This article continues the series devoted to the study of an extensive zoological excursus in Hexaemeron by George of Pisidia, a 7th-century Byzantine poet. It deals with two accounts of the miraculous properties of vultures which offer their author(s) an opportunity to engage in anti-pagan polemics and to assert the truth of the virgin birth of Jesus (vv. 1077–1086, 1124a–r). The second of these passages is attested only in part of the paradosis, and it is placed differently in different MSS, which indicates that at least for some time it was transmitted in the margins. The question of whether these verses should be considered an interpolation or an author’s variant has been raised twice by Fabrizio Gonnelli, with opposite results. A doxographic commentary on both passages permits a cautious decision for the authenticity of vv. 1124a–r, since it involves a sophisticated and highly original theological development (or even a correction) of a phrase from Homilies in Hexaemeron of Basil the Great (8. 6. 76DE). At the same time, the second passage should be regarded as a later version of the first, since the position of vv. 1077–1086 in the poem seems to point to a hidden polemic with the famous story from Physiologus (ch. 4 of the oldest recension) about the pelican resurrecting its chicks with its own blood; vv. 1124a–r, where nothing is said about vultures feeding their chicks, could not fulfil this role. Incidentally, two unnoticed quotations from Hexaemeron are identified, namely in the scholia recentiora to Aristophanes’ Plutus (v. 63i Chantry) and in the anonymous Byzantine text Παράδειγμα περὶ τοῦ ἀλέκτορος
This article examines the testimonia concerning Aeschylus’ purported brothers — Cynegirus and Ameinias — both of whom are said to have distinguished themselves during the Greco-Persian Wars. Cynegirus, a strategos, met a heroic death at the Battle of Marathon, while Ameinias earned renown for his bravery at Salamis. Although modern scholarship widely accepts Cynegirus as Aeschylus’ brother, the earliest extant testimony of their kinship derives from Heraclides of Pontus, later reiterated by an anonymous scholiast on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. The alleged kinship between Aeschylus and Ameinias, however, remains a subject of debate. This study aligns with the view that their association may stem from later conflation or errors within the ancient historiographical tradition. Regarding Aeschylus and Cynegirus, while Heraclides provides the primary testimony and the subsequent tradition is based on much later sources, their alleged fraternal relationship must be treated with due historiographical caution
In the second book of the Histories, Herodotus recounts a legend that attributes the establishment of the oracle of Dodona to Egypt’s influence: a more fantastical variant of the tale features a black dove capable of human speech, while a more realistic rendition identifies an abducted Egyptian priestess as the founder. Notably absent from Herodotus’ account are the Selloi, a group of ascetic diviners mentioned in the Iliad’s brief depiction of Dodona, where they are said to sleep on the ground and refrain from washing their feet, presumably to maintain a spiritual connection to earth. This absence of the ancient priesthood from the Histories led some scholars to conclude that the Selloi must have disappeared by the time of Herodotus, fully replaced by a college of priestesses said to derive their sacred knowledge from the Egyptian Thebes. This point of view was challenged lately, as more evidence for the continued presence of male priests in Dodona had been uncovered and cataloged. Hence it seems consequent to suppose that the exclusion of the Selloi from the Histories may have been entirely intentional on Herodotus’ part, since the existence of this college and its acknowledgement in the Iliad could be difficult to reconcile with a theory proposed in the second book, which suggests that Dodona had a foundational role in the early development of the Greek religion as a conductor of the Egyptian influence in the pre-Homeric Greece