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David F. Bright

Ammianus Marcellinus XXXI, 3, 8In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 60 fasc. 1, 1982. Antiquit Oudheid. pp. 143-144.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Bright David F. Ammianus Marcellinus XXXI, 3, 8. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 60 fasc. 1, 1982. Antiquit

Oudheid. pp. 143-144.

doi : 10.3406/rbph.1982.3366

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Ammianus Marcellinus XXXI , 3, 8

David F. Bright

Fama tarnen late serpente per Gothorum reliquas gentes, quod inusitatumantehac genus hominum modo Hierum ut turbo montibus celsis ex abdito sinncoortum apposita quaeque convellit corrumpit, ...

modo nierum ut V def. Lfstedt, Blomgren modo mens ut E A m. nivium utGron. in adn. dierum Btl. nimborum Momms. ruinae Her., qui modo r. postconvellit colloc.Thus Seyfarth 0). One difficulty with the received text is that nierum is notelsewhere attested in Latin. Seyfarth may create too great an impression ofsupport for the reading, as Blomgren (2) merely reports, with some misgivings,Lfstedt's defence of it(3). Indeed, although Lfstedt marshalls interestingevidence for the existence of such a by-formation (i.e. a fifth-declension mutant ofnivium), one has further misgivings on one point. He regards nierum as a by-formation introduced (not necessarily invented) by Ammianus almost in passing :elsewhere Ammianus uses nivium. Such fifth declension mutants are to beregarded as either vulgar (as in the case of the example in CIL) or more frequentlyarchaic or archaizing, and certainly Ammianus' color poeticus might well haverecommended such forms to him. But the examples adduced by Lfstedt,principally as collected and reported by Charisius, are consistent in retaining theentire stem, and merely adding -erum : thus menserum, nucerum, naverum,regerum, lapiderum, loverum (!), boverum. These would all suggest that theproper form is surely niverum, not nierum. But is any such prodigy called for ?The juxtaposition of modo niverum and ut turbo seems redundant. Moreimportant, turbo does not properly refer to a snowstorm, but to a wind.

(1) Ammiani Marcellini rerum gestarwn libri qu i supersunt, ed. W. Seyfarth, Leipzig,Teubner, 1978.(2) S. Blomgren, De sermone Ammiani Marcellini quaestiones variae, Uppsala, 1937,p. 14.(3) E. Lfstedt, Sptlateinische Studien, Uppsala, 1907, p. 55.

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144 D. F. BRIGHTspecifically a swirling force. It is occasionally used for the combined effect of windand water, but not of snowstorms (4). But the irresistible movement of the Hunsthrough the territory of the Goths is being compared here to an avalanche : snowfrom the high mountains which sweeps away everything in its path. Given thiscontrolling image, it is unlikely that Ammianus himself would confound it byadding "like a whirlwind". On the other hand, a rare or even unknown formationsuch as niverum might well attract an explanatory gloss, and I believe that utturbo is just that : a gloss which emphasizes the basic notion of a destructivenatural force as contained in the rest of the sentence. The avalanche makes utturbo intrusive, and the presence then of an explanatory phrase argues for a rareword at this point (thus not nivium). The glossator simply did not penetrate theimage far enough, or perhaps did not even understand the word he saw, and triedto clarify from the general effect of apposita quaeque convellit.

(4) Cf. Forcelijni, s.v. turbo : proprie dicitur ventus vorticosus et validissinnts, quiobvia quaeque prosternit.