Part 1: Attribution
Semonides or Simonides? A Century-Long Controversy over the Authorship of a Greek Elegiac Fragment
(Simonides, fr. 8 W. = frr. 19-20 W.2)
by Elisa Nuria Merisio
From Defining Authorship, Debating Authenticity: Problems of Authority from Classical Antiquity to the Renaissance
Edited by Roberta Berardi, Martina Filosa, and Davide Massimo
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
1 Introduction
The attribution of Archaic Greek lyric fragments proves to be complicated because of the very nature of these poems and of the way they have come down to us. The fragmentary condition of most poems -- which is often quite apparent but sometimes cannot be safely assumed because the fragment seems to be complete -- is the main difficulty in determining their authorship, both in the case of verses preserved in Late-antique anthologies or in other authors' works and in the case of the ones included in papyri discovered many centuries later, which are often incomplete and full of lacunae [gap]. An additional difficulty lies in the peculiar character of Archaic Greek poetry, which often makes modern style and content-oriented criteria unsuitable.
An elegiac fragment quoted in a Late-antique anthology and included in a papyrus found at the end of the 20th century is a case in point. The attribution process of this fragment has turned out to be complicated and highly controversial and perhaps it has not yet come to an end.
Joannes Stobaeus, a 5th-century learned compiler, quotes a poem consisting of elegiac couplets and having the lemma [x] (4.34.28) in Book 4 of his Anthologium under the rubric [x] (How life is short, miserable and full of concerns). The text, included by M.L. West in the section dubia of the first edition of Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati (West [1972]) as fr. 8 of Simonides, is quoted below:
[x]
The man from Chios said one thing best: "As is the generation of leaves, so is the generation of men". Few men hearing this take it to heart, for in each man there is a hope which grows in his heart when he is young. As long as a mortal has the lovely bloom of youth, with a light spirit he plans many deeds that will go unfulfilled. For he does not expect to grow old or die; nor when healthy does he think about illness. Fools are they whose thoughts are thus! Nor do they know that the time of youth and life is short for mortals. But you, learning this at the end of your life, endure, delighting in good things in your soul.1
At first glance, the poem seems to be complete, but the unusual presence of a pentameter at the beginning has led scholars from the Renaissance onwards to assume that at least one initial hexameter was lost. Camerarius attempted to reconstruct exempli gratia the allegedly lost line as follows: [x]2. Moreover, the particle [x] at the beginning of the first line seems to fulfil a connective function, either continuative or adversative, and not an inceptive one.3 The suggestion that one or more initial lines were discarded by Stobaeus when quoting the passage is well-grounded, since his quotations are grouped by themes and such poems often featured some 'private' information at the beginning that was not relevant considering the general character of the Anthologium.4
2 A Century-Long Authorship Controversy
However, until the publication of P. Oxy. 59.3965 in 1992 (see section 4 below), the main problem associated with this poem did not lie in its fragmentary nature but rather in its authorship. As noted above, the poem was included by West as fr. 8 of Simonides in the section dubia,5 but since the 16th century this fragment has been assigned to many different poets, leading to a century-long authorship controversy. The main reason behind this controversy lies in the name attributed by Stobaeus to the author of the couplets, i.e. [x]. The phonetic similarity of the names of two Archaic Greek poets called [x] and [x] -- the former, Semonides of Amorgos [7th century BC], being a iambic poet6 thought to have lived earlier than the latter, Simonides of Ceos [556-468 BC],7 the author of poems covering a variety of genres, including monodic poetry and epigrams -- has caused the two poets to be confused since Antiquity. While their names are still clearly distinguishable in a 1st-century BC papyrus that features works by Philodemus of Gadara,8 they overlapped at least from the 2nd century onwards, probably also owing to the phonetic phenomenon known as itacism, which began in the Hellenistic period and spread widely during the Roman Empire.9 In his Anthologium, Stobaeus himself associates the lemma [x] with both fragments for which Semonidean authorship has been firmly established (e.g. Stob. 4.34.15 = fr. 1 W. and Stob. 4.22.193 = fr. 7 W., the well-known satirical account of different types of women) and fragments which are unquestionably from works by Simonides (e.g. PMG 521 = Stob. 4.41.9 and PMG 522 = Stob. 4.51.5). Even though in the 9th century AD George Choiroboskos, a Byzantine grammarian, had pointed out the different spelling of the names of the two poets,10 the two continued to overlap over the subsequent centuries. Nor did the editors of the earliest printed collections of ancient Greek lyric poets make any distinction between the two. Stephanus ascribed all the poems having the lemma [x], including iambs, to Simonides of Ceos11, whereas Crispinus, followed by Winterton, explicitly placed the iambic poems along with the elegiac fragment among the works of the iambographer of Amorgos.12
It is worth mentioning that in 1823-1824 Giacomo Leopardi translated fr. 1 W. by Semonides and the elegiac fragment handed down by Stobaeus. The two poems, respectively Dal greco di Simonide (no. 40) and Delio stesso (no. 41),13 are included at the end of Leopardi's Canti, the collection of his poems. Following Stephanus' edition, the Italian poet always identifies 'Simonides' with the poet of Ceos, as E. Pellizer has convincingly demonstrated (see Pellizer [1976]).
In the 18th century the two poets were still confused and only in the 19th century, following the development of Classical philology in Germany, was the distinction between them more clearly established. T. Bergk once again made a conscious attempt to ascribe the disputed fragment to the iambic poet Semonides of Amorgos14 (fr. Sim. 85 in his collection Poetae lyrici Graeci). This attribution was supported by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, who strongly argued for a Semonidean authorship in Homerische Untersuchungen (1884)15 and in Sappho und Simonides (1913),16 where he further elaborated on the topic. H. Diehl included the poem as fr. Sem. 29 in his Anthologio lyrica Graeca and W. Jaeger spoke of Bergk's attribution as 'one of the unquestionable achievements of Classical philology' in a footnote to Paideia.17 The two criteria followed by those arguing in favour of a Semonidean authorship are clearly summarized by Wilamowitz in a footnote to his 1913 work:18 (a) the thematic similarity between the disputed fragment and fr. 1 W. by Semonides - a iamb dealing with the contrast between human illusions and the griefs of life in the same protreptic tone -- that is preserved in the chapter of Stobaeus' Anthologium (4.34.15) devoted to the brevity of life, just like the elegiac fragment; (b) a style deemed 'unworthy' of Simonides.
Conversely, in the early 1930s, W.J. Oates argued strongly in favour of Simonidean authorship in his study on the influence of Simonides on Horace's poetry.19 He questions Wilamowitz's and Bergk's opinions by convincingly arguing, inter alia, that the style of elegiac poems must be investigated from different perspectives20 (this topic will be further expanded in section 3 below).
Since the 1950s, several scholars have reached widely different conclusions about the attribution of this fragment. Some have continued to argue in favour of a Semonidean authorship, including D. Babut who resorts once again to the criterion of thematic similarity, even though he admits that there are differences in style between the iambic fragment by Semonides and the disputed elegiac fragment.21 Other scholars have tried to find a solution alternative to the Semonides-Simonides pair. V. Steffen assigns the fragment to Mimnermus on the basis of the style and content similarity between this poem and the elegiac fragments by the poet of Colophon;22 J.A. Davison leaves the question unsettled and, what is more, reverses the perspective by maintaining that the thematic similarity between the two fragments might be the reason behind their attribution to the same author;23 H. Frankel (followed by H. Lloyd-Jones)24 believes that the fragment's linguistic facies is too modern to be ascribed to Semonides and assumes that it is an epigraphic funerary epigram which was assigned to Simonides, along with many others, back in Antiquity.25 As noted above, West includes the poem as fr. 8 of Simonides in the dubia section and ascribes it to a poet contemporary to Simonides of Ceos. West expands on this topic in Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus: 26 despite the Suda's testimony,27 only iambic poems have been transmitted under Semonides' name, whereas we know for sure that Simonides wrote poems in a variety of genres, including elegy. Then, West offers an objective review of all the arguments put forward in favour of a Semonidean authorship up until the early 1970s, and his analysis of the style and of the expressions used in the fragment leads him to conclude that it cannot be dated earlier than the 5th century BC.28
3 Style and Content as Attribution Criteria
The publication of P. Oxy. 59.3965 by P. Parsons in 1992 opened up new perspectives in the assessment of the elegiac fragment29 even though in some scholars' opinion the authorship question is still far from being settled. Before dealing with this new chapter in the authorship controversy related to fr. 8 W., it is worth making a few remarks about the attribution criteria followed by scholars before the publication of P. Oxy. 59.3965.
Special attention must be paid to the stylistic and formal criteria that were often used to rule out a Simonidean authorship in the late 19th century and in the early 20th century. Such criteria are based on a modern concept developed by Romanticism whereby each poet has his own individual style. In Archaic Greek poetry, however, individual style was clearly subordinated to poetic genres and, consequently, to performance occasions. In particular, as Oates pointed out,30 archaic elegy was deeply influenced by epic language31 on the one hand and by sympotic performance settings on the other32. As a result before considering the individual style of a poet, the poem in question has to be analyzed within the framework of the relevant genre. In this case, Simonides' versatility in composing in a variety of genres, forms and styles speaks for an attribution to the poet of Ceos despite the difference in style of this elegiac fragment compared to other poems whose Simonidean authorship has been firmly established. Conversely, the identification of expressions and concepts that are not attested before a given period33 is a useful criterion allowing to establish at least an approximate dating, even though it may prove misleading: for instance, the noun [x] in fr. 1 W. by Semonides is subsequently attested as late as the Imperial period.
Content was another criterion of paramount importance in trying to establish the authorship of the disputed fragment. As noted above, the thematic similarity between fr. 1 W. by Semonides and the elegiac fragment handed down by Stobaeus has been considered to be conclusive evidence in favour of a Semonidean authorship by many scholars. However, if this perspective is reversed, as Davison has done, it is worth pointing out that Archaic Greek poetry featured topoi that were reused and readapted to different performance occasions. Original topics were not an essential feature, and the authority of poetry lay in drawing upon tradition.34 Even poets like Simonides, who conveyed new messages, resorted to well-established forms and registers between the 6th and 5th century BC. Archaic poetry had a parenetic and gnomic function: the misery and 'ephemeral' nature of human existence are frequent topics, as well as human weakness vis-a-vis destiny and the gods. A pitiless picture is painted of human hopes and illusions that are bound to be soon dispelled35 to urge men to have a disillusioned view of reality and to bear the griefs of life, but this 'pessimistic' view of the human experience is combined with the celebration of bravery, art and poetry and with an invitation to enjoy the present while being aware of the precariousness of life. Although both the elegiac fragment considered and Semonides' iambic poem surely share the former perspective -- we do not know for sure whether Semonides' composition included the latter --,36 this thematic similarity must lead us to conclude not that they were written by the same author or that the two poems refer to each other, but rather that they share a common cultural background.
The poetic reuse of the well-known simile of the leaves must be read against this backdrop. The famous words uttered by Glaucus in book 6 of the Iliad37 are the first know attestation of the image. The same comparison was used by Mimnermus in fr. 2 W. and the disputed elegiac fragment features the first line of the Iliadic simile. Subsequently, this image was repeatedly reused by Greek and Latin poets.38 Interestingly enough, out of the many examples of the reuse of the Homeric simile, the elegiac fragment is the only text to quote its opening line word by word. Such feature has been sometimes regarded as evidence of a Simonidean authorship, since Simonides is known to have quoted verses by earlier poets, often for polemic purposes.39 Even though this argument sounds convincing, it does not appear conclusive.
4 P. Oxy. 59.3956: A Turning Point in the Authorship Controversy
As noted above, the publication in 1992 of P. Oxy. 59.3956, which dates back to the 2nd century AD, marked a significant turning point in the century-long controversy. Fr. 5 of the papyrus overlaps with an elegiac couplet by Simonides quoted by Plutarch.40 This detail, along with the similar content of the poems and the fact that two more passages featured in P. Oxy. 59.3965 overlap with other passages contained in P. Oxy. 22.2327, has allowed for an almost certain identification of Simonides as the author of the verses included in the two groups of papyrus fragments.41 What is more, fr. 26 of the papyrus contains eight of the 13 lines of the elegiac fragment quoted by Stobaeus. The text of fr. 20 W. 2, which contains the papyrus passages, included in the second edition of Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati by West, is quoted below:
[x]
The first five lines of the fragment handed down by Stobaeus, which are included as fr. 19 assigned to Simonides, just like fr. 20 above, in the second edition by West, are quoted below:
[x]5
The discovery of P. Oxy. 59.3965 seems to have settled the authorship controversy in favour of Simonides, although some scholars still disagree (see below). However, it has raised two additional questions. First, what is the relationship between the first five lines quoted by Stobaeus (fr. 19 W. 2) and the remaining eight lines making up the previous fr. 8 W.? In the papyrus, the latter lines are preceded by traces of verses that do not match those quoted in the Anthologium and, what is more, they are followed by at least eight more lines that are full of blanks (see the transcription above). Secondly, what is the relationship between this fragment and the remaining verses contained in the papyrus?
As far as the first issue is concerned, scholars agree that frr. 19 and 20 W. 2 belong to the same poem. The few readable words in the lines following the last eight lines of the fragment handed down by Stobaeus (West tried to reconstruct them by way of example)42 seem to refer to Homer again. The poet is celebrated as someone who succeeded, by means of his poetry, in defeating 'Time who tames everything' (l. 15 as reconstructed by West) and in countering the ephemeral nature of human existence, as this is described in the preceding lines by the very use of a Homeric reminiscence. Sider believes that the lines have been handed down in the right order and assumes that there has been an omission of the lemma that introduced the second group of lines in Stobaeus' manuscript tradition, an omission that led to the combination of the two passages that originally did not follow each other.43 West instead thinks that the two passages were originally inverted, with fr. 20 preceding fr. 19. 44
Several assumptions have been made concerning the relationship between these verses and the remaining verses contained in P. Oxy. 59.3965. The main contribution made by the papyrus discovery is related to the verses assigned to the Plataea elegy composed by Simonides (frr. 10-18 W. 2) and to other verses belonging to the same genre of historical elegy,45 whereas frr. 19-22 W. 2 seem to be intended for sympotic performance. As a consequence, the papyrus may contain either an anthology that includes poems belonging to various genres or passages of an edition of Simonidean works made by Alexandrian grammarians, but the whole matter is highly controversial and open to conjecture.46 Conversely, Sider suggests that frr. 19-20 W. 2 too may belong to the historical Plataea elegy, where Simonides would be acting as a new Homer who celebrates the military deeds of the Greek army by means of lasting verses, in stark contrast to other poets like Mimnermus who fail to understand the importance of this poetic genre.47
The above issues rest on the assumption of a Simonidean authorship. However, T.K. Hubbard,48 who argued in favour of a Semonidean authorship before the discovery of the papyrus -- in his opinion, the poet of Amorgos lived later than is generally believed49 -- does not think that P. Oxy. 59.3965 is conclusive evidence to assign the fragment to Simonides. The fragments contained in the papyrus cover different genres, which points to a possible post-Alexandrian anthology, considering the taxonomical precision of Alexandrian philologists. If this is the case, in all likelihood the compiler of the anthology confused the names of the two poets; alternatively, the Alexandrian compilers themselves might have confused them. Finally, the Suda's testimony that Semonides wrote elegies as well, the similarity between Semonides' fr. 1 W. and the elegiac fragment, and the close relationship between the two passages (Simonides would never 'copy' a poem by Semonides, whereas the iambographer is more likely to have turned the trimeters into elegiac meter) are all arguments in favour of Semonides' authorship put forward by Hubbard.
5 Conclusions
What, then, is the real contribution made by the papyrus? Hubbard resorts to the same criteria followed by philologists before the publication of the papyrus, criteria which have been already discussed. In this regard he wrote:
[ ... ] with the discovery of an important new literary papyrus, there is often in the rush of scholarly excitement a tendency to conclude that old controversies have been settled or that the new discovery may be of greater importance for some questions than it actually is.50
Papyri in turn raise interpretation-related issues: even when the author is mentioned, or the papyrus contains a passage preserved in the indirect tradition and whose authorship has been firmly established, or the papyrus partially overlaps with another one that features passages whose author is known,51 the papyrus sheets are highly fragmented, and it is hard to establish whether they come from the same roll. Furthermore, the transcription and reconstruction of the text are somewhat subjective and, as a result, a given interpretation of the passages cannot be based on completely certain scientific evidence.52 At any rate, common sense and a moderate degree of confidence in the available evidence, however weak, are very much needed. The reasonable words written by Parson in relation to this authorship controversy read:
It had for long been argued by some that the ascription in Stobaeus, [x], might refer to Semonides of Amorgos, known otherwise for his iambs; it was thought that the style and subject -- recalling Mimnermus -- pointed to a date earlier than the sophisticated Simonides of Ceos. Now it seems that the question is settled -- or is it? You can wriggle: perhaps these papyri represent an anthology of elegy, not the elegies of Simonides; failing that, perhaps the Alexandrian editors mixed up the two Simonides. Well, yes, perhaps and perhaps. But why struggle? The evidence of fact, however weak, should carry more weight than the evidence of style, however strong. Here, it seems to me, two factors come into play. One is the dead hand of the past. The nineteenth century created the science of antiquity; what survived of Greek literature was built into that towering positivist structure. Genres were defined, allusions recognized, literary movements constructed -- all on the basis of a few flyspecks. Now, in that general crumbling of certainties which began in 1914, we have questioned many of those categories. And yet there remains a certain attachment to the fable convenue, the painful squeezing of maximum certainty from minimum evidence. A second factor forms part of that inheritance: the romantic belief that a poet is an individual, and an individual is a style. Once again, we think in general that we know better: not style, but manner; and manner relates to genre, genre to performance, performance to occasion. But it seems to me that there continues to be an underlying assumption of unity. Now Simonides should stand as the counter-example: not one manner, but several, according to circumstance. Why should one of those manners not be a nice old-fashioned bow to Mimnermus?53
The elegiac fragment considered is a significant example of the issues associated with the attribution of Archaic Greek poems in general. Uncertainties surrounding ancient poets and their timeframes, the supremacy of poetic genres over individual styles, the recurrence of traditional topics and the highly fragmented nature of most poems must be taken into account when attempting to establish the authorship of a poem. As far as Archaic elegy is concerned, the reuse of poems in sympotic [historical] settings makes the concept of authorship even more blurred.
Keeping the above observations in mind, it is nevertheless useful to try to ascribe a poem to an author while accepting the real possibility of error. At the same time, more attention should be paid to the contribution made by each fragment to our knowledge of Archaic Greek literature at large.
_______________
Notes:
1 Transl. D. Sider.
2 Camerarius (1551). The line, freely reconstructed by the editor, was permanently included in the fragment and reprinted by most editors before Diehl: cf. Pellizer/Tedeschi (1990) 62 (in app.).
3 Denniston (1970 2) 162-3.
4 Sider (2001) 275, n. 4.
5 'Ego si non manum, at aetatem Cei sentio' [GT: 'I, if not the hand, but I feel the age of Cei'](in app.).
6 According to Suda (0446), the poet of Amorgos also wrote two books of poems in elegiac meter, but only iambic poems have been transmitted under Semonides' name.
7 Semonides is thought to have lived between the mid-8th century and the late 6th century BC; most scholars agree that he lived some time between the late 7th century and the early 6th century but, based on the scanty evidence available, Pellizer/Tedeschi (1990) ix-xvii argue that the iambographer lived in the first half of the 7th century.
8 Cf. Phld. De poematis tractatus tertius, P. Herc. 1074, fr. f, col. 31. 5 (Sbordone [1976] II 212-3): in this passage the iambographer is referred to as [x]; cf. Sider (2001) 276, n. 7.
9 Authors such as Plutarch, Strabo and Pollux do not seem to draw any distinction between the two: cf. Babut (1971) 23, n. 36.
10 Cf. Etym. Magn. 713. 16-19:[x].
11 Stephanus (1560).
12 Crispin us (1569); Wintertonus (1635). The Greek scholar and theologian Leo Allatius stands out in this attribution controversy: in the mid-17th century he carried out research about Semonides and was one of the first scholars to argue in favour of his correct identity and to distinguish him from the poet of Ceos: cf. Allatius (1664) 205-17.
13 The first line of Leopardi's translation 'Umana cosa picciol tempo dura' [GT: A human thing for a little while tough ] translates the line added by Camerarius (see section 1 above) and included by Stephanus in his own edition.
14 Whereas in the first edition (1843) the fragment is ascribed to Simonides of Ceos without any further comment (it is worth pointing out that Bergk himself never spells the names of the two poets differently, even though he draws a clear distinction between them), in the fourth edition (PLG III 425) the scholar wrote in the apparatus: 'Elegiacum hoc carmen, quod plenum atque integrum esse videtur, non dubitaverunt homines docti Ceo poetae vindicare, mihi a melici consummata arte et ingenio prorsus abhorrere videtur, itaque nescio an potius sit Amorgini, quem praeter iambos etiam elegias scripsisse constat'. [GT: This elegiac poem, which seems to be complete and complete. The learned men did not hesitate to claim the poet Ceos, me from the navel. He seems utterly abhorrent to finished art and talent, so I don't know or rather Amorginus, who besides iambics also wrote elegies it is agreed.] The same opinion is expressed in the introduction to the iambic poet's fragments (PLG II 441).
15 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1884) 352, n. 34: 'fgm. 85 des Simonides, aber von Bergk mit Recht dem Semonides zugewiesen'. [GT: 'fgm. 85 of Simonides, but rightly assigned by Bergk to Semonides'.]
16 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1913) 273-4, n. 3: 'An der Identitat des Verfassers lasst schon die innere Obereinstimmung keinen Zweifel; dass die Elegie bei Stobaeus 98,29 steht, spricht auch dafur. Und die Form ist des Keers unwurdig. Gefuhlt hat die Verwandtschaft Leopardi, der beide Stucke nebeneinander ubersetz hat'. [GT: 'On the identity of the inner agreement alone leaves no doubt about the author; the fact that the elegy is in Stobaeus 98.29 also speaks for it. And the form is unworthy of the keer. The relatives felt Leopardi, who translated both pieces side by side'.] The 'innere Ubereinstimmung' mentioned in this text refers to fr. 1 W. by Semonides. Interestingly enough, Wilamowitz considers Leopardi's translation to be evidence of a Semonidean authorship, whereas Leopardi assigned both fragments to Simonides.
17 Jaeger (1936 2) 176, n. 4: '[ ... ] die Zuruckfuhrung des Gedichts durch Bergk auf den Amorginer Semonides - es ist bei Stobaios unter dem Namen des beruhmteren Simonides von Keos uberliefert - gehort zu den gesicherten Ergebnissen philologischer Kritik'. [GT: '[ ... ] the return of the poem by Bergk on the Amorginer Semonides -- it is at Stobaios under the names of the more famous Simonides of Keos handed down -- belongs to the assured results of philological criticism'.] For an extensive bibliography on the fragment attributions until 1970 see Babut (1971) 23, n. 36.
18 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1913) 273-4, n. 3 for which see above.
19 Oates (1932) 78-79, 84-90.
20 'Wilamowitz also sees in the epic forms [x] and [x] evidence for assigning the poem to the writer of iambics. This point does not seem to be very conclusive, in that any author who was casting his composition in the elegiac form was bound to use epic word-formation, because of the close connection between the two genres of epic and elegy' (Oates [1932] 85); other less convincing arguments in favour of a Simonidean authorship advanced by Oates and previously put forward by Crusius include the information contained in two Homeric biographies that according to [x], the epic poet was born in Chios -- which does not constitute corroborative proof for several reasons -- and the fact that Homer could not have been referred to as 'the man of Chios' before Simonides' time. Oates adds one more argument, i.e. an allusion made to the elegiac fragment in Theoc. Id. 16.24, an idyll where the poet of Ceos is explicitly mentioned in the subsequent lines.
21 Babut (1971) 23-30.
22 Steffen (1955) I 35-41. He states: 'Cum Mimnermus in elegiis suis, quae amatoriae dicuntur, easdem res saepius tangere et repetere similibusque coloribus iterum atque iterum describere videatur, facile oriri potest suspicio etiam elegiam de brevitate iuventutis vitaeque agentem et vitam voluptuariam commendantem non a Semonide, sed a Mimnermo scriptam esse. Sermo pro antiquitate carminis venustus gratiosaque narratio longe abhorrent a Semonidis stilo sicco pressoque et Mimnermum potius quam Semonidem prodere videtur' (38). [GT: When Mimnermus in his elegies, which are called amorous, touching and repeating the same things often and in similar colors he seems to describe again and again, suspicion can easily arise even an elegy about the brevity of youth life agent and life recommending tourism not a Semonides, but that it was written by Mimnermus. A word for antiquity the charm of the poem and the charming narrative are far removed from Semonides with a dry and pressed style, and Mimnermus rather than Semonides seems to betray] Conversely, a Simonidean authorship is ruled out for the same reasons advanced by Wilamowitz, namely an alleged emulation of the iambographer by the poet of Ceos and a style deemed 'unworthy' of Simonides, 'cum multo ingeniosior fuerit poeta, quam ut cogitationes apud alios poetas expositas fere ad verbum repeteret' (40). [GT: when he was much more ingenious a poet, as the thoughts of other poets are expounded almost ad repeat the word]
23 Davison (1955), especially 128-40; furthermore, he doubts whether there is any direct relationship between the quotation in the elegiac fragment and the Homeric simile included in book 6 of the Iliad (see section 3 below).
24 Lloyd-Jones (1975) 97.
25 Frankel (1962 2) 237, n.14: '[ ... ] Dies elegische "Simonides" -- Fragment hat eine Sprachform die fur Semonides zu modern ist. Vielleicht ist das Gedicht ein Grabepigramm (vgl. Vs. 12), ebenso wie viele andere Elegleen die, vom Stein kopiert, nachtraglich dem Simonides (von Keos) zugeschrieben wurden'. [This elegiac "Simonides" -- fragment has a language form too modern for Semonides. Maybe it is the poem a funerary epigram (cf. vs. 12), as well as many others Elegleen which, copied from the stone, was added later to Simonides (of Keos) were attributed'.]
26 West (1974) 179-80.
27 See above.
28 West took Into account the following linguistic and stylistic elements: the habit of quoting and commenting upon a famous passage, the reference to Homer as [x], the expression [x] at I. 13 and the use of [x] at I. 14.
29 It is fair to mention that the contribution made by P. Oxy. 59.3965 had already been highlighted by Lobel, who nevertheless did not manage to publish the fragment: cf. Parsons/Rea (1981) 23 and Pellizer/Tedeschi (1990) 62 (in the app. related to the fragment). The two editors include the fragment in the spuria section by Semonides and in the introduction they clearly state that: 'Il noto frammento elegiaco che Stobeo ci ha tramandato sotto il nome di Simonide senza ulteriori spiegazioni [ ... ], nonostante le argomentazioni addotte da illustri filologi (ma la piccola "quaestio semonidea" non pote mai essere risolta in un senso o nell'altro in modo convincente) non puo essere assegnato all'Amorgino' (xxiii-xxiv). [GT: 'The well-known fragment elegiac that Stobeo handed down to us under the name of Simonides without further explanation [...], despite the arguments adduced by illustrious philologists (but the small "quaestio semonidea" does not could never be resolved one way or the other in a convincing way) cannot be assigned to the Amorgino'] For the contribution made by papyri to our knowledge of Simonidean works see Parsons (2001) 58-59.
30 See section 2 above.
31 As far as the elegiac fragment is concerned, the influence exerted by epic language is clearly shown by the apparatus of loci paralleli included in Pellizer/Tedeschi (1990) 62-64; see also the list of similar expressions and of lexical and content-related parallels in Rawles (2018) 116-7. The dependence on the Homeric poems and on Hesiod had already been highlighted in Babut (1971) 24-30.
32 Among the sympotic features of frr. 19-20 W. 2, Rawles (2018) 117-20 mentions the beginning of fr. 19 W. 2 as the answer to a traditional sympotic question ('What is best?'), the presence of a single addressee (cf. fr. 20.11-12 W. 2; [x]) and in general its nature of reflective elegy dealing with age and death.
33 See West's analysis mentioned in section 2 above.
34 Cf. Ford (1985) 83-84.
35 In addition to fr. 1 W. by Semonides and the disputed elegiac fragment, several passages of Archaic Greek poetry may be mentioned, including Mimn. fr. 2 W., Simon. PMG 520 and 521. Pind. Pyth. 8.88-97.
36 Many scholars believe that fr. 1 W. by Semonides is not complete; In particular, Frankel (1962 2) 231 thinks that the missing lines at the end of the poem might have contained an exhortation to enjoy the pleasures being offered by the symposium.
37 Hom. Il. 6.146-9: [x].
38 For an overview of all the passages featuring the simile and an analysis of its various versions see Sider (2001).
39 Cf. Sider (2001) 282; he quotes, inter alia, PMG 542 where Pittacus is mentioned and PMG 581 where Simonides criticizes the famous epigram by Cleobulus for Midas' grave. Both Sider (2001) 281-3 and Hubbard (2001) 230 (who in n. 16 refers back to his 1994 study), while assigning the fragment to Simonides and to Semonides respectively (as for Hubbard's position see below), identify the fragment as a polemic response to Mimnermus. This would be suggested by the reuse of the Homeric simile and of other Homeric expressions and terms. This interpretation is followed and expanded by Rawles (2018) 120-9, who locates Simonides' disagreement with Mimnermus within the former's broader criticism of the traditional aristocratic educational system (paideia) that implied the transmission of wisdom from the elders to the younger generations.
40 Frr. 15-16 W. 2 = Plut. De Her. mal. 42.872d.
41 Cf. Parsons (2001) 59.
42 Ll. 13-19: .......(.)] [x]; cf. West (1993) 10.
43 Cf. Sider (2001) 275-80; as rightly pointed out by Sider (276), one out of the three manuscripts containing the disputed elegiac fragment, i.e. ms. S, which belongs to the best family of manuscripts, features the first five lines that make up fr. 19 W. 2 whereas the others only contain lines 6-13 of the previous fr. 8 W.
44 Cf. West (1993) 11-14.
45 West believes that frr. 1-4 W. 2 belong to the elegy composed for the battle fought at Artemisium and frr. 8-9 W. 2 to the elegy devoted to the battle of Salamis: cf. Rutherford (2001) 33-38.
46 Cf. Rutherford (2001) 33-34.
47 Cf. Sider (2001) 285-6. Rawles (2018) 111-3 has recently taken up again the issue of whether frr. 19 and 20 W. 2 belong to the Plataea elegy. He argues against their coming from the same poem as the Plataea fragments; conversely, he thinks that they are part of a sympotic composition unrelated to historical elegy [a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead].
48 Cf. Hubbard (2001).
49 In Hubbard's opinion the right dating is 'late sixth-century'; for Semonides' chronology see 2 above.
50 Cf. Hubbard (2001) 231.
51 For these 'objective' criteria see Gargiulo (2011) 70-71.
52 Cf. Parsons (2001) 60-61.
53 Cf. Parsons (2001) 62.