BMCR 2009.05.41: Floridi on Maltomini, Tradizione antologica dell'epigramma greco: le sillogi minori di eta bizantina e umanistica. Pleiadi 9

Francesca Maltomini, Tradizione antologica dell'epigramma greco: le
sillogi minori di eta\ bizantina e umanistica. Pleiadi 9.  Roma:
Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2008.  Pp. 214.  ISBN 9788884984807.
EUR 30.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Lucia Floridi, Center for Hellenic Studies
([email protected])
Word count:  2123 words
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In addition to the Palatine (AP) and Planudean Anthology (APl), our
knowledge of Greek epigram rests on several minor collections, the
so-called 'syllogae minores', to which only occasional scholarly
attention has been devoted, and always as a consequence of the interest
in the two major compilations. Maltomini intends to fill in this gap,
with a twofold purpose: (1) to test whether the assumption[[1]] that
the syllogae derive from a common source, usually identified with the
anthology assembled by Cephalas in the first half of the tenth century,
is correct, or whether it is possible to single out different branches
of transmission; (2) to assess the relationship between the manuscripts
that preserve each collection, and evaluate the position of each
compilation within the tradition, with the aim of establishing which of
the syllogae are to be included in an apparatus of the Greek Anthology
as autonomous contributors to the paradosis and which are to be
excluded as dependent on known sources.

Maltomini's careful and lucid investigation, based upon a fresh
collation of the manuscripts containing the syllogae, bears important
fruit, sometimes confirming common opinions with new evidence,
sometimes -- and more importantly -- challenging and amending
well-established cliche/s.

Maltomini offers a readable introduction, which clearly states the
purpose of the investigation and provides a useful survey of scholarly
works on the topic (pp. 11-27); ten chapters devoted to the syllogae
minores (pp. 29-178); conclusions (pp. 179-187); an appendix,
undertaking the vexata quaestio of the original appearance of book XIV
of the Greek Anthology in Cephalas' collection (pp. 189-195); a
comprehensive list of epigrams (and other poems) contained in the
syllogae minores (pp. 197-204), which will prove particuarly useful for
those interested in tracing the fortunes of a single poem, or for
editors of single books/authors of the Greek Anthology; a bibliography
(pp. 205-211); and an index of the manuscripts (pp. 213-214).
One regrets that in the list of the epigrams the authorial lemma -- in
the few cases in which it exists -- is not reported. Also a general
index would have maybe been useful, but this concern is somewhat made
up for by the clear arrangement of the book, which greatly assists the
reader's exploration into specific questions.

A particular important contribution is Maltomini's analysis of the
Sylloge Euphemiana (E), so called from the presence in it of two poems
which an unknown author, born in Hypata in Thessaly but resident in
Constantinople during the reign of Leo VI the Wise (886-912), dedicates
to a certain Euphemius. The anonymous author is usually supposed to be
the compiler of a Byzantine collection from which our excerpts would
derive, and this collection is considered to be a terminus ante quem
for the dating of Cephalas' anthology. Maltomini now shows the
flimsiness of this assumption. Par. gr. 2720 (R), from which Maltomini
demonstrates the other manuscripts preserving E derive, is constituted
of two epigrammatic series originally independent and very different
from each other. The two poems for Euphemius are in the second half
(E2), together with miscellaneous poetic material which is likely to
have been ex tempore assembled by whoever was writing the manuscript.
The second series thus says nothing about the origin of the first half
(E1), and the very denomination of Sylloge Euphemiana starts to look
shaky. As a consequence, not only can E not be used as chronological
evidence for the dating of Cephalas; we are not actually even able to
say whether the collection for Euphemius was an epigrammatic anthology
at all: it could have simply been a collection of various kinds of
poetry, of which we are likely to have nothing else but the two
introductory poems, mixed together with other miscellaneous materials.

Also important is the discovery of two new manuscripts containing the
Sylloge L, the small epigrammatic collection preserved in the
celebrated codex Laurentianus 32.16 compiled by Planudes, an excerpt of
which was already identified by Gallavotti[[2]] in Vat. Barb. 4 (B). In
L the epigrammatic collection is divided into two parts (L1 and L2):
Maltomini has now recognized that a sequence of L1 appears in Vat. Urb.
gr. 125 (U), a miscellaneous XIII-XIV century codex written by several
hands, including Planudes' own in the epigram section, and that an
excerpt of L2 occurs in Par. gr. 1409 (P), a XIV century manuscript.
This is not only an important addition per   se, but also a reminder of
how much epigrammatic material possibly remains still hidden in
miscellaneous manuscripts, which, once discovered, would be likely to
modify our very view of the transmission of the Greek Anthology
throughout the Byzantine and Humanistic periods.

Some small collections, such as Sylloge T and Sylloge H -- occasionally
and inconsistently mentioned by editors -- are here fully analyzed for
the first time. The relationship among the five manuscripts which
preserve H is not certain, and Maltomini carefully shows the different
possibilities, basically configuring two options. I would be more
confident than she, however, that the second one can be dismissed,
since it would imply -- as Maltomini herself notes (p. 149) -- that two
of the manuscripts, not linked by any relationship and not deriving
from the same common post-archetype source, have independently selected
the very same poems from a wider collection.

Also when previous opinions are confirmed, Maltomini's acute and
careful investigation provides scholars with a more reliable tool to
evaluate the actual content of the syllogae and the characteristics of
the manuscripts bearing them: for the so-called Sylloge Parisina, for
instance, it is confirmed that B (Par. gr. 1630), a XIV century
manuscript, is essentially a rearranged excerpt from SS (Par. suppl.
gr. 352), of the XIII century, and also that the sylloge, as a whole,
basically depends on Cephalas' collection; but scholars have now a
reliable description of the content of the collection, and several
errors occurring in previous studies are corrected, including small but
important details (at p. 43 n. 24, e.g., Maltomini rectifies a mistake
occurring both in Beckby's and Aubreton-Buffie\re's apparatus as
regards the transmission of AP 12.237, which is not, as they claim,
linked to the preceding one -- AP 12.235 -- but clearly separated from
it, and doesn't lack two lines, due to a saut du me^me au me^me. The
missing lines were actually in the manuscript, but are now lost in a
material lacuna;[[3]] Beckby and Aubreton-Buffie\re both likely derive
the incorrect statement from Cramer and Sternbach,[[4]] where the same
claim is made. This is a good example of the kind of mistakes that
occur in modern editions of the Anthology, due to a lack of modern
editions of the syllogae minores).

As far as Appendix Barberino-Vaticana (ABV) is concerned, Maltomini
confirms that Par. suppl. gr. 1199 (P) and Vat. gr. 240 (V) are close
to, but not directly derived from, Vat. Barb. gr. 123 (B); also the
assumption that the collection was intended as a supplement to APl,
since almost all of its epigrams are erotic and missing from APl, is
confirmed, with new evidence (it is characteristic of Maltomini's
philological acumen not to take anything for granted and not to be
influenced by previous scholarship). Maltomini interestingly remarks
that in the West, between the XV and XVI century, i.e. before the
Palatine manuscript (P) came to light, it was possible to find epigrams
which were not in Planudes' anthology. The question is only ligtly
touched upon by Maltomini, but her remark could prompt further
investigation on the intricate question of the circulation of P in the
West before its reappearance in Heidelberg at the beginning of the XVII
century. The presence in the West of un-planudean materials before that
date seems to be confirmed also by smaller syllogae such as I, which
Maltomini shows to derive from a branch of the Cephalan tradition close
to but independent of AP.

Maltomini basically confirms Basson's and Cameron's theory of a
derivation of the syllogae minores from Cephalas; as far as their
relevance for the constitutio textus is concerned, Maltomini concludes
that S, L1, E1, ABV, <greek>Sp</greek>, I, H are to be taken into
account as well as the two major anthologies, while T,
<greek>S</greek>, F, O, K, G are to be excluded because they depend on
known sources. Editors interested in documenting the fortune of the
poems, however, could include them in their apparatus, as they usually
do with readings from the apographs of P, which are not autonomous
contributors to the paradosis, but are culturally important for the
scholarly conjectures they contain and the interest in the Anthology
they document.

In the 'Appendice', Maltomini argues that the syllogae minores bear new
evidence in favor of the view that book XIV of the Greek Anthology -- a
collection of riddles, oracles, and arithmetical problems in rather
haphazard combination -- was not originally in Cephalas. Her discussion
is sensible and well-reasoned, but her conclusion of a 'mixed' origin
for the book doesn't seem to me entirely convincing: the very meager
number of epigrams of book XIV included in the syllogae cautions
against any conclusion based on them. The presence of an introductory
lemma similar to the ones opening the other books of the Anthology, and
likely to be derived from Cephalas, is still, in my view, a strong
argument for the original existence of the book in Cephalas, as pointed
out by Cameron, The Greek Anthology..., pp. 136-137.

Maltomini's investigation holds its methodological warnings: her
analysis of how the compilers of the collections worked (see, for
instance, the union of the two originally separated series in E in two
later copies made by Bartolomeo Comparini) evidences their freedom in
selecting, cutting, and rearranging materials from their sources. Texts
of this type are less protected against textual variation than more
formalized genres: it can never be stressed enough that our perception
of epigrams depends on the choice made by anthologists, which is, in
turn, influenced by personal taste and/or by social and cultural
factors (Maltomini remarks, for instance, that most of the syllogae
show a predilection for epigrams with a 'moral' content, able to
provoke various kinds of thoughts, which is hardly surprising
considering the use of epigrams in schools and the increasing tendency
to assimiliate them to gnomic literature throughout the Humanistic
era).

It is also interesting that, in certain cases, when thematic series are
recognizable, epigrams are juxtaposed according to different criteria
from those used by Cephalas: epigrams which are, according to Cephalas,
'epideictic', for example, occur in 'skoptic' series, and so forth.
Scholars are aware of how generic labels are to be handled with
caution, but the actual possibility of documenting a different
collocation of epigrams in anthologies in the Humanistic era from the
one favoured by Cephalas is a further, important reminder of how our
perception of genre is conditioned by Byzantine classifications.

The book is well typeset and produced, and the bibliography is
satisfactory. Just a few quibbles:

p. 126 n. 26: in discussing the ascription to Killacter in ABV of AP
5.31, against the (likely right) one to Antipater of Thessalonika in
AP, one would have expected to find a mention of L. Argentieri, Gli
epigrammi degli Antipatri (Bari 2003) pp. 175-176, in addition to the
classical Gow-Page, GP II, p. 108.

p. 104: in commenting on the ascription of AP 11.294 to Lucian in
<greek>Sp</greek>, against the one to Lucillius of AP, Maltomini
rightly observes that the value of the divergence is somewhat weakened
by the fact that the names of the two epigrammatists are very similar.
AP and APl actually document a common confusion of lemmata when the two
names are involved, due to paleographical similarity, as first pointed
out by W. Engel, De quibusdam anthologiae Graecae epigrammatis
commentatio (Elberfeldae 1875) p. 9, and some scholars went so far as
to conclude that none of the epigrams given to Lucian in the Anthology
are really his;[[5]] whatever one thinks of this, the difference in
ascription, when Lucian and Lucillius are involved, is hardly telling.

Information collected by Maltomini regarding place and time of
compilation of each collection, identity of scribes/compilers, choice
of epigrammatic genres, juxtaposition of epigrams to other types of
texts (especially gnomic and moral literature), is important from the
general point of view of cultural history, and offers a solid
foundation on which to build future studies of the history of modern
reception of Greek epigram.

The book will also give an impulse to revaluate the syllogae minores as
a whole: modern editions of these minor collections are badly needed,
especially considering that some of them contain much un-Cephalan
material. A new edition of the Sylloge Parisina, for instance, with its
sixteen epigrams absent from both AP and APl, for which Cougny, with
all its limits, is still basically the reference edition, would be
particularly welcome.


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Notes:


1.   Usually acknowledged by scholars after J. Basson, De Cephala et
Planude syllogisque minoribus (Berlin 1917), and the most recent
re-statement by A. Cameron, The Greek Anthology from Meleager to
Planudes (Oxford 1993).

2.   C. Gallavotti, Planudea, in "BollClass" 7, 1959, pp. 49-50.

3.   As I had the chance to verify independently myself: cfr. L.
Floridi, Stratone di Sardi Epigrammi (Alessandria 2007) p. 356 n. 218.

4.   J. A. Cramer, Anecdota Graeca e codd manuscriptis Bibliothecae
Regiae Parisiensis, IV (Oxonii 1841) p. 385; L. Sternbach, Anthologiae
Planudeae Appendix Barberino-Vaticana (Lipsiae 1890) p. 12.

5.   G. Setti, Gli epigrammi di Luciano (Torino 1892).

It is my pleasure to thank Elton Barker for checking my English.