Note 95 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS

sic costam longo subduximus Appennino: With the close of the verse, comp. Ov., 2, 226: Aeriaeque Alpes et nubifer Appenninus; and Haupt’s note. ‘We filched a rib from the long Apennine.’ The interpretations are all unsatisfactory. The scholiast sees in the removal of the rib from the mountain a metaphor for the removal of a syllable from the hexameter. The only point worthy of notice in this remark is the emphasis laid on the spondaic verse. The Graece nugari soliti doubtless used spondaic verses more freely than the model Latin poets (comp. Catull., 64). Some understand the words to refer to a forced march (putavi tam pauca milia subripi posse, Sen., Ep., 53, 1); others to the device attributed to Hannibal in crossing the Alps (montem rumpit aceto, Juv., 10, 153). It is all idle guess-work, without a context; but, guess for guess, the expression would suit a ‘Titanomachia,’ and the rib might answer for a weapon, as once a jaw-bone did. The jingle of the verse is like Verg., Aen., 3, 549: cornua velatarum obvertimus antennarum, quoted by the scholiast.