Volume 162, Issue 2

The paper treats the description of the palace of Alcinous ( Od . 7,84–132), with two goals. Firstly, the use of the present tense (103–131) in the description, which has been found problematic by critics since Friedländer (1851), is elucidated by drawing on the evidence of the scholia and on Rijksbaron’s narratological interpretation. Secondly, I argue that the entire description is of importance for the narrative structure of the epic in that it exhibits complex points of contact with other passages of the epic and thus has a thematic function, which corresponds to the threefold division of the description: the feast in the palace (84‒102), the activities of the maids (103‒111) and the fruitfulness of the garden (112‒132). The whole description of the palace, with its thematic connections, invites the recipient to understand the epic in its ‘spatial form’.

The article deals with a hitherto largely neglected group of poetic texts that is characterized by the representation of the vicissitudes and deeds of a single hero (or god) through a third-person omniscient authorial voice, henceforth called ‘aretalogical poetry’. I want to demonstrate that in terms of form, contents, intertextual ‘self-awareness’ and long-term influence, aretalogical poetry qualifies as a fully-fledged epic genre comparable to bucolic or didactic poetry. In order not to blur my argument, I will focus on heroic aretalogies, and on Heracleids and Theseids in particular, because of their prominence in the minds of ancient literary critics. In the case of Heraclean aretalogies, it is expedient to distinguish further between aretalogies of ‘epic’ and ‘lyric epic’ (i.e. lyric poets such as Stesichorus, who writes ‘epic’ aretalogies).

The paper concerns the textual form of the sentence Crit. 48e4. A return to the transmitted infinitive πεῖσαι is proposed; at the same time, it is demonstrated that the sentence is thereby ambiguous. Yet, it can be shown that this ambiguousness does not render the passage meaningless. In fact, the transmitted text is interpretively extremely rich, because with the indefinite infinitive a central problem of the dialogue, the demand ‘to convince or obey’, is accentuated in a distinctive way, namely in respect of the personal relation of the two philosophising friends. For the dramatic effect of the dialogue this passage is of great importance.

The paper presents three strong arguments advocating for the exclusion of the table of Ptolemy’s own planetary terms ( Tetr. 1.21.28–29) from the original text of the Tetrabiblos . This table was vastly used by Renaissance astrologers, and much work on its rationale and its manuscript variant readings has been published recently. The author argues that the table was the product of the systematic analysis of Ptolemy’s instructions for the terms in the late antique commentary on the Tetrabiblos edited by Wolf in 1559, and that it entered the direct transmission of Ptolemy’s text in the Byzantine period, probably in the 11 th century through cod. Laur. 28,34. The absence of the table in the original Tetrabiblos would explain Ptolemy’s recourse to a probably invented manuscript find and his limited account of the system’s workings.

After clarifying the theological implications of the phrase τὸ πολὺ πέλαγος τοῦ καλοῦ in Plat. Symp . 210d4 and demonstrating that it cannot be considered the archetype, the article aims to examine the Nachleben of Gregory of Nazianzus’ expression πέλαγος οὐσίας ἄπειρον καὶ ἀόριστον ( Or . 38.7 and 45.3): not only is it spread in late antique and mediaeval literature both Greek and Latin, but it is also present in Dante’s Commedia . The huge diffusion of this image across time and space, supported by a careful examination of the use that is made of it by authors who pick it up, makes it possible to demonstrate that πέλαγος οὐσίας ἄπειρον καὶ ἀόριστον became a very well known proverbial topos in the Christian world.

Discussion of the chronological problem posed by Cic. Verr. 2.1.90, where Cicero states that the legates of Miletus are waiting for the consular elections for 69 AD, yet these had taken place before the start of the trial of Verres. It is proposed to explain this error as a ‘slip’ by Cicero due to the particular circumstances in which the Actio secunda in Verrem was published; other cases of Ciceronian ‘author’s errors’ attested in the Letters to Atticus are cited.

In a passage of the Life of Nero (Suet. Ner . 47.2) concerning the emperor’s indecision over what to do after the revolt of the provincial armies, it can clearly be seen that there is an influence from an argumentative structure particular to a certain type of deliberative oratory, the suasoria triplex . This influence may be due simply to Suetonius’ familiarity with the declamatory exercises in vogue at the rhetorical schools, but some hints allow us to suppose the existence of a suasoria theme that took as its subject this very episode in the life of the emperor.

The present paper proposes to establish (§ 1) the data that can be drawn securely from a controversial testimonium on an oration of Cato (Cato, orat . 99 Sblend.) contained in a late antique panegyric ( Pan. Lat. 8 (5).13.3), and to illustrate (§ 2) some of its textual and exegetical problems. Further, in the light of a hitherto overlooked comparison with a gloss of Festus, proposals are made: (§ 3) for a new constitutio and interpretation of the text of the panegyric; and (§ 4) for the identification of a textual citation (which will emerge also as a new fragment) from the orations of Cato the Censor, and the identification with Cato of the anonymous antiqui to whom Festus attributes the use (until now not attested elsewhere) of the rare substantive oliueta in feminine singular with the sense of ‘gathering of olives’. Finally (§ 5) some considerations are offered on the possible sources used by Festus (hypothesising as intermediary the De obscuris Catonis of Verrius, which could in turn have drawn its note on the oliueta from the very passage of Cato attested by the panegyric) and by the panegyrist (for whom a direct knowledge of the speech of Cato is proposed).