Didimo 'erudito': dossografia, documentazione, metodo

Enrico Emanuele Prodi

2024-01-01

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Abstract

This chapter falls into two parts. The first examines Didymus’ habit of citation and quotation in its two basic aspects: the quotation of external sources with the aim of proving Didymus’ interpretation of a passage (taking the Peri Demosthenous and the fragments of the Pindaric commentary as test cases) and the ‘literature reviews’ of earlier interpretations which Didymus refutes or improves upon (again with the Pindaric commentary as the example). In both cases I explore the implications of citations and quotations for Didymus’ methods. The second part revolves back to the Peri Demosthenous in order to investigate the running titles written over the columns of the text in the Berlin papyrus. I hypothesize that they may be authorial and that they open the text to a non-continuous reading focussing on individual passages.