The Teubner edition of Chariton by the late Bryan Reardon (Munich 2004) has been the authoritative text in recent years. How does Manuel Sanz Morales’ edition compare to Reardon’s? The most conspicuous difference is Sanz Morales’ extensive critical apparatus. While Reardon lists critical variants rather selectively, Sanz Morales returns to the fuller approach of W.E. Blake’s 1938 edition by presenting variant readings not only below the running text but also by adding an enormous wealth of critical material in an appendix-like apparatus criticus additicius (167–79). This complementary apparatus lists all known readings except manifestly mistaken ones because of confusion of some kind.
As for the constitution of the text, Sanz Morales is somewhat less conservative than Reardon and more willing to correct or supplement where Reardon sees incurable corruption: compare, for instance, in 1.1.5 Reardon’s five lacunae with Sanz Morales’ two. Reardon’s cruces in 5.5.9 (ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐπὶ †τι θαῦμα ἐρωτικὸν τὴν παλαιὰν ἐπιθυμίαν† σφοδροτέραν αὖθις ἐλάμβανε πληγήν, ‘it was as if, on top of † some marvel of love regarding the old passion †, he had now been struck an even more violent blow’) are removed by Sanz Morales with a minimal correction (ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐπὶ τραῦμα […], ‘it was as if on top of the wound of love [… ]’), resulting in a difficult but defensible construction with the accusative of respect. Reardon’s locus desperatus in 5.3.1 (γύναιον Ἑλληνικὸν ἐπιστρατεύεται ταῖς ἡμετέραις †οἰκίαις· ὃ† καὶ πάλαι μὲν πάντες ἐθαύμαζον ἐπὶ τῷ κάλλει, ‘a little Greek woman is attacking our †households. Whom† everybody has admired because of her beauty for some time’) is remedied by οἰκείαις, ἃς (‘is attacking the women of our kin, whom everybody has long admired because of their beauty’). Iwonder if the original γύναιον [… ], ὃ, with the full stop changed to a comma, would not make equal sense, given that Callirhoe (disrespectfully belittled as γύναιον (‘little woman’) by a Persian woman) had been admired for her beauty before on various occasions and by ‘all people’ (πάντες), both in and outside Persia.
Apart from the critical apparatus, Sanz Morales provides a fuller apparatus similium than Reardon. But the rationale of what is adopted here and what is not remains unclear. Quite a few intertextual suggestions made in recent scholarship (for example, in various studies of Stephen M. Trzaskoma) have not been considered. The melodramatic parting scene in 3.5.4, in which Chaereas’ father implores his son to stay (τίνι [Reardon: τί νῦν] με καταλείπεις, ὦ τέκνον, ἡμιθνῆτα πρεσβύτην, ‘My child, to whom are you abandoning me [Reardon: why are you abandoning me now]? Iam old, and half-dead already’), is tentatively compared to Dido’s reaction to the departure of Aeneas in Vergil’s Aeneid 4.323 (cui me moribundam deseris, hospes?, ‘To whom are you leaving me dying, my guest?’). This is well worth considering, but why are more obvious parallels to the Aeneid not adopted? Compare, for instance, 1.4.12 (on Callirhoe fainting: ἐρριμμένην δὲ αὐτὴν αἱ θεραπαινίδες βαστάσασαι κατέκλιναν ἐπὶ τὴν κοίτην, ‘She fell down, and her maids picked her up and laid her on her bed’) with Aeneid 4.391–92 (on Dido fainting: suscipiunt famulae conlapsaquemembra/marmoreo referunt thalamo stratisque reponunt, ‘Her maids support her, carry her swooning form to her marble bower, and lay her on her bed’), and see my full discussion of Chariton and Vergil in Chariton of Aphrodisias and the Invention of the Greek Love Novel (Oxford 2010, 261–97).
Last but not least, Sanz Morales avoids the considerable number of minor slips and typos that have crept into Reardon’s Teubneriana. All in all, the principal attraction of Sanz Morales’ edition is its full presentation of and convenient access to all variant readings. Readers will also appreciate the greater number of similia, although the references given here are not as complete as in the critical apparatus. In terms of critical judgement, Reardon and Sanz Morales take different approaches but there is no ‘winner’ since both texts are sound in their own ways. It cannot be said, then, that this new edition ‘replaces’ the Teubneriana, but it is now an excellent starting point and it certainly must be considered in any future discussion of Chariton’s text.
