Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

SATURA BEFORE ENNIUS?
remark are current. The minority view, first proposed by W. Rennie (1922) 21
is that he means 'but in satire we Romans 'win easily'; the older and alternative,
that he means 'but satire is an exclusively Roman genre', has been reasserted in
recent studies. 1 Rennie's basic point is that Qyintilian's discussion is not about
origins but evaluations; on the other hand, it is argued, the passage of Horace
cited above can be taken to support the other view; and there is the consideration
that alone among the genres listed by Quintilian, satire does not have a Greek
name. The grammarian Diomedes (GLK 1 485) defines satyra (sic) as carmen
apud Romanos, nunc quidetn tnaledicum et ad carpenda hominum uitia Archaeae
Comoediae charactere composition, quale scripserunt Lucilius et Horatiits et
Persius; sed olim carmen quod ex uariis poematibus constabat satyra uocabatur,
quale scripserunt Pacuuius et Ennius ' poetry with the Romans, now vituperative
and composed with the timbre of Old Comedy, such as Lucilius, Horace and
Persius wrote; but once poetry which consisted of different (kinds of) poems
was called satyra, such as Pacuvius and Ennius wrote'. Diomedes proceeds to
list various suggested etymologies for the word, starting with the one "which he
himself thought (certainly wrongly) the most probable: satyra autem dicta siue a
Satyris, quod similiter in hoc carmine ridiculae res pudendaeque dicuntur, uelut
quae a Satyrisproferuntur etfiunt 'satyra is so called either from Satyrs, because
ridiculous and shameful things are likewise said in this poetry as are delivered
and done by Satyrs. . .'. There lies behind diis an allusion to the satyr plays of
Attic and Hellenistic drama such as Sophocles' Ichneutae. Among other serious
objections to this evidently popular and widespread theory there are the points
that in that case the name should be satyrica (n. pi.), not satura (-yra, -ira)
(f. sing.); and that since there is no feminine nominal suffix -lira (-yra, -ira) in
Latin, we must be dealing with the adjective satur in the feminine, with a noun
left understood. That is indeed Diomedes' second suggestion, . . .siue satyra a
lance quae referta uariis multisqueprimitiis in sacro apudpriscos dis inferebatur. . .
'or satyra is named after a lanx (£.), dish, which filled with many different firstfruits
was offered to the gods in a religious service in olden times'. This is
generally agreed to be the right explanation. 2
These passages have given rise to an enormous amount of speculation, and in
particular to the theory that Ennius' saturae with their dramatic elements somehow
represent a literary development of pre- or sub-literate dramatic performances
by a cantor and tibicen, which, on die evidence of Livy, will have been
called saturae; and support for diis has been found in the passages cited from
Horace and Quintilian as interpreted by the majority, not without the aid of
certain unhistorical prejudices of the late Romantic period about popular
1 In particular van Rooy (1965) 117—23, followed by Coffey (1976) 3.
1 For Diomedes' other suggestions, and modern elaborations, see van Rooy (1965) 1—27, Coffey
(1976) 12—18, Waszink (1972) 103.
161
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008