“The Working Methods of Asconius”

Auteur: Keeline, Thomas J.
Titre: “The Working Methods of Asconius”
Revue/Collection: In : Pieper, Christoph & Pausch, Dennis, The Scholia on Cicero’s Speeches. Contexts and Perspectives, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2023, 287 p. [Pieper & Pausch 2023]
Lieu èdition: Leiden-Boston
Éditeur: Brill
Annèe edition: 2023
Pages: 41-68
Mots-clès: Commentaires - Commenti - Commentaries, Héritage - Fortuna - Legacy, Philologie - Filologia - Philology
Description: Thomas Keeline deals with the only commentary to Cicero’s works that can be safely attributed to a certain author: Q. Asconius Pedianus, who at some point in the first century ce wrote ‘commentaries’ on an indeterminate number of Cicero’s speeches. The chapter first challenges certain orthodox scholarly opinions about Asconius, showing how little we really know about the man. It then turns to our only secure source of information, Asconius’ surviving works, and creates a typology for his comments on Cicero’s In Pisonem and Pro Milone. Using these comments, it tries to extract some of Asconius’ methods and working principles. He emerges as a curious ‘gentleman’ scholar with a particular interest in names, places, and dates, concerned above all to solve mysteries and problems found in Cicero’s speeches. In conclusion, the chapter suggests that Asconius was not writing with pedagogical purposes in mind, still less for his sons, but was instead a scriptor historicus who wrote about whatever piqued his curiosity. [Pieper & Pausch 2023, 16]
Oeuvres:
Liens: https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/9789004516441/BP000003.xml
Sigle auteur: Keeline 2023