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The Thyestes of Varivs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. E. Housman
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge

Extract

One day towards the end of the eighth century the scribe of cod. Paris. Lat. 7530, a miscellany to which we owe the carmen de figuris (anth. Lat. Ries. 485, P. L. M. Baehr. III pp. 273–85), began to copy out for us, on the 28th leaf of the MS, the Thyestes of Varius. He transcribed the title and the prefatory note, which run thus: INCIPIT THVESTA VARII. Lucius Varius cognomento Rufus Thyesten tragoediam (traged … cod.) magna cura absolutam (absoluto cod.) post Actiacam uictoriam Augusti (aug … cod.) ludis eius in scaena edidit, pro qua fabula sestertium deciens accepit. Then he changed his mind: he proceeded with a list of the notae employed by Probus and Aristarchus, and the masterpiece of Roman tragedy has rejoined its author in the shades.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1917

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References

page 44 note 1 In Seruius' notes on these passages Varus occurs 14 times and is never corrupted in any of Thilo's MSS to Varius: Varius occurs 5 times and is always corrupted to Varus in one or more MSS; and that though Seruius is inculcating the distinction.

page 45 note 1 Mr Garrod, when the fit is on him, thinks it likely that carmina aliqua means the most famous of Latin tragedies; and ‘in support of this view’ (p. 210) he cites the story of Donatus and Seruius that the Thyestes, though published under Varius' name, was composed by Virgil. In support of this view? Yes, so Mr Garrod says: these passages ‘furnish evidence that at an early date the ascription of the Thyestes to Varius was called in question’; and therefore it is likely that the carmina aliqua ascribed to Alfenus Varna were the Thyestes.

page 47 note 1 Mr Garrod admits this, but says, as if by way of defence, ‘we have already seen reason to suppose that in Vergil's first arrangement of the Eclogues it stood last’. We have seen it at p. 213: Philargyrius on VIII 6 says that Virgil speaks of Gallus in the last eclogue, ‘ultima ode’; and Mr Garrod, finding nothing about Gallus in the tenth eclogue, supposes that Philargyrius must have meant the eighth, in which I find a good deal less about Gallus.

ego sedulo hunc dixisse credo; uerum itast: quot homines tot sententiae: suos cuique mos.