Silvia Ottaviano

This article discusses the text of seven passages in the etymological books 5–7 of Varro's De lingua Latina, and proposes new conjectures for all of them. The discussions are of direct relevance to the interpretation of fragments and testimonies of lost Latin authors quoted by Varro: the scenic poets Naevius, Pacuvius, Caecilius Statius, Juventius and Atilius, and the grammarian Aurelius Opillus. The starting point for the discussions is the new Oxford edition of Varro's De lingua Latina by Wolfgang de Melo.

In a recent contribution to this journal, D. Kovacs addresses the following passage from the fourth Eclogue :o mihi tum longae maneat pars ultima uitae,spiritus et quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!Kovacs takes it for granted that the meaning of l. 54 should correspond to the Loeb translation, ‘and inspiration enough to hymn your deeds!’. Starting from this assumption, he rejects the reading spiritus, arguing that a genitive is required ; the possible solution he suggests is pectoris, used metaphorically in the sense of ‘poetical ability’. That seems a clever conjecture, restoring excellent style. Nevertheless, we have to assume that spiritus replaced pectoris as a gloss, but I cannot see any reason why somebody would have wanted to explain obscurum per obscurius: other words would have been far more appropriate. On the other hand, Virgil most likely chose the word spiritus, whose basic meaning is not ‘inspiration’ but ‘breath’, in order to amplify line 53.