In a long note in his epoch-making book on ancient Pythagoreanism Walter Burkert raised some grave doubts about the authenticity of Archytas Fr. 1 which have recently been challenged in an article by A. C. Bowen. In this paper I have two goals. First, I will evaluate Burkert's doubts and the success of some of Bowen's arguments against them. Second, I will present a further consideration that both clarifies the text of the fragment and also removes the most serious problem (...) raised by Burkert. The upshot of both these points is to increase the likelihood that the fragment is authentic. I reproduce the text of just the first part of the fragment as given in DK followed by the text as it appears in the two primary sources, Nicomachus and Porphyry. (shrink)

In a long note in his epoch-making book on ancient Pythagoreanism Walter Burkert raised some grave doubts about the authenticity of Archytas Fr. 1 which have recently been challenged in an article by A. C. Bowen. In this paper I have two goals. First, I will evaluate Burkert's doubts and the success of some of Bowen's arguments against them. Second, I will present a further consideration that both clarifies the text of the fragment and also removes the most serious problem (...) raised by Burkert. The upshot of both these points is to increase the likelihood that the fragment is authentic. I reproduce the text of just the first part of the fragment as given in DK followed by the text as it appears in the two primary sources, Nicomachus and Porphyry. (shrink)

Both and are guaranteed by the London scholia , so the gap is reduced to the tantalizingly small one of a monosyllabic feminine noun in the accusative case, most probably of four letters. The number of possibilities cannot be unlimited. My own suggestion must necessarily remain in limbo in the present state of our knowledge concerning the poet or poets whom Callimachus is talking about, but at least it seems to me less bizarre than other restorations currently in the field.

The letters are constant in the tradition of 1. 19 and must be taken as genuine. It follows that we have to do either with ‘lead’ or with one of its compounds. At any rate nobody has found another word of like appearance that will fit the context.Since the first publication of P. Oxy. xxi.

The Telchines, magical craftsmen and wizards, are best known for their criticism of Callimachus’ poetry in the prologue to the Aetia. The other two appearances of the Telchines are also in programmatic passages in Callimachus’ extant works. In the Hymn to Delos (30–3), the narrator asks an aporetic question about the theme of his song. There, the Telchines are the makers of the trident used to form every island but Delos, highlighting her singular status as uniquely created without force (30–3). (...) In Aet. fr. 75, the Telchines appear in Xenomedes’ history of Ceos. There, Callimachus explicitly names one source for his material, but omits direct citation of equally important sources, namely Pindar and Bacchylides, while still alluding to their songs. This article examines verbal and thematic parallels among these three passages and argues that Callimachus uses the Telchines not only to link the passages but also to comment on his authorial process, his use of sources and his poetic programme. (shrink)

The paper offers an analysis of Protagoras’ fr. DK 80 B 1 and rejects the traditional reading of Protagoras as relativist. By considering the ipsissima verba that Protagoras makes use of in his passage, it is argued that alternative interpretations are possible, of which epistemological reism and psychological individualism are proposed. On a more general level, it is discussed to what extent Protagoras’ fragment contains descriptive rather than normative claim.

Fragment B 1 of Parmenides describes a youth's journey to the house of a goddess who enlightens him as to the nature of all things. The task of translating Parmenides' Greek text is beset with many difficulties, most notably the phrase kata pant' atê at B 1.3. There, the neuter accusative plural panta ('all things') combines with the feminine nominative singular atê (heavenly sent blindness') to render translation impossible. Some have proposed emending the text to read a<s>tê ('down to all (...) cities'), understood in connection with the pathway of divine inspiration. Others reject the emendation in so far as the youth is said at B 1.27 to travel 'far from the beaten path of men.' I argue in defense of the reading kata pant' a<s>tê in so far as references to pathways of inspiration and poetic journeys to the cities of men occur frequently in the poetry of Parmenides' era. (shrink)

The main source of Archytas, fr. 1 Diels-Kranz is Porphyr. in Ptol. harmon. p. 56,5–57,27 Düring; there is also an extensive quotation of its initial part in Nicomachus, Introd. Arithm. p. 6,16–7,5 Hoche. In recent years both the text and the interpretation of this fragment, whose authenticity was questioned by W. Burkert, have been re-examined, and a good deal of progress has been made especially by paying more attention to the nature of Nicomachus' quotation and its context.

Already an admired senior poet to Virgil in the Eclogues , Varius by the mid-thirties, B.C. had established himself as the leading epic writer of his day . It is a sobering thought that we do not know even the titles of the serious hexameter works which had won him so high a reputation, except for de Morte, quoted four times by Macrobius.

Fragment B 1 of Parmenides describes a youth’s journey to the house of a goddess who enlightens him as to the nature of all things. The task of translating Parmenides’ Greek text is beset with many difficulties, most notably the phrase kata pant’ atê at B 1.3. There, the neuter accusative plural panta (‘all things’) combines with the feminine nominative singular atê (‘heaven sent blindness’) to render translation impossible. Some have proposed emending the text to read astê (‘down to all (...) cities’), understood in connection with the pathway of divine inspiration. Others reject the emendation in so far as the youth is said at B 1.27 to travel ‘far from the beaten path of men.’ I argue in defense of the reading kata pant’ a<s>tê in so far as references to pathways of inspiration and poetic journeys to the cities of men occur frequently in the poetry of Parmenides’ era. (shrink)

The messenger who reports the miracles from the mountains in Euripides' Bacchae concludes with an injunction to Pentheus that he accept this god into the city : τóν δαíμον' ον τóνδ' στισ στ', δσποτα, δχον πóλει τδ'-σ τ τ' λλ' στíν μγασ, κκεíνó φασιν ατóν, γ κλω.

The text as published runs:The elegiacs on side of this fragmentary piece of papyrus are identifiable as by Callimachus, probably from the Aetia, and these lines too are undoubtedly by the same author, and almost certainly from the same work. Verse 5 is a surprise, for it was thought until the discovery of this papyrus to be by Euripides; however the only source for this attribution is Stobaeus , in whom it appears as the first line of a two-line quotation. (...) It is not unusual in Stobaeus for two originally unconnected lines to be mistakenly combined ’, CQ N.s. i , 18–19). (shrink)

The text as published runs:The elegiacs on side of this fragmentary piece of papyrus are identifiable as by Callimachus, probably from the Aetia, and these lines too are undoubtedly by the same author, and almost certainly from the same work. Verse 5 is a surprise, for it was thought until the discovery of this papyrus to be by Euripides; however the only source for this attribution is Stobaeus, in whom it appears as the first line of a two-line quotation. It (...) is not unusual in Stobaeus for two originally unconnected lines to be mistakenly combined ’, CQ N.s. i, 18–19). (shrink)

Professor Cairns has suggested that the use of modo in Propertius 1.1.11, which has long been seen as problematic, can be understood in terms of some instances of the Greek modo, he says, here means not but , and the modo clause is prior in time to the clause that follows it just as, in his view, a Greek imperfect with can have the force of a pluperfect and refer to a time prior to that of the verb of a (...) following clause. (shrink)

Professor Cairns has suggested that the use of modo in Propertius 1.1.11, which has long been seen as problematic, can be understood in terms of some instances of the Greek modo, he says, here means not but, and the modo clause is prior in time to the clause that follows it just as, in his view, a Greek imperfect with can have the force of a pluperfect and refer to a time prior to that of the verb of a following (...) clause. (shrink)