Ancient Scholarship and Grammar Volume 4 (Archetypes, Concepts and Contexts) || Homeric Commentaries...

Homeric Commentaries on Papyrus: A Survey

John Lundon

If the numerous and sometimes extensive fragments of secondary litera-ture unearthed over the last few centuries are anything to go by, readers of Homer in the capitals, towns and villages of Graeco-Roman Egypt were well provided with books for the understanding and appreciation of the poet. Such texts, often referred to as Homerica, can be distin-guished into several types.1 There are sequential glossaries (scholia minora) and alphabetical lexica, continuous paraphrases and book summaries (hypotheseis), commentaries (hypomnemata), both general and mytho-graphic (Mythographus Homericus), as well as learned monographic trea-tises (syngrammata). Certain combinations are also attested, such as book summaries and glossaries,2 and of course not everything that has been found can be conveniently squeezed into one of these categories.3 Within the general types, moreover, there is a degree of variation.4

In what follows, I shall be concerned with one of these types: the independent commentary.5 After a discussion of some general questions

Papyrological abbreviations and sigla are in accordance with Oates / Bagnall /

Clackson / OBrien / Sosin / Wilfong / Worp 2008. 1 Cf. Montanari 1984, 12538 and 1988, 33744. 2 Scholia minora with hypotheseis: P.Achm. 2, P.Oxy. XLIV 3159, P.Oxy. XLIV

3160 + P.Strasb. inv. Gr. 1401, P.Oxy. LVI 3833. Whether the summary of Il-iad 1 in P.Oxy. LXXI 4817 was followed by a glossary cannot be determined.

3 Several of the texts discussed by van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 99195 (P.Strasb. inv. Gr. 2374, P.Hamb. II 136, P.Jena inv. 659r, P.Bryn Mawr 2 and P.Mich. inv. 4832c) present problems of classification, due, however, at least in part to their fragmentary state of preservation.

4 The class of scholia minora ranges from full-scale glossaries to one or more books of the poems (e.g. P.Amh. II 18; P.Aphrod.Lit. II = Fournet 1999, vol. 1, 87173; P.Kln inv. 2281 = Henrichs 1971, 22952; P.Mich. inv. 2720 = Schwendner 1988, 3198) to list of words from a particular passage such as some of the school texts catalogued by Cribiore 1991988, I, 253258 (Nos. 323343).

5 In addition to fragments of independent commentaries, Erbse also included in his edition of the scholia to the Iliad the marginal annotations found in the fol-

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John Lundon 160

and especially problems of identification, I go on to consider a few of the most significant fragments in slightly more detail.6 Since the bulk of the critical and exegetical scholia transmitted in the margins of the me-dieval manuscripts ultimately derives from such commentaries, these are apt, even in their incomplete state, to shed considerable light on the origins and development of the scholarly tradition.7

The fragments of commentaries on Homer span six centuries, rang-ing from the third century BC to the third or fourth century AD, or, in historico-political terms, from the early Ptolemaic age (30530 BC) to the threshold of the Byzantine period (AD 284641). There is an ex-pected peak in the prosperous and literate second century AD.8 As far as their provenance is concerned, the metropolis Oxyrhynchus comes off best.9 That is of course in part a matter of chance, but it is nonetheless strongly suggestive of a community of scholars in residence there with close ties to the Museum in Alexandria.10

When the fragments of uncertain attribution are left out of account, actual commentaries on Homer, though well represented, turn out to be

lowing papyri: P.Hawara (= Pap. I: Erbse 19691988, I, XXXIVXXXV and 163), P.Oxy. III 445 (= Pap. IV: Erbse 19691988, I, XXXVIIXXXVIII and 19691988, II, 123), P.Kln I 34 (= Pap. VIIIa: Erbse 19691988, III, 555556), P.Oxy. IV 685 (= Pap. XI: Erbse 19691988, I, XLI and 19691988, IV, 326) and P.Lond.Lit. 27 (= Pap. XIII: Erbse 19691988, I, XLIIXLIII and 19691988, V, 363364). The marginalia in these and other Homeric papyri are now conveniently collected in McNamee 2007, 26986. Though perhaps originally drawn from commentaries, these annotations and those in other Homeric papyri do not constitute hypomnemata in the strict sense and will therefore not be dealt with here. On the two classes of material, see van Thiel 1989, 926, in part. 910 and 246, who sees in them the sources of distinct components of the scholia in the Iliad manuscripts A and T.

6 For an earlier survey and study of the technical terminology of commentaries on the Iliad, cf. Lamedica Nardi 1977.

7 The following publications attest a recent awakening of interest in commentar-ies both ancient and modern: Most 1999, GouletCaz 2000 (cf. esp. the con-tribution by Dorandi), GibsonKraus 2002, Andorlini 2003, Papathomas 2003, AvezzScattolin 2006. Cf. also the earlier discussions of the specifically papy-rological material by Del Fabbro 1979 and Turner 1962 and 1980, 97126. Maehler 1994 deals with the relation of the scholia in the medieval manuscripts to ancient commentaries and marginal annotations.

8 For the chronological distribution of Homeric commentaries on papyrus, see Chart 1 in the Appendix.

9 For the provenance of Homeric commentaries on papyrus, see Chart 3 in the Appendix.

10 Cf. Turner 1952, 913 and 1956, 1423; Bowman 2007, 1779; Parsons 2007, 264; Obbink 2007, 273, 27980; Epp 2007, 3245.



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fewer than the comprehensive lists might at first suggest.11 Twenty-one have been published to date.12 Predictably commentaries on the Iliad outnumber those on the Odyssey,13 fourteen of the former, seven of the latter having seen the light. Nonetheless, commentaries on the Odyssey are all but lacking in importance. P.Oxy. LIII 3710, for example, bears a substantial piece of a learned hypomnema on book twenty, and P.Lille inv. 83+134+93b+93a+114t+114o+87, assigned to the third century BC and thus probably the earliest commentary on Homer preserved, also relates to the Odyssey. Thirteen or fourteen books of the Iliad and eight or nine of the Odyssey are covered in stretches by the surviving commentaries, book 4 of the Iliad by two: P.Daris inv. 118 (= Erbse Pap. IIa) and P.Ryl. I 24 (= Erbse Pap. III).14

Incomplete state of preservation makes it at times extremely difficult, occasionally even impossible, to determine whether a given fragment, or group of fragments, should be assigned to a commentary on Homer or not.15

Sometimes pieces have been considered Homer commentaries on the flimsiest of grounds and in the teeth of evidence to the contrary. A Berlin papyrus, for example, published as P.Turner 12, was assigned by its first editor to this class on the mere basis of a marginal sign presumed to stand for (), or (), that is the poet , Homer.16 This attribution was convincingly challenged by Franco Mon-tanari in a note published shortly after the appearance of the first edi-tion.17 As Montanari pointed out, the sign for the poet as speaker occurs

11 Lists: Del Fabbro 1979, 129; Erbse 19691988, I, XXXIVXLIV; and Lundon

2001, 827 n. 5, from which Messeri SavorelliPintaudi 2002, 39 n. 1 derives. Cf. also West 2001, 12936.

12 See the Table of Homeric commentaries in the Appendix. This figure includes only published papyri which can be identified with certainty or near certainty as deriving from commentaries on Homer. Papyri probably coming from the same commentary (P.Oxy. LXV 4451 and VIII 1086, PSI XV 1464 and P.Oxy. LXXI 4821) count as one.

13 For the relative number and chronological distribution of Iliad and Odyssey commentaries see Chart 2 in the Appendix.

14 Books 1, 2, 3/6, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 17, 19, 21 of the Iliad; books 3, 4/17, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21 of the Odyssey.

15 This is, however, not always the case: P.Oxy. XXIV 2397 (= Erbse Pap. X), though fragmentary to the point of contributing almost nothing, seems clearly recognizable as a commentary on Iliad 17.

16 The sign is placed opposite l. 20 of col. II. 17 Montanari 1983, 214.



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in the margins of Homeric papyri.18 In commentaries and other works on Homer, on the contrary, it is found within the explanations.19 More-over, the sign may not be a speaker indication at all, but a stichometrical letter recording the number of lines copied to that point.20

At other times the reasons are slightly stronger, but certain identifi-cation still far out of reach. The first editor of a thin strip of papyrus now in Aberdeen (P.Aberd. 119) discerned the names of Odysseus in line 4 and Athena in line 7 and suggested it might be part of a com-mentary on the Homeric poems.21 The blank spaces of one line be-tween lines 1 and 2 and of two lines between lines 10 and 11 perhaps also support the idea. These suggest that the text was articulated, and textual articulation is a feature characteristic of commentaries.22

Again, in one of the Egypt Exploration Societys leftovers from the Fayum published by Revel Coles and known as P.Fay.Coles 2,23 possible references to an Aristarchus in two places (col. II 21 and 31), a in two others (col. II 27 and 34)24 and Odysseus visit to the underworld (col. II 3841) in yet another, allowed a strong case to be

18 Spooner 2002, 171178 (Appendix 3: Homeric Papyri with Speaker Indica-

tions), lists eleven papyri containing such speaker names in their margins. A thorough study of the subject has recently been made by Azzarello 2008.

19 Cf. e.g. P.Daris inv. 118 III 18 (commentary on Il. 4) and P.Oxy. XLIV 3206 (Homeric Lexicon). See further Del Fabbro 1979, 90 and TurnerParsons 1987, No. 73.

20 On stichometry in general, see Ohly 1928 and TurnerParsons 1987, 16 with n. 93. On stichometrical letters in Homeric papyri, of which however P.Turner 12 is clearly not one, see now Azzarello 2007, esp. 10911.

21 Cf. Winstedt 1907, 261. In the introduction to P.Aberd. 119 Turner prudently leaves the question of identification open.

22 Normally, however, the spaces are left within and not between the lines. There is also a blank space after the last line (l. 15), but this may belong to the original lower margin. What at first sight resembles a dicolon in line 8 is probably a damaged iota and is so transcribed by Turner. Dicola are, however, sometimes used in commentaries as separators; cf. e.g. P.Oxy. VI 856 (= TurnerParsons 1987, No. 73) and XXV 2429.

23 Coles 1970, 24851, with photographic reproduction in Plate XII a. 24 Cf. LSJ s.v. III: recension, revised edition of a work. The term is sometimes

applied to Aristarchus text of Homer in the scholia (cf. A on Il. 2.865 [Did.] and 17.214a [Nic.]) and figures in the title of a work by Didymus referred to in the subscriptions to the books of the Iliad in the Venetus A manuscript ( ). For an attempt to determine the exact meaning of the word in connection with Aristarchean scholarship, see Erbse 1959, esp. 2869.




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made for a commentary on Homer25. But, as the editor did not fail to observe, the Aristarchus referred to might just as well be the astronomer from Samos and not the renowned Alexandrian scholar from Samothrace.26 Curiously enough, Aristarchus of Samos, the astronomer, does in fact turn up in a hypomnema on the twentieth book of the Odys-sey as one of the authorities quoted in an astronomical disquisition,27 so not even his name here would suffice to rule out the possibility of a commentary.

In the scanty remains of these three papyri (P.Turner 12, P.Aberd. 119 and P.Fay.Coles 2), no Homeric forms occurred for certain. But even when words and phrases are quoted from Homer, the exact nature of the work from which the fragments derive is not always immediately clear. In particular, there is sometimes no way of telling fragments of commentaries (hypomnemata) and fragments of treatises (syngrammata) apart, since both classes share important features, and the differences between them are easily obscured by damage.

Does a piece belonging to the collection of the Catholic University in Milan (P.Med. inv. 71.82), for example, come from a commentary on Homer or a treatise on Mount Olympus?28 Quotation of a series of epi-thets applied in the Iliad to Mount Olympus, together with technical terms of exegesis, blank spaces and paragraphoi, would admit one or the other alternative.29 The apparent absence of lemmata proper, however, 25 Further clues might include meaning take a word in a particular

sense, interpret (col. II 31), an (articulating?) blank space of one letter (col. II 36) and a paragraphos under l. 31. For in the meaning of interpret, take, understand in a given sense in another commentary on Homer, cf. in PSI XV 1464.21 and |[ or |[ in P.Oxy. LXXI 4821.134 with n. ad loc.

26 Alexander Jones informs me per litteras, however, that he is unaware of any special astronomical or mathematical use of the term diorthosis.

27 Cf. P.Oxy. LIII 3710 ii 37 ( []). 28 First edition: Daris 1972, 8990 (No. 7). Cf. also Funghi 1983. 29 The epithets cited in the papyrus are []| (ll. 178; cf. Il. 1.532,

13.243, Od. 20.103: ) or [] (proposed by Funghi 1983, 16 n. 12; cf. Il. 18.616: ), []| (ll. 189; cf. Il. 1.420, 18.186: ), [] (l. 19; cf. Il. 1.499, 5.754, 8.3: ) and []| (ll. 1920; cf. Il. 8.411, 20.5: and respectively). Although these are all variously incomplete, they can be restored with some degree of confidence on the basis of the context, which includes the words (ll. 4, 18, 21) and (l. 15). Moreover, one of the epi-thets, []|, is lacking only its first two letters and may to all intents and purposes be regarded as certain. Possible technical terms of ancient exegesis are [ (l. 3; cf. Funghi 1983, 16 n. 10), [ (l. 6; cf. Funghi



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and the monographic character of the subject matter30 would seem to tip the balance in favour of a treatise.

The Milan papyrus seems to preserve no actual lemmata: no words, phrases and verses drawn from the work commented on and keying the commentary to a separate copy of the text. But the survival of a lemma is in itself no sure sign of a commentary, either. Take an early Hamburg papyrus (P.Hamb. II 136), dated palaeographically to the first half of the third century BC and labelled by its first editor a Hypomnema zu Homer (with a question mark). Here verses 1019 from the second book of the Iliad, on Agamemnons sceptre, are followed by a discussion in prose containing a verse quotation.31 Whether this fragment was part of a commentary or a treatise or some other kind of work, such as an anthology, cannot easily be determined.32 Again, when the lemma oc-curs more than once in the Homeric poems, as in P.Berol. 9960 (Il. 3.59 = 6.333), it is impossible to tell which of the books may have been the subject of the commentary or discussion.33

1983, 16 n. 12), [ (l. 10; cfr. Funghi 1983, 16 n. 12), [- (l. 16; cfr. Funghi 1983, 16 n. 12), (l. 22; cf. ll. 56: []|), [] (l. 26), []|[][] (ll. 2829). Paragraphoi survive under ll. 3, 17 and 26. These are accompanied by blanks in ll. 3 and 26. The paragra-phos in l. 26 and the blanks were first noticed by Funghi 1983, 16.

30 P.Brux. Inv. E. 7162 also perhaps preserves part of a treatise on Mount Olym-pus; cf. Funghi 1983 and Montanari 2001a. The question whether is the same as is already discussed in col. XII of the Derveni papyrus; cf. Schironi 2001, who mentions the Milan and Brussels pieces in n. 8 (p. 11) and n. 29 (p. 14). Though the two papyri are later, it cannot be ruled out that they derive from now lost ancient sources.

31 P.Hamb. II 136.1020 (cf. Nachtergael 1971, 3449): [ 12] [? | [ 11 ] [? | [ 12] [ | [ 10 ] [ | [ 12] [ |15 [ 11 ] [] [? | [ 12] [ | [ 12] [ | [ 12] [ | [ 12] [ | [ 15] [. Further supplements hitherto proposed: 12 [ (Nachtergael), 14 ] [ (ed.pr.), 15 [ (Nachtergael). In l. 16 ] should be articulated and accented ] .

32 Cf. West 1967, 389; Erbse 1969, XLIIIXLIV; Nachtergael 1971, 34451; Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 9934.

33 Cf. also P.Trier S 10834 (a+b) (Il. 1.606 / 5.120 / 8.485). Even where more than one lemma survives, the same problem can arise. Although P.Yale II 128 preserves parts of two lemmata, it is not clear whether they come from Od. 4.336 and 343 or 17.127 and 134, since the two verses belong to the first eighteen lines of a speech by Menelaus to Telemachus at Od. 4.333592 (33350), repeated verbatim by Telemachus to Penelope at 17.124141.




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Where two or more lemmata survive, however, we are on firmer ground and it is normally possible to assign a fragment to one or the other class with a certain degree of confidence, though strictness of defi-nition will also come into play in such cases. An Oxyrhynchus papyrus published a few years ago (P.Oxy. LXV 4453) well illustrates the point. Of the three, or four, fragments composing the papyrus,34 fr. 1 discusses lines from the first book of the Odyssey, frr. 2 and 3 lines from the fourth.35 Such a distance between the passages selected for analysis, in conjunction with the fact that the problem discussed appears to be the same or similar in each instance,36 points more towards a treatise than a commentary in the standard sense, as the editor of the text is only too well aware.37

Deviation of the order of the lemmata from the sequence of the Homeric text too can provide a decisive clue in the same direction. This is one of the reasons why P.Med. inv. 210 should probably not be con-sidered a commentary.38 In the first column, verse 387 from book 11 of the Odyssey is quoted in lines 23, verse 390 in lines 46 and verse 392 in lines 68, but then, in lines 1012, the author sprang back to verses 9091 apparently to begin a new section. Another Milan papyrus (P.Mil.Vogl. I 19 = Erbse Pap. IX) preserves only the subscriptio of a 34 Fr. 4 appears to be written in a different hand; cf. P.Oxy. LXV 4453 ad loc. (p.

53). 35 P.Oxy. LXV 4453 fr. 1: Od. 1.103, 104, ~106107, 113114; fr. 2: Od. 4.625;

fr. 3: Od. 4.670672. 36 Cf. fr. 1.1 ff. n.: What appears to be at issue is the topography, or more pre-

cisely the relation between the characters whereabouts and the components of Odysseus house.

37 Cf. P.Oxy. LXV 4453 Introd., 45 and Montanari 2001a, 973 n. 8. To judge from subject-matter, scope and arrangement of the topics discussed, P.Nic. inv. 72, P.Oxy. XXXIX 2888 and P.Mich. XVIII 760, though apparently contain-ing no actual lemmata, may also be fragments of treatises on specific aspects of the Homeric poems. Luppe 2002 draws attention to a certain affinity between the last two and suggests (52) that they might come from different copies of the same work on the wanderings of Odysseus. The first he defines a geographische Abhandlung ber die Umgebung von Troja (Luppe 2000, 238), whereas TrachselSchubert 1999, 23637 had referred it, in their re-edition of the papyrus, to the Mythographus Homericus.

38 First edition: Strassi 1978; republished by Bastianini and Funghi as CPF I.1 30 (Chrysippus) 5T. Doubt as to Strassis identification was expressed early on by Apthorp 1981, 2 n. 6. In his survey of Odyssey commentaries in the introduc-tion to P.Oxy. LIII 3710 (p. 91), Haslam suggests that the fragment might come from a discussion of the soul and proposes reading ]|[] [ at II 12. P.Brux. inv. E. 7162 is also of interest as regards the sequence of the Homeric verses cited; cf. Funghi 1983 and Montanari 2001b.



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work by Apollodorus of Athens on Iliad 14, but the title better suits a treatise than a commentary.39

Finally, there is a Michigan Papyrus (P.Mich. inv. 3688 = Erbse Pap. XIV), first published by Henrichs in 1969, that is worthy of note in connection with problems of identification. Here it was uncertain whether the piece preserved part of a commentary on Homer, in which Callimachus was cited, or part of a commentary on Callimachus plain and simple.40 While the name of Callimachus is twice mentioned in the papyrus and verses from Aetia I are paraphrased and quoted,41 most of the explanations given of the word under discussion, , seemed at first to fit the Iliadic context of an island (Il. 24.753) better than the Callimachean one of the air (fr. 18.8 Pf.).42 Moreover, the Homeric scholia cite none other than Callimachus in a note on the meanings of the word.43 The question, however, has since been decided in favour of a commentary on Callimachus, and a revised edition of the papyrus has appeared as Supplementum Hellenisticum 251.44

Turning now to Homer commentaries proper, the category reveals itself to some extent a mixed bag, its members exhibiting at times con-siderable differences. While many are penned in more or less rapid 39 The text as reconstructed in the first edition runs as follows: [] |

| [] | [] | [] | [] [] | [][] | . The last word of the subscription may stand for and be the name of one of the booksellers alluded to by Horace at Epistles 1.20.2 and 2.3.345 (Ars poetica); cf. Bickerman 1944, 34041 with n. 8, Turner 1968, 51 and Erbse 19691988, III, 558, who had earlier (19691988, I, XL) suggested that it might refer to the scribe or owner of the work. For the possi-bility that is the name of the scribe or owner, cf. also P.Mil.Vogl. 19 ad loc.

40 Cf. Henrichs 1969, 24: Ob der Text des Michigan-Papyrus ein Kommentar zu Il. 24.753 ist, in dem wie im Schol. AT Kallimachos zitiert wird, oder ob er ein regelrechter Kommentar zu Kallimachos ist, lsst sich nicht entscheiden.

41 In ll. 9 (]) and 29, Callimachus is mentioned; in ll. 14, fr. 18.68 Pf. paraphrased; and in ll. 1316, fr. 17.810 quoted.

42 Il. 24.753: ; Call. fr. 18.8 Pf.: . Explanations: -[ (3), [ (6), ] [, (23), [ (24), (25), but [ (27). The word evidently under discussion itself occurs in ll. 9 (immediately after the mention of Callimachus: ] [), 22 (]) and 26 ([).

43 Sch. T on Il. 24.753a. For the employment of Callimachus as a parallel in the Homeric scholia, cf. Montanari 1979, 161162 and n. 16.

44 Cf. Erbse 19691988, I, XLIII; 19691988, II, 547; 19691988, V, 509; and Lloyd-JonesParsons 1983, 9597.




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semicursives,45 more formal scripts also make an appearance. A couple of instances come immediately to mind. One is a papyrus now in Giessen (P.Iand. I 2 = P.Giss.Lit. 2.8 = Erbse Pap. VIII), which contains a frag-ment of a commentary on the eleventh book of the Iliad written in a medium-sized, upright, decorated, late first-century-BC bookhand akin to the so-called epsilon-theta style.46 The other is the substantial piece of a commentary on the twentieth book of the Odyssey (P.Oxy. LIII 3710), copied in a second-to-third-century-AD libraria by the same pro-fessional scribe responsible for a number of other literary texts found at Oxyrhynchus (Scribe #A5).47 In both cases, the distribution of the text is appropriately generous, and it may be that these commentaries were meant to achieve a less provisional status.48

Completeness of coverage and depth of analysis likewise vary some-what from commentary to commentary. At one end of the spectrum there are fairly systematic, though never exhaustive, treatments of the text under discussion.49 At the other, there are sets of notes on words, phrases or passages separated by a number, and sometimes a great num-ber, of verses. PSI XV 1464,50 for instance, skips in one case from Odys-sey 12.124 to 178, though there is plenty of material for comment in 45 P.Daris inv. 118 provides an example of a commentary on Homer traced in an

especially rapid hand. 46 On this style of handwriting see Cavallo 1974 and 1991, 1516, 29. The com-

mentary continues on the verso in a much less formal hand. Perhaps the end of the roll had been reached and for some reason a person different from the original scribe wrote the remaining part of the work on the other side. Or per-haps the final section of the roll had broken off and the owner decided to copy the text of the detached part on the back of the main piece. Another Homer commentary continuing on the verso is P.Lille inv. 83+134+93b+93a+114t+ 114o+87 discussed below. Four damaged lines on the back of BKT # seem to contain an additional note to the commentary on Iliad 5 written on its front.

47 For the texts copied by this scribe cf. Turner 1956, 144, 146; Krger 1990, 193; FunghiMesseri Savorelli 1992, 7579; Johnson 2004, 2021, 61; Parsons 2007, 265.

48 BKT #, P.Oxy. LXV 4452, PSI XV 1464, P.Oxy. LXXI 4821 and P.Fay. 312 (fully published in HaslamMontanari 1983) are also written in literary hands. On the formal characteristics of stable commentaries cf. MesseriPintaudi 2002, 4243.

49 Examples: P.Oxy. II 221 and VIII 1086. On the more or less exhaustive cover-age of surviving (Homeric) commentaries cf. McNamee 1995, 400 n. 3 and 405 n. 15: P.Oxy. VIII 1086 ... though detailed and learned, is not a full treatment of the text ....

50 In an article to appear in ZPE I attempt to show that P.Oxy. LXXI 4821 and PSI XV 1464 come from the same commentary and, on this basis, to recon-struct the latter.



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between. Examples of the same phenomenon could be multiplied. Sometimes, on the other hand, a lemma seems merely to serve as a con-venient hook on which to hang an erudite disquisition of dubious rele-vance to the text in question. The phrase in Iliad 7.76, for example, triggers a forty-one-line note in P.Oxy. VIII 1087 (= Erbse Pap. VI) on , of which was considered to be one.51

This is the sort of variance we should expect from the genre. Unlike literary texts, commentaries were typically exposed to continual modifi-cation in the course of their fluid transmission, with entries being added, removed and combined in accordance with the particular and momen-tary needs and interests of the compiler. The second-century fragment of the Florentine commentary on the Odyssey just mentioned (PSI XV 1464) seems, incidentally, to constitute early evidence for the process of reduction that resulted in the sparseness of the scholia on that poem as preserved in the medieval manuscripts52. More often than not, however, papyrus commentaries are fuller than the scholiastic corpora of the me-dieval manuscripts. P.Oxy. LXV 4452, for example, not only provides a good deal of information missing in the scholia, but also lemmatizes five verses unknown to the rest of the tradition (fr. 1.1117), but said to be present in the Marseilles text (fr. 1.178: ] )53.

As the first of my specimens I have chosen the earliest commentary on Homer to survive: P.Lille inv. 83+134+93b+93a+114t+114o+87.54 It was extracted from the cartonnage of a mummy unearthed near ancient

51 P.Oxy. VIII 1087 i 21ii 28 on Il. 7.76: | [

]. | [ ] |[], , | [] ... Cf. A.D. Fragm., G.G. II 3, 47.15ff. (Steph. Byz. 325.1ff. Meineke): ... are, in other words, second-declension nouns whose nominative was thought to de-rive from the genitive of a corresponding third-declension noun. According to Schironi 2004, 4624, the fact that , from , does not figure among the examples of retailed in the papyrus entry might indicate the Aristarchean origin of the note. Not only is this inference, as Schironi ad-mits, dangerously ex silentio, but it also stands in contrast with the overall char-acter of the commentary, on which see P.Oxy. VIII 1087 Introd., 100.

52 Cf. Bartoletti 1966, 2 and Pontani 2005a, 135. 53 Of the five new verses, the first four words of the first and the last two words

of the fifth are together identical with Il. 19.351. For further considerations on this commentary, cf. Montanari 2001b, 97481.

54 Ed. pr.: Meillier 1985.




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Magdola, a village in the Faym.55 The commentary is assigned to the third century BC on the basis of the handwriting and the documents coming from the same cartonnage.56 Seven fragments in all from the end of a papyrus roll preserve parts of four columns of writing. The first three of these columns are traced on the recto along fibres, but the fourth and last is penned against the fibres on the other side. The first preserved entry is on Odyssey 16.148 and the last on 17.7783. Between these two points the commentary proceeds sequentially.57 The lemmata, made to project to the left by around two letters width and in this way distin-guished from the explanatory material,58 seem usually to have consisted of a single whole verse.59 One lemma, however, embraced two verses and another apparently a block of seven.60 There are also several cases where only a part of the verse or verses was or seems to have been lem-matized.61

The commentary itself offered anything but a systematic treatment of the Homeric text, sometimes leaving a number of verses undiscussed between entries.62 Moreover, to judge from what remains, it confined itself exclusively, or almost exclusively, to gloss and paraphrase.63 Yet two technical phrases typical of later scholarship do seem to make a 55 These fragments belong to the same lot of papyrus as those of the Lille com-

mentary on Callimachus Victoria Berenices (Meillier 1985, 230). Like them, they come from the excavations conducted by Pierre Jouguet and Gustave Lefebvre in the vicinity of ancient Magdola in 19012 (Parsons 1977, 4) and were ex-tracted from a mummy kept in the Institut de Papyrologie et dEgyptologie de Lille by Anton Fackelmann in 1974 (Meillier 1985, 229). On the excavations, see Jouguet 1901 and Preisendanz 1933, 2134.

56 For the date of the fragments, cf. Meillier 1985, 229. But CavalloMaehler 2008 now assign the hand of the Callimachus commentary to the first half of the 2nd century BC.

57 Od. 5.211 turns up in Col. D 18, but, given the early date of the papyrus, it may be a plus-verse, as Montanari in Meillier 1985, 238 ad loc. suggests.

58 This device is known as ecthesis, on which see e.g. TurnerParsons 1987, 8. 59 Od. 16.148 (Col. A 1), 169 (A 13), 173 (A 17), 192 (A 24), 197 (A 28), 202 (A

32), 304 (B 2), 313 (B 4), 316 (B 6), 332 (B 8), 340 (B 10), 386 (C 1), 387 (C 3), 401 (C 7), 428 (C 11), 431 (C13), 433 (C 16), 468 (C 24), 471 (C 26), 473 (C 29), 17.53 (D 1). Owing to material loss, some of these are less than certain.

60 Od. 16.1601 (Col. A 56) and 17.7783 (Col. D 612). 61 Od. 16.171 (Col. A 16), 1945 (A 26), 199 (A 30), 425 (C 9), 448 (C 18), 459

(C 22). 62 In Col. C, for example, the commentator jumps from a note on Od. 16.401 in

ll. 78 to one on Od. 16.425 in ll. 910. 63 The notes may also occasionally have repeated forms from the Homeric text of

the lemmata like in Col. A 9 from Od. 16.161, lemmatized in A 6. Cf. Meillier 1985, 233 ad loc. and Pontani 2005a, 134.



John Lundon 170

timid appearance. The first, an abbreviated ( ), occurs at the end of a line in column B.64 This formula is regularly used in ancient exege-sis to introduce an equivalent.65 The second phrase consists of the in-definite pronoun , then presumably the elided form of the particle and after that either the negation or the first two letters of the adverb o(). In either case, it appears likely that the opinions of anonymous scholars on a particular issue are here being reported and contrasted.66 But whether the issue was text-critical (an omission or a variant) or exegetical must remain uncertain.67

All in all, this commentary comes rather as a disappointment. In as-sessing it, however, two considerations should be borne in mind. On the one hand, paraphrase does imply an analysis of text and context. On the other, this particular work may represent just one of the types and levels current at the time. It is at least clear from other literary sources that more sophisticated interpretational procedures did exist and were applied in the elucidation of texts.68

64 The presumed compendium, consisting of the letters alpha and nu followed by

a long curving abbreviation stroke, now stands in the left-hand margin of fr. 87r opposite ll. 189 of Col. C.

65 Cf. Meillier 1985, 236 ad loc. On this formula, see Turner 1976, 5 n. 9a, Slater 1989, 534, who distinguishes three kinds of , and Dickey 2007, 224 (referring to Slater). P.Oxy. VIII 1086 ii 5253 on Il. 2.784 ( ), where it occurs three times in two lines, pro-vides a good example of its use to introduce an interpretation (rather than a variant or what is unexpected): . , .

66 Meillier 1985 ad loc. mentions two supplements: [ and [ , the latter proposed by Turner. The first occurs in the context of textual criticism only once in Simplicius, In Aristotelis physicorum libros commentaria, CAG IX 589.33: . The second is unattested. However, the constituent terms of both are common enough in scholiastic literature, where (and ) as the subject of such verbs as refer to scholars or a scholar the com-mentator can or will not name.

67 On the ambivalence of the verb in the language of the scholiasts (vari-ant or interpretation), see the salutary considerations of Slater 1989, 503.

68 The much earlier Derveni papyrus, which preserves a kind of commentary (cf. e.g. Funghi 1997, esp. 2630; West 1997, esp. 81; and Parsons 2002, 556), applies allegory in the line-by-line interpretation of a cosmogonical Orphic poem. The works of Plato also contain many a passage of literary analysis. The situation may therefore have been slighty more complex than Haslam 1994, 44, suggests, when he speaks of a direct line of development from the Lille to later (post-Aristarchean) commentaries, though there is certainly some truth in this view.




171

My second example is a piece from Oxyrhynchus that has found its way into the Special Collections Division of the J. M. Olin Library of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri (P.Wash.Univ. II 63 = Erbse Pap. VIIa). It bears parts of two columns of a hypomnema on the ninth book of the Iliad penned along the fibres on the recto of a papyrus roll. Lemmata survive from verses 133 (col. I 6), 141 (I 112) and 147 (II 6), certainly, and from verse 128 or 129 (I 12), possibly.69 To set these lemmata off from the explanations, the scribe has resorted to a system attested elsewhere: if the lemma begins on a fresh line, that line starts around two letters further to the left (is written ); if, on the other hand, the lemma begins in mid line and runs over onto the following line, it is the following line that projects and a paragraphos is placed under that in which the lemma begins.70 Blank spaces may also have separated lemma from comment and comment from lemma, but none have survived from within the line71 and the apparent ones at the end of lines 5 (comment-lemma) and 12 (lemma-comment) in the first column are perhaps due to constraints of column width. At the end of col. I 6 (lemma-comment), at least, no blank was left.

The first editor assigned the papyrus to the second century AD,72 but as Alfons Wouters was quick to point out, the hand in which the commentary is written, an unmistakable Ptolemaic semicursive, should be dated around three hundred years earlier, to the middle of the second century BC.73 To Wouters single parallel74 Michael Haslam later added

69 Whereas Haslam 1985, 98 ad loc., thinks he can detect in l. 1 letters from the

beginning of verse 129 (] [), Gronewald, in P.Wash.Univ. II 63, 6 ad loc., believes he can identify a sequence from the middle of verse 128 (] []|[). Wouters 1976, 272, who adopted the reading of the ed.pr. (] [ ]), had already suggested that the first five lines of the papyrus con-tained a comment on 128 or 131.

70 The practice of the scribe can be inferred from col. II 56 and the recon-structed lengths of col. I 6 and 12, which suggest that these lines must have stood in ecthesis. Whether a paragraphos was also added when the lemma began on a fresh line, as supposed by Erbse 1988, 301 and the editor of P.Wash.Univ. II 63 at col. I 6, is uncertain. Examples of this system in other commentaries are P.Oxy. XXV 2429 and LIII 3710. On methods of distinguishing lemmata in commentaries, cf. Del Fabbro 1979, 879 and Fassino 1996.

71 Wouters 1976, 272, suggests that there may originally have been a small blank space between comment and lemma in col. I 11.

72 Cf. Packman 1973, 53. 73 Cf. Wouters 1976, 271, who draws attention in particular to presence of the

imaginary upper line and the linking of eta to the right. In Wouters view (n. 3), The copyist of this text commanded only the documentary style, but still tried to write his in a literary hand.



John Lundon 172

a whole series, putting the date of the script beyond all reasonable doubt.75 This means, as Haslam has stressed, that the work was probably written within the lifetime of Aristarchus himself (ca. 216144 BC).

Despite its early date, the commentary does in fact seem to reflect the celebrated Alexandrian scholars work. In the only entry that admits of reconstruction (I 611 on Il. 9.133), both the underlying grammatical doctrine (that the article in Homer is missing) and the terminology ( in the technical sense of here, in this context) are distinctly Aris-tarchean in flavour.76 So is the procedure whereby paraphrase, intro-duced by formulaic expressions such as , is used to clarify the point at issue.77 Close correspondence in thought, expression and struc-ture with the Aristonicus scholium on this line in the Venetus A manu-script, which ultimately derives from Aristarchus, point unambiguously in the same direction.78 The commentary thus provides clear evidence for the existence of cultural ties between Oxyrhynchus and the Museum in Alexandria at an early stage.

My next example likewise comes from Oxyrhynchus, but was writ-ten a hundred years later, around the middle of the first century BC. Until quite recently it was uncertain whether this large piece of a com-mentary on the second book of the Iliad first published by Arthur Hunt in 1911 (P.Oxy. VIII 1086 = Pap. II Erbse) belonged to a more ambi- 74 P.Lond. I 24r pp. 313 = UPZ I 2, reproduced in P.Lond. I Plate 18 and Seider

1967, Tafel 5 (No. 9). The papyrus is dated to 163 BC (l. 17). 75 Cf. Haslam 1985, 97, who also speaks of smallish Ptolemaic hand ... which may

in fact be dated with some confidence around the middle of the second century B.C..

76 On Aristarchus treatment of the article in Homer, see Friedlnder 1853, 30 and Matthaios 1999, 4363, in part. 4378.

77 P.Wash.Univ. II 63, Col. I 611 on Il. 9.133 (text of ll. 710 restored by Gronewald): [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |8 [ ] |[] |[ . Correspondence between the Homeric text and the paraphrase in ll. 810: ~ , ~ , ~ , ~ , ~ .

78 Sch. Hom. (A) Il. 9.133a.1 (Ariston.): : , . Correspondence be-tween the Homeric text and the paraphrase: ~ , ~ , ~ , ~ , ~ . Correspondence in expres-sion between the papyrus and the scholium: | [ ~ , ~ . In light of the clear relation between the papyrus and the Aristonicus scholium, then, Haslams (1985, 100) view of the commentarys possible independence seems unlikely.




173

tious project.79 However, the publication by Michael Haslam in 1998 of a scrap from a commentary on the first book of the Iliad (P.Oxy. LXV 4451), which Haslam acutely recognized as being written in the same hand and sharing all of the other features of the text published by Hunt,80 showed that the commentary originally covered at least books one and two of the Iliad and probably consisted of at least two rolls, one for each book. In light of this discovery, it cannot be ruled out, I think, that we have here remnants of a large-scale multi-volume Kommentar on the whole of the poem.81

Penned along the fibres on the recto in a small, rapid late Ptolemaic semicursive in columns of forty or so lines and lines of an average of sixty letters with narrow margins and intercolumniations, the work was likely written or commissioned by a scholar for his own use, an impres-sion moreover confirmed by the content.82

Although neither the earliest, nor the most extensive, nor the most erudite of Homeric commentaries preserved in the papyri,83 this com-mentary is at once early, extensive and learned. But what makes it so important is that it is a witness to the philological activity of Aristarchus of Samothrace earlier than, and so independent of, our other main sources for the Alexandrian scholars thought: the fragments of Aristoni-cus and Didymus transmitted above all in the scholia of the famous Ve-netus A codex.84 Not only do several of its entries explicitly mention the name of Aristarchus, but these and others refer to Aristarchean critical signs, which have also been prefixed to the lemmata.85 Even where the

79 Subsequent editions: Erbse 19691988, I, XXXVXXXVI, 164174 and Lun-

don 2002. The main piece measures 41.0 x 23.2 cm and covers Iliad 2.751827. There are in addition two unplaced scraps.

80 The scrap measures 5.3 x 4.0 cm and covers Iliad 5658. For a detailed analysis and comparison of the scripts of the two papyri, see Lundon 19981999.

81 Cf. Lundon 19981999, 32 82 On the editorial features of papyrus commentaries, see Del Fabbro 1979, 8192

and Messeri-Pintaudi 2002. 83 P.Lille and P.Wash.Univ. II 63 are older; P.Oxy. II 221 more extensive; P.Oxy.

II 221 (again), P.Oxy. VIII 1087, P.Oxy. LIII 3710, P.Oxy. LXV 4452 more learned.

84 Edited by Erbse 19691988, IV. 85 Aristarchus name is mentioned at I 12, 16 and II 63, as it may have been at I

26 and almost certainly was at III 88 before the papyrus suffered damage. Of the diplai referred to in the commentary, once with the term (II 55), otherwise with ( [11], 28, II 47, III 83, 98, 107, 114), four have sur-vived (I 27, II 54, III 97, 114), one appears to have been accidentally omitted (II 44) and three have been lost (I 11, III 82, 106). There are also three obeloi (II 612), but it is likely that two others have been mistakenly left out, one of



John Lundon 174

name of Aristarchus or a reference to a critical sign is missing, typically Aristarchean procedures are all over in evidence. Methods applied in-clude the glossing of words, the paraphrasing of whole verses and the reconstruction of Homers linguistic usage and world based on a detailed reading of text. The proportion of annotations exhibiting unmistakable traces of Aristarchus is as a matter of fact so great, and the absence of anything demonstrably non-Aristarchean so absolute, that I wonder whether this commentary might not derive from a single source and further whether that single source might not ultimately have been the hypomnemata, or even the lectures, of Aristarchus themselves.86

My fourth and final illustration, P.Oxy. II 221 (= Erbse Pap. XII), like P.Oxy. VIII 1086 from Oxyrhynchus and now kept in the British Library, is the papyrus commentary on Homer of which the most sur-vives. Portions of more than seventeen columns of writing on numerous fragments and scraps remain. Penned against the fibres on the verso of a metrical treatise (P.Oxy. II 220) in an informal second-century-AD hand, the work originally contained a detailed hypomnema on the twenty-first book of the Iliad and, as with so many of our other surviv-ing fragments, has all the appearances of being a scholars copy.

Who that scholar was is of course uncertain, but written between columns X and XI, from top to bottom and perpendicular to the text of the commentary, in a hand different from and apparently later than that of the main text are the following mysterious words: . Unfortunately neither the exact identity of this grammarian Ammonius nor the precise meaning of the verb here are clear, and it may even be doubted whether this signa-ture is connected with the commentary at all.87

them along with the verse (Il. 2.794) it was attached to. Critical signs or refer-ences thereto are also present in P.Daris inv. 118.5; P.Cair. JE 60566 (= Erbse Pap. V) Fr. a II 10, Fr. b I 3; 4, 5, 6; P.Mich. inv. 1206.3 and 9; P.Pisa Lit. 8.3 and 14.

86 Cf. Howard 191718, 41920 and Lundon 2001. Given the numerous explicit references to Aristarchus in this commentary, it is not unreasonable to assume that what is typically, though perhaps not exclusively, Aristarchean in the unat-tributed notes also goes back to this scholar. Haslam (in Lundon 2001, 839 n. 46) objects that the mentions of Aristarchus in the third person open up the possibility of compilation from several sources. While not wishing to deny this altogether, I point out that they would also be fully consistent with composi-tion by a follower of Aristarchus who chose to report on that scholars views alone.

87 On the problem see P.Oxy. II 221 Introd., 5355; Mller 1913, 4961; Erbse 19691988, I, XLII; 19691988, V, 78 and 97; McNamee 2007, 286.




175

The first preserved entry is on line 1, the last on line 513 (Fr. i). In view of the length of what survives, it seems likely that the commentary on the book filled an entire roll. The lemmata range from single words to phrases to whole groups of verses and evidently served to stake out the subject of the individual explanations. In this they differ from those in the three preceding commentaries examined, where the unit tended to be the verse, and their main function was rather that of guiding the reader to the relevant place in the Homeric text.88 Articulation is en-trusted to the paragraphos and the diple obelismene.

The commentary is conspicuous for its erudition and is in fact among the most learned, if not the most learned, of the surviving frag-ments. Its learning can be gauged by the sheer number and concentra-tion of scholars referred to and poets quoted. A partial list includes Ze-nodotus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Aristarchus, Dionysius Thrax, Aristonicus and Didymus, among scholars; Hesiod, Solon, Panyassis, Pindar, Sophocles and Callimachus, among poets.89

Moreover, P.Oxy. II 221 seems to provide some early evidence for the formation of the scholiastic classes present in the medieval manu-scripts.90 In fact, the points of contact both in wording and substance

88 Cf. van Thiel 1989, 926, esp. 910 (Lemmata, oft in ganzen Versen oder

einschlielich des Versanfangs, die offenbar das Auffinden in einem eigenen Text leicht machen sollten) and 2526 (reinen Verweischarakter der Lemma-ta).

89 Zenodotus (P.Oxy. II 221, XVI 312), Aristophanes of Byzantium (I 18, [IV 6], [15], X 36, XIII 201), Aristarchus (IV 7, 22, IX 6, X 31, XI 15, [XII 38], XIV 167, XVII 20), Dionysius Thrax (III 22, XIV 20), Aristonicus (III 30), Didymus (X 12, XVII 278); Hesiod (XVI 356), Solon (XIV 126), Panyassis (IX 811, quoted by Seleucus), Pindar (IX 146, 17), Sophocles (XI 13), Cal-limachus (XV 334). For a fuller list, cf. Lundon 2001, 828 n. 11.

90 To simplify a very complex situation, the notes in the margins of our medieval manuscripts of the Iliad, among which the main ones are A (cod. Ven. Graec. 822, s. X), B (cod. Ven. Graec. 821, s. XI), C (cod. Laur. plut. 32,3, s. XI/XII), E3 (cod. Escor. Graec. 291, s. XI), E4 (cod. Escor. Graec. 509, s. XI), Ge (cod. Genav. Graec. 44, s. XIII) and T (cod. Townl. [Brit. Mus. Burney 86], a.D. 1014/1059), can be assigned to classes which in turn go back to lost imperial or late antique compilations. These classes reflect the interests of the authors of the compilations, whose aim apparently it was to collect and hand down material related in kind. Three main classes can be distinguished: the scholia of the so-called Viermnnerkommentar (the presumed combination in a single commentary of four works by the four scholars Aristonicus, Didymus, Herodianus and Nicanor), the exegetical scholia and the D scholia (prevalently glosses and paraphrase). Furthermore, the paths of the traditions must sometime have crossed, since scholia belonging to different classes occur together in sur-viving witnesses. In the Venetus A manuscript, for example, which contains



John Lundon 176

between this papyrus commentary and the so-called exegetical scholia, especially those to verses 165499 of book 21 in the Geneva manu-script,91 are too numerous and too close to be merely fortuitous.92 In all probability, the commentary fragmentarily preserved in P.Oxy. II 221 represents one of the works that found its way into that corpus. In its close relation to one of the later classes of scholia, however, the papyrus is exceptional. Only P.Oxy. VIII 1086 appears to exhibit a similar con-nection with the Aristarchean tradition as known primarily from the Venetus A manuscript.93

It would probably be worth considering some further examples of Homer commentaries on papyrus, since most hold something of inter-est. But that would exceed the limits of my paper, which aims to pro-vide a general overview of the subject. The future publication of new fragments of commentaries on Homer should confirm rather than radi-cally alter this picture, though with papyri it is perhaps risky to make such confident predictions.94

material deriving from the Viermnnerkommentar, exegetical scholia also make an appearance. On the other hand, notes assignable to the Four Men turn up in manuscripts of the exegetical scholia. On the classes and transmission of the Il-iad scholia, see Erbse 1960 and 19691988, I, XILXVI. Cf. also Snipes 1988, 196204 for a brief account of the modern classification of the scholia and of some of their sources and, more recently, Dickey 2007, 1828.

91 On the scholia in this manuscript, see Erbse 1952 and 19691988, I, XXIXXII and LIX.

92 On the relation of this commentary to the Iliad scholia, see P.Oxy. II 221 Introd., 557; Mller 1913, 2348; Erbse 19691988, I, XLII and LIX.

93 To a certain degree, then, and pace Haslam 1994, 445 with n. 162, these two commentaries do seem, to reflect the distinction between Aristarchan or VMK, on the one hand, and exegetical, on the other, as used specifically to designate classes of scholia in medieval manuscripts of the Iliad deriving from particular compilations which can in part be reconstructed (the Viermnnerkom-mentar and c, the archetype of the bT scholia). Another papyrus on the Odyssey, P.Oxy. XXXIX 2888, is distinctly Pergamene in character, but has more the scope of a treatise than a commentary, as the first editor points out in the intro-duction; cf. also P.Oxy. LIII 3710 Introd., 90 (Pergamene monograph) and 91 (Homeric Questions or the like).

94 I had the opportunity to read versions of this paper at the University of Michi-gan at Ann Arbor on 1 April 2006 (Books about Books Conference), at the University of Toronto on 3 April 2006, at the Universit degli Studi di Parma on 14 May 2008, at the Universitt zu Kln on 3 and 10 July 2008 (Doktoran-den-Kolloquium), at the Universit degli Studi di Torino on 8 October 2008, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on 14 November 2008 (Ancient Studies Colloquium), at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on 5 Decem-ber 2008 (Ancient Scholarship and Grammar Conference) and at the Univer-




177

Appendix

Table of Homeric Commentaries on Papyrus

Contents Publication Provenance Date LDAB, MP2/3

Il. 1.568 P.Oxy. LXV 4451 Oxyrhynchus 1st BC

2297, 1161.13

Il. 2.751827

P.Oxy. VIII 1086 Oxyrhynchus 1st BC

2287, 1173

Il. 3.59 = 6.333

P.Berol. 9960 (APF 44 [1998] 2134) Unknown 2nd AD

1428, 1174

Il. 4.16470

P.Daris inv. 118 (Studi Stella, Trieste 1975, 46370)

Unknown 2nd AD

1718, 1174.1

Il. 4.30616

P.Ryl. I 24 Oxyrhynchus 1st AD

1386, 1175

Il. 5.85, 14852?

BKT # Abusir el-Melek?

1st BC

0000, 0000.000

Il. 6.23685

P.Cair. JE 60566 (Mlanges Maspero II, Cairo 1934, 14851)

Oxyrhynchus 2nd AD

1545, 1184

Il. 7.7583

P.Oxy. VIII 1087 Oxyrhynchus 1st AD

2264, 1186

Il. 9.128/947

P.Wash.Univ. II 63 Oxyrhynchus 2nd BC

2356, 1187.2

Il. 10.5618

P.Berol. 17151 (APF 44 [1998] 2158)

Unknown 2nd AD

7134, 1190.11

Il. 11.677754

P.Iand. I 2 = P.Giss.Lit. 2.8 Unknown 1st BC

2273, 1194

Il. 14.31648

P.Mich. inv. 1206 (ZPE 93 [1992] 1635)

Unknown 3rd4th AD

2078, 1198.01

Il. 17.4700

P.Oxy. XXIV 2397 Oxyrhynchus 1st AD

1397, 1201

Il. 19.347

P.Oxy. LXV 4452 Oxyrhynchus 2nd AD

1692, 1203.1

siteit Leiden on 13 February 2009. I am very grateful to the organizers of the various events (Jake MacPhail and Ruth Scodel; Brad Inwood and Michael Dewar; Isabella Andorlini; Rudolf Kassel and Jrgen Hammerstaedt; Rosa Maria Piccione; Dimitrios Yatromanolakis and Richard Jasnow; Stephanos Matthaios and Antonios Rengakos; Casper de Jonge) for their invitations and to them and the audiences for their questions and comments. I have also greatly benefited from the suggestions of Michael Apthorp, Ren Nnlist and Helmut van Thiel, who were kind enough to read earliers drafts of this survey.



John Lundon 178

416 Il. 21.1516?

P.Oxy. II 221 Oxyrhynchus 2nd AD

1631, 1205

Od. 3.14

P.Oxy. LXXI 4820 Oxyrhynchus 2nd AD

112372, 1208.01

Od. 4.33545 = 17.12636

P.Yale II 128 Unknown 2nd AD

1732, 1209.2

Od. 11.4756

P.Pisa Lit. 8 Theadelphia 1st AD

1327, 1210.3

Od. 12.12296

PSI XV 1464 Oxyrhynchus 2nd AD

1578, 1210.4

Od. 15.7891

P.Oxy. LXXI 4821 Oxyrhynchus 2nd AD

112373, 1211.001

Od. 16.148471, 17.5383

P.Lille inv. 83+134+93b+93a+114t+114o+87 (Mlanges Vercoutter, Paris 1985, 229238)

Magdola 3rd BC

1956, 1211.01

Od. 20.105251

P.Oxy. LIII 3710 Oxyrhynchus 2nd AD

1690, 1212.01

Od. 21.21731, 23334

P.Fay. 312 descr. (BASP 20 [1983] 11322)

Fayum 2nd AD

1549, 1213




179

02468

1012

Charts

Chart 1. Chronological Distribution of Homeric Commentaries on Papyrus

Chart 2. Chronological Distribution and Relative Number of Commentaries on the Iliad and Odyssey

Chart 3. Provenance of Homer Commentaries on Papyrus

02468

1012

3rd cent. BC 2nd cent. BC 1st cent. BC 1st cent. AD 2nd cent. AD 3rd4th cent. AD

02468

1012

3rd cent. BC 2nd cent. BC 1st cent. BC 1st cent. AD 2nd cent. AD 3rd4th cent. AD

Iliad Odyssey



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