MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer }Cathleen A1c~a~ee T HE HOMERIC SCHOLAR best known in antiquity was Aris­ tarchus, head of the Library at Alexandria after ca 153 B.C. 1 Because his textual and exegetic work was celebrated even in ancient times, we might expect to find it widely disseminated in Egypt in the centuries closest to his lifetime. On the contrary, however, very few Homeric papyri bear witness to his efforts: of approximately five hundred extant papyrus texts of the Iliad only seventeen2 contain Aristarchan critical signs, and not one preserves his commentaries intact or unalloyed. For information about his critical method we must rely primarily on a very late document, the tenth-century manuscript of the Iliad known as Venetus A, whose marginal sigla and copious scholia, drawn from lost com­ mentaries written by Aristarchus' followers, are the best existing record of his work. 3 While the scarcity of Aristarchan material in the papyri has not escaped the notice of scholars, no one has studied the sigla in these 1 The most convenient accounts of Aristarchus' contribution to Homeric scholarship are R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968) 210-19,225-33, and T. W. Allen, ed., Homeri !lias (Oxford 1931) 196-205. A version ofthis paper was presented to the Wayne State University Liberal Arts Faculty Forum in November 1979. The author would like to thank K. R. Walters for his advice and encouragement. 22nd cent. B.C.: P.Tebt. I 4 (Pack 2 632). 1st cent. B.C.: BKT V,1 18-20 (Pack2 962); P.Ryl. I 51 (Pack2 1016); Pack2 980. Augustan: P.Oxy. IV 687 (Pack2 691). 1st cent. A.D.: Pack2 955; BKT V,1 4 (Pack2 735); P.Lond.Lit. 27 (Pack2 998); P.Koln. I 37. 2nd cent A.D.: P.Haw. (Pack2 616); Pack2 1005; P.Lund. I 1 (Pack2 781); P.Oxy. III 445 (Pack2 778). 3rd cent. A.D.: p.Lond. Lit. 11 (Pack2 697); Pack2 810. 4th cent. A.D.: Pack2 789 (see infra n.16). 'Roman Empire': ZPE 14 (1974) 89-90. This brings up to date the list of F. Martinazzoli, Hapax Legomenon (Rome 1953) 59-60. Four of his papyri are not included here, either because their sigla are not Aristarchan or because they are not used for the purpose intended by Aristarchus. 3 Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, gr. 454; see H. Erbse, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera) (Berlin 1969-77) I xiiif, xlvff, and passim. For the sigla used by Aristar­ chus see Pfeiffer (supra n.1) 218. They are the obe/us (-) which marked spurious lines; the stigme, a dot which marked lines suspected of being spurious; the dotted diple (;?-), placed beside passages where Aristarchus disagreed with the readings of Zenodotus; the antisigma (:» plus stigme, for lines whose order was disturbed; the asteriscus (·X·), written beside passages that were repeated incorrectly elsewhere in the poem; the obe/us plus aster­ iscus, placed beside passages which belonged elsewhere in the text; and the diple (», which indicated that some other feature of the text had elicited a comment from Aristarchus. 247 MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 248 ARISTARCHUS AND 'EVERYMAN'S' HOMER texts to determine which parts of Aristarchus' work were usually preserved by ancient readers, and which suppressed. This is one object of the present paper; the other is to enquire into reasons for the omissions. Among the published Iliadic papyri4 containing Aristarchan sigla, non-Aristarchan sigla, and marginal notes, two extensive fragments are especially well endowed with Aristarchan sigla and comments, P.Hawara (2nd century A.D.: Iliad 2) and P.Oxy. VIII 1086 (1st century B.C.: commentary on Iliad 2). The former, containing only sporadic marginal additions, is typical of papyri with Aristarchan material. The latter, being a full-scale commentary, is naturally more expansive than marginal notes and sigla; it is also remarkable among papyrus hypomnemata on the Iliad for its testimony to Aristarchus' learning.s By comparing these two papyri and the mediaeval scholia, we may discern the particular kinds of Aristarchan comments that were likely to be passed over by ancient owners of books like P.Hawara. The com­ parison should illuminate the needs and taste of ancient readers and suggest reasons for the sparseness of scholarly material in the papyri. P.Hawara preserves more sigla of Aristarchus than other papyri, largely because of its more extensive remains. Each of these signs marked, as usual, a problem in the text and indicated that the reader could find that problem discussed in an accompanying com­ mentary by the scholar. For P.Hawara this commentary is lost, but it can be reconstructed in general outline from comments pre­ served in P.Oxy. VIII 1086 and the scholia of Venetus A. The annotator of P.Hawara has passed over a tremendous amount of Aristarchan material, but he has done so with a certain pragmatic intelligence. He has tended to omit sigla leading to comments that treat textual problems,6 give background information, or take note 4 Odyssey papyri with Aristarchan sigla will not be treated here, since there are no exhaustive Aristarchan scholia on that poem with which they can be compared. The num­ ber of texts with Aristarchan signs, moreover, is very small, and in only the first are sigla numerous: 1st cent. A.D.: Pack2 1039; PSI I 8 (Pack2 1059). 1st or 2nd cent. A.D.: P.Mil. Vogl. VI 259. 3rd cent. A.D.: P.Oxy. III 573 (Pack2 1139); P.Oxy. Xl 1398 (Pack2 1147). Texts of the Odyssey possibly containing Aristarchan sigla: 2nd cent. B.C.: Fest­ schrift zum 150-;ahrigen Bestehen des Berliner Agyptischen Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Mitteilungen aus der Agyptischen Sammlung 8 [1974]) 394. 1st cent. A.D.?: Pack2 1127. 2nd cent. A.D.: Pack2 1116. 5 Other commentaries with scholarly pretensions are P.Oxy. II 221 (Pack2 1205: second century A.D., on II. 21) and P.Oxy. VIII 1087 (Pack2 1186: first century A.D., on II. 7), but neither owes much to Aristarchus. In general the other critical work on the Iliad found in papyri offers simple exegesis of the poem or lectional help. 6 Some of the sporadic marginal notes, however, give variant readings of Aristarchus and of others, who are cited as !Ivit;. MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 KATHLEEN MCNAMEE 249 of the style of the poem; those that he retained usually treat ele­ mentary points of grammar and explain potentially confusing fea­ tures of the text. In fifty selected lines of Iliad 2, for example, in addition to a single obelus beside a condemned line (II. 2.794), six of Aristarchus' diplae appear. 7 At least three of these led to notes giving basic lectional aid. One explained that the word ~yvOi1'J(Jev (II. 2.807), which had a different meaning for Homer than for Hellenistic readers, caused confusion which led to the interpola­ tion of the obelized passage. Another, on II. 2.809, commented on Homer's choice of the plural for emphasis instead of the singular, and pointed out his use of na(Jal to mean (jAm. The third explained thatr6~ov (11.2.827) stands by metonymy for 'archery'. The other three drew attention to a point of style and to proper names which Homer elsewhere in the poem applies to other persons or places. For the same fifty lines the commentary P.Oxy. VIII 1086, by contrast, preserves notes on a wide variety of subjects. Some paraphrase the text; the rest, which are acknowledged by neither siglum nor note in P.Hawara, treat: II. 2.763: Homer's use of deuteron-proteron. This is claimed to be char­ acteristic of his style, despite the opinion of Praxiphanes, who ob­ jected to the inverted order of Anticleia's answers to Odysseus' ques­ tions in the Underworld (Od. 11:163-203). II. 2.765: The mechanics of the plumb-line (rrraqJlJJ...'I) mentioned in a simile; an etymology is given. II. 2.766: The common misspelling of Pereia as Pieria. This is said to be due to general ignorance of the location of the two areas in Thessaly and Macedonia respectively. II. 2.767: The phrase rpopov "AP'Ior:; rpopeovaar:; describing the horses of Eumelos: rpopov is not, as some suppose, a mark on the faces of these horses, but refers to the ability of good warhorses to flee from battle when necessary. The use of mares in battle is also mentioned. II. 2.783: The resting place of the monster Typho elv 'ApijlOlr:;: this is a place in Pisidia, whereas later poets (including Pindar, who is quoted) put him under Aetna. II. 2.788ff: The simultaneity of Iris' visit to Troy and Agamemnon's dream (II. 2.1ff). The narrator, it is explained, could not describe both at once and therefore first told, out of order, the consequences of the dream, i.e., the muster of troops described in the Catalogue of Ships. II. 2.811: Homer's use of the present tense ("there is a steep hill") which 7 II. 2.760-65, 782-97, 804-19, 826-41. I have chosen these passages because com­ mentary on them survives in both P.Oxy. VIII 1086 and Venetus A. Because of the frag­ mentary condition of P.Hawara they are not consecutive. Whether a siglum was written at II. 2.785 is not clear. MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 250 ARISTARCHUS AND 'EVERYMAN'S' HOMER indicates, in the view of the commentator, that the poet had first­ hand knowledge of the terrain around Troy. II. 2.812: The unusual use of amlv8v08 to mean X(J)pi~. A parallel at II. 20.41 is cited. II. 2.813-14: The 'tomb of Myrine'. Two theories are offered concerning her identity. II. 2.816: Homer's use of the dative instead of the genitive with ~y81l6- VW8. A parallel at II. 3.16 is cited. II. 2.816: Two possible etymologies for KopvOaiaAo~, one supported by a quotation from Alcaeus. 11.2.819: Homer's habit of distinguishing between the Trojans and their allies the Dardanians. The variety of subjects treated here is representative of Aristar­ chus' learning and reflects not only his intimate knowledge of Homeric language and usage but also his acquaintance with clas­ sical Greek literature, together with the variant interpretations offered by other Homeric critics and the geographic and ethno­ graphic researches of Peripatetic and Alexandrian scholars. His knowledge was encyclopaedic and suited to his objective, which emerges clearly from a reading of the commentary from Oxy­ rhynchus or the scholia surviving in Venetus A: it was to illuminate the text of Homer, particularly problematic passages, not only by adducing the discoveries of other scholars but especially by dem­ onstrating, by extensive cross-references in the Iliad and Odyssey, what is typically Homeric. Surely, though, what the majority of ancient readers needed was not a dissertation on the quintessential Homer but rather clarifica­ tion of his idiosyncratic language and usage. A commentary that enabled them to understand the flow of the narrative would have filled their most essential need; philological niceties could be left to scholars. Only a small percentage of Aristarchus' commentary was utilitarian enough to fill such a need, and it is primarily these portions whose traces survive in papyri. This is true not just of P.Hawara but also of most other Homer papyri with Aristarchan sigla, most notably the three of which the most extensive fragments survive.s (1) In P.Land.Lit. 27, seven or eight diplae (at II. 23.486, 551, 574, 850, 863, 872; 24.544; also 23.680, for 679?) lead to notes explaining the meaning or refer- 8 Only P.Tebt. I 4, written in the mid-second century B.C. and therefore practically contemporary with Aristarchus, is an exception. Its six sigla (an asteriscus, an antisigma, a dotted diple and three obeli) indicate Aristarchus' dissatisfaction with the state of the text and do not refer to purely exegetical notes. MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 KATHLEEN MCNAMEE 251 ence of words. Others make note of a redundancy (II. 24.232) and either an odd usage or a hapax legomenon (II. 24.228).9 (2) Pack2 980 contains eight diplae. Four indicate notes on the meanings of words (II. 21.394, 495; 22.497, 505). Others explain other fea­ tures in the text which might cause readers momentary confu­ sion: an anachronism, an odd usage, and a case of metonymy (II. 21.388, 485, 502). One diple (II. 22.468) refers to a note offering either a variant from the koine or a 'better' arrangement of details than Homer's. Obeli are also used to mark two passages deemed spurious (II. 21.475-77, 570). (3) The annotator of P.Oxy. III 445 was interested not only in lectional problems but also in the mythological content of the poem. Four or five of his diplae lead to notes on figures of speech, word meanings, or technical mat­ ters (II. 6.174,10 198, 507, 510, and possibly 518). Almost as many, however, indicate notes treating the mythological and cul­ tural background of the poem (II. 6.176, 178, 181 [?: :> papyrus], 199). A diple with dot at II. 6.186 is unique and has no scholia attached to it. Asterisci also appear (II. 6.490-92).11 These scholia probably reflect the modest wants of most readers, for whom Aristarchus' scholarly writings were largely superfluous. 9 The meaning of an eleventh diple (II. 24.115) is unknown, for it occurs uniquely here and scholia do not survive on this line. An asteriscus at II. 23.657 is also unique to this papyrus. 10 An antisigma is used here too, uniquely, but not with the meaning attached to it by Aristarchus. Grenfell and Hunt, citing an ancient grammarian, associate it with the anaphora in the line. 11 The sigla in other papyri with Aristarchan signs generally serve the same ends as those already discussed, but they are less numerous and can be summarized here: BKT V.1 18-20: diple refers to a note on the agreement ofoj.llAor; repnOfJeVOl (II. 18.603-04). P.Ryl. I 51: diplae refer to notes explaining unusual or difficult words (II. 24.394 and probably 367) and commenting on the gender of "[AZOV (II. 24.383, "[AIOV ip~v). P.Oxy. IV 687: one diple marks a pleonasm at II. 3.207; the other, at II. 3.211, was perhaps mistakenly written instead of? and denoted Aristarchus' disagreement with Zenodotus. Pack2 955: diple indicates a note on an unmetrical reading of Zenodotus (II. 18.222). BKT V.1 4: one dip Ie refers to a note on the barbaric nature of polygamy (II. 5.70), another to one on the repetition of a name mentioned three lines earlier (II. 5.79). For the diple at II. 5.71, there is no surviving scholium, but it may have been linked to a note on the prosody of noaef (cf. schol. ad 1.30, Apyer). P.KOln. 137: abeli at II. 24.45-46,71-73; diplai at 24.74 and 77 probably were linked to notes on Iris' role in the poem; one at 24.78 led to a note identifying Samos with Samothrace; that at line 92 is unique. P.Lund. I 1: one diple connected with a note on an example of deuteron-prateran (I/. 6.198). P.Land.Lit. 11: diple refers to a note on Aristarchus' preference of [vOw (II. 4.410) over the Attic lvOov. Pack2 810: dip/ae lead to notes on an archaism, an Aristarchan variant (or punctua­ tion?), and an explanation that the plural is used for the singular (II. 7.328, 336, 339); for 7.318,337, and 341, where diplae also occur, no scholia survive in Venetus A. Pack2 789: one diple indicates a note giving an Aristarchan variant (II. 9.350). In ZPE 14 (1974) 89- 90 the siglum was recorded wrongly; and in Pack 2 1005 the diple at II. 23.445 is unique. MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 252 ARISTARCHUS AND 'EVERYMAN'S' HOMER But more specific factors were no doubt also at work in shaping the scholia. In general we should not expect to find many works of deep learning in the papyri, which do not come to us from the ruins of ambitious libraries. Private libraries stocked with scholarly commentaries and critical editions will have been rare, for the learned portion of any populace is small. Nor, of course, do we have many papyri from Alexandria, the center of learning. The scholia reflect as well the tendency to consolidate and con­ dense subliterary writings. Even as early as the Augustan period there was such a profusion of commentaries on Homer and other authors that epitomators (most notably Didymus, who is one of the four sources of Aristarchan material in the scholia of Venetus A 12) made it their special task to consolidate their contents and thus reduce their bulk. The effect of such reduction is obvious if we compare the commentary in P.Oxy. VIII 1086, which probably antedates Didymus, with the scholia of Venetus A. The earlier text is prolix and repetitious and could be drastically curtailed without distorting the writer's point. The scholia are concise. There is no reason to assume that they are directly descended from P.Oxy. VIII 1086, but the consolidation of material that is obvious as we move chronologically from one to the other is typical of the treat­ ment given in antiquity to subliterary works. Another factor is the particular nature of Aristarchus' sigla. Six of his seven signs have specific intrinsic meanings that are obvious, with or without the help of a commentary, to anyone who knows their code. The dip Ie, however, had no meaning of its own but simply directed readers to the hypomnema where a note could be found treating any of a wide variety of subjects. In papyri it is by far the commonest of Aristarchus' signs, as the summaries above show. It was useless except to those who had access to Aristar­ chus' commentaries. Such readers cannot have been numerous, for commentaries on literature in any language do not have wide appeal. Even some of those readers with pretensions to learning may have been put off by the inconvenience of using the hy­ pomnemata of Aristarchus or other scholars, since commentaries circulated until late antiquity in book rolls independent of the texts they treated. To consult them was awkward. It is scarcely re­ markable, in fact, that neither sigla nor hypomnemata are found in abundance in ancient papyri. What may be puzzling in these condi- 12 Pfeiffer (supra n.1) 213-18, 274-79. MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 KATHLEEN MCNAMEE 253 tions is rather that certain Aristarchan material was selectively recorded and preserved in a few texts. Reasons of literary taste and interpretation may also have con­ tributed to the infrequency of Aristarchus' sigla and comments in papyri. It is possIble, for example, that some sigla were added only for the sake of appearance, because the book owner fancied him­ self one of the cognoscenti familiar with Aristarchus' work, or because Aristarchan texts were fashionable in certain circles.13 In deluxe editions like P.Hawara especially we might suspect this motive, in part because it may explain how so many Aristarchan sigla came to be carelessly misplaced in papyri.14 Scribal negligence is not unusual even in carefully written texts; but it arouses suspi­ cion when slips occur in the recording of signs that conveyed the opinions of an exacting textual critic like Aristarchus. Aristarchus, moreover, did not monopolize the field of Homeric scholarship. His work was more exhaustive than any before his time, but its critics and rivals multiplied with the passing years, and the adherence of students to other Homericists must account in part for the rarity of his sigla and notes in papyri. Aristarchus' tendency to base his arguments on plausibility is particularly fal­ lible and subject to censure. To be sure they derive from a thorough knowledge of the text of Homer and a sure understanding of his idiom; but they are ultimately subjective and are bound to be contaminated by the critic's own restrictive ideas about what is plausible.1s Several papyri with sigla not used by Aristarchus in fact illustrate that he did not monopolize Homeric studies for readers in Egypt. 16 They indicate, moreover, that his influence 13 It is fashion-consciousness that P. Collart (RevPhil SER. III 7 [1933] 52) has suggested gave impetus to the establishment of the Homeric vulgate: book sellers, responding to demand from a reading public which had a dim awareness of the work of Aristarchus and other scholars, may have eliminated from copies they sold the passages rejected by critics, but otherwise left the text alone. 14 In P.Hawara the abelus is written mistakenly at II. 2.794 instead of 791-95, and at 2.875-76 instead of at 874-75; diplae are given instead of dotted diplae at II. 2.727 and 839, and dotted diplae instead of diplae occur at II. 2.801 and 856. In five of the other papyri with Aristarchan sigla-P.Lond.Lit. 27, P.Koln. I 37, ZPE 14 (1974) 89-90, P.Oxy. III 445, and P.Oxy. IV 687-critical marks are also misplaced. 15 For examples see L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars2 (Oxford 1974) 11-12,271. See also Aristarchus' censure ofevaip8lv at II. 21.485 and his pedantic criticism of Hera's seduction of Zeus in Book 14: better interpretations can be offered. For a survey of ancient critical opinion that owes little to Aristarchus see N. J. Richardson, "Literary Criticism in the Exegetical Scholia to the Iliad: a Sketch," CQ N.S. 30 (1980) 265-87. 16 It is possible, of course, that some of these sigla were the casual marks of a reader and MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 254 ARISTARCHUS AND 'EVERYMAN'S' HOMER waned with time: only about 25% of the papyri with his symbols date from later than A.D. 200, but more than half those with non­ Aristarchan sigla. The impression received is that which common sense would predict: that Aristarchus' criticism had its greatest effect on books and readers in the years closest to his own period. It should be observed, finally, that marginal notes in Homeric papyri, like the sigla there, support the theory that most readers sought only the most basic understanding of Homer's poems. The quality of these notes may be compared to those in books in the library at Nabokov's Waindell College, where "earnest freshmen inscribed such helpful glosses as 'Description of nature', or 'Irony'; and in a pretty edition of Mallarme's poems an especially able scholiast ... underlined in violet ink the difficult word oiseaux and scrawled above it 'birds' ."17 Papyri of the Iliad rarely have even so much. Only fourteen ancient fragments-about three per cent of all Iliad texts on papyrus-have marginalia at all. None of their notes is lengthy; papyrus rolls were not designed to receive long marginal commentaries. In eight of these texts the notes are illegible but very brief; three contain only glosses and elementary lectional help; three had annotators with scholarly leanings, and the phrasing of their notes indicates that they derived them from learned commentaries. IS References are made in these three texts to Aristarchus, the editions of Aristarchus,19 the vulgate text of the poem, and, simply, rlvi~, indicating that the note came from a compilation of two or more commentaries. The very small number of ancient papyri with comments and critical marks suggests that most copies of Homer were produced belong to no particular system. The texts in question are: 3rd cent. B.C.: P.Heid. 12 (Pack2 979). 2nd cent. B.C.: P.Ry!. III 539 (Pack2 575). 1st cent. B.C.: P.K6In. II 76. 1st cent. A.D.: P.Ry/. III 541 (Pack2 652). 1st/2nd cent. A.D. ArchP 24/25 (1976) 8-12. 2nd cent. A.D.: P.Oxy. III 550 (Pack2 880); Pack2 919; ?PSI VII 745 (Pack2 590). 2nd/3rd cent. A.D.: Aegyptus 47 (1967) 191-94 (F. Uebel, ArchP 24/25 [1976]202f no. 1311); P.Ross.Georg. 12 (Pack2 663). 3rd cent. A.D.: Pack2 810; P.Oxy. II 223 (Pack2 733); P.Ross.Georg. 14 (pack2 941); PSI X 1169 (Pack2 917). 3rd/4th cent. A.D.: BKT V.1 4 (Pack2 842). 4th cent. A.D.: PSI I 10 (Pack2 833); perhaps also Pack2 789, since only one of its sigla can be related to an Aristarchan note. 5th cent. A.D.: P.Rein. II 69 (Pack2 873); PSI II 113 (Pack2 608). 17 V. Nabokov, Pnin (Garden City 1957) 137. 18 Texts with illegible, brief notes: P. Tebt. I 4 (Pack2 632); P.Par. 3 (Pack2 900); Pack2 1017; P.Mil. Vag!. 12 (Pack2 638); Pack2 602; Pack2 748; PSI II 140 (Pack2 1000); PSI I 11 (Pack2 709). Texts with notes offering lectional help: PSI VII 745 (Pack2 590); P.Ross.Georg. 14 (Pack2 941); BKT V.1 5 (Pack2 925). Texts with scholarly notes: P.Ha­ wara, P.Oxy. IV 685 (Pack2 950), P.Oxy. III 445 (Pack2 778). 19 For the reading ai (scil. BKboaw;) 'Ap!(arap)x(ov) in P.Oxy. III 445, see K. McNamee, Abbreviations in Greek Literary Papyri (BASP Suppl. 3, forthcoming), s.v. 'Apiarapxor; . MCNAMEE, KATHLEEN, Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:3 (1981:Autumn) p.247 KATHLEEN MCNAMEE 255 for the general reading public, not for serious students. Although most copies of the Iliad written after 150 B.C. contained a text that probably owed its form to the work of the Alexandrian critics,20 there was no need for the ordinary reader's copy of Homer to contain sigla or studied commentary. If any symbols or notes were added in the margins, they usually dealt with a small number of the most elementary problems in reading and may have been added for show. Scholars' reasons for proposing variant readings and elaborate interpretations appear to have been of little interest to most readers, and indeed many were probably suppressed even­ tually, as commentaries were repeatedly epitomized and compiled, and their contents restated in more general terms. In only one tradition, that which produced Venetus A, did Aristarchus' re­ search survive in extenso, and even there it appears in reduced and reorganized form. Only there and in a few papyrus commentaries and marginalia are ancient controversies over textual and inter­ pretational problems still detectable in fair number. For the ordi­ nary person the Iliad and the Odyssey had a place of honor as na­ tional monuments and masterpieces of literature, studied in school and quoted as we quote Shakespeare. Scholars could quibble over interpretations and variants and scribble on papyrus in the bird­ cage of the Muses at Alexandria. 21 But the vulgate text, without critical apparatus, was sufficient for most readers and that, and no more, is the text that most papyri offer. WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY June, I98 I 20 S. West, The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer (Pap. Colon. 3, 1967) 11-16; see also P. Collart (supra n.13). 21 The phrase is from Timon of Phlius, quoted by Pfeiffer (supra n.1) 97-98.