Filologia e interpretazione a Pergamo. La scuola di Cratete

This book presents a modern edition, with introduction and commentary, of the surviving fragments of a group of Greek literary critics and scholars of the Hellenistic age: Artemon of Pergamum, Herodicus of Babylon, Zenodotus of Mallos, Tauriscus and Hermias. They were all active at the library of Pergamum between the second and the first century BC and were followers of the prominent critic and philosopher Crates of Mallos, who worked in Pergamum in the first half of the se- cond century BC. Their interests were diverse. Artemon discussed mainly historical and mythological problems in Pindar’s victory odes addressed to Sicilian tyrants. Herodicus was interested in Homeric philology and Attic comedy; he wrote an epigram attacking the grammarians who worked at the rival library in Alexandria and composed a polemical work against Socrates and Plato. The few extant fragments of Zenodotus of Mallos show that he was interested in exegetical and textual issues, mainly regarding the Homeric epics. I have also included a discussion of two other scholars who belonged to the same circle, Hermias and Tauriscus, each of whom is known to us by a single fragment; they worked respectively on Homer’s text and on grammatical theory. These personalities were not so influential as their teacher Crates or the leading grammarians of Alexandria; the study of their fragments is nevertheless illuminating, as this material broadens our perspective on literary scholarship in the Hellenistic period and provides useful information on the textual tradition of archaic and classical Greek texts.

Il libro presenta l'edizione critica, con introduzione e commento, dei frammenti di un gruppo di critici letterari e filologi del periodo ellenistico: Artemone di Pergamo, Erodico di Babilonia, Zenodoto di Mallo, Taurisco ed Ermia. Questi autori furono attivi presso la biblioteca di Pergamo tra il secondo e il primo secolo a.C. e furono seguaci del critico e filosofo Cratete di Mallo.