Talk and text: the pre-Alexandrian footnote from Homer to Theodectes

How much continuity was there in the allusive practices of the ancient world? I explore this question here by considering the early Greek precedent for the so-called ‘Alexandrian footnote’, a device often regarded as one of the most learned and bookish in a Roman poet’s allusive arsenal. Ever since Stephen Hinds opened his foundational Allusion and Intertext with this device, it has been considered the preserve of Hellenistic and Roman scholar-poets. In this chapter, however, I argue that we should back-date the phenomenon all the way to the archaic age. By considering a range of illustrative examples from epic (Iliad, Odyssey, Hesiod), lyric (Sappho, Pindar, Simonides) and tragedy (Sophocles, Euripides, Theodectes), I demonstrate that the ‘Alexandrian footnote’ has a long history before Alexandria.