Editing Alcaeus (section)

==Scholars, fragments and sources==
[[File:P.Berol. inv. 9810.jpg|thumb|A 2nd century AD papyrus of Alcaeus, one of the many such fragments that have contributed to our greatly improved knowledge of Alcaeus's poetry during the 20th century (P.Berol. inv. 9810 = fr. 137 L.–P.)]]
The story of Alcaeus is partly the story of the scholars who rescued his work from oblivion.<ref name="archive1901"/><ref>David. A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classic Press, 1982, pp. 285–305</ref> His verses have not come down to us through a manuscript tradition – generations of scribes copying an author's collected works, such as delivered intact into the modern age four entire books of [[Pindar]]'s odes – but haphazardly, in quotes from ancient scholars and commentators whose own works have chanced to survive, and in the tattered remnants of papyri uncovered from an ancient rubbish pile at [[Oxyrhynchus]] and other locations in Egypt: sources that modern scholars have studied and correlated exhaustively, adding little by little to the world's store of poetic fragments.

Ancient scholars quoted Alcaeus in support of various arguments. Thus for example Heraclitus "The Allegorist"<ref>Donald. A. Russell and David Konstan (eds. and trans.), ''Heraclitus:Homeric Problems'', Society of Biblical Literature (2005), [https://books.google.com/books?id=pLf2PNEy53AC&pg=PP14 Introduction]</ref> quoted fr. 326 and part of fr. 6, about ships in a storm, in his study on Homer's use of allegory.<ref>Heraclitus ''All''.5</ref> The hymn to Hermes, fr308(b), was quoted by [[Hephaestion (grammarian)|Hephaestion]]<ref>Hephaestion ''Ench.'' xiv.1</ref> and both he and [[Libanius]], the rhetorician, quoted the first two lines of fr. 350,<ref>Hephaestion ''Ench.'' x 3; Libanus ''Or.'' 13.5</ref> celebrating the return from Babylon of Alcaeus's brother. The rest of fr. 350 was paraphrased in prose by the historian/geographer [[Strabo]].<ref>Strabo 13.617</ref> Many fragments were supplied in quotes by [[Athenaeus]], principally on the subject of wine-drinking, but fr. 333, "wine, window into a man", was quoted much later by the Byzantine grammarian, [[John Tzetzes]].<ref>Tzetzes ''Alex.'' 212</ref>

The first 'modern' publication of Alcaeus's verses appeared in a Greek and Latin edition of fragments collected from the canonic nine lyrical poets by [[Michael Neander]], published at Basle in 1556. This was followed by another edition of the nine poets, collected by [[Henricus Stephanus]] and published in Paris in 1560. [[Fulvius Ursinus]] compiled a fuller collection of Alcaic fragments, including a commentary, which was published at Antwerp in 1568. The first separate edition of Alcaeus was by [[Christian David Jani]] and it was published at Halle in 1780. The next separate edition was by [[August Matthiae]], Leipzig 1827.

Some of the fragments quoted by ancient scholars were able to be integrated by scholars in the nineteenth century. Thus for example two separate quotes by Athenaeus<ref>Athenaeus 15.674cd, 15.687d</ref> were united by [[Theodor Bergk]] to form fr. 362. Three separate sources were combined to form fr. 350, as mentioned above, including a prose paraphrase from Strabo that first needed to be restored to its original meter, a synthesis achieved by the united efforts of Otto Hoffmann, [[Karl Otfried Müller]]<ref>Müller, Karl Otfried, "Ein Bruder des Dichters Alkäos ficht unter Nebukadnezar", ''Rheinisches Museum'' 1 (1827):287.</ref> and [[Franz Heinrich Ludolf Ahrens]]. The discovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri towards the end of the nineteenth century dramatically increased the scope of scholarly research. In fact, eight important fragments have now been compiled from papyri – frs. 9, 38A, 42, 45, 34, 129, 130 and most recently S262. These fragments typically feature lacunae or gaps that scholars fill with 'educated guesses', including for example a "brilliant supplement" by [[Maurice Bowra]] in fr. 34, a hymn to the Dioscuri that includes a description of [[St. Elmo's fire]] in the ship's rigging.<ref>David. A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classic Press, 1982, p. 290</ref> Working with only eight letters ({{lang|grc|πρό...τρ...ντες}}; [[Romanization of Greek|tr.]] ''pró...tr...ntes''), Bowra conjured up a phrase that develops the meaning and the euphony of the poem ({{lang|grc|πρότον' ὀντρέχοντες}}; [[Romanization of Greek|tr.]] ''próton' ontréchontes''), describing luminescence "running along the forestays".