.. malus poeta .. epigramma in [Sullam] fecisset –
tantum modo alternis versibus longiusculis ..
Is the following a præcise translation of the latter line?
but only with alternating somewhat longer lines
Cerutti says: “An epigram was usually a short poem composed in elegiac couplets (alternating lines of hexameter and pentameter verse [cf. alternis versibus longiusculis]).” But surely Cicero’s sense must be castigatory?
Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta Oratio 25 Sulla … quem nos in contione vidimus, cum ei libellum malus poeta de populo subiecisset, quod epigramma in eum fecisset, tantummodo alternis versibus longiusculis, statim ex eis rebus quas tunc vendebat iubere ei praemium tribui, sed ea condicione, ne quid postea scriberet.
Cerutti:
And we saw in a public assemply that this man [Sulla], when some bad poet from the crowd had presented him with a little book, merely because he had written an epigram about him in some verses of alternating length, immediately from those things which he was at that time selling, ordered a reward to be paid to him—but on this [one] condition: that he not write anything else afterward.
I would say // dico hoc:
Sulla…a man I myself saw at a public meeting, when from out of the crowd a bad poet shoved a little book at him on account of having written an epigram to him, but with every other line just a little too long, immediately after those matters he was promoting* decree he be given a reward, but on the condition that henceforth he would not write anything.
I know this could be read otherwise // Id aliter legatur, audio.
The context seems lacking for that sense, I thought, unless it was immediately obvious to think of Sulla as selling off confiscated property to foreign troops, and he did do that, so maybe that is the intended meaning.
Contextus caret, ut mihi visum est, nisi semper de Sullâ in dicendo eum res in publicum redactas stipendiariis vendere habeas, quod non mirum fuisset. Forsit peraptum anglicè “selling”.