Chapter 2. The Aethiopis and Art Under the rubric of art, of course, fall a vast number of books and articles covering a wide range of aspects. From the long list of works that deal with more than one category and are rich in bibliography I select for mention G. E. Lung, Memnon: Archäologische Studien zur Aithiopis (diss. Bonn 1912); E. Löwy, “Zur Aithiopis,” Neue Jahrbücher für das… Read more
Chapter 3. Commentary on Proclus’ Summary of the Aethiopis The question of a dating of the composition relative to the Iliad has been considered above (pages 3–24), where it was seen to be an exceedingly complex issue. As for an absolute dating, the epic has a traditional author (Arctinus) who in turn is assigned a traditional floruit. The inadequacy of such traditions is now generally recognized. … Read more
Chapter 4. Commentary on the “Fragments” of the Aethiopis F1 ὁ γὰρ τὴν Αἰθιοπίδα γράφων περὶ τὸν ὄρθρον φησὶ τὸν Αἴαντα ἑαυτὸν ἀνελεῖν. The author of the Aethiopis says that Ajax killed himself around the time of dawn. Σ Pindar Isthmian IV 58b Severyns (1928:325) suggests that the ultimate source of this fragment is Aristar-chus… Read more
Appendix. The Tabulae Iliacae In dealing with the possibility that artifacts such as Greek vases reflect and preserve versions of myths that feature in now-lost epics, one must sedulously avoid (as I have in chapter 2) using the word “illustration,” with its host of anachronistic and misleading associations. But there does exist a body of artifacts to which that term could less misleadingly be applied. These are… Read more
Bibliography of Frequently Cited Works Allan, W. 2005. “Arms and the Man: Euphorbus, Hector, and the Death of Patroclus.“ Classical Quarterly 55:1–16. Andersen, Øivind. 1978. Die Diomedesgestalt in der Ilias. Symbolae Osloenses Suppl. 25. Oslo. ——. 1982. “Thersites und Thoas vor Troia.” Symbolae Osloenses 57:7–34. Bethe, Erich. 1922. Homer, Dichtung und Sage, 2: Odyssee. Read more
To Tamar Acknowledgements I never dreamt of writing a book on the Parian Marble, but intellectual adventures are not always foreseen. It was on the very soil of Paros, at a conference on Archilochus in 2005, that the inscription beckoned and the fields of poetry and chronology converged in my mind. My interests in ancient literary history found an appropriate channel. For encouraging me to… Read more
Preface For most philologists working on ancient Greek poetry, the Parian Marble is not usually a final destination, but a series of stopovers. Indeed, a chronological list is hardly the kind of thing that one reads from beginning to end. Hence, the common tendency to approach the inscription as a repository of information and to mine it for specific dates of people and events. Only the few… Read more
List of Abbreviations BNJ = I. Worthington, ed., Brill’s New Jacoby: The Fragments of the Greek Historians I–III (Jacoby Online), http://www.brill.com/publications/online-resources/jacoby-online. BNP = H. Cancik, M. Landfester, H. Schneider, Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, (New Pauly Online), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/brill-s-new-pauly. CIG = Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (Berlin, 1825–1877). CIL = Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin,… Read more
Chapter 1. The Parian Marble 1. Introduction The Parian Marble is a monumental inscription written in Attic Greek on a stele that was originally over two meters tall, [1] dating from some time after 264/3 BCE. [2] It has reached us in two sections, ninety-three and thirty-three lines long. There is a gap of nineteen years… Read more
10. From Philology to Theater: The Construction of Meaning in Sophocles’ Antigone* The problem facing the contemporary translator of a Greek tragedy may be found in its historical dimension. I try to put myself in the playwright’s shoes: he wrote at a certain moment in time, he took a position within a certain tradition that prevailed at that time, so as to express… Read more
