Simonides lyricus: Testimonia und Fragmente. Einleitung, kritische Ausgabe, Übersetzung und Kommentar (review)

Since the complete edition of Simonides by Schneidewin appeared (Brunschweig 1835), all that has been preserved of this lyric poet has been edited only in the comprehensive collections of lyric poets by Bergk (Leipzig 1914) and by Diehl (Leipzig 1942²). The scholar has had to turn to several collections to find Simonides in the current editions of classical poetic fragments; for lyric, Page's Poetae melici graeci (PMG, Oxford 1962) and Supplementum lyricis graecis (Oxford 1974); for elegies, Gentili and Prato's Poetae elegiaci² (Munich-Leipzig 2002) and West's Iambi et Elegi Graeci² (Oxford 1992); for epigrams, Page's Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge 1981); and for the testimonia Campbell's Loeb, Greek Lyric III (Cambridge 1991). A comprehensive scholarly edition of all of Simonides with commentary is truly lacking. Poltera's Simonides lyricus does not aim to fill this gap. It looks more like an updated and commented Simonides section of PMG, along with testimonia on the poet (27–90). Poltera adds frr. 250, 255, 287, °344, °345; Page's PMG frr. 158, 519, 534, 635 are not presented.

Poltera collects 110 testimonia on Simonides, organized by life, art, sayings, and paignia, a considerable step forward in comparison with the first brief collection of Campbell's 47 testimonia. We are very far from completeness, however. For example, Poltera prints among the sayings as testimony 104 (Plut. Them. 5.6) a dialogue between Themistocles and Simonides, but a second dialogue between the two men, known from three sources, Plut. Mor. 185C–D, 534E, and 807B, has been completely omitted: a dialogue with Simonides asking the Athenian to say something that was not just, to which Themistocles says: "Neither is he a good poet who sings contrary to meter, nor is he an equitable ruler who grants favors contrary to law." Both events could appear in the section of testimonia on the life as evidence of the relationship between the two famous men. Completely omitted are Ioannes Tzetzes' passages on Simonides' victories (Hist. 1.24.622–642, p.28 Leone) and his venality (Hist. 8.228.807–829, p.356 Leone).

Overall, Poltera's edition gives the scholar a commentary and rich references, all with many linguistic notes. Yet his text and editorial decisions, sometimes surprising, in passages with a complex transmission are open to discussion. Metrical observations and strophic assessment also cause more than one objection, such as when, on Scopas' Encomium (457), Poltera says that in the monostrophic structure aeolic cola are prevalent, between which are telesilleans, which, however, do not appear in the metrical scheme that Poltera himself gives of this poem. The beginning of Poltera's text of Danae's Lament omits a ὅτε found in the text of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the source of this fragment—as well as a varia lectio ὅτι—as if it were an introductory formula, but since Dionysius never employs ὅτε or ὅτι to introduce a quotation in his De Compositione Verborum, it must therefore be part of the poem. Another problem with a poem's incipit is in the Encomium for the Fallen at Thermopylai, where the beginning of the quotation is considered the title of the poem, an unfortunate consequence of an hypothesis of M. L. West, "Prose in Simonides," CR 17 (1967) 133, that it could be prose, since "stylistically the articled participle with the sandwiched prepositional phrase is abhorrent in a fifth century lyric poem."

In short, scholars will have in hand a good commentary on Simonides' lyrical fragments, but they should pay close attention to Poltera's textual choices. This book represents a clear improvement, especially with its testimonia, but we are far from having a complete reference edition of Simonides; PMG must still be consulted.