David Kovacs

University of Virginia, Classics, Faculty Member

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Four Passages from Euripides' Ion

Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), 1979

In 51, r7iararat is used in a sense for which it is difficult to find a parallel.&#x27; The e... more In 51, r7iararat is used in a sense for which it is difficult to find a parallel.&#x27; The entire line also seems rather flat and colorless, especially by contrast with its surroundings. Could it be an interpolation? We can easily do without it. Strike 51, and 49-50 then mean &quot;and she took ...

Onnotmisunderstandingoedipus Tyrannos

The Classical Quarterly, 2019

How are we to understand what happens to Oedipus? What or who is the cause of the terrible deeds—... more How are we to understand what happens to Oedipus? What or who is the cause of the terrible deeds—predicted by oracles to both Laius and Oedipus—that he has already committed before the play begins and that are revealed in its course? The purpose of the present essay, whose title alludes to a well-known article by E.R. Dodds, is to draw attention to aspects of the play that have been ignored or explained away. To give them their due it will be necessary to take issue with two views of Dodds (one of which he owes to Wilamowitz) that I regard as mistaken. To argue against an article that is more than fifty years old might be thought a pointless exhumation, but Dodds's highly influential formulations, I will argue, have caused what Sophocles wrote to be either overlooked or misconstrued and are still causing misunderstanding in the second decade of the present century. It is time these views were examined critically.

Pindar as Lavdator Eqvorvm in Horace, Carmina 4.2.17–20 and Ars Poetica 83–5

The Classical Quarterly, 2017

At Carm. (Odes) 4.2.17–20 Horace's catalogue of Pindar's poetry reaches his victory odes:... more At Carm. (Odes) 4.2.17–20 Horace's catalogue of Pindar's poetry reaches his victory odes:siue quos Elea domum reducitpalma caelestis pugilemue equumuedicit et centum potiore signismunere donat; 20The text, transmitted without variants in our manuscripts, means ‘(Pindar deserves the laurel wreath whether he writes bold dithyrambs or sings of gods and heroes) or tells of those escorted home as gods by the Elean palm-branch, whether boxer or horse, and bestows on them a gift more valuable than a hundred statues’. The two italicized expressions are more difficult than the commentators seem willing to admit. I discuss them separately.

Horace, Odes 4.1: a Contradiction Removed

Journal of Roman Studies, 2017

Odes 4.1 is difficult to understand on a literal level. At its beginning Horace is complaining th... more Odes 4.1 is difficult to understand on a literal level. At its beginning Horace is complaining that Venus, after leaving him alone for many years, is attacking him, that is, he is feeling a reawakening of sexual desire. But after suggesting that the goddess go off to visit Paullus Fabius Maximus and describing the rewards the young man will give her, he returns to himself. Now, he says, he is delighted by neither woman nor boy nor by the prospect of mutuality in love, that is, he is not in the grip of eros. Additionally, the use of iuuare, ‘delight’, with a person as subject seems to be without any parallel. These problems disappear if in l. 29 we read mi for me: ‘I no longer have either woman or boy (as lover) nor do I have the hope of mutual affection.’ Horace's having no lover and no hope of one is compatible with his feeling a generalized desire for sex or a desire for someone unattainable. The tone of the last two quatrains is affected as well as the contribution of the poe...

Herodotus 1.53.1-2:: What Were Croesus´ Instructions

Scripta Classica Israelica, 2010

Aeolic and Italian at Horace, Odes 3.30.13–14

The Classical Quarterly, 2015

dicar, qua uiolens obstrepit Aufiduset qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestiumregnauit populorum ex hum... more dicar, qua uiolens obstrepit Aufiduset qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestiumregnauit populorum ex humili potensprincepsAeolium carmen ad Italos 13deduxisse modos.Surely there is something puzzling about 13–14? What Horace was the first to do was to write Latin poetry using the metrical schemes of the Greek lyricists, principally Alcaeus and Sappho, who wrote in the Aeolic dialect of Lesbos. There can be no reasonable doubt thatAeolium carmenrefers in the first instance to Horace's adoption of Aeolic metre. Fordeduxissethere are two possibilities, and conceivably Horace meant both to operate. The first involves motion, bringing something or someone home or into port (for example, captives in triumph to Rome or a colonizing expedition to its destination in a foreign land). So Horace took Greek metres and moved them in one way or another to Italy. Secondarilydeduceremight mean ‘to produce (by spinning)’, a usage found atSat.2.1.2-4similisque meorum mille die uersus deduci posse.

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The Role Of Apollo In Oedipus Tyrannus

The Play of Texts and Fragments

In Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus , a man who has received an authoritative prediction that he w... more In Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus , a man who has received an authoritative prediction that he will kill his father and marry his mother learns in course of the play that in spite of his best efforts to avoid doing so this is precisely what he has done. Dodds claim that in Sophocles' plays the gods send misery on mortals and his claim that the gods merely predict but do not cause Oedipus' misery are contradictory. This chapter argues that both of Dodds's instincts are correct: it is both the case that Oedipus is no puppet and that it is Apollo who induces him to commit parricide and incest. Author's thesis is that in the play all of Oedipus' actions are perfectly free, but that in the case of parricide and incest Apollo created a situation where Oedipus, a free agent acting on information available to him, unwittingly carried out Apollo's designs. Keywords: Apollo; E.R. Dodds; Oedipus Tyrannus ; parricide; prediction; Sophocles

Notes on Latin Prose Authors

The American Journal of Philology, 1989

Rationalism, Naive and Malign, in Euripides’ Orestes

Vertis in usum, 2002

Three Passages from the Andromache

Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 1977

Notes on the Bacchae

The Classical Quarterly, 1991

In 246 we should, as Dodds suggests, get rid of the feeble δεινς and adopt Mau's δειν κγχνης.... more In 246 we should, as Dodds suggests, get rid of the feeble δεινς and adopt Mau's δειν κγχνης. (Dodds suggests that K was misread as IC and the resulting δειναῖς was ‘corrected’ to δεινς.) Verdenius, Mnemos. 41 (1988), 254, defends the reading of the MSS., saying that δεινς serves to distinguish the noose of punishment from that of suicide, but this is untenable: why is one noose more ‘terrible’ than the other, and who on hearing ‘worthy of the terrible noose’ would draw conclusions about it that could not be drawn from ‘worthy of the noose’? The question raised about the kind of noose is important (see below) but cannot be answered by these means.

Iliad 1.282-284

Mnemosyne, 2017

The End of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus: The Sceptical Case Restated

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2014

:An earlier article of mine, Kovacs (2009a), discussed OT 1424–1530, whose genuineness was impugn... more :An earlier article of mine, Kovacs (2009a), discussed OT 1424–1530, whose genuineness was impugned most recently by Dawe (2001; 2006). I argued that 1424–67 (which I call A) are genuine, but that 1468–1530 (which I call B) are spurious. Sommerstein (2011), accepting my defence of A, undertook the defence of all but a few lines of B as well, dismantling much of my case against it and adding the argument that the transmitted ending mirrors the play&amp;amp;amp;#39;s beginning and is therefore presumptively Sophoclean. The present article, in part a reply to Sommerstein&amp;amp;amp;#39;s reply, restates some of my earlier arguments and also presents new evidence for the spuriousness of B.

Horace, Odes 1.30

The Classical Quarterly

This brief poem (Hor. Carm. 1.30) is by turns enigmatic (what is the purpose of Horace's pray... more This brief poem (Hor. Carm. 1.30) is by turns enigmatic (what is the purpose of Horace's prayer to Venus?) and slightly incoherent (why should both Horace and Glycera be praying to Venus? Are they praying for the same thing or for different things? Either has its problems). A further problem is that, if Horace intended uocantis in line 2 for a genitive, the text as it stands misleads the first-time reader, contrary to Horace's normal practice of authorial kindness toward such readers. The way to deal with this is to take uocantis as accusative (‘those calling on you with much incense’) and to insert an ‘and’ in the text to connect sperne and transfer: sperne dilectam Cypron et uocantīs | ture te multo Glycerae decoram | transfer in aedem (‘reject your beloved Cyprus and your incense-offering devotees and move to Glycera's beautiful shrine’). If this is right, it addresses the incoherencies under which the usual interpretation labours.

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Double Trouble: "Duplicis" at Horace, "Odes" 1.6.7 and the Limits of Ambiguity

This article is in two parts. In the first I argue, against the majority of modern scholars, that... more This article is in two parts. In the first I argue, against the majority of modern scholars, that duplicis gives better sense and better exemplifies Horatian word order if taken as accusative plural than as genitive singular. In the second I discuss cases where similar "hidden quantities" in Horace's Odes create possible ambiguity and demonstrate that in the vast majority of cases Horace has taken pains to eliminate such ambiguity.

Paralipomena Euripidea

Envy and Akrasia in Seneca's Thyestes

The Classical Quarterly, 2007

format_quoteVirgil's allusive technique reveals Sinon as a duplicitous figure, highlighting the Trojan's victimization and foreshadowing Astyanax's tragic fate.format_quote

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Euripides, Troades 95–7: Is sacking cities really foolish?

The Classical Quarterly, 1983

Rem tene, the elder Cato advised the aspiring orator, verba sequentur. The advice applies equally... more Rem tene, the elder Cato advised the aspiring orator, verba sequentur. The advice applies equally to the textual critic. Of those who have attempted to emend, repunctuate, or defend this passage, few seem to have been troubled by any doubts about the firmness of their grip on the res, the precise point Poseidon is making. The usual view of what Poseidon means is that those who sack cities are foolish because such an act results in their own subsequent destruction, presumably because they desecrate temples and thereby offend the gods. Poseidon's words are cited as encapsulating the ‘moral’ or ‘lesson’ of the play, that the destruction of others and their cities brings the victor no advantage but only his own ruin, that the sacking of cities is always and everywhere an act of criminal folly. Yet there are several features of the lines themselves that are hard to square with this reading, and the context,…

Castor in Euripides' Electra ( El. 307–13 and 1292–1307)

The Classical Quarterly, 1985

This paper presents evidence, in the form of two passages from the Electra, that the editor of Eu... more This paper presents evidence, in the form of two passages from the Electra, that the editor of Euripides will do well not to resign himself too easily to pointless illogicality or violations of the formal regularities of tragedy or to comfort himself with the idea that illogic and meandering are ‘human’ touches, while formal incongruities are Euripides' incipient verismo.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.2

The Classical Quarterly, 1987

The purpose of this paper is, first, to demonstrate to future editors of the Metamorphoses , whet... more The purpose of this paper is, first, to demonstrate to future editors of the Metamorphoses , whether conservative or sceptical, just how improbable is the reading of the majority of MSS, illas , and how strong are the claims of the variant ilia , first recommended by P.Lejay in 1894 and vigorously championed by E.J.Kenney in 1976; and, second, to suggest an interpretation of this reading that is open to fewer objections than the one proposed by Kenney.I have given above the beginning of Ovid's longest poem as it ought to stand in all modern editions and as it stands in fact in only one, the French school edition of selections edited by Lejay in 1894: ‘Gods, on my undertakings (for you have changed them as well) breathe your favour.’ To be sure, all of…

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