Simonides and Horace on the Death of Achilles

Abstract

Abstract This essay is a speculative attempt 1 to link the recent Simoni des with Horace, at many removes from “direct evidence“: it is based on other people’s papyrological insight, and on a literary critical reasoning. In his initial publication, Parsons 1992a: 28 recorded West’s proposal to locate POxy 2327 fr. 5 immediately before 2327 fr. 6, which in turn overlaps with POxy 3965 fr. 1, these three fragments laid out with two others to form Simon. n W2 Parsons observes, first, that 2327 fr. 5 clearly speaks of the death of a hero, fr. 6 of the death of someone who dies at the hand of Apollo; second, that the physical evidence of the papyrus is compatible with but does not provide absolute proof of the relationship mentioned above between the two pieces; and third, that nonetheless other contexts can be imagined for fr. 5, even within the elegy on Plataea,to which certainly belongs fr. 11.6-45 W2. The “heroic death” which is compared to a tree cut down by woodcutters could be that of one of the combatants in Plataea2 rather than that of Achilles, as it would have to be if West’s collocation for fr. 5 is accepted.