III.3. ‘SPOKEN’ GREEK
The third group in my compilation is a rather miscellaneous one. A number of words are low-register, probably trade terms: e.g. amphitapos ‘double-napped coverlet’ (13 W. = M. and 277 W. = 252 M.), arytaena ‘ladle’ (14 W. = 17 M.), chrysizon ‘wine of golden colour’ (1226-7 W. = 1155 M.) ōmotribes ‘cold-pressed’ olive oil (987 W. = 961 M.). Some expressions seem to reproduce colloquial Greek (e.g. chaere at 92-3 W. = 93-4 M.), spoken by the Romans at the author’s time, with a varying degree of competence, as in tēsorophylax (= thēsaurophylax, with Oscan pronounciation) ‘treasurer’ (623 W. = 581 M.) and diallaxōn (334 W. = 306 M., discussed above, II). In all these cases the author displays a sarcastic and/or aggressive attitude. Similarly humorous is the case of compounds probably invented on the spot by Lucilius, e.g. oxyodontes ‘sharp-toothed’ women (1028 W. = 1066 M.) and Pararhenchon ‘the one who snores alongside’ (251 W. = 1223 M.). Overall one detects the effort at characterising of gender, role, status.
The fourth-century A.D. lexicographer Nonius Marcellus transmits the following fragment under the entry abstemius (‘sober’):
(9) Lucil. 275-6 W. (= 238-9 M.)
‘“thau-no-meno” inquit balba, sororem
lanificam dici, siccam atque abstemiam ubi audit’
‘“this is a s- s- surprise”, stammered she, when she heard that her sister was said to be spinning and weaving, sober and temperate’
The first word in line 275 is corrupt, and various emendations have been proposed to make some sense of the text.[49] It has been noted, however, that perhaps the transmitted thaunomeno can be defended as the comic reproduction of a Greek speaker stammering (thau-no-meno, ‘I am s-s-surprised’) – like the Plautine character in Most. 319, 325 (ma-ma-madere), or the drunk woman in Juvenal 15.47-8.[50] The speech impediment affecting the speaker (balba) might be further explained by her state of drunkenness (as indicated by the contrast with her reportedly sober sister), or simply by the author’s desire to emphasise the woman’s surprise, or sneer, at her sister’s temperance; others would rather imagine a non-Greek speaker failing to pronounce Greek properly; or perhaps the woman is not stammering at all here, and simply says thauma men ‘what a surprise’. And so on and so forth: textual critics possess a powerful imagination, and fragments are an endless source of inspiration. The question remains as to why the character in Lucilius’ satire should be speaking Greek at all. The simple answer is: the speaker is a Greek woman. Things, however, may not be so simple. When it comes to women, the mode of representation in Latin literature is often hostile, and derisive affectations of female speech are not uncommon.[51] The satirical tradition offers a couple of good examples of this practice.
In his famous satire against women, Juvenal ridicules the female preference for things Greek in erotic matters – ‘even provincial ladies wish to speak Greek – and Attic at that’[52] (6.185-199):
‘nam quid rancidius quam quod se non putat ulla 185
formosam nisi quae de Tusca Graecula facta est,
de Sulmonensi nera Cecropis? omnia Graece:
[cum sit turpe magis nostris nescire Latine]
hoc sermone pavent, hoc iram, gaudia, curas,
hoc cuncta effundunt animi secreta: quid ultra? 190
concumbunt Graece. Dones tamen ista puellis:
tune etiam, quam sextus et octogesimus annus
pulsat, adhuc Graece? non est hic sermo pudicus
in uetula. Quoties lasciuum interuenit illud
zoe¯ kai psyche¯, modo sub lodice relictis 195
uteris in turba. Quod enim non excitet inguen
uox blanda et nequam? Digitos habet. Ut tamen omnes
subsidant pinnae, dicas haec mollius Haemo
quanquam et Carpophoro, facies tua computat annos.’
‘One of the most revolting [things] is the myth that no one is pretty until she has changed from a Tuscan into Greekling, from girl of Sulmo to daughter of Cecrops. Everything happens in Greek. In this they express their fears and troubles, their joy and anger; in this they confide their heartfelt secrets; what more can I say? They couple in Greek. Very well, one may grant those habits to girls; but you, eroded as you are by a series of eighty-five years, do you still use Greek ? Such language is simply not decent on an old woman’s lips. Whenever that naughty endearment pops out – Zoe¯ kai Psyche¯ – you are using in public an expression which should be confined to the sheets. What organ fails to be stirred by a coaxing lascivious phrase? It has fingers. Still (to prevent you preening yourself), though you make it sound more enticing than Haemus or even Carpóphorus, the sum of the years is etched on your face.’ (Transl. N. Rudd)
Greek is the language of these women’s emotions; Greek are all terms of endearment (l. 195); the Greek language is personified as a caressing lover, if not altogether a prostitute (ll. 196-7). Martial – probably a model for Juvenal – makes the same point about the Roman matrona who would pose as a Greek prostitute (10.68):
‘Cum tibi non Ephesos nec sit Rhodos aut Mitylene,
sed domus in uico, Laelia, Patricio,
deque coloratis numquam lita mater Etruscis,
durus Aricina de regione pater:
kurie mou, meli mou, psyche¯ mou congeris usque, 5
pro pudor! Hersiliae ciuis et Egeriae.
Lectulus has uoces, nec lectulus audiat omnis,
sed quem lasciuo strauit amica uiro.
Scire cupis quo casta matrona loquaris?
Numquid, quae crisat, blandior esse potest? 10
Tu licet ediscas totam referasque Corinthon,
non tamen omnino, Laelia, Lais eris.’
‘Although your home is not Ephesus or Rhodes or Mitylene but in Patrician Row, Laelia, and although your mother, who uses no make up, was a daughter of the sunburnt Etruscans and your dour father came from the district of Aricia, you are always piling on the Greek – “my lord, my honey, my soul” – shame on you, a countrywoman of Hersilia and Egeria! Let the bed hear such expressions, and not every bed at that, but one made for a gamesome gentleman by his lady-friend. Do you wish to know how you talk, you, a respectable married woman? Could a waggle-bottom be more blandishing? You may learn all Corinth by heart and reproduce it, you will not be altogether Lais.’ (Transl. D.R. Shackleton Bailey)
If Greek was indecent in the mouth of Juvenal’s decrepit old woman, it is a useless affectation in the mouth of Martial’s upper-class Laelia: such language does not befit a respectable lady. In both passages Greek marks a specific activity (best kept in the bedroom, and not every bedroom) and in both passages ‘code-switching may be seen as a form of titillating role play suggestive of the world of prostitution’.[53] Even more undignified the effect, if the Greek address is a translation of a Latin one, as appears to be the case with meli mou (= Lat. mel meum), probably a case of ‘Romans’ Greek’, if not an invention of Martial.[54] One wonders whether something of this sort may lurk behind Lucilius’ passage (9), where Greek would characterise a licentious woman in stark contrast with her sister, the latter being explicitly described in terms of stereotypical Roman female virtue (lanifica). The Greek obscenities in (2) and (3) above may more generally relate with the perception of Greek as the language of love.
A completely different case is Lucretius’ catalogue of women in DRN 4.1160-70:
‘nigra melichrus est, immunda et fedita acosmos, 1160
caesia Palladion, nervosa et lignea dorcas,
paruula, pumilio chariton mia, ‘tota merum sal’,
magna atque immanis ‘cataplexis plenaque honoris’.
balba loqui non quit: ‘traulizi’, muta ‘pudens est’;
at flagrans odiosa loquacula Lampadium fit. 1165
Ischnon eromenion tum fit, cum uiuere non quit
prae macie; rhadine uerost iam mortua tussi.
At tumida et mammosa Ceres est ipsa ab Iacco,
simula Silena ac saturast, labeosa philema.
cetera de genere hoc longum est si dicere conor.’ 1170
‘A black love is called “honey black”, the foul and filthy ‘unadorned’, the green-eyed “Athena’s image”, the wiry and wooden “a gazelle”, the squat and dwarfish “one of the Graces”, “all pure delight”, the lumpy and ungainly “a wonder” and “full of majesty”. She stammers and cannot speak: “she has a lisp”; [the dumb is “modest”, the fiery, spiteful gossip is “a burning torch”. one becomes a “slender darling” when she can scarce live from decline; another half dead with cough is “frail”. Then the fat and full-bosomed is “Ceres’ self with bacchus at breast”; the snub-nosed is “sister to Silenus, or a Satyr”; the thick-lipped is “a living kiss”. More of this sort it were tedious for me to try to tell.’ (Transl. C. Bailey)
The voice reproduced by Lucretius is not that of a would-be seductress. The speaker here is the blind male lover covering euphemistically the defects of his beloved. The musicality and suggestions of the Greek language create an idealised dimension for the object of the man’s passion. This text is relevant to the present discussion in respect of (5), where Lucilius urges his reader to visualise the female beauty celebrated by (Greek) myth in realistic (Latin) terms.
There is more in Lucilius to suggest that Latin and Greek signify two different ways of looking at reality. In a fragment from Book 1, Greek words and their Latin counterpart are juxtaposed to bring out the contrast between synonyms:
(10) Lucil. 15-6 W. (= 15-6 M.):
‘porro clinopodas lychnosque, ut diximus semnos
ante, pedes lecti atque lucernas’
‘and further “pieds de lit” and “chandeliers”, that was the grand name we called (plain) bed-feet and lamps’ (Transl. N. Rudd)
The fragment, again transmitted without a context, blends in well with others in Book 1 apparently attacking the excessive luxury and moral corruption of contemporary Rome. Lychnus (Greek lychnos), is inflected as Latin; Ennius has it in the Annals, and this originally Greek loanword would retain his epic status throughout the entire Latin epic tradition. Conversely, clinopodas (the accusative plural of a Greek compound meaning ‘bed-foot’) is neither recorded elsewhere in Latin nor exactly paralleled in literary Greek, although similar compounds are found in prosaic descriptions of lavish furnishing (e.g. Athen. 5.197a-b and 6.255e; cf. also Xen. An. 4.4.21). It is probably a trade term, like many in Lucilius.[55] The Greek adverb semnōs contains the speaker’s comment on the discrepancy between the two sets of words, pointing to the higher register of the Greek names. Semnōs, perhaps a term of the school, is used as a critical term to characterise a grand style (cf. Cic. Att. 15.12.1; Plin. Epist. 2.1.17, with reference to Tacitus).[56] Our passage belongs to the aforementioned ‘Divine Council’, and the speaker is remarking on a change of linguistic practice between the gods (diximus). The Greek adverb seems to mark the distinction between plain words (pedes lecti, lucernas) and grand names (clinopodas, lychnos). Just as in (5) above, Greek brings about a pretentiousness that Latin fails to convey. The speaker strives to give solemnity to what lacks it altogether, such as lamps and beds (and probably water-jugs too: Lucil. 14 W. = 17 M. arutaenae … aquales). I note in passing the possibility of Lucilius building on the established notion of ‘the language of the gods’. In an ancient-rooted tradition which Plato took seriously enough to discuss in his dialogue on language (Cratylus 391d), the gods were imagined to speak an idiom of their own; as Martin West sums up: ‘the actual words attributed to the language of the gods ... are existing synonyms, archaisms, or poetic periphrases, the distinction being drawn for comic effect or poetic ornament.[57]
IV. LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL NORM: THE NOTION OF DECORUM
Good Latin writers ought not to express themselves in Greek. Horace’s argument against Lucilius’ bilingualism was an extension to poetics of a principle that Cicero had long established for oratory. Not only is the Latin language good (Or. 164 bonitas nostrorum uerborum), as against to magnificent Greek (splendor Graecorum).[58] More importantly, the ability to speak Latin well is the hallmark of true Romanness (Brut. 140 ciuis Romani proprium).[59] When Cicero explores the connection between linguistic seemliness and moral integrity more explicitly in the De Officiis, the ruling principle he lays out for both is decorum (1.111):
‘If there is indeed such a thing as propriety (decorum), then surely it is nothing more than harmony and consistency, alike in life as a whole and in every act of life; and these qualities can never be kept vital if, forgetting our own personalities, we spend our time trying to ape those of others. For just as we ought to use our native language so that we do not draw well justified ridicule upon ourselves by cramming Greek words into our speech (as some do), so we ought not to introduce any discordance into our actions and into the whole of our lives.’ (Transl. E.M. Atkins, adapted) [60]
The Romans must behave like Romans and speak like Romans, unless they aim to be laughed at, and deservingly so. Cicero’s comment may be a general one, although it is tempting to suspect that he had someone in mind (quidam), possibly the notorious Hellenomaniac T. Albucius, who ended up being greeted in Greek by the Roman praetor at Athens Q. Scaevola around year 120 B.C.[61] Lucilius turns the episode into the subject-matter for his Book 2. In an effort at tracing back ‘the origin of the exaggerated contempt for home products that is now fashionable’, Cicero himself (Fin. 1.9) quotes a long passage from Lucilius’ poem as evidence for ludicrous excesses of philhellenism:
(11) Lucil. 87-93 W. (= 88-94 M.)
‘Graecum te, Albuci, quam Romanum atque Sabinum,
municipem Ponti, Tritani, centurionum,
praeclarorum hominum ac primorum signiferumque,
maluisti dici. Graece ergo praetor Athenis,
id quod maluisti, te, cum ad me accedis, saluto:
chaere - inquam - Tite. Lictores, turma omnis chorusque:
chaere, Tite. Hinc hostis mi Albucius, hinc inimicus.’
‘A Greek is what you preferred to be called, Albucius, instead of Roman or Sabine, or a native of the town that gave birth to Pontus and Tritanus, to centurions, to first-class men and front-rank soldiers, and standard-bearers. A Greek “hello” to you, then, when you come to meet me, the praetor at Athens: just as you preferred, I say: “chaere, Titus”. And the band of attendants and bodyguards, they all go in unison: “chaere, Titus”. Hence Albucius’ hostility towards me, hence his resentment.’
The narrative of events goes as follows: Q. Mucius Scaevola was charged with extortion on his return from a term as governor of Asia in 119 B.C.; the prosecutor was one Titus Albucius; Scaevola was probably acquitted, as he was able to be elected consul in 117. The reasons for the inimicitia between the two men remain unclear, for evidence on this episode comes almost exclusively from Lucilius, who took it as an opportunity to contrast the Stoic Scaevola with the Epicurean Albucius, and to attack both.[62] Lucilius’ own caricature of the episode suggests that Albucius’ resentment goes back to the public mockery described (or invented) by Lucilius in this passage (l. 93 W. hinc hostis … hinc inimicus). Most appropriately Cicero puts the quotation in the mouth of the orator Licinius Crassus, son-in-law of the speaker in Lucilius’ satire, Q. Mucius Scaevola ‘Augur’. Scaevola makes fun of Albucius’ disreputable affectations by greeting him in Greek on a public occasion at Athens; the whole of Scaevola’s praetorian entourage joins in the same inappropriate salutation: chaere, Tite (‘Bonjour, Titus’).
Lucilius’ Scaevola depicts Albucius as a man who repudiated his Italian origin and preferred to be called a ‘Greek’. Hence the Greek form of address replacing the expected Latin greeting salue, as in Varro’s account of the encounter between the senator Q. Lucienus and his friends Atticus and Cossinius (Varro, RR 2.5.1 chaere, Synepirotae, quoted above, III.1).[63] Informal contexts allowed such liberties among the Greek-educated Roman upper classes, and Cicero’s letters to Atticus are an obvious example of this practice;[64] hardly so an official encounter between magistrates of the Roman republic. What is here a sign of a cheerfully shared code among friends, in Lucilius works as a sharp mockery of excessive or inappropriate philhellenism. [65]
Besides, the address by the praenomen alone (Tite) deliberately reflects Greek usage. Literary and epigraphic evidence shows that Greeks in the second century named Romans by their first name followed by the ethnic (e.g. Titus Flamininus was simply Titos Rhomaios, ‘Titus, Roman’).[66] Interestingly, this is the only instance of this form of address in Lucilius, who regularly uses the family name (gentilicium), as in line 87 W. Albuci.[67] The bilingual joke chaere Tite aims to ridicule Albucius’ contrived Greek identity. Rightly so, if we are to believe Cicero’s portrait of the man:
‘Titus was learned in all things Greek, or rather you could call him almost a real Greek … he spent his youth at Athens and turned out a complete Epicurean, a creed ill-suited to public speaking’ (Cic. Brut. 131).[68]
The practice of switching into Greek, however acceptable in private conversation, was unsuitable in official circumstances such as this one, where Scaevola’s accommodation to the speech of his Hellenising addressee (l. 91 W. id quod maluisti) was both meant and perceived as hostile.[69] Educated Romans would gladly take the opportunity to display their Greek competence when talking (or writing) in private to their equals. A formal context makes this liberty unacceptable and offensive. Scaevola’s Greek salutation insulted Albucius just as Mark Antony would come to displease Cicero by using the Greek word zēlotypia (‘jealousy’) in a ‘most distasteful’ letter addressed to him in 49 B.C.[70]
Elsewhere in Book 2 Lucilius pokes fun at Albucius’ Hellenising diction. The quoting source, Cicero again, informs us that the passages were originally part of a dialogue (De Orat. 3.171):[71]
(12) Lucil. 84-5, 86 W. (=84-5, 86 M.)
‘quam lepide lexis compostae ut tesserulae omnes
arte pauimento atque emblemate uermiculato!’
‘Crassum habeo generum, ne rhetoricoterus tu sis’
‘how charmingly are ses dits put together – artfully like all the little stone dice of mosaic in a paved floor or in an inlay of wriggly pattern!’
‘I have a son-in-law named Crassus, lest you be too much l’orateur!’ (Transl. Warmington)
One of the speakers in the dialogue enacted by Cicero is the famous orator Crassus, Scaevola’s son-in-law, and once more Lucilius wittily satirizes Albucius (lepide lusit) through Scaevola’s voice (in soceri mei persona): Scaevola was such a refined writer that he could do it very well (is qui elegantissime id facere potuit). By having both Lucilius’ passages quoted by Crassus, Cicero expands the humorous effect of the interplay of characters (Cicero says that Crassus said that [Lucilius said that] Scaevola had said to Albucius, etc.). Scaevola accommodates his speech to the ethos of the ‘almost Greek’ Albucius, whose phrases are lexeis rather than uocabula or sententiae (l. 84), because that is most probably what he would call them, just as he would qualify himself as rhetoricos rather than facundus or a similar Latin equivalent.
The hybrid form rhetoricoterus (with Latin ending) is suggestive of Albucius’ ambiguous identity, and the comparative, unattested in Greek, looks like an on-the-spot formation of the kind familiar to readers of Plautus. Cicero’s letters also occasionally feature analogous formations, betraying Cicero’s ambition to show off his linguistic skills. A typical case is flocci facteon (‘one must not care a button’, transl. D.R. Shackleton Bailey);[72] in Att. 1.21.12 the diminutive tocullionibus is the Latinised form of Gr. toculliōn (‘MM Les petits usuriers’, transl. D.R. Shackleton Bailey); the base-form tocos (‘interest’) is found in the abusive compound tocoglyphos in Lucilius’ reference to one Syrophoenix, money-lender (540 W. = 497 M.). Here the change of language, along with the derogatory use of the ethnic, denotes contempt for the activity and the speaker’s distance from it.[73]
Context makes all the difference. In literary terms, context also means genre and readership. Cicero provides a neat picture. When writing his public speeches and theoretical treatises, Cicero avoids Greek at all costs, translating all extracts from Greek writers in order to create a product suitable for readers who were not, or not sufficiently, familiar with things Greek. Greek might have displeased the readers and failed to catch their attention and support. When in doubt as to his audience’s reaction to an open display of Greek education on his part, Cicero goes as far in his captatio benevolentiae as feign an implausible ignorance. In the Verrines Cicero, engaged in describing the bronze statues which Verres had carried off from the chapel of Heius in Messana, does remember the name of the statues (Canephoroe ‘Basket-bearers’), but when it comes to the name of the artist – Polyclitus, no less – he declines responsibility: ‘who did they say he was?’ (Verr. 2.4.5).[74] Here we have the Roman magistrate calling himself out of a potentially dangerous field. When the context is a private one, and Cicero is addressing Atticus, Varro or some other of his erudite friends, he would use Greek freely: the Greek Index of Shackleton Bailey’s edition of Cicero’s Letters counts more than eight hundred words. This is Cicero’s private voice – it is a different person, or more precisely, a different persona, and the code of communication changes accordingly.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Greek in Lucilius functions as characterisation of speech in the text. On the one hand we have the voice of the Roman unconventional individual who first dared introduce ways of colloquial language into the realm of narrative poetry. Lucilius writes verses as he would talk to his learned friends, who are also his public. He calls upon a shared culture and adopts the modes of private conversation. Cicero’s correspondence gives us an idea of informal exchanges between the Greek-educated Roman upper classes. Switches into Greek suggest proud control of the language and familiarity with the literary tradition [cf. passages (4) and (5)].
On the other hand, some of the examples I have presented in this paper call for a different explanation. When repeating idioms of the bedroom [(2), (3)], disparaging philhellenes [(7), (11)], mimicking the philosopher (6) or the grammarian (8), Lucilius is appropriating somebody else’s voice. In these cases Lucilius incorporates Greek in his text, but he does not do it in his authorial persona. The satirist is enabled by his open, multi-faceted genre to put on all sorts of different ‘masks’, and Greek may embody more than one of them, depending on what the contemporary scene offers to the satirist’s imagination. The purpose is one of characterisation: change of language marks the change of voice, character, literary persona.
The persona-theory has been very much exploited, and criticised, in studies on Roman satire. Traditional critics maintain that ‘it is almost impossible to apply the persona-theory of satire to Horace and Lucilius without distorting their work’.[75] This is certainly true, if one ventures to solve every contradiction implied in the mysterious relation between ‘poetic I’ and ‘empirical I’,[76] i.e. between literature and life. But this was never at issue. What is at issue is a fuller appreciation of a text and its distinguishing features. It seems to me that this approach may improve our understanding of Lucilius’ fragmentary text in the context of its genre. The technique of language variation, which would later trouble a purist like Horace, suited Lucilius in his original interpretation of Ennius’ literary medley. This is the new satura that Lucilius was proposing and consigning to posterity as satire: a multi-voiced form of poetry, in which variety of language, alongside variety of style and register, reflects the endless variety of themes.*
* I should like to thank this Journal’s anonymous referees, Dr J.N. Adams, and the staff and students of the Department of Latin in Pisa for their most helpful criticism. I am also grateful to Prof. R. Oniga for kindly presenting me with a copy of a recently published volume (Oniga 2003), which otherwise I would have been unable to take into account.
