In a well-known passage of his Historiae (7,144,632 – 641), John Tzetzes makes a long list of authors of paradoxographical works, including the name of a certain Ptolemy. Until today, scholars could not suggest a persuasive identification of this writer, mostly because the scholia that the same Tzetzes composed for his own work have been ignored for a long time. One of these scholia, though, makes clear that the Ptolemy mentioned in the text is in fact Πτολεμαῖος Διονύσιος. In this paper, I!will argue that this author could be identified with the king Ptolemy XII, in accord with the well-known relationship between the Ptolemaic court and the literary genre of paradoxography.
Il sovrano che scrive. Un'opera paradossografica di Tolomeo Dioniso?
Sergio Brillante
2020-01-01
Abstract
In a well-known passage of his Historiae (7,144,632 – 641), John Tzetzes makes a long list of authors of paradoxographical works, including the name of a certain Ptolemy. Until today, scholars could not suggest a persuasive identification of this writer, mostly because the scholia that the same Tzetzes composed for his own work have been ignored for a long time. One of these scholia, though, makes clear that the Ptolemy mentioned in the text is in fact Πτολεμαῖος Διονύσιος. In this paper, I!will argue that this author could be identified with the king Ptolemy XII, in accord with the well-known relationship between the Ptolemaic court and the literary genre of paradoxography.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
