[Author]                      Critias Atheniensis (460-403 a.C. ca.)

[Work]                         Critias, fr. 2 Gent.-Pr. = fr. 4 West2

[Place of work]            Athens

[Source] Hephaest. Ench. 2, 3 Consbr.: (περὶ συνεκφωνήσεως) ἢ δύο βραχεῖαι εἰς μίαν βραχεῖαν, ὅπερ ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις εὑρίσκεται μέτροις … ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἔπεσι σπανίως· ὥσπερ Κριτίας ἐν τῆι εἰς Ἀλκιβιάδην ἐλεγείαι οὐκ ὤιετο ἐγχωρεῖν τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου τὸ ὄνομα· φησὶ γάρ· ‘καὶ νῦν Κλεινίου –– οὐκ ἀμέτρως’.

[Typology]                    Elegy

[Period]                        450–400 BC

[Text]

καὶ νῦν Κλεινίου υἱὸν Ἀθηναῖον στεφανώσω
Ἀλκιβιάδην νέοισιν ὑμνήσας τρόποις·
οὐ γάρ πως ἦν τοὔνομ᾽ ἐφαρμόζειν ἐλεγείωι·
νῦν δ᾽ ἐν ἰαμβείωι κείσεται οὐκ ἀμέτρως

[Metrics]

Pythiambic meter

[Critical apparatus]

1 Ἀθηναίου v.l. || 2 ἐλεγεῖον de pentametro hic primum dictum

[Translation]

and now I’ll crown the Athenian, the son of Cleinas,
Alcibiades, and I’ll praise him with new manner.
Really it was not possible to fit the name in the elegiac verse,
now it lies in an iambic verse, with a not unsuitable manner.

[Comment]

This is one of the author’s two ‘political’ elegies, perhaps parts of a single composition dating to 408 BC. In this fragment, as in all of Critias’ elegy, a metrical innovation regarding the name of Alcibiades is expressed in terms of primacy, which determines a pythiambic stanza (hexameter + iambic trimeter). In the first couplet we find a technical terminology, typical of the hymn and the praise, which is counterbalanced by the choice of a new metrical form, the iambic trimeter. This statement may lead one to think that, together with the refinement of the metrical form, there may also be a criticism against Alcibiades, whose name cannot be harmonized with the elegy, the meter of praise, but adapts in a way that is not inappropriate (as well as not contra metrum) to the iambic verse, the meter of blame and felony. About Critias and the origin of a new poetic genre, see testim. 43 Gent.-Pr.

[Reference Editions]

B. GENTILI-C. PRATO (edd.), Poetae Elegiaci. Testimonia et fragmenta. Pars altera, Monachii et Lipsiae 20022; M.L. WEST (ed.), Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Editio altera atque emendata, II, Oxonii 19982; D.E. GERBER, Greek Elegiac Poetry, II, Cambridge (Mass.)-London 1999.

[Essential Bibliography]

U. BULTRIGHINI, “Maledetta democrazia”. Studi su Crizia , Alessandria 1999; G. BURZACCHINI, ‘Remarques sur quelques fragments élégiaques de Critias’, in J. Ivonneau (ed.), La Muse au long couteau. Critias, de la création littéraire au terrorisme d’état , Bordeaux 2018, 35-59; R. CADIOU, ‘Critias élégiaque’, BAGB 1, 1966, 121-123; A. GARZYA, ‘Osservazioni sulla lingua di Crizia’, Emerita 20, 1952, 402-412; A. IANNUCCI, La parola e l’azione. I frammenti simposiali di Crizia , Bologna 2002; A. IANNUCCI, ‘Una “corona di giambi”. Ipotesi di lettura del fr. 2 Gent.-Pr. di Crizia’, SemRom 6, 2003, 31-42; W. LAPINI, ‘I frammenti alcibiadei di Crizia: Crizia amico di Alcibiade?’, Prometheus 21, 1995, 1-14 e 111-130; A. NICOLOSI, ‘La poesia delle origini e il desiderio di restaurazione politica: l’elegia di Crizia tra tradizione letteraria e contemporaneità’, RCCM 66/2, 2024, 457-464.

[Keywords]

Elegy, Critias, Alcibiades

[Anika Nicolosi]