Alciphron1

1) Reference edition: Schepers 1905, Granholm 2012 (book 4).2

2) Sender(s): all purport to be fourth-century B.C. Athenians, grouped in the mss (to varying degrees) and modern editions since Schepers 1905 (see §5, 6, 7) into different social categories (fishermen, rustics, parasites, hetaerae) forming discrete books of letters. There are: 18 different male fishermen and three female relatives (two wives, one daughter)3 among the senders of the 22 letters of fishermen (one sends two letters, 1.17 & 1.19); 31 different male rustics, 6 female relatives or associates,4 and one parasite among the senders of the 39 letters of rustics,5 with the sender of one letter being lost (2.1); 39 different parasites (all male) among the senders of the 39 letters of parasites;6 11 different hetaerae, 3 male lovers,7 with the sender of one letter being lost (4.13) among the 19 letters of hetaerae. The names of the senders in the groups of letters of fishermen, rustics and parasites are ‘speaking names’ which identify them as belonging to a particular category,8 while the names of the senders of the hetaerae letters are those of historical individuals, or are realistic names.9

3) Extent and range of length The fullest mss preserve around 90 letters (but only from three of the groups above, viz. fishermen, rustics, parasites): Harleianus 5566 (14th c.; =Harl. in Schepers 1905)10 contains 88 letters (38 letters of parasites, 29 of rustics, 21 of fishermen);11 Parisinus graecus 1696 (13th/14th c.; =Γ in Schepers 1905) contains 91 letters, i.e. substantially the same letters as Harl. 5566 with a different relative order of groups of addressees (22 letters of fishermen, 28 of rustics, 41 of parasites).12 The 19 letters of hetaerae (plus one further fragment) are preserved in a different ms family (see §5 below), as are some further letters from the other groups. The total collected in Schepers 1905 into four discrete

1 Alciphron is probably Second Sophistic in date, but cannot be dated precisely: see §4 below. 2 See further §10 below. 3 1.6, 1.12 (wives), 1.11 (daughter). 4 2.7 (a midwife), 2.13 (wife and mother), 2.18 (wife), 2.22 (wife), 2.25 (slave-woman), 2.35 (wife). 5 The parasite Gnathon sends 2.32 to a rustic; a parasite of the same name also sends 3.8. 6 The sender of 3.39, Gemellus, shares his name with the sender of 2.24 and addressee of 2.25 among the letters of rustics. 7 4. 8, 4. 11, 4.18. 8 E.g. Naubates (‘Seaman’, 1.5), Eupetalos (‘Goodleaf’, 2.4), Philomageirus (‘Loves-a-cook’, 3.27). See on such ‘speaking names’ in Alciphron Hodkinson 2018. 9 E.g. Phryne (4.1), the hetaera defended by Hypereides (Ath. 13.591b), the comic poet (4.18). 10 The dating of mss follows Marquis 2018. 11 The same contents are found in Marcianus graecus 8.2 (15th c.): see §5 below. 12 See Granholm 2012, 21 n.51, Marquis 2018, 11.

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books based on the different groups is 122 letters (four of which are to some degree fragmentary: 2.1, 3.41, 4.1, 4.13), plus one further fragment (‘fr. 5’, attached to the letters of hetaerae).13 The letters are relatively brief: the mean average length of the 122 letters (excluding fr. 5) is 20.85 lines in Schepers 1905. Within the books there is some variation in average length, with the hetaerae letters being substantially longer: the letters of fishermen average 16.86 lines, those of rustics 12.69 lines, those of parasites 19.29, those of hetaerae 45.68. The longest letter is 4.19 (at 142 lines), the shortest letter which is not fragmentary is 1.19 (two lines). Five further letters of hetaerae are over sixty lines long (4.13 (fragmentary), 4.14, 4.16, 4.17, 4.18); the longest letter outside the hetaerae letters is 3.19 at 52 lines long.

4) Dating There is no explicit reference to the collection in antiquity; the earliest reasonably secure reference to Alciphron the author is the fictional correspondence with depicted in (1.5,

14 1.22) in the fifth or sixth century A.D. Alciphron is described as a ‘rhetor’ in the mss and by Tzetzes in the twelfth century.15 The Atticising language and setting of the letters and their affinities with Lucian and Aelian (cf. AELIAN) strongly suggest a Second Sophistic date,16 though it is not possible to determine certainly the directions of influence: his date is conventionally placed in the late second or

17 early third century A.D. There appears to be no further evidence as to the date of the formation of the collection.

5) Arrangement of letters in mss The surviving mss present the letters of Alciphron in various orders; none of them contains all 123 letters in Schepers 1905 (122 letters plus fr. 5); none presents the four books ordered 1, 2, 3, 4 as in Schepers 1905. Nevertheless, there is substantial overlap between the different ms families in the order of letters within the books and the mss clearly differentiate between different types of correspondent (see below), supporting Schepers’ division of the letters into discrete books (Marquis 2018, 12-14, 22-3, Morrison 2018, 30-2; see also §6, 8 below).

Schepers 1905 divides the mss into three families and some independent mss; each family and independent ms contains a different number of letters in a different order. Family 1 (=x in Schepers 1905) transmits three books ordered as 3, 2, 1. Its fullest representatives are Harleianus 5566 (14th

13 Schepers 1905, 156, Benner–Fobes 1949, 340–1. 14 Both the Menandrian content and the letter form recall Alciphron’s letters: see Bing-Höschele 2014, xxii-xxv. 15 Scholia et Glossemata in Chiliades 8.888. He is also mentioned by Eustathius, also in the twelfth century: cf. e.g. Eust. Il. 762.65–7. 16 On these affinities see Benner-Fobes 1949, 6-18. 17 See Anderson 1997, 2188–99, Rosenmeyer 2001, 256–7, Schmitz 2004, 87–8, Granholm 2012, 13-15.

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c.) and Marcianus VIII.2 (15th c.; =Ven. in Schepers 1905),18 which contain: 3.1-7, 9-18, 20-27, 33, 28- 32, 34-35, 37-39, 42, 19; 2.2-15, 17-27, 16, 28-30; 1.1-13, 15-22. Schepers also classified into this family Neapolitanus III.AA.14, first hand, fols. 129v. ff. (14th c.; =Neap.a), which contains selections of letters from book 3 which appear to be derived from the same order as in Harl. and Ven.19 Family 2 (=x1 in Schepers 1905) transmits three books ordered as 1, 2, 3. Its fullest representative is Parisinus 1696 (13th/14th c.) which contains: 1.1–22; 2.2–15, 17–27, 16, 28, 30; 3.1–39, 41, 42.20 Family 3 (=x2 in Schepers 1905) transmits four books ordered as 1, 3, 2, 4. Its fullest representatives are Vaticanus 1461 (15th c.; =Vat. 2 in Schepers 1905), Laurentianus 59.5 (15th c.; =Flor. in Schepers 1905), Parisinus 3021 (15th c.; =Π in Schepers 1905), which contain: 1.1–11, 13–22; 3.36–41; 2.2–8; 4.1–19, fr. 5. To the same family belongs Parisinus 3050 (15th c.; =Δ in Schepers 1905), which has substantially the same order, but with some omissions and then a supplementary group from those omissions at the end.21 Of the independent mss the oldest and most important are:22 Vindobonensis phil. gr. 342 (11th c.; B in Schepers 1905), the oldest ms of Alciphron, which is the only ms that transmits the whole of book 2 (with the omission of 2.5): 2.1–4, 6–15, 17–27, 16, 28–2.39 (but contains letters from no other book);23 Parisinus suppl. gr. 352 (13th c.; =N in Schepers 1905), which transmits the whole of book 1 followed by some letters of book 3 thus: 1.1–22; 3.1–4, 5 (the last letter is fragmentary).24

6) Publication history The of the letters of Alciphron is by M. Musurus in the Aldine edition of the Greek epistolographers (1499). It contains only forty-four letters organized in two books, one consisting of forty letters combining different types of correspondent (1.1–10, 14–22, 3.37–40, 2.3–7, 4.2–11, 14– 15) and the second of four letters (4.16–19). For this edition Musurus appears to have used a now lost apograph of Parisinus 3050 (Δ) with corrections from Vaticanus gr. 1461 (Vat. 2).25 The next

18 See also §3 above. Ven. is an apograph of Harl. 5566 according to Marquis 2018, 16. 19 I.e. selections from the same order from book 3 with the promotion of 17: 3.1, 17, 2–4, 6, 7, 9–13, 16, 18, 19 (Schepers 1905, xviii; Benner–Fobes 1949, 20). 20 Vaticanus gr. 140 (=Vat. 1 in Schepers 1905) contains the same letters up to 3.19, after which the ms breaks off: see Benner-Fobes 1949, 20, Granholm 2012, 20 n. 52. 21 I.e. 1.1–10, 14–22; 3.37–40; 2.3–7; 4.2–11, 14–19; 1.11, 13; 3.36, 41; 2.2, 8; 4.1, 12–13, fr. 5. It also contains CRATES 9 and the first sentence of CRATES 10 between 1.22 and 3.37, apparently due to interpolation. 22 Schepers 1905 also classes as independent: Neapolitanus III.AA.14, second hand, fols. 219v ff. (14th/15th c.; =Neap.b), which contains only letters from book 1: 1.1–12; Parisinus 3054 (15th c.; =Φ in Schepers 1905), which contains only letters from book 4: 4.18-19, 2. 23 Granholm 2012, 21 n. 49 reports its contents thus; Schepers 1905, xii reports its contents as 2.1–4, 6–39. Marquis argues persuasively that B belongs with Family 3, suggesting that ‘[Family 3] in its original form (or its model) contained the whole of book 2 and that losses occurred in the transmission’ (Marquis 2018, 15). 24 According to Marquis 2018, 16-17, N belongs to Family 1 and, before being mutilated, was the model for Harleianus 5566. 25 Δ has the same letters in the same order, though it contains CRATES 9 between 1.22 and 3.37, which is omitted in the Aldine. See Sicherl 1997, 198–201, Marquis 2018, 5.

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major milestone was the edition of Bergler (1715), which is not only the first publication of Alciphron as a discrete work, but also adds seventy-two letters to those of the Aldine (for a total of 116 letters), by adding a third book to the two books of the Aldine. This third book is ordered as: 1.11– 13, 3.1–5, 2.1–2, 2.8–28, 2.30–39, 3.6–3.36.26 Subsequent editions follow Bergler’s three-book structure, with some additions: in Wagner 1798 an appendix added two letters (CRATES 9 and 2.29)27 and a number of fragments, among which were the letters now numbered 3.41, 4.1, 4.12, 4.13, fr. 5,28 and also the beginning of CRATES 10 (fr. 1 in Wagner 1798).29 In 1853 Seiler’s edition, the first with an apparatus criticus, incorporated these additions (including the beginning of CRATES 10 = fr. 1)30 into book 3 and added 3.42,31 but placed CRATES 9 in an appendix, to produce the modern total of 123 letters and fragments (though still organised into three books on the model of Bergler 1715). Meinecke’s edition (1853) and Hercher 1873 follow Seiler in content and organisation. Thus Hercher 1873 contains (in ‘book 1’) 1.1–10, 14–22; 3.27–40; 2.3-7; 4.2–11, 14–15; (in ‘book 2’) 4.16-19; (in ‘book 3’) 1.11–13; 3.1–5; 2.1–2, 8-39; 3.6–36; 2.29; 3.42, followed by the fragments: the opening of CRATES 10 (=fr. 1), 3. 41, 4.1, 12, fr. 5, 4.13. It is Schepers 1905, which remains the authoritative critical edition of Alciphron, in which the letters are first divided into four books (with fr. 5 in an appendix) to reflect the social categories into which the correspondents fall in the mss. Subsequent editions, including Benner–Fobes 1949 and Granholm 2012 (book 4), follow Schepers’ four-book structure. On the publication history of the letters see Schepers 1905, iv–vi, Benner–Fobes 1949, 21, Granholm 2012, 54–7, Marquis 2018, 4–9.

7) Addressees and summary of contents The addressees fall into the same groups as the senders (see §2 above): there are 20 different named addressees in the letters of fishermen (two addressees receive two letters each: Halictypus 1.17&1.19, Pontius 1.7&1.10), all of whom are male fishermen except those of 1.3, 1.4, 1.8, 1.11 (wives), 1.12 (daughter), 1.9 (parasite); in the rustics’ letters there are 38 different named addressees (one further addressee is lost, in 2.1), all of whom are male rustics (two are directed at farmers’ sons: 2.11&2.13), apart from those of 2.8, 2.39 (wives), 2.18, 2.35 (female friends of wife), 2.37 (mother), 2.6 (midwife), 2.14 (hetaera), 2.24 (slave-woman), 2.4 (fisherman), 2.28 (city- dweller). The addressees of all 42 parasites’ letters appear to be parasites (each letter has a unique

26 Bergler draws these additional letters from various mss: see Schepers 1905, iv; Marquis 2018, 5–7. 27 CRATES 9 is found between 1.22 and 3.36 in some mss: see nn. 22, 34. 28 Fr. 5 was first published by Abresch 1749: see Benner–Fobes 1949, 21. 29 Marquis 2018, 7. 30 This is erroneously included among the letters of Alciphron in some mss: see n. 22. 31 In Seiler’s edition (1853) this letter is published as 3.74; according to Schepers 1905, v it was first published by Bast in 1798.

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addressee). As with the senders, the addressees of the letters of fishermen, rustics and parasites have ‘speaking names’: see §2 above. The addressees of the hetaerae letters, in contrast, are historical figures (e.g. the sculptor Praxiteles, 32 his lover Phryne, 33 Demetrius Poliorcetes, 34 Menander) or have realistic names: see §2 above. The letters of hetaerae are addressed to individual hetaerae (Bacchis, 4.2, 4.14; Phryne, 4.4; Myrrhina, 4.5; Thettale, 4.6; Petale, 4.8; Nicippe, 4.10; Lamia, 4.17; Glycera, 4.18; the addressee of 4.13 is lost but is clearly a hetaerae, possibly Bacchis) or their own male lovers (Praxiteles, 4.1; Euthydemus, 4.7; Simalion, 4.9; Philodemus, 4.12;35 Crito, 4.15; Demetrius, 4.16; Menander, 4.18) or the lovers of other hetaerae (Hypereides, 4.3). The male addressee of 4.11 (Euthycles), is the friend of the sender, Menecleides the lover of Bacchis, who bewails her death. (Fr. 5 is directed to the hetaerae of as a group.) The letters, particularly in the first three books, describe the hopes (often dashed) and everyday life of their correspondents.36 Most of the letters are unanswered,37 which contributes to a sense of the fragility of epistolary communication, as well as to the precariousness of the lives led by the characters. Fishermen are portrayed as wholly dependent on the sea, which is only rarely generous (as in 1.1; cf. the meagreness of the fisherman’s life which leads one to determine to become at least a part-time parasite in 1.9), and farmers on the land (a life of poverty, as emphasised in 2.2; cf. the sender of 2.4, who would rather risk life on the waves), while parasites rely for their meals on the generosity of their rich associates, which is often at risk (e.g. in 3.14, where a new love supplants parasites in the spending of a rich man). There are a few connected letters in books 1 and 2 (none in book 3, underlining the ephemeral nature of the relationships developed by parasites): 1.11 and 1.12 are a pair of letters between daughter and mother about the daughter’s infatuation,38 1.17, 1.18, 1.19 are a series of letters exchanged between fishermen about the ownership of an abandoned net, 1.21 and 1.22 a pair of letters between fishermen about the girl one has fallen in love with; 2.6 and 2.7 are between an older farmer and a young midwife with whom he is besotted, 2.15 and 2.16 are the invitation to a party and the negative response, 2.24 and 2.25 an exchange between an amorous master and his slave-woman, who rejects his advances.39 The letters of hetaerae portray more complex relationships between hetaerae and between hetaerae and their lovers, and there are more connections between different letters: 4.1, 4.3, 4.4,

32 See OCD4 s.v. Praxiteles. 33 See §2 above. 34 The son of Antigonus I: see OCD4 s.v. Demetrius (4). For his association with the Athenian Lamia see Plut. Demetrius 27. 35 4.12 criticises Philodemus’ wife’s appearance, perhaps because its sender, Leaena, has been supplanted. 36 See Rosenmeyer 2001, 270-2, König 2007, 257. 37 See König 2007, 267-70. 38 See Hodkinson 2007, 290-3. 39 On paired letters in books 1 and 2 see König 2007, 270-1.

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4.5 deal with the aftermath of Hypereides’ defence of Phryne against a charge of impiety; 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.11, 4.14 all involve Bacchis as sender, addressee or subject (and 4.13 have been addressed to her also); 4.6 and 4.7 share a sender (Thais); 4.8&4.9 and 4.18&4.19 are both formally responding pairs of letters.

8) Characteristics of the collection The high degree of stability in the orders of the letters within the discrete groups of types of correspondent (Schepers’ books) strongly suggests these orders are authorial in design. It is difficult to reconstruct precisely the overall order of the books (the ‘macro-structure’ of Morrison 2018), since it is different in the different ms families (see §5); nevertheless, Marquis 2018, 20 suggests that the original order of the books may have been 1, 3, 2, 4, though she also notes that it is possible that books 1-3 formed a separate work from book 4, which may have been combined in Family 3 (Marquis 2018, 22). The oldest ms of Alciphron (B, Vindobonensis phil. gr. 342) contains only letters from book 2: 2.1–4, 6–15, 17–27, 16, 28–2.39. Although its readers will not have experienced these letters alongside the letters of other sorts of correspondent, unlike those of mss of the major ms families or Schepers 1905, the letters themselves have the potential to produce an effect akin to reading book 2 of Schepers (see §7 above), with two notable differences: the omission of 2.5 and the position of 2.16. The latter is a response to 2.15, an invitation to a party: the effect of the delay in the order of ms B (which is also found in the other mss substantially preserving book 2) is to emphasise that the invitation is declined and the reasons for its refusal: Pithacnion, the sender of 2.16 (and addressee of 2.15), has caught a thief and must remain behind to guard him while he awaits assistance from his neighbours. Hence the precariousness of the rustic life, and its attendant dangers, are underlined by the positioning of 2.16 away from 2.15.40 This is obscured in Schepers 1905, who places 2.16 next to 2.15 (mimicking the positioning of the other pairs of letters in Alciphron), though this transposition from the ms order is also found in earlier editions (it is present in Bergler 1715 and Wagner 1798). In ms B the letters of rustics begin with 2.1, the story of how a farmer’s puppy broke its leg when its owner had hoped to catch a hare, which portrays the risks endured by those in the countryside, while the book ends in this ms (as in Schepers 1905) with 2.39, which is a set of instructions about some fleeces sent by a farmer to his wife. This letter portrays an aspect of the quotidian life of a farmer’s household, but it is not obviously closural in character (Morrison 2018, 33-4). In the collection as preserved in their fullest form in the main ms families (Families 1, 2, 3: see §5 above), the letters of rustics are framed by letters of other types of correspondent: they are placed

40 See Morrison 2018, 34-5.

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between parasites and fishermen in Family 1, between fishermen and parasites in Family 2, and between parasites and hetaerae in Family 3:

Family 1: 3.1-7, 9-18, 20-27, 33, 28-32, 34-35, 37-39, 42, 19; 2.2-15, 17-27, 16, 28-30; 1.1-13, 15-22 Family 2: 1.1–22; 2.2–15, 17–27, 16, 28, 30; 3.1–39, 41, 42 Family 3: 1.1–11, 13–22; 3.36–41; 2.2–8; 4.1–19, fr. 5

In all these families the letters of rustics begin with 2.2, which has been read as more obviously programmatic by Rosenmeyer,41 who points out that it encapsulates the desire to be someone else and the frustration of these hopes by depicting a farmer who dreams he is rich only to wake up to find himself back in the countryside.42 The final letter of book 2 in Families 1 and 2, 2.30, similarly portrays a farmer having fallen in with some ‘wine-guzzlers’ (who recall the parasites of book 3), with a hangover to regret. The letters of fishermen (Schepers’ book 1) are found at the beginning of the collection as preserved in Families 2 and 3, and at the end of the collection in Family 1, in the same order as we read in Schepers 1905, though in Family 1 letter 14 is omitted and in Family 3 letter 12 is missing. There is clearly some careful thematic arrangement visible among these letters: success in 1.1 is followed by the harsh life on the sea in 1.2, the lure of the land is related in 1.3, the superiority of the sea to the temptations of the city is emphasised to a wife in 1.4, in 1.6 a different wife accuses her husband of spending too much time in the Piraeus away from his family, 1.7 requests help, 1.8 advice (see Morrison 2018, 39). The letters of parasites are found in almost the same order as in Schepers 1905 in Families 1 and 2: in Family 1 letters 8, 40 are omitted, 33 is placed between 27 and 28, 19 is placed at the end of the parasites’ letters. The positioning of 33 may be an attempt to underline a thematic link with 27: both letters concern (different) parasites’ knowledge of impropriety on the part of their master’s wives (Morrison 2018, 35-6). This juxtaposition is not found in Family 2, however, which presents the parasites’ letters in the same order as Schepers 1905 (with the omission of 40). The parasites’ letters display similar thematic arrangement to that visible in the fishermen’s letters: see Barbiero 2018 who argues for 3.1-6 as a connected sequence based on the temporal perspective adopted in the successive letters. The letters of hetaerae are found in Family 3 in the same order as printed in Schepers 1905 (for their complex interconnections of senders, addressee and subject matter see §7 above): in Family 3 they are found (as in Schepers 1905) at the end of a collection which gathers discrete groups of letters by

41 Rosenmeyer 2001, 270. 42 See also Morrison 2018, 32-3.

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different types of correspondent: fishermen, parasites, rustics and finally hetaerae. However, Family 3 presents only small selections of the letters of parasites (3.36-41) and rustics (2.2-8).

9) Associations in mss In Family 1, the letters of Alciphron are transmitted with Byzantine and Ancient Greek epistolographers and other works, and are usually found near the letters of Phalaris and Brutus. More specifically, Harleianus 5566 (14th c.) contains the letters of Synesius, Synesius Catastasis, the letters of Phalaris, Alciphron, Brutus, other works of Synesius and ps.-Libanius, On Letter Form; Marcianus VIII.2 (15th c.) contains Lysias’ and Aeschines’ speeches, Apollonius Dyscolus De constructione, the letters of Phalaris, Alciphron, Brutus. In Family 2 they are found with Philostratus’ letters and other works: Parisinus 1696 (13th/14th c.) contains various works of Philostratus, including the letters, Alciphron; Vaticanus gr. 140 (14th) contains Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Philostratus’ Lives of the , Philostratus’ letters, Eunapius’ Lives of the Philosophers, Alciphron. In Family 3 they are found in epistolaria with other Greek epistolographers, often placed near Aeschines, Brutus and the Pythagoreans: Vaticanus gr. 1461 (15th c.) contains letters of Phalaris, Pythagoras, Anacharsis, Euripides, Diogenes, Crates, Theano, Melissa, Myia, Hippocrates, Plato, Chion, Isocrates, Socrates, Lysis, Brutus, Alciphron, Apollonius of Tyana; Laurentianus plut. 59.5 (15th c.) contains Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers followed by the letters of Pythagoras, Lysis, Hippocrates, Plato, Phalaris, Brutus, Aeschines, Alciphron (including CRATES 9); Parisinus 3021 (15th c.) contains the letters of Libanius and Basil of Caesarea, Synesius, Horapollo Hieroglyphica, Basil De legendis gentilium libris, the letters of Chion, Euripides, Diogenes, Crates, Heraclitus, Aeschines, Alciphron, Melissa, Myia, Theano, Musonius, Brutus. Parisinus 3050 (15th c.) contains the letters of Phalaris, Brutus, Pythagoras, Alciphron (including CRATES 9), Melissa, Myia, Theano, Hippocrates, Diogenes, Crates, Chion, Anacharsis, Apollonius of Tyana, Euripides, Alciphron (including CRATES 10). The independent mss transmitting Alciphron’s letters are also epistolaria containing Greek epistolographers, both classical and Byzantine: Vindobonensis phil. gr. 342 (11th c.) contains the letters of Theodorus of Cyzicus, ps.-Libanius On Letter Form, letters of John Chrysostom, Nicolaus Mysticus of Constantinople, Diogenes, Crates, Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana, Nicetas David Paphlago, ps.-Libanius On Letter Form, Nicetas Magister, Leo Synadensis, Alciphron and varia Naturalia; Parisinus suppl. gr. 352 (13th c.) contains various works of John Moschus, Himerius, Aelian, Theodosius Diaconus, followed by the letters of Philostratus, Theophylact Simocatta, Philostratus, Hippocrates, Brutus, Alciphron, followed by various other works of John Geometres.

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10) Current text-critical and editorial work

The foundation of modern work on Alciphron is the edition of Schepers 1905 (building on Schepers 1901), the first modern edition to group the letters into discrete books reflecting the types of correspondent as presented in the mss. The Loeb of Benner and Fobes (1949) is also invaluable, building on and correcting Schepers 1905 in an extensive survey of the mss and the development of editions of the letters (1949, 18-29). Granholm 2012 is a critical edition of book 4, with a survey of the mss and some corrections of Schepers. Marquis 2018 is now fundamental to further study of the text of Alciphron, containing a valuable survey of the mss and a development of Schepers’ stemma. Neither Conca-Zanetto 2005 nor Ozanam 1999 is a critical edition.

11) Modern critical editions and indicative bibliography of significant items

Editions  Granholm, P., ‘Alciphron: Letters of the Courtesans. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary’, diss. Uppsala (2012).  Schepers M.A., Alciphronis rhetoris epistularum libri iv (Leipzig, 1905) (=TLG)

Other significant works

 Abresch, F.L., Aristaeneti epistolae,(2 vols.) (Zwolle, 1749).  Anderson G., ‘Alciphron's miniatures’, in W. Haase (ed.), Sprache und Literatur. Einzelne Autoren seit der hadrianischen Zeit und Allgemeines zur Literatur des 2. und 3. Jahrhunderts (Berlin and Boston, 1997), 2188–206.  Barbiero, E. ‘Time to Eat: Chronological Connections in Alciphron’s Letters of Parasites’, in in M. Biraud, A. Zucker (eds.), The Letters of Alciphron: a Unified Work? (Leiden, 2018), 42-58.  Benner, A.R., Fobes F.H., Letters of Alciphron, Aelian, Philostratus (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1949).  Bergler, S. Ἀλκίφρονος ῥήτορος ἐπιστολαί. Alciphronis rhetoris epistolae, quarum major pars nunc primum editor (Leipzig, 1715).  Bing, P., Höschele, R. Aristaenetus: Erotic Letters (Atlanta, 2014).  Biraud, M., Zucker, A. (eds.), The Letters of Alciphron: A Unified Literary Work? (Leiden, 2018).  Casevitz, M., ‘Remarques sur les noms des correspondants dans les Lettres d’Alciphron’ in L. Nadjo, É. Gavoille (eds.), Epistulae antiquae: II: Le genre épistolaire antique et ses prolongements européens (Leuven and Paris, 2002), 247–58.  Conca, F., Zanetto, G. Lettere d'amore / Alcifrone, Filostrato, Aristeneto (Milan, 2005).

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