From my diary

I’m reading Juvenal again.  This time I keep noticing the portions which the translator omitted, of some length in some cases, such as in the Sixth Satire.  The grounds for the omission is obscenity, of course, but even so, it is a pity.  And I could use more of a commentary than the old Loeb edition gives me.

I was also reading an article on the life of Juvenal, which propounded the idea that the scholia on Juvenal, which are found in the Pithoeanus manuscript (=P) were compiled prior to 399 AD.  The scholia also contain an old biography of Juvenal, which I have not yet found in English.  The best edition of the scholia seems to date from 1931, which is an unfortunate age — too recent to be online, but too old to be accessible.  Hum.

The same article told me that Juvenal was the last writer of “Silver Age” Latin, and is not quoted by any writer thereafter for a century and a half.    It would be interesting to see what sort of testimonia there are for the classics, wouldn’t it?

Share

Leave a Reply