Appendix Vergiliana

The appendix Vergiliana (Latin "Appendix to Vergil ") is a corpus of ascribed in the tradition Virgil poems. Most of them are however not sure of Virgil, some like the Culex (see below ) seem to be the poet deliberately foisted Pseudepigrapha. The size of the corpus grew with time, so Vergil is attributed to the second epigram of Catalepton early as the 1st century by Lucan, Statius and Martial of Culex and Quintilian, Aelius Donatus mentions in his Virgil Vita additionally Priapea, Dirae and Ciris, Servius then Aetna and Copa. In the Middle Ages still more texts will be added. Today esp. the authenticity of individual poems of Catalepton is discussed, all other texts are as spurious.

The Catalepton

The long erroneously understood as Catalecton or Catalecta title is derived from Ancient Greek κατὰ λεπτόν (kata lepton ) to λεπτότης ( leptotes ): " ease " her; it means " little things". This refers to poems in the new, aspiring after Alexandrian model lightness and elegance style ( style) of the Roman Neoteriker.

The tradition provides under this title 18 short poems can be classified into three the Priapea, 14 epigrams and a collection Virgil zuschreibendes final poem ( Sphragis ). Some poems are trivial, others elegant, so epigram X, a game with Catullus' poem IV, which was in turn imitators; otherwise Catullus is observed influence. Today, the epigrams V are kept ( rejection of the rhetoric studies and turn to Epicurean philosophy Siros ) and VIII ( on the estate Siros ) For real particular often. Datings vary esp. 43-19 BC

The other poems

In addition to the Catalepton today's editions of the text corpus include the following seals:

• Aetna ( "Mount Etna "), a didactic poem about volcanoes, probably dates from the time of Emperor Nero. It is attributed by modern research partly Seneca's friend Lucilius (see his letter No. 79).
• Ciris, a short epic ( Epyllion ) in 541 hexameters on Scylla, which betrays their country and for Megara into a sea bird ( just the ciris ) is transformed. Probably built in the time of Emperor Tiberius.
• Culex ( " The Mosquito " ), partly parodic Epyllion in which a shepherd slain by a mosquito that appears in a dream and tells of the underworld. Dated probably also from the time of Tiberius.
• Copa ( " The landlady " ), poem about a Syrian economist who wants to lure you into their pub with her ​​dancing guests.
• Dirae ( " curses " ) and Lydia, two fused in the tradition poems, which date from the early imperial period. The Dirae curse the expropriated estate of the poet; for attribution to Virgil the similarity is likely to have done with his Eclogues I and IX.
• Lydia ( modern Behelfstitel ) is the elegiac lament of a separated from his beloved Lydia lover.
• Elegiae in Maecenatem, two fused in the manuscripts elegies on the death of Maecenas. Dating uncertain. The first elegy (v. 1-144 ) contains dirge, Apology and Epitaph of Maecenas.
• The second elegy (v. 145-178 ) are as speech of the dying Maecenas to Augustus.
• Moretum ( " The herb cheese " ), a poem about the beginning of the daily routine of an Italian farmers from getting up to leave for work in the fields, named after the herb cheese or curd cheese with herbs rather, he prepared himself as Vesper. Dated probably in the mid to late 1st century BC, the beginning and end of show traits of a parodic Epyllions that provides middle part represents a didactic poem
• Quid novi est hoc? ( "What is this new? " ), Another Priapeum.
• De institutione viri boni, De est et non, De rosis nascentibus, three late poems are also attributed to Ausonius.

Expenditure

• WV Clausen, FRD Goodyear, EJ Kenney, JA Richmond ( ed.): Appendix Vergiliana. 5th edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987, ISBN 0-19-814648-5. ( Valid critical edition )
• Virgil, John Gotte (ed.): country life. 5th completely revised and improved edition. Artemis, Munich / Zurich in 1987, DNB 871,151,995th ( Contains text and translation of the Catalepton with detailed commentary )