Hesiod’s Fragments in Byzantium

Abstract

As can be gleaned even from a quick glance at the index of Merkelbach and West, the most important Byzantine sources transmitting fragments of Hesiod's "minor" works are John Tzetzes and Eustathius of Thessalonike. Both were active in the 12th century under the Komnenian dynasty, in an age when Homer and the archaic epic in general enjoyed pride of place both in the school curriculum and in scholarly works. Our paper aims at singling out some significant instances of quotations from the Catalogue or other lost works in Eustathius' commentaries to the Iliad and Odyssey, and in Tzetzes' commentaries to Homer, Lycophron, etc. The stress will be laid not only on those few fragments that are known exclusively thanks to these authors, and to the plausibility that they derive from one lost ancient source or another (most notably frr. 211, 276 and 330 for Tzetzes and frr. 62, 164, 212a, 221 and 223, as well as a line in fr. 204 for Eustathius: frr. 211 and 204 are known to us from papyri), but also on the different angle from which the fragmentary evidence about Hesiod's works is considered: while both scholars are clearly primarily interested in grammatical and erudite aspects, their bias differs in part. This is particularly evident when the same fragment is quoted by both authors (generally, it has to be assumed, from the same source as in the case of frr. 194 and 235), but much can be gleaned also from a more general consideration of the attitude towards titles and attributions in both authors (and from a more attentive perusal of their works in search of mentions that might have escaped the editors' notice): while Eustathius seems more carefully adherent to his sources, Tzetzes' habitual creativity, and his perusal of ancient biographies, leads him to posit the existence of lost works, probably on the background of an overall consideration of Hesiodic poetic output.

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