Between Poets and Philologists

Fabio Fortes

doi:10.35699/1983-3636..20985

Abstract

Well known in the grammatical tradition as the formulator of the first treatise about the construction or syntax of the Greek language, Apollonius Dyscolus (2nd c. AD) devotes his Περὶ συντάχεως to a thorough examination of the Greek language, focusing mainly on its logical organization. However, the extensive reading of Apollonius’ work under this key has contributed to the overshadowing of the ‘philological’ dimension of this treatise perceived in the numerous analyses of constructions derived from poetic use, as well as in the quotations and allusions to poets and philologists within his work. Considering that the justification by Apollonius in his prologue was the “understanding of the writers and poets”, we ask ourselves: what role do poets and prose writers play in this study? We intend to show that Apollonius, despite never abandoning entirely the logic framework of his syntactic theory, puts in evidence a close reading of the Alexandrian philological tradition, both in the examples, quotations and allusions of poets and philologists, and in the procedure of analysis of Homer passages.

Highlights

Known in ancient grammatical tradition as the formulator of the first grammatical treatise to deal with the syntax of the Greek language, Apollonius Dyscolus (2nd century AD) is considered the principal model for the grammar of Priscian, whose grammatical work, written at the end of Late Antiquity, became the main reference for mediaeval and modern grammatical thought and teaching (Lallot, 2009; Schmidhauser, 2009)
Apollonius’ grammatical thinking is often associated with the idea that the syntax of the Greek language is regulated by logical principles which are attested in numerous examples of linguistic use
The defense of a logical functioning of language is an intellectual enterprise of considerable importance in Apollonius’ work, comprising an elegant doctrine on Greek syntax

Summary

Introduction

Known in ancient grammatical tradition as the formulator of the first grammatical treatise to deal with the syntax of the Greek language, Apollonius Dyscolus (2nd century AD) is considered the principal model for the grammar of Priscian, whose grammatical work, written at the end of Late Antiquity, became the main reference for mediaeval and modern grammatical thought and teaching (Lallot, 2009; Schmidhauser, 2009). The defense of a logical functioning of language is an intellectual enterprise of considerable importance in Apollonius’ work, comprising an elegant doctrine on Greek syntax. Considering Apollonius’ statement in the introduction to his work, that the study of syntax would be necessary to the “explanation of poems” (Synt., I, 2: exégesis tôn poiemáton), in this article we aim at illuminating the properly ‘philological’ dimension of Apollonius’ treatise, by commenting on the role played by the literary fragments quoted and on the canon that such quotations make up in the work as a whole. We follow here the edition of Lallot (1997).

Apollonius Dyscolus and Alexandrian Philology

Exempla and fragments

Examples produced ad hoc to explain a more advanced rule of language

The making of a model of language

Findings

Final remarks