Antoninus Liberalis

Antoninus Liberalis () was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between the second and third centuries AD. He is known as the author of ''The Metamorphoses'', a collection of tales that offers new variants of already familiar myths as well as stories that are not attested in other ancient sources.

Work

Antoninus' only surviving work is the ''Metamorphoses'' (, ''Metamorphṓseōn Synagogḗ'', ), 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.

The work survives in a single manuscript, of the later 9th century, now in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg; it contains several works. John of Ragusa 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.

Guilielmus Xylander printed the text in 1568; 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, 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''; it is "grimly simple" and mostly devoid of grammatical particles which would convey humor or a narratorial persona.Celoria, ''The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis'', 2.

Tales

# Ctesylla
# The Meleagrids
# Hierax
# Cragaleus
# Aegypius
# Periphas
# Anthus
# Lamia or Sybaris
# Emathides
# Minyades
# Aëdon or Nightingale
# Cycnus or Swan
# Aspalis
# Munichus
# Meropis
# Oenoe
# Leucippus
# Eeropus or Bee-eater
# The Thieves
# Clinis
# Polyphonte
# Cerambus
# Battus
# Ascalabus
# Metioche and Menippe
# Hylas
# Iphigeneia
# Typhon
# Galinthias
# Byblis
# The Messapians
# Dryope
# Alcmene
# Smyrna
# The Herdsmen
# Pandareus
# The Dorians
# Wolf
# Arceophon
# Britomartis
# The Teumessian fox

Footnotes

Notes

References

*
*
*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.
Trzaskoma, Stephen M.. ''Antoninus Liberalis: three sections from ''Metamorphoses'':
Hierax; Aigypios; The Dorians

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liberalis, Antoninus

Ancient Greek grammarians
Shapeshifting
Texts in Koine Greek