Aristarchus and the numerus versuum of Homer

Abstract

Bolling's demonstration that the numerus ve rsuum of our Homeric vulgate, when shorn of the lines weakly attested by the post-Aristarchcan, tradition, is identical with that of Arist a rchus 113S been strongly confirmed by recent papyrus publications. Some of these wcakJyattested lines are demonstrably survivals from prc-Aristarchean times which have returned to the text, but the vast majority of the remainder probably entered the text for the first time in the post-Aristarchean period. In any case, the pre-Aristarchean survivals among the nonAristarchean lines in our MSS. are themselves interpolations, siace an examination of Aristarchus's modus operandi shows that he omitted only lines which were absent from the vast majority of his MSS., and such lines would have been spurious. In pre-Aristarchean times reciters' forgetfulness, copyists' slips and excision would have led to the omission of some lines from some of Aristarchus's MSS., but not enough MSS. to induce him to omit the lines. The possibility of very occasional exceptions cannot be completely excluded, but the chances that any given non-Aristarchean line in our MSS. is genuine must be virtually nil, a fortiori where the line cannot be sho\vn to have been pre-Aristarchean. A detailed consideration of various manuscript omissions which create difficulties for the hypothesis that Aristarchus did not omit genuine lines has left that hypothesis essentially unshaken. There is widespread ignorance among Homerists about the significance of weak attestation by our MSS. This has had unfortunate consequences in certain discussions in the areas of formula-analysis, literary criticism and the Homeric Question. For example, the question of the authenticity of Ode 15. 113-19 is important for the question of the relationship between the Journey of Telemachus and the rest of the Odyssey, but the passage has usually been discussed with no appreciation of the Significance, and sometimes with no apparent awareness of the existence, of the strong external evidence against it. If further discussions in these areas are to be soundly based, they must be based on a text which excludes the non-Aristarchean lines. Show more