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The article treats the presence of stars in terrestrial landscapes, in opposition to the Underworld and in connection to the topos of katabasis, above all in order to pursue in more depth a textual problem in the fabula Orphei of Vergil’s Georgics (4,509 astris / antris). The philological question is approached both on the basis of context and in relation to the descent into Hades of Aeneas, as well as in diachronic comparison with the earlier Homeric katabasis of Odysseus and the later otherworldly voyage of Dante in the Commedia. This internal and intertextual investigation reveals multiple functions of the celestial bodies in similar stories, as well as analogies between Homer, Vergil and Dante, linked by interests in nature and astronomy and by reciprocal influences. In fact, the Greek model and the Italian emulator seem to help clarify the contested passage in the Vergilian katabasis of Orpheus, while the Latin poet and Dante (who also share echoes of Apollonius Rhodius) rework a celestial detail already present in the νέκυια of Homer. Finally, both these classical authors, as well as Ovid, are subtly present at the ends of the three parts of the Commedia, each of which closes with the suggestive and symbolic image of “stars”, which evokes and renews an ancient tradition.

In the pamphlet On Salaried Posts in Great Houses Lucian of Samosata analyzes the problem of the impossible relationship between misthos, ‘money’, and paideia, ‘culture’ and ‘teaching’. Money is an indispensable asset for the necessities of life. But starting with Socrates and the Sophists it becomes problematic. In Lucian’s satire the attack is directed at philosophers and the marketing of culture in the Roman Empire at the time of the Second Sophistic.

This paper discusses problems of staging, address and word order in Greek tragedy to shed light on a controversial passage in Sophocles: Aj. 339-343. Ajax’s cry within, ἰὼ παῖ παῖ (339), has been alternatively taken to refer to Eurysaces (as suggested by Tecmessa) or to Teucer (whom Ajax mentions at 342-343). The paper argues for Teucer and responds to three arguments against this view: (1) παῖ is not only acceptable, but also effective to address one’s sibling; (2) the word order of 342, Τεῦκρον καλῶ, strictly implies ‘It’s Teucer I’m calling’ (not just: ‘I call on Teucer’), hence it cannot mark the move to a new addressee; (3) it is hardly possible for Ajax not to hear Tecmessa’s 340-341: short interactions across the skēnē door may occur, and the parallel scene at Euripides, Medea 1270a-1278 suggests that Ajax most likely hears Tecmessa’s words and corrects her wrong guess.

This paper focuses on some quotations of Pseudo-Psellus’ treatise on music. Three quotations are provided and discussed: the well-known one by Manuel Bryennius, and two others by Joannes Zonaras and Michael Italicus. The Byzantine tendency to preserve pagan contents within Christian categories, together with the unique presence of this text in the overview of the ancient theoretical tradition, may be the main reasons for its wide circulation in the Byzantine world.

This article argues for the authenticity of Sophocles Electra 1050–54, deleted in Lloyd-Jones and Wilson’s and Finglass’ editions. After a refutation of scholars’ earlier objections (including Stobaeus’ misleading attribution of 1050–51 to Sophocles’ Phaedra), two substantive arguments are advanced in favor of their retention: (1) in terms of scenic grammar, if 1050–54 were removed, Chrysothemis’ exit would be ineptly unnoticed, in contradiction with Sophocles’ usual handling of exits; (2) in terms of conversation analysis, 1050–54 replicate a pre-patterned sequence ubiquitously found in tragedy to terminate rapid dialogues when exits are involved, whereas their absence would make the closing unjustifiably abrupt.

Si cerca di restituire le lezione genuina di un passo di Pomponio Mela. An attempt is made to convey the genuine lesson of a passage by Pomponio Mela.

A treatise on rhetorical tropes is attributed in manuscripts to the first-century grammarian Trypho: this article considers for the first time a fifteenth-century manuscript of this work (Leiden, BPG 74G), which turns out to be the only complete witness of its hitherto unknown original version; this version (very fragmentarily transmitted by a fifth-century papyrus scrap) is also partly found in another fifteenth-century manuscript now kept in Olomouc (M 79). Four interesting poetic fragments are quoted in this newly discovered, fuller version of Ps.-Trypho'sDe Tropis: some lines from Callimachus’ fifth and fourthIambi(23–9 and 90–2 respectively: a radically new light is shed by this new witness on the parallel papyrus fragments carrying Callimachus’ text), an epigram dubiously attributed to Simonides (FGE44 Page, probably to be dated to the Hellenistic period: the text can be now restored to its complete form), and some enigmatic lines of “Hesiod”'sWedding of Keyx, which the new witness finally makes fully understandable.

This funerary verse inscription, found in 1976, is for the previously unknown dramatist Diokles of Rhodes. This entry re-examines the text based on visual autopsy, proposes a new supplement on the last line, and sets the poem within the literary and inscribed epitaphic traditions for deceased poets (tragedians in particular). It also considers what this poem tells us about Rhodian dramatic competitions in the Hellenistic period. It looks at the interplay between inscribed and literary epigrams, what this epigram tells us about poetry of the south-east Aegean, and the reception of literary funerary epigrams of Classical authors in the Hellenistic era., Axon

1. Considerations preliminaires : pourquoi des fragments ? Editer les plus anciens philosophes grecs – plus precisement, les philosophes anterieurs a Platon – signifie dans presque tous les cas editer non pas des textes complets qui nous seraient integralement parvenus plus ou moins sous la forme dans laquelle leurs auteurs les ont composes, mais bien plutot une combinaison de citations indirectes, de longueur variable, que des auteurs posterieurs ont faites de leurs œuvres, des paraphrases, ...

This article argues, against most contemporary translators, that Anacreont. 17,43-44 should be construed as «take down this Apollo and turn it into Bathyllus», and sketches a history of this interpretation in early modem scholarship on the Anacreontea.

The paper is the first part of S. Barbantani’s contribution Lyric for the Rulers, Lyric for the People: The Transformation of Some Lyric Subgenres in Hellenistic Poetry, in E. Sistakou (ed.), Hellenistic Lyricism: Traditions and Transformations of a Literary Mode (Trends in Classics 9, 2), Berlin - Boston 2017, 339-399 (which discusses encomiastic lyric, epinikion in Callimachus, Posidippus and inscriptional epigram, literary epithalamia, threnoi and epikedeia, poems in stichic lyric meters, Carmina popularia, anthologies for symposiastic use and mimes). This contribution analyses how some of the main lyric genres, developed in archaic and classical Greek poetry, underwent transformation in the Hellenistic period, following social, political and cultural changes. The paper specifically explores lyric poetry produced ‘for the gods’ (hymns, esp. paeans, preserved on stone and on papyrus).

In the following note, the contributor will lead a short discussion on a difficult passage occurring in Germ. fr. 4 Gain: the author revises previous emendations and then uses a palaeographical method in order to propose fresh conjecture, which actually provides a plausible reading of what an ancient scribe miswrote.

Conjecture on [Epicharmus] Fr. 249 K.-A.

This essay aims to reconstruct the lexicographic debate that developed around the Greek word διeιρωνόξeνοι, which is attested in Aristophanes’ Peace (623). Moving from the rediscovery of the term b...

Il volume propone una riflessione critica di carattere metodologico su alcuni strumenti e tecniche digitali per l'insegnamento scolastico ed universitario in ambito umanistico, con un'attenzione particolare alla didattica delle lingue, letterature e culture classiche. Per ciascuno strumento digitale, si valuta se esso comporti un effettivo miglioramento dal punto di vista dei metodi, alla luce di alcuni obiettivi e principi educativi generali: sono presentate e discusse solo innovazioni digitali che, in chiave costruttivista, rendano l'apprendimento più attivo, più critico, più creativo e più orientato verso un contributo positivo alla società. Una serie di proposte didattiche accompagna la riflessione metodologica. The book provides a methodological reflection on digital tools and techniques for school and university teaching in the Humanities, with a focus on Classics. The author evaluates each tool in a constructivist pedagogical framework: digital innovations are taken into account only if they make learning more active, creative and community-oriented. A number of teaching activities exemplify each point of the methodological discussion.

Undramma satiresco in latino. IlCiclopenell’Italia del CinquecentoThis article is concerned with an artistic Latin translation of Euripides’ Cyclops, which was published in 1556 by the Calabrian humanist Coriolano Martirano (1503-1557). It illustrates the way in which Euripides’ text is reworked in the broader context of the reception of the satirical drama in sixteenth-century Italy. An analysis of the work shows that Martirano intervenes on the text, modifying and integrating it, not only under the influence of other ancient sources dedicated to the figure of the Cyclops, ranging from Homer to Ovid and from Theocritus to Virgil, but also in a dialogue with the Neo-Latin and vernacular production that other exponents of Calabrian humanism, such as Antonio Telesio and Coriolano’s brother Bernardino, dedicated to the Cyclops in the 1520s and 1530s.

Diacritical marks introduced by Pietro Bembo with the help of his editor, Aldus Manutius, in the first edition of his dialogue De Aetna form a complex and well-structured system. Although devised for practical purposes, so as to ensure a correct reading and phrasing of the Latin text, this system is clearly based on solid theoretical premises. The decisive factor for its introduction was the experience of editing Greek texts, which became the impulse as well as the basis for the system of diacritical signs. The influence of Latin grammarians (in particular, Servius and Priscianus), who had applied Greek accent theory to Latin language, also played an important part. Within a system essentially devoid of ambiguity, the three accents conveyed a variety of indications bearing on the correct pronunciation of the text, from basic principles to expressive nuances. Several editorial decisions involving phrase accents suggest that Bembo considered not only private reading, whether oral or mental (endophasic), but also public declamation.

Knocking on Charon’s Door. Andrea Dazzi’s Epigram for Julius II, and the Iulius exclususA Greek epigram by Andrea Dazzi on the death of Pope Julius II looks like a satire in the fashion of Lucian, Aristophanes, and the Greek Anthology: the wording of this text brings to mind not only Pontano’s Charon and, more specifically, some popular polemical texts against Julius, but also Erasmus of Rotterdam’s dialogue Iulius exclusus e coelis, with which it shares some startling similarities.

In Silv. 4.4 Statius pays homage to Vitorius Marcellus, the young dedicatee of the poem (for this small but meaningful detail, see Stat. Silv. 4.4.45 iuuenes … annos; 4.4.74 iuuenemque … parentem), praising his skills as an orator (4.4.39–45) and foreseeing a brilliant military career for him (4.4.61–4). The last point is highlighted in a brief portrait of Marcellus as a perfect foot soldier and horseman (4.4.64–9):… nec enim tibi sola potentiseloquii uirtus: sunt membra accommoda bellis 65quique grauem tarde subeant thoraca lacerti.seu campo pedes ire pares, est agmina supranutaturus apex, seu frena sonantia flectes,seruiet asper equus.

The traditional output of philological work aiming at the constitutio textus is the print critical edition with apparatus footnotes showing select variant readings. The digital scholarly edition, instead, is not constrained by the space limits of the printed page, so it can encode and visualize synoptically many versions of a text, as found in different textual witnesses. This opportunity has often been exploited by New Philology editions, in which textual versions are juxtaposed without any attempt to reconstruct an "original" text. However, the digital critical edition can constitute a "third way" between constitutio textus and New Philology: the digital editor can provide different versions of a text from individual witnesses and add a further version, the editor's own textus constitutus, thus putting Giorgio Pasquali's "critica del testo" in the framework of the "storia della tradizione".

This article discusses a passage in Athenaeus (14.620d) that refers to the performance of Herodotus’ work in a theatre in Hellenistic Alexandria. In his edition of Athenaeus, highly valued and still influential, August Meineke replaces Herodotus’ name (unanimously transmitted in Athenaeus’ manuscripts) with Hesiod’s. In this article I set out to overturn a widespread tendency to accept Meineke’s emendation of Athenaeus 14.620d, reconsidering the possibility that Athenaeus did in fact name Herodotus in the light of (a) the difficulty of explaining the origin of the alleged mistake in Athenaeus’ manuscript tradition and (b) the ancients’ tendency to draw parallels between Herodotus’ style and language and Homeric poetry. The fact that Athenaeus refers to theatrical performances of both Herodotus’ work and the Homeric poems will be shown to be very much in line with the ancient rhetorical, historiographical and biographical tradition which regarded Herodotus as the most Homeric of all prose writers.

The title of Menander’s Sikyonioi has long posed major critical challenges.1 While the earliest sources, the colophon of the Sorbonne papyrus (third century BCE) and a wall painting from Ephesus (second century CE), attest to the masculine plural title Σικυώνιοι,2 later indirect sources quoting fragments from the play transmit the masculine singular title Σικυώνιος;3 two indirect sources also testify to the existence of a feminine singular title Σικυωνία.4 It is now quite widely agreed upon that Σικυώνιοι is the correct title for the play, not least

In one of the fragments of encomiastic poetry which is most difficult to interpret, Suppl . Hell . 958 ( P . Hamb . 312 inv. 381, 3 rd cent. BCE), a king (most probably Ptolemy II) compares his two arch-enemies, the «Medes» and the Galatians, those already defeated and those about to receive due punishment for their impiety. Comparison with contemporary and late-antique Greek encomia from Egypt may suggest that here are at play two levels of assimilation with the 5 th century Persians: on the one hand, every barbarian enemy of a Greek state can be seen as a reincarnation of the Persian spectre (even the Galatians are often assimilated to the invading army of Xerxes in Hellenistic art and literature); on the other hand, the Seleucids, having inherited the land once dominated by the Achaemenids, can be presented by their enemies as «the New Persians». That a Ptolemy could play the role of a defender of the cultural identity of his subjects (both Greeks and Egyptians) against the Persians, is no surprise. We have to assess, however, if the Seleucids really did care less about advertising their Greek/Macedonian cultural inheritance than the rival dynasties. A review of the surviving Greek literature from the Seleucid empire (generally overlooked by scholars, who are most interested in the marvels of Alexandrian poetry) can be useful to reply to this question.

The final words of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris are vexed by several difficulties concerning the distribution of lines to speakers. In IT 1490-1, the problem affects the general interpretation of the ending, which seems to suggest clearly that the Chorus survives and returns to Greece. If 1490-1 are delivered by the Chorus, as Seidler suggests, it is to be assumed that the Greek women are not allowed to go back home with Iphigenia, Orestes and Pylades: this explicit does not square with the evidence of the drama as a whole. The restoration of L’s attribution of the lines to Athena (Kovacs) would fit well with the ultimate destiny of the Chorus, yet it raises the problem of admitting an unparalleled metrical transition from trimeters to anapaests by the same speaker; moreover, it creates an awkward repetition and reduplication of the content of 1487-9. The attribution to Thoas, who is in any case unable to leave until 1489, solves the problem and gives a better sense to 1490-1: Thoas is here urging the Chorus to leave the stage and sail towards Greece, trusting Athena’s recent deliberations. The mistake of attribution in L may reflect an original distribution in which changes of speaker were marked at 1486 (or 1487), 1490 and 1492.

This is a meticulous survey of the reception of some lyric subgenres in Hellenistic poetry and it is meant to be the first of a series of contributions on the subject. Leaving aside lyric in a religious context, the paper is divided into two main sections, namely lyric poetry composed for rulers and lyric poetry written for everyday people. In the new social context lyric poetry was intended for presentation in the royal symposia. The Alexandrians wrote all types of occasional lyric poetry (

The analysis of political language in Aeschylus’ Suppliants confirms the hypothesis that the form of government here represented is strongly influenced by contemporary Athens: prehistoric Argos turns out to be a sort of mirror of democratic Athens. It is no coincidence that the sequence running from the entrance of Pelasgus at l. 234 to the Danaids’ song of benediction (ll. 625-709) presents a dramatic pattern similar in several respects to that underlying in Eumenides 397-1002 (the scenes between the entrance of Athena and the Chorus’ prayer of blessing). Pelasgus (likewise Athena in Eumenides) imparts a sort of lesson on ‘democratic paideia’ to the Danaids, in view of their integration as metoikoi in the institutional structures of the polis.

The Aldine edition of Galen, awaited for more than 25 years, was perhaps the most risky enterprise in the whole history of the publishing house, and it almost brought Aldus' heirs to bankruptcy. Although the editors were among the most renowned specialists of the time, the edition was harshly criticized by one former friend and collaborator of Aldus, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. Why? Was the edition so bad, were the manuscripts on which the edition was based responsible for its quality? Or were there other reasons for Erasmus' complaint? This paper tries to give some hints in order to answer such questions, arguing that the role of Erasmus in the assessment of the value of the edition should take us into Aldus' house in the period of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, and into the political and religious debate of the time.

Si propone una nuova interpetazione di Teofrasto, Historia Plantarum IV. 11.1–9 dedicato alla descrizione di due tipologie di ance per aulo: il passo è stato messo a confronto con le esperienze pratiche di costruzione e uso di questo tipo di imboccatura ancora vive in zone grecaniche della Calabria, documentate da fotografie e da una registrazione dei suoni (accessibili nella pagina web http:www.unicatt.itdocentimatelli). Anche in altre opere Teofrasto si è occupato dell'aulo per descriverne gli effetti terapeutici e catartici. Si approfondiscono le questioni musicali implicate in tali testimonianze (tipo di strumento musicale, concetti di ‘genere’, ‘amonia’, ‘ritmo’), offrendo alcune esemplificazioni esecutive nella pagina web attraverso il suono dell'aulo (suonato dal M.stro C. Crucitti). Infine la nozione di ‘catarsi’ viene studiata all'interno della filosofia di Teofrasto, dove fisiologia umana, psicologia, poetica e musica sono teoreticamente collegate in un sistema unitario. Particolare importanza viene data al collegamento dell'idea di ‘entusiasmo’ a quella di ‘catarsi’, entrambe esperienze sia fisiologiche che psichiche, e al tempo stesso ‘poetiche’: una intima unione collega l'esperienza poetico/estetica alla condizione psico-fisica dell'individuo.

The Periplus preserved in the manuscript Parisinus suppl. gr. 443, and erroneously ascribed to Scylax of Caryanda (sixth century BC), is the oldest extant specimen of ancient Greek periplography: it belongs to the second half of the fourth century. In the present article, all the testimonies on the ancient tradition of both Scylax and the Paris Periplus are carefully evaluated. The aim is to determine when and why the Paris Periplus was mistakenly ascribed to Scylax and to clear any doubts on the alleged authorship of this ancient geographic work. The confusion, or the wilful falsification, is evident in Strabo: he knew of Scylax’s voyage in the East and at the same time was acquainted with the text of the Paris Periplus, which he ascribed to this famous ancient seafarer. Greek and Latin authors of the Roman Imperial age knew the Paris Periplus, but many followed slavishly the erroneous ascription to Scylax of Caryanda. When Marcianus of Heraclea in the early Byzantine age collected his corpus of ancient Greek geographers he also ascribed the Paris Periplus to Scylax, thus handing down the error to the copyist of the Paris. suppl. gr. 443

At various points in Method of medicine and in a passage in the Commentary on the Hippocratic Epidemics Galen takes up the image of the tyrant doctor employed by Plato in the famous passage in the Laws in which, to illustrate the role of the proem to the law, he introduces the contrast between doctors of freemen and doctors of slaves (Leg. IV 719e 8-720e 5) : this is an unexplored chapter of Galen’s Platonism., En plusieurs points de sa Méthode thérapeutique et à un endroit de son Commentaire aux Épidémies d’Hippocrate, Galien reprend l’image du médecin tyran présentée par Platon dans le célèbre passage des Lois (Leg. IV 719e 8-720e 5) où, pour illustrer le rôle du proème qui devra inciter le citoyen au respect de la loi, il introduit une contre-opposition entre médecin des hommes libres et médecin des esclaves : un chapitre non exploré du platonisme de Galien. La relecture galénique reprend toutefois l’image platonicienne en se référant non plus à la relation médecin-patient, mais aux polémiques entre les différentes écoles de médecine du IIe siècle après J.-C. Elle permet en outre d’affirmer — en harmonie avec une tradition critique consolidée, quoique non univoque — la nature pleinement rationnelle de la persuasion exercée par les proèmes, à laquelle le passage platonicien fait allusion., Grimaudo Sabrina. Le motif du médecin tyran de Platon à Galien. In: Revue des Études Grecques, tome 127, fascicule 2, Juillet-décembre 2014. pp. 271-294.

L'articolo fa parte di uno "special issue" monografico della rivista "Trends in Classics". Il fascicolo ha titolo "The Birth of Scholiography. From Types to Texts" ed e curato da Fausto Montana e Antonietta Porro.

This note deals with two Tarentine glosses transmitted by Hesychius. In the former (Hsch. α 4656 Latte ἄναυτα), I propose that the problematic form ἠπειρωτικά (printed as such, or wrongly emended, by various scholars) should be corrected into ἢ παραυτίκα, which is palaeographically very plausible and paralleled by other glosses in the Lexicon. In the latter (Hsch. τ 433 Hansen –Cunningham †τελλίην), I propose to read Τελλήν, a personal name attested in Tarentum; the interpretamentum ὁ δεῖνα tells us that it was used to describe an unidentified person, precisely like Titius and Caius in Latin (and Tizio and Caio in Italian).

Classical culture played an important role in the work of Sigmund Freud and influenced the formation of psychoanalysis. This influence concerned several aspects of Freud’s experience: the personal one, from his adolescent identification with ancient heroes to his emotional bond with Rome and Athens; the intellectual, including his use of authors such as Aristotle and Artemidorus the elaboration of psychoanalytical theory; rhetorical and expositive in his use of classical authors such as Sophocles and Vergil, and in his strategy of identifying thinkers such as Plato and Empedocles as forerunners of his theories. The present article reconstructs the evolution of this strategy, which began in 1900, in conjunction with the definition of the basic concepts of psychoanalysis. Some specific episodes of Freud’s approach to the classics are also examined: his reception of Aristotle’s concept of catharsis, and of the interpretation of this concept given by Bernays; Freud’s interest in Vergil, highlighted by his use of verses from the Aeneid in his works; his conflictual relationship with Rome; the use of Empedocles as a predecessor of the changes that Freud made, in his last years, to the theory of pulsions.

Textual, literary and dramaturgical notes to Eur. Hypp. 271, 626, 680-1, 1045, 1123, 1153.

Apollo must leave the stage sometime after line 753 in the Eumenides, but the question of when exactly he does so is perplexing. A simple solution proposed but rejected by O. Taplin assigns lines 775-777, transmitted as the last three lines of Orestes' speech, to Apollo. Orestes' speech of gratitude is followed by a speech of farewell by Apollo. Once Apollo has said goodbye, Orestes and he can leave together.

Le fragment d’Hellanicos de Lesbos FGrHist 4 F 192, transmis par la Synagoge (Σb α 463), traite du terme ἀθάρη / ἀθήρα (« farine », « polenta »). Malgre l’etymologie controversee et incertaine de ce mot, le parallele avec certains papyrus documentaires, avec Pline l’Ancien, Galien, Jerome et Hesychius, permet de situer le terme ἀθήρα (sous sa forme la plus frequente) dans un contexte egyptien. A partir de cette analyse, on se propose d’attribuer FGrHist 4 F 192 a l’œuvre ethnographique portant sur l’Egypte (Αἰγυπτιακά) d’Hellanicos de Lesbos, ajoutant ainsi un fragment supplementaire au peu de fragments conserves de cette œuvre. F 192 peut etre compare a un autre fragment des Αἰγυπτιακά, F 56, transmis par Athenee, qui traite de questions alimentaires au sens large.