Pietas schmietas: the danger of overinterpreting

ABSTRACT:This article critiques scholarly explanations of pius Aeneas, heros, and pietas in the Aeneid; ἁμαρτία in Aristotle's Poetics 1453a; and ἡ ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις in Thucydides 1.23.6 and 6.6.1. It argues that the scholarly process-reading and writing articles and books, lecturing, and helping students translate-leads us to exaggerate the care that ancient Greek and Roman authors applied to the exact meanings of the terms they used. In the case of pius Aeneas, heros, pietas, and ἁμαρτία we seek greater precision and clarity than Vergil and Aristotle intended. In the case of ἡ ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις the same process leads us to ignore the possibility that a brilliant historian could have carelessly misused a crucial phrase.