To conquer a papyrus as a castle through an adverb: Linguistic traces of Caecilius Statius in a burnt papyrus from Herculanum and Horace

Abstract

Abstract Conceiving of a burnt papyrus from Herculanum as a medieval castle requires finding some keys for entry into this castle, though such a competent scholar as Marcello Gigante (1979: 75) classified this papyrus (Herc.78) as ‘illeggibile’. Thanks, however, to the photographic method employed by colleagues from Brigham Young University in Utah, who used some technical tools borrowed from the NASA program, this inaccessibility has been partially overcome. Nevertheless, the use of some tools beyond the scriptum, i.e. some external tools, is unavoidable. Already in the title two parts of my paper are distinguished as keys to entering the castle, as I said, namely some references to Horace and another one concerning the castle, i.e. a burnt papyrus from Herculanum (Herc. 78) where one can suppose, and in particular Knut Kleve supposed, that Caecilius Statius’ Comedy Foenerator seu Obolostates is held. As for me, before I was persuaded that this comedy was actually contained in such a burnt papyrus, I have now reduced my conviction to a hypothesis, though a very probable hypothesis as we shall see. I begin with Horace.