9
Books and Reading Latin Poetry
Holt N. Parker
When Horace wrote,
me Colchus et qui dissimulat metum
Marsae cohortis Dacus et ultimi
noscent Geloni, me peritus
discet Hiber Rhodanique potor.(The Colchian, and the Dacian who pretends not to be afraid of the Marsian
cohort, and the Geloni at the end of the world will know me, the learne ́d
Spaniard will study me, and the drinker of the Rhoˆne.)he meant exactly what he wrote.
1
THE ROMAN EXPERIENCE OF POETRY
parve (nec invideo) sine me, liber, ibis in urbem,
ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!. ..
vade, liber, verbisque meis loca grata saluta.
Ovid,Trist. 1.1.1 2, 15(Little book, without me and I’m not jealous you will go to Rome, alas,
something your master’s not allowed to do.... Go, book, greet with my
words the places I long for.)I am interested in how the Romans read and enjoyed poetry.^2 There is
now a widely held consensus that for the poets of the Republican and
1.Odes2.20.17 20. Nisbet and Hubbard 1978, 346 7: ‘‘noscentsuggests less detailed
study thandiscet...peritus: the adjective goes further thandiscetand implies specialist
knowledge.’’ Fordiscet‘‘learn me in school,’’ see Quinn 1980, 240.
- This chapter focuses on Latin and poetry, primarily Republican and Augustan poetry,
though some of the evidence adduced on this topic by me and others concerns prose or