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BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 227
tractive and plausible. Other departures from Kenney's text are less
appealing. Gibson's only emendation. est for sit at 146. is unnecessary.
while I am unpersuaded that the obelus can be removed at 629. At 213
mittatur should be retained. At 575 the contrast is rhetorically more
effective if we retain at; but at 241 et. not Heinsius' ut, is wanted (d.
OLD s.v. 15a). At 377 Gibson introduces parenthesis. which does not
rescue the vapid rhetorical question: read with Burman (and Goold)
tabulaeque nouae. and note that indeed accusations of cheating do tend
to accompany the big gambling losses that lead to bankruptcy. At 439
the introduction of parenthesis is relatively innocuous. but the reference
to Priam here is still doubtful and the force of uix certainly suggests
an allusion rather to Cassandra. as in Goold's edition. Note that it
would have been a kindness to Madvig's legacy to have passed over his
Priamei. which introduces a synizesis entirely anomalous in Ovid. I am
sympathetic to his attempt to rescue 655-6, generally regarded as interpolated.
but his defence focuses on the sense of the couplet and does
nothing to dispel the doubts imposed by the lexical anomalies in the
lines. At 192 Gibson rightly hesitates over the force of the pluperfect:
perhaps we should read erit and see in the apostrophe a reference to a
subsequent stage of the myth? At 295 quaedam is still in search of an
explanation, and Goold's "more radical solution" (quaerunt) is still appealing.
Finally. at 726 Gibson prints Wakefield's mulcet for pulsat of
the paradosis. This can scarcely be right and can hardly explain the consensus
of the MSS: perhaps read palpat. which is also confused with pulsat
at Stat. Theb. 1.55.
The Introduction of 46 pages is concise and workmanlike. Gibson
deals with the content and structure of the book and locates it within the
literary and social contexts of the didactic tradition and Augustan culture.
His generalizations are well grounded in his discussions in the
notes. For example his long note on 89ff. is well coordinated with the
observations on the male reader of Ars 3 on 35-36. This extends also to
less extensive discussion in the notes. as in the briefer treatment of modus
and decor at 305-6. which ties in nicely with Gibson's introductory
comments on 34. Gibson deals efficiently with the date of composition of
the book and the transmission of the text. The latter in particular is not
the object of independent investigation in this commentary. and more
extensive treatment is not called for.
The commentary offers a great deal of useful information on the extraordinarily
wide range of topics introduced in Ovid's discourse on the
seduction of men. Several of the more discursive notes are informative
beyond the immediate purpose of construing the text. Particularly helpful
were the discussions of recitation (329-48). board games (353ff.),
writing tablets (617ff.), myth in elegy (683ff.). apostrophe (713ff.), and