Notes
[’So take heart, Florus, and cheer up; this is how you can win even the long race.᾽] AP [Pollianus] 11.128.5–6; on this ironic epigram as addressed to our Florus—his poetic career derailed by an arbitrary princeps who denied him victory in the Capitoline games of 90 CE (Flor. Verg. 1.3–4)—see Morelli (1916) 103–5.
I thank Jacqueline Fabre-Serris and Florence Klein for editorial guidance with a challenging piece and Dictynna’s two anonymous referees for detailed, valuable comments and suggestions. I am grateful to John Henderson for feedback on an earlier version and for his generous encouragement.
[‘I don’t want to be Caesar, to stroll around among the Britons, <to skulk about among…>, to endure the Scythian frosts.’] Flor. Carm. 1 = SHA Hadr. 16.3 (Germanos Roesinger, Achiuos Costa; Floro poetae scribenti ad se: Ego nolo Caesar … rescripsit: Ego nolo Florus esse | ambulare per tabernas, | latitare per popinas | culices pati rotundos [‘To the poet Florus writing to him, “I don’t want to be Caesar…”, he wrote back, “I don’t want to be Florus, to stroll around among the taverns, to skulk about among the cook shops, to endure great round gnats.”’] Usually dated to after 122 CE, when Hadrian travelled to Britain; cf. Benario (1980) ad loc., Baldwin (1988) 138, and Bessone (1990) 105. With ambulare per Britannos compare Florus’ own lustro populos aquilone pallentes 2.2. The emperor’s culices, beyond merely ribbing Florus’ ‘flea-bit’ lifestyle, could also nod to the pseudo-Virgilian Culex, and so wink at amateur poetic productions or performances (however ‘polished’, rotundos): we might see Florus the critic doing the rounds of the recitatio circuit, or even hearing student recitals of juvenilia. The assumption here, as in my previous article, is that this poet Florus is also author of Vergilius orator an poeta and of the Epitome; cf. Hudson (2023) n.4; also, in brief, Courtney (1993) 381–2.
Woody Guthrie, ‘The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done’.
[‘How can new lands avail you? What good is visiting cities and sites? All your running about ends up pointless.’] Sen. Ep. 28.2.
Once again, I follow here the Latin text of Rocchi (2020a), with some minor changes, taking into account Jal (1967), Malcovati (1972), Havas (1997), and Verweij (2015).
The inquiry seems like casual small talk, but note the mannered pleonasm, quae tamen loca quasue regiones peragrasti?, wryly advertising Florus’ own embellished travelog (which he caps with his own echoing flourish, uides, hospes, quae spatia caeli peragrauerim, quae maris quaeue terrarum 2.4, on which more below; cf. Florus’ gently self-deflating narrative transition immediately after he concludes his declamatory trip (hic cum ego respirassem, statim Baeticus, ‘o’ inquit… 3.l). See Hudson (2023) for the immediately previous section of dialogue.
priorum recordabor ~ quid nunc antiqua recordor | damna mei generis? timor hic meminisse priorum | non sinit [‘Why do I now recall my people’s ancient losses? This fear does not permit me to remember former ills’] Ov. Met. 15.774–6 (Venus looking back with difficulty to Aeneas’ plight as she bemoans Caesar’s impending death). On the wound of exile in Ovid, and Florus, see Di Giovine (2020) 49.
Cf. Hudson (2023) n. 6 on the dialogue’s first words and the supplement otium (Damsté; capienti without object in Malcovati (1972)).
Orator: with breuiter exponam Cicero famously will (not) condense Verres’ villainy (Ver. 1.1.16, 2.2.134), retail his shocking ‘findings’ to the people (Catil. 3.3), and painstakingly account for his departure and return (Phil. 1.1, 1.7), etc.; poeta: sed si tantus amor [~ si ita indulges otio 2.1] casus cognoscere nostros | et breuiter [= A. 2–3!] Troiae supremum audire laborem [‘but if such is your desire to learn of our ruin and in brief to hear of Troy’s final suffering’] (A. 2.10–11). His (rare) initial phrasing hints at over-indulgence, as Seneca warns (doctor’s advice for the ailing): ne indulgeas otio, ad quod uergit iners ualetudo [‘that you not indulge in idleness, to which inactive ill-health inclines’] (Ep. 78.5). The pattern plane quam breuiter is strange and unattested; perhaps perquam breuiter (Cic. De Orat. 2.201)? Yet plane is a recurring stylistic tic in the Epitome.
Esp., Lucr. 3.1053–74, Hor. Ep. 1.11, Sen. Ep. 28, Dial 9 (De tranq. anim.).2.13–14; cf. Dial. 8 (De otio).1.2. See, e.g., on Epistle 1.11, La Penna (1956) 196–201, and Montiglio (2006), on travel in Seneca.
[‘they change their climate, not their mind, who rush across the sea’].
Aeneas commanding a change of course in the face of foul weather (flecte uiam uelis A. 5.28) perhaps also lurks behind Florus’ phrase (and Seneca?). Elsewhere cursum flectere is used of motion by sea: circumflectere cursus Verg. A. 3.430 (rounding Pachynus to avoid Scylla), 5.131 (the turning point for the ship racecourse); in Eoum mare cursus inflectitur [‘the route bends to the Eastern Sea’] Mela 3.59, in Eoum cursus inflectitur Plin. Nat. 6.53. On taedio maris cf. also Servius citing Heraclides (ad Aen. 1.273): Heraclides ait Romen, nobilem captiuam Troianam huc appulisse et taedio maris suasisse sedem, ex cuius nomine urbem uocatam [‘Heraclides says that Rhome, a captive Trojan noblewoman landed here and out of weariness with sea-voyaging urged dwelling there; the city was called after her name’]. Florus is perhaps inserting this lesser-known Roman foundation story into his own mock-mythic ‘settlement’ in Tarraco. With par ille niuibus Alpinis Pyrenaeus Florus (procul a patria) gazes at a westward ‘update’ to Virgil’s Alpinas, a! dura niues et frigora Rheni | … uides [‘you, ah! harsh one, look on Alpine snows and the Rhine’s rime’] Ecl. 10.47–8 (Gallus to migrant Lycoris). By contrast, the Punic War’s storm (in Hannibal form) rushes right over high Alpine snows at Epit. 1.22.9 (medias perfregit Alpes et in Italiam ab illis fabulosae altitudinis niuibus uelut caelo missa descendit [‘it broke through the midst of the Alps and descended onto Italy from those snows of famed loftiness as if cast from heaven’]); cf. 1.38.11. Perhaps a joke on Horace’s an Lebedum laudas odio maris … [‘or do you praise Lebedus because of aversion to the sea …?’]: Tarraco has become Florus’ stopgap (his ‘Lebedus’).
His island-hopping (2.1–2) resembles, if anything, Mela’s ‘appendix’ on Mediterranean isles (2.97–126; cf. 3.46–58), slotted in as an excursus from the work’s periplus, and temporarily abandoning the conceit of a narrative journey (but moving roughly from east to west).
E.g., no simple road trip such as: Via Aurelia > Via Iulia Augusta > Via Agrippa towards Lugdunum, then back to Via Domitia > Via Augusta.
faciam quod solent qui terrarum situs pingunt: in breui quasi tabella totam eius imaginem amplectar [‘I shall do as those who depict the layout of the earth: I’ll encompass its entire likeness in a slender map, so to speak’]. It is no coincidence that Florus’ own rhetoric in the preface appears to rework that of an actual geographer: qua re, cum, si quid aliud, hoc quoque operae pretium sit cognoscere, tamen, quia ipsa sibi obstat magnitudo rerumque diuersitas aciem intentionis abrumpit [‘therefore, although if anything else, this too is worth the effort to comprehend, nevertheless, since its very magnitude is an obstruction and the diversity of the contents interrupts the keenness of the attention’] ~ Orbis situm dicere aggredior, impeditum opus et facundiae minime capax—constat enim fere gentium locorumque nominibus et eorum perplexo satis ordine—uerum aspici tamen cognoscique dignissimum, et quod non ope ingenii orantis, at ipsa sui contemplatione pretium operae attendentium absoluat [‘I am setting out to describe the layout of the world, a difficult task and one hardly accommodating eloquence—for it consists almost entirely of peoples’ and places’ names and their rather intricate sequence—but nevertheless most worthy to be examined and understood, and one which repays the effort of those attending, if not by the resources of the speaker’s skill, yet by the very act of contemplation’] Mela 1.1; cf. Baldwin (1988) 139; also Hudson (2019) on the Florus’ synoptic poetics, and Renda (2020) 29–42 on the Epitome and cartography.
Henderson (1997) 158, ‘No traveller ever reads the same atlas or guidebook, for maps are always territory, we all territorialise even bare lists of names with our own experience and projections, and indeed the associations concretised and fixated around such toponyms both diagram cultural encyclopedias, and space people along the idiosyncratic coordinates they bring to these.’
Also poeticizing: for populos aquilone pallentes, cf. fundat ab extremo flauos Aquilone Suebos | Albis et indomitum Rheni caput [‘let the Elbe and the unconquered source of the Rhine pour forth blond Suebi from the farthest north’] Luc. 2.51–3, or even the exaggeration in Horace’s paraklausithyron Carm. 3.9.1–4 Extremum Tanain si biberes, Lyce | saeuo nupta uiro, me tamen asperas | porrectum ante foris obicere incolis | plorares Aquilonibus [‘If you drank from the far-off Tanais, Lyce, wed to a fierce husband, still you would lament exposing me, sprawled out before your harsh doors, to the native north winds’]; lustro: a Vergilian hexameter-end (2.564, Aeneas scanning to see who’s left [i.e., no one], and 754, groping his way back through the dark; Ecl. 2.12, Corydon desperately tracking Alexis); perhaps even et deus humana lustro sub imagine terras [‘a god in human form I traverse the earth’] Ov. Met. 1.213 (Jupiter reconning human impiety and Lycaon). Florus’ phrasing is unparalleled (and, as Rocchi (2020a) 94 notes, this the earliest use of pallens with populus), but he is clearly adapting a (pejorative) commonplace of ancient ‘airs-waters-places’ theory: given the common meaning of palleo, there is perhaps a derisive joke on peoples ‘turning pale with fright’ at the north wind’. Jal (1967) 119 is dismissive (‘La remarque semble normale, on l’a plusieurs fois noté, sous la plume d’un Africain.’). Florus elsewhere likens the Insubrian Gauls’ (short-lived) bodily courage to their Alpine climate (Alpina corpora umenti caelo educata habent quiddam simile niuibus suis [‘Alpine bodies brought up in a moist climate have a certain resemblance to their own snows’] Epit. 1.20.2; i.e., they melt away). See Facchini Tosi (2005) on ‘geodeterminism’ in the Epitome.
[‘we fly past … the Cyclades strewn across the sea’]. Cycladas salutaui ~ Italiam … salutant A. 3.524 with Horsfall (2006) (‘not a conventional reaction in Virgilian narrative’); cf. prima salutauit Capreas Stat. Silv. 3.2.23 (Maecius Celer’s ship; see Laguna (1992) on this propempticon). Siciliam nobilem: nobilis and nobilitas are notably frequent in Florus’ Epitome of places and people.
The zoomed-in focus on the (Isiac) sistrum evokes Virgil’s single use of the word: regina in mediis patrio uocat agmina sistro [‘the queen in the midst calls her troops with their native sistrum’] (A. 8.696, mortal Cleopatra on A’s shield) and this Egyptian vision quest ultimately set him on the right track (ut ora Nili uiderem 2.2 ~ coram agnoscere … praesentia … ora uidebar [‘openly I seemed to recognize … their faces before me’] A. 3.173–4 (Penates appear to Aeneas in his dream). With Italiam redii (no preposition ~ Baeticam reuertentes 1.1), we cannot fail to hear the Virgilian mantra Italiam petere (A. 1.554, 3.253, 3.364, 10.32, 67); Eussner (1888) 79 even suggests petii for redii, but return seems key both to Florus’ discontent and his literary belatedness; cf. his usage in the Epitome, in each case a kind of homeward return: redisse rursus 1.1(1.3).9 (Alba not destroyed but ‘reincorporated’), redit… rursus 1.5.14 (Cincinnatus, back to his cows). inde rursus is rare, perhaps from Livy (1.33.3, 5.41.5, 22.44.5; cf. inde se rursus Mela 1.6).
[Thrace] > Delos > Crete > [Strophades > Actium > Buthrotum] > Italy (Castrum Minervae) > Sicily > {Carthage > Italy} ~ {Africa > Rome >} Sicily > Crete > Cyclades > Rhodes > Egypt > Italy > Alps > Pyrenees > Tarraco.
Again, the Brutus’ portrait of the orator as a young man reveals its influence. After a sojourn in Athens and travels all through Asia (a me Asia tota peragrata est 315 ~ peragrasti 1.9, peragrauerim 2.4, toto orbe peragrato 2.4), Cicero, still ‘searching’, came to Rhodes: quibus [sc. rhetoribus in Asia] non contentus Rhodum ueni meque ad eundum quem Romae audiueram Molonem adplicaui [‘not content with them I went to Rhodes and attached myself to Molon, whom I had heard in Rome’] 316; cf. Plut. Cic. 4.5–7, whose explanation for Cicero’s trip abroad as a kind of defensive self-exile after displeasing Sulla with the Roscius defense is suggestive for Florus’ flight. See now van den Berg (2021) 20–43 on this miniature autobiography of Cicero. For inde me Rhodos, cf. Cic. Planc. 84 where Cicero snobbily mocks his opponent Laterensis for taking issue with his (apparently well-known?) Rhodian stay, and the rhetorical style associated with it (‘Rhodi enim,’ inquit [sc. Laterensis], ‘ego non fui’—me uolt fuisse—‘sed fui,’ inquit putabam in Vaccaeis [in Hispania Tarraconensis] dicturum—‘bis in Bithynia.’ [‘“For I’ve never been to Rhodes,” he says, meaning that I had. “But,” he says, “I have been”—I thought he was going to say “in Vaccaei country”—“in Bithynia twice.”’). Despite Cicero’s scoff, note the special prestige held by Spanish rhetoricians by the 1st century CE; aside from the obvious Seneca (Corduba, in Baetica) and Quintilian (Calagurris, in Tarraconensis), cf. Sen. Cont. 10.pr.14 on Augustus listening to Gavius Silo in the colonia Tarraconensis and Richardson (2000) esp. 443–5.
E.g., Fam. 2.17.1 (Cicero considering stopping there for the boys’ sake), Fam. 7.3.5 (Cicero to M. Marius in April 46: if the state is truly lost, then he is an exile in no less comfortable a place than if he had transplanted to Rhodes or Mytilene); otherwise, most prominently, Metellus Numidicus (specially known to Florus through his role in the Jugurtha?) and Tiberius.
Plato ‘wandering through’ Egypt (Aegyptum peragrauit Cic. Fin. 5.87, V. Max. 8.7. ext. 3) may also be in the background.
Rocchi (2020a) 90 notes that before Florus the parallel appears only in Lucan (cf. Apul. Mun. 7). Cf. the apparently specific reference to the last words of Book 8: Creten, patriam Tonantis 2.1 ~ atque erit Aegyptus populis fortasse nepotum | tam mendax Magni tumulo quam Creta Tonantis [‘and in the eyes of our descendants Egypt will perhaps be as false about Magnus’ tomb as Crete about the Thunderer’s’] Luc. 8.871–2. (Pompey’s grim death in Egypt representing yet another glimpse of one driven far from home).
Eussner (1888) 79–80 already heard Io uaga (Hor. Ars. 124; cf. peregrinae deae 2.2) and uagus Hercules (Carm. 3.3.9) in uagarer per diuersa terrarum. But there is also mercator … uagus Ars 117 ~ uagus gubernator 2.5.
Tonantis might nod at the crashing Curetes: qualis Berecyntia mater, | dum paruum circa iubet exultare Tonantem | Curetas trepidos [‘like the Berecynthian mother, as she commands the agitated Curetes to dance around the wee Thunderer’] Stat. Theb. 4.789–91; fleat Alciden caerula Crete, | magno tellus cara Tonanti: | centum populi bracchia pulsent. | nunc Curetes, nunc Corybantes | arma Idaea quassate manu [‘let sea-blue Crete weep for Alcides, land dear to the great Thunderer: let its hundred peoples beat their arms. Now, Curetes, now, Corybantes, shake weapons in Idaean hands’] Sen. Her. O. 1874–8.
~ sola fuit Crete fecundo fertilis anno [‘Crete alone was fruitful with abundant produce’] Ov. Am. 3.10.37 (cf. Crete nutrito terra superba Ioue [‘Crete is a land proud of nourishing Jupiter’] 20 and ff. on baby Jupiter). Tonantis therefore also reads as a pointed reference to versions featuring Jupiter’s brutal punishment of Iasion by a thunderbolt (e.g., Hom. Od. 5.125, Apollod. Bibl. 3.12.1; Iasion grows old with her at Ov. Met. 9.421). Fecundam is a Rossbach’s emendation for secundam, based on Avienus’ Periegesis 667–9 (nutrix hic Creta Tonantis, | multa latus, glaebamque ferax et opima uirentum | erigitur pelago [‘here Crete, nurse of the Thunderer, rises from the sea, many-sided, abundant in soil and rich in vegetation’] and Prisc. Periheg. 526–7, followed by most editors (except, now, Verweij 2015 and Rocchi 2020; see the latter’s valuable digest, 86); Rossbach took issue with the pleonasm secundam deinde, though this pattern turns up in historiography and technical prose; but the epithet fecundam would balance nobilem in chiasmus.
And, again, the implicit skip in the travel narrative to Florus’ retirement in Tarraco suggests that this mountainous blockade was in fact successful in forcing him to make a permanent pit stop. The mountain range was said to owe its name to the grim tale of king Bebryx’s daughter Pyrene, raped, lamented, and commemorated by the westward-roving Hercules (Sil. Ital. 3.415–46). The heightened style and anaphora (par horrore, par uertice, par ille niuibus Alpinis Pyrenaeus excepit 2.3) recall the chorus of Trojan women on the uncanny boldness of one who defies death (and the solace it provides): par ille regi, par superis erit [‘this man will be a match for a king, for gods’] Sen. Ag. 609.
Cf. Hudson (2023) n.1 and passim.
Vide Hudson (2023) 19 (/p.11) and n.107.
[‘All this that you see, stranger, where greatest Rome stands’].
Florus is perhaps stealing a page from Horace, who invokes it mock-epically in his lead-in to the mice’s nocturnal journey (S. 2.6.101), a ‘ridiculously grand scene-setting’ (Gowers (2012) 190, likening another lofty nightfall in Horace’s own iter to it); cf. Verg. Ecl. 3.105 (Damoetas’ riddle). Cf. planeque, quod nemo dubitet, orbem terrarum peragrauit [‘and clearly, as no one could doubt, he wandered the world’] Plin. Nat. 30.3.11 (the sage Osthanes).
See above, n.29.
mehercules is in Cic. (who prefers mehercule in the letters), Petronius, Phaedrus, Quint., all over [Quint.] and the Senecas.
[‘just so, if one may compare small things with great’].
[‘thus I used to compare great things with small’]. Florus may be aware of the suggestive identification of Octavian, and of subsequent emperors, with Triptolemus; see further Rocchi (2020b) 243.
[‘if one may use grand examples in a humble case’]. Cf. Ovid’s hyperbolic ‘quid propero? Scythia est, quo mittimur’, inquam [‘“Why do I hasten? It’s Scythia where I’m headed to,” I said’] 1.3.61 (~ si Scythes essem, iam plaustra soluissem 2.5); on the meaning of Ovid’s gloss here of ‘Scythia’ for Tomis, see Williams (1994) 8–12. One more self-comparison may be in the picture: quodsi componere magnis | parua mihi fas est [‘But if it is right for me to compare small things with great’] Met. 5.416–7 (Cyane attempting to prevent Pluto from abducting Proserpina, adducing her own genteel courtship by Anapis).
[‘Now I would long to board the chariot of Triptolemus, who cast the crude seed on unfamiliar ground’]. Jal (1967) 119 compares Stat. Silv. 4.2.35–6 (aetherii felix sic orbita fluxit | Triptolemi [‘thus flowed the fruitful course of stratospheric Triptolemus’]); Rocchi (2020a) 96 notes the Tristia passage (more plausibly). Florus reveals familiarity with Ovid’s treatment of the story at Met. 5.642–61, in which the youth’s transcontinental flightpath (iam super Europen sublimis et Asida terram | uectus erat iuuenis [‘now soaring over Europe and the land of Asia the youth had fared’] 648–9 ~ iuuenis terras peruolitauit 2.4) takes him to king Lyncus in Scythia (Scythicas aduertitur oras [‘he steers toward Scythian regions’] 649 ~ si Scythes essem… 2.5), to whom he (rather goofily) announces his aviation (ueni nec puppe per undas, | nec pede per terras: patuit mihi peruius aether [‘I came neither by ship on waves nor on foot by land: the air lay open for me to pass through’] 653–5 ~ quae spatia caeli peragrauerim, quae maris quaeue terrarum 2.4; cf. medium caeli terraeque per aera uecta est [sc. dea] [‘midway between heaven and earth she rode through the air’] 644); after a failed assassination and attempted theft that sees the king turned into a lynx, Ceres sends Triptolemus back on his way (rursusque per aera iussit | Mopsopium iuuenem sacros agitare iugales [‘and back through the air she commanded the Athenian youth to drive her sacred team’] 660–1 ~ sacer ille iuuenis 2.4). The Latin of Florus’ snake-yoking (cum alite serpente currum ipsa iunxisset 2.4) is odd: perhaps modelled on Ovid with pointed adjustments (geminos dea fertilis angues | curribus admouit [‘the fertile goddess yoked the twin serpents to her chariot’] 642–3), but the more typical construction, with beast specified, is acc. + ad currum (e.g., primus … [sc. leones] Romae ad currum iunxit M. Antonius [‘Mark Antony was the first at Rome to yoke [lions] to a chariot’] Plin. Nat. 8.55). Eussner (1888) 81 also compares frenatos curribus angues | admouit [‘she yoked the bridled serpents to her chariot’] Fast. 4.497.
Peruolitauit: the verb is Lucretian (2.145, 2.346, 6.952); also Verg. A. 8.24, Man. 2.66, 5.65, 87; prefix-less uolitare flies all over the Epitome (noted by Thomé (1881) 3).
[‘as if he could set down his burden’]. For Triptolemus as culture-bringer cf. also Verg. G. 1.19 puer monstrator aratri (~ sacer ille iuuenis 2.4).
uetuit suas redire serpentes ~ si quid [condicionum] displiceat, legatos redire ad se uetuit [‘if any of the terms met with disapproval, he forbade the envoys to come back to him’] Liv. 9.4.5 (Samnite Pontius giving the Romans an ‘offer’ they couldn’t refuse after the Caudine Forks).
E.g., at ego huc declinabam nec inuitus Cic. Leg. 1.57 (Atticus politely acceding to the course of the discussion), itaque feci non inuitus Amic. 4 (Cicero has gladly obliged Atticus’ request that he write on friendship); vs. Cicero’s account of his fraught letting go of tutor Dionysius at the outbreak of civil war (me nihil ab eo ipso inuito contendere … dimisi a me, ut magistrum Ciceronum non libenter, ut hominem ingratum non inuitus [‘that I would not insist on anything from him against his will… I dismissed him from my service, as a teacher for the boys with regret, but as an ungrateful person gladly] Att. 8.10), or his convoluted overtures of attempted kindness to Appius Claudius (non inuita Minerua Fam. 3.1.1). Aeneas’ famous use of the adjective must not be in the background here as well (inuitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi [‘unwillingly, queen, did I withdraw from your shore’] A. 6.460). We mustn’t forget that it was a ‘grudging’ Domitian (inuito… Caesare 1.3) who had stripped Florus of his crown; cf. Hudson (2023) 20 (/p.12) and n.58.
[‘ … (as a result of his failure in the campaign against the Astures and Cantabri, Augustus) was completely at a loss. And, falling ill because of fatigue and worry, he withdrew to Tarraco and remained there in poor health’] Dio 53.25.7.
Sun Ra, ‘Springtime Again’ (Sleeping Beauty, 1979).
liceat ergo tandem fatigato hic aliquando subcumbere 2.5 ~ non uaco somno sed succumbo, et oculos uigilia fatigatos cadentesque in opere detineo [‘I don’t have time for sleep, but I give in to it, and when my eyes are worn out with staying awake and drooping, I keep them at their work’] Sen. Ep. 8.1 (no day of Seneca’s ending with otium); igitur diu multumque fatigati tandem in castellum perueniunt Sal. Jug. 94.3 (Marius’ men at long last, by the luck of the intrepid Ligurian, sneaking into the besieged fortress); and, interestingly, Servius on Io: cui Iuno inmisit oestrum, quo toto orbe [~ nisi toto orbe peragrato 2.4] fatigata tandem aliquando uenit ad Aegyptum, et illic in Isim conuersa est [‘Juno set a gadfly on her; plagued by it the world over, she at last came to Egypt and there transformed into Isis’] ad G. 3.152.
Horace: uagus gubernator ~ mercator … uagus Ars 117; iam dicata pelagi deae prora penderet ~ me tabula sacer | uotiua paries indicat uuida | suspendisse potenti | uestimenta maris deo [‘the sacred wall with its votive offering declares that I have dedicated my dripping clothes to the mighty god of the sea’] Carm. 1.5.13–16; Virgil: prora pependit A. 5.206, sacris in postibus arma pendent 7.183 (these latter two listed by Eussner (1888) 80). Once again, Florus’ ‘vehiculation’ is odd: plaustrum soluere is otherwise unattested. See Hudson (2021) 68–126 on Roman literary plaustra.
quousque uagabimur? 2.5 ~ aside from the obvious quousque tandem abutere…? Cic. Catil. 1.1, ‘quousque eadem?’ Sen. Dial 9 (De tranq. anim.).2.15, concluding the section on the restless relocation (see above).
an semper hospites erimus? 2.5 ~ an semper haec agitatio permanebit? Dial. 5 (De Ira 3).27.4 (otherwise an extremely rare beginning of a non-disjunctive question); I cannot not hear Semper ego auditor tantum? Juv. 1.1. For the question type, cf. the Baetican’s an pater ab Africa subministrat? 3.1.
ferae cubile prospiciunt 2.5 ~ aues… et quietum [~ omnium quae ad quietem eliguntur gratissima est 2.6] requirunt ad pariendum locum et cubilia sibi nidosque construunt [‘birds … both seek out a quiet place to lay eggs and build beds and nests for themselves’] Cic. Nat. 2.129. A coincidence of language at Luc. 4.603 ad somnos non terga ferae praebere cubile | adsuerunt [‘For sleep no beast-skins would make a bed’] (Antaeus sleeping on the ground); aues senescunt in nido 2.5 ~ tu nidum seruas Hor. Ep. 1.10.6 (Fuscus the city-lover)?
Damsté (1912) 146: ‘auctor fragmenti nusquam Romam tamquam patriam suam significare solet, sed disertis verbis utramque distinguit’ and proposes conjectures to split Romam and patriam; but this is intrinsic to Florus’ version of himself speaking with many aims at once.
[‘or if the fates deny return’; ‘but if the fates deny this permission to my wife, I have resolved not to return: rejoice in the death of two’]. Also liceat mihi paupere cultu | securo cara coniuge posse frui [Tib.] 3.3.31–2 (~ liceat ergo tandem fatigato hic aliquando subcumbere 2.5). Cf. sed si fata negent, quam foedum ac triste reuerti! Stat. Ach. 1.549 (Ulysses vowing to seek out and bring back Achilles—if he fails, Calchas is no true seer).
~ hoc mihi contingat Tib. 1.1.49; at mihi contingat patrios celebrare Penates 1.3.33 (vs. the foreign cult of Isis). For an elucidating note on the spelling saltim (vs. saltem), see Rocchi (2020a) 105.
~ calamitatum mollimentum consuetudinem inuenit [sc. natura], cito in familiaritatem [~ familiaritate continua 2.6] grauissima adducens Sen. Dial. (de tranq. an.) 9.10.2 (adduced by Rossbach (1909) 2767–8); as Rocchi (2020a) 105 notes, Florus’ style is close to consuetudinis magna uis est Cic. Tusc. 2.40.
[‘so great is habit in the tender stages’]. Eussner (1888) 81 also remembered (t)his Virgil. Thomas (1988) ad loc. notes the ‘epigrammatic effect’ of the words of 272. Florus could almost be lecturing on the importance of grammatical ‘usage’ as in Quint. Inst. 1.6.16.
I’m straining here (studiously), but I can’t help but catch Quintilian’s quasi-‘continuous’ refrain of continuity in familiaritate continua 2.6 (e.g., continua exercitatione 1. pr.27, continuum laborem 1.3.6, continua exercitatio 2.17.12, continua … meditatio 11.2.28, continua lectio 11.2.34—and the ideal tool of oratio continua [passim] is just one concrete result).
C. Caesar eloquentia et spiritu, ecce iam et consulatu adleuebatur [‘Caesar was distinguished by his eloquence and energy, and soon, lo and behold, by his consulship’]. Also typical of [Quint.]; a twofer in Petronius; five times in Senecan tragedies.
meretrix tantisper blanditur, dum illud quod rapiat uidet Plaut. Men. 193 (Peniculus on Erotium’s interim coaxing—until she can make out what to lift; cf. 626); blandiri is a favorite of [Quint.]’s declamatory world (i.e., even the declaimer’s portrayed figures declaim).
si quid credis mihi 2.6 ~ o, si quid credis mihi, carior | omnibus Trist. 5.4.23–4 (Ovid’s letter itself addresses his most faithful friend back in Rome (cf. the concluding plea, fac modo, constanter profugum tueare: quod ille [sc. Naso] | qui bene te nouit, non rogat, ipsa rogo [‘only see that you constantly protect the exile: what he who knows you well doesn’t ask, I ask’] 49–50; rather like Florus’); si quid credis mihi, intimos adfectus meos tibi cum maxime detego Sen. Ep. 96.2 (Seneca is revealing his deepest thoughts about enduring willingly).
[‘I heard many reports, when I was consul, about the extreme dangers to the state, I made many inquiries, I learned many details’]. Eussner (1888) 82 adduces the Homeric parallel to propose emending to multas cognoui. Florus, I suspect, is playing at challenging the longstanding Romano-Italian chauvinism exhibited (not without a wink) by, for instance, the opening of Varro’s Res Rusticae (uos, qui multas perambulastis terras, ecquam cultiorem Italia uidistis? [‘you, who have traversed many lands, have you seen any more cultivated than Italy?’] R. 1.2.3 ~ ciuitas… quae, si credis mihi qui multa cognoui, omnium quae ad quietem eliguntur gratissima est 2.6); on which see below.
quae ad quietem eliguntur gratissima est, cf. Cicero emphasizing the value of his portrait of lettered leisure at Rep. 1.8 ([the patria did not raise us without expecting some ‘nourishment’ from us in return and such that] tantum modo nostris ipsa commodis seruiens tutum perfugium otio nostro suppeditaret et tranquillum ad quietem locum [‘only serving our convenience it supplied our leisure with a safe refuge and a quiet place for repose’]). Florus’ ‘retreat’ will be a special, updated form of value, in his teaching.
Esp. Dion. Hal. Rhet. 1. 3, 5.5–6, Quint. Inst. 3.7.26–7, and (the later) Men. Rhet. 346–65; cf. Rocchi (2020a) 104.
[‘citizens are an honor to their cities as children are to parents; there are also encomia of places, such as that of Sicily in Cicero, in which we observe beauty and utility alike: beauty in the coasts, plains, and pleasant locales; utility in healthy and fertile regions; the founder has the role of the parent, and age gives much authority; there is also praise of monuments, the focus of which are grandeur, utility, and beauty: grandeur, for instance, in temples’] [Dion. Hal.] Ars. 1.3 is very close: ἐπιέναι χρὴ τὸν ἔπαινον τῆς πόλεως … περὶ θέσεως αὐτῆς, περὶ γενέσεως· ἐν ᾧ τίς ὁ κτίστης θεὸς ἢ ἥρως, καὶ εἴ τι ἔχεις περὶ αὐτοῦ εἰπεῖν· … ὅσα περὶ κόσμου, οἷον ἱερῶν … εἰ δὲ δὴ καὶ μῦθος εἴη λεγόμενός τις περὶ τῆς πόλεως, οὕτω μὲν ἂν καὶ πολλὴν γλυκύτητα ἔχοι ὁ λόγος. [‘you should pursue praise of the city … about its location, about its origin, including its founding god or hero, and whatever else you can say about him … anything about its decoration such as temples … lastly if there is any tale told about the city, the speech would thus gain a great deal of charm’] (cf. Florus sweetly rounding off his mini-panegyric with the Europa story, 2.9); but at 5.5–6 he offers some more locally oriented details: [praise of the city, such as] περὶ παιδείας τῶν ἐνοικούντων [~ 3.6–7] … ἔτι οὗπερ ἂν ᾖ κτίστου, ἀναγκαῖον εἰπεῖν, ἐάν τε θεὸς ἐάν τε ἥρως ᾖ, εἴτ’ οὖν τῶν ἀρχαίων τις εἴτ’ οὖν τῶν ἔναγχος γεγενημένων βασιλέων [‘emperors’]. οἷον κἂν μύθους τινὰς ἔχωμεν προσόντας τῇ πόλει, μηδὲ τούτους παραλιπεῖν [~ 2.9] … κἂν εἴ τινας τιμὰς ἔχοιμεν παρὰ βασιλέων, μηδὲ ταύτας παραλιπεῖν [~ Caesaris uexilla, quae portat, triumphos, unde nomen accepit 2.8] [‘about the education of its citizens … further you should speak of whoever the founder is, whether god or hero, or one of the ancient or recent emperors. For instance, if we have any tales relating to the city, we shouldn’t pass over those … and if we have any honors granted by the emperors, we shouldn’t leave those out’] … cf. also 6, the size of the speaker’s reputation should be used to his speech’s advantage.
Cf. Vell. Pat. 2.119.4 on Varus’ lieutenant Numonius Vala who fundamentally breaks with his past upstanding conduct (cetera quietus ac probus) to set a new precedent for ignominy by deserting his infantry at Teutoburg Forest. For tarde quidem cf. Cic. Att. 11.22.2 and Petr. 9.3.
Verweij (2015) 86 draws attention to G. 2.136–76 (on which see Thomas (1988) ad loc.); Var. R. 1.2.3–7, the speeches of Agrius and Fundanius in praise of Italian cultivation, is also in the background (see Spencer (2010) 73 on the subsumption of local diversity in the latter laudes Italiae). Florus’ own similarly over-the-top panegyric of Campania (Epit. 1.11.3–6) shows his portrait’s transportability (and, of course, his own). Particulariter 2.7 is so particularly Plinian, that Florus may be ever so slightly evoking a ‘paradoxographical’ mode.
Florus’ curious phraseology (notam ueris totus annus imitatur) seems even to wink at his adaptation of the image. His Campania does not ‘spring’ eternal, but still twice per year: nihil mollius caelo: denique bis floribus uernat [‘nothing is softer than its climate: in short, spring with its flowers comes twice a year’] Epit. 1.11.3. Peirano Garrison (2020) 238 also notes uer ubi longum Hor. Carm. 2.6.17 and uer erat aeternum Ov. Met. 1.107. I take Florace as ironically updating one conceit of the ode, a preference for Italian retreats ahead of older, more prestigious Greek ones: sleepy Tarraco can surely hold its own against much-praised Italy (the poem reveals its influence otherwise: the theme of roving 2.6.1–4 and sit modo lasso maris et uiarum 7 [~ taedio maris 2.3]; unde [sc. Tibure] si Parcae prohibent iniquae [~ si fata Romam negant patriam]; ille terrarum [around Tarentum] mihi praeter omnis | angulus ridet 13–14 [~ ciuitas ipsa nobis blanditur, quae… omnium quae ad quietem eliguntur gratissima est 2.6]).
Indeed, it is a feature of the aurea aetas of Met. 1.89–112. In the bluntly concrete terms of Servius (ad G. 2.149), hic ver adsidvvm uerna temperies; nam uer adsiduum esse non potest. We might see Florus’ own indirect articulation (‘the whole year mimics spring’s stamp’) as reflecting this scholastic approach to explicating Virgil.
Interleaved chiasmus accentuates the point: campis … collibus ~ uites … areas; uites adfectat ~ comparat areas. campis et … collibus reflects a ubiquitous pairing: already campos collesque Lucil. 1278; a Lucretian pattern, 4.389, 5.784, 1373; Hor. Ep. 1.3.5; but for terra fertilis campis et magis collibus compare Columella (atque etiam significandum est ex omnibus, quae terra progeneret, plura campo magis quam colle… laetari [‘and it must also be made clear that of all the earth produces, more things flourish in plains than in hills’] 2.2.3), as if Florus is pretending to challenge a truism with his portrait of Tarraco’s preternatural fecundity. This is a poetic prose, as the pointed area makes clear (~ Hor. Carm. 1.1.10).
As it happens, Tarraconese wines holding their own against Italian ones is almost a topos. Jal (1967) 119 notes Plin. Nat. 14.71 (elegantia uero Tarraconensia [sc. uina] … conferuntur Italiae primis), Sil. 3.369–70 (Tarraco … | uitifera et Latio tantum cessura Lyaeo), 15.177 (hospita Tarraco Baccho), Mart. 13.118 (Tarraco, Campano tantum cessura Lyaeo | haec genuit Tuscis aemula uina cadis); cf. Rocchi (2020a) 110.
See above on nec inuitus 2.1. Also compare his own (mock-) modest acknowledgment of the Baetican’s praises (me … uerecunde agnoscentem 1.5).
In this recommendation letter to Brutus, he gets to the bottom line: fortem uirum, Brute, tibi commendo, frugi hominem et, si quid ad rem pertinent, etiam locupletem [‘I recommend to you a brave man, Brutus, a person of good character and, if it is at all relevant, of means’] (ad Brut. 16.2).
Ritschl (1832) 310 first made the identification, positing that in attested abbreviations for Tarraco, CIVTT, V stood for Victrix (since attested as Vrbs in inscriptions and coinage), and the first T for Triumphalis; cf. Richardson (2000) 430. Florus’ parsing of Tarraco’s credentials verges on the pedantic, or scholastic (unde (et) nomen accepit: Plin. Nat. 2.60, 70, 24.152, 168, 25.69, 36.55; Serv. A. 2.305, 6.824, 12.120).
I.e., the primary sense of peregrina nobilitas is ‘nobility having come here from abroad’, but ‘nobility foreign to Rome’, an ‘exotic, non-Roman nobility’, cannot be ruled out. Tarraco is and isn’t ‘abroad’. Florus’ ‘bifocal’ perspective once more.
It’s all here in this city panegyric, look: uides… uides… hic… saltim hic… et ecce iam… adest… quippe si ueterea templa respicias, hic… hic… nostrum litus.
For the work itself as a ‘temple dialogue’, a genre first attested by Var. R., see Hirzel (1895) 66 and cf. Hudson (2023) 11 (/p.7).
quippe si uetera templa respicias ~ quippe si duces eius [sc. belli] inspicias … si exercitus … si auxilia etc. etc. Epit. 2.13.5–6 (the Civil War as a World War); V. Max. 7.6.2; [Quint.] maior. 16.2 (if you consider everything rightly, friendship is what is what binds all these people to you); V. Max. 9.7.1—so perhaps a vaguely ‘declamatory’ pose; but cf. Suet. Jul. 68.4, Tac. Ann. si cetera respicias. lasciuit ~ per te perque tuam, uector lasciue, puellam, | ad cenam Selium, tu, rogo, taure, uoca [‘in your name, frisky mount, and your girl’s, I beg you, bull, invite Selius to dinner’] Mart. 2.14.17–18 (Selius wanders all over the city in search of dinner invitations: may Jupiter (together with Europa) offer him one—i.e., put him out of his misery; the joke is that the first, and last, place in the list of locales Selius visits is the Porticus Europae).
Eussner (1888) 81 catches the first play and the second parallel, but skirts the latter joke (‘[A. 5.163], wo litus ama jedoch in anderem Sinne steht’).
Richardson (2000) 445–6 is onto this.
[‘but you (parents) lay down severe laws, that the teacher be flawless in his grammar, that he read the histories, know all the authors like the back of his hand … require that he mold their tender characters as one shapes a face out of wax with his thumb’] Juv. 7.229–3, 237–8; Braund (1988) 67 on these tall orders.
[‘Send your pupils home: will you take, you windbag, as much for shutting up as you get paid for shouting?’] Mart. 9.68.11–12, addressed to the noisy school-teacher (ludi scelerate magister, | inuisum pueris uirginibusque caput 1–2) who keeps Martial and his neighbors awake.
[‘Tarraco is the wealthiest of the coastal cities on these shores’] Mela 2.90.
statim… inquit 3.1 ~ statim Trimalchio ‘hoc [the declamation Agamemnon recounts having delivered]’ inquit ‘si factum est, controuersia non est; si factum non est, nihil est.’ [‘right away Trimalchio said, “if this happened, it’s not a made-up case; if it didn’t, then it’s nothing! ”’] Petr. 48.6 (cf. statim Trimalchio ‘…’ inquit… 68.2; 78.3).
hic cum ego respirassem, statim Baeticus also nicely captures the deus ex machina feel of the Baetican’s very appearance (‘After I paused here to collect myself, immediately the Baetican…’).
in te … incidit ~ used in spirited rhetoric, e.g., Cic. Ver. 2.2.139 (alas, the fifth-year census meet up with Verres’ praetorship!); o acerbam mihi, iudices, memoriam temporis illius et loci, cum hic in me incidit, cum complexus est conspersitque lacrimis nec loqui prae maerore potuit! Planc. 99 (P. coming to meet the exiled Cicero in Dyrrachium); nisi incidisset in te Plin. Pan. 8.5 (the seditio would have been ruinous—had it not bumped into you, T.).
beatam ciuitatem ~ Epit. 1.34 (Numantia); neque enim ciuitas in seditione beata esse potest Cic. Fin. 1.58; teneriore mihi animo uidebare, sicut omnes fere qui uitam ingenuam in beata ciuitate et in libera re publica uiximus Fam. 5.21.3. Cf. Mela’s notice of the provincial center’s affluence, cited above.
Weirdly, quem ad modum tamen turns up in… Maecianus Assis distributio 64, a technical account of weights and measures; te prosequitur ~ Hor. Carm. 4.5.33 (local everyman plying Augustus with prayers and libations like a deity; see the subtle reading of Oliensis (1998) 116–8); quid hic agitur? tweaks (especially Plautine-Terentian) quid agitur?
hac ipsa peregrinatione ~ habet etiam multum iucunditatis soli caelique mutatio, ipsaque illa peregrinatio inter sua (sc. praedia) Plin. Ep. 3.19.4.
in reditu est mihi ~ tota, ut ita dicam, in reditu est Sen. Dial. 10 (De brev. vit.).11.2; solum mihi Laurentinum meum in reditu. nihil quidem ibi possideo praeter tectum et hortum statimque harenas, solum tamen mihi in reditu. ibi enim plurimum scribo… Plin. Ep. 4.6.1–2; see Gibson and Morello (2012) 185 on the villa’s ‘productivity’.
For Cicero in reditu typically means ‘on [his physical] return’, e.g., Att. 6.2.6, Fam. 4.14.3, 15.21.2.
o rem indignissimam ~ o rem indignam! Att. 13.35+36.1; the exclamation (o rem …!) is above all a Ciceronian thing: Quinct. 80; S. Rosc. 141; Ver. 2.4.146; Caec. 73; Dom. 104, Planc. 99, Phil. 2.63, 13.10; letters passim (esp. o rem miseram!). Cf. Florus’ facinus indignum, Epit. 1.32.1 (sack of Corinth) and 2.9.28 (Sulla in Sulmo), an exclamation with its own history (already, with o, in Plaut. Men. 1004, Ter. Phor. 613, Hec. 376, Ad. 173, 447, 669 and beyond).
quam aequo fers istud animo ~ quis aequo animo fert in principe gentium populo bella seruorum? Epit. 2.7. (the ‘outrage’ of the Bellum Servile); aequiore animo utcumque ferrem, si plebei duces aut, si nobiles, mali saltem ducatum sceleri praebuissent 2.9.2 (F. would take the outrage of the Marian civil war more calmly if its leaders were men of low repute); Liv. pr. 7 (such is Rome’s glory in war that subjugated peoples of the world endure the Mars myth with as much equanimity as rule itself), 24.16.13 (those punished for cowardice will bear their penalty with equanimity), 28.29.5; Sen. Ep. 55.10 (we must bear our separation calmly [since we can be apart even together]), 91.11 (we should patiently endure the destruction of cities); V. Max. 3.2.15 (Porcia testing for Brutus how calmly she can bear suicide); 2.5.4 (the senate cannot abide striking tibicines).
~ sedere namque in scholis auditioni operatos gratius erat quam ire per solitudines et quaerere herbas alias aliis diebus anni Plin. Nat. 26.11 (doctors grew to prefer hearing lectures about herbs to sniffing them out in the field); alii pigritiae adrogantioris, qui, subito fronte conficta inmissaque barba, ueluti despexissent oratoria praecepta paulum aliquid sederunt in scholis philosophorum ut deinde in publico tristes, domi dissoluti captarent auctoritatem contemptu ceterorum: philosophia enim simulari potest, eloquentia non potest Quint. 12.3.12 (some affectedly take up philosophy as a way of shirking oratory’s honorable calling—for shame).
[‘he was allowed to transfer to Sicily, where he is now teaching and getting his revenge on fortune in his lecture preambles’] Plin. Ep. 4.11.14, from his sensational account (Audistine … ?) of the ex-praetor Valerius Licinianus, banished by Domitian for alleged incest and reduced to work as a rhetor in Sicily (nunc eo decidit, ut exsul de senator, rhetore de oratore fieret [‘now he has fallen so low as to be an exile from a senator and a rhetoric teacher from an orator’] 1). With praefationibus Pliny refers back to Licinianus’ bitter ‘opening statement’ in his defense (2): itaque ipse in praefatione dixit dolenter et grauiter: ‘quos tibi, Fortuna, ludos facis? facis ex senatoribus professores, ex professoribus senatores.’ [‘So in his intro he said sorrowfully and gravely, “What games are you playing, Fortune? You make teachers out of senators, senators out of teachers.”’] Florus’ own profession of his vocation has been reduced, alas, to this ‘praefatio’ (3.3–8…). Pliny’s letter is noted by Jal (1967) 120 and Rocchi (2020a) 126. Cf. Juv. 7.197–8, on Fortune’s changeable identity: si Fortuna uolet, fies de rhetore consul, | si uolet haec eadem, fiet de consule rhetor [‘if Fortune wishes, you’ll go from teacher to consul; if She wishes, he’ll go from consul to teacher’] (probably Quintilian >< Licinianus), and Man. 4.46 (on Marius).
[‘For he had read certain old books with a grammar-teacher, when the memory of the ancient writers was still strong there and had not yet entirely faded as at Rome’] Suet. Gram. 24.1: M. Valerius Probus, of Berytus, who reverted to a career as a grammaticus after an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a centurionate.
Leg. 1.5. Florus gestures at turning his speechmaking into an autofictional ‘history’ (rather than studding a chronicle with set-piece speeches).
in hunc modum: apparently used by Sallust to flag a speech Hist. 1.76 (in hunc modum disseruit); in hunc modum maxime adhortatus Liv. 34.13.10, is in hunc modum locutus fertur 37.45.11; cum in hunc modum increparentur V. Max. 2.9.1, in hunc modum egit 3.7.1d, in hunc modum interpellare sustinuit 6.2.11; in hunc modum locutus fertur Tac. Ag. 29.4, Hist. 1.15 and passim; ad quam illius interrogationem ~ ad hanc interrogationem tuam et non respondere, uereor, ne superbum sit, et uera respondere ne nimis acerbum audienti tibi uideatur [‘not to reply to this questioning of yours, I fear, would be arrogant and to answer it truthfully would seem too harsh as you listened to it’] Liv. 42.40.2 (Marcius’ truth-talking reply to Perseus) [phrasing otherwise unparalleled].
Non miror: Sen. Con. 2.6.3, 7.2.11, 7.5.3; [Quint.] Min. 263.3 (never starting a sentence in Cicero); perhaps with a colloquial flavor (cf. Plaut. Merc. 784, Mart. 1.83.2, 3.64.5, 6.69.1, 9.10.1, 11.54.6; also, Aug. ap. Macr. 2.4.16). Florus again makes a show of extending himself to his interlocutor as he begins (~ mihi quoque ipsi hoc idem mirum uideri solet 1.8 ~ non miror <te> eius nunc esse persuasionis, qua et ipse quoque…).
<te> esse nunc esse persuasionis 3.3 ~ ne quis me tamen laborare putet miserae persuasionis errore [Quint.] Mai. 4.1 (a son defending his plan to commit suicide after an astrologer’s prediction that he will commit parricide); pudet persuasionis! 5.1 (speech of a father defending his attempt to raise money to ransom his two captured sons); de arrogantissimae persuasionis hominibus queri totius generis humani nomine uolo 8.9 (mother railing against her husband’s decision to allow doctors to inspect the entrails of one of two ailing twins in order to save the other); siue enim, iudices, malignitas est persuasionis humanae formam uacantem uocare meretricem 15.2 (in defense of a young woman who gave her lover a ‘hate’ potion); me quidem, pater, et infelicis huius persuasionis simplicitatem si quis interroget, nec a te parricidium fieri posse credo nisi meo ueneno 17.7 (son—accused of parricide by father when discovered mixing a drug with which he claims he planned suicide—to his father).
Perhaps the exemplarity of Nepos’ Atticus became an inspiration: numquam suscepti negotii eum pertaesum est Att. 15.2 (~ tandem aliquando pulchritudo suscepti operis apparuit 3.4).
The closest we get to diu laboraui (‘I have long suffered’) is mihi non arbitror diu laborandum ut ostendam Quint. 2.3.2 (he doesn’t have to belabor the point that good habits of speaking must be worked in at an early age, since vices are a pain to remove, once they have set in); but Florus must have known its etymology (< dies), as visible in the phrase diu noctuque (‘day and night’), used with archaizing effect by Sallust (Jug. 38.3, 44.5), and notably Hist. 4.34: diu noctuque laborare (Serv. G. 1.287).
ut nusquam uiuere putarem hominem miseriorem ~ qui me Thebis alter uiuit miserior? Plaut. Amph. 1046, nec me miserior femina est neque ulla uideatur magis Amph. 1060, quis homo est me hominum miserior? Capt. 540, homo me miserior nullust aeque, opinor Merc. 335, miserior mulier me nec fiet, nec fuit Merc. 700, eheu, qui uiuit me mortalis miserior? Rud. 520, quis me est mortalis miserior qui uiuat alter hodie…? 1281, neque me quisquamst miserior Ter. Hau. 224, nemost miserior me 263, nullam pol credo mulierem me miseriorem uiuere Hec. 566; and then, e.g.: quis me miserior umquam fuit? Cic. Att. 11.2.3 (March [?] 48, from Epirus, recounting dowry woes and possibility of house confiscation), ego autem hoc miserior sum quam tu, quae es miserrima Fam. 14.3.1 (to Tullia et al., 58, from Dyrrachium; sc. while they both suffer from his exile, it is his fault); quis porro me uno miserior est? Sen. Con. 7.1.1; cf. [Quint.] Mai. 9.1.
e.g., praeceptum est Suburano, ut uacaret finitam causam retractanti, si quid noui adferret Plin. Ep. 7.6.10 (case to be re-heard after an appeal).
Note that Florus has now reverted to the standard Ciceronian pattern of an idea occurring to one engaged in extended thought (… tandem aliquando… apparuit). See above, on Capienti mihi … et … recreanti obuiam subito quidam fuere (1.1), and Hudson (2023) 5–6; cf. Griset (1952) 134n.6.
fortunis et ceteris uitae laboribus ~ sic tu sapiens finire memento | tristitiam uitaeque labores | molli, Plance, mero [‘so you, Plancus, be wise and remember to put an end to sadness and life’s labors with mellow wine’] Hor. Carm. 1.7.17–19; Cic. Arch. 30: an uero tam parui animi uideamur esse omnes qui in re publica atque in his uitae periculis laboribusque uersamur ut, cum usque ad extremum spatium nullum tranquillum atque otiosum spiritum duxerimus, nobiscum simul moritura omnia arbitremur? [‘or are we to appear so small-minded—we who suffer the dangers and toils of life in politics—as to think that, when for the whole span of our existence we never pause to take a calm and relaxed breath, everything we’ve done will die with us?’].
matutine pater, seu Iane libentius audis, | unde homines operum primos uitaeque labores | instituunt—sic dis placitum—, tu carminis esto | principium [‘Morning Father, or if you’d rather, “Janus,” from whom men start the first labors of life and work—such is the gods’ will—be my song’s beginning’] S. 2.6.20–23.
Compare Florus’ own verses on the true rarity of patrons (and poets): consules fiunt quotannis et novi proconsules: | solus aut rex aut poeta non quotannis nascitur. (anth. 252R); Hardie (1983) 49.
pulchritudo suscepti operis ~ ego illud unum affirmo, et utilitatem operis et pulchritudinem saeculo tuo esse dignissimam Plin. Ep. 10.37.3 (on an aqueduct in Nicomedia; perhaps Florus could be contracted for some Trajanic teaching work?); propter pulchritudinem operis a libidinoso cuiusdam complexu parum tutam [‘on account of the beauty of the work, hardly safe from a lustful embrace’] V. Max. 8.11. ext. 4 (Praxiteles’ Aphrodite on Cnidos!); Gel. 15.31.3 (painting). The usage and these passages noted by Rocchi (2020a) 131.
tandem aliquando pulchritudo suscepti operis apparuit ~ sero tandem documentis apparuit ostentum illud Augusti potentiam portendisse Suet. Aug. 94.2 (wall of Velitrae struck by lightning said to portend that a citizen from there would rule the world one day—people of Velitrae long misreading the signs).
sortemque meam … cum fortunis et ceteris uitae laboribus conferenti ~ sortem bellorum in Asia gestorum ab hoc ipso iuuene cum sua conferentem Liv. 9.19.11 (part of Livy’s famous hypothetical on Romans vs. Alexander the Great: the latter would have wished he was fighting Persae and Indi (rather than Romans), admitting that his earlier campaigns had been against ‘women’—just as his own uncle, Alexander I of Epirus had quipped, comparing war in Asia (fighting under his nephew) with that against Romans (cf. Gel. 17.21.33); see Oakley (2005) 184–261 on the digression.
ergo nunc (‘now therefore’) is already colloquial in Plautus (Most. 1119 and Terence (Haut. 993); cf. Hor. S. 2.5.101; Petr. Sat. 46.7; used in a particular question pattern in the Senecas: quare ergo nunc non moreris? Con. 7.3.10; quid ergo nunc te hortor ut facias? Ep. 110.11 (by contrast nunc ergo almost always begins the sentence); note however the phrase’s frequency in Servius (A. 1.243, 2.32, 3.68, 284, 551, 4.345, 384, 386, 5.85, 7.320, 9.358, 446, 12.259, Ecl. 9.15, G. 2.168), as if Florus is, professorially, delivering his explication. Otherwise, scire te ergo nunc oportet ~ scire itaque oportet Sen. Dial. 5.10.4, sed scire te oportet Ben. 2.24.4; scire igitur oportet Celsus 2.18.2.
nullum manus pretium, nullam procurationem, nullum honorem 3.5 ~ cum audiat nullum facinus, nullam audaciam, nullam uim in iudicium uocari Cic. Cael. 1 (no legitimate cause for this case—and for interrupting the jurors’ leisure); nullas sibi inimicitias, nullam uim, nullos impetus, nullum uitae discrimen uitandum umquam putauit [sc. Sestius] Red. Sen. 20 (no obstacle could prevent Sestius from his task of aiding Cicero’s recall). Catul. 8.5, 37.12, 87.1–4? Nempe si is rare: Cic. Quinct 82, Sen. Con. 2.2.4, Sen. Phoen. 523, Tac. Dial. 9.3; the use of cedo si is hardly paralleled: not quite Cato orat. 236 (cedo, si uos in eo loco essetis, quid aliud fecissetis?) or Plaut. Bacch. 1066 (cedo, si necesse est).
si mihi maximus imp<erator> u<i>tem, id est centum homines regendos, tradidisset 3.5 ~ dux bonus huic centum commisit uite regendos [‘to this man the skilled general has entrusted one hundred soldiers to be commanded with the (centurion’s) vine staff’] Ov. Ars 3.527 (noted by Rocchi (2020a) 135). Thomé (1881) 3 notes the repeated recurrence of id est in the Epitome. On uitis, cf. uitem posce libello Juv. 14.193 (instead of old-fashioned maxims, today’s dads urge their sons to petition for a centurionate). uitem … tradidisset otherwise of Bacchus’ divine gift to humans: tradidit huic uitem pendentem frondibus ulmi Ov. Fast. 3.411; Liber pater uinum et uitem et uuam tradidisse Hyg. Astr. 2.4.2.
maximus imperator ~ postquam ergo maximus imperator uictoria Daciam proxime reserauit [‘therefore after our most excellent emperor seized Dacia victoriously’] Balb. grom. (Expos. et Ratio Omn. Formarum) p. 93La (Domitian? Or Trajan? see Campbell (2000) xxxix); reor equidem aliter quam inuocato numine maximi imperatoris nullum opusculum meum coepisse [‘I do not believe any of my works has begun without the invocation of the divine will of our mighty emperor’] Stat. Silv. 4.pr. (Domitian); literal: omni ope adnisi sunt, ut maximum ea tempestate imperatorem M. Valerium Coruum consulem quartum facerent [‘they made every effort to elect the greatest commander of that time, M. Valerius Corvus, to his fourth consulship’] Liv. 8.16.4; quaerenti Africano quem fuisse maximum imperatorem Hannibal crederet, respondisse Alexandrum Macedonum regem [‘when Africanus asked Hannibal whom he believed was the greatest commander, he answered, Alexander king of Macedon’] 35.14.6; roughly so, non rumperetur [sc. Cordus] supra cineres Cn. Pompei constitui Seianum et in monumentis maximi imperatoris consecrari perfidum militem? [‘would Cordus not have burst at (a statue of) Sejanus being erected over Pompey’s ashes, at a treacherous soldier being dedicated within the memorial of the greatest general?’] Sen. Dial. 6.22.5.
non mediocris honor habitus mihi uidetur 3.5 ~ non mediocris adhibenda mihi est cura ut Cic. Fam. 10.11.1 (Plancus to C.); quae res mihi non mediocrem consolationem attulit uolo tibi commemorare Fam. 4.5.4 (Sulpicius Rufus to C.); in me consolando non mediocrem ipse animi dolorem adhibuisti 4.6.1 (Cicero’s polite reply); at mihi cura | non mediocris inest Hor. S. 2.4.94.
docentur praestigias inhonestas, cum cinaedulis et sambuca psalterioque eunt in ludum histrionum, discunt cantare, quae maiores nostri ingenuis probro ducier uoluerunt: eunt, inquam, in ludum saltatorium inter cinaedos uirgines puerique ingenui! [‘they are taught disgraceful tricks, they go to acting school with perverts and with harps and zithers, they learn to sing things which our ancestors wished to be considered scandalous: they go to dancing school, I say, freeborn girls and boys, among perverts!’] Scip. Min. orat. 30 (Malcovati).
ingenui pueri cum meritoriis Cic. Phil 2.105 (in Varro’s commandeered house!), pueri ingenui abripiuntur 3.31 (on campaign, recklessly); cf. Hor. Carm. 3.24.54.
Apparently already in Cato orat. 92 (quis homo … pulchrius purgat <aut magnificius?> [‘who … purifies (or ‘excuses’) more beautifully or more magnificently?’]).
barbaris efferatisque pectoribus 3.7 ~ linguam tantum Graecorum habent sicut speciem hominum: moribus ritibusque efferatioribus quam ulli barbari, immo quam immanes beluae uiuunt [‘they have only the tongue of Greeks just as they have only the appearance of men: they live by customs and practices wilder than any barbarians, in fact than any savage beasts’] Liv. 34.24.4 (the Achaean praetor Aristaenus appealing to Titus Quinctius and the Romans, for protection from the uncivilized Aetolians); humanitatis dulcedo etiam in <ef>ferata barbarorum ingenia penetrat [‘the sweetness of humanity makes its way even into the fierce natures of barbarians’] V. Max. 5.1. ext. 6 (Hannibal’s clemency in allowing Roman commanders to be buried is an exception that supports the notion of ‘barbarian’ wildness); tu uidelicet efferatae barbariae immanitate truculentior habenas Romani imperii, quas princeps parensque noster [i.e. Tiberius] salutari dextera continet, capere potuisti? [‘could you, more savage than the brutality of wild barbarism, have taken the reins of the Roman empire which our emperor and father holds with his beneficial hand’] 9.11. ext. 4 (Sejanus, relegated to the ‘foreign’ section of dicta improba aut facta scelerata).
pectoribus … mitibus 3.7 ~ mitioris natura pectoris sum Sen. Con. 7.1.12; mihi mite pectus [Quint.] Mai. 9.16.
quam regium est sedere a suggestu praecipientem bonos mores et sacrarum studium litterarum… 3.8 ~ quid tam porro regium, tam liberale, tam munificum quam opem ferre supplicibus [‘and what is so regal, so generous, so bountiful as offering aid to those in need’] Cic. de Orat. 1.32 (with parallels adduced by Leeman and Pinkster (1981) ad loc.); Stangl (1906) 313.
bone iuppiter, quam imperatorium, quam regium est ~ bone iuppiter, quam auide, quam fortiter uincla nostra tractauit! [‘good lord, how eagerly, how courageously he handled our bonds!’] [Quint.] Mai. 16.9.
With a backward-looking tinge, as in, e.g., Sal. Cat. 9.1 (igitur domi militiaeque boni mores colebantur [‘therefore good conduct was cultivated at home and on campaign’]); cf. deinde boni mores et modestiores et ad capienda praecepta molliores <pueros reddunt> [‘then good morals make children more modest and more prone to receiving instruction’] Cic. Hort. 90 (Grilli=Non. p.254m). The notion of ‘sacred’ literature is more recent, and nicely bridges the orator-poeta gulf with Florus (even in this last, broken-off sentence, most likely): exigitur enim iam ab oratore etiam poeticus decor, non Acci aut Pacuui ueterno inquinatus, sed ex Horati et Vergili et Lucani sacrario prolatus [‘for poetic adornment is now called for also in the orator, not one tarnished by the grunginess of Accius and Pacuvius, but brought out from the shrine of Horace, Virgil, and Lucan’] Tac. Dial. 20.5; for the connection of this passage to Quint. 10.1.92 (nos tamen sacra litterarum colentis feres, Caesar [‘but you will put up with me, Caesar, as a devotee of the shrine of literature’, i.e., if I include your epic poetry in this canon]), see Mayer (2001) ad loc.
~ tenerae nimis | mentes asperioribus | formandae studiis [‘minds which are too tender must be shaped by rougher studies’] Hor. Carm. 3.24.52–4 (cf. Rocchi (2020a) 147, who also adduces Hor Ep. 2.1.126–31; also Dahlmann (1965) 20–21); sunt enim multa uitia, de quibus dixi cum in quadam primi libri parte puerorum ora formarem [‘for there are many faults, about which I spoke when I was describing in a section of the first book how to shape the speech of children’] Quint. 11.3.31 (neither passage about poetry specifically); cf. the Juv. 7 passage quoted above.
Norden (1966) 567n.3, on the uniqueness of an ancient ‘Schulmeister’ describing his occupation so affectionately (though with the qualification: ‘Aber er ist schon “Oberlehrer”, doziert von seinem “Podium” über Dichter, Redner, Historiker.’)
Hardie (2003) 145.
Cf. SHA Hadr. 16.3, quoted above.
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