Obscuritas as a discursive strategy in two Late-Antique commentaries: Macrobius and Calcidius

Abstract

The commentary as a discursive genre may be described as a textual space of cultural encounter. In order to enter the static cultural space laid down by the original text and make it dynamic, the commentator must build up his own auctoritas. Macrobius’s Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis and Calcidius’s Commentarius in Timaeum are interesting examples of these textual spaces. This article focuses on the way both commentators have resorted to obscuritas as a discursive strategy, so as to have access to the textual space and shape their identities as readers, philosophers and writers.