Appendix Vergiliana
The appendix Vergiliana ( Latin "appendix to Virgil") is a corpus of poems attributed to Virgil in the tradition . Most of them are certainly not from Virgil, some like Culex (see below) seem to be pseudepigraphs deliberately imposed on the poet . The scope of the corpus grew with time, so Virgil is already in the 1st century of Lucan , Statius and Martial of Culex and of Quintilian the second epigram of Catalepton attributed to Aelius Donatus called in his Virgil Vita also Priapea , Dirae and Ciris , Servius then also Aetna and Copa . Other texts were added in the Middle Ages. Today the authenticity of individual poems of the Catalepton is still being discussed in isolated cases , all other texts are considered to be false.
The catalepton
The title, which has long been misunderstood as Catalecton or Catalecta , derives from ancient Greek κατὰ λεπτόν ( katá leptón ), to λεπτότης ( leptótēs ): "lightness"; it means something like "little things". What is meant are poems in the new style (style) of the Roman neoterics , based on the Alexandrian model, which strives for lightness and elegance .
The tradition offers 18 short poems under this title, which can be divided into three Priapea , 14 epigrams and a final poem ( Sphragis ) attributing the Virgil Collection . Some poems are trivial, others elegant, such as Epigram X, a play on Catullus' poem IV, which in turn found imitators; Catullus' influence can also be observed elsewhere. Epigrams V (refusal to study rhetoric and turn to the Epicurean philosophy of Siros ) and VIII (to the Siros estate) are sometimes considered genuine today . If the collection is believed to be authentic, dates vary between 43 and 19 BC. Chr .; otherwise the date of origin is assumed to be the last quarter of the 1st century AD.
The other poems
In addition to the catalepton , today's editions of the text corpus contain the following poems:
- Aetna ("The Etna "), a didactic poem about volcanism , probably dates from the time of Emperor Nero . Modern research ascribes it in part to Seneca's friend Lucilius (cf. his letter no. 79).
- Ciris , a small epos ( Epyllion ) in 541 hexameter about Skylla that their homeland Megara betrays and for (ground in a seabird ciris ) is transformed. Dating uncertain.
- Culex ("The Mosquito"), partly parodic Epyllion , in which a mosquito slain by a shepherd appears to him in a dream and tells of the underworld. Probably dated from the time of Tiberius .
- Copa ("The Landlady"), poem about a Syrian landlady who wants to lure guests into her pub with her dance.
-
Dirae (“Curses”) and Lydia , two poems that have been merged in tradition and date from the early imperial era.
- The Dirae curse the poet's expropriated estate; the similarity with his Eclogues I and IX may have led to the attribution to Virgil .
- Lydia (modern makeshift title) is the elegiac lament of a lover separated from his lover Lydia.
- Elegiae in Maecenatem , two elegies merged in the manuscripts on the death of Maecenas . Dating uncertain.
- Moretum (“The herb cheese”), poem about the beginning of the daily routine of an Italian farmer from getting up to setting off to work in the fields, named after the herbal cheese or rather herbal quark that he prepares as a snack. Probably dated to the middle to late 1st century BC. The beginning and end show features of a parodic epyllion , the middle part is a didactic poem .
- Quid hoc novi est? (“What's the new?”), Another Priapeum .
- De institutione viri boni , De est et non , De rosis nascentibus , three late poems that are also attributed to Ausonius .
Editions, translations and commentaries
- Wendell Vernon Clausen et al. a. (Ed.): Appendix Vergiliana . 5th edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1987, ISBN 0-19-814648-5 . ( Valid critical text edition )
- George Patrick Goold (Ed.): Virgil, Aeneid VII-XII, Appendix Vergiliana. With an English translation by HR Fairclough, revised by GPG Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2000.
- Cornelis van der Graaf (Ed.): The Dirae. With translation, commentary and an investigation of its authorship . Brill, Leiden 1945.
- Johannes Götte / Maria Götte (ed.): Country life. Catalepton, Bucolica, Georgica . Latin and German. 6th completely revised and improved edition. Artemis & Winkler, Zurich 1995. ( Contains text and translation of the Catalepton with detailed commentary )
- Grazia Maria Iodice u. a. (Ed.): Appendix Vergiliana. Mondadori, Milan 2002. ( With Italian translation and commentary on all pieces )
- Will Richter (Ed.): Aetna . Latin and German. de Gruyter, Berlin 1963, DNB 450030652 .
- Armando Salvatore u. a. (Ed.): Appendix Vergiliana . Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Rome 1997.
- Hendrik Schoonhoven (Ed.): Elegiae in Maecenatem. Prolegomena, text and commentary . Bouma's Boekhuis, Groningen 1980.
- Sabine Seelentag (Ed.): The pseudo-Gilian culex. Text, translation, comment . Steiner, Stuttgart 2012.
literature
- Karl Büchner : P. Vergilius Maro, the poet of the Romans . (RE article). Special print: Druckermüller, Stuttgart 1956, column 42–160.
- Dorothee Gall : On the technique of allusion and quotation in Roman poetry. Virgil, Gallus and the "Ciris" . Beck, Munich 1999.
- Niklas Holzberg (Ed.): The "Appendix Vergiliana". Pseudepigraphs in a literary context . Narr, Tübingen 2005 ( Classica Monacensia No. 30).
- Nina Mindt: make Virgil a mosquito. To the culex of the appendix Vergiliana . In: Atene e Roma 5 (2011), pp. 19–37.
- Irene Peirano: The rhetoric of the Roman fake. Latin pseudepigrapha in context . Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 2012.
- Kai Rupprecht: Cinis omnia fiat. On the poetological relationship between the pseudo-Virgilian 'Dirae' and the Bucolica Virgils . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007.
- Walter Schmid : Virgil problems . Kümmerle, Göppingen 1983.
- Markus Stachon: Tractavi monumentum aere perennius. Investigations on Virgilic and Ovid Pseudepigraphs . WVT, Trier 2014.
- Article in Der Neue Pauly (DNP). Encyclopedia of Antiquity. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1996 ff .: Appendix Vergiliana , Aetna , Catalepton , Ciris , Culex , Dirae , Elegiae in Maecenatem , Moretum .