Band 168, Heft 1

The adjective λυσιμελής (“limb-loosening”) and related statements about bodies dissolving or melting are found in Greek literature in an astonishing variety of contexts, above all in relation to sleep, death and erotic desire. The present paper asks what made the idea of (limbs) loosening so attractive for authors and it traces their use from early Greek epic (Homer and Hesiod) through lyric (Archilochus, Alcman, Sappho, Ibycus, Anacreon and Pindar) to Plato’s Phaedrus . This brings several factors to light: the adjective and related expressions describe existential experiences of loss of control in an embodied way that 1) points to real psychosomatic correlations, 2) contributes to vividness in the sense of ‘embodied cognition’ and often 3) switches between the concrete and the metaphorical, with the latter intensifying the expressive potential especially in lyric. At the same time, a gradual shift can be observed from an integrated concept of the body towards a (conceptual) metaphor. This apparently unremarkable adjective and its related notions thus permit a deep insight into both the cultural ideas and the literary strategies of early and classical Greece.

A syllabic acrostic ( de-ca-te , “tenth”) has recently been discovered by Leah Kronenberg at Eclogue 4.9–11. The aim of the present article is to adduce further evidence for the intentionality of this acrostic. The article begins by pointing to corroborative clues in the text encompassed by the acrostic itself. Attention is then drawn to the overlooked deni ‑acrostic in the previous Eclogue (3.55–58). This acrostical deni , for whose intentionality arguments are likewise adduced, evidently serves to corroborate acrostical decate . This deni ‑acrostic is itself confirmed shortly afterwards by decem ( Ecl . 3.71), which is in turn an imitation of Theocritus ( Id . 3.10). This Theocritean text, which contains the word δέκα in ‘line ten’, provides further corroboration of the decate -acrostic, which is likewise centred around ‘line ten’. In particular it is argued that this passage of Theocritus has inspired the noun which decate can be shown to qualify.

This paper publishes for the first time 132 conjectures by Nicolaus Heinsius on Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1‒4. The value and possible motivations of each proposal are briefly assessed.

That authorial variants survive in the transmission of the works of Lucan is a hypothesis legitimated by some objective data, yet the problem has been given very little attention in research since the important discussion by Fraenkel (1926). The present paper offers an analysis of the question that starts from the cases already identified and discussed by Fraenkel, adding some examples newly identified here. In particular, the goal is not to discuss single cases evaluated separately, but rather to examine the distribution of suspected variants in coherent macro-systems, the shared ratio of which could offer a plausible way of establishing an authorial intervention. In their turn, the systems of variants proposed and discussed here allow us to advance hypotheses about Lucan’s compositional method.

In the prooemium of the Cento Vergilianus de Laudibus Christi of Faltonia Betitia Proba (lines 1–23) there are fragments not only of Vergil’s works but also of Lucan’s Bellum Civile and Juvencus’ Evangeliorum Libri . This article shows that in these lines Juvencus has a particular importance, for the references to his work increase until they reach a remarkable intensity in lines 22–23 and they stand out on different levels both formally and semantically. This thesis is supported by re-examining the origin of a reference in line 22 of the Cento ( erige mentem ) that is usually ascribed to Lucan. The attribution to Juvencus can be established through the phenomenon of acoustic imitation.