A Latin prose comedy, entitled Querulus seu Aulularia, having been found in one of the most ancient MSS. of Plautus discovered in the Vatican, was by some erroneously attributed to that dramatist; though, in his prologue, its author quotes Cicero, and expressly declares, that he purposed to imitate Plautus! It was first edited in 1564 by Peter Daniel; and is now believed to have been written in the time of the Emperor Theodosius. In some respects it has an affinity to the genuine Aulularia of Plautus. The prologue is spoken by the Lar Familiaris; and a miser, called Euclio, on going abroad, had concealed a treasure, contained in a pot, in some part of his house. While dying, in a foreign land, he bequeathed to a parasite, who had there insinuated himself into his favour, one half of his fortune, on condition that he should inform his son Querulus, so called from his querulous disposition, of the place where his treasure was deposited. The parasite proceeds to the miser’s native country, and attempts, though unsuccessfully, to defraud the son of the whole inheritance.
From a curious mistake, first pointed out by Archbishop Usher, in his Ecclesiastical Antiquities, this drama was attributed to Gildas, the British Jeremiah, as Gibbon calls him; who entitled one of his complaints concerning the affairs of Britain, Querulus.—Vossius, de Poet. Lat. Lib. I. c. 6. § 9.
Catullus, in his miscellaneous poems, has employed not fewer than thirteen different sorts of versification.
1. That which is most frequently used is the Phalæcian hendecasyllable, consisting of a spondee, dactyl, and three trochees.
This sort of measure has been adopted by Catullus in thirty-nine poems.
2. Trimeter iambus, consisting of six feet, which are generally all iambuses.
but a spondee sometimes forms the first, third, and fifth feet. Four poems are in this measure—the fourth, twentieth, twenty-ninth, and fifty-second.
3. Choliambus or scazon, which is the same with the last mentioned, except that the concluding foot of the line is always a spondee.
This metre is used seven times, being employed in the eighth, twenty-second, thirty-first, thirty-seventh, thirty-ninth, forty-fourth, and fifty-ninth poems.
4. Trochaic Stesichian, consisting of six feet—choreus or spondee, a dactyl, a cretic, a choreus or spondee, a dactyl, and lastly a choreus.
This measure appears only in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth poems.
5. Iambic tetrameter catalectic, formed of seven feet and a cæsura at the close of the line. It occurs in the twenty-fifth poem.
6. Choriambus. This also is employed but once, being used only in the thirtieth. It consists of five feet,—a spondee, three choriambi, and a pyrrhichius.
7. A sort of Phalæcian, consisting of two spondees and three chorei.
But it sometimes consists of a spondee and four chorei. This measure is adopted in some lines of the fifty-fifth ode.
8. Glyconian, generally made up of a spondee and two dactyles.
but sometimes of a trochæus and two dactyles.
This sort of verse occurs, but mixed with other measures in the thirty-fourth ode, addressed to Diana, and also in the sixtieth.
9. Pherecratian, consisting of three feet, a trochee, spondee, or iambus in the first place, followed by a dactyl and spondee.
This is used in the thirty-fourth and sixtieth, mingled with glyconian verse.
10. Galliambic. This is employed only in the poem of Atys, which indeed is the sole specimen of the galliambic measure, in the Latin language. It consists of six feet, which are used very loosely and indiscriminately. The first seems to be at pleasure, an anapæst, spondee, or tribrachys; second, an iambus, tribrachys, or dactyl; third, iambus or spondee; fourth, dactyl or spondee; fifth, a dactyl, or various other feet; sixth, generally an anapæst, but sometimes an iambus.
The remaining three species of measure employed by Catullus, are the sapphic stanza, used in the seventh and fifty-first odes; the hexameter lines, which we have in the epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis; and the pentameter lines, used alternately with the hexameters, and thereby constituting elegiac verse, which is employed in all the elegies of Catullus. Of these three measures, the structure is well known.—(Vulpius, Diatribe de Metris Catulli.)
Nibby, in his Viaggio Antiquario ne contorni di Roma, (Ed. 1819. 2 Tom. 8vo,) in opposition to all previous authority, has denied that this was the site of the villa of Catullus, which he has removed to a spot due east from Tibur, between the Acque Albule and Ponte Lucano. His opinion, however, is rested on the 26th poem of Catullus, of which he has totally misunderstood the meaning,—
Nibby strangely supposes that the fourth line of the above verses means that the villa is 15 miles 200 paces from Rome, and, therefore, that it cannot be at St Angelo in Piavola, the distance of which from Rome is not 15 miles 200 paces.—“Questi versi,” says he, “non solo non sono così decisìvi per situarla precisamente a St Angelo, piu tosto che in altri luoghi di questi contorni; ma assolutamente la escludono, poichè la stabaliscono quindìci miglia, e duecento passi vicino a Roma.”—T. I. p. 166.
Now, in the first place, according to Muretus and the best commentators, this ode does not at all refer to the villa of Catullus, but of Furius, whom he addresses, since the correct reading in the first line is not Villula nostra, but Vostra. Allowing, however, that it should be nostra, it is quite impossible to extort from the fourth line any proof that the villa was 15 miles 200 paces from Rome. Translated verbatim, it is as follows:—“Furius, our (your) villa is not exposed or liable to the blasts of Auster or Favonius, or the sharp Boreas, or the Apeliot wind, but to fifteen thousand and two hundred—O horrible and pestilent wind!” Now, the question is, to what 15,000,200 is the villa exposed? (opposita). Every commentator whom I have consulted, supplies sesterces, or other pieces of money; that is to say, it was mortgaged or pledged for that sum, which would sweep it away more effectually than any wind. Nibby’s interpretation, that it is not exposed to Auster or Boreas, &c. but is 15 miles 200 paces distant from Rome, is not many miles, or even paces, distant from absolute nonsense; and, moreover, quindecim millia, is not good Latin for 15 miles.