Fescennine verses
Fescennine verses ( Latin Fescennini versus ) are ancient wedding poems which, in contrast to the Epithalamium, are characterized by exuberance up to coarseness, obscenity and obscenity. The poems were often improvised and preferred the Saturnian meter.
Examples of the genre have survived in the works of Catullus (which deal with the groom's homosexual relationships) and Claudius Claudianus in his wedding poem Fescennina dicta Honorio Augusto et Mariae on the occasion of the wedding of the Western Roman Emperor Honorius and Maria, daughter of the Stilicho .
The origin of the name remains unclear. It is possible to derive the name from the Faliscian city of Fescennia in southern Etruria , but there is no justification for it. A derivation of Fascinum , the often phallus-shaped amulet, seems more plausible, but is linguistically impossible.
literature
- Edward Courtney: Fescennini versus. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 4, Metzler, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-476-01474-6 , column 483.
- Georg Wissowa : Fescennini versus. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VI, 2, Stuttgart 1909, Col. 2222 f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Catullus carmina 61 , 119ff
- ↑ Livy 7: 2 , 7 ; Horace letters 2,1,145ff. ; Paulus Diaconus epitoma Festi 85f
- ↑ See Paulus Diaconus epitoma Festi 76