Bureaucratese in Vergil, Aeneid 8.721

Abstract

Although a number of questions relating to Aeneid 8.714-28 have received their share of attention in the literature, 1 a lexical anomaly in 8.721-22 appears to have been overlooked.The text in question is this: dona recognoscit populorum aptatque superbis postibus.He reviews offerings from the peoples and fastens them to splendid door posts.Aside from Ovid, who uses recognoscere three times in the sense of recollecting something once known, 2 Vergil is the only poet ever to use this verb, and he only once.Further, in its sole Vergilian occurrence in Aeneid 8.721, it is used in a sense (1.b in the OLD) that is paralleled nowhere else in Latin verse.In prose, on the other hand, both the word itself and its signification in Vergil are extremely common-so much so that a brief survey of prose attestations is in order, if only to establish how widely recognoscere carries in prose the specialized sense that, in verse, it uniquely has in Aeneid 8.721.In prose, this usage is found in the following contexts:• validating copies of official documents: Cic.Ver.2.190; Vat.5; Gaius dig.10.2.5 (formulaic descriptum et recognitum), 29.3.7 (same formula); Call.dig.48.10.15.3 (formulaic dictavi et recognovi); Ulp.dig.50.16.56pr.;Marcian.dig.48.10.1.8(dictavi et recognovi) • verifying personal seals: Apul.Met.10.9.19; Apol.89; Ulp.dig.29.3.4,43.5.3.9 • reviewing the legality of a decree: Cic.Balb.11 1 For bibliography and a recent discussion, see Miller 2000, esp.

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