Aesch. Pers. 1-64: colometria antica e edizioni moderne a confronto

The colometry of Aesch. Pers. 1-64 (marching anapaests) trasmitted by the most important Aeschylean manuscript, Laur. plut. XXXII, 9 (M), is examined. This examination shows that there is a close relationship between the metric level and the syntactic-semantic one. The arrangement into dimeters and monometers does not seem casual: acatalectic dimeters generally coincide with sense-pause, while monometers and occasional enjambements (as deviant elements) have the function to emphasize words and expressions of particular importance. The comparison (made as an example) with the colometries of mss. Laur. Plut. XXII, 2 (L) and Vat. Pal gr. 287 (Ga) shows that these last ones descend (as corrupted forms) from a colometry identical with the one of M. The modifications of the colometry of M made by modern editors are not improvements; they often risk, on the contrary, equalizing metrical and syntactic structure. Also for the marching anapaest (as for the lyric sections), metrical analysis cannot prescind from a critical examination of the manuscripts’colometry.