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VERSES ATTRIBUTED TO THE TELEGONY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

Christos Tsagalis*
Affiliation:
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Extract

The huge differences characterizing the main editions of the Greek epic poets of the Archaic period are well known. The sparse amount of information available poses serious problems; so too does the lack of unanimous acceptance of the same methodological principles with respect to the attribution of a citation to a given author and poem. The case of the Telegony is typical: Bernabé lists five fragments, Davies two (only one in common with Bernabé), and West six (four in common with Bernabé, one in common with Davies, and one published by Livrea ten years after the appearance of the editions of Bernabé and Davies). To alert the reader that the attribution of fragments 1 and 2 to the Telegony is conjectural and not based on ancient evidence, West attaches an asterisk to them. My aim is to discuss both what certain scholars have taken as one (and, for exactly 110 years, the only) of the two surviving lines from Eugammon's Telegony, that is fr. 1 (PEG 1, Bernabé = *1 West) = fr. 2 (Allen), and also what appears as fr. *2 in West's Loeb edition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank M. Davies, P. Finglass, W. Kullmann, A. Rengakos, M.L. West, and the anonymous referee for constructive comments and criticism; M. Davies also for letting me see his unpublished notes on the Telegony; M.L. West also for bringing to my attention his article on Baldr; and audiences at the Classics departments of Cornell and Columbia Universities, where an earlier version of my work was presented.

References

1 Bernabé, A., Poetae Epici Graeci: Testimonia et Fragmenta. Pars I (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1987)Google Scholar.

2 Davies, M., Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Göttingen, 1988)Google Scholar.

3 Livrea, E., ‘Nuovi frammenti della Telegonia’, ZPE 122 (1998), 15Google Scholar, at 2.

4 West, M.L., Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries bc (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2003)Google Scholar, x.

5 See Diels, H., ‘Atacta II’, Hermes 23 (1888), 279–88Google Scholar, at 279, who argued that ἤσθιεν ἁρπαλέως κρέα τ᾽ ἄσπετα καὶ μέθυ ἡδύ (cited by Athen. 10.412d) came from Eugammon's Telegony, and in particular from the episode of Odysseus’ visit to his cattle in Elis and his stay at the house of Polyxenus. See also Allen, T.W., ‘Homerica II: additions to the epic cycle’, CR 27 (1913), 189–91Google Scholar, at 191, who endorsed this view and printed this hexameter as fr. 2 in his edition of the Cyclic epics. Rzach, A., ‘Kyklos’, RE (1922)Google Scholar, 11.2, cols. 2347–2435, at 2432, thought it more appropriate that, since Odysseus’ designation as an old man was more at home after his return from Thesprotia in the Telegony, it might have come from that particular part of Eugammon's epic.

6 The text is that of Kaibel, G., Dipnosophistarum libri xv (Leipzig, 1887–90 [repr. Stuttgart 1965–6])Google Scholar, 10.412b26–d16, with a few changes according to the edition of Olson, S. Douglas, Athenaeus: The Learned Banqueters, Vol. IV: Books 8–10.420e (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2008)Google Scholar.

7 The text of Odyssey 7.218 has ἐνὶ ϕρεσὶ πένθος ἔχοντα instead of ἐνιπλησθῆναι ἀνώγει; cf. Od. 7.219 (πένθος μὲν ἔχω ϕρεσίν) and Od. 7.221 (ἐνιπλησθῆναι ἀνώγει), both cited by Athenaeus below. See also n. 13 below.

8 Translation by Olson (n. 6).

9 ἁρπαλέως and ἄσπετα are not used in a similar context in Hellenistic and Imperial epic. The possibility that Athenaeus is drawing this line from some parodic epic poem on matters gastronomical must be excluded for the following reasons: (i) Athenaeus regularly names his source and often the work from which he is drawing his citation; (ii) the line cited in Athen. 10.412d cannot come from epic parodists such as Archestratus of Gela (Hedypatheia) and Matro of Pitane (Attic Dinner Party), because neither the former's didactic (pseudo-Hesiodic) style nor the latter's technique of reshaping his Homeric or Hesiodic model by introducing alterations that ‘almost always have some recognizable motivation in humor or grammar’ apply to the context of Athenaeus’ ‘citation’; see Sens, A., ‘“Τίπτε γένος τοὐμὸν ζητεῖς;”: the Batrachomyomachia, Hellenistic epic parody, and early epic’, in Montanari, F. and Rengakos, A. (edd.), La Poésie épique grecque: métamorphoses d'un genre littéraire, Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique (Geneva, 2006), 215–44Google Scholar, at 228. Metrical considerations are also heavily against such an attribution; e.g. Archestratus ‘never allows hiatus after a word ending in a short vowel’ (Olson, S. Douglas and Sens, A., Archestratus of Gela: Greek Culture and Cuisine in the Fourth Century bce [Oxford, 2000], lxvi)Google Scholar. On Matro, see Olson, S. Douglas and Sens, A., Matro of Pitane and the Tradition of Epic Parody in the Fourth Century bce: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Atlanta, GA, 1999)Google Scholar.

10 This is in accordance with Athenaeus’ standard treatment of his sources. On his general reliability, see Zepernick, K., ‘Die Exzerpte des Athenaeus in den Deipnosophisten und ihre Glaubwürdigkeit’, Philologus 77 (1921), 311–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brunt, P.A., ‘On historical fragments and epitomes’, CQ 30 (1980), 477–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 481; Ambaglio, D., ‘I Deipnosofisti di Ateneo e la tradizione storica frammentaria’, Athenaeum 78 (1990), 5164Google Scholar; Arnott, G., ‘Athenaeus and the epitome: texts, manuscripts, and early editions’, in Braund, D. and Wilkins, J. (edd.), Athenaeus and His World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire (Exeter, 2000), 4152Google Scholar, at 41. At times Athenaeus makes mistakes that take the form of omissions, paraphrases, and replacements of part of the original text, though we should be careful to distinguish his own carelessness from that of the epitomist; see Sharples, R.W. and Minter, D.W., ‘Theophrastus on fungi: innacurate citations in Athenaeus’, JHS 103 (1983), 154–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tronson, A., ‘Satyrus the Peripatetic and the marriages of Philip II’, JHS 104 (1984), 116–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bréchet, C., ‘Du “grand livre” homérique aux Deipnosophistes: exploration d'un continuum’, in Lenfant, D. (ed.), Athénée et les fragments d'historiens (Paris, 2007), 321–40Google Scholar.

11 The way in which the actual text of Athenaeus is phrased in this case is rather misleading. One may think that the γέρων to whom he is referring is none other than Sardanapallus himself, the notorious Assyrian King Assurbanipal, whose name had become closely associated in Greek literature with extravagant luxury and effeminacy. Athenaeus offers an entire passage on the proverbial gluttony of Sardanapallus in 12.528f–530c, in which various accounts of the end of his life and their proper sources are listed. I take γέρων as referring to Odysseus for the following reasons: (i) there is no satisfactory explanation concerning Athenaeus’ use of a line with strong Homeric echoes for Sardanapallus; (ii) his old age is related to his effeminacy, the association of food and drink with that old age being only secondary (see Suda Σ 121 s.v. Σαρδανάπαλος, Σ 122 s.v. Σαρδαναπάλους, and Σ 497 s.v. καταγηρᾶσαι [Adler]). This becomes obvious in the section which Athenaeus devotes in Book 12 to ‘Female-Kings’ (12.528e–531a), on which see M. Gambiato, ‘The female-kings: some aspects of the representation of eastern kings in the Deipnosophistae’, in Braund and Wilkins (n. 10), 227–30, esp. at 230; (iii) Athenaeus gives on a regular basis the source he is employing by author's name and/or work. When he does not know or has no direct knowledge of his source, he explicitly tells his readers (see e.g. 8.336d–e, where he cites twelve lines from Alexis’ The Instructor of Profligacy on the basis of On Timo's Silloi by Sotion of Alexandria) and may at times even indicate the range of his knowledge. Here there is no ϕησί τις or any other expression indicating a different source than the one he has been employing since the beginning of this passage, i.e. Homer (see also 8.336b).

12 It should be noted that Eustathius of Thessalonica (Commentarii ad Odysseam pertinentes, 2.166.45–2.167.20) cites this entire passage of Athenaeus on Odysseus’ gluttony (10.412b–d) in his discussion of the episode between Odysseus and Irus, i.e. when Odysseus is disguised and is called a γέρων, which shows that he considers the entire Athenaeus passage as relevant to that part of the Odyssey.

13 A mistake based on a slip of memory is much less likely because, although ἦσθεν/ἤσθιεν and ἁρπαλέως are attested in subsequent lines in Od. 6.249–50 and 14.109–10 respectively, they are separated by entire books from all five attestations of the formula κρέα τ᾽ ἄσπετα καὶ μέθυ ἡδύ; see Bréchet (n. 10), 330–1, though both his other examples in 10.444e and 12.511b are, strictly speaking, of a different sort, since in the former the new hexameter is not forged by Athenaeus but by Hegesander of Delphi (fr. 20, FHG iv.417) or his source, and in the latter Athenaeus is substituting one Homeric word with another within a given expression.

14 This explanation is consonant with Athenaeus’ practice in quoting Homer. He often cites a word or expression from a given line, then omits the rest of the line and continues with part of the next verse (there are multiple examples: see e.g. 1.9b, 1.10b, 1.14a, 1.24f). He also changes certain expressions when quoting a line or group of lines. A typical example of the latter tendency can be seen in the passage under discussion (10.412c), in which Od. 7.218 καὶ μάλα τειρόμενον καὶ ἐνὶ ϕρεσὶ πένθος ἔχοντα is cited as καὶ μάλα τειρόμενον καὶ ἐνιπλησθῆναι ἀνώγει. On Athenaeus’ practice in citing Homer, see Bréchet (n. 10), 321–40.

15 There is a vivid discussion in the scholia of both the Iliad (e.g. A on 8.231, bT on 9.206b, AbT on 20.84a [Erbse]) and the Odyssey (T on 7.216 [Dindorf]) with respect to whether certain eating and/or drinking habits are appropriate or inappropriate to the notion of the hero. Athenaeus’ line cannot have come from the scholia, since he systematically mentions his scholiastic sources, Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus being well-known examples; see Bréchet (n. 10), 331–5.

16 Interestingly enough, κρέα also features in the same Odyssean context.

17 See also Od. 6.249–50 (ἦ τοι ὁ πῖνε καὶ ἦσθε πολύτλας δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς | ἁρπαλέως· δηρὸν γὰρ ἐδητύος ἦεν ἄπαστος).

18 Most recently Debiasi, A., L'epica perduta (Rome 2004)Google Scholar, 255 n. 52.

19 Since Odysseus had stayed among the Thesprotians for quite a few years, so that Polypoites, his son from Callidice, had reached the required age to take the throne after his mother's death, it is assumed that he returned to Ithaca in his old age. This, of course, does not necessarily mean that this topic was exploited in the Telegony, though it may well have featured in an oral *Thesprotis, in which Odysseus died in his old age in the land of the Thesprotians (perhaps in the manner described in Od. 11.134–7 = 23.281–4); on this episode, see the Appendix.

20 Notice that the reference to Sardanapallus also scans as a hexameter (ταῦτα γὰρ οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἐκεῖνος ὁ Σαρδανάπαλλος εἰπεῖν). With respect to Sardanapallus, the ‘naked’ reference to the notorious Assyrian king in 10.412d is explained on the basis that his famous self-composed epitaph (see εἰπεῖν ποτε ἂν ἐτόλμησεν) has already been discussed by the wise banqueters in 8.335f–337a. On a comparison between Sardanapallus’ epitaph and what is said in the Odyssey, see 8.336a–b; on the Assyrian king's gluttony, luxuriousness, and effeminacy, see 12.528f–530c.

21 See Garzya, A., Synesii Cyrenensis Epistolae (Rome, 1979)Google Scholar.

22 West (n. 4), 168, fr. *2. Being (rightly) sceptical about this attribution, West has attached an asterisk to this fragment number (see p. 448).

23 Livrea also suggested in the same article that Callimachus’ Hecale fr. 294 Pfeiffer = 49.9–10 Hollis potrebbe non esser immune da reminiscenze di Eugammone, e perfino preservarne in qualche misura il Wortlaut, omaggio di Callimaco al suo lontano conterraneo. I will not explore this attribution, since West has (rightly) excluded it from his edition. As Hartmann, A., Untersuchungen über die Sagen vom Tod des Odysseus [Munich, 1917]Google Scholar, 66, has convincingly shown, Cercyon is a later addition to the Agamedes and Trophonius episode. See also Davies, M., The Greek Epic Cycle (London, 1989)Google Scholar, 86.

24 See Roques, D., Études sur la correspondence de Synésios de Cyrène (Brussels, 1989), 110–12Google Scholar.

25 Livrea (n. 3), 2 = *fr. 2 West.

26 Translation by Fitzgerald, A., Letters of Synesius of Cyrene (London, 1926)Google Scholar.

27 The alternative possibility, i.e. that Od. 1.122–3 (= 23.269–70) is a verbatim quotation from an oral, pre-Homeric Telegony, is simply untenable.

28 It is highly likely that Synesius considered the oar story to have been part of the Telegony, on which see the Appendix.

29 The word πηδάλιον is also regularly used by Synesius in the Epistles; see e.g. Ep. 5.15, p. 15; 5.11, p. 16; 5.15, p. 21 (Garzya).

30 See Od. 11.121: λαβὼν εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν.

31 See Ep. 4.26, 148.38, in Hercher, R. (ed.), Epistolographi Graeci (Paris, 1873, repr. 1965)Google Scholar.

32 See below (point 5).

33 According to this rule, diaeresis after a spondaic fourth-foot is generally avoided.

34 Chantraine, P., Grammaire homérique: phonétique et morphologie (Paris, 1958–63)Google Scholar, 1.267.

35 See Wackernagel, J., Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Homer (Göttingen, 1916), 46Google Scholar; West, M.L., Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar, 166 on v. 34. The crucial point is that in Synesius’ text σϕᾶς is not followed by αὐτούς and is, therefore, anaphoric-deictic and not reflexive.

36 Some of these features are also attested in the story of the Cyclops: (i) the ‘they do not know of the sea’ motif (9.125–7: οὐ γὰρ Κυκλώπεσσι νέες πάρα μιλτοπάρῃοι, | οὐδ᾽ ἄνδρες νηῶν ἔνι τέκτονες, οἵ κε κάμοιεν | νῆας ἐυσσέλμους, …); (ii) the noise made by various animals (9.166–7: Κυκλώπων δ᾽ ἐς γαῖαν ἐλεύσσομεν ἐγγὺς ἐόντων, | καπνόν τ᾽ αὐτῶν τε ϕθογγὴν ὀίων τε καὶ αἰγῶν; cf. 9.439: θήλειαι δὲ μέμηκον ἀνήμελκτοι περὶ σηκούς); (iii) (uninterrupted) sleep (9.150–1: ἐκ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ βῆμεν ἐπὶ ῥηγμῖνι θαλάσσης· | ἔνθα δ᾽ ἀποβρίξαντες ἐμείναμεν Ἠῶ δῖαν); and (iv) movement of a wave (9.147–8: οὔτ᾽ οὖν κύματα μακρὰ κυλινδόμενα προτὶ χέρσον | εἰσίδομεν). That Synesius also has the episode of the Cyclops in his mind, see the very beginning of his letter (p. 267, 1–6 [Garzya]): ἀμέλει γελῶσιν, ὅταν περὶ αὐτοῦ λέγωσιν, ἡγούμενοι πέρυσιν ἐκτετυϕλῶσθαι τὸν Κύκλωπα, καὶ ὡς εἵλκετο μὲν ὑπὸ τῷ κριῷ τὸ γερόντιον, τὸ δὲ κάθαρμα τὴν θύραν ἐτήρει καὶ οὐραγεῖν ᾤετο τὸν ἡγεμόνα τῆς ποίμνης, οὐκ ἀχθόμενον τῷ ϕορτίῳ, τῇ δὲ αὐτοῦ συμϕορᾷ συναχθόμενον.

37 For comparable phenomena, see Davies, M., ‘Poetry in Plato: a new epic fragment?’, MH 37 (1980), 129–32Google Scholar; Davies, M., ‘Tzetzes and Stesichorus’, ZPE 45 (1982), 267–9Google Scholar. In these two studies, it is convincingly shown that metrical sequences (such as Ἄδρηστον μελίγηρυν in Plato's Phaedrus 269a5) or even ‘entire hexameters’ (Τρώεσσ᾽ οἳ τότ᾽ ἴσαν Fελένας εἴδωλον ἔχοντες), which have been mistakenly attributed to Stesichorus, may have been either created by the author of the ancient source (Plato in the first case) or caused by a combination of various factors such as forgetfulness and misunderstanding of an earlier reference (Tzetzes in the second case).

38 See the Appendix.

39 Strictly speaking, the verse in question designates people who live far away from the sea (and are never awakened by the sound of waves) and not people who do not know the sea.

40 This is a different argument from the first one presented above, for there I tried to show that, even if Synesius thought that the episode with the oar occurred in the Telegony, he only had a vague idea of the epic's content, not the actual text. Conversely, here the argument relates to Livrea's belief that the episode with the oar belongs to the Telegony, and as a result the line in question may have come from the same context as ‘people who are ignorant of the sea’.

41 For a detailed presentation of this final argument, see the Appendix.

42 Though essential, this argument is completely independent of all the others that I present above. As such, its rejection would not affect my central thesis, i.e. that fr. *2 (West) does not come from Eugammon's Telegony.

43 Davies (n. 23), 7, rightly reminds us that, since Proclus’ summaries have been transferred to the MSS of the Iliad to facilitate understanding of Homer's epic, discrepancies with and repetitions of events attested in the Homeric epics had to be removed from them. In this light, the case of the sacrifices ordered by Teiresias is really problematic, for they should have been omitted. In other words, we would have expected an absence of any reference to these sacrifices, which are mentioned in the Odyssey. Referring to the sacrifices but omitting their prerequisite (the ‘Sailor and the Oar’ tale) is extremely awkward.

44 See Ballabriga, A., ‘La prophétie de Tirésias’, Métis 4 (1989), 291304CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 298, who points to an interesting association between the funeral rites offered to Elpenor and the ‘planting of the oar’ motif. See Od. 11.77 (πῆξαι τ᾽ ἐπὶ τύμβῳ ἐρετμόν) and 11.129 (πήξας εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν).

45 Clem. Alex. Strom. 6.25.1 (2.442 Stählin) = Eus. Praep. Ev. 10.2.7 (1.559 Mras): ἤδη δὲ οὐ τὰς διανοίας μόνον καὶ λέξεις ὑϕελόμενοι καὶ παραϕράσαντες ἐϕωράθησαν, ὡς ἐδείχθη, ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ τὰ ϕώρια ἄντικρυς ὁλόκληρα ἔχοντες διελεγχθήσονται· αὐτοτελῶς γὰρ τὰ ἑτέρων ὑϕελόμενοι ὡς ἴδια ἐξήνεγκαν, καθάπερ Εὐγάμμων (Dindorf; Εὐγάμων Clem.; Εὐγράμμων Euseb.) ὁ Κυρηναῖος ἐκ Μουσαίου (B 6 D.–K.) τὸ περὶ Θεσπρωτῶν βιβλίον ὁλόκληρον.

46 Merkelbach, R., Untersuchungen zur Odyssee (Munich, 1969)Google Scholar, 147.

47 Od. 11.130–4 = 23.277–81.

48 The place name Ἤπειρος is attested in Pseudo-Apollodorus’ relevant passage (Epit. 7.34: πεζῇ διὰ τῆς Ἠπείρου βαδίζων εἰς Θεσπρωτοὺς παραγίνεται καὶ κατὰ τὰς τοῦ Τειρεσίου μαντείας θυσιάσας ἐξιλάσκεται Ποσειδῶνα), but after the completion of another set of sacrifices to Hades and Persephone (see Od. 10.521–40) that probably take place in Ithaca, and certainly after Odysseus arrives among the Thesprotians. In Proclus’ version, Teiresias’ sacrifices are performed in Ithaca before his departure to Thesprotia.

49 The alternative reading of Ἤπειρον as ἤπειρον, which is, of course, attested in archaic epic with the meaning ‘mainland’, does not fit so well, for Odysseus is already on the mainland (Elis), so it seems awkward to sail again to the mainland. Moreover, designation of a specific place is needed.

50 Proclus’ use of compound forms of πλέω in his summary confirms the abovementioned argument: συμπλεῖν (92–3 Severyns = § 6 Kullmann) refers to Aeneas’ journey together with Paris to Sparta, ἐκπλεῖ (98 Severyns = § 10 Kullmann) designates Menelaus’ journey from Sparta to Crete, ἀποπλεύσας (104–5 Severyns = § 13 Kullmann) denotes Paris’ journey from Sparta to Ilium, ἀποπλέουσιν (129 Severyns = § 26 Kullmann) is used for the departure of the Achaeans from Mysia, προσπλεύσαντες (254 Severyns = § 90 Kullmann) points to the sailing in of the fleet from Tenedos to Troy, ἀποπλέουσιν (266 Severyns = § 95 Kullmann) refers to the departure of the Greek fleet from Troy, ἐκπλεύσας (285 Severyns = § 104 Kullmann) designates Menelaus’ departure from Troy, ἀποπλεόντων (291 Severyns = § 106 Kullmann) indicates the sailing-away of Agamemnon's fleet from Troy, and ἀποπλεῖ (309–10 Severyns = § 115 Kullmann) points to a sailing-away journey from Ithaca to Elis. Apart from συμπλεῖν, which is not really relevant to this argument, in all the other cases the meaning is ‘sailing away’ or ‘sailing away towards a place’. The only time that Proclus employs the verb καταπλέω (144 Severyns = § 32: καταπλέουσιν εἰς Τένεδον) he is clearly emphasizing not the place of departure but that of arrival. In particular, καταπλέω designates arrival by sea at an island, i.e. just as is the case with εἰς Ἰθάκην καταπλεύσας (313 Severyns = § 118 Kullmann). With respect to the arrival of the Achaeans at Tenedos, Pseudo-Apollodorus has προσέσχον (Epit. 3.23) and προσπλέοντας (Epit. 3.26).

51 See Tsagalis, C., The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2008), 87–8Google Scholar.

52 There is one more point to be stressed, though not very much: if the sacrifices specified by Teiresias were carried out in Epirus and the story of the ‘Sailor and the Oar’ formed part of the Telegony, then the journey to Epirus would have included two major episodes, the ‘Oar’ and the tale of Callidice. This would run against the tendency of this epic to have a single focus in each episode: Elis – hospitality of Polyxenus, Thesprotia – Callidice, Ithaca – Telegonus.

53 See West (n. 4), 166.

54 See Davies (n. 23), 7.

55 On the grounds of similarity of content and sometimes diction, Davies, M., Prolegomena and Paralegomena to a New Edition (with Commentary) of the Fragments of Early Greek Epic (Göttingen, 1986), 105–6Google Scholar, has argued that Pseudo-Apollodorus and Proclus ‘derive ultimately from a common source, and that common source, filtered through an unknown and unknowable number of intermediate abridgements about which it would be futile to speculate further, consists of the Epic Cycle from Cypria to Telegony’. West (n. 4), 12, asks for caution, ‘as Apollodorus has sometimes incorporated material from other sources such as tragedy’, but uses Pseudo-Apollodorus to complete Proclus’ summaries. Conversely, Kullmann, W., Die Quellen der Ilias: Troischer Sagenkreis (Wiesbaden, 1960)Google Scholar, 139, 156, and Ilias und Aithiopis’, Hermes 133 (2005) 928Google Scholar, at 12 n. 12, does not put Pseudo-Apollodorus on a par with Proclus with respect to the level of accuracy of information included in the actual poems of the Cycle. Scafoglio, G., ‘Proclo e il ciclo epico’, Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 7 (2004) 3957Google Scholar, at 42–4, argues that Proclus had read the actual poems of the Cycle that survived to his day and that Pseudo-Apollodorus also used them from time to time, hence his similarities with Proclus with respect to content and diction (43). It is generally agreed that the sources of Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca are multiple: see Robert, C., de Apollodori Bibliotheca (Berlin, 1873)Google Scholar; A. Söder, Quellenuntersuchung zum 1. Buch der Apollodorschen Bibliothek (Diss. Würzburg University, 1939); Van der Valk, M., ‘On Apollodori Bibliotheca’, REG 71 (1958), 100–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In my view, there are two important facts that should not be underestimated: (i) Pseudo-Apollodorus never states that he offers the plot of any given epic; (ii) abridgements, bizarre selections (such as the absence of the Elis journey in the relevant section of Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Epitome), and the addition of minor points (such as Telegonus’ lamentation upon his realization that he had killed his own father) should in no way be treated as indications that the episodes or scenes were absent (Elis) or featured (lamentation) in the actual work that is summarized (Bibliotheca) and by extension in the Telegony, whose content we know from a different, reliable source (Proclus); see Brunt (n. 10), 477–94, at 478.

56 See Ballabriga (n. 44), 291–304. Merkelbach's suggestion that Odysseus went to Elis and then to Thesprotia, because he was exiled after the killing of the suitors (as covertly indicated by the initial phrase of Proclus’ summary) is based on his emendation of Proclus’ εἰς Ἰθάκην to εἰς τὴν Ἤπειρον. For reasons given above, I believe this exile scenario must be dismissed altogether. It is significant that Pseudo-Apollodorus (Epit. 7.40) refers to Odysseus’ exile only in a version (7.40: εἰσὶ δὲ οἱ λέγοντες) that is clearly distinct from the one pertaining to the Telegony (7.34–7); see also Plutarch, Moralia, 294 CD (Aetia Romana et Graeca 14 = Aristotle fr. 507 R.).

57 310 Severyns = § 115 Kullmann.

58 West, M.L., ‘The Death of Baldr’, Journal of Indo-European Studies 32 (2004), 19Google Scholar, at 5–6, puts forward a different possibility, suggesting that the ambiguity of the expression ἐξ ἁλός has resulted from the loss of the key of the story. If this Indo-European narrative pattern of ‘exclusive polarities’ is employed, it can be argued that ‘Odysseus … had been declared invulnerable to anything grown or made on the earth. (Perhaps also to any man born of woman, since Telegonos’ mother was a goddess)’.

59 See (i) schol. Od. 11.134 (487.12 Dindorf): Ἔνιοι δὲ κατὰ παράθεσιν, ἐξ ἁλός, οἷον ἀπὸ θαλάσσης … καί ϕασιν ὡς ἐντεύξει τῆς Κίρκης Ἥϕαιστος κατεσκεύασε Τηλεγόνῳ δόρυ ἐκ τρυγόνος θαλασσίας, ἣν Φόρκυς ἀνεῖλεν ἐσθίουσαν τοὺς ἐν τῇ Φορκίδι λίμνῃ ἰχθῦς· οὗ τὴν μὲν ἐπιδορατίδα ἀδαμαντίνην, τὸν δὲ στύρακα χρυσοῦν εἶναι, τὸν Ὀδυσσέα ἀνεῖλεν; (ii) Schol. Od. 11.134 (487.23 Dindorf): οἱ νεώτεροι τὰ περὶ Τηλέγονον ἀνέπλασαν τὸν Κίρκης καὶ Ὀδυσσέως, ὃς δοκεῖ κατὰ ζήτησιν τοῦ πατρὸς εἰς Ἰθάκην ἐλθὼν ὑπ᾽ ἀγνοίας τὸν πατέρα διαχρήσασθαι τρυγόνος κέντρῳ; (iii) Eust. Od. 1676.43: θάνατος δὲ ἔξαλος ὁ ἠπειρωτικὸς καὶ ἔξω θαλάσσης, ἵνα λέγῃ ὅτι εἰ καὶ δυστυχεῖς ὦ Ὀδυσσεῦ κατὰ θάλασσαν, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ θάνατός σοι οὐκ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔσται ἀλλ᾽ ἔξω αὐτῆς. τινὲς δὲ ἐξ ἁλὸς γράϕουσι κατὰ παράθεσιν ἐν δυσὶ μέρεσι λόγου, λέγοντες ὡς Τηλέγονος ὁ Κίρκης καὶ Ὀδυσσέως ἡϕαιστότευκτον δόρυ ἔχων, οὗ ἀδαμαντίνη μὲν ἡ ἐπιδορατίς, αἰχμὴ δὲ κέντρον θαλασσίας τρυγόνος, χρυσοῦς δὲ ὁ στύραξ, καὶ ἐλθὼν ἐκ Τυρσηνίας εἰς ἀναψηλάϕησιν τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ λεηλατῶν ἀγνοίᾳ τὰ ἠπειρωτικὰ τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως κτήματα καὶ εὑρὼν ἀντίπαλον τὸν πατέρα, ἀνεῖλεν οὐκ εἰδώς. καὶ οὕτω τῷ κατὰ θάλασσαν ἀεὶ κακῶς πράττοντι ἐκ θαλάττης αὖθις ὁ θάνατος, ὃς ἔπεϕνεν αὐτόν, καθὰ καὶ Ὀππιανός (Halieut. 2.497) ἱστορεῖ, τῷ τῆς τρυγόνος κέντρῳ, ἣν Φόρκυς ϕασιν ἀνεῖλεν ϕθείρουσαν τοὺς ἐν τῇ Φορκίδι λίμνῃ ἰχθῦς; (iv) Ps.-Apollod. Epit., 7.36: καὶ Ὀδυσσέα βοηθοῦντα τῷ μετὰ χεῖρας δόρατι Τηλέγονος <τρυγόνος> κέντρον τὴν αἰχμὴν ἔχοντι τιτρώσκει, καὶ Ὀδυσσεὺς θνῄσκει.

60 See Hartmann (n. 23), 71–5.

61 Hansen, W.F., ‘Odysseus' last journey’, QUCC 24 (1977), 2748Google Scholar.

62 Huxley, G.L., ‘Homerica II: Eugamon’, GRBS 3 (1960), 23–8Google Scholar, suggested that Odysseus had performed the sacrifices to Poseidon in Elis and that it was in Arcadia that the tale of the ‘Sailor and the Oar’ took place. For a refutation of this theory, see Tsagalis (n. 51), 86–7.

63 See Debiasi (n. 18), 257 n. 74, who postulates ὑπὸ Κίρκης instead of ὑπὸ Τειρεσίου. This argument is different from Merkelbach's change of Ἰθάκην to Ἤπειρον: since a sacrifice to Teiresias formed part of the sacrifices which Circe told Odysseus to perform in Ithaca (Od. 10.522–5), confusion was facilitated. Debiasi (253–4) also entertains the idea, on the basis of Clement's assertion that Eugammon had stolen the entire Thesprotian Book from Musaeus (Strom. 6.2.25.1 = Euseb. Praep. Ev. 10.2.7), that the Telegony may have contained a Nekyia that would have shared a number of similarities with its Odyssean counterpart. I am very sceptical about this suggestion, whose core was first suggested by E. Schwartz, Die Odyssee (Munich, 1924), 140.