Volume 11, Issue 2

Prometheus Bound is a disputed play in the Aeschylean corpus. For some time now the impact of this short description seems to be gradually unraveling the renowned reputation this play used to enjoy. What was in the past the grandiose work of an eminent master, is now regarded by a rising number of scholars as a rather simplistic composition by an anonymous author. Yet, even though the disputed play could not have been composed by Aeschylus, and is indeed nothing like Aeschylus in the summit of his art, as we know him in the main through the fully extant dramas of the last fifteen or so years of his career, Pr . is not devoid of genuine dramatic value. In the present study I focus on the generalizations in the plays in the Aeschylean corpus. I attempt to show that even though the author of Pr . and Aeschylus are clearly different in how they exploit generalizations, this does not – ipso facto  – imply that the anonymous former is incompetent in this respect, while the famous latter is most skillful. They are two different playwrights with two different, yet both very special, approaches in handling generalizations.

Cleon was killed in the battle of Amphipolis in 422 BCE, but he is referred to as alive in the first parabasis of the Clouds (591–594). This reference is customarily understood as simply a remnant of the first version of the play, which the author failed to integrate seamlessly into the surviving, revised version. Comparison with Pylaemenes, an Iliadic character of Paphlagonian origin, who is killed in Book 5 but reappears alive in Book 13, renders the reference to Cleon intelligible as an allusive joke.

The article offers the (re)edition of five tables of parts (1/12, 1/13, 1/14, 1/15, 1/16), contained in P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656, the famous codex of Menander’s Misoumenos ( ed. pr. : Turner 1965) and only partially (table of 1/13) edited so far (cf. Turner 1965, 18–19). The palaeographical and content-related analysis of the tables, turn out to be fundamental for a better understanding of the codex’s chronology and context.

A combined investigation of Herod. Mim . 8 ( Ἐνύπνιον ) with Callim. Ia . 1, 13, and Ep . 8, reveals that they all relate to a certain poetic contest that took place in Alexandria under the auspices of Ptolemy I, in one of the last years of his reign. The contest, must have been co-ordinated by the Mouseion and its director at the time, Zenodotus. The two poets took part in the contest, together with a host of other poets. Callim. Ia . 1 gives a figurative account of the contest’s course of action. Herodas, awaiting the results, writes Mim . 8, where he expresses his hopes for a prize, though he suspects foul play on behalf of the poets employed at the Mouseion by the king who was supposed to decide the prize. Callim. Ep . 8 is a sarcastic reply to Herodas’ fears, while Ia . 13 narrates the harsh criticism Callimachus received from Zenodotus and his proud reaction in response, obviously after his contribution was rejected.

The paper examines the aesthetics of the pseudo-Theocritean idylls and of the later additions to the bucolic corpus, which can be viewed as a ‘sensualized’ version of Theocritus’ poetics. Based on readings of some of the pseudo-Theocritean Idylls (19 Love Stealing Honey , 23 The Lover ), the fragments ascribed to Bion and his Epitaph on Adonis , and the anonymous poem To the Dead Adonis , the paper argues that post-Theocritean aesthetics may be defined by reference to two images, ‘the wound’ and ‘the kiss’, where two concepts converge: morbidity and sensuality. This poetic style stands in stark contrast to the sophisticated and balanced ideal of leptotēs and it is un-Callimachean in tone and taste; this aspect of post-Theocritean aesthetics, which tends towards pathos and aestheticism, mainly looks forward to romanticism and decadence.

This paper is on an epigram reported by Hegesander of Delphi ( LGGA F 11), which was constituted exclusively of neologistic compounds. Its peculiarity, in attacking the hypocrisy of Cynics, is the complete disregard of any morphological rules as in no other known Greek text. I analyze this poem from the point of view of language, context, and content. I consider also other epigrams on the same theme. I will discuss the stereotype of the pseudo-Cynic charlatan, common in texts from the imperial period, on the base of which I suggest changing the date of the epigram (and consequently of Hegesander) to the early imperial era.

In this paper I am discussing some passages in Statius’ Achilleid , including the opening words of the poem, where some elisions seem to effectively suggest how gender and identity of Achilles become destabilized during his stay on Scyros in women’s clothes. The elisions to be discussed affect word endings indicative of the masculine grammatical gender; in some cases, moreover, these endings are not just muted but also replaced, as it were, by their feminine equivalents. I also examine one passage where the masculine endings are emphatically not silenced despite elision; and a pair of passages where tension between the masculine and the feminine is introduced into the text by conjecture rather than by elision.