Antoninus Liberalis

Antoninus Liberalis was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between AD 100 and 300.

His only surviving work is the "Metamorphoses", ("Metamorphoseon Synagoge" "Μεταμορφώσεων Συναγωγή", literally "Collection of Transformations"), a collection of forty-one very briefly summarised tales about mythical metamorphoses effected by offended deities, unique in that they are couched in prose, not verse. The literary genre of myths of transformations of men and women, heroes and nymphs, into stars (see "Catasterismi"), plants and animals, or springs, rocks and mountains, were widespread and popular in the classical world. This work has more polished parallels in the better-known "Metamorphoses" of Ovid and in the "Metamorphoses" of Lucius Apuleius. Like them, its sources, where they can be traced, are Hellenistic works, such as Nicander's "Heteroeumena" and "Ornithogonia" ascribed to Boios. [Timothy Renner, "A Papyrus Dictionary of Metamorphoses,", "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology" (1978:278); many of Antoninus Liberalis' transformations are also into birds.]

The work survives in a single manuscript, of the later ninth century, now in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg; it contains several works. John Stojkovič brought it to the Dominican convent at Basel about 1437; in 1553, Hieronymus Froeben gave it to Otto Henry, Elector Palatine who gave it to the Library. In 1623, with the rest of the Palatine Library, it was taken to Rome; in 1798, to Paris, as part of Napoleonic plunder under the terms of the Treaty of Tolentino; in 1816, it was restored to Heidelberg. [Heidelberg al. gr. 398.]

Guilielmus Xylander printed the text in 1598; since some leaves have since disappeared, his edition is also a necessary authority for the text.

Many of the transformations in this compilation are found nowhere else, and some may simply be inventions of Antoninus. The manner of the narrative is a laconic and conversational prose: "this completely inartistic text," as Sarah Myers called it, [Myers, University of Michigan, reviewing Celoria's translation in "Bryn Mawr Classical Review", 1994 ( [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1994/94.01.03.html on-line text] ).] offers the briefest summaries of lost metamorphoses by more ambitious writers, such as Nicander and Boeus. Francis Celoria, the translator, regards the text as perfectly acceptable "koine" Greek, though with numerous "hapax legomena" and perhaps humorless; it has no grammatical particles.

Tales

# Ctesylla
# The Daughters of Meleager
# Hierax
# Cragaleus
# Aegypius
# Periphas
# Anthus
# Lamia or Sybaris
# The King's Daughters of Emathia
# Daughters of Minyas
# Aedon, the Nightingale
# Cycnus, the Swan
# Aspalis
# Munichus
# Meropis
# Oenoe
# Leucippus
# Eeropus
# The Thieves in the Idaean cave
# Clinis
# Polyphonte
# Cerambus
# Battus
# Ascalabus
# Metioche and Menippe
# Hylas
# Iphigeneia
# Typhon
# Galinthias
# Byblis
# The Messapians
# Dryope
# Alcmene
# Smyrna
# The Herdsmen, who refused Leto
# Pandareus
# The Dorians, who follow Diomedes
# The Wolf of Peleus
# Arceophon
# Britomartis
# The Fox of Procris

Notes

References

*Celoria , Francis, ed. and trans. "The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis: A Translation With Commentary", trans. (London and New York: Routledge) 1992. English with comparative notes. ISBN 0-415-06896-7. This, not offering the Greek text, is the first English translation of this work.
*Irving, Forbes. "Metamorphosis in Greek Myth"
*Papathomopoulos, Manolis. "Antoninus Liberalis: Les Métamorphoses" (Paris, Budé, 1968) First translation into French; extensive notes and indices, except on linguistic questions; probably at present the standard text.
* [http://www.classicalmyth.com/antoninuslib/index.html Trzaskoma, Stephen M.. "Antoninus Liberalis: three sections from "Metamorphoses":] Hierax; Aigypios; The Dorians
* [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/ANC_APO/ANTONINUS_LIBERALIS.html "Encycyclopaedia Britannica" 1911:] "Antoninus Liberalis". .