'A poem in leaden hexameters': on rehabilitating Dorotheus’ Carmen Astrologicum

Conference item

Our main evidence for the lost five-book astrological poem of Dorotheus of Sidon is an Arabic translation by David Pingree, but examination of the Greek fragments reveals essential aspects of the poem over and above its informational content. Dorotheus engineered his poem to convey technicalities in a minimally offputting and maximally engaging way. He does not fight shy of specialist terms and concepts, but makes them easy for the reader to process. He avails himself of poetic formulary, which he also ingeniously repurposes, to serve the ends of variatio and to flatter the reader’s cultural competence and paideia. And his mostly very correct metre speaks to his ambition for a poem that should be seen as a work combining “factual” and “formal” didactic poetry in equal measure.

Authors: Lightfoot, JL

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Edizioni dell'Orso
• Host title: Μάρτυρι µύθῳ. Poésie, histoire et société aux époques impériale et tardive: Actes du colloque international Paris, Sorbonne Université, 8-10 septembre 2022
• Pages: 247-276
• Series: Hellenica
• Place of publication: Alessandria, Italy
• Publication date: 2024-01-01
• Acceptance date: 2022-09-09
• Event title: Μάρτυρι μύθῳ. Poésie, histoire et société aux époques impériale et tardive
• Event location: Paris, France
• Event website: https://poesiehistoire.sciencesconf.org/
• Event start date: 2022-09-08
• Event end date: 2022-09-10
• ISSN: 1825-3490
• ISBN: 9788836135066
• Language: English