Lost in Antiquity: Ancient Greece
Lost in Antiquity: Ancient Greece
Most of the literature of ancient Greece is in fact lost. Of the 70 known works of Aeschylus, only 7 survive. Of Euripides’ 92, just 18, of Sophocles’ 113 only 7. We still have 11 of Aristophanes’ 43 plays, but of all the many others, none.
Here are some examples of books that did NOT survive.
Margites
Μαργίτης
HOMER
London: Heinemann, 1920.
Lost in antiquity.
Homer wrote three epic poems: a tragedy in the Iliad, an adventure in the Odyssey, and a comedy, the Margites, the story of the eponymous bonehead of whom Plato said that he knew many things, but all badly. Aristotle said “...the Margites is to comedy what the Iliad and Odyssey are to tragedy.” The humor in the book comes from the ridiculous situations into which Margites bumbles through his foolishness. Lucille Ball waits in the wings.
The Girls Who Changed Ship
Μετεκβαίνυσαι
NICHOMACHUS
Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1918.
Lost in antiquity.
Nichomachus was the name of three ancient Greek playwrights, one of whom is known to have written comedy. This play and the Ειλείθυια (Eileithyia) are attributed to him. The sole mention in ancient testimony is in the Suda. The resistance of the women to the captain’s misogyny and their subsequent abandonment of his ship in favor of one with a more enlightened skipper provide an early feminist theme that anticipates Lysistrata by perhaps twenty years.
The Poems of Sappho
Σαπφοῦς µελων
Sapphonis Opera
SAPPHO
Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1510.
Lost in antiquity.
The editio princeps of Sappho. Her songs rank her with Pindar among the Greek lyric poets. Raised in Mytilene on Lesbos, but exiled to Sicily, she is known to have written more than 10,000 lines of poetry (about two-thirds the length of the Iliad), mostly in her Sapphic stanza. Widely used in ancient Greece and by Catullus in Latin, it influenced the moderns as well, being used by Hardy, Houseman, Pound, Kipling, and Ginsberg.
Dorkis: The Lip-Smacking Woman
∆ορκὶς ἢ Ποππύζουσα
ALEXIS (375–270 B.C.E.)
Athens: Λέσχη Βιβλίου, 1983.
Lost in antiquity.
Alexis was a Greek comic poet. He is said to have been a great gourmand, but to have lived to one hundred six and to have died on stage while receiving an award. His son Stephanus and his nephew Menander were both comic poets. Of his 245 comedies, only fragments have survived, of which the best titled was surely his Dorkis, the Poppyzousa.
Epistles to St. Paul
Épîtres à Saint-Paul
(Επιστολές προς τον Άγιο Παύλο)
SENECA
Paris: Émile-Paul Frères Libraires-Éditeurs, 1916.
Lost in antiquity.
Paul (originally Saul) of Tarsus was an early Christian theologian and Evangelist. He wrote a broad range of correspondence with fledgling churches in the Eastern Mediterranean. These epistles, in koine Greek, are significant because they show Paul’s importance and Seneca’s perspicacity. It is indeed pleasant to consider that the two were on friendly terms. All existing letters in this correspondence are in Latin and are fakes. Any that were genuine were lost in antiquity.
The Art of Cookery c. 250 B.C.E.
ΟΨΑΡΤΥΣΙΑ
SIMOS
Paris: Emile-Paul, Frères., 1916.
Lost in antiquity.
Athenaeus retells a story from Alexis’ lost work Linos. Mighty Heracles (think Archie’s Moose) visits his teacher, Linos. Linos shows Heracles his sophisticated library and allows him to choose a book. Browed furrowed, Heracles searches and finally decides. Everyone wonders what. He points:
ὀψαρτυσία, ώς φησι τούπίγραµµα
Like the title says, “Cookbook”!
If neither Athenaeus nor Alexis was making this up, the book is lost two levels deep. Otherwise, it is both lost and imaginary.