Sapheneia – serie

The late Bruce Karl Braswell worked on Pindar for decades. Besides many smaller contributions, his research resulted in fundamental commentaries on Pythian Four (1988), Nemean One (1992), and Nemean Nine (1998), and his last monograph, dedicated to Didymos of Alexandria and his ancient commentary on Pindar (2013). Two substantial, self-contained manuscript fragments were found in his papers after his death. Their originality and innovative methodological approach justify their posthumous publication.Part I of the present volume contains the fragment of Braswell’s planned study, A Contribution to the History of Pindaric Scholarship. Using the example of Nemean Nine, Braswell traces the history of Pindar interpretation from Antiquity to the end of the 16th century. The source texts for his exegesis appear as an appendix to the study.Part II contains the completed fragment of A Commentary on Pindar Nemean Ten. Alongside the original text and translation of the first two triads of this ode, this section includes a detailed verse-by-verse commentary and the text and translation of the relevant scholia. The commentary on the first triad is supplemented by an extensive appendix on the Argive legends and monuments reported by Pausanias. In brief introductions, the editor recounts the origins of the manuscripts and their preparation for print.

In 13th-century Toledo, King Alfonso the Wise fostered the publication of Castilian translations of certain Arabic works that had in turn been translated from Greek and Pehlvi. In this book, which is the revised English version of the Spanish original published under the title of Modelos griegos de la sabiduría castellana y europea, the author studies four of these Castilian translations – the Libro de los Buenos Proverbios, Poridad de las Poridades or Secreto de secretos, Bocados de Oro and Historia de la Donzella Teodor – works of sapiential literature that had an enormous influence in all of Europe. Their Arabic models had been translated from Greek in Bagdad at the instigation of the great caliphs of the 9th century and also in the Fatamid court at Cairo in the 11th century.The traditional view is that this literature is simply of oriental origin, but the author believes that the models were Greek Byzantine works discovered by the Arabs in Syria and Egypt in the 7th and 8th centuries. Their true origin is to be found in the Greek sapiential literature that developed around the figures of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine schools of philosophy; its influence can frequently be found reflected in authors of Christian literature. A detailed study of themes, vocabulary and expressions in the works themselves confirms these origins.