Euripides, Hippolytus 88 Author(s): J. Glucker Source: The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Mar.

, 1966), p. 17 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/706511 . Accessed: 22/03/2011 09:32
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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

17

EURIPIDES,

HIPPOLYTUS

88

MR. M. L. WEST(C.R. lxxix. 156) offers an interesting new interpretation of Hippolytus 88. It is based on the assumption that 'to a fifth-century ear it [avae] suggested an address to a god'. But did it? See Hipp. 834, 900, 953(?), 1153; Hel. 5, 465; Andr. 1i6i, 1 66; Heraclid. 114, 824; H.F. 8, 467, 541, 589, 602; also Soph. Aj. 190, O.T. 689, 696; Phil. 507-and other examples which can be found by the bushel. Agamin. 42 and 204 are examples which spring to a twentiethcentury mind without much effort. To a fifthcentury ear the phrase ava avspwov Ayapip-

vwv would sound neither very strange nor particularly religious. 'Why', asks West, 'should the slave abstain from using the word 'master' in its proper, everyday sense? . . . What is more appropriate about "lord"?' See Barrett ad loc. (p. 176). Barrett's discussion is still convincing. West's argument-which fails to satisfy on its main point-is only attractive. Hard words are neither. University of Exeter J. GLUCKER

CAELIUS

ON C. ANTONIUS

(O.R.F.2 fr. 17)

SINCEAntonius had suffered two serious military defeats during his governorship of Macedonia (Dio Cassius xxxviii. 10. 2-3), Caelius naturally seized on the opportunity of ridiculing his capacity in this sphere. When the approach of the enemy was announced, Antonius was found, so Caelius alleged, 'temulento sopore profligatum, totis praecordiis stertentem'. When his concubines tried to rouse him 'proximae cuiusque collum amplexu petebat, neque dormire excitatus neque vigilare ebrius poterat, sed semisomno soporeinter manus centurionum concubinarumque iactabatur' (quoted by Quintilian, iv. 2. 123 = Malcovati, O.R.F.2 fr. 17, p. 483). Even after being aroused ('excitatus') Antonius remained in a drunken stupor, able 'neque dormire.. . neque vigilare'. But what sort of Latin (or sense) is it to describe this condition as 'semisomnus sopor', 'half-asleep sleep'? And if Caelius was as good an orator as his contemporaries thought, I doubt whether he would have followed up 'temulento sopore' with so similar a phrase as 'semisomno sopore' within the very same sentence. Ancient writers may not have been quite so chary of repeating words as some of their modern editors would like, but none of the examples of such repetition quoted by Seyfert-Miiller

on Laelius44, Austin on Quintilian xii. I. 41, or Gudeman on Tacitus, Dial. I. I, produces nearly such a flat effect in such a carefully balanced rhetorical flight as this. Lewis and Short have a special rubric for sopor as used in this passage: 'Transf. A. stupefaction, lethargy, stupor'. They cite no other example of this meaning. Even so it would be perfectly natural for sopor to be so used, just as somnusis (Lewis and Short s.v. B)-but hardly in a context where a precise distinction is being drawn between the sleeping and waking states, and where it has already been used in its proper sense earlier in the same sentence (an occurrence, incidentally, which disproves Austin's recent assertion, on Aen. ii. 253, that sopor'a poetic word, occurs in prose first in Livy'). And not when qualified by semisomnus. Surely what Caelius wrote (and presumably what Quintilian quoted) is 'semisomno stupore'. Stupor is exactly the condition of a man suddenly aroused from a drunken sleep. But the copyist, with the earlier soporestill in his mind (and perhaps also influenced by 'semisomno'), unconsciously repeated sopore (a natural enough slip given the obvious similarity of the two words). BedfordCollege,London ALAN CAMERON