SUI FRAMMENTI DI SIMIA DI RODI, POETA ALESSANDRINO

Abstract

Simias of Rhodes (early third century BC) wrote epigrams and carmina figurata, which survived in full besides a series of fragments from epyllia, hymns and elegiac poems. In § 1 especially, but not exclusively, these fragments are examined in order to explain some peculiarities of Simias' work, which are typical of the Hellenistic poetry, such as the use of rare and difficult words, mixing of literary genres and dialectal forms, recourse to allegory for his own poems, attitude towards the previous authors (Homer, archaic epic, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides), which is caused by desire for imitation and by will to be different. In § 2 a commentary to Simias' fragmentary poems is given (the critical text by Frankel and Powell is used, but several passages of it are discussed). The surviving lines are enough to let us know something of Apollo and Gorgo content and plausibly suggest that the first poem (§ 2. 1) was a hymn contaminated particularly with epyllion (PMich III 159 is to be assigned to it), the second (§ 2. 2) an epyllion with some love elegy features (fr. 3a, 6-11 FRANKEL= fr. 6 POWELL is highly likely to be an excerpt from it). Very short fragments are remnants from hymns (§ 2. 3), from the elegy Months (§ 2. 4) and other unknown works (§ 2. 5).