Cratete di Mallo: I frammenti. Edizione, introduzione e note (review)

This book is the first complete modern edition of all fragments surviving from the works of Crates of Mallos, a philologist and textual critic who was head of the Library of Pergamon in the second century B.C.E. (xvii– xix). In the ancient world, he was best known for his interpretations of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, but he was also well known for his theories in the fields of astronomy and geography. As a Homeric scholar, he was a rival of Aristarchus of Samothrace, who was head of the Library of Alexandria around the same time. There are many traces, especially in the Homeric scholia, of rival Homeric readings and interpretations attributed to these two scholars, who evidently engaged in a lively ongoing exchange with each other in their writings.

Thanks to the painstakingly complete and philologically precise collection of the relevant evidence by Broggiato, classicists can now trace the intellectual history of the differences between Crates and Aristarchus. In the ancient world, the many real differences between these two rival editors of Homer were conventionally reduced to a single overarching contrast between Crates the Pergamene as an "anomalist" and Aristarchus the Alexandrian as an "analogist." Such an antithesis, as the evidence collected by Broggiato shows decisively, has been grossly exaggerated.

It cannot be denied, however, that Crates had major differences with Aristarchus in his own work on Homer. A most prominent example is Crates F 20 (I follow here the numbering of Broggiato). We read in Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae 938d:

      (Il. 14.246)

     (Il. 14.246a)

But you are always so enamored of Aristarchus and so impressed with him that you do not hear Crates as he reads out loud:

" . . . , who has been fashioned as genesis for all men and gods, and he flows over the Earth in all her fullness."

The first of these two verses as quoted by Plutarch corresponds to Iliad 14.246—with verse-initial , continuing the syntax of verse 245 as we have it—while the second, "14.246a," has been omitted from the text proper of modern editions of the Iliad. Evidently, the base text of Homer as established by Aristarchus excluded this verse, while the base text as established by Crates included it.

For Crates (F 20), the verse of Iliad 14.246a provided evidence for a cosmic theory—that the was the salt-water "ocean" covering the earth, which was supposedly spherical. According to the theory of Crates, the earth was spherical, at the center of a universe that was likewise spherical (lii). Crates evidently interpreted in a modernizing sense: "[which flows] over most of the earth." In other words, the saltwater ocean covers most of the spherical earth. This theory was opposed by Aristarchus, who viewed the Homeric as a freshwater river surrounding an earth that is round and flat (179).

Even from the standpoint of Homeric criticism, the editorial decisions of Crates reflect a solid grounding in the textual evidence. A striking example is Crates F 1 (as analyzed by Broggiato, 140–41). We may often wish to disagree with his specific points of interpretation, but the textual variants that he adduces cannot be dismissed as mere inventions. From an analysis of the formulaic composition of Iliad 14.246a, for example, we can see that there is nothing non-Homeric per se about the form of this verse as adduced by Crates (179 n.151, with reference to Il. 13.632 and two other Homeric passages). Nor is there anything non-Homeric per se about the contents. Moreover, from a formulaic point of view, the verse does not even necessarily convey a vision of a saltwater ocean—let alone a spherical earth, as argued by Crates.

From the standpoint of Homeric poetry as a formulaic system, the mythological essence of is self-evident: he is a cosmic freshwater river-god who circles Earth, pervading her...