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Note on Palladas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan Cameron
Affiliation:
Bedford College, London

Extract

(Anth. Pal. 10.92)

So the Palatinus, our only source for this poem. No satisfactory explanation of has ever been propounded, and the words are surely corrupt. By deftly changing two letters and replacing by Jacobs restored a sense of sorts:

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1965

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References

1 There is no parallel at all for supposing with Lumb, T. W. (Notes on the Greek Anthology [1920], p. 86) that could mean ‘be asleep to Justice’—nor should we expect there to be a parallel: if the phrase meant anything at all, it would surely be our other English expression ‘sleep the sleep of the just’, which would be out of the question in the context.Google Scholar

1 I take this opportunity of pointing out that the only correct interpretation of the next line of this poem is that of Theodor Birt, in the preface to his edition of Claudian, M.G.H., Auct. Ant. x (1892), iv–v.Google Scholar

1 Perhaps Timotheus, patriarch of Alexandria, from 381–5Google Scholar. Palladas refers several times to Timotheus’ successor Theophilus in similar punning fashion: e.g. (10.91. i;go.2;9. 175. 5). SeeKeydell, , Byz. Zeit. 1 (1957) 2Google Scholar, Bowra, , Proc. Brit. Acad. xlv (1959), 264 f.Google Scholar, and my own article in J.R.S. lv (1965).Google Scholar

2 For discussion of the otiier poets in- cluded in the original edition of Palladas’ poems see Franke, A., De Pallada Epigrammatographo, Diss. Leipzig, 1899, pp. 47 f.Google Scholar, and Peek, W., R.-E. xviii. 3. 160–1.Google Scholar

1 in 1. 4 may refer more precisely to Palladas’ livelihood as a schoolmaster, for he seems to have been obliged to give it up as a result of the persecution of the pagans: cf. J.R.S. 1965.Google Scholar

2 The evidence is collected by Stella, , Cinque poeti. …, pp. 379–83Google Scholar, and Bowra, , Proc. Brit. Acad. xlv, 266Google Scholar: cf. also Byz. Zeit. lvii (1964), 279–92Google Scholar. But Bowra and Stella are mistaken in accepting Jacobs's identification of the Patricius mentioned in 11. 386 with a quaestor (Stella by oversight writes ‘consul’) at Constantinople in 390. Patricius, as I have shown in J.H.S. lxxxiv (1964), 5859, was an Alexandrian charioteer.Google Scholar

3 The nominative is (as in Theophanes Continuatus, p. 460 Bekker), the normal form for the name of such ‘palaces’ (see Tabachovitz, D., Sprachliche und textkritische Studien zur Chronik des Theophanes Confessor, Diss. Uppsala, 1926, pp. 3 f.)Google Scholar: there was an etc. (cf. the index to Janin's, R.Constantinople byzantine [1950] passim)Google Scholar. Bowra, (Byz. Zeit. liii [1960], 1) rightly rejects Stella's view (Cinque poeti …, p. 382) that the Marina in question was Marina the wife of Valentinian I and mother of Gratian.Google Scholar

1 Once more Palladas is satirizing the honorific epigrams of his day; is one of the stock epithets of the genre, and the pentameter of one typical specimen, Kaibel go2 B 2, ends Robert suggests mat this was a standard formula, which Palladas is here satirizing (Hellenica iv. 98)Google Scholar. Similarly when Palladas denies that officials are and (e.g. 9. 3931, 11. 285. 4). he is again using the words most frequently employed in their praise in such epigrams; see Robert, , PP. 3940.Google Scholar

2 For the text cf. § V below.

1 Cf. Bandini, , Catal. cod. graec. bibl. Laur. iii (1770), 409Google Scholar, Hardt, , Catal. cod. mon. graec. bibl. reg. Bavar. iii (1806), 318Google Scholar. This lemma is also to be found in the scholia to the poem printed in the Wechel edition of 1600, and is reproduced in the Aldine edition of Themistius together with the poem. The Wechelian scholia are still some- times quoted as though they might preserve some genuine ancient lore; in fact diey were almost certainly made up by Musurus (see Hutton, J., The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800 [1935], 155–8Google Scholar, with a list of the manuscripts which contain them). Many of them derive, like this one, from ‘Suidas’: cf. also J.H.S. (1964), p. 58 n. 40.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Bouchery, H. F., Ant. Class, v (1936), 205 f.Google Scholar The special carriage for the city prefect had only been introduced the year before (Chastagnol, A., La prefecture urbaine [1960], 203 f.Google Scholar though cf. Momigliano, A., Rendiconti Lincei viii. 19 [1964], 225 f.), so Themistius will in fact have been one of the very first prefects to make use of one. Con- servative opinion was shocked at the innovation (Chastagnol, loc. cit.) and it may be that what particularly incensed Palladas was the thought that a philosopher like Themistius should have consented to ride in such an unprecedentedly ostentatious vehicle.Google Scholar

1 I cannot accept the usual view that Epicurus in § 30 stands for Palladas (cf. most recently Irmscher, J., Wiss. Zeitschr. d. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin vi [ 1956/1957], 168)Google Scholar. Themistius’ point is simply that as a philosopher he stands midway between the materialism of Epicurus and the idealism of Plato, and is therefore at liberty to accept public office with a clear conscience: cf. also J.H.S. lxxxiv (1964), 57.Google Scholar

2 This explanation is rendered the more likely by a clear example of the reverse deduction: Bandini, when cataloguing a poem of Palladas included in Lour. 32. 5 (Index s.v. Palladas) describes him as ‘sub Valentiniano et Valente Impp. clarus’—evidently deducing from the lemma in question that Palladas flourished at the same time as the philosopher he wrote about.Google Scholar

3 De Pallada 16; clear confirmation of the view upheld by Pfeiffer (Callimachus ii [1953], xciii) that Planudes had access to the Palatinus itself. Cf. also 11. 279. 1, where Planudes repeats the gap left in the Palatinus (see below, p. 226).Google Scholar

1 It is uncertain how many of the lemmata to the Ep. Bob. go back to the writers them- selves: see the preface to Munari's admirable editio princeps (1955), 19. n. 2, and Speyer's new Teubner edition (1963), vi. n. 8.Google Scholar

2 LSJ wrongly allege that the word means here ‘bellows’, like the Latin follis. But not only does this not suit the context, it would be a unique example of this meaning in an age when the word was the standard name for one of the commonest coins of the realm. West and Johnson, , Currency in Roman and Byzantine Egypt (1944), p. 136, claim that ‘the use of the term follis does not seem to have been introduced into Egypt until about the close of the sixth century’. Palladas’ poem (which they do not refer to) is clear evidence that the term was in common use in Alexandria almost two centuries before this.Google Scholar

1 For Palladas’ paganism cf. J.R.S. 1965 and bibliography there cited.Google Scholar

2 Hence Bowra is in my opinion undoubtedly correct to take the epithet applied to Palladas in the lemma to this poem as an insulting allusion to his paganism. I have nothing to add to his discussion (Byz. Zeit. 1960, p. 3)Google Scholar, except to remark that it is out of the question that it should mean ‘suspendu, done incrédule’ (Waltz, , R.É.G. lix/x [19461947], 209)Google Scholar, ‘hovering between hope and fear, anxious, restless’ (Luck, , Harv. Stud, lxiii [1958], 462)Google Scholar or the similar interpretation proposed by Irmscher (Wiss, . Zeit. Rostock xii [1963], 238); not least because lemmatists simply do not indulge in such acute psychological analysis, however appropriately Palladas might in fact be so described. The epithets they apply to poets are limited to nicknames, ethnics or professional titles—and their purpose is normally only to distinguish homonyms (except in the conventional sobriquet for Julian-precisely the category into which falls).Google Scholar

3 Studies in Honor of George Thomson, Acta Univ. Carotin., 1963, 129 f.Google Scholar: add to Irmscher's references Grégoire, , Recueil des inscr. grecques chrét. d'Asie Mineure (1922), p. 308Google Scholar, mentioning a certain Magnus, curator of , and cf. also Janin, , Const, byzantine, p. 357.Google Scholar

1 Compare the more elegant version (from the Palatine text) of the Jesuit Petavius: ‘Qui melior fueras, nunc peior factus, in imum / Ascende, in summum qui modo the Palatine text) of the Jesuit Petavius: lapsus eras.’

1 This gives rise to the difficult question how far is one to ascribe to Palladas himself the opinions expressed in these (and other borrowed) lines? Plainly he shared them up to a point, but is it fair to deduce from the references in them to slaves that Palladas was ‘blind für die sozialen Probleme der Zeit‘ (Irmscher, op. cit. [p. 223 n. 1], p. 174)?Google Scholar

2 An interesting commentary both on Palladas’ preoccupation with Tyche and his familiarity with Menander is provided by the papyrus published by Barns, J., ‘A New Gnomologium; with some remarks on Gnomic Anthologies (1)’Google Scholar, in C.Q. xliv (1950), 126 f.Google Scholar, a collection of gnomes by various writers, many probably from Menander, wholly devoted to the subject of Tyche. The purpose of the collection was primarily didactic (Barns, , pp. 135 f.), and is an example therefore of the sort of text book used in Egyptian primary schools, such as Palladas taught in. Now Palladas was not an original writer, and if he used a textbook like this with his pupils, it is easy to see why in his own compositions he recurs so often to the subject of Tyche and borrows so often from Menander.Google Scholar

1 A corrector of the Palatinus seems to have found awkward for he altered to presumably construing as accusative in apposition to and taking with instead. This is perhaps preferable; cf. 10. 62. 2 where Palladas says that is .

MrYorke, E. C. kindly read an earlier draft of these notes.Google Scholar