Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/56

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46 Journal of Philology. own : vi. 1235, &c, in the midst of his description of the plague, he speaks of the fearful contagiousness of the disease, saying that " this above all heaped death upon death, for," and then he gives a most curious reason, "those, who refused to attend the sick, killing neglect soon after punished with a miserable death for their too great love of life and fear of death;" he then adds naturally enough that those who did attend caught the infection and died. That the poet felt the weakness of the first part of the argument seems to be shewn by the elaborate way in which he has tricked it out. Lucretius was doubtless a good Greek scholar, and deserved the epithet of doctus which Statius gives to him; but here he has misunder- stood Thucydides. He is translating Thuc. n. 52. 6 : erepos dtp* erepov dcpaireias avamp.nap,evoi f Scnrcp to. irpo^ara, edurjaKov' kcu t6v nXcl- cttov <p66pov tovto tpttToUu ctre ybp prj deXotev dediores dXr]ois irpoauvai, QTra>WvvTO eprjpoiy Kai ot/ciai TroXXat eKcvddrjcrav diroplq rod 6cpcnrcv<rov- tos' ctTf irpoaioiev, 8ie<pdeipovTo k.t.X. Lucretius has not seen that the subject of drrcoWwro is " the sick persons." Livy (xxv. 26) has understood his author aright : Postea curatio ipsa et con- tactus aegrorum vulgabat morbos, ut aut neglecti desertique qui incidissent morerentur, aut assidentes curantesque eadem vi morbi repletos secum traherent. Hugh Munro. Juvenal and Ovid. It is strange that no editor of Juvenal has pointed out the source of his words (xiv. 213, 214) : Vinceris, ut Ajax Prajteriit Telamonem, ut Pelea vicit Achilles. See Ov. Met. xv. 855, 856 : Sic magni cedit titulis Agamemnonis Atreus : ;Egea sic Theseus, sic Pelea vincit Achilles*.

  • Thia parallel has also escaped Stan- made, I hope to give a digest, retaining

ley, John Taylor, and Tan. Faber, in only what is valuable, in some future their MS. notes. Of these notes, with numbers of the Journal, some collections which I have myself J. E. B. Mayor.