Latine Vertere: Latin Translation of Greek Texts in Ancient Rome

Siobhán McElduff

Describing the Greek Source Text: From Drinking from the Well to Leading it Captive at University of British Columbia

Cicero described drinking from his Greek sources as if they were water from a well (De Officiis 1.6), of paying out their meaning by weight (De Optimo Genere Oratorum 14), and of discarding Greek sources as soon as their contents had been translated into Latin (Tusculan Disuptationes 2.5). Pliny the Younger speaks of the meaning of a source being unable to flee its Roman translator (Epistles 7.9). Saint Jerome wrote of Saint Hilary leading his text like a captive (Epistles 57.6). This paper will examine the various ways a range of Roman authors described their Greek sources, and compare this with how they describe their own literary works moving and travelling from reader to reader as a way to understand Roman perspectives on translation.

Niall W. Slater

Did Turpilian Translation Help Kill the Palliata? at Emory University

Turpilius, with thirteen titles and some 140 fragments surviving, is an oft-bypassed epilogue to comoedia palliata at Rome. His relation to the palliata tradition has been variously evaluated, with some using his purely Greek play titles, supposed lack of any recognizable Roman allusions, and demonstrable use of Menander and Alexis as sources to link him more closely to Terentian comedy, while others, notably and persuasively John Wright in Dancing in Chains, have highlighted thoroughly traditional use of stock characters and alliterative and stylized language to place him firmly in a Plautine tradition. While such meagre survival barely allows us to guess at reconstructing plots and could be unrepresentative of Turpilius’s language and style as a whole, elements on the linguistic level may suggest, somewhat paradoxically, that the poet’s avoidance of almost any use of borrowed Greek terms as well as capacity for inventing new, especially abstract Roman language for his characters to employ may have rendered his re-imagination of a supposedly Greek “elsewhere,” a less Greek-feeling and therefore less liberating place of escape. Netta Zagagi’s study of Plautus’s use of Greek and Greek-derived terms in symposium settings and madness scenes (“What Do Greek Words Do in Plautus?”) suggests some of what is missing in Turpilius’s self-conscious (even briefly metatheatrical) pursuit of traditional palliata plots and characters: note for example the adulescens amans in his Demetrius fr. XVI (36 R3) who insists he has been following veteri exemplo amantium. Another lover proclaiming (Leucadia fr. VIII 109 R3) intercapedine interficior, desiderio differor may outdo Plautine alliteration, but the possibly newly invented abstraction intercapedo may distance the audience from feeling as well as fun. Turpilius’s style of translation may have pursued Greek character and content in so thoroughly Roman language as to lose the palliata’s exoticism.

Teresa Torcello

‘Locos quosdam, si videbitur, transferam’: Translated Quotations from Greek Texts in Cicero’s Works at (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna

This paper aims to shed light on a frequently overlooked aspect in translation studies (both within and beyond the ancient Roman context): the translation of individual excerpts embedded in a work that is otherwise not the result of translation. To explore this, the paper will address two questions: are there any translation problems specific to this situation? And how does it affect the more common ones?

The examples will be drawn from Cicero’s corpus, which provides a sufficiently varied sample, thanks to the range of authors and genres he translates from, while remaining internally consistent, due to his authorship of each translation. The presentation will explore topics such as the following:

• How does the translation address the need to make the quoted text recognizable to the target audience? For instance, by precisely reproducing the opening phrases, clarifying the fictitious addressee, or integrating anaphoric references (examples from Cic. Q. fr. 1.1.29, orat. 41, Tusc. 1.73).
• How does the translation contribute to the psychological characterization of the speaker delivering the quotation? (e.g., the quotation of Plat. Resp. 571c-572a delivered by Quintus in div. 1.60).
• How do different formulas for introducing translations reflect the approaches used to render the Greek text? (e.g., the differences between quotations introduced by “his fere verbis” and those introduced by “his ipsis verbis”)

Gina White

Poetic Translation in the Tusculan Disputations at University of Kansas

At the beginning of book 3 of the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero returns to two key themes that have been woven throughout this text: in the first instance, he notes the damaging influence that the study of poetry (as commonly practiced) can have upon our spiritual health (Tusc. 3.3); in the second, he asserts the superiority of the Latin language to Greek for philosophical discussion (multoque melius haec notata sunt verbis Latinis quam Graecis, quod aliis quoque multis locis reperietur, Tusc. 3.10). This paper will consider how, as book 3 progresses, Cicero attempts to demonstrate both the superiority of Latin over Greek and a new way of using poetry in the service of philosophical education, by means of his translations of Greek poetry. As we shall see, in translating famous passages from Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Cicero carefully selects Latin terminology that emphasizes the philosophical points he is making, even where it departs from the imagery and register of the original Greek texts. In so doing, he pointedly produces new, Latin poetic exempla that better fit his current arguments and wider didactic project, supporting his claim that Latin has greater analytical and educational value than Greek and showing that, if used correctly, poetry can be used to further, rather than detract from, the therapy of the soul.

Joshua P. Ziesel

‘At Best an Echo’: Catullus, Horace, and the Translation of Sappho 31 in Latin Lyric at PhD Candidate, NYU

Catullus’ Carmen 51 is arguably the most famous example of literary translation in Latin literature, and it is widely regarded as the definitive translation of Sappho 31 in any language. Such a reputation comes not only from the (unusual) near completeness of the translation but also from the way in which Catullus aggressively displaces Sappho as the poem’s speaker in the process. His translation strategy was so effective, it seems, that it not only silenced Sappho (as it were), but it also discouraged any future Roman translators from producing alternative versions. Thus, Horace, the self-proclaimed princeps of Latin lyric, was, according to Young “rendered mute” (2015: 177), and could manage only to translate two words of Sappho’s poem which Catullus left out of Carmen 51 – ἆδυ φωνείσας (“sweetly speaking,” 3-4) which Horace renders as dulce loquentem in Odes 1.22.24.

And yet, this paper argues that Horace’s comparatively miniscule translation of Sappho 31 in Odes 1.22 is not a concession to his predecessor, but rather a key element in a metapoetic critique of Catullus’ Sapphic translation which unfolds in

that poem. I show that by translating the very words that Catullus omitted – words that specifically call attention to the act of speaking – Horace frames both his and Catullus’ translations as opposing acts of speech: whereas Catullus’ translation smothers Sappho’s poetic voice, Horace’s instead restores the power of expression (and therefore agency) to the previously silenced archaic poet. In doing so, Horace frames his partial translation as one which is both more complete one and more authoritative than Catullus’. As such, this paper asserts that Odes 1.22 is not an admission of poetic defeat, but, rather, a game of lyric one upmanship in which Horace employs translation as a tool to assert his superiority over Catullus within the Latin lyric.

Steven J. Green

Latinising Troy: The Poetics of Translation in the Ilias Latina at National University of Singapore

The Ilias Latina is a condensed Latin version of Homer’s Iliad, likely composed in the latter years of the Emperor Nero (c. AD 60 – 65). Adapting a familiar nautical metaphor, the poet describes his own relationship with his literary predecessor in terms of ‘skimming the shores’ of a port identified with Homer (IL 1065–6). While this metaphor suggests affinity with the source, a location always kept in view, it simultaneously advertises a short distance between ship and port, as is appropriate for the act of ‘translation’ into another language and cultural context.

This paper focuses on particular metaliterary tropes used by the poet to signal his act of translation. Troops on the Latin Trojan battlefield turn in different directions from their Iliadic counterparts, an act of vertere that reflects the poet’s own turning of the text. The gap between ship and port, Latin text and Greek predecessor, is also signalled by pointed misattribution of speeches – perhaps an established joke of the (sub-)genre – and by the figure of Diomedes, who is seemingly caught between Greek and Roman worlds.

Jennifer Weintritt

Translating Homer and his Critics: The Ilias Latina’s Response to Homeric Exegesis at Northwestern University

“It is impossible,” Richard Thomas has asserted, “to imagine the Metamorphoses being composed on an uncluttered desk” (1988, 59). Among the clutter on Vergil’s and Ovid’s desks, scholars confidently place ancient exegetical material on their Greek models, especially Homer (e.g., Schmit-Neuerburg 1999, Beck 2016, Montana 2016, Boyd 2017). But what of the desk of an all-but-anonymous poet like Baebius Italicus while he composed the Ilias Latina? On the one hand, Homeric scholarship seems even more important for Baebius’ project. On the other, the lower status afforded to translation in both ancient and modern literary criticism seems to rule out such learned composition techniques (McElduff 2013,157-185).

This paper argues for Baebius’ knowledge of and response to the hypomnēmata of Aristarchus, which began to circulate in Rome during the Augustan period (Schironi 2015), and other works of Homeric criticism that are today preserved in the exegetical scholia. Building on Glei’s (2018, 37) observation that Baebius may add a line to the Iliad’s proem to resolve a Homeric zetemata about the distinction between body and soul (Schol. bT ad Il. 1.4a Ariston.), I show that Baebius’ proem deviates from its broadly transliteral (Cè 2021, 51-57) approach in ways that are programmatic for the poem. I then consider Baebius’ response to recommendations of athetesis that protect Homer’s heroes from criticism by challenging the authority of lines that, for example, suggest Agamemnon is motivated by lust (Schol. A ad Il. 1.29-31 Ariston.) or Achilles is petty and Aeneas is self-interested (e.g., Schol. A ad Il. 20.180-186a Ariston.).

Joining recent work that reads the Ilias Latina in light of trends in Homer’s ancient critical reception (Green 2019; White 2021), I advocate for a Roman poetics of translation in which not only the poem, but also the author’s presumed intentions and readers’ responses are subject to conversion.

Massimo Cè

ἑλληνιστὶ ἑρμηνεύειν? The Latin Epithet in Quintus of Smyrna at University of Basel

While translation from Greek has been rightly recognized as a fundamental and foundational feature of Latin literature (Bettini 2012; Hutchinson 2013; Feeney 2016), translation from Latin conversely constitutes an important, if neglected, literary practice in Greek texts.

Recently, a growing body of scholarship (Jolowicz 2021; Carvounis–Papaioannou–Scafoglio 2023; Höschele, forthcoming) has convincingly demonstrated the widespread and systematic reception of Latin texts by Greek authors, while my own work on Homeric translation in antiquity (Cè 2022, 2024) has revealed transcultural continuities in translational practice between Greece and Rome.

Drawing on these new scholarly perspectives, the goal of my present contribution is to situate the translational practices adopted by Latin texts – the central concern of this conference – within the textual landscape of Greco-Roman literature as a whole. By focusing on Quintus of Smyrna’s Greek translation of quasi-formulaic epithets in Latin (e.g. magnus, impiger), I argue that the translation of Latin into Greek tends to function in parallel with the more familiar translation of Greek into Latin. Expanding prior scholarship on Quintus and Augustan poetry (Gärtner 2005; James 2007; Maciver 2011), I use the former’s adaptation of Latin noun-epithet phrases as a case study to describe general strategies in Latin-to-Greek translation. Since formulaic epithets represent a hallmark of epic style, they do not only provide an ideal touchstone for testing the extent and depth of Quintus’ Greek translations, but they also allow for a direct comparison with the Latin renderings of his epic predecessors, ranging from Livius Andronicus to Baebius Italicus, who had already translated Homeric epithets for a Roman context.

From my case study of the translation of formulaic language in the Posthomerica a dynamic tradition emerges that, originating in Homeric Greek, becomes Latin during the late Republican and early Imperial period, only to be transformed again into Greek by Quintus. Consequently, I propose a continuous view of ancient translation history that places Greek and Latin texts on equal footing, while positing a translational relationship between the two that is productively bidirectional.

While translation from Greek has been rightly recognized as a fundamental and foundational feature of Latin literature (Bettini 2012; Hutchinson 2013; Feeney 2016), translation from Latin conversely constitutes an important, if neglected, literary practice in Greek texts.

Recently, a growing body of scholarship (Jolowicz 2021; Carvounis–Papaioannou–Scafoglio 2023; Höschele, forthcoming) has convincingly demonstrated the widespread and systematic reception of Latin texts by Greek authors, while my own work on Homeric translation in antiquity (Cè 2022, 2024) has revealed transcultural continuities in translational practice between Greece and Rome.

Drawing on these new scholarly perspectives, the goal of my present contribution is to situate the translational practices adopted by Latin texts – the central concern of this conference – within the textual landscape of Greco-Roman literature as a whole. By focusing on Quintus of Smyrna’s Greek translation of quasi-formulaic epithets in Latin (e.g. magnus, impiger), I argue that the translation of Latin into Greek tends to function in parallel with the more familiar translation of Greek into Latin. Expanding prior scholarship on Quintus and Augustan poetry (Gärtner 2005; James 2007; Maciver 2011), I use the former’s adaptation of Latin noun-epithet phrases as a case study to describe general strategies in Latin-to-Greek translation. Since formulaic epithets represent a hallmark of epic style, they do not only provide an ideal touchstone for testing the extent and depth of Quintus’ Greek translations, but they also allow for a direct comparison with the Latin renderings of his epic predecessors, ranging from Livius Andronicus to Baebius Italicus, who had already translated Homeric epithets for a Roman context.

From my case study of the translation of formulaic language in the Posthomerica a dynamic tradition emerges that, originating in Homeric Greek, becomes Latin during the late Republican and early Imperial period, only to be transformed again into Greek by Quintus. Consequently, I propose a continuous view of ancient translation history that places Greek and Latin texts on equal footing, while positing a translational relationship between the two that is productively bidirectional.