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Friday, June 13, 2014

LOEB IS ALL YOU NEED -- TRIFIODORO -- La presa di Troia --

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Trifiodoro means ‘gift of Triphis’, one of the local deities of his home town Panopolis, today Akhmim, in Egypt.
 
TRIFIODORO is thought to have lived in the third c. AD and his only surviving work is "La presa di Troia", an epic poem in 691 verses.
 
Other recorded titles include Marathoniaca and The Story of Hippodamea.

There is little known about the life of Trifiodor other than two entries in the Byzantine lexicon or encyclopedia the Suda (T 1111 and 1112), thought to refer to the same individual.
 
The Suda indicates that he was from Panopolis (today Akhmim, Egypt) and that he was a grammarian and epic poet, but does not help with his dating.
 
Traditionally TRIFIODORO was dated to the fifth century because he was thought imitate the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of Panopolis (then dated to the fourth or fifth century) and he was in his turn imitated by Colluto (he lived under emperor Anastasius, 491-518 -- and was the author of "Il ratto d'Elena"). 
 
However, the publication in the 1970s of a fragment of papyrus from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 41.2946), containing lines 301-402 of the Sack of Troy and dated to the third or early fourth century, has made most scholars place him in the third century (see the editions of Livrea, Gerlaud and Dubielzig).

Triphiodorus' pagan name cannot be considered a proof that he was a pagan and nothing in his poem allows us to call him a Christian.
 
The reference in lines 604-5 to children paying with their lives for the sins of their parents is not decisive, having classical parallels such Homer Iliad 3.298-301.


Triphiodorus' only extant work is "La presa di Troia", a 691-verse epic poem, narrating events from the capture of the Trojan seer Helenus to the sailing of the Greek troops after the capture of Troy.

The poem begins with an invocation to Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry (lines 1-5).
 
The narrative is introduced with a summary of the dire situation of the troops of the Greeks and Trojans (lines 6-39).

Both are mined by the tiredness of years of fighting and heavy casualties.
 
Then the Greeks capture the Trojan seer and following his advice call Neoptolemo (Achilles’ son) to join their lines and steal the Palladion from Troy (lines 40-56).
 
The construction of the Wooden Horse follows and Triphiodoro gives a long description (lines 57-107).
 
The Greeks have an assembly in which Odysseo convinces the most brave fighters to hide with him in the horse and the rest of the troops to pretend they are fleeing from Troy, while preparing to come back the following night (108-234).
 
The following morning the Trojans discover the disappearance of the Achaean army, inspect their camp and admire the Wooden Horse (235-57).
 
Sinon appears before them covered in blood and convinces Priam to take the horse into their citadel to win Athena’s attention and avoid that she helps the Greeks to return (258-303).
 
The Trojans transport the horse and break the otherwise indestructible walls of Troy to bring it into their citadel (304-57).
 
Cassandra tries to make them come into their senses but Priamo orders to lock her up (358-443).
 
While they are celebrating the end of the war, Aphrodite tells ELENA to join Menelao (who is hiding in the horse).
 
ELENA goes to the temple of Athena where the horse is kept and calls the names of the wives of the hidden heroes, so as to tempt them to come out.
 
One of them, Anticlo, is about to give in and ULISSE
has to strangle him, while Athena orders Helen
to go to her room and light a torch to call
the Greek fleet back to Troy for the final battle (454-98a).
 
 
While the Trojans are overcome by a deep slumber, the gods abandon Troy and Helen and Sinon light torches to guide the return of the Greek fleet (498b-521).
 
The fleet arrives and the hidden warriors leave the horse, giving start to a long night of fighting, full of dramatic episodes (506-663).
 
The poet then decides to put a stop to the narrative and conclude (664-7).
 
The poem finishes with the a brief description of how at the beginning of the new day, the victors check for survivors and booty, set Troy on fire, sacrifice Polyxena to appease the spirit of Achilles, distribute the booty and leave for good (668-91).


"The Achaeans poured the blood of Polyxena over the tomb of dead Achilles to propitiate his wrath, and took each his lot of Trojan women and divided all their other spoil, both gold and silver: wherewith they loaded their deep ships and through the booming sea set sail from Troy, having made and end of the war."

The “Sack of Troy” can be considered part of a late antique vogue for mythological epic, including as well: the “Posthomerica” by Quintus of Smyrna (third century AD), the “Dionysiaca” by Nonnus of Panopolis (mid fifth c. AD), the “Ratto d'Elena” (by Colluto) and the Description of the Statues in the Terms of Zeuxippus by Christodorus of Coptus (early sixth century, transmitted as book 2 of the Palatine Anthology).

In this poem Triphiodorus shows a deep understanding of Homer and the grammatical tradition of interpretation of the Homeric poems (e.g. in lines 60-1 he shows that he knows about the editorial tradition of Homer Iliad 5.62-4).
 
He quotes Hesiod (especially Triph. 136-8, after Hes. Op. 57-8) and Pindar (Triph. 643, after Pi. N. 7.42), Hellenistic poetry (e.g. Triph. 318-35, after AR 1.362-90).
 
His Cassandra is reminiscent of in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Euripides’ Trojan Women.[3]

Regarding a possible influence of Virgil Aeneid 2, there are some glaring differences between the two accounts of the end of Troy.
 
Virgil develops the character of Laocoon (A. 2.40-56, 199-231), and only mentions Cassandra (246-7), while Triphiodorus focuses on Cassandra (358-443) and does not mention Laocoon.
 
On the contrary, Virgil and Triphiodorus are particularly close in the treatment of the figure of Sinon, in particular in their speeches (compare Aeneid 2.76-96, 103-4, 189-94, and Triph. 265-82, 292-303).[4]
 

Besides the Sack of Troy, the entries of the Suda (T 1111 and 1112) attribute to Triphiodorus two more poems:
 
"Marathoniaca" probably narrated how Theseus defeated the bull of Marathon.
 
A Story of Hippodamea (Greek: Τὰ κατὰ Ἱπποδάμειαν) is on one of the females of this name (e.g. the daughter of King Oenomaus, who killed all her suitors in a chariot race until Pelops defeated him).
 
The Suda also mentions two grammatical works: the Lipogrammatic Odyssey (probably a re-writing of the Odyssey suppressing a letter in each of the books: a in book 1, b in book 2 and so on) and a Paraphrase of Homer’s comparisons (Greek: Παράφρασις τῶν Ὁμήρου παραβόλων), a study of the long comparisons in the Homeric poems (since Greek: παραβολή is a long simile).


Triphiodorus influenced the “Dionysiaca” of Nonnus of Panopolis (e.g. Nonn. D. 25.306, after Triph. 14), Colluthus’ Rapt of Helen (e.g. Collut. 195-8, after Triph. 56-61), Musaeus’ Hero and Leander (e.g. Musae. 140, after Triph. 32) and Paul the Silentiary (e.g. Descr. Soph. 283, after Triph. 631).[5]

 
REFERENCES
 


Mair, W. A. transl., Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus (Loeb Classical Library Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958) ISBN 0-674-99241-5

Giangrande, Giuseppe, Review: Tryphiodorus (The Classical Review, The New Series, Vol. 15, No. 3 Dec., 1965), pp. 282–283

Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (Walton & Maberly, 1859), pp. 1177–1178

Knight, J.F.W., Iliupersides (The Classical Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3/4 Jul. - Oct., 1932), pp. 178–189
Jones, W. J. Jr., Trojan Legend: Who is Sinon? (The Classical Journal, Vol. 61, No.3 Dec., 1965), pp. 122–128
M. Campbell (1985), Lexicon in Triphiodorum, Hildesheim
F. J. Cuartero Iborra (1988), Trifiodor, La Presa de Troia, Barcelona
U. Dubielzig (1996), Triphiodor, Die Einnahme Ilions, Tübingen
B. Gerlaud (1982), Triphiodore, La Prise d’Ilion, Paris
E. Livrea (1982), Triphiodorus, Ilii excidium, Leipzig
L. Miguélez-Cavero (2013), Triphiodorus, The Sack of Troy: A General Introduction and a Commentary, Berlin

 

Notes[edit]

 

1.Jump up ^ http://163.1.169.40/cgi-bin/library?a=q&r=1&hs=1&e=p-000-00---0POxy--00-0-0--0prompt-10---4------0-1l--1-en-50---20-about---00031-001-1-0utfZz-8-00&t=0&q=2946
2.Jump up ^ D. Monaco (2007), “Il lessico di Trifiodoro”, Glotta 83, 127-91
3.Jump up ^ L. Miguélez-Cavero (2013), Triphiodorus, The Sack of Troy: A General Introduction and a Commentary, Berlin, pp. 38ff.
4.Jump up ^ L. Miguélez-Cavero (2013), Triphiodorus, The Sack of Troy: A General Introduction and a Commentary, Berlin, pp. 64 ff.
5.Jump up ^ L. Miguélez-Cavero (2013), Triphiodorus, The Sack of Troy: A General Introduction and a Commentary, Berlin, 91-2

 


External links[edit]
The Taking of Ilios in English

 

 

 

Categories: Late Antique writers
Hellenistic Egyptians

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