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The "Κώος ποιητής" : a recantation

• Χρηστίδης, Δημήτριος Α.

The author revises his view, formerly expressed in his article «The "Κώος ποιητής" of Niketas Chômâtes», Ελληνικά 35 (1984) 70-73, that in the passage of Niketas Chômâtes' Χρονική διήγησις, p. 491,3-6 van Dieten, there is a reference to Philo, "Οτι ατρεπτον το θείον 35-36 (II ρ. 64,1-10 Cohn-Wendland), and that the phrase ό Κωός φησι ποιητής constitutes an erroneous reference to the poet Philetas from Cos, perhaps because Chômâtes knew Philo's passage from some anthology, in which the text in question was attributed to the poet Philetas (the confusion is understandable because of the similarity of the names). The "recantation" is due to the later realisation that at this particular point Niketas Chômâtes draws from the Hippocratic 'Αφορισμοί 1,3 (IV pp. 458,10-460,3 Littré), but he uses the simple έξις instead of the Hippocratic ευεξία, thus misleading some translators of the passage into a mistaken understanding and translation, and the author of this article into a mistaken identification of the reminiscence. This Hippocratic passage is also mentioned by many other writers (Plutarch, Galen, Basil of Caesaria, Gregory Nazianzinos, Palladios, Olympiodoros, Theophylactos Simocates, Theophilos Protospatharios, Pseudo-Damascios, an Anonymous Byzantine doctor, Eustathios of Thessaloniki, Scholia on Pindar, Demetrios Triclinios, Gregory Acindynos and Manuel II Palaeologos), whose texts are presented chronologically in this article, so as to make clear the many and various ways in which this particular Hippocratic teaching has been interpreted and used.

• Languages and Literature

• Λογοτεχνία