カピトリウムの攻防 : O. Skutschに対する反論

抄録

According to the traditional version of the legend concerning the Gallic occupation of Rome in 390 B C, M Manlius, awakened by the cackling of geese, miraculously saved the Capitol from the night attack by the Gauls who, having occupied the rest of the city, now intended to capture also the citadel Since 1953 Otto Skutsch, an authority on Ennian studies, has persistently asserted on the basis of the fragment Ann 227-8 Sk (=164-5 V^2) that Ennius, in defiance of the tradition, talked rather of the fall of the Capitol The present article counters his theory on three points and aims to establish the probability that Ennius adhered to the traditional version Firstly, the fragment does not provide sufficient evidence for asserting that Ennius spoke of the fall The verb cruentant does not in itself indicate that the vigiles are massacred, still less that the Capitol was taken Skutsch denies the imperfective character of cruentant used with repente As various instances show, however, this adverb does not necessarily preclude an inchoative connotation of the verb with which it is used It is therefore possible that the fragment talks merely of relatively light wounds sustained by the vigiles In one of the preceding books of the Annals (probably the fourth), Ennius dwelt on the more positive aspect of the story for the Romans (Manlius' prowess), in the seventh, to which this fragment belongs, he underlines in retrospect the negative aspect (the wounding of the vigiles) to make vivid the panic of the Romans in face of a renewed Gallic incursion (225 B C) This device is used also by Polybius (2 23 7) and Silius (6 5546) Secondly, there is no good reason to doubt Propertius' testimony concerning the contents of the Annals (3 3 1-14) nor to read cecini instead of cecinit (line 7) As Butler and Barber have pointed out, the phrase regiaque Aemilia vecta tropaea rate (8) refers to the triumph of Aemilius Regillus (191 B C), not to that of Aemilius Paullus (168 B C), so it is unnecessary to suppose that the catalogue (7-12) includes episodes which Ennius does not relate Furthermore, as Kambylis observes, the reading cecinit is more suitable for the context Therefore, the phrase anseris et tutum voce fuisse Iovem (12) clearly means Ennius' reference to a successful defence of the Capitol Thirdly, in the light of the patriotic significance attached to the Capitol in the Republican age, it is implausible that Ennius should have related its fall in the Annals The Capitol had become the symbol of Rome's everlasting glory at latest by the third century B C And a passage in Cicero Pro Archia 22 confirms the public function of the Annals Lucan (5 27) and Tertullian (Apol 40) certainly hint at the fall, but it is wrong to suppose that Ennius could have been as free from the patriotic ideas as these writers of a later period when the Capitol had already lost its symbolic meaning in consequence of Rome's moral decadence These three points makes it more probable that Ennius spoke of the successful defence of the Capitol The episode would have fitted in with the patriotic flavour of the historical epic and must have been one of the highlights of the Annals