A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise: a Journal of the Trojan War by Dictys of Crete

ELECTRUM  Vol. 13 Kraków 2007

Antoni Bobrowski

A HEROIC LEGEND IN HISTORIOGRAPHIC DISGUISE: A JOURNAL OF THE TROJAN WAR BY DICTYS OF CRETE

It is not easy to clearly identify the status of the work, which has survived until now as “A Journal of the Trojan War” (Ephemeris belli Troiani) by Dictys of Crete, in the Latin translation of Lucius Septimius.1 The key difficulty lies with the very idea of the Greek writer, who made an effort to hide all traces of his identity and to remain totally anonymous. The reader was supposed to believe that the author of the text was an invented Dictys of Crete living in the times of the Trojan War and writing a chronicle of a great military conflict from the standpoint of an eyewitness. In the Prologue preceding Dictys’ text there is information about an alleged discovery of a manuscript written a long time ago and including Troiani belli verior textus – “a more reliable” account of the Trojan War. It was the author’s intention (who in the Prologus hides behind a supposed figure of the editor of an old chronicle just found) to make Dictys’ report “more reliable” than a strongly consolidated traditional version delivered once by great epic poetry written, among others, by Homer. As more accurate and more reliable, since it was written by an eyewitness and deprived of any poetic embellishments or distortions, it gave a unique opportunity for learning real truth after many centuries. Therefore, we have to do with an ancient literary fraud with clearly outlined polemical tendencies in relation to the traditional version of the Trojan myth, whereas the topic taken from heroic mythology, customarily presented in a high epic tone, was developed in a material form as a dry quasi-historical account. The text we have at our disposal now includes 6 books and it is the Latin translation of the lost Greek original. We can learn the name of the translator in the attached “dedicatory epistle” (Epistula), from which it stems that Books 1–5 (describing the origins of the war and its course until destroying of Troy) correspond exactly to the first five books of the original, whereas Book 6 (a story of victorious Greeks coming back home) is only a summary of several other books of the Greek version of “The Journal”. In this form, the “Latin Dictys” (translated most probably in the 4th c. A.D.2) left chronological frameworks of the ancient times and entered the Middle Ages, where, apart from a “twin” work with

1 Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeridos belli troiani libri a Lucio Septimio ex Graeco in Latinum sermonem translati, edidit Werner Eisenhut, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig 1973 (2nd ed.). 2 See discussion in Merkle 1989: 263–283. 194 ANTONI BOBROWSKI similar contents and of similar nature, namely “A Story of the Fall of Troy” (De excidio Troiae historia) by Dares the Phrygian (Dares Phrygius), it acquired huge popularity. A manuscript tradition of the Latin text of “The Journal” showed continuity from early Middle Ages (confirmed by the evidence of the preserved codices). The fate of the Greek original was completely different. Until the end of the19th century, information on the existence in antiquity of a Greek version of the text, which became the basis of Latin translation, had been drawn only from an indirect tradition. That indirect tradition was confirmed in the 20th century owing to a discovery of two papyri including short fragments of the Greek prototype.3 It is puzzling how different opinions were formulated about Dictys’ work during many years. In early research critical opinions prevailed, which pointed out the weakness of style, inadequacies and composition mistakes in the text, as well as clumsiness in the presentation of the topic and incoherence of a modest form with respectable contents. Most frequently, the Ephemeris was considered an example of the second-class literature, which is secondary and non-ambitious,4 although, at the same time, contrary opinions were also abundant.5 It seems that closer acquaintance with the text makes the reader reject prejudices and not always fair evaluations, which were recorded in the past, and see in “The Journal” a carefully thought-out and consistently realized author’s concept.6 A small Dictys’ work covers the whole set of myths related to the Trojan war, from the abduction of Helen by Paris-Alexander to the description of the return of the Greek warriors from Troy to their native towns. This clear account written in simple language includes a huge number of episodes, well known from the consolidated tradition, which are sometimes outlined in a little bit different shape, differing in details from the story included in old epic poetry. The necessary selection of the narrative material did not consist of making dramatic cuts and omissions in the fundamental fiction trend given an original epic shape by Homer and the cyclic poets. Homer was one of many sources and it was not Dictys’ assumption to faithfully sum up his poems, although in the narrative course of the first five books the segment corresponding to The Iliad contentwise is the most extensive one and placed in the centre (2.28–4.1). Dictys preserved the narrative order known from the Poems of the Cycle and the account of the Ephemeris approximately corresponds in terms of its contents to the following works in the following order:7 Cypria (1.1–2.27: from the abduction of Helen by Alexander, through preparations to the war, events taking place

3 The Tebtunis Papyri, Part II, ed. by B.G. Grenfell, A.S. Hunt, E.J. Goodspeed, London–New York 1907: 268, p. 9–18; The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part XXXI, ed. J.W.B. Barns, P.Parsons, J. Rea, E.G. Turner, London 1966: 2539, p. 45–48. 4 This is where most probably negative phrases come from, which were for a long time attached to the name Dictys, e.g. “Machwerk”: Helm 1948: 21; “artless and abrupt”: Marblestone 1970: 370; cf. also spectacular but ambivalently sounding labels attached to Dictys and Dares: “Dictys and Dares created narratives that were flat and inconsistent”, Clarke 1981: 32; “a sort of tabloid journalism”, Farrow 1991– –1992: 343; “hoax accounts of the Trojan War”, Laird 1993: 155; “spoof narratives of the Trojan War”, Morgan 1993: 209. 5 E.g.: “The Ephemeris belli Troiani of Dictys is presented in an excellent style (...) It can claim high literary merit”, Syme 1968: 123; “Dictys, der gewendtere Stylist”, Kytzler 1993: 477. 6 Cf. Merkle 1996: 571: “Despite the harsh criticism of scholars, then, the Eph. upon closer examination appears as a quite carefully conceived text, whose author hadled his material within the self-imposed limits of an ephemeris with considerable skill”. 7 Cf. Allen 1924: 151–156; Burgess 2001: 7–46 (Ch. 1), and Appendix A. A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise... 195 in Aulis, landing of the Greeks at Troy and initial battles, to the description of plundering raids conducted by the Greek army in neighbouring lands in order to obtain loot and captive women); The Iliad by Homer (2.28–4.1: from Achilles’ conflict with Agamemnon to the death and funeral of Hector); Aethiopis (4.2–4.14: conquering of Trojans’ allies, Amazons commanded by Penthesilea and Ethiop troops headed by Memnon; death and funeral of Achilles); Ilias mikra and Iliou persis (4.15–5.17: from the moment when Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, comes to Troy until the destruction of the city, and the victorious Greeks leaving for home); Nostoi, The Odyssey by Homer and Telegonia (Book 6 combining, in the form of a condensed summary, parallel accounts regarding stories of the Greek warriors coming home). A comparative analysis of the account included in the Ephemeris, on the one hand, and the Poems of the Cycle and Homeric poems, on the other, shows that deviations made by Dictys from the “canonical” version of the Trojan Stories passed by the earlier tradition refer in particular cases both to the chronology of episodes and to motivations affecting the course of events as well as to descriptive details. With reference to the poems of the Epic Cycle, those deviations can be most clearly observed in such episodes as the death of Achilles (4.10–11), who perishes not on the battlefield, but is murdered in an ambush by Alexander; a conflict on the Palladion (5.14) – in the traditional shape of the episode (armorum iudicium) the subject of the argument between Aias and Odysseus was the armour left after the killed Achilles; in addition, the conflict took place before the fall of Troy and not, as written by Dictys, only just before the Greeks set off for home; finally an ambiguous activity of Antenor and Aeneas (Book 5), who, by getting involved in secret negotiations with the Greek commanders, contributed to the destruction of their native town. In case of the events corresponding to the contents of The Iliad, there seem to be more deviations of that kind. The most important ones include early and problem free solution of the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon, as a result of which Achilles would come back to partake in battles long before the death of his friend Patroclus (2.48–52); utterly non-Homeric theme of ardent “romantic” love of Achilles to the daughter of the king of Troy, Polyxena (3.2–3) together with all its consequences; the episode of Priam coming to Achilles to redeem Hector’s body (3.20–27) is also constructed differently than by Homer. 8 Those changes, compared to Homer’s narration in the area of constructing the themes as well as the sequence and course of some episodes and scenes, are accompanied by significant structural and programme modifications, first of all, total elimination of the epic system of gods and general tendency to deheroisation of the image of heroes. All those actions make up in total the effect of “improving” Homer, by finally giving a coherent and precise picture of the course of the Trojan War, marked with concreteness characteristic for “historic” accounts and additionally supplemented with an erotic motive characteristic for romance fiction. Homer started to be criticised in antiquity in the period of booming Greek archaic lyric, the representatives of which looked at the mythological tradition through the perspective of the epic poetry written by Homer, Hesiod and the Cycle poets.9 The works written by poets of the next epoch started to include comments and reservations concerning two

8 A detailed analysis of the relations between Dictys and Homer was conducted by Venini 1981, see also a series of comments in Timpanaro 1987. 196 ANTONI BOBROWSKI fundamental aspects. The first one was connected with a negative ethical assessment: according to Xenophanes,10 epic poets groundlessly equipped gods with a number of moral defects such as a tendency to deception, treason and adultery. The other aspect of reservations related to a rational reflection and was concerned, in embryonic form, with the issue of reliability of the poetic account. Admiration for artistic achievements of Homer and epic poets starts to go hand in hand with the awareness that the poets “make up a great deal”: we can find some comments formulated in this spirit in works of Solon or Pindar.11 Together with the beginning of historiography, the criticism towards Homer addressed historically in a methodological sense was started by Herodotus (2. 113–120) and Thucydides (1. 9–11) who made references in their works to the events of the Trojan War. 12 The grounds for the lack of trust towards the reliability of Homer’s account, accentuated by both authors are rational reasons and reasons stemming from the methodology applied by a historian who has to evaluate the sources he has at his disposal. Homer could not be regarded by Herodotus and Thucydides as a reliable source, since, first of all, he lived much later than the Trojan War described by him and thus he did not see those events with his own eyes;13 secondly, he was a poet, and thus he practiced a kind of creativity, which did not oblige him to be faithful to facts, on the contrary, it allowed for using poetic ornaments, involving invention and fantasy, subjecting the course and contents of storytelling to one’s own artistic vision.14 Both authors do not attempt at undermining historic nature of the military conflict at Troy; however, they have some reservations as to the details of its course in the version known from poetic accounts. It should be kept in mind that they do not have any alternative sources, which are more reliable from the historian’s point of view: thus, the only thing that can be done in this situation is an attempt at extracting truth by moving away from the poetic deformation. Thucydides does it with rational pragmatism proving that the Trojan conflict, although it was the largest one in the past, could not happen on such a scale as presented by Homer, if one analyses the then logistic possibilities as to forces and resources.15 Herodotus, on the other hand, focuses on one detail, emphasising that Homer’s account regarding abduction of Helen to Troy cannot be true, since Helen stayed in Egypt with Proteus and she remained there throughout all years of the war. If she really had come to Troy with Paris, Trojans would have certainly given her back to the Greeks in order to prevent a risk of conflict with a powerful enemy. It is especially

9 See Richardson 1993: 26 ff.; Lamberton 1997: 38 ff.; various aspects of Homer’s reception in antiquity are also discussed in, inter alia, Myres 1958: 11–35, Lesky 1966: 73 ff., Lamberton 1992, Zimmermann 2004. 10 Xenoph. frg. 15. 11 Solon frg. 29; Pind. Nem. 7, 20 ff; Ol. 1, 28 ff; Istm. 4. 12 Cf. Grossardt 1998: 365 f. 13 Herod. 2.53.2: `Hs…odon g¦r kaˆ “Omhron ¹lik…hn tetrakos…oisi œtesi dokšw meu presbutšrouj genšsqai kaˆ oÙ plšosi; Thuc. 1.3.3: tekmhrio‹ d m£lista “Omhroj. poll´ g¦r Ûsteron œti kaˆ tîn Trwikîn genÒmenoj ... 14 Herod. 2.116.1: `Elšnhj mn taÚthn ¥pixin par¦ Prwtša œlegon oŒ ƒršej genšsqai: dokšei dš moi kaˆ “Omhroj tÕn lÒgon toàton puqšsqai: ¢ll/ oÙ g¦r Ðmo…wj ™j t¾n ™popoi…hn eÙprep¾j Ãn tù ˜tšrJ tù per ™cr»sato, ˜kën metÁke aÙton, dhlèsaj èj kaˆ toàton ™p…staito tÕn lÒgon.; Thuc. 1.9.4: æj “Omhroj toàto ded»lwken, e‡ tJ ƒkanÕj tekmhriîsai; 1.10.3: nom…zein d t¾n strate…an ™ke…nhn meg…sthn m n genšstqai tîn prÕ aÙtÁj, leipomšnhn d  tîn nàn, tÍ `Om»rou aâ poi»sei e‡ ti cr¾ k¢ntaàqa pistšuein, ¿n e„kÕj ™pˆ tÕ me‹zon m n poiht¾n Ônta kosmÁsai, Ómwj d  fa…netai kaˆ oÛtwj ™ndeestšra. 15 Cf. Richardson 1993: 26; Marincola 1997: 7–9; Erskine 2001: 2 f. A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise... 197 interesting what method Herodotus applies in order to make his interpretations based on logical premises more reliable. Namely, he reaches for an idea of referring to the authority of a very peculiar eyewitness: a real (and rejected by Homer) version of the Trojan story he was supposed to learn personally from Egyptian priests and they, in turn, had learnt it from Menelaus himself when the latter came to Egypt after the war completion on the way back.16 The mechanism of making the story more reliable used by Herodotus when presenting an alternative version of events compared to the story told by Homer, is based on specific manipulation: correction of the Homeric version is supported with a reference to the story told by Menelaus as an “eyewitness”, whose staying in Egypt is confirmed by Homer (Od. 4. 81–91 and 4. 351–586). In this way, the poet whom Herodotus accused of contorting historic facts, became the guarantor of reliability of the version told by his own critic. This kind of method would indicate a direction in the future followed by continuators of the trend accusing Homer of stretching the historic truth. Most clearly feeling a need to refer to an authority that might compete with Homer’s authority, they looked for methods of making their version of the Trojan Stories fully reliable in the readers’ eyes. Starting with approximately mid 3rd century B.C., as far as attempts at “correcting” Homer are concerned, we can quote examples of works, which from the point of view of the goals and strategy adopted by the author should be located in the field of quite a big and differentiated, in terms of form and contents, group of ancient literary frauds.17 A specific trend of Schwindelliteratur connected with the Trojan topic grew on a formal foundation of earlier accomplishments of Hellanicus of Lesbos and other authors of “Trojan monographs”,18 but, unlike in the scientifically oriented Hellenistic mythography, the authors of such false accounts deliberately applied a concept very different in the essence from a scientific method. That concept consisted in the authentication of the presented version of events by referring to a purportedly reliable source of information: a de facto fictitious figure, but associated in the awareness of the recipient – owing to family links invented by the author or at least time and geographical proximity – with the figures known from Homer’s account or even perceived as an eyewitness of the events described by Homer.19 The first trace of a literary assumption of that kind can be noticed in the works of

16 Herod. 2.113.1: œlegon dš moi oƒ ƒršej ƒstoršonti t¦ perˆ `Elšnhn genšsqai ïde:; 2.118.1: E„romšnou dš meu toÝj ƒršaj e„ m£taion lÒgon lšgousi oƒ “Hllhnej t¦ perˆ ”Iliou genšsqai À oÜ, Ÿfasan prÕj taàta t£de, ƒstor…Vsi f£menoi e„dšnai par/ aÙtoà Menšlew . 17 Basic works on the issue of literary frauds in antiquity: Speyer 1971 (see methodological findings: 5 ff.), cf. Ronconi 1955: 17 ff.; see also: Syme 1968: 120 f., Grafton 1990: 18 f., Feeney 1993: 243. 18 Testimonies collected by Jacoby 1923 (FrHistGr) confirm a large number of writings originated in the Hellenistic period whose titles, usually Troika or similar, point to the nature of “Trojan monographs” written not without scientific and polemical ambitions towards the poetic tradition, however, a vestigial number of preserved fragments and scarce indirect information make it impossible to conduct deeper analyses and comparisons. Jacoby paid attention to Hellanicus’ accomplishments, regarding his monographic Troika as the origin of a literary tradition of “Trojan Stories” written in prose: “als geschichtwerk gemeint, sind sie [= Troika] durch die prosaische form ausgangspunkt für die Troiaromane geworden” (p. 440). 19 Cf. Speyer 1971: 46: „Die Zeit der Hellenismus führte dem Buche grössere Leserkreise zu, die unterhalten und oberflächlich belehrt werden wollten. Neben den rhetorischen und der tragischen Geschichtsschreibung, neben dem Roman suchte eine reiche Schwindelliteratur mit unerhörten Neugkeiten aus Mythos und Geschichte die Leser zu überraschen. Literargeschichlische Lügen und Erfindungen zeichnen diese Literatur gleichfalls aus. Man erfand nicht nur Quellen, sondern stellte ganze Bücher unter 198 ANTONI BOBROWSKI

Dionysius Scytobrachion acting approximately in mid 3rd c. B.C.,20 the author of “The Trojan Stories” (Troika), who suggested that in his writing he referred to notes of a Thymoites. That Thymoites was supposed to be the son of Thymoites mentioned by Homer in Il. 3.146 in a group of old men gathered at the Scaean Gate. The figure of Thymoites obviously invented by Scytobrachion was to play a role similar to the role of Menelaus in Herodotus’ writing: a “reliable witness” is brought from a distant past, who acquired his knowledge personally while staying in Troy during the war as a young man, or possibly from his father mentioned by Homer himself. The next step in the trend of the invented “Trojan Stories”21 was the whole concept of a pseudo-epigraph realised by Hegesianax22 of Alexandria in Troas (3rd/2nd c. B.C.), who was the author of Troika published under the name of Kephalon of Gergis. Hegesianax did not make do only with pointing to an alleged sources of information used by him, but also carried out a complete procedure of a literary fraud. He published his work under the name of the author he invented himself and who, owing to his purported origin from the area of Troas, was to be the guarantor of reliability of the presented account. Examples of quoting Kephalon of Gergis as an important historic source in antiquity23 prove that fiction remained disguised. This kind of strategy of making fiction reliable leads to the Ephemeris by Dictys and also to “The Fall of Troy” by Dares, in which an analogous procedure was applied. The name Dares in the context of an alternative account of the Trojan War compared to Homer appears for the very first time in the work entitled Kainé historía (“New history”) by Ptolemy Chennos dated at the turning of 1st/2nd c. A.D.24 In the section dedicated to the Trojan theme, Ptolemy quotes, among others, an unknown Antipater of Acanthus, whose primary source of information was presumably The Iliad written before Homer by Dares, who was Hector’s advisor in Troy. There is no doubt that in both cases we have to do with a fictitious person whose name is supposed to authenticate a non-Homeric version of the Trojan events through the fact that the name of Dares occurs twice in Homer’s Iliad (Il. 5. 9 and 5. 27) and he is mentioned there as a Trojan priest of Hephaestus. Perhaps a rumour about the account of the Trojan events made by an “eyewitness” named Dares was so widespread in the first centuries A.D. that some other Greek author unknown to us decided to use that name in order to make his own prose work more reliable, namely, Daretis Phrygii de excidio Troiae historia which has survived until now in the

die namen erfundener Schriftsteller. So erfand man Autoren, die angeblich als Augenzeugen den Kampf um Troja miterlebt und ihre Aufzeichnungen hinterlassen hatten“. 20 FrHistGr 32; see Merkle 1989: 46 f.; Grossardt 1998: 366–368. 21 Jacoby (1923: 509) talks about “mythographischer Roman”, the characteristic feature of which is first of all “der schwindel mit alten quellen”; Merkle (1989: 54) undermines the justification of applying the term “genre” with reference to “The Trojan stories” (“Troiaromane”): „Diese Rekonstruktion einer ganzen Gattung einschließlich ihrer Ziele muß in Anbetracht der spärlicher Überlieferung und den eben skizzierten Erkenntnisse auf dem Gebiet der literarischen Fälschung in der Antike als sehr hyporhetisch betrachtet werden“. 22 FGrH 45; see Merkle 1989: 48 f.; Farrow 1991–1992: 351–357; Grossardt 1998: 368 f. 23 Cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. 1.49.1; 1.72.1. 24 Phot. Bibl., cod. 190; see Wolff 1932: 56 f., Lesky 1966: 860, Merkle 1989: 16–21, Grossardt 1998: 370–372. A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise... 199

Latin version.25 The Dares’ work is (similarly to “The Journal” by Dictys) a fully realised concept of a pseudo-epigraph, and a polemical tendency in relation to the version of the Trojan events passed by Homeric and Cyclic tradition is shown in the Historia sometimes even more radically than in the Ephemeris. An announcement of that kind of tendency is signalled in the “dedicatory epistle”, which, similarly as in Dictys’ work, precedes the proper text and is a clear addition of the Latin translator, suggesting alleged correspondence exchanged between well-known Roman historians of the 1st c. B.C. “Sallustius Crispus” was supposed to be the addressee of the letter: “Cornelius Nepos” sends him a text of the account written in the past by Dares of Phrygia (historiam Daretis Phrygii ipsius manu scriptam); Nepos was to find it in Athens and translate it faithfully, not changing anything, into Latin (optimum ego duxi ita ut fuit (...) sic eam ad verbum in latinitatem transvertere). The readers will learn how the events proceeded and will be able to assess themselves who is more trustworthy: Dares, who lived in the time of the Trojan War and participated in it personally, or Homer, who was born many years after the end of the war, and moreover, a case of his mental sanity was considered before the court in Athens, since he wrote that people were fighting on the battlefield with gods (utrum verum magis esse existiment, quod Dares Phrygius memoriae commendavit, qui per id ipsum tempus vixit et militavit, cum Graeci Troianos obpugnarent, anne Homero credendum, qui post multos annos natus est, quam bellum hoc gestum est. de qua re Athenis iudicium fuit, cum pro insano haberetur, quod deos cum hominibus belligerasse scripserit). Such severely and directly formulated criticism takes away all grounds of reliability from Homer’s account passed by the tradition by deprecating it as a historic source. Unlike Homer’s work, Dares’ text should fulfil all the requirements of an account from the source, since it was written by an eyewitness, in line with truth, in an unornamented style (vere et simpliciter) and it is deprived of any fantastic or unnatural elements such as direct interventions of anthropomorphic gods in the course of events taking place among people. The author of the Ephemeris belli Troiani based his concept of a pseudo-epigraph on a complex strategy of actions.26 In the first place, he made an effort to make a purported discovery more reliable, and to authenticate a fictitious author by equipping him with an invented biography. The next step was to make an impression of authenticity of the account by applying historiographic style: pointing to reliable sources of information and giving the story a form of factual notes whose goal is to reflect historic truth. The final effect of “a true story” was obtained by consistent subjecting of the account to critical rationalism and reducing epic heroic features in the presented picture of reality. In Dictys’ Ephemeris, a starting point of the extended strategy of authentication is specifying in what way the work, which is said to have been written hundreds of years before, survived in an intact form until contemporary times (i.e. until the moment of publishing it), and remained unknown at the same time. That task is fulfilled by “the editor’s preface” (Prologus) preceding the proper text of “The Journal”. It should be noted that the Latin translator Septimius attached “a letter of dedication” (Epistula) to the work,

25 Merkle (1989: 19 f. and 250 n. 18) is inclined towards such a solution, similarly Beschorner 1992: 231–243 and 264 f.; cf. Grossardt 1998: 371 f. and Stenger 2005. 26 Cf. discussion on Dictys’ Beglaubigungsapparat in: Merkle 1989: 56–80 and Merkle 1994: 185; Usener 1994: 108 f.; Grossardt 1998: 379 f. 200 ANTONI BOBROWSKI which repeats (with certain changes27) some information included in the Prologus. It was Lucius Septimius’ intention to remove the prologue and replace it with his own introduction; the original Prologus (certainly translated later on by a different and unknown person) was included in this ancient version of the text of “The Journal”, which does not include the Epitula28 (that version is represented by a separate group of preserved medieval manuscripts29). The contemporary critical edition includes both ancient versions of the preface to “The Journal”, however, at this moment, when considering the strategy of authentication, one should focus on the Prologus, which constitutes an integral part of the original author’s concept. The Prologus content is of key importance, since it is to lead the readers to the way of thinking about the work suggested by the author of the pseudo-epigraph and not to allow for any doubts as to its authenticity. Precise construction of fiction starts by means of establishing a certain anchorage in time and space, and at the same time, there is a reference to an unpredictable factor, which does not require any justification, namely a coincidence: in the thirteenth year of Nero’s reign, in a Cretean town of Cnossus, passing by shepherds paid their attention to an old tomb destroyed by an earthquake. In the tomb, there was a metal box, so they took it out expecting to find some treasure (tertio decimo anno Neronis imperii, in Gnoso civitate terrae motus facti cum multa, tum etiam sepulcrum Dictys ita patefecerunt, ut a transeuntibus arcula viseretur. pastores itaque praetereuntes cum hanc vidissent, thesaurum rati sapulchro abstulerunt).30 No treasure is found in the box (in this case, the shepherds would certainly want to keep it for themselves and to keep the whole issue in secret), but a mysterious manuscript. The shepherds cannot read the text, so they take it to their lord (et aperta ea invenerunt tilias incognitis sibi litteris conscriptas continuoque ad suum dominum, Eupraxidem quendam nomine, pertulerunt). The manuscript seems to hide such important and mysterious contents that it is handed over to a Roman governor in Crete and through him to the emperor himself, who orders specialists to translate the text written in Phoenician, as it turned out, into Greek (iussit in Graecum sermonem ista transferri). In this chain of events, apart from accidental discovery of the work, nothing else is a coincidence. Owing to the intuition of other persons standing higher in the hierarchy, and finally, owing to Nero’s interest, it was possible to bring an unusually valuable historic document back from oblivion: an account written by a man who participated in the Trojan War personally (antiqui viri, qui apud Troiam fuerat, haec esse munumenta). That ancient chronicler came from Crete, where he came back when he was old, and when he was about to die he ordered the manuscript to be put in his tomb, which was done. The scrolls were put into a metal box (quae iam reversus senior in Cretam praecepit moriens, ut secum sepelirentur. itaque, ut ille iusserat, memoratas tilias in stagnea arcula repositas eius tumulo condiderunt) and that very box was found after centuries by the shepherds in the destroyed tomb. All information included in the Prologus

27 Cf. Speyer 1970: 55–56, Eisenhut 1983: 18–22, Timpanaro 1987: 202–211, Merkle 1989: 91–113, Lapini 1992: 59 ff. 28 See Griffin 1907: 117 and 119, Champlin 1981: 197–199, Merkle 1989: 95–97. 29 See ed. Eisenhut 1973: XII and XXVII ff.; also Eisenhut 1983: 20, Timpanaro 1987: 203 f. 30 Cf. the tradition preserved by Plutarch about holy books written by the Roman king Numa, who ordered to bury the notes after his death; in this case, the discovery of the books was also the consequence of a natural factor (Plut. Num. 22,2 and 22,7); see an extensive review of the issue of ancient traditions related to the books found in tombs in: Speyer 1970: 43 ff. (including Dictys’ “Journal”, pp. 55–59). A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise... 201 is thus arranged in a neat and logical whole, although it is obviously fiction constructed in such a way that it has all features of likelihood, and a literary fraud is disguised. When the reader starts reading Book 1, he should be convinced that he has to do with an authentic document from the past. Personal information regarding the alleged author, constituting an equally important element of the strategy of authentication, is included both in the Prologus and in the main body of “The Journal”. The prologue starts with the presentation of the author: Dictys, Cretensis genere, Gnoso civitate, isdem temporibus, quibus et Atridae, fuit (...) hic fuit socius Idomenei, Deucalionis filii, et Merionis ex Molo, qui duces cum exercitu contra Ilium venerant, a quibus ordinatus est, ut annales belli Troiani conscriberet (Prol.). The following information stems from the “editorial note”: Dictys was a Cretean and came from Cnossus; he lived in the times of the Atreides (i.e. in the period of the Trojan War); at Troy he accompanied Cretean commanders, Idomeneus and Meriones; at the commanders’ order he wrote a chronicle of the Trojan War. In the main body of the text, we encounter two places with similar information content. The first of them is a kind of short introduction from the author in 1.13: Idomeneus et Meriones, summa inter se iuncti concordia. eorum ego secutus comitatum ea quidem, quae antea apud Troiam gesta sunt, (...) rettuli et reliqua, quae deinceps insecuta sunt, (...) exponam. We find here confirmation of links between the author and Cretean commanders (comitatus), which justify his presence at Troy; the author also announces that the Trojan War will be the topic of his account. The other place similar in character is the sphragis closing Book 5, where we read, among others: Haec ego Cnosius Dictys comes Idomenei conscripsi (5.17). Apart from the three aforementioned places, the text of “The Journal” includes several more pieces of information allowing for rough reconstruction of further course of life of the fictitious Dictys. In Book 6, after the end of the war he comes back together with Idomeneus to his native Crete (ita nos quoque cum Idomeneo rege Cretam patrium solum summa cum gratulatione civium remeavimus, 6.2). After several years, already after Idomeneus’ death, he is invited by Neoptolemus to his wedding with Menelaus’ daughter, Hermione (accitus ab eo, qua tempestate Hermionam Menelai in matrimonium susceperat, 6.10). Next, he comes back to Crete and one year later sets off on a trip to Delphi as a member of an official delegation to acquire advice from the Apollo’s oracle: Post quae profectus Cretam anno post nomine publico cum duobus aliis ad oraculum Apollinis remedium petitum venio (6.11). It stems from it that after the death of the king of Crete, Idomeneus, his comes ran a more independent life abundant in trips. According to the Prologus, he came back to Crete as an old man (iam reversus senior in Cretam) and when dying he ordered that his notes should be buried together with him in a tomb (quae (...) praecepit moriens, ut secum sepelirentur). Similarly to the case of the account on an alleged discovery of books by the Cretean shepherds, also here, the information are arranged in a logical whole of a fictitious biography, making the figure of the purported author of “The Journal” more perceptible, and thus more reliable. However, a fundamental factor authenticating the figure of Chronicler Dictys remains a very strong link between him and the Cretean ruler, Idomeneus, who is perfectly known from the tradition of epic poetry and mentioned by Homer a number of times.31

31 Inter alia: 1.144 ff.; 2.404 ff.; 4. 252 ff.; 6.635 ff.; and Book 13, dedicated in a large part to the descriptions of Idomeneus’ deeds on the battlefield. 202 ANTONI BOBROWSKI

Next, the author took care to make a fictitious chronicler fulfil the criteria of the reliability required from a historian as to the selection of sources and an attempt at rendering only objective truth in the story. This objective is met, first of all, by referring to the concept of autopsía32 – the chronicler describes the facts he saw with his own eyes, and secondly, ensuring about the value of additional sources. In this case these will be stories narrated by other protagonists which will provide knowledge about the events in which the author could not participate personally. In the course of his story, Dictys submits a declaration twice that he fulfils both conditions as closely as possible (quae antea apud Troiam gesta sunt, ab Ulixe cognita quam diligentissime rettuli et reliqua, quae deinceps insecuta sunt, quoniam ipse interfui, quam verissime potero exponam, 1.13; ea, quae in bello evenere Graecis ac barbaris, cuncta sciens perpessusque magna ex parte memoriae tradidi. de Antenore eiusque regno quae audieram retuli, 5.17). Thus, we learn that from the moment when the Greek commanders gathered in Argos to make a decision about declaring the war, until the completion of military operations, he personally took part in all successive events as a comes of the Cretean commander, Idomeneus. He acquired knowledge about the events preceding the council in Argos directly from Ulisses, who was a member of the group of envoys to Troy to get Helen back, and from a different source – this time no name is indicated – he learnt about conflicts in the country governed by Antenor and built on the ruins of destroyed Troy after the victorious Greeks had left. In Book 6, the strategy of authentication of the transmitted information is more complex, since the story about fates of various protagonists includes many motives and the events take place simultaneously in different, frequently very distant places. Dictys emphasises that when staying at the Cretean court of Idomoneus, he met Orestes and Menelaus (6.3–4), and Ulisses (6.5), all being guests there, so he was able to listen to their stories; Neoptolemus (6.10) is also indicated as the source of information. In addition, Dictys could acquire some pieces of information during his trip to Delphi (6.11). The declared highest carefulness in presenting the facts (quam diligentissime rettuli (...) quam verissime potero exponam, 1.13), apart from the already manifested skill of selecting reliable sources, is to prove Dictys’ professional qualifications in the area of historiography. Dictys himself does not use any theoretical term to entitle his notes, he just says that he “describes all that happened”, “reports facts”: ea, quae apud Troiam gesta sunt (...) rettuli et reliqua, quae deinceps insecuta sunt (...) exponam (1.13); ea, quae in bello evenere (...) memoriae tradidi (5.17). However, we find a more specialist term in the “editor’s note”: ordinatus est, ut annales belli Troiani conscriberet (Prol.) – a fictitious editor refers to the text as annales, which in this case cannot mean a close equivalent to the term usually used for the old Roman annals, including historic records of many centuries. However, referring to Dictys’ story of the Trojan War with the term annales immediately imposes a way of perceiving the text: the reader will have to do not with epic presentation of a well known topic, but with a version excluding poetic fantasy and irregularities, subject to rigorous principles of compliance with the historic truth. In other words, the “editor” clearly signals a shift of the Trojan Stories from the sphere of poetry to the sphere of widely understood

32 The aspect of an eyewitness as an element of special attention in Greek historiography starting with Herodot is discussed by Nenci 1953, who emphasizes deprecating the importance of that factor in the first centuries A.D.: „Nell’ambito della storiografia quella che nei grandi storici era stata l’affermazione della piú acuta critica storica, sopravviveva decaduta a mero topos” (p. 43); see Marincola 1997: 62–86. A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise... 203 historiography. An even more precise term is used in the “dedicatory epistle”: Ephemeridem belli Troiani Dictys Cretensis (...) conscripsit. An ancient Roman translator referred to the Dictys’ work as ephemeris, assigning it in this way to the genre of historiography, the beginnings of which date back to the Hellenistic period and the chronicles of Alexander the Great written by Eumenes of Cardia; in the period of the Greek empire, the term ephemeris was used interchangeably with the Latin term commentarii and the Greek hypomnemata33 (although they are not strictly equivalents34). The intention of “The Journal’s” author was thus to create a work written in a style of a war chronicle or a war diary, whose fundamental impact upon the recipients stems from putting the emphasis on the factual contents while preserving maximum simplicity and clarity of style as well as excluding all embellishments and ornaments. The form of that kind of a “journal” is characterised by the lack of the final stylist finishing touch stemming from spontaneous preparation of notes on a current basis. It was supposed to be in fact a rough sketch, which might become the basis for a wider study later on: however, those (deliberate) formal imperfections become the basis asset, since they prove the authenticity and reliability of the account.35 Dictys’ chronicle of the Trojan War, in the author’s intention, is thus situated on the exactly opposing pole in relation to the epic version established by Homer, which is perfect artistically, but in line with the poet’s vision, whose goal is to give the reader aesthetic pleasure and not to try to present the picture of the events being described in compliance with historic truth.36 That is why, both the “editor” in the Prologus, and the Roman translator Septimius in the Epistula emphasise the value of Dictys’ “Journal” as a true and reliable account, which deserves popularisation: Nero (...) iussit in Graecum sermonem ista transferri, e quibus Troiani belli verior textus cunctis innotuit (Prol.); nobis cum in manus forte libelli venissent, avidos verae historiae cupido incessit ea, uti erant, Latine disserere (Epist.). Historiographic stylisation of the work covers a number of detailed solutions and moves. A formal factor organising the story framework is the presence of the author’s introduction including self-presentation in Chapter 1.13 (which brings to our mind the

33 The works of Julius Caesar with commentarii in the title are referred to as ephemerides by Plutarch (Caes. 22) and as hypomnemata by Strabo (4.1.1). 34 On the one hand, ambiguity (in case of Latin commentarius/commentarii the use of that term to determine the genre in the area of historiography seems to be marginal when compared with a much wider scope of application in relation to various forms of official documentation), and on the other hand, very small comparative material, based almost entirely on skimpy indirect tradition, do not certainly create favourable conditions for precise differentiation, since the only preserved example of literature of that kind is Commentarii by Caesar; see Bömer 1953, Fornara 1983: 180–184, Ambaglio 1990, Marincola 1997: 180 ff. 35 Those advantages were emphasised by Cicero (Brut. 262) in his very positive opinion about Commentarii by Caesar: valde quidem inquam probandos: nudi enim sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta. sed dum voluit alios habere parata, unde sumerent qui vellent scribere historiam. ineptis gratum fortasse fecit, qui illa volent calamistris inurere: sanos quidem homines a scribendo deterruit: nihil est enim in historia pura et inlustri brevitate dulcius; Cicero’s statement should be juxtaposed with considerations included in the work by Lucian entitled “How to Write History” regarding the difference between outlined historian’s notes and a completed work (Luc. De hist. scrib. 48). 36 See Fornara 1983: 169 f., Marincola 1997: 6 f.; cf. Aristot. Poe. 1451a–b, and Lucian’s remarks in De hist. scrib. 8. 204 ANTONI BOBROWSKI analogy with the “second proemium” included in Chapter 5.26 of Thucydides’ work37) and the sphragis in Chapter 5.17. The course of narration strictly subjected to the chronological order contains three segments of catalogue and inventory character, whose location stems from pragmatic logic related to the events development: a list of Greek commanders is given before the description of the first war council in Argos (1.13–14), a catalogue of the Greek fleet38 is given while the whole army is gathering in Aulis before setting off for Troy (1.17), whereas the list of Trojan allies39 is presented before the first military confrontation of both armies at the city walls (2.23). Factual scrupulosity shown by Dictys in shaping the content layer of his account is excellently seen in careful identification of time when particular events took place. The chronicler’s reliability cannot ignore the account so strongly consolidated by the tradition regarding a 10-year war period, however, at the same time, he excludes poetic carelessness of Homer, who left the issue of time synchronisations beyond his interest and placed the whole narration of The Iliad in the last year of the siege,40 and at the same time he puts in Helen’s mouth a statement that she had already stayed in Troy for 20 years. 41 Homer’s story includes a great deal of events and episodes, however, he covers only a few dozen days: so what to fill such a huge 10-year time span with? Those ancient authors who considered it a problem tried to find rational explanation. The historian Thucydides (1.10– –11) explains such a long period of siege with a small (contrary to poetic accounts) size of the Greek army at Troy and constant delegation of a part of the army to acquire supplies, which additionally decreased the Greek military potential and the level of forces on both sides of the conflict. The pseudo-historian Dares, Dictys’ “twin” in the field of Schwindelliteratur, tries hard to acquire the period of 10 years42 by extending battles, and first of all, by frequent introduction of long-term armistices (including a two-year armistice in Chapter 20, a three-year one in Chapter 22; in total there are 11 armistices mentioned and they last 7 years altogether). In turn, a mythographic account of Apollodorus (Ep. 3.1843) does not cope with the issue of settling time of a 10-year siege in detail, on the other hand, he informs that two years passed from Helen’s abduction until the moment when the Greek army set off for Troy, then the Greeks landed by mistake in Mysia, on the way back the fleet scattered and it lasted 8 years before it gathered again in Aulis. Thus, the period from Helen’s abduction until the destruction of Troy was 20 years. Dictys in his “Journal” calculates time very carefully and with the sense of realism, the starting point being the moment of making a decision about the war and selecting the chief commander, which took place at the council in Argos (1.13–16). Afterwards, there is a 2-year period of preparations and gathering the fleet in Aulis (1.16: arma, tela, equi, naves atque haec omnia toto biennio

37 See Lapini 1992: 82 n. 102. 38 Cf. Hom. Il. 2.494–785. 39 Cf. Hom. Il. 2.814–877. 40 See tables in Latacz 2001: time structure in The Iliad (p. 233), where distribution of themes of all “Trojan Stories” is illustrated taking into account The Iliad and The Odyssey. 41 Hom. Il. 24.765–766: ½de g¦r nàn moi tÒd' ™eikostÕn œtoj ™st…n, / ™x oá ke‹qen œbhn kaˆ ™mÁj ¢pel»luqa p£trhj 42 Dares 44: pugnatum est annis decem mensibus sex diebus duodecim ad Troiam. 43 Apollod. Ep. 3.18: tÒte lšgetai tÕn pÒlemon e„kosaetÁ genšsqai: met¦ g¦r t¾n `Elšnhj ¡rpagšn œtei deutšrJ toÝj “Ellhnaj paraskeuasamšnouj strateÚesqai, ¢nacwr»santaj d ¢pÕ Mus…aj e„j `Ell£da met¦ œth Ñktë p£lin e„j ”Argoj metastrafšntaj ™lqe‹n e„j AÙl…da. A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise... 205 praeparantur (...) sed inter haec summa cura vis magna navium praecipue fabricatur; 1.17: Igitur peracto biennio ad Aulidam Boeotiae (...) singuli reges (...) instructas classes praemittunt); after additional 3 years of collecting more arms and equipment on warships (in total 5 years from declaring the war: 1.18: omnium autem classium numerus (...) toto quinquiennio praeparatus instructusque est) the Greek fleet sets sail in Aulis (1.23: hoc modo ex Aulide navigatum est) and comes to Mysia by mistake; afterwards it comes back to Greece for the winter (2.7: cunctis volentibus Boeotiam revertuntur ibique subductis navibus singuli in regna sua hiematum discedunt); unplanned staying in Greece is extended and only after additional 2 years and 8 years from the first war council held in Argos, at the beginning of the ninth year (2.9: ceterum ab incepto militiae eius octavo iam anno ad hoc usque tempus consumpto initium noni occeperat), the Greeks succeed in leaving Aulis again and landing at Troy (2.10: ita ascensis navibus ventos nacti ad Troiam pervenere). After initial battles there is an armistice for the winter (3.1: per totam hiemem dilato condicionibus in tempus bello), and several months after resuming battles in the spring (3.4: exactis hibernis mensibus ver coeperat), the Greeks conquer Troy and before the next winter they set off on the way back to their native land (5.17: Graeci veriti, ne per moram interventu hiemis, quae ingruebat, excluderentur, (...) discedunt). As Dictys puts it, the whole story of the Trojan War really lasts 10 years – in accordance with the consolidated tradition – however, the Greeks come to Troy only in the ninth year, so the period of conducting proper armed clashes, battles and duels covers, including a winter break, only about 18 months. A rational perspective made the author maximally condense the events taking place during the siege of Troy (even at the expense of excessively extending the period of preparations), which makes the picture of the war more coherent and reliable. A dry and report-like tone of the account excludes any epic prolixity, which is so characteristic for extended Homer’s descriptions of duels, focusing on factual information about events crucial for making the image of war more concrete, which was mentioned casually or omitted completely in epic poetry. Such kind of elements, characteristic for historiographic accounts, include an important role played in Dictys’ story by diplomatic missions and negotiations held between the parties of the conflicts. The chronicler very extensively describes, together with quoting the contents of speeches, the course of the first negotiations aimed at preventing the outburst of an open conflict (a trip of Palamedes, Ulisses and Menelaus to Troy, 1.5–11), a diplomatic mission proposing the Trojans to release the captured Priam’s son, Polydorus, in exchange for Helen (Ulisses, Diomedes and Menelaus in Troy, 2.20–26), and especially the course of peace negotiations at the final stage of the war, including detailed amount of reparations to be paid by Troy (5.6 and 5.8). It should be emphasised that including negotiation talks run by designated envoys in the course of narration is already encountered in Homer: the description of the mission of Phoenix, Aias and Odysseus to Achilles constitutes the whole content of Book 9 of The Iliad, which also includes a detailed list of material compensation proposed by Agamemnon (9.260 ff.). However, such a diplomatic mission does not have the importance of political negotiations at the international level, which are scrupulously noted down by Dictys, whereas they remain in the background in the epic poem. Division of time into summer and winter, so typical for historiography, is underlined by Dictys as well. There is an armistice in winter, during which the besieging army takes care, among others, of 206 ANTONI BOBROWSKI securing supplies: to this end, they go on plundering raids in the surrounding regions, and at the same time some soldiers are sent to do farming (at nostri nullo palam hoste digressi ad naves munia hiemis disponunt moxque bipertito campo, qui reliquus non pugnae opportunus erat, utraque pars aratui insistere, frumenta aliaque, quae tempus anni patiebatur, parare, 2.41). In the analysis regarding the course of the Trojan War Thucydides (1.11.1) mentioned the necessity for carrying out such activities by the army as well, which were completely different in their nature from heroic duels in battles, whereas Homer does not say anything about such practices. Also outside the epic poet’s interest is the source of the army fighting skills: Homeric warriors have the war skill as it were in blood, whereas in Dictys’ Ephemeris the period of the winder break in battles is used also for intense military training and improving skills of wielding particular kinds of weapons (Graeci cuncta, quae in tali otio militia exposcebat, intenti animo summis studiis festinabant. namque pro vallo multitudo universa variis bellandi generibus per duces populosque instructa et ob id more optimo diversis ad officia sua quibusque..., 3.1). It should be noted that in this place the chronicler accuses Trojans of laziness, since they did not arrange for such training (at Troiani cum auxiliaribus laxiores militia neque circa exercitum solliciti socordius agitare). Dictys attaches big attention to outlining the picture of political disputes in Troy (where there was a division in the society between advocates and opponents of the war from the very beginning), as well as he gives much time to the issue of Trojans’ allies, showing the inside story related to acquiring them (e.g. Sarpedon: quippe quem iam Priamus donis amplioribus eisque postea duplicatis fidissimum sibi retinuerat, 1.18), and problems with keeping them loyal. Those problems started to appear when the allies observed the growing advantage of the Greeks, which made them worry about their own fate (isdem fere diebus nuntius adportatur universas prope Asiae civitates descivisse a Priamo atque eius amicitiam exsecrari. namque facinoris exemplo suspectis iam per universos populos gentesque circa hospitium omnibus, simul quia omnibus proeliis Graecos victores cognitum et eversio multarum in ea regione civitatum in animis haeserat et ad postremum grave odium filiorum regnique eius incesserat, 3.1); in such cases, Troy was forced many times to spend additional amounts in order not to allow for losing military support (this is what happened in case of Queen Penthesilea, who came to help Priam with the Amazons host: quae postquam interemptum Hectorem cognovit, perculsa morte eius regredi domum cupiens ad postremum multo auro atque argento ab Alexandro inlecta ibidem opperiri decreverat, 4.2). Thus, the choice of the form of an ephemeris was not just a verbal declaration: the author took care of basing his story on a carefully outlined time scale and on equipping it with information which is usually presented in a chronicle account aimed at presenting as full picture of the events being described as possible. From the moment when the Latin translation was made, the fate of “The Journal” took two independent, as it seems, paths the course of which was shaped differently for each of the two language versions. The original version of Dictys’ “Journal” taken over by the Byzantine tradition became in the Greek East one of the basic sources for chroniclers, who, writing the history of the world in the chronological order and usually taking as the starting point the creation of man, took into consideration a mythological story in their account as well. The story of the Trojan War, treated in the category of a historic account, was A Heroic Legend in Historiographic Disguise... 207 synchronised in terms of time by Byzantine chroniclers with Biblical history. The oldest work of this kind is Chronographia, preserved almost in full, written by Joannes Malalas (6th century), which reports the Trojan theme very extensively in Book 5. The chronicler referred here to the text of Dictys’ “Journal” as the basic source,44 which he mentions directly several times when he brings the name Dictys.45 For obvious reasons, Malalas did not reach for poetic versions of the Trojan account recorded in the epic of Homer and the Poets of the Cycle, but for the “historic” account, and thus a true and reliable story, in his opinion. Specific confirmation of the fact that “The Journal” could be treated by Malalas as a serious historic source is a mention regarding finding Dictys’ work during Nero’s reign included in Book 10 of the Chronographia (Mal. 10.2846). That account complies in all basic details with the description presented in the Prologue to the Ephemeris: the finding occurred in the thirteenth year of Nero’s reign, as a result of an earthquake on Crete; the manuscript was handed to the emperor, who ordered to translate it and place it in the library. We find information about an earthquake again in the Suda, where Dictys is mentioned in 2 entries of the lexicon and referred to as historikós.47 The tradition of the presence of Dictys’ account in the Greek-speaking Byzantine culture becomes quite clear, if we take into consideration particular stages of transmission proved by the accounts on the Trojan War included in the works of later chroniclers: Historia chroniké by Joannes Antiochenus (beginning of the 7th c.),48 Synopsis historion by Joannes Cedrenus (11th/12th c.),49 Synopsis chroniké by Constantinus Manasses (12th c.), and in the poem entitled Antehomerica, Homerica, Posthomerica by Joannes Tzetzes (12th c.). The rationalized version of the Trojan War, deprived of any anthropomorphic conceptions of pagan gods and somewhat “demythologised”, functioned in the Byzantine historiography continuously in the chain of borrowings made by subsequent chroniclers from their predecessors50 and was clearly present in indirect accounts starting with Joannes Malalas until at least 12th century. The Latin translation of Lucius Septimius made chronologically about two centuries before Malalas’ work, constitutes a separate branch of the tradition of Dictys’ “Journal” related to the area of Latin-speaking part of the Roman Empire. The reception of the work in Europe was different than in the Greek-speaking East. On the one hand, a direct tradition of a manuscript account of the Latin text was continuous, as a result of which it has been preserved in a complete form; however, on the

44 Cf. Patzig 1892; Fürst 1901: 237–244; Griffin 1907: 45–81; Jeffreys 1979: 216–231. 45 Mal. 5.10,63–65; 5.11,68; 5.19,52; 5.20,91; 5.29,3; 5.31,54 (ed. Thurn). 46 Mal. 10.28: Tù d ig/ œtei tÁj basile…aj toà Klaud…ou ka…saroj œpaqhn ØpÕ qeomhn…aj ¹ Kr»th nÁsoj p©sa: ™n oŒj crÒnoij hØršqh ™n tù mn»mati toà D…ktuoj ™n kassiter…nJ kibwt…J ¹ œkqesij toà Trwikoà polšmou met¦ ¢lhqe…aj par/ aÙtoà suggrafe‹sa p©sa. œkeito dš proskšfala toà leiy¦nou toà D…ktuoj: kaˆ nom…santej tÕ aÙtÕ kibètion qhsaurÕn e nai pros»negkan aÙtÕ tù basile‹ Klaud…J: kaˆ ™kšleusen met¦ tÕ ¢no‹xai kaˆ gnînai, t… ™stin metagrafÁnai aÙt¦ kaˆ ™n tÍ dhmos…v biblioq»kV ¢poteqÁnai aÙt£. 47 Suda II, 1117 (ed. Adler): D…ktuj, ƒstorikÒj. œgrayen 'Efhmer…da: œsti d t¦ meq/ “Omhron katalog£dhn ™n bibl…oij q/, 'Italik£, Trwikoà diakÒsmou. oátoj œgraye t¦ perˆ tÁj ¡rpagÁj `Elenhj kaˆ perˆ Menel£ou kaˆ p£shj 'IliakÁj Øpoqšsewj; cf. II, 1118. 48 JA 42.2,1; 44,26 (ed. Roberto); see Patzig 1892; Fürst 1901: 251–256; Griffin 1907: 81–90; Roberto 2005: CXXX f. 49 See Fürst 1901: 257–260; Griffin 1907: 90–98; Jeffreys 1979: 232. 50 See patterns of “The Journal’s” reception in the Greek-speaking East in: Fürst 1901: 344; Griffin 1907: 98–104, Eisenhut 1983: 13. 208 ANTONI BOBROWSKI other hand, indirect impact of the Latin version of “The Journal” started only eight centuries after its origin, i.e. at the end of an early phase of Middle Ages, together with the growing development of national literatures in Europe, which started in 12th century with French and Provence poetry. This development was accompanied by a clear increase of interest in ancient heroic themes, including Trojan motives, although they were treated in the category of peculiarly understood historic accounts.51 In the face of disappearance of the familiarity with the Greek language in Medieval Europe, basic sources of information about Troy were Latin texts: “Homer” (i.e. Ilias Latina, an ancient Latin summary of The Iliad), The Aeneid by Vergil, The Metamorphoses and The Heroides by Ovid, The Achilleis by Statius, ancient commentaries (Servius Ad Aen.) and mythographic accounts (by Hyginus and Fulgentius), as well as the works by Dares and Dictys.52 These two last texts, including a “real story” of the Trojan War, which is rational, devoid of pagan gods and presented in an unornamented form of a historiographic account, became at that time an unquestioned authority as the primary source and put into shadow the classical epic tradition, which was more perfect in a literary sense, but marked with the stigma of lacking reliability.

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