Volunt or Volant? Ancients and Moderns on a Variant Reading of Verg. Aen. 1.150

Abstract

Volunt or Volant?Ancients and Moderns on a Variant Reading of Verg. Aen. 1.150* Javier Uría An intriguing scholium In the first book of the Aeneid, when describing Neptune's intervention for calming the sea storm that the wind gods had raised at Juno's request, Virgil uses the simile (the first one in the Aeneid)1 of a rebel mob, eager at first to grab any throwable object to use as a weapon, but then calming at the sight of a great statesman capable of placating their spirits with his words: ac ueluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta estseditio saeuitque animis ignobile uulgusiamque faces et saxa uolant (furor arma ministrat);tum, pietate grauem ac meritis si forte uirum quemconspexere, silent arrectis auribus astant (Verg. Aen. 1.148–52) And as a revolt often takes place in a vast crowdand the ignoble populace is enraged,and immediately torches and rocks fly (fury provides weapons);then, if they see a man of piety and virtue,they fall silent and stand to listen attentively.2 Forse la soluzione esiste ed io non l'ho ben capita ('Maybe the solution does exist and I have not understood it properly'). These are the modest closing words in Timpanaro's second attempt3 to make sense of a remark referring to that Virgilian passage in the scholia of Servius Danielis (henceforth DServius) on [End Page 222] Virgil.4 The scholium reports a criticism by the first-century ce Stoic philosopher and grammarian Annaeus Cornutus.5 It reads as follows: iamqve faces et saxa volant. multi non 'uolant', sed 'uolunt' inuenisse se dicunt. sed Cornutus uerendum ait ne praeposterum sit 'faces uelle', et sic 'saxa', cum alibi maturius et ex ordine dictum sit 'arma uelit poscatque simul rapiatque iuuentus.' (Verg. Aen. 7.340, Scholia Danielis Aen. 1.150). iamqve faces et saxa volant. 'Soon torches and stones are flying.' Many critics say that they have not found uolant, 'they fly', but uolunt, 'they want', but Cornutus states that one should be worried that faces uelle 'wanting torches' (and also saxa, 'stones') is a reversed order, since in another passage it was said more opportunely and in order arma uelit poscatque simul rapiatque iuuentus, 'let the young men want, demand and take up arms at once.' Other scholars have paid attention to the scholium both earlier and later than Timpanaro. This paper offers, first, a critical review of attempts to explain the text and then puts forward a new, and hopefully definitive, interpretation. A review of proposed interpretations In a very brief remark in his Prolegomena, Ribbeck6 states that Cornutus was right in rejecting the reading uolunt that the anonymous multi had proposed instead of uolant. In so doing, the German scholar assumes that Cornutus' pointing at an inverted order (praeposterum, i.e. hysteron proteron) in Aen. 1.150 is part of that critic's argument to condemn uolunt. However, as explained below, this is neither a necessary nor a universally accepted inference. Ribbeck's approach seems to be shared by Reppe,7 who refers to this [End Page 223] scholium as the only one, among Cornutus' fragments, reflecting a vindication of the tradita lectio.8 The assumption that Cornutus objected to uolunt and chose the correct reading uolant has led Zetzel9 to praise his 'good judgment' in contrast with his opponent's (Zetzel's guess is that the unmentioned opponent may be Iulius Hyginus,10 who might have cited from 'a nonexistent manuscript'). However, the certainty that Cornutus defended uolant is challenged by Timpanaro,11 who rightly emphasises that the uelit in the parallel passage (Aen. 7.340) rather implies that Cornutus was actually supporting uolunt. Timpanaro admits, however, that this does not provide a definite solution either, since it seems to mean that Cornutus was arguing against himself; indeed, he appears to be trying to defend uolunt and, at the same time, to be acknowledging that, with uolunt, the verse falls into a praeposterum. In one of her 'Two Servian Notes', Lazzarini12 tries to minimise the apparent contradiction in Cornutus' argument by noting that the two passages from the Aeneid that Cornutus compares are, in...