I frammenti della commedia greca citati da Prisciano e la fonte del lessico sintattico del libro XVIII dell’Ars

In the syntactic lexicon from Ars XVIII, the paucity - rather than the exclusion (like in Phrynichus the Arabian) or the full acceptance (like in Pollux and the Antiatticist) - of quotations from Middle and New Comedy suggests that Priscianus was resorting to a selection of comic sentences collected during a period which regarded the language of Ancient Greek Comedy as reference for correct Atticistic norm, but could accept a few examples from Middle and New Comedy (esp. Menander) as well. Phrynichus' refusal and Pollux' full acceptance of examples derived from Middle and New Comedy can be therefore regarded as two opposite developments of this prior tendency to limit, but not to exclude, materials from later Greek comedy. Such a tendency is attested, for instance, in Aelius Dionysius', Pausanias', Harpocration's Lexica, and, as it is argued here, in the collection of comic quotations used in the Atticistic source of Priscianus' syntactic lexicon. An early dating (II cent.?) for this collection is also suggested: a) by the indication of the double possible authorship "Plato Comicus or Cantharus" for the lost play Symmachía, which is used in Athenaeus' and Harpokration's works (II cent.), but is absent in Pollux' Onomasticon and later Lexica; b) by the unproblematic usage of sentences from comic plays of suspicious authenticity (Pherecrates' Cheíron; Aristophanes' Poíēsis), excluded or limited in later Lexica. The presence of a quotation from the lost play Poíēsis (by Aristophanes?) is, in particular, significant, a comedy generally ignored in the works of later grammarians, but still known in the age (II sec.) of P. Yale 1625 = P. Turner 4, a scrap of papyrus containing the same words (Ar. Poíēsis frg. 466.4-5 K.-A.) preserved by Priscianus. Attention is devoted to a quotation attributed by Priscian. Ars XVIII, GL p. 305, 4 Hertz to a generic Phroenicus. In this contribution I assign it to Phrynicus the Comedian, and not to the homonymous Phrynichus the Tragedian, since it is improbable that a pre-Aeschylean tragedian was regarded as a model for Atticists. Finally, Menandr. frg. 96 K.-A. ap. Priscian. Art. XVIII, GL p. 332, 2-5 Hertz is assigned to Misogýnes, a comedy particularly appreciated in the II cent., from which three other fragments are derived, which are preserved by Priscianus (frgg. 239 [ap. Priscian. Art. XVIII, GL p. 332.6-8 Hertz], 240 [ap. Priscian. Art. XVIII, GL p. 334.11-13 Hertz], 241 K.-A. [ap. Priscian. Art. XVIII, GL p. 375.25-376.1 Hertz]).