Alciphron, Letters of the Courtesans : Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary

Abstract: This dissertation aims at providing a new critical edition of the fictitious Letters of the Courtesans attributed to Alciphron (late 2nd or early 3rd century AD).The first part of the introduction begins with a brief survey of the problematic dating and identification of Alciphron, followed by a general overview of the epistolary genre and the letters of Alciphron. The main part of the introduction deals with the manuscript tradition. Eighteen manuscripts, which contain some or all of the Letters of the Courtesans, are described and the relationship between them is analyzed based on complete collations of all the manuscripts. The conclusion, which is illustrated by a stemma codicum, is that there are four primary manuscripts from which the other fourteen manuscripts derive: Vaticanus gr. 1461, Laurentianus gr. 59.5, Parisinus gr. 3021 and Parisinus gr. 3050. The introduction concludes with a brief chapter on the previous editions, a table illustrating the selection and order of the letters in the manuscripts and editions, and an outline of the editorial principles. The guiding principle for the constitution of the text has been to use conjectural emendation sparingly and to try to preserve the text of the primary manuscripts wherever possible. The critical apparatus has been divided into a main apparatus below the text, which reports variant readings from the primary manuscripts and a small selection of conjectures, and two appendices which report scribal conjectures from the secondary manuscripts and conjectures by modern scholars with bibliographical references. A third appendix has also been added which lists all conjectures adopted into the  text. The parallel translation, which is accompanied by brief explanatory notes on names and places, is literal and serves as a complement to the commentary, which primarily deals with matters of textual criticism. In the commentary problematic passages are discussed, especially where an emendation has been adopted or where the present edition differs from previous editions. After the three appendices the dissertation ends with a bibliography.