This book offers a new critical edition, as well as the first commentary devoted exclusively to Theocritus’ Idyll 16, entitled Charites or Hieron according to the manuscript tradition. The poem is of fundamental importance not only because it can be partially traced back to the courtly sphere (it has several points of contact with Theocritus’ Idyll 17, the Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus), but also because it reflects on the value of the poetry and of the poet during the Hellenistic age, seen in their relationship to the preceding literary tradition and to the patron.

The volume contains an extensive introduction, the critical text followed by the Italian translation, and a detailed commentary on the Idyll. The introduction addresses issues on the dating of the poem and its likely historical context, as well as an analysis of genre, themes and contextualization of the Idyll within the Theocritean and Hellenistic poetry; it also explores style, language, meter, and the manuscript tradition of the poem in relation to the other Idylls of the Theocritean corpus. The detailed commentary ad verbum focuses on philological, linguistic, literary and stylistic aspects of the work.