Публикации автора

In Poetics 25 (1461b1–3), Aristotle mentions critics who tend to misunderstand the text or read it inaccurately and thus criticise not the actual work, but rather their ideas on it. Some of the extant fragments of Zoilus (4th c. BC), the best-known and the most notorious critic of all the Aristotle’s contemporaries, imply that his critique was sometimes based on misreading and misinterpreting of the text so he could be one of those whom Aristotle meant. This article deals with three fragments attributed to Zoilus (two of them are found in the Scholia to the Iliad, the third one is quoted in Ps. Longinus’ De Sublimitate), each containing criticism towards certain passages in Homer’s poems. On closer examination it turns out that all the inconsistencies Zoilus postulated can be explained, should we read the text more carefully. Hence Zoilus dealt not with what is written but rather with what seemed to him to be convenient for his criticism

Heraclides of Pontus, a versatile philosopher whose work still remains largely unexplored, wrote several pieces on Homer including “Solutions of the Homeric problems”, to which some of the extant fragments are attributed. One of these (F. 171 Wehrli = 99 Schütrumpf) concerns the Iliad and the Odyssey being discrepant in the number of the cities on Crete: the Catalogue of Ships refers to the island as ἑκατόμπολιν (Il. 2.649) while Odysseus in his ‘Cretan Lies’ states that people dwell ninety great cities on Crete (Od. 19.174). To explain this inconsistency, Heraclides tells a dramatic story about Idomeneus which he probably made up himself, being an eminent author of dialogues and even tragedies (provided that the relevant testimonies are reliable) with an interest in mythology. His version of Idomeneus’ homecoming was not supported by contemporary historians, and, although later picked up by some poets and scholars, did not end up as a part of the commonplace Idomeneus tradition as we know it today

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