This book is published as part of the project ‘Kommentierung der Fragmente der griechischen Komödie’ (‘KomFrag’)[1] directed by Prof. Bernhard Zimmermann at the University of Freiburg, with the support of the Heidelberg Akademie der Wissenschaften. The KomFrag project aims at providing a thorough commentary on the testimonia and fragments of the comic poets compiled by R. Kassel and C. Austin in their Poetae Comici Graeci (PCG) and has produced so far a total of forty-five volumes.[2] The KomFrag project has been a remarkable international effort[3] and has already had an enormous impact on the study of Greek comedy.[4] All volumes in the series follow a similar structure and uniform presentation, giving information first on each playwright and then on each of his plays. Every part expands according to the available evidence and is accompanied by extensive bibliographical notes.
In this new volume, Lamari provides a commentary on two comic playwrights never studied before, Nausicrates and Nicostratus,[5] thus offering further understanding for the critical period of Middle Comedy, as well as yielding further understanding of the development of the comic genre. Nausicrates ‘lived approximately during the second and third quarter of the 4th century BC’ (p.11), while ‘[a]ll testimonies considered, Nicostatus’ career should be placed somewhere during the first half of the fourth century BC’ (p. 43). From Nausicrates’ production two play-titles and three fragments survive, while twenty-three play- titles and forty fragments of Nicostratus are preserved (pp. 12, 43).
One of the strongest qualities of Lamari’s commentary is its lucid structure, in keeping with the series’ format. The book is composed of two ample sections, respectively dedicated to Nausicrates and Nicostratus. Each poet is presented with an ‘Introduction’, followed by a ‘Commentary’. Introductions are comprehensive and thorough, discussing the poets’ ‘Name and Identity’, ‘Chronology and Career’, ‘Tradition and Reception’ of plays, the poetic ‘Themes and Motifs’ as projected from the surviving fragments, other than references to other poets (‘Playwright and Other Comic Poets’) or public figures (‘Komoidoumenoi’), the ‘Language’ (style and linguistic choices), ‘Metre’, and exhaustive bibliography (‘Literature’).
In the main body of the commentary, structural clarity facilitates the presentation of relevant material and enhances accessibility for the reader. Discussion provides in-depth commentary of all relevant testimonia, each of them followed by translation, bibliography (‘Discussion’), analysis of the citation-source (‘Citation Context’), as well as ‘Interpretation’. The fragments’ entries similarly consist of an introductory part with sections on relevant bibliography (‘Discussion’), ‘Title’, ‘Content’ and ‘Date’, as well as an exhaustive examination of the surviving fragments; these sections work as introduction to each comedy, providing discussions on the meaning of the title and the similarities one title can hold with reference to others, on the plays’ content or possibilities for reconstruction, as well as the plays’ (possible) dates.
The text, enumeration of fragments and apparatus are generally as in Kassel and Austin’s PCG (volume VII), with some minor differences: in Nicostratus test. 1 K.-A. Lamari prints a different text and in Nicostratus fr. 34 Lamari corrects a typographical error of PCG (εἰπέ μοι, τίνι / ἐδιακόνεις; instead of εἰμέ μοι, τίνι / ἐδιακόνεις of PCG); in frr. 2, 4, 8, 28, 26, 29, the author prints expanded critical apparatus, incorporating more emendations and variants. In general, critical apparatuses in Lamari are fuller yet simpler than PCG, as they are lacking the bibliographical references which are discussed in the interpretive section.
One of this book’s major contributions comes with the painstaking examination of all the testimonia related to each poet. Each text is followed by apparatus, translation and thorough study of its impact on the understanding of the poet’ life and work. A representative example of the importance of this analysis is found in the analysis of Nicostratus, test. 1 K.-A. (pp. 50- 52). The testimony is the Suda entry on Nicostratus (ν 405), ending with the enigmatic ταῦτα †ἐν παραθήκηι† εὗρον κείμενα. Lamari puts the expression ἐν παραθήκηι in cruces and translates it ‘placed as a citation’ (p. 50). After a detailed presentation of relevant discussions, Lamari exploits recent conclusions[6] and argues that the expression ‘has no connection with any physical object or shelf’ (p. 52), putting forth a solid proposal, albeit in cruces, since ‘secure restoration is impossible, and the sentence shall thus be treated as locus desperatus’ (p. 52).
Throughout her commentary, Lamari provides meticulous discussions of everything that is relevant to the understanding, interpreting or reconstructing a fragmentarily transmitted play. Some examples include: (1) In Nausicrates fr. 1, Lamari highlights the fragment’s riddle structure and explores the comic effect of double meanings as ‘broken allegories’, as well as the fragment’s potential sexual connotations (pp. 26–35), thus drawing attention to new interpretative possibilities that allow for a deeper understanding of the fragment. (2) In Nicostratus fr. 18, she underscores the importance of considering all different possibilities regarding the distribution of speakers, thus allowing for a putative three-person reconstructed scene. On balance, the author does not finally adopt this line of thought because she cautiously observes that three-person dialogues in Middle Comedy seem rare. However, this case is a good example on the approach used by Lamari to engage with all possible scenarios of reconstruction, interpretation and understanding of the fragments.
The volume has a helpful ‘Abbreviations’ section before ‘Bibliography’, as well as four very useful indices (‘Index fontium’, ‘Index verborum’, ‘Index locorum’, ‘Index rerum and personarum’), providing a convenient tool for locating citations, Greek words and expressions, passages of ancient texts, as well as key words and proper names. Overall, Lamari’s presentation of the material is sound and straightforward, and her commentary thorough and judicious. Although in some cases the author might have stood more firmly on one or the other side of an argument, Lamari’s well-balanced approach does not fail to offer a panoramic presentation of all philological and dramatic problems raised by the fragments and thus to provide readers with the necessary tools for a good understanding of a rather demanding field.
Notes
[1] https://www.komfrag.uni-freiburg.de.
[2] The full list of the volumes can be found here https://www.komfrag.uni-freiburg.de/baende_liste. BMCR reviews of previous KomFrag volumes include: FrC 1.1 (BMCR 2015.01.15); FrC 2 (BMCR 2021.03.56); FrC 7 (BMCR 2015.11.10); FrC 8.1 (BMCR 2018.09.29); FrC 9.1 (BMCR 2014.07.34); FrC 10.4 (BMCR 2023.09.09); FrC 10.10 (BMCR 2018.10.17); FrC 15 (BMCR 2014.04.40).
[3] See more in: https://www.hadw-bw.de/forschung/forschungsstelle/kommentierung-der-fragmente-der- griechischen-komoedie-komfrag-0; https://www.komfrag.uni-freiburg.de/personen/leiter-und-mitarbeiter.
[4] See most recently, Apostolakis, K. & Konstantakos I.M. (eds.), The Play of Language in Ancient Greek Comedy, Berlin / Boston 2024; Farmer, M. C. & Lefkowitz, J. B. (eds.), A Companion to Aristophanes, Hoboken NJ 2024; Mastellari, V. (ed.), Fragments in Context – Frammenti e dintorni, Göttingen 2021; Lamari, A., Montanari, F. & Novokhatko, A. (eds.), Fragmentation in Ancient Greek Drama, Berlin / Boston 2020.
[5] With the exception of translations and short discussions offered by Edmonds (Edmonds, J. M., The Fragments of Attic Comedy, vol. 2, Leiden 1959) and Sanchis Llopis (Sanchis Llopis, J. L. et al., Fragmentos de la comedia, Madrid 2007), until this book, Nausicrates and Nicostratus only featured in discussions of 19th-century editions of comic poetry (see e.g. Meineke, A., Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum, vol. 1, Berlin 1839; Kock, T., Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, vol. 2, Leipzig 1884), or encyclopedias. For Nausicrates and Nicostratus, this is the first modern commentary that offers text, apparatus criticus, translation and commentary of every aspect of their life, work, and surviving fragments.
[6] Namely, that the verb παρατιθέναι has to be understood as ‘to cite’.