Spigolature stesicoree

The paper focuses on three problems concerning Stesichorus’ biography: 1) the tradition that puts his place of birth in Mataurus (contrasting the vulgata that calls him ‘Himeraean’), which enjoys the favour of most modern scholars, deserves a more cautious approach, since it is not above the suspicion of being a forgery due to the attempt of attracting the figure of the poet into the realm of Southern Italy Pythagorianism; at any rate, the forms Mataurus and Matauria should be regarded as variants of Metaurus/-um; 2) the name ‘Stesichorus’ probably does not mean ‘the man who establishes the chorus’ and the like, but ‘chorus-animator’, i.e. one who ‘puts into being’ the song and/or dance of the chorus through living performance, that is, by singing and playing the lyre; 3) the alleged epitaph of the poet given by Ferreti and Kleine in Latin translation is first attested in Ottavio D’Arcangelo’s history of Catania, and is very likely to be a falsification by D’Arcangelo himself.