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Suetonius' Dedication to Septicius Clarus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The recent revival of scholarly interest in Suetonius provides a good occasion to emend a long-standing crux in Joannes Lydus' description (De Mag. 2.6) of Suetonius' dedication of his Vitae Caesarum to his friend the praetorian prefect Septicius Clarus. The codex unicus Caseolinus (Parisinus suppl. gr. 257, s. X/XI) has Τράγκυλλος τοίνυν τοὺς τ⋯ν Καισάων βίους ⋯ν γράμμασιν † ⋯ποτίνων † Σεπτικίῳ, ὃς ἦν ὓπαρχος τ⋯ν πραιτωριαν⋯ν σπειρ⋯ν ⋯πì αὐτο⋯. The conjectures ⋯ποτείνων by J. D. Fuss and ὑποτείνων by I. Bekker do little to improve the sense, and although W. Kroll's προτείνων gives the meaning required by the context (cf. Aristophanes, Plut. 1019), προ- would not easily have been misread as ⋯πο-.
For ⋯ποτίνων read ⋯νατείνων. For parallels compare BGU ii (1898), 613.3–4 'Ανέτινα ( = 'Ανέτεινα) βιβλ[ίδι]α τῷ λαμπροτάτῳ [⋯γεμόνι] in a papyrus from the reign of Antoninus Pius cited by LSJ, and several other passages, most of which I owe to the supplement to Preisigke and Kiessling's Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden and to Dr Francisco R. Adrados of the Diccionario Griego-Español: Sammelbuch x (1971), 10527.5–7 ['Ανέτε]ινά σοι, κ[ύριε,]…⋯ναφόρ[ιον… of a.d. 152–3, P. Fouad iii (1939), 26.5–10 (cf. Sammelbuch v (1934), 8252.5–10) Οὗ ⋯νέτινάσυ ( = ⋯νέτεινά σοι)τῷ κυρίῳ βιβλιδίου…⋯ντίγραφον ὑπέταξα of a.d. 157–9, P. Oslo. iii (1936), 80.21 οὗ ⋯νέτιναν (read ⋯νέτειναν) βιβλιδί[ου…written sometime after March 7, a.d. 161, Sammelbuch iv (1931) 7472.3 'Ανέτεινά [σοι, κύριε ⋯πίτροπε, βιβλείδιον of a.d. 164, Sammelbuch vi.3 (1961) 9339.24–7 (cf. a second copy in P. Fouad iii (1939) 13.5–7) οὗ ⋯νετείναμεν τῷ [κρατίσῳ ⋯τρχιερεῖ Oὐ]λπίῳ Σερηνιανῷ βιβλιδίου…[…⋯] ντίγραφον ὑπετάξαμεν from a.d. 178 or a little later, P. Mich. xii (1971) 616.13–14 τ⋯ δίκαιά μου βιβλειδίῳ ⋯νγράψασ ⋯νέτεινα Νεμεσιανῷ ὅπωσ τα[⋯]τα διαπέμψηται[τῷ ⋯]πιτρόπῳ from ca. a.d. 182, P. Cornell 14.2–4 οὗ ⋯νέτει[να τῷ κρατίστῳ ⋯πιστρ]ατηγῷ Κλαυδίῳ [Ξενοφ⋯ντι βιβλδίο]υ from a.d. 180–92, Wilcken, Chrestomathie (1912) 461.3–5 О[ὗ ⋯νέ]τεινα τῷ λαμπροτάτῳ [⋯γεμόνΚ]υίντω[ι] Μαικίωι λαιτίωι βιβλιδίου…⋯ντίγραφον ὑ[ποτάξασ] from the beginning of the third century, and Sammelbuch v (1934), 8246.3–4 αἱ συνηγερούμεναι λιβέλλον ⋯νέτιναν (= ⋯νέτιναν) ⋯π⋯ τ⋯ν ἔπαρχον (the author should have written ⋯παρχικ⋯ν) ⋯ξουσίαν from a.d. 340.
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References
1 As exemplified by the recent publication of Baldwin, B.'s Suetonius (Amsterdam, 1983)Google Scholar and Wallace-Hadrill, A.'s Suetonius, The Scholar and his Caesars (London, 1983)Google Scholar.
2 The codex has the two slight errors τράκυλλος and σεπτιμίῳ, which were corrected by I. Bekker and K. L. Roth, respectively.
3 Lydus, Joannes, De Magistratibus Reipublicae Romanae Libri Tres (Leiden, 1812), ad locGoogle Scholar.
4 Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae 31, Ioannes Lydus (Bonn, 1837), ad locGoogle Scholar.
5 Wünsch, Apud R. [ed.], Ioannis Lydi de Magistratibus Populi Romani Libri Tres (Leipzig, 1903), ad locGoogle Scholar.
6 In 1926 W. L. Westermann and C. J. Kraemer, Jr. published lines 2–4 of this papyrus as
Eitrem, S. and Amundsen, L. in P. Oslo, iii (1936), 80.21 n.Google Scholar, and Kraemer, and Lewis, N., TAPhA 68 (1937), 382Google Scholar, realised that the last 8 letters of line 2 represent οὗ ⋯νέτει[να. The supplement -να at the beginning of line 3 thus reduces the gap to 8–10 letters, which I have filled with κρατίστῳ, which is virtually certain, for we learn from line 14 that the papyrus was addressed τῷ κρατίστῳ ⋯πιστρατηγῷ.
7 ThLL v.2 (1939), 1418.29–40Google Scholar, s.v. exhibeo, where similar passages in later Latin authors are also cited.
8 Cf. how Statius uses trado and mittitur in the dedicatory epistles prefixed to Siluae 2 and 3.
9 It is a pleasure to thank Dr Adrados for generously providing references for the usage of ⋯νατείνω, and the editors of CQ for helpful comments on this note,