Table Of ContentAPOREMATA
Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte
BAND 1
Collecting Fragments
Fragmente sammeln
Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht in Göttingen
VÔR
aporemata
Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte
Herausgegeben von
Glenn W. Most
Band 1:
Collecting Fragments
Fragmente sammeln
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen
Collecting Fragments
Fragmente sammeln
Edited by
Glenn W. Most
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Collecting fragments = Fragmente sammeln /
ed. by Glenn W. Most.
Göttingen : Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1997
(Aporemata ; Bd. 1)
ISBN 3-525-25900-X
NE: Most, Glenn W. [Hrsg.]; Fragmente sammeln; GT
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1997
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Druck: Hubert & Co., Göttingen
Preface
The present volume is the first in a series of five books which will explore his
torical and theoretical aspects of various scholarly practices which have played, and
continue to play, an important role in the study of ancient Greece and Rome, as
well as of many other cultures. It attempts to situate this practice in a number of
different, and, it is hoped, mutually illuminating perspectives: historically, in terms
of the development of classical scholarship since antiquity, and especially since the
Renaissance; pragmatically, in the contributions of scholars who are currently
actively engaged in just this type of work; theoretically, by considering issues of
philosophy, literary theory, and related fields which are (or should be) raised by
this practice; and comparatively, by at least beginning to ask to what extent such
practices have been characteristic not only of the European study of classical an
tiquity, but also of various traditions of research into other cultures as well. Future
volumes will explore such practices as editing texts, commenting upon them, and
establishing and delimiting the syllabus of relevant authors and disciplines.
The title of the series, Aporemata, expresses the underlying conviction that the
history of scholarship can be profitably understood as a series of strategies which
have been developed to deal with what have been perceived as problems demanding
solution. What counts as a problem has varied over time, as have the various meth
ods and approaches that have been deployed to solve problems, but the orientation
towards problem-solving itself seems to have been a largely constant feature of
philological scholarship (and not only of this brand of scholarship) at least since the
time of Aristotle’s ΑΠΟΡΗΜΑΤΑ ΟΜΗΡΙΚΑ, to which by its title this series ulti
mately pays homage.
This is not to deny the value of other approaches to the history of scholarship;
for example, the biographical tendency (which has recently been rather fashionable,
especially in classical studies, and will continue to be so for those readers who are
less interested in the ways in which scientists are scientists than in the persons that
scientists also are) has brought to light much interesting material and continues to
raise, at least implicitly, important questions about the mediations between indivi
dual personality, institutional structure, and scientific methodology, style, and
taste. But the orientation of this series is intended to suggest that such other ap
proaches need at least to be complemented by an emphasis upon scholarly
methodology if the links between the history of classical scholarship and the history
of science in other fields can remain as closely and as mutually productive in the
coming years as the links between classical scholarship itself and other scientific
VI Glenn W. Most
disciplines were at various times in the past, most recently in the 19th century. In
that light, this series proposes itself as a modest contribution not only to the self
understanding of Classics, but also to the languishing but indispensable dialogue
between Classics and other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences.
* * *
The present volume is derived from a conference on this subject held at the Inter
nationales Wissenschaftsforum at Heidelberg University from 16-18 June 1995.
Before the conference, the following text was distributed to the participants in order
to suggest some theoretical questions that might be borne in mind when considering
the practice of fragment collecting:
Some Reflections on Fragments
“1. Fragments and Canons. The transmission and collection of fragments can pro
vide a useful measure of the shifting boundaries of canon formation over time. For
an author whose fragments a later age collects is one whose fortunes have brought
him successively onto both sides of the division between canonical and uncanonical
writers. Originally, he must have been within the canon, at least for some readers,
for otherwise his texts would never have survived him. But at some later point his
works must have been excluded from the canon, for otherwise they would have
survived intact and whole rather than in the form of excerpts or fragments. And
then finally he must once again become canonical, if scholars will be willing to
undergo the enormous exertions involved in collecting, editing, and commenting on
his texts. When the author in question goes into and out of fashion will depend
upon genre and period, not just upon individual quality; why he goes out of fashion
will depend upon exigencies of instruction and transmission, and why he goes back
into fashion is an important and neglected question.
2. Fragment and Synecdoche. There is a certain tendency to regard fragments as
partes pro toto, as though they contained locked within their narrow compass the
secrets of the author’s work as a whole — secrets that can be conjured out only by
massive erudition and extensive commentary. The fascination of fragments for
certain kinds of philologists is worth exploring. Some scholars prefer to reconstruct
what we do not have rather than to analyze what we do have; one thinks of lost
tragedies and comedies, of the Pre-Socratics, of Plato’s unwritten doctrine. It
would be useful to compare texts which we have as wholes in direct transmission
with what we would think of such texts if they were transmitted only indirectly as
fragments, to see to what extent the image provided by fragments is different from
that which the whole work would suggest.
3. Sources of Fragments. Why an author quotes a text can vary widely from case to
case; and his reasons for quoting it influence greatly the way he quotes it (how
νπ
Preface
fully, how exactly, etc.). But the character of the quoter must also be borne in mind
(is he honest? what kinds of texts did he have access to?). It is dangerous to deal
with any fragment without any regard whatsoever for the context of its transmis
sion. In the case of certain authors, at least some of the problems raised are prob
ably insoluble in the end (e.g., Diogenes Laertius); in the case of other authors,
recent research has suggested that there are far more problems than had been
thought (e.g., Hippolytus). Various hermeneutic circles render this issue even more
complicated.
4. Kinds of Fragments. What reason is there to think that poetic fragments, philo
sophical fragments, and historical fragments are all fragments in the same way,
pose the same kinds of problems, and can be edited and used along the same lines?
Poetic fragments are usually cited because of their exact wording, and may be sup
posed to be transmitted fairly honestly (though of course their transmission is
usually far more problematic than is that of complete works). Philosophical frag
ments are only rarely cited because of their exact wording, more usually because of
their doctrine or argument; often they are cited by opponents, who disagree with the
views expressed and may not be inclined to quote them too accurately. Historical
fragments are usually cited because of the historical or geographical information
they contain, and are perhaps least likely of all to respect the exact wording of the
original. When philosophical fragments are treated as though they were poetic frag
ments (e.g., in some research on the Presocratics), various kinds of confusion are
likely to ensue.
5. Why One Edits Fragments. On the face of it, a collection of fragments simply
duplicates the information contained in other books in a good library. All the texts it
brings are usually available elsewhere. So why collect them? For students, perhaps
(so Diels’ Vorsokratiker); they can’t afford all the other books, and appreciate
having the texts (cheaply) together. But should not precisely they be taught to go
back to the sources and check the quotations in their context of transmission?
Alternatively, it can be thought useful to concentrate information otherwise widely
disseminated. Human minds have difficulty remembering over wide domains.
Putting e.g. all the comic fragments together makes one see connections among
those of a particular author one would otherwise have missed; and it makes writing
a book on e.g. Middle Comedy much easier. But, finally, one can also create a field
by gathering its fragments. Consider Posidonius. Is the point of an edition of Posi
donius to put together all those texts which securely derive from him, or to docu
ment a certain mode of thought in late Republican and Imperial Roman culture
which may often, but surely not always be directly connected with him?
6. The History of Collecting Fragments. Perhaps the history of fragment-collecting
would take the following form: ‘In antiquity, there was not very much, for the texts
were mostly available; but grammarians and metricians passed on fragments to one
another which existed independently of the poets’ works. One might check e.g.
vm Glenn W. Most
Athenaeus in this connection. In the Renaissance, collecting fragments partly at
least responded to exigencies of publishing (cf. Etienne), making available more
distinguished and attractive authors rather than recalcitrant and obscure ones. With
Bentley, the search for fragments and the reconstruction of lost works became
systematic; but it was only in the early 19th century, with the schools of Welcker
and Boeckh, that this industry really came into its own. Quellenforschung, the his
tory of historiography and of philosophy, and other fields and methods entered in
the latter part of the 19th century and complicated matters further.’ Or are matters in
fact far more complex? The history of collecting fragments remains to be written.”
The editor hopes that the present volume might serve as one useful starting-point
towards such a future history.
* * *
Although this volume is derived from a conference, it does not simply reproduce
the papers presented there: most have been modified, some have been added, others
have been omitted. It is hoped that the resulting volume will display even more
coherence and unity than the colloquium did, while retaining something of its live
liness and diversity. Besides the authors whose articles are published here, the
following scholars also participated in the discussions: Walter Burkert (Zurich),
Albrecht Dihle (Cologne), Hellmut Flashar (Munich), Christopher Jones (Cam
bridge, MA), Nita Krevans (Minneapolis), and Dirk Obbink (Oxford). Funding for
the conference was provided by a Leibniz prize of the Deutsche Forschungs
gemeinschaft. The staff of the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum, especially Dr.
Theresa Reiter and Doris Hirsch, were uniformly calm, imaginative, and kind. The
administrative organization of the conference, as well as most of the editorial work
on this volume, was performed with exemplary grace and tact by Dr. Helga Köhler;
she was assisted in many ways by Manuel Baumbach, Ute Meyer, Maria Anna
Söllner, and Linda Strehl. My sincere thanks go to all those who have been in
volved in this project for their generous and helpful contributions.
Heidelberg, 1. August 1996 Glenn W. Most
