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Two fragments of ‘Longinus’ in Photius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Rebekah M. Smith
Rebekah M. Smith
Affiliation:
Meredith College Raleigh, North Carolina
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Extract

My subject is two fragments of rhetorical commentary that appear both in an anonymous manuscript collection of quotations ‘From Longinus’ and (without attribution) in Photius' Bibliotheca. My purpose is to clarify some observations that have been made on them by modern scholars and thus offer a correction or two. The collection of separate quotations labelled κ τν Λογγνου in Laurentianus 24, Plut. 58, was given its title by a later hand different from that of the writer of the original. The grounds for that mistaken heading were that the name ‘Longinus’ appears in the second of the fragments. Aristotle and Theophrastus, however, are cited in other quotations, and most are anonymous, with as yet no particular resemblance found to wording in other rhetorical literature. Each begins with the word ὅτι. All are general remarks on subjects such as rhetorical tropes, style, and different types of speeches. They are, in effect, scholia without a text.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 1994 , pp. 525 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

1 Copied by Bandini for Ruhnken: see Spengel, C., ed., Rhetores Graeci (Leipzig, 1853), p. xxiiiGoogle Scholar. The fragments are most recently published by Prickard, A. O., Libellus de Sublimitate Dionysio Longino fere Adscriptus (Oxford, 1906).Google Scholar

2 His codices 259–68 form one version of ‘The Lives of the Ten Orators’. The other, once attributed to Plutarch, is part of the Moralia. On the relationship between the two, and on Photius' sources for the critical material contained in the Bibliotheca, see Treadgold, W., The Nature of the Bibliotheca of Photius (Washington, DC, 1980), pp. 37–51Google Scholar, and Smith, R., ‘Photius on the Ten Orators’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 33 (1992)Google Scholar. I offered an analytical review of the scholarship on this subject in McComb, R., The Tradition of the ‘Lives of the Ten Orators’ in Plutarch and Photius (Diss., University of North Carolina, 1991).Google Scholar

3 Ofenloch, E., Caecilii Calactini Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1907).Google Scholar

4 The text is Henry's, R.Photius: Bibliotheca, vol. 8 (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar. The translation is my own.

5 De Photi vitis decent oratorum (Diss., Bonn, 1877), p. 34Google Scholar. Comparing the (largely biographical) text shared by the two versions, he erroneously posited an older source common to Ps.-Plutarch and Photius. The critical commentary given in Photius but not the Moralia he believed to have originated with Caecilius (but see McComb, 67–85).

6 McComb, p. 51.

7 Longinus' opinion on the proem of Against Leptines – which is not to be found in any surviving Longinus – is reported briefly. The short note here that identifies Longinus is one of many similar identifications Photius offered throughout the Bibliotheca. Of these, 14 include the word ἤκμαζε, for example of Appian (57.17a13), Themistius (74.52a13), Pamphila (175.119b38), and Theopompus (176.120b30).

8 Ofenloch's aim was to be inclusive; he famously met and overshot his goal. Ballheimer attributed the bulk of the Lives of the Ten Orators to Caecilius. See Appendix.

9 Ofenloch included the last sentence of this passage, a summary statement that does not resemble the vocabulary or style of what precedes it, but does resemble Photius' language in his stylistic criticisms: with respect to vocabulary: πλς (73 occurrences in Photius' critical writings in the Bibliotheca), τε γρ κα, rare in classical Attic (but used by Photius 13 times), ἄξιος with an infinitive 3 times), and κατ with the accusative to describe an aspect of style (11 times); these together with the pattern of elements strung together in simple conjunction are characteristic of Photius' descriptions of literary style (McComb, p. 109).

10 See Henry on codex 265.

11 McComb, pp. 179–218. A good example of the rhetorical style of the general comments is 260.487a29–35:

δι κα πολλοῖς πολλς παρσχε τν κριτικν διατριβς μν καθ᾽ αυτος, διαϕωνας δ πρς λλλους, τν μν μβαθυνομνων τῇ μελτῃ κα διασκψει το λγου, τν δ κατ τ πιπλαιον τν νγνωσιν ποιουμνων. ἔστι δ᾽ εἰπεῖν κα διτι τοῖς μν ἔνεστι ϕσις εὖ ἔχουσα πρς τς κρσεις, τοὺς δ λαττομενος πιγινώσκει λγος

The alliteration, antitheses, and play of word order is typical of the ornate style Photius employs in formal, emotional, or self-conscious moments. Eleven of the words/phrases in this brief passage have a combined total of 44 parallels (McComb, pp. 183–9) in Photius' other prose works.

The more simple language in which Photius analyses style in the Bibliotheca (e.g. 487b26–8, τν δ λγων αὐτο τ εὐκρινς κα σαϕς κα μεμελετημνον πσι δλον, κα ὡς πανθεῖ αὐτοῖς οὐ μνον ἔμϕυτον λλ κα κομμωτικν κλλος) is consistent throughout the 130 or so evaluations of various writers (McComb, pp. 97–103). This sentence, like the others, begins with words that set off and announce the beginning of an evaluation, τν δ λγων, and describes qualities and effects of style rather than analysing structure or technique (McComb, p. 136).