Equal and Opposite Indexing Errors

Too bad they don’t cancel out.

1. The index of Albrecht Dihle’s Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Justinian (Routledge, 1994) includes one entry for Lucilius and one for Lukillios. Too bad they are actually three different people: five of the six page references under ‘Lucilius’ refer to the founder of Roman satire, while the sixth (page 93) refers to the addressee of Seneca’s letters, who lived (if he is not a fiction of Seneca) two centuries later. And shouldn’t the name of the Greek epigrammatist be spelled ‘Loukillios’ if it’s not Latinized as Lucillius? ‘Lukillios’ seems to fall between two stools.

2. The index of Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram, edited by Peter Bing and Jon Steffen Bruss (Leiden, 2007) includes two entries for Argentarius and three for Marcus Argentarius (under M, not A). Too bad they are the same person. There may in fact be two different writers named Marcus Argentarius, but if so one is an orator, frequently quoted by the Elder Seneca, the other a Greek epigrammatist, and all the Brill references are to the latter. The next entry after Marcus Argentarius is also disconcerting: ‘Mark Anthony’ is a spelling worthy of Catullus’ acquaintance Arrius. I was also disappointed to see that the discussion of poets of the Garland of Philip who were of “high standing and fame in their time’ (160-61) does not mention Marcus Argentarius. He most likely was an eminent orator as well as a poet: the name is rare, the dates match, and the “pointed and sardonic style” of the poet “well suits the irreverent cynic”, the orator. He also may well have been Lucan’s grandfather-in-law, as argued by R. G. M. Nisbet, whose words I quote. See “Felicitas at Surrentum (Statius, Silvae 2. 2)”, JRS 68 (1978) 1-11, reprinted in Collected Papers on Latin Literature, 29-46.

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