Der poetische Wortschatz des Valerius Flaccus im Vergleich mit den römischen Epikern des 1. Jahrhunderts n. Chr.

In this paper the poetic vocabulary of Valerius Flaccus is investigated by means of a quantitative analysis based on the concordances to Vergil, Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus. The collected statistics confirm the statement of Manu Leumann that the language of high hexametric poetry is unified and consolidated by the 1st century CE. Furthermore, it emerges that, with regard to vocabulary, Valerius Flaccus is the most selective of all the epic poets of this period. A closer look at usages that are only rarely attested in the Argonauticacasts doubt on the hypothesis that many of these words were coined by Valerius Flaccus. Instead, many words can already be found in the works of his predecessors. Hence, the widespread theory of 'ad hoc inventions' made by Valerius and borrowed by the subsequent poets has to be rejected. It is argued that these rarities are part of the language of Latin poetry, that they were adopted by Valerius and sometimes by his contemporaries from earlier poetry that has not survived, and that Valerius' vocabulary should not be regarded as evidence of the poet's inventiveness but rather interpreted as reflecting the conventional language of Latin hexameter poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]