In Antiphon’s speech “Prosecution of the Stepmother for Poisoning”, one of emphasized motives is the opposition between, on the one hand, the author of the criminal plan and organizer of the murder, and on the other hand, the immediate executor. The accuser claims that his stepmother plotted to kill her husband and deceived a female slave into adding poison to his wine. The slave was executed as the murderer, but the accuser seeks to prove that the true guilt lies with the stepmother, as she conceived the crime. The manuscript text (20) reads a participle χειρουργήσασα, ‘the one who enacted’, attributed to the stepmother. Friedrich Blass, in his 1871 edition, transposed the words καὶ χειρουργήσασα, referring them to the slave who poured the poison into the wine, believing, as she was told by the accused, that it was a love potion. By doing this, Blass emphasized the distinction between the plan and its execution. Almost all editors accepted this rearrangement. At the same time, some scholars prefer the manuscript reading. Reiske, supported by Maetzner, suggested a literal understanding of the participle, ‘the one who prepared the poison’. Wilamowitz considered χειρουργήσασα a rhetorical exaggeration. Adelmo Barigazzi and Ernst Heitsch understood the participle attributed to the stepmother in the manuscripts as a way to shift the entire responsibility for the murder — both the criminal idea and its execution — onto the stepmother. Here I present arguments in favor of the manuscript reading and variants of interpreting its meaning
In chapter 41 of Petronius’ Satyricon, a boar is served in a hat (pilleatus) during Trimalchio’s feast, which puzzles the protagonist Encolpius. The interpretation of the passage considered in the article (Petron. Sat. 41. 3) involves a number of difficulties, which all commentators note. Firstly, the reader needs to decide whether the case of summa cena is accusative or nominative. The second difficulty has to do with the meaning of the adjective summus. The third question concerns the meaning of the verb vindicasset. And the last and most crucial question deals with the fact that both cena and aper can function as the subject of the verb vindicasset. The author of the article looks into the opinions of various scholars and offers several arguments for the manuscript reading, which enables us to restore the final -m in summa. The author examines examples with the verb vindico which means “to claim a legal right to” and draws attention to the fact that in such cases the subject is more often an animate noun. In order to understand which word cena or aper is a more suitable candidate for the function of the subject in the passage under consideration, the author analyses the use of these words as subjects in other texts. The examples of the personification of cena are found mainly in poetry, whereas the word aper is discovered in one example which contains a verb usually used with animate subjects (intrare). The latter can be regarded as an additional argument for animateness of aper and its functioning as the subject of the sentence cum heri… vindicasset