Abstract

Where was Apollodorus of Athens’ treatise On the Gods composed? It is not clear what the Athenian grammarian did after the expulsion of philologists from Alexandria (146 BCE): according to Ps.Scymnus (vv. 10-49) Apollodorus dedicated his Chronicles to Attalus II of Pergamum. Was the dedication accepted? Accordingly, did Apollodorus stay in Pergamum, composing here his theological treatise? If so, the fact would be significative: a disciple of Aristarchus taught where Aristarchus’ adversary Crates of Mallus had had the chair. The On the Gods shows a hybrid methodology, which includes a rigorous reading of Homer according to Aristarchus’ categories and readiness to consider the etymologies of divine names by the Stoics, not to say the latter approach in theology. This methodology strongly suggests that Apollodorus aimed at a compromise between Crates’ and Aristarchus schools, an operation which might have had sense only in Pergamum. This conclusion seems confirmed by Apollodorus’ interpretation of Apollo’s epithet ἰήιος and παιάν, in which the etymologies of the former epithet by Aristarchus and Crates are combined. An analysis of the Apolline chapter within Macrobius’ ‘solar theology’ (Sat. 1.17) helps to determine the actual interpretation of the two Apolline epithets by the grammarian, against the interpretation which is explicitly assigned to him in Sat. 1.17.19.