Later Greek Epic and the Latin Literary Tradition: Further Explorations

224 Pages·2022·1.992 MB·German

by  Katerina Carvounis (editor), Sophia Papaioannou (editor), Giampiero Scafoglio (editor)

Later Greek Epic and the Latin Literary Tradition
Trends in Classics –
Supplementary Volumes
Edited by
Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos
Associate Editors
Stavros Frangoulidis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani
Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis

Scientific Committee
Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck
Claude Calame · Kathleen Coleman · Jonas Grethlein
Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds
Richard Hunter · Giuseppe Mastromarco
Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis
Giusto Picone · Alessandro Schiesaro
Tim Whitmarsh · Bernhard Zimmermann
Volume 136
Later Greek Epic
and the Latin
Literary Tradition
Further Explorations
Edited by
Katerina Carvounis, Sophia Papaioannou
and Giampiero Scafoglio
ISBN 978-3-11-079179-2
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-079190-7
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-079198-3
ISSN 1868-4785
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022946453
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna
Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
www.degruyter.com
Contents
Abbreviations  VII
Katerina Carvounis, Sophia Papaioannou, and Giampiero Scafoglio
Preface: Later Greek Epic and the Latin Literary Tradition  1
Ursula Gärtner
Latin and Later Greek Literature: Reflections on Different Approaches  7
Katerina Carvounis
The Poet as Sailor: Claudian between the Greek and Latin Traditions  31
Silvio Bär
Sinon and Laocoon in Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica: A Rewriting and
De-Romanisation of Vergil’s Aeneid?  55
Emma Greensmith
Odysseus the Roman: Imperial Temporality and the Posthomerica  75
Giampiero Scafoglio
Triphiodorus and the Aeneid: From Poetics to Ideology  101
Markus Kersten
ἄντρα περικλυτά: Revisiting Mythical Places in the Orphic Argonautica  123
Sophia Papaioannou
Pantomime Games in the Dionysiaca and Vergil’s Song of Silenus  151
Helen Lovatt
Nonnus’ Phaethon, Ovid, and Flavian Intertextuality  179
List of Contributors  207
General Index  209
Index Locorum  211

Abbreviations
Decleva Caizzi Decleva Caizzi, F. (), Antisthenis Fragmenta, Milan.
EpGF Davies, M. (), Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Göttingen.
FGrH Jacoby, F. (–), Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker.
Teil I-III ( volumes), Berlin.
GDRK Heitsch, E. (), Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen
Kaiserzeit, Göttingen.
Jocelyn Jocelyn, H.D. (), The Tragedies of Ennius. The Fragments edited
with an Introduction and Commentary, Cambridge (repr. with corr.
).
Manuwald Manuwald, G. (), Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (TrRF). Vo-
lumen II. Ennius, Göttingen.
Merkelbach–West Merkelbach, R./West, M.L. (), Fragmenta Hesiodea, Oxford.
PMG Page, D.L. (), Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxford.
PMGF Davies, M. (), Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum Fragmenta,
Oxford.
Vahlen Vahlen, I. (), Ennianae poesis reliquiae, iteratis curis rec., Leipzig
(Leipzig ; Amsterdam , ).
Weissenborn–Müller Weissenborn, W./Müller, H.J., Titi Livi ab urbe condita libri (Sammlung
griechischer und lateinischer Schriftsteller mit deutschen Anmerkun-
gen).
. Band: Buch I () und Buch II (), Nachdruck Dublin/Zurich
.
. Band: Buch III () und Buch IV/V (), Nachdruck Dublin/
Zurich .
Abbreviations of ancient authors and texts follow L’ Annee Philologique.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110791907-203

Katerina Carvounis, Sophia Papaioannou, and Giampiero
Scafoglio
Preface: Later Greek Epic and the Latin
Literary Tradition
The idea of exploring later Greek epic alongside, and in the light of, Latin litera-
ture came up in May 2017, during dinner after a conference in the wonderful city
of Athens: while talking about the presence of the Latin literary tradition in the
Greek epic of the imperial period — a topic both intriguing and elusive, consid-
ering the different ways in which the ‘presence’ of some works in the subtext of
others may be conceived —, we realised that it was worth engaging in this de-
bate. All the more so, as the last two decades have witnessed a surge of interest
in later Greek epic, both in the study of individual works and in their broader
contexts, leading to the collapse of many prejudices that have long precluded a
lucid and balanced approach to these literary texts.1
Reliable editions, modern annotated translations, and book-length studies
on Quintus’ Posthomerica, Triphiodorus’ Sack of Troy, the Orphic Argonautica,
and Nonnus’ Dionysiaca have now made these poems considerably more acces-
sible to scholars interested in ancient Greek literature, the evolution of the epic
tradition, and Late Antiquity. In the past decade a series of well-attended inter-
national conferences on these authors and their respective contexts, among
which the meetings on Quintus (Zurich, 2006; Cambridge, 2016) and the confer-
ence series ‘Nonnus of Panopolis in Context’ (Rethymno, 2011; Vienna, 2013;
Warsaw, 2015; Ghent, 2018), have reignited systematic and in-depth study, and
brought together scholars from a variety of traditions. The edited volumes re-
sulting from these meetings, together with the Brill’s Companion to Nonnus of
Panopolis and the number of monographs on the Posthomerica and Dionysiaca

1 If we look back over the history of criticism on Quintus’ Posthomerica, for instance, we real-
ise that a correct analysis of its sources has long been hindered by an aesthetic prejudice, i.e.
an undervaluation of the literary merit of the Posthomerica. Until recently, critics maintained
that it would be unlikely for an ‘epigonal author,’ such as Quintus, to have practised creative
and selective imitation of a Latin source: had he known Vergil’s Aeneid, he would have un-
doubtedly imitated it in a more obvious way; therefore, if such plagiarism is not evident, Quin-
tus did not know the Aeneid. This thread was started by Richard Heinze in his pivotal book
Virgils epische Technik at the beginning of the 20th century (Heinze 1915, 63–81), and it was
carried on fifty years later by Francis Vian in his seminal Recherches sur les Posthomerica de
Quintus de Smyrne (Vian 1959, 55–85 and 96–101).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110791907-001
  Katerina Carvounis, Sophia Papaioannou, and Giampiero Scafoglio
in the last few years, attest to this recent ‘explosion’ of scholarly interest in later
Greek epic poetry.
Despite the proliferation of innovative work on late antique Greek epic in
recent years, scholarship has not explored systematically the interaction of
imperial Greek epicists with the Latin tradition. Comparative examinations of
the Greek and the Latin literary traditions in the imperial period and in Late
Antiquity are beginning to appear in this shifting landscape. Daniel Jolowicz’s
most recent monograph entitled Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novels begins
with an introductory chapter that puts forward evidence to support the claim
that there was Greek engagement with Latin poetry in the early and high impe-
rial periods,2 and makes an overall compelling case that there were some, at
least, Greek-speaking individuals in the imperial period who read Latin poetry.3
Moreover, a volume entitled Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity: Form,
Tradition, and Context, which has just been published, results from a conference
held in Ghent in September 2016 and constitutes the first organised effort to
bring together scholars working in the fields of late antique Greek and late Latin
poetry. In their introduction, the volume editors (and organisers of the highly
successful Ghent conference), Berenice Verhelst and Tine Scheijnen, underscore
the significance of comparative study between the two literary traditions to
trace and comprehend in depth the respective elaborate developments across a
period of several centuries.4
The present volume narrows down this comparative examination to focus
on Latin epic, which it aspires to analyse not only from a bilingual perspective
but also under the assumption that the two traditions do not necessarily devel-
op independently from, and ignorant of, each other. As both the Greek and the
Latin epics of Late Antiquity are influenced by the same poetic rules and aes-
thetic principles, the admission of ongoing interaction, not always conscious,
sought after, and sustained, between the Greek and the Latin epic traditions
may help modern readers reconsider their understanding of ‘Greek’ or ‘Latin’ at
a time when both have acquired new definitions.


2 For this stated aim and purpose of his monograph see Jolowicz 2021, 2–3. Jolowicz 2021, 6–
10, also examines some reasons why scholars have so far been reluctant to accept Greek en-
gagement with Latin literature.
3 Jolowicz 2021, 34.
4 Verhelst/Scheijnen 2022, 1–10.