In a previous paper I have shown that this is the correct reading, and that the variant єλєν is a clumsy attempt made by a copyist who did not understand Apollonius. Since my elucidation of the matter has now been questioned by Campbell , I find it necessary to return to Apollonius’ line in more detail, and I shall endeavour to demonstrate geometrico more that my explanation of the poet's words is right because supported by the use of Homeric Wortgut (...) made by Hellenistic poets; Campbell's contention is wrong in that it starts from a false assumption and rests on basic methodological errors. (shrink)

In a previous paper I have shown that this is the correct reading, and that the variant єλєν is a clumsy attempt made by a copyist who did not understand Apollonius. Since my elucidation of the matter has now been questioned by Campbell, I find it necessary to return to Apollonius’ line in more detail, and I shall endeavour to demonstrate geometrico more that my explanation of the poet's words is right because supported by the use of Homeric Wortgut made (...) by Hellenistic poets; Campbell's contention is wrong in that it starts from a false assumption and rests on basic methodological errors. (shrink)

Pfeiffer accepts without hesitation Buttmann's correction , but Schneider has proved, with immense and unassailable erudition, that neither are touchable. Cahen, more prudently than Pfeiffer, leaves the lectio tradita in the text, naturally with a crux.

Josephus' pamphlet commonly known under the title Contra Apionem makes rather interesting reading, not only because it represents a more mature stage in the author's stylistic evolution, which shows so many points worth considering, but also and chiefly because it gives us a direct insight into a vehement polemic in which the writer played a leading role.

In the following pages I shall emend or explain certain passages of the Epyllion. For the sake of brevity I shall refer the reader, wherever possible, to the material collected by Breitenstein, whose monograph I have recently reviewed. The conoscenti will hardly need to be reminded, for the purposes of my discussion, that the author of Megara was, to appropriate Geffcken's words, '‘ein doctus poeta, wie alle Alexandriner’ , steeped in the knowledge of Homer, Apollonius, and Theocritus . First of (...) all, an emendation. (shrink)

In the present paper I shall investigate how far the employment of the vocative in Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica and in Callimachus' Hymns i–iv complies with the Homeric usage as elucidated by Scott. For Apollonius, the relevant attestations have been listed, but hardly analysed, by Gildersleeve and Miller in A.J.P. xxiv , 197–9; the Callimachean material has never been examined, as far as I know. First of all, however, it will be useful to fill a gap in our knowledge and supplement (...) Scott's data by surveying the use of the vocative in the Homeric Hymns i–v. My survey has led me to the following results. (shrink)

Professor Trypanis has recently suggested changing àνούαтον into àνούтαтον. Since the problem has not been dealt with atisfactorily by any commentator,1 I should like to clarify the matter by demonstrating that the text is sound: the adjective àνούαтον is, in fact, not only morphologically impeccable, but, in particular, singularly pointed. From the morphological point of view, the Hinterglied ούαтος is paralleled by δολιχούαтος , μονούαтος , and χρυσούαтος : these adjectives occur in hexameter poetry, and each of them is attested (...) once, exactly as is the case with Theocritus‘ àνούαтος. The point brought out by àνούαтον is extremely felicitous: statues of Priapus could be either of an elaborate type, in which the god was represented as having two protruding physical features, namely his ears3 and his mentula, or of a more uncouth type, which consisted of a ‘truncus dolatus’, i.e. a truncus whose only protuberance was the ‘mentula edolata’. The statue described by Theocritus belongs to the latter type: it is uncouthly hewn and devoid of one of the two protruding features {à½οÍαтοт), but it does possess the other one. (shrink)

This is one of the Horatian passages most tormented by the critics. Four points, I think, may now be safely regarded as established. First of all, the lectio tradita can hardly be sound : those who have tried to defend it—their Nestor is Porphyrio himself—have encountered insuperable difficulties. Magnum—to use Kiessling—Heinze's word—is patently ‘sinnlos’. Secondly, none of the proposed conjectures really satisfies. Maga non, as Kiessling-Heinze rightly note, is excluded by metrical reasons alone, not to mention its stylistic harshness ; (...) magica, favoured by Kiessling-Heinze, is scarcely better : the epithet is tautological after venena, and if we accept the emendation we are compelled to postulate a very awkward zeugma . Thirdly, the corruption is pre-medieval, because Porphyrio already read magnum : if we have to apply palaeographical methods for the solution of the problem, we must reason in terms of Roman cursive. (shrink)

Alexandrian epic is ‘arte allusiva’–to use the Pasqualian term—par excellence: the best methodological introduction to this literary feature still remains Herter's monograph. In the following pages I should like to show how certain passages from Callimachus or ApoUonius can be properly understood only if interpreted according to the canons of the ‘arte allusiva’ as practised by the poets.

None of the emendations proposed so far is satisfactory. As Keydell reminds us, Ap. Rhod. I. 1205 makes Nonnus' untouchable, and thereby disposes of all the conjectures which would alter these words; consequently, the corruption must be hiding in the impossible.