A Transposition in Juvenal, Satire 6

Juvenal’s sixth satire contains a number of textual problems, from minor variations in wording to the questions surrounding the O fragment. There are a number of obvious interpolations, and editors usually signal one or two desirable transpositions. When we come to 6.66-75, scholars commonly bracket line 65 as otiose, but they accept the surrounding passage as transmitted. I suggest here that two lines (71-72 Clausen) have fallen out of order and been reinserted in the right passage but in the wrong place.

Clausen’s Oxford edition prints 6.63-75, a discussion of women who are attracted to actors and other performers, in the transmitted order, although he brackets line 65. The logical flow of the passage, however, is interrupted by lines 71-72. If these lines are instead inserted between 66 and 67, the logical flow is restored and the Latin becomes less strained.

Lines 6.63-64 and 66 describe the reactions of Tuccia, Apula, and Thymele to the mime actor Bathyllus. At 67-70, a strong contrastive ast introduces other women, who, in the absence of their favorite performer, fondle instead an erotic trio of mementos: mask, thyrsus, and undergarment. The word order here is perhaps a bit awkward, with tristes in 69 picking up aliae in 67, but, if that were the only problem, there would be no difficulty.

Lines 71-72 deal with an Atellan performer named Urbicus and a poor woman, Aelia, who is in love with him. Like Bathyllus, Urbicus portrays a female character, here the tragic Autonoe, with whose gestures he gets a laugh from the audience. Urbicus and Aelia are followed in turn (73-75) by women so enamored of performers that they are willing to remove the pins with which they have been infibulated in order to have sex with them. After the generic reference to infibulation being undone, two specific kinds of performer are singled out, one a comedian, and the other a tragic actor. Finally, the speaker delivers his punchline: did Postumus think women were going to lust after the rhetorician Quintilian?

While the general logic of the passage is clear, there are weaknesses in both its logical structure and in the word order of individual sentences. If we read the two lines about Urbicus and Aelia at an earlier point, namely after 6.66 Clausen, we eliminate both this objection to the sequence of thought and to the harshness of the word order. We then have

• · the opening question to Postumus;
• · Bathyllus, with Tuccia, Apula, and Thymele; and Urbicus, with Aelia;
• · the closed theaters and two different sets of desperate fans.

This arrangement has the advantage of juxtaposing rustica (“country girl”) Thymele with a perfomer named Urbicus (“city slicker”) and introducing a contrast between Thymele and the Roman-named Aelia. Thymele watches a Greek-named mime-actor, while Aelia prefers the Italian-style performance of Urbicus. In addition, the antecedent of his (73) becomes clearer: it refers to aliae (67) and tristes (69), rather than to Aelia.