Semonides or Simonides? A CenturyâLong Controversy over the Authorship of a Greek Elegiac Fragment
(Simonides, fr. 8 W. = frr. 19â20 W.2)
1 Introduction
The attribution of Archaic Greek lyric fragments proves to be complicated because of the very nature of these poems and of the way they have come down to us. The fragmentary condition of most poems â which is often quite apparent but sometimes cannot be safely assumed because the fragment seems to be complete â is the main difficulty in determining their authorship, both in the case of verses preserved in Lateâantique anthologies or in other authorsâ works and in the case of the ones included in papyri discovered many centuries later, which are often incomplete and full of lacunae. An additional difficulty lies in the peculiar character of Archaic Greek poetry, which often makes modern style and contentâoriented criteria unsuitable.
An elegiac fragment quoted in a Lateâantique anthology and included in a papyrus found at the end of the 20th century is a case in point. The attribution process of this fragment has turned out to be complicated and highly controversial and perhaps it has not yet come to an end.
Joannes Stobaeus, a 5thâcentury learned compiler, quotes a poem consisting of elegiac couplets and having the lemma ÎŁÎčÎŒÏÎœáœ·ÎŽÎżÏ
(4.34.28) in Book 4 of his Anthologium under the rubric ÏΔÏ᜶ ÏοῊ ÎČáœ·ÎżÏ
, áœ
ÏÎč ÎČÏαÏáœșÏ Îșα᜶ ΔáœÏÎ”Î»áœŽÏ Îșα᜶ ÏÏÎżÎœÏ᜷ΎÏÎœ áŒÎœáœ±ÎŒÎ”ÏÏÎżÏ (How life is short, miserable and full of concerns). The text, included by M.L. West in the section dubia of the first edition of Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati (West [1972]) as fr. 8 of Simonides, is quoted below:
áŒÎœ ÎŽáœČ Ï᜞ ÎșΏλλÎčÏÏÎżÎœ ΧáżÎżÏ áŒÎ”ÎčÏΔΜ áŒÎœÎźÏÎ
âÎżáŒ”Î· ÏÎ”Ï ÏÏλλÏÎœ ÎłÎ”ÎœÎ”Îź, Ïοίη ÎŽáœČ Îșα᜶ áŒÎœÎŽÏáż¶ÎœâÎ
ÏαῊÏοί ÎŒÎčÎœ ΞΜηÏáż¶Îœ ÎżáœÎ±ÏÎč ÎŽÎ”ÎŸÎŹÎŒÎ”ÎœÎżÎč
ÏÏÎÏÎœÎżÎčÏ áŒÎłÎșαÏÎΞΔΜÏοΠÏÎŹÏΔÏÏÎč Îłáœ°Ï áŒÎ»Ïáœ¶Ï áŒÎșÎŹÏÏáżł
áŒÎœÎŽÏáż¶Îœ, ጄ ÏΔ ÎœÎÏÎœ ÏÏΟΞΔÏÎčÎœ áŒÎŒÏÏΔÏαÎč. 5
ΞΜηÏáż¶Îœ ÎŽâ áœÏÏᜱ ÏÎčÏ áŒÎœÎžÎżÏ áŒÏáż ÏολÏ
ÎźÏαÏÎżÎœ ጄÎČηÏ,
ÎșοῊÏÎżÎœ áŒÏÏÎœ ΞÏ
Ό᜞Μ ÏÏλλៜ áŒÏÎλΔÏÏα ÎœÎżÎ”áżÎ
ÎżáœÏΔ Îłáœ°Ï áŒÎ»ÏÎŻÎŽáŸœ áŒÏΔÎč γηÏαÏÎΌΔΜ ÎżáœÏΔ ΞαΜΔáżÏΞαÎč,
ÎżáœÎŽáŸœ, áœÎłÎčáœŽÏ áœ
ÏαΜ áŸ, ÏÏÎżÎœÏÎŻÎŽáŸœ áŒÏΔÎč ÎșÎ±ÎŒÎŹÏÎżÏ
.
ÎœÎźÏÎčÎżÎč, ÎżáŒ·Ï ÏαÏÏáż ÎșΔáżÏαÎč ÎœÏÎżÏ, ÎżáœÎŽáœČ ጎÏαÏÎčÎœ 10
áœĄÏ ÏÏÏÎœÎżÏ áŒÏΞៜ ጄÎČÎ·Ï Îșα᜶ ÎČÎčÏÏÎżÏ
áœÎ»ÎŻÎłÎżÏ
ΞΜηÏÎżáżÏ. áŒÎ»Î»áœ° Ïáœș ÏαῊÏα ΌαΞᜌΜ ÎČÎčÏÏÎżÏ
ÏÎżÏ᜶ ÏÎÏΌα
ÏÏ
Ïáż Ïáż¶Îœ áŒÎłÎ±Îžáż¶Îœ ÏλáżÎžÎč ÏαÏÎčζÏÎŒÎ”ÎœÎżÏ.
The man from Chios said one thing best: âAs is the generation of leaves, so is the generation of menâ. Few men hearing this take it to heart, for in each man there is a hope which grows in his heart when he is young. As long as a mortal has the lovely bloom of youth, with a light spirit he plans many deeds that will go unfulfilled. For he does not expect to grow old or die; nor when healthy does he think about illness. Fools are they whose thoughts are thus! Nor do they know that the time of youth and life is short for mortals. But you, learning this at the end of your life, endure, delighting in good things in your soul.1
At first glance, the poem seems to be complete, but the unusual presence of a pentameter at the beginning has led scholars from the Renaissance onwards to assume that at least one initial hexameter was lost. Camerarius attempted to reconstruct exempli gratia the allegedly lost line as follows: ÎżáœÎŽáœČÎœ áŒÎœ áŒÎœÎžÏ᜜ÏÎżÎčÏÎč ÎŒáœłÎœÎ”Îč ÏÏáżÎŒáŸœ áŒÎŒÏÎ”ÎŽÎżÎœ αጰΔ᜷.2 Moreover, the particle ÎŽÎ at the beginning of the first line seems to fulfil a connective function, either continuative or adversative, and not an inceptive one.3 The suggestion that one or more initial lines were discarded by Stobaeus when quoting the passage is wellâgrounded, since his quotations are grouped by themes and such poems often featured some âprivateâ information at the beginning that was not relevant considering the general character of the Anthologium.4
2 A CenturyâLong Authorship Controversy
However, until the publication of P. Oxy. 59.3965 in 1992 (see section 4 below), the main problem associated with this poem did not lie in its fragmentary nature but rather in its authorship. As noted above, the poem was included by West as fr. 8 of Simonides in the section dubia,5 but since the 16th century this fragment has been assigned to many different poets, leading to a centuryâlong authorship controversy. The main reason behind this controversy lies in the name attributed by Stobaeus to the author of the couplets, i.e. ÎŁÎčÎŒÎżÎœáœ·ÎŽÎ·Ï. The phonetic similarity of the names of two Archaic Greek poets called ÎŁÎ·ÎŒÎżÎœáœ·ÎŽÎ·Ï and ÎŁÎčÎŒÎżÎœáœ·ÎŽÎ·Ï â the former, Semonides of Amorgos, being a iambic poet6 thought to have lived earlier than the latter, Simonides of Ceos,7 the author of poems covering a variety of genres, including monodic poetry and epigrams â has caused the two poets to be confused since Antiquity. While their names are still clearly distinguishable in a 1stâcentury BC papyrus that features works by Philodemus of Gadara,8 they overlapped at least from the 2nd century onwards, probably also owing to the phonetic phenomenon known as itacism, which began in the Hellenistic period and spread widely during the Roman Empire.9 In his Anthologium, Stobaeus himself associates the lemma ÎŁÎčÎŒÏÎœáœ·ÎŽÎżÏ
with both fragments for which Semonidean authorship has been firmly established (e.g. Stob. 4.34.15 = fr. 1 W. and Stob. 4.22.193 = fr. 7 W., the wellâknown satirical account of different types of women) and fragments which are unquestionably from works by Simonides (e.g. PMG 521 = Stob. 4.41.9 and PMG 522 = Stob. 4.51.5). Even though in the 9th century AD George Choiroboskos, a Byzantine grammarian, had pointed out the different spelling of the names of the two poets,10 the two continued to overlap over the subsequent centuries. Nor did the editors of the earliest printed collections of ancient Greek lyric poets make any distinction between the two. Stephanus ascribed all the poems having the lemma ÎŁÎčÎŒÏÎœáœ·ÎŽÎżÏ
, including iambs, to Simonides of Ceos11, whereas Crispinus, followed by Winterton, explicitly placed the iambic poems along with the elegiac fragment among the works of the iambographer of Amorgos.12
It is worth mentioning that in 1823â1824 Giacomo Leopardi translated fr. 1 W. by Semonides and the elegiac fragment handed down by Stobaeus. The two poems, respectively Dal greco di Simonide (no. 40) and Dello stesso (no. 41),13 are included at the end of Leopardiâs Canti, the collection of his poems. Following Stephanusâ edition, the Italian poet always identifies âSimonidesâ with the poet of Ceos, as E. Pellizer has convincingly demonstrated (see Pellizer [1976]).
In the 18th century the two poets were still confused and only in the 19th century, following the development of Classical philology in Germany, was the distinction between them more clearly established. T. Bergk once again made a conscious attempt to ascribe the disputed fragment to the iambic poet Semonides of Amorgos14 (fr. Sim. 85 in his collection Poetae lyrici Graeci). This attribution was supported by U. von WilamowitzâMoellendorff, who strongly argued for a Semonidean authorship in Homerische Untersuchungen (1884)15 and in Sappho und Simonides (1913),16 where he further elaborated on the topic. H. Diehl included the poem as fr. Sem. 29 in his Anthologia lyrica Graeca and W. Jaeger spoke of ...