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Longinus, the ‘Philological Discourses’, and the Essay ‘On the Sublime’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M.J. Boyd
M.J. Boyd
Affiliation:
The Queen's University of Belfast
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Extract

It has long been known that two medieval scholiasts, one of them called John of Sicily, the other anonymous, commenting on a passage of Hermogenes' , ascribe what looks like a passage of the de Sublimitate to ‘Longinus’. On the assumption, however, that the ‘Longinus’ referred to must be Cassius Longinus, the third-century rhetorician, scholars have tended to minimize the vweight of the evidence and attempted to explain it away. For it is now established that the de Sublimitate must date from the first century A.D. Yet, apart from the identity of ‘Longinus’, the evidence of the scholiasts looks clear and specific.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 1-2 , January 1957 , pp. 39 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1957

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References

page 39 note 1 See § II below.

page 39 note 2 A p. 247. 13 Rabe.

page 39 note 3 Bursian, , Der Rhetor Menandros, 13, n. 1.Google Scholar John of Sicily is to be distinguished from the eleventh-century John Doxopatres (or Doxa-patres), who criticizes him (Rabe, , Prolegomenon Sylloge, li f., cxiii).Google Scholar

page 39 note 4 Walz, , Rh. Gr. vi. 225. 9 ff.Google Scholar Walz bases his text on the fifteenth-century Par. Fal-coneti 10173 (P). The text printed above is based on a collation of Walz's text with Laur. 57. 5 (L), of the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

page 40 note 1 Walz, , Rh. Gr. vii. 963 fGoogle Scholar. Par. 2977 is of the eleventh century, Par. 1983 of the tenth or eleventh. Kaibel, (Hermes, xxxiv (1899), 112 ff.), reading in 1.6 of Schol. Anon., assumes that is intended to be a verbal quotation from Longinus. If so, the manner of its introduction would be inept.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 Rabe, , op. cit. xxii f.Google Scholar

page 40 note 3 Brinkmann, , Rhein. Mus. lxi (1906), 123.Google Scholar

page 40 note 4 There is similar material in an Aristophanes-scholium in Suidas

page 40 note 5 There is a comparable situation in Aulus Gellius 3. 3. 14, where, six lines after an explicit quotation from Varro's de Comoediis Plautinis, Gellius says that, according to Varro, Plautus, while working in a mill, composed the Saturio and the Addictus et tertiam quondam, cuius nunc mihi nomen non subpetit.

page 41 note 1 Apparently ‘;Longinus’ explained Aristophanes' criticism in some detail, for in lines 9 and 10 of Schol. Anon, and the corresponding expression in 1. 9 of John have little or no rele vance to oroptpaKa, the word with which the scholiasts are immediately concerned, and presumably come from ‘Longinus’.

page 41 note 2 Plutarch also refers to Sophocles' parodies of Aeschylus: (Mor. 79 B).

page 41 note 3 Groningen, van, Mnemosyne, s. iv, vol. 5 (1952) 214 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 41 note 4 For this common, but little-noted, form of chiasmus, cf. de Sublimitate 32. 7 (solem … lunasque… luna…sol…), Aen. 6. 756–807; Cicero, de off. 1. 38; Seneca, de beneficiis 4. 8. 3; Tertullian, Apol. 7 (nee quis-quam dicit verbi gratia, Hoc Romae aiunt factum, out, Fama est ilium provinciam sortitum, sed Sortitus est Me provinciam, et, Hoc factum est Romae); ibid. 10 (quis enim rum caelum ac terram matrem ac patrem venerationis et honoris gratia appellet?).

page 41 note 5 Cf., e.g., Plautus, Stick. 767 (age, iam infla buccas).

page 41 note 6 There are further resemblances: the word occurs in de Subl. 3. 1 and in the same section (cf. in John and in Schol. Anon.)..

page 41 note 7 In his second edition of the de Sublimitate, PP. 5f.

page 42 note 1 Norden in his posthumous ‘Das Genesiszität in der Schrift vom Erhabenen’ (Abh. Akad. Berlin: Klassefür Sprachen, etc. 1954, i, pp. 9 ff.), to which my attention was drawn by Dr. S. Weinstock; Rostagni in centhe introd. to his ed. (1947); Kaibel, , Hermes, xxxiv (1899), 107 ff.Google Scholar; Roberts, Rhys, Phil. Q., vii (1928), 209 ff.Google Scholar and in his edition; Aulitzky, R.E. xiii. 1415 ff. Rostagni suggested that the author may have been the Hermagoras to whom Quintilian refers in 3. 1. 18: Theodorus, cuius auditorem Hermagoran sunt qui viderint. I. Lana (Quintiliano, II Sublime e gli Esercizi Preparatori di Elio Teone, 1951) revives the suggestion that the author was Aelius Theon, whom he dates not later than the first half of the first centhe tury A.D.; but, apart from the fact that the author of the de Sublimitate and Theon both wrote works on Xenophon, the only substantial argument which Lana produces for their identity is the inadequate one of similarities between the de Sublimitate and the extant Προγυμνάσματα of Theon.

page 43 note 1 Norden, whose punctuation I have followed, argues, , op.cit. (esp.pp.18 f.Google Scholar), that the author derives his knowledge of the bible from Philo; cf. Mutschmann, , Hermes, lii (1917), 161 ff.Google Scholar; Roberts, Rhys, Phil. Q. vii (1928), 211 ff.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 Walz, , Rh. Gr. vi. 211, 12 ffGoogle Scholar. is Walz's reading: L seems to have , which might be a corruption for , which is the form in the Septuagint version of Genesis i. 3 and i. 6. in the de Sublimitate presumably represents . of the Septuagint. John's even more telescoped version of the passage may be the result of an uneasy hesitation between the version of the Septuagint and that of the de Sublimitate. There is no appropriate allusion to Moses in the de Elocutione () which has come down under the name of Demetrius of Phaleron of the third century B.C., but which is now ascribed to the first century A.D. But there may well have been such an allusion in some other work considered to be his: he was credited with having written on Jewish antiquity-presumably by a confusion with the Jew Demetrius, who wrote in Greek on that subject at the end of the third century B.C.; he was also credited with having inspired the translation of the Septuagint (Josephus, , adv. Apionem i. 23. 218Google Scholar; Wehrli, , Demetrios von Phaleron, frgs. 66, 201; Aristeae ad Philo-cratem Ep. 9 ff.; Josephus, Arch. Iud. 12. 14 ff.).Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 Lachares, ap. Graeven, Hermes, xxx (1895), 292Google Scholar ( Graeven: ). Cf. ibid. 294. 14 f. .

page 44 note 2 Porphyry, , de Vita Plotini 14.Google Scholar

page 44 note 3 Vide n.6.

page 44 note 4 The partially extant , which does not appear in Suidas' list either, was seemingly only a slight work. It is ascribed to by John ofSicily (Walz, vi. 119. 22 ff.), who quotes a passage from it (cf. Walz, ix. 567; Maximus Planudes, ibid. v. 451. 12 ff.). At the beginning of the epitome of it, the author is referred to as , cf. Porphyry, de Vita Plotini 20, where Cassius Longinus is .

page 44 note 5 ii. 2. 890; cf. Nuchelmans, G.R.F., Studien über etc. (Diss. Nymegen, 1950).76 f.Google Scholar

page 44 note 6 John of Sicily in Walz, , vi. 119Google Scholar. 23 (cf. Maximus Planudes, ibid. v. 451. 12); Schol.Anon., ibid. vii. 982. 17.

page 44 note 7 Proclus, in Tim. 21 A (i, p. 86. 24 f. Diehl).

page 44 note 8 Proclus, in Tim. 17A (i, p. 14. 7 f. Diehl) (this is the first mention of Longinus in Proclus' commen tary); Suidas, s.vv. Photius, , Bibl. cod. 265, p. 492; cf. Suidas, s.vv. ; Sopater, Proleg. in Aristid. 3, p. 741. 12 D; Jerome, Ep. 95.Google Scholar

page 44 note 9 Flavius Vopiscus, Aurelian 30. 3: de Longino philosopho; Suidas:

page 45 note 1 ad Verg. Eel. 6. 31, p. 336 Hagen.

page 45 note 2 When Aulus Gellius (2. 18. 7) says that Varro called his satires Menippeae, he is presumably referring to a description, not a title.

page 45 note 3 Nuchelmans, , op. cit. 75 ff.Google Scholar

page 45 note 4 Pliny, Ep. 3.5.5; Aulus Gellius 9. 16. 2.

page 45 note 5 Plutarch, de recta rat.aud. 44E; Vit. Anton, c. 23.

page 45 note 6 Suidas, s.v. ; Eusebius, Praep.Ev.10.3.

page 45 note 7 John of Sicily ap. Walz, vi. 225 (supra, p. 39); cf. Walz, vi. 95. 2 subscripts Cod. Laur. Apoll. Rhod. ; Schol. Anon. ap. Walz,

page 46 note 1 Xenophon, Mem. 1. 2. 6; Aelian, V.H. 3.19.

page 46 note 2 Cicero, ad Att. 13. 12. 3; 13. 52. 2; 15. 15.2; Vitruvius, de Arch. 6, pref. 4 (philologis etphilotechinis rebus … me deletions).

page 46 note 3 Vide supra, pp. 41 f. and p. 44 n. 1.

page 46 note 4 Proscpographia Imp.Rom. (Groag and Stein), C 499 ff.; R.E. s.w.Cassius and Longinus.

page 46 note 5 Varro, R.R. 1. 1. 10; Prosopographia (op. cit.) D 107; Schulze, Lat. Eigennamen 152, n. 3; 121. The author of the de Sublimitate considered himself a Greek, but knew Latin (12. 4).