Thursday 21 February 2019

Looking both ways

In the light of Sparsus' Janiculan pad, let's revisit that Monte Mario inscription again and see how it frames a selective vision of the content of the poem, and thereby of the view from Julius' alleged villa.  The five lines run:
HINC SEPTEM DOMINOS VIDERE MONTES
ET TOTAM LICET AESTIMARE ROMAM
ALBANOSQVE QVOQVE TVSCVULOSQVE COLLES
ET QVODCVMQVE IACET SVB VRBE FRIGOS
FIDENAS VETERES BREVESQVE RVBRAS
Which I translate,
From here, on the one side, you can see the seven imperious hills and take in all of Rome -- the Alban hills too, and the Tusculans, and every cool spot in the city's orbit; and ancient Fidenae, and little Rubrae,...
There is no "on the one side" in the Latin, just a "From here", a Hinc (line 11). But what the excerption of these five lines conceals, is a matching Illinc, "From there", seven lines later (line 18), right after the sexy-gory Anna Perenna bit that the inscribers must have felt was a bit too much for Sunday-morning strollers.

The construction is carefully balanced: each word -- hincillinc -- cues up a seven-line description of what the visitor can see that way.

From a commanding ridgeline, I think the easiest way to take hinc and illinc is as verbal gestures: Martial's text is spreading its arms and inviting us to take in both sides of a vista, left and right. I'd absolutely be open to other readings -- if you have a different point of view, please let me know -- but if I'm right, the Monte Mario snippet is only telling us half of Julius's view. What's the side it's leaving out?

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