THE

CLASSICAL

17
469-70 as a reply to the objection raised in
the lines immediately preceding.

which he must supply to rebut his opponents.

Its extreme concision and incompleteness
constitute the difficulty, and no desire to fill
the gaps--or to anticipate with Bailey and
Bitchner the argument at 47I ff.--should
distract us from an attempt to interpret

KENNETH

Catullus 61. 174-5 (brachiolumterespuellulae)

is like Horace's teretessuras.
From this evidence W. H. Alexander was
led to suggest the meaning 'bulging', that
is, in the boar's attempts to escape. One
would expect a participle rather than an
adjective, and in any case Alexander himself
abandoned this proposal later (T.A.P.A. lxxv
[1944], I5-I9 and lxxxv [I954], I45-7).
What is needed in the hunting scene is
some epithet describing the scene observed
as a whole, not examined in detail, if it is to
be comparable with the other scenes of
typical human activity in this ode.
In the Xenophontine Cynegeticus,we have
an expert's description of the preparations
for a boar hunt, which includes the following
instructions on setting up the net: inLsdA-

EVEN to the ancients the phrase teretes

plagas in Horace, Odes i. I. 28, seemed to
need a comment. So the pseudo-Acronian
scholia have: nonplagas teretes,sed de teretifune
ait factas: ideo enim ita posuit, quia illis debemussubstantiamundesumimus.However, the
scholia Afb say: plagae sunt retia: dicuntur
autemteretesplagae propternodosrotundos.One
of these explanations might be acceptable,
if there were any reason to believe that
Horace here attempts to render an ornamental epithet, such as EU7AEKo70S
(cf. Eur.
Ba. 870 E7AEKTWrv
But there
KTSp
apKowv).
is no such evidence.
The second scholium at least testifies to the
idea of roundness or curvature, which seems
basic in this word: so Festus' definition is:
teresest in longitudinerotundatum,quales asseres
natura ministrat. This definition is not easy
to apply to our passage, although some
would take it of the poles supporting the net,
nor does the special sense given by Festus
apply to three passages in which Catullus
has the word (64. 65, 262, 363).
Horace himself has teretessuras (Od. ii. 4.
21), teretis pueri (Epod. I I. 28), teres atque
rotundus(Sat. ii. 7. 86). The shape indicated
in the first two is clear, and in the third teres
describes the perfect curvature of the sphere.
The idea of a gentle curve is appropriate to
the three Catullan passages, where the word
is used of a breast-band (65), the cymbal
(262), and a funeral barrow (363); while

Aovra

quae

in Graeco

aliter

ti7

Kpbv
7). The Kdot oS
Tpo0jKOV7a
is obviously an important part of the preparations and is certainly teres. It is to this
that Horace refers with his usual aptness
in the use of words. So we should translate
'the curve of the net'. For the curved line
of considerable length formed by the net in
position, see Smith's Dictionaryof Greek and
RomanAntiquities,s.v. retis,and passages there
cited.
A. TRELOAR
WrightCollege, Universityof New England

OF BEDE'S
LATER
OF GREEK

sive

l darocxaAL&euLara
Emr

& apKUOPaU7l.

KdATOV 7TOLELV(IO.

KNOWLEDGE

plus aut minus posita vidimus, breviter com-

memorare curavimus; quae, utrum neglegentia interpretis omissa vel aliter dicta an
incuria librariorum sint depravata sive relicta, nondum scire potuimus. Namque
Graecum exemplar fuisse falsatum suspicari
non audeo; unde lectorem admoneo ut haec
ubicumque fecerimus gratia eruditionis

seu

Retractatiois used to show 'that the Venerable

Bede was well acquainted with Greek'.

I e.g. E. F. Sutcliffe, 'The Venerable

Bede's Knowledge of Hebrew', Biblica xvi
(i935), 300-6, and esp. 300oo-I, where the
4598.1

o70S PpdXovS

7KSP
?I13 &Kpa

ALTHOUGH
the extent of Bede's knowledge of
Greek has never been carefully investigated,
the opinion that it was considerable,
especially toward the end of his life, is widespread.' This opinion is founded in large
measure on the Retractatio of his earlier
Expositio ActuumApostolorum:'In quo etiam
quaedam

WELLESLEY

Universityof Edinburgh

ODES i. I. 28

HORACE,

AN ASPECT

REVIEW

on Sat, 16 May 2015 00:30:14 UTC

18

THE CLASSICAL

REVIEW

legat... .' A typical comment 'gratia certainly interested in Latin and Greek etyeruditionis' is on Acts iv. 32: 'Latine commology (cf. the commentary on KOLVO/LCU7aS
munia, Graece dicuntur Kowad,a quo nomine
above). Moreover, aKa7TTW appears not inLuke vi. 48,
constat perfectos dei famulos
frequently in the N.T.-e.g.
KOLVOLLdTa
et xiii. 8, xvi. 3-but Bede's bilingual text
Graece, id est, communiter viventes,
habitacula eorum esse vocata. Blov regularly translated it with 'fundo'. Thus his
KoLVodaLa
lapse shows, in this instance at least, that he
namque lingua eorum vitam constat appelvitam quae morti contraria est, did not have a critical knowledge of Greek,
lari, non eamrn
sed illam dum quaerimus qua quis conver- and that his use of the language was passive.*
This incident in Bede's intellectual history
satione vitam ducat, in militia an in agricultura an in arte qualibet honesta vel turpi, has an epilogue. Some time in the decade
monachus sit an laicus an clericus. Ceterum after the Retractatioan otherwise unknown
monk named Felix borrowed a number of
nunvita qua a mortuis discernimur
Swoj
cupatur a Graecis; qui ergo ita vivunt ut phrases from Bede, especially from the prose
sint eis omnia communia in domino, recte Life of St. Cuthbert, for his Life of St. Guthcomposito ex duobus uno nomine KOLVO-lac. A few lines before one such borrowing,
the saint sets off for his hermitage, 'arrepta
L9rcrasvocantur.'2 No source has been found
for this passage, but at least one other such piscatoria scafula'. The word was still, it
revision suggests that Bede's knowledge of seems, a hard one: four manuscripts of the
Greek in his late fifties was still largely surviving twelve have 'scapula', the nearest
vicarious. He wrote of Acts xxvii. 16: familiar Latin word, although it makes non'Scripsimus in libro primo Isidorum sequen- sense of the phrase, and two others have
tes scapham esse naviculam levem ex vimine
glosses. One of these renders 'scafula' as
'cistiba vel navicula', and the other (British
contextam crudoque corio tectam; verum
Museum, Cotton MS. Nero E. i, saec. xi)
deinceps aliorum scripta percurrentes invenimus "scaphas vocari naviculas etiam
has '(nav)iculas dicimus, (vi)mine factas et
Graeci corio'.s Here the glossator was following
una de arbore cavatas qua~s
poVoaa5a
appellant".'3 This new citation reveals an Bede's Expositio or Isidore, not Bede's Reextension of Bede's Latin reading, but tractatioor Vegetius.
not of his Greek philology; for even with the
W. F. BOLTON
clue 'cavatas' he failed to connect 'scaphas' Universityof Reading
with atKa#EOVor aKi7Taw,although he was
SEd. M. L. W. Laistner, Bedae Venerabilis
Expositio Actuum Apostolorum et Retractatio
(Cambridge, Mass., I939) (hereafter Bede),
p. 93. Bede used a bilingual manuscript
for these revisions, almost certainly Bodleian
MS. Laud Greek 35; cf. Bede, pp. xxxix-xl
and the references there.
2 Bede, p.
13; cf. his similar remarks on
Acts vii. 56, xx. 9, xxi. 39. In many, if not
all, the manuscripts the Latin alphabet is
used for Greek words.
3 Bede, p. I45. C. W. Jones, C.R. xlvi
(1932), 248-9, says that Vegetius ii. 25 is the
source, but G. MacDonald, C.R. xlvii (1933),
124, suggests that Bede used a glossary, not
De re militari itself. There are in fact two
relevant passages in Vegetius, ii. 25 and iii. 7 :
'Scafas quoque de singulis trabibus excauatas . . . secum legio portat, quatenus
contextis eisdem, sicut dicunt, monoxylis,
superiectis etiam tabulatis, flumina... transeantur'; 'Sed commodius repertum est, ut
monoxylos, hoc est paulo latiores scafulas

ex singulis trabibus excauatas... secum

portet exercitus.' (Ed. C. Lang, Leipzig,
I885.)
4 The form of
is doubtful.
'ptovofu:'a'
and the fem.
Bede is freely paraphrasing,
acc. plur. may be meant for an adjective; or,
if it is a noun and thus a mistake for a neut.
acc. plur., the error may be scribal and not
a reflection of Bede's intention. Vatican
MS. 4493 of Vegetius (saec. xii; Lang,
pp. xxxi-xxxii) has 'monoxillas' in 3. 7, and
Bede's source may have been a manuscript
of this type. (British Museum, Harley MS.
1915 [saec. xiii], fol. 192r, has 'monoxillas'
with the marginal correction 'quasi diceret
monixilla' [sic].) But the similarity of De re
militariii. 25 and iii. 7 suggests that Vegetius
was copying, not from himself, but from another source now lost, and it may be that
Bede saw this source and not Vegetius at all.
s Ed. Bertram Colgrave, Felix's Life of
St. Guthlac (Cambridge, 1956), p. 88 and
note 20.

on Sat, 16 May 2015 00:30:14 UTC