Virgil Recomposed

AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

AMERICAN CLASSICAL STUDIES
VOLUME 48

Series Editor
DONALD J. MASTRONARDE

Studies in Classical History and Society

MEYER REINHOLD

Sextus Empiricus
The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism
LUCIANO FLORIDI

Greek Mythology in the Roman World

ALAN CAMERON

The Augustan Succession

An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s ‘‘Roman History’’
Books 55–56 (9 B.C.–A.D. 14)
PETER MICHAEL SWAN

Virgil Recomposed
The Mythological and Secular Centos in Antiquity
SCOTT MCGILL
Virgil Recomposed
The Mythological and Secular
Centos in Antiquity

Scott McGill

1
2005
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McGill, Scott, 1968–
Virgil recomposed: the mythological and secular centos in antiquity / Scott McGill.
p. cm.—(American classical studies; no. 48)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-19-517564-6
ISBN 0-19-517564-6
1. Virgil—Adaptations—History and criticism. 2. Virgil—Parodies, imitations, etc.—History and
criticism. 3. Epic poetry, Latin—Adaptations—History and criticism. 4. Centos—History and
criticism. 5. Mythology, Roman, in literature. 6. Virgil—Appreciation—Rome. I. Title. II. Series.
PA6825.M395 2005
871'.01—dc22 2004022887

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
To My Son, Charlie
This page intentionally left blank
 Acknowledgments

This book began when I decided to take Ausonius outside with me on a lazy
summer day and read the Moselle. Opening Green’s edition at random, I instead
encountered the Cento Nuptialis, and a dissertation topic was born. Desidiosum
iuvat Fortuna.
Several years have passed since then. I completed and many times revised the
dissertation; finishing (or better, abandoning) it now as a monograph, I feel
somewhat wistful, since the project is so closely associated with a remarkable time
in my life, and with many remarkable people. I learned much as a graduate student
from my professors, particularly Michael Anderson, Bob Babcock, Susanna
Braund, and Gordon Williams, who were all models of mentoring, prodding me
patiently and amiably to think harder and with more clarity. As an advisor sine
titulo and a reader of the dissertation, Michael Roberts helped me to realize this
project in more ways than I can recount. Finally, John Matthews and Ellen
Oliensis were as generous, supportive, and rigorous advisors as I could have hoped
to have.
Since arriving at Rice University, I have benefited from the healthy and nur-
turing environment that the university and the Classical Studies Department
create for its junior faculty. In more concrete terms, I appreciate the editorial
work of Cyndy Brown, which certainly sped my progress. My colleagues, Coulter
George, Christopher Kelty, Michael Maas, Hilary Mackie, Don Morrison, Car-
oline Quenemoen, and Harvey Yunis also facilitated the preparation of my
manuscript. Conversation with them, teaching alongside them, and having them
as editors have been truly enjoyable and productive experiences.
When this book needed a final round of scrubbing, Donald Mastronarde and the
anonymous readers at the APA provided me with both general and specific assis-
tance. Their criticism allowed me to avoid many errors and escape many pitfalls—
though fallibility is stubborn, and I am sure that mistakes and infelicities remain, for
which of course I am alone responsible. I must also thank Eve Bachrach, Jessica
Ryan, and Gwen Colvin at Oxford University Press for their guidance.
XVIII Cento Nuptialis from The Works of Ausonius, by R.P.H. Green (1991),
was reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. The translation of
Ausonius’s epistle to Paulus was reprinted by permission of the publishers and
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from Ausonius: Volume 1, Loeb
Classical Library vol. 96, translated by H. G. Evelyn-White (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1919). The Loeb Classical Library 1 is a registered
trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The De Alea was
reprinted by permission of Loffredo Editore Napoli SpA. Finally, the Epitha-
lamium Fridi and Medea were reprinted by permission of K.G. Saur Verlag.
Throughout the entire process of writing this book, my family has been an
anchor. I particularly want to thank my brother Sean and my parents, who taught
me by example how to be disciplined and to stick to a task until it is done. In
different ways, I am indebted to old friends in the Northeast (though the
academic diaspora has taken us to far-flung locations) and new ones in Houston,
and especially to Joseph Luzzi. Finally, Sarah Ellenzweig makes everything
worthwhile and better than I deserve.
At the risk of being precious, let me end by saying what a pleasure it has
been these past years to read and think about not only some of the wildest texts
in antiquity but also Virgil, who as a poet has no superior and just a few equals.

non, mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum (A. 6.625),

caelicolae magni (A. 10.6) possim superare labores (A. 3.368)
carmina qui (G. 4.565) matrisque dedit tibi, Mantua, nomen (A. 10.200).
 Contents

Abbreviations xi

Text Editions Used xiii

Introduction xv

1. Playing with Poetry: Writing and Reading

the Virgilian Centos 1

2. Tragic Virgil: The Medea 31

3. Virgil and the Everyday: The De Panificio and De Alea 53

4. Omnia Iam Vulgata? Approaches to the

Mythological Centos 71

5. Weddings, Sex, and ‘‘Virgil the Maiden’’: The Cento Nuptialis

and the Epithalamium Fridi 92

Conclusion 115

Appendix: Texts of the Mythological and Secular Centos 119

Notes 153

Bibliography 217

Index 227
This page intentionally left blank
 Abbreviations

BOOKS
AL R Anthologia Latina, Alexander Riese, ed. Leipzig: Teubner, 1894.
AL SB Anthologia Latina, D. R. Shackleton Bailey, ed. Stuttgart: Teubner,
1982.
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Berlin and New York:
DeGruyter, 1972–.
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1863–.
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vienna: F. Tempsky
et al., 1866–.
EV Enciclopedia Virgiliana. Ed. Francesco Della Corte. Rome: Instituto
della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1996.
Keil Heinrich Keil, Grammatici Latini, 7 vols; Heinrich Keil, ed. Leipzig:
Teubner, 1855–80.
OCD Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony
Spawforth, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary. P.G.W. Glare, ed. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1982.
PLRE Jones, A.H.M., J.R. Martindale, and J. Morris. Prosopography of the
Later Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971–
1992.
RE Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stutt-
gart: A. Druckenmüller, 1893–1972.
ThLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Leipzig: Teubner, 1900–.
VSD Vita Suetonii/Donati, Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, ed. Georgius
Brugnoli and Fabius Stock. Rome: Typis Officinae Polygraphicae,
1997.

JOURNALS
AJAH American Journal of Ancient History
AJP American Journal of Philology
xii ABBREVIATIONS

BMCR Bryn Mawr Classical Review

CJ Classical Journal
CP Classical Philology
CQ Classical Quarterly
CSCA California Studies in Classical Antiquity
HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
MD Material e Discussioni
MP Medieval Philology
PVS Proceedings of the Vergil Society
RLM Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
RLAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum
SIFC Studi italiani di filologia classica
TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association
YCGL Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
 Text Editions Used

VIRGIL
P. Vergili Maronis Opera, ed. R.A.B. Mynors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.

CENTOS
Alcesta, De Panificio, Europa, Hercules et Antaeus, Iudicium Paridis, Hippodamia, Nar-
cissus, and Progne et Philomela, in Anthologia Latina I.1, ed. Alexander Riese. Leipzig:
Teubner, 1894.
Cento Nuptialis, in The Works of Ausonius, ed. R.P.H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1991.
De Alea, in Il centone De Alea, Studi Latini 44, ed. Gabriella Carbone. Naples: Loffredo,
2002.
Epithalamium Fridi, in Luxurius, ed. Heinz Happ. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1986.
Medea, in Hosidius Geta: Medea Cento Vergilianus, ed. Rosa Lamacchia. Leipzig: Teubner, 1981.

OTHER FREQUENTLY CITED EDITIONS

ANTHOLOGIA LATINA: Anthologia Latina I.1, ed. D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Stuttgart:
Teubner, 1982.
CATULLUS: Catullus, ed. C. J. Fordyce. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961.
CLAUDIAN: Claudii Claudiani Carmina, ed. John Barrie Hall. Leipzig: Teubner, 1985.
DRACONTIUS: Oeuvres, ed. Étienne Wolff. Vol. 4. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1996.
MENANDER RHETOR: Menander Rhetor, ed. D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1981.
OVID: Heroides XII, ed. Theodor Heinze. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Metamorphoses, ed. W. S.
Anderson. Leipzig: Teubner, 1977.
QUINTILIAN: Institutionis Oratoriae Libri Duodecim, ed. Michael Winterbottom. Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1970.
SENECA: Tragoediae, ed. Otto Zwierlein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
SERVIUS: Servii Grammatici Qui Feruntur in Vergilii Carmina Commentarii, ed. Georg
Thilo and Herman Hagen. 3 vols. Hildesheim: Olms, 1961.
SIDONIUS: Sidoine Apollinaire, ed. André Loyen. 3 vols. Paris: Société d’Édition ‘‘Les
Belles Lettres,’’ 1960–70.
STATIUS: Silvae, ed. E. Courtney. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS: Venance Fortunat Poèmes, ed. Marc Reydellet. Vol. 1.
Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994.
VITA SUETONII/DONATI: Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, ed. Georgius Brugnoli and
Fabius Stock. Rome: Typis Officinae Polygraphicae, 1997.
xiv TEXT EDITIONS USED

A note on my method of citing lines and passages in the centos. I have chosen
to include in parentheses the Virgilian provenance (with E. standing for the
Eclogues, G. for the Georgics, and A. for the Aeneid) for each verse segment in
each line that I cite. This, I recognize, interrupts the flow of the line, with Virgil
breaking into the experience of reading the passages in the centos. I believe that
such intrusions are appropriate. The centos demand to be read not as trans-
parent texts, but as works having a Virgilian basis.
 Introduction

The Virgilian centos are some of the more striking texts to survive from Latin
antiquity. A cento—a word that in literature has the meaning ‘‘patchwork
text’’1—is comprised of unconnected verse units taken from the Eclogues,
Georgics, and Aeneid and pieced together to create narratives that differ from
Virgil’s own.2 These units may consist of a segment of a hexameter line; an entire
line; a line and some section of the following line; and rarely two or three entire
lines.3 Sixteen Virgilian centos remain from antiquity, ranging in date from ca.
200 to ca. 534.4 Twelve are on mythological or secular subjects: Hosidius Geta’s
Medea; Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis; Luxurius’s Epithalamium Fridi;5 Mavortius’s
Iudicium Paridis; and eight anonymous works, the De Panificio, De Alea, Nar-
cissus, Hippodamia, Hercules et Antaeus, Progne et Philomela, Europa, and Al-
cesta. The remaining four contain Christian material: the Cento Probae of
Faltonia Betitia Proba; Pomponius’s Versus ad Gratiam Domini; the anonymous
De Verbi Incarnatione; and the De Ecclesia, perhaps written by Mavortius.6
The mythological and secular centos are very different texts from the
Christian variety. The settings in which and for which the former works were
composed, the ways their authors rewrote Virgil, and many of the interpretive
issues the texts raise all distinguish them from the Christian pieces. In light of
these disparities, my book isolates the mythological and secular centos. A study
of these works will contribute to the growing field of scholarship on non-
Christian Latin poetry in late antiquity (i.e., texts without Christian content and
usually with classical prototypes and themes).7 The mythological and secular
centos especially help us explore the enthusiasm for light and playful verse
composition that abided in that era. In addition, an examination of the centos
advances the current scholarship on Virgil’s reception. Of particular value is the
attention that the book gives to the late antique world. Regarding Virgil’s re-
ception in that period, there has been a great amount of work done on how
Christian writers, and particularly the Church Fathers, responded to him.8
While this subject is an important one, there remains much to be said about how
audiences not viewing Virgil through a Christian lens—for example, poets
working with pagan and secular material, grammarians and other late antique
critics, and students—treated him. The centos help to illuminate these matters,
xvi INTRODUCTION

and at the same time allow us to revisit pertinent responses to Virgil that oc-
curred earlier in antiquity and to explore relevant moments in the interpretation
of Virgil since that period, up to today. So too, the centos provide insights into
several formal and thematic elements in Virgil’s poetry itself.9
Aspects of the mythological and secular centos bear upon a wide range of
other subjects of general interest in Latin poetry, which are in turn important in
literary studies as a whole. These include questions related to reception theory
(a topic vitally connected but not limited in this book to Virgil’s Nachleben) and
genre theory.10 An issue of vital importance in the study of the centos, more-
over, is how those radically intertextual works engage with their Virgilian
sources allusively and speak to ideas and problems in allusion studies. The
broad hermeneutic reach and value of the centos are yet another reason why the
works are worthy of exclusive attention.11

The origin of the Virgilian cento lies in the Homeric cento, of which mytho-
logical, secular, and Christian examples survive.12 Such a binary view does not
take into account all ancient centos. It excludes evidence for Greek examples
that reuse Pindar and Anacreon,13 as well as a Latin cento composed from a
poet other than Virgil, Ovid’s work in malos poetas comprised of the verses of
Macer, a lost piece to which Quintilian refers.14 Even so, the contention that
the Virgilian cento arose as a counterpart to the Homeric cento is a sound one,
based as it is on the irrefutable fact that Homer and Virgil are the principal
sources for such texts in antiquity.15 This cannot be coincidental. Associating
Virgil with Homer serves as one of the dominant gestures in Latin literary
culture from Propertius (2.34.65–66) to Macrobius (Sat. 5) and beyond.16
Amid this literary landscape, it would have been natural to take a poetic form
linked to Homer and apply it to Virgil, the poet of equal stature in the Roman
world. Centonists are drawn to such canonical authors. To present a cento is
always on one level to trade in cultural capital and to affirm one’s highbrow
credentials. Moreover, the loftier the rank of the poet being rewritten, the
greater the effect of a cento. Readers will be more likely to be familiar with
source poetry that resides at or near the top of the canon, and so will be more
likely to feel more strongly the frisson that centos, as the reconstituted poetry of
an eminent author, are designed to elicit.
Not everyone has responded or will respond to the Virgilian centos with
appreciative wonder or even neutral surprise. Some ancient observers, for in-
stance, raised objections to the texts. None of these disapproving notices,
however, should be seen to condemn the cento form as such; for upon closer
examination, they simply reflect the particular concerns of the figures that
voiced them, Tertullian (De Praescr. Haer. 39), Jerome (Ep. 53.7), and Ausonius
(Cento Nuptialis, praef. esp. 1–5). Tertullian and Jerome were interested in
establishing the cento—for Tertullian, the mythological and secular type, and for
Jerome, the Christian17—as a parallel to how certain people misread the Bible,
fitting scripture to their own purposes and so changing the original meaning of
INTRODUCTION xvii

the source material.18 Jerome was also troubled by the alteration of Virgil so that
his verses related the story of the Bible, which caused some to posit Virgil as a
Christian sine Christo; but for Jerome the act of altering Virgil itself was not at
issue. Tertullian and Jerome’s reactions are thus tailored to their specific con-
cerns and interpretive and cultural climates. While they taint the cento through
association with the misinterpretation of scripture, and while Jerome is un-
comfortable with the Christianizing of Virgil’s poetry and of Virgil himself, their
critiques, filtered through a Christian lens, do not function as general literary
criticism and should not be taken as authoritative denunciations of the form’s
poetic and aesthetic traits.19 In the prefatory epistle attached to his Cento
Nuptialis, meanwhile, Ausonius disparages cento composition as part of his
strategy of modest self-presentation, and so for rhetorical ends. (More on Au-
sonius’s stance in chapters 1 and 5.) Like the comments of Tertullian and
Jerome, Ausonius’s are not definitive statements on the lack of merit of the
cento per se.20
In the modern age, several scholars have also been appalled by the cento
and, pursuing slash-and-burn literary criticism, have sharply condemned the
form.21 The majority of these negative reviews can be attributed to a classicizing
prejudice that considers High Literature and the Great Author sacrosanct and
scorns odd and secondary works that encroach on those monuments.22 Such
reactions are a reminder that appropriative works of all kinds are prone to elicit
aesthetic disapproval and even moral outrage from some quarters. Though none
to my knowledge does so explicitly, perhaps in their minds the disapproving
critics also conflate centos and plagiarism, or view cento composition as a type
of theft. That would be a mistake, since the kind of open, reconstitutive ap-
propriation that occurs in the centos is far from plagiarism’s furta.23
In this study, I wish to provide a counterweight to the often harsh responses
to the cento, responses that are inadequate in their proprietary and closed vision
of texts (and not unimportantly, canonical texts), if sometimes entertaining in
their Housmanian vitriol. The reflexive condemnation of the patchwork texts for
being curiosities rather than high literary art, and still worse, for turning high
literary art into a curiosity, misses the point of the works. Centonists themselves
would no doubt agree that their works are strange and parasitic, and that the
texts fail to measure up to the aesthetic standards of great literature. Indeed, by
their very nature the centos are and do very different things from what con-
ventional high poetry is and does. Critics should bear this in mind and approach
the works on their own terms. I fully recognize that, even when this injunction
is followed, the patchwork technique and texts will not be to everyone’s tastes.
Yet this book aims to demonstrate that the twelve mythological and secular
centos can provide audiences with one of the more intricate and exciting reading
experiences of any poetry in antiquity.24

Once the cento form had been imported from the Greeks, it became part of a
literary world that in various ways treated Virgil as an open work, or as a body of
xviii INTRODUCTION

material that could be reworked to yield fresh texts.25 Most of the pursuits
through which certain members of Virgil’s ancient audience at certain
points recast his poetry and made it anew have parallels in the ways Greek
audiences treated Homer, and indeed result from the application of the formula
‘‘As Homer, so Virgil.’’ My area of focus, however, is strictly the Roman context
and how the writing of mythological and secular centos relates to practices that
arose around Virgil. In this arena, we find a wide range of works showing that
Virgil’s poetry was not only canonical and monumental but also a rich source for
derivative or secondary composition.
Conventional imitation offers one example of how ancient authors recast Vir-
26
gil. Yet there were also practices involving a more direct and insistent reworking
of Virgilian material. The schools were an important setting for these pursuits.
Virgil’s poetry, and especially the Aeneid, held a central position in the schools of
grammar and an important one in the schools of rhetoric from the time Caecilius
Epirota made him a school text in or around 26 BC through late antiquity wherever
traditional secular education survived.27 One of the things that students at both
levels were sometimes called on to do was to rewrite passages of his poetry.
Ethopoeiae, or exercises in which students composed a speech for a literary or
mythological character,28 serve as one example of how Virgilian poetry lay open to
young authorial hands. A notable reference to an impersonation of a Virgilian
character comes from Augustine. The Church Father relates that as a student in a
school of grammar, he wrote a prose passage in which the Juno of Aeneid 1
expresses her anger at being unable to keep the Trojans from reaching Italy. For
this exercise Augustine received a prize, the recollection of which brought him no
satisfaction later in life (Conf. 1.17). Another Virgilian ethopoeia comes from En-
nodius (473/4–521), who taught rhetoric before becoming bishop of Rome ca. 513.
Ennodius’s life as a teacher is reflected in his collected Dictiones, among which are
pieces that served as Ennodius’s models of school exercises. One of the Dictiones is
a work that modern editors have entitled Verba Didonis Cum Abeuntem Videret
Aeneam. This piece, which demonstrates that Virgil has a place in the rhetorical
schools, takes A. 4.365 (nec tibi diva parens generis) as its starting point and recasts
Dido’s speech that follows (A. 4.365–387; Dict. 28 [CSEL 6, 505–506]).
Still more evidence for school exercises that take their cue from Virgil ap-
pears in Servius.29 In his note ad Aen. 10.18, Servius mentions that Titianus
and Calvus devised themata, which would appear to mean situations derived
from specific passages in Virgil’s poetry, that students might utilize ad dicendi
usum.30 In the same entry, Servius mentions controversiae written in conjunc-
tion with A. 10.18–95. Later in his commentary, Servius links Virgil further to
the schools of rhetoric by calling attention to one qui in Vergilium scripsit
declamationes (ad A. 10.532).31 Presumably, these various exercises appeared in
prose, the usual medium for such material.
It may be that students were also educated in verse composition, despite
Quintilian’s assertion that poetry should be only a respite from study (car-
mine ludere, studiorum secessus, Inst. Orat. 10.5.15–16).32 If such instruction
INTRODUCTION xix

occurred in the grammatical schools, it may have involved recasting Virgil’s

poetry, given his importance in the curriculum. Whether this also could have
happened in the Latin rhetorical schools is a bit more questionable. While verse
exercises arose in the rhetorical schools of Egypt,33 the Western curriculum
focused more on the practice of declamation.34 Even so, it is possible that
students at that upper level also composed Virgilian ethopoeiae and paraphrases
in verse, or even hexameter declamations derived from the Aeneid. 35
Examples of poems deriving from Virgilian school exercises appear in the
codex Salmasianus, a manuscript dating anywhere from the seventh to the early
ninth century.36 The Salmasianus preserves a collection of poems put together in
Africa circa 534,37 whose compiler is unknown.38 This collection, which forms
an important part of the Anthologia Latina,39 includes many of the mythological
and secular centos. The first of the Virgilian poems with links to school exercises
is the Locus Vergilianus (AL 214 SB) written by the late fifth- to early sixth-
century poet Coronatus, who may have been identical to the author, called
Coronatus scholasticus, of a grammatical treatise on final syllables.40 (Scholas-
ticus could mean that Coronatus was a grammarian or that he simply was
learned.)41 Whether or not Coronatus scholasticus was our Coronatus, the author
of the Locus, being able to write a poem on a Virgilian theme, was in all likeli-
hood a highly educated adult (for there is no reason to think that the Locus is the
work of Coronatus as a schoolboy). The title of the Locus as given in the Sal-
masianus derives from A. 3.315, where Aeneas encounters Andromache and
asks what she has suffered since the fall of Troy. Yet it seems that whoever gave
the poem its title was in error, since Coronatus’s work appears to derive from the
section in Aeneid 5 where the Trojan women have set fire to Aeneas’s fleet.42 In
this reading, the term Locus Vergilianus denotes simply a passage with a Virgilian
pedigree; but the work is in fact a versified ethopoeia presenting Aeneas’s emo-
tional reaction to the arson. The other two Virgilian pieces in the Salmasianus
are the anonymous Themata Vergiliana (AL 237, 249 SB), which recast
A. 12.653–658 and 4.385–387 respectively. As themata, the poems would seem
to be versified versions of the exercise that Servius mentions ad Aen. 10.18.
While we cannot know if the anonymous authors were students or adults, it is
more plausible that they, like Coronatus, were adults writing poems stemming
from pursuits they had known in the schools.
Another group of second-degree Virgilian texts consists of several hexameter
summaries of his poetry, and mainly the Aeneid. The author of one set (AL 1
SB), which is preserved in the late antique codex Romanus (R, Vergilianus
Vaticanus Lat. 3867), assumes the identity of Ovid in a preface to ten-line
summaries of each book of the Aeneid. The figure of Ovid also looms behind the
synopsis whose author greatly increases the degree of difficulty of his under-
taking by describing the content of all twelve books of the Aeneid in six lines
(AL 672a R). This time, it is a manuscript that attributes the summaries to
Ovid;43 the anonymous author himself offers no ‘‘first-person’’ preface and no
material in his poem to support that attribution.
xx INTRODUCTION

Other examples of bravura compression are two anonymous works, one that
summarizes the entire Virgilian corpus in eleven lines (AL 717R) and the other
in seventeen lines (AL 720a R). The dates of AL 672a 717, and 720a R are
uncertain; but it is quite possible that they belong to late antiquity. In a less
virtuoso performance, an anonymous author writes four-line argumenta that
Shackleton Bailey presents alongside accounts (also tetrastich) of the Eclogues
and Georgics (AL 2 and 2a SB).44
Still another set of argumenta appears under the name of Sulpicius Car-
thaginiensis, who produces six-line summaries of the Aeneid (AL 653 R). This
figure is probably not the same Sulpicius who composed an epigram cited in
VSD 38 on how Varius and Tucca thwarted Virgil’s dying wish and preserved
the Aeneid from immolation.45 Of that poem, the epitomizer offers a feeble
imitation in a preface to his summaries,46 perhaps in order to try to pass himself
off as the Sulpicius Carthaginiensis of Virgil’s biography. These two groups of
text probably date again to late antiquity. Finally, twelve five-line summaries of
each book of the Aeneid survive from the so-called Twelve Wise Men (AL 591–
602 R); but it has been convincingly argued that the group is actually Lac-
tantius, writing under twelve assumed names.47 One of the Twelve Wise Men,
‘‘Basilius,’’ also writes a twelve-line synopsis of the entire Aeneid, with each line
devoted to a book of the epic (AL 634 R).48
The hexameter argumenta in all likelihood derive from the schools of
grammar, where teachers probably gave students verbal summaries of sections
and books of the Aeneid before embarking on deeper analyses of grammar and
content.49 Summaries in written form are also quite feasible; these would have
been in prose, though the possibility that grammarians sometimes composed
them in verse cannot be ruled out. It may also be the case that students would
have been called on to recite spontaneously synopses of passages or books of the
Aeneid, as well as to write them, and then in prose, and just maybe in verse.
The authors of the hexameter argumenta were probably adults who had been
formally educated in the schools; some may have also been grammatici. Should
Lactantius lie behind the Twelve Wise Men, moreover, one of the summarizers
would have been a teacher of rhetoric, assuming Lactantius wrote under the
guise of that coterie while a teacher and before his conversion to Christianity
ca. 303. These figures may have considered the Virgilian summaries they en-
countered in the schools to be the pursuits upon which they were elaborating as
they developed various approaches to versifying synopses of Virgil’s epic, as well
as occasionally of his other works. Such poetic efforts have the markings of
pastimes undertaken during the authors’ otium and as light entertainment,
rather than of pieces intended for practical use in the schools.
The mythological and secular Virgilian centonists almost certainly received a
traditional education in the schools of grammar and rhetoric,50 where they
would have been relentlessly exposed to Virgil. This would have enabled them
to acquire the sort of familiarity with Virgilian poetry necessary to pursue cento
composition when they were adults—for there is no evidence that any of them
INTRODUCTION xxi

was a child-centonist. In addition, some of the centonists besides Ausonius, the

professor of Bordeaux, may have been teachers, and so may have constantly
brushed up their Virgil in their professional lives.51
Links to the schools may also explain why the centonists were acculturated
to recasting Virgil. Like the authors of Virgilian scholastic poetry, the patchwork
poets would have learned in the school setting that they could do things with
Virgil’s poetry, which stood as a body of material open to recasting.52 Having
come to understand in the schools that there was no barrier between them-
selves and Virgil’s poetry, the centonists may have viewed patchwork compo-
sition, being an act of secondary authorship, as an extension of the principle
that they had encountered in the curriculum.53

Of course, cento composition is a very different pursuit from creating Virgilian

school texts and from writing versified Virgilian ethopoeiae, themata, and sum-
maries. In fact, the processes of recasting Virgil in the mythological and secular
centos have more in common with another method of rewriting his poetry in
antiquity. This practice stems from Virgil’s vast popularity in the West, a si-
tuation that owed much, but not everything, to his place in the scholastic
curriculum. Virgil’s verses were something of a lingua franca in Roman society,
though of course individuals had varying levels of command of that poetic
language. One of the results of the renown of Virgil’s poetry was the direct
quotation of that material in a wide array of settings. This could involve using
Virgil’s verses proverbially, as a sort of footnote supporting a particular state-
ment or argument (and the belief that Virgil was a master in every branch of
learning contributed to this phenomenon),54 or citing it as material to be re-
futed.55 More relevant to the cento is the practice of quoting Virgil’s verba only
to transform his content or res by adapting his tags to fit new situations and
subjects.56 While such activity was not exclusive to Virgil, audiences trans-
formed his verses in this manner most frequently of all poetry in the Latin
tradition. (Greek authors, especially Homer, were also reused in this way by
Latin writers.) The productive quotation of Virgil could have comic ends, with
his language applied to low material, and so deflated humorously, or could
occur in serious contexts.
Directly quoting Virgil’s lines and adapting their meaning in new contexts oc-
curs in graffiti, and in the process shows that people of all stripes knew some
Virgil.57 Citing a line from the Eclogues, Georgics, or Aeneid also happened in
everyday conversations, though records of such ephemeral quotations naturally
appear in written sources. The literary evidence, which consists of prose works
containing the transformed line or lines of Virgilian hexameter, also demonstrates
that writers themselves often quoted and adapted the content of Virgilian lines in
their texts.
Seneca the Elder gives early examples of citations of Virgil that alter his
content. In Suas. 4.5, Seneca reports that Arellius Fuscus chastised a pupil for
quoting A. 4.379–380 (scilicet is superis labor est, ea cura quietos / sollicitat) in
xxii INTRODUCTION

a declamation about Alexander the Great when he could have cited more
aptly A. 2.553, capulo tenus abdidit ensem, for ornamental purposes. In the
same Suasoria (4.4), Seneca shows that Fuscus himself quoted A. 4.379–380,
applying Dido’s sarcastic (and, as it turns out, wrong) assessment of the gods’
interest in Aeneas’s affairs in a speech refuting claims that the gods care about
childbirth (Suas. 4.4). Seneca adds that Fuscus quoted the line summis cla-
moribus, to very boisterous approval.58
Petronius provides further glimpses into the practice of transforming Virgi-
lian verses.59 In the Cena Trimalchionis, Petronius has Trimalchio quote
A. 2.44, sic notus Ulixes? to refer to his own heroic gourmandizing (Sat. 39).
Later, when describing the lady of Ephesus, Petronius has her nurse, playing
the role of Anna, quote A. 4.34 and 4.38 (Sat. 111, 112). Here parody of Aeneid
4 specifically is a goal, with the story of Dido recalled but comically adapted and
lowered in the account of the bereaved lady of Ephesus who, despite her
sorrow, succumbs to the advances of another man.
Much of the rest of the non-Christian literary evidence for the transforma-
tive quotation of Virgil—and the examples I give are meant to be representative,
not exhaustive—is connected to emperors. (Far from a sign that the practice
was largely an imperial phenomenon, the cluster of material simply shows that a
good amount of the extant Latin prose literature after Virgil was concerned with
imperial politics and those in power.) Seneca the Younger provides an example
of how one could change Virgil for comic purposes with his biting statement that
Livius Geminius will claim to have seen Claudius walking non passibus aequis—a
phrase taken from A. 2.724, describing Ascanius, and applied to the lame em-
peror (Apocol. 1.1). Later in the work, Seneca has Mercury cite G. 4.90, dede
neci, melior vacua sine regnet in aula, in reference to Claudius (Apocol. 3.2).
Suetonius notes other instances of such citations of Virgil by or in relation to
the emperors. Upon encountering men in dark cloaks rather than traditional
Roman dress at a contio, Augustus cries: Romanos, rerum dominos gentemque
togatam (A. 1.282) (Suet. Div. Aug. 40). In doing so, Augustus gives the Vir-
gilian line not only a different referent but also a sardonic tone, since he
disapproves of the men’s clothing and is compelling them to remember and
adopt the traditional Roman ways of dressing. A freedman of Nero, meanwhile,
reuses the Virgilian usque adeone mori miserum est? (A. 12.646) when he sees
the emperor trying to flee from the perils that surround him (see Suet. Ner. 47).
The freedman, emboldened by what he rightly sees as Nero’s imminent demise,
delivers the line in disgust, and he wishes to draw a contrast between the
emperor’s cowardice and the behavior of Turnus, exhorted to battle by Juturna
disguised as the charioteer Metiscus.
Virgilian lines continued to be quoted and adapted in connection with later
emperors. So Quintilian, in the slavering mode of panegyric, ends his praise of
the poetic achievements of Domitian by citing E. 8.13, inter victrices hederam
tibi serpere laurus (Inst. Orat. 10.1.91–92). A later example appears when the
praetorian tribune Julius Crispus expresses his displeasure to Alexander Severus
INTRODUCTION xxiii

at the poor progress of the siege of Hatra in 199 by quoting A. 11.371 (scilicet ut
Turno contingat regia coniunx). The point is that Severus’s soldiers, like
Turnus’s in the Aeneid, are suffering in a war waged for no real reason. The
emperor seems not to have appreciated the clever way that this criticism was
offered, as he had Crispus killed.60
Further evidence for such alterations of Virgil appears in the Historia Au-
gusta. While the historical accuracy of this material may be questioned, it at
least shows that the author of the Historia Augusta, or the sources that he may
be following, is familiar with the act of modifying Virgilian lines. Thus Hadrian
is reported to have quoted A. 6.869–872, which refer to Marcellus, and to have
applied the lines to his presumptive heir Verus (see HA Ael. Spart., Ael. 4.1-
3).61 Another example appears in conjunction with Diocletian, who is said to
have cited Aeneae magni dextra cadis (A. 10.830) at an assembly when he killed
Aper, himself the assassin of the emperor Numerian. Vopiscus, the nominal
author of the entry in the Historia Augusta in which the anecdote appears, is
surprised that a soldier should have such command of Virgil, but adds that
many are accustomed to quoting passages from comedians and other poets
(HA Flav. Vop., Num. 13.3–5). Vopiscus’s wonder seems misplaced, since Virgil
could have been known in army barracks as well as in imperial palaces.62
Transforming the meaning of quoted Virgilian material also occurred outside of
imperial contexts and continued well into late antiquity, as is clear from the
epistles of the fifth-century bishop, man of letters, and court figure Sidonius
Apollinaris. Writing to the otherwise unknown Turnus in Ep. 4.24.1, Sidonius
cites a line in the Aeneid containing a reference to Virgil’s own Turnus (A. 9.6–7).
Immediately before doing so, Sidonius says explicitly that he is adapting Virgilian
material appropriate to his addressee’s situation: bene nomini, bene negotio tuo
congruit Mantuani illud: ‘‘Turne, optime optanti divum promittere nemo / auderet,
volvenda dies en attulit ultro.’’ In Ep. 5.17.7, moreover, Sidonius describes to
Eriphius a game of ball in which an enthusiastic Philomathius participated by
citing A. 5.499: hic vir inlustris Philomathius, ut est illud Mantuani poetae, ‘‘ausus et
ipse manu iuvenum temptare laborem’’ sphaeristarum se turmalibus constanter im-
miscuit. At still another point in his collection of epistles, Sidonius alters the
referent of a quoted line from the Eclogues, as he opens a letter to Constantius by
applying E. 8.11 to him (a te principium, tibi desinet) (Ep. 7.18.1).
Epitaphs constitute another significant body of material in which Virgilian
lines are quoted and their meanings modified.63 In the inscriptions, Virgilian
material often appears as clausulae; yet there are also instances when whole
lines of Virgil are reused.64 Notable in this regard is an epitaph found in B. 1786
(CIL 6.9685), from Rome and inscribed under an image of a butcher’s wife
selling a goose, which goes so far as to reproduce three entire lines of Virgil
(A. 1.607–609): dum montibus umbrae/lustrabunt, [c]onvexa polus dum sidera
pascet/ semper honos nomenq. tuum laudesque manebunt.65
Cento composition is closely linked to the semantic modification of quoted
Virgilian lines.66 Patchwork texts exist as just such altered verse units pieced
xxiv INTRODUCTION

together to create new, coherent narratives—a more difficult enterprise, to be

sure. Literary and epigraphical examples appear as steps along the way from
citing and adapting isolated Virgilian lines to writing full-fledged centos. In
those examples, we find what might be called inchoate centos, or very short
passages made up of Virgil’s verses. A comic manifestation of this practice, and
one that provides the earliest evidence for any type of Virgilian cento, appears in
Petronius (Sat. 132.11). There Encolpius addresses his unresponsive mentula
through Virgilian lines strung together to create a brief cento:

illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat

nec magis incepto vultum sermone movetur (A. 6.469–470)
quam lentae salices (E. 5.16) lassove papavera collo. (A. 9.436)

A very different example appears in Capitolinus’s account in the Historia Au-

gusta of Macrinus. According to Capitolinus, Macrinus, a praetorian prefect
who assassinated Caracalla and became emperor, had bloodthirsty ways that
included reviving the punishment inflicted by Mezentius of tying a living person
to a corpse and forcing him to die a slow and smelly death (see A. 8.485–488).
Capitolinus says that someone composed a salute to Diadumenus, a rival of
Macrinus, by linking two lines of Virgil (but with no regard for meter): egregius
forma iuvenis (A. 6.861 or 12.275, which read egregium forma iuvenem) cui
pater haud Mezentius esset (A. 7.654) (HA Jul. Cap., Opil. Macr. 12.9).67 Finally,
certain inscriptions also consist of Virgilian verse units recomposed in cento
form. Examples are the epitaphs reading concordes animae (A. 6.827) quondam,
cum vita maneret (A. 5.724, with slight alterations: the Aeneid reads dum vita
manebat) (L. 1969, 1), and hic pietatis honos: (A. 1.253) veteris stat gratia facti
(A. 4.539) (B. 817).68
Petronius’s obscene passage, the political slogan, and the epitaphs are less
virtuoso literary performances than are the twelve longer mythological and secular
centos. Even so, their authors have moved from the semantic alteration of a single
Virgilian verse unit to reassembling discrete units in order to create a new nar-
rative. This shows that there were instances when Virgil was recomposed in a way
that mirrored in miniature the practices of the Virgilian centonists.69 The short
patchwork texts thus stand at a conceptual and formal midpoint between the
quotation of individual Virgilian verses in new narrative settings and the creation
of longer literary texts completely comprised of reconnected Virgilian lines.
The existence of inchoate patchwork texts demonstrates further that those
who wrote the twelve mythological and secular Virgilian centos, while certainly
producing startling works, were not totally anomalous in the Roman context.
The parallels are exact, though different in scale, between the corpus of centos
and the short, stitched-together pieces in Petronius, the Historia Augusta, and
the epigraphical material; but the centos also link up with the act of quoting
and transforming discrete Virgilian lines. Along with perhaps acquiring in the
schools a sense of the openness of Virgilian poetry to acts of secondary
INTRODUCTION xxv

authorship, then, the centonists adopted a method of composition with a

connection to how a wide range of Virgil’s ancient audience remade units of his
poetry. The available evidence does not reveal whether any of the centonists
saw a link between his pursuit and the widespread adaptation of isolated Vir-
gilian verses or the brief cento passages. What a broad view of Virgil’s ancient
reception does show is that the patchwork authors resembled others who
productively quoted Virgil, as well as those who in different ways rewrote Virgil
in school exercises or scholastic poems, in considering his poetry far from
inviolate and capable of being recast. For the centonists, as for various members
of the Roman world engaging in various pursuits, Virgil’s poetry remained less
the domain of an isolated artistic genius than open and reusable material.70
While the Virgilian corpus stood lofty and marmoreal, pieces taken from it,
whether passages or individual lines, could, like Deucalion and Pyrrha’s lapides,
acquire new formae and new life.
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Virgil Recomposed
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 1
Playing with Poetry
Writing and Reading the Virgilian Centos

An examination of the mythological and secular Virgilian centos requires an

initial overview of the cento form itself. A thorough sketch of how authors
compose patchwork poems and how audiences can interpret them will begin to
demonstrate that the centos, while eccentric, are complex and rich texts.
Moreover, we will begin to see that the centos serve as valuable witnesses to
Virgil’s reception in antiquity and beyond, and that they bear upon larger issues
in Latin literature and in literary studies as a whole, particularly those related to
intertextuality and allusion.
To pursue this inquiry, I turn to Decimus Magnus Ausonius, the prolific poet
and important political figure of the later fourth century.1 A centonist himself,
Ausonius is the only author in antiquity to discuss in detail his own patchwork
poem and the Virgilian cento as a whole. These reflections appear in a prefatory
epistle written in prose to the rhetor Axius Paulus,2 which Ausonius attaches to
his Cento Nuptialis:3
perlege hoc etiam, si operae est, frivolum et nullius pretii opusculum, quod nec
labor excudit nec cura limavit, sine ingenii acumine et morae maturitate. cen-
tonem vocant qui primi hac concinnatione luserunt. solae memoriae negotium
sparsa colligere et integrare lacerata, quod ridere magis quam laudare possis. pro
quo, si per Sigillaria in auctione veniret, neque Afranius naucum daret neque 5
ciccum suum Plautus offerret. piget equidem Vergiliani carminis dignitatem tam
ioculari dehonestasse materia. sed quid facerem? iussum erat, quodque est po-
tentissimum imperandi genus, rogabat qui iubere poterat. imperator Valentinia-
nus, vir meo iudicio eruditus, nuptias quondam eiusmodi ludo descripserat, aptis
equidem versibus et compositione festiva. experiri deinde volens quantum nostra 10
contentione praecelleret, simile nos de eodem concinnare praecepit. quam scru-
pulosum hoc mihi fuerit intellege. neque anteferri volebam neque posthaberi, cum
aliorum quoque iudicio detegenda esset adulatio inepta, si cederem, insolentia, si
ut aemulus eminerem. suscepi igitur similis recusanti feliciterque et obnoxius
gratiam tenui nec victor offendi. hoc tum die uno et addita lucubratione prop- 15
eratum modo inter liturarios meos cum repperissem, tanta mihi candoris tui et
amoris fiducia est ut severitati tuae nec ridenda subtraherem. accipe igitur opus-
culum de inconexis continuum de diversis unum, de seriis ludicrum, de alieno
2 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

nostrum, ne in sacris et fabulis aut Thyonianum mireris aut Virbium, illum de

Dionyso, hunc de Hippolyto reformatum. 20
et si pateris ut doceam docendus ipse, cento quid sit absolvam. variis de locis
sensibusque diversis quaedam carminis structura solidatur, in unum versum ut
coeant aut caesi duo aut unus <et unus> sequenti cum medio. nam duos iunctim
locare ineptum est et tres una serie merae nugae. diffinduntur autem per caesuras
omnes, quas recipit versus heroicus, convenire ut possit aut penthemimeres cum 25
reliquo anapaestico aut trochaice cum posteriore segmento aut septem semipedes
cum anapaestico chorico aut * * post dactylum atque semipedem quicquid restat
hexametro, simile ut dicas ludicro, quod Graeci stom
awion vocavere. ossicula ea
sunt: ad summam quattuordecim figuras geometricas habent. sunt enim quad-
rilatera vel triquetra extentis lineis aut <eiusdem> frontis, <vel aequicruria vel ae- 30
quilatera, vel rectis> angulis vel obliquis: isoscele ipsi vel isopleura vocant, orthogonia
quoque et scalena. harum verticularum variis coagmentis simulantur species mille
formarum: elephantus belua aut aper bestia, anser volans et mirmillo in armis,
subsidens venator et latrans canis, quin et turris et cantharus et alia eiusmodi
innumerabilium figurarum, quae alius alio scientius variegant. sed peritorum con- 35
cinnatio miraculum est, imperitorum iunctura ridiculum. quo praedicto scies quod
ego posteriorem imitatus sum. hoc ergo centonis opusculum ut ille ludus tractatur,
pari modo sensus diversi ut congruant, adoptiva quae sunt ut cognata videantur,
aliena ne interluceant, arcessita ne vim redarguant, densa ne supra modum pro-
tuberent, hiulca ne pateant. quae si omnia ita tibi videbuntur ut praeceptum est, 40
dices me composuisse centonem et, quia sub imperatore tum merui, procedere mihi
inter frequentes stipendium iubebis; sin aliter, aere dirutum facies, ut cumulo
carminis in fiscum suum redacto redeant versus unde venerunt. vale.

Read through this also, if it is worthwhile—a trifling and worthless little book,
which no pains have shaped nor care polished, without a spark of wit and that
ripeness which deliberation gives.
They who first trifled with this form of compilation call it a ‘‘cento.’’ ’Tis a
task for the memory only, which has to gather up scattered tags and fit these
mangled scraps together into a whole, and so is more likely to provoke your
laughter than your praise. If it were put up for auction at a fair, Afranius would
not give his straw, nor Plautus bid his husk. For it is vexing to have Virgil’s
majestic verse degraded with such a comic theme. But what was I to do? It was
written by command, and at the request (which is the most pressing kind of
order!) of one who was able to command—the Emperor Valentinian, a man, in
my opinion, of deep learning. He had once described a wedding in a jeu d’esprit
of this kind, wherein the verses were to the point and their connections amusing.
Then, wishing to show by means of a competition with me the great superiority
of his production, he bade me compile a similar poem on the same subject. Just
picture how delicate a task this was for me! I did not wish to leave him nowhere,
nor yet to be left behind myself; since my foolish flattery was bound to be patent
to the eyes of other critics as well, if I gave way, or my presumption, if I rivaled
and surpassed him. I undertook the task, therefore, with an air of reluctance and
with happy results, and, as obedient, kept in favor and, as successful, gave no
offense.
PLAYING WITH POETRY 3

This book, then hurriedly composed in a single day with some lamp-lit hours
thrown in, I lately found among my rough drafts; and so great is my confidence in
your sincerity and affection, that for all your gravity I could not withhold even a
ludicrous production. So take a little work, continuous, though made of disjointed
tags; one, though of various scraps; absurd, though of grave materials; mine,
though the elements are another’s; lest you should wonder at the accounts given
by priests or poets of the Son of Thyone or of Virbius—the first reshaped out of
Dionysus, the second out of Hippolytus.
And if you will suffer me, who need instruction myself, to instruct you, I will
expound what a cento is. It is a poem compactly built out of a variety of passages
and different meanings, in such a way that either two half-lines are joined together
to form one, or one line and one accompanied by the following half-line. For to
place two (whole) lines side by side is weak, and three in succession is mere
trifling. But the lines are divided at any of the caesurae which heroic verse admits,
so that either a penthemimeris can be linked with an anapaestic continuation, or a
third-foot trochaic break with a complementary section, or at the seventh half-foot
with a choric anapaest, or [ . . . ] after a dactyl and a half-foot is placed whatever is
needed to complete the hexameter: so that you may say it is like the puzzle which
the Greeks have called stomachion. There you have little pieces of bone, fourteen
in number and representing geometrical figures. For they are quadrilateral or
triangular, some with sides of various lengths, some symmetrical, either of equal
legs or equilateral, with either right or oblique angles: the same people call them
isosceles or equal-sided triangles, and also right-angled and scalene. By fitting
these pieces together in various ways, pictures of countless objects are produced: a
monstrous elephant, a brutal boar, a goose in flight, and a gladiator in armor, a
huntsman crouching down, and a dog barking—even a tower and a tankard and
numberless other things of this sort, whose variety depends on the skill of the
player. But while the harmonious arrangement of the skillful player is marvelous,
the jumble made by the unskilled is grotesque. This prefaced, you will know that
I am like the second kind of player.
And so this little work, the Cento, is handled in the same way as the game
described, so as to harmonize different meanings, to make pieces arbitrarily
connected seem naturally related, to let foreign elements show no chink of light
between, to prevent the far-fetched from proclaiming the force which united
them, the closely packed from bulging unduly, the loosely knit from gaping. If you
find all these conditions duly fulfilled according to rule, you will say that I have
compiled a cento. And because I served at the time under my commanding officer,
you will direct ‘‘that pay be issued to me as for regular service’’; but if otherwise,
you will sentence me ‘‘to forfeit pay,’’ so that this ‘‘lump sum’’ of verse may be
‘‘returned to its proper pay-chest,’’ and the verses go back to the source from which
they came. Farewell.4

Through this explanatory epistle, Ausonius not only communicates with Paulus
but also with a wider audience; for Ausonius wrote the letter with an eye to
broader dissemination alongside the cento. Ausonius includes the letter in order
to ensure that Paulus—the explicit addressee of the epistle—and readers in the
fourth century and perhaps even posterity, Ausonius’s implicit addressees, would
4 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

be equipped to read the cento knowledgeably. In concerning himself with his

text’s reception, Ausonius’s interests no doubt were more than pedagogical. By
describing the origin and character of his own patchwork text and relating what a
cento is, Ausonius would have enabled his different readers to appreciate better
his accomplishment in composing his work.5 At the end of the epistle, the poet
demonstrates his desire to have Paulus, and by extension the tacit larger audi-
ence, judge the Cento Nuptialis (40–43). Despite some patently insincere self-
deprecation in the letter (more on this hereafter), Ausonius certainly would have
wanted his work received favorably.
Ausonius’s efforts to secure the sort of readership he wants for the Cento
Nuptialis lead him to articulate a cento poetics.6 The account that Ausonius
offers will serve as a point of departure for much of the discussion in this
chapter. This will involve not only analyzing Ausonius’s poetics closely but also
relating it to the twelve extant mythological and secular centos, especially by
scrutinizing how all the centonists put into practice the ideas and methods that
Ausonius discusses. In addition, I will investigate aspects of cento composition
that Ausonius overlooks.7 Such a survey will explain thoroughly what a cento is,
and along the way will connect the Virgilian centos to topics of wider concern,
including the nature of literary ludism, ancient mnemotechnics, and the roles of
the author and the reader in allusion.

Readers of Ausonius’s prefatory epistle to the Cento Nuptialis would have to

agree with Erasmus that its author was one who, regarding the cento, legem
etiam eius carminis tradit (‘‘Adagia,’’ Opera Omnia 2.542D). This assessment
stems from lines 21–28 of the letter to Paulus,8 in which Ausonius presents
the technical rules of cento composition. The poet says that citations were to
consist either of two half-lines or of one line and the following half attached to
another half (praef. 22). Although Ausonius himself sometimes connects longer
units,9 he remarks that generally the gesture is cheap child’s play (praef. 22–23).
Ausonius proceeds to delineate the different metrical sections that the cen-
tonist could conjoin. The segments result from cuts at the strong caesurae
in the second, third, or fourth feet, or after a weak caesura in the third foot
(praef. 24–28).10 (In practice, centonists sometimes make other cuts, including
occasionally at diereses.)11 For many, this information constitutes what is of
value and interest in the prefatory epistle. Ausonius’s codifications are often
seen as his primary, if not his sole contribution to our understanding of the
cento form.
Overlooked in such a reading of the epistle to Paulus is the information about
the cento that Ausonius imparts in less explicit ways. In addition to his statements
about the proper length of citations and the varied metrical divisions of Virgil that
can occur in the cento, Ausonius presents a discursive poetics, or an explanation of
the cento form in more expressive and often figurative language. This occurs both
in the sections of the epistle where he discusses the Cento Nuptialis alone (praef.
6–20, 40–43) and where he examines the patchwork form generally (1–6, 21–40).
PLAYING WITH POETRY 5

Ausonius’s narrative sketch provides deeper insights into the cento than his
technical (and somewhat corrupt) summary in lines 21–28.12
The initial Ausonian terms that I will discuss are ludus and ludere. Ausonius
uses the word ‘‘play’’ as a verb in line 3 (centonem vocant qui primi hac con-
cinnatione luserunt) and as a noun in lines 9 ([Valentinianus . . . nuptias quon-
dam eiusdem] ludo descripserat) and 37 (hoc ergo centonis opusculum ut ille
ludus tractatur). These comments provide early examples of an important term
in cento criticism, where the patchwork poems have been described as a sort of
game, sometimes pejoratively, sometimes incompletely.13 My aim is to use
Ausonius’s epistle as a starting point for defining more precisely what makes
cento composition a form of literary play.
Ludere and ludus/lusus are regular, and almost technical, terms for different
kinds of verse in the Latin tradition.14 They can denote poems of different kinds
produced in leisure hours;15 youthful works;16 light poetry as distinguished
from serious;17 texts belonging to minor genres;18 and poems in which authors
treat the verbal surface as game pieces that they fit into patterns—that is,
carmina figurata, reciprocal verses, and the like.19 The words can also be an in-
sult or a means of self-deprecation.20 To complicate matters, these different
categories can sometimes overlap.
In his prefatory epistle to Paulus, Ausonius defines the Cento Nuptialis and
the cento form as literary play in accordance with several of these measuring
sticks. One is the classification of poetic ludism as a product of otium, or leisure.21
While there was some persistent suspicion attached to it in Roman culture,22
leisure for the majority of Latin authors and the general public was usually an
interval in, and a preparation for, work (labor), business dealings (negotium), the
performance of duties (officia), or political, administrative, or military service.23
Among the economic, political, and social elite and those of lower status who
possessed some cultural capital—for example, grammarians and rhetors—one of
the ways to pass one’s relaxation was to write poetry (whether alone or with
others). Though some resisted and criticized this activity, the sources who discuss
it tend to represent it as a productive use of otium, or a means of refreshing one’s
intellectual and creative faculties, or as a benignly frivolous passing of time.24
Often writers mention the kind of work being produced in leisure hours, with epic
and tragedy considered worthwhile and edifying. Epigram, satire, and other light
genres, meanwhile, were deemed inconsequential and flighty,25 though still ac-
ceptable as cultured play. An example of someone who wrote poems belonging to
this second class of works, Pliny, describes his penchant for writing light verses as
harmless fun (Ep. 5.3). This attitude was no doubt common from the late republic
through late antiquity, though it must be added that Pliny had to defend his
writing and reciting versiculos severos parum (Ep. 5.3.2). In cultural centers
throughout antiquity, recitation halls and dinner parties would have been im-
portant loci for sharing ludic pieces.26
In late antiquity, evidence for such cultivated play during otium comes
from the fifth-century Sidonius Apollinaris (e.g., Ep. 9.13.2–5 and 9.15.1).
6 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Especially notable is Ep. 9.13, where Sidonius says that he is sending Tonantius
a lyric poem to be recited inter bibendum (9.13.2), and where he describes
bygone convivial parties in which he and others chose meters by lots and wrote
poems on the same subject matter in playful competition (9.13.4–5). Critics
have argued that there was in Sidonius’s Gaul a decline in the number of lite-
rati who partook of such ludic activities.27 Even so, a vivid picture emerges in
Sidonius’s letters of how the learned could approach poetry as entertainment
in fifth-century Gaul, and so of how guilt-free leisured literary ludism was alive
and well in circles that valued and wanted to preserve their ties to Roman
classical culture. In the codex Salmasianus, moreover, which (as noted in the
introduction to this book) contains a sixth-century collection of poems put to-
gether in Africa and probably represents to a large degree the poetry of African
writers,28 many works have the appearance of dilettantish products of leisure.
In one, which modern editors have entitled the Epistula Didonis ad Aeneam (AL
71 SB), an anonymous author explicitly links his poem to otium (quid carminis
otia ludant, / cerne bonus mentisque fidem probus indue iudex [2–3]).29
Ausonius offers further evidence for such leisurely composition in the preface
to the Griphus (14–27), where he relates that he began composing the riddling
poem while drinking with others during the Alamannic campaign of 368–369.30 It
may be, however, that Ausonius only got the idea for his poem at that point. A
more secure connection to leisure, and more significant for my purposes, marks
the Cento Nuptialis, which arose in the otium at Valentinian’s court. In his letter to
Paulus, Ausonius reports that his patchwork poem began as a potentially incen-
diary diversion, after Valentinian, having himself written such a ludus, challenged
him to a literary contest (praef. 8–11).31 This placed the centonist on the razor’s
edge. While he did not want to appear to have thrown the contest, he also could
not beat the emperor too handily, lest he be charged with insolence (11–14).
Fortunately, Ausonius devised a happy solution. Taking up the task with seeming
reluctance, he both stayed in favor by being obedient and, as an unwilling winner,
avoided offending Valentinian (14–15). Despite the rhetorical nature of Auso-
nius’s description of Valentinian’s order and the author’s dilemma, there is no
reason to doubt that this competition occurred. Notable in Ausonius’s account of
it is the language of conflict (contentione praecelleret [11], anteferri/posthaberi [12],
aemulus eminerem [14], and victor [15]). These terms point to the place of the
competitive impulse that is a main spur to play in the exchange of dueling cen-
tos.32 References to victory also indicate that playing at the cento could confer
status on the successful competitor. This ‘‘battle,’’ however, occurred in the de-
marcated zone of otium, a parareality in which events took place that, while they
could have consequences in the larger world, were set off from that world.
Whether the other mythological and secular Virgilian centos arose in a
similar background of cultivated leisure is difficult to determine. The anony-
mous centos in the codex Salmasianus as well as Mavortius’s Iudicium Paridis,
which appears in the same manuscript, are candidates for such otium. The
Virgil-saturated authors may have composed the patchwork poems either
PLAYING WITH POETRY 7

for refined entertainment, and perhaps even for ludic literary competitions at
a banquet, or as diversions in their own spare time. Whatever their initial per-
formance contexts, the centos, like other Virgilian poems in the Salmasianus,
Coronatus’s Locus Vergilianus (AL 214 SB) and the two anonymous Themata
Vergiliana (AL 237 SB, 249 SB), have more than a whiff of cultured play, which
would have occurred during leisure hours.33
Of the other mythological and secular centos, there is some evidence linking
Hosidius Geta’s Medea to otium. This comes from Tertullian, who mentions a
cento Medea in the De Praescriptione Haereticorum 39.3–4. Based on parallels
in name, form, and subject matter, it is extremely probable that this text is the
very Medea that survives in the codex Salmasianus. After alluding to the Medea
(denique Hosidius Geta Medeam tragoediam ex Virgilio plenissime exsuxit),
Tertullian proceeds to refer immediately to a neighbor or relative who used
Virgilian verses to offer a new version of Cebes’s Pinax. This text emerged
among other compositions written during the author’s leisure hours: meus
quidam propinquus ex eodem poeta inter cetera stili sui otia Pinacem Cebetis
explicuit (39.4). While Tertullian fails to link the Medea explicitly to leisure, it
may be that the tragic cento arose in a setting similar to the centonized Pinax of
Cebes—that is, in the time that cultured adults devoted to otium.
The final cento to consider is Luxurius’s Epithalamium Fridi. The centonist
probably did not perform this work at the wedding that occasioned it. Instead,
Fridus and his bride were in all likelihood meant to enjoy the poem during their
relaxation. Luxurius, moreover, may have composed the Epithalamium Fridi
during his otium as a gift for the bride and groom. At the same time, the couple
may have solicited the work, which means that it would have been a patronized
commission rather than a pastime. Thus there is some question as to whether
the Epithalamium Fridi was the product of Luxurius’s otium; or something he
wrote more by necessity. (I will return to these matters in chapter 5.)
A second common way to define poetic ludism that I noted earlier is to dis-
tinguish literary play from serious poetry, broadly defined.34 Throughout his
epistle to Paulus, Ausonius does precisely this in describing the Cento Nuptialis.
Admittedly, Ausonius pursues such an approach largely as part of a captatio
benevolentiae, which was recommended for the exordia of speeches and was found
in the prefaces of literary works. Designed to secure the sympathy of an audience,
a captatio usually contained self-effacing assertions of the inadequacies of an
author and his text.35 Ausonius includes such affected modesty in programmatic
passages preceding several pieces,36 although not always to the desired effect; for
the poet’s protestations of humility have elicited critical wrath.37
Many statements in the epistle to Paulus contribute to the captatio. When
Ausonius calls his cento a frivolum et nullius pretii opusculum (praef. 1), claims
that it is the type of work quod ridere magis quam laudare possis (4), and admits
piget equidem Vergiliani carminis dignitatem tam ioculari dehonestasse materia
(6–7), he does not offer literary criticism of the Cento Nuptialis, let alone of the
cento as such. Instead, Ausonius seeks to win the goodwill of his audience.38
8 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

There is a moment, however, when Ausonius distinguishes his cento from

serious literary composition in a way that moves beyond the narrow purposes of a
captatio: accipe igitur opusculum de inconexis continuum, de diversis unum, de
seriis ludicrum, de alieno nostrum (praef. 17–19). While the word opusculum
owes much to the modesty topos, as it does in line 1 of the epistle,39 the passage
is not just a self-deprecating moment as the foregoing examples are, but contains
an accurate appraisal of the Cento Nuptialis and of the patchwork form as a
whole. The important clause here is de seriis ludicrum. Ausonius says that cento
composition is something an author does to serious poetry in order to produce a
playful piece—ludicrum, a word obviously connected to ludus/ludere, which here
does more than convey modesty and in fact describes the cento accurately.40
Because the cento exists as a product of Virgilian poetry, it necessarily stands at a
distance from the canonical, and so seria, Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid.41 The
act of reconstituting source material, which Ausonius emphasizes when he uses
the verb ‘‘play’’ earlier in the epistle (centonem vocant, qui primi hac concin-
natione luserunt, 2–3), comes between the Virgilian centos and their canonical
source texts. This gives the patchwork poems a different status from those grand
works, as they become examples of light, ludic poetry derived de seriis.
That a cento is fundamentally a playful reworking of Virgilian poetry also
means that a patchwork text cannot belong in any simple way to a high genre.42
Here the relevant work is Hosidius Geta’s Medea. This cento is presented as a
tragedy, a genre that stands alongside epic atop the generic hierarchy. In a cento,
however, the intercession of Virgil causes the patchwork text to be something
other than merely a representative of that particular genre. While an individual
patchwork poem may take the form of a tragedy, it is first a cento, a text derived
from the manipulation of another author’s poetry. Hence Geta’s Medea is what
Ausonius describes the Cento Nuptialis to be: an opusculum ludicrum de seriis.
No matter how lofty the genre it replicates, a cento is always at bottom a cento, or
a text adapting Virgil to a particular generic setting, and so standing at a remove
from that genre.
Another category of ludic poetry that I noted earlier consists of texts in which
authors isolate and reify the verbal surface, treating words as game pieces whose
physical existence they can manipulate.43 Ausonius aligns the cento form with
such ludism when he compares patchwork composition to the stom
awion
(praef. 28–37). Within that passage, Ausonius uses the terms ludicrum (simile
ut dicas ludicro, quod Graeci stom
awion vocavere [28]) and, for the final time in
the epistle, ludus (hoc ergo centonis opusculum ut ille ludus [the stom
awion]
tractatur [37]).
The trifle or game to which Ausonius likens the cento is first attested in a
largely lost work of Archimedes and in antiquity acquired the name loculus
Archimedius. Some have explained the word stom
awion as meaning Neckspiel,
;
or brain teaser,44 while others read ostom
awion, a ‘‘battle of bones’’ puzzle that
takes its name presumably from the material first used to create the pieces of that
puzzle.45 In any case, the game consists of fourteen triangular or quadrilateral
PLAYING WITH POETRY 9

figures,46 which Ausonius labels ossicula (praef. 28). The object of the game as
Ausonius presents it is to fit those geometric shapes together in different ways in
order to make countless objects: harum verticularum variis coagmentiis simulantur
species mille formarum (32–33).47
The basic purpose of Ausonius’s comparing the cento to the stom
awion is to
show how cento composition admits of various configurations of Virgil’s verse
units, which serve as verbal and metrical ossiculae, and how centonists use those
units to create new literary objects.48 Extrapolating from this, it can be said that
each patchwork text exists because an author has imposed ‘‘play conditions’’ on
Virgil’s verbal surface,49 abstracting its constituent verse units and treating them
as though they were manipulable game pieces.
Handling Virgil in this way compels writers to accept and abide by a set of
stringent ad hoc laws. In similar ludic literature such as palindromic poetry,
acrostics, or leipograms, these establish the particular boundaries within which
an author can pursue his game. In the case of the cento, the rule that Virgil’s
poetry must constitute a patchwork text, as well as the strictures governing the
metrical incisions that the poet can make, set the limits for how a centonist can
manipulate or play with Virgil’s reified language. Of course, poetry generally
imposes rules on a writer, from metrical and other formal constraints to generic
customs and expectations.50 What distinguishes the cento from conventional
verse composition—and this point holds for other works whose authors treat
verbal surfaces similarly—is how extremely circumscribed the space of material
is within which the centonist works, and how extremely tight the laws are
governing his methods of composition. The centonist severely delimits the lin-
guistic possibilities available to him—that is, he confines the verbal area of his
poetry and the ways that he can handle that area much more than nonludic
authors do. The centonist thus creates a ‘‘closed field’’51 out of Virgil’s verbal
surface, which he rearranges according to the specific and conventional rules
controlling his play.
That centonists give ludic materiality to Virgil’s verse units and handle them
according to a set of rules affects the reception of their texts. As with all games,
including literary examples, there is a strong aspect of spectatorship to reading
centos. If they are to appreciate the works fully, audiences need to be aware
that the centos are Virgilian texts, created through a peculiar technique and
displaying how writers handle that technique. Indeed, centos are fundamentally
authorial demonstrations of skill in creating a new composition out of Virgil’s
verse units.52 Though there will conceivably cases be where a reader does not
know that he is reading a patchwork poem,53 a cento should not be met by such
naı̈ve reading and instead calls upon its audience to exercise its critical faculty
in scrutinizing how the author negotiates the rules of his game and produces a
text.54 Because the cento is the kind of ludus it is, the processes that lie behind
its linguistic surface intrude more forcefully on the reading act than do the
processes underlying the production of conventional poetry, even as these are of
course also a central part of the interpretive experience.
10 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Ausonius’s use of ludere and ludus, then, aligns the Cento Nuptialis and
cento composition generally with a wide range of criteria defining literary ludism
in antiquity, and so shows that the cento is a form of play. The next step toward
ascertaining cento quid sit is to examine the specific ways that centonists pursue
their Virgilian games. To uncover how patchwork poets ‘‘investigate works from
the past in order to find possibilities that often exceed those their authors had
anticipated,’’55 I return to Ausonius’s prefatory epistle and other aspects of the
figurative poetics he offers.

Early in the letter to Paulus, Ausonius uses a metaphor that vividly portrays
what centonists do to Virgil’s poetry: solae memoriae negotium sparsa colligere et
integrare lacerata (praef. 3–4). Ausonius here draws on a ‘‘conventional literary
vocabulary that . . . figures texts and parts of texts as their authors’ bodies and
limbs’’56 to describe the task of collecting and fitting together Virgil’s ‘‘mangled
and strewn’’ verse units or membra, a word whose multivalence the centonist
exploits.57 For Ausonius, cento composition is a violent enterprise; yet instead
of only rending Virgil’s ‘‘limbs,’’ centonists put them back together. While the
centonist tears Virgil’s original verbal surface apart, Ausonius relates, his pur-
poses are ultimately creative, not destructive.
Whether or not it was his intention, Ausonius’s figurative language in lines
3–4 of his epistle to Paulus also adumbrates a connection between his and all
centonists’ negotium memoriae and the techniques prescribed in handbooks on
memory. Specifically, the reference to Virgil’s sparsa et lacerata [membra] sug-
gests that a centonist applies to his literary performance a version of divisio, or
the act of memorizing a long text in parts. According to writers on mnemo-
technics, this piecemeal approach was a necessary first step to committing a
lengthy work to memory.58 Such division would have helped readers throughout
antiquity to remember Virgil, the poet who most occupied the memories of the
educated from early childhood onward, as I noted in the introduction.59
Through their constant exposure to Virgil, educated Romans came to have Virgil
hard-wired within themselves.60 This would lead to the memorization of large
swaths of Virgil, if not the entire corpus of his canonical works, just as Greek
readers knew large sections of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey or the entire poems by
heart.61
The centonists develop a new version of the practice of divisio. Having no
doubt memorized most or all the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid by learning
those texts line-by-line and even dactylic segment-by-dactylic segment, the
centonists divide the units of Virgilian poetry anew. Cento composition is a
memory act requiring that authors be able to scan Virgil in their minds, isolating
his verse units in order to find an appropriate membrum.62
Notable for his form of mnemonic composition is the author of the Christian
cento De Ecclesia (a figure possibly named Mavortius).63 At a public perfor-
mance of his work, this author recites a six-line extemporaneous cento as a
coda to the De Ecclesia (AL 16a R).64 Lines 4–6 of this passage are remarkably
PLAYING WITH POETRY 11

similar to a passage in Hosidius Geta’s cento Medea, so much so that they

suggest a deliberate act of imitation of Geta.65 If he was indeed responding to
the Medea, the De Ecclesia poet would demonstrate that he has committed to
memory Virgil and a section of the reconstructed Virgil of an earlier cento, and
that he can reproduce both of them on the spot.66
The only other centonist who provides any information about his method of
centonizing is Ausonius. Once again in the strains of the captatio benevolentiae,
Ausonius claims that he dashed off his work in a day and revised it slightly (hoc,
tum die uno et addita lucubratione properatum [praef. 15–16).67 However long
Ausonius in fact took to compose and polish his Cento Nuptialis, it is easy to
imagine the poet consulting a written text of Virgil when he made some re-
visions to his cento. Yet there remains no reason to doubt Ausonius’s comment
that cento composition is fundamentally a negotium memoriae, with him and
every centonist having the fragmented membra of Virgil’s poetry in their heads.
A written text of Virgil could be a reference tool for a centonist; but relying
entirely on a roll or a codex would not allow centonists to operate with the
efficiency that the cento form demands.68
Along with divisio, a second important aspect of ancient memory instruction
was compositio, or the recomposition of the elements of a long text in their
correct order. Quintilian confirms this point, insisting that limits be placed on
the subdivision of a text so that one can connect words in their proper relation—
a task of great difficulty—and unite the various sections.69 Late antique writers,
Fortunatianus and Martianus Capella, restate Quintilian’s injunction.70 The
principle of segmented recollection would be central to memorizing either prose
or poetry, on the latter of which Quintilian (Inst. Orat. 1.1.36 and 11.2.41) and
Fortunatianus (Ars Rhet. 3.13) claim students ought first to train their memo-
ries. Poetry was also the material on which the author of the Rhetorica ad
Herennium suggests children and adults should practice memoria verborum, or
word-for-word memorization (ad Her. 3.19.34). Hence memorizing Virgil would
have naturally involved dividing his verse units into workable segments and then
reconnecting them in their proper order.
Such recollection of texts does not obtain in the Virgilian centos. Rather than
trying to reproduce the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid as they were written, the
centonists disarticulate Virgil’s poetry. Yet in doing so, they of course do not
misremember their source material or avoid the very difficult gesture of re-
connecting the memorized parts into a unity. Having already memorized an
original order of verses, the centonists instead rearrange that material to create a
new textual coherence. Dismembering and reconstructing Virgil through
memory becomes a means of remaking rather than restoring that model. What
remains of Virgil in a cento are his individual verse units, the membra that come
to constitute a new poetic harmony.
Certain tangible things help the centonists perform their idiosyncratic
memory acts of isolating Virgilian lines anew and reconnecting them in original
ways.71 The first aid is situational agreement.72 A cento will sometimes contain
12 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

a line taken from a passage in Virgil that resembles the scene being described in
the cento. Thus when Luxurius cites A. 1.707, nec non et Tyrii per limina laeta
frequentes, to describe the guests at the wedding feast of Fridus and his bride
(EF 22), the original context of the Aeneid, the feast at Dido’s palace, seems to
guide the centonist to the Virgilian line. Such episodic memory, or recollection
based on similarities in the type of scene being presented and the action and
objects found in those scenes,73 can also help determine why centonists con-
nect the Virgilian units they do. Line 23 of Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis, which
like EF 22 describes a wedding feast, offers an example: crateras magnos
statuunt (A. 1.724) Bacchumque ministrant (A. 8.181). Ausonius moves be-
tween these separated segments in the Aeneid because both units describe
banquets (the first involving Dido and the second Evander), or scenes akin to
the cena in Ausonius’s cento.
At times, a centonist recalls a Virgilian line belonging to an episode not at all
similar to that of the cento, but containing an object that appears in the disparate
narrative context of the patchwork poem. So when the anonymous author of the
Hippodamia cites A. 4.135, stat sonipes ac frena ferox spumantia mandit, the horse
remains a horse, but rather than being a mount prepared for the hunt with Dido
and Aeneas becomes part of a team pulling a chariot. The centonist’s reuse of A.
4.135 appears to be due to his memory that a horse appears in the Virgilian line.
More striking is Ausonius’s capreae sequaces (G. 2.374) / . . . oves haedique petulci
(G. 4.10) / et genus aequoreum, (G. 3.243), dammae cervique fugaces (G. 3.539),
which describe the menu at Gratian’s cena nuptialis (CN 18–20). While the
referents are quite different—Ausonius’s animals are prepared food, not crea-
tures in nature—Ausonius probably cited the Virgilian units because he re-
membered that they provided relevant objects for his account.
Characters can also provide parallels that appear to guide the centonists’
memories, with the poets recalling Virgilian lines containing a character that
appears again in their centos. This occurs with gods (e.g., sic contra est ingressa
Venus [A. 4.107] [Iud. Par. 32]) and with heroes (e.g., non tulit Alcides [A.
8.256] [Herc. et Ant. 8]). Of course, because a Virgilian cento never relates the
same narrative as Virgil, the mythological figures engage in different activities
in the patchwork poems from what they do in Virgil, and so acquire different
functions and different attributes from what they have in the Virgilian context.
Good examples are the phrases superi regnator Olympi (A. 2.779) in line 7 of
the Europa and [stetit] ante Iovem: (G. 1.125) nam te voluit rex magnus Olympi
(A. 5.533) in line 13. The units refer to Jupiter in both Virgil and the cento.
Yet the god appears in a different guise from what he was in the Virgilian
passages, since in the Europa he has exercised his divine prerogative and
become a bull.
Other links between characters are not so exact, but still seem to direct the
centonists’ choice of material. In such instances, figures in Virgil and in a cento
will be similar types and will be endowed with similar functions and attributes,74
rather than being two manifestations of the same figure. When Hosidius Geta
PLAYING WITH POETRY 13

has Medea lament nusquam tuta fides (A. 4.373), for instance, his choice of
Virgilian material would seem to depend on the resemblance between Medea
and Dido, the original speaker of the verse unit. Both are betrayed heroines, even
though they are obviously different characters. This third category of thematic
consonance can overlap with the first two; that is, the same character or a similar
character can appear in an episode that is analogous in Virgil and in a cento, or
can appear alongside an analogous object.
The need to include poetic formulae provides still another reason that cen-
tonists recall certain Virgilian units at certain times. To introduce the day that
Alcestis dies for Admetus, for instance, the anonymous author of the cento
Alcesta uses the unit ergo aderat promissa dies (from A. 9.107) (Alc. 114). The
centonist’s recollection of the Virgilian material depends on its ability to es-
tablish the time of a scene, a function that the unit, being like other formulae
easily detached from one context and easily set into another, can have in dif-
ferent narratives. Along with advancing narratives temporally, formulae also
provide a spatial setting for a scene, or relate in the barest terms what a
character does or has done, in lines such as ‘‘thus he speaks/spoke.’’ It is because
of their utilitarian functions that several centonists remember and redeploy
Virgilian formulae in varied narrative situations.75
The centonists develop other means of recalling Virgil that reflect formal con-
siderations, rather than strictly thematic ones. The simplest mnemonic aid deriving
from traits found on the verbal surface of Virgil is proximity to another unit that a
centonist has just cited. In line 96 of the Cento Nuptialis, for instance, Ausonius
reuses A. 10.598, et miserere precantis, in all likelihood because in line 94 he
incorporates A. 10.597, per te, per, qui te talem genuere, parentes. Similar collo-
cations appear elsewhere in the Cento Nuptialis,76 as well as in other centos.77
A more abstruse and impressive mnemonic device enabling centonists to
locate discrete Virgilian units is the keyword. This cue appears when a centonist
cites a Virgilian line containing a word that appears in or near another line that
the centonist proceeds to redeploy soon thereafter (i.e., within roughly five
lines).78 Such reliance on verbal links resembles the common practice in an-
tiquity of using symbols (e.g., associated images or numbers) to stimulate the
memory;79 the reliance on shared verba seems to be peculiar to the patchwork
form, however.80 Keywords can join units that are themselves thematically
related, and so can work in conjunction with thematic agreement between a
cento and Virgil. An example occurs in lines 17–18 of Luxurius’s Epithalamium
Fridi: mediisque parant convivia tectis. (A. 1.638) / fit strepitus tectis vocemque per
ampla volutant (A. 1.725). Not only are the Virgilian units thematically con-
nected to each other (both appear in the feast scene at Dido’s palace) but the
situation in the cento, which depicts the cena nuptialis, is close to the original
context of the Aeneid. Even so, Luxurius seems to have relied not only on
content but also on a common term, tectis, to lead him from one Virgilian
membrum to the other. More often, though, keywords link Virgilian units that
are thematically unconnected and that are not close to the content of a cento.
14 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

The example just taken from Luxurius introduces the first of the three types
of keyword found in the centos. These overt keywords lie in the Virgilian units
that a centonist cites, and so appear twice or more in the cento. Overt keywords
are capable of producing original rhetorical figures, or those that do not appear
in any of the lines in Virgil from which the units in a cento derive. In the
De Panificio, for instance, the anonymous centonist creates an anadiplosis (or
the repetition of the last word of one clause as the first word of the next clause):
opere omnis semita fervet. (A. 4.407) / fervet opus redoletque (G. 4.169) (De Pan.
7–8). The same figure appears in line 88 of the Hippodamia: falle dolo. (A.
1.684) dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat? (A. 2.390). Centonists could also
produce anaphora by recombining Virgilian units. Thus in the Medea, Hosidius
Geta combines A. 4.272 (si te nulla movet), A. 1.555 (sin absumpta salus), and
A. 10.44 (si nulla est regio) at the beginning of three consecutive lines (238–
240) so that they together form an anaphora, with variatio in the second unit.
(In this example, nulla is also a second overt keyword.)
Devices like anadiplosis and anaphora demonstrate how cento mnemo-
technics could intersect with the aesthetics of conventional verse, since the
keywords endow the patchwork texts with rhetorical figures, which are a
hallmark of poetic discourse. The presence of original figurative material in the
centos (though to a varying extent)—and the variety of figures and tropes
among them is fairly extensive—suggests that the form could accommodate an
author’s desire to invest a text with elements of conventional stylistic refine-
ment. The ornaments work alongside Virgil’s callida iunctura within verse units
that centonists sometimes preserve, or the ‘‘shrewd juxtaposition’’ of common
words to generate fresh and striking meaning,81 and alongside imported figures
and tropes, or those appearing in a Virgilian unit that the centonists cite,82 to
create intermittent elegance. This quality abides despite the fact that the
demands of the patchwork form limit how elaborate centonists were with
syntax. In the largely paratactic centos—though parataxis is not in itself a
marker of artlessness, as Virgil shows—I have located no instances where the
poets reconnect discrete units to produce, for instance, a golden line, inter-
locking word order, or chiasmus.83 It was nevertheless possible for individual
centonists to negotiate the rules of their literary game so that different
amounts and types of verbal refinement appear in their centos. At the same
time, if audiences are to appreciate fully the centos and the accomplishments
of their authors, they must bear in mind that the texts’ at times appealing
formal qualities are the result of a peculiar poetic technique. Audiences of the
centos, in other words, should first and constantly acknowledge the ludic
mechanisms behind the works that can give rise to conventional linguistic
polish.84 The refinements are reflections of ludic skill, not just agents of aes-
thetic pleasure.
Rhetorical figures, whether imported or original, not only decorate the verbal
surfaces of the centos but also add an emotional emphasis to the lines in which
they occur. Other overt keywords in the texts have a similar effect, even if their
PLAYING WITH POETRY 15

repetition does not result in rhetorical figures. In lines 58–59 of the Alcesta, for
example, Admetus asks Apollo for pity:

nil nostri miserere? mori me denique cogis? (E. 2.7)

eripe me his, invicte, malis; (A. 6.365) miserere tuorum. (A. 11.365)

Here the second miserere amplifies the effect of the first, making the pathetic
strains of Admetus’s plea that much greater. The use of an overt keyword to
convey pathos brings the cento in line with ancient literary theory, which said
that repetition could have an emotional force (see Rhet. ad Her. 4.38, Quint;
Inst. Orat. 9.3.28, Macr., Sat. 4.6.23).85
Another effect of overt keywords is to provide the centos with linguistic variatio,
again without producing a rhetorical figure. The cues in question often appear in
patterns that conform to common types of repetition in Latin poetry. Thus some of
these patterns can be classified under the rubric modification, or ‘‘lexical conti-
nuity with morphological change’’ across clauses or lines.86 Line 53 of Ausonius’s
Cento Nuptialis provides an example: extulit os sacrum caelo: (A. 8.591) sic ora
ferebat (A. 3.490). The morphological change here occurs as a case shift, which is
found frequently among Latin texts.87 Other examples include lines 3–4 of the
Narcissus (insigni laude ferebat [ A. 1.625] / insignis facie [A. 9.583]), lines 29–30
of the Alcesta (vastoque sub antro [A. 8.217] / asper acerba tuens vasta se mole ferebat
[A. 3.256]), and lines 4–5 of the Medea (si quid pietas antiqua labores [A. 5.688] /
respicit humanos, nostro succurre labori [A. 9.404]). In lines 21–23 of the Progne et
Philomela, moreover, there is both a shift between genitoris and genitor and ora
and ore: genitoris et ora (A. 6.108) / polluit ore dapes (A. 3.234) . . . dum genitor nati
(A. 10.800). Also noteworthy are lines 38–39 of the Epithalamium Fridi:

auro innectuntur, (A. 8.661) crines nodantur in aurum.

aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem. (A. 4.139)

Luxurius here constructs a triplet of aurum or aureus (with the final two forming
an imported anadiplosis, and the last line giving an imported golden line [ap-
propriately, given the topic]), a pattern to which Virgil himself was partial (see
A. 1.448–449, 4.138–139, 7.278–279, and 8.659–661).
Another example of a case shift produces still another effect. It appears in
lines 1–2 of the Iudicium Paridis, where Mavortius, describing Paris, includes
the overt keywords tegmina and tegmine.

pictus acu tunicas et barbara tegmina crurum (A. 11.777)

forte recensebat numerum (A. 6.682) sub tegmine fagi. (E. 1.1)

The repeated nouns have distinct meanings, as tegmina means ‘‘cloth covering (for
the legs)’’ and tegmine ‘‘shadow of a tree.’’ Polysemous repetition is a theorized
16 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

aspect of composition in antiquity,88 and it is conceivable that Mavortius in-

tentionally included it to add to the verbal richness of the poem.89
Lexical modification also occurs in centos through verb shifts, or the repetition
of a verb with some form of morphological change.90 An example appears in lines
143 and 145 of the Hippodamia, where forms of spero appear in nearby lines:
sperasti te posse manus (A. 9.561) . . . speravimus ista (A. 10.42). Category shifts, or
repetitions of verbs and derived participles or of verbs, participles, and derived
nouns,91 also appear in the centos. Examples include lines 4–5 of the De Alea (et
furiis agitatus [A. 3.331] amor; protentus in octo / ipse dies agitat festos [G. 2.527])
and line 70 of the Cento Nuptialis (o digna coniuncta viro, [E. 8.32] gratissima
coniunx [A. 10.607]). In lines 96–97 of the Hippodamia, moreover, we find a shift
between the noun spes and the participle of spero (spe multum captus inani [A.
9.49] / scilicet id magnum sperans fore munus amanti [A. 6.526]). Read together
with lines 143 and 145 just cited, these lines suggest that this anonymous author
had something of a penchant for repetition on the word hope.
Sometimes repeated words in centos fail to produce a rhetorical figure, have
no discernible emotional or semantic effect, and do not conform to patterns of
repetition. Most of these examples are separated by more than a line. So in the
De Panificio, the anonymous poet uses the word volumina in lines 1 (immensa
volumina versat [A. 5.408]) and 4 (septena volumina traxit [A. 5.85]). Another
instance appears in lines 104 and 109 of the Cento Nuptialis (pedem pede
fervidus urget [A. 12.748] / . . . eripit a femore et trepidanti fervidus instat [A.
10.788]). To a modern reader, iteration of this sort would seem to result in the
vitium of tautologia, which occurs ‘‘in the case of full, and therefore functionless
equivalence.’’92 Yet such repetitions would not have been so offensive to ancient
sensibilities, since poets in antiquity included them with some frequency, and
would not have done so if there had been wide disapproval of the gesture.93 The
tendency toward inert repetition is particularly marked in late antiquity.94 Such
‘‘functionless’’ repetitions constitute an important formal characteristic of the
centos.95 Yet when a few lines separate the repeated words, it is uncertain
whether the first example actually triggers recollection of the second. While it is
possible that keywords are at work, the centonist may recall the second unit
independently of the first.
Many lines in the centos are also seemingly joined by covert keywords, which
can take two forms. In the first instance, one of the keywords appears in a line
that is reused in the cento, but the second lies near, not in, an abutting or
proximate unit that the centonist cites; thus it does not appear a second time in
the patchwork text. Sometimes this can be as simple as a conjunction that
connects a unit that a centonist reuses to the rest of the original uncited line,
and that appears as well in the second unit that the centonist cites to fill out
that line. An example is line 28 of the Hippodamia, vestibulum ante ipsum (A.
6.273) saevique in limine regis (A. 12.849). The rest of A. 6.273 reads primisque
in faucibus Orci; it may be, therefore, that the enclitic -que served some role in
getting the centonist from point A in Virgil to point B.
PLAYING WITH POETRY 17

The diligent hunter can locate many covert keywords of this kind in the
centos (though at some cost to his or her eyesight and sanity). In the interest of
space, I will give only two representative examples; the first is found in line 118
of the Alcesta:

incubuitque toro dixitque novissima verba: (A. 4.650)

‘‘O dulcis coniunx, (A. 2.777) dum fata deusque sinebant (A. 4.651)

Here the centonist breaks up A. 4.650 and 4.651 with a unit from A. 2.777, to
which he may have been directed because of the word dulcis, which appears in
the part of A. 4.651 that goes uncited, dulces exuviae.
The second example appears in line 95 of Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis: o formose
puer (E. 2.17), noctem non amplius unam (A. 1.683). The move from the Eclogues
to the Aeneid appears to depend on a verbal hinge, puer, which appears in E. 2.17
and A. 1.684, falle dolo et notos pueri puer indue vultus. The presence of puer in the
Eclogue line and near the Aeneid line that Ausonius cites—the latter of which the
centonist may have remembered more readily on account of the polyptoton—
suggests strongly that the word functions as a tacit mnemonic tibicen or prop.
The other type of covert keyword consists of a word or phrase that appears
near two units cited close together (if not next to each other) in a cento, but that
is not reproduced in the cento at all. Line 8 of the Narcissus provides an
example: egregium forma iuvenem (A. 6.861 or 12.275), quam nympha crearet
(A. 10.551). Linking these units is fulgentibus armis, which occurs in both
A. 6.861 and 12.275 (egregium forma iuvenem et fulgentibus armis) and A. 10.550
(Tarquitus exsultans contra fulgentibus armis). The presence of that phrase close
to both units that appear in the cento is striking, and the temptation is to see it
as a hidden cue that directed the centonist from unit to unit.
Covert keywords are more difficult to identify than the overt variety, and there is a
greater likelihood that the appearance of such cues is accidental, with the centonist
either not seeing the verbal link or identifying it only after recalling two Virgilian
units. Even so, the appearance of covert keywords is frequently uncanny enough to
suggest a deliberate authorial strategy, as in the examples just given.
The third class of linguistic mnemonic prompt used by centonists is based on
sound. In these examples, a word in one clause either is a homonym of a word
in another clause that the centonist cites or has sound qualities resembling
those of a second word in a Virgilian verse unit reused proximately. Such aural
keywords would seem to be an extension of the idea found in ancient hand-
books that sound resemblance could be an aid to recollection. Evidence for that
aspect of ancient mnemotechnics comes from Rhet. ad Herennium 3.21.34,
in which the author suggests two mnemonic devices to help his addressee
memorize the line iam domum itionem reges Atriadae parant. Of these, the first
is relevant here. The author claims that, to assist in the student’s memorization
of the verse membrum, a particular image ought to be used: in loco constituere
manus ad caelum tollentem Domitium, cum a regibus Marciis loris caedatur: hoc
18 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

erit ‘‘iam domum itionem reges.’’ This statement (which may refer to a character
in a lost play or to a historical figure) helps a pupil remember the line because
‘‘the vivid image immediately brought to mind ‘Domitius-reges’ and this re-
minded by sound resemblance of ‘domum itionem reges.’ ’’96 The passage sug-
gests that poetic memories were attuned to sound, and that those trained in
mnemotechnics could use sound as a basis for recollection.97
While the identification of sound cues is more speculative than that of overt
and even covert keywords, I believe that we can at times posit aural properties
as the reason why a centonist recalls certain verses. An example appears in line
26 of Mavortius’s Iudicium Paridis: exultatque animis (A. 11.491) et se cupit ante
videri (E. 3.65). Mavortius appears to move from the first unit to the second
because of the words et spe, which occur in A. 11.491 (exultatque animis et spe
iam praecipit hostem) and sound quite like et se in E. 3.65.
Another example also involves movement between the Eclogues and Aeneid.
It appears in the first chorus of Geta’s Medea (45–46): quae te dementia cepit (E.
2.69 or 6.47), / caput obiectare periclis? (A. 2.751). It is possible to see a paro-
nomastic anadiplosis here,98 with the resemblance between cepit and caput the
reason that the centonist moves as he does between units.
The centonists, then, have at their disposal different types of keywords to trigger
their memories. In every kind of nota, meaning is always a consideration; the
Virgilian line has to conform to the semantic situation of the cento, and so the
formal cues simply help the centonists to remember that suitable membrum. Yet
the development of an elaborate system of keywords on top of any thematic con-
cerns is an exhilarating facet of the centonists’ ludic performances.
There remain many instances in the corpus of mythological and secular centos
where there are no discernible aids governing why a centonist recalls the Virgilian
unit he does. In such cases, no contiguity in episode, object, or character binds a
cento and its source material, and Virgil’s membra undergo strong transformation,
with the centonists infusing them with sharply alien signifying properties.99
Likewise, no formal triggers appear to spur the centonist’s memory. Egregious
examples of this type of recollection appear in Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis and
Luxurius’s Epithalamium Fridi, where Virgil’s language comes to describe the
deflowering of the bride (CN 101–131 and EF 64–66). Representative is the
description of the penis in line 108 of Ausonius’s poem as a monstrum horrendum,
informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum (A. 3.658), a line originally describing
Polyphemus. Such a gesture is not at all a case of chance composition; for the
centonist must scan Virgil intellectually and find a verse unit that, with the
necessary semantic changes having occurred, will be appropriate at that partic-
ular moment in the patchwork poem. The ability to recollect a Virgilian line far
removed from the content of a cento and without the aid of any formal cue shows
how full and vital the centonists’ memories of Virgil’s poetry were.

Returning to Ausonius’s prefatory epistle to Paulus, we find the centonist again

using the image of dismemberment later in the passage. This occurs when the
PLAYING WITH POETRY 19

centonist compares the cento text to the mutilated and remade Dionysus and
Hippolytus: ne in sacris et fabulis aut Thyonianum mireris aut Virbium, illum de
Dionyso, hunc de Hippolyto reformatum (praef. 19–20). Ausonius’s mythological
imagery differs from a related passage in Virgil, which describes how the dis-
membered Hippolytus was recalled to life as Virbius (Paeoniis revocatum herbis et
amore Dianae, A. 7.769). Using a different participle and adding the preposition
de, Ausonius says that Virbius is a new man made out of Hippolytus rather than
the same man called back from the dead, as Virbius is in Virgil. Ausonius makes
these changes, I believe, in order that the imagery in lines 19–20 reflect more
accurately the relationship between the cento and its Virgilian sources. Like
Virbius (as well as Thyonianus, who comes into existence de Dionyso), the patch-
work text is not another of the same thing, but a different entity made out of the
same material.100 To Ausonius, who doubtless knew A. 7.769 and altered it to make
a specific point,101 the idea is that Virgil’s language serves as radically reusable
poetic discourse,102 with the patchwork poet reconfiguring the strewn parts of
Virgil’s poetry and endowing them with a new literary identity. Ausonius’s second
use of the image of dismemberment thus moves from describing how a centonist
remembers and reconstructs Virgil to describing the end product of that act, or the
rebirth of Virgilian poetry as a centonist’s poem.
In lines 21–22 of his epistle, Ausonius uses a different image to describe the
cento as an original (though not originary) text. Ausonius describes how a
patchwork poem is a free-standing object built out of an array of verse units that
contain an array of meanings: variis de locis sensibusque diversis quaedam car-
minis structura solidatur. Ausonius’s statement points to the principal features of
a cento, namely a verbal order distinct from Virgil’s and a new narrative unity
created from discrete and divergent subject matter, both of which combine to
create a new poetic edifice. In calling attention to these aspects of cento writing,
Ausonius draws on the figurative language of Latin literary criticism, in which
the processes of literary composition and of masonry ‘‘enjoyed a large degree of
symbiosis.’’103 Authors of grammatical and rhetorical treatises refer to texts as
structurae, which they conceive ‘‘as the outcome of joining words (verba struere)
in the manner in which a stone mason places stones when building a wall.’’104
Ausonius’s description of the cento as a quaedam carminis structura under-
scores a point made in the opening section of this chapter: that centonists treat
Virgil’s language as though it had a material presence. The smallest constituent
element at the centonists’ disposal is the metrical segment or verse unit of Virgil’s
poetry.105 Like monuments comprised of spolia, the building blocks of centos
have their origin in another structura and acquire discrete artistic life, a point that
Ausonius makes near the masonic metaphor in his description of his text as an
[opusculum] de alieno nostrum (praef. 19). The singular nature of the poetic
edifice that the cento method builds necessitates Ausonius’s qualifying quaedam
in his metaphor. Each patchwork text arises through appropriation, with its
author reconstructing a curious kind of poetic structure by disassembling and
reassembling the elements of another author’s already constructed walls of verse.
20 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Later in his epistle, Ausonius again describes the cento in structural terms
(praef. 37–40):

hoc ergo centonis opusculum ut ille ludus tractatur, pari modo sensus diversi ut
congruant, adoptiva quae sunt ut cognata videantur, aliena ne interluceant, ar-
cessita ne vim redarguant, densa ne supra modum protuberent, hiulca ne pateant.

In Ausonius’s view, a well-built cento appears as a smooth narrative whole, with

Virgil’s verse units reconnected so that different meanings harmonize to create a
new story that lacks excessive tightness or gaps. In so describing a skillful cento,
Ausonius applies the ‘‘classical aesthetic of the unity of the whole, the proportion
of the parts, and the careful articulation of an apparently seamless construction’’106
to a literary technique that, as Ausonius himself makes clear, is unclassical, or
perhaps better, paraclassical.107 This gesture demonstrates that for Ausonius,
simply being able to recall and reconnect Virgil’s poetry was not enough. Ausonius
also saw that a goal of patchwork composition should be to establish narrative
harmony and balance in a cento’s structura, even though the ‘‘building’’ itself was
something of a funhouse. As we will see throughout this book, some centonists can
be judged successful according to Ausonius’s criteria more than others can.
Ausonius’s interest in how centonists produce new texts out of Virgil is made
still more apparent through his use of the image of the stom
awion, the ludus to
which Ausonius compares cento composition. I examined this simile earlier,
emphasizing the insights it offers into how the centonists treat Virgil’s verse units
as game pieces. To expand on a point made briefly there, Ausonius’s analogy also
demonstrates that Virgilian language is capable of representing myriad objects
when differently arranged. Like a piece in a stom
awion, the cento unit

has the fascination of the apparently infinite . . . [and none] has a fixed position.
Each piece isolated from the others is a meaningless shape, like one of Lucretius’s
atoms, or like a single letter in the alphabet. Its significance depends entirely on its
position in relation to the other pieces of the puzzle, or on the context.108

Any semblance may arise both in the stom
awion and in the cento; how a player
chooses to conjoin the elements constituting each ludus is the determining
factor. While a Virgilian unit has an original mimetic identity in a way that, for
instance, a scalene triangle that becomes a goose’s beak or gladiator’s head does
not, Ausonius’s simile implies that the centonist can strip each verse membrum
of its first significance. Like an abstract shape, the verse can then be made to
represent different subjects, objects, thoughts, and actions from Virgil, de-
pending on how the poet combines it syntagmatically with other verses.109 This
results in new texts, none of which—and this essential aspect of the ancient
cento bears repeating—relates the same narrative that Virgil does:110 a tragedy
on Medea, centos on the everyday topics of breadmaking and dicing,111 seven
mythological vignettes, and two epithalamia with concluding passages de-
scribing the respective bride’s deflowering.112 In fitting Virgilian language to
PLAYING WITH POETRY 21

non-Virgilian subjects, some of these poems also reproduce specific topoi and
imagery found in models other than Virgil; this phenomenon will be examined
in later discussions of the relevant texts.
Appearing in enough varieties to match the polymorphous stom
awia, the
centos show in an odd and fiercely literal way that texts can be reconstituted as
part of their reception,113 and that ‘‘poets strive to make literary models their
own by assimilation to a new place and purpose.’’114 The peculiar manner in
which the centonists remake Virgil is not necessarily a sign that they were weak
poets who needed a strange form to provide them with the variatio that stronger
poets made for themselves.115 All that the centos reveal is that their authors,
whether otherwise ‘‘strong’’ or talented, chose to pursue a literary game in which
Virgil’s isolated verse units had a vast range of representational potential, like
the pieces of a stom
awion.
In creating new and in some instances generically diverse texts, the cen-
tonists adapt the content of Virgil’s individual verse units in varied ways. As
noted earlier, centonists take poetic formulae from Virgil and cite units from
analogous episodes in Virgil; units featuring the same character as they did in
Virgil, but presented in new narrative situations; units describing a different
character from what they did in Virgil, but one with similar functions and
attributes; units drawn from dissimilar scenes in Virgil but containing objects
that appear again in the cento narrative, but with new attributes; and units with
signifying properties radically different from Virgil’s.116 Each of these different
types of altered unit can appear in any kind of cento.
The Virgilian membra, then, all experience in the centos different kinds and
levels of semantic change in a manner that resembles antanaclasis.117 As hap-
pens with the rhetorical figure, which Isidore of Seville (Orig. 2.21.10), for
instance, defines as quae eodem [verbo] contrarium exprimit sensum, centonists
express different sensus from Virgil using the same verse units as Virgil. Within
the units, moreover, individual words experience the same range of semantic
changes, from the minimal to the great. An example of the former appears in
line 21 of the Iudicium Paridis, in which Venus appears nuda genu (A. 1.320).
The goddess is the same figure in both Virgil and the cento; what differ are her
attributes—Venus appears to Paris as herself in the Iudicium Paridis, and to
Aeneas as a Spartan huntress in the Aeneid—which are particular to the in-
dividual narrative matrices in the two texts. An example of sharp change to a
word within a unit appears in line 191 of the Medea: Media fert tristis sucos,
infecta venenis (G. 2.126). Rather than the country of the Medes, the subject in
Virgil, Media refers to the tragic heroine of the cento.118 This change to a word
within the unit allows Geta to overcome one of the steeper obstacles attending
cento composition, the rarity of mythological names in Virgil.119
Individual words within the verse units can also shift between the literal and
the figurative. An example is pugnamque lacessunt (A. 5.429) in line 56 of
Luxurius’s Epithalamium Fridi. In Virgil, the unit referred to the boxing match
between Dares and Entellus. Luxurius, by contrast, uses the pugilistic language
22 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

as a metaphor for the sexual act.120 Likewise, Ausonius’s use of monstrum

horrendum to describe the penis rather than Polyphemus, which I cited in
section two of this chapter, renders that phrase a slang metaphor.121
Other changes to Virgilian content can occur in the centos. The syntactical
construction in a Virgilian unit, for example, is sometimes different when that
unit is reused in a cento. So in the second half of line 3 of the Iudicium Paridis,
et memorabile numen (A. 4.94) [aut videt aut vidisse putat], a phrase that had
been a subject in Virgil (A. 4.94 reads tuque puerque tuus [magnum et mem-
orabile numen]) becomes an accusative object. More interesting is the last line
of the Progne et Philomela: et soror et coniunx (A. 1.47) petierunt aethera pinnis
(A. 11.272). The first unit in the line had in Virgil been a way for Juno to refer
to herself. In the cento, the referent of et soror et coniunx is double rather than
single (and third-person rather than first-person), as it signifies the two title
heroines. Hence the subject of the line becomes a plural one, necessitating
the cento’s petierunt rather than the singular incedo that had appeared in Virgil
(A. 1.46).
The centonists occasionally rely on still more devices when adapting the
content of Virgil to their own narratives. The poets can change the mode of a
line, for instance, so that a question becomes an explanation or statement of
fact, or vice versa.122 A notable example appears in line 152 of the Alcesta,
where Admetus, in a moment of sorrow and guilt, cries to his wife funeris heu
tibi causa fui! (A. 6.458), thereby conveying something very different from
Aeneas’s question to Dido in the underworld (heu tibi causa fui?). The cen-
tonists also alter the significance of a Virgilian unit through accommodations,
which consist either of changes to the morphology of a word or of the addition
of a new word or even phrase. Accommodations, a term coined by Stephanus in
his 1578 edition of the Homeric centos of Eudocia, are thorny things.123 At
times, it can be difficult to know whether the alterations are due to variant
readings in the text of Virgil that a centonist used, a lapse in memory on the part
of a centonist, or a mistake committed by a copyist of the cento.124 In many
cases, however, the context strongly suggests that semantic and syntactical
demands precipitate the changes.125
The processes whereby centonists recombine segments of Virgil’s poetry and
invest them with original signifying functions demonstrate that the referential
function of a term, which in this case amounts to a Virgilian verse unit, ‘‘cannot
be defined apart from its place in the course of narration.’’126 Identical lan-
guage (or extremely close, given accommodations) comes to represent different
characters and action and to constitute disparate texts. This phenomenon
suggests that Virgil only pursued certain semantic possibilities that inhered
in his own language, leaving others for later authors to discover and exploit, an
opening that the centonists enthusiastically pursued. Together with the creation
of original rhetorical figures, as well as the infusion of new textual life into
Virgil’s own stylistic ornaments, the creation of new narratives shows that
PLAYING WITH POETRY 23

secondariness and originality, far from being antithetical, are complementary

forces in cento composition.

Having examined how centonists create discrete texts by recasting Virgil, I now
turn to the poems’ intertextuality and how they interact with and function
against their source material. Ausonius offers little information on this subject
in his prefatory epistle. His only comments about how to interpret his cento in
relation to Virgil are piget equidem Vergiliani carminis dignitatem tam ioculari
dehonestasse materia, which belongs to Ausonius’s captatio benevolentiae, and
accipe igitur opusculum . . . de seriis ludicrum, which I analyzed earlier. There is
much more to be said about the varied levels and kinds of allusiveness operative
in the centos.127 I therefore leave the organizing frame of Ausonius’s poetics
and move squarely into the arena of cento practice.
While centonists, like other imitating poets, borrow from their source material
in order to make it their own by assimilation to a new place and purpose,128 the
intertextual relationship between the centos and Virgil is unlike what appears in
mainstream poetry.129 Conventional imitation establishes a link to the res of a
source text, sometimes direct and sometimes contrastive, with some changes to
its verba, as well as with enough linguistic similarities preserved to signal the
intertextual relationship.130 Sometimes too ornamental imitation will occur, with
lines resembling a model’s phrases or lines but not activating their content. By
contrast, centonists necessarily cite Virgil verbatim, replicating verse units ex-
actly (or, should there be accommodation, very nearly so) as they alter the
semantic functions to different degrees. This leads to a much closer verbal
resemblance between centos and their source material than that which appears
in traditional poetry. Indeed, the forms of allusive variatio that alter source
material and disguise intertextual links are missing from the centos, whose au-
thors quote the discrete units of a model instead of adapting a model’s language
in some way and combining it with their original verses.131 Cento intertextuality
is also unique in how total it is—obviously, other poets do not assemble entire
works out of the repeated, discrete membra of another author—and how closely
it is linked to a single source.132 No other literary form engages the work of a
particular poet as openly, pervasively, and exclusively as the centos do.133
Whether recasting Virgil as the centonists do also meant competing with
Virgil is uncertain. Emulation, seen as an accompaniment to conventional imi-
tation in antiquity, involved treating the same subject matter or topic as a
model, with a later author then trying to express that res more adeptly (a process
that did not exclude some verbal repetition of a source, which as noted above,
was a part of imitation generally). With centonists reconnecting Virgil’s lan-
guage to express new subject matter, patchwork composition has nothing in
common with those usual processes of intertextual competition. Even so, it is
possible that a centonist saw himself as engaging in a unique form of aemulatio,
surpassing Virgil by using his language to create a better poem than Virgil had
24 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

made. (Of course, a centonist who held such an opinion would open himself up
to charges of self-delusion from most if not all his contemporaries and subse-
quent audiences.) This has to remain only a possibility; for no surefire evidence
suggests that a centonist composed his text with such feelings toward Virgil. In
the Hippodamia, some internal features suggest that the centonist was reacting
with some aggression toward Virgil. Yet as I will show in chapter 4, this would
only be a matter of countering Virgil’s attitude toward the myth of Hippodamia,
not of striving to improve on Virgilian poetry through the cento form. The De
Alea also raises the specter of authorial hostility toward a model poet. As will
become clear in chapter 3, this is due to a feature particular to that text’s
reworking of Virgil and does not bear on aemulatio broadly construed.
Readers can explore the peculiar intertextuality of the centos on the macro-
textual level. At the most general stage of this type of allusive recognition, audi-
ences identify how centonists continually engage in ‘‘hypertextual (that is,
derivative) transvaluation’’ by creating texts with plots not found in Virgil’s
works.134 Attention is on the composite poem, with readers following the linear
plot movements within the centos and maintaining a retrograde look toward Virgil
that acknowledges how the texts exist as reused Virgilian poetry.135 To express
this point differently, all of the units in a cento collectively have an internal
function, representing objects, events, and concepts in the discrete poem, and an
external function, signaling their ‘‘outside’’ existence as transformed Virgilian
verses. A fundamental step in reading the game of cento composition is to rec-
ognize that the cento has arisen out of Virgil’s adapted language.136 A comple-
mentary move—and one at which critics have often stopped—is to register
appreciation or disapproval of the ludic gesture, either in the centos as a whole or
in single works.
A more discerning bifocal approach to the texts involves not just observing that
a centonist has altered Virgil but pursuing more specific judgments about and
exploring deeper implications of how the poet has done so. One way that this
occurs is not only to see that each cento tells a distinct story from Virgil and from
all other centos, but also to look at how a narrative, passage, or some general theme
in a certain cento relate to a narrative, passage, or some general theme in the
source material. Readers would recognize that alteration remains fundamental to
the intertextual exchange, while at the same time drawing some connections
between the overall narrative of an individual cento or the content in a section of
it and a Virgilian counterpart. As I will show throughout this book, readers can
draw different conclusions about the relationships between the overall narratives
in Virgil and in a cento and between their passages and large themes.
In the tragic Medea and the epithalamial sections of the Cento Nuptialis and
Epithalamium Fridi, audiences may also look at the act of centonizing Virgil in
terms of genre.137 Readers can investigate what the adaptation of Virgil to a
tragic cento and to wedding poems suggests about the relations between Virgil’s
genres and those of the patchwork texts, as well as, mutatis mutandis, about the
ways that genres as a whole can interact. As will become clear in later chapters,
PLAYING WITH POETRY 25

the centos can yield varied insights into these matters. Moreover, readers can
explore how the reworking of Virgil in the De Panificio and De Alea and in the
obscene passages within the Cento Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi differs
from that of the other patchwork poems. Does the reception of texts that apply
Virgil to the humble topics of breadmaking and dicing and to sexual content
differ from the reception of texts that make mythological or occasional poems
out of him? And can the term parody be applied to the process of applying Virgil
to such humble material, as distinguished from the transformations of Virgil in
other patchwork poems?138 Rather than try to answer those questions now, I
note only that they point to the wide range of interpretive possibilities available
to those concerned with reading the centos as discrete ludic poems each with it
own characteristics and strategies, and with individual centos’ different mac-
rotextual allusive relationships to Virgil.
Another way to look at the relationship between the centos and Virgil arises
when audiences examine the allusiveness of the centos on the microtextual
level. Readers can investigate the semantic distance, and in some cases the
generic or parodic distance,139 traveled by each individual verse unit in each
cento and register the different effects of that journey. At this more precise
stage of intertextual recognition, in other words, readers scrutinize the alter-
ations to Virgil within the centos’ individual atomistic elements, no matter how
minimal or great—for as noted earlier, the degree of antanaclasis in each unit
varies—rather than just surveying the texts as a whole or passages within them.
Because each membrum can be identified as a secondary Virgilian segment,
there is no such thing as an allusively inert verse unit in any cento.140
Along with recognizing that an individual Virgilian unit in a cento has been
stripped of its original semantic function and applied to a new narrative and
sometimes a new generic or a parodic situation, audiences can explore the
relationship between the specific content of each unit and its original content in
Virgil.141 The interpretive strategy is to preserve in memory the Virgilian meaning
of a unit and/or some degree of its narrative context and to bring it/them to bear
on the particular segment in a cento where that unit reappears. It can then
happen that readers, having recalled the original significance and setting of a
Virgilian membrum, and having related them to the narrative moment in the
cento where that membrum reappears, find that some aspect of the original res
relates precisely to the cento and contributes to its meaning. Such an allusion
gives to the individual verse unit another layer of significance that one can rec-
ognize on top of its new semantic and sometimes generic and comic function
within the cento; and this secondary significance is generated through com-
parison with its specific Virgilian counterpart. As I will show throughout this
book, very different kinds of microtextual allusive meaning can be generated,
depending on the sort of cento in question, and on the relationship between a
cento unit and its Virgilian source material. Competent audiences of the cento,
whether consisting of learned readers in antiquity who knew most of Virgil by
heart or of modern readers who rely more on concordances and computerized
26 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

search programs, are capable of performing such intertextual inquiries. Given

their awareness of the Virgilian basis of the centos, moreover, the original
readers of the texts and individuals up to the present day were and are likely to
investigate the allusiveness of a cento down to its single units.
Reading the new content of individual units in the centos in relation to their
content in Virgil sedes produces such deep and sharp allusive meaning in certain
units more than in others.142 Indeed, some segments in the centos require only
that readers recognize the semantic changes to Virgil, since the particular
Virgilian content ill fits the narrative of the cento. An example of a cento unit
whose content fights against Virgil’s is line 79 of the Alcesta, where Apollo says
to Admetus non, ut rere, meas effugit nuntius auris (A. 7.437). In the Aeneid,
Turnus delivers the line to Allecto, disguised as the aged priestess Calybe. Not
only is the relationship between addresser and addressee inverted in the two
texts, with a prophetic god addressing a mortal in the cento and a mortal ad-
dressing a prophetic priestess in Virgil, but the figures of Apollo and Allecto are
very different. In a unit such as this, readers can note that Virgil’s poetry relates
something new, as they can in any unit in any cento. Yet there is no reason to
retain and apply the particular Virgilian content to the cento unit, or to import an
additional body of meaning from the Virgilian original.143 Indeed, one could even
find grounds to suppress a link between Apollo and the haughty and snide Turnus
of A. 7.437 or, after some intertextual contortions, between Apollo and Allecto,
both of which would be inappropriate.
Many units in centos are simply too unrelated to the Virgilian contexts from
which they derive to generate allusive meaning; but the new content in many
others has similarities to Virgil’s res close enough to produce such meaning.
Lines 2–3 of the Europa illustrate how such units differ from those that are
active on the microtextual level:

[the tauroform Jupiter] descendit ad undas. (G. 4.235)

Europam (A. 10.91 [Europamque]) nivei solatur amore iuvenci. (E. 6.46)

Reading line 2 at its moment in the cento narrative and against its original
Virgilian significance in G. 4.235, where the narrator refers to the sinking
constellation Piscis, fails to endow the content of the cento unit with any
deeper allusive force. Such exploration of line 2 instead leads only to the ac-
knowledgment that centonizing has occurred on the microtextual level, with the
centonist transforming Virgil locally as part of creating a new narrative out of his
language. In line 3, the allusive character of the cento is more active. Recalling
that the subject of E. 6.46 was Pasiphae, who felt the unnatural pangs of erotic
love for a bull, contributes to the characterization of the equally bull-besotted
Europa. A similarly rich allusion occurs in line 4 of the cento, which continues
the description of the heroine with a line that had described a heifer in estrus in
the Georgics: dulcibus illa quidem inlecebris [luserat] (G. 3.217). The original
PLAYING WITH POETRY 27

description of a lusty bovine adds a second layer of meaning to the Europa, as it

tacitly conveys the emotions felt by the heroine for the Jupiter-bull.
Not every reader will explore lines 3–4 as I have; one could choose simply to
acknowledge how the Virgilian units have been centonized, leaving the deeper
allusive significance of E. 6.46 and G. 3.217 hidden.144 So too there can be
dispute as to the level at which a microtextual allusion is active. A represen-
tative example appears when Ausonius describes the bride Constantia, whose
wedding to Gratian forms the subject of the Cento Nuptialis, as intentos volvens
oculos (A. 7.251) (CN 37). The unit comes from the account of Latinus as he
considers whether Lavinia should marry Aeneas (in conubio natae thalamoque
moratur [A. 7.253]). Recognition of the unit’s original provenance could be said
to characterize Constantia as nervous and hesitant in ways that Latinus, the
father of the bride in Virgil, had been. That Latinus chooses to betroth his
daughter to Aeneas, and that Constantia is about to marry Gratian, also sets up
a flattering parallel between Virgil’s hero and the future emperor. These allusive
connections are tenuous, however. The subject in the cento is Constantia and
not her father, and the bride, while represented as modest and nervous, should
not be seen as debating whom she should marry as Latinus debates to whom he
will give his daughter. Accordingly, one could find grounds for identifying
specific connections between the content of A. 7.251 and line 37 of the Cento
Nuptialis or for denying that such connections exist.
The potential to produce different responses to microtextual allusions is one
of the strengths of the centos.145 The relentless intertextual engagement with
Virgil in the patchwork poems challenges every reader to decide constantly the
extent to which he or she should plumb the allusiveness of a cento down to its
individual units and how, if that microtextual allusion is recognized, he or she
will interpret that reference. It will become clear as this book progresses that
some of the centos present more varied and different interpretive options in
regard to their microtextual allusions than others do.
This is not to advocate an ‘‘anything goes’’ or libertarian approach to intertex-
tuality. Unhistorical interpretations or willful misreadings of allusions in the centos
may arise. Intensely personal responses that disregard and are incompatible with
the context, character, and range of possible original motives of a text, or responses
that follow eccentric, decontextualized lines of interpretation, have been and al-
ways will be possible in literature generally. Nevertheless, the best approach to
cento intertextuality, as to all matters of allusion and of interpretation generally, is
to pursue readings that are plausible in terms of the textual strategies of the poems
in question and the culture and moment in literary history that produced the
text.146 With respect to microtextual allusions in the texts—though this point
holds for the more developed macrotextual allusions and for inquiry into centos’
individual units from the perspectives of genre and parody—, readers should make
a case for the viability of the secondary level of significance that they have uncov-
ered by grounding that significance in the messages and codifications of the cento
28 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

and of Virgil’s poetry. Moreover, readers should try to ensure that interpretation
arises out of a cogent thematic relationship between the centonic and Virgilian
instantiations of the specific unit in question. Where applicable, audiences can
also align an allusion with other texts in the ancient Latin tradition, with inter-
pretations of Virgil that the evidence suggests were operative at the time that the
cento was written, and with broader literary movements in antiquity. Even these
efforts raise the issue of subjectivity, of course. The same allusion can function
variously and produce divergent meanings to readers who conceive of any one or all
of the measuring sticks just presented differently from how I do. Consequently, a
cento’s microtextual allusions, like its macrotextual relations to Virgil, can mean
different things to different readers at different times depending on what inter-
pretive community one belongs to; and the different meanings can all be feasible
historically. So too even interpretations that ground the cento material in its his-
torical setting can potentially yield misreading.147 Yet an approach that attempts to
connect microtextual cento allusions to their textual material and to their literary
and cultural contexts will be more cogent and useful than one that does not.148
Examples that show further how centos present readers with choices as they
explore the texts’ microtextual allusiveness, even when the attempt is made to
anchor interpretation historically, appear in lines 160–162 of the Hippodamia:

sic fatus liquidas proiecit in undas (A. 5.859)

aeternam moriens famam, (A. 7.2) quae maxima semper (A. 8.271)
dicitur aeternumque tenet per saecula nomen. (A. 6.235)

The subject is Myrtilus, who in this version of the myth kills himself by hurling
himself off a cliff into the sea. The fact that Palinurus is the original subject of
the unit sic fatus liquidas proiecit in undas and Misenus of dicitur aeternumque
tenet per saecula nomen can add a second level of meaning to the lines in the
cento. The Virgilian figures gave their names to a mountain and promontory,
respectively—Palinurus to the Punta di Palinuro, and Misenus to the Punta di
Miseno, or Capo Miseno. Like these heroes, Myrtilus is said to have given a
name to a geographical place. Ancient sources relate that the sea south of Attica
was called the Sea of Myrto, because Myrtilus was hurled into the water there
from Pelops’s chariot.149 The cento invites an audience to recall that piece of
arcana and to recognize an allusive connection between Myrtilus and the
subjects of Virgil’s lines comprising Hipp. 160–162. Yet questions arise. Did the
centonist intend to use allusion to add such an erudite detail? Does that matter?
And if a single reader can activate an allusion to Virgil’s res in a historically
reasonable way, is the echo in the poem, even if it is so subtle and isolated that
authorial intention cannot be surely posited, and if no other reader finds it?
I believe that the answers to these questions are maybe, no, and yes. We
simply cannot determine if the author of the Hippodamia intended the allu-
sions; it may be that he cited the lines just for their semantic aptness or because
of some other mnemonic cue.150 That is to say, while the centonist performs
PLAYING WITH POETRY 29

the conscious act of reworking Virgil’s poetry in lines 160–162 and wants
audiences to acknowledge that gesture, the extent to which he deliberately
invests the specific units within his text with allusive significance is unknow-
able.151 Nor is the question of intention important, if one looks to intertextual
function rather than to authorial control. Allusive meaning can proliferate be-
yond what the author intended (if he intended it at all) and still be a real part of
a poem; it is just that the reader invests the text with that meaning. Different
audience members will determine the plausibility of an allusion in different
ways, of course. In the case of lines 160–162 of the Hippodamia, some readers
will miss the particular force I have located. Still others may claim that the
allusions to the eponymous Palinurus and Misenus, while able to be uncovered,
are more the products of an overly careful reading of the cento than an organic
part of the text. Yet another group of readers can claim that the allusions are
legitimate parts of the cento and that they add meaning to it. Such readers
could base those claims on consideration of the content of the cento and of
Virgil, the relationship between the texts, and how the allusive message jibes
with the cultural code in which both poems participate—criteria that, I should
reiterate, are far from fixed and static for different audiences. Again, my claim is
not that all interpretations are equally valid. What I do assert is that there can
be disagreement about what constitutes valid interpretation. Identifying and
understanding microtextual allusions is a contingent, personal act, even if the
reader abides by historicist criteria.152 To put this differently, reworking the
closed field of Virgilian poetry often results in individual units whose allusivity
readers can approach in open-ended (but not infinitely open) ways.
I do not want to dismiss the possibility of authorial intention in matters of
microtextual allusion.153 Patchwork composition, which requires that its prac-
titioners remember specific lines with specific meanings in specific contexts,
establishes favorable conditions for the conscious activation of those meanings
in new but germane contexts on the part of the centonists. The hyperdeveloped
memories of the centonists and the act of fitting Virgil’s content to a new
narrative unit by unit make it harder to omit them entirely as players in adding
microtextual allusions to the centos.154 A good example of possibly intentional
allusions appears in the anonymous Narcissus. As I will show in more detail in
chapter 4, the centonist frequently uses imago as a covert keyword, and thus
cites units in Virgil concerned in different ways with specters. The insistence of
the gesture is so great as to seem the product of an authorial plan.
Even when a pattern of citation in a cento is feasible as a conscious authorial
strategy, however, attributing intention to an alluding centonist is always in the
hands of a reader and always retains at least a modicum of uncertainty.155 How
to interpret plausibly deliberate allusions, moreover, or what message to derive
from citations that an author seems to have consciously added to a text, is
something that each reader has to decide for himself or herself. Poets cannot
control tightly even what seem clearly to be their deliberate intertextual refer-
ences. They may have meant one thing by such references, but a reader may
30 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

draw another conclusion entirely. Thus in the case of the Narcissus, one could
contend that the relationship between the content of the Virgilian units con-
taining the word imago or spectral imagery underscores the idea that Narcissus’s
reflection is unsubstantial and that his love in fact does not exist as a separate
object. Yet whether the centonist himself meant to invest the allusive pattern
with such a notion is unclear; and the important thing is that readers can
convincingly uncover that message whether the author meant to include it or
not. I am therefore not denying or discounting the possibility of authorial in-
tention. What I am stating is that it is almost always more useful to approach
allusions as phenomena functioning within a network of texts, rather than to
focus on the possible ideas and aims of an author behind an allusion.
Intention is also plausible in lines 3–4 of the Europa cited earlier. It is easy to
imagine that the author, in recalling the original Virgilian contexts of the units,
aimed to add resonance to his story about Europa’s erotic encounter with the
Jupiter-bull. Likewise, an intentional activation of the original Virgilian context
potentially underlies lines 160–162 of the Hippodamia. Yet pursuing the
question of whether those centonists saw the same intertextual message in
those lines that I have identified leads to an interpretive cul-de-sac, since we
cannot get at the anonymous authors’ thoughts. To reiterate an important point,
with rare exceptions that will emerge later in this book, more productive inquiry
into microtextual allusions to Virgil in the centos, as with allusions in texts
generally, arises when the focus is on how to read allusions and the criteria for
establishing that rather than on what authors thought they were doing by
making them. (The exceptions arise when the most compelling thing that
certain allusions in fact do is raise sharp and meaningful questions about what
their authors meant for them to do.) This same point holds for the centos’ more
developed macrotextual allusiveness.
The centos, then, while certainly idiosyncratic works, touch upon issues in
their interactions with Virgil that are relevant to and significant in the study of
allusion generally. The varying types and degrees of undecidability attending the
allusions in the centos, far from leading to an interpretive crisis, constitute a
positive feature of the texts, one that can and should engage readers’ full fac-
ulties. Indeed, the nuances in the intertextuality of the mythological and secular
Virgilian centos contribute further to their vitality. Being both discrete works
and recomposed Virgilian poetry, and so always operating on more than one
textual plane, the centos, with their formal, thematic, and allusive complexities,
both demand much from and offer much to their audiences. Let us now see
how this richness reveals itself in the individual centos, and how aspects of each
poem relate to larger issues in Virgil studies, literary history, and literary theory.
 2
Tragic Virgil
The Medea

Around the turn of the third century AD, Hosidius Geta wrote the Medea, a 461-
line Virgilian cento. This is hardly an impeccable piece of cento composition. It
has a substantial number of metrical errors,1 is at times obscure, and contains
units that cohere awkwardly.2
To focus only on these shortcomings would be to present an incomplete pic-
ture of the Medea.3 For the text is the most ambitious of the mythological and
secular centos. Not only is it the longest of the patchwork poems but it is also the
sole ancient cento to take the form of a tragedy. The story that Geta tells is of the
betrayed Medea who, faced with Jason’s remarriage in Corinth, goes on a killing
spree to avenge his treatment of her—a riot that includes the murder of her and
Jason’s children. This part of the Medea myth had long interested ancient tra-
gedians, Greek and Roman alike.
Geta’s decision to compose his cento as a tragedy is the most noteworthy
feature of his poem.4 Why the centonist chose to make a drama out of Virgil’s
language is unknown. Certainly Geta could have written his cento in another
genre. The story of Medea took a variety of forms in Latin antiquity besides
tragedy, including miniature epic, a form that would have been more straight-
forward for a centonist to reproduce.5 It may simply be that the difficulties and
possibilities that accompanied the game of adapting Virgil to tragedy appealed
to Geta.6
How Geta accomplishes the task of turning Virgil’s language into a tragedy
will occupy this chapter. After an investigation of formal issues and the prob-
able performance setting in which Geta delivered his Virgilian tragedy, I will
turn my attention to the cento’s content. Along with examining how Geta
produces a tragic narrative of Medea out of Virgil and the different ways that
readers can interpret that gesture, I will investigate two striking details in the
cento. The first are the allusions to Seneca’s tragedy and to Ovid’s now lost
tragedy on Medea, allusions through which Virgil’s centonized language is made
to echo specific passages in those dramas. The second are the prevalent cita-
tions of Aeneid 4 in Geta’s work, and especially the units that Geta takes from
that Virgilian book that had themselves echoed tragedies on Medea. The
overarching concerns of these various lines of inquiry will be with the different
32 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

messages about genre and about Virgil’s relationship to drama that the cento
can yield.

Hosidius Geta’s Medea dates to ca. 203,7 when Tertullian alludes to it and
a centonized version of Cebes’s Pinax in the De Praescriptione Haereticorum
(39.3–4):
vides hodie ex Vergilio fabulam in totum aliam componi, materia secundum versus
et versibus secundum materiam concinnatis. denique *Hosidius Geta* Medeam
tragoediam ex Vergilio plenissime exsuxit. meus quidam propinquus ex eodem
poeta inter cetera stili sui otia Pinacem Cebetis explicuit.8

As I noted in chapter 1, critics have agreed that the Medea mentioned by

Tertullian is very likely the tragedy found among the centos in the codex Sal-
masianus (AL 17 R). Critics base their claim that the Medea found in the
anthology is identical to the text discussed in the De Praescriptione Haer-
eticorum on the similarities in name, form, and subject matter between the
extant tragedy and the cento that Tertullian describes.9
The resemblances between the cento Medea that Tertullian mentions and
the text found in the codex Salmasianus override the confusion surrounding the
centonist’s name. The manuscripts of Tertullian give a number of possibilities
that I will discuss later in this chapter, while the Salmasianus records no author
of the Medea. In this study, I have followed scholarly convention and used the
name Hosidius Geta.
No ancient source mentions a Virgilian cento before Tertullian’s reference in
the De Praescriptione Haereticorum. While Petronius’s very brief cento within
the Satyricon (Sat. 132.11) dates to before ca. 203, the lack of any notice about
a fully developed and free-standing cento before Tertullian’s suggests that cre-
ating such texts was an uncommon and perhaps even nonexistent practice.
Even if composing those works occurred with some frequency in the first and
second centuries AD, despite the lacuna in the evidence, though, Geta’s Medea
is still probably the earliest of the surviving literary Virgilian centos. We know that
Ausonius lived in the fourth century and Luxurius in the late fifth or early sixth
century. Mavortius and the anonymous centonists, meanwhile, in all likelihood
date to after ca. 203. With the exception of the authentic and pseudepigraphical
selections from Virgil, Propertius, Ovid, Seneca, Petronius, and Martial that
appear in the Salmasianus,10 the texts in the anthology whose authors are
identifiable in all likelihood come from sometime in the third century or after.
This suggests that the Salmasianus largely represented a selection of works of
later authors. Hence the probability is that the anonymous poets in the Salma-
sianus, including the nameless centonists, as well as otherwise obscure figures
like Mavortius, lived at some point in or after the third century.
The composition and initial publication of the Medea probably happened
in Africa. A common African origin gives to the group of patchwork texts in
the Salmasianus, including the Medea, a cohesion that subject matter and
TRAGIC VIRGIL 33

chronology fail to provide.11 Supporting the claim that the compiler of the
Salmasianus gathered the centos of African writers is the fact that Luxurius, the
one centonist in the Salmasianus whom we can securely identify, without doubt
hails from that region,12 while Ausonius and Proba, who come from Gaul and
Rome, respectively, are omitted. So too the African Tertullian’s mention of Geta
alongside a quidam propinquus in a work that the Church Father wrote on
returning to Africa offers circumstantial support for Geta’s ties to that province.
To extract a tragedy ex Vergilio, Geta first had to reproduce the structure of a
drama. This meant creating both dialogue and choral parts, with Geta having
his characters speak in dactylic hexameters, and casting the songs of the
chorus in paroemiacs.13 The existence of distinct metrical patterns within the
Medea defines the cento as a drama, differentiating it from epic and from all
other types of poetry that contain a single meter—hence from every text in the
Virgilian corpus.14
Geta’s use of hexameters and paroemiacs distinguishes his cento from much
Roman drama, whose spoken parts were presented in iambic trimeter and whose
choruses contained a variety of rich lyric rhythms.15 While this deviation is
necessary, given the meter of the Virgilian material, it makes the assimilation of
Virgil to tragedy incomplete. Even so, Geta’s ability to fashion distinct dialogue
and choral parts out of Virgil’s single meter provides a conspicuous measure of
how on the formal level the centonist has situated Virgilian language in the new
generic arena of tragedy.
With the Medea comprised strictly of dialogue and choral parts, and so of
direct speech, its narrative mode or voice differs from that of many of Virgil’s
texts. Though not exclusive to the form, a fundamental marker of the tragic genre
is its use of direct discourse, or mimesis, rather than of third-person narration, or
diegesis. For Geta, this meant taking many verses from Virgil’s mixed narra-
tives—that is, texts that combine mimesis and diegesis, as the Aeneid, Georgics,
and Eclogues 4, 6, and 10 do; the openings of 2 and 8, meanwhile, are diegetic
and the rest of those poems mimetic16—and adapting them to mimesis exclu-
sively.17 An overwhelming majority of the Virgilian units comprising the Medea
come from those mixed works.18 A good many of those lines, however, appear in
passages of direct speech within Virgil’s mixed narratives.19
The reuse of lines drawn from Virgilian diegesis usually occurs in the cento
when characters deliver statements with third-person subjects. In those in-
stances, the only difference between Virgil’s diegesis and Geta’s mimesis is that
in the latter instance a character speaks rather than a narrator. Alternatively, if
an originally diegetic unit referring to someone or something in the third person
appears in a sentence in the cento where the subject is in the first or second
person that unit usually provides a noun in an oblique case or a prepositional
statement.
Another possibility that Geta pursued was to take a unit with a third-person
subject in Virgilian diegesis and attach it appositionally to a unit drawn from
Virgilian mimesis with a second-person nominative that becomes the subject in
34 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

the cento. An example appears in line 376. There Geta cites natorum maxima
nutrix (A. 5.645), which in the Aeneid had referred to Pyrgo, a third-person
subject in diegesis. Geta reuses this unit so that nutrix comes to be in appo-
sition with the pronoun tu, which in Virgil had referred to Anna, whom Dido
addresses in Aeneid 4 in a statement originally in the mimetic mode:

Tu secreta pyram (A. 4.494) natorum maxima nutrix, (A. 5.645)

erige. (A. 4.495)

At other points in the Medea, Geta finds units containing first- or second-person
subjects within Virgilian diegesis itself, or without having to change the person
of the subject by attaching it to an originally mimetic unit. Such material
appears in Virgil when the narrator ruptures the omniscient fiction to deliver an
apostrophe. With its first- or second-person orientation, apostrophe can be
readily assimilated to the narrative mode of drama. Even so, units drawn from
Virgilian apostrophe undergo a sharp change in voice, since they become part of
the action instead of a narrator’s comment on the action.
Related to apostrophe are moments when a narrator invokes the Muses or
asks for divine guidance in presenting his material. These programmatic pas-
sages offer more material in diegesis that can easily be adapted to the ‘‘I/we’’ and
‘‘you’’ statements that are so common in the mimesis of drama. Again, however,
those units acquire new narrative functions, since they describe something
happening within the story rather than abiding in the metarealm of storytelling,
that is, rather than being connected to the act of narrating itself.
I have located four instances where Geta puts a unit that in Virgil had been
part of an apostrophe or an authorial invocation into the mouths of one of his
dramatic characters. The first appears in line 12: improbe Amor, quid non mor-
talia <pectora> cogis? (A. 4.412, where it had a different force [quid non mortalia
pectora cogis!]).20 A pained Medea, at a loss, delivers this line, rather than an
indignant narrator reacting to Dido’s woe; the change to the punctuation reflects
this shift. With Medea addressing Amor in the cento, A. 4.412 ceases to function
as an apostrophe about a heroine and becomes the apostrophe of a heroine shaken
by what she has endured and fearful of what she will do to get her revenge. The
words no longer belong to a narrator who seeks to guide the focalization of and so
the reaction to suffering, conveying from the outside where sympathies should
lie, but come to express the character’s suffering itself. To put this differently,
while the apostrophe in the Aeneid is dramatic and emotional,21 it stands outside
the world of the narrative. In reusing A. 4.412, Geta shifts its orientation so that it
conveys from the inside of the story the voice and emotions of a character.
A second moment when Geta assimilates a Virgilian apostrophe to mimesis
is si quid mea carmina possunt (A. 9.446) (Med. 24). Virgil had delivered these
words in propria persona to Nisus and Euryalus (fortunati ambo!), asserting that
he hopes to give them eternal fame. In the cento, the verse unit expresses
Medea’s threat that she will retaliate for the wrong done to her using whatever
TRAGIC VIRGIL 35

resources of witchcraft are available. Along with the changes in meaning and
tone, the shift in the speaker allows A. 9.446 to convey the desires and inner
turmoil of a character instead of presenting a narrator’s statement that, while
emotionally charged, stands at a remove from the action, being concerned with
the commemorative power of poetry.
A third example appears in lines 186–187 of the Medea, where Jason’s
satelles asks Jason what the source of some sudden seismic and meteorological
disturbances might be (the answer is the approach of Medea):

unde tremor terris? qua vi maria alta tumescunt? (G. 2.479

[tumescunt for tumescant])
quid tantum Oceano properant se tingere soles? (G. 2.481
[properant for properent])

Geta takes these words from a Virgilian invocation to the Muses, in which the
narrator asks for aid in explaining rerum natura. The lines in the Georgics thus
reflect the modes of inquiry and instruction that are fundamental to the
poem,22 with the narrator asking to be taught about natural phenomena before
proceeding to teach his audience about them. In the cento Medea, the Virgilian
units come to describe the responses of the natural world to Medea’s witchcraft.
The shift in speaker from the authorial voice to a dramatic character naturally
changes the semiotic functions of the units, and along the way the syntax of the
questions, which had been indirect in the Georgics and so had contained
subjunctives—hence Geta’s accommodations. In addition, Geta’s incorporation
of the lines into the fabric of his narrative world changes their tone, as they
move from referring to a process of learning and teaching to expressing a
character’s fear of Medea’s dark power.
The fourth and final example that I have located occurs in line 403, where
Medea, killing one of her sons, says to him crimen amor vestrum (A. 10.188).
Originally the line conveyed why Cupavo’s crest had swan plumes. Cycnus, the
father of Cupavo, loved Phaethon and, overcome by grief at his beloved’s death,
was transformed into a swan (A. 10.187–188):

cuius olorinae surgunt de vertice pennae

(crimen, Amor, vestrum) formaeque insigne paternae.

Whereas Virgil uses A. 10.188 as an apostrophe to display his own neoteric

learning,23 Geta has the unit explain the cause of Medea’s horrific act. By taking
the apostrophe and situating it in the unbroken mimesis of tragedy, the cen-
tonist again assimilates the extrinsic Virgilian voice to the action of the story.
Less striking changes occur when Geta redeploys lines that had appeared in
Virgil’s direct speech. In turning to Virgilian oratio recta, the centonist mainly
cites units containing first- or second-person subjects and verbs, imperatives, or
36 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

first- or second-person pronouns—material that is obviously fundamental to

drama, with its dialogue and soliloquies. Geta also finds third-person statements
made by Virgilian characters and puts them in the mouths of his own personae.24
Scrutiny of the verse units in the Medea, then, reveals that Geta adapts
Virgil’s individual units to the narrative mode of drama with some variety.
Audiences of the Medea can choose to explore the exchanges between the
modes of each and any membrum at different levels, of course, and need not
examine them as precisely as I have. What is crucial to the effect of the cento is
to see that its purely mimetic mode differs from the Aeneid, Georgics, and many
of the Eclogues, and that the presence of spoken sections and choral songs,
which are distinct in meter, distinguishes the Medea from the mimetic Eclogues.
In referring to the cento’s audience, I do not wish to imply that Geta staged
his poem. Aspects of the Medea suggest quite the opposite. The thematic use of
props, the inclusion of stage directions (particularly entrance and exit cues),
and the dramatic incorporation of stage setting are missing from the cento.25
The Medea thus lacks certain markers of performance, which calls into question
its ties to the living theater, as does, of course, its cento form.26 The cento also
has a feature that bolsters the position that it was not staged: versus imperfecti.
Like Virgil himself, Geta leaves several lines in his poem unfinished (103, 204,
254, 335, 348, 398, 402, and 456).27 It is very unlikely that the poet would have
left them in that state if he had written his tragedy for production. The in-
complete lines suggest instead that the centonist, if he intended his Medea for
any live performance, would have presented it at a recitation, a setting in which,
if Virgil’s biography is to be believed (VSD 34), an author could present a work
with incomplete lines. While Pliny is right to point out that drama belongs to a
performance context other than the lecture room,28 the absence of Geta’s
Medea from the stage hardly disqualifies the cento from the ranks of tragedy; for
the centos would be creating a particular type of recitation drama.29 In that
scenario, Geta would have delivered the cento orally at a gathering of friends
and perhaps other guests, maybe hoping (in vain, it would seem) that they
would help him complete his half-lines, or that the Muses or adrenaline would
inspire him to come up with appropriate units during the performance.30 Like
listeners at a recitation of a conventional play, the audience of the cento
would also be meant to appreciate the text’s compositio, concentrating less on
the emotional effect of the narrative than on how its author created that nar-
rative out of Virgil.31 Just as plausibly, the Medea may have been circulated
only in written form, warts and all—i.e., with the lines that Geta did not finish.
No less than recitation, such an initial mode of presentation would befit the
cento Medea, which exists as a textual performance whose show of peculiar
ludic talent compensates for the incomplete lines, as Geta himself must have
believed.

So far the question of how Geta creates his tragic Medea out of Virgil has been
approached from the perspectives of meter, voice, and performance function.
TRAGIC VIRGIL 37

This has led me to consider in passing questions of inner form, or subject matter
and tone.32 I now turn to examine more thoroughly the issue of how Geta takes
verses from Virgil’s poems and transforms them so that they relate the tragic story
of Medea.33
Having decided to compose a drama on Medea, Geta recombines Virgil’s
verse units and alters their semantic functions to recreate that tragic sub-
ject matter,34 with the overall aim of reproducing the traditional tragic fabula
closely.35 Geta succeeds wonderfully at this aspect of cento composition, despite
changes to the personae of the drama36 and some shifts in the presentation of
the conventional material,37 including the absence of a five-act structure (the
cento contains eight scenes, along with three choruses).38 His drama contains the
familiar mulier marito viduata and saeva malorum facinorum machinatrix, an un-
faithful Jason, a loyal nurse, and a blustering king in Creon. Geta’s Medea also has
conventional plot elements, including Creon’s stay of banishment (Med. 52–103),
Jason and Medea’s agon (194–283), a description of Medea’s witchcraft (321–
373), Medea’s murder of her children (382–407), a messenger speech reporting
the carnage in the palace (411–433), and a final confrontation between Jason and
Medea (434–461).39 Within all this, there are many traditional details; a repre-
sentative example appears during the agon between Jason and Medea, in which
she recounts her services to Jason in Colchis (215–237), which also occurs in
Euripides (Med. 475–487), Ennius (Vahlen 9), and Seneca (Med. 465–477).40
The recognizable narrative elements that make up a drama on Medea constitute a
field of reference within which Geta situates and his audience identifies the genre
of the cento.41
For a competent reader from antiquity onward—or one aware of the Virgilian
basis of the cento and the absence of tragedy, let alone a play on Medea, from
Virgil’s oeuvre—a natural response to the Medea on the macrotextual level is to
recognize the generic distance that separates it from Virgil. As I noted earlier,
the generic disparities between the Medea and the Virgilian corpus are quite
apparent in the outer form of the cento. Yet a generic divide also lies between
the inner form of Virgilian units and the tragic narrative that they come to
constitute in Geta’s hands.42 For even though Virgil’s verse units can be made
to relate a drama on Medea, their Virgilian origins are of course not in tragic
poems.43 Geta has turned that source material not only into new content,
therefore, but also into a new genre. Having recognized this fact, readers could
then see the existence of that space as a reflection of the more general existence
of discrete generic categories in poetry—distinctions that several Latin authors
throughout antiquity acknowledge.44
Readers can also draw very different messages related to genre and to Virgil’s
relationship to tragedy from the Medea. One is that Geta’s act of investing
Virgil’s units with new meanings and tones appropriate to a drama on Medea
undermines in a singular way a belief in rigid generic borders that absolutely
separate varied kinds of texts, even as the cento also points up the existence of
such borders. In this reading of the Medea as a whole, the poem uniquely
38 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

demonstrates that genres are not monolithic or hermetic but in fact have bound-
aries that are permeable, allowing material to pass freely between different
forms. Such an approach sees an odd yet forceful Kreuzung der Gattungen, i.e., a
crossing or hybridizing of genres, at work in the cento.45
The Medea could also awaken in readers from antiquity onward (for ancient
audiences were as able as modern ones to recognize that Geta brings material
from non-dramatic genres together in a tragedy) a generalized sense of the
adaptability of poetic language to different genres. That is, the cento would show
in a strangely vivid way that much language in Latin poetry, especially from the
first-century B.C. onward, is capable of moving between genres, provided the
works can overcome metrical obstacles. When they appear in different forms,
the same terms can represent a wide range of objects, contribute to a wide range
of narratives, and take on a wide range of tones. Now, without doubt, there are
linguistic elements that resist generic overlapping. So the privata verba of comedy
are usually inappropriate in higher forms like epic and tragedy, as are the collo-
quialisms of satire; and the profanity of epigram has no place in most other
forms.46 Likewise, lofty terms (e.g., archaisms Grecisms, and compound epithets)
usually do not belong in genres like comedy or epigram;47 and the existence of a
wide range of stylistic registers in Latin poetry generally reflects the obvious fact
that there is a distinction between ‘‘high’’ and ‘‘low’’ vocabulary in Latin.48 Finally,
objects appear in certain poetic forms and not in others—for example, much of
bucolic’s flora, as well as its baskets and pipes, or the tools and crops of georgic
verse—meaning that the words describing those objects do not cross from one
genre into some others. Thus some Virgilian units from the Eclogues and Georgics
would be unable to make the journey into a tragedy. Yet a vast amount of language,
especially but not exclusively neutral language, is able to appear in more than one
form.49 Combination with other terms then often gives such language referents
and registers that are linked to a certain genre. (Even comedy and tragedy can
share linguistic elements,50 as can comedy, epigram, satire, and epic, though
when lofty diction appears in a lower genre or humble language in a higher form,
that interaction is usually meant to have a striking effect.)51 So too language that is
characteristic of a particular genre is often not exclusive to that genre. Finally,
certain diachronic developments lead to some leveling of the linguistic playing
field in Latin poetry. Thus in late antiquity verbal elements characteristic of epic
and tragedy had ‘‘become generalized poetic diction, irrespective of genre, and
even extended to the style of artistic prose.’’52
Hosidius Geta avoids the greatest hurdles to the movement of language
between genres. Not only does he write his poem in hexameters and paroemiacs
(into which hexameters are divisible) but he also fits Virgil to a tragedy, rather
than, say, to a comedy or an epigram. In the Latin tradition, the linguistic
differences between epic and tragedy were small.53 Both genres accommodated
lofty items such as archaisms and compound words as well as more workaday
terms. Accordingly, there is no unit in the Aeneid, the chief supplier of material
to Geta’s Medea,54 with diction that would be out of place in a drama.
TRAGIC VIRGIL 39

Also facilitating the movement between genres that Virgil’s verse units undergo
in Geta’s Medea is a feature peculiar to Virgilian style. As Agrippa is said to have
realized, common or everyday language is prevalent in Virgil’s poetry.55 Given this
characteristic, fitting Virgil’s language to other genres is a relatively easy act, much
more so than if one were to compose, say, Ennian or Plautine centos. For a verbal
surface that is not marked by the strikingly grand or low or by the outré can fit
smoothly into different forms and can take on a wide range of content and registers.
Still another possible reaction to the Medea is to recall the different ways that
Virgil’s poetry and tragedy overlap on the level of inner form. Recent critics have
emphasized, and some ancient audience members registered,56 tragic elements
in the Aeneid (and particularly in Aeneid 4; more on this later). This phenomenon
finds concrete manifestation in the adaptation of tragic models.57 What is more,
the lines and passages not only in the Aeneid but also in the Eclogues and Georgics
reflecting Virgil’s interest in suffering and loss and in the feelings of his characters
often result in verse units with content, registers, and a psychological perspective
akin to what we find in tragedy. (This last trait is more slippery than the others
just mentioned, however, and there can be dispute as to how specifically ‘‘tragic’’
are aspects of Virgil’s subjective style.)58 One way to read the assimilation of
Virgil to a tragedy, then, is to recall that tragic elements were not alien to Virgil,
even if an actual drama was. At this level of intertextual inquiry, there would be a
general recognition of how Virgil was open to tragedy, and indeed, of the fact that
he incorporated elements of that genre into his work.
In short, readers have choices when examining the cento Medea as a whole
from the perspective of genre.59 First, the fundamental generic disparities be-
tween Geta’s cento and the Virgilian corpus will jump out at readers, who can
then move to the larger point that generic differences exist in ancient literature.
At the same time, they can see in the ability of Virgil’s verses to constitute a
tragedy a macrotextual manifestation of the permeability of genres and the
generic adaptability of much poetic language, including Virgil’s characteristic
communia verba. Readers can also recall that there are in Virgil different
manifestations of generic contiguity between his poetry and tragedy, a phe-
nomenon that further points up the lie of absolute distinctions between genres.

Examining the individual units within the Medea in terms of genre—that is,
moving from a macrotextual to a microtextual investigation—readers can again
identify a divide separating the genres to which those membra originally be-
longed from the genre into which Geta has assimilated them. Indeed, the cento
naturally leads audiences to recognize that space, since each of its units orig-
inates in a poem written in a genre other than tragedy. At the same time,
because Geta can adapt Virgil’s units to a drama, his cento also shows that the
Virgilian material is transferable across genres. Readers can then draw larger
inferences about the permeability of genres, the generic flexibility of poetic
language generally, and, where relevant, the closeness of epic and tragic diction
and how Virgil’s verba are frequently communia.60
40 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Within individual units, the effects of reusing the Virgilian material in a new
genre are sometimes startling. A good example is line 131, where the chorus
describes Marsyas as recubans sub tegmine fagi (E. 1.1). As the incipit of the
first Eclogue, this verse is representative of the pastoral genre.61 Given how
familiar the unit is in its bucolic guise, the alteration of E. 1.1 is bound to have
an extra jolt, with readers keenly recalling its original generic sedes and recog-
nizing the generic distance the unit has traveled. At the same time, the diction
comprising the unit does not belong only to bucolic poetry. Indeed, the most
bucolic word in it, fagus,62 appears in Seneca’s Phaedra 510 and Troades 1082,
as well as Hercules Oetaeus 653 and 1619. This means that the language in
E. 1.1 is generically flexible, and so that the unit, while a bucolic verse par
excellence in one context, is not fixed to that genre and can migrate into tragedy.
Certain Virgilian units in the Medea offer other interpretive options to
readers investigating how that material interacts with tragedy. I begin with a set
of membra in which Geta fits certain lines to a narrower branch of the tragic
genre by redeploying Virgil to allude in precise ways to Ovid and Seneca, both
of whom composed tragedies on Medea. By making reused Virgilian units echo
lines in Ovidian and Senecan drama, Geta performs the more circumscribed
act of assimilating particular Virgilian lines to specific models in the Latin
tragic tradition, and so to the genre of tragedy. Usually the closeness of the
parallels with Ovid and Seneca suggest imitation with authorial intention. (At
such moments, Geta may have had before him a manuscript of one or both of
those poets and scanned Virgil in his poetic memory to find units that echoed
the language of the tragedians.)
Critics have noted the debt that Geta has to his Roman models, but without
adducing specific evidence in the cento, and without pursuing the implications
of the centonist’s act.63 This reticence may be due to the difficulties attending
such an investigation. The first hindrance is the very conventionality of trage-
dies on Medea, which at times limits how accurate I can be about Geta’s
sources. When the centonist reproduces an image or refers to a theme common
to the tragic tradition, it is hard to know whether he imitates any one poet
specifically or reworks publica materies, the conventional storehouse of dramatic
elements. An example is line 437, where Jason, having discovered Medea’s
heinous crimes, cries dux femina facti (A. 1.364). The Virgilian unit leaves the
epic world of city formation and duces64 and echoes a theme in the dramas of
Seneca (concurre, ut ipsam sceleris auctorem horridi / capiamus [Med. 979–980])
Zdeia) [Med. 1294–1295] . . .
ergon



and Euripides (Z t a dein’ eirgasm
enZ / M

˛

tlasa dusseb
estaton [1328]).65 Because the thematic echo is to both prede-
cessors, and because there are no precise verbal similarities between A. 1.364 and
Seneca alone, the line cannot be taken to show Geta’s imitation of the Latin
poet.66 A statement made by Medea in her confrontation with Creon provides
another example. There, Geta has the king say darkly si te his adtigerit terris Aurora
morantem (A. 4.568), / unum pro multis dabitur caput (A. 5.815) (Med. 102–103).

This warning echoes Euripides, e
aB
ocetai yeou, / kai


i s’ Z ’pio^ usa lamp

˛ ˛
TRAGIC VIRGIL 41
 ;
 
paidaB entoB tZsde term
onon wyon
oB, / yanZ ˛ (Med. 352–354), Ennius, who
translates Euripides, si te secundo lumine hic offendero, moriere (Vahlen 6), and
Seneca, capite supplicium lues, / clarum priusquam Phoebus attollat diem / nisi
cedis Isthmo (Med. 297–299). The diffuse appearances of Creon’s threat make it
impossible to know if Geta had only Seneca in mind when he composed lines 102–
103 of his poem or the broader tragic topos. Because such material is so common, I
will not use it as evidence of Geta’s imitation of his Latin predecessors. Only
precise resemblances that Geta shares more closely with Ovid and Seneca than
with any other extant Medea tragedy from antiquity will concern me.
A second difficulty facing this study results from the loss of Ovid’s Medea.
Because the tragedy no longer exists, we naturally cannot determine with cer-
tainty to what extent Geta imitated it. To arrive at a necessarily incomplete but
workable solution to this impasse, I will turn my attention to Heroides 12, with a
passing glance at Metamorphoses 7.1–424, where Ovid also tells the story of
Medea.67 If echoes of that material appear in the cento Medea, the assumption
will be that Ovid, an enthusiastic self-imitator, included that same material in
roughly the same terms in his tragic Medea, and that Geta turned to that dra-
matic model as a source for his cento.68 (I assume, therefore, that Ovid’s tragedy
was still available to Geta, even if it did not necessarily survive late antiquity.)
The loss of Ovid’s Medea also makes the relationship between that text and
Seneca’s play an obscure one.69 Without being able to consult Ovid’s drama, I
could classify a line in Geta’s poem as a Senecan imitation, while in fact the
cento unit also echoes a passage in the Ovidian Medea, to which Seneca alluded.
Geta may thus imitate Ovid exclusively even as he appears to rework Seneca, or
he may follow both Ovid and Seneca, despite the fact that surviving literature
reveals only a relation to the latter poet. It may be too that Geta took as a model
another tragedy that does not survive and that had parallels with Ovid and/or
Seneca, either through direct imitation, or because the material belonged to the
common store from which ancient authors took material for dramas on Medea.70
All of these hazards are admittedly serious; but to proceed as I have proposed is
to my mind the most effective way to pursue the subject at hand.
A possible example of Geta’s imitation of specific moments in the texts of
Ovid and Seneca occurs in lines 10–11 of the cento:

quid Syrtes aut Scylla mihi, quid vasta Charybdis

profuerit, (A. 7.302–303) mediosque fugam tenuisse per hostis? (A. 3.283)

The reference to Scylla and Charybdis has a partial parallel in Heroides 12, where
Medea wishes that Scylla had consumed Jason and herself: aut nos Scylla rapax
canibus mersisset edendos— / debuit ingratis Scylla nocere viris (Her. 12.123–
124). The sea monster consistently interests Ovid’s Medea. In Metamorphoses 7,
she expresses fear of Scylla, as well as of Charybdis, before setting sail with Jason:
dicuntur montes ratibusque inimica Charybdis / nunc sorbere fretum, nunc reddere,
cinctaque saevis / Scylla rapax canibus Siculo latrare profundo (Met. 7.63–65).71
42 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Apparently drawn to the image, Ovid may have referred to Scylla and Charybdis
again in his tragedy Medea. Likewise, Seneca has Medea speak of the monsters,
though now as a creature whose ferocity cannot match the Colchian’s own: quae
Scylla, quae Charybdis Ausonium mare / Siculumque sorbens quaeve anhelantem
premens / Titana tantis Aetna fervebit minis? (Med. 408–410).72
Another moment common to Geta and his Latin predecessors, and one that
points more forcefully to direct and conscious imitation, has its origin in the
start of the second choral song, lines delivered by a single voice presumably
from the chorus (Med. 104–106):

o digno coniuncta viro, (E. 8.32) dotabere, virgo! (A. 7.318)

ferte facis propere, (A. 12.573) thalamo deducere adorti. (A. 6.397)
ore favete omnes et cingite tempora ramis. (from A. 5.71)

These words seem to presage the marriage ceremony of Jason and Creusa and an
epithalamium to them, which the whole chorus will sing. Such a chorus would
have echoed Heroides 12, in which Medea hears the nuptial song of Jason and
Creusa (Her. 12.137–143), and Seneca’s Medea, whose choral parodos contains
songs to the same couple (Med. 93–115). Geta’s maidens, however, proceed to
meander into an account of the ill omens that attended Creon’s sacrifice before
the wedding (Med. 112–126), followed by baleful warnings (Med. 127–130), and
then a list of exempla (Marsyas, Icarus, and Pentheus) who suffer on account of
their excessive boldness (Med. 131–146). Even so, Geta echoes the Ovidian and
Senecan epithalamial passages immediately after his chorus. The centonist’s
predecessors have Medea say that the wedding song of Jason and Creusa comes
to or strikes her ears—in Ovid, ut subito nostras Hymen cantatus ad aures / venit
(Her. 12.137–138), and in Seneca, occidimus, aures pepulit hymenaeus meas
(Med. 116). Geta follows those poets by having Medea hear the sounds of a
wedding and, presumably, an epithalamium: vulgi quae vox pervenit ad aures? (A.
2.119) (Med. 149). Despite the fact that his choral passage shifts away from a
wedding song, the verbal echo in aures suggests strongly that the centonist im-
itated one or both of his Roman models.
Certain passages in the cento Medea are identifiable as references to Ovid
alone, though I must stress again that proving this assertion has its obvious
difficulties, owing to the loss of Ovid’s Medea. Before examining those passages,
I want briefly to turn to the De Praescriptione Haereticorum of Tertullian, with
whose mention of the cento Medea I began this chapter. As noted there, while
we may be confident that the tragedy that Tertullian mentions is the Medea
preserved in the codex Salmasianus, obscurity surrounds the name of the
centonist himself, even though editors have settled on Hosidius Geta. The
manuscripts of the De Praescriptione provide several nomina for him, including
Vosidius Geta, Osidius Geta, Offidius citra, Ovidius citra, and Ovidius ita.73
Of the possibilities given in the manuscripts, the most intriguing are Ovidius
ita and Ovidius citra. These names may reflect at some point in the textual
TRAGIC VIRGIL 43

tradition of Tertullian someone’s awareness or least assumption of the links

between Ovid’s Medea and the cento.74 It is also not impossible that the cen-
tonist was in fact originally dubbed Ovidius. An attractive supposition is that
the patchwork poet took the name as a pseudonym in order to indicate his
dependence on Ovid, while the cento form itself, of course, reveals his reliance
on Virgil. It has even been argued that the centonist aligned himself with Ovid
by adopting the name Ovidius Geta, with the cognomen resulting from the
Getae who resided in Tomis, a place named for Medea’s mutilation of Absyrtus
(Tomis from t
emnein), as Ovid relates in Tristia 3.9.75
Whatever conclusions one draws from the existence of Ovidius ita and
Ovidius citra in the manuscripts of Tertullian, some close verbal echoes suggest
that Hosidius Geta (to return to what has become the centonist’s conventional
name) imitated at least in part Ovid’s tragedy. Thus, in line 23, the Colchian
bitterly imagines herself seeing Creusa reclining in her bedroom on proud
purple: [videbo] reginam thalamo cunctantem (A. 4.133) ostroque superbo (A.
1.639). The term ostrum superbum resembles the words sublimis in ostro that
appear in Her. 12.179, rideat et Tyrio iaceat sublimis in ostro.76 The parallel
suggests that Geta reused A. 1.639 with an eye to Ovid, with the latter poet
perhaps having included a reference to Creusa sitting haughtily atop purple in
his tragedy.
Echoes of Ovid continue in the next line of the cento: haut impune quidem
(A. 3.628) si quid mea carmina possunt (A. 9.446) (Med. 24). The idea expressed
in ‘‘not at all with impunity [will Creusa lie in her thalamus on proud purple]’’
resembles the statements made by Ovid’s Medea in Her. 12.180–182, in which
she vows to avenge Creusa’s laughing and lying proudly on Tyrian purple.77
That is, not only does the cento echo Ovid’s sublimis in ostro, but the line of
thought in Geta’s poem also resembles that in Her. 12.179–182. It is hardly
impossible that a variation on all four lines of Heroides 12 appeared in Ovid’s
Medea, with Geta then imitating that material in its tragic manifestation.
Another potential allusion to Ovid’s Medea appears in lines 174–177 of the
cento, where the heroine speaks of Jason and how powerless are her otherwise
efficacious magical powers to change his behavior:

carmina vel caelo possunt deducere lunam (E. 8.69),

sistere aquam fluviis, (A. 4.489) deducere montibus ornos. (E. 6.71)
has herbas atque haec Ponto mihi lecta venena
ipse dedit [mihi]: (E. 8.95–96) nihil ille deos, nil carmina curat. (E. 8.103)

This passage reproduces a theme in Her. 12.163–168, where Medea similarly

laments that her powerful witchcraft could not subdue a man or help her to
evade the fires of love. Supporting the idea that Geta had Ovid specifically in
mind are the verbal parallels in the cento to Her. 12.167–168: ipsi me cantus
herbaeque artesque relinquunt; / nil dea, nil Hecates sacra potentis agunt. The
echoes in herbas/herbae, nihil-nil, ipse/ipsi and more faintly, cantus/carmina
44 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

suggest that Geta was attempting to reproduce the Ovidian phrasing. Again, it may
be that Ovid expressed himself similarly in his tragic Medea, and that Geta alluded
to that material.
If Ovid’s Medea had survived, I believe that more parallels with Geta’s cento
would emerge. As things stand, Geta appears to turn more often to Seneca, with
whose Medea the cento has several links. Striking similarities are evident, for
instance, in Geta’s choruses. One concrete parallel appears in conjunction with
Icarus in the cento’s second chorus (139–142), whose description owes some-
thing to Seneca, even though Geta’s and Seneca’s subjects are different mytho-
logical figures, and though the echoes appear in different choruses. Geta
describes Icarus with the words ausus se credere caelo (A. 6.15) (141), a phrase
that resembles Seneca’s ausus aeternos agitare currus (599), describing Phaethon
in Seneca’s third chorus. A line that the centonist uses to refer to Pentheus, the
figure who appears immediately after Icarus, also seems to respond to Seneca.
The words iuvenem sparsere per agros (G. 4.522) (Med. 147), which depict
Pentheus’s dismemberment, echo Seneca’s description of the dead Orpheus,
again in his third chorus: Thracios sparsus iacuit per agros (Med. 630). When we
recall that G. 4.522 had Orpheus as its subject, the analogues between Geta’s
and Seneca’s plays grow that much richer. The figure of Orpheus, I should add,
provides still another link between the centonist and Seneca. Geta includes
Orpheus in his third chorus (307–312), just as Seneca had done (625–630).
(There are no precise verbal links there, however.)
Another example of Geta’s imitation of Seneca appears in line 181 of the cento,
where Jason enters with his satelles just before his encounter with Medea: quod
notis optastis, adest: (A. 10.279) timor omnis abesto (A. 11.14; note the use of adest
and abesto, which may be an attempt to reproduce Senecan paradox). The refer-
ence to fear recalls Seneca’s tragedy, in which the poet characterizes Jason as one
who feels trepidation, though not fear, as the protesting-too-much hero himself
tells us, before meeting Medea: non timor vicit fidem, / sed trepida pietas (437–
438). The fear motif, which appears again two lines later (solvite corde metum [A.
1.562] [183]), points to Geta’s reliance on Seneca at that point in the cento.
When Medea then comes out to meet Jason for their agon, she opens her
speech by saying ad te confugio (A. 1.666) (194). The word confugio recalls the
beginning of Medea’s harangue in Seneca, fugimus, Iason, fugimus (447), as well
as her insistent use of the verb fugere in the next two lines: causa fugiendi nova est: /
pro te solebam fugere (448–449). While the point that Geta’s Medea makes is
different from Seneca’s, the echo in the word confugio suggests that the centonist
deliberately following his predecessor. Further evidence that Geta has Seneca in
mind as he composed Medea’s speech appears in lines 205 and 210, in which the
Colchian repeats the question mene fugis? (A. 4.314). The repetition recalls a
similar gesture in Seneca, whose Medea cries ad quos remittis? in line 451 and quo
me remittis? in line 459. Seneca seems to act as the catalyst for Geta’s mene fugis?
with the latter poet seeing in the former a model for employing repetition as a
framing pattern in Medea’s speech. That Geta activates the theme of flight in his
TRAGIC VIRGIL 45

repeated question, a theme that is so conspicuous in Seneca, supports the ar-

gument that Geta is responding specifically to that poet.78
A verbal echo signals still another point of contact between Seneca’s Medea
and the cento in lines 313–314 of Geta’s work, where the messenger begins his
account of the Colchian’s hideous rites:

quo feror? unde abii? (A. 10.670) <rumpit> pavor, ossaque et artus
perfudit toto proruptus corpore sudor. (A. 7.458–459)

The centonist’s portrayal of the nuntius follows Seneca’s of the nurse, who
delivers the same speech in his Medea and opens her description with the words
pavet animus, horret (Med. 670). The word pavet, which has an echo in Geta’s
pavor, especially suggests that Seneca’s play provided the centonist with the cue
for the opening of his messenger speech.
A few more examples will further illustrate how Geta signals the generic
tradition in which he works, and adapts Virgil in precise ways to it, by imitating a
predecessor in that tradition. The first appears in line 156, where Medea con-
fesses her guilt to her nurse: fateor me, (A. 2.134) arma impia sumpsi (A. 12.31).
Under certain conditions, arma is a programmatic term for epic poetry; at the very
least, it is closely associated with that genre.79 The word arma has a very different
function in line 156 of Geta’s play, where it is used to echo closely an apologetic
confession found three times in Seneca’s Medea (237, 246 [both of which contain
the word fateor], 461–462).80 Consequently, the arma, which in the Aeneid had
belonged to Latinus as he waged epic battle, change their generic orientation as
part of an act of Senecan imitation.81 The same shift marks line 446 (arma, viri,
ferte arma [A. 2.668]), where Jason uses words uttered by Aeneas during the fall of
Troy to exhort his comrades to assail Medea. Geta here imitates Jason’s call for
weapons that appears near the conclusion of Seneca’s Medea, after the hero
learns what Medea has done (huc, huc, fortis armiferi cohors, / conferte tela [980–
981]).
The final exchange between Jason and Medea offers two other instances of
Geta’s close imitation of Seneca. The first appears in lines 435–436, after the
centonist, like Seneca, had violated Horace’s rule (see AP 185) and showed
Medea’s murder onstage (or in the case of declamatory drama, ‘‘onstage’’) (969–
977 in Seneca, and 403–407 in Geta). After seeing his dead children, Jason begs
to be killed:

me, me, adsum qui feci, (A. 9.427) in me omnia tela

conicite, (A. 9.493–494) hanc animam quoque absumite leto. (A. 3.654)

Geta here presents Jason as initially guilty before growing vengeful in lines 444–
446. In doing so, he inverts the order set by Seneca, whose Jason expresses
initial wrath (978–981, 994–996) followed by a rueful sense of his own cul-
pability (1004–1005). Despite the inversion, Geta imitates Seneca in portraying
46 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

a remorseful Jason. The verse units adsum qui feci and hanc animam quocumque
absumite leto have close thematic echoes with Seneca’s si quod crimen, meum
est: / me dedo morti; noxium macta caput (1004–1005), as well as Jason’s cry to
Medea infesta, memet perime (1018). Geta also alludes to Seneca in line 447,
where Medea says to Jason in her final speech thalamos ne desere pactos!
(A. 10.649). The word thalamos links the cento to Seneca, whose Medea taunts
Jason with a similar statement also near the end of the play: i nunc, superbe,
virginum thalamos pete (1007).
While it seems clear that Geta deliberately reused Virgil’s language to im-
itate Ovid and Seneca and in the process to situate his play in the tragic
tradition in precise ways, the author’s act is only the beginning of interpreta-
tion, not the end. For again, audiences can draw different conclusions from
Geta’s apparently conscious gesture. By using Virgil’s poetry to echo Ovid’s and
Seneca’s dramas, Geta offers an idiosyncratic illustration of the tendency in
Latin poetry for a poet working with material in one genre to imitate poetry in
another genre. For Geta does not simply follow predecessors in a single generic
path, but in centonizing Virgil, uses language from nondramatic poems to echo
dramatic texts, a gesture that then helps to place the cento in the tragic genre.
Because of the peculiarities of cento composition, in which an author cites
Virgil verbatim, the widespread generic openness that marks Latin poetry, with
linguistic and thematic features of varied genres crossing over into one an-
other,82 finds a curious and exaggerated manifestation. With Virgilian poetry
made to echo Ovid and Seneca, the borders separating literary forms open up,
with a precise exchange occurring between those forms.83
At the same time, it should be recalled that ‘‘the undoubted tendency of
writers . . . to mix and exchange topics between the generic categories must not
be taken to imply a lack of interest in or an awareness of what constitutes the
norm in each genre.’’84 In this case, the cento and the precise echoes of Ovid
and Seneca within it play against the absence of a tragedy from the Virgilian
corpus, and so the fundamental distance that the Eclogues, Georgics, and Ae-
neid have from drama, despite their dramatic elements. Even as Geta’s Medea
indicates that Virgilian lines are capable of crossing over into drama and
echoing tragic poets, then, the text can be viewed from the starting point that
generic borders existed in antiquity, with one such border (however permeable
it might be) separating tragedy and Virgilian poetry. Approaching the cento with
this fact in mind gives the exchange between Virgil’s language and Ovid and
Seneca a disjunctive quality. The triangulated intertextuality in the Medea—
that is, Geta’s reuse of Virgil to imitate Ovid and Seneca—defamiliarizes the
generic identity of Virgil’s language as much as it reveals how that language can
not only move across different genres and constitute a tragedy but can also echo
specific tragedians.

Another group of lines in Geta’s Medea further enriches how we can read the
cento, and specifically what it suggests about the relationship between Virgilian
TRAGIC VIRGIL 47

poetry and tragedy. These are the many units that Geta draws from Aeneid 4.
(Some of these have already been noted, though I have approached them from
the perspective of Geta’s imitation of Ovid and Seneca—for the categories of
units taken from Aeneid 4 and units that echo Ovid and Seneca can overlap.).
Of the 592 verse units that Geta takes from the entire Aeneid—compared to 64
from the Georgics and 39 from the Eclogues—107 come from book 4.85
It is hardly surprising that Aeneid 4 provides Geta with the most material for
his tragic cento. As critics have long noted, the story of Dido, though presented in
a mixed mode, is something like an inset drama within Virgil’s epic, with a plot
that moves in Aristotelian ways.86 Dido’s betrayal of her fides to Sychaeus pro-
vides the hamartia, Mercury’s announcement that Aeneas must leave Carthage
the peripeteia, and several moments the anagnorisis, such as when Dido discovers
that Aeneas plans to depart. While the recognition of such Aristotelian elements
may reveal the interpretive skills of critics more than a deliberate effort to follow
Aristotle’s precepts on the part of Virgil, the poet indisputably composes Aeneid 4
with an eye to tragedy.87 The emotional pitch of the book and the inexorable
movement of the plot toward disaster contribute to the dramatic nature of Aeneid
4.88 So too Anna’s role as confidante89 and Dido’s frequent soliloquies give
Aeneid 4 a tragic character, as does Virgil’s imitation at points in the book of
Greek and Roman tragedy.90 The dramatic quality of Dido’s story appears to be
acknowledged explicitly in A. 4.469–473, where the Queen is compared in a
simile to various figures in tragedy.
What also makes the frequent reuse of Aeneid 4 seem inevitable is the close
relationship between Dido and Medea in literature. Authors in antiquity noted
how Dido resembles Medea in Colchis, and specifically Apollonius of Rhodes’s
version of that Medea. Servius dogmatically describes Aeneid 4 as entirely a trans-
lation of the Argonautica (ad Aen. 4.1):

Apollonius Argonautica scripsit ubi inducit amantem Medeam; inde totus hic
liber translatus est, de tertio Apollonii.

Macrobius takes a similar, slightly more cautious position (Sat. 5.17.4):91

de Argonauticorum quarto . . . librum Aeneidos suae quartum totum paene

formaverit ad Didonem vel Aeneam amatoriam incontinentiam Medeae circa
Iasonem transferendo.

While these critics overstate the case—Virgil, the great conflator, found
models in other literary characters, including Nausicaa, Hypsipyle, Circe, Ca-
tullus’s Ariadne, and the women of Latin love elegy92—they are right to note a
link between Medea in Colchis and Dido.93 Also important to the formation of
Dido is the tragic Medea who suffers betrayal in Corinth. Modern scholarship
has noted this connection, finding in Dido’s behavior upon her discovery of
Aeneas’s intention to leave her similarities to the scorned, raging Medea in
exile.94 Of particular note is the heroines’ reliance on magic and the thematic
48 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

resemblances in their emotional soliloquies. Critics have also located verbal

echoes of Euripides’ Medea among the explicit references to tragedies in Aeneid
4.95 A representative example appears when Dido claims that she has nowhere
to go should neighboring Africans assail her (A. 4.543–546). This lament fol-
lows Euripides’ Medea, in which the Colchian twice asks Jason where he ex-
pects her to turn now that he has abandoned her (386–389, 502–505), and
Ennius, in the section of his tragedy in which he translates Euripides (quo nunc
me vortam, quod iter incipiam ingredi? Vahlen 10). The ties between the women
are even stronger in the opening lines of Aeneid 4, at regina gravi iamdudum
saucia cura / vulnus alit (A. 4.1–2). The wound metaphor follows the descrip-

tion of Medea in Euripides’ play ((
eroti yumon ekplage is’ ’I

asonoB, 8), which
˛ ˛

Ennius translates into Latin in terms very close to Virgil’s (Medea animo aegro
amore saevo saucia, Vahlen 1).96
Dido’s story as presented in Aeneid 4 has not only been read as a tragedy
from antiquity onward but has also inspired tragedies. Several examples appear
in the Renaissance.97 These include the dramas of Alessandro Pazzi de’
Medici, who presents a tragic Dido-as-Medea, a psychological stereotype of a
frenzied woman;98 Lodovico Dolce, whose tragedy Didone emphasizes love’s
furor and its effect on a pathetic heroine; and Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio,
who composes a drama of ideas out of Dido’s suffering.99 The Carthaginian’s
story also inspires tragedies in France, where Étienne Jodelle writes a Didon se
sacrifiant; and in England, from which comes to my mind the most accom-
plished of the Dido plays, Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queene of Carthage.100
Plays even more relevant to this study survive from the sixteenth century.
These are the Dido of Petrus Ligneus Gravelinguanus, a tragedy in the form of
a Virgilian cento composed in 1559; and the anonymous cento tragedy Dido
published in the same period.101
Obviously, Hosidius Geta does not turn the Aeneid 4 into a tragedy as
literally as these authors. The rules of cento composition in antiquity, which
dictated that a patchwork text must have a narrative not found in Virgil, pre-
clude a cento on Dido. Nor does the cento Medea have an intertextual rela-
tionship with Aeneid 4 so that Dido is always the analogue for Medea, Aeneas
for Jason, and Anna for Medea’s nutrix.102 Yet these one-to-one allusive ties do
appear. The lines in question bring little semantic alteration to the Virgilian
material. Indeed, only E. 8.47–48, where Medea is the subject, experiences
less change.103 An example appears in lines 169–170 of Geta’s play, where
the nurse commands Medea to seek the gods’ aid and to approach Jason in the
hope of delaying his departure: tu modo posce deos veniam (A. 4.50) . . . cau-
causasque innecte morandi (A. 4.51). Geta takes the verse units from a speech
that Anna delivers, urging her sister Dido to go to Aeneas. Recollection of the
original context not only reveals the similarities between the nurse and Anna
but also underscores the parallels that link the abandoned Medea and Dido.
Another example of such intertextual equivalence appears in line 247, where
Jason dismisses Medea: desine meque tuis incendere teque querellis (A. 4.360).
TRAGIC VIRGIL 49

Aeneas originally delivered these harsh words to Dido, and so is a parallel for
Jason in Med. 247.
Units taken from Aeneid 4 in Geta’s cento more commonly align Dido and
Medea themselves directly. A representative example occurs in line 273, in
which Medea asks the same rhetorical question about the hardhearted Ja-
son that Dido did about Aeneas (a gesture that also links those male char-
acters): num fletu ingemuit nostro (A. 4.369) aut miseratus amanti? (A. 4.370).
Another example appears in lines 326–328 of the Medea, which form part of the
messenger speech that describes Medea’s black arts. The scene itself reveals
broad thematic ties between the actions of the heroines, both of whom, as I
noted earlier, turn to sorcery (albeit for different ends). Within the speech, lines
326–328 suggest even closer ties between Dido and Medea:

unum exuta pedem vinclis, in veste recincta, (A. 4.518)

spargens umida mella soporiferumque papaver; (A. 4.486)
sparserat et latices simulatos fontis Averni. (A. 4.512)

While the second of these units has as its subject the Massylian priestess who
assists Dido rather than the queen herself, the three lines together form a
pattern capable of setting off allusive echoes that unite Dido and Medea, while
the reuse of A. 4.512 and 518 draws that parallel directly.
Readers can also interpret the relationship between the heroines differently.
Contrastive allusions can sometimes be uncovered should audiences delve into
the tacit connections between the Medea and Aeneid 4, because the stories of
Dido and of Medea are hardly identical. The cento Medea reflects this fact no-
where more dramatically than in line 9, where the referential function of a verse
unit is strongly altered: et sparsos fraterna caede penates (A. 4.21). Originally, these
words signify Pygmalion’s murder of Sychaeus. In the cento, by contrast, Medea
uses them to refer to her own crime of killing Absyrtus. This changes the meaning of
fraterna caede from ‘‘the murder by my brother’’ to ‘‘the murder of my brother.’’104
The different force of the phrase provides a glimpse into how the stories of Medea
and Dido contained quite different aspects, as well as how Medea greatly out-
did Dido in criminal furor.105 At the same time, since the heroines are both aban-
doned by an unyielding man and suffer because of their similarly overwhelming and
destructive love, audiences can identify overarching parallels between them, which
manifest themselves sharply in certain units, as we have seen.
Another possibility is to approach the allusions linking Dido and Medea from
the perspective of genre. Such an approach makes sense in terms of literary
history. As I have shown, close relationships between Aeneid 4 and tragedy (one
that some Renaissance authors cemented by writing dramas on Dido) and be-
tween the story of Dido and the tragic character Medea were a part of the
Virgilian book. Because of the tragic and intermittently Medean quality of the
fourth book of the Aeneid, it is natural to use genre, and particularly the relation-
ship between Aeneid 4, drama, and plays on Medea, as the lens through which
to observe the intertextual exchange between that book and the cento.
50 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Of course, a fundamental generic divide separates Aeneid 4, a book in an

epic poem, and tragedy. Yet given that Virgil modeled the story of Dido in
Aeneid 4 largely on tragedy and turned to the tragic Medea as one of Dido’s
exemplars, readers can draw direct generic connections between the women’s
stories generally. Moreover, entire passages in Geta’s Medea, irrespective of the
Virgilian provenance of its constituent units, can recall corresponding moments
in the story of Dido in Aeneid 4 and bring out their dramatic color. Notable are
Medea’s soliloquies on her abandonment (1–24, 201–246) and the account of
her turn to magic (321–373). These can activate corresponding passages in
Aeneid 4 and call attention to their dramatic qualities precisely because Virgil
had used the tragic Medea as an important model for his Dido when she
laments and turns to the black arts. As Dido was (among other things) a tragic
and a Medean character in those passages in Virgil, so now Medea can seem
Didonian, which can in turn call up the tragic quality of Dido, and so point to a
type of generic contiguity.
Inquiry into the generic relationship between Geta’s Medea and Aeneid 4 can
also occur in connection with individual units from that Virgilian book that
appear in the cento. With the many lines in the story of Dido that Geta reuses
in Medea’s tragic fabula directly and with little change, one could conclude that
Aeneid 4 possessed material with semantic and tonal values that were already
tragic and even Medean in nature. It is also possible to see any unit taken from
Aeneid 4, irrespective of how it was applied to the cento, as pointing to generic
contiguity between the content of that Virgilian book and a tragedy. This is
because Aeneid 4 is, as has been noted, in many ways an inset drama within
Virgil’s epic, which can give a unit whose Virgilian provenance is anywhere in
that book a tragic tint. In this reading, then, a sense of the generic compatibility
between Virgil and Geta’s tragedy can be that much stronger when a reader
recognizes that a unit comes from a book in the Aeneid with many things in
common with drama. (This same sense can arise, I should add, when one
identifies the Virgilian origin of any unit outside of Aeneid 4 as somehow linked
closely to tragedy, e.g., by deriving from or exhibiting the influence of a play.
Such units are not at all as pervasive as the reuse of Aeneid 4 in the Medea,
however.)106 Even though a reader is likely to and indeed should note that
Aeneid 4 is not in fact a drama, which means recognizing generic differences, he
or she can also read the units as vivid instantiations of the deep and pervasive
generic links between Virgil’s story of Dido and tragedy.
Certain lines in the Medea demand more forcefully that audiences find mi-
crotextual generic correspondence between Aeneid 4 and the tragic cento. Ex-
amples are lines 143 and 294–295, which appear in choruses (143 in the second
chorus and 294–295 in the third). Line 143 reads demens videt agmina Pentheus,
and 294–295 furiis agitatus Orestes / armatam facibus matrem. All three recall the
simile in Aeneid 4.469–473 comparing Dido to tragic characters. Line 143, in
fact, is taken from A. 4.469 and 295 from A. 4.472; line 294, meanwhile, comes
from A. 3.331 but closely resembles A. 4.471, scaenis agitatus Orestes.107 Finding
TRAGIC VIRGIL 51

these verse units reused in a tragic chorus can not only underscore the explicit
equivalence of Dido and the dramatic characters but can also suggest that
elements of her story overlap with tragedy.
Other lines that point with special emphasis to a similar conclusion about
the tragic quality of Aeneid 4 appear in the prologue to Geta’s Medea, where
Dido laments Jason’s mistreatment of her (19–21):

nusquam tuta fides (A. 4.373) . . .

crudelis! quid, si non arva aliena domosque
ignotas peteret? (A. 4.311–312)

While the prologue itself owes much to Seneca, the lines nusquam tuta fides and
quid, si non arva aliena domosque / ignotas peteret? respond to the tragic tradition
as a whole, and in the process point to Virgil’s imitation of that tradition. The
first of the verse units that Geta cites, A. 4.373, echoes Euripides’s Med.
492,
orkon de jroud Z p
istiB,108 and the second the opening line of the same
˛

play, E

jel’ ’ArgouB m
iy’ o Z diapt
asyai sk
ajoB as well as Ennius’s trans-
˛ ˛

lation of Euripides (utinam ne in nemore Pelio securibus, etc., Vahlen 1). Be-
cause they have their origins in a tragedy, A. 4.373 and 4.311–312 in one sense
appear to undergo no generic transvaluation in Geta’s work.109 The cento can
be seen instead to restore the lines to their original genre, which Virgil had
incorporated into the Aeneid.110 The recognition of the trilevel allusions in lines
19 and 21—that is, between Geta’s Medea and Virgil and between Virgil and
Euripides’s and Ennius’s Medea—results in a deepened sense that Aeneid 4
contains elements belonging to a tragedy on Medea.
A final example of Geta’s reuse of Virgil to allude to the tragic past is similarly
vertiginous. It appears in the opening lines of the cento.111 Medea begins by
invoking her ancestor the Sun, the Earth, the Avenging Furies, Saturnian Juno,
and Venus to hear her prayer and succor her (1–7). These words recall Seneca,
whose Medea calls on the gods of wedlock, Lucina, Minerva, Poseidon, Hecate,
Pluto, Proserpina, and the Furies to open the prologue of his drama (1–18). The
placement of the parallel passages at the beginning of the dramas indicates that
Geta takes Seneca as a model for the prayer.112 Yet the prayer is also analogous
to the one that Dido delivers in A. 4.607–612, in which the Queen calls on the
Sun, Juno, Hecate, the Furies, and her personal gods. Complicating the in-
tertextual exchange still more is the fact that Virgil, in composing Dido’s in-
 
vocation, imitates Euripides (o^; Zeu, D
ikZ te ZZnoB ‘Hl
iou te F oB, Med. 764)
and perhaps Ennius (Vahlen 16), both of whose tragedies on Medea contain a
similar entreaty (though not at the opening of the play; hence Seneca would
seem to be Geta’s particular tragic model). The Virgilian passage, then, is itself
already tragic and Medean. That Geta cites A. 4.610 (et Dirae ultrices, 2) and
4.611 (accipite haec meritumque malis advertite numen, 7) to stitch together
Medea’s prayer suggests that he was aware of that fact. Such a gesture em-
phasizes the tragic character of Virgil’s lines by showing how units in the Aeneid
52 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

in which he adapts a dramatic convention can return to drama, and can also be
made to respond to a particular tragic poet, Seneca. The result is that a later
poem, Geta’s Medea, can affect our reading of an earlier poem, Aeneid 4, by
activating aspects in it that are consonant with and even dependent on the
tragic tradition, and so highlighting those aspects.
The presence of units taken from Aeneid 4 that themselves had tragic models
thus gives a new perspective on the relationship between Virgil’s poetry and
Geta’s tragedy. When their allusive depths are plumbed, certain units in the
cento Medea can reveal that Virgil had himself incorporated specific tragic
elements into Aeneid 4. The process of identifying such elements through the
intertextuality of Geta’s play can activate a rich intermingling of genres, with the
tragic elements of Aeneid 4 seemingly relocated to an actual drama.
Of course, this is only one of the many interpretive options available to
readers of Geta’s Medea. As I have emphasized throughout this chapter, the
cento allows its audience members to focus on a broad range of topics singly or
simultaneously as they progress through the text. Readers can examine how
Geta adapts Virgil’s poetry to the outer form of tragedy and how the centonist
reproduces a conventional tragic plot out of his source material. Analysis can
also move to the echoes of Ovid and Seneca and the pervasive citation of Aeneid
4 in Geta’s poem. These characteristics, moreover, can be interpreted at dif-
ferent levels and in different ways.
The reception of all poetry is a dynamic process, with texts continually
modified or transformed as new audiences react to them.113 The Virgilian
centos illustrate this point with a curious clarity. The texts change the very lan-
guage of Virgil, and they do so with a variety that reflects a wide range of
individual authorial responses to his poetry. In addition, readers are afforded
diverse possibilities—which, to avoid interpretive anarchy, should originate in
(and admittedly from personal perspectives on) the texts’ language, strategies,
cultural settings, and places in literary history114—for understanding the centos
and, through them, the Virgilian corpus. As the earliest extant cento, the Medea
provides the first demonstration of these things. While the cento is a ludic text,
it is also a complex work that allows readers many options for interpreting its
interactions with Virgil and the Virgilian material it recasts. Along the way, the
Medea illuminates, admittedly through a peculiar prism, important issues in
Virgil studies and in literary criticism.
 3
Virgil and the Everyday
The De Panificio and De Alea

The dynamic nature of cento composition grows still more apparent with the De
Panificio and the De Alea. These anonymous poems, which survive in the codex
Salmasianus, contain very different subject matter from Geta’s tragic Medea. The
eleven-line (with a lacuna at its outset) De Panificio offers a brief tableau of
breadmaking.1 The subject matter of the 112-line De Alea, meanwhile, is open to
debate, because the cento is very obscure. For reasons that will become apparent
in this chapter, however, I consider the poem to describe players at dice. These are
the sole centos in antiquity to present such modest narratives.
A central argument in this chapter will be that the presence of humble content
defines the De Panificio and De Alea as parodies. My first aim is to show that this
feature separates the texts from the other mythological and secular centos. Such a
claim demands elaboration, since critics have asserted that the cento form is
parodic in nature. To refute this position, I will distinguish the character and
effects of the ludism that defines cento composition from the comic purposes
that define parody. Only in marked examples like the De Panificio and De Alea is
Virgil recomposed for parodic rather than just ludic ends. This connects the two
centos to the broader arena of ancient Virgilian parody, and I will examine where
the patchwork texts fit into that tradition.
Upon demonstrating that the De Panificio and De Alea are distinct types of
centos, I will devote the bulk of the chapter to examining how the pieces func-
tion as parodies. An important point will be that the centos are different from
each other, with each deflating its Virgilian source material in unique ways,
ways that are analogous with (though not identical to, given the patchwork
form) certain mainstream approaches to parody, as well as certain other non-
centonic texts. Consequently, the centos give readers different interpretive
options, which in each work are quite varied. The hermeneutics of negotiating
that wide range of choices, or how readers can understand the parody in the De
Panificio and in the De Alea and what criteria help to determine how they can
read the poems, will be crucial considerations.

The idea that parody is fundamental to the cento is introduced into many
discussions of the form.2 This argument rests on the way that centonists make
54 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

a quoted text appear ‘‘strange’’3—that is, the way that they make Virgilian poetry
say something that it did not originally say. With the centonists distorting the
semantic functions of Virgil’s verse units to create narratives that differ from
Virgil’s own, a striking discrepancy arises between the patchwork poems and
their source material. The space that separates the content of the centos from
that of Virgil’s poetry has been seen to make the cento as such parodic in
nature.
Overlooked in such assertions is the absence of comic intent in most of the
centos. It is certainly the case that the centonists create semantic distance
between their texts and Virgil. Yet in the majority of examples, centonists simply
change their Virgilian material and do not deflate it.4 The alteration of Virgil’s
res occurs on a horizontal plane, with his language applied to content that is
itself serious in nature and that belongs to the high literary tradition. To open
up a semantic space between a model and a secondary text, even in the exag-
gerated way that the centonists do, is not in itself a parodic gesture. Treating
Virgilian verse units as though they were ossicula in a stom
awion and using that
material to create a conventional narrative is instead an example of literary
ludism, as I have emphasized in this book. The changes that most of the
centonists make to Virgil can cause a reader to feel appreciative amazement at
how the poet has accommodated discrete verse units to a new semantic situ-
ation. Wonder, the emotion that often attends literary games,5 is far from the
laughter that parody brings, however. So too the anger that a hostile reader can
feel is unlike the anger that a hostile reader of a parody would experience,
because the perceived violation is of a different kind. The centos offer versions
of Virgil’s poetry that differ from what it originally was, while parodies offer new
versions of source texts that are both different from and incongruously lower
than the original. That a literary ludus abides in a paratradition does not au-
tomatically make it a parody,6 whose defining trait is that it degrades source
material for comic effect.7
Hosidius Geta’s Medea and the seven mythological centos are entirely ludic
rather than parodic texts. The tragic fabula of Medea and quasi-epic accounts
involving Paris, Narcissus, Hercules, Procne and Philomela, Europa, Hippo-
damia, and Alcestis are all presented in a traditional manner. None, therefore,
offers the sort of material whose lowering of Virgil sets off the humor that is the
hallmark of parody.8 Two of the centos, meanwhile, Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis
and Luxurius’s Epithalamium Fridi, are predominantly epithalamia. Throughout
most of their texts, Ausonius and Luxurius adapt Virgil to an established literary
form, one that may be occasional and so relatively subordinate on the generic
scale9 but that still deals with highborn marriages, a topic far above the humble
stuff of parody. As I will show in chapter 5, Ausonius and Luxurius engage in
parody only at the conclusions of those poems, where they present obscene
accounts of the deflowering of brides.
Within the nonparodic centos there are individual units that can have dis-
comfiting intertextual effects. In the examination of Geta’s Medea in chapter 2,
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 55

I showed that in line 437, the centonist has Jason cry dux femina facti (A. 1.364)
on discovering Medea’s murder of their children. Many readers will recall the
Virgilian context of the verse unit and perhaps be jolted to find it in its new tragic
setting. Yet the intertextual space that opens is not a parodic one, since the line is
adapted to a moment of high tragedy rather than to low material. This trans-
action may have shock value, but it does not possess a comic, and so parodic
character, since the Virgilian material is not degraded. The same may be said for
units in the nonparodic texts that undergo an even greater degree of antanaclasis.
Thus when Geta uses Media fert tristis sucos (G. 2.126) (191) to describe the
heroine rather than the home of the Medes—the Virgilian subject of the unit—
the exchange can surprise and, if the reader is on board with the cento, even
elicit an appreciative smile at the clever adaptation. (The brow of even the most
well-disposed reader may darken over the false quantity of the i in Media,
however.) Yet again, the semantic change is not consistent with parody, which is
meant to be a display of humor—sometimes broad, sometimes muted—not just
of wit. To reiterate an important point, while the cento is anything but a
transparent tragedy and must be read against Virgil, its intertextuality occurs on a
lateral rather than a vertical plane, and so is ludic in nature, not parodic.
Two of the ancient centos, the De Panificio and De Alea, are different from the
others. The authors of these poems apply Virgil’s language to the subjects of
breadmaking and dicing. This content is certainly lower than the Aeneid and lower
than even the most modest content found in the Eclogues and Georgics. While
their real-life counterparts are humble pastoral herdsmen and farmers, all that the
Virgilian characters do and encounter in those works belongs to the world of
elevated poetry, even if the collection of Eclogues in particular occupies a meaner
position in the hierarchy of literary forms. For the Eclogues and Georgics are part
of the Virgilian corpus, the canonical poetry in Latin antiquity,10 and are dignified
accordingly. Having any of that material constitute works on breadmaking and
dicing, everyday (and in the case of dicing, morally questionable)11 pursuits in the
Roman world, sets up an incongruous relationship between what that poetry had
conveyed and what it comes to convey. The De Panificio and De Alea remain ludic
texts, and they are meant to serve as displays of technical skill in negotiating a set
of ad hoc rules and manipulating Virgil’s verses like puzzle pieces. Yet the ap-
plication of high Virgilian poetry to low content better suited to a genre scene or
epigram or satire creates the basic conditions for parody, since it establishes a
vertical space between source material and a secondary work derived from that
source material. Because Virgil’s verses come to convey a humble narrative
throughout the De Panificio and De Alea, they are the sole patchwork poems to
survive from antiquity that serve in their entirety as cento parodies.12
In the ancient literary world beyond the De Panificio and De Alea and cento
composition, Virgil seems to have been a rather large target of parody into the
first century AD.13 Comically rewriting that poet’s work occurred in nonliterary
settings, as a graffito in Pompeii that perverts the incipit of the Aeneid indi-
cates.14 Most of the extant examples of Virgilian parody appear in literary
56 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

sources, however. As a notice in the VSD relates, a single line of Virgil’s poetry
could be a parodic object. Thus an unnamed detractor deflated G. 1.299 by
attaching to Virgil’s nudus ara, sere nudus the phrase habebis frigore hebrem
(VSD 43–44).15 Parodies of individual Virgilian lines, as well as of entire pas-
sages, also appear within larger works that do not as a whole parody Virgil. Thus
in Met. 10.474–477, Ovid sexualizes the fulgens ensis of A. 10.474–475; and in
AA 1.453, Ovid parodies A. 6.129 to describe the difficulty and toil of seducing
a woman without gifts (hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi).16
Ovid’s engagement with Virgil’s epic in the ‘‘Little Aeneid’’ in the Metamorphoses
also has parodic elements, notably in the presentation of the Sibyl.17 Still
another instance of first-century Virgilian parody is notable for its form. This is
Petronius’s obscene cento in Sat. 132.11, in which Encolpius briefly reconnects
Virgilian lines to address his cursed mentula.
The Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil also tells us of other Virgilian parodies
in antiquity, the Antibucolica of Numitorius. The biographical tradition groups
this author with the obtrectatores Virgilii (VSD 43–44):18

obtrectatores Virgilio numquam defuerunt, nec mirum; nam nec Homero

quidem. Prolatis ‘‘Bucolicis’’ Numitorius quidam rescripsit ‘‘Antibucolica’’
duas modo eclogas, sed insulsissime paro d
ZsaB.
˛

The initial verses of the Antibucolica are recorded: si toga calda tibi est, quo
tegmine fagi? and dic mihi Damoeta: ‘‘cuium pecus’’ anne Latinum? / non. verum
Aegonis nostri, sic rure loquuntur. These references indicate that Numitorius
created comic doubles of Eclogue 1 and Eclogue 3, respectively. A second
potential example in the VSD of a Virgilian parody is Carvilius Pictor’s Aenei-
domastix (see VSD 44).19 While this may have been a parody of all or some of
the Aeneid or may have contained parodic sections,20 though, it seems more
likely that Pictor created some other type of ‘‘scourge’’ of Virgil’s epic—probably
a harsh work of criticism of the Aeneid.21
Given the patchwork technique that the authors of the De Panificio and
De Alea employ, the ways they recast Virgil diverge from what occurs in these
traditional parodies—a difference I will explore hereafter. Even so, because the
two centos lower Virgil’s poetry to create comic doubles of it, they link up
with the larger world of ancient Virgilian parody. The ability, and indeed the aim,
of the De Panificio and De Alea to evoke laughter due to how far below Virgil their
content is, rather than just wonder at how different they are from Virgil, connects
them to more conventional parodic works derived from that poet.
The De Panificio and De Alea are two of the later Virgilian parodies of any
kind to survive from antiquity. While we cannot be sure of their exact dates,
these two poems, like all the anonymous centos, were probably written after
Geta’s ca. 203, as I suggested in chapter 2, and certainly before ca. 534.
Composing Virgilian parodies does not appear to have been a popular pursuit
in late antiquity.22 I am aware of no such works from the period apart from
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 57

the De Panificio, the De Alea, and the obscene conclusions to the Cento
Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi. Some may assert that the existence of
Virgilian parodies only in cento form attests to how inconsequential the pursuit
had become by late antiquity. If anything, however, the loneliness of the pa-
rodic centos makes them that much worthier of attention, since they are close
cousins of a conventional literary species that seems to have been endangered in
the period.
Both the De Panificio and De Alea were probably written in Africa. As I
noted in chapter 2, geography would give to the selection of centos appearing in
the codex Salmasianus, an anthology put together in Africa, a coherence that
date and subject matter do not. Beyond identifying Africa as the centonists’
likely home, it is impossible to be any more specific about where the centonists
wrote and presented the De Panificio and De Alea. We cannot know if the
centonists circulated their works only in written form, having composed them
in their otium, or if they recited the poems. Finally, while it is tempting to think
that the anonymous centonists wrote the only two patchwork texts on everyday
topics because they were in the same circle or were at least aware of each
other’s centos,23 there is no hard evidence to support that idea.

After an initial lacuna of uncertain length—though the condensation of the rest

of the narrative suggests that it was brief—the De Panificio describes what ap-
pears to be a head baker and assistants in the workplace preparing bread in eleven
lines.24 The first four describe the beating and kneading of the dough, the next
four the actual baking in stoves, the next two the cooling of the bread, and the
final line the eager children who gather to eat it. The brevity of the De Panificio
allows me to reproduce it here in its entirety for the sake of convenience:

ipse manu patiens (A. 7.490 [ille manum]) inmensa volumina versit (A. 5.408)
adtollitque globos. (A. 3.574) sonuerunt omnia plausu. (A. 5.506)
tunc Cererem corruptam undis (A. 1.177 [tum])25 emittit ab alto.
(A. 1.297 [demittit])
septem ingens gyros, septena volumina traxit, (A. 5.85)
lubrica convolvens (A. 2.474 [convolvit]) et torrida semper ab igni. 5
(G. 1.234)
at rubicunda Ceres (G. 1.297) oleo perfusa nitescit. (A. 5.135)
scintillae absistunt, (A. 12.102) opere omnis semita fervet. (A. 4.407)
fervet opus redoletque, (G. 4.169 [redolentque]) volat vapor ater ad auras.
(A. 7.466)
instant ardentes (A. 1.423) veribusque trementia figunt, (A. 1.212)
conclamant rapiuntque focis (A. 5.660) onerantque canistris. 10
(A. 8.180)
undique conveniunt (A. 5.293 or 9.720) pueri innuptaeque puellae.
(G. 4.476 or A. 6.307)
58 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Within this rapid treatment, the centonist omits descriptive details unrelated to
the breadmaking itself, such as characterization of the breadmakers or an ac-
count of what they or the place in which they work looks like. In lacking such
elements, the cento differs from another poem linked to Virgil that describes
breadmaking, the pseudo-Virgilian Moretum. This piece, which the Suetonian-
Donatan life does not include among the juvenilia ascribed to Virgil, makes its
first appearance in that author’s orbit in the ninth century.26 In the lines of the
Moretum devoted to the ploughman Simylus’s preparation of bread (16–51), the
author describes his character’s dress (21–22) and portrays him as a good,
simple man who sings rustic songs to lighten his labor (29–30). The poet also
situates his narrative in a room containing a table, a small shelf, and a lamp
(19–21). Finally, the author gives Simylus a custos, the African Scybale, and
describes her closely (31–36). By contrast, the author of the De Panificio pares
down his narrative to its fundamental elements, depicting only the act of
breadmaking itself. While the centonist may have included material in the la-
cuna that would flesh out the setting of the poem and its characters, the
absence of general description, characterization, and narrative variety in the
lines we have is striking.
Brevity does not alone define the De Panificio, and the shortness of the poem
does not mean that it is an uncomplicated read.27 To get at the intricacies of the
text, we need to recall first that, despite what the large and prominently placed
tomb of the Roman baker Eurysaces might suggest,28 breadmaking was a
modest pursuit. Consequently, the language of the highest of Latin poets has
come to depict a quotidian scene, which, as I noted earlier, opens a vertical
space between Virgil’s poetry and the cento’s simple subject matter and leads to
the comic imbalance that is essential to parody.29
Of course, the De Panificio is unlike conventional parodies, despite the
fundamental similarity that the cento and those mainstream texts both comi-
cally lower a model, for a simple reason: the centonist preserves the very lan-
guage of the model he parodies. Accordingly, the simultaneous likeness to a
model and difference from it that marks all parody acquires a peculiar aspect in
a cento.30 The resemblance that the patchwork text has to its source material—
and this point holds for the De Alea and the parodic passages in the Cento
Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi—is first and foremost a linguistic one, with
the verbal surface of a source work quoted, rearranged, and made to relate a
lower narrative. Naturally, no other parodists besides centonists compose entire
works that function in this way.
How the De Panificio operates in general as a parody—that is, how it functions
on the macrotextual level—becomes clearer when we compare it further to
mainstream literary parody, in which authors can take different approaches.31
One is to distort the content of a particular author’s text or of a particular genre,
mode, or literary movement. This can mean reproducing the style of that source
material or not concerning oneself with a model’s stylistic features, while
working with a character, situation, or other thematic element in common with
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 59

or very similar to someone or something in the source text, but somehow

lowered and made risible. An example is Ovid’s presentation of the Sibyl in
Metamorphoses 14. Likewise, authors can describe in strains matching those
found in a model low situations and characters that are entirely unlike those in
that model, as occurs, for instance, in Catalepton 10 or in a mock epic like the
Culex. A subcategory of this approach contains texts that are not as a whole par-
odies of a particular source, but whose authors echo individual lines while
presenting content that is alien to those lines. Examples are Ovid’s comic
imitations of A. 10. 476–477 and A. 6.129, mentioned above.
Parodists can also exaggerate an aspect or aspects of a model’s style along
with lowering the content of the source materials. So too authors can produce
parodies of style alone, by exaggerating a stylistic tic or one or more general
features of a model’s style while preserving straight a narrative typical of that
source.32 Numitorius’s Antibucolica may fit into either of these categories; we
cannot be entirely certain which, since so little of them survive. A clearer example
of the later kind of stylistic parody is Eumolpus’s Bellum Civile in Petronius’s
Satyricon (119–124), which is primarily a parody of Lucanian style.33 Finally,
authors can preserve a source’s content and present it in a style alien to and
significantly lower than that model. An example of this approach (sometimes
called burlesque or burlesque travesty) connected to Virgil comes from seven-
teenth-century France, Scarron’s Virgile travesti.34
The macrotextual parodic strategy in the De Panificio as we have it is closest
to the formula ‘‘preserved, unparodied form/different and low content,’’ and is
especially akin to Ovid’s adaptation of A. 10.475–477 and A. 6.129. The cen-
tonist does not pervert a particular Virgilian modeled reality, or a specific scene,
book, poem, or genre, in content or style.35 Thus the breadmakers are not comic
doubles of the Cyclopes toiling in the smithy in A. 8.423–453, for example. So
too the author of the De Panificio fails to parody epic or didactic poetry gen-
erally, for example by describing the activity in strains more appropriate to the
res gestae regumque ducumque, or by offering instruction in how to bake bread.
Finally, the De Panificio has no narrative features that distort bucolic poetry.
Such deflation of that genre was certainly possible in antiquity. Thus Vespa’s
Iudicium Coci et Pistoris Iudice Vulcano (AL 190 SB), whose pistor makes bread
along with other things, is on one level a parody of a bucolic singing contest,
with the baker and cook offering up competing carmina.36 Closer to Virgil,
Numitorius’s Antibucolica are comic doubles of Virgil’s first and third Eclogue,
as I have noted.
Rather than rewriting Virgil in such a fashion, the De Panificio poet applies
his language to a foreign and low narrative situation. The macrotextual parody
hinges on the distance between the brief account of the breadmakers and
anything found in Virgil, and the fact that Virgil’s verba have come to relate
that account. Virgil’s verses comprise a discrete and humble genre scene, and
the cento’s humor derives from the total departure of that narrative from the
worlds of bucolic, didactic, and epic poetry and the downward distance that
60 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

the verses travel to constitute such a story. To reiterate a point made earlier,
what distinguishes the De Panificio from the analogous mainstream parodies
(e.g., Ovid’s reuse of A. 10.475–477 and A. 6.129) is his direct quotation of
Virgilian language, and his stringing together of such quotations to comprise an
entire text.
Of course, the De Panificio, like any parody, must have a parodic target, or an
object against which a poet sets the text and against which an audience is to
read it. Given that the centonist adapts Virgil’s poetry as he does and chooses
not to create a narrative that distorts Virgilian content, I would argue that his
target was that very poetry, whose canonical status was undiminished in late
antiquity. The centonist aims to deflate Virgil by applying units taken from his
corpus to a story of breadmaking.37 By making that source material a part of the
cento text, he pursues the assimilation and distortion of a model that happens in
parody generally, but does so in the idiosyncratic manner of patchwork compo-
sition.38 Without a concomitant placement of an aspect of Virgilian subject
matter as a general target, lofty Virgilian poetry itself becomes the broad comic
foil for the cento.
Adding to the sense of asymmetry between high Virgilian poetic corpus and
low cento on breadmaking is the high number of figures and tropes in the poem.
Thus alliteration and assonance appear in the phrase scintillae absistunt (7) and
the unit volat vapor ater ad auras (8)—two good examples of how a centonist
could import rhetorical figures from Virgil. The centonist also constructs an
anadiplosis in lines 7 and 8 with the word fervet, as I noted in chapter 1. This
figure seems meant to convey heightened emotion, as is common with rhetor-
ically active repetition in Latin poetry. Metonymy adds more figurative richness
to the poem, with the word Ceres in lines 3 and 6 standing for bread, as it often
does in poetry.39 Along with importing those metonymies from Virgil, the
centonist also creates an original metaphor in the word undis in line 3, tunc
Cererem corruptam undis. In the Aeneid, the word undae denotes the salt waves
that spoiled the Trojans’ bread during the sea storm. The centonist, by contrast,
makes undis a trope for the great amount of water that the baker uses to prepare
his loaves.40 The effect is inadvertently infelicitous, though, since the word
corrupta with its pejorative connotations ill fits the narrative situation of the
cento. Better is the reuse of G. 1.297 in line 3. The centonist there changes the
meaning of rubicunda so that it means ‘‘baking’’ bread—that is, flushed from the
heat of the oven—rather than ‘‘ripe’’ grain, as it does in the Georgics.
The ornaments in the De Panificio give its verbal surface concrete tokens of
high literature and its account of breadmaking some stylistic loftiness, both of
which are incongruous against the modest narrative of the poem. Conse-
quently, they foreground the comic imbalance between language and content.
The alliteration, assonance, anadiplosis, metonymies, and metaphor clothe a
humble subject in high poetic finery; the anadiplosis also mixes high and low by
implying that breadmaking is a subject of great drama and emotional import.41
Yet it is not just any poetic language that appears in the De Panificio; it is Virgil’s.
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 61

This causes the rhetorical devices to take on a second function, namely to serve as
reminders of the grandeur of the particular verba constituting the cento. While
the ornaments are not peculiar to any one passage, poem, or genre in the Virgilian
corpus, they point to the fact that his language belongs to the domain of high
poetry, which the centonist is applying to a low scene. The imported figures from
Virgil would demonstrate directly that his verses contain the furnishings of lofty
literature. The constructed or original figures, meanwhile, provide further ex-
amples of the ornamentation that is characteristic of the high poetry through
which those figures come to life and also point to the potential in Virgil’s verses
for yielding such material. We cannot know if the centonist included the rhe-
torical devices for these reasons. Such a gesture, however, would be consistent
with his broader strategy of overdressing the humble subject matter of the De
Panificio with Virgil’s canonical poetry, which stands as the object against which
the macrotextual parody of the cento functions.
The De Panificio also allows readers to explore at deeper levels the rela-
tionship between the parodic cento and its source material by examining the
microtextual changes to Virgil’s content that occur in any discrete verse unit.42
Often, what emerges from such an inquiry is simply a sense of how much hum-
bler the new semantic functions of the units are than their first semantic
functions. An example is the sole line in the De Panificio comprised of a single
Virgilian unit: septem ingens gyros, septena volumina traxit (A. 5.85) (4).43 In-
stead of an auspicious, huge snake, the subject in the Aeneid, the line depicts
the baker molding his loaves into shape. In so stripping Virgil’s language of its
content and using the unit to convey such simple material, the centonist en-
gages high poetry differently from how the author of the Culex does. This
pseudo-Virgilian figure makes the death of an epic snake the catalyst for the
mock-epic story of the gnat’s heroic self-sacrifice and trip to the Underworld
(parvulus hunc prior umoris conterret alumnus [183]).44 For in fact, there is of
course no snake at all in the narrative of the De Panificio. There is thus no
continuity between the content of Virgil and the cento, with the subject in the
patchwork poem a distorted double of the subject in the Aeneid, meaning that
one can recall the original subject of A. 5.85 but will then see only how distant the
new, domestic significance is from it. That is all a reader needs to do. Line 4 of the
De Panificio does not distort the specific Virgilian content of A. 5.85 but removes
it and replaces it with modest material.
Not every unit in the De Panificio undergoes such radical change. The first
half of line 6 (at rubicunda Ceres [G. 1.297]) provides an example. As already
noted, the term Ceres is a metonymy for bread in the cento, and so is not
extremely different from what it was in Virgil, where it denoted grain in the
field, in a discussion of the best time for cutting it. Yet the centonist has no
interest in reusing the line so that it becomes part of a text that stands as a
comic double of the specific situation of Georgics 1. Line 6 of the cento also
fails to engage G. 1.297 in the same way that the unnamed detractor mentioned
earlier deflates G. 1.299 by attaching the phrase habebis frigore hebrem to Virgil’s
62 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

nudus ara, sere nudus (VSD 43–44). Whereas the detractor activates the specific
res of the Virgilian poem only to pervert it, the centonist adapts G. 1.297 to a
narrative situation at a greater remove from the content of its Virgilian origin.
Other responses to units in the De Panificio are possible, because those units
interact with their original Virgilian contexts differently from how the units just
examined do. An example is the first half of line 3, also featuring Ceres: tunc
Cererem corruptam undis. The centonist takes this unit from A. 1.177, where
Aeneas and his men unload their ships after the epic procella. The line relates to
that source material differently from how an allusion to the same Virgilian scene in
line 28 of Vespa’s Iudicium Coci et Pistoris Iudice Vulcano does: hunc pater Aeneas
Troianis vexit ab oris. Vespa’s mention of Aeneas is part of a passage (24–57) that
functions as an inset parody of epic within the larger parody of a bucolic contest.
The humor depends on the baker’s describing his humble trade in heroic strains,
which leads him to link what he does with what Aeneas did. The narrative fabric of
the De Panificio, by contrast, is far from epic. Hence there is no explicit, sustained
mock-heroizing of the breadmaker, and so no overt deflation of the specific content
of A. 1.177, the source of line 3, in which Aeneas and his men unload the bread
that they have carried with them Troianis ab oris. Even so, it is possible to see
parodic distortion of the specific epic content of the unit A. 1.177 on the micro-
textual level—distortion less thoroughgoing than that which occurs in Vespa, but
able to be uncovered all the same. Just as the epic heroes drag their grain from ships
in order to dry it over fire and crush it in preparation for a meal, so the breadmaker
readies his bread for his own fire and ultimately a meal. Should they recognize the
links between the content of A. 1.177 and the De Panificio, readers can see how the
cento’s narrative connects with and distorts the roughly analogous situation in
Virgil, with a breadmaker, not Aeneas, preparing Ceres, and so serves as a comic
double of that situation. What we find here, in other words, is enough of a semantic
link to create the possibility for the content in the two texts to interact, or for a
reader to recognize comic contiguity within change rather than just comic change.
The potential for identifying such microtextual parody also marks line 7,
opere omnis semita fervit, which appears in a simile in A. 4.407 that describes
toiling ants storing up frumenta for the winter. Recalling the original context of
the unit can underscore the sense that breadmaking, another mode of preparing
immediately comestible grain items (which makes the cento unit closer to its
Virgilian original than line 6 is to G. 1.297) is hard work. The prospect then
arises of viewing the individual unit as a distortion of the content in its Virgilian
source. One could see breadmakers as comic doubles of the paradigmatic la-
boring insects of high poetry, with their humble trade incongruously portrayed
as stylized toil through the implicit medium of allusion. In that case, there
would again be a discrete parody of a specific Virgilian unit.
How the centonist himself conceived of his parodic engagement with Virgil
in these instances and in the other individual units of his poem is irretrievable.
All that can be said is that the author set the textual conditions in which
different interpretive strategies can be pursued. Readers can be content to look
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 63

at the De Panificio only as a macrotextual parody of Virgil’s loftiness, and one

that fails to form a composite comic double of any Virgilian passage, poem, or
genre; or they can examine the allusive force of individual units, in which
detecting parody of their specific Virgilian sources is at times an option. Not
every reader will approach in the same way what units do and do not activate
Virgil through microtextual parodic allusion, of course; but to my mind, some
units afford more cogent reasons for doing so than others, which seem only to
allow for registering difference and vertical space. As I have emphasized in this
study, the centos give much interpretive latitude to readers—indeed, this is one
of their strengths. But as in all literary works, textual and historical conditions
set hermeneutic limits, and while these can change according to a reader’s
experience, knowledge, and outlook, it is that reader’s responsibility to try to
determine what those limits are. One of the goals of this book is to establish
such limits for the centos within which interpretive freedom can be exercised.
The characteristics of the De Panificio are to my mind incompatible with
literary criticism, a purpose that can underlie conventional parody.45 In dis-
torting another work of art rather than just imitating an action in nature,46 a
parody can comment on that work, or expose through ridicule flaws and
shortcomings of a particular author’s text or of an entire genre. In the world of
ancient Virgilian parody, the obtrectator Numitorius may be an example of a
poet who deflates a model text in order to offer a critique of it. Numitorius may
have taken exception to the feigned rusticity in the Eclogues and wished to
point out how ridiculous it was by exaggerating it.47 The De Panificio, however,
does not make any particular aspect of Virgil’s technique or content look ab-
surd. Accordingly, there is nothing in the cento suggesting that the author
wanted to make his audience aware of what he perceived to be a vitium in
Virgil’s poetry.
The question of whether there was literary criticism of Virgil in the De Panificio
raises the related issue of the attitude of the centonist toward Virgil. Inquiries into
parody have historically been interested in the issue of how a parodist views a
model poet.48 One possibility is that the parodist aims to mock that figure, toward
whom he or she feels hostility. In this reading, parody is a form that can not only
subvert something about a source text but can also express contempt toward a
source author.49 In antiquity, the disparate figures Athenaeus, Eusebius, and
Eustathius identify a desire for hostile debunking as a motivating element of
parody,50 as did Aristophanic scholiasts.51 Such an impulse also appears to
underlie Numitorius’s Antibucolica. The poet’s status as an obtrectator and his
criticism of Virgil’s rusticity implies that his attitude toward Virgil was less than
favorable.52
Aggression, however, is not the only potential motive for parody, a form that
‘‘opens the possibility of an extraordinary range of possible relations between
parodist and object of parody.’’53 Certain parodists may admire the forms or
authors that they deflate.54 In the Virgilian arena, Ovid offers an example. Ovid
represents Virgil’s Aeneid as a great work in the Ars Amatoria (et profugum
64 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Aeneam, altaeque primordia Romae, / quo nullum Latio clarior exstat opus [AA
3.337–338]), yet as I have shown, parodies that epic at points in the Ars and
elsewhere. (When rewriting the Aeneid in ways that are not specifically parodic
[e.g., in Heroides 7], Ovid also sometimes appears to take an anti-Aeneas stance,
which is not of course the same thing as an anti-Virgil stance.)55 Parodists can
also be critical of something about a text and still be sympathetic to it and
its author, or can write pieces with different features that demonstrate different
attitudes toward a model.56
I would argue that the author of the De Panificio had no quarrel Virgil and
composed his parody in a nonconfrontational spirit. I say this because the cen-
tonist is not interested in making anything in Virgil look contemptible, or in
ridiculing any stylistic or thematic feature in Virgil’s poetry. That the parody in
the De Panificio is gentle supports this claim; the subject matter is low and
humble, but not grotesque—indeed, the description of breadmaking is charming,
if brief.57 More significantly, while the centonist tears down Virgil’s language, he
does so only to reconstruct it as a new and modest text. Entertaining and im-
pressing audiences with his ability to recast the great Virgil as a discrete, humble
poem, not acidly distorting Virgil’s poetry or an aspect of it, is the plausible
underlying motive of such a cento.58 While a darker intent is possible, the char-
acteristics of the cento suggest that the patchwork parodist was engaging in light
comic play with Virgil’s canonical poetry rather than offering a hostile attack on it
or its author.

The reader of the De Alea also has a wide range of interpretive options, the most
conspicuous of which does not reflect well on its author. For this anonymous
figure often seems incapable of composing his work according to the Ausonian
principle that centonists should handle pari modo sensus diversi ut congruant
(CN praef. 38), with the result that the De Alea suffers from acute obscurity.59
Indeed, the very subject of the cento is uncertain. There are two possibilities.
First, the cento may describe a battle in an amphitheater, presumably between
gladiators. If this should be the subject of the poem, it would appear either to
date to before the early fifth century, when Honorius outlawed gladiatorial
fights, or to be anachronistic.60 Some critics have understood the cento as an
account of such a fight.61 Yet it has also been suggested that the cento depicts
dicing as though it were a battle between armies.62 In this reading, the title De
Alea is literal,63 but the fight described in the poem is figurative, being an
overblown account of the strife and perils of dicing.
An example of how the De Alea can yield two possible narratives appears in
lines 10–13:

per varios casus levium (A. 1.204) spectacula rerum (G. 4.3)
intenti ludo exercent (A. 7.380) rapiuntque ruuntque (A. 4.581)
incerti, quo fata ferant, (A. 3.7) atque aere sonoro (A. 12.712)
insanire[t] libet: (E. 3.36) duris dolor ossibus ardet. (A. 9.66)
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 65

Because the phrase levium spectacula rerum contains a word that commonly
describes public games,64 and because of the use of aere sonoro insanire, it is
possible to conclude that the centonist describes a gladiatorial show, with the
combatants fighting in arms. Yet there is ambiguity in the phrase aere sonoro
insanire, which could refer to money and the mad gambling that accompa-
nied dicing.65 Similarly, while intenti ludo could obviously describe a game
of dice,66 it could also refer to gladiators, who trained at a school or ludus.67
(Using this metonymy to refer to gladiatorial combat in an amphiteater would
be a bit opaque; but straining sense and usage in this manner would be in keeping
with the centonist’s general technique.) The ambiguity of these lines and of the
De Alea as a whole—a characteristic that even a glance at the entire text in
the appendix to this book will reveal—has led critics to heap contumely on the
centonist.68
The obscurity of the De Alea complicates the interpretation of the poem.
Readers need to approach the cento not just through the binary lens of Virgil/
cento, but through the quaternary lens of Virgil/cento on gladiators and Virgil/
cento on dicing. One could let the uncertainty stand, or allow for the coexis-
tence of multiple semantic levels in the De Alea. Yet the poem almost certainly
relates a single narrative. It is hard to imagine an ancient text consciously
written so that its verses, kept intact and read in the same order, can tell two
stories simultaneously. Such a gesture suits twentieth-century experimentalists
in fiction, not writers in antiquity, including centonists. For all that the cento
technique suggests about the mutability of linguistic meaning, creating a text
whose content is deliberately indeterminate seems too avant-garde even for a
patchwork poet. Accordingly, a first step in reading the De Alea is to try to peer
through the text’s caligo densa and to identify what narrative its author was in
fact presenting. Upon doing so, there will remain openness in how to interpret
the operations of the work; but that openness will emerge out of what the text
appears to be doing, or what the parameter seems to be within which it can
have different functions.
The more plausible interpretation of the De Alea is that it describes dicing as
though it were a battle between epic combatants.69 Support for this reading
comes from the existence of other ancient poems in which games of dice were
aligned with battle. An example appears in Juvenal’s first satire, where the poet
links the battles of dice with those of epic, a genre that the compound adjective
armiger signals: alea quando / hos animos? . . . proelia quanta illic dispensatore
videbis / armigero! (Sat. 1.88–92).70
Describing dicing as battle continues into late antiquity. Thus in a poem on
an angry diceplayer who believes that he can rule the dice (De tablista furioso
quasi tesseris imperante), Luxurius uses the word proelia to describe the games
he plays: de solitis faciens proelia vera iocis (AL 328.6 SB[Ep. 47]).71 Luxurius
also includes a line that echoes epic diction (clamat et irato pallidus ore fremit,
4) and the phrase ‘‘Harpy-like hands’’ (Harpyacis... manibus, 8), with its adjective
in the epic register, both of which are serious and lofty in the context of epic but
66 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

when applied to dicing are incongruous.72 This suggests with Juvenal that poets
could portray dicing not just as battle, but as epic battle.
Other examples of dicing described as warfare appear in the codex Salmasia-
nus.73 One text says that dicing is a formula belli (AL 184.1 SB) and depicts the
players as ludentes vario exercent proelia talo (3).74 The next poem in the Salma-
sianus calls the game a simulacra belli (AL 185.2 SB) and contains the terms acies
(3) pugna (7), and victi spoliis victor (8). A fourth poem on dicing in the anthology
draws a connection between the game and epic battle specifically. It begins has
acies bello similes cano, quas Palamedes / constituit (AL 70.1–2 SB), which not only
contains martial diction but also recalls the incipit of the Aeneid in the word cano.
These poems thus join the passages in Juvenal and Luxurius in demonstrating the
potential in Latin literature for representing dicing in martial and sometimes
specifically epic terms.
The De Alea is likewise filled with martial imagery and language. Of particular
note is the use of proelia, a word found in Juvenal, Luxurius, and one of the
Salmasianus poems. In line 29, he says that an abstract force compels ‘‘brothers’’
into battle (tu potes un[i]animes armare in proelia fratres [A. 7.335]);75 and in an
authorial metalepsis or intrusion, he says that battles will be one of the subjects of
the rest of his poem (mores et studia et populos et praelia victis [G. 4.5, with dicam
accommodated to victis] / expediam [G. 4.286 and elsewhere], 59–60). Given the
tradition of describing dicing as warfare, there is reason to believe that for the
centonist, the ‘‘battles’’ in question were in fact games of dice.
More support for this interpretation comes from other verbal parallels be-
tween the De Alea and the late antique texts just cited. Line 75 of the De Alea
depicts one of the combatants as having pallor in ore (perhaps from G. 4.499
[Virgil’s unit reads pallor simul occupat ora]). This resembles Luxurius, pallidus
ore fremit (AL 328.4 SB), as well as line 9 of AL 70 SB, pallidus extat. It may be
that describing the paleness brought on by the tension of dicing was something
of a topos. A second example appears in line 11 of the De Alea cited earlier,
intenti ludo exercent, which resembles line 3 of AL 184 SB, ludentes vario
exercent proelia talo. In line 105, meanwhile, the centonist creates a rather
elegant syllepsis, postquam illum vita victor spoliavit (A. 6.168) et auro (G.
2.192). This is close to line 8 of AL 185 SB, victi spoliis victor.76 My claim is not
that there is direct imitation occurring, but that comically linking dicing and
warfare was part of the cultural vocabulary of Latin antiquity, and that both
poets turn to related martial imagery to describe a winner at dice.
Of course, the De Alea, though representing dicing as battle, differs from the
poetry of Juvenal, Luxurius, and the Salmasianus authors by being comprised of
Virgil’s language. This means that the De Alea functions against anterior litera-
ture in a way that Juvenal, Luxurius, and the Salmasianus poets—the evocation
of Aen. 1.1 in AL 70.1 SB aside—do not. Those authors are interested in poking
fun at dicing and its follies by making it look ridiculous against the backdrop of
battle. The result is satire rather than parody, since the poets are concerned with
mocking actions in the world through incongruity, not with distorting a work of
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 67

literary art. The author of the De Alea likewise makes dicing look silly.77 Yet by
composing his work as a Virgilian cento, the centonist also makes the poem
fundamentally a recasting of a literary model. One of the results of this is that
the battles in the cento are inevitably read against battles in Virgil. Because the
most conspicuous Virgilian battles are those in the Aeneid, moreover, the
‘‘warfare’’ of dicing naturally comes to stand as a distorted double of that epic
warfare, and so operates à la Juvenal, Luxurius in AL 328, and AL 70, though
the cento responds to Virgil specifically in ways that those works (even AL 70)
do not. In my view, the centonist intended to create just that parodic situation.
With Virgil’s battle scenes in the Aeneid the martial epic prototype that the
account of dicing distorts, the De Alea moves into the arena of parody as a
comic deflation of a literary source, and so comes to possess both satirical and
parodic properties.78 Juvenal, Luxurius, and the Salmasianus authors use battle
scenes, including epic ones, to deride dicing, not dicing to deflate those scenes;
in calling up Virgilian epic battle, the De Alea centonist does both. Taking the
specific topic of epic warfare in the Aeneid as its parodic backdrop, moreover,
gives the De Alea a specific modeled reality against which the poem operates on
the macrotextual level—a characteristic distinguishing the cento from the De
Panificio.
Viewing the De Alea as such a text affects not only how it is read generally but
also how its individual units are approached. First, units taken from Virgilian
battle scenes, with or without martial diction, can activate directly the proelia in
Virgil’s epic as their particular comic foil.79 One can read such segments against
the general parodic target of epic battle, in other words, and at the same time see
that the units duplicate that intertextual exchange on the microtextual level,
deflating the originally martial verses by applying them to dicing. In the case of
units that come from passages unconnected to combat in Virgil, on the other
hand, any reader can naturally locate their specific provenance and explore what
the Virgilian content becomes in the cento—a task that can be frustrating due to
the obscurity of the De Alea. Yet when the centonist takes units from the Eclogues,
Georgics,80 and the nonmartial sections of the Aeneid, the audience can also
recognize how they contribute to a composite, unified picture that distorts a single
thematic target within the Aeneid. The individual relations of many of the units to
Virgil become less important than their contribution to and function in a text
whose macrotextual modeled reality is a Virgilian epic battle narrative.
Examples will illustrate how readers who take the De Alea to be a parody
linking dicing and proelia can interpret individual units in the cento differently.
I turn first to lines 19–20:

tum certare odiis. (A. 10.14) multos alterna[s] revisens

lusit et in solido rursus Fortuna locavit. (A. 11.426–427)

These membra come from sections in Virgil connected to the topic of battle. In
a poem that distorts warfare in the Aeneid, therefore, readers can see parody in
68 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

the application of specific martial material in Virgil to a game of dice.81 Rec-

ognizing the original setting of the Virgilian units would add to the parodic
effect of the lines, with a reader identifying the deflation of the martial res in A.
10.14 and A. 11.426–427 within a cento that in general presents dicing as
bastardized epic battle.
Something quite different happens soon afterward in the De Alea, in line 23.
There the combatants, still certantes odiis, are described with the words et tenues
rumpunt tunicas (G. 2.75). The original context of that unit is an account of grafting
and budding trees. Obviously, the degree of antanaclasis that occurs when the line
is adapted to the De Alea is great, and a reader can always identify just how vast the
semantic distance is. Yet reading the cento as a comic double of an epic battle can
also lead a reader to suppress that particular semantic transaction, or at least move
beyond it, and see that G. 2.75 contributes to a narrative that deflates such proelia.
Approaching the cento as an account of distorted warfare can mean assimilating the
georgic material to the martial theme, which would cause G. 2.75 to contribute to
the overall parodic function of the De Alea.
Taking the De Alea as a poem describing dicing as epic battle also causes the
authorial voice behind the cento, rather than just the narrative itself, to acquire
a comic character when it intrudes on the story. This happens at the beginning
of the cento, when the narrator speaks in propria persona and relates that his
topic will be the ‘‘deadly gift of Minerva.’’ The centonist then invokes Minerva
to help him as a vates relate his poem (1–3):82

Artis opisque <tuae>, (A. 8.377) tua si mihi certa voluntas, (A. 4.125 or
7.548)
expediam dictis (A. 3.379 or 6.759) donum exitiale Minervae. (A. 2.31)
tu vatem, tu, diva, mone. (A. 7.41)

Later in the poem, the narrator asks for more divine assistance, though this time
he calls on Calliope for inspiration (vos, o Calliope, precor, adspirate canenti [A.
9.525] [49]). In a text whose subject is dicing, the point of these invocations is
to introduce the voice of high epic, and then to deflate that voice by having the
subject matter for which divine aid is sought be a humble one. This gesture
resembles the invocation to the ‘‘chorus from Helicon’’ that opens the Homeric
Battle of the Frogs and Mice, which is meant to amuse with its incongruous
connection to the ‘‘warfare’’ that occurs in the poem.83 A reader could also recall
that A. 7.41, the source of line 3 in the De Alea, is part of a programmatic
passage in which Virgil lays out the martial subject matter that will occupy the
Iliadic half of the Aeneid: dicam horrida bella, / dicam acies actosque animis in
funera reges (A. 7.41–42). This would make more pronounced the comic in-
congruity between the battles that the Virgilian vates describes and the ‘‘battles’’
that the cento’s vates describes. So too the appearance of Calliope, the Muse of
epic, would be risible when a reader determines that the warfare in the De Alea
is of a mock-epic quality.
VIRGIL AND THE EVERYDAY 69

A different sort of humor marks the authorial intrusion in line 25 (vidi oculos
ante ipse meos me voce vocantem [A. 12.638]). The narrator, who immediately
proceeds to issue an apostrophe and a rhetorical question84—two features that
increase the dramatic pitch of the poem, but to comic effect in a poem on
dicing—is himself punctured.85 For this figure is an enthusiastic spectator, and
perhaps even a player, at a game of dice, not a first-person eyewitness to an epic
proelium as in Virgil, where the subject is Turnus.86 The same deflation attends
the final first-person appearance of the narrator (58–60):

eloquar (an sileam?) (A. 3.39) levium spectacula rerum; (G. 4.3)
mores et studia et populos et praelia victis (G. 4.5 [dicam])
expediam (G. 4.286 and elsewhere) sed summa sequar fastigia rerum.
(A. 1.342)

If the narrator is choosing whether to describe dicing as though it were warfare in

line 58, and if the ‘‘character, pursuits, peoples, and battles’’ that he will discuss
briefly are related to that game, the verses take on a tone of mock-solemnity.
Another feature of the De Alea, this time a formal one, has the potential to
contribute to its parodic effect. These are its hemistichs or unfinished lines,
which appear in lines 39, 63, 83, 98, and 101. Among the other mythological
and secular centos, only Hosidius Geta’s Medea contains such lines.87 A gen-
erous interpretation of the versus imperfecti is to see them as a stylistic affec-
tation, or an element that mimics a characteristic of the Aeneid. Reproducing a
particular aspect of Virgil’s style in the Aeneid would add piquancy to the
deflation of Virgil’s descriptions of epic battle.88 The De Alea would share a
feature with the Aeneid in general—for the unfinished lines appear throughout
the poem—and would then present a comic double of material within that
epic.89 One could even see this as a dash of stylistic caricature added to the
parody, with the centonist introducing a high percentage of unfinished lines per
total lines, and so exaggerating that stylistic feature of Virgil.
While the temptation is to give the centonist credit for consciously including
a formal tic of the Aeneid, there are good reasons to read the hemistichs dif-
ferently. Throughout the De Alea, the author struggles to recall Virgilian units
that fit into his narrative. The repetition of verse units in close proximity, which
occurs twice in the cento,90 and of verse units at broader intervals throughout
the poem91 reveal that the centonist was not entirely adept at locating new
segments to complete every line. The De Alea author also engages in what
Ausonius calls ineptum and a mera nuga (CN praef. 23–24) by citing two or
more consecutive Virgilian lines.92 Finally, the De Alea has the highest per-
centage of added original lines of any mythological and secular cento (4.5
percent), another indication of the centonist’s occasional inability to find suit-
able Virgilian units.93 It may very well be that the hemistichs also indicate that
the poet found it difficult to negotiate the basic demands of the cento technique
and find appropriate verses in Virgil for his narrative.94
70 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Reading the De Alea as a parody also raises questions about the centonist’s
thoughts about Virgil and his engagement with him, since, as I noted earlier, an
important reading strategy attending parody has historically been to investigate
the attitude and intent of the parodying author. One possibility is that the
centonist simply wanted to increase the degree of difficulty of writing a satiric
text linking dicing and epic battle by using Virgil’s language to do so, and in the
process to impress his audiences with how he could recast Virgil, the loftiest of
poets, parodically. Should this be all the centonist was doing, he would pre-
sumably be seeking simply to bring glory to himself through his ludic abilities,
not to darken the glory of Virgil himself. Yet there is potentially more going on in
the De Alea, because its author degrades a specific thematic element within
Virgil’s poetry. By parodying a particular modeled reality in the Aeneid, it may be
that the centonist was offering literary criticism of it—a gesture that would
open space for some kind of disapproval of and hostility toward that source
material. One admittedly tenuous conjecture is that the centonist could have
been an obtrectator who wanted to puncture what he considered the inflation or
tumidity in the battle scenes of the Aeneid by lowering such scenes. It may be
too that the accounts of warfare were a sort of synecdoche for Virgilian epic as a
whole, whose tumor or bombast (as he might have perceived it) the centonist
wished to deflate.95 Satirizing dicing, showing off his ludic skills as a parodic
centonist, and criticizing an aspect of Virgil’s Aeneid through his cento parody
would thus all be goals of the author. Obviously, we cannot determine what the
centonist had in mind. Yet by establishing a particular theme in Virgil’s Aeneid
as a parodic target, the De Alea contains features that make literary criticism
and hostile aggression more plausible than they are in the De Panificio.
Taken together, then, the De Panificio and De Alea offer different illustra-
tions of how cento parody operates. The De Panificio applies Virgil’s poetry to a
humble topic that lowers the semantic functions of his language for comic
effect but deflates no specific feature of Virgilian form or content. By contrast,
the De Alea reuses Virgilian verba to present a humble topic that distorts
particular aspects of the Aeneid. While the comic aims of the De Panificio and
De Alea place them in a discrete category within cento composition, the unique
qualities of each text underscore a fundamental point of this book: that there is
much variety to how authors and readers alike can approach the Virgilian cento.
 4
Omnia Iam Vulgata?
Approaches to the Mythological Centos

In the opening lines of the third book of Georgics, Virgil distinguishes the poetry
that will allow him to rise above the earth and achieve flying fame from banal
works on mythological topics.1 The stories of Eurystheus, Busiris, Hylas, La-
tonian Delos, Hippodamia and Pelops, and other such narratives, Virgil says,
are all now trite: omnia iam vulgata (G. 4).2 Yet in an irony of literary history,
Virgil’s poetry comes to describe the sort of mythological stories that Virgil
claimed in the Georgics was hackneyed. Seven of the ancient Virgilian centos
present traditional fabulae in a mixed narrative mode; the codex Salmasianus
preserves all of them. One of the centos is on Hippodamia, a myth that Virgil
explicitly rejects in the Georgics. The other six texts are the Iudicium Paridis,
Narcissus, Hercules et Antaeus, Progne et Philomela, Europa, and Alcesta.3 The
authors who composed the mythological centos have not had their names and
reputations ‘‘fly through the mouths of men’’ (virum volitare per ora, G. 9). Six of
the centonists are anonymous,4 and Mavortius, author of the Iudicium Paridis, is
very obscure.
This chapter takes these mythological centos as its subject. The initial pur-
poses are to consider when and where the centos might have been written and
to ground the texts in literary history, especially by connecting them to the
continued practice of working with classical myth in late antique poetry. My
examination will then proceed to the centos themselves. I will offer readings of
the individual texts, developing arguments about salient qualities of each work,
qualities that, as in the centos so far examined, speak to topics in ancient
literature and literary culture, Virgil’s reception, and allusion studies. Taking
such an approach will demonstrate that comparative criteria can be developed
that yield a differentiated assessment and appreciation of the individual poems.5
Each cento can be read as a discrete literary game, rather than as part of an in-
distinct group of curiosities, as critics have often seen the patchwork poems,
and especially the seven works in question.

Even with the rise of Christianity as a religious, political, and cultural force in
the Roman world, classical myth continued to have a significant place in art,
both visual and literary. From the perspective of Christian polemics, such
72 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

stories were a pack of lies.6 Yet apart from hard-line Christians and those
engaging in controversies with paganism, most Romans would have considered
myth a natural and even an essential part of their culture throughout late
antiquity.7 Indeed, myth provided a storehouse of material with no necessary
connection to pagan religious practice, and so of a kind that could and very
often did serve as a neutral artistic vocabulary.8
Mavortius and the anonymous Virgilian centonists participate in the broader
practice of taking myth as publica materies. Whether the centonists were them-
selves pagans or Christians is unknown; but the religious affiliations of the authors
are moot where the treatment of myths as literary topics is concerned.9 Also
uncertain are the dates that the mythological centonists composed their works. As
I related in chapter 2, the Medea was quite probably the first of the extant
patchwork poems, having been written ca. 203. The terminus ante quem for the
mythological centos, meanwhile, is ca. 534, when the unknown compiler gath-
ered the texts in the anthology preserved in the codex Salmasianus. Within this
wide range, Mavortius and the other centonists may have written their poems at
any time. Critics have suggested dates for each work, but only generally, identi-
fying the century in which a cento might have appeared rather than a decade or a
year.10 Even these broad speculations are unsure, since they have nothing
stronger than intuition supporting them. Nor does the subject matter of the
centos clarify this issue, since authors worked with mythological themes
throughout late antiquity, or the entire period that encompasses the writing of the
Medea to the collection of the Salmasianus anthology.11
While the time when the centonists might have lived is unclear, there are
firmer indications of where they might have lived. As I have suggested in earlier
chapters, geography, rather than date or subject matter, lends coherence to the
collection of centos in the Salmasianus. Because the anthology was gathered in
Africa, the supposition is that the centos also originated in that region, where
the centonists may have recited their texts before a coterie at leisure or circu-
lated them only in written form.
Of Luxurius and Mavortius, the two centonists whose names are given in the
codex Salmasianus, Luxurius certainly hails from Africa.12 With Mavortius,
things are not so plain.13 It is tempting to identify the centonist with Vettius
Agorius Basilius Mavortius, consul in 527 AD. This figure produced a parallel
edition of Horace and Prudentius, and so had literary predilections compatible
with the act of composing Virgilian centos—though of course, if he had edited a
text of Virgil, the argument that he was a patchwork poet would be more con-
vincing.14 Yet the consul Mavortius lacks any discernible connection to Africa.
Vettius Mavortius came from a Roman aristocratic family, whose members in-
clude Caecina Mavortius Basilius Decius, consul in 486 and our Mavortius’s
father; Vettius Agorius Praetextatus; and the Decii.15 Against the firm proof of
Mavortius’s Italian roots and affiliations, only a hazardous argument from silence
suggests a link to another region. Because there are no papyri securely dated
after August 527, it has been suggested that Mavortius may well have removed
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 73

himself to Egypt late in the year.16 From Egypt, Mavortius may have sent
westward a cento he had written earlier or during his travels, perhaps even going
himself to Carthage or somewhere else in Africa. This, however, is extremely
airy conjecture.
The absence of any real evidence attaching the consul Mavortius to Africa
militates against identifying him as the author of the Iudicium Paridis. Living in
the late fifth and early sixth century, the consul would have composed the cento
at a time close to the publication of the African anthology ca. 534. A poem
written by a foreign figure at such a late date would be unusual in traveling a
distance and finding its way into the codex Salmasianus. This is especially true
of a cento, which as a light, ludic form was unlikely to garner immediate wide-
spread renown.17
Even if we accept that the author of the Iudicium Paridis was someone other
than the consul Mavortius, the argument from geography still requires a slight
leap of faith. There is, after all, no firm basis for situating an otherwise unknown
Mavortius in Africa.18 The case for identifying the centonist as an African writer
instead becomes a negative one. Nothing in the available evidence contradicts
or disproves the a fortiori claim that the centos in the Salmasianus would elicit
‘‘regional interest and pride [more] than . . . international admiration’’19 and so
would be affiliated with the area where the anthology was put together. Since
there is no reason not to link Mavortius incognitus to Africa, in other words, we
can still subscribe to the otherwise cogent geographical argument and suppose
that the Iudicium Paridis is the work of an African figure. From there, we can
still presume that the authors of all the mythological centos in the Salmasianus
were Africans, even if the accuracy of this thesis cannot be proven beyond
doubt.
As in other parts of the Roman Empire, composing poetry on myth was a
common act in late antique Africa. This material is particularly copious in the
codex Salmasianus, which contains dozens of poems on mythological topics.
Among the many traditional stories treated in the anthology, four also serve as
the subject of a Virgilian cento. The Judgment of Paris occupies five works (AL
27, 152–155 SB); Procne and Philomela two (AL 14, 51 SB), Europa two (AL
132–133 SB), and Narcissus seven (AL 26, 134–136, 210, 259–260 SB). Four
of these mythological poems (AL 26, 27, 51, and 259 SB), moreover, are versus
serpentini, or poems consisting of couplets in which the end of the pentameter
line repeats the beginning of the preceding hexameter.20 Thus AL 26 SB reads:

dum putat esse parem vitreis Narcissus in undis,

solus amore perit, dum putat esse parem.

The two-line AL 26, 27, and 51 are anonymous, while Pentadius, who may date
to the third or fourth century, wrote the ten-line AL 259.21
The versus serpentini offer parallels to the mythological centos beyond their
traditional subject matter. The serpentine poems and centos are verbal games in
74 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

verse, even if the ludi are pursued according to different sets of ad hoc rules. In
both cases, authors impose play conditions on the verbal surface of a poem and
show off their abilities to arrange and rearrange words, which they treat as so
many game pieces, within certain strict guidelines. The result is poetry that is
fundamentally about the manner of its own composition, or how the author
handles his particular ludic technique.
Given the playful nature of the versus serpentini and the centos, one can
interpret the presence of mythological content in them as doing more than
simply reflecting myth’s continued status throughout late antiquity as a stock-
pile of stories for poetic composition. For educated audiences from antiquity
onward, the mythological stories would have been standard material, which
would have caused the stories to function as neutral backdrops upon which
authors project their ludic skills and readers scrutinize those skills. To express
this point differently, myth’s status as a common cultural language makes it ripe
subject matter for uncommon ludic texts. Turning to well-known stories allows
authors to juxtapose familiar content with strange techniques of composition,
and so to highlight those techniques by casting them into relief against the
exceedingly conventional subject matter. Likewise, because educated readers
need not devote interpretive energy to following a myth and wondering how it
will turn out, they can focus more on the ludic processes of composition—that
is, the how can come more readily to the fore when the what can be assumed.
Naturally, not every ludic poet, including every centonist, needed to use myth.
Doing so, however, could facilitate the display and the appreciation of poetic
ludism.

Let us now turn to seven ancient Virgilian centos whose authors turn to myth in
playing at their literary game.22 I begin with Mavortius’s Iudicium Paridis (AL
10 R), a mythological story not only treated elsewhere in the Salmasianus but
also seemingly popular in late antiquity.23 The forty-two-line cento (with a
concluding lacuna)24 consists mainly of one scene in which Juno, Athena, and
Venus attempt to bribe Paris in order to win their beauty contest. Only in the
last three lines (with the lacuna following) does the centonist expand the story,
and then in a hasty, clumsy manner, moving quickly to the abduction of Helen
and a contrafactual statement alluding to the Fall of Troy (40–42).25
Notable in the Iudicium Paridis are its parallels with another cento, Lux-
urius’s Epithalamium Fridi. Specifically, segments in lines 19–32 of Mavortius’s
poem, which describe Venus and record her offer to Paris, resemble lines 35–51
of Luxurius’s epithalamium, in which Venus discusses Fridus’s bride and the
wedding of those figures. Particularly close echoes appear in lines 21–22 of the
Iudicium Paridis and 37–38 of the Epithalamium Fridi. The former passage
describes Venus and the latter Fridus’s bride:

nudos cervix cui lactea crines (A. 10.137 [nudos for fusos])
corripit in nodum; (A. 8.260) rosea cervice refulsit (A. 1.402) (IP 21–22)
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 75

cui lactea colla

auro innectuntur, (A. 8.660–661 [cui for tum]) crines nodantur in aurum.
(A. 4.138) (EF 37–38)

Several verbal parallels link these passages in the centos (cui lactea crines and
cui lactea colla, and crines . . . in nodum and crines nodantur).
Resemblances to Luxurius also mark lines 30–32 of the Iudicium Paridis,
where Venus addresses Paris:

Lacedaemoniosque hymenaeos (A. 3.328)

coniugio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo (A. 1.73 or 4.126 [coniugio
for coniubio])
reginam thalamis (A. 4.133 [thalamis for thalamo]) Phrygio servire marito.
(A. 4.103)

This passage has both shared units and verbal parallels with lines 45 and 49–50
of the Epithalamium Fridi, in which Venus speaks to Cupid about the wedding
couple:

conubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo . . .

. . . liceat Frido servire marito [Frido for Phrygio]
cui natam egregrio genero dignisque hymenaeis. (A. 11.355 [cui for quin])

The pattern of echoes is clear enough to suggest conscious imitation. Yet es-
tablishing intention is always slippery business, and in this case, still more
uncertainty clouds the matter, because the date of the Iudicium Paridis is
unknown. Consequently, we cannot determine its temporal relation to the late
fifth- or early sixth-century Luxurius’s cento, which of course severely compli-
cates the question of which centonist was imitating which, a question that must
be answered if we are to begin to address intention.
Often when doubts exist about chronology, there is recourse to the axiom
that when two poets reproduce a common source, the later author tends to
introduce greater changes.26 This criterion is almost entirely extraneous to the
Iudicium Paridis and Epithalamium Fridi, owing to the nature of cento com-
position. Mavortius and Luxurius quote Virgil directly, and the number of
accommodations introduced by both poets is roughly the same,27 which means
that neither alters their source material any more than the other does.
There is one moment when a centonist modifies Virgil that offers a potential
clue about intertextual priority, however. In line 37 of the Epithalamium Fridi,
Luxurius accommodates Virgil’s tum in A. 8.660 to cui in order to produce the
phrase cui lactea colla. The temptation is to see this gesture as an attempt to
echo more closely Mavortius’s use of cui lactea crines in line 21 of the Iudicium
Paridis. This would make Mavortius the anterior poet to Luxurius. Another
possible reason for the accommodation, however, is narrative necessity.28 It
76 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

may also be that Luxurius was conflating A. 10.137 (cui lactea crinis) and tum
lactea colla in A. 8.660, with the keyword lactea linking the units. Finally, there
is the chance that Luxurius was relying here on a synonymous covert keyword,
since the word cervix (see colla in A. 8.660) precedes cui lactea crinis in
A. 10.137.
Another explanation for the parallels is that the centonists, being concerned
with Venus, beauty, and nuptials (albeit in different ways), turned to some of
the same Virgilian lines or included units containing similar vocabulary without
being aware of each other. Yet as I have emphasized, though authors may not
have intended allusions, those references can still be present and active in a
poem. For far from being just the products of writers, allusions, like texts
generally, come alive and develop in the hands of readers, who are then respon-
sible for determining what messages the allusions might reasonably convey,
given the texts and the contexts in which they operate.
With the uncertainty surrounding the chronology of the centos, the safest and
most productive line of interpretation, because it circumvents issues of priority, is
to see the Iudicium Paridis and the Epithalamium Fridi as pointing to the inter-
changeability of Virgil’s linguistic code. By this I mean that we can approach the
repeated units or those with close verbal resemblances in both texts as simulta-
neously pointing to the semantic adaptability and productiveness of the Virgilian
material. The two centos would be generating an atemporal allusive message,
functioning together to show how the same membra and units with shared vo-
cabulary can describe the same characters in different guises or related figures and
related events, while at the same time belonging to discrete poems. When those
works arose would be moot; what matters is their distinctiveness despite con-
taining the same or like units—a trait that stands outside of time. The lines would
thus be interpretable as vivid symbols of the elasticity and generative capacities of
Virgil’s language. All the ancient centos point to these things, of course, since they
use Virgil’s units to tell stories different from Virgil’s and from one another’s. When
the same unit appears in more than one cento and is used in different ways,
moreover, as happens in works other than the Iudicium Paridis, the semantic
flexibility of Virgil’s verbal surface grows ever more apparent. Yet among the
mythological centos in question, the Iudicium Paridis highlights that flexibility
most dramatically and in a unique way. For none of the other texts contain such
pervasive parallels with another patchwork poem.
The next cento that I will consider is the Narcissus (AL 9 R), the first of the
anonymous mythological centos in the codex Salmasianus. At sixteen lines, the
Narcissus is short enough for me to reproduce it here in its entirety:

candida per silvam (A. 8.82) primaevo flore iuventus (A. 7.162)
adsidue veniebat: ibi haec (E. 2.4) caelestia dona (G. 4.1)
et fontes sacros (E. 1.52 [fontis]) insigni laude ferebat (A. 1.625)
insignis facie (A. 9.583) longumque bibebat amorem (A. 1.749)
intentos volvens oculos, (A. 7.251) securus amorum. (A. 1.350) 5
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 77

dum stupet (A. 1.495) atque animum pictura pascit inani, (A. 1.464)
expleri mentem nequit ardescitque tuendo (A. 1.713)
egregrium forma iuvenem, (A. 6.861) quem nympha crearat (A. 10.551)
sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat. (A. 3.490)
his amor unus erat, (A. 9.182) dorso dum pendet iniquo, (A. 10.303) 10
oblitusve sui est (A. 3.629) et membra decora iuventae (A. 4.559)
miratur rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet. (A. 8.730)
ilicet ignis edax (A. 2.758) secreti ad fluminis undas (A. 3.389)
ipsius in vultu (G. 1.452) vana spe lusit amantem, (A. 1.352)
et praeceps animi (A. 9.685) collo dare brachia circum
(A. 2.792 or 6.700) 15

ter conatus (A. 2.792 or 6.700)29 erat (A. 6.32) nec, quid speraret,
habebat. (E. 2.2)

The Narcissus has received poor notices for its obscurity and its general mea-
gerness.30 Indeed, the Narcissus contains some infelicitous phrases,31 and it has
a narrow narrative scope; the cento contains a single scene relating the youth’s
arrival at the sacred spring and the stirrings of his (self-)love. Yet the Narcissus
deserves far better than disapproving criticism due to its author’s impressive
mnemonic techniques and his sophisticated reworking of earlier literature, a
body of material not limited to Virgil.
The Narcissus poet relies on a dense network of keywords to construct his
poem. Thus, in lines 3 and 4, insigni laude ferebat (A. 1.625) / insignis facie (A.
9.583), and lines 4 and 5, longumque bibebat amorem (A. 1.749) / intentos
volvens oculos (A. 7.251), securus amorum (A. 1.350), overt keywords appear.
More common in the Narcissus are covert cues. In line 8, egregium forma
iuvenem (A. 6.861), quam nympha crearet (A. 10.551), the unseen fulgentibus
armis, which occurs in both A. 6.861 (egregium forma iuvenem et fulgentibus
armis) and A. 10.550 (Tarquitus exsultans contra fulgentibus armis), appears to
guide the centonist from unit to unit. In the first half of line 16, meanwhile,
conatus links A. 2.792 (ter conatus) and A. 6.32 (bis conatus erat), which to-
gether becomes ter conatus erat.
A pervasive keyword in the cento is imago. The word appears explicitly in the
Narcissus in line 12 (miratur rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet [A. 8.730]) and is
then covertly present at several points, beginning in line 9, sic oculos, sic ille
manus, sic ora ferebat (A. 3.490). In Virgil, this unit had described Ascanius as
the Astyanactis imago (A. 3.489). The second half of line 14, vana spe lusit
amantem (A. 1.352), continues to use imago as a covert cue. The unit comes
from Virgil’s account of Pygmalion’s deception of Dido, which was exposed by
the inhumati . . . imago / coniugis (A. 1.353–354). Finally, the author of the
Narcissus takes lines 15–16 (collo dare bracchia circum / ter conatus) either from
A. 2.792 or A. 6.700. The term imago is found in the lines immediately following
both Virgilian units. In A. 2.793, imago stands for the dead Creusa, whom
78 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Aeneas tries to embrace (ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago). In A. 6.701,
the imago is the shade of Anchises, who also slips through Aeneas’s embrace (ter
frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, A. 6.701).
The recurring appearance of the word ‘‘image’’ or ‘‘specter’’ beneath the sur-
face of the Narcissus is too common to be accidental and suggests a deliberate
strategy on the part of the centonist. Yet as noted in chapter 1, we cannot know if
the author meant to invest his cento with greater resonance and a broader
semantic scope through allusion; indeed, he may have simply turned to the word
imago as a covert cue owing to its thematic aptness. The centonist’s gesture,
however, does establish a platform for the identification of deeper, more precise
allusions. An approach that accords with the cento’s message and the logic of the
thematic relationship between the relevant units and their Virgilian sedes is to see
the reliance on imago as a way to underscore the leitmotif of the myth, that
Narcissus’s beloved does not exist outside of himself. Thus sic oculos, sic ille
manus, sic ora ferebat in line 9, where the subject is Narcissus’s reflection,
contributes to that message when we recall that Andromache, the verse’s original
speaker, surrounded herself with effigies of Troy and saw in Ascanius a phantom
of her lost Astyanax.32 When identified, this initial context emphasizes the
spectral quality of Narcissus’s love ‘‘object,’’ and in the process makes more
pointed the paradox of the myth—that the one for whom Narcissus pines is in
fact merely his empty reflection. The same may be said of the units in lines 14–16
that contain the covert keyword imago, all of whose original meanings contribute
to the unsubstantiality of Narcissus’s beloved.
The imago-theme, then, has the ability to yield microtextual allusions to the
Aeneid capable of adding thematic resonance to the cento Narcissus. Yet the
poem is also in dialogue with other works. In lines 13–14 (ilicet ignis edax
secreti ad fluminis undas / ipsius in vultu vana spe lusit amantem), the centonist
includes the oxymoron that fire took hold of Narcissus when he saw himself in
water. This idea appears in two other poems on the myth in the codex Sal-
masianus. AL 134 SB (De Narcisso), a couplet, relates how Narcissus invenit
proprios mediis in fontibus ignes / et sua deceptum urit imago virum, with a
sharp contrast drawn between fons and ignis. AL 135 SB repeats the theme in
the opening line of the couplet (ardet amore sui flagrans Narcis<sus> in undis),
and it appears again in AL 210 SB (again, De Narcisso): se Narcissus amat
captus lenonibus undis. / cui si tollis aquas, non est ubi saeviat ignis. These
parallels suggest that the centonist and the poets of AL 134, 135, and 210 SB
were related in some way, perhaps by being African.33 While I do not believe that
the centonist here alludes to the other poems (or vice versa), the ignis/aqua
oxymoron may have been part of the storehouse of elements of a late antique
African branch of the Narcissus story.34
The author of the Narcissus includes another oxymoron in lines 6–7: animum
pictura pascit inani (A. 1.464) / expleri mentem nequit (A. 1.713). Here inani
explains the phrase expleri mentem nequit; but the placement of expleri imme-
diately after inani is striking. This effect recalls the most famous treatment of
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 79

the Narcissus myth in Latin poetry, Ovid’s in the Metamorphoses (3.339–510).

Even by Ovidian standards, this passage stands out for the number and intensity
of its oxymorons, especially when Narcissus falls in love with his own image
(Met. 3.413–510).
Other lines in the Narcissus have closer similarities to Ovid. Thus line 4,
insignis facie (A. 9.583) longumque bibebat amorem (A. 1.749), has some verbal
resemblances to Met. 3.415–417:

dumque sitim sedare cupit, sitis altera crevit,

dumque bibit, visae correptus imagine formae
spem sine corpore amat.

The Virgilian unit bibebat amorem not only echoes Ovid’s bibit and amat, and
can be seen perhaps even to activate tacitly the Ovidian detail that Narcissus
came to the fountain to satisfy his thirst, but instead found unslakeable love.35
So too lines 11–12 of the Narcissus, et membra decora iuventae (A. 4.559) /
miratur (A. 8.730), recall Met. 3.422–424:

Decusque
oris et in niveo mixtum candore ruborem,
cunctaque miratur.

Here the verbal echoes in decora/decus and miratur suggest again that the
centonist redeployed Virgilian lines to echo the Metamorphoses.
The triangulated reading that the Narcissus at times allows for—that is, one
that views the cento against Ovid as well as against Virgil—can serve as an-
other indication of the centonist’s high level of skill. Like Hosidius Geta, who
alludes to Ovid and Seneca in his Medea, the anonymous centonist would
show that he could weave an intricate allusive web into his poem, with strands
extending into Latin literature beyond Virgil. If this was the case, the centonist
may have had a manuscript of Ovid before him as he composed his Virgilian
cento.36 The author of the Narcissus would have then scanned Virgil in his po-
etic memory, locating lines in that material containing verbal parallels with
Ovid.
Of course, it is also possible to bracket the author and look only to how the
allusions to the Metamorphoses or the Narcissus function in the cento. If a
reader should take this approach, one possibility is to see the echoes as par-
ticularly vivid markers of the appropriative quality of cento composition. For at
those moments, Virgil’s language is assimilated not only to a narrative on
Narcissus but also to Ovid, whose Metamorphoses momentarily becomes the
direct model for the cento.
Another sixteen-line Virgilian cento, the Hercules et Antaeus (AL 12 R), does
not have the complexities that the Narcissus does. Again, the brevity of the
cento allows me to cite it here in its entirety:
80 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

litus harenosum [ad] Libyae (A. 4.257) caelestis imago (A. 6.730)
Alcides aderat, (A. 8.203) terrae omnipotentis alumnum (A. 6.595)
caede nova quaerens (A. 10.515) et ineluctabile fatum. (A. 8.334)
protinus Antaeum (A. 10.561) vasta se mole moventem (A. 3.656)
occupat, ille suae contra non inmemor artis (G. 4.440) 5

concidit (G. 3.516 or A. 2.532, 5.333, or 5.448) atque novae rediere in

praelia
vires. (A. 12.424 [praelia for pristina])
adrepta tellure semel (A. 10.298) vim crescere victis (A. 12.799)
non tulit Alcides (A. 8.256) et terra sublevat ipsum. (A. 10.831)
namque manus inter (A. 2.681) conantem et plurima frustra (A. 9.398
[et omitted])
corripit in nodum (A. 8.260) nisuque inmotus eodem (A. 5.437) 10

auxilium solitum eripuit, (A. 9.129) corpusque per ingens (A. 10.446)
non iam mater alit Tellus viresque ministrat. (A. 11.71)
verum ubi nulla datur dextra adtrectare potestas, (A. 3.670 [adfectare])
illum exspirantem (A. 1.44) magnum Iovis incrementum (E. 4.49)
excutit effunditque solo. (A. 12.532) ruit ille (A. 12.291) volutus
(A. 12.672 or 906) 15

ad terram, non sponte fluens, (A. 11.828) vitaque recessit. (A. 4.705 [vita])

Presenting the fight between the Greek hero and the Libyan giant (an off-
spring of Earth and Poseidon), the cento has been criticized as an impoveri-
shed poem.37 Critics have dismissed its centonist, meanwhile, as coarse and
uncultured.38 Certainly the Hercules et Antaeus is a remarkably plain work,
offering little in the way of mnemotechnic,39 thematic, or intertextual com-
plexity. The only original (rather than imported) formal element of note is the
syllepsis in lines 2–3, with quaerens meaning ‘‘hunting for’’ when applied to
alumnum and ‘‘trying to bring about/aiming at’’ when applied to ineluctabile
fatum.40
How spare the Hercules et Antaeus is comes into clearer focus when we com-
pare the cento to late antique rhetorical exercises on the same topic.41 Thus
Libanius (314–ca. 393) devotes two of his descriptiones or ecphrases to Her-
cules and Antaeus.42 As exercises in description, Libanius’s pieces necessarily
contain much visual material. In both, the author lingers over the battle, de-
scribing parts of the body and the reactions of the combatants in detail. The
anonymous centonist, meanwhile, devotes all of twelve lines to the fighting and
in this brief passage fails to offer the sort of precise imagery found in Libanius.
Accordingly, the cento fails to offer the aesthetic pleasure that comes with
visual vividness that the descriptiones do, a quality that Libanius succinctly
  
, ‘ ,
describes (ta uta kai yeore^in up^ Zrxen en ZdonZ ˛ kai toiB pl
asmasin
,

estZke b
ebaia [8.495 Foerster]).
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 81

To enrich his text, the author of the Hercules et Antaeus might have also taken
a page from Ennodius. This figure included an ethopoeia entitled Verba Iunonis
Cum Antaeum Videret Parem Viribus Herculis Extitisse among his collection of
discourses, the Dictiones (27, CSEL 6, 504). Obviously, the cento is not such an
exercise, which means that we should not expect the text to be as emotional as
Ennodius’s—for ethopoeiae were studies in emotional writing43—or to have its
perspective be filtered so sharply through a single character. Even so, there might
have been some emotion and focalization in the cento, with the text containing
lines that show sympathy with either Hercules or Antaeus, or with some sort of
authorial interjection that adds drama to the text and directs the response to that
drama. The cento is instead absolutely objective, describing briefly what hap-
pened from an omniscient perspective, and offering no diction, figures, or direct
speech that might produce pathos. Indeed, the Hercules et Antaeus is close to a
minimal story, or one comprised of the three simplest elements of narration:
temporal succession, causality, and closure, without any expansion.44 The un-
adorned quality of the Hercules et Antaeus has caused it to be considered an
argumentum of a longer work,45 a conclusion that seems dubious; for there is no
parallel in Latin poetry for such a piece written as a cento.
The nature of the cento form makes it impossible for a patchwork poem to be
completely uninteresting. Because it always recomposes Virgil, a cento always
commands some attention, if only as a specimen of the patchwork technique
that treats Virgil in such a striking way. That being said, the Hercules et Antaeus
comes close to dullness. Indeed, it is the plainest of the ancient centos, notable
only for being a patchwork poem, not for any specific way it recasts Virgil.
The cento that follows in the Salmasianus, the twenty-four-line Progne
et Philomela (AL 13 R), is a richer read than the Hercules et Antaeus. The author of
the cento follows Virgil (E. 6.78–81) and some Latin writers in making Philomela
the wife of Tereus and having her avenge the rape of her sister Procne, rather than
identifying Procne as the wife and Philomela as the sister.46 Yet the cento also
contains a detail not found in Virgil. This appears in lines 16–19:

crimenque (A. 12.600) [et] facta tyranni (A. 8.483)

sanguis ait. solidae (A. 2.639) postquam data copia fandi, (A. 1.520
[postquam for coram])47
vulnera siccabat (A. 10.834) circum praecordia ‘‘sanguis, (G. 2.484)
accipe,’’ [ait], ‘‘vocem.’’ (A. 12.64 [accipe ait for accepit])48

This passage is rather obscure; I translate it as follows: ‘‘Procne’s blood tells of

the crime and deeds of the king. After Philomela had recovered her wits enough
to speak, she was staunching the wounds around her heart, and she said,
‘Blood, receive a voice [i.e., I give you a voice, because I have understood what
you mean to communicate].’’
That Procne’s blood told of what had happened to her not only goes un-
mentioned in Virgil but also differs from Ovid (Met. 6.576–580) and Apollodorus
82 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

(Bib. 3.14.8), both of whom offer the more familiar account that Philomela wove
a garment in which she depicted her suffering.49 The ‘‘conveyed through blood’’
motif, however, does appear elsewhere in the codex Salmasianus. AL 14 SB
(entitled De Progne et Philomela) tells of how tristis post funera linguae / sanguis
inest pingitque cruor tormenta pudoris (2–3). Similarly, AL 51 SB (again De
Progne et Philomela) consists of a serpentine couplet in which the theme appears:

sanguine muta probat facinus Philomela sorori,

vimque vice linguae sanguine muta probat.

It may be that AL 14 SB and 51 SB, like much of the Salmasianus, represent the
work of African writers, and thus that the central role of blood in those poems is a
feature of African versions of the myth. Because the cento Progne et Philomela
also presents the victim as revealing to her sister what Tereus had done to her by
means of her blood, there is a temptation to think that the centonist was also an
African who activated a popular theme among writers in the region.
How the centonist handles the storytelling in the Progne et Philomela dis-
plays some literary pretensions. The cento starts with an apostrophe, one that
the centonist constructs rather than imports from Virgil: aspice ut insignis (A.
6.855) vacua atria (A. 2.528) lustrat hirundo! (A. 12.474). Ancient rhetorical
theory understood apostrophe to generate pathos, and it is precisely this effect
that the centonist seeks.50 The desire to invest the Progne et Philomela with
dramatic force also underlies lines 7–8. The centonist not only includes another
apostrophe (this time importing it from Virgil), one that ascribes guilt to Phil-
omela while units around it make Tereus a villain, but also uses overt keywords
to create an emotional triplet on the adjective crudelis:

hic crudelis amor: (A. 6.24) crudelis tu quoque, mater: (E. 8.48)
infelix puer, atque (A. 1.475) odium crudele tyranni. (A. 1.361)

Such features demonstrate again that, while a cento can never be an example of
belles lettres, it can be invested with aesthetic touches whose handling is a
measure of a unique authorial style.
To leave matters at that would give a false impression of the Progne et Phil-
omela, because obscurity is another chief characteristic of the cento. We have
seen that lines 17–19 are far from pellucid. While much of the rest of the cento
also struggles to achieve clear sense, one moment in it, line 9, may rise to richer
ambiguity. There the author describes Tereus’s passion, but strangely uses pro-
geniem parvam: progeniem parvam (G. 1.414) curaeque iraeque coquebant (A.
7.345). An indulgent interpretation of this line is that the centonist was sug-
gesting that Tereus’s seething distress and frenzy were laying the seeds for the
later hideous death of his son Itys. That is, the centonist may be alluding to the
metaphorical cooking that afflicts Tereus, while at the same time foreshadowing
the literal cooking of Itys that will occur because of Tereus’s crime. Whether the
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 83

centonist meant to do this, though, is certainly questionable, and we may just

have obscurity rather than intentional ambiguity. At any rate, opacity generally
marks the Progne et Philomela, and in the process reveals that the cento has its
compelling qualities and its shortcomings.51
A more skillful specimen of cento composition than the Progne et Philomela is
the Europa (AL 14 R). This thirty-four-line poem (with what seems to be a brief
lacuna after line 26) has been called ‘‘one of the better centos’’ and been praised
for its general ‘‘venustas’’ and ‘‘elegentia.’’52 The qualities that to my mind con-
tribute most to the appeal of the poem are its vividness and the graceful handling
of the visual in the poem. An example appears when the Europa centonist
depicts the beauty of Europa as she frolicked on the shore (4–5):

dulcibus illa quidem inlecebris (G. 3.217) in litore sicco (A. 3.510)
luserat, insignis facie, (A. 9.336) candore nivali. (A. 3.538)

The poet also describes how the bull lay on the dense sand (ille autem spissa
iacuit revolutus harena [A. 5.336], 16) and how the maiden decorated his horns
with flowers (mollibus intexens ornabat cornua sertis [A. 7.488], 18, and et super
incumbens [A. 5.858] et fronde coronat [A. 4.506], 20).53 These descriptive
elements appear in other accounts of the Europa myth in classical literature.54
What is noteworthy here is that the centonist chooses to concern himself
with such details rather than presenting an unadorned narrative or focusing
on something else—for example, dialogue or direct speech, of which there is
neither.55
Another moment when the centonist lingers over descriptive details occurs in
lines 29–30. There he depicts Europa riding on the bull and relates how she held
onto its left horn and sat sidesaddle, letting her clothing lie open to the wind:

tunc laeva taurum cornu tenet (A. 5.382) inscia culpae (A. 12.648)
obliquatque sinus in ventum (A. 5.16) auramque patentem. (A. 7.230)

It has been remarked that these lines resemble paintings of Europa’s abduction
found in Pompeii, which has led to the assumption that the centonist is describing
a piece of visual art.56 I would argue, however, that lines 29–30 simply respond to
the literary tradition, in which authors described Europa atop the bull in analogous
ways to the centonist.57 Particularly close to the cento is Achilles Tatius, who
begins his novel Clitophon and Leucippe with a description of a painting of Europa,
thereby fictionalizing the very sort of exercise that has been attributed to the
author of the patchwork poem. Like the centonist, Achilles Tatius relates that
   ‘
Europa held onto the bull with her left hand: tZ laia˛ tou k
eroB ewom
enZ (1.1).
While Tatius clothes the maiden in a tunic, his account resembles the centonist’s
in that his Europa exposes an article of clothing to the wind—in this case, her

,
veil, which billows out by the force of the sea breezes (o de k
olpoB tou p
eplou
‘  
‘ , ‘
0
p
antoyen et
etato kurt
omenoB. kai Zn outoB anemoB tou zogr
ajou) (1.1).
84 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

The same detail appears in the Hellenistic poet Moschus’s account of Euro-
pa’s abduction. Moschus relates that the maiden held on to her abductor’s long
‘ ‘ ‘‘ ‘  ‘
; 0 0
horn with her hand (Z d ar ejezom
enZ ZZnoB bo
eoiB epi n
otoiB / tZ men ewen
ta
urou doliw on k
eraB) (Eur. 125–126). Moschus also describes Europa’s
clothing as billowing, although again a bit differently from the centonist. Now
Europa holds the purple folds of her robe up so as to keep them dry, which
causes them to swell in the wind (kolp
oyZ) (Eur. 127–130).
Among Latin poets, Ovid portrays Europa similarly, writing that she grasps
Jupiter’s cornum (now with her right hand) and wears clothes that flutter in
the wind:

respicit et dextra cornum tenet, altera dorso

inposita est; tremulae sinuantur flamine vestes. (Met. 2.874–875)

The presence in the cento Europa of the conventional details of the held horn
and the blowing garb more likely indicates that the centonist was aware of those
ecphrastic topoi rather than that he was following any one author. Lines 29–30
‘
of the Europa also contribute to the general en
argeia of the cento.58 The
relatively lavish narrative of the Europa, as well as its lucidity, defines its author
as one capable of quite elegant centonizing.
Another notable feature of the Europa appears in its final line, where Jupiter is
described as perfidus, alta petens abducta virgine praedo (A. 7.362).59 This echoes
AL 132 SB, entitled De Europa, which ends with nam deus in tauri corpore praedo
latet, having in the previous line mentioned Jupiter’s fraus (fraude suos Genitor
celat vel conplet amores). The next poem in the Salmasianus also treats the story
of Europa and also emphasizes Jupiter’s deceitfulness and theft of the maiden
(mentitus taurum [1] . . . virgineos ardens pandere fraude sinus [2] . . . humano
tandem veniam donemus amori, / si tibi, summe deum, dulcia furta placent [4]).
References to Jupiter’s poor treatment of young maidens were common
throughout antiquity.60 Yet the stress on Jupiter’s wrongdoing and duplicity in
making off with the heroine in the three poems on Europa in the Salmasianus,
as well as the mild echo in the word praedo, suggests a link between the cento and
the other works.61 One possibility is that the connection between the texts was a
geographical one, with the poets emphasizing the same theme because that
theme was popular where they all worked.62 Because the Salmasianus generally
appears to represent the poetry of African writers, the likelihood would be that
the writers were themselves from that region. The Europa would thus join the
Narcissus and the Progne et Philomela as centos whose resemblances to other
works in the Salmasianus possibly point to a common African origin.
Having examined the five vignettes on traditional topics, I now proceed to
the two longer mythological centos, the Hippodamia (AL 11R) and the Alcesta
(AL 15 R). Both texts consist of 162 lines, but the Alcesta has a lacuna of
uncertain length (though the narrative flow of the lines around it suggest that it
was not very long) after line 32.63
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 85

The Hippodamia64 begins with a seven-line passage in which the author

invokes the Muses, Juno, and Tisiphone and proclaims his topic:

pandite nunc Helicona, deae, (A. 7.641) nunc pectore firmo (A. 6.261)
este duces, o si qua via est, (A. 6.194) et pronuba Iuno; (A. 4.166)
pallida Tisiphone, (G. 3.552) fecundum concute pectus! (A. 7.338)
non hic Atridae (A. 9.602) et scelus exitiale Lacaenae: (A. 6.511)
hic crudelis amor. (A. 6.24) nunc illas promite vires, (A. 5.191) 5
maius opus moveo: (A. 7.45) quaesitas sanguine dotes (A. 7.423)
et scelerum poenas (A. 8.668) inconcessosque hymenaeos. (A. 1.651)

Such an opening sets a lofty tone for the Hippodamia and indicates that the cen-
tonist had avowedly big aspirations for his poem, casting it in the image of high
literature. Indeed, the centonist’s claim that he is beginning a ‘‘greater work’’ than
one that tells of the Trojan War, the paradigmatic epic topic, is an audacious one.
Even more intriguing is the subject matter of the cento. The story of Hip-
podamia was not particularly popular in late antiquity, and there is no other
poem in the Salmasianus devoted to it. Why did the centonist take up that
fabula, then? A possible answer emerges when we recall that the account of
Hippodamia and Pelops is the only mythological topic among those that Virgil
dismisses as flat and stale at the start of Georgics 3 to appear in a cento. It is
tempting to read the centonist’s decision to present that story as a deliberate
response to G. 3.7–8: [To whom has not been told] Hippodameque umeroque
Pelops insignis eburno, / acer equis? The patchwork poet would be recasting
Virgil’s very language to relate a tale that Virgil had explicitly rejected in favor of
Pales, the shepherd of Amphrysus (Apollo), and the streams of Lycaeus (G.
3.1–2), and in favor of a proposed panegyric on Octavian (G. 3.16–39). Not
only would the centonist work with a topic that Virgil belittled but also he
would brazenly portray that topic as a high epic theme, higher than the story of
the Trojan War, the epic material par excellence, and presumably higher than
Virgil’s own maius opus, the Iliadic half of the Aeneid.
Within the prooemium of the Hippodamia, line 2 contains a word, via, that
bolsters this reading of the centonist’s intention: [Muses] este duces, o si qua via
est (A. 6.194). Via echoes the line in the Georgics that follows immediately upon
the mention of Hippodamia:

temptanda via est, qua me quoque possim

tollere humo victorque virum volitare per ora. (G. 3.8–9)

Supporting the idea that the centonist had G. 3.8–9 in mind when citing A.
6.194 is the fact that the second half of A. 6.194 reads cursumque per auras
(dirigite). The phrases per ora and per auras are close; thus it may be that when
the centonist cited A. 6.194, he made a connection to G. 3.8–9 not only because
86 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

of the covert keyword via but also because of a covert aural keyword. One
conclusion that we could reach is that the centonist had the opening of Georgics
3 in mind when he cited A. 6.194, and that he was responding to the message in
those programmatic lines. The centonist asks the Muses for a way to tell the story
of Hippodamia, whereas Virgil says that a route must be tried whereby he could
avoid trite material like Hippodamia and fly aloft in fame. It may be that the
centonist assumed an affirmative answer to the question si qua via est and was
asserting that material like Hippodamia was worthy of the Muses’ attention and
capable of opening Helicon to the poet, where one naturally rose above the
literary herd. Obviously, the centonist could have made this point more clearly if
he had just cited G. 3.8–9; but it is possible that he wanted to have a bit more fun
by investing his text with the allusive indirection that I am describing.
Also relevant here are lines 149–150 of the Hippodamia:

ipse etiam eximiae laudis (A. 7.496) cum virgine victor (A. 11.565)
ibat ovans (A. 6.589) umeroque Pelops insignis eburno. (G. 3.7)

The word victor in A. 11.565 may be a covert keyword that triggers the citation
of G. 3.7, since victor also appears in G. 3.9, as we have just seen. The ap-
pearance of the word in conjunction with G. 3.7 in the Hippodamia can have
allusive force, suggesting that the real victor connected to the myth is Pelops,
and not a poet who avoids that story. Describing Pelops as a victor in the line
before the reuse of G. 3.7, in other words, undercuts Virgil’s boast that his
literary success and immortality rests in part on rejecting such mythological
material. Pelops is a great and worthy hero, the implicit message would run,
rather than Virgil in eschewing the story of Pelops and Hippodamia and pro-
posing to write an encomiastic epic on Octavian. Certainly this line of inter-
pretation is open to a charge of overreading; but it is not unreasonable to see
something significant in a character that Virgil had shunned in his quest to be a
poetic victor portrayed as a victor toward the end of a poem created out of Virgil.
Centonizing Virgil to make a point about that poet’s comments in Georgics 3
could have been meant to add piquancy if the centonist’s literary criticism was in
earnest. The Hippodamia poet would be directly reusing Virgil to create a text that
contravenes a Virgilian claim. Moreover, the centonist would be showing not only
that Virgil was wrong in asserting that the myth was played out but also that Virgil
himself could provide the material for such a maius opus on Hippodamia. At the
same time, because the cento is essentially a ludic text, it is hard not to see this
whole matter as a playful polemic. The centonist would be weaving a contentious
message into his cento about the myth of Hippodamia with tongue in cheek, or
adopting a defiant role as part of his game.
Of course, we cannot know what the centonist was thinking as he wrote his
piece; and attributing intention to a patchwork poet is always in the hands of
readers, as noted in chapter 1. The point I am making is that the Hippodamia has
features that lend themselves to speculation about the centonist’s thoughts. The
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 87

decision to use a myth that Virgil reproves in Georgics 3 is striking and can cause a
reader to concern himself or herself with why a Virgilian centonist might have
chosen that subject matter. Internal characteristics of the cento can then raise the
possibility of controversy with Virgil, pursued with whatever degree of earnestness
or irony. The ability to locate lines in the Hippodamia that through allusion counter
Virgil’s ideas introduces sharper questions than the other mythological centos
about its author’s attitude toward Virgil.
Once the narrative of the Hippodamia gets going, the bugbear obscurity oc-
casionally plagues it.65 At the same time, the story is impressive for its broad scope
relative to that of most of the other mythological centos. The poem relates how the
‘‘young great-souled heroes in the first flower of youth’’ (19) flocked to the race
with Oenomaus that would decide who would be Hippodamia’s husband (8–22).
All the competitors had lost the race and their lives, with Oenomaus also nailing
the heads of the vanquished over the door of his palace (23–37). The cento then
describes the arrival of Pelops, his taunting exchange with the king, and Hippo-
damia’s love for the hero (38–72). The story moves to Hippodamia’s hatching of a
plot to defeat Oenomaus with Myrtilus, the king’s charioteer who was in love with
Hippodamia, (72–99), the race itself, Pelops’s victory, and Oenomaus’s demise
(100–150). The cento ends with Myrtilus’s admission of complicity and what
appears to be his suicide by jumping into the Sea of Myrto; in other versions
Pelops pushed Myrtilus into the water (151–162). In relating this narrative, the
centonist includes much direct speech (47–54, 56–61, 79–89, 92–95, 139–146,
and 155–159), three rhetorical questions (9, 11, and 70), and an apostrophe (o
virgo infelix [E. 6.47, with o for Virgil’s a] iam fas est parcere genti! [A. 6.63], 33).
All of these things increase the dramatic force of the poem, with the final two in
particular investing it with formal elements characteristic of high poetry.
Another feature that enriches the narrative of the Hippodamia is its similes.
Two appear consecutively in lines 64–68, creating the effect of an epic simile:66

qualis gemma micat, fulvum quae dividit aurum, (A. 10.134)

inter utramque viam (A. 3.685) talem se laeta ferebat, (A. 1.503)
ac veluti (G. 4.170) Pariusve lapis circumdatur auro (A. 1.593)
arte nova (A. 7.477), talis virgo dabat ore colores (A. 12.69)
insignis facie, (A. 9.583) oculos deiecta decoros. (A. 11.480)

The anonymous author of the Hippodamia adds the figure in order to endow his
cento with a conventional ornament belonging to lofty verse. This motive also
accounts for the poetic periphrasis in line 100 (Oceanum interea surgens Aurora
relinquit [A. 4.129 or 11.1]), which contributes to the cento’s grandiose flavor.
The similes and periphrasis, together with the prooemium, the complex narrative,
and the expansive scope of the Hippodamia, show that the cento was an ambitious
one, one meant to be expansive and lofty in several of its details. All of these traits
together suggest an effort to make the cento read as much like a grand epic—or
better, given its length, a dignified epyllion—as a cento can.
88 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

One can interpret the details that contribute to the grandeur of the narrative
as the centonist’s continued response to the opening of Georgics 3. The features
would help to show that the story of Hippodamia is not only alive poetically but
also is also the stuff of high literature and warrants high stylistic devices, despite
what Virgil said. This message can again seem either more pointed or more
playful (the more attractive reading, in my view) when we consider the text’s
patchwork form.
The final mythological cento to be examined, the Alcesta,67 is the most lucid
of all the patchwork texts. Not only does the centonist create a poem lacking
obscurity on the level of the individual line, but he also moves from scene to
scene clearly and effortlessly.68 Another conspicuous trait of the Alcesta is its
great narrative scope. The cento opens with a three-line prooemium delivered in
propria persona in which the centonist lays out his theme and invokes Apollo’s
aid69—a gesture that, when read in conjunction with the Hippodamia, suggests
that such introductory material was seen as appropriate to the longer and more
ambitious mythological centos.70 The cento proceeds to an account of Adme-
tus, the favor that Apollo shows to him when the hero yokes wild animals with
the assistance of that divinity (1–35), and his discovery that he was to die young
(36–44). The author of the Alcesta then has a year pass before the next scene in
his poem occurs (see interea magnum sol circumvolvitur annum, [A. 3.284], Alc.
45). At that point, Admetus asks Apollo if he can escape his fate; Apollo an-
swers yes, if Admetus can find a substitute (45–68). The cento proceeds to the
request Admetus makes of his father Pheres (69–84), and Alcestis’s discovery of
Admetus’s plight and her offer to die in his stead (69–113). The text ends with
an emotional speech by Alcestis (114–132), a diegetic passage describing Al-
cestis’s strength and Admetus’s sadness (133–139), Admetus’s solemn speech
to Alcestis (140–156), and Alcestis’s death (156–162).
One critical response to the cento has been to compare it to another late
antique poem on Alcestis of similar length and range. This is the Alcestis
Barcinonensis, a 124-line hexameter work that probably dates to the fourth
century.71 The Alcestis Barcinonensis tells of Admetus’s encounter with Apollo,
his vain attempt to have his parents (not just his father) die in his stead, and
Alcestis’s offer and death, but lingers mainly on soliloquies by different char-
acters, and thus contains more direct speech than the cento.72 While there may
be an urge to link these two texts on Alcestis, they do not seem to have been
written with any knowledge of each other. Beyond their subject matter, there
are no precise resemblances between the poems beyond their subject matter
that overwhelmingly suggest contact.73 Even if a line in the Alcestis Barcino-
nensis were to echo a Virgilian line that appears in the cento Alcesta, there
would be no way of knowing if there was a direct tie between those texts or just
between the AB and Virgil. As things stand, I have not found any examples
where the AB clearly echoes a specific Virgilian line that appears in the cento.
In comparing the two poems, critics have viewed the cento Alcesta unfa-
vorably next to the Alcestis Barcinonensis. Central to this is the idea that the
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 89

Barcinonensis is an ‘‘original poem,’’ and the concomitant tacit contrast with

the derivative quality of the cento, whose secondary nature, the idea runs,
precludes originality and so degrades its value.74 Such an approach not only
reveals an aversion to the cento and an adherence to a vaguely defined origi-
nality but also sets up a false distinction. For the Alcestis Barcinonensis, while
not a cento, is at least to some extent derivative, retelling as it does a con-
ventional story and imitating as it does many models.75 The cento Alcesta,
meanwhile, is simply derivative in a more ludic and radical way than the Bar-
cinonenis. What is more, the cento Alcesta is not just a secondary text but an
original one as well; it simply achieves its originality through recombinatory
means. Certainly the cento is an odder read than the Alcestis Barcinonensis; but
that is the intention of the poem.
The Alcesta can be approached as more than just a ludic curiosity, however.
The most conspicuous feature of weightier hermeneutic interest in the poem is
its intertextual engagement with Aeneid 4, an engagement that can be identified
and understood in different ways, and that raises varied questions about how one
can read the Dido story and about interpretation generally.
The Alcesta contains more units taken from Aeneid 4 than from any poem in
the Eclogues and any book in the Georgics and Aeneid.76 A majority of the verses
from the story of Dido appear after line 85, where Admetus approaches Alcestis
and asks her to die for him. This part of the narrative and the story of Dido have
similarities; both women, after all, commit suicide on account of a husband, or,
in Dido’s case, a man she considers her husband. Underscoring these parallels
are the several lines originally delivered by Dido in Aeneid 4 that are given to
Alcestis, as well as units originally describing Dido that come to describe Al-
cestis.77
The reuse in the Alcesta of units in Aeneid 4 brings questions about how
those units function allusively. This is because the links between Alcestis and
Dido are far from univocal, owing to the nature of the story of the Carthaginian
Queen.
It has become a critical truism that Aeneid 4 allows for a wide range of
interpretations of the actions of Dido and of Aeneas, interpretations that were
active in antiquity and have remained so.78 First, a reader can identify Dido as
one who suffers with some justification, since she is at least partly guilty for
betraying her fides to Sychaeus and entering into an illicit affair, not a marriage
compact, with Aeneas.79 Should a reader of the Alcesta subscribe to this line of
interpretation, he or she can pursue a macrotextual reading in which any unit
taken from Aeneid 4 triggers recollection of Dido’s guilt and reads Alcestis’s story
against that guilt accordingly. That is, a reader would not at this point plumb the
connections between an individual unit and its Virgilian sedes but would take
a wide view of the many appearances of material from Aeneid 4 and draw
conclusions about how the broad theme of Dido’s culpa relates to the story of
Alcestis. At the same time, a reader can explore the allusions on the microtextual
level, and in many instances give them a contrastive force if he or she subscribes
90 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

to the idea that Dido betrayed her husband Sychaeus, quite unlike Alcestis. Thus
a unit like at regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura (A. 4.1) (100), which describes
Alcestis’s emotions upon hearing that Admetus will soon perish unless he finds
someone to die in his stead, can point up the differences between the heroines.
Rather than being wounded by a new love that will lead her to break a vow to her
dead husband, as Dido is, Alcestis feels pain at the suffering of her husband, and
she subsequently pledges to die for him. Recognizing the differences between
Dido’s and Alcestis’s wounds casts the virtues of the latter heroine in relief.
The same effect can attend (to give another example) units in Alcestis’s
entreaty to her husband to preserve a chaste marriage bed after her death
(127–128):

si bene quid de te merui, (A. 4.317) lectumque iugalem (A. 4.496)

natis parce tuis. (A. 10.532) sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras. (A. 4.660)

A reader who recalls Dido’s lapsed chastity, broken vow to Sychaeus, and furor
upon realizing that Aeneas is leaving her can interpret these citations of Aeneid
4 as emphasizing by contrast the pudor of Alcestis, who is not only profoundly
true to Admetus but also solicits lasting fidelity from him.
The final line in the cento may also be seen to oppose Dido and Alcestis:
dilapsus color atque in ventos vita recessit (A. 4.705) (Alc. 162). Both Dido and
Alcestis commit suicide for men. Yet a reader can understand that Alcestis does
so in a gesture that makes her profoundly univira, while Dido does so in part
because she has failed to be univira. Such a view of the Carthaginian was
certainly current in late antiquity. So Claudian, addressing Serena, wife of
Stilicho, contrasts Dido (alongside the always dubious Helen) with nobler,
chaste exempla like Laodamia, Euadne, and Lucretia (Carm. Min. 30.147–
149): quos Smyrna, quos Mantua libros / percurrens damnas Helenam nec parcis
Elissae. / nobiliora tenent animos exempla pudicos.80
For other readers, interpreting the allusive force of units drawn from Aeneid 4
can be a very different experience, because an opposite understanding of the
story of Dido is possible. Since antiquity, audiences have given their sympathies
to Dido as an abandoned woman, and have wept in concert with her.81 Im-
portant in this reading is the idea that Dido and Aeneas were married at least in
some regard and at least from Dido’s perspective (though she did not exclusively
hold that opinion within Virgil’s poem).82 Should a reader of the Alcesta be
partial to this interpretation of Aeneid 4, the allusions in the cento to that
Virgilian book can acquire a direct force. The suicides of Dido and Alcestis
would both derive from a divine command issued to their husbands (or in Dido’s
case, at least the man she considers her husband), even though the commands
differed, which means that the women killed themselves for different reasons
and with different emotions. While the heroines’ stories are not at all parallel, in
other words, the woeful deaths that the women experience, with each sacrificed
owing to a fate that in fact centers on her husband, have their similarities. Hence
OMNIA IAM VULGATA? 91

on both the macrotextual and often the microtextual levels (including in all the
examples cited earlier), a very different understanding of the allusive bond be-
tween Aeneid 4 and the Alcesta is possible from the reading that draws contrasts
between the heroines. Both Dido and Alcestis would be pitiable suicides as
victims in their husbands’ dramas, and the intertextual messages generated from
the allusions would underscore that correspondence.
The reuse of Aeneid 4 in the Alcesta can also bear upon how readers view
Aeneas; this is especially so when lines related to him are given to Admetus.
The centonist portrays Admetus with some subtlety, going so far as to have him
explicitly acknowledge his guilt and promise to be faithful to the memory of
Alcestis (152). This might seem to humanize Admetus somewhat and elicit a bit
of pathos. One of the readings of lines linking the Admetus and Aeneas, as well
as those linking Dido and Alcestis, can ascribe similar guilt to Aeneas, who in
the Aeneid would exacerbate it by not admitting to it. This position has his-
torical plausibility, since ancient readers assigned blame to the hero for his
cavalier treatment of Dido.83 At the same time, as Virgil himself took pains to
note, Aeneas was forced by fate to leave Dido, whereas Admetus escaped his
fate by letting Alcestis die for him. Unlike Admetus, moreover, Aeneas was
unaware of his role in causing Dido’s suicide until his encounter with her in the
Underworld.84 These things might be seen to exculpate Aeneas so that he is less
blameworthy than Admetus. Thus an interpretation that stresses Dido’s and
Alcestis’s blameless suffering owing to their love of Aeneas and Admetus re-
spectively can yield varied understandings of the roles of those men, depending
on how their behavior is interpreted. One character can seem more or less guilty
than the other, or both can seem either guilty or innocent, and to varying
degrees. These possibilities, taken with the others I have discussed, shows that
the story of Dido can retain its multivalence beneath the Alcesta, and that a
reader can understand the cento’s relationship to Aeneid 4 in light of any, or
indeed all, of the multiple interpretations of her story in Virgil. Again, this open-
endedness is in the nature of the Dido myth; but it can find its way into the
intertextuality of the Alcesta.
An examination of the Alcesta reveals for a final time that the mythological
centos are individual texts that accommodate and indeed call for distinct re-
sponses. Yet the aspects of the centos that I have surveyed only point to some of
the ways that the poems betray unique authorial styles and allow for a wide
range of reading strategies. Indeed, when it comes to the mythological centos,
omnia non vulgata. As ludic pieces, the centos are far from the trite poems that
Virgil dismisses in Georgics 3; and each game of cento composition will con-
tinue to demand engaged spectators and to show something new to them.
 5
Weddings, Sex, and ‘‘Virgil the Maiden’’
The Cento Nuptialis and the Epithalamium Fridi

To conclude this study of the mythological and secular centos, I return to Au-
sonius, the author with whom it began. While its introductory letter to Paulus
rewards scrutiny, as I hope to have shown in chapter 1, Ausonius’s Cento
Nuptialis has achieved notoriety mainly because of its concluding section. This
passage offers a remarkably vivid account of the imminutio, or deflowering of the
bride. The obscene ending, with which Evelyn-White, the Loeb translator of the
cento, chose not to sully his pen, leaving the passage in Latin,1 has provoked
the wrath of many readers2 but has also been met with amused appreciation.3 In
antiquity, one who seems to have enjoyed Ausonius’s pornographic passage is the
late fifth- or early sixth-century African poet Luxurius.4 This author alludes to
Ausonius in depicting the consummation of a marriage near the end of his nuptial
cento the Epithalamium Fridi, though in a shorter and more muted fashion than
Ausonius does.
Luxurius’s imitation of Ausonius has dominated much of the criticism on the
Epithalamium Fridi;5 and most scholars who have bothered with the Cento
Nuptialis have done little more than condemn or wink at Ausonius’s obscene
adaptation of Virgil.6 This does an injustice to the texts, which were written in
conjunction with actual weddings and until their pornographic endings take the
form of epithalamia,7 and whose sex scenes warrant serious attention for how
their authors adapt Virgil, for their functions in their poems, and for their
broader implications. In this chapter, I will begin by examining the Cento
Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi as occasional texts. My focus will be on the
kinds of wedding poems Ausonius and Luxurius write, and on how the status of
the poems as centos complicates their occasional character. I will then turn to
the concluding sex scenes. Prevailing concerns will be how the passages display
different authorial skills from the rest of the poems and operate as Virgilian
parodies; how readers (including the poems’ initial audiences) can respond to
the scenes; and the varied messages about Virgil’s own relationship to the erotic
that the concluding passages offer.

Ausonius’s 131-line Cento Nuptialis (with a probable lacuna after line 86) de-
rives from the wedding of Gratian and Constantia, daughter of Constantius II,
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 93

ca. 374 (see Amm. 21.15.6 and 29.6.7). This much can be gathered from the
opening lines of the cento, which constitute a verse preface to the epithala-
mium in which Ausonius speaks in propria persona (1–11). He begins by ad-
dressing two outstanding men (ambo animis, ambo insignes praestantibus armis
[A. 11.291] . . . genus insuperabile bello [A. 4.40]) (2–3) and asking them to
receive the cento with benevolent spirits. Ausonius then elaborates on his ad-
dressees (4–9):

tuque prior, (A. 6.834) nam te maioribus ire per altum

auspiciis manifesta fides, (A. 3.374–375) quo iustior alter 5
nec pietate fuit, nec bello maior et armis; (A. 1.544–545)
tuque puerque tuus, (A. 4.94) magnae spes altera Romae, (A. 12.168)
flos veterum virtusque virum, (A. 8.500) mea maxima cura, (A. 1.678)
nomine avum referens, animo manibusque parentem. (A. 12.348)

The ‘‘you’’ whom Ausonius mentions is none other than Valentinian, whose puer
is Gratian. In proceeding to praise the youth, Ausonius describes the imperial
family’s distinguished military background and the hopefulness that the youth’s
talents instilled in others, themes that echo those in the speeches that, ac-
cording to Ammianus (27.6.6–13), Valentinian delivered in 367 on the occasion
of Gratian’s assuming the rank of Augustus. This suggests that Ausonius wrote
his patchwork preface to reflect imperial thinking,8 or at least so that it re-
sembled imperial propaganda. Ausonius identifies the puer even more precisely
when in line 8 he calls him mea maxima cura. This phrase evokes Ausonius’s
role as Gratian’s tutor, a position he held for about ten years after assuming it in
the mid-360s.
When historical people appear in prefaces to other late antique epithalamia,
they are the bride and groom that the poem commemorates or those closely
connected to them. Thus Claudian (Carm. Min. 25.1–8) mentions the groom
Palladius and his father-in-law (both notaries like Claudian) in a preface to a
wedding poem on Palladius and Celerina, while Sidonius refers to the bridal
couple Polemius and Araneola (Carm. 14.21–23). Ennodius, meanwhile, ad-
dresses the groom Maximus in the second person in his preface to an epitha-
lamium (Carm. 1.4.15-24 [CSEL 6, 512–513]). Given these parallels, it seems
reasonable to conclude that Ausonius uses his preface to signal the involvement
of Valentinian and Gratian in the wedding that the Cento Nuptialis will present,
an event that would have had to have been the union of Gratian and Con-
stantia.
The imperial wedding of ca. 374 is not the immediate performance setting
for the Cento Nuptialis, however. As I noted in chapter 1, Ausonius relates in his
prefatory prose epistle to Paulus that Valentinian, having once written a nuptial
cento of his own (nuptias quondam eiusmodi ludo descripserat [CN praef. 9]; the
quondam implies that the piece arose a while before Ausonius’s), compelled
Ausonius to write his work: iussum erat, quodque est potentissimum imperandi
94 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

genus, rogabat qui iubere poterat) (CN praef. 7–8). A plausible scenario is that all
of this happened when the emperor and those around him were taking their
leisure. There the subject of how to commemorate Gratian’s wedding with a
poem might have arisen. This could have led Valentinian to digress and tell
Ausonius about the nuptial cento he had once composed and to suggest that
Ausonius try his hand at the same kind of text. Presumably, the aim of that
piece would have simply been amusement; for it is hard to imagine that the
emperor wanted an official commemorative poem from Ausonius in the form of
a cento. Valentinian then came upon the idea of a ludic agon, and he had
Ausonius write a cento and submit it to a contest with his own: experiri volens,
quantum nostra contentione praecelleret, simile nos de eodem concinnare prae-
cepit (CN praef. 10–11). Such behavior on the part of Valentinian is entirely
believable, even if Ausonius couches it in the terms of the captatio bene-
volentiae.9 Valentinian, after all, not only enjoyed literary banquets (see Amm.
30.9.4) and ‘‘valued and patronized literary culture’’ but also ‘‘was known as a
man of agile and inventive mind’’ and was endowed with a powerful memory, a
trait that would have helped him compose his cento.10
Even if things did not unfold exactly like this, it is clear from Ausonius’s
letter that the origins of his cento lay in an encounter with Valentinian, and that
Ausonius first presented the poem as part of a playful literary contest initiated
by the emperor. Ausonius obliquely refers to this Sitz im Leben in the final two
lines of the patchwork preface as well (10–11):

non iniussa cano. (E. 6.9) sua cuique exorsa laborem

fortunamque ferent: (A. 10.111–112) mihi iussa capessere fas est. (A. 1.77)

In Menander Rhetor’s treatise on the epithalamium, he recommends that the author

come forward in a preface and say why he speaks at the ceremony (399.21–31).11
Ausonius is up to something else here. Indeed, his reference to orders would ill fit a
statement of why one delivers an epithalamial piece at a wedding (to imply that one
celebrates by compulsion is insulting, after all), and Menander naturally does not give
iussa as one of the reasons a speaker could cite. Read in conjunction with lines 7–8 and
the ensuing discussion in the prefatory epistle to Paulus, lines 10–11 of the cento may
best be seen to indicate why Ausonius has come forward to sing at the ludic agon. For
even though the reference to orders is rhetorical, Ausonius’s words point to Valenti-
nian’s instigating role in the composition of the Cento Nuptialis, a role that the letter to
Paulus fleshes out. Lines 10–11 of the cento thus further situate the cento in the court
competition for which Valentinian was the catalyst, a competition that likely involved
Valentinian and Ausonius reciting their respective works. The crowd at the contest
certainly included Valentinian and probably did Gratian, whom Ausonius addresses
directly in his verse praefatio.12 Accordingly, Gratian may have served as a listener and
perhaps even judge at the poetic agon, as well as one of the subjects of the Cento
Nuptialis, which would cause him to stand at the intersection between the two events
that give rise to Ausonius’s work, to both of which the cento’s preface points.
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 95

Once the patchwork preface ends at line 11, Ausonius turns to the actual
epithalamium, which lasts until line 80. The cento briefly describes the main
events of an entire wedding ceremony. To some degree the poem resembles
Catullus 61, which also depicts selected events of a wedding as they unfold.13
Yet Ausonius presents in a short compass the different aspects of the event from
an omniscient perspective. There is no narrator serving as a master of cere-
monies, as Catullus’s does.14 The Cento Nuptialis also differs from Catullus in
containing hexameters.15
Despite its singular qualities, an outstanding characteristic of this section
of Ausonius’s cento is its approximation of a lyric epithalamium’s narrative
structure. While audiences will react differently to this feature of Ausonius’s
literary performance and can focus on different aspects of the text,16 therefore,
a sine qua non of interpretation is to see the generic interplay at work in the
poem. The adaptation of Virgil to an epithalamium can be recognized on both
the macrotextual and the microtextual level. Understanding what Ausonius is
up to depends first upon acknowledging the generic distance separating Virgil
and an epithalamium, and so the fact that Ausonius is adapting his source
material to a new genre. A logical broader conclusion that readers can then
draw is that discrete generic categories exist generally, rather than just between
the texts in question. At the same time, with Virgil’s verba fitting comfortably
into a wedding poem, audiences, from those gathered at Valentinian’s court to
today’s readers, can conclude that the generic boundaries between Virgil and
the epithalamium are permeable. One might also recall that Virgil’s verba are
characteristically communia, which helps them to move across genres. Ex-
trapolating from this demonstration of generic openness, readers can then infer
that distinctions between genres as a whole are not absolute, and that language
found in certain forms can often cross over into different forms.17 In allowing
audiences to recognize these varied things, the Cento Nuptialis resembles
Hosidius Geta’s tragic Medea, whose adaptation of Virgil to a new genre, and
the implications of that gesture, I discussed in chapter 2.
In one instance, it is possible to view the generic relationship between
Virgil’s poetry and Ausonius’s cento in still another way. This option arises when
Ausonius cites E. 8.29–30 in lines 73–74 of the cento.18 These units appear in
Damon’s lament (17–61), where that singer incorporates epithalamial motifs
and language associated with the legalities of Roman marriage. When the verse
segments reappear in the Cento Nuptialis, one can conclude that Ausonius has
not only stripped the Virgilian lines of the bitter tone with which the jealous
Damon invests them but has also resituated the epithalamial material in its
proper generic sphere. In that case, a strong sense of generic contiguity can
emerge, even if there remains a fundamental generic divide separating the cento
and its source material.
Ausonius’s account of the wedding ceremony contains realistic details (real-
istic in connection at least with upper-class weddings, about which we have more
information [though we can imagine the same things occurring in weddings
96 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

involving other classes, though with less pomp]). These details find their way
into epithalamia of all stripes, in which including features of actual wedding
cermonies was standard. The centonist begins by heralding the arrival of the big
day (expectata dies aderat [A. 5.104], 12), as occurred in other nuptial poems.19
After a description of the cena nuptialis (12–32), which usually occurred at the
house of the bride’s family and could take place before the wedding ceremo-
ny,20 Gratian and Constantia come forth (33–56) and kiss and link right hands
(oscula libavit [A. 3.490] dextramque amplexus inhaesit [A. 8.124]) (56).21 The
joining of hands is a conspicuous part of the iconography associated with
marriage,22 and it appears in other epithalamia.23
Events in the Cento Nuptialis proceed on rapidly to the oblatio munerum
(57–66)24 and the epithalamium proper (67–79), which a chorus of pueri in-
nuptaeque puellae sings. The latter passage reproduces two notable features of a
Roman wedding. The first appears in the chorus’s injunction to the groom,
sparge, marite, nuces (E. 8.30) (73), mentioned earlier. The scattering of nuts, to
which Catullus also refers (da nuces pueris [61.124]), was part of a ritual that
was vaguely understood even in antiquity.25 Traditionally, walnuts were strewn
among the crowd while matrons led the bride to the threshold of the groom’s
house (an event called the deductio) and while youths sang Fescennine verses.26
Although Ausonius does not offer Fescennines,27 he situates the act of
throwing the nuts in the deductio (tum studio effusae matres [A. 12.131] ad
limina ducunt [A. 10.117]) (67).28
The chorus continues by wishing that the couple produce children and
experience harmonious love (76–79):

et pulchra faciat te prole parentem (A. 1.75)

fortunati ambo, (A. 9.446) si quid pia numina possunt, (A. 4.382)
vivite felices (A. 3.493). dixerunt ‘‘currite’’ fusis
concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae. (E. 4.46–47)

Such wishes were an important part of weddings in Graeco-Roman culture,

and they appear in a wide range of occasional pieces, usually at their conclu-
sion.29
Of course, Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis is not meant to be a home movie of
the wedding of Gratian and Constantia in written form. Like all patchwork
poems, Ausonius’s piece is instead fundamentally about the processes of its own
composition. Although the cento is connected to an actual ceremony, the
wedding is only the subject matter through which Ausonius displays his tech-
nical skill. The one occasion, Gratian and Constantia’s wedding, is the catalyst
for the main occasion behind Ausonius’s poem, his participation in a ludic
literary event. The historical links that the cento has and the act of establishing
those links at the beginning of the poem are a part of the poetic game, as is the
realistic quality of some of the poem’s details. Ausonius aims to impress by re-
using Virgil to present an epithalamium encompassing an entire ceremony, and
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 97

along the way by including conventionally realistic touches that belong to the
storehouse of material for epithalamial poems. For Ausonius’s initial audience,
and indeed for all audiences attuned to what Ausonius is doing at this stage of
his ludus, the primary object of attention in the cento is how the author ne-
gotiates the rules of his game to create a plausible epithalamium.
In addition to incorporating elements of Roman wedding ceremonies that
become motifs in other epithalamial poems, Ausonius devotes much of the
Cento Nuptialis to praising the bride and groom. His words to Valentinian and
Gratian in the preface, for instance, magnify the greatness of their family, as
epithalamial works generally did both in prefaces and in the body of the texts.30
Certain units can function as allusions to reinforce the praise. When Ausonius
calls Gratian the magnae spes altera Romae, for instance, a reader could rec-
ognize that the original subject of the unit is Ascanius, and that applying the
line to Gratian, the son of the emperor, is suitable, or at any rate flattering. (Of
course, should he have intended the allusions, Ausonius himself might have
viewed them differently years after writing the cento, if in fact he grew disap-
pointed with some of Gratian’s policies in the late 370s to early 380s, when
Ambrose’s counsel seems to have been preferred to Ausonius’s.)31 Because
epithalamia in general are meant to praise and flatter, it is reasonable to look for
allusions that deepen the conventional praise with which Ausonius fills the
praefatio, and to do the same thing at laudatory moments throughout the epi-
thalamial sections of the cento.
In the account of the wedding itself in lines 12–80, Ausonius continues to
praise the bride and groom effusively, and to do so in a way that reproduces
traditionally flattering epithalamial imagery, and so that further assimilates
Virgilian language to the code of that occasional genre. Thus in the descriptio
egredientis sponsae (33–45), Ausonius emphasizes the surpassing beauty of the
bride. The centonist refers to Constantia’s red cheeks (cui plurimus ignem /
subiecit rubor et calefacta per ora cucurrit [A. 12.65–66]) (35–36), likens her
clothing to that of Helen’s (ornatus Argivae Helenae [A. 1.650]) (42), and
composes a simile in which the bride is compared to Venus (42–45). Similar
details appear in nuptial songs of all types throughout antiquity,32 as well as in
rhetorical treatises on epithalamia. Sidonius (collata rubori / pallida blatta,
Carm. 11.83–84) and Himerius (Orat. 1.19–20) offer parallels to the blushing
sponsa, for instance,33 while Statius describes Violentilla as a greater prize than
Helen (Silv. 1.2.43–45) and says that Stella was happier seeing her than Paris
was seeing Helen (Silv. 1.2.213–214). Brides, meanwhile, are frequently
compared to Venus in wedding songs. Thus Catullus offers a simile that, like
Ausonius’s, likens the bride to the goddess (61.16–20).34 Statius, moreover, has
Venus note that Violentilla resembles herself (Silv. 1.2.112–113, 116–120) and
that she has given herself to Violentilla (meque dedi, Silv. 1.2.168). Much later,
Venantius Fortunatus (Carm. 6.1.103) describes Brunhild as altera nata Venus
regno dotata. Among rhetoricians, Himerius (Orat. 1.19–20) says that an author
can describe the bride as the very figure (a
galma) of Aphrodite.35 All these
˛
98 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

parallels demonstrate that Ausonius seeks to invest his cento with laudatory
elements that accord with the epithalamial tradition as a whole.36
Conventional praise also appears in Ausonius’s descriptio egredientis sponsi
(46–56). The centonist describes Gratian as handsome with unshorn cheeks
(ora puer prima signans intonsa iuventa [A. 9.181], 47), as rhetorical theory
recommended,37 and so emphasizes his fresh youthfulness, as also occurs, for
instance, in Venantius Fortunatus’s epithalamium.38 Ausonius then composes a
simile comparing Gratian to Lucifer in order to describe both the groom’s
appearance and his glance (52–54):

qualis, ubi oceani perfusus Lucifer unda (A. 8.589)

extulit os sacrum caelo: (A. 8.591) sic ora ferebat,
sic oculos. (A. 3.490)

In focusing on these qualities, Ausonius depicts the groom as Menander Rhetor

(404.8–9) suggests authors of epithalamia should (diagr

  aceiB de kai tòn
, , , ,
nean
ian oioB ide^in, oioB ojy^Znai).39
The presence of details that extol the bride and groom further complicates the
occasional character of the Cento Nuptialis. The praise that Ausonius offers must
be viewed first from the perspective of the agon with Valentinian, which, as the
centonist says in his epistle to Paulus and patchwork praefatio, is the primary
occasion for the cento. Ausonius includes the conventional laudatory elements as
part of a text whose fundamental purpose was to impress the audience at a literary
competition. It would therefore seem that the centonist saw his ability to re-
produce such conventional details, a gesture that helped to create a believable
epithalamium, to be an important part of his success. At the same time, the
references to the lofty standing of Gratian (and Valentinian) and to the beauty of
the bride and groom serve to advertise the imperial couple. Hence the panegyrical
elements that Ausonius includes in order to attain victory in the ludic literary
agon are capable of giving the Cento Nuptialis a function found in straightforward
occasional poems. To express this point differently, a byproduct of Ausonius’s
attempt to impress with his ability to create a credible nuptial poem out of Virgil is
that the Cento Nuptialis can meet a conventional purpose of an epithalamium,
which is to publicize and glorify its subjects.40 This adds greater nuance to the
occasional character of the Cento Nuptialis, as audiences can connect its lau-
datory features to the ludic event in which it participates and to the nuptial event
that it describes.

The performance context behind Luxurius’s sixty-eight-line Epithalamium Fridi

is more difficult to identify. The cento probably coincides with the actual
wedding of the otherwise unknown Vandal named Fridus, who may have been a
wealthy, politically important, or aristocratic man (categories that are of course
not exclusive).41 The groom explicitly appears not only in the title of the cento
but also in line 49 of the poem, where Luxurius boldly accommodates Virgil
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 99

to refer to Fridus by name: liceat Frido servire marito (A. 4.103, which reads
liceat Phrygio servire marito). The name Fridus seems to be a latinized form
of Fridamal, a Germanic name. A Fridamal is mentioned in two of Luxurius’s
epigrams (AL 299 and 300 SB);42 but while that figure, a wealthy man, would
fit nicely as the epithalamium’s subject, we cannot be sure that he is the
cento’s Fridus. What does seem safe to assume is that Fridus and his bride
were not fictional, since the name Fridus has a powerful air of historical
specificity.
The wedding of the couple would have occurred in Africa, and more spe-
cifically Carthage, in the late fifth or early sixth century, the place where and
time when Luxurius lived.43 Fridus and his bride either solicited an epithala-
mium from Luxurius or received the text as a gift. The couple may have charged
Luxurius to compose the wedding poem as a Virgilian cento, or the form may
have been a surprise, whether the couple asked for the work or not. If it had
been Luxurius’s decision to write the epithalamium as a cento, it would seem
that the centonist did so because he felt Fridus and his bride had the cultural
capital and sensibilities to appreciate the gesture. Hence either the groom or the
bride, or perhaps both of them, were presumably lovers of literature and
Virgiliophiles and were not averse to poetic games of ingenuity.44 If the cento
was written once Luxurius’s reputation was established, his decision to exercise
his ludic skill on the couple would have reflected well on them.45
The evidence allows historical inquiry to proceed only this far. Unlike
Ausonius, Luxurius composes no epistle in prose or patchwork preface in which
he identifies his connection to the bride and bridegroom. The setting for his
composition of the cento is also a mystery. Finally, whether Luxurius delivered
his cento in person—though it is hard to imagine this happening at the wedding
ceremony itself—or wrote the work as either a commission or a gift that he
prepared in his otium and had it copied and sent to the couple is unclear.
The epithalamial narrative that Luxurius creates differs from that in Auso-
nius’s Cento Nuptialis, at least until the brief account of the bride’s loss of
virginity (61–66). Up to that point, Luxurius closely follows in the tradition of
epithalamia initiated by Statius (Silv. 1.2) and pursued by Claudian, Sidonius,
Dracontius, Ennodius, and Venantius Fortunatus.46 This type of poem, in hex-
ameters and a mixed narrative mode, depicts the gods discussing, initiating,
preparing for, and participating in the wedding of the bridal couple. Luxurius
thus aligns his cento with an established strand of epithalamial poem more
completely than Ausonius does.47
In turning Virgil’s language into the sharply different genre of the epithala-
mium, Luxurius creates a work that, like Ausonius and Hosidius Geta’s, relies
for its effect on readers being aware that the genres in play are discrete. At the
same time, Luxurius’s poem shows that the material of Virgilian poetry can
cross over into that occasional form, meaning that the borders separating Virgil’s
genres and the epithalamium are permeable. From these starting points, readers
can draw larger conclusions about both the distinctiveness and the openness of
100 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

genres as a whole—lessons that readers can also glean from Geta’s Medea and
Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis, as I have shown.
Microtextual inquiry into moments in Luxurius’s poem can yield other mes-
sages about the generic relations between Virgil and the cento. The first lines in
question are 16–17, fulsere ignes et conscius aether / conubiis (A. 4.166–167).48
Luxurius takes that material from the description of Dido and Aeneas’s wedding
(or depending on one’s interpretive bent, ‘‘wedding’’), in which the celestial fire is
a naturalistic equivalent, one stirred up by Tellus and Juno, of marriage torches. A
reader could see Luxurius as resituating that wedding imagery back in its natural
generic habitat of the epithalamium. A similar conclusion can be reached in lines
45–46, where Luxurius cites A.4.126–127: conubio iungam stabili propriam di-
cabo. / hic Hymenaeus erit.49 The centonist here brings explicit Virgilian refer-
ences to marriage and to a divinity associated with marriage into the realm of an
epithalamial poem. A sense of generic reconciliation, however sui generis, could
emerge at this moment in the cento, even if the awareness that Virgil was not
writing an actual epithalamium should also obtain.50
Luxurius begins his cento with a train of divinities led by Venus and in-
cluding Juno and mountain nymphs who arrive at a marvelous tectum augustum
along with citizens of Carthage for the cena nuptialis of Fridus and his bride (3–
26).51 This passage alters a motif common to Statian epithalamia, in which
Cupid and others arrive at Venus’s glorious palace.52 In changing that topos,
Luxurius is able to assimilate another conventional scene into his cento, but one
that he again modifies. Venus appears in the epithalamia of Statius (Silv.
1.2.158–193), Claudian (Carm. 10.228–285, Carm. Min. 25.99–145), Sido-
nius (Carm. 11.124–133), Dracontius (Rom. 6.90–110, 7.10–15), and For-
tunatus (Carm. 6.1.63–144). In each of those poems, the goddess, sometimes
attended by several divinities, comes to the bride’s chamber. Luxurius adapts
this topos, with Venus taking part in the cena at the wedding. This enables him
to incorporate one more Statian element, the presence of divinities at the
ceremony itself (see Silv. 1.2.219–240).53 All of this gives to the Epithalamium
Fridi the enhanced, soft-focused hue of mythological fantasy, which is a
characteristic of Statian epithalamia.
Luxurius continues to include the elements of the Statian nuptial poem,
albeit with small changes, in lines 27–51 of his cento. Venus, sitting disguised
among the mortal crowd at the cena with a divine retinue,54 addresses Cupid,
calling upon him to inflame the bride with love so that she marries Fridus in
bliss and for keeps,55 an order to which he responds enthusiastically (54–60).
Statius (Silv. 1.2.65–140), Claudian (Carm. 10.111–122), Sidonius (Carm.
11.61–90), and Fortunatus (Carm. 6.1.49–115) all compose similar dialogues.
In their texts, Cupid often takes the initiative, approaching his mother with the
news that he wants to shoot or has already shot the groom (and only him;
Luxurius departs from this restriction) with his arrows.
Details in the dialogue between Venus and Cupid lend the Epithalamium
Fridi a conventional function as an occasional poem. As we saw in the Cento
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 101

Nuptialis, epithalamia were to provide publicity for a historical event and

its participants. Praise of the couple was an essential aspect of this. Luxurius
offers such material in Venus’s speech, though in a somewhat curious manner,
as the focus in the Epithalamium Fridi is exclusively upon the bride. Venus first
lauds the virtus of her family (clarumque paternae / nomen inest virtutis [A.
12.225–226]) (32–33), a subject to which she returns later in the poem, in the
process suggesting that only a bride of good stock could be worthy of Fridus (cui
[Fridus] natam egregio genero dignisque hymenaeis / dat pater [A. 11.355–356])
(50–51).56 In addition, Venus praises the bride’s surpassing looks, and in ways
that mirror details found in other epithalamia. Thus when Venus points out the
bride’s lactea colla (A. 8.660) (37), she refers to a part of the body that concerns
other authors of epithalamia.57 Another element that closely links Luxurius’s
work to the epithalamial tradition appears when Venus compares the bride to a
shining jewel and to sea nymphs (40–41):

qualis gemma micat, (A. 10.134) qualis Nereia Doto

et Galatea secant spumantem pectore pontum. (A. 9.102)

The mention of Doto, daughter of Nereus, and Galatea recalls the emphasis on
the water divinities in other wedding poems58 and resembles lines in Venantius
Fortunatus, who compares Brunhild’s beauty favorably to nymphs (Carm.
6.1.104–106).59 Encountering all this laudatory material, the bridal couple of
the Epithalamium Fridi, as well as other readers of the poem, could understand
that, on one level, the function of the cento is consonant with that which
Augustine ascribes to epithalamia generally (En. In Ps. 44.3):

solent dici ab scholasticis carmina quaedam uxores ducentibus et nubentibus,

quae vocantur epithalamia: quidquid ibi cantatur, ad honorem cantatur sponsi et
sponsae.

Echoes of one particular epithalamial model also appear in the Epithalamium

Fridi. In working within the Statian tradition of wedding poetry, Luxurius at
times appears to go to its source and to take Statius’s Silv. 1.2 as a source text.
At one point, the parallels are so close as to suggest a conscious authorial act.
(To make such an allusion, it may be that the centonist had a text of Statius
before him.)60 This occurs in line 36 of the cento, where Venus describes the
bride with the words [do you not see] quantum egregio decus enitet ore? (A.
4.150 [quantum for tantum]). This line resembles Statius’s hanc ego formae /
egregium mirata decus (Silv. 1.2.107–108), where Venus also discusses the
beautiful bride. The linguistic and thematic similarities here suggest that
Luxurius was engaging in a moment of intertextual triangulation, or using Virgil
to imitate another poet. As with Hosidius Geta’s allusions to Ovid and Seneca,
Luxurius here fits Virgil’s verse units to a new genre by imitating an author in
that genre, thereby assimilating the units in a precise way to the form with
which that author works.
102 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Another potential reference to Statius in the Epithalamium Fridi is less cer-

tain. In line 49, Luxurius has Venus say of the bride liceat Frido servire marito (A.
4.103, with Phrygio changed to Frido to denote the groom, as I noted earlier).
Statius imitates the same Virgilian line in his epithalamium, where Venus relates
some of the important things for which she is responsible (Silv. 1.2.188–189):

unde novum Troiae decus ardentumque deorum

raptorem, Phrygio si non ego iuncta marito?

Luxurius’s citation of A. 4.103 could have occurred by way of Silv. 1.2.189. In

this reading, the centonist located the Virgilian verse unit first in Statius’s
epithalamium, which alerted him to the fact that A. 4.103 already had a place in
the Statian epithalamial tradition and triggered his recollection of the line in the
Aeneid. The intention would be to echo Statius by means of a Virgilian line that
Statius himself had imitated.61
Of course, Luxurius could have just as easily been drawn to A. 4.103 without
Statius’s intercession. Moreover, I showed in chapter 4 that line 49 of the
Epithalamium Fridi has a parallel in the Iudicium Paridis and is part of a
passage with other echoes of that mythological cento. We cannot know if those
resemblances are accidental, if Mavortius was imitating Luxurius, or if Luxurius
was imitating Mavortius; but the last option, together with the possibility that
Luxurius went to his Virgilian source directly, make uncertain the intentional
quality of the allusion to Silv. 1.2.189. Because Luxurius composes a Statian
epithalamium, however, and because there is compelling evidence for the
centonist’s imitation of Statius elsewhere in his work, the possibility of an
intentional echo of that model cannot be ruled out. (One scenario would have
Luxurius alluding simultaneously in line 49 to Mavortius and Statius.) At the
very least, the connections between the Epithalamium Fridi and Silvae 1.2
create a situation in which Luxurius’s audience can look for specific echoes of
Statius. When the linguistic and/or thematic parallels are close enough, readers
can plausibly identify them as precise, concrete Statian moments within the
broader assimilation of Virgil to a Statian poem.
We cannot know, of course, if Fridus and his bride identified one or both of
the echoes of Statius just discussed. The couple, like all readers of the Epi-
thalamium Fridi from antiquity onward, would have taken different things away
from the cento, among which might or might not have been those allusions.
One thing that the bridal pair and all audience members must do to understand
and appreciate the Epithalamium Fridi at all, however, is acknowledge the ludic
nature of Luxurius’s occasional poem. Indeed, the character of the poem be-
comes clear only through an awareness of the method by which Luxurius outfits
his epithalamium in Virgilian verses.
As with Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis, Luxurius’s decision to cast his wedding
song as a Virgilian cento complicates the occasional character of the poem. On
the one hand, the Epithalamium Fridi publicizes the wedding of Fridus and his
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 103

bride and praises the couple in conventional ways, as we have seen. Yet these
things occur as part of Luxurius’s attempt to create a plausible Statian epi-
thalamium out of Virgil, which means that while memorializing an actual oc-
casion and lauding a bridal couple occur through the cento, there is more to it
than that. The Epithalamium Fridi fundamentally advertises its own composi-
tion and celebrates its own author. To some extent, of course, poetry does this
generally; but as I noted in chapter 1, a cento, like all ludic texts, calls attention
to the authorial technique and ingenuity behind its composition more forcefully
than conventional works do. The act of writing the cento is thus the primary
occasion that the Epithalamium Fridi commemorates, while the wedding
itself is the secondary occasion. The demonstration of authorial skill is as es-
sential to the Epithalamium Fridi as it is to the Cento Nuptialis, with the only
difference being that the ludic performance behind Luxurius’s poem is implicit,
while Ausonius’s is explicit.

The possible responses that the Cento Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi might
have elicited from their initial audiences, and the possible reactions of subse-
quent readers up to the present day, grow more complex at the conclusions of
the poems. I turn first to the Cento Nuptialis. As noted earlier, Ausonius offers a
prayer that Gratian and Constantia live happily and prosperously in lines 78–
79. Such prayers usually appear at the end of an epithalamium, and in a sense
they do in the Cento Nuptialis. For with the next events described by Ausonius,
the cento diverges entirely from the traditions of epithalamial poetry. This
departure results from the mixed narrative of diegesis and mimesis in the Cento
Nuptialis. The omniscience that comes with diegesis allows Ausonius to expand
the scope of his poem, as he follows the wedding couple on their ingressus in
cubiculum (80–100) and narrates in the third person the deflowering of the
bride that occurs behind closed doors (101–131). These passages have no
precedent among epithalamia. Catullus 61, for instance, offers a peek at the
groom as he waits on his bed (aspice intus ut accubans / vir tuus Tyrio in toro,
61.164–165) but ends by closing the ostia and giving him and his bride privacy
(claudite ostia, virgines, 224). Ausonius exhibits no such modesty, going instead
into graphic detail in his final scene about what transpires in the bedchamber.62
Between his accounts of the entry into the bedchamber and the wedding
night sex, Ausonius offers a parecbasis, or a digression in prose, which he added
when he sent the work to Paulus, and so which was not a part of the original
performance.63 In that passage, Ausonius seeks to fit the concluding obscene
section of the Cento Nuptialis into the frame of a wedding and of traditional
wedding songs by invoking Fescennine verses as a parallel.64 This is an apol-
ogetic move rather than an accurate description of what is to come in the cento.
While ribald, Ausonius’s obscene passage does not resemble Fescennines,
which contain off-color cries but never describe in detail the sexual act itself.65
The frank portrayal of the bride’s deflowering conforms instead to the practice
of using the cento form to depict sexual situations.66 Material of this sort
104 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

appears in the Homeric cento of Leo the Philosopher (AP 9.361),67 and in the
Satyricon (132.11), where Petronius has Encolpius address an unresponsive
mentula using lines of Virgil. The result is a parodic degradation of a model’s
language, a pursuit for which Ausonius seeks leave in the parecbasis, and one
that he aims to integrate into his epithalamium by connecting it to Fescennini.
Despite Ausonius’s efforts, it is at first startling to find a vivid representation
of sex in an epithalamial poem, a form that required an author to abide by
decorum. Even more surprising, such a passage appears in a work whose
preface indicates that its subjects are the future emperor and his bride. To judge
by the admonitory comments in rhetorical treatises,68 such a passage had the
potential to offend its addressees, a situation with potentially grave conse-
quences when those addressees were members of the imperial family.
It may be that the graphic nature of Ausonius’s obscene account was a con-
cession to the tastes of Valentinian, which could be coarse.69 It may be too that
recasting Virgil to offer a vivid description of Gratian and Constantia having sex
would have been accepted as good, dirty fun by all. Also relevant here is the
question of whether Valentinian included a similar account in his own cento.70 If
the emperor had done so, it would have shielded Ausonius from the possibility of
giving offense, since he could claim simply to be following Valentinian’s model.
Even if there had been an unfavorable response from his audience at court,
Ausonius could have said ridere, nil ultra, expeto, as he does immediately after
ending his cento, writing about his obscene passage in a concluding prose
apology to Paulus.71 That is, Ausonius could have claimed only to want to
amuse by composing an obscene patchwork parody that required him to take
more liberties with the bride and groom than an epithalamium otherwise al-
lowed.72 It seems more likely, though, that Valentinian and the rest of the
imperial audience, whatever their sense of humor, Valentinian’s tastes, or his
earlier centonic efforts, would have accepted the sex scene because they un-
derstood and appreciated, or because Ausonius told them, that the obscene
passage was a distinct display of literary competence on the part of the cen-
tonist. Instead of trying to create a plausible nuptial song, and in the process
furnishing his cento with convincing epithalamial details and appropriate praise
of the celebratees, Ausonius reveals a new type of poetic skill that involves
parodying Virgil by applying his language to sexual content. The result is a
passage belonging to a literary tradition very different from an epithalamium,
one requiring that Ausonius indulge in more than the Fescennine license. The
centonist’s initial audience, as well as readers up to the present day who accept
the demands of Ausonius’s new literary pursuit, give him a free pass, as they
understand that he is doing something other than attempting to create a con-
vincing occasional poem, with its strictures about decorum.73
A similar shift in purpose and effect occurs in the Epithalamium Fridi when
Luxurius turns to his description of the bridal couple’s sex (61–66, with 61–63
describing the bride’s submission and the loosening of her chastity, and 64–66
the actual act). Ausonius, whom at other points in the Epithalamium Fridi
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 105

Luxurius may well have used as a source,74 appears to serve as Luxurius’s model
for the passage. In Luxurius’s account, for which there is no parallel in Statian
epithalamia, there are echoes of Ausonius’s sex scene. To describe the bride just
before the intercourse begins, for instance, Luxurius and Ausonius use A. 4.55,
solvitque pudorem (line 100 in the Cento Nuptialis, and line 63 in the Epi-
thalamium Fridi). Two lines in each passage also contain the same Virgilian
units. First, Luxurius and Ausonius both cite ramum, qui veste latebat (A. 6.406)
to describe the membrum virile (105 in Ausonius, and 64 in Luxurius). The
Epithalamium Fridi also contains the phrase eripit a femine et (A. 10.788)
flagranti (A. 9.72) fervidus infert (A. 10.788) (65), which follows line 109 of the
Cento Nuptialis, eripit a femore et trepidanti fervidus instat.75 Because the
centonists include these lines in similarly obscene passages at similar points in
their centos, we may with confidence ascribe to Luxurius a conscious decision
to imitate Ausonius.76
The inclusion of a graphic sex scene modeled on the Cento Nuptialis re-
veals a new authorial strategy on the part of Luxurius and demands a new
response. To appreciate Luxurius’s authorial act in the passage, his audi-
ences—including his initial recipients—must recognize that his poem has
deviated from the conventional form and content of Statian epithalamia, which
contain no such sexual material. In his obscene passage, Luxurius seeks to
lower Virgil by applying him to sexual subject matter, and to do so using
Ausonius as his intermediary. While Luxurius weaves the account into his
epithalamium by noting that the deflowering of the bride will produce proles
(EF 67–68)—a reference to childbirth with which wedding songs commonly
ended77—the account of sex belongs to a tradition unconnected to the epi-
thalamium. The brief passage stands as a discrete literary exercise, in which
Luxurius follows Ausonius in centonizing Virgil in order to produce a parodic
passage. Luxurius thus composes his sex scene not to reproduce a Statian
wedding poem and concurrently to advertise its historical subjects, but to
entertain and impress them, as well as readers up to the present day, with his
ability to apply Virgil to sexual content and to imitate Ausonius. It may be that
Fridus and his bride would have been amused by the sexual passage. Yet if it
offended them, Luxurius could have replied that the lines did not belong to an
epithalamium proper but to a literary form that required vivid obscenity. This
would have been more than a placating statement. As in the Cento Nuptialis,
lines 61–66 of the Epithalamium Fridi take full effect only if its audiences are
able to shift their interpretive horizons and recognize the description of sex as
a self-contained demonstration of skill that Luxurius attaches to his epitha-
lamium.
Distinguishing the accounts of sex from the rest of Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s
epithalamial centos brings me back to a claim made in chapter 3: that the cento
form is not inherently parodic, and that only those passages or texts that apply
Virgil’s language to low subject matter function as parodies. The occasional
material of the centos, while in no way as lofty as epic, is serious, and so is not of
106 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

the sort that distorts to the point of comedy lines taken from the Aeneid. Like-
wise, the nuptial material fails to parody lines taken from the Georgics and
Eclogues.78 There is instead a lateral semantic shift when Virgil’s language comes
to constitute the epithalamial sections of the centos. The Virgilian material is
adapted to narrative situations that differ from Virgil’s own res, and on the level of
the individual unit the changes can sometimes be dramatic. Yet the centonists do
not achieve any broad comic effects by applying high-flown language to trivial
matters,79 above which the marriages of the future emperor Gratian and the
presumably respectable Fridus and his bride rise.80 The transformations that
recast Virgilian language as epithalamia are meant to reveal Ausonius’s and
Luxurius’s ludic skill and wit, not their pursuit of parodic humor.
Examples from the Cento Nuptialis and from the Epithalamium Fridi
demonstrates that even when the semantic space separating the epithalamial
sections of the centos and Virgil is large, it is not comic. In the former poem,
Ausonius applies the phrase vestigia primi / alba pedis, whose original subject
was a Thracian bicolor equus (A. 5.566–567), to the footstep of the egrediens
sponsa (39–40). The degree of antanaclasis here is great, and if a reader recalls
the original context of the unit, its presence in the cento might provoke as-
tonishment at how much Ausonius has adapted Virgil semantically. Yet Auso-
nius has not degraded the Virgilian material by applying it to a nag, for example.
If anything, the line has been granted more dignity, since it describes the step of
the imperial bride. In addition, the line captures a detail from Roman marriage
ceremonies and reproduces a motif found in Catullus, who describes Hyme-
naeus as a pretty bride (huc veni, niveo gerens / luteum pede soccum [61.9–10])
and later refers to the bride’s own ‘‘golden feet’’ (aureolos pedes [61.160]). In
both Ausonius and Catullus, the aim is to refer to the orange-yellow shoes that
the bride traditionally wore at the wedding (a color that Ausonius approxi-
mates).
In the Epithalamium Fridi, meanwhile, Luxurius reuses the unit hoc opus,
hic labor est (A. 6.129) in Venus’s speech to Cupid (34), when the goddess says
that it is Cupid’s task not to abandon the sworn marriage of Fridus and his
bride. (The entire line reads hoc opus, hic labor est: [A. 6.129] thalamos ne desere
pactos! [A. 10.649].) In Virgil, the phrase hoc opus, hic labor est famously
describes the grueling ascent out of the underworld. Recalling this original
context produces the strange thrill that centos often elicit when an audience
realizes how differently a centonist uses a line from the way Virgil used it. Yet
the result is far from parodic degradation. By emphasizing Cupid’s role and
responsibility in securing the marriage, Luxurius incorporates a theme common
to Statian epithalamia.81 This gesture radically alters A. 6.129, but does not
apply the unit to comic material as, for instance, Ovid does when he uses the
verse unit to warn of the difficulties that attend seducing a woman without gifts
(hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi, AA 1.453).
How the centonists adapt Virgil changes entirely when they turn to the
earthy subject matter of sex. The goal of such rewriting is to elicit laughter at
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 107

the vertical distance, rather than the horizontal distance, between the cento and
its model. (For Luxurius, this goal and the aim of imitating Ausonius would
have been complementary.) An example is line 108 of Ausonius’s Cento Nup-
tialis, monstrum horrendum, ingens, cui lumen ademptum (A. 3.658). The latter
half of this verse alters Virgilian material that itself had altered a source text. For
Virgil had applied Catullus 68.93, on the poet’s dead brother (ei misero fratri
iucundum lumen ademptum), to Polyphemus’s eye.82 Ausonius, in turn, lowers
the Virgilian line to depict the membrum virile. The centonist’s gesture reflects
the widespread practice of personifying the penis (see, e.g., Hor. Sat. 1.2.68,
Mart. Ep. 9.2.2, Priap. 83.19–21), and follows Martial (Ep. 9.37.10) in de-
scribing it as a one-eyed creature.83 The parodic effect of line 108 of the Cento
Nuptialis takes hold when an audience recognizes that Ausonius has meta-
phorized a line so that it comes to describe a sex organ in ways that accord with
the Latin sexual vocabulary.
Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s approaches differ from conventional parody, for
the obvious reason (to reiterate a point made in chapter 3) that centonists
preserve the very language of Virgil and distort that poet’s material by re-
connecting his verse units so that they relate low subject matter. In doing so,
Ausonius and Luxurius do not attempt to establish a particular aspect of Virgil’s
poetry as a modeled reality, or any one scene, text, or even genre found in the
Virgilian corpus that they would then comically adapt by filling in that frame
with risible content. Rather than assimilating all of Virgil’s units to a single
parodic target in Virgil, the centonists compose passages in which Virgil’s lan-
guage has come to describe a situation entirely different from and lower than
anything in Virgil.84 Accordingly, the parodies gather their macrotextual force—
one that the microtextual units can reflect and contribute to—from the per-
verted representational functions of Virgil’s verses, not the use of his language to
present a comic double of a Virgilian scene, theme, or poem.85 Like Leo the
Philosopher and Petronius, Ausonius and Luxurius create cento parodies whose
humor resides in the application of Virgil’s verbal surface to the alien topic of
graphic sex, not in the depiction of sex as though it were, say, a Virgilian battle
scene, a piece of didactic advice in how to deflower a bride, or an encounter
between a bucolic herdsman and his beloved.
To my mind, there are scant grounds for identifying hostility in Ausonius’s and
Luxurius’s attitudes toward Virgil when they tum to the obscene sections of their
centos. As I noted in chapter 3, parody has historically compelled readers to
integrate examinations of the spirit in which parodists pursue their task into their
readings. The only comments related specifically to this matter that we get from
the centonists come from Ausonius.86 In his parecbasis, Ausonius warns that he
has so far cloaked the mysterium nuptiale in circumlocution (ambitu loquendi et
circuitione velavi, 1–2) but will now use Virgil to divulge the secrets of the
bedchamber frankly (Cetera quoque cubiculi et lectuli operta prodentur ab eodem
auctore collecta [4–5]).87 Ausonius then claims that he, already embarrassed by
having centonized Virgil, will blush for a second time, because he has also made
108 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

Virgil immodest: ut bis erubescamus, qui et Vergilium faciamus impudentem (5–6).

This does not provide a reliable measure of Ausonius’s real feelings, however. The
material instead serves as a captatio benevolentiae, and so is meant to capture the
goodwill of his audience before the obscene passage, and by extension to preempt
any criticism from his readership of how he makes the great Virgil’s poetry ob-
scene.88
Despite the absence of trustworthy statements of intent by the centonists,
readers who approach the sex scenes in the Cento Nuptialis and Epithalamium
Fridi as attempts to impress and amuse audiences by applying Virgil’s language
to obscene content have little reason to locate aggression toward Virgil in the
act. Advertising a second kind of centonic talent, which for Luxurius included
imitating Ausonius, does not have as a necessary concomitant a desire to un-
dercut the talents or poetry of Virgil. Nor do Ausonius and Luxurius offer
through comic distortion any literary criticism of a specific feature of Virgilian
poetry, which might occur in the De Alea, and so which offers some (admit-
tedly thin) grounds for identifying aggression in that text, as we saw in chap-
ter 3. Of course, we can never recover what Ausonius and Luxurius were
thinking about Virgil when they composed their sex scenes. Yet in comically
adapting Virgil in the Cento Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi, they seem intent
on demonstrating new kinds of ingenuity, not on expressing hostility toward
Virgil.

Along with yielding the readings I have been describing, the obscene passages in
the Cento Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi accommodate other kinds of in-
terpretive approaches. Ausonius calls attention to one of these, although in a
circuitous and tendentious way. This occurs in the prose apology that follows
after the obscene passage in the Cento Nuptialis. To begin the passage, Ausonius
seeks help from Paulus in protecting him against the age-old attack that an author
of obscene, scandalous work is himself obscene and scandalous: sed cum legeris,
adesto mihi adversum eos . . . ne fortasse mores meos spectent de carmine (1–3).89 To
such criticism the poet offers the equally hoary defense, lasciva est nobis pagina,
vita proba, a line of defense taken by Catullus (16.5), Ovid (Tr. 2.354), Martial
(Ep. 1.4.8), and Apuleius (Apol. 11). In broaching this topic, Ausonius shifts the
focus of his self-portrayal from what it was in his prefatory epistle to Paulus and
his parecbasis. Instead of expressing embarrassment before Virgil, the centonist
is now intent upon defending his own character. The reference to Paulus at the
start of the passage indicates that Ausonius added that material when putting his
cento into circulation. The issues surrounding the reception of the obscene
passage that Ausonius discusses in his apology are thus connected strictly to the
reading public at large.
In presenting his case, Ausonius mentions a host of authors whose lives are
upright and whose works are not, including Pliny, Sulpicia, Apuleius, Cicero,
Plato, and Menander (4-12). The centonist then brings forth his star witness:
Virgil. Not surprisingly, Ausonius devotes more attention to Virgil in his apology
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 109

than to any other author (13–18). He first refers to his predecessor as Maronem
Parthenien dictum causa pudoris (13), explaining the origin of the nickname
given to Virgil in the biographical tradition.90 Traditionally, illustrations of
Virgil’s verecundia offered a defense of the poet against his obtrectatores,91 who
might follow the principle that poetry casts light on the man and so conclude
that, for example, the depiction of Corydon and Alexis in E. 2 reflected Virgil’s
own sexual proclivities, which some could find wayward.92 Yet in his apology,
Ausonius adduces Maro Parthenias not simply with an eye to confirming Virgil’s
modest character but to finding in Virgil a precedent for the decent man who
composed indecent verse.
Ausonius identifies two such obscene passages in Virgil’s work. The first is A.
8.404–406, which describes the ‘‘intercourse’’ of Venus and Vulcan and, ac-
cording to Ausonius, properly combines ‘‘lofty obscenity’’ (13–15):

qui in octavo Aeneidos, cum describeret coitum Veneris atque Vulcani,

‘
aiswrosemn
ian decenter immiscuit.

Ausonius’s diction underscores the obscenity he finds in the Virgilian passage.

Because he refers to the goddess of love by name, Ausonius cannot also use the
word Venus as a metonymy for intercourse. The centonist instead employs
coitus, which, as Quintilian relates, is less decorous than the word Venus
(et Venerem quam coitum dixisse magis decet, Inst. Orat. 8.6.24). The effect is to
make the obscenity that Ausonius claims is in A. 8.404–406 more apparent.
Ausonius then adduces a second passage, G. 3.123–137, in which he claims
Virgil veiled (velavit, 17) an indecent meaning in a seemingly innocent passage
on animal breeding. The point is that Ausonius, who claims in his parecbasis to
have veiled the mysteries of wedlock in circumlocution when treating the entry
into the bedchamber (80–100), should not be accused of indecency when he
casts off that veil when describing the bride’s deflowering. All that Ausonius
does, he would have his audience believe, is express sexual content bluntly,
thereby making explicit what he had hidden earlier and—more to the point in
Ausonius’s apologetic rhetoric—what Virgil sometimes concealed in his own
poetry.
Obviously, Ausonius’s argument is very opportunistic, even more so than
Ovid’s notorious claim in Tristia 2.532–536 that Aeneid 4 is the story of an illicit
love. Yet while the centonist’s particular strategies of self-presentation rather
than a desire to offer serious literary criticism lead him to take the argumentative
tack he does, his position develops out of a critical approach to Virgil that was in
general currency. Ausonius adopts the role of a cacemphatist, or one who, as
Quintilian relates (Inst. Orat. 8.3.47), sensu plerique obscene intellegere, nisi
caveris, cupiunt (ut apud Ovidium quaeque latent meliora putat).93 As a class of
obtrectatores, these readers gathered around Virgil in antiquity and located ob-
scenity lying hidden in his work and needing attentive readers like themselves to
uncover it.94 Such indecency may lie in a single word, in an entire passage, or in
110 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

a collocation of words that, when pronounced, produce something obscene.95 In

all of these cases, the cacemphatist claims that Virgil himself is responsible for
the indecent material, and that the critic does nothing more than bring it to light.
An example of this sort of interpretation relevant to Ausonius’s Cento Nup-
tialis appears in Aulus Gellius’s Attic Nights 9.10.5–6. Gellius complains that
Annaeus Cornutus, having praised Virgil’s modesty in general, egregiam totius
istius verecundiae laudem insulsa nimis et odiosa scrutatione violavit, because he
contended that Virgil in A. 8.406 membra tamen paulo incautius nominavit.96
Like Cornutus, Ausonius reads A. 8.406 as a cacemphaton, however decently
presented, setting it against Virgil’s personal pudor and thereby revealing the
interpretive allegiances he was forging in the apology.
Cacemphatists had their opponents in antiquity. Thus Quintilian (Inst. Orat.
8.3.44–47) takes a strong stand against them. He first says that a cacemphaton
occurs when language is turned to obscene usage (in obscenum intellectum
sermo detortus est, Inst. Orat. 8.3.44). Yet the perverting agent, according to
Quintilian, is not the author but the cacemphatist, who understands the text in
an obscene way. In so locating the source of a text’s obscenity in its audience,
Quintilian exculpates its author: quam culpam non scribentium quidem iudico
sed legentium (Inst. Orat. 8.3.45). Quintilian then offers a vigorous attack on
cacemphatists in Inst. Orat. 8.3.47, describing them as ‘‘seizing the opportunity
for vileness from words that are furthest from obscenity’’ (et ex verbis, quae
longissime ab obscenitate absunt, occasionem turpitudinis rapere) and issuing the
grave warning, quod [a cacemphaton] si recipias, nihil loqui tutum est. Ac-
cording to Quintilian, the taint of this kind of misinterpretation darkened Vir-
gil’s G. 1.357, in which the grammarian Celsus claimed to have found a double
entendre: Celsus kak
emjaton apud Virgilium putat: incipiunt agitata tumescere
(Inst. Orat. 8.3.47). Quintilian seeks to save Virgil and other texts from what he
perceives as the cacemphatists’ dangerous misreadings, which present them-
selves as discoveries of an inherent level of meaning. The concern with original
intent and its corruption by cacemphatists also finds expression in Aulus Gel-
lius, who, as we just saw, takes Cornutus to task for his criticism that Virgil
wrote the word membra in a manner paulo incautius.
Readers sympathetic to cacemphatists and those critical of them can find
things to argue over in the obscene sections of Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis and
Luxurius’s Epithalamium Fridi. One line that would have been a potential
battleground is ramum, qui veste latebat (A. 6.406). As I noted earlier, both
Ausonius (CN 105) and Luxurius (EF 64) cite the unit. The late antique
grammarian Diomedes (Keil, 1.451.7) identifies Virgil’s use of ramus here as a
cacemphaton. In line 103 of the Cento Nuptialis, meanwhile, Ausonius cites A.
10.892, tollit se arrectum. Diomedes labels the verb arrigo a cacemphaton,
though the line he cites to support his claim is Terence’s Andr. 933 (arrige aures,
Pamphile), not A. 10.892 (Keil, 1.451.5–6).
Whether Ausonius and Luxurius cited this material because of its connec-
tion to the cacemphatist tradition is unknowable. Ausonius’s discussion in his
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 111

apology of Virgil’s obscenity offers no indication that he was aware enough of

the cacemphatists to know about their readings of ramus and arrigo.97 Luxur-
ius’s thoughts on cacemphatism, meanwhile, are lost to silence; but he would
seem to be otherwise occupied with echoing Ausonius. Even if the centonists
were conscious of the lines’ other semantic lives that they were leading among
the cacemphatists, it is hard to believe that they cited them censoriously, or to
criticize the obscenity in Virgil by making it that much more obviously dirty in
the centos. Ausonius and Luxurius instead would have probably reused the
Virgilian lines in order to display another aspect of their skills, this time their
ability to be lightly erudite and engage a school of Virgilian criticism in a playful
way. The disingenuous quality of Ausonius’s apologetic statements about Virgil
and A. 8.406 suggests at least that he was not seriously concerned with or upset
about Virgil’s obscenity. Hence the cacemphatic material, even if intentionally
included, is not a basis for locating local disapproval and potential hostility in
his concluding passage. There is no hard evidence at all, meanwhile, to impute
such motives to Luxurius.
What the presence of such cacemphatic material certainly does is enrich
how we can read particular units in the sex scenes in the Cento Nuptialis and
Epithalamium Fridi. First, audiences can see how the lines contribute to pas-
sages whose sexual narratives have no precedent in Virgil’s poetry, and that in
fact parody that model. Yet when explored on the microtextual level, lines 103
and 105 of the Cento Nuptialis and line 64 of the Epithalamium Fridi can
suggest another relationship between Virgilian content and that of the centos.
Those with a cacemphatic bent (whether adopted seriously or simply to be
provocative) can identify hidden obscenity already in Virgil. The centonists, the
thinking would go, proceed to release and make explicit the erotic content in A.
6.406 and 10.892 by applying it to an overtly sexual situation. One can still see
parody here; but the vertical semantic distance that the lines travel would be
smaller. At the same time, others can reject the idea that the Virgilian lines are in
any way obscene and can claim that it is only the parodying centonists, like
cacemphatists, that make it so. The possible camps can thus replay in a way
adapted to the idiosyncracies of cento composition the controversies between
ancient cacemphatists and their opponents.
The final way that Ausonius uses Virgil as a defense for the obscene passage
in the Cento Nuptialis is still more radical. This appears near the end of the
apology: et si quid in nostro ioco aliquorum hominum severitas vestita condemnat,
de Vergilio arcessitum sciat (17–18).98 Ausonius asserts that anyone who con-
demns his obscene trifle in fact condemns Virgil, since the language of the
cento’s sex scene comes from that poet. This is not a matter of suggesting that
the obscene passages can conceivably color the perception of the Virgilian
original, with the reader returning to that material and viewing it in accordance
with what it becomes in the centos.99 Rather, Ausonius claims that because
Virgil’s language can come to have sexual content, it does in fact have such
content, which lies latent in the Virgilian corpus. Ausonius here turns the
112 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

central characteristic of cento writing to his advantage, manipulating the fact

that Virgil’s own verse units comprise the Cento Nuptialis. According to the
centonist, the origin of the indecent subject matter in his poem therefore lies
not in himself but in Virgil. ‘‘I didn’t say it, Virgil did,’’ Ausonius effectively tells
his audience, abjuring responsibility for his pornography and laying it at the feet
of his Virgilian source.
Again, Ausonius is being disingenuous, and in fact presents a willfully per-
verse notion of ambiguity. Whereas his reuse of Virgil demonstrates that any
number of words have the potential to have a variety of meanings in different
semantic settings,100 Ausonius suggests that there are two meanings in Virgil’s
original language that the centonist reuses to describe the imminutio, one of
which is obscene. Posited here, therefore, is an extreme vision of cacemphata,
with the obscenity in the cento, according to Ausonius, rebounding onto Virgil
himself.
How Ausonius and Luxurius turn Virgil’s language into sex scenes is natu-
rally quite a different matter. Apart from the material that the cacemphatists
cite, there is discreet and figurative sexual content and imagery at points in
Virgil, notably in the cave scene in Aeneid 4 and in the link between eroticism
and youthful death in the Aeneid.101 Should a reader recall this characteristic of
Virgilian poetry, he or she might introduce some small qualifications to the idea
that Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s sex scenes are alien to Virgil. At the same time,
he or she would have to admit that the centos’ narratives are significantly more
sexual, and so significantly lower than and different from even the most eroti-
cally charged stuff in Virgil. Moreover, in the great majority of microtextual
moments in Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s sex scenes,102 the individual Virgilian
units have no original semantic ties to the erotic, and so acquire an entirely new
referential identity. Often too the language in the units is made to reproduce
specific terms and figures belonging to the Latin sexual vocabulary.103 I showed
earlier, for example, that Ausonius adapts A. 3.658 so that it describes the penis
as a one-eyed creature, thereby reproducing a common sexual metaphor. An-
other good example of how the centonists adapt Virgil’s language to the profane
lexicon is Ausonius’s pedem pede fervidus urget (A. 12.748) (104). Ausonius
cites a unit containing a word, fervidus, that elsewhere connotes amatory pas-
sion, and modifies Virgil’s account of Aeneas’s final battle with Turnus so that it
reproduces an anatomical polyptoton often found in accounts of sexual inter-
course.104 Luxurius similarly uses fervidus ( flagranti fervidus infert [A. 9.72], 65)
and presents what we might call synonymic polyptoton in flagranti fervidus. To
give one more example, both centonists adapt Virgil’s literal description of
drawing a weapon—in Ausonius, eripit a femore (A. 10.788 [ femore for femine],
109), which Luxurius repeats accurately as eripit a femine (65)—so that the
image becomes an obscene metaphor found elsewhere.105
All of this is a matter of giving an obscene twist to Virgil’s language.106 While
Virgil cannot provide actual obscenities,107 Ausonius and Luxurius actively alter
the referential functions of his units so that they become vividly pornographic.
WEDDINGS, SEX, AND ‘‘VIRGIL THE MAIDEN’’ 113

Yet in Ausonius’s calculating formulation, the centonist is not the sole source of
that content. The sexual material in the centos is simply ‘‘derived’’ from Virgil,
and so is already there in the ambiguous depths of his language.
To take Ausonius at his word, then, would be to misread the sex scenes in
the Cento Nuptialis and Epithalamium Fridi. That being said, in some verse
units in Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s centos beyond those containing cacemphata,
the interactions between the Virgilian res and the pornographic material of the
patchwork poems are more complex, as the units in question come from places
in Virgil having the oblique sexual content mentioned earlier. While transfor-
mations of Virgilian meaning still occur, and so contravene Ausonius’s apolo-
getic remarks, exploring the microtextual allusiveness of these verses reveals
subtler intertextual relationships than those that mark the majority of individual
units in the centos’ obscene passages.
The first relevant example appears in Luxurius, who cites a Virgilian line
with striking sexual suggestiveness. The line in question is it cruor inque hu-
meros cervix conlapsa recumbit (A. 9.434) (EF 66). Allusion plays a central role
in locating erotic content in the Virgilian material. A. 9.434 appears in the
description of the death of Euryalus. In his account, Virgil offers an epic simile
in which a purple flower sinks when a plough has cut it, and poppies bow their
heads during a heavy rain (A. 9.435–437):

purpureus veluti cum flos succissus aratro

languescit moriens, lassove papavera collo
demisere caput, pluvia cum forte gravantur.

The connection between the flower drooping pluvia cum forte and the dead
warrior has a model in Homer, who uses the simile of the poppy weighed down
by rain to portray the dying Gorgythion.108 Yet Virgil varies his Homeric an-
tecedent in an important way, as he composes a double simile and introduces
the image of the flower that has been cut down by the plow. Critics have noted
that Virgil may have been responding to Catullus, 11.21–24, in which the image
of the flos . . . tactus aratro appears (11.23–24).109 Yet Virgil may have had
something more in mind. A flower and a plow can appear together in passages
that treat virginity. Thus in his wedding hymn, Catullus describes a virgin as a
flos . . . nullo convolsus aratro (62.39–40), and as a flower that no one wants after
someone plucks its bloom (62.46–47).110 Plows and plowing are likewise
common metaphors for the male role in the sexual act.111 It may well be,
therefore, that Virgil was activating imagery that was widespread in ancient
literature to portray Euryalus’s death as a loss of virginity, with that youthful
character passive and feminized and his killers the masculine penetrators. Such
linking of virginity’s loss and early death occurs elsewhere in the Aeneid, as I noted
earlier.112 The Virgilian material would accordingly appear to be itself eroti-
cized. Because Virgil’s own verses can be seen to have sexual overtones, the erotic
content of line 66 of the Epithalamium Fridi has a more nuanced relationship
114 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

with Virgil, with Luxurius taking a verse unit connected to a sexualized moment
in the Aeneid and applying it to sex. Even as the explicit sexuality of Luxurius’s
line causes him to lower and so parody the material in A. 9.434, one can
identify some point of contact between how Luxurius and Virgil use the line,
which makes the parodic deflation of the Virgilian material less extreme.
The second example appears in Ausonius. In line 118 of the Cento Nuptialis,
haesit virgineumque alte bibit acta cruorem (A. 11.804), Ausonius applies to the
penis a Virgilian line that had described Arruns’s spear as ‘‘drinking’’ the blood
of Camilla. While there are no parallels for Ausonius’s use of bibit to describe
the male organ, references in antiquity to a drinking vagina (see, e.g., Cat. 33.4,
Mart. Ep. 2.51.6, 12.75.3) suggests that the Ausonian metaphor is not entirely
catachretic.113 In addition, the presence of the term bibit amorem in Virgil (A.
1.749) indicates that Ausonius was modifying an established metaphor.114
Virgil’s own language in A. 11.804 has been seen to have an erotic subtext,
with the phrase virgineumque alte bibit acta cruorem itself conjuring up the
metaphor of ‘‘drinking love’’ and linking Camilla’s death with her deflowering, in
the process ‘‘figur[ing] a grotesquely accelerated sexual maturation.’’115 The
reuse of the Virgilian verse thus sexualizes Virgilian material with oblique sexual
content of its own. This complicates the intertextual exchange between the
cento and A. 11.804. Along with serving as part of a macrotextual parody of
Virgil, line 118 of the Cento Nuptialis presents a microtextual lowering of
Virgil’s epic content while at the same time calling attention to the sexual
imagery in the Virgilian original. While the extent of Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s
awareness of all these implications is impossible to determine, their citations
enable readers to identify a wide range of allusive functions at those points in
their centos.116
Discussion of the ways that units in the centos’ obscene passages and the
passages themselves are open to varied interpretive approaches demonstrates the
richness of that patchwork material. For all audiences of the Cento Nuptialis and
Epithalamium Fridi, from their initial recipients to today’s readers, the porno-
graphic scenes also offer hermeneutic choices that differ from the rest of the
poems. These emerge out of the different approaches that Ausonius and Lux-
urius take, from composing occasional poems and investing them with conven-
tional imagery and laudatory functions to parodying Virgil by applying his verses
to sexual subject matter. By exhibiting a wide range of writing strategies and
allowing for a wide range of reading strategies, the Cento Nuptialis and Epitha-
lamium Fridi show that there is much room in cento composition for creativity on
the part of author and audience. These aspects of Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s
poems amply support a central point of this book: that there were many roads
available to those composing the ancient Virgilian centos, just as there were, are,
and will continue to be for those interpreting them.
 Conclusion

Many of the works constituting the corpus of ancient Latin poetry are not
classical, if by that term we mean texts that are traditional, noble, serene,
elegant, and balanced, or some combination of those traits. One of the strengths
of scholarship over the past thirty to forty years has been to acknowledge and
even embrace the comic, the mannerist, the frivolous, and the curious in the
Latin tradition. What critics have been slower to recognize, however, is just how
far from the ideals of classicism Latin literature sometimes strays. Lurking on
the fringes of the tradition sit texts that would no doubt appall Winckelmann,
but that would probably excite André Breton. It is among these works that the
mythological and secular Virgilian centos reside.
A central aim of this book has been to move beyond the brute opprobrium
that some scholars have heaped on the centos. This has meant always being
cognizant of the strangeness of the form, but not condemning it, as well as
noting that such strangeness does not imply total singularity and isolation in
Latin culture. In taking this approach, I first identified some connections be-
tween the corpus of centos and other activities in Virgil’s ancient reception. My
next step was to explore how the centos serve as examples of ludic poetry. This
categorization rests on the connection that the centos, like other Latin poems,
have to otium and on their status as light pieces that derive from the mainstream
literary canon. Moreover, centonists establish play conditions on Virgil’s verses,
manipulating them as though they were game-pieces according to an ad hoc set
of rules. The centos are fundamentally displays of technical skill in so handling
Virgil’s language, a characteristic that invites audiences to concentrate on how
the centos are put together. The centos demand such metaattention more than
conventional poetry does, but to an extent consistent with other ludic works in
antiquity such as pattern poems and palindromic verses.
Investigating the processes of cento composition can lead to scrutiny of its
technical aspects, notably the mechanics of reconnecting Virgil’s verse units
and the mnemotechnics underlying that act, both of which differ in each of the
centos. Audiences can also look to the narratives that the centos contain, noting
that the patchwork poets produce works with different content from Virgil, as
well as no two texts with the same story. Material in the centos ranges from
116 VIRGIL RECOMPOSED

a tragedy to everyday subjects, a wide range of mythological vignettes, two

different kinds of epithalamia, and sex scenes. Such formal and thematic variety
within the centos shows that they are much more than an undifferentiated mass
of oddities, as maligning scholars would have it.
When criticism explores without prejudice the recherché play of the cento
form and respects the discrete qualities of each cento, it also becomes clear that
patchwork composition can support substantive inquiry and in fact demands it,
if there is going to be anything like an adequate reckoning of the texts. As games
that recast Virgil’s language, the centos require that audiences be aware of the
ludic compositio of the texts’ verbal surfaces. Yet the poems allow for deeper
examinations as well. Indeed, the mythological and secular Virgilian centos
admit of a wide range of critical approaches, from applications of traditional
philology to more modern, theory-driven analysis.
Serious study of the centos leads to an examination of other texts in Latin
literature—and these are not limited to Virgil’s poetry—and of various topics in
literary history and criticism. Among the latter are issues in Virgil’s reception
and reception theory, genre theory, and the place of parody in Latin literature
and the nature and processes of that form. More generally and pervasively, the
centos challenge readers to come to terms with how to address the poems’
intertextual relations with Virgil, relations that often lead the way to the insights
just mentioned and are quite complex, owing to the nature of the patchwork
form. Audience members must decide the level at which they will read the
cento, or how detailed they will be in their scrutiny of a cento’s intertextual ties
to its source material. First, a reader can examine the macrotextual adaptation
of Virgil, or how the centonist uses Virgil’s language to present a new narrative
and sometimes to adapt Virgil to a new genre or to parody him. Focus is on the
centos as a whole or scenes and passages within them, and how that material
remakes and interacts with Virgil. The macrotextual allusiveness of the centos
often touches upon issues in the hermeneutics of allusion, particularly how to
question, understand, and negotiate the can and the should (as well as the can’t
and the shouldn’t) in such interpretation. Another option is to delve into how
individual units adapt their particular Virgilian sources. This microtextual
reading can involve determining if and how the local transformation of Virgil
relates to a cento’s larger ludic goals, and in the process to its broad formal,
thematic, and intertextual aspects. So too readers can analyze how the new
meaning that the verse unit acquires in a cento responds to the meaning with
which Virgil had invested it. There is much openness to how individual audi-
ence members can approach these matters. Some readers will identify a mi-
crotextual allusion while others will not, and some will interpret it differently
from how others do. As at the macrotextual level, investigating the criteria for
the evaluation of microtextual allusions activates and often helps to clarify ideas
that inform the study of allusion generally.
Even a summary of the breadth of possible responses to and implications of
the centos shows that the poems are not only some of the most curious works to
CONCLUSION 117

survive from antiquity but are also some of the richest and, as I hope to have
shown, most intellectually exciting. The approaches taken in this study point to
several ways that the cento form and the individual centos can be understood;
but much remains to be said about a pursuit and texts that are so multifaceted. I
hope that this book pushes its readers to continue to explore these ludic byways
and to give the mythological and secular centos the attention they deserve.
This page intentionally left blank
 Appendix
Texts of the Mythological and Secular Centos

Note: The Virgilian provenance of each unit in each cento can be found in several
places. In CSEL 16, 531–553, Schenkl provides that information for all the
mythological and secular centos. (Schenkl does the same for the Christian centos
in 569–638.) In editions of individual centos, moreover, the same information can
be obtained. Thus Lamacchia relates where the units in the Medea come from in
Virgil; Carbone where the units in the De Alea come from; Green where the units
in the Cento Nuptialis come from; and Happ where the units in the Epithalamium
Fridi come from. Given this abundance of possible sources for that information,
and given that I cite the Virgilian source of every unit that I discuss in the chapters
of this book, I have chosen to reproduce the cento texts without locating the origin
in Virgil of each unit. I do, however, mark where the cut in a line is with the symbol |,
thus preserving, I hope, a sense that the centos are secondary Virgilian texts.

Medea, ed. Rosa Lamacchia

<MED.> Esto nunc Sol testis et haec mihi Terra precanti |

et Dirae ultrices | et tu, Saturnia Iuno: |
ad te confugio, | nam te dare iura loquuntur,
conubiis. | si quid pietas antiqua labores
respicit humanos, | nostro succurre labori, | 5

alma Venus, | aut quicumque oculis haec aspicis aequis. |

accipite haec meritumque malis advertite numen. |
quid primum deserta querar? | conubia nostra
reppulit | et sparsos fraterna caede penates. |
quid Syrtes aut Scylla mihi, quid vasta Charybdis 10

profuerit | mediosque fugam tenuisse per hostis? |

improbe Amor, quid non mortalia <pectora> cogis? |
iussa aliena pati | iterumque revolvere casus, |
ire iterum in lacrimas: | sed nullis ille movetur
fletibus; | infixum stridit sub pectore vulnus. | 15
120 APPENDIX

exstinctus pudor | atque inmitis rupta tyranni

foedera | et oblitus famae melioris amantis |
oblitusve suae est; | lacrimae volvuntur inanes. |
nusquam tuta fides, | vana spe lusit amantem, |
crudelis! quid, si non arva aliena domosque 20

ignotas peteret? | haec pro virginitate reponit? |

heu pietas, heu prisca fides! |[et haec] captiva videbo |
reginam thalamo cunctantem | ostroque superbo, |
haut impune quidem, | si quid mea carmina possunt! |

Chorus Colchidarum
<CHOR.> rerum cui summa potestas, | 25

precibus si flecteris ullis,

et si pietate meremur, |
nostro succurre labori. |
et tu, Saturnia Iuno, |
cui vincla iugalia curae, | 30

oculis haec aspicis aequis? |

nemorum Latonia custos, |
triviis ululata per urbes, |
sic nos in sceptra reponis? |
quid, o pulcherrime coniunx, | 35

potuisti linquere solam, |

per tot discrimina rerum |
nequiquam erepte periclis? |
manet alta mente repostum, |
quam forti pectore et armis, | 40

quaesitas sanguine dotes. |

felix, heu nimium felix, |
dum fata deusque sinebant! |
nescis, heu perdita, necdum |
quae te dementia cepit, | 45

caput obiectare periclis? |

haec nos suprema manebant, |
hoc ignes araeque parabant? |
nostram nunc accipe mentem |
vaginaque eripe ferrum | 50

ferroque averte dolorem! |

TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 121

Creon–Medea
CR. femina, quae nostris errans in | finibus hostis, |
flecte viam velis; | neque enim nescimus et urbem
et genus | iniussum | et non innoxia verba; |
hostilis facies occurrat et omina turbet. | 55

MED. nullae hic insidiae | nec tanta superbia victis, |

[CR.] non ea vis animo | nec sic ad proelia veni. |
<CR.> non ut rere meas effugit nuntius auris |
unde genus ducis | varium et mutabile semper: |
tu potes unanimes armare in proelia fratres | 60

funereasque inferre faces | et cingere flamma; |

pacem orare manu | et vertere sidera retro |
atque odiis versare domos. | tibi nomina mille,
mille nocendi artes | fecundaque poenis
viscera | notumque furens quid femina possit. | 65

cede locis | pelagoque volans da vela patenti! |

MED. rex, genus egregium, | liceat te voce moneri. |
pauca tibi e multis, | quoniam est oblata facultas, |
dicam equidem, licet arma mihi mortemque mineris: |
ne pete conubiis natam! | meminisse iuvabit, | 70

dissice compositam pacem, | miserere tuorum! |

CR. ne tantos mihi finge metus | nec omine tanto
prosequere! | causas nequiquam nectis inanes. |
stat sua cuique dies; | non ipsi exscindere ferro
caelicolae valeant, | fati quod lege tenetur, | 75

nec mea iam mutata loco sententia cedit. |

MED. non equidem invideo | genero dignisque hymenaeis, |
non iam coniugium antiquum quod prodidit oro; |
tempus inane peto, | liceat subducere classem, |
extremam hanc oro veniam; | succurre relictae, | 80

dum pelago desaevit hiems; | miserere parentis, |

o genitor! | et nos aliquod nomenque decusque
gessimus: | scis ipse neque est te fallere quicquam. |
nunc victi, tristes (quoniam fors omnia versat), |
submissi petimus terram | litusque rogamus 85

innocuum: | neque te ullius violentia vincat. |

CR. Quid causas petis | in me exitiumque meorum? |
quicquid id est, timeo | vatum praedicta priorum. |
eia, age, rumpe moras: | quo me decet usque teneri? |
MED. quem sequimur quove ire iubes, ubi ponere sedes? | 90
122 APPENDIX

CR. ire ad conspectum cari genitoris et ora, |

dum curae ambiguae, dum spes incerta futuri. |
MED. nunc scio quid sit amor! | hospitio prohibemur harenae, |
nec spes ulla fugae, nulla hinc exire potestas |
quassataeque rates | geminique sub ubere nati 95

et glacialis hiems aquilonibus asperat undas. |

si te nulla movet tantae pietatis imago, |
indulge hospitio | noctem non amplius unam, |
hanc sine me spem ferre tui: audentior ibo. |
CR. desine iam tandem: | tota quod mente petisti, | 100

largior, | et repetens iterumque iterumque monebo: |

si te his adtigerit terris Aurora morantem, |
unum pro multis dabitur caput. |

Vox Deintus–Chorus
VOX. o digna coniuncta viro, | dotabere, virgo! |
ferte facis propere, | thalamo deducere adorti, | 105

ore favete omnes et cingite tempora ramis. |

<CHOR.> velamus fronde per urbem |
votisque incendimus aras. |
heu, corda oblita | tuorum, |
vatum praedicta priorum, | 110

fati sortisque futurae! |

spe multum captus inani,
mactat de more bidentis |
Phoeboque patrique Lyaeo,
cui vincla iugalia curae, | 115

cumulatque altaria donis. |

tremere omnia visa repente, |
fibrae apparere minaces, |
vox reddita fertur ad aures: |
thalamis neu crede paratis! | 120

funus crudele videbis. |

carpebant | membra quietem |
animalia somnus habebat, |
ferali carmine bubo
in fletum ducere voces: | 125

tristis denuntiat iras. |

quae tanta insania, cives, |
velati | tempora ramis? |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 123

thalamo deducere adorti, |

quaeso, miserescite regi! | 130

recubans sub tegmine fagi |

divino carmine pastor |
vocat in certamina divos: |
ramo frondente pependit. |
quae te dementia cepit, | 135

saxi de vertice pastor, |

divina Palladis arte |
Phoebum superare canendo? |
raptim secat aera pinnis |
fugiens Minoia regna, 140

ausus se credere caelo |

vitamque relinquit | in auras. |
demens videt agmina Pentheus: |
caput a cervice revulsum. |
incensas pectore matres, | 145

vocat agmina saeva sororum: |

iuvenem sparsere per agros. |

Medea–Nutrix
MED. en, quid ago? | vulgi quae vox pervenit ad aures? |
obstipui, | magnoque irarum fluctuat aestu |
durus amor; | taedet caeli convexa tueri. | 150

quae potui, infelix! quae meme in omnia verti, |

cui pecudum fibrae, caeli cui sidera parent, |
heu, Furiis incensa feror! | stat gratia facti: |
illum ego per flammas et mille sequentia tela |
per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum, | 155

eripui leto; fateor me, | arma impia sumpsi. |

sed quid ego haec autem nequiquam ingrata revolvo? |
quid loquor aut ubi sum? | ictum iam foedus et omnes
compositae leges. | credo, mea vulnera restant. |
NUTR. non hoc ista sibi tempus spectacula poscit, 160

sed cape dicta memor, duri solacia casus, |

sensibus hic imis | nostram nunc accipe mentem: |
heu, fuge crudelis terras, fuge litus avarum! |
MED. cara mihi nutrix, | claudit nos obice pontus,
deest iam terra fugae, | rerum pars altera adempta est. | 165
124 APPENDIX

hac gener atque socer | patriaque excedere suadet. |

NUTR. tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito |
et quocumque modo fugias<que> ferasque laborem, |
tu modo posce deos veniam, | tu munera supplex
tende petens pacem | causasque innecte morandi | 170

[MED.] carminibus. | forsan miseros meliora sequuntur. |

<MED.> nunc oblita mihi tot carmina, | vox faucibus haesit; |
mens immota manet | et caeco carpitur igni. |
carmina vel caelo possunt deducere lunam, |
sistere aquam fluviis, | deducere montibus ornos. | 175

has herbas atque haec Ponto mihi lecta venena

ipse dedit [mihi]: | nihil ille deos, nil carmina curat. |
NUTR. quid struis? aut qua spe inimica in gente moraris? |
<MED.> aut pugnam aut aliquid iam dudum invadere magnum, |
seu versare dolos seu certae occumbere morti. | 180

Iason–Satelles–Medea
IAS. quod votis optatis, adest: | timor omnis abesto. |
hic domus, hic patria est, nullum maris aequor arandum; |
solvite corde metum | tandem tellure potiti |
per varios casus. | bene gestis corpora rebus
procurate, viri; | iuvat indulgere choreis. | 185

SAT. unde tremor terris? qua vi maria alta tumescunt? |

quid tantum Oceano properant se tingere soles? |
nescio quid certum est: | in nubem cogitur aer. |
aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum, |
et fratris radiis obnoxia surgere Luna. | 190

IAS. Media fert tristis sucos, | nigrisque infecta venenis, |

quo thalamum eripiat | atque ossibus implicet ignem. |
fare age, quid venias, iam <i>stinc et comprime gressum. |
MED. ad te confugio, | precibusque inflectere nostris, |
o dulcis coniunx, non haec sine numine divum 195

eveniunt. | 195a

tanta meae si te ceperunt taedia laudis, |

hos cape fatorum comites, his moenia quaere! |
IAS. non fugis hinc praeceps, dum praecipitare potestas, |
iam propriore die? | nescis, heu perdita, nescis |
nec quae te circumstent deinde pericula cernis! | 200

MED. hanc quoque deserimus sedem; | tibi ducitur uxor. |

cui, pater et coniunx, quondam tua dicta relinquor? |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 125

et sedet hoc animo, | dotalis regia cordi est |

externique iterum thalami. |
mene fugis? | hoc sum terraque marique secuta? | 205

hic labor extremus, longarum haec meta viarum, |

hi nostri reditus exspectatique triumphi? |
quid tua sancta fides? | iterum crudelia retro
fata vocant. | tantis nequiquam erepte periclis, |
mene fugis? per ego has lacrimas, | per siquis amatae 210

tangit honos animum, | per inceptos hymenaeos, |

per conubia nostra | et mensas quas advena adisti
te precor: | miserere animi non digna ferentis. |
namque aliud quid sit, quod iam implorare queamus? |
ipse mihi nuper Libycis tu testis in undis, | 215

dum rauca adsiduo longe sale saxa sonabant, |

{ infixure { mari | tantis surgentibus undis, |
luctantis ventos tempestatisque sonoras |
compressi et rabiem tantam caelique marisque. |
unius in miseri exitium | proque omnibus unum | 220

obieci caput, | id sperans fore munus amanti. |

sed quid ego | ambages et iussa exorsa | revolvo? |
nil super imperio moveor; speravimus ista |
tempore, quo primum | fortes ad aratra iuvencos |
semine ab aetherio spirantis naribus ignem | 225

obieci: | satis immanis dentibus hydri |

erupit legio et campo stetit agmen aperto, |
telorum seges et iaculis increvit acutis, |
ferrea progenies duris caput extulit arvis. |
illi inter sese magna | vi vulnera miscent | 230

confixique suis telis et pectora duro

transfossi ligno | animasque in vulnera ponunt. |
aurum ingens coluber | servabat in arbore ramos, |
nec visu facilis nec dictu effabilis ulli. |
ille manu patiens | immania terga resolvit. | 235

ut me conspexit, | flammantia lumina torquens |

cervicem inflexam posuit | somnosque petivit. |
si te nulla movet tantarum gloria rerum, |
sin absumpta salus | nec habet fortuna regressum, |
si nulla est regio, miseris quam det tua coniunx, | 240

i, decus, i, nostrum! | faciat te prole parentem |

egregia interea coniunx | melioribus, opto,
126 APPENDIX

auspiciis. | possem | hinc asportare Creusam! |

spero <e>quidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt,
supplicia hausurum scopulis: | dabis, improbe, poenas, | 245

quod minime reris, | rebus iam rite paratis. |

IAS. desine meque tuis incendere teque querellis; |
nam mihi parta quies, | nullum maris aequor arandum, |
nec veni, nisi fata locum sedemque dedissent. |
<MED.> heu tot incassum fusos patiere labores, | 250

nec venit in mentem | fumans sub vomere taurus, |

iam gravior Pelias | et aena undantia flammis |
squamosusque draco et | quaesita<e> sanguine dotes? |
<IAS.> in regnis hoc ausa tuis: |
haec loca non tauri spirante<s> naribus ignem | 255

nec galea densisque virum seges horruit hastis, |

nec vim tela ferunt: | mitte hanc de pectore curam. |
<MED.> nam quis te, iuvenum confidentissime, nostras
iussit adire domos? | pelagine erroribus actus |
an fratris miseri letum ut crudele videres? | 260

IAS. sive errore viae seu tempestatibus acti, |

quis deus in fraudem, | quae <te> dementia cepit |
commaculare manus, | fraterna caede penates? |
aut ego tela dedi | aut vitam committere ventis |
hortati sumus? | quae dura potentia nostra? | 265

MED. nil nostri miserere, | nihil mea carmina curas? |

efficiam posthac ne quemquam voce lacessas, |
nec dulcis natos Veneris nec praemia noris. |
IAS. quid causas petis | et inrita iurgia iactas? |
iamque vale, | melior quoniam pars acta diei est. | 270

MED. utere sorte tua, | susceptum perfice munus. |

IAS. nunc iter ad regem nobis; | quod te adloquor hoc est. |
MED. num fletu ingemuit nostro | aut miseratus amanti? |
et dubitamus adhuc? | lacrimantem et multa volentem
dicere deseruit | rapidusque in tecta recessit. | 275

quid labor aut benefacta iuvant? | mea tristia facta |

fessa iacent. | ubi nunc nobis deus ille magister |
et Furiis agitatus amor et conscia virtus? |
nam quid dissimulo aut quid me ad maiora reservo? |
stat casus renovare omnis, | [et] dare lintea retro, | 280

rursus et | casus abies visura marinos |

te sine, frater, erit. | quod si mea numina non sunt, |
flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo! |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 127

Chorus
<CHOR.> dictis exarsit in iras |
insani Martis amore, | 285

Poenorum qualis in arvis |

venantum saepta corona, |
fulva cervice leaena; |
qualis mala gramina pastus, |
tractu se colligit anguis, | 290

tumidum quem bruma tegebat: |

caput altum in proelia tollit, |
linguis micat ore trisulcis; |
<qualis * * * > 293a

furiis agitatus Orestes |

armatam facibus matrem | 295

ardens agit aequore toto |

patri<a>s<que> obtruncat ad aras; |
furit ululata per urbem |
qualis | trieterica Baccho |
inter deserta ferarum, | 300

palla subcincta cruenta, |

vocat agmina saeva sororum; |
qualis philomela sub umbra, |
pectus signata cruentum, |
late loca questibus implet, | 305

maerens | miserabile carmen, |

cantu solata laborem; |
<qualis | miserabile Orpheus > | 307a

graviter pro coniuge saevit |

deserti ad Strymonis undam: |
te solo in litore secum | 310

anima fugiente vocabat, |

scirent si ignoscere Manes. |

Nuntius–Chorus
NUNT. quo feror? unde abii? | <rumpit> pavor, ossaque et artus |
perfudit toto proruptus corpore sudor, |
genua labant, <gelidus> | oculos stupor urget inertis | 315

arrectaeque horrore comae et vox faucibus haesit. |

C<HO>R. quo res summa loco? | unde haec tam clara repente
128 APPENDIX

tempestas | sine more furit? | maria omnia caelo

miscuit, | ingeminant a ruptis nubibus ignes. |
fare mihi atque | haec edissere vera roganti. | 320

N<UN>T. aedibus in mediis | quaeque ipse miserrima vidi |

(horresco referens): | palla subcincta cruenta |
in medioque focos, | nocturnas inchoat aras |
intenditque locum sertis et fronde coronat
funerea, | crinem vittis innexa cruentis, | 325

unum exuta pedem vinclis, in veste recincta, |

spargens umida mella soporiferumque papaver; |
sparserat et latices simulatos fontis Averni, |
sanguineam volvens aciem | manibusque cruentis |
pro molli viola | casiaque crocoque rubenti 330

urit odoratam nocturno in lumine cedrum |

scillamque elleborosque gravis | et sulpura viva |
obscuris vera involvens | lacrimisque coactis |
voce vocans Hecaten | et non memorabile numen |
ferro accincta vocat. | 335

haec effata silet, | oculis micat acribus ignem |

exspectans quae signa ferant, | haud ignara futuri. |
eripiunt subito nubes caelumque diemque |
et tremefacta solo tellus, | micat ignibus aether. |
continuo auditae voces vagitus et ingens; | 340

visus adesse pedum sonitus | et saeva sonare

verbera; | visaeque canes ululare per umbras
adventante dea, | refluit<que> exterritus amnis |
et pavidae matres pressere ad pectora natos. |
exhinc Gorgoneis Allecto infecta venenis | 345

exsurgitque facem adtollens atque intonat ore: |

‘‘respice ad haec; adsum dirarum ab sede sororum,
bella many letumque gero.’’ |
talia { cernentem tandem { sic orsa vicissim: |
‘‘venisti tandem, | mecum partire laborem, | 350

tu, dea, tu praesens | animis inlabere nostris. |

dissice compositam pacem, sere crimina belli |
(namque potes), | colui vestros si semper honores.’’ |
talibus Allecto dictis exarsit in iram |
horrendum stridens | rabidoque haec addidit ore: | 355

‘‘o germana mihi, | mitte hanc de pectore curam, |

nunc si bellare paras, | et luctu miscere hymenaeos |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 129

funereasque inferre faces | et cingere flamma, |

quicquid in arte mea possum, | meminisse necesse est |
quantum ignes animaeque valent; absiste precando.’’ | 360

dixerat: | adtollens stridentis anguibus alas, |

ardentis dare visa faces | super ardua linquens. |
illa dolos | operi flammisque sequacibus iras |
iungebat, | et duplicem gemmis auroque coronam |
consertam | squamis serpentum; | flamma volantem | 365

implicat | involvitque domum caligine caeca,

prospectum eripiens oculis; | mihi frigidus horror |
membra quatit gelidusque coit formidine sanguis: |
improvisum aspris veluti qui sentibus anguem |
aut videt aut vidisse putat, | metuensque pericli | 370

incipit effari | nec vox aut verba sequuntur. |

idque audire sat est; | quo me decet usque teneri? |
vadite et haec regi[na] memores mandata referte. |

Nutrix–Medea
NUTR. hoc habet, haec melior magnis data victima divis. |
talia coniugia et talis celebrent hymenaeos! | 375

MED. tu secreta pyram, | natorum maxima nutrix, |

erige | tuque ipsa pia tege tempora vitta, |
verbenasque adole pinguis | nigrumque bitumen. |
sacra Iovi Stygio, quae rite incepta paravi,
perficere est animus finemque imponere curis. | 380

NUTR. discessere omnes medii spatiumque dedere.

Medea–Filii–Umbra Absyrti
MED. heu stirpem invisam et fatis contraria nostris! |
huc ades, o formose puer, | qui spiritus illi! |
sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat! |
perfidus! | et cuperem ipse parens spectator adesset. | 385

FIL. parce pias scelerare manus! | aut quo tibi nostri

pulsus amor? si iuris materni cura remordet, |
natis parce tuis | aut nos rape in omnia tecum! |
quo res cumque cadunt, unum et commune periculum. |
<ABS.>aspice nos! | adsum dirarum ab sede sororum, 390

infelix simulacrum, | laniatum corpore toto: |

[MED.] quid dubitas? | audendem dextra, nunc ipsa vocat res. |
auctor ego audendi, | fecundum concute pectus. |
130 APPENDIX

si concessa peto, | si poenas ore reposco, |

nullum in caede nefas: | amor non talia curat. | 395

FIL. hostis amare, quid increpitas | mea tristia fata? |

MED. suggere tela mihi | finemque impone labori! |
sanguine quaerendi reditus. |
FIL. nec te noster amor | pietas nec mitigat ulla, |
nec venit in mentem | natorum sanguine matrem 400

commaculare manus? | nostri tibi cura recessit |

et matri praereptus amor? |
MED. crimen amor vestrum | spretaeque iniuria formae |
his mersere malis. | fratrem ne desere frater. |
poenarum exhaustum satis est, via facta per hostis | 405

et genus invisum | dextra sub Tartara misi. |

iamiam nulla mora est | currus agitare volantis. |

Iason–Nuntius–Medea ex Alto
IAS. ei mihi, quid tanto turbantur moenia luctu?
quaecumque est fortuna, mea est; | quid denique restat?
dic age, namque mihi fallax haut ante repertus. | 410

NUNT. en perfecta tibi | promissa coniugis arte

munera! | ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum. |
sed si tantus amor | menti, si tanta cupido est, |
expediam dictis et te tua fata docebo. |
conspectu in medio, | cum dona imponeret aris, | 415

(ah, virgo infelix!) | oculos deiecta decoros, |

undique conveniunt | per limina laeta frequentes, |
matres atque viri | cumulantque altaria donis. |
religione patrum | biforem dat tibia cantum, |
cum subito dictuque oritur mirabile monstrum. | 420

ecce levis summo | descendere corpore pestis |

incipit | ac totis Vulcanum spargere tectis, |
regalisque accensa comas, accensa coronam; |
membra sequebantur, | artus sacer ignis edebat. |
diffugiunt comites, | et quae sibi quisque timebat, | 425

tecta metu petiere | et sicubi concava furtim

saxa petunt, | furit immissis Vulcanus habenis. |
nec vires heroum infusaque flumina prosunt |
quaesitaeque nocent artes, | miserabile | dictu! |
illa autem per populos | aditumque per avia quaerit | 430
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 131

arte nova speculata locum | paribusque revinxit

serpentum spiris ventosasque addidit alas, |
ense levis nudo, | perfusos sanguine currus. |
IAS. quo sequar? aut | quid iam misero mihi denique restat? |
me, me, adsum qui feci, | in me omnia tel 435

conicite, | hanc animam quocumque absumite leto! |

funeris heu tibi causa fui; | dux femina facti! |
MED. huc geminas nunc flecte acies | et condo speulchro |
corpora natorum, | cape dona extrema tuorum. |
et tumulum facite et tumulo super addite carmen: | 440

saevus amor docuit natorum sanguine matrem

commaculare manus, | et luctu[m] miscere hymenaeos. |
<IAS.> te super aetherias errare licentius auras,
[IAS.] crudelis mater! | tanton me crimine dignum
duxisti et | patrios foedasti funere vultus? | 445

arma, viri, ferte arma, | date tela, ascendite muros! |

MED. quo moriture ruis? thalamos ne desere pactos! |
hortator scelerum, nostram nunc accipe mentem: |
sive animo sive arte vales, | [opta ardua pinnis
astra sequi ] | et si adeo dotalis regia cordi est 450

* * * * * * | nostrasve evadere, demens,

sperasti te posse manus? | opta ardua pinnis
astra sequi clausumque cava te condere terra |
et famam exstingui veterum sic posse malorum. |
haec via sola fuit, | haec nos suprema manebat 455

exitiis positura modum. |

sat fatis Venerique datum est: | feror exul in altum |
germanum fugiens | et non felicia tela |
ultra anni solisque vias. | quid denique restat? |
et longum, formose, vale, | et quisquis amores 460

aut metuet dulces aut experietur amaros. |

De Panificio, ed. Alexander Riese

. . . . . . . . .

Ipse manu patiens | inmensa volumina versat

adtollitque globos. | sonuerunt omnia plausu. |
tunc Cererem corruptam undis | emittit ab alto. |
septem ingens gyros, septena volumina traxit, |
lubrica convolvens | et torrida semper ab igni. | 5
132 APPENDIX

at rubicunda Ceres | oleo perfusa nitescit. |

scintillae absistunt, | opere omnis semita fervet. |
fervet opus redoletque, | volat vapor ater ad auras. |
instant ardentes | veribusque trementia figunt, |
conclamant rapiuntque focis | onerantque canistris. | 10

undique conveniunt | pueri innuptaeque puellae. |

De Alea, ed. Gabriella Carbone

Artis opisque <tuae>, | tua si mihi certa voluntas, |

expediam dictis | donum exitiale Minervae. |
tu vatem, tu, diva, mone. | nunc ipsa vocat res |
et furiis agitatus amor; | protentus in octo |
ipse dies agitat festos | pro nomine tanto. | 5

effera vis animi | numeros et nomina fecit. |

ossa minutatim | fundo volvuntur in imo. |
mille nocendi artes. | varium et mutabile semper |
artificis scelus, | atque inprovida pectora turbat. |
per varios casus | levium spectacula rerum 10

intenti ludo exercent | rapiuntque ruuntque |

incerti, quo fata ferant, | atque aere sonoro |
insanire[t] libet: | duris dolor ossibus ardet. |
omnibus extemplo | magnum dat ferre talentum, |
qui vocat; | adrectae mentes stupefactaque corda | 15

vota metu duplicant; | tantae est victoria curae. |

ergo ubi delapsae, | mixto premit agmine turba |
consilium quaerens; | sub<i>tus tremor occupat artus. |
tum certare odiis. | multos alterna[s] revisens
lusit et in solido rursus Fortuna locavit. | 20

aut doluit miserans inopem aut invidet habenti. |

multa viri nequi[c]quam inter se vulnera iactant |
et tenues rumpunt tunicas, | caecique furore |
hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque. | <quid> ultra? |
vidi oculos ante ipse meos me voce vocantem | 25

contu[l]limusque manus: <experto> credite, quantus |

corde dolor! | quid non mortalia pectora cogis? |
monstrum horrendum ingens | <tot> sese vertit in ora. |
tu potes un[i]animes armare in proelia fratres: |
aere renidenti | de vita et sanguine certant. | 30
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 133

tum duo Trinacri<i> iuvenes | noctesque diesque |

intenti ludo exercent | fulgentiaque | aera |
accipiunt[que] redduntque; | remittunt omnia fatis. |
conveniunt, | quibus ipsa procul discordibus armis.
fundit humi facilem victum iustissima tellus, | 35

aut qui divitiis soli incubuere repertis: |

considunt transtris | nati melioribus annis. |
multi praeterea, quos fama obscura recondit, |
stant circum. |
tum vero ad vocem celeres | miserum inter amorem | 40

<experiuntur> et in medium quaesita reponunt; |

pro se quisque viri summa nituntur opum vi. |
nec mora, | missus adest | fati sortisque futurae. |
scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus. |
hinc atque hinc | ardent animi: | vox omnibus una est. 45

et quamvis | socium | certent | superare priorem, |

ima petunt: | veris facilis datur exitus umbris. |
praecipites pariterque ruunt, | non deficit alter. |
vos, o Calliope, precor, adspirate canenti, |
quae loca quive habeant homines, | ubi sistere detur | 50

in summo | collem, qui plurimus; | alter ab illo |

est locus, | quem iuxta sequitur, | quo deinde sub ipso |
hic locus est partis | semper sublimis: at illum |
quinque tenent | ebuli bacis minioque rubentem. |
terna tibi haec primum | fundo volvuntur in imo. | 55

sunt alii, quos ipse via sibi repperit usus. |

triginta magnos adversosque orbibus orbes |
eloquar (an sileam?) | levium spectacula rerum; |
mores et studia et populos et praelia victis |
expediam, | sed summa sequar fastigia rerum. | 60

primus abit; | capit ante locum | fremituque secundo |

prima ten<et | fid>ens animi | risuque soluto
voce vocat. |
tum vero in curas animo[s] diducitur omnis, |
quem petis, | obtutuque haeret defixus in uno | 65

atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc,

spemque metumque <inter>, | secumque ita corde volutat. |
ut primum discussae umbrae et lux reddita menti, |
sortitus fortunam oculis | sic incipit ore: |
‘‘quae nunc deinde mora est? | veniam quocumque vocaris | 70
134 APPENDIX

quin age, | si qua animo virtus, et consere dextram: |

efficiam, posthac ne quemquam voce lacessas.’’ |
dixit et adversum | magna ter voce vocavit, |
terque quaterque simul | vox ingeminata remugit. |
tum variae comitum facies | et pallor in ore; | 75

nunc victi tristes, | ni[hi]l magnae laudis egentes

deponunt animos | et inania murmura miscent. |
quondam etiam victis redit in praecordia virtus
victoresque cadunt, | quoniam fors omnia versat. |
hic victor superans | reddi sibi poscit honorem | 80

talia vociferans: ‘‘da, non indebita posco. |

quin age, si quid habes, | quo me decet usque teneri |
clamat. |
tum | vero victus | socios | simul increpat omnis,
nomine quemque vocans. | illi obstipuere silentes; | 85

non ipsi inter se | sortem miserantur iniquam, |

sed graviter | vario noctem sermone[m] requirunt. |
visceribus miserorum | atque inter pocula laeti |
cantantes | laetique animos convivia curant. |
ecce autem [M]elapsus, | genitor quem miserat urgens | 90

unus na[u]torum | longo post tempore venit. |

hos aditus, iamque hos aditus, omnemque pererrat |
undique circu[m]itum, | aditumque per avia quaerit. |
verum ubi nulla datur dextra exsuperare potestas, |
constitit in digitos et toto vertice supra | 95

obnixus latis umeris | et { pectore | duro |

et super incumbens, | furiis accensus et ira |
talia voce refert: |
‘‘quo, moriture, ruis? | quae te dementia ducit? |
non vires alias conversaque numina sentis? | 100

c[a]ede locis!’’ |
talia fatus erat | pressoque obmutuit ore. |
illa autem, | cui fa[c]ta parent, | et Iu<p>piter hostis |
deserit <inceptum>; | conversa<que> numina sentit. |
postquam illum vita victor spoliavit | et auro, | 105

tum vero ardentes oculi atque adtractus ab alto

spiritus interdum gemitu[s]; | furor iraque mentem
praecipitant, | maestis late loca questibus implet, |
multa gemens ignominiam plagasque superbi
victoris, | caput <et> glauco velatus amictu | 110
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 135

ardua tecta petit | rursusque ad limina nota |

victus abit | guttisque umectat grandibus ora.

Iudicium Paridis, ed. Alexander Riese

Pictus acu tunicas et barbara tegmina crurum |

forte recensebat numerum | sub tegmine fagi. |
horrescit visu subito | et memorabile numen |
aut videt aut vidisse putat. | ‘‘quo tenditis,’’ inquit |
‘‘Caelicolae magni? | pacemne huc fertis an arma?’’ | 5

ad quem tum Iuno supplex his vocibus usa est: |

‘‘o lux Dardaniae, | Troianae gloria gentis, |
quam dives pecoris, nivei quam lactis abundans, |
{ et proprio fuerint distentae lacte capellae
ubera, | nec metas rerum nec tempora pono. | 10

haec tibi semper erunt, | hic inter flumina nota |

sponte sua sandyx pascentis vestiet agnos. |
praeterea sceptrum | dabitur, Troiane, quod optas.’’ |
talibus orabat Iuno. | Tritonia Pallas |
orsa loqui, | nimbo effulgens et Gorgone saeva: | 15

‘‘disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem, |

militiam et grave Martis opus; | sit pectore in isto |
vulnera dirigere et calamos armare veneno.’’ |
has inter voces, media inter talia verba |
sic contra est ingressa Venus, | male numen amicum, | 20

nuda genu, nudos cervix cui lactea crines |

corripit in nodum; | rosea cervice refulsit |
et vera incessu patuit dea. | ille repente |
obstipuit | subitaque animum dulcedine movit |
et mentem Venus ipsa dedit. | decus enitet ore | 25

exultatque animis | et se cupit ante videri. |

‘‘sic tua Cyrnaeus fugiant examina taxos,
sic cytiso pastae distendant ubera vaccae: |
formosi pecoris custos, formosior ipse, |
aspice nos tantum, | Lacedaemoniosque hymenaeos | 30

coniugio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo |

reginam thalamis | Phrygio servire marito.’’ |
ille deae donis ac tanto laetus honore |
ultro animos tollit dictis | ac talia fatur: |
‘‘iam iam nulla mora est | neque me sententia vertit. | 35
136 APPENDIX

do quod vis: | licet arma mihi mortemque minetur, |

me tamen urit amor. | veniam quocumque vocaris; |
tu modo promissis maneas.’’ | ea verba locutus |
vendidit hic auro patriam. | dux femina facti. |
nec mora, continuo | penetrat Lacedaemona pastor | 40

Ledaeamque Helenam Troianas vexit ad urbes, |

et si fata deum, si mens non laeva fuisset . . .

Narcissus, ed. Alexander Riese

Candida per silvam | primaevo flore iuventus |

adsidue veniebat: ibi haec | caelestia dona |
et fontes sacros | insigni laude ferebat |
insignis facie | longumque bibebat amorem |
intentos volvens oculos, | securus amorum. | 5

dum stupet | atque animum pictura pascit inani, |

expleri mentem nequit ardescitque tuendo |
egregrium forma iuvenem, | quem nympha crearat |
sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat. |
his amor unus erat, | dorso dum pendet iniquo, | 10

oblitusve sui est | et membra decora iuventae |

miratur rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet. |
ilicet ignis edax | secreti ad fluminis undas |
ipsius in vultu | vana spe lusit amantem, |
et praeceps animi | collo dare brachia circum | 15

ter conatus | erat | nec, quid speraret, habebat. |

Hercules et Antaeus, ed. Alexander Riese

Litus harenosum [ad] Libyae | caelestis imago |
Alcides aderat, | terrae omnipotentis alumnum |
caede nova quaerens | et ineluctabile fatum. |
protinus Antaeum | vasta se mole moventem |
occupat, ille suae contra non inmemor artis | 5

concidit | atque novae rediere in praelia vires. |

adrepta tellure semel | vim crescere victis |
non tulit Alcides | et terra sublevat ipsum. |
namque manus inter | conantem et plurima frustra |
corripit in nodum | nisuque inmotus eodem | 10
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 137

auxilium solitum eripuit, | corpusque per ingens |

non iam mater alit Tellus viresque ministrat. |
verum ubi nulla datur dextra adtrectare potestas, |
illum exspirantem | magnum Iovis incrementum |
excutit effunditque solo. | ruit ille | volutus | 15

ad terram, non sponte fluens, | vitaque recessit. |

Progne et Philomela, ed. Alexander Riese

Aspice ut insignis | vacua atria lustrat | hirundo! |

vere novo | maestis late loca questibus implet; |
victum infelicem | maerens Philomela sub umbra |
adsiduo resonat cantu | miserabile carmen. |
causa mali tanti coniunx, | thalamique cruenti | 5

virginis os; | notumque, furens quid femina possit. |

hic crudelis amor: | crudelis tu quoque, mater; |
infelix puer, | atque odium crudele tyranni. |
progeniem parvam | curaeque iraeque coquebant |
Threicio regi cum iam | securus amorum | 10

coniugis infandae | inter deserta ferarum |

fas omne abrumpit, | pariter loquentis | ab ore |
decidit exanimis | vox ipsa [et] frigida lingua: |
haud impune quidem | dementia cepit amantem. |
pectore in adverso | saevi monumenta doloris | 15

fertque refertque soror, | crimenque | [et] facta tyranni |

sanguis ait. solidae | postquam data copia fandi, |
(vulnera siccabat | circum praecordia) ‘‘sanguis, |
accipe’’ ait ‘‘vocem,’’ | ac saevo sic pectore fatur: |
‘‘heu miserande puer, | nunc te fata impia tangunt!’’ | 20

regalis inter mensas | genitoris et ora |

polluit ore dapes, | quidquid solamen humandi est. |
dum genitor nati | morsu depascitur artus, |
et soror et coniunx | petierunt aethera pinnis. |

Europa, ed. Alexander Riese

Vulneris inpatiens | hominum rerumque repertor |

et faciem tauro proprior | descendit ad undas. |
Europam | nivei solatur amore iuvenci. |
138 APPENDIX

dulcibus illa quidem inlecebris | in litore sicco |

luserat, insignis facie, | candore nivali. | 5

saucius et quadrupes | saltus ingressus apertos |

forte fuit iuxta, | superi regnator Olympi, |
obtulerat qui se ignotum venientibus ultro |
virginibus Tyriis | aurata fronte iuvencum. |
at circum late comites | per litora passim | 10

diffugiunt visu exsanguines | taurumque relinquunt, |

sola (novum dictu) | contra stetit ora iuvenci |
ante Iovem: | nam te voluit rex magnus Olympi. |
hunc Phoenissa tenet | vasta se mole moventem |
purpureosque iacit flores | omnemque pererrat, | 15

ille autem spissa iacuit revolutus harena. |

inponit regina manum | patiensque pericli |
mollibus intexens ornabat cornua sertis. |
hunc ubi contiguum | summo tenus attigit ore |
et super incumbens | sertis et fronde coronat– | 20

iam iam nulla mora est– | animum labefactus amore |

accepit venientem ac mollibus extulit undis. |
olli (sensit enim | tuus, o clarissime, frater) |
subsidunt undae, | straverunt aequora venti. |
nunc pelagi nymphae | crinem de more solutae | 25

suspensum et pariter comitque onerique timentem |

. . . . . . . .
egregia interea | summa sublimis ab unda |
prona petit maria et pelago decurrit aperto. |
tunc laeva taurum cornu tenet | inscia culpae |
obliquatque sinus in ventum | auramque patentem: | 30

ille, manum patiens, | miro properabat amore, |

et ductus cornu | rex omnipotentis Olympi |
insuetum per iter | tacitis subremigat undis |
perfidus, alta petens abducta virgine praedo. |

Hippodamia, ed. Alexander Riese

Pandite nunc Helicona, deae, | nunc pectore firmo |

este duces, si qua via est, | et pronuba Iuno |
pallida Tisiphone, | fecundum concute pectus! |
non hic Atridae | et scelus exitiale Lacaenae: |
hic crudelis amor. | nunc illas promite vires, | 5
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 139

maius opus moveo: | quaesitas sanguine dotes |

et scelerum poenas | inconcessosque hymenaeos. |
urbs antiqua fuit: | fama est obscurior annis. |
quid memorem infandas caedes et facta tyranni? |
ausi omnes inmane nefas | irasque minasque. | 10

quis tam crudelis optavit sumere poenas? |

hic, qui forte velit | currus agitare volantis, |
invitat pretiis animos et praemia ponit. |
tormenti genus | incertum de patre ferebat. |
fama malum; | incautum dementia cepit amantem– | 15

horresco referens–: | rapido contendere cursu |

conposuit legesque dedit | populosque propinquos |
infelix habuit thalamus. | ruit omnis in urbem |
magnanimum heroum | primaevo flore iuventus. |
undique conveniunt | et virginitatis amore | 20

contendunt petere, | dubii seu vivere credant |

[sive extrema pati | miseri, quibus ultimus esset] |
ille dies, | vitamque volunt pro laude pacisci. |
supplicia expendunt | iuvenes ante ora parentum; |
linquebant dulces animas | et corpora patrum. | 25

pro molli viola, pro purpureo narcisso |

ora virum tristi pendebant pallida tabo |
vestibulum ante ipsum | saevique in limine regis |
terribiles visu formae | inposuere coronas. |
quin ipsae obstipuere domus | noctesque diesque; | 30

umbrae ibant tenues, | odium crudele tyranni |

saepe queri et longas in fletum ducere voces. |
o virgo infelix, | iam fas est parcere genti! |
pestis et ira deum | crudeli funere virgo, |
quam cum sanguineo sequitur Bellona flagello. | 35

tempore iam ex illo | nil magnae laudis egentes

deponunt animos | scelerata excedere terra. |
ecce inter sanctos ignis, | dum sacra morantur, |
et iuxta genitorem adstat | lasciva puella, |
cui pater et coniunx, | si qua fors adiuvet ausum, | 40

ora puer prima signans intonsa iuventa, |

pictus acu chlamydem | et barbara tegmina crurum |
venit. amor | fidens animi [atque] in utrumque paratus. |
[inclusum ut buxo aut Oricia terebintho] |
140 APPENDIX

lucet ebur, | tantum egregio decus enitet ore. |

postquam introgressi et coram data copia fandi, | 45

rex prior adgreditur dictis atque increpat ultro: |

‘‘quo, moriture, ruis? | quae te dementia cepit |
aut quisnam ignarum | conubia nostra petentem |
iussit adire domos? quidve hinc petis?’’ inquit |
‘‘poenarum exhaustum satis est | miseretque pudetque: 50

pone animos et pulsus abi: | miserere tuorum! |

non fugis hinc praeceps, dum praecipitare potestas? |
sunt aliae innuptae: | thalamis ne crede paratis! |
ne pete conubiis natam: | dabis, inprobe, poenas.’’ |
ad quae subridens | paucis ita reddidit heros: | 55

‘‘hostis amare, quid increpitas mortemque minaris? |

ne tantos mihi finge metus | tam fortibus ausis. |
nec mortem horremus, | nec nos via fallit euntis: |
quo res cumque cadent, | nec me sententia vertit. |
audentes Fortuna iuvat. | stat, quidquid acerbi est, 60

morte pati: | quo fata trahunt retrahuntque, sequamur.’’ |

talia dicentem iam dudum aversa tuetur |
causi mali tanti | multos servata per annos. |
qualis gemma micat, fulvum quae dividit aurum, |
inter utramque viam | talem se laeta ferebat, | 65

ac veluti | Pariusve lapis circumdatur auro |

arte nova, | talis virgo dabat ore colores |
insignis facie, | oculos deiecta decoros. |
uritur infelix, | subitoque accensa furore |
stare loco nescit. | quis enim modus adsit amori? | 70

nulla Venus, nulli quondam flexere hymenaei; |

solus hic inflexit sensus. | dum plurima volvit |
in partisque rapit varias, | famulumne parentis |
audeat affari, quae prima exordia sumat, |
incipit effari mediaque in voce resistit. | 75

versanti potior vix haec sententia sedit: |

custodem ad sese | per noctem plurima volvens |
intra tecta vocat | funditque has ore querellas: |
‘‘quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes? |
ire iterum in lacrimas misera | et tam dira cupido? | 80

en quid ago? | aut quae iam spondet fortuna salutem |

per tot ducta viros? | quo nunc certamine tanto? |
umbrarum hic locus est, quo me decet usque teneri. |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 141

respice ad haec, | miserere animi non digna ferentis: |

ora manusque ambas | defunctaque corpora vita | 85

et funus lacerum, | caput et sine nomine corpus. |

argumentum ingens: | currusque rotasque volucris |
falle dolo: | dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat? |
accipe daque fidem.’’ | media inter talia verba |
luctantem amplexu molli fovet; | hoc decus illi | 90

venturum excidio, | vana spe lusit amantem. |

tandem pauca refert: | ‘‘tuus, o regina, quid optes,
explorare labor. | vincant quos vincere mavis. |
testor utrumque caput, | mihi iussa capessere fas est. |
unum pro multis dabitur caput.’’ | atque ita fatus | 95

ergo iussa parat, | spe multum captus inani, |

scilicet id magnum sperans fore munus amanti. |
artificis scelus et taciti ventura videbant, |
unius in miseri exitium | ventura sub axem. |
Oceanum interea surgens Aurora relinquit, | 100

iam sole infuso, | magnae sub moenibus urbis. |

Graecus erat, | fama multis memoratus in oris, |
nec visu facilis nec dictu affabilis ulli. |
undique visendi studio | turbante tumultu |
conveniunt, quibus aut otium crudele tyranni 105

aut metus acer erat | puerique parentibus orbi |

et trepidae matres | et lamentabile regnum. |
flent maesti mussantque patres, | hic cara sororum
pectora maerentum, | quibus est fortuna peracta. |
hos inter motus | stat ductis sortibus urna. | 110

tunc loca sorte legunt. | extemplo arrectus uterque |

stat sonipes ac frena ferox spumantia mandit. |
nec mora: continuo | vasto certamine tendunt |
custodes lecti | atque arrectis auribus adstant |
orantes veniam; | certatur limine in ipso. | 115

atque ea diversa penitus dum parte geruntur, |

discessere omnes medii, | signoque repente, |
qua data porta, ruunt. | sic densis ictibus heros |
stridore ingenti | atque oculis vigilantibus exit, |
incumbens umero; | sonitu quatit ungula campum. | 120

dant animos plagae, | pronique in verbera pendent |

pro se quisque viri; | tunc caeco pulvere campus |
conditur in tenebras, | qua proxima meta viarum, |
142 APPENDIX

et longum superant | flexu caecique furore. |

illi inter sese | de vita et sanguine certant. | 125

regina e speculis | miro properabat amore |

omnia tuta timens, | quoniam fors omnia versat. |
audit equos, audit strepitus, | timet omnia secum |
praescia venturi. | sed spes incerta futuri. |
et proni dant lora: volat vi fervidus axis, | 130

liquitur, | in medioque ardentem deserit ictu. |

carpit enim vires et, | haec ut cera liquescit, |
excoquitur vitium, | tum nititur acer et instat. |
vertitur interea | et scelus expendisse merentem |
matres atque viri | voces ad sidera iactant. | 135

dum trahitur | curruque haeret resupinus inani, |

radit iter laevum interior subitoque priorem |
praeterit et | super haec inimico pectore fatur:
‘‘istic nunc, metuende, iace | vetitosque hymenaeos |
sume, pater | frustraque animis elate superbis. | 140

en qui nostra sibi | tot iam labentibus annis |

servabat senior, | nostrasne evadere demens |
sperasti te posse manus | circensibus actis? |
hic tibi mortis erant metae: | submitte furorem, |
qui iuvenum tibi semper erat! | speravimus ista | 145

et tandem laeti sociorum ulciscimur umbras.’’ |

dixit et e curru saltum dedit ocius arvis. |
excipiunt plausu; | caelum tonat omne tumultu. |
ipse etiam eximiae laudis | cum virgine victor |
ibat ovans | umeroque Pelops insignis eburno. | 150

tunc vero exarsit iuveni dolor ossibus ingens. |

olli (sensit enim simulata mente locutam) |
nec latuere doli, | caput horum et causa malorum; |
tunc quassans caput haec effundit pectore dicta: |
‘‘me (adsum qui feci) | –merui, nec deprecor,’’ inquit, | 155

‘‘spargite [me] in fluctus. | en haec promissa fides est? |

i nunc, ingratis offer te, inrise, periclis. |
his etiam struxi manibus, | deceptus amore. |
nusquam tuta fides: | varium et mutabile semper
femina.’’ | sic fatus liquidas proiecit in undas | 160

aeternam moriens famam, | quae maxima semper |

dicitur aeternumque tenet per saecula nomen. |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 143

Alcesta, ed. Alexander Riese

Egregium forma iuvenem | pactosque hymenaeos |

incipiam | et prima repetens ab origine pergam, |
si qua fides, animum si veris inplet Apollo. |
iam gravior Pelias | multis memoratus in oris |
rex erat | et tantas servabat filia sedes. | 5

illam omnis tectis primaevo flore iuventus |

ardebat, sed res animos incognita turbat. |
iura dabat legesque viris, | sub rupe leonem |
aut spumantis apri cursum qui foedere certo |
et premere et laxas sciret dare iussus habenas. | 10

iamque aderat Phoebo ante alios | dilectus amore

ipse inter primos | caput obiectare periclis |
obtulerat, fidens animi | fretusque iuventa. |
ergo iussa parat, | multis comitantibus armis. |
itur in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum, | 15

atque hic exsultans animis | patiensque pericli |

optat aprum aut fulvum descendere monte leonem. |
tunc breviter super aspectans | sic voce precatur: |
‘‘sancte deum, summi custos Soractis Apollo,
quem primi colimus, | tua si mihi certa voluntas, | 20

ibo animis contra | nec me labor iste gravabit.’’ |

nec mora nec requies; | oranti et multa precanti |
aethere se mittit | auditque vocatus Apollo |
et iuveni ante oculos his se cum vocibus offert: |
‘‘incipe si quid habes, | si tantum pectore robur 25

conipis et si adeo dotalis regia cordi est: |

mecum erit iste labor, | mitte hanc de pectore curam.’’ |
per silvas tum saevus aper | cum murmure montis, |
tum demum movet arma leo | vastoque sub antro |
asper acerba tuens | vasta se mole ferebat | 30

excutiens cervice toros; | ea frena furenti

concutit et stimulos sub pectore vertit Apollo. |
. . . . . . . .
dat iuveni | et tenuis [fugit] ceu fumus in auras: |
ille autem inpavidus | et munere victor amici |
emicat in currum et manibus molitur habenas. | 35

ut ventum ad sedes, | reddi sibi poscit honorem; |

adiungi generum miro properabat amore. |
144 APPENDIX

tum sic mortalis referebat pectore voces: |

‘‘non haec humanis opibus, non arte magistra |
(accipio agnoscoque libens) | tibi ducitur uxor, | 40

omnis ut tecum meritis pro talibus annos

exigat | et possit parvos educere natos.’’ |
haec ubi dicta dedit, solio se tollit ab alto |
iam senior | mediisque parant convivia tectis. |
interea magnum sol circumvolvitur annum, | 45

Parcarumque dies et vis inimica propinquat |

egregium forma iuvenem | iam morte sub aegra: |
iamque dies infanda aderat | et tempora Parcae |
debita conplerant | crudeli morte sodalis. |
ut primum fari potuit | crinitus Apollo, | 50

multa gemens casuque animum concussus amici, |

ipsius ante oculos | sic fatis ora resolvit: |
disce tuum, ne me incuses, | volventibus annis |
advenisse diem; | nam lux inimica propinquat. |
haec ubi deflevit, | caeli cui sidera parent, | 55

tunc sic pauca refert | fatis adductus iniquis:

‘‘Phoebe, tot incassum fusos patiere labores? |
nil nostri miserere? mori me denique cogis? |
eripe me his, invicte, malis; | miserere tuorum, |
si qua fata sinant, | et eris mihi magnus Apollo.’’ 60

talibus oranti | sic ore effatus amico est: |

‘‘desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.
sed cape dicta memor, duri solacia casus. |
obiectare animam | quemquam aut opponere morti |
fas et iura sinunt: | prohibent nam cetera Parcae. | 65

audiat haec genitor: | patet atri ianua Ditis: |

hactenus indulsisse vacat.’’ | sic fatus Apollo |
mortalis visus medio sermone reliquit. |
tunc vero ancipiti mentem formidine pressus |
obstipuit, | cui fata parent, quem poscat Apollo; | 70

ire ad conspectum cari genitoris et ora |

cogitur et supplex | animum temptare precando; |
multaque praeterea | longaevo dicta parenti |
cum fletu precibusque tulit, | ne vertere secum
cuncta pater fatoque urgenti incumbere vellet; | 75

ecce iterum stimulat, | sed nullis ille movetur

fletibus aut voces ullas tractabilis audit. |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 145

tunc genitor natum dictis affatur amicis: |

‘‘non, ut rere, meas effugit nuntius auris; |
infelix | causas nequiquam nectis inanes. | 80

hoc uno responso animum delusit Apollo. |

stat sua cuique dies, | lacrimae volvuntur inanes. |
utere sorte tua: | patet atri ianua Ditis. |
talia perstabat memorans fixusque manebat. |
egregia interea coniunx | in limine primo | 85

agnovit longe gemitus (praesaga mali mens), |

tunc sic pauca refert: | ‘‘quid, o pulcherrime coniunx, |
fare, age, quid venias? | quae causa indigna serenos
foedavit vultos? | quae te fortuna fatigat? |
quaecumque est fortuna, mea est.’’ et talia fata | 90

demisit lacrimas | factoque hic fine quievit. |

ille autem | gemitus imo de pectore ducens |
talia voce ferert: | ‘‘quid me alta silentia cogis
rumpere et obductum verbis vulgare dolorem? |
eloquar an sileam? | luctum ne quaere tuorum; | 95

vixi et, quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi. |

iamque dies nisi fallor adest; | crinitus Apollo |
hos mihi praedixit luctus, | pro nomine tanto |
obiectare animam seu certae occumbere morti.’’ |
at regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura, | 100

tristior et lacrimis | et pallida moret futura, |

deficit ingenti luctu | (miserabile visu) |
atque illum, talis iactantem pectore curas, |
talibus affata est dictis seque obtulit ultro |
decrevitque mori: | ‘‘breve et inreparabile tempus 105

omnibus est vitae | neque habet fortuna regressus: |

sed moriamur,’’ ait, | ‘‘nihil est, quod dicta retractent |
concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae, |
si fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit. |
est hic, est animus, lucis contemptor et istum | 110

qui vita bene credat emi: nova condere fata

nec morte horremus; | sub terras ibit imago, |
si te fata vocant; | in me mora non erit ulla.’’ |
ergo aderat promissa dies | lacrimansque gemensque |
debita conplerat | pesti devota futurae. | 115

testatur moritura deos | stratisque relictis |

incubuitque toro dixitque novissima verba: |
146 APPENDIX

‘‘o dulcis coniunx, | dum fata deusque sinebant, |

fortunati ambo, | scirent si ignoscere manes: |
te propter | alia ex aliis in fata vocamur. | 120

his lacrimis vitam damus et miserescimus ultro, |

quod te per superos et conscia numina veri, |
per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos |
adiuro | et repetens iterumque iterumque monebo. |
o dulcis coniunx, | castum servare cubile | 125

sis memor; | extremum hoc munus morientis habeto, |

si bene quid de te merui, | lectumque iugalem |
natis parce tuis. | sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras. |
hanc sine me spem ferre tui, audentior ibo. |
iussa mori | feror ingenti circumdata nocte. | 130

haec sunt, quae nostra liceat te voce moneri. |

i decus i nostrum, melioribus utere fatis.’’ |
haec effata silet, pallor simul occupat ora. |
nam quia nec fato | ingeminat iam frigida cumba, |
sed misera ante diem, | matrum de more locuta, | 135

multa patri mandata dabat, | solatia luctus: |

interea dulces pendent [circum] oscula nati: |
illa manu moriens | umeros dextramque tenebat
amborum et vultum. | lacrimis ingressus obortis |
‘‘o dolor atque decus magnum, | sanctissima coniunx, | 140

tu lacrimis evicta meis, | per sidera iuro, |

per superos, | haerent infixi pectore vultus
verbaque; | per caeli iucundum lumen et auras, |
dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus, |
oblitus fatorum, | manet alta mente repostum; | 145

quisquis honos tumuli, quidquid solamen humandi est, |

servati facimus. | semper celebrabere donis, |
et cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus, |
ipse tibi ad tua templa feram sollemnia dona, |
cui tantum de te licuit. | neque enim ipsa feretur, 150

fama levis tantive abolescet gratia facti. |

funeris heu tibi causa fui! | quas dicere grates,
quasve referre parem | fati sortisque futurae? |
aeternam moriens famam | tam certa tulisti, |
contra ego vivendo vici mea fata superstes | 155

morte tua vivens.’’ | media inter talia verba |

‘‘non lacrimis hoc tempus eget’’ | Cyllenia proles, |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 147

‘‘adceleremus,’’ ait; | ‘‘nos flendo ducimus horas.’’ |

regina ut tectis venientem conspicit hostem, |
agnoscit lacrimans | sua nunc promissa reposci: | 160

‘‘tempus,’’ ait, ‘‘deus, ecce deus!’’ cui talia fanti |

dilapsus color atque in ventos vita recessit. |

Cento Nuptialis, ed. R. P. H. Green

Praefatio
Accipite haec animis laetasque advertite mentes, |
ambo animis, ambo insignes praestantibus armis, |
ambo florentes, | genus insuperabile bello: |
tuque prior | (nam te maioribus ire per altum)
auspiciis manifesta fides), | quo iustior alter 5

nec pietate fuit nec bello maior et armis, |

tuque puerque tuus, | magnae spes altera Romae, |
flos veterum virtusque virum, | mea maxima cura, |
nomine avum referens, animo manibusque parentem. |
non iniussa cano. | sua cuique exorsa laborem 10

fortunamque ferent; | mihi iussa capessere fas est. |

Cena Nuptialis
exspectata dies aderat | dignisque hymenaeis
matres atque viri, | iuvenes ante ora parentum |
conveniunt stratoque super discumbitur ostro.
dant famuli manibus lymphas | onerantque canistris 15

dona laboratae Cereris | pinguisque ferinae |

viscera tosta ferunt. | series longissima rerum: |
alituum pecudumque genus | capreaeque sequaces |
non absunt illic | neque oves haedique petulci |
et genus aequoreum, | dammae cervique fugaces. | 20

ante oculos interque manus sunt | mitia poma. |

postquam exempta fames et amore compressus edendi, |
crateras magnos statuunt | Bacchumque ministrant. |
sacra canunt, | plaudunt choreas et carmina dicunt. |
nec non Threicius longa cum veste sacerdos 25

obloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum. |

at parte ex alia | biforem dat tibia cantum. |
omnibus una quies operum | cunctique relictis
148 APPENDIX

consurgunt mensis, | per limina laeta frequentes |

discurrunt variantque vices, | populusque patresque, | 30

matronae, pueri, | vocemque per ampla volutant

atria; dependent lynchi laquearibus aureis. |

Descriptio Egrendientis Sponsae

tandem progreditur | Veneris iustissima cura, |
iam matura viro, iam plenis nubilis annis, |
virginis os habitumque gerens, | cui plurimus ignem 35

subiecit rubor et calefacta per ora cucurrit, |

intentos volvens oculos, | uritque videndo. |
illam omnis tectis agrisque effusa iiuventus
turbaque miratur matrum. | vestigia primi
alba pedis, | dederatque comam diffundere ventis. | 40

fert picturatas auri subtemine vestes, |

ornatus Argivae Helenae | <qualisque videri>
caelicolis et quanta solet | Venus aurea contra, |
talis erat species, | talem se laeta ferebat |
ad soceros | solioque alte subnixa resedit. | 45

Descriptio Egredientis Sponsi

at parte ex alia | foribus sese intulit altis |
ora puer prima signans intonsa iuventa, |
pictus acu chlamydem | auratam, quam plurima circum
purpura maeandro duplici Meliboea cucurrit, |
et tunicam, molli mater quam neverat auro: | 50

os umerosque deo similis | lumenque iuventae. |

qualis, ubi Oceani perfusus Lucifer unda |
extulit os sacrum caelo, | sic ora ferebat, |
sic oculos, | cursuque amens ad limina tendit. |
illum turbat amor figitque in virgine vultus: | 55

oscula libavit | dextramque amplexus inhaesit. |

Oblatio Munerum
incedunt pueri pariterque ante ora parentum |
dona ferunt, | pallam signis auroque rigentem, |
munera portantes, aurique eborisque talenta
et sellam | et pictum croceo velamen acantho, | 60

ingens argentum mensis | colloque monile

bacatum et duplicem gemmis auroque coronam. |
olli serva datur | geminique sub ubere nati, |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 149

quattuor hic iuvenes, totidem | innuptaeque puellae. |

omnibus in morem tonsa coma: | pectore summo 65

flexilis obtorti per collum circulus auri. |

Epithalamium Utrique
tum studio effusae matres | ad limina ducunt. |
at chorus aequalis | pueri innuptaeque puellae |
versibus incomptis ludunt | et carmina dicunt: |
‘‘o digna coniuncta viro, | gratissima coniunx, | 70

sis felix, | primos Lucinae experta labores, |

et mater. cape Maeonii carchesia Bacchi. |
sparge, marite, nuces, | cinge haec altaria vitta, |
flos veterum virtusque virum: | tibi ducitur uxor, |
omnes ut tecum meritis pro talibus annos 75

exigat et pulchra faciat te prole parentem. |

fortunati ambo, | si quid pia numina possunt; |
vivite felices. | dixerunt ‘currite’ fusis
concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae.’’ |

Ingressus in Cubiculum
postquam est in thalami pendentia pumice tecta 80

perventum, | licito tandem sermone fruuntur. |

congressi iungunt dextras | stratisque reponunt. |
at Cytherea novas artes | et pronuba Iuno |
sollicitat suadetque ignota lacessere bella. |
ille ubi complexu | molli fovet, atque repente 85

accepit solitam flammam | lectumque iugalem |

* * * *
‘‘o virgo, nova mi facies, | gratissima coniunx, |
venisti tandem, | mea sola et sera voluptas. |
o dulcis coniunx, non haec sine numine divum |
proveniunt. | placitone etiam pugnabis amori?’’ | 90

talia dicentem iamdududum aversa tuetur |

cunctaturque metu telumque instare tremiscit |
spemque metumque inter | funditque has ore loquelas: |
‘‘per te, per, qui te talem genuere, parentes, |
o formose puer, | noctem non amplius unam | 95

hanc tu, oro, solare inopem | et miserere precantis. |

succidimus; non lingua valet, non corpore notae
sufficiunt vires, nec vox aut verba sequuntur.’’ |
150 APPENDIX

ille autem, ‘‘causas nequiquam nectis inanes,’’ |

praecipitatque moras omnis | solvitque pudorem. | 100

Imminutio
postquam congressi | sola sub nocte per umbram |
et mentem Venus ipsa dedit, | nova proelia temptant. |
tollit se arrectum, | conantem plurima frustra |
occupat os faciemque, | pedem pede fervidus urget. |
perfidus alta petens | ramum, qui veste latebat, | 105

sanguineis ebuli bacis minioque rubentem |

nudato capite | et pedibus per mutua nexis, |
monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum, |
eripit a femore et trepidanti fervidus instat. |
est in secessu, | tenuis quo semita ducit, | 110

ignea rima micans; | exhalat opaca mephitim. |

nulli fas casto sceleratum insistere limen. |
hic specus horrendum: | talis sese halitus atris
faucibus effundens | nares contingit odore. |
huc iuvenis nota fertur regione viarum | 115

et super incumbens | nodis et cordice crudo

intorquet summis adnixus viribus hastam. |
haesit virgineumque alte bibit acta cruorem. |
insonuere cavae gemitumque dedere cavernae. |
illa manu moriens telum trahit, ossa sed inter | 120

altius ad vivum persedit | vulnere mucro. |

ter sese attollens cubitoque innixa levavit,
ter revoluta toro est; | manet imperterritus ille. |
nec mora nec requies, | clavumque affixus et haerens
nusquam amittebat oculosque sub astra tenebat. | 125

itque reditque viam totiens | uteroque recusso |

transadigit costas | et pectine pulsat eburno. |
iamque fere spatio extremo fessique sub ipsam
finem adventabant: | tum creber anhelitus artus
aridaque ora quatit, sudor fluit undique rivis, | 130

labitur exanguis, | destillat ab inguine virus. |

Epithalamium Fridi, ed. Heinz Happ

Sol, qui terrarum flammis opera omnia lustrat, |
extulit os sacrum caelo tenebrasque resolvit. |
TEXTS OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND SECULAR CENTOS 151

laetitia ludisque viae plausuque fremebant. |

at Venus aetherios inter dea candida nimbos |
aurea subnectens exertae cingula mammae, | 5

dona ferens, | pacem aeternam pactosque hymenaeos |

atque omnem ornatum, | Capitolia celsa tenebat, |
Punica regna videns, Tyrios et Agenoris urbem. |
hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades | et bona Iuno; |
incedunt | pariter pariterque | ad limina tendunt, | 10

tectum augustum ingens, centum sublime columnis, |

quo sacrae sedes epulis, | atque ordine longo |
perpetuis soliti patres considere mensis. |
una omnes, | magna iuvenum stipante caterva, |
deveniunt | faciemque deae vestemque reponunt. | 15

dant signum, fulsere ignes et conscius aether

conubii, | mediisque parant convivia mensis. |
fit strepitus tectis vocemque per ampla volutant
atria, | ubi adsuetis biforem dat tibia cantum. |
at tuba terribilem sonitum procul aere canoro 20

increpuit | mollitque animos et temperat iras. |

it clamor caelo, | cithara crinitus Iopas |
obloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum,
iamque eadem digitis, iam pectine pulsat eburno. |
nec non et Tyrii per limina laeta frequentes 25

convenere, toris iussi discumbere pictis. |

tunc Venus | aligerum dictis affatur Amorem:
‘‘nate, meae vires, meae magna potentia solus, |
huc geminas nunc flecte acies, | illam aspice contra,
quae vocat | insignis facie | viridique iuventa, | 30

iam matura viro, iam plenis nubilis annis, |

cui genus a proavis ingens clarumque paternae
nomen inest virtutis | et nota maior imago. |
hoc opus, hic labor est: | thalamos ne desere pactos! |
crede equidem, | nova mi facies inopinave surgit. | 35

nonne vides, | quantum egregio decus enitet ore? |

os humerosque deo similis, | cui lactea colla
auro innectuntur, | crines nodantur in aurum,
aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem; |
qualis gemma micat, | qualis Nereia Doto 40

et Galatea secant spumantem pectore pontum. |

cura mihi comitumque foret nunc una mearum! |
152 APPENDIX

hanc ego nunc ignaram huius quodcumque pericli est, |

cum tacet omnis ager, | noctem non amplius unam |
conubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo. 45

hic Hymenaeus erit | monumentum et pignus amoris. |

incipe si qua animo virtus, et consere dextram, |
occultum inspires ignem | paribusque regamus
auspiciis: liceat Frido servire marito, |
cui natam egregio genero dignisque hymenaeis 50

dat pater et pacem hanc aeterno foedere iungit.’’ |

paret Amor dictis carae genetricis et alas
exuit et gressu gaudens | sic ore locutus: |
‘‘mecum erit iste labor; | si quid mea numina possunt, |
cum dabit amplexus atque oscula dulcia figet | 55

inmiscentque manus manibus pugnamque lacessunt, |

nusquam abero, | solitam flammam | (datur hora quieti) |
desuper infundam et, | tua si mihi certa voluntas, |
omnia praecepi animo mecum ante peregi. |
sentiet!’’ | atque animum praesenti pignore firmat. | 60

illa autem (neque enim fuga iam super ulla pericli est) |
cogitur et supplex animos summittere amori, |
spemque dedit dubiae menti solvitque pudorem. |
illum turbat amor; | ramum qui veste latebat |
eripit a femine et flagranti fervidus infert. | 65

it cruor inque humeros cervix conlapsa recumbit. |

his demum exactis | geminam dabit Ilia prolem, |
laeta deum partu, centum conplexa nepotes. |
 Notes

INTRODUCTION
1. ‘‘Cento’’ comes from k
entron, meaning ‘‘needle,’’ and thus a ‘‘piece of nee-
dlework.’’ The word cento is also part of the proverbial phrase centones sarcire (see Plaut.
Epid. 455), meaning ‘‘to spin a yarn,’’ as M. D. Usher notes, Homeric Stitchings: The
Homeric Centos of the Empress Eudocia (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), 1–2.
For an overview of the Virgilian cento, see, e.g., Rosa Lamacchia, EV 1, 733–737, s. v.
‘‘Centoni,’’ Vittorio Tandoi, EV 1, 199–200, s. v. ‘‘Antologia Latina,’’ and Giovanni Sal-
anitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2336–2356.
2. No cento contains material taken from the poems of the Appendix Vergiliana.
3. The reason for the rarity of longer citations of Virgil is that they were deemed
too easy to execute, as Ausonius relates in his poetics of the cento (more on this passage
in chapter 1).
4. At least two Virgilian centos fail to survive from antiquity. In the De Prae-
scriptione Haereticorum 39.3–4, Tertullian mentions the first, as he refers to an unnamed
propinquus who adapted Virgil to retell the Pinax of Cebes. The second is the emperor
Valentinian’s epithalamium, in response to which Ausonius wrote his Cento Nuptialis
(more on this topic in chapters 1 and 5). This suggests that there were other Virgilian
centos in antiquity that go unpreserved—surely the Pinax and Valentinian’s work are not
the only patchwork texts that have been lost—and unmentioned. It is uncertain whether
Q. Glitius Felix, identified as a Vergilianus poeta (CIL 6.638, 639), was a centonist, as
Domenico Comparetti contends, Vergil in the Middle Ages, trans. E.F.M. Benecke
(1895; reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 54–55 n. 18. Felix may
have been a master of Virgilian verse paraphrases or ethopoeiae, as Martin von Schanz
and Carl Hosius suggest, Geschichte der Römischen Literatur, 3 vols. (Munich: C. H.
Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1959), 2:99 n. 2, or one who sought to approximate
Virgilian style. The reference to a poeta Ovidianus on another inscription (CIL 10.6127)
is equally ambiguous. There is no proof that this figure was an Ovidian centonist; he may
have simply written pieces in the manner of Ovid. Among writers working in Greek, 
Areios, a poet in the age of Hadrian, signed a cento graffito with the words ‘OmZrikou

poiZtou e’ k Mouse
iou, which suggests a link between his method of composing the
graffito and the title ‘‘Homeric poet.’’ Yet Areios may have also been a rhapsode, as Usher
suggests, Homeric Stitchings, 28; this, rather than the ability to write a commemorative
Homeric cento, may have been the reason for his moniker. Virgilian centos have con-
tinued to be written into the modern period. Octave Delepierre, ed., Tableau de la
154 NOTES TO PAGES XIII–XVI

littérature du centon, 2 vols. (London: Trubner, 1875), gathers many examples from
antiquity into the nineteenth century, and Paul F. Distler, Vergil and Vergiliana (Chi-
cago: Loyola University Press, 1966), 159–160, discusses the Virgilian cento of Louis
Veuillot (1813–1883), which told the story of the Magi. Centos have also taken nu-
merous authors as their sources and been written in numerous languages. Salanitro,
ANRW 2.34.3, 2325–2333, gives an overview of Greek examples from antiquity. Paul K.
Saint–Amour, The Copywrights: Intellectual Property and the Literary Imagination
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), 41–47, meanwhile, discusses the en-
thusiasm for centos (and their close cousin mosaic poetry, or texts made up of lines from
numerous authors) in Victorian England, and offers an appendix of nineteenth–century
English centos (221–233). Finally, David R. Slavitt, trans., Ausonius: Three Amusements
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 46–75, has recently translated
Ausonius’s obscene cento passage (more on this in chapter 5) using lines of Shakespeare.
(Obviously, I give here representative examples, not exhaustive ones.)
5. I follow Robert A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and
Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 415, s. v.
‘‘Luxurius,’’ and Heinz Happ, ed. and comm., Luxurius, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Teubner,
1986), in spelling the name of the author ‘‘Luxurius,’’ rather than Morris Rosenblum, ed.,
trans., and comm., Luxorius: A Latin Poet Among the Vandals (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1961), who uses ‘‘Luxorius’’ (see Rosenblum 37). I find Happ’s argu-
ment (1:142–158) that the ancient evidence (particularly orthographical) makes Lux-
urius preferable to Luxorius convincing.
6. The name Mavortius is based on a conjectural reading in a passage attached
to the De Ecclesia (AL 16a R); see note 63 in chapter 1.
7. The temporal borders of late antiquity (a scholarly construct, of course) re-
main fluid; I set them at ca. 200 and ca. 534, the dates within which the Virgilian centos
were most likely written.
8. Among the extensive bibliography on this topic, Sabine MacCormack, The
Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998), is a recent and important work.
9. In approaching the centos in this way, I apply the ‘‘weak thesis’’ of how we
can use reception presented by Charles Martindale, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and
the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 7, ‘‘that
numerous unexplored insights into ancient literature are locked up in imitations,
translations, and so forth.’’
10. It would be possible to devote a study to technical aspects of cento composition—
e.g., those of meter and syntax. Perhaps too one could focus on what the centos potentially
disclose about the state(s) of Virgil’s text in antiquity—that is, one could approach from the
perspective of Virgilian textual criticism the deviations in the centos’ units from the usual
readings of Virgil, or the links between a unit in a cento and an alternative reading in some
manuscripts (though there might not be quite enough here to support an entire mono-
graph). My interests in this book, however, for the most part lie elsewhere.
11. I do not mean to imply here that the Christian centos are unworthy of
exclusive attention. Those texts also could support a monograph, though as I noted
earlier, their coloration and the issues that they raise often differ from those of the
mythological and secular texts. My point is simply that the centos with which I am
concerned very much warrant a book–length study in their own right.
NOTES TO PAGES XVI–XVII 155

12. For an overview of the Homeric cento, see Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2325–2332.
13. Lucian (Lapith. 17) reports that the grammarian Histaios composed the centos
on Pindar and Anacreon. It may be that there was also a Euripidean cento composed in
antiquity, the Christus Patiens, which also occasionally incorporates lines from Aeschylus
and Lycophron, as Salanitro notes, ANRW 2.34.3, 2333. While this poem has been dated
to the fourth century and been ascribed to Gregory of Nazianzus, it is usually thought by
contemporary scholars to date to the eleventh or twelfth century, however.
14. Ut Ovidius ex tetrastichon Macri carmine librum in malos poetas composuerit
(Quint., Inst. Orat. 6.3.96). Whether this Macer was Ovid’s friend and fellow poet (see
AA 2.18, Pont. 2.10 and 4.16.6) is uncertain; on this topic, see Peter White, Promised
Verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1993), 243–244. Presumably, either Ovid was teasing his friend in using his
verses to write about bad poets, or this was another Macer who was himself a bad poet.
The codex Salmasianus also preserves a poem of uncertain date (though its terminus ante
quem is ca. 534) consisting of two fragments of the Ars Amatoria woven together in the
manner of a cento (AA 3.65–66, 73–74; AL 263 SB).
15. In antiquity, Tertullian (De Praescr. Haer. 39.3–4) and Jerome (Ep. 53.7)
discuss the patchwork form in conjunction with Homer and Virgil alone. Isidore of
Seville (Etym. 1.39.26) also notes that grammarians define the form with reference only
to the two poets. The critics’ testimonies suggest either that they knew only of Homeric
and Virgilian centos, or that the ancients characterized the poems as Homeric and
Virgilian works, despite the scattered existence of centos from other authors.
16. The late fifth-century African poet Dracontius, for example, invokes the
numina of Homer and Virgil to aid him in composing the miniature epic De Raptu
Helenae (Rom. 16–23). This gesture reveals how Homer and Virgil were still linked late
in antiquity as the representatives of the Greek and Latin epic tradition, respectively.
17. Tertullian mentions the centonized Pinax (noted earlier) and one of the
centos examined in this study, the Medea, while Jerome seems to be aware and critical of
Proba’s Christian cento (on this topic, see, e.g., M. D. Usher, ‘‘Prolegomenon to the
Homeric Centos,’’ AJP 118.2 [1997]: 317–318).
18. Irenaeus also discusses a Homeric cento on Heracles in these terms. In the
centonist’s act of altering original meaning so that a text relates what a later author wants
it to relate, Irenaeus sees a parallel to the Gnostics’ heretical exegesis of the Bible.
Moreover, just as an unsuspecting audience member might see the cento as Homer’s
own text, so too one can be taken in by the Gnostics’ interpretations and see them as
inhering in the Bible (Adv. Haer. 1.9.4). On Irenaeus’s comments, see Robert L. Wilken,
‘‘The Homeric Cento in Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.9.4,’’ Vigiliae Christianae 21.1
(1967): 25–33.
19. Isidore of Seville, meanwhile, appears to criticize Proba’s pursuit of recasting
the Bible as a cento, though at the same time he praises her skill at centonizing (non
miramur studium, sed laudamus ingenium, De Vir. Ill. 18.22). Like Tertullian and Jer-
ome, Isidore’s critique thus appears to be connected to issues of Christianity. Far from
disparaging the form, moreover, Isidore actually expresses some admiration for the talent
that a centonist displays.
20. Another sharply unfavorable response to the Cento Probae in antiquity may
come from Pope Gelasius I, who in 493 may have declared a cento, perhaps Proba’s
(though she is not mentioned by name), to be apocryphal (centimetrum de Christo,
156 NOTES TO PAGE XVII

Virgilianis compaginatum versibus, apocryphum. Yet Ernst von Dobschütz, ed., Decretum
Gelasianum De Libris Recipiendis et Non Recipiendis (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1912),
343–344 and 352, argues that the document is not Gelasius’s, nor is it even papal or a
decree. Such a message, irrespective of its provenance, is also not an attack on the cento
form but on its application to or handling of biblical material.
21. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, ed., Anthologia Latina I.1 (Stuttgart: Teubner,
1982), iii, refuses even to include the centos in his edition of the Latin Anthology, and he
derides the form: ‘‘Centones Vergiliani (Riese 7–18), opprobria litterarum, neque ope
critica multum indigent neque is sum qui vati reverendo denuo haec edendo con-
tumeliam imponere sustineam.’’ Likewise, Hugh G. Evelyn-White, ed., Ausonius, 2 vols.
(London: William Heinemann, 1919–1921), 1:xvii, labels Ausonius’s cento a ‘‘literary
outrage.’’ (This may be due to the pornographic nature of the work’s concluding section,
however, and so may not express general distaste for the form.) Comparetti, Vergil, 53, is
similarly severe (see note 52 hereafter), while Henri de Lubac, Exégèse Médiévale: Les
quatre sens de l’ écriture, 4 vols. (Paris: Aubier, 1959–64), 2:245, sniffs that the cento is a
‘‘genre absurde.’’ The mythological, secular, and Christian Virgilian centos have received
a fair amount of evenhanded attention in Italy, however. Along with Filippo Ermini, Il
centone di Proba e la poesia centonaria latina (Rome: Ermanno Loescher, 1909), and
Salanitro’s entry in ANRW 2.34.3, important are Rosa Lamacchia, ‘‘Problemi di inter-
pretazione semantica in un centone virgiliano,’’ Maia 10 (1958): 161–188, ‘‘Dall’ arte
allusiva al centone,’’ Atene e Roma 3 (1958): 193–216, and ed., Hosidius Geta: Medea
Cento Vergilianus (Leipzig: Teubner), 1981, and Giovanni Polara, ‘‘I centoni,’’ in Lo
spazio letterario di Roma antica, 5 vols., ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, Paolo Fedeli, and Andrea
Giardina (Rome: Salerno, 1990), 3:245–275. Studies in German also exist, notably
Reinhart Herzog, Bibelepik I (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1975), 14–35. (No work in any
language, however, provides a comprehensive book–length survey of all sixteen centos,
nor of the twelve mythological and secular texts together.) I should note that Usher,
Homeric Stitchings, examines without rancor and with sophistication the Homeric centos
of the empress Eudocia. (There remains some doubt as to the authorship of all those
centos; in an essay to be published in David Scourfield, ed., Texts and Culture in Late
Antiquity: Inheritance, Authority, and Change, (Classical Press of Wales), Mary Whitby
summarizes this topic well.)
22. Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 3, refers to the denunciations brought on by ‘‘the
censorship of a klassizistischen Ästhetik’’ that the cento has endured. W. R. Johnson,
‘‘Problems of the Counter–Classical Sensibility and Its Critics,’’ CSCA 7 (1970): 123–
152, discusses the counterclassical sensibility in ancient literature generally and the
resistance to it among scholars (resistance that has abated since Johnson’s article).
23. Thus Eduard Stemplinger, Das Plagiat in der Griechischen Literatur (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1912), 193–195, discusses the Homeric cento in a book on plagiarism in the
Greek tradition; he does not, however, come out and call the cento a form of plagiarism.
As Theodor Verweyen and Gunther Witting, ‘‘The Cento. A Form of Intertextuality from
Montage to Parody,’’ in Intertextuality, ed. Heinrich F. Plett (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991),
172, show, Laurence Sterne playfully equates centos and plagiarism in Tristram Shandy.
24. It may be tempting to consider the centos in light of the postmodern concern
with pastiche. Yet pastiche and cento composition differ in a fundamental way. Whereas
pastiche has been seen to rest upon the idea that there is no master discourse behind the
endless fragmentation of cultural artifacts (so Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the
NOTES TO PAGES XVIII 157

Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism [Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991], 17), the
centos establish Virgil’s language (though not, of course, Virgil’s content) as a master
discourse that begets new cultural artifacts. That is, the centrality of Virgil leads to the
centonizing of his poetry; and the fact that Virgil’s poetry is manipulable does not diminish
its status as a master discourse, out of which the centos spring and against which they
operate. A better term to describe the cento would seem to be bricolage, since the
patchwork form combines the old and the new, and in it the canonical and noncanonical
coexist in unpredictable ways—traits that mark the cult of bricolage, as Mihály Szegedy–
Maszák suggests, Literary Canons: National and International, Studies in Modern Phi-
lology no. 16 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2001), 22. Even so, I resist using that term,
simply because I do not think that, with its strongly and specifically contemporary political
and cultural implications, it helps us to understand any more deeply the peculiarities of the
ancient cento and how it works (whereas other modern critical concepts do).
25. The term open work comes from Umberto Eco, The Open Work, trans. Anna
Cancogni (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), though I modify its
definition here.
26. A representative work connected to this topic is Philip Hardie, The Epic
Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993), who discusses how the Aeneid challenged later epic writers in
antiquity to rework and in the process to reinterpret its themes.
27. Augustine (De Civ. Dei 1.13) provides a late antique notice about how Virgil
remained an essential school author, as does Macrobius (Sat. 1.24.5–6). The central
place of Virgil in the schools of grammar is beyond doubt; of the many pieces of evidence
that confirm it, see, e.g., Martial, Ep. 5.56.3–5, who associates Virgil with the gram-
matical schools and Cicero with the rhetorical schools. That the ancients connected
Virgilian poetry to the study of rhetoric finds confirmation in Tacitus (Dial. 12), who
elsewhere (Dial. 20) also links Horace and Lucan to rhetorical study. Macrobius (Sat.
3.11.9, book 4) attests to the understanding in late antiquity that Virgil offered guidance
in rhetoric. On Roman education generally, see Henri I. Marrou, A History of Education
in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (New York: Mentor Books, 1956), 229–329, and
Stanley F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome from the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). J.H.V.G. Liebeschuetz, The Decline and
Fall of the Roman City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 318-319 discusses the
spotty survival of traditional education in the West in the fifth and sixth centuries.
28. As Michael Roberts relates, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late
Antiquity, Classical and Medieval Texts, Reports, and Monographs no. 16 (Liverpool:
Francis Cairns, 1985), 22 n. 58, the ethopoeia was defined as m
imZsiB
‘
ZyouB upokeim
enou
˛

pros
opou by Hermogenes (Prog. 9) and by Aphthonius 11. As with many such terms,
however, there is some confusion as to the name of the exercise among the ancient sources,
as Theon calls the exercise prosopopoeia. Other rhetoricians limited the latter term to
speeches given by impersonal agents or by the dead (see Quint. Inst. Orat. 9.2.31). The
Latin word for the exercise is sermocinatio.
29. On Servius’s approach to Virgil generally, see Kaster, Guardians, 169–196. To
see how students in schools of grammar were asked (or compelled) to treat Virgil, see
Priscian’s enarratio of the opening of Aeneid 1 (Keil, 3.459–515). This document makes
one understand why a teacher had to be plagosus in order to sustain the attention of
students.
158 NOTES TO PAGES XVIII–XIX

30. These Servian themata seem intended for the schools of rhetoric, rather than
for the schools of grammar. As exercises in the rhetorical schools, the themata would be
linked to the controversia that also appear in Servius’s note.
31. The word in here would seem simply to express the subject of the speech or
writing (see OLD 17b). There is no indication that the preposition has a hostile meaning,
i.e., that these declamations were written in a way that opposed or criticized the Virgilian
material.
32. A. S. Wilkins, Roman Education (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1905), 74–75, argues that there was likely to have been some sort of instruction in verse
writing in the schools. Like Quintilian, however, Pliny (Ep. 7.9.9–10) recommends that
students write verse only as recreation.
33. Surviving from third- or fourth-century Egypt (Papiri Grecie e Latini 2.142) is
a hexameter paraphrase of Aen. 1.453–493. Its author, however, is anonymous, and we
do not know whether he was a student or an adult Virgilian versifier.
34. As Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic
and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 225, notes. Cribiore
discusses the presence of verse exercises in the rhetorical schools of Hellenistic and
Roman Egypt, 230.
35. Potentially relevant here are the brief poems that Ennodius attaches to Dictio
12, 24, and 28. There are also examples of declamations in verse: AL 8 SB (a con-
troversia), and Dracontius, Rom. 4 (an ethopoeia on Hercules) and 5 (a controversia).
Whether such versifying reflects activities in the rhetorical schools is uncertain.
36. Alexander Riese, ed., Anthologia Latina I.1 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1894), xiii,
dates the Salmasianus to the seventh or eighth century. Maddalena Spallone, ‘‘Il
Par. Lat. 10318 (Salmasiano): Dal manoscritto alto–medievale ad una raccolta en-
ciclopedica tardo–antica,’’ IMU 25 (1982): 36–49, meanwhile, dates it to the end of the
eighth or beginning of the ninth century. In his edition of the Anthologia Latina,
Shackleton Bailey, v, says (rightly for my purposes, at least) that the answer to this
question ‘‘parvi refert.’’
37. The codex Salmasianus is named after Claude de Saumaise (1588–1653), who
discovered the manuscript. A terminus post quem for the anthology may be set at 523, since
a poem in the Salmasianus (AL 194 SB) by Luxurius mentions Hilderic, who came to
power in that year. Because the compilation contains poems in honor of the Vandals, such
as Felix’s poems on Thrasamund’s baths (AL 201–203 SB) and Florentinus’s hexameters in
praise of Thrasamund (In Laudem Regis [AL 371 SB]), it would seem that the collection
must have been gathered before 534, when Belisarius defeated the forces of Gelimer, the
last of the Vandal kings. On the dating of the original collection, see Rosenblum, Luxorius,
28, and A. J. Baumgartner, Untersuchungen zur Anthologie des Codex Salmasianus (Baden:
Druckerei Köpfli, 1981), 67. As Eva Matthews Sanford relates, ‘‘Classical Latin Authors in
the Libri Manuales,’’ TAPA 55 (1924): 203, the Salmasianus, which Sanford identifies as a
liber manualis, contains along with the collection of poems ‘‘a computus; nomina con-
dimentroum utilium; sententiae; psuedo–Seneca; de remediis fortuitorum; Honorius,
cosmographia; excerpts from Pliny the Elder and Apuleius.’’
38. Having argued against identifying this figure as Octavianus, all of sixteen
years of age (a suggestion that Baehrens made), Rosenblum, Luxorius, 31–32, is tempted
to make Faustus, to whom Luxurius dedicates his collection of epigrams, the compiler.
As Rosenblum himself notes, however, there is no sure proof of this.
NOTES TO PAGES XIX–XXI 159

39. The title Anthologia Latina denotes collections made by modern editors, not
by a compiler in antiquity.
40. See Kaster, Guardians, 397–398, s. v. ‘‘Coronatus.’’
41. Thus Levy, RE 13.2103.23–29 and 2104.29–42, considers Coronatus a gram-
marian. Rosenblum, Luxorius, 21, identifies Coronatus as a grammarian also on the basis of the
dedicatory letter to his Luxurius that prefaces his treatise on final syllables, in which Coronatus
calls Luxurius an inlustris frater. The assumption is that Luxurius was himself a grammarian, and
that the term ‘‘brother’’ refers to the fact that he and Coronatus shared a profession. Kaster,
Guardians, 397–398, s. v. ‘‘Coronatus,’’ voices strong doubts about Coronatus’s ties to profes-
sional grammatical instruction, however, as well as Luxurius’s (415–417).
42. See Shackleton Bailey, Anthologia, 159: ‘‘Versum Vergilianum (Aen. 3,315) ab eo
qui titulum fecit ingestum puto. Nam quae sequuntur in Aeneae ore posita ad Aen.
5.604sqq., i.e., classem Troianam a Troianis matribus incensam, spectare mihi satis liquet.’’
43. The ms. is P (Parisinus 9344), which Riese, Anthologia, 149, places in the
eleventh century.
44. Shackleton Bailey, Anthologia, 11, explains why he does so in the apparatus
criticus to AL 2.
45. Leofranc Holford–Strevens, Aulus Gellius (London: Duckworth, 1988), 61–
62, examines whether this Sulpicius was the same person as C. Sulpicius Apollinaris (the
answer is a tentative yes), as well as why pseudo–Probus ascribes the epigram to Servius
Varus (a probable misnomer). Holford–Strevens contends that the Sulpicius who wrote
the Virgilian argumenta is a different person from the Sulpicius Carthaginiensis in the
VSD, and so from C. Sulpicius Apollinaris, author of the periochae in twelve senarii for
Terence’s comedies. (Even if Sulpicius Carthaginiensis and C. Sulpicius Apollinaris are
different people, I agree with Holford–Strevens, 61, that the Virgilian argumenta ‘‘are too
inept, in style and sense alike, for Apollinaris.’’)
46. So Holford–Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 61, describes the preface, rightly in my view.
47. By Anne Friedrich, Das Symposium der XII Sapientes (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002).
48. Also worth noting are the summaries in prose of the Iliad and Odyssey (with
short poems translating the opening line or lines of each book) attributed to Ausonius.
R.P.H. Green, ed. and comm., The Works of Ausonius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991),
677, argues against their authenticity, however, a position consistent with general schol-
arly opinion.
49. So Gabriella Senis, EV 1, 311–312, s.v. ‘‘argumenta Vergiliana,’’ argues.
Comparetti, Vergil, 152, also proposes a link between the argumenta and the schools.
50. This is so of Ausonius and of Luxurius. We know nothing of the biographies
of the other named centonists. The fact that the authors all could negotiate the demands
of the cento form, however, lends a fortiori support to the belief that they were educated.
51. Ausonius had been a grammaticus and a rhetor in Bordeaux (though he was
no longer a school teacher when he composed his cento ca. 374, having come to Va-
lentinian’s court to tutor Gratian). As I mentioned in note 41, Kaster argues against the
idea that Luxurius was a teacher, however.
52. Critics have noted the connection between the centonists and the schools,
usually with scorn. The tart statement of Comparetti, Vergil, 53, that ‘‘such ‘centos’ could
only have arisen among people who had learnt Virgil mechanically and did not know of
any better use to which to put all these verses with which they had loaded their brains’’
represents a typical response.
160 NOTES TO PAGES XXI–XXIII

53. On the Christian side of things, there may be another connection between the
schools and the centos. A. G. Amatucci, Storia della Latina Cristiana (Bari: G. Laterza,
1929), 147 and R.P.H. Green, ‘‘Proba’s Cento: Its Date, Purpose, and Reception,’’ CQ
45.2 (1995): 554–560, have argued that Julian’s edict of June 17, 362, forbidding
Christians from teaching in schools of grammar and rhetoric, occasioned the Cento Pro-
bae. In this reading, the edict led Proba to take the language of the school text par
excellence and fit it to Christian content, thereby creating a new Virgilian textbook for the
instruction of Christian students. This interpretation of events is by no means certain,
however, nor does it explain the existence of the three other Christian Virgilian centos.
Two of them, the anonymous Versus and Gratiam Domini and De Verbi Incarnatione,
appear to imitate Proba, because of certain patterns of citations of Virgil (though identi-
fying inter-cento imitation is perilous), and so to postdate her. If this is so, Julian’s de-
cree, which was very short-lived if applied widely at all, would have presumably had
no bearing on those two centos. At any rate, there would have been only a very small
window in which Julian’s edict could have potentially been relevant to the composition of
the three Christian centos besides the Cento Probae; and this makes that possibility very
remote.
54. See, e.g., Macr. Sat. 1.16.12.
55. Christian writers also quoted Virgil frequently in all of these ways.
56. Again, this happens frequently in Christian texts. Because my interest in is in
non–Christian centos, however, I focus in the body of the introduction on non–Christian
works. I should add here that the sortes Vergilianae are a strange cousin of this practice.
The sortes are first mentioned when Hadrian, concerned about Trajan’s feelings toward
him, opened the Aeneid at random to 6.808–812 and took the line as a prophecy (see HA
Spart., Had. 2.7–9). Those who quote Virgil’s verba and adapt his res are unconcerned
with such divination, and they reuse the verses differently from the Virgilian soothsayers.
Even so, the sortes, in which readers isolate and adapt the significance of individual
Virgilian verses to their own experiences, are not entirely foreign to that phenomenon. A
reference to a sortes also appears in HA Ael. Lampr., Alex. Sev. 14.5. HA Treb. Poll.,
Claud. 10.5–6, moreover, mentions a Virgil-quoting oracle.
57. Nicholas Horsfall, ‘‘Virgil’s Impact at Rome: The Non-Literary Evidence,’’ in
A Companion to the Study of Virgil, ed. Nicholas Horsfall (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 251–252,
discusses this phenomenon, emphasizing that graffiti in Pompey found in gladiatorial
barracks, a brothel, and an ironmonger’s shop point to the performance of Virgil in
theaters, where the humble citizen would become familiar with his poetry. See too
Comparetti, Vergil, 26.
58. See also Sen., Suas. 3.4–5, who notes that Arellius Fuscus ex Vergilio multa
trahere, ut Maecenati imputaret. This seems to mean that he imitated and paraphrased
Virgil rather than that he quoted him, however.
59. There is another comic performance of Virgilian poetry in Satyricon 68, by
Habinnas’s slave during the cena Trimalchionis. This involved interspersing lines in
Aeneid 5 with Atellan verses.
60. See Dio 76.10.2. HA Ael. Lampr., Alex. Sev. 4.6, offers another example of
such a quotation of Virgil with regard to Severus, to whom Heliogabalus quotes A.
6.882–883 (on Marcellus).
61. In the same passage, Hadrian is also said to have remarked that the life of
Verus does not admit of A. 6.883–886, where Marcellus is mourned.
NOTES TO PAGES XXIII–1 161

62. See note 57. For other examples of such Virgilian citations in the Historia
Augusta (which I present here rather than in the body of the introduction in the interest
of space), see Ael. Lamp., Ant. Diad. 8.7; Jul. Cap. Gord. Iun. 20.5; and Treb. Poll., Trig.
Tyrran. 24.3–4.
63. Virgilian material appears in both pagan and Christian epitaphs. On the
appearance of Virgil’s poetry in inscriptions generally, see, e.g., Matteo Massaro, EV 1,
669–670, s. v. ‘‘Carmina Latina Epigraphica.’’ The abbreviation B. stands for Franciscus
Buecheler, ed., Carmina Latina Epigraphica I and II (Leipzig: Teubner, 1895–1897),
and L. for Ernestus Lommatzsch, Carmina Latina Epigraphica III (Leipzig: Teubner,
1926).
64. On citations of entire verses of Virgil in inscriptions, see Robertus Petrus
Hoogma, Der Einfluss Vergils auf die Carmina Latina Epigraphica: Eine Studie mit be-
sonderer Berücksichtigung der metrisch-technischen Grundsätze der Entlehnung (Am-
sterdam: North-Holland, 1959), 149–155.
65. In entry 1786, Buecheler, Carmina, 824–825, gives other examples of in-
scriptions that show the ‘‘Vergili studium quod lapidariam musam detinuit et proritauit
omnino.’’
66. As Richard J. Tarrant notes, ‘‘Aspects of Virgil’s Reception in Antiquity,’’ in
The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, ed. Charles Martindale (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 59.
67. A quasi-cento also appears in the Historia Augusta, in the account of the
younger Maximinus. It is said that Fabillus, Maximinus’s teacher, translated into Greek a
three-line poem, the first two of which are A. 8.589 and 8.591, but the third of which
does not appear in the Aeneid (HA Jul. Cap. Max. Iun. 27.4).
68. There are also Virgilian epitaphs in cento form with overt Christian
messages—e.g., sed pater omnipotens, (A. 1.60) oro, miserere lab[orum] / tantorum,
misere(re) animae non dig[na] ferentis (A. 2.143–144) (B. 731, 6–7).
69. A similarly short cento appears in a Christian context in Minucius Felix’s
Octavius 19.2. Felix, arguing that God has no other name but God, pieces together lines
from the Georgics and the Aeneid that, he suggests, point to the same conclusion: idem
[Virgil] alio loco mentem istam et spiritum deum nominat . . . ‘‘deum namque ire per omnes /
terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum (G. 4.221–222) / unde hominum genus
et pecudes, unde imber et ignes’’ (A. 1.743). For a discussion of this passage, see David S.
Wiesen, ‘‘Virgil, Minucius Felix, and the Bible,’’ Hermes 99.1 (1971): 85–87.
70. I echo here Derek Pearsall, Old and Middle English Poetry (London: Rou-
tledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 221, in a different context; cited in Arthur F. Marotti,
Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1995) 136. Gabriella Carbone, ed., trans., and comm., Il centone ‘‘De Alea,’’ Studi
Latini 44 (Naples: Loffredo, 2002) 20–25, discusses Virgil’s place in Roman society
somewhat similarly.

CHAPTER 1
1. To expand on n. 51 in the introduction, Ausonius began his career as a
teacher in Bordeaux, where he remained into middle age, before being summoned to
Valentinian’s court sometime in the mid-360s to tutor Gratian. Ausonius’s imperial
charge later conferred high honors on the poet, even making him consul in 379. On
Ausonius’s academic career, see Alan D. Booth, ‘‘The Academic Career of Ausonius,’’
162 NOTES TO PAGES 4–5

Phoenix 36.4 (1982): 329–343; for a general biography, see Green, Works, xxiv–xxxii and
Agostino Pastorino, ed., Opere di Decimo Magno Ausonio (Torino: Unione Tipografico-
editrice Torinense, 1971), 11–26. Perhaps the most accomplished pieces among Auso-
nius’s vast and varied output are the Moselle and the Bissula.
2. Axius Paulus was Ausonius’s close friend to whom the poet addressed Ep. 2–
8 and dedicated the Bissula. Green, Works, 606, characterizes Paulus as one ‘‘who shared
his [Ausonius’s] delight in Greek and Roman literature,’’ and describes Ausonius’s letters
to him as ‘‘very friendly and spontaneous.’’ On Latin prose prefaces in general, see Tore
Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Conventions, Acta Universitatis Stock-
holmienis, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia 13 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1964).
3. As Green, Works, 518, relates, this letter was sent to Paulus some years after the
composition of the cento ca. 374. I should note that Ausonius demonstrates no familiarity
with the Christian cento, despite the fact that Faltonia Betitia Proba probably composed her
Christian Cento Probae sometime between 354 and 370. Ermini, Centone di Proba, 13,
selects 360 for the composition of the Cento Probae; R. A. Markus, ‘‘Paganism, Christianity,
and the Latin Classics in the Fourth Century,’’ in Latin Literature of the Fourth Century, ed.
J. W. Binns (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), 3, the 350s; and Mario Bonaria,
‘‘Appunti per la storia della tradizione virgiliana nel IV secolo,’’ in Vergiliana: Recherches sur
Virgile, ed. Henry Bardon (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 39, most cautiously, sometime after 353. As
I noted in the introduction, Amatucci, Storia, 147, and Green, ‘‘Proba’s Cento,’’ 551–563,
have suggested that Julian’s edict of June 17, 362, forbidding Christians from teaching in
schools of grammar and rhetoric, occasioned Proba’s work. Danuta Shanzer, ‘‘The Anon-
ymous Carmen Contra Paganos and the Date and Identity of the Centoist Proba,’’ Revue des
Études Augustiniennes 32 (1986): 232–248, meanwhile, argues for a date after the Carmen
Contra Paganos, which, she claims, was written no earlier than 384–385; John Matthews,
‘‘The Poetess Proba and Fourth-Century Rome: Questions of Interpretation,’’ in Institutions,
société, et vie politique dans l’Empire Roman au iv siécle ap. J.-C, ed. Michel Christol,
Segolene Demougin, Yvette Duval, Claude Lepelley, and Luc Pietri (Rome: École Francaise
de Rome, 1992), 277–304, convincingly counters Shanzer.
4. I mainly use the translation of Evelyn-White, Ausonius, 1:371–377, though I
take exception to some of its details (see notes 40 and 45 hereafter), and though I adapt
it in places so that it matches up with Green’s text. (Evelyn-White and Green make some
different textual choices.)
5. On the question of what narratees, both explicit and ostensible, can tell us
about an author’s purposes, see Gerald Prince, ‘‘Introduction to the Study of the Nar-
ratee,’’ in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P.
Tompkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 7–25.
6. I follow Betty Rose Nagle, The Poetics of Exile: Program and Polemic in the
Tristia and Epistulae Ex Ponto of Ovid, Latomus no. 170 (Brussels: Latomus, 1980), 13
n. 67, in defining the term ‘‘poetics’’ not as a systematic theory or doctrine of poetry but
as ‘‘the sum of a given author’s expressions of his own poetic doctrine. An author’s poetics
is his explanation or justification of his work.’’
7. I must call attention to the influence of Usher, Homeric Stitchings, on many
of the themes and details in this chapter. Especially close debts will be acknowledged in
the notes that follow.
8. The line numbers are those given earlier rather than Green’s.
9. In CN 25–26, 75–76, and 97–98.
NOTES TO PAGES 4–5 163

10. There have been some studies of meter in the centos. Carolus Schenkl, ed.,
CSEL 16 (Vindobonae: F. Tempsky, 1888), 531–554, for example, intermittently con-
cerns himself with this issue. Often, however, he seems to want only to locate hiatuses
and metrical vitia like false quantities and lines with too many or too few syllables. The
most complete treatment of the meter of a single cento comes from Rosa Lamacchia,
‘‘Metro e ritmo nella ‘Medea’ di Osidio Geta,’’ SIFC 41 (1959): 175–206. It would
certainly be possible to examine such things as enjambement, patterns of caesura and
dieresis and their relationships to the cuts the centonists make, and the interactions
between pauses and word order in lines containing more than one unit. Yet as I said in
note 10 of the introduction, my interests in this book take me elsewhere.
11. Let me give an example of each of these cuts from Ausonius’s own Cento
Nuptialis. Second foot, strong, tuque prior, (A. 6.834) nam te maioribus ire per altum (A.
3.374) (CN 4); third foot, strong, tuque puerque tuus, (A. 4.94) magnae spes altera Romae
(A. 12.168) (CN 7); fourth foot, strong, flos veterum virtusque virum, (A. 8.500) mea
maxima cura (A. 1.678) (CN 8); third foot, weak, occupat os faciemque, (A. 10.699)
pedem pede fervidus urget (A. 12.748) (CN 104; this is the only example of this cut in the
entire Cento Nuptialis). An example of a cut that Ausonius does not mention appears in
line 21, where the incision is made at the dieresis after the fourth foot, ante oculos
interque manus sunt (A. 11.311) mitia poma (E. 1.80). Green, Works, 521, suggests that a
reference to such a cut may have appeared in a lost section of the epistle. Also peculiar is
line 60, with the cut at an elision (a rare phenomenon in centos generally): et sellam (A.
11.333, where the elision does not occur) et pictum croceo velamen acantho (A. 1.711).
Finally, I should note that centonists could once in a while reuse the second unit in a
line first, and then reuse the first unit; see, e.g., Hippodamia 36–37, nil magnae laudis
egentes / deponunt animos (A. 5.751, but reversed, since deponunt animos begins A.
5.751).
12. On the textual problems in this passage, see Green, Works, 520–521.
13. In antiquity, I should note, Saint Jerome disparagingly describes interpreta-
tions of the Christian cento as puerilia . . . et circulatorum ludo similia (Ep. 53.7).
To reiterate a point made in the introduction, however, what gets his nose out of joint
is the relationship between readings of the cento and Christian interpretations of the
Bible, and the notion that the cento reveals a Christian Virgil sine Christo. Among
modern critics, Ermini, Centone di Proba, 33–35, discusses the cento form as an
example of ludism, Herzog, Bibelepik, 3–4, equates the cento to the ludic carmen fig-
uratum, and David F. Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice in the Vergilian Cento,’’ Illinois
Classical Studies 9.1 (1984): 79, compares the cento to other literary games. Carbone, De
Alea, 11–20, meanwhile, examines Ausonius’s use of ludere to describe the cento and the
form itself as a type of play; while our analyses on the whole agree, my emphases differ
from hers.
14. As C. J. Fordyce, ed. and comm., Catullus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961),
216, notes.
15. See, e.g., Ov., Tr. 2.223–224, Quint., Inst. Orat. 10.5.15, and Pl., Ep. 4.14.2.
16. See, e.g., Cat., Carm. 68.17–18, Virg., G. 4.565, and Stat. Silv. 2.7.54–55.
17. See, e.g., Pl., Ep. 7.9.9, Aus. Bis. praef. I. 2–3 (which also refers to Ausonius’s
leisure hours).
18. H. Wagenvoort, Studies in Roman Literature, Culture, and Religion (Leiden:
Brill, 1956): 34, to whom I am indebted for several of the examples in notes 15–17
164 NOTES TO PAGE 5

earlier, gives many examples. Ludere and ludus/lusus can also refer to an epic, if that text
is a youthful work (see Stat. Silv. 2.7.54–55, on Lucan’s early epic about the Trojan War)
or if the words carry another force that trumps generic considerations.
19. Many examples of such literary ludism survive from late antiquity. The fourth-
century poet Optatian is the most prolific Latin writer of those poems. On Optatian’s ludic
poetry (most of whose examples are carmina figurata) see William Levitan, ‘‘Dancing at the
End of the Rope: Optatian, Porphyry, and the Field of Latin Verse,’’ TAPA 115 (1985):
245–269. Margaret Graver, ‘‘Quaelibet Audendi: Fortunatus and the Acrostic,’’ TAPA 123
(1993): 219–245, also discusses such ludic verse, especially as it relates to Venantius
Fortunatus’s acrostics. An especially relevant example of this type of ludic poetry is Au-
sonius’s Technopaegnion. The term technopaegnion, which is otherwise a general term for
figural poetry (Ausonius’s piece is a unique type of ludic work, however, and its title is
probably homemade, according to Green, Works, 583), here denotes a text consisting
entirely of dactylic hexameter lines ending in monosyllables. To conclude the letter to
Pacatus that prefaces the Technopaegnion, Ausonius describes the text as a ludus and his
own writing as that of a poeta ludens: libello Technopaegnii nomen dedi, ne aut ludum
laboranti aut artem crederes defuisse ludenti (praef. I. 11–12). On the ludic nature of much
of Ausonius’s poetry, see S. Georgia Nugent, ‘‘Ausonius’ ‘Late-Antique’ Poetics and ‘Post-
Modern’ Literary Theory,’’ in The Imperial Muse, ed. A. J. Boyle 2 vols., Ramus no. 17–19.1
(Bendigo, Victoria, Australia: Aureal, 1990), 2:238–240. Such ludic poetry was not the
product of the fourth century and after exclusively. See Martial, Ep. 2.86, who deprecates
various word games in verse but shows that they were generally enjoyed by referring to the
popularity of Palaemon, an enthusiastic practitioner of such carmina, who lived in the
reigns of Tiberius and of Claudius (see Suet., De Gramm. 23.1). See too Quintilian, Inst.
Orat. 9.4.90, on verses he calls Sotadeans, and Gellius, NA 14.6.4, on rhopalic verses (of
which he, taking a stance like Martial’s, disapproves).
20. For ludere as an insult, see, e.g., Mart., Ep. 4.49.1–4. For self-deprecating
references to literary play, see Aus., Griph. praef. 1–13 (where the word nugae and
nugator are used; as Wagenvoort, Studies, 35, notes, the term nugae is practically syn-
onymous with ludus).
21. Wagenvoort, Studies, 30 and 36, discusses this topic.
22. Certain poets at certain points, however, claimed to be conducting lives
devoted wholly to otium. See Lowell Edmunds, Intertextuality and the Reading of Roman
Poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 113–114, who identifies
Horace (C. 2.16) as one such poet.
23. See Catharine Edwards, ‘‘Imperial Space and Time: The Literature of Lei-
sure,’’ in Literature in the Roman World, ed. Oliver Taplin (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 209. This formulation is also indebted to Edmunds, Intertextuality, 113.
24. Edwards, ‘‘Imperial Space and Time,’’ 209–214, gives examples from writers
of the first and early second centuries AD. In the eyes of many elite Romans in the late
republic and later, however, it was better to devote otium to studying history and phi-
losophy; on the latter, see Seneca’s De Otio. The locus classicus for leisured poetic
composition as frivolous play is Catullus, Carm. 50.1–5.
25. Light poetry could also be seen as recuperative for a poet who worked in the
grand genres. Thus for Statius, the Silvae were light poems he wrote to relax and to
restore his energies after writing his epic Thebaid and before embarking on his epic
Achilleid.
NOTES TO PAGES 5–7 165

26. For a different perspective on the link between recitation and play, see
Florence Dupont, ‘‘Recitatio and the Reorganization of the Space of Public Discourse,’’
in The Roman Cultural Revolution, ed. Thomas Habinek and Alessandro Schiesaro
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 50–52.
27. See especially Ralph Whitney Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian
Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1992), 105-115. Sidonius’s picture of literary play is complicated by his status as a
Christian bishop, which meant that for a time he had renounced writing light carmina.
By the time he wrote these epistles, however, his attitude seems to have softened.
Moreover, in the letters, we still get a glimpse of Tonantius’s enthusiasm for ludic letters,
as well as for Sidonius’s in years past.
28. Rosenblum, Luxorius, 25–28 and 32–33, discusses the close link between
the Salmasianus and Africa. Of course, in the case of the anonymous poets, of whom
there are many in the Salmasianus, we cannot be sure of their origin (and the same thing
holds for some of the identified authors, who are nothing more than names to us). Yet
given the provenance of the collection itself, it is at least plausible that a good many of
the anonymous figures similarly come from Africa.
29. While this work is of uncertain date, Ethel Leigh Chubb, ed., trans., and
comm., An Anonymous Epistle of Dido to Aeneas (Ph.D diss., University of Penn-
sylvania, 1920), 6–7, notes that certain metrical and syntactical features of the text are
characteristic of late antique poetry (though they fail to ‘‘point decidedly to a date not
earlier than the fourth century,’’ as Chubb, 7, suggests). Giannina Solimano, ed.,
Epistula Didonis ad Aeneam (Genova: Università di Genova, 1988), 28–39, discusses
the meter and syntax of the poem in greater detail and also concludes that they
indicate a late antique date (though she pushes the terminus post quem back to the
third century). I should add that the use of quid carminis and ludant seems to be part
of a captatio benevolentiae, or a self-deprecating topos (more on this hereafter). The
reference to leisure, moreover, may be part of the captatio; but there is no reason not
to see it also as an accurate reflection of the context in which the author wrote his
piece.
30. See too the preface to the Bissula, which I mentioned in note 17.
31. John F. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court A.D. 364–425
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975) 49–54, discusses the leisure activities generally at
Valentinian’s court.
32. ohan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955?), 7, 12, 51, 60,
78, 90–91, 118, 126, 167, and 185–187, emphasizes the agonistic component of play.
Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, trans. Meyer Barasch (New York: Glencoe, 1958)
esp. 14 and 44, disagrees with Huizinga’s nearly exclusive emphasis on struggle and says
that alea, mimicry, and ilinx, or the pursuit of vertigo, are just as important to the ludic.
For a discussion of Caillois’s taxonomy, see Wolfgang Iser, The Fictive and the Imagin-
ary: Charting Literary Anthropology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993),
257–73.
33. Richard J. Tarrant, ‘‘The Reader as Author: Collaborative Interpolation in
Latin Poetry,’’ in Editing Greek and Latin Texts, ed. John N. Grant (New York: AMS
Press, 1989), 159–160, suggests that the Locus and Themata originated in the
setting of otium, and may have first been presented before a coterie enjoying its
leisure.
166 NOTES TO PAGES 7–8

34. Pliny (Ep. 7.9.9) (see note 17 earlier) demonstrates how an ancient author
could distinguish ludi from seria in all genres, as well as how opprobrium need not be
attached to the literary games: sed hi lusus non minorem interdum gloriam quam seria
consequuntur. What Pliny specifically means by seria is uncertain; he could have defined
‘‘serious works’’ according to authorial attitude, content, or performance context and
function.
35. On the captatio, see Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin
Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953),
83–85. On Ausonius’s use of the topos, see Polara, ‘‘Centoni,’’ 254–255; and Eva
Stehlı́ková, ‘‘Centones Christiani as a Means of Reception,’’ Listy Filologické 110 (1987):
11–12.
36. A good example is the prefatory epistle to the Griphus Ternarii Numeri: latebat
inter nugas meas libellus ignobilis; utinamque latuisset neque indicio suo tamquam sorex
periret (praef. 1–2). As Evelyn-White, Ausonius, 1:xxxv n. 1, says, ‘‘Ausonius . . . would have
been surprised and annoyed had any of his correspondents taken him at his word.’’ Nu-
gent, ‘‘Ausonius’ ‘Late-Antique’ Poetics,’’ 254, who cites Evelyn-White, says that Ausonius
is indeed insincere in his captationes and in fact seeks applause. Nugent notes that
Ausonius makes this desire explicit later in the preface to the Griphus, where he praises his
own skill as a versifier and challenges any critic to try to do what he has done. Other
captationes appear in the preface to the Bissula (praef. 5–6) and the two epistles to Pacatus
that precede the Technopaegnion (praef. 1.7–12, 2.1).
37. Harold Isbell, ‘‘Decimus Magnus Ausonius: The Poet and His World,’’ in
Latin Literature of the Fourth Century, ed. J. W. Binns (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1974), 40–41, for instance, is neither taken in nor amused by Ausonius’s claims:
‘‘Throughout the corpus of his writing Ausonius habitually adopted a suppliant pose
which seems to have disparaged his own production and invited the mocking laughter of
his reader. The reader, on the other hand, quite quickly determines the real intent of
these remarks. It seems an exercise in vanity . . . a charming ingenuosity becomes finally
cloying.’’
38. Ausonius’s statement about Afranius and Plautus, his claims that Valentinian
ordered him to write the Cento Nuptialis, and his grouping himself with those who create
unskilled stom
awia (more on this game hereafter) are also part of the captatio. The idea
that Ausonius found his poem tucked away among his papers also seems patently untrue
(he says the same thing about his Griphus [praef. 1]. The detail is probably meant to
convey the captatio–charged idea that the cento is such a trifle that Ausonius did not
keep close tabs on it.
39. Ausonius elsewhere uses the diminutive to deprecate his own poetry. See
the second prefatory epistle to Pacatus in the Technopaegnion: misi ad te Techno-
paegnion, inertis otii mei inutile opusculum (1). Note too Ausonius’s use of the word
otium.
40. I believe that the Ausonian term ludicrum does not mean ‘‘absurd,’’ as Evelyn-
White, Ausonius, 1:373, translates it, but rather ‘‘sportive’’ or ‘‘trifling.’’ See many examples
in ThLL 7.2.1761.
41. This point holds despite the fact that Virgil uses ludere (E. 6.1) and lusi (G.
4.565) to describe his writing the Eclogues. It would certainly be the case that Ausonius
is referring in the phrase de seriis to the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid together, all of
which had long held the status of classics.
NOTES TO PAGES 8–9 167

42. See Verweyen and Witting, ‘‘The Cento,’’ 172, who note that cento is not a
generic term, and that patchwork composition can be realized in many forms, including
drama.
43. I paraphrase Michael Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late
Antiquity (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 58.
44. So J. L. Heiberg, ed., Archimedis Opera Omnia cum Commentariis Eutocii
(Leipzig: Teubner, 1913), 240–241.
45. For example, Evelyn-White, Ausonius, 1:374 and 375. Because stom
awion is
given in Archimedes and in a poem of Ennodius (Carm. 2.133), Green, Works, 521,
suggests that we ought to accept the term in Ausonius’s text.
46. For the ancient evidence confirming this point, see Evelyn-White, Ausonius,
1:394.
47. In the Dec. 14, 2003, issue of the New York Times, the article ‘‘In Archimedes’
Puzzle: A New Eureka Moment,’’ by Gina Kolata discusses how a historian of mathe-
matics at Stanford, Dr. Reviel Netz, has understood the stom
awion in a new way. Netz
suggests that the game to which Ausonius refers was beneath the mathematical genius of
Archimedes, who instead was interested in (to use an anachronistic term) combinatorics,
or how many solutions there can be to a given problem. According to Netz, Archimedes
wanted to know the number of ways the fourteen pieces of the stom
awion could be
combined so that they formed a square. (The answer to that question is 17,152.) Whether
or not Netz is right has no bearing on my examination (though I am fascinated by his
hypothesis) since I am concerned only with how Ausonius understood the game.
48. Herzog, Bibelepik, 3–4, suggests another purpose behind the simile (see note
13 earlier): ‘‘Ermini, Braak, und Lamacchia haben diesen Vergleich [Ausonius’s com-
parison of the cento to the stom
awion] nur referiet, ohne auf Konsequenzen hinzu-
weisen: Ausonius betrachtet den Cento offenbar als eine Species des carmen figuratum.’’
This seems to me not quite right; Ausonius is interested not in describing the cento as a
pattern-poem (nor is a cento such a work) but in explaining vividly how the centonist’s
pursuit is a sort of game.
49. The term ‘‘play conditions’’ is Iser’s, Fictive and Imaginary, 247, who offers it
in a discussion of the split signifier, or the word divorced from its basic denotative
function.
50. Some are uncomfortable with thinking of generic conventions and expecta-
tions as rules, which seems to rigid a term. See e. g., E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in
Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 93, who labels those generic
elements ‘‘proprieties.’’ This seems to me an unnecessary euphemism.
51. On the term ‘‘closed field’’ see Hugh Kenner, ‘‘Art in a Closed Field,’’ in The
Avant-Garde Tradition in Literature, ed. Richard Kostelanetz (Buffalo: Prometheus
Books, 1962), 204–215.
52. I paraphrase Dupont, ‘‘Recitatio,’’ 50–51, who also discusses ludism generally
in L’acteur-roi, ou, Le théâtre dans la Rome antique (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1985), 48–51.
53. Some audience members could conceivably fail to recognize the Virgilian
basis of the cento, as some readers inexperienced in Homer could a Homeric cento,
according to Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 1.9.4). Irenaeus gives an example of a cento describing
how Heracles was sent to retrieve Cerberus and concludes: ‘‘What simple-minded person
would not be misled by these verses and would not think that Homer composed them in
this way with such a sense?’’ Obviously, such a reader would fail to understand the cento
168 NOTES TO PAGES 9–10

adequately. For this translation and a discussion of the passage, see Wilken, ‘‘Homeric
Cento in Irenaeus,’’ 25–26.
54. For a succinct and keen discussion of the difference between naive and
critical reading, see Roland Barthes, S/Z (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1970), 22–23. Later in
this chapter I will examine in depth how audiences can read the centos against Virgil—
that is, can read the processes of creating texts out of that source material.
55. Warren F. Motte, ed., Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 27. Carbone, De Alea, 18 (citing Francoise Des-
bordes, Argonautica: Trois études sur l’imitation dans la littérature antique, Latomus 159
[Brussels: Latomus, 1979], 89), and 27, I should add, connects the centonists to the
Oulipo poets.
56. A. M. Keith, ‘‘Slender Verse: Roman Elegy and Ancient Rhetorical Theory,’’
Mnemosyne 52.1 (1999): 41.
57. The image of bodily disintegration and reconstitution as a figure for literary
composition occurs elsewhere in antiquity. Horace, for instance, famously criticizes
Lucilius’s and his own satiric hexameters by claiming that, if one were to remove their
meter and restructure their syntax, he would not find the limbs even of a dismembered
poet: non, ut si solvas, postquam Discordia taetra / ferratos postis portusque refregit, /
invenias etiam disiecti membra poetae (Sat. 1.4.61–63). On the metaphor of dis-
memberment in ancient literature, see, e.g., Glenn W. Most, ‘‘Disiecta Membra Poetae:
The Rhetoric of Dismemberment in Neronian Poetry,’’ in Innovations of Antiquity, ed.
Ralph Hexter and Daniel Selden (New York: Routledge, 1992), 391–419. (Most’s dis-
cussion also branches out beyond the Neronian period.)
58. For instance, Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 11.2.27 (si longior complectanda memoria
fuerit oratio, proderit per partes ediscere) and—echoing Quintilian—Martianus Capella,
De Nupt. 5.539 (si longiora fuerint, quae sunt ediscenda, divisa per partes facilius in-
haerescant). Mary J. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the
Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 57–58,
discusses the relationship between piecemeal memorization and cento composition.
59. On mnemotechnics and Virgil’s reception in late antiquity, see Jan Ziolkowski,
‘‘Mnemotechnics and the Reception of the Aeneid in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,’’
in Style and Tradition: Studies in Honor of Wendell Clausen, ed. Peter Knox and Clive Foss
(Stuttgart: Teubner, 1998), 158–173. Augustine provides a glimpse into how an educated
person in the period was constantly exposed to Virgil and therefore could not easily forget
him: quem [Virgil] propterea parvuli legunt, ut videlicet poeta magnus omniumque prae-
clarissimus atque optimus teneris ebibitus animis non facile oblivione possit aboleri (Civ. Dei
1.13). See also Orosius, 1.18.1: Aeneas qualia per triennium bella excitaverit, quantos
populos implicuerit, odio excidioque afflixerit, ludi litterari disciplina nostrae quoque
memoriae inustum est. That a student would encounter Virgil early in his education is also
shown by Paulinus of Pella, who is forced to read Virgil even when his knowledge of Latin
was negligible: protinus ad libros etiam transire Maronis / vix bene conperto iubeor sermone
Latino (Euch. 75–76 [CSEL 16, 294]). All of these figures, while Christian writers,
discuss in these passages their experiences with the classical curriculum.
60. Romans could have vast mnemonic capacities. Thus Seneca the Elder could
repeat two thousand names in order of men he had just met; and when a class of two
hundred or more students each recited a line of poetry, Seneca could repeat every line
in reverse order (Contr. 1. praef. 2–3). Though Seneca may be exaggerating a bit, and
NOTES TO PAGES 10–11 169

though he has rhetorical reasons for touting his memory skills as a young man, I see no
reason to doubt that his memory had been extraordinary. Seneca seems to have been
exceptional, however; he himself asserts that his memory was unusually strong (in
miraculum usque procederet non nego). Pliny the Elder also discusses those with as-
tonishing powers of memory (NH 7.24).
61. So, for example, Xenophon (Symp. 3.6, on Niceratus) and Dio Chrysostom
(Orat. 36.9, on the people of Borysthenes) tell of those who knew all of Homer. The
third-century poet and legislator Cercidas, meanwhile, made it a law that the children of
Megalopolis in the Peloponnesus had to learn by heart Homer’s Catalogue in Il. 2 (see
Phot. Bibl. 190.151a.14 Henry; cited by Cribiore, Gymnastics, 194 n. 42]). In Macro-
bius’s Saturnalia (5.3.17), moreover, Eusthathius asks for a copy of Virgil so that, by
looking at passages in it, he can more easily call to mind corresponding material in
Homer—an anecdote, that if accurate, reveals that Eusthathius had committed a vast
amount, if not all, of Homer to memory. It would have been nice if Eusthathius had also
not had to consult a book of Virgil; but he may have been from the Greek East, in which
case he would have encountered Homer in the schools as those in the West en-
countered Virgil. Someone who did have all of Virgil’s Aeneid memorized, however, was
Augustine’s friend Simplicius, who could recite the entire epic backward (see Aug. De
An. 4.7).
62. I follow Ziolkowski, ‘‘Mnemotechnics,’’ 171, in labeling cento composition a
memory act.
63. The identification of the centonist by this name depends on a passage pre-
served with the De Ecclesia (AL 16a R): cumque Mavortio clamaretur ‘‘Maro Iunior!’’, ad
praesens hoc recitavit. Mavortio, which is the only reference to the centonist’s name, is a
conjecture; the manuscript reads abortio. Based on statistical criteria, Bright, ‘‘Theory
and Practice,’’ 88, suggests that this centonist, even if he is named Mavortius, is probably
not the same author as the Mavortius who wrote the Iudicium Paridis.
64. The centonist delivers his extemporaneous cento in response to the accla-
mation that I cited in the previous note. The De Eccelesia itself was presumably not
composed extemporaneously.
65. Lines 3–6 of the extemporaneous coda, which describe Marsyas, read for-
monsum pastor Phoebum superare canendo / dum cupit et cantu vocat in certamina divos, /
membra deo victus ramo frondente pependit. This shares many units with lines 132–137 of
the Medea, a choral passage also concerned with Marsyas: divino carmine pastor / vocat in
certamina divos: / ramo frondente pependit. / quae te dementia cepit, / saxi de vertice pastor,
/ divina Palladis arte / Phoebum superare canendo?
66. According to Irenaeus, there were those who declaimed extemporaneous
Homeric centos, having first proposed the themes to the texts (Iren. apud Epiph. Pan.
2.29.9). I take this reference from Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 28–29. Extemporaneous
compositions generally impressed in antiquity. As White notes, Promised Verse, 80,
Archias and Boethius are said to have wowed audiences with their ability to deliver
extemporaneous lines of poetry on any topic (see Cic. Pro Arch. 19 and Strabo 14.5.14).
Pliny (Ep. 2.3), moreover, praises a figure named Isaeus, saying that he dicit semper ex
tempore and possesses an incredibilis memoria that allows him to deliver again his ex-
temporaneous speeches without missing a word. On extemporaneous recitation in an-
tiquity in general, see Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in
Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 208.
170 NOTES TO PAGES 11–14

67. That Ausonius actually revised the poem in a single night is unlikely. The
carmen una nocte scriptum motif is often a part of the modesty topos. Ausonius uses the
motif again in a letter to Paulinus (Ep. 19a [Green]): isti tamen—ita te et Hesperium
salvos habeam, quod spatio lucubratiunculae unius effusi (quamquam hoc ipsi de se pro-
babunt)—tamen nihil diligentiae ulterioris habuerunt.
68. Rosa Lamacchia, ed., Hosidius Geta: Medea Cento Vergilianus (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1981), ix n. 3, says that Hosidius Geta did not rely solely on his memory.
(Lamacchia does not provide a basis for her statement or pursue the issue further,
however.) While this is probably true, it would be a mistake, I believe, to contend that
Geta and other centonists depended more on written texts than on their memories.
69. Dandi sunt certi quidam termini, ut contextum verborum, qui est difficillimus,
continua et crebra meditatio, partes deinceps ipsas repetitus ordo coniungat (Inst. Orat. 11.2.28).
70. Fortunatianus, Ars Rhet. 3.13, and Capella, De Nupt. 5.538.
71. Not covered here is the practice of remembering the lines in another cento
and reproducing them, rather than of Virgil himself. This may occur in only three
patchwork texts (including in the coda to the De Ecclesia mentioned earlier). I will turn
to this topic in later chapters. I should also note that centonists sometimes repeat the
same Virgilian units, thereby remembering a line they already used. Hosidius Geta and
the authors of the De Alea and Alcesta do this most often; but then again, they compose
three of the longer centos.
72. Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 83–86 and 101–146, examines composition by
theme in Eudocia’s Christian Homeric centos.
73. I paraphrase Elizabeth Minchin, Homer and the Resources of Memory: Some
Applications of Cognitive Theory to the Iliad and the Odyssey (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001), 13, discussing episodic memory in Homer.
74. Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 87–94, discusses how parallels in characters’
functions and attributes affect Eudocia’s recollection of Homer in her centos.
75. For instance, De Alea 98, Progne et Philomela 19, Hippodamia 100, Iudicium
Paridis 14, Alcesta 45, and CN 12. On formulae in the centos, see Herzog, Bibelepik, 8,
who describes the units as ‘‘Intarsien vergleichbar, die erst durch die Einpassung in ein
zugleich fremdes und relativ gleichförmiges Material ihre traditionsbildende Funktion
als Struktur-, Zeichen- und Schmuckelement erfüllen.’’
76. In lines 58 and 61, where A. 1.648 and A. 1.640 appear, respectively.
77. A representative example from another cento appears in Hosidius Geta’s
Medea, where A. 9.404 appears in line 28 and A. 9.405 in line 32; similarly, A. 3.331
appears in line 294 and A. 3.332 in line 297.
78. Lamacchia, ‘‘Dall’ arte allusiva,’’ 212, and Hosidius Geta, vi, calls such key-
words voces communes, as does M. Vallozza, ‘‘Rilevi di tecnica compositiva nei centoni
tramandati con la Medea dal codice Salmasiano,’’ in Studi in onore di Adelmo Baragazzi
(Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1986), 335–341.
79. On this aspect of ancient mnemotechnics, see Carruthers, Book of Memory,
74. See too, Cicero, De Orat. 2.359, on memorizing words and the greater variety of
images needed to do so than to memorize content.
80. This technique also occurs in the Homeric centos of Eudocia. On this topic,
see Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 13–14 and 106–111.
81. So A. J. Boyle, ‘‘The Canonic Text: Virgil’s Aeneid,’’ in Roman Epic, ed. A. J.
Boyle (London: Routledge, 1993), 88, describes Virgil’s callida iunctura. A good example
NOTES TO PAGES 14–15 171

appears in line 6 of the Narcissus, where the anonymous centonist cites A. 1.464, animum
pictura pascit inani. Boyle, identifies this as an example of Virgil’s callida iunctura (88).
82. The line sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat (A. 3.490), which Ausonius
(CN 53–54, though he reuses only sic ora . . . sic oculos [and then in reverse order], and not
sic ille manus), Hosidius Geta (Med. 384), and the author of the Narcissus (Nar. 9) all cite,
reveals how the centos could import Virgilian anaphora, for instance. Centonists could
also import such things as alliteration (e.g., mortemque minaris [A. 10.900], in Hipp. 56; an
example of alliteration across units, morever, [a very rare thing, as far as I can see], appears
in Geta’s Medea, 341, visus adesse pedum sonitus [A. 2.732] et saeva sonare [A. 6.557]).
Such imported ornamental material supports Bright, who says that the centonists, by
incorporating Virgil’s language into their texts, create the effect ‘‘of felicitous expression at
least at the level of the phrase or individual line,’’ Theory and Practice, 80. For an example
of an imported and an original ornament appearing in very close proximity, see lines 27 and
29 in the De Alea, where the centonist reuses a Virgilian apostrophe and creates an original
apostrophe: [dolor] quid non mortalia pectora cogis? (A. 3.56 or 4.412) . . . tu potes un[i]-
animes armare in proelia fratres (A. 7.335). Ausonius, meanwhile, imports a Virgilian
anaphora and adds to it: ambo animis, ambo insignes praestantibus armis, (A. 11.291) / ambo
florentes (E. 7.4) (CN 2–3). Finally, I should note that I will discuss examples of centonists’
treatment of metaphors in section three hereafter.
83. I have also found very few examples where a centonist links discrete units
so that a line is framed by an appositive adjective-noun pair, and only one not involving
an intensive or demonstrative adjective, in line 1 of the Narcissus (candida . . . iuventus).
L. P. Wilkinson, Golden Latin Artistry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963),
217, wonders whether a line so framed should be called a bronze line.
84. For Huizinga, Homo Ludens, 120–124, ludic poetry possesses no aesthetic
element; I believe that the cento challenges this idea. On the relationship between play
and the aesthetic generally, see James S. Hans, The Play of the World (Amherst: Uni-
versity of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 111–139. For a discussion of notions of play and
the aesthetic in Kant and Schiller, who have had much influence on contemporary ideas
on the subject, see Mihai I. Spariosu, Dionysus Reborn: Play and the Aesthetic Dimension
in Modern Philosophical and Scientific Discourse (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1989), 31–64.
85. Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary
Study, trans. Matthew T. Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, and David E. Orton, ed. David E.
Orton and R. Dean Anderson (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 274, discusses this aspect of rep-
etition and the understanding of it in antiquity. I should note here that repetition was an
important aspect of Virgil’s poetic art (see, e.g., S. E. Winbolt, Latin Hexameter Verse: An
Aid to Composition (London: Methuen, 1903), 230–231]), especially in the Eclogues. I
do not believe, however, that the centonists used repetition to reproduce that char-
acteristic of Virgil’s poetry. The repetitions in the centos are not sufficiently frequent or
markedly Virgilian to support such an idea.
86. Jeffrey Wills, Repetition in Latin Poetry: Figures of Allusion (Oxford: Clar-
endon Press, 1996), 13. Centonists could also import such repetition from Virgil—e.g.,
line 440 in Geta’s Medea, et tumulum facite et tumulo super addite carmen (E. 5.42). Other
types of imported repetition also appear; an example that has an emotional effect can be
found again in the Medea (423), regalisque accensa comas, accensa coronam (A. 7.75),
where the repetition heightens the wonder and power of the image in both Virgil and Geta.
172 NOTES TO PAGES 15–19

87. As Wills notes, Repetition, 272.

88. See Wills, Repetition, 469–470.
89. I have located only one other instance of this phenomenon, in lines 153–154
of the Hippodamia: nec latuere doli, (A. 1.130) caput horum et causa malorum; (A.
11.361) / tunc quassans caput haec effundit pectore dicta (A. 7.292). The centonist here
uses caput metaphorically and literally.
90. So Wills, Repetition, 290 defines the term.
91. Again, I use the definition of Wills, Repetition, 311.
92. Lausberg, Handbook, 275.
93. As M. Geymonat suggests, ‘‘The Transmission of Virgil’s Works in Antiquity
and the Middle Ages,’’ trans. Nicholas Horsfall, in A Companion to the Study of Virgil,
ed. Nicholas Horsfall (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 297. See also David Ross, ‘‘The Culex and
Moretum as Post-Augustan Literary Parodies,’’ HSCP 79 (1975): 250: ‘‘Everyone knows
that it was no sin for an ancient poet to use the same word twice within a few lines.’’
These observations are correctives to critics like Winbolt, Latin Hexameter Verse, 232,
who criticizes ‘‘careless as opposed to artistic repetition.’’
94. Miroslav Marcovich, ed. and comm., Alcestis Barcinonensis, Mnemosyne
supplement 103 (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 13–14, notes this characteristic.
95. The presence of overt keywords in the patchwork poems recalls other works
that arise in conjunction with Virgil in antiquity, namely the poems constituting the
Appendix Vergiliana, which themselves contain a fair amount of verbal repetition. On
repetition in the Appendix, see Wills, Repetition, 163–167. It seems to me untenable that
the centonists were consciously responding to any of the Appendix poems by using overt
keywords, however.
96. Francis A. Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1966), 29. See also
Carruthers, Book of Memory, 127–129.
97. Relevant here is Minchin’s discussion, Homer and the Resources of Memory,
24–25, of auditory memory in oral poetry. Minchin’s concern is with alliteration, rhyme,
and rhythm, however, whereas mine is with the sort of soundplay described in the
Rhetorica ad Herennium.
98. Obviously, I apply the term paronomastic loosely. For a discussion of ancient
paronomasia, see Lausberg, Handbook, 285–288.
99. Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 12–13, following Herbert Hunger, Die hochspra-
chliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, 2 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1978) 2: 98–99, applies
the Brechtian term Verfremdung or defamiliarization to this aspect of cento composition.
100. I paraphrase Hardie, Epic Successors, 17, in another context.
101. The Cento Nuptialis demonstrates Ausonius’s complete familiarity with Vir-
gil, including, it may be presumed, A. 7.769, even though the line does not reappear in
the cento. Ausonius uses the same imagery of dismemberment in the preface to the
Griphus.
102. Gian Biagio Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in
Virgil and Other Latin Poets, ed. Charles Segal (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1986), 40–41, describes poetic language generally as reusable, or as Wiedergebrauchsrede
(a term he takes from Lausberg). Centos are, of course, an extreme and eccentric
expression of this.
103. Frederick Rener, Language and Translation from Cicero to Tytler (Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 1989). 15.
NOTES TO PAGES 19–22 173

104. Rener, Language and Translation, 15–16. As Roberts, Jeweled Style, 70–71,
notes, many modern critics have also found a link between mosaics and poetic com-
position in late antiquity.
105. While a Virgilian verse unit in a cento can in rare occasions contain a single
word (e.g., Aus., CN 90), it is still measured as a hexameter segment.
106. Roberts, Jeweled Style, 2–3, in another context.
107. It is worth noting that Ausonius’s language in this passage shares terms
with that in a discussion in Cicero of periodic structure, a passage deeply informed by
the classical aesthetic: collocationis est componere et struere verba sic ut neve asper
eorum concursus neve hiulcus sit, sed quodam modo coagmentatus et levis (De Orat.
3.171).
108. Martha A. Malamud, A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical
Mythology (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 36.
109. In using the word ‘‘syntagmatically,’’ I draw on, e.g., Ferdinand de Saus-
sure, Third Course in General Linguistics, ed. and trans. Eisuke Komatsu and Roy
Harris (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1993), esp. 128–129, 131–134. Saussure uses the
term to refer to the arrangement of linguistic elements on the horizontal plain of
combination.
110. This universal aspect of ancient patchwork composition does not always
obtain in the Renaissance, when authors return to writing centos and sometimes re-
arrange Virgilian units to retell Virgilian stories. As I will show in chapter 2, there are
centos on the story of Dido, for instance.
111. The De Alea is the least comprehensible cento, and there is dispute as to
what its subject matter is, with some critics claiming that it tells of a battle between
gladiators and others that it describes dicing in inflated terms. I side with the latter
critics, for reasons that I will give in chapter 3.
112. The seven mythological centos are not part of an identifiably distinct genre. I
follow Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 81, and label the mythological vignettes in hex-
ameters ‘‘quasi-epic.’’ The De Panificio and De Alea, meanwhile, are best considered
parodies in cento form, as are the concluding obscene passages in the Cento Nuptialis
and Epithalamium Fridi. I will discuss this designation in chapters 3 and 5.
113. I take this idea from reception theory (applied to Latin literature by, e.g.,
Martindale, Redeeming the Text), though I obviously adapt it to the particularities of
cento composition.
114. Stephen Wheeler, ‘‘Lucan’s Reception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses,’’ Arethusa
35.3 (2002): 366.
115. As Tarrant, ‘‘Aspects of Virgil’s Reception,’’ 60, would have it.
116. To reiterate another point made earlier, some of these categories can overlap.
117. Giovanni Polara, ‘‘Per la fortuna di Virgilio,’’ KOINONIA 5 (1981): 58, ap-
plies this term to cento composition.
118. The semantic change has an infelicitous effect on the meter. When referring
to the country of the Medes, the i in Media is short; when referring to Medea, it is long.
This is not the case in the cento.
119. Bright, Theory and Practice, 89, calls attention to this obstacle.
120. Battle metaphors of all sorts are used in antiquity to describe sex, as J. N.
Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis 101–31,’’ SIFC 53 (1981): 202 notes.
121. See Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 205.
174 NOTES TO PAGES 22–23

122. On modal variation, see Roberts, Biblical Epic, 139–141.

123. See Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 36.
124. Schenkl, CSEL 16, 638–639, offers an index of the variant readings in the
important Virgilian manuscripts as they appear in the different centos.
125. A centonist could also accommodate Virgil perhaps to create a rhetorical
figure. Thus the author of the Hippodamia adapts G. 4.516, nulla Venus, non ulli
animum flexere hymenaei, to nulla Venus, nulli animum flexere hymenaei, maybe in order
to get an anaphora (with a case shift) with nulla and nulli.
126. Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1968), 21 (who concerns himself only with narrative action);
cited by Usher, Homeric Stitchings, 117–118.
127. Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2319 n. 26, considers allusion to be central to the
‘‘creazione letteraria originale’’ in cento composition. Others who discuss the cento as a
form of allusive poetry include Lammachia, ‘‘Dall’ arte allusiva,’’ 193–216, Stehlı́ková,
‘‘Centones Christiani,’’ 11, Nugent, ‘‘Ausonius’ ‘Late–Antique’ Poetics,’’ 247–251, Des-
bordes, Argonautica, 90–103, and Carbone, De Alea, 15–20. I have benefited from and
been influenced in different ways by all these discussions, though I have naturally put
my own spin on the subject.
128. I paraphrase D. A. Russell, ‘‘De Imitatione,’’ in Creative Imitation and Latin
Literature, ed. David West and Tony Woodman (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1981), 16.
129. I will use the words allusion and intertextuality more interchangeably than
some might like. Yet I believe that the definitions that I will give and distinctions that I
will make will be clear.
130. Thus Joseph Farrell, Vergil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The
Art of Allusion in Literary History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 66: ‘‘[Imi-
tation] is normally accompanied by variation: while some elements of the original are
taken over unchanged, others are typically altered in one or more respects.’’ Rarely does
an imitating poet reproduce an entire line of a model. A striking exception to that rule
appears in Nemesianus’s second Eclogue, in which complete lines are taken from Cal-
purnius Siculus’s third Eclogue (Nem., E. 2.37–39, which repeats Sic., E. 3.56–58). (I
assume that Nemesianus and Siculus are different writers, and that Siculus precedes
Nemesianus. Even if Nemesianus were the earlier poet, though, the point about imitating
entire lines would stand.) Moving closer to Virgil, Ovid directly quotes an entire line of
Virgil only once, in Met. 13.258 (A. 9.767); I take this reference from R. A. Smith, Poetic
Allusion and Poetic Embrace in Ovid and Virgil (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1997), 47–48. Some of Virgil’s own allusions to entire lines of earlier Latin poets
collected in Macrobius’s Saturnalia are very close to their source material. In Sat. 6.1.7,
Furius Albinus claims that he is going to cite loci integri and immutati, or lines of earlier
writers that Virgil reuses without changing them. Yet the examples he gives, though some
are very close to the original (e.g., 6.1.23), all involve some modification. See too Aulus
Gellius, NA 1.21.7: non verba autem sola, sed versus prope totos et locos quoque Lucreti
plurimos sectatum esse Vergilium videmus. The word prope is crucial to my point. Finally,
see the well-known comment in DServius: amat poeta quae legit inmutata aliqua parte vel
personis ipsis verbis proferre (ad Aen. 3.10).
131. For a typology of the techniques of allusive variatio, see Farrell, Vergil’s
Georgics, 381–382, s. v. ‘‘allusion.’’
NOTES TO PAGES 23–26 175

132. Stehlı́ková, ‘‘Centones Christiani,’’ 11, describes the allusiveness of the centos
similarly. As I noted earlier in this chapter, some of the centos also echo other centos,
and some cite Virgil’s language to allude to authors besides Virgil. Such moments of
intertextuality, however, exist over and above the fundamental and pervasive intertextual
engagement with Virgil’s poetry that marks every cento, which is my current concern. I
will examine these other types of allusion in the centos at relevant points in later
chapters.
133. Polara, ‘‘Centoni,’’ 267, makes this point forcefully: ‘‘Il centone costituisce il
limite superiore dell’allusione: in nessun altro caso, infatti, la ripresa può essere piú
intensamente ricercata e in nessun altro caso é piu indispensibile che il pubblico possa
risalire rapidamente al modello.’’
134. Dennis Ronald MacDonald, Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and
the Acts of Andrew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 6, in another context.
135. I paraphrase Edmunds, Intertextuality, xviii, on allusion in general.
136. On the place of play in allusion (to which, it is claimed, the etymology ad-
ludo points), see Joseph Pucci, The Full-Knowing Reader: Allusion and the Power of the
Reader in the Western Literary Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 46–
47, and Nugent, ‘‘Ausonius’ ‘Late’Antique’ Poetics,’’ 248.
137. The quasi-genres of the short mythological centos, identified best as ‘‘quasi-
epics,’’ are of course different from anything in Virgil. But they are not as different as
Geta’s tragedy and the epithalamia are, nor are they even certifiable genres. These things
strongly discourage inquiry into them from the perspective of genre.
138. As suggested in note 112 earlier, I believe the answer to these questions is
yes, for reasons I will give in later chapters.
139. I will examine more fully on the microtextual level the generic and parodic
functions and implications—functions and implications that are quite complex— as they
appear in relevant texts throughout the book.
140. The idea that all allusions are interpretable is a fundamental point of Stephen
Hinds, Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998). Hinds does not discuss the centos, however.
141. The ensuing account owes much to Conte, Rhetoric of Imitation, esp. 24 and
38–39. (Conte [esp. 28] is also an important influence on the way that I privilege allusive
function over authorial intention later in this section and throughout this book.)
142. See Jeffrey Schnapp, ‘‘Reading Lessons: Augustine, Proba, and the Christian
Détournement of Antiquity,’’ Stanford Literature Review 9 (1992): 117: ‘‘The formal
strictures of cento composition are so onerous that the various grids of ‘productive’
citations must be fleshed out with entirely arbitrary citations that function as connective
tissue.’’ I disagree with Schnapp in that I consider every unit in every cento allusively
active, as I noted earlier; but his comment is germane to my point that some units in
centos are more ‘‘productive’’ on the microtextual level than others.
143. I echo a description of allusion by Barbara Weiden Boyd, Ovid’s Literary
Loves: Influence and Innovation in the Amores (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1997), 32. To my mind, the differences between the cento and Virgil here are not sharply
or coherently contrastive enough to suggest contrastive allusion.
144. Pucci, Full-Knowing Reader, 39, notes how allusions are not easily, or readily,
identifiable, and Hinds, Allusion and Intertext, 23–25, discusses the element of con-
cealment and display in allusions.
176 NOTES TO PAGES 27–29

145. Thomas Hubbard, The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in
the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1998), 14–16, discusses well the potential ‘‘hermeneutic conundrum’’ in allusions,
or the ‘‘plurality of possible interpretations’’ that an allusion can offer (Hubbard takes as
his example A. 6.460).
146. I paraphrase Richard F. Thomas, Virgil and the Augustan Reception (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), xvii.
147. In literature generally, misreadings can come to have a history of their own
and to influence the interpretation of a poem—e.g., the idea that the fourth Eclogue told
of the birth of Christ, and the allegorical approach to Virgil of Fulgentius.
148. Thinking about allusion in this way is to apply locally the general idea
in reader-response criticism that creating literary meaning is a matter of exchange
between the constituted discourse of a text and the constitutive discourse of the
interpreter. On this idea, see Craig Kallendorf, ‘‘Philology, the Reader, and the
Nachleben of Classical Texts,’’ MP 92 (1994): 139, discussing Wolfgang Iser, The Act
of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1978), and Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crossman, ed., The Reader in the
Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980).
149. See Apollonius Bib. 2.8: o‘ P
eloc r
 ‘ iptei ton Murt
ilon peri Geraiston
’
akrot
’ e’ ke
inou klZyen Murtoon
Zrion e’iB to ap’ ˛ p
elagoB.
150. I do not locate any overt, covert, or aural keywords, however.
151. Here I complicate the discussion of authorial intention in the centos by
Desbordes, Argonautica, 90, and Carbone, De Alea, 18.
152. I paraphrase Martindale, Redeeming the Text, 10, on reception generally.
153. Recent studies of allusion in Latin poetry have rehabilitated the figure of the
author. Thus Richard F. Thomas, ‘‘Vestigia Ruris: Urbane Rusticity in Virgil’s Georgics,’’
HSCP 95 (1997): 197 n. 2, reprinted in Reading Virgil and His Texts: Studies in Inter-
textuality (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 229 n. 2, who says that a
concern with allusion is always ‘‘a concern with the poet’s intentions.’’ Ralph G. Wil-
liams, ‘‘I Shall Be Spoken: Textual Boundaries, Authors, and Intent,’’ in Palimpsest:
Editorial Theory in the Humanities, ed. George Bornstein and Ralph G. Williams (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 55–62, has insightful things to say about
authorial intention, as does Hinds, Allusion and Intertext, 47–50. Defenders of authorial
intention and concern with it in literary studies generally include Hirsch, Validity, 1–23,
and Denis Dutton, ‘‘Why Intentionalism Won’t Go Away,’’ in Literature and the Question
of Philosophy, ed. Anthony J. Cascardi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1987), 192–209.
154. I restate Hinds, Allusion and Intertext, 48, 144.
155. This point agrees with Malcolm Heath, Interpreting Classical Texts (London:
Duckworth, 2002), 66–70, 73–75, and 79–83, who generally defends inquiry into in-
tention, though with qualifications. I should add that only if a poet had left behind notes
telling us what he had in mind would we even be able to approach firm interpretive
ground about intention. Even then we would have to question the reliability of the
comment, though, since awareness of one’s own real intentions is not automatic,
meaning that an author is likely to have greater insights into the thoughts behind his or
her actions, but not wholly secure and complete insights—a point made by Heath, 77.
NOTES TO PAGES 31–33 177

CHAPTER 2
1. Lamacchia, Hosidius Geta, 24, provides a list of ‘‘versus qui longiores iusto
videntur’’ (of which there are fifteen) and ‘‘versus qui manci videntur’’ (of which there are
twelve). Lamacchia, ‘‘Metro e ritmo,’’ 175–206, discusses facets of the meter of Geta’s
cento in detail.
2. Schenkl, CSEL 16, 550, impugns the obscurity of the cento, its awkward-
ness, and its metrical errors in his bilious assessment of the work: ‘‘rude enim est
omnique arte destitutum neque ulla in eo conspicitur venustas et elegentia. immo multi
insunt versus male decerpti aut contexti, multi loci obscuri atque inepti vel cum
grammaticae legibus parum convenientes.’’
3. Ermini, Centone di Proba, 48, suggests as much after citing Schenkl’s
critique: ‘‘Non mi sembra tuttavia da negare ad Osidio una certa esperienza poetica e
una sufficiente cultura, che si mostra nell’aver egli superato, con agevolezza, difficoltà
di pensiero e di forma, costretto all’imitazione del soggetto, già trattato da altri, e al
lessico vergiliano.’’ Ermini does not proceed to examine how Geta negotiates such
obstacles.
4. Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2345, makes the same point: ‘‘La ‘Medea’ . . . si
presenta sotto forma di tragedia, un genere cioè alieno dalla produzione poetica di
Virgilio, ed in questo risiede la sua principale novità ed il suo maggiore motivo d’interesse
rispetto agli altri ‘‘ ‘Vergiliocentones.’ ’’
5. An example of a miniature epic on Medea is Dracontius’s (Rom. 10). David F.
Bright, The Miniature Epic in Vandal Africa (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1987), 46–82, examines this poem. On the popularity of the Medea story, particularly in
Africa, see Lamacchia, Hosidius Geta, ix–x.
6. A similar appeal continues to strike authors today. Thus the libretto to John
Peel’s Voces Vergilianae, an opera on Dido and Aeneas, was centonized from Virgil by M.
D. Usher. Selections from the opera were performed at the American Philological As-
sociation Annual Conference, San Diego, January 2001.
7. I follow the chronology of Timothy D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and
Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 55.
8. Tertullian proceeds to mention Homeric centos in this passage.
9. Lamacchia, ‘‘Metro e ritmo,’’ 175–206, finds that aspects of the prosody of
the Medea are also consistent with poetry of the late second or early third century, or the
time of Tertullian’s notice. This does not serve as watertight evidence for the date of the
text, since many of the features Lamacchia finds are characteristic of late antique poetry
generally. What Lamacchia’s examination does is to show that a dating based on Ter-
tullian’s notice is possible. M. Tulli, ‘‘Irregolarita metriche nei centoni tramandati con la
Medea dal codice Salmasiano,’’ in Studi in onore di Adelmo Baragazzi (Rome: Edizioni
dell’ Ateneo, 1986), 328–334, also analyzes the irregularities in Geta’s meter.
10. Virgil, AL 250–257 SB; Propertius, AL 258 SB; Ovid, AL 263 SB; Seneca,
AL 224, 228–229 SB; and Martial, AL 13, 269–270 SB.
11. So Bright suggests, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 82–83.
12. Luxurius’s references to Hilderic (AL 194 SB), Oageis (AL 340 SB, 364 SB),
whom Luxurius addresses with Libyam . . . protegis armis (AL 340 SB, 15), to the crowd
that may scorn his book inter Romulidas et Tyrias manus (AL 284 SB, 8), and to Carthage
in two poems (AL 325 SB, 1, and 349 SB, 10) all confirm Africa as his place of
residence. In addition, lines 8 (Punica regna videns, Tyrios et Agenoris urbem) and 25 (nec
178 NOTES TO PAGES 33–35

non et Tyrii per limina frequentes) of the Epithalamium Fridi suggest that Fridus’s
wedding occurred in Carthage, and so place Luxurius in Africa.
13. Lamacchia, Hosidius Geta, x–xi, discusses this feature of the Medea.
’ ‘ ‘  
14. See Aristotle, Poet. 1449b: Z men oun epopoi
ia tZ˛ trago˛ d
ia˛ m
ewri men tou

‘ ‘
dia m
etrou [meg

 alou] m
imZsiB einai spouda
ion Zkolo

‘ uyZsen. t^ o˛ de to m
etron
, ‘
0
aploun ewein kai a’ paggel
ian einai, ta
utZ˛ diaj
erousin. Lamacchia, Hosidius Geta,
xi, suggests that the presence of different meters defines the cento Medea formally as a
tragedy: ‘‘tragoediae tamen habitum atque figuram praebeat, quippe cum 364 hexametris
atque 97 paroemiacis versibus contextum sit, quorum illi ad personarum colloquia, hi ad
chorum accommodati sunt.’’
15. On the importance of iambic trimeter to drama, see Horace, AP 251–262.
The use of the trimeter rather than the senarius arises in the Augustan age, and may have
originated then, as Richard J. Tarrant notes, ‘‘Senecan Drama and Its Antecedents,’’
HSCP 82 (1978): 258.
16. The rest of the Eclogues are mainly mimetic or wholly amoebaean, and so
close in mode to dramatic poems. Servius (ad Buc. 3.1) recognizes the modal complexity
of the Eclogues: unde etiam dramatico charactere scripta est; nam nusquam poeta loquitur,
sed introductae tantum personae. novimus autem tres characteres hoc esse dicendi: unum, in
quo tantum poeta loquitur, ut est in tribus libris Georgicorum; alium dramaticum, in quo
nusquam poeta loquitur, ut est in comoediis et tragoediis; tertium, mixtum, ut est in
Aeneide: nam et poeta illic et introductae personae loquuntur. hos autem omnes characteres
in Bucolico esse convenit carmine, sicut liber etiam iste demonstrat.
17. The terms mimesis, diegesis, and mixed narrative derive from Plato (Rep.
392–394).
18. I find that only 30 Virgilian units of 695 in the cento come from the mainly
mimetic or wholly amoebaean Eclogues.
19. By my count, 237 verse units in the Medea come from diegetic passages in
Virgil and 391 come from mimetic passages. This does not include verses that occupy a
middle ground, coming from inset narratives within Virgil (i.e., Proteus’s story in Georgics
4 and Aeneas’s narration of books 2 and 3 in the Aeneid). I locate 67 membra in the
Medea taken from those passages. (Lines taken from direct speech within those inset
narratives I count as wholly mimetic.)
20. In turning an exclamation into a question, the cento here shows modal
variation, which I discussed briefly in chapter 1. As Roberts demonstrates, Biblical Epic,
139–141, ancient critics had a well-developed sense of the different modes of a sentence
(see, e.g., Isidore, Etym. 2.21.15–25).
21. Ancient critics were alive to the dramatic possibilities of apostrophe. See
Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 9.2.38, aversus quoque a iudice sermo, qui dicitur a’ postrof
Z,
mire movet, and 9.3.27 (after discussing various figures, including apostrophe), haec
schemata aut his similia . . . et convertunt in se auditorem nec languere patiuntur subinde
aliqua notabili figura excitatum. See also Rhet. ad Her. 4.15.22: exclamatio est quae
conficit significationem doloris aut indignationis alicuius per hominis aut urbis aut loci aut
rei cuiuspiam conpellationem.
22. This is not to deny the variety, complexity, and even the ‘‘suspension’’ or
irresolution that is also to be found in the Georgics. What I want to emphasize is how
inquiry and ultimately instruction by a third-person narrator, or poet-teacher, are the
guiding conceits of didactic. Indeed, the Georgics begins with a set of indirect questions
NOTES TO PAGES 35–37 179

issued by the narrator (G. 1.1–5), which shows their programmatic importance. For a
different reading of these lines, see William W. Batstone, ‘‘On the Surface of the
Georgics,’’ Arethusa 21.2 (1988): 230–236.
23. The apostrophe also makes the narrative more vivid and adds psychological
depth, as it alludes to the thoughts and explains the motive for certain behavior. Yet the
function of the apostrophe seems to be more to advertise knowledge than to heighten the
emotional pitch of the passage. Indeed, to my mind the apostrophe is meant to appeal to
the reader’s erudition, not to his or her feelings, and so has a different tone from most
apostrophes.
24. An example is squamosusque draco et (G. 4.408) (Med. 253), which in Virgil
appears in Arethusa’s speech to Aristaeus, and which has the dragon as its third-person
subject.
25. A. J. Boyle, ‘‘Senecan Tragedy: Twelve Propositions,’’ Ramus 16.1/2 (1987):
88–89, enlists these elements as signs that Senecan tragedy is performable.
26. Joseph J. Mooney, ed. and trans., Hosidius Geta’s Tragedy Medea (Birming-
ham, England: Cornish Brothers, 1919), 8, claims that Geta did not intend his cento for
performance, though without any textual support.
27. All of Geta’s unfinished lines are also unfinished in Virgil except 398, which
the centonist takes from A. 2.118. Could it be that A. 2.118 was unfinished in the
manuscript that Geta used?
28. Pliny Ep. 7.17.3. Cited in Dupont, ‘‘Recitatio,’’ 50–51.
29. Much criticism has focused on recitation drama; notable examples are
Friedrich Leo, L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae, 2 vols. (Berlin: Berolini, 1878–1879),
1:163–169, C. J. Herington, ‘‘Senecan Tragedy,’’ Arion 5.4 (1966): 422–471, and Otto
Zwierlein, Die Rezitationsdramen Senecas (Mannheim an Glan: Anton Hain, 1966).
30. That poets recited drafts of works is clear from Pliny (Ep. 3.7.5), who relates
that Silius non numquam iudicia hominum recitationibus experiebatur, and from Horace
(AP 438–452). As just mentioned, VSD 34 reports that Virgil himself recited passages
with incomplete lines, which he completed extemporaneously as he performed (for a
skeptical appraisal of this aspect of the story, see Nicholas Horsfall, ‘‘Virgil: His Life and
Times,’’ in A Companion to the Study of Virgil, ed. Nicholas Horsfall [Leiden: Brill,
1995], 19).
31. On the reception of a recitatio and the presentation of tragedies at such an
event, see Dupont, ‘‘Recitatio,’’ 50–51.
32. For the concept of the inner form (contrasted, unsurprisingly, with outer
form), of a genre, see René Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd ed.
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1962), 231, whose definition of inner form I streamline a
bit.
33. OCD, s. v. ‘‘genre,’’ divides the criteria that determine genre under these three
headings: the formal, the pragmatic or performative, and the thematic. I have followed
this scheme, though I have substituted Wellek and Warren’s outer and inner form for the
terms formal and thematic. A. J. Boyle, ‘‘Introduction: The Roman Song,’’ in Roman Epic,
ed. A. J. Boyle (London: Routledge Press, 1993), 17 n. 12, expands the list of what defines
a genre, listing meter, subject matter, style, length, scope, voice, tone, effect, and func-
tion. I have tried to deal with each of these things within the scheme that I follow.
34. The cento thus offers a curious demonstration of a statement by Tynjanov,
cited by Hans Robert Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti
180 NOTES TO PAGES 37

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 106–107 (Jauss does not provide
page numbers for his citation): ‘‘A work [for which we should substitute verse units]
which is [are] ripped out of the context of the given literary system and transposed into
another one receives another coloring, clothes itself with other characteristics, enters
into another genre, loses its genre; in other words, its function is shifted.’’
35. Hence criticism like that of Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2345, who rebukes the
staleness of the themes and imagery in the Medea, misses the point of the text. Indeed,
Geta would largely aim to make his cento as conventional as possible.
36. The chorus, which fails to perform classical functions such as announcing
the arrival of characters and engaging individual actors in dialogue, consists of Colchians
rather than Corinthians in Geta’s play. The centonist also gives a speaking part to the
umbra Absyrtis (a figure that in Seneca appears in Medea’s overheated mind, and whom
she addresses [Med. 958–975]; giving the umbra a speaking part strikes me as an ae-
mulatio-charged innovation that Seneca would have liked). Geta, moreover, attaches a
satelles to Jason (Med. 181–194). Finally, Allecto appears as the result of Medea’s
witchcraft (Med. 345–362), rather than Hecate. The cause may be the Virgilian material
underlying the cento; Aeneid 7, after all, contains lines with the name Allecto. It is
perhaps worth mentioning that, along with her sisters Tisiphone and Megaera, Allecto is
featured in Dracontius’s miniature epic Medea (see Bright, Miniature Epic, 75). The
three serve as witnesses to Jason’s marriage to Glavce (not Creusa).
37. In comparing Geta’s Medea with Seneca’s, for instance, there are some dif-
ferences that appear. Missing from the cento are the soliloquies of Medea on her
suffering and anger (397–425, 893–977 in Seneca) and Jason’s entrance monologue
(431–446). Geta also eliminates Medea’s incantation (lines 752–842 in Seneca), re-
placing it with the messenger’s eyewitness account of her sorcery (321–373), in which
there is some dialogue between Medea and Allecto. The nurse also has a larger role in
Seneca, who gives her a long speech in which she is something like a messenger (670–
739), which Geta does not do. (The centonist’s nurse is also vengeful when she appears
just before Medea kills her children [374–375], which she is not at the comparable point
in Seneca [891–892].) The omissions can be explained as resulting from the abbreviated
length of Geta’s play (461 lines to 1027 in Seneca. Geta’s is the longest of the mytho-
logical and secular centos, however, which suggests that, within the context of cento
composition, its length is sufficiently grand for a tragedy [for tragedies were of course
among the longer poems in antiquity]). In comparison with Seneca, Geta also shifts the
order of the dialogue between Medea and her nurse, which precedes Creon’s entrance in
Seneca’s play (150–179) but which comes after the king departs from the cento in line
103. What is more, the centonist has two messenger speeches (313–373, 411–433),
while Seneca (879–890, a very short speech indeed) has one. Finally, Geta gives a
speaking part to Medea’s children (386–389, 396, 399–402), which Seneca does not do;
but this does occur in Euripides.
38. The five-act structure seems to have been crucial to Augustan tragedy; see
Horace AP 189–190. On Seneca’s adherence to the Five-Act Rule, see Tarrant, ‘‘Se-
necan Drama,’’ 218–221.
39. Even the changes in the order of events mentioned in note 37 fit within the
traditional frame of a tragic plot. The dialogue between Medea and her nurse, though
moved, is conventional; and the first messenger speech (313–373) reports the same
material that Seneca’s nurse does, about Medea’s witchcraft (Med. 670–739).
NOTES TO PAGES 37–38 181

40. Medea also recounts events in Colchis and the help she gave to Jason in
Ovid’s Her. 12.21–100 (a passage introduced in line 21 with the words est aliqua ingrato
meritum exprobrare voluptas).
41. I paraphrase Gian Biagio Conte, Latin Literature: A History, trans. Joseph B.
Solodow (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 4.
42. See note 4 earlier and Salanitro’s description of tragedy as ‘‘un genere cioè
alieno dalla produzione poetica di Virgilio.’’ It should be noted that Virgil mentions
Medea in E. 8. 47–50, though not by name, and alludes to her murder of her sons.
Medea’s presence in the eighth Eclogue lends support to the truism that different genres
can share subject matter. Obviously, though, Virgil’s treatment of Medea’s story differs
from that of a dramatist; for E. 8.47–50 of course does not constitute a tragic fabula. Not
surprisingly, segments taken from E. 8.47–50 appear four times in the cento (263, 400–
401, 442, 444).
43. Relevant here is Martial (Ep. 8.18.8–9). Martial contends that Virgil could
have surpassed Varius in drama: et Vario cessit Romani laude cothurni, / cum posset
tragico fortius ore loqui. The point here is that Virgil, though eminently capable of
composing tragedy, in fact never wrote such a poem. I should add here that the generic
space separating all of Virgil’s poems and a tragedy is readily apparent even though
bucolic and didactic poetry were not discrete literary types in antiquity, but forms of the
category epos. For it is clear to any even remotely competent reader that the Eclogues and
Georgics are not tragedies.
44. Evidence for this includes programmatic statements of poets—e.g., recusationes
and references to meter or to the relation (often strained) between form and content. See
also Cicero’s De Optimo Genere Oratorum (1); Horace’s AP (89–91; but Horace proceeds to
note that the language of tragedy and comedy can intermingle [93–95]); Quintilian’s list of
poets working in and poems from different genera, which he distinguishes mainly by meter,
but partly by theme (Inst. Orat. 10.1.46–72 and 10.1.83–100); and the late fourth- or early
fifth-century Diomedes, who categorizes poems on the grounds of narrative mode or voice
rather than of meter (‘‘De Poematibus,’’ in book 3 of Ars Grammatica [Keil, 1.482–492]). On
ancient genre theory, see Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, ‘‘Ancient Literary Genres: A Mirage?’’
YCGL 34 (1985): 74–84. Finally, see note 16.
45. The concept of a Kreuzung der Gattungen originates with Wilhelm Kroll,
Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1924), 139–
184. Boyle, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 5, offers relevant comments about this Kreuzung, particularly
in epic: ‘‘Roman epic admitted of a variety of styles, incorporating features of other
‘genres’ within itself. ‘Generic mixture,’ Kreuzung der Gattungen, was in fact a thoroughly
Roman poetic practice.’’
46. For a brief account of the language of epigram, see Richard W. Hooper, trans.
and comm., The Priapus Poems (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 16–17.
47. With regard to the disparities between comedy and tragedy, see Horace, AP
89–91: versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult; / indignatur item privatis ac prope
socco / dignis carminibus narrari cena Thyestae.
48. On the topic of poetic diction and register, Bertil Axelson, Unpoetische
Wörter: Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Lateinischen Dichtersprache (Lund: H. Ohlsson,
1945), remains fundamental; but Gordon Willis Williams, Tradition and Originality in
Roman Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968) 743–750, counters Axelson’s
methods of distinguishing prose and poetic vocabulary. See also R.G.G. Coleman,
182 NOTES TO PAGES 38–39

‘‘Poetic Diction, Poetic Discourse and the Poetic Register,’’ in Aspects of the Language of
Latin Poetry, ed. J. N. Adams and R. G. Mayer Proceedings of the British Academy 93
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 21–93, and J.G.F. Powell, ‘‘Stylistic Registers in
Juvenal,’’ in the same volume, 311–334. I should note here that the combination of
registers in parody, which is not a literary genre but a mode, is a separate phenomenon
from what I am discussing.
49. Relevant here is R.G.M. Nisbet, ‘‘The Style of Virgil’s Eclogues,’’ PVS 20
(1991): 1: ‘‘After all in most works of literature, including even the Eclogues, there are
many lines that could have belonged somewhere else.’’ See too D. Thomas Benediktson,
‘‘Vocabulary Analysis and the Generic Classification of Literature,’’ Phoenix 31.4 (1977):
341–348, who questions whether vocabulary can be used to define literary genres (and
criticizes Ross’s attempts to do so in Catullus). R.O.A.M. Lyne, Words and the Poet:
Characteristic Techniques of Style in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989),
14–15, meanwhile, notes that, while there was a hierarchy between genres, it was not a
rigid hierarchy, as there was a ‘‘designed interaction’’ between the forms and their dic-
tion. Finally, Powell, ‘‘Stylistic Registers,’’ 324–325, says that any language is bound to
contain a large number of words and constructions that are neutral in regard to register,
whether found in everyday discourse or poetry. Such language can smoothly move be-
tween poetic genres.
50. See Horace, AP 93–95: interdum tamen et vocem comoedia tollit, / . . . et
tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri. Apropos of this point, Susanna Braund has
reminded me that it is impossible to judge the genre (tragedy or comedy) of several
fragments of Republican drama. Complicating the possible linguistic exchange between
those genres, however, is the existence of tragicomedy, of which Lausberg, Handbook,
917, gives an overview, with citations of relevant material.
51. This is especially true of Juvenal’s satires, in which the presence of lofty
language is usually meant to have a particular effect.
52. Michael Roberts, ‘‘The Last Epic of Antiquity: Generic Continuity and In-
novation in the Vita Sancti Martini of Venantius Fortunatus,’’ TAPA 131 (2001): 267.
53. L. R. Palmer, The Latin Language (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1954), 108, provides some basic comments on this topic.
54. Geta takes 592 of 695 units comprising his cento from the Aeneid. On the
diction in the Aeneid, see, e.g., A. Cordier, Etudes sur le vocabulaire épique dans l’ ‘éneide’
(Paris: Societe d’Edition, Les Belles Lettres, 1939).
55. See VSD 44: M. Vipsanius a Maecenate eum suppositum appellabat, novae
cacozeliae repertorem, nec tumidae nec exilis, sed ex communibus verbis, atque ideo la-
tentis. Its contumely aside, the passage rightly suggests that Virgil largely adhered to
the linguistic mean (ex communibus verbis). The poetic quality of Virgil’s language,
meanwhile—that is, the part of it that sets it apart from prose and arrests the reader’s
attention—arises from how he combined his words, or his callida iunctura. Of course,
Virgil often gives suggestive, poetic meaning to a word also found in everyday, prosy
contexts. A good example is his use of tegmen in E. 1.1. I should note too that some read
repertore for repertorem, which would make Maecenas the origin of the nova cacozelia,
which then somehow finds its way into Virgil’s style. Even if this is the case, the point
would stand that Virgil shows that affectation of style.
56. See, e.g., Macrobius, Saturnalia 6.1–5, in which there are some citations of
parallels between the Aeneid and Roman tragedy.
NOTES TO PAGES 39–40 183

57. As Hardie notes, ‘‘Virgil and Tragedy,’’ 322. See also Karl Galinsky, ‘‘Greek
and Roman Drama and the Aeneid,’’ in Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome:
Studies in Honour of T. P. Wiseman, ed. David Braund and Christopher Gill (Exeter:
University of Exeter Press, 2003), 275–294. W. F. Jackson Knight, Roman Vergil
(London: Faber and Faber, 1944), esp. 133–148, moreover, discusses Virgil’s relation-
ship with Greek tragedy. Finally, see the previous note.
58. On Virgil’s subjective style, see Brooks Otis, Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 41–97.
59. One could also, of course, examine the relationships between the content of
the individual units and their Virgilian origins without doing so through the filter of genre.
As I said in the introduction to this chapter, however, the fact that Geta recasts Virgil as
a tragedy is the most conspicuous feature of his work; hence my focus on it.
60. Gian Biagio Conte, Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny’s En-
cyclopedia, trans. Glenn W. Most (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994),
117, argues that it is safe to postulate that ‘‘ancient readers attached considerable sig-
nificance to the question, ‘To what genre does this new text belong?’ If we do not
presuppose a question of this sort, the complexity of many ancient texts . . . verges on
senselessness.’’ I would include Geta’s Medea among Conte’s ‘‘many ancient texts’’ and
would argue that ancient readers, as well as readers since antiquity, need to ask to what
genre the cento belongs and how that genre relates to Virgil—and the latter question can
yield different answers and be seen to have different implications.
61. The last line of the Georgics (4.566) shows this to be the case. A poem
attributed to the fourth-century Pope Damasus provides far more startling support for
this claim. Damasus writes a poem to a member of the cloth whom he calls Tityrus. If I
understand the poem correctly, this figure composed Christian fabulae that were bucolic
in character; but Damasus sees fit to warn him against writing conventional pastoral. To
begin his poem, Damasus adapts E. 1.1 in a remarkable way, but in the process shows
how the Virgilian line was shorthand for the bucolic genre: Tityre, tu fido recubans sub
tegmine Christi / divinos apices sacro modularis in ore, / non falsas fabulas studio meditaris
inani. / illis nam capitur felicis gloria vitae, / istis succedent poenae sine fine perennes (AL
720b R 1–5; the poem continues for five more lines).
62. The word tegmine of course introduces a crucial bucolic theme, namely
shade. Yet the usual bucolic word for this is umbra, not tegmen.
63. Among the scholars who have noted the extensive intertextual relations
linking Geta’s cento and tragedians, particularly Seneca, are Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3,
2345, Lamacchia, Hosidius Geta, x, and Mooney, Hosidius Geta’s Tragedy, 8.
64. That dux can be shorthand for epic is clear from the pseudo-Virgilian epi-
taph that recounts the poet’s career: Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc /
Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces (VSD 36). See also Hor. AP 73–74, on epic:
res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella / quo scribi possent numero, monstravit
Homerus.
65. That the phrase dux femina facti fits comfortably into a drama is made clearer
when line 559 of Seneca’s Phaedra, which reads dux malorum femina, is recalled. The
statement shows that Seneca understood that there was a place for a close echo of
A. 1.364 in tragedy. As a centonist, Geta assimilates that Virgilian line to tragedy more
directly than Seneca does; but the Phaedra provides Geta’s gesture with an analogue in
more conventional drama.
184 NOTES TO PAGES 40–43

66. It does not seem correct to me to think of the reuse of A. 1. 364 as comic, as
Desbordes, Argonautica, 102–103, does. Because Jason’s statement abides by ancient
conceptions of decorum with regard to character (see Cic. De Off. 1.27.93–97)—that is,
it preserves what is appropriate for that character to say—the centonist’s intention would
seem to be to elicit wonder at how uncannily the epic Virgilian line fits its new context. I
should note that the centonist Mavortius also cites dux femina facti, in reference to
Helen (Iud. Par. 39).
67. In the Metamorphoses, however, Ovid concentrates on Medea in Colchis,
turning to events in Corinth only in Met. 7.394–397. Ovid also indirectly treats Medea in
Heroides 6, where Hypsipyle writes to Jason. While Ovid, with typical dramatic irony, has
Hypsipyle wish Medea ill in terms that foretell events in Corinth (esp. in lines 155–162),
the poem is basically concerned with the ‘‘first’’ or ‘‘earlier’’ Medea—that is, the witchy
girl in Colchis. Finally, in Tr. 3.9.5–34 Ovid further takes up the story of Medea in
Colchis. I have not located any echoes of these last two Ovidian texts in the cento.
68. Mooney, Hosidius Geta’s Tragedy, 8, recommends this approach. Of course,
questions about the authenticity of Heroides 12 are another complicating factor. Peter E.
Knox, ‘‘Ovid’s Medea and the Authenticity of Heroides 12,’’ HSCP 90 (1986): 207–223,
argues against Ovidian authorship of the poem, a position that Stephen Hinds, ‘‘Medea
in Ovid: Scenes from the Life of an Intertextual Heroine,’’ MD 30 (1993): 9–47, rebuts. I
follow the current consensus in assuming that Ovid wrote Heroides 12. I also see no real
reason to think that Ovid’s Medea was a piece of pseudepigraphy, an idea that Niklas
Holzberg has recently floated.
69. On this topic, see, for example, A. Cima, ‘‘La Medea di Seneca e la Medea di
Ovidio,’’ Atene e Roma 6 (1904): 224–229, and J. Charlier, Ovide et Sénèque: Con-
tribution à l’étude de l’influence d’Ovide sur les tragedies de Sénèque (Paris: Aubier, 1954).
70. Lucan (though his tragedy was unfinished; see Vit. Luc.), and Curiatius
Maternus (see Tac. Dial. 3.4), for instance, both wrote tragedies on Medea. Whether
these focused on her travails in Colchis (like Accius’s play [see, e.g., Cic. De Nat. Deor.
2.35.89]) or in Corinth is unknown. I should note that I have also checked Valerius
Flaccus’s Argonautica, 5–8, for parallels with Geta’s Medea but have found none.
71. Hinds, ‘‘Medea in Ovid,’’ 11–21, analyzes the appearance of Scylla in Her. 12
and Met. 7 in far more detail than I do in his argument for the authenticity of the
Ovidian letter. For my interests, it is enough that Scylla appears in both texts; how the
monster is presented in them is beyond the interests of my inquiry. 
72. Euripides may also refer to Scylla when his Medea cries to Jason pròB tauta
‘
0
kai l
eainan, e’i bo
ulZ, ˛ k
alei / kai Sk
ullan Z ‘ TursZnon o ˛ kZsen p
etran (Med.
1358–1359). In his OCT edition, however, Diggle brackets the line.
73. For a discussion of the centonist’s name and the scholarship on it, see La-
macchia, Hosidius Geta, v, Desbordes, Argonautica, 83–84, and Nathan Dane II, ‘‘The
Medea of Hosidius Geta,’’ CJ 46.2 (1950): 76.
74. Thus Beatus Rhenanus, who published the 1521 edition of the De Prae-
scriptione Haereticorum, seems to posit a link between the centonist and Ovid by dub-
bing the former figure Ovidius Geta. Iohannes Pamelius, editor of the 1579 text, gives
the poet the same name.
75. Dane, ‘‘The Medea,’’ 76, offers this interpretation.
76. Seneca also uses the term ostrum puniceum in a simile for Creusa in the
choral epithalamium: ostro sic niveus puniceo color / perfusus rubuit (99–100). To my
NOTES TO PAGES 43–47 185

mind, this is not quite close enough to either Ovid or Geta to suggest that Seneca was
also a part of the intertextual exchange in line 23 of the cento.
77. Her. 12.179–182 reads as follows: rideat et Tyrio iaceat sublimis in ostro— /
flebit et ardores vincet adusta meos! / dum ferrum flammaeque aderunt sucusque veneni, /
hostis Medeae nullus inultus erit!
78. Ovid has Dido ask Aeneas quo fugis? in Her. 7.41, perhaps in response to A.
4.314. But Ovid’s Dido does not repeat the question; and it is the repetition that to my
mind links Geta to Seneca. Ovid also repeats quo fugis? in Met. 8.108 and 110, in Scylla’s
speech. Again, though, the repetition at similar points in Geta’s and Seneca’s tragedies,
and one containing a theme common to both, points to direct imitation.
79. Conte, Genres and Readers, 108–109, discusses the epic associations of arma:
‘‘Consider a word like arma. Within a certain constellation, this is an epic theme, indeed, a
sign of epicness, a connotator of a genre.’’ (Conte proceeds to note how Ovid complicates the
generic affiliations of that word in the story of Apollo and Daphne in the Metamorphoses.)
80. Ovid also indirectly incorporates the theme of apology into Heroides 12,
though without the word fateor. With consummate dramatic irony, Ovid has Medea
surmise that she may someday regret her wrath and vengeful deeds: quo feret ira, sequar!
facti fortasse pigebit (Her. 12.209).
81. A similar shift occurs in line 69 of the cento, licet arma mihi mortem mineris
[A. 11.348]), where Medea addresses Creon. These words, which Drances delivers to
Turnus in Virgil, refer in the cento to Creon’s threats that mark his speech to the
Colchian in all the extant tragedies on Medea. The line does not echo a specific line in a
specific play, however.
82. Good examples of this general phenomenon appear in book 6 of Macrobius’s
Saturnalia, where Albinus explores Virgil’s imitation of Latin poets in various genres
(e.g., Ennius’s tragedies). See note 56 above.
83. With the metrical obstacles removed that might arise when one working with
iambic trimeter tries to echo hexameters, this exchange becomes that much easier, of
course. For a discussion with which my argument here agrees in its essentials, see
Richard F. Thomas, ‘‘Genre through Intertextuality: Theocritus to Virgil and Propertius,’’
Hellenistica Groningana 2 (1996): 22–46 reprinted in Reading Virgil, 246–266, an essay
that explores how material moves across genres through intertextuality in Theocritus,
Virgil, and Propertius.
84. Stephen Hinds, The Metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the Self–
Conscious Muse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 116.
85. See note 54.
86. Notably Richard Heinze, Virgil’s Epic Technique, trans. Hazel and David Harvey
and Fred Robertson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 93–120, Viktor Pöschl,
The Art of Vergil: Image and Symbol in the Aeneid, trans. Gerda Seligson (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1962), 60–90, Frances Muecke, ‘‘Foreshadowing and Dra-
matic Irony in the Story of Dido.’’ AJP 104.2 (1983): 134–155, J. L. Moles, ‘‘Aristotle and
Dido’s Hamartia,’’ Greece and Rome 31.1 (1984): 48–54, and Antonie Wlosok, ‘‘Vergils
Didotragödie: Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Tragischen in der Aeneis,’’ in Studien zum
antiken Epos, ed. Herwig Görgemanns and Ernst A. Schmidt (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton
Hain, 1976), 228–250 reprinted in ‘‘The Dido Tragedy in Virgil: A Contribution to the
Question of the Tragic in the Aeneid,’’ trans. H. Harvey, in Virgil: Critical Assessments of
Classical Authors, ed. Philip Hardie, 4 vols. (London: Routledge, 1999), 4:158–181. This is
186 NOTES TO PAGES 47–48

not to deny that Virgil incorporates material from other genres into Aeneid 4, notably elegy, as
Francis Cairns, Virgil’s Augustan Epic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 129–
150, suggests (though I would not go so far as to call Dido’s overall situation ‘‘specifically
elegiac,’’ as Cairns does [137]).
87. Heinze, Virgil’s Epic Technique, 96, gets at the generic interplay in Aeneid 4
by labeling it a tragic epyllion.
88. R. G. Austin, ed., Aeneidos Liber Quartus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), ix and
x, is so taken with the dramatic quality of Aeneid 4 that he says: ‘‘If Virgil had written nothing
else . . . it would have established his right to stand beside the greatest of the Greek tragedians.’’
89. On Anna as a tragic confidante, see Heinze, Virgil’s Epic Technique, 100.
90. Viktor Pöschl, ‘‘Virgile et la Tragédie,’’ in Présence de Virgile (en hommage à
Jacques Perret): Actes du colloque des 9, 11, et 12 décembre, 1976, Paris E.N.S., Tours, ed.
Raymond Chevallier (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1978), 73–79, examines the influence of
Greek tragedy on the Dido story.
91. On Servius’s and Macrobius’s synopses, see Christopher Collard, ‘‘Medea and
Dido,’’ Prometheus 1 (1975): 131 and 139. As Collard (139 n. 27) points out, Macrobius’s
use of quarto has bothered scholars; but in Macrobius’s defense (though fundamentally
Servius is more accurate than he, and though it seems that Macrobius wrongly wanted to
align directly the Apollonian and Virgilian books in question), there are some elements in
book 4 of Apollonius’s Argonautica that overlap with Aeneid 4.
92. See Cairns in note 86 earlier and, e.g., Gilbert Highet, The Speeches in
Vergil’s Aeneid (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 218–219, Ralph Hexter,
‘‘Sidonian Dido,’’ in Innovations of Antiquity, ed. Ralph Hexter and Daniel Selden
(London: Routledge, 1992), (1992) 336–341, and Sarah Spence, ‘‘Varium et Mutabile:
Voices of Authority in Aeneid 4,’’ in Reading Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed.
Christine Perkell (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 87.
93. A strong resemblance between the characters is that both experience pseudo-
marriages in caves (see Arg. 4.1128–1169, A. 4.165–172). The parallel between Medea and
Dido is also drawn in lines A. 4.600–601, where Dido sounds very much like Medea
discussing Absyrtus: non potui abreptum divellere corpus et undis / spargere? I will discuss
other examples later.
94. For instance, Collard, ‘‘Medea and Dido,’’ 133–138.
95. For some examples, see Highet, Speeches, 220, 222, 223, 225, 227, 228, 229,
and 231. Some of these echoes may arise by way of Ennius.
96. Geta does not reproduce Virgil’s wound metaphor in the cento by citing the
opening of Aeneid 4 and giving them to Medea. The image does appear, however, in line
159 (Medea speaks), credo, mea vulnera restant (A. 10.29).
97. On Italian and French Renaissance tragedies on Dido, see Robert Turner,
Didon dans la tragédie de la renaissance italienne et francaise (Paris: Fouillot, 1926).
98. As Barbara J. Bono, Literary Transvaluation from Vergilian Epic to Shake-
spearean Tragicomedy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 90 relates.
99. Bono, Literary Transvaluation, 88–97, discusses these works.
100. For an analysis of Marlowe’s play, see again Bono, Literary Transvaluation,
107–116 and 127–139.
101. In 1576, the Virgilian centonist Jean Lucienberg also composed a curious
drama in ten acts about the adventures of Aeneas, of which the third act concerns Dido.
For this text, see Delepierre, Tableau, 1:231–247.
NOTES TO PAGES 48–51 187

102. A good example is mens immota manet (A. 4.449), through which Medea says
that she has settled on revenge. In Virgil, the line refers to Aeneas’s unwavering decision
to leave Carthage and Dido. Obviously, the differences between Aeneid 4 and the cento
Medea is large here. Moreover, Geta at times takes units from Aeneid 1 that have Dido as
their subject; these can fail to establish a tidy allusive relationship between the content
of the passages. An example is line 437, dux femina facti, which I analyzed earlier. There
are also two citations of units from the passage in Aeneid 6 that tells of Aeneas’s
encounter with Dido in the underworld (272, and the first half of 437). The first of these
functions as something close to a direct allusion to the res of the Virgilian line, since
Jason says to Medea quid te adloquor hoc est, just as Aeneas did to Dido. The circum-
stances in which the heroes delivered the lines are very different, however.
103. See note 42.
104. On this semantic change, see Desbordes, Argonautica, 102, and Lamacchia,
‘‘Problemi,’’ 163–164. The same thing occurs in line 263 of the cento, where Jason
addresses Medea: quae <te> dementia cepit (E. 2.69 or 6.47) / commaculare manus, (E.
8.48) fraterna caede penates? (A. 4.21) (Med. 262–263).
105. Med. 379–380 also underscores the differences between the behavior of
Medea and of Dido: sacra Iovi Stygio, quae rite incepta paravi, / perficere est animus
fidemque imponere curis (A. 4.638–639). While Dido, who delivers the lines in the
Aeneid, refers to her suicide, Medea’s sacra rite incepta involve her killing her sons.
106. Good examples appear in lines 294 and 297, which come, respectively, from
A. 3.331 and 332, Andromache’s speech to Aeneas. Andromache’s appearance in Virgil
has been seen to owe much to Greek tragedy. Other possible examples come from the
soliloquy delivered by Euryalus’s mother—lines 205 (A. 9.492) and 435 (A. 9.493),
which in Virgil have faint (and so disputable) echoes of Soph. El. 1158–1159 and Eur.
Hec. 387 respectively. On the tragic undercurrents in the Nisus and Euryalus episode
generally, see Barbara Pavlock, ‘‘Epic and Tragedy in Vergil’s Nisus and Euryalus Epi-
sode,’’ TAPA 115 (1985): 207–224.
107. Perhaps Geta chooses not to cite A. 4.471 because the word scaenis introduces a
metaelement, or refers to Orestes as a tragic story rather than as a tortured character. The mes-
sage of Geta’s chorus demands that Orestes be presented as the latter of these, not the former.
108. As Highet, Speeches, 225 notes.
109. The intertextuality of Geta’s quid, si non arva aliena domosque / ignotas pe-
teret? grows even more dizzying if a reader recalls A. 4.658 (Dido speaks): numquam
Dardaniae tetigissent nostra carinae. Lines 20–21 of the cento Medea thus echo another
Virgilian line, A. 4.658, which itself imitates Euripides Med. 1 even more closely and
makes even more evident Dido’s links to the Medea of drama. The tragic provenance of
A. 311–312 is evident even if audiences do not think of A. 4.658, however. I therefore
relegate this complicating observation to a note.
110. This is a variation (because pursued through the medium of cento composi-
tion) on double imitation, in which an author alludes to two works, the latter of which had
itself echoed the former. On double imitation, see, e.g., Philip Hardie, ‘‘Flavian Epicists
on Virgil’s Epic Technique,’’ Ramus 18.1/2 (1989): 4. J. C. McKeown, ed. and comm.,
Ovid: Amores, ARCA no. 20 (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1987), 37–45, discusses this
phenomenon as ‘‘double allusion.’’ A fairly wide range of nomenclature describes si-
multaneous allusions to two or more sources; for an overview, see Garth Tissol, ‘‘Ovid and
Rutilius Namatianus,’’ Arethusa 35.3 (2002): 441 n. 13.
188 NOTES TO PAGES 51–54

111. Of the thirty-six Virgilian verse units comprising the prologue to the Medea,
fourteen come from Aeneid 4. Of these, Dido delivered five, and nearly all the others
refer to her in diegetic passages in Virgil.
112. Geta may also take Ovid as a model within this passage. As I showed earlier,
lines 10–11 echo a theme found in both Ovidian accounts of Medea in Met. 7 and Her.
12 and in Seneca’s tragedy (though not in its opening scene). We cannot know, of
course, whether Ovid began his tragic Medea with a prayer similar to the one Seneca
offers. For another perspective on the relationship between Dido and Seneca’s heroines,
see Elaine Fantham, ‘‘Virgil’s Dido and Seneca’s Tragic Heroines,’’ Greece and Rome 22
(1975): 1–10.
113. So Stephen Wheeler, ‘‘Introduction: Toward a Literary History of Ovid’s
Reception in Antiquity,’’ Arethusa 35.3 (2002): 342–343.
114. See Peter J. Rabinowitz, ‘‘Shifting Stands, Shifting Standards,’’ Arethusa
19.2 (1986): 126: ‘‘Texts may well be ambiguous, but they are not infinitely open; a
text doesn’t ‘impose itself’ on readers, but it is resistant to certain readings.’’ Of
course, in examining the history of the criticism of the text, striking misreadings can
appear, which can themselves inform later moments in literary history, as I noted in
chapter 1.

CHAPTER 3
1. The Salmasianus gives no title for this work. De Panificio was coined by
modern editors and has become the conventional title (though Riese does not use it).
2. As Bright says, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 81 n. 7. Bright notes, 81, that Crusius
(RE 3.2, cols. 1929–1932), for instance, ‘‘greatly overstates the importance of parody in
the genre as a whole.’’
3. I paraphrase Margaret A. Rose, Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 78, who proceeds to give a more
precise definition of parody as a form dependent on humor. An important theoretical
work on parody is that of Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of
Twentieth-Century Art Forms (New York: Methuen, 1985).
4. A point that Rose makes, Parody, 78. (Rose also allows for the ‘‘parodistic use’’
of the cento, though she understands that use differently from how I will in this chapter.)
5. So Levitan, ‘‘Dancing,’’ 246.
6. The claim that cento composition as such differs from parody holds despite
the etymology of parody. The two forms are distinct types of ‘‘singing beside.’’
7. Rose, Parody, esp. 31–32 and 52 (as well as 78; see note 3 earlier) situates
humor at the center of parody, as do most commentators on it. In antiquity, Quintilian’s
mention of parody in his discussion of wit (Inst. Orat. 6.3.89) suggests that he considered
humor to be fundamental to the form. Fred W. Householder, ‘‘PAPODIA,’’ CP 39.1
(1944): 8, disagrees with this view, to my mind unconvincingly.
8. Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 80–81, discusses how the traditional forms and
subjects that most of the centos preserve distinguish them from parody.
9. The epithalamium was not a theorized poetic genre in antiquity. (Menander
Rhetor includes the form in his treatise on the varied kinds of prose speeches, however.)
Despite that omission, it is clear that the epithalamium, as an occasional poem, would
have been assumed to occupy a modest generic position.
NOTES TO PAGES 55–56 189

10. As I noted in the introduction to this book, the construction of Virgil as the
Roman poet began in his lifetime and continued through late antiquity in both pagan and
Christian circles, and was very much facilitated by his importance in the school curric-
ulum. The Aeneid was central to the glorification of Virgil. Yet the Eclogues were con-
sistently seen in the Latin world as the central and most outstanding specimen of bucolic
poetry in the Latin tradition, as passages in the works of Calpurnius Siculus and Ne-
mesianus attest. (Likewise, the Eclogues are representative of bucolic poetry in a piece
attributed to Pope Damasus [AL 720b R, 1], which I discussed in n. 61 to chapter 2.)
The Georgics, meanwhile, maintained their prestige as part of the Virgilian corpus, even
if the poem in antiquity was something of a middle child.
11. On the stigma attached to dicing, see Nicholas Purcell, ‘‘Literate Games:
Roman Urban Society and the Game of Alea,’’ Past and Present 147 (1995): 6–18.
Despite this, and despite the fact that dicing was officially illegal except during the
Saturnalia, many Romans throughout antiquity (including Augustus and Claudius) were
avid players.
12. Verweyen and Witting, ‘‘The Cento,’’ 173–174, also distinguish two kinds of
centos, the first of whose functions, they claim, are exactly analogous to contrafacture
and the second to parody.
13. On Virgilian parody, see Gabriella Senis, EV 3, 985–986, s. v. ‘‘parodie di
Virgilio.’’ On ancient parody generally, see, e.g., F. J. Lelièvre, ‘‘The Basis of Ancient
Parody,’’ Greece and Rome 2.I.2 (1954): 66–81. Parodies also appear in the name of Virgil
in the Appendix Vergiliana: the Culex (whose parodic qualities I discuss in a bit more
detail in note 32) and Catalepton 10 (a particularly clever parody of Catullus, Carm. 4).
14. The graffito reads fullones ululamque cano, non arma virumque; see Senis, EV
3, 986, s. v. ‘‘parodie di Virgilio.’’ It is tempting to think that the end of Aeneid 2 is being
specifically parodied in a wall painting found in a villa near Stabiae, in which the figures
in the Aeneas group in the Forum of Augustus are presented as apes with dogs’ heads
and exaggerated phalloi. This probably was not a parody of the Aeneid per se, however,
but of a particular scene in the Aeneas legend. On this painting, see Paul Zanker, The
Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1988), 209.
15. Another potential parody of the Georgics is the work de apibus of Melissus,
Maecenas’s secretary (see Serv., ad Aen. 7.66). Melissus’s work on bees may have been
meant to poke fun at the Virgilian topic, as Geymonat suggests, ‘‘Transmission,’’ 294.
This is pure conjecture, however.
16. On the parody of A. 10.474–475, see Smith, Poetic Allusion, 71–74.
17. In general, though, Ovid’s rewriting of Virgil in the ‘‘Little Aeneid’’ is more a
matter of offering an alternative view of the world depicted in the Aeneid, not directly
parodying Virgil; see Joseph B. Solodow, The World of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988) (1988) 54. On parody of Virgil in the
Metamorphoses, see, e.g., Brooks Otis, Ovid as an Epic Poet, 2nd ed.(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1970), 18–19, 100, 133, 137, 145, 173, 290–291, and 328.
18. Other possible obtrectatores connected to the Eclogues are Bavius and
Maevius (see Serv. ad Buc. 3.90, where the two are called pessimi poetae and enemies of
both Horace and Virgil).
19. I follow Georgius Brugnoli and Fabius Stok, eds., Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae
(Rome: Typis Officinae Polygraphicae, 1997), 39, in using the spelling Aeneidomastix
190 NOTES TO PAGES 56–58

(i.e., Aeneidos mastix), despite the presence in the leading manuscripts of the Vita of
Aeneomastix.
20. Boyle, ‘‘Canonic Text,’’ 79–80, identifies the Aeneidomastix as a parody.
21. VSD 44 notes that the Aeneidomastix was composed adversus Aeneida, a
statement that seems to mean ‘‘inimical to the Aeneid’’ (see OLD, s. v. ‘‘adversus’’ 9)—
though of course, mastix itself implies hostility. Supporting the idea that the Aeneido-
mastix was such a critical work are two notes in Servius (ad Buc. 2.23 and ad. Aen.
5.521), both of which say that a nameless Virgiliomastix criticizes Virgil (the word
vituperat appears in the first note and culpat in the second). In his work, Carvilius Pictor
could have taken a similarly critical and hostile approach to Servius’s Virgiliomastix,
assuming they were not the same person. Pictor’s work might have also resembled the
Ciceromastix of Largius Licinus mentioned by Aulus Gellius (NA 17.1), which seems to
have been a piece of harsh criticism, not a parody.
22. Senis, EV 3, 985, s. v. ‘‘parodie di Virgilio,’’ notes that conventional Vir-
gilian parodies remained unpopular through the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Parodic centos, however, continued to be written in that later period; Martha Bayless,
Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1996), 129–176, examines these texts. Verweyen and Witting, ‘‘The Cento,’’
167, call attention to the existence of parodic centos of poets beyond Virgil, and cite
the entry in the 1974 edition of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics on the
cento that mentions ‘‘humorous centos which are occasionally published in popular
literary reviews.’’
23. These anonymous centonists were almost certainly not the same figure. The
fact that the centos are so different in subject matter, length, and (as I will show) cento
technique, as well as their disparate methods of citing Virgilian lines (see the statistical
analysis of Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 85) all suggest strongly that the centonists were
distinct authors.
24. Critics (e.g., Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2337) have presumed that the cento
features pistores at their own shop, rather than slaves or other humble members of a
household at work at the oven. It must be said, however, that we cannot be entirely sure
about this (though even if the cento were describing slaves or other domestic breadmakers,
the reading I am about to offer could stand). I should point out too that the verbs in the
cento switch from singular to plural in line 9. It would seem that we are to see the poem as
initially focusing on a particular baker, and then taking a wider view of those who help him
finish the task of baking the loaves. It could be, however, that we have a baker and some
sort of single helper, with those two being the subjects of the plural verbs.
25. The Salmasianus in general often reads tunc instead of tum, as Giovanni
Salanitro notes, ‘‘Tunc nel codice Salmasiano,’’ Sileno 16 (1990): 313–315 (an ob-
servation already made by Schenkl, CSEL 16, 532 n. 1, as Thomas Opsomer points out,
‘‘Review of G. Carbone, Il centone De alea,’’ BMCR 1 (2003): 14 n. 5).
26. As E. J. Kenney, ed., trans., and comm., Moretum: A Poem Ascribed to Virgil
(Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1984), xxi, notes. Ross, ‘‘The Culex and Moretum,’’ 254–
263, argues that the Moretum is a parody of fashionable post-Augustan verse, and so
presumably was written in the age of Tiberius; if this is so, the author of the De Panificio
could have potentially been aware of it. Because there are no notices about the Moretum
in antiquity, however, there are no grounds for supposing a direct relationship between
the De Panificio and the Moretum.
NOTES TO PAGES 58–59 191

27. I must note the unusually dense concentration of covert keywords in the
De Panificio. The anonymous centonist locates the unit lubrica convolvens (A. 2.474) (De
Pan. 5), for instance, because lubricus appears in A. 5.85, which he cites in line 4 of
the cento. So too the centonist finds the second half of line 6, oleo perfusa nitescit (A. 5.135),
through a well-hidden covert keyword. A. 5.135 contains the word nudatos, which also
appears in G. 1.299 (nudus ara, nudus sere), or two lines after at rubicunda Ceres, which fills
the first half of line 6. At rubicunda Ceres itself seems to depend on a covert keyword, as the
word rubens appears in the first half of G. 1.234, whose second half occupies line 5 of the
cento. Another example occurs in line 9, instant ardentes (A. 1.423) veribusque trementia
figunt (A. 1.212). In the sections of these lines not reused in the De Panificio, both Aen
1.423 and 1.212 contain the word pars, which seems to direct the centonist from one unit to
the next. Finally, the second unit in line 10, onerantque canistris (A. 8.180), immediately
precedes the phrase dona laboratae Cereris in Virgil (A. 8.181). Ceres is, of course, im-
portant in the cento. While I am not going to concern myself with this aspect of the poem,
its presence can certainly deepen the reading experience of the work.
28. On the tomb of Eurysaces, who was presumably a freedman, see most re-
cently Lauren Hackworth Petersen, ‘‘The Baker, His Tomb, His Wife, and Her Bread-
basket: The Monument of Eurysaces,’’ Art Bulletin 85.2 (2003): 230–257.
29. Comic depictions of kitchen scenes appear elsewhere in Latin literature.
Ambrose, De Elia et Ieiunio 8.24–25, offers such a scene, as perhaps does Ausonius in
Eph. 6, where what Green, Works, 260, calls ‘‘the pompous and elaborate style’’ would
stand in comic constrast with the simple subject matter. These works are concerned with
a cook preparing an entire meal rather than a breadmaker preparing his loaves. Even so,
they offer more evidence that the topic of common people preparing food was open in
antiquity to comic treatment.
30. Simon Goldhill, The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 208, discusses the coexistence of like-
ness and difference in parody.
31. My ideas here develop especially out of Rose, Parody, 3–51, and Gérard
Genette, Palimpsests: Writing in the Second Degree, trans. Channa Newman and Claude
Doubinsky (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 19–30, but are ultimately
based on my own reading and observations. Definitions of parody are notoriously plen-
tiful in literary criticism. Indeed, to try to define parody and distinguish it from bur-
lesque, travesty, and other forms (e.g., Genette’s caricature and pastiche [25]) is to shake
a hornet’s nest. There is not and has not been consensus on this issue, as Rose, Parody,
54–99, shows. In my view, to compartmentalize parody, burlesque, travesty, etc., as well
as to place certain kinds of comic rewriting under one rubric rather than under another
(e.g., mock-epic, which has often found itself in different categories [Genette, 25, uses
caricature or satirical pastiche]), is to offer fruitlessly narrow taxonomies. Parody as I see
it is a big tent, and it accommodates many variations, or many different approaches that,
while needing to be distinguished, can still simply be called parody. The general types of
comic adaptation that I identify seem to me distinct enough, at any rate, and compre-
hensive enough. (The possible attitudes behind parody, which is a separate issue but has
informed critics’ distinctions, will be treated later in this section.)
32. Ross, ‘‘The Culex and Moretum,’’ 242, notes that parodies of style ‘‘may range
from the grossly exaggerated to what is very close, in both subject and manner, to the
original.’’ Ross calls the pseudo-Virgilian Culex a parody of style, specifically of the
192 NOTES TO PAGES 59–61

neoteric manner. Yet the poem also has mock-epic qualities, being a work that describes
humble content grandly; this incongruous linking of material and treatment is especially
evident in the gnat’s journey to the Underworld. It is this characteristic that Statius
seems to have had in mind when he referred to the Culex in the preface to Silvae 1 (as
Ross notes, 242). As I said in note 26, Ross also sees the Moretum as a parody of post-
Augustan literary practices.
33. The purposes of this parody have been debated, and I do not want to get into
that question, since my concern is simply to point out that the Petronian Bellum Civile is
a parody of Lucan’s style.
34. Genette, Palimpsests, 23, gives examples of those who simply call Scarron’s
work a parody (a gesture of which Genette disapproves, because of his own interest in
taxonomy). Again, while it is important to make distinctions when dealing with different
sorts of comic rewriting, I believe that we need not get too caught up in nomenclature,
and that we can still consider Scarron’s poem a kind of parody (see note 31). Similar
treatment or ‘‘bumpkinification’’ of characters in the Aeneid or other epics does not occur
in Latin antiquity.
35. I take the phrase ‘‘modeled reality,’’ meaning the object that stands behind a
parody or is distorted for comic effect, from Goldhill, Poet’s Voice, 208, citing Ziva Ben-
Porat, ‘‘Method in Madness: Notes on the Structure of Parody, Based on MAD TV
Satires,’’ Poetics Today 1 (1979): 247. It is possible that the lost opening of the cento
establishes some kind of thematic connection with Virgil. The absence of any sign of this
in what remains of the poem makes me skeptical, though; and what we have suggests a
depiction with no ties to a Virgilian genre, plot line, scene, or character.
36. Within the baker’s and cook’s songs, there are also deflations of epic and
tragedy, but only generally, with no one author parodied. Representative examples are
Iuppiter ipse tonat: tono, cum molo, sic ego pistor. / Mars subigit bello multas cum sanguine
gentes: / pistor ego macto flavas sine sanguine messes (40–42), and sed similem superis ego
me magis esse docebo. / est Bromio Pentheus: est et mihi de bove pentheus (76–77). The
examples apply the tones and themes of epic and tragedy, respectively, to a low situation.
37. This appears to be the case despite the absence of units taken from the
Eclogues in the De Panificio. In my reading, the cento is set against the loftiness of the
Virgilian canon, of which the Eclogues is a part.
38. Rose, Parody, 51, emphasizes that a parody has to make its target a part of
itself.
39. For example, in lines 27 and 43 of the Moretum and line 22 of Vespa’s
Iudicium Coci et Pistoris Iudice Vulcano (AL 190 SB). (In both texts, the word panes also
appears, however [Mor. 119, Iud. 14, 24, 31, 45, and 72].) Marrou, History of Education,
377, notes that Virgil always calls bread Ceres. It is noteworthy, then, not that the
anonymous centonist finds such a metonymy in Virgil but that he chooses to reuse it,
thereby adding to the stylistic richness of his text. I should add that Quintilian (Inst.
Orat. 8.6.23) cites Cererem corruptam undis in his discussion of metonymy, which he
claims signifies inventas [res] ab inventore.
40. This same use of undae appears in the Moretum: tepidas super ingerit undas (44).
41. My thanks to the anonymous reader of my manuscript for this point.
42. The cento thus allows for the recognition of a sui generis kind of both general
and specific parody, two categories whose appearance in mainstream parody Rose,
Parody, 47–53, discusses.
NOTES TO PAGES 61–64 193

43. The other ten lines in the De Panificio contain at least two units. The
percentage of single membrum lines is lower than any other cento but the Progne et
Philomela, which contains none. I take this information from Bright, ‘‘Theory and
Practice,’’ 85.
44. Note the adjective-noun frame in the line. Such a frame is characteristic of
neoteric mannerism (though adjective-noun framing pairs also appear elsewhere, and
indeed, are part of the storehouse of high stylistic devices in poetry generally). Again,
however (see note 32), even if we accept Ross’s argument that the Culex is a stylistic
parody of neoteric verse, the poem also contains qualities that can be taken more broadly
as mock-epic.
45. Thus Froma I. Zeitlin, ‘‘Petronius as Paradox: Anarchy and Artistic Integrity,’’
TAPA 102 (1971): 648, reprinted in Oxford Readings in the Ancient Novel, ed. Stephen J.
Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 16, says that the ‘‘parodistic technique
has generally been considered a secondary literary activity, effective on the level of
humor or of literary criticism.’’
46. So G. D. Kiremidjian, ‘‘The Aesthetics of Parody,’’ Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism 28.2 (1970): 233, describes parody; cited by Zeitlin, ‘‘Petronius as’’ Para-
dox,’’ 16 n. 41. Lelièvre, ‘‘Basis,’’ 76, notes that the ‘‘element of literary criticism which is
sometimes found in parody is rare in the cento,’’ a point with which I am inclined to
agree, though I believe it needs to be considered more carefully than Lelièvre does
(particularly with regard to the De Alea, as I will show hereafter).
47. Woldemar Görler, EV 3, 809, s. v. ‘‘obtrectatores,’’ suggests that Numitorius
revolts against the affected rusticitas of Virgil. (See sic rure loquuntur, in the second of
the Antibucolica cited in VSD 43–44.)
48. Thus e.g., Rose, Parody, 45–47, examines the possible attitudes of a parodist,
and in the process gives an overview of the theories about that topic that have prevailed
in criticism (and the very existence of different theories reveals how important that topic
has been).
49. See Winfried Freund, Die Literarische Parodie (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1981), 13.
50. Ath. Deip. 14.638, tò gelo^ion, which can mean simply the comic or the
comic with a ridiculing aspect; Eus. PE 10. 3 (467d), exel

 ’ egwon; and Eust. 1381.46,
skoptikoB paro˛ d
ZsaB. Householder, ‘‘PAPODIA,’’ 8 n. 27, provides the latter two
examples. Demetrius, On Style 150, also argues that the w
ariB of Aristophanes’s parodies
of Homer’s Od. 3.278 in Cl. 401 derives in part from the fact that Homer and the

Homeric line are being mocked (komo˛ deisyai).

51. Sch. Ar. Ach. 119: paro˛ d
ia wrZtai . . . sk
’
opton Eurip
idZn; and the scholiast
on Plut. 39 uses diasu
ron. For these examples, see Householder, ‘‘PAPODIA,’’ 8 n. 27, who
argues, however, that Aristophanes admired Euripides. Whichever side is right, the important
thing for my purposes is that ancient readers could see hostility as a motive for parody.
52. I should add that in the unlikely case that the Aeneidomastix was a parody, it
would have no doubt been written with hostility toward Virgil (see note 21).
53. Goldhill, Poet’s Voice, 207.
54. An example of a parodist who writes in sympathy with and admiration for his
source is Swinburne, who parodies himself in the Nephelidia. This is probably not a
matter of self-loathing or self-criticism but a form of playful navel-gazing.
55. On the possibly subversive aspects of Ovid’s rewriting of sections of the
Aeneid, see Sergio Casali, ‘‘Altri voci nell’ ‘Eneide’ di Ovidio,’’ MD 35 (1995): 59–76, and
194 NOTES TO PAGES 64–65

Thomas, Augustan Reception, 74–83. I should add that even in the passage in Tr. 2
where Ovid makes the tendentious claim that Virgil contulit in Tyrios arma virumque
toros (Tr. 2.534), he also calls Virgil a felix auctor (Tr. 2.533). Thus while Ovid expresses
bitterness at how he has been treated as opposed to how Virgil was treated, he still
refuses to criticize Virgil himself.
56. As Rose notes, Parody, 47.
57. The De Panificio has received favorable critical notices for its charm, e.g.,
Ermini, Centone di Proba, 42, and Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2337. Schenkl, CSEL 16,
531–532, agrees: ‘‘pauca igitur in hoc centone non illepide composita.’’
58. Rose, Parody, 46 (in a discussion of Lutz Röhrich’s understanding of paro-
dists’ attitudes), makes parody’s reconstructive properties, which exist along with de-
structive ones, a possible basis for identifying a favorable attitude in a parodist toward a
source poet.
59. Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2338, discusses this aspect of the cento: ‘‘Nuove
scene di lotta vengono descritte in modo assai confuso e approssimativo. In realtà il senso
del carme è spesso cosi oscuro, e talora addirittura incomprensibile . . . che è difficile
rivavarne la trama, se non a grandi linee.’’
60. Theodoret reports that the death of an eastern monk named Telemachus,
who was stoned to death when he tried to stop a gladiatorial show, compelled Honorius
to end the spectacles (HE 5.6). While gladiatorial shows were banned in 325 (Cod.
Theod. 15.12.1), they continued to be held until Honorius’s era. Prudentius includes in
the Contra Symmachum a plea for their abolition (1.379), and Augustine denounces the
crudelitas amphitheatri, which seems likely to include gladiatorial contests (Serm. 199.3).
For these and other examples of Christians’ reactions to gladiatorial shows, see Georges
Ville, ‘‘Religion et politique: comment ont pris fin les combats de gladiateurs,’’ Annales
(ESC) 34.4 (1979): 657–662. (Reactions from earlier non-Christian authors [especially
Cicero] appear in 653–657.) On the abolition of gladiatorial shows, see Richard Lim,
‘‘People as Power: Games, Munificence, and Contested Topography,’’ in The Transfor-
mation of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity, ed. William V. Harris (Portsmouth, R.I.: Journal
of Roman Archaeology, 1999), 280 and Thomas Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators
(London: Routledge, 1992), 128–164.
61. So Ermini, Centone di Proba, 43. Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2337, rightly calls
Ermini’s claim ‘‘solo un’ipotesi.’’
62. Polara, ‘‘Centoni,’’ 258. Carbone, De Alea, esp. 73–149, moreover, offers
quite confident pronouncements that the De Alea is about dicing. On dicing in general,
see Purcell, ‘‘Literate Games,’’ 3–37.
63. Alea commonly means the game of dicing (and the gaming that occurs in it)
(see OLD, s. v. ‘‘alea’’ 1). Those who consider the De Alea to describe gladiatorial combat
take alea to mean ‘‘an act or risking or state of risk’’ (see OLD, s. v. ‘‘alea’’ 2).
64. Martial wrote a Liber de Spectaculis, for instance while Tertullian condemned
games in his De Spectaculis.
65. Players in Latin antiquity often waged high stakes at dice. That this could
be seen as a sign of insanity is apparent in a poem of Palladius, one of the so-called
Twelve Wise Men—though as Friedrich, Symposium, argues, Lactantius is the author of
all the poems attributed to that group (see note 47 in the introduction). In the guise of
the Twelve Wise Men, Lactantius offers twelve one-line poems on dicing, with each
monostich containing six words of six letters. ‘‘Palladius’s’’ reads sperne lectrum versat
NOTES TO PAGES 65–66 195

mentes insana cupido (AL 495 R). (Cupido is also mentioned in ‘‘Basilius’s’’ monostich on
dicing [AL 501 R]). Aes, of course, could denote money.
66. Juvenal uses the verb ludere to refer to gaming: posita sed luditur arca (Sat.
1.90), as does Luxurius (AL 318 SB [Ep. 37], entitled De Aleatore in Pretio Lenocinii
Ludente and beginning ludis, nec superas, Ultor, ad aleam; and 328 SB [Ep. 47], which
begins ludit cum multis Vatanans sed ludere nescit). Two anonymous poems in the
Salmasianus, AL 184.3 and 185.6–7 SB, also have the verb refer to dicing. (More on all
these poems hereafter.)
67. Also potentially complicating matters is the fact that, as Purcell, ‘‘Literate
Games,’’ 24, notes, spectacula were closely linked with alea. Not only was dicing ideally
an activity reserved for holidays, when there would often be spectacula, but board-
inscriptions also sometimes mixed descriptions of games in the arena and circus and
games of dice (see Purcell, 24–25, for examples).
68. Ermini, Centone di Proba, 43, describes the centonist as ‘‘un uomo incolto ed
ignorante di versificazione, come si mostra negli esametri mal conessi, nella sintassi
vacillante e nell’uso strano di alcune parole.’’ Schenkl, CSEL 16, 533–534, goes so far as
to make the centonist’s crudeness a self-evident fact: ‘‘ab homine rudi artisque experti
compositum esse nemo non videt.’’
69. I cannot agree with Carbone, De Alea, esp. 105 and 138–140, that the cento
tells the story of two brothers playing at dice. The cento is too obscure to allow for such
an assertion. Besides, calling a fellow player a frater occurs elsewhere in poems on dicing;
see the monostich on dicing of Pompilianus, one of the Lactantian Twelve Wise Men
(AL 498 R): irasci victos minime placet, optime frater.
70. A related gesture occurs in Sat. 8.9–12, where Juvenal compares the sloth
Ponticus playing dice to his warrior ancestors and other generals of old who used to rise
early and move standards and camps. An antithesis is set up between dicing and battle,
but of a different sort from the others I have cited, since dicing itself is not described as
warfare.
71. As stated in note 66, Luxurius also writes an epigram entitled De Aleatore in
Pretio Lenocinii Ludente.
72. The phrase ore fremit is close to A. 1.559 (ore fremebant Dardanidae) and
9.341 (fremit ore cruento). The epic flavor obtains despite the elegiac couplets. I should
note too that dice-players were a notoriously loud bunch (see Sid. Apoll. Ep. 2.9.4) and
seem particularly to have been prone to snorting (see Amm. Marc. 14.6.25–26). Purcell,
‘‘Literate Games,’’ 17–18, discusses noisy aleatores (as well as the ancient antipathy to
snorting).
73. Carbone, De Alea, 94–95 and 99, discusses two of these poems (AL 184–185
SB); her emphases differ from mine, however.
74. I should note that Hilasius, a name that Lactantius gives to another of the
fictional Twelve Wise Men, also calls dicing a bellum (ponite mature bellum, precor,
iraque cesset, AL 506 R).
75. See note 69.
76. Carbone, De Alea, 95, also points out that the centonist’s references to ima in
line 46 (ima petunt) and a collis in line 51 (in summo collem) recall AL 185.6 SB, fataque
ludentum collis et ima probant. Because it describes how the rolls of dice turn out, line 6
of AL 185 SB offers a key to interpreting the similar cento lines, which are otherwise
rather obscure.
196 NOTES TO PAGES 67–69

77. There is also a note of self-reproach in line 25 (vidi oculos ante ipse meos me
voce vocentem [A. 12.638]). The idea seems to be that the narrator is carried away at the
games, either as a spectator or perhaps even a player himself, to his later shame. The
inclusion of the first-person narrator within the satire would be notable, since satirists
tend to exclude themselves from the behavior they are criticizing.
78. The battle scenes in Virgil are themselves not monochromatic generically, as
Andreola Rossi, Contexts of War: Manipulation of Genre in Virgilian Battle Narrative
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), demonstrates. Yet, in setting up those
scenes as a parodic target, the De Alea poet would simplify and stereotype them as
martial epic, engaging in a kind of reduction that is the norm in parody.
79. E.g., agmine (17), certare (19), armare (29), proelia (29, 59), spoliavit (105).
There is also language in the cento referring to wounds (22), blood (30), and other
attendant circumstances, objects, and actions of battle narratives.
80. Eleven citations of the Eclogues and twenty-nine of the Georgics appear in the
De Alea. No units come from the account of bee battle in G. 4.67–87, which is depicted
by Virgil as an epic proelium.
81. These lines also conflate a fight (certare odiis) and play (lusit) explicitly, as
similar poems on dicing do. See Juv. Sat. 1.90–91, posita sed luditur arca. / proelia quanta
illic dispensatore videbis; AL 184.3, ludentes vario exercent proelia talo; and AL 185.7, pax
ac pugna simul ludo iunguntur in unum. The word solido, meanwhile, is noteworthy here.
As Carbone, De Alea, 122, notes, solidus can mean money in later Latin.
82. As far as I know, Minerva was not associated with dicing; indeed, the only
link between the word alea and Minerva that I have found is that Alea, a town in
Arcadia, had a shrine devoted to the goddess (see Stat., Theb. 4.288). Hence the cen-
tonist’s statement in line 2 that he is to narrate the donum exitiale Minervae is unclear.
Carbone, De Alea, 112, suggests that Minerva stands as a metonymy for intelligence,
which falls into ruin because of the passion of dicing; this interpretation does not jibe
entirely well with the Latin, however. 
83. ’ArwómenoB pr

 otZB sel
idoB woron ex ’ ’ElikonoB /
’elyein e’iB emòn ’
’ uwomai . . . poB m u’ eB en
epe
’ Batr
’
awoisin ariste
usanteB
’ebZsan (1–2, 6).
84. Credite, quantus (A. 11.283) / corde dolor! (A. 6.383) Quid non mortalia pectora
cogis? (A. 3.56 or 4.412) / . . . tu potes unanimes armare in proelia fratres (A. 7.335) (26–29).
85. See note 77.
86. If the narrator is a player, there would also seem to be a reference to the
proverbial noisiness of aleatores (see note 72).
87. I discussed Geta’s hemistichs in chapter 2. Among the Christian centos, only
the De Ecclesia has an unfinished line (103).
88. On the relationship between Virgil’s hemistichs and the centos generally, see
Lester K. Born, ‘‘The centones Vergiliani and the Half-Lines of the Aeneid,’’ CP 26.2
(1931): 199–202.
89. The distribution of half-lines is as follows: Aeneid 1: 3; 2: 10; 3: 7; 4: 5; 5: 7;
6: 2; 7: 6; 8: 3; 9: 6; 10: 6; 11: 2; 12: 1.
90. In lines 76 and 79 (E. 9.5) and 100 and 104 (A. 5.466).
91. In lines 10 and 58 (G. 3), 11 and 32 (A. 7.380), and 71 and 82 (E. 3.82).
92. Thus lines 106–107 are comprised of G. 3.505–506; lines 107–108 of A.
2.316–317; and lines 109–110 of G. 3.226–227.
93. Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 85, provides this statistic.
NOTES TO PAGES 69–72 197

94. As Opsomer notes, ‘‘Review of G. Carbone,’’ 14, countering Carbone’s at-

tempts, De Alea, 65–71, to exonerate the author of the De Alea from charges of ineptitude,
the many alterations to the Virgilian verses and the lack of clarity of the text also call into
question the centonist’s technical abilities.
95. In Seneca the Elder’s Suas. 1.12, Maecenas appears to defend Virgil against
those who see bombast in his adaptation of Homer in A. 10.128 and A. 8.691–692. This
is of course not at all the same thing as thinking of Virgilian battle scenes or his epic
generally as bombastic; yet the Senecan anecdote may very well show that ancient
audiences could criticize Virgil for tumidity.

CHAPTER 4
1. Temptanda via est, qua me quoque possim / tollere humo victorque virum
volitare per ora (G. 8–9).
2. Omnia iam vulgata: quis aut Eurysthea durum / aut inlaudati nescit Busiridis
aras? / cui non dictus Hylas puer et Latonia Delos / Hippodameque umeroque Pelops
insignis eburno, / acer equis? (G. 4–8).
3. I should add that Virgil of course did not shun myth entirely, and even
presented an elliptical and short version of the Procne and Philomela story in E. 6.78–
81. Yet, to state the obvious, Virgil does not write any poems devoted entirely to any of
the mythological narratives that appear in the centos.
4. It is very unlikely that the same person wrote any of the centos. Bright,
‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 83–88, shows through a statistical analysis that the technique
of citing Virgil in each cento differs from that found in the others. From this he
concludes that ‘‘on the basis of these numbers, it would be risky to assert that any two
centos are the work of the same poet.’’ In pointing out the unique traits of each cento,
Schenkl, CSEL 16, 534–543, tacitly supports the claim that no two centonists are the
same.
5. I thank the anonymous referee at the APA for helping me to articulate this
point. I should note that I am not the first to examine the anonymous centos closely.
Vallozza, ‘‘Rilevi di tecnica compositiva,’’ 335–341, analyzes some technical aspects of
the centos, and Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 79–90, surveys some of the technical
features of all sixteen Virgilian centos. Among other scholars, Schenkl, CSEL 16, 534–
543, is thorough, though needlessly harsh at times; Ermini, Centone di Proba, 42–47, is
brief and idiosyncratic; and Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2338–2344, is sober and in-
sightful, if very succinct. See also F. E. Consolino, ‘‘Da Osidio Geta ad Ausonio e Proba:
le nuove possibilità del centone,’’ Atene e Roma 28 (1983): 133–151, for rather extensive
comments on several of the centos that form the subject of this chapter. I hope to expand
upon these studies by investigating technical, thematic, and intertextual elements of the
poems that other critics have not, and to focus on different implications of such in-
vestigations.
6. Myth was central to pagan mendacia, according to polemically minded
Christians. (On the prevalence of references to pagan falsehood in Christian poetry, see,
e.g., Paul Klopsch, Einführung in die Dichtungslehren des Lateinischen Mittelalters
[Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980] 9–12.) Thus Sedulius criticizes
the ‘‘the descendents of Theseus’’ for wandering blindly in error within a lengthier
disquisition on the falsehood of pagan verse (quid labyrintheo, Thesidae, erratis in antro /
caecaque Daedalei lustratis limina tecti? [CP 1.43–44, CSEL 10, 18]), and Avitus
198 NOTES TO PAGES 72–73

launches into a diatribe against the myth of Deucalion (SHG 4.3–10). Paulinus of Nola
strongly rejects pagan myth as well, in the context of an epithalamium (absit ab <his>
thalamis vani lascivia vulgi, / Iuno Cupido Venus, nomina luxuriae, Carm. 25.9–10, CSEL
30, 238). Finally, Prudentius criticizes such fabulae indirectly by putting references to
them in the mouths of dark figures like Discordia in the Psychomachia. On Prudentius’s
use of classical mythology, see Malamud, Poetics.
7. I paraphrase Michael Roberts, ‘‘The Use of Myth in Late Latin Epithalamia
from Statius to Venantius Fortunatus,’’ TAPA 119 (1989): 336. It was also possible for
Christian writers to engage classical myth through the interpretatio Christiana, or the
infusion of myth with Christian significance. On the interpretatio Christiana, see, e.g.,
Harald Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics, Studia Graeca et Latina Gotho-
burgensia XX:I (Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1967), 440–441.
8. Again, I am indebted to the anonymous referee at the APA for helping me to
clarify this point.
9. Poets whom we know to be at least nominally Christian but who worked with
mythological themes include Ausonius and Dracontius.
10. For example, Ermini, Centone di Proba, 42–47, and Schenkl, CSEL 16,
534–543.
11. It is tempting to think that the centos arose in the fourth century or later,
since that period seems to have seen far more poetic production than the chaotic third
century. Yet because Hosidius Geta dates to ca. 203, and since poetry naturally con-
tinued to be written in the third century, it is not impossible that one or more of the
mythological centos dates to before 300.
12. I discussed Luxurius’s ties to Africa in chapter 2. I should add that I omit
Hosidius Geta from this discussion, since the Salmasianus records no name for him.
As noted in chapter 2, however, Tertullian’s mention of that centonist alongside a
quidam propinquus in the De Praescriptione Haereticorum, a work written when the
Church Father had returned to Africa, provides circumstantial support for Geta’s African
ties.
13. The Salmasianus actually identifies the centonist as Maborti, owing to the
change in the pronunciation of v that seems to have begun in the first century AD. W. S.
Allen, Vox Latina: A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin, 2nd ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978), 41, discusses this phenomenon. The confusion be-
tween b and v is very common generally in manuscripts.
14. On this Mavortius, see Carl P. E. Springer, The Gospel as Epic in Late
Antiquity: The Paschale Carmen of Sedulius (Leiden: Brill, 1988) 82.
15. For the prosopographical evidence, see PLRE 2.736–737.
16. Roger Bagnall, Alan Cameron, and Seth Schwartz, Consuls of the Later Ro-
man Empire (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholar’s Press, 1987), 527.
17. I paraphrase Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 82–83.
18. Apart from having the same name (which is in itself hardly telling), there is
no evidence at all that the centonist was Mavortius, the military commander in Africa
who died leading an expedition against Bonifatius in 427.
19. Bright, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 82.
20. These pieces seem to be connected to the rhetorical figure k
ukloB or circle.
Among them are also couplets that take Virgilian characters as their subjects, on Turnus
and Pallas (AL 33 SB), Pallas alone (AL 38 SB), Euryalus (AL 36 SB), Nisus and Euryalus
NOTES TO PAGES 73–77 199

(AL 65 SB), and Dido (with Calypso) (AL 47 SB). Another example of such playful poetry
in the Salmasianus is the 32-line work entitled versus anacycli of Porphyrius. This work
consists of four-line stanzas that are entirely palindromic, with each concerned with a
different mythological subject (AL 69 SB).
21. Within the ten-line poem, each couplet has a serpentine character, or has the
ludic pattern of repetition noted earlier. Pentadius also wrote versus serpentini called De
Fortuna (AL 226 SB) and De Adventu Veris (AL 227 SB). What little is known of
Pentadius can be found in PLRE 1.687 and the OCD, s. v. ‘‘Pentadius.’’
22. Hosidius Geta’s Medea is also a mythological narrative, of course. Yet Geta
adapts Virgil to a tragedy, which distinguishes his cento from the other mythological
centos—indeed, it demonstrates unique ludic skills on the part of the author and allows
for and even demands a set of responses very different from those that the texts now in
question do. Hence my separate examination of Geta’s work.
23. Paulinus of Nola suggests that the story of Paris’s judgment was a popular
one in the period. Reproving Jovius, an orator, philosopher, and versifier (Paulinus’s
specific concern in the relevant lines), for not devoting himself to being a good Christian,
Paulinus mentions the myth as a typical topic of light verse: non modo iudicium Paridis
nec bella gigantum / falsa canis. fuerit puerili ludus in aevo / iste tuus quondam: decuerunt
ludicra parvum (Carm. 22.12–14 [CSEL 30, 187]).
24. Pieter Burman, Anthologia veterum latinorum epigrammatum et poematum
sive catalecta poetarum latinorum. 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Ex Officina Schouteniana, 1759–
1773), 1:105–106, suggests in his apparatus criticus that perhaps we ought to affix A.
2.55–56 to the end of the cento: inpulerat ferro Argolicas foedare latebras, / Troiaque nunc
staret, Priamique arx alta maneres.
25. Nec mora, continuo (A. 5.368) penetrat Lacedaemona pastor (A. 7.363) /
Ledaeamque Helenam Troianus vexit ad urbes, (A. 7.364) / et si fata deum, si mens non
laeva fuisset (A. 2.54).
26. See Guy Lee, Allusion, Parody, and Imitation: The St. John’s College, Cam-
bridge Lecture, 1970–1971 (Hull: University of Hull, 1971), 15.
27. Accommodations are generally not useful in establishing chronology anyway
(though I offer a possible exception to this rule very shortly). There is no correlation
between how late a poet is and how often he uses accommodations. Thus a greater
percentage of lines in the fourth-century Cento Probae contain accommodations than do
lines in Luxurius’s Epithalamium Fridi.
28. It is unlikely that a text with which Luxurius was familiar contained cui, since
the word does not fit the Virgilian context. (I also doubt that Luxurius misremembered
the line, since cui is so foreign to the Virgilian setting, meaning that it would be unlikely
that the word would have been in Luxurius’s memory of A. 8.660 in the first place.) In
his apparatus criticus to A. 8.660, however, R.A.B. Mynors, P. Vergili Maronis Opera
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 303, notes that the mss. d and t have cum. This
is of course not far from cui. Could the text that Luxurius knew have belonged to a line
that came down to d and t, and so have had cum, leading Luxurius to think more readily
of the possibility of changing that word to cui? Unlikely, but at least a possibility.
29. Ter conatus also appears in A. 10.685. Because the second half of line 15
comes from either A. 2.792 or 6.700, however, it is likely that ter conatus comes from
either of those units as well.
30. See Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2338 and Schenkl, CSEL 16, 534.
200 NOTES TO PAGES 77–80

31. As Schenkl notes, CSEL 16, 534, line 10 is especially thorny: his amor unus
erat, (A. 9.182) dorso dum pendet iniquo (A. 10.303). This seems to mean ‘‘theirs (i.e.,
Narcissus and his reflection, though Schenkl believes his refers to nymphs) was a
common love, while he was hanging on an uneven ridge (i.e., the edge of the water?).’’
This is hardly the most seamless joining of Virgilian units.
32. On doubling and unreality in the parva Troia of Aeneid 3, see Maurizio
Bettini, ‘‘Ghosts of Exile: Doubles and Nostalgia in Vergil’s parva Troia (Aeneid
3.294ff.),’’ Classical Antiquity 16.1 (1997): 9–33.
33. Rudolf Peiper, ‘‘Zur Anthologie des Luxorius,’’ RhM 31.2 (1876): 185, sug-
gests that Faustus composed the works that become 134–135 SB, and indeed all of the
poems of 78–188 SB, except 149 SB. This figure may have been the same Faustus who
taught the African Luxurius. On this magister, see Rosenblum, Luxorius, 21. Un-
fortunately, though, Peiper’s conjecture that Faustus specifically is the author of the
poems cannot be proven. Shackleton Bailey, Anthologia, 79, is more cautious, proposing
only that 79–188 are by the same poet, with 78 offering a preface to them, but not
suggesting who the author might have been.
34. The paradoxical conflation of fire and water was not limited to poems on
Narcissus in the Anthologia Latina. Thus the common philosophical (and, in Christian
circles, theological) idea of how cosmic order is established through the union of oppo-
sites results in the oxymoron. An example in late antiquity appears in the first poem of the
Epigrammata Bobiensia: quis numine eodem / res neget humanas arvaque et astra regi, /
adversa inter se coeunt si corpora rerum / et sacer in vitreis ignis anhelat aquis? (1.5–8). The
paradox could also appear in less abstract poems—for example, in AL 202.7–8 SB,
203.3–4 SB, and 204.8 SB, all Felix’s poems De Thermis Alianarum. In these lines, Felix
links the fire that heats the waters in the baths, in the process creating a somewhat inane
parodox.
35. Lyne, Words, 29–30, shows that bibebat amorem may have an antecedent in
Anacreon (’
erota p
inon, 105 Page), and so may be a longstanding metaphor. A variant
on this image appears in late antiquity, when Venantius Fortunatus adapts it in his
epithalamium to Sigibert and Brunhild: regis anhelantem placidis bibit ossibus ignem
(Carm. 6.1.41). Fortunatus’s phrase, whose metaphorical ignem also links the line to the
oxymoronic linking of water and fire (see the previous note), may well owe something to
bibit amorem.
36. As Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2338 suggests.
37. Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2341.
38. Ermini, Centone di Proba, 45.
39. One overt keyword, with a case shift, appears (vires-vim in lines 6 and 7; vires
appears again in line 12, which may or may not depend on the earlier appearances of the
word). Tellure and Tellus in lines 7 and 11, respectively, may also be keywords, though
again, the distance between them makes it uncertain whether they are in fact linked.
I have found only one covert keyword, with omnipotens in line 2, which also appears in
the first half of A. 8.334, whose second half appears in line 3. There may also be an aural
keyword in line 7, with adrepta leading to the citation of A. 12.799, which contains the
word ereptum.
40. For these meanings of quaerens, see OLD, s.v. ‘‘quaero,’’ 1 and 6, respectively.
The citation of lines that in Virgil describe Hercules’ battle with Cacus (Alcides aderat [A.
8.203], 2, and non tulit Alcides [A. 8.256], 8) also provides the centonist with imported
NOTES TO PAGES 80–83 201

antonomasiae. The use of accommodation to allow for the change of vita from nomi-
native as it was in Virgil to the ablative is also somewhat notable.
41. The cento is also far removed from the Bellum Civile 4.593–655, in which
Lucan treats the story of Hercules and Antaeus with customary vigor. There are no
significant verbal or thematic parallels between the cento and Lucan.
42. 8.492–499 Foerster.
43. See Lausberg, Handbook, 367.
44. So Gerald Prince, A Grammar of Stories (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), 31,
describes a minimal story.
45. Thus Ermini, Centone di Proba, 45: ‘‘Ha forma epigrammatica e sembra
compendio o sunto di poema più ampio, forse preposto come argomento al poema
stesso.’’
46. Ovid offers the account found in the original Greek tradition (Met. 6.412–
674), with Procne as wife and Philomela as sister. Hyginus (Fab. 45) gives the women
the same roles, as do AL 51, 220.1, 226.3, and 227.7–8 SB. On Virgil’s rendering of the
myth, see Richard F. Thomas, ‘‘Voice, Poetics, and Virgil’s Sixth Eclogue,’’ in Mı́r Curad:
Studies in Honor of Calvert Watkins, ed. Jay Jasanoff, H. Craig Melchert, and Lisi Oliver
(Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, 1998) 670–671,
reprinted in Reading Virgil, 289–290. Thomas notes that T. E. Page implies that Virgil
had invented the new version of the story.
47. Postquam itself begins A. 1.520 (postquam introgressi et coram data copia fandi).
48. Ait is Burman’s conjecture. Note too the overt keyword sanguis. The cento
contains other overt cues in lines 7 and 8 and 21 and 22.
49. Hyginus (Fab. 45) is silent on how Philomela related what had happened.
Worth mentioning here too is Sophocles’s kerk
idoB jon
Z in a tragedy dealing with the
myth: en‘ de poik
il o ja
rei kerk
idoB jonZ
(595 Radt).
‘
50. See Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 9.2.38 and 9.3.27, and Rhet. ad Her. 4.15.22.
(Citations from these passages appear in n. 21 of chapter 2.)
51. Critics have emphasized the latter of these things. See Schenkl, CSEL 16,
539 and Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2343.
52. See Ermini, Centone di Proba, 46, and Schenkl, CSEL 16, 539, who after
pointing out the ‘‘charm’’ and ‘‘elegance’’ of the poem continues: ‘‘Omnia enim bene inter
se concinnunt neque ullo in re metrica vitio aut ulla inepta structura in legendo of-
fendimur.’’
53. I should note the covert keyword with sertis, which also appears in the first
half of A. 4.506, whose second half appears in line 20.
54. See Ov. Met. 2.864–868 and Achilles Tatius, Clit. and Leuc. 1.
55. Among the other authors of the shorter mythological centos (i.e., the texts
other than the Hippodamia and the Alcesta), only Mavortius in the Iudicium Paridis
approaches this same level of concern with the visual (though Mavortius also includes
some direct speech). Of course, the Iudicium Paridis and Europa are the two longest
of the brief mythological texts, and so can more easily accommodate such material;
but at the same time, it would not have been impossible for the visual to mark other
centos.
56. So Ermini, Centone di Proba, 46.
57. E. J. Kenney, ‘‘Ovid’s Language and Style,’’ in Brill’s Companion to Ovid, ed.
Barbara Weiden Boyd (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 85, notes that the description of Europa on
202 NOTES TO PAGES 84–88

the bull is a favorite in ancient art and with poets (though he does not mention the
cento).
58. In his poem, the centonist uses the second technique for achieving e’na
rgeia
that Quintilian mentions, namely the multiplication of detail (ex pluribus efficitur, Inst.
Orat. 8.3.66).
59. There is modal variation in this unit, which in Virgil reads perfidus, alta petens
abducta virgine praedo?
60. Criticism of Jupiter’s perfidy, particularly in matters of love, was also a part of
Christian polemic against paganism in late antiquity. It appears in the Carmen Contra
Paganos (AL 3 SB), for instance, which mentions the Europa story (per freta Parthenopes
taurus mugiret adulter, 12). Prudentius provides another example in the Contra Symma-
chum, where he lambasts the lust of Jupiter, mentioning Europa in the process: mox patre
deterior silvosi habitator Olympi . . . nunc bove subvectum rapiens ad crimen amatam (59–61).
61. Condemnation of Jupiter does not appear in Achilles Tatius’s, Moschus’s,
and Ovid’s versions of the Europa myth.
62. AL 132 and 133 SB are presumably by the same poet. See note 33.
63. There is also something very wrong with the meter of line 145 of the Alcesta,
which leads Schenkl, CSEL 16, 541–542, to surmise that a line before 145 has dropped out.
64. On this poem, see M. De Nonno, ‘‘Per il testo e l’esegesi del centone Hip-
podamia,’’ Studi latini e italiani 5 (1991): 33–44.
65. As Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2340–2341, Ermini, Centone di Proba, 44, and
Schenkl, CSEL 16, 537, all note.
66. There is another brief simile in line 132: haec ut cera liquescit (E. 8.80).
67. This variant on the heroine’s name is as far as I know uncommon.
68. Vallozza, ‘‘Rilevi di tecnica compositiva,’’ 338, writes that the Alcesta ‘‘sembra
distinguersi per l’abilità senza dubbio superiore del centonario nel combinare i versi.’’
Ermini, Centone di Proba, 47, also commends the ‘‘l’effetto e l’eleganza dello stile’’ of the
cento. One thing that helps the centonist is the fairly large number of units of over one
line in length that he cites. The centonist also repeats a fairly large number of units (1
and 47, 49 and 115, 50 and 97, 56 and 87, 64 and 99, 66 and 83, and 118 and 125
[though this last example may be meant for rhetorical effect).
69. Egregrium forma iuvenem (A. 6.861) pactosque hymenaeos (A. 4.99) / incipiam
(A. 2.13) et prima repetens ab origine pergam (A. 1.372, with et added) / si qua fides,
animum si veris inplet Apollo (A. 3.434). I should note that the Alcesta then becomes a
mixed narrative without any rhetorical questions or apostrophes, and so is simpler in its
voice than is the Hippodamia.
70. The shared prooemia and similar scopes of the Hippodamia and Alcesta lead
Schenkl, CSEL 16, 543, and Salanitro, ANRW 2.34.3, 2344, to identify the centonists as
the same person. Yet this argument does not hold up to a statistical analysis of the
distribution of Virgilian lines in the poems, as Bright shows, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 85.
71. On the date of this poem, see Marcovich, Alcestis Barcinonesis, 99–101.
72. Admetus first addresses Apollo (1–11) and Apollo responds (12–20). Next
Admetus asks Pheres to die for him (21–31) and Pheres refuses (32–42), which leads
Admetus to ask his mother Clymene to die for him, only to have her rebuff him and
deliver a philosophical speech on the necessity of death (43–70). Alcestis then volun-
teers to die (71–82) with the condition that Admetus honor her even if he remarries
(83–103). There ensues a description of an exotic bier (104–116) and Alcestis’s death
NOTES TO PAGES 88–90 203

(117–124). Marcovich, Alcestis Barcinonensis, 4, sees in the emphasis on speeches the

influence of ethopoiiae.
73. The most striking parallel is that both texts mention how Alcestis will
paradoxically win eternal life through heroic death (Alc. 154 and AB 75–78; discussed by
Marcovich, Alcestis Barcinonensis, 9). Yet one can just as easily find a theme that dis-
tinguishes the poems. Thus the Alcestis Barcinonensis has the heroine say that Admetus
can remarry, provided he remember her, while the cento Alcesta follows the conventional
version and has the heroine demand that Admetus not remarry at all.
74. Thus Marcovich, Alcestis Barcinonensis, 4, who also cites G. O. Hutchinson,
P. J. Parsons, and R.G.M. Nisbet, ‘‘Alcestis in Barcelona,’’ ZPE 52 (1983): 31.
75. Marcovich, Alcestis Barcinonensis, 14, even goes so far as to point to the
‘‘centonic procedure’’ that sometimes appears in the poem. Specific echoes are noted in
Marcovich’s commentary passim.
76. There are thirty-nine citations from Aeneid 4 in the Alcesta. The next highest
number is twenty-seven, from Aeneid 6. One of these is drawn from the meeting of
Aeneas and Dido in the underworld: funeris heu tibi causa fui! (A. 6.458) (152). The
modal change from Aeneas’s original question to Admetus’s assertion is notable.
77. Line 115 of the cento, pesti devota futurae (from A. 1.712), which describes
Dido, also contributes to this allusive link between Alcestis and Dido, as does line 152
(see the previous note). Not all of the citations of Aeneid 4, I should note, set up a one-
to-one relationship between Dido and Alcestis (or between Aeneas and Admetus, which
bears closely on the links between Dido and Alcestis).
78. Karl Galinsky, ‘‘Clothes for the Emperor: Review of Richard F. Thomas,
Virgil and the Augustan Reception,’’ Arion 3.10.3 (2003): 149, calls attention to how
common such statements about the Dido-Aeneas story are. I hope that my approach,
which is concerned with how the different possibilities for interpreting the Dido-Aeneas
story affect the allusiveness of a later text, and in the process raise issues related to the
hermeneutics of allusion, rises above what Galinsky calls the ‘‘pure vanilla demonstration
that Vergil’s presentation of Dido’s death can elicit different responses and be read in
various ways.’’
79. Heinze, Virgil’s Epic Technique, 99, discusses how Dido’s violation of the
duty of fidelity burdens her with guilt. Virgil expresses this idea in A. 4.552. Should a
reader also see Dido’s claims of a marriage foedus with Aeneas as illegitimate, her culpa
would be all the greater. Ovid takes the position that Dido and Aeneas had an affair (Tr.
2.536), albeit for particular rhetorical ends; indeed, as I will show in note 83, Ovid
elsewhere reacts quite differently to Dido. For a thorough discussion of Dido’s culpa, see
Niall Rudd, Lines of Enquiry: Studies in Latin Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1976), 32–53. Other critics who strongly deny that Dido and Aeneas were
married include Nicholas Horsfall (who lays great stress on A. 4.172), ‘‘Aeneid,’’ in A
Companion to the Study of Virgil, ed. Nicholas Horsfall (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 128, with
bibliography.
80. T. Claudius Donatus is another example of a late antique reader who claims
that Dido is to blame for breaking her vow to Sychaeus. Donatus also contends that Dido
is disgraced by falling in love with a foreign guest, or at least by expressing that love
publicly. The late antique critic believes, however, that Dido is not wholly blameworthy,
since her behavior results from a divine plot—a partial justification meant to reflect
well upon Aeneas, whose glory would be diminished if he were loved by a woman of
204 NOTES TO PAGES 90–92

compromised verecundia. Donatus, who says that epic is a genus laudativum, is con-
cerned with preserving Aeneas’s good name, since he sees Virgil as unequivocally
praising Augustus through Aeneas. On Donatus’s reading of the Dido story, see Ray-
mond J. Starr, ‘‘Explaining Dido to Your Son: Tiberius Claudius Donatus on Vergil’s
Dido,’’ CJ 87.1 (1991): 25–34.
81. A notable example in late antiquity is Augustine (Conf. 1.20–21, where he
makes unrequited love alone Dido’s motive for suicide).
82. Thus Anna thought the couple married; see A.4.48 and 431. Rumor in the
Aeneid may also report that Dido and Aeneas were married, though the relevant line,
cui se pulchra viro dignetur Dido (A. 4.192) is ambigious, since vir can mean both
husband and lover and iungere to be joined in marriage or in a sexual liaison. Yet Arthur
S. Pense, Publi Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quartus (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1935), 112 contends in his note to A.4.192 that vir means husband.
Williams, Tradition and Originality, 378–383, discusses well the possibility that Dido
and Aeneas were in some way married and accepts the idea. Richard C. Monti, The Dido
Episode and the Aeneid: Roman Social and Political Values in the Epic, Mnemosyne
Supplement 66 (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 45–48, more strongly says that Dido and Aeneas
were married.
83. In Met. 14.81 ([Dido] deceptaque decipit omnes), for instance, Ovid suggests
that Dido has been deceived by Aeneas. Dido’s angry words in Her. 7.81–82 (omnia
mentiris, neque enim tua fallere lingua / incipit a nobis, primaque plector ego) also make
Aeneas guilty for having been false to her. Dido’s epitaph, which Ovid presents in Her.
7.195–196 and the Anna Perenna episode in F. 3.549–550, provides another example of
the poet’s sympathy for Dido and belief in Aeneas’s guilt: praebuit Aeneas et causam
mortis et ensem: / ipsa sua Dido concidit usa manu. It is important to bear focalization in
mind and to realize that Dido’s words do not make Aeneas objectively guilty. The point I
am making is that Ovid, a member of Virgil’s audience, could interpret Dido as an
innocent victim and Aeneas as blameworthy. This understanding of her story has to be
possible for Ovid’s readers as well (who are likely also to be Virgil’s); otherwise, his poems
would fail to resonate with them.
84. The modal variation from Aeneas’s funeris heu tibi causa fui? in Aeneid 6 to
funeris heu tibi causa fui! in the Alcesta underscores this point (see note 76).

CHAPTER 5
1. Evelyn-White, Ausonius, 1:xvii, who decries the ‘‘crude and brutal coarseness’’
of Ausonius’s sex scene.
2. On this topic, see Malamud, Poetics, 37.
3. Slavitt, Three Amusements, xii, for instance, calls Ausonius’s cento ‘‘a piece of
elegant roistering’’ and describes it as ‘‘thrillingly distasteful.’’
4. Otto Gustav Schubert, Quaestionum de anthologia codicis Salmasianus, Pars I:
De Luxurio (Weimar: Typis Officinae Aulicae, 1875), 24–25, and Rosenblum, Luxorius,
38, contend that Luxurius was a grammarian; as mentioned in note 41 in the in-
troduction, Kaster, Guardians, 415–417, s. v. ‘‘Luxurius,’’ argues to the contrary, con-
vincingly in my view. Happ, Luxurius, 1:85–88, meanwhile, suggests that Luxurius was a
grammaticus or a teacher of rhetoric. Luxurius’s output is fairly substantial; roughly 90
epigrams survive (there is dispute about whether one or two others are his) along with
the cento. His works appears in the codex Salmasianus; eighty-nine of them are gathered
NOTES TO PAGES 92–95 205

together under the title Liber Epigrammaton (AL 282–370 SB). Luxurius’s cento,
meanwhile, appears with the other centos in the Salmasianus (AL 18 R).
5. Schenkl, CSEL 16, 553, conjectures that Luxurius had Ausonius’s poem
‘‘fortasse ante oculos.’’ More forcefully (and less accurately), Ermini, Centone di Proba,
49, writes that Luxurius’s poem is a ‘‘diretta imitazione del centone nuziale di Ausonio.’’
Zoja Pavlovskis, ‘‘Statius and the Late Latin Epithalamium,’’ CP 60.3 (1965): 173–174,
analyzes other aspects of Luxurius’s poem, however.
6. A notable exception is Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 199–215, who
examines Ausonius’s obscene passage with admirably dispassionate rigor.
7. I use the term epithalamium to denote a wedding poem, and not just the
epithalamium proper, which would be sung outside the door of the couple’s thalamus.
The more general use of the term today is conventional, as it was in antiquity. On ancient
epithalamia, see, e.g., R. Keydell, ‘‘Epithalamium,’’ RLAC 5 (1961): 927–943.
8. As Hagith Sivan notes, Ausonius of Bordeaux: Genesis of a Gallic Aristocracy
(London: Routledge, 1993), 106. Gratian’s military successes are also a conspicuous
topic in Ausonius’s speech of thanksgiving for his consulship.
9. Ausonius’s reference to Valentinian’s iussum, for example, is typical of pas-
sages in which poets discuss literary requests made by the powerful. On this topos,
which is linked to the captatio benevolentiae, and of which there are examples from
Cicero (ad Fam. 3.6.3) and Virgil (G. 3.41) to Sidonius (Ep. 1.1), see Curtius, European
Literature, 85, and White, Promised Verse, 64–78. As noted in chapter 1, despite the
conventional nature of Ausonius’s claim, there is no reason to doubt the historical truth
of Ausonius’s reference to the court competition. Ausonius’s discussion of court ludism is
far too detailed and precise to be merely a topos, and his reference to his agon with
Valentinian does not belong to the rhetorical tradition, even as his treatment of the
dilemma in which that competition put him does.
10. Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 49. On these aspects of Valentinian’s
character, see also Sivan, Ausonius of Bordeaux, 105. Elsewhere in his epistle to Paulus,
Ausonius portrays the emperor as learned (meo iudicio eruditus [9]), although the qual-
ification ‘‘in my opinion’’ suggests that others who may have recalled Valentinian’s brutish
violence (see Amm. 27.7.1–4) felt differently. So too the intellectuals whom Valentinian
avoided (see Amm. 30.8.10) presumably would not have viewed the emperor as a man
sympathetic to learning and culture. ‘ ‘ ‘  ‘ 
11. See Menander Rhetor (399.22–23): Z
‘ n ait
ian en auto iB ere iB, di’ Z
’ tZ ‘
n
parelZ
luyaB epi tò l
egein. I should note that the prescriptions in rhetorical treatises
about what should be included in wedding speeches refer to many things that we also
find in wedding poems. We can be confident, therefore, that those things were a nor-
mative part of both prose and verse epithalamial pieces.
12. Whether Constantia was also present at the agon is unknown.
13. On Catullus’s poem, see Paolo Fedeli, Catullus’s Carmen 61, trans. Marianna
Nardella (Amsterdam: J. C. Giese, 1983), and Fordyce, Catullus, 235–254. I should note
that Ausonius fails to praise Hymenaeus, however, as Catullus does in his poem. Me-
nander Rhetor (405.1–13) recommends praising the god of marriage (whether, he says, it
be Eros or personified marriage) at either the beginning or the end of an epithalamium.
14. For a discussion of this topic, see A. L. Wheeler, ‘‘Tradition in the Epitha-
lamium,’’ AJP 51 (1930): 217–220, who also discusses Sappho’s adoption of this role in
her epithalamium, and who nicely anticipates issues theorized with the development of
206 NOTES TO PAGES 95–96

narratology. Ancient rhetoricians also say that the author of a wedding song should
present himself as such an impresario. Himerius (Orat. 1.3) illustrates how this dramatic
mode should be maintained.
15. The cento form, of course, necessitates the meter of the Cento Nuptialis.
Catullus does use hexameters in Carmen 62, a marriage hymn. As Fordyce notes,
Catullus, 236, Calvus also seems to have written an epithalamium in that meter; whether
he handled epithalamial themes in a manner resembling Catullus 61 is unknown. In the
Flavian period, Statius inaugurated a tradition of hexameter epithalamium, which I will
examine hereafter, that differed from the hymnal type of wedding poem.
16. See the discussion in chapter 1 of the possible ways to read the microtextual
allusiveness of a unit in line 37, intentos volvens oculos (A. 7.251).
17. Even when Ausonius cites olli serva datur (A. 5.284) (63), which contains an
archaism in olli characteristic of epic and not found to my knowledge in another epi-
thalamium, the unit is not impossible in a late antique wedding poem. As I noted in
chapter 2, Roberts, ‘‘Last Epic,’’ 267, points out that in late antiquity linguistic elements
once characteristic of epic had become generalized poetic diction.
18. Sparge, marite, nuces; (E. 8.30) cinge haec altaria vitta, (E. 8.64) / flos veterum
virtusque virum; (A. 8.500) tibi dicitur uxor (E. 8.29).
19. See Stat. Silv. 1.2.24, ergo dies aderat. In similar strains, Catullus describes
the approach of evening, when weddings traditionally occurred (vesper adest, iuvenes,
consurgite: Vesper Olympo / expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit [62.1–2]).
20. On Roman weddings, see Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges
from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), esp.
161–170. The cena nuptialis seems to have been able to occur also after the wedding. In
antiquity as today, wedding ceremonies were hardly uniform.
21. In this section, Ausonius also represents the groom as filled with desire
(amens . . . illum turbat amor, 54–55). Depicting grooms in this manner was common in
epithalamia of all stripes; see, e.g., Catullus 62.23, Statius, Silv. 1.2.81, 89–91, and 139–
140, and Claudian, Carm. 10.1–12. (In epithalamia modeled on Statius [more on these
hereafter], moreover, Cupid fixes grooms with his shafts.)
22. See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 164–165. Close to the use of amplexus is Clau-
dian, Carm. Min. 25.128, tum dextram conplexa viri dextramque puellae. Ausonius would
appear to play with this image when he turns to describing foreplay in the bedchamber:
congressi iungunt dextras (A. 8.467). The use of ‘‘right hands’’ may very well be pointed.
23. So e.g., Claudian, cited in the previous note, and Sidonius (tum Paphie
dextram iuvenis dextramque puellae / complectens, Carm. 11.129–130). Kissing is not
mentioned in other poetic accounts of weddings. Evidence that it was part of the cere-
mony, however, may come from Tacitus’s account of the wedding of Silius and Messalina
(Ann. 15.37.9), which he describes episodically, and which includes a kiss: illam audisse
auspicum verba, subisse flammeum, sacrificasse apud deos; discubitum inter convivas, oscula
complexus, noctem denique actam licentia coniugali. As I see it, Tacitus is describing a
cena nuptialis followed by a staged wedding ceremony with oscula and complexus (these
being metonymies for a wedding). Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 169, suggests too that
Tacitus may provide evidence for kissing at a wedding ceremony; Treggiari 149–152
notes that a formal kiss seems to have been a part of an engagement, moreover.
24. Gift giving was an important part of a Roman wedding, as Treggiari notes,
Roman Marriage, 165–166.
NOTES TO PAGES 96–98 207

25. Wendell Clausen, ed. and comm., Virgil: Eclogues (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1994), 248, discusses this custom in relation to E. 8.30. The origins of the act are
obscure; Fordyce, Catullus, 248, reports that Festus can only offer the suggestion ‘‘ut
novae nuptae intranti domum novi mariti secundum fiat auspicium.’’
26. See Catullus 61.120–125, who does not include the Fescennines in his poem.
27. As I will show hereafter, Ausonius does present an obscene passage and tries
to link it to Fescennines, but the passage in fact does not contain such verses.
28. By mentioning the threshold, Ausonius also alludes to the rite whereby at-
tendants lifted the bride over the limen of her new home. Plutarch (QR 29 [271D], Rom.
15.5) refers to this practice, as does Catullus (transfer omine cum bono / limen aureolos
pedes, 61.159–160).
29. On the theme of harmonious love, see Wheeler, ‘‘Tradition,’’ 214, where he
mentions that Catullus (61.139–146) emphasizes the idea. Menander Rhetor says that a
‘ ‘ ‘
0
wedding piece should be concluded with a prayer (eita eiB euw
Zn katastr
eceiB tòn
lógon, 404.28–29). Line 78 of the Cento Nuptialis, which begins vivite felices, echoes
the conventional feliciter with which weddings ended (see Juv. Sat. 2.119). Menander
Rhetor (404.26–28), moreover, recommends a wish for children, and Libanius (Thes. 1 ‘
31, 8.561 Foerster]) mentions that such a wish is a standard part of such songs: t
i o^un
‘ ‘
eg
o jZmi; . . . pa
idon elp
idaB. Several epithalamia end with the prayer for children:
Catullus’s (61.204–218), Luxurius’s (EF 67–68), Statius’s (Silv. 1.2.266–270), Clau-
dian’s (Carm. 10.340–341 and Carm. Min. 25.130), Sidonius’s (Carm. 11.132), Dra-
contius’s (Rom. 6.122), Venantius Fortunatus’s (Carm. 6.1.141–143), and Ennodius’s
(Carm. 1.4.121). (On the subjects of these last seven poems, see note 46.)
30. See Menander Rhetor (403.8–12).
31. Green, Works, xxx–xxxi, suggests that Ausonius may have been unhappy with
Gratian’s short-lived edict of toleration in 378, as well as with his rigid stance that led him
to reject the pontifical robe and to remove the Altar of Victory from the senate house.
Scholars dispute the existence and extent of Ausonius’s disapproval, though, as well as
whether and how much Ausonius fell from Gratian’s favor with Ambrose’s rise to pro-
minence.
32. Theocritus incorporates Helen into the epithalamial tradition in a different
way, of course, as he writes a wedding song for her (Id. 18).
33. Statius also indirectly mentions Violentilla’s blush, comparing it to Lavinia’s
(Silv. 1.2.244–245). In the epithalamium in the first chorus of the Medea, moreover,
Seneca refers to the blushing bride (Med. 95–101).
34. There is no evidence that Ausonius was directly imitating Catullus. There are
no verbal echoes linking them, and Ausonius compares the bride to Venus as she appears
before the other gods, while Catullus compares his bride to Venus as she appears
before Paris.
35. In his Homeric epithalamial cento, meanwhile, Lucian compares the bride to
 ‘ ‘
both Helen and Aphrodite: kr
esson tZB Kuy
erZB Zd’ aut^ ZB ‘El
enZB (Symp. 17.41).
36. A brief discussion of the verse unit uritque videndo (G. 3.215) (37), meaning
‘‘the bride sets everyone on fire with her gaze,’’ is in order here. A reader who identifies
the Virgilian context of the unit, in which a heifer inflames a bull with the sexual itch,
can locate an obscene allusive message. Yet this would seem to be inappropriate in the
description of the bride as she appears at the ceremony, where the verse is found.
Describing a bride as inspiring not just passionate love or admiration of her beauty but
208 NOTES TO PAGES 98–99

animal lust would not have occurred in any kind of wedding poem or speech where the
subject was the bride emerging before the crowd. One could imagine that Ausonius is
having a bit of fun here, anticipating the pornographic ending of his poem through
intertextuality; and certainly for a reader who has read the concluding passage, the lines
could take on an off-color significance. Yet the sexual allusive undertones do not jibe
with Ausonius’s explicit strategy in line 37, nor with what the cento in fact is and is doing
there. Consequently, this might well be a moment when readers are to suppress the
original context of a unit. However one reads the unit in line 37, interpretation should
continue to center on the fact that Ausonius is fundamentally trying to create a plausible
epithalamium and praise the bride in a generically appropriate way—gestures that
themselves allow for interpretive freedom, but within a particular parameter.
37. Menander Rhetor (404.10) says that the writer should describe the groom
‘
with reference to oB‘ io
uloiB kat
akomoB.
38. Carm. 6.1.79–84, in which the poet discusses the maturity and wisdom of
Sigibert despite his youth. Claudian (Carm. 10.325–327) similarly notes how mature
gravitas is mixed with youthful vires in Honorius.
39. Something like this occurs in Claudian’s Carm. 10.323–325: pudor emicat
una / formosusque rigor, vultusque auctura verendos / canities festina venit. Claudian
describes what Honorius looks like and, in the phrase vultus verendos, what effect his
countenance has.
40. On the purposes of occasional poetry, see White, Promised Verse, 82–84.
41. Lending support to this idea is line 50 of Luxurius’s cento, in which he
describes Fridus’s bride as highborn and says that her marriage to Fridus is a
worthy one: cui natam egregio genero dignis hymenaeis | dat pater (A. 11.355–356).
There seems to me no reason to take these lines as anything other than an attempt on
Luxurius’s part to reuse Virgil in a way that represents the station of the bride and
groom accurately.
42. On this Fridus, see Happ, Luxurius, 1:303–304.
43. On Luxurius’s biography, see Rosenblum, Luxorius, 36–48, Happ, Luxurius,
1:83–91, and Kaster, Guardians, 415–416, s. v. ‘‘Luxurius.’’ Luxurius is careful to cite
Virgilian lines referring to the city and its inhabitants in describing the wedding scene
(see Punica regna videns, Tyrios et Agenoris urbem [8] and nec non et Tyrii per limina laeta
frequentes [25]).
44. Like L. Arruntius Stella, the subject of Statius’s epithalamium in the first
book of Silvae (Silv. 1.2), moreover, Fridus may have even been a poet himself.
45. We do not know at what stage in his career Luxurius wrote the Epithalamium
Fridi. Even if the poem was an early piece for him, we can certainly question how early.
For as Happ notes, Luxurius, 1:119, ‘‘braucht man nicht so genau zu nehmen’’ Luxurius’
statement that his book of epigrams represents the work of the poet when he was a puer
(Ep. 1.5 [AL 282 SB]). Happ continues that Luxurius was probably around 25 ‘‘als er den
Grossteil der Epigramme verfasste.’’ It may well be that Luxurius was also at least around
that age when he wrote his cento. To pursue this issue a bit further, the appearance of
the cento in the Salmasianus apart from the epigrams (see note 4), though due to the
text’s form, raises doubts as to whether it arose in the same period as those other works.
Now, it seems to me that, if the Epithalamium Fridi was a commissioned piece, Luxurius
would have probably been an established poet, and his reputation probably would have
been made by his epigrams. This would lead to the conclusion that the Epithalamium
NOTES TO PAGES 99–100 209

Fridi postdates those works. As I have noted, however, the cento may have also been a
gift. If Luxurius sent it to Fridus or his bride as a friend, the gesture could have occurred
at any time, even before the composition and circulation of his epigrams. But if Luxurius
sent the cento to a powerful person to whom the poet was not close, perhaps hoping to
win favor, then he probably would have had the confidence to do so only when his
reputation was more established, and so when he was a bit older, after his epigrams had
become known. (The possibility that Luxurius was a brazen youth in this last scenario
cannot be ruled out, however.)
46. Claudian composes two Statian poems, the epithalamium to Maria and
Honorius and to Palladius and Celerina (Carm. 10 and Carm. Min. 25); Sidonius writes
two epithalamia (Carm. 11 and 15), the first of which, to Ruricius and Hiberia, is closer
to the Statian tradition; Dracontius also writes two epithalamia, Rom. 6 and 7, the former
of which follows the Statian model (the latter becomes an apology from prison); and
Fortunatus composes one Statian epithalamium, Carm. 6.1, to Sigibert and Brunhild.
Ennodius (Carm. 1.4), meanwhile, writes a polymetric epithalamium for the marriage of
Maximus, the largest section of which has seventy-nine hexameters and contains a
mythical narrative that is Statian in inspiration. For Statius’s role in founding a new
epithalamial tradition, see Pavlovskis, ‘‘Statius,’’ 164. (It would appear that many ancient
epithalamial poems do not survive, if we can believe the anecdote in the Historia Augusta
that Gallienus wrote an epithalamium that was best among those of 100 poets [HA Tres.
Poll. Gall. 3.11.7.]). We can wonder whether the alleged poems of Gallienus and the
100 would have been Statian in form.
47. Certain conventional elements are missing in Luxurius’s poem, however.
These are references to the season in which the wedding occurs; mention of flowers; and
a description of Venus making her way to the bride’s home in a resplendent chariot or
some such mythological conveyance.
48. Line 15, meanwhile, has the deveniunt that begins A. 4.165.
49. We can assume that Luxurius has A. 4.126 in mind rather than A. 1.73, since
he proceeds to cite A. 4.127.
50. There is also an explicit reference to marriage in line 49 (A. 4.103), which I
mentioned earlier. It is possible to read that line similarly to 45–46; but I am reserving a
deeper discussion of it for an examination later in this section of another intertextual
connection that it might have.
51. Paulinus of Nola (Carm. 25.9–10 [CSEL 30, 238]) demonstrates how im-
portant divinities were to conventional epithalamia in his aggressive dismissal of the gods
from his Christian wedding song: absit ab his thalamis vani lascivia vulgi, / Iuno Cupido
Venus, nomina luxuriae.
52. See, e.g., Statius Silv. 1.2.51–158, Claudian Carm. 10.85–122 (after a
lengthy ecphrasis on Venus’s palace), Sidonius Carm. 11.1–110, and Fortunatus Carm.
6.1.59–106.
53. As Roberts notes, ‘‘Use of Myth,’’ 322, rhetoricians claim that an author may
describe gods affiliated with marriage as being present only in the description of the
bridal chamber, and only then as moods and spirits. Luxurius, like Statius, takes liberties
with this injunction.
54. So lines 14–15 of the Epithalamium Fridi suggest: una omnes, (A. 5.830 or
8.105) magna iuvenum stipante caterva, (A. 1.497) / deveniunt (A. 4.166) faciemque deae
vestemque reponunt (A. 5.619 [reponunt for reponit]). As I read these lines, Luxurius
210 NOTES TO PAGES 100–103

describes the goddesses sitting among the large company of mortal youths around them
who are attending the wedding, with the goddesses putting aside their divine appearances
(thus deae would be nominative rather than genitive, as in Virgil).
55. In referring to marriage, Venus mentions the linking of right hands: et consere
dextram (A. 11.741) (47).
56. Luxurius here reproduces the phrase nuptum dare, to give a bride in marriage.
57. See, e.g., Statius Silv. 1.2.110 (non colla genasque [cessavit mea, nate, manus];
Venus is speaking to Cupid about Violentilla), Claudian Carm. 10.265–266 (non labra
rosae, non colla pruinae / non crines aequant violae, non lumina flammae), and to some
extent Sidonius (Carm. 11.85, where he says that the bride Hiberia’s necklace darkens
against the radiance of her countenance).
58. For instance, in Statius (Silv. 1.2.116, 129), Claudian (Carm. 10.159–171),
and Fortunatus (Carm. 6.1.104–106). Doto and Galatea also figure in other marriages in
the literary tradition besides those presented in epithalamia; see, e.g., Valerius Flaccus,
Arg. 1.134–136.
59. Fortunatus mentions too that Brunhild outshines jewels with the beauty of her
face (lumina gemmarum superasti lumine vultus [Carm. 6.1.102]), and Sidonius writes that
Hiberia’s countenance makes her necklace seem dark (see note 57). Luxurius does
something similar in writing that the bride qualis gemma micat, before he compares her to
the nymphs Doto and Galatea. Yet the centonist’s thought pattern may owe something
specifically to Claudian, who has Galatea offer Maria a necklace (Carm. 10.166) and Doto
dive to gather coral, which, once it is brought to the surface, gemma fuit (Carm. 10.171).
60. Could Luxurius have committed Silv.1.2 to memory? It seems to me more
plausible that he consulted a written text of Statius’s poem. Of course, because poetic
memories were so good among the ancients, the possibility that Luxurius memorized
Silv. 1.2 cannot be ruled out. The Silvae were certainly known in late antiquity; see Sid.
Carm. 9.226–229: non quod Papinius tuus meusque / inter Labdacios sonat furores / aut
cum forte pedum minore rhythmo / pingit gemmea prata silvularum.
61. Pavlovskis suggests, ‘‘Statius,’’ 174, that Luxurius imitates Statius, though
without citing the lines that I do, and without interpreting the gesture.
62. As a poet, Ausonius was not at all squeamish about sex; several of his epi-
grams are also obscene.
63. Quintilian defines a parecbasis (Latin egressus or egressio) as ‘‘the handling of
some theme, but one relevant to a case, in a digression from the main thread of the
speech’’ (alicuius rei, sed ad utilitatem causae pertinentis, extra ordinem procurrens trac-
tatio [Inst. Orat. 4.3.14]).
64. Verum quoniam et Fescenninos amat celebritas nuptialis verborumque petu-
lantiam notus vetere instituto ludus admittit (2–4).
65. A Fescennine verse can mention the blood that accompanies the loss of
virginity, however, as Ausonius (CN 118) and Luxurius (EF 66) do; see Claudian,
et vestes Tyrio sanguine fulgidas / alter virgineus nobilitet cruor (Carm. 14.26–27). Au-
sonius refers to the same topic: haesit virgineumque alte bibit acta cruorem (A. 11.804)
(CN 118). I should also note that Ausonius is far more graphic than Menander Rhetor
says one should be when composing a kateunastikoB l
ogoB, or a bedchamber speech
that exhorts the couple to intercourse, and so that is the closest the rhetorical world
comes to Fescennines or indeed to Ausonius’s obscene passage. Menander Rhetor warns‘
that an author should include nothing unseemly in such a speech: julakt
eon d’ en to
uto˛,
NOTES TO PAGES 103–105 211
 ‘   ‘  ‘
m
Z ti ton aiswron mZde ton eutelon Z
‘ ‘ ’ ja
ulon l
egein d
oxomen, kayi
enteB eiB t
‘ a
ar de^i
o‘ sa endox
a esti kai

0
aiswr
‘ a kai mikr

‘  a, l
egein g o‘ sa semn
otZta j
erei ka
i
estin euwarZ. (406.4–7). Statius shows how a poet could handle the matter of sex
discreetly: hic fuit ille dies [the day of the wedding]: noctem canat ipse maritus (Silv.
1.2.241).
66. This gesture is connected to the practice of giving obscene meanings to epic
words and situations. The sexual Homeric cento is also a sui generis outgrowth of writing
sexual parodies of Homer. Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 199–201, discusses both
of these phenomena, while Alessandro Barchiesi, ‘‘Traces of Greek Narrative and the
Roman Novel: A Survey,’’ in Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel, trans. Barbara Gra-
ziosi, ed. Stephen J. Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 130 n. 19, limits
his notice to obscene Homeric parodies. 
‘
67. This cento also mentions virginal blood: pan d’ upeyerm
anyZ x
ijoB a‘

imati
(AP 9.361.5). Ausonius might have known the poem; certainly he was familiar with the
anthology, as he translated or adapted some of its poems in his own epigrams. On this
topic, see Green, Works, 393–404, 408–410, and 414–417.
68. See n. 65 above. Relevant to this topic are comments in other texts on the
need to conceal the sex act in everyday life. These include Gellius (NA 9.10.1), in which
he describes A. 8.404–406 as versus . . . quibus Volcanum et Venerem iunctos mixtosque
iure coniugii, rem lege naturae operiendam; Plutarch (QR 65 [275F]), in which he asks
why the deflowering of the bride occurs in the dark, and concludes with the question oB
 ‘
kai to iB nom
imoiB a’isw
unZB tinoB proso
usZB; and Tacitus (Ann. 15.37.9), in which
he, describing the wedding night sex of Nero and Pythagoras, writes, with typical
sharpness, cuncta denique spectata, quae etiam in femina nox operit.
69. As Green suggests, Works, 519.
70. Ausonius’s comment in his prefatory epistle that Valentinian simile nos de
eodem concinnare praecepit (10) does not resolve the matter. Ausonius could mean
simply that Valentinian ordered him to write a poem similar in form to his own cento
rather than in all of its content.
71. I will discuss the apology in more detail hereafter. The passage in Ausonius’s
apology in which this statement appears, I should note, seems to be corrupt, as Green,
Works, 524, contends. It reads contentus esto, Paule mi, / lasciva, o Paule, pagina: / ridere,
nil ultra expeto. The repeated vocative in line 2 is suspicious, leading Green to obelize it.
72. The laughter that Ausonius describes here matches OLD, s. v. ‘‘rideo,’’ 2 or 5,
both of which emphasize simple amusement.
73. Obviously, not every reader has responded so leniently and favorably to
Ausonius’s sex scene, as the words of Evelyn-White show (see note 1).
74. For instance, Luxurius (EF 19) cites A. 9.618 (biformem dat tibia cantum) to
describe Iopas’s playing at the cena nuptialis, and proceeds to A. 6.646–647 (23–24).
Ausonius also uses A. 6.645–646 to describe a singer at the cena (CN 25–26), and
follows with A. 9.618 (27). These uncanny parallels suggest that Luxurius had Ausonius
in mind as he composed his cento, and perhaps held the Cento Nuptialis ‘‘ante oculos,’’
as Schenkl contends (see note 5). There are also echoes linking CN 54–55, illum turbat
amor figitque in virgine vultus: (A. 12.70) / oscula libavit (A. 1.256) dextramque amplexus
inhaesit (A. 8.124), and EF 55, cum dabit amplexus atque oscula dulcia figet (A. 1.687).
The resemblances are verbal and not a product of shared units; but they are striking
enough to suggest that Luxurius had Ausonius in mind in a comparable line in his cento.
212 NOTES TO PAGES 105–107

Finally, the centos share a few isolated units (CN 51 and EF 37, CN 55 and EF 64, and
CN 95 and EF 44).
75. Luxurius’s femine has much better textual support in Virgil, as Green notes,
Works, 524. Ausonius may have misremembered the line or had a variant reading in the
manuscript through which he learned Virgil or in the manuscript that he consulted while
composing the cento.
76. The intertextual relationship between Luxurius and Ausonius lends some cre-
dence to the idea that Luxurius also imitated Mavortius’s Iudicium Paridis, a possibility that
I analyzed in chapter 4. The idea would be that Luxurius, who followed Ausonius, could
engage in the same sort of imitation of Mavortius. To reiterate a point made in chapter 4 and
earlier in this chapter, however, there is no way of determining that there is deliberate
imitation at work between Mavortius and Luxurius, let alone which author was following
which. The confident assertion of authorial intention, one based on the very close similarities
in subject matter, placement within the poem, and language, that we can apply to the
echoes between Luxurius and Ausonius, in other words, is not possible in that other case.
77. See note 29.
78. The Cento Nuptialis contains 187 verse units from the Aeneid, 18 from the
Georgics, and 11 from the Eclogues. The Epithalamium Fridi contains only one verse unit
from the Georgics (in line 36) and none from the Eclogues.
79. Daniel T. O’Hara, Radical Parody: American Culture and Critical Agency after
Foucault (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 48–49, considers such appli-
cations central to parody.
80. Herzog, Bibelepik, 5, sees Ausonius’s phrase Vergiliani carminis dignitatem
ioculari materia dehonestare in line 6–7 of the prefatory epistle to Paulus as an indication
of the parodic nature of the Cento Nuptialis as a whole. This seems to me inaccurate.
Ausonius denigrates himself and his text for rhetorical purposes, not to suggest that his
cento contained the sort of low material that marks parody. So too Ausonius’s description
of the cento as a negotium . . . quod ridere magis quam laudare possis (4) fails to point to
the parodic nature of the text as a whole. As an antonym to laudare, ridere denotes the
derisive laughter that Ausonius affects to deserve, not the response to a comic text. It is
thus quite different from the centonist’s use of ridere to begin his concluding apology.
81. As we have seen, all Statian epithalamial poets give Cupid a lead role in
instigating and securing the marriage. Menander Rhetor (404.20–23) advises an author
of an epithalamium to emphasize Cupid.
82. Some have seen this as a moment of parody; but it seems to me that there is a
lateral rather than a vertical semantic shift occurring here. The change in meaning is
certainly striking, and no doubt meant to elicit amused wonder at the wit of it. Yet
Polyphemus, in his guise as an epic monster, is not incongruously lower than the Ca-
tullan subject matter, even if he is extremely different from it.
83. See Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 205.
84. The choice not to distort any overarching feature of Virgil’s poetry besides his
language was also made by the author of the De Panificio, as I showed in chapter 3,
though of course not to obscene ends. This is not to say that there is nothing at all erotic
in Virgil, or that different groups of readers since antiquity have not located veiled
eroticism in his poetry (more on these things hereafter). Yet that material in Virgil is not
at all as explicit as what appears in the centos; nor does Virgil ever depict before the
reader’s eyes the sexual act.
NOTES TO PAGES 107–112 213

85. There is a specific modeled reality in Ausonius’s and Luxurius’s descriptions

of wedding cenae, both of which take the scene in Dido’s palace in Aeneid 1 as their
double and take several units from that Virgilian material. The centonists’ purposes there
are not parodic, however.
86. Ausonius’s comment in his prefatory epistle piget enim Vergiliani carminis
dignitatem tam ioculari dehonestasse materia (6–7) also bears upon the obscene passage,
since Ausonius seems to be referring to the cento as a whole. But again, I consider this
affected modesty, not literary criticism.
87. I use the line numbers of Green, Works, 137.
88. Little did Ausonius know how unsuccessful he would be with readers in the
twentieth century! (See notes 1 and 2.)
89. The entire passage is as follows: sed cum legeris, adesto mihi adversum eos, qui,
ut Iuvenalis ait, ‘‘Curios simulant et Bacchanalia vivunt,’’ ne fortasse mores meos spectent de
carmine. ‘‘Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba,’’ ut Martialis ait (1–3). Again, I follow the
line numbers of Creen, Works, 139.
90. See VSD 11.
91. As Horsfall suggests, ‘‘Virgil: His Life and Times,’’ 7.
92. See Servius’s comment ad Buc. 2.1: nam Virgilius dicitur in tres pueros habuisse
alium amorem: nec enim turpiter eum diligebat. The last statement may be a defense
against those who say that the poet in fact enjoyed the boy turpiter, a position that may
reflect the Roman idea that a man should not succumb to excessive love for a boy.
93. Green, Works, 519, mentions the ‘‘fascination with cacemphata in Vergil’’ in
relation to the cento, but does not pursue the connection.
94. Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 201, defines these readers similarly:
‘‘[Cacemphatists] searched obsessively for cacemphata in epic and elsewhere, and
thereby made educated readers conscious of the possible presence of indecencies in
respectable writers.’’
95. Luciano Lombardi, EV 1, 592, s. v. ‘‘cacemphaton,’’ gives a similar definition
of this phenomenon: ‘‘S’incorre in esso sia quando un pensiero sia stato inteso in senso
osceno, sia quando la combinazione delle parole suoni male, perché l’incontro di una
sillaba finale e di una sillaba iniziale potrebbe evocare una parola sconveniente.’’
Quintilian (Inst. Orat. 8.3.45) refers to the latter type of cacemphaton as arising when
iunctura deformiter sonat. An example of this sort of cacemphaton is found in E. 2.27,
Dorica castra, about which Servius comments: mala est compositio ab ea syllaba incipere,
qua superius finitus est sermo; nam plerumque et cacemphaton facit.
96. The passage to which Ausonius and Cornutus refer, A. 8.404–406, reads as
follows: ea verba locutus / optatos dedit amplexus placidumque petivit / coniugis infusus
gremio per membra soporem.
97. Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 201, however, contends that Ausonius’s
familiarity with the sexual interpretation of A. 6.406 ‘‘seems likely.’’
98. At the very end of his apology, Ausonius offers still more options to the
disapproving reader: either do not read the obscene cento passage, or forget it once it is
read, or pardon it, because it describes the wedding night accurately (18–20).
99. See Malamud, Poetics, 37.
100. I paraphrase Richard F. Thomas, ‘‘A Trope by Any Other Name: ‘Polysemy,’
Ambiguity, and Significatio in Virgil,’’ HSCP 100 (2000): 365, discussing Servius’s notion
of polysemy.
214 NOTES TO PAGES 112–114

101. On the erotics of youthful death in Virgil’s epic, see e.g., Daniel Gillis, Eros
and Death in the Aeneid (Rome: L’Erima di Bretschneider, 1983), Michael C. J. Putnam,
‘‘Possessiveness, Sexuality, and Heroism in the Aeneid,’’ Vergilius 31 (1985): 1–21, and
Barbara Pavlock, ‘‘The Hero and the Erotic in Aeneid 7–12,’’ Vergilius 38 (1993): 72–86.
102. The exceptions are the units connected to Virgilian cacemphata and two
examples I will turn to hereafter.
103. Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 202–214, discusses this phenomenon.
104. As Adams notes, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 203. Luxurius includes the
same kind of polyptoton, though in Cupid’s address to Venus, where he is describing
what will happen between the bride and groom once he shoots them with his arrows
(though the verb is in the present): inmiscentque manus manibus (A. 5.429) (56).
105. Smith, Poetic Allusion, 71–74, provides an example of it in the Virgilian
context, showing that Ovid’s Met. 10.474–477 parodically sexualizes the fulgens ensis of
A. 10.474–475, a gesture to which I alluded in chapter 3.
106. I paraphrase Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento Nuptialis,’’ 199.
107. Obscenity does commonly appear in epigram in Latin poetry. On this topic,
see Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Agression in Roman Humor, rev.
ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 25–26, and Judith P. Hallett, ‘‘Perusinae
Glandes and the Changing Image of Augustus,’’ AJAH 2 (1977): 154–155, 165 n. 24, and
166 n. 26.
108. In Il. 8.306–308.
109. See, e.g., W. R. Johnson, Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s Aeneid (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1976), 59–62. See too Fordyce, Catullus, 128, and Susan
Ford Wiltshire, ‘‘The Man Who Was Not There: Aeneas and Absence in Aeneid 9,’’ in
Reading Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed. Christine Perkell (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1999), 171.
110. Philip Hardie, ed. and comm., Virgil, Aeneid Book IX (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1994), 150, points out that the topos of plucking flowers is
common in epithalamia.
111. As J. N. Adams notes, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1982), 83 and 154.
112. See D. P. Fowler, ‘‘Vergil on Killing Virgins,’’ in Homo Viator: Classical Essays
for John Bramble, ed. Michael Whitby, Philip Hardie, and Mary Whitby (Bristol, Eng-
land: Bristol Classical Press, 1987), 185–198.
113. For these references, I am again indebted to Adams, ‘‘Ausonius Cento
Nuptialis,’’ 207.
114. On this metaphor, which I discussed in conjunction with the Narcissus in
chapter 4, see Lyne, Words, 29–30.
115. Ellen Oliensis, ‘‘Sons and Lovers: Sexuality and Gender in Virgil’s Poetry,’’ in
The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, ed. Charles Martindale (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 308.
116. None of those other units in the centos are cited by Gillis, Eros, Putnam,
‘‘Possessiveness,’’ 1–21, and Pavlock, ‘‘Hero and the Erotic,’’ 72–86, in their studies of
erotic imagery in Virgil; nor are any units immediately connected to Virgilian lines with
such imagery in the opinions of those critics. This includes A. 4.690–691 (in CN 123–
124), where Dido’s death on the torus may be meant to evoke marriage, and specifically
the union that Dido thought she and Aeneas had entered into, and the dissolution of
NOTES TO PAGES 114 215

which led her to despair and suicide. In that case, the scene would be obliquely con-
cerned with love, fidelity, and marriage, but would not be sexual. One could also see the
stabbing of Dido on the torus as a perversion of the consummation of her union with
Aeneas. Yet this reading is a stretch; and besides, the lines that Ausonius cites are not
joined directly to the description of the stabbing (A. 4.663–664).
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 Index
Accommodations
See cento
Achilles Tatius, 83
Admetus, 13, 15, 22, 26, 88–91,
202n72
Aeneas, xviii, xix, 12, 21–22, 27, 45,
47–49, 62, 78, 89–91, 100, 112,
185n78, 187n102, 187n106,
203–204nn78–80, 204n82,
214n116
Aeneid, xv, xviii–xx, xxiii, 8, 10–13, 17, 18,
21, 26, 33–34, 36–37, 39, 45–52,
55–56, 60–61, 63, 66–70, 85, 89,
102, 106, 112, 114, 160n56,
166n41, 182n54, 89n10, 212n78
Aeneid 1, xiv, 187n102
Aeneid 3, 187n106
Aeneid 4, xviii, 32, 47, 49–51, 89–91,
109, 187n102, 188n111, 203n76
Aeneid 5, xv
Aeneid 6, 187n102
Aeneid 7, 180n36
Aeneid 9, 113, 187n106.
Aeneidomastix, 56, 189n19, 190n21,
193n52
Africa, xix, 6, 32–33, 57, 72–73, 78, 82,
84, 99, 165n28, 177n12
Agrippa, 39
Alcesta (cento), xv, 13, 15, 17, 22, 26,
71, 84, 88–91, 170n71, 203n76
Alcestis Barcinonensis, 88–89, 203n73
Alcestis (character), 54, 89–91, 202–
203nn72–73, 203n77
Allecto, 26, 180nn36–37
alliteration, 60, 171n82
allusion, 26, 29, 49, 52, 76, 78, 89, 97,
113, 114, 116, 174n130, 175n132,
175n143, 176n148, 176n153
macrotextual, 28, 40, 58–59, 67, 89,
91, 95, 107, 116
microtextual, 25, 27, 29–30, 39,
50, 61–62, 67, 78, 90–91, 95,
113–114, 116
See also intertextuality
Ammianus Marcellinus, 93–94
Anacreon, xvi, 155n13
anadiplosis, 14, 60
anaphora, 14
Anchises, 78
Andromache, xix, 78, 187n106
Anna (Sister of Dido), 34, 47–48
Antaeus, 79–80
antanaclasis, 21, 55, 68, 106
Anthologia Latina, xix, 159n39
See also codex Salmasianus
Aphrodite, 97, 207n35
See also Venus
Apollo, 15, 26, 85, 88, 202n72
Apollonius of Rhodes, 47
apostrophe, 34–35, 69, 82, 87, 171n82,
179n23
Apuleius, 108
architecture, metaphor for literature,
19–20
Areios (‘‘Homeric poet’’), 153n4
Arellius Fuscus, xxi–xxii
argumenta, Virgilian, xix–xx
Aristophanes, 63, 193n50–51
Ascanius, xxii, 77–78, 97
assonance, 60
Astyanax, 78
Augustine, xviii, 101, 157n27
Augustus, xxii
See also Octavian
Ausonius, Decimus Magnus, xv, xvi,
xvii, 1, 5–11, 22, 27, 32–33, 69,
228
Ausonius (continued)
92–95, 97–98, 103, 105–114,
153n3, 156n21, 159n48,
159nn50–51, 161n1, 162nn2–3,
163n11, 166nn36–40, 167n48,
170n67, 171n82, 172n101,
173n107, 205nn9–10, 205n13,
206n17, 207nn27–28, 207n31,
207n34, 207n36, 208n39, 210n62,
210n65, 211n67, 211nn70–74,
212nn75–77, 213nn85–86,
213n88, 213n97, 213n98, 214n116
and definition of cento, 3, 5, 19–20
and letter to Paulus, 1, 2, 4, 10, 19,
92–93, 98, 104, 108, 212n80
and Technopaegnion, 164n19
See also Cento Nuptialis
Axius Paulus, 1, 4, 103, 108, 162nn2–3
See also Ausonius, letter to Paulus
Bellum Civile, parody of Lucan, 59
bricolage, 157n24
cacemphata, 109–112, 213nn94–95
Caecilius Epirota, xviii
Calpurnius Siculus, 174n130, 189n10
captatio benevolentiae, 7, 94, 108,
165n29
Catalepton 10, 59, 189n13
Catullus, 47, 95, 97, 103, 106–108,
113, 164n24, 205n13, 206n15,
207n29, 207n34
Cebes, and cento Pinax, 7, 32, 153n4,
155n17
Cento Nuptialis, xv, xvii, 1, 4–8, 10–12,
15–18, 25, 27, 54, 57–58, 92, 94–
100, 102–103, 105–108, 110–11,
113–14, 153n4, 172n101, 206n15,
207n29, 211n74, 212n78, 212n80
Cento Probae
See Proba
cento, interpretation of, xvi, 9, 29–30,
36– 40, 46, 49, 52, 61–63, 65, 67,
70, 74, 76, 78, 81–82, 86, 88–89,
91, 95, 97, 100, 102, 104–105,
107, 114, 116, 167n53
criticism of, xvi–xvii, 115
definition of, xv, 2, 153n1
Homeric, xvi, 104
use of accommodation in, 22, 75,
200 n. 40
INDEX
use of aural keywords in, 17–18, 85,
176n150, 200n39
use of covert keywords in, 16–17, 29,
77–78, 86, 176n150, 191n27,
200n39
use of overt keywords in, 14–15, 77,
172n95, 176n150, 200n39
See also Alcesta, Cento Nuptialis,
Cento Probae, De Alea, De Eccle-
sia, De Panificio, De Verbi In-
carnatione, Epithalamium Fridi,
Europa, Hercules et Antaeus,
Hippodamia, Iudicium Paridis,
Medea, Narcissus, Progne et Philo-
mela, Versus ad Gratiam Domini
Ceres, 60–62
Cicero, 108, 173n107. 181n44
and Ciceromastix, 190n21
Claudian, 90, 93, 99–100, 208n39,
209n46, 210n59
codex Salmasianus, xix, 6–7, 32–33, 43,
53, 57, 66, 67, 71–74, 78, 82, 84,
155n14, 158nn36–37, 165n28,
188n1, 190n25, 198nn12–13,
198n20, 204n4, 208n45
Constantia, wife of Gratian, 27, 92,
96–97, 103, 104, 205n12
Coronatus, xix, 159n41
Creon, 37, 41, 180n37
Creusa, 42–43, 77
Culex, 59, 61, 191n32
Cupid, 100, 106, 212n81, 214n104
De Alea, xv, 16, 24, 25, 53, 55, 57, 58,
64–70, 108, 170n71, 171n82,
173nn111–112, 194nn62– 63,
196n81
De Ecclesia, xv, 10, 154n6, 170n71
De Panificio, xv, 14, 16, 25, 53, 55,
57–64, 67, 70, 173n112, 188n1,
190n26, 192n37, 194n57, 212n84
De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 7, 32,
42, 153n4
De Verbi Incarnatione, xv, 160n53
Dido, xxii, 12–13, 22, 34, 47, 48–51,
77, 89–91, 100, 185n78, 187n102,
187n109, 188n111, 198n20,
203nn77–80, 204nn82–83,
214n116
diegesis, 33–34, 103, 178n17, 178n19
Diomedes (grammarian), 110, 181n44
INDEX
Dionysus, 3, 19
Donatus, Tiberius Claudius, 203n80
Doto, mentioned in epithalamia, 101,
210n59
Dracontius, 99, 100, 155n16, 158n35,
209n46
Eclogues, xv, xx–xxi, xxiii, 8, 10–11,
17–18, 33, 36–40, 46–47, 55–56,
63, 67, 89, 106, 166n41, 176n147,
178n16, 189n18, 192n37, 196n80,
212n78.
emulation, 23–24
enargeia, 84
Encolpius, xxiv, 56, 104
Ennius, 37, 41, 48, 51
Ennodius, xviii, 81, 93, 99, 209n46
epitaphs, and Virgil, xix–xx
epithalamia, 42, 92–106, 173n112,
207n33, 209n46
Erasmus, 4
ethopoeiae, xviii–xix, xxi, 81, 153n4,
157n28
Eumolpus, 59
Euripides, 37, 40, 51, 180n37, 193n51
Europa (cento), xv, 12, 30, 71, 83–84,
201n55
Europa (character), 27, 54, 83–84
Euryalus, 34, 113, 198n20
Eurysaces, 58
Fescennines, 96, 103–104, 207n27,
210n65
Fridus, 74, 98, 99, 100–105, 208n41,
208n44, 208n45
Galatea, mentioned in epithalamia, 101,
210n59
Gellius, Aulus, and Attic Nights, 110,
174n130, 190n21
genre, 24, 25, 31, 37–40, 46–47,
49–50, 52, 55, 95, 99, 173n112,
179nn32–33, 180nn–43–45,
183n60
Georgics, xv, xx–xxi, 8, 10–11, 33,
35–39, 46–47, 55, 60–62, 67–68,
71, 85–89, 106, 166n41, 178n22,
183n61, 189n15, 196n80, 212n78
graffiti, xxi, 55, 153n4, 189n14
Gratian, 27, 92–96, 98, 103–104,
106, 159n51
229
Hadrian, xxiii, 161n61
Helen, 74, 90, 97, 207n32, 207n35
Heracles, 155n18
See also Hercules
Hercules et Antaeus, xv, 71, 79–81
Hercules, 54, 80–81
Himerius, 97–98, 205n14
Hippodamia (cento), xv, 12, 16, 24,
28–30, 84–88
Hippodamia (character), 54, 71, 86–88
Hippolytus, 3, 19
Historia Augusta, xxiii, 161n62, 209n56
Homer, xvi, xviii–xxi, 113, 193n50,
211n66
and Battle of Frogs and Mice, 68
See also cento, Homeric
Honorius, 64, 194n60, 208n39, 209n46
Horace, 45, 157n27, 168n57, 181n44
Hosidius Geta, xv, 13, 14, 22, 31,
33–38, 40, 42–46, 48, 51, 55, 79,
101, 170n68, 170n71, 171n82,
180nn35–37, 182n54, 183n59,
187n107, 188n112, 198nn11–12
See also Medea (cento by Geta)
Icarus, 42, 44
intertextuality, 23, 24, 27, 30, 54, 55,
67, 91, 113, 116, 174n129,
175n132, 207n36
See also allusion
Irenaeus, 155n18, 167n53
Isidore of Seville, 21, 155n15, 155n19
Iudicium Paridis, xv, 6, 15, 18,
21–22, 71, 73–76, 102, 201n55,
212n76
Jason, 32, 35, 37, 40, 43–44, 46,
48–49, 55, 180n36, 180n37,
184n66, 187n102
Jerome, xvi–xvii, 155n15, 163n13
Juno, 22, 74, 85, 100
Jupiter, 12, 30, 84, 202n60
Juvenal, 65–66, 182n51, 194n64,
195n70
Keywords, aural, covert, overt.
See cento
Lactantius, xxx, 194n65, 195n74
Latinus, 27, 45
Lavinia, 27, 207n33
230
Leo the Philosopher, 104, 107
Libanius, 80, 207n29
Locus Vergilianus, xix, 7
Lucan, 59, 157n27, 184n70
Lucian, 155n13, 207n35
ludic literature, 5–10, 52–55, 86, 96,
103, 115, 117, 171n84
ludus/ludere, 5–6, 8, 10, 20, 54–55,
65–66, 164n20, 195n66
Luxurius, xv, 12, 14, 32, 65–66, 72,
74–75, 92, 98–103, 105–108,
110–14, 158n38, 159n41, 159n50,
177n12, 195n71, 198n12,
199n28, 204nn4–5, 208n41,
208n43, 208n45, 209n47, 210n54,
210nn56–60, 210n65, 210n65,
211n74, 212nn75–76, 214n104
See also Epithalamium Fridi
Macrobius, and Saturnalia, xvi, 47,
174n130
Maecenas, 182n55, 197n95
Marsyas, 40, 42, 169n65
Martial, 32, 107–08, 181n43
Mavortius (author of Iudicium Paridis),
xv, 15, 71–75, 102, 184n66,
201n55
See also Iudicium Paridis
Mavortius (author of De Ecclesia), 10,
154n6.
See also De Ecclesia
Medea (cento by Geta), xv, 7–8, 11, 14,
22, 24–25, 32–38, 40, 42, 46–47,
49–52, 54, 69, 79, 95, 100,
171n82, 171n86, 177n9, 180n35,
180n37, 183n60, 199n22
Medea (character), 13, 32, 35–38,
40–45, 47–49, 51–52, 55, 180n37,
180nn39–40, 185n81, 187n102,
187n109
Medea (Ennius), 41, 48, 51
Medea (Euripides), 41, 48, 51, 184n72
Medea (Ovid), 41–44, 79, 101,
188n112
Medea (Seneca), 41–42, 44–46, 51–52,
79, 101, 180n37, 180n39,
184n76, 207n33
memory instruction, compositio, 11
divisio, 10–11
use of sound in, 17–18
use of symbols in, 13
INDEX
Menander Rhetor, 94, 98, 205n13,
207n29, 208n37, 210n65, 212n81
Mercury, xxii, 47
metaphor, 21, 60, 112
metonymy, 60–61, 65
mimesis, 33–35, 103
Minerva, 68, 196n82
Minucius Felix, and Virgilian cento,
161n69
Misenus, 28–29
Moretum, 58, 190n26, 191n32
Moschus, 84
Muses, 34–36, 68, 85–86
Myrtilus, 28, 87
myth, as artistic subject matter in late
antiquity, 71–74
Virgil’s attitude toward in Georgics 3,
24, 71, 85–88
Narcissus (cento), xv, 29–30, 71,
76–79, 84
Narcissus (character), 54, 73, 78–79
Nemesianus, 174n130, 189n10
Nisus, 34, 198n20
Numitorius, 56, 59, 63, 193n47
See also Virgil, and obtrectatores of
Octavian, 85–86
Optatian, 164n19
Orestes, 50, 187n107
Ovid, xvi, xix, 32, 40–44, 46–47, 52,
56, 59–60, 64, 80, 85, 102,
108–109, 153n4, 155n14,
174n130, 184n76, 185n78,
185n80, 188n112, 189n17,
193n55, 204n83
Palinurus, 28–29
Pallas, 198n20
parecbasis, 103–104, 108–109,
210n63
Paris, 15, 21, 54, 73, 97, 207n34
parody, 53–63, 67, 69–70, 104–107,
111–12, 114, 116, 173n112,
188n3, 188nn6–8, 189nn12–17,
190n22, 191n31, 191n32, 192n34,
192n42, 193n46, 193n48,
193nn50–52, 194n58, 211n66,
212n80, 212n82, 214n105
pastiche, 156n24
Paulinus of Nola, 199n23, 209n51
INDEX
Pelops, 28, 85–87
Pentadius, 73
Pentheus, 42, 44
Petronius, xxii, 32, 56, 59, 104, 107
Phaethon, 35, 44
Philomela, 54, 73, 81–82, 197n3
Pindar, xvi, 155n13
Plato, 108, 178n17
Pliny the Younger, 5, 108, 158n32,
165n34
Plutarch, 207n28, 211n68
Polyphemus, 18, 107, 212n82
polyptoton, 112
Proba, Faltonia Betitia (author of
Cento Probae), xv, 33, 155n17,
155n19–20, 160n53, 162n3
Procne, 54, 73, 81, 197n3
Progne et Philomela, xv, 71, 81–83
Propertius, xvi, 32
Pygmalion (brother of Dido), 49, 77
Quintilian, xvi, xviii, xxii, 15, 109,
110, 158n32, 168n58, 181n44,
210n63
repetition, verbal, 14–16
Rhetorica ad Herennium, 15, 17
Salmasianus
See codex Salmasianus
Sappho, 205n14
Scarron, and Virgile travesti, 59
Seneca the Elder, xxi, xxii, 168n60,
197n95
Seneca the Younger, xxii, 32, 37, 40, 41,
44, 46–47, 51–52, 79, 101,
183n63, 184n76, 185n78
and Hercules Oetaeus, 40
Phaedra, 40
and Troades, 40
Servius, xviii, 47
Sibyl, 56, 59
Sidonius Apollinaris, xxiii, 5, 6, 93,
97, 99–100, 165n27, 209n46,
210n59
simile, 87, 98
231
Statius, 97, 99–102, 164n25, 191n32,
207n33, 210n60, 210n65
Stephanus, 22
stomaxion, 8–9, 20–21, 167n47
Suetonius, xxii
Sulpicius Carthaginiensis, xx
Sychaeus, 47–49, 89–90, 203n80
Tacitus, 157n27, 206n23
Tereus, 81– 82
Tertullian, xvi, xvii, 7, 43, 153n4,
155n15, 177nn8–9, 198n12
See also De Praescriptione
Haereticorum
Themata Vergiliana, xix, 7, 158n30
Theocritus, 207n32
Tisiphone, 86, 180n36
Tonantius, 6, 165n27
Tucca, xx
Turnus, xxii, xxiii, 26, 69, 112,
185n81, 198n20
Twelve Wise Men, xx, 194n65,
195n74. See also Lactantius
Valentinian, 2, 6, 93–94, 97–98, 104,
153n4, 159n51, 161n1, 165n31,
165n38, 205nn9–10, 211n70
Varius, xx
Venantius Fortunatus, 97, 99–101,
164n19, 209n46, 210n59
Venus, 74, 75, 97, 100–102, 109,
207n34, 214n104
Versus ad Gratiam Domini, xv, 160n53
Vespa (author of Iudicium Coci et
Pistoris Iudice Vulcano), 59, 62
Virgil, centonists’ attitude toward,
23–24, 62–64, 70, 86, 107–108
and cacemphata, 109–112
language of, 39–40
obtrectatores of, 56, 63, 109–110,
189n18
parody of (non–centonic), 55–56
and schools, xviii–xxi
and tragedy, 37, 39, 47–52
See also cento, Aeneid, Eclogues,
Georgics