DIKTYS OF CRETE

‘Diktys of Crete’ is a fictionalised prose account of the Trojan War. It does not enjoy a high profile in modern thought, but looms large in Byzantine and mediaeval histories of the Troy matter. Although the ‘Latin Dictys’ has enjoyed a moderate revival in recent scholarship, the Byzantine testimony to Diktys is still badly neglected. The present article focuses on: (1) a general overview of the Greek Diktys, including up-to-date information on dating; (2) a comprehensive list of witnesses to Diktys (the first list of its kind for over a century, and the first ever in English); (3) some problems relating to Book 6 of the ‘Latin Dictys’; and (4) an overview of the Sisyphosfrage, that is, the question of the role of ‘Sisyphos of Kos’ in the transmission of the Greek Diktys.

To those who do know Diktys, the Ephemeris is most familiar through a Latin translation made by Lucius Septimius in the third or fourth century. 1 Even the Latin Dictys is not well known; the Greek Diktys is badly neglected. Two new papyri of the original were published in 2009, bringing the total to four (see section 2 below), and this provides an occasion to offer some observations on the Greek original. The following comments are intended partly as a guide for the perplexed, and partly as paralegomena to an ongoing project to produce an annotated compilation of the testimony to Diktys, both the 'Latin Dictys' and the numerous strands of Byzantine Greek testimony. A newcomer who is acquainted only with the Latin version will find much about Diktys to be very mysterious and esoteric. Specifically, a novice who consults standard editions 2 will not be alerted to the fact that the Latin version is very incomplete, and that Byzantine sources fill many gaps. 3 The Byzantine testimony tends to be cited only as an indicator of Diktys' influence, rather than as an indispensable witness to the original. This is an illustrative guide, not a thorough one: it uses a few interesting or problematic parts of Diktys to demonstrate the types of problems that arise. I shall focus on just four points: (1) a general overview; (2) a comprehensive list of witnesses to Diktys (the first list of its kind for over a century, and the first ever in English); (3) some problems relating to Septimius Book 6; and (4) an overview of the so-called Sisyphosfrage.

Overview
The author of the original Ephemeris is unknown, but wrote probably in the late first century, possibly the first half of the second century. The Ephemeris must be later than 66 CE, the date given by the pseudo-documentary prologue when the text was supposedly discovered in Diktys' tomb. 4 For the terminus ante quem there are three dates to choose from. The most certain is the date of the recently published POxy. 4943, which all but fixes the terminus in the first half of the second century; see Hatzilambrou (2009) 83. Apart from that, there is 1 The most important scholarship on Diktys since 1900 is: Fürst , probably still the most important single work on Diktys; Griffin (1907), framed around a detailed exposition of scholarship on the subject up to that date, and with a useful review by Hamilton (1909); Merkle (1989), contextualising Diktys as an example of anti-Homeric literature and fraudulent historiography; and Dowden's (no date, a) and Kamen's (no date) commentaries on Diktys and Sisyphos of Kos in Brill's new Jacoby (henceforth BNJ) 49 and 50. For a sampling of other contributions, see e.g. Marblestone (1970); Usener (1994); Holzberg (1996); Merkle (1999); Ní Mheallaigh (2008); Spence (2010); Gainsford (2011).
2 Critical edition of the Latin Dictys: Eisenhut ( 2 1973). English translation (the only one in the last century): Frazer (1966). 3 The most detailed prior account of the Byzantine testimony to the Greek Diktys is that of Fürst (1901) 237-60, 337-44;Griffin (1907) 34-108 covers fewer sources in more detail; Hatzilambrou and Obbink (2009) 80-1 give a recent brief résumé; Nilsson (2004) outlines the Troy matter in the Byzantine tradition more generally. 4 Dowden (no date, a) on BNJ 49 T 3 suggests that Dio Chrysostom Or. 11 provides another, later, terminus post quem (Dowden dates Or. 11 to c. 82 CE), since 'one might have imagined Dio would have known' Diktys. That presupposes quick and thorough dissemination of Diktys throughout the Greek world, which may or may not be right. Cf. below in this section on the geographical spread of testimony to Diktys. a parody of a Diktyean episode in Lucian's True histories that can be no later than c. 190 (the approximate date of Lucian's death) and is probably rather earlier; see Gainsford (2011) 97. The earliest, but most questionable, terminus is set by Ptolemaios Chennos (late first century; see section 2 below), who mentions some distinctively Diktyean episodes; questionable because it is uncertain who copied whom, and because Chennos is even more poorly known than Diktys and survives only as an epitome. At any rate, previous datings that saw Diktys as indebted to Philostratos, in the third century, 5 are firmly disproved. From the fifth to the fifteenth centuries CE, the Ephemeris had more impact on the Trojan War legend than almost any other text. For the Byzantines, Diktys ranked as the most authoritative account of the Troy matter, followed by Homer, Euripides and Virgil; in the west it was Dares of Phrygia, followed by Diktys, then Virgil and Ovid. Even recent adaptations have used material derived ultimately from Diktys: in the film Troy (2004), the fatal romance between Achilles and Briseis (a Trojan princess and priestess, kidnapped from a temple of Apollo) is essentially a reframing of the Diktyean romance between Achilleus and Polyxene (a Trojan princess; the romance is set around the temple of Thymbraian Apollo).
The Ephemeris lies between genres. It is a pseudo-documentary historical romance; we might call it a 'quasi-novel'. 6 Some distinctly novelistic tropes that we see in Diktys are important early exemplars, since there is only one completely extant Greek novel that may be earlier, Chariton's Chaireas and Kallirhoe. Polyxene's and Achilleus' abortive, ill-fated love affair is a trope widely considered to be a defining feature of the Greek novel. 7 A more specific example is the importance of dreams, especially misinterpreted dreams, in the Ephemeris: 8 dreams are also important in several novels, as well as in the novel's closest poetic relative, New Comedy (though of course they also appear in the more distantly related genres of epic and tragedy). 9 The scenery is richly imagined, as noted above, and flavours the story with romance; Nilsson has compared Paris' and Helen's first meeting to garden-scenes in Achilleus Tatios and Longos. 10 Often Diktys' settings are portrayed in such terse but definite terms that it feels as though the author is not even writing a description, but rather referring to a pre-existing depiction. 11 Truce talks between Odysseus and Kirke are described as follows: ἡ οὖν Κίρκη ἱέρɛια οὖσα Ἡλίου καὶ μυστικὰς ἠπίστατο πράξɛις . . . ἡ δὲ Κίρκη θαυμάσασα πῶς ɛὗρɛν αὐτὸν ɛἰδότα τὰς αὐτῆς μαγγανɛίας ὑπῆλθɛ τὸν ἄνδρα δώροις πολλοῖς καὶ ᾔτησɛν αὐτὸν μɛῖναι παρ' αὐτῇ τὴν ὥραν τοῦ χɛιμῶνος, ὀμόσασα αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ ἱɛρῷ ὡς οὔτɛ αὐτὸν οὔτɛ τινὰ τῶν σὺν αὐτῷ βλάψɛι.
Kirke was a priestess of Helios, and had mystic powers; . . . Kirke was amazed to think how [Odysseus] had found out about her witchcraft, and she tried to placate him with many gifts and asked him to stay with her for the duration of the winter. And she swore to him in the temple that she would not harm him nor any of his men. 12 'In the temple'? No temple has been mentioned; all we have to go on is the reference to Kirke as a priestess. It might be supposed that something has been elided here, but this is far from an isolated case. It might even be that the original Diktys was published with illustrationsbut that is speculation. 13 The Greek Ephemeris may lack unity and have a bland prose style, but we must allow it a vivid visual imagination, at the very least. The author also had a strong sense of dramatic irony: in another Diktyean source, the Eklogē historiōn, the above moment is followed by Odysseus giving Kirke the fateful spear that, one day, will be passed on to Telegonos, and will become simultaneously the recognition token that reunites father and son and the instrument of Odysseus' death.
Perhaps the most important novelistic element in the Ephemeris is its pseudo-documentary frame-story. The Ephemeris opens with a prologue 14 that relates how an ancient text, written by 'Diktys', is discovered inside Diktys' own tomb in Crete during the reign of Nero. The text by the head of a dead person is a trope, one that seems to have been popular in the late first century: Chennos presents a number of anecdotes along similar lines. 15 The manuscript, written in the 'Phoenician' alphabet (not actually Phoenician; this is a semi-legendary term for early Greek writing, as we shall see), is taken to the emperor, who has it transcribed and published. The prologue thus frames the Ephemeris as an eyewitness account of the Trojan War.
Even in the wake of Ní Mheallaigh's (2008) excellent article on pseudo-documentarism in Diktys, Antonios Diogenes and Lucian, it is worth repeating that the story of the discovery of Diktys' manuscript is part of a fictional frame-story. Frame-stories are a common trope of 12 Od. hyp. 5,5-6 and 17-20 (see section 2 below, on the Od. hyp. and its relation to Diktys). 13 On illustrations in ancient books generally, see Weitzmann (1959). 14 The prologue is prefaced to the Ephemeris in the γ family of manuscripts of the Latin Dictys; in the ɛ family it is replaced by an epistula by the Latin translator, Septimius, which mirrors much of the prologue's material. On the relationship between prologue and epistula see Merkle (1989)  both ancient and modern novels. 16 They create verisimilitude by giving the novel a back story; but there is no warrant for giving them credence beyond that. Diktys' pseudodocumentary games have led to his becoming the object of a staggering degree of credulity over the millennia. Some (not all) Byzantine chroniclers and mediaeval western writers seem to have genuinely believed that Diktys was an eyewitness account; but even in modern scholarship, otherwise level-headed scholars have been willing to take seriously the idea that the text really was discovered written 'in Phoenician letters' (surely rather Neo-Punic, given the period) and then translated or transliterated into Greek. 17 It is as though someone were to read a modern novel with a frame-storysay Shelley's Frankenstein, framed as a story told to an Arctic explorerand treat it as a story told about an actual scientist creating an actual monster: faced with that extreme, it might seem sane to express doubt about the content while accepting the frame-story. That sounds like restraint. But that still means accepting the Arctic expedition as real, and even that is a drastic error. The Ephemeris may not be precisely a novel, but it is a work of fiction, and its pseudo-documentary character should never be forgotten. 18 Fortunately one of the new papyri preserves the sphragis corresponding to Septimius 5.17, where 'Diktys' describes linguistic issues he had to deal with in writing his account. 19 The passage builds on the prologue's frame-story by including a verbal echo of the Homeric picture of Crete's mixed culture in Odyssey 19.172-80 (Septimius seems to have missed this allusion); 20 and this makes it much clearer that the Phoenician script and/or language are all part of the frame-story, that is to say, entirely fictional. Seen in this light, references to 'Phoenician letters' and to the alphabet of Kadmos and Danaos 21 are nothing to do with the historical Phoenician alphabet, but about the legendary origins of the Greek alphabet. Several early writers claim that Kadmos imported the Greek alphabet from Phoenicia; in others, Danaos brought it from Egypt. Diktys simply 16 Among ancient exemplars Hansen (2003) cites Antonios Diogenes, Xenophon of Ephesos, Apollonios King of Tyre, and Longos, as well as several other genres (both ancient and modern). 17 Advocates of the transliteration option should bear in mind the added difficulty that the Phoenician and Punic scripts lack vowels, and are therefore poorly suited to represent Greek.
18 Among other not-quite-novelistic works, cf. the frame-story in Antonios Diogenes' Wonders beyond Thoule (= Photios cod. 166; perhaps from the first decade of the second century CE). Diogenes claims to be re-publishing an ancient text found in a Tyrian grave, and provides an elaborate epistolary frame on top of that. synthesises these variants: his 'Phoenician' letters are in fact Greek. Many other extant aetiologies also tie the epithet 'Phoenician' to the early Greek alphabet. 22 When Herodotos referred to early Greek letters as 'Phoenician' he may possibly have been thinking of Archaic epichoric Greek alphabets; but in Diktys it must be a matter of a legendary, not a historical, script.
One may hope, then, that the optimistic tradition of taking at least something in Diktys as literal truth is now buried once and for all. It is, however, plausible that Septimius' covering letter, which replaces the prologue in the ɛ family of manuscripts, was written in good faith. That too has been doubted, 23 but that probably takes scepticism too far. The Ephemeris itself deserves no trust; but Septimius, writing two or three centuries later, is more likely to be a dupe than a stooge.
Among the Greek writers who draw on Diktys there is a curious trend, and it has to be wondered whether it is significant. In the second century we find Lucian of Samosata parodying an episode from Diktys; 24 in the sixth and seventh centuries Ioannes Malalas and (perhaps) John of Antioch use Diktys as the basis for their accounts of the Trojan War. 25 Malalas cites the lost writer Domninos, apparently an Antiochene local historian, for an episode appended to the Diktyean narrative and set in Syria; and it has been suspected (without any real evidence) that Malalas' entire Trojan War narrative may have Domninos as its immediate source. 26 The trend is that all four writers are Syrian, and three of them belong to Antioch. This could be coincidence. The geographical spread of Diktys' readership was reasonably wide: the Diktys papyri that have been found come from Egypt, so the Ephemeris was certainly read there (though the papyri could hardly have survived anywhere else). Even so, this pile-up of Syrians leads one, not to suspect, but at least to wonder whether they draw on the Ephemeris because it too was of local origin. 27 22 Sch. on Dion. Thrax 183-6 ed. Hilgard is the source for most of the following references. This is at least no weaker an interpretation than identifying the Ephemeris as Cretan simply because its fictional author is Cretan (though Cretan origins are of course also possible). 28 Scholars who work on Diktys often feel the need to excuse themselves. In a 1909 review of a book on Diktys, G. L. Hamilton expressed a hope for 'the completion of critical studies on [this] worthless literary [production]' so that scholars could move on to more worthwhile work. 29 This sentiment may stem from the character of Diktyean scholarship prior to 1908. In that era the central question was whether or not a Greek Diktys had ever existed; some held that the 'Latin Dictys' was the original. This question was of interest primarily for the impact it would have on the study of the Byzantine historians Ioannes Malalas and (pseudo-?)John of Antioch, who drew heavily on Diktys for their accounts of the Trojan War.
But the Diktysfrage was answered definitively in 1908 by the publication of PTeb. 268, a fragment of the original Greek text. The question was settled a little too firmly.
Investigations were shut down that should not really have been shut down. For example the Sisyphosfrage, the open question of the relationship between Diktys of Crete and Sisyphos of Kos, was dropped until recently; 30 and subsequent work on Diktys has focused narrowly on the 'Latin Dictys', sometimes to the point of ignoring the Byzantine testimony. 31 It seems that the sense after 1908 was one of relief, that a vexatious controversydocumented by N. E. Griffin at arduous length 32had been decisively ended and could be shelved forever.
Diktys has recently earned a place in some collections of essays on ancient fiction and on the Trojan legend, 33 but some further justifications for pursuing work on Diktys may be useful. First, Diktys is of great historical importance, for reasons outlined already. Second, Diktys remains an important key (among many) to understanding the relationship between several Byzantine chronographers, especially Malalas, (pseudo-?) John of Antioch, and pseudo-Symeon/Kedrenos, all of whom base their Trojan War accounts on Diktyean material. On these witnesses see section 2 below. And third, it is likely that Diktys adapts a fair amount of material from older, lost, sources. This material which very probably includes even the Epic Cyclehas scarcely been touched by those who work on the fragments of early epic and tragedy. Granted, the author's thorough reworking of the material makes it challenging (to say the least) to unravel old material 28 Cf. Marblestone (1970) 395-401, who argues implausibly that the Ephemeris was genuinely written in archaic East Phoenician, was unearthed by 'the Eteocretan community' of Crete, and was comprehensible to them because the Eteocretan language was supposedly 'a Northwest Semitic dialect'.
29 Hamilton (1909)  from Diktys' own innovations. 34 But there are techniques that could be brought to bear. In places where Diktys has combined older material with his own innovations, there is a fair probability that the author is likely to compensate for the innovation by treating the older material relatively conservatively. In such cases, Cyclic epics and lost tragedies are likely sources for the older material. 35

Witnesses to Diktys: a comprehensive list
In the following list, names and titles in bold type are used for shorthand references. The symbol ' = ' denotes a situation where a single text appears in multiple sources or in multiple modern editions; ' ≈ ' indicates parallels between independent witnesses to Diktys. So for example 'POxy. 2539 = BNJ 49 F 7c, ≈ Sept. 4.18' means that the text of POxy. 2539 is also published in Brill's new Jacoby, and this text is parallel to Septimius 4.18. Fürst (1901) 337-44 gives a longer list of witnesses, and Dowden presents a further witness in BNJ 49 F 11. But as those authors point out, the surplus witnesses actually have nothing to do with Diktys. In Dowden's case, he has inherited a spurious fragment from Jacoby; in Fürst's case, fin de siècle Diktyean scholarship routinely cited several texts that are important for the study of John of Antioch but are unrelated to Diktys. The list below is intended for the Diktys scholar. Non-Diktyean sources are trimmed away, and a few are included that Fürst and BNJ omit. This is the first complete listing since Fürst's, so caveat lector: it is near-certain that I, too, have missed many relevant sources.
Category (A) comprises witnesses that add to our knowledge of Diktys; category (B) comprises witnesses that only replicate material in the first category and, in some cases, are based entirely on known archetypes. This categorisation is intended as a labour-saving device. When searching in older scholarship or in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, sources in the second category are likely to turn up frequently, but for most purposes the Diktys scholar may safely ignore them (though it is of course possible that close inspection may yet reveal new Diktyean material there). The sources in category 34 For example: is Polyxene's role as a romantic interest a Diktyean innovation? The story of her sacrifice at Achilleus' tomb goes back to the Archaic Iliou persis, but no hint of romance appears until Seneca, Troades 938-44. Philostratos, Her. 51.2-6, reports that according to 'poets' (ὅσα . . . ποιητῶν ἀκούɛις) Achilleus fell in love with Polyxene when he saw her during the ransom of Hektor. That might seem to make the story pre-Diktyeanbut only Diktys (Sept. 3.20-7) has Polyxene present at the ransom of Hektor! Ps.-Hyginus, Fab. 110, confirms the romance without confirming the meeting at the ransom, and matches Diktys well in other respects (as does Fab. 111; many Trojan War episodes do not), but the date of ps.-Hyginus is very uncertain (see Smith and Trzaskoma (2007) xlii-xliv). Ptolemaios Chennos has Andromache present at the ransom, as in Diktys (see section 2 below), but omits Polyxene. Polyxene's role in both Philostratos and Diktys could theoretically come from, say, Sophokles' lost Polyxene; but it is also possible that Diktys was the basis for both Philostratos and a relatively late ps.-Hyginus. 35 Prose sources are unlikely. The best candidate is Hegesianax of Alexandria's Troika (FGrH 45 F 1 to F 10), which may have been another 'eyewitness' account of the Trojan War told from the point of view of 'Kephalon'; but what we know of Hegesianax has little overlap or consistency with Diktys.
(B) are also worth listing because several critical editions of texts in category (A) contain cross-references to texts in category (B) (these cross-references are reported below, at the end of the list); and because they are of interest in tracing the history of Diktys' influence. It is worth stressing that these sources are not assigned to Diktys merely because they happen to be about the Trojan War; they are distinctively, and in some cases primarily, Diktyean. There are occasional contaminations from more traditional mythical material, which in this context means Homer, Euripides, Virgil, Tryphiodoros and Quintus of Smyrna (but not the Epic Cycle, unless perhaps in the original Diktys). However, it is usually easy to distinguish 'traditional' elements from Diktyean elements. Much Byzantine material that might at first glance look like a distorted rendering of Homer or Euripides is in fact derived from Diktys.
Several names here are likely to be unfamiliar to the mainstream classicist, and some sources have complex textual histories of their own. As a visual aid, Figure 1 schematically represents the relationship, as it is understood here, between the most important texts. This is not a stemma in the strict sense: lines in this diagram do not imply that one source is entirely derived or copied from the text above it in the tree. For example, Malalas' version of the Diktyean material is an imaginatively reorganised account; and the texts associated with (pseudo-?)John of Antioch are a maze of problems. The intent is primarily to give a general idea of how current critical editions envisage the relationship between the texts. On the position given to '(Domninos?)' in the diagram, see n. 66 below.

Fig. 1:
A visual aid to understanding the relationship between sources 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Italics indicate lost texts. The diagram is adapted from the critical editions of Thurn (2000) and Roberto (2005a), but also incorporates points raised by Bourier (1900) 21-2 (on Domninos; see n. 66, below); Dowden (no date, a) on BNJ 49 F 5 (the existence of β; see on witness 5); and the present article (the division of Souda articles into groups, for which see witness 8; the Od. hyp. as non-Johannine, for which see section 3).
(A) Witnesses that add to our knowledge of Diktys 1. Lucius Septimius' translation into Latin (third or fourth century): 36 often misleadingly cited as 'Diktys', more accurately as 'the Latin Dictys'. Edition: Eisenhut ( 2 1973). Books 1 to 5 of Septimius correspond closely to the original; 'Book 6' is an epitome of multiple books (probably four) in the original. 37 In most respects Septimius is our fullest source for Diktys. 3. John Malalas' Chronographia (fifth or sixth century): most of Book 5, and a few other isolated references, corresponding to the whole of Septimius' account and some more. 38 Edition: Thurn (2000). Note that section numbers in Thurn do not equate to section numbers in the useful translated edition by Jeffreys et al. (1986). Malalas in turn is attested only indirectly: Dindorf's (1831) older edition was based on a manuscript that later proved to be incomplete. See Thurn (2000) 11*-16* on the relationship between our three main witnesses to Malalas' Trojan War narrative (each is cited separately in scholarship prior to Thurn): 'Dindorf's Malalas', i.e. cod. Bodl. Barocc. 182; the Eklogē historiōn, often cited as 'Anecdota graeca' or 'Cramer' in reference to its publication by Cramer (1839); and a tenth-century Slavonic translation of Malalas, first published in 1910. Malalas contains some material lacking counterparts in Septimius, most notably the 'portraits' of the heroes (5.9-10). Malalas expressly ascribes these to Diktys (5.10), and it is not impossible that he is telling the truth. However, Grossardt has argued compellingly that they derive from a source common with Philostratos' Heroikos. 39 4. Ptolemaios Chennos' New history (first century), as summarised by Photios, Myriobiblon cod. 190 (ninth century). 40 Edition: Henry (1962). There are four isolated 36 On the date see Merkle (1989) 263-83. 37 Souda δ.1117 quotes the total number of books in the Greek Diktys as 'nine'; Septimius' prefatory epistula implies 'ten'. See further Griffin (1907)  . Chennos' Diktyean snippets are important because they are very early. It has been debated whether Chennos read Diktys, or vice versa; 42 it is unwise to assume anything so direct as copying between these two authors only. In particular, Diktys' streamlined narrative could hardly be based on the jumble that we find in Chennos; so if Diktys were to be shown to be later, the parallels would most likely reflect older material common to both authors. 43 For example, Chennos includes Andromache in the ransom of Hektor; Septimius includes Andromache and also Polyxene. Either element could be traditional (though I suspect Diktys' treatment of the Achilleus-Polyxene romance is innovative); 44 but the combination is surely Diktys' doing. So Andromache's presence is likely to be something more traditional. She is likely to have been present at the ransom in an older account: one candidate is Aischylos' Phryges (alias Lytra); 45 another is the Aithiopis, as there are hints that that early epic included the ransom of Hektor. 46 5. Georgios Kedrenos, Synopsis historiōn (eleventh or twelfth century), 216,7-237,21 ed. Bekker (1838), corresponding to the whole of Septimius' account. Kedrenos is probably multiple steps removed from Diktys, but we get many details that are not present elsewhere because his account is so full, and because it is based on multiple intermediate sources rather than only on Malalas. Roberto suspects that Kedrenos is a product of crossing Malalas with John of Antioch; but Dowden draws attention to one point elsewhere in the Diktyean material where Kedrenos reproduces an element that is found in Septimius but in neither Malalas nor (ps.-?)John of Antioch. 47 There is, therefore, at least one tradition linking Diktys to Kedrenos that is independent of both 41 Tomberg (1968) 193 n. 141 also cites 152.ii,13-15 (the healing of Philoktetes, ≈ Sept. 2.14); the parallel supposedly lies in the link drawn between Hephaistos and Lemnos. But Lemnos had always been associated with Hephaistos; cf. Hom. Il. 1.592-3.

Four fragmentary
42 See e.g. Griffin (1907)  6. (Pseudo-?)John of Antioch (sixth or seventh century), fragments. Edition: Roberto (2005a). An alternative edition, Mariev (2008), omits all Diktyean material, for reasons outlined below. Diktyean material appears as F 40 to F 49.2 ed. Roberto, and corresponds to the entire Ephemeris. These fragments are compiled from texts that in most cases lack attributions, but can be linked to one another reasonably reliably. This constellation undoubtedly has Diktys as its ultimate origin, but the question of whether or not John of Antioch should be regarded as its more immediate source is close to the centre of the still-ongoing Johannesfrage. Readers are warned that piecing together the (pseudo-?) Johannine evidence is a messy business.
To complicate matters further, Roberto assigns two Diktyean sources to John that I list separately here: the so-called Odyssey hypothesis (witness 7 below), and various articles in the Souda encyclopaedia (witness 8). Four of the relevant Souda articles are indeed derived from the Johannine texts, but in other cases there is no evidence for a link. In section 3 below, I argue that the Od. hyp. does not belong to this constellation. The remaining texts are listed as 6.1 to 6.3 below.
6.1. of it is derived from Malalas, and I can find no substantial evidence to disprove this claim. Tzetzes does occasionally provide some apparently new elements, e.g. Hist. 5.831-5, where Tzetzes has invented the 'fact' that Sisyphos of Kos was Teukros' scribe; but these are trivial, and best understood as supplements partly through deduction, partly through Tzetzes' imagination. As Patzig shows, Tzetzes' copy of Malalas was somewhat fuller than 'Dindorf's Malalas'; he occasionally cites details that now survive only in the Eklogē historiōn or the Slavonic Malalas.
Some editions of the above texts provide cross-references to the others. Meister's (1872) edition of Septimius includes cross-references to 'Dindorf's Malalas'; Chennos (= 'Hephaestio'); Kedrenos; Tzetzes' Iliaka; the Uff. Tr.; Manasses; and a couple of parallels in Dares of Phrygia (but there is no reason to think Dares has any genetic relationship to Diktys). Eisenhut's ( 2 1973) edition of Septimius includes the full text of two papyri (PTeb. 268 and POxy. 2539, at 134-40); his preface gives no hint that other witnesses exist, though his apparatus occasionally cites the Byzantine testimony. For Malalas, both Jeffreys et al. (1986) and Thurn (2000)

Problems in Septimius Book 6
Septimius and the Byzantine sources sometimes present events in a different sequence. In at least one case, it is clear that a major difference is not the result of a change made by Septimius, but by Malalas (or else a source that Malalas copied, while later writers stuck closer to the original Diktys): Malalas transposes the episodes corresponding to the end of the Iliad and the Aithiopisthe deaths of Hektor, Penthesileia, Memnon and Achilleusto a late part of his narrative, related in flashback by Teukros to Neoptolemos after the war is over. 63 The biggest problems, however, are posed by Septimius Book 6, in large part becauseas Septimius himself informs us -Book 6 is not a translation but an epitome. Table 1 shows the sequence used for episodes corresponding to Sept. 5.15-6.15 in Septimius, Malalas, the Konst. exc., and Od. hyp. Numbers indicate an episode's position in the account: so, for example, in Kedrenos the sequence is a b l k m e g f h i j; in the Od. hyp. it is a b l k m p.
1. The Odyssey and Telegony. Malalas, Kedrenos, and the Od. hyp. present the Odyssey and Telegony narratives as a single continuous sequence, with the episodes in chronological order: a (b) l k m p. By contrast Septimius divides them into three separate chunks: Odysseus' departure from Troy (a b), his wanderings and return (k l m), and the Telegony (p).
In addition, Septimius frames Odysseus' wanderings up to Crete as an oral account given by Odysseus to Idomeneus (and transcribed by Diktys, who is of course present in Crete at the time); the narration to Idomeneus is modelled on the story to the Phaiakians in Odyssey 9-12. This kind of re-modelling of epic material is characteristic of Diktys, so there is no need to suppose that the flashback was added by Septimius. 2. The relationship between Malalas and Kedrenos. Although they are closer to each other than either is to Septimius, Kedrenos' account is not solely or even primarily based on Malalas. In the part of Diktys corresponding to Septimius 5.15-6.15, the clearest signs of independence are: (a) Kedrenos presents the Aithiopis narrative in its conventional place, as in Septimius. If Kedrenos were based on Malalas, we would have to suppose that he independently chose to undo Malalas' changes to the narrative sequence. (b) Kedrenos reports two pieces of Diktyean materialthe location of Hekabe's grave, and the fact that Idomeneus gave Odysseus fifty soldiers to go with him to Kerkyrathat Malalas omits. Kedrenos certainly must have used multiple sources; in these cases there is not even any particular reason to suppose that his immediate source was (ps.-?)John of Antioch. 64 See section 2 above, witness 5.
3. Orestes in Scythia; Neoptolemos in Phthia. The Latin and Byzantine versions diverge drastically in the later careers of Orestes and Neoptolemos. Septimius relates how Neoptolemos re-usurps his kingdom from Akastos using trickery (episode n), a story ultimately adapted from Euripides' Troades 1123-8; and the murder of Neoptolemos (episode o), adapted from Euripides' Andromache. Malalas-Kedrenos-Antioch present a narrative of Orestes' and Iphigeneia's meeting in Scythia, adapted from Euripides' Iphigeneia among the Taurians (episode i); 65 and a story of their subsequent travels, ultimately settling in Syria (episode j). Of these, episodes i and n o are Diktyean, and j is not. The Syrian narrative may come from Domninos, a lost writer on Antiochene history (especially architectural history?), whom Malalas cites (5.37) at the end of the Syrian episode in connection with a statue of Orestes near Antioch. 66 The strong Euripidean flavour of episodes i n o is evident earlier, too, in both the Septimian and Byzantine versions. Hekabe's burial at 'the Bitch's Grave' echoes Euripides' Hekabe 1265-74; Orestes' trial in Athens should be traced back to Apollo's commands in Euripides' Orestes 1643-52 (where Orestes is awarded Hermione as his wife, without the need to kill Neoptolemos first); and, to boot, Malalas expressly cites 64 Thus Roberto (2005a) CXXIV, following Patzig; except that both assign Malalas and John of Antioch equal influence on Kedrenos. 65 Malalas' account of this episode contains several quotations from Eur. IT, most verbatim, some garbled; Jeffreys (1990) 179 gives a list. 66 Similarly Patzig (1892) 144; on Domninos generally see Jeffreys (1990) 178-9. Bourier (1900) 21-2 suggests that not just the Syrian episode, but the entirety of Malalas' Trojan War narrative (5.1-37), is taken from Domninos, and that Domninos assembled it from Diktys and Sisyphos; Jeffreys (1990)  Euripides three times in the part of his account corresponding to Septimius' Book 6, but nowhere else in his account of the Trojan War. 67 There are several ways that episodes i (Diktyean, though not in Septimius) and j (pure Domninos) might have become joined in the Byzantine accounts. One possibility is that it is Domninos' doing: Domninos may have adapted episode i from elsewhere (either Euripides or Diktys) and joined it to j, an Antiochene local tradition. More important than any link, however, is the fact that the Syrian episode cannot be combined with episode o, which we find in Septimius. In Malalas-Kedrenos-Antioch, as in Euripides, Orestes departs for Scythia straight after his trial, goes from there to Syria without passing through Greece, and stays there permanently. The episode at Delphi cannot go either before or afterward. This incompatibility is the primary reason for the difference in content between Septimius and the Byzantine sources. 68 It turns out, therefore, that the real issue is not in the Byzantine sources but in Septimius: why does Septimius omit the Scythian episode, i? The answer is that this is one case where Septimius has reduced a substantial episode to the briefest of allusions. Recall that Septimius Book 6 is an epitome. Septimius 6.4, covering the end of Orestes' trial and his return to Mycenae, reads: 'Menestheus liberatum Orestem parricidii crimine purgatumque more patrio cunctis remediis, quae ad oblivionem huiusmodi facinoris adhiberi solita erant, Mycenas remittit.' 69 It seems that the underlined phrase conceals the entire Scythian episode; compare Malalas, who explicitly cites Diktys for his account of Orestes' trial (5.31) before Orestes is sent to Scythia for purification (5.32-34).
And they took Orestes away in the temple of Athena, in which the Areiopagos sat, and <Menestheus> heard the case . . . Diktys writes about these things in his sixth book. 67 Malalas cites an allegorical interpretation from one Pheidalios which he claims relates to Euripides' Kyklops (Malalas 5.18 = BNJ 30 F 1), though it does not match that play at all (see further Jeffreys (1990) 189; Gainsford (2011) 99-100); he cites Euripides for the Iphigeneia narrative (5.33); and he ends his Trojan War narrative with a bewildering note about Euripides basing his plays on choruses that 'Themis', 'Minos', and 'Auleas' wrote just after Troy fell (5.38). Note that Malalas 4.19 also links Domninos to Euripides, for the story of Phaidra. 68 Note, incidentally, that this implies that all the major Byzantine sources are drawing ultimately on Domninos as well as Diktys.
There may yet be life in Bourier's suggestion (n. 66 above).
69 'Orestes was acquitted of the charge of parricide, then purified according to ancestral custom using all the means that were in use for erasing this type of crime, and then Menestheus sent him to Mycenae.' that is, the sixth book of the original Diktys, not Septimius' sixth book, which is an epitome of several books. Here Malalas shows that the trial belongs at an early point in the last books of Diktys. And early is exactly where Septimius puts it. If the original Diktys had the trial in the place Malalas and Kedrenos put itafter the Odyssey and Telegony narrativesit could not possibly appear as soon as Book 6. Therefore Septimius' narrative sequence is confirmed, with the exception of one big omission (the Iphigeneia among the Taurians story, discussed above, probably to be assigned to Book 7 of the Greek Diktys). Without Malalas' testimony, there would have been nothing to help decide which sequence is the original.
Septimius' reliability in comparison with Malalas is again corroborated, this time in respect to the placement of the Aithiopis narrative, by PTeb. 268,95-106, where Neoptolemos arrives at Troy immediately after Achilleus' death (≈ Sept. 4.12); Malalas never in fact gets around to narrating Neoptolemos' arrival, and places his account of Achilleus' death inside a flashback (Malalas 5.28). Malalas' transposition of the Aithiopis narrative is probably his own doing; if he had copied it from Domninos, we should expect to see the same transposition in Kedrenos. 70 Septimius is not always perfectly accurate. One of the new papyri illustrates a case where Septimius has definitely mistranslated his source, as Hatzilambrou and Obbink point out in their editio princeps. POxy. 4944 preserves fragments of the end of the war corresponding to episodes a b c d; so far, so good for Septimius. However, the papyrus unequivocally sides with Kedrenos and the Od. hyp. in the location of Hekabe's tomb. In Diktys Hekabe accompanies Odysseus on his departure, is killed by his men, and is buried at 'the Bitch's Grave' in Maroneia; in Septimius she is killed by the Greek army back at Troy, and 'the Bitch's Grave' is located at Abydos in the Troad. 71 The relevant parallel passages are: POxy. 4944 fr. 1,9-21;≈ Sept. 5.15-16;≈ Kedrenos 232,11-16;≈ Od. hyp. 4,4-9 (= Souda κ.2722). 72 Septimius accurately preserves the original's reference to Hekabe's tongue as the reason for the place name (Diktys: [κυ]|νόγλωϲϲον; Septimius: linguae protervam impudentemque petulantiam), and the close connection between the Palladion's fate and Odysseus' departure. But he has misread the relationship between Odysseus' departure and Hekabe's death. This may be because he was more familiar with a location for her grave in the Troad, 73 and presumed that the Greek text was in error; but perhaps also he was put off by the fact that the original is really not very clear about Hekabe travelling with Odysseus, and that, after this episode, the narrative returns to the Greek fleet back at Troy (POxy. 4944 fr. 1,21-92).
70 Malalas cites Sisyphos of Kos at the end of the flashback, which has led many scholars to interpret the transposition as Sisyphos' doing (Malalas 5.29, = BNJ 50 F 1). That is unlikely; see section 4 below. 71 Noted by Hatzilambrou and Obbink (2009)

The
Odyssey hypothesis and the 'Johannine constellation'. As indicated in section 2, the Od. hyp. should not be linked to John of Antioch. Patzig (1893) 423-4 assigned it to John on the basis of a cluster of parallels in Kedrenos involving other texts in the constellation, and the assignment has not been questioned since. Patzig was right not to base his assignment on similarity in content, since that can be fully explained by common derivation from Diktys. But Kedrenos (or rather ps.-Symeon) used multiple sources, so Patzig's actual argument is not conclusive either. There are three other potential arguments for assigning it to John. (1) There is no other known candidate to which the Od. hyp. can be assigned; however, that is an argument ex silentio.
(2) Two Souda articles overlap with the Od. hyp., with nearly identical wording, and the same is true of the overlap between two other Souda articles and the Vienn. Tr. However, there is no likelihood that the relevant Souda articles all come from a single source. (3) There is one unique parallel in content between the Od hyp. and the Salm. exc. II: both name Kalypso as the priestess of Selene, a detail that is very probably Diktyean but appears nowhere else. 74 This last is the firmest link, though it should be remembered that the Salm. exc. II itself has only infirm links to the Konst. exc. and Vienn. Tr.
The Od. hyp. covers the same ground as Souda π.34, to be sure; but similarity of content is no guide. Its wording is equally close to Kedrenos: note ἀδήλως ἐσwάγη/σwάζɛται (ὁ) Αἴας; the use of στάσις and ἐμwύλιον; the reference to the morning; and so on.
There is nothing to link the Od. hyp. to Souda π.34; so there is no good link to the Johannine constellation either. Undoubtedly Souda π.34, the Od. hyp., and Kedrenos have a common source. But the Od. hyp. is more likely to be cognate with John of Antioch than descended from him. The parallels with Kedrenos are extensive elsewhere too, so it is likely that the Od. hyp. is an extract from one of Kedrenos' lost sources. For this reason Figure 1 (p. 66, above), shows the Od. hyp. as descended from a lost intermediary, β (independent evidence had already indicated β's existence). 75

The Sisyphosfrage
The relationship between Diktys and Sisyphos is an open question, and has an impact on how far we can rely on the Byzantine sources to reproduce Diktys faithfully. Three passages in Malalas cite Sisyphos as an eyewitness account of the Trojan War, sometimes side-by-side with Diktys, sometimes separately: Sisyphos' identity, 76 but it must be rejected as a spurious invention by Tzetzes (see section 2, witness 10, above). At first glance it seems that Sisyphos must have been another, separate, pseudodocumentary account of the Trojan War. The trouble is that the above episodesincluding the one that Malalas attributes only to Sisyphosnot only appear in Septimius, but their content is identical to Septimius' version. It therefore looks as though Diktys was the real source; or as though Sisyphos and Diktys were virtually identical texts. 77 Late 1800s and early 1900s scholarship on Byzantine Quellenkritik saw a vigorous but unrewarding controversy on the relationship between Diktys and Sisyphos. Griffin ably summarises the debate. 78 Haupt thought Diktys and Sisyphos were two separate chronicles, and that Malalas' catalogues and descriptions of the heroes came from Sisyphos, while most of the rest came from Diktys. Patzig thought that Sisyphos' chronicle comprised only the episodes that Malalas expressly ascribed to him, and that Diktys was a re-written and expanded form of Sisyphos. Noack thought the reverse: Diktys was the original, and Sisyphos a revised version done in late antiquity. Greif thought that Sisyphos was the only name that had ever been associated with the Greek version, and that all Byzantine references to 'Diktys' were in fact to the Latin version. Gleye followed Noack; Fürst restated Haupt's case; Griffin thought, like Haupt, that Diktys and Sisyphos were two separate texts, but followed Patzig in confining Sisyphos to the episodes assigned to him by Malalas. Most recently Dowden and Kamen assume, with Noack, that Sisyphos is a revised version of Diktys; but, with Patzig, that only the episodes Malalas explicitly ascribes to Sisyphos are Sisyphean.
Haupt's and Fürst's idea that the two are independent novelisations can be dismissed straightaway: as indicated above, the very episodes that Malalas ascribes to Sisyphos are unquestionably Diktyean. Greif's view has been disproved once and for all by the publication of POxy. 4944, where the Greek text expressly names 'Diktys' as its author. Then we have Patzig's and Noack's mirror-image views: Sisyphos is a revised form of Diktys, or vice versa. These views are at least possible. But the evidence on which we might choose between them is riddled with problems; and the stemmas they imply have become deeply problematic since the recent revival of the debate over John of Antioch. Any stemma for Diktys has to give a central role to John; if there are problems with John, there are problems with Diktys too. Griffin and Dowden consider that only the episodes explicitly ascribed to Sisyphos are Sisyphean, and for them this is especially important in regard to the transposition of the Aithiopis narrative, told by Teukros to Neoptolemos, and 76 Kamen (no date) s.v. 'Biographical Essay'. 77 Cf. Dowden (no date, a) on BNJ 49 F 6: 'it can be seen that Sisyphos is using Diktys so closely that he himself is a source for Diktys'. Dowden interprets the transposition of the Aithiopis narrative (Malalas 5.23-29) as Sisyphos' doing, not Malalas'. 78 Griffin (1907) 60-81 documents the views reported here in more detail, and with bibliography. To them add Gleye (1896) 458;Fürst (1901) 244-50. In more recent scholarship see Jeffreys (1990)  at the end of which Malalas (5.29) cites Sisyphos. 79 Griffin's stemma, (1907) 104, relies on this to distinguish texts that cite Sisyphosthe Malalean branch of his stemmafrom the others. The ascription of the Aithiopis episode to Sisyphos ties in with the fact that Sisyphos, as a soldier serving under Teukros, could have been present at the conversation between Teukros and Neoptolemos. There are three difficult questions to consider in connection with the Sisyphosfrage: (1) Why do we find Sisyphos associated only with material corresponding to Septimius Book 6? (2) If Malalas 5.17-18, 5.19, and 5.23-29 are indeed from Sisyphos, then why does he also cite Diktys for two of these episodes? (3) Suppose for a moment, with Patzig and Dowden, that the Aithiopis transposition in Malalas (5.23-29) is indeed Sisyphos' doing; this episode, with Teukros playing a central part, is after all the one most clearly connected to Sisyphos. But then why do we not also find it transposed in any later sources that make use of Malalas? Did every writer other than Malalas have access to a pre-Sisyphean redaction? Or did they each independently choose to undo Sisyphos' structuring of the narrative?
As things stand only Patzig has an answer to any of these questions: for him, Sisyphossupposedly the original textonly ever contained material corresponding to Malalas 5.15-29 (Odysseus' return, plus the Aithiopis as narrated by Teukros); Malalas cites Diktys alongside Sisyphos because Diktys' account of this part of the narrative must have contained references to the Sisyphean original. However, there is no getting around the fact that the only Diktyean sources to corroborate Malalas' story, that Diktys was based on Sisyphos, are themselves based on Malalas.
Much of the argument is caused by the fact that Malalas treats 'Diktys' and 'Sisyphos' as though they were historical individuals. We, his more sceptical readers, do not follow him in that, but we are nonetheless inclined to treat them as historical texts. But they are neither; they are fictional personae. That being so, there are two further alternatives.
Option one: Sisyphos was only ever a figment of Malalas' imagination; or at best, Malalas has garbled the 'real' Sisyphos so badly that his citations are meaningless. If this is the case, then the relevant material should in fact be traced back to Diktys. This sounds a desperate solution to the Sisyphosfrage, but Malalas actually has a rather poor track record in this respect. The most thorough investigation of Malalas' sources, that of Jeffreys (1990) 170-2, points out that he could not have personally known all the sources that he cites; and from Jeffreys' treatment Treadgold (2007b) 724-5 extracts five names that are so badly garbled that Malalas' citations must be considered simply wrong. 80 Treadgold even suggests that 79 Griffin (1907)  Malalas was intentionally fraudulent; that is a step too far, but the fact remains that Malalas' citations are untrustworthy. Option two: abandon the assumption that either fictional name refers to an actual text, and treat both Diktys and Sisyphos as fictional personae within a single Ephemeris. Jeffreys, summarising Noack's view, writes: 'It looks as though the fictitious diaries of Diktys were recast from Teukros' stand-point by the equally fictitious Sisyphos and this version then used by Malalas.' 81 This highlights the absurdity of the situation: if Diktys and Sisyphos are both fictional, why assume that the recasting is real? We are dealing with a work of fiction, one that even comes with a pseudo-documentary frame-story. Everything we are looking at is a fictional construct. It is perfectly possible that we do not have different texts to deal with, nor even different recensions of one text; but one real text, two fictional sources. This is not, as in Greif's argument, a matter of different Byzantine witnesses attaching two different names to a single text. Rather, the suggestion is the Ephemeris is a story told by both 'Diktys' and 'Sisyphos' as pseudo-documentary 'authors'; or, more likely, that Sisyphos is a pseudo-documentary source that Diktys cited. Several stories in Septimius Book 6 are second-hand reports: Menelaos and Orestes report the Oresteia story on a visit to Crete, after Orestes' return from Scythia (Sept. 6.4); Odysseus reports the first part of his wanderings, also while visiting Crete (Sept. 6.5); Diktys hears the story of Neoptolemos' homecoming while attending his wedding (Sept. 6.10). There may be more that Septimius omitted. Based on the same material, Malalas could easily cite 'Sisyphos' as a source on an equal footing with 'Diktys'. For both Septimius and the Byzantines, the pseudo-documentary character of the frame-story obscured the separation between real and fictional sources. We know better; but that does not mean treating the Quellenkritik of the Ephemeris as though it were a history. Instead, we must recognise that the pseudodocumentary character of the Ephemeris is a fundamental and essential feature of the text.
Griffin outlines three possible stemmas for the Sisyphos question; in fact we have five to choose from, shown in Figure 2. The reconstructions that I propose, stemmas 4 and 5, are speculative, but then with the evidence we have it is impossible to avoid speculation. Stemma 4 has at least the virtue of conforming with known characteristics of Malalas' practice; stemma 5 works with the pseudo-documentary nature of the Ephemeris rather than ignoring it. Both also have the merits of explaining why Malalas conflates the two 'authors', and why he attributes to one author what we can plainly see belongs to the other.
Both options also come with problems. With stemma 4, the problem is that it is intrinsically unprovable. This is frustrating, but it does not mean that it should be rejected. With stemma 5, the main problem is that there is no tidy explanation for why there is no shred of evidence outside Malalas for Diktys' use of Sisyphos (stemma 2 also shares this problem). Another, lesser, problem is that Diktys attributes the story of Teukros founding a city in Cyprus to Menelaos (Sept. 6.4); that, if anything, ought to 81 Jeffreys (1990) 177. have been heard from Sisyphos. On balance, stemma 4 presents fewer problems, and I suspect it is more likely.
The actual existence of a separate chronicle of 'Sisyphos of Kos' cannot be decisively ruled out, but Malalas' testimony in favour of it is weak. Even if it could be demonstrated that 'Sisyphos' had existed, there would still be gaps in our knowledge. There are open questions about the source(s) from which Malalas and John of Antioch adapted their accounts; the differences between them are big enough that an intermediate post-Diktyean recension seems indicated, as Noack (1892) argued. In passing we have looked at one candidate for such a recension: Bourier's theory that Domninos was the source for Malalas' entire Trojan War narrative has problems, but cannot be ruled out. 82 Another candidate has recently been proposed, Eustathios of Epiphaneia, another lost historian that Malalas cites in the proem to his Chronographia; Treadgold argues that most of Malalas and much of John of Antioch is copied from Eustathios. 83 Treadgold's suggestion rests on indirect argumentation, however, and has been poorly received by Byzantinists. 84 Diktyean scholarship is not exactly a hot topic, but basic errors can at least be averted. The most fundamental error is to equate 'Diktys' with Septimius' Latin version. Several episodes that Septimius elides or ignores are reported in detail in Byzantine sources: the youth of Paris; the descriptions of the Greeks and Trojans; much of Septimius Book 6. The Latin text is not the be-all and end-all, and it would be misrepresenting Diktys to pretend that it was.