59. ADFECTANTES CAELESTIA REGNA GIGANTAS. At Am III xii 27 Ovid, speaking of false legends created by the poets, says 'fecimus Enceladon iaculantem mille lacertis'.
In his youth, Ovid had attempted but later abandoned a poem on the battle of the Giants against Jupiter 'designed to glorify Augustus under the guise of Jupiter' (Owen Tristia II p. 77): the language he uses at Tr II 333-40 seems too explicit to be a mere instance of the love-poet's defence of his subject-matter: 'at si me iubeas domitos Iouis igne Gigantas [Heinsius: Gigantes codd] / dicere, conantem debilitabit onus. / diuitis ingenii est immania Caesaris acta / condere, materia ne superetur opus. / et tamen ausus eram; sed detrectare uidebar, / quodque nefas, damno uiribus esse tuis.[20] / ad leue rursus opus, iuuenalia carmina, ueni, / et falso moui pectus amore meum'. He refers to the same poem again at Am II i 11-18 'ausus eram, memini, caelestia dicere bella / centimanumque Gyen—et satis oris erat— / cum male se Tellus ulta est, ingestaque Olympo / ardua deuexum Pelion Ossa tulit. / in manibus nimbos et cum Ioue fulmen habebam, / quod bene pro caelo mitteret ille suo— / clausit amica fores! ego cum Ioue fulmen omisi; / excidit ingenio Iuppiter ipse meo'.
The actual descriptions of the Giants' rebellion in Ovid's surviving poems are brief (Met I 151-62 & 182-86, Fast V 35-42), but references to the rebellion are frequent (Met X 150-51, Fast I 307-8, Fast IV 593-94, Fast V 555, Tr II 71, Tr IV vii 17, EP II ii 9-12). The accounts at Met V 319-31 of the flight of some of the gods to Egypt and at Fast II 459-74 of Venus' flight to the Euphrates are no doubt derived from Ovid's earlier researches.
59. ADFECTANTES. 'Unlawfully seeking to obtain'; compare Met I 151-52 'neue foret terris securior arduus aether, / adfectasse ferunt regnum caeleste Gigantas' and Fast III 439 'ausos caelum adfectare Gigantas'. This sense is found in prose: compare Livy I 50 4 'cui enim non apparere adfectare eum imperium in Latinos?'. At Livy I 46 2 the word is used without the conative sense: 'neque ea res Tarquinio spem adfectandi regni minuit'.
59. GIGANTAS Heinsius. The manuscripts have GIGANTES, which Lenz, Wheeler, and André print. In classical Latin poetry, Greek nouns of the third declension with plural nominatives in -ες and plural accusatives in -ας retained these endings. Housman 836-39 gives many instances where metre demonstrates an accusative in -ας. In Ovid when such an ending occurs, some manuscripts commonly offer the normalized -es; at Tr II 333, as here, all manuscripts offer Gigantes, again corrected by Heinsius.
Such apparent violations of the rule as Fast I 717 'horreat Aeneadās et primus et ultimus orbis', Fast III 105-6 'quis tunc aut Hyadās aut Pliadas Atlanteas / senserat' and Virgil G I 137-38 'nauita tum stellis numeros et nomina fecit, / Pleiadās, Hyadās, claramque Lycaonis Arcton' are of course no real exceptions, the lengthening of short closed vowels at the ictus being permitted (Platnauer 59-62).
60. AD STYGA NIMBIFERI VINDICIS IGNE DATOS. 'Hurled to the underworld by the lightning-bolt of cloud-gathering Jupiter'. This was Jupiter's first use of the weapon: see Fast III 439-40 'fulmina post ausos caelum adfectare Gigantas / sumpta Ioui: primo tempore inermis erat'.
60. NIMBIFERI VINDICIS IGNE is my correction of the manuscripts' NIMBIFERO and NVBIFERO. The unmodified uindicis and modified igne of the manuscript readings might be defended by EP II ix 77 'quicquid id est [whatever Ovid has committed], habuit moderatam uindicis iram', but uindicis is there defined by the following 'qui nisi natalem nil mihi dempsit humum', and moderatam is a more suitable epithet for iram than is nimbifero for igne in the present passage., At Tr II 143-44 'uidi ego pampineis oneratam uitibus ulmum, / quae fuerat saeuo fulmine tacta Iouis', the manuscripts divide between saeuo and saeui, which has a good claim to be considered the true reading; in any case, Iouis is less in need of a defining adjective than uindicis in the present passage. Finally, the genitive here is strongly supported by Ibis 475-76 'ut Macedo rapidis icta est cum coniuge flammis, / sic precor aetherii uindicis igne cadas'.
The corruption may have been induced by a wish to introduce interlocking word order: for a similar instance see at ii 9 Baccho uina Falerna ([p 164]). But in fact substantive and epithet are constantly found linked at the caesura of the pentameter: the strong break in the metre at that point no doubt made the construction more readily acceptable there than in other positions.
I have printed nimbiferi in preference to nubiferi because Jupiter is linked with nimbi at two other passages. The first of these is Am II i 15-16 'in manibus nimbos et cum Ioue fulmen habebam, / quod bene pro caelo mitteret ille suo', and the second Met III 299-301, where Ovid describes Jupiter's preparations to descend on Semele: 'aethera conscendit uultuque sequentia traxit / nubila, quis nimbos immixtaque fulgura uentis / addidit et tonitrus et ineuitabile fulmen'.