CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

62 grauis … aestus For grauis meaning ‘oppressive’ see TLL 6.2.2296.9-29 and compare Varro R.R.
1.6.3 ubi lati campi, ibi magis aestus, et eo in Apulia loca calidiora et grauiora, Hor. Od. 2.5.6f. fluuiis
grauem / solantis aestum, Sen. Herc. Oet. 1566 grauis Titan ubi promit aestus and Tac. Ann. 15.43 nulla
umbra defensam grauiore aestu ardescere. Though aestus is a common word for ‘heat’, witness the
quotation from Varro, it is established in high poetry as early as Naev. trag. 48 iam solis aestu candor cum
liquesceret and is common in Republican drama, especially tragedy (Plaut. 2x, Pacuv. 3x, Acc. 1x). In
Catullus compare aestuosus at 7.5 and 46.5.
exustos … agros exuro ‘to scorch’ is a venerable verb, attested already in Plautus (6x), Turpilius (1x),
Pacuvius (1x) and Accius (1x) and also used by Lucretius (2x), Cicero (orat. 5x, phil. 2x), Caesar (1x) and
the author of the Bellum Africum (1x). For its application to scorching heat compare Pacuv. trag. 12f. sol si
perpetuo siet, / flammeo uapore torrens terrae fetum exusserit and Sal. Iug. 19.6 loca exusta solis ardoribus,
and also Verg. Geo. 1.107 exustus ager morientibus aestuat herbis and Aen. 3.141 sterilis exurere Sirius
agros (in both cases Virgil may be echoing exustos … agros in the present passage).
hiulcat A bold expression: the heat makes the ground hiulcus, ‘gaping’, by filling it with cracks. The verb is
found again only at Venantius Fortunatus 6.10.5f. ecce uaporiferum sitiens Canis exerit astrum / et per
hiulcatos feruor anhelat agros, which imitates this passage both directly and through Verg. Geo. 2.353
hiulca siti findit Canis aestifer ora, and at Pseudo-Augustine, Sent. 16 v. 57 (p. 730 Migne) autumnus frigore
torpet, siccitate hiulcat. This is also the first attestation of the use of hio or a derivative for ground that has
been cracked by the heat, a usage that is to become quite common in a matter of decades in poetry and prose
with a poetic colouring, witness Sall. Hist. frg. 4.17 M. hiauit humus multa, uasta et profunda, Verg. Geo.
1.89-91 calor … uenas adstringit hiantes and Colum. 5.9.12 cum terra aestibus hiat and 10.49 terra bibat
fontes et hiantia compleat ora. This, and its unusual ending, make it unlikely that hiulco should have been a
coinage of Catullus’.
63 The line may well be echoed at Verg. Aen. 1.442 iactati undis et turbine Poeni.
ac Here O writes hec (i.e. haec), which makes no sense; X has hic, which is possible, but not inevitable; the
archetype may have read either hic, which was then garbled by O, or hec, in which case hic is a conjecture
by X (this can certainly be said of neque at 22.18 and cecilio at 35.2, passages in which O’s inferior readings
nec and occilio are confirmed by citations of the respective passages by Geremia da Montagnone and Benzo
d’Alessandria, two authors from the first third of the 14 th century, before any of the principal MSS had been
written: see further the apparatus of Thomson). In the eyes of Trappes-Lomax (2007: 234) O’s hec points to
heic in the archetype “and the survival of the archaic form would be further evidence that the reading is
correct”, but it would be surprising if heic had survived up to the archetype, only to be regularized all of a
sudden in both branches of the tradition. In fact the archetype was not markedly conservative, while O was.
hic is retained by Ellis, Baehrens, Riese, Kroll, Quinn and Thomson, is defended by Trappes-Lomax (loc.
cit.) and is considered more likely by Fordyce (on 57ff.), while Mynors and Goold print Palladius’ conjecture
ac. If the correct reading is hic, it has to be taken as an adverb (‘here’, ‘then’, ‘at this point’) and not a
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