“The Lesbian Singers: Towards a Reconstruction of Hellanicus’ Karneian Victors”, in D. Castaldo/A. Manieri (eds.), Poesia, musica e agoni nella Grecia antica (2012), 720–64 (original) (raw)
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The Lesbian Singers: Towards a Reconstruction of Hellanicus' 'Karneian Victors
Rudiae Ricerche Sul Mondo Classico, 2010
Hellanicus with those fifth-century historians who wrote regional histories ('$1Ï 17-,2/) rather than chronicles-does not distinguish between Hellanicus' earlier mythographic and ethnographic works, and a developing interest in chronography in the latter part of the Lesbian's career. See further below. 8 The complete obscurity of Kreon, and the fact that there remained a gap between him and the end of the royal period, strongly suggest that the archon-list was authentic throughout, whatever document may have preceded the new inscription of c. 425. See
The collection contains editions with introduction, critical text, translation and explanatory notes of all Hellenistic elegists except Callimachus. It is divided into three parts. The first contains testimonia and fragments of those judged to be, with reason, the five most important Hellenistic elegists, namely Philitas, Hermesianax, Alexander of Aetolia, Phanocles and Parthenius. The second includes testimonia and fragments of seventeen further authors, including poets known to have written in a variety of genres such as Eratosthenes, Posidippus and Simias. The third is devoted to elegiac adespota of varying size and interest, some known for some time to Classicists, such as the so-called Tattoo elegy (Hermesianax fr. 13 Lightfoot) and the Pride of Halicarnassus (SGO 01/12/02), others likely to be familiar only to the smaller community of papyrologists. G.C. acknowledges in the introduction that the collection does not include astronomical poems or works of scientific character. But philosophy is also tacitly excluded; consequently, Crates of Thebes, who employed elegiacs for hymns (SH 359-61) shortly before Callimachus (and possibly Philitas), is, justifiably, albeit regrettably, left out. The same goes for Timon of Phlius' Indalmoi (SH 841-4), a philosophical poem on illusions by a poet whose major work, the Silloi, exercised a significant influence on the early Hellenistic triad. Readers of Spanish scholarship will be familiar with J.A. Martín García's excellent selection of Poesía helenística menor, translated with short notes in the 'Biblioteca Clásica Gredos' series (1994). G.C.'s work, although confined to the boundaries of a single genre, is an incomparably more ambitious enterprise. We have here not only the first ever translation into any modern language of Hellenistic elegiac adespota, but also the first ever collection of testimonia of 'minor' elegiac poets such as Phanocles, Moero and Nicaenetus. The use of such an extensive corpus has allowed G.C. to offer a fresh assessment of a genre that has pivoted for so long around Callimachus and his Aetia alone.
Dumbarton Oaks Papers , 2020
This article argues that the Georgian Life of the Virgin Mary was not translated from a supposedly lost Greek Life (whether by Maximοs the Confessor or not), but from the Life of the Virgin written by John Geometres in the tenth century. Recent debates about the Georgian Life’s provenance have been based on unfounded assumptions that have never been critically examined. In these debates, the literary profiles of John Geometres and Euthymiοs the Athonite (the Georgian translator) have largely been ignored, and this article examines them in detail. Contrary to scholarly opinion, the Life of the Virgin by Geometres is not a copy of an allegedly lost original, but an original composition consistent with the literary style and skill displayed in the rest of Geometres’ writings. Moreover, Euthymiοs’s background, resources, literary and translation practices show that the Georgian Life can only be understood as a Euthymian version of Geometres’ text. In his working methods, Euthymios was almost certainly inspired by the metaphrastic practices of his age. The article demonstrates how convergent Geometres’, Symeon Metaphrastes’ and Euthymios’s lives and intellectual communities were—they may literally have known or at least met one another. Finally, a comparative analysis of the two Lives demonstrates that various problems raised by scholars can now be readily resolved. Eliminating a precursor to Geometres’ Life not only opens the Life up to the objective scrutiny that its literary mastery deserves, but it also removes a major obstacle to our understanding of the evolution of Byzantine devotion to the Virgin.
Hellanicus as Peripheral and a Critic of Athens? Notes on a Study of a Fragmentary Historian
Athens Journal of History, 2021
This paper explores the possibility of imagining Hellanicus of Lesbos as a politically critical author. Many works suggest that Hellanicus was a partisan of Athens or at least a sympathizer of that polis. However, new approaches have proposed that authors like Herodotus criticized the external politics of Athens, even in subtle ways. Therefore this paper argues the possibilities of thinking on Hellanicus as a peripheral critic of Athenian politics and on the limitations the fragmentary condition of the texts imposes.
Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V
This paper considers a remarkable epithet in a lacunose fragment of Archaic Lesbian poetry that some have , against a member or members of the Polyanaktidai, an aristocratic family of Lesbian Mytilene, who are also mentioned in the fragment. This paper offers a new appraisal of the invective poetics of by taking a musicological and sociological approach, that is, by attending to the musical as well as the sexual dimensions of the epithet, and by reading it within the socio-musical context of Archaic Mytilene and Archaic and Classical Greece more widely. It is argued that the motivation and impact of the " dildo-receiving strings " evoked in the fragment are best appreciated in terms of the prestige of musical culture in Archaic Mytilene, society, sexually framed musical invective would have had a powerful effect, with political, social, and moral implications that went beyond the musical and the sexual. The paper concludes with a hypothesis about the origin of the tradition, reported in the Suda Keywords Timothy Power 1 Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V *