168 75 3MB
English Pages 253 [255] Year 2022
Myths on the Margins of Homer
Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes
Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Associate Editors Stavros Frangoulidis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Kathleen Coleman · Jonas Grethlein Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds Richard Hunter · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis Giusto Picone · Alessandro Schiesaro Tim Whitmarsh · Bernhard Zimmermann
Volume 124
Myths on the Margins of Homer Prolegomena to the Mythographus Homericus Edited by Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra
For the preparation of this book, the editors have received funding from the project FFI2016-79906-P (AEI / FEDER, EU) granted by the Government of Spain, the project AGAUR 2017SGR1253 granted by the Government of Catalonia, and funds granted by the Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the research project UIDB/00019/2020 and in the scope of the individual post-doctoral scholarship SFRH/BPD/90803/2012.
ISBN 978-3-11-075115-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-075119-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-075123-9 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021950275 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com
Contents List of Tables and Figures VII Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra Introduction 1
Part I: The Historical Context of the Birth of the Mythographus Homericus Jordi Pàmias Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship 17
Part II: The Text Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus: Some Thoughts on the Scholiastic Side 31 Filippomaria Pontani Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey 57
Part III: The Mythographical Work Joan Pagès Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus: Some Examples from the Papyri 75 Nereida Villagra Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey 109
VI Contents
Part IV: The Mythographus Homericus in Context: Intertextuality, Parallels and the Study of Myth Johanna Michels The Varying Correspondence between the Mythographus Homericus Corpus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer 133 Robert Scott Smith The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus 157 Lowell Edmunds Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145) 195
Afterword Robert Fowler Afterword 217 List of Contributors 227 Index Nominum et Rerum 231 Index Locorum 237
List of Tables and Figures Tab. 1: Fig. 1: Tab. 2: Tab. 3: Tab. 4: Tab. 5: Tab. 6: Tab. 7: Tab. 8: Tab. 9: Fig. 2: Tab. 10: Tab. 11: Tab. 12: Tab. 13: Tab. 14: Tab. 15:
Panzer’s synoptic table. 20 Panzer’s stemma of the mythographical testimonia of the MH. 21 Aetia in the Hamburg Papyrus 199. 88 Authorities in the historiae of the MH on the Odyssey. 112 Melampus’ historiae in the V scholia. 119 The Apollodorus’ subscriptions. 135 Other historiae with close verbal correspondence to the Bibliotheca. 135 Historiae with few verbal correspondence that appear to be paraphrases of the same texts. 136 Historiae with parallels to the pars deperdita of the Bibliotheca. 136 Some examples of historiae with perceived correspondences due to common source use. 137 Hypotheses on the relationship between the Apollodorus’ subscriptions and the Bibliotheca. 138 Explicit references and Zitatennester in Bibl. 2.1–33 (2.1.1–2.3.2). 145 The order of the Twelve Labours. 148 Apollodorus’ subscriptions and other historiae linked to the Bibliotheca in the first two books of the D scholia on the Iliad. 152 Daphnis narratives in Servius Danielis. 183 The palace revolution. 198 The walls and the builders. 201
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-203
Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra
Introduction
Researching the Mythographus Homericus: methodological perspectives The idea of the existence of a Mythographus Homericus (henceforth MH) was first formulated in 1892.1 Johannes Panzer studied the scholia to Homer and concluded that the historiae that appear embedded in the scholia had to go back to a mythographical work.2 Some decades later, the edition of several papyri with mythological historiae threw new light on his hypothesis: such a work did indeed exist. The papyri showed that it had the format of the hypomnema,3 but the commentaries dealt with strictly mythical matters. More than a century after Panzer’s thesis and around eighty years after the first identification of a papyrus with the MH,4 we still lack a comprehensive edition and commentary on this text. Suffice it to say that since the 1980s, several scholars have alerted us to this need. So Albert Heinrichs in 1987:5 The most remarkable corpus of myths in this category, both for its importance and its inaccessibility, are the mythographic scholia to the Iliad and Odyssey, which contain several hundred “mythical narratives” (historiae). This vast collection of myths, collectively known as the Mythographus Homericus since 1892, circulated as a separate book in antiquity (at least from the first to the fifth century), but it has never been published as a single entity in modern times.
And Alan Cameron in 2004:6 A careful comparison of the mythographic Vergil scholia and MH might well repay the effort. Indeed it is one of many aspects of these scholia that would probably repay systematic
1 Panzer 1892. 2 Lünstedt 1961; van der Valk 1964; Montanari 1988, 341–344; Montanari 1995, 74–77; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 85–118; Cameron 2004, 52–69; Dickey 2007, 26; Higbie 2007; Kenens 2012, 160–164; Delattre 2016. 3 Gärtner 1999; Grenfell/Hunt 1903, 63–65; Haslam 1990, 1996; Kramer/Hagedorn 1984; Luppe 1984, 1993, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c, 1996d 1196–97, 1997a, 1997b; Merkelbach 1956; Parsons 1974, 15–19; Schubert 1995, 15–46; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1996; 1998, 278–311. 4 Pfeiffer 1937. 5 Heinrichs 1987, 243. 6 Cameron 2004, 191. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-001
Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra investigation with the aid of modern tools. But the major problem in conducting any such comparison has hitherto been the lack of anything even remotely resembling a modern edition of the Mythographus Homericus. Paradoxically (and tantalizingly) enough, they were not included in H. Erbse’s magnificent seven-volume edition published under the title Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Berlin 1969–88). In fact the last edition was also the first, that of Janus Lascaris (Rome 1517).
It is clear then that a commented edition of the MH, independent from the D scholia is a desideratum long-awaited. The current book is to be seen as the prolegomena to such an edition. It gathers the papers presented at the international workshop ‘Mythographus Homericus 125 Years after Panzer: From Scholia to Papyri and to the Digital Era’, held in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon 16–17 November 2017, plus a chapter by Lowell Edmunds, who generously joined this project afterwards, and an afterword by Robert Fowler, who unfortunately could not attend the workshop but kindly accepted our invitation to participate in this publication. The objective of the workshop was to discuss the premises and the methodological issues of the edition and commentary of the MH from different perspectives. We, as organizers, considered that it was vital to open a debate on the hybrid nature of this text, which is to be placed precisely at the crossroads between scholarship and mythography. Such a text needs to be assessed from, at least, three different philological disciplines: textual criticism on Homeric scholarship, papyrology, and mythography. Indeed, the present book, as a collective volume, intends to reflect diverse, even opposing opinions. Such diversity is, in part, a consequence of the complex nature of the text but also of the difficulty of giving an unambiguous definition of the MH: the term is used to designate the Imperial commentary or commentaries on the Homeric poems which can be postulated on the basis of the papyri, but at the same time it applies to the corpus of fragments attributable to this work, an archipelago of texts in different states of transmission and showing different levels of homogeneity. The volume is structured in four sections in an attempt to bring to the fore the diversity of approaches as well as the need of a commented edition. The first part of the book is dedicated to the historical background of Johannes Panzer and the birth of his thesis on the MH. A preliminary chapter about the origins of the research on the MH was needed in order to place the whole issue within the history of modern philology. It seemed fundamental to us to delve into the genesis of the concept of the MH, which refers certainly not to an author but to the product of a long process of ancient and medieval scholarship that can be traced through the story of its material evidence (papyri and scholia), as well as
Introduction
the hypothetical commentary or commentaries that can be postulated as the origin of this long tradition. Indeed, we consider it a healthy position to acknowledge the hermeneutic circle within which we work—what we establish as the corpus of the MH will inevitably be conditioned by the premises that we set. In his paper, “Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship”, Jordi Pàmias examines the historical and cultural context of the German scholar and assesses its impact on Panzer’s philological endeavour. He offers a description of the way in which Johannes Panzer’s theory about the MH and the Quellenforschung method continues to influence modern research, and warns about the inappropriateness of adhering to the stemmatic method of textual criticism when dealing with non-stable transmission texts. The second part deals with the MH from a strictly textual point of view, focusing on its reception in the papyri, in the D and other families of scholia. The two papers in Part 2 are contributions by scholars who are currently editing the Homeric scholia. Franco Montanari and Fausto Montana are members of a team that is editing the scholia to the Iliad (A, bT, D, and h families),7 and Filippomaria Pontani is editing the complete scholia to the Odyssey.8 In Chapter 2, Montanari and Montana show the embeddedness of the MH in the corpora of the D scholia, and warn of the potential risks of a radical divorce of its text from the scholia. They also defend the view that an edition of the MH should take into account the relationship, as yet never assessed, between the D and h scholia. In Chapter 3, Filippomaria Pontani offers a comprehensive description of Codex PSI 10, 1173, reassessing fragment 8, an extremely damaged piece of the papyrus. He suggests possible identifications of the lemma and considers the possibility that the scrap does not preserve a fragment of the MH. In the second part of his chapter, he examines the relationship between both the MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi 81 and Leontius Pilatus’ Latin translation of the Odyssean scholia and the V scholia in relation to several MH historiae. The third part of the book tackles the MH as a mythographical work and its specificity and relationship to other mythographical practices. Joan Pagès addresses the content of the historiae in Chapter 4, focusing on aetia as a privileged subject in the MH corpus, and explores the possible readership that such a collection may have been aimed at. In Chapter 5, Nereida Villagra provides a description of material attributable to the MH on the Odyssey, a part of the text not established to date. Then she focuses on a case study of a historia with double transmission in the V scholia. 7 Montanari/Montana/Muratore/Pagani 2017, 1–21. 8 Pontani 2005, 2007, 2010, 2015, 2020.
Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra The fourth part is titled “The MH in Context” and aims to present the perspectives and the needs of scholars who work on mythography and mythology. Chapter 6, by Johanna Michels, an expert on Apollodorus, offers an overview of the controversial issue of the relationship between the MH and Apollodorus’ Library. This is still an open issue, and several solutions and explanations have been proposed by scholarship, all of them partial, however, and not fully convincing. The MH and the Library have undergone a process of mutual interaction throughout their textual transmission. They appeared in the same cultural environment and share a good deal of content and stylistic features. All these issues must be taken into account in this debate in order to properly define the MH in context. Scott Smith is the author of Chapter 7. He is a specialist in Latin mythography who has been working on the so-called Mythographus Vergilianus, a hypothetical text proposed by Alan Cameron upon the model of the MH. Smith questions and refutes the idea of the MV. In doing so he indirectly highlights the uniqueness of the MH, a type of mythographical scholarship specific to the Homeric poems whose model should not be automatically transferred to the exegesis to other poets’ works. A different approach is taken in Chapter 8 by Lowell Edmunds, an expert on the study of myth, especially from a typological perspective. In his contribution, he begins with a case study of the MH to explore the place of this work in the broader panorama of the traditional tale, incorporating the debate on the relationship between Greek myth and traditional tale. As noted above, the main objective of this fourth part is to throw light on the ways in which the commented edition of the MH would be useful for scholars working in areas related to mythology. This is a huge subject and we are aware that the three chapters here do not exhaust all its potential. Finally, an afterword by Robert Fowler closes the volume. In his contribution he offers a general overview on the aspects dealt with in the different chapters and on the problems that an edition of the MH raises given the exceptionality of editing an anonymous and hypothetical author. As a support for his remarks, Fowler analyses two scholia from different classes on the myth of Idas and Marpesa. The case analyzed by Fowler demonstrates to what extent textual criticism and, more specifically, interferences between different classes of scholia must be taken into consideration.
Introduction
Editing the Mythographus Homericus: editing what? . The state of the text First and foremost, we need to bear in mind at all times that, as already stressed, the denomination ‘Mythographus Homericus’ does not designate an individual, historical author. Moreover, the MH cannot be considered an authority in itself. This kind of text, like the scholia, serves as a catalogue of authorities insofar as its unknown author or authors support their statements by quoting ancient writers. As a consequence, an edition of the MH would be an edition of fragments featuring diverse strata of the textual tradition of what had originally been a mythographical commentary on Homer. On an exclusively textual basis, the MH would be an edition of fragments of papyri and scholia, and by no means should we assume that the papyri are the direct ancestors of the text preserved in medieval scholia or that they represent an older or better state of the text.9 The papyri are proof of the existence of the MH independent of the rest of the material gathered in the D scholia. They also provide evidence for the broad circulation of the text throughout the Imperial era.10 Nonetheless, the D scholiast, namely, the scholar (or scholars) who transcribed the historiae in the corpus of the D scholia, could have had a better exemplar of the MH than the copyists of the papyri. This would partially explain why many historiae offer a longer, more complete redaction in the scholia.11 There is no need to presume (nor evidence to state) that the D scholiast systematically enhanced the text. Yet we must not exclude the possibility of intervention by scholiasts on the MH’s text either. The D scholia gather a variety of materials such as glossae, hypotheses, aporiae, lyseis, zetemata, and the like. The D scholiast(s) interfered in the text of the old version(s) of the MH as is so clearly shown by Montana and Montanari in their chapter in this volume. In other words, the Byzantine scholia do not preserve an unaltered ancient MH. To sum up, an edition of the MH will inevitably be a collection of fragments showing two different textual typologies (scholia and papyri), which in turn represent different stages of its transmission. The D scholia will constitute the basis
9 Each papyrus requires individual analysis. For instance, in his chapter in this book Pontani points out that PSI 10, 1173 represents the same textual tradition as the historiae in the V scholia. 10 The oldest papyrus dates from the first century and the latest from the fifth. 11 McNamee 2007.
Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra of the edition due to their completeness, but one should acknowledge their distance from the hypothetical original(s) and the possible changes in the textual transmission.
. Papyri and scholia: the unity of the corpus Comparison between manuscripts and papyri shows a high degree of coincidence as far as specific versions of the stories are concerned. The text transmitted by the medieval scholia is often very close to the legible fragments of papyrus. There is also consistency in the lemmata to which the historiae are linked: when preserved in both papyri and scholia, they tend to be the same. These features are evidence of an awareness of their unity among copyists from different periods, in spite of their freedom to introduce changes and additions or to omit sections every time they produced a new copy. Let us mention by way of example the Florence papyrus PSI 10, 1173, which is discussed by Pontani in Chapter 3. Despite the six centuries separating them, it offers a reading that is very close to its medieval counterparts, a clear tendency to abridgement notwithstanding. This papyrus preserves the largest number of uninterrupted sequences of historiae. As has been pointed out elsewhere,12 the order of the historiae and the lemmata to which they are associated also shows a complete correspondence with the scholia. The unity of the corpus of historiae as it is preserved in the manuscripts and papyri suggests the existence of one or several mythographical commentaries on the Homeric poems written in the early Imperial period with quite stable procedures, despite the differences. These commentaries are potentially the origin of the MH corpus. In the process of transmission, new historiae may have been added using similar procedures (i.e. commenting on elements of the Homeric poems by means of mythical narratives or aetia). The method and the exegetical pattern provide unity to the whole corpus, even though slight variations in exegetical criteria reveal several hands from the beginning and frequent changes through transmission.
12 Montanari 1995, 2002; Pontani in this volume. However, the first three historiae in the papyri are not preserved in the V scholia to the Odyssey. Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 99–100 considers this part of the papyrus to be part of the MH. Cf. Luppe 1997b, 13–18, and Pontani in this volume.
Introduction
. Historiae not attested in the papyri We still need to consider whether all the mythographical material from the D scholia derives from the MH. In order to answer this question, the papyri are a good point of departure due to their antiquity. There are forty-four historiae attested by the papyri. Five of them do not appear in the scholia. The whole set of historiae from the manuscripts amounts to about 200, so the stories in the papyri represent less than the 25 per cent of the corpus. The criteria for admitting or rejecting a scholion for the MH edition must be based on features of the MH that can be established by a comparative analysis of all the cases of double attestation in both papyri and scholia. As said above, the papyri do not necessarily represent the earlier phase from which the scholia derive.13 The scholia might be the heirs of richer, more complete versions of the historiae recognizable in the extant papyri. Moreover, some of the remains of preserved papyri could even contain summarized versions. But comparison of the two typologies reveals consistency in several features. We can list the most evident: 1. Some historiae clarify a Homeric allusion or reference by means of a mythical plot or an aition. In these cases the lemma relates to a part of a verse, a whole verse, or even more than one verse. Other historiae explain a single word from the lemma, most often personal names, place names, and the epicleses of heroes and gods. The lemma in these cases also tends to cover the whole verse. 2. The papyri and, to some extent, the manuscripts show that a whole verse was copied for the lemma, even if the explanation focuses on a single word. This is the usual practice of hypomnemata, which give the whole verse as a means to help locate the Homeric passage.14 3. The explanation of a name is often an aetiology. 4. Mythical plots are narrated in a consistent, straightforward way, in the usual abstracted style of Imperial mythography, characterized by the accumulation of participial clauses and the avoidance of longer subordinate clauses. The subjunctive is avoided, and the optative seldom used.15 5. There is no clear consistency in terms of narrative rhythm. Thus some stories are elegantly told, with plenty of details, while others give only the outlines of the plot in an awkward, extremely abridged style.
13 Contra van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 105–107. 14 Schironi 2012, 339–441. 15 Fowler 2006, 35–46.
Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra 6. A mythical plot is not always required: a few historiae give an aetiology without a narrative.16 7. Comparison of divergent versions is very rare in the scholia, and entirely absent from the papyrus fragments. As a consequence, there are no Zitatennester, namely, lists of authorities given for each variant of a specific motif, such as are found in most corpora of scholia and, to some extent, in Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca. 8. Rationalistic and other types of interpretation are absent. This set of features gives us the key for admitting or rejecting stories from the D scholia,17 though each case will need discussion. As we have already stated, the outcome of this process will be an edition of fragments showing the current state of transmission of a lost work, as are all editions of fragmentary authors. However, we must recall that the MH differed from these editions in an important way: whereas in their case there is an authority with a name that works as guide for the attribution of fragments, the MH is an anonymous work. Therefore the designation MH will assemble a group of texts which might never have existed synchronically as one book. However, this corpus belongs to a tradition of Homeric scholarship which was handed down to the D scholia. Our choice to edit a collection of about 200 historiae,18 even admitting that some of them might have been absent from the MH in the first stages of its transmission, is also one made for utilitarian reasons. Scholars will surely appreciate a complete corpus of Homeric mythography regardless of the supposed ‘genuineness’ of all the stories derived from a hypothetical (and improbable) archetype. The MH is a unique product of a specific tradition and it can be edited only in so far as there is extant material. This applies to all fragmentary authors, of whom we can only read the remaining testimonia, most of them abstracts excerpted from scholia and handbooks, featuring a text which is probably the outcome of a complex process of transmission and, having undergone multiple processes of manipulation, is far from the original words of the author quoted. Furthermore, 16 The historia on Poseidon Heliconius: D schol. Il. 20.403–404, P. Oxy. 61, 4096, P. Berol. 13282; the historia on Apollo Nomios: D schol. Il. 21.448, P. Oxy. 61, 4096; on Callicolone: D schol. Il. 20.53, P. Berol. 13930, P. Oxy. 61, 4096; the historia on Phorcys: V schol. Od. 13.96, PSI 10, 1173. See Pagès in this volume. 17 These are also criteria of inclusion or exclusion for other corpora featuring historiae such as the bT scholia edited by Erbse, or the h scholia, whose stemma and relationship to the other Homeric scholia is yet to be established. 18 The exact number is yet to be established.
Introduction
we must recall that, as has been said, with the denomination MH we do not refer to a real author but rather to an exegetical-mythographical tradition, a substantial part of Homeric scholarship, and an outstanding corpus of mythography.
. The future edition An edition of the MH based on the parameters of contemporary philology will not, as we were saying, retrieve a lost ancient text, but it offers the best approach available to the different stages of this work, and a better understanding of exegetical mythography in the Imperial era and the reception of the MH in Homeric exegesis from late antiquity to the Byzantine era. One of the main points of discussion at the Lisbon workshop was the convenience and usefulness of an edition of the MH. Despite the different opinions on this point, it is clear that a commented edition of the complete set of Homeric historiae would be a useful tool for those wishing to be able to search for specific material in a single indexed volume. Such a tool will enable an easy access to the text, avoiding the inconvenience of browsing through the different multiple-volume editions of the Homeric scholia or, at best, in the recent electronic editions of the D scholia produced by Helmut van Thiel and Nicola Ernst.19 It will provide a better understanding of the MH’s place in what we call mythography and in Homeric scholarship,20 as well as the role of mythography in Imperial scholarship.21 The relationship between the MH and the other extant mythographers and the very nature of such a book as the product of a specific cultural milieu will be better established. In sum, it will be a significant contribution to the study of the history of Homeric scholarship and the reception of ancient myth in the Imperial era. Only a dedicated edition, detached from the huge corpora of scholia, will bring to the fore the very essence of the MH and its cultural and educational dimensions. Nonetheless, an edition of the MH will inevitably be based on the editions of the scholia, since only the scholia enable a minimal restitution of the partial, damaged papyri. Also, the scholia offer a more complete collection of historiae.
19 Van Thiel 2014; Ernst 2006. 20 On imperial papyri, besides van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, see Meccariello 2019, 147–175. 21 On scholarship see Montanari 1988; 1995; Dickey 2007; McNamee 2007; Matthaios 2015, 184– 296.
Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra
. The singularity of the MH We will probably never know the origins of the MH. The form the historiae take in the papyri could suggest that the MH was the outcome of excerpting a major commentary of Homer, or, rather, that the MH was itself a commentary which gathered material from mythographical handbooks, abstracts, and epitomes of ancient authors, and even from scholia to those authors. The usual subscriptiones ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τῷ δεῖνα, ἱστορεῖ ὁ δεῖνα, and the like do not necessarily refer to the author’s text, but rather to an abstract or a scholion of the author quoted.22 In any case, the content of the corpus of historiae as a whole and the kind of exegetical approach to the text of Homer focus on only one matter: myth. In this respect the MH is unique. As an exegetical work, it differs from the multidisciplinary Aristarchean tradition,23 and from other, lesser traditions such as the scholia exegetica.24 It is also unique in that, to our knowledge, Homer is the only author for whom there is evidence of such a specific mythographical commentary. There is no papyrological evidence to date of mythographical hypomnemata to other authors. Significant pieces of mythography have survived among the scholia to other authors, such as Pindar, Euripides, and Apollonius Rhodius, but there is no evidence as yet of mythographical companions independent from the main scholiastic corpus and dedicated to these writers. The so-called Mythographus Vergilianus is only hypothetical. It has received some attention by scholars despite the lack of evidence. However Cameron’s hypothesis is convincingly refuted by Smith in his chapter in this volume. The MH had been considered to be a mythographical handbook since Panzer. This view has conditioned subsequent research. It is worth noting that Erbse omitted the historiae from his edition of the Homeric scholia. This is indicative of the perception of the historiae as something detached from Homeric exegesis. Fortunately our view has emended this misunderstanding. The MH cannot be understood if we forget that we are dealing with Homeric scholarship.25 Panzer focused on genre classification and Quellenforschung.26 We, instead, consider the MH the outcome of mixing two different genres, as mythography and exegesis cannot be treated independently from each other. The MH must be understood as a product of the Imperial era. It responds to a cultural demand, which facilitates
22 Delattre 2016, 89–110. 23 Schironi 2012, 399–441; 2018. 24 Erbse 1969, xlviii–lvi. 25 Pagès 2021. 26 Pàmias in this volume.
Introduction
the dissemination of written copies, well attested by the papyri. It could serve both teachers and pupils, and it enabled a reading of the MH poems with an extensive background of mythical knowledge for eventual use in rhetoric, and perhaps also for other purposes. The social and cultural context that enabled the composition and circulation of such a work is precisely what one might expect from the era of the Second Sophistic: the recovery of the past as a scholarly habit, the interest on ancient literature and myth, the commentary on Homer, and the learned quotation of ancient authors.
Bibliography Cameron, Alan (2004), Greek Mythography in the Roman World, Oxford. Delattre, Charles (2016), “Référence et corpus dans les pratiques de commentaire. Les emplois de historia”, Revue de Philologie, de Littérature et d’Histoire Anciennes 90, fascicule 2, 89–110. Dickey, Eleanor (2007), Ancient Greek Scholarship, Oxford. Erbse, Hartmut (1969), Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem. Volumen I Praefationem et Scholia ad libros A–Δ continens, Berlin/Boston. Ernst, Nicola (2006), Die D-Scholien zur Odyssee. Kritische Ausgabe, Diss. Universität zu Köln. Fowler, Robert L. (2006), “How to Tell a Myth: Genealogy, Mythology, Mythography”, Kernos 19, 35–46. Gärtner, Thomas (1999). “Zum Geschick der Pleiade Elektra im sogenannten Mythographus Homericus (P.Oxy. 4096) und bei Quintus von Smyrna”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 124, 22–24. Grenfell, Bernard P./Hunt, Arthur S. (eds.) (1903), “418. Scholia on Homer”, The Oxyrhynchus papyri 3, London, 63–65. Haslam, Michael (1990), “A new papyrus of the Mythographus Homericus”, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 27, 31–36. Haslam, Michael (1996), “On P. Oxy. LXI 4096, Mythographus Homericus”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 110, 115–117. Heinrichs, Albert (1987), “Three approaches to Greek Mythography”, in: Jan Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology, London, 242–277. Higbie, Carolyn (2007), “Hellenistic Mythographers”, in: Roger D. Woodard, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, Buffalo, 237–254. Kenens, Ulrike (2012), “Greek Mythography at Work. The Story of Perseus from Pherecydes to Tzetzes”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 52, 147–166. Kramer, Bärbel/Hagedorn, Dieter (1984), “Mythographus Homericus: Scholien zu Ilias A 38– 39”, Griechische Papyri der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg 3, Bonn, 25–34. Lünstedt, Peter (1961), Untersuchungen zu den mythologischen Abschnitten der D-Scholien, Diss. Hamburg. Luppe, Wolfgang (1984), “Zum Tennes-Mythos im Mythographus Homericus, P. Hamb. 119”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 56, 31–32.
Joan Pagès and Nereida Villagra Luppe, Wolfgang (1993), “Helenos’ und Kassandras ‘Berufung’”, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 39, 9–11. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996–1997), “Ein Zeugnis für die Niobe-Sage in P. Oxy. 4096”, Würzburger Jahrbücher fur die Altertumswissenschaft 21, 153–159. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996a), “Die Ikarios-Sage im Mythographus Homericus”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 112, 29–33. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996b), “Neileus’ ἀποικία nach Milet: Mythographus Homericus P. Oxy. 4096 fr. 3”, Eikasmos 7, 207–210. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996c), “Ein neues Fragment des Mythographus Homericus zu Ψ 91–92”, Prometheus 22.2, 97–100. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996d), “Mythographus Homericus P. Oxy. 4096 fr. 10”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 112, 25–28. Luppe, Wolfgang (1997a), “Die Psamathe- und die Plejaden-Sage im Mythographus Homericus P. Oxy. LXI 4096 fr. 1 und fr. 2 Kol. II”, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 43.1, 1–6. Luppe, Wolfgang (1997b), “Nachlese und Überlegungen zum Mythographus-Homericus-Codex P.S.I. 1173”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 116, 13–18. Matthaios, Stephanos (2015), “Greek Scholarship in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity”, in: Franco Montanari/Stephanos Matthaios/Antonios Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, Leiden, 184–296. McNamee, Kathleen (2007), Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt, American Studies in Papyrology 45, Atlanta. Meccariello, Chiara (2019), “Impulso mitografico e mitografia nelle pratiche educative greche antiche”, Polymnia 4, 147–175. Merkelbach, Reinhold (1956), “Literarische Texte unter Ausschluβ der christlichen: P. Schubart 21”, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 16, 117–119. Montanari, Franco (1988), “Filologia omerica antica nei papiri”, in: Vasileios G. Mandelaras (ed.), Proceedings of the XVIII Congress of Papyrology, Athens 1986 vol. II, Athens, 337– 344. Montanari, Franco (1995), “The Mythographus Homericus”, in: Jelle G.J. Abbenes/Simon R. Slings/Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle: A Collection of Papers in Honour of D. M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Montanari, Franco (2002), “Ancora sul Mythographus Homericus (e l’Odissea)”, in: André Hurst/ Françoise Létoublon (eds.), La mythologie et l’Odyssée. Hommage à Gabriel Germain, Genève, 129–144. Montanari, Franco/Montana, Fausto/Muratore, Davide/Pagani, Lara (2017), “Towards a New Critical Edition of the Scholia to the Iliad: A Specimen”, Trends in Classics 9.1, 1–21. Pagès, Joan (2021), “La mitografía como exégesis homérica: estudio de algunos ejemplos del Mythographus Homericus y los escolios menores a Homero”, Emerita 89/1, 1–26. Panzer, Johannes (1892), De Mythographo Homerico Restituendo, Diss. Greifswald. Parsons, Peter J. (ed.) (1974), “3003. Homeric Narratives”, The Oxyrhynchus papyri 42, London, 15–19. Pfeiffer, Rudolf (1937), “Hesiodisches und Homerisches: zu neuen und alten Papyri”, Philologus 92, 1–18. Pontani, Filippomaria (2005), Sguardi su Ulisse. La tradizione esegetica greca all’Odissea, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.) (2007), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam I, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.) (2010), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam II, Roma.
Introduction
Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.) (2015), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam III, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.) (2020), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam IV, Roma. Schironi, Francesca (2012), “Greek commentaries”, Dead Sea Discoveries 19.3, 399–441. Schironi, Francesca (2018), The best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad, Ann Arbor. Schubert, Paul (1995), “4096. Mythographus Homericus”, The Oxyrhynchus papyri 61, London, 15–46. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1964), Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad, vol. 2, Leiden. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1996), “More on P. Oxy. LXI 4096, Mythographus Homericus”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 113, 24–26. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1998), Greek Reader’s Digests? Studies on a Selection of Subliterary Papyri, Leiden/New York/Köln. Van Thiel, Helmut (ed.) (2014), Scholia D in Iliadem. Proecdosis aucta et correctior secundum codices manuscriptos, Köln.
Part I: The Historical Context of the Birth of the Mythographus Homericus
Jordi Pàmias
Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship Abstract: This paper provides the historical and scientific context of the period in which Panzer’s thesis on the MH came into light. The philological perspective was the dominant approach in German Scholarship of the late nineteenth century. This had consequences in the way the study of myth was tackled. But more to the point here, the author aims at showing how Panzer’s insights continue to loom large in modern approaches to the MH.
The birth of the Mythographus Homericus In 1892 Johannes Panzer produced his dissertation thesis De Mythographo Homerico restituendo, in which he tentatively restored a lost scholarly work dealing with Homeric myths, the so-called Mythographus Homericus.1 The purpose of this paper is to describe the intellectual and cultural background of this piece of scholarship. In addition, it is my aim to show how Panzer’s insights linger in modern approaches to this mythographical text. Panzer’s theoretical reconstruction of a lost work does not emerge in a historical vacuum. On the contrary, this product originates on fertile ground, which is the result of a generation of scholars working on myth on a strictly philological basis in late nineteenth-century German universities. In order to better understand the transformation of German classical scholarship in this period, it can be helpful to address the monumental Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker (1810–1812) by Friedrich Creuzer, and particularly the reception of this work, which triggered a “Kampf um Creuzers Symbolik”.2 Indeed, its significance reaches beyond studies of Greek mythology and religion. The controversy between the Creuzerian reception of myth (a ‘romantic’ one) and historicist and philological criticism becomes clear from the epistolary exchange, originally published in 1818, between Friedrich Creuzer and Gottfried Hermann.3 To Creuzer, who rejects the study of myths as ‘concepts’ or ‘ideas’, their understanding
1 Panzer 1892. 2 This expression comes from the title of Howald’s 1926 book. 3 Edition and Italian translation by Sotera Fornaro (cf. Creuzer/Hermann [1818] 2009). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-002
Jordi Pàmias is only feasible through vision (Anschauung) and feeling (Sinn). In opposition to his correspondent, Hermann stays firmly within the realm of history. By disapproving of any sort of symbolic or mystic interpretation of archaic epics and, by extension, Greek myth, Hermann conceives mythology as the scientific study of ideas and concepts belonging to a people. The quarrel between Creuzer and Hermann is significant, since it occurs at a crucial moment in the history of the reception of myth. Mythology is ultimately the battleground on which theologicalromantic speculation and historical-critical science confront each other.4 The future of the study of Greek myth belongs to the latter. The establishment and institutionalization of Classical Philology in the new German universities defined the identity of the Prussian elite and secured the model of Greek culture in the emerging German identity.5 In this atmosphere, the historical-critical method and the longing for scientific respectability pervaded the studies of myth. Creuzer’s defeat and the “victory of rationalism over Romanticism”6 mean that the study of mythology, which must prove its scientific integrity, will become a strictly historical enterprise.7 But this will have another consequence, and one that is far more instrumental in our understanding of the discovery of the Mythographus Homericus at the end of the century—namely how the discipline of Classical Philology as such would be oriented toward more positivistic domains, such as source criticism, textual history, and linguistics.8 Accordingly, it is in this context that the philological reconstruction of Panzer’s Mythographus Homericus has to be defined and described.
Johannes Panzer in context Contemporary to Panzer, other German scholars were working along similar lines. Five years prior to Panzer’s study, Erich Bethe published in Göttingen his own dissertation on Quaestiones Diodoreae Mythographae.9 As a result of his scrutiny of sources and comparison of mythographical models, Bethe claimed that Apollodorus (Library), Hyginus (Fabulae), and Diodorus Siculus (fourth 4 Pàmias 2014, 66–67. 5 On German-Greek Wahlverwandtschaften in the longue durée, see Marchand 1996 and Andurand 2013. On varying levels of Griechenlandbegeisterung, see Eideneier 2010. 6 Howald 1926, 22. 7 Most 1997, 352. 8 Burkert 1980, 163. 9 Bethe 1887.
Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship
book) made use of a common mythological source. The German scholar supposed that this handbook was also a mythographical model for Ovid in writing his Metamorphoses. In the same years, a painstaking research on the mythographical Catasterisms and on the purported Hellenistic origins of this text was being conducted.10 Thus, in 1878, Carl Robert synoptically reconstructed a unitary astralmythological manual attributed to the all too famous Alexandrian scholar Eratosthenes; but in 1883, Ernst Maass staunchly rejected the Eratosthenic authorship of the opuscule. Indeed, both scholars became critically involved in the so-called ‘Eratosthenic Question’, which would remain open until the beginning of the twentieth century.11 The young Johannes Panzer was disciple of both Robert and Maass precisely in the hottest moments of the debate.12 As for the MH, it comes as no wonder that critical scrutiny of sources is, in the same way, the cornerstone of Panzer’s reconstruction of this lost mythographical collection. German philology at that time was dominated by a prevailing and prestigious scientific method, the so-called Quellenforschung or ‘textual source research’. This method is a particular technique which aims at two goals, as Glenn Most has convincingly explained.13 On the one hand, it tries to break apart the ancient texts that their authors had composed from the various sources they consulted. Such an analysis may be termed “deconstructive”; on the other hand, Quellenforschung aims at reconstructing a lost text on the basis of comparison of two or more surviving textual pieces. This is the “reconstructive” method. As it happens, this technique must be considered within the cultural and scientific atmosphere in which it grew up and developed, namely an all-embracing longing for the historisation of science: like linguistics, geology, or evolutionary biology, Quellenforschung, too, attempts to bring order into an incoherent and disparate amount of data by drawing a genealogical narrative about the evolution of all of it. In other words, like other scientific disciplines, Quellenforschung seeks to translate questions of identity into questions of origin.14
10 The abundant literature on Eratosthenes’ Catasterisms written during the period 1878 through 1907 is listed in the appendix of Pàmias 2016. 11 See Pàmias 2016. 12 “Inde auctumno a. LXXXVIII [scil. 1888] in academiam Berolinensem transmigravi ... Exercitationibus interfui archeologicis Roberto [...] moderantibus [...] Proseminario philologico ut interessem per tria semenstria per Kiesslingii et Maassii, teodisco per Reifferscheidii facta est in me benevolentia” (Panzer 1892, 71). 13 Most 2016, 934–936. 14 Most 2016, 945–946.
Jordi Pàmias Indeed, nineteenth-century classicists found in Quellenforschung an evident similarity to the genealogical method of the study of the relationship of dependence and affiliation among manuscripts—what would be later called ‘stemmatic method’. In keeping with this principle, Panzer examined thoroughly and critically the mythographical scholia of Homer. He concluded that they derived from two recensiones, called β and γ.15 The β branch includes scholia from the Townleianus (T) and the Venetus B 453 (B); the γ branch includes what we would roughly call the D scholia. The mythographical scholia preserved by the β branch derive from an archetype, called n; and the scholia preserved by the γ branch stem from an archetype that is labelled α. Comparison of the historiae in n and α shows differences both in wording and content. But a close critical scrutiny also suggests that a process of interference between the two may have taken place. Some scholia may have passed from one corpus to the other, which opens the possibility of contamination, another catchword in the field of textual criticism. Be that as it may, Panzer was strongly persuaded that a number of mythographical stories stemmed from a single, self-contained scholarly work by a single author: “Nec minus inde certum mihi est priusquam reliquis scholiis ἱστορίαι adicerentur, uno eas opere comprehensas fuisse”.16 Panzer, however, did not stop at the level of the archetype. He did not fail to notice parallelisms between the mythographical historiae and other late antique mythographical texts, such as Apollodorus, Hyginus, and Servius.17 Unsurprisingly, Panzer produces synoptic tables, to which late nineteenth-century scholars felt so attracted, to show resemblances between the columns, which suggest some sort of genealogical relationship among all of them:18 Tab. 1: Panzer’s synoptic table. Apollod. . (..)
D-schol. Il. .
Hyg. Fab.
Seru. Aen. .
ταύτην ἱερωσύνην τῆς Ἥρας ἔχουσαν Ζεὺς ἔφθειρε. φωραθεὶς δὲ ὑφ’ Ἥρας τῆς μὲν κόρης ἁψάμενος εἰς
Ἰοῦς τῆς Ἰνάχου θυγατρός, τοῦ Ἀργείων βασιλέως, Ζεὺς ἐρασθεὶς καὶ γνοὺς αὐτὴν
ex Inacho et Argia Io. Hanc Iupiter dilectam compressit et in vaccae figuram
haec (Io) Inachi filia Argivorum fluminis fuit. hanc amavit Iuppiter. et dum cum ea esset, Iuno supervenit. timens ille ne
15 See Panzer 1892, 42–46. 16 Panzer 1892, 61. 17 Admittedly, Panzer was following in the steps of earlier and contemporary scholars, who conducted textual research on mythographical collections along the same comparative lines. See (besides Bethe 1887, mentioned above) Maass 1884, 536, n. 2. 18 Panzer 1892, 56.
Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship
D-schol. Il. .
Apollod. . (..)
Hyg. Fab.
βοῦν μετεμόρφωσε μετέβαλεν εἰς λευκήν, ἀρχὴν δὲ βοῦν διὰ τὸν ἀπωμόσατο μὴ συνελ- Ἥρας ζῆλον. θεῖν.
Seru. Aen. .
convertit, ne Iuno eam deprehenderetur, Ionem cognosceret. mutavit in vaccam et eam poscenti dedit Iunoni, ne paelicem confiteretur.
Textual and phrasal parallelisms, as was fashionable, needed to be translated into a genealogical narrative. Accordingly, a common origin was presumed and a lost progenitor, an Urquelle, for all of them had to be posited. The feasible way to reproduce this relationship of dependence and affiliation had become a particular diagram—the stemma. Here is Panzer’s stemma of the relative connections between the mythographical testimonia considered above:19 K Bibliotheca
ρ
Servius
Hyginus
ἱστορία (D-schol.)
Fig. 1: Panzer’s stemma of the mythographical testimonia of the MH.
In other words, critical comparison and scrutiny of textual parallelisms in mythographical texts, as in the case of the sources of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which were compared with Diodorus, Hyginus, and Apollodorus (see above), led to the inescapable conclusion that an original “mythographical handbook” had existed and that it accounted for resemblances in its descendants. However, other theoretical possibilities, such as a polygenic evolution, were entirely precluded. Indeed, the historiae or mythical stories of the MH provide a number of syntactical and stylistic standard characteristics that are common to other specimens of Greek mythography.20 A narrative analysis of mythographical texts, like the one conducted by Robert Fowler, yields relevant evidence concerning the formal similarities of the factual style of mythographical prose ever since the fifth century 19 Panzer 1892, 57. 20 Cf. Pagès 2007, 83–84. See van Rossum-Steenbeek (1998, 88–92) on syntactic and lexical features of the historiae.
Jordi Pàmias BCE (with Acusilaus and Pherecydes). Indeed, according to this scholar, “consistency of style is one of the arguments for continuity between the “mythography” of the Classical period and the μυθογραφία of later centuries”.21 Consumption of myths in book form results in traditional stories being recast into conventional structures of a quasi-formulaic and standard technique. This is the reason why a fictional mythographical story can eventually be composed on an artificial basis—as Ezio Pellizer has shown.22 The factual style of mythographical prose isolates it from everything else that went with mythology in Greek society. Thus, the major peripateiai and vicissitudes of a particular myth would necessarily show resemblances in various mythographical compositions—without the need of postulating a common origin of all of them.
The ‘Mythographus Homericus’ in the twentieth century Panzer’s insights, and the very appellation ‘Mythographus Homericus’, were not resumed until 1937, in an article by Rudolf Pfeiffer. Upon examination of the London papyrus 142, Pfeiffer concluded that the fragment belonged to a mythographical commentary on Homer, and he took up again the name of Mythographus Homericus. More remarkably, he partially reconstructed the papyrus fragment on the basis of the D scholium to Iliad 9.448. As a matter of fact, papyri discoveries during the twentieth century turned out to confirm Panzer’s hypothesis concerning the existence of a handbook of Homeric myths. On the one hand, the new papyri established the existence of a textual tradition of historiae prior to the Byzantine scholia; on the other hand, they suggested that the mythographical stories were transmitted in a row as a self-contained work in antiquity—that is to say, an independent text originally separated from any exegetical or ancillary piece of scholarship. However, the emergence of papyri poses another kind of problem in terms of the overall arrangement of the Mythographus Homericus. Namely, how to manage the disparate and heterogeneous nature of the textual evidence that goes into the reconstruction of the mythographical collection. That is to say, the scholia excerpted from the Byzantine manuscripts, on the one hand, and the fragmentary scraps of papyrus, on the other hand, though they may disagree and conflict with 21 Fowler 2006, 36. 22 Pellizer 2011.
Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship
each other, need to be correlated and coordinated into a single textual artefact. And it is precisely at this point, once again, that genealogical narrative has come to assistance. Upon comparison, the papyrus fragment, being an older text, has been uncritically assumed to be closer to the original Mythographus Homericus. In other words, modern scholars often take for granted the existence of an Urtext, from which the various renditions are diachronic alterations and mutations of the original: Apart from minor variations in word order and diction, the text of the scholia is sometimes completely different from that of the papyri. The scholia are usually more extensive, and they have many explanatory additions [...] In short, the stories attached to the Il[iad] on papyrus and the stories in the scholia represent different stages of the transmission of the text. [...] Unless proof to the contrary appears, I am inclined to regard the text of the papyri as the most unadulterated representative of what we call the MH collection.23
In order to establish a genealogical arrangement of the textual witnesses, any item of information should be dependent upon only a single source. Indeed, both Lachmann’s stemmatic method and Quellenforschung are possible only if one can exclude what classical scholars call ‘contamination’. Accordingly, the Mythographus Homericus is conceived by van Rossum-Steenbeek, among others, as a single text with a single author that was produced at a particular moment, which she places at the end of the first century BCE.24 Earlier scholars, like van der Valk, have assumed this notion from the outset: Anticipating our views on this point, we observe that, in our opinion, the greater part of the histories goes back on one and the same author.25
Nevertheless, alternatively to the unilinear textual transmission, other possibilities can also be envisaged. In my opinion, there is no need to take it for granted that the textual evidence we possess represents a single line of transmission go-
23 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 103–104. Cf. van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 86: “The [...] description of the [...] historiae will be based on the papyri as they seem to present a more original picture than the scholia”; and Montanari 1995, 148: “... showing beyond a shadow of doubt that the papyri preserve what must be regarded as the ancient precursor of the historiae of the Homeric D-scholia”. 24 Cf. Montanari 1995, 165: “Just after the Augustan age”. Or somewhat later, according to van der Valk (1963, 314): “We must reckon with the possibility that MH is not to be dated earlier than the second century A.D.” 25 Van der Valk 1963, 305; Montanari 2002, 129: “... materiale che si intende risalire a un unico testo”.
Jordi Pàmias ing back to one and the same collection of historiae. It is my suspicion that Hellenistic-Roman scholarship may have produced more than one collection of mythographical stories related to Homer. Indeed, the main Greek mythographical texts date from this period (c. 250 BCE to 150 CE). And one major approach was to collect relevant myths as a background material for the explanation of authors such as Homer, Pindar, the tragedians, and Hellenistic poets like Apollonius, Aratus, Lycophron, and Theocritus. Medieval scholia provide an excellent account of these mythographical commentaries.26 Moreover, the textual history of commentaries like the one we are dealing with—and the same goes for handbooks and grammatical or technical treatises— has been defined as a non-protected and non-stable transmission. When being copied, such works are not slavishly preserved in their integrity—in contrast to distinguished artistic works. Rather, they can be modified in order to update their contents or to better adjust them into a reference book for consultation.27 As a result, a fluent, multiform, and ever-changing textual transmission can be posited both from the time of the original versions of the Mythographus Homericus as well as in their successive developments. Crisscrossing and contamination may have played a significant role in such scholarly projects. And this pattern of intersections may account for the characteristics of our collection of stories—similarities as well as differences among the sources of evidence at our disposal. Consequently, in my opinion, any approach to the understanding of the Mythographus Homericus should go beyond the illusory quest for a chimerical Urquelle. In addition, nineteenth-century scholarship and Panzer’s construction loom large also in the individual mythographical stories when taken as such. The fact that the Mythographus Homericus was conceived at a moment when the papyrus fragments were still unknown has had lasting effects. The reconstructed form of the stories is often based upon the scholiographic evidence and the historiae contained within them. Monique van Rossum-Steenbeek warned, and rightly so, against using the scholia as a straightforward evidence of the original Mythographus Homericus: We should be extremely careful in using the scholia as evidence for inferences about the characteristics of the original MH collection.28
26 Henrichs 1987, 243. 27 Bernabé [1992] 2010, 26. 28 Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 108.
Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship
Indeed, a circular logic may be operative at this point and it may prevent scholars from further identifying Mythographus Homericus texts under other formal aspects.29 As Franco Montanari put it, There exists a multitude of papyri containing remains of mythographical narrations, among which it is quite likely that some fragment of the MH may be hidden. If fate has resulted in loss of the Homeric lemma and of the subscription in the fragment and if the preserved historia turns out to be noticeably different from that present in the D-scholia or indeed if it is not present at all in the D-scholia, then identification of the papyrus text will be extremely difficult and always open to doubt.30
Conclusions To conclude, before addressing the Mythographus Homericus, it may be safe to come back to the theoretical foundations underlying Panzer’s construction more than one century ago. His insights, it is my conviction, need to be understood in their cultural and scientific background, that is to say they need to be historicised. In a moment where diachronic studies on sources, and source criticism, do not hold sway over classical studies, our perspective can hardly be the same. In my opinion, a critical edition of the Mythographus Homericus should focus on these theoretical issues before attempting a discussion of its overall arrangement and layout. Indeed, a text of non-stable and non-protected textual transmission like this one raises a particular problem in terms of the editorial mise en page. Needless to say, I am not able to advance a straightforward solution. I give the floor to the experts.
29 A comparable operation has been undertaken by scholars addressing Diodorus’ Quellenforschung: when P.Oxy. 3, 1610 was discovered, it was identified as a fragment of the source of Diodorus 11.60.6–11.61.1. Since the source of Diodorus 11 was believed to be Ephorus of Cyme, P.Oxy. 3, 1610 was labeled as a fragment of Ephorus. And secondarily was then used to prove that Diodorus had used Ephorus extensively (Muntz 2017, 16). 30 Montanari 1995, 137; cf. Montanari 2002, 130, n. 3.
Jordi Pàmias
Bibliography Andurand, Anthony (2013), Le Mythe grec allemand. Histoire d’une affinité élective, Rennes. Bernabé, Alberto [1992] (2010), Manual de crítica textual y edición de textos griegos. Segunda edición corregida y aumentada, Madrid. Bethe, Erich (1887), Quaestiones Diodoreae Mythographae, Diss. Göttingen. Burkert, Walter (1980), “Griechische Mythologie und die Geistesgeschichte der Moderne”, in: Les études classiques aux XIXe et XXe siècles: Leur place dans l’histoire des idées. Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique 26, Genève, 159–199. Creuzer, Friedrich/Hermann, Gottfried [1818] (2009), Lettere sulla mitologia. A cura di Sotera Fornaro, Pisa. Eideneier, Hans (2010), “Griechenlandbegeisterung in Deutschland und Europa”, in: Wolfgang Schultheiß/Evangelos Chrysos (eds.), Meilensteine deutsch-griechischer Beziehungen, Beiträge eines deutsch-griechischen Symposiums am 16. und 17. April 2010 in Athen, Athens, 19–30. Fowler, Robert L. (2006), “How to Tell a Myth: Genealogy, Mythology, Mythography”, Kernos 19, 35–46. Henrichs, Albert (1987), “Three Approaches to Greek Mythography”, in: Jan Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology, London, 242–277. Howald, Ernst (ed.) (1926), Der Kampf um Creuzers Symbolik. Eine Auswahl von Dokumenten, Tübingen. Maass, Ernst (1884), “Die Iliasscholien des Codex Leidensis”, Hermes 19, 534–568. Marchand, Suzanne (1996), Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970, Princeton. Montanari, Franco (1995), “The Mythographus Homericus”, in: Jelle G.J. Abbenes/Simon R. Slings/Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle. A Collection of Papers in Honour of D.M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Montanari, Franco (2002), “Ancora sul Mythographus Homericus (e l’Odissea)”, in: André Hurst/Françoise Létoublon (eds.), La mythologie et l’Odyssée. Hommage à Gabriel Germain, Génève, 129–144. Most, Glenn W. (1997), “One Hundred Years of Fractiousness: Disciplining Polemics in Nineteenth-Century German Classical Scholarship”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 127, 349–361. Most, Glenn W. (2016), “The Rise and Fall of Quellenforschung”, in: Ann Blair/Anja-Silvia Goeing (eds.), For the Sake of Learning. Essays in Honor of Anthony Grafton. Vol. 2, Leiden/ Boston, 933–954. Muntz, Charles E. (2017), Diodorus Siculus and the World of the Late Roman Republic, Oxford. Pagès, Joan (2007), Mythographus Homericus: Estudi i edició comentada, Diss. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Pàmias, Jordi (2014), “The Reception of Greek Myth”, in: Lowell Edmunds (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth. Second Edition, Baltimore, 44–83. Pàmias, Jordi (2016), “Eratosthenes’ Catasterisms and fin de siècle German Scholarship (1878–1907)”, in: J. Pàmias (ed.), Eratosthenes’ Catasterisms: Receptions and Translations, Mering, 3–14. Panzer, Johannes (1892), De Mythographo Homerico restituendo, Diss. Greifswald. Pellizer, Ezio (2011), “L’initiation ratée. Retour au Chasseur noir”, Gaia 14, 157–169.
Panzer, the Mythographus Homericus, and fin de siècle German Scholarship
Pfeiffer, Rudolf (1937), “Hesiodisches und Homerisches. Zu neuen und alten Papyri”, Philologus 92, 1–18. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1963), Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad. Part I, Leiden. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1998), Greek Readers’ Digest? Studies on a Selection of Subliterary Papyri, Leiden/New York/Köln.
Part II: The Text
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus: Some Thoughts on the Scholiastic Side Abstract: This chapter aims to discuss two questions relevant to a possible edition of the Mythographus Homericus, with special attention to the medieval stage of its transmission: the textual and traditional phenomena occurring within the processes of scholiastic reuse of this exegetical material; and the need to explore the dissemination of historiae in the vast textual tradition of the D scholia.
1 The ecdotic problem Was the Mythographus Homericus (MH) a unitary work, produced by a single author? What was the goal and what was its intended audience? Can we reconstruct an archetype of the MH from material common to the papyri and the medieval manuscripts? Answering these questions starts to appear less easy with the increasing awareness that the MH experienced a fate which is common to subliterary writings—that is, to ‘open’ works, subject to manipulations, adaptations, and all manner of phenomena related to textual reuse.1 A comparison of the papyrus fragments of the Roman imperial age with D scholia historiae of the medieval tradition allows us to appreciate the textual fluidity of the MH. After all, transformations that affected aspects such as the purpose of the mythographical stories and their function in relation to the Homeric texts, as well as the book format in general, could hardly have left the MH unchanged. The history of texts, and particularly that of texts of pragmatic use, has a closely symbiotic relationship with the history of culture. Hence, one can hardly blame scholars who think that the restitution of the original MH, as Johannes Panzer imagined it, is impossible. The best one could aspire to is the restitution of some episodes or stages of the text. As Joan Pagès has concluded, one must edit the tradition, not the archetype.2 Textual criticism of the MH poses the same kind of problems known for other products of ancient classical scholarship. The scholia to the Iliad belonging to the 1 On scholia as open subliterary compilations, e.g. Montana 2019, 99–106. On the nature, use and reuse of mythographical historiae in antiquity: Delattre 2016; Trachsel 2019. 2 Especially Pagès 2007, 88. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-003
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari Viermännerkommentar (VMK) allow us to recover Aristarchus’ Homeric scholarship not in its original form, but through only partially known stages of its reuse in compilations of the Late Hellenistic Age and Late Antiquity, as it was inherited and interpreted by the compiler of the scholiastic corpus. Therefore, at best, the VMK scholia preserve Aristarchus’ criticism at three or even more removes, and only in a small percentage of cases can we extrapolate Aristarchean textual fragments strictu senso from the scholia.3 For this reason, the last monumental achievement of Helmut van Thiel, the annotated edition of the fragments of the textual criticism of the Iliad by Aristarchus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Demetrius Ixion, and Zenodotus, is in fact a re-edition of the scholia containing evidence and quotations of these grammarians.4 We can establish another comparison with the glossographical component of the D scholia, the raw material of which is clearly the same as we find that in some papyri and in the Lexeis Homericai; but the characteristics of the different traditions and of the respective textual arrangements advise against minimizing their differences and gathering them as representatives and witnesses of a univocal text.5 For these very reasons, in his proecdosis of the MH, Pagès presents the text of the medieval scholiastic tradition and the fragments transmitted by papyri separately, leaving their comparison and all discussion of the text’s history to the commentary. This is a choice that seems irreproachable and should certainly be followed for a future critical edition. We believe, however, that there is room for improvement in the way we treat the text of D scholia containing historiae. From these scholia, Pagès isolates and reports only the parts corresponding to the sections considered to originate from the MH: the Homeric lemma, the mythographical narration, the subscriptio mentioning the source. We wonder which text is obtained in this way. For the reasons given above, it is certainly not the text of the early MH. Is the text that we obtain, therefore, the MH in its medieval stage? This would be true if we could prove that all the elements beyond the tripartite structure of the presumed original MH are secondary and occasional additions that have arisen through the reuse of the historiae, and therefore can be removed without loss. We do not believe this to be the case. The reuse of the mythograph-
3 Since Ludwich 1884–1885, the most recent systematic studies of the Aristarchean scholarship attested in lexica and scholia are Matthaios 1999 and Schironi 2004 and 2018. 4 Van Thiel 2014b. 5 On the manuscript tradition of the D scholia: Schimberg 1892; de Marco 1932 and 1941; Montanari 1979, 3–25, 43–75; Pontani 2005, 145–148; van Thiel 2014a; Montanari/Montana/Muratore/Pagani 2017, 2–5.
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
ical material in the compilation of the D scholia shows that the additions influenced the textual state of the original sections. The textual transformation also affected another level: the reuse sometimes meant a change in conceptual perspective, the re-functionalization of the historia in a wider—or in any case, different—exegetical framework. This also has effects on the text of the historia itself, though they are likely not always visible. What we offer here is an attempt to argue that an edition of the MH based on the medieval tradition can only really be an edition of the reuse of the MH in the class of the D scholia. This means taking the actual text as the target for textual criticism, that is, the mythographical text as it is actually configured in the medieval sources: modified, reconfigured, and recontextualized. In practice, this results in a working method that maintains in the edition the non-mythographical elements of the scholiastic text containing the historiae. It is reasonable to expect that these extra elements have added exegetical value, also in direct relationship with the historiae. Where the reconfiguration operated by the compiler of the scholia was not purely mechanical, the recontextualization could have substantially influenced the textual form of a historia, in terms of manipulation and adaptation to the new context and to hermeneutical purposes that were new or in any case different from the original ones of the MH. This proposal for an approach to the ecdotic problem of the MH can be illustrated through a selection of examples and by assuming two complementary perspectives. The first consists in the analysis of the mechanisms by which the historiae were integrated into the fabric of the D scholia (section 2). The second concerns salient aspects of the scholiastic reuse of the mythographical narratives: on the one hand, the way in which the choices of mise en page generated various appropriate solutions for the mise en texte (section 3); on the other, the energy of the compilers of the scholiastic collections, who continued over time to look for, select, and reuse the mythographical sources with vigour and originality (section 4). The vast extent of the material obliges us to conduct this analysis through indicative samples. We believe that these forays will lead to a better understanding of how an edition of the ‘medieval’ MH must be preceded by further and deeper exploration of the multifaceted tradition of the D scholia.6 6 The analysis presupposes Pagès 2007. The text of the D scholia is based on the second arrangement of van Thiel’s proecdosis (2014a), with minimal modifications. Abbreviations of the manuscripts: A = Marc. gr. 454; Ag = Angel. 122 (= I van Thiel); Bd = Bodmer. 85; E4 = Scorial. Ω.I.12 (513 de Andrés); Ge = Genav. 44 (= G van Thiel); M11 = Ambros. L 116 sup. (= U van Thiel); P = Paris. gr. 2556; Pal2 = Heidelb. Pal. gr. 222; Q = Vat. gr. 33; T = British Museum Burney 86 (‘Townleianus’); X = Vat. gr. 32; Y = Vat. gr. 2193; Z = Rom. B.N.C. gr. 6 + Matrit. B.N. 4626; d = Pal2QXYZ; h = AgBdP M11 Ge.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari
2 Typological analysis of traditional arrangements Pagès identified three increasingly involved stages of textual integration of the historiae of the MH within the exegetical fabric of the D scholia.
. The first and simplest type is represented by the scholia which place a gloss between lemma and historia.7 In such cases, the gloss and historia have no syntactic connection and, even logically, their relationship seems to be based on a purely terminological and conceptual connection. Hence, the removal of the gloss appears to be painless. However, in such cases it perhaps cannot be completely excluded that there is an implicit logical link between gloss and historia and with the Homeric passage being commented on. This link can be explanatory, as in the following example:8 D schol. Il. 1.2 Ἀχαιοῖς: τοῖς Ἕλλησιν. Ξοῦθος ὁ Αἰόλου παῖς ἀγόμενος Κρέουσαν τὴν Ἐρεχθέως θυγατέρα ἔσχεν ἐξ αὐτῆς δύο παῖδας Ἴωνα καὶ Ἀχαιόν, ὧν ὁ μὲν Ἴων ᾤκησεν Ἀθήνας κτλ.
The gloss establishes the correspondence between Ἀχαιοί and Ἕλληνες. The historia tells how Ἀχαιοί and Ἕλληνες were originally the names of local populations in different parts of Thessaly, and Ἕλληνες eventually became a generic name for all the Greeks. Although in the scholion there is no syntactic connection between the gloss and the historia, we are then forced to deduce that Ἀχαιοί means Ἕλληνες by synecdoche.
7 Pagès 2007, 92. The scholar illustrates this type with D schol. Il. 1.14 στέμματ’: στεφανώματα. Λάδωνος τοῦ ἐν Ἀρκαδίᾳ ποταμοῦ Δάφνη ὑπῆρχε θυγάτηρ εὐπρεπεστάτη κτλ. However, the latter is the textual arrangement of the Lascarian editio princeps of the D scholia, while the medieval manuscripts in this case keep separate the gloss and the historia of Apollo and Daphne. They also place the lemma στέμματ’ ἔχων ἐν χερσίν before the historia (cf. van Thiel 2014a, 23). 8 Since here the concern is to highlight the structural articulations more than the content of the scholia, the historiae are not presented in their entirety.
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
We could similarly make an argument for the D scholion to Il. 1.42: D schol. Il. 1.42 Δαναοί: οἱ Ἕλληνες, οὕτως· Βῆλος ὁ Ἀγήνορος μὲν ἀδελφός, υἱὸς δὲ Ποσειδῶνος καὶ Λιβύης, ἀφ’ ἧς ἡ χώρα ὠνόμασται Λιβύη, βασιλεύων Αἰγυπτίων γαμεῖ Ἀγχινόην τὴν Νείλου θυγατέρα κτλ.
The gloss establishes the correspondence between Δαναοί and Ἕλληνες. It is followed by the historia of Danaus’ escape to Rhodes and then to Argos, whose inhabitants took the name Δαναοί. Again the reader can learn by implication that Δαναοί is an equivalent of Ἕλληνες by synecdoche. In this case, a syntactic and functional link between the gloss and the historia is expressed, though minimally, by οὕτως. Another instructive example is given by the D scholion to Il. 1.418: D schol. Il. 1.418 ἔπλεο: ἐγένου. λέγεται γὰρ τὴν Θέτιν παρὰ Διὸς μαθεῖν τὰ περὶ Ἀχιλλέως, ὅτι εἰ μὲν μείνῃ ἐν τῇ Φθίᾳ μὴ συμπλεύσας τοῖς Ἕλλησι εἰς τὴν Ἴλιον κτλ.
Here, the conjunction γάρ, at the beginning of the historia about the origin of Achilles’ short and glorious destiny, appears quite clearly to be a trace of the conditioned reflex of the compiler, who seems to be interested in the mythographical narrative (also) for its explanatory and aetiological efficiency regarding the qualification of Achilles in the previous Homeric line as ὠκύμορος καὶ ὀϊζυρός.
. The second type of textual situation is represented by the D scholia which, between lemma and historia, propose a paraphrase or a short lexicographical, geographical, or prosopographical explanation. As with the glosses, these insertions generally have no direct syntactic connection to the historia. This favours the impression that it is sufficient, as well as easy and legitimate, to remove them to obtain the early text of the MH.9 However, even in these cases the explanation and the mythographical account appear to be connected by a functional link, which the compiler of the scholia sometimes makes clear. Let us observe the structure of two historiae to Il. 1.39, on Apollo Smintheus: D schol. Il. 1.39 Σμινθεῦ: ὦ Σμίνθιε. ἔστι δὲ ἐπίθετον Ἀπόλλωνος. Σμίνθος γὰρ τόπος τῆς Τρωάδος ἐν ᾧ ἱερὸν Ἀπόλλωνος Σμινθίου ἀπὸ αἰτίας τῆσδε· ἐν Χρύσῃ πόλει τῆς Μυσίας
9 Pagès 2007, 93.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari Κρῖνίς τις ἦν ἱερεὺς τοῦ κεῖθι Ἀπόλλωνος (...). ἄλλοι δὲ οὕτως εἶπον, ὅτι Κρῆτες ἀποικίαν στέλλοντες χρησμὸν ἔλαβον παρὰ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος κτλ.
The aetiological link between the explanation and the first historia is expressly evoked by the compiler of the scholion (ἀπὸ αἰτίας τῆσδε). The transition to the second historia is realized by means of an expression that does not sound like a neutral linking formula, but rather specifies the existence of mythographical variants (ἄλλοι δὲ οὕτως εἶπον, ὅτι κτλ).10 A somewhat similar situation is found in the D scholion to Il. 20.403, which contains the historia about Poseidon and the island of Helice:11 D schol. Il. 20.403 ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε ταῦρος ἤρυγεν ἑλκόμενος Ἑλικώνιον ἀμφὶ ἄνακτα: τὸν Ποσειδῶνα, ἤτοι ὅτι καὶ ἐν Ἑλικῶνι ὄρει τῆς Βοιωτίας τιμᾶται, ἢ ἐν Ἑλίκῃ· μᾶλλον οὖν παρὰ τὸν ἐν Ἑλίκῃ θεόν. διαφέρει γὰρ Ἑλικὼν καὶ Ἑλίκη, ὅτι Ἑλικὼν μὲν Βοιωτίας ὄρος, Ἑλίκη δὲ νῆσος τῆς Ἀχαΐας ἱερὰ Ποσειδῶνος. ἡ δὲ ἱστορία αὕτη· Νηλεὺς ὁ Κόδρου χρησμὸν λαβὼν κτλ.
The first part of the scholion gives two interpretations of the epithet Ἑλικώνιος attributed to Poseidon: from Mount Helicon in Boeotia or from the island of Helice in Achaea. The mythographical tale is introduced by the words ἡ δὲ ἱστορία αὕτη and illustrates the second interpretation: hence, the historia supports and clarifies an exegetical alternative. The D scholion on the constellation of Orion, mentioned in Il. 18.486, is of the same type. The four long D scholia to this verse concern the images of the Pleiades, the Hyades, and Orion engraved on Achilles’ shield, and they alternate between comments on astronomical subjects and mythographical historiae. The last of these scholia explains the Homeric expression σθένος Ὠρίωνος as a periphrasis for Orion and then introduces the historia:12 D schol. Il. 18.486 τό τε σθένος Ὠρίωνος: περιφραστικῶς τὸν Ὠρίωνα. ὁ δὲ Ὠρίων ἐστὶν ἄστρον μέγιστον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ κατηστερισμένον οὕτως· Ὑριεὺς ὁ Ποσειδῶνος καὶ Ἀλκυόνης κτλ.
The italicized phrase establishes a relationship of exegetical interdependence between the identification of Orion as celestial constellation (ἄστρον μέγιστον ἐν τῷ
10 The second mythographical story is also documented by P. Hamb. 3, 199. 11 Cf. P. Oxy. 61, 4096, fr. 3, 2–11. 12 Cf. Pagès 2007, 100. This historia also offers a good example of the processes of textual fluidity peculiar to the tradition of scholiastic materials: it is woven together with the stories relating to the Pleiades and Hyades in the manuscript Ambros. A 181 sup. (M1), which belongs to the h family of the Iliad scholia: Pasquato 2015, 333–334; Pasquato 2018, 335–336.
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
οὐρανῷ) and the mythical aetiology, defining the latter (meta-exegetically?) as an example of catasterism. The aetiological link is also clearly defined in the D scholion to Il. 1.52. After reminding the reader that in ancient times cremation was practised first and later inhumation, the compiler introduces the mythical tale as the basis for the first practice: D schol. Il. 1.52 πυραί: πυρκαιαί. τὸ γὰρ παλαιὸν τὰ σώματα τῶν θνησκόντων πρότερoν ἐκαίετο διὰ τὸ ἀπέριττα γίνεσθαι, εἶθ᾽ οὕτως ἐθάπτετο ὑπὸ γῆν. ἡ δὲ αἰτία τοῦ καίεσθαι τὰ σώματα παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν αὕτη· πρῶτος οὕτως ἐτάφη Ἀργεῖος ὁ Λικυμνίου δι’ ἀνάγκην ὑπὸ Ἡρακλέους. κτλ.
Many more examples could be given.13 A systematic study of this kind of scholiastic reuse of historiae would allow us to bring to light the variety of ‘grafts’ conceived by the compiler of the D scholia. The sample given here, though small, suffices to show that this reuse is not mechanical, but functional in the specific exegetical context, and that sometimes it displays, explicitly or not, an aetiological purpose.
. The last cases to discuss introduce us to another type of reuse of the mythographical material: D scholia in which the historia is incorporated organically and significantly into the exegetical line of reasoning. Let us consider a couple of examples.
13 Some further examples, significant from a typological point of view: in the scholion to Il. 2.145, the paraphrase of the Homeric text (πόντου Ἰκαρίου: τοῦ Ἰκαρίου πελάγους …) is seamlessly joined to the historia by a participial phrase (… κεκλημένου οὕτως ἀπὸ Ἰκάρου τοῦ Δαιδάλου παιδὸς πεσόντος εἰς αὐτὸ καὶ ἀπολομένου οὕτως. κτλ); similarly, in the scholion to Il. 2.547 Ἐρεχθῆος, after the identification of the character (Ἐρεχθέως δὲ τοῦ βασιλέως τῶν Ἀθηναίων, τοῦ καὶ Ἐριχθονίου καλουμένου …), the comment continues by indicating Erechtheus’ lineage from Hephaestus and narrating the relevant mythical tale (… γεννηθέντος δὲ ἐκ τοῦ Ἡφαίστου. οὗτος γὰρ ἐδίωκεν Ἀθηνᾶν ἐρῶν αὐτῆς κτλ); finally, in the scholion to Il. 2.629 the paraphrase of the Homeric verse (ὅς ποτε Δουλίχιον δ᾽ ἀπενάσσατο πατρὶ χολωθείς: ὃς εἰς τὸ Δουλίχιόν ποτε ἀπῳκίσθη …) expands to explain the circumstances of the wrath of Phyleus against his father Augeas with recourse to the historia of the labour of Heracles, and a causal link is established between the two parts (… διὰ τὸ καταμαρτυρῆσαι τοῦ πατρὸς Αὐγείου πρὸς Ἡρακλέα περὶ τοῦ μισθοῦ κτλ). These three scholia are also considered by Pagès 2007, 95–96.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari The long scholion to Il. 1.5 Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή reports various interpretations of the meaning to be assigned to the word βουλή in that context: the appointed destiny (ἡ εἱμαρμένη), the sacred oak of Dodona, or even the decision to unburden the Earth by triggering the Trojan War. The last explanation is illustrated through the historia: ἄλλοι δὲ ἀπὸ ἱστορίας τινὸς εἶπον εἰρηκέναι τὸν Ὅμηρον· φασὶ γὰρ τὴν γῆν βαρουμένην κτλ.
After the historia comes the subscriptio, which explains that the episode can be found in the works of the neoteroi, particularly in Stasinus’ Cypria, seven verses of which are then cited in full: ἡ δὲ ἱστορία παρὰ Στασίνῳ τῷ τὰ Κύπρια πεποιηκότι, εἰπόντι οὕτως κτλ (Cypr. fr. 1 Bernabé).
The last verse quoted from the Cypria ends with a hemistich that is identical to the Homeric lemma, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή: this literal trait d’union between the passage from the Iliad commented on in the scholion and the passage from the Cypria quoted in the historia can be recognized as one of the motives of the compiler of the scholia, or of his hypomnematic source, for reusing this mythographical material. The commentator ultimately adopts a position in favour of yet another explanation, attributed to Aristarchus of Samothrace and Aristophanes of Byzantium, according to which Zeus’ βουλή is identified with that of Thetis: ἡμεῖς δὲ φαμὲν κατὰ τὴν Ἀριστάρχειον καὶ Ἀριστοφάνους δόξαν τὴν Θέτιδος εἶναι βουλήν κτλ.
From this articulated and composite pattern it emerges that the historia and the subscriptio are not simply juxtaposed to the rest of the observations contained in the scholion, but perform a significant function in the doxographic economy and in the overall argumentation of the comment.14 In the long scholion to Il. 5.385 τλῆ μὲν Ἄρης, the arrangement of the historia within the scholion seems to concern the conceptual level and the exegetical tradition.15 The comment can be divided in four parts. The first (ll. 1–11 van Thiel) opens with the well-known testimony on Aristarchus’ preference for a strictly mythographical and poetic interpretation of the Homeric references to mythical subjects:
14 Cf. Pagès 2007, 97. 15 On this scholion, see also Pagès 2007, 97 n. 52.
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
Ἀρίσταρχος ἀξιοῖ τὰ φραζόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιητοῦ μυθικώτερον ἐκδέχεσθαι κατὰ ποιητικὴν ἐξουσίαν, μηδὲν ἔξω τῶν φραζομένων ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιητοῦ περιεργαζομένους.16
This is followed by the historia of Ares bound in chains by Otus and Ephialtes, to which Dion alluded in the commented Homeric verse. The second explanation (ll. 11–16 van Thiel) is euhemeristic and rationalizing and states that the Aloads were kings and that Ares represents war. The third interpretation summarizes the version of the episode preferred by the νεώτεροι ποιηταί (ll. 16–20 van Thiel). The scholion closes with a couple of allegorical explanations which read the imprisonment of Ares by the two Aloads, respectively, in a mathematical and an astronomical sense, with reference to the motions of the celestial bodies (ll. 20–28 van Thiel), and in a philosophical-moral key (ll. 28–55), according to which Ares represents θυμός and Otus and Ephialtes οἱ ἐν παιδείᾳ λόγοι, ‘the speeches in educational training’. In this collection of exegetical options put together by the compiler of the scholia, the historia apparently performs the task of representing the purely mythographical interpretation of the Homeric myths within the whole range of existing hermeneutic approaches. The tiny linguistic clue of the link created between the methodological principle of Aristarchus and the historia is the conjunction οὖν at the beginning of the mythical tale: Ἀρίσταρχος ἀξιοῖ … περιεργαζομένους. Ὦτος οὖν καὶ Ἐφιάλτης γόνῳ μὲν ἦσαν Ποσειδῶνος κτλ.
This seems to be a positive clue, however slight, of the initiative of the compiler or of his source: the Aristarchean exegetical precept of not digressing beyond the scope of the poetic account finds concrete compliance, at least from his point of view, in the mythographical historiae—that is, in fact, in the tradition of the MH.17 All in all, isolating the mythographical component of the scholia does not guarantee the recovery of the original or most ancient text of the MH, especially in cases of the third type. In the editorial operation of dismantling and reassembling the sources in the scholiastic context, it seems that the compiler was not content simply to document the mythographical subject, but also assigned it a position and a role in the internal logic of the scholion. In an approach that is more or less clear depending on the individual case, the historia is intertwined with a new line of exegetical reasoning, and given additional meanings beyond the original intentions of
16 The most recent discussion includes Nünlist 2011; Bouchard 2016; cf. Montana 2017; Schironi 2018, 140–142; Montana 2020. 17 This reading adds to the interpretation of the Aristarchean method as inspired by the Aristotelian theory of the autonomy of poetry: Bouchard 2016; cf. Montana 2017 and 2020.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari the mythographer. As is typical in scholiography, we cannot evaluate or sufficiently distinguish the level of innovation and creativity exerted by the compiler, or his personal investment in the logical and linguistical stitching together of his exegetical sources. We cannot be certain of the textual correspondence of the D historiae and the original MH because of the interpretative added value which was sought and produced through scholiastic compilation. The issue of the testimonial value of the D scholia for the edition of the MH can thus be articulated in these terms: (1) Sometimes scholiastic reuse visibly changed the original text of the historia. In such cases, the restoration of the text of the MH (or, rather, of the text that was available to the compiler of the scholia) can only be conjectural.18 (2) In other cases, it is technically possible and easy to separate the historia from the rest of the exegetical material. However, if we proceed in this direction mechanically, we face a double risk. The first is that of assuming a priori that recontextualization did not entail the redrafting of the text of the historia. The second risk is that in cutting away the extra-mythographical components, we eliminate and obscure the exegetical added value which the compiler obtained from his reuse of the historia. These problems can only be avoided by accepting from the beginning that the goal of the potential edition of the MH is not to attain its ancient and original stage, but the rearranged, medieval one—that is, the integral text of the scholia containing the mythographical narrations.
3 Exploring the medieval reuse of the MH: the case of manuscript E4 . To understand the medieval reuse of the MH, intensive campaigns of codicological and palaeographical inspection and textual collation are still required. Needless to say, we have no complete and reliable critical edition of the D scholia to the Iliad or the Odyssey.19 Furthermore, vast swathes of the manuscript tradition remain
18 From an ecdotic point of view, it is quite arbitrary to revert to the papyri of the MH as textual witnesses to the historiae of the scholiastic tradition, despite their similarities. 19 For the D scholia to the Iliad, we can use the mentioned proecdosis of van Thiel 2014a; a new critical edition of all the scholia vetera to the Iliad, including the D class, has been undertaken
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
scarcely explored, particularly the complex and many-branched h family of the Iliad scholia, most of which has not yet received proper critical attention (see section 4). Moreover, we lack a comprehensive typological study of the reuse and incorporation of the historiae in the D scholia, not only at the textual level (exemplified above, section 2), but also, or above all, regarding the mises en page in the medieval codices—in particular, whether as full-page or marginal scholia, and whether with or without the Homeric text. This aspect of the issue should not be overlooked, since it actively influenced the form and the quality of the extant texts, as an example can help us understand better. In the following pages we set out the preliminary results obtained from a sample consisting of the historiae to the first book of the Iliad from a somewhat neglected manuscript, Escorialensis Ω.I.12 (Andrés 513), a witness of the Iliad with D scholia (E4).20 The text of this codex has been checked against the digital reproductions of it made available on the website Homer Multitext Project of the Center for Hellenic Studies (Harvard University).21 For present purposes, the texts of five more witnesses of the D scholia have also been re-collated by means of digital reproductions: Vaticanus gr. 33 (Q; eleventh century) which, among the manuscripts bearing only D scholia, is the best representative of the ‘recent’ and expanded edition of this class (and served as the main model of the Lascarian editio princeps);22 the Venetus A (Marc. gr. 454; tenth century);23 and three witnesses of the rich Otrantine branch (h2) of the h family, which are closely related to each other (AgBdP; thirteenth century).24
in recent years: Montanari/Montana/Muratore/Pagani 2017. For the so-called ‘D scholia’ to the Odyssey, in addition to the work of Ernst 2006, we use the comprehensive edition of the scholia, currently being undertaken by Filippomaria Pontani, which at the moment covers the first eight books (Pontani 2007–2020). 20 Allen adopted this abbreviation in the edition of the Iliad and Erbse did the same in his edition of the Iliad scholia. West and van Thiel use F. The most recent studies are Dué 2014, and Montana and Prato forthcoming. In the latter, the abbreviation E4a is proposed for the first hand of the manuscript, responsible for the text of the poem, the paraphrase and the D scholia. 21 At http://beta.hpcc.uh.edu/hmt/archive-dl/E4/, accessed on 14 October 2017. 22 De Marco 1932, 392–395; van Thiel 2000, 2; van Thiel 2014a, 4, 14–15; Muratore 2018, 137– 140. Digital images at https://digi.vatlib.it/, accessed on 21 January 2022. 23 Digital images in the website (Italian Ministry of Culture), accessed on 21 January 2022. 24 See above, n. 6. Ag and Bd are twin manuscripts, copied by Nicola of Gallipoli (second half of the thirteenth century); P was written by Ciriaco Prasiano of Gallipoli (end of the thirteenth century). On the Otrantine branch of the h family, see Sciarra 2005. Digital images of these manuscripts are available at (Ag), (Bd), (P), all accessed on 21 January 2022.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari As yet, there is no palaeographical study of E4. It is widely dated to the eleventh century, by all scholars who have taken an interest in this codex.25 Some years ago, in her essay about the mise en page of the text and the scholia in manuscripts of the Iliad, Marilena Maniaci broke with this unanimous consensus, stating en passant in a brief footnote that ‘the attribution to the eleventh century is to be excluded’ since ‘the script and the decoration point towards a dating at least two centuries later’.26 This provisional opinion has been confirmed by a preliminary palaeographic study of the three main hands of the manuscript.27 The first quire of the codex is a ternion filled by the first and second hand with antehomerica and the Batrachomyomachia, and by the third hand, where he found free space, with scholia exegetica to Il. 1–2.353. Starting from the following quire (fol. 7r), on each page the first hand copied the text of the poem with facing stichic paraphrase, in two adjacent columns,28 and placed D scholia in the margins, mainly of the types ἀπορίαι καὶ λύσεις and ἱστορίαι, excluding the D glosses. The second hand integrated mainly long D scholia omitted by the first one; and the third hand kept adding scholia exegetica, often writing them in the line spacing of the paraphrase which faces the Homeric text. Therefore, unlike the Venetus A and the witnesses of the h family, the exegetical apparatus of E4 cannot be described as a textual amalgamation produced by compiling and stitching together materials drawn from different classes of scholia: these materials of different origins are placed next to each other but only as the result of independent interventions by different hands, and not as the work of one single copyist or compiler. In the first place, the manuscript is a witness to the D scholia, and as such has to be considered with full rights in the recensio of this scholiastic class.29 At the same time, E4 differs from the other main witnesses of the D scholia in two conspicuous respects: the presence of the text of the Iliad (and of the facing paraphrase), and 25 Tychsen 1789, 136; Charles Graux quoted by Maass 1884, 556 n. 2; Bethe 1893, 355; Monro/ Allen 19203, XX; Allen 1931, I, 16 and 148 n. 1; Severyns 1953, 41; Erbse 1960, 5; de Andrés in Revilla/de Andrés 1936–1967: 3 (1967) 134; Erbse 1969–1988: 1 (1969) XX; Vassis 1991, 19; Buenosvinos 1998, 391 and 393; West 1998, XI; Pontani 2005, 459 and 484; van Thiel 20102, XXIII; MacPhail 2011, 9; van Thiel 2014a, 14 and 17; Dué 2014, 2. 26 Maniaci 2006, 222–223 n. 32: ‘va esclusa l’attribuzione all’XI secolo’ ... ‘scrittura e decorazione orientano verso una datazione posteriore di almeno due secoli’. 27 Montana/Prato forthcoming. 28 According to Vassis 1991, 19, the facing paraphrase in E4 is drawn from the Bodleian paraphrase for Il. 1.1–9.211 (fols. 7–77v) and 10.139–478 (fols. 86v–91r), and the pseudo-Psellian for the remaining parts of the poem. 29 Bethe 1893, 379: ‘Sollen die D-Scholien vollständig gegeben werden, so müssen doch außer ihren Handschriften auch ABTΩ [= ABTE4] stark herangezogen werden: da sollte doch gleich die ganze Arbeit gemacht werden’.
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
the mise en page of the scholia not as full-page recueil, but in the margins. The Escorial manuscript is thus a witness to a peculiar arrangement, halfway between two different types which are widely attested: on the one hand, full-page collections of only D scholia, without the text of the Iliad, as found in the main witnesses of the class;30 and on the other, annotated editions of the Homeric poem, with scholia obtained from the programmatic conflation of the different classes (VMK, scholia exegetica, D) and arranged in the margins around the text of the Iliad (Venetus A) or à recueil at the end of each book of the poem (most of the h family;31 h manuscripts, not unlike E4, often place a stichic paraphrase beside the Homeric text).32 It is of the utmost interest to take into account the mise en page of the scholia, given its effects on their mise en texte, and that of the historiae in particular—as is shown by the behaviour of the first hand of E4 in a sample of D historiae concerning the first book of the Iliad. Where the d manuscripts with only scholia place a gloss or a paraphrase or a short explanation between the Homeric lemma and the historia, E4 usually presents only the historia. For example: D schol. Il. 1.7 Ἀτρείδης: ὁ Ἀτρέως παῖς Ἀγαμέμνων. Ἀγαμέμνων κατὰ μὲν Ὅμηρον Ἀτρέως τοῦ Πέλοπος κτλ.33 ὁ Ἀτρέως παῖς Ἀγαμέμνων om. E4.
However, there are cases in which E4 also provides the explanation preceding the historia, or at least a part of it, as in the following: D schol. Il. 1.10 λαοί: ὄχλοι. λᾶες κατὰ διάλεκτον οἱ λίθοι λέγονται. Προμηθέως παῖς Δευκαλίων γίνεται· οὗτος βασιλεύων τῶν περὶ τὴν Φθίαν τόπων κτλ.34 ὄχλοι om. E4.
Sometimes, the traces of the pruning are patent: production residues, imperfections and textual redundancies which the compiler did not know how, or did not 30 Pal2QXYZ: see above, n. 6. 31 The manuscript P contains scholia à recueil without the text of the poem, like the d manuscripts, but this is a secondary phenomenon, since the manuscript is believed to be an apograph of Ag (Erbse) or, in any case, shows a very close textual relationship with Ag (Sciarra). 32 Even in light of the reconsidered dating of E4, the possible relationship between this manuscript and the tradition of the h family of the Iliad scholia waits due exploration—an issue already raised by Erbse 1969–1988: 1 (1969), LVII n. 92. 33 Cf. Montanari/Montana/Muratore/Pagani 2017, 9. 34 Cf. Montanari/Montana/Muratore/Pagani 2017, 17.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari want, to delete during the copy-and-paste operation. An example is the presence of γάρ at the beginning of the historia to Il. 1.39, which makes sense only in light of the omitted explanation: D schol. Il. 1.39 Σμινθεῦ: ὦ Σμίνθιε. ἔστι δὲ ἐπίθετον Ἀπόλλωνος. Σμίνθος γὰρ τόπος τῆς Τρωάδος ἐν ᾧ ἱερὸν Ἀπόλλωνος Σμινθίου κτλ. ὦ Σμίνθιε–Ἀπόλλωνος om. E4.
We can gather that most likely the manuscript used by the first hand of E4 (or by one of its antecedents) as a model for the D scholia was quite similar to the extant d manuscripts which only contain scholia. As mentioned previously, the copyist of E4 did not transcribe the D glosses in the margins, and generally did not do it even when the gloss precedes a historia (cf. the type exemplified above, section 2.1). This omission has a logical explanation in the fact that the D glosses normally correspond word for word to the stichic paraphrase written by the copyist beside the poem’s text. The phenomenon is pervasive. Examples from the D scholia to Il. 1 containing historiae, in addition to the scholion to Il. 1.10 quoted above (in E4, the gloss ὄχλοι is omitted in the text of the scholion, but it is present in the paraphrase), include D schol. Il. 1.9 (the paraphrastic explanation ὁ τῆς Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς παῖς Ἀπόλλων in E4 is omitted in the scholion but coincides with the text of the stichic paraphrase), and D schol. Il. 1.180 (once again, the phrase τῶν Μυρμιδόνων βασίλευε in E4 is lacking in the scholion but appears in the stichic paraphrase).35 It is worth pointing out that in the manuscript Vat. gr. 33 (Q), when the mythographical story is preceded by a gloss or by some other type of explanation, the caption ἱστορία is written in the margin of the page, not next to the lemma, but precisely near the beginning of the mythographical account.36 35 The same behaviour is found in the treatment of the D glosses in the Venetus A, where they are frequently written by the first hand in the interlinear space above the Homeric text (cf. Muratore 2014, 69 n. 76), and in manuscripts of the h family, which place the pseudo-Psellian paraphrase beside the text of the poem: for example, in the Otrantine manuscripts (branch h2) Ambros. L. 116 sup. (M11 = U van Thiel; thirteenth century) and Riccard. 30 (R = J van Thiel; first half of the fourteenth century), which is written in an eastern hand (Constantinople?) but is possibly an apograph of M11 (on these two manuscripts, see Schimberg 1892, 3 and 7–12; Vassis 1991, 83 and 78; Sciarra 2005, 158 and 256; van Thiel 2014a, 14); as well as in two exponents of the eastern branch (h1), Ambros. A 181 sup. (M1; scriptio superior of the beginning of the fourteenth century) and Paris. gr. 2766 (P11; mid-fourteenth century) (on these two, see now Pasquato 2015, 332, and 2018, 20). Flows of exegetical materials between marginal scholia, interlinear glosses, and paraphrases of the Iliad are examined by Vassis 1991; Muratore 2014; van Thiel 2014a, 3–14. 36 For Il. 1, this behaviour is found systematically in Q, which omits the caption ἱστορία only at Il. 1.38 Τενέδοιό τε: here, a horizontal stroke in the margin marks the beginning of the historia,
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
This structure could be very helpful for a copyist who was interested in reproducing not everything, but only a particular selection of the D materials. It could not be a mere coincidence that in E4, in both of the occurrences seen above, where the explanation placed between the lemma and the historia is unusually present (D schol. Il. 1.9 and 1.10), the caption ἱστορία in red ink is written not in the margin but inside the line. This is one of the reasons to infer that the adaptation of D material was realized by the copyist of E4 himself, while he was transcribing the historiae in the margins of the Homeric text from a model with full-page scholia. But there are other reasons to think this. On the first two sheets containing the text of the Iliad, the paraphrase, and the D scholia (fols. 7–8), the distribution of the historiae is defective: here, the pace of the poetic text is quicker than that of the scholia, hence the historiae appear late in relation to the relevant Homeric verse. For example, the historia to Il. 1.52 πυραί is in fol. 8v, which contains Il. 1.113–151.37 The imperfect sequence of the four historiae copied in fol. 10r points in the same direction: the historia to Il. 1.264, which occupies the upper margin and the top of the right margin of the page, precedes the historiae to Il. 1.250, 263, and 268, copied in the remaining part of the right margin and in the lower one. And in fol. 14v, containing the final verses of the first book of the Iliad, the copyist has modified the system of reference between the poetic text and the historiae: if, up to that point, he has used lemmas (which, in the manuscripts containing only the scholia, are the only means of referring to the missing poetic text), from then on, the copyist abandons the lemmas and relies on the more economic system of symbols of reference.
which immediately follows that to 1.38 Κίλλαν τε ζαθέην, regularly accompanied in Q by the caption ἱστορία. Therefore, in this case the caption is understood or referred to by means of the stroke, rather than omitted. Among the other d manuscripts, Pal2 also omits the caption corresponding to the scholion to Il. 1.38 Τενέδοιό τε (which is coherent with the strict textual similarity of this manuscript with Q), while the others (XYZ) generally do not use captions to signal the historiae. In X, one hand—probably not the first hand—numbered and labelled six broader scholia, among which some historiae, with little titles in the margin. 37 The realignment appears in fol. 9r. Since the two historiae to Il. 1.59 Ἀτρείδη νῦν ἄμμε παλιμπλαγχθέντας ὀΐω and 1.106 μάντι κακῶν are omitted in E4, one might think that the copyist intentionally made these omissions in order to re-establish the alignment between the poetic text and the scholia; but we must take into account that both of these historiae are documented poorly or not at all in the d tradition (the first is only in Y and the second in none of the known d manuscripts), while they do appear in the Venetus A and in the h manuscripts. One might wonder whether these omissions are related to the fact that the content of both of these historiae is overtly based on the poetic production of the neoteroi—which Aristarchus of Samothrace insistently judged inappropriate for the explanation of Homeric poetry.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari All of these points suggest that the copyist of E4, interested in the D historiae as an explanatory aid to the reader of the Iliad, probably used as his model a manuscript containing only full-page D scholia; and that he produced a particular mise en texte of the explanation, which he felt to be the most economical and suitable to the set-up of a codex encompassing the text of the poem with facing paraphrase.
. Very interesting results, complementary to the preceding observations, arise from the textual collation of the historiae to Il. 1 transmitted in E4 and in the d manuscripts. In particular, the privileged relationship of the Spanish manuscript to the so-called ‘recent’ and amplified version of the D scholia is clear, and especially to the manuscript Vat. gr. 33 (Q)38 and its close relative Heidelb. Pal. gr. 222 (Pal2).39 Q (often with Pal2) and E4 share numerous omissions and common innovations against XYZ (see below, point a); among these, it is worth mentioning that, at the end of the historia to Il. 1.334, E4 has an explanatory expansion which, among the witnesses of only D scholia, can be read solely in Q and Pal2 (see point b). On the other hand, the independence of Q and E4 is confirmed by the large number of innovations exclusively found in Q (and sometimes Pal2), and therefore distinguishing it from E4 (point c). The fortune of the recent version of the D scholia is known: the compiler of the scholia transmitted in the prolific h family appears to have drawn from it (as the ongoing recollation of AgBdP confirms);40
38 Cf. van Thiel 2014a, 10–12: Q, X, and Y have a text that is a little shorter (‘recent’ version of the D scholia) than the corpus transmitted in the manuscript Z; Q and X have also additions from the class of the scholia exegetica (cf. T), Porphyry, the tradition of the Etymologica, and the epimerisms (‘expanded’ version of the D scholia). 39 This fourteenth-century manuscript, never collated to this day, shows a strong adhesion to the text of Q, but also bears separative features which exclude direct derivation. 40 There are several conjunctive readings of E4Pal2Q h(AgBdP), sometimes even of A. For example, in the historia to Il. 1.263 Πειρίθοον, the manuscripts Z and A have a phrase that is clearly acephalous (ll. 6–7 van Thiel: *** ἣν δέ τινι ἀναστρεφομένην μεταβαλόντι τὴν φύσιν εἰς ἵππον Διὶ ἐμίγη [διεμείγη Z διεμίγη A] καὶ τὸν προειρημένον ἐγέννησεν Πειρίθουν, ὃς ὠνομάσθη κτλ), resolved in the ‘recent’ tradition by eliminating ἣν δέ τινι ἀναστρεφομένην (Y) or everything up to ἐγέννησεν Πειρίθουν, ὃς (E4Pal2QAgP replace everything with ὁ δὲ Πειρίθους ὠνομάσθη κτλ; desunt XBd). Another instructive case is provided by the text of the historia to Il. 1.42 Δαναοί, l. 4 van Thiel: μὲν ὁ βῆλος Z, μὲν οὖν βῆλος Pal2 ΑgBdP, μὲν ὁ βύβηλος E4Q. This situation can be explained as follows: instead of μὲν ὁ βῆλος, which is the correct reading, the recent version of the scholion reads μὲν οὖν βῆλος, which had come to Pal2 from its model, a close relative to Q,
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
and, as already mentioned, the manuscript Q served as the model for Ianus Lascaris’ editio princeps of this class of scholia.41 (a) Sample of conjunctive innovations of E4 (Pal2) Q in D scholia to Il. 1. Numbers refer to lemmas and lines in van Thiel 2014a. 1.2 Ἀχαιοῖς (deest Pal2): 6 οὕτως] οὗτοι E4Q καὶ οὗτοι] οὕτως E4Q 1.5 Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή (partim deest Pal2): 13 Στασίνῳ] ταρασίνῳ E4Q (τασίνῳ A τερασίνω AgBd τερατίνω, σι s.l. P) 13 κεφαλῆς] κεφαλὴν 1.10 λαοί: 2 οὗτος] οὕτως E4Pal2Q 3 Πανδώρας] πανδώρης E4Pal2Q E4Pal2Q 1.38a Κίλλαν τε ζαθέην: 11 ὠνόμασεν] κέκληκεν E4Pal2Q 1.38b Τενέδοιό τε: 7 τοῦ δὲ τὰ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν] τοῦ δὲ πατρὸς (τοῦ δὲ τοῦ πατρὸς E4) τὴν φύσιν E4Pal2Q 16 ἐκεῖ] ἐκεῖσε E4Pal2Q ἐκάλεσαν] 1.39 Σμινθεῦ: 9 προσαγορεύσας] καλέσας E4Pal2Q ἐκάλουν E4Pal2Q 1.42 Δαναοί: 1 οὕτως· Βῆλος ὁ Ἀγήνορος μὲν ἀδελφός] οὗτος ὁ δαναὸς ἀγήνορος μὲν ἦν ἀδελφός E4Q (ὁ δαναὸς om. E4) οὗτος ὁ δαναὸς υἱὸς βήλου ὃς ἀγήνορος μὲν ἦν ἀδελφός Pal2 4 μὲν ὁ Βῆλος] μὲν ὁ βύβηλος E4Q (μὲν οὖν βῆλος Pal2 AgBdP) 7 3 αὐτῷ om. E4Pal2Q αὐτῶν om. E4Pal2Q 9 Οἰωνὸν] υἱωνὸν E4Pal2Q(pc?) 10 προΐεσθαι] τοῦ 1.52 πυραί: 7 ἐπεζήτει] ἐζήτει E4Pal2Q 2 4 προΐεσθαι PaI Q, vid. E 12 ἐπιτελέσοι] διατελέσοι Pal2Q, δια*** E4 1.263 Πειρίθοον: 7 ὠνομάσθη] ὠνομάσθη οὕτως E4Pal2Q 1.268 φηρσίν: 5 τῇ2 om. E4Pal2Q 1.366 ᾠχόμεθ᾽ ἐς Θήβην: 4 Ἀνδρομάχην] τὴν Ἀνδρομάχην E4Pal2Q 7 Λυρνησσὸν] λυρνησὸν E4Pal2Q 11 καὶ om. E4Pal2Q 1.418 ἔπλεο: 3 πολλὴ μὲν ἔσται αὐτῷ ἡ ζωή] πολλὴν μὲν ἔσται (ἔσεσθαι Pal2) αὐτῷ (αὐτῷ ἔσται E4) ζωήν E4Pal2Q ἄδοξος] ἄδοξον E4Pal2Q 1.519 Ἥρη· ὅτ᾽ ἄν μ᾽ ἐρέθῃσιν: 4 ἀπέσχετο] ἀπέχεται E4Pal2Q 1.590 ἤδη γάρ με καὶ ἄλλοτ᾽ ἀλεξέμεναι μεμαῶτα: 1–2 εἰς ἀπόδειξιν τῆς ἰσχύος τοῦ Διός] post Διὸς add. λέγει Pal2Q, inter paraphrasis lineas habet et post Διὸς add. τοῦτο λέγει E4 1.609 πρὸς ὃν λέχος: 5 ἐν β´] ἐν τῷ β´ E4Pal2Q
now lost; instead, Q (or one of its antecedents) misunderstood the sequence of letters οὖνβῆλος as ὁβύβηλος (because of the beta written in its ‘low’ form and linked to the following ny). The presence of the same misunderstanding in E4 shows that the latter is a copy of a close relative of Q (not directly of Q or one of its descendants, as indicated by the distinct variants of the two manuscripts, among which there are unique omissions of Q or Pal2Q: see below, point c), different from that on which Pal2 is based. 41 See above, n. 22.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari (b) D schol. Il. 1.334. Διὸς ἄγγελοι ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν: ἀνθρώπων κήρυκες ἄξιοι καὶ θεῶν. ἄσυλον γὰρ καὶ θεῖον τὸ γένος τῶν κηρύκων. Ἑρμῆς γὰρ μιγεὶς Πανδρόσῳ τῇ Κέκροπος θυγατρὶ ἔσχεν παῖδα ὀνόματι Κήρυκα, ἀφ’ οὗ τὸ τῶν κηρύκων γένος, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Πτολεμαῖος (Ptol. Chenn. fr. incert. 2 Chatzis). A d(E4Pal2QYZ) h(AgP M11) ἢ ὅτι τὰς ἑορτὰς αὐτοῦ ἀγγέλλουσιν, ἢ ὅτι ἀπὸ Ἑρμοῦ εἰσιν, ὃς ἄγγελος Διός. πεπαιδευμένως δέ· οὐ γὰρ δεῖ τὰς αἰτίας ἐφ᾽ ἑτέρους μετάγειν, ὡς κύνα κατὰ τοῦ βεβλημένου λίθου. A d(E4Pal2Q) h(AgP M11).42
(c) Sample of separative innovations of (Pal2) Q against E4 in D scholia to Il. 1. Numbers refer to lemmas and lines in van Thiel 2014a. 1.2 Ἀχαιοῖς: 3 ᾤκησεν] ᾤκισεν Q 6 οὐ πάντες] ἅπαντες Q 1.5 Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή: 9 χρησάμενος] χρησαμένους Q 1.9 Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός: 3 δεκαμηναίου Q 1.10 λαοί: Φυξίῳ] Πυξίω Q 1.38a Κίλλαν τε ζαθέην: 7 ἑαυτοῦ] αὐτοῦ Pal2Q 1.38b Τενέδοιό τε: 11 Λυκοφρύι Q 1.39 Σμινθεῦ: 10 καλοῦνται] ἐκαλοῦντο Pal2Q 14 τῆς om. Q 1.263 Πειρίθοον: 3 Βούτα] βούτατ Pal2Q τοὺς om. Pal2Q 1.264 Καινέα τε: 5 θεὸν] θεοῖς Pal2Q (etiam AgP) 9 δὴ] τὸν Pal2Q (etiam AgP) ἔτι κλείουσιν] ἐπικλείουσιν Pal2Q (etiam AgP) 11 προτέρω] προσωτέρω Pal2Q (etiam AgP) δαΐξαι] διῶξαι καὶ δαΐξαι Pal2Q (etiam AgP) 12 ἐδύσσατο Pal2Q 1.366 ᾠχόμεθ᾽ ἐς Θήβην: 11 λοιμικὴν νόσον] λοιμὸν ὅ ἐστι λοιμικὴν νόσον Pal2Q 12 ἀσφαλεστέρᾳ] ἀσφαλεστάτῃ Pal2Q 1.519 Ἥρη· ὅτ’ ἄν μ᾽ ἐρέθῃσιν: 1 Νηρέως] τοῦ Νηρέως Pal2Q 6 ὑπερέβαλεν] ὑπερέβαλλε Pal2Q 1.590 ἤδη γάρ με καὶ ἄλλοτ᾽ ἀλεξέμεναι μεμαῶτα: 12 καὶ om. Q.
The Spanish manuscript thus appears fully formed in the recensio of the D scholia to the Iliad, where it occupies a non-marginal position thanks to its relationship with Q, and because of the mise en page of the scholia and its consequences at the textual level. The provisional conclusion is that the lost model of E4 for the scholia could have been a manuscript containing only D scholia and closely related to Q.
42 Unlike van Thiel’s proecdosis, the first part of the D scholion to Il. 1.334 (ll. 1–4, containing the historia) is not only in ZY and in UI (= M11Ag), but also in A and Q (as well as in E4); the expansion (ll. 4–7), offering alternative explanations and a comment on Il. 1.335 οὔ τί μοι ὔμμες ἐπαίτιοι, is in the witnesses of the recent and augmented version of the D scholia: AE4Pal2Q h(AgP) (for this part, deest Bd).
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
4 Exploring the medieval reuse of the MH: the manuscripts of the h family Another chapter of the medieval history of the MH is represented by the family of manuscripts bearing Iliad scholia which are designated by modern scholars with the abbreviation h. As mentioned above, these witnesses provide evidence of one particular stage in the conflation process of the traditional classes of scholia (VMK, exegetica, D). The project was likely carried out in the twelfth century, if not in the eleventh,43 and spawned the rich and many-branched filiation of codices, which is still under exploration. If these manuscripts have in common a reasonably homogeneous text of the scholia, they are nevertheless characterized by variety in the mise en texte and mise en page of the compilation: in some codices, the comments find their place in the page frame, around the text of the Iliad, while in others they are placed à recueil after each book of the poem, and in others still, again à recueil but without any text of the Iliad. As was also observed regarding the manuscript from the Escorial (E4), the choices of mise en page influenced the text of the scholia itself. For example, these choices favoured the separation of the D glosses from the historiae and their dissemination between the lines of the Homeric poem or of the paraphrase that was copied beside it. From the studies conducted by Adolf Schimberg at the end of the nineteenth century, it was fairly clear that the fundamental core of the exegetical amalgam of these witnesses consists of D scholia.44 Yet, in his proecdosis of the D scholia, van Thiel takes into account only a few manuscripts of this family.45 In addition, the h manuscripts contain material that is not found in the rest of the tradition.46 It is often difficult to establish the origin of these extra annotations. Sometimes they appear to have been mechanically copied from lexicographical and erudite sources foreign to the scholiastic stream and interpolated into the mix of the three classes of scholia. Sometimes, however, they seem to represent the outcome of 43 On the h family, see most recently: Sciarra 2005; Muratore 2014; Pasquato 2015 and 2018; Montanari/Montana/Muratore/Pagani 2017, 2–5; Montana 2021. Alpers 1981, 92 n. 36 (cf. Erbse 1969–1988: 7, 267–268; van Thiel 2014a, 12) dates the origin of the compilation to the eleventh century, and Pasquato 2015, 326–327 goes so far as to backdate it to the tenth century. 44 Schimberg 1892. 45 These few are all relatable to the Otrantine branch: Ang. gr. 122 (I van Thiel = Ag); Ambros. L 116 sup. (U van Thiel = M11); Riccard. 30 (J van Thiel = R1). The Riccardianus, of eastern provenance (Constantinople?), seems to be a descriptus from the Ambrosianus with regard to the scholia: Sciarra 2005, 157–158. 46 Muratore 2014, 64 with n. 53.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari an original project of reworking the existing material in order to achieve a new and more comprehensive exegetical compilation (and thus a new class of Iliad scholia in its own right). The latter eventuality is also represented by scholia containing historiae that in the h family have a different set-up from their counterparts in the d manuscripts. In such cases, we have to wonder whether the different and additional parts of the text are interpolations by the h compiler or if, alternatively, they actually represent original D material, which the h compiler drew from a witness of this class which was available to him and was richer than the d manuscripts preserved today.47 The examples worthy of attention are few and must be handled with care. Here we can briefly examine some of them.48 D schol. Il. 1.250 τῷ δ’ ἤδη δύο μὲν γενεαὶ μερόπων ἀνθρώπων ἐφθίατο: ἐφθαρμένοι ἦσαν. d(QYZ) h(Ag) | Ἡρακλέους γὰρ ἐν Πύλῳ στρατεύσαντος καὶ ἀποκτείναντος τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους, ἰδίαν ὄντας γενεάν, καὶ τοὺς τῆς μέσης ἡλικίας, ἄλλην ὄντας γενεάν, ἧς καὶ ὁ Νέστωρ, μόνος περισωθεὶς τῆς τρίτης γενεᾶς ἐβασίλευεν, τῆς περὶ τοὺς παῖδας· ἱστέον δὲ ὅτι οἱ παλαιοὶ τὰς γενεὰς ἐψήφιζον ἕως ἐτῶν λ´. d(QYZ) h(AgM11Ge) | γίνωσκε, ὦ ἀκροατά, ὅτι ἑξηκοντούτης ἦν ὅτε ἐβασίλευσεν. ἕτεροι δὲ λέγουσιν ὅτι τρὶς ἐβασίλευσεν. h(AgM11).
This scholion shows the typical structure consisting of a glossographical explanation followed by a historia. The final part (γίνωσκε, ὦ ἀκροατά … τρὶς ἐβασίλευσεν), which appears only in the h manuscripts, resembles an appendix compared to the historia. The apostrophe of the listener also seems alien to the ‘style’ of the D scholia. Still, we should not automatically exclude the idea that the information contained in it (the age when Nestor became king; the tradition in which his reign had three phases) come from the same D tradition which had taken up the mythological tale. In other words, we should ask ourselves, and it is reasonable to examine, whether the source of the extra information of h could still be part of the D tradition and potentially its very mythographical component. D schol. Il. 4.171 πολυδίψιον: τὸ πολλοῖς ἔτεσιν διψῆσαν. d(QYZ) h(Ag)49 | ἄνυδρον γὰρ οὖσαν τὴν Πελοπόννησον ἔφυδρον ἐποίησεν Δαναὸς ἐξελθὼν ἀπὸ τῆς Αἰγύπτου καὶ οἰκήσας αὐτήν. τῶν δὲ θυγατέρων αὐτοῦ ζητουσῶν ὑδρεύεσθαι, μιᾶς αὐτῶν, τῆς Ἀμυμώνης, ἠράσθη Ποσειδῶν (...). ὅθεν (scil. Λυγκεὺς) γυναῖκα λαβὼν αὐτὴν (scil. Ὑπερμνήστραν) ὕστερον συνετήρησεν. πολυδίψιον οὖν ἤτοι πολυδιάφθορον διὰ πολέμους, ἢ πολυπόρθητον μεταφορικῶς ἀπὸ τῶν διψώντων καὶ ἐπιθυμούντων ποτοῦ· ἐξ οὗ ἄνυδρον. ἢ βλαβερόν, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἴψιον. d(QXYZ) A h(AgM11) | ἢ παρὰ τὸ ἴψαι· Σοφοκλῆς ἐν Ἰξίονι (fr. 296 Radt) δίψιον κατὰ 47 On this topic, see Montana 2021. 48 The text of the examples is taken from van Thiel 2014a, though the abbreviations for the manuscripts here follow those of Allen, ordered by families and arranged in alphabetical order. 49 This explanation, albeit in a broader form, is also found in the h manuscript abbreviated M11; van Thiel published it as an independent scholion.
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
πλεονασμὸν τοῦ δ· ‘δίψιον ἄτῃσι βεβολημένον’. καὶ μαρτυρεῖ ‘πολυδίψιον Ἄργος ἱκοίμην’. οὕτω καὶ τὸ ὀΐσατο ἀπὸ τοῦ οἴω ῥήματος γέγονεν, ὃ κατὰ διαίρεσιν ὀΐω. μηδέποτε δὲ καὶ τὸ δοάσσατο περισσῷ κέχρηται τῷ δ, ὡς καὶ τὸ δνοφερὸν ὕδωρ παρὰ τὸ νέφος πεποίηται. h(AgM11).
In the d and h manuscripts, this long scholion (the central part of which is omitted here for the sake of brevity) offers the glossographical explanation followed by the historia (present also in the Venetus A), linked to it by a small aetiological connection (γάρ). Within the same witnesses, the mythographical story is followed by an analysis of the lexical formation and the meaning of the word πολυδίψιον, which resumes the initial glossographical explanation and, at this point, finds its basis (cf. οὖν) within the preceding historia. In short, we are looking at a case of a D scholion in which a functional integration of the glossographical and the mythographical material is operating (cf. above, section 2). Now, only in the h manuscripts does the lexical and the semantic analysis of the compound continue with the addition of a further hypothesis accompanied by poetic examples and parallels, partially coinciding with the scholion to Ap. Rhod. 4.14 ὀΐσσατο (in which, notably, the citation from Sophocles is missing). What is the origin of this additional material? The exegetical tradition concerning Apollonius Rhodius’ poem, or a more ancient and more complete version of the D scholion to the Homeric passage? It is hard to answer without conducting an appropriately detailed examination of the text and of the different textual traditions. Similar and even more substantial doubts arise from reading the D scholion Il. 9.562, containing the historia of Alcyone. During the embassy to Achilles in order to persuade the hero to put aside his wrath against Agamemnon, Phoenix gives a long speech in which he recalls the positive exemplum of Meleager who, despite the offence of the Aetolians, abandoned his wrath and saved them from the Curetes’ attack. In this context, Phoenix refers to Meleager’s spouse, Cleopatra, daughter of Marpessa and Idas, and succinctly recalls two salient details of their story: Idas did not hesitate to pick up his bow against Apollo when the god harassed Marpessa, and Cleopatra was called Alcyone because her mother Marpessa wailed like a halcyon (a kind of bird) when the girl was abducted by Apollo (Il. 9.556–564). The D scholion to line 562 contains the mythographical explanation of the name Alcyone: D schol. Il. 9.562 Ἀλκυόνην καλέεσκον: Κῆυξ ὁ Φοσφόρου τοῦ ἀστέρος γήμας Ἀλκυόνην τὴν Αἰόλου, μέγα φρονήσας ἐφ’ ἑαυτῷ θεὸς ἐβούλετο νομίζεσθαι· διόπερ ἥ τε γαμετὴ διὰ παντὸς αὐτὸν ἐκάλει Δία κἀκεῖνος Ἥραν τὴν γυναῖκα. Ζεὺς δὲ ἀγανακτήσας μετέβαλεν αὐτοὺς εἰς ὄρνεα χωρὶς ἀλλήλων βιοῦντα. ἐκλήθη δὲ ἡ μὲν Ἀλκυόνη, ὁ δὲ Κῆυξ. παρὰ δὲ τοῖς αἰγιαλοῖς τῆς Ἀλκυόνης τικτούσης συμβαίνει ἐπελθόντα τὰ κύματα τὰ ἔκγονα αὐτῆς κατασύρειν. Ζεὺς δὲ θεασάμενος αὐτὴν κλαίουσαν, κατελεήσας ἐπέταξεν τοῖς ἀνέμοις, καθ᾽ ὃν ἂν καιρὸν ἡ
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari Ἀλκυόνη τίκτῃ, μὴ πνεῖν, μέχρι τεσσαρεσκαίδεκα ἡμερῶν τοῦ χειμῶνος αὐξομένου. d(QXΥΖ) h(M11Ge) | ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡ Ἀλκυὼν τὸν ἑαυτῆς ἄνδρα ἐζήτει τὸν Κήυκα, καὶ ἡ Μάρπησσα δὲ τὸν ἴδιον ἄνδρα τὸν Ἴδαν ὀδυρομένη. Φερεκύδης50 δέ φησι Διὸς Ἑρμῆν πέμψαντος καὶ ἐπιτρέψαντος τῇ Μαρπήσσῃ ἑλέσθαι ὃν αἱρεῖται προκρῖναι τὸν Ἴδαν διὰ τὸ τὰ μὲν θεῖα πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔχειν τοὺς ἔρωτας, τὰ δὲ θνητὰ ὁμοιοπαθῶς παραμένειν. h(Μ11) | εἴρηται δὲ Ἀλκυὼν παρὰ τὸ ἐν ἁλὶ κύειν. οἱ οὖν γονεῖς ἀπὸ τῶν αὐτῇ συμβεβηκότων οὕτως ἐκάλουν αὐτὴν Κλεοπάτραν, ὡς Μεγαπένθην (Od. 4.11) καὶ Εὐρυσάκην (Soph., Ai. 575) καὶ Νεοπτόλεμον (Il. 19.327). ἔκλαιεν οὖν τὸν ἄνδρα Ἴδαν, ὅτε αὐτὴν ἥρπασεν Ἀπόλλων. d(QX) A h(M11Ge).
The story of Ceyx and Alcyone, transformed by Zeus into birds for their hybris (there is an evident problem regarding mythical variants or homonymous characters, since the Alcyone in the passage of the Iliad is Meleager’s spouse), appears in the first half of the scholion featured in traditions d and h. Since the stormy sea was threatening Alcyone’s new offspring, Zeus felt pity for her and ordered the winds not to blow during hatching time (‘the halcyon days’, at the time of the winter solstice). At least one manuscript of the h family adds to this story two details which, on the contrary, do not occur in the d manuscripts: 1) both Alcyone and Marpessa lamented the death of their husband; 2) according to the testimony of Pherecydes, Zeus let Marpessa choose between the two suitors, Idas and Apollo, and she chose the former, trusting his greater loyalty since he was a mortal like her. The conclusion of the scholion, again common to (part of) d and h,51 rests on the etymology and the meaning of the name Alcyone. The evolution of the scholion is anything but linear and it probably intertwines and mixes up stories or mythological details of different origins, perhaps as a consequence of the compilation of the original comment. It is striking that the second part of the scholion, which is absent in the d manuscripts, serves as an essential link between the first and the last part. Without the parallel between Cleopatra-Alcyone and Marpessa, and the memory of Marpessa’s lament for Idas and of her choice to take the latter as husband, the concluding sentence of the scholion, in which the woman is both the grammatical subject and object, would be obscure: ἔκλαιεν οὖν τὸν ἄνδρα Ἴδαν, ὅτε αὐτὴν ἥρπασεν Ἀπόλλων, ‘[She, i.e. Marpessa] thus mourned her husband Idas, when Apollo abducted her’. In short, without the second part of the scholion, passed down in h (Alcyone and Marpessa had shared the same experience of pain and lament, Marpessa had desired Idas as her spouse), in d there is an incoherence between the content of the first part (the historia of Alcyone and Ceyx) and the third part (the etymology and origin of the
50 This mention does not appear in the editions and collections of the fragments of Pherecydes of Athens (FGrH 3, Fowler 2000, Dolcetti 2004). 51 This part is also present in the manuscripts bT = D schol. Il. 9.561–2 a1 Erbse.
The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
name Alcyone, the explanation of Marpessa’s crying mentioned by Homer) that significantly undermines the clarity and the explanatory utility of the comment on the Iliadic passage. It seems reasonable to ask whether the second segment of the scholion originally belonged to the D tradition and in particular to its mythographical component. In the end, just like the examples taken from the Escorial manuscript E4 and discussed above, these scholia transmitted in the h family also illustrate why and how much the medieval tradition of the MH needs to be examined in depth and carefully evaluated. We cannot exclude that the h family, at its very genesis or at some stage of its subsequent branching, had also drawn from the D tradition some mythographical material which was lost later in that tradition and is absent from its main witnesses extant today (d manuscripts). It is necessary, therefore, to accurately evaluate all of these cases one by one, both in respect to their manuscript transmission and to their specific formal and content-related characteristics.52
5 Conclusion: a new edition of the Mythographus Homericus? The sample analysis of the textual and editorial aspects of the mythographical historiae in the medieval tradition of the D scholia, and specifically in the d and h families of manuscripts, leads to a fairly clear conclusion. The arrangement of these texts in the manuscripts is unstable, and varies to a certain extent depending on both cultural aspects (the reasons for and the goals of their reuse) and material features (the physical placement and the functional relationship of the comments in respect to the text of the Iliad and other paratexts present on the page, such as the stichic paraphrase). There is no doubt that the testimony of the papyri, even in close comparison with the parallel testimony of the scholia, allows not only to infer the existence of an ancient MH, but also to outline some of its general constitutive features. However, it is equally certain that the mythographical tradition transmitted in the medieval corpus of the D scholia bears characteristics which objectively distance it from the ancient collection and hinder the critical constitution of a common and univocal text. Even better: the rich manuscript tradition of the scholiastic historiae shows that the process of adaptation and reuse of the materials remained active and dynamic throughout the 52 Montanari/Montana/Muratore/Pagani 2017, 4–5.
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari whole of the medieval period, producing a variety of solutions, all of which are in a certain sense ‘legitimate’ or ‘authentic’, since they are consistent with the open and pragmatic nature of scholiography. Therefore, if, as initially envisaged, the edition of the MH based on the medieval tradition can hardly be different from the edition of the MH as reused in the class of the D scholia, this ecdotic goal clearly demands the exploration of the many significant variations and fluctuations in the manuscripts. The Escorialensis E4 and the h family of the Iliad scholia are compelling witnesses to this state of affairs.
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The Ecdotic Problem of the Mythographus Homericus
Maniaci, Marilena (2006), “Problemi di ‘mise en page’ dei manoscritti con commento a cornice: L’esempio di alcuni testimoni dell’Iliade”, Segno e Testo 4, 211–297. Matthaios Stephanos (1999), Untersuchungen zur Grammatik Aristarchs. Texte und Interpretation zur Wortartenlehre, Göttingen. Monro, David B./Thomas Allen (eds.) (19203), Homeri opera, I, editio tertia, Oxford. Montana, Fausto (2017), “Dal Liceo al Museo: ultima frontiera”, Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 145, 443–473. Montana, Fausto (2019), Editing anonymous voices: the scholia vetera to the Iliad, in: Shari Boodts/Pieter De Leemans/Stefan Schorn (eds.), Sicut dicit. Editing Ancient and Medieval Commentaries on Authoritative Texts, Turnhout, 97–125. Montana, Fausto (2020), Poetry and philology. Some thoughts on the theoretical grounds of Aristarchus’ Homeric scholarship, in: Antonios Rengakos/Patrick J. Finglass/Bernhard Zimmermann (eds.), More than Homer Knew. Studies on Homer and His Ancient Commentators, Berlin/Boston, 161–171. Montana, Fausto (2021), Exegetical dialogue through compilation. Examples from the h-family of the Iliad scholia, in: Bill Beck/Adrian Kelly/Tom Phillips (eds.), The Ancient Scholia to Homer’s Iliad: Exegesis and Interpretation, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 64.1, Oxford, 6–16. Montana, Fausto/Giancarlo Prato (forthcoming), Escorial. Ω.I.12: primi sondaggi su scrittura e mise en texte degli scholia D all’Iliade. Montanari, Franco (1979), Studi di filologia omerica antica, 1, Pisa. Montanari, Franco (1984), Revisione di PBerol. 13282. Le historiae fabulares omeriche su papiro, in: Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia (Napoli, 19–26 maggio 1993), Naples 1984, II, 229–242. Montanari, Franco (1995), “The Mythographus Homericus”, in: Jelle G.J. Abbenes/Simon R. Slings/Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory After Aristotle. A Collection of Papers in Honour of D.M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Montanari, Franco/Montana, Fausto/Muratore, Davide/Pagani, Lara (2017), “Towards a new critical edition of the scholia to the Iliad: a specimen”, Trends in Classics 9, 1–21. Muratore, Davide (2014), “Some thoughts on the interlinear scholia in the h family of the Iliad”, in: Fausto Montana/Antonietta Porro (eds.), The Birth of Scholiography. From Types to Texts, thematic issue of Trends in Classics 6, Berlin/Boston, 54–89. Muratore, Davide (2018), “On the sources of Lascaris’ edition of the D-scholia on the Iliad”, in: Marco Ercoles/Lara Pagani/Filippomaria Pontani/Giuseppe Ucciardello (eds.), Approaches to Greek Poetry, Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes 73, Berlin/Boston, 133–160. Nünlist, René (2011), “Aristarchus and allegorical interpretation”, in: Stephanos Matthaios/ Franco Montanari/Antonios Rengakos (eds.), Ancient Scholarship and Grammar. Archetypes, Concepts and Contents. Proceedings of the 2nd Trends in Classics International Conference (Thessaloniki, 5th–7th December 2008), Berlin/New York, 105–117. Pagès, Joan (2007), Mythographus Homericus. Estudi i edició comentada, Diss. Barcelona. Panzer, Iohannes (1892), De Mythographo Homerico restituendo, Diss. Greifswald. Pasquato, Alessandro (2015), “Il palinsesto ambrosiano A 181 sup. (Gr. 74): studio codicologico, paleografico e testuale”, Aevum 89, 301–338. Pasquato, Alessandro (2018), Ricerche sugli scholia h dell’Iliade: il corpus esegetico dei codici Ambrosianus A 181 sup. e Parisinus Graecus 2766, Diss. Bologna. Pontani, Filippomaria (2005), Sguardi su Ulisse. La tradizione esegetica greca all’Odissea, Rome (repr. Rome 2011).
Fausto Montana and Franco Montanari Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.) (2007–2020), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam, Vol. I: Scholia ad libros α–β; Vol. II: Scholia ad libros γ–δ; Vol. III: Scholia ad libros ε–ζ; Vol. IV: Scholia ad libros η–θ, Rome. Revilla, Alejo/de Andrés, Gregorio (1936–1967), Catálogo de los códices griegos de la Real Biblioteca de El Escorial, 3 vols., Madrid. Schimberg, Adolf (1892), Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Scholia Vulgata gennant Didymi, Göttingen (repr. of: “Zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung der Scholia Didymi”, Philologus 49 (1890) 421–456; Zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung der Scholia Didymi II– III, Wissensch. Beilage zu dem Progr. des K. Ev. Gymnasiums zu Ratibor 1891–2, Göttingen 1891–2). Schironi, Francesca (ed.) (2004), I frammenti di Aristarco di Samotracia negli Etimologici bizantini. Etymologicum Genuinum, Magnum, Symeonis, Μεγάλη Γραμματική, Zonarae Lexicon. Introduzione, edizione critica e commento, Göttingen. Schironi, Francesca (2018), The Best of the Grammarians. Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad, Ann Arbor. Sciarra, Elisabetta (2005), La tradizione degli scholia iliadici in Terra d’Otranto, Rome. Severyns, Albert (1953), Recherches sur la Chrestomathie de Proclos, III: La Vita Homeri et les sommaires du Cycle, I: Étude paléographique et critique, Paris. Trachsel, Alexandra (2019), “Mythographie: commenter Homère ou collectionner des récits mythologiques? L’exemple d’Apollon Sminthée”, Polymnia 4, 33–63. Tychsen, Oluf G. (1789), “Beschreibung der Handschriften von Homer in dem Escurial und der König. Madriter Bibliothek”, Bibliothek der alten Litteratur und Kunst 6, 134–144. Van Thiel, Helmut (2000), “Die D-Scholien der Ilias in den Handschriften”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Ephigraphik 132, 1–62. Van Thiel, Helmut (ed.) (20102), Homeri Ilias, Hildesheim/Zurich/New York (1st ed. 1996). Van Thiel, Helmut (ed.) (2014a), Scholia D in Iliadem secundum codices manu scriptos, Proecdosis aucta et correctior 2014. Adiuverunt Nicola Conrad et Stephanos Matthaios, online at: (first published 2000), accessed on 21 January 2022. Van Thiel, Helmut (2014b), Aristarch, Aristophanes Byzantios, Demetrios Ixion, Zenodot. Fragmente zur Ilias. Gesammelt, neu herausgegeben und kommentiert, 4 vols., Berlin/Boston. Vassis, Ioannes (1991), Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der sogenannten Psellos-Paraphrase der Ilias, Hamburg. West, Martin L. (ed.) (1998), Homeri Ilias, I, Stuttgart.
Filippomaria Pontani
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey Abstract: Fragments of the Mythographus Homericus in Odysseam are preserved in the 3rd-century papyrus PSI 10, 1173 as well as in the medieval and humanist manuscript transmission of the scholia to the Odyssey (above all the so-called V corpus): the present analysis will single out some heterogeneous snapshots of this long tradition, focusing on one “eccentric” scrap of the papyrus, on a 15thcentury codex now preserved in Cambridge, and on the marginalia to the first medieval Latin translation of the poem. Unexpected analogies and obvious differences will appear.
The transmission of the so-called Mythographus Homericus in Odysseam is a complex issue, which has undergone some radical changes since the last overall treatment by Panzer:1 foremost among the new elements are the discovery of the Papiro della Società Italiana 10, 1173 (3rd c. CE), first published by Goffredo Coppola in 1932,2 and the new scrutiny of the medieval manuscript tradition of the Odyssey scholia.3 The latter is unfortunately much less straightforward and coherent than its Iliadic counterpart, due to the lack of similarly ancient witnesses (the earliest extant scholiastic corpus is that of ms. Heidelb. Pal. gr. 45, dated as late as 1201, while the most important manuscripts rather belong to the later 13th and 14th centuries), as well as to a widespread contamination of exegetical materials: the only clear thread starts from the 10th-century manuscript of the so-called V scholia, namely ms. Bodl. Auct. V.1.51 (Vo in Ludwich’s sigla and mine), which thus becomes the pivotal witness when it comes to mythographical erudition.4 Therefore, since it is impossible to make sense in one go of the entire span of the manuscript transmission of MH in Odysseam, in what follows we shall offer some new thoughts on three related issues, which will adequately show the nature of the problems involved. 1 Panzer 1892, 34–35 (on Panzer’s book see now Pàmias, this volume). A first approach towards a new overall assessment in Pagès 2007, 22–25. 2 Coppola 1932, 131–140. 3 Pontani 2005. 4 On the issue see Pontani 2016, 312–337, and Ernst 2006 (only published online), v–xv. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-004
Filippomaria Pontani
MH transmitted: some features of PSI 10, 1173 PSI 10, 1173 is perhaps the brightest star of the papyri of the Mythographus Homericus tout court. After Coppola’s editio princeps, its text was revised by Luppe and taken up in van Rossum-Steenbeek's monograph;5 more recently, Franco Montanari has shed new light on its nature,6 and Pagès has analysed the relationship of its text with that of the scholia.7 The reasons for the peculiar importance of PSI 10, 1173 are essentially two, namely its remarkable length and good state, and its special relationship with the mythographical notes that ended up in the Byzantine collection now known as ‘V scholia’ (the exact counterpart of the D scholia of the Iliad).8 Six of the eight preserved scraps carry notes pertaining to a very precise textual area of the Odyssey, namely 11.321–14.327. It is clear that the ordering of these notes follows the sequence of the Homeric text, and a comparison with the medieval tradition of the V scholia demonstrates that scraps 2 to 5 cover all the relevant mythographical notes found between 11.321 and 12.85, whereas scraps 6 and 7 cover those from 13.96 to 14.327. Thereby I mean that, although a number of other mythological figures and episodes are quoted or alluded to in the Homeric text of Odyssey books 11–14, no other mythographical historiae on those characters have been handed down to us in the V scholia except for those featuring in the papyrus: this state of affairs should be considered as a proof of the fact that the papyrus (or, to put it more properly, the textual tradition to which the papyrus is a witness) is the direct source of the mythographical passages that were later collected and merged with glossographical Erklärungen in the early Byzantine corpus of the V scholia. In this frame, since the eight scraps clearly belong to a papyrus codex, we must assume that 2–7 were consecutive folia of the same book: as Coppola (1932, 132) remarked, the fact that, along the sequence of the various historiae, the → side always precedes the ↑ side means that the scraps either belonged to the first part of the same quire (which must thus have embraced no less than 12 folia, i.e. a senion) or to the second part of a quire and to the first part of the following one (a scenario rated by Coppola as less likely, on no evident ground). If we stick to the medieval text, we can gauge that the lines lost between each scrap and the following remain more or less consistent: 7 lines (in Ernst's edi 5 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 85–118 and 278–309; Luppe 1997, 13–18. 6 Montanari 2002, 129–144. 7 Pagès 2007, 74–80. 8 On the D scholia see van Thiel 2000, 1–62; Pontani 2005, 145–148; Montana and Montanari, this volume.
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the MH on the Odyssey
tion) between 2v and 3r; 5 lines between 3v and 4r; 6+2 = 8 lines between 4v and 5r; 7 lines between 5v and 6r (although the wording must have been partly different); 6 lines between 6v and 7r, if we believe that nothing else is missing except the end of the historia on Scylla (12.85) and the beginning of that on Phorcys (13.96)—perhaps a surprising fact in view of the rich crop of potentially interesting mythographical allusions scattered in book 12 of the Odyssey, but a situation that perfectly matches what happens in the V scholia, which are remarkably scanty for book 12 and do not display any other mythographical note except the one on Scylla. Scraps 1 and 8 of PSI 10, 1173 fall outside the scope of the given reconstruction: scrap no. 1 has been tentatively identified as carrying notes to another book of the Odyssey, i.e. the scholia to 3.4 and possibly 3.91 on the recto, whereas the words on the verso seem hardly reconcilable with any known exegesis, and should perhaps be taken as a résumé:9 if this is correct, it means that this scrap is the remnant of a folium that featured in the codex well before the other preserved ones; but this also creates a difficulty, for the scholia it contains (the only partly legible one being schol. 3.4a2 about Pylos) do not find a match in any of the relevant mythographical notes of the medieval V corpus. In sum, whether the text of this scrap pertains to the same text and context as the other ones, must still remain uncertain. An even greater difficulty concerns scrap no. 8, which was deemed too badly flaked and thus entirely neglected by Coppola and van Rossum-Steenbeek: its only tentative transcription to date was made by Luppe.10 While duly acknowledging that the papyrus quality, the ink and the handwriting do not show any substantial difference vis-à-vis the other scraps (this is indeed the case for scrap 1 too), Luppe understandably refrained from suggesting any identification of the few extant letters with any of the fragments of the Mythographus Homericus known from the V scholia. One important feature, however, escaped Luppe’s notice, namely the clear remnants on the recto (l. 4) of an interlinear horizontal stroke absolutely similar to those that elsewhere in this papyrus mark the separation between two consecutive notes. Here is a tentative new edition of scrap no. 8.
9 See Luppe 1997, 15–16, and the edition in Pontani 2010, 7. 10 Luppe 1997, 18.
Filippomaria Pontani recto ––––––––– ]..φ [ ]π̣αρ αυτω[ ]νειν. κ̣α̣ὶ ̣α[ ]ναβαλλο̣υ̣[ ______ ]ιναφ[ι]κε̣[ ]ε̣ν̣τω[ι].[
5
l. 1 etiam ρ̣ vel ψ̣ possis l. 3 spatium unius litterae (et vestigia verticalis) inter ν2 et κ, fort. η και ; ι̣λ̣λ̣ια male Luppe l. 4 ναβαλλε̣τ̣ vel fort. ναβαλλω̣ etiam possis, si μ minimum (sicut fr. 6v, l. 6) cum Luppe possis etiam ναβαλλομ l. 6 iota mutum hic illic om. papyrus; ε̣τ̣α̣ι̣ τω male Luppe verso –––––––– ]ειλ̣[ ]....ευ̣ρ ̣[ ]ρ̣ιου̣ταση̣ [ ]. ι̣ν̣[.]ων̣.[ ].[ ].ισ..[ ].[ ––––––
5
l. 3 ρ̣ι̣ου̣ τὰς ν̣ Luppe
Two observations are in order: first of all, since this scrap once belonged to a codex, the respective positioning of the writing columns leads us to conclude that the letters lost on the right (or left) margin in the recto must roughly correspond to the letters lost on the left (or right, respectively) margin in the verso:11 still, I cannot find a suitable criterion in order to ascertain the extent of this loss on either side of the preserved column. Secondly, the ‘long paragraphos’ generally precedes a new lemma in the line below it, and often reaches up to 11–13 letters of the line in question (1r, 2r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 7v), though in at least one case (3v) we know that the lemma began in the foregoing line, and in another case (2r) the stroke reaches out covering only 8 letters of the above line, and 12 letters of the line below. Furthermore, lemmata sometimes include one or more words of the line concerned (1r; 5r.117; 6v.148; 7r.158 and 7v.178), though in other cases
11 This is precisely what happens e.g. in scrap 5, for which we have lacunae at line-endings in the recto and at line-beginnings in the verso.
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the MH on the Odyssey
(2r.29 Πρόκριν; 4v.103 τὸν Τηλεφίδην; possibly 3v.77 Κλυμένην) they embrace the character’s name alone, or the name + an epithet (4r.82 στυγερήν γ᾽ Ἐριφύλην). Taking all this into account, while a full reconstruction of the recto remains impossible, it seems unlikely that the sequence ιναφ, situated immediately below the ‘long paragraphos’ of our scrap, should be interpreted as including the final conjunction ἵν(α), for this would not match any known Odyssean line, and if the ἵνα clause were regarded as part of the mythographical comment, then this would imply that we should have to accommodate the lemma in the few letters of this line that precede our traces, which seems highly implausible. The only alternative is then to read -ιν ἀφ-, a sequence that—if we believe that both segments belong to the lemma—is well attested throughout the Homeric poem: 1.9 τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο, 2.169 σφιν ἄφαρ, 2.349/379 ἐν ἀμφιφορεῦσιν ἄφυσσον (-εν), 4.359 βάλλουσιν ἀφυσσάμενοι, 4.704 μιν ἀφασίη, 9.204 πᾶσιν ἀφύσσας, 11.544 νόσφιν ἀφε(ι)στήκει, 14.455 σῖτον μέν σφιν ἀφεῖλε Μεσαύλιος. Of all these passages, the only remotely possible one would be 11.544, a line that describes the soul of Ajax silently taking its leave in the Underworld, while still in despair for the outcome of his quarrel with Odysseus over Achilles’ arms. Unfortunately, the traces after the φ on the papyrus seem hardly reconcilable with ε(ι)σ (unless the ligature for ει has undergone severe damage), and in any case this solution would pose two further problems: a) a new historia in this part of the Odyssey would have to be accommodated between scraps 4 and 5 (which all scholars have so far regarded as consecutive), and alter dramatically our image of PSI 10, 1173 as carrying substantially the same body of historiae to the apologoi as the medieval V corpus; b) no historia on Ajax and Ulysses is attested in our corpus of the V scholia (this would be the only case in this section, but one should recall the case of the scholia on γ in scrap 1, see above); still, one scholion is indeed handed down in two non-V manuscripts: I am referring to schol. HY Od. 11.547, which deals precisely with the myth of Achilles’ arms, and ends on a sentence that echoes the typical source indications of the Mythographus Homericus: ἡ ἱστορία ἐκ τῶν κυκλικῶν. While more will be said below about the possibility of a special link between ms. Y and our papyrus, it should be borne in mind that this is by no means the only instance of a mythographical note equipped with source indication (and thus apparently deriving from the Mythographus Homericus) but con-
Filippomaria Pontani spicuously absent from the V corpus—I point to the schol. H Od. 6.164, mentioning Simonides’ Kateuchai [fr. 537 Page = 301 Polt.].12 If there are thus enough reasons to give up the idea of 11.544, Luppe’s tentative suggestion of a shorter lemma such as (11.281) Χλῶρ]ιν, followed by the beginning of a much compressed scholion (ἀφίκ[ετο, scil. Νηλεύς), becomes more attractive. The absence of the dot between the lemma and the historia itself is not an unsurmountable obstacle, for while a dot clearly occurs in scraps 2r.29 and 4r.82, it is hardly visible e.g. in scrap 4v.103; furthermore, if 11.281 were here the object of the exegesis, our scrap would belong to a page of the codex situated well before scrap 2, so that problem a) above would not subsist. Still, while the scholion on Chloris does occur in the V corpus, its wording as we have it is quite hard to reconcile with the ink traces, even if we allow—as is customary in this sort of scholia—for a certain degree of textual variation. The most baffling problem, however, concerns the ending of l. 4 of the recto of scrap 8: on the basis of what we see in all other instances of a ‘long paragraphos’ we would reasonably expect here the name of an author as source indication (type: ἡ ἱστορία παρά); but what we have in l. 4 is instead a form of the verb ἀναβάλλω / ἀναβάλλομαι, which does not tally with anything we know about the text of the Odyssey or of its scholia. In the most pessimistic scenario, this single difficulty could be a relevant argument in favour of the idea that this scrap does not belong to MH at all.
MH reworked: Demetrios Chalkondyles in ms. Cambridge, Corpus Christi 81 At the other end of the long tradition of the Mythographus Homericus, I would like to draw attention to a manuscript that despite its relatively young age has often been evoked—most notably in Robert Fowler’s edition of the early Greek mythographers, but also in Nicola Ernst’s proekdosis of the V scholia—as an independent witness to this kind of scholia.13 Ms. Cambridge, Corpus Christi 81 was written by Demetrios Xanthopoulos probably in Rome some time in the mid-15th century, and it stands out as one of only three preserved manuscripts to embrace the Iliad, the Posthomerica of Quintus of Smyrna, and the Odyssey 12 See Pontani 2012, 11–28. On the quotations of poetic authorities in mythographical scholia to Homer see van der Valk 1963, 374. 13 Fowler 2000–2013. Ernst 2006, xi–xii. Fowler 1989, 71–78.
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the MH on the Odyssey
(in this order). I have dealt elsewhere with the fantastic history of this book, which was long dated to the 7th century because the name Θεόδωρος written on the emblem drawn on f. 1r was wrongly referred to the sixth archbishop of Canterbury Theodore of Tarsus rather than to the 15th-century humanist Theodore Gaza, who most probably owned the manuscript soon after its completion.14 What interests us here are the marginalia, all the more so as they are in the hand of a very important Greek humanist active in 15th-century Italy, namely Demetrios Chalkondyles, inter alia the editor princeps of Homer in 1488 in Florence: I have shown elsewhere15 that Chalkondyles’ sources for his notes to the Iliad were the Parekbolai of the learned 12th-century archbishop Eustathius of Thessalonica, whereas for the Odyssey he joined excerpts from Eustathius’ work with some scholia most probably drawn from the most ancient preserved manuscript of that corpus, Bodl. Auct. V.1.51, now preserved in Oxford but kept for a long time (until 1832) in Florence's Medicean library (where it bore the shelfmark San Marco 231).16 Both Fowler and Ernst, however, assign to the Cambridge manuscript an independent value in philological terms, judging that its variant readings must go back to a source different from the Bodleian codex. I have held the view that this hypothesis is unnecessary, both because the scribe was a very competent scholar (and thus could very well alter the wording suo Marte or introduce conjectures in the text) and because the combination of sources inevitably fostered the rephrasing of some scholia. Here I would like to compare a couple of readings of the Cambridge ms. with those of PSI 10, 1173: let us see for example the first lines of the scholion on Procris (11.321): PSI 10, 1173 (2r, ll. 29–37 Coppola): [Πρ]όκριν. Κέ[[λα]]φαλ[ο]ς ὁ Δηι[ονέως γή]μας Πρόκριν τὴν Ἐρεχ[θέως κα]τῴκει ἐν Θορικῷ. θέλων [δὲ τῆς γ]υναικὸς ἀποπειρᾶσθαι ἀ[πο]δημεῖ ἐπ ἔτη ὄκτὼ καταλ[ιπὼ]ν αὐτὴν ἔτ[[ε]]ι νύμφην. [ἔπειτα κατ]ακοσμήσας ἑαυτὸν κ[αὶ ἀλλ]οιώ[σα]ς ἔρχεται [εἰς τὴν οἰκία]ν ἔχων κ[όσμον]. V schol. 11.321 (p. 242 Ernst): Πρόκριν τε: Κέφαλος ὁ Δηιονέως γήμας Πρόκριν τὴν Ἐρεχθέως ἐν τῇ Θοριέων κατῴκει. θέλων δὲ τῆς γυναικὸς ἀποπειρᾶσθαι λέγεται εἰς ἀλλοδαπὴν άποδημῆσαι ἐπὶ ἔτη ὄκτὼ καταλιπὼν αὐτὴν ἐπὶ νυμφῶν οὖσαν. ἔπειτα κατακοσμήσας καὶ ἀλλοειδῆ ἑαυτὸν ποιήσας κ[αὶ ἀλλ]οιώ[σα]ς ἔρχεται [εἰς τὴν οἰκία]ν ἔχων κ[όσμον]. ms. CCC 81 ad loc. (p. 873): Πρόκριν] ὅτι Πρόκριν τὴν Ἐρεχθέως Κέφαλος ὁ Δηιονέως γήμας ἐν τῇ Θοριέων κατῴκει. θέλων δὲ τῆς γυναικὸς ἀποπειρᾶσθαι ἀπεδήμησεν ἐπὶ ἔτη ὄκτὼ καταλιπὼν αὐτὴν ἐπὶ νυμφῶνα οὖσαν. ἔπειτα κατακοσμήσας ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀλλοειδῆ ποιήσας ἔρχεται εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν...
14 Pontani 2005, 388–390. 15 Pontani 2005, 390–394. 16 Pontani 2005, 183.
Filippomaria Pontani It is interesting to observe that both the papyrus and the Cambridge ms. carry a similarly abridged version vis-à-vis the longer and somewhat redundant iunctura λέγεται εἰς ἀλλοδαπὴν ἀποδημῆσαι of the V scholion: we find ἀποδημεῖ in the papyrus and ἀπεδήμησεν in ms. CCC 81. However, that this similarity should go back to a common source is less than likely: one need just note the conjunctive error between CCC 81 and V ἐπὶ νυμφῶνα (not νυμφῶνος, as read by Fowler) for the correct ἔτι νύμφην17—not to mention the order and the form of the aorist participles in the last clause, which are also Bindefehler between Chalkondyles and the Bodleian manuscript. Let us see now the scholion on 11.321–22 about Ariadne and her instructions to Theseus against the Minotaur: PSI 10, 1173 (fr. 3r, 52–55 Coppola) –λάβῃ κρατήσαντά τε τῆ[ς κεφαλ]ῆς καὶ τῶν τριχῶν σφ[άξαι τῷ Π]οσιδῶνι ο κ.....[.].υσαι[....]. ελίττοντα. (in Luppe’s reconstruction: Π]οσιδῶνι κα[ὶ] ἀπι[έ]ν[αι] αὖ τὰ [λ]ί[να ὀπίσ]ω ἐλίττοντα). V scholion (p. 243 Ernst) καὶ ἐὰν αὐτὸν καθεύδοντα μάρψῃ, κρατήσαντα τῶν τριχῶν τῆς κεφαλῆς τῷ Ποσειδῶνι θῦσαι, καὶ ἀπιέναι ὀπίσω ἀνελίσσοντα τὴν ἀγαθίδα. ms. CCC 81 (p. 873): καὶ ἐὰν αὐτὸν καθεύδοντα καταλάβῃ, κρατήσαντα τῶν τριχῶν τῆς κεφαλῆς τῷ Ποσειδῶνι θῦσαι, καὶ ἀπιέναι ὀπίσω ἀνελίσσοντα τὴν ἀγαθίδα.
Here too, we find that both the papyrus (albeit fragmentary) and the codex carry the prosaic verb καταλάβῃ instead of the more poetic one in the V scholion (μάρψῃ): it is well possible that this coincidence proceeds from a polygenetic process of simplification, given that in the rest of the scholion the papyrus departs in several places from the wording attested in the other sources. In the scholion on the Argonauts (12.69–70), we read the following about Pelias: PSI 10, 1173 (fr. 5v, 126–30 Coppola) ὁ [δ]ὲ [ἔφασκ]εν αὐτὸν δεῖν πρότε[ρον δια]κομίσαι τὸ χρυσοῦν δέ[ρος ἐ]κ Κόλχων. ἀκούσας δὲ τα[ῦτα... V scholion (p. 260 Ernst) ὁ δὲ ἔφασκε χρῆναι αὐτὸν πρότερον διακομίσαι τὸ χρυσοῦν δέρος ἀπὸ Κόλχων καὶ τοὺς πυριπνόους ἀνελεῖν ταύρους. ἀκούσας δὲ ταῦτα... ms. CCC 81 ad loc. (p. 884): ὁ δ᾽ ἔφασκε χρῆναι αὐτὸν πρότερον διακομίσαι τὸ χρυσοῦν δέρος ἐκ Κόλχων. ἀκούσας δὲ ταῦτα...
Two conspicuous features link here the papyrus and the Cambridge ms.: while the omission of the second task imposed by Pelias on Jason (i.e. the mention of the fire-breathing bulls) might well be polygenetic, as a relatively natural choice of sobriety and simplicity, the use of the preposition ἐκ rather than ἀπό—an
17 The noun νυμφών is also attested in Eust. in Od. 1688.23: see Fowler 1993, 30–32.
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the MH on the Odyssey
alteration that one would hardly introduce suo Marte, given the ultimate semantic equivalence of the two readings—represents a weighty argument against the derivation of the Cambridge ms. from V and V alone. Later in the same scholion, when Jason and the Argonauts see Phineus: PSI 10, 1173 (fr. 6r, 137–41 Coppola): [τοῦτον δὲ τὸν Φιν]έα ἰδόντε[ς οἱ περὶ τὸν Ἰάσο]να παρεκάλο[υν ὑποθέσθαι π]ῶς διαπλεύσωσι τὰ[ς Πλαγκτ]ὰς πέτρας. V scholion (p. 260 Ernst) τοῦτον oὖν τὸν Φινέα θεωρήσαντες οἱ περὶ τὸν Ἰάσονα παρεκάλουν ὑποθέσθαι πῶς δεῖ πλεῦσαι τὰς Πλαγκτὰς λεγομένας πέτρας. ms. CCC 81 ad loc. (p. 885): τοῦτον ἰδόντες οἱ περὶ τὸν Ἰάσονα σοφὸν εἶναι μαθόντες παρεκάλουν ὑποθέσθαι πῶς δεῖ πλεῦσαι τὰς Πλαγκτὰς πέτρας.
Once again, the V scholion has here the less obvious verb θεωρέω instead of the more vulgar one ὁράω; the omission of λεγομένας (“so-called”) in the papyrus can easily be explained because the same toponym probably occurred at the end of fr. 5v (ll. 135–36, [τὰς Πλα]γκτὰ[ς καλουμένας πέτρας] in Coppola’s reconstruction: a different text from that of the V scholia), so that the coincidence of this omission with the Cambridge manuscript must be regarded as fortuitous. These few examples are the only—if remarkable—points of evident contact between the papyrus and the 15th-century manuscript. There is a much larger body of evidence suggesting that Chalkondyles followed closely the V corpus (as attested in the Bodleian manuscript, kept in Florence at the time and thus easily available to the Byzantine scholar) and a copy of Eustathius’ Parekbolai (most probably ms. Laur. 59.6, the only manuscript of this work that was certainly kept in Florence at the time), and that he freely reworked his sources in a number of more or less controversial points, often simplifying difficult word(ing)s or rephrasing ancient material. If we believe that the overlaps with the wording of the PSI are fortuitous, then we shall maintain that the Cambridge ms. entertains no special link with the ancient tradition, and that Chalkondyles, despite some apparent Bindefehler, had nothing else at his disposal beyond the Bodleian ms. and Eustathius. I agree, however, that on the basis of a different philological analysis one might well argue the opposite thesis, namely that Chalkondyles could have known some other strand of tradition: still, I find it very hard to imagine that this other alleged codex of the V scholia (for it is from such a codex that one would expect Chalkondyles to draw) should have not only gone lost in the meantime, but also remained unknown in 15th-century
Filippomaria Pontani Florence, where such primary exegetical tools were extremely popular among pupils in their first stages of Greek linguistic instruction.18 I end this section by referring to a related issue, this time concerning a different manuscript: it seems as if a single philological peculiarity might give us a chance to recover a deeper strand of tradition stretching across the centuries. In the V historia to Od.12.85, the description of Scylla runs as follows (p. 262 Ernst): ταύτης τὸ μὲν μέγεθος θαυμαστόν, εἶχε δὲ πόδας μὲν δώδεκα, κεφαλὰς δὲ ἕξ, ἐν ἑκάστῳ δὲ τῶν στομάτων τρεῖς στίχους ὀδόντων, ὀφθαλμοὺς δὲ πυροειδεῖς, and the papyrus (fr. 6v, 152–57 Coppola) has ταύ[της] τὸ μέγεθος ἦν θαυμαστό[ν,] εἶχε δὲ πόδας ιβ, κεφαλὰς δ[ὲ στ, ἐν] ἑκάστῳ δ᾽ εἶχε στόματι ὀ[δόντων] τριστοιχείαν, ὀφθ[αλμοὺς] πυρώδεις. Now, in the relevant scholion as transmitted in the margins of ms. Y, a Salentine manuscript from around 1301, we read the following wording: (φωνὴν δὲ εἶχε σκύλακος,) πόδας δὲ δώδεκα, κεφαλὰς δὲ ἕξ, ἐν ἑκάστῳ τῶν στομάτων τριστοιχίαν εἶχεν ὀδόντων, ὀφθαλμοὺς πυρροειδεῖς. Beyond hippiatrical treatises, the exceedingly rare noun τριστοιχία is only attested in Eustathius of Thessalonica’s commentary on this Homeric passage (in Od. 1715.8), where the archbishop describes Scylla’s physical appearance, which has more in common with dragons than with dogs: δρακόντων δὲ οὐ μὴν κυνῶν ἡ τῶν ὀδόντων τριστοιχία. Since there is no evidence of a textual contact between the scholiast of ms. Y and Eustathius, this state of affairs can be interpreted in two different ways: either the papyrus, Eustathius and ms. Y all drew the word τριστοιχία from a common source, i.e. a textual version of the V scholia that is at least partly different from that represented by the Bodleian manuscript (this would force us to consider Eustathius, though later in date than the Bodleianus, as an autonomous source in the constitution of the text of MH, though of course a slippery one due to the massive amount of reworking to which he has exposed the mythographical material available to him);19 or we believe that the papyrus, ms. Y and Eustathius all proceeded independently to use the word τριστοιχία in the description of the monster, by simply creating an abstract noun from the original Homeric line 12.91 σμερδαλέη κεφαλή, ἐν δὲ τρίστοιχοι ὀδόντες. Once again, it is hard to make a decision on whether these coincidences are after all fortuitous or rather the fruit of some hidden philological link running across the centuries: I believe the apparatus of a critical edition should do jus 18 On the exemplars of the V scholia see Pontani 2005; Eleuteri/Pontani 2015, 71–74. On Greek linguistic instruction in Italy see Botley 2010; Ciccolella/Silvano 2017. 19 To this view I subscribed in Pontani 2005, 129.
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the MH on the Odyssey
tice to the complexity and the fluidity of these textual situations by carefully signposting the relevant variants and their possible provenance.
MH translated: Leontius Pilatus in ms. Marc. gr. IX.29 Finally, I should like to draw attention to the fragments of MH preserved by a very unusual kind of witness, which hovers mid-way between direct and indirect transmission: I am referring to the Latin translation of some scholia to the Odyssey provided by the Greek translator Leontius Pilatus in the margins of his autograph manuscript, now preserved in Venice as Marc. gr. IX.29. This manuscript was produced in the 1360s, and was designed for the ambitious enterprise of “bringing Homer back to the West”, inaugurated by Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio—an inspiring story, whose steps can be partly reconstructed from the very margins of this manuscript, equipped with a series of autograph notes in the hand of no less than Francesco Petrarca and—as recently discovered by Marco Cursi—Giovanni Boccaccio.20 Fifteen years ago, I had insisted that this manuscript, while primarily indebted to the V corpus for its glosses and lexical explanations, should be consulted by the new editor of the scholia to the Odyssey because it preserves pieces of exegesis that cannot possibly go back to the V corpus as we know it (i.e. to its oldest and most authoritative witness, the well-known Bodleian manuscript Auct. V.1.51). The philological analysis of some scholia (most remarkably, the occurrence of the names of Megara’s sons in the scholion on Od. 11.269, and of the name of Echetus’ mother in the scholion on Od. 18.85) had led me to the positive conclusion that Leontius had at his disposal a witness different from the Bodleian ms., and one probably related, though not identical, with ms. M (Marc. gr. 613).21 The main proof thereof is given by the presence of a mythographical scholion not normally connected with the Mythographus Homericus, but nonetheless very interesting, namely the note on 11.260 Ἀντιόπην “hec fuit filia Asopi secundum poetam sed secundum tragicos Nyctei”, to be compared with the M scholion to the same line (without any parallel in the V corpus): Ἀντιόπην Ἀσωποῦ, οἱ δὲ Νυκτέως. ὁ μὲν ποιητὴς Ἀσωποῦ, οἱ δὲ τραγικοὶ Νυκτέως. 20 See Pontani 2002–2003, 295–328; Cursi 2015, 5–27; most recently Fera 2016. 21 Pontani 2002–2003, 319–328: on ms. M see Pontani 2005, 242–265.
Filippomaria Pontani After my earlier studies, an important advance has been made: thanks to the painstaking efforts of Valeria Mangraviti, we now dispose of a printed transcription of the entire translation of Leontius’ Odyssey, together with its marginal notes—a very accurate work, which will save scholars a great amount of time. Paying hommage to Mangraviti’s achievement, I would like to add here two more examples of how fruitful Leontius’ notes can be when one reconstructs fragments of MH proper. I first refer to the scholion on Tantalus in 11.582, preserved both in PSI 10, 1173 (fr. 5) and in the manuscripts. V schol. Od. 11.582 (also in ms. M): Τάνταλος Διὸς καὶ Πλουτοῦς συνδιατρίβων τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ συνεστιώμενος αὐτοῖς ἀπλήστως διετέθη. κλέψας γὰρ τὸ νέκταρ καὶ τὴν ἀμβροσίαν, οὐκ ἐξὸν αὐτῷ, ἔδωκε τοῖς ὁμήλιξιν. ἐφ’ οἷς ἀγανακτήσαντα τὸν Δία ἐκβαλεῖν αὐτὸν τῆς ἐν οὐρανῷ διαίτης καὶ ἐξαρτῆσαι ἐπ’ ὄρους ὑψηλοῦ ἐκδεδεμένον τῶν χειρῶν, καὶ τὴν Σίπυλον, ἔνθα ἐκεκήδευτο, ἀναστρέψαι. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀσκληπιάδῃ. Leontius: “Tantalus, Iovis et Plutus filius, diis conversabatur et, simul comedens cum eis sine mensura et sine modo cum abundancia, furatus fuit nectar et ambrosiam herbam et dedit similibus ei quod dare nemini licebat; ideo Iuppiter iratus tormentum hoc apud inferos sibi dedit.”
This note poses few philological problems: all medieval manuscripts carry συνεσθιόμενος, which is clearly wrong and had already been corrected in συνεστιώμενος—which is what the PSI 10, 1173 carries—by Joshua Barnes in his 1711 edition:22 Leontius’ comedens does not really hint at any precise variant in his source text, as it could just as well proceed from the medieval reading, regardless of the verbal voice. The tight link between Leontius and the V scholion, on the other hand, is particularly evident in the choice of similibus ei, which obviously translates V’s reading ὁμήλιξιν rather than the papyrus’ φίλοις. Finally, Leontius’ last sentence compresses in a few words the lengthier treatment of Zeus' punishment in the V scholion, but it also adds one detail, which should not necessarily be regarded as obvious: the entire Νέκυια clearly takes place apud inferos, but no extant witness (not even PSI 10, 1173) spells this out in the context of Tantalos’ punishment, with one exception, namely ms. M, whose scholion reads, in the relevant passage: ἐφ’ οἷς ἀγανακτήσαντα τὸν Δία καθ᾽ ἅδου τιμωρίαν ἐπαρτῆσαι αὐτῷ ἐκβαλόντα καὶ ἐξαρτῆσαι κτλ. The additional element is not particularly original, so it remains doubtful whether this coincidence should be regarded as fortuitous or not. Still, in the
22 On which see Pontani 2005, 524–525; Pontani 2006, 201–233.
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the MH on the Odyssey
broader frame of the special relationship between the scholia of Leontius and ms. M, this might prove an interesting point to think about. Finally, I suggest a glance at the long scholion on Tyro in 12.69, which contains a summary treatment of the Argonautic expedition, and ends on a mention of Phineus, the king of Bithynia. In Leontius’ marginal notes in ms. Marc. gr. IX.29, the section on Phineus is physically separated from the remainder of the scholion, to the point that it is unclear to the unprejudiced reader whether the two sections are in fact at all related. This is the text of the second part of the scholion in Mangraviti's edition, followed by the corresponding V scholion: Leontius: “Phineus rex Vithinie habuit filios a Cleopatra, postea nupsit Euritie et filios suos ipsi noverce dedit interficiendos; propter quod Iuppiter iratus interrogavit ipsum quid pocius vellet, vel mori vel cecari. Ipse peciit ut non solem videret; Sol autem iratus misit ipsi Arpyas qui cibum ipsi in ore devastabant. Ipse autem dedit columbam [...]” V schol. Od. 12.69–70, ll. 14–21 (p. 260 Ernst): πλέοντες δὲ ἀφικνοῦνται ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν Βιθυνῶν χώραν, καὶ ὁρῶσι τὸν Φινέα πηρὸν διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν. ἔχων γὰρ παῖδας ἐκ Κλεοπάτρας τῆς Βορέου καὶ ἐπιγήμας Εὐρυτίαν δίδωσιν αὐτοὺς τῇ μητρυιᾷ διαβληθέντας πρὸς ἀναίρεσιν. Ζεὺς δὲ χαλεπήνας λέγει αὐτῷ πότερον βούλεται ἀποθανεῖν ἢ τυφλὸς γενέσθαι. ὁ δὲ αἱρεῖται μὴ ὁρᾶν τὸν ἥλιον. ἀγανακτήσας δὲ ὁ ἥλιος Ἁρπυίας ἐπιπέμπει αὐτῷ, αἵτινες, εἴ ποτε μέλλοι ... αὐτοῦ διέπρασσον ἐμβάλλουσαι φθοράν τινα. καὶ οὕτω Φινεὺς ἐτιμωρεῖτο.
Leontius’ note breaks off due to a damage in the margin of the Marcianus; as for PSI 10, 1173, it is unfortunate that Phineus’ story falls exactly in the lacuna between scraps 5 and 6 (the first part of the scholion to Od. 12.69–70, extant in scrap 5, is squeezed by Leontius in a couple of sentences). Now, while the V scholion’s narration has been somewhat compressed and rephrased by Leontius, the main thread remains similar, and beyond some omissions the translation is by and large quite faithful. However, the three details I have underlined represent divergences from the text of the V scholion as reconstructed by Ernst chiefly on the basis of the Bodleian manuscript: while the first two (a connective adverbial locution and the orthography of “Harpyies”) do not necessarily require a different source but could also be the fruit of an arbitrary intervention inter scribendum, it is interesting to see that the details of the punishment inflicted on Phineus had gone lost in the V tradition, and were variously restored in later witnesses. I point in particular to the addition μέλλοι ἐσθίειν by the third hand of the Bodleian (the humanist hand whose interventions often match those of the Asulanus edition, as in this case; Philipp Buttmann himself, in his pathbreaking 1821 edition, has μέλλοι ἐσθίειν τὰ βρώματα, following Eustathius,
Filippomaria Pontani with διήρπαζον instead of διέπρασσον) as well as to the phrasing μέλλοι κτείνασθαι (with a large blank space of one line) in ms. M.23 Perhaps the closest wording to Leontius’ note in this respect is to be found in ms. Y, which has a rather different facies of the entire scholion (and thus can by no means be taken as Leontius’ source, especially in the first part of the note): ms. Y: καὶ φθασάντων ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν Ἀθηνῶν [sic] χώραν, ὁρῶσι τὸν Φινέα παρόντα διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν. ἔχων γὰρ παῖδας ἐκ Κλεοπάτρας τῆς Βόρσου καὶ ἐπιγήμας Εὐρύτιαν δίδωσιν αὐτοὺς τῇ μητρυιᾷ διαβληθέντας πρὸς ἀναίρεσιν. ἀγανακτήσαντος δὲ τοῦ Διὸς ἐν τούτ-, λέγει αὐτῷ πότερον βούλεται ἀποθανεῖν ἢ τυφλὸς γενέσθαι. ὁ δὲ αἱρεῖται μὴ ὁρᾶν τὸν ἥλιον. ἀγανακτήσας δὲ ὁ Ἥλιος Ἅρπυας ἐπιπέμπει αὐτῷ, τὴν καθημερινὴν διαφθείρουσαι τροφήν.
This is of course no proof that Leontius had ms. Y at his disposal (although one might be sympathetic to this idea in view of the provenance of this codex from Southern Italy, where Leontius spent many years with his teacher Barlaam of Seminara): but it might be yet another piece of evidence in support of the idea that his source of the scholia to the Odyssey cannot be identified with any of the extant ones, and that he should therefore be regarded as an independent witness to the scholia themselves, and therefore also to some fragments of the Mythographus Homericus.
Bibliography Botley, Paul (2010), Learning Greek in Western Europe, 1396–1529, Philadelphia. Ciccolella, Ferderica/Silvano, Luigi (eds.) (2017), Teachers, Students, and Schools of Greek in the Renaissance, Leiden/Boston. Coppola, Goffredo (1932), “Schol. Hom. Odyss.”, in: Papiri della Società italiana X, Firenze, 131–140. Cursi, Marco (2015), “Boccaccio lettore di Omero: le postille autografe all’Odissea”, Studi sul Boccaccio 43, 5–27. Eleuteri, Paolo/Pontani, Filippomaria (2015), “A new fragment of a 15th-century codex of the scholia to the Odyssey”, Codices Manuscripti 99/100, 71–74. Ernst, Nicola (ed.) (2006), Die D-Scholien zur Odyssee, Diss. Köln. Fera, Vincenzo (2016), “Petrarca e il greco”, Studi medievali e umanistici 14, 73–115. Fowler, Robert L. (1989), “Testis novus ad scholia in Homeri Odysseam”, Minerva 3, 71–78.
23 On the hand Vo3 see Pontani 2005, 186. On Buttmann’s edition see ibid. 530.
Notes on the Manuscript Transmission of some Fragments of the MH on the Odyssey
Fowler, Robert L. (1993), “The Myth of Kephalos as an Aition of Rain-Magic”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 97, 30–32. Fowler, Robert L. (2000–2013), Early Greek Mythography, 2 vols., Oxford. Luppe, Wolfgang (1997), “Nachlese und Überlegungen zum Mythographus-Homericus-Codex P.S.I. 1173”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 116, 13–18. Montanari, Franco, (2002), “Ancora sul Mythographus Homericus (e l’Odissea)”, in: André Hurst/Françoise Létoublon (eds.), La mythologie et l’Odyssée, Genève, 129–144. Pagès, Joan (2007), Mythographus Homericus: estudi i edició comentada, Diss. Barcelona. Panzer, Johannes (1892), De Mythographo Homerico restituendo, Diss. Greifswald. Pontani, Filippomaria (2002–2003), “L’Odissea di Petrarca e gli scoli di Leonzio”, Quaderni Petrarcheschi, 2002–2003, 295–328. Pontani, Filippomaria (2005), Sguardi su Ulisse, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (2006), “Gli scoli omerici e il senso del mondo”, in: Guido Avezzù/Paolo Scattolin (eds.), I classici greci e i loro commentatori, Rovereto, 201–233. Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.) (2010), Scholia in Homeri Odysseam II, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (2012), “Le Kateuchai di Simonide”, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 102, 11–28. Pontani, Filippomaria (2016), “Thoughts on Editing Greek Scholia: The Case of the Exegesis to the Odyssey”, in: Elisabeth Göransson (ed.), The Arts of Editing Medieval Greek and Latin: a Casebook, Toronto, 312–337. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1963), Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad, I, Leiden. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1998), Greek Readers’ Digest? Studies on a Selection of Subliterary Papyri, Leiden/New York/Köln. Van Thiel, Helmut (2000), “Die D-Scholien zur Ilias in den Handschriften”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 132, 1–62.
Part III: The Mythographical Work
Joan Pagès
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus: Some Examples from the Papyri Abstract: Aetia are a privileged matter in the MH corpus. In fact, most of the historiae are explanations of aetiologies and myths of foundation. The chapter analyses a set of cases from the papyri and their corresponding scholia with the aim to determine the place aetiology has in the MH. After the analysis we come to the conclusion that many historiae are aetiologies related to Homeric words, and that aetiology is a concern by itself, to the extent that some aetia lack the usual mythological plot. This concern about aetiology is the outcome of the reception of ancient literature, as aetia were usual topics since Homer and progressively gained relevancy in many Classical and Hellenistic works.
Introduction: aetia and foundation myth in literary tradition First and foremost, I would like to discuss aetia (αἴτια, plural of αἴτιον) and foundation (κτίσις) myths, the relationship between the two categories and their historical and cultural meaning and importance. An αἴτιον is understood as an explanation of a cause (αἰτία) and can apply to any field, from religion to science, but obviously I will be focusing on mythography.1 The literary tradition has passed on a great deal of such explanations, most of them related to the founding of cults and cities. This is due to developments in lyric and tragic poetry. Poetical performance is usually linked to religion, and specific cult spaces are often mentioned in poetry, which gives the poet the opportunity to recount the aetia of the rituals and sanctuaries evoked. Poets tend to be allusive and partial, as they select certain motifs and ignore others. The Hellenistic poets are often obscure and even enigmatic, characteristics that justify the later appearance of companions
1 A theoretical definition and description of aetiology can be found in Darbo-Peschanski 1997; Delattre 2009. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-005
Joan Pagès and commentaries such as Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and the Mythographus Homericus (MH).2 A foundation myth is an αἴτιον that has developed into a narrative.3 It tends to be built on specific narrative patterns. The basic pattern features a founder hero (οἰκιστής, κτιστής) who has to follow the instructions of an oracle in order to establish a new rite. The foundation sometimes serves as expiation of a crime committed. In other cases, the foundation takes place in the spot where a hero has recently died, and his tomb becomes an altar. The site of foundation becomes a new sanctuary or/and a new city. Many narratives have been developed from aetia since Homer.4 Indeed, some outstanding examples can be found in such early works as the Iliad. Consider the αἴτιον of the festivals of choruses at Cnossos in Crete, which are supposed to have originated in a dance instituted by Daedalus for Ariadne.5 Homer evokes this αἴτιον as he describes the dance scene featured on the new shield crafted by Hephaestus for Achilles, suggesting the foundational, aetiological value of Ariadne’s dance. This passage is commented on by the D scholiast with a historia likely derived from the MH. Unfortunately, it is not attested in the papyri. A second example worth noting is the story of Niobe told at the end of the Iliad.6 This story is told to explain the aetiology of the weeping rock of Niobe on Mount Sipylus. This is a good example of how the allusive text of the poet is paraphrased by the mythographer in a new, concise prose text with a coherent,7 structured plot as an explanation for readers of the Iliad. From the fifth century BCE onwards, historians and mythographers gathered many of these stories as explanations of what they considered historical facts from a primeval era. Early mythography began with Acusilaus of Argos, Pherecydes of Athens, and Hellanicus of Lesbos.8 In the following century historians like Theopompus of Chios9 compiled many other local myths, most of them aetia and foundations. All those works were the main sources for the Imperial mythographers, and for the texts and the scholia on the Classical and Hellenistic poets.
2 Cameron 2004, x. 3 Malkin 1985; 1987; Calderón 2017. 4 Harder 2012, 24–36. 5 Il. 18.590–592. 6 Il. 24.602–617. 7 P. Oxy. 61, 4096 fr. 17 (D schol. Il. 24.602); Luppe 1996–1997. 8 Recently edited and commented by Robert Fowler (2000; 2013). 9 FGrH F 115.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
Aetia and foundation myths probably never constituted a literary genre in themselves, but there were some works entitled Aetia10 and Foundations: Charo os Lampsacus’ Κτίσεις πόλεων,11 Foundation of Chios by Ion of Chios12 and another with the same title by Hellanicus;13 by the same author, Foundations of Ethne and Poleis.14 Strabo15 quotes Dionysius’ Foundations, probably Dionysius of Chalcis, which is quoted by Plutarch too.16 According to the Suda lexicon,17 there was also a book by Callimachus entitled Κτίσεις νήσων καὶ πόλεων καὶ μετονομασίαι, but there are no other extant references to it. Aetiology and foundational myths played an important role in the creation of the Panhellenic referential framework during the Archaic period. From Homer onwards the long literary tradition of the Greeks presented many mythical plots based on aetia. In the Classical period lyric and tragic poetry are the main conveyers of aetiology.18 Attic tragedy, especially Euripides, often gives aetiologies at the end of works, recalling the foundations of sanctuaries and ritual institutions. Let us recall only a few examples: the cult of Artemis Taurica in Halae Araphenidae and of Hippolytus at Troezen are celebrated in aetia at the end Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians and Hippolytus respectively. Attic tragedy establishes links between rituals of different places and Panhellenic myth and religion, thus contributing to the tradition initiated by Homeric epics.19 Hellenistic poetry presents the results of deep searches for forgotten local traditions, and especially aetiologies. Callimachus is the first author we are aware of who wrote an ad hoc poem entitled Αἴτια. Poets were highly interested in aetia and searched for rare, unknown stories in local traditions. They merged ancient, local, little-known traditions with the mainstream versions known from the Archaic epics, reshaping them and creating new narratives addressing erudite and highly educated readers who appreciated this revitalized mythography in brand
10 Callimachus’ Aetia (see below). See Fantuzzi/Hunter 2004, 42–88. A recent edition with commentary has been produced by Anette Harder (Oxford 2012). A few papyri witness the existence of a list of abstracts of Callimachus’ Aetia: van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 74–84; Cameron 2004, 52–69; 74–84. 11 Suda χ 136 (Charo of Lampsacus T1 EGM Fowler). 12 T2b, frr. 1–3 EGM Fowler. 13 Fr. 71 EFM Fowler. 14 FGrH 4 FF 66–70. 15 12.4.8. 16 De Herodoti malignitate (Plut. Mor. 860c). 17 Sudα κ 227 s.v. Καλλίμαχος. 18 Kowalzig 2007, 24–31. 19 Ekroth 2003, 67–95; Calame 2011, 253–263.
Joan Pagès new poetic masterpieces, such as Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, Lycophron’s Alexandra, or the works of Euphorion of Chalcis. Commentaries on these works appeared immediately as the reading of such stories posed difficulties of comprehension even for the most cultured.20 It is not surprising if later commentators collected these poetic creations in short prose abstracts which were eventually embedded in scholia of different types and scopes. Aetia had come to represent a large collection of motifs, anecdotes, and narratives spread across the Greek world. They connected the present with the ancestors’ deeds. A solid tradition enabled a consciousness of a shared past, shared rituals and feasts, both Panhellenic and local—in sum, Greek ethnic awareness. The huge repertoire of aetia was also educational material, especially in the late Hellenistic and Imperial periods, when most of those rituals were no longer performed, and, subsequently, the related myths were no longer told in lyric and dramatic performances at festivals. Teachers and pupils needed handbooks featuring all this material in order to keep all these traditions alive. Greek societies were no longer independent, and under the Romans there was a real need to preserve the Greek cultural koine, particularly as the koine dialect enabled easy communication between all Greeks, despite the fact they were at this time spread across all the territories of the Mediterranean, from Massalia to Syria, and from the Black Sea to Egypt.21
Preliminary considerations Let us try to define the outlines of the analysis we are undertaking here. Source research can help us understand the antiquity and authenticity of the stories told. Yet searching for and listing sources is not the main aim of this chapter. What we aim to assess is the relationship between the MH collection and its readership within a specific society at a specific time,22 focusing on aetia and foundation as a matter of cultural concern. This perspective will enable a better understanding of the MH as a product of its specific cultural milieu,23 beyond the traditional scholarly view according to which mythographical handbooks and scholia are 20 Rich collections of scholia on Apollonius have been preserved (Wendel 1935; Lachenaud 2010) and Lycophron (Scheer 1881; Leone 2002). Euphorion’s works and scholia have unfortunately been lost. 21 Jacob 1994; Mactoux 1989; Swain 1996. 22 Cameron 2004, 220–224. 23 Cameron 2004, 217–252.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
mere compilations of multifarious material taken from earlier works. If we transcend this simplistic conception we will be able to better define the nature of the work itself, and to consider it as the outcome of a planned process of writing with a defined objective despite the loss of a hypothetical archetype and its fragmentary status. In this respect, we adhere to a recent perspective adopted by scholarship on mythography examining in greater detail the relationship between Imperial mythographers and their readership.24 The interest in aetia is one of the defining features of the text conventionally called the Mythographus Homericus from the very beginning of its textual tradition. Indeed, although the long transmission of this work has provoked some changes in the form and content of its text, interest in collecting aetia is clear to see in the two stages attested, namely, the papyri and medieval mss. of the D scholia.25 This statement certainly applies to the corpus related to the Iliad. As far as the Odyssey is concerned, the set of historiae is much smaller, and only a few significant examples of aetiology are found. In fact, the analysis we are undertaking focuses on the MH’s commentary on the Iliad, as it offers many examples of aetiology. Among the great number of aetia that can be found in the D scholia, I have chosen from among those also attested by papyri, assuming that the fragments on papyri allow us to read an earlier stage of the textual transmission. The papyri offer proof of their presence from the early Imperial period, while some of the historiae embedded in the scholia might have been absent from the hypothetical MH archetype. Nonetheless, the comparison of the papyri and the scholia indicates the high degree of unity of the collection as a whole, despite the evident differences in wording, and the fact that a few stories from the papyri are absent from the scholia. The best-preserved papyrus, the Florence papyrus (PSI 10, 1173), offers the same set of historiae recorded in the scholia to the Odyssey, with the exception of the first two stories.26 The same thing can be observed in those papyri containing consecutive stories. We will see some examples of this. The complete 24 Cameron 2004; Pàmias 2017a, 3; Edmunds 2017, 97; Fowler 2017, 167; Pagès 2017, 77–78. 25 A bibliographical survey on the papyri and scholia of the MH is to be found in Montanari 1995a, 168–172. On the so-called historiae, that is, the mythographical D scholia to Homer, see Pfeiffer 1937. Pfeiffer established the relationship between the papyri and the scholia discussed by Panzer 1892. Cf. Diller 1935; van der Valk, 1964, 303–413; more recently, Henrichs 1987; Montanari 1988, esp. 341–344; 1995a; 1995b; van Rossum-Steenbeek, 1998, ch. 3; Cameron 2004, 62– 67; Dickey 2007, 26; Higbie 2007, 250–252; Kenens 2012, esp. 160–164. A recent, comprehensive survey on mythography is Meliadò 2015 (specifically on the MH, see 1086–1089). See also Pontani in this volume. 26 For the Florence Papyrus, see the chapters by Villagra and Pontani in this volume.
Joan Pagès set of historiae appears to have been fixed from the beginning.27 On a methodological basis, therefore, the scholia can be used with caution to recover the lost parts of the papyri text, as in fact all editors do.28
The cases of Cilla, Tennes, and Apollo Smintheus: Iliad 1.39 (P. Hamb. 3, 199) The Hamburg papyrus 3, 199 was dated by Kramer29 to the second century CE. It bears testimony of three consecutive historiae related to verses 38 and 39 of the first book of the Iliad. The papyrus was first edited by Kramer.30 These three stories are consecutive items in the scholia as well. Each presents an αἴτιον related to a Homeric word: Κίλλαν, Τενεδοῖο, Σμινθεῦ. These are the three first cases for our analysis. The first is the story of Cilla.31 Under the lemma Κίλλαν an αἴτιον for the foundation myth and the ὀνομασία of Cilla and the sanctuary called the Cillaeum are narrated. The edited text offers a reading quite close to the story of the corresponding scholion, albeit slightly abridged. This difference may be interpreted as the outcome of an epitomized copy in the papyrus or, alternatively, as an enhancement of the text by the scholiast. In any case, the details of the content coincide to a great extent: P. Hamb. , Kramer col. , –32 D schol. Il. . van Thiel Κ̣ί̣λ̣λαν τε ζαθ̣έην· Πέλοψ ὁ̣ Ταν[τά-] λου μι̣σ̣θὸ̣ν̣ π̣α̣ι̣δι̣κῆς Ὥρ̣α̣ς̣ λ̣αβὼν παρ̣ὰ̣ [Ποσειδ]ῶ̣νος ἵππ̣ους σὺ̣ν ὀχήμ̣α̣τ̣[ι ἐπ]ὶ̣ τ̣ὸ̣ν̣ τῆ̣ς Ἱπποδαμεία[ς γ]ά̣μ̣ο̣ν̣ ἔσπευσεν εἰς Πῖσαν τ̣ὸ̣[ν] μνηστ̣[η]ρ̣ο̣κτόνον Οἰνόμαν ἐπιθυ̣μῶ̣ν̣ κ̣[α]τ̣α̣[γω]ν̣ί̣σασθαι. γενομέν̣ῳ̣ δ̣’αὐτῷ κατὰ λέσβον Κίλλ̣[ος ὁ] ἡ̣ν̣‘ί’οχος τὸν
Πέλοψ ὁ Ταντάλου κατὰ μισθὸν παιδικῆς ὥρας λαβὼν παρὰ Ποσειδῶνος ἵππους ἀδαμάστους σὺν τῶι ὀχήματι, ἔσπευσεν εἰς Πίσαν ἐπὶ τὸν Ἱπποδαμείας γάμον, τὸν μνηστηροκτόνον αὐτῆς πατέρα Οἰνόμαον καταγωνίσασθαι ἐπιθυμῶν. γενομένωι δὲ αὐτῶι περὶ Λεσβότιδι καλουμένηι χώραι τῆς Τρωάδος παρὰ τῆι τῶν †Ἀνδραίων χώραι, Κίλλος ὁ ἡνίοχος τελευτᾶι τὸν βίον. ὃς καὶ καθ’ ὕπνον ἐπιστὰς τῶι Πέλοπι σφόδρα ὀδυνηρῶς ἐπ’ αὐτῶι
27 I will be commenting on some specific examples of this issue in sections 3 and 4. 28 See Pàmias in this volume. 29 Kramer and Hagedorn 1984. P. Hamb. 3, 199 = LDAB 2756; TM 61607; MP3 01161.100. 30 See also Luppe 1984. 31 P. Hamb. 3, 199 coll. 1, 1–18 ed. Kramer; D schol. Il. 1.38 van Thiel; FGrH 115F350. 32 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 278–279.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
P. Hamb. , Kramer col. , –32 D schol. Il. . van Thiel βίον προλ̣[ί]πει· π̣ρ̣[ὸς] δ̣ὲ̣ ἀπώλιαν ..[.τ]ὴ̣ν χώραν ἔχοντο̣ς̣ α̣ὐ̣[τ]ο̣ῦ̣ [σφ]οδ̣‘ρ’ὰν ὀδυνη[.....]. δ̣ε̣η̣[....]....[..... ...]ν̣ο̣ι κ̣ο̣.[....].[..... ..... ..] η̣ .ε̣[....]...[..... ....].ο̣ ].ρος̣ γ̣ε[ ]ν̣ ἀ̣π̣ο̣[ ] Κ[ί]λ[λ]α̣ν̣.
ἔχοντι, ἀπωδύρετό τε τὴν αὑτοῦ ἀπώλειαν, καὶ περὶ κηδείας ἠξίου. διόπερ ἀναστὰς ἐξερυπάρου τὸ εἴδωλον διὰ πυρός. εἴθ’ οὕτως ἔθαψε τὴν τέφραν, ἐπιφανῶς τοῦ Κίλλου ἠρίον ἐπ’ αὐτῶι ἐγείρας, καὶ πρὸς τῶι ἠρίωι αὐτοῦ ἐδείματο ἱερὸν, Κιλλαίου Ἀπόλλωνος προσαγορεύσας, διὰ τὸ αἰφνιδίως τὸν Κίλλον ἀποθανεῖν. οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ πόλιν κτίσας, Κίλλαν ὠνόμασεν. ὁ μέν τοι Κίλλος καὶ μετὰ θάνατον τῶι Πέλοπι δοκεῖ συλλαβέσθαι, ὅπως περιγένηται τοῦ Οἰνομάου περὶ τὸν δρόμον. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Θεοπόμπωι
According to the scholiast, Cilla was a πολίχνιον Τρωάδος. But the story told by the MH, which can be partially read in the papyrus and completed with the help of the scholion, talks about the previous foundation of a sanctuary to an Apollo called Κιλλαῖος (Cillaeus), and the consequent foundation of a city, Cilla, the place name mentioned by Homer in the passage commented on. The narrative of the circumstances of the foundation is not very clear: it seems that Cillus, Pelops’ charioteer, died somewhere in the whereabouts of Lesbos. As Lesbos is an island, we infer that he drowned after falling overboard, similar to Phrontis33 and Palinurus, or having fallen from a cliff following the katapontismos pattern, like Myrtilus. Cillus’ ghost appears in Pelops’ dreams and begs for a funeral, like Elpenor in the Odyssey and Palinurus in the Aeneid.34 As Pelops seems unable to find Cillus’ corpse, he burns an eidolon: does this mean that he carved a wooden statuette in the likeness of his charioteer? As we can see, the interpretation of this foundational rite is quite complex. In any case, it seems that we are dealing with a myth-and-ritual complex with very ancient features: note the hapax legomenon ἐξερυπάρου, an archaism that probably means “to reduce to ashes” (LSJ) in a ritual context. So the tumulus was a cenotaph.35 This odd rite is closely linked to the myth of Pelops in a very strange version according to which the chariot race between Pelops and Oenomaus was held on Lesbos, not in mainland Greece. This would appear to be the Lesbian version of the myth.36 The story of Cillus never entered Panhellenic tradition. It was preserved locally, probably the result of a narrative expansion done under specific historical
33 Od. 3.282; Paus. 10.25.2. 34 Od. 11.51–80; Verg. Aen. 6.337–383. 35 Pagès 2020, 6–7. 36 Schol. Eur. Or. 990; Pherecydes FGrH 3F37b (and commentary); Fowler 2013, 430.
Joan Pagès circumstances and with a specific purpose. If Theopompus recorded this tradition, it must be dated, at the latest, to the fifth or early fourth century BCE. We cannot say whether this is a testimony of a myth from the Archaic period or a mere reshaping based on well-established patterns, probably linked to the proSpartan propaganda promoted by Lesbian aristocrats during the Peloponnesian war. In any case, the story could be a Lesbian response to Pindar’s first Olympic Ode, and the Lesbian revolution during the Peloponnesian war could be a suitable historical context.37 Theopompus, according to some ancient authorities such as Dionysus of Halicarnassus and Cicero, collected many stories, probably embedded as excursuses in his works.38 The nature of the Cillaeum and the time and circumstances of its refoundation as a centre of hero cult are problematic issues. Strabo,39 probably following Demetrius of Scepsis and/or Daes of Colonae, states that the sanctuary of Apollo Cillaeus was near the city of Antandros. But the information at our disposal is very scarce. The enormous chronological distance between the Homeric epics and this geographer of the Roman Imperial period does not allow us to draw any firm conclusion. Moreover, we lack archaeological data. Homer never speaks explicitly of hero cult but this silence is not proof of the inexistence of hero cult in the early Archaic period.40 Archaeology and many ancient sources bear testimony of a large number of hero cult altars to heroes and tumuli inside some sanctuaries of Olympian gods. We may assume that hero cults might have been involved in the three sanctuaries of Apollo mentioned by Homer, but not necessarily in “Homeric” times (whatever that means). The Cillaeum, if we judge only by the text of the Iliad, was the sanctuary where Cillus the hero was worshipped alongside the Apollo called Cillaeus. But why was Apollo summoned under this strange epithet? The MH gives an αἴτιον: an old, local story found in one of the numerous digressions that could be read in Theopompus’ books.41 Yet this story was probably absent from the Homeric tradition. The MH here links the Homeric text with a later, local account. It is filling a gap, providing information that is valuable to those readers interested in all things related to Homer in a period of history when there was a demand for encyclopaedic knowledge, and every single Homeric word needed to be explained. Aetia
37 Dolcetti 2011; Acerbo 2017; Pagès 2020. 38 Dion. Hal. Pomp. 6.4 (FGrH 115 T20); Cic. Leg. 1.5. 39 Strabo 13.1.63. 40 Antonaccio 1994; 1995; Nagy 2005. The case of Tennes is clear, and will be examined shortly. 41 FGrH 115F350.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
were a perfect formula for presenting such explanations, but only stories legitimized by an ancient authority could satisfy this readership. Hence the quotations of authorities (subscriptiones) at the end of the historiae. Let us move on to the second case. The story of Tennes42 and the foundation of the city of Tenedos is summarily told in this scholion, and important omissions are perceptible if we compare this text with the other extant sources that have transmitted it. The papyrus is a small piece on which one can read only a few words, and with difficulty. The corresponding scholion appears to present a text that has been rewritten (or conversely, the text of the papyrus has been epitomized, as in the case of Cilla). P. Hamb. Kramer col. , –43 D schol. Il. . van Thiel
τῇ ἀδελφῇ̣ Λ̣ε̣[υκοθέᾳ καὶ κα-] τὰ θάλατταν [ἔρριψεν. ἡ δὲ] λάρ̣ναξ κατάγ̣[εται θείᾳ] γ̣ν̣ώμῃ τῇ τό̣[τε μὲν ἐπικα-] λουμένῃ νήσ̣[ῳ Λευκόφρυι,] Τενέδῳ δ’ὕστ[ερον ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ] προσαγορευθε̣[ίσῃ. ἱστοροῦσιν] Μυρτίλος καὶ Ε̣[ὐριπίδης].
(...) ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἄρα τῶι Κύκνωι ἐγεννήθη ὁ Τέννης καὶ Λευκοθέα ἡ μὲν μήτηρ αὐτῶν οὐκ ἔτι ἦν, ἐπέγημε δὲ ὁ Κύκνος Φυλονόμην, ἢ, ὡς ἔνιοι, Πολύβοιαν, ἡ Φυλονόμη —καὶ γὰρ εἰς ἄνδρας ἐτέλει ἤδη ὁ Τέννης— ἐρασθεῖσα αὐτοῦ, λόγους περὶ συνουσίας ἠνέγκατο πρὸς αὐτόν. τοῦ δὲ τὰ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν δικαίως τηρήσαντος κατηγορήσατο πρὸς τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ ὅτι τεθελήκοι αὐτὴν βιάσασθαι. ὁ δὲ πιστεύσας τῆι κατηγορίαι συλλαβὼν τὸν παῖδα ἐνέβαλεν εἰς λάρνακα καὶ ἔρριψεν εἰς τὴν ὑποκειμένην θάλασσαν. ὃν διὰ σωφροσύνην καὶ διὰ τὸ εἶναι υἱωνὸν ἔσωσεν ὁ Ποσειδῶν. τὴν γὰρ λάρνακα προσενεχθῆναι τῆι Λευκόφρυϊ νήσωι ἐποίησεν, ἣν θεασάμενοι καὶ ἀφελόντες τὸ ἐπίθημα μαθόντες τε τὸ γεγονὸς, οὐ μόνον ἑαυτῶν βασιλέα κατεστήσαντο, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ Τένεδον τὴν νῆσον προσηγόρευσαν.
In the papyrus we can read the name Myrtilus. This is the usual quotation at the end (subscriptio). The name probably indicates Myrtilus or Myrsilus, a local Lesbian historian.44 The uniqueness of this quotation is worth noting. As we shall see, the authors who tell this story quote very few sources. After this name we can read καὶ and an unclear letter, probably an ε (epsilon). Kramer, the first editor of this papyrus, suggested that this lost word was “Euripides”. Montanari45 proposes Hellanicus, who, unlike Euripides, is a source often quoted by the MH.
42 P. Hamb. 199, col. 2, 19–26 Kramer; cf. Luppe 1984; D schol. Il. 1.38 van Thiel. 43 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 279. 44 Laqueur in Pauly, RE, s.v. Mirsylus 6. 45 Montanari 1995a, 151 n. 24.
Joan Pagès Fowler includes this papyrus among the fragments of Hellanicus.46 The fragmentary hypotheses of tragedies preserved on papyri attest to a tragedy by Euripides about the myth in question.47 Yet there are no further testimonies of this or other dramas on this topic. The myth of Cycnus, Tennes, and Hemithea has been preserved in a good number of late sources, and there are no significant variants.48 This consistency points towards a single source, likely Hellanicus or a play by Euripides, both from the second half of the fifth century. All the extant testimonia of the myth of Tennes at our disposal are post-Classical. None of them quotes any author predating the fourth century. The play by Euripides must have been forgotten relatively quickly: there are no verbatim quotations in the later authors who provide fragmenta and testimonia.49 My hypothesis is that, as in the previous case, this myth relates an ancient, local tradition. But, unlike the case of Cillus, the story of Cycnus and Tennes entered Panhellenic tradition. It might have been recorded during the late Archaic period in the epic cycle. According to Athenaeus,50 the Hellenistic poet Hegesianax of Alexandria Troas,51 under the pseudonym Cephalion, wrote a poem called Troica in which he recounted the combat of Cycnus and Achilles.52 Unfortunately, the extant fragments give no clues to its content. In any case, Euripides, as he often did, must have reshaped a story from the cyclic epics to compose his tragedy. He was notably interested in aetia related to places politically linked with Athens—recall Hippolytus, hero of Troezen, and Iphigenia, heroine of Halae Araphenides. There is a scholion to Lycophron53 featuring the same story about Tennes but with a different wording. The scholiast says that Achilles killed Tennes, as well
46 F **160B EGM (and commentary, EGM II 94–95; 516; 601–602). 47 P. Oxy. 31, 2544 Barns – Coles fr. 14.1, see van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 219; Meccariello 2014, 319–320. 48 Hecataeus FGrH 1 F 139; Diod. Sic. 5.83.1–4; Strabo 13.1.46; Apollod. Ep. 3.23; Paus. 10.14.2; Schol. Lyc. 232 Leone; Heraclides Lembus fr. 22 Dilts; Steph. Byz. s.v. Τένεδος; Suda Τ 310 s.v. Τενέδιος ἔνθρωπος. Further sources and scholarship collected by Huys 2005. 49 Only fr. 695. 50 Ath. 9.49 Kaibel. 51 It is not clear whether the poet and the historian who bore the name Hegesianax were the same person. Athenaeus (4.42 Kaibel) seems to suggest this possibility: ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ εἰς Ἡγησιάνακτα τὸν Ἀλεξανδρέα ἀπὸ Τρῳάδος τὸν τὰς ἱστορίας γράψαντα ἡ τῆς ὀρχήσεως τάξις ἐγένετο, ἀναστὰς εἶπε· πότερον, ὦ βασιλεῦ, κακῶς ὀρχούμενόν με θεάσασθαι βούλει ἢ καλῶς ἀπαγγέλλοντός μου ἴδια ποιήματα θέλεις ἀκροάσασθαι; 52 Ath. 9.49 Kaibel (cit.): ὁ δὲ τὰ Κεφαλίωνος ἐπιγραφόμενα Τρωικὰ συνθεὶς Ἡγησιάναξ ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεὺς καὶ τὸν Ἀχιλλεῖ μονομαχήσαντα Κύκνον φησὶ (FHG III 69) τραφῆναι ἐν Λευκόφρυι πρὸς τοῦ ὁμωνύμου ὄρνιθος. 53 Schol. Lyc. 232 Leone.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
as Cycnus. This detail is not given by the MH. The presence of Achilles and the motif of the two heroes’ combat support the hypothesis of an epic poem about Achilles. If this is so, both Euripides and Hegesianax might have had a late Archaic model from the epic cycle. It is very unlikely that these three texts, namely, the epic poem, Euripides, and Hegesianax, were still available in Imperial times. The MH (and the other late sources quoted for the Tennes myth) could have known the story from later prose sources, as we shall see. The silence between fifth-century tragedy and Imperial prose can be partially filled by a very few quotations. First and foremost, the Hamburg papyrus quotes Myrtilus, as we have seen. Stephanus quotes two prose works that could have been the main references from the fourth century onwards: The Constitution of the Tenedians, attributed to Aristotle,54 and The Catalogue of the Ships, by Apollodorus of Athens. Despite this patchy transmission, the fact that the story is preserved by several sources suggests that this was a popular tale. The Kellis ostracon55 is also proof that it was told at schools. The uniformity of the plot across all testimonies and the different wording suggests that historians, mythographers, scholiasts, and lexicographers did not need to consult sources: the myth of Tennes was common scholarly knowledge. Indeed the absence of the textual coincidences usually found in mythography points to this inference. But what might have been the interest of this story for the MH? This seems to be a new example of a genuine ancient, local tradition, even if later reshaped for political and/or strategic interests. Note that the metonomasia motif replaces a name with a transparent Greek etymology, Leucophrys, with a non-Greek one, Tenedos. Once again the rivalry between Athens and Mytilene appears to have interfered in the mythical tradition. The hypothesis of the circulation of a lost cyclic poem during the late Archaic period fits this assumption. The story of Tennes bears the usual features of the cyclic narratives that were later reused by tragedians.56 It is a typical expansion of the Trojan cycle. Indeed Achilles plays an important part, as he was the conqueror of Tenedos and the killer of Tennes and his father Cycnus, as we read in Diodorus, Heraclides Ponticus, and in the scholion on Lycophron referred to above. Moreover, according to Pausanias in the passage quoted,57 Tennes’ mother was Proclia, sister of Caletor, whom Ajax killed.58 It is also worth noting how ancient ritual practices are turned into narrative motifs:
54 Fr. 8.44.592 Rose; cf. Heraclides Lembus fr. 22 Dilts. 55 Huys 2005. 56 Sommerstein 2015. 57 See n. 48. 58 Il. 15.419.
Joan Pagès the ritual known as katapontismos suggests the idea of mother and child thrown into the sea. From a narrative basis, this story is built upon two patterns: the wife of Potiphar motif and the larnax motif. This is obvious and needs no further explanation, and it is not surprising if Euripides used this pattern for other plays— Hippolytus and the lost Danae. An aetiology is given at the end: the foundation of the city of Tenedos and the cult of the hero Tennes, closely tied to Apollo on the island of Tenedos—in the sanctuary of Apollo to which Homer is referring, where the city’s eponymous hero was worshipped.59 Secondary aetiological motifs are related to the main plot. According to Diodorus, flute players were denied entrance into Apollo’s temple since a flute player falsely accused Tennes of attempting to rape his step-mother. Speaking Achilles’ name was also prohibited inside the sanctuary because he was Tennes’ killer. Pausanias and Stephanus pass on the “Tenedian axe” motif, which became a proverb and was even represented on Tenedian coins. As we can see, this story generated other aetiological traditions that became very popular. Diodorus Siculus links the aetiology of the cult of Tennes to the moment of the hero’s death:60 the Tenedians worshipped him like an immortal. In this short passage Diodorus retells the foundation of Tenedos as a consequence of the arrival of Tennes at Leucophrys, and the institution of his cult when he died. The myth is rationalized. In sum, Tennes was a founder hero worshipped at Tenedos whose story is a clear example of the kind of aetiological myth the MH was interested in. The mythology around this figure might have first developed during the late Archaic period, and a play by Euripides could have contributed to its popularity. The third case is a story about the epiclesis “Smintheus” (Il. 1.39). It tells the αἴτιον for the foundation of the sanctuary of Apollo Smintheus. Only a few words from the lemma and the incipit of the historia are legible but, once again, we can have recourse to the corresponding scholion.
P. Hamb. , Kramer col. , –61 D sch. Il. . van Thiel Ζμινθεῦ, εἴ π[οτέ τοι χαρί-] εντ’ ἐπὶ νηὸν̣ [ἔρεψα. ] ἐν Χρύσης πόλιν τ̣[ῆς Μυσίας]
ἐν Χρύσηι πόλει τῆς Μυσίας Κρίνις τις ἱερεὺς ἦν τοῦ κεῖθι Ἀπόλλωνος. τούτωι δὲ ὀργισθεὶς ὁ θεὸς ἔπεμψεν αὐτοῦ
59 Dowden 1989, 61. 60 Diod. Sic. 5.83. 61 Line 1 Ζμινθεῦ sic. Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 279.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
P. Hamb. , Kramer col. , –61 D sch. Il. . van Thiel Κ̣ρ̣ῖ̣ν̣[ι]ς̣ ἦ̣ν ἱε̣[ρεύς
].
τοῖς ἀγροῖς μύας, οἵτινες τοὺς καρποὺς ἐλυμαίνοντο. βουληθεὶς δέ ποτε ὁ θεὸς αὐτῶι καταλλαγῆναι πρὸς Ὄρδην τὸν ἀρχιβούκολον αὐτοῦ παρεγένετο. παρ’ ὧι ξενισθεὶς ὁ θεὸς ὑπέσχετο κακῶν ἀπαλλάξειν, καὶ δὴ παραχρῆμα τοξεύσας τοὺς μῦς διέφθειρεν. ἀπαλλασσόμενος οὖν ἐνετείλατο τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ δηλῶσαι τῶι Κρίνιδι· οὗ γενομένου ὁ Κρίνις ἱερὸν ἱδρύσατο τῶι θεῶι, Σμινθέα αὐτὸν προσαγορεύσας, ἐπειδήπερ κατὰ τὴν ἐγχώριον αὐτῶν διάλεκτον οἱ μύες σμίνθοι καλοῦνται. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Πολέμωνι.
I have discussed elsewhere the structure of this myth, which shows quite Archaic features and is a clear example of syncretism as far as it is built upon the Anatolian pattern of the disappearing god.62 Discussion of the origin of the epiclesis and its etymology, which all the ancient sources trace back to the pre-Greek word σμίνθος, ‘mouse’, and the relationship between Apollo and mice, is followed in the scholion by a strange story about Crinis, a priest of Apollo, and a shepherd called Ordes. This text is the testis unicus for this myth. The source quoted is Polemo, quite likely the geographer Polemo of Ilium. If this is so, we should infer that the myth transmitted was a local tradition, which explains its absence from the major epics and mythography. Therefore we are dealing with the story of an αἴτιον from local, perhaps oral tradition, which was recorded by a local writer, similar to the first case assessed, but unlike the story of Tennes, which became a Panhellenic reference. This scholion shows how local traditions recorded by historians could survive independent from the most commonly told epics. To conclude the assessment of these three related stories, we can state that there is a pattern in the treatment of these myths. In all three there is a character who acts as a priest performing a ritual, literally or apparently. The ritual is described or, at least, mentioned. The purposes of these rites differ: Pelops performs a funeral ritual for his charioteer in the absence of his corpse; Cycnus performs an ordeal in order to punish his son Tennes by throwing him into the sea in a larnax according to the katapontismos ritual pattern; Ordes performs a θεοξενία by admitting (ξενισθείς) Apollo into his hut. The myth-ritual complex appears to give sense to the story told, and this shows that we are dealing with very ancient material. We should bear in mind that, even if the ritualistic basis for interpreting myth has been strongly challenged in recent decades, we can still state that the 62 Pagès 2007.
Joan Pagès society that created these myths was familiar with all of these kinds of ritual.63 Myth gave sense to ritual and vice versa. The preservation of these features in such a late text points towards the idea that the MH was using ancient material, directly or indirectly. All three cases present a foundational αἴτιον at the end: the foundation of the Cillaeum, of Tenedos, and of the Smintheum. Aetia were the perfect link between myth and ritual. In the specific case of hero cult, they connected worship performances to the mythic moment of the foundation of both rite and sanctuary.64 Aetiology performs an exegetical function. The commentator-mythographer is explaining why in the passage commented on Apollo is addressed with the specific epiclesis Σμινθεῦ, and why Homer mentions the cities of Cilla and Tenedos in association with Apollo. The explanation given is rich in mythological detail, it is an authentic piece of mythography in itself. The twofold nature of the MH is clear: it is mythography used as Homeric exegesis. In sum, the three stories that can be partially read in the Hamburg Papyrus 3, 199 and the corresponding D scholia present a quite coherent structure. The mythographer searched for foundation myths related to places in the Troad mentioned by Homer, and he very likely consulted local historians or late Classical or Hellenistic poets. Tab. 2: Aetia in the Hamburg Papyrus 3, 199. Rite
Myth
.a: Κίλλα
Funeral cremation of a “substitute” statuette
Death of Cillus, Sanctuary of Apollo Pelops’ chari- Cillaeus oteer
Theopompus of Chios
.b: Τένεδος
katapontismos
Story of Tennes
(Re)foundation of Tenedos, former Leucophrys
Myrtilus (Euripides?)
.: Σμινθεῦ
theoxenia
The plague of mice
Sanctuary of Apollo Smintheus
Polemo of Ilium
63 Burkert 2000; Kowalzig 2007, 59–80. 64 Delattre 2009, 297–303.
Foundational αἴτιον
Source
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
The Story of Caeneus (P. Oxy. 3, 418; D schol. Il. 1.264) Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 3, 418 is the oldest testimony of the MH. Its editors Grenfell and Hunt65 gave it an early date: early second century CE or even late first century. The small piece preserved presents 32 lines containing three historiae. It is worth noting that, although Homer gives a short list of heroes of the past in verses 263– 265, namely, Pirithous, Dryas, Caeneus, Exadius, Polyphemus, and Theseus, the MH comments only on Pirithous and Caeneus. Furthermore, the sequence of historiae attested coincides with the medieval mss., and this is proof of a stable transmission even after the text of the MH was transferred to the D scholia in the early Middle Ages. The criteria for selecting certain names and rejecting others is a complex issue which, in any case, is beyond the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless it is worth remarking that Dryas and Exadius are two characters absent from the extant mythography, which suggests that there was little or no mythology concerning them. Polyphemus is only known as Caeneus’ brother, and for having participated in the Argonauts’ expedition, but his role in Apollonius’ poem is insignificant. It is not surprising, then, if the MH bypasses this name as well. All these characters were little more than names without a “biography”. As far as Theseus is concerned, one may wonder whether there was any need to talk about such a well-known character whom everybody knew from school, drama, vase and wall paintings, and the like. One more remark about this issue will suffice: between the story of Caeneus (Il. 1.264) and that of Thetis and Briareus/Aegaeon (Il. 1.400) there are 135 verses without mention of any name deemed worth commenting on, and, therefore, without any story in both the mss. and the papyri. This is further evidence that the stories preserved in the codices of the D scholia derive mostly from the MH, admitting that there must, of course, be some exceptions. The first story comments on Pirithous (Il. 1.263), the second, on the name Caeneus (Il. 1.264), and the third is about the varia lectio Φοῖβος Ἀπολλων for Πάλλας Ἀθήνη (Il. 1.400). Again these three cases deal with proper nouns. Our analysis will focus on the second, which shows ritualistic features and is related to an αἴτιον, even if the MH does not tell it explicitly.
65 Grenfell/Hunt 1903. P. Oxy. 3, 418 = LDAB 2753; TM 61604; MP3 01164.000.
Joan Pagès
P. Oxy. , Grenfell/Hunt –66
D schol. Il. . van Thiel
[Καινέα τ’ Ἐξάδιο]ν τε καὶ ἀντίθεον Πολύφημον· [ὁ Καινεὺς Ἐλάτου] μὲν παῖς, Λαπίθων δὲ βασιλε[ὺς [πρότερον παρθέ]νος εὐπρεπὴς ἐγένετο· δ[.. [.........μιγέν]τος αὐτῇ Ποσιδῶνος αἰτησα[μέ[νη μεταβαλεῖν νε]αν[[ειι]]ας ἄτρωτος γείνεται· γ[εν [ναιότατος δὲ τ]ῶν καθ’ ἑαυτὸν ὑπάρξας τὸν [ [....... της ἡγε]μονίας οὐκ ἐβάστασεν ἐξευ[τε [λίσας δὲ καὶ το]ὺς θεοὺς παρ’ οὐ[δὲν ἐποιή[σατο καί ποτε πή]ξας ἀκόντιον ἐν [μέσῃ τῇ [..............] ἀγορᾷ τοῦτο θεὸν π[ροσέτα[ξε νομίζειν· Ζεὺ]ς δὲ ἀγανακτήσα Κενταύ[ροις πολεμοῦν]τα καίπερ ἄτρ[[οω]]το[ν ὄντα ὑπο[χείριον ἐποίησε]ν. ἐλάταις γὰρ κα[ὶ δρυσὶν οἱ Κενταύροι αὐτὸν ἤρισαν εἰς γῆν.
ὁ δὲ Καινεὺς Ἐλάτου μὲν {ἦν}παῖς, Λαπίθων δὲ βασιλεὺς, πρότερον παρθένος εὐπρεπής. μιγέντος δὲ αὐτῆι Ποσειδῶνος αἰτησαμένη μεταβαλεῖν εἰς ἄνδρα ἡ νεᾶνις, ἄτρωτος γίνεται γενναιότατος τῶν καθ’ αὑτὸν ὑπάρξας· καὶ δήποτε πήξας ἀκόντιον ἐν τῶι μεσαιτάτωι τῆς ἀγορὰς, θεὸν τοῦτο προσέταξεν ἀριθμεῖν. δι’ ἣν αἰτίαν ἀγανακτήσας ὁ Ζεὺς τιμωρίαν τῆς ἀσεβείας παρ’ αὐτοῦ εἰσεπράξατο. μαχόμενον γὰρ αὐτὸν τοῖς Κενταύροις καὶ ἄτρωτον ὄντα ὑποχείριον ἐποίησεν. βάλλοντες γὰρ αὐτὸν οἱ προειρημένοι δρυσίν τε καὶ ἐλάταις ἤρεισαν εἰς γῆν. μέμνηται δὲ αὐτοῦ καὶ Ἀπολλώνιος ἐν τοῖς Ἀργοναυτικοῖς λέγων οὕτως· (sequitur Ap. Rhod. Argon. . –).
The story of the Lapith Caeneus67 is not about a place like the three cases assessed above, but about a mythical character. He was a son of Elatus, a name formed from the phytonym ἐλάτη, a local species of fir tree (abies cephalonica). Lapiths are closely linked to trees. The story recounts the change of sex68 of a maiden into a man, which leads us to establish an analogy with the masculinization of the word ἐλάτη. The former maiden, whose name was Καινή according to Acusilaus, and Καινίς according to other sources, had intercourse with Poseidon and was given the gift of becoming an invulnerable young man, Caeneus, a name derived from the root καιν-, ‘new’, ‘fresh’, and the anthroponymic suffix -ευ-. The MH interprets the mention of Caeneus made by Homer. This appears in a passage of the Iliad where Nestor is recalling the extraordinary nature of the heroes of the past, and the mythographer explains why Caeneus is an example of this. As a part of the plot, an αἴτιον for a strange ancient rite is described. The
66 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 280. 67 Velasco 2007; Pàmias 2012; Bremmer 2015. 68 This motif is found in quite a few stories, most of them collected by Phlegon of Tralles (Mirabilia 5 Westermann). This is what Phlegon says about Caeneus: Οἱ αὐτοὶ (sc. Ἡσίοδος καὶ Δικαίαρχος καὶ Κλέαρχος) καὶ Καλλίμαχος καὶ ἄλλοι τινὲς ἱστοροῦσιν κατὰ τὴν Λαπίθων χώραν γενέσθαι Ἐλάτῳ τῷ βασιλεῖ θυγατέρα ὀνομαζομένην Καινίδα. ταύτῃ δὲ Ποσειδῶνα μιγέντα ἐπαγγείλασθαι ποιήσειν αὐτῇ ὃ ἂν ἐθέλῃ, τὴν δὲ ἀξιῶσαι μεταλλάξαι αὐτὴν εἰς ἄνδρα ποιῆσαί τε ἄτρωτον. τοῦ δὲ Ποσειδῶνος κατὰ τὸ ἀξιωθὲν ποιήσαντος μετονομασθῆναι Καινέα. Cf. Lucian, Gallus 19; Ov. Met. 12.189.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
mention of this rite is relevant as it features the hero as a hybristes69 who challenged Zeus by establishing a new cult: he stuck a javelin in the middle of the agora and compelled everybody to worship it in competition with the gods themselves. Moreover, Caeneus, who disregarded the gods, worshipped only his own spear. For this he was punished by Zeus: even though he was invulnerable, he was crushed by the Centaurs who fought him with fir trees. He could not be injured, but was buried under a pile of timber. It is clear that this motif refers to the tumulus of a hero. Acusilaus70 talks explicitly about a σῆμα which was placed on top of the timber pile. This early mythographer seems to be the first author to record the story. There are no traces in the remaining testimonia of the epic cycle, which must be due to the loss of the relevant texts or, more likely, to the fact that the story of Caeneus was transmitted mainly by oral poetry. Homer only mentions the character’s name, saying nothing about his myth; it is clear that in the Archaic period the story was widely told, but there is no basis to assume the existence of a particular written poem. Therefore Acusilaus might have known the story from oral sources.71 Furthermore, vase paintings show that this was a very popular topic during the sixth and the fifth centuries BCE.72 Although the MH does not quote him, it is obvious that Acusilaus is one of his main sources. Apollonius Rhodius is quoted in the text of the scholion. Moreover, six verses from Apollonius’ Argonautica (1.59–64) are quoted verbatim at the end. Nonetheless, not all the details given by the MH are present in this passage of the Argonautica. Apollonius tells us nothing about the spear motif. Presumably the MH is quoting not only the text of the poem but also the scholia commenting on it,
69 Bremmer 2015, 275. 70 Acus. FGrH 2F22 Jacoby (22 Fowler) = P. Oxy. 13, 1611 1, 35–38. See an analysis in Pàmias 2012; commentary by Fowler (2013, 159–162) and Andolfi 2019, fr. 22 with commentary. 71 I assume that early mythographers used oral sources along with written epic and lyric poetry. Some of these traditions could eventually have been recorded in prose by the first historians and logographers: Pàmias 2017(b); Pàmias (forthcoming). There is no evidence that every single myth told by the mythographers derives from written poetry. Otherwise oral poetry was recited at many festivals during the Archaic and Classical periods. Let us quote Apollonius 1.59 (the verse commented on by the scholion quoted above): Καινέα γὰρ ζωόν †περ ἔτι κλείουσιν ἀοιδοί† (if the crux is correctly interpreted). Pindar might be referring to performances of oral epics sung in the context of hero cult (Pind. Isth. 5.28–38) dedicated to heroes such as Iolaus, Perseus, Castor and Polydeuces, and the like, in specific sanctuaries. This does not mean that there was a written epic poem for any one of them. The problem of this passage is the use of the word σοφισταῖς: is it referring to ἀοιδοί or to lyric poets like Pindar himself? Epics seem more suitable for hero cult (that is, deaths of heroes of the past), whereas lyric poetry was dedicated to the living. In any case, this is not an issue to discuss here. 72 A careful analysis can be found in Arrington 2010, 105 and 121.
Joan Pagès where the spear motif is reported.73 However, the subscription could have been added by the scholiast. The story of Caeneus had previously been told by many sources,74 starting with the Homeric passage quoted, even if the epic poet mentions only his name. Hesiod mentions Caeneus in Scutum 179. In Classical times Pindar evokes the story (fr. 167 Maehler) and Acusilaus (quoted) gives a version quite similar to the scholion we are analysing. Why did the MH (or the D scholiast, if the quotation is an addition) quote Apollonius if most of the information could be found in an earlier source? Acusilaus must have been the first author who wrote the whole story by collecting diverse, even divergent traditions. The commentary on Apollonius probably derives from Acusilaus, and the MH consulted the text and the scholia of Apollonius. This interpretation explains the fact that the MH provides information from Acusilaus but makes the surprising choice to quote Apollonius, who makes only a short reference to the character. The Argonautica (with scholia) was probably much easier to find than the works of Acusilaus in Imperial times. Some sources tell the story differently. Plutarch75 quotes a verse of Pindar (fr. 167 Maehler quoted above: σχίσας ὀρθῷ ποδὶ γᾶν) according to which Caeneus committed a sort of suicide by beating the ground with his foot and falling into the hole he had made. Other sources talk about a bird of fire springing from his tumulus of piled timber. The two versions are skilfully and poetically combined by Ovid (Met. 12.522–526), who, like Acusilaus, talks explicitly about a tumulus (verse 514: Obrutus inmani tumulo sub pondere Caeneus). The mortal corpse is integrated into the ground whereas the immortal soul flies away with the appearance of a bird.76 The myth is closely linked with funerary rites and is the αἴτιον for a new hero cult. There is another meaningful, ritualistic feature: the gender ambiguity of the character. Caeneus was a maiden turned into a man. Even if there is no mention of a specific ritual of this kind, the mythic motif is closely linked to rituals of maturation.77 We can confirm, once more, that ancient ritualistic patterns pervade all these myths. As in the examples assessed above, an implicit ritual pattern provides a way of interpreting the meaning of the myth itself, and is proof of the authenticity and antiquity of the story told—Homer himself is aware of the story. We
73 Schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.59. 74 Arrington 2010, 107–109. 75 Plut. Mor. 1057c–1058e. 76 Note that this is exactly the same mythical pattern we find in the myth of the Phoenix. See Delcourt 1953. 77 Bremmer 2015.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
are dealing again with a very early myth. In fact, the myth-ritual basis of this story fits the table above, as again we have a commentary upon a proper noun featuring a myth closely related to a ritual of foundation or an αἴτιον for a ritual, and a quotation of an ancient author at the end of the story gives cultural prestige and literary legitimacy to the story told. In sum, the stories assessed so far show a high degree of consistency. Nonetheless there is a difference: where a κτίσις is presented in the former three cases, in the story of Caeneus there is no mention of the foundation of a city or a sanctuary; there is no mention even of a specific polis. The place where Caeneus establishes the spear cult is the agora, but Bremmer78 has pointed out that the Lapiths were not linked to a polis. Marinatos79 has established a link between Caeneus and the Mycenaean past. The spear cult practice could be performed in any place used for assemblies, not necessarily the polis agora. The spear, a portable object, could be used as a sceptre, as in the assemblies in the Iliad. The ancestral religious and political practices serving as the basis for the myth of Caeneus probably predated the establishment of the patterns of the foundation myth.80
Callicolone: an αἴτιον for a Locus Sacer (P. Berol. 13930; D schol. Il. 20.3). Berlin Papyrus 13930 is actually a small piece of parchment from the fifth century CE.81 It is preserved in very poor condition. It features two stories on the recto and one on the verso. The latter is about the place name Callicolone, the object of our next analysis. The first edition was made by Schubart,82 who identified it with a piece of the lost play Scyrioi by Sophocles. Later, in 1956, Merkelbach83 published a new edition, identifying the three stories from the MH: the story of the birth of Neoptolemus at Scyros (hence Schubart’s confusion), the αἴτιον for Callicolone, and the story of the destiny of Aeneas. Haslam also identified fr. 16 of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 61, 4096 with the story of Callicolone, but this identification is based only on the beginning of two lines with two letters each.84 78 Bremmer 2015, 266. 79 Marinatos 1971, 54. 80 Alföldy 1959, 23–24; Pàmias 2012, 52 n. 10. 81 P. Berol. 13930 = LDAB 2762; TM 61613; MP3 01203.000. 82 Schubart 1950, 45–47. 83 Merkelbach 1956. 84 Haslam 1996.
Joan Pagès First of all, we need to consider the lemma under which the story is told. In most mss. it is (ἐπὶ) θρωσμῶι (πεδίοιο) (verse 3): ‘on a hill over the plain’. Later, in verse 53, the name of this plain is given, Καλλικολώνη, ‘The Nice Hill’. P. Berol. Merkelbach, –85
D schol. in Il. . van Thiel
ἄλλοτε παρ’ [Σιμόεντι θέων επὶ Καλλικολώνηι· ἐστι δὲ Καλλικολώνη τό[πος ἐν Ἰλίωι λόφος ὑψηλός, τὸ περίμετρον ε’ ... [ σταδίων κεῖσθαι δὲ συμβέβηκ[εν με]ταξὺ [Σιμοῦντος καὶ τῆς ἀντί Ἰλίου πόλεως κωμ[ης· ὀνομάζε]ται μὲν οὖ[ν Καλλικολώνη, ἑπεὶ] τῶν πέριξ τόπων [ἐπισημότατός ἐστιν. ἡ δὲ ἱστορία] παρὰ Δημήτρ[ίωι] τ[ῶι] Σκηψ[ίωι.
Ὑψηλῶι τόπωι, ὅθεν καταθορεῖν καὶ πηδῆσαι ἐστίν. ἔστι δὲ οὗτος ἐν Ἰλίωι, σταδίων πέντε τὸ περιμέτρον μεταξὺ Σιμοῦντος τοῦ ποταμοῦ καὶ τῆς Ἰλιέων καλουμένης κώμης, ὅπου καὶ θεαὶ κριθῆναι δοκοῦσι περὶ κάλλους. ὀνομάζεται δὲ Καλλικολώνη ἐπεὶ τῶν πέριξ τόπων ἐπισημότατός ἐστιν. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Δημητρίωι τῶι Σκηψίωι [fr. Gaede].
In the papyrus, only the first two words of the Homeric lemma can be read: ἄλλοτε παρ. This is the beginning of Iliad 20.53: ἄλλοτε παρ’ Σιμόεντι θέων ἐπὶ Καλλικολώνῃ. There is no doubt that we are dealing again with a commentary on a proper noun, and that the original lemma was verse 53, as the Berlin papyrus shows. Only a few letters of the subscriptio at the end can be read, with difficulty. Markelbach suggests that Demetrius of Scepsis is the author of the text, but Merkelbach’s reconstruction is based on the corresponding bT scholion commenting on the same passage.86 The reference to this local historian is coherent with the tradition handed down: this is the place where the Judgement of Paris took place. Demetrius of Scepsis was a historian from the second century BCE who gathered information about traditions related to the Iliad, specifically to places mentioned in the poem, and was one of the main sources for the thirteenth book of Strabo’s Geography.87 Note that the text preserved by the papyrus is very close to that of the scholion. In fact this is a very simple commentary, only a short note on geography taken from a local historian. There is no explicit αἴτιον, but it can be inferred that we are dealing with one here because of the sacredness of the place. Moreover, we can have recourse to the bT scholion mentioned above, where an explicit αἴτιον appears to be given: θεοῖς δὲ ἀνατίθησιν αὐτὴν λιβάσι καὶ λειμῶσιν, “it is dedicated to the gods because of its streams and meadows”. This is a locus sacer where divinities were worshipped, as it was the scene of the goddesses’ beauty contest. 85 Cf. van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 300. 86 bT-sch. Il. 20.53 c. Erbse. 87 Trachsel 2020.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
The absence of a plot is surprising: one might expect a summary of the Judgement of Paris. This could have been a part of the text in a previous, lost textual tradition, or, more likely, the story is omitted as common knowledge. Yet it is very rare for an MH story to lack a mythical plot, at least if we judge by the extant material. But this does not exclude the possibility of more non-narrative commentaries in an earlier stage of the textual transmission. We will see more examples of this in the next section. The relationship between Callicolone and the Judgement of Paris could have originated from a misunderstanding of the text of Homer. Iliad 20.53 says θέων ἐπὶ Καλλικολώνη, “running to the top of Callicolone”, but, according to a scholion preserved in the mss. Y, Q and X, Aristarchus reads θεῶν instead of θέων, suggesting that Callicolone was consecrated to gods.88 This alternative reading could have been the basis for the information passed on by Demetrius of Scepsis.89 Modern editors prefer Herodicus’ reading θέων. The relationship between this place and the Judgement of Paris thus seems to be due to a varia lectio, and this αἴτιον should be considered as a mere literary expansion without any link to an ancient cult site. Alternatively, the misreading of the Homeric verse might have generated the story, and even promoted the sacralisation of the place. In any case, I think that the MH recorded this tradition as an αἴτιον, and this is why it is part of the collection. This case is in sharp contrast with the previous story assessed: the story of Caeneus appears to be a survival of a really ancient myth related to a specific type of very early cult practice, undoubtedly a pre-Homeric tradition, as Homer himself mentions it. On the contrary, this short anecdote about Callicolone seems to be the outcome of later speculation on geography and mythology. Taken together they offer clear evidence of the broad meaning of the concept of αἴτιον, not only in the MH but in ancient literature as a whole. The MH is using myth and aetia to illustrate Homer without any awareness of chronology, which causes some inconsistencies. Using post-Homeric traditions to illustrate Homer is not coherent from a modern, scholarly point of view.
88 Aelius Herodianus, Περὶ Ἰλιακῆς προσῳδίας 53 (Herodiani Technici Reliquiae, ed. A. Lentz and A. Ludwich, Leipzig 1867, 112, lines 25, 53): Ἡρόδικος βαρέως ἀνεγίνωσκεν ὡς τρέχων, μετοχὴν ποιῶν· ὁ μέντοι Ἀρίσταρχος περιέσπα, λέγων οὕτως καλεῖσθαι τὸν τόπον θεῶν Καλλικολώνη, ὥσπερ καὶ Ἀχαιῶν λιμήν. 89 Fr. 23 Gaede; cf. Strabo 13.1.35: ὑπὲρ δὲ τῆς Ἰλιέων κώμης δέκα σταδίοις ἐστὶν ἡ Καλλικολώνη, λόφος τις, παρ’ ὃν ὁ Σιμόεις ῥεῖ πενταστάδιον διέχων· γίνεται οὖν εὔλογον πρῶτον μὲν τὸ ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἄρεος “ὦρτο δ’ Ἄρης ἑτέρωθεν ἐρεμνῇ λαίλαπι ἶσος, ὀξὺ κατ’ ἀκροτάτης πόλιος Τρώεσσι κελεύων, ἄλλοτε πὰρ Σιμόεντι θέων ἐπὶ Καλλικολώνῃ”.
Joan Pagès But we need to bear in mind the absence of any concept or method based on diachronic perspective in the MH. The commentator-mythographer proceeds according to a single criterion: a simple collection of ancient traditions about myths and aetia, assuming that all those traditions come from a remote past, from a primeval era of history deprived of periodization. Legitimacy is given by the authors quoted, a list that covers a wide range starting with Homer himself and ending with Didymus, an author of the Augustan Age. The same lack of awareness of the chronology of the mythical traditions can be perceived in the selection of authorities.
Poseidon Heliconius (P. Oxy. 61, 4096; P. Berol. 13282; D schol. Il. 20.403–404) The story of Poseidon Heliconius is the only story preserved in two papyri: Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 61, 409690 and Berlin Papyrus 13282 (verso).91 The former is a roll from the second century CE. It is preserved in 77 pieces and presents a large number of stories in a very fragmentary state. The mss. are again very useful for filling in the gaps. The latter papyrus is part of a codex from the third century CE, attributed to the MH by Montanari.92 P. Oxy. , fr. , – Schubert93
D schol. Il. .– van Thiel
]ο̣υ .[ αὐτὰρ] ὁ θυ̣μ̣[ὸν ἄϊσ]θε̣ [καὶ ἤρυγεν ὡ]ς̣ ὅ]τ̣ε τα̣[ῦρος] ἤ̣[ρυ]γ̣εν ἑλκόμεν]ος Ἑλι̣κών[ιον ἀμ]φὶ ἄ̣[νακτα· Ν]ειλε̣ὺς ὁ Κ̣[ό]δρ̣ου κατὰ̣ χρησμὸν Ἀ̣πόλλωνος ἔστε̣[ιλεν ἀποικία]ν̣ ἀπό τε Ἀθηνῶ[ν καὶ τῆς Ἀχαικ]ῆ̣ς Ἑλίκης εἰς Με̣ [ίλητον ]ασκων τῆς ἐκε̣ [ ἱερὸν ὑδρ]ύ̣σατο Ποσειδῶ̣[νος καὶ Ἑλικών]ι̣ ον προεγ̣όρε[υσε.
Ὡς δ’ ὅτε ταῦρος Ἑλικώνιον ἀμφὶ ἄνακτα· τὸν Ποσειδῶνα, ἤτοι ὅτι καὶ ἐν Ἑλικῶνι ὄρει τῆς Βοιωτίας τιμᾶται, ἤ ἐν Ἑλίκηι· μᾶλλον οὖν παρὰ τὸν ἐν Ἑλίκηι θεόν. διαφέρει γὰρ Ἑλικών καὶ Ἑλίκη. ἡ δὲ ἱστορία αὕτη· Νηλεὺς ὁ Κόδρου χρησμὸν λαβὼν ἀποικίαν ἔστειλεν εἰς Μίλητον καὶ τὴν Καρίαν ἐξ Ἀθηνῶν καὶ τῆς Ἑλίκης. παραγενόμενος δὲ εἰς τὴν Καρίαν ἱερὸν Ποσειδῶνος ἱδρύσατο καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐν Ἑλίκηι τεμένους Ἑλικώνιον προσηγόρευσεν. δοκεῖ δὲ ἐπὰν θύωσιν τῶι θεῶι βοησάντων μὲν βοῶν προσδέχεσθαι τὸ θεῖον τὴν
90 Schubert 1995. P. Oxy. 61, 4096 = LDAB 2759; TM 61609; MP3 01201.110. 91 Edited by W. Müller, 1968; Montanari 1995b; Luppe 1996a; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 300–301. 92 Montanari 1995b, 113–125. 93 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 286–287.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
P. Oxy. , fr. , – Schubert93
D schol. Il. .– van Thiel θυσίαν, σιγώντων δὲ λυποῦνται μηνίειν νομίζοντες. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Κλειτοφῶντι [FHG , fr. ].
P. Berol. Luppe94 αὐτὰρ ὁ θυμὸν ἄϊσ̣θ[ε καὶ ἤρυγεν ὡς ὅτε ταῦρος / ἔρυ-] γεν ἑλκόμενος Ἑ̣λ̣ικών[ιον ἀμφὶ ἄνακτα· Νειλεὺς ὁ] Κό{ν}δρου μαντεί[αν λαβὼν ἔστειλεν ἀποικίαν ἀπὸ τ(ε)] Ἀθηνῶν καὶ τ[ῆ]ς [Ἀχαιϊκῆς Ἑλίκης εἰς Μίλητον. ἐπὶ δὲ] τῆς γῆς ἱερὸν Π̣[οσειδῶνος ἱδρύσατο καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ] ἐν τῇ Ἀχαιϊ[κῇ Ἑλίκῃ τεμένους Ἑλικόνιον προσεγό-] [ρ]ε̣ [υσεν.]
The story interprets the lemma ὥς ὅτε ταῦρος / ἤρυγεν ἑλκόμενος Ἑλικώνιον ἀμφὶ ἄνακτα (Il. 20.403–404). It is clearly divided into two parts. In the first a foundation myth is told: Neleus, the son of Codrus, sent a colony from Athens and Helice to Miletus and founded the sanctuary of Poseidon Heliconius. The second part can be read only in the text of the scholion due to the poor state of both papyri; it deals with the sacrifices performed at the sanctuary. We cannot know for sure whether this part was also in the papyri, but the information provided by it is in perfect accordance with the Homeric lemma, so I presume that this piece of text is originally from the MH. Moreover, the scholion preserves the subscriptio (quoting Clitophon)95 at the end, as usual. At Iliad 20.403–404, Homer is describing the death of Hippodamas, who roared like a bull being dragged to Poseidon Heliconius’ altar, which pleased the god. One wonders why sacrifices at this specific altar are evoked in this Homeric verse. The MH tells us: Poseidon accepted the victim if it groaned, but a silent victim was a bad omen. The commentator-mythographer tells the foundation myth of the sanctuary Homer refers to, then he describes the relevant ritual because Homer refers explicitly to that too. Thus the MH explains why this particular sanctuary is mentioned by Homer, and why the groaning of the victims was proverbial. This story is a clear example of the hybrid nature, mythographical and exegetical, of the MH. It is worth noting that the text of the scholion provides some exegetical material about Poseidon Heliconius at the beginning of the story which is absent
94 Montanari 1995b, 113–125; Luppe 1996a; cf. Schubert 1995, 19; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 286–287. P. Berol. 13282 = LDBA 2759; TM 61610; MP3 01204.100. 95 FHG Müller IV, 368F5.
Joan Pagès from both papyri: the Homeric words Ἑλικώνιον ἄνακτα apply to Poseidon: τὸν Ποσειδῶνα, ἤτοι ὅτι καὶ ἐν Ἑλικῶνι ὄρει τῆς Βοιωτίας τιμᾶται, ἣ ἐν Ἑλίκηι· μᾶλλον οὖν παρὰ τὸν ἐν Ἑλίκηι θεόν. διαφέρει γὰρ Ἑλικών καὶ Ἑλίκη, “because he was worshipped on Helicon or, rather, in Helice, an island in Achaea consecrated to Poseidon, as Helice and Helicon are indeed different places”. Next comes ἡ δὲ ἱστορία αὕτη, “this is the story”, and then the text itself, which is very close to the papyri as far as the content and wording are concerned. But, surprisingly, the story does not recount the foundation of Helice, but that of a colony called Helice in Caria, and the sanctuary of Poseidon Heliconius near Miletus. The scholiast was unaware of this inconsistency. He might have conflated two different sources: a commentary on the same passage and the MH, which, as can be seen in both papyri, tells the story immediately after the lemma without further explanation.
Aetia for cultic practices: Apollo Nomius and Achilles at the river Sperchius (P. Oxy. 61, 4096, D schol. Il. 21.448, 23.144) Our next analysis will focus on two more historiae from Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 61, 4096 featuring an αἴτιον without a mythical plot: the story of Apollo Nomius and that of Achilles and the river Sperchius. Both are clear examples of aetia not related to city foundation but to the institution of specific rites and cult practices. Moreover, the word αἰτία is used explicitly in both cases, which is evidence of the commentator’s awareness of the pattern he is using. The historia commenting on Iliad 21.448 is about Apollo Nomius.96 It must be assessed differently as the commentator uses the text of the Iliad to support his statement, and this is a clear Aristarchean feature in a non-Aristarchean text, insofar as the use of Homer to explain Homer (Ὅμηρον ἐξ Ὁμήρου σαφηνίζειν) is exceptional in the MH corpus.97 Moreover, this story comments on a complete hexameter line, not on a single word as in the previous cases: Φοῖβε σὺ δ’ εἰλίποδας ἔλικας βοῦς βουκολέεσκες (Il. 21.448).
96 P. Oxy. 61, 4096 fr. 10, 1–10. 97 The Aristarchean critical tradition has been conveyed by the so-called Vier–Männer–Kommentar, which partially survives in the Scholia Vetera; see Erbse 1969, lii–lvi; Schironi 2018.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
P. Oxy. , fr. col. – Schubert98
D schol. Il. . van Thiel
]. σ..[….] . β[.. νό[μιον ον[..]α.[ βε]βλήκασι καθα Ἀπολλόδ]ωρος ἐνθένδε ] θεοροῦντες ] . τοῦτον κατα ] . αντηνδεκα ἀ]λόγων ζῴων ]. φησὶν καὶ Ὅμηρος “οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶ]τον [ἐπ]ῴχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργοὺς”]..ε.εταυ ]φ.[
Φοῖβε, σὺ δ’ εἰλίποδας ἕλικας βοῦς βουκολέεσκες· Φασὶν τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα κεκλῆσθαι νόμιον διὰ τοιαύτην αἰτίαν. οἱ παλαιοὶ τοὺς λοιμοὺς ἐξ Ἀπόλλωνος ἐνόμιζον. πᾶς δὲ λοιμὸς ἀπὸ τῶν ἀλόγων ἄρχεται, ὡς καὶ Ὅμηρος φησίν· ‘Οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον ἐπώιχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργούς’ (Α). βουλόμενοι οὖν τὸν θεὸν δυσωπεῖν ἵνα τοὺς λοιμοὺς ἀποτρέπηι, νόμιον καὶ φύλακα τῶν βοσκημάτων ἐκάλεσαν. ὅθεν Ὅμηρος εἰπεῖν ὡς ἐβουκόλησεν παρὰ Λαομέδοντι καὶ Ἀδμήτωι ἱπποφόρβησεν, οὕτως ἱστορεῖ Ἀπολλόδωρος.
The text fits the MH corpus as it deals with the word Νόμιος, an epiclesis of Apollo related to cattle. The epiclesis itself does not appear in the Homeric lemma, as one might expect, but it is suggested by it. Apollo was thought to be responsible for epidemics, as well as their healing. Epidemics used to start among animals, as we read in the text of the mss. (the papyrus offers a different wording): πᾶς δὲ λοιμὸς ἀπὸ τῶν ἀλόγων ἄρχεται. Thus Apollo was summoned as Νόμιος, namely, Lord of Cattle, he who has the power of avoiding, removing, and healing diseases among cattle. This statement is supported by a verbatim quotation from the Iliad, that is preserved in both the papyrus and the mss.: οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον ἐπῴχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργούς (Il. 1.50). A quotation of a verse from Homer is not unique, but it is very rare in the MH corpus in both stages, the papyri and the mss. Indeed Apollo himself was even a cowherd: ἐβουκόλησεν παρὰ Λαομέδοντι καὶ Ἀδμήτωι ἱπποφόρβησεν. The mention of Laomedon is coherent with the lemma, as Homer is referring here to the motif of Apollo’s year-long servitude to the Trojan king. Admetus is a well-known part of the motif of Apollo’s slavery, albeit not attested in the Homeric texts. Euripides tells us about it at the beginning of Alcestis.99 Incidentally, the word ἱπποφόρβησεν, a hapax legomenon, is close to ἐβουφόρβουν from verse 8 of the Alcestis. Diverging traditions may have circulated. In sum, the αἴτιον told is not concerned with a foundation, nor even a mythic plot, but merely a cultural, religious fact: the relationship between herders and the worship of Apollo in ancient times. The close parallel between the lemma and
98 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 287. 99 Eur. Alc. 1–9, Schol. Eur. Alc. 1.
Joan Pagès the commentary indicates that this story is closer to the earliest stage of the MH, whose original purpose would have been to clarify and illustrate passages of the Homeric text with the use of myth and/or aetia. Furthermore, it seems to be evidence that in some of the stories there was no need of a mythical plot, a mere αἴτιον sufficed. The information provided could come from the author quoted in the scholion, Apollodorus of Athens100—from his work Περὶ θεῶν, to judge by the content and by the fact that this author is quoted elsewhere. The story of Achilles and the river Sperchius is told in Iliad 23.144 and Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 61, 4096. The lemma of the story is, again, the whole verse: Σπερχεί’ ἄλλως σοί γε πατὴρ ἠρήσατο Πηλεὺς, which can be read in the mss., but not in the papyrus due to its fragmentary state. P. Oxy. , Luppe fr. , –101
D schol. Il. . van Thiel
ca. ]ι̣ον γένεσιν π̣[ ca. ]όμενοι δια τ̣[ ca. ]ορος τοῖ̣ς πρ[ ca. ]σωσιν ἐπ̣ι̣[ ca. Ἀχ]ιλλεὺς τῷ α̣[ ca. ] εἰκότως π̣[ ca. ] ἐκ Φαρσάλ[ο]υ̣ [ .αι̣ ἐν[τε]ῦ̣θεν ὁ ποταμ[ός .]...χε. [ἡ] δ’ ἱστορία παρὰ [τοῖς Θεττ]α̣λ̣ικὰ̣ σ[υ]γγράψασι.
Σπέρχει’ ἄλλως σοί γε πατὴρ ἠρήσατο Πηλεύς καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς· Ἔθος ἦν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις μετὰ τὸ παρακμάσαι τῆς νεότητος τὰς κόμας ἀποκείρειν τοῖς ποταμοῖς. τούτους γὰρ ἐνόμιζον τῶν ἀνατροφῶν αἰτίους εἶναι. διὰ ταύτην δὲ τὴν αἰτίαν καὶ εἰς τοὺς γάμους ἀπὸ τῶν ποταμῶν ὕδωρ ἐκόμιζον, τέκνων τε γενέσεως καὶ παιδοτροφίας οἰωνὸν τιθέμενοι. διόπερ καὶ τὰς Ἀχιλλέως κόμας Πηλεὺς τούτωι καθιέρωσεν. ἦν γὰρ ἐκ Φαρσάλου τῆς Θετταλίας. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τοῖς Ἀργολικοῖς συγγραφεῦσιν.
In this story, as in the previous one, a verse from the Iliad offers an opportunity to explain an αἴτιον related to cult practice: the cutting and offering of hair to a river in a rite of passage. In the Iliad, Achilles cuts his hair and offers it to Patroclus at his tomb, regretting the impossibility of offering it to the river Sperchius,102 as his father had promised. Indeed Achilles was very young when he was recruited for the war at Troy, and he had to rush to the battlefield, neglecting this rite due to the river. This passage of the Iliad is very interesting from an anthropological point of view, as it describes the whole rite: the cutting103 and offering of the hair was followed by a hecatomb. The beginning of the papyrus’ account is missing. The text of the medieval scholion offers a slightly different wording from 100 FGrH 244 F 32. 101 Fr. 10, 1–10; Luppe 1996(b); van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 290. 102 Dowden 1989, 50–53, 123–124. 103 Leitao 2003.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
the surviving part of the papyrus. It has been rewritten, but the content coincides. It is a description of a rite of passage performed at the spring of a river. Both the Homeric passage and the MH’s commentary give valuable evidence for this kind of ritual, and its presence in the Iliad indicates the early date of the practice. In fact, the MH does not report an αἴτιον properly speaking; but he is commenting on a passage that can be considered an αἴτιον itself, as the ritual promised by Peleus to the river Sperchius serves as a myth which gives this specific ritual an aura of legitimacy and sacredness, even in this case, where it functions e contrario: Achilles did not perform his ritual haircut beside the Sperchius and, as a consequence, he did not reach maturity, dying young and unmarried in the war. The performance of this ritual was a repetition of a primeval sacred act and a perpetuation of the ancestors’ heritage. Similarly, girls offered their hair upon Hippolytus’ tumulus in Troezen.104 Like Achilles, Hippolytus died before reaching maturity in ritualistic terms.105 In order to understand the sense this kind of story had in a mythographicalexegetical handbook like the MH, we must bear in mind that in Imperial times, most of these ancient rites were no longer performed and were probably long forgotten; even if Homer describes the rite in a few words, a longer explanation was needed. In sum, these last two cases suggest that the text of the MH was not, strictly speaking, a collection of mythical plots related to Homeric lemmata. The term historia that often appears in the medieval scholia referring to the mythological commentaries under lemmata attested from the second century CE in the MH papyri, must be understood to mean ‘explanation’ rather than ‘narrative summary’.106 Moreover, and returning to the main object of this chapter, these two stories are evidence that aetia were subjects of interest independent from mythical plots.
Conclusion Aetia and foundation myths are related by the MH in the form of historiae. The simplest type of αἴτιον is a bare anecdote on the meaning of a word, such as the epiclesis of a god or the epithet of a hero. So, for example, Apollo acted as a herder 104 Eur. Hipp. 1423–1427. 105 Johnston 2003 explains how mythical narratives based on “initiatory” patterns might have been recycled in the historical period. 106 The use of the term historia in exegetical literature is a complex issue. See Delattre 2016.
Joan Pagès and was called Nomius due to a specific αἰτία (the first case assessed in Section 7). In this case there is no foundation linked to a specific time and place. This kind of αἴτιον is quite rare probably because tradition has privileged mythical plots, and in most cases the word which elicits the αἴτιον offers the possibility of a longer explanation and gives the chance to tell a myth, as in the cases assessed in Section 3, which are representative of the majority of aetia recounted by the MH. The examples assessed are significant insofar as they show the different types of aetia that can be found in the MH corpus, namely, foundations of polis and sanctuaries related to polis foundation, ritual aetia, and even references to and short descriptions of ritual practices. The simplest and probably earliest, prepolis aetia are linked to survival of ancient rituals, like the stories of Caeneus, Apollo Nomius, and Achilles at the river Sperchius, and the more complex narratives originated and developed from real foundations (or refoundations), and were linked to polis performances, like those of Tenedos, Cilla, Apollo Smintheus, and Poseidon Heliconius. Later expansions related to specific places are also present, like the story of Callicolone. This distinction we have made between ancient rituals, polis and sanctuary foundations, and later expansions is established following modern scholarly methodology: there is no evidence of an awareness of such categorization in the MH text itself. Aetia and foundations are two related categories conceptualized by the Greeks (αἰτία, κτίσις), but without any historical perspective. All aetia can be traced back to an ancestral period of time that admits no periodization. But this analysis from a historical perspective shows the broad and deep cultural background upon which the MH collection drew. This obliviousness to historicity in modern terms does not mean that the act of collecting all this material was detached from any concern about history. It has to be considered a conscious act of preserving a long tradition, keeping ancient stories alive for their cultural value, and not a mere act of collecting curiosities from ancient authors through intermediate sources as a sort of entertainment, as some scholars have suggested.107 The categorization we have established has an effect on how we conceive what the MH text might have been, and even on the concept of mythography itself. The MH was identified and categorized as a “mythographer” by Panzer in 1892. Aetiologies have a highly significant place in the MH, as a good number of historiae are chiefly aetia and foundations. Aetia are common motifs in mythographical texts. Apollodorus, for instance, tells aetia when the plot gives him the opportunity to do so, but the main purpose of his Bibliotheca is to tell the myths 107 Cameron 2004, 229–237.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
in an abridged, straightforward narrative. Furthermore, as we have seen in some of the stories commented on in this chapter, aetiology itself is the subject, even when there is no myth to explain. Aetiology may consist in a simple, short description of an old ritual (Achilles’ haircut, the oxen sacrificed at Poseidon Heliconius’ altar, shepherds invoking Apollo Nomius). Aetia do not need a narrative plot, as they have a specific meaning by themselves. Even if most of the historiae are summaries of myths, it would be too simplistic to consider the MH a straightforward collection of summaries. The mentions of rituals in the examples assessed here fulfil an exegetical function that goes far beyond the simple compilation of mythical plots related to the lemmata. Even if textual transmission has tended to simplify, even trivialize the text in some cases, the last examples analysed support the hypothesis that the MH was a real commentary. In fact, erudition on aetiology related to Homeric place names and characters seems to be one of the main features of what we call the MH. Aetiologies are explained as useful data for a better understanding of the Homeric text and context. But this kind of commentary tended to a certain degree of independence.108 This independence enabled a separate reading and gave these handbooks an autonomous life which ultimately enabled their survival. In fact, the MH could be read by itself as a compilation of myths and aetiologies using Homeric lemmata as a criterion of classification. Nevertheless, Homeric exegesis is always present. Aetiological explanations were a common cultural heritage of all the Greeks, and they deserved an important place in late exegetical texts as they were present in Greek literature from the very beginning. They conveyed a rich tradition about the origins of Greek civilization. Imperial mythography allowed Greek communities to keep this heritage alive. In this respect, the MH, like other examples of late mythography, was presumably more than a collection of scholarly material destined for grammarians and rhetoricians: it undoubtedly targeted a wider readership.
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Joan Pagès Andolfi, Ilaria (2019), Acusilaus of Argos: Rhapsody in Prose, Berlin/Boston, MA. Antonaccio, Carla (1994), “Contesting the Past: Hero Cult, Tomb Cult, and Epic in Early Greece”, American Journal of Archaeology 98/3, 389–410. Antonaccio, Carla (1995), An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece, Lanham, MD. Arrington, Nathan T. (2010), Between Victory and Defeat: Framing the Fallen Warrior in FifthCentury Athenian Art, Diss. Berkeley. Bremmer, Jan. N. (2015), “A Transsexual in Archaic Greece: The Case of Kaineus”, in: Dietrich Boschung/Alan Shapiro/Frank Waschek (eds.), Bodies in Transition: Dissolving the Boundaries of Embodied Knowledge, Paderborn, 265–286. Burkert, Walter (2000), “Jason, Hypsipyle and the New Fire at Lemnos”, in: Richard Buxton (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, Oxford, 227–249. Calame, Claude (2011), “Identities of Gods and Heroes: Athenian Garden Sanctuaries and Gendered Rites of Passage”, in: Jan N. Bremmer/Andrew Erskine (eds.), The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations, Cambridge, 245–269. Calderón, Esteban (2017), “Tipología de los mitos de fundación en Grecia”, in: Marta Oller/ Jordi Pàmias/Carlos Varias (eds.), Tierra, territorio y población en la Grecia Antigua: aspectos institucionales y míticos, Vol. 2, Mering, 87–112. Cameron, Alan (2004), Greek Mythography in the Roman World, Oxford. Darbo-Peschanski, Catherine (1997), “Aitia”, in: I Greci. Storia, cultura, arte, società. II Una Storia greca. 2, Definizione, Turin, 1063–1084. Delattre, Charles (2009), “ΑΙΤΙΟΛΟΓΙΑ. Mythe et procédure étiologique”, Metis n.s. 7, 285–310. Delattre, Charles (2016), “Référence et corpus dans les pratiques de commentaire. Les emplois de historia”, Revue de Philologie, de Littérature et d’Histoire Anciennes, troisième sèrie, 90/2, 89–110. Delcourt, Marie (1953), “La légende de Kaineus”, Revue de l’histoire des religions 144/2, 129– 150. Dickey, Eleanor (2007), Ancient Greek Scholarship, Oxford. Diller, Aubrey (1935), “The Text History of the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus”, Transactions of the American Philological Association 66, 296–313. Dilts, Melvin R. (ed.) (1971), Heraclides Lembi Excerpta Politiarum, Durham, NC. Dolcetti, Paola (2011), “Cillo, Sfero, Mirtilo. Varianti mitiche e aurighi nella gara per Ippodamia”, Quaderni Urbinati de Cultura Classica 98/2, 71–86. Dowden, Ken (1989), Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology, London/ New York. Dubischar, Markus (2015), “Typology of Philological Writings”, in: Franco Montanari/Stephanos Matthaios/Antonios Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, Leiden/Boston, 541–599. Edmunds, Lowell (2017), “Helen in Pseudo-Apollodorus Book 3”, in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads. Studies in Honour of Francesc J. Cuartero, Berlin/Boston, 82–99. Ekroth, Gunel (2003), “Inventing Iphigeneia? On Euripides and the Cultic Construction of Brauron”, Kernos 16, 59–118. Erbse, Harmut (ed.) (1969), Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera), Vol. I, Berlin. Fantuzzi, Marco/Hunter, Richard (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge. Fowler, Robert L. (2000), Early Greek Mythography, Vol. I: Texts, Oxford.
Aetia and Foundation Myth in the Mythographus Homericus
Fowler, Robert L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography, Vol. II: Commentary, Oxford. Fowler, Robert L. (2017), “Apollodorus and the Art of the Variant”, in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads. Studies in Honour of Francesc J. Cuartero, Berlin/Boston, 158–175. Grenfell, Bernard P./Hunt, Arthur S. (eds.) (1903), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 3, London, 63–65. Harder, Annette (ed.) (2012), Callimachus’ Aetia. Vol. I: Introduction, Text and Translation, Oxford. Haslam, Michael (1996), “On P. Oxy. LXI 4096, Mythographus Homericus”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 110, 115–117. Henrichs, Albert (1987) “Three Approaches to Greek Mythography”, in: Jan Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology, London, 242–277. Higbie, Carolyn (2007), “Hellenistic Mythographers”, in: Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, Cambridge, 237–254. Huys, Marc (2005), “Some Notes on a Kellis Ostracon with the Legend of Tennes and Hemithea (= LDAB 10306)”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 152, 203–208. Jacob, Christian (1994), “Le savoir des mythographes (note critique)”, Annales Histoire, Sciences Sociales 49, 419–428. Johnston, Sarah I. (2003), “‘Initiation’ in Myth; ‘Initiation’ in Practice: The Homeric Hymn to Hermes and its Performative Context”, in: David B. Dodd/Christopher A. Faraone (eds.), Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives: New Critical Perspectives, London/New York, 155–180. Kenens, Ulrike (2012), “Greek Mythography at Work: The Story of Perseus from Pherecydes to Tzetzes”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 52, 147–166. Kowalzig, Barbara (2007), Singing for the Gods, Oxford. Kramer, Bärbel/Hagedorn, Dieter (1984), “Mythographus Homericus: Scholien zu Ilias A 38– 39”, Griechische Papyri der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (P. Hamb. III), Bonn, 25–34. Lachenaud, Guy (ed.) (2010), Scholies à Apollonios de Rhodes, Paris. Leitao, David D. (2003), “Adolescent Hair-Growing and Hair-Cutting Rituals in Ancient Greece: a Sociological Approach”, in: David B. Dodd/Christopher Faraone (eds.), Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives: New Critical Perspectives, London/New York, 109–129. Leone, Petrud A.M. (ed.) (2002), Scholia Vetera et Paraphrases in Lycophronis Alexandram, Lecce. Luppe, Wolfgang (1984), “Zum Tennes-Mythos im Mythographus Homericus, P. Hamb. 199”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 56, 31–32. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996a), “Neileus’ ἀποικία nach Milet: Mythographus Homericus P. Oxy. 4096 fr. 3”, Eikasmos 7, 207–210. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996b), “Mythographus Homericus P. Oxy. 4096 fr. 10”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 112, 25–28. Luppe, Wolfgang (1996–97), “Ein Zeugnis für die Niobe-Sage in P. Oxy. 4096”, Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 21, 153–159. Mactoux, Marie-Madeleine (1989), “Panthéon et discours mythologique. Le cas d’Apollodore”, Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 206, 245–270. Malkin, Irad (1985), “What’s in a Name? The Eponymous Founders of Greek Colonies”, Athenaeum 63, 114–130. Malkin, Irad (1987), Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece, Leiden. Marinatos, Spyridon (1971), “Kaineus (Caeneus): A Further Link between the Mycenaean and
Joan Pagès the Greek Worlds”, in: John Boardman/M.A. Brown/T.G.E. Powell (eds.), The European Community in Later Prehistory: Studies in Honour of C. F. C. Hawkes, London, 51–55. Meccariello, Chiara (2014), Le Hypotheseis narrative dei drammi Euripidei: testo, contesto, fortuna, Rome. Meliadò, Claudio (2015), “Mythography”, in: Franco Montanari/Stephanos Matthaios/Antonios Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, Leiden/Boston, 1057– 1089. Merkelbach, Reinhold (1956), “Literarische Texte unter Ausschluβ der christlichen: P. Schubart 21”, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 16, 117–119. Montanari, Franco (1988), “Filologia omerica antica nei papiri”, in: Vasileios Mandilaras (ed.), Proceedings of the XVIII Congress of Papyrology, Athens 1986, Vol. II, Athens, 337–344. Montanari, Franco (1995a), “The Mythographus Homericus”, in: Jelle G. J. Abbenes/Simon R. Slings/Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle: A Collection of Papers in Honour of D. M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Montanari, Franco (1995b), “Revisione di P. Berol. 13282. I papiri del Mythographus Homericus”, in: Franco Montanari (ed.), Studi di filologia omerica antica 2, Pisa, 115–125. Orig. pub. as “Revisione di P. Berol. 13282. Le historiae fabulares omeriche su papiro,” in: Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, Naples: Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi, 1984, Vol. 2, 229–242. Müller, Wolfgang (1968), “Griechische literarische Texte auf Papyrus und Pergament”, Forschungen und Berichte 10/2, 118–119. Nagy, Gregory (2005), “The Epic Hero”, in: J.M. Foley (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Epic, Oxford, 71–89. Pagès, Joan (2007), “El sacerdot Crinis i el pastor Ordes: trets anatolis en el mite d’Apol·lo Esminteu”, Faventia 29/1, 23–32. Pagès, Joan (2017), “Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and the Mythographus Homericus: an Intertextual Approach”, in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads. Studies in Honour of Francesc J. Cuartero, Berlin/Boston, 66–81. Pagès, Joan (2020), “Pélope en Lesbos: análisis del escolio D a Ilíada 1.38 y el Papiro de Hamburgo 199”, Polymnia 5, 1–19. Pàmias, Jordi (2012), “Auis nunc unica, Caeneu! El mito de Ceneo de Acusilao a Ovidio”, in: María Consuelo Álvarez/Rosa María Iglesias (eds.), Y el mito se hizo poesía, Madrid, 49– 68. Pàmias, Jordi (ed.), (2017a), Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads. Studies in Honour of Francesc J. Cuartero, Berlin/Boston. Pàmias, Jordi (2017b), “La recepción de los mitos en la primera mitografía”, in: Minerva Alganza/ Panagiota Papadopoulou (eds.), La mitología griega en la tradición literaria. De la Antigüedad a la Grecia contemporánea, Granada, 23–33. Pàmias, Jordi (forthcoming), “The Origins of Mythography as a Genre”, in: R. Scott Smith/ Stephen Trzaskoma (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, Oxford. Panzer, Johannes (1892), De Mythographo Homerico restituendo, Diss. Greifswald. Pfeiffer, Rudolf (1937), “Hesiodisches und Homerisches: zu neuen und alten Papyri”, Philologus 92, 1–18. Rose, Valentin (ed.) (1886) [1967], Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta, Leipzig. Schironi, Francesca (2018), The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad, Ann Arbor.
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Schubart, Wilhelm (1950), Griechische literarische Papyri, Berlin. Schubert, Paul (ed.) (1995), POxy. 4096 Mythographus Homericus, in: T. Gagos/M.L. Haslam/ N. Lewis (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus papyri 61, London, 15–46. Sommerstein, Alan H. (2015), “Tragedy and the Epic Cycle”, in: Marco Fantuzzi/Christos Tsagalis (eds.), The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception: a Companion, Cambridge, 461– 486. Swain, Simon (1996), Hellenism and Empire. Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250, Oxford. Trachsel, Alexandra (2020), Demetrios of Scepsis and His Troikos Diakosmos: Ancient and Modern Readings of a Lost Contribution to Ancient Scholarship, Cambridge, MA. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1998), Greek Reader’s Digests? Studies on a Selection of Subliterary Papyri, Leiden/New York/Köln. Van Thiel, Helmut (ed.) (2014), Scholia D in Iliadem. Proecdosis aucta et correctior secundum codices manuscriptos, Köln. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1964), Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad, Vol. 2, Leiden. Velasco, Henar (2007), “Ceneo el invulnerable. Su metamorfosis”, Minerva 20, 9–21. Wendel, Carl (ed.) (1935), Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium Vetera, Berlin.
Nereida Villagra
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey Abstract: The paper gives a description of the material which can be considered to derive from the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey and analyses a casestudy, the historia on Melampus, which has a particular transmission because it is the only example of a repeated historia in the V scholia. It discusses the state of the text and it explores the possible readerships of each version.
In his treatise On the Sublime, Longinus wrote, “Homer in his Odyssey may be compared to the setting sun: he is still as great as ever, but he has lost his fervent heat” (9.13).1 This reflects a common opinion on the Homeric poems in antiquity, that the Iliad was superior. This stance has had consequences for the reception and the study of Homer, as can easily be seen in the number of scholia preserved for each poem. The Mythographus Homericus (MH) follows the pattern: we possess only one papyrus that can be attributed with certainty to the MH on the Odyssey, the famous PSI 10, 1173,2 and a dubious one, the P. Vindob. G. 29784,3 whereas eight papyri and one ostracon are identified as the MH on the Iliad. Regarding the V scholia on the Odyssey,4 the number of historiae preserved therein is around 45, whereas we have around 139 for the Iliad. The corpus on the Odyssey has never been edited or studied comprehensively, unlike the MH on the Iliad, which has received more attention.5 1 Translation by H.L. Havell 1890. 2 A third-century papyrus codex of which eight fragments are preserved containing historiae attached to Homeric lemmata. LDAB 2760; TM 61611; MP3 01209.000. Edited by Coppola 1932, 131–140. See also Pfeiffer 1937, 14–16; Luppe 1997, 13–18; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 301–311; Haslam 1990, 31–36; Montanari 2002, 129–144; Pontani 2005, 126–130. See also Pontani’s chapter in this book. 3 A third-century papyrus: LDAB 2761; TM 61612; MP3 02447.000. Edited by Gerstinger 1932, 130– 132. See also Pfeiffer 1937, 14–16; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 309. See also Pontani in this volume. 4 The V scholia are the Odyssean equivalent to the D scholia to the Iliad. The editions of the scholia to the Odyssey are Buttmann 1821, Dindorf 1855 [1962]; Ernst 2006 and Pontani 2007, 2010, 2015, 2020. 5 The first, and so far the only, comprehensive edition of the MH on the Iliad is in the doctoral dissertation of Joan Pagès (2007). Even though the dissertation does not include the edition of the MH on the Odyssey, there is an extensive commentary on PSI 10, 1173 and an appendix with https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-006
Nereida Villagra In this chapter, I will first give a brief but comprehensive description of the material that can be considered part of the MH on the Odyssey, keeping in mind that the corpus will be composed of a variety of texts in different stages of transmission which did not necessarily coexist synchronically in one single book. Secondly, I will discuss the historia on Melampus, a historia with a very particular reception. In the third place, using the case of Melampus, I will try to show the necessity of a comprehensive commentary to all the historiae in the V scholia to the Odyssey and in the papyri, highlighting the MH’s position in the mythographical and literary traditions, but also trying to understand the purpose and readership of these pieces of mythography.
The historiae of the MH on the Odyssey Whether the MH circulated in the Imperial era as one single commentary to both Homeric poems or the commentary to each poem circulated separately is an issue that has not been assessed. The direct evidence of the Imperial phase of the MH, namely the papyri, is very fragmentary and scattered. Thus, the fact that no papyrus contains historiae to both the Iliad and the Odyssey does not necessarily prove that they had different origins and circulation. In fact, there is a tendency to analyse the material considered part of the MH as one single corpus.6 However, the fact that the transmission of the exegetical activity on the Iliad and the Odyssey is independent calls for prudence in this respect. Therefore, even though the criteria and the mechanics of the approach to the MH on the Odyssey will be similar to its counterpart to the Iliad, it is necessary to review the basic features established for the MH on the Iliad in order to identify eventual differences between
a selection of V scholia that could come from the MH on the Odyssey. Other studies on the MH focus mainly on the Iliad: Van der Valk 1963, 317–342; Montanari 1995, 136–172. Schwartz 1881, 405–463 includes some historiae from the scholia to the Odyssey. Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998 edits and comments only on the historiae on papyri to both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Specifically on the MH on the Odyssey: Montanari 2002, 129–144; Fowler 1993, 29–42; Luppe 1997, 13–18; Pontani 2005, 126–130; Villagra/Pàmias 2020, 20–38. 6 Pagès 2007 bases his analysis of the formal features of the MH in all the papyri, including PSI 10, 1173. van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998 also includes the papyri of the MH to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Cf. Montanari 2002, who is more cautious and proposes that PSI 10, 1173 probably preserves fragments of a complete commentary to the Odyssey.
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
the two corpora.7 As is done for the MH on the Iliad, a comparison of the historiae preserved in papyri to those in the V scholia will help to establish the basic features of the text.8 As noted, our firm papyrological evidence of the MH on the Odyssey is limited to a single papyrus, PSI 10, 1173, which is nevertheless a very well-preserved and informative specimen. It contains fragments of 16 historiae, of which 13 have close parallels in the V scholia. The first three historiae in the papyrus’ fr. 1 have no parallel. This has been seen as a possible consequence of the fact that these lines do not preserve historiae of the MH but another type of narrative text, such as a summary.9 However, even if the rest of the fragments of PSI 10, 1173 show a close connection to the historiae in the V scholia to the Odyssey,10 this does not necessarily imply that the selection of historiae in the exemplar of the MH which was copied into the Bodleian manuscript would necessarily have been identical to the one represented by the papyrus. After all, there is a gap of seven centuries between them. Be that as it may, the other 13 historiae do show a clear connection.11 Comparing the redaction of both typologies, one can see that the papyrus tends to be briefer. When the end of a historia is preserved, we always find the same type of subscription, the typical ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τῷ δεῖνα, which is totally consistent with what we see in the V scholia: the main manuscript uses exactly
7 Pagès compares the texts in the papyri to their parallels in the scholia and describes the main characteristics of the MH, establishing the criteria to identify scholia which lack parallel in papyrus (2007, 44–86). Contrarily, van Rossum-Steenbeek includes only the historiae from the papyri and argues that the papyri “seem to present a more original picture than the scholia” based on their older date (1998, 86). Also Montanari 1995, 148–149. Contra, see Pagès 2007, 44–45 and 2017, 67–68. 8 On the V scholia to the Odyssey, see Dindorf 1855 [1966]; Dickey 2007; Pontani 2005. I would like to offer some clarification on the meaning of the sigla used throughout this chapter. The siglum V will be used to designate the branch of scholia to the Odyssey equivalent to the D scholia to the Iliad, as in Pontani 2005. Ernst (2006) gives the title Die D-scholia zur Odyssee to her edition. I will designate the main manuscript of this branch, the Oxoniensis Bodleianus Auct. V.1.51, with the siglum Z, following Ernst’s edition. I don’t follow Pontani’s sigla because his edition is not yet complete, and I base my discussion on a historia to book 11 on Ernst’s edition. 9 See Luppe 1997, 15–17. See also Pontani in this volume. Cf. Montanari 2002 and van RossumSteenbeek 1998. 10 Pontani in this volume argues that the texts belong to the same textual tradition. 11 The first historia in the papyrus, missing in ms. Z, shows a connection to a BEHMT scholion (sch. Od. 3.4) which cites Hellanicus. The editor princeps (Coppola 1932) restituted the subscription with base of this scholion. For a detailed comparison of the historiae in the papyri and the scholia, see van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 101–108; Pagès 2007, 74–80.
Nereida Villagra the same expression and cites the same authorities.12 In the papyrus there are no references to other authorities within the narratives. One case in the V scholia does give variants citing the sources’ names. But, since the passage is not preserved in the papyrus, we cannot be sure if this is an addition of the scholiast or if it goes back to the MH.13 Neither can we rule out that the copy of the V scholiast was more complete than the text represented by the papyrus. Pherecydes and Asclepiades are the most frequently cited authorities in this group of 13 historiae. Several names appear only once. The authorities in the subscriptions cover a large span of time and many genres: from Hesiod in the Archaic period to Dionysius in the third century BCE, from epic poets to tragedians, historians, and mythographers, and possibly grammarians, as can be seen in the following table. Tab. 3: Authorities in the historiae of the MH on the Odyssey. Authorities in the subscriptions
Number of citations
V scholia in Od. (Ernst) and PSI ,
Pherecydes, th cent. BCE
.; .–; .–; .d; .–; .b (=fr. v PSI , ); .–; .–; .a; .; .b; .–
Asclepiades, th cent. BCE
.–; .b (=fr. r PSI , ); .– (=fr. v PSI , ); . (=fr. r PSI , ); .–
Acusilaus, th cent. BCE
.–; .; .a
Hellanicus, th cen. BCE
(?)
PSI fr. r
Androtion, c. – BCE
.
Neoteroi, c. – BCE
.
Hesiodus, th cent. BCE
.d (=fr. r PSI , )
Dionysius, th cent. BCE
.b
Herodotus (Herodorus?), th cent. BCE
.b
Lycophron, th. cent. BCE
.a (=fr. v PSI , )
12 Pontani 2005, 190–191 points out that the disposition of the historiae in the Bodleian manuscript—they appear in calce in books 11–23—reveals that the historiae and the glossae are not yet fully fused. This speaks to a reception of the historiae as a specific type of commentary. 13 Villagra 2021, 145–164.
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
Authorities in the subscriptions
Number of citations
V scholia in Od. (Ernst) and PSI ,
Proxenus, th–rd cent. BCE
.–
Philostephanus, rd BCE
.–
Anticleides, rd cent. BCE
.a
τοῖς τραγικοῖς (Asclepiades of Tragilos?)
.a
Marsyas and Mnaseas, rd cent. BCE
.a
Plato, th cent. BCE
.
Philochorus, rd cent. BCE
.–
Demon
.–
Pindar, th cent. BCE
.–
Apollodorus Athenaeus, nd cent. BCE
.
Nicias and Proteas† ?
.–
The historiae sometimes provide additional information on a figure or element mentioned in the lemma;14 at other times they illuminate not only the lemma but the Homeric passage around it, providing an alternative version or giving more details. In some cases one can infer that the historia is a way to explain a Homeric allusion. However, the relationship of the historiae with the poetic text is never explicit. They are simply juxtaposed to the lemmata. Some include a final sentence, often depending on a verb of speech (φασι or λέγεται), which seems to redirect the reader to the Odyssey. The historiae always comment on figures or places which are alluded to or mentioned in the poem en passant. In other words, the passages commented upon are normally excursuses or allusions and not central elements of the main narrative line. As a consequence, the historiae never refer to or retell a central episode of the Odyssey, but always refer to traditions which fall outside the main narrative scope of the poem. Regarding the lemmata, as far as we can tell from the fragments, in PSI 10, 1173 the tendency is to give the beginning of the verse, as is typical in hypomnemata.15 One case seems to give the complete verse, and in four other cases we have only one or two words, which correspond to the name, or the name and epithet, of the characters of which the historia speaks. These names happen to be in 14 One case is more descriptive but it does include a small narrative: V schol. Od. 12.85b (PSI 10, 1173 fr.6v). 15 Schironi 2012.
Nereida Villagra the same verses.16 As for the historiae in the V scholia, the main manuscript of the V family (Z Ernst), tends to have longer lemmata. There is a second papyrus which has been tentatively attributed to the MH, P. Vindob. G. inv. 29784.17 But the preserved portion does not allow us to be certain whether it had the typical structure of the MH (i.e. the format of a hypomnema with specifically mythographical content):18 P. Vindob. G. 29784 (IMPER N.S. 1,17) [Van Rossum-Steenbeek 57], fr. 2: . . . . . . . . . ]ι ἀν[άβασιν μελ̣[ε]τ̣[ῶντε]ς ˙ Ἄ[ρτεμ̣ις δὲ τῶι πατρὶ συ[μμαχοῦσα μετεμόρφωσ̣[εν ἑαυτὴν εἰς̣ δορκάδα κ[αὶ κυνηγετο̣[ύ]ντων τῶν [ περὶ τὸν ῏Ωτον κα̣ὶ ̣ Ἐ̣π̣ [ιάλτην μέσση δ̣ι̣έδραμ[εν ᾿ οἱ δὲ βαλόντες τοὺς ἄκο̣[ντ]ας ἀλλήλους ἀπέκτει̣ ν̣α̣ν̣ . 6 suppl. Pfeiffer; τῶι Δι]ὶ̣ ἀν[αίρε-| σιν ed. pr.
A scholion transmitted in the V family and also in two manuscripts outside this branch (mss. M and Q),19 preserve a very short text on the same mythical episode which has been proposed as a possible parallel to the papyrus.20 It has no subscription but the reference to the authority comes at the beginning of the text: Schol. Od. 11.318a (ZM [YQ] Ernst): ‘ἀλλ’ ὄλεσεν Διὸς υἱός’· οἱ νεώτεροί φασι τὴν Ἄρτεμιν ἔλαφον †ἐᾶσαι† δι’ αὐτῶν, τοὺς δὲ ὡς ἐπί τὴν ἔλαφον ἀφέντας ἀλλήλους διαχρήσασθαι.
16 V schol. Od. 11.321b, 321d (PSI 10, 1173 fr. 2v), 321–322 (PSI 10, 1173 fr. 3r), 326b (PSI 10, 1173 fr. 3v), 326d (PSI 10, 1173 fr.4r), 326–327 (PSI 10, 1173 fr. 4v). 17 Pagès 2007, 73–74 considers the papyrus a testimony of the MH and identifies the scholion to Od. 11.317 as its parallel. West (2017, xliii) also describes it as a MH papyrus. 18 The MH is described thus by Pagès 2007, 88; Dubischar 2015, 559; Villagra 2021. Montanari 1984, 125–138 considers hypomnemata and collections of historiae as different typologies. On hypomnemata, see Dubischar 2015, 545–599; Schironi 2012; Arrigheti 1967, 1977, 1987. 19 As already pointed out, I use Ernst’s sigla. Ernst’s edition does not include ms. Q as a testimony of the V scholia. Manuscript Q is included in Dindorf’s edition: Dindorf 1855 [1962], viii– ix. The edition of the scholion is on p. 504. On ms. Q, see also Pontani 2005, 435–438, bearing in mind that there are several diferences in the sigla used for the ms. between Ernst and Pontani. 20 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 101, 309.
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
lemma om. Y || 1 ἐᾶσαι ZYM : πέμψαι sch. Q: ἐλάσαι fortasse Ernst || 2 post αὐτῶν add. ἐλθεῖν M; ὡς ἐπὶ om. As.: εἰς suppl. Barnes; ἔλαφον–διαχρήσασθαι: ἐκείνην βουλομένους ἀνελεῖν ἑαυτοὺς φονεῦσαι Q.
The method of referring to the authority differs from what is always seen in PSI 10, 1173, and also from what we find in many V scholia (see infra).21 The νεώτεροι, however, are cited in the subscription of another historia in the V scholia, and also in the MH to the Iliad.22 There are differences between P. Vindob. G. inv. 29784 and the scholion in vocabulary, for instance δορκάδα vs ἔλαφον, or ἀπέκτειναν vs διαχρήσασθαι. Furthermore, a similar story on the mutual killing of the Aloads is also preserved in Apollodorus, in the scholia to Pindar, and in the scholia to the Iliad, where the narrative is embedded in a very long text which refers to other traditions and is of a more interpretative nature.23 The scholion to the Iliad cites Aristarchus, Aratus, anonymous sources, and also the νεώτεροι. The part on the brothers’ death has been edited as part of the MH on the Iliad.24 If this attribution is correct, it would be the only case in which we find the same narrative used to comment on both poems. The fact that there is a coincidence with Apollodorus does not invalidate the attribution to the MH, for several historiae show some kind of connection with the mythographer.25 However, the presence of the same historia in the scholia to Pindar is more puzzling. The whole picture is very uncertain: the papyrus from Vienna could go back to exegetical literature not necessarily related to Homer, as van Rossum-Steenbeek pointed out.26 Whether it is related to the cited passage in the V scholia must remain open.27
21 For a new interpretation of the meaning of the subscription ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τῷ δείνα, see Delattre 2016. 22 V schol. Od. 11.298 (Ernst); D schol. Il. 1.59 (not in subscription, see Pagès 2007, 138, 214–216; D schol. Il. 1.108 (the neoteroi are mentioned at the beginning of the scholion and in the subscription, see Pagès 2007, 138–139, 217–218). 23 Apollod. 1.55[1.7.4]; sch. Pi. P. 4.156a; D schol. Il. 5.385–386. 24 D schol. Il. 5.385–386. For the edition see Pagès 2007, 154 and for a discussion Pagès 2007, 286–287. 25 The relationship between Apollodorus’ Library and the MH is a complex issue that has been debated several times: Lünstedt 1961, 24–34; van der Valk 1958, 100–168; van der Valk 1963; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 108–111; Fowler 2013, 378–384; Pagès 2017, 66–81; Michels in this book. Tangentially Villagra 2017, 57–63. 26 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 101. 27 On this papyrus see also chapter 3.
Nereida Villagra If we approach the V scholion on the Aloads from a Quellenforschung perspective, it is not necessary to exclude the possibility that it might derive ultimately from an Imperial phase of the MH, but with a more troubled transmission than the historiae that can be read in PSI 10, 1173. In other words, the V scholia to the Odyssey may preserve the MH in different stages, and the historiae with the structure shown by PSI 10, 1173 are not the only ones that can go back to the MH. The historia on the Aloads could, thus, represent a different tradition from the one we see in PSI 10, 1173. Hence the difference in the reference to the authority. This type of variation is in fact quite common in the corpus of the MH on the Iliad. Be that as it may, all these considerations illustrate the limits of our endeavour, already acknowledged by Montanari: it will be very hard or impossible to identify as part of the MH those historiae which have been more extensively manipulated, reformulated, and reused in their transmission up to the scholia and have no papyrus parallel.28 Besides the historiae with parallels in papyri, the V scholia preserve 32 others which can be considered as deriving from the MH, for they match the above summarized criteria.29 The majority of these texts have the typical subscription, ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τῷ δεῖνα: only five mythographical narratives in the V scholia do not have it.30 Only one case contrasts variants citing the authorities inside the narrative (V schol. Od. 15.16–17). The most cited authority is again Pherecydes. But there are many authorities which appear just once in the entire corpus (see table 5). The chronological scope and the literary range of these authorities are as ample as in the group of historiae on PSI 10, 1173: Acusilaus and Pindar are the oldest names cited, and the grammarian Apollodorus of Athens is the most recent (second century BCE). The relationship of the historiae to the poem is the same as observed in the papyrus: some seem to elucidate a wider passage, but the majority are simply adding information on a figure or another element in the lemma. Again, the names or portions of text which are commented upon are most often allusions or excursuses. Some cases, however, give the aition of an element of the main storyline: V schol. Od. 20.155–156 explains the aition of the celebration ‘to all gods’; V schol. Od. 20.301–302 explains the origin of the expression sardonic ‘smile’. Another
28 Montanari 1995, 137 also points out to the difficulty to identify many existing mythographical narratives in papyri as MH, when the papyri scraps do not preserve the lemma or the subscription and there is no clear parallel in the scholia. 29 To this group, we could add two dubious cases: V schol. Od. 19.518a (see Pontani 2005, 190) and 21.295. 30 V schol. Od. 11.290a, 11.301a, 11.321c, 18.85, 20.66.
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
one, V schol. Od. 23.198, is based on an erroneous reading of the Homeric text, Ἑρμῆν for ἑρμῖν, ‘bedpost’. But the function of these three historiae is still far from offering an explanation of the poem itself. To sum up, the picture we have of the MH on the Odyssey after comparing the PSI 10, 1173 to the V scholia looks considerably more homogeneous than the MH on the Iliad. However, this is very possibly a consequence of the fact that we have less material and only one papyrus. Still, the main features of the MH on the Iliad are also present in the historiae to the Odyssey, though small differences can be seen, like the fact that aitia are considerably less frequent in this corpus.
The historia on Melampus at Phylace in the MH Despite the greater uniformity of the corpus of historiae in the scholia to the Odyssey, Panzer, and more recently Pontani, pointed out the impossibility of establishing a stemma of the manuscripts containing passages of the MH and of postulating for them one single archetype, for some historiae in the V scholia have parallels in non-V manuscripts, which cannot be reduced to the same source. I would like to discuss one of these cases as example. It is a historia on Melampus, which not only has a parallel in a manuscript outside the V family—in an HQ scholion—but appears twice in the Oxoniensis Bodleianus Auct. V.1.51 manuscript (Z), with almost the same location but different redactions. It is a very particular case, for it is the only example of two redactions of the same historia in the same manuscript tradition and commenting on the same passage.31 Sadly, no parallel is preserved in the papyrus. The Homeric passage being commented upon is the Catalogue of Women in book 11. After the mention of Chloris comes a very long excursus on her marriage to Neleus, their children, and on how Neleus recovered the cows from Phylace, by making this a condition for suitors to win the hand of their daughter Pero:32
31 Other cases of repetition can be seen in the scholia to both the Odyssey and the Iliad. The historia on Sisyphus (D schol. Il. 6.153) appears in mss. Y and Z (van Thiel) with slight differences. In the scholia to the Odyssey we find two different historiae on different subjects in V schol. Od. 18.85. The second (V schol. 18.85b) has a parallel also in Q. However, these examples of repetition are different from our case, where the two historiae on the same mythical episode are presented one after the other in the same manuscripts. 32 Od. 11.281–297: καὶ Χλῶριν εἶδον περικαλλέα, τήν ποτε Νηλεὺς/γῆμεν ἑὸν διὰ κάλλος, ἐπεὶ πόρε μυρία ἕδνα,/ὁπλοτάτην κούρην Ἀμφίονος Ἰασίδαο,/ὅς ποτ’ ἐν Ὀρχομενῷ Μινυηΐῳ ἶφι ἄνασσεν·/ἡ δὲ Πύλου βασίλευε, τέκεν δέ οἱ ἀγλαὰ τέκνα,/Νέστορά τε Χρομίον τε Περικλύμενόν τ’
Nereida Villagra Melampus, the μάντις ἀμύμων, succeeded in recovering the cows from Iphiclus and took them to Neleus.33 The first scholion depends on a longer lemma, which comprises four Homeric verses, 11.286–290. Then follows a long historia which starts by referring to Pero as Neleus’ daughter. The relationship of the historia to the poetic text can be described as providing a sort of paraphrase of the entire Homeric excursus which gives fuller details of the myth. At the end we read a subscription citing Pherecydes: ἡ δὲ ἱστορία παρὰ Φερεκύδῃ ἐν τῇ ἑβδόμῃ.34 The second scholion depends on a much shorter lemma, the beginning of verse 290: ἐκ Φυλάκης ἐλάσειέ. The historia does not begin with Pero’s genealogy, but by explaining the antecedents of Neleus’ demand to Iphiclus. Only then becomes clear the link to the lemma: Iphiclus, son Phylacus, son of Deioneus, kept Tyro’s cows and refused to give them back to Neleus. Therefore, even though it is not explicit, we can infer from the historia the reason why the poem places Tyro’s cows at Phylace: because it was the city founded by the eponymous Phylacus. The relationship to the poetic text is thus a little different from the previous historia. Where the first one relates to the Odyssey in a more straightforward and general way, this second elucidates a more specific point of the Homeric excursus. I present the text of both historiae in Table 1, comparing them side by side:
ἀγέρωχον./ τοῖσι δ’ ἐπ’ ἰφθίμην Πηρὼ τέκε, θαῦμα βροτοῖσι,/τὴν πάντες μνώοντο περικτίται· οὐδέ τι Νηλεὺς/τῷ ἐδίδου, ὃς μὴ ἕλικας βόας εὐρυμετώπους/ἐκ Φυλάκης ἐλάσειε βίης Ἰφικληείης/ἀργαλέας. τὰς δ’ οἶος ὑπέσχετο μάντις ἀμύμων/ἐξελάαν· χαλεπὴ δὲ θεοῦ κατὰ μοῖρα πέδησε/δεσμοί τ’ ἀργαλέοι καὶ βουκόλοι ἀγροιῶται./ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μῆνές τε καὶ ἡμέραι ἐξετελεῦντο/ἂψ περιτελλομένου ἔτεος καὶ ἐπήλυθον ὧραι,/καὶ τότε δή μιν ἔλυσε βίη Ἰφικληείη/ θέσφατα πάντ’ εἰπόντα· Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή. 33 For a commentary on the Homeric passage, see Heubeck-Hoekstra 1989, 94–95; Harrauer 1999, 132–142; Alden 2017, 50–52. On Melampus’s deed as a cattle-raid type myth, see Walcot 1979, 326–351; Burkert 1979, 85–88; Jost 1992, 173–184; Vallebella 2000–2002, 5–38; Johnston 2003, 158–159. 34 See the commentaries to Pherecydes’ fragment 33 in Pàmias 2004, 92–95; Fowler 2013, 164– 169; Dolcetti 2004, 241–242 (fr. 148 = 33); Morrison 2011, commentary to fr. 33.
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
Tab. 4: Melampus’ historiae in the V scholia.35 V schol. (Ernst) Od. .– τοῖσι δ’ ἐπ’ ἰφθίμην Πηρὼ τέκε, θαῦμα βροτοῖσι, / τὴν πάντες μνώοντο περικτίται· οὐδέ τι Νηλεὺς / τῷ ἐδίδου, ὃς μὴ ἕλικας βοῦς (Hom. βόας) εὐρυμετώπους / ἐκ Φυλάκης ἐλάσειε βίης Ἰφικλίης:
V schol. (Ernst) Od. .a ἐκ Φυλάκης ἐλάσειέ:
. Τυρὼ ἦλθε παρὰ Δηϊονέα τὸν θεῖον. . ὁ δὲ κατασχὼν αὐτὴν εἰς Θεσσαλίαν δίδωσι Κρηθεῖ τῷ ἀδελφῷ, ἤδη ἐκ Ποσειδῶνος ἐσχηκυῖαν Νηλέα καὶ Πελίαν. . Νηλεὺς ὁ Ποσειδῶνος ἔχων θυγατέρα Πηρὼ τοὔνομα κάλλει εὐπρεπεστάτην οὐδενὶ ταύτην ἐξεδίδου πρὸς γάμον, εἰ μὴ πρότερον ἐκ Φυλάκης τὰς τῆς μητρὸς Τυροῦς ἐλάσειέ τις βοῦς παρ’ Ἰφίκλου.
. ὁ τοίνυν Νηλεὺς Ἴφικλον τὸν Φυλάκου τοῦ Δηϊονέως ἀπῄτει τὰ τῆς μητρός. καὶ ὃς οὐκ ἀπεδίδου.
. πάντων δὲ ἀπορουμένων Βίας ὁ Ταλαοῦ (Ταλαοῡ Ζ : Ἀμυθάονος Ernst) μόνος ὑπέσχετο δράσειν τοῦτο. καὶ πείθει τὸν ἀδελφὸν Μελάμποδα ῥέξαι τὸ ἔργον. . ὁ δὲ, καίπερ εἰδὼς ἅτε δὴ μάντις ὅτι ἁλώσεται ἐνιαυτὸν, εἰς τὴν Ὄθρυν ἀφικνεῖται ἐπὶ τὰς βοῦς. . οἱ δὲ φύλακες ἐνταῦθα καὶ οἱ βουκόλοι κλέπτοντα αὐτὸν λαμβάνουσι καὶ παραδιδόασιν Ἰφίκλῳ· . καὶ δεθεὶς ἐφυλάσσετο παρεζευγμένων αὐτῷ θεραπόντων δύο, ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικός. καὶ ὁ μὲν ἀνὴρ αὐτὸν ἐπιεικῶς ἐθεράπευεν, ἡ δὲ γυνὴ φαυλότερον· . ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ ἐνιαυτὸς ὀλίγον πρὸς τὸ τελειωθῆναι περιῄει, Μελάμπους ἀκούει ὕπερθέν τινων σκωλήκων διαλεγομένων ὅτι καταβεβρώκοιεν τὴν δοκόν·
. Μελάμπους δὲ ὁ Ἀμυθάονος ὑπὸ δρακόντων τὰ ὦτα καθαρθεὶς, ὡς καὶ τῶν ἀλόγων ἐπακούειν ζῴων, τὰς Ἰφίκλου βοῦς ἀπελαύνων ὑπὲρ τοῦ γῆμαι Πηρὼ τὴν Νηλέως Βίαντα τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ, συλληφθεὶς καὶ εἰς εἱρκτὴν ἐμβληθεὶς κατακούσας τε διαλεγομένων σκωλήκων ὀλίγον ἔτι ἀπέχεσθαι τῆς δοκοῦ, ἐκέλευσεν ἐκκομισθῆναι
. καὶ τοῦτο ἀκούσας καλεῖ τοὺς διακόνους καὶ κελεύει αὐτὸν ἐκφέρειν, τῆς κλίνης λαμβανομένους τὴν μὲν γυναῖκα πρὸς ποδῶν, τὸν δὲ ἄνδρα πρὸς κεφαλῆς. . οἱ δὲ αὐτὸν ἀναλαβόντες ἐκφέρουσιν.
35 I copy the text of both historiae taking into account the syntactic structure. I number approximately each independent clause and consider the participles as part of those clauses. This gives an idea of the degree of abridgement.
Nereida Villagra
V schol. (Ernst) Od. .–
V schol. (Ernst) Od. .a
. ἐν τοσούτῳ δὲ καὶ ἡ δοκὸς κατακλᾶται καὶ ἐπιπίπτει τῇ γυναικὶ καὶ κτείνει αὐτήν. . ὁ δὲ ἀνὴρ ἐξαγγέλλει τῷ Φυλάκῳ, ὁ δὲ Φύλακος Ἰφίκλῳ, τὰ γενόμενα. . οἱ δὲ ἐλθόντες παρὰ τὸν Μελάμποδα ἐρωτῶσιν αὐτὸν τίς ἐστιν. ὁ δὲ ἔφη μάντις εἶναι.
. τοῦ δὲ οἰκήματος κατενεχθέντος μαθὼν ὁ Ἴφικλος ὑπισχνεῖται τῷ Μελάμποδι τὰς βοῦς, εἴ γε τῆς ἀτεκνίας αὐτὸν διὰ τῆς τέχνης παύσειε.
. οἱ δὲ αὐτῷ τὰς βοῦς ὑπισχνοῦνται δώσειν, ἐὰν μηχανήν τινα εὕρῃ παίδων γενέσεως Ἰφίκλῳ. καὶ πιστοῦνται ταῦτα. . ὁ δὲ Μελάμπους βοῦν ἱερεύσας τῷ Διὶ διαιρεῖ μοίρας πᾶσι τοῖς ὄρνισιν. οἱ δὲ ἔρχονται πάντες πλὴν ἑνὸς αἰγυπιοῦ. . ὁ δὲ Μελάμπους ἐρωτᾷ πάντας τοὺς ὄρνιθας εἴ τις οἶδε μηχανὴν πῶς ἂν Ἰφίκλῳ γένοιντο παῖδες. ἀποροῦντες δὲ ἐκεῖνοι κομίζουσι τὸν αἰγυπιόν. . οὗτος δὲ τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς ἀπαιδίας καὶ τῆς σπορᾶς (ΜΧ : +ἀπαιδίας σπορᾶς+ Ernst) εὐθέως εὗρεν. διῶξαι γὰρ τὸν Φύλακον μετὰ μαχαίρας τὸν Ἴφικλον ἔτι νεογνὸν ὄντα διὰ τὸ ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν ἄτοπόν τι ποιοῦντα, ἔπειτα τὸν Φύλακον μὴ καταλαμβάνοντα πῆξαι τὴν μάχαιραν εἴς τινα ἄχερδον καὶ περιφῦναι αὐτῇ τὸν φλοιὸν, τὸν δὲ Ἴφικλον διὰ τὸ δέος μηκέτι παῖδας ποιῆσαι. ἐκέλευσεν οὖν ὁ αἰγυπιὸς τὴν μάχαιραν τὴν ἐν τῇ ἀχέρδῳ κομίζειν καὶ ἀποσμήξαντα τὸν ἰὸν διδόναι ἀπ’ αὐτῆς πιεῖν ἐν οἴνῳ δέκα ἡμέρας Ἰφίκλῳ· γενήσεσθαι γὰρ αὐτῷ παῖδας ἐκ τούτου.
. ὁ δὲ Μελάμπους παρ’ αἰγυπιοῦ μαθὼν τὴν αἰτίαν, καὶ ἀναζητήσας ἐκείνην τὴν μάχαιραν ἀχέρδου φλοιῷ κεκαλυμμένην, ἣν ἐπήνεγκε Φύλακος τῷ Ἰφίκλῳ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀγρῶν ἐκτέμνοντι τὰ τετράποδα, θύσας τε θεοῖς τοῖς μηνίουσιν ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν τετραπόδων εὐνουχίας, τὸν Ἴφικλον ἀπεφήνατο πατέρα Πρωτεσιλάου καὶ Ποδάρκους.
. ποιήσας δὲ ὁ Ἴφικλος τοῦτο τὴν γονὴν ἀναρρώννυσι καὶ ἴσχει Ποδάρκην παῖδα. . καὶ δίδωσι τὰς βοῦς τῷ Μελάμποδι, ἃς λαβὼν εἰς Πύλον δίδωσι Νηλεῖ ἕδνα τῆς Πηροῦς. . καὶ λαμβάνει αὐτὴν τῷ ἀδελφῷ Βίαντι πρὸς γάμον. καὶ αὐτῷ γίνονται παῖδες Περιάλκης καὶ Ἄρητος καὶ Ἀλφεσίβοια. ἡ δὲ ἱστορία παρὰ Φερεκύδῃ ἐν τῇ ἑβδόμῃ.
The two historiae tell a similar account and, at some points (marked in italics), use the same vocabulary. However, there are more differences than coincidences in vocabulary. Also the structure and especially the details (in italics) are considerably different: the most striking difference is in the explanations of the cause of
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
Iphiclus’ sterility (points 15 and 6). The differences would explain why the scholiast of the Bodleianus, or his source, copied both narratives, almost one after the other. However, from a Quellenforschung point of view, all this speaks against the possibility that both texts derive directly from the same source, and puts forward the difficulty of deciding whether these historiae represent different versions of the Imperial stage of the MH, or if only one derives from the MH. Now, the first historia shows all the characteristics of the MH as presented by PSI 10, 1173: a long lemma in the Bodleian manuscript, a straightforward narrative which amplifies the information of the poetic excursus, and a subscription citing Pherecydes. Furthermore, this version starts by describing Pero with a superlative formula which has been identified as a typical trait of the MH: Νηλεὺς ὁ Ποσειδῶνος ἔχων θυγατέρα Πηρὼ τοὔνομα κάλλει εὐπρεπεστάτην.36 On the other hand, the second historia recurs to genealogy more than is usual in the MH on the Odyssey as preserved both in the papyri and the scholia. The lemma is shorter, the link to the poetic text is more specific and lacks the typical subscription, though this is seen elsewhere, especially in the MH on the Iliad. Nonetheless, the condensed style does match that of the MH. A third scholion on Melampus is transmitted by mss. HQ, attached also to verse 290: 5 Schol. Od. 11.290 (HQ Dindorf): ‘ἐκ Φυλάκης ἐλάσειεν’: μετὰ θάνατον Σαλμωνέως Τυρὼ κομιζομένη παρὰ Δηΐονι τῷ θείῳ κορεύεται ὑπὸ Ποσειδῶνος. ὁ δὲ Κρηθεῖ τῷ ἀδελφῷ δίδωσιν αὐτήν. αὐξηθεὶς δὲ Νηλεὺς ἀπῄτει Ἴφικλον τὸν Δηϊονέως τὰ τῆς μητρός. τοῦ δὲ μὴ ἀπονέμοντος ὑπέσχετο τὸν γάμον θυγατρὸς τῷ δυναμένῳ ἀπαιτῆσαι. Μελάμπους δὲ ὁ Ἀμυθάονος πειρώμενος ἀπελάσαι τὰς βοῦς ἠγρεύθη. καὶ περὶ παιδοποιίας μαντευσάμενος Ἰφίκλῳ δέχεται τὰς βοῦς. ὁ γὰρ Ζεὺς εἶπε τῷ μάντει ὅτι κρατηθῆναι μέλλει ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἰφίκλου. 2 κορεύεται corr. Dindorf ex Eust.1685.6: κουρεύεται || 3 Δηϊονέως H: δήϊον εἰς Q || 4 Μελάμπους Buttmann: μετὰ λάμπους Η: μετὰ μελάμποδος Q
This scholion is a parallel of the second historia in the Bodleian manuscript (V schol. Od. 11.290a): the HQ historia has a briefer formulation, or it skips episodes, but where the narratives coincide, it follows the same structure and there are parallels in the wording. However, there is an interesting difference between them: HQ says that Zeus revealed to Melampus that he would be caught by Iphiclus, whereas in V schol. Od. 11.290a Melampus obtains his mantic power after snakes lick his ears. This difference can be explained as a consequence of the 36 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 91–92; Pagès 2007, 85–86 calls them “fórmules mitogràfiques” and relates them to traditional tales. On the relationship of the MH to traditional tales, see Edmunds in this volume.
Nereida Villagra relationship with the poetic text: the HQ scholion intends to explain the formula Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή, which appears in the poem at the end of the excursus on Melampus (verse 297): Zeus told Melampus that he would be taken captive, because the whole episode was his βουλή. Therefore, it is probable that the variant is simply an adaptation of the historia by the scholiast in order to provide an explanation of the well-known Homeric formula. This type of explanatory purpose is also seen in an MH historia to the Iliad, in a historia preserved by papyri and scholia.37 The MH on the Odyssey is primarily preserved by the V scholia. However, several historiae of the MH are related to scholia in HQ manuscripts which either transmit the same historia or parts of it, and which attach them to the same verses.38 In fact, manuscript Q depends on H, whose copyist is believed to have introduced some scholia from a manuscript of the V family.39 Therefore we must recognize that some material in this branch (HQO) can also preserve historiae from the Imperial phase of the MH. In this case, the HQ historia relates to the second historia in ms. Z (schol. Od. 11.290a), which cannot derive from the same source as the first and which presents fewer features in common with the MH as represented by PSI 10, 1173. However, the presence of the historia in HQ is an argument in favour of the idea that the historia could come from a different tradition of the MH. As already noted, from a Quellenforschung perspective, the problem boils down to determining whether the scholiast of the Bodleian manuscript, or his source, received two different versions of the MH, or if the historia represented by schol. Z and schol. HQ Od. 11.290 is similar to the one in schol. Z Od. 11.287–90 because both depend on the same sources (i.e. the sources used by the MH, Alexandrine scholarship, including commentaries to Homer and mythological materials).40 Given the poor material state of the MH, it is impossible to prove any of these hypotheses. However, if we consider the MH as a corpus of texts in different stages which did not necessarily coexist synchronically in one book, we could highlight that the first historia (schol. Z Od. 11.287–90) is consistent with the format and the purpose of the group of historiae for which parallels are seen in PSI 37 D schol. Il. 1.5. comments specifically on this formula and is edited as an MH fragment by Pagès 2007, 133, with commentary on pages 193–195. 38 For a description of the MS, see Ernst, Pontani. H is a manuscript that contains both V and non-V scholia. It must have be based on a better copy than the Bodleian mansucript (Vo in Pontani). 39 Z Ernst = Vo Pontani. On this manuscript, see Ernst 2006, viii–ix; Pontani 2005, 138–188, who points out that the V manuscript model of H may have been in better condition than the codex used by the copyist of the Bodleianus Auct. V.1.51. 40 Cameron 2004; Montanari 1995; 2002; Pagès 2007; 2017.
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
10, 1173, whereas the second historia (schol. Z and HQ Od. 11.290) reveals a different purpose and could, therefore, represent a different stage of the MH. We can speculate on the scenarios derived from this proposal. If the two historiae on Melampus do represent different versions of the MH, that would imply that the copyist of the now lost V scholia manuscript model of the Bodleian ms. introduced the MH historiae into the scholia, perhaps around the sixth century,41 and that he would have had access to two different copies of the MH, or to one copy alongside other materials which preserved the MH with significant differences. In this scenario, the MH appears as a work with a very wide circulation.42 This actually fits with what we know from the papyri: the papyri we have, both to the Iliad and Odyssey, come from Oxyrhynchus, which was not a cultural centre at the time and thus presupposes a considerable dissemination.43 On the other hand, being a specific type of commentary to Homer, its wide circulation can also be linked to the central position of the Homeric poems in Imperial education.44 Moreover, we know that commentaries have an open transmission.45 Therefore, even if at a certain moment there was a first and unique mythographical commentary to the Odyssey, it must have been an unstable text from the very beginning and the different copies which circulated contained differences. As noted above, the historiae in PSI 10, 1173 and their parallels in the V scholia show a very close state of the text. This suggests that one version of the MH reached the Bodleian manuscript in a quite stable state. Since the first historia shares the characteristics of this group of texts, we could postulate that it can derive from the same group of historiae.
41 On the origin of scholia, see Wilson 1967, 244–256; 1968, 314; McNamee 1998, 269–288; Montana 2011, 105–161; Montana 2014, 1–14; Porro 2014, 192–205. 42 Cameron 2004, 64–65. 43 McNamee 2007, 31–91. 44 Montanari 2017. 45 Montana 2011, 105–161; Montana 2014, 1–14.
Nereida Villagra
Commenting on the MH: purpose and readership of the historiae Any attempt to edit a work which is fragmentary and anonymous faces, as we have seen, methodological limits. Not all the editorial decisions can be based on strictly textual criteria. Therefore, in order to break the hermeneutic circle of reconstructing a lost text, it is important to analyse the historiae as fragments of a work, analysing their place in the mythographical and also the literary tradition, contrasting the variants, contextualizing the two main moments represented by the written sources, the Imperial and the Byzantine states, and trying to understand its purpose and, more importantly, its readership.46 Let us take the example of the historiae discussed above to briefly illustrate this. We know Melampus was an important figure in Archaic epic: besides two references in Homer,47 a poem titled Melampodia is attributed to Hesiod. Pindar also mentioned Melampus and Pherecydes dedicated him ample attention: besides our text, another MH historia cites Pherecydes (fr. 114) to tell how Melampus cured Proetus’ daughters and married Iphianassa. Apollodorus the mythographer also tells of Melampus’ deeds and includes both episodes. The episode of Tyro’s cows shows a different redaction from our texts but, in the rough outlines, it is similar to the two versions in the scholia.48 In his commentary to Pherecydes, Robert Fowler compared the historia citing Pherecydes to Apollodorus’ version, Eustathius’ commentary to the Odyssey,49 and the scholia (Z, HQ) to Od. 11.290. He concluded that the contents which are common to all these versions must reflect Pherecydes’ version, which would have been a well-established story since Archaic epic. Fowler also points out that the main difference between the two groups of texts—Pherecydes (= MH) and Eustathius on one side, and Apollodorus and the historia in V schol. Od. 11.290a on the other side—is the description of the cause of Iphiclus’ inability to sire children. According to Pherecydes (= MH) and Eustathius, Iphiclus, as a child (νεογνός Pherecyd./MH; παίς Eust.) was pursued by his father Phylacus with a
46 An old desideratum of Henrichs 1987. 47 Od. 11.286–290 and Od. 15.225–242. 48 Other sources of Melampus’ myth are Hes. fr. 37 MW and frr. 270–79 MW; Apollod. 1.9.12–13; Paus. 4.36.3, 10.31.10. 49 Eust. in Od. 1685.28–34 (Stallbaum).
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
knife because he did something inappropriate (αὐτὸν ἄτοπόν τι ποιοῦντα Pherecyd./MH; κατὰ τινα ὀργήν Eust.). The trauma of being pursued caused his impotency. According to Apollodorus, Phylacus was castrating animals. V schol. Od. 11.290a is not very clear on this point, but it says that Phylacus “applied” the knife to Iphiclus when he was cutting the animals (ἣν ἐπήνεγκε Φύλακος τῷ Ἰφίκλῳ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀγρῶν ἐκτέμνοντι τὰ τετράποδα) and that Melampus made sacrifices to the gods, who were angered by the castration of the animals (θύσας τε θεοῖς τοῖς μηνίουσιν ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν τετραπόδων εὐνουχίας). Therefore, the scholion probably refers to the same version as Apollodorus, which links animal castration to Iphiclus’ impotency. Robert Fowler, who proposes a psychoanalytical reading of the myth,50 sees the references to Iphiclus’ bad behaviour and to the castration of the cattle (or to his own castration) as creating an equivalence between the motifs. He considers that the difference in the description of these circumstances must have been the result of voluntary omission by the copyists, whose male sensitivity was affected by the gruesome description of a castration scene.51 Van der Valk proposes that the castration was omitted due to scruples of the authors who received the myth, but he proposes that Pherecydes’ original account would have contained the castration.52 This is an interesting point on which there might be something else to say. It is important to underline that we read Pherecydes’ version through the MH’s redaction. As already said, Pherecydes’ version (i.e. MH), and Eustathius’ both mention that Iphiclus was a boy when his father chased him with a knife, and that this was due to his bad behaviour (MH: τὸν Ἴφικλον ἔτι νεογνὸν ὄντα διὰ τὸ ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν ἄτοπόν τι ποιοῦντα, Eust.: τὸ διωχθῆναι ὑπὸ Φυλάκου ποτὲ τοῦ πατρὸς μετὰ μαχαίρας τὸν Ἴφικλον παῖδα ὄντα κατά τινα ὀργήν).53 We know that
50 It “addresses deep-rooted male guilt, fear, and anxiety about sexual inadequacy and rivalry with one’s father” (Fowler 2013, 168). The myth can be classified as a cattle-rustling narrative, a well-established type in Indo-European myth. 51 Fowler 2013, 168: “It seems that some readers were disturbed by these details, and so omitted or altered them. The reason why this story had such an effect, when others more gruesome did not, is not hard to find, given the gender of the scholars who transcribed it”. 52 Van der Valk 1958, 103: “In my opinion the original version of Pherecydes must be reconstructed with the aid of both Bibl. and schol. V. Since Pherecydes narrates somewhat realistic details, concerning the sexual domain, both Hellenistic authors who made use of him took exception at some of the details”. 53 On the term ἄτοπον, see Arnott 1964, 119–121: the expression ἄτοπον ποιεῖν can mean “to do something bad”. In koiné the term becomes a synonym of “bad”. See Fowler 2013, 168 n. 58.
Nereida Villagra in the twelfth century, Eustathius used, amongst many other materials, scholia of the V type to compose his commentary to the Odyssey.54 Therefore, his commentary is a different testimony of the Byzantine version of the historia which may ultimately go back to Pherecydes, but which Eustathius accessed already as an MH historia embedded in V scholia. If we take into account that the Imperial MH is considered to have been a commentary used in the first stages of education,55 in which children would read and learn the Homeric poems, one could suggest that the omission of the castration scene and the reference to the boy’s bad behaviour could have been motivated by the educational purpose of the MH and his young audience: this slight adaptation puts forward a narrative which illustrates the consequences of children’s misbehaviour.56 The alteration thus seems more likely to have been made by an Imperial mythographer and not necessarily by Pherecydes, whose original version might have contained a reference to the castration, as van der Valk proposed. The Dutch scholar suggests that the variant was created by a Hellenistic scholar. However, the MH seems a preferable choice because in this case it is possible to pinpoint a clear motivation for censoring the emasculation episode. Another detail in the historia also points to a pedagogical or moralizing purpose: Melampus’ two guards at Phylace are described in a very particular and unparalleled way. The man treats the diviner well, but the woman does not, and when they take Melampus out and the room collapses, she dies. Regardless of the origin of this episode,57 the correlation between treating the diviner badly and death is quite obvious. Let’s move to the second version of Melampus’ historia. Besides the episode of the castration, there are other points in which this narrative agrees with Apollodorus and differs from the first scholion: Melampus is presented as the son of Amythaon, whereas in the first version Talaus is named as the father of the siblings; reference is made to the snakes that purified Melampus’ sense of hearing,
54 Pagès 2007, 213 suggests that Eustathius might have had access to better manuscripts. Pontani 2005, 173–178 points out that there are not great differences between the V scholia to the Odyssey and Eustathius’ commentary. See also Hunter 2017, 10. On Eustathius’ commentary to the Odyssey, see Cullhed 2012, 445‒461; 2014; Pontani 2017. 55 This has been noted by several scholars: van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, Cameron 2004; Pagès 2007. The fact that we possess an ostracon with some lines of the MH provides evidence in favour of this hypothesis. 56 The term νεογνὸς is normally used for babies, especially newborn babies. But this cannot be the meaning in the historia, where Phylacus pursues Iphiclus and cannot catch him. 57 Cuartero (2010, 164 n. 299) points to the obscure role of the guards in the process of shamanic initiation, which can be seen in the structure of Pherecydes’ version.
Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
which is totally omitted in the first scholion; finally, Iphiclus’ children are mentioned, but omitted in the first historia.58 However, the information presented at the beginning of the second historia, that Tyro arrived at Deioneus’ palace and was given to his brother Cretheus already pregnant by Poseidon, is not in Apollodorus’ narrative of this episode. I do not want to delve further into the discussion about the relationship between Apollodorus’ version and this second historia, but the relevant point is that the comparison highlights the purpose of schol. Od. 11.290a: it includes the information that Tyro got to Deioneus’ palace first to elucidate why her cows were at Phylace, with Iphiclus, Phylacus’ son, as already said. The type of exegesis offered by this second commentary is, therefore, different from the one offered by the first historia. We find more genealogical information, both on the links between the mythical figures and about Iphiclus’ sons, but less information on Melampus’ deeds. Furthermore, no detail in this second version seems to have a moralizing tone: Tyro marries Cretheus though she is already pregnant by Poseidon, Phylacus “applied” a knife to Iphiclus and castrated animals. This piece of mythography seems directed to a readership interested in local traditions and genealogy which fits the interests of the cultivated elite of the Imperial milieu. This seems to be the readership of some historiae of the MH, as we have seen in chapter 4. The discussion of the readership of these two historiae remains hypothetical. However, it points to the idea that the MH cannot be reduced to one single purpose, that the corpus of historiae was adapted over time to the needs and interests of their readership. It also illustrates the importance and the necessity of having a comprehensive commentary on the MH: on the one hand, if more moralizing adaptations can be identified in other historiae, this would give more weight to the hypothesis on the use of the first text in the schoolroom; on the other hand, it would be useful to map the purposes and possible readerships of all the historiae in PSI 10, 1173 and also of those preserved only in the scholia. Furthermore, a comprehensive commentary would help to acknowledge the Imperial state (i.e. the MH’s version), in which we have many historiae of the early and Hellenistic mythographers and other authors in the subscriptions.59 As a matter of fact, it has recently been proposed that the authorities cited in the subscriptions are not mentioned as the source of the story, but as an indication of a parallel version. According to this hypothesis, the narrative in the first historia would be the MH’s
58 The scholion names Protesilaus and Podarces, in agreement with Homer, but Apollodorus only mentions Podarces. 59 Delattre 2016, 89–110.
Nereida Villagra version and not Pherecydes’. Unless we find a direct testimony of the early or Hellenistic mythographers’ work, this hypothesis cannot be proven or refuted. But it shows the importance of seeing the historiae by themselves as products of the Imperial age.
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Towards an Edition and Commentary of the Mythographus Homericus on the Odyssey
Gerstinger, Hans (1932), Griechische literarische Papyri. I. (Mitteilungen aus der Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek [Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer]. Neue Serie. I. Folge.) [M.P.E.R., N.S. I.], Wien, 130–132. Harrauer, Christine (1999), “Die Melampus-Sage in der Odyssee,” in: John N. Kazazis/Antonios Rengakos (eds.), Euphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Epic and its Legacy in Honor of Dimitris N. Maronitis, Stuttgart, 132–142. Haslam, Michael W. (1990), “A New Papyrus of the Mythographus Homericus”, in: The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, Vol. 27, No. 1/4, 31–36. Havell, Herber L. (1890), Longinus. On the Sublime, London. Henrichs, Albert (1987), “Three approaches to Greek mythography”, in: Jan Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology, London/Sydney, 242–277. Hunter, Richard (2017), “Eustathian moments”, in: Filippomaria Pontani (ed.), Reading Eustathios of Thessalonike, Berlin/Boston, 9–75. Johnston, Sarah Iles (2003) “‘Initiation’ in Myth, ‘Initiation’ in Practice: The Homeric Hymn to Hermes in its Performative Context”, in: David B. Dodd/Christopher A. Faraone (eds.), Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives, London/New York, 155–180. Jost, Madeleine (1992), “La légende de Mélampous en Argolide et dans le Péloponnèse”, in: Marcel Piérart (ed.), Polydipsion Argos, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique Suppl. 22, Athens, 173–184. Lünstedt, Peter (1961), Untersuchungen zu den mythologischen Abschnitten der D-Scholien, Diss. Hamburg. Luppe, Wolfgang (1997), “Nachlese und Überlegungen zum Mythographus-Homericus-Codex P.S.I. 1173”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 116, 13–18. McNamee, Kathleen (1998), “Another Chapter in the History of Scholia”, The Classical Quarterly 48(1), 269–288. McNamee, Kathleen (2007), Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt, American Studies in Papyrology 45, Atlanta. Montana, Fausto (2011), “The Making of Greek Scholiastic Corpora”, in: Franco Montanari/Lara Pagani (eds.), From Scholars to Scholia: Chapters in the History of Ancient Greek Scholarship, TCSV 9, Berlin/New York. Montana, Fausto (2014), “Introduction: From types to Texts”, in: Fausto Montana/Antonietta Porro (eds.), The Birth of Scholiography From Types to Texts. Trends in Classics, 6(1). Special Issue, 1–14. Montanari, Franco (1984), “Gli Homerca su papiro: per una distinzione di generi”, in: Filologia e critica letteraria della grecità, vol. 2. Ricerche di filologia classica, Pisa, 125–138. Montanari, Franco (1993), “L’erudizione, la filologia e la grammatica”, in: Giuseppe Cambiano/ Luciano Canfora/Diego Lanza (eds.), Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica. Vol. 1: La produzione e la circolazione del testo. 2: L’Ellenismo, Roma, 235–281. Montanari, Franco (1995), “The Mythographus Homericus”, in: Jelle G.J. Abbenes/Simon R. Slings/Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle: A Collection of Papers in Honour of D.M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Montanari, Franco (2002), “Ancora sul Mythographus Homericus (e l’Odissea)”, in: André Hurst/ Françoise Létoublon (eds.), La mythologie et l’Odyssée, Genève, 129–144. Montanari, Franco/Matthaios, Stephanos/Rengakos, Antonios (eds.) (2015), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, Leiden.
Nereida Villagra Morrison, William S. (2011), “Pherecydes of Athens (3)”, in: Ian Worthington (ed.), Brill’s New Jacoby, . Accessed on 12 November 2018 at the former platform . Pagès, Joan (2007), Mythographus Homericus: estudi i edició comentada, Diss. Barcelona. Pagès, Joan (2017), “Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and the Mythographus Homericus: an Intertextual Approach”, in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads. Studies in Honour of Francesc J. Cuartero, Berlin/Boston, 66–81. Pàmias, Jordi (2008), Ferecides d’Atenes: Històries, 2 vols., Barcelona. Pfeiffer, Rudolf (1937), “Hesiodisches und Homerisches”, Philologus 92, 14–16. Pontani, Filippomaria (2005), Sguardi su Ulisse. La tradizione esegetica greca all’ Odissea, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (2007), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam: 1. Scholia ad libros α–β, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (2010), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam: 2. Scholia ad libros γ–δ, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria, (2015), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam: 3. Scholia ad libros ε–ζ, Roma. Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.) (2017), Reading Eustathios of Thessalonike, Berlin/Boston. Pontani, Filippomaria (2020), Scholia Graeca in Odysseam: 4. Scholia ad libros η-θ, Roma. Porro, Antonietta (2014), “The birth of scholiography: some conclusions and perspectives”, in: Fausto Montana/Antonietta Porro (eds.), The Birth of Scholiography From Types to Texts. Trends in Classics, 6(1). Special Issue, 192–205. Schironi, Francesca (2012), “Greek commentaries”, Dead Sea Discoveries 19(3), 399–441. Stallbaum, Gottfried (1825‒1826), Eustathius Thessalonicensis, Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam ad fidem exempli Romani editi, Leipzig (repr. Hildesheim 1970). Schwartz, Edward (1881), “De scholiis Homericis ad historiam fabularem pertinentibus,” Fleckeisens Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie, Suppl. 12, 405–463. Vallebella, Maria Gavina (2000–2002), “Razzia di bestiame e iniziazione virile nei poemi omerici”, Sandalion 23–25, 5–38. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1958), “On Apollodori Bibliotheca”, Revue des Études Grecques 71, 100–168. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1963), Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad. Part I, Leiden. Villagra, Nereida/Pàmias, Jordi (2020), “Los escolios mitográficos y el Mythographus Homericus”, Polymnia 5, 20–38. Villagra, Nereida (2017), “Lost in tradition: Apollodorus and tragedy-related texts”, in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana. Ancient Myths, New Crossroads, Berlin/Boston, 38–65. Villagra, Nereida (2021), “Mythographus Homericus, Ἱστορίαι and Fragmentary Mythographers: A Case Study on Phineus and the Argonauts”, in: Francesco Ginelli/Francesco Lupi (eds.), The Continuity of Classical Literature through Fragmentary Traditions, Berlin/Boston, 145– 164. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1998), Greek Readers’ Digests? Studies on a Selection of Subliterary Papyri, Mnemosyne Supplements 175, Leiden. Walcot, Peter (1979), “Cattle Raiding, Heroic Tradition, and Ritual: The Greek Evidence”, History of Religions 18(4), 326–351. Wilson, Nigel G. (1967), “A Chapter in the History of Scholia”, The Classical Quarterly 17(2), 244–256. Wilson, Nigel G. (1968), “A Chapter in the History of Scholia: A Postscript”, The Classical Quarterly 18(2), 413.
Part IV: The Mythographus Homericus in Context: Intertextuality, Parallels and the Study of Myth
Johanna Michels
The Varying Correspondence between the Mythographus Homericus Corpus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer Abstract: The relationship between certain historiae in the Homeric D scholia and the mythographical handbook Bibliotheca attributed to Apollodorus remains a contested issue, in particular with regard to five historiae with ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions. This chapter takes into account not only these but all historiae with close or limited correspondences to the Bibliotheca in order to discuss the merits of four scholarly positions on the matter and to offer notes on the ramifications of each hypothesis for the edition of the MH corpus. This evaluation makes clear why none of the hypotheses is entirely satisfactory and proposes a new dynamic model that takes into account the possibility of fluid transmission and contamination of the MH corpus.
Authenticity and reliability of the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions Parallels between historiae in the Homeric D scholia and the mythographical handbook Bibliotheca attributed to ‘Apollodorus’1 have troubled scholarship on the MH corpus from its very beginning. Even before Panzer coined the term ‘Mythographus Homericus’ (1892), these parallels influenced investigations into the authenticity and reliability of the subscriptions, with Julius Schwarz (1878) and Eduard Schwartz (1881) pointing to discrepancies between historiae linked to the Bibliotheca and their subscriptions.2 The twin matters of authenticity and reliability have now been settled for the MH corpus in general, the former by the publication of the MH papyri: the subscriptions were originally part of the MH collection, and even if some subscriptions in the scholia are absent from the papyrus version of the historia or vice 1 While I generally prefer to err on the side of caution and call the author of the Bibliotheca ‘Pseudo-Apollodorus’, for present purposes it is more transparent to refer to ‘Apollodorus’. Passages from the Bibliotheca and the D scholia are cited from the editions of Papathomopoulos (2010) and van Thiel (2014) respectively. 2 Schwarz 1878, 25–28; Schwartz 1881, esp. 438–463; 1894, 2876, 2877–2878. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-007
Johanna Michels versa, there is only one3 historia subscribed to a different source in the papyri and in the scholia.4 Regarding reliability, Lünstedt has shown that even if subscriptions do not always supply the actual source of the historia, they are reliable indicators of texts that deal with the same subject matter, or at least subjects that are mentioned in the historia.5 Ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τῷ δεῖνα should therefore be understood to mean ‘(part of) this story is treated by this or that author’.6 Yet authenticity and reliability remain contested issues for the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions. It is still open to debate whether the subscriptions to ‘Apollodorus’ are authentic—and, for that matter, whether the historiae were part of the original MH collection. Furthermore, it remains disputed whether the subscriptions are reliable witnesses to the relationship between the MH corpus and the Bibliotheca. Taking into consideration these and other manuscript historiae that correspond to varying extents to Bibliotheca passages, this chapter discusses four scholarly positions on this matter. The term ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions will refer only to those five subscriptions attached to historiae with links to the Bibliotheca. Five other historiae will be disregarded as the author in the subscription can be identified as Apollodorus of Athens, the more so since they contain no correspondence to the Bibliotheca.7 While the debate focuses mostly on the five ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions, there are six other historiae bearing substantial verbal correspondences to Bibliotheca passages, and others that have been linked to the handbook (justly or not).
3 MH ad Il. 9.447: the subscription in the scholia refers to Πύκτηι while P. Oxy. 56, 3830 has παρ᾿ Ἐρ̣ [ατοσθέ]νει (Haslam). 4 Cf. Montanari 1984, 131–132. 5 Lünstedt 1961, part 1. Combining E. Schwartz’s original scepticism about the reliability of the subscriptions and Lünstedt’s distinction between subscriptions and source indications, Cameron places the MH subscriptions squarely in the mythographical tradition by describing them as “genuine enough in the sense that [they] derived ultimately from genuinely learned writers citing genuine documentation” but the writer of the historiae as one who “did not control his citations”, who “did not know more of the names he cited than what his source told him”, and who only desired “one or two names to cite in support of a brief summary of a given story uncomplicated by variants” (2004, 105–106, 110, 113–114). On the subscriptions as erudite references turned blanket formulas, see also van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 112–113, 115 and Verhasselt 2018, 343–344 (on D schol. Il. 1.5). 6 A subscription may also refer to scholia written in the margins of the cited author’s text. 7 MH in D schol. Il. 8.284 = FGrH 244 F 158 (ἡ δὲ ἱστορία ἀκριβέστερον εἴρηται παρά τε ἄλλοις καὶ παρὰ Ἀπολλονίωι [-δώρωι Valckenaer] τῶι γραμματικῶι ἐν τῶι δευτέρωι [περὶ add. Jacoby] τῶν Νεῶν [τῶν γενῶν ZYQA]); D schol. Il. 13.12 = FGrH 244 F 158a (ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι); D schol. Il. 21.448 = FGrH 244 F 96 (οὕτως ἱστορεῖ Ἀπολλόδωρος); schol. Od. 1.259 = FGrH 244 F 180 (ὡς ἱστορεῖ Ἀπολλόδωρος ὁ ᾽Αθηναῖος); schol. Od. 23.198 = FGrH 244 F 129 (ἡ δὲ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι τῶι ᾽Αθηναίωι).
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
Finally, it is important to keep in mind that this relationship is only reported in the D scholia to the Iliad. Neither the surviving papyri nor the manuscript historiae to the Odysseia bear parallels to Bibliotheca passages or subscriptions naming ‘Apollodorus’.
. ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions and other historiae linked to the Bibliotheca Tab. 5: The ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions. [] D schol. Il. . = schol. A Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..–)
(D) ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
ἱστορεῖ Ἀπολλόδωρος ἐν β´
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..)
ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι ἐν α´
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
ἡ ἱστορία πλατύτερον κεῖται παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι ἐν β´
[] D schol Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..); .– (.–..)
ἱστορεῖ Ἑλλάνικος ἐν Βοιωτιακοῖς καὶ Ἀπολλόδωρος ἐν τῷ γ´
Tab. 6: Other historiae with close verbal correspondence to the Bibliotheca. [] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (.–)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..); .– (..)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..–)
ἱστορεῖ Καλλίμαχος ἐν Ἑκάληι
ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Εὐριπίδηι ἐν Βάκχαις
Johanna Michels Tab. 7: Historiae with few verbal correspondences that appear to be paraphrases of the same texts. [] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..–)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
(AT) ἱστορεῖ Φερεκύδης (Genavensis ) ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τοῖς Κυκλικοῖς
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..–)
τῆς ἱστορίας πολλοὶ ἐμνήσθησαν, προηγουμένως δὲ ὁ τὴν Εὐρώπιαν πεποιηκὼς Εὔμηλος
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. schol. bT Il. . cf. Bibl. .– (..)
(bT) οὕτως δὴ Σιμωνίδης τὴν ἱστορίαν περιείργασται
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..)
ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἑλλανίκωι
[] D schol. Il. . = schol. T .
cf. Bibl. .– (..); . (..)
ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἡσιόδωι καὶ Βακχυλίδηι
[ ] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Εὐφορίωνι
Tab. 8: Historiae with parallels to the pars deperdita of the Bibliotheca. [] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .–
inc. οἱ νεώτεροι ποιηταὶ ἐντεῦθεν σημειοῦνται ἱστοροῦντες περὶ τὴν Μυσίαν τὸν τρόπον τούτου (cf. D schol. Il. .)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit./Sabb. .–
inc. ἐντεῦθεν οἱ νεώτεροι ὁρμηθέντες ἱστοροῦσιν ὅτι κτλ. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ πολλοῖς μὲν τῶν νεωτέρων καὶ παρὰ Δίκτυι τῶι γράψαντι τὰ Τρωικά
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .–
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .–
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .; Epit./Sabb. .–
ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Καλλιμάχωι ἐν α´ Αἰτίων καὶ παρὰ τῶι ποιητῆι ἐν τῆι δ´ τῶν Ὀδυσσειῶν παχυμερῶς
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
Tab. 9: Some examples of historiae with perceived correspondences due to common source use. [] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..–)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..)
[] V schol. Od. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
Any hypothesis on the relationship between the MH corpus and ‘Apollodorus’ needs to take all these historiae into account, and I have done so elsewhere.8 In the present chapter select case studies illustrate the four hypothetical scenarios for this relationship and offer notes on the ramifications for the edition of the MH corpus. The four scenarios are situated on two axes, dependence on the Bibliotheca vs. a common source and original vs. later addition. According to the dependence hypothesis, the Mythographus Homericus adopted historiae from the Bibliotheca. Together with other historiae from the MH collection they were incorporated into the Homeric D scholia [A]. A variant on the dependence hypothesis argues that these historiae were added later, after the example of the original MH collection [B]. Proponents of the common source hypothesis are confronted with the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions. They resolve this problem by either identifying Apollodorus of Athens as the common source and as the ‘Apollodorus’ of the subscriptions [C], or by explaining these particular subscriptions as later additions inspired by the parallels to the Bibliotheca [D]. It will become clear why none of the four hypotheses is entirely satisfactory, and why a dynamic model of the evolution of the MH corpus may provide a new answer.
8 Michels [forthcoming].
Johanna Michels
Fig. 2 Hypotheses on the relationship between the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions and the Bibliotheca.
The dependence hypotheses . The dependence hypothesis [A] The extensive verbal correspondence in some historiae obviously favours the dependence hypothesis. For its proponents, these parallels outweigh the discrepancies, especially in a fluid tradition where both accidents of transmission and the incorporation of the historiae in the D scholia would not have left the historiae unaltered.9 Comparison of the scholia and the papyri shows that neither is a reliable representative of the original collection, as both have been subject to abridgement, modification, and adaptation.
9 Schwarz 1878, 25–28; Panzer 1892, 51–58 (although agreeing with Schwartz 1881, 458 that the subscriptions in D schol. Il. 2.103 and 2.494 were added in the Byzantine period); Wagner 1926², xxxiv–xxxv; van der Valk 1958, esp. 104–105, 119–120; 1963, 305–309; Kenens 2013, 103–108 (“scheme a”: see below note 48). For proponents of dependence hypothesis [B], see note 24. Note that Lünstedt 1961, 24–34 considers the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions reliable only as allusions, not as source references.
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
For this reason, the verbal correspondence in the historia accompanied by the first ‘Apollodorus’ subscription is all the more striking. [1] D schol. Il. 1.10 = schol. A Il. 1.126 and the corresponding Bibliotheca passage (1.46–48 [1.7.1–2]) are almost identical, apart from some minor lexical and grammatical variations and some changes to the word order (for which the accidents of transmission may well be blamed). Most if not all scholars have therefore accepted the historia’s dependence on the Bibliotheca,10 yet there are still two interesting observations to make. First, the only noteworthy variation concerns the MH’s lectio difficilior τότε δὲ καὶ τὰ κατὰ Θεσσαλίαν Τέμπη διέστη, where the Bibliotheca has ὄρη. Strikingly, ὄρη is confirmed in schol. vet. Pl. Ti. 22a bis, which is known to have been taken from the Bibliotheca in the second half of the ninth century by a grammarian in Photius’ circle.11 Starting from the dependence hypothesis, either the historia innovated on its source or it adopted Τέμπη from ‘Apollodorus’ before the reading in the Bibliotheca changed in the course of transmission to ὄρη. However, as Fowler has remarked, Τέμπη would not have been beyond some scribes’ (or scholiasts’) knowledge.12 The question is whether the editor should take this last option into account for the edition of the historia. Given the extremely close resemblance between the historia and the Bibliotheca passage, what weight should be given to the received readings of the Bibliotheca manuscript tradition and its indirect tradition? Alternatively, should the editor adhere, even here, to the common source hypothesis, all these considerations become irrelevant. The second point concerns a D scholion not mentioned thus far. It has no subscription but contains an in-text source reference to ‘Apollodorus’ and a close verbal quotation from the Bibliotheca: D schol. Il. 12.117 Δευκαλίδαο: Δευκαλίωνος παιδός. γίγνονται δὲ ἐκ Πύρρας καὶ Δευκαλίωνος, ὥς φησιν Ἀπολλόδωρος, παῖδες· Ἕλλην μὲν πρῶτος, ὃν ἐκ Διὸς ἔνιοι γεγεννῆσθαι λέγουσι, δεύτερος δὲ Ἀμφικτύων ὁ μετὰ Κραναὸν βασιλεύσας τῆς Ἀττικῆς. Θυγάτηρ δὲ Πρωτογένεια ἔξ ἧς καὶ Διὸς Ἀέθλιος (= schol.A Il. 13.307 from Δευκαλίωνος παιδός onwards). Bibl. 1.49 (1.7.2) Γίνονται δὲ ἐκ Πύρρας Δευκαλίωνι παῖδες Ἕλλην μὲν πρῶτος, ὃν ἐκ Διὸς γεγεννῆσθαι λέγουσι, Ἀμφικτύων ὁ μετὰ Κραναὸν βασιλεύσας τῆς Ἀττικῆς, θυγάτηρ δὲ Πρωτογένεια, ἐξ ἧς καὶ Διὸς Ἀέθλιος.13
10 Including Schwartz 1881, 458, who makes an exception for this particular historia. 11 Diller 1935, 301–304. See also Mettauer 1880, 48–51; Wagner 1926², xxxvi; van der Valk 1958, 104–105 n. 21; Kenens 2014, 156–159, 168–169; Michels [forthcoming]. 12 Fowler 2013, 379. 13 The first editor of the Bibliotheca, Aegius of Spoleto (1555), supplemented ἔνιοι and δεύτερος δ(ὲ) from the Homeric scholion.
Johanna Michels There are only minor differences between the two passages. In the Bibliotheca the quoted text immediately follows a passage that has very close parallels to [1] D schol. Il. 13.307 = schol. A Il. 1.126. For van der Valk, this is proof that the first ‘Apollodorus’ subscription is authentic and that the historia is the work of the Mythographus Homericus.14 However, D schol. Il. 12.117 = schol. A Il. 13.307 is not a historia. The attribution takes the form of an in-text source reference instead of a subscription, it is shorter, and it offers only a genealogical enumeration, no narrative.15 Therefore, the quotation only confirms that the Bibliotheca was known at some stage during the composition of the D scholia. This may suggest that the first ‘Apollodorus’ historia was not originally part of the MH collection but added later to the D scholia, which could explain the forced link between the lemma λαοί and the historia, based on an etymology that also occurs in the Bibliotheca.16 The consultation of a nearby Bibliotheca passage about Deucalion’s children could have evoked the memory of the same etymology in the Bibliotheca, although the great distance between the two scholia renders this scenario less likely. As noted, the parallels between ‘Apollodorus’ historia [1] and the Bibliotheca are unusually striking. It is a rather exceptional specimen. Compare, for instance, [3] D schol. Il. 1.195. The first part of the scholion is a rationalization of Athena’s descent from heaven, which is contrasted with the actual historia. Despite the ‘Apollodorus’ subscription, the correspondence to Bibl. 1.20 (1.3.6) is minimal, limited to a few recurring words that are, given the subject, hardly surprising. There is no detail that is specific to the Bibliotheca account. Since rationalization is alien to the MH corpus, it is clear that the first half of the scholion is not part of the historia. Pagès rejects the latter half as well and adduces it as proof that the Bibliotheca was consulted in the course of the composition of the D scholia.17 In
14 Van der Valk 1963, 305. 15 Cf. Diller 1935, 303; Lünstedt 1961, 252; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 104 n. 54, 108 n. 65. Pace Diller the scholion should not be attributed to the scribe of Venetus A, since van Thiel’s proecdosis of the D scholia shows that it also occurs in D schol. Il. 12.117. 16 Bibl. 1.48 (1.7.2): Καὶ Διὸς εἰπόντος ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς αἴρων ἔβαλλε λίθους, καὶ οὓς μὲν ἔβαλε Δευκαλίων, ἄνδρες ἐγένοντο, οὓς δὲ Πύρρα, γυναῖκες. Ὅθεν καὶ λαοὶ μεταφορικῶς ὠνομάσθησαν ἀπὸ τοῦ λᾶας ὁ λίθος. In D schol. Il. 1.10 = schol. A Il. 1.126 the historia follows the lemma λαοί and the explanation ὄχλοι. λᾶες κατὰ διάλεκτον οἱ λίθοι λέγονται. 17 Pagès 2007, 111 n. 32.
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
fact, given the extremely short length of the narrative18 and the unique introduction εὐλόγως δὲ καὶ οἱ μυθογράφοι φασὶν ὅτι,19 the subscription is the sole criterion for its inclusion in the MH corpus. If it is not a historia, the question arises whether the parallel passage, together with the ‘Apollodorus’ subscription, is not a later addition similar to D schol. Il. 12.117 = schol. A 13.307. Table 8 lists a number of historiae that lack verbal correspondence to the Bibliotheca but present a paraphrase of the same text. While [21] D schol. Il. 1.264 and [23] 2.106 may also fit into this category, this cannot be verified as the Epitome Vaticana preserves only an abridged version of the corresponding Bibliotheca accounts. Some other historiae have a mixture of close verbal correspondence, paraphrase, and abbreviation. See for example [4] D schol. Il. 2.103.20 While the core of the story echoes the Bibliotheca almost verbatim, the beginning (Bibl. 2.5 [2.1.3]) is summarized in one sentence and lacks several motifs. Similarly, Io’s travels in Bibl. 2.7–8 (2.1.5) are severely abbreviated. Most conspicuously, the historia does not offer any of the many genealogical variants (more on these later). When historiae bearing both an ‘Apollodorus’ subscription and verbal correspondence to the Bibliotheca, such as this one, paraphrase and abridge as well, there is no reason why historiae with paraphrased stories or with minimal correspondence should not be taken into account in an investigation of the relationship between the Bibliotheca and the MH corpus, even if they express their kinship to the Bibliotheca in a different way. Beyond the parallels to the Bibliotheca, the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions are obviously also a strong point in favour of dependence. This hypothesis does not, however, explain why the five ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions all occur in the scholia on the first two books of the Iliad, while parallels to the Bibliotheca are found up till book twenty-four. Nor does it explain why these five refer to ‘Apollodorus’ but many more historiae with close verbal correspondence or paraphrases refer in their subscriptions to a more authoritative source (see Tables 7–8). The last ‘Apollodorus’ subscription, [5] D schol. Il. 2.494, refers in the first place to Hellanicus. 18 The supposed historia is limited to one sentence: ἔγκυος οὖσα ἡ Μῆτις τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν κατεπόθη ὑπὸ Διὸς καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ τῶι ὡρισμένωι τῆς ἀποκυήσεως χρόνωι ἐξέθορεν ἡ θεὸς σὺν ὅπλοις. 19 Lünstedt 1961, 25–26 n. 2. Schwarz 1878, 27 compares it to the introduction to [20] D schol. Il. 1.106, which is however, followed by a historia of considerable length. 20 The specific formulation of the ‘Apollodorus’ subscription, πλατύτερον κεῖται, has been taken as either a helpful reference, added in the Byzantine period, to the more extensive treatment of the story in the Bibliotheca (Panzer 1892, 58; Lünstedt 1961, 9 n. 1, 27; Montanari 1995, 164 n. 62) or as an acknowledgement that the historia abridges the Bibliotheca (van der Valk 1963, 307 n. 18; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 106 n. 56).
Johanna Michels These questions put the spotlight on the provenance of the subscriptions. In the scenario in which the MH himself adopted passages from the Bibliotheca, there are two options for the subscriptions to other authors and texts: either they are vestiges from the Bibliotheca21 or they are the result of the MH’s interference.22 In the former case, one would expect the authors and texts named in the subscriptions to recur as references in the corresponding Bibliotheca passages; yet this is never the case. Conversely, if the MH were an erudite author capable of supplying these names himself, one could ask why he quoted passages from the handbook instead of from Pherecydes or Callimachus. Given the general reliability of the subscriptions, it is unlikely that they were ad hoc fabrications.
. The dependence hypothesis [B] A glance at Tables 6–10 shows that most authors in the subscriptions are not only more authoritative, but also earlier than ‘Apollodorus’. With a few exceptions, they are Hellenistic at the latest.23 This is a key point for van Rossum-Steenbeek, who is the originator of the alternative dependence hypothesis.24 Starting from the a priori assumption that the papyri are “the most unadulterated representative of […] the MH collection”,25 she views the absence of ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions in the papyri and the lack of parallels with the Bibliotheca as proof that they were not part of the original collection: the ‘Apollodorus’ historiae were added later, and when they have subscriptions to other authors, the ‘Apollodorus’ excerpts may have replaced the original historiae.
21 Cf. van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 112–113. 22 Cf. van der Valk 1963, 309, who argues that the author changed his attitude towards his subscriptions, first naming in an honest manner the actual source of the historiae, viz. ‘Apollodorus’, but after [5] D schol. Il. 2.494 attributing them to more prestigious, authoritative names. This explanation is neither accurate nor sufficient. The subscriptions to [19] D schol. Il. 1.59 and [20] D schol. Il. 1.106 already name sources that are more recherché than the Bibliotheca. Additionally, [21] D schol. Il. 1.264; [22] D schol. Il. 1.268; [23] D schol. Il. 2.106; and [24] 2.145 have no subscription. Pagès 2017, 69–70 also criticizes van der Valk’s argument. 23 This argument is also advanced in favour of the common source hypothesis: Diller 1935, 298; Cameron 2004, 97–98. 24 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 106–110; van Thiel 2000, 2 n. 6; Heinze 2000; Fowler 2013, 379– 384. See also Schwarz 1878, 32. 25 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 104. Elsewhere she allows that “the collection seems to have undergone minor and major changes at all stages of transmission” (116, my emphasis) and “the papyri may […] contain historiae which were not present in the original collection” (92). Pagès criticizes van Rossum-Steenbeek’s excessive focus on the papyri (2007, 43–44; 2018, 67–68).
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
Firstly, it goes without saying that assessing the authenticity of the historiae on the basis of their absence from the papyri alone is an argumentum ex silentio. Van Rossum-Steenbeek refers to P. Oxy. 42, 3003 (2nd cent. CE),26 where the historia ad Il. 14.319 differs completely from the ‘Apollodorus’ historia in the D scholia ([10] D schol. Il. 14.319) and where the ‘Apollodorus’ historia [11] ad Il. 14.325 is absent. She infers that the ‘Apollodorus’ historiae were not part of the MH collection. However, other papyri show that there could be more than one historia per verse27 and that papyri could drop historiae too.28 Consequently, the absence of ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions and Bibliotheca parallels in the papyri does not exclude the presence of such subscriptions and parallels in the pre-scholia MH historiae. As for the later date of ‘Apollodorus’, the subscriptions in the D scholia also name Ptolemaeus Chennus (D schol. Il. 1.334) and Quintus of Smyrna (D schol. Il. 2.220).29 Quintus especially is problematic, since he postdates the earliest witness of the MH collection, an ostracon from the first or second century (PSI 8, 1000). For this reason, van Rossum-Steenbeek considers this historia a later addition to the collection too. Lightfoot offers an alternative explanation: she interprets subscriptions to later authors such as ‘Apollodorus’ and Ptolemaeus Chennus as a symptom of the continuing process of gathering subscriptions.30 When the creation of the MH corpus is viewed as a dynamic evolution, both the inclusion of later authors and the absence of ‘Apollodorus’ from the papyri are no longer problematic. Finally, the relative popularity of the Bibliotheca in Byzantine texts has been advanced as an argument in favour of the later addition of the ‘Apollodorus’ historiae but could equally point to the later addition of the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions.31 In that case, we would be dealing with a very late addition. Note that the historiae with ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions and/or with parallels to the Bibliotheca were at the latest part of the D scholia when some of them were included in the A and bT scholia, while the Byzantine interest in the Bibliotheca appears to have been rather sporadic (with flare-ups in the ninth and the twelfth century).
26 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 97, 107. Similarly, Pagès 2017, 76 argues that the short length of the papyrus historia suggests that the D scholiast used the Bibliotheca to enhance [10] D schol. Il. 10.319. 27 See D schol. Il. 1.38 in P. Hamb. 3, 199 and V schol. Od. 11.321 and 11.326 in PSI 10, 1173. 28 E.g. several historiae in P. Berol. 13930 and 13282 are lacking in P. Oxy. 61, 4096. 29 Fowler (2013, 383) advances Quintus of Smyrna as an argument against Cameron 2004, 97–98. 30 Lightfoot 1999, 251–252. 31 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 107–108; Fowler 2013, 383. On the Bibliotheca in Byzantine texts, see especially Diller 1935, 300–306; Kenens 2014; Michels [forthcoming].
Johanna Michels Van Rossum-Steenbeek’s hypothesis constitutes a particular problem for the edition of the MH collection. If the ‘Apollodorus’ historiae were not part of the original collection, should they be included in the edition? At what point were they added? Or, if the editor prefers to include them yet still wishes to take this hypothesis into consideration, should the mise en page alert the reader to the possibility that historiae with subscriptions naming later authors are not authentic? Following Lightfoot’s suggestion, and in the light of the growing understanding that the MH corpus is the product of a fluid tradition,32 is it feasible—or even desirable—for an edition of the Mythographus Homericus to include a hierarchy of chronology? How does one render the ongoing construction of the corpus on the page?
The common source hypothesis The common source hypothesis considers the parallels between the historiae and the Bibliotheca as the result of either one common source or the influence of the mythographical tradition.33 The existence of additional parallel texts in other scholia collections and in mythographical literature especially suggests that the authors may have consulted the same or related intermediary sources (the term ‘common source’ should here not be strictly interpreted as a claim that they consulted the same direct source). Secondly, there are particular discrepancies between the parallel texts that rule out that one text adapted the other or vice versa. Equally in favour are certain complications in the Bibliotheca text and their absence from the D scholia. Finally, the absence of variant versions also renders it unlikely that the Mythographus Homericus adopted this material from ‘Apollodorus’. This section will discuss two examples in favour of a common source before sections 3.1 and 3.2 address the problem of the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions. Genealogical variants about Io and Argos Panoptes in Bibl. 2.5–8 (2.1.3) are absent from [4] D schol. Il. 2.103 (ut supra). Given the overall scarcity of source references in the MH collection, it may have been the strategy of the author to omit them. Therefore, their absence does not in itself rule out the dependence hypothesis. However, the author could also have omitted them from a common 32 See Pàmias’ contribution to this volume. 33 Proponents are Schwartz 1881, 438–463; Robert 1873, 85–86; 1881, 243; Bethe 1887, 54–56, 57– 58, 96–97; Cameron 2004, 97–99; Dräger 2005, 888–889; Pagès 2007, 101–113; 2017, 73 (“hypothesis 1”); Cuartero i Iborra 2010, 40; Papathomopoulos 2010, 14; Kenens 2011, 135–136; 2012, 162–165; 2013, 106–108 (“scheme b”); Berman 2013, 42–44; Michels 2014, 118–152.
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
source—or ‘Apollodorus’ could have added them from an additional source. The following arguments are strong indications of the latter. The same explanation emerges for the absence of the variants in [2] D schol. Il. 1.42 and [5] D schol. Il. 2.494.34 Firstly, ‘Apollodorus’ offers two Zitatennester, with names that recur at the beginning of the second book of the Bibliotheca. The former concerns Io’s pedigree (Bibl. 2.5 [2.1.3]):35 Ἄργου δὲ καὶ Ἰσμήνης τῆς Ἀσωποῦ παῖς Ἴασος, οὗ φασιν Ἰὼ γενέσθαι. Κάστωρ δὲ ὁ συγγράψας τὰ χρονικὰ καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν τραγικῶν Ἰνάχου τὴν Ἰὼ λέγουσιν· Ἡσίοδος δὲ καὶ Ἀκουσίλαος Πειρῆνος αὐτήν φασιν εἶναι.
The latter, that of Argos Panoptes (Bibl. 2.6 [2.1.3]): Ἄργον τὸν πανόπτην, ὃν Φερεκύδης μὲν Ἀρέστορος λέγει, Ἀσκληπιάδης δὲ Ἰνάχου, Κέρκωψ δὲ Ἄργου καὶ Ἰσμήνης τῆς Ἀσωποῦ θυγατρός· Ἀκουσίλαος δὲ γηγενῆ αὐτὸν λέγει.36
This particular section of the Bibliotheca is dense with Zitatennester. For instance, Acusilaus is named ten times in the Bibliotheca, four of which in this section. In three Zitatennester he is named together with Hesiod.37 Cercops, Castor of Rhodes, and the Nostoi occur only in this section. It is therefore reasonable to assume that ‘Apollodorus’ supplemented this particular section of the Bibliotheca with explicit references and Zitatennester from an additional source.38 Tab. 10: Explicit references and Zitatennester in Bibl. 2.1–33 (2.1.1–2.3.2). (Ps.-)Hesiodus ( out of refs.)
. . (..) (..)
. . (..) (..)
Acusilaus ( out of refs.)
. . . (..) (..) (..)
. (..)
34 Michels [forthcoming] sets out the arguments for these historiae. 35 Cf. MH: τῆς Ἰνάχου θυγατρὸς. 36 The next sentence is also not in the historia: Οὗτος ἐκ τῆς ἐλαίας ἐδέσμευσεν αὐτὴν ἥτις ἐν τῷ Μυκηναίων ὑπῆρχεν ἄλσει. 37 For the joint references to Acusilaus and to Hesiod in the Bibliotheca, see Robert 1873, 70, 71, 77; Jacoby 1957, 377, 382, 383; Schwartz 1960, 182–184, 193–194; Cameron 2004, 96; Michels [forthcoming]. 38 A more elaborate discussion on the subject of these Zitatennester can be found in Michels [forthcoming].
Johanna Michels Castor ὁ συγγράψας τὰ χρονικά ( out of ref.)
. ..)
Cercops ( out of refs.)
. (..)
Pherecydes of Athens ( out of refs.)
. (..)
Asclepiades ( out of refs.)
. (..)
Euripides ( out of refs.)
. (..)
. (..)
οἱ τραγικοί ( out of refs.)
. . . (..) (..) (..)
ὁ τοὺς νόστους γράψας ( out of ref.)
. (..)
Homerus ( out of refs.)
. (..)
. (..)
Secondly, something strange is going on with Argos. ‘Apollodorus’ contaminates two figures with the same name, on the one hand the eponymous foundation hero of Argos, and on the other the guardian of Io, the 'all-seeing' Argos. The resulting reduplication of the Panoptes and the deeds by the Landesheros are unique to the Bibliotheca (2.2–4 [2.1.1–2]; 2.6 [2.1.3]):39 2.2–3 (2.1.1–2) Νιόβης δὲ καὶ Διὸς […] παῖς Ἄργος ἐγένετο […] Ἄργος δὲ λαβὼν τὴν ‹τοῦ Φορωνέως› βασιλείαν ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ τὴν Πελοπόννησον ἐκάλεσεν Ἄργος, καὶ γήμας Εὐάδνην τὴν Στρυμόνος καὶ Νεαίρας ἐτέκνωσεν Ἔκβασον [...]. 2.4 (2.1.2) Ἐκβάσου δὲ Ἀγήνωρ γίνεται, τούτου δὲ Ἄργος ὁ πανόπτης λεγόμενος. Εἶχε μὲν οὗτος ὀφθαλμοὺς μὲν ἐν παντὶ τῷ σώματι, ὑπερβάλλων δὲ δυνάμει τὸν μὲν τὴν Ἀρκαδίαν λυμαινόμενον ταῦρον ἀνελὼν τὴν τούτου δορὰν ἠμφιάσατο, Σάτυρον δὲ τοὺς Ἀρκάδας ἀδικοῦντα καὶ ἀφαιρούμενον τὰ βοσκήματα ὑποστὰς ἀπέκτεινε. Λέγεται δὲ ὅτι καὶ τὴν Ταρτάρου καὶ Γῆς Ἔχιδναν, ἣ τοὺς παριόντας συνήρπαζεν, ἐπιτηρήσας κοιμωμένην ἀπέκτεινεν. Ἐξεδίκησε δὲ καὶ τὸν Ἄπιδος φόνον, τοὺς αἰτίους ἀποκτείνας. [...] 2.6 Ἥρα δὲ αἰτησαμένη παρὰ Διὸς τὴν βοῦν φύλακα αὐτῆς κατέστησεν Ἄργον τὸν πανόπτην, ὃν Φερεκύδης μὲν Ἀρεστορος λέγει [...].
The comparison of these passages with the historia makes clear that the MH has a physical description of Argos in the place of the Zitatennest (κατὰ παντὸς τοῦ
39 On the figures named Argos in the Bibliotheca, see Villagra 2017, 228–237; Michels 2021, 544– 546.
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
σώματος εἶχεν ὀφθαλμούς) and that this description corresponds to the one in Bibliotheca—yet ‘Apollodorus’ applies it to the foundation hero (in the Bibl. 2.4 [2.1.2]) instead of Io’s guardian (in Bibl. 2.6 [2.1.3]). If the MH omitted and replaced the Zitatennest with the physical description,40 that would also mean that he disregarded the reduplication of Argos Panoptes. It is more likely that this complication was absent from his source, which could therefore not be the Bibliotheca. This scenario is confirmed by Ps.-Hyginus, Fab. 145, another parallel passage that follows the same narrative thread as the Bibliotheca and the historia. Like the historia, it includes a short physical description of Argos but no pedigree (Argum, cui undique oculi refulgebant) and only one pedigree for Io (ex Inacho et Argia Io cf. D schol. Il. 2.103 τῆς Ἰνάχου θυγατρὸς). Similar complications occur in the Bibliotheca passages that correspond to [5] D schol. Il. 2.49441 and [8] 8.368. The latter historia describes one of Heracles’ Labours, the fetching of Cerberus. It has no subscription. Despite the close correspondence between the historia and Bibl. 2.113 (2.5.10), 2.122–125 (2.5.12), the texts offer a different paraphrase of Heracles’ encounter with Theseus and Peirithous and the historia has more information in places. There is one very interesting particularity: while Heracles’ katabasis is the eleventh Labour in the historia, it is the twelfth in the Bibliotheca. Furthermore, the phrase that introduces the katabasis historia precedes the eleventh Labour in the Bibliotheca, namely the quest for the apples of the Hesperides: D schol. Il. 8.368 Τελεσθέντων τῶν τοῦ Ἡρακλέους ἄθλων ἐν μηνὶ καὶ ἔτεσιν ὀκτὼ μὴ προσδεχόμενος Εὐρυσθεὺς τόν τε τῶν Αὐγέου βοσκημάτων ἆθλον καὶ τὸν τῆς Ὕδρας, ἑνδέκατον ἐπέταξεν ἆθλον αὐτῶι, τὸν Κέρβερον ἐξ Αἵδου κομίζειν. Bibl. 2.113 (2.5.11) Τελεσθέντων δὲ τῶν ἄθλων ἐν μηνὶ καὶ ἔτεσιν ὀκτώ, μὴ προσδεξάμενος Εὐρυσθεὺς τόν τε τῶν τοῦ Αὐγέου βοσκημάτων καὶ τὸν τῆς ὕδρας, ἑνδέκατον ἐπέταξεν ἆθλον παρ᾿ Ἑσπερίδων χρύσεα μῆλα κομίζειν.
Generally, it has been assumed that the Mythographus Homericus changed the number of the Cerberus labour, and various reasons have been suggested.42 However, Heracles’ journey to the Underworld to fetch Cerberus is predominantly the eleventh Labour, starting from the Zeus temple at Olympia (c. 460 BCE, LIMC
40 As Lünstedt 1961, 26–27 has suggested. 41 See note 34. 42 Schwarz 1878, 16; van der Valk 1958, 147 n. 165; 1963, 309 n. 26; Pagès 2007, 310; Fowler 2013, 383.
Johanna Michels ‘Heracles’ 1705).43 Moreover, the Twelve Labours appear to have achieved some kind of canonical order in post-classical texts, in which the katabasis precedes the quest for the Apples of the Hesperides. A number of Roman monuments follow the same order as either Diodorus Siculus 4.11–26 and the Tabula Albana (19J = IG XIV, 1293, A = FGrH 40 F 1a)44 or the Anthologia Palatina 16.92.45 Both ‘Apollodorus’ and Ps.-Hyginus, Fab. 3046 switch the last two Labours, probably under the influence of Euripides’ Heracles, where the eponymous hero returns to Thebes after completing his last Labour in the Underworld (verses 23–25). Apollodorus also inverts the order of two other Labours: those of the Cerynean Hind and the Erymanthian Boar (labours 3 and 4), and the Stables of Augeas and the Stymphalian Birds (labours 5 and 6).47 When he switched the last two Labours, he retained the introduction to the eleventh labour and adapted it to introduce the journey to the Hesperides, because it explains why Heracles had to perform two additional Labours. Rather than re-establishing the Cerberus Labour in its canonical place, the Mythographus Homericus adopted it as the eleventh Labour from the common source, together with the original introduction. Tab. 11: The order of the Twelve Labours. Zeus Temple at Olympia
Anth. Pal. .
Tabula Albana D.S. , –
Ps.-Hyg. Fab.
Bibl. .– (..–..)
() Nemean Lion
() Nemean Lion
() Nemean Lion
() Nemean Lion
() Nemean Lion
() Lernaean Hydra () Lernaean Hydra
() Lernaean Hydra
() Lernaean Hydra
() Lernaean Hydra
43 While it is clear from Eur. HF 359–435 that the Twelve Labours were not yet set in stone in the fifth century BC, the Zeus temple at Olympia was in all likelihood conductive to the establishment of the canonical Twelve: Bond 1981, 153–155. 44 LIMC ‘Herakles’ 1730–1731: two Roman sarcophagi. Additionally, LIMC ‘Herakles’ 1732–1738 present the first six labours in the same order. Cf. Boardman 1990, 6. Serv. Aen. 8.299 offers nine Labours in the same order as Diodorus, the Tabula Albana, and Ps.-Hyginus, but drops the Nemean Lion, the Cretan Bull, and Cerberus. It is therefore not relevant to the present discussion. 45 LIMC ‘Herakles’ 1713–1729. See also Anth. Lat. 1.627 and Auson. Ecl. 24 (which inverts the order of Cerberus and the Hesperides). 46 Quintus of Smyrna’s description of Heracles’ Labours and parerga on Eurypylus’ shield is related to Fab. 30 (Quint. Smyrn. 6.208–268) and Fab. 31 (6.268–293), though he switches the Mares of Diomedes and the Belt of Hippolyte (labours 8 and 9): Vian 1966, 57. 47 Cf. van der Valk 1958, 147: “Diodorus […] and Tabula Alb. offer the original order” (yet he maintains that the MH adopted the Cerberus historia from the Bibliotheca); Gantz 1993, 382–383.
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
Tabula Albana D.S. , –
Ps.-Hyg. Fab.
Bibl. .– (..–..)
Stymphalian Birds () Erymanthian Boar
() Erymanthian Boar
() Erymanthian Boar
Cerynean Hind ▲
Cretan Bull
() Cerynean Hind
() Cerynean Hind
() Cerynean Hind
Cerynean Hind
() Stymphalian Birds
() Stymphalian Birds
() Stymphalian Birds
Erymanthian Boar ▼
Belt of Hippolyte
Belt of Hippolyte () Stable of Au▲▲▲ geas
() Stable of Augeas
Zeus Temple at Olympia
Erymanthian Boar () Mares of Diomedes
Anth. Pal. .
Stables of Augeas ▼ Cretan Bull ▼
() Cretan Bull
() Cretan Bull
Stables of Augeas ▲ Stymphalian Birds ▼
() Cretan Bull
() Mares of Dio- () Mares of Dio- () Mares of Diomedes medes medes
Cattle of Geryones Mares of Diomedes ▼
() Belt of Hippolyte
() Cerberus
() Cerberus
() Cerberus
Stables of Augeas
() Hesperides
() Hesperides
() Belt of Hippolyte
() Belt of Hippolyte
Apples of the Hes- () Cattle of Ge- () Cattle of Ge- () Cattle of Ge- () Cattle of Geperides ryones ryones ryones ryones Hesperides ▲ Cerberus ▼
Hesperides ▲ Cerberus ▼
. The common source hypothesis [C] The main problem with the common source hypothesis remains, of course, the five ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions. Two solutions have been proposed. First, a number of scholars have identified the author in the Apollodorus’ subscriptions as the scholar Apollodorus of Athens.48 He would thus be the common source of the Bibliotheca and the historiae. This hypothesis allows both the content of the
48 Diller 1935, 297–300; Cameron 2004, 97–99; Kenens 2011, 135–136; 2012, 162–165; 2013, 106–108 (“scheme b”); Berman 2013, 42–44. Note that both of Kenens’ scenarios can easily be simplified: in “scheme a” ([5] D schol. Il. 2.494 and Bibl. 3.21–25 [3.3.1–3.4.2] go back to “a more original version” of the Bibliotheca, which is ultimately derived from Apollodorus of Athens, who transmits the story from Hellanicus of Lesbos) there is no need to involve Apollodorus of Athens, since the ‘Apollodorus’ subscription can refer to the author of the Bibliotheca; in “scheme b” (only Bibl. 3.21–25 [3.3.1– 3.4.2] goes back to the “more original” version of the Bibliotheca, which has an intermediary source in common with [5] D schol. Il. 2.494; the intermediary source transmits the story from Apollodorus of Athens, who again derives it from Hellanicus) the distinction between the “more original” and “transmitted” versions of the Bibliotheca is superfluous.
Johanna Michels historiae and the subscriptions to be authentic to the MH collection. For instance, Cameron argues that [5] D schol. Il. 2.494 ultimately goes back to Apollodorus’ commentary on the Catalogue of Ships: the subscription should then be read as “Hellanicus’ Boeotiaca as mediated by Apollodorus”.49 Nevertheless, the association of the ‘Apollodorus’ historiae with Apollodorus of Athens is problematic. The scholar is unlikely to have produced lengthy mythographical accounts such as occur throughout the Bibliotheca and the historiae. It has, however, been shown that some of his scholarly work found its way into mythographical texts50 and, as Panzer has established, a subscription may relate to only a small part of the historia.51 It follows logically that it should not be inferred from the identification of Apollodorus of Athens in the subscriptions that he is also the common source of corresponding passages in the historiae and the Bibliotheca. Secondly, this hypothesis only concerns the five historiae that have ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions. Its proponents do not clarify their point of view on the other historiae linked to the Bibliotheca (Tables 7–10). Strictly speaking, the Bibliotheca and the MH collection could have more than one source in common, one of which was Apollodorus of Athens. Still, this does not explain why parallels to the Bibliotheca are found throughout the historiae on the Iliad and subscriptions to Apollodorus of Athens equally occur throughout the historiae on the Iliad and the Odyssey (see note 7), yet both categories only overlap in the scholia on the first two books of the Iliad. Thirdly, subscriptions to the scholar Apollodorus identify him twice as ‘the Athenian’ (D schol. Il. 22.448; V schol. Od. 23.198) and once as ‘the grammarian’ and the author of On the Ships (D schol. Il. 8.284). By contrast, the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions never specify his identity and four of them refer to a book number that coincides with the corresponding Bibliotheca passage ([2] D schol. Il. 1.42; [3] 1.195; [4] 2.103; [5] 2.494). Diller focuses on a statement by Aegius of Spoleto, the first editor of the Bibliotheca (1555), to claim that the division of the handbook into books did not exist prior to the editio princeps but was a modern invention of Aegius, based on these four subscriptions.52
49 Cameron 2004, 97–98. 50 See, for instance, schol. Eur. Alc. 1b: Münzel 1883, 5–7; Henrichs 1975, 10; Carrière/Massonie 1991, 232–235; Cameron 2004, 100–103. 51 Panzer 1892, esp. 46–47. 52 Diller 1935, 299–300. Cf. Aegius 1555: “Cur libri tres adscriptum fuit, quando in manuscriptis Apollodori codicibus, nulla librorum partitio esse appareat? […] Nam Homeri, quod te non fugit, in Iliadem commentarii citant Apollodorum in primo, ac secundo huius operis libro.”
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
However, the book division must be earlier than this edition, as shown by marginal annotations by a second hand in Oxoniensis Bodl. Laudianus gr. 55 and horizontal lines by Poliziano’s hand in Monacensis gr. 182. Both manuscripts are indispensable hyparchetypes in the manuscript tradition of the Bibliotheca.53 If the book division of the Bibliotheca was earlier or even intended by the author, then the book indications in the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions could hardly be coincidental. Finally, no one has yet been able to present proof that Apollodorus of Athens treated the same subjects as the corresponding passages in the Bibliotheca and the historiae. Therefore, the identification of this author in the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions rests only on the fact that he and the author of the Bibliotheca share the same (quite common) name.54
. The common source hypothesis [D] Alternatively, the problem of the ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions can be resolved without resorting to Apollodorus of Athens if these subscriptions are later additions inspired by the parallels to the Bibliotheca. This argument was first advanced by Eduard Schwartz,55 and has recently been revived in two dissertations, by Pagès and by myself.56 Some of the arguments in favour have already been touched on, such as the relative popularity of the Bibliotheca in Byzantine writings and the ‘Apollodorus’ quotation in D schol. Il. 12.117 = schol. A Il. 13.307, which has established that at a certain stage during the composition of the D scholia someone involved must have been familiar with the Bibliotheca. Secondly, this hypothesis offers an explanation for the concentration of ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions in the first two books of the D scholia on the Iliad. At the beginning of his task, the presumed scholiast or scribe was able to recognize corre-
53 The corresponding folios in the manuscript archetype, Parisinus gr. 2722, are lost. For more on these manuscript demarcations, see Michels [forthcoming]. 54 The Bibliotheca is attributed to Apollodorus of Athens by Photius (Bibl. 186, p. 142), in the manuscript tradition, and in the early editions. Since Robert 1873, 1–48 has conclusively refuted this identification, it is generally agreed that the Athenian scholar did not author the Bibliotheca, but scholars remain divided on the question whether the handbook is a pseudepigraph or the mythographer had the (mis)fortune also to be named Apollodorus. For an extensive bibliography on this question, see Michels [forthcoming]. 55 Schwartz 1881, 458. 56 Pagès 2007, 101–113; Michels 2014, esp. 118–152.
Johanna Michels spondences with the Bibliotheca. In the case of the double subscription to Hellanicus and ‘Apollodorus’ in [5] D schol. Il. 2.494, the scholiast may have preserved the original subscription and simply added the ‘Apollodorus’ reference. After [5] D schol. Il. 2.494, he stopped adding them, perhaps out of growing negligence or because this particular scholiast or scribe was no longer active after this point. No further subscriptions were added. Table 1257 suggests that the scholiast’s copy of the Bibliotheca had already lost the pars deperdita, which is now only known from the Epitome Vaticana and the Fragmenta Sabbaitica. This may also point to a later date for the subscriptions. Tab. 12: ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions and other historiae linked to the Bibliotheca in the first two books of the D scholia on the Iliad. [] D schol. Il. . = sch. A Il. cf. Bibl. .– (..–) .
(D) ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
ἱστορεῖ Ἀπολλόδωρος ἐν β´
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .–
inc. οἱ νεώτεροι ποιηταὶ ἐντεῦθεν σημειοῦνται ἱστοροῦντες περὶ τὴν Μυσίαν τὸν τρόπον τούτου (cf. D schol. Il. .)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit./Sabb. .–
inc. ἐντεῦθεν οἱ νεώτεροι ὁρμηθέντες ἱστοροῦσιν ὅτι κτλ. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ πολλοῖς μὲν τῶν νεωτέρων καὶ παρὰ Δίκτυι τῶι γράψαντι τὰ Τρωικά
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .–
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Epit. .–
ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι ἐν α´
ἡ ἱστορία πλατύτερον κεῖται παρὰ Ἀπολλοδώρωι ἐν β´
57 Since parallels to the pars deperdita of the Bibliotheca are very difficult to evaluate due to the abridgement of the epitomes, this table also includes cases in which parallels between the historia and the epitome(s) are dubious.
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..); .– (..–..)
ἱστορεῖ Ἑλλάνικος ἐν Βοιωτιακοῖς καὶ Ἀπολλόδωρος ἐν τῷ γ´
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. . (..)
ἱστορεῖ Καλλίμαχος ἐν Ἑκάληι
[] D schol. Il. .
cf. Bibl. .– (..)
A new model? Nevertheless, some problems linger. In the first place, [1] D schol. Il. 1.10 = schol. A Il. 1.126 has shown that in a few cases the agreement between the Bibliotheca and the historia is so close that the common source hypothesis seems far-fetched. This particular historia remains especially problematic and it may, in its entirety, be a later addition to the corpus. [7] D schol. Il. 2.595 and [11] D schol. Il. 14.325 also exhibit a close correspondence to the Bibliotheca but, due to their brevity, are difficult to assess on their own. Secondly, the case study of the ‘Apollodorus’ historiae inevitably goes against the general principle of the authenticity and reliability of the subscriptions. It requires a new dynamic model that takes into account the possibility of fluid transmission and contamination of the MH corpus. It may be time to abandon the search for a single explanation for the relationship between the Bibliotheca and the MH corpus. A combination of hypotheses [B] (in the words of Lightfoot, “the cumulative gathering of authors”58) and [D] (the later addition of ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions) accounts for the different degrees of kinship between the historiae in the D scholia and the Bibliotheca, whether it is a matter of close correspondence or of paraphrase of the same text, whether the historia has a ‘Apollodorus’ subscription or names another author, and even if it is not a historia at all.59 Additionally, Pagès has argued in a recent article that the scholiast, confronted with a poor or heavily abridged version of a historia, may have repeatedly enhanced or rewritten them with the help of the Bibliotheca.60 Yet this model opens up a new line of questioning: were there several points of contact with the Bibliotheca in the evolution of the historiae from the independent MH collection to the D scholia? Or did the presumed scholiast who added the
58 Lightfoot 1999, 251. 59 Cf. [3] D schol. Il. 1.195; D schol. Il. 12.117 = schol. A Il. 13.307. 60 Pagès 2017.
Johanna Michels ‘Apollodorus’ subscriptions also insert passages and alter and augment D scholia? In the former case some Bibliotheca passages may even have entered the MH corpus quite early in the transmission. Lünstedt’s recommendation to judge each subscription by itself remains appropriate.61
Bibliography Berman, Daniel W. (2013), “Greek Thebes in the Early Mythographic Tradition”, in: Stephen M.
Trzaskoma/R. Scott Smith (eds.), Writing Myth: Mythography in the Ancient World, Studies in the History and Anthropology of Religion 4, Leuven, 37–54. Bethe, Ericus (1887), Quaestiones Diodoreae mythographae, Diss. Göttingen. Boardman, John (1990), “Heracles,” in: Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae, Vol. V.1, Zürich. Bond, Godfrey W. (1981), Heracles: With Introduction and Commentary, Oxford. Cameron, Alan (2004), Greek Mythography in the Roman World, American Classical Studies 48, Oxford. Carrière, Jean-Claude/Bertrand Massonie (1991), La ‘Bibliothèque’ d’Apollodore. Traduite, annotée et commentée, Annales littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 443. Lire les polythéismes 3, Paris. Cuartero i Iborra, Francesc J. (2010), Pseudo-Apollodor. “Biblioteca”, Vol. 1, Introducció, text revisat, traducció i notes, Barcelona. Diller, Aubrey (1935), “The Text History of the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 66, 296–313. Dräger, Paul (2005), Apollodor. “Bibliotheke”: Götter- und Heldensagen. Herausgegeben, übersetzt und kommentiert, Düsseldorf. Fowler, Robert L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography. Vol. 2, Commentary, Oxford. Gantz, Timothy (1993), Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, 2nd ed., Vol. 1, Baltimore. Heinze, Theodor (2000), “Mythographus Homericus”, in: Hubert Cancik/Helmuth Schneider (eds.), Der Neue Pauly, Vol. 8, Stuttgart, Weimar. Henrichs, Albert (1975), “Philodems De Pietate als mythographische Quelle”, Cronache Ercolanesi 5, 5–38. Jacoby, Felix (1957), Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Vol. I.a, Genealogie und Mythographie: Kommentar. Nachträge. Nr. 1–63, Leiden. Kenens, Ulrike (2011), “The Sources of Ps.-Apollodorus's Library: A Case-Study”, Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica, n.s. 97, 129–146. Kenens, Ulrike (2012), “Greek Mythography at Work: The Story of Perseus from Pherecydes to Tzetzes”, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 52, 147–166.
61 Lünstedt 1961, iv.
The Mythographus Homericus and ‘Apollodorus’ the Mythographer
Kenens, Ulrike (2013), “Text and Transmission of Ps.-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca: Avenues for Future Research”, in: Stephen M. Trzaskoma/R. Scott Smith (eds.), Writing Myth: Mythography in the Ancient World, Studies in the History and Anthropology of Religion 4, Leuven, 95–114. Kenens, Ulrike (2014), “‘Perhaps the Scholiast Was also a Drudge.’ Authorial Practices in Three Middle Byzantine Sub-Literary Writings”, in: Aglae Pizzone (ed.), The Author in Middle Byzantine Literature: Modes, Functions, and Identities, Byzantinisches Archiv 28, Berlin, 155–170. Lightfoot, Jane L. (1999), Parthenius of Nicaea: The Poetical Fragments and the ᾿Ερωτικὰ Παθήματα, Edited with Introduction and Commentaries, Oxford. Lünstedt, Peter (1961), Untersuchungen zu den mythologischen Abschnitten der D-Scholien, Diss. Hamburg. Mettauer, Thomas (1880), De Platonis scholiorum fontibus, Diss. Turici. Michels, Johanna (2014), Crouching Cow, Killing Dragon: Agenorid Myth in Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, III.1–56. A Philological Commentary, Diss. Leuven. Michels, Johanna (2021), “Traces of Satyr Dramas in the Mythographic Tradition: The Case of Pseudo-Apollodorus”, in: Andreas P. Antonopoulos/Menelaos M. Christopoulos/ George W.M. Harrison, Reconstructing Satyr Drama, MythosEikonPoieisis 12, Berlin, 539–566. Michels, Johanna [forthcoming], Agenorid Myth in the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus. A Philological Commentary and a Study on the Composition and Organization of the Handbook, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde, De Gruyter. Montanari, Franco (1984), “Gli ‘homerica’ su papiro: per una distinzione di generi”, in: Ricerche di Filologia Classica. Vol. 2, Filologia e critica letteraria della Grecità, Pisa, 125–138. Montanari, Franco (1995), “The Mythographus Homericus”, in: Jelle G.J. Abbenes/Simon R. Slings/Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle: A Collection of Papers in Honour of D.M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Münzel, Carolus (1883), Quaestiones Mythographae, Berlin. Pagès, Joan (2007), Mythographus Homericus. Estudi i edició comentada, Diss. Barcelona. Pagès, Joan (2017), “Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and the Mythographus Homericus: An Intertextual Approach,” in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads, Berlin, 66–81. Panzer, Ioannes (1892), “De mythographo Homerico restituendo”, Diss. Greifswald. Papathomopoulos, Manolis (2010), Apollodori Bibliotheca post Richardum Wagnerum recognita, Athina. Robert, Carl (1873), De Apollodori Bibliotheca, Diss. Berlin. Robert, Carl (1881), Bild und Lied: Archäologische Beiträge zur Geschichte der griechischen Heldensage, Philologische Untersuchungen 5, Berlin. Schwartz, Eduardus (1881), “De scholiis Homericis ad historiam fabularem pertinentibus”, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie Supplement 12, Leipzig, 405–463. Schwartz, Eduardus (1894), “Apollodoros [61]”, in: G. Wissowa e.a. (eds.), Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Vol. I.2, München. Schwartz, Jacques (1960), Pseudo-Hesiodeia. Recherches sur la composition, la diffusion et la disparition ancienne d’œuvres attribuées à Hésiode, Leiden. Schwarz, Julius (1878), De scholiis in Homeri Iliadem mythologicis capita tria, Diss. Vratislavae. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1958), “On Apollodori Bibliotheca”, Revue des Études Grecques 71, 100–168. Van der Valk, Marchinus (1963), Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad, Vol. 1, Leiden.
Johanna Michels Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1998), Greek Readers’ Digests? Studies on a Selection of Subliterary Papyri, Mnemosyne Supplements 175, Leiden. Van Thiel, Helmut (2000), “Die D-scholien der Ilias in den Handschriften”, Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 132, 1–62. Van Thiel, Helmut (2014), Scholia D in ‘Iliadem’. Proecdosis aucta et correctior, Elektronische Schriftenreihe der Universitäts- und Stadtsbibliothek Köln 7, Köln. Verhasselt, Gertjan (2018), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued. Part Four, Biography and Antiquarian Literature. Vol. IVB, History of Literature, Music, Art and Culture. Fasc. 9, Dikaiarchos of Messene (No. 1400), Leiden. Vian, Francis (1966), Quintus de Smyrne. La Suite d’Homère, Vol. 2, Collection des universités de France, Paris. Villagra Hidalgo, Nereida (2017), “Argo en la tradición argiva”, in: Marta Oller/Jordi Pàmias/ Carlos Varias (eds.), Tierra, territorio y población en la Grecia antigua: aspectos institucionales y míticos, Vol. 2, Mering, 225–238. Wagner, Richard (1926²), Mythographi Graeci. Vol. 1, Apollodori Bibliotheca. Pediasimi libellus de duodecim Herculis laboribus. Editio stereotypa editionis alterius, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, Stuttgart.
Robert Scott Smith
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus Abstract: Alan Cameron devoted one chapter of his book about Imperial Mythography to the hypothetical Mythographus Vergilianus. The present chapter offers a reassessment of and case studies drawn from Servius and other exegetical literature related to Vergil, coming to the conclusion that there is not enough evidence for postulating the existence of a Mythographus Vergilianus. On the contrary, the mythographical material found in commentaries of Vergil that could be attributed to a single mythographer come from different sources with different exegetical approaches to the text of Vergil.
Introduction In 2004 Alan Cameron posited, on analogy with the Mythographus Homericus, the existence of a Mythographus Vergilianus.1 Pointing to numerous “unnecessary” mythological stories found in the existing Vergilian commentaries and scholia, he speculated that, at some point, probably in the second century of our era, a single author—or rather three, one for each of Vergil’s major works (page 190)—created a collection (or collections) of mythological stories organized according to Vergil’s poems. As in the case of the Mythographus Homericus (henceforth MH), the original capsule narratives would originally have had source attributions. Subsequently, as the Mythographus Vergilianus (henceforth I will use the singular MV for convenience) was incorporated into the variorum commentaries exemplified by Donatus and his successor, Servius, these source citations were mostly omitted as they were integrated into new forms. This hypothesis, which Cameron calls a suggestion (2004, 190), has somehow entered the scholarly record as established fact despite an admitted lack of evidence.2 For instance, Jan Bremmer in an important reference work, A Companion to Greek Mythology (2011, 529), writes “it has only very recently become clear that he [Servius] derived many of [this mythological data] from a, or several, lost
1 Cameron 2004, 184–216. 2 As he notes on page 91, “There is (of course) no way of proving that mythographical Vergil scholia originally existed as separate works, but then it never occurred to anyone that mythographical scholia on Homer began life as an independent work until excerpts began to turn up on papyri.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-008
Robert Scott Smith handbook(s) that was (were) probably written in the second century, which Cameron calls the Mythographus Vergilianus.”3 More recently, Greg Hays has made a similar claim,4 going so far as to say that “[t]he Servian ‘Mythographus Vergilianus’...circulated widely.” Finally, in the past few years, doubtlessly encouraged by Cameron’s provocative hypothesis, we have seen an explosion of studies on the Servian corpora, nearly all of which, more cautiously, consider the idea that the Mythographus Vergilianus was a plausible character in the history of Vergilian scholarship.5 It may seem the height of folly, or even an absurdity, to attempt to disprove something for which there is no evidence in the first place. And yet, as Cameron’s theory proliferates, it is even more important to evaluate his claims and to offer some counter-arguments against an increasingly prevalent view. This essay will start by reviewing the evidence that Cameron himself produces for an MV. It will be seen that, while his study offers valuable insight into the mythographical sources of Vergilian exegesis, the evidence does not support the strong form of his argument, which attributes the body of mythographical historiae to a single exegete who was following specifically the model of the MH. Indeed, many of Cameron’s own examples frequently show features that are diametrically opposed to the style and organization of what we know, or think we know, about the MH. In particular, his study of source citations, which are rarely found with capsule narratives (see below), actually serve to undermine his argument for an MV. In many cases, mythological information in Vergilian
3 See Graf’s similar view in the same volume, “Servius’ commentary on Vergil conserves much of a similar Mythographus Vergilianus” (2011, 333). 4 2016, 38. Cf. page 31, “Remnants of a similar handbook for Virgil (the “Mythographus Vergilianus”) have recently been discerned lurking within the Virgilian commentator Servius—or, more accurately, in the extended version of the commentary commonly known as Servius Auctus or Servius Danielis, which may go back to the fourth-century scholar Donatus.” 5 Delvigo 2012 refers to “le voci disperse di un manuale di mitologia” (179) and later considers it plausible that Servius “abbia costruito le sue note attingendo, volta per volta, a questo ‘manuale,’ di cui ingloberebbe, almeno parzialmente, i contenuti” (181), despite conceding that some mythographical notes go well beyond a “compito istituzionale” of a supposed MV. See also Longobardi 2016, 479 n. 1; Deremetz 2016, 165 and 174–175 (DS, not Servius); ClémentTarantino 2016, 120–162, esp. 121–130. Garbugino 2018, 102 takes it to the extreme: “Alla base di queste analogie fra Servio, Darete, e il Mythographus Vaticanus I si potrebbe ipotizzare come fonte commune quel Mythographus Vergilianus” (cf. page 104). Zetzel 2018, 319 presents Cameron’s theory without taking a stand. A lone voice of dissent is Ziolkowski 2013, 96, “No single individual would merit the name mythographus Vergilianus as the mythographus Homericus has done, although Alan Cameron has made a convincing case for the existence of so-called mythographical companions to Vergil, Ovid and other learned poets.”
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exegesis resembles other scholiastic texts, not least the scholia to Apollonius Rhodius, an ancestor of which was known to have been circulating in the imperial period and may have influenced, among others, Vergil himself,6 Valerius Flaccus,7 and Hyginus’ Fabulae 14.8 This essay will also survey the surviving commentaries and scholia from a number of perspectives in an attempt to determine whether we can get a glimpse of a homogenous set of capsule mythological summaries that can be attributed to a Mythographus Vergilianus. As Cameron presents the evidence, all—or at least a great majority of—narrative mythological summaries would derive from a single source. We will tackle the subject from two different approaches: 1) a survey of the mythological narratives in the commentaries and scholia to determine if there is a homogenous type that supports the idea of a single author shaping the contents, as we believe the MH to have done. 2) Since we have overlapping and probably independent commentaries for the Eclogues and Georgics, we can compare the mythological data in those sources to indicate whether the putative MV influenced numerous lines of Vergilian exegesis. In particular, a comparison of Servius, Servius Auctus or Servius Danielis (henceforth ‘DS’), Ps.-Probus, and the Bern Scholia (Explanationes I and II for Eclogues, Brevis Expositio for Georgics) will be important.9 If the MV was as pervasive as Cameron and others would have us believe (and left traces in all of these commentaries), we might expect the mythological narratives to line up. In most cases they do not. The evidence, even as it is presented by Cameron himself, naturally leads to the conclusion that the narrative historiae in Vergilian exegesis are likely the composite result of many layers of scholarly work.
6 See Goetz 1918, 33–37, 69ff. Schlunk 1974 makes a compelling case that Vergil was responding to Homeric criticism (as known from scholia), and given Apollonius Rhodius’ influence on the Aeneid (Nelis 2001), it is likely that Vergil came in contact with exegesis on the Argonautica (Horsfall 1995, 184), although the form of that exegesis is not known. 7 See Scaffai 1997 (with further bibliography), Bessone 1991, Summers 1894, 16–17. Zissos (2008, xxiv–xxv), noting the availability of the scholia by the Flavian period, is less confident that we can prove Valerius Flaccus’ use of them. 8 Rose ad Hyg. Fab. 14. Cf. Cameron 2004, 63. 9 These commentaries and scholia represent the several lines of Vergilian exegesis in late antiquity, for which see now the excellent summary at Zetzel 2018, 131–142, with overviews and bibliography of these works at 262–267; see also Murgia 2004, 192–194 and Womble 1961. For all of the non-Servian exegetical texts I have used the edition of Thilo and Hagen, 1902, supplementing with Baschera 1999 for the Scholia Veronensia.
Robert Scott Smith
The Grammaticus: language, historiae, criticism Before we review the evidence from the Vergilian commentaries themselves, I would like to widen the lens and consider an important underlying question: did commentators view supplying mythical historiae as part of their job in explicating a text, or did they conceive of grammatical exegesis and mythological explanation as two distinct activities? In other words, were explanations of mythical figures or allusions to the world of myth part of literary exegesis from the beginning, included alongside grammatical, linguistic and stylistic comments? Or was mythological exegesis a separate activity altogether? In a foundational argument Cameron makes the statement that (p. 189), “The few scholars who have paid any attention at all to those mythographical notes as a corpus have taken it for granted that they derive from the same sources as all the other notes in the surviving Vergilian commentaries.” He counters by suggesting that although both language exposition and mythological explanation belong to the sphere of the grammaticus, “our sources...distinguish between the activities.” On Cameron’s reading, there exists a stark division of labor on the part of critics, one that suggests that one could focus on philological matters or mythological historiae, but not both, and that it was only later that the twin forms of exegesis were merged into a single, variorum type of commentary. Despite the numerous references to the work of grammatici in our ancient sources, Cameron cites only Quintilian 1.8.18 and Seneca Ep. 88.3, presumably because they are Roman sources. Does either author actually indicate such a stark division of labor? Here is the evidence from Quintilian: his accedet enarratio historiarum, diligens quidem illa, non tamen usque ad supervacuum laborem occupata: nam receptas aut certe claris auctoribus memoratas exposuisse satis est.
Quintilian goes on to criticize those grammatici who hunt down every version even from unimportant writers as seeking “empty display” (inanis iactantiae, 1.8.19). More importantly for our purposes, Quintilian notes that the grammaticorum commentarii are indeed full of such obscure versions, which only serve as an impediment to learning and are “barely known to those who included them.” By way of example he tells the story of Didymus, who had criticized a story (historia) as ludicrous, only to have someone produce one of his books that contained that very same version in it (1.8.20). Quintilian also goes on to say that attempts to draw stories from obscure writers give license to unscrupulous writers to invent material since it is unlikely that anyone would be able to detect
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus
such a fraud.10 From Quintilian’s description one gets the impression that searching out mythological stories was a constant practice among grammatici. That enarratio historiarum comes after basic language instruction is found in other sources, such as Seneca Ep. 88.3 and Ars Grammatica of Dionysius Thrax. The former outlines the sphere of learning that grammaticē encompasses: ‘grammatice’ circa curam sermonis versatur et, si latius evagari vult, circa historias, iam ut longissime fines suos proferat, circa carmina (“‘grammar’ involves care in speaking, and if it is extended more widely, historiae, and if it goes as far as the field allows, poems”). Colson (1914, 46) suggests that the “natural meaning of this is that some grammarians taught ‘historiae’ without teaching anything else about ‘carmina’.” Dionysius, for his part, identifies six parts of grammaticē, increasing in complexity, starting with “accurate reading,” continuing through historiōn procheiros apodosis (“a ready explanation of historiae,” the third part), and culminating in “the finest part of all those matters that pertain to art, the criticism of poems.” Such a presentation may seem to indicate separate modules of study, but it would be perverse to think that once a grammaticus had moved to explaining historiae he would lose all interest in correct speech or that one who taught literary criticism would eschew all the earlier points altogether. Instead, it is apparent that, in the course of study, a student must achieve a certain level of proficiency before moving on to more complex tasks. One might compare the progymnasmata, exercises of increasing complexity that often featured mythological content.11 Yet these modules, so to speak, say nothing about the competencies or the interests of the grammatici themselves. A somewhat different discussion of grammaticē is given by Sextus Empiricus (Math. 1.91–94 and 252–253), where he follows Asclepiades of Myrlea (named at 1.252) in distinguishing three areas of grammaticē: “technical,” which covered language and introducing students to proper Greek; “historical,” dealing with mythological, historical and geographical points; “special,” that dealt with stylistic evaluation of poets and prose-writers. But in no way is there any evidence that a grammaticus was not supposed to be versed in all of the areas of specialty. In fact, Sextus Empiricus makes it a point to emphasize that these
10 It is particularly in cases of fabulous stories (praecipue in fabulosis 1.8.21) that outlandish or even disgraceful elements can be inserted. One wonders if Quintilian is warning readers that the versions and source citations presented in some commentaries or collections (see, e.g., Ptolemy Chennos or Ps.-Plutarch’s De Fluviis) need to be viewed suspiciously. 11 Gibson 2013, Smith and Trzaskoma (forthcoming), Meccariello (2019).
Robert Scott Smith three areas should not be seen as separate activities (1.93–95), offering a counterweight to the strict division some see in the above passages: ταῦτά ἐστι τὰ τῆς γραμματικῆς μέρη· νοητέον δὲ αὐτὰ οὐ κατ' εἰλικρίνειαν, οὐδ’ ὡς ἄν τις εἴποι· ‘μέρη τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ καὶ σῶμα’. ταυτὶ μὲν γὰρ ὡς ἕτερα ὄντα ἀλλήλων νοεῖται, τὸ δὲ τεχνικὸν καὶ ἱστορικὸν καὶ τὸ περὶ τὰς ποιήσεις καὶ συγγραφὰς τῆς γραμματικῆς μέρη πολλὴν ἔχει συμπλοκὴν καὶ ἀνάκρασιν πρὸς τὰ λοιπά· καὶ γὰρ ἡ τῶν ποιητῶν ἐπίσκεψις οὐ χωρὶς τοῦ τεχνικοῦ καὶ ἱστορικοῦ γίνεται μέρους, καὶ ἑκάτερον τούτων οὐ δίχα τῆς τῶν ἄλλων παραπλοκῆς συνέστηκεν. Such then, are the parts of grammatice, but one should not conceive of them as “parts” in the precise sense of that term, nor even in the way that one speaks of soul and body as parts of a person. For these latter are conceived as being distinct from each other, whereas the parts of grammaticē—the technical and historical and that which concerns poetry and prose—are each closely interconnected and intermixed with the rest. For the investigation of poets is not divorced from the technical and historical, and neither of these is disconnected from the other (translation Bury, slightly adapted).
Thus, our evidence for the separate stages of grammaticē, whether broken into three or six parts, can be seen for what it is, a simple expression of the successive but interconnected parts, and it cannot itself be used to argue for a clear division of labor on the part of commentator, who presumably could command of all parts of the job of grammaticus at once.12 In fact, Quintilian’s claim that the “notebooks of the grammatici” (grammaticorum commentarii) are full of stories proves that many in his day were already interested in providing mythological stories for the texts they were teaching, which must have intermingled with notes of other kinds. In other words, while it is possible to treat matters of language separately from explanations of historiae, it is not a foregone conclusion that such a division was strictly observed Vergilian exegesis. As we will see in the next section, the very scholars Cameron suggests were the candidates for the MV show a broad interest in many aspects of Vergil’s works.
12 Clément-Tarantino (2016) 147, “l’activité mythographique apparaît comme étant souvent étroitement liée avec le travail du commentateur.”
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus
Cameron’s proposed candidates: Scaurus and Modestus Cameron hypothesized that the MV must have composed his collection no later than the second half of the second century CE because of his failure to use Hyginus’ Fabulae. This latter collection of stories can be dated, in a form similar to that which has been passed down to us, to sometime before 207 CE, when they were excerpted for a schoolbook.13 It is important to point out here that, although that excerptor called Hyginus’ work “world famous,” the Fabulae seems to have exerted only minimal influence on later texts.14 Furthermore, even if Hyginus was not available at the original point of composition, it is implausible that Vergilian exegesis would have remained entirely static; if the Fabulae were as popular as suggested by the excerptor, some of the material would surely have found its way into Vergilian commentaries at some point. Be that as it may, Cameron proposed two candidates that fit his chronological framework, Scaurus and Modestus, who, he argues, composed mythographical companions to Vergil’s Aeneid and Georgics, respectively. In what follows, I review the arguments for attributing to these commentators a separate collection of mythological entries keyed to Vergil’s texts. It will be seen that these scholars seemed interested in a wide array of interpretative issues, and not just in mythographical stories, no differently than we saw in the discussion of the work of the grammatici above. First, Aufidius Modestus, the Flavian scholar, whom Cameron suggests is the MV for the Georgics. Leaving aside the contested issue as to which Modestus is responsible for the Vergilian exegesis under his name,15 the sole basis for this suggestion comes from Georgics 1.378, where Vergil includes, among other nat-
13 Flammini 2004. 14 See Marshall 2002, xi–xii. Influence of Hyginus’ Fabulae is limited to the scholia to Statius’ Thebaid (cf. Smith 2013, 174–175), the Scholia Vallicelliana, and the scholia to Germanicus’ Aratea, There is no identifiable trace of Hyginus’s influence on Vergilian exegesis. Cameron (2004, 6–7 and passim) makes the case that the Ovidian Narrationes drew on Hyginus, but the case is far from certain and limited in any case. 15 Cameron asserts, without argument, that the Modestus in Vergilian exegesis is Aufidius Modestus (Flavian) and not Julius Modestus (early Julio-Claudian), the latter of whom is mentioned at Suet. Gram. 20 as being the learned freedman of and following in the footsteps of Julius Hyginus, who criticized Vergil’s anachronisms (Aul. Gell. 10.16). The only indication of Modestus’ praenomen is found at DS 2.497, where Aufidius Modestus is specifically named for a historical note. See further Kaster 1995, 213–214.
Robert Scott Smith ural signs of impending rain, a remark about frogs: et ueterem in limo ranae cecinere querelam. Based on the individual notes on Georgics 1.378 in Servius, Ps.-Probus, the Brevis Expositio and the Scholia Bernensia (the texts are placed side-by-side at Cameron 2004: 209–10)—the last two which specifically name a Modestus—Cameron suggests that he was responsible for adding the original story to Vergilian exegesis, drawing on a specifically Greek source (something like Ant. Lib. 25). The great variation and baffling confusion in the notes would, on his reading, be due to the awkward refashioning of the stories by later commentators. Let us grant for the moment that Cameron is correct that Modestus was responsible for introducing this historia and applying it to the quaestio concerning the veterem querelam. What other evidence do we have for Modestus’ exegetical activity? As it happens, there are four other references to a Modestus, none of which has anything to do with mythological material. The commentary of DS at Georgics 2.497 (it is only here that the praenomen ‘Aufidius’ is provided), where Vergil uses the obscure phrase coniurato Dacus Histro, tells us that Modestus read, presumably in some history, that the Dacians customarily took an oath while drinking the waters of the Danube, swearing not to return until their enemies were killed. Elsewhere DS (G. 3.53) tells us that Modestus glossed tenus with fine. In the Brevis Expositio he is cited twice as providing an etymology, once for the word buris (G. 1.170)16 and again for the city of Ardea (G. 1.364).17 In the latter case, there is no hint of the mythographical explanation for the foundation of Ardea found at Servius at Aen. 7.372.18 If these notes all refer to the same Modestus, it is an unavoidable conclusion that he was active in philological, interpretative, linguistic, cultural and—if Cameron is right—mythographical aspects of Vergil’s poem. Let us turn now to Cameron’s proposed MV for the Aeneid, the Trajanic and Hadrianic grammaticus Q. Terentius Scaurus, who is known from Aulus Gellius 11.15.3, where he is called “perhaps the most famous grammaticus in Hadrian’s reign” and presented as an expert on Latin usage (Cameron 2004, 212).19 As in the case of Modestus above, Cameron’s attribution of a mythographical companion to this figure is based on but a single mythographical notice. At Aen. 16 Pars aratri, quae curvatur, ‘buris’ dicta, ut videtur Modesto, a bustione; igni enim flectitur; quasi boos oura, quod sit in similitudinem caudae bovis. 17 Alii putant ardeam dictam, quorum unus Modestus, quod ardua crura habeat, idest alta. 18 Here, Servius reports that Danae drifted to Italy, where she gave birth to Perseus; she became the king’s wife and the two of them founded Ardea. 19 It is also worth pointing out here that Scaurus is (still) considered the author of De Orthographia. See Biddau 2008.
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus
4.144–146, Vergil uses a simile to compare Aeneas, radiant before the hunt with Dido, to Apollo, who is said to leave his haunt in Lycia to visit his home in Delos. There, Apollo is said to stir up choruses, and continues mixtique altaria circum / Cretesque Dryopesque fremunt pictique Agathyrsi. We find nothing in either Servius or DS on the word Cretesque, but in the fifth-century Scholia Veronensia we find a note attributed to Scaurus (ad 4.146): Scaurus: ‘Cretes’, quia responso accepto ex insula Creta profec[ti esse] | et ducem secuti Delphum Phocidam tenuisse dicuntur adque ab eo se Delphos nominasse, ut Philarc[hus ait].
As is typical, Cameron sees the irrelevancy of the note20 as a strong indication that this story was taken from a mythographer in order to introduce a story for educational consumption, and the subscription attributing the story to “Philarchus” led Cameron to suggest that it was Scaurus who had composed a collection of stories drawn from Greek mythographers for the Aeneid. While this is not impossible, there are several objections. First, the mythographical notice is not as unnecessary as Cameron would have us believe. A reader of the Aeneid may wonder how the Cretans are related to Apollo and, importantly, how they relate to the other groups mentioned. The earliest and most famous version of Cretan presence in Delphi is the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, where Apollo hijacks a ship of Cretan sailors by taking on the form of a dolphin, brings them to Delphi (< ‘dolphin’) in Phocis, and gives them the role of priests in his cult. The version of “Philarchus” (= FGrH 81 F 85) offers a rationalizing view of the etymology of Delphi focusing on the eponym Delphus, a figure that is everywhere else a native of Phocis.21 The Dryopes, for their part, are legendary inhabitants of northern Phocis, located between Mt. Ossa and Delphi, a place later known as Doris (Paus. 4.34.9–10). Furthermore, it was near Parnassus that Hercules would defeat the king of the Dryopes, Theiodamas.22 Thus, Vergil is giving a brief anthropology of Phocis, and a commentator might feel compelled to explain the reason why Cretans are mentioned here. Second, the note as it stands, at two lines, looks less like a compressed version of a full historia than an alternative version to the more common version of how the Cretans became associated with Apollo. Other mythographical material in the Scholia 20 On “irrelevancy” of mythographical notes to Vergil’s texts as indication of an MV, see the cautionary words of Clément-Tarantino 2016, 130–135 with n. 26, and Delvigo 2012, 180–181. 21 Aesch. Eum. 16 with scholia; Paus. 10.6.3; schol. Eur. Or. 1094. 22 See Fowler 2013, 100–103 with schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.1212–1219, and Ps.-Probus in Verg. G. 3.6: Hylas, Thiodamantis filius, Dryopum regis, quorum gens subiecta Parnaso fuit.
Robert Scott Smith Veronensia run several lines long (e.g., G. 3.7, A. 1.243, 2.82, 2.717), so the brevity of the note is not necessarily due to space considerations, although some notes do seem compressed, some to the point of introducing errors.23 However that may be, Cameron chose not to take into account that there are two other references to Scaurus in the Scholia Veronensia. One, from book 12 (lines 693–705 = p. 126 Baschera), is in a too fragmentary of a state to be useful. The other seeks to explain A. 5.95–96 (= p. 111 Baschera), where the appearance of a serpent at Anchises’ tomb has stunned Aeneas (incertus geniumne loci famulumne parentis / esse putet). The scholion reads: Scaurus: erudite. nam ait ex medullis corporum anguis nasci, ut equorum [et boum] et vitulorum apes. There is no possible mythological story associated with this passage. We also may point to a mention of Scaurus in Servius; at Aen. 3.484 (nec cedit honori), we learn that Scaurus engaged in textual criticism, which is bound up with literary criticism: Scaurus vero ‘honore’ legit et intellegit: honore non cedit Heleno, qui patri eius vel avo donaverat multa. It could not be clearer that both Scaurus and Modestus were active in philological, interpretative, and mythographical aspects of Vergil’s poem.
The Mythographus Homericus as model and the source citations Even if Scaurus or Modestus cannot be seriously taken as a candidate for the MV, we are far from disproving that there was, at some point in time, a separate mythographical companion to Vergil’s works. Let us grant for the moment the claim that, since much of Vergilian exegesis is modeled on Greek scholarship on Homer,24 the MH was “an obvious, inescapable model” and that there was “an obvious incentive to produce a Latin equivalent of the MH” (Cameron 2004, 190). According to this view, there would have been a systematic attempt to 23 See, e.g., G. 3.6, where Latona, and not Asterie is turned into a quail by Jupiter. 24 Farrell 2008 offers a model that suggests that “Servius” (an index for Vergilian exegesis) sought to emulate the form and practices of his Greek counterparts, directly consulting Homeric scholia not at every turn (contrary to Funaioli 1930, 233ff. and Fraenkel 1949, 151–154) but only for special purposes, for instance when Vergil’s own emulation of Homer prompted them to do so. Otherwise, Vergilian commentators were “breathing the same air and using the same reference works as his Greek colleagues,” for instance encyclopedias and other handbooks. Mühmelt (1965) suggests that the similarities in form is owed to the long experience with these texts during their schooldays, and the correspondence of content is owed to memory.
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus
provide “capsule biographies of mythological figures...from birth to death, with that single telltale learned citation.” In other words, in the strong form of Cameron’s argument, the Mythographus Vergilianus would have, in its original form, closely resembled the form and structure of the MH: 1) lemma, followed by 2) a single, straightforward narrative, and 3) a reference citation identifying an authority or, in rare cases, more than one. As this monograph of basic narratives was incorporated into the later variorum commentaries, these reference citations would have often been replaced by quidam or alii or dropped altogether. In at least one instance (ad Aen. 10.738), as Cameron points out (197), we can observe how this process played out, although on this occasion we are certainly not dealing with a mythographical capsule story of the type found in the MH, but rather a debate over the relationship between Paean and Apollo. Some reference citations, however, survived this process of effacement— some in Servius, but far more in DS, Ps.-Probus, and the Scholia Veronensia. Although Cameron does not explicitly tie these source citations to his hypothesis of an MV, the order of his presentation makes it an unavoidable conclusion that he viewed these remnants as indication of such a figure. Cameron lists 31 occurrences of a source citation in Vergilian commentaries (2004, 208, incomplete list). There is little reason to doubt that these citations reflect, at some remove, mythographical sources. Yet, on close inspection the overwhelming majority of these source citations do not seem to reflect an original capsule narrative that is so clearly the hallmark of the MH and thus of the supposed MV. Yet Cameron treats all source citations in the surviving texts the same, as if they all once belonged to a capsule narrative, even though only a very few are remotely attached to a capsule narrative. Almost all remaining source citations are found in general mythographical material that deals with a quaestio (that is, a note that specifically deals with an obscure allusion or interpretation) or contained in a Zitatennest (list of variants with source references). In other words, the mythographical material containing the source citations look a great deal more like the scholia to Apollonius Rhodius or to Euripides—both of which featured rich source references—than to the MH as we know it. Most of the citations mentioned by Cameron are found in examples that offer variant traditions, an activity that is not found in any of the surviving papyri of the MH and in only a few mythographical notices in the D scholia.25 Of these, many are simply found in a Zitatennest, a “nest” of variants featuring authorities. A few representative examples will have to suffice. At Ecl. 10.18 Ps.-Probus cites Hesiod, Antimachus and Philostephanus (Panyassis’ name, too, was likely 25 Van Rossum Steenbeek 1998, 87–88.
Robert Scott Smith originally present) for the parentage and location of Adonis. DS for his part provides a long note containing two separate but full narrative stories, neither of which is compatible with the other or with the information found in Ps.Probus (see section 6 for more occasions where the commentaries do not line up). At DS Aen. 6.14 (Daedalus ut fama est fugiens Minoia regna), a passage to which we will return below, the citations of Phanodicus and Menecrates occur after an extensive narrative of Daedalus to offer alternative stories to the more familiar one narrated in full: the former gives a rationalizing version of Daedalus’ escape (he used his pallium to capture the winds), the latter a historicizing version that explains how the Icarian Sea got its name. At Aen. 6.618 (Phlegyasque miserrimus omnes admonet) Servius offers two very brief stories depending on whether the word is interpreted as a plural (explained by a version taken from “Euphorion”) or as a singular (no source given). The need to provide mythographical material here is driven specifically by a philological quaestio, or debate about the text, and there is no indication of an original capsule narrative. At DS Aen. 6.21 Plato (in Phaedone), Sappho (in lyricis), Bacchylides (in dithyrambis) and Euripides (in Hercule) are all cited as authorities for the fact that 14 children were sent to the Minotaur. Names, corrupted beyond recognition, follow. But there is no narrative story involved. Many of the other surviving source citations in Vergilian exegesis are found in these sorts of lists and alternatives and not attached to narrative summaries.26 An extreme example shows how misleading Cameron’s argument can be. On page 203 he states that, from three separate notes eleven lines apart in DS, “it is natural to assume that all these details originally formed a single, more comprehensive historia, ultimately deriving (complete with the Bacchylides and Sophocles citations) from the Nostoi of Lysimachus” (FGrH 382 F16). Here are the three notes, with context. I have highlighted in italics the notes that Cameron associates with Lysimachus: ad 2.201 (“Laocoon”), Serv. offers some material about Laocoon from Euphorion, with the detail that serpents were sent to kill him because he slept with his wife in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus; DS adds the version where Neptune had been upset with the Trojans since Laomedon’s fraud, then offers a brief interpretation of the meaning of the serpents
26 Other authorities in Zitatennester or offering alternatives: Serv. Explanatio I at Ecl. 1.64/65 (Philisthenes or Philosthenes), Ps.-Prob. at G. 1.399 (Ovid follows both Nicander and Theodorus), Ps.-Probus at G. 2.84 (quidam putant, ut Asclepiades ait), Serv. Aen. 2.35 (Theocritus), DS at Aen. 2.201 (Bacchylides, see below), DS at Aen. 3.8 (Palaephatus), DS at Aen. 3.80 (Palaephatus, offering an alternative to a capsule narrative), DS at Aen. 3.334 (Alexarchus and Aristonicus), DS at Aen. 8.330 (Alexander Polyhistor), DS at Aen. 8.600 (Philochorus).
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus
entering Minerva’s citadel. DS ends with the note, sane Bacchylides de Laocoonte et uxore eius vel de serpentibus a Calydnis insulis venientibus et in homines conversis dicit. ad 2.204 (“angues”) after Serv. gives a linguistic note on angues, DS adds: horum sane draconum nomina Sophocles in Laocoonte dicit. ad 2.211 (“vibrantibus”) again after a linguistic note by Servius, DS adds hos dracones Lysimachus †curifin et periboeam dicit. filios vero Laocoontis ethronem et melanthum Thessandrus dicit.
It is hard to envision what the supposed original capsule narrative would have looked like; when combined, the three items—if they are related—look more like a Zitatennest than a potted story. Indeed, when we survey the other references of Lysimachus’ work in our sources, they are almost always27 found in a Zitatennest alongside more famous literary authors, lyric poets and especially tragedians. For instance, at schol. Eur. Andr. 10 Lysimachus (fr. 9) is given as one authority alongside Euripides and Steisichorus in a long Zitatennest on Astyanax—almost an exact parallel to the case under discussion, which also features Lysimachus beside a lyric and tragic poet. At line 32 of the same set of scholia (fr. 10b), Lysimachus is given as a source for Pyrrhus’ children, alongside Euripides, Philocles (called a tragōdopoios) and others. At Eustathius ad Od. 16.118 (p. 1796 = fr. 15) Lysimachus’ name is found next to Sophocles in a detailed discussion focusing on Odysseus’ genealogy and offering several variants for his children by other women. It is true that Lysimachus cited his own sources, sometimes offering a direct quotation from those authors, but he seems to have featured not literary lights but lesser known historians and mythographers.28 On balance, then, it is far more likely that a Vergilian commentator at
27 At fr. 2 (= schol. Soph. O.C. 91) Lysimachus is reported as quoting one of his sources at length concerning the attempt of Oedipus’ Theban friends to bury him, first at Thebes, then in Boeotian Keos, and finally in Eteonos. 28 At schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.558 (= fr. 8) Lysimachus’ words are given word for word (κατὰ λέξιν λέγων); citing Suidas, Aristotle of Chalcis (FGrH 423), the author of the Phrygian Accounts, Daïmachus, and Dionysius of Chalcis, he reports the debate over the parentage of Thetis mother of Achilles. One of his goals, apparently, was to provide such lists; see schol. Ap. Rhod. 3.1177–1187 (fr. 1a), where Lysimachus is said to have provided a “vast forest of variants” (πολλὴν τὴν ὕλην διαφωνοῦσαν) concerning Cadmus’ arrival in Thebes. Elsewhere Lysimachus provides specific sources: Proxenus and Nicomedes of Acanthus (Lysimachus FGrH 382 fr. 10a = schol. Eur. Andr. 24), Dionysius of Chalcis (Lysimachus FGrH 328 fr. 9 = schol. Eur. Andr. 10), Mnaseas of Patara (Lysimachus FGrH 382 fr. 11 = Ath. 4.158d), the author of the Persis (Lysimachus FGrH 382 fr. 14 = schol. Eur. Tro. 31, with direct quotation); cf. Lysimachus FGrH 382 fr. 5 (= schol. Pind. Isthm. 4.104).
Robert Scott Smith some point pulled this information not from Lysimachus himself, but from a pre-existing Zitatennest that featured the lyric poet, the tragedian, and Lysimachus as alternative sources. What is clear is that Lysimachus did not include Bacchylides and Sophocles in his own work, and it is unlikely that he provided a systematic historia that served as a source for the supposed MV when constructing his own capsule narrative. Other source citations noted by Cameron as remnants of the MV contain geographical explanations that can hardly be said to descend from an original “capsule summary.” At G. 4.463 the Verona scholiast offers a note on the phase “Actias Orithyia:” Attica quae Acte aliquando vocata est, ut Callimachus et alii tradiderunt. Without question, the geographical information about the name ultimately originates with Callimachus’ Κτίσεις νήσων καὶ πόλεων, but nothing in this notice indicates an original potted story with source citation. It resembles a similarly brief statement of Pliny the Elder (NH 4.23, Attice, antiquitus Acte vocata), whose geographical account relied on an intermediate text that drew from Callimachus’ work, though not exclusively.29 The brief narrative of Orithyia that follows in the Verona scholiast is entirely unrelated to the geographical note.30 Similarly, at Aen. 3.16–18 Vergil alludes to Aeneas’ first attempt to build a city in Thrace. Servius tells us that this is the city of Aenus, giving a quotation of Sallust in support (fr. 3.51 Maurenbrecher/Funari). But Servius also points to contrary evidence from Homer (Il. 4.520), who stated that aid came to the Trojans from this city and so Aeneas could not have founded it, which is supported by Euphorion and Callimachus, who offer the alternative that it was named after one of Ulysses’ soldiers who died there while seeking supplies.31 Again, instead of the disiecta membra of a capsule story, this note probably derives directly from a geographic work that offered variations from different authors. We find such alternatives frequently in Stephanus of Byzantium and Pliny the Elder. In the latter, in fact, we find Homer and Callimachus paired at 4.52, each offering a different name for an island (Scheria/Phaeacia and Drepane, respectively). It is worth emphasizing that the Greek material here is introduced to refute the claim of Sallust and not a potted story for the sake of the story itself. Finally, we can point to Ecl. 1.65, where Vergil mentions the Oaxes river as one of the places that the displaced Meliboeus imagines will be his new home:
29 Zehnacker and Silberman 2015, xx, and Sallmann 1971, 52–54. 30 Orithyia, Erechthei filia; haec a Borea rapta et advecta in Thraciam edidit ex se Zethum et Calain. Per Orithyiam autem ultimam Thraciae partem significat ad Septentrionem locatae. 31 Euphorion et Callimachus hoc dicunt etiam, quod Aenum dicatur a socio Ulixis illic sepulto eo tempore, quo missus est ad frumenta portanda.
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus
pars Scythiam et rapidum cretae veniemus Oaxen. As has been rightly observed, Vergil can only mean that the Oaxes is a river in the far east, and not on Crete.32 Servius (similarly Explanationes I and II) agrees, explicitly disputing the idea that Oaxes is in Crete, which suggests that the point was contested in Vergilian exegesis. Despite his own view, he concludes with a brief note on the foundation myth of the city Oaxus in Crete: Oaxen Philisthenes33 ait Apollonis et Anchiales filium; hunc Oaxen in Creta oppidum condidisse, quod suo nomine nominavit, ut Varro ait “quos magno Anchiale partus adducta dolore et geminis capiens tellurem Oeaxida palmis †scindere dicta.”
The quotation from Varro Atacinus (fr. 5 Courtney) does not actually support the foundation story at all, since the plural quos...partus must, as in the model text Apollonius of Rhodes (1.1129–1131), refer to the Dictaean Dactyls and not anyone named Oaxes. But how did a note of this kind even make it into Vergilian scholarship? Clearly, a commentator at some point looked up “Oax-” in a geographical encyclopedia and landed on Oaxus, as one finds in Steph. Byz. ad loc.: πόλις Κρήτης, Ἐλευθέρνης οὐ πόρρω, καθὰ Ξενίων, ἀπὸ Ὀάξου τοῦ Ἀκακαλλίδος τῆς θυγατρὸς τοῦ Μίνω. Here we find, as briefly as in Servius, a source citation and a brief statement about the town’s founder. That the information differs is less important than the parallel in structure, indicating the type of reference text even if we cannot point to a specific source. Be that as it may, this note in Servius is clearly not the thin vestige of a capsule narrative, but derives from a geographical encyclopedia with what one might call narrow mythographical content. What now of the rationalized versions of myth with named sources found in Vergilian exegesis? In addition to the examples from the Daedalus-Icarus myth attributed to Phanodicus and Menecrates (DS) noted above, there are at least two also other rationalized versions of myths that are attributed directly to named sources. First, Ps.-Probus at G. 3.113–15 cites Palaephatus’ Peri Apiston for a rationalized version of the Centaurs (Servius, not citing Palaephatus, offers
32 Coleman 1977 ad loc. The phrase rapidum cretae has been widely debated; it seems to me most likely that it is an Alexandrian footnote that shows that Vergil was quite aware of the city in Crete. 33 The name Philisthenes has been suspected and plausibly emended to Philistides, who is known only from Pliny the Elder. One of the mentions in Pliny (NH 4.58) indicates that Philistides had weighed in on the early names for the island of Crete.
Robert Scott Smith an incompatible version of the story).34 What is more, the precision with which Ps.-Probus reports Palaephatus’ account suggests that the originator of the note consulted the text directly and did not take it from an intermediary—another indication that Palaephatus’s chapter on the Centaurs (Palaeph. 1) continued to be read and have influence in late antiquity.35 Next, at Aen. 2.7, both Servius and DS offer Eratosthenes’ rationalizing alternative, briefly told, to the capsule narrative story of the Myrmidons.36 Most importantly for our purposes, such rationalizing versions of myths are, in fact, not characteristic of the MH as we know it; there is no example of rationalizing or allegory that can be found in the capsule narratives of the MH, whether in the papyrus or in the D scholia. The MH seems to have completely homogenized the material so as to provide a straightforward account of the mythical material presented.37 Of course, a mythographical companion to Vergil could have included rationalizing versions, but then we would have to give up the MH-as-model theory. After eliminating the above source references, what remains are only a very few examples of source citations which are attached to anything resembling the capsule narrative that Cameron sees as the signature of the MV: Ecl. 3.62 (Ps.Probus) Parthenius’ volumen de amantibus is cited for the Daphne myth (brief: see below); G. 3.19 (Ps.-Probus) Molorchi mentio apud Callimachum in Αἰτιῶν libris; G. 3.267 (Ps.-Probus) Asclepiades in first book of Tragodoumena on Glaucus’ mares (complicated: see section 6); Aen. 1.28 (DS) Theodotius, who supposedly composed a work on res Iliacas, on Chaldaean Ganymedes; Aen. 2.32–33 (Servius) Euphorion on Thymoetes’ son (extremely abridged); Aen. 9.262 (DS)
34 See Alganza Roldán/Barr/Hawes 2017, 202–204, and Womble 1961, 384–386, both of which argue that these notes cannot be wholly independent because both offer a rationalized version of the Centaurs for the lemma “Lapithae.” On the whole, however, Ps.-Probus is viewed by Womble (1961, 392–393) as distantly related to the Servian corpus, with a common ancestor (called P1) as a source for Ps.-Probus and Donatus; See also Murgia 2004, 192. 35 See Alganza Roldán/Barr/Hawes 2017, 204, “Such accuracy in replication is notable given the laxity that Alan Cameron has diagnosed in ancient scholars’ citation of existing material, even when naming the ultimate authority for such information.” 36 On page 191 Cameron suggests that the pattern found here—narrative story followed by alternative—follows the same pattern that one would find if the D scholia ad Iliad 1.180 were combined with a brief statement in Eustathius at Il. 2.684 (320.43–44)—indication that the two would have been paired even in Homeric exegesis. As Fraenkel, whom Cameron doubtlessly is following here, points out, there are many correspondences between Servius and Eustathius’ commentary (1949, 153). Yet, this does nothing to advance the idea of the MV, only that Vergilian commentators looked to (or remembered) Homeric commentary texts, which themselves contained source references. 37 See Pagès forthcoming.
The Myth of the Mythographus Vergilianus
Abas, writer of a Troica, on Aeneas’ capture of Arisbe on behalf of Astyanax, who apparently survived the sack of Troy. Even in these cases there is no certainty that there was a fuller version of the story. Take the first example above concerning Daphne. Ps.-Probus offers only the following: Laurum ei gratam accipere debemus, quod Daphnen, ut vult Parthenius in volumine, quod ei de amantibus compositum est, Amyclae filiam dilexit, quam, ne per vim stupraret, Iuppiter in arborem laurum convertit.
The details of this brief summary correspond to those in Parthenius 15. Daphne is daughter of Amyclas (cf. Explanationes at Ecl. 3.12) and she appeals to Zeus to remove her from humanity to avoid rape at the hands of Apollo. But the entire story of Leucippus’ love for Daphne which dominates Parthenius’ account is missing; was it once present in a supposed “capsule narrative?” It seems hardly likely that Ps.-Probus distilled a longer narrative provided by the supposed MV. Instead, it appears that Parthenius is being cited for the alternative genealogy. For his part, Servius (at Ecl. 3.63; cf. DS at Aen. 2.513) offers a different genealogy, one that also differs from Ovid’s version (Met. 1.452, daughter of Peneus): Daphne is daughter of Ladon (Arcadian) and turned into a tree by Terra.38 Since we have mentioned Ovid, we will take this opportunity to challenge another of Cameron’s strongly held views, that Vergilian commentators did not look to Ovid for mythical summaries. He states categorically: “No first century Latin writer who knew his Greek mythographers was likely to turn to Ovid as an authority in this area” (2004, 188).39 And yet, there are several narratives that encapsulate material from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or at least are deeply influenced by details in that text. We can point to several from the exegesis for each of Vergil’s works.40 In addition to the close correspondence to the narrative
38 DS at Aen. 3.91, however, offers a capsule narrative of Daphne, who is called daughter of either Ladon or Peneus. 39 Delvigo 2012, 182 with n. 11 (on Pyramus and Thisbe) also notes that the use of Ovid is rare: “uno dei non molti casi in cui il racconto serviano del mito sembra comportare un riferimento specifico, seppure anonimo, alle Metamorfosi di Ovidio.” But see Haynes 2016. 40 The following are places I noted specific influence (* denotes passage where Ovid is mentioned): Serv. at Ecl. 3.106 (Ajax*), Serv. at Ecl. 5.10 (Phyllis,* wrongly citing Met.), DS at Ecl. 6.22 (Pyramus and Thisbe), DS at Ecl. 6.41 (Deucalion) [cf. Ps.-Probus at G. 1.63*], Serv. at Ecl. 6.61 (Atalanta; see Aen. 3.113 below), Serv. at Ecl. 6.74 (2 Scyllas), Serv., DS at Ecl. 6.78 (Tereus), DS at Ecl. 7.37 (Acis and Galatea), Ps.-Probus at G. 1.63 (Deucalion*), Ps.-Probus, Brevis Expositio at G. 1.138 (Callisto), Brevis Expositio at G. 1.143 (Perdix), DS at G. 1.207 (Hero and Leander; cf. Serv. at G. 3.258), Serv. at G. 2.84 (Lotus and Priapus, abbreviated); DS at Aen. 3.80 (Anius; number of daughters different), Serv. at Aen. 3.113 (Atalanta, Hippomenes), Serv.,
Robert Scott Smith structure, there is often a telling detail that assures that Ovid is a source. To take but one example, at G. 1.143 (serrae), Brevis Expositio uniquely offers a short narrative of the murder of Perdix, here the nephew of Daedalus, where we learn that after transformation the bird in altum non potest pervolare (“cannot fly into the high air”), which must derive from Ovid, Met. 8.256–258, non tamen haec alte volucris sua corpora tollit...propter humum volitat. It seems clear that Vergilian commentaries include narratives of different types taken from multiple sources. Returning to our main point from this digression, now that we have demonstrated that the source citations that have survived effacement are mostly attached to mythographical material of a non-narrative type, it is time to turn to those numerous self-contained narrative stories that are found in the surviving commentaries and scholia without any citation. Do they, to the extent that we are able to discern from our sources, show any sort of homogenous characteristics that might suggest a single authorial presence shaping the narrative stories, as we can identify (to some extent) from the stories from the MH found on papyri?
Existing extended mythographical narratives: homogenous or not? It is an unfortunate fact that we know far less about the original MH than we would like to admit. Papyri from at least the early second to the fifth century CE offer proof that basic narrative stories keyed to Homer’s text circulated independently of the text. Furthermore, many of the over 250 capsule narratives in the Homeric D scholia show extremely close correspondence to the papyri. The D scholia, however, cannot be used uncritically to reconstruct the MH, for various reasons. In one case it can be shown that the D scholiast (Il. 2.220) draws on a story from Quintus Smyrnaeus (3rd c. CE?).41 Furthermore, the scholiast probably drew on other mythographical material, including Apollodorus’ Library,42 to supplement the bare narrative in MH or to present alternative variants, which
DS at Aen. 4.246 (Atlas), DS at Aen. 4.254 (Aesacus), DS at Aen. 4.469 (Pentheus), Serv. at Aen. 6.445 (Procis, adapted), DS at Aen. 10.142 (Pactolus), Serv. at Aen. 10.189 (Cycnus). 41 Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 106. 42 See chapter 6.
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is not characteristic of the MH based on our knowledge of him from the papyri.43 And yet, it cannot be proved beyond doubt that the D scholia do not preserve details that may have been omitted in the papyri, where stories may have been abbreviated because of space or any other imaginable reason. Even so, the papyri are rather homogenous in both style and form, to the point that van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 92 argues “that the papyrus texts go back to one collection of historiae written by one particular person, the MH.”44 If this is correct, the logical conclusion is that a Vergilian scholar intentionally modelling his work on the MH would have also replicated its format and style, and the style would have been homogenous. Naturally, subsequent rewriting might alter these forms, perhaps beyond recognition, but a close look reveals that the surviving capsule narratives that are found in Vergilian exegesis are of extremely varied kinds—to the point that one is hard pressed to attribute all, or even a significant portion, to a single authorial presence. Since space is limited and the corpus of Vergilian exegesis is extensive, we will have to content ourselves with a few specific instances to give a general sense of the vast variety of narrative capsules. Recent studies have already articulated some of the different kinds of mythographical material, both in form and function, that one encounters specifically in the Servian corpora, as well as various interpretative approaches to the myths themselves, including allegory and rationalization.45 These and other studies also demonstrate the differing approaches of Servius and the compiler of DS toward mythographical material.46 In her study of Aen. 1 and 3, for instance, Séverine Clément-Tarantino (2016) offers compelling evidence that Servius’ mythological exegesis is not primarily aimed at providing basic knowledge for his students, but is tied directly to decoding methodologies of reading that applies to other kinds of knowledge (e.g. physics and philosophy). On her reading, it is left up to the compiler of DS to insert capsule stories for their own sake, though we might point out that in many places Servius is at 43 A good example of this is the lengthy historia at V schol. Od. 12.69–70, which supplements the bare narrative found in PSI 10, 1173 fr. 5–6, adding alternative genealogies (citing Hesiod and Pherecydes; see van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, 100) and other material that reflects details found in the historia prefixed to the scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes. On variants in the scholia relative to the papyrus see van Rossum-Steenbeek 87–88 with n. 11. 44 This “single” author model does not preclude the—perhaps inevitable—result that such a collection would become an “open book, persistently rewritten and modified in different periods” as suggested by Pagès forthcoming. 45 See Deremetz 2016, 166 on the Eclogues; Clément-Tarantino 2016, 128 on Aen. 1 and 3. 46 To the studies in the previous note see also Delvigo 2012, Jeunet-Mancy 2012: c–cv.
Robert Scott Smith times keen to provide purely informative historiae, as are Ps.-Probus and the other scholia. In terms of form and function, however, we do encounter a wide variety of mythographical narrative types in Vergilian exegesis. The following are some of the types of mythographical notes that one might meet: 1) summaries of episodes in the Iliad;47 2) metamorphosis myths, many with no tie to the heroic world (see next paragraph); 3) narratives of episodes from the heroic world; 4) star-myths, doubtlessly taken from catasteristic literature; 5) geographical data involving myth; 5) summaries of Ovidian narratives (see last section); 6) responses to quaestiones, or problems encountered in the reading of Vergil’s text; 7) Zitatennester, or multiple source references concerning a detail of a mythographical detail (usually genealogical, but not always); 8) material refashioned from earlier notes (e.g., the narrative of Hesione at Aen. 8.157, drawn from earlier notes at 1.550 and 5.30). One such category of capsule narratives is comprised of the metamorphosis narratives that Leuschke identified as coming from a single Latin commentator (“scholiastam antiquum”) because of the similarity of form (1895, 14). While not all of the metamorphosis stories included in Leuschke’s study are of the same type, many do share significant similarities, e.g., focus on the natural world and Greek etiologies, as well as similar language and narrative patterns. Many seem unmotivated by Vergil’s text. By way of example, here is the story from DS ad Ecl. 5.48, where Vergil offhandedly mentioned reeds (calamis): fabula de calamo talis est: veteres Zephyro vento unam ex horis coniugem adsignant, ex qua et Zephyro Carpon filium pulcherrimi corporis editum dicunt. quem cum Calamus, Maeandri fluvii filius, amaret, a Carpo mutua vice etiam ipse adamatus est. Sed Carpos cum in Maeandrum fluvium cadens essent extinctus, Calamus, patrem propter hoc scelus aversatus, aufugit rogavitque Iovem, ut finem suis luctibus daret sibique mortem praestaret, ut amato post obitum iungeretur. quem miseratione Iuppiter ductus in harundinales calamos verti iussit, qui semper circa oras fluminum nasci solent, Carpon vero in fructus rerum omnium vertit, ut semper renasceretur.
This story is found elsewhere only in Nonnus (Dion. 11.369–481), with some minor variations in detail.48 A Greek origin is obvious. Like others that focus on etiologies of the natural world, this story is, as Leuschke (1895, 5) and Cameron (2004, 188), note, unnecessary for understanding Vergil’s poem. There are many 47 E.g., Servius at Aen. 1.469; DS at Aen. 1.483; Servius at Aen. 4.228; with DS additions; Servius and schol. Veron. at Aen. 5.496. 48 In Nonnus Carpos dies while swimming in the Maeander with Calamus, and it is not Jupiter that Calamus calls upon, but his father Maeander and the nymphs.
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examples of this narrative type—exclusively found in DS—which focus on hospitality, love-affairs gone wrong, accidental mishaps, the gods’ anger or pity leading to transformation.49 Some narratives of metamorphosis have identifiably novelistic features. Consider the story of Myrene (= myrtus) at DS ad Aen. 3.23, a beautiful but poor young maiden who catches the eye of a certain50 rich noble young man. No location is mentioned: pirates arrive on the scene, abduct the maiden after killing her brothers, and hide her away in a cave. She escapes and returns home; the citizens make her Venus’ priestess. When performing a sacrifice, she recognizes one of her captors in the crowd. He is arrested and reveals everything under torture, including the location of his comrades. The young man demands the task of exacting revenge on the pirates, but on the condition that he gets the girl.51 The people consent. He kills her captors, and wins her hand in marriage. Venus, angry, kills the young man and changes Myrene into the myrtle tree, “so that she could enjoy the sweet odor forever.” Such stories are wholly unconnected to the greater fabric of heroic myth; instead, they focus on minor or even unnamed figures created for the purposes of aetiology.52 That DS repeatedly records this sort of narrative structure is notable when compared with Servius’ (and Ps.-Probus’) lack of interest in providing a story when a similar occasion arises. Leuschke does list some examples of metamorphosis myths from the natural world in Servius, as if they were equivalent to the 49 Ecl. 4.58 (Calamus), 6.22 (Pyramus and Thisbe), 7.61 (Leuce), 8.29 (Carya), 8.37 (mēla); Aen. 2.626 (ornus = Melie?), 3.23 (Myrtus), 3.91 (Daphne), 4.99 (Hymenaeus), 4.250 (Chione), 4.402 (Myrmix), 5.138 (Palaestra), 9.114 (Attis). 50 Many of the transformation narratives of this folktale type mention a “certain” figure, as in the Myrene myth above, a habit characteristic of DS: Aen. 1.394 (Aquila/Aetos) puerum quendam terra editum; Aen. 1.430 apud Isthmon anus quaedam nomine Melissa fuit; Aen. 1.505 virgo quaedam nomine Chelone; Aen. 4.254 Aesacus quidam puer; Aen. 4.402 in Attica regione quaedam puella Myrmex nomine fuit. It is worth noting that all but the Aesacus myth (taken from Ovid, Met. 11.749–95) are elsewhere unattested. 51 The same motif occurs in the Hymenaeus fabula at Aen. 4.99, though the statuses are reversed: he is from modest means, she a wealthy elite. 52 An interesting example of the evolution of one of these otherwise unattested versions may be found at Ecl. 7.61 (Leuce, “Poplar”). DS offers the skeleton of a story: Leuce was a daughter of Ocean, one of the most beautiful nymphs, and because of this she was abducted by Pluto. When she died (!), he memorialized her by ordering poplar trees to grow in the Elysian fields. Hercules crowned himself with it when he returned from the underworld. In Homeric scholarship (schol. [bTD] Il. 13.389) and Et. Magn. Gen. s.v. Ἀχερωΐς) we learn that Hercules discovered it in the underworld on his way to capture Cerberus. The transformation story, however, is not found, and the detail of a nymph dying in the underworld seems improbable—is it possible that DS (which uses the Greek Ἀχερωΐς) found the base story and elaborated along lines familiar from other transformation myths?
Robert Scott Smith full narratives in DS, but they are all extremely abbreviated and show no traces of a fuller narrative. DS, for his part, does not supplement these brief notes. For instance, at Aen. 1.693 Servius provides a few lines about the origin of amaracum (marjoram). At G. 2.84 he gives a very brief note on the origin of Lotos, almost certainly a paraphrase of the brief mention of Lotis and Priapus at Ovid, Met. 9.346–48. Turning to Ps.-Probus, which provides notes for extensive portions of the Eclogues and the Georgics, it is noteworthy that he includes no capsule narrative that features such a narrative type as found in DS additions noted above. Metamorphosis myths, when commented upon, are either briefly reported (as in Servius) or focus on a particular variant of the myth with no interest in narrative completeness.53 It is clear that the compiler of DS alone was interested in including these sorts of full stories that are completely divorced from the text of Vergil’s poems. At this point one cannot help but to confront the question of the sources that the compiler of DS used to supplement his copy of Servius, as well as his working methods. It has been, since E.K. Rand’s forceful suggestion in 1916, more or less assumed that the additional materials in DS derive from the variorum commentary of Servius’ and Jerome’s teacher, Donatus. While I do not doubt that Donatus’ commentary could have been available to the compiler, I do have serious doubts that the compiler had one and only one source from which to draw, or that the compiler had no learning at all, only able copy what was before him.54 Further, there are signs that the compiler was not simply copying a commentary that he had in front of him unthinkingly. To demonstrate this, let us look to two notes within forty lines of each other in Aeneid 5. The first (5.72) is an attempt to explain the relationship between Venus and myrtle (Materna Myrto). One will recall from above that DS already provided a unique capsule narrative at A. 3.23 to explain the origin of the myrtle. Here, however, perhaps prompted by the sound of myr- in the name of the
53 At Ecl. 2.48, Ps.-Probus, citing some authority whose name is corrupt beyond recognition, is not interested in a detailed narrative, but is insisting on a specific variant of Narcissus’ lineage and geographical location: it is named specifically after Narcissus, the son of Amarynthus, from Eretria on Euboea. 54 Daintree 1990 is an especially welcome counterweight to the blanket assumption that we can recover a great deal of Donatus’ commentary from the DS additions to Servius. See most recently Zetzel 2018, who recognizes the compiler’s debt to Donatus but views DS as “an original scholarly compilation,” noting further that “there was clearly...material in DS that did not come from Donatus” (133) and that “there was, quite simply, a substantial amount of Virgilian exegesis available in late antiquity” (136). For a recent straightfoward summary, see Stok 2012.
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tree,55 the compiler of DS provides the full narrative of Myrrha (!) and Cinyras, drawn from the earlier note on Adonis, appropriately placed at Ecl. 10.18. It is hardly plausible that the compiler found such a note at that spot in Donatus or another commentary. Rather, it is his own creation, applied awkwardly but confidently to a lemma to which it does not belong. The confidence of the compiler is also on display at Aen. 5.118, where we find a capsule narrative to explain the ship name ‘Chimaera’. This is one of the cases where the note is not strictly necessary to understand Vergil’s narrative, but is a good opportunity to introduce the full story of Bellerophon (fabula ex qua hoc nomen translatum talis est). On the whole, the story matches that found in, say, Apollodorus, which in turn is modeled on Homer. There are differences, for instance the detail that Bellerophon kept threatening to tell Proetus about his wife’s advances is not found elsewhere. More importantly, the order in which Bellerophon tackles his challenges is reversed. In Homer and Apollodorus, the Chimaera is the first challenge, followed by the Solymi, the Amazons, and then the ambush of Lycian men. The compiler, however, makes the Chimaera the culminating event, perhaps to make Bellerophon’s career come to a close with his biggest challenge—or end with the event after which Gyas’ ship was named in the Aeneid. I find it unlikely that this order was already present in his source; rather, it is an intentional change, or perhaps an indication that he was working, in part, from memory. A parallel passage in Lactantius Placidus ad Theb. 4.589, drawn like many other notes from Vergilian exegesis, shows a more typical order. The point here is that the compiler was not simply a copyist, but had agency in constructing his own commentary. To take this discussion to its extreme, as a thought experiment I want to present clearly the concatenation of events that would have had to have occurred to bring these un- or rarely attested metamorphosis myths from the MV to DS: 1. the author of MV had to decide to include transformation myths unrelated to the text of Vergil in the first place; 2. Donatus—let us use him as an avatar for any variorum commentary—had to think that these notes were worthy of being introduced into his commentary; 3. Servius—let us assume he used Donatus—had to consciously omit them when he composed his commentary; if these stories were available to Ps.Probus and the Bern Scholia (on Cameron’s thesis, both of these commen-
55 [Venus] arborem quoque myrtum, ex qua puer natus fuerat, tutelae suae adscripsit [followed by other explanations].
Robert Scott Smith taries contain traces of the MV), they would have had to leave them out as well. 4. When the compiler of DS sought to supplement his copy of Servius, he had to choose to add back precisely these metamorphosis myths—in other words, he had to have the same motivation as the original MV for including them. This is not impossible, of course, but the fact that these notes are tied neither to Vergil’s text nor to the fabric of heroic myth means that no less than three times a commentator had to consciously submit to including material extraneous to the poems. On the opposite end of the spectrum from these transformation myths are the extensive, and sometimes digressive, passages that seem to be excerpted from a longer mythographical continuum, such as the example given by Delvigo (2012, 179–80) at Servius ad Aen. 7.761 (Hippolyti proles...Virbius). Although the lemma contains only one line plus one word, the note provides context for the whole passage that follows as well (761–780): Vergil has mentioned Virbius (Hippolyti proles) in the catalog of Italic forces, which prompts him to recount the myth (ferunt fama) of Hippolytus’s death, his resurrection, Jupiter’s punishment of the “discoverer of such medicine,” Egeria’s raising of Hippolytus/ Virbius in solitude in Italy. And yet, as Delvigo points out, Servius (or his source) has added further contextual material not mentioned in Vergil’s poem, including additional details about Aesculapius’ birth, Coronis’ death, and the transformation of the crow from white to black. There is also the completely unnecessary addition of Apollo’s killing of the Cyclopes and subsequent punishment of being enslaved to Admetus for nine years.56 Such additions do not help a reader understand Vergil’s text, but do create connections between mythical narratives from the heroic world that could be useful, especially to students. Delvigo (180) helpfully conceptualizes these additions as “further links in a chain” started by details in Vergil’s text (“[Servio] aggancia, ai singoli anelli, anelli ulteriori”). Such compositions, drawing from multiple episodes across the mythological continuum to create a unique narrative fabric, indicate a mind making connections not prompted by the target text. In this particular case, some of this additional material may have been included specifically in re-
56 The story of Apollo’s enslavement is found in Servius’ note at Aen. 6.398, but the detail of the length of Apollo’s servitude (elsewhere “one year,” but here perhaps reminiscent of the “great year”) is not found there.
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sponse to a textual problem.57 This is not a situation where one can just excerpt a potted mythological story of Calamus or Myrene. Furthermore, assuming that Servius took this material from Donatus (not a foregone conclusion), is it likely that the same Vergilian scholar—the MV—was responsible for including both this elaborate historia and the novelistic stories about transformations outlined above? We may also ask the same of other extensive historiae that seem to be the result of taking material from different parts of the mythological continuum, such as the long list of Hercules’ feats at 8.299 found in DS. In that note, the compiler starts from the short list mentioned by Vergil himself in this passage, somehow misinterpreting what is going on in the text, where it is not Hercules (as DS) but the two choruses that recall his feats: praeter haec quae Herculem hoc loco poeta fecisse memoravit, alia facta Herculis haec sunt. The compiler then completes the list by adding all of the remaining labors and many other major events in his life, with many additional details.58 The end of the entry reads like a capsule narrative of Hercules’ death, introduced by a familiar phrase: cuius finis humanitatis talis fuit. The narrative is indicative of someone pulling numerous details from a longer continuous narrative, such as that of Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca (2.61–159), or a collection such as Hyginus’ Fabulae (30–36). Also seemingly fashioned by drawing on numerous parts of the continuum mythicum are long, purely narrative entries, such as that found at Servius Aen. 6.14 (Daedalus ut fama est fugiens minoia regna), noted above for the rationalizing version placed at the end of the narrative itself.59 In the Aeneid Aeneas has reached Cumae and encountered the history of Daedalus on the temple of Apollo on several panels, presented out of order. Servius’ note seeks to tell the whole story, adding links to the chain to make a coherent whole: it begins with Vulcan’s learning of Venus’ affair with Mars from the Sun; his entrapment of the lovers (and the gods’ amusement); Venus’ hostility toward the Sun’s descendants; Pasiphae’s subsequent passion for Minos’ bull, Daedalus’ assistance in the matter, and her successful attempt at mating with the bull, resulting in the birth 57 It is possible that the detail about Aesculapius’ birth was added by Servius, who read Poenigenam instead of Phoebigenam. See Serv. at Aen. 7.773 and Delvigo 2012, 181 n. 5. 58 Vergil presents the following: infant Hercules strangling the serpents sent by Juno, the sacking of Troy and Oechalia, Centaurs, Nemean Lion, Hydra, Cretan Bull, Cerberus. The compiler of DS adds (in order): the rest of the labors (Erymanthian Bull, Stymphalian Birds, Augeas’ stables, Diomedes’ horses, Hippolyte’s belt, Geryon, Apples of the Hesperides), Antaeus, Busiris, Prometheus, Achelous, Lycus, his murder of his sons, his wrestling match with Apollo, his servitude under Omphale, Deianira and Nessus, Iole, Lichas, and finally his death on Oeta. 59 Treated also at Delvigo 2012, 187–189 and Longobardi 2016, 489–495.
Robert Scott Smith of the Minotaur and his inclusion in the labyrinth. So far so good, but then the historia adds that Pasiphae and Minos had their own children, one of whom was Androgeus, who was killed in an ambush by Athenians and Megarians who were jealous of his athletic talents; Minos, grieving, sends his navy against Athens, conquers it, and imposes the punishment of sending seven sons and seven daughters to the Minotaur to feast on. Theseus is sent, with whom Ariadne falls in love, and she on Daedalus’ advice gives Theseus the thread to find his way out; he kills the Minotaur and leaves, taking Ariadne with him. Daedalus and Icarus are themselves imprisoned in the Labyrinth (!), but Daedalus successfully bribes the guards to bring them feathers and wax and they fly away after making wings. Icarus, of course, flies too high, the wax melts, and plunges into the sea, giving his name to it. Daedalus then heads first to Sardinia, as Sallust reports (fr. 3.6d Maurenbrecher/Funari), then moves to Cumae, where he founds a temple to Apollo, depicting the whole series of events on its doors. As noted above, both Servius and DS conclude by each offering rationalizing versions or interpretations of the straightforward narrative. I have gone on at some length to show the extent to which Servius had to go to provide a full summary of the depictions of the myth Vergil describes, in individual scenes, on the Temple of Apollo at Cumae. Vergil’s presentation (Aen. 6.14–34) is not linear, but episodic, with allusions to the earlier events embedded in the ecphrasis itself. The note, therefore, offers a coherent but lengthy narrative of the entire Minos-Daedalus myth, chronologically organized, to make sense out of the allusive and fractured nature of Vergil’s presentation. But such a comprehensive narrative—including a citation of Sallust for a specific detail—could not be further away from the novelistic capsule narratives with which we began this section. This note responds directly to Vergil’s text in a way the Calamus myth does not. Are we to attribute both historiae to the same original scholarly activity? We may also rightfully ask, when presented with multiple versions of a myth, which of the stories—if either—is to be attributed to the supposed MV. Let us take but one example, which involves the complicated Daphnis myth,60 where we have two separate narratives at Ecl. 5.20 and 8.68, both provided by DS. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the narrative elements:
60 See now the extensive monograph by Scholl 2014 that seeks to tease out the multiple versions of the myth.
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Tab. 13: Daphnis narratives in Servius Danielis. DS ad Ecl. . (cf. Explanationes ad loc.)
DS ad Ecl. .
mother (unnamed) raped by Mercury child is exposed, saved by shepherds and given name Daphnis Daphnis taught to play music by Pan Skilled at hunting and music, Daphnis is loved by a nymph (unnamed)
A nymph, named Nomia, falls in love with Daphnis, but he rejects her
the lovers swear to be faithful Daphnis, following his herd, comes to the royal court, where the princess, desiring his beauty, sleeps with him (lit. consuetudinem miscuit).
Daphnis follows a woman (?) named Chimaera
When the nymph learns about this, she blinds Daphnis
The nymph, angry, blinds Daphnis
Daphnis calls on his father Mercury for aid, Daphnis is turned into a rock (aetiology of and he removes him into the sky and replac- Cephaloeditanum) es him with a spring, named Daphnis, where the Sicilians sacrifice yearly Others say: Daphnis loved Pimplea She was captured by pirates; he searched the world over for her He finds her serving at the court of Lityerses in Phrygia Lityerses customarily invites visitors to harvest crops; when he outdoes them, he has them killed Hercules pities Daphnis’ situation, comes to the court, hears the conditions, puts Lityerses to sleep with a harvesting song, and beheads him. Hercules returns Pimplea (or Thalia, the name found in the Theocritus scholia) to Daphnis, and gives the couple as a wedding gift the palace and the kingdom
Without belaboring the point too much, we find two different stories involving Daphnis and the challenges of love. The first version is partly told in Parthenius 29 (citing Timaeus); the second version at 8.68, involving king Lityerses, may originate with the Lityerses (or Daphnis) of the 3rd c. BCE tragedian Sositheus. It
Robert Scott Smith is highly unlikely that the originator of this note consulted Sositheus’ play itself, but doubtlessly found it in summary form, such as it is found in the Anonymous Florentinus (see now Cameron 2004, pp. 337–339; Westermann, Mythographi Graeci 1843, 346–347). The note at Explanationes 5.20, for its part, narrates the same general material as DS, but has nothing for 8.68. A similar case of mutually exclusive capsule narratives concerning the same mythical figure or event can be seen at DS ad Ecl. 10.12, mentioned above, where he provides two divergent stories about Adonis, one that is drawn in the main from Ovid’s version in Met. 10 (with a divergent ending), the other a somewhat muddled version of a Syrian-Egyptian version of the myth found in schol. Dion. Per. 508–509. We can also point to several other competing capsule narratives, which I relegate to a footnote.61 The fundamental question for all of these is, if the MV was modeled on the MH, and if the MH provides but a single version for each myth, which of these versions are we to attribute to the MV? Or are we dealing with multiple layers of exegesis?
The MV in Vergilian Exegesis: Eclogues and Georgics Another potential avenue to finding evidence of a MV that heavily influenced Vergilian exegesis is to compare our commentaries when they overlap. If the MV existed and exerted enough influence to have left several remnant source references across the exegetical texts, then surely such a comparison should reveal a broad consistency in mythographical notes. The underlying premise would be that, with carefully constructed series of capsule narratives available, commentators would use them instead of constructing their own. For the Aeneid there are no overlapping witnesses, unless one counts the scattered remnants of the Scholia Veronensia, which offer truncated versions difficult to compare. For the Eclogues (from Ecl. 3 on) and Georgics 1–2, however, we have at least three independent witnesses at any time. In addition to Servius and the additions of DS, we have Ps.-Probus throughout (starting at Ecl. 2.23, with some additional gaps
61 The following list is surely incomplete, but offers a selection of representative notes with alternative stories in Servius/DS: Ecl. 4.62 (Prometheus), Ecl. 6.72 (Gryneus, Calchas), Ecl. 6.78 (Procne and Philomela), Aen. 2.44 (Ulysses, Penelope, Pan), 3.6 (Antandros), 3.108 (Teucer), 3.167 (Dardanus), 3.321 (Polyxena), 3.689 (Cyparissus), 4.99 and 4.127 (Hymenaeus), 4.377 (Lyciae sortes).
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and sparse notes for Georgics book 4), as well as commentaries from the Bern Scholia. For the Eclogues, we have the two Explanationes, sometimes misleadingly called “Philargyrius I & II;” the Brevis Expositio (henceforth ‘BE’) contains notes for the first two books of the Georgics.62 It is necessary to be selective in presenting a rich and complicated body of exegetical texts, and as a sustained case study, I have provided in an appendix a summary of the mythographical notes to Georgics 1, which is especially replete with allusions to the mythical world. Yet, before making some generalized statements from that study let us take a specific example, the exegesis at G. 3.268, first from Servius (+ DS), then from Ps.-Probus. The additions made by the compiler of DS to Servius are in italics as in the Thilo-Hagen edition. [Servius/DS] Potnia civitas est, de qua fuit Glaucus. qui cum sacra Veneris sperneret, illa irata equabus eius inmisit furorem, quibus utebatur ad currum, et eum morsibus dilaceraverunt. [...] hoc autem ideo fingitur, quod eis furorem Venus inmiserit, quia dilaniatus est Glaucus, effrenatis nimia cupiditate equabus, cum eas cohiberet a coitu, ut essent velociores. et aliter: Glaucus, Sisyphi filius, cum ad gymnicum certamen quadrigam duceret, adplicuit ad vicum Boeotiae Potnias et equas potum ad fontem sacrum per ignorantiam duxit, unde qui bibissent in furorem agi solebant. itaque illum equae, furore agitatae, in ipso certamine curru effudisse ac morsibus laniasse dicuntur. [Ps.-Probus] Potnia urbs est Boeotiae, ubi Glaucus, Sisyphi filius et Meropes, ut Asclepiades in tragodoumena libro primo ait, habuit equas, quas adsueverat humana carne alere, quo cupidius in hostem irruerent et perniciosius. Ipsum autem cum alimenta defecissent, devoraverunt in ludis funebribus Peliae. Quidam autem has equas Diomedis fuisse, quas Hercules ad Eurysthea perduxerit, et ab Eurystheo a Sisypho distractas eumque filio suo dedisse.
None of these versions line up in any way beyond the name Glaucus and the fact that he is killed by his mares. Neither Servius nor DS (who differ between themselves) offer a version that is consistent with the variant given by Ps.Probus, who cites Asclepiades (the “telltale source citation” that Cameron sees as indication of the MV). Servius presents a variant in which Glaucus abstains from sex, prompting Venus to drive the horses mad and kill him in the race. DS offers us a version where Glaucus on the way to a race (presumably to Pelias’ funeral games) stops at Potniae in Boeotia, where his mares drink from a sacred spring. Thus maddened, they toss him during the race and rend him to death. Ps.-Probus, on the other hand, provides us with the version, attributed to Ascle 62 For all of the non-Servian exegetical texts I have used the edition of G. Thilo/H. Hagen, Servii Grammatici, vol. 3.2: Appendix Serviana (Leipzig 1902), supplementing with Baschera 1999 for the Scholia Veronensia.
Robert Scott Smith piades,63 that Glaucus (like Thracian Diomedes) fed them human flesh—perhaps we should be suspicious of an account that acts as a doublet with another famous myth? At any rate, when they were at the funeral games of Pelias, the mares, now without their traditional human fodder, devour Glaucus. As it turns out, no other source offers any more detail than that Glaucus was torn apart by his horses at the games of Pelias.64 Supposing, for the moment, that the Ps.Probus version is representative of the MV (with its telltale citation), we must admit that the other commentators actively composed their own narratives for the reasons for Glaucus’ death by his horses. When comparing the stories in book 1 of the Georgics (see the appendix), one finds a surprising amount of variation in mythographical notes. In one case (BE at 1.143) one commentary uniquely features the story of Perdix, here the son killed by Daedalus, at the mention of “saw.” At 1.12, on a mention of the “creator of the horse,” Servius alone applies the narrative of the contest between Minerva and Neptune at this point and uniquely has Neptune create a horse in the contest. The other commentators tell the story at 1.18 and has Neptune create water; the other commentators at 1.12, including DS, locate the creation of the horse elsewhere (Arcadia, Thessaly). It appears Servius modified this story on his own. DS, as we have seen elsewhere, adds narratives where there are none in the other commentaries. It is no different here. At 1.18 DS uniquely adds to the contest between Neptune and Minerva the story where Halirrhothius, angry at his father’s loss to Minerva, starts cutting down olive trees and is beheaded by his own axe blade when it falls off the handle. Neptune blames Mars for this and takes him to trial.65 At 1.19 DS adds the full but somewhat garbled story of Triptolemus, where the other commentaries are simply interested in the multiple candidates for the inventor of the plow. At 1.399, while Servius and BE, with some minor variations, are content in general to follow Ovid’s account of the myth of Alcyone and Ceyx in Met. 11.410–572, Ps.-Probus, implicitly acknowledging this variant, offers a brief narrative of another Alcyone, daughter of Sciron, alluded to obscurely by Ovid in book 7. There are occasions in the first book of the Georgics where there is consistency enough among the notes to suggest that there may have lain an original capsule narrative behind what has survived: see the various commentaries
63 See the comments at fr. 1 Villagra (2012). 64 Palaephatus 25 and Hyginus 250, 273, and Pausanias 6.20.19 only give the barest details. 65 The story is known from the scholiastic tradition; schol. Aristid. p. 26 Frommel = Or. 1.46 provides the whole story, explaining that Neptune blamed Mars for Halirrhothius’ death because he was “the lord of iron;” cf. schol. Ar. Nub. 1005b Koster.
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at 1.9, 1.39, 1.63 (= Ecl. 6.41 < Ovid), 1.138 (< Ovid), 1.222. But even where the accounts generally line up, there are complications. Take 1.9, the discovery of grapes and wine. Although DS, Ps.-Prob., and BE all have the same named characters and a stable set of actions involving Staphylus, a fat goat, Oeneus and the discovery of wine, there are significant differences, some seemingly tailored to explain the target text Acheloia pocula. Before commencing with the story, DS adds an origin story of the Achelous, and after the set piece he concludes with Hercules’ arrival to wrestle the river, breaking off a horn (keras), which explains the practice of mixing (kerasai) wine with water. Neither of these additions are found in Ps.-Probus or BE, but the former uniquely introduces into the story Liber, who spreads the cultivation of wine and glorifies the discoverers of wine by naming it after them. The latter attributes the mixing of wine with the Achelous to Staphylus himself, who experiments with diluting wine before giving it to the king. All in all, it is hard to recover what would have been the original narrative from which all of these descend. A cursory look at the exegesis at G. 1.14 (Aristaeus and his travels) will reveal a similar complicated view.
Conclusion The reader by now will have become tired from the mass of details presented here, and it is time to offer some general conclusions. When we consider the evidence before us, neither Cameron’s overall proposal nor his specific arguments can be sustained. As we have seen, and as this volume itself has pointed out, the MH is an elusive text, but what we know about it suggests a very specific kind of structured and rather homogenous collection that presented a singular, uncomplicated narrative combined with a source attribution.66 In many ways, Cameron’s presentation of his case is slippery. At one point he seems to conceive of the MV as modeled on the MH in form and style; at others, the MV becomes an index for a collector of Greek mythographical material writ large, including rationalizing versions, bizarre metamorphosis myths, long and digressive narratives, Zitatennester, and so on. But—and this is perhaps the most important point—we have countless other examples of scholiastic material that 66 I will point out here in passing that we also do not have any idea as to how the MH came into existence, whether the author extracted mythical stories from a pre-existing commentary and created an independently circulating “myth book” for Homer, or if he constructed it de novo.
Robert Scott Smith contain source references and represent the multiplicity of mythographical forms found in our exegetical texts. Thus, Cameron’s search for source citations, predicated on the idea that a Vergilian scholar was actively copying the model of the MH, actually distracted him from the possibility that commentators and exegetes would have continuously sought to draw on mythographical materials from numerous sources as Vergil’s text was scrutinized by generations of scholars. The evidence as presented here indicates that it is highly improbable that the mythographical material that populates Servius, DS, Ps.-Probus, the Bern Scholia, and the Verona Scholia owes its life to a single individual. The multiple forms of mythographical content—consider how far apart are the accounts of Calamus (DS at Ecl. 5.48) and Daedalus (Serv. at Ecl. 6.14) are in terms of form and function—suggest multiple layers, and we can also point, with some probability, to places that our existing commentators added stories themselves (e.g., Perdix, BE at G. 1.43, Myrrha, DS at Aen. 3.23). Were there commentators that concentrated on providing content (that is, explaining historiae) instead of language? Of course there were; a good case is Ps.-Probus, which contains few comments on language and interpretation but provides stories from the world of myth. But instead of tying ourselves to a single figure, we should rather imagine multiple figures drawing on different sorts of sources, including the work of their predecessors. Such a model, I think, best fits the evidence at our disposal.
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Delvigo, Maria Luisa (2012), “Secundum fabulam, secundum veritatem: Servio e il mito”, Prometheus 38, 179–193. Deremetz, Alain (2016), “La mythographie dans le ‘Commentaire aux Bucoliques’ de Servius. Quelques réflexions”, in: Arnaud Zucker/Jacqueline Fabre-Serris/Jean-Yves Tilliette/Gisèle Besson (eds.), Lire des Mythes, Lille, 161–175. Farrell, Joseph (2008), “Servius and Homeric Scholia”, in: Sergio Casali/Fabio Stok (eds.), Servio: stratificazioni esegetiche e modelli culturali / Servius: exegetical stratifications and cultural models. Collection Latomus 317, Brussels, 112–131. Flammini, Giuseppe (2004), Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana Leidensia, Munich. Fowler, Robert L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography, vol. 2 Commentary, Oxford. Fraenkel, Eduard (1948–1949), “Review of Rand,” Journal of Roman Studies 38–39, 131–143; 145–154. Funaioli, Gino (1930), Esegesi Virgiliana antica, Milan. Garbugino, Giovanni (2018), “Osservazioni sulle fonti e sulla cronologia di Darete Frigio,” in: Graziana Brescia/Mario Lentano/Giampero Scafoglio/Valentina Zanusso (eds.), Revival and Revision of the Trojan Myth: Studies on Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius, Hildesheim, 77–128. Gibson, Craig A. (2013), “True or False: Greek Myth and Mythography in the Progymnasmata”, in: Stephen M. Trzaskoma/R. Scott Smith (eds.), Writing Myth: Mythography in the Ancient World, Leuven, 289–308. Goetz, Maria (1918), De scholiastis Graecis poetarum Romanorum auctoribus quaestiones selectae, Jena. Graf, Fritz (2011), “Myth in Christian Authors,” in: Ken Dowden/Niall Livingstone, A Companion to Greek Mythology, Chichester. Griffin, Alan H. F. (1981), “The Ceyx Legend in Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XI”, Classical Quarterly 31, 147–154. Haynes, Justin (2016), “Citations of Ovid in Virgil’s Ancient Commentators,” in: C. S. Kraus/C. Stray (eds.), Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre, Oxford, 216–232. Hays, Gregory (2017), “Roman Mythography,” in: Vanda Zajko/Helena Hoyle (eds.), A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology, Malden, 29–41. Horsfall, Nicholas (1995), A Companion to the Study of Vergil, Cambridge. Jeunet-Mancy, Emmanuelle (2012), Servius Commentaire sur L’Énéide de Virgile Livre VI, Paris. Kaster, Robert A (1995), C. Suetonius Tranquillius: De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, Oxford. Longobardi, Concetta T. (2016), “Sic Servius Magister Exposuit. L’Auctoritas Mitografica di Servio e le interconnessioni fra i commentatori tardi,” in: Alessando Garcea/Marie-Karine Lhommé/Daniel Vallat (eds.), Fragments d’érudition. Servius e le savoir antique, Hildesheim, 479–497. Leuschke, Alfredus (1895), De metamorphoseon in scholiis vergilianis fabulis, Marburg. Marshall, Peter K. (2002), Hyginus Fabulae, Munich. Meccariello, Chiara (2019), “Impulso mitografico e mitografia nelle pratiche educative greche antiche”, Polymnia 4, 147–175. Montanari, Franco (1995), “The Mythographus Homericus,” in: J.G.J. Abbenes/S.R. Slings/I. Suiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle: a Collection of Papers in Honour of D. M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Mühmelt, Martin (1965), Griechische Grammatik in den Vergilerklärung, Munich. Murgia, Charles (2004), “The Truth about Vergil’s Commentators”, in: Roger Rees (ed.), Romane Memento: Vergil in the Fourth Century, London, 189–200.
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Appendix 1: Summary of mythographical material in Georgics 1 1.9 Invention of wine. The accounts (DS, Ps.-Prob., BE) generally line up, with Staphylus, herdsman of Oeneus, discovering grapes after one of his goats grows fatter. After this, however, the accounts diverge as to who discovers that one
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can produce wine from grapes, who mixes it with water (Staphylus or Hercules), and who names the grape staphylus and wine oinos (Oeneus or Liber). Ps.-Prob. uniquely features Liber; DS introduces Hercules’ wrestling contest with Achelous, ending in the breaking off of one keras, which is the origin of the word kerasai, ‘to mix’. 1.12 Neptune’s creation of the horse. Reading equum (not aquam), Servius associates this event with his contest with Minerva over the patronage of Athens, and includes the full narrative, including the name(s) of the horse. DS corrects this narrative, offering Arcadia and (more forcefully) Thessaly as the location (cult and epithets of Neptune follow). DS further states, succinctly, that some (nonnulli) say that when Saturn was devouring his children, a horse was substituted for Neptune, which aligns with the only comment at BE. Ps.-Probus reports that Neptune created the horse Scyphios in Thessaly at a place called Petra (followed by brief mentions of other mythological horses). 1.14 Allusion to the cultor nemorum...Ceae: Servius identifies him as Aristaeus, the son of Apollo and Cyrene, identified as a shepherd (nomios) in Hesiod (though likely coming from Pindar, Pyth. 9). Citing Sallust, he reports that after his son Actaeon had been torn apart by his dogs, he was prompted by his mother to migrate from Thebes to go to Cea, which was unpopulated up to that point. Later, he went to Sardinia with Daedalus (the same report in BE’s first part). DS, for his part, offers a competing version of “Pindar,” who takes Aristaeus from Cea to Arcadia, where he is worshipped as Jupiter. BE, under the next note “Cea,” moves Aristaeus in the opposite direction, from Arcadia to Cea. (Vergil himself calls Aristaeus Arcadius magister (G. 4.283). See Nonnus 13.253–85, where Aristaeus begins his career in beekeeping in Arcadia, before going to Ceos and relieving the island of the blight.) Ps.-Probus reports that Aristaeus, instructed by his father Apollo (as in BE’s second account), set out to Cea, which was somehow suffering from plague because of Actaeon’s death. By making sacrifice to Icmaean Jupiter he freed the island from contagion and was made immortal. BE, in addition to the above, adds that he was the first to discover milking his animals and making honey, a protos heuretes motif. The story, here garbled, may be found in a coherent form at Hyg. Astr. 2.4.6, where the Ceans suffer blight because of the death of Icarius, because they harbored his killers. Aristaeus, the king (already there), seeks help from his father Apollo, and he sacrifices to Jupiter as instructed, freeing the island from blight and bringing in gentle Etesian winds.
Robert Scott Smith 1.18 Minerva creates the olive. Servius is silent (he covered this story at G. 1.12). DS references the earlier narrative and adds (cui fabulae hoc additur) that after Minerva invented the olive tree, Neptune’s son Halirrhothius, upset at his father’s defeat, starts cutting down olive trees. As he does so, the blade detaches from the ax handle and decapitates him. Neptune somehow is angry at Mars and blames him for the death, which starts the well-known trial on the Areopagus. Both Ps.-Probus and BE—neither of whom had reported the story at 1.12— now tell the more basic story of the contest between Neptune (producing water here) and Minerva (olive tree). 1.19 The discoverer of the plow. Servius, like the others, report the debate (quaestio) over the identity of this discoverer: Triptolemus or Osiris (DS and Ps.Probus add Buzyges, DS also Osiris)? Only DS, however, adds the full story of Ceres’ involvement in Eleusis, Triptolemus’ spread of grain cultivation, his near death at the hands of one Cephalus back in Eleusis (elsewhere Lyncus, king of Sicily, Scythia or the Getae). The end of the DS version has a Zitatennest, citing works of Varro, Nigidius Figulus, Philostephanus and Aristotle, and may, in part, descend from an astronomical book of Catasterisms (cf. Hyg. Astr. 2.14.1). 1.39 Ceres and Persephone apud inferos. Servius (DS adds nothing of substance) and Ps. Probus cover the same material: Ceres, upset at the abduction of her daughter, goes to Jupiter, who agrees to let her to take Proserpina back up to the upper world if she has not eaten anything in the underworld. Ascalaphus (different genealogies are given) informs on her and (only in Ps.-Probus) is turned into an owl. Jupiter allows her to split her time between the upper world and the underworld. BE offers nothing similar, focusing only on the location of her abduction. 1.63 Deucalion’s Rocks. Only Ps.-Probus tells the story here, whereas it is told at Ecl. 6.41 by the other commentaries. The versions, all deriving from Ovid, are consistent. Ps.-Probus explicitly refers to Ovid, citing two lines (Met. 1.414–415). 1.138 Lycaon’s Bear. Servius offers a very brief statement prior to the catasterism: Lycaon had a daughter, Callisto, who is raped by Jupiter; Juno turns her into a bear, after which Jupiter turns her into the constellation Septentrio. DS adds nothing, despite at Aen. 1.744 sending readers here for a “fuller account.” Ps.-Probus and BE offer a fuller version, compatible with each other and consistent with Ovid’s account, from which it doubtlessly derives (Met. 2.417–507).
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1.143 The saw. BE uniquely offers here a protos heuretes story of Perdix, student and nephew of Daedalus, who discovered the saw, which made the master jealous. Daedalus hurls him from the acropolis; Minerva turns him into a low-flying partridge. Despite mistaking the name of the mother for the son, the account is taken from Ovid, Met. 8.237–259. Perdix (also the son) features in DS at Aen. 6.14. 1.207 Hero and Leander (oyster-bearing Abydos). DS takes the bare geographical mention of Abydos as an opportunity to tell the story of the lovers separated by the strait, his death in stormy sea, and her suicide. At G. 3.258, where the story is alluded to, Servius recaps the story on similar lines. Both are compatible with Ovid’s account in the Heroides. Neither Ps.-Probus or BE offer any information. 1.222 Ariadne’s Crown. The reference to the constellation prompts Servius to identify the crown as the one Ariadne got from Vulcan at her wedding with Liber (reminiscent of Hyg. Astr. 2.5.1). DS supplements by telling the whole story, starting with Theseus’ trip to Crete to kill the Minotaur, Ariadne’s help, and his abandonment of her on Naxos. Ps.-Probus, slightly compressed, follows the organization of DS (with details changed). The short accounts of BE offer variations of the Servius + DS material. 1.246 Helice. Vergil’s allusion to the fact that the Bears do not set below the horizon prompts Servius to mention the duae paelices (presumably feminine to reflect “bears,” though referring to Callisto and Arcas) and the detail that Juno asked Tethys to prevent them from setting. DS adds some astronomical details, cross-referencing the fuller story of Callisto and Arcas’ catasterism at 1.138, with a Zitatennest at the end. BE follows Servius’ short account, only identifying who Tethys is. Ps.-Probus only offers some astronomical tidbits. 1.383 Frogs. Responding to a quaestio what the “ancient complaint” frogs have, Servius offers two possibilities: 1) citing Ovid, he reports that when Ceres was looking for Proserpina, she went to a certain fountain to quench her thirst. Some Lycian peasants stopped her by stirring up the waters with their feet and snorting at her. Angry, Ceres turns them into frogs, which imitate the sound. Criticizing this, Servius offers 2) a story from Aesop, in which frogs complained about the small log Jupiter gave them in response to their request for a king (see Aesop 44 Perry). These two accounts are also found in BE (citing Ovid but not Aesop) as the second of two versions. The first, citing Modestus (see above), Latona, being driven about by Juno, came to Lycia where she was again kept away from
Robert Scott Smith a spring. After she gives birth she comes back and gets her revenge by turning them into frogs. Ps.-Probus, for his part, offers a compressed version of the last, where Latona, after having given birth, tries to drink from the spring (here called Mela) but was prohibited by someone perhaps named Neocles. When she persisted, people (the verb turns into a plural) kept her from the water. They are turned into frogs by the numen of the goddess. 1.399 Alcyone & Ceyx. Servius follows Ovid’s basic narrative in book 11 (266– 748). BE offers a very similar account, though there is the variation narrated in which Ceyx and Alcyone impiously commanded all to honor them as Jupiter and Juno (found in the Hesiodic Catalog fr. 10a MW and Apollodorus 1.52). Ps.Probus offers a wholly different version, prefacing his version of Alcyone daughter of Sciron with the statement that Ovid followed both Nicander and Theodorus. It is only here that we learn that the obscure reference by Ovid at Met. 7.401 (neptem Polypemonis) involves another person named Alcyone, who was cast into the sea by her father, angry over her promiscuity. If we follow the order of Ps.-Probus, this should be Nicander’s version (see Gow 1953, p. 208) and the more famous version in book 11 that of Theodorus, but see Griffin, 1981. 1.403 Night-owl (Noctua). Servius offers the short story of Nyctimone, who, after sleeping with her father and realizing her crime, fled into the woods, where she was turned into a bird. BE follows suit, but offers a competing version where she is the daughter of Epopeus and, after being raped by a visiting guest (named Corymbus), flees in fear of her father’s wrath. Ps.-Probus has no story to offer. Looking outside of Servius, we find in Hyginus, Fabulae 204 a story of Nyctimene (sic), a daughter of Epopeus who is raped not by a guest but by her own father. A fuller version of the Servian version is found in the commentary to Statius’ Thebaid (so-called Lactantius Placidus) ad 3.507, which we might imagine contained an original fuller capsule narrative (though see Smith 2013, 185– 88, who argues that the extended narrative may be modeled on the Myrrha myth). 1.437 Glaucus of Anthedon: Servius and BE identify the Glaucus named here as the fisherman from Anthedon, who, learning that when he put some fish he caught on top of some herbs, they came back to life, ate some and turned into a sea god. DS adds nothing, and Ps.-Probus devotes only a sentence in the same vein as Servius/BE.
Lowell Edmunds
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145) Abstract: The MH’s version of Heracles’ sack of Troy is analysed in order to explore the contribution of the MH to the study of the myth. A typological study shows that the MH’s narrative is not an eclectic summary of the myth but a particular variant which can be called Iliadic.
The D scholion on Il. 20.145 contains one of the two hundred historiae that are attributed to Mythographus Homericus (hereafter MH).1 This scholion has always served as one of the principal sources for the reconstruction of the myth of Heracles’ sack of Troy.2 The present discussion compares the scholion with the other sources not for the purpose of another reconstruction but in order to isolate some aspects of MH as a mythographer and to ask what MH contributes to the study of the myth that he recounts.3 The historia is attributed in the subscription to Hellanicus.4 The status of this and other subscriptions to Hellanicus and also of subscriptions to other mythographers in MH has been under discussion for more than a century. At present, one could say that there is agreement that these subscriptions do not indicate the sources of the historiae but are references to authors dealing with the same subjects.5 The relation of MH to Hellanicus will, however, come up in the following study of the D scholion to Il. 20.145. As it happens, this scholion has parallels in two papyri, discussed below, and is one of only two such cases.6 The differences between the D scholion 1 For an overview of the sources for MH, of which the D scholia are foremost, see Pagès 2017, 66. 2 Notable surveys of sources: Gantz 1993, 400–402, 442–443; Ogden 2013, 118–119 and n. 15 for a list of sources. 3 For the term “mythographer” see Meliadò 2015, 1057. 4 For Hellanicus as historian and mythographer: Fowler 2013, 682–689; Meliadò 2015, 1086– 1088. 5 Montanari 1995b, 141–145; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 111–113; Meliadò 2015, 1087–1088; Villagra/Pàmias 2020. Van Rossum-Steenbeek observes that the simple style of MH remains the same no matter who is cited in the subscription. See now Delattre 2016, 92–94, 97–98, who observes the counter-intuitive use of such an expression as ἡ ἱστορία παρά. In fact, the historia that we read has not come from the source who is cited! 6 Pagès 2007, 66–70. The other case is D schol. 20.403–404 and P. Oxy 61, 4096 fr. 3 and P. Berol. 13282, 3–9 Luppe. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-009
Lowell Edmunds and the papyri add to the uncertainty concerning the history of the redaction of MH, a history that may begin in successive redactions by MH himself. It is another old theme of scholarship.7 The context of the verse to which the scholion is attached is a brief account of Poseidon’s leading the pro-Achaean gods from the battlefield to a vantagepoint, the “heaped up” wall built by Athena for Heracles, from which they will watch the mortal combat. The scholion begins, however, with another, earlier wall, built by Poseidon and Apollo at Troy. I have segmented the narrative in the scholion and have numbered the segments. My discussion is keyed to these numbers. 1. Ποσειδῶν καὶ Ἀπόλλων, προστάξαντος Διὸς Λαομέδοντι θητεῦσαι, ἐπὶ μισθῶι τεταγμένωι τὸ τεῖχος κατασκευάζουσιν. 2. Λαομέδων δὲ παραβὰς τοὺς ὅρκους καὶ τὰς συνθήκας μὴ δοὺς τὸν μισθὸν ἀπήλασεν αὐτούς. ἀγανακτήσας δὲ Ποσειδῶν ἔπεμψε τῆι χώραι κῆτος, ὃ τούς τε παρατυγχάνοντας ἀνθρώπους καὶ τοὺς γιγνομένους καρποὺς διέφθειρεν. 3. μαντευομένωι δὲ Λαομέδοντι χρησμὸς ἐδόθη Ἡσιόνην τὴν θυγατέρα αὐτοῦ βορὰν ἐκθεῖναι τῶι κήτει, καὶ οὕτως ἀπαλλαγήσεσθαι τοῦ δεινοῦ. προθεὶς δὲ ἐκεῖνος τὴν θυγατέρα μισθὸν ἐκήρυξε τῶι τὸ κῆτος ἀνελόντι τοὺς ἀθανάτους ἵππους δώσειν, οὓς Τρωὶ Ζεὺς ἀντὶ Γανυμήδους ἔδωκεν. 4. Ἡρακλῆς δὲ παραγενόμενος ὑπέσχετο τὸν ἆθλον κατορθώσειν, καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς αὐτῶι πρόβλημα ποιησάσης τὸ καλούμενον ἀμφίχυτον τεῖχος, εἰσδὺς διὰ τοῦ στόματος εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν τοῦ κήτους, αὐτοῦ τὰς λαγόνας διέφθειρεν. 5. ὁ δὲ Λαομέδων ὑπαλλάξας θνητοὺς δίδωσιν ἵππους. μαθὼν δὲ Ἡρακλῆς ἐπεστράτευσε, καὶ Ἴλιον ἐπόρθησε, καὶ οὕτως ἤλαυνε τοὺς ἵππους. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἑλλανίκωι. D schol. Il. 20.145 (= Hellanicus FGrH 4F26b = fr. 26b Fowler)
The wall built by Poseidon and Apollo Only toward the end of this historia does MH explain the “heaped up wall” to which the scholion is attached.8 First he explains the events that led up to Athena’s building of this wall, beginning with another wall, the perimeter wall at Troy built by Poseidon and Apollo. By Zeus’ order, they worked as laborers for Laomedon for fixed wages. MH, when he refers to the labor of Poseidon and Apollo, clearly has in mind Poseidon’s speech to Apollo in the theomachy in Book 21: “...when, having come from Zeus, we labored a year for the arrogant 7 Montanari 1995a, 165–166. 8 Fowler 2000, 166 attaches the scholion to 145; van Thiel 2000 to 145–147; Montanari 1995b, 149 to 147; van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 99 to 146.
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
Laomendon for stated wages” (ὅτ’ ἀγήνορι Λαομέδοντι / πὰρ Διὸς ἐλθόντες θητεύσαμεν εἰς ἐνιαυτὸν / μισθῷ ἔπι ῥητῷ, 21.443–45). MH’s προστάξαντος Διὸς makes more precise the Homeric πὰρ Διὸς ἐλθόντες. Schol. T Il. 21.444d (Erbse) on Poseidon’s θητεύσαμεν (21.444) explicitly connects his and Apollo’s servitude with the conspiracy against Zeus referred to by Achilles in Book 1 of the Iliad. But there is an inconsistency between the historia and the speech of Poseidon just quoted. Poseidon says that he built the wall while Apollo herded cattle on Mt. Ida (21.446–451). In MH both of the two gods build the wall (τὸ τεῖχος κατασκευάζουσιν). As it happens, this same inconsistency is found in the Iliad. In Book 7, Poseidon has said that he and Apollo built the wall (452–453). In the case of Homer, it could be said that a variation in the myth concerning the roles of the two gods at Troy has persisted into the epic, where it might be considered a formal or aesthetic defect.9 In the case of MH, his inconsistency is unexpected if his purpose is to clarify Homer for his readers. But for these readers the clarity of this particular historia might be the primary desideratum. Apollodorus is comparable in this respect and again the explanation is his readership, although it was of course very different from MH’s.10 The overriding concern of MH, which will be pointed out again below, is the simplicity of the story that he is telling.11 In the speech in which Poseidon says that he and Apollo built the wall he complains to Zeus that the fame of the Achaeans’ wall will eclipse the fame of the wall built by him and Apollo (7.446–453). Zeus then grants him the ultimate destruction of the Achaeans’ wall (7.455–463), which the narrator later foresees (12.17–33). In short, the two gods, who were on opposite sides during the war, together built a wall before the war began and together destroyed a wall after the war ended.
9 Variation belongs to the definition of Greek myth: Edmunds 1990, 5–6, 14–15; Edmunds 1997, 420–425; Edmunds 2014, 3, 5–6, 9, 18; Pàmias 2014, 46. 10 I called this trait in Apollodorus munditia fabulae: Edmunds 2017, 85, 87, 89. But Apollodorus’ readers were different from MH’s: see following n. 11 Again a trait, which I called incuria incovenientium, found in Apollodorus: Edmunds 2017, 89–90, 93 (“…a deliberate strategy, (…) a way of achieving concision and, at the same time, preserving self-consistency at least in the immediate context”). For an inventory of variants in Apollodorus see Fowler 2017 (Appendix, 168–174), who finds that he is unsystematic in his citation of them: “The enterprise is redolent of the Second Sophistic, with its urbanity, its casual assumption of superiority, its elegant and ornamental citation of learned material…” (166).
Lowell Edmunds MH does not refer to the event that would explain Zeus’ motivation for imposing their menial role on Apollo and Poseidon. It is the palace revolution in which they and others participated. (This event may be referred to in the papyrus fragment of the scholion to be discussed below.) Achilles refers to the gods’ attempt to bind Zeus: ὁππότε μιν ξυνδῆσαι Ὀλύμπιοι ἤθελον ἄλλοι (1.399). There are three scholia that are relevant to this event, in particular to which of the gods participated and what they attempted to do. These scholia are in agreement on the gods’ immediate purpose, the binding of Zeus, but not on which gods participated.12 The differences between Achilles’ list of gods and the scholia, on the one hand, and the differences within the scholia, on the other, are clearest in tabular form. Tab. 14: The palace revolution. Gods who revolted against Zeus
Iliad and scholia
Hera, Poseidon, Athena
Il. . (Achilles)
Hera, Poseidon, Apollo
schol. A Il. .13 Erbse (Zenodotus)
Poseidon and Apollo
schol. T Il. .d Erbse
Ποσειδῶν δὲ καὶ Ἥρα, καὶ Ἀπόλλων καὶ Ἀθηνᾶ14
D schol. Il. . (quoted above n. )
“Some write καὶ Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων.” Explanation of the motive of each of the four.15
schol. bT Il. . Erbse
the gods
Tzetzes, schol. in Lyc.
12 The immediate purpose, i.e., the binding of Zeus: schol. T Il. 21.444d: ἠθέλησαν γὰρ συνδῆσαι τὸν Δία Ποσειδάων καὶ Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων; schol D Il. 1.400 (with subscription to Didymus): Ποσειδῶν δὲ καὶ Ἥρα, καὶ Ἀπόλλων καὶ Ἀθηνᾶ ἐβούλοντο αὐτὸν δήσαντες ὑποτάξαι.12 Tzetzes begin his version of the story (to which I return in the text below): τῶν θεῶν βουλομένων δῆσαι τὸν Δῖα and continues to the servitude (θητεῦσαι, schol. in Lyc. 34; cf. Il. 21.444). 13 Zenodotus’ Apollo would be consistent with the insurrection as presupposed by the D scholion on Il. 20.145, whereas Hera, Poseidon, Athena as pro-Achaean are anti-Zeus in the time-frame of the Iliad. See West 2011, 94 on 1.400; cf. Lang 1983, 148. 14 καὶ Ἀθηνᾶ is bracketed by van Thiel (see his app. crit.). He assumes a varia lectio. But, as Nereida Villagra has pointed out to me, it is more likely to be a different version of the myth. 15 Ἀθηνᾶν δὲ διὰ τὸ ἀναγκασθῆναι ζευχθῆναι Ἡφαίστῳ!
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
In sum, Achilles names Hera, Poseidon, Athena (1.400), while Poseidon names only himself and Apollo (21.444). The scholia reflect various opinions on the matter. As for the places in the Iliad that I have cited, the difference between Achilles’ list of gods and Poseidon’s (himself and Apollo) can be explained as character speech as distinguished from narrator speech.16 Characters retell or refer to events of the past (to myths, we would say, that lie outside the time-frame of the Iliad) as the circumstances require.17 It makes sense in the context of Poseidon’s speech for him to refer only to himself and Apollo, the two gods whose punishment took place at Troy. Achilles has, however, no apparent reason for including Athena in the group of three gods whom he names. Because he has been well-informed by his mother concerning the revolution, as the rest of his speech shows, he might have been expected to include Apollo instead of Athena. Zenodotus’ reading (see Table 6) has some likelihood. One of the two papyrus fragments referred to above belongs to the beginning of the historia (P. Schub. 21).18 The word δ]εσμοῖς, if it refers to the insurrection against Zeus, would indicate a version of the myth in which MH began with the events preceding the servitude of Apollo and Poseidon.19 (These are the events narrated in the D scholion to 1.399, which I have discussed above.) Such is the argument of Montanari, who sees the possibility of a longer redaction of Hellanicus than the one that we have.20 But how much longer is of course a question that cannot be answered. It can also be argued, as below, that the D scholion on Il. 20.145 aims at concision. Van Rossum-Steenbeek takes a completely different view of the matter. She sees the papyrus fragment as referring to the story of Laomedon’s exposure of Hesione and her rescue by Heracles, i.e., to a later phase of MH’s narrative, and points in particular to Apollo and δ]εσμοῖς in the fragment as occurring also in the parallel versions of this story in Apollodorus (2.103–104 [2.5.9]) and Diodorus Siculus (4.42.3–5).21 In Apollodorus, however, chains are not explicitly mentioned and Apollo is the source of the prophecy that causes Laomedon to expose his daughter, whereas in Diodo 16 In Nünlist-de Jong 2000 see “Figuren-Sprache” and “Erzähler-Text.” On this distinction see also de Jong 1987, ch. 5 (“Character-Text (Speeches)); Edmunds 2014, 5–8. 17 Cf. Edmunds 1997, 419–420 on the typical features of characters’ retelling of myths in the Il. 18 Schol. and pap. are printed in parallel columns in Fowler 2000. 19 Cf. Achilles’ ξυνδῆσαι and the scholia cited above. δ]εσμοῖς might, however, be the chains with which Zeus bound Hera and hung her aloft (ὕψοθεν) as her punishment (περὶ χερσὶ δὲ δεσμὸν ἴηλα, 15.18–19). 20 Montanari 1995a, 119–120; see also Montanari 1995b, 149. 21 van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 98–99.
Lowell Edmunds rus Siculus Apollo sends a plague. In short, van Rossum-Steenbeek is not referring to a single, consistent narrative and Montanari’s explanation is to be preferred. For Hellanicus there is attested another version of the labor of Poseidon and Apollo. They worked for Laomedon in the guise of mortals in order to test him, because he was arrogant. (Zeus is not mentioned.) The test was the wages that he promised them. Hellanicus also gave this version (FGrH 4F26a = Fowler fr. 26a; from schol. G Il. 21.444c), as MH can be assumed to have known, whether directly or indirectly from a Homeric commentary. The two fragments of Hellanicus are also inconsistent with respect to the wall that they built. In one, it encircles the inner citadel (26a). In the other, it is the outer wall around the city, the one often mentioned in the Iliad (26b).22 There were two other versions of the myth. Herodorus rationalized the myth saying that Laomedon, in order to finance the construction of the wall, diverted money intended for sacrifices to Poseidon and Apollo (FGrH 31 F 28 = Fowler fr. 28).23 In other words, the gods did not build the wall. Metrodorus of Chius, in the same scholion that preserves Hellanicus fr. 26a, entirely removes Poseidon and Apollo from the myth: μετὰ ταῦτα λέγουσι παρ’ αὐτὸν ἀφικέσθαι δύο ἄνδρας, ὁπόθεν μὲν καὶ οἵτινες, οὐδεὶς ἔχει εἰπεῖν ἀτρεκέως· ἐλθόντας δὲ εἰπεῖν, ὅτι Λαομέδοντι χρὴ ἀνδρὶ βασιλεῖ εἶναι ἀκρόπολιν ἐν τῆι πόλει, ἐν ἧι αὐτὸν οἰκεῖν πρέποι· “ἡμεῖς οὖν σοι θέλομεν τειχίον κτίσαι καὶ ἐπιστατῆσαι.” FGrH 43 F 2 = 70 B 4 D-K = Fowler fr. 224 Thereafter they say that two men came to him, whence they came and who they were no one could say exactly. When they arrived they said that Laomedon, as a king, ought to have an acropolis in his city, in which it was fitting that he live. “We then wish to build a wall for you and have the care of it.”
The inner wall in Metrodorus is the same as in Hellanicus fr. 26a but the builders are humans, not gods in disguise, as implicitly in the fragment of Hellanicus.
22 On the two walls: Fowler 2013, 312–313. 23 On which see Fowler 2013, 313. This version is found also in schol. T Il. 21.444d Erbse, along with another rationalizing version in which two men working without pay dedicated the wall to Apollo and Poseidon. As Erbse says, Eustathius knew a longer account of the various versions of the building of the wall (vol. 4, 533–535 van der Valk). 24 For Metrodorus and for comment on this fr.: Fowler 2013, 705.
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
Tab. 15: The walls and the builders. Builders of wall
Which wall
Why
Il. and scholia
Poseidon, Apollo
τοῦ δέ (), “and that one,” i.e. perimeter wall?
ἀθλήσαντε cf. . πάθομεν κακά
Il. .–
Poseidon
πόλιν περί
παρ’ Διὸς ἐλθόντες κτλ.
Il. .–
Poseidon, Apollo
τὸ τεῖχος (the famous wall, i.e., perimeter wall?)
προστάξαντος Διός
D schol. Il. . (Hellanicus fr. b)
Poseidon, Apollo
inner
test of Laomedon
schol. G .c (Hellanicus fr. a)
two men
inner
for wages (implicitly)
schol. G Il. .c (Metrodorus fr. )
Hellanicus’ two versions of the gods’ servitude to Laomedon were probably both well-known and MH might have chosen to report either. The question then arises why he chose the one that he chose as in D schol. Il. 20.145. A probable reason is that this version, i.e., punishment of the two gods by Zeus, is specifically Iliadic, clearly linked to Achilles’ words in Book 1, whereas the other version belongs to a type, which has been called the theoxeny.25 The best-known example is the story of Baucis and Philemon. The premise of such stories is well summed up by an anonymous suitor in the Odyssey: καί τε θεοὶ ξείνοισιν ἐοικότες ἀλλοδαποῖσι, παντοῖοι τελέθοντες, ἐπιστρωφῶσι πόληας, ἀνθρώπων ὕβριν τε καὶ εὐνομίην ἐφορῶντες. Od. 17.485–487
The G scholiast (on Il. 21.444) cites Od. 17.485 (cf. Apollod. 2.103–104 [2.5.9]); notices in particular the gods’ mortal guise; and says that their purpose was to test Laomedon’s arrogance (ἐπὶ τῷ πειρᾶσαι τὴν ὕβριν Λαομέδοντος).
25 Kearns 1982, 5–7, who defines the type and gives examples. Cf. Griffiths 2012; Fowler 2013, 311–312.
Lowell Edmunds
The monster D schol. Il. 20.145 continues: Laomedon reneged on the wages and drove the two gods away. Poseidon then sent a monster (κῆτος).26 MH says that this monster “destroyed the humans whom it encountered and the growing crops (τοὺς γιγνομένους καρποὺς)” where “the growing crops” might suggest that the monster was fully amphibious and crushed the crops under its great bulk.27 A fully amphibious monster might have been suggested to MH by lines in the immediate context of the line to which the scholion is attached: ὄφρα τὸ κῆτος ὑπεκπροφυγὼν ἀλέαιτο, / ὁππότε μιν σεύαιτο ἀπ’ ἠϊόνος πεδίονδε (20.147–148).28 MH might have understood the last of these words to mean “to the plain” and not “toward the plain,” i.e., in the direction of the plain. Lycophron, however, refers to Hesione as sent to the monster and explains, with unusual clarity: τῷ πᾶσαν ἅλμῃ πηλοποιοῦντι χθόνα, ὅταν κλύδωνας ἐξερεύγηται γνάθων, λάβρῳ σαλεύων πᾶν τρικυμίᾳ πέδον. 473–475
Tzetzes referred to flooding caused by the monster ὅπερ τῆν χῶραν κατέλυσεν, ἀποπτύων τὴν θάλασσαν (schol. in Lyc. 34). Diodorus Siculus’ gives a rationalizing explanation: “By this monster those living beside the sea and those farming the litoral were unexpectedly carried away” (Diod. Sic. 4.42.2). (He adds that there was also a plague, sent by Apollo.) In any case, the monster would be specifically a sea monster as required by MH’s explanation of Athena’s wall. MH in fact assumes that the wall built for Heracles by Athena was an effective defense (Ἀθηνᾶς αὐτῶι πρόβλημα ποιησάσης τὸ καλούμενον ἀμφίχυτον τεῖχος) but does not explain why. Schol. bT on 20.145 glosses the epithet of the 26 LfgrE s.v. gives “sea monster” (“Μeeresungeheuer”) as the first meaning, citing Il. 20.147 and Hes. Cat. fr. 89.4 in the edition of Traversa (1951) and “large sea animals” as the second, only of seals but possibly also of large fish. Poseidon is the lord of these creatures: Il. 13.27; Od. 5.421. (This word is not found in the edition of M-W.) For a detailed study of the semantics of κῆτος and in particular on the relation of this monster to the drakōn see Ogden 2013, 116– 118. 27 For the monster’s damaging the land cf. Palaephaetus 37: περὶ τοῦ Κήτους τάδε λέγεται, ὡς τοῖς Τρωσὶν ἐκ τῆς θαλάσσης ἐπεφοίτα καί, εἰ μὲν αὐτῷ δοῖεν κόρας εἰς βοράν, ἀπῄει, εἰ δὲ μή, ἐλυμαίνετο τὴν χώραν αὐτῶν. Palaephatus does not mention Hesione. For multiple maidens cf. Hyg. Fab. 89. 28 The narrator at 20.144–148 refers to “Athena and the Trojans,” a cooperation unimaginable at the time of the Trojan War.
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
wall in the Iliad, ἀμφίχυτον ‘heaped up’: “because it was not made of stones but as an embankment, so that Heracles could easily run up onto it and escape the attack of the monster” (ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ λίθων, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀναχώματος ἦν, ὑπὲρ τοῦ ῥᾳδίως ἀνατρέχειν τὸν Ἡρακλέα ἐπ’ αὐτό, τὴν τοῦ κήτους ὑποφεύγοντα ἔφοδον). If Athena’s wall was effective for this reason, then presumably the monster could not pursue Heracles up the wall. The reason would be that the monster, as a sea monster, was only marginally amphibious. The simplest explanation for the monster’s somewhat puzzling destruction of the growing crops and also for the abbreviated account of the wall would be a desire for concision, an aspect of this historia already noticed. As for the monster, MH could not assume, as Homer could assume, that it was well-known to his audience.29 And yet MH seems to have made this assumption, even though he aims to make the basic information easily accessible to an audience in need of this kind of help in reading Homer.30 As pointed out earlier, this same kind of concision is found also in the more discursive Apollodorus.
The oracle D schol. Il. 20.145 continues with the oracle received by Laomedon, his subsequent exposure of his daughter Hesione as food for the monster and his promise of the immortal horses to whoever could destroy the monster. Hesione is not named in Homer or in other archaic verse.31 A reason for this silence in Homer is suggested below. She appears unnamed in two vase paintings of the sixth century B.C.E. (LIMC “Hesione” 3*–4).32 She remains a rather obscure character in Greek verse.33 The place in which Laomedon exposed Hesione is relevant to the question, discussed above, of the nature of the monster. The place was on the seashore
29 In 20.147 (τὸ κῆτος) the definite article is deictic (Schwyzer 2.22). Edwards 1991, 145–148n: “the sea-monster .” 30 On the readership of MH: van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 117–118; Pagès 2017, 77–78. 31 Contrary to LfgrE s.v. “Hesione” and to LIMC “Hesione,” she is not mentioned in Hes. Cat. 165 M-W, which concerns Augē, the mother of Telephus. Heracles’ union with her took place εὖτε μεθ’ ἵ]ππους στεῖχεν ἀγαθοῦ Λαομέδοντο[ς (10). 32 For a better photograph of LIMC Hesione 3* see Ogden 2013, 120 fig. 31. 33 She perhaps appeared in Sophocles’ lost Teucer; certainly in Pacuvius’ (see Gantz 1993, 694). The shadowy tragic poet Demetrius perhaps wrote a satyr play about Hesione (TrGF 1.40). The poet Alexis (4th–3rd c. B.C.E.) wrote an Hesione (PCG vol. 2, frs. 88–90).
Lowell Edmunds (παρὰ τὸν αἰγιαλόν, Diod. Sic. 4.42.4). Apollodorus adds the detail that her father “set her forth and bound her to rocks near the sea (προύθηκε ταῖς πλησίον τῆς θαλάσσης πέτραις προσαρτήσας, 2.103–104 [2.5.9]). In the earlier of the two vase paintings cited above, the head of the monster appears to emerge from a wave that has carried it to the terra firma on which Heracles and Hesione are standing.34 These locations are consistent with the Iliad, which presupposes that the encounters of Heracles and the monster took place on the seashore (20.147– 148, quoted above). The monster lives in the sea, from which it can emerge for only a short distance. Not in MH but in other sources the reward offered by Laomedon included Hesione. In Diodorus Siculus, Heracles and the Argonauts disembark in the Troad (exact place not specified); Heracles frees Hesione and takes her to Troy; Heracles offers to free Troy of the monster and Laomedon accepts the offer. Heracles then slays the monster. At this point, Hesione is given the choice of remaining in Troy or going with Heracles. She chooses the latter. Heracles then continues with the Argonauts to Colchis, leaving the horses and Hesione with Laomedon, on the understanding that he will receive them when he returns (4.42.5–7). (Heracles is defrauded by Laomedon, apparently having returned to Troy on his own, not with the Argonauts. He then goes away (it is implicit); assembles a fleet; returns to Troy and kills Laomedon.) In Hyginus’ more compressed account Heracles is also one of the Argonauts; both Hesione and the immortal horses seem to have been promised (Fab. 89). In MH, however, as already in Homer (Il. 5.640), the reward promised by Laomedon is the immortal horses. Uniquely in MH Laomedon substitutes mortal horses (5. below).
Heracles D schol. Il. 20.145 continues with (a) the arrival of Heracles and his accepting Laomedon’s challenge. (b) Athena makes a defense for him, the so-called heaped up wall, referred to in the line in the Iliad to which the historia is attached (20.145, quoted above, where the wall is discussed). (c) Entering through its mouth into the belly of the monster, Heracles destroys it by cutting into it flanks. (a) From MH’s παραγενόμενος ὑπέσχετο it sounds as if Heracles had not known of the challenge in advance but accepted it when he arrived. MH, unlike the other main sources for the myth, does not say where Heracles came from. In
34 See Ogden 2013, 121 for this interpretation.
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
Apollodorus, Heracles arrives at Troy, apparently by chance, after his battle with the Amazons and his taking of the belt of Hippolyte (2.103–104 [2.5.9]). In Diodorus Siculus, the Argonauts, who included Heracles and his friend Telamon, were blown by a storm to the Troad, when they were en route to Colchis. Diodorus Siculus distinguishes between two versions of Heracles’ recovery of Hesione and the horses. In one, the Argonauts, returning from Colchis, fight a battle with the Trojans and Heracles kills Laomedon. In the other, Heracles leads his own campaign. This is the Iliadic version (5.638–642, quoted by Diod. Sic.). The Iliad refers to the storm that Hera sent when Heracles was returning to Argos after the sack of Troy (14.250–251). Hyginus combines the two versions that are distinguished in Diodorus Siculus. Heracles and Telamon arrive at Troy for the first time with the Argonauts; they kill the monster; leave Hesione and the horses with Laomedon; continue with the Argonauts. Earlier I pointed out that MH chose the specifically Iliadic version of the servitude of Apollo and Poseidon to Laomedon (1. above). MH has done the same in the matter of Heracles’ independent recovery of the reward promised by Laomedon. Heracles gave Hesione to Telamon as a reward because he was the first to force his way into the city (Diod. Sic. 4.32.5; cf. Hyg. Fab. 78).35 The friendship of the two heroes is the theme of the myth in Isthmian 6. Telamon’s role in the campaign against Troy is one of the examples and Pindar refers to the treachery of Laomedon (Pind. Isthm. 6, 27–35). MH does not mention Telamon. His bastard son by Hesione was Teucer, who excels in the Iliad as an archer. Agamemnon exhorts him to be a light to the Danaans and to his father Telamon, who raised him though he was a bastard.36 Nor does MH mention Teucer, not having mentioned Telamon. As pointed out earlier, Homer does not mention Hesione; his audiences could be assumed to know who the mother of the bastard Teucer was. Homer’s not mentioning her and MH’s not mentioning Teucer and Telamon have different reasons. As for Homer, Hesione, who was a sister of Priam, would have been a reminder that Teucer was Priam’s nephew and the cousin of the Trojan archer, Paris. These are associations that would not enhance the stature of Teucer.37 As for MH, his historiae do not suggest that he assumes that his readers have a detailed knowledge of the Iliad. His omission of Telamon in D-schol. Il. 20.145 is more
35 Apollodorus gives a version in which Heracles is at first jealous of Telamon’s success and considers killing him (2.135 [2.6.4]). 36 αἴ κέν τι φόως Δαναοῖσι γένηαι / πατρί τε σῷ Τελαμῶνι, ὅ σ' ἔτρεφε τυτθὸν ἐόντα, / — καί σε νόθον περ ἐόντα κομίσσατο ᾧ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ (8.282–284). 37 Cf. Fowler 2013, 311: “Homer is too tactful to mention that the mother [of Teucer] was Priam’s sister Hesione...”
Lowell Edmunds probably attributed to the concision of his narrative. Apollodorus shows this same tendency toward concise combination of received mythographical data, as pointed out above. MH’s omission is consistent with the brevity of his references to Heracles and of the campaign against Troy in particular. In another version of the punishment of Apollo and Poseidon, Telamon’s success is prepared for by the participation of a mortal in the building of the Trojan wall. Pindar, in Olympian 8 (for Alcimedon of Aegina) tells how the two gods summoned Aeacus to collaborate with them because Troy was destined to fall. (It is implicit that a wall built completely by gods would be impregnable.38) When the wall was complete, there was an omen which Apollo interpreted as foretelling that the wall would be breached in the place built by the mortal Aeacus (Pind. Ol. 8.31–44). Further, it would be the son of Aeacus (Telamon, not mentioned by name) who would breach the wall, as his later descendants Neoptolemus and Epeius would play important roles in the second sack of Troy (45– 46; Pind. Pyth. 8, for another Aeginetan athlete, celebrates the island’s “heroes in victorious contests and swift battles”: 26–27). MH would have known the version of the myth in which Aeacus was summoned by the two gods but again (cf. 1. and 4.a above) he adheres strictly to the Iliadic version, which excludes Aeacus (Aeacus is named only once in the Iliad, by his grandson Achilles, when he boasts of his ancestry over the slain Asteropaeus: Il. 21.187–189). (b) The wall was discussed earlier apropos of the nature of the monster. (c) MH says that Heracles entered the belly of the monster through its mouth (εἰσδὺς διὰ τοῦ στόματος εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν τοῦ κήτους). How did Heracles kill the monster? Cassandra in Lycophron, in a lament for the destruction of Troy by Heracles, refers to him as the lion: (...) ὅν ποτε γνάθοις Τρίτωνος ἠμάλαψε κάρχαρος κύων: ἔμπνους δὲ δαιτρὸς ἡπάτων φλοιδούμενος τινθῷ λέβητος ἀφλόγοις ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάραις σμήριγγας ἐστάλαξε κωδείας πέδῳ 33–37
With “carver of the liver” a metaphor of sacrifice comes in.39 Lycophron can assume that his audience knows that Heracles killed the monster from within and how he did it. (Neither Diodorus Siculus nor Apollodorus says anything about how Heracles killed the monster.) 38 As explained in schol. Pind. Ol. 8.41a Drachmann, which cites Didymus. 39 Hornblower 2015, n. 36.
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
The second of the two papyrus fragments referred to in the introduction gives a somewhat different version of Heracles’ killing the monster (P. Berol. 13282).40 The papyrus refers to its ribs (πλευρά), using a Homeric word (Il. 4.468, though elsewhere the acc. plur. πλευράς [Il. 3 times] is found [nom. plur. at Od. 17.232]). MH uses the plural of λάγων, which is not Homeric but a more general word. Whatever the reason for this particular difference, clearly the memory of how Heracles killed the monster had faded in the time after Lycophron, at least among the readers of Homer presupposed by MH. The killing of the monster has received three different, but not mutually exclusive, typological analyses. First, the rescue of Hesione bears an obvious resemblance to the rescue of Andromeda by Perseus. These myths belong to the broad type of “The Dragon-Slayer” (AT 300 = ATU 300 (revised)), attested in folktales and in other genres. In this type, the hero’s reward for slaying the dragon is sometimes the maiden herself (Mot T68.1). William Hansen has discussed this type. His first of several examples, including Heracles’ rescue of Hesione, is the myth of Perseus and Andromeda.41 I add in passing that Hansen has assembled and discussed one hundred such folktale types that turn up, with characteristic variance of genre, in ancient Greece in hero myth. Second, in a more circumscribed typology, Heracles’ rescue of Hesione is an example of ATU 1889G “Man Swallowed by Fish.” A huge fish swallows a sailor or a whole crew of sailors. Later the fish is caught and the one or the ones inside it are found alive.42 The killing of the fish by someone whom it has swallowed might have seemed the peculiarity of the Heracles myth but an example is known from Niue, a coral island in the South Pacific etc. A woman is gathering shellfish on a reef when she is swallowed by a whale. With the sharp-edged shells that she has with her, she scrapes the insides of the whale, which is agitated to swim three hundred miles to the Tonga islands. There it is stranded on a beach. The people who come to see the whale see the edge of a shell making a cut down its skin. Their chief steps forward and tears an edge of the cut sideways. The woman emerges. That night they have a feast of whale meat.43 If the resemblance of the tale from Niue to the ancient Greek myth is the result of diffusion (not necessarily from either of these places to the other but hypothetically in both cases from somewhere else) then they are cognates. There is also a
40 Most recent texts of the fragment, Montanari 1995a, 117; Fowler 2000, 167. 41 Hansen 2002a, 119–130; 2002b. See now Ogden 2013, 123–129. 42 Cf. the second in the list of seven categories in Brednich 2011, cols. 431–432 “Der W. verschlingt Menschen.” 43 My summary of Reed 2000, 95–98. He does not give his source.
Lowell Edmunds folktale from the Orkney Islands in which a sailor’s boat goes down the throat of a monster; the sailor kills it by inserting burning peat into its liver; and wins the king’s daughter as a reward.44 Further research would be necessary, which might put in doubt the conclusion of a thorough study of whale stories, from antiquity to the present, according to which the whale is a “book beast” rather than a “story beast.”45 This research would take into account the monstrous serpent that Jason killed. On an Athenian kylix he is shown hanging from the serpent’s mouth, a version of the myth not attested in verbal sources (Douris, ca. 480–470 B.C.E., Vat. 16545).46 Two Early Corinthian pots may show the same scene. Whether Jason entered the serpent voluntarily or involuntarily and whether or not he attacked it from within, as Heracles did, remain unclear. 47 Third, Malcolm Davies discusses the rescue of Hesione as a disguised version of the hero’s conquest of Death, a recurring motif in the exploits of Heracles. He observes that this motif often takes the form of rescuing a princess; that the father of the princess often represents Death; and that Death is “regularly depicted as an animal, a monster or a Mischwesen.” Finally, he calls attention to Heracles’ entering the belly of the monster and compares the story of Jonah, which has been interpreted symbolically as a death and rebirth. He, too, compares Perseus’ rescue of Andromeda.48 The question remains of Heracles’ entering the mouth of the monster. In MH’s version he is not swallowed but enters the mouth deliberately. So εἰσδὺς διὰ τοῦ στόματος suggests. In this respect MH diverges from the second of the types that have been defined and gives what might be called a more consistently heroic version of the killing of the monster. If there was ever in Greek myth a version in which Heracles was swallowed is impossible to know. There were also two other versions. In one, known from a vase painting (LIMC “Hesione”4 = LIMC “Ketos” 25), Heracles cuts off the monster’s tongue (and so presumably cannot be swallowed). In the other, also known from a vase painting, he shoots
44 Ogden 2013, 123 and n. 29 for his sources. 45 Schenda 1965, 448: “Ingesamt gesehen is der Wal...eher ein Buch-Tier als ein Erzähl-Tier...” But Schenda 1965, 438 cites Mot F911.4 (“Fish (or water monster) swallows a man”), which has a copious bibliography. In n. 54 Schenda cites two other typological studies, which I have not consulted. As for the translation of κῆτος by “whale,” one should remember that “relatively few” ancient Greeks or Romans “will have had the chance to inspect the fully intact body of a whale, dead or alive” (Ogden 2013, 117). 46 For a photograph: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Douris_cup_Jason_Vatican_ 16545.jpg (accessed on 18 January 2022). 47 Gantz 1993, 359–360. 48 Davies 2003.
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
arrows at the monster (LIMC “Hesione” 3 = LIMC “Ketos” 24). This version turns up in the Posthomerica of Quintus of Smyrna.49
The substitution of the horses D schol. Il. 20.145 continues with Laomedon’s substituting mortal horses: “When Heracles perceived (what Laomedon had done) he made war on him, destroyed Troy and thus drove off the horses”. In other sources, Telamon was Heracles’ comrade in arms in the campaign against Troy and was given Hesione as a prize (4.a above). In Lycophron she is not named but is referred to as “she who was given as the first spoils to the tower-underminer” (469), i.e., Telamon.50 Laomedon’s substitution belongs to the amply subdivided category of “Cheating by substitution of worthless articles” (Mot K476).51 The best-known example in Greek myth is Prometheus’ sacrifice of the bones and fat instead of the meat of the victim. In conclusion, some traits of MH as a mythographer have emerged rather clearly, no matter how distant in time from MH himself the redaction of the scholion may be. These are, first, concision and, second, inconsistency with what he says elsewhere, traits that he shares with Apollodorus and also with Hellanicus (1.). The concision does not adversely affect the scholion as a whole, which gives a simple and coherent narrative, but it does cause a minor obscurity, the monster’s destruction of the crops (2).52 This narrative is not an eclectic summary of the myth of Heracles’ sack of Troy but a particular variant of the myth, which can be called Iliadic. It even includes an Iliadic variant of the servitude of Apollo and Poseidon to Laomedon (1.) Further, it follows the Iliadic version of the myth in Heracles’ recovery of the reward promised by Laomedon (4.a). MH’s silence concerning Telamon can be 49 κεῖτο δ’ ἐπὶ προχοῇσιν ἐυρρόου Ἑλλησπόντου / ἀργαλέον μέγα κῆτος ἀμειλίκτοισιν ὀιστοῖς / βλήμενον· Ἡσιόνης δὲ κακοὺς ἀπελύετο δεσμούς (6.289–291). 50 For a variant see Hornblower 2015, 227 n. on 469. 51 For the organization of Mot: Edmunds 2016, 24–35. 52 My findings concerning the historia in D schol. Il. 20.145 differ somewhat from those of Villagra/Pàmias (2020, 35), who have studied a series of scholia which cite Pherecyd. fr. 41b Fowler and for which there is also a papyrus fragment. They conclude: “En el caso que presentamos, las pequeñas diferencias entre el papiro y el escolio D, así como las coincidencias con el escolio Q, sugieren que se trata de un texto con una transmisión abierta y transversal, susceptible a una gran manipulación.” It seems to me that D schol. Il. 20.145 is interpretable with reference to MH whatever the effects of its transmission.
Lowell Edmunds regarded as a reflection of the Iliad’s discretion concerning this hero (4.a). Finally, the first of the two papyrus fragments suggests a redaction of MH in which the historia began with the palace revolution against Zeus (1.). This revolution and its consequences are alluded to in several places in the Iliad, by various speakers but not in narrative sequence. Mabel Lang listed the places in their order of occurrence in the Iliad, as in the following list, in which I have added the speaker in parentheses.53 – A 1.396–400 Thetis’ aid to Zeus against Hera, Athena, Poseidon (Achilles) – B 1.586–594 Hephaestus’ attempt to help Hera; thrown to earth by Zeus (Hephaestus) – C 5.638–642 Heracles defrauded by Laomedon; sack of Troy (Tlepolemus) – D 14.247–262 Zeus lulled to sleep by Hypnos to aid Hera’s sending storm against Heracles (Hypnos) – E 15.18–24 Hera punished by Zeus (Zeus) – F 15.24–30 Heracles driven off course by Hera (Zeus) – G 20.145–148 Wall built by Athena and Trojans to protect Heracles from sea monster (narrator) – H 21.441–457 Poseidon and Apollo punished by Zeus; service to Laomedon (Poseidon) When these places are put in their narrative sequence, with the addition of the links between H and G (as in MH), they appear thus: 1. A 2. H [2.1 Poseidon and Apollo defrauded by Laomedon; monster sent by Poseidon [2.2 Heracles’ offer to remove monster for reward 3. G 4. C 5. D 6. F 7. E 8. B
53 Lang 1983, 147–151. (My rubrics differ from hers.) L-N-S 2000 on Il. 1.400 summarily reject Lang’s reconstruction while at the same time they cite, as contrary to their view, the D and bT scholia on 1.400 and the scholion T on Il. 21.444. They are apparently unaware of πὰρ Διὸς ἐλθόντες at 21.443. They refer to Zenodotus’ Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων at 1.400 as “unnecessary.” See n. 13 above.
Heracles’ Sack of Troy in Mythographus Homericus (D schol. Il. 20.145)
MH clearly implies the palace revolution and supplies the missing links (2.1–2) between Zeus’ punishment of Apollo and Poseidon and Heracles’ later interaction with Laomedon. MH omits everything having to do with Hera’s affliction of Heracles and Zeus’ punishment of her (5.D, 6.F, 7.E, 8.B), probably for the sake of the concision of his narrative. (D schol. Il. 1.590 recounts the story of Hera’s interference with Heracles’ return from Troy, ending ὥς φησιν ὁ ποιητής.)54 Despite the omission of Hera, MH’s narrative is a summary, still useful to us, of the consequences of the palace revolution and it is a good corroboration of Lang’s insight. Laomedon’s substitution of mortal horses in MH’s version of the story adds another typological dimension (cf. 4. above). Heracles has his share of folkloric aspects, beginning with his precocious growth and ending with his death, caused by the shirt of Nessus (Mot D 1402.5).55 Some of the labors of Heracles have long been recognized as folktale types: the Augean stables (Mot H 1102), the apples of the Hesperides (Mot H 1151.1), with which is connected Antaeus (Mot D 1833), and Cerberus (Mot H 1271). Whether the analogous folktales are derivative from or, contrariwise, show the origins of these episodes, is debated.56 In any case, MH’s version of “Heracles’ Sack of Troy” constitutes an exceptionally dense imbrication of types and motifs, with “The Dragon-Slayer,” “Man Swallowed by Fish,” and “Cheating by substitution of worthless articles.” Those who decide in favor of the priority of oral folktale versions have in MH valuable evidence of how they have gone into the formation of a Greek myth, which has gone into the formation of the Iliad.57
Sigla and reference editions AT = Aarne, Antti/Stith Thompson (1961), The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, 2nd ed. FF Communications, vol. 75, no. 184, Helsinki. ATU = Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004), The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography. 3 vols. FF Communications 284, 285, 286. Helsinki. BK = Basler Kommentar = Latacz, Joachim/Bierl, Anton (eds.) (2000), Homers Ilias, Gesamtkommentar: Basler Kommentar (BK). Auf der Grundlage der Ausgabe von AmeisHentze-Cauer (1868–1913), Munich/Berlin.
54 Pagès 2007, 230: “es refereix simplement al fet que Homer caracteritza Hefest com a coix”. 55 Precocious growth: Köhler 1984. 56 Calomino 1990 surveys the discussion. 57 Obviously not the folktale texts that we have but their progenitors in antiquity.
Lowell Edmunds EM = Ranke, Kurt (ed.) (1977), Enzyklopädie des Märchens: Handwörterbuch zur historischen und vergleichenden Erzählforschung, 14 vols., Berlin. LIMC “Hesione” = Oakley, John H. (1997), in: LIMC VIII.1: 622–629. LIMC “Ketos” = Boardman, John (1997), in: LIMC VIII.1: 731–736. LIMC = Boardman, John et al. (1981–99), Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 9 vols., Zurich. L-N-S = Latacz, Joachim/Nünlist, René/Stoevesandt, Magdalena (2009), Homers Ilias Gesamtkommentar (Basler Kommentar/Bk), Vol. 1 (Book 1). Fasc. 2 (Commentary), Berlin/New York. Nünlist-de Jong = Nünlist, René/de Jong, Irene J.F. (2000), “Homerische Poetik in Stichwörtern”, in: Fritz Graf/Irene de Jong/Joachim Latacz/René Nünlist/Magdalene Stoevesandt/Rudolf Wachter/Martin L. West, Basler Kommentar. Prolegomena, vol. 1, München/Leipzig, 159–171.
Bibliography Brednich, Rolf W. (2011), “Wal”, in: EM 14.1, cols. 430–434. Calomino, Salvatore (1990), “Heracles”, in: EM 6, cols. 824–828. Davies, Malcolm (2003), “Heracles and Jonah”, Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica 96, 136–141. Davies, Malcolm (2011), “‘Unpromising’ Heroes and Heroes as Helpers in Greek Myth”, Prometheus 37, 107–127. Delattre, Charles (2016), “Référence et corpus dans les pratiques de commentaire: les emplois de historia”, Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes 90.2, 89–110. Edmunds, Lowell (1990), “Introduction: The Practice of Greek Mythology”, in: Lowell Edmunds (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth, Baltimore, 1–20. Edmunds, Lowell (1997), “Myth in Homer”, in: Barry Powell/Ian Morris (eds.), New Companion to Homer, Leiden, 415–441. Edmunds, Lowell (2014), “General Introduction”, in: Lowell Edmunds (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth, 2nd ed., Baltimore, 1–41. Edmunds, Lowell (2016), Stealing Helen: The Myth of the Abducted Wife in Comparative Perspective, Princeton. Edmunds, Lowell (2017), “Helen in Pseudo-Apollodorus Book 3”, in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana. Ancient Myths, New Crossroads, 82–99. Edwards, Mark (1991), The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 5 (Books 17–20), Cambridge. Fowler, Robert L. (2000–2013), Early Greek Mythography, 2 vols., Oxford. Gantz, Timothy (1993), Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Baltimore. Griffiths, Alan H. (2012), “Baucis”, in: OCD4, 226. Hansen, William (2002a), Ariadne’s Thread: A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature, Ithaca, NY. Hansen, William (2002b), “Perseus”, in: EM 10, cols. 755–758. Hornblower, Simon (2015), Lykophron: Alexandra, Oxford. Kearns, Emily (1982), “The Return of Odysseus: A Homeric Theoxeny”, Classical Quarterly 32, 2–8. Köhler, Ines (1984), “Erwachsen bei Geburt”, in: EM 4, cols. 307–345.
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Lang, Mabel (1983), “Reverberation and Mythology in the Iliad”, in: Carl A. Rubino/Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (eds.), Approaches to Homer, Austin, 140–164. Meliadò, Claudio (2015), “Mythography”, in: Franco Montanari/Stephanos Matthaios/Antonios Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, Leiden, 1057–1089. Montanari, Franco (1995a), “Revisione di P. Berol. 13282. I papiri del Mythographus Homericus”, in: Franco Montanari (ed.), Studi di filologia omerica antica 2, Pisa, 115–125. Orig. pub. as “Revisione di P. Berol. 13282. Le historiae fabulares omeriche su papiro,” in: Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, Naples: Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi, 1984. Vol. 2, 229–241. Montanari, Franco (1995b), “The Mythographus Homericus”, in: Jelle G.J. Abbenes/Simon R. Slings/Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Greek Literary Theory After Aristotle: A Collection of Papers in Honour of D.M. Schenkeveld, Amsterdam, 135–172. Ogden, Daniel (2013), Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford. Pagès, Joan (2007), Mythographus homericus: estudi i edició comentada, diss. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Pagès, Joan (2017), “Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and the Mythographus Homericus: An Intertextual Approach”, in: Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads, Berlin, 66–81. Pàmias, Jordi (ed.) 2017, Apollodoriana: Ancient Myths, New Crossroads, Berlin. Pàmias, Jordi (2014), “The Reception of Greek Myth”, in: Lowell Edmunds (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth, 2nd ed., Baltimore, 44–83. Reed, Alexander W. (2000), Myths and Legends of the Pacific, Auckland, 95–98. Schenda, Rudolf (1965), “Walfisch-Lore und Walfisch-Literatur”, Laographia 22, 431–448. Traversa, Augustus (1951), Hesiodi Catalogi sive Eoearum fragmenta, Naples. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique (1998), Greek Readers’ Digests? Studies on a Selection of Subliterary Papyri, Leiden. Van Thiel, Helmut (2000), “Die D-Scholien der Ilias in den Handschriften”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 132, 1–62. Van Thiel, Helmut (2014), Scholia D in Iliadem, 2nd ed., Köln. Villagra, Nereida/Jordi Pàmias, (2020), “Los escolios mitográficos y el Mythographus Homericus”, Polymnia 5, 20–38. West, Martin L. (2011), The Making of the Iliad, Oxford.
Afterword
Robert Fowler
Afterword In his 1892 dissertation Johannes Panzer first dubbed the author of the historiae in the Homeric scholia the ‘Mythographus Homericus’; following Eduard Schwartz against Julius Schwarz, he showed that these notes stemmed from a specialised mythological commentary on Homer rather than from a generic mythological compendium that was then excerpted by the scholiasts.1 On page 2 he tells us that he intended to publish an edition of the MH “as soon as I can” (quam primum potero), and that the dissertation would serve as its “Prolegomena” (sic). One hundred and thirty years later, we have before us another Prolegomena, but in this case we can be confident that the edition of Pagès and Villagra is forthcoming. It will be quite different from anything Panzer might have envisaged. The advent of the papyri clarified matters in one important respect—Schwartz/Panzer were right that there was a mythological commentary—but in every other respect matters have become much more complicated, as the studies in this volume demonstrate. It is not even completely safe to assume that there was only one MH who was copied into the scholia, as Pàmias suggests herein. Although no evidence has yet surfaced for books like the MH that served as sources for the scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes and others, still those scholia contain MH-style historiae and it would be foolish to deny that MH-style books could have existed for them too. In any case, the practice of writing historiae was clearly widespread, as we can see from many texts that tap into the rhetorical and grammatical traditions. Yet even if there was only one MH, we can be sure that more than one version circulated, so that detailed reconstruction of the single original is now impossible. Mythographical works were above all utilitarian, and every copyist was free to abridge, expand, and adapt the text to suit their own requirements. Moreover, once the MH entered the corpus of scholia, an additional layer of anarchy came into play, for the scholia too were endlessly adapted. These adaptations, apart from affecting the run of words, could include the addition of spurious source attributions, and the incorporation of historiae from other mythographical books than the MH. They could involve incorporating an abridged and modified historia from the MH into a differently oriented note. These practices put the original MH even further out of reach.
1 Panzer 1892; Schwartz 1881; Schwarz 1878. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-010
Robert Fowler The situation presents the editor with serious problems. There is no exact parallel I can think of. In reconstructing, say, Porphyry’s Quaestiones Homericae from the scholia, the time-honoured procedure is to count as fragments those passages where he is named, or where on unassailable comparative evidence one can be sure the passage draws on his book. There will then be other passages which one strongly suspects come from Porphyry, but where proof is lacking. In those cases, one can cite the material in the apparatus, include it in a section of fragmenta dubia, and/or discuss it in a commentary, laying out the probability of Porphyrian authorship. So it was with all of the mythographers in EGM. But it is different with the MH. There is no name for the book’s author, so reconstruction is based wholly on an assessment of its characteristics derived from the papyri and the presumed fragments in the scholia. But of course what constitutes reasonable presumption ought to be the result, not the premise, of the investigation: an element of circularity is unavoidable. A similar procedure is needed to reconstruct the lost, nameless sources of medieval lexica and encyclopaedias, but there one can separate out various differently-purposed lexica with greater confidence. Our situation is different from cases where we can see that preserved author A has used books by lost, nameless authors B, C and D on topic(s) X (Y, Z), and we then try to demarcate, on the basis of shifts in style or content, where B, C or D is the source. We may not always be sure of our conclusions, of course, but it is a straightforward kind of Quellenforschung compared to the MH. For the scholia are not ‘preserved author A’ like, say, Diodorus Siculus, and though the MH was (probably!) but one lost author B, he appears to us as a shape-shifter owing to the continual adaptations. We can sometimes see that the ‘preserved’ version in the scholia is superior to the ‘lost’ version (the one on papyrus). When a papyrus of lost source B for preserved author A turns up, it usually settles at least some questions; in our case, the questions keep multiplying. Yet complete despair is not warranted. The invaluable papyrus PSI 10, 1173, with its sequence of historiae corresponding nicely to those in the medieval scholia, shows the book’s general character; so too do the historiae copied together in bulk in the mss., which we can reasonably assume stand at not many removes from their original. Even those who take a pessimistic view of the possibilities, stressing the differences and the fluidity over the similarities and continuities, must still speak of the MH as represented in the scholia. They do not take the line that one should put every bit of mythographical material in the scholia into one’s ‘edition’ of the MH (it would be nothing of the kind). So it comes down to the criteria for inclusion or exclusion, and decisions about presentation. There will always be borderline cases and room for disagreement.
Afterword
Even if those disputed cases are many, there is a core of passages which any editor would include. Some of these could have been added by later scholiasts after the example of the MH, yet even so the core allows one to speak with reasonable assurance about the character and interests of its putative author. This both Pagès and Edmunds have done in their contributions to this volume. Moreover, the situation can be seen as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. The fluctuations of mythographical papyri may make traditional source criticism futile, but they also challenge us to develop subtler models for understanding scholarly and educational traditions in antiquity. They compel us to drill down deeper into the details of scholia than our predecessors did. They cause us to go back to neglected manuscripts. They throw up new methodological questions about editorial technique and oblige us to adapt our practice accordingly. In the case of the MH we are forced even to re-think the word ‘text’. In slightly different ways, Pagès and Villagra on the one hand and Montana and Montanari on the other have adopted this shift in perspective. As the former pair put it, we must consider that, in editing the MH, we are not editing an author but “an exegetical-mythographical tradition.” We are attempting to lay bare the different strata of this tradition, and the result will be “a group of texts which might never have existed synchronically as one book.”2 The details of this policy remain to be fleshed out, and each case will have to be judged on its merits, but the principle is sound. One suggestion might be to put borderline cases in an appendix along with scholia that are clearly not MH (such as that on Il. 2.220, which quotes Quintus of Smyrna), but which adopt his manner. In this way other scholars can make up their own minds about the MH, and one can have an overview of the entire history of this kind of activity as represented in the scholia. An aspect of this shift of perspective from author to tradition is that it very quickly leads to consideration of the broader cultural significance of the MH, and of mythography more generally. Every manuscript implies teachers, scribes, readers, commissioners, a market. Each has a story, not only for its own cultural context but for the philologia perennis. If the reader will forgive a digression, I well remember ordering up Bodl. Auct. V 1 51, the oldest manuscript witness of the V scholia to the Odyssey, in 1987. This MS was written a thousand years ago in a beautiful, lovingly crafted, early minuscule script;3 it draws on scholarship a thousand years older than itself, about an author some 600 years older still. Sitting in the gorgeous, silent surroundings of Duke Humfrey’s Re 2 Pagès/Villagra, this volume, Introduction. 3 For some images see https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/cf03418e-b998-4ab1-a64e2f44143a7874/surfaces/ce4ae72c-3c5b-444c-a687-24c510ae86ae/ (accessed on 18 January 2022).
Robert Fowler naissance library, with the book perched on its special stand and the edges of the parchment slowly curling in the air, I gingerly turned the pages with cottongloved fingers and made my careful notes in pencil. It seems to me that anyone who is not moved by such an experience is no scholar. I digress, but perhaps not too irrelevantly. In my little vignette I am the latest scholiast, joining the tradition with my own new purposes in mind. Every chapter in this volume, highly technical though it may be in its discussions of papyri, scholia and manuscripts, sheds light on the wider cultural milieu. Thus, Pontani presents Latin translations of Odyssean scholia in a manuscript annotated by none other than Petrarch and Boccaccio as part of their project to bring Homer back to the West; Villagra suggests tender ears in the classroom as the reason for a prurient omission in an historia; Michels’ forensic re-examination of the relationship between the MH and Apollodorus confronts the whole history of ancient scholarship on these matters; Smith’s equally forensic demolition of Cameron’s suggestion that there was also a Mythographus Vergilianus touches on many aspects of Roman education and culture, and its relation to Greek; Pagès, Montana/Montanari, and Edmunds are all keenly sensitive to the living minds behind those scrawled notes in the margin, aspects of whose predilections they bring out; and Pàmias shows that the origin of our whole debate has its own cultural context which continues to influence approaches today. The potential of so-called minor or sub-literary genres like mythography to illuminate larger, indeed central, matters in ancient culture has been a fruitful area of scholarship in recent decades. One can only speculate about the reasons: the growing body of evidence in papyri and inscriptions, perhaps, or merely the tendency of scholars to seek out neglected subjects for new work. I would like to think, though, that our own Zeitgeist is a factor. We are much more likely than our predecessors to find historical agency, meaning and value in the activity of everyday folk as opposed to the deeds of big men. Propelled by the internet, the democratisation of knowledge has accelerated beyond anything dreamed of fifty years ago. All areas of human activity can be seen as equally valuable in different perspectives. To neglect a voice is to commit an injustice. We are more conditioned to spot the potential of the overlooked figures, and strive to bring the previously marginalised into the centre. A point in respect of myth specifically is that it has dethroned history in the old myth vs. history dichotomy; indeed the dichotomy is now seen to be false, though in any period’s discourse there have been and always will be stories labelled myth (or the like) as opposed to history, and there will be arguments about the criteria of truth. Interest in myth has never flagged amongst scholars or the general public, but new tools particularly in cognitive studies are reinvig-
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orating the search for cross-cultural commonalities in story-telling, and promoting a better understanding of how differences might be described and assessed.4 One of the distinctive things about Greek culture is its textualisation of myth both in physical terms (as books) and conceptual (mythoi as a body of stories with special status), a change of discourse in which mythography played an important role. In society at large the most important part of history was always the so-called mythical part,5 which posed a problem for sceptical historians whose attitude to these stories of gods and heroes ranged from outright rejection to belief assisted by rationalisation or other kinds of re-interpretation; but the one thing they could not do was simply ignore them. We can follow this fascinating debate from its origins to the end of antiquity and beyond, and at every turn it throws light on contemporary assumptions about memory, religion, history, authority and much else (obliging us too to think carefully on these matters in our own context). These far-reaching themes are inevitably entailed in the study of the MH. As the prolegomena to a critical edition, however, it is to be expected that the majority of our volume is taken up with philological spadework, of which there is clearly still much to do. In that spirit I take the opportunity to comment on the fragment of Pherecydes in the D scholion to Il. 9.562 discussed by Montana and Montanari herein (p. 37). This was first published by van Thiel in his proecdosis of 2000, but I overlooked it in EGM II; perhaps I may be forgiven, since van Thiel offered no index. As will be seen below, the story belongs chronologically after fr. 127, and the fragment would normally be numbered 127A; but unluckily we already have a fr. 127A, which concerns the death of the Apharetidai. The story belongs in this area, however, so we shall have to defy chronology and dub it fr. 127B. The fragment is contained in a single ms. of the 13th century, Ambr. L 116 sup. (U in van Thiel, M11 in the forthcoming edition of Montanari et al.): (...) Φερεκύδης δέ φησι Διὸς Ἑρμῆν πέμψαντος καὶ ἐπιτρέψαντος τῆι Μαρπήσσι ἑλέσθαι ὃν αἱρεῖται προκρῖναι τὸν Ἴδαν διὰ τὸ τὰ μὲν θεῖα πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔχειν τοὺς ἔρωτας, τὰ δὲ θνητὰ ὁμοιοπαθῶς παραμένειν.
This sentence, though embedded in the D scholion to line 562, appears to have strayed from its proper place, the D scholion to line 557 (the scholion on line 562 4 For a brief overview of the notion of ‘myth’ from this perspective see Fowler 2017, and forthcoming; for an authoritative survey of the current state of work on Greek myth, Bremmer 2021, ch. 5. 5 For ample documentation of this claim see now Thomas 2019.
Robert Fowler is about Alkyone). The scholion on line 557 tell the story of how Idas carried off his bride Marpessa, daughter of Euenus, and was ready to fight Apollo when the god in his turn tried to abduct her. A version of that story is found also in MS T and the mss. of the b-class, in the scholion on line 557. Erbse notes in his apparatus that the above sentence occurs also in other MSS of the h-class to which M11 belongs (M1, P11, and V15), adding that the comment is “originis incertae;” he does not use M11, which is the one that names Pherecydes as the source. Here are both scholia: κούρῃ Μαρπήσσης καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς: Εὔηνος, Ἄρεος παῖς (=Ati), βασιλεὺς Αἰτωλίας, ἔχων θυγατέρα εὐπρεπεστάτην Μάρπησσαν τοὔνομα, τοὺς μνηστευομένους αὐτὴν προεκαλεῖτο εἰς ἁρματηλασίας ἀγῶνα, λέγων ἐκδώσειν τῷ διαφυγόντι αὐτὸν διώκοντα· τοὺς δὲ προληφθέντας καρατομῶν, ἐπετίθει τὰς κεφαλὰς ἐπὶ τὸν τοῖχον τῆς οἰκίας εἰς κατάπληξιν τῶν λοιπῶν. πολλῶν τοίνυν ἤδη ἀνῃρημένων Ἴδας, λόγῳ μὲν Ἀφαρέως υἱὸς ταῖς δὲ ἀληθείαις Ποσειδῶνος, τελευταῖος λαβὼν παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἵππους ποδωκεστάτους ἥρπασεν τὴν κόρην χορεύουσαν ἐν Ἀρτέμιδος. Εὔηνος δὲ ὡς οὐκ ἠδύνατο καταλαβεῖν, ἀποσφάξας τοὺς ἵππους οὓς εἶχεν ἑαυτὸν ἔρριψεν εἰς τὸν Λυκόρμαν ποταμόν, ὃς ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ Εὔηνος προσηγορεύθη. διαπεφευγότι δὲ τῷ Ἴδᾳ τὸν κίνδυνον Ἀπόλλων ἠναντιοῦτο περὶ τῆς κόρης βουλόμενος ἀφαρπάζειν αὐτήν. προϊόντων δὲ αὐτῶν εἰς μάχην Ζεὺς πέμψας Ἑρμῆν ἐπέτρεψεν τῇ κόρῃ ἐλέσθαι ὃν ἂν βούληται. ἡ δὲ εἵλατο τὸν Ἴδαν, εὐλαβηθεῖσα μὴ γηράσασαν αὐτὴν ἀπολίπῃ ὁ Ἀπόλλων. ZYQXU D schol. Il. 9.557 (Van Thiel 2014, 358). κούρῃ Μαρπήσης : Ἴδας ὁ Ἀφαρέως μὲν παῖς κατ’ ἐπίκλησιν, γόνος δὲ Ποσειδῶνος, Λακεδαιμόνιος δὲ τὸ γένος, ἐπιθυμήσας γάμου παραγίνεται εἰς Ὀρτυγίαν τὴν ἐν τῇ Χαλκίδι καὶ ἐντεῦθεν ἁρπάζει τὴν Εὐήνου θυγατέρα Μάρπησσαν. ἔχων δὲ ἵππους Ποσειδῶνος ἠπείγετο. ὁ δὲ Εὔηνος εἰς ἐπιζήτησιν ἐξῆλθε τῆς θυγατρός, ἐλθὼν δὲ κατὰ τὸν Λυκόρμαν ποταμὸν τῆς Αἰτωλίας, μὴ καταλαβών, ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὸν ποταμὸν καθῆκεν· ὅθεν ὁ Λυκόρμας Εὐηνὸς μετωνομάσθη. κατὰ δὲ τὴν Ἀρήνην ἀπαντήσας Ἀπόλλων τῷ Ἴδᾳ λαμβάνεται τῆς Μαρπήσσης. ὁ δὲ ἔτεινε τὸ τόξον καὶ διεφέρετο περὶ τοῦ γάμου· οἷς κριτὴς ὁ Ζεὺς γενομένος αἵρεσιν τοῦ γάμου ἐπὶ τῇ Μαρπήσσῃ τίθεται. ἡ δὲ δείσασα, μὴ ἐπὶ γήρᾳ καταλίπῃ αὐτὴν ὁ Ἀπόλλων, αἱρεῖται τὸν Ἴδαν. οὕτως δὴ Σιμωνίδης (PMG 563, oo353 Poltera) τὴν ἱστορίαν περιείργασται. Schol. b (BCE3) T Il. 9.557–8 (Erbse 1971, 518–519).
In the b-class mss., the story is attributed to Simonides, and Erbse prints the ascription, but it is no longer accepted. Instead of οὕτως δὴ Σιμωνίδης τὴν ἱστορίαν περιείργασται (“so Simonides elaborated the story”) T has ὡς διάσημον οὖν τὴν ἱστορίαν περιείργασται. Robert already realised that the corruption had to go from T to b, not the other way round, and Snell saw that has dropped out in T after ἱστορίαν: “He (sc. Homer) has not elaborated the story because it is
Afterword
well known.”6 “Simonides” in the b mss. is a guess, motivated by a failure to understand the original (which lacked the necessary οὐ) and a feeling that such historiae needed a source attribution. The source of the bT scholion is thus unknown. It could be Bacchylides (Dith. 6 and fr. 20A), and/or Pherecydes, unless M11 is also guessing. This MS occasionally shows independent access to the D tradition, however (which is why van Thiel collated it), and we know that Pherecydes told the story of Idas and Lynceus (frr. 127, 127A). In fr. 127, indeed, we learn that according to him Idas’ mother was Arene, the eponym of a city in Messenia where Idas’ father Aphareus was ruler (Paus. 4.2.5, 4.3.7, 5.6.2); it is where Apollo confronted Idas according to this very bT scholion.7 If Pherecydes lies behind this note on 557 (perhaps named by the MH?), he would become an early witness to the story of Marpessa’s choice (not found in the—admittedly scrappy—remains of Bacchylides’ two poems), but of course he has got it from archaic epic. Homer mentions Apollo’s abduction (the occasion for the MH note), and Idas and Marpessa were depicted on the Cypselus chest (Paus. 5.18.2), where the epigram says that Idas led her back “not unwilling” after Apollo had abducted her: this surely implies the story of the choice. It is also represented on several early fifth-century vases,8 and the final battle of Idas and his brother Lynceus with the Dioscuri was told in the Cypria (frr. 16–17 West, 13– 14 Davies) and Pindar’s tenth Nemean (although the Cypria would have no obvious reason to relate Idas’ earlier history). The story might well have figured in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, but it is so far not attested; Aphareus’ genealogy was mentioned by Stesichorus (fr. 287 Finglass), but that is all we know. The motif that a divine spouse would in time reject their human partner is used also by Acusilaus (fr. 17) as the reason why Coronis spurned Apollo. Maehler suggests that, because the river Euenus lies west of Chalcis, exactly the wrong way to go if Idas’ destination was either Arene or Sparta, two originally separate stories have been combined in the D scholia (or the MH), an Aetolian and a Lacedaemonian. This may be too logical an analysis. We would have to suppose that the original Aetolian story involved some other successful suitor chased westward by Euenus; Idas then took this man’s place. But if the maker of the myth as we have it was not worried about geographical realism, why should the first maker have been so concerned? The aition looks integral to the story; Euenus had to end somehow once he was beaten, like that other suitor-killer
6 Robert 1920–1926, I 312 n. 2; Snell 1952, 157 n. 1. 7 Pherecydes therefore has the Apharetidai at home in Messenia, whereas Bacchylides Dith. 6 implies they were Spartan; cf. Ἴδας [...] Λακεδαιμόνιος τὸ γένος in schol. bT. 8 Maehler 1997, 264; 2004, 221.
Robert Fowler Oenomaus (and perhaps also Antaeus: EGM II 316), or the Sirens when Odysseus sailed by unharmed. It is an easy guess that the river was once the terminus of a race, whether in myth or reality, like the altar of Pelops at Olympia for the foot-races, and somewhere by the river Alpheus for the chariot-races (in myth the terminus for the latter was the far-off Isthmus: which is not terribly logical either). In the full version of the myth abbreviated by our scholia, Idas perhaps did take part in such a race. The statement of the D scholion that he abducted Marpessa from a sanctuary of Artemis seems to preclude this (it suggests that he did not enter the lists, but simply grabbed Marpessa and made a dash for it), but it is worth noting that Hippodamia was in the chariot with Pelops when he beat Oenomaus, as she had been with the previous suitors (Apollod. Epit. 2.5). Whether snatched by the would-be husband or calmly boarding the transport, the bride’s place there makes sense; it is a form of abduction either way. The two versions of the story in the scholia (the D scholia on the one hand, and the bT scholia on the other), though not incompatible in their plots, vary a great deal in wording and details. Each scholion has several points that are not found in the other (e.g. Euenus’ nasty habit of nailing his victim’s skulls to the wall of his house, which features also in Bacchylides), and where they do overlap they use different words. If these both stem from the same source (the MH), it would be a sobering indication of just how much variation was possible. One suspects, however, that the differences are so many that we are dealing with two different sources—a finding of interest in itself, for it could be evidence of more than one MH-style book lying behind the scholia (on the other hand, the note in bT might have been taken from a mythographical handbook. The brief account in Apollodorus (1.60 [1.7.8]) has verbal similarities to both scholiastic versions.) That the historia appears in both the D scholia and the exegetical scholia of bT ties in with a larger theme in this volume. Some versions of D scholia are found in T, but written in a different hand and so designated by Erbse; but this scholion he designates “ex(egeticum).” A similar case is found in Hellanicus fr. 36a and 36b: the former is a T scholion (“ex.” says Erbse) and the latter is a D scholion. There, the wording of the two is closer than in the scholia printed above, but there are still interesting divergences which need assessment. There are other examples of this phenomenon, and it is clear that much remains to be discovered by a more thorough collation of mss., particularly of the h-class.9 9 Apart from Montanari and Montana in this volume cf. Pagès and Villagra, in this volume, Introduction n. 17; Pagès 2007, 16–18.
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The cross-over between the two classes (D and bT) is unsurprising when one remembers that mythography is, after all, a serious form of exegesis. These historiae are much more than pretty stories. Their compilers all had their own interests, and sometimes looked out quite recherché material in order to answer their questions about Homer. We can expect to learn much from further research on this understudied material.
Bibliography Bremmer, Jan N. (2021), Greek Religion, 2nd edn., Cambridge. Erbse, Hartmut (1971), Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera). Volumen secundum scholia ad libros E-I continens, Berlin. Fowler, Robert (2017), “What’s in a Myth?”, The Classical Association Presidential Address, Sherborne. https://www.academia.edu/36190873/Fowler_Whats_in_a_Myth (accessed on 18 January 2022). Fowler, Robert (forthcoming), “Story-telling,” in: Elisabeth Begemann/Jan N. Bremmer (eds.), Religion in Context. Maehler, Herwig (1997), Die Lieder des Bakchylides 2. Die Dithyramben und Fragmente, Leiden/New York/Cologne. Maehler, Herwig (2004), Bacchylides: A Selection, Cambridge. Pagès, Joan (2007), Mythographus Homericus: Estudi i edició comentada. Diss. Barcelona. Panzer, Johannes (1892), De Mythographo Homerico restituendo, Diss. Greifswald. Robert, Carl (1920–1926), Die griechische Heldensage, Berlin. Schwartz, Edward (1881), “De scholiis Homericis ad historiam fabularem pertinentibus,” Fleckeisens Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie, Suppl. 12, 405–463. Schwarz, Julius (1878), De scholiis in Homeri Iliadem mythologicis capita tria, Diss. Wrocław. Snell, Bruno (1952), “Bakchylides’ Marpessa-Gedicht (Fr. 20A),” Hermes 80, 156–163. Thomas, Rosalind (2019), Polis Histories. Collective Memories and the Greek World, Cambridge. Van Thiel, Helmut (2014), Scholia D in Iliadem, 2nd ed., Köln.
List of Contributors Lowell Edmunds is Professor Emeritus of Classics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Throughout his career he has extensively published articles, chapters and books on Greek myth and on both Greek and Latin literature, among which: Oedipus. The ancient legend and its later analogues, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 1985); Intertextuality and the reading of Roman poetry, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press (2001) or “Myth and epic”, in A companion to ancient epic, ed. J.M. Foley, Oxford (2005). His most recent books are Stealing Helen: The Myth of the Abducted Wife in Comparative Perspective, Princeton University Press: Princeton/Oxford (2016), Toward the Characterization of Helen in Homer, De Gruyter: Berlin/Boston (2019), and Greek Myth, De Gruyter: Berlin/Boston (2021). Robert Fowler was educated at Toronto and Oxford. After a post-doctoral year at Calgary, he taught at the University of Waterloo until 1996. From that year until his retirement in 2017 he was Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek at the University of Bristol. He is editor of The Cambridge Companion to Homer, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press (2004) and author of Early Greek Mythography, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press: (2 volumes, 2000–13) and Pindar and the Sublime: Greek Myth, Reception, and Lyric Experience (forthcoming 2022), as well as articles on Greek myth and mythography, religion, historiography, and reception. He is a Fellow of the British Academy. Johanna Michels obtained her PhD in Classical Studies at KU Leuven university. Her main research interests are the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, the mythographic tradition, and the many transformations of myth in the post-classical and byzantine period. Her monograph Agenorid Myth in the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus. A Philological Commentary of Bibl. III.1–56 and a Study into the Composition and Organization of the Handbook (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde) is in preparation for publication. Fausto Montana is full Professor of Ancient Greek Language and Literature at Pavia University (Italy). He is a member of the FIEC Board (since 2019) and of the Société Internationale de Bibliographie Classique (since 2017). He is an associate editor of the Lexicon of Greek Grammarians of Antiquity and the Supplementum Grammaticum Graecum (both with Brill). He participates in various editorial boards of scientific journals and book series, among which Trends in Classics (De Gruyter), Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica (Loescher) and the CLGP – Commentaria et Lexica Graeca in Papyris Reperta (De Gruyter). His research interests include the texts and history of ancient Greek scholarship, with special focus on literary exegesis (critical edition of papyri with exegesis on Aristophanes and Herodotus in the CLGP, 20122 and 2019). He coedited the volume The Birth of Scholiography. From Types to Texts (with Antonietta Porro, De Gruyter 2014), and is the author of the chapter Hellenistic Scholarship in the Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship (2015) as well as in F. Montanari (ed.), History of Ancient Greek Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Byzantine Age (Brill 2020). Franco Montanari is Former Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Genoa and Dr. honoris causa by the University of Thessaloniki. He is member of the Accademia Ligure di Scienze e Lettere, Foreign Member of the Academy of Athens, and of The Royal Society of Arts
List of Contributors and Sciences in Gothenburg (Sweden). He participates in various editorial boards of scientific journals and book series, among which: the “Commentaria et Lexica Graeca in Papyris reperta” (CLGP), the Advisory Board of the Bibliotheca Teubneriana, the “Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici greci e latini” (CPF), the Project “Kommentierung der Fragmente der griechischen Komödie” (Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften), the “Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica” (Loescher, Torino), the series “Pleiadi” (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura - Roma), the journal “Trends in Classics” and the series “Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes” (W. de Gryuter, Berlin/New York). He has published the new Greek-Italian Dictionary “GI - Vocabolario della lingua greca” (1995; II ed. 2004; III ed. 2013, re-printed with improvements in 2016; Greek ed. 2013; English ed. 2015; forthcoming German edition) and the “Storia della letteratura greca” (Roma/Bari 1998, 2000, Greek transl. Thessaloniki 2008; II ed. 2017; English ed. forthcoming). He has published more than 250 scientific works in various italian and international journals and books. Joan Pagès is Lecturer in Greek Philology at the Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona (20012021). In 2007 he defended his doctoral dissertation, a commented edition of the Mythographus Homericus. As a member of the research team on Mythography at the UAB supported by funds of the Ministry of Education, Research and Technology of Spain he has published several articles on Mythography, Myth, Religion and Literature in the reviews Emerita, Faventia, Polymnia and others. He has collaborated in several collective books, such as Euphorion et les Mythes, edited by Christophe Cusset et alii (2013), Apollodoriana, edited by Jordi Pàmias (2017), Philologie auf zweiter Stufe, edited by Gregor Bitto and Anna Ginestí (2019) and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography edited by Stephen Trzaskoma and R. Scott Smith. In 2009 he published a critical edition with catalan translation and footnotes of the Letters of Aristaenetus for the Classics Collection of the Fundació Bernat Metge and recently, for the same collection, the 4th. volume of the Tragedies of Euripides (Hecuba and Suppliants), and he is currently working on the 6th. volume (Phoenician Women). He is also collaborating with Nereida Villagra on the commented edition of the Mythographus Homericus. Jordi Pàmias is professor at the Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona where he has taught Greek language and literature, Classical Mythology, Textual Criticism and Introduction to Greek Culture and to Classical Philology. His fields of interest are Greek mythology, mythography and religion, and their scientific reception. He has published extensively on these areas. He is the editor of the reference text of Eratosthenes’ Catasterisms (Eratosthène de Cyrène, Catastérismes. Introduction, édition critique, traduction et notes de Jordi Pàmias et Arnaud Zucker. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2013. Prix Raymond Weil 2014). He has also edited and commented the fragments of Pherecydes (Ferecides d’n Atenes, Històries. Vol. I–II, Barcelona: Fundació Bernat Metge, 2008), and is currently working on Acusilaus. He has been editor of Apollodoriana. Ancient Myths, New Crossroads, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter (2017). His most recent works include “The Reception of Greek Myth”, in Lowell Edmunds (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth. Second Edition, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (2014); “The Origins of Mythography as a Genre”, in Scott Smith & Stephen Trzaskoma (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography (forthcoming at Oxford University Press) and “Greek Mythographic Tradition”, in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), Cambridge History of Mythology and Mythography (forthcoming at Cambridge University Press).
List of Contributors
Filippomaria Pontani is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari. While primarily concerned with issues of manuscript transmission (e.g. the critical edition of Plutarch’s Natural Issues, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2018), he is editing the ancient and medieval scholia to Homer’s Odyssey (4 vols. so far, Roma 2007–2020). He has published extensively on Greek and Latin texts, from Sappho to Simonides and Pindar, from Demosthenes and Callimachus to Lucilius, Catullus, Virgil, and Petronius, as well as on Byzantine, humanist, and modern Greek literature (Poliziano’s Greek epigrams, Angeli Poliziani Liber epigrammatum Graecorum Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 2002; unknown poems by Markos Mousouros, Janos Laskaris etc.; Poeti greci del Novecento, with N. Crocetti, Milan: Mondadori, 2010; works by Cavafy, Kazantzakis, Elytis etc.), focusing inter alia on the rise of ancient grammar and scholarship, on Byzantine philology (from Isaac Porphyrogenitus to Planudes to Pletho; a general overview in Brill’s History of Ancient Greek Scholarship, 2020), on rhetoric and geography, on Homeric allegories (Eraclito, Questioni omeriche, Pisa: Edizioni ETS 2005), and on the literary reception of ancient myths. Robert Scott Smith is professor of Classics at the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught since 2000. In addition to publications on Seneca the Younger, his main field of interest is Greek and Roman mythography, especially how the Greeks and Romans organized and learned their own mythical traditions in educational settings, in geographical works, and through exegetical material on poetry. He is co-editor of Writing Myth: Mythography in the Greek and Roman World (with Stephen M. Trzaskoma). He is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, is co-director of the Greek mythical database MANTO (manto.unh.edu), and hosts the podcast The Greek Myth Files (manto-myth.org/gmf). Nereida Villagra is assistant professor at the Classics Department of the University of Lisbon, and member of the research Centre for Classical Studies of the same University. She obtained her PhD at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2012 with a dissertation on Asclepiades of Tragilos. Her research interests are Greek mythography and its textual transmission, mythology and ancient Greek scholarship. She has written several chapters in collective books and papers on mythography, textual criticism and Greek literature, such as “Plato on the Thessalian trick. New interpretation of Gorgias 513b” Greek Roman Byzantine Studies 57/2; “Time and Space in the myth of Byblis”, in A. Bierl et al. (eds.) Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture, Berlin: De Gruyter; and a chapter on mythography in scholia for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, edited by R. Scott Smith and Stephen Trzaskoma. She is currently preparing a commented edition of the Mythographus Homericus in collaboration with Joan Pagès.
Index Nominum et Rerum [names that appear written in Greek alphabet in the chapters are transcribed into their Latin form in this index] 19th-century German Scholarship 17–25 Abas 173 Abydos 193 Acacallis 171 Achaeus 34 Achelous 187, 191, 181 n. 58 Acherois 177 n. 52 Achilles 35, 36, 51, 61, 76, 84–86, 98– 103, 169 n. 28, 197–199, 201, 206, 210 Acis 173 n. 40 Actaeon 191 Admetus 99, 180 Adonis 168, 179, 184 Aeacus 206 Aegaeon 89 Aegina 206 Aeneas 93, 165, 166 Aeolus 34 Aesacus 174 n. 40, 177 n. 50 Aesculapius 180, 181 n. 57 Aethlius 139 Aetiology (historical survey) 75–78 Agamemnon 51, 205 Agenor 47, 146 Ajax 61, 173 n. 40 Alcimedon 206 Alcyone 51–53, 186, 194 Aloads 39, 115–116 Alphesiboea 120 Amarynthus 178 n. 53 Amazons 179, 205 Amphictyon 139 Amyclas 173 Amymone 50 Amythaon 119, 121, 126 Anchiale 171 Anchinoe 35 Androgeus 182 Andromache 47 Andromeda 207–208 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-012
Anius 173 n. 40 Antaeus 181 n. 58, 211, 224 Antandros 82, 184 n. 61 Antiope 67 Aphareus 223 Apis 146 Apollo 165, 167, 171, 173, 180–182, 191, 196–202, 205, 206, 209–211, 222, 223 –Cillaeus 81–82, 88 –Gryneus 184 n. 61 –Nomius 8 n. 16, 98–103, 191 –Paean 167 –Phoebus 89, 98–99, 198, 210 n. 53 –Smintheus 35, 44, 47, 48, 80, 86–88, 102 –Thymbraeus 168 Apollodorus subcriptions 133–143, 149– 154 Arcas 193 Ardea 164 Arene 223 Ares 38–39, 95 n. 89 Arestor 145–146 Aretus 120 Argeus 37 Argonauts 64–65, 89, 204–205 Argos 35, 51 Argos Panoptes 144–147 Ariadne 64, 76, 182, 193 Arisbe 173 Aristaeus 187, 191 Aristarchean exegesis or features 10, 32, 39, 98 Artemis 224 –Taurica 77 Ascalaphus 192 Asopus 67, 145 Asterie 166 n. 23 Asteropaeus 206 Astyanax 169, 173
Index Nominum et Rerum AT 300 = ATU 300 “The Dragon-Slayer” 207 Atalanta 173 n. 40 Athena 140, 196–199, 202, 204, 210 –Pallas 89, 196 Atlas 174 n. 40 Atreus 43 Attis 177 n. 49 ATU 1889G “Man Swallowed by Fish” 207 Aufidius Modestus 163 Auge 203 n. 31 Augeas 37 n. 13, 148, 149, 181 n. 58, 211 Baucis 201 Bellerophon 179 Belus 35, 47 Bias 119–120 Bithynia 69 Boreas 69, 170 n. 30 Briareus 89 Busiris 181 n. 58 Cadmus 169 n. 28 Caene/Caenis 90 Caeneus 89–93, 95, 102 Calais 170 n. 30 Calamus 176, 177 n. 49, 181, 182, 188 Calchas 184 n. 61 Caletor 85 Callicolone 8 n. 16, 93–95, 102 Callisto 173 n. 40, 192–193 Carpos 176 Carya 177 n. 49 Cassandra 206 Castor 91 n. 71 Cea 191 Cecrops 48 Centaurs 90–91, 171–172, 181 n. 58 Cephalus 63, 192 Cerberus 147–149, 177 n. 52, 181 n. 58, 211 Ceres 192–193 Ceryx 48 Ceyx 52–53, 186, 194 Chelone 177 n. 49 Chione 177 n. 49 Chimaera 179, 183 Chloris 62, 117
Cinyras 179 Cleopatra 51–52, 69 Clymene 61 Cilla 45 n. 36, 47, 48, 80–83, 88, 102 Cillaeum 80, 82, 88 Cillus 80–84, 88 Coronis 180, 223 Corymbus 194 Cranaus 139 Cretheus 119, 121, 127 Creusa 34 Crinis 36, 86–87 Cumae 181–182 Curetes 51 Cyclopes 180 Cycnus 84–85, 87, 174 n. 40 Cyparissus 184 n. 61 Cyrene 191 d-manuscripts of the Iliad 43–53 Daedalus 76, 168, 171, 174, 181–182, 186, 188, 191, 193 Danae 86, 164 n. 18 Danaus 35, 47, 50 Daphne 34 n. 7, 172–173, 177 n. 49 Daphnis 182–183 Dardanus 184 n. 61 Deianira 181 n. 58 Deion 121 Deioneus 63, 118, 119, 121, 127 Delos 165 Delphi 165 Demetrios Chalkondyles 62–64 Demetrios Xanthopoulos 62 Deucalion 139–140, 173 n. 40, 192 Dido 165 Diomedes (Thrax) 148 n. 46, 149, 181 n. 58, 186 Dodona 38 Drepane 170 Dryas 89 Ecdotics 31–54 Ecbasus 146 Echetus 67 Echidna 146 Egeria 180
Index Nominum et Rerum
Elatus 90 Eleusis 192 Elpenor 81 Epeius 206 Ephialtes 39 Epopeus 194 Erechtheus 37 n. 13, 63, 170 n. 30 Erichthonius 37 n. 13 Eriphyle 61 Euadne 146 Euenus 222–224 Eurypylus 148 n. 46 Eurysaces 52 Eurystheus 147, 185 Eurytia 69, 70 Eustathius of Thessalonica 63, 66 Exadius 89 exegesis 4, 9–10, 62, 67, 88, 103, 127, 158–187, 225 folktales 177 n. 50, 207–208, 211 foundation myth (κτίσις) 75–102, 146– 147, 164, 171 Galatea 173 n. 40 Ganymedes 172, 196 Geryon 149, 181 n. 58 Glaucus 172, 185–186, 194 Grammatici 160–163 Greek myth 207–211 h-manuscripts of the Iliad 42–54, 222, 225 Hades 147 Halae Araphenides 77, 84 Halirrhothius 186, 192 Harpyiae 69–70 Helice 36, 97–98, 193 Helicon 36, 96–98 Helius 70 Hellen 139 Hemithea 84 Hephaestus 37, 76, 198 n. 15, 210 Hera 20–21, 51, 146, 198–199, 205, 210– 211 Heracles 37 n. 13, 147–148, 195–211
Hercules 165, 177 n. 52, 181, 183, 185, 187, 191 Hermes 48, 52, 117, 221, 222 Hero 173 n. 40, 193 Hesione 196, 202–209 Hesperides 147–149, 181 n. 51, 211 Hippodamas 97 Hippodamia 80, 224 Hippolyte 148 n. 46, 149, 181 n. 58, 205 Hippolytus 84, 86, 101, 180 Hippomenes 173 n. 40 Homeric exegesis 9–10, 88, 103, 172 Hyades 36 Hydra 147–148, 181 n. 58 Hylas 165 n. 22 Hymenaeus 177 n. 49 and 51, 184 n. 61 Hypermnestra 50 Hypnos 210 Iasus 145 Icarius 191 Icarus 37 n. 13, 171, 182 Idas 4, 51–53, 222–224 Inachus 20, 145, 147 Io 20, 141, 144–145, 147 Iolaus 91 n. 71 Iole 181 n. 58 Ion 34 Iphianassa 124 Iphiclus 118–121, 124–125, 126 n. 56, 127 Iphigeneia 77, 84 Ismene 145 Ixion 32, 51 Jason 64–65, 208 Jonah 208 Jupiter 20, 68, 69, 166 n. 23, 173, 176, 180, 191–194 Juno 20, 21, 181 n. 58, 192–194 katapontismos 81, 86–88 Ladon 34 n. 7, 173 Laocoon 168–169 Laomedon 99, 168, 196–205, 209–211 Lapiths 90, 93 Latona 166 n. 23, 193–194
Index Nominum et Rerum Leander 173 n. 40, 193 Leontius Pilatus 3, 67 Lesbian revolution 82 Lesbos 76, 80–81, 149 n. 48 Leuce 177 n. 49 and 52 Leucophrys 48, 83–86, 88 Leucothea 83 Liber 187, 191, 193 Libya 35 Lichas 181 n. 58 Licymnius 37 Lityerses 183 Lotus 173 n. 40 Lycaon 192 Lycormas 222 Lycus 181 n. 58 Lynceus 50, 222–223 Lyncus 192 Lyrnessus 47 Maeander 176 Marpessa 51–53, 222–224 Mars 181, 186, 192 Megapenthes 52 Mela 194 Melampus 109–110, 117–128 Meleager 51–52 Meliboeus 170 Melissa 177 n. 50 Merope 185 metonomasia 85 Miletus 96–98 Minerva 169, 186, 191–193 Minos 171, 181–182 Minotaur 64, 168, 182, 193 monster 66, 202–210 Mot D 1402.5 211 Mot D 1833 211 Mot H 1151.1 211 Mot H 1271 211 Mot T68.1 207 Myrene 177, 181 Myrmex 177 n. 50 Myrmidons 44, 172 Myrrha 179, 188, 194 Myrtilus 81, 83, 85, 88 Myrtus 177
myth-ritual complex 87, 93 mythographical narrative types 176 Narcissus 178 n. 53 Naxos 193 Neaera 146 Neleus 62, 117–119, 121 Neleus son of Codrus 36, 96–97 Neocles 194 Neoptolemus 52, 93, 206 Neptune 168, 186, 191–192 Nereus 48 Nessus 181 n. 58, 211 Nestor 50, 90, 117 n. 32 Nilus 35 Niobe 76, 146 Nycteus 67 Nyctimone 194 Oaxes 170–171 Ocean 177 n. 52 Odysseus 61, 169, 224 Oeneus 187, 190–191 Oenomaus 80–81, 224 Omphale 181 n. 58 order of Heracles’ labours 148 Ordes 87 Orion 36 Orithyia 170 Ortygia 222 Osiris 192 Otus 39 Pactolus 174 n. 40 Palaestra 177 n. 49 Palinurus 81 Pan 183, 184 n. 61 Pandora 47 Pandrosus 48 Paris 94–95, 205 Parnassus 165 Pasiphae 181–182 Patroclus 100 Peleus 101 Pelias 64, 119, 185–186 Pelops 43, 80–81, 87, 88, 224 Penelope 184 n. 61
Index Nominum et Rerum
Peneus 173 Perialces 120 Perdix 173 n. 40, 174, 186, 188, 193 Pero 117–121 Persephone 192 Perseus 91 n. 71, 164 n. 18, 207–208 Petra 191 Phaeacia 170 Pharsalus 100 Philemon 201 Philomela 184 n. 61 Phineus 65, 69 Phlegyas 168 Phoenix 51 Phorcys 8 n. 16, 59 Phrontis 81 Phylace 117–118, 121, 126–127 Phylacus 118, 120, 124–127 Phyleus 37 n. 13 Pirithous 46 n. 40, 47, 48, 89 Pimplea 183 Pisa 80 Pleiades 36 Pluto 177 n. 52 Podarces 120, 127 n. 58 Polyboea 83 Polydeuces 91 n. 71 Polypemon 194 Polyphemus (Lapith) 89 Polyxena 184 n. 61 Porphyry’ Quaestiones Homericae 218 Poseidon 36, 39, 51, 64, 83, 90, 96, 98, 119, 121, 127, 196–202, 205–206, 209– 211, 222 –Heliconius 8 n. 16, 80, 96–98, 102–103 Priam 205 Priapus 173 n. 40, 178 Proclia 85 Procne 184 n. 61 Procris 61, 63 Proetus 124, 179 Prometheus 43, 181 n. 58, 184 n. 61, 209 Proserpina 192, 193 Protesilaus 120, 127 n. 58 Protogeneia 139 Pylos 59, 117 n. 32, 120 Pyramus 173 n. 39 and 40, 177 n. 49
Pyrrha 139, 140 n. 16 Pyrrhus 169 Quintus Terentius Scaurus 163–166 Quellenforschung 3, 10, 19–20, 23, 25 n. 29, 116, 121–122, 218 rationalized versions of myth 86, 171, 172 n. 34, 200 revolt of gods 198–199, 210–211 ritual 75, 77–78, 81, 85–89, 93, 97, 101– 103 Salmoneus 121 Saturn 191 Satyrus 146 Scheria 170 Sciron 186, 194 Scylla 59, 66 Scyllas 173 n. 40 Scyphios 191 Scyros 93 Simoeis 94, 95 n. 89 Sipylus 68, 76 Sirens 224 Sisyphus 117 n. 31, 185 Sperchius 98, 100–102 Staphylus 187, 190–191 story-telling 221 Strymon 146 sub-literary genres 220 substitution of horses 209–211 syncretism 87 Talaus 119, 126 Tantalus 68, 80 Tartarus 146 Telamon 205–206, 209–210 Telephides 61 Telephus 203 n. 31 Tempe 139 Tenedos 45 n. 36, 47, 48, 80, 83–86, 88, 102 Ten(n)es 83, 80–88 Tereus 173 n. 40 Terra 173 Tethys 193
Index Nominum et Rerum Teucer 184 n. 61, 203 n. 33, 205 Thalia 183 Thebe 47, 48 Thebes 148, 169 n. 27 and 28, 191 Theseus 64, 89, 147, 182, 193 Thetis 35, 38, 89, 169 n. 28, 210 Thiodamas 165 n. 22 Thisbe 173 n. 39 and 40, 177 n. 49 Thoricus 63 Thymoetes 172 Tlepolemus 210 Triptolemus 186, 192 Triton 206 Troezen 77, 84, 101 Troica (poem) 84, 173 Trojan wall 206 Troy 100, 173, 181 n. 58, 195–211 Typology of the MH transmission in the D scholia 1–8, 31–49 Tyro 69, 118–121, 124, 127
Ulysses 61, 170, 184 n. 61 Vergilian exegesis 158–159, 162–164, 166, 168, 171, 175–176, 179, 184 Venus 177–178, 181, 185 Virbius 180 Vulcan 181, 193 Xuthus 34 Zephyrus 176 Zethus 170 n. 30 Zeus 20, 38, 52, 68, 91, 121–122, 147– 149, 173, 196–201, 210–211
Index Locorum Acusilaus fr. 17 Fowler FGrH 2 F 22
223 91 n. 70
Aeschylus Eumenides 16
165 n. 21
Aesop 44 Perry
193
Alexis PCG vol. 2, frs. 88–90
203 n. 33
Anthologia Latina 1.627
148 n. 45
Anthologia Palatina 16.92
148–149
Antoninus Liberalis 25
164
Apollodorus Grammaticus FGrH 244 F 32 100 n. 100 FGrH 244 F 96 134 n. 7 FGrH 244 F 129 134 n. 7 FGrH 244 F 158 134 n. 7 FGrH 244 F 180 134 n. 7 (Ps.-) Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1.16–17 1.20 1.135 1.46–48 1.48 1.52 1.60 1.60–61 1.66 1.90–91 2.2 2.2–3 2.2–4
135, 153 135, 136, 140 205 n. 35 135, 139 140 n. 16 194 224 136 135 137 145, 146 146 146
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751192-013
2.4 2.5 2.5–8 2.6 2.7–8 2.10–13 2.11 2.13–21 2.23 2.25 2.26 2.31 2.34–35 2.61 2.61–159 2.74–126 2.103–104 2.113 2.122–125 3.2–3 3.5 3.21–25 3.26–27 3.33–34 3.45–47 3.71–72 3.75–76 3.176 3.188 Epitome 1.12–15 1.20 1.22 2.5 2.10–12 3.17–20 3.21–22 3.23 5.22 6.5–6
146, 147 21, 135, 141, 145 135, 144 146, 147 141 152 146 136 146 146 146 146 135 137, 181 181 148 199, 201, 204, 205 135, 147 135, 147 135, 153 136 135, 149 n. 48, 153 135 136 136 137 136 136 135, 153 136, 152 136, 152 136, 152 224 136, 152 136, 152 136, 152 84 n. 48 136 136
Index Locorum Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 1. 59–64 1.1129–1131
1.403 1.437
194 194
Bacchylides Dithyrambi Dithyrambus 6 fr. 20A
223, 226 n. 6 223
Cicero De legibus 1.5
82 n. 38
Aristoteles Chalcideus FGrH 423 169 n. 28
Clitophon Rhodius FHG 4, 368, fr. 5
97
Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 4.42 4.158d 9.49
Cypria fr. 1 Bernabé frr. 13–14 Davies frr. 16–17 West
38 223 223
Demetrius Tragicus TrGF 1.40
203 n. 33
Demetrius Scepsius fr. 23
82, 94–95
Diodorus Siculus 4.11–26 4.32.5 4.42.2 4.42.3–5 4.42.4 4.42.5–7 5.83 5.83.1–4 11.60.6–11.61.1
148 205 202 199 204 204 86 n. 60 84 n. 48 25 n. 29
90–91 171
Aristides Orationes 1.46
186 n. 65
Aristoteles fr. 8.44.592 Rose
85
Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 10.16 11.15.3
84 n. 51 169 n. 28 84 n. 50
163 n. 15 164
Ausonius Eclogae 24
148 n. 45
Brevis Expositio In Vergilii Georgica 1.9 1.12 1.14 1.18 1.39 1.43 1.63 1.138 1.143 1.222 1.246 1.383 1.399 1.364
187, 190 191 191 192 192 188 187 192 186, 193 193 193 193 186, 194 164
Dionysius Halicarnassensis Epistula ad Pompeium 6.4 82 n. 38 Etymologicum Magnum Genuinum s.v. Ἀχερωΐς 177 n. 52 Euripides Alcestis 1–9 fr. 695
99 n. 99 84 n. 49
Index Locorum
Hercules furens 359–435 Hippolytus 1423–1427
148 n. 43 101 n. 104
Eustathius in Il. 2.684 (320.43–44) in Il. 21.244 vol. 4, pp. 533–535 van der Valk in Od. 11.290 (1685.28–34 Stallbaum) in Od. 11.321 (1688.23 Stallbaum) in Od. 12.85 (1715.8 Stallbaum) in Od. 16.118 (p. 1796)
172 n. 36 200 n. 23 124 n. 49 64 n. 17 66 169
Explanationes In Verglii Eclogae 3.12 5.2 5.20
173 183 184
Hecataeus Milesius FGrH 1 F139
84 n. 48
Hellanicus FGrH 4 F26a FGrH 4 F26b fr. 36a/b Fowler fr. **160b Fowler
196, 200 196, 200 200 84 n. 46
Heraclides Lembus fr. 22
84 n. 48, 85 n. 54
Herodianus Περὶ Ἰλιακῆς προσῳδίας 53 95 n. 88 Herodorus FGrH 31 F28
200
Hesiodus Fragmenta 10a 37 89.4
194 124 n. 48 202 n. 26
165 270–79 Scutum 179 Homerus Ilias 1.38 1.39 1.50 1.263 1.264 1.400 1.568–694 4.468 4.520 5.638–642 5.640 7.452–453 8.282–284 9.556–564 13.27 14.247–262 14.250–251 15.18–19 15.18–24 15.24–30 15.419 18.486 18.590–592 20.53 20.145–148 20.147–148 20.403–404 21.187–189 21.441–457 21.443 21.443–445 21.444 21.446–451 23.144 24.602–617
203 n. 31 124 n. 48 92
45 n. 36, 47, 48, 80–84 35, 44–48, 80–86 99 46 n. 40, 47, 48, 89 89 89, 198, 199, 210 n. 53 210 207 170 205, 210 204 197 205 n. 36 51 202 n. 26 210 205 199 n. 19 210 210 85 n. 58 36 76 n. 5 94, 95 195–211 202–204 8 n. 16 206 210 210 n. 53 197–199 198 n. 12, 199– 201 197 98–101 76 n. 6
Index Locorum Odyssea 1.9 2.169 2.349 2.379 3.282 4.11 4.359 4.704 5.421 9.204 11.51–80 11.281–297 11.286–290 11.321–14.327 11.544 12.91 14.455 17.232 17.485–487 Hyginus Astronomia 2.4.6 2.5.1 2.14.1 Fabulae 14 30 30–36 31 78 89 145 204 250 273
61 61 61 61 81 n. 33 52 61 61 202 n. 26 61 81 n. 34 117 n. 32 118, 124 n. 47 58 61 66 61 207 201
191 193 192 159 n. 8 148 n. 46 181 148 n. 46 205 202 n. 27, 204 20, 21, 147 194 186 n. 64 186 n. 64
Lactantius Placidus In Statii Thebaida commentum 3.507 194 4.589 179 Longinus De sublimitate 9.13
109
Lucianus Gallus 19
90 n. 68
Lycophron Alexandra 473–475
202
Lysimachus FGrH 382 F2 382 F5 382 F8 382 F9 382 F 10a 382 F14
168 169 n. 28 169 n. 28 169 n. 28 169 n. 28 169 n. 28
Metrodorus FGrH 43 F2
200
Nonnus Dionysiaca 11.369–481 13.253–285
176 191
Ovidius Metamorphoses 1.414–415 1.452 2.417–507 7.401 8.237–259 8.256–258 9.346–348 11.266–748 11.749–795 12.189 12.522–526
192 173 192 194 193 174 178 194 177 n. 50 90 n. 68 92
Palaephatus Incredibilia 1 25 37
172 186 n. 64 202 n. 27
Index Locorum
Papyri P. Berol. 13282
P. Berol. 13930 P. Hamb. 3, 199 P. Oxy. 3, 418 P. Oxy. 13, 1610 P. Oxy. 13, 1611 fr. 1, 35–38 P. Oxy. 31, 2544 fr. 14.1 P. Oxy. 42, 3003 P. Oxy. 56, 3830 P. Oxy. 61, 4096 P. Oxy. 61, 4096 fr. 3 P. Oxy. 61, 4096 fr. 10 P. Oxy. 61, 4096 fr. 16 P. Oxy. 61, 4096 fr. 17 P. Schub. 21 [=P. Berol. 13930] PSI 8, 1000 PSI 10, 1173
fr. 1r fr. 2r fr. 2v fr. 3r fr. 3v fr. 4r fr. 4v fr. 5r fr. 5v fr. 5–6 fr. 6r fr. 6v fr. 7r fr. 7v fr. 8 P. Vindob. G. 29784
8 n. 16, 96, 97 n. 94, 143 n. 28, 195 n. 6, 207 8 n. 16, 93, 143 n. 28 36 n. 10, 80–88, 143 n. 27 89–93 25, n. 29 91, n. 70 84 n. 47 143 134 n. 3 8 n. 16, 96 n. 90, 98, 143 n. 28 36 n. 11, 96, 195 n. 6 98 n. 96 93 76 n. 7 199 143 3, 5 n. 9, 6, 57– 69, 79, 109–123, 143 n. 27, 175 n. 43, 218 60 60–63 59, 114 n. 16 59, 64, 114 n. 16 59–61, 114 n. 16 59–62, 114 n. 16 60–64, 114 n. 16 60, 68 64, 65, 68 175 n. 43 65 59, 60, 65, 66 59 60 60 109, 114
Parthenius Narrationes amatoriae 15 173 29 183 Pausanias Graeciae descriptio 4.2.5 4.3.7 4.36.3 5.6.2 5.18.2 6.20.19 10.6.3 10.14.2 10.25.2 10.31.10
223 223 124 n. 48 223 223 186 n. 64 165 n. 21 84 n. 48 81 n. 33 124 n. 48
Pherecydes fr. 41b Fowler FGrH 3 F37b FGrH 3 F114
209 n. 52 81 n. 36 124
Phlegon Mirabilia 5
90 n. 68
Pindar fr. 167 Maehler Isth. 5.28–38 Isth. 6.27–35 Ol. 8.31–44 Ol. 8.45–46 Pyth. 8.26–27
92 91 n. 71 205 206 206 206
Plinius Naturalis Historia 4.23 4.52 4.58
170 170 171 n. 33
Plutarchus Moralia 860c 1057c–1058e
77 n. 16 92 n. 75
Index Locorum Ps.-Probus [Commentarium] in Vergilii Eclogas 2.23 184 2.48 178 n. 53 3.62 172 10.18 167 [Commentarium] in Vergilii Georgica 1.9 187 1.12 191 1.14 191 1.18 192 1.19 192 1.39 187, 192 1.63 173 n. 40, 187, 192 1.138 173 n. 40, 192, 193 1.222 187, 193 1.246 193 1.399 168 n. 26, 186, 194 2.84 168 n. 26 3.19 172 3.113–115 171 3.267 172 3.268 185
Scholia in Euripidem Alcestis 1 1b Andromache 10 24 Orestes 990 1094 Troades 31
Quintillianus Institutio oratoria 1.8.18–20 1.8.21
160 161 n. 10
Scholia in Homerum D scholia in Iliadem 1.2 1.5
Quintus Smyrnaeus 6.208–268
148 n. 46
Sallustius Historiae fr. 3.51 fr. 3.6d
1.7 1.9 1.10
170 182
1.14 1.38
Scholia in Aeschylus Eumenides 16
165 n. 21
1.39
Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium 1.59 92 n. 73 1.558 169 n. 28
1.42
1.1212–1219 3.1177–1187 4.14
165 n. 22 169 n. 28 51
Scholia in Aristidem p. 26 Frommel
186 n. 65
Scholia in Aristophanem Nubes 1005b 186 n. 65 Scholia in Dionysium Periegetam 508–509 184
1.52
99 n. 99 150 n. 50 169 169 n. 28 81 n. 36 165 n. 21 169 n. 28
34, 47, 48 38, 47, 48, 122 n. 37 43 44, 45, 48 44, 45, 47, 48, 135, 139, 140 n. 16, 152, 153 34 n. 7 45 n. 36, 47, 48, 80 n. 31, 83 n. 42, 88, 106, 143 n. 27 35, 44, 47, 48, 80, 86, 88 35, 46 n. 40, 47, 135, 145, 150, 152 37, 45, 47
Index Locorum
1.59
1.106
1.108 1.180 1.195 1.250 1.263 1.264
1.268 1.334 1.335 1.366 1.399 1.400 1.418 1.519 1.590 1.609 2.103
2.106 2.145 2.220 2.494
2.547 2.595 2.629 4.171 5.126 5.385
45 n. 37, 115 n. 22, 136, 142 n. 22, 152 45 n. 37, 136, 141 n. 19, 142 n. 22, 152 115 n. 22 44, 172 n. 36 135, 140, 150, 152, 153 n. 59 45, 50 46 n. 40, 47, 48, 89 45, 48, 89, 136, 141, 142 n. 22, 152 47, 136, 142 n. 22, 152 46, 48 n. 42, 143 48 n. 42 47, 48 199 89, 198 n. 12 and n. 13, 210 n. 53 35, 47 47, 48 48, 211 47 20, 21, 138 n. 9, 141, 144, 147, 150, 152 136, 141, 142 n. 22, 152 37 n. 13, 136, 142 n. 22, 152 143, 174, 219 135, 138 n. 9, 141, 142 n. 22, 145, 147, 149 n. 48, 150, 152, 153 37 n. 13, 135, 153 135, 153 37 n. 13 50, 136 136 38, 115 n. 23 and n. 24
6.130 6.153 8.284 8.368 9.447 9.448 9.529 9.557 9.561 9.562 10.319 10.334 12.1 12.103 12.117 12.397 13.12 13.66 14.319 14.323 14.325 18.486 20.3 20.53 20.145 20.403 20.403–404 21.448 22.448 23.144 24.602 Scholia A in Iliadem 1.126 1.400 13.307 Scholia bT in Iliadem 1.400 9.557 12.292 13.389 20.53 20.145
136 117 n. 31 134 n. 7, 150 135, 147 134 n. 3 22 135 136, 222 52 n. 51 51, 52, 137, 221 143 n. 26 137 136 135 139, 140 n. 15, 141, 151, 153 n. 59 136 134 n. 7 136 135, 143 135, 137 143, 153 36 93 8 n. 16 195–211 36 8 n. 16, 96, 97, 195 n. 6 8 n. 16, 98, 134 n. 7 150 98, 100 76 n. 7, 136 139, 140 n. 16, 153 198 139, 140, 141, 151, 153 n. 59 198, 210 n. 53 222 136 177 n. 52 94 n. 86 202
Index Locorum 21.444d Scholia G in Iliadem 21.444c Scholia in Odysseam 1.259 3.4 3.91 6.164 10.494 11.260 11.266 11.269 11.269–270 11.271 11.281 11.281–283 11.287–290 11.290a 11.290 (HQ) 11.298 11.301a 11.317 11.318a 11.321 11.321c 11.321b 11.321d 11.321–22 11.326 11.326b 11.326d 11.326–27 11.519–21 11.547 (HY) 11.582 12.69–70 12.85 (=12.85b Ernst) 12.96b 13.96 13.259a 14.327–328 14.533 15.16–17
197, 198, 200 n. 23 200, 201 134 n. 7 59, 111 n. 11 59 62 137 67 112 67 112 112 62 112 112, 119, 120, 122 116 n. 30, 119– 122, 125, 127 122–124 112, 115 n. 22 116 n. 30 114 n. 17 114 63, 143 n. 27 112, 116 n. 30 112, 114 n. 16 112, 114 n. 16 64, 112, 114 n. 16 143 n. 27 112, 114 n. 16 112, 114 n. 16 112, 114 n. 16 112 61 68, 112 64, 69, 175 n. 43, 112 59, 66, 112, 113 n. 14 112 8 n. 16, 58, 59 112 113 112 113, 116
15.223–224 15.225a 16.471a 17.207a 17.208a 18.85 18.85b 19.178 19.432 19.518b 19.518a 20.66 20.155–156 20.301–302 21.22–23 21.295 21.303–304 23.198 23.218–219
112 112 113 112 113 67, 116 n. 30 117 n. 31 113 112 112 116 n. 29 116 n. 30 113, 116 113, 116 112 116 n. 29 113 113, 117, 134 n. 7 113
Scholia in Lycophronem 34 198 n. 12, 202 232 84 n. 48 and n. 53 Scholia in Pindarum Isthmica 4.104
169 n. 28
Scholia vetera in Platonem Timaeus 22a bis 139 Scholia in Sophoclem Oedipus Coloneus 91
169 n. 27
Scholia Veronensia in Vergilium Aeneis 1.243 166 2.82 166 2.717 166 4.146 165 5.496 176 n. 47 Georgica 3.7 166 4.463 170
Index Locorum
Seneca Epistulae 88.3 Servius in Vergilium Aeneis 1.469 1.550 1.693 2.7 2.32–33 2.35 3.113 4.228 4.246 5.30 5.496 6.14 6.398 6.445 6.618 7.372 7.773 7.790 8.157 8.299 10.189 10.738 Eclogae 1.64–65 3.63 3.106 5.10 6.14 6.41 6.61 6.72 6.74 6.78 Georgica 1.9 1.12 1.19 1.39 1.138 1.222
160, 161
176 n. 47 176 178 172 172 168 n. 26 173 n. 40 176 n. 47 173–174 n. 40 176 176 n. 47 181 180 n. 56 174 n. 40 168 164 181 n. 57 20–21 176 148 n. 44 174 n. 40 167 168 n. 26 173 173 n. 40 173 n. 40 188 192 173 n. 40 184 n. 61 173 n. 40 173 n. 40, 184 n. 61 187 186, 191, 192 192 187, 192 187, 192 187
1.246 1.383 1.399 1.403 1.437 2.84 3.268
193 193 186, 194 194 194 168 n. 26, 173 n. 40 185
Servius Danielis in Vergilium Aeneis 1.28 172 1.394 177 n. 50 1.430 177 n. 50 1.483 176 n. 47 1.505 177 n. 50 1.744 192 2.7 172 2.201 168 2.204 169 2.211 169 2.497 163 n. 15 2.513 173 2.626 177 n. 49 3.6 184 n. 61 3.8 168 n. 26 3.23 177 3.80 168 n. 26, 173 n. 40 3.91 173 n. 38, 177 n. 49 3.108 184 n. 61 3.167 184 n. 61 3.321 184 n. 61 3.334 168 n. 26 3.689 184 n. 61 4.99 184 n. 61, 177 n. 49 4.127 184 n. 61 4.246 174 n. 40 4.250 177 n. 49 4.254 174 n. 40, 177 n. 50 4.377 184 n. 61 4.402 177 n. 49 and n. 50 4.469 174 n. 40
Index Locorum 5.138 6.14 6.21 8.299 8.330 8.600 9.114 9.262 10.142 Eclogae 4.58 4.62 5.20 5.48 6.22 6.41 6.72 6.78 7.37 7.61 8.29 8.37 8.68 10.12 Georgica 1.9 1.12 1.14 1.18 1.19 1.38 1.39 1.207 1.222 1.246 2.497 3.53 3.258 3.268
177 n. 49 168, 193 168 181 168 n. 26 168 n. 26 177 n. 49 172 174 n. 40 177 n. 49 184 n. 61 182, 183 176, 188 173 n. 40, 177 n. 49 173 n. 40, 187, 192 184 n. 61 173 n. 40, 184 n. 61 173 n. 40 177 n. 49 and n. 52 177 n. 49 177 n. 49 182, 183, 184 184 187 186, 191 187, 191 186, 192 186, 192 187 187 173 n. 40, 193 187, 193 193 163 n. 15, 164 164 193 185
Sextus Empiricus Math. 1.91–94; 252–253 161
Simonides fr. 537 Page
62
Sophocles Aiax 575
52
Stephanus Byzantinus s.v. Ὄαξος 171 s.v. Τένεδος 84 n. 48 Strabo 12.4.8 13.1.35 13.1.46 13.1.63
77 n. 15 95 n. 89 84 n. 48 82 n. 39
Suda Κ 227 Τ 310 X 136
77 n. 17 84 n. 48 77 n. 11
Suetonius De Gramm. 20
163 n. 15
Tabula Albana FGrH 40F1a
148–149
Theopompus of Chios FGrH 115 T20 FGrH 115F350
82 n. 38 82 n. 41
Varro Atacinus fr. 5
171
Vergilius Aeneis 3.16–18 3.113 4.144–146 6.14–34 6.337–383 Eclogae 1.65 Georgica 1.378
170 173 n. 40 164–165 182 81 n. 34 170 163