editions. In other cases, those designated matrona in the OCT are called uxor in the Teubner and the Budé (Alcumena in Amphitryo and Phanostrata in Cistellaria), or, in those same editions, mulier (Eunomia in Aulularia, Cleostrata and Myrrhina in Casina, and Dorippa in Mercator). In one case (Artemona of Asinaria) the OCT’s matrona is also matrona in the Budé, but uxor in the Teubner. Philippa in Epidicus, Philocomasium in Miles Gloriosus, and Palaestra and Ampelisca in Rudens are each called mulier in the Personae of the OCT, Budé, and Teubner—but Telestis in Epidicus, called mulier in the OCT, is identified as virgo in the Budé and Teubner editions. In the one play where the OCT uses the word uxor as a role designation (for the young sisters in Stichus), the same characters are designated sorores in the Teubner, and uxor (singly) and sorores (together) in the Budé. [End Page 245]Where the OCT applies the designation virgo (Phaedria in Aulularia, Planesium in Curculio, and Lucris in Persa), or the designation meretrix (Philaenium in Asinaria; the Bacchises in Bacchides, with the addition of the word sorores; Selenium and Gymnasium in Cistellaria; Erotium in Menaechmi; Pasicompsa in Mercator; Acroteleutium in Miles Gloriosus; Philematium and Delphium in Mostellaria; Lemniselenis in Persa, and Phronesium in Truculentus), the Teubner and the Budé do the same—but in the case of the Poenulus the Personae of the OCT, inconsistently, describes as puellae characters called meretrices in the Teubner and the Budé (Adelphasium and Anterastilis).Like meretrix, the role designation ancilla is relatively stable, and persons so designated in the Personae of the OCT are so called also in the Teubner and the Budé (Bromia in Amphitryo, Pardalisca in Casina, Halisca in Cistellaria, Milphidippa in Miles Gloriosus, Scapha in Mostellaria, Sophoclodisca in Persa, Crocotium and Stephanium in Stichus, and Astaphium in Truculentus, as well as one unnamed character in Menaechmi). In two cases the designation anus stands in all three of the editions under consideration (Staphyla of Aulularia and Leaena of Curculio), and this degree of consistency is observable in other relatively uncommon female roles, like lena (Cleareta in Asinaria, Melaenis and Syra in Cistellaria), fidicina (Acropolistes in Epidicus), and nutrix (Giddenis in Poenulus). Just once the OCT becomes expansive about a character designated ancilla in the Teubner and the Budé: Syra of Truculentus is here called tonstrix (ancilla Phronesii). One character called simply anus in the OCT (Syra in Mercator) is called anus ancilla in the Teubner and the Budé. In the case of Ptolemocratia of Rudens, called sacerdos in the Teubner and the Budé, it is once again the OCT, with sacerdos Veneris, which becomes expansive.By comparison with those assigned to female characters, the role designations of male characters in the Personae of standard editions of Plautus’ comedies are relatively stable. There is absolute consistency among the editions here under consideration with respect to role designations in such occasional types as parasitus, cocus, leno, and miles, and also with the even rarer designations like mercator, danista, and medicus. Some thirty characters are... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Livy’s Written RomeWilliam SeaveyMary Jaeger. Livy’s Written Rome. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. xii 1 205 pp. Cloth, $39.50.How Livy went about writing his immense history has been a topic of keen interest, and recent work such as Jaeger’s directs our thinking in new and interesting ways. Livian historiography has traditionally focused on Quellenforschung and more recently on the rhetorical influences that often remain unrecognized by (...) modern readers. A still newer kind of historiography, branching from rhetorical studies, considers the influence of space on a writer’s text, and it is attracted to both topographical and material issues. Indicative of such works in the last decade are Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor 1988); Eleanor Winsor Leach, The Rhetoric of Space (Princeton 1988); C. Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1991); and Ann Vasaly, Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1993). Jaeger follows many historiographers in beginning with Livy’s preface, and then considering disparate episodes throughout Ab Urbe Condita before returning to the preface to reevaluate Livy’s method. By this approach, narrative is not just a chronological reflection of political and religious events; rather, spatial reminders (monumenta) may influence the organization of written narrative. Jaeger narrows her study to focus on “reminders that for various reasons fail to point unambiguously back to a particular person or event” (10). It is when Livy has restored in his text a [End Page 318] lost monumentum that his method is most readily observed: “when monuments fail and the text restores them, reminders of stories give way to stories about reminders” (11). This method of historiography, as Jaeger wields it, gives us a fresh look at an old text. It does not work equally well in all environments—witness the problems Sparta would offer such an approach, as both Jaeger (2) and, long ago, Thucydides realized. Yet more difficult would be monumental—in all senses of the word—societies such as those of ancient Egypt and Central America.Jaeger’s discussion of method and historiography (the Introduction and chapter 1) is excellent. Her survey of Livian historiographical research is thorough and attested by a wealth of judicious footnotes which review the relevant scholarship. The discussion of monumenta is particularly illuminating. Jaeger explains how the “monumentum stands between the res gestae and their literary celebration, so that two layers, the monumental and the literary, come between event and reader” (16). That all share certain qualities make them suitable for historical evaluation: “In sum, we can assume of all monumenta some common characteristics: an absent person or thing commemorated; a present audience reminded; a memory or an exhortation that is socially relevant; and a meaning determined jointly by the reminder, its physical context, and the circumstances of each viewer” (18). Jaeger’s belief that Daedalus’ labyrinth in the Aeneid (Veneris monumentum nefandae, 6.24–27) is the only exception to her standard that monumenta are “exposed to the public view” (17) is a bit strained, even without considering that Vergil’s ecphrasis describing the doors of Apollo’s temple is not really Roman at all. Moreover, Columella recorded that Hyginus collected precisely that sort of evidence: Hyginus veterum auctorum placita secretis dispersa monimentis industrie collegit (De Re Rustica 9.2.1). And what of all the Roman religious elements that are also secret (i.e., not exposed to public view)? It would be difficult to believe that there were no hidden monumenta among all the Roman sacra. Nevertheless, Jaeger’s approach to monumenta reinforces the importance of visualizing narrative as written by classical historians, which results in an illuminating and novel way of examining Livy’s historical text.After discussing the notion of monumenta in chapter 1 Jaeger proceeds to consider four separate episodes from Ab Urbe Condita, noting how Livy “maps the plot of a story onto the Roman landscape, then commemorates the particular enactment of the plot in a monument” (12). Chapter 2 considers the abduction of the Sabine women in AUC book 1, demonstrating a rhythmic flow of action between the... (shrink)

Munro adopts the emendations veris for Veneris and Zephyrus for Zephyri , making Zephyrus the ‘winged harbinger of Spring.’ As to the order of the procession, Munro takes one view in his translation and another in his notes: according to the latter it is ‘Zephyrus, Spring, Venus, Flora,’ the flowers springing up where Spring, Venus, and Zephyrus have trodden: according to the translation it is ‘Flora, Zephyrus, Spring, Venus.’ Duff, in his edition, adheres to the MSS. reading as printed (...) above: Veneris praenuntius pennatus is Cupid, and the order of the procession is ‘Zephyrus, Flora , Cupid, Spring and Venus .’ With this reading and interpretation, which are probably right, quibus goes in construction with praespargens: Munro, reading Zephyrus, takes quibus with uestigia propter, ‘in whose tracks’ , so that with his reading his note is right and his translation—‘along the path they tread mother Flora straws all the way before them’—is wrong, or at least not so probable, as quibus propter uestigia would be more naturally said of one following behind. (shrink)

Part of the baths regulations preserved on a bronze plaque, engraved more or less identically on each side, from the copper mine at Vipasca, Lusitania. The manager is to wash, clean and grease the waterheating vats once a month. Such vats, as mentioned by Vitruvius in his discussion of public baths , were three in number: aena supra hypocausim tria sunt componenda. They were sizeable articles: Propertius seems to see himself tortured in one: Veneris torrebar aeno. The greasing was (...) to keep aerugo, copper rust, at bay; for this purpose Cato in general recommends amurca, lees of olive oil: ahena omnia amurca unguito…et aerugo non erit molesta; and also for greasing axles amurca axem unguito. For bronze tablets exposed to the weather such as the numerous public records on temple walls and the like Pliny recommends olive oil: aera…robiginem celerius trahunt…nisi oleo perunguantur. The phrase e recenti which occurs in both versions of the text is unexampled, and the CIL editors suggest that it means ex integro, afresh. However I am inclined to think that the engraver had a faulty copy in front of him and we should read adipe recenti. (shrink)