Clinton Douglas Kinkade (Duke University)
In this talk, I argue that the tragic scholia reveal distinct critical methodologies in their approach to mythography, thus shining new light on the reception of the tragedians and the culture of ancient scholarship. Specifically, the scholia to Euripides tend to explore the network of myths with which his stories intersect, while those to Sophocles consider the impact his versions have on the play’s success.
The methods and vocabulary of the ancient scholiasts is a topic of growing scholarly interest. Easterling (2006, 2014, 2015) has described common scholarly practices in the scholia to Sophocles, Grisolia (2001, 2016) and Nünlist (2009) have identified recurrent rhetorical themes across different corpora, and Dickey (2007) has shown the variety of content that the scholia embrace in their analyses. The ancient commentators’ attention to mythographic matters has also drawn attention. Papadopoulou (1998) has shown that ancient scholars focused on mythological variants as expressions of poetic license. Building on this work, I argue that mythographic notes in the tragic scholia reflect competing scholarly modes of analysis.
A survey of the numerous scholia with mythological content from the Attic tragedians yields a remarkable pattern. The scholia to Euripides are prone to exhaustive compilation of mythological background and variants. The note on Alcestis 1, for example, features five explanations of Apollo’s servitude to Admetus and nine variants on why Zeus killed Asclepius, each backed by citation of original authors. It says nothing, however, of the function of Euripides’ version in his poem. Mythographic notes in the scholia to Sophocles and Aeschylus are fewer, briefer, and lack such rigorous citation of sources. Moreover, the Sophoclean scholia mock this sort of compilation of mythological trivia as “tasteless” (e.g., Σ Aj. 1197), focusing instead on how Sophocles’ mythological variants contribute to the play’s literary qualities (e.g., Σ El. 539). Euripides scholiasts provide context for his choices through compilation of precedents and variants, but they say little about the text as a poetic artifact. Sophocles’ scholiasts are interested in such variants only to the degree that they explain the poem as such.
Within these bodies of scholia, we find two competing camps of scholarly practice and rigor: one looks outward, connecting the poem to a broader mythological landscape, while the other is inward-looking, focused on the text’s literary effects. One illuminates through the accumulation of external parallels; the other, through analysis of internal features. Moreover, each corpus features very little of the other’s preferred methodology, some even showing hostility toward the other. Similar divisions are found in ancient arguments over rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry. Its appearance here within such scholarly texts – which passed through many of the same hands during their production – suggests that competing exegetical styles could even form around individual authors. This finding not only adds considerable nuance to our understanding of ancient scholarship and reception, but also reveals an unexpected feature of the ancient scholarly community.