Interpreting a Classic: Demosthenes and His Ancient Commentators

2. Didymus Fragments in Harpocration

text 2 Didymus Fragments in Harpocration 137 1. See Keaney ed., ix–xi; Hemmerdinger, 107; Turner, “Roman Oxyrhynchus,” 91–92. 2. Keaney, “Alphabetization.” This section contains a text, translation, and notes on the fragments of Didymus’s commentaries on Demosthenes that are attributed to Didymus by name in Harpocration’s Lexeis of the Ten Orators. Harpocration ’s lexicon contains about 1,300 entries on words and phrases found mainly in the Attic orators. Bibliographical references in the lexicon suggest a post-Augustan date. The palaeographical dates of two surviving ancient papyri (P.Ryl. 532 and P.Merton 30), together with biographical information from P.Oxy. 2912 and the Suda, suggest that it was written before the end of the second century c.e. A date of composition in the second century c.e. seems secure.1 An epitome of the lexicon was made before the year 850. Our MSS of the fuller recension all date from after 1300. Absolute alphabetization, from first letter to last, is the general rule. The entries that are out of order—fewer than 10 percent of all entries —are the result of some problems in the transmission of the text and the incomplete application of alphabetization in certain sections.2 Harpocration cites Didymus as his source thirty-five times in the lexicon , often summarizing Didymus’s position without reproducing his argument (see especially fragments 4 and 5). Two of these citations are in entries not aimed at any particular author (A 196, Q 16). Fourteen oth- 138 Texts, Translations, and Notes 3. D-S1 , xvii; see Florian, 83–85, on Harpocration’s knowledge of Anaximenes. 4. Keaney, “Alphabetization.” ers are in entries on words or phrases found in the orators Aeschines (Q 34, K 80, X 4, P 2), Dinarchus (M 11), Hyperides (E 35, O 25, P 124), Lycurgus (P 96, T 19), and Lysias (D 23). Harpocration uses the remaining twenty-one citations of Didymus to define words and phrases in Demosthenes. Three of these citations are explicitly said to come from Didymus’s commentaries on Demosthenes (fragments 5, 20, and probably 9). Three could come either from commentaries on Demosthenes or from commentaries on other orators named in the entry (fragments 10, 14, and 15). Eleven other citations of Didymus are keyed so closely to specific passages in Demosthenes that it is difficult to imagine them being derived from anything but his commentaries on Demosthenes (fragments 1– 4, 6, 13, 16, 19, 21, and perhaps 7 and 17). Harpocration’s remaining four citations of Didymus, by contrast, seem less directly connected to the passages of Demosthenes in question (fragments 8, 11, 12, and 18). In these four cases, it is conceivable that Harpocration took information from a work of Didymus having nothing to do with Demosthenes and reapplied it to passages in Demosthenes in which those same words occur. Parallels for this procedure in Harpocration are found, for example, in his entries for xhraloifei`n (X 4) and dermhsthv~ (D 23): in the first, Harpocration discusses a word in Aeschines but cites Didymus’s lexicon to tragedy (levxi~ tragikhv) (Schmidt, frag. 1); in the second, he discusses a word in Lysias but cites Didymus’s lexicon of difficult words (ajporoumevnh levxi~) (Schmidt, frag. 1). Although no other entries in Harpocration contain information explicitly attributed to Demosthenic commentaries or to known commentators , it is possible that some of the entries on Demosthenes whose sources are not named are actually drawn from Didymus,3 other philological and historical commentators, or lexicographers who drew on them. Harpocration’s working methods are still something of a mystery. Though he had access to an impressive array of primary source material —the index to Keaney’s edition lists 177 named sources—it is impossible to say which of these sources he consulted directly, and which he simply found mentioned in earlier lexica or commentaries. To complicate matters further, alphabetization of his unalphabetized source lexica has removed some of the evidence of how he compiled his lexicon.4 Didymus Fragments in Harpocration 139 Text: From Keaney’s edition. The entries are presented here in the order in which their lemmata occur in Demosthenes. Previously, P-S, 55– 61, reprinted these fragments of Didymus from Schmidt, 310–17, who took his text from Bekker’s edition of Harpocration. Schmidt omits fragment 16 and includes fragment 11 as part of Didymus’s lexicon on comedy...