Antigonos' collection of extraordinary stories : translation and commentary

• Main Author: Ciuca, I. R.
• Published: University College London (University of London) 2012
• Subjects: 480
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.625828

This dissertation is a selective commentary on Antigonos’ Collection of Extraordinary Stories together with a translation, which, to my knowledge, is the first one into English. Antigonos’ collection is studied mainly from a Quellenforschung perspective; its chapters are compared with identical or similar reports as transmitted in parallel sources, with the aim of identifying the routes by which paradoxographical material circulated in Greek literature and science. The study attests a close association of Antigonos’ text with peripatetic sources beyond the compiler’s acknowledgements (above all with Theophrastos’ works on living creatures which appear to have been widely used, although not cited), as well as its compiler’s acquaintance with Hellenistic poetry and the works of several lost Greek historians (Ktesias, Theopompos, Timaios, Amelesagoras, Myrsilos of Methymna, Lykos of Rhegium). Another contribution of this study is the examination of Kallimachos’ prose work on paradoxa, as transmitted by Antigonos, in the context of the Hellenistic paradoxographical tradition. The emphasis of my analysis is on Antigonos’ collection as a piece of derivative literature and on the merits of the paradoxographical tradition as illustrated by this text. A close examination of the text not only reveals the author’s compositional methods and erudition, but also offers a valuable insight into some aspects of the Greek interest in the marvellous.