19. Incontri di filologia classica (2019-2020)

The aim of this contribution is to offer an essay that investigates the different ways in which Maximus plays in his astrological poem with the (presumed) origin of the words used by him or with their meaning. We will first see how our astrologer is able to put etymology at the service of the composition of his predictions; then how he exploits the semantic ambiguity of certain terms, not only to show off his erudition, but also to make his poem more in keeping with the dictates of astrological literature; finally, how he implicitly succeeds in establishing what is for him the correct interpretation of a word susceptible to different and conflicting readings.

Questo lavoro si propone di analizzare l’importanza stilistica dell’aggettivo greco ἀλγεινός, ‘doloroso’, e la sua fortuna in parte condivisa con ἄλγος, il sostantivo poetico da cui deriva. Legato al precedente omerico ἀλεγεινός, forse attraverso la paretimologia, in origine ἀλγεινός era abbastanza comune nella tragedia e raro in medicina e prosa, ma nel corso del tempo ha acquisito importanza in alcune formule ricorrenti. Come nel caso di ἄλγος, è registrato nella poesia ellenistica (ad esempio come utile alternativa ad ἀλεγεινός), mentre fino alla tarda antichità fu evitato dai medici post-ippocratici, che preferivano aggettivi privi di connotazioni poetiche o sentimentali. A partire dal IV secolo d.C. il quadro delle attestazioni di ἀλγεινός nei testi letterari ed epigrafici risulta molto complesso: si passa dalla rinascita nell’opera di Quinto di Smirne alla totale scomparsa nella poesia epica di Nonno di Panopoli

The present study compares the explicit etymology of the name Ὀρέστης in Plato’s Cratylus and its implicit etymology in 5th century Athenian tragedy. In Cratylus the etymology in question is included in the group of Pelopid names; the name is associated with ὄρος (‘mountain’) and would have been given to Ὀρέστης by chance or some poet in order to indicate the ‘wildness’ of his nature (τὸ θηριῶδες τῆς φύσεως καὶ τὸ ἄγριον αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ ὀρεινὸν). Differently from Plato, who probably based his etymology of Ὀρέστης on the ‘savagery’ he displayed in the murder of his mother, in the three matricide tragedies (Aeschylus’ Choephori, Sophocles’ Electra and Euripides’ Electra) the etymological focus is placed on the event of recognition: Ὀρέστης is the person ‘seen’ again (ὁρᾶν) and ‘recognized’ by Electra and other characters. By contrast in Euripides’ Orestes we encounter all the ingredients of the platonic etymology: Tyndareus compares Orestes to a snake, calls lawless revenge ‘bestiality’ (τὸ θηριῶδες), and condemns the ‘wild rage’ (ἠγρίωσ’) which drove him to matricide; the Phrygian slave compares Orestes and Pylades, armed and threatening Helen with death, to ‘wild mountain boars’ (ὡς κάπροι δ’ ὀρέστεροι); and later Menelaus refers to them as ‘twin lions’.

This paper discusses the use of the word γλίσχρος (‘sticky’), which Platonists use to disqualify certain, mostly Stoic, etymologies. I argue that the expression derives from Plato Crat. 435c, a passage in which Socrates sets out a theory of word formation that informs Stoic etymologies. I furthermore suggest that when Neoplatonists use γλίσχρος to reject certain interpretations of Plato’s texts as misguided, this is because these interpretations are reminiscent of Stoic exegetical practices.

The origins of law coincide with the origins of language, as both Plato and Horace highlight. Thus, a systematic attempt to discover the etymological roots of words simultaneously reveals the source of legality. The article examines the etymological doctrina (‘learning’) of poets vis-à-vis the etymological reasoning of learned jurists. The Twelve Tables, Catullus, and Labeo engage in similar etymological pursuits. Ovid’s Byblis responds to Labeo’s etymologies. The jurist Ulpian echoes the poetics of Latin love elegy. Lawyers and poets meet on the common ground of etymology in their attempts to lay down the law.

This article is a preliminary semantic and etymological study of a selection of terms – from fake synonyms and speaking names to thoroughly Christianized and/or Platonizing reclaims of the epic vocabulary – from the I HC and the II HC and its aim is twofold: on the one hand, it focuses on a selection of key semantic variations that result from the Christian semantic reception of archaic vocabulary and especially interpretations featuring in philological works, such as commentaries, scholia, and dictionaries; on the other hand, the analysis shows the influence of biblical exegesis in understanding the re-semanticized Homeric vocabulary in return and this was employed so as to further the existing Christian interpretation. The analysis concludes that by the fifth century the interpretation of the Bible through biblical classicizing poetry reveals a strikingly positive stance towards the Homeric text as a cultural authority useful also for Christian exegesis.

Puns on proper names are common in Greek and Roman literature, and the Greek epigram, with its multiple subgenres, is no exception. The (par)etymology of names – be they real or fictitious – is exploited for a variety of purposes and in a variety of ways. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on the broad topic of proper names in Greek epigrams by offering some reflections on a thorny problem: textual variants involving proper names as evidence of the (authorial?) revision and reuse of texts. A new survey and critical discussion of the (scanty) existing evidence will be provided. Particular attention will be paid to the etymology of proper names, which, in some cases, might suggest a substitution for the purpose of increasing the efficacy of the poetic message.

In the late Latin world, a crucial role in using etymology and in providing us information about etymologizing (and the general debate around this topic) is played by grammarians, commentators, teachers, mythographers, encyclopaedists, Neoplatonists, Christian apologists and writers, who developed these issues and whose influence on later approaches was enormous. Focusing on the etymology of Saturnus, the paper deals with the scope and purposes of etymologizing in late Latin authors.

This paper shows that the etymological practice of adding, subtracting, substituting and transposing letters within a name, attested since Plato’s Cratylus, was already in use in Greek mythography. I discuss two mythographical passages, more or less coeval to the Cratylus, where the etymologies under examination involve an ‘intermediary form’, as words have a history of their own and may have undergone some modifications in the passage of time. These two cases of ‘etymology through corruption’ (κατὰ φθοράν or κατὰ παραφθοράν) are ascribed to Andron of Teos (FGrHist 802 F3) and Andron of Halicarnassus (fr. 8 EGM) respectively, and I incidentally suggest that both texts belong to Andron of Teos.

The paper investigates the use of etymologising in the Appendix Tibulliana and concludes that its purpose to link the probably late first-century AD author of this work with the great elegists of an earlier generation, namely Propertius, Ovid and, in particular, Tibullus. This etymologising takes place at the level both of common nouns and of proper names, with plays on the fictitious character names Lygdamus, Neaera and Cerinthus. In both cases the practice is firmly anchored in the literary techniques of Tibullus and the other elegists. The manipulation of earlier elegiac etymologising and of the previous literary identities of these character names provides the whole work with a structural unity and a specific chronological focus, and so lends weight to arguments for a single unitary author.

Gli Incontri di filologia classica (INCF) sono una rivista scientifica internazionale a cadenza annuale. Nata per accogliere le relazioni discusse da studiosi appositamente invitati all’interno dei seminari che si tenevano presso l’Università di Trieste (da qui il titolo Incontri triestini di filologia classica, conservato fino al volume IX), la rivista pubblica, previa valutazione, contributi inviati alla redazione e/o discussi nell’ambito di incontri scientifici in Italia e all’estero.

This paper deals with cases of etymological puns in the seventh book of the Greek Anthology, from those commonly used by Greek poets of any age, attested in epigram as well, to others originating from toponyms and proper names. In the last part it also explores the relationship between etymology and philological exegesis, with a special focus on Homeric exegesis.

Il presente contributo esamina le fonti teoriche greche e latine che testimoniano l’impiego di differenti tipi di διπλαῖ con valore metrico, in relazione alle loro forme e alle funzioni da esse assunte a corredo dei testi drammatici. Oggetto di indagine è anche il rapporto tra le definizioni (antiche e bizantine) delle διπλαῖ e i disegni trasmessi a loro illustrazione, che nel corso della tradizione si è senz’altro corrotto, con riflessi ancora evidenti sulla non univoca terminologia adottata dagli studiosi moderni.

This paper explores the ways in which the presence of monstrous figures challenges etymologically ‘correct’ naming in Hesiod’s Theogony. By examining the section on the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers (139-153), the catalogue of monsters (270-336), and the Typhonomachy (820-880), I argue that the Theogony’s monstrous characters call into question the poet’s ability to encapsulate adequately and clearly the hybrid essence of these beings by using a single, ‘correct’ name. Etymological ‘correctness’ increasingly recedes, the names of monsters sometimes capture only part of the nature of these characters, while some characters bear only generic names or no name at all. With the defeat of Typhoeus etymological ‘correctness’ returns to the narrative, thereby suggesting that Zeus’s victory has both a political and a linguistic/cognitive effect.

The paper deals with etymological wordplays on proper names in late antique metrical inscriptions, discussing some select examples from the 3rd to the 6th century AD, of both funerary and honorary epigrams. In most of the texts etymological puns on proper names are usually quite ‘easy’ to detect, but there are examples of more sophisticated wordplays that require a higher level of engagement from the reader. Their presence is a further evidence that metrical inscriptions were meant also to be read. If the targeted audience were primarily cultivated people, performative reading (perhaps accompanied by on-the-spot exegesis) probably also enabled less educated groups to appreciate etymological wordplays, which were after all extremely popular in antiquity.