the audience to cap ‘‘Nudus ara, sere nudus...’’with ‘‘habebis frigore
febrem.’’^60 Macer, Horace, and Propertius, among others read their verses
to audiences that included the young Ovid (Trist. 4.10.44–50,Vit. Hor.).
Even here, however, the notion of ‘‘performance’’ needs to be interro-
gated. Elaborate precautions were taken to avoid tainting the poet-
performer with theinfamiaof the actor.^61 The reciter was always seated;
he always had a text open before him; he did not use his hands; he avoided
facial expressions.^62 The poet must not be mistaken for an actor.
Convivia
About readings at private functions we are oddly ill-informed. That books
could be read aloud as dinner entertainment is clear from several
sources.
63
Atticus employed alectorfor the task.
64
Pliny says that at his
small dinners the choices are a reader, a lyre player, or a comedy troupe;
performing (hypocrisin), for the verses sounded good when Vergil recited them, but the same
ones were empty and mute without him.’’ This is so obviously a case of sour grapes (who
exactly found or finds Vergil’s versesinanes mutosque?), that I am surprised anyone takes it
seriously. If Vergil’s success depended on his personal appearances, it is difficult to explain
the stage shows, much less the survival of the author’s work after his death. Juvenal says
quite the opposite about the performance of Vergil’s verses (11.182): ‘‘quid refert, tales
versus qua voce legantur?’’ Quinn is so dominated by the idea of the recitation that he can ask
(1982, 93): ‘‘How many people in the generation after Virgil’s death ever attained what one
could call a working knowledge of the poem?’’ Thousands upon thousands would be a good
answer. Vergil became an instant classic. If Ovid (Am. 1.15.25 26: ‘‘Tityrus et segetes
Aeneiaque armalegentur, / Roma triumphati dum caput orbis erit’’) won’t do for the
‘‘generation after,’’ perhaps one might glance at Q. Caelius Epiropa, who began lecturing
(praelegere: Suet.Gram. 16) on Vergil almost immediately, or at the elder Seneca: Vergil is
already providing taglines (Con. 7.1.27, 7.5.9,Suas. 3.7, 4.4 5: allAen.); learned men
argue about his style (Suas. 1.12, 2.20), and show a knowledge of his prose works [!] (Con.3
pr. 8). Quotations in the younger Seneca are too numerous to list.
60.Vit. Don. 43;G. 1.299; cf. Serv. ad loc. and adEcl. 6.11. Not ‘‘the waggish pen of
some anonymous parodist’’ (Thomas 1988, ad loc.). Also not proof of ‘‘the high sophisti
cation of the literary public’’ (Morgan 2001, 81), even if the story is true.
- Dupont 1997, 46 7; Markus 2000, 140 4.
- Pliny 2.19.1 4. Pliny 9.34 has been misunderstood. Pliny is wondering whether to
use alectorto deliver his next recitation: ‘‘Ipse nescio, quid illo legente interim faciam,
sedeam defixus et mutus et similis otioso an, ut quidam, quae pronuntiabit, murmure oculis
manu prosequar?’’ (‘‘I don’t know what I am to do while he is reciting. Should I sit there fixed
and mute and like someone at leisure, or as some do, should I accompany what he is going to
say with murmur, eyes, hand?’’) The actions are not those of the reciter (how could he speak
andaccompany his own words with a murmur?), but of certain audience members, the
equivalent of those who beat time to the music during concerts. - Hor.Ep. 2.1.109 10dictantrefers to dictation (composition) rather than recitation:
Brink 1982, 3: 147 50; cf. what seems to be the situation at Mart. 9.89. - NeposAtt. 14: ‘‘Nemo in convivio eius aliud acroama audivit quam anagnosten; quod
nos quidem iucundissimum arbitramur: neque umquam sine aliqua lectione apud eum
cenatum est, ut non minus animo quam ventre convivae delectarentur.’’ See below, on Cic.
Att. 16.2, 16.3.
Books and Reading Latin Poetry 203