On “Undying Old Age” of Poet Cleonicus (Matro fr. 7 O.-S.) (From the History of Ancient Greek Parody)

Authors

  • Elena L. Ermolaeva St Petersburg State University

Abstract

Our knowledge of the history of ancient Greek epic parody and parodists is strictly limited. A single ancient source of the history of epic parody which we possess is a cursory one written by Athenaeus (IX 406a–407e; XV 698c–699a). In this article I deal with the enigmatic fr. 7 (O.-S.) of Matro of Pitane (IV–III cc. BC) transmitted by Athenaeus (XV 697f–8a). In his hexameters Matro refers by name possibly to his fellow parodists belonging to an earlier generation, Euboeus, Hermogenes, two Philips, who passed away, and praises them as ἄριστοι. Finally, he names a certain Cleonicus who possessed “undying old age”, and “to whom, even when dead, Persephone gave the gift of gabble.” The expression θάνατον γῆρας “undying old age” is puzzling. If we accept lectio facilior  θάνατον γῆρυν “an immortal voice”, following Lloyd-Jones, Parsons (1983) and the recent editors of Matro S. D. Olson and A. Sens (1999), we have rather verses of praising character than parody or paignia. However Atheneus and Eustathius cited Matro’s verses in obviously ironical context and directly named him as a parodist. It looks more reasonable to support the interpretation of “undying old age” given by Shweighäuser (1802) as “extrema senectus”. My argument is that in the fr. 7 there is the play word version of the wide-spread epic formula which Matro used in his Homeric cento. It seems that these Matro’s hexameters do not belong to his gastronomic parodies like Symposium Atticum (fr. 1 O.-S.) and all his other survived fragments (2-6 O.-S.). On the other side, we could suppose that gastronomic parody could include passages of individual or even of invective character concerning author’s colleagues, contemporary rivals or predecessors, as Ancient Comedy did. Interpreted this way, this fragment contains a seed of self-reflection by a parodist on his own art.

Keywords:

History of Ancient Greek epic parody, parodists’ contests, cento poetry, Homer, Matro of Pitane, Hegemon, Athenaeus

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References

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Lloyd-Jones H., Parsons P. (eds.) Supplementum Hellenisticum. Berlin; New York, 1983.

Nesselrath H.-G. Parody and Later Greek Comedy. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 1993. Vol. 95. Pp. 181–195.

Olson S.D., Sens A. Matro of Pitane and the Tradition of Epic Parody in the Fourth Century BCE: Text, Translation and commentary. American Philological Association: American Classical studies. Atlanta, 1999. Vol. 44.

Pöhlmann E. Parodia. Glotta. 1972. Vol. 50. Pp. 144–156.

Rose M.A. Parody: Ancient, Modern and Post-Modern. Cambridge, 1993.

Seidensticker B. Dithyramb, Comedy, and Satyr-Play. A Companion to Greek Tragedy, ed. by J. Gregory. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. Pp. 38–54.

Schweighäuser I. (ed.) Athenaei Naucratitis Deipnosophistarum Libri Quindecim: 14 vols. Argentorati, 1801–1807. Vol. IV. 1802.

LGPN — Fraser P.M., Matthews E., Osborne M.J. A lexicon of Greek personal names. Oxford, 1987–1997.

LSJ — Liddell H.G., Scott R. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed., rev. Oxford, H.S. Jones and R. McKenzie, 1996.

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Published

2015-12-10

How to Cite

Ermolaeva, E. (2015). On “Undying Old Age” of Poet Cleonicus (Matro fr. 7 O.-S.) (From the History of Ancient Greek Parody). Philologia Classica, 10, 80–95. Retrieved from https://philclass.spbu.ru/article/view/7508

Issue

Vol. 10 (2015)

Section

I. Ancient Greek Language and Literature

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Articles of "Philologia Classica" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.