Milesiaka, I. Meandrio

The name of Meandrius varies in the sources between Maiandrios, Leandrios and Leandros: the present edition attributes the whole corpus of fragments transmitted under the three mentioned names to Meandrius of Miletus, according to the tradition opened by C. Keil and authoritatively supported, among the others, by A. Meineke, J. Mikolajczak and F. Jacoby. Nothing certain can be said about his life and chronology: the concise indication «Before Callimachus» given by Jacoby introducing the fragments is the only certain information; but indications of different type and different reliability converge in seeing him as a local historian of the Hellenistic age, a little bit older than Callimachus or almost contemporary to him. Such chronological dating, though approximate, is enough to state that Meandrius has not been the first author of Milesiaka: certainly before him has to be placed at least Clytus’s work, whom Athenaeus defines as pupil of Aristotle. But a large number of Meandrius’s fragments reached us, much higher than those of all other milesian local historians: hence the decision not to follow a chronological sequence and to devote instead to Meandrius’s fragments the first of the volumes that the Series «I Frammenti degli Storici greci» reserves to the Milesiaka, also because for the Meandrius’s fragments it is possible, although with many doubts and difficulties, to catch a comprehensive view. Fragments – numerically exiguous – by other authors, preceding and subsequent, for whom it is in doubt even their existence, will be gathered in the second volume, presently in preparation. In the light of the recent debate about the editing of fragmentary texts, which led to define new criteria that put in the foreground the study of the context, of the transmission events and of the transmitting sources, the present volume collects and numbers the fragments of Meandrius on the basis of the source that preserves each, in a sequence reflecting source chronology (it would be anyhow impossible for Meandrius to rearrange the fragments in a sequence reflecting their original place in the structure of the work). Wherever possible, all fragments handed down by the same source have been put together in a single section: thus, as a result, there are sections devoted to fragments handed down by Callimachus, by Strabo, by Diogenes Laertius, by Clemens Alexandrinus; out of these sections are placed a number of fragments that constitute a unique quotation by an author. The work of Meandrius was structured at least in two books; we do not known the title – as frequently happens with ancient quotations – in a unique form but it varied between the general Historiai and the more technical Milesiaka. From the fragments surviving today we can infer isolated «contents», but we are not able to understand their importance and their place inside the work: no supposition is possible about the starting point of the work and how far it went, nor can we determine whether it dealt with the polis of Miletus only, or it ranged up to cover also their colonies. What we can say with certainty is that in Meandrius’s work a number of versions and trends of local elaboration come together, mainly on topics regarding Miletus and their interests, which systematically give prominence or clarify the position of Miletus versus other poleis; it can be perceived in the work the need of defining and protecting whichever made up the town patrimony at all levels, from the origins of the polis up to the chora, to the myths, to the political relationship.