Restoration of Vergilian text at Macr.Sat.5.11.26

[Peter Bruun Hansen]

In the concomitant volume to his new OCT of the Saturnalia (Studies in the Text of M's S., Oxford 2010, Robert Kaster invites the reader to think critically about indirect transmission and proposes that we be clear-headed about the factors that may have prompted M. to write down a text that diverges from our direct transmission, so that the editor will be able to decide when to keep and when to discard a divergent reading. 

In 1881, A. Stachelscheid in RhM published the notes Richard Bentley had written into his copy of Macrobius, noting at 5.11.23 (Aen.7.464) that the received text of Macrobius was wrong. 

The received text of M's citation is: exsultantque aestu latices, furit intus aquae vis / fumidus atque alte spumis exuberat amnis.

The problem with Aen.7.464 is of course well-known, but as Bentley noticed, there can hardly be any doubt in the case of Macrobius, for he continues below, 5.11.25: In latinis versibus tota rei pompa descripta est, sonus flammae et pro hoc quod ille dixerat [Iliad 21.362-65] πάντοθεν ἀμβολάδην, exultantes aestu latices et amnem fumidum exuberantem spumis atque intus furentem. 

The amnis (aquae) is intus furens, not the vis aquae. Bentley writes: Nota, amnem intus furentem. Ergo legebat aquaï, and thus we have restored  today's vulgate text of Vergil.

A few paragraphs later (5.11.26),  Macrobius cites Aen.9.675-82. We note the received text of M. at 677-8:

ipsi intus dextra ac laeva pro turribus adstant, / armati ferro et cristis capita alta coruscis.

All mss. of Vergil read corusci, Kaster retains the archetypical text, and Mynors cites this as a variant reading. However, keeping in mind the observation of Bentley, we read on, 5.11.29, to find this passus: et geminos heroas modo turres vocat [sc. Vergilius], modo describit luce cristarum coruscos. 

Pace the difficulties of reading coruscis, I feel that this should be conclusive enough for us to discard the archetypical reading and restore the Vergilian corusci. 

I am a novice in more than one way, but having now spent a few months studying the text of Macrobius, this is only one instance of our received Macrobian text not being thought through sufficiently, especially before entering into apparatuses.

I write this as a caveat lector and to remind of the existence and relevance of Macrobian studies. This is also my first post here, so hi! I never thought there would be a newsgroup on Vergil.

[falmouth]

Hi! 

My comment - coming from someone almost wholly ignorant of Macrobian studies - is intended as a query rather than to cast doubt on your points...!  

Is it absolutely safe to assume that the text which Macrobius cites should be consistent with his comments? 

Vergil no doubt wrote 'AQUAI' but the corruption to 'AQUAE' then 'AQUAE AMNIS' or 'AQUAE VIS' would seem to have already appeared in texts before Macrobius - as Servius on Aeneid 7.464 implies - 'FURIT INTUS AQUAI FUMIDUS id est aquae amnis: nec inmerito; nam potest esse et alterius rei amnis, ut "fluvios videt ille cruoris". hanc autem diaeresin Tucca et Varius fecerunt: nam Vergilius sic reliquerat "furit intus aquae amnis" et "exuberat amnis": quod satis asperum fuit.' (presumably a fiction, but showing that the corruption of 'AQUAI' had already appeared). 

Given that Macrobius no doubt took his comments from other sources, it may not be beyond the realms of possibility that he had a poor text of Vergil which he used for his citations but his comments are copied from earlier commentators commenting on the true text of Vergil. In the particular instance, it might be more economical to postulate this: because otherwise one would be saying that what Macrobius wrote *again* suffered the same fate which Vergil's text suffered. I.e. if Macrobius wrote AQUAI this was again corrupted to AQUAE in the transmission of Macrobius (as it already had been in the transmission of Vergil) before some copyist of Macrobius came up with 'AQUAE VIS'?