The Dates of Cyril Bailey's Oxford Classical Texts of Lucretius

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The Dates of Cyril Bailey's Oxford Classical Texts of Lucretius

Author(s): Leofranc Holford-Strevens and Martin Ferguson SmithReviewed work(s):Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 50, No. 1 (2000), pp. 306-307Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1558961 .Accessed: 04/10/2012 05:29

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306 SHORTER NOTESTHE DATES OF CYRIL BAILEY'S OXFORD CLASSICAL TEXTS OFLUCRETIUS

Neither the first nor the second edition of Cyril Bailey'stext of Lucretius in the seriesScriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis carries a date of publication.Reprints of the second edition give the respectivedates as 1900 and 1922, but Baileyhimself always gives them as 1898 and 1921. The result of this disagreementhas beenconfusion. Some have accepted the dates given by the Clarendon Press; others haveadopted those given by Bailey; others again have made their own mixture: theTeubner editor Josef Martin chooses 1898 and 1922,' but Lucretius' bibliographerCosmo Gordon gives 1900 and 1921.2The purpose of this note is to set the recordstraight and prevent the muddle that has persisted throughout the twentieth centuryfrom continuing in the twenty-first and beyond.

One would normally expect an author to recall accuratelythe publication-datesofhis own books; one would certainly expect him to know the publication-date of hisfirst book, which the first edition of his Lucretius was for Bailey. In the preface tohis translation, Lucretius on the Nature of Things (Oxford, 1910), 4, he writes: 'Ihave translatedfrom my own text publishedin the Bibliotheca Oxoniensis in 1898';hegives the same publication-date for the first edition and 1921 for the second in histhree-volumeedition of De rerumnatura3and in his article on Lucretius in the OxfordClassical Dictionary (19491).4However, as we shall now demonstrate, his dating ofboth editions is wrong.

The preface to the first edition is dated 'mense Novembr. A.S. MDCCCXCVIII',which in itself would make publication in that year most unlikely; and the OxfordUniversity Press'sown records show that it did not take place.5The Press archivist,Martin Maw, reports that printing was somewhat delayed 'while terms for the serieswere discussed and Methuen refused some of Oxford's proposals', but that theSecretaryto the Delegates orderedthe book to press on 22 September 1899.6The sur-viving recordsdo not revealthe exact date of publication,but a notice in The Times for1 January1900,7 p. 8, col. 4, underthe heading 'PublicationsToday',runs as follows:

The first four volumesof the new seriesof OxfordClassicalTexts(ScriptorumClassicorumBibliothecaOxoniensis)will be issued immediately rom the ClarendonPress.They are:Thucydides,ditedby Mr. H. S.Jones,Plato,editedbyMr.J.Burnet,Lucretius,ditedbyMr.C. Bailey,andTacitus, ditedbyMr.H. Furneaux.The serieswillcomprise 6 authors n all.All four of the reviews listed by S. Lambrino, Bibliographiede l'antiquite classique1896-1914 (Paris, 1951), 367 were published either in late 1900 or in 1901,8 andappeared in issues in which most of the other reviewsare of books published in 1900.

J.Martin,T LucretiCariDererum aturaibri ex(Leipzig,19635),ix.2 C. A. Gordon,A Bibliographyf LucretiusLondon, 1962'; Winchester,19852), 67-8.3 TitiLucretiCarlDe rerum aturaibri ex(Oxford, 947), .50, ii.1782.4 These dates remain in the revision of his article by G. W. Williams (19702); in 19963 it wasreplaced with an article by P. G. and D. P. Fowler,who cite only the second edition and date it1922.5 Since 1978 the Clarendon Press has been simply an imprint of the OUP, not a separatebusiness within it.6 We thankMr Maw for this information nd his assistantJennyMcMorrisorfinding hepublication-datef the secondedition.7 In England, ill longafterthe SecondWorldWar,bothlawandcustommade1 Januarynormalworkingday.8 A. Brieger,BPhW20 (1900),cols.1576-8, n issueno. 51 of 22 December;A. E. Housman,

CR 14 (1900), 367-8, in the Octobernumber;P.Thomas,Revuede l'instructionublique n

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SHORTER NOTES 307Although herewas firmerunderstandingn 1900 han n 2000 thatthe newcenturywould not beginuntilthe followingyear,neverthelesshe matterwasdebated n thecorrespondence-columnsf The Times;either for that reason or for the relief of

Mafeking and the Khaki Election, the year might thereforehave seemed notunmemorable,specially o an authorwhose first book had appearedn it, but it isclearthatBaileyconfused heyearin whichhisLucretiuswaspublishedwith thatinwhichhehadcompletedhe work.He madethe samemistakewith the secondedition too. Its preface,whichbeginswith the words'In his tribuset vigintiannis,ex quo primum armenLucretianumedidi',is dated 'MCMXXI'.Twenty-threeearsdid indeedseparate he completionof the firsteditionand thatof thesecond,but the Press's ecords howthat thelatterwas publishednot in 1921but on 8 June1922.It is listedamong'BooksReceived'in ClassicalReview36 (1922), 143, the August-Septemberssue;the three reviewsnotedbyJulesMarouzeau,Dix anneesdebibliographielassique: ibliographieritiqueet analytiqueel'antiquiterico-latine our aperiode1914-1924 Paris,1927),didnotappearuntil1923.9Surprisinghough Bailey'smisdatingof his editionsmay seem,it was madetheeasierbythepublisher'secisionnot to printpublication-datesntheOxfordClassicalTexts.This aroused riticism t thetime:PaulThomas, eviewingBailey'sirsteditiontogetherwithHenryFurneaux'sOperaminora f Tacitus, sked pourquoiesvolumesne sont-ilsnidatesni pagines?';10.D. Duff madethe samecomplaintnhis reviewofthe secondedition,"observing hat thedateof thepreface does not fix theyearofpublication',and thereforedid not establishwhetherBaileyhad takenaccountofAlfredErnout'sBud6edition,which s dated1920.It is now clear hatBaileyhadtheopportunityo peruset atleastwhilehisownbookwas npress;however, e makesnoreference o it, eitherbecausehe hadnot seen it or because ts text,like hisown,wasconservative.Oxford LEOFRANC HOLFORD-STREVENSFoula,Shetland slands MARTIN FERGUSON SMITHBelgique 3(1900),191-2;L.Valmaggi, ollettino ifilologia lassica (1900-1),271,in issueno.12 of June 1901. Lambrinohimself gives 1899as the publication-dateof Bailey'stext;so far as weknow,he is alone ndoingso. Gordon n.2),68givesJanuary 900.

'9jD. Duff,CR 37(1923),118;A. Ernout,Revue ritique 'histoiret delitterature7(1923),63;W A. Merrill,CPh18(1928),184.Marouzeau ndErnoutgivethepublication-years 1921,presumablyrom heeditor's reface;Merrill ives1922,Duff no dateatall.'~ Rev. cit. (n. 8), 192." Rev.cit.(n.9).

A HUMOROUSRECUSATIO:ONPROPERTIUS.5Thecontrastbetween he fourthand fifthelegiesof PropertiusBookThreehasoftenbeen observed.A numberof commonelements, speciallyn theirclosures, ignalarelationshipand the fifth sets itself in oppositionto the fourth,as the openingmovement ignals.Wemight saythatthe two elegiesconstitutea sortof diptych,adiptych n whichthe laterpoemfunctionsas thelogicalandthematic omplementotheformer.ISee the excellent ommentaryf P.Fedeli Properzio.ILibroTerzo elleElegie Bari,1985]),

especially 174-5, but also the notes on lines 1 and 47-8.