Soterichos

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Soterichos was a late antique poet who lived at the time of Emperor Diocletian (284–305). He wrote his works in Greek.

life and work

Little is known about Soterichos. According to an older research opinion, nothing of his works has survived, but studies were published between 1999 and 2002 in which some fragments are ascribed to him. His existence and the titles of his works are only known from the Suda (a Byzantine lexicon), from an entry in the lexicon of Stephanos of Byzantium (6th century) and from the scholias of Johannes Tzetzes (12th century). In the Suda it is mentioned that he came from the city of Oasis. Stephanos calls the place Hyasis or Oasis. According to the prevailing doctrine, what is probably meant is the “Great Oasis”, today's Charga in Egypt, but the “Small Oasis”, today's al-Baḥriyya , is also taken into account.

His works include a historical epic about Diocletian, fragments of which have been preserved. The poem was probably written in connection with Diocletian's campaign in Egypt, which put down the revolt of Lucius Domitius Domitianus and Aurelius Achilles in 298 . Presumably it also refers to the successful conclusion of the Persian War in the following year. In addition, Soterichos wrote a biography of the famous miracle worker Apollonios of Tyana , probably also in epic form, a poetic representation of the conquest of Thebes by Alexander the Great in 335 BC. BC, an epic about his homeland and some mythological works.

The poem about the capture of Thebes was titled Pýthōn or Alexandriakós . Tomasz Derda and Paweł Janiszewski - taking up a hypothesis put forward by Karl Müller in the 19th century - identified fragments from a poem, which are contained in various versions of the Alexander novel by Pseudo-Callisthenes, as parts of Soterichos' work. They also assume that the prose text of the relevant chapter of Pseudo-Callisthenes' biography of Alexander is based on the poem of Soterichos. In support of this, they point out that the prose text of a more recent version contains metrical traces, which August Nauck had already recognized in 1849; it seems to be a fairly faithful paraphrase of the poem used. Apparently various editors of the Alexander novel had access to the poem; the later editors added additional verses from it, which are missing in the oldest version. This is an indication of the poem's considerable popularity in late antiquity. The poet justifies the destruction of Thebes by Alexander the Great by saying that it was the punishment of the city for an offense committed by Kadmos , the mythical founder of Thebes, when he killed the dragon of Ares .

Two fragments of epic poetry in hexameters , which are preserved on two Strasbourg papyri , were published in 1901 by Richard Reitzenstein . One fragment is about a Roman-Persian war , the other contains a mythical world creation story in which the god Hermes plays a central role. In 1903 Joseph Bidez suggested that both fragments should be ascribed to Soterichos; the war poem is the epic about Diocletian, the mythological one is probably the epic about Oasis. Rudolf Keydell contradicted him , who ascribed the mythological poem Hermeias von Hermopolis. Derda and Janiszewski consider Soterichos to be the likely author of the war poem and consider it possible that the other poem also came from him. The Roman generals praised in the war poem, not named by name, are evidently the emperors Diocletian and Galerius .

In 1999 the philologist Enrico Livrea put forward the hypothesis that hexameters from a papyrus from Oxyrhynchos published by John R. Rea in 1996 (P. Oxy. LXIII 4352) are verses of Soterichos. These verses are either part of the epic about Diocletian or part of this epic, and part of a poem by Soterichos about Antinous , the friend of Emperor Hadrian who died in Egypt . Derda and Janiszewski are skeptical about this. In the introduction to his 2002 edition of all papyrus fragments, Livrea takes the view that both the Strasbourg fragments and those from Oxyrhynchos are part of a single poem, namely the Diocletian epic.

swell

  • Jan Radicke (Ed.): Felix Jacoby 'The Fragments of the Greek Historians' continued , Part IV A: Biography , Fasc. 7: Imperial and undated authors , Brill, Leiden 1999, pp. 254-257 (No. 1080), ISBN 90-04-11304-5
  • Paul Schubert: Soterichos of Oasis (641). In: Brill's New Jacoby (only online)

Edition

literature

Overview display

Investigations

  • Tomasz Derda, Paweł Janiszewski: Soterichos Oasites Revisited . In: Tomasz Derda u. a. (Ed.): Euergesias charin. Studies presented to Benedetto Bravo and Ewa Wipszycka by their disciples. Warszawa 2002, ISBN 83-918250-0-0 , pp. 51-70.
  • Paweł Janiszewski: The Missing Link. Greek Pagan Historiography in the Second Half of the Third Century and in the Fourth Century AD (= The Journal of Juristic Papyrology , Supplement 6). Warszawa 2006, ISBN 83-918250-5-1 , pp. 149-161, 224-228.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Suda , keyword Soterichos ( Σωτήριχος ), Adler number: sigma 877 , Suda-Online .
  2. ↑ Tommaso Braccini advocates the “small oasis” (Oasis parva) : L'oasi di Soterico . In: Aegyptus. Rivista italiana di egittologia e di papirologia. Volume 83, 2003, pp. 163–181.
  3. ↑ Historia Alexandri Magni , Book I Chapter 46, both in the version edited by Karl Müller in 1846 from the Codex Parisinus Graecus 1685 and in the oldest version (recensio vetusta) published by Wilhelm Kroll in 1926 , which Karl Müller did not know, as well as in further processing.
  4. ^ Tomasz Derda, Paweł Janiszewski: Soterichos Oasites Revisited . In: Tomasz Derda u. a. (Ed.): Euergesias charin , Warszawa 2002, pp. 51–70, here: 54–59.
  5. ^ Papyrus Strasb. Size 480 and 481.
  6. ^ Rudolf Keydell: Patria Hermoupoleos. In: Hermes 71, 1936, pp. 465–467, here: 466 f.
  7. ^ Enrico Livrea: Chi è l'autore di P. Oxy. 4352? . In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 125, 1999, pp. 69–73 ( online ; PDF; 107 kB).
  8. ^ Tomasz Derda, Paweł Janiszewski: Soterichos Oasites Revisited . In: Tomasz Derda u. a. (Ed.): Euergesias charin , Warszawa 2002, pp. 51–70, here: 65–70.
personal data
SURNAME Soterichos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late antique poet
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century or 4th century