Dear fellow Vergil-list members -
I had an idea about Servius' story of the 'laudes Galli' - the report
Servius mentions twice (ad Ecl. 10.1 and ad Geo. 4.1) that the second half
of the fourth Georgic was originally occupied by "praises" of Vergil's
friend Gallus; but that after Gallus' disgrace and suicide, Vergil, at
Octavian's bidding, substituted for it the poem we now have, the myth of
Aristaeus and Orpheus (what Servius calls the 'fabulam Aristaei' at one
point, and the 'fabulam Orphei' at another). I thought this might be a
good forum to get some feedback on it. I admit from the start that it is
quite speculative.
The grammarian Q. Caecilius Epirota is frequently celebrated by modern
scholars for being the first teacher at Rome to incorporate "Vergil and
other neoteric poets" (so Suetonius in his life of Caecilius) into his
teaching curriculum. So what did he say about Vergil? Well, we don't
know. However, think of Caecilius' background. He's a freedman of Atticus.
He tutors A's daughter Attica while she is already married to Agrippa -
until one day he has an affair with her (so it is said), and gets thrown
out. He moves to the household of the poet Gallus. He and Gallus become
good friends; in 30 B.C. Gallus goes to Egypt to lead Octavian's forces
there, and ends up administering the country. Then Gallus does something
to get himself in trouble, is disgraced, loses his friendship with
Octavian, and commits suicide. The motives behind all this are a mystery;
but one thing we do know is the reason Octavian cited for breaking his ties
of friendship with Gallus: that fellow Caecilius is the reason, that
fellow Gallus took in after he had seduced Attica, Attica the wife of
Agrippa, the wife of Octavian's right hand man. (N.B. I am getting all
this from Suetonius 'De Gram. et Rhet.' ch.16, and Kaster's (1995) detailed
commentary on the same.)
Some time later Caecilius sets up his school. There he takes the bold step
of teaching his students Vergil and such neoteric poets as Gallus. Gallus,
his dear patron, is dead; under the circumstances, it is hard to imagine
that he felt anything but hostility towards Octavian/ Augustus. Now here
is the idea. A few years, or a few decades later (Caecilius was born
within a decade after the year 68, so he may well be living and teaching
into the first decade A.D.), when he is teaching a class of students who
probably have no fine grasp of the chronology of the years 30-27 B.C., he
tells them what "really" happened: after Gallus' death, the evil Augustus
made Vergil scrap the 'laudes Galli' in favor of the Aristaeus epyllion.
No matter that this would have happened two years after the Georgics were
first published (in 29, as we are told); who would know better, students
who weren't even alive at the time, or a scholar who was there when it all
happened? In the first decade B.C., the son of Pollio is out making a
similar bluff claim about the facts, claiming that he was the one Vergil
wrote the fourth Eclogue to. So, suppose someone writes down Caecilius'
story; it hangs around the margins of the tradition of Vergilian exegesis
for a long time; and then it is picked up again by Donatus, say, or by
Servius, who sees in it, not an instance of Octavian's vindictiveness, but
of his influence with Vergil. And that is how the account ends up in
Servius' commentary.
I have a strong sense that this reconstruction is one of those things that
can be neither proved nor disproved; and after going through the
scholarship H. Jacobson incorporates into his article ("Aristaeus, Orpheus,
and the laudes Galli" AJPh 1984), I find myself thinking that the reason no
one has mentioned it is precisely because it is unproveable; and Kaster
notes in his commentary that Caecilius is mentioned nowhere outside of
Suetonius. But others with better control over the later tradition of
Vergilian commentary than myself may, I hope, be able to say something that
would put my hypothesis out of its misery - either that, or help it to its
feet.
Any suggestions?
Thank you in advance
Phil Thibodeau
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