The article aims to reconstruct the textual physiognomy of a setting of Polybius’ Histories (II c. BC) – XXXI 25.5 in Büttner-Wobst’s polybian edition, p. 349 –, that is only handed down by the Excerpta Constantiniana (X c.): in a shorter... more
The article aims to reconstruct the textual physiognomy of a setting of Polybius’ Histories (II c. BC) – XXXI 25.5 in Büttner-Wobst’s polybian edition, p. 349 –, that is only handed down by the Excerpta Constantiniana (X c.): in a shorter form by the Excerpta de Virtutibus et Vitiis [n. 104], in the section of the extracts from the xxxi book which collects the long digression on Scipio the Aemilianus (witness: Tours, Bibl. munic., 980 C, of the X c., [P], known and used since the XVII c.); and in a wider form by the Excerpta de Sententiis [n. 137], (witness: Città del Vaticano, BAV, gr. 73, of the X c., [M], palimpsest, rediscovered in 1827, published from 1846). For the knowledge of the polybian page we also have Athenaeus (end of II c. AD), which cited its content in the VI book of Deipnosophistai (VI 274f-275a), and two more polybian extracts, this time from books of the historian Diodorus’ work not handed down (I c. BC), who also drew on Polybius’ Histories: Exc. de Sententiis n. 365 [Diod. XXXI fr. 36 Goukowsky] and n. 436 [Diod. XXXVII fr. 3 Goukowsky]. Through a reflection on the reliability of Athenaeus and Diodorus’ texts in relation to that of the Histories, and a constant comparison with the whole Polybius’ work aimed at investigating the language and style of the author, the article comes to a reconstruction in part different from that of Büttner-Wobst, whose text all modern editions reproduce.