Carmen Saliare

The is a fragment of archaic Latin, which played a part in the rituals performed by the Salii (Salian priests, a.k.a. "leaping priests") of Ancient Rome. There are 35 extant fragments of the , which can be read in Morel's FPL.FPL=, originally compiled by W. Morel 1927, 2nd edition by C. Büchner 1982, 3rd and 4th editions by J. Blänsdorf in 1995 and 2011.

The rituals revolved around Mars and Quirinus, and were performed in March and October. These involved processions in which they donned archaic armour and weapons, performed their sacred dance, and sang the . As a body they existed before the founding of the Roman Republic, tracing their origin back to the reign of Numa Pompilius. The Salian priests were chosen from the sons of patrician families whose parents were still living. They were appointed for life, though they were allowed to resign from the Salian priesthood if they achieved a more prestigious priesthood or a major magistracy.

In the written by Roman historian Tacitus, it is revealed that several Romans proposed the name of Germanicus to be added to the Salian Song, as a memory of his virtue and goodwill.

Fragments The three longest quotations of the text appear in the works of Marcus Terentius Varro, a 1st-century BCE Roman author, and the writings of Quintus Terentius Scaurus, a 2nd-century CE Roman grammarian. There are other, smaller samples of the song that appear in the works of the 2nd-century CE grammarian Festus and the 5th-century CE historian Macrobius. In any case, these texts were extremely archaic and mysterious to even the ancient Roman authors, who may have misunderstood and erroneously recorded passages of the song. Further modifications may have then occurred over the centuries, first by medieval copyists—who would also not have understood of the true meaning of the words—and then by scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries, who sought the render the language more Latinate in appearance. Ultimately, the original text may have become so diluted that it is irrecoverable.

Two fragments which have been preserved by Varro in his , 7.26, 27 (fragment 2 and 1 by Maurenbrecher's numbering):Marcus Terentius Varro, de lingua latina: M. Terenti Varronis de lingua latina libri qui supersunt ex codicum vetustissimarumque editionum auctoritate integra lectione adiecta recensuit Leonhardus Spengel Berolini, sumtibus Dunckeri et Humboltii – MDCCCXXVI , pp. 312, 314 M. Terenti Varronis de lingua latina librorum quae supersunt emendata et annotata a Carolo Odofredo Muellero anno MDCCCXXXIII , pp. 129–30 Terenti Varronis de lingua Latina libri emendavit apparatu critico instruxit praefatus est Leonardus Spengel. Leonardo patre mortuo edidit et recognovit filius Andreas Spengel. Berolini apud 1829 (Google) M. Terenti Varronis de lingua latina quae supersunt recensuerunt Georgius Goetz et Fridericus Schoell accedunt grammaticorum Varronis librorum fragmenta Lipsiae in aedibus B. G. Teubneri MCMX , pp. 100f. Varro on the Latin language with an English translation by Roland G. Kent In two volumes I Books V.–VII., 1938, pp. 292–95 Latin (ed. C. O. Muellerus) Latin (ed. A. Spengel) Latin (ed. R. G. Kent) English translation (ed. R. G. Kent) O Planter God,epithet of Janus arise. Everything indeed have I committed unto (thee as) the Opener. Now art thou the Doorkeeper, thou art the Good Creator, the Good God of Beginnings. Thou'lt come especially, thou the superior of these kings ... Sing ye to the Father of the Gods, entreat the God of Gods.

The mysterious has attracted several proposals. Julius Pomponius Laetus proposed in his the interpretation "I shall be as a kiss to grief", though his emendations are now dismissed as "editorial fantasy". George Hempl restored it more carefully to , attested in some manuscripts aside from the spacing, which is good archaic Latin for classical "(thou shalt) come forth with the cuckoo". According to the classicists Giulia Sarullo and Daniel J. Taylor analyzed digital scans of an 11th-century Beneventan manuscript containing the text of , concluded that there was a subtle space between the sequences and , which—though small—is nevertheless consistent with the tiny spaces between other words. Moreover, Sarullo and Taylor argue that, in this manuscript, the ligature —when it appears in the middle of word—is usually attached to the following letter, but—when it appears at the end of a word—it is followed by a space.

In the Beneventan text, the sequence appears with an initial , whereas other manuscripts variously provide either or . For instance, another Renaissance rendition of , authored in the 1390s by Coluccio Salutati, definitively provides an at the beginning of this word. The source of the confusion in the Beneventan manuscript probably stems from the typographic similarity between the letters, as is only distinguished from —in this particular text—by the presence of a small upstroke at the foot of the . Laetus renders the text as , with the perhaps serving as an abbreviation for a vowel combined with a nasal, in which case the term could be interpreted as either or . The former possibility—reading the word as —allows for a connection with the god Janus, while reading the text as allows for the identification of the term as the standard Latin word ("already, now"). Sarullo and Taylor favor the version of the text containing , as it is the and the alternatively theories do not allow for an easier interpretation of the following .

A fragment preserved by Quintus Terentius Scaurus in his (fragment 6 by Maurenbrecher's numbering):Q. Terentii Scauri liber de orthographia; in: Grammatici latini ex recensione Henrici Keilii Vol. VII Scriptores de orthographia […] Lipsiae in aedibus B. G. Teubneri MDCCCLXXX , p. 28. For Theodor Bergk's conjectured reconstruction compare also: Indices lectionum et publicarum et privatarum, quae in Academia Marburgensi per semestre hibernum inde a D. XXV. M. Octobris MDCCCXLVII usque ad D. XXV. M. Martii MDCCCXLVIII . Habendae proponuntur. — Inest Theodori Bergkii Commentatio De Carminum Saliarium reliquiis. Marburgi. Typis Elwerti Academicis, pp. XII, XIV ( google]) Opuscula philologica Bergkiana edidit Rudolfus Peppmüller. Volumen I. Ad Latinas literas spectantia. Halis Saxonum, in Orphanotrophei libraria. MDCCCLXXXIV. – Kleine philologische Schriften von Theodor Bergk. Herausgegeben von Rudolf Peppmüller. I. Band. Zur römischen Literatur. Halle a. S., Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses. 1884, pp. 492, 494 (google-US) Latin (ed. H. Keilius) Theodor Bergk's conjectured reconstruction An excerpt of it:Elegiac poems of Ovid edited by J. W. E. Pearce. Vol. II The Roman Calendar Selections from Fasti, Oxford, 1914, p. 146 (IA) Latin with metre indicated Rendering in classical Latin English translation When thou thunderest, O god of Light (Jupiter), men tremble before thee

Carmen Saliare

Bron en licentie