Frequently Asked (or Expected) Questions

Who is the intended audience of this project?

The primary intended audience is all scholars and students of Latin poetry who have an interest in intertextuality.

Who chooses the intertexts for the database?

The goal is eventually to include all published (and thus peer-reviewed) word-level intertexts in the database. Plausible intertexts that have not been published are not included (but can be added if they are published!). The order in which they are added depends on many factors, and the work is slow.

Which author do I select for poems in the Appendix Vergiliana, or poems with disputed authorship, like the Hercules Oetaeus?

All works with uncertain or disputed authorial attribution (including unattributed fragments) can be found by selecting ‘Anonymous works’ in the dropdown menu for Author. However, works such as the Hercules Oetaeus, which has traditionally (but probably incorrectly) been attributed to Seneca, or works such as the Culex, which is transmitted as part of the Appendix Vergiliana and was believed by ancient Roman authors to be an early work of Vergil, will also be found by selecting the relevant author—such works will be listed with brackets around the title. In the diagrams, they are shown without an author, or as “anonymous”. Conversely, poems by distinct pseudonymous (but not spurious) authors, such as Lygdamus, will be listed under the pseudonym, not under ‘Anonymous works’. For tragic fragments, attribution (or lack thereof) follows the recent Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (TrRF); other such decisions will be listed as they are made.

How do I view extranumerical lines (such as 845a, which would come between 845 and 846)?

If a given extranumerical line has any words in the database, it will always show up along with the canonical line that precedes it. (So, for example, if the main visualization is set to show just Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 1.829, it will in fact show lines 829 and 829a; and a request for Arg. 1.829–830 would show lines 829, 829a, and 830.) There is no way to view only the extranumerical line. (Individual lines of lyric split into multiple lines due to an editor's colometry are handled the same way, in order to retain traditional line-numbering.)

How are alternative textual readings handled?

When there is a choice between readings that affects an intertext (either because competing intertexts have been proposed for two different readings or because a reading that is only used in some modern editions has a proposed intertext), there is an option to choose between words. If line-numbers differ between editions, a single edition is followed (with traditional numbering when possible).

Since words are assigned to a single line, how do you handle instances of hyphenation in synapheia?

When a word is split between two lines due to synapheia (essentially, the joining of two lines into one), the word is assigned to whichever line contains more of its syllables, and the position(s) it occupies in the other line are left unassigned.