E. Cullhed's new edition of the Commentary on Homer's Odyssey (Rhapsodies Α-Β) of Eustathios of Thessalonike (c. 1115–1195) is an important contribution to classical and byzantine scholarship.
The Commentary on the Odyssey, as well as that on the Iliad, is organised in parekbolai, namely in a collection of texts from one or several sources. “Here, just as in the I liad,” so Eustathios writes at the end of the ‘preface’ to Comm. Od., “our method of handling the subject matter will not be through exegesis, which others have concerned themselves with, but through collecting useful passages for those who run through the work and cannot easily permit themselves to go leisurely into the breadth of the poem. Many things relevant for the Odyssey, however, are passed over in silence in this commentary, because enough has already been said about them in the notes on the Iliad” (Cullhed's translation, 11).
The textual genesis of the parekbolai on the Odyssey has been long and complex. The analysis of the three manuscripts (autographs or at least produced under the author's eye) prove that they were not composed “in isolated operations from beginning to end, but resulted from processes of gradual accumulation of material that must have lasted for a number of years before they were eventually compiled into the texts as we know them” (5*). In fact, throughout his long life and even in the years he was archbishop of Thessalonike (from 1178), Eustathios remained an active teacher and scholar and carried on working on his philological works. Probably those Commentaries began to be spread from 1168 and 1175/78. However, they also show traces of previous works too.
Eustathios, Master of Rhetoric in Constantinople (c. 1168), wrote the Commentaries conceiving them not as “a ‘popularizing’ piece, but a scholarly instrument” (11*) addressed to his students, with whom he kept contact through letters after he had moved to Thessalonike. Moreover, “Eustathios’ aim is not merely to ‘teach Homer’ but to amplify a didactic function perceived in the epics themselves” (12*). As Homer's exegete, he adopts principles and methods certainly not new nor properly belonging only to him, but in such a way that “he appears to represent the zenith of a development in educational culture that had lasted for at least a century” (13*). In a close critical dialogue with his predecessors (Psellos) and contemporaries (Tzetzes, John the Deacon, Galenos), “through rhetorical analysis and allegoresis” Eustathios “engages with much more than the ABC of grammatikē and confidently ensures educated adults than they too will benefit from sitting in on the lessons offered in his commentaries” (17*).
The second part of the introduction (“Textual Witness and Editorial Principles”) is more technical, but by no means less important. The text of the Commentary on the Odyssey is transmitted by two manuscripts that Cullhed calls ‘authorial’, meaning that, if not autographs, they were at least prepared under Eustathios’ supervision: Parisinus gr. 2702 (= P) and Marcianus gr. 460 (= M). They have all the peculiarities of Laurentiani 59.2 and 59.3 (= L), which contain the Commentary on the Iliad seemingly written by the same scribe. The autographical problem of the three manuscripts remains sub iudice, because now Cullhed (38* n. 23) affirms himself to be “less sure” than he was in 2012 (Mnemosyne 65, 445–61). Remaining codices integri of the Comm. Od. and those with wide collections of excerpta were direct or indirect copies of M P. The relationship between M and P is properly examined with a focused analysis of the codicological structure of M, a more recent witness of P, in the irregular quires 6 and 27. All this leads Cullhed to assert with convincing arguments that M P derive from a unique lost manuscript exemplar (α).
The editio princeps of the Comm. Od., published in Rome in 1549, was based on the Vaticanus gr. 1905, a copy of M collated with P. Cullhed summarises the main results of the editorial principles, which he had already discussed elsewhere (2016): “The authorial status of M P, combined with their stratigraphy and the interrupted revision process in M, means that the textual record offers differing textual versions for different parts of the text. […] Therefore the edition will visually distinguish between two stages: before and after revisions” (55*). Cullhed prints the definitive version of the Commentary pointing out within double square brackets [[…]] the additions not included already in the first version; corrections (marginalia et interlinearia) are placed in the apparatus criticus followed by the designation “(corr.)”. Interlinear notes which are not additions or corrections “but part of the text itself as alternative endings are printed between the lines” (55*). Given his aim of limiting emendation only to textual errors, but not mistakes, the conjectures are rare. Special attention is given to punctuation. There are three apparati: apparatus locorum citatorum (from Eustathios’ work), apparatus fontium et locorum parallelorum, and apparatus criticus.
All that remains is to go into the reading, often tiring and sometimes boring but always useful, of the immense series of Eustathios’ parekbolai on Homer's Odyssey (Rhapsodies A-B), preceded by his ‘preface’. The text edition is excellent. The clear English translation facing the Greek text undoubtedly helps the reader.
The results of a modern edition of the first part of the Commentary on the Odyssey, parallel to that of the Commentary on the Iliad by M. van der Valk (1971–1987), are truly promising. Even with the awareness that the preparation of the Commentary in its entirety will take a long time, the hope of seeing it one day complete now appears to be concrete.
