The present volume results from the international conference, ‘La commedia greca’, held in Trento (Italy), 4–6 June 2015, organised by AICC (Associazione Italiana di Cultura Classica) and the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. The book includes an introduction by the editor, thirteen articles dealing with aspects of ancient Greek comedy and a comprehensive index of the passages and characters referred to. A short abstract and a list of keywords precede each article. The papers are written in Italian, German and English.
Through his discussion of ‘performance criticism’ and of the political meaning of Attic Old Comedy, B. Zimmermann, ‘Aktuelle Tendenzen der Komödienforschung’, argues that external influences on philological and textual research can lead to misleading and anachronistic misinterpretations. Zimmermann argues that, although such anachronistic approaches might offer new perspectives on the investigation of old texts, the commentary remains the best way of analysing ancient (often fragmentary) comedies.
G. Mastromarco, ‘Aristofane e le Termopili’, discusses the poetic and historical implications of the references to the battle of Thermopylae in Aristophanes, Wasps 1084 and Lys istrata 1254–61. Mastromarco underlines the historical incongruity in the former passage, where the chorus of old Athenians/wasps falsely celebrate their own participation in the battle of Thermopylae – a battle that was famously undertaken without Athenian support. Mastromarco underlines the comic, improbable side of the passage and concludes that the incongruity presumably depends on Aristophanes' distortion of historical truth for fictional and comic purposes, the motives of which are sometimes impossible to detect. By contrast, in the passage of Lysistrata, Aristophanes reports the events in accordance with the historical sources, attributing to the Athenians the victory at Artemisium and to the Spartans the deeds at Thermopylae. Mastromarco maintains that, through the accurate description of historical events, including the reconciliation between Sparta and Athens at the end of the comedy, Aristophanes intends to celebrate the Panhellenic peace between the poleis that occurred during the Pentekontaetia. In this way he departs from previous claims that Aristophanes was intending to celebrate the ‘oligarchic’ peace that the Four Hundred intended to reach after the coup d’état of 411 b.c.
G. Zanetto, ‘Forme e tipologie del comico in Aristofane’, explores physical violence and farce as essential sources of Aristophanes' humour. Zanetto shows how Aristophanes' representation of violence is ‘moderate’ (he does not stage out-and-out massacres) and moral (it implies an identification of the audience with the character committing the violence, because the victim deserves it), and that violence takes place mostly in the second part of his comedies. In addition, Zanetto underlines the importance of ‘iteration’ as a tool of Aristophanes' humour.
P. Mureddu and G.F. Nieddu, ‘Se il poeta ci ripensa: rielaborazioni e riscritture nella tradizione aristofanea’, explore the best-documented revisions (diaskeuaí) of Aristophanes' comedies through a detailed analysis of the ancient evidence. In their opinion, the second, never-staged version of the Clouds gradually took the place of the official version of 423 b.c. in the medieval textual tradition. As for the Peace, they hypothesise an adaptation of the original comedy staged outside the city contests on the basis of a passage reported by Stobaeus (fr. 305 K.-A.). For the Thesmophoriazousae, they suggest that both editions of the comedy could have been staged at the urban agones, perhaps at different times. Finally, the authors assume that the second version of the Ploutos (388 b.c.) supplanted the original one (408 b.c.) in the medieval tradition, perhaps because of the reduction of its choral parts.
M. Napolitano, ‘Alcune riflessioni sui finali di Aristofane’, proposes a reading of the closing scenes of Aristophanes' plays with a focus on Acharnians, Knights and Wasps. Napolitano claims that the ‘happy endings' of Aristophanes' comedies entail an unresolved contrast between fiction and historical reality, thus displaying a continuous dialogue between utopia and disenchantment. In the Acharnians, Dicaeopolis egoistically unmasks the imbalance between institutional justice and individual interest. In the Knights, the rejuvenation of Demos does not grant the superiority of the new order over the old one, while the ending of the Wasps embodies the harsh criticism of the impossibility of an authentic reform of a corrupt democracy.
The paper by C. Orth, ‘Vier- und mehrsilbige Wörter in den iambischen Trimetern von Aristophanes' Acharnern’, is divided into three parts. In the first, Orth lists the words with more than three syllables in Aristophanes' Acharnians in accordance with their prosody and their position in the trimeter in order to investigate the (frequently uncertain) word disposition in iambic trimeters of corrupt and poorly preserved comic fragments. In the second section, he applies the results of his catalogue to three comic fragments (Alcaeus, fr. 15 K.-A., Aristomenes, fr. 12 K.-A., and Philyllius, fr. 18 K.-A.). In the third section, he compares his results to similar catalogues of three poets of Old Comedy (Telecleides, Ameipsias and Alcaeus) and to statistical data regarding Menander, Dyskolos 1–125, thus pointing out the metrical differences and similarities between Aristophanes' Acharnians and the fragments of the other poets considered, and underlining the possibility of an ongoing pattern of change in Greek Comedy's versification over time.
Through a focus on Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae 730–45, M. Duranti, ‘Automatos Bios? La personificazione degli oggetti nelle Ecclesiazuse di Aristofane’, studies the depiction of objects and the functions of their personification in Greek comedy. Duranti compares the passage of the Ecclesiazusae with other similar comic passages (notably Crates, fr. 16 K.-A.) and highlights the close correspondence between the representation of the objects and the central topic of this comedy.
P. Totaro, ‘Onomastì komodeȋn nella parodo lirica del Pluto di Aristofane’, makes a literary, textual and philological analysis of the lyric section of the parodos of the Ploutos, where Carion and the Chorus of old farmers perform in a bucolic-like contest. Totaro underlines the importance of the dithyrambic hypotext of the lost Cyclops or Galatea by Philoxenus of Cythera in the first strophic pair, while for the second he emphasises the remarkable interconnection between the mythological sphere and reality.
Despite the provisional and partial nature of his results, C. Bevegni, ‘Aristofane in Poliziano’, makes a stimulating study of Angelo Poliziano's interest in Aristophanes' works, confirmed by several quotations of the comic poet in many of his writings. Bevegni lists thirteen direct quotations of Aristophanes in Poliziano, concluding that the Italian humanist interacted with the whole tradition of Aristophanes transmitted in the Byzantine Middle Ages (including the scholia to his comedies).
The paper of S.D. Olson, ‘On the Fragments of Eupolis' Taxiarchoi’, arises from a critical review of I.C. Storey's Eupolis: Poet of Old Comedy (2003). Olson criticises Storey's literary and philological approach in his reconstruction of Eupolis' Taxiarchoi and condemns several of his considerations that are not backed by solid evidence. Overall, Olson recommends more accuracy and prudence in dealing with fragmentary texts, thus stressing the importance of a correct and objective methodology in any philological operation.
G. Ceschi, ‘Intertestualità in Ermippo: parodia e lessico specialistico’, suggests a more generous literary evaluation of the comic poet Hermippus, recognising his expressive vivacity in the parodic intertextual strategies and the use of specialised vocabulary of some of his fragments. Ceschi considers the catalogue in fr. 63 K.-A. as a depiction of the Athenian tryphê through an explicit parodic reference to the Catalogue of Ships in Homer, Il. 2, and frr. 30, 73, 74 K.-A., where the use of medical and philosophical terms denotes Hermippus' ability to make understandable to his audience an uncommon lexicon.
F.P. Bianchi, ‘Il giudizio di bellezza delle dee nel Dionisalessandro di Cratino (POxy 663, col. I rr. 12–19)’, investigates the vexata quaestio concerning the scene of the goddess' judgement in the hypothesis of Cratinus' Dionysalexandros. The argumentum is still hotly debated for the plurality of textual and interpretative problems. Bianchi analyses the most controversial and unresolved issues of the constitutio textus and the drama's potential scenic reconstruction. Moreover, he draws a comparison between the plot of the play and Lucian's dialogue Theōn krisis.
F. Stama, ‘Per un'analisi della cosiddetta Comoedia Dukiana (Com. Adesp. fr. 1146 K-A)’, examines the papyrus fragment Com. Adesp. 1146 K.-A. He presents the supporting material and gives a description of its contents, that is a dialogue between two male figures on the preparation of a banquet. Given the numerous uncertainties relating to the authorship of the poem, Stama supports Kassel's and Austin's decision to include the fragment in the section of adespota comica of the PCG (VIII).
The book suffers from some shortcomings in presentation. There is wide variation in layout and formatting among the contributions. In addition, there are some scattered typos and mistakes in Greek accents. The authors do not always provide a translation of Greek passages, thus making the book inaccessible to non-specialists, who also might find the multilingual nature of its contents challenging. However, the variety of scholarly approaches and the extensive and up-to-date bibliography, together with a helpful comprehensive index, ultimately make this book a useful tool with which to address the kaleidoscopic world of Greek comedy.
