Receiving Receptions Received

Abstract

This chapter includes the most comprehensive collection of Greek and Latin testimonies to Sappho to date, with English translations. The collection is preceded by a brief introduction that outlines the organization of previous collections and explains how the present collection builds on and differs from these. Furthermore, the chapter shows how interpolations, emendations, conjectures, and supplements in critical editions, from which the testimonies are taken, give such editions the character of a reception palimpsest. This chapter avoids the organization of existing collections into thematic sections, which run the risk of occluding the chronological order in which the testimonies appear as well as of imposing an unwarranted narrative onto the ancient testimonies to Sappho. Instead, the chapter presents the testimonies according to an approximate chronological order, alongside thematic key words.