Texts

Commenta Bernensia in Lucanum

Latin
prose

Medieval Latin commentary on Lucan’s poem De bello civili (al. Pharsalia) as preserved in manuscripts now in Bern (MSS 370 and 45). It is closely related to the Adnotationes super Lucanum, with which it is associated in MS 370. It is a matter of some debate to what extent the Commenta and Adnotationes might have been based on late antique material.

One scholium which has attracted attention from scholars of Gaulish and comparative religion is that on 1.444-446, the passage where Lucan describes sacrifices to the gods Teutates, Esus and Taranis. The scholium engages in an interpretatio romana and describes the manner of sacrifice in terms of drowning, hanging and burning, which scholars have associated with an Indo-European motif of ‘threefold death’.

Manuscripts

Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS 370

ff. 2v–125v, 125v–128v

The commentary in this manuscript is written continuously. Parts of the Adnotationes have been incorporated (see Werner). On ff. 125v-128v, it is followed by an extract from Orosius, which Werner (1994) considers part of the commentary as it stands in for the argumentum to Book 10.

Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS 45

The commentary occurs here in the form of marginal scholia.

Montpellier, École de Médecine, MS 362

Selection of scholia only.

Language

Latin

Form

prose (primary)

Textual relationships

(Possible) sources: De bello civiliDe bello civiliEpic poem on the civic war between Julius Caesar and Pompey.

Related: Adnotationes super LucanumAdnotationes super Lucanum

Medieval Latin commentary to Lucan’s poem De bello civili (al. Pharsalia). It is closely related to another commentary, the Commenta Bernensia in Lucanum, with which it is associated in Bern MS 370. The nature of this relationship remains unclear as does the degree to which they might preserve a core of late-antique exegetical material.