Pharsalus and the Roman Fate

THESE lines aroused Houseman's particular scorn (Introd. xxiii, xxiv) and occasioned an ingenious, elegant, and unnecessary emendation. His criticism is valid against those who, in the tradition of the adnotationes, take the lines in the purely quantitative sense of gross population statistics: tantum hominum peribit in hoc proelio, quantum non possint saecula multa reparare ... tanti peribunt ut omne genus hominum omnibus saeculis reparare non possit, etiamsi alia bella non habeat, quibus aliquas possit amittere gentes. Oudendorp (1728) and Burman (1740) seem to have found no particular problem in the lines. Cortius-Weber (1829) is not too clear, but seems to regard the loss as purely quantitative. Weise (1835) is explicit: dextrae tantum occident hominum, quantum nulla aetas poterit reparare. Haskins (1887) comments on almost equivalent to quantum: all the slaughter that no future age can make up for. Postgate's edition (1896) of Book Seven is careful not to specify the exact nature of the damage: quidquid: a word of which Lucan is fond, seems here to be due to a straining after exact expression, 'an amount of mischief which no age can repair, whatever that may be', 'the full total that' cf. ciii. 179 sqq. Francken (1897) is cautiously general, but apparently accepts the quantitative interpretation: irreparabile est hae facient . .. humanum genus damnum quamdiu existet non reparabit. Ridley's translation (1919) also apparently refers to the total loss of life: Such work these hands shall do as not mankind/Though free from war, nor centuries of time/Shall e'er make good. The same interpretation apparently lies behind the rather curious translation of the BourgeryPonchont edition (1929): Ces bras feront ce que ne pourrait accomplir aucun Age, ce que le genre humain ne saurait r6parer de toutes ses annres, renonga-t-il A la guerre. This seems to mean that the battle of Pharsalus will do more damage than all the ravages of time could do; a courageous but not very satisfactory attempt to grapple closely with expleat. Duff (1928) follows Housman's emendation quidquid nona explicat aetas, omitting 388

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