"Cum poeticis multis uerbis magis delecter quam utar". Poetic citations and etymological enquiry in Varro’s De lingua Latina

The high number of poetic citations contained in the surviving books of Varro’s "De lingua Latina" are relevant not only as mostly unique attestations of latin arcaic poetry, but also for the special place they hold within Varro’s linguistic treatise. Varro had the intention of going beyond the “second level of etymological explanation” ("secundus gradus etymologiae"), which was limited to poetic neologisms, and to deal with poetic words not necessarily as used only by poets but rather as found in poetic texts. Varro’s interest in poetic words seems to be stimulated in particular by their antiquity, but poetic texts, owing to the authority they possess, can be used also to explain words in common usage. The complete analysis of the citations shows that the drama is best represented, but there are also many epic quotations, and Varro cites prevalently from archaic or late-archaic authors. The poet most cited in "De lingua Latina" is without any doubt Ennius (Varro can ben considered one of the major supporters of the fame of Ennius), followed by Plautus, even from non-canonical comedies - not suprisingly, given Varro’s predilection for this author. Traces are brought out from the arrangement of the examples due to the alphabetical ordering of the titles of Plautus’ comedies and it is suggested the use of scholarly material that was unrelated to the problem of authenticity of the comedies. The poetic citations are mostly concentrated in Book 7, which is dedicated specifically to studying the etymology of poetic words; however many poetic citations are also found in the other two etymological books because of the non-exclusive use of certain words by the poets their authority and antiquity. It is noteworthy that not only the frequency but also the use and purpose of poetic citations differs between Books 5–6 and 7. Varro seems to have been influenced by the methods and results of previous generations of Roman philologists, but his purpose was clearly to "go Beyond" the methods of grammatica antiqua.