David F.

Bright

Ammianus Marcellinus XXXI, 3, 8

In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 60 fasc. 1, 1982. Antiquité — 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. Antiquité
— Oudheid. pp. 143-144.

doi : 10.3406/rbph.1982.3366

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_0035-0818_1982_num_60_1_3366
 Ammianus Marcellinus XXXI, 3, 8

David F. Bright

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

modo nierum ut V def. Löfstedt, Blomgren modo mens ut E A m. nivium ut

Gron. in adn. dierum Btl. nimborum Momms. ruinae Her., qui modo r. post
convellit colloc.

Thus Seyfarth 0). One difficulty with the received text is that nierum is not
elsewhere attested in Latin. Seyfarth may create too great an impression of
support for the reading, as Blomgren (2) merely reports, with some misgivings,
Löfstedt's defence of it(3). Indeed, although Löfstedt marshalls interesting
evidence for the existence of such a by-formation (i.e. a fifth-declension mutant of
nivium), 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 be
regarded as either vulgar (as in the case of the example in CIL) or more frequently
Ammianus'
archaic or archaizing, and certainly color poeticus might well have
recommended such forms to him. But the examples adduced by Löfstedt,
principally as collected and reported by Charisius, are consistent in retaining the
entire stem, and merely adding -erum : thus menserum, nucerum, naverum,
regerum, lapiderum, loverum (!), boverum. These would all suggest that the
proper form is surely niverum, not nierum. But is any such prodigy called for ?
The juxtaposition of modo niverum and ut turbo seems redundant. More
important, turbo does not properly refer to a snowstorm, but to a wind.

(1) Ammiani Marcellini rerum gestarwn libri qui supersunt, ed. W. Seyfarth, Leipzig,
Teubner, 1978.
(2) S. Blomgren, De sermone Ammiani Marcellini quaestiones variae, Uppsala, 1937,
p. 14.
(3) E. Löfstedt, Spätlateinische Studien, Uppsala, 1907, p. 55.
144 D. F. BRIGHT

specifically a swirling force. It is occasionally used for the combined effect of wind
and water, but not of snowstorms (4). But the irresistible movement of the Huns
through the territory of the Goths is being compared here to an avalanche : snow
from the high mountains which sweeps away everything in its path. Given this
controlling image, it is unlikely that Ammianus himself would confound it by
adding "like a whirlwind". On the other hand, a rare or even unknown formation
such as niverum might well attract an explanatory gloss, and I believe that ut
turbo is just that : a gloss which emphasizes the basic notion of a destructive
natural force as contained in the rest of the sentence. The avalanche makes ut
turbo intrusive, and the presence then of an explanatory phrase argues for a rare
word at this point (thus not nivium). The glossator simply did not penetrate the
image far enough, or perhaps did not even understand the word he saw, and tried
to clarify from the general effect of apposita quaeque convellit.

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