Didymos of Alexandria: Commentary on Pindar. Edited and Translated with Introduction, Explanatory Notes, and a Critical Catalogue of Didymos’ Works ed. by Bruce Karl Braswell (review)

Didymos Chalcenteros of Alexandria played a key role in the development of ancient scholarship. Although Didymos’ exegetical work covers virtually the whole literary output of ancient Greece, it has unfortunately come down to us in only a very fragmentary state. Schmidt’s collection (1854) is still the only comprehensive edition of Didymos’ fragments, and its modern replacement is an urgent desideratum, all the more so because several papyri have increasingly expanded our knowledge of the grammarian. This new edition by the late Bruce Braswell aims to fill the gap for the work on Pindar. Its valuable improvements in comparison with Schmidt are very clear: while the latter could use only Abel’s limited edition of the scholiastic corpus, Braswell has taken advantage of Drachmann’s three volumes covering all the old scholia (1903–1927); he has also succeeded in recognizing nine new passages from the scholia attributable to Didymos and previously unrecorded.

The book is articulated in five sections: the first (27–103) covers Didymos’ life, his reputation in antiquity, and a critical catalogue of his works. By treating a complex range of texts and information, Braswell provides us with a critical and updated catalogue of the surviving material. The following three sections (Pindaric scholarship before Didymos, 105–11; Didymos’ commentary on Pindar: an overview of features and textual matters, 113–21; Didymos’ achievement, 123–26) offer an evaluation of his work on Pindar’s text by elucidating his exegetical strategies and his relationship with the predecessors. In chapter 2, Braswell is over-cautious in selecting Didymos’ predecessors; he takes into account only the grammarians identified in the scholiastic passages as firmly related to Didymos. In doing so, however, he overlooks, for example, Artemon of Pergamum, who is mentioned six times in the scholia as being interested in mythological and historical matter in Pindar’s Sicilian odes (see M. Broggiato, CQ 61.2 [2011] 545–52). Although his relationship with Chalcenteros is far from clear, Artemon should have been mentioned among Didymos’ predecessors. As for chapter 3, Braswell should perhaps have explored in more detail the role of the literary tradition within the rhetorical and exegetical strategies of the commentary, and shown how the potentially authorial power of the poets quoted by Didymos was perceived by the contemporary readers.

The second section (129-265) is centered on the text and the commentary on the fragments (Epinicians, frr. 1-67; Paeans, fr. 68, dubia, frr. 69–72, and spuria, fr. 73): every item is translated and commented on. A bibliography (267–90) and concordances and indices (291–325) complete this volume. Braswell’s commentary is usually accurate, even if some points seem to be a little far-fetched and could have been better explained: for example, on fr. 21 (169) the discussion of the Schol. Ol. 10.83ab should have been more detailed (encompassing also what follows until 84e); moreover, I am not persuaded that Didymos’ reading was cμα Ἁλιρροθίου) as Braswell suggests, and not Ἥρωc (see W. S. Barrett, Collected Papers [Oxford 2007] 77). The choice of material is somewhat questionable. Braswell rightly states that Didymos wrote more than one commentary on Pindar, but the evidence points almost exclusively to the Epinicians: a single item testifies to exegetical activity on the Paeans, and other uncertain instances are cautiously banished to the dubia. This section, however, should have been enlarged by the inclusion of some papyrus fragments attributed to Didymos with differing degrees of probability: (i) P.Berol. 13875, a second-century fragment edited by G. Zuntz, CR 49 (1935) 4–7 (on which cf. now L. Benelli, Mnemosyne 66 [2013], 616–24); (ii) PSI 1391 (see S. Lavecchia, Akten 21st Pap. Kongr. [Berlin 1997], 578–85). Moreover, I would have inserted the papyrus marginalia where Didymos...