Abstract

The so-called parahypotaxis is a syntactical phenomenon, common in late Latin but attested sporadically already in classical Latin, consisting in the pleonastic use of a copulative conjunction (et or atque) at the beginning of the principal clause after a subordinate, especially temporal clause. In this paper I propose to recognize a case of parahypotaxis in a difficult passage of Lucretius’ De rerum natura (6, 577-584), differently explained by former interpreters. As an appendix, I discuss a passage of Vergil’s Aeneid (9, 47-53), where the same phenomenon can be identified.