Reconsidering Authorship in the Ciceronian Corpus through Computational Authorship Attribution

  • Raija Vainio University of Jyväskylä, Finland
  • Reima Välimäki Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
  • Anni Hella Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
  • Marjo Kaartinen Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
  • Teemu Immonen Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
  • Aleksi Vesanto Department of Future Technologies, University of Turku, Finland
  • Filip Ginter Department of Future Technologies, University of Turku, Finland

Abstract

In recent years, methods of computational authorship attribution have offered promising results for the reattribution of classical texts. We use and further develop these methods to verify the authorship of several texts belonging or related to the Ciceronian corpus: Rhetorica ad C. Herennium, De inventione, De optimo genere oratorum, and Commentariolum petitionis. We use two classifiers, Support Vector Machine and Convolutional Neural Network, of which the latter is more accurate except in regard to certain aspects of vocabulary. The most important of our results is that Commentariolum petitionis seems to be authored by Marcus Cicero, not by his brother Quintus.

 

Negli ultimi anni metodi computazionali di attribuzione autoriale hanno offerto risultati promettenti nel definire la paternità dei testi classici. Abbiamo usato e affinato tali metodi al fine di verificare l’autore di alcuni testi che appartengono o afferiscono al corpus ciceroniano, quali la Rhetorica ad C. Herennium, il De inventione, il De optimo genere oratorum, il Commentariolum petitionis. Sono stati adoperati due classificatori, la macchina a vettori di supporto e il Convolutional Neural Network. Quest’ultimo è risultato il metodo più accurato, fatta eccezione per alcuni aspetti di lessico. Tra i risultati conseguiti il più importante riguarda la paternità del Commentariolum petitionis, il cui autore sembra essere stato Marco Tullio Cicerone, anziché suo fratello Quinto. 

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Author Biographies

Raija Vainio, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Dr. Raija Vainio (raija.s.vainio@jyu.fi) is lecturer in Latin language at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. 

Reima Välimäki, Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Dr. Reima Välimäki, Anni Hella, MA, Professor Marjo Kaartinen, and Dr. Teemu Immonen are members of staff at the department of Cultural history. 

Anni Hella, Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Dr. Reima Välimäki, Anni Hella, MA, Professor Marjo Kaartinen, and Dr. Teemu Immonen are members of staff at the department of Cultural history. 

Marjo Kaartinen, Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Dr. Reima Välimäki, Anni Hella, MA, Professor Marjo Kaartinen, and Dr. Teemu Immonen are members of staff at the department of Cultural history. 

Teemu Immonen, Department of Cultural history, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Dr. Reima Välimäki, Anni Hella, MA, Professor Marjo Kaartinen, and Dr. Teemu Immonen are members of staff at the department of Cultural history. 

Aleksi Vesanto, Department of Future Technologies, University of Turku, Finland

Aleksi Vesanto and Professor Filip Ginter are members of staff at the department of Future Technologies at the University of Turku, Finland.

Filip Ginter, Department of Future Technologies, University of Turku, Finland

Aleksi Vesanto and Professor Filip Ginter are members of staff at the department of Future Technologies at the University of Turku, Finland.

Published
2019-07-15
How to Cite
Vainio, R., Välimäki, R., Hella, A., Kaartinen, M., Immonen, T., Vesanto, A., & Ginter, F. (2019). Reconsidering Authorship in the Ciceronian Corpus through Computational Authorship Attribution. Ciceroniana On Line, 3(1), 15-48. https://doi.org/10.13135/2532-5353/3518