Archiloco (P. Oxy. 4708), in G. Burzacchini-A. Nicolosi, Recuperi lirici dai papiri: Archiloco (P. Oxy. 4708) e Saffo (P. Köln 21351+21376)

The heritage of ancient Greek lyric has been lately enriched thanks to some substantial fragments of texts up to now totally or sometimes partially unknown. As often happens, such recent discoveries both confirmed what we already knew about Archilochus and Sappho and, on the other hand, led to some unexpected and remarkable news. As for Archilochus, the conspicuous fragmentary text preserved by P. Oxy. 4708 fr. 1 obliges us to reconsider not only some peculiar features of Archilochus’ elegiac production, but also the possible presence of biotic and mythic aspects. Speaking for Sappho, three new papyrus scraps – P. Köln 21351 + 21376 – contain the relics of three different poems, two of which belonging to Sappho while the third is with all certainty not Sapphic. The purpose of this paper is to point out some of the most relevant textual and exegetic features of such new fragments and to clear up some of the many problems related to each text.