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Dares Phrygius' De Excidio Trojae Historia: Philological Commentary and Translation

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Dares Phrygius' De Excidio Trojae Historia: Philological Commentary and Translation Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Dares Phrygius' De Excidio Trojae Historia: Philological Commentary and Translation Jonathan Cornil Scriptie voorgedragen tot het bekomen van de graad van Master in de Taal- en letterkunde (Latijn – Engels) 2011-2012 Promotor: Prof. Dr. W. Verbaal ii Table of Contents Table of Contents iii Foreword v Introduction vii Chapter I. De Excidio Trojae Historia: Philological and Historical Comments 1 A. Dares and His Historia: Shrouded in Mystery 2 1. Who Was ‘Dares the Phrygian’? 2 2. The Role of Cornelius Nepos 6 3. Time of Origin and Literary Environment 9 4. Analysing the Formal Characteristics 11 B. Dares as an Example of ‘Rewriting’ 15 1. Homeric Criticism and the Trojan Legacy in the Middle Ages 15 2. Dares’ Problematic Connection with Dictys Cretensis 20 3. Comments on the ‘Lost Greek Original’ 27 4. Conclusion 31 Chapter II. Translations 33 A. Translating Dares: Frustra Laborat, Qui Omnibus Placere Studet 34 1. Investigating DETH’s Style 34 2. My Own Translations: a Brief Comparison 39 3. A Concise Analysis of R.M. Frazer’s Translation 42 B. Translation I 50 C. Translation II 73 D. Notes 94 Bibliography 95 Appendix: the Latin DETH 99 iii iv Foreword About two years ago, I happened to be researching Cornelius Nepos’ biography of Miltiades as part of an assignment for a class devoted to the study of translating Greek and Latin texts. After heaping together everything I could find about him in the library, I came to the conclusion that I still needed more information. So I decided to embrace my identity as a loyal member of the ‘Internet generation’ and began my virtual journey through the World Wide Web in search of articles on Nepos. When I was scrolling through one particular online article, I noticed that it mentioned a certain ‘Dares Phrygius’. Intrigued by the sudden appearance of a Late Latin history of Troy, I kept on reading. After a while I decided to search for a translation of Dares so that I could see what all the fuss was about. My thoughts after reading the De Excidio Trojae Historia were twofold: I was interested by this drastic reversal of Homer’s work (which I had come to read and love several years beforehand), yet I could not fully enjoy the text as I was distracted by the deplorable English translation. When I looked up the Latin original I could not believe that people actually thought Cornelius Nepos was the author of this tasteless work. This accidental meeting with Dares proved to be quite influential, as the supposed pre-Homeric author ended up being a prominent part of my final two years at university. But before I can let you feast your eyes on the results of my research, I must thank my promoter and genius meus: prof. dr. Wim Verbaal. His feedback and support were extremely helpful (as were his proposed deadlines). A chat with him reinvigorated me every time as his sincere enthusiasm and witty yet professional attitude proved very motivating. Secondly, I would like to thank my mother for her unconditional support and for being both a patient listener and a heavenly cook. I also want to thank my friends (more specifically my housemates, who have silently put up with months of closed doors and occasional rants) and my sister for helping me without question whenever I needed it. And finally I want to thank my buddy Martin, who took the time to proofread my work and helped me improve my English. Now that I have had an opportunity to express my gratitude to the people who made this dissertation possible, I grant you access to the rest of the paper. In the end, I hope that Cornelius Nepos will thank me for explaining who Dares is and why a great historian like him has nothing to do with this elusive Phrygian. - Jonathan Cornil Ghent, 2012 v vi Introduction Throughout literary history, there has not been a subject so persistently reread and rewritten as the works of Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey have been regarded as the cornerstone of Western literature and education for more than two millennia, and it does not look like they are going to lose that status any time soon. Aside from their obvious inherent value, these two epics are of the utmost importance to the literary world because of their legacy: they spawned a unique literary tradition spanning from Ancient Greece to modern-day America. And this tradition soon became more than just literary as the fall of Troy and the adventures of Odysseus evolved into a popular subject for painters, sculptors and musicians. When purely examining the literary tangent of Homer’s legacy, there have been countless authors who used Homeric style and themes in their own works (up to certain degrees): names like Virgil, Dante and John Milton remain highly revered until this very day. This is partly because they have delicately carved out a place for themselves in the Homeric tradition. However, aside from these famous works, more enigmatic texts have also surfaced which assume a more precarious position in this literary continuum. A prime example of these is the so-called De Excidio Trojae Historia1, a relatively short prose work supposedly composed by ‘Dares the Phrygian’ and allegedly translated by Cornelius Nepos. The actual author, however, is as of yet unknown. The history covers the story of Troy from as early as the sailing of the Argonauts until the sack of the city by the Greeks. Striking is that it does so from a Trojan point of view, while simultaneously contradicting –a better word may be rewriting- Homer’s Iliad in numerous ways. But the real mystery only enters the picture when Dares is compared to Dictys Cretensis, which is a similar text written from the Greek perspective. While we have proof that Dictys is a translation -or rather adaptation- of a Greek original, we can make no such assumptions for Dares (though this does not stop some researchers from doing it anyway). It is because of these intriguing issues that Dares has often been the subject of academic research in the past few centuries, and it is in this tradition that my master thesis should be situated. The aim of the following dissertation is to provide future researchers with two modern translations of Dares’ history and to elaborate on some of the aspects that make this text –and translating it- so interesting. The first chapter will provide the reader with a brief analysis of a number of key questions that still dominate research on Dares to this day. The first part of the chapter will tackle basic questions such as the identity of the author and the peculiar role of Cornelius Nepos, while also discussing other fundamental aspects such as DETH’s time of origin 1 Henceforth referred to as ‘DETH’ vii and formal characteristics. The second part will focus on DETH as the product of a tradition of rewriting: DETH’s literary environment and perceived Homeric criticism will be analyzed, while the reader will also be presented with some insights regarding the discussion about DETH’s problematic connection with Dictys Cretensis as well as the possibility of a Greek Dares preceding the Latin manuscript. The chapter ends with a brief conclusion that summarizes what the reader might take away from all this. The second part of this paper focuses on the translations themselves and translation- based research. It contains an analysis of Dares’ writing style based on a comparison of DETH to a number of contemporary texts; it will then discuss how these differences are reflected in my own translations while also comparing them with R. M. Fraser’s version1. The next part consists of the actual translations. Each one shows a different way of dealing with an enigmatic text such as Dares’ historia: while the aim of the first translation is to provide the reader with a pleasant narrative according to present day norms, the second translation is an attempt at conveying the form of the Latin original and recreating the feeling of disorientation readers in late antiquity must have experienced when reading DETH’s awkward Latin. In the end, I hope this dissertation might prove useful to experienced scholars as well as academic novices. The mysteries surrounding Dares Phrygius make this historical work a very interesting subject for academic study, yet many questions still remain unanswered after centuries of research. Hopefully my paper will raise the interest of young scholars and spark a new wave of research on Dares. And, who knows, perhaps my words will be reread and rewritten many times on the long and arduous road of solving DETH’s mysteries and literary enigmas. 1 Frazer, R.M., The Trojan war. The chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian / transl. with introd. & notes by Frazer., London: Indiana University Press, 1966 viii ix Chapter I De Excidio Trojae Historia: Philological and Historical Comments 1 A. Dares and His Historia: Shrouded in Mystery 1. Who Exactly Was ‘Dares the Phrygian’? The first issue that I would like to examine is probably one of the most important and tantalizing controverses of this particular work: I am referring to the mystery surrounding the author of the De Excidio Trojae Historia. In the introductory letter1 preceding DETH famous Roman historian Cornelius Nepos is mentioned as the translator of a Greek history, which was written by a certain ‘Dares the Phrygian.’ While it is obvious to any critical reader that the real author is neither Dares nor Nepos, the question remains: who is this Dares, and why did the unknown author choose to take up this persona? Dares2 (Δάρης) is a literary significant name: it appears in both Homer’s Iliad3 as well as Virgil’s Aeneïd4.
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