Il grammatico Cometa e i codici di Omero: per la storia dell’insegnamento «superiore» a Costantinopoli nel secolo IX (Anthologia Palatina, XV 38)

The three book epigrams by the grammarian Cometas, which are preserved in the Anthologia Palatina (XV 36–38), provide significant evidence regarding the transmission of the Iliad and the Odyssey in the mid-9th century. Epigram XV 38 in particular allows us to reconstruct the three phases of Cometas' work on the two Homeric poems. 1. He identified (two) late antique manuscripts in majuscule script, which he punctuated and corrected. The verb διασμιλεύω should be understood in this context, referring to the grammarian's work as a surgeon operating on the text with a scalpel (in fact, a diorthosis). 2. He prepared new, corrected, and punctuated copies. 3. Cometas’ students wrote copies (probably partial) deriving them from these antigraphs. Cometas' activity thus aligns perfectly with the most appropriate role for a grammarian within a school, in this case that of the Magnaura: teaching Homer using a corrected text.