Lycophron

Muse, pleure et inspire-moi un hymne tout nouveau pour Troie, un chant funèbre. Pour elle va sonner mon cri de deuil … » (Euripide, Troyennes, 511-515, traduction de N. Loraux) Le blâme des Grecs 1 , d'Achille 2 et d'Ajax 3 en particulier, est une isotopie qui parcourt et structure l'Alexandra de Lycophron. L'émettrice première de la prophétie, Alexandra/Cassandre, délivre un message qui comporte deux aspects : le blâme, mais aussi la louange. Sur l'équilibre entre ces deux pôles reposait le fonctionnement de la société indo-européenne 4 . Dans le domaine proprement grec, M. Detienne 5 a montré qu'à l'époque archaïque l'opposition entre épainos et mômos, articulée sur l'opposition entre aléthéia et léthè, était un élément structurant essentiel de la pensée grecque. Lycophron active dans l'Alexandra l'antithèse entre louange et blâme, qui est

The present paper focuses on the theme of Athena's sight, vs.
Ajax the Lesser's fault, enjoyed in Greek poetry from Alcaeus to Callimachus and Lycophron and such late epic authors as Quintus Smyrnaeus and Triphiodorus. Alexandrian poetry marks, in particular, a remarkable turning point in the reading of that myth. While Ajax drags Cassandra away from the statue of Athena, to which the maid had taken refuge, the goddess looks away as a disgust gesture - so as not to see the act of "hybris" by Ajax. The significant detail of Athena `withdrawing her eyes', by turning them away, during Cassandra's rape is meant to underscore all the expressive strength of sight. Through both the
glance and its negation, she keeps aloof from the impiety that is being committed in her presence, conveys her wrath and disapproval, and announces a terrible revenge.

(written in English): Introduction to, text & translation of and commentary on the 7 testimonia and 42 extant Greek fragments of Philostephanos (text and translation revised/elaborated on the basis of an earlier version by Alain Delattre and Dennis Pausch).
After a quite long time of elaboration and production this contribution has finally seen the light of day within the opus magnum of FGrHist IV.E.4 on Nov. 28th of 2024.

Peer-review. Articoli e note inviati per la pubblicazione alla rivista sono sottoposti -nella forma del doppio anonimato -a peer-review di due esperti, di cui uno almeno esterno al Comitato Scientifico o alla Direzione. Ogni due anni sarà pubblicato l'elenco dei revisori.

Ένα εγχείρημα ώστε να σταχυολογηθούν οι λίγες σωζόμενες πηγές για την αρχαία Εορδαία, αντλώντας από την αρχαία και βυζαντινή γραμματεία, τις επιγραφές και τα σχόλια. Επίκεντρο οι πόλεις και κώμες της Εορδαίας, η σύνδεση με ιστορικά γεγονότα, ανασκαφικά δεδομένα, αλλά και μια συνοπτική παράθεση πολιτών της περιοχής, επωνύμων και μη . Μια ιστορία μνήμης, πολεμώντας την λήθη. / Sources, place names and people from ancient Eordaea of Upper Macedonia

This paper examines the Vaticanus gr. 950 (XIV c.), a parchment codex containing epitomes of the Bibliotheca (Ps.-Apollodorus), the Lycophron commentary (John Tzetzes), and the Chiliades (John Tzetzes). In 1891 the authorship of the Bibliotheca epitome was attributed to John Tzetzes. While it has never been contested, a closer look at the relationship between the Bibliotheca, the Bibliotheca epitome, John Tzetzes, and the Tzetzes epitomes reveals that it was most likely the same epitomator who excerpted the Bibliotheca, the Lycophron commentary, and the Chiliades to create this rare specimen of mythographic compilation.
(https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?id=3288839&url=article)

This paper seeks to shed fresh light on the aesthetic and stylistic affiliations of Lycophron's Alexandra, approaching the poem from two distinct but complementary angles. First, it explores what can be gained by reading Lycophron's poem against the backdrop of Callimachus’ poetry. It contends that the Alexandra presents a radical and polemical departure from the Alexandrian's poetic programme, pointedly appropriating key Callimachean images while also countering Callimachus’ apparent dismissal of the ‘noisy’ tragic genre. Previous scholarship has noted links between the openings of the Aetia and of the Alexandra, but this article demonstrates that this relationship is only one part of a larger aesthetic divide between the two poets: by embracing the raucous acoustics of tragedy, Lycophron's poem offers a self-conscious and agonistic departure from Callimachus’ aesthetic preferences. Second, this article considers another way of conceiving the aesthetics of the poem beyond a Callimachean frame, highlighting how Lycophron pointedly engages with and evokes earlier Aristotelian literary criticism concerning the ‘frigid’ style: the Alexandra constructs its own independent literary history centred around the alleged name of its author, ‘Lycophron’. The article proposes that this traditional attribution is best understood as a pen name that signposts the poem's stylistic affiliations, aligning it not so much with the Ptolemaic playwright Lycophron of Chalcis but rather with Lycophron the sophist and a larger rhetorical tradition of stylistic frigidity. Ultimately, through these two approaches, the article highlights further aspects of the Alexandra's aesthetic diversity.

Le caractère métapoétique du prologue de l'Alexandra de Lycophron, est parfaitement reconnu par les philologues 1 , cependant les allusions à un autre prologue, fameux, celui des Aitia de Callimaque, n'ont pas été explicitées. Lycophron prend pourtant position dans les vers qui ouvrent l'Alexandra par rapport à deux notions clefs de la poétique callimachéenne : la question de la longueur et celle de l'enthousiasmos. Ces deux notions sont articulées dans le discours du messager (v. 1-15), la deuxième justifiant la première.

1 L'Alexandra de Lycophron, un drame en cinq actes : analyse métrique et questions de structure * I-La division en cinq actes. La structure de ce poème de Lycophron a été abondamment discutée et le point de vue d'André Hurst 1 semble pouvoir résumer l'opinion la plus communément partagée : « la construction du tout apparaît clairement » et « c'est donc son usage de la parole, et non sa construction qui fait la réputation d'obscurité de l'Alexandra ». Toutefois, depuis la publication en 1958 du Dyscolos de Ménandre, les progrès accomplis dans la compréhension de la structure des pièces comiques, mais aussi des tragédies, permettent peut-être d'apporter un nouvel élément à ce dossier. En effet, la découverte de la pièce de Ménandre, qui se compose de cinq actes délimités par la quadruple mention XOROU, vint apporter une confirmation à l'affirmation de Varron qui attribuait aux poètes de la Nouvelle Comédie l'usage de cette division. 2 Le théâtre hellénistique ne subsiste cependant que sous forme de fragments souvent très succincts et nous ne pouvons pas percevoir ce qu'il advint de cette structure en cinq actes au III e siècle dans le monde grec. L'Alexandra de Lycophron, qui se compose de 1474 trimètres iambiques, est le seul poème dramatique conservé dans son intégralité et, quelle que soit l'hypothèse de datation que l'on adopte, 3 pourrait refléter les changements que laisse supposer le traitement des autres genres poétiques par les poètes hellénistiques. 4

The 2nd  century BC brought a large scale historical confrontation between the Greeks and Macedonians and the Orientals. The Egyptians raised arms against their Greek lords, and were followed by the Jewish Maccabees, the Cilicians, Elamites and Parthians in the Seleucid kingdom. The national liberation movements basing on the offended religious feelings were sometimes attended  by the social revolutions, which also attracted many of the Greeks, as happened with the utopian kingdom of Aristonikos’ Heliopolis or in Egypt. Those popular Oriental movements brought a harvest in the shape of the widely circulating anonymous and influential oracular poetry and prose, a literary phenomenon of its own. This period of turmoil also brought an unexpected fruit in the learned Alexandrian poem, which can in some of its aspects be interpreted in the light of the Eastern prophetic writings

La corrispondenza tra il sacrificio di Polissena e quello di Ifigenia, già riscontrabile negli autori pre-ellenistici, è particolarmente evidente nell’Alessandra di Licofrone. I versi relativi al sacrificio della figlia di Priamo (323-329), infatti, sono in stretto rapporto con la sezione incentrata su Ifigenia (vv. 183-199). Le due unità narrative sono indubbiamente accostate. Lo dimostrano soprattutto le numerose riprese lessicali e concettuali, i richiami evocativi, e i comuni riferimenti alla Beozia, (che altrimenti sarebbero di difficile spiegazione). La stretta analogia fra i due episodi ha anche dato luogo ad alcuni dubbi esegetici, come testimoniano gli scoli licofronei.

In Italian. Introduction, Greek text with Italian translation and commentary of the fragments of the so-called Glossographi, pre-Aristarchean interpreters of Homeric glosses, and of Lycophron of Chalcis as a diorthotes of Aristophanes’ comedies. With extensive bibliography and indexes.

Μια αναψηλάφηση ενός ανάγλυφου ναΐσκου της Μητέρας των Μεγάλων Θεών από την Αμφίπολη, φιλοτεχνημένου στα χρόνια της καθίδρυσης του ιερού μνημείου του Καστά κατά τον 4ο π.Χ. αιώνα. Αναζητώντας τους Μεγάλους Θεούς, την ταυτότητα της Μητρός, την ερμηνεία του λέοντος και της μεσόμφαλου φιάλης, υπό το πρίσμα κραταιών ελληνικών παραδόσεων, ως προς την αρχαία θεολογία, κοσμογονία και ζωογονία. Τονίζοντας βασικά σημεία και παραλληλισμούς των Καβείρων και φωτίζοντας τον κομβικό ρόλο του Ερμού Καδμίλου, της Εκάτης και των Κορυβάντων.

Chrysalus' overdetermined assertion that he will set up his master as a Priam to be bought contains a bilingual wordplay on Priamus/Πρίαμος and πρίαμαι. The wordplay is paralleled in learned etymologies of Priam's name from his ransom by Hesione, and in an ad hoc pun in Diphilus' Emporos.

Il mio lavoro trae ispirazione da un’esigenza di riscoperta di un poeta relegato per secoli a un ruolo marginale a causa del confronto, spesso non lusinghiero, con la poesia di Callimaco e dei grandi poeti del passato, da Omero ad Euripide.

Didymus’ commentaries on the comic playwrights and his Comic Vocabulary responded to the interests of the readership of Attic Comedy primarily in two ways: by summarising the opinions of previous scholars and by offering a wide typological range of explanations, useful also to less specialised readers. Although the grammarian’s exegesis of comedy is now preserved only through quotations (mainly in the scholia to Aristophanes), it is still possible to identify the main features and interests of Didymus’ interpretive work and highlight its relevance for both ancient and contemporary readers of Greek comedy.

Giuseppe Giangrande conclut la première partie de son essai polémique intitulé L'humour des Alexandrins par deux remarques d'ordre méthodologique : 1) pour comprendre l'humour des poètes hellénistiques, il faut connaître les types de jeux qui sont caractéristiques de cet humour, par exemple le type « à intégration mentale ».

This paper focuses on the analysis of the Lycophronean references in two passages from the section of the Dionysiaca narrating Dionysus’ youth, i.e. IX 200-205 and XI 171-174. Nonnus draws from Lycophron a word (in the first case) and an expression (in the second)  dealing  with  Telephus’  myth,  as  he  wants  to  highlight  Dionysus’  salvific role through some prophetic allusions. Thus, the Panopolitan becomes a sort of prophet himself.  It  is  then  possible  to  observe  that  he  is  interested  not  in  the  epic  element of the Alexandra, but, rather, in its oracular element, which is embedded in the poem as part of its variety (ποικιλία).

A "seção Romana" da Alexandra, de Lícofron, é uma passagem de 56 versos que a profetiza prevê um futuro grandioso para os descendentes e, ao contrário, um funesto porvir aos próprios aqueus. A passagem é tão conveniente à perspectiva da Eneida, que há quem creia tratar-se de interpolação,  entre outros motivos pelo fato de ser a primeira intersecção entre o mito de Eneias e o de Rômulo e Remo. A tradução dos trímetros jâmbicos foi  feita em dodecassílabos acentuados na sexta sílaba, mantendo-se anacolutos, hipérbatos, cavalgamentos, que produzem a já notória estranheza da sintaxe do poema. Procuro manter por compensação a recorrências sonoras e a logopeia.

Il personaggio di Laodice, definita nell'Iliade la più bella delle figlie di Priamor, si pone al centro di una complessa polemica mitologica, frutto della coesistenza di diverse varianti, alcune delle quali sono attestate per noi solo occasionalmente, a causa delle gravissime perdite subite dalla tradizione letteraria antica. Secondo la versione troiana, quella più nota, mentre Troia brucia tra le fiamme, la terra si apre, inghiottendo interamente l'eroina. Questa forma del racconto, attestata da Licofrone (314-322) e nota allo Pseudo-Apollodoro (Epit. 5.25), ricomparve in età tarda presso Quinto Smirneo ( I 3.44-55 1) e Trifiodoro (660-663). Accanto alla versione troiana, in età ellenistica, con Licofrone (494-503)' Euforione (fr.63 van Groningen = 58 Powell) e Partenio (Narr. am' 16),è testimoniata anche un'altra variantequesta volta a sfondo erotico -, che non contraddice quella precedente, ma anzi, nel caso di Licofrone, I'arricchisce. Secondo questa variante, sviluppatasi probabilmente in ambiente attico, in quanto riconducibile alla saga teseide, Laodice risulta coinvolta in una vicenda amorosa con Acamante, il figlio di Teseo, dal quale nascerà un figlio, Munito, allevato nella segretezza. Dalle fonti pervenuteci conosciamo anche un'altra versione attica, quella di una Laodice aichmalotis, attestata nelle arti figurative attraverso Polignoto, stando a quanto narrano Plutarco (Cim.4.6) e Pausania (10-26.7).

Le propos de notre article est d'analyser l'exercice du blâme et de la louange dans l'Alexandra de Lycophron à travers le prisme de la représentation de la mort et de l'avenir post mortem de quelques personnages clefs : Agamemnon, Ajax et Hector.

Cet article propose de considérer Cassandre en tant que figure de lectrice dans l’Agamemnon d’Eschyle et le poème Alexandra de Lycophron. En retournant vers ces tragédies antiques, il est possible de penser, dès celles-ci, une conceptualisation du rôle de la lectrice dans une simultanéité entre dire et lire, redonnant à Cassandre une puissance langagière dont elle semble, en apparence, dépourvue.

This article proposes to consider the figure of Cassandra as a reader figure in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Lycophron’s poem Alexandra. By returning to these ancient tragedies, this essay offers a conceptualization of the role of the reader in a simultaneity between saying and reading, thus giving back to Cassandra the potency of language of which she seems, in appearance, to be deprived.