La falsa biografía de Nono por el Pseudo Demetrio y las ficciones hisróricas

Abstract

Nonnus of Panopolis, the great late antique epic poet to whom the Dionysiaca and the Paraphrase to the Gospel of St. John are attributed, is little more than a name for us. Despite recent attempts of identification, his life remains a mystery and his works, seemingly contra-dictory, still exert considerable interest and fascination. Only a great nineteenth-century forger, Constantine Simonides, was able to shed some light, in his way, on the life of this poet. This forger, who duped the well-known German philologist K.W. Dindorf, almost convinced the Nonnus' nineteenth-century editor, the Comte de Marcellus, of the authenticity of a fake biography of Nonnus. Some later recreations of Nonnus' life in the European Novel shall be added to the study of this episode.