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The Asotodidaskalos Attributed To Alexis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. G. Arnott
W. G. Arnott
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge
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Extract

From these words of Athenaeus, the majority of scholars have come to the Dnclusion that the Asotodidaskalos was not, despite what Sotion says, composed by Alexis, but is a forgery; and some even go so far as to attribute the forgery to Sotion himself. Yet nowhere do they support their views with sufficient rguments; nowhere has the question, in the light of all the evidence, both sternal and internal, been fully considered. Meineke (Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum, i. 397 f.) has indeed given clear reasons for his belief that the play as not written by Alexis, in objecting to three usages in the cited fragment as unattic (see II below); but these objections are not all justifiable, as Kock has lown in the case of (Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, ii. 307), or together inclusive enough to make us reject the fragment out of hand.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 3-4 , December 1955 , pp. 210 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1955

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References

page 210 note 1 Markland, (Eur. Suppl. 127 n.Google Scholar); Wakefield, (Silva Critica, iv. 73Google Scholar); Larcher, (Herodotus vii. 103 n.Google Scholar); Porson (in Walpole, , Comici Graeci, p. 88Google Scholar); Dobree, (Adv. ii. 317Google Scholar); these appear to cite Sotion as the author, with no mention of Alexis. Meineke, op. cit., and Kaibel (R.E. 1. 1469, and Hermes, xxiv (1889), 43, n. 2) reject the work as a forgery; Kock, op. cit., believes it genuine.

page 210 note 1 Except for Antiphanes, where the figure of 260 plays given by an anonymous commentator seems more likely than Suidas' 365.

page 210 note 2 Callimachus b. 310–300: R.E. Supp. V, p. 387 (Herter); Alexis d. some time after the wedding of Ptolemy Philadelphus and his sister Arsmoe, which took place 278–273, since this marriage is mentioned in Alexis fr. 244 (K. ii. 386). There is no reason to suppose that Alexis could not have survived long enough to write this; Plutarch, (Mor. 420Google Scholar d) attests that he lived to a great age and though we have no information regarding his birth date, his first datable play need not be placed before the late 360's: see Schiassi, , R.I.F.C. lxxix (1951), 222.Google Scholar

page 211 note 1 For the purpose of this paragraph, I take he word ‘clause’ as referring to all units of phrase punctuated by full stop, colon, or question mark.

page 212 note 1 Un-Menandrean details include the use of in the sense required by the fragment, and the awkward … phrase; and the general style of the fragment is more pompous and affected than Menander's ever seems to be.

page 213 note 2 Cited by Sandys, , History of Classical Scholarship, i. 112Google Scholar. The exclamation mark after is Sandys's.