On the Fragment of Proclus' Abstract of the Epic Cycle Contained in the Codex Venetus of the Iliad Author(s): D. B. Monro Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 4 (1883), pp. 305-334 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/623376 . Accessed: 06/04/2014 23:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 72.186.217.31 on Sun, 6 Apr 2014 23:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ON THE FRAGMENTOF PROCLUS'ABSTRACT. 305 ON THE FRAGMENT OF PROCLUS' ABSTRACT OF THE EPIC CYCLE CONTAINED IN THE CODEX VENETUS OF THE ILIAD. THE document which is the subject of the following paper has the interest of being the only copy of the only direct record of a whole period of Greek literature-the period, namely, of the poets who carried on the traditions of Homeric art in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. It is a fragment in a double sense: first because it is a mere extract, and secondly because the pages on which it is preserved are themselves in a fragmen- tary condition. It professes to be derived from a certain kind of primer or rdsumd of Xpqo-rop'dOeta Greek literature-theypap•lar'LKc-a work of a grammarian named Proclus; and contains, with other matter, part of his account of the so-called 'Epic Cycle.' Regarding Proclus himself nothing is certain, except that he is not Proclus Diadochus, the. Platonic philosopher of the fifth century. According to Welcker's probable conjecture, he is to be identified with Eutychius Proclus of Sicca, instructor of the emperor M. Antoninus. Of the context from which this precious fragment is taken we fortunately possess a short account in the Bibliotheca of the patriarch Photius (of the ninth century); who had before him, not indeed the original work -few grammatical treatises had the good fortune to survive in their integrity-but extracts (cKXoryal), of which our document was part. According to Photius (Cod. 239) the work of Proclus was divided into four books. His extracts included :- (1) Short biographies of the five great epic poets-Homer, Hesiod, Pisander, Panyasis, and Antimachus. (2) An account of the so-called Epic Cycle. (3) A discussion of the authorship of the poem called Cypria. This content downloaded from 72.186.217.31 on Sun, 6 Apr 2014 23:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 306 ON THE FRAGMENT OF PROCLUS' ABSTRACT The Epic Cycle is described as beginning with the primeval embrace of Heaven and Earth, from which the Giants and Cyclopes were born, and giving a complete mythical history. It was made up from different poets, and (o-vprXqpodtevo4) ended with the death of Ulysses at the hands of his son Tele- gonus. The poems of the Epic Cycle, it is added, were preserved and valued not so much for their merit, as for the sequence of the events related in them. Thus far Photius, summarising what he had read in Proclus. Of the 'chrestomathy' of Proclus itself we have- (1) A short life of Homer, preserved in the Codex Venetus of the Iliad, and elsewhere. (2) An abstract or argument of the Trojan part of the Epic Cycle, specifying the poems of which it was made up. These, if the surviving text is so far complete,were eight in number, viz. : Cypria (authorship disputed), Iliad, Aithiopis, by Arctinus of Miletus, Little Iliad, by Lesches of Mitylene, Sack of Ilium ('IXlov 7r6pacn),by Arctinus,1 Nostoi, by Agias of Troezen, Odyssey, Telegonia, by Eugammon of Cyrene. This abstract is preserved in two fragments. The portion relating to the Cypria is found in four MSS., none of them of high antiquity. The rest is in the Codex Venetus of the Iliad, a manuscript of the tenth century. These several portions of the work of Proclus answer so well to the description in Photius as to leave no doubt that they are part of the 'extracts' which he had before him. They are less complete than the collection known to Photius, inasmuch as they do not contain any abstract or account of the earlier part 1 In Mr. Mahaffy's very readable not see any ground for this departure History of Greek Literature this poem from the usual account. If Arctinus' is mentioned, but it is stated that ' the Sack of Ilium did not enter into the arrangers of the mythical cycle pre- Epic Cycle, how did an abstract of it ferred, on the Sack of Troy, a poem of come to be given by Proclus ? Lesches called the Little Iliad.' I do This content downloaded from 72.186.217.31 on Sun, 6 Apr 2014 23:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions OF THE EPIC CYCLE. 307 of the Epic Cycle. They also omit the lives of the other Epic poets-Hesiod, &c. Whether they represent the whole of the Trojan part of the Epic Cycle is the question to which we have now to turn. The celebrated Codex Venetus of the Iliad (Marc. 451), which has preserved in its scholia nearly all that is known of the most ancient criticism of Homer, originally contained a good deal of matter drawn from the chrestomathy of Proclus; in particular the life of Homer, and the abstract of the Epic Cycle, or part of it. This was prefixed to the text and scholia, serving as a kind of introduction to the volume. Unfortunately the leaves on which it was written no longer exist in a complete state. The fragments consist of one entire sheet or pair of leaves, and three detached leaves; in all, five leaves. The rest ' of the MS. consists of' quaternions or gatherings of four sheets each, and the presumption is that the introductory matter occupied one such gathering. Thus three leaves of the original eight are missing. The single leaves have been attached to fresh parchment, and some new leaves are bound up with them, so that there are now eleven leaves before the text of the Iliad begins. The five old leaves are numbered 1, 4, 6, 8, 9: of these folio 1 and folio 8, form an entire sheet, the rest being single. Their contents are as follows:- Folio 1. Life of Homer, from Proclus. 4. Abstract of of the a ,, part Epic Cycle (viz., few lines of the conclusion of a Sack of Ilium, then the Nostoi, Odyssey,and Telegonia), from Proclus. 6. Abstract of another of the ,, part Epic Cycle, viz., the Iliad, AXthiopis,Little Iliad, and Sack of Ilium (by Arctinus): from the second book of the chrestomathy of Proclus. 8. The latter of a treatise on the critical marks ,, part of the Alexandrians. 9. Filled with much later than the MS. ,, paintings, The corresponding abstract of the Cypria, which is preserved elsewhere, is exactly long enough to fill one leaf of the Venetian manuscript. Hence we may infer with tolerable certainty, This content downloaded from 72.186.217.31 on Sun, 6 Apr 2014 23:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 308 ON THE FRAGMENT OF PROCLUS' ABSTRACT as Studemund pointed out, that this abstract was contained on one of the lost leaves. The problem now is to determine the places which the surviving leaves held in the original quaternion. It is certain, in the first place, that folio 1 and folio 8 formed the outermost sheet (first and last leaf) of the quire. Except on this arrangement it would be impossible to place the three leaves containing the abstracts, and also the lost leaf containing the earlier part of the treatise which ends on folio 8. Again, it is clear that folio 4 must come after folio 6; for folio 4 gives the last part of the whole Epic Cycle, while folio 6 belongs to an earlier part of the story, and immediately follows the lost folio which gave the Cypria. It remains to consider whether folio 4 followed immediately after folio 6, or was separated from it by a portion of text now lost. The latter alternative has been recently maintained with great learning and ingenuity by Prof. A. Michaelis first in his edition of Jahn's GriechischeBilderchroniken (p. 93 ff.), and again in the Hermes (xiv. p. 481 ff.). His chief argument may be stated somewhat as follows:- The contents of folio 4 begin with a few lines describing the last events of the sack of Troy, as follows: 'Ulysses having slain Astyanax, Neoptolemus receives Andromache as his prize. They divide the rest of the spoil: Demophon and Acamas find YEthra,and take her with them. Then having set Troy on fire, they sacrifice Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles.' Again, the last part of folio 6 is occupied by the abstract of Arctinus' Sack of Ilium. If then, folio 4 originally followed folio 6, it is necessary to consider these first lines of folio 4 to represent the conclusion of that poem.