TY - JOUR
AU - Prodi, Enrico Emanuele
AB - Abstract Didymus worked extensively on archaic lyric poetry. The greatest amount of surviving material comes from the Pindar scholia and concerns Pindar’s Epinicians, but there are fragments and testimonies of his commentaries to other authors and a treatise On Lyric Poets. This chapter reviews the evidence for Didymus’ lyric scholarship, then discusses the contents of the On Lyric Poets—whose surviving fragments are concerned with the identification of lyric genres and the etymologies of their names—and the threads that run through his Pindaric exegesis: the compilation and evaluation of earlier scholarship, the use of historiographical evidence, textual criticism, a concern for the constitution of the Pindaric corpus and the contextualization of individual poems, and strategies of literary interpretation such as recourse to recurrent Pindaric themes and the train of thought of a passage. In his invective against philology in the Letters to Lucilius (88.37, T14) Seneca chastises Didymus for indulging in extravagant disquisitions about literary minutiae.1 Two of his four examples concern archaic Greek lyric poets: was Anacreon’s life more devoted to lust or to drunkenness? (396) Was Sappho a courtesan? (397) Hans Bernsdorff has realized that a fragment of a hypomnēma to Anacreon casts light on the true scope of the first question, and indeed sounds a warning on Seneca’s polemical distortions.2 Fr. 2 of P.Oxy. LIV 3722 (second century ad) reads as follows (103):3         ] [ ][     ] θεράπων ἔμηνεν ε̣λ  [    (PMG 454?)     ]υτον ἀπὸ τοῦ συμποσίου  [   Πυθόμ]α̣νδρον ἀπιό̣ντα οὗ νυ̣(ν)[     ] προπεσών· ὁ μὲν Δί-  [ δυμος  ]̣ ̣ βέλτ{ε}ιό̣ν φησιν ἐπὶ [        ]̣ ἐρωτ̣ικών· τόδε μεν  [     τὸ] μ̣ὲν γὰρ οἶδα καὶ λ{ε}ίαν  [      ]̣ ὅ̣τι μεθυσθεὶς παρὰ [ δηὖτε Πυθόμα]ν̣δρον̣ : υ̣⟦π̣ετ̣αρτ̣… [    (PMG 400?)    ]εφ . [ ]…[ ] . . [     The fragment is difficult to supplement into continuous text, but it seems that the first-person speaker in one of Anacreon’s ditties claimed to have experienced a certain mishap: either madness (2 ἔμηνεν) or a fall (4 προπεσών), if not both. A zētēma arose as to whether this mishap was due to love (6 ἐρωτ̣ικῶν) or inebriation (8 μεθυσθείς),4 and Didymus—the supplement at 4–5 imposes itself—stated that the former was better, with his trademark βέλτιον.5 The likely commentary to Anacreon cited by P.Oxy. 3722 is another piece in the already extensive jigsaw puzzle of Didymus’ scholarship on archaic Greek lyric. Two marginal notes in P.Oxy. XV 1788 fr. 4 testify that he wrote on Alcaeus (100, 101).6 He is probably mentioned in the margins of another text, P.Oxy. XXI 2299 fr. 10b, which could be by either Alcaeus or Sappho (102).7 Papyrological traces of a work on Alcman are doubtful.8 It can perhaps be divined from a scholion to Pindar that he commented on Archilochus.9 Herennius Philo and Ammonius refer to a hypomnēma to Bacchylides’ Epinicians (°175), and he may have commented on the rest of his poetry too: P.Oxy. XXIII 2368, almost certainly from a commentary to Bacchylides’ Dithyrambs, is a plausible candidate for Didymean authorship.10 The most extensive evidence to have come down to us concerns his scholarship on Pindar (104–74), preserved mostly by the scholia vetera with occasional contributions from papyri and other sources. Beside his work as a commentator, he also wrote a monograph On Lyric Poets, from which only scanty fragments survive. 1. ON LYRIC POETS The only explicit testimonies for Didymus’ On Lyric Poets are the Late Antique and Byzantine Etymologica.11 They cite it sometimes as Περὶ λυρικῶν ποιητῶν (°347a, c, d), sometimes as Περὶ ποιητῶν (°345a); the true title is probably the former.12 Material which the Etymologica attribute to this treatise turns up in Proclus’ Chrestomathy, or rather in the summary of its first two books in Photius’ Library, codex 239.13 Some of it is also found in the commentary to Aphthonius by John of Sardis, which (given their similarities) probably took it from Proclus. The few secure fragments of this work are all concerned with the characteristics of poetic genres: elegy, the paean, the difference between the hymn and the prosodion. Hymns are called so because they are durable (ὑπόμονος) and cause remembrance (ὑπόμνησις); in a narrower sense, hymns differ from prosodia in that prosodia are sung to the aulos while processing towards (προσιόντες πρός) temples or altars, and hymns are sung to the kithara while stationary (μένω again?) (°347). Paeans are sung to implore a stop to some evil, deriving as they allegedly do from παύω (348). After a sizeable doxography of folk etymologies of ἔλεγος (from ἔλεος, from εὖ λέγειν, from ἒ ἒ λέγειν…) Didymus is credited with the fascinating theory that the rhythm of the pentameter after the hexameter in the elegiac distich imitates the halting breath of the dying (°345). This last point is not present in Proclus, but the rest of Proclus’ account of elegy shares several similarities with the doxography in the Etymologica, which accordingly may come from Didymus too. The parallels between Proclus and the Etymologica have raised the prospect that the entire lyric section of the Chrestomathy (24–92, or indeed 24–99 Severyns) may depend on Didymus. A repertory of every known lyric genre, down to the most obscure, sounds just like the sort of thing Didymus might write; we know from Σ Ap.Rhod. 1.972 Wendel that he also discussed the ioulos, a little-known song for Demeter (349; cf. PMG 849 ap. Ath. 14.618d), which would fit well here. Devoting three sections specifically to daphnephorics, tripodephorics, and oschophorics suggests someone with Pindaric interests (cf. frr. 6c–f, 66, 94b–c Maehler). Details differ, but the difference may be due to the vagaries of transmission. Proclus’ account of the tripodephoria (79–86 Severyns) mentions a procession from Boeotia to Dodona, while according to Ammonius, Didymus spoke of one to the Ismenion, near Thebes (°172). However, both Didymus and Strabo—who gives largely the same account as Proclus—quote Book 2 of Ephorus as a source, suggesting that their accounts may have originally been closer than they now seem. Proclus’ story, moreover, is also found in Zenobius, who had Didymus’ On Proverbs among his chief sources.14 The strong etymological slant of the securely attributed fragments is expected, given the sources that transmit them, but the role of etymology in Didymus’ work more broadly is greater than is often realized.15 It may seem surprising that Didymus’ etymology of σκόλιον should come from the Symposiaka instead (EM p. 718 Gaisford, °338), but the possibility of duplication ought not to be discounted, especially if the Symposiaka were a ‘best of’ of literary and historical zētēmata culled from his scholarly works and aimed at a somewhat wider public. But what else was there in the On Lyric Poets beyond genres and their etymologies? The title suggests a work concerned not only with lyric, but also with the lyricists as individuals. Schmidt must have assumed as much when he assigned to the treatise Didymus’ discussion of whether Theognis hailed from continental Megara or its Sicilian namesake (Σ Pl. Leg. 630a Greene, 346). Yet the same material occurs in Harpocration (θ 6 Keaney): did Didymus rather treat this topic in one of the hypomnēmata to the Attic orators, on which we know that Harpocration drew? Perhaps the one to Isocrates, who mentions Theognis in 2.43? But, again, duplication is a possibility, and (for instance) the disquisition about Sappho’s profession caricatured by Seneca (397) would fit well in an On Lyric Poets.16 Although the evidence for this aspect is scanty, the treatise may have combined biographical material with literary history and criticism, much like Aristotle’s Περὶ ποιητῶν and the several later treatises bearing that name.17 2. PINDAR We are on firmer footing with Didymus’ role in Pindaric scholarship.18 Tradition has it that the canonical edition of Pindar’s poetry was made by Aristophanes of Byzantium (fr. 381 Slater).19 The scholia vetera relate some emendations by Aristophanes’ older contemporary Zenodotus; whether he produced an edition is doubtful.20 The most prominent Pindaric commentator before Didymus is Aristarchus, who is referenced sixty-eight times in the scholia—the second most cited scholar after Didymus himself (seventy-four).21 The scholia include a great deal of references to other, ‘minor’ figures. Two in particular, Didymus’ contemporaries Aristonicus and Theon, occur very sparsely in the scholia, but we know from other sources that they too commented on Pindar.22 As for Didymus, he certainly commented on the Epinicians (104–71) and the Paeans (°172),23 and he is cited in two fragments of P.Oxy. XXVI 2442, both incertae sedis (frr. 39 and 97, 173–74).24 It is a reasonable conjecture that he commented on the entire Pindaric corpus, as Aristarchus probably had done. 2.1. Doxography A long-standing critical trope maintains that Didymus’ hypomnēmata were ‘the chief, if not the sole, intermediary between his predecessors and his successors’.25 This is not quite true: the scholia incorporate at least one other commentary, which was not based on Didymus but drew on Hellenistic material, including some of Didymus’ own sources.26 Yet we owe a great deal not only to Didymus’ voracious reading, but also to his openness in citing his sources.27 The picture of him as a ‘mere compiler’ is reductive and misleading, but incorporating the scholarship of others was indeed a keystone of his method, with Pindar no less than with Demosthenes (°281).28 This is equally true of information drawn from other branches of learning—history first of all—and of earlier interpretations of Pindar. The doxographic scholia which punctuate the corpus are with all likelihood lifted straight from him. Out of forty-nine scholia in which Didymus’ opinion is cited together with one or more others, thirty-seven present his opinion at the end, capping the discussion; most of the other twelve, too, are informed by Didymus’ perspective.29 He seems to have wished to preserve and disseminate earlier scholarship for the benefit of those without access to it, much as he explicitly did Aristotle’s poem for Hermias in the Περὶ Δημοσθένους (P.Berol. inv. 9780 recto col. vi.20–22). Consider the literature review on the myth of Nemean 1. The ode celebrates Hieron’s henchman Chromios of Aetna. Its mythical section (vv. 33–72) narrates Heracles’ first heroic feat, the killing of the snakes that Hera had sent against him immediately after its birth, culminating in Tiresias’ prophecy of his immortalization. The unperspicuous connection between the myth and the honorand perplexed ancient critics. Σ BDPU N. 1.49c presents four solutions to the puzzle, each refuted in turn, and finally Didymus supplies his own interpretation (144). ‘Some’, Aristarchus related, thought that Pindar had been assigned that subject, which Aristarchus himself saw as a cop-out (ἀπίθανον, ‘unpersuasive’; fr. 58 Horn = 42 Feine). Or perhaps Pindar always praises those who have inborn excellence, like Heracles?30 ‘Unpersuasive’, again: if that were the point, why only mention this first adventure and not the other, more famous ones? Chaeris (fr. 20 Berndt) suggested that Chromios had toiled at Hieron’s side from the beginning and was rewarded with horse-rearing, just as Heracles had toiled and been rewarded with immortality and the hand of Hebe in marriage.31 In this case the objection is that the episode narrated does not illustrate Heracles’ willingness to toil as much as all the labours together would have done. Chrysippus (fr. 2 Braswell) claimed that Heracles was relevant to this Nemean victory qua slayer of the Nemean lion—of which, however, there is no trace in the poem.32 Didymus’ ‘better’ (βέλτιον) explanation is that, just as Heracles’ defeat of the snakes inaugurated a lifetime of even greater exploits, so Chromios’ first victory intimated more and better victories to come, with Pindar casting himself in Tiresias’ prophetic role. Didymus’ rebuttals of Aristarchus and Chaeris are underwhelming, yet his interpretation—right or wrong though it be—belongs to a sensitive reader of Pindar. He supports it by quoting a gnomic passage from Pythian 1 (33–34) where the poet connects the favourable beginning of a journey to its successful continuation. The maxim is appropriate not only generally, but particularly when viewed in its original context: there, too, it is instrumental to a wish for further victories for the city of Aetna after the one just won by her founder, Hieron. So Didymus builds on the explicit connection between that gnomic paradigm and a wish for further victories in Pythian 1 to tease out an implicit connection between a mythical instance of that same paradigm and a similar, but unstated, wish in Nemean 1. A similar doxography concerns why Nemean 7 begins with an address to E(i)leithyia, the goddess of childbirth.33 The victor Sogenes was obviously not a newborn, so why involve her? This time we have five explanations, each duly rebutted, capped by one ascribed to ‘Aristodemus the pupil of Aristarchus’ (BNJ 383 F14), which Didymus endorses (βέλτιον; Σ BD N. 7.1a, 158). Unsurprisingly given the methods of Hellenistic Pindarists, several of these explanations consist of inventing ‘facts’ outside the text which purportedly explain the passage. Didymus dismisses each of them by pointing to the lack of documentary proof. That Sogenes was too young to compete and someone else won in his place and gifted him the victory is αὐτοσχέδιον, ‘improvised’, as well as unlikely on other grounds.34 That his father was a priest of Eileithyia is ἀμάρτυρον, ‘unattested’. Was his house perhaps in the neighbourhood of a temple of the goddess?35 οὐδὲ τοῦτο δὲ ἱστορεῖται, ‘there is no testimony of this, either’. We may think no better of Aristodemus’ explanation that Sogenes was a late, long-wanted son and his father was especially grateful to Eileithyia for his birth; the epigram of Simonides which allegedly proved it does not, in fact, do anything of the kind.36 Yet the epigram was there, and this must have satisfied Didymus. Two things are noteworthy: the dutiful inclusion of earlier solutions to the zētēma, even though he regarded them as false, and the unwillingness to countenance extrinsic interpretations which rested on no evidentiary basis. Examples of the first are everywhere in the corpus: Didymus’ opinion occurs on its own in less than a third of the scholia that cite him. The second is of a piece with his historical interests, in the broadest possible sense of the adjective. 2.2. History The extensive remains of the Περὶ Δημοσθένους (°281) are almost entirely historical in content; the absence of the fine-grained literary interpretations required by a lyric poet create a much starker imbalance in the commentary on the orator. Yet Didymus’ reliance on documented history, both as a fuel for positive explanation and as a brake on runaway fantasy, plays an essential role in his Pindaric scholarship too.37 Historicizing readings of Pindar were not a Didymean innovation: as we have just seen, earlier Pindarists, too, felt the need to read the poetry against the context with which it is so clearly intertwined. Any innovation rather consists of a shift from inference to documentation, putting his vast reading to (sometimes) good use. Scholarship on comedy, with its long-established tradition of works on κωμῳδούμενοι, may have shown him the way. A list of Didymus’ quotations from the historians in the Pindar scholia can be found in Fausto Montana’s chapter.38 They occur in almost a third of the fragments and comprise local historians, antiquarians, and more universal historiography. The prevalence of Timaeus tallies with the Sicilian focus of many of the Epinicians. Additionally, the scholia transmit a large number of historiographical quotations without the name of the Pindarist who brought them to bear. One suspects that many of them may come from Didymus, too:39 tellingly, only twice in the scholia does a historian’s name occur near that of a Pindarist other than Didymus,40 and in neither case is it clear that the historian was cited by that Pindarist. Sometimes Didymus refers to history in order to provide background information on a victor, or on the circumstances surrounding an ode. Hieron was still Hieron of Syracuse, not Hieron of Aetna, when he won the Olympics in 476 bc (Apollodorus BNJ 244 F69: Σ HQ O. 1.35c, 104), and he was a hereditary priest of Demeter (Philistus BNJ 556 F49 and Timaeus BNJ 566 F96: Σ A O. 6.158c, 114). Karrhotos, mentioned at P. 5.26, was a military ally of the victor Arkesilas rather than his charioteer (Theotimos BNJ 470 F1: Σ BDEGQ P. 5.34, 132). Chromios of Syracuse became Chromios of Aetna when his boss Hieron did the same after ‘founding’ that city (inscr. a BDPTU N. 1, 140). Such remarks do not only provide context, but sometimes they elucidate specific parts of the text: Hieron’s priesthood justifies the phrase καθαρῷ σκάπτῳ, ‘with a pure sceptre’ (O. 6.93), and Chromios’ change of city explains why the title of the ode calls him Αἰτναῖος.41 Realien and their sources, too, are often called upon to elucidate an otherwise obscure element in Pindar’s text, be it the referent of the cult epithet Orthosia at O. 3.30 (Artemis, citing Apollodorus BNJ 244 F127: Σ A O. 3.54a, 109), the location of Phaisana (allegedly in Elis not in Arcadia, citing Istros BNJ 334 F41: Σ A O. 6.55a, 112a), the identification of the ‘local games of Hera’ at P. 8.79 (in Argos: Σ BDEGQ P. 8.113c, 136) and of those ‘of deep-bosomed Earth’ at P. 9.101–02 (in Athens: Σ DEGQ P. 9.177, BDEGQ 178, 137a–b), or the exact name of the Theban games in honour of Heracles (Herakleia not Iolaeia, citing ὁ περὶ ἀγώνων ἀναγραψάμενος: Σ BDP N. 4.32, 151). An instructively more complex case involves a passage in Olympian 5 (vv. 10–14). The victor Psaumis is said to sing (ἀείδει) various landmarks around his city Camarina, including the streams with which the river Hipparis ‘waters the people and quickly attaches a high-limbed grove of sturdy halls (κολλᾷ τε σταδίων θαλάμων ταχέως ὑψίγυιον ἄλσος), bringing from helplessness to light the people of this city’.42 But what does all this mean? A scholion relates two possible answers (Σ A O. 5.27b, 111b): Ἀρίσταρχος παριέναι φησὶ τὸν Ἵππαριν τὴν πόλιν καὶ προσχωννύντα ἰλὺν ἀναπλάσσειν αὐτῇ γῆν, καθάπερ τὸν Ἀχελῷον ταῖς Ἐχινάσι νήσοις καὶ τὸν Νεῖλον τῇ Αἰγύπτῳ· κολλᾷ οὖν ἀντὶ τοῦ προσαναπλάσσει γῆν. τοῦτο δέ φησιν ὁ Δίδυμος ἀμάρτυρον εἶναι· οὐ γὰρ ἱστορεῖται περὶ τὸν Ἵππαριν καὶ τὴν Καμάριναν τοῦτο γενόμενον· οὐ γὰρ πλημμύρᾳ χρῆται ὁ ποταμὸς καταφερόμενος. βέλτιον οὖν οὕτως τινές· ἐπειδὴ ἐξ ὑπογυίου συνῴκισται ἡ Καμάρινα, καθὰ καὶ νέοικον αὐτὴν προσηγόρευσε, γειτνιᾷ δὲ Ἵππαρις αὐτῇ, κατὰ τοῦτο φάναι ἐπὶ τοῦ συνοικισμοῦ κολλᾶσθαι ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ σταδίων θαλάμων ταχέως ὑψίπυργον ἄλσος, ἐπεὶ τὰ ἐπιτήδεια πρὸς τὴν οἰκοδομὴν διὰ τοῦ κατάπλου προσεκομίζετο ὥστε ποιεῖν σταδίους θαλάμους. Aristarchus says that the Hipparis passes by the city and heaps up earth on it by depositing silt, just like the Achelous in the islands Echinades and the Nile in Egypt: ‘attaches’ stands for ‘heaps up earth onto’. But Didymus says this is unattested, for there is no record of this event concerning the Hipparis and Camarina; the river does not flood as it flows seaward. So, some (explain the passage) better in this way: since Camarina was founded recently—the reason why (Pindar) also called it ‘newly founded’—and the Hipparis is adjacent (to it), the reason why he said that upon its foundation it ‘quickly attached a high-limbed grove of sturdy halls’ is that it carried to (the city) with its downward stream the materials useful for the construction work so as to build sturdy halls. Aristarchus (fr. 17 Horn = 16 Feine) maintained that the river ‘attached’ the ‘halls’ because it flooded and deposited silt, which the locals used for brick-making, as our scholion’s twin in the Vatican recension makes clear (Σ CDEHQ O. 5.20e, 111a);43 Didymus objected because of a lack of evidence. As far as we can judge, there is also no evidence in favour of his own explanation (we know that it is his from 111a), which indeed is hard to square with the letter of the text. Yet it avoids postulating a physical phenomenon for which one would expect some tangible evidence to have existed, and instead it makes reference to a specific and well-documented historical event, the refoundation of Camarina after its destruction by Gelon in the early years of the fifth century.44 Didymus’ history-conscious correction of an autoschediastic inference by Aristarchus is nothing new. We already saw one example (158), and there are more. Some scholia explicitly remark his greater adherence to historical fact (τὸ ἀκριβέστερον τῆς ἱστορίας ἐκτίθεται: Σ BCEHQ O. 2.29d, 105b; ἱστορικώτερον λέγει: Σ BCDEQ O. 3.1d, 108b).45 Yet often Didymus only corrects an unattested element in Aristarchus’ interpretation while retaining its fundamentals.46111 is itself an example: Didymus does away with the floods and the bricks, but still maintains that the subject is the river, that the indirect object is the city, and that the sentence refers to the conveyance of building materials. Another example is 108b just cited. There, the invocation to the Dioscuri that opens Olympian 3 for Theron of Akragas is explained in terms of the particular devotion to the Dioscuri not in Akragas itself, as Aristarchus had surmised (fr. 12 Horn = 11 Feine), but in Theron’s ancestral homeland, Argos. Its Ambrosian twin Σ A O. 3.1a (108a) is quite right to state that ‘Didymus rather inclines towards Aristarchus’ explanation’: less-attested devotion in Akragas is replaced with better-attested devotion in Argos, but the trajectory of the two interpretations is the same.47 Whatever the exact sense of the Suda’s claim that Didymus was a γραμματικὸς Ἀριστάρχειος (Suda δ 872 Adler, T1), his predecessor certainly cast a long shadow on his work. The very notion of reading Pindar historically develops an Aristarchan precedent, albeit on a very different foundation.48 2.3. Textual Criticism As far as the scholia go, Didymus’ forays into textual criticism were relatively rare. We know of only four conjectures by him; in a few other instances he defended the transmitted text, or a transmitted variant. Characteristically, one emendation stems from a misplaced application of historical knowledge. At N. 6.31 Pindar mentions an Aeginetan clan, the Bassidai. Since (we infer) there was no other record of this clan, and since on the other hand Pythaenetus’ Aiginetika mentioned a local hero named Boudion (BNJ 299 F 2a), Didymus suggested changing Βασσίδαισιν into Βουδίδαισιν, the hero’s putative descendants (Σ BD N. 6.53a, 157). The rest of the scholia to this passage wisely ignore the conjecture (Σ BD N. 6.53b–e, 54a). Two small emendations are more felicitous. At N. 4.59 Pindar says that Akastos tried to bring about Peleus’ death ‘with the knife of Daedalus’, τᾷ Δαιδάλου δὲ μαχαίρᾳ—a unique expression. One anonymous commentator attempted to explain the transmitted text as a metaphor meaning a deadly ruse (δόλος), such as the one Daedalus visited on Minos through the daughters of Kokalos. Didymus had other ideas (Σ BDP N. 4.95b–c, 152): Δίδυμος δέ φησι δεῖν γράφειν διὰ τοῦ ῳ· δαιδάλῳ δὲ μαχαίρᾳ δόλον ἤρτυσε τῷ Πηλεῖ, παρελόμενος αὐτοῦ κρύφα, ἵνα χωρὶς ἀμυντηρίου ἁλοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν Κενταύρων φθαρῇ. ταῦτα δὲ ἱστοροῦσι πολλοὶ μέν, ἀτὰρ δὴ καὶ Ἡσίοδος λέγων οὕτως (fr. 209 Merkelbach–West)·   ἥδε δέ οἱ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀρίστη φαίνετο βουλή·   αὐτὸν μὲν σχέσθαι, κρύψαι δ’ ἀδόκητα μάχαιραν   καλὴν, ἥν οἱ ἔτευξε περικλυτὸς Ἀμφιγυήεις·   ὡς τὴν μαστεύων οἶος κατὰ Πήλιον αἰπύ   αἶψ’ ὑπὸ Κενταύροισιν ὀρεσκῴοισι δαμείη. δαίδαλον δὲ εἶπε τὴν μάχαιραν διὰ τὸ ὑπὸ Ἡφαίστου κατεσκευάσθαι. ἐπιεικῶς δὲ τὰ Ἡφαίστου ἔργα δαίδαλά φησι (Il. 18.482)·   ποίει δαίδαλα πολλὰ ἰδυίῃσι πραπίδεσσιν. But Didymus says it should be written with ῳ: ‘with an ornamented knife he laid a ruse for Peleus, taking it from him covertly so that he would be caught by the Centaurs without help and would perish’. This story is related by many, including Hesiod, who says as follows:   This seemed to him the best plan in his heart:   hold back, but stealthily conceal the sword,   beautiful, which the famous Cripple made him,   so while alone he sought it on steep Pelion   the mountain-lurking Centaurs would soon fell him. (Pindar) called the knife ‘ornamented’ because it had been made by Hephaestus. He fairly calls Hephaestus’ works ‘ornamented’:   much finery he made with skilful mind. The passage from the Catalogue of Women gave Didymus a fuller narrative of the episode which Pindar simply alluded to.49 There was a real weapon, which belonged to Peleus, and which Akastos had hidden in the moment of need; it was the work of Hephaestus (Ἀμφιγυήεις, v. 3), not of Daedalus; it was ‘beautiful’, καλή—that is, plausibly, ornamented, i.e. δαίδαλος. He therefore corrected Δαιδάλου to δαιδάλῳ, eliminating the oddity and aligning Pindar with Hesiod.50 The Homeric verse strengthened the emendation by confirming that Hephaestus’ works could indeed be called δαίδαλα. An epic parallel is also key to Didymus’ intervention on N. 10.62 (Σ BD N. 10.114a, 165).51 The transmitted text has Lynceus espy the Dioscuri from Mount Taygetos while he was sitting (ἥμενος) in an oak’s hollow trunk, for (γάρ) he had the keenest sight on earth. Surely not: the proof of preternatural sight is to spot someone from afar when they are hidden, and the Cypria (fr. 15 Bernabé) confirm that the oak contained the Dioscuri, not Lynceus. So Aristarchus changed ἥμενος to the accusative ἥμενον, indicating Castor, for Castor alone was apparently indicated by Apollodorus, BNJ 224 F148 (cf. Bibl. 3.1.11; fr. 65 Horn = 59 Feine). Didymus objected that the Cypria located both brothers, not only one, in the fateful tree. Accordingly, he proposed to retain the letters of the transmitted text and simply move the accent forward: ἡμένος, taken as accusative plural (ἀντὶ τοῦ ἡμένους) on the parallel of the use of ἀελλόπος, τρίπος, ἕδος as accusatives plural. The analogy does not work linguistically, but the sense is the right one: all recent editors print ἡμένους. Once again Didymus takes the lead from Aristarchus both in the interpretation of the passage and for the type of emendation he proposes.52 The emendation is minimal, if it is one at all (Didymus only speaks of ἀναγιγνώσκειν: ‘read’ in the literal, not text-critical sense). Similarly, Σ BD N. 4.151a (153) quotes him as saying that at N. 4.93 ‘it is also possible to read’ οἷον, ‘how’ (exclamatory, θαυμαστικῶς), rather than οἶον, ‘only’, favoured by Aristarchus (fr. 68 Horn = 51 Feine). He must be right, yet he displays his characteristic tentativeness. μήποτε, ‘perhaps’, occurs so frequently that some past scholars have used it as a fingerprint of sorts to assign anonymous comments to him.53 In four cases he is on record as defending the transmitted text, sometimes rightly (πόσις against Aristarchus’ unmetrical πόσιος at O. 2.77: Σ A O. 2.140a, 107; perhaps ναίων at P. 7.6: Σ BDEGQ P. 7.6a, 135), sometimes probably not (Ἆλιν against Aristodemus’ Ἄλτιν at O. 10.45: Σ BCDEQ O. 10.55c, 123; μόλεν against μόλον at N. 7.34: Σ BD N. 7.47, 159). When faced with a variant ἁ τραχεῖα πόλις for Ἀτρέκεια πόλιν at O. 10.13 he opined that it, too, ‘makes sense’ (ἔχειν λόγον: Σ Α O. 10.17c, 122), but apparently he stayed shy of endorsing it—rightly so, because it is unmetrical.54 So the picture of Didymus as a textual critic is a mixed one, both in method and in results. Generally he seems unkeen on altering the transmitted text, choosing instead to interpret it when possible and otherwise to amend with a light touch; yet in one case he proposed a major, unwarranted emendation when Pythaenetus sent him off track. 2.4. Corpus and Performance Didymus was also interested in the constitution of the collection. Firstly, he seems to have defended the authenticity of Olympian 5. Drachmann, followed by Braswell, prints inscr. a thus (°110): αὕτη ἡ ᾠδὴ ἐν μὲν τοῖς ἐδαφίοις οὐκ ἦν, ἐν δὲ τοῖς Διδύμου ὑπομνήμασιν ἐλέγετο Πινδάρου. This ode was not (by Pindar) in the base texts, but in Didymus’ commentaries it was said to be by Pindar. —following the Vatican recension (BDEHQ); Α has a mundane περὶ αὐτῆς τάδε in place of Πινδάρου, presumably referring to inscr. b which follows. If the Vatican text is correct, Didymus defended the ode against the charge of spuriousness made in the ἐδάφια, the ‘base text’ traditionally ascribed to Aristophanes of Byzantium.55 Elsewhere he decries that Nemean 11 was ‘shoved into’ the Epinicians (συνεῶσθαι: inscr. a BD, 166). While none of the last three Nemeans honours a Nemean victory, as ancient commentators knew (inscr. BD N. 9), the last one is unique in not being a victory ode altogether. Didymus pointed out, correctly, that it was composed for Aristagoras’ inauguration as councillor (citing vv. 9–10), not to celebrate the earlier, minor athletic victories mentioned at vv. 19–21. More perplexingly, he added, following Dionysius of Phaselis, that it should have been included in the Drinking Songs (Παροίνια) instead.56 Didymus’ interest in the occasion of a song transpires also from a remark about N. 1.6, where Pindar mentions ‘Aetnaean Zeus’. Apparently Hieron and his entourage used to celebrate victories in the crown games with epinicians performed at the festival of Aetnaean Zeus; Didymus therefore suggests that plausibly (πιθανόν) Nemean 1 too was composed for performance at that festival (Σ BDU N. 1.7b, 141). Didymus’ concern for genre tallies with that shown by the Περὶ λυρικῶν ποιητῶν, and an interest in ritual performance contexts is also apparent from his discussion of the tripodephoric procession in the commentary on the Paeans (°172) and of the daphnephoric, tripodephoric, and oschophoric songs in Proclus’ Chrestomathy, if that part of it goes back to him (see §1).57 2.5. Interpretation For all the importance of history and context, much of Didymus’ Pindaric exegesis consists of down-to-earth interpretations of individual passages. Sometimes he comments on the meaning of a word or its exact connotations. At N. 1.25 he suggests that τέχναι means not ‘skills’ but ‘guiles’ (δόλους) and μάρνασθαι not ‘fight’ but ‘act’ (ἐνεργεῖν) (Σ BDPU N. 1.36, 38, 142, 143). At N. 5.6 he remarks, contrary to an unnamed predecessor, that the ὀπώρα to which Pindar compares the young victor’s incipient beard is not to be understood as ‘fruit’ but as the season bearing that name, the latter part of the summer (Σ BD N. 5.10a, 155). Commenting on O. 9.22, μαλεραῖς ἐπιφλέγων ἀοιδαῖς, he improbably maintains that the songs are not ‘flaming’—in keeping with the image of ἐπιφλέγων, ‘setting alight’, with the Homeric use of μαλερός, and with Pindar’s frequent equation of song with fire and light—but ‘gentle’ (ἀντὶ τοῦ μαλακαῖς), drawing a parallel with I. 2.8, μαλακόφωνοι ἀοιδαί (Σ O. 9.34c, 120). We already saw Didymus use a Pindaric parallel for elucidation in 144 (§2.1). In some other cases he buttresses his interpretations with references to Pindar’s usage more generally. Commenting N. 7.61, σκοτεινὸν ἀπέχων ψόγον, ‘keeping dark censure away’, he suggests that the poet is the subject, not the object, of the negated censure: ‘I will blame no-one’, not ‘no-one will blame me’ (Σ BD N. 7.89b, 161); he adds that ‘this is not alien to Pindar, since he makes many other statements of this sort’ (τοῦτο οὐκ ἀλλότριον τοῦ Πινδάρου, ἀλλὰ γὰρ πολλὰ αὐτῷ τοιαῦτα εἴρηται). Remarkably, when it came to the occurrence of the same motif at I. 1.43–45 he gave the opposite interpretation (Σ BD I. 1.60, 169).58 Or take I. 2.12, οὐκ ἀγνῶτ᾽ ἀείδω. When arguing that ἀγνῶτ᾽ is the elision of ἀγνῶτι, ‘to someone unknowing’, not of ἄγνωτα, ‘things unknown’, Didymus refutes the opposite claim as follows (Σ BD I. 2.19a, 171): ὁ δὲ Δίδυμος μειοῦσθαί φησι τὸ ἀξίωμα τοῦ ποιητοῦ, εἰ μηδέπω τοῦ ἐπινίκου συντεταγμένου γνώριμός ἐστιν ἡ τοῦ Ξενοκράτους νίκη· ἔμπαλιν γὰρ ὁ Πίνδαρος ἀφανεῖς καὶ ἀδόξους φησὶν εἶναι τὰς νίκας, εἰς ἃς αὐτὸς μηδὲν γέγραφε. Didymus, however, says that the poet’s dignity is diminished if Xenocrates’ victory is renowned before the epinician is composed. On the contrary, Pindar says that the victories for which he has not written anything are unseen and unrenowned. Didymus is right on the general facts, for Pindar does often make fame dependent on his songs (O. 10.91–93, N. 7.14–16, etc.), but turning this trope into a rule ignores the rhetorical flexibility of his poetry and imposes on it an ideological consistency which it does not possess. There is another interesting case in which Didymus discusses what makes, and what does not make, praise. The passage is one of the most textually disputed in the Pindaric corpus, N. 7.30–37.59 In the (probably incorrect) ancient interpretation, Pindar says that after the Trojan War Neoptolemus reached Delphi and died there τεθνακότων βοαθόων, ‘after the helpers had died’. But who were these ‘helpers’? (Σ BD N. 7.47, 159): ποίων δὲ βοηθῶν; τῶν περὶ τὸν Εὐρύπυλον, οὓς αὐτὸς ὁ Νεοπτόλεμος ἀνελὼν ἐπόρθησε τὴν Ἴλιον. οὕτω γὰρ ἴδιος ὁ πόνος ἔσται τοῦ ἥρωος. […] ἐὰν δὲ ἐπὶ τῶν περὶ τὸν Ἕκτορα, καθὼς Ἀρίσταρχός φησιν, ἀναδράμωμεν, πρῶτον μὲν μακρόθεν ἔσται τὴν πόρθησιν συνάπτων, δεύτερον δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν κοινότητα μεταβησόμεθα, δι’ ἧς τὸ ἐγκώμιον οὐκ ἔσται. Which helpers? Eurypylus and his companions: Neoptolemus himself killed them and sacked Troy. In this way the labour will be the hero’s own. […] If instead we go back to Hector and his companions, as Aristarchus argues, firstly the connection with the sack will be distant, and secondly we will switch to generality, through which there will be no praise. In order to establish the helpers’ identity, Didymus appeals a priori to the workings of ἐγκώμιον, ‘praise’. In order to be effective, praise must concentrate on something specific (ἴδιος) to the individual praised; if instead its referent is common to many, no praise of the individual ensues. Pindar means to praise Neoptolemus, ergo the ‘dead helpers’ must be something specific to him, whence their identification with Troy’s ‘helper’ Eurypylus.60 A different preoccupation with the general and the particular underlies Didymus’ criticism of Aristarchus and Chaeris in Σ BDPU N. 1.49c (144; §2.1 above). Both scholars had sought to draw a general parallel between Heracles and the victor, respectively on account of his inborn excellence and of his φιλοπονία, ‘love of labour’. Didymus’ objection to both is similar: if Pindar had wanted to draw on a permanent characteristic of Heracles’ greatness, he would have told of all the labours together, rather than select one, minor episode. The scholion to Nemean 7 just examined combines an appeal to first principles with sensitiveness to context and the train of thought of the passage: Didymus goes on to note that the mythical episode of Neoptolemus’ own death illustrates the immediately preceding gnōmē that death comes equally to those who are or are not expecting it (vv. 30–31).61 Another example of a contextually sensitive explanation addresses the list of Theaios’ victories at N. 10.25–28, where Pindar mentions a Pythian victory, three crowns won ‘at the gates of the sea’, i.e. at the Isthmus, and three ‘on the holy ground according to Adrastus’ institution’ (σεμνοῖς δαπέδοις ἐν Ἀδραστείῳ νόμῳ, 28). Adrastus was a mythical king of Sicyon, so one could easily have assumed that the games of v. 28 are the Pythia celebrated there, for which Pindar composed Nemean 9 (the ode immediately preceding this one in the canonical edition). However, Didymus realized the context is a list of ‘periodic’ victories—those obtained in the Panhellenic ‘circuit’ comprising the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games—which requires the reference to be to the games in Sicyon’s neighbour Nemea rather than the local Pythia (Σ BD N. 9.49b, 164).62 In the same scholion, Didymus also discerned correctly that vv. 29–33, immediately after our passage, are a wish for an Olympic victory, completing the περίοδος. This conceit, too, is drawn from Pindar’s usage (P. 5.124, I. 1.64–67, 6.7–9, etc.). Didymus also deployed it to interpret the word προκώμιον, ‘prelude’, at N. 4.11: in his view, by using that word Pindar cast the ode as the prelude of hoped-for further epinicians, implicitly expressing a wish for further victories (Σ BDP N. 4.14a, 150). As we saw, this idea also stands behind the interpretation of the myth of Heracles in Nemean 1 as portending future victories (§2.1); in that context Didymus quoted P. 1.33–34, another parallel passage.63 In Didymus’ hypomnēmata there was room also for interpretations of a more literary bent. To name only one, he recognized that the images Pindar uses in his praise of the wrestling trainer Melesias at the end of Nemean 4 are drawn, appropriately, from wrestling (ἀπὸ τῶν παλαιόντων δὲ πάλιν ἡ μεταφορά, καὶ τροπικαὶ αἱ λέξεις ἀπὸ τῆς ἀθλήσεως) (Σ BD N. 4.153, 154; cf. Σ BD 151a, 153).64 Nor was the poet immune from criticism: in Didymus’ estimation, Apollo’s laughter at the ‘upright arrogance’ of the asses being sacrificed to him at P. 10.36 (a reference to an erection) is μετὰ τοῦ γελοίου καὶ ἄσεμνα, ‘ridiculous and unseemly’ (Σ BDEGQ P. 10.51b, 139).65 3. CONCLUSIONS Didymus is a central node in scholarship on Greek lyric: not only as a transmitter of earlier scholarship, crucial though that role was, but also as an exegete in his own right. No ancient scholar that we know of contributed so much, and of such value, to the interpretation of Pindar, whether in content or in method. His vast knowledge of historical, geographical, and antiquarian literature enabled him to build historicizing readings on a much firmer foundation than had previously been done. Glitches abound, whether caused by uncritical reliance on sources or by insufficient willingness to depart from precedent; yet the principle—finding things out rather than making them up—is fundamentally sound. His frequent caution and openness to multiple possibilities are noteworthy. As a textual critic, Didymus gave his best with small-scale emendations (an ending, an accent, a breathing), but he could be misled—again—by excessive reliance on sources or by an unwillingness to reject the transmitted text. When it comes to literary criticism, Didymus shows himself to be a careful and sensitive reader of Pindar, one who noticed patterns and recurring ideas and could retrace the poet’s thinking while keeping in mind the background constituted by pre- (and post-)Pindaric Greek poetry. He could be spectacularly wrong on occasion: Σ B O. 13.27a, BCEQ 27d (126) really is ‘truly Pythonesque’, as his most recent editor put it.66 Yet when compared with his fellow ancient Pindarists he is second to none, not even to Aristarchus. The study of Pindar has made long strides since his times, but little of it would have been possible without his work and his example. Footnotes * This chapter was written at speed, following the withdrawal of its appointed author, during a long period of library closures. I apologize for any shortcomings that result from these circumstances and I take responsibility for those that don’t. The Pindar scholia are cited from Drachmann’s edition. All translations are mine. Numbers in bold refer to testimonia and fragments in the Checklist (pp. 95--120). 1 On this passage, see Luzzatto 2011: 8; DiGiulio, this volume, 81–82. 2 Bernsdorff 2020: I 48, II 272–74. I am grateful to Prof. Bernsdorff for sharing his thoughts with us before publication. 3 CLGP I.1.2.2 Anacreon 3. For bibliography and an apparatus see ibid. and Bernsdorff 2020: II 270–75. 4 Love and drink—both frequent ailments of the Anacreontic narrator, and de rigueur at the symposion—are sometimes combined into a single image: PMG 376.2 μεθύων ἔρωτι, 450 ἔρωτα πίνων (Bernsdorff 2020: I 48). 5 See Benelli 2011: 53–54. 6 McNamee 2007: 146–47; CLGP I.1.1 Alcaeus 4. Both notes are mutilated: the first is quite extensive and may have been paraphrastic; the second explains a critical sign, the ἄλογος (Lobel 1951b: 142; McNamee loc. cit.). P.Oxy. 1788 has sometimes been attributed to Sappho, most recently by Liberman 1999: I lxxxvii–xci, but see Lentini 2007. 7 McNamee 2007: 158; CLGP Alcaeus 18. See Lobel 1951a: 71. Lasserre 1989: 31, 92–93 n. 16 also saw a reference to Didymus in P.Oxy. XVII 2076 col. i (Sappho), but the interpretation of the traces is more uncertain. 8 P.Paris 71 (CLGP I.1.2.1 Alcman 5) coll. ii.27, iv.4 as interpreted by Haslam ap. Römer 2013: 109. 9 Σ A O. 6.154a–b περὶ δὲ τῆς σκυτάλης καὶ ἐν τοῖς Ἀρχιλόχου ὑπομνήμασιν εἴρηται. The deduction of a Didymean commentary on Archilochus works if 1) the author of this anonymous note is Didymus and 2) εἴρηται indicates self-citation. Both of these things are quite possible: Didymus uses εἴρηται time and again for self-citation, so much so that Schmidt used it to assign authorship to anonymous fragments (1854: 243). Yet neither of them can be proved, and Didymus’ commentary on Archilochus remains conjectural. 10 CLGP I.1.4 Bacchylides 4. See Snell 1961: 50*. The doxography fits Didymus’ practice (see §2.1); the generic diatribe concluded by the citation of Dionysius of Phaselis parallels 166. 11 On the Περὶ λυρικῶν ποιητῶν see Grandolini 1999. On the Etymologica see Reitzenstein 1897 with his corrections in Reitzenstein 1907; Dickey 2007: 91–92, with bibliography; Alpers 2015. 12 Cohn 1903: 469; see also Grandolini 1999: 2–4. 13 On the Chrestomathy see Severyns 1938. Disagreement persists on whether its author is the fourth-century Neoplatonic philosopher or an earlier grammarian. 14 The clue is in the title: ἐπιτομὴ ἐκ τῶν Ταρραίου καὶ Διδύμου παροιμιῶν, ‘epitome from the Proverbs of Tarrhaeus and Didymus’. 15 The Etymologica preserve a large number of other fragments, perhaps ultimately deriving from the Περὶ παθῶν (On Modifications, sc. of words), containing more or less fantastical etymologies of a variety of words. It is unclear how much of it is genuine Didymus and how much is misinterpreted or misattributed. Unsurprisingly, this area of Didymus’ work is understudied (who wants to read the Etymologica?), but it would reward careful investigation. On paretymology in Didymus’ scholarship on Aristophanes see Benuzzi, this volume, 56–57. 16 Schmidt 1854: 384–85 n. 3 regarded the four fragments cited by Seneca as individual works, but such specialized monographs seem alien to what we know of Didymus’ writing habits, with the possible exception of the one on Solon’s axones (XLI). Of course it is possible that the discussion of whether Sappho was a hetaira came from a commentary to her poetry (cf. 103 ∼ 396 with the discussion above), or perhaps to one of the comedies in which she was a character. 17 On Aristotle’s On Poets see Janko 2011: 410–83. 18 See Deas 1931: 19–27; Irigoin 1952: 67–74; Carnevali 1980; Braswell 2011 and 2017. The last includes a critical edition, with translation and notes, of all the non-papyrological fragments of Didymus’ Pindaric scholarship. It is an indispensable tool, but the translation is frequently incorrect and needs to be handled with care. On Hellenistic scholarship on Pindar see Deas 1931: 1–27; Irigoin 1952: 31–75. On the Pindar scholia, beside Deas 1931, see Calvani Mariotti 1987; David et al. (eds) 2009 and 2015; Braswell 2012; and especially Bitto 2012: 63–240. 19 On the ascription see Slater 1986: 145–46 (against); D’Alessio 1997: 51–55; Negri 2004: 16–27 (in favour). 20 See Irigoin 1952: 32–33; Pfeiffer 1968: 117–18 (in favour); Ferrari 1992 (against). Ruffa 2001 is also relevant; see n. 55 below. 21 Aristarchus’ work on Pindar has been rather neglected in comparison to that on Homer; beside Irigoin 1952: 51–56 see Horn 1883; Feine 1883; Vassilaki 2009. 22 See respectively Razzetti 2000; P.Oxy. XXXI 2536 and Merro 2018. 23 The Pindar scholia transmit a further four fragments of a commentary on the Paeans introduced by εἴρηται ἐν Παιᾶσιν vel sim. without an author’s name. That they refer to a commentary, rather than to the Paeans themselves, is clear (Käppel 1992), but whether the commentary is by Didymus, as has been conjectured since Boeckh 1819: xvii, remains in doubt: Braswell 2017: 261 n. 352 considers the attribution ‘very likely’ but rightly classes them as dubia (frr. 69–72 Braswell). 24 P.Oxy. 2442 comprises not one but (at least) three manuscripts, preserving fragments of Pindar’s Hymns, Paeans, and Prosodia (Lobel 1961: 31; D’Alessio 1997: 35–37, 40–45). In the absence of external evidence it is impossible to establish to which of these three books each of the fragments belongs. 25 Deas 1931: 19. 26 See Prodi forthcoming. 27 This is not to say that interpretations are always attributed to their originators in the text as we have it: τινες and ἔνιοι, ‘some’, abound even in Didymean scholia (cf. e.g. Σ BD N. 7.1a, 158). It is tempting to attribute this moniker to careless scribes (cf. 111b, where Σ A O. 5.27b splits the pars destruens and the pars construens of Didymus’ interpretation and ascribes the former to him, the latter to τινες; contrast 111a), but Didymus used it too, albeit sparingly, in P.Berol. inv. 9780 recto (°281). Another set of unspecific labels is οἱ ὑπομνηματισταί/ὑπομνηματισάμενοι/προϋπομνηματισάμενοι, ‘commentators’/‘previous commentators’. These occur six times between them, including in conjunction with Didymus (cf. 115a–b, 146; other occurrences could be Didymean too). The meaning seems to me to be the same for all three words, ‘all the commentators to date’ (or ‘all commentators to date except the one quoted individually’), but Calvani Mariotti 1999 gives a different interpretation of οἱ προϋπομνηματισάμενοι. See also Coward, this volume, 40–42 on similar words in the Sophocles scholia. 28 Deas 1931: 22–26. 29 See Prodi forthcoming. 30 The context suggests that this second, anonymous interpretation also belongs to Aristarchus (Horn 1883: 55). 31 On Chaeris see Calvani Mariotti 2012. 32 On this Chrysippus see Braswell 2015 with the corrections by Vecchiato 2018a and 2018b. 33 See Fränkel 1961: 385–94, esp. 391–93; Young 1970: 35–37. 34 As we know from Σ BD N. 7.56a (160), this was the opinion of Aristarchus (frr. 54–56 Feine), who used it to explain in one fell swoop both the invocation to Eileithyia at the beginning and the ‘digression’ on Neoptolemus later on in the ode (Neoptolemus being also the name of the putative ‘true’ victor). There, too, Didymus dismisses Aristarchus’ supposition and quotes one by Aristodemus which is equally wrong-headed (Fränkel 1961: 385–91). 35 A similar explanation of a different passage in the ode, again based on the asserted vicinity of the victor’s house to a temple, is attributed to Callistratus by Σ BD N. 7.150a. 36 Young 1970: 637. 37 The same is true of his work on comedy: see Benuzzi, this volume, 57–60. On Didymus and history generally see Montana, this volume. 38 This volume, 70–71. On Didymus’ use of history in his Pindaric scholarship see also Deas 1931: 22–23; Irigoin 1952: 71; Braswell 2011: 182–87; Braswell 2012: 13–18; Braswell 2017: 113–16. On historicizing interpretations in the Pindar scholia see Bitto 2012: 220–23; Phillips 2020 (449–50 on Didymus). 39 Cf. Irigoin 1952: 72–73. 40 Hellanicus and Aristodemus, Σ A O. 3.22a; Polemon and Aristarchus, Σ BCDEQ O. 7.95a. 41 Despite not going back to Pindar, titles are transmitted together with the text and are often commented on by the scholia: see Prodi 2020: 463–67. Indeed, the headnotes that precede every ode, containing information on the victor and his victory, are effectively scholia on the respective title (inscriptio), as Drachmann recognized. 42 For clarity’s sake I translate the text the way it was understood by ancient commentators, with the Hipparis as the subject of κολλᾷ. For more recent views see Mader 1990: 81–82, 85–86 (the subject is Psaumis); Lomiento in Gentili et al. 2013: 442–43 (the subject is the river). On the scholia to this passage see also Brunel 1971; Carnevali 1980: 12–15; Lomiento 2006; Vassilaki 2009: 139–44. 43 The scholia to O. 2–12 are preserved in two ‘recensions’: the Ambrosian (consisting of MS A, in Milan’s Biblioteca Ambrosiana) and the Vatican (found in several manuscripts and named after MS B, in the Vatican Library). See Drachmann 1913: x–xiii; Deas 1931: 50–65. 44 These events are expanded upon in Σ CDEHQ O. 5.16, A 19a, CDEHQ 19b, ACDEHQ 19c, A 19d, with quotations from Timaeus and Philistus, which accordingly may also be Didymean (for Σ 19a–c see already Irigoin 1952: 72). 45 On ἱστορία and its cognates in the Pindar scholia see Calvani 2006; Vassilaki 2015. 46 Deas 1931: 20–21. 47 See Vassilaki 2009: 137–39. On the cult of the Dioscuri in Argos see Pae. 18.1–2 and Moretti 1998: 237–39. 48 Vassilaki 2009, largely followed by Phillips 2020: 441–47, seeks to defend Aristarchus from the charge of ahistoricity levelled by Wilamowitz 1889–95: I 156 and often repeated. They are right that Aristarchus was not uninterested in history and often proffered broadly historicizing interpretations, yet a historicizing interpretation is not the same thing as an interpretation based on documented historical fact, and Aristarchus had plenty more of the former than of the latter. 49 Didymus’ anonymous predecessor may also have had the Hesiodic fragment in mind, or at least the well-known fact that Peleus owned a sword made by Hephaestus: his ‘absurd explanation’ (Henry 2005: 41) presupposes an attempt to avoid the natural interpretation of Pindar’s words, viz. an actual weapon made by Daedalus. 50 Modern commentators are divided. Like Snell–Maehler (who do not even cite Didymus’ suggestion in the apparatus), Willcock 1995, Henry 2005, and Cannatà Fera 2020 retain Δαιδάλου; like Turyn, Braswell 2017: 215, 218 favours the emendation. 51 On Didymus’ use of quotations from earlier poets see Braswell 2011: 188–91 and 2017: 116–18. His use of Hellenistic poetry still awaits investigation, but Callimachus’ presence in the Pindar scholia more generally is treated by Phillips 2013. On attitudes towards mythological parallels and variants in the scholia see Bitto 2012: 117–23. 52 Aristarchus had similarly corrected ἐσλός to the required ἐσλούς at N. 1.24, recognizing the transmitted form as a residue of the ‘old spelling’: Σ BDPU N. 1.34b (fr. 56 Horn = 40 Feine). 53 See Benuzzi, this volume, 53 and n. 23. On Didymus’ similar use of the potential optative in the Περὶ Δημοσθένους see Gibson 2002: 30–32. 54 See Braswell 2017: 164. As he remarks, ‘in the extant fragments of Didymos’ commentary discussion of metre is entirely absent’ (p. 124). Whether this betrays ‘his ineptitude in that field’ (ibid.) I am less certain: outside of the scholia metrica there is very little metrical discussion altogether in the scholia. 55 I follow Ruffa 2001: οὐκ ἦν means not that the ode ‘was not there’ but that it ‘was marked as spurious’ (the sense the phrase has in the Homeric scholia); the ἐδάφια are thus likelier to be Aristophanes’ canonical edition than a putative earlier one by Zenodotus. Ferrari 2006 instead defends A’s text. If he is right and the scholion presents inscr. b as a verbatim quotation from Didymus, it could be used as circumstantial evidence to assign to Didymus the short headnotes, with the identification of the victor and the date of the victory, that introduce the scholia to almost every ode. Such a conclusion would be consistent with Didymus’ historical interests. Not that the quotation would have to end there: the bit that follows suit in A (inscr. c, connected by δέ), citing Polemon of Ilium’s account of the ἀπήνη (fr. 20 Capel Badino = 23 Preller) and offering an improbable etymology of that word, would be at home in Didymus’ commentary (so Capel Badino 2018: 253–54). 56 Discussed by D’Alessio 1997: 54–55 and 2000; Schröder 1999: 146 and n. 2. 57 On issues of corpus and genre in the Pindar scholia more broadly see Bitto 2012: 195–98. 58 On the construal of this scholion see Prodi 2014 contra Braswell 2017. 59 See Most 1986; Braswell 2017: 229–33; Cannatà Fera 2020: 448–49. 60 The assumption that the mythical narrative of N. 7 is ‘praise’ of Neoptolemus is also noteworthy. It tallies with the insistence on the poet’s role elsewhere in the poem: vv. 61–63 (cf. Didymus’ interpretation in 161, discussed above), 64–65, 68–69, and especially 102–04 (where the doxography in Σ BD N. 7.150a could well be Didymean). 61 This is one way of taking ἀδόκητον and δοκέοντα, the other (and more plausible) being ‘obscure’ and ‘famous’. The controversy is already in Σ BD N. 7.44a. 62 For a similar case see Σ BD I. 1.67 (170) with Braswell 2017: 253. Didymus’ attempted defence of the variant ἁ τραχεῖα at O. 10.17 (122) likewise relies on presupposing continuity of sense with the next clause (Carnevali 1980: 7). 63 Remarkably, no such interpretation is made explicit in the scholia to Pythian 1. Σ DEFGQ P. 1.67, 69 come closest. 64 Σ BD N. 7.150a (which we suggested above, n. 60, as potentially Didymean) also concludes by identifying the domain of a metaphor. 65 See Braswell 2011: 195–96. On criticisms of Pindar in the scholia see Cannatà Fera 2018. 66 Braswell 2017: 124. © The Author(s) 2021. 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TI - Chapter Two Didymus and lyric
JF - Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
DO - 10.1093/bics/qbaa015
DA - 2021-06-21
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/chapter-two-didymus-and-lyric-Iapd1bLqxf
SP - 21
EP - 33
VL - 63
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -