In the course of a long discussion of rhetoric addressed to Tacitus, Pliny argues that size matters in judging orations, with an extended analogy from living creatures (Epistulae<\/em> 1.20.4-5):(<\/a>1<\/b><\/a>)<\/p>\n Et hercule ut aliae bonae res ita bonus liber melior est quisque quo maior. 5<\/sup> Vides ut statuas signa picturas, hominum denique multorumque animalium formas, arborum etiam, si modo sint decorae, nihil magis quam amplitudo commendet. Idem orationibus evenit; quin etiam voluminibus ipsis auctoritatem quandam et pulchritudinem adicit magnitudo.<\/em><\/p>\n 1 melior est β : meliorem γ | 2 multorumque β : pictorum multorum γ | 3 amplitudo β : magnitudo γ<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In his BMCR review of Zehnacker’s new Budé edition of Books I-III, G. Liberman impugns multorumque<\/em>:(<\/a>2<\/b><\/a>)<\/p>\n Multorum semble être une faute par anticipation due à <\/em>multorum plus bas (7); on attend ici <\/em>aliorum ou <\/em>ceterorum.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I am not convinced, partly because multorum<\/em> in § 7 is nine lines further down the page in Mynors’ text, which is a long way to anticipate, partly because neither aliorum<\/em> nor ceterorum<\/em> has much palaeographical resemblance to multorum<\/em>, but mostly because I think I have a better solution.<\/p>\n My conjecture seems so obvious that I almost hesitate to bring it forward \u2013 hence my title. It seems to me that the adjective we want is mutorum<\/em>. The collocation muta animalia<\/em> is almost formulaic in early Imperial Latin: I find it (in various cases, but always plural) in Manilius (2.99), Petronius (140.15), the younger Seneca (Cons.Marc.<\/em> 7.2, De Ira<\/em> 1.3.6, E.M.<\/em> 123.16), and Tacitus (H.<\/em> 4.17.5), to look no further. In these passages, the adjective is mostly used to distinguish other animals from humans: not ‘silent’ but ‘inarticulate, lacking speech’. That makes mutorum<\/em> in our passage functionally equivalent to aliorum<\/em> and ceterorum<\/em>, but arguably more vivid, and certainly closer to the ductus litterarum<\/em>. Mutus<\/em> is not a rare adjective, but multus<\/em> is commoner, so multorum<\/em> is still the lectio facilior<\/em>.<\/p>\n I take it that si modo sint decorae<\/em> refers to humans and animals as well as trees: the antecedent of the implied subject of the condition is formas<\/em>, not arborum<\/em>. It is not just ugly trees that would be uglier magnified, but ugly humans and animals as well. There was no need for Pliny to write multorum<\/em> to exclude ugly animals that would look even worse on a large scale (toads, moles, lampreys, baboons(<\/a>3<\/b><\/a>)), because si modo sint decorae<\/em> already does that. In the first sentence quoted, he had already specified that only a good book is better for being longer.(<\/a>4<\/b><\/a>)<\/p>\n (<\/a>1<\/b><\/a>) Text and variants are quoted from Mynors’ Oxford Classical Text (1963).<\/p>\n (<\/a>2<\/b><\/a>) Hubert Zehnacker (ed.), Pline le Jeune. Lettres: Livres I-III. nouvelle édition.<\/em> Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2009. Liberman’s review: BMRC<\/em> 2009.7.16 (link<\/a>).<\/p>\n (<\/a>3<\/b><\/a>) Then again, not everyone agrees that large portraits of ugly animals should not be made: there is a Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise, Alabama (link<\/a>).<\/p>\n (<\/a>4<\/b><\/a>) I owe the pun, and the hyperbaton, in my title to Andrea Harris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the course of a long discussion of rhetoric addressed to Tacitus, Pliny argues that size matters in judging orations, with an extended analogy from living creatures (Epistulae 1.20.4-5):(1) Et hercule ut aliae bonae res ita bonus liber melior est … Continue reading \n
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