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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Although we do not know the philosophical source these scholia derive from (Erbse very plausibly suggested Porphyry; I would argue for the De regressu animae), there can hardly be any doubt that we have here a new Pythagorean fragment which communicates basic notions about metempsychosis. Pythagoras is criticized for representing the soul as afflicted by pain and grief (λνπεῖται, θρηνεῖ) when it leaves the body before entering a new one. The reasons given for its distress need not detain us here, but this new Pythagorean fragment clearly offers a conclusive solution to the vexed question of Homer's tears in Ennius, alluded to in Lucretius 1.120ff.
1 These exegetical scholia ought to explain why Patroclus' soul sheds tears (
) as it flies towards Hades (
), but their, tantalizing structure implies a less mutilated source in which the topic ‘wailing souls’ was traced through a wide range of texts, including Pythagorean metempsychosis.
2 But the author of Vita Pythagorae might have dealt with the topic elsewhere: Contra Boethum de anima (s. Porfirio, Vangelo diunpagano [Milan, 1993], pp. 136–77) or Quaestiones Homericae are further possibilities. Porphyry's criticism may have been prompted by the naturalistic notion of a wailing soul.
3 Omitted by both Diels-Kranz and M. Timpanaro Cardini, whose invaluable editions could not take into account the huge corpus of ancient Homeric scholarship. Cf. Lamberton, R., Homer the Theologian (University of California, 1986), pp. 36–7.Google Scholar
4 The Annals of Q. Ennius, ed. with introd. and comm. by O. Skutsch (Oxford, 1985), p. 156. A new assessment of the whole vexatissima quaestio is given in Livrea, E., ‘Ennio e le lacrime di Omero’, RFIC 118 (1990), 32–12 = Studio Hellenistica I (Florence, 1991), pp. 251–8.Google Scholar
5 Fr. 313 Pfeiffer = 57 Hollis, discussed by Livrea, E., KPECCONA BACKANIHC. Quindici studi dipoesia ellenistica (Florence, 1993), pp. 25–Google Scholar6. On the relevance of Callimachus (‘ of whose 
he cannot possibly be unaware’, Skutsch, p. 148, rightly) in Ennius see now Livrea, E., ‘Callimaco, fr. 114 Pf., il Somnium ed il Prologo degli Aitia’, Hermes 123 (1995), 47–62.Google Scholar
6 A most important parallel would confirm the new interpretation. In the second prologue of his ‘Homeric’ poem (Ann. 211–12 Skutsch nec quisquam sophiam, sapientia quae perhibetur, | in somnis uiditprius quam sain discere coepit) Ennius extols his achievement as dicti studiosus, which makes him a worthy heir of epic traditions. Of course, here sophia is used in the Hellenistic sense of ‘poetry’; cf. Call. fr. 1.18, Ep. 46 Pfeiffer and already Sol. fr. 1.51–2 Gentili-Prato, Pind. O. 1.116, 9.38. P.1.12 etc.
7 After a series of attacks (RFIC 119 [1991], 5–43; RFIC 121 [1993], 101–9; Belfagor 51 [1996], 76–9; Paideia 51 [1996], 229–41), Sebastiano Timpanaro seeks to deny independent value to the new testimoniwn, thus forgetting (1) that ‘diffidenza verso testimonialize tarde’ is not allowed by editors of Pythagorean fragments, cf. e.g. Cardini's quotations of Iamblichus (fifty-three times!), Porphyry (thirty times!), and Proclus (nineteen times!) as primary sources; and (2) that the Homeric scholia exegetica ‘originem traxisse ab exemplis, quae e commentariis primo ante Chr. n. saeculo compositis pendebant’ (Erbse I, p. 13). Timpanaro now informs us (Paideia, 236) that he has given up his tears-of-joy dogma, thus jettisoning the sixty-three pages he devoted to the subject. Quid plural
8 I disinterred it in ‘Riflessioni di uno psicopatico. Somnia Pythagorea o allucinazioni?’, Da Callimaco a Nonno. Died studi di poesia ellenistica (Florence, 1995), pp. 74–100. Giovanni Pascoli's old statement (Epos2 p. L) only goes to show that a great poet's intuition and sound classical scholarship may sometimes reach the same conclusions by very different routes.