Text-Critical Readings in the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus

Textual critics are often accused of doing violence to the author’s words, but the plain truth is that classical Latin poets wrote for textual critics: they hoped and feared that generations of readers would subject their poetry to as much scrutiny as the Homeric poems received from the likes of Aristarchus, the great Alexandrian critic and editor of Homer. Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica is a prime candidate for text-critical exploration: barely surviving the Early Middle Ages (when it lost the second half of its final book), the poem’s text rests on a mere handful of manuscripts and is replete with corruptions, many of which remain uncorrected or even undiagnosed. Bringing together and expanding a series of textual notes previously published in periodicals, this volume endorses over two hundred conjectural readings and invites further research. While highlighting the need for a new critical edition of the Argonautica, the volume's broader aspiration is to promote textual criticism as an indispensable exegetic tool for the study of Latin poetry as a whole.