Stellio non lacerta et bubo non strix: Ovid Metamorphoses 5.

446-61 and 534-50

Author(s): Michele Valerie Ronnick
Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 114, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 419-420
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/295521
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 STELLIO NON LACERTA ET BUBO NON STRIX:
OVID METAMORPHOSES 5.446-61 AND 534-50

In a recent article in this journal K. Sara Myers convincing

forth the thematic connection between these two passages. Y
painstaking effort to analyze all relevant evidence, Myers ov
a useful refinement-precise translation. At Metamorphoses 5
reader deduces for himself the etymology of stellio from th
a newly transformed boy that has been "starred with variou
(variis stellatus . . .). Although Myers tells us several times tha
has thus become a lizard, his is not the common variety. In tha
noun lacerta would have been used.' A stellio is a particular k
lizard, one with spots, known to us as a gecko.2 Helping to m
distinction is Pliny the Elder, who tells us that geckoes "have t
of lizards" (stellionibus .. . lacertarumfigura, Nat. 11.90), but o
different skins.
In regard to the meaning of bubo, Myers errs by trying to
specific. Ovid informs us at Metamorphoses 5.550 that Ascala
been transformed into a "sluggish owl" (ignavus bubo), not, a
would have it, into a "screech owl" (strix). That Ovid knows the
ence is demonstrated by his description of an ill-favored tree in
1.12.18 that "has given vile shade to noisy owls and has borne
branches the eggs of the vulture and the screech owl" (illa dedi
raucis bubonibus umbras I vulturis in ramis et strigis ova tulit
Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus, and Servius make the same distin
So should we if we want to obtain a fuller understanding of
otherwise perceptive article.
MICHELE VALERIE RONNICK
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY

'Pliny uses stellio six times, lacerta sixty-one. In sixteen instances he refers to
"green lizards," virides lacertae. On lacerta see Toynbee, Animals 220-21.
2See Scribonius Largus Compositiones 164.1; Pliny Nat. 1.17, 1.47, 8.111, 11.90,
11.91, 22.132; Serv. 5.795. For the scientific classification of the order Lacertilia, one that
includes among its many families the Geckonidae and the species Ascalabotae as well as
the Chamaeleontidae under the suborder Rhiptoglossia, see Boulenger, s.v.
3Sen. Her. 687-88, luctifer bubo . . . infaustae strigis; Med. 733, cor bubonis et
raucae strigis; Luc. 6.88, trepidus bubo quod strix nocturna; Stat. Theb. 3.511-12, strigies
et Iferalia bubo damna canens; Sil. 13.597, bubo ac sparsis strix sanguine pennis; Serv.
on Geo. 1.472, ut striges aut bubones.
American Journal of Philology 114 (1993) 419-420 ? 1993 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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420 MICHELE VALERIE RONNICK

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boulenger, George A. Catalogue of the Lizards in the British Mu

London: British Museum, 1885.
Myers, K. Sara. "The Lizard and the Owl: An Etymological Pair in Ovid,
Metamorphoses Book 5." AJP 113 (1992) 63-68.
Toynbee, J. M. C. Animals in Roman Life and Art. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1973.

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