Machon: The Fragments: 1 (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, Series Number 1) - Softcover

Gow, A. S. F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521609291 ISBN 13: 9780521609296

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Machon was a writer of Comedies who lived and worked in Alexandria in the middle of the third century B.C. All of his work that survives is preserved in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus who, besides two fragments of Comedies of no great importance, quotes also 462 verses from a collection of anecdotes which Machon called Xpeiai. These anecdotes are written in the iambic verse of Comedy. They are concerned with the doings and sayings of courtesans, parasites, and musicians, sometimes in relation to persons of historical importance. They are often scabrous but also not infrequently amusing; and they are of considerable interest both as documents of social history and as a type of literature which, though popular in antiquity, has hardly survived. The Xpeiai, which present many problems of reading and interpretation, have never before been separately edited. Recent editors of Athenaeus have improved the text; but to find commentaries it is necessary to go back to Casaubon's edition of Athenaeus, published in 1600, and to Schweighauser's, published in 1801-7.

About this title

Book Description

All Machon's work that survives is preserved in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus who, besides two fragments of Comedies of no great importance, quotes also 462 verses from a collection of anecdotes which Machon called Xpeiai. These anecdotes are written in the iambic verse of Comedy.

About the Author

Emma-Lee Gow is a highly respected home economist and recipe writer who has worked for numerous magazines, including "Good Housekeeping.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521609291
• ISBN 13: 9780521609296
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 172