Love and Murder: Two Textual Problems in Xenophon's Ephesiaca

Abstract

In this paper, I suggest textual emendations as a way of resolving two oddities in Xenophon's Ephesiaca. The first concerns the relative ages of Hippothous and Hyperanthes: the former, I argue, must be at least a little older than the latter. The second concerns Kyno's proposal to Habrocomes: I argue that she cannot have told him in advance of her intention to kill her husband.

David Konstan is the John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Humanisitic Tradition, and Professor of Comparative Literature, at Brown University. Among his publications are Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres (1994), and The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (2006).