Interpreting a Classic: Demosthenes and His Ancient Commentators

Preface

Preface This is a book about ancient writers and readers who shared an interest in the orations of the Athenian statesman Demosthenes. There has been no full modern discussion of the nature of this branch of the ancient reception of Demosthenes; it is a story that has been told only in part and with various aims. In addition, the texts themselves have never been assembled in one place, translated into a modern language, and provided with explanatory notes. This book is intended to address these gaps in the scholarship. Part I consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 describes the physical form of the commentaries and discusses their transmission. A diachronic history of their transmission would have been preferable, but the fragmentary nature of our evidence and the lack of securely known names, dates, and cultural contexts for the commentators make that a difficult if not impossible project. Therefore, the chapter is largely descriptive, relying on a series of illustrative snapshots from a rich history of ancient responses to Demosthenes. Chapter 2 considers the role of Didymus and the sources, agenda, and readership of the commentaries. Chapter 3 argues that Didymus’s On Demosthenes (P.Berol.inv. 9780) may be a series of excerpts from a lost original commentary, made by someone with interests primarily in classical Athenian history. Part II presents the ancient philological and historical commentaries on Demosthenes, together with their Greek texts (except that of the lengthy P.Berol.inv. 9780) and detailed notes. The translations are inix tended to convey the content and method of the commentators, wherever possible, but like all translations, they are acts of interpretation and are therefore necessarily argumentative. This book is the product of many years of interest in the ancient philological and historical commentaries on Demosthenes. I wish to thank John F. Oates of Duke University for introducing me to Didymus’s commentaries on Demosthenes, which I first examined in my 1995 dissertation ; portions of that study have been revised and incorporated in the present work. I am grateful also to Peter Burian, Diskin Clay, Francis Newton, and especially Kent Rigsby for their advice in the early stages of the project. A postdoctoral fellowship in the Western Traditions Program at the University of Nevada, Reno, provided the time and institutional support needed to write the first draft of the book. I wish to thank Phil Boardman, Gaye McCollum-Nickles, and Bernie Schopen of UNR for their collegiality and interest in the project; the program’s management assistant, Susan Kempley, for running interference while I researched and wrote; and the Interlibrary Loan service for so quickly locating and delivering needed materials. I wish also to thank my colleagues in the Department of Classics at the University of Iowa, particularly Helena Dettmer and Mary Depew, for their advice and support as I completed revisions. I am very grateful to Kate Toll of the Press for her initial enthusiasm, continual encouragement, and invaluable assistance , and to Dore Brown and Cindy Fulton for overseeing the final stages of production. To M. R. Dilts and the two anonymous readers for the Press I offer my sincere gratitude for their helpful suggestions and corrections . Christopher Blackwell, Peter Burian, Diskin Clay, Francis Newton , Andrea Purvis, Rebekah Smith, and Joshua D. Sosin read portions of the manuscript at various stages and helped improve it in a number of ways, and Kent Rigsby graciously served as a final reader of the whole. Mark Thorne assisted with indexing. Any errors or infelicities that remain are my own. Above all, I wish to thank my wife Kristal for her love and understanding; I could not have accomplished this without her. x Preface ...