Textus: Leto, Vita Virgilii

Leto, Virgili vita

Leto's Vita Virgili, called "Pomponiana" by Dykmans, was copied in two manuscripts. The first is BAV Vat. lat. 3255, an illuminated codex containing the Georgics, the Appendix Vergiliana and some poetic compositions of Virgilian colour, with marginal and interlinear annotations. The Vita, attributed to Laetus in the inscriptio, is copied (ff. 76v-78r) between the text of the Priapea and that of Anthologia Latina 672. The second is Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Class. lat. 54, a manuscript that Zabughin (1918, 136-37) believed to have been copied by Laetus himself, but which was probably transcribed by one of his pupils (Reeve 1976, 234). The Vita is copied (ff. 177r-178v) without title and attribution between the commentary on the Georgics and that on the Aeneid. As has already been pointed out by Dykmans, the version of the Canonicianus shows additions and corrections and is therefore later than the version of the Vatican manuscript. The earlier version, that of the Vat. Lat. 3255, is the following:

Text (from Vat. Lat. 3255)

Iul. Pomponii de Vita P. Vir. Maronis succincta collectio

[1] P. Virgilius Maro natus Idibus octobribus M. Licinio Crasso et CN. Pompeio Magno consulibis, patre Virgilio rustico matre Magia Polla, vico Andico, qui abest a Mantua pass. mill. XXX. Tenui facultate nutritus puer Cremonae degit, in extrema pueritia Mediolani sub Grillo grammatico.

[2] Post Actiacam victoriam agrum amisit: nam volente Augusto veterani Cremonensium et Mantuanorum agros inter se divisere. [3] Romam inde se contulit et sub M. Epidio rhetore, qui fuerat Augusti praeceptor, multum profecit eiusque industria in amicitiam Asinii Pollionis receptus est. Cuius beneficio et Alpheni Vari et Cornelii Galli, quem unice dilexit, heredium paternum occupatum a Milieno Torone primipilari recuperavit. [4] Deinde per Maecenatem Caesari Augusto cognitus, usus familiaritate Quintilii Tuccae et Sulpitii Vari, puerum amavit Alexandrum, a Pollione donatum, quem Alexim in Buccolicis appellat. [5] Lydiam puer admodum in agris suis dilexit. [6] Plociae, famosissimi scorti, aliquando domum adivit. Nec, ut Pedianus Asconius1 ait, confitente illa, cum ea coivit. [7] Domum habuit in Exquilina regione prope Maecenatis hortos. [8] In Neapolitani sui hortulo, ad quem secedebat, liberali otio vixit secutus Epicuri sententiam. [9] Parentes ipse tumulavit et ex tribus fratribus duos, Silonem pene infantem et Flaccum natum annos XX.

[10] Bello Cantabrico cum cepisset scribere Aeneida, usque ad sestertium centies ab Augusto honestatus est et in summam gratiam venit, neque apud populum Romanum notitia caruit. Testes sunt Augusti epistolae ad eum scriptae, testis ipse populus, qui auditis in theatro Virgilii versibus, ut Cornelius Tacitus scribit, surrexit universus et forte praesentem spectantemque Virgilium veneratus est, sic quasi Augustum.2 [11] Quinquagenarius Atticam petiit causa videndi Asiam. Ubi redeunti principi ex victoria orientis occurrit aestu solis defatigatus in tertianam duplicem incidit et noluit pati Megaris curari, et dum in Italiam navigat gravius aegrotavit. [12] Decessit Brundusii annum agens quinquagesimum et primum Cn. Pontio Sextio et Q. Lucretio conss. XI° Kal. Octobris, relictis heredibus Augusto et Mecenate et Virgilio Proculo fratre minore. Filium quem ex Galla susceperat, patri ad omnia dissimilem, exheredavit: nam intemperatae libidinis fuit popinariusque et parum eruditus. [13] Sepultus fuit via Puteolana ad secundum lapidem ex sinistris. [14] In cuius monumento, referente Valerio Probo, tale legebatur epigramma: "Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc / Parthenope, Cecini pascua, poma, duces".3

[15] Statura fuit procera, colore subpallido, natura debili et imbecilla, praeter distillationem ad pectus dolore capitis laborabat, sanguinem frequenter spuit. Cibi ac vini temperantissimus, amoris vero impensissimi usque ad suspitionem, vixit sine avaritia et sine invidia: nam pollicenti Augusto cuiusdam proscripti agrum renuit. Aliorum bene scripta ita probabat, ut anteponeret suis et imitari minime negligeret. [16] Medicinae et magicae operam dedit. Plinius ait: "Catulli apud nos" et "proxime Virgilii amatoria imitatio".4 [17] Scripsit eo stilo ut vetustatem semper redoleret, cuius amantissimus erat. Curiosus, diligens, ingeniosus, eminens atque sublimis. [18] De eo sic Domitius Apher interroganti Quintiliano quem Homero crederet maxime accedere, secundum esse Virgilium, respondit, propiorem tamen primo quam tertio".5 [19] Aeneis admirationem omnibus fecit et si ipse in testamento damnavit, Augustus tamen contra testamenti verecundiam cremari vetuit maiusque ita vati testimonium contigit quam si ipse probasset. [20] Virgili viventis publice primus opera legit Q. Caecilius Epirota, de quo Marsus poeta monostichon edidit: "Epirota tenellorum nutricula vatum" 6.

Translation

Iulius Pomponius, brief presentation of the life of Virgil Maro.

[1] P. Virgil Maro was born on the Ides of October, during the consulship of M. Licinius Crassus and Gn. Pompeius the Great, in the village of Andes, thirty miles from Mantua; his father was Virgil, a peasant, and his mother Magia Polla. Raised in modest circumstances he spent his childhood in Cremona. As a young boy he lived in Milan, studying with the grammarian Grillus.

[2] Virgil lost his farm after the victory of Actium. because Augustus distributed the farms of the Cremonese and the Mantuans among the veterans. [3] He then went to Rome and profited greatly from the teaching of the rhetor Marcus Epidius, who had been Augustus's tutor, and through whom he was received into the circle of Asinius Pollio. Thanks both to him and to Alfenus Varus and Cornelius Gallus, who was especially dear to him, Virgil recovered his father's farm, which had been expropriated by the primipilaris Milienus Toro. [4] He then came to the attention of Augustus, thanks to Maecenas. He was on intimate terms with Quintilius Tucca and Sulpitius Varus, and loved the boy Alexander, given him by Pollio, whom he calls Alexis in the Bucolics.

[5] He loved Lydia when he was still a boy, living on his farm. [6] He sometimes visited the home of Plotia, a most famous prostitute. But, as she admitted, according to Asconius Pedianus, he did not have sex with her. [7] He owned a house on the Esquiline, close to the gardens of Maecenas. [8] Whenever he withdrew to his garden in Naples, he lived in honorable leisure, following the teachings of Epicurus. [9] He buried his parents and two of his three brothers, Silo, still a boy, and Flaccus, at the age of twenty.

[10] When he began to write the Aeneid at the time of the war in Cantabria, he was rewarded by Augustus with as much as hundred sesterces and exceptional favour, and he did not go uncelebrated by the citizens of Rome. We know this from Augustus's letters to him, and from the behaviour of the citizens themselves, for on hearing Virgil's verses in the theatre, as Cornelius Tacitus writes, they all rose and paid homage to the poet, who happened to be present at the play, almost as if he were Augustus himself. [11] At the age of fifty he went to Attica with the intention of visiting Asia. There he met the princeps, who was returning victoriously from the East, and weakened by the heat of the sun became ill with tertian malaria. He did not want to be treateddest in Megara and therefore grew worse while sailing to Italy. [12] He passed away in Brindisi at the age of fifty-one, eleven days before the calends of October, during the consulship of Gn. Pontius Sextius and Q. Lucretius. He appointed as heirs Augustus, Maecenas, and his younger brother Virgil Proculus, and disinherited the son he had had from Galla, who was different from his father in every respect: he was a poorly educated innkeeper of immoderate sexuality. [13] He was buried on the road to Pozzuoli, two miles from the town, on the left. [14] On the tomb, as Valerius Probus relates, there was this epigram: "Mantua gave birth to me, the Calabrians snatched me away, Parthenope now holds me; I sang of pastures, orchards, and leaders".

[15] He was tall, pale of complexion, of weak and delicate constitution: as well as from phlegm in the chest he suffered from headaches and often coughed up blood. He was very temperate with regard to wine and food, but his libido was suspiciously strong. He lived without mean and envious: in fact when Augustus offered him the farm of an exile, he refused it. He so valued the well-written works of others that he put them before his own and eagerly imitated them. [16] He was interested in medicine and magic. Pliny said: "Catullus and quite recently Virgil, among us, have represented love charms in their poetry". [17] He wrote in a style that exuded the antiquity he loved very much. He was curious, diligent, ingenious, distinguished, sublime, and almost divine. [18] Asked by Quintilian who came closest to Homer, Domitius Afer replied tha Virgil was the second, but nearer to the first than to the third. [19] The Aeneid was admired by all and, even though Virgil rejected it in his will. Augustus overrode his modesty and forbade its burning and thus paid the bard a greater tribute than if he himself had approved of the work. [20] Quintus Caecilius Epirota first gave a public reading of Virgil when the latter was still alive. Of him the poet Marsus wrote this verse: "Epirota, the dear nurse of delicate little bards". Imitating Caecilius, so far from our time, we will look at Virgil's genius, imitate the ancients and begin with the work entitled Aeneid.

Notes

1 Asconius Pedianus, frg. 5 Funaioli ap. Suetonius-Donatus, Vita Vergili 21 (p. 22.5-7 Stok). 2 Tacitus, dial. 13. 3 Vita Vergili Probiana (p. 199. 5-6 Brugnoli). 4 Plinius, nat. 28.19. 5 Quintilianus, inst. 10.1.86. 6 Suetonius, gramm. 16.3.

The version of the Canonicianus Class. lat. 54 differs from that of the Vat. Lat. 3255 in some additions (here in italics), changes of single words and modifications of the syntactic structure:

Text (from Canonicianus Class. lat. 54)

[1] Publius Virgilius Maro natus Idibus octobris M. Licinio Crasso et Gn. Pompeio Magno consulibus, patre Virgilio rustico matre Magia Polla, vico Andico, qui abest a Mantua milibus passuum triginta. Tenui facultate nutritus puer Cremonae degit, in extrema pueritia Mediolani sub Grillo grammatico.

[2] Post Actiacam victoriam agrum amisit: nam volente Augusto veterani Cremonensium et Mantuanorum agros inter se divisere. [3] Romam inde se contulit et sub Marco Epidio rhetore, qui fuerat Augusti praeceptor, multum profecit eiusque industria in amicitiam Asinii Pollionis receptus est. Cuius beneficio et Alfeni Vari et Cornelii Galli, quem unice dilexit, heredium paternum occupatum a Milieno Torone primipilari recuperavit. [4] Deinde per Maecenatem Caesari Augusto cognitus, usus familiaritate Quintilii Tuccae et Sulpitii Vari, puerum amavit Alexandrum, a Pollione donatum, quem Alexim in Buccolicis appellat. [5] Lydiam puer admodum in agris suis dilexit. [6] Plotiae, formosissimi scorti, domum aliquando adivit. Nec, ut Pedianus Asconius refert, confitente illa, cum ea coivit. [7] Domum habuit in Exquilina regione prope Maecenatis hortos. [8] In Neapolitani sui, ad quod secedebat, ortulo, liberali in otio vixit, secutus Epicuri sententiam. [9] Parentes ipse tumulavit et ex tribus fratribus duos, Silonem pene infantem et Flaccum natum annos XX, quem in Bucolicis sub Daphnidis nomine deflevit.

[10] Bello Cantabrico cum cepisset scribere Aeneida, usque ad sextertium centies ab Augusto honestatus est et in summam gratiam venit, neque apud populum Romanum notitia caruit. Testes sunt Augusti epistolae ad eum scriptae, testis ipse populus, qui auditis in theatro Virgilii versibus, ut Cornelius Tacitus scribit, surrexit universus et forte praesentem spectantemque Virgilium veneratus est, sic quasi Augustum. [11] Quinquagenarius Atticam rursus petiit gratia visendi Asiam. Ubi redeunti principi ex victoria occurrit orientis et aestu solis defatigatus in tertianam duplicem incidit neque voluit pati Megaris curari, quare fastidio navigationis gravius aegrotavit. [12] Decessit Brundusii annum agens quinquagesimum et primum Gn. Pontio Sextio et Q. Lucretio consulibus XI° Calendis Octobris, relictis heredibus Augusto et Mecenate et Virgilio Proculo minore fratre. Filium quem ex Galla susceperat, sibi ad omnia dissimilem, exheredavit: nam intemperatae libidinis fuit popinariusque et parum eruditus. [13] Sepultus fuit via Puteolana ad secundum lapidem ex sinistris. [14] In cuius monumento, referente Valerio Probo, tale legebatur epigramma: "Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc / Parthenope, Cecini pascua, poma, duces".

[15] Statura fuit procera, colore subpallido, natura debili et imbecilla, praeter distillationem ad pectus dolore capitis laborabat, sanguinem frequenter spuit, proclivis ad phtisim. Cibi ac vini continentissimus, amoris impensissimi usque ad suspitionem, sine avaritia, sine invidia: nam pollicenti Augusto cuiusdam proscripti agrum renuit. Aliorum bene scripta ita probavit, ut anteponeret suis et imitari minime negligeret. [16] Medicinae et magicae operam dedit. Plinius ait: "Catulli apud nos" et "proxime Virgilii amatoria imitatio". [17] Scripsit eo stilo ut vetustate semper redoleret, cuius amantissimus erat. Curiosus, diligens, ingeniosus, eminens atque sublimis et prope divinus. [18] De eo sic Domitius Afer interroganti Quintiliano quem Homero crederet maxime accedere, respondit: "secundus est Virgilius, propior tamen primo quam tertio". [19] Aeneis admirationem omnibus fecit et si ipse in testamento damnavit, Augustus tamen contra testamenti verecundiam cremari vetuit maiusque ita vati testimonium contigit quam si ipse probasset. [20] Virgili viventis opera primus publice legit Romae Quintus Caecilius Epirota, de quo Marsus poeta monostichon edidit: "Epirota tenellorum nutricula vatum". Nos ad Caecilii imitationem remotissimi a nostro saeculo Virgilii ingenium inspecturi antiquos imitabimur et incipiemus ab eo opere quod inscribitur Aeneis.

Translation:

[5] He loved Lydia when he was still a boy, living on his farm. [6] He sometimes visited the home of Plotia, a most beautiful prostitute. But, as she admitted, according to Asconius Pedianus, he did not have sex with her. [7] He owned a house on the Esquiline, close to the gardens of Maecenas. [8] Whenever he withdrew to his garden in Naples, he lived in honorable leisure, following the teachings of Epicurus. [9] He buried his parents and two of his three brothers, Silo, still a boy, and Flaccus, at the age of twenty, whom he mourned in the Bucolics under the name of Daphnis.

[10] When he began to write the Aeneid at the time of the war in Cantabria, he was rewarded by Augustus with as much as hundred sesterces and exceptional favour, and he did not go uncelebrated by the citizens of Rome. We know this from Augustus's letters to him, and from the behaviour of the citizens themselves, for on hearing Virgil's verses in the theatre, as Cornelius Tacitus writes, they all rose and paid homage to the poet, who happened to be present at the play, almost as if he were Augustus himself. [11] At the age of fifty he went to Attica again, with the intention of visiting Asia. There he met the princeps, who was returning victoriously from the East, and weakened by the heat of the sun became ill with tertian malaria. He did not want to be treated in Megara and therefore grew worse because of the unpleasant sea voyage. [12] He passed away in Brindisi at the age of fifty-one, eleven days before the calends of October, during the consulship of Gn. Pontius Sextius and Q. Lucretius. He appointed as heirs Augustus, Maecenas, and his younger brother Virgil Proculus, and disinherited the son he had had from Galla, who was different from him in every respect: he was a poorly educated innkeeper of immoderate sexuality. [13] He was buried on the road to Pozzuoli, two miles from the town, on the left. [14] On the tomb, as Valerius Probus relates, there was this epigram: "Mantua gave birth to me, the Calabrians snatched me away, Parthenope now holds me; I sang of pastures, orchards, and leaders".

[15] He was tall, pale of complexion, of weak and delicate constitution: as well as from phlegm in the chest he suffered from headaches. He often coughed up blood, and was prone to phthysis. He was very temperate with regard to wine and food, but his libido was suspiciously strong. He was neither mean nor envious: in fact when Augustus offered him the farm of an exile, he refused it. He so valued the well-written works of others that he put them before his own and eagerly imitated them. [16] He was interested in medicine and magic. Pliny said: "Catullus and quite recently Virgil, among us, have represented love charms in their poetry". [17] He wrote in a style that exuded the antiquity he loved very much. He was curious, diligent, ingenious, distinguished, sublime, and almost divine. [18] Asked by Quintilian who came closest to Homer, Domitius Afer replied: "Virgil is second, but nearer to the first than to the third". [19] The Aeneid was admired by all and, even though Virgil rejected it in his will. Augustus overrode his modesty and forbade its burning and thus paid the bard a greater tribute than if he himself had approved of the work. [20] Quintus Caecilius Epirota first gave a public reading of Virgil in Rome when the latter was still alive. Of him the poet Marsus wrote this verse: "Epirota, the dear nurse of delicate little bards". Imitating Caecilius, so far from our time, we will look at Virgil's genius, imitate the ancients and begin with the work entitled Aeneid.

In addition to the above-mentioned manuscripts, the Vita Pomponiana is partly copied in the Lives of Virgil compiled by some of Laetus's pupils:

1) the Vita Virgili of Cinthius of Ceneda (Piero Leoni), copied before his commentary on the Aeneid in Ms. Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, R 13 sup., ff. 1r-2r (a. 1478), published by Mai 1835, 321-94 and Dozio 1845 (a more reliable transcription of the Vita is provided by Gioseffi 1991, 222-27).

2) Petrus Marsus inserted large extracts of the Vita Pomponiana in the inaugural lecture he held in Bologna around 1480 (copied in Ms. München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, lat. 414, ff. 111v-115r).

3) a Vita Vergili based on the Vita Pomponiana is copied twice in BAV Vat. lat. 2739 (ff. 1r-2r and 159r-160r.), which contains a commentary on Virgil.

Bibliography

Dozio 1845

Giovanni Maria Dozio (ed.), Cynthii Cenetensis in Virgilii Aeneidem Commentarius (Milano 1845).

Dykmans 1987

Marc S. J. Dykmans, "La Vita Pomponiana de Virgile", Humanistica Lovaniensia 36 (1987), 85-111.

Gioseffi, 1991

Massimo Gioseffi, Studi sul commento a Virgilio dello Pseudo-Probo (Firenze 1991).

Mai 1835

Angelo Mai (ed.), Classicorum auctorum e Vaticanis codicibus editorum collectio VII (Roma 1835).

Reeve 1976

Michel D. Reeve, "The Textual Tradition of the Appendix Vergiliana", Maia 28 (1976), 233–54.

Stok 2015

Fabio Stok, " Virgil's Biography between Rediscovery and Revision". Vitae Pomponianae: Lives of Classical Writers in Fifteenth-Century Roman Humanism, ed. M. Pade. Renæssanceforum 9 (2015), 63-86.

Zabughin 1918

Vladimiro Zabughin, "L'autografo delle chiose virgiliane di Pomponio Leto", L'Arcadia 3 (1918), 135–51.

Fabio Stok
20 December 2015

This entry can be cited as follows:

Pomponius Laetus, Virgili vita, ed. Fabio Stok, Repertorium Pomponianum, URL: www.repertoriumpomponianum.it/textus/leto_vita_virgilii.htm,