Discussion on the relationship between the Ilias Latina and Seneca’s tragedies. The chronological order is: Oedipus, Ilias, Troades. The formular connection of a patronimic ending with -ius + heros (the same one as in Laus Pisonis 134 and 137) allows to establish a terminus ante quem for the Ilias at 65 AD, the year of Piso’s death

Courtney, Edward

Firenze University Press: E-Journals

«Prometheus» 27, 2001, 149-152  
 
THE DATING OF THE ILIAS LATINA 
 
 When I was writing the article in Der Neue Pauly on the Ilias Latina (as 
that poem has been called since Baehrens), the only conclusion which I 
could reach about its date was one of despair, since neither the attempt to 
date it by historical methods based on presumed allusions in 899-902, nor 
that employing a postulated identification of the author Italicus (his name 
revealed by the concluding acrostich), nor that depending on stylistic and 
metrical usage reaches any decisive result. I now wish to propose a new 
criterion, but first an old one. 
 As I remarked and others too have remarked, though without making 
much of it, a terminus post quem for the work is provided by some clear 
imitations of Seneca’s tragedies. It is worth while to look a little more 
closely at the examples remarked by M. Scaffai in his commentary1 on the 
Ilias Latina, and to do so under two lights. First, as a precaution we must 
establish that Italicus is imitating Seneca and not the other way round; 
secondly, we should investigate whether any pattern of imitation emerges. 
 It does emerge that in cases in which imitation, in either direction, is in-
dubitable, such a relationship is essentially confined to two plays, the Troa-
des (which at least has a thematic relationship with the Ilias) and the Oedi-
pus (which has none). Here first the Troades: 
 Ilias 529 hinc pugnat patriae columen Mavortius Hector 
 Troades 124 columen patriae (also referring to Hector). 
Troades 117-129 shows much else that recalls the Ilias, but nothing that is as 
clear as this; see in particular 1053 (with Scaffai’s note) and 1057. From TLL 
I note also CLE 587.6 magnum patriae columenque futurum (a very 
incorrect epitaph from Dalmatia). There is nothing which suggests priority 
of either author. 
 Ilias 831 mentitos vultus simulati pandit Achillis (sc. Apollo)  
 Troades 447 vera ex Achille spolia simulato tulit (sc. Hector) 
Here too one could make an argument for imitation in either direction; 
however, vera in Seneca looks artificial, whereas the line in the Ilias follows 
well on 824 ut quem mentitur verus credatur Achilles. 
 Now the Oedipus: 
 Ilias 31 Fatidici his sacras compellat vocibus aures 
 Oedipus 1042-3 fatidice, te, te praesidem veri deum  / compello. 
In the Ilias Chryses is speaking; fatidici his is Higt’s inevitable emendation 
  
1 Baebii Italici, Ilias Latina, a cura di M. Scaffai, Bologna 1982 (19972). 
150 E. COURTNEY 
for the manuscript reading fatidicis. In the Oedipus Oedipus is speaking, and 
his phrase is based on Ovid Fasti 2.261-2 audes / fatidicum verbis fallere 
velle deum?, whereas that of Italicus recalls Verg. Aen. 4.304 tandem his 
Aenean compellat vocibus ultro (cf. 6.499 notis compellat vocibus ultro). 
The significant point is that in Seneca fatidice is a perfectly normal vocative 
adjective, whereas Italicus has developed it into a full-blown substantive, to 
which the plural used by Cicero de leg. 2.20 in the sense of harioli provides 
no parallel. In short he is doing what imitators do, blending two sources and 
forcing one of them. 
 Ilias 46-8    vulgus ruit undique Graium 
    vixque rogis superest tellus, vix ignibus aer, 
    derat ager tumulis 
 Oedipus 53 omnis aetas pariter et sexus ruit 
    68 dest terra tumulis, iam rogos silvae negant. 
Here there is an obvious community of subject-matter; cf. also Ovid Met. 
7.613 nec locus in tumulos, nec sufficit arbor in ignes (the plague sent by 
Juno on Aegina). Note that Italicus has been forced by his metre to adjust the 
tense of Seneca’s dest to an imperfect discordant with the rest of his context, 
whereas if, like Seneca, he had had the passage of Ovid in mind, he could 
have written dest ager in tumulos. 
 Ilias 1067 Pieridum comitata cohors (sc. me vatem) 
 Oedipus 432 te Bassaridum comitata cohors (sc. Dionyse) 
Note how under constraint Italicus has unnaturally omitted the object present 
in Seneca. 
 One can see other similarities too between Italicus and Seneca, but 
nothing, I think, close enough to provide the basis of an argument. The 
above harvest is not abundant, but it looks as if Seneca imitated Italicus in 
Troades, whereas his Oedipus was imitated by Italicus; this would imply that 
they were contemporaries, and that the order of the compositions was 
Oedipus, Ilias, Troades. 
  
 Now for my new criterion. The anonymous Laus Pisonis 173-7 reads as 
follows: 
  sic movisse fides saevus narratur Achilles 
  quamvis mille rates Priameius ureret heros 
  et gravis obstreperet modulatis bucina nervis: 
  illo dulce melos Nereius extudit heros 
  pollice, terribilis quo Pelias ibat in hostem. 
Twice in these lines we find a formulaic phrase consisting of heros preceded 
by a patronymic adjective ending in -ius; there is a variation of such 
 THE DATING OF THE ILIAS LATINA 151 
formulae in which the adjective is not patronymic but ethnic, as e.g. Troius 
heros Verg. Aen. 6.451, but I am not here concerned with this variation. 
Formulae of this type are not found in Homer nor anywhere else, unless I 
have overlooked something, in Greek epic. They seem to have been intro-
duced by Vergil, who has Laomedontius heros (= Aeneas) in Aen. 8.18, and 
to have been popularised by Ovid. The writer of the Ilias Latina, as well as 
the four instances on which I shall concentrate, has Pelopeius heros (131, 
739; Agamemnon), Thetideius heros (690; Achilles), Cythereius heros (895; 
Aeneas). The other four instances to which I alluded are identical with those 
found in the Laus Pisonis, namely Priameius heros in 960 (where it means 
Paris) and 271 (Hector, as in the Laus Pisonis), Nereius heros (938, 975; 
Achilles). 
 The formulaic nature of such combinations is underlined by the fact that, 
as in all the instances quoted by me, heros almost invariably ends the line, 
and is usually, though not in the Laus Pisonis, immediately preceded by the 
adjective. Two other features also spring to the eye. First, the adjective often 
ends not just in -ius but in -eius. Secondly, it often refers not just to the 
father but in a recherché manner to the mother or grandfather (we may 
classify Vergil’s Laomedontius heros here, though Laomedon was not a di-
rect ancestor of Aeneas). This is the case in a number of Ovidian instances; 
so Autonoeius heros (Met. 3.198; Actaeon), Cythereius heros (ibid. 13.625; 
Aeneas, as in Il. Lat.), Danaeius heros (Am. 3.6.13; Perseus), Philyreius 
heros (Met. 2.676, Fasti 5.391; Chiron), all, one observes, with -eius. All 
these statements apply to all the instances in Il. Lat. except for Priameius 
heros; in 176 the author of Laus Pis. could more straightforwardly have 
written Peleius heros (as in fact Statius did, Ach. 1.551), but found 
advantage in conforming to the pattern with Nereius heros because of Pelias 
in the next line, referring of course to Mount Pelion and not to Peleus. 
 So the author of the Laus Pisonis twice within the space of five lines uses 
in a simile incidentally referring to the Trojan war,  in a way not conforming 
fully to the prevailing manner since his adjective does not immediately 
precede heros, phrases also found in a poem whose central subject is the 
Trojan war and which shows a fondness for using such phrases according to 
an established pattern. Which is more likely to be the imitator? One must 
surely answer ‘the writer of the Laus Pisonis’. He therefore postdates the 
Ilias Latina, and since he must have written before the condemnation of Piso 
in 65 A.D. as penalty for his failed conspiracy, that gives a terminus ante 
quem for the Ilias Latina. Many scholars have thought that they could see 
traits of Neronian times in the Ilias; these have not been strong enough to 
provide concrete evidence for dating, but if I am right we can now re-
152 E. COURTNEY 
evaluate them, and can definitely reject Lachmann’s contention2 that the 
historical allusion in 899-902 must pre-date the death of Tiberius. The case 
would be clinched if we could securely identify the work as a juvenile 
composition of the known Baebius Italicus, but that depends on finding 
Cuspinianus’ authority for the former name (see my Neue Pauly article). 
University of Virginia             E.  COURTNEY 
  
2 K. Lachmann, Über den lat. Homerus des ohne Grund so genannten Pindarus The-
banus, in Kleine Schriften, II, Berlin 1876, 161 f. 


The dating of Ilias Latina

http://www.fupress.net/index.php/prometheus/article/download/16607/15492

The dating of Ilias Latina

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Firenze University Press: E-Journals