TWO NEW LEXICA ON ACCENTUATION AND VOWEL QUANTITIES (WITH NEW FRAGMENTS OF EUPOLIS, ARISTOPHANES OF BYZANTIUM (?), ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOTHRACE AND SELEUCUS OF ALEXANDRIA (?))

Abstract

This paper provides the first critical edition of two Greek lexica on accentuation and vowel quantity, recently discovered in a fourteenth-century manuscript now held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. I shall argue that one of the main sources for the first lexicon (on accentuation) was the περὶ Ἀττικῆς προσῳδίας of the first-century BCE grammarian Trypho. As Trypho's work now survives only in fragments, this lexicon allows us to deepen our understanding and knowledge of his handbook. Additionally, some ancient fragments transmitted by these lexica are published here for the first time: one is attributed to the fifth-century BCE poet Eupolis, one to the famous Alexandrian grammarian Aristophanes of Byzantium (but it perhaps belongs to Demetrius Ixion (second century BCE) instead), four to Aristarchus of Samothrace (216–144 BCE) and one to the first-century BCE grammarian Seleucus (although this attribution is debatable: it overlaps with an already-known fragment attributed to Aristocles of Rhodes).