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VI Relationships between Poems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2016

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Extract

The first part of this final chapter outlines some modern scholarship on the ways in which ancient poems and poetic traditions developed around one another and interacted with each other. The second part of the chapter is more to do with ancient textual transmission and presents a catalogue of evidence for ancient editorial manipulation of the boundaries between poems, here described as ‘cropping’ and ‘splicing’.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 43: Early Greek Hexameter Poetry , 2013 , pp. 104 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2016 

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References

1 Core works: Pestalozzi 1945 (the Memnon theory); Kakridis 1949 (methodology); Kullmann 1960 (Iliad); Danek 1998 (Odyssey). English-language surveys: Clark 1986; Dowden 1996; Willcock 1997; Edwards in Finkelberg 2011b: ii.566–7. See also two collections of essays: Montanari, Rengakos, and Tsagalis 2012; Fantuzzi and Tsagalis 2015a.

2 Schadewaldt 1965: 155–202 is the most influential treatment; in English see Burgess 2009: 72–92, with bibliography.

3 Burgess 2009: 93–7.

4 Kullmann 1984: 309; Burgess 2006: 149, 2009: 59; Currie 2006: 4–5; Tsagalis 2011: 218.

5 Currie 2006: 4.

6 See also (more speculative) M. L. West 2005.

7 See similarly pp. 57–63 above.

8 Griffin 1977.

9 This was Welcker's view of the Cycle; see Kullmann 1960: 18–19, who calls the process Herausspinnung (‘spinning off’). The same argument still appears in West's characterization of the ‘cyclic approach’ (M. L. West 2013: 18–20; similarly 57, 132, 167, 245, 289–90).

10 See M. L. West 2007: 440–2; Gainsford 2012a: 267–72.

11 LIMC ‘Kirke’ 54 (Budapest Museum of Fine Arts 50.101; Acrae, Sicily, c.400 bce) shows Circe giving a bow to Telegonus (named); no spear is visible in the fragment. Telegonus’ counterparts in the Indian variants use bows. M. L. West 2013: 307–15 conjectures that the tip of Telegonus’ spear, a ray's poisonous sting, came from an alternate story of Odysseus’ death, supposedly reported in a fragmentary oracle in Aesch. Psychagogoi fr. 275 Radt. This cannot be right: on the symbolic character of oracles, especially their animal imagery, see pp. 28–31; and the argument requires an assumption that Odysseus was invulnerable, something for which no evidence exists.

12 Tsagalis 2011: 220–1.

13 Danek 1998: 379–82; Currie 2006: 16–20.

14 On this distinction see also Kullmann 1984: 311–16 (neoanalytic adaptations are somehow distinct from oral traditional tropes); Finkelberg 2011a (neoanalytic adaptations are special because Homer is special).

15 The main extant source for the *Aethiopis episode is Pind. Pyth. 6.28–42, with scholia. See Kelly 2006: 3–12 (with extensive bibliography); Burgess 2009: 74–5.

16 See especially Currie 2006; Tsagalis 2011.

17 Nagy 1979, esp. 45–9.

18 Griffin 1977 is a seminal statement of this view.

19 E.g. Austin 1991: 233–4: ‘Mycenaean history crystallized into two separate epics evolving concurrently and synergistically, celebrating two kinds of hero’. Epics on Heracles, Oedipus, or Jason may as well not have existed.

20 See above, and see also Slatkin 1991: 21–49 (*Aethiopis); Olson 1995: 24–42 (*Oresteia).

21 Finkelberg 2011a: 200.

22 Thalmann 1984: 1–6.

23 Slatkin 1991: 260.

24 Ford 1992: 45.

25 Similarly Ormand 2014: 6–9. Graziosi and Haubold 2005: 36–8 argue instead that the poems were read as a triptych in antiquity.

26 Clay 1989; 2003, esp. 166.

27 Clay 1989: 268 (Clay's emphasis).

28 Graziosi and Haubold 2005, esp. 21–34.

29 ‘Cropping’ was coined by Burgess 2001, ‘splicing’ by the present author.

30 For previous partial surveys see Burgess 2001: 135–43 (Epic Cycle); Cingano 2009: 109–30 (Hesiodic corpus).

31 Either because the hymn was compiled for the 523/522 Pythia–Delia (Janko 1982: 112–15; Chappell 2011: 72–3) or because one part of the hymn was designed with the other in mind (Chappell 2011: 62).

32 See pp. 27–8.

33 M. L. West 1966: 437.

34 M. L. West 1966: 48–50, 1985: 126–7; Most 2006: xlix. However, West's insistence that Cat. fr. 1 was not the beginning of the original Catalogue is uncompelling. Muse invocations can certainly occur inside a poem but Cat. fr. 1 is an absolutely typical proem; see pp. 45–8.

35 M. L. West 1966: 397–9, with bibliography; cf. Kelly 2007: 389–96, applying a new test from internal structural evidence, with inconclusive results.

36 M. L. West 1966: 437.

37 Hirschberger 2004: 172 summarizes a range of views; Dräger 1997: 27–42 is the most detailed discussion.

38 Hirschberger 2004: 362.

39 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1905: 122; Russo 1965: 33 n. 34; Janko 1986: 39 (comparing Hymn. Hom. Ap.); Effe 1988: 161. Few now believe that the same poet composed both poems. Among those who do, their further views diverge greatly: for Van der Valk 1953: 277–9, the poet recycled his own material when composing the Shield; for Martin 2005: 173–5, all 480 lines of the Shield come from Cat. Book 4.

40 M. L. West 1966: 49–50 n. 5, 1985: 136; Most 2006: lviii–lix.

41 On this passage see Koenen 1994: 26–34; Clay 2003: 168–74; González 2010; Ormand 2014: 202–16.

42 Thus Koenen 1994: 26–9; Clay 2003: 168–72; Finkelberg 2004: 11–15; Cingano 2005: 118–19 (with further bibliography); González 2010: 395. Clay argues that the Catalogue's reference to γένος…πολλόν (‘plentiful race’ of mortals, Cat. fr. 155.98–9; Most: ‘most of the race’) also echoes the Cypria's μυρία ϕῦλα (‘countless races’, Cypr. fr. 1.1). Finkelberg adduces further parallel passages.

43 The passage resists interpretation. Clay 2003: 173–4 suggests that the passage describes a storm at Aulis, followed by the omen of the birds and the snake (cf. Il. 2.301–30; Cypr. arg. 6). However, the frequentative verbs at 124–8 would be incomprehensible in a passage describing a one-off event. See also above, p. 13.

44 Clay 2003: 171.

45 Thus Cingano 2005: 119.

46 Thus Cassanmagnago 2009: 969–70 n. 192; Kelly 2007: 387–9 corroborates this view with internal structural evidence.

47 M. L. West 1978: 364–5; Most 2006: 189 (implicitly, by translation); Cingano 2009: 103–4.

48 Paus. 9.31.4–5 (Hes. test. 42).

49 Thus Janko 1981: 12, 16–17.

50 N. Richardson 2010: 9–13. See also pp. 21–2 above.

51 M. L. West 2003a: 9.

52 Bethe 1929: 211–16.

53 Davies 1986: 96 and 101–4, 2001: 2, 7, 58–9; similarly M. L. West 2013: 15–16.

54 Viz. the sense of Proclus’ phrasing ἐπιβάλλει τούτοις (Cypr. arg. 1). Davies 1986: 101–2 argues for an intransitive meaning, ‘After this comes [the Cypria]’, instead of the older interpretation ‘[Proclus] adds to this’. ἐπιβάλλει is certainly intransitive after the end of the Cypria summary (ἐπιβάλλει δὲ…Ἰλιὰς Ὁμήρου, ‘after [this] comes Homer's Iliad’).

55 Monro 1883: 316–21, 1901: 342–6; Burgess 2001: 135–48.

56 See further Kopff 1983: 58 and n. 13; contra Horsfall 1979: 49 (but Horsfall does not consider the possibility of a longer Cypria).

57 Burgess 1996, 2001: 135–40, 2002.

58 Bethe 1929: 384. Others interpret the passage as a quotation from a hymnic prelude: Ford 1992: 27; M. L. West 2011a: 81.

59 This point leads Davies 1988: 48, 2001: 58–9 (following Wilamowitz) to reject the fragment as altogether spurious; however, he does not consider the possibilities that it could be a splice or an internal quotation.

60 Thus M. L. West 2001: 283–5; Scafoglio 2004: 307–8.

61 Thus Burgess 2001: 140–2.

62 The thesis that the Homer cups attest to a version of Hector's ransom in the Aethiopis has been argued most forcefully by Kopff 1983. See also Horsfall 1979: 47–8, arguing that the illustrations on Homer cups derive from picture-books of the Cycle (without the poems’ full text) which also provided the basis for the Tabulae Iliacae.

63 Weitzmann 1959: 43–6.

64 The ransom of Hector was popular in Attic vase-paintings c.520–480 bce (Friis Johansen 1967: 127–38; Lowenstam 2008: 51–63), but vase-painters of the time had their own language of tropes and cannot be expected to represent any poetry meticulously, or even at all (Lowenstam 1992, 2008: 1–12; Snodgrass 1998, esp. 127–50). The most that can be said is that in those decades the Iliadic version of the ransom enjoyed more prestige than the Aethiopis version, as indicated by the fact that many vases show Hermes accompanying Priam. Some scenes show Priam accompanied by a woman or women: see especially LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 645 and 643 (Kassel Antik. T.674; Athens NM CC.889). Schwarz 2006 links these to Dictys, as I do above, but identifies the lead woman as Polyxena; I suggest Andromache instead (see Gainsford 2012b: 65 n. 34, arguing that Polyxena's role in Dictys is probably a Dictyean invention).

65 See pp. 99–102.

66 Dictys apud Septimius 3.20–27, Malalas 5.24, Cedrenus 224.4–225.2; Ptolemy apud Photius cod. 190, 151.ii.37–152.i.1. (Ptolemy at 151.i.29–32 reports a version of Achilles’ death that is either incompatible with the Aethiopis or else extremely telescoped; but this does not indicate that he avoided material from the Aethiopis, since it has always been obvious that Ptolemy is a hodge-podge of different stories.)

67 In addition, two fragments are attached to the Little Iliad that both look like opening lines: fr. 1 (=fr. 28 Bernabé) and fr. 1 Bernabé. While it is in principle possible that these may indicate two different poems by the same title (Bernabé's conclusion), it is most likely that we have a case of a double-barrelled invocation: see Scafoglio 2006 and above, pp. 45–8.

68 P.Oxy. 956, second/third century ce; p.Ryl. 53, third/fourth century (at fol. 91v).

69 See especially Page 1955: 101–36; Erbse 1997; Moulton 1974; S. West 1989; Kullmann 1992: 291–304; Kelly 2007: 384–7.

70 Merkelbach 1969: 142–55; Huxley 1960: 27–8. Huxley's suggestion is perhaps prefigured by Kazantzakis’ Odyssey (1938), which opens immediately after the slaughter of the Suitors.

71 The existence of a Cyclic Odyssey is attested by two scholia: test. 1, 2 Bernabé.

72 Clem. Al. Strom. 6.25.1 (=Teleg. test.).

73 If a Thesprotis existed as a separate poem, several conjectures exist for how it may have opened: (a) exactly as in Proclus’ Telegony summary; (b) Odysseus departs Ithaca after renouncing Penelope for her infidelity with the Suitors (Peradotto 1990: 73–4 n. 13); (c) like (b), but after Penelope gives birth to the god Pan (Servius auct. ad Aen. 2.44); or (d) after a dispute between Odysseus and the Suitors’ families, resulting in Odysseus being exiled to Aetolia (ps.-Apollod. epit. 7.40; cf. Plut. Quaest. Graec. 294c–d: similar but Odysseus emigrates to Italy). As to how the Thesprotis ended, the most likely scenario involves an aetiology for cults to Odysseus in Thesprotia and/or Aetolia, at towns founded by Odysseus or focused around his grave: see Arist. fr. 508 Rose; Nicander FGrH 271–2 F 7; Lycoph. Alex. 799–804; Herodian, De prosod. cath. 303.7, 382.20–22 Lentz; sch. H Od. 11.122; sch. vet. Lycoph. Alex. 799 and 800; Steph. Byz. s.v. Βούν(ε)ιμα (see also Τραμπύα); Eust. Od. 11.120 (402.26–28 Stallbaum). See also the summary of Sophocles’ lost Euryalus. Eugammon's Telegony could also have covered the same aetiology.