I frammenti dell'erudita Demò: edizione, traduzione e commento, con un'introduzione sull'allegoresi antica

Demo was an allegorical exegete of Homer. The tradition preserves nine fragments under the name of Demo. These fragments are transmitted respectively by the scholia to the Iliad, precisely the classes of D-Scholia and Exegetical scholia, by the Parekbolai on Homer’s Iliad and on Homer’s Odyssey of Eustathius of Thessalonica, and by the scholia to Lucian. There are also four testimonies about Demo respectively in the Suda lexicon, in the Allegories of the Iliad and of the Odyssey by John Tzetzes, and in a letter of the Byzantine physician, rhetor and scholar Michael Italicus. The fragments contain the interpretation of some passages of Iliad and Odyssey. These interpretations consist in tracking down in the Homeric text, by means of a systematic application of substitutive allegoresis, hidden allusions to physical-astronomical phenomena, which are frequently presented in detail and by way of lexicon and definitions characteristic of scientific-specialized contexts. A global reconsideration of this female scholar based on an accurate analysis of the texts transmitted under her name results to be essential in order to remove the “chronogical prejudice” weighing on her, starting from Ludwich’s edition in the early 1900s. Ludwich indeed collocated Demo in the 5th c. AD (see A. Ludwich, Die Homerdeuterin Demo. Zweite Bearbeitung ihrer Fragmente, in “Verzeichnisse der auf der Königl. Albertus-Universität zu Königsberg zu haltenden Vorlesungen”, Königsberg 1912-1914, pp. 70-74). His proposal of chronogical collocation was based exclusively on a terminus post quem contained in a fragment of an allegorical commentary of Il. 1, 1-56 (transmitted by the ms. Wien, ÖNB, phil. gr. 49, ff. 8r.-12r.). However, the attribution of this exegetical work to Demo does not find any convincing foundation and, hence, needs to be overcome (see introd. § 5.2). Although some scholars raised doubts on Ludwich’s dating in the past, nevertheless it has by now become a common habit to adopt a low chronology for Demo, which unavoidably leads to consider her like a mere compiler of prior exegetical materials. On the contrary, the considerations transmitted under Demo’s name suggest to situate her work in the Hellenistic period, perhaps in a Rhodian context, around the 1th c. BC or in the early imperial age, at most. Furthermore, the fragments do not show any sign of (more or less) mechanical compilation, but display remarkable characteristics of internal coherence and cohesion.