Characterizing the Ancient Miscellany

When the genre of the miscellany experienced a growth in popularity during the Imperial period, its influence bled into a number of texts in neighboring genres. This paper will investigate one of these miscellanistic-influenced Imperial texts, the Symposium of Methodius of Olympus.

Variety is a hallmark of Aelian’s output, ranging from invectives to literary epistles to miscellaneous collections. However, as scholars have begun to recognize the place of Aelian and his diverse oeuvre in the context of imperial literature (Smith, Goldhill), and miscellaneous writings have begun to receive more serious treatment as literary endeavors in their own right, Aelian’s De natura animalium (De nat.

Why were so many works commonly classed as miscellanies titled historiae (Pamphila’s Συμμίκτων Ἱστορικῶν Ὑπομνημάτων, Favorinus’ Παντοδαπῆ Ἱστορία, Aelian’s Varia Historia)? This paper argues that the titles of these works point to their close connections with historiography. While the roots of miscellany in philosophy and elite sympotic traditions have rightly been emphasized (Jacob 2013, Klotz and Oikonomopoulou 2011, Morgan 2007), reading such works against the tradition of historiography is equally compelling.

In classical antiquity, “miscellaneous” texts were sometimes accompanied by a kind of paratext known today as a Table of Contents: a sequential list of titles or descriptions of the chapters, essays or sections that make up the work. Modern study of paratext traditionally proceeds from studying books themselves, but no ancient manuscripts of these particular texts survive, which seems to foreclose a materially-oriented study of their nature and function.

In the preface to the second Book of Quaestiones convivales, Plutarch says that he simply jotted down the conversations “without any systematic order, as each came to mind” (Quaest. conv. 629D: σποράδην δ' ἀναγέγραπται καὶ οὐ διακεκριμένως ἀλλ' ὡς ἕκαστον εἰς μνήμην ἦλθεν). This statement is highly programmatic for the work’s underlying writing process and method of composition, including the structuring principles that guide it, however idiosyncratic they may be (König 2007, Morgan 2011).