ABSTRACT
The above text reflects the common punctuation. In the first edition of his commentary (1903) Eduard Norden presented the approach to the problem of 585–6 as it was to prevail in the hundred years to come. As to the connection between these two lines he apparently approved the truism that it would be senseless to say: "I saw Salmoneus being punished cruelly even as he imitated lightning and thunder".2 This would imply a spectator being present at the scene. To solve the problem without changing the punctuation, Norden followed F.G. Hand, Tursellinus vol. II, p. 310, and Conington, who saw imitatur as referring to dantem poenas not to vidi, by paraphrasing it as: vidi in Tartaro etiam Salmonea, qui dum Iovis flammas et Olympi sonitum imitatur, crudeles dedit poenas Iovis fulmine in Tartarum deiectus. The poenae would accordingly not to be understood as referring to the punishments in Tartarus, but to the violent intervention of Jupiter striking Salmoneus with his lightning and ending his braggart behaviour on earth.
