01. Incontri triestini di filologia classica (2001-2002)

In the eighth book of the Thebaid of Statius is set the episode of Atys and Ismene, that is a paradigmatic case of 'invention' of Statius and rewrite of the myth. Statius competes with the most different models, but he is inspired by a narrative cue in the Iliad and in the Aeneid, that of the young suitor who found dead before the wedding. A careful and conscious reading not escapes reminiscences from Apollonius Rhodius, Seneca, Ovid, testimony of sophisticated and complex art of the author.

Lawrence Giangrande (The Use of spoudaiogeloion in Greek and Roman Literature, The Hague-Paris 1972) gave a definition of σπουδογέλοιον – unconvincing – that provides the fundamental present, in the serio-comic, of the educational component. Giangrande has also led to ignore in its analysis, Homer and archaic poetry, almost entirely neglected. It is clear that the definition of this narrative modality has to be somewhat 'flexible', and emphasize the presence of serious and trivial elements in their proportions, not forgetting the aim of the author and the datum public. Not forgettimg, in the analysis, authors such as Archilocus, Mymnermus, Semonides.

In 1991 comes out The Works of Ausonius, edited with Introduction and Commentary by R.P.H. Green, Oxford. The scientific community welcomes the Green’s work with appreciation. At last an edition of the level of Schenkl’s (1882) supersedes the work of Peiper (1886) and del Prete (1978) providing a new textual order which could become the canonical one, at least «for the next century» (Kennedy). However, the work is liable to improvements, and some are here suggested, indeed in a persuasive way, with special regard to the text of the Mosella.

In 1836 Richard Bentley wrote «The first that used the Saturnian verse among the Latins was Naeuius, an old poet Ennius before time». Bentley supported his statement with a passage from the third book Diomedes’ Ars grammatica, in which Naeuius is proclaimed ‘inuentor’ of the Saturnian verse. It is not easy just to understand what was the source of Diomedes. No ancient source known to us refers to the primacy of Naeuius, although many authors associate his name to the Saturnian verse. Diomedes, who in his description retraces two traditions, one accredited by Varro, and that of Cesius Bassus – with technical character – deduces, in a totally arbitrary way, that the inventor of Saturnian verse was Naeuius. Hence the mistake - twelve centuries later – made by Richard Bentley.

According to the vision of Griffin (The epic cycle and the uniqueness of Homer, «Journ. Hell. St.» XCVII, 1977, 39ff.) the heroic world of the Iliad is selective and excludes the characters that refer to the wonderful, the magic, the hyperbolic. In the Odyssey after the episode of Ciconians, Ulysses ends off course not only with respect to Ithaca, but to the whole heroic world of the Iliad. Ovid, in his ‘Iliad’ (met. XII 1 – XIII 622), takes the epos away from the story, because the epos of Rome, which has a universal character, can accommodate and monitor, without shakes, the categories of exotic and incredible. This feature of the poem can be read from a thematic and typological point of view, and, in a more fully way, with the intertextual analysis.