Reader and fellow Classics-blogger PlatoSparks inspired this post, containing commentaries on one of the most infamous lines of poetry in the ancient world:
Pseudo-Sallust, Against Cicero iii.5
“And he dares to say, “O Rome, so blessed in its birth while I was consul!” Was Rome fortunate during your consulship, Cicero? Nay, rather, unfortunate and wretched…”
Atque is […] audet dicere: “O fortunatam natam me consule Romam!” “Te consule fortunatam,” Cicero? Immo vero infelicem et miseram…
Juvenal, Satire X.122:
“O Rome, blessed in its birth while I was consul!”
He could have scorned the swords of Antonius,
if he had said everything in that way.”
‘o fortunatam natam me consule Romam’
Antoni gladios potuit contemnere, si sic
omnia dixisset…
See also yesterday’s post, http://sententiaeantiquae.com/2014/10/08/tacitus-dialogus-de-oratoribus-21-on-the-poetry-of-brutus-caesar-and-cicero/
Whittington: Petrarch is the earliest humanist to show interest in Ennius. Part of this is bc he rediscovered Cicero s Pro Archia in 1333, and this contains a paean of sorts to poetry (we recently studied this aspect in