Gkourogiannis, T.K.; (1999) Pindaric quotations in Aelius Aristides. Doctoral thesis , University of London.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the quotations from Pindar in the orations of Aelius Aristides. Aristides holds an important place among Imperial age writers, exemplifying in their finest the prominent trends of the age of the Second Sophistic: through his Atticistic prose and archaistic tendencies, his impressively erudite grasp of Greek literature of the past and an elevated Isocratean view of the orator's educational and moral duties, all of which are revealed in the abundance of carefully selected passages from the classical literature, Pindar being among his most preferred classical authors. Aristides quotes extensively from Pindar, being one of our most important sources of quotations from the lyric poet, contributing much to our knowledge of Pindar's work otherwise lost. His exemplar antedates the archetype of the Byzantine Mss tradition, giving his testimony ancient authority and offering important insights into the state of the Pindaric text before the selection made in the late second century AD. He not only quotes verbatim expressions or verses from Pindar, but also selects words and paraphrases verses and passages. This thesis shows that he is often working from an original copy of Pindar and that he is also drawing on ancient ύπομνήματα and a variety of other sources. It examines various aspects of Aristides' quotations from classical authors, and the principles and techniques according to which he quotes Pindar. I have also tried to define the nature of the possible sources from which Aristides quotes Pindar: original edition, paraphrase, anthologies, ύπομνήματα, etc. The main body of the thesis takes the form of comparative discussions of Pindaric quotations cited in Aristides' orations. They illustrate Aristides' habits of adapting Pindar's words to both the style and the purpose of his own orations. In those quotations for which we have Mss and papyrological support it is obvious that Aristides often recasts Pindar's text in order to meet some part of his rhetorical agenda or to suit his idiom. He quotes Pindar for ornamental and for argumentative reasons. His frequent allusions to Pindaric odes serve the yearning of the Imperial authors to show true Greek παιδεία, of which Pindar was an indispensable part while the well documented affinity between poetry and epideictic rhetoric is clearly manifested. Aristides' encomiastic and hymnal praises (both verse and prose hymns) are modelled on Pindar's elements of hymnal composition. The thesis aims to show that Pindaric quotations serve not only to improve stylistically and to add to the finesse of Aristides' composition but also in a functional way, as an authoritative aid to the rhetorical arguments at hand, not least among which was the 'apologetic' argument for the value and authenticity of rhetoric as an art against the long standing accusations by its eternal rival, philosophy.

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