This is the third volume of G.'s edition of Seneca's tragedies (cf. L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae [1966]; Seneca, Tragedie [1987]). It shares with the previous volumes the typographical elegance, the originality with respect to previous editions, and the ecdotical criteria outlined by G. in the introduction to the first volume. The reader is obliged to refer to these pages, in as much as the present volume lacks any form of specific preface, the sigla codicum not excepted. There, G.'s merits in the evaluation and organisation of the complex manuscript tradition of this corpus, especially regarding the A family, may be clearly appreciated. According to him, both E and A stem from a common archetype, which already contained plenty of errors, most of which are to be considered mechanical errors rather than interpolations (Volume 1 [2007], p. 41). As a consequence, G. feels entitled to correct the text in a huge number of passages, with an average of three conjectures per page in the HO, in most cases in spite of the consensus of the manuscripts and the lack of any difficulty as far as sense is concerned.

This kind of work is intentionally meant as a challenge: G. presents his edition as written for the ongoing meditations of scholars, rather than aiming to substitute the canonical OCT edition by Zwierlein (p. 63) (O. Zwierlein [1993⁴]; see also the Budé edition by F.-R. Chaumartin [1999] and the Loeb edition by J.G. Fitch [2004]). Maybe the purpose could be better achieved by resorting to a commentarius criticus Footnote ¹ than in the brachilogic style of an apparatus. G. is aware of this problem (Volume I [2007], p. 52), and in the apparatus often explains his correction of a word by quoting another verse where what he deems to be an unpleasant repetition of that same term may be found; in other cases, he refers to loci similes in Senecan plays and/or other authors.

Even if the most praiseworthy aspects of G.'s work are undoubtedly the collatio and the recensio, they are not discusssed in this volume, but in the first one; moreover, the aspect that most catches the reader's attention, and characterises this edition in comparison with the previous ones, is the emendatio; so I shall dwell mainly on this part. G.'s conjectures mainly focus on repetitions in its widest sense, including various forms of wordplay, in which he finds evidence of Influenzfehlers in the manuscripts (Volume I [2007], p. 42). G. sometimes overlooks the fact that these rhetorical features are typical of Seneca's styleFootnote ² (and, even more, of the style of an imitator of Seneca's such as the author of HO). However, occascionally G. does support his conjectures with reference to previous occurrences of that same word (e.g. at ll. 24; 915). At l. 141, G. refuses flumine, corrected to gurgite, because of the etymological play with fluit (l. 140): the result is qua fluit/ Ismenos tenui gurgite languidus. Tenuis gurges is a hard oxymoron,Footnote ³ whereas in the verse of the Oedipus which is clearly the model of this one, the tenuis Ismenos is portrayed as an almost dry river (… tenuis Ismenos fluit/ et tinguit inopi nuda uix unda uada, ll. 42–3). At l. 335, G. refuses the paronomasia captiua capiet, and writes captiue rapiet: but in doing so he creates another wordplay, the polyptoton with another of his corrections, rapida, at l. 337. At l. 950, to avoid the multiple repetition of coniunx, G. changes the reference to Medea to uirgo: this word, however, hardly fits the context, since here Deianira lists the coniugum turba to which she wishes to be added (l. 962): Medea (coniunx, 950), Procnes (coniunx, 953), Althaea (mater, 954), the Danaides (coniuges, 957). These women are all described in their condition of married women; Medea, who is the first one to be mentioned, cannot be regarded as a uirgo; the repetition of coniunx precisely aims to underline the scope of a crime committed against a man by a woman who is officially and legally linked to him.

Another area on which G.'s emendatio is focused concerns geographical references. At ll. 135–6, we find the description of Trachis: G. writes ad Trachina Footnote ⁴ uocor, saxa rigentia/ et dumeta iugis horrida frigidis, where the manuscripts have iugis … torridis, and refers to l. 1432 rigenti mergitur Trachin iugo. This line, however, can only confirm rigentia; and in Livy we find, with reference to the Alpine landscape, pecora iumentaque torrida frigore … animalia inanimaque omnia rigentia gelu (21.32.7).

On other occasions, G. prefers an innovative iunctura or a rare word to the transmitted text: at l. 456 turbidum … mare, a iunctura which has a precise parallel in the Phaedra (l. 1072: turbido … mari) is replaced by turgidum … mare, which has no other occurrences in classical Latin;Footnote ⁵ at l. 521, he writes tuniculae, a colloquial term which is found only in archaic comedy and in prose, instead of the transmitted ungulae. Sometimes he brings different forms into agreement: at l. 743, in the asyndetic list terris, freto, sideribus, Oceano, inferis, G. corrects freto to fretis. It hardly seems necessary, however, to conform this singular noun to the plural form of the others: in this line, the words referring to the liquid element are singular, with a climax elegantly developed into a chiastic correspondence A₁B₁CB₂A₂ (earth [plur.]-water [sing.]-stars [plur.]-water [sing.]-underground [plur.]), which fretis would destroy.Footnote ⁶

The frequency and the originality of G.'s conjectures capture the reader's attention, and risk diverting it from the instances in which he shows a well-balanced and sometimes conservative attitude in passages usually corrected by scholars. For example, at l. 493Footnote ⁷ he defends the reading trepidus … Pindus given by E, a lectio difficilior already accepted by Chaumartin and supported by a passage in Propertius (3.5.33: aut cur Perrhaebi tremuere cacumina Pindi) against celsus in A, and Axelson's gelidus, accepted by Zwierlein and Fitch. Line 1757 is totally settled by G. through readings from the MSS: crinemque iactans squalidum Alcmene gemit, where many corrections have been proposed, and Melzer goes as far as to delete the whole line.Footnote ⁸

A challenge for scholars: G. perfectly achieves his purpose, in HO as well as in the previous volumes of Seneca's tragedies; but his love for the kind of conjectures here exemplified risks marring his rich, deep and detailed work on the manuscript tradition, which is indeed his highest merit, and which will substantially help scholars to prepare a new canonical edition of Seneca's tragedies.