Sofocle senza χλανίς: nota a un aneddoto comico-erudito

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Sophocles without his χλανίς: a note to a comic and scholarly anecdote 

This note examines the anecdote concerning Sophocles and the stealing of his cloak, which was told by the peripatetic Hieronymos of Rhodes. After discussing the previous studies about the anecdote, the paper turns to define the elements employed in writing this ancient scholarship piece about tragedians: many parts of the story can be traced back to ancient Greek comedy and, especially, to Aristophanes. Similarly to other anecdotes recorded by other Hellenistic scholars, this story too owes much of its material to the comic literary criticism, eminently represented by the motif of stealing a χλανίς. Through a further analysis of the epigram (fr. eleg. 4 West) it is eventually showed that the reuse of comic topoi is also extended to the fictional quarrel between Sophocles and Euripides, which is about plagiarism rather than (only) about Sophocles and Euripides’ lovers.