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Ekdosis. a Product of the Ancient Scholarship

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Ekdosis. a Product of the Ancient Scholarship chapter 1 Ekdosis. A Product of the Ancient Scholarship Franco Montanari 1 The Form of the Alexandrian Ekdosis 2 Conjectures and/or Variae Lectiones 3 Conclusions 1 The Form of the Alexandrian Ekdosis The Hellenistic age has rightly been seen as a civilization based on books, that is to say, a society in which the spread of written copies of poetic- literary works gradually intensified and became customary. Possession of books and personal reading became considerably more significant than in the past, even though use of written books had already begun to play an increasing role in the preceding two centuries.1 As stated by R. Pfeiffer: “It is obvious that we have reached the age that we called – hesitatingly – a ‘bookish’ one; the book is one of the characteristic signs of the new, the Hellenistic, world. The whole literary past, the heritage of centuries, was in danger of slipping away in spite of the learned labours of Aristotle’s pupils; the imaginative enthusiasm of the generation living towards the end of the fourth and the beginning of the third century did everything to keep it alive. The first task was to collect and to store the literary treasurers in order to save them for ever”.2 The idea that scholars should be concerned with preserving the magnificent culture and education (paideia) of previous centuries was certainly not restricted to the material aspect of book production and the collection of exemplars. The decisive 1 For a survey of the history of classical scholarship see Pfeiffer [1968], Montanari [1993b], Montanari [1994a], Matthaios-Montanari-Rengakos [2011], Montana [2012c], Montanari [ forthcoming], and Montana in this volume; LGGA is a specific lexicon of the figures of the ancient scholars; Dickey [2007] provides an overview of the materials of ancient scholarship (see also Dickey in this volume); for an outline of the ideas and concepts of literary criticism present in these materials, see Meijering [1987], Nünlist [2009a] (with the rev. by L. Pagani [2009b]). 2 Pfeiffer [1968] 102. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�8�9�9_0�� 642 Montanari cultural impetus came from Aristotelian and Peripatetic circles:3 intellectuals and men of culture realized that preserving the cultural heritage of a priceless and incomparable past could not be achieved without an understanding of its true worth and proper interpretation of its content, and that such a task called for the creation of appropriate and effective tools. In a logical order, which however was also a chronological development, the first problem concerned the actual text of the great writers of the past, and the place of honour could not fail to be assigned to Homer, who had constituted the basis of the Greek paideia since the very beginning. In the period from Zenodotus to Aristarchus and his direct pupils (i.e. roughly in the 3rd–2nd c. BC), the Alexandrian ekdosis confirmed its place within ancient culture as a typical product of Hellenistic philology along with the hypomnema, the syngramma, the collection of lexeis and other exegetical- erudite products.4 Zenodotus was chosen by King Ptolemy as the first head of the Library of Alexandria and in the source of this piece of information he is defined as the first diorthotes of Homer.5 The term is highly significant and is also confirmed in another source, which states that during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC) two philologist-poets, Alexander Aetolus and Lycophron, dealt with plays (the former with tragedy, the latter with comedy),6 while Zenodotus dealt with Homer and the other poets. I have deliberately paraphrased the Greek verb with a neutral and imprecise term, dealt with, although in actual fact it is a precise and specific term, diorthoo, namely straightening up, revising, more precisely correcting; it is the verb from which is derived the designation diorthotes, used to characterize Zenodotus, literally corrector. The term that indicated the operation of correcting a text was, naturally, diorthosis, which is indeed used here in connection both with Zenodotus and Aristarchus. As Pfeiffer pointed out, in this regard: “It is not improbable that Zenodotus, examining manuscripts in the library, selected one text of Homer, which seemed to him to be superior to any other one, as his main guide; its deficiencies he may have corrected from better readings in 3 On the role of Aristotle and of the Peripatos, see Montanari [2012d] with the bibliography (in particular Montanari [1994a], Montanari [2000a]); see also Montana, Hunter, and Nünlist in this volume. 4 On the typology of philological writings, see Dubischar and Tosi in this volume. 5 Suidas, Ζηνόδοτος Ἐφέσιος (ζ 74 Adler). 6 Tzetzes, Prolegomena de comoedia, Prooem. I 1–12, Prooem. II 1–4, 22–39 Koster; Alexander Aet. TrGF 1, 100 T 6 = T 7 Magnelli; Lycophron TrGF 1, 101 T 7; cf. Pfeiffer [1968] 101, 105–106; and Montana in this volume..
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