LATIN SATURNIAN EPICS

Abstract

The book under review is a balanced and comprehensive critical edition, commentary and translation of the surviving fragments of Livius Andronicus’ Odusia and Gnaeus Naevius’ Bellum Punicum. Revised from a dissertation completed at the Université de Lausanne in 2017, V.’s volume is a timely publication. Republican Latin literature has received significant attention in recent years, with new editions and studies of the fragments of Roman Republican historiography, oratory, satire, drama and epic recentring the skeletal remains of these corpora. This volume is a welcome addition to the scholarly landscape. The present review can hardly do justice to a book of this scale, but it is safe to say that any reader of these poems will want V.’s work within reach. V.’s primary concerns are the tumults of transmission and the linguistic stratigraphy of Latin’s first two works of epic verse. He sets out to establish a text of the fragments that differs from those of recent editions. His target is not the ‘original’ words composed by Andronicus or Naevius. Rather, V. works to print an accurate text of the authors who have transmitted the fragments: ‘Il s’agit plutôt d’établir le texte des fragments tels que les ont cités les auteurs qui les transmettent’ (p. 19). That said, in the notes V. does discuss the leading conjectures for the language likely to have appeared in the third-century autographs (whatever form they actually took). Perhaps surprising for an edition of Saturnian poetry, V. does not tackle the metre. Is the so-called Saturnian a quantitative or accentual system? Neither? Both? After some discussion, V. declines to use an unknown to elucidate additional unknowns, although he expresses hope that his text will help future scholars to reassess the topic. Many will surely consider this decision to be justified, whilst some may be disappointed that V. does not adjudicate the matter; the occasional considerations of metri causa issues in the introduction (esp. pp. 86–91) and notes will have to suffice. The book is informed by a reasoned scepticism concerning implausible variants, wild conjectures and faulty editorial practice. The attention given to transmission and quoting contexts often elevates the transparency and usefulness of V.’s printed text above earlier editions. Respecting the highly problematic nature of the material, V. also allows intractable disputes to remain unresolved after thorough discussion (e.g. p. 170 and p. 289). Although the book has its sights trained principally upon matters of textual criticism and linguistics, V. has many things to say about the literary and cultural historical topics at the heart of these revolutionary works. At times, V. even engages with more speculative proposals concerning plot and technique (see for example his comments on Atlas and Africa at pp. 245–6). In a review of the last commentary to be published on Naevius’ Bellum Punicum (CR 68 [2016], 400–2) I lamented that that edition fell short of satisfying contemporary