Citer, éditer, réécrire
réception et représentation de la poésie latine fragmentaire
Grenoble, 4-6 décembre 2024
Mercredi 4 décembre
10:00-10:40 – Accueil / Ouverture des travaux
10:40-12:00 – Antoine Viredaz (Université de Lausanne)
Édition critique et linguistique historique
Faut-il reconstruire la langue des premiers poètes latins fragmentaires ?
Résumé : Les fragments des plus anciens poètes épiques et dramatiques latins ne nous sont connus qu’à travers une triple médiation : celle des auteurs antiques qui les ont cités ; celle des copistes qui, au fil des siècles, ont reproduit les manuscrits contenant ces citations ; enfin, celle des éditions critiques produites à partir de la Renaissance et jusqu’à nos jours (Pieri 2016, p. 14 ; Elliott 2022, p. 18-22). Les deux premières étapes de cette transmission – citation et copie – offrent de multiples occasions de modifier le texte des fragments, que cela réponde ou non à une intention délibérée des intermédiaires de la tradition. La manipulation d’un texte cité
répond à des motivations qui peuvent varier selon les citateurs (Elliott 2022, p. 17-18) et qu’il convient
d’identifier en prêtant une attention particulière au contexte de la citation (Most 1997, p. VII). Dans cette
contribution, nous nous intéresserons en particulier aux modifications d’ordre linguistique – modernisations
orthographiques, phonétiques et morphologiques – opérées par les citateurs et les copistes sur les fragments
poétiques de trois auteurs du 3e-2e s. av. J.-C. : Livius Andronicus, Cn. Naevius et Q. Ennius. Les questions
abordées seront les suivantes : quelles traces d’usages linguistiques non-classiques peuvent être identifiées
dans les fragments de ces auteurs, et de quelles méthodes dispose-t-on pour les identifier ? Comment
s’expliquent les différences observées entre l’état de langue attesté dans ces textes et celui d’autres textes
contemporains, notamment épigraphiques ? Faut-il « corriger » le texte des fragments transmis par des
auteurs d’époque ultérieure pour « retrouver » l’état de langue du 3e-2e s. av. J.-C. ? Notre discussion
s’appuiera sur la comparaison des partis pris à ce sujet dans plusieurs éditions critiques récentes.
Pause déjeuner
13:30-14:10 – Elisa Migliore (Università di Napoli Federico II)
Res varias et dispares in tot poëmatis eligere (Rhet. Her. IV 3): quotation of Archaic Latin Poets in the Rhetorica ad Herennium
Résumé : Poetic texts served as the primary basis for the study of rhetoric and expressive techniques, as they provided the examples used by rhetorical manuals to elucidate the precepts discussed. Consequently, rhetorical education heightened interest in these texts and facilitated their dissemination, thereby preserving a substantial portion of Latin poetry that would have otherwise remained obscured. A particularly interesting case study is the Rhetorica ad Herennium, which collects 13 citations from Accius, Ennius, and Pacuvius, three of the so-called Archaic Latin poets. This work develops the well-known theory on the use of the exemplum (IV 1-10) and provides a critical examination to highlight the unique features of citations as a rhetorical tool. Thus, despite often being considered merely a “counterpart” to Cicero’s De inventione, with which it shares some doctrinal content (the inventio) and five quotations, the Rhetorica ad Herennium strongly asserts its originality in the realm of poetic quotations. This is evident in the canon of authors and works cited (notably, the auctor of the Rhetorica ad Herennium quoted both the tragedies and the Annales of Ennius, unlike Cicero in the De inventione), the ratio laudandi, and the employment and objectives of the citations.
This study aims to delineate the utilization, methodologies, and objectives of the quotations of Archaic Latin poets in the Rhetorica ad Herennium. An introductory framework on the processes of selection and the use of quotations in rhetorical works in general, and more specifically within the Rhetorica ad Herennium, will be proposed. Secondly, a survey of the poetic fragments will be conducted, followed by a classification based on the authors to whom the fragments are attributed. Finally, select examples will be analysed according to the following criteria: type of quotation (verbatim or non-verbatim), placement, function, and the reason behind the inclusion of a specific quotation within a particular context.
14:10-14:50 – Elisa Dal Chiele (Università di Bologna)
Love is not a god. Poetic interconnections in Cicero’s Tusculanae disputationes, Book IV
Résumé : Cicero’s philosophical corpus is replete with poetic references, the majority of which are quotations from archaic Latin authors, particularly those in the theatrical sphere. Furthermore, Greek passages are translated into Latin or occasionally paraphrased. The practice of including poetry in philosophical prose is a wellestablished one, with examples dating back to periods preceding Cicero. Furthermore, this practice is also typical of contemporary teaching in Athens (Tusc. 2.26). Nevertheless, the frequency and extent of the poetic passages quoted by Cicero are worthy of note. This selection is justified not only on the grounds of argumentation, but also in terms of rhetorical and stylistic considerations, as well as in the context of cultural sensitivity. A quotation is never an objective, neutral operation. The act of quoting is inherently selective, reflecting the value system, culture and function attributed to the texts being quoted by the citing author. Cicero selects from the poetic corpus the most suitable myths, situations, sententiae, scenes and characters to illustrate his themes. This constitutes an ‘appropriation’ of the source text, which is sometimes adapted according to the argument he is developing.
The objective of this paper is to elucidate the reception of poetic texts in Cicero’s philosophical works. The focus of this study is on the section of the fourth book of the Tusculanae Disputationes dedicated to the topic of love (§§ 67-76). The aim is to investigate the diverse functions played by the poetic fragments in different
citation contexts and to elucidate the interconnection between the poetic passages quoted. Cicero employs the literary genres of archaic tragedy and comedy to illustrate that love, conceived as a mere pursuit of sexual pleasure, is a destructive passion that must be eradicated from the soul. The tragic exempla of Hector and Medea serve to illustrate the dichotomy between honour and love. The comic quotations are occasionally presented in isolation, at other times integrated into the prose, which is permeable to the comic lexicon, or divided into a sort of exchange between Cicero himself and the comic text. These quotations serve to describe the prevailing concept of love, presented as a deity, and even Jupiter is unable to resist its influence. The play’s reservoir of typical love-related themes and situations serves to make the crux of the philosophical issue addressed immediately comprehensible to Cicero’s non-specialist audience. The extensive references to this literary genre serve not only to condemn the conception of love represented by the comic authors, but also to
set up a literary polemic on which the philosophical one is grafted. If the treatment of the motions of the soul (perturbationes), the subject of the fourth book, is approached from a Stoic perspective, in the specific case of
love, Cicero unexpectedly sides with Epicurus in order to reject both the position of the Stoics, who considered love to be the prerogative of the wise, and the Platonic idea of a noble form of love.
Pause café
15:20-16:00 – Lucia Galli (Università di Pisa)
Reminiscenze tragiche nella pro Milone
Résumé: Cicerone conosce bene la tragedia repubblicana, che cita in molte sue opere, fra cui alcune orazioni (come la pro Murena, la pro Sestio e la pro Caelio); nella pro Milone non sono presenti citazioni, ma è possibile tuttavia riconoscere almeno due reminiscenze da testi tragici usate con funzione espressiva.
In Mil. 58, Cicerone spiega in questo modo il motivo per cui Milone ha affrancato gli schiavi che (secondo la ricostruzione ciceroniana dei fatti) hanno voluto vendicare la presunta morte del loro padrone uccidendo Clodio: Quod enim praemium satis magnum est tam benevolis, tam bonis, tam fidelibus servis, propter quos vivit? Etsi id quidem non tanti est quam quod propter eosdem non sanguine et volneribus suis crudelissimi inimici mentem oculosque satiavit («Quale premio è adeguato per schiavi tanto devoti, tanto bravi, tanto leali a cui deve la vita? E tuttavia questo è meno importante del fatto che [Milone] per merito loro non ha saziato la mente e gli occhi del suo più crudele nemico [= Clodio] con il suo sangue e le sue ferite»). Nell’ultima frase è riconoscibile la rielaborazione di un verso dell’Astyanax di Accio (quorum crudelitatem numquam ulla explet satias sanguinis, 176 Ribbeck = 86 Schultheiss) che era già stato ripreso dall’oratore L. Licinio Crasso (citato in Cic. de orat. 1.225: eripite ex faucibus eorum quorum crudelitas nostro sanguine non potest expleri). L’iperbole tragica serve qui a sollevare il pathos, suscitando indignazione contro chi (l’accusa) aveva richiesto la quaestio per tormenta, l’interrogatorio sotto tortura di questi schiavi così devoti.
Un’altra reminiscenza è riconoscibile in Mil. 90, là dove Cicerone lamenta l’incendio della Curia conseguente alla cremazione del corpo di Clodio: Quo quid miserius, quid acerbius, quid luctuosius vidimus? Templum sanctitatis, amplitudinis, mentis, consili publici, caput urbis, aram sociorum, portum omnium gentium, sedem ab universo populo concessam uni ordini, inflammari, exscindi, funestari, neque id fieri a multitudine imperita, quamquam esset miserum id ipsum, sed ab uno? Così viene di solito stampato il testo dagli editori (si veda da ultimo T. Keeline, in Cicero, Pro Milone, Cambridge 2021), ma se si riconosce in filigrana il modello tragico dell’Andromacha aechmalotis di Ennio (o pater, o patria, o Priami domus, / saeptum altisono cardine templum! / vidi ego te astante ope barbarica, / tectis caelatis laqueatis, / auro ebore instructam regifice. / Haec omnia vidi inflammari / Priamo vi vitam evitari / Iovis aram sanguine turpari, 23, 10-18 Manuwald), che riverbera sul ricordo della distruzione della Curia l’atmosfera tragica dell’ultima notte di Troia, si può trovare una conferma della proposta di W. Meyer (Zu Cicero, «Rheinisches Museum» 23, 1868, 698-699), avanzata per ragioni sintattiche, di interpungere il testo in questo modo: Quo quid miserius, quid acerbius, quid luctuosius? Vidimus templum sanctitatis […] inflammari, exscindi, funestari.
16:00-16:40 – Tommaso Ricchieri (Università di Bologna)
The Elder Cato reads Caecilius Statius: quoting, editing, rewriting comic fragments in Cicero’s De senectute
Résumé : Cicero’s De senectute preserves four quotations from comedies by Caecilius Statius relating to the theme of old age: the quotations have recently been studied in relation to metrics (Spaltenstein 2013-2014), but they deserve a further discussion on the context in which they are placed and on Cicero’s purpose in quoting them.
Cicero quotes Caecilius quite often in other texts (e.g. in the Pro Caelio: see Monda 1998), but what is noteworthy in the De senectute is a ‘Caecilian’ section in §§ 24-25, where three quotations from Statius follow one another. Here Cicero takes up Statius not only as a model of wisdom and source of sapiential sayings, as in the case of the famous verse of the Synephebi on trees planted for the future (Cato 24: serit arbores, quae alteri saeculo prosient = com. 210 Ribbeck3), but also polemising with him on his view of old age. In fact, we have a sort of ranking of the three quotations, as revealed by the repeated use of comparatives: after the quotation on trees, marked by the usual formula ut ait Statius noster, Cicero (or better: Cato) states that Statius has commented better on old age in other verses (melius Caecilius) than in the previous one, and offers a new quotation (§ 25) from the Plocium (com. 173-175 Ribbeck3, in particular for the line diu vivendo multa quae non volt videt). In the last of the three passages, from the Ephesio (com. 28-29 Ribbeck3), Cicero/Cato criticises Statius for having spoken badly of old age (illud vero idem Caecilius vitiosius), challenging him for having defined being old as odiosum (sentire ea aetate eumpse esse odiosum alteri) and suggesting a correction of this adjective into iucundum. Finally, in § 36, Cato interprets a verse of Statius speaking of comicos stultos senes (inc. 243 Ribbeck3), stating that this definition should be restricted only to old men who spend their old age viciously and should not be extended to old men in general.
As it clearly appears from this hints, the fragment is not a static block, but is rewritten (as in the case of the tragic fragments studied by Petrone 2016), corrected, integrated, interpreted, edited within the context. In the case of the Cato Maior, the dynamic enacted by Cicero is made even more significant by the framework of the dialogue, where Cato himself corrects and rewrites the passages of his contemporary Statius, with notable effects of linguistic mimesis as well, if we are to believe the various archaisms that appear in his words (Powell 1988, pp. 22-24).
In my paper, I will examine how Cicero uses quotations to create a dialogue between Cato and Statius, and will also try to detect other hidden traces of Caecilius in the text of the De senectute.
Jeudi 5 décembre
9:00-10:20 – Jackie Elliott (University of Colorado Boulder)
“Philology in a new key” and the reception of early Latin poetry
Pause café
10:40-11:20 – Daniel Vallat (Université Lumière Lyon 2)
Polycitation et transmission de fragments poétiques : Ennius et Cicéron
Résumé : En complément d’un ouvrage récent (Hannah Čulík-Baird, Cicero and the early Latin poets, Cambridge, 2022), nous nous intéresserons ici aux fragments d’Ennius cités plusieurs fois par Cicéron ainsi que par d’autres sources contemporaines et/ou plus tardives. Notre analyse portera sur les différents aspects de la polycitation et nous montrerons qu’elle constitue un symptôme plus signifiant que ne le soulignent les analyses sur la présence d’Ennius chez Cicéron (en particulier celle sur la connivence de valeurs), et qu’elle illustre à son époque un socle commun et une culture générale relevant de l’éducation scolaire, avec une sélection de fragments d’Ennius probablement antérieure à l’oeuvre cicéronienne. Cette dernière, à son tour, est devenue par la suite une source directe pour la transmission d’Ennius à l’époque tardive.
11:20-12:00 – Tom Baarda (University of Cambridge)
erat quod tollere uelles : Lucilius, affordances of quotability, and the agency of the quoted text in its reception and re-presentation
Résumé : Horace criticises Lucilius as long-winded, saying: erat quod tollere uelles (‘there was material you would want to delete’, Hor. Sat. 1.4.11). Perhaps, then, Lucilius was always destined to survive only in ‘fragments’: that is, quotations by later authors.
Recent work has usefully moved the focus towards the agency of the quoting text: the ‘kinetic energy’ involved in citing (citare) a passage that is ‘made to move from one context to another, perhaps even shaken loose from its initial setting’ [Hamilton (2018) 100–1]. This is clearly true of the reception of Lucilius. For example, it was Horace who made Lucilius into the father of a satiric ‘genre’ constructed only in retrospect [Goldberg (2005) and (2018)]. This new focus is useful—but does it come at the expense of the agency of the quoted text? Does it leave Lucilius and other fragmentary works as little more than inert source material for reception and re-presentation by the quoting text? Indeed, in many fragments of Lucilius, selected by Nonius Marcellus for his own lexical purposes, and often misunderstood even in the act of glossing them, it seems that Lucilius is very much the junior partner in this act of quotation.
However, in this paper I will offer an alternative analysis of Lucilius’ reception and re-presentation that I hope will restore the other side of the picture, productively complementing the symposium’s focus on the act of quotation. To do this, I draw on the language of affordances [pioneered by Gibson (1986), widely used in material culture, and introduced into literary studies by Levine (2015) and Cave (2016)]. This model allows both for the range of possible uses “afforded” by an object, and the agency of the user in selecting from among them, and therefore allows us to keep in sight the quoted text as well as the quoting text. How does Lucilius’ text “afford” quotability? That is, in what ways is it constructed precisely so as to be quoted? Its metrical form, settling on hexameter after a period of initial experimentation [Morgan (2010) 310–34], lends itself to being memorised and broken up into chunks—indeed, we most often find entire line(s) quoted. So, if Lucilius’ text has been so often quoted (fragmented), that says just as much about the text Lucilius wrote as it does about the purposes of the later authors doing the quotation. The later authors acted on an affordance already embedded in Lucilius’ text.
By reading Horace’s judgement against the grain, I suggest that tollere might provide some useful metaphors to conceptualise the receptions that the text affords: not just deletion, but spoliation [cf. Lushkov (2017)], appropriation, and re-presentation. To give a modern comparison, if we watch a lengthy interview with a politician, they repeat themselves to provide multiple “soundbites” to be excerpted into shorter fragments. Is this the aesthetic Lucilius aimed for, about which Horace might rightly say ‘erat quod tollere uelles’?
Déjeuner
13:30-14:10 – Angeliki Boikou (Sorbonne Université)
La “Petite Aile du Phénix” de Laevius : sur la réception d’un carmen figuratum en “saturniens”
Résumé : Laevius, poète latin actif à l’époque de Sulla, incarne une figure peu connue de la littérature latine. Bien que les débris de sa poésie soient dispersés dans des traités grammaticaux et lexicographiques de l’époque impériale, les fragments qui ont survécu à la disparition laissent apparaître un talent littéraire original ainsi qu’un goût pour les genres mineurs d’inspiration hellénistique. Laevius était l’auteur des Erotopaegnia, un recueil constitué de poèmes érotiques en mètres variés. Ce corpus contient des compositions mettant en scène le sentiment subjectif (frg. 28 Bl.), des exercices de virtuosité métrique (frg. 30 Bl.), des extraits de contenu satirique (frg. 6 Bl.) ou des passages de polémique littéraire (frg. 12 ; 16 ; 25 Bl.) ainsi que de courtes « operette mitologiche » (Morelli 2000 : 268), inspirées des histoires d’amour de la mythologie grecque (frg. 9-24 Bl.). Laevius est aussi l’auteur d’un carmen figuratum, intitulé Phoenix, ou plus vraisemblablement Pterygium phoenicis (frg. 8 Bl.), et dont la disposition des vers devait imiter la forme des ailes de l’oiseau d’Arabie, à l’exemple des Πτέρσγες Ἔρωτος de Simias de Rhodes (Sim. 24 CA Powell).
Le Pterygium phoenicis constitue un spécimen particulier de la poésie de Laevius en ce qui concerne tant son
caractère visuel que sa réception à l’époque impériale. Le fragment figure dans un chapitre énigmatique de l’Ars de Charisius (p. 375,10-376,10 Barwick) consacré au vers saturnien et est mentionné à côté d’autres extraits issus des Épigones d’Accius (trag. frg. 598-599 et frg. 590-592 Dangel). Ces citations poétiques sont toutes composées selon les normes de la versification lyrique hellénisante, mais elles sont curieusement citées comme des exempla de saturniens. L’interprétation de ce passage a suscité, depuis le XIXe s., de nombreuses discussions auprès des philologues qui se sont efforcés d’en éclairer le contenu, sans pour autant arriver à des conclusions solides en raison de la volonté d’expliquer le technopaegnion de Laevius à partir du témoignage de Charisius. Aussi, le manque de distinction nette entre le véritable caractère de ce poème et la manière dont il a été perçu postérieurement par les grammairiens a-t-il conduit à des lectures problématiques à la fois du texte de la source et du fragment de Laevius lui-même.
Cette contribution souhaite reprendre l’étude du chapitre de Charisius, discuter son contenu doctrinal et
proposer une nouvelle interprétation visant à dévoiler le raisonnement qui unit les informations présentes dans ce passage. A travers une approche comparative, nous souhaitons illustrer la cohérence dans les extraits poétiques mentionnés par le grammairien, qui paraissaient jusqu’alors incompatibles tant entre eux qu’avec l’enseignement sur le saturnien. Cette analyse servira à mieux comprendre la réception du fragment de Laevius et contribuera à l’explication des problèmes délicats comme la restitution de son véritable titre, la définition du rôle de ce poème au sein des Erotopaegnia, les difficultés dans l’établissement du texte ainsi que l’identification du mètre employé. Le Pterygium phoenicis reflète un exemple brillant révélant la complexité dans la réception de l’ancienne poésie fragmentaire et mérite plus d’attention que la critique ne lui a accordée jusqu’à maintenant.
14:10-14:50 – Matthew Payne (Universiteit Leiden)
Citing authors as authorities: Gellius and Nonius as transmitters of fragments
Résumé : Almost all the fragments of Latin literature come to us via citations by other authors. Despite the tendency to extract and collect fragments (DIONISOTTI 1997), they cannot be studied in isolation from the contexts in which they are preserved and without consideration of the motives and rationale of citing authors (ELLIOT 2013).
I will focus on how the reliability of the citing author is assessed by the scholarly tradition, and particularly how the treatment of an individual fragment can be based more on the general reputation of a citing author than the specific circumstances of the citation. Often, scholars can tend towards a binary perspective, and to explore this dichotomy of the trustworthiness of citing authors, I will look at how the scholarly tradition has tended to treat two key citing authors: Aulus Gellius and Nonius Marcellus.
As a creative reader with whom modern scholars can perhaps identify (‘a second-century classical scholar’ in the description of YODER [1938]), it is perhaps unsurprising that many editors and critics are inclined to trust Gellius. But sometimes this may be at the cost of open-mindedness towards a fragment. As an example, I will look in detail at the treatment of a conjecture by Gyraldus on a fragment of Cinna’s poetry (fr. 9 FPL4) preserved by Gellius, which goes unmentioned in every 20th century edition of both Cinna and Gellius. I will briefly explain why the conjecture should be considered, before focusing on the conjecture’s reception, particularly by N. Heinsius, for whom Gellius’ testimony is decisive. But Gellius had plenty of blind-spots (HOLFORD-STREVENS 2003), and this case highlights one.
By contrast, Nonius has a dismal reputation: White’s comments on “a cumbersome, mechanical regularity linked with a limited intelligence” have been regularly repeated (WHITE 1980). But gradual work on the architecture of Nonius’ work, stemming from Linday’s first identification of the principles (LINDSAY 1901), sheds more light on how and why Nonius makes the errors he does and clarifies where he may be trusted: as examples we can take Nonius’ relationship with the glossaries he used (WELSH 2012; WELSH 2013).
By approaching each fragment and its citation context as an individual link within a chain of of reception, we can rethink generalities about the trustworthiness of citing authors.
14:50-15:30 – Cristiana Pasetto (Università di Trento)
Fragmentary Poetry from Augustus to Domitian: the Case of the Tiberian Age
Résumé : The objective of this contribution is to present the content of my PhD thesis on fragmentary Latin poetry, soon to be published in Φιλοπονία series (Rome). The aim of my project was to collect fragments of epic and lyric Latin poetry from the establishment of the Augustan principate to the end of the Flavian age. The most complete and recent collection of Latin poetic fragments, on which I based my work, is the one published by Blänsdorf in 1995 (later revised in 2011), as an update to the Teubnerian editions of Morel’s (1927) and Büchner’s (1982) Fragmenta poetarum Latinorum epicorum et lyricorum. In 1993 (20032), Courtney offered the first comprehensive commentary on the epic and lyric fragments of Latin poetry in Fragmentary Latin Poets. Hollis’ 2007 publication, Fragments of Roman Poetry c.60 BC-AD 20 is also an important reference source.
Among the literary-historical works, Bardon’s Littérature latine inconnue remains fundamental (1956), while more recently, Duret dealt with minor poetry in two contributions entitled Dans l’ombre des plus grands (1983 and 1986).
My work intends to offer an up-to-date commentary on the poetic fragments dating back to a crucial moment in the history of Latin literature, in which various elements of innovation and unity can be discerned. It is particularly in the late Augustan age that some of the typical characteristics of literature from the imperial age began to emerge. I have decided to pay special attention to the discussion of ancient evidence and to consider not only literary sources, but also historical and epigraphic ones, which are often given little
consideration in philological works: the aim is to reconstruct the biographical events, personal relationships and lost works of each author. Furthermore, I have included those minor authors who I usually define as minimi, i.e. poets whose literary production has no surviving fragments, but only poor and often controversial references and testimonies. The systematic knowledge of these authors, who are not included in the main collections, is important as it allows us to understand the web of personal and artistic relationships between authors, populating the history of ancient literature with a lot of other lost works.
In addition to the illustration of my soon-to-be-published project, I am also proposing a case-study analysis of the fragmentary poetry of the Tiberian age. I intend to provide an overall picture of this period, pointing out its authors (minor and minimi), genres and literary themes, and the relations between poets and imperial power. I will then focus particularly on the figures and fragments of Asinius Gallus, Sextilius Paconianus and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus. Asinius Gallus is interesting as he represents one of the few testimonies of the scommatic epigram genre, for which he would have been an important predecessor of Martial. Paconianus and Gaetulicus, on the other hand, were exponents of the astronomical poetry genre, which was particularly successful in this period. For different reasons, all these authors suffered censorship of their works, the loss of which is therefore not accidental but due to political reasons. My work will propose an interpretation of their fragments and lost works, prompting a comparison and discussion of my findings in order to deepen the study of a still nebulous moment in Latin literature.
Pause café
16:30-17:00 – Sarah Gaucher (Université Grenoble Alpes)
Présentation du projet FragmAnt
Vendredi 6 décembre
9:00-10:20 – Costas Panayotakis (University of Glasgow)
Editing fragments of Republican comic drama: the case-studies of the Latin mime and Atellane Comedy
Pause café
10:40-11:20 – Thomas Kluitenburg (Universiteit Leiden)
“The Greeks do it better!” : Philhellenic philological practices in 19th century editions of Roman Republican tragedy
Résumé : When a reader opens up an edition of an ancient text, the design (e.g. a critical apparatus in a small font-size) suggests veracity. Yet, the reality is that, although scholarly editions present themselves as being objective, they are an expression of specific scholarly agenda’s and accordingly should be interpreted within the intellectual context of their creation. The editions of Roman Republican tragedy, a corpus which is exclusively transmitted in fragments (Goldberg 2005), represent an excellent case study to investigate the effects of these scholarly preconceptions.
The fragmentary status of the corpus (a) demanded careful philological presentation according to scholarly biases and (b) helped to substantiate the story advocated by several 19th century classical philologists like Otto Ribbeck, Johannes Vahlen and Otto Jahn that Roman literature during its first two centuries was a ‘translation’ of Greek literature. The ‘philhellenic’ idea behind this story made up the cornerstone of their ‘Hellenocentric’ approach to critical editions, informing their attitude towards the arrangement of the fragments, and leading them to propose conjectures which altered the content, style and metre of the transmitted text. However, in an attempt to validate their hypothesis they disregarded several specific characteristics of the fragmentary plays, such as their engagement with other genres, such as comedy, and with the traditions of indigenous Italic theatre and visual culture. As scholarly prejudices had a lasting impact on the editorial presentation and contextualisation of the fragmentary remains (Manuwald 2015) the question arises to what extent these philological practices should be reassessed and how to best account for the multitude of readings transmitted in the manuscripts.
In my paper, I shall investigate the historically situated 19th century scholarly biases that shaped the philological practices involved in reconstructing the fragments of a particular Roman Republican tragedy: Pacuvius’ Dulorestes (ed. Schierl 2023). By focussing on the intellectual environment that gave rise to the conjectures of German scholars such as Jahn (1867) – to whose attitude towards reconstructing Roman Republican tragedy this paper owes its title – I shall demonstrate how his ‘philhellenic’ preconceptions led to further philological emendations which serve to distinguish them from previous editors working from different normative frameworks, such as conservative scepticism. As I shall argue, Jahn’s conjectures (a) support his assumption that Pacuvius’ innovativeness was limited to reworking the content of Greek tragedies and (b) to remove Pacuvius’ generic fluidity.
With respect to the symposium’s overarching theme, my case study aims to showcase how only after acknowledging the influence of the complex construct of both our predecessors and our own preconceptions (i.e. both ‘fragmented’ and subjective perspectives) on the reconstruction of these fragmentary fabulae we can begin to enrich our understanding of the history of their reception.
11:20-12:00 – Basil L. P. Nelis (Universiteit Leiden)
Editing Accius’ Atreus in a digital age: challenges and opportunities
Résumé : Not only does Accius’ Atreus seem to have been one of the most popular plays of Roman Republican drama, it is also a play about which we know quite a lot. On the basis of the fragments that survive, which are preserved for us largely thanks to Cicero, we seem tantalisingly close to identifying a basic outline of the play’s plot. And yet scholars’ attempts to do so have given rise to wildly different interpretations. The question of how the play ended is a notorious example. According to Ribbeck (1875, 455-6), it ended with the arrest of Thyestes; Lana (1959, 312-5) argued that Atreus was executed following a successful rebellion of Mycenean/Argive citizens led by Thyestes; and Zwierlein (1983, 123-5) proposed that it ended with Thyestes’ curse.
The new edition of Accius’ dramatic works by J. Schultheiß (TrRF IV, 2023) offers a possible way forward. Like his fellow editors in the TrRF series, Schultheiß does not attempt to reconstruct the plot of the play. Instead, he adopts a different editorial principle, that of presenting the fragments in a chronological order based on the date of composition of the source texts in which the fragments are quoted. While this method has some advantages, it is not without problems of its own. One significant problem concerns the arrangement of the fragments that are preserved by Cicero. For example, a user of the TrRF edition might be confused to find that, in the text of fr. 104 TrRF, lines which must surely belong to a speech by Thyestes after devouring his children (ipsus hortatur me frater, ut meos malis miser | manderem natos, fr. 104.I = Cic. De or. 3.217, Tusc. 4.77) are placed before Atreus’ explanation of his motivation to take revenge against his brother (fr. 104.II = Cic. De or. 3.219 part., Tusc. 4.77 part., Nat. D. 3.68). Does such a presentation go too far the other way?
What I propose to do in this paper is to demonstrate what can be gained by presenting the fragments of Accius’ Atreus in a digital format. In order to do this, I shall show the ‘Open Source Classics Commentary’, an online platform currently being developed by the ‘Experiencing Fragments’ research project based at Leiden University (2022–2026). One of the core objectives of this project is to provide users with a more fluid and dynamic presentation of the fragments which is not hampered by the constraints of a physical book. Accius’ Atreus makes for a good case study to illustrate the benefits of engaging and interacting with fragments in a digital environment.
Déjeuner
13:30 – 14:50 Ian Goh (Swansea University, Collegium de Lyon)
Silence and Sentiment in the Lucilian Corpus: Meanings and Repercussions
14:50-15:20 – Fermeture des travaux
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Sarah Gaucher (22 octobre 2024). CER – programme et résumés. FragmAnt. Consulté le 16 mai 2025 à l’adresse https://fragmant.hypotheses.org/698