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Repetitions in the Letters of Synesius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

D. T. Runia
D. T. Runia*
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
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Extract

The reader of the Letters of Synesius will soon perceive that Synesius tends, with surprising frequency, to repeat combinations of words and phrases which he has used elsewhere, both in letters and in occasional speeches. Although this habit has on occasion received scholarly attention, it has not yet been subjected to systematic analysis. My method, in undertaking this task, will be first to present the evidence in the form of an exhaustive list of examples. This will be followed by a brief discussion of the significance of the repetitions for our understanding of the Letter collection as a whole.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 13 , 1979 , pp. 103 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1979

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References

1 Terzaghi, N.‘Sinesio di Cirene’, Atene e Roma 20 (1917), 36;Google ScholarTreu,, K.Synesios von Kyrene : ein Kommentar zu seinem Dion (TU 71) (Berlin 1958), 16, 126Google Scholar. Various examples were culled by F. Boissonade and published in Hercher, R., Epistolographi Graeci (1873, repr. 1965), 71–79.Google Scholar

2 For reasons that will later on become apparent, I have included within the scope of this article the three extant speeches which Synesius did not dress up for publication (Ep. 57, Katastaseis A & B). Also included is the small treatise Ad Paeonium, which in fact is a conventional gift-accompanying letter. For the letters the text used will be that of Hercher (op. cit.), quoted by page and line (e.g. H666/9). For the two Katastaseis, Ad Paeonium and the remaining treatises the text used will be that of Terzaghi, N., Synesii Cyrenensis Opusculo (Rome 1944)Google Scholar, also quoted by page and line (e.g. T83/7). The following abbreviations will be used for the titles of the treatises:

3 Dio 18 (T278/5), a characteristic adaptation of Plato, Theaet. 191 c.

4 Ep 154 (H737/23).

5 Wagner, M.M., ‘A chapter in Byzantine epistolography : the Letters of Theodoret of Cyrus’, DOP 4 (1948), 174–5.Google Scholar

6 Contrast the comments of Thraede, K., Grundzüge griechisch-römischer Brieftopik (Munich 1970), 166,Google Scholar on the deliberate variatio of the Letters of Basil.

7 With the exception of no. 28, an example of the topos of deprived συνουσία.

8 Exceptions to this are nos. 30, 31, 33 & 34, which will be further discussed below.

9 Note that there is confusion in the MSS. concerning the addressees of Ep. 84–6 (cf. Seeck, O., ‘Studien zu Synesios, Il, Philologus 52 [1893], 465),Google Scholar and so nos. 24 … 25 are not examples of repetitions directed to the same person.

10 I cite just a few further examples of such ‘packets’: Syn. Ep. 18–21; Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 1. 483–90; Theodoret, Ep. 19, 20, 22; Libanius, Ep. 871–2, 874.

11 Ep. 118, 119, 131. Cf. Ep. 134 (H721/21 ff.) and Seeck’s comments, (n.9) 473.

12 On the name of the addressee (incorrect in Hercher), see Seeck, 465; Fritz, W., AAM (philos.-philol. Klasse) 23 (1905), 383.Google Scholar

13 Ep. 93. Dates : Ep. 119 … 131 : 405;Ep. 93 : 412.

14 Seeck, 466.

15 Obvious at any rate in the case of Ep. 136, which was written from Athens.

16 Parallels are difficult to find. But cf.Cook, A.B. ‘Unconscious Iterations’, CR 16 (1902), 148–50Google Scholar on the Attic orators; also cf. Quasten, J., Patrology (Utrecht 1960), 3. 499Google Scholar on 21 repetitions shared between the Letters and an ascetic treatise of the abbot Nilus.

17 Ep. 96 was written after his election but before his consecration.

18 Cf. Terzaghi, loc. cit. (n.l), although his interpretation is psychological rather than pragmatic : ‘ … forse perchè allo scrivente sembrava di aver saputo e potuto incidere in una determinata forma un pensiero, che con altre parole avrebbe perduto molta della sua efficacia.’

19 Thus Seeck, 471, for example, considers that Ep. 123 … 124 should be dated to the same period because they both start with the same quotation (repetition no.13). I would argue that on these grounds the deduction is not valid.

20 Only nos. 16 … 21 definitely share the same date.

21 Unfortunately Garzya’s, A.. new edition of the Letters (Synesii Cyrenensis Epistolae, Rome 1979) was published when this articles was already in proof.Google Scholar