The Ciris and Ovid: A Study of the Language of the Poem

Introduction:

Some twenty-five poems, known as the Vergilian Appendix, and attributed by the ancients to the youthful Vergil, have come down to us in inferior manuscripts, but not in the great Vergilian codices. Among the best known of these poems are three short epics, the Culex, the Aetna and the Ciris. For centuries scholars have been agreed that all the poems of the Appendix are spurious, with the possible exception of one or two very short pieces which are contained in the Catalepton and which purport to give certain personal details. [Note. The present study has been prepared in cooperation with Professor R.S. Radford, of the University of Tennessee, who has generously placed at my disposal his own large acquaintance with Ovid and the Vergilian and Tibullan Appendices, and has made many valuable suggestions both with respect to the literature of the subject and to the most effective methods of treatment. The conclusions to which the present study of the Ciris has led me are in full accord with the views which he has maintained respecting the Ovidian authorship of the whole Vergilian Appendix.]

It is usually held, however, that all or nearly all the poems in question belong to the very best period of Roman poetry, the Age of Augustus.

In the present study I wish to examine the language of the Ciris, or story of Scylla and Nisus, an epyllion written in the manner of Catullus and of the Greek poets of Alexandria.