Fragments of Proclus’ Grammatical Chrestomathy (A Translation and Notes)

The publication presents a commented Russian translation of Proclus’ fragments associated with his Abridged Grammatical Chrestomathy (Πρόκλου χρηστομαθείας γραμματικῆς ἐκλογαί), which has been preserved as an epitome in the Bibliotheca of Patriarch Photius (c. 810/820–893). These fragments contain a biography of Homerus (Vita Homeri) along with six summaries of the poems included in the so-called Epic Cycle, comprising the following titles: Cypria, Ethiopis, The Little Iliad, The Sack of Ilion, The Returns, and Telegony. In the past, all these texts were ascribed to the renowned Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus Lycius (412–485), known not only by his commentaries on several of Plato’s dialogues, but by his purely philological works as well, for example his scholia to Hesiod’s Opera et dies, not to mention his own poetical compositions, the philosophically biased mythological hymns. Even today, a number of scholars are still inclined to support this attribution, though it appears that it was most likely written by an otherwise unknown philosopher’s namesake, to wit a grammarian from the Alexandrian school, who lived in the first half of the 2th century ad. The translation is based on the most recent edition of the text of the fragments prepared by Martin L. West (2003a and 2003b), who supplements Proclus’ summaries of the poems belonging to the Epic Cycle with some passages from Apollodorus’ Mythological Library and suggests, moreover, quite a number of apt conjectures compared with the textus receptus of Proclus’ fragments collated from the manuscripts by Albert Severyns, whose own edition (1963) has not as yet lost its relevance.