This volume, the eighth in the series “Supplementum Grammaticum Graecum” edited by Franco Montanari, Fausto Montana and Lara Pagani, represents a substantial desideratum in the field of Attic comedy and its ancient exegesis: a new critical edition, with translation and thorough commentary, of the extant fragments of Didymus’ Commentaries on Comedy, including nine of Aristophanes’ preserved plays (Acharnians, Clouds, Wasps, Peace, Birds, Lysistrata, Women at the Thesmophoria, Frogs, Wealth) along with a few of the lost ones, a text by Menander, and Phrynichus’ Cronus (#274, 275, 276, 277, °278 and °279 on the Coward–Prodi numbering adopted in this edition).
Establishment of a new critical text of Didymus’ fragmentary hypomnemata on Comedy after the glorious but outdated Teubner edition of Moritz Schmidt[1] required a truly ‘Chalcenteric’ vigour in handling the intricate issues related to the composition and transmission of scholiastic exegesis on Aristophanes (where the vast majority of the fragments are preserved)[2]. This task might appear to have been facilitated by the monumental Groningen edition of Aristophanic scholia (begun in 1960 under the supervision of W.J.W. Koster and completed in 2007), which marked a decisive milestone in the philological recovery of that exegetic heritage. Anyone who employs that edition is nonetheless aware of the questionable ecdotic criteria that inspired the textual assessment of the annotations after Douwe Holwerda joined the project, i.e. the systematic fragmentation and often arbitrary rearrangement of the scholiastic wording into subsections allegedly representing the different ancient interpretations preserved by each scholium[3]. This approach, repeatedly criticised,[4] does not improve our understanding of the ancient and Byzantine exegetical tradition, but ends up blurring it. As Montana has recently pointed out,[5] the risk is of throwing into further obscurity paratexts that by their constitution add brachilogy and deliberate manipulation to the usual difficulties associated with manuscript transmission of all sorts.
Benuzzi proves aware of all these delicate, problematic issues, wisely adopting a radically different approach than the Groningen editors: when establishing the critical text of the scholia transmitting excerpts of Didymean exegesis (always with a detailed, clear, and precise critical apparatus), she presents all extant material on the same word or phrase as a single textual unit, arranging it in a form that respects as far as possible the way it is transmitted by the manuscripts. Far from being an act of sterile conservativism, this approach allows Benuzzi not only to restore the original cohesion and complexity of the scholiastic compilation, preserving its weak but not irrelevant ‘authorship’, but also in more than one case to recover the genuine core of ancient grammarians’ interpretations obliterated by the Groningen editors’ systematic segmentation of the material. Such benefits are spread throughout the edition, but are especially evident in Benuzzi’s careful treatment of scholiastic annotations whose exegetic material is variously distributed in the manuscripts. See e.g. F 237 (ap. schol. Ar. Av. 876 [= 876b-d-e-f-c Holwerda = II 14.34, p. 254 Schmidt]), where Benuzzi’s decision to enhance the ‘doxographic’ sequence documented in Γ2 (Laur. plut. 31.15)[6] enables her to reconstruct an order of the glosses (each of which transmits different scholarly interpretamenta by Symmachus, Didymus, and Herodian) that plausibly restores the original exegetic transitions designed by the compiler in the archetype (obscured in Holwerda’s edition); or alternatively F 262 (ap. schol. Ar. Ra. 222 [= 222aβ-221-222dα-fβ-i-dβ-aα-b-e-c-gβ Chantry = II 14.10, p. 249 Schmidt]), where Benuzzi’s cautious mise en texte allows for the retrieval beyond any reasonable doubt of the Didymean authorship of the gloss ἔνθεν καὶ τὸ ὀρρωδεῖν (r. 10 B. = 222gα-β Ch.), which had been obliterated by Chantry’s fragmentation of the agglutinated structure of the scholium[7].
Equal competence in handling the scholiastic material is exhibited in the commentary, where Benuzzi not only clarifies the ecdotic criteria adopted in the constitutio textus but demonstrates a fine command of the secondary bibliography, a refined knowledge of Aristophanes’ text, and acute sensitivity in detecting forms and methods of Didymean exegesis. See e.g. F 256 (ap. schol. Ar. Th. 162 [= 162a Regtuit = II 14.66, pp. 260, 309 Schmidt]) on Didymus’ attempt to defend the lectio antiquior Ἀχαιóς against Aristophanes of Byzantium’s conjectural Ἀλκαῖος in Ar. Th. 162 (the latter being the reading successfully penetrated in the later manuscript tradition and attested in R), and the related ancient scholarly objections to the Didymean interpretation of the passage; or F 269 (ap. schol. Ar. Ra. 1028 [= 1028a-aα-bα-c-eα-f, aβ-eβ-d-bβ-g Chantry = II 14.17, p. 250 Schmidt])[8], which provides exceptional insight into Didymus’ modus operandi, revealing his attention to his predecessors’ scholarship and his desire to reorganise and reframe the philological debate within his own commentary (especially relevant when exercised on what has been described as “perhaps the most difficult textual crux in Aristophanes’ Frogs”[9]).
In conclusion, this book not only offers a substantial contribution to the study of Didymus’ exegesis of Attic Comedy, but provides its readers with a reliable tool for investigating Aristophanes’ text and the problematic but fascinating crowd of ancient commentators on it.
Notes
[1] Didymi Chalcenteri grammatici Alexandrini quae supersunt omnia, collegit et disposuit M. Schmidt, Lipsiae 1854.
[2] With the exception of frr. 208 (ap. Et.Gud. d2 248.13-22 De Stefani), 272 (ap. Ath. 2.67d [ad Ar. Pl. 720]), °275 (ap. Her. Phil. 114 Palmieri [ad Ar. fr. *146 K.-A.]), °276 (ap. P.Flor. II 112 [CLGP Aristophanes 28]), °277 (ap. P.Flor. II 112 [CLGP Aristophanes 28]), °278 (Et.Gud. 338.20-25 Sturz) and °279 (ap. Ath. 9.371e-372b), the fragments have been transmitted solely in the corpus of Aristophanic scholia.
[3] This editorial layout is founded on the belief of K. Zacher (Die Handschriften und Classen der Aristophanesscholien. Mitteilungen und Untersuchungen, Leipzig 1888, pp. 674, 680) that short and isolated notes more faithfully reflect the disposition of the exegetical material in the archetype, while lengthier scholia are the product of a subsequent agglutination of originally independent comments. It has been coherently adopted by all editors involved in the project since the publication of Holwerda’s scholia to Clouds (1977), namely, Koster’s edition of the scholia to Wasps (1978), Holwerda’s edition of the vetera to Peace (1982) and Birds (1991), and Chantry’s edition of the vetera to Wealth (1994) and Frogs (1999).
[4] Criticism of these ecdotic criteria was offered by H. Erbse, Rev. of: D. Holwerda, Scholia vetera in Nubes, Groningen 1977, “Gnomon” 51 (1979), pp. 227-232; Id., Rev. of: W.J.W. Koster, Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Vespas, Groningen 1978, “Gnomon” 52 (1980), pp. 221-224; H.-J. Newiger, Rev. of: (1) N.G. Wilson, Scholia in Acharnenses, Groningen 1975; (2) D. Holwerda, Scholia vetera in Nubes, Groningen 1977, “ByzZ” 72 (1979), pp. 334-346; K.J. Dover, Rev. of: (1) D. Holwerda, Scholia vetera in Nubes, Groningen 1977; (2) W.J.W. Koster, Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Vespas, Groningen 1978, “CR” n.s. 31/1 (1981), pp. 6-8; A. Kleinlogel, Rev. of: W.J.W. Koster, Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Vespas, Groningen 1978, “ByzZ” 77 (1984), pp. 284-290; and, more recently, by F. Montana, Zetemata alessandrini negli scoli alle Rane di Aristofane. Riflessioni ecdotiche, in G. Mastromarco, P. Totaro, B. Zimmermann (edd.), La commedia attica antica. Forme e contenuti, Lecce-Brescia 2017, pp. 195-229.
[5] F. Montana, Antichi filologi in ballo. Testo e interpretazione di schol. Ar. Th. 1175, “Eikasmós” 32 (2021), p. 238.
[6] Although, as Benuzzi recalls (p. 134), Γ2 is entirely defective (as well as R) of Herodian’s gloss (which can instead be implemented by the versio uberior offered by VEΓ3).
[7] The connection of schol. Ar. Ra. 222gα-β Ch. with the previous Didymean interpretamentum (schol. Ar. Ra. 222c Ch.) is moreover proven not only by Hsch. 1316 L.-C. (s.v. ὄρρος) – which ultimately derives from Didymus’ Λέξις κωμική (cf. Schmidt, Didymi Chalcenteri cit., pp. 29-36; Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, I [Α–Δ], recensuit et emendavit K. Latte, editionem alteram curavit I.C. Cunningham, Berolini-Bostoniae 2018, p. IX; F. Benuzzi, Didymus and Comedy, in T.R.P. Coward, E.E. Prodi [eds.], Didymus and Graeco-Roman Learning [“BICS” 63/2], London 2020, p. 55) – but, even more notably, by Didymus’ Demosthenic hypomnema preserved by P.Berol. inv. 9780 (col. XI), that offers an extraordinary parallel to the paretymologic link between ὄρρος and ὀρρωδέω found in the Aristophanic scholium.
[8] On the scholium, which is a crucial (albeit problematic) piece of evidence in favour of a Sicilian reperformance of Aeschylus’ Persians, see also P. Totaro, Eschilo in Aristofane (Rane 1026-1029, 1431a-1432), “Lexis” 24 (2006), pp. 95-125 (esp. 95-114); N.G. Wilson, Aristophanea. Studies on the Text of Aristophanes, Oxford 2007, pp. 177-178.
[9] A.H. Sommerstein, The Comedies of Aristophanes. IX. Frogs, Warminster 1996, p. 246.