Over the next month, I will be editing the text of Persius’ Satires for this site, with a select apparatus criticus containing a few of my own conjectures and an original selection of older readings. These will be expounded, along with some new interpretations, in accompanying on-line adversaria. There is no need for a full commentary: Persius is well-provided with those, most notably Walter Kißel’s huge one (Heidelberg, 1990). I therefore plan to comment only where I have something new to say, or something new to ask: there are many passages where I have questions but no answers, or only partial answers, and hope that others will be able to help nail down convincing solutions. Ordinary blog software with a comment function should suffice to allow something very like an on-line seminar.
Tomorrow I will post more on the whys and hows of this project. Starting Monday, I will edit and upload roughly 25 lines of text and apparatus per day, with however many separate notes are needed to support my more original or controversial decisions, or to seek help in the many cases where I am still unsure. The last two Persius posts each day will be open posts, where readers will be invited to (a) propound their own ideas (problems or solutions) on issues I haven’t written about, and (b) offer corrections and comments on minor issues (typographical errors, formatting issues, bibliographic omissions, and such).
At that rate, the job will be done on the Ides of March, one month from today. I will be going out of the country for a week or so soon after that, so it will be a good time for a break. If the Persius project works out well, I will start another author or two at the beginning of April.
