CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

(Theb. 7x, Ach. 1x, Silu. 1x), Juvenal (1x), Valerius Flaccus (3x) and Silius Italicus (18x). It is not found in
prose before Apuleius (2x Plat., 1x Socr.). Catullus also uses the word at 64.386 and ironically at 30.4.
139 coniugis in culpa ‘As regards to her husband’s faux pas’, ‘in view of it’: for the usage compare Sal.
Cat. 52.12 sint misericordes in furibus aerari, Prop. 3.19.28 uictor erat quamuis, aequus in hoste fuit, Ov.
Am. 1.7.9 uindex in matre patris … Orestes, Livy 6.22.4 foedeque in captis exercuere uictoriam (see OLD
s.v. in, 41d and TLL 7.1.779.65-781.56 on the ‘in’ occasionis).
culpa is used regularly for philandering: see OLD s.v., 3b and TLL 4.1298.27-30.
flagrantem contudit iram An interesting textual problem. The principal MSS write flagrantem cotidiana
(O) or flagrantem quotidiana (GR). Here we have a series of proper Latin words (cotidianus and quotidianus
are legitimate by-forms of the adjective cottidianus) but they make no sense, as the sentence that runs
through lines 138-140 contains no finite verb. Scholars have tried to remedy this situation in three different
ways: first, by emending flagrantem (the man who copied β later corrected the word to flagrauit); second, by
suggesting that a pair of lines may have fallen out after line 139 (this was the idea of Statius); third, by
emending cotidiana or quotidiana (Santenius may have been the first to pursue this path).
The first solution is unconvincing: flagrauit ‘she was roused to anger’ does not suit the image of a
conciliatory Juno that we need here, flagrantem does not look corrupt at all and is hard to see what process of
corruption could have given rise to such an attractive form. On the other hand, cotidiana does look corrupt,
as it would be oddly superfluous after saepe. Statius’ proposal that there is a two-verse lacuna after this line
is intelligent, but it does not get rid of cotidiana, and the text runs well except for the lack of a verb.
cotidiana is corrupt, then; but how should it be corrected?
Santenius proposed continet iram, and in fact the noun goes well with flagrantem (cfr. Liv. 40.56.2 uelut ab
incendio flagrantis irae and ira flagrantior at Apul. Plat. 1.10 [217] and Amm. 16.12.49, and the connection
of heat with anger is commonplace: in Catullus note 64.124 and 64.197), while continet ‘she restrains, keeps
to herself’ means the right thing and has a parallel in this sense at Brut. Cass. ap. Cic. Fam. 11.3.2 te
miramur … non potuisse continere iracundiam tuam quin nobis de morte Caesaris obiceres. Santenius’
continet iram does not appear to have been accepted by any recent editor, but it is surely not unattractive.
Lachmann suggested concoquit iram ‘she digests her anger’, and this has been printed by many editors
including Kroll, Mynors (supported by Fordyce) and Quinn as well as Schwabe, who spelled conquoquit,
which is closer to G’s quotidiana (the reading of O, which was unknown to Schwabe, in fact shows that the
archetype is more likely to have read cotidiana). However, concoquo ‘to cook thoroughly, to digest’ is never
used of suppressing a sudden impulse (see OLD s.v. 4 and TLL 4.82.81-83.9), which makes it hard to accept
this conjecture.
Hertzberg’s contudit iram ‘she crushed, suppressed her anger’ is close to the transmitted reading, as it may
have yielded cotidiana through an intermediate form such as cōtuditinā (cfr. Goold 1988: 148, n. 1). A close
parallel at Columella 6.2.4 is already quoted by Ellis: (uituli) si nimis asperi erunt, patere unum diem
noctemque desaeuiant; simul atque iras contuderint, mane producantur… This conjecture is put into the text
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