The Aristeides Prolegomena 9004014683, 9789004014688

Citation preview

THE ARISTEIDES PROLEGOMENA

MNEMOSYNE BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA BATAVA COLLEGERUNT

B. A. VAN GRONINGEN, W.

J.

VERDENIUS,

J.

H. WASZINK

BIBLIOTHECAE AB ACTIS FUIT FASCICULOSQUE EDENDOS CURAVIT W.

J.

VERDENIUS, HOMERUSLAAN 53, ZEIST

SUPPLEMENTUM QUINTUM F. W.

LENZ,

The Aristeides Prolegomena

LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E.

J.

BRILL 1959

THE ARISTEIDES PROLEGOMENA BY

FRIEDRICH WALTER LENZ

LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E.

J.

BRILL 1959

Copyright r959 by E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any otA means without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in the Nether/ands

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

VII

FOREWORD . . . . .

IX PART ONE

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE: The 'l'1to8foeLc; The l'1to8foeLc; of 'l'1tep -r&v -renixpeuv (H) Analysis of the l'1to8ecmc; of 'l'1tep -r&v nnixpeuv Problems of authorship of H 1 . . . . . . . . Conclusion of P: E . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further analysis of H 1 and further comparison between H1 and Ha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Consequences for the critique of the text . . . Comparisan between H 1 and Ha (continued) . CHAPTER TWO: The Manuscripts Introduction . . . . . . . Groups of manuscripts: H 1 . Result . . . . . . . . Manuscripts of H2 . . . Groups of Manuscripts .

I

4 4 7 rr

15

19 20 21

26 26 32

35

36

37

CHAPTER THREE:

I-The Prolegomena Proper Outline of the problem. Contents of P Pal. gr. 29 Vat. gr. 77 Previous result : E. . II-The Biography (B) . Manuscripts. . . . . . Consensus of the group K P a with other manuscripts Result . . . . Title. . . . . Analysis of B.

40 40

4r 42 44

44

45 49

52 52 53

VIII

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Last sentence of B . Beginning of C . C presupposes B . Parts of C . . . . III-The Treatise on the Panathenaicus (Pan.). Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV-The Treatise on 'ircep -rwv -re:nocpeuv (Te.) Beginning of Te. Analysis of Te. . . . . Purpose of Te. . . . . Text of Plato's works . Transition to urc60e:crn; . The urc60e:aLc; . . . . . Transition from T to E The aeppocy[c; . . . . . . V-The Unfinished Treatise on Diction (Ca) Conclusion . . . . . . Addendum . . . . .

63 66

68 68

72 72 79

80

82 85

87 87

88 90 99

100

106 107

PART TWO

TA llPOAErOMENA APil::TEI~Oi Text of the Treatise B(B and C) . Text of the Treatise Pan. Text of the Treatise Te. . . Text of the Treatise Ca . . Text of the Hypothesis H 1 Text of the Hypothesis H 2 • Index . . . . . . . . . . .

IIO 120 126 152 156

167 1 73

FOREWORD A via Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante trita pede Lucretius IV 1

This book which I submit to the benevolence of readers who are interested in Greek prose in general and in rhetoric in particular has a considerable history behind it. It is in a sense the sequel to another book which I published twenty-five years ago. At that time my study of the Aristeidean problem centered on the ms tradition, history and analysis of the scholia on Aristeides. Now that discussion has become the basis for an inquiry into the structure and the character of a series of ancient treatises which center around the personality and the works of Aristeides. They were composed for the actual purpose of training students of rhetoric and were to serve as a kind of textbook. The conditions in which this type of ancient literature has come down to us are very different from the conditions of other prose works. Adopting a title frequently used in the manuscripts we call those treatises Prolegomena. They have remained virtually unknown. No scholar has as yet taken pains to elucidate their actual meaning, or the problem whether they were composed by one or several authors, nor have scholars entered upon the important questions as to the order in which the ancient redactor wished to present them, or their mutual relationship. My attempt to restore the ancient scholia on Aristeides and to prepare a new critical edition of them has now reached an advanced stage. It was a natural consequence of my study of the scholia that I felt called upon to pay attention to all the questions raised by the Prolegomena and to seek answers to them. It was a far cry from preliminary facing the problem to taking the first more decided steps towards a solution. I gladly remember several long discussions of the subject with my young colleague Mr. Heinrich Honigswald of Philadelphia, which extended into late hours of the night. Although we were ultimately unsuccessful at that time in reaching a satisfactory result in view of the seemingly

X

FOREWORD

insurmountable difficulties of the analysis, I profited by these discussions considerably, because they threw light upon some details and enabled me to fix the more general decisive points from which every attempt of analysis had to start. The necessity of laying the critical foundations for the text, the tradition of which is now presented for the very first time, required an interpretation of many crucial passages on which the answer to the main question depends more than ever before. I felt often like Cicero when he searched for the tomb of Archimedes near Syracuse in Sicily and beat his path through thorns and underbrush, but I also felt that I had finally found the Ariadne's thread which might lead me out of the labyrinth. Now I invite the patient reader to follow me on the intricate and twisted path along which I had to go. I hope that the journey will not disappoint him and will give him the impression that at the end of the way a clear result awaits him. It is a pleasant duty for me to gratefully acknowledge the generous support I received from The Oberlaender Trust and The American Philosophical Society. Without it I should not have been in position to reach this milestone of my work on Aristeides at a time when the fate of the world is at stake. I feel gratefully obliged also to professor George Lincoln Hendrickson of Yale University. He accompanied the progress of my work with warm interest and gave me much helpful advice. New Haven, Connecticut January, 1944 Now I wish to express my grateful appreciation to Professor J. H. Waszink of Leiden and to Mr. F. C. Wieder, Director of E. J. Brill's Publishing House for their interest in my manuscript which had been hidden in my desk due to war- and postwar conditions. Georgetown, Texas December, 1958

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION The problem

No systematic inquiry into and analysis of the so called Aristeides Prolegomena has been attempted up to the present time. In his article on Sopater, R. E. s.v. 1004 St. Glockner refers to a paper of the late professor Bruno Keil in which that problem is said to have been solved. Since Keil's paper has never been published by its present owner Glockner, the results attained by Keil have remained virtually unknown except for one detail referred to by Glockner with which we shall have to deal later on. The main reason for not using those remains of ancient research on the sophist and orator Aelius Aristeides for the history of Greek literature and rhetoric is that scholars have not as yet taken pains to lay the foundations for the understanding of the Prolegomena by systematic and close examination of the extant manuscripts. The most recent edition was published more than mo years ago. In 1829 W. Dindorf presented at the end of the third volume of his edition of Aristeides after the scholia on the discourses a new text of the Prolegomena. This text which hardly deserves to be called a recensio is no original scholarly achievement. It is rather almost completely based upon the results reached by the previous editor of Aristeides S. Jebb (1722-1730). Both scholars made an important mistake in restricting themselves to two manuscripts which were as late as the end of the 14th century, L = Barocc. 136 and N = Oxon. Colleg. Nov. 259 1 ), the Juntina of 1517, the editor of which Euphrosinus Boninus used manuscripts of very small value 2 ), and the Aldine editions which are of no higher authority than the Juntina. This inadequate basis prevented scholars from any further critical work and more comprehensive study of these interesting documents. The first necessary step is, therefore, to set up a more solid basis of greater extent, upon which a new critical text and an analysis as well may be founded. I) Cf. B. Keil's Praefatio to the second volume of his edition of Aristeides, Berlin 1898, p. XV f.; the second volume is the only one that has ever been published. 2) Cf. Keil, I.e., p. XXXII.

2

THE ARISTEIDES PROLEGOMENA

Only by close study of the manuscripts we might also succeed in answering the two important questions as to the author or authors of the treatises on Aristeides and as to their purpose. Immediate answers to these two questions cannot be given; on the contrary the investigation is unusually difficult because no one of the older manuscripts which Keil used for his second volume preserves also the entire collection of the Prolegomena. The extent to which some of them present the Prolegomena and the order in which they present them vary so much that it is quite impossible to rely throughout the Prolegomena upon one manuscript or group of manuscripts only. Even a perfunctory comparison between the various versions in the manuscripts gives the impression that the treatises, probably because they were used by ancient professors of rhetoric for purposes of instruction, went through several stages during which they were changed, transformed, abridged and normalized for general diction and special terminology. This insight proves to be helpful in grouping the manuscripts and makes it easier to differentiate between them. That possibility of forming them into clearly distinguishable groups paves the way for deciding on their value. It goes without saying that the more the text bears witness to the process of change, the farther it must be removed from the original version. Manuscripts of this type do not reproduce the original form of the whole collection of treatises nor do they present the original words of the author or authors. Their value is chiefly negative, inasmuch as they make it sufficiently clear that certain various readings cannot be taken into account when an attempt is made to trace the treatises back to the earliest redaction that can be reached at all, and that they must, therefore, be excluded from the text. On the other hand we must refrain from overestimating that grouping of the manuscripts. However useful it may be for attaining better established conclusions, it does not free us from the necessity of examining each doubtful passage on its own merits. The second difficulty to be faced is of a more special kind. Since the extent of the Prolegomena in the manuscripts varies surprisingly, as I have said above, we must ask whether or not the whole material offered by the manuscripts is to be included among the

INTRODUCTION

3

Prolegomena. It will appear very soon that it is quite impossible to acquiesce in the form which the collection received in Dindorf's edition vol. III, pp. 737-757 under the heading "Prolegomena". The main reason for our disagreement is that some of the treatises included in the Prolegomena resemble in content and character the introduction (u1t60e6poLi; ov6µocGLV,

The final statement in H 2 concerning the discourse as composition of elements of the panegyric and the judicial &!ooi;, which seemed to be introduced with no sufficient reasons (see p. 8), must be compared with the long paragraph in H1 which follows the discussion of the dooi; (162,7 ff.). Here the writer proves that it was not Plato's primary intention in composing the Gorgias to criticize the four statesmen. The attacks which he directed against them and the slandering of rhetoric must rather be considered accidental in connection with and following the discussion of the best mode of life (1tocpoccrxeu~) which makes man better, and of its degeneration. Plato wished to prove that rhetoric is one of those factors which result in degeneration. Aristeides, however, does not agree with Plato's view: 165,11 ff. -rov Myov iµeptaev etc; ouo, e;(i; -re 1tp6aeu1tov

XIXL 1tpixyµoc. XIXL etc; µe:v 't'O 1tp6aeu1tov 7t&7tO(ljX& 't'(X Ej"XW(J,LIX, e:ti; oe: 't'O 1tpixyµoc -roui; cxywvoci;. cxywve:i; means the defense against the charges

made by Plato which the author, speaking as it were as Aristeides' mouthpiece, calls ooxouv-roc, i.e. seeming, unfounded charges. The bipartition (iµepto-ev di; Mo), is not a strict one, it must be modified, according to the author, because iyxwµtov and cxywve:i; are mixed up, ouoe-re:pov CXAA~AWV xex_wpLG't'IXL, in either part

THE YilO0El:Ell:

II

there are also elements of the other so that ex -rou 1ti..eovcx~ov-rot; di..'Yjcpev excx-repov -ro v6'Yjµoc-he says with some strange revivification of an Anaxagorean tenet adapting it to rhetoric-(166,2 f.). In Ha this whole discussion is cut down to two brief sentences (172, 6-9). The isolated remark on the twofold or mixed character of the discourse, on its being composed of elements of the 1tocv'YjyupLxov and aLxocvLxov e!8ot; proves sufficiently that the author of Ha is acquainted with the detailed parallel discussion in H1 . cpocat (172,6) does not mean, therefore, that he used any additional source. The analytic comparison between these two sections of H1 and H 2 has led to a clear result. It has appeared that H 2 is an epitome of H1 of very small value, which sometimes is so fragmentary that it cannot be understood unless the corresponding sections of H 1 are used for comparison and as supplement. This small value of H 2 is not counterbalanced by the brief additional remark on cx.v-r(pp'Yjo-L-rtx~v is introduced by e:'l-rix. The combination -re:-e:'l-rix is not very common, it appears, however, although not quite in the same manner, in early Attic literature in Andocides I 58: hocLvfoov-r&c; -re: uµac;, ~1te:L-r0t oe: xoct O"UV'Y)0-61)0-oµevouc;. -re:-e:hoc has remained untouched in all manuscripts except M, in which d-rix has been replaced by the normal xoc(, that is to say, we become aware of the tendency to adapt the words of the author to the more common usage. If that change of the original were an exceptional case, one might consider it accidental and irrelevant. This view is, however, absolutely wrong because similar cases in M are frequent throughout H1 . We can arrange these cases in the following four groups: (1) Normalization of diction (2) Simplification of word order (3) Omission of parts of sentences (4) Omission of words The groups (3) and (4) which are not substantially different from each other originate in the tendency to abridge the text. I give a few examples for each of these groups: (1) 161, II f. CX/\Aa -roi:c; XIX't'IXVOS:LV ouvocµevoLc; -rexvocc; 't'OU't'O oe:O~ACi>Xe:v: 't'OU't'O oov -roi:c; XIX't'IXVOS:LV ouvocµevoLc; oe:O~ACi>Xe:v M

163, 7 f. oµo(Ci>c; 7t Ile:pt O'"t'e:cpixvou 7t'E:7t'OLYJX.E:. x.ocx.e:i: µe:v yocp OLlYJf.L00'6EVY)c; 7t'OMIXXtc; e(XUTOV eve:x.wµL(XO'E:V: Cl1te:p .....•...• 7t'E:7t'OLYJX.E: 7t'OAAIXXLc; e(XU"t'OV eyx.wµtixo-otc;; an evident reduction which was made in order to spare the words exd µev yocp o LlYJµoo-6evYJc;. 159, 12 f. 1tpoc; 't"Y)V X.(X-njyop(otv Ato-x(vou X.(Xt (i)V X.(X-njy6pYJO'E:: 1tpoc; & X.(X-njy6pYJo-e:v Ato-xlvYJc; M in order to eliminate the seeming repetition. 161, 4 f. hop~o-otc; X.(Xt OC7t'OSe:U;(Xc; we; oMe:"t'epou (ouSeTe:pov mss.) TWV e:tawv SuvotT(XL E:LV(XL o Myoc;, OCV(XO'XE:U~V (X\.ITOV oc1te:cp~VotTO: the words x.oct oc1t0Sd~(Xc;-Myoc; are missing in M. 161, 7 f. wµoMYYJ"t'(XL yocp we; 7t'OAU "t'~c; u1to6foe:wc; Ste:v~voxe: TOC 1tpoyuµvix0'[.L(X"t'(X: wµoMyY)T(XL we; are omitted, and yocp is placed after 1toM, cf. under (4) 162, 7. 161, 8 f. "t'OC Se f.LEPYJ tjc; u1to6foe:wc; xoct OCf.l(f)LO'~~-n)O'LV emSexe:"t'(XL: X.(Xt-emSexe:TotL are missing in M. 161, 12 ev Toi:c; Ilpoyuµvixo-µ(Xo-tv: the important reference to Theon's work is omitted in M. I 62' IO f. x.oct 't"Y)V µe:v ocp LO'-n)V, ~"t'tc; 7totp(XO'X.e:uix~e:L &p LO'TOV e:!V(XL Tov ixv6pw1tov: tjv µe:v ocplo--niv M, the relative clause is missing, and the words before were changed.

THE MANUSCRIPTS

29

163, 4 f. ~ µe:v yixp /5)..w~. cp'Y)crlv, ou crun:wpe;i: vocre;i:v TIJV cxpx~v, ~ yuµvoccr-rLx~: ~ µe:v yixp ou cruyxwpe;i: vocre;i:v M. (4) 160, l f. 15-rocv µe:v yixp ocu0oclpe;-rov xocl. 1tpo'Y)youµe;vov exwµe;v 't'O\I €7tOCL\IO\I: xocl. 1tpo'Y)youµe;vov is omitted in M. 162, 1 oe: at the beginning of the quotation from Theon is missing in M. The consequence of this omission is that the link between the sentence quoted from Theon and the sentence which preceded it in Theon's work is removed, and the quotation has become self-dependent. The author, however, who included the conjunction in the quotation was almost pedantic. 162, l f. l51te;p OUXE't'L µe:v -ruyxcx.ve;L 1tpoyuµvoccrµoc: l51te;p oux €cr't'L 1tpoyuµvoccrµoc M: unless there is the common confusion between e-rt and fo-rt, it is the purpose also of this change to untie the quotation, since ouxe:-rL looks back to some argument or thought previously discussed in Theon's work. 162, 7 lxdvo oe: 1tocpoc't"YJp'YJ-re:ov, 15n IlM-rwv: 1tocpoc't"YJp'YJ-reov oe: 15-rt IlAcx.'t'W\I M.

Although this collection was taken out of larger material available in M, it is quite sufficient, or perhaps even more than that, to decide on the question to what degree M is useful for the text of H1• Most of the changes listed above are individual features of M. They are not symptomatic of a process of increasing carelessness about the text, but rather the result of a transformation according to plan, which affects the whole of H1 . Their character is quite different from the substantial changes which were made in the epitome H 2, whose author does not keep clear of destroying the logical order of the arguments and even of making them meaningless; the redactor of the text in M, however, sticks firmly to the original. He does not destroy it, he rather retouches it. There is no similar case of so consistent and deliberate a manipulation which is offered in any other manuscript, although occasional attempts in the same direction may be found here and there. If an editor of H1 should decide to reproduce the redaction M in a parallel column beside the text which is based upon the rest of the manu-

30

THE ARISTEIDES PROLEGOMENA

scripts, in order to illuminate more impressively the history of the tradition, he could scarcely be criticized. This general insight into the character and purpose of the text in M does not release the editor from the obligation to examine the variants in M. It cannot be denied on principle that some of them may appear to be correct and genuine and that the original words became lost in the other manuscripts. This alternative must, at least theoretically, be taken into serious account although, practically, in the great majority of cases an unequivocal decision cannot be easily reached. I have already (see p. 28) called attention to 158, 16 'twE