Wiener Studien ‒ Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie, Patristik und lateinische Tradition, Band 127/2014

This article deals with the prevailing weather conditions as well as their possible leverage on agon, play and staging during the great Dionysia in Athens in the fifth century B.C. With the help of archaeological and written sources as well as modern weather statistics the attempt is made to analyze the external climatic relations and to interpret their effect on the open-air theater of the Greeks in antiquity.

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This article purposes to explain some critic questions about Antigone with particular reference to the conflict between State’s law and universal ethical rules, between religion and politics, individual conscience and reason of State. The analysis makes use of comparison with Tobit's biblical story related in the Old Testament's book of Tobia aimed to explain the ideal subject of Sophoclean drama through similarities that recall a cultural common inheritance going back to bronze age and extending to archaic and classic age from the egeo-anatolic area to the near East.

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This paper aims to re-examine the arguments concerning the three main problems of the fragmentary Euripidean tragedy Phaethon, i. e. what character and conflict lies behind Phaethon’s excessive reluctance to the marriage; who the mysterious bride is; and finally, what kind of exodos fits in the dramatic context on the basis of the fragmentary textual evidence. In my discussion Goethe’s reconstruction is dealt with closely; moreover, the poet’s suggestions prove to be valuable not only artistically, but philologically as well. Some personal bias of his treatment nevertheless hints at a new articulation of the Phaethontic character in the Euphorion-episode of Faust II and a general re-evaluation of the hybris-drama.

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This paper presents a preliminary edition of two pages of a hitherto unknown historical text, recently discovered in four palimpsest folios of the Vienna ms. Hist. gr. 73. The two pages, deciphered with the use of spectral imaging, deal with the preparation for the attack on Greece during an invasion of “Scythians”, which can be identified with the so-called Herulian invasion of 267/8 A. D. into the Roman Empire, and the defensive measures taken against the invaders at Thermopylae. The recovered fragment sheds new light on the course of events and raises interesting prosopographic questions. On the grounds of content and style, there is reason to believe that it is part of the Scythica by the contemporary historian Dexippus of Athens.

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The present article focuses on three hitherto unknown and several less known manuscripts of classical authors preserved in the libraries of Mount Athos. Two fragments from the monastery of Vatopedi (2 leaves each) date from the 10th century and are by far the oldest extant witnesses of the respective authors (Sextus Empiricus, Cleomedes). The cod. Lavra K 57 is a new manuscript of the Ilias (13th century), so far overlooked by the editors.

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The article intends to contribute to clarifying the background and possible functions of the prosodical and metrical peculiarities in the third and eighth line of Catullus last poem. After the analysis of the two lines concerned the conclusion can be drawn that by the (not at all Ennian) elision of in tu dabi supplicium in line eight and by the not Callimachean (and not Ennian either) versus spondiacus of the third line in his Callimachean poem Catullus might have condemned and stigmatised the style and character of his enemy Gellius as rustic: thus, for the last time, he could stand up again for his vital idea of urbanity.

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From Homer on, seafaring (with storms) is one of the most frequent elements in epic narratives. It is not only an essential part of the hero’s journey, but, as is known, can also be an expression of the narrator’s poetic endeavor. But what if the narrator’s ship seems perforated and fragile, what if his actio threatens to sink or to get lost in the vast and thunderous ocean of epic? This article examines the externalization and formalization of nautical and aquatic dangers in Roman epic. Thus, it concentrates on those scenes of suspense where the text creates the aesthetic illusion and simulates that itself could somehow shipwreck, suffer damage, or stray off course. The different Roman versions of the Argonautica are particularly relevant for this research because, as accounts of the seefaring myth par excellence, they are highly self-reflective and tend to incorporate the internal motives errores, naufragium, and submersio within their literary forms. Of these poetae naufragi, Catullus and Valerius Flaccus seem to be the most impressive illusionists.

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The British Library houses an edition of Prudentius annotated by Richard Bentley (ed. N. Heinsius, shelfmarks 686. d. 7 and 686. d. 8). The notes, though already collected by Paul Schroeder in the second half of the 19th century, were now re-examined by Vinko Hinz and are here published and analysed for the first time. They consist of collations, short discussions and conjectures. While the collations and discussions are mainly interesting for the history of Classical Philology, Bentley’s conjectures show his brilliant insight into the problems of the text and can still be of use to readers and editors.

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The article deals with Simon of Couvin (ca. 1325 – 1367) who studied at the university of Paris in the middle of the 14th century. In the year 1350, the author has composed an hitherto nearly unknown poem entitled “De iudicio Solis” in which he tries to explain the causes of the Black Death. The contemporary plague is traced back to a specific astrological constellation wrapped in an allegoric narrative. The paper presents a critical edition of the Latin text and an introduction to the author.

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