Ausonius: Moselle, Epigrams, and Other Poems 9781138857780

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AUSONIUS

“This is an excellent translation of several poems of Ausonius, with an accessible and informative introduction to his life and writings. Ausonius demands a skilled and nimble translator, because of his poetry’s great variety in form, subject matter, style, and tone. He has found one in Warren, an accomplished poet herself. Warren captures well the protean Ausonius with her wide-ranging selection of his works, and she has succeeded in producing one of those rare translations of poetry that rises to the level of poetry.” —Professor Scott McGill, Rice University, USA The generic and thematic breadth of Ausonius’ large output makes him the most innovative of all Latin poets and his vision and voice require a poet equal to his prodigious talents. Luckily, in award-winning poet Deborah Warren, Ausonius has found his match. To communicate the breadth of Ausonius’ project, Warren offers complete translations of the poet’s two most traditional poems, the Moselle and the Epigrams; while the poet’s generic and thematic innovations are revealed in her versions of the Bissula, the Cupid Crucified, the Ephemeris, the Professors of Bordeaux and the bawdy and unique Cento Nuptialis. An introduction and supporting notes written by Joseph Pucci help readers negotiate the contextual and prosopographic hurdles Ausonius’ poems often present. Bringing a new generation of students the words of this wiliest of Latin poets, Warren’s versions of Ausonius open a window onto the poet’s thoughts and feelings in a time of momentous change in the Roman world. Deborah Warren is an award-winning poet whose poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, and The Yale Review. Her previous works include The Size of Happiness (2003), Zero Meridian (2004) which received the New Criterion Poetry Prize, and Dream with Flowers and Bowl of Fruit (2008) which received the Richard Wilbur Award.

ROUTLEDGE LATER LATIN POETRY Edited by Joseph Pucci Brown University

The Routledge Later Latin Poetry series (RLLP) provides English translations of the works of those poets writing in Latin between the fourth and the eighth centuries inclusive. It responds to the increasing interest in later Latin authors and especially the growth in courses devoted to late antiquity. Books in the series are designed to provide comprehensive coverage to support students studying later Latin poetry and to introduce the material to those wishing to read these important and often under translated works in English. The RLLP is devoted to publishing creative, accessible translations. Each volume is self-contained: introductory material contextualizes the life and output of the poet in question, and includes manuscript and editorial details; some discussion of metrics and Latinity; and a sense of how the work being translated might be interpreted (including, where possible, the scholarly history of the same). This section concludes, as need be, with maps and a list of any editorial changes made by the translator to the established Latin text. At the conclusion of each volume, in addition to endnotes and a works cited list, there is a general index that, beyond allowing readers to negotiate content, also serves as a glossary of names, dates, figures, places, and events. Volumes hew, as much as possible, to line-for-line versions of the Latin original, so that those who come to the translations with a knowledge of Latin can orient their reading with the original. By offering English translations of later Latin poetry with comprehensive supporting material the series enables a greater understanding of late antiquity through one of its most important literary outputs. The poems are significant sources for the culture, religion, and daily life of the period, and clear and imaginative translations also offer readers the chance to appreciate their quality.

PRUDENTIUS’ HYMNS FOR HOURS AND SEASONS: LIBER CATHEMERINON Nicholas Richardson RUTLIUS NAMATIANUS’ GOING HOME: DE REDITU SUO Martha Malamud JUVENCUS’ FOUR BOOKS OF THE GOSPELS: EVANGELIORUM LIBRI QUATTUOR Scott McGill Forthcoming: THE POETRY OF ENNODIUS Bret Mulligan

AUSONIUS Moselle, Epigrams, and Other Poems

Translated by Deborah Warren With an Introduction and Notes by Joseph Pucci

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Deborah Warren The right of Deborah Warren to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ausonius, Decimus Magnus, author. | Warren, Deborah (Classicist), translator. | Pucci, Joseph Michael, 1957- writer of introduction. Title: Moselle, epigrams, and other poems / Ausonius ; translated by Deborah Warren ; with an introduction and notes by Joseph Pucci. Other titles: Routledge later Latin poetry. Description: Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge later Latin poetry Identifiers: LCCN 2016037510| ISBN 9781138857780 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315718477 (ebook) Classification: LCC PA6222.E5 W37 2017 | DDC 871/.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037510 ISBN: 978-1-138-85778-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-71847-7 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Abbreviations

viii ix

Introduction

1



The Moselle

19



The Epigrams

35



The Ephemeris

62

The Professors of Bordeaux

67



On Bissula

80



A Nuptial Cento

83



Cupid Crucified

88

Works cited Index

93 94

vii

A C KNOWLEDGEM E NTS

Deborah Warren: As this book comes to press, I’d like to thank my friend and fellowclassicist Mike Juster, who suggested Ausonius’ work as worthy of translation. I’m also most indebted to Joseph Pucci, the editor of the series to which this volume belongs, for doing all the scholarly heavy lifting, and especially for dignifying the translations with a superb introduction. Joseph Pucci: For my small share of what follows, I’m grateful to Mike Juster, who put me in touch with Deborah Warren in the first place; to Deborah, model colleague, gifted poet, whose words have brought Ausonius to life; to Jacob Ihnen, who helped throughout; and to the Dean of the College at Brown, who supported him as he did. I dedicate my portion of what follows to Michael Hughes—recently family, forever a friend. Both collaborators wish, finally, to thank the anonymous reader engaged by Routledge, whose careful eye saved us both from errors of fact and fealty to Ausonius’ words.

viii

ABBREVIATIONS

Bajoni  M. G. Bajoni, ed. and trans., D. Magno Ausonio Professori a Bordeaux. Florence, 1996. Evelyn White H. G. Evelyn White, trans. Ausonius. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA. and London, 1919. Green R. P. H. Green, ed. and comm. The Works of Ausonius. Oxford, 1991. Kay N. M. Kay, ed., Ausonius: Epigrams. London, 2001. New Pauly C. Walde and B. Egger, eds. Brills New Pauly: The Reception of Classical Literature, trans. D. Smart and M. H. Wibier. Leiden and Boston, MA, 2012. [D. W.] A note or section of the Introduction written by Deborah Warren. The abbreviations of Ausonius’ works used in this volume are found in the Introduction, pp. 5–9.

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I NTRODUCTION

He was not only the most brilliant and prolific writer of his age, but one of the most versatile and skillful writers in the history of Latin literature. (Green, xv)

I. Historical context; the life of Ausonius; the poet’s output The long, varied, and productive life of Decimus Magnus Ausonius spans most of the fourth century, a space of time that also measures profound changes in practically every sphere of human activity. Not least, the century’s emperors oversaw and in many instances helped to bring about shifts in the fortunes of Christianity, which, under Constantine, became a licit religion early in the century and, by its end, under Theodosius, was officially sponsored by the state. To the increasing success of Christianity’s fortunes can be added the brief resurgence of paganism near the middle of the century under Julian and, as Christianity gained its footing, more intensive and sophisticated debates about Christian orthodoxy that occurred, not least, at the councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. The century had begun with Diocletian’s voluntary retirement in 305, after which his tetrarchic system lumbered into place and then collapsed, leading in due course to the rise of Constantine from the obscurity of Britain, but a host of imperial figures made their way through the century’s decades, including two, Valentinian I (364–375) and Gratian (367–383), who were patrons of Ausonius. The fourth century is often described as an age of cultural foment and there are good reasons to so characterize it. Many of the West’s more important literary and spiritual figures hail from this century. By the time Constantine had made Constantinople his new capital, in 330, for example, Juvencus (fl. ca. 330), Ausonius’ older contemporary, had already 1

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composed the Four Books of the Gospels, bringing the Gospel narratives into epical and especially Virgilian form; and by the time the succession to Constantine’s power had been sorted out, in 340, among Constantine II (337–340), Constans (337–350), and Constantius II (337–361), with the latter two sharing power in the West and East respectively, Ambrose (337–397), Jerome (347–420), and Prudentius (348–ca. 410) had been born. Their productive lives in spiritual and literary affairs would span the rest of the century and touch on all manner of activity—church and episcopal authority, orthodoxy and heresy, monasticism, the liturgy, paganism, the development of Christian literary genres such as the hymn, and the use of allegory. To these important figures can be added Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 310–370), who was writing by the time Constantius II died in 361 and Julian became sole ruler; and Proba (fl. ca. 360), Hilary’s contemporary, who at the same time was patching together her cento in which the words of Virgil were recast in order to sing of the creation of the world and the life of Christ. The death of Julian in 363 and the brief reign of Jovian (363–364) brought Valentinian I to power in the West, whose attention was drawn to Ausonius by dint of our poet’s long-standing reputation as a teacher, for which reason Ausonius was summoned to Trier, by then one of the imperial capitals, in order to tutor Valentinian’s son, Gratian. Military and political difficulties impended: Valentinian I died in 375; Valens, whom Valentinian I had brought to power in the East in 364, was killed at Adrianople in 378; and by 380 Gratian and Theodosius (379–395) shared power, in the West and East respectively, a settlement that held until Gratian was killed by Maximus in 383. By the middle of the 390s, and for the last time, Rome had a sole emperor, Theodosius. Amidst the turmoil in these later decades of the fourth century, Augustine (354–430) came of age and began to produce what would eventually comprise an oeuvre of five million words; Paulinus of Nola (354–431), Ausonius’ greatest student, began his illustrious career; Ammianus Marcellinus (d. ca. 390) published his history; Claudian (d. 404) began writing, and, likely, Macrobius (fl. ca. 400) wrote his Saturnalia. Many of these important writers were witnesses to the manifold depredations of the early fifth century, but such were still in the future as the century’s last decade waned and Ausonius died in his beloved Bordeaux. As much as the fourth century witnessed a flowering of spiritual and literary activity, so too was it a transformative time in other ways. The political changes of the century, for example, in part resulted from military and economic necessities. One aspect of this attends to large shifts in population, owed to the displacements occasioned by migrations into the Roman Empire from the East, especially in the last quarter of the 2

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fourth century. The threat of external enemies, a constant of Roman life for over a century by the time Theodosius came to power, necessitated economic changes of a sort that could ensure a strong military and the strengthening of a centralizing bureaucracy to support it. Thus the need for an adequate and uninterrupted flow of taxes led in the fourth century ever-increasingly to the centralization of government control over every aspect of economic life, including compulsory public service. Taxes, always onerous, were also increasingly levied in unfair ways. As the century progressed, and certainly near its end, depopulation and labor (and other kinds of) shortages portended unrest that was only exacerbated by external threats to the military and political accommodations achieved by the century’s strongest rulers. Ausonius was a witness at a distance to many of these momentous changes but his arrival at the pinnacle of power in the West in the 360s belies his modest background. Of that background we possess considerable detail, since, at several points in his large output, Ausonius reveals aspects of it that help to flesh out a perhaps uniquely full picture of an ancient life. His parents, so the poet tells us, both hailed from southern Gaul. His father, after whom the poet was named, was born at Bazas, as the poet reports in the Epicedion in Patrem, a eulogy composed shortly after his father’s death in 377 or 378. We learn in this poem too that the elder Ausonius was a doctor, which may indicate that he had been a slave. Ausonius’ mother, Aemilia Aeonia, hailed from Dax and was possessed of a more lofty pedigree that the poet relates in some detail at various places in his poetry.1 Ausonius’ father eventually settled in Bordeaux,2 where the poet was born ca. 310. His initial education occurred there but more substantive studies were pursued in Toulouse, where Ausonius moved in order to be tutored by his maternal uncle, Aemilius Magnus Arborius, who set an early standard for pedagogical excellence that his nephew was to emulate.3 Further training followed back in Bordeaux under Minervius, whom Ausonius remembers warmly in personal terms and in token of his teacher’s wide reputation.4 The twin influences provided by Aemilius and Minervius must have been determinative in Ausonius’ entry into the teaching profession in Bordeaux: initially a grammaticus, Ausonius eventually became a rhetor and simultaneously took up a legal career, though he seems always to have favored and focused on teaching. Certainly his reputation throughout the Roman West as a pedagogue bears witness to his philological talents.5 In the early 330s Ausonius married Attusia Lucana Sabina and in due course they had three children: a son, also named Ausonius, who did not survive infancy, another son, Hesperius, and an otherwise unnamed daughter, who, we are told by the poet, married first 3

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Euromius and then Thalassus. Sabina died suddenly in the early 340s,6 while Hesperius eventually was named proconsul of Africa, a post Ausonius’ son-in-law, Thalassus, also was granted. Because he was appointed prefect of Illyricum in 375, we know, finally, that Ausonius’ father survived into old age. Perhaps the most powerful estimation of Ausonius’ philological talents came in the mid-360s, when, after nearly three decades in the classroom (and to a lesser extent the courtroom) Ausonius’ reputation brought him to the attention of Valentinian I, who made the poet tutor to his son and heir, Gratian. This post, held for about a decade, placed Ausonius at the apex of Western imperial politics in Trier. In addition to the normal rote of training plied with his royal charge, the poet was also honored in due time with various honorifics: comes in 370, quaestor sacri palatii in 375, praefectus Galliarum in 378 and, finally, consul in 379. After this final honor, singular though largely ceremonial, Ausonius retired from the activity of life at court and spent the remaining decade or so of his life back in southern Gaul, presumably working further on his poetry and for the most part remaining aloof from the political, military, and dynastic intrigues of the last decades of the fourth century, which witnessed the revolt of Maximus in 383 and the murder of his former pupil, now emperor, Gratian; the defeat of the forces of Valentinian II; and the eventual restoration of order by Theodosius late in the century. By then Ausonius had long been ensconced in Bordeaux, where the nowelderly poet died not long before the century turned. The long life of Ausonius may be measured by his large literary output, but whether one gauges its varied content under the control of the poet’s biography or by dint of themes and genres, there can be no doubting Ausonius’ originality and no denying the difficulty of categorizing the poet’s project. It is perhaps therefore easier to describe Ausonius’ body of work as it is now gathered in Green.7 This offers a corpus of twenty-seven poems or collections, some of considerable length and many, perhaps most, demonstrating the poet’s penchant for generic hybridity. Green spies in this large gathering a tripartite grouping of personal poetry, descriptive and documentary verse, and what he calls “gymnastic verse,” that is, poetry that takes up difficult topics or demanding formats.8 Whatever order one wishes to bring to it, it is clear that the collection’s variety is only rivaled by its length. Some poems are individual pieces devoted to set topics that, in the vexed history of the transmission of Ausonius’ text, have sometimes been included in one of his larger collections. But some individual pieces, including several of his most famous, seem to have circulated 4

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on their own, not least the Mos. and the Cup. cruc. The collections, on the other hand, have been variously studied from thematic and generic angles, generally with less interpretive success. Among these might be mentioned the Par., a storehouse of genealogical information about the poet and his family; the Prof., a similarly rich gathering of information about, among others, Ausonius’ pedagogical and intellectual forbearers; the large gathering of epitaphs and epigrams; the so-called Ecl., which bear no thematic or generic resemblance to their Latin (or Greek) namesakes; and the Epis., seemingly written over the poet’s lifetime about all manner of topics, personal and public. Some works can be easily contextualized: the Grat. Act., for example, was clearly written to commemorate Ausonius’ elevation to the consulship in 379, while the Biss. derives from a campaign against the Germans led by Valentinian I in 368, in which Gratian and Ausonius participated, and which led, if the collection is to be believed, to the poet’s affair with a German slave girl named Bissula. Many of the letters, too, can be dated to specific events in the poet’s long life. But some poems defy easy contextualization. Here follow summaries of those poems or collections not translated in this volume. Summaries of the seven poems or collections translated in what follows can be found in Section II.  1 Praefationes Variae [= Praef. Var.]. The collection of five socalled prefaces gathers pieces that for various reasons seem to have fallen out of their original places in Ausonius’ corpus. They do not represent a coherent gathering owed to Ausonius’ hand but rather reflect editorial judgments about the Ausonian corpus. Praef. Var. 1 and 2 undoubtedly were written as prefaces to some gatherings of Ausonius’ poetry, though it is impossible to know now what those gatherings looked like, but Praef. Var. 3 may not have served a prefatory function at all, since it comprises Ausonius’ reply to a letter sent by Theodosius late in the poet’s life. On the other hand, Praef. Var. 4 clearly is a preface of some kind, though whether it offers an introduction to the Ecl. or is rather a misplaced introduction to some other part of the poet’s collection can only be conjectured. Similarly, Praef. Var. 5 is found in some manuscripts in the Epig., while in others it falls in between the Griph. and some of the Epis. or stands at the beginning of a smaller gathering of Ausonius’ poems.9 Its prefatory function seems clear enough, though what it specifically introduced is impossible to know with certainty. Praef. Var. 1–3 and 5 are written in elegiacs, while 4 is written in hendecasyllabics, as befits a piece that gestures toward Catullus thematically.   2 Ephemeris [= Eph.]. See below, Section II. 5

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  3 Ad Patrem de Suscepto Filio. This poem is found among the Epis. in at least one manuscript but it seems to stand alone on thematic and generic grounds. Written to Ausonius’ father on the birth of the poet’s first child, the poem is in elegiac couplets. Needless to say, it is among the earliest in the collection and can be dated to the first half of the 330s.   4 Versus Paschales. This prayer, likely dating from the early 370s, offers rare glimpses into Ausonius’ Christianity, revealed not least in the poem’s emphasis on baptism against the backdrop of the celebration of Easter. The poem is written in hexameters.   5 Epicedion in Patrem. This poem, introduced by a prose preface (as many of Ausonius’ poems are), offers an obituary for Ausonius’ father and can therefore be dated to 377 or 378. The preface makes clear that the verses are meant to be understood, in theory if not in fact, as an elogium, that is, an inscription set below a sculpture of the person being commemorated. The poem is written in elegiacs.   6 De Herediolo. This poem, a brief excursus on Ausonius’ estate, presumably located near Bazas, is introduced by a lemma unlikely of the poet’s own confection, whose details, if accurate, allow the poem to be dated to ca. 379. The poem is written in elegiacs.   7 Pater Ad Filium. This poem is fragmentary but an introductory lemma places it in the early 380s, in the years after Maximus’ usurpation. It is included by some editors in the Epis. Written in hexameters, it describes the poet’s trepidations in a time of political danger over his son’s departure from Trier for Bordeaux.   8 Protrepticus ad Nepotem. Although this lengthy poem is sometimes included in the Epis., Ausonius styles it a protrepticus in his prefatory remarks (vv. 1–2). That introductory gambit, written in prose, is addressed to Ausonius’ son, Hesperius, the uncle of the intended recipient of this piece. There follows the protrepticus proper, which contains one hundred verses, written in hexameters, addressed to the poet’s grandson, also named Ausonius, the son of the poet’s otherwise unnamed daughter. As is his wont, Ausonius presses on generic expectations: where readers anticipate from a protrepti­ cus an injunction to living the life of the mind, Ausonius offers a piece that instead seems to articulate his own versions of pedagogy, though to what end is not clear.   9 Genethliacos. This poem, once presumably of some length but now fragmented, is comprised of twenty-eight hexametrical verses that offer birthday greetings to the same grandson to whom the Protrepticus ad Nepotem is addressed (above, #8). The poem is lacunose after v. 12 and picks up an unrelated narrative thread in v. 13. 6

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10 Parentalia [= Par.]. This collection of thirty poems, composed mostly in elegiacs,10 commemorates various members of Ausonius’ family who predeceased him. The list of figures so memorialized runs the gamut, from those the poet knew not at all, to members of his immediate family, including his beloved wife, Sabina (Par. 9). As he reports in the prose preface, Ausonius took the title for the Parentalia from the Roman festival of the same name. After a verse preface, the poet offers pieces on his father and mother (Par. 1 and 2), his uncle Aemilius (Par. 3; also recalled at Prof. 16), his maternal grandfather and grandmother (Par. 4 and 5), Aemilia, his aunt (Par. 6), his paternal uncles Claudius and Julius (Par. 7), his father-in-law (Par. 8), his infant son (Par. 10), his grandson Pastor (Par. 11), his sister and brother (Par. 12 and 13), his son-in-law Euromius (Par. 14), his brother-in-law Pomponius (Par. 15), Arborius’ (his nephew’s) wife Veria Liceria (Par. 16), his sister’s son (Par. 17), and his sister-in-law, her husband and their son (Par. 18, 19, and 20). The remaining pieces (Par. 21–30) are more obscure in terms of honorands and focus on less obviously connected members of the poet’s family, including great nieces, his sister’s son-in-law, the children of a niece, his son-in-law’s father, and other more obscure members of the poet’s extended family. 11 Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium [= Prof.]. See below, Section II. 12 Epitaphia Heroum qui Bello Troico Interfuerunt [= Epit.]. This collection of twenty-six epitaphs of figures who died in the Trojan War is written in both elegiacs and hexameters. Ausonius reports in the prose preface that this is a work of translation from Greek models, and the Pelops of “Aristotle” is an obvious source for more than a few of these pieces. Poems 1–26 attend to Trojan figures, while nine additional epitaphs of figures not associated with the Trojan War are often included at the end of the collection (Epit. 27–35), though some recent editors have removed them to the Epig. Ausonius speaks in the preface of finishing the Epit. and appending it to the Par. and Prof. This would date the collection to the final decade of the poet’s life. 13 Epigrammata [= Epig.]. See below, Section II. 14 Eclogae [= Ecl.]. The Eclogues is the title called for in the manuscripts (though it is surely not Ausonius’ title) but it seems simply to be used as a convenience to gather together twenty-five poems of varying meters and somewhat disparate topics. The collection, socalled, falls as we have it into roughly two parts. The first includes poems written in hexameters and elegiacs, with one piece in trochaic 7

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septenarii, and whose topics center on aspects of the Roman calendar and time keeping more generally, including the months and seasons (Ecl. 1–11). Pieces that feature Greek and Roman festivals (Ecl. 12–16) also seemingly attend to the order imposed by civic and religious obligations on human time. Two other poems (Ecl. 17–18) round out this first group. The second gathering of poems is organized both by the hexameters they share and by an interest in philosophic speculation (Ecl. 19–25). The date of the collection is impossible to know with certainty, though some pieces offer evidence that places them individually with more definition. 15 Griphus Ternarii Numeri [Griph.]. This ninety line poem, a discourse on the number three, is introduced by a lengthy prose preface in which the poet explains his motivations for writing a so-called “riddle” and the profound doubts he harbors about his poem’s value. There are likely good grounds for this view that reach beyond Ausonius’ normal avowals of poetic debility, given that the piece seems experimental, was perhaps quickly composed, and is in any case somewhat difficult of access. The poem is written in hexameters. 16 Mosella [= Mos.]. See below, Section II. 17 Bissula [= Biss.]. See below, Section II. 18 Cento Nuptialis [= Cen. Nupt.]. See below, Section II. 19 Cupido Cruciatus [= Cup. cruc.]. See below, Section II. 20 Precationes Variae. The first of the three prayers gathered by Green has normally been printed with the Epig. Written in hexameters, it offers a prayer for victory for Gratian while praising his manifold talents. It can be dated to ca. 379. The second prayer, also dated to this year, is written in hexameters and expresses Ausonius’ sentiments on the cusp of his assuming the consulship in 379. It seems likely to have been recited in some sort of public setting. The theme of the poet’s consulship is continued in the third prayer, which is akin to its counterparts in meter and date. 21 Gratiarum Actio [= Grat. Act.]. This prose speech represents Ausonius’ formal offering of thanks to Gratian for making him consul in 379. It was delivered publicly in Trier in that year. 22 Fasti. This brief collection totaling twenty-three lines is fragmented and presumably provided prefatory or dedicatory material for a larger, and now lost, Fasti collection. The extant four poems, three in elegiacs (Fast. 1, 3, 4) and one in hexameters (Fast. 2), include an address to Ausonius’ son, a piece on chronology, and two poems to potential readers. While it is somewhat difficult to date these poems or the larger project they imply, it seems clear that it, and 8

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23

24

25

26

27

they, derive from the later years of the poet’s life, as he was winding down, or had already retreated from, public life. Caesares [= Caes.]. This collection contains two parts organized metrically. The first section, introduced by a hexametrical preface, contains three poems in hexameters, each of twelve verses, each verse of which treats the first twelve emperors, starting with Julius Caesar. The three poems each treat a different topic respecting these twelve, viz., their succession, the length of their reign, and their deaths. The second section of this creative collection, introduced by a preface in elegiacs, contains twenty-four individual elegiac quatrains on individual emperors, beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with Heliogabalus. The challenge these poems presented to Ausonius, individually and collectively, is the necessary concision required in their composition, providing a thematic goad to Ausonius, especially in the quatrains, to say something more than perfunctory in the limited space the form granted him. Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars provides a model. The collection is not self-evidently dateable, though the interest in imperial lives points to that moment in his life when Ausonius was ensconced at the imperial court in Trier. Ordo Urbium Nobilium [= Ord. Urb. Nob.]. This collection of poems attending to important cities in the Roman world begins, expectedly, with Rome and ends, perhaps equally to be expected, with the poet’s own Bordeaux. In between, important cities East (Constantinople, Athens) and West (Trier, Capua, the cities of Spain) are treated. The collection is in hexameters. It surely is among the later of the poet’s compositions, since it contains a reference to Maximus’ fall in 388. Technopaegnion. This original and whimsical collection gathers poems on various topics affiliated by their shared monosyllabic line endings and includes three prose prefaces. Although it might appear to be little more than the musings of a poet-in-training, the collection in fact is among the latest from Ausonius’ hand, since one of the prose prefaces styles its dedicatee, Pacatus, “proconsul,” an office he held in 390. Ludus Septem Sapientum. This collection of poems is in fact a short drama that takes place in an imagined theatre in Rome. After a preface in elegiacs addressed to Drepanius and a prologue addressed to readers, there follows the play itself, written in iambics, featuring speeches by the renowned Greek philosophers, statesmen, and lawgivers of the early-sixth century bce otherwise called, by Ausonius’ time, “the seven sages.” Epistulae [= Epist.]. This collection of twenty-four poems comprises real-time epistles sent for a variety of generally mundane purposes and written in a variety of meters.11 Perhaps most famous 9

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in this collection are the several epistulae sent to Ausonius’ former student, Paulinus of Nola, that reveal generational and spiritual fissures difficult to surmount, not least the respective attitudes toward Christianity on the part of these two giants of the late Latin literary tradition. Most letters contain details that allow them to be dated with relative ease.

II. Historical, literary, and poetic contexts of the poems translated in this volume Of the poems translated in what follows, the Mos. can be dated with some certainty to the period in which Ausonius was a member of the court of Valentinian I. One reason for this attends to the presumed reference to Petronius Probus in vv. 409–411, who was consul with Gratian in 371, another to the references in v. 450 to Valentinian I, Gratian, and Valentinian II, which, given the fact that Valentinian II was born in 371, place the poem’s composition at a time after his birth. As Green notes, a date close to 371 also comports with what the poet says in vv. 422–424 concerning Valentinian’s and Gratian’s victory over the Alemanni in 368.12 Written in hexameters, and running to 483 lines, the poem has been variously understood and, while this is not the place to rehearse interpretive debates, it is perhaps worth emphasizing the novelties gathered in its lines. It is fair to say that, if one relies on ancient categories, the poem is difficult to categorize. It gestures its readers toward Virgil’s didactic interests in the Georgics, especially those animating the so-called laudes Italiae, and it also tugs them toward physical descriptions of a kind found in Statius’ Silvae.13 Yet, while poets in antiquity regularly describe rivers, an encomium for a river is unique and seemingly a topic that falls outside the norms set for ancient encomia.14 Nor does the Mos. comport to the generic expectations of panegyric, the hymn, an ekphrasis, or the ancient travel-poem.15 Yet, if Ausonius practices in the Mos. a type of generic hybridity, he relies, as he does throughout his poetry, on ancient diction, making clear a mastery of his ancient Latin inheritance even as he seemingly pressures the genres that comprise it. The Epig., the second collection gathered here and translated in completion, are 12116 elegiac poems that run the thematic gamut, including ekphrases, riddles, epitaphs, sexual and moralizing pieces, praise pieces, poems devoted to mythological figures, and bilingual poems, and includes a few pieces written in Greek. The dating of individual poems is sometimes possible, but the collection, as a gathering, is of uncertain date. It may have been assembled later in the poet’s life or even after his death by an editor. Ausonius’ influences are several and not difficult 10

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to fathom: he follows Martial, perhaps Catullus occasionally, and the manifold traditions of Greek epigram, to which he adds his own imaginative inventiveness. In terms of interpretation, the Eph., translated next, is one of the more intractable collections in Ausonius’ output. The details of the collection’s individual pieces follow closely on the model of bilingual ancient schoolbooks, called Hermeneumata, which likely provided a whimsical example for experimentation to a poet long entrenched in the schoolroom. These primers were composed of stock pedagogical exercises that stressed vocabulary, spelling, and writing, and featured brief model narratives about daily life that Ausonius seems especially to exploit in his collection. It is hard to say what the goal of such a poetic experiment was, much less that it was achieved.17 Nor is it easy to place the Ephemeris in time and place. Green conjectures that the collection falls late in the poet’s career, not least because there is no evidence of courtly life and some details that even run against a courtly context. But the evidence to hand is anything but definitive.18 Eph. 1 is written in Sapphics; 2, 4, and 7 are in iambic dimeters; 5 is in iambic trimeter; 6 is in elegiacs; 3 (not translated below) and 8 are in dactylic hexameter. The section below devoted to the Prof. includes seventeen of the collection’s twenty-six poems. Though attested to in the manuscript tradition, the title is somewhat misleading, since a few of the so-called professors commemorated in this collection did not teach in Bordeaux. All of the figures Ausonius celebrates are dead. The poem seems to derive from the final decade or so of the poet’s life, since a reference to the execution of Delphidius’ wife, Euchrotia, at Prof. 5.37–38 dates that poem with some certainty to the early 380s.19 The poems are written in a variety of meters, including elegiacs, Sapphics, and other more obscure forms. The Biss., translated next in what follows, can be dated in terms of inspiration, if not composition, to the German campaign waged by Valentinian I in 368, in which Bissula, a German slave girl, was captured and sent back to Trier with the imperial army, after which, at some point, she became the amorous object of the long-widowed poet. The collection evokes in its two prefaces the lyric projects of Catullus and of Horace, and, in the subsequent poems of the collection, there are clear links in diction that affiliate Bissula and Catullus’ Lesbia. The poem has always been thought to be unfinished or fragmented. The concluding gambit of the collection’s final piece, however, places this view into doubt, for in a gathering of lyrical musings that increasingly makes the case that Bissula cannot be imitated, the poet’s concluding statement, as we have it, seems to affirm Bissula’s inimitability, beyond which nothing more can (literally) be said.20 The collection is composed in different meters: 11

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Biss. 1, a verse preface, is written in trochaic tetrameters; Biss. 2 is in the first Archilochian meter; Biss. 3 and 6 are in elegiac couplets; Biss. 4 is in the fifth Asclepiadean meter; and Biss. 5 is in dactylic hexameters. The next translation included in what follows offers selections from the Cen. Nupt. By the time Ausonius took up this genre, at some point during his time in Trier,21 the cento was already centuries old. There are examples in Greek and in Latin. The genre calls for the culling of phrases, half-lines, and full lines (and occasionally even two lines) from the works of a canonical author, usually Homer in Greek and Virgil in Latin, in order to say something new. A contemporary of Ausonius, Proba, composes a cento using Virgilian language in order to poeticize creation and the life of Christ as recounted in Scripture. Ausonius puts Virgil’s language to a quite different interpretive end, exploiting it in order to describe the details of a wedding, including, most famously, the imminutio, the scene of seduction on the wedding night. The scene is graphic and violent, and demonstrates the ways in which Ausonius seems intent on pressuring the ancient forms he takes up, even as he is at other times, as in the case of the Eph., seemingly confecting new genres out of whole-cloth. The final poem translated in this volume, the Cup. cruc., begins with a prose preface that recalls a wall painting from a dining room in Trier. Its composition is thus plausibly, though not definitively, dated to the poet’s time in that imperial city. Green notes that the recipient of the piece, Gregorius Proculus, was at Trier with Ausonius but seems to need to be reminded of the painting, perhaps indicating that some time has passed since both men were in the city. He would place the completion of the poem in the early 380s.22 The poem is an ekphrasis and as such lends credence to an understanding of its lines that emphasize imitation. Virgil is brought into this mimetic mix in important ways, too, not least in the fact that the painting depicts forlorn lovers in an Elysium owed to Virgil’s Aeneid. Other moments from Virgil’s works, especially the Aeneid, inhabit Ausonius’ lines, especially in the poem’s startling conclusion, where the depiction of Cupid’s victims tormenting their enemy transmogrifies into Cupid’s dream, from which he escapes through the gate of ivory found at the conclusion of Aeneid 6. As befits a poem that leans heavily on Virgil, its 103 verses are written in hexameters.

III. Textual history, reception, and Latinity What Ausonius’ most gifted editor and commentator said of him in 1991 is still appreciably true: “Ausonius is now an unfamiliar writer, and much misunderstood.” 12

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Nor are Green’s reasons arguable: “he is formidably versatile, and the range of his subject-matter enormous.”23 This versatility and eclecticism were less a hindrance to Ausonius’ contemporary readers and those who followed them in subsequent centuries. His reputation in his own time was high and for several centuries after his death Ausonius seems to have been read, at least by an educated literary elite, as evidenced by the many authors who allude to, quote from, or otherwise mention him.24 He was for some time in Gallic literary circles a model for versification.25 But he never became a medieval school author, a fact likely owed to some combination of the difficulty of his large output, his more than obvious nonchalance toward Christian topics, and, perhaps, to the vagaries of the manuscript tradition that continue to plague his modern editors. Ausonius’ works were in circulation in the Middle Ages, to be sure, but mostly anonymously and with a bias towards the Epig.26 One exception (that proves the rule) is the reception of the Mos., which saw a new lease on life in the Carolingian period. More than a few authors from the eighth and ninth centuries used this most famous of Ausonius’ poems as a model for their own descriptions of monastic or natural surroundings, for instance, Ermenrich, in a poem on St. Gall; Paul the Deacon, in his praise of Lake Como; and Walahfrid Strabo, in his manifold descriptions of the contents of a monastic garden.27 Ausonius also appears in the twelfth-century anthology, Gesta Treverorum, in which the poet’s fame seems owed exclusively to his authorship of the Mos. A resuscitation of interest in more than one or two of Ausonius’ poems was provided by the Renaissance humanists. Ausonius reappears initially in Italy as early as the fourteenth century, and Italian scholars, not least Politian, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Salutati, furthered our poet’s reach. They were joined in subsequent centuries by other scholars in other parts of Europe, especially in France. One can trace a growing interest in Ausonius in the proliferation of copies of various parts of his output and in the eventual production of editions, the first of which appeared in Venice in 1472. Dozens appeared thereafter and continue, in fact, down to the present time: three editions appeared between 1971 and 1999, and another as recently as 2010.28 Interest in the text of Ausonius is not difficult to explain.29 It presents unique challenges to an editor. This results from the fact that there is no single manuscript that contains all of Ausonius’ output. Instead, the collection must be pieced together through recourse to different, often overlapping, manuscripts of uneven quality and varying authority and relationship. These roughly cohere into three groups. The first is represented by ms. V, Leiden, Voss. Lat. F. 111, a Carolingian manuscript 13

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from ca. 800, written in Visigothic script. This manuscript is a witness to the Par. and the Prof. A second group, designated Z, lacks a clear representative copy and instead is gleaned from more than twenty descendants of mostly Italian provenance dating from the Renaissance, with the earliest hailing from 1385 and including the editio princeps, published in Venice in 1472.30 This group is a witness to the Cen. Nupt. and to most of the Epig. The third group, which circulated widely in the Middle Ages, includes the Mos. and must be pieced together from shorter collections.31 All three collections share sixty-five verses of the Caes., the Monosti­ cha de aerumnis Herculis [= Ecl. 17], and one of the Epig. No two agree anywhere in error against the third32 and there is much overlap between V and Z, although Z also contains many works not found in V, including nearly one hundred of the Epig. Substantial and difficult-to-explain divergences in the works witnessed by both V and Z have occupied the attention of scholars for more than a century and encouraged sometimes creative explanations, not least the notion that, far from deriving from a single archetype, Ausonius’ poetry in fact stems from two authorial editions. Arguing against Rudolph Peiper’s unitary position, Wilhelm Brandes and Otto Seeck were the first to posit such a notion, which gained currency for several scholarly generations.33 It was challenged in the mid-twentieth century by Karl Jachmann and, later, by his student, Sesto Prete34 and late in the century by R. P. H. Green, who believes in a single archetype of which the three groups represent abridgements. Green doesn’t argue that this archetype was similar in arrangement to the editions he published in 1991 and 1999, or to any other editorial project, but he does hold that given its diversity of content and the fact that it approaches 7,000 lines, this archetype was easily abridged. He sees V as a kind of anthologizing collection, and Z as representative of excerpts plucked for various reasons from the larger original text. It seems best to assent to Green’s view that, amidst the varying witnesses to Ausonius’ large output, one ought to see not evidence of two authorial editions but, instead, the simple process of corruption acting on a collection that was particularly vulnerable to fragmentation and misunderstanding, given its variety, complexity, and length.35 This is, as Green remarks, simply another result of Ausonius’ exceptional variety.36 In terms of metrical choices, Ausonius privileges the elegiac couplet and the dactylic hexameter, which occur most frequently in his output. He often mixes meters in works comprised of a gathering of individual poems, such as the Biss. and in some cases he even uses different meters within the same poem, as for example, in Par. 17, Prof. 19 and 21, and Epig. 41. All told, Ausonius employs nearly two dozen individual meters 14

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across his output. He ranks as among the most accomplished and versatile metricians in the history of Latin literature. As a scholar of the Latin language and a teacher of it, his facility with his Latinate forbearers is intimate and comprehensive, and forms a containing structure for his own creativity and novelty. Virgil is the master poet for Ausonius, needless to say, but there are debts to many across the wide arc of classical Latin authors, including Catullus and to figures closer to his own age, such as Nemesianus, or to near-contemporaries, such as Juvencus. His engagement with the ancient Greek literary tradition is less obvious, though Ausonius clearly knew Greek and gives evidence of at least an acquaintance with major prose authors, including Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Isocrates, and Demosthenes. He surely knows Homer and likely Theocritus. The one gap in his knowledge, at least as betrayed by his poetic output, is Greek drama.37 Ausonius’ stylistic range mimics his wide control of Latin writing generally. His tone and moods run the gamut, depending on the topic at hand. The poet departs from his models, such as he means to follow them, and introduces novelty, in terms of genre. Some poems are generically hybrid, such as the Mos., or even generically vague, such as the Eph. The Epis., in Green’s words, are like nothing before or since,38 but even those works whose prefaces help to orient readers to the poet’s generic expectations are difficult of easy categorization—for example, the works qualified by the poet with the generic markers protrepticus, genethliacos, nenia, or epicedion.39 Across his output, it is easier to understand Ausonius as establishing new poetic trends than following them, even as he adheres regularly to, by mastering, ancient Latin poetic forms.

IV. Principles of selection and translation [D. W.] The anchors of this translation are Ausonius’ most famous poem, the Moselle, and his large, bilingual epigrammatical collection, the Epigrams. These two pieces could hardly be further apart in tone, sentiment, and length, yet, with respect to the ancient genres he mastered, they represent perhaps Ausonius’ most conventional work. They betoken, in other words, Ausonius, the classical Latin poet. It thus makes sense to translate each completely here, not least to serve as a foil to the other poems translated in full or in substantial part in what follows. For these other pieces reveal less a classicizing Latinist engaging with the Greco-Roman tradition and more a poet, in Green’s words, plying his “fascination in the manipulation of unpromising or recalcitrant material.”40 In their hybridity and generic novelty these others works suggest, as they confirm, 15

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the ways in which Ausonius’ project was conceived in counterclassical terms, marking this wily and prolific poet as a self-consciously “late” figure in the long history of Latin literature. Whether resistant to or affirmative of the Greco-Roman poetic tradition, the poems translated in what follows speak to the unique qualities of Ausonius’ vision, but they also have been culled based on their appeal to non-specialist readers. I have also been sensitive to length: much of any complete translation of Ausonius’ large output, I believe, would go unread; a comprehensive volume might even deter readers. Variety has also been a factor. The celebrated classicism of the Mos. gives the reader not only epical music but also local history and geography, including details of flora and fauna. Biss. and Eph. mirror daily life in a more intimate way, as does Cen. Nup., which also showcases the cento form. The Epig. and Cup. cruc. parade the poet’s wit. Finally, I think I’d disappoint Ausonius if I excluded selections from the Prof., which speak as much to the poet’s own interests, talents, and devotions as to the figures celebrated in these pieces. The Mos., the Epig., Cup. cruc., and Biss. are translated in full. The other three poems are substantially rendered here, though I omitted particular sub-sections in order to train a spotlight on the most notable parts, especially in the very long gatherings. Many pieces from the Prof., for instance, are too indistinguishable from each other to keep a reader engaged. And while the Eph. is not especially lengthy, I omited the Oratio: although certainly interesting for its Christian elements, I wanted to focus on Ausonius’ domestic and social routines. Despite the excellent valuable picture of contemporary cities, I regretfully excluded Ord. Urb. Nob., in accordance with my first requirement—keeping my volume short enough to invite non-specialist readers. Many of the remaining poems, including those dealing with political or historical situations contemporary to Ausonius, I passed up for the same reason. In a class by itself, I expurgated Cen. Nup., stopping short of the Ingressus in Cubiculum, where Ausonius’ vision becomes something more than softly pornographic. In making decisions about how to translate Ausonius’ words, I followed three standards. First, to allow readers to follow the text, I have hewed quite strictly to the Latin lines. Certainly a looser translation would have given me more latitude in rendering Ausonius’ words. Since Latin says more in fewer words, fitting a verse of Ausonius into an English line forced me to reject some phrasing in favor of integrity to the line. Second, my choice of meter imposed a related constraint. Some translations of classical poets are prose—which I consider appropriate only in a summary of verse. The English ear was made for blank verse and I did not think any other meter would do justice to Ausonius’ beauty 16

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(Mos.) or his dignity (Prof.). Again, capturing Latin lines in the bounds of English pentameter added to the challenge. Finally, I hoped to render Ausonius’ verses into idiomatic contemporary English that still captured the poet’s era and in a tone suitable for individual poems. The Mos. did not call for the same diction as the Epig., the Prof., or the Eph. I have consulted Green but have used the Latin text of Evelyn White, who reprints Peiper’s text.41 This is a matter of familiarity: I have known this text longest and felt most comfortable as a result in working from it. I have in general retained Latin place names, though occasionally for metrical purposes they are Anglicized. The notes orient readers to the contemporary places that these ancient names designate and otherwise explain obscure or difficult references throughout.

Notes 1 For an autobiographical sketch, see Grat. Act. 36; for other biographical details, see Epig. 28, 31, 40; Epist.6, 22, 27; Grat. Act. 8; Parent. 2, 5, 9; Prof. 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, among other moments that open a window on the poet’s long life. For an interpretation of the autobiographical sketch offered in Praef. 1, see J. Pucci, “Ausonius the Centaur: A Reading of the First Preface,” New England Classical Journal 27.3 (2000): 121–130. 2 On Ausonius’ devotion to his patria see especially Or. Ur. Nob. 20. 3 The uncle was called to Constantinople ca. 328 to be tutor to one of Constantine’s sons. He is recalled at length in Par. 3 and Prof. 16. 4 Prof. 1 offers Ausonius’ recollection of this important figure in his life. 5 Ausonius never styles himself a poeta, only a grammaticus or rhetor. See Sr. Marie José Byrne, Prolegomena to an Edition of the Works of Decimus Magnus Ausonius. New York, 1916, p. 41. 6 The poet speaks of her death at Par. 9; she also appears at Epig. 20, 39, and 40. 7 See the List of Abbreviations, p. ix above. 8 Green, xv. 9 In what follows it is translated as Epig. 1. 10 The metrical exceptions are Par. 13, 17, 25–28, written in a variety of sometimes obscure or rare meters, on which see Green, 316, 319, 325–327. 11 On the meters see Green, 607–663. 12 Green, 456; I follow Green here generally. 13 Green, 459. 14 Green, 459. 15 See Green, 459–460 on these as possible generic influences on Ausonius. 16 They are 121 poems as constituted in Green; in the Loeb edition, which replicates Peiper, which I follow in this translation, there are 112 poems [D. W.]. 17 On the Eph. as a creative response to Hermeneumata, see J. Pucci, “Ausonius’ Ephemeris and the Hermeneumata Tradition,” Classical Philology 104 (2009): 50–68. Green’s comment (xvi) that there was for the poet a fascination in the manipulation of unpromising or recalcitrant material is never truer than with the Eph.

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18 Green, 245. 19 Green, 329, 339. 20 On this understanding of the poem see J. Pucci, “Ausonius on the Lyre: De Bissula and the Traditions of Latin Lyric,” in J. Pucci and S. McGill, eds., The Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity. Heidelberg, 2016, pp. 111–131. 21 See Green, 518 on the details of the dating, which are definitive. 22 Green, 526. 23 Green, vii. 24 Green, xxxii–xxxv. 25 See New Pauly, 76 for generalizing comments on Ausonius’ contemporary and later reception. 26 New Pauly, 74. 27 New Pauly, 77. 28 A. Pastorino, ed., Opere di Decimo Magno Ausonio. Turin, 1971; S. Prete, Decimi Ausonii Burdigalensis Opuscula. Leipzig, 1978; R. P. H. Green, ed., Decimi Magni Ausonii Opera. Oxford, 1999; and B. Combeaud, ed., Ausonius, Opuscula Omnia, Œuvres completes. Bordeaux, 2010. 29 For an overview see M. D. Reeve, review of Decimi Ausonii Burdigalensis Opuscula, ed. S. Prete. Leipzig, 1978, in Gnomon 52 (1980), p. 444 and E. J. Kenney, “Ausonius Restitutus,” Classical Review n.s. 42 (1992): 311. 30 On these and other details see L. D. Reynolds and P. K. Marshall, Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics. Oxford, 1983, pp. 26–27. 31 Reeve, review of Prete, 444. 32 Reynolds and Marshall, Texts and Transmission, 26. 33 See Green, xliii–xlvi on the details of this view. 34 I follow in this paragraph the summary offered by Green, xlii. 35 Green, xlix. 36 Green, xlix. 37 I follow Green, xx–xxii in this paragraph. 38 Green, xxiv. 39 I follow Green’s refreshing comments at xxiv. 40 Green, xvi. 41 R. Peiper, ed., Decimi Magni Ausonii Burdigalensis Opuscula. Leipzig, 1886.

18

THE M OS ELLE 1

I’d crossed the dark, swift running river Nava,2 awed by the new wall circling ancient Vincum;3 where Gaul, like Cannae,4 once bested the Romans, troops lay unmourned, abandoned5 on the fields. From here, on the one road through deserted groves, 5 seeing no signs of human cultivation, I pass Dumnissus,6 dry in its parched terrain; Tabernae,7 watered by its constant spring; fields lately meted out to Sarmatian farmers;8 and then on the Belgic border9: Noiomagus,10 10 the famous camp of god-like Constantine.11 On the plains the air is purer, and the sun reveals in its gentle glow the deep blue sky. There’s no need now to search a dark green gloom for daylight shut out by entangled branches: 15 the carefree breeze and the cloudless atmosphere expose the gleaming and transparent heavens. The whole scene conjured up my own Bordeaux, the sparkling image of a well-tilled landscape, (rooftops of farms built high on the looming banks), hillsides green with vines, and a graceful stream: the Moselle sliding below with a quiet murmur. To you—river loved by the fields and farmers— the Belgae12 owe walls honored by imperial power and slopes sown by Bacchus13 with fragrant vines; your grassy banks, bountiful green river. You carry ships like the sea lanes of the ocean; flowing, but with the glassy depth of a lake; you rival brooks in your rippling restlessness; 19

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you’re purer than water drunk from ice-cold springs; only you are all of them: brook, river, spring, lake, ocean with its repeating tides. You slip along on your unruffled path, unhindered by breaths of wind or hidden rocks: no gurgling shallows churn you into rapids; no obstacles check you—jutting up midstream to mar your justly-celebrated beauty; no interfering island splits your course. You have two roles: contributing your current to oarsmen briskly striking the whipped-up water and to boatmen straining on the banks at the unrelenting tow-line fixed to the bows. Maybe, wondering at your own meanders, you find your appointed pace a little sluggish; but do sludge and swamp-grass coat your bank? Do you let your edges stagnate in ooze and slime? I could walk dryshod right down to the water. Others can pave their floors with Phrygian tiles14 spreading a marble field through panelled halls; but I reject all riches and possessions in favor of Nature’s work unruined by bankrupt heirs who revel in what they waste: the firm sand covering the stream’s damp edge holds no trace of anyone passing here. The eye can penetrate the tranquil surface; the river holding no secrets. Just as the still air lies open to our clear gaze, the breezes, calmed, allow the gaze to roam the empty spaces. We can discern, scouring the river’s depths, far down, its mysteries and secret places; the softly wandering glide of the clear water creates shapes scattered in a dark blue light. The furrowed sand is rippled by light motion; the grasses, swaying on the green bed, tremble; water-weeds, stirred by springs from below, endure tossing currents; half-hidden pebbles glitter; gravel sets off the emerald moss so familiar to the northern Britons. Low water lays bare sea-green river-plants, 20

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red corals, and oyster-pearls for our delight— the rich man’s luxury beneath the waves, underwater necklaces mirroring man-made elegance; and on the river-bottom, water-grass shows us stones like little jewels.

70

Slippery schools of fishes, weaving and playing, finally tire the fixed, unblinking, eye, although the names of so many species swimming in succession upstream, the progeny of varied stocks, all in a single place— Neptune,15 to whom fate gave for safekeeping the trident and the sea, won’t let me say. You, river-dwelling Naiad,16 can describe the troupes of scaly dancers undulating in the blue watery hollows of the channel: The scaly mullet gleams in the grassy sands, solidly thick with bones, whose tender flesh spoils six hours after he is caught; the trout whose back is starred with shining spots; and the rudd, free of piercing bones; the greyling, finning his fleet course, too quick for the eye. And buffeted in the mouth of the winding Saar17 where it resounds around six rocky pilings, barbel, you pass into a greater river giving you more scope to expand your motion: your vigor grows with the years; in your old age you excel all other living things. I won’t omit you, brilliant crimson salmon, roving the middle-depths as your broad tail lashes the water and roils the placid surface which in turn reflects your hidden course. You, with your scaly breastplate and smooth head fated to be one choice at a plentiful table, survive unscathed a lengthy stay, through seasons, distinguished by the markings on your head, fat paunch swinging from your drooping stomach. Eelpout, drawn into Illyricum’s18 two-named river, the Istria:19 you’re borne into our waters; leaving a trace of drifting foam, you provide the glad Moselle with a notable foster-child. What color nature has painted you! Golden prisms

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circle the dark spots marking your upper surface; dark red and blue dye your slippery back; your body glistens with fat to its midpoint, and from there your dry skin roughens down to the end of your tail. I won’t neglect you, delicacy of our table, 115 river perch, noble as any sea fish, the only equal of the rosy mullet: such flavor where the parts of your fleshy body converge though separated by the backbone. Here too the pike, in the Roman quip called Lucius, 120 marsh-dweller deadly to the plaintive frogs, frequents the pools dusky with mud and swamp-grass; never served at any dining-table, he cooks with a rank stench in smoke-filled taverns. Who can ignore green tench, the peasants’ food, 125 and the blay, prey to boys’ fishhooks, and the shad hissing on the fire, the common people’s dish; caught midlife between two kindred species— no longer trout, and but not yet salmon either, you who are both and neither, half of each? 130 You too, gudgeon, among the river’s throngs, smaller than two hands (excluding the thumbs), round and fat, thicker with eggs in your belly; like the barbel, bearded with hanging tufts. Now you’ll be praised, grand sheat, in a watery flock, 135 your back gleaming like Attic olive oil, strong, like a river-dolphin, gliding the channels scarcely stretching the great length of your body, checked by river weeds and shallow water. But when you glide a smooth course in the stream, 140 the green banks, the blue throngs of swimming fish, the flowing waters honor you; the billows surge at your passage, the far waves wash the edge, as a whale in the deep Atlantic is sometimes driven by the wind or his own motion to the shore: 145 the sea, displaced, overflows; deep waters rise; the nearby mountains fear lest they’ll disappear, here, though, the “whale” of our gentle Moselle far from harming, adds to the river’s grandeur. Now it’s enough—to have watched its unbroken course 150 and told of the gliding schools and varied fishes: views of vineyards present another scene; 22

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and Bacchus’s20 gifts attract the roaming eye where a lofty peak above and a steep slope, sun-warmed—in a panoramic curve and hollow— 155 rise in a natural theatre spread with vineyards; thus rich vines clothe Mounts Gaurus and Rhodope; Pangaeus,21 too, gleams with Bacchus’s fruit; Ismarus22 is green over the plains of Thrace23 as to my own vineyard tints the Garonne24 yellow. 160 To the base of the spreading slope, from the highest hills, the river’s edge is planted with green vines. The people, happy at work, and the busy farmers hurry—now on the cliff-top, now the hill’s flank vying with rough shouts: Here a traveller 165 treading the low banks, there a boatman gliding past hurl insults at the vine-tillers working late; trembling bank, woods, river depths resound. And the theatre scene delights not only men: I could believe that on the river’s edge 170 shining naiads and country satyrs25 gather; that goat-footed fauns pursue their sister-nymphs with wanton joy in the shallow stream, alarm them, spring on them, striking the water with their rough stroke. Often even the Nereid Panope,26 175 with her companion Oreads,27 having stolen grapes from the inland hills, flees from the lusty fauns. And it’s said when the sun stands fiery in mid-sky, satyrs and their sea-green sister-nymphs take part in sibling dances near the stream, 180 where passion hotter than mortals’ lust provides sequestered hours. Then in their native waters the romping Nymphs cavort, immerse the Satyrs in tossed waves, slide through a swimmer’s hands— who, foiled in chasing the slippery limbs, embrace bright waves, 185 not flesh. These sights, though, are not known to us— let what I’ve said be mysteries, let the deeds, sacred, be hidden in their native streams. One sight is openly seen, when the silver river reflects the shaded hill, and the rippling water 190 seems leafy, and the stream seems to be sown with vine-sprigs: the shallows’ color, when Hesperus28 has dispelled 23

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the evening shadows, bathing the Moselle in the hills’ green! In the ripples the whole ridge swims and trembles; the distant vines and grapes swell in the glassy waves. The boatman, fooled, drifts midstream in his skiff of bark, sees green vines where the image of the hill blends with the water and the water meets the edges of the shadows. And when the oared boats, mid-river, stage mock-battles, what fine shows an onlooker attends! Along the green banks they circle in and out and graze the growing shoots in the cropped meadows. Where the banks rise, the farmer watches the skippers happily dart on bow and stern and the young crew scattering over the river-surface, and he ignores the passing day, neglects his serious work; this current delight ousts serious cares. When Bacchus29 travels vineyards on smoking Vesuvius30 and tilled Mount Gaurus31 on Cumae’s32 plain—he watches games like this; as Venus, pleased by Augustus’ victory at Actium,33 had the lusty Cupids enact battles as rough as those trireme-fleets of Egypt waged with Latium under Apollo’s heights in Leucas;34 as Euboean35 boats bring back, through echoing Avernus,36 Mylae’s37 perils in Pompey’s wars; as staged sea-combats show mock-battles and the harmless routs of skiffs which the green sea, with Pelorus watching in Sicily,38 tells on a green stage: boats with painted prows— youth—river—lend such scenes to the quick young men. When with the sun’s heat, Hyperion39 floods all this, it reflects the boatmen’s forms in the glassy water— gives back their rippled figures upside down. And they repeat their motions, left and right, and alternate their weights with the changing oars; in the stream wet likenesses mime the other men. The youths themselves delight in their own reflections, gazing as visions circle in the river. Thus a girl, soon to show her braided hair (the nurse has just now led her beloved charge to the broad bright beauty of the searching mirror), happily enjoys their unknown game 24

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and thinks she sees the shape of a sister-maiden; gives kisses, unreturned, to the shining silver, considers her fastened hairpins; with her fingers touches her hairline to spread her fluttering hair: the oarsmen delight in the mockeries of shadows spectres fluctuating—true and false. Now, where the bank gives very easy access, chaos—the plundering crew, raiding the depths, preys on the fish unshielded by the deep waters. One man, far midstream, trailing a seine submerged, trawls for shoals to trap in the knotted mesh; One, where the river glides in a peaceful course, drags a fishnet hung from buoys of cork. One, on the bank, bent over the waves beneath, drops his pliant greenwood rod—an arch, sharp-tipped—casting a lethally-baited hook. When the school, drifting, oblivious of the trap, has opened its wide mouth, and their spread jaws felt, too late, the internal wounds of the hidden hook— as they swirl, the bobbing rod responds with a sign—a trembling sway of the vibrating line. Skillfully, without delay, the boy, rod whistling sidewise, drags up the shaking prey; a hiss follows the strike: as sometimes, when a lash slices a void, the empty space is cut, the air shrills and shrieks. The wet catch leaps on the dry rocks, where it suffers the fatal shafts of the dazzling light. Its strength survived in its own element; but it exhausts its life in the air of our atmosphere; it gasps in vain. The sluggish pulse of its now weak body shudders, its now-slowed tail endures its final tremors, its jaws close only to drag air into its mouth. Its gills, exhaling, release his dying breath. As, when a draft fans up the blacksmith’s fire, the bellow’s woollen valve takes in the air and forces it out of its beechwood cavity. I myself have seen them trembling—then— at the brink of death, summon their final breath, then hurl their bodies down into the river head-first, headlong, once more finding strength in hopeless desperation, into the waters. 25

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Grieved by the loss, the foolish boy, to chase them, seize them, dives in pursuit into the stream— as Glaucus of Anthedon,40 in the Boeotian straits, having tasted Circe’s41 fatal poison, taking the plants gleaned by his dying fishes, swam to a new home near the Carpathian Sea— fisherman, master of hooks and nets, who scoured Tethys’s sea,42 raider of Ocean’s depths, then swam among the fish he once would catch. Perched on the rocks of the leaning summit, houses— which the wandering river flows between with its winding bends—view these sights along the blue sweep like guards on either bank. Who prizes Leander’s straits at Abydos?43 Or Sestos’s sea (of Helle, Nephele’s daughter)?44 The work of a great king,45 who built a bridge from the shore of Chalcedon, where a channel in mid-sea separates Europe from the lands of Asia? No attack, here, of the savage northwest wind, no dire raging strait; voices can carry on discourse, weave conversation, exchanging talk; the calm banks mingle the sounds of greeting—almost even of handshakes: from the river’s two sides one merged echo carries resounding words. Who can unfold the beauty and countless forms— and describe the designs—of the various estates? Daedalus, builder of the Euboean temple— who, wanting to sculpt in gold Icarus’s fall, was stopped by a father’s grief—would not disdain this work.46 Nor Philo of Athens;47 nor he48 who, admired by his rival, prolonged that famous combat, the Syracuse Wars. The seven architects praised in Marcus’s49 tenth book here may have displayed man’s genius; the arts of famed Menecrates50 maybe flourished here; the art seen in Ephesus; Ictinus’s genius in Minerva’s temple,51 where her owl with false enchantment lures other birds and, staring, kills them; maybe Dinochares52 was here, whose pyramid, foursided, rises in a cone and dwarfs 26

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its own shadow, who (for Arsinoë’s sin53— incest) was ordered to fashion overhead, 315 in Pharoah’s temple, a magnet from the roof-arch to attract the girl drawn attached by her iron hair. Credible then that these—or such—men raised the lofty dwellings of the Belgic home-lands: sites to be enhancements of the river. 320 This one is high on a mound of natural rock; this built on the edge of the jutting bank; this stands back and claims the river, enclosed within its curve; this dominates a hill looming over the water, looks over tilled fields 325 and rough ground—riches that the view enjoys as if its own lands. Another, despite damp meadows down at its feet, offsets the natural beauty of the high mountain, and menacing, pierces the sky with a soaring roof flaunting its lofty tower 330 like Memphis’s54 Pharos, owning a spot for fish trapped in the eddy ringed by the crag’s sunny meadows. Another sees from the height the gliding river down in the now-misty valley lapping the ridge. Why tell of their fore-courts set in the greening fields? 335 The shining roofs above their countless pillars? Or the river’s baths, built low on the bank, which steam when Vulcan55—siphoned up fom the boiling depths— exhales his fiery breath through the hollow flues, collecting the heat, under pressure, in his hot blast? 340 I saw the bathers—sweating, sapped by the hot soak— reject the pools and the cold bath’s iciness to enjoy the running water, and soon refreshed by the stream, beat the chill river with lashing strokes. If a stranger were here from the shores of Cumae,56 345 he’d think that in this spot the Euboean Baiae57 had placed a small replica of their mineral springs: Such comfort and charm delights, and pleasure breeds no excess. But, Moselle, to stop describing your green flow, calling you glorious as the ocean 350 which countless streams flow into from diverse mouths: though their courses are scattered, they rush into you to assume your name—for the Sura,58 not ignoble, 27

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—swelled by the flow of the Promea and Nemesa59— the Sura hurries, descending to your waters, welcome having been mixed with your name, as if it stretched as far as the shores of father Ocean. Swift Celbis, Erubeis,60 famous for marble, you race to touch first, with your attendant waters: the Celbis, known for its fish; the latter, turning millstones for grain in fast-paced revolutions, driving the saw-blades shrieking through smooth marble, hears from either bank the unceasing din. I pass by the narrow Lesura,61 the slight Drahonus,62 nor do I stop at the Salmona’s63 diminutive stream: The Saravus,64 once bearing ships on its sounding wave, has long called me; its whole robe spread wide, as, tired, it flows out under Augustan walls. No lesser, the bountiful Alisontia,65 which, gliding softly through rich soil, licks the fruitful banks. A thousand others, each with whatever force drives it, crave to be part of you. Such character, such range in their hurrying flow, godlike Moselle, if Smyrna66 or eminent Mantua67 gave you a Virgil, the Simois River,68 famous in Troy, would yield —nor the Tiber dare to exalt its glory over yours: Pardon me, great Rome! I pray that envy, routed, retreat; Nemesis,69 too, her name unknown in Latin. Great honor suits you better than the Tiber — you guard the empire’s seat and Rome’s penates. Hail, Moselle, great bearer of fruits and men. Noble patricians honor you; youth practiced in war; and eloquence rivalling the Latin tongue; to those you nourish nature has granted virtue and a happy temperament with a tranquil brow. Not Rome alone possesses its ancient Catos;70 Aristides can’t distinguish ancient Athens as the only arbiter of lawful justice.71 But why do I, expounding too unreined, caught up with love of you, wear out your praise? Put down your lyre, Muse, its last string touched in a final song. The time will come when your blessing finds me calming and coddling—in obscure leisure,

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idle in the sun—an old-man’s cares; when my subject’s glory commends me; when I’ll tell all Belgae’s72 native virtues and fine bright deeds: the Muses will spin me soft songs with fine thread— weave fine woof through warp and give to my spindle purple cloth: then who won’t be shown? I’ll describe peaceful farmers; experts in law; great speakers; aids to defendants; whom the people’s council saw as chief leaders and senate, whom eloquence— the training of an honored magistrate—has raised to old Quintilian’s73 rank, who ruled their cities and untarnished tribunals, who purified axes unstained with blood; or those who as lower prefects, governed Italian people and Nordic Britons; and the head of the state who ruled Rome—people, Senate; although not nominally the highest, he was equal to the highest: now may fortune rush to mend its error and, providing favor liberally, renew for a noble stock the height of true renown, but let my work recently started be finished: those men’s praise put off, let me declare and bless the river happy in its glad course through green lands to the Rhine. Stretch your blue curves, Rhine, and green-glass gown; carve out space for the flow increased by the waters of your new brother: nor is his gift mere water but, coming from the walls of the lofty city, he has seen a father’s and son’s joint triumphs— enemies driven beyond the Neckar,74 Ladenburg,75 and the Danube’s source unknown to Latin records; glory has come of these fresh battle-conquests: may he bring more and more. In your twinned course, both united, press to the dark-blue sea; and don’t fear to seem lesser, noble Rhine— hosts have no envy; and you gain endless fame: welcome your brother, assured of your renown. Rich in waters, rich in nymphs, your channel, generous to each, will separate the two banks and open a common way through opposite shores, join forces that shake Chamaves,76 Franks and Germans,

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and then be taken as a true boundary. Fame will describe you, doubled by such a surge (though from your source you flow alone), two-horned. I, Ausonius—sprung from Viviscan77 stock (my name familiar through old Roman ties of friendship with the Belgae78), born and raised between Gaul’s border and the high Pyrenees, where happy Aquitaine tempers its native ways— make bold to sing with my poor lyre. May it be right that I touch on a river holy to the Muse with meagre libation. I don’t seek praise; I come for pardon. Many used to disturb the abundant water and drain the Muses’ entire Aganippe.79 But whatever lyrics my heart provides (when Augustus, father and sons, my greatest care, sends me home to the nest of my old age after the service of teaching is complete, graced with the fasces’ honor: Ausonius, consul), I’ll pursue your praises further, northern river; add cities you slip past in your silent channel, the ramparts and old walls looking down on you; add fortresses, defence in unknown dangers— no longer castles but barns for the peaceful Belgae;80 add the productive farmers on both your banks and you, amid the labors of men and oxen, lapping the banks, traversing the fertile fields, not Liger,81 not headlong Axona,82 not Matrona83 — the border between the Belgae and the Gauls— not even the surging of the Carantonus84 in Santonic land,85 shall rank before you; yield, Duranius86 rolled from cold hills; let Gaul rate as lesser its broad gold-bearing Tarn,87 raging through twisting rocks; the Tarbellic Atturrus,88 to reach the blue sea, must venerate the god of the greater Moselle. Horned Moselle, honored in far lands—except at your very source where you wear gold glory on a bull-like brow— or you wend your placid course through curving fields or flow down to your mouth at German ports: if any praise should favor my trifling poem, if these lines merit wasting leisure on, 30

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you’ll be on men’s lips, adored in happy verse: lakes, living springs, blue oceans know of you; and ancient groves, the glory of our country; the Druna;89 the Druentia,90 wandering with shifting banks; the Alpine streams—revere you; the Rhodanus91 flows through a city, names its right bank. Noble in your blue pools and sounding torrents, to the sea-like Garumna92 I commend you.

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Notes 1 A tributary of the Rhine, the Moselle flows through modern France, Luxembourg, and Germany. 2 Nava = the Nahe River, a German tributary of the Rhine, that flows through the Rhineland-Palatinate and joins the Rhine at Bingen. 3 Vincum = Bingen, which is situated at the confluence of the Nahe and the Rhine. The wall the poet mentions was probably built by Julian in 359, on which see Green, 464, s.v. 2. addita. 4 The Battle of Cannae, in 216 bce marks Hannibal’s greatest victory over the Romans, a milestone that Ausonius uses to speak of more recent discord, viz., the victory of Sextilius Felix, one of Vespasian’s commanders, over Julius Tutor, leader of the Treveri, at the Battle of Bingen in 71 ce. For the details see Green, 464, s.v. 3. 5 “Abandoned” (= inopes) and “unmourned” (= infleta) here go to the sense of improper burial. 6 Dumnissus = Kirchberg, a town in the Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. 7 Tabernae = Belginum (most likely), a small settlement along the road through the hills between Trier and Mainz. Green, 465, s.v. Tabernas notes that this might also designate a settlement on the site of modern Heidenpütz. 8 The Sarmatians were a people gathered mostly in what is now the Ukraine and southern Russia; they were invited, as was Roman custom and policy, to settle on Roman lands after they had been conquered. 9 Belgic = designating the area of northern Gaul between the English Channel and the west bank of the Rhine. 10 Noiomagus = modern Neumagen, in the Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. 11 Constantine (d. 337) presumably occupied Neumagen during his campaign in the area in the early fourth century. 12 See above, n. 8. 13 The Roman God of wine and winemaking, fertility, and drama, whose Greek counterpart is Dionysus. 14 Phrygia, an ancient kingdom in the west central part of modern Turkey, was known for stone used in Roman building projects. 15 The Roman god of the sea, whose Greek counterpart is Poseidon. 16 The Naiads are water nymphs who presided over fountains, well, springs, streams, and other bodies of fresh water. 17 A river in northeastern France and western Germany, and a tributary of the Moselle, which it meets near Trier.

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18 Illyricum = a Roman province that includes modern Albania, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and other parts of the Dalmatian Coast. 19 Istria = Danube River, “two-named,” as Ausonius puts it, given its Latin and Greek names, “Danuvius” in Latin and “Istros” (“Istria”) in Greek. 20 See above, n. 13. 21 Mount Gaurus = Monte Gauro or Monte Barbaro in central-southern Italy; Mount Rhodope = the mountain of the same name in modern Bulgaria; Pangaeus = Pangaion Hills in modern Greece. 22 Ismarus = Mount Ismaros in modern Greece. 23 Thrace designates a wide swath of territory in antiquity now equivalent to parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. 24 Garonne = the modern river of the same name that flows through southwest France and northern Spain, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at Bordeaux. 25 Satyrs = lustful and wine-loving divinities of the forests, they are depicted in Roman art as human figures with the ears, tail, legs, and horns of a goat. Ausonius mentions them again in v. 179. 26 Panope = one of the goddesses of the sea’s panorama, as her name suggests, she is a Nereid, one of the fifty sea-nymph daughters of Nereus, the old man of the sea. Nereids typically protected sailors and fishermen and betokened the rich bounty of the seas. 27 Oreads = nymphs who inhabited mountains, valleys, and ravines. 28 Hesperus = the evening star, associated with the planet Venus. 29 See above, n. 13. 30 Vesuvius = the mountain in Italy on the Gulf of Naples, famous for the eruption in 79 ce that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. 31 See above, n. 21. 32 Cumae = modern Cuma, in Italy, noted in antiquity as the home of the Sybil, the oracular figure mentioned several times in Virgil’s poetry. 33 Actium= the Battle of Actium, 31 bce, in which Octavian defeated the combined naval forces of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, ending the civil wars and solidifying Octavian’s power. 34 Leucas = modern Lefkada, in the Ionian Sea, Leucas is near to Actium and held a temple dedicated to Apollo. 35 Euboean = a reference to Cumae, a colony of Euboea. 36 Avernus = an ancient volcanic crater near Cumae, in which is situated Lake Avernus. 37 Mylae = the site of a battle between Pompey and Agrippa in 36 bce. 38 Pelorus = modern Punta del Faro, a promontory in Messina, Sicily. 39 Hyperion = one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, he is associated with heavenly light. 40 Glaucus of Anthedon = the figure who, upon spying the way in which fish recovered their strength while lying on the grass, ate a clump of it and became immortal thereafter. Ausonius goes on here to relate the story in brief. Glaucus is associated with the rescue of sailors and fishermen. 41 Circe = a goddess of magic in the ancient tradition, known for her vast knowledge of potions, herbs, and spells. 42 Tethys = a Titan, the daughter of Uranus and Gaia, Tethys is the mother of river divinities by her Titan brother, Oceanus. 43 “Leander’s straits at Abydos” = Leander fell in love with Hero, who lived across the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles), so each night he would swim

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from Abydos to Sestos, on the opposite shore, where his intended lived in a tower. On one such crossing, in a storm, Leander lost his way and drowned. 44 “Sestos’s sea (of Helle, Nephele’s daughter)” = Sestos refers to the place where Hero lived; Helle, to the figure after which the Hellespont was named; Nephele is also the mother to Helle’s twin brother, Phrixus. 45 Ausonius means Xerxes, the Persian king who ruled from 486 bce to 465 bce. 46 Daedalus, the great craftsman and artist in Greco-Roman mythology, reached Cumae (= Euboean), where he built a temple. The grief Ausonius mentions here is Daedalus’, owed to the death of his son, Icarus, who, wearing the wings made for him by his father, flew too close to the sun and melted the wax that held their feathers in place. 47 Philo of Athens = the Athenian architect who designed the great arsenal for that city, completed in 330 bce. 48 Ausonius speaks here of Archimedes, who was praised in antiquity for the anti-siege machinery that enabled Syracuse to resist Roman aggression. 49 Marcus = Marcus Terentius Varro, whose Imagines (or Hebdomades) was composed between ca. 60–40 bce in fourteen books, which celebrated important figures through brief biographies and images. 50 Otherwise unknown. Evelyn White (vol. 1, p. 248, n. 2) and Green (p. 496, s.v. 307) conjecture that Ausonius might mean Metagenes, one of the builders of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. 51 Ictinus (fl. mid-fifth century, bce) = the architect of the Parthenon. 52 Dinochares is credited with planning the city of Alexandria but Ausonius may have confused him with Timochares, who began (but did not finish) the Temple of Arsinoë in Alexandria in ca. 280 bce. 53 Arsinoë = the sister and wife of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 bce). 54 Situated twenty miles up the Nile from the lighthouse at Alexandria. 55 Vulcan = the Roman God of fire, especially fires associated with metalworking and the forge. 56 See above, n. 32. 57 Baiae = known in antiquity for its mineral springs and as a resort, this town, on the Bay of Naples and near to Cumae, is now nearly entirely submerged. 58 Sura = Sauer River. 59 Promea and Nemesa = the Prüm and Nims Rivers. 60 Celbis and Erubeis = the Kyll and Ruwer Rivers. 61 Lesura = the Lieser River, a tributary of the Moselle. 62 Drahona = the Thron River. 63 Salmona = the Salm River. 64 Saravus = the Saar River. 65 Alisontia = the Alsitz River. 66 Smyrna represents the poet Homer, in his role as author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. 67 Virgil was born near Mantua in 70 bce. 68 Simois = the river flowing through the Trojan plain. 69 Nemesis = divine retribution, especially against those possessed of arrogance or pride. 70 Catos = among several, there is Cato the Elder (234–149 bce) and his greatgrandson, Cato the Younger (95–46 bce), both of whom were noted writers and public men.

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71 Aristides = Aristides of Athens (530–468 bce), also called Aristides the Just; he is traditionally a figure cited in antiquity for his honor and exemplarity. 72 See above, n. 9. 73 Quintilian = Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35–100 ce), the famous rhetorician and author of the Institutio Oratoria. 74 Neckar = a tributary of the Rhine River. 75 Ladenburg = a town in Germany, near to Heidelberg, and close to the source of the Rhine River. 76 The Chamaves and the Franks jointly invaded Gaul in 358 ce and were defeated by Julian. 77 “Viviscan” refers to the Vivisci, a Gallic tribe from the Bordeaux region of Gaul, on which see Green, 510, s.v. 438. 78 See above, n. 9. 79 Aganippe = a fountain at the base of Mt. Helicon associated with the Muses; to drink from it was, according to lore, to gain poetic inspiration. 80 See above, n. 9. 81 Liger = the Loire River. 82 Axona = the Aisne River. 83 Matrona = the Marne River. 84 Carontonus = the Charente River. 85 Santonic land = the Saintonge area in modern France. 86 Duranius = the Dordogne River. 87 Tarn = the Tarn River, in modern France, a tributary of the Garonne. 88 Atturrus = the Adour River; “Tarbellic” refers to the Tarbelli, a people who once inhabited southern France from Bordeaux to the Pyrenees. 89 Druna = the Drome River. 90 Durantia = the Durance River. 91 Rhodanus = the Rhone River. 92 Garumna = the Garonne River.

34

THE EPIGRAM S

1. Prosopopoeia1 to the collection of Epigrams If you must suffer worms and decay, my book, start dying beforehand through my little verses. You say, “I choose the worms.” Unhappy book, you’re wise; you prefer to endure the lesser evil. But I don’t wish to lose my time to a Muse—wasteful, who causes loss of sleep and lamp-oil. “It would be better to sleep than to lose both oil and sleep,” you say rightly: but my reason is: I rage at Proculus,2 whose eloquence is as great as his honor; he’s written much which he suppresses. I want to punish him; for a poet revenge is easy: let him who doesn’t publish his poems read mine; it’s his to judge whether to bid you be preserved in cedar-oil or be food for rude worms. To him I allot what’s left of my obscure leisure— whether to read or bury what I give him.

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2. Exhortation to humility King Agathocles,3 it’s said, ate from clay plates and often his table bore Samian4 pottery, although he put the rough courses in jewelled dishes and mixed at the same time poverty and riches; he told the inquirer why: “I, who am king of Sicily, I am a potter’s son.” Hold fortune with respect, whoever rises suddenly to wealth from a humble place.

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3. To the adulteress Eumpina To her jealous spouse the faithless wife gave poison and didn’t believe it enough to cause his death; she mixed a lethal amount of mercury that the double strength bring on a quick demise: If you keep these separate, they act as poison; whoever takes them together will drink an antidote; so when the toxic doses fight each other, the dangerous bane yields to the healthy one. At once the stomach seeks to purge itself, by the usual smooth route for ingested food. How kind the fates’ care. A wife too vicious is an advantage: and, as fate wants, two poisons do good work.

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4. To the physician Eunomus Eunomus had said that failing Gaius would die: with the help of fate (not the doctor) he succumbed. A bit later, the doctor saw, or thought he saw, the dead man, pale and the very image of death. “Who are you?” “Gaius,” he said. “Are you alive?” He said no. “So now what are you doing here?” “I come sent by Dis,”5 he said, “because I had knowledge of human affairs, to fetch him doctors.” Eunomus went rigid. Then Gaius: “Don’t worry, Eunomus; I and all the men said that no one who’s wise calls you a doctor.”

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5. To the man with an unpleasant voice You sound like the barking of whelps, the whinny of horses; in character you’re like a herd of goats and flocks of sheep; one would say asses are braying when you try to mimic an Arcadian6 herd, Marcus. The raven’s hoarse caw and cock’s crow and whatever voice a beast or bird possesses, you imitate so well they’re not heard as false. You cannot produce the sound of the human voice.

6. On Auxilius the grammarian Can the speech be correct of a teacher who uses his own name with inaccuracies? You’re called 36

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Auxilius (‘helpful’) ignorant instructor? Say just plain nominative: already your grammar’s wrong.

7. On Philomusus the grammarian Because your library’s crammed with acquired books, do you think yourself a schooled grammarian, Philomusus? And so you’ll collect guitar, string instruments, lyre: you’d bought them all— and you’ll be a singer.

8. On Rufus, a rhetorician7 Rufus said “reminisco” in his writing. On the contrary, therefore, Rufus does not have a turn8 for verse.

9. To a statue of the same rhetor This is a statue of the rhetor Rufus; nothing’s more like him, he’s himself: indeed it has no speech and brain; both stiff and mute, and it doesn’t see; it’s like him in these ways; one thing’s different: he was more pliant.

10. On the same subject “With my fine dumb mouth, do you want to know who I am?” “Yes.” “The figure of Pictish9 rhetor Rufus.” “But I wouldn’t want the rhetor to tell me this.” “He can’t.” “Why?” “The real rhetor is exactly like this image.”

11. On the same subject “Is this a statue of the rhetor Rufus?” “If it’s made of stone, yes, it’s Rufus.” “Why do you say so?” “He himself was always like a stone.”

12. On the same subject Who made you, speechless, in the form of a speaking man? Tell me, Rufus. You’re dumb? Nothing’s more like you. 37

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13. On the same subject “This is Rufus’s picture.” “Nothing’s more like him.” “Where is Rufus himself?” “In his chair.” “What’s he doing?” “Same as in the picture.”

14. From the Greek: on the man who found treasure when . . . He who wanted to hang himself was tying a noose around his neck: he found gold and placed the rope in the treasure’s place, but he who’d hidden the gold, couldn’t find it and fixed round his neck the noose that he found.

15. From the Greek (the beginning is half of the whole) The beginning is half the whole: begin; to have started is half the task. Half remains. Start again and you’ll be done.

16. From the Greek (he gives twice who gives soon) A favor delayed is displeasing. For a favor when done soon is a more valuable favor.

17. From the same place If you do well what you do, do it quickly. For it will be better done if soon. A service delayed is not worth the trouble.

18. On a man who fell down dancing the role of Capaneus10 A lucky chance combined with faulty skill: The actor who was playing Capaneus fell.

19. On a brew called “Dodra” “Dodra”11 is nine twelfths: Combine nine things. Broth, water, honey, wine, bread, pepper, herbs, oil, salt. 38

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20. On the same subject “I’m called dodra.” “Why?” “I have nine ingredients.” “What are they?” “Broth, water, honey, wine, bread, pepper, herbs, oil, salt.”

21. On the same subject “My drink and a number are the same.” “Why?” “I have nine ingredients.” “What are they?” “Honey, wine, oil, bread, salt, herbs, broth, water, pepper.”

22. To my friend Marcus about the discord which he describes with girls “I love one who hates me; I hate another who loves me. Fix things, generous Venus, if you can.” “I’ll do it easily; I’ll exchange your loves; the one shall hate, the other love.” “I’ll suffer the same, again.” “Do you want to love them both?” “If both love me, I’m willing.” “Outdo yourself, Marcus: To be loved by both, love both.”

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23. Sick with love “See, Venus, you’ve forced me, lovesick, to love two girls. Each hates me. Give me other guidance—now.” “Conquer both with gifts.” “I want to; actually, my supply at home is poor.” “Coax them with promises.” “A poor man isn’t trusted.” “Swear by the gods.” “It’s a sin to use the gods.” “Stake out their doorways.” “I’m afraid to be caught at night.” “Write poetry.” “I can’t. I’m not favored by Muses or Apollo.” “Break down their doors.” “I fear the laws.” “You fool, you let yourself die from love: wouldn’t you die for love?” “I’d rather be called poor than poor and jailed.” “I’ve urged all I could: ask others now.” “Who then?” “Phaedra12 and Dido13 will tell what they told themselves, as did Canace,14 Phyllis,15and she whom Phaon16 scorned.” “You give this advice?” “It’s right for pathetic ones.” 39

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24. On the man who wanted to destroy a skull pitilessly A man’s unburied head, abandoned, bald was lying, stripped of skin, where three roads meet. Others wept: Achilas, not moved to tears, moreover, split it, striking it with a stone. So the stone, in revenge rebounded across the distance, from the struck bone, and struck the brow and eyes of its sender; thus let an evil hand direct blows so precise that his missile, sent back wounds the sender himself!

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25. On the worth of his manuscript You can read this in your free time—in an evening, I’ve mixed light and serious, whatever you feel like: Life’s not one color, nor are you my only reader; any page has its time—now let turbanned Venus17 approve this one, now helmeted Minerva18 this; the Stoic likes these parts, the Epicurean19 those; as long as old custom’s decorum stays with me, joking permitted, may the sober muse applaud.

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26. On Augustus Apollo, skilled in song, Athena20 in war, you too, Victory, gliding swift from the sky, hair doubly crowned on your now-pacified brow, bearing garlands, gifts of peace, rewards of battle; Augustus merits glory both in war and speech, who doubles his honors as he tempers battles with poetry and curbs the Getaean21 war with Apollo. Between arms, fierce Huns, and Sarmatians,22 lethal through stealth, whatever leisure he has from times of battle in camp he gives to the Clarian23 Muses. Whizzing missiles, swift arrows, he’s scarcely dropped: he puts his hand to the Muses’ reeds, knows no rest—the arrows replaced, plans a poem (but a poem not soft in style), paints Mars’ rough wars and the arms of warrior-women 40

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of Thrace. Rejoice, Achilles:24 A Roman Homer, celebrating through a proud poet, touches you again.

27. On a wild beast slain by Caesar The beast pierced in the side with a sword—who doesn’t think of yielding—lunges against the armed man’s bloodied weapon; how amazing the death it suffers from a little wound and proves one hand alone has power of death. We wonder at strange disasters and sudden accidents: Not content to go lethally through stabbed limbs, one arrow combines two deaths. If so much perishes at a lightning-strike on earth, you might also think these blows are sent from heaven.

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28. To the source of the Danube (at the command of the Emperor Valentinian)25 I, king of Illyria’s26 waters—second to you,

Oh Nile—bear from my spring the source of the joyful Danube Augustus, father and son both, whom I’ve fostered in warring Illyria, I bid you be well. As messenger to the Black Sea, now I want to rush so that Valens might know the favorable care of the gods, that the Swabians27 perished, crushed in fire, slaughter, flight, and the Rhine does not belong to Gallic lands. As if my river should flow in reverse at the sea’s command, may I be able, there, to announce the Goths henceforth routed.

29. For a marble statue for Valentinian the Younger Now, as our means allowed, we’ve crafted you in marble: when your brother Augustus returns, be made of gold.

30. Inscribed under a picture where a lion is killed by Gratian28 with one arrow The death the lion suffers from so frail a reed is caused by the work of the sender, not the weapon. 41

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31. To the source of the Danube, at the command of the Emperor Valentinian I, the Danube’s source, hidden deep in far lands, I now flow completely in your dominion: Where I pour my cold spring in mid-Swabia,29 where I cut fertile Pannonia30 in your land, and where, plentiful with water, I empty my mouth in the Scythian sea,31 under your yoke I bear all my streams. But my next palm after Valens will be given to Augustus: he will find even your source, Nile.

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32. To a picture of Echo Fool painter, why try to paint my likeness, to stir up a goddess invisible to the eye? I’m the daughter of Air and Speech; as mother of the invisible, I bear a voice without a mind. From their fading end, returning the final sounds, I copy mocking words made mine. I, Echo, live in your inner ears: if you want to paint my picture, then, paint sound.

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33. For a statue of opportunity and regret Whose work are you?—Phidias’s, who made Pallas’s statue and Jove’s;32 I’m his third triumph, the goddess Opportunity, known to few. —Why do you stand on a wheel?—I cannot stand in one place.—Why have you wingéd sandals? —I fly. I deliver Mercury’s gifts as I choose. —You hide your face with your hair.—I do not want to be recognized.—But the back of your head is bald! —Lest, fleeing, I be caught.—Who is your companion? —Let her tell you.—Tell, I beg, who are you?—A goddess whom Cicero himself didn’t name. I’m the goddess demanding regret for deeds both done and not done; of course one must repent: So I’m called Metanoia.33 —But tell how she works with you.—When I’ve flown away, she remains; those whom I’ve passed over, she sticks with. And while you stay grilling, interrogating, me, you’ll say I’ve slipped out of your hands. 42

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34. To a girl, Galla, already aging I’ll tell you: “Galla, we’re aging; time is flying, loosen yourself. A chaste girl’s an old woman.” You scorned me. Old age has caught you unaware, nor can you bring back the days which have gone. Now regretful, you grieve, either because then you had no desire or now you lack that beauty. But give embraces and share forgotten joys: Give, I’ll enjoy what—if I don’t want it, I once wanted.

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35. On a hare caught by a sea-dog On Sicily’s shores the sea once seized a hare running before sea-dogs. The hare said: “The ravages of all land and sea are against me, maybe even heaven: since a dog34 occupies the sky.”

36. On Pergamus, a runaway scribe As lazy a scribe as you are a slow runner, Pergamus, you fled and were captured in the first furlong. So, Pergamus, you have suffered letters stamped on your face; and your brow suffers what your hand despised.

37. On the same Pergamus Pergamus, punished, you suffered unjustly with your brow35 the penalty that your slow hands deserved. But you who govern them: control your offending limbs! It’s wrong to torture the wrongly accused. Either write an accusation on that right hand of yours, unwilling to mark the page, or chain your fleeing feet with an iron weight.

38. On Myron who asked Lais for a night together Hoary Myron asked Lais36 to spend the night: She gave her rejection at once and he knew the reason and dyed his white hair with black soot; 43

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and the same Myron—in face, not in hair, he begged the same entreaty as before; but she, having compared his looks with his hair judged him similar, but not the same— (or perhaps knowing he was himself; but wanting to enjoy a joke) addressed the cunning man thus: “Silly, why do you want me what I’ve refused? I’ve already rejected your father.”

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39. On the opinion which his wife had of him Lais and Glycera,37 names of wanton fame: Whenever my wife would read that in my poems, she said I joked and pretended unfaithful love. Such is her faith in my honesty.

40. To his wife My wife, let us live as we have lived, and let us keep the names which we took in our early marriage: let no day make us change in our age; so I be young to you and you a young girl to me. Although I be older than Nestor38 and you rival in age the Sybil of Cumae;39 let us ignore what ripe old age really is. It’s better to know the value of the years than to count them.

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41. To Meroe, a drunk old woman He who first gave you your name, Meroe,40 gave Theseus’s son Hippolytus41 his name, for it’s prophesy to give a name which be one’s fate and the sign of conduct or death. Protesilaus, the fates have named you thus, 5 because you would be the first victim in Troy.42 When they call Idmon a prophet,43 Iapyx a doctor,44 the names anticipate the acquired arts. And you Meroe, not because you’re dark in color as one who is born in Meroe on the Nile,45 10 but because you don’t drink wine diluted with water, being accustomed to drink wine mixed with wine. 44

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42. Translation from the Greek on a statue of Nemesis46 Once, the Persians brought me here, my statue a war trophy: now I am Nemesis. I stand as a trophy—for the victorious Greeks; thus Nemesis punishes the boastful Persians.

43. On Thrasybulus, a spartan who died most bravely fighting That you take seven frontal wounds in the breast and you’re carried off on your shield, Thrasybulus, is no grief to your father, but a greater glory for Pitana.47 Rarely can one enjoy so noble a funeral. After your comrades laid you on a sad bier, your great father spoke these words: “Mourn others; my son does not need any tears— he’s mine, a man such as me (and also Spartan).”

44. On a mother (translated from the Greek) A great-souled Spartan mother, arming her son with a shield, tells him, “Return either with this, or on it.”

45. To the rich adulterer, low-born A proud man, so swollen with riches and pride, lofty only in words, scorns the noble names of our thriving age, seeking an ancient pedigree, claiming Mars, and Remus and Romulus, our founder, as his own ancestors. He orders their images to be bound in silken garb: he engraves them on his heavy silver-plate, burning candles at his doors’ entryways and at the wooden shelving in his foyer. I think, he didn’t know who’d fathered him, and his mother truly is a she-wolf.

46. Inscription under a picture of the cynic Antisthenes48 “I founded the Cynic school.” “Why is it said Alcides49 was by far the first?” “Once I was 45

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second to my teacher Alcides: Now I’m first of the Cynics, and he’s a god.”

47. On the same topic There is no better student or better teacher in virtue and in strength on Cynic wisdom. Anyone knows I’m right if he knows Alcides a god and Diogenes a dog.50

48. A miscellany: to a marble statue, in my villa, of father Liber having traits of all the gods The Ogyges51 call me Bacchus, the Egyptians consider me Osiris, the Mysians52 name me Phanaces, the Indians think me Dionysos, Roman rites—Liber, Arab people—Adonis, Lucaniacus—the universal god.53

49. To Liber Pater54 The Egyptians call me Osiris; the Mysians, Phanaces; the living call me Bacchus; the dead Adoneus: Fire-born, two-horned, Titan-slashed Dionysus.

50. To a marble statue of Corydon A ram, bag, a shepherd, a staff, an olive-tree, all in one simple stone: Corydon.55

51. To a statue of Sappho I’m Sappho of Lesbia, sister added to the Pierian56 Muses, ninth poet,57 tenth Muse.

52. To the Goddess Venus Risen from the sea, received on the shore, born of father Heaven, Aeneas’s mother: I, bountiful Venus, I live here. 46

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53. Verses contained in a dress Let oriental splendor glorify the threads on the Persian loom: you, Greece, weave in your robes soft gold; let it glorify no less, with fame, my wife Sabina— avoiding their great cost, equal in their skill.

54. Likewise Maybe you like clothes woven in Tyrian thread or you like the symmetry of a neat inscription. My lady’s own skill combines these two: one Sabina cultivates these twin arts.

55. On the same Sabina There are some who weave threads; some, songs; verse-makers make songs for the Muses: weavers for you, chaste Minerva. But I won’t separate their combination, Sabina, to whom I’ve inscribed my own fabric with my verses.

56. On the girl whom he loved I desire her who doesn’t want me; her who wants me I do not desire: Venus wants to overwhelm—not satisfy— the heart. I scorn charms offered. I reject those denied: I want neither to satisfy nor torture my heart. Neither twice-belted58 Diana nor naked Venus pleases me: The former gives no delight, the latter gives too much, but—to combine “I want” and “I don’t want,” let the clever woman display the art of moderate love.

57. On two brothers Chrestos and Akindynos, unfortunate brothers, each bears a name false to his bad character: Neither is the latter gracious, nor the former invulnerable. 47

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One letter can correct them both; let Chrestos take an alpha from Acindynos, who loses an alpha, 5 “Chrestos” will be “Endangered,” his brother “Graceless.”

58. On Chrestos and Akindynos to whom a bad name was given There are two full brothers, Chrestos and Akindynos, each with a deceptive name: but to make them right, let “Akindynos” donate an alpha to “Christos” so he goes alpha-less: each will bear a fitting name.59

59. A kind of riddle about three lascivious men “Three in one bed: two suffer violation. And two commit it.” “You must mean four.” “You’re wrong. Accuse the outside pair on one count and the middle one—both active and passive—two.”

60. On those who say “reminisco,” which is not Latin He who thinks he can say reminisco and be speaking Latin: would put “cor” where “co” was written if he had any sense.60

61. On Rufus’s words The rhetor Rufus, invited to a wedding, once, as is done at crowded festivities, to show himself skilled in the art of grammar, uttered this wish for the married pair: Bear sons of the genders masculine, feminine, and neuter.

62. On Glaucias, struck by premature death Young Glaucias, happy youth, your sixteenth year already crowned your soft cheeks, and you’d changed from being, as children are, neither boy nor girl, when time too soon took all your beauty away. But not as companion are you mixing with the common crowd of dead, nor, a pitied ghost, do you fear the river Styx; indeed, you’ll go 48

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as Persephone’s Adonis,61 Cinyras’s son, or you’ll be Ganymede62 to celestial Jove.

63. For a marble statue of Niobe63 I once lived: Here I was made stone and then, polished by the hand of Praxiteles,64 I, Niobe, live again; the artist’s hand restored everything but sense: which—when I offended the gods—I didn’t have.

64. On Pallas wishing to compete at arms with Venus At Sparta Pallas65 saw Venus armed. She said, “Now let’s fight, with Paris, even, as the judge.” Venus replied: “Rashly, you challenge me armed, I who bested you once when I was unarmed?”

65. On Lais66 dedicating her mirror to Venus I, aged Lais, dedicate my mirror to Venus: may eternal beauty have eternal use, but it’s no good to me: I don’t want to see myself as I am; I can’t see what I was.

66. On Castor, Pollux, and Helen67 Those you see as triplets, born from one egg, assert they were born of uncertain mother and father, Nemesis begot them, though Leda68 bore them: Tyndareus and Jupiter fathered them; one thinks, one knows the latter is his father.

67. On the statue of Venus sculpted by Praxiteles When the actual Venus saw the Cnidian Venus,69 she said, “I believe you saw me nude, Praxiteles.” “I didn’t; it would be sinful; but I polish all my works with steel like a weapon used by Parading Mars. So my chisels—the steel that pleases a god—made a goddess such as Venus.” 49

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68. On the bronze heifer of Myron70 I’m a bronze heifer, made by the chisel of Myron, my creator: I consider myself not made but born, since the bull comes after me, since the heifer next to me bellows, since the calf seeks my udders. Do you wonder I fool the herd? Even the cowherd counts me among his grazers.

69. On the same heifer of Myron Why, oh calf, do you press the frigid udders of a bronze mother and seek a drink of milk? I’d also assume that role, if god had designed me on my inside as Myron did my exterior.

70. To Daedalus on the same (bronze) heifer Daedalus,71 why waste labor on empty art? Rather put me with penned-up Pasiphaë.72 If Myron designed me, in my exterior I’d surpass it; if a god, in my inner self.

71. On the same heifer of Myron, now Myron’s bronze cow could give an actual bellow, but she fears to ruin the genius of the sculptor; for to fashion her as if alive is more than to fashion her alive: it’s not god’s works that are extraordinary, but the artist’s.

72. On the same heifer, now alive and breathing I’d stood, a bronze cow. A cow’s sacred to Minerva;73 but the goddess gave me the breath of life, and I’m two things: part statue, part alive. One’s called an artist’s work, one a goddess’s.

73. To a bull, from the same heifer Why do you contrive to come to me, bull, deceived? I’m not the fancy of Minoan Pasiphaë.74 50

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74. On the same heifer of Myron Before sunset, already almost evening, the herdsman drove his heifers home. Leaving one of his own, he scolded me as if I were his.

75. On the same heifer of Myron A herdsman by chance had lost one heifer; ordered to bring the whole number back, he complained it was I, who’d refused to follow the others.

76. Those who have changed their sex At Vallebona75 (a new thing and scarcely credible to a poet—but which is vouched to be a true tale), a male bird changed into a female’s form: peahen from peacock, and stood before our eyes; all wondered at the monster, but a girl, 5 gentler than a lamb, spoke with a girlish voice: Fools, why stunned at the sight of a novelty already known? Don’t you read the poems of Ovid?76 Consus, son of Saturn, transformed Caenis;77 and Tiresias’ body knew both sexes.78 10 The fountain Salmacis made Hermaphroditus half-male;79 Pliny saw Androgynus being changed. Not only in old times: In Campanian Beneventum, one adolescent suddenly became a girl. But I won’t cite proofs of ancient history. 15 Look, I myself was turned from boy to girl.

77. To Pythagoras on Marcus who was called a snatcher of youths “Euphorbus’s son Pythagoras, you who renew nature’s seeds and claim the retrieved souls give new bodies80: Tell me, what will Marcus be, now dead, in suffering his very recent fate, if he comes back again up here on earth?” “Who’s Marcus?” “A tomcat lately called abductor, who corrupted all young boys in sodomy, 51

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lecher of perverted desire, according to the poet Lucilius,81 rapist and pedophile: he won’t be a mule, a bull, a hippocamel, a goat, a ram. He’ll be a dung beetle.”

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78. On Castor Castor wants to touch his genitals in public but cannot with a crowd at his house, he learned not to waste his own pleasure: he begins to lick his wife’s.

79. Written under the portrait of a lewd woman Beyond sex sanctioned by conjugal intercourse, immoral lust finds impure pleasures: The neediness of Lemnia’s whom Hercules’ estate attracted, whom the toga of Afranius’s theatrical eloquence moved, and whom the debauchery of eminent Nola branded. Curly-haired in one place alone, she feels everything together: peels open, sucks, strives for each opening, not to let anything untouched wither unsatisfied.

80. On the Doctor Alcon who claimed a prophet false The prophet Diodorus told feeble Marcus there were no more than six days left in his life. But Doctor Alcon, greater than gods or fates, proved on the spot the soothsayer was false and touched the hand of the man—who might have lived if he hadn’t touched him, for there on the spot, Marcus’s six days ended.

81. On a statue of Jove touched by Alcon, a doctor Yesterday Alcon touched a statue of Jove. He, although marble, felt the doctor’s power. Look: today he’s carried away, ordered to be removed from his ancient seat—though he’s a god as well as a stone. 52

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82. To lecherous Eunus Eunus, why seek Phyllis, the perfume-seller? You say you only approach her—you don’t press her. Watch out, lest the names of her goods deceive you, and beware being snared by the lotion’s scent, or calling dye and fish-juice the same odor and fragrant oil and fish the same perfume.

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83. To the same Eunus Unhappy Eunus tastes and smells different things: He has a different sense of smell for his nose and his mouth.

84. To the same Eunus because he would smell neither well or badly Pickles are one thing, balsam another. Odors: depart. I want to smell neither defectively nor accurately.

85. To the same Eunus Laius, Eros, and Itys, Chiron and Eros; Itys again; if you write the names and take the first letters to make word about what you do, master Eunus— to say it in Latin the disgrace is unbecoming to me.

86. To the same Eunus Eunus, as you lick the putrid groin of your pregnant wife, you’re in no hurry to yield your tongue from groin to child.

87. To Eunus, a lecherous schoolmaster Syrian Eunus, epicure of groins, coarse schoolmaster (thus Phyllis shows him), sees a triangle in a woman’ parts: brought together in a three-cornered shape, he derives the letter Δ. He says in the middle of the path between the sides of the legs there’s a cleft which lies open where equal folds are divided in a Ψ, for the shape is three-forked. 53

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When he applies his tongue to it, it’s a Λ. And in these he sees that the actual letter is ϕ. Why, ignorant one, do you think it’s a P written there where a long I fits in place? Unfortunate teacher, may it be of ill omen to you and may your name signify a divided Θ.

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88. To Crispa who is called deformed by some Crispa, some call you deformed: I don’t know. To me you’re beautiful—that’s enough, me being judge. I even desire you, since jealousy’s linked with love. May you seem foul to others, beautiful to me.

89. The kind of girlfriend he’d like to have I’d like to have the kind of girl who boldly starts up quarrels and doesn’t try to talk as if she’s chaste: pretty, brash, wanton with her hand who takes whippings and gives them, and struck, takes refuge in kisses. For, if she lacks these attributes, acting prudishly, modest, chaste, I hate to say it: she will be my wife.

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90. To Cupid, translated from the Greek This, which they call love—end it or share it, Cupid: Burn neither of us with your flame, or both.

91. To Dione82 on his love Either put out the fire with which I burn, Dione, or tell it to pass: Or make it equal on both sides.

92. To a lawyer who had a faithless wife The Paphian83 law on adultery pleased a lawyer whose wife was unfaithful; the Julian law displeased him. You ask, what’s the difference? 54

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Unmanly himself, he feared the anti-pederasty law, not the Titian law.84

93. To a man who used to remove the hair from his groin The groin you shave with a hot depilatory has a justification: The smooth member excites hairless lewd women. But the reason you pluck the new growth from the area with hot moisture, is hidden: you rub as with pumice the imprisoned ‘Clazomenian peninsula’: unnatural lust seeks an unnatural woman, 5 and you are woman in private parts, a man in rough skin.

94. To Zoilus, who had married a lewd woman Emasculated Zoilus, you married an adulterous wife: Oh, what a profit both of you in the household will earn: when the instigator pays your wife, and she you (when discovered), such a price in the currency of shame! But lust, which today seems lucrative to you, soon—old age creeping up—will bring loss: Hired adulterers will start selling their services to you whom seductive youth now makes liberal.

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95. A happy reply from a divinity The boxer Hylas, boxing, Phegeus skilled in wrestling, and Lycus famed on the Olympic track,85 asked Ammon, the god of Libya, whether they all could win the coming contest. But the god, being wise, said: “Truly, victory will be given to you for sure, if you take care that no one beats Hylas in boxing, nor Phegeus in a wrestling match, nor you Lycus, on the racetrack.”

96. On Hermione’s belt/sash A purple belt circled Hermione’s swelling breasts:86 The belt was inscribed with a couplet: “You who read this inscription, the Paphian87 tells you, love me and by your example stop no one from loving.” 55

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97. On Hylas whom the Naiads seized Look, how lovely Hylas,88 enduring fatal joys, enjoys the flattering honor of a sweet death. Dying, he suffers, amid fatal love and kisses, two-sided Naiads who are Furies.

98. To the nymphs who drowned Hylas You rage, wanton Naiads, with wild and useless love; that boy will end up a fountain.

99. To Narcissus, seized with love for himself If you wanted someone else, Narcissus, you could have him; you have plenty of love for yourself—but you can’t enjoy it.

100. On the same Why wouldn’t a lover suffer from the beauty of this youth who dies for his own reflection?

101. On Echo grieving the death of Narcissus Echo, echoing you, dies with you, Narcissus, lifeless at the last strains of her voice: till now having answered with groans your pining lament, now she loves the last words of your voice.

102. On Hermaphroditus and his nature89 Begotten by Mercury, father; Venus, mother: Hermaphrodite, just as your name is mixed, so your body. Compound in sex, but perfect in neither; double in sex, potent in neither love.

103. On the union of Salmacis with Hermaphrodite90 The nymph Salmacis was united with the man she desired. Happy girl, if she’d found herself 56

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with a man: and you—youth joined with a beautiful girl— twice happy, if one man could be two men.91

104. To Apollo, on Daphne fleeing Paean,92 put down your bow and put away your swift arrows: the girl isn’t fleeing you, but she fears your arrows.

105. On Daphne93 covered with bark Envious bark, why rush to cover the girl? The laurel belongs to Apollo’s if the girl’s denied him.

106. On mangy Polygiton If anyone saw Polygiton94 seated in the baths picking at his limbs’ scurf-rotted ulcers, he’d rank such a sight ahead of all diversions. At first he beats the air with shaking yelps; he hurls words as in bawdy sex with prostitutes 5 and uses every obscene lasciviousness. Then he whirls his arms like a Maenad filled with demons. Belly, chest, shins, thighs, flank, groin, calves, neck, shoulders, back, “cavity of clashing rocks” (rear end), so the various torments spread from place to place, 10 while the merciful illness with its deadly sweetness releases him fainting from the bath’s hot warmth. As (it’s said) impotent men, when vain desire, not wars, attacks them, tire themselves to no avail in a wretched bed, provoked by unsated pleasure, 15 when lust burns and bitter heaped-on mockery pierces them at the end: thus Polygiton inflames his numbed limbs. And since final atonements are owed, he already prepares himself for the River Phlegethon.95 20

107. On a certain Silvius the Good who was a Briton Silvius the Good,96 who attacks my poems— all the more deserved my satire being a good Briton. 57

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108. On the same This is Silvius the Good. “Who’s Silvius?” A Briton. “Silvius is either not a Briton, or he’s Silvius the Bad.”

109. On the same It’s said Silvius is good and he’s a Briton: who’d believe a good citizen had sunk so low?

110. On the same No good man is a Briton. If plain Silvius became a Briton, he’d stop being good.

111. On the same This Silvius is good, but this same Silvius is a Briton: Believe me, a more straightforward thing is a bad Briton.

112. On the same Silvius, you’re a good Briton, although it’s said you’re not a good man, and “Briton” and “man” cannot be coupled.

Notes 1 Προσωποποιία = prosopopeia, a rhetorical device in which the writer communicates in the voice of another person or personified object. Here Ausonius speaks to the epigrammatical collection that this poem introduces. 2 Proculus Gregorius is a public figure active in the last half of the fourth century; for details about him see Kay, 293–294. 3 Agathocles = the tyrant of Sicily (317–289 bce). 4 Samian = Samos, the Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea. 5 Dis = the Roman god of the underworld. 6 Arcadian = Ausonius evokes Arcadia, a pastoral idyll. 7 On the Rufus pieces generally, see Kay, 168–169 8 One English meaning of “turn” is “aptitude,” which preserves Ausonius’ pun on the Latin word “cor.” The pun relies on Rufus’ misspelling of the verb “reminiscor,” whence the playful take of “cor” that he lacks. See also Epig. 60. 9 Pictish = i.e., hailing from modern Poitiers, in France. 10 Capaneus was possessed of inordinate strength—and arrogance; at the siege of Thebes he stood at the city wall and boasted that Zeus could not stop him from entering. In short order Zeus struck and killed him with a thunderbolt

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and he fell from the ladder on which he was perched, hence the appropriateness of the acrobat’s fall here. 11 Dodra = “nines” in Greek, thus the drink described here is comprised of nine ingredients. 12 Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus but was married to Theseus (Hippolytus’ father); in the various versions of the story Hippolytus dies and Phaedra suffers for it. 13 Dido, queen of Carthage, was smitten with Aeneas (through the machinations of Venus, his mother), who left her in order to follow his fate to reach Italy. 14 Canace committed incest with her brother, Macareus, had a baby, and was forced to commit suicide by her father when she attempted to sneak the baby away before it could be discovered. The baby was also killed. 15 Phyllis married the Athenian king, Demophon, who abandoned her in her native Thrace, where she eventually killed herself. 16 Ausonius means Sappho (d. ca. 570 bce), the poet from Lesbos, who in legend loved Phaon, but whose scorn for her led to her suicide. 17 Venus represents here the poetry of love. 18 Minerva betokens epic poetry here. 19 The Stoic and the Epicurean stand for their respective schools of thought and betoken poetry articulating the same. 20 Apollo and Athena represent here, respectively, the art of poetry and the art of war. 21 Getaean = the Getes, a Thracian people living near and on the Danube River. 22 Sarmations = see ‘The Moselle’, n. 8. 23 Clarius = Apollo, betokening his temple at Clarus. 24 Achilles, = the warrior and hero of the Iliad. 25 On Valentinian I and Ausonius, see above, pp. 3–5. 26 On Illyria, see “The Moselle”, n. 18. 27 Swabians = an indigenous people located in modern southern Germany. 28 Ausonius was tutor to the Emperor Gratian, Valentinian I’s son, on which see above, p. 4. 29 See above, n. 27. 30 Pannonia = the ancient Roman province to the northeast of the Dalmatian coast, of which Valentinian I was a native. 31 Ausonius means the Black Sea. 32 Phidias = a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect, ca. 480–430 bce. 33 Metanoia = “Penitence.” 34 Ausonius refers to Sirius, the “dog” star. 35 The idea is that the slave’s forehead was branded. 36 Myron = an Athenian sculptor, who fl. ca. 480–440 bce; Lais, in Greek literature the name of a legendary ancient prostitute. 37 Glycera = the name of a prostitute in Greek literature. 38 Nestor is too old to fight in the Iliad but often offers sage advice. 39 The Sybil of Cumae = the prophetess who wished for as many years of as grains of sand in her hand. 40 Meroe plays on the Latin merus = “full-strength wine.” See Kay, 121–122. 41 On Hippolytus see above, n. 12, concerning Phaedra. 42 Ausonius plays on the Greek words that make up Protesilaus’ name, i.e., protos, “first,” and laos, “people,” “nation,” and so on. He was, as Ausonius suggests here, the first of his people to die at Troy. See Kay, 122.

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43 Idmon = the figure who accompanied the Argonauts, a noted bard and prophet. 44 Iapyx = the doctor who attended Aeneas in Aeneid 12.391–397. 45 Meroe = an island in the Nile in Ethiopia. 46 Nemesis = the Greek goddess of retribution. 47 Pitana = a Spartan city on the coast of Asia Minor. 48 Antisthenes = the founder of the Cynic school of philosophy, who lived from ca. 445–365 bce in Athens, he studied both with Gorgias and Socrates. 49 Alcides = Hercules. 50 Ausonius puns on the Greek words kunikos, “dog-like,” from which “Cynics” is derived, and kuon, “dog.” The Cynics may well have been called “dogs” by their enemies; Diogenes was in fact so-called, the basis of Ausonius’ point here. 51 Ogyges = the Thebans, descendants of Ogygus, the founder of the city. 52 Mysians = the inhabitants Mysia, a region in Asia Minor, though the Moesians, who lived near to Thrace, may also be meant. 53 This is so presumably because Liber = Bacchus, and wine is drunk by everyone, but see Kay, 147 for further possibilities. 54 That is, the wine-growers’ god, associated with Bacchus or Dionysus. 55 In Greek and Latin literature, a standard name for a shepherd. 56 Pierian = the Pierian Spring in Macedonia was sacred to the Muses. 57 The Alexandrians declared Sappho one of the nine great lyric poets. 58 Twice-belted = a woman’s ankle-length chiton was belted at the chest and hip. 59 On the tradition of this poetic wordplay, see Kay, 161–162. 60 The correct form is reminiscor. Ausonius puns on cor = “good sense.” 61 Adonis = the boy beloved of Persephone with whom he spent one third of the year in the underworld. 62 Ganymede = the handsome youth who served as a cupbearer to Jupiter. 63 Niobe was turned into a stone for boasting of having more children than the Titaness Leto. 64 Praxiteles = the most renowned of Athenian sculptors, he flourished in the fourth century bce. 65 Pallas = Athena. 66 See above, n. 36. 67 One version of Helen’s birth has her being born from one (swan’s) egg along with Cator and Pollux. Ausonius refers to that myth here. 68 In the version of the myth Ausonius draws on here, Leda is the mother of Helen, Castor, and Pollux. 69 The statue of Aphrodite (Venus) of Cnidus was one of the more famous works of Praxiteles of Athens, on whom see above, n. 64. 70 Myron was an Athenian sculptor who flourished in the fifth century bce. He worked exclusively in bronze and the heifer Ausonius mentions here was among his more famous creations. 71 On Daedalus, see “The Moselle”, n. 46. 72 Pasiphaë, cursed by Poseidon, fell in love and mated with a bull sent by this god, resulting in the eventual birth of the minotaur. 73 Minerva = the Roman goddess of wisdom, the arts, trade, and strategy. 74 See above, n. 72. 75 Vallebona = unknown; for conjectures about its location see Green, 406, ad loc. and Kay, 209–210.

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76 Ovid = Publius Ovidius Naso, a Roman poet (43 bce–17 ce), most famously the author of the Metamorphoses. 77 Caenis was born a woman but wished to be a man, a wish granted to him, as Ausonius suggests here. 78 Tiresias, a prophet of Apollo, according to legend killed a pair of snakes on Mt. Cyllene, which angered Hera, who turned him into a woman. 79 The fountain of Salmacis was reputed to feminize men who drank from it. The water nymph of the same name, having fallen in love with Hermaphroditus, merged their forms into one androgynous figure. Ausonius leans on the feminizing qualities of the fountain here, rather than the larger details of the myth of Hermaphroditus. 80 Pythagoras (ca. 570 bce–ca. 495 bce), founder of the philosophical movement that bears his name, believed in reincarnation. He claimed in fact to be a reincarnation of Euphorbus, rather than his son. 81 Lucilius = the Roman satirist (Gaius Ennius Lucilius), whose writings remain now only in fragments, he flourished in the second century bce and died in 103. 82 Dione = the mother of Venus. 83 Paphian = an epithet of Venus; see below, n. 87. 84 The Titian Law directed governors of Roman provinces to appoint guardians for orphans. 85 Ausonius follows here a Greek epigram that also features Hylas, whom later epigrams make clear is the figure associated with Hercules and eventually abducted by water nymphs; Phegeus wrestled with Turnus’ chariot (Aeneid 12.371–382); Lycus also appears in the Aeneid (9.556) as an exemplary racer. 86 Hermione = the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, and wife of Orestes. She was famous for her beauty. 87 Paphian = an epithet for Venus, who had a cult at Paphos, on Cyprus. 88 Hylas was seized by the Naiads on account of his beauty and never seen again. He was the legendary comrade beloved of Hercules. 89 On Hermaphroditus see above, n. 79. 90 On this legend see above, n. 79. 91 Salmacis seduced Hermaphroditus, who became half male, half female. See Kay, 212 for the details of this seduction. 92 Paean = Apollo especially in his role as a healer. 93 Daphne, fleeing Apollo, was turned into a laurel tree by her father in order to save her from the god. 94 A ficticious name, on which see Kay, 285. 95 A river in Hades, one of five, whose Greek name = “fire-flaming.” 96 Presumably Silvius Bonus, who, according to Ausonius, hails from Britain, attacked Ausonius’ poetry in some way and elicited this and the subsequent poems as a result, on whom see Kay, 289–290.

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THE EP HEM ERI S

1. Bright dawn is already opening her windows, already the waking swallow calls in her nest: as in the middle of the night, you sleep, Parmeno. Dormice sleep through the unceasing winter, but they don’t eat; the reason for your sleep: you drink too much and swell your belly up by feasting. So no sound reaches your curving inner ears, and deep sleep presses the regions of your mind, and no gleamings of light, vibrating, strike your eyes. Stories fashion a young man’s1 year-long slumber, lasting through alternating night and day which the Moon merged together as sleep uninterrupted. Get up, lazy, fit to be beaten with canes: get up, lest a long sleep be given to you— from where you don’t suspect; from your soft bed, Parmeno, drag your limbs. This silly ditty framed in Sapphic meter fosters your sleepiness? Drive away the verse of quiet Lesbia,2 quick Iamb.

2. Hey! Boy, get up and bring me my slippers —also my linen. Bring whatever 62

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you’ve already prepared for me to throw on to get going. Bring dew-fresh spring water so I can wash my hands and face and eyes. And open the shrine—with no outward show: holy words, innocent prayers, that’s enough for sacred matters. I want no incense to be burned no offerings of honeyed bread; I abandon the altars of empty gods; the green-turf sacrificial hearth. I must pray to God and the son of the highest God, his majesty divine united, of one substance, with the holy spirit. And look— I’m already starting my prayers: and my trembling thought feels the presence of a god. Do faith and hope fear anything?

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4.3 Enough prayers have been given to god— though there never is enough prayer to the gods from guilty men. Boy, bring my clothes for going out. I must say the “hello” and “goodbye” to reciprocate my friends’. Since the sun with its horses driven on their course of four hours is turning to noon, I must now instruct Sosias.4

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5. Now the time approaches for calling friends, lest I cause lunch to be delayed for them. Hurry and run to their houses, boy. You yourself know who they are. Be back here even while I speak! I’ve invited five, since six (with the host) is the right party: if more, it’s chaos. He’s gone—I am left with Sosias. 63

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6. Sosias, we must eat. The sun already shines in its fourth hour, and the sundial-gnomon is turning toward the fifth-hour mark. Test by trying whether the dishes are moist with a piquant taste— for they often disappoint. Shake the boiling pots, turning them in your hands; quick, dip your fingers into the hot fish-juice which your wet tongue licks darting in and out . . .5

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7. Boy, my skillful assistant in speedy writing, hurry and get your double-paged tablet in which such an abundance of speech is delivered in a few short sections seeming to total one sentence. 5 I leaf through copious books and with my gushing tongue I make a noise like thick hail: your ears don’t hesitate, nor is the page over-crowded, and your right hand, 10 scarcely moved, flies across the tablet. Now, when I speak out loudly, talking in roundabout circles, you set down my words— scarcely uttered—in wax 15 the ideas in my breast. I wish my mind enabled me to think as quickly as the flight of your diligent hand 20 swiftly outstrips my speech. Who, I ask, has revealed me? Who has told you what I’m about to say? What clever trick 25 moves your quick hand deep in my heart?— What strange sequence of things, that what my tongue hasn’t yet said comes to your ears? 30 64

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No teaching is responsible for this— no hand so quick at one swift summary: Nature gave you this present, and god this gift, that you know before I speak and would write the very thing I wish.

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8. [Omens disrupt our peaceful sleep, like those we often wonder at when in the high air wandering clouds unite their varied shapes,]6 blending four-legged beasts and birds; or when omens on land are added to those at sea until the clouds, dispersed by the cleansing east winds, dissolve into clear air. Now courts and lawsuits pass, now processions—as in a broad theatre: 5 I face cavalry and slaughters of bandits; a wild beast claws my face or, in a bloody arena, attacks with a sword. Across the dangerous sea I walk on foot and float in the air and, running, leap the straits on sprung-up wings and endure 10 dreams of the night, depraved sex, shameful acts, and horrible couplings. But when some respite removes sleep’s nightmares shattered by shame, and the mind is awake, free from foul images, the untroubled hand, aware, feels the whole bed: the wicked guilt of lust 15 recedes, and the evils of fleeing sleep disappear; I see myself among the applauding victors— or else, unarmed, dragged among Alan captives.7 I see temples of the gods and sacred portals and golden palaces, and I seem to lie 20 on Tyrian purple and then to sit at a table, a guest in a smoky tavern. They say a divine poet placed under elm leaves two gates—dreams invented for idle sleep. The one with an ivory arch sends through the air its store of dreams always false; 25 the other, of horn, sends truthful visions. And if, faced with uncertain dreams, we’re allowed to choose, better to be deceived with joy than fear. In fact, I even prefer to be deceived, for since gloomy omens can turn out unfounded, 30 65

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better to be misled by good news than to dread bad news. It’s enough to be free of fear. There are some who draw an opposite conclusion and vary inversely their reading of joy or tears.8 Go, bad dreams—through the slanting realms of the sky where roving squalls rout restless clouds; stay in the lunar poles; why do you enter my doors and the dark bedrooms of my meager house? Leave me in peace to pass lazy nights, till the golden morning star comes back in the rosy east. And, if soft sleep does soothe me, untroubled by dreams, with its mild night breath, I dedicate a grove that a green elm shades in my fields for you to inhabit while keeping watch.

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Notes 1 The young man = Endymion, who, beloved by the Moon, was made to sleep by her forever. 2 Lesbia = Sappho, the lyric poet (d. ca. 570 bce), who invented the eponymous meter in which Ausonius composes this poem. 3 Poem 3, the so-called Oratio, or “Prayer,” may be part of the Ephemeris collection but also circulated as a separate poem in the Middle Ages. The tone of the collection, following the model of school primers, places the seriousness of the Christian faith expressed in it in doubt. This, and its length (85 verses), have convinced me that it is better left untranslated here. 4 Sosias = the cook. 5 The poem is lacunose after this point, on which see Green, 261, s.v. 7. 6 I follow here the Latin supplement provided by Evelyn White, vol. 1, 26, who suggests with these words the general sense of what once introduced this poem but has since fallen away in the manuscripts [D. W.]. 7 The Alans had reached the Danube frontier and later joined forces with the Vandals in invading Gaul, but early in the fifth century, after Ausonius had died. 8 On the authenticity of vv. 32–33 see Green, 266, s.v. 29–33; cf. 264, s.v. 10–16.

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T HE PROF ES SORS OF BORDEAUX

Preface I’ll honor you, too, with whom no kinship links me but public opinion, and duty to our dear country, and zeal in study and diligent work in teaching: noted men dead—as maybe some day a man who wants to show respect may devote himself, by my own example, to my departed soul.

1. Tiberius Victor Minervius, orator1 You’ll be portrayed first, Minervius, pillar of Bordeaux, in the rhetor’s toga a second Quintilian,2 as a teacher through whom Rome and Constantinople were celebrated, then our native city—not indeed competing in glory with the other two, 5 but better in name alone, being our own home: Let Calagurris3 claim its son Quintillian but Bordeaux’s professorship not inferior. Minervius sent a thousand pupils to the courts, and to the Senate ranks, in purple robes 10 two thousand, also me. But I’ll be silent on my public offices since I have so many. I’ll praise you yourself, through my own success. If to compare is the point of written acclaim, you’ll be ranked with the orator of Athens;4 15 or to show mock lawsuits to edify the public, Quintilian has doubtful laurels—your speech a torrent whose voice is not like weedy mud

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but gold. Demosthenes’ art—which he himself three times called the greatest—flourished so in you that he yielded to you. And shall I add your natural blessings and god’s gift—a memory where what you read in books or heard, just once, was so fixed in your mind that you retained it unaltered? Once after a long disputed game I saw you recall each throw on both sides when the dice, hewn from hollow boxwood, had been rolled out with a quick twist, each move, in faithful detail, what was lost, what gained, during the whole game. Your mind, not black with bitterness, your tongue sharp with much wit and jokes, kind, without venom; an abundant table no critic’s ideal could fault nor worthy Piso be loath to call his own: sometimes, on your birthday or holiday feast rich, but not such as to shrink your slender means. Though you died at sixty, lacking an heir, you’re mourned by me as a father and one still young. And if anything survives one’s final fate, you live as yet, recalling an age that’s gone: if nothing remains and your long sleep lacks sentience, you lived your life: your fame gratifies us.

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2. Latinus Alcimus Alethius, rhetorician5 Posterity will not make a case against me of undutiful silence, Alcimus, nor call me unworthy, having neglected to serve your memory, one whom the recent age placed with the greatest men of early time, in court the winner, the Muses’ ornament, our one exemplar in the letters that learned Greece cultivated in Athens and Rome cultivates throughout Latin lands. Shall I speak of your steadfast principles lifelong—your character, your esteem so celebrated? And how, devoted to learning you avoided seeking honors? No one was more dignified than you, or more generous towards the poor man, assuming his care if he sought legal aid; 68

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or zealously teaching him if he sought schooling. Those with whom you shared your gloried success will live on, and you’ll give Julian6 greater fame than the sceptre he briefly held. Your works will confer on Sallust7 more renown than he gave to consulship; you gave your sons the model of your virtues, your grace and eloquence. If offended by my pen’s praise, indulge me: my offence is my affection for you—I unequal to the task, persistent to a fault, seek to praise your worthiness. Rest in peace and offset the loss of your frail flesh with fame.

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3. The rhetorician Luciolus8 Describe, sad song, the rhetor Luciolus, fellow-student, teacher, then colleague, learned and eloquent man, whether he spilled out words in formal metric verse or the speech of rhythmic prose; whom Lachesis9 snatched from his father in a cruel death (leaving two children, one of each sex); whose heir, obscure, in no way meets your worth, although your fame should help him. Most faithful husband, kind friend, good brother, loyal son and father, I mourn your loss. Thoughtful to guests, never speaking harsh words to servants or abusing dependents; seek shades as gentle as your nature was calm, this tribute from Ausonius: farewell, friend.

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4. The rhetorician Attius Patera the elder10 Although in age you surpassed the men named first, Patera, noble speaker, still, because you flourished very recently, and as a youth I saw you old, you will not lack the tribute of a sad dirge, teacher of great rhetoricians. Born of the stock of Druids of Bayeux if reputation isn’t wrong, you trace your sacred forebears from Belenus’s11 temple, 69

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and thence your family names: Patera—thus the mystics call the attendants of Apollo. The name given to your father and brother was Phoebus’s, and your son was named for Delphic Apollo. In your time no one had such learning, such eloquence swift and gracefully flowing: your memory, fluent, your command of language lucid; gifted in resonance and refinement, gentle in wit offered with no edge of bitterness, and moderate in food and wine; happy, modest, noble—even in old age like an eagle or a noble horse grown old.

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6. The rhetor Alethius Minervius the son12 Oh flower of youths, happy hope of your father, but not your country’s guaranteed long-time gift, Rhetor Alethius— you, learned from your earliest years: at a time when it was no shame for you as an adolescent to be still learning; before the age of seventeen already you had been reputed equal to your father, and afterwards a teacher equal to Patera. The former, renowned for his character and merits, exalted the walls of proud Rome: you greater than either one, happy leading the bright flags of the troop from your native Bordeaux. You had all the blessings of fate, not without the bitterness

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of offensive envy. Your fortune, premature, gave everything and snatched it away; your rhetoric, denied the fruit of adult age; a noble marriage but, with your father-in-law, living an agitated life; and the riches of your house and your wife’s left with no heir. Like the summer grass, having appeared and at the same time been taken away, you balked the wishes of your friends for a mature age— provided with assets that would not last. How prophetic the line in Horace’s verse: “Nothing exists that is blessed in every way.”

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7. Leontius the grammarian, nicknamed “Wanton”13 You who cherish merry ways, holidays, rituals, jokes, and diversions, remember an annual elegy in Leontius’s name. Letting himself be called “the Wanton One,” he never rejected that name—unworthy of his upright life—since it was amusing to his friends’ ears. He attained such renown in letters, as was enough for his meager chair,

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to make him seem acceptable in the grammaticians’ ranks. You, always a friend in my youth, although you’d attained so great an age: now too you warm the bottom of my heart, kind Leontius! And may it help, with sad attention to your memory, to mournfully sing your praise with this objection: it’s an unwelcome service, but owed to you with a song.

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9. To Jucundus, grammarian of Bordeaux, brother of Leontius14 And you—who they claim boldy seized your chair and don’t think merited grammatician’s title— still, I’ll summon you in words, Jocundus: friend, good, simple companion, dearer for that very zeal: since, though unequal to it, you loved a noble title, you’re among those men worthy of being honored.

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10. To you, Latin grammarian scholars of Bordeaux: Macrinus, Sucuronius, Phoebicius, Concordius; to Anastasius and to Ammonius, grammarian of Poitiers15 Now, I’ll make my way through each man, as the reverent honor of my tearful task brings forth those who of humble birth, rank and favor, nevertheless introduced to the uneducated people of Bordeaux the study of grammar. Let MACRINUS16 be among them, to whom in the beginning my childhood was entrusted; and SUCURUS,17 as progeny of a freedman, sober and well adapted 72

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to forming boys’ characters; and you, CONCORDIUS,18 who having fled your country, exchanged it for an unproductive chair in a foreign city. Nor will I be silent on the name of old PHOEBICIUS,19 who, custodian of the temple of Belenus brought no riches hence; but still—according to legend, stock of a race of Druids of the Armorican20 people— he attained a chair at Bordeaux (through the work of his son): may his lineage endure. And I’ll sing of AMMONIUS,21 to commemorate truly a pious grammarian of my own country—who gave to uncultured boys elementary learning; poorly educated, rough in his ways: accordingly—as he deserved— he had a poor reputation. And sing sadly, Muse, to ANASTASIUS22 a sad tune, and recall this poor grammarian. A native of Bordeaux, his ambition moved him and took him to Poitiers. A pauper there and living deprived of food and clothing, in his old age he lost the small esteem of his country and professorship, but still my praise has commemorated him lest his tomb obscure his bones and equally his name. 73

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11. To Herculanus, son of my sister and grammarian of Bordeaux23 Herculanus, who, having gone forth from my bosom and school, you offered your uncle more hope than actual profit, partaking in my class and almost a successor to my chair— but the shifting of fickle youth gave you a recklessness, not adhering to the right course of the Pythagorean path. Be peaceful and cherish the home of the quiet shades, you whom I’ve already recalled among my family.

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12. To Thalassus, Latin grammarian of Bordeaux24 Your name and office, youthful Thalassus, I heard—as a boy—and I scarcely even remember: what your appearance and merits were, the lineage of your parents; a later age notes nothing about you. Only repute claims you a grammatician in youth, even then so slight that almost nothing remains. But still, whatever you were, since you lived during my time, take this, my tribute: farewell.

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13. To Citarius, a Sicilian of Syracuse, Greek grammarian of Bordeaux25 And, beloved Citarius, be remembered by me, as worthy to be celebrated among good grammarians. If the ancient custom of honor lived on, your glory would be that of Aristarchus and Zenodotus in Greece, the muse of Simonedes of Ceus yields place to your poems which were composed in your early years. Native of Sicily, you came to us a foreigner in our city, which you quickly ennobled with your studies. Having soon found a wife, noble and rich, grudging fate had you die not yet a father. But I celebrate you, departed, with the honor of memory, as I loved you alive with my gift of friendship.

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15. To Nepotianus, both grammarian and rhetorician26 Old with a young heart, witty, kind, whose mind, dipped in much honey with no gall, imparted nothing bitter in your whole life, Nepotianus, comfort to my heart, partaking as much in games as serious work; 5 when silent, you’d outdo Amyclas27 in speechlessness: Ulysses—who left the Sirens singing their enchantments— could not leave you when you were talking: honest and modest, moderate, thrifty, abstemious, eloquent, in style yielding place to no orator; debater approaching the Stoic Cleanthes;28 10 knowing well by heart Scaurus and Probus,29 your memory greater than Cineas’s of Epirus:30 friend, table-companion and frequent guest— too seldom, for you stimulated my mind. No one gave counsel with so pure a heart 15 or hid confidences with deeper secrecy. With the honor of an illustrious governership conferred, having lived through the changes of ninety years, leaving two children, you meet your death, with much grief to your family, as to me. 20

16. Aemulus Magnus Arboreus, rhetorician of Toulouse31 Among the dead relatives already mourned, my uncle, among the rhetors you must now be remembered; devotion owes that task. Let the honored names of men receive this out of love of my native land. Let me make known for double merit my father Arborius, son of Arborius, Argicius’s grandson. You were stock of an Aeduan32 father, your mother Maura’s line was Tarbellian, both high-born. A noble and gifted wife and home, professorship, friendships with great men, came to you when young, while rich Toulouse held Constantine’s brothers sequestered in a kind of exile. Thence your fame ran to the citadel of Thracian Propontis, in

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Constantinople; there, abounding in wealth, honored as an emperor’s teacher, you died, your parents surviving you. But to your native seat and family tomb the devotion of prince Augustus returned you. Therefore, every year, this day renews a cause of grief and the duty— a tearful one—of sorrowful devotion.

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17. Exuperius, rhetorician of Toulouse33 Exuperius, I must remember you— eloquent without artifice, stately in gait, skilled in words, handsome of face. In short, your speech, supreme in fluency, if heard just by the ear, would please with its facility; if studied, would be dismissed as saying no solid sense. Toulouse’s magistrates, having honored you right away, soon with equal haste drove you out. Narbo then took you in, where as rhetor you taught the sons of Dalmatius (fatal royal names) as boys till almost the end of adolescence, at a high tuition fee, boys who having later taken on the name of Caesar, conferred honor on you— a garrison and a tribunal in Spain. Dying very rich, you drew to a close your quiet years and gentle habits in your home Cahors. But your country’s rights and your kins’ home call you to bring back your title of rhetor to Bordeaux.

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18. To Marcellus34 Nor will I omit you, Marcellus’s son, Marcellus, whom your mother drove from your home city with harshness. But great fortune soon restored, and increased, your luck: first, Narbo provided the country you had lost; here the high-born stranger Clarentius, moved 5 by your noble nature gave you as wife his daughter. Soon many young pupils, furnished with your schooling, won you wealth and the title grammarian; but fortune never follows a permanent course, especially when finding a man of twisted nature. 10 But it’s my job to recall, not burden, your fortunes; 76

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enough to say that you lost everything at once: but not your name also which I don’t rob you of, ranked among grammarians of slender merit.

21. Crispus and Urbicus, Latin and Greek grammarians35 You, too, Crispus, in future ages will be recalled by my offering of a gloomy lamentation. You who taught rough-spoken youths the first letters of the unfamiliar alphabet: Sometimes you were believed to fuel yourself with wine to be deemed a rival in the ranks of Virgil and Flaccus. And, to you, Urbicus, rated in your Latin work lower than in your famous Greek, I’ll raise this song of pity. For you used to be coupled with your friend Crispus for speaking prose and poetry with such fluency that soon you’ll be remembered for speaking like the ancient heroes in songs of Homer: Pleisthenes’ father Atreus, so sweet in so few words; and Odysseus of Doulichion pouring out words like honey; and King Nestor speaking soft words in song with the nectar of his honeyed tongue. Both fluent in speaking, both schooled in all poetry, knowing the forms of myths and history, both born of freed men, but who by their merit could be called sons of fathers who had been born free.

23. To Dynamius of Bordeaux who taught and died in Spain36 Nor will I cheat you of a gloomy complaint you, Dynamius, advocate and dweller in my land, whom the offending charge of adultery drove away; whom little Lerida37 harbored 77

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in hiding places; whom, hidden, a Spanish wife made rich; for there—name changed—you were a rhetor, a rhetor disguised with the name Flavinius, lest blame could reveal you as fugitive. Though desire for your country later led you back, your Leridan home drew you again to live retired. Whatever the flight and judgement in your life, may you keep your old friendship for me; if the dead feel anything, accept my observance now, long after your death occurred, Dynamius. Though you lie dead in foreign lands, my affection, devoted, commemorates you in mournful verses.

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Notes 1 Minervius flourished in the first half of the fourth century. He was Ausonius’ teacher in Bordeaux, then spent time teaching in Constantinople and in Rome, where Jerome places him at mid-century. See Bajoni, 75–76 for further biographical details. Green (330) offers a tripartite structure for the poem: vv. 1–12 introduce the piece, vv. 13–30 focus on Minervius’ talents, and vv. 31–42 deal with the quality of his character. 2 Quintilian, 35–100 ce, was a Spanish orator and rhetorician, and author of the Institutio Oratoria. 3 Calagurris = Quintilians’s native town. 4 The orator of Athens = Isocrates, the great Athenian orator (436–338 bce). 5 Little is known of Alethius beyond what Jerome reports, viz., that he was active as a teacher in Aquitaine in the mid-fourth century. See Bajoni, 78 for what details can be surmised about him. His fame can be presumed from Ausonius’ placement of this poem commemorating him. 6 Julian = the Roman emperor (330–363 ce); it seems Alcimus wrote on Julian, though the work is not extant. 7 Not the Roman historian of the first century bce but rather Flavius Sallustius, praetorian prefect of Gaul in 361–363. 8 Nothing is known of Luciolus; vv. 1–2 seem to suggest that he was older than Ausonius. See Bajoni, 79. 9 Lachesis = one of the three Fates, whose task was to measure the extent of life with her rod. 10 Patera seems to have flourished in the first third of the fourth century, though this date is hardly definitive. Nothing else is known of him. See Bajoni, 79–80. 11 Belenus = a god worshipped around Aquileia and likely in Gaul also, on which see Green, 336, s.v. 9. 12 Poem 5, to Attius Tiro Delphidius, a rhetor, is not translated here. The Minervius of this poem may be the son of the famous Minervius, Ausonius’ teacher, remembered in poem 1, above. See Bajoni, 83–84. 13 Leontius, a rough contemporary of our poet, was a friend of Ausonius when they were both young. See Bajoni, 86.

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14 Poem 8, addressed to various Greek grammarians of Bordeaux, is not translated here. Poem 9, to Jucundus, recollects the brother of Leontius recalled in poem 7. See Bajoni, 88. 15 Macrinus is dated to the first third of the fourth century, and Phoebicius to roughly the same time. What is known of them and the others celebrated here, none of whom can be dated with certainty, comes from this poem. See Green, 346 and Bajoni, 89–90. 16 Otherwise unknown. 17 As Green (346, s.v. 14–15) suggests, the name is unique and indicates perhaps a slave. 18 Otherwise unknown. 19 On Phoebicus see Green, 346, s.v. 23 and Bajoni, 90. 20 Armorican = a region in northwest Gaul. 21 On this name and the textual tradition of the poem at this point, see Green, 347, s.v. 32–41 and Bajoni, 90–91. 22 Otherwise unknown. 23 Herculanus = Ausonius’ nephew, otherwise unknown. 24 Ausonius’ son-in-law shares this name, though not this poem. As Green (348) notes, he died young and completes for this collection the recollection of the grammatici who were born and taught mainly in Gaul. 25 Otherwise unidentified, though see Green, 348, s.v. 13 for possible identities. 26 Poem 14, to Censorius Atticus Agricius, is not translated here. Nepotianus, the subject of poem 15, seems to have been praeses of Tripolitania, whose military prowess is recorded in inscriptions discussed by Green, 350. 27 Amyclas = a city situated south of Rome, overrun by snakes and deserted, and called “silent Amyclas.” 28 Cleanthes = (d. ca. 220 bce), the head of the Stoic school of philosophy after Zeno. 29 Scaurus = fl. ca. 120 ce, noted for his Ars Grammatica and commentaries on canonical poets such as Virgil and Plautus. Probus = Probus of Beyrut, who flourished ca. 56 ce, a grammaticus of some repute. 30 Cineas (d. ca. 270 bce) was sent by Pyrrhus to Rome and is reported to have memorized the names of every Roman senator after but a single interview. 31 Arboreus is Ausonius’ uncle, recalled also at Par. 3. 32 Aeudan refers to the Aeudi, who inhabited the country between the Saone and Loire in present-day France. 33 A contemporary of Ausonius and a rival for the chair that he, Exuperius, eventually gained. See Green, 354 and Bajoni, 97. 34 Marcellus is a native of Bordeaux but spent most of his life at Narbo. See Green, 355. 35 Poems 19 (to Sedatus) and 20 (to Staphylius) are not translated here. Poem 21 is addressed to Crispus and Urbicus, who seem to have taught both Latin and Greek in Bordeaux, though after Ausonius had been trained there. See Bajoni, 101. 36 Poem 22, to Victorius, is not translated here. Poem 23 is to Dynamius, who taught rhetoric in Spain and was a friend of Ausonius. 37 Lerida = a town in eastern Spain.

79

ON BIS SULA

Ausonius to Paulus Finally at last, dear Paulus,1 though not profane, you are breaking into my muses’ secret places, which the obscurity of the Mysteries veiled; for although I don’t count you among the common crowd, which Horace2 keeps out, still, to each god his own sacred rites: to Ceres3 not the same as to Liber,4 even by the same worshippers. The rough and imperfect little poems—the comfort of light domestic verse, which I had composed on my young protégée, to go unnoticed and enjoy hidden oblivion—you have wished to bring from darkness into light. Indeed, you stripped me of the protection of my modesty, or as much of it as there is in your authority over me. You have surpassed the persistence of Alexander of Macedonia, who, when he could not loosen the knot, cut the straps of the fatal yoke5 and penetrated the cave of the Pythoness6 on a day it was sacrilege to attain. So enjoy them as if they were yours, with an equal right but not with the same confidence; since, indeed, yours can venture into public; at mine, I blush even in private. Farewell.

I. Praefatio As you wished, Paulus, you have all my poems on Bissula, in which I’ve indulged, in honor of a Swabian girl, more to enliven my idleness than for acclaim. You tedious pest: read these tedious poems; you must consume what you sought—the old adage says: Let the smith himself wear the shackles he has made.

II. To the reader of this little book You who will read this book of inelegant poems, stop frowning— 80

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ponder serious poems with a furrowed brow: I follow Thymele.7 Bissula will be praised in this sketch. Like Cratinus,8 5 (I warn you) drink before you read, I don’t write for the abstinent; after a few cups whoever reads this will get wise to me. But he’ll be wiser if he sleeps and believes these are dreams sent to him.

III. Where Bissula was born and how she came into her master’s hands Bissula—begotten and raised across the chilly Rhine, Bissula familiar with the Danube’s source, a captive slave, but freed, she dominates— the delight of him whose war-booty she was. Without a mother, lacking a nurse, she doesn’t know a mistress’s authority, she rules the house herself, feels no shame for her condition and country— freed right away, without suffering servitude: she’s changed by Roman comforts only so far that she remains German in face, blue eyes, gold hair— language and looks make the girl almost both: one makes her Roman, one daughter of the Rhine.

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IV. On the same Bissula My plaything, love, delight, desire, pleasure, foreign, but fostered by us, you who surpass Roman girls, Bissula—for a delicate girl a rough name, raw to the unaccustomed ear, but charming to your master.

V. To the painter, on Bissula’s portrait Bissula, inimitable in wax or paint, can’t fit natural beauty to artificial form. Depict other girls with vermilion and white-lead paint: your hand can’t capture her face with a mixture, painter; go pour together red roses blended with lilies, that the color of air be in her very face. 81

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VI. To a painter on painting Bissula’s portrait If you’re thinking, painter, of painting my dearest girl, may your art aspire to copy Cecropian bees.9

Notes 1 Paulus = Axius Paulus, the poet’s close friend, to whom Epis. 2–8 are addressed. 2 Horace = Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 bce–8 bce), the esteemed Roman lyric poet. 3 Ceres = the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain, and fertility. 4 Liber = Bacchus, the god of wine and drama. 5 The fatal yoke = the Gordian knot. Famously, Alexander cut the knot, the untying of which would indicate mastery of Asia. 6 Pythoness = the cave of the Pythia, that is, the Delphic oracle. Alexander wished to consult the oracle before beginning his Persian campaign but arrived on a day when the Pythia, the oracular priestess, was not available. He thus dragged her into the temple in order to glean the divine information he desired. 7 Thymele = a celebrated Greek dancer mentioned by Juvenal (1.36; 8.197) and Martial (1.5, 5). 8 Cratinus = a stereotypical drunk in ancient literature, on which see Green, 516, s.v. v. 5. 9 “Cecropian” = Cecrops, the first mythical king of Athens. On Mt. Hymettus, near to Athens, bees seek flowers of all colors.

82

A NUP TIAL CENTO

The poet’s letter to Paulus:1 Read this also, if it’s worth your time: a trifling work of no value, which neither work nor diligence polished, without keenness of thought or perfection of extensive time spent. They who first toyed with this composition call it a cento. It’s an occupation which you can ridicule rather than praise, of collecting random pieces, only from memory, and making them into one, for which, if he came upon such trifles at an auction, neither would Afranius2 pay peanuts nor would Plautus3 give the least bit, for it affronts the greatness of Virgil’s poetry4 that his work be dishonored by being taken lightly; but what could I do? It was commanded . . .

The nuptial dinner5 The awaited day had come: and at the noble wedding matrons and men, youths under their parent’s eye, convene and recline on purple covering; servants bring water for their hands, load baskets with gifts from Ceres’6 labor, bear the cooked meats of fat game—a long succession of foods: all kinds of flesh and fowl, she-goats; and then there is no lack of sheep or playful kids, no lack of fruits of the sea, does, timid stags: ripe fruits before their eyes and in their hands. When hunger is sated, the urgent craving to eat, they set up great wine-bowls, serve wine, and sing hymns, stamp their feet dancing, also chanting songs. A Thracian priest in a long robe accompanies, on seven notes their voices’ varied tones, and from another side a double pipe 83

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gives music. For all, a rest from labors. They all rise, the table deserted: over the festive threshold, the crowding people—fathers, matrons, boys— scatter and mix, remix, and spread their voices through the big hall: from the gold-fretted ceiling lanterns hang.

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Description of the bride coming forth Venus’s rightful protégée comes forth at last, now fit for marriage, at full age to be wed, bearing a virgin’s look and dress; a blush gives her a glow—spreads on her heated cheeks— turning eager eyes, thrills onlookers. All the young, gathered from house and field, and the crowd of matrons admire her. The bright tread of her first step had loosened her hair to the winds. She wears clothes embroidered with threads of gold, garb such as Argive Helen’s,7 and as much gold as Venus wears when seen before the gods; such was her beauty; she moved as gracefully to her father-in-law and sat supported near him on the high seat.

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Description of the bridegroom coming forth But from the high room’s other side came the young man, face showing his beardless youth adorned with a gilt-stitched cloak around which ran a wide Meliboean purple8 hem with a double pattern and a tunic his mother had trimmed with supple gold: godlike in face and shoulders and eyes of youth. Like Lucifer9 when, drenched with the ocean waves, he lifted his sacred face to heaven: he carried his head and gaze—and reached the threshold, dazzled: Love stirs in him, and he fixes his eyes on the bride; and grasping her right hand, he steals a kiss.

The presenting of gifts The boys enter and under their parents’ eyes bring presents, a mantle stiff with gold embroidery; 84

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carrying coins of ivory and gold as gifts— a chair, a veil stitched with yellow acanthus, a great silver plate for the table, a pearl necklace— a crown doubled in weight with gems and gold. A slave is given, twin sons at her breast, to him; four youths; and as many girls, unmarried: all with hair shorn as is the custom; above the breast on the neck a pliant chain of twisted gold.

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Epithalamium sung to both Then the matrons, crowding and eager, lead them to the door, but also a group of boys and maidens amuse them with rough-edged verse and sing these songs: “Bride, pleasing wife, joined to a worthy man, be blest, a mother surviving your first childbirth, take cups of Lydian wine. Scatter nuts, circle these altars with chaste bride-wreaths, bridegroom, flower and virtue of ancient heroes. For such worth you take a wife, to pass every year with you and make you the father of noble offspring. Be happy, both, as the holy gods allow, live joyously. Joined with those strong divinities, on their ordaining spindle, the Fates have said: Go forth.”

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Entry into the bedchamber When they reached the lofty stone-roofed room, at last they enjoy the talk that’s finally allowed. Meeting, they join right hands and lie on the bed. But Venus with Juno, patroness of brides, arouses new arts and moves them to unknown contests. When he caresses her with gentle embrace, and feels the quick heat of the nuptial bed, he says: “O virgin, new sight to me, most pleasing bride, you’ve come at last, my delayed and one desire. O sweet wife, without the power of gods, these things don’t come: will you fight against even lawful love?” For long she’s still, turned from him speaking thus, and delays with fear and dreads the approaching blow, and pours forth words between both hope and fear: 85

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“By you, for the parents that bore you such, o fine youth, I ask you, solace my weakness one night—no more— and pity my prayer. I’m overwhelmed. My tongue fails, normal strength leaves my body; voice—words—fail.” But he: “A futile cause you frame in vain,” and all delays he casts away, and dismisses her shame.

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A digression10 Thus far I’ve veiled the account of wedding-night mysteries from chaste ears, in circumlocution and evasion. Since indeed the wedding occasion loves Fescennian11 song and the familiar fun of an old custom permits wantonness of words, the remaining secrets of the marriage bed will be published, selected by this same author such that I doubly blush to render Vergil shameless. You, if you like, can put here and now an end to your reading. Leave the remainder for the curious.

Conclusion12 Be content, my Paulus with this lustful page: I expect you to laugh, nothing more. But when you read, be with me against those who as Juvenal says, “feign Curius’s moderation and live a Bacchanal,”13 lest maybe they see my habits in my poem. “My page is lewd, my life upright,” as Martial14 says, but let them, however learned, recall the lascivious rating of his poems given to Pliny,15 man virtuous in morals; Sulpicia’s16 little work so wanton as to furrow the brow; in life Apuleius a philosopher, in his epigrams a lover; strictness shows in Cicero’s precepts, while in letters to Caerellia17 lewdness lurks; the Symposium of Plato holds verse for youths; for what do I say of Annianus’s Fescennian poems,18 the books (erotic) of the old poet Laevius?19 Evenus20 whom Menander21 called wise? Menander himself? All comic poets, whose life is harsh, books light? Even Maro, called chaste in modesty, who, when he told, in the Aeneid VIII, the union of Venus and Vulcan “decently” mingled obscenity? In the Georgics III on cattle-breeding didn’t he veil lewd meaning under a decent version of the words? And if the sternness displayed by some men censures anything in my light verse, let it know it comes from Vergil; so whoever doesn’t like it let him not read it, or when he’s read, forget it, or if he can’t forget, it’s an actual wedding tale. Like it or not, these rites are nothing but true.

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Notes 1 This is an excerpt of a longer letter the poet sent to Axius Paulus, a close friend, to whom he also sent the cento proper. The remainder of the letter contains much self-deprecation and a definition of the cento, including metrical details and an epic simile comparing the cento to a puzzle. 2 Afranius = a writer of fabulae togatae who flourished in the first century bce. 3 Plautus = Titus Maccius Plautus (255–185 bce), the Roman comic poet. 4 The reference to Virgil underscores the fact that the cento’s lines are full verses, half-verses, and phrases taken verbatim from the works of Virgil, mostly the Aeneid. 5 As he often does, Ausonius composed a preface to this poem, not translated here, but written in cento form and addressed to Gratian and his father, Valentinian I, who had asked the poet to submit a cento, alongside one of Valentinian’s own, in a contest. The preface is an eleven-line salute to their military feats and future. 6 Ceres = see ‘On Bissula’, n. 3. 7 One of the epithets of Helen. 8 Meliboea, in Thessaly, was famous for the ostrum, a fish used in dyeing fabrics purple. 9 Lucifer = the Morning Star. 10 This brief prose digression is in rhetorical terms a parecbasis, whose function is to soften the bad effect if something to follow. See Evelyn White, 387, n. 1. 11 Fescennia, an Etruscan city. 12 I translate selections from this part of the poem, which is in prose, and follows the imminutio, the seduction scene of the wedding night [D. W.]. 13 This refers to Juvenal, Satires 2.3. 14 Martial = Marcus Valerius Martialis, fl. ca. 40–100 ce, a Roman epigrammatical poet. 15 Pliny = Pliny the Younger, 61–ca. 113 ce, a Roman magistrate and epistolographer. 16 Sulpicia = a Roman poet who flourished in the last quarter of the first century ce, she is praised by Martial. Two lines of her poetry survive in a scholium to Juvenal. 17 It does not seem to be the case that Caerellia was courted by Cicero, the famous Roman politician, intellectual, and philosopher (106–44 bce), though this tradition persists, not least here. 18 Annianus = a fragmentary author, on whom see Green, 525, s.v. vv. 9–10. 19 Laevius = a Roman poet, otherwise unknown, who flourished ca. 80 bce. 20 Evenus = there are several writers so named; on them and their possible relationship to Menander, see Green, 525, s.v. v. 11. 21 Menander = a Greek comic poet (342–291 bce).

87

CUPID CRUCIFIE D

Preface From Ausonius to my dear “son”:1 Have you ever seen a picture painted on a wall? You’ve certainly seen one and remember it. Naturally this painted picture in Zoilus’s2 dining room in Treves:3 lovesick women fix Cupid to a cross—not women of our time, who sin of their own free will, but those heroines who excuse themselves and blame God—some of whom our Virgil lists in the Fields of Mourning. I admired this painting for its beauty and subject. Afterwards I translated my dazzled admiration into the ineptitude of my poetry: except for the title, nothing pleases me; still, I send you my meanderings. We love our own warts and scars and, not content to fail alone in our defects, we seek that they be loved by others. But why do I defend this little poem so zealously? I’m sure you’ll like whatever you know is mine: this I hope more than that you praise it. Farewell, and remember your “father” affectionately.

Cupid crucified In heaven’s fields, which Virgil’s muse describes, where a myrtle grove conceals distracted lovers, heroines held their rituals—and each one bore her mark of her long ago death— wandering through vast woods in grudging light, 5 through reedy goat’s-beard, heavy flowering poppy, and silent, still lakes and unmurmuring streams whose flowers sigh through banks in misty light, mourning the names of youths and kings of old: gazing Narcissus;4 Oebalus’ Hyacinth;5 10 gold-haired Crocus;6 Adonis,7 purple-dyed; 88

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Ajax of Salamis,8 limned with tragic pain. All the griefs that spur sad memories after death, with tears, sorrowing loves call heroines back again to their lost lives: 15 pregnant Semele,9 deceived, moans in birth and destroys a burning cradle, and brandishes the fire of a thunderbolt. Mourning her worthless gift, Caenis10 grieves—changed back to her former shape, having been pleased with her gender as a man. Procris,11 stabbed, is tending to her wounds 20 and even now loves Caephalus’s deadly hand. The girl at Sestus12 goes headlong from the tower bearing her smoking clay lamp; and mannish Sappho, who’d die from the barbs of love for a man of Lesbos, threatens to leap to death from cloud-wrapped Leucas.13 25 Sad Eriphyle shuns Harmonia’s necklace, doomed by her son,14 unlucky in her marriage; the whole tale also of Minos’s lofty Crete15 flickers, a faint image of a depicted scene: Pasiphae16 follows the tracks of the snow-white bull; deserted Ariadne holds the ball of threads, 30 in her hand;17 regretful Phaedra recalls her tablet18 left behind. One bears a noose, one the sham of a vain crown; it shames the third to enter and hide in Daedalus’s heifer. Laodamia19 laments two stolen nights of doomed delights 35 with dead and living lovers; in another place others, fierce with drawn swords, Thisbe,20 Canace,21 and Tyrian Dido22 loom: one bears her husband’s sword, the second her father’s, the third her guest’s. And horned Luna, with torch and starry crown, 40 strays as once over Latmos’ rocks, having pursued the sleeping Endymion.23 A hundred others dwelling on love’s old wounds re-live the torments with sweet and gloomy plaints. Between them reckless Cupid on rattling wings 45 has scattered the shadows of black fog. All of them knew the boy and, memory returning, saw their common offender, though the damp clouds obscured his belt gleaming with golden studs and his quiver and the flame of his bright red torch. 50 They recognize him, though, and try to vent 89

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their vain force on their one foe—met in a place not his own where he’d wield wings ineffective in thick gloom—and they press him as a swarm: they pull him trembling and vainly seeking refuge into their mass, mid-throng. A myrtle is chosen, familiar in that sad grove, loathed as the gods’ revenge— with this, once, spurned Proserpine tortured Adonis who thought of Venus. Hanged on its high branch, chained, hands behind his back, feet bound, they grant the weeping Cupid no lesser sentence. Love, accused, is condemned with no trial or judge. Each, eager to absolve herself of blame, shifts her own guilt into another’s crime. All, blaming him, argue the indications for his justifiable killing. They consider their attack a sweet vengeance that seeks to redress their grief each in the way she was ruined. One holds a noose; one shows the false spectre of a sword; another a rough cliff, ghost-river, threat of the ocean, a sea though calm in its depths, raging: some brandish flames and wield torches hissing flameless. Myrrha24 opens her full womb—hurls at the trembling boy her tears shining as amber drops of a weeping tree. A few intend mere mockeries but in the guise of pardons, so a sharp shaft under his pierced skin can draw out tender blood from which the anemone springs25 or their lamps move wanton lights toward the boy. Even Venus herself, his mother, guilty of similar sin, enters this fray unafraid. Not rushing to plead for her surrounded son, she redoubles his terror and kindles their wavering rage with bitter goads, and blames her own disgrace on her son’s crimes, since she suffered the hidden chains— caught with Mars; since for her shame at her child, the stigma of Priapus from the Hellespont26 was mocked; and Eryx,27 cruel, and Hermaphroditus28 only half-man. Words weren’t enough: with her red wreath Venus beat the boy, suffering and fearing worse; she pressed red dew from his body struck with repeated blows, roses fastened together, already red, drew blood more fiery red. 90

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The fierce threats died away, the punishment having seemed now greater than his own offenses, and Venus about to become the offender. The heroines themselves intervene and each prefers to blame her own death on cruel Fate. Then the fond mother gives thanks at their having withdrawn their grievances and forgiven her boy and pardoned his crimes. And then such visions in nocturnal shapes upset his sleep, disturbed by empty terror, which Cupid, having suffered most of the night— the fog of sleep at last dispelled—flees, leaves the ivory gate and flies up to the gods.29

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Notes 1 The “son” in question is Gregorius Proculus, who was with Ausonius in Trier, on whom see Green, 243–244. 2 An otherwise unknown figure. 3 Treves = Trier, the German city situated on the Moselle River. 4 Narcissus = the figure loved by Echo who fell in love with his own reflection and wasted away from lovesickness. 5 Hycanith = the son of Oebalus, he was loved by Apollo and by Zephyrus, but returned only the affection of the former, for which reason the latter killed him with a discus. A flower grew where his body fell. 6 Crocus = a youth was turned into a saffron plant. 7 Adonis = the figure beloved of Venus who was killed by a wild boar sent out of jealousy by Mars (or Diana) and made into a flower by Venus. 8 Ajax of Salamis = the so-called “great Ajax,” who contended with Odysseus for the arms of Achilles and lost, after which he was grief stricken and, in one version of his story, commits suicide. The blood from his tomb was said to give life to a flower. 9 Semele = the figure who was tricked by Hera into asking Zeus to reveal his full divinity to her, after which she died, though not before giving birth to Bacchus, who later brought her from Hades to Olympus. 10 Caenis = the figure who was raped by Poseidon, then changed into a man, after which the Fates changed her back into a woman. 11 Procris = the figure who hid in some thickets to spy on her husband, Caephalus, and was accidentally shot with an arrow by him. 12 The girl at Sestos = Hero, whose light guided her lover, Leander, across the Hellespont at night. One night the light went out and Leander was lost. 13 Leucas = Lefkada, a cliff-scarred island in the Ionian Sea. 14 Eriphyle = the figure who plotted against her husband under the influence of a bribe, the necklace of Harmonia. Alcmaeon, her son, later killed Eriphyle. 15 Minos = King Minos of Crete, whose daughters’ sad histories here follow. 16 Pasiphae = the figure who fell in love with a bull after being hexed by Poseidon.

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17 Ariadne = the figure who used a ball of thread to guide Theseus from the Labyrinth but was deserted by him later. 18 Phaedra = the figure who married Theseus but fell hopelessly in love with Hippolytus, after which she killed herself. Phaedra falsely accused Hippolytus of rape on the tablets mentioned here. 19 Laodamia = the figure whose husband, Protesilaus, died at Troy after being married to Laudamia for a single day. She was permitted by the gods to see him one final time after his death—thus the “two stolen nights” mentioned here, one referring to the marriage night, the other to the night on which the couple met for one final time. 20 Thisbe = the figure who killed herself after her husband Pyramus killed himself, thinking her dead. 21 Canace = the figure who lived incestuously with her brother and bore him a son, whom her father ordered her to kill. 22 Dido = the queen of Carthage who killed herself after her guest, Aeneas, whom she loved passionately, left her to sail for Italy. 23 Endymion = the beloved of Luna who was condemned by Jupiter to eternal sleep for daring to fall in love with Juno. 24 Myrrha was turned into a myrrh-tree, whose tears are drops of myrrh. 25 The anemone flower sprang from Adonis’ blood. 26 Priapus = the god of procreation, a fact made clear by the form he takes. 27 The son of Venus and Butes, he challenged guests to boxing matches and killed them. 28 Hermaphroditus = see “The Epigrams,” n. 79. 29 False dreams arrive through the ivory gate, since ivory is akin to the teeth of the mouth that speaks falsely; true dreams arrive through the gate of horn, since horn, like the eye, is translucent.

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WORKS CITED

Bajoni, M. G., ed. and trans. D. Magno Ausonio Professori a Bordeaux. Florence: Firenze, 1996. Byrne, Sr. Marie José. Prolegomena to an Edition of the Works of Decimus Magnus Ausonius. New York: Columbia University Press, 1916. Combeaud, B., ed. Ausonius, Opuscula Omnia, Œuvres Completes. Bordeaux: Mollat, 2010. Evelyn White, H. G., trans. Ausonius. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1919. Green, R. P. H., ed. and comm. The Works of Ausonius. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. —— . Decimi Magni Ausonii Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Kay, N. M., ed. Ausonius: Epigrams. London: Bloomsbury, 2001. Kenny, E. J. “Ausonius Restitutus.” Classical Review n.s. 42 (1992): 311–312. Pastorino, A., ed. Opere di Decimo Magno Ausonio. Turin: Unione Tipografica Editrice, 1971. Peiper, R., ed. Decimi Magni Ausonii Burdigalensis Opuscula. Leipzig: Teubner, 1886. Prete, S., ed. Decimi Ausonii Burdigalensis Opuscula. Leipzig: Teubner, 1978. Pucci, J. “Ausonius the Centaur: A Reading of the First Preface.” New England Classical Journal 27.3 (2000): 121–130. ——. “Ausonius’ Ephemeris and the Hermeneumata Tradition.” Classical Philology 104 (2009): 50–68. ——. “Ausonius on the Lyre: De Bissula and the Traditions of Latin Lyric.” In Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity. Eds. S. McGill and J. Pucci. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2016, pp. 111–131. Reeve, M. D. “Review of S. Prete, ed., Decimi Ausonii Burdigalensis Opuscula (Leipzig, 1978).” Gnomon 52 (1980): 444. Reynolds L. D. and Marshall, P. K. Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, pp. 26–27. Walde, C. and Egger, B., eds. Brills New Pauly: The Reception of Classical Literature. Trans. D. Smart and M. H. Wibier. Leiden and Boston, MA: BRILL, 2012.

93

INDEX

Page numbers in the format 3n4 refer to page and note number. Within the poems themselves, page numbers are formatted either as page:line (e.g.78:13) or page:part:line (e.g.25:2:7). anonymous circulation of works 13 Antisthenes 45:46:1 Apollo 24:214, 39:23:8, 40:26:1, 57:105:2, 61n93, 70:4:10, 70:4:11 Apuleis 86 Arborius, Aemilius Magnus (uncle of Ausonius) 3, 75:16:1 Arcadia 36:5:4 archetype manuscripts 14 Archilochian meter 12 Archimedes 26:303 Argonauts 60n43 Ariadne 89:30 Aristides 28:387 Aristotle 7 Armorican people 73:10:28 Arsinoë 27:314 Asclepiadean meter 12 Athena [Pallas] 40:26:1, 42:33:2, 49:64:1 Athens 9, 28:387, 68:2:8, 82n10 Atreus 77:21:18 Atturrus [Adour], River 30:467 Augustine 2 Augustus 24:211, 40:26:5, 41:28:4, 41:29:1, 42:31:7 Ausonius (father) 3–4, 6, 7, 75:16:5 see also Epicedion in Patrem Ausonius (grandson) 6 Ausonius (son) 3, 6 Ausonius, Decimus Magnus: affair 5, 11; autobiographical sketches

Abydos 26:287 Achilles 41:26:16 Actium, Battle of 24:212 Ad Patrem de Suscepto Filio 6 Adonis 46:48:6, 46:49:2, 49:62:8, 88:11 Aemilia Aeonia (mother of Ausonius) 3, 7 Aeneas 46:55:2, 60n44 Aenid (Virgil) 12, 60n44, 61n85, 87n4 Aeudi 75:16:7 Afranius 52:79:4, 83 Aganippe 30:447 Agathocles, King 35:2:1 Ajax of Salamis 89:12 Akindynos 47:57:1, 48:55:1 Alans 65:8:18 Alcides [Hercules] 45:46:2, 46:47:3, 52:79:3 Alcon, Doctor 52:80:3, 52:81:1 Alethius, Latinus Alcimus 68:2:1 Alexander of Macedonia 80 Alexandria 33n52 Alisontia [Alsitz], River 28:369 Ambrose 2 Ammianus Marcellinus 2 Ammon 55:95:3 Ammonius 73:10:33 Amyclas 75:15:6 Anastasius 73:10:43 Androgynus 51:76:12 Annianus 86

94

I ndex

selection and translation of 16; text of poem 83–86 Ceres 80, 83:16 Chalcedon 26:290 children (Ausonius’) 3–4, 6, 7 Chrestos 47:57:1, 48:55:1 Christianity 1–2, 6, 10, 13, 16 Cicero 42:33:11, 86 Cineas 75:15:12 Cinyras 49:62:8 Circe 26:277 Citarius 74:13:1 Clarentius 76:18:5 Clarius 40:26:11 Claudian 2 Claudius (uncle of Ausonius) 7 Cleanthes 75:15:10 Combeaud, B. 18n28 Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium [Prof.]: autobiographical content 17n1; dating 11; genealogical information 5; historical context 7; manuscripts 14; Minervius 17n4; mixed meters 14; selection and translation, principles of 16; text of poem 67–78 Concordius 73:10:18 Constans 2 Constantine 1, 19:11 Constantine II 2 Constantinople 9, 76:16:14 Constantius III 2 consulship 4, 5, 8 Corydon 46:50:2 Council of Constantinople 1 Council of Nicaea 1 Cratinus 81:II:5 Crete 89:28 Crispus 77:21:1 Crocus 88:11 Cumae 24:210, 27:345, 32n35, 33n46 Cupid 12, 24:212, 54:90:1 Cupido Cruciatus [Cup. cruc.]: dating 12; historical context 5, 8; literary and poetic context 12; selection and translation, principles of 16; text of poem 88–91 Cynics 45:46:1, 46:47:2

17n1, 75:16:1; children 3–4, 6; consulship 4, 5, 8; death 2, 4; honorifics 4; legal career 3; marriage 3–4; parents and early life 3–4; reputation in own time 13; as teacher 2, 3, 4, 15, 17n5 Avernus 24:216 Axona [Aisne], River 30:461 Bacchus 19:25, 23:153, 24:208, 46:48:1, 46:49:2, 60n53, 82n4 Baiae 27:346 Bajoni, M. G. 78n5, 78n8, 78n10, 78n12, 78n13, 79n15, 79n19, 79n21, 79n33, 79n35 Belenus 69:4:8 bilingual works 10, 11 Bingen, Battle of 31n4 Bissula 5, 11 Bissula [Bis.]: historical context 5, 8; literary and poetic context 11–12; mixed meters 14; selection and translation of 16; text of poem 80–82 Boeotian straits 26:276 Bordeaux 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 19:18 Brandes, W. 14 Byrne, Sr. M. J. 17n5 Caenis 51:76:9, 89:18 Caephalus 89:21 Caerellia 86 Caesares [Caes.] 9, 14 Calagurris 67:1:7 Campanian Beneventum 51:76:13 Canace 39:23:14, 89:37 Cannae, Battle of 31n4 Capaneus 38:18:1 Carantonus [Charente], River 30:463 Carolingian period 13 Castor 49:66:1, 52:78:1 Catallus 5, 11, 15 Cato 28:386 Cecrops 81:VI:2 Celbis [Kyll], River 28:358, 28:360 cento genre 12, 87n5 Cento Nuptialis [Cen. Nupt.]: historical context 8; literary and poetic context 12; manuscripts 14;

95

I ndex

Daedalus 26:300, 50:70:1, 89:34 Dalmatius 76:17:10 Danube [Istria], River 21:107, 29:424, 41:28:1, 42:31:1 Daphne 57:104:1, 57:105:1 daughter (Ausonius’) 3–4, 6 De Herediolo 6 Delphidius, Attius Tiro 78n12 Demosthenes 68:1:19 Diana 47:56:6 Dido 39:23:13, 89:38 Dinochares 26:312 Diocletian 1 Diodorus 52:80:1 Diogenes 46:47:4 Dione 54:91:2 Dionysus 46:48:4, 46:49:3 Dis 36:4:7 Drahonus [Thron], River 28:364 Druentia [Durance], River 31:479 Druna [Drome], River 31:479 Dumnissus 31n6 Duranius [Dordogne], River 30:465 Dynamius 77:23:2

17n6; circulation in Middle Ages 13; dating 10–11; historical context 5, 7; literary and poetic context 10–11; manuscripts 14; mixed meters 14; most conventional of the work 15; selection and translation, principles of 16; text of poems 35–58 epigrams 5 Epistulae [Epist.]: Ad Patrem de Suscepto Filio 6; autobiographical content 17n1; genre 15; historical context 5, 9–10; Pater Ad Filium 6 Epitaphia Heroum qui Bello Troico Interfuerunt [Epit.] 7 epitaphs 5, 7 Eriphyle 89:26 Ermenrich 13 Erubeis [Ruwer], River 28:358 Eryx 90:87 Euboea 24:215, 26:300, 27:346 Euchrotia 11 Euphorbus 51:77:1 Euromius (son-in-law) 4, 7 Evenus 86 experimental poetry 8 Exuperius 76:17:1

Echo 56:101:1 Eclogae [Ecl.] 5, 7–8 Egger, B. 18nn25–27 ekphrasis 12 elegiacs: Ad Patrem de Suscepto Filio 6; Biss. 12; Caes. 9; De Herediolo 6; Ecl. 7; Eph. 11; Epicedion in Patrem 6; Epit. 7; Fasti 8; Par. 7; Praef. Var. 5; privileging of elegiac couplets 14; Prof. 11 elogia 6 encomia 10 Endymion 66n1, 89:42 Ephemeris [Eph.]: dating 11; genre 15; historical context 5; literary and poetic context 11, 12; Oratio omitted 16; as response to Hermeneutmata 17n17; selection and translation, principles of 16; text of poem 62–66 Ephesus 26:308 Epicedion in Patrem 3, 6 Epicureans 40:25:6 Epigrammata [Epig.]: autobiographical content 17n1,

Fasti 8–9 Fescennia 86 Four Books of the Gospels (Juvencus) 2 Ganymede 49:62:9 Garumna [Garonne], River 23:160, 31:483 Gataean [Getes] people 40:26:7 Gaurus, Mount 23:157, 24:209 genealogical information 5, 7, 75:16:1 generic assessments of poetry 4, 5 generic hybridity 4, 10, 15 generic markers 15 Genethliacos 6 Georgics 10 Gesta Treverorum 13 Glaucus of Anthedon 26:276 Glycera 44:39:1 Gordian knot 82n5 Goths 41:28:10 grandchildren (Ausonius’) 6, 7 Gratian 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 41:30:1, 87n5

96

I ndex

Gratiarum Actio [Grat. Act.] 5, 8, 17n1 Greco-Roman poetic tradition 15–16 Greek influences 7, 8, 9, 11, 15 Greek language 15 Green, R. P. H. 1, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 17n10, 17n11, 17n17, 18n21, 18n24–25, 18n28, 31n3, 31n4, 33n50, 60n75, 66n5, 66n8, 78n11, 79n15, 79n19, 79n21, 79n24, 79n25, 79n33, 79n34, 82n9, 87n20, 91n1 Gregorius Proculus 91n1 Griphus Ternarii Numeri [Griph.] 5, 8

Icarus 26:301 Ictinus 26:309 Idmon 44:41:7 Iliad 59n38 Illyricum 21:106, 41:28:1 Ismarus, Mount 23:159 Isocrates 78n4 Istria [Danube], River 21:107, 29:424, 41:28:1, 42:31:1 Jachmann, K. 14 Jerome 2, 78n5 Jove 42:33:2, 49:62:9, 52:81:1 Jovian 2 Jucundus 72:9:1 Julian 1, 2, 69:2:19 Julius (uncle of Ausonius) 7 Julius Caesar 9 Julius Tutor 31n4 Juno 85:83 Jupiter 49:66:4 Juvenal 82n8, 86 Juvencus 1–2, 15

Hannibal 31n4 Harmonia 89:26 Helen 49:66:1, 84:33 Heliogabalus 9 Helle 26:288 Hellespont 32n43, 33n44, 90:86 hendecasyllabics 5 Herculanus 74:11:1 Hercules [Alcides] 45:46:2, 46:47:3, 52:79:3 Hermaphroditus 51:76:11, 56:102:2, 90:87 Hermeneumata 11, 17n17 Hermione 55:96:1 Hero 91n12 Hesperius (son of Ausonius) 3, 4, 6 Hesperus 23:193 hexameters: Biss. 12; Caes. 9; Cup. cruc. 12; Ecl. 7; Eph. 11; Epit. 7; Fasti 8; Genethliacos 6; Griph. 8; Mosella [Mos.] 10; Ord. Urb. Nob. 9; Versus Paschales 6; Pater Ad Filium 6; Precationes Variae 8; privileging of dactylic hexameter 14; Protrepticus ad Nepotem 6 Hilary of Poitiers 2 Hippolytus 44:41:2, 59n12 Homer 12, 15, 33n66, 77:21:18 Horace 11, 80 Hyacinth 88:10 Hylas 55:95:1, 56:97:1 Hyperion 24:222

Kay, N.M. 58n2, 58n7, 59n40, 60n53, 60n59, 60n75, 61n91, 61n94, 61n96 Kenney, E. J. 18n29 Lachesis 69:3:5 lacunosity 66n5 Ladenburg 29:423 Laevius 86 Lais 43:37:1, 44:39:1, 49:65:1 Laodamia 89:34 Latin language 15 Latium 24:214 laudes Italiae 10 Leander 26:287 Leda 49:66:3 lemmas 6 Lemnia 52:79:3 Leontius 71:7:1 Lerida 77:23:4 Lesbia 11, 46:51:1, 62:1:23 see also Sappho Lesbos 59n16, 89:24 Lesura [Lieser], River 28:364 Leucas [Lefkada] 24:215, 89:25 Liber 46:48:5, 80 see also Bacchus

iambics 9, 11 Iapyx 44:41:7

97

I ndex

Moselle, River 31n1 Muses 28:391, 30:444, 35:1:5, 39:23:8, 40:26:11, 46:51:2, 47:55:2, 68:2:6, 73:10:42, 80 Mylae, Battle of 24:216 Myron 43:48:1, 50:68:1, 50:69:4, 50:70:3, 50:71:1 Myrrha 90:72 Mysian people 46:48:3, 46:49:1

Liger [Loire], River 30:461 Lives of the Caesars (Suetonius) 9 Lucanaicus 46:48:7 Lucifer 84:52 Lucilius, Gaius Ennius 52:77:9 Luciolus 69:3:1 Ludus Septem Sapientum 9 Lycus 55:95:2 Macrinus 72:10:11 Macrobius 2 Mantua 28:374 manuscripts 13–14 Marcellus 76:18:1 Marcus Terentius Varro 26:306 Maro 86 marriage (Ausonius’) 3 Mars 45:45:4, 49:67:5, 90:85 Marshall, P. K. 18n30 Martial 11, 82n8, 86 Matrona [Marne], River 30:461 Maximus 2, 4, 6, 9 Meliboea 84:49 Memphis 27:331 Menander 86 Menecrates 26:307 Mercury 42:33:6, 56:102:1 Metanoia 42:33:13 metrical choices 14–15 see also specific meters Middle Ages 13, 14 migration 2–3 Minerva 26:309, 40:25:5, 47:55:3, 50:72:1 Minervius 3, 67:1, 70:6:1 Minos 89:28 models, other authors using Ausonius as 13 Monosticha de aerumnis Herculis 14 monosyllabic line endings 9 Mosella [Mos.]: autobiographical content 30:438; circulation in Middle Ages 13; dating 10; generic hybridity 15; historical context 8; individual rather than in collections 5; literary and poetic context 10; manuscripts 14; most conventional of the work 15; selection and translation of 15–16; text of poem 19–31

Naiads 21:82, 56:97:4, 56:98:1 Narbo 76:17:9, 76:18:4 Narcissus 56:99:1, 56:101:1, 88:10 Nava [Nahe], River 31n2–33 Neckar, River 29:423 Nemesa [Nims], River 28:354 Nemesianus 15 Nemesis 28:378, 45:42:2, 49:66:3 Nephele 26:288 Nepotianus 75:15:4 Neptune 21:80 Nereids 23:175 Nestor 44:40:5, 77:21:22 New Pauly (C. Walde and B. Egger) 18nn25–27 Nile, River 42:31:8, 44:41:10 Niobe 49:63:2 Noiomagus 31n10 Nola 52:79:5 nymphs 23:172, 23:183 obituaries 6 Octavian 32n33 Odysseus of Doulichion 77:21:20 Oebalus 88:10 Ogyge people 46:48:1 Oratio omitted 66n3 Ordo Urbium Nobilium [Ord. Urb. Nob.] 9, 16, 17n2 Oreads 23:176 Osiris 46:48:2, 46:49:1 Ovid 51:76:8 Paean 57:104:1 paganism 1 Pallas [Athena] 40:26:1, 42:33:2, 49:64:1 Pangaeus Hills 23:158 Pannonia 42:31:4 Panope 23:175

98

I ndex

Praefationes Variae [Praef. Var.] 5, 17n1 Praxiteles 49:63:2, 49:67:2 prayers 6, 8 Precationes Variae 8 Prete, S. 14, 18n28, 18n31 Priapus 90:86 Proba 2, 12 Probus 75:15:11 Procris 89:20 Proculus Gregorius 35:1:9 Professors of Bordeaux [Prof.] see Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium [Prof.] Promea [Prüm], River 28:354 prose prefaces: Biss. 80; Cen. Nupt. 83; Cup. cruc. 12; Epicedion in Patrem 6; Epit. 7; Griph. 8; Par. 7; Protrepticus ad Nepotem 6; Technopaegnion 9 Proserpine 90:58 Prosopopoeia 58n1 Protesilaus 44:41:5 Protrepticus ad Nepotem 6 Prudentius 2 Pucci, J. 17n1, 17n17, 18n20 Pythagoras 51:77:1 Pythoness 80

Paphian 54:92:1, 55:96:3 parechasis 87n10 Parentalia [Par.]: autobiographical content 17n1; death of wife 17n6; genealogical information 5; historical context 7; manuscripts 14; mixed meters 14, 17n10; reference to uncle 79n31 parents (Ausonius’) 3–4 Pasiphaë 50:70:2, 50:73:2, 89:29 Pastor (grandson of Ausonius) 7 Pastorino, A. 18n28 Pater Ad Filium 6 Patera, Attius 69:4:2 Paul the Deacon 13 Paulinus of Nola 2, 10 Paulus, Axius 80, 83, 86 Peiper, R. 14, 17 Pelops (Aristotle) 7 Pelorus [Punta del Faro] 24:219 pentametric translations 17 Persephone 49:62:8 Petronius Probus 10 Phaedra 39:23:13, 89:31 Phanaces 46:48:3, 46:49:1 Phaon 39:23:14 Phegeus 55:95:1 Phideas 42:33:1 Philo of Athens 26:303 Phlegethon, River 57:106:20 Phoebicus 73:10:23 Phoebus 70:4:11 Phrygia 31n14 Phyllis 39:23:14 Pierian Spring 46:51:2 Piso 68:1:33 Pitana 45:43:4 Plato 86 Plautus, Titus Maccius 83 plays 9 Pleisthenes 77:21:18 Pliny 51:76:12, 86 Poitiers 58n9, 73:10:48 politics 2–3 Pollux 49:66:1 Polygiton 57:106:1 Pompey 24:217 Pomponius (brother-in-law of Ausonius) 7 population displacements 2–3

quatrains 9 Quintilian, Marcus Fabius 29:405, 67:1:2, 67:1:17 Reeve, M. D. 18n29, 18n31 religion 1–2, 6, 10, 13, 16 Remus 45:45:4 Renaissance 13, 14 Reynolds, L. D. 18n30, 18n32 Rhine, River 29:416, 29:417, 29:428, 41:28:8, 81:III:1 Rhodanus [Rhone], River 31:481 Rhodope, Mount 23:157 “riddles” 8 Roman calendar 8 Romulus 45:45:4 Saar, River 21:91 Sabina, Attusia Lucana (wife) 3, 4, 7, 44:40:1, 47:53:4, 47:54:4, 47:55:4 Sallustius, Flavius 69:2:21

99

I ndex

Salmacis 56:103:1 Salmacis fountain 51:76:11 Salmona [Salm], River 28:365 Samos 35:2:2 Santonic land 30:464 Sapphics 11, 62:1:21 Sappho 46:51:1, 59n16, 66n2, 89:23 Saravus [Saar], River 28:366 Sarmatian people 31n8, 40:26:9 satyrs 23:171, 23:183 Scaurus 75:15:11 Scythian sea 42:31:6 Sedatus 79n35 Seeck, O. 14 selection and translation, principles of 15–17 Semele 89:16 Sestos 26:288 Sextilius Felix 31n4 Silvae (Statius) 10 Silvius Bonus 57:107:1, 58:108:1 Simois, River 28:375 Sirius 59n34 Smyrna 28:374 Sosias 63:4:9, 63:5:8, 64:6:1 Spartans 45:43:8, 45:44:1 Staphylius 79n35 Statius 10 Stoics 40:25:6, 75:15:10 Strabo, Walahfrid 13 stylistic range 15 Sucurus 72:10:14 Suetonius 9 Sulpicia 86 Sura [Sauer], River 27:353, 28:355 Swabians 41:28:7, 42:31:3, 80:1:2 Sybil 32n32 Sybil of Cumae 44:40:6 Syracuse Wars 26:305 Tabernae 31n7 Tarbelli 30:467, 75:16:8 Tarn, River 30:466 taxes 3 Technopaegnion 9 Thalassus 74:12:1 Thalassus (son-in-law of Ausonius) 4 thematic assessments of poetry 4, 5 Theocritus 15 Theodosius 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Thethys 26:281

Thisbe 89:37 Thrace 23:159 Thrasybulus 45:43:2 Thymele 81:II:4 Tiber, River 28:376, 28:379 time keeping 8 Tiresias 51:76:10 Titian Law 55:92:5 Toulouse 75:16:1, 76:17:1 translations 7, 16–17 Trier [Treves] 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 88 trochaic setenarii 7–8 trochaic tetrameters 12 Trojan War 7 Troy 28:375, 44:41:6 Tyndareus 49:66:4 Urbicus 77:21:10 V, Leiden, Voss. Lat. F. 111 (ms.) 13–14 Valens 2 Valentinian I 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 41:28:1, 87n5 Valentinian II 4, 10, 41:29:1 Vallebona 51:76:1 Varro, Marcus Terentius 26:306 Venice 13, 14 Venus 24:211, 32n28, 39:22:2, 39:23:1, 40:25:4, 46:55:3, 47:56:3, 47:56:7, 49:64:3, 49:65:2, 49:67:1, 56:102:1, 61n87, 84:33, 85:83, 90:59, 90:88, 90:94, 91n7 verse prefaces 12 Versus Paschales 6 Vespasian 31n4 Vesuvius 24:209 Victorius 79n36 Vincum 31n3 Virgil 2, 10, 12, 15, 28:374, 77:21:8, 83, 86, 88 Vivisci 30:438 Vulcan 27:338 Walde, C. 18nn25–27 White, E. 17, 33n50, 66n6, 87n10 Xerxes, King 26:289 Z (manuscript) 14 Zoilus 88

100