Heinsius' note is something of an oddity. He begins by reading AVREA for
the AENEA of most manuscripts, taking _uel eburna uel aurea custos_ to
refer to the chryselephantine statue in the Parthenon, 'sed altius
consideranti locum apparet de duplici statua Mineruae agi, altera
eburnea, altera aenea'. _Aenea_ therefore continued to be the accepted
reading until 1873, when Haupt (_Opuscula_ 584) pointed out that it was
unmetrical, and restored _aerea_, found in some manuscripts.
The inverse error occurs at _Her_ VI 32, where most manuscripts have the
unmetrical _aeripedes_ for _aenipedes_. But Merkel, followed by Palmer,
considered 31-38 an interpolation; and _aeripedes_ may have been what
the interpolator wrote.
=32. PHIDIACA ... MANV.= Ovid is recalling Prop III ix 15 'Phidiacus
... Iuppiter'. For the Latin poets' use of a personal adjective for the
genitive of the noun, see Austin's interesting note on _Aen_ II 543
_Hectoreum_.
=33. VINDICAT VT CALAMIS LAVDEM QVOS FECIT EQVORVM.= 'As Calamis lays
claim to the praise given his horses'. Calamis, a sculptor of the fifth
century BC, was particularly famous for his statues of horses; see Pliny
_NH_ XXXIV 71 'habet simulacrum et benignitas eius ['Praxiteles'
generosity is seen in one of his statues']; Calamidis enim quadrigae
aurigam suum imposuit, ne melior in equorum effigie defecisse in homine
crederetur. ipse Calamis et alias quadrigas bigasque fecit equis sine
aemulo expressis'.
=33. QVOS FECIT EQVORVM.= Similar instances of hyperbaton at 28 'quod
fecit quisque tuetur opus', _Met_ IV 803 'pectore in aduerso quos fecit
sustinet angues', and _Fast_ VI 20 'tum dea quos fecit sustulit ipsa
metus'.
=34. VT SIMILIS VERAE VACCA MYRONIS OPVS.= The _Cow_ of Myron (late fifth
century BC) was his most famous work. Praise of the statue's lifelike
appearance was a stock theme of Hellenistic writers of epigram; it
appears from Pliny _NH_ XXXIV 57 that the poetry written about the
statue was as notable as the statue itself. Thirty-six poems of the
Palatine Anthology deal with the theme (IX 713-42 & 793-98). Ausonius
wrote eight epigrams on the same subject (_Ep_ LXVIII-LXXV), of which I
quote LXVIII as a typical example of what both the Greek and Latin
epigrams are like:
Bucula sum, caelo ['chisel'] genitoris facta Myronis
aerea: nec factam me puto, sed genitam,
sic me taurus init, sic proxima bucula mugit,
sic uitulus sitiens ubera nostra petit.
miraris quod fallo gregem? gregis ipse magister
inter pascentes me numerare solet.
The statue was in Athens during Cicero's lifetime (_II Verr_ IV 135);
Ovid is likely to have seen it during his visit to the city (_Tr_ I ii
77). He would certainly have seen the four statues of cattle sculpted by
Myron which Augustus placed in his temple of Apollo, and which
Propertius described: 'atque aram circum steterant armenta Myronis, /
quattuor artificis, uiuida signa, boues' (II xxxi 7-8).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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