Dionysius: The Epic Fragments

DION Y S I US T H E E PI C F R AG M E N T S A . BENA ISSA CAMBRIDGE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES 56 Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information CAMBRIDGE CLASSICAL TEXTS A N D C O M M E N TA R I E S editors J. DIG G LE N. HO P KIN S O N J. G. F. P OW ELL M. D. RE E VE R . J. TA R R A N T S. P. OAKLEY D. N. S E DLE Y 56 DI ON YSIU S : T H E E P I C FR AGMENT S © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information DIONYSIUS THE EPIC FRAGMENTS ED I T ED W I T H I NT RO D UCT I O N, T R ANS L AT I O N, AND CO MMENTARY BY A. BENAISSA Associate Professor in Classical Languages and Literature, University of Oxford, and Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi - 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06-04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107178977 © Cambridge University Press 2018 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2018 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc in 2017 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. isbn 978-1-107-17897-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information VIRO POLITISSIMO P. J. PARSONS OCTOGENARIO © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information CONTENTS Preface xi I N TRO DU CT ION 1 I. Dionysius’ Date II. Ancient Fortunes III. Modern (Mis)fortunes (a) The Geographical Fragments (b) The Papyrus Fragments IV. Dionysius’ Bassarica and Stephanus of Byzantium V. Dionysius’ Bassarica and Nonnus’ Dionysiaca 1. Dionysus’ Allies 2. Deriades’ Allies 3. Names of Heroes 4. Episodes, Motifs, Language VI. Dionysus in India: Background of the Legend and Poetic Antecedents VII. Language and Epic Style 1. Lexicon 2. Elements of Epic Style VIII. Metrical Profile 1. Prosody (a) Hiatus (b) Correption (c) Other Prosodic Features 2. Outer and Inner Metric (a) Hexameter Schemes (b) Caesurae (c) Rules About Word-End 3. Noun-Epithet Groups and Word-Patterns (a) Unseparated Noun-Epithet Pairs (b) Separated Noun-Epithet Pairs 1 2 4 4 6 9 13 16 24 28 29 31 50 51 54 58 59 59 60 62 63 63 66 67 69 69 71 vii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information C ON TE N TS IX. Manuscripts 1. P.Lond.Lit. 40 2. P.Oxy. xxxvii 2818 + P.Oxy. lxxvii 5103 3. P.Oxy. xxxvii 2815 4. Stephanus of Byzantium 75 75 78 79 80 R EMAR K S O N ED I TO R I AL CO N V E N T I O N S AND T HE PR ES ENTAT I O N O F T HE FRAG MENTS 81 SIG LA 84 T HE FRAGMENTS OF THE BA SSA R IC A: T EXT, CR I T I CAL APPAR AT US, T RANSLATION I. Testimonia II. Fragmenta Geographica Socii Dionysi Socii Deriadis III. Fragmenta Papyracea IV. Fragmenta Incerti Carminis V. Fragmenta Dubia 86 86 88 88 94 108 138 140 COMMENTARY 145 APPEND I X: T HE FR AGMENT S O F T HE GIGANTI AS 225 CO NCO RDANC E OF FRAGMENT S 290 BIBLIO G RAPHY I. List of Abbreviations II. Works Cited 294 294 296 viii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information C ON TE N TS I N D EX ES I. Index of Greek Words 1. Index of Names and Proper Adjectives 2. General Index of Words II. Index locorum III. Index of Subjects 311 311 313 323 348 ix © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information P R E FAC E Dionysius stands at an interesting juncture in the history of Greek hexameter epic, with lines taking us back to the learned poetry of the Hellenistic age and forward to the monumental epic poets of the Roman Imperial period. He is the only Greek writer of mythological epic poetry between Apollonius of Rhodes (third century bce) and Quintus of Smyrna (third century ce) for whom we have relatively substantial fragments, and his work belongs to a period from which very little Greek poetry survives besides epigram. Two of his poems are known: a Gigantias in at least three books relating the battle of the Giants against the Olympian gods and its prehistory, and a Bassarica in at least eighteen books on Dionysus’ campaign against the Indian king Deriades. These works did not survive to medieval times, but sizeable fragments have been preserved in some papyri and in citations in the geographical dictionary of Stephanus of Byzantium. The Bassarica, the better preserved of the two poems, is the earliest known poetic account of Dionysus’ Indian war and an important literary precursor of the fullest elaboration of this legend, Nonnus’ Dionysiaca of the fifth century. Partly modelled on Alexander’s eastern conquests, the legend was to prove enduringly popular in the Imperial and Late Antique periods, and Dionysius’ epic poem no doubt contributed to its growing vogue. The last edition of Dionysius’ fragments was that of Enrico Livrea in 1973. This edition is fundamental in many respects, and it will be obvious throughout how much I am indebted to it. There are nevertheless several compelling reasons now for undertaking at least a re-edition of the Bassarica. Livrea omitted a number of entries from Stephanus of Byzantium which are almost certainly attributable to the poem, despite the fact that they do not cite Dionysius or the Bassarica explicitly. These entries, together with two new papyrus fragments from Oxyrhynchus, need to be incorporated in a more comprehensive xi © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information P R E FAC E edition of the poem. Close re-examination of the main papyrus of the Bassarica, P.Lond.Lit. 40, has also resulted in a significant number of corrections and new readings. Finally, several studies in the intervening decades have cast new light on some of the fragments. The question of the relationship between Dionysius and Nonnus, in particular, which was not treated extensively in Livrea’s book, has received renewed impetus from the recently completed Belles Lettres edition of the Dionysiaca directed by Francis Vian and Pierre Chuvin’s magisterial work on the mythological geography of Nonnus’ poem. The primary goal of this edition is to supply a more accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date text of the fragments of the Bassarica. The introduction offers an overview of the sources of the fragments and their editorial history, a discussion of the relationship between the Bassarica and Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, a brief prehistory of the theme of the poem, and a summary of Dionysius’ stylistic and metrical profile. The commentary focuses on the interpretation of individual fragments, their linguistic and literary aspects, and loci similes. It has not seemed useful to re-edit fully and write a continuous commentary on the fragments of the Gigantias, which are preserved in a much more mutilated state.1 In contrast to the fragments of the Bassarica, they have aroused little critical or literary comment since Livrea’s edition. No new fragments of the poem from Stephanus or the papyri need to be added to Livrea’s fragments. The most extensive papyrus of the poem, P.Oxy. xxxvii 2815, has already been carefully edited by Lobel, while few significant corrections have been made to the remaining fragments of the poem in P.Lond.Lit. 40.2 Nevertheless, for 1 2 Whitby (1994) 124 has noted that ‘[t]he condition of the Gigantias is so fragmentary that little attempt can be made to reconstruct the narrative sequence’. See Marcotte (1988) for some suggestions on Gig. fr. 45v and most recently Meliadò (2014) for improvements to Gig. frr. 6–8, 47–8. These are incorporated in the text given in the Appendix together with some new readings and supplements by Ben Henry and myself. xii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-17897-7 — Dionysius: The Epic Fragments Edited and translated by Amin Benaissa Frontmatter More Information P R E FAC E the reader’s convenience, I include a revised text of the fragments in an appendix with a translation and some contextual notes to facilitate consultation and complement the edition of the Bassarica. The bulk of the work on this book was carried out during the tenure of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship in 2008–10 at the Faculty of Classics of the University of Oxford. It then had to be laid partially aside as my attention was occupied by unrelated projects and duties, first as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (2010–12) and then as a Fellow and Tutor at Lady Margaret Hall. I have nevertheless managed to return to it intermittently in this period and completed the manuscript during a one-term sabbatical granted by Lady Margaret Hall in 2015. I am deeply beholden to the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, Lady Margaret Hall, and the Faculty of Classics for their invaluable support of my research and for making work on this project possible over the years. I have also incurred a debt to several individuals in the writing of this book. I am grateful to the Editors for accepting the work in their series and in particular to James Diggle and Michael Reeve for some helpful comments and corrections. I would also like to thank Michael Sharp of Cambridge University Press and my copy-editor Gill Cloke for their unfailing and efficient assistance throughout. A number of scholars made useful suggestions to me, either orally during seminars and conferences or afterwards in writing: Giambattista D’Alessio, Michael Gronewald, Ian Rutherford, and the late Martin West among others. Ben Henry kindly read the entire final draft with characteristic acuity and contributed a number of improvements and interesting suggestions. Needless to say, I take sole responsibility for all interpretations and remaining errors. Oxford, 30 June 2016 xiii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org