In:
The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 61 ( 1941-11), p. 1-5
Abstract:
‘Some writers have recorded the measurements of the image (of Zeus at Olympia), and Callimachus has made them known in one of his iambi.’ The words of Strab were the only evidence for a Callimachean poem on this subject. There is also some possibility that Pausanias, in his hit at the men who described the measurements, alludes to the same poem. Recently, considerable fragments of this iambus have emerged, bit by bit, in the course of a few years. It became evident that we had always been so fortunate as to possess at least the beginning of the first line (quoted by the Scholia to Pindar), and it is a little depressing that nobody had been clever enough to combine the words Ἀλεῖος ὁ Ζεύς, expressly attributed to Callimachus, with the iambus on the Olympian Zeus mentioned by Strabo. The complete first line and a summary of the whole poem came to light in 1934 (Pap. Milan 18, col. VII, 25–29); then scanty scraps of the first twenty-one lines turned up in 1935 (P.S.I. 1216, col. II, 79–99); and, finally, better-preserved pieces of the main part, containing the measurements and a few words from the end of the poem were published last Christmas (P. Oxy., 2171, fr. 2–5). P.S.I. 1216, excavated in Oxyrhynchus by the Italians in 1933, now in Florence (if not returned to Egypt), and P. Oxy. 21·71, found long ago by Grenfell and Hunt in Oxyrhynchus, now in Oxford, are parts of the same papyrus, probably second century A.D. This is not the only example in Callimachus of scattered pieces being assembled and taking shape; but in this, as in other cases, they are still far from forming a continuous whole.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0075-4269
,
2041-4099
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
1941
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2067299-8
SSG:
6,14
SSG:
6,12
SSG:
6,11
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