Wiener Studien ‒ Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie, Patristik und lateinische Tradition, Band 130/2017

Scholars generally assume that Olympian 1, 1 – 7 and Bacchylides 3, 85 – 87 contain priamels. I argue that these passages do not contain priamels. I suggest that we have thought that these passages contain priamels because we have not recognized Pindar’s and Bacchylides’ metaphorical language. At Bacchylides 3, 85 – 87, Bacchylides caps Olympian 1, 1 – 7, while making the argument with Hieron, the patron of both Olympian 1 and Bacchylides 3, that Bacchylides is a better poet than Pindar.

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The paper focuses on the explanations offered in the scholia vetera concerning Pindar’s alleged loss of memory that features the opening lines of Ol. 10. Special attention is devoted to Schol. Ol. 10, 1i Drachmann and its physiological interest in the localisation of the memory in the brain as part of a post-Galenic tradition. Thereby, this scholion can be situated in its actual Byzantine context.

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In Pi. Pyth. 1, 71 – 80 the battles of Himera and Kyme, in which the Deinomenid rulers of Syracuse defeated the Carthaginians and Etruscans in 480 and 474 BC, are equated with the battles of Salamis and Plataea. In particular, the idea of a supreme effort for preserving Greek freedom, frequent in contemporary poetic celebrations of the Persian Wars, is transferred to the western conflicts. This paper reviews the textual evidence and argues that Pi. Pyth. 1, 71 – 80 perhaps specifically recalls Aeschylus’ description of Salamis in Persai (353 – 432) and the praise of the Spartans in Simonides’ Plataea Elegy (frr. 11 + 13 IEG2). Pindar’s ostensible aim of raising Hieron’s pan-Hellenic profile therefore acquires a second dimension: the Deinomenids not only achieved military successes equivalent to those of the mainland Greeks, but they also deserve to be praised on the same literary terms.

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This paper examines and summarizes the extant Herculanean pieces of evidence for Demades, a successful Athenian orator of the 4th century B.C. who, according to several sources, did not study the art of rhetoric but succeeded by dint of hard work and experience in addition to natural talent. In this field a new testimonium to Demades, handed down by PHerc. 1004, is to be taken into account. Two aspects appear to stand out: the substantial pointlessness of rhetoric and the political failure of the Athenian orator before (or during) the Macedonian-Greek conflict. In anticipation of a new comprehensive edition of PHerc. 1004, a comparison of this testimonium with the other references to Demades in the Herculaneum papyri gives us further clues for understanding the reasons behind this topical reference.

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This article deals with Polybius’ view of history in general and with his narration of human action in particular. The argument starts from recent opinions that his narrations are influenced by Aristotelian conception and expounds the problems of his supposed incoherent conception of narration. This paper argues against these opinions and for a rather coherent conception of Polybius’ narration of human action, which is strongly influenced by stoic and middle-stoic ethical doctrine.

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The article discusses the nature of so-called allegorical dreams in Classical antiquity (especially Greek). The author first surveys what kind of content and form these dreams had, who dreamed them and under what circumstances they were dreamed, what the reaction to them was and how they were understood. The article subsequently examines the relationship between allegorical dreams and dream symbols and reaches the conclusion that allegorical dreams weren’t formed by dream symbols that had a constant and constantly valid meaning, but instead by the context, that is, by the situation in which the dreamer found him or herself and which the dream imagination in one way or the other reshaped. This context constituted the first and most important criterion for dream interpreters because, depending on it, the absolute majority of dream symbols changed, or could change, their meaning. Until a sufficiently high number of semantically stable symbols (which certainly didn’t exist until Roman times) had developed, standardized dream-books that provided lists of symbols with an unchanging and definitively given meaning couldn’t emerge.

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This paper explores the portrayal of Aphrodite, Athena, Helen and other women as realized through the comments made by Aphrodite and Paris on femininity and the lack of it in Colluthus’ Rape of Helen. It is argued that in making Paris state that Helen’s female ‘Argive’ entourage lacks womanly features, Colluthus is making reference to Theocritus’ Encomion of Helen and to Callimachus’ Bath of Pallas, in which Spartan women and Athena respectively are endowed with masculine characteristics. Colluthus is further conversing with the Homeric image of Aphrodite in the passage in which the goddess is defeated by Athena and Diomedes and is mocked for her feebleness. In Colluthus, it is Aphrodite’s turn to exult over her Homeric opponents (namely Athena) and to show that beauty, which shines in her victory in Paris’ judgment, is the real female power which masculine women lack and thus to proclaim the superiority of love to war.

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A detailed study of the Logos Basilikos text by Menander Rhetor leads us to propose connections between the Aldine edition and some recentiores.

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The use of the word cura in its erotic meaning in the Augustan poets can be traced back to the poetry of Cornelius Gallus; beginning from Verg. ecl. 10 and then in Propertius and Ovid, a series of references to the Gallan elegy can be reconstructed, showing the continuity of a poetic dialogue between authors and genres.

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The text tradition and the critical emendation of Ammianus Marcellinus sometimes are a philological nightmare, rather often a difficult task to deal with. Many scholars assume the Teubner edition to be the last word on this subject; but Clark’s work cannot be dismissed so easily. The core issue is Ammianus’ own personal blend of literary Latin; today old prejudices still haunt Ammianean studies and lead them astray. This paper aims at showing how both a free mind approach to Ammianus’ highly original Latin and the philological principle of the usus scribendi, together with the steady help of Latin paleography, can substantially improve the transmitted text and our understanding of several passages.

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The reconstruction of the semantic field of sinuamen, beginning with its first known appearances in Juvencus, is developed firstly through a diachronic analysis, which takes into account the linguistic evolution and thematic expansions of this lexeme during the examined period (Late Antiquity until Venantius Fortunatus). It is also necessarily developed at a synchronic level, considering uses of the very same locution, or of similar expressions in related contexts, by authors of different times. In addition to the definition of the semantic range of this neologism, the analysis of the sources and the linguistic and literary investigation allow, in some cases, for further identification of the intertextual structure of some examined literary works. In such works, the revived use of sinuamen, and at times of a particular phrasing, seems to be clear evidence of an imitatio. The appearance of the word sinuamen allows for the identification of new sources used by later poets, who have not yet received proper attention by scholars.

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This paper aims to provide a new insight into the first four lines of the hexametric section of Prudentius’ Psychomachia, which include the opening invocation to Christ (Prud. psych. 1) and the dense aretalogical section dedicated to the Son (Prud. psych. 2 – 4). Their theological implications will be analysed in the light of contemporary Western Christology, highlighting in particular the affinities between the implicit anti-heretical concerns of the Spanish poet and the orthodox pronunciations by Hilarius of Poitiers (De trinitate) and Ambrose (De fide).

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In this article the author provides a critical edition of the Acta Sancti Marcelli centurionis (BHL 5253 – 5255A) and a study of the textual tradition. Marcellus, a soldier of the Mauretania Tingitana, was martyred in 298 AD. The acts which narrate his martyrdom are generally considered authentic, and are of interest to hagiographical scholars and historians of late Antiquity in particular because of their treatment of the question of military service in the ancient church. The manuscript tradition is particularly complex because the text has been rewritten and modified several times over the centuries. Although the present study offers evidence of new manuscripts and further rewritings, we are still not able to establish a single original text, but only several traditions. The author proposes three textual redactions (MN1N2) which refer to later drafting of the original.

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The Anthologia Salmasiana contains a section that is clearly defined in the manuscript and displays features of a well-considered arrangement (Anth. Lat. 7 – 190 Shackleton Bailey = 20 – 199 Riese): this section is introduced by a praefatio; poems related in form and content are grouped together, while poems of diverse topics and by various authors are connected by a kind of concatenatio; especially at the beginning and end of this section, there are poems with a focus on juridical themes, which have aspects of form and content in common. Some of these features of arrangement are also found in the so-called Peiper-libellus (Anth. Lat. 78 – 188 S. B. = 90 – 197 Riese). This, together with the fact that it integrates also stone-inscriptions, makes it highly probable that the Peiper-libellus is not an epigram book by a sole author, but itself an anthology.

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