Richard HunterOn Coming After

Part 1

≥

Trends in Classics -Supplementary Volumes

Edited byFranco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos

Scientific CommitteeAlberto Bernabe · Margarethe Billerbeck · Claude Calame

Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen HindsRichard Hunter · Christina Kraus · Giuseppe MastromarcoGregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone

Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 3/1

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

On Coming AfterStudies in Post-Classical Greek Literature

and its Reception

by

Richard Hunter

Part 1Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

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Contents

Part 1

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IXIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1On Coming After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

1. Apollo and the Argonauts: Two notes on Ap. Rhod. 2, 669–719 29

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica . . . . . . . . 42

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

4. Winged Callimachus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius . . . . 95

7. Callimachus and Heraclitus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

8. Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn toAthena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

9. Written in the Stars: Poetry and Philosophy in the Phainomenaof Aratus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

12. Plautus and Herodas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonis v. 55 . . . . 229

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica . . . . . . . . . . 257

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme . . . . . . . . . . . 311

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus . . . . . . . . . . 326

20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

21. Virgil and Theocritus: A Note on the Reception of theEncomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] . . . . . 384

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns ofCallimachus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . 470

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 503

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9–12 revisited . . . . . . . . 523

29. The Reputation of Callimachus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality . . . . . . . 559

ContentsVI

Part 2

Comedy and Performance

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original . . . . . . . . . . . 612

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus . . . . . . . . . . . 627

35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance . . . . 643

36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary . . . . . . . . . . . 663

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? . . . . . . . . . . 681

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius . 700

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenisticpoetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

The Ancient Novel

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton . . . . . . 737

41. Longus and Plato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775

42. Growing up in the ancient novels: a response . . . . . . . . . . . . 790

43. The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond interpretation? . . . . . . 804

44. ‘Philip the Philosopher’ on the Aithiopika of Heliodorus . . . 829

45. Plato’s Symposium and the traditions of ancient fiction . . . . . 845

46. Isis and the Language of Aesop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867

Contents VII

47. The curious incident …: polypragmosyne and the ancient novel 884

General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897Passages Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902

ContentsVIII

Preface

A collection such as this probably requires an apology more than aPreface, but I hope that the bringing together of these pieces fromthe last thirty years will at least be found useful by students of ancientliterature. The remarkable recent growth of collected volumes, ‘com-panions’, and conference papers perhaps gives volumes such as thismore justification than some may have had in the past. I have resistedthe temptation to revise (contenting myself with a few addenda andthe up-dating of some references), even where the follies of past yearsseemed to demand correction, in part because, once started on the proc-ess of revision, ‘where do you stop?’ becomes an ever more insistentquestion. In particular, it should be noted that the bibliographical andeditorial conventions of the original publications (including the spellingof ancient names) have been very largely preserved.

This book would never have appeared without the remarkable andselfless labours of Antonios Rengakos, one of the Editors of Trends inClassics, and Evangelos Karakasis, both of who advised, scanned, editedand corrected with apparently indefatigable, and extraordinarily cheer-ful, carefulness; I am very much in the debt of these two friends,whose work on this project I have found very moving. I am also verygrateful to Sabine Vogt of Walter de Gruyter Verlag for her supportand encouragement at every stage, and to the editors and publishersof the original articles for the permission to reprint them here.

Introduction

The papers collected in this volume fall broadly into four, certainly notwholly discrete, areas: Greek and Roman comedy and performance tra-ditions after the fifth century, Hellenistic poetry and its reception atRome, the Greek poetry of the Roman empire, and the ancientnovel. These four areas of ancient literature have enjoyed different levelsof interest in the last decades.

The study of Greek comedy after Aristophanes has in many respectsmade significant recent advances.1 After the excitement of the publica-tion of Menander’s Dyskolos in 1958 new papyri of Menander and (?)Menander have continued to accumulate, so that some long familiarplays, such as the Epitrepontes, are better known to us now than theywere even just a decade ago, and our overall picture of Menander’sart grows ever more rounded; Geoffrey Arnott’s three-volume Loebof 1979–2000 allowed new generations of students usable access to‘the new Menander’, specialists are increasingly well served by com-mentaries (mostly, however, in languages other than English), andColin Austin’s new OCT is eagerly awaited. Moreover, the monumen-tal Poetae Comici Graeci of Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin has made thefragments of all Greek comedy ‘readable’ in a way they simply were notbefore, and individual studies, such as Geoffrey Arnott’s commentary onthe fragments of Alexis, have at least given ‘Middle Comedy’ a recog-nisable shape, however deep our ignorance remains. There is now a se-cure enough base in place to move from textual recovery to interpreta-tion.

My impression, however, is that operations have stalled. Certainlandmarks stand out, such as David Wiles’ The Masks of Menander (Cam-bridge 1991), and articles devoted to Menander still of course appearregularly, but I have no real sense of an academic community pushinghard at these plays and fragments to see what light they can shed, notjust on theatrical and textual practice, but on Athenian society, its ideo-

1 For a concise recent bibliographical guide to ancient comedy as a whole (withsomething of a bias towards Anglophone scholarship) cf. N.J. Lowe, Comedy(Cambridge 2008).

logical assumptions and its modes of thinking; Susan Lape’s ReproducingAthens (Princeton 2004) is a reasonably isolated attempt to find a morelayered socio-political context for these plays. A large conference I re-cently attended in Greece on ‘Space and Time in the Ancient Theatre’(admittedly, not a scientifically conducted experiment) yielded not asingle paper on Menander out of more than fifty presentations. Perhapsthere is a feeling that we already know all there is to be known aboutMenander and that new texts merely confirm this – ‘surprises’ are nolonger really surprising. Unlike the Attic tragedy of the fifth century,furthermore, these are not plays which issue a hermeneutic challenge,which both dramatise the process of interpretation and demand anequally questioning response. Moreover, the relation between the sub-stance of the plays and the society which gave them their context seemsless angular and open to contestation than in the case of Aristophanes;these plays can go down without touching the sides. Perhaps, in fact, weare living through a period of neo-Plutarchanism (cf. the Comparison ofAristophanes and Menander), which is, paradoxically, doing Menander nofavours.2

The current relative neglect of the literary study of Plautus is, inmany respects, even more of a puzzle, if only because of the abundanceof textual material with which to work. Some years ago I mused on whymodern scholarship, particularly Anglophone scholarship, seemed moreor less to have given up on Plautus;3 this battlefield – by some way thelargest body of Republican poetry which we possess – has long sincebeen largely left to Germans and Italians to dispute, though some signif-icant American interventions in recent years have begun to reclaim bitsof territory. I exaggerate of course, but it is one of the most remarkablefacts of recent Classics publishing that we had to wait until 2007 for anEnglish translation of Fraenkel’s Plautinisches im Plautus/Elementi Plauti-ni, and it finally came from the polyglot heart of Australia.4 In particular,the question at the heart of Fraenkel’s book, to which two of the essaysin this present volume are devoted, of the relation between Plautine

2 On Plutarch’s essay cf. Chapter 3 of Critical Moments in Classical Literature (Cam-bridge, forthcoming).

3 Review of E. Lefèvre, E. Stärk, G. Vogt-Spira (eds.), Plautus barbarus. Sechs Ka-pitel zur Originalit�t des Plautus (Tübingen 1991) in N.W. Slater and B. Zimmer-mann (eds.), Intertexualit�t in der griechisch-rçmischen Komçdie (Stuttgart) = Drama2: 235–7.

4 Plautine Elements in Plautus, trans. T. Drevikovsky and F. Muecke, Oxford2007.

Introduction2

plays and their Greek originals, a question taken in thought-provoking,though utterly different, directions in the last decades by Otto Zwierleinand Eckard Lefèvre and his colleagues,5 no longer really registers on themap of scholarly interests, though Plautine stagecraft and theatricalitycontinue to attract significant contributions.6 ‘Certainty’ concerningthe relationship between Menandrean and Plautine scripts can of courseonly be reached in very exceptional cases, such as that of Menander’sDis Exapaton and Plautus’ Bacchides, but this general field deals in prob-abilities no more than many areas of literary study and it has the greatvirtue of forcing us to pay very close attention to the particularities ofboth Greek and Roman texts and thus to learn a great deal about therespective modes of thought and the representation of those modes inlanguage; as such, the disrepair into which it has fallen may both surpriseand disappoint.

There are, nevertheless, some obvious reasons for the current rela-tively undernourished state of Plautine studies, particularly in the An-glophone academy: the Latin is hard, the metre (ut dicitur) is even hard-er, the text is in a difficult state and one does not have to adopt a posi-tion towards that of Zwierlein to recognise that it poses all kinds ofproblems of interpolation; moreover, for most of the plays, we lackthe detailed historical context which we enjoy for later periods, thoughMatthew Leigh’s Comedy and the Rise of Rome (Oxford 2004) representsan innovative attempt to move the argument on. It is true that for someproblems – such as the still naggingly fascinating question of the originand affiliations of the cantica – we lack the evidence necessary to movetowards a solution (or, at least, one which will command assent), but Isuspect that we cannot fall back on such excuses. We live in a post-Ovi-dian age: is there now something faintly embarrassing in, particularlyBritish and American, academic circles about devoting one’s time to aliterary form which apparently glories in its transparency, farcical qual-ities and broad, popular appeal? The modern turn to ars has left Plautusbehind, as surely as did the ancient. ‘Neo-Plutarchanism’ thus damagesPlautus, here cast as the vulgar ‘Aristophanes’, no less than it doesMenander.

5 Some guidance in my ’Bibliographical Appendix’ to the reprinting of G. Duck-worth, The Nature of Roman Comedy (Princeton 1952, London 1994), and cf.also Lowe (n.1 above) 112–14.

6 Cf., e. g., T.J. Moore, The Theater of Plautus (Austin 1998), C.W. Marshall, TheStagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (Cambridge 2006).

Introduction 3

This pessimism about the study of comedy is, I hope, unnecessarilyextreme (and I am aware that the picture of Classics in the UK weighsdisproportionately on my mind), but – from the outside, at least – it mayseem that the modern turn to ars has been as beneficial for the study ofHellenistic poetry as it has encouraged the neglect of Plautus. The prin-cipal moments in the revolution in the study of Hellenistic poetry arefamiliar: Gow’s Theocritus, Pfeiffer’s Callimachus, the editions of epigramsby Gow and Page, Vian’s Budé Apollonius, the regular Hellenisticworkshops at Groningen inspired by Annette Harder, the SupplementumHellenisticum of Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Peter Parsons. The flood ofwork shows no sign of drying up, and Luigi Lehnus’ Teubner of Calli-machus and Annette Harder’s commentary on the Aitia are among themajor publications currently anticipated; surprises which could not havebeen anticipated, such as the ‘Milan Posidippus’, have opened the bib-liographical sluice gates even wider. What has emerged is not just therichness and variety of this poetry, and the study of Hellenistic poetrywritten after the golden Ptolemaic age is now beginning to benefitfrom such attention also, but also how different this poetry is in manyrespects from that of its Latin imitators. I do not think it is completelyunfair to say that ‘once upon a time’ a dominant scholarly discourse re-garded Hellenistic poetry, in as much as it did regard it, as Latin poetrywritten in Greek; such a view no longer, of course, requires rebuttal,but it is salutary, as well as pleasing, to remind ourselves every sooften how far we have come. That said, the study of Hellenistic poetrynow stands at something of a crossroads.

Most of Hellenistic poetry now enjoys serviceable, in some casesoutstanding, commentaries, though the gaps and the need for revisionis always with us; thus, new full-scale commentaries on (particularly)the first four Hymns of Callimachus and, in my judgement, on thefourth book of the Argonautica are important desiderata. Authors outsidethe ‘premier league’, such as Euphorion and Nicander, are receiving se-rious philological attention (Philitas has two recent commentaries to hiscredit), and each of the major epigrammatists is slowly being picked offfor the ‘commentary treatment’. Sensitive and scholarly monographs,both on individual authors and on themes which cut across authorsand genres, have been produced. Where to go from here? There will,of course, always be individual problems requiring attention, andsome large questions – such, for example, as the nature of Callimachus’Hymns and their relationship to Hellenistic religious practice, or, in aquite different domain, the differences between Hellenistic poetry and

Introduction4

its predecessors in the use of linguistic images and tropes – remain (per-haps surprisingly) under-investigated.7 Nevertheless, the fact that theworld of Hellenistic poetry looks quite different now than it did twen-ty-five years ago, as also (very pleasingly) the age-profile of those engag-ed with it has dropped considerably, has perhaps not really penetratedbeyond this engaged circle; both ‘sides’ may reasonably be thought tobe at fault here. What is needed is a raising of the eyes, so that Hellen-istic studies do not continue as a reasonably discrete, though now muchenriched, field, but are brought into the mainstream of Greek literarystudy and thus make a full contribution to our understanding, both syn-chronic and diachronic, of the ancient world. Both those principally en-gaged with archaic and classical literature and the ‘Hellenistic circle’have a responsibility to assist this process of cross-fertilisation. Thisdoes not, of course, simply mean something so banal as the hope thatmore people will work on Greek literature across the board (thoughthat of course would help), but it does mean that in areas such as(e. g.) myth, narrative and the representation of moral value, questions,methodologies and paradigms from one area may illuminate another. Itwould, presumably, be absurd, for example, for someone interested inGreek tragedy not also to take a serious professional interest inHomer, but it seems at least ‘not abnormal’ for students of tragedynot to follow with equal attention what is happening in, say, Hellenisticpoetry and the novel; the reverse is also, of course, true. Particularitiesand change over time must be respected, but it is hard to see how thoseparticularities and that change can be properly understood exceptthrough serious comparative study. There are, of course, the inevitableinstitutional pressures towards specialisation, but – at least as far as Hel-lenistic poetry is concerned – too widespread a yielding to those pres-sures will lead to the gradual withering of the current impetus in Hel-lenistic studies, so that ‘the usual suspects’ will start talking only to them-selves and the range of questions will become inevitably narrower, or atleast more and more predictable, and the answers less and less importantto everyone except those propounding them.

This is precisely the fate that ‘once upon a time’ threatened to engulfthe study of the ancient novel: an explosion of interest, itself of coursean interesting case-study in how the academy works, led to a feast of

7 For the latter cf. ‘Language and Interpretation in Greek Epigram’ in M. Baum-bach, A. Petrovic and I. Petrovic (eds.) Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram. Con-textualisation and Literarization (Cambridge 2008).

Introduction 5

publications and conferences and a genuine sense of intellectual excite-ment and adventure, followed, however, by the inevitable hangover anda sense of dulling repetitiveness and surfeit. Here too the dangers of nar-row over-specialisation were manifestly on view. If, however, there isroom for optimism, as I believe there is, this is in part the result ofthe sheer number of people interested in the ancient novel (the fourth‘International Conference on the Ancient Novel’ in Lisbon in July 2008offered some 280 papers), many of whom are able to set the particularissues of this field within the wider context of ancient literature and so-ciety as a whole. Optimism arises principally, however, from the factthat the need to study the novel within the context of the high andlater Roman empire and later antiquity more generally seems to havetaken a firm hold; in particular, there is fruitful work being done atthe interface of pagan and Christian narrative, so that ‘novel studies’are now making a real contribution to the wider study of antiquity.No student of ancient culture can afford to ignore the light that thesestudies have shed upon a whole range of central social and narratologicalissues, which have resonance far beyond the literature of the Romanempire; this is, of course, not to say that all those outside the ‘novel cir-cle’ are indeed taking sufficient notice of how far this subject has pro-gressed.

The situation of the Greek poetry of the Roman empire and lateantiquity might seem to be utterly different,8 but here too things canbe seen to be moving. The Budé Nonnus, under the general directionof Francis Vian, towers monumentally over the landscape, but othernew editions and a trickle of conferences (in Bordeaux on DionysiusPeriegetes,9 in Zurich on Quintus of Smyrna,10 in Cambridge on thefield in general11) suggest both a growing interest and a growing confi-dence that there is something there which it is worth being interestedin. The number of labourers in the vineyard, many of them Frenchor Italian, remains relatively small, but work of the highest quality isbeing produced. If it is unlikely that most of these poets, with the pos-

8 There is a helpful survey of the whole field (Greek and Latin) by Alan Camer-on, ‘Poetry and literary culture in late antiquity’ in S. Swain and M. Edwards(eds.), Approaching Late Antiquity (Oxford 2004) 327–54.

9 Cf. Revue des �tudes Anciennes 106 (2004).10 M. Baumbach & S. Bär (eds), Quintus Smyrnaeus: Transforming Homer in Second

Sophistic Epic (Berlin & New York, 2007).11 Cf. K. Carvounis and R. Hunter (eds.), Signs of Life? Studies in Later Greek

Hexameter Poetry (forthcoming).

Introduction6

sible exception of Nonnus, will ever become ‘popular’ (in any mean-ingful sense), there is at least the hope that they too, with all theyhave to teach us about ways of engaging with the past, will be seento be a proper part of ancient literary culture, and not just one moresmall, specialist interest.

‘Post-classical’ studies of all kinds have perhaps been the principalbeneficiary of the widening of ‘Classics’ as a discipline, but – as Ihave been constantly reminded while confronting my past in the prep-aration of this volume – there remains a very great deal to do, if we areto understand the literature of the ancients and what it has to teach us.

Introduction 7

On Coming After*

Vice-Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen:

There was a time, so it is said, when Inaugural Lectures were necessaryso that people could see what the new man – for they were always men– looked like; most present would never get another chance, certainlynot a second lecture. As with many such stories, facts ought not get inthe way: in the first years of the Chair which I now occupy, the holderwas in fact expected to lecture for a full hour five, subsequently reducedto four, times a week during terms and, except in times of plague, theLong Vacation – no regulations are laid down for the audience. If thatwere not enough, the first holder of this Chair under the new dispen-sation of 1546, Nicholas Carr, first of Pembroke and then of Trinity,was, so his biographer tells us, ‘obliged to resort to the practice of med-icine in order to maintain his wife and family, the stipend of the Greekprofessor being insufficient for that purpose’. Well, the infirm of Cam-bridge need not worry just yet – the shortage of doctors in the NHS isacute, but not perhaps that acute … If Carr’s sad financial plight speaksto us of continuity between past and present, the myth about InauguralLectures shows us how times have changed, perhaps for the better; aca-demic life is now such that it might be thought (though I would disa-gree) that we all see far too much of each other, in Tripos reform com-mittees, Faculty Boards and the other meta-discursive situations of thislife. Be that as it may, the bright optimism of the term ‘Inaugural’ con-ceals the painful truth that such occasions, for both lecturer and audi-ence, are really about dealing with the weight of a hallowed past andhoping that the present is not as grim as it might appear; there is an al-most inevitable element of navel-gazing to such gatherings – how onearth did we reach this situation? Most Inaugurals, alas, also imply a pre-vious retirement and thus carry a sense of closure, bringing with it thefear (or is it hope?) of radical change, and a temptation, which in thepast has not always been unjustified, to see the whole fortune of a sub-ject as embodied in the holder of the relevant Chair. Even if I did be-

* Inaugural Lecture delivered in Cambridge on October 17, 2001

lieve in such a discontinuous model, it is far too early (and would be ab-surdly presumptuous) to attempt a summary of what geologists willcome to call the ‘Easterling era’, but the earth can move in morethan one way, and my concern today will be with the variety of ancient,specifically Hellenistic and specifically literary, constructions of andways of dealing with, talking about, and characterising the past, all ofwhich are in fact the taking of positions about the present. If my se-lection of texts must inevitably be minute, it is, nevertheless, not pre-sumptuous (I hope) to hope that such a concern can help us to under-stand what we do now, and why we do it.

If we do prefer a more developmental view of recent history, then itis of course Aristotle who shows us the way. In the Poetics Aristotlebriefly traces the dramatic genres from their alleged origins in popularperformances to the telos ‘the end’ of their proper nature, their phusis,most fully exemplified, as far as tragedy is concerned, by Sophocles’ Oe-dipus Tyrannus. From Homer, qua poet, descended both tragedy andcomedy. Aristotle bequeathed to the western tradition a teleologicaland narrative form of literary history from which escape has proved re-markably difficult, partly of course because there is something deeplysatisfying about closed narratives. It is temptingly easy to construct asimilar narrative of the recent history of the Regius Chair of Greek.In the beginning was Denys Page who knew everything and fromwhom all forms of life descend, then Geoffrey Kirk who opened theworld of Homer and epic to generations of students, then Eric Handleywho restored Menander and New Comedy to us, and then my prede-cessor, Pat Easterling, whose name is almost synonymous with the studyof tragedy, particularly Sophocles; in the Aristotelian model, it may besaid, with Pat the Regius Chair reached its phusis and then ‘stopped’(1pa¼sato). What follows in most ancient narratives is, as is wellknown, terminal decline or, at best, stagnation. If it might be thoughtthat I have reason to view such narratives with suspicion, let me saythat the briefest consideration of Pat’s monumental services to thestudy of Greek both within and without Cambridge will suggest that,as happens too often for comfort, there might just be something in Ar-istotle’s rather peculiar views. On a personal level, from my very firstdays in Cambridge Pat has been more than generous with her time,her advice and her wisdom, and I here record my heartfelt thanks toher; Sophocles famously gave hospitality to a divine snake, divine cer-tainly, but a snake none the less – I hope that the parallelism is not exact.

On Coming After 9

There are of course other narratives, both post and, in some cases,propter Aristotle, which one could tell. The poetry of the third centuryBC is full of representations of the relation between past and present,and this can be no accident of survival. In the fourth book of Apollo-nius’ Argonautica, the Argonauts, who carry all hopes and fears for thesurvival of Greek culture with them, are plunged into an impenetrableprimeval darkness and lose their way, drifting in aimlessness and ig-norance, not a 5 star in sight,1 not knowing how to rescue their civilis-ing mission, until they are saved by the epiphany of a young (well,youngish) blonde god from the south east who brings enlightenmentand restores a sense of direction and purpose. Fortunately, the ancientsrecognised that such epic narratives were a special form of fiction …

The majority of my scholarly life has been devoted to literaturewhich is conventionally categorised as ‘post-classical’, and if I beginwith this stress upon my own sense of epigonal status, I hope I willbe forgiven. I used to joke in lectures that the period after the deathof Alexander the Great is usually called ‘the Wars of the Successors’ be-cause no one knows or cares about their names; I don’t think I will bemaking that joke again. It is, however, with representations of successionthat I am partly concerned in this lecture. We will, however, for oncelet Droysen rest in peace, and I will not trace again the origins of theidea of ‘the Hellenistic’ in modern scholarship. As far as modern literaryhistory is concerned, the idea is of course more time-honoured than thename. Without going back to the laments of Schlegel and others aboutthe decadence of Alexandrian literature, we find that in his Geschichte dergriechischen Literatur of 1831 Friedrich August Wolf, the founder of mod-ern Homeric studies, divided Greek literature from the beginnings tothe end of Byzantium into 6 periods, of which the fourth indeedstretched from the death of Alexander until the battle of Actium, i. e.exactly the extent of what is now conventionally thought of as ‘the Hel-lenistic period’. Twenty years later Karl Otfried Müller simplified thingsby dividing all of Greek literature down to the high Empire into 3 pe-riods which he labelled, the First, the Second, and the Third (this lastindeed beginning with Alexandria). Müller did not – if you willallow me a self-indulgent footnote – live to write about his third period,

1 This refers to the scoring system in operation for the Research Assessment Ex-ercise of 2001, by which the research of all Faculties and Departments in Eng-land was assessed; the outcome had very significant financial implications. ‘5star’ was the best result possible.

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but his History was elegantly completed by his translator, John Donald-son (not the John Donaldson, I hasten to add).2 Donaldson was an Aus-tralian classicist (his brother made a fortune in sperm oil), a Fellow ofTrinity, and his appointment to a headship in Bury St Edmunds is de-scribed by the National Dictionary of Biography as ‘unfortunate for the in-stitution and for himself’ (absit omen), though it speaks approvingly of‘the wholesome intellectual influence he exerted on the town, wherehe greatly improved the Athenaeum and raised the level of intellectualculture in general’ as Australians customarily do – I added that last bit.Donaldson died, incidentally, of overwork.

Periodisation and the stereotypes which accompany it are, of course,always with us, even when relatively brief flourishings are under exami-nation. In his marvellous Inaugural Lecture of fifty years ago DenysPage said of a now famous papyrus fragment of drama on the subjectof Gyges and the wife of Candaules: ‘look again at the language andstyle … we shall find the dignity, simplicity and reserve of the early[i.e. late archaic-early classical] period; where in it shall we find anyof those features which we associate with Alexandrian literature ofany type’ (or of those who study it, you may be tempted to add).Such a way of arguing finds countless parallels in the rhetorical andart criticism of antiquity. Dio Chrysostom’s laudatory account of thePhiloctetes plays of the three ‘classical’ tragedians is a familiar example:3

Aeschylus is characterised by the ‘archaic spirit of great-mindedness’(lecakovqos¼mg ja· t¹ !qwa ?om) which is well suited to tragedy andthe old-style characters (pakai± Ehg) of the heroes’ (ch. 4) – even thecraftiness of his Odysseus is an archaic form of guile, unlike modernpseudo-straightforwardness, with which, I dare say, many of us arevery familiar (ch. 5). Euripides, on the other hand, is the complete op-posite (!mt¸stqovor) of Aeschylus (ch. 11), whereas Sophocles, ‘seemsto come in the middle …’ (ch. 15), rather as Hellenistic rhetorical theo-ry devised three kinds of prose style, the high, the plain, and one in themiddle which draws from both the other two; three was ever a magicnumber. Book 10 of Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria is of course anotherfertile source for such critical attitudes.

2 Another John Donaldson was (and still is) the Assistant Curator of the Museumof Classical Archaeology in the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge.

3 This speech (52) of Dio will be considered at greater length in Critical Momentsin Classical Literature (Cambridge, forthcoming).

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A recent attempt to come to terms with Latin literary history re-minds us that ‘a critique of periodization must begin by historicizingthe notion of periodization itself’.4 Easier said than done, one might re-tort. Much of our evidence for ancient discussion of cultural periodscomes in fact from the writers of Roman classicism, from the Atticistsof the Augustan age through to Quintilian, together with those whoparody them, such as Petronius. Here, for example, is the famous open-ing of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ essay On the ancient orators : ‘In theepoch preceding our own, the old philosophic Rhetoric was so grosslyabused and maltreated that it fell into a decline. From the death ofAlexander of Macedon it began to lose its spirit and gradually witheraway, and in our generation had reached a state of almost total extinc-tion. Another Rhetoric stole in, intolerably shameless and histrionic, ill-bred and without a vestige either of philosophy or of any other aspect ofliberal education. Deceiving the mob and exploiting its ignorance, it notonly came to enjoy greater wealth, luxury and splendour than the other,but actually made itself the key to civic honours and high office, apower which ought to have been reserved for the philosophic art. Itwas altogether vulgar and disgusting, and finally made the Greekworld resemble the houses of the profligate and the abandoned: justas in such households there sits the lawful wife, freeborn and chaste,but with no authority over her domain, while a reckless harlot, benton destroying her livelihood, claims control of the whole estate, treatingthe other like dirt and keeping her in a state of terror; so in every city,and in the highly civilised ones as much as any (which was the final in-dignity), the ancient and indigenous Attic Muse, deprived of her posses-sions, had lost her civic rank, while her antagonist, an upstart that hadarrived only yesterday or the day before from some Asiatic sewer, a My-sian or Phrygian or Carian creature, claimed the right to rule over Greekcities, expelling her rival from public life. Thus was wisdom driven outby ignorance, and sanity by madness.’ (trans. S. Usher, adapted) I willnot be concerned in this lecture with the substance and course of thedebate between ‘Atticism’ and ‘Asianism’, though it is worth bearingin mind that just as in antiquity ‘Asianism’ seems always to have beena purely negative construct, created the better to parade the virtues ofits ‘opposite’, so ‘Hellenistic’ has in the more recent past been anothersuch negative construct (and it is of course no accident that the ancientperiod of ‘Asianism’ roughly overlaps with the modern construct of ‘the

4 J. Farrell, Latin Language and Latin Culture (Cambridge 2001) 85.

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Hellenistic’; as Dionysius’ essay makes clear, both categories have poli-tics at their heart). What we should, on the other hand, notice for themoment is the very continuity of critical language. What Dionysiushas to say about ‘Asianic rhetoric’ mirrors almost exactly the treatmentby Attic Comedy of ‘the new music’ of Timotheus and Philoxenusnearly four centuries before. What came before was solid and genuine,‘men’ were really ‘men’ then, but the new, I am almost tempted to say‘the inaugural’, is characterised by the empty fashionableness of the per-formance, which is made possible by the ignorance of the audience;‘playing to the crowd’ (or the lecture questionnaire score) is now thename of the game (cf. Quintilian 10.1.43).

For the writers and scholars of the Augustan age oR !qwa ?oi – andtheir virtues – were what we would classify as ‘the ancients’ down to(roughly) the end of the fourth century BC, though of course divisionscould be made within such a long period, and the critical language ofperiodisation was never meant to map smoothly on to a chronologicaltable, in part because (of course) much more than mere chronology isat stake. It is less easy to establish where the poets and scholars of thethird century themselves drew boundary lines, or rather what anysuch boundaries might have meant for them, in the way that we cansee that !qwa ?om and pakaiºm are already highly charged words for Thu-cydides and for certain self-consciously fashionable characters in Aristo-phanes. It will mean something that Eratosthenes did not carry his chro-nographical work on the Olympian victors beyond the death ofAlexander, though we should be wary of leaping to the most obviousconclusions that one might draw from this apparent watershed. Sotoo, Quintilian’s famous report that, in the late third and second centuryBC, Aristarchus and Aristophanes (of Byzantium) did not receive any-one ‘of their own time’ (suum tempus) into the lists of approved authors(10.1.54) begs as many questions as it answers; these were, you will re-call, the same people who, rather like the Quality Assurance Agency,thought that Homer deserved only 23 of the 24 available books ofthe Odyssey.5 The practice of the grammarians perhaps tells us moreabout the history of generic classification as a scholarly activity than itdoes about any sense of what divides the present from the past. More-

5 This refers to the scoring system in operation for the Quality Assurance exer-cise, by which the teaching of all Faculties and Departments in England was as-sessed; scores from 1–4 were awarded for each of 6 categories, making 24 thebest possible result.

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over, there is evidence on the other side. There is, for example, no signthat the several quotations of Callimachus and the at least one each ofEuphorion and Simias of Rhodes in the great first-century catalogueof dreadful things said by poets in Philodemus’ treatise On Piety were‘ghettoised’ off from the quotations of archaic and classical poetry,and some at least of these quotations of what we call Hellenistic poetrypresumably go back as far as Apollodorus in the mid-second century.

Be that as it may, periodisation and the rise of scholarship can indeedhardly be separated, but where is that rise to be located? This too may,of course, be one more charge to be laid at the door of the sophists ofthe late fifth century, and it is at least worthy of note that it is again inthe Frogs (which has so often been thought by moderns to mark somekind of watershed) that we find perhaps the first dramatisation of thekind of literary scholarship which we so closely associate with the Hel-lenistic period. Here Euripides accuses Aeschylus of using ‘sheer massivemountains of words that it was very hard to work out the meaning of’(929–30, trans. Sommerstein) and Dionysus, that avid reader of books,breaks in: ‘Yes, by the gods; I for one have certainly before now lainawake through the long watches of the night trying to fathom whatsort of bird a tawny horsecock was’ – this was in fact an emblem paintedon a warship. Dionysus’ language of sleepless searching – the pursuit infact of what would come to be known as a zetema — strikingly fore-shadows that of later scholarship. Moreover, if it is true that hiswords pick up those of Phaedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus, ‘before now,during the long watches of the night, I have pondered the ways inwhich human lives are destroyed’, then the comic move from a greatmoral problem to the meaning of a rather silly gloss might be thoughtprecisely to skewer what is wrong with ‘scholarship’ as narrowly con-ceived and practised. Be that as it may, it is texts of the third centurywhich are replete with allusions to and anecdotes about ‘scholarship’,with – if you like – second-order reflection which knowingly reifiesthe activity into a discrete form of life and at the same time monumen-talises the past. I offer just one famous example. One of Callimachus’epigrams deals explicitly with the folly of the élitist self-delusion ofthe scholar who knows the technical names for things:

I hate recycled poetry (poiema kuklikon), and get no pleasurefrom a road crowded with travellers this way and that.

I can’t stand a boy who sleeps around, don’t drinkat public fountains, and loathe everything vulgar (demosion).

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Now you, Lysanies, sure are handsome … But before I’ve repeated‘handsome’, Echo’s ‘and some … one else’s’ cuts me off.

Epigram 28 Pf. , trans. Nisetich

The poet proclaims his disdain for all things common or banal whichmust be widely shared: ‘cyclic’ poetry, the broad highway, a promiscu-ous lover, a fountain available to all. The variety of the verbs in the firstfour verses marks the poet’s fastidiousness and care, whereas the veryprosaic expression for the things which are rejected enacts at the verballevel the banality which is being imputed to them. What is rejected alsoinvolves or implies movement: the poem ‘which circles around’, thepath with its bustling crowd, the boy who roams from one admirerto the next, the fountain to which one must travel; against this chaosis set the stillness of the scholar-poet, fixed in his opinions, and the pri-vacy of his superiority. The final couplet modifies this picture. The playwith echo suggests the emergence of a truth which previously was (con-sciously or unconsciously) suppressed;6 the poet’s brave words turn outto be a protective barrier which conceal as much as they reveal, and onlythe operation of echo, which is beyond human control, can unmask thetruth. The ‘vulgar’, embodied in a popular, ‘non-élitist’ pronunciationwhich makes the echo possible, triumphs. The poem thus exploresthe fissure inherent in the whole business of seeking to write ‘élitist’ epi-grams about desire, an emotion to which we are all vulnerable (it is al-ways demosion) and one which is no respecter of aesthetic principles; it isnot merely that the store of epigrammatic literary topoi is finite, but so isthat of experience – hierarchies of literature are, in the end, as vain ashierarchies of kinds of lover.

The word !qwa ?or ‘ancient’ does not appear in Homer, thoughpakaiºr ‘of old’ does, and in contexts which suggest that this notionof ‘oldness’ was already in early epic associated with the idea of song:men and women who were ‘old’ were the subject of epic song.7 Thevocabulary of periodisation turns out (unsurprisingly) to have as muchto do with description as with chronology. And so it has remained.In one of the most suggestive modern discussions of ‘the Hellenistic’,almost now a ‘classic’ text, Sir Kenneth Dover addressed the questionof naivety or pseudo-naivety as a poetic mode, and observed that one

6 Cf. G. B. Walsh, ‘Surprised by self : audible thought in Hellenistic poetry’ Clas-sical Philology 85 (1990) 1–21, pp. 11–12.

7 Cf. Od. 2.118, Il. 9.524 ff, hAp. 160 etc.

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of the problems (for him) with Hellenistic poetry was that the poets‘treated poetry as if its province had been defined at some date in thepast and it had been forbidden to advance in certain directions or topenetrate below a certain phenomenological level … If we can put our-selves into the place of educated Athenians at the end of the fifth cen-tury B.C., a period in which philosophical, political, religious, scientificand historical thinking were developing at an almost explosive pace, wemay, I think, be able to recapture the surprise we should have felt ifsomeone had asserted that a century and a half later one distinguishedpoet would be writing, “And if you do this for me, Pan, may theboys of Arkadia not flog your sides and shoulders with squills whenmeat is short” (Theocr. 7.106 ff) … One can imagine, too, the despairof Thucydides if he had foreseen the drivel which Timaios (FGrHist566) was to write about the mutilation of the herms (fr. 102, criticisedby Plu. Nic. 1), a good example of the backwash of poetic conventioninto historiography’ (Theocritus p. lxix). These are serious charges, notreally mitigated in the one case (Theocritus 7) by the presumably delib-erate ignoring of context, speaker identity etc (to which I will return)and, in the other, by the wholesale swallowing (in which Dover isnot alone) of Thucydides’ own (very idiosyncratic) claims for what con-stitutes historiography. What can these two cases in fact tell us about theHellenistic literary response to coming after?

Timaios of Sicilian Tauromenion, whose long life extended fromthe middle of the fourth to the middle of the third century BC, wasthe great historian of the Greek west – and the first Greek writer to con-cern himself seriously with the history of Rome; his history of Sicilyand the west in 38 books was probably written during half a centuryof political exile in Athens, and may be seen, from one point ofview, within the context of a remarkable flourishing of western Doriccultural and intellectual life in this period. As for the history itself, inthe words of The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ‘Timaios took an extremelybroad view of history, including myth, geography, ethnography, polit-ical and military events, culture, religion, marvels, and paradoxa’; inmany ways, then, not just ‘extremely broad’, but also a very traditionalkind of history. Whether or not it is right, with Frank Walbank, to labelthis ‘a more frivolous attitude to the past’ (Polybius p. 1) than Thucy-dides’ paraded sobriety may, however, be debated. Thucydides has, itmust be admitted, nothing to rival Timaios’ discussion of the hedonisticlife of the Sybarites (fr. 50), which reveals to us (inter alia) that they werethe ‘first inventors’ of the practice whereby, for ease of relief, each man

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brought his own chamber-pot to a drinking-party; remarkably enough(perhaps) word-searches with the latest electronic tools reveal that theword for a chamber-pot appears nowhere in Thucydides, and his onlymention of Sybaris is a programmatically incidental reference to theriver of this name during a military narrative (7.35). Fortunately forall of us, however, it falls to others in this room to establish the param-eters of historical enquiry.

Labels stick, and in both antiquity and modern times, the labelwhich has been stuck on Timaios is that of ‘pedant’, itself a notion hard-ly conceivable without the same mindset which gave us ‘Hellenistic’.Even Momigliano, one of Timaios’ more sympathetic modern students,calls him ‘a pedant with imagination’ (Terzo contributo I 48) – almost areal scholar, then, almost ‘one of us’. Indeed, a climactic section ofFelix Jacoby’s introductory essay on Timaios is concerned with the –to all of us highly culturally charged and to many of us personally im-portant – question of whether the title ‘ein gelehrter’ is appropriatelybestowed upon Timaios. Part of Jacoby’s self-confessedly ‘psychologi-cal’ answer is that Timaios’ blindness to his own faults and his constantpolemic against, not just other historians, but figures such as Aristotle,his constant nit-picking (if you like), which brought the name ‘Epiti-maios’ (the ‘blamer’), may ( Jacoby does not commit himself to the anal-ysis) have been the result of a deep consciousness that he himself wasnothing more than a dilettante without ‘wissenschaftliche Ausbildung’who was not really up to the job of serious historiography (FGrHistIIIB pp. 537–8). ‘Dilettante’ is, of course, another wounding word:no graver charge can be brought against any ‘scholar’, and Timaioswas both ‘pedant’ and ‘dilettante’. Polybius famously criticises him fordoing all his research in libraries, without any practical experience ofmilitary affairs, topography, or the interviewing of witnesses: ‘Inquiriesfrom books’, sneers Polybius, ‘may be made without any danger orhardship, provided only that one take care to have access to a town(polis) containing a wealth of written accounts (rpolm¶lata) or tohave a library near at hand’ (12.27.4). (How different from the life ofscholarship as we know it!) The sub-text seems to be that Athens, thepolis where Timaios worked, like Alexandria, the site of the ancientworld’s most famous library, is now merely ‘a university’, i. e. not partof the real world, a place of theory, not practical knowledge; power,and the writing of that power, has moved elsewhere. Polybius’ polemic,with its implicit exaltation of a Thucydidean ideal – Thucydides, afterall, was exiled from the very polis in which Timaios worked and, at

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the very least, his account of this exile (5.26.5) implies extensive travelin pursuit of his enquiries, unlike the smug Timaios – is thus an earlywitness to the periodisation, and the stereotyping which accompaniesit, which was to take such hold in critical circles in Rome a centuryand more later. In the light, incidentally, of modern directions in clas-sical scholarship, we must also ask – if only to put off the answer for an-other day – what is lost and what is gained in the modern flight from thecharge of ‘pedantry’, which – as Homer would say – the gods call ‘an-tiquarianism’. When is the flight from Realien the flight from reality?

Polemic is, of course, always with us, however easy this is to forgetamidst the soothingly understated modernism of Little Hall. What re-mains of Polybius’ all-out attack upon Timaios in his twelfth bookbears eloquent, and in many ways extraordinary, witness to this. Italso reminds us (again) how persistent over time are certain kinds ofabuse: thus Dover’s accusation of ‘drivel’ against Timaios echoes Poly-bius’ charge of vkuaq¸a (12.12b.1), just as many of Polybius’ terms ofabuse pick up those which Timaios himself had used. Polybius’ po-lemical luxuriance at Timaios’ expense is itself, however, a version, inrhetorical terms an aungsir or amplificatio, of what was for him andhis readers a very famous text, the early programmatic chapters of Thu-cydides’ first book. After concluding his sketch of early Greek history(t± pakai², 1.20.1), Thucydides turns to the uncritical attitude thatmost men take to traditions about the past; he cites three specific exam-ples: a popular belief about the end of the Athenian tyranny, and twofacts about the Spartan constitution. No Hellenistic ‘pedantry’ here ofcourse … Errors 2 and 3 we know to have occurred in Herodotus,but Thucydides names no one – the object of the attack is, at least onthe surface, oR pokko¸. In Polybius some of the language of criticism re-mains the same, and is to be seen within a standard framework of inter-textual allusion, but what is important is that Polybius’ polemical, schol-arly practice takes as its starting point an authoritative ‘classical’ text andmassively documents the kinds of failing at which Thucydides hadmerely gestured. Between Thucydides’ silent stiletto and Polybius’ stri-dent shotgun lies, of course, a whole revolution in the use of books, thenature of education, and the nature of criticism, but here Polybius andthe despised Timaios stand clearly on the same side of the divide; bothillustrate the new world which we still inhabit.

One of the most persistent and virulent strains in Polybius’ attackupon Timaios’ history, and particularly the speeches within it, is thecharge that it is infected by the frigid practices of the rhetorical schools.

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The terminology of this critical abuse – ‘scholastic’, ‘sophistic’, ‘childish’(paidaqi¾dgr, leiqaji¾dgr) – passed into the canon of standard judge-ments, for we find it (and some of the very same examples used to illus-trate it) repeated in Plutarch (Nicias 1.1–4) and ‘Longinus’ (4.1–3). It is‘Longinus’ who preserves for us Timaios’ observation that Alexanderconquered the whole of Asia ‘in fewer years than it took Isocrates towrite the Panegyrikos about war in Asia’; for ‘Longinus’ such pursuitof novel witticisms (1pivym¶lata, sententiae) is forced and frigid – it ispatently the product of the epideictic declamations of young men prac-tising their own puerile humour upon each other (not unlike the UnionSociety or the House of Commons on a good day). ‘Longinus’ also citesthe example which so upset Plutarch and Kenneth Dover: Timaioslinked the Athenian disaster in his homeland of Sicily, in which the Syr-acusan leader Hermocrates, son of Hermon, played a central rôle, withthe mutilation of the Athenian Herms shortly before the expedition’sdeparture. So too, it was not a good omen that the Athenian general Ni-kias, whose name means ‘victory’, had in fact at first declined to takepart. We may of course argue about the level of ‘drivel’ involvedhere – we live in a world where strange things happen, particularly intimes of real or alleged war, and rationalism is at least not obviously tri-umphant today – and it is, moreover, not entirely certain that these re-flections were in the voice of the historian himself rather than one of hischaracters. Nevertheless, Thucydides had already noted that the Atheni-ans had taken the mutilation to be a bad omen for the expedition(6.27.3), and it is hard to believe that the oracle-mongers and seers,against whom, as Thucydides reports (8.1), the Athenians turnedwhen disaster struck had not already seen what lay in Nicias’ name,though apparently they drew a different conclusion from it. Thucydides’Nicias had after all already sensed divine jealousy (phthonos) at work inthe Athenian disaster (7.77.3), and events had proved that Nicias andthose who took the mutilation of the Herms seriously were right allalong. In writing from Athens the ‘Sicilian version’ of Athenian disaster,Timaios takes the Thucydidean account as his starting-point and ex-pands upon it (another ‘amplification’), particularly in the gaps whichThucydides’ apparently rigidly austere selectivity sought to occlude,but in fact openly advertised. Specifically, we may speculate that Ti-maios took up and sharpened the tragic shaping of the Syracusan nar-rative in Thucydides, a shaping much discussed in modern scholarship:the rôle of the faceless divine, the daimonion, the ominous significance ofnames (cf. ‘Helen’, ‘Aias’ etc), the fact that Timaios has the Athenian

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generals commit suicide, rather than (as in Thucydides and others) beingput to death, and has their bodies (in time-honoured fashion) exposed topublic viewing (theama, fr. 102) all gesture towards familiar features ofAthenian tragedy. This is not a matter of the familiar importance ofdramatised pathos in Hellenistic historiography, but of a specifically ap-propriate literary shape to a real ‘Athenian tragedy’. The obvious parallelfor the ‘Sicilian version’ of the Athenian catastrophe would be an Athe-nian version of the Persian catastrophe of the early fifth century, and Ti-maios may, as perhaps also Thucydides before him, have specifically hadin mind just such a text, the Persians of Aeschylus, another dramatisationof a disaster of which the gods had given forewarning (vv. 739–41) andof which the lesson was that no one should ‘scorn their present lot andby desiring the property of others waste great prosperity’ (vv. 824–6, cf.Thucyd. 6.13.1, 6.24.3). The turning of such a text against the Atheni-ans would have carried a brilliant textual power. It is at least tantalisingthat a not implausible ancient tradition has it that the Persians had in thefifth century been performed in Syracuse at the request of the tyrant Hi-eron I; was there a Sicilian tradition of this play? Alas, we do not know,just as only more of Timaeus’ text than we actually possess would showus whether Thucydides’ rationality, constructed as the easy rationality ofhindsight, was also subverted, so that the Athenian historian collapsedalong with the power of his city.

Let me now turn to Dover’s other exhibit.8 The meeting and song-exchange of Lycidas, the unmistakable goatherd (or is he?), met bychance (or is it?) on a Coan country road, and Simichidas in Theocri-tus’ Seventh Idyll, the Thalysia, has a fair claim to be among, not onlythe most discussed, but also the most powerful and strangely compellingscenes of all Greek poetry; in part its hold over us lies not merely in thefamiliar attractiveness of the mysterious and riddling, but also in our per-vasive sense of witnessing a confrontation across time, a dramatisation ofhistorical development. Whereas Timaios demands that we acknowl-edge his textual suppletion, his ransacking of the past, the Thalysia teas-ingly veils its secrets in proclaiming only its pristine novelty.

If, like the élitist Pindaric voice, Lycidas speaks ‘to those who under-stand’, it would seem that the young Simichidas, the ‘professional’ poetfrom the city with a repertoire of songs ready to hand (vv. 92–5), butnow faced with his inaugural performance in front of the only audience

8 For a revised and properly annotated version of the following section cf. thisvolume 445–52.

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which matters, is not to be included in this privileged group, for when itis his turn to sing he adopts a fiction of ‘poetic inspiration’, as though hehas not understood what Lycidas has said to him:

t¹m d³ l´t’ awhirjAc½m to ?’ 1v²lam7 “Kuj¸da v¸ke, pokk± l³m %kkaM¼lvai jAl³ d¸danam !m’ ¥qea boujok´omta1shk², t² pou ja· Fgm¹r 1p· hqºmom %cace v²la7!kk± tºc’ 1j p²mtym l´c’ rpe¸qowom, è tu ceqa¸qeim!qneOl’7 !kk’ rp²jousom, 1pe· v¸kor 5pkeo Lo¸sair.

(Id. 7.90–5)

‘After him I spoke in my turn as follows: “Lycidas my friend, the Nymphstaught me too many other songs as I tended my herd on the mountain, ex-cellent poems, which public report has perhaps carried even to the throneof Zeus. But this with which I shall do you honour is much the finest ofthem all: listen then, since you are dear to the Muses.’

Simichidas here sets himself as a latter-day Hesiod, whose poetic ‘initia-tion’ by the Muses as he herded his lambs on Mt Helicon is recorded inthe opening of the Theogony. The very fiction which he employs markshim as a modern poet of a quite different kind from the model which heclaims; divine inspiration, whether from the Muses or the more appro-priately bucolic nymphs, is now merely a ‘technical’ gesture, a codeshared between a poet and his audience. It is a code which Simichidas,like all modern professionals, can adopt or abandon at will, in accord-ance with the generic demands of any particular song. When, however,Lycidas offers the first performance of a song which he has ‘recentlycrafted on the mountain’, we have at least no prima facie reason to dis-believe him.

Here is the opening part of Simichidas’ poem in A.S.F. Gow’s trans-lation: ‘For Simichidas the Loves sneezed, for he, poor soul, lovesMyrto as dearly as goats love the spring. But Aratus, dearest friend inall to me, guards deep at heart desire of a boy. Aristis knows, a manof worth, the best of men, whom Phoebus himself would not grudgeto stand and sing, lyre in hand, by his own tripods – knows how tothe very marrow Aratus is aflame with love of a boy. Ah, Pan, towhom has fallen the lovely plain of Homole, lay him unsummonedin my friend’s dear arms, whether it be the pampered Philinus or anoth-er. And if you do this, dear Pan, then never may Arcadian lads flog youwith squills about the flanks and shoulders when they find scanty meat.But if you consent otherwise, then may you be bitten and with your

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nails scratch yourself from top to toe; may you sleep in nettles, and inmidwinter find yourself on the mountains of the Edonians, turned to-wards the river Hebrus, hard by the pole. And in summer may youherd your flock among the furthest Ethiopians beneath the rock ofthe Blemyes from where the Nile is no more seen. But do you leavethe sweet stream of Hyetis and Byblis, and Oecus, that steep seat ofgolden-haired Dione, you Loves as rosy as apples, and wound for mewith your bows the lovely Philinus, would him, for the wretch hasno pity on my friend.’

The (to us at least) obscure proper names, the sense that the poem isfull of in-jokes, the joking prayer to Pan, and the persistent detachedirony are all suggestive again of an entirely modern, iambic mode.The very lowness of such poetry, its claim to a ‘popular voice’, madeit a paradoxically perfect vehicle for the exploitation of the new possi-bilities of written poetry and new types of audience. Thus, for example,whereas Lycidas speaks in a prophetic, incantatory, semi-mystical man-ner which hints at a magical control of the world (the halcyons etc.) andrecalls the originary link between poet and seer, Simichidas includes thedescription (which so offended Dover) of a distant, but allegedly con-temporary, rustic magical rite, with which he himself has nothing todo and about which he has learned, so we are to understand, from abook.

If the world of Simichidas’ in-jokes remains (perhaps deliberately)closed to us, he makes very sure that we understand his geographicaland cultic allusions. The cause of the Arcadian rite is explained (108),the location of the (otherwise unknown) ‘rock of the Blemyes’ specified(114), the relevance of Oikous spelled out (116). Simichidas offers no‘mythic narrative’ as such, just a world marked out by cult sites andpractices, now fossilised in the grasp of scholarship.

Lycidas’ telling – or rather the telling which he puts in Tityrus’mouth – of the stories of Daphnis and Komatas, as he imagines theparty he will hold to celebrate the safe arrival in Mytilene of his belovedAgeanax, is very different: ‘Close by Tityrus shall sing how once Daph-nis the oxherd loved Xenea, and how the hill grieved for him and theoaks which grow upon the river Himeras’ banks sang his dirge, when hewas wasting like any snow under high Haemus or Athos or Rhodope orremotest Caucasus. And he shall sing how once a wide coffin receivedthe goat alive by the impious presumption of a king; and how the blunt-faced bees came from the meadows to the fragrant chest of cedar and fedhim on tender flowers because the Muse had poured sweet nectar on his

On Coming After22

lips. Ah, blessed Comatas, yours is this sweet lot: you too were closedwithin the coffin; you too, on honeycomb fed, did endure with labourthe springtime of the year. Would that you had been numbered withthe living in my day, that I might have herded your fair goats uponthe hills and listened to your voice, while you, divine Comatas, didlie and make sweet music under the oaks or pines.’ Lycidas, unlike Sim-ichidas, finds personal, exemplary comfort in the bucolic and aipolicheroes of his own world – Daphnis and Komatas – and what is impor-tant, as it had traditionally been in the poetic representation of myth, ishow their stories, their p\hg, act as paradigms for his own experience.Moreover, this highly allusive text seems to assume an audience, wheth-er that be just Lycidas himself or some wider group, to which those sto-ries are known and significant. This allusive narrative mode, seen mostfamously in the song of Daphnis in Idyll 1, suggests ‘tradition’, as it alsoconstructs for itself an interpretive community; here, literary allusive-ness, intertextuality if you like, and mythic allusiveness function in sim-ilar ways. The different gods who question the fast-fading Daphnis inIdyll 1 embody different levels of knowledge and curiosity, thus drama-tising the text’s construction of its audience, but this device also fore-grounds that allusiveness which implies familiarity, while conjuring upthe generic world of myth and constructing a community to whomthat myth is significant, who need constantly to (re-) interpret it.

It would be tempting to set this contrast between Lycidas’ high al-lusiveness and Simichidas’ plain specificity within that broad movementwhich we have come to know, and seek to deconstruct, as the shift frommyth to mythology, but let me return first to what Simichidas actuallysays. The pursuit of novelty leaves, as I noted earlier, a world markedout by (often arcane) cult and ritual names, rather than by narrativesof personal or collective significance. Many modern readers of Callima-chus’ Hymns might feel at home within Simichidas’ ‘written’ religiousworld, in which the scholarly gloss is the standard discursive mode,but this ‘precision’ of names, which there is no reason not to connectwith the prevalence of systematic written history, has a place in thewider evolution of mythic narrative. The modern study of fiction hastaught us that detailed names and places are the ‘effects of the real’which create the fictional illusion; this is an irony which Thucydideswould presumably not have appreciated. Such detail goes hand-in-hand with the telling of stories as coherent, self-contained wholes inwhich temporal and spatial sequence are of primary importance: wemay think of, for example, Simaitha’s first-person narration of her affair

On Coming After 23

with Delphis in Idyll 2. With hindsight we can see that the vast sea ofGreek myth was fertile ground for the development of fictionalising in-stincts and the instinct for fiction: Walter Burkert once noted9 that whatis distinctive and ‘utterly confusing for non-specialists and often for spe-cialists’ about Greek myth is its extraordinarily profuse detail of names,genealogies and inter-relationships, with, in other words, (though Burk-ert certainly did not say this) ‘effects of the real’ waiting to happen. If weare forced to name a crucial moment in this process, the classicist maythink of Aristophanes’ Euripides, whose prologising gods told ‘thewhole story’ (Frogs 946–7), i.e organised disparate strands (and disparatenames) into a coherent, connected narrative.

As for Lycidas’ stories of Daphnis and Komatas, it is tempting tosuggest that the allusive mode of telling, related forms of which are ofcourse familiar enough from the choral lyric of the archaic and classicalperiods, is a direct response to developments in ‘systematic mythogra-phy’ and to what I have called the ‘fictionalising’ impulses which gowith that systematisation. In the Bucolics, Theocritus thus imaginativelyrecreates or invents an oral style of ‘traditional tale’ beyond systematisa-tion (and certainly beyond Simichidas) and only preserved in the folkmemories of shepherds and goatherds. No more powerful dramatisationof what ‘coming after’ actually means survives from the extraordinaryintellectual currents of the third century.

There are, of course, periods of Greek teaching as well as of Greekliterature. In his Inaugural of only 72 years ago, D. S. Robertson ob-served, ‘The Greek Professor is happily no longer expected to teach stu-dents their alphabet or declensions’; try telling that to the Classical Lan-guages Committee. The deep commitment by the Faculty of Classics tothe teaching of the Greek and Latin languages, and to innovation in thatteaching, is in fact a major reason why I am very proud to be associatedwith this remarkable institution. This is, of course, not the easiest periodfor Greek and for Classics as a whole, despite the enormous contempo-rary interest in the ancient world and its imagining in successive ages,which was already justly celebrated by Professor Easterling in her Lon-don Inaugural of 1988 and which has just been so vividly demonstratedin the sell-out audiences for Jane Montgomery’s challenging productionof Sophocles’ Electra.10 Adjustment to the times in which we live, to –

9 ‘Mythisches Denken. Versuch einer Definition an Hand des griechischen Be-fundes’ in H. Poser (ed.), Philosophie und Mythos (Berlin 1979) 16–39, p. 30.

10 The Cambridge Greek Play of 2001.

On Coming After24

for example – the disappearance of Greek from mainstream secondaryeducation, has, however, been painful and occasionally divisive, partic-ularly for those at the heart of whose universe stand the classical lan-guages. I hope, however, that grand recipes for the future are not an in-evitable part of Inaugurals. An obvious cliché would be to recall Rod-ney Wainwright, the lecturer from the University of North Queenslandin David Lodge’s Small World, who does not know how to complete thecrucial sentence of his lecture (an inaugural performance on the worldstage) at a Future of Criticism conference: ‘The question is, therefore,how can criticism …’. He is, as you recall, saved by an outbreak of Le-gionnaire’s disease; well, life is imitating art too often these days to allowsuch jests. I am, in any case, tempted to say that it is in fact not the futureof criticism which concerns me – no doubt I will get plenty of that. Oneof my predecessors as a University Professor of Greek, to whom Ishould feel particularly close, Nicholas Ridley (successively student, Fel-low, and Master of Pembroke), was burnt at the stake, though not per-haps for a poor seminar performance. More seriously, however, thewhole future of ‘criticism’, of krisis ‘judgement’, about Greek literaryculture depends crucially upon the training in the Greek language of fu-ture generations of students; the crisis for krisis is no longer just a feeblepun (has not been so for many years), and our concern must be, not justthe future of so-called technical disciplines such as papyrology and pa-laeography, which (I think) there is good reason to hope will continueto attract highly talented specialists, but rather for the wide diffusion ofan appreciation of the Greek literary heritage, as well as for the progressof higher-level understanding of these difficult and rewarding texts. Ihope that it is another cliché to say that the furtherance of knowledgeof the Greek language must be the principal, though not the only,duty of the Regius Professor, and I pledge myself to work tirelesslyto that end. What makes this position so special, however, is the priv-ilege of working in an institution which thinks not only about how wecan do this, but also why we should wish to; what, to put it another way,‘coming after’ really means and what opportunities it provides. If, there-fore, I do not plead for moderate, or even radical, change of direction –as, for example, did Ted Kenney and Anthony Snodgrass in their Inau-gurals of 1975 and 1977 – it is not just because a glance at those lectureswill reveal just how far we have moved in a very short time, and cer-tainly not because very hard thinking and (perhaps radical) changewill not be needed, but because the collective will is such that there

On Coming After 25

seems no chance whatsoever of a return to the unexamined life of anearlier age.

As long, then, as the University holds to the educational purposeswhich it publicly proclaims, unlike the young Heracles Classics at Cam-bridge does not face an inaugural choice between virtue and vice, be-tween (in random order) the hard, indeed often physically demandingtask of properly learning an inflected language and the pursuit ofmore easily attained and possibly more short-lived intellectual satisfac-tions. This is not because we do or should conceal the difficulties andoften frustrations involved in learning Greek at what is roughly thesame age as Heracles made his choice, but because the dichotomy andthe labels attached to it are utterly false to the complex and variegatedmaterial which forms the substance of our subject and the philosophywhich informs the way we teach and study it. There are, in fact,many paths from which someone at Cambridge interested in the ancientworld has to choose, and in some Greek plays a more prominent rôlethan in others; this is not a cause for regret, but rather a symptom ofcareful attention to the ends which we all have in view. The pluralhere is strictly necessary, of course. Introducing local primary-schoolchildren to Greek once a week in the Museum of Classical Archaeolo-gy, as has happened in the Faculty this year, must have a different pur-pose and criterion of success than teaching first-year undergraduates, buttoo often in the past we have saddled ourselves with a single – and I usethe word advisedly – paradigm of what learning Greek looks and feelslike. Post-modern diversity is here to be embraced and encouraged.One thing, however, I hope remains constant and unifying. When Iwas twelve I was fortunate enough to be offered the chance to learnGreek by a school (very many miles from here)11 which had not other-wise taught the language for fifty years, but where it still now hangs on(by threads of varying degrees of precariousness). Since then learning,reading, and eventually teaching Greek have been and continue to befor me the sources of what (most of the time) seems like a pleasurefar surpassing the simple absence of pain, and this is an end we mustnot overlook and which we as teachers must do our best to allow othersto enjoy. It may be that my colleagues in the Faculty do not think that Iwas placed among them to pursue pleasure, but let me end by thankingthem once again for their support and by saying how much I look for-ward to the common pursuit in the years ahead.

11 Cranbrook School, Sydney.

On Coming After26

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

1. Apollo and the Argonauts:Two notes on Ap. Rhod. 2, 669–719*

I.

The first stop for the Argonauts after they have passed through the Sym-plegades is the island called Humi\r. Putting in there just before dawn,they see Apollo as he travels from Lycia to the land of his beloved Hy-perboreans1; on the advice of Orpheus, they build an altar on the islandto Apollo :~ior and perform sacrifices upon it. The episode2 concludeswith the swearing of an oath of mutual help, and the poet tells us that atemple of jl|moia which the Argonauts built on the island was stillstanding in his day. We recognise here a very common pattern in Apol-lonius’ epic: a brief stop on the journey is marked by ritual and aetiol-ogy. Apollo’s appearance in the second book is related in particular to 4,1701–1730 where, in response to Jason’s prayers, Apollo saves the Ar-gonauts by revealing to them (again in his role as a god of light) the is-land which they subsequently called )m\vg and on which they foundeda cult of Apollo AQck^tgr3. The impenetrable darkness from whichApollo saves the heroes in the fourth book is the last peril of thewhole voyage, but when they see him in Book 2, Colchis and the returnjourney lie in front of them. Nevertheless, the epiphany and the foun-dation of the temple to jl|moia emphasise that the worst peril of theoutward journey, the Symplegades, has been successfully negotiated

* Museum Helveticum 43 (1986) 50–601 Cf., e. g., 4, 614, Pind. Pyth. 10, 35, Call. fr. 492, Diod. Sic. 2, 47. Apollo’s

route shows that Apollonius placed the Hyperboreans to the north of the Scy-thians (as indeed was the usual view).

2 The events on the island are marked off as a separate unit by Glor d’ … v\or

(669) ~ Glor d] … v\or (720).3 For the links between Apollo’s two appearances cf. Pfister, RE Suppl. 4 (1924)

284–286; P. Handel, Beobachtungen zur epischen Technik des Apollonios Rhodios(Munich 1954) 39 n. 1, and Vian’s Budé edition of Bk. 3 (Paris 1980) 12.The )m\vg episode has usually been thought to borrow from Callimachus’ ac-count in the first book of the Aetia, cf. Pfeiffer on fr. 18, 6–15; E. Eichgrün,Kallimachos und Apollonios Rhodios (Diss. Berlin 1961) 128–133. For the possi-ble use of Callimachus in the present episode cf. below pp. 38–41.

and prepare the Argonauts for the tasks ahead4. This division of thepoem is marked by vv. 762–771 in which Jason gives Lycus, the kingof the Mariandynoi, a brief account of ‘the story so far’, beginningwith the Catalogue of Heroes (762–763)5; the ‘enchantment’ which Ja-son’s words work (cf. h]kcet’ !jou0 hul|m, 772) suggest that he is like aPhemius (cf. Od. 1, 337) or, rather, Odysseus himself (cf. Od. 17, 514,521). We may indeed compare Apollonius’ technique here with theecho of the opening lines of the Odyssey at Od. 13, 88–92, an echowhich points to a division of the poem into ‘Odysseus absent’ and‘Odysseus present’6. The stop among the Mariandynoi is also markedby the deaths of the prophet Idmon and the steersman Tiphys, and soit would clearly be a mistake to interpret Apollo’s epiphany as a signto the Argonauts that their luck has turned. We may perhaps see a fore-shadowing of these grim events in the fact that the account of the Ar-gonauts on Humi\r draws freely upon Homer’s description of the islandacross the water from the Cyclopes where Odysseus and his crew camp(Od. 9, 116–176)7. Both islands not only provide an opportunity forrest and recovery, but also act as a prelude to disaster.

The language8 and structure of Apollo’s epiphany are traditional: adivine appearance causes mortal h\lbor and is followed by prayers andworship (cf., e. g., Od. 3, 371–394). The god’s flowing hair9, the bowin his left hand10, and the quiver hanging down his back, however, wellexemplify a Hellenistic interest in detailed pictorial representation.

4 For the central importance of the Symplegades cf. 1, 2–3, Eur. Med. 1–2.5 Contrast 1, 980–981 where an opportunity for such a summary is not taken up;

Medea gives Circe a rather sketchy account of the story at 4, 730–737.6 With 2, 762–771 H. Fränkel, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Munich

1968) 230, comparesOd. 23, 310—343, but the structural role of those verses isquite different. There is a good discussion of the Lycus episode in K. W. Blum-berg, Untersuchungen zur epischen Technik des Apollonios von Rhodes (Diss. Leipzig1931) 44.

7 Cf. Vian’s edition, pp. 275–276.8 Cf. M. Campbell, Echoes and Imitations of Early Epic in Apollonius Rhodius (Lei-

den 1981) 33, and F. Williams on Call. Ap. 2.9 In Pythian 4 Jason’s flowing locks remind the onlookers of Apollo (82–87). H.

L. Lorimer, ‘Gold and ivory in Greek mythology’, in: Greek Poetry and Life: Es-says presented to Gilbert Murray on his seventieth birthday (Oxford 1936) 23, sug-gests that the description of Apollo would remind Apollonius’ readers of Ptole-my.

10 As it was in the great cult statue at Delos, cf. Pfeiffer on Call. fr. 114, 8 ff ; id.,The image of the Delian Apollo and Apolline ethics, JWCI 15 (1952) 20–32,pp. 21–22.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception30

Striking also is the suddenness of the god’s appearance. The scene is pre-sented as though Apollo is unaware of the Argonauts’ presence on theisland; they see him but he does not see them. Such an experiencewas highly dangerous for mortal men, as Callimachus states baldly inthe fifth hymn (Lav. Pall. 100–102):

Jq|mioi d’ ¨de k]comti m|loi·fr je tim’ !ham\tym, fja lµ he¹r aqt¹r 6kgtai,

!hq^s,, lish_ toOtom Qde ?m lec\ky.

Nevertheless, we do not have to assume that Apollo, who after all has acentral role in the whole epic, was unaware either of the Argonauts’presence11 or of the effect which his epiphany will have upon them.The lack of preparation for his entry emphasises the gap between mortaland divine action, even when the mortals are, like the Argonauts, all re-lated to gods (cf. 3, 365–366). There is very little direct contact in theArgonautica between the heroes and the major Olympian deities12, andconfrontations with minor divinities are marked by the same apparentsuddenness as is Apollo’s epiphany. After Heracles has been left behind,for example, Glaucus appears out of the sea to foretell the future, butalthough his opening words appeal to the lec\koio Di¹r bouk^ his inter-vention remains abrupt and mysterious (1, 310–1328)13. So too in thefourth book, Triton appears very suddenly to aid the Argonauts afterOrpheus has had the bright idea of using one of Apollo’s tripods towin over the local divinities (4, 1547–1591). These scenes are notmerely examples of Apollonius’ many experiments with epic narrative,but are also part of a problem which the whole poem raises in a veryacute form, namely the link between motive and action.

11 We may recall Od. 10, 573–574, t_r #m he¹m oqj 1h]komta / avhaklo?sim Udoit’C 5mh’ C 5mha ji|mta ;. The dangers of unwittingly seeing gods are fully docu-mented in M. Teufel, Brauch und Ritus bei Apollonios Rhodios (Diss. Tübingen1939) 167–188 and cf. A. W. Bulloch (Cambridge 1985) on Call. Lav. Pall101–102.

12 On the gods in Apollonius see H. de la Ville de Mirmont, Apollonios de Rhodes etVirgile (Paris 1894) passim; L. Klein, Die Gçttertechnik in den Argonautika desApollonios Rhodios, Philologus 86 (1931) 18–51 and 215–257; H. Faerber,Zur dichterischen Kunst in Apollonios Rhodios’ Argonautica (Die Gleichnisse) (Diss.Berlin 1932) 79–90; H. Herter, Bursian’s Jahresbericht 285 (1944/45)275–284; Fränkel, Noten (n. 6 above) 630–633.

13 Contrast Leucothoe’s appearance at Od. 5, 333–350.

1. Apollo and the Argonauts 31

Apollo’s epiphany is at one level a poetic version of sunrise. Opin-ions will differ as to whether Apollonius invites us to understand that thephysically exhausted14 and emotionally drained men interpret a naturalphenomenon as a divine apparition. It is possible that Herodorus, amajor source for this part of the epic15, had mentioned (in order to re-ject) this aetiology for the cult of Apollo :~ior, but unfortunately therelevant scholium is ambiguous16. Be that as it may, Apollonius hasmade the equation of Apollo and the sun17 absolutely clear by stressingthe god’s golden hair and his brilliant eyes into which none of the her-oes could look directly; later in the poem we are told that such eyes area feature shared by all the race of Helios (4, 727–729; cf. 4, 683–684).pqosj}mgsir to the rising sun was a widespread ancient practice18, and inthe present episode we see an elaborate version of this. The solar iden-tity of Apollo also illuminates the role of Orpheus here. The poet parexcellence takes a leading role in ritual throughout the epic and thelinks between Orpheus and Apollo require no special illustration. Nev-ertheless, Apollonius may have a particular legend in mind here. Ac-cording to this story19, Orpheus rejected the worship of Dionysus andinstead used to climb Mt. Pangaion every morning to worship thesun which he called Apollo. This story formed some part of Aeschylus’Bassarai (cf. fr. 23a Radt). Whether or not Apollonius was thinking ofthat story here, the role of Orpheus points to the unity of all the eventson the island.

14 Cf. 673 jal\t\ pokup^lomi; for the j\lator brought on by rowing cf. esp.Il. 7, 4–6. The simile which compares the heroes rowing to oxen ploughing(662–668) is an elaboration of a common metaphor, cf. Pfeiffer on Call.fr. 572; R. G. M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard on Hor. C. 1, 7, 32.

15 Cf. P. Desideri, Studi di storiografia eracleota, SCO 16 (1967) 366–416; Thyniaswas colonised from Heraclea and thus attracted the attention of Herodorus,Nymphis and others.

16 Sw. 2, 684, Jq|dyqor owm vgs·m (FGrHist 31 F 48) :`om )p|kkyma pqosaco-qe}eshai ja· byl¹m aqtoO eWmai 1m t0 m^s\, oq jah¹ eqhqou 1v\mg aqto?r, !kk±jah¹ oR )qcomaOtai eqhqou eQr aqtµm jat]pkeusam; for discussion cf. Wilamo-witz, Der Glaube der Hellenen I3 (Berlin 1959) 22; Blumberg (n. 6 above) 43.

17 On the identification of Apollo and the sun in Greek poetry and thought cf. J.S. Rusten, Dionysius Scytobrachion (Papyrologica Coloniensia 10, 1982) 33 n.18; J. Diggle on Eur. Phaethon 224–225, and F. Williams on Call. Ap. 9.

18 Cf. Jessen, RE 8 (1912) 5S.19 [Eratosth.] Catasterismoi 24; for text and discussion cf. M. L. West, BICS 30

(1983) 63–71 and TrGF 3, 138–139.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception32

For the temple to jl|moia the scholia to Apollonius for once fail us,but the oath to help each other in the future which the Argonauts takeon the island does find an echo in the version of the Argonautic sagapreserved in the fourth book of Diodorus Siculus. There we readthat, at the suggestion of Heracles, the heroes swore to help eachother again in the future after they had completed the quest for theFleece (Diod. Sic. 4, 53, 4). Diodorus’ main source here is the ration-alising account of the myth given by Dionysius Scytobrachion, andwe may perhaps use this passage as evidence that the oath at 2,715–716 is not Apollonius’ own contribution20. Fortunately, however,uncertainty about the poet’s sources does not prevent us from trying tounderstand his art. The foundations of the cults of Apollo :~ior and ofjl|moia are not separate, unrelated events21, but part of one Apollineexperience. The role of Orpheus stresses Apollo’s function as the godof music, and the links between musical and social ‘harmony’ wouldhave been familiar to any educated contemporary of Apollonius. Themost famous expression of these ideas is the opening passage of Pindar’sFirst Pythian, a poem in which Apollo is asked to help Hiero to guide hispeople s}lvymom 1r Bsuw_am (70). Plato’s discussion of the etymology of)p|kkym is particularly relevant here (Cratyl. 405 c-d)22:

jat± d³ tµm lousijµm de ? rpokabe ?m fti t¹ %kva sgla_mei pokkawoO t¹bloO, ja· 1mtaOha tµm bloO p|kgsim ja· peq· t¹m oqqam|m, otr dµ p|kour

jakoOsim, ja· peq· tµm 1m t0 ád0 "qlom_am, D dµ sulvym_a jake ?tai, ftitaOta p\mta, ¦r vasim oR jolxo· peq· lousijµm ja· !stqomol_am, "qlom_ôtim· poke ? ûla p\mta· 1pistate ? d³ oxtor b he¹r t0 "qlom_ô blopok_m aqt±p\mta ja· jat± heo»r ja· jat’ !mhq~pour· ¦speq owm t¹m bloj]keuhom ja·bl|joitim ‘!j|kouhom’ ja· ‘%joitim’ 1jak]salem, letabak|mter !mt· toO ‘blo-’ ‘!-’, ovty ja· )p|kkyma 1jak]salem dr Gm jlopok_m, 6teqom k\bda

1lbak|mter, fti bl~mulom 1c_cmeto t` wakep` am|lati.

20 Jacoby, FGrHist Ia p. 517, suggested that Dionysius invented the oath in hisversion. Rusten (n. 17 above) 85–92, makes Dionysius roughly contemporarywith Apollonius and (p. 95) finds it impossible to decide priority in the twomain incidents shared by the two writers, the halt at Samothrace and the epiph-any of Glaucus.

21 Contrast, e. g., Fränkel, Noten (n. 6 above) 229.22 1, 759–762 ( Jason’s cloak) alludes to an etymology of )p|kkym from pokk|r

(cf. Pl. Crat. 404 c-e; Call. Ap. 2, 69–70). For etymologies of Apollo in earlierpoetry cf. Archilochus fr. 26, 5–6 West; Aesch. Ag. 1080–1082; Eur. Phaethon224–226; Timotheus, PMG 800 (cf. below p. 59), and perhaps Hipponaxfr. 25 West.

1. Apollo and the Argonauts 33

The foundation of the cult of jl|moia is linked to Apollo’s epiphany bythe god’s function as bestower of harmony and concord (in both literaland transferred senses)23. In Book 1 of the Argonautica a cosmologicalsong by Orpheus restored harmony and bl|moia among the Argonauts(1, 494–515); in Book 2 Apollo and Orpheus combine again to reaf-firm these qualities24.

II.

In historical times the island on which the Argonauts see Apollo was alsoknown as Apollonia and was largely given over to the cult of Apollo25.This interest dominates Apollonius’ account, and two passages call forparticular notice. The first is the description of the Argonauts’ arrivalon the island (669–676):

Glor d’ out’ %q py v\or %lbqotom out’ 5ti k_gm670 aqvma_g p]ketai, kept¹m d’ 1pid]dqole mujt·

v]ccor, f t’ !lvik}jgm lim !mecq|lemoi jak]ousi,t/lor 1qgla_gr m^sou kil]m’ eQsek\samterHumi\dor jal\t\ pokup^lomi ba ?mom 5qafe.to ?si d³ KgtoOr uR¹r !meqw|lemor Kuj_ghem1nev\mg.

Apollonius uses the Glor … t/lor formula sparingly and with care26.The Glor clause may describe an action in ‘the real world’ which reflectsor is like the action of the t/lor clause (1, 1172–1177; 3, 1340–1343;4, 109–114) or the Glor clause may give the reason for the action of thet/lor clause (1, 450–453. 1280–1283; 2, 516–518) and in these latter

23 Cf. Ovid Met. 1, 518 (Apollo to Daphne) per me concordant carmina neruis; forsome speculations on the political dimension of *qlom_a cf. R. G. A. Buxton,Persuasion in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1982) 48.

24 Just as Orpheus’ song in Book 1 has strong links with Empedocles, so toobl|moia and "qlom_a are important notions in pre-Socratic and sophisticthought, cf. Diels-Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker II p. 356; G. S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers2 (Cambridge 1983)232–234. The evidence that Empedocles identified Apollo and Helios (Men.Rhet. 337, 2–6 Sp.-RW) will not bear examination.

25 Cf. K. Ziegler, RE 6 A (1936) 718–720.26 Cf. 1, 450–453. 1172–1177. 1280–1283; 2, 516–518; 3, 1340–1343; 4,

109–114; for discussion cf. W. Bühler. Die Europa des Moschos (Hermes Einzels-chriften Bd. 13, 1960) 210–211 and Fränkel, Noten (n. 6 above) 141.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception34

instances the Glor clause, as at 2, 669–671, describes a natural phenom-enon. We may therefore reasonably enquire why Apollonius has chosenthis particular moment to display his knowledge of the Homeric hapax!lvik}jg27. The Homeric scholia connect this word with kuj|vyr andk}cg, but the scholia to Aratus, Phaen. 747 make a connection withk}jor, the sacred animal of Apollo. I suggest, therefore, that !lvik}jg

has a peculiar appropriateness as a time for seeing Apollo, and that Apol-lonius has helped us to see this by making the god travel Kuj_ghem. Thecult title of Apollo K}jior was very variously explained in antiquity;connections with keuj|r, k}jor and Kuj_a were all postulated28. Homer’s!lvik}jg m}n is in fact adduced to support a derivation of K}jior fromk}jg (!p¹ toO keujoO) in the course of Macrobius’ discussion of the culttitle (Sat. 1, 17, 36–41). Macrobius is known to depend upon Apollo-dorus of Athens peq· he_m (FGrHist 244 F 95), but we can hardly as-sume that Apollodorus too had connected !lvik}jg and K}jior

29.Even if he had done so, we would still not have traced the connectionas far back as the time of Apollonius. Nevertheless, with or withoutgrammatical precedent, Apollonius has established the connection bythe repetition of the kuj-root; some confirmation that etymology andverbal games are important in this passage may be found in the accountof the worship of Apollo in vv. 701–713:

!lv· d³ daiol]moir erq»m woq¹m 1st^samto,jak¹m Zgpai^om’ Zgpai^oma Vo ?bomlekp|lemoi. s»m d] svim 1»r pa ?r OQ\cqoioBistom_, v|qlicci kice_gr Gqwem !oid/r·

705 ¦r pote petqa_, rp¹ deiq\di Paqmgso ?oDekv}mgm t|noisi pek~qiom 1nem\qine,joOqor 1½m 5ti culm|r, 5ti pkoj\loisi cecgh~r -Rk^joir aQe_ toi, %man, %tlgtoi 5heiqai,aQ³m !d^kgtoi· t½r c±q h]lir· oQ|hi d’ aqtµ

710 Kgt½ Joioc]meia v_kair 1m· weqs·m !v\ssei -pokk± d³ Jyq}jiai M}lvai Pkeisto ?o h}catqer

27 !lvik}jg is also found at Aratus, Phaen. 747, and v. 670 seems to echoPhaen. 80, keptot]qg c±q t0 ja· t0 1pid]dqolem aUckg ; there is a sensitivediscussion of vv. 669–671 by Fränkel in DLZ 51 (1930) 874. On the actualetymology of !lvik}jg cf. D. J. N. Lee, ‘Homeric kuj\bar and others’, Glotta40 (1962) 168–182, and H. Koller, ‘Kuj\bar’, Glotta 51 (1973) 29–34.

28 Cf. Sch. Hom. Il. 4, 101; Servius auctus on Verg. Aen. 4, 377; Kruse, RE 13(1927) 2268–2270; F. Williams, CQ n.s. 21 (1971) 138–139.

29 R. Münzel, De Apollodori peq· he_m libris (Diss. Bonn 1883) 16 in fact derivesthis passage of Macrobius from Apollodorus.

1. Apollo and the Argonauts 35

haqs}mesjom 5pessim, ‘Vg Ve’ jejkgcu ?ai,5mhem dµ t|de jak¹m 1v}lmiom 5pketo Vo_b\.

If the cult of Apollo :~ior was new, the story which Orpheus here tellswas very old30. In particular, Apollonius has in mind the version of thisstory in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. In the Hymn, as in Apollonius, agroup of weary seafarers found a new cult of Apollo with a title derivedfrom their experience of the god, Dekv_mior in the Hymn, :~ior inApollonius. Both poems also use the title Zgpai^ym for Apollo (H.Ap. 272; Ap. Rhod. 2, 702)31, and as the Hymn derives the name ofthe monster P}hym and the title P}heior for Apollo from p}heim (363,371–374), so Dekv}mgm in Ap. Rhod. 2, 706, the other name for themonster, suggests an etymology for the place-name Delphi; the juxta-position of petqa_, rp¹ deiq\di Paqmgso ?o (the actual location of Del-phi) and Dekv}mgm points us towards this etymology. In the context ofApollo’s epiphany in the Argonautica, it may also be worth remarkingthat the Homeric Hymn presents Apollo and Helios working togetherfor the destruction of the monster (368–374); there Apollo uses thepower of the sun, rather than himself representing that power.

The slaying of the Delphic serpent was traditionally an act of Apol-lo’s youth or even his earliest infancy. In Callimachus’ accounts in theHymn to Apollo (cf. below p. 39–40) and in the fourth book of theAetia32 Apollo was still a pa ?r when he performed this act. At firstsight, Apollonius’ indication of the god’s age (707) is puzzling. Thestyle of the verse is, however, familiar from many hymns of praise33,and we may compare a typically Callimachean achievement of Apollo’sbaby sister Artemis (Call. Dian. 72–77):

30 Cf. T. Schreiber, Apollon Pythoktonos (Leipzig 1879); J. Fontenrose, Python(Berkeley/Los Angeles 1959).

31 702–703 rework Il. 1, 472–474, oR d³ pamgl]qioi lokp0 he¹m Rk\sjomto /jak¹m !e_domter pai^oma joOqoi )wai_m, / l]kpomter :j\eqcom. Ancient schol-ars, like modern translators, disputed whether jak|m in v. 473 was adjectival oradverbial ; jak¹m 1v}lmiom in v. 713 seems to give Apollonius’ view. For adjec-tival jak|r cf. Euphorion fr. 80, 2 Powell.

32 Cf. Dieg. II 24 (Pfeiffer, Vol. I p. 95).33 Cf. the repetition in the ‘hymn’ to the Argonauts at 4, 1384, Ø b_,, Ø !qet0

Kib}gr !m± h ?mar jtk. ; Call. Jov. 2. !e_ in hymnic style is fully documentedby K. Keyssner, Gottesvorstellung und Lebensauffassung im griechischen Hymnus(Stuttgart 1932) 39–44.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception36

joOqa, s» d³ pqot]qy peq, 5ti tqi]tgqor 1oOsa,ewt’ 5lokem Kgt~ se let’ !cjak_dessi v]qousa,Jva_stou jak]omtor fpyr apt^qia do_g,

75 Bq|mte~ se stibaqo ?sim 1vessal]mou com\tessi,st^heor 1j lec\kou kas_gr 1dq\nao wa_tgr,¥koxar d³ b_gvi·

Apollo’s age is less narrowly specified than Artemis’. Young boys dedi-cated the hair cut from their head either in infancy or on reaching sexualmaturity to a god, often Apollo34; the ancients connected joOqor withje_qeim, and that is obviously important for the interpretation of this pas-sage35. 707 nicely hints that Apollo might one day cut his hair and ded-icate it to himself. No wonder that the poet cuts in jocularly to ask thegod’s forgiveness. His apology turns on the ambiguity of 5ti, which canmean ‘still at that time (though it later changed)’ or ‘still (to this day)’36.We naturally read v. 707 in the former way, but the repeated aQe_ ofvv. 708–709, picking up the repetition of 5ti, assures us and the godthat we were wrong. culm|r in v. 707 presents a further, and more dif-ficult, problem. It has often been taken to mean ‘beardless’ and thiswould be very attractive37; Apollonius commonly denotes a man’s ageby the presence or absence of facial hair (cf. 1, 972; 2, 43–44. 779;3, 519–520), and we may compare Callimachus’ description of Apollo’syouthful beauty (Ap. 36–37):

ja· l³m !e· jak¹r ja· !e· m]or· oupote Vo_bouhgke_air oqd’ fssom 1p· wm|or Gkhe paqeia ?r.

Nevertheless, I have been unable to parallel either culm|r or nudus usedby themselves to mean ‘beardless’. Three alternative approaches havebeen tried. One is emendation, but nothing very satisfactory has beendevised38. Secondly, some critics have seen a reference to the nakedness

34 Cf., e. g., Euphorion, AP 6, 279 (= Gow-Page, Hellenistic Epigrams1801–1804); L. Sommer, Das Haar in Religion und Aberglauben der Griechen(Diss. Münster 1912) 18–34; M. L. West on Hes. Theog. 347.

35 Cf. Sch. Hom. Il. 21, 204; Eustathius, Hom. 582, 20; 1403, 3; the importanceof this etymology for v. 707 was pointed out by M. Campbell, RPh 47 (1973)78–79.

36 Cf. Gow on Theocr. 17, 134.37 Cf. Nemesianus, Ecl. 2, 17 ambo genas leues, intonsi crinibus ambo. Archilochus ap-

parently used culm|r to mean ‘with shaven head’, !pesjuhisl]mor (fr. 265 West= Hesychius c 1001).

38 tumm|r Schneider, tuth|r Morel.

1. Apollo and the Argonauts 37

of Greek statuary39; 5ti is, however, awkward with this explanationwhich may also be thought to lack the desired wit. Thirdly, we mayadopt the explanation of the scholiast who glosses culm|r as %mgbor :Apollo is already a joOqor, but not yet an 5vgbor40. Again the lack ofa parallel for such a use of culm|r is disconcerting. If the word issound, therefore, we might consider the possibility that the first halfof v. 707 draws on the version of the legend in which Apollo wasstill a babe-in-arms when he killed the serpent. In Euripides’ account,for example, the god is 5ti bq]vor, 5ti v_kar j 1p· lat]qor !cj\kaisi

(IT 1250–1251), and at 1, 508 Apollonius describes Zeus in the Dic-taean cave as 5ti joOqor, 5ti vqes· m^pia eQd~r. If this is right, then Apol-lonius has, not untypically, combined two versions of the story in hisnarrative; indeed here the two versions appear side-by-side in the oneverse.

The aspect of this passage of the Argonautica which has attractedmost recent attention is its relationship to the aetiology of the cry Rµ

Rµ pai/om which Callimachus gives in his Hymn to Apollo (97–103):

Rµ Rµ pai/om !jo}olem, ovmeja toOtoDekv|r toi pq~tistom 1v}lmiom evqeto ka|r,Glor 2jgbok_gm wqus]ym 1pede_jmuso t|nym.

100 Puh~ toi jati|mti sum^mteto dail|mior h^q,aQm¹r evir. t¹m l³m s» jat^maqer %kkom 1p’ %kk\b\kkym ¡j»m aist|m, 1pg}tgse d³ ka|r·‘Rµ Rµ pai/om, Vei b]kor’.

At first glance the two versions have little in common. Scholars havelooked rather to the opening story of Aetia 4 for Apollonius’ source41;the Apollonian scholia tell us that Callimachus also somewhere namedthe Delphic serpent Dekv}mgr (fr. 88 Pfeiffer) and if this was, as com-monly assumed, in Aetia 4 then this would seem to strengthen thecase for eliminating the Callimachean hymn as a possible influenceupon Argonautica 2. Even relative poetic chronology is extremely diffi-cult to establish for this period, but the full implications of the possiblelinks between these two passages have not yet been properly explored.

39 Cf. Vian, ad loc.40 Cf. Campbell, loc. cit. (n. 34 above), Solon fr. 27, 1 West pa ?r l³m %mgbor 1½m

5ti m^pior jtk.41 Cf., e. g., Wilamowitz, Hellenistische Dichtung (Berlin 1924) II 85; Pfeiffer on

Call. fr. 88; Eichgrün (n. 3 above) 168–169; there is an interesting and cau-tious discussion on p. 82 of F. Williams’ edition of Call. Ap. (Oxford 1978).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception38

That both poets use the etymological games42 and changes of persontraditionally associated with hymnic style is of no significance for rela-tive chronology; Apollonius certainly did not need the Aetia to teachhim the stylistic tricks of vv. 707–710. Of some interest perhaps arethe similarity of v. 702, jak¹m Zgpai^om’ Zgpai^oma Vo ?bom, to v. 21of the Callimachean hymn, bpp|h’ Rµ pai/om Rµ pai/om !jo}s,, andthe fact that whereas Apollonius has indicated an etymology for Delphi(cf. above p. 36), Callimachus refers to both names for the holy shrine,Delphi (98) and Pytho (100); no strong argument for priority can, how-ever, be derived from either of these observations. Suggestive also is theword 1v}lmiom which both poets use. This word is first found here andat Call. fr. 384, 39 (The Victory of Sosibios) where t^mekka jakk_mije is de-scribed as )qwik|wou mija ?om 1v}lmiom43; 1v}lmiom has been thought tobe an invention of Callimachus, but no good argument for this hasbeen produced44. The dating of The Victory of Sosibios is notoriously un-certain45, and Callimachus could have used the word in other now lostpoems (for example, the opening of Aetia 4). The sudden appearance ofthis word in the parallel passages of Callimachus and Apollonius remainscurious, however, and it may be worth suggesting that Callimachus’emphatic toOto j Dekv|r toi pq~tistom 1v}lmiom evqeto (98–99) pointsto the ‘invention’ of the word 1v}lmiom as well as of the ritual cry. Anew papyrus could, of course, easily destroy such a speculation. A fur-ther point of contact between the two passages is 1nem\qinem and jat^-maqer. The second half of Ap. Rhod. 2, 706 reproduces a Homeric(Il. 5, 842) verse-ending46, and Apollonius uses 1nemaq_feim in threeother places (1, 92; 3, 398. 1226), always at verse-end; 2, 706 is, how-ever, the only occasion when he uses this verb with a non-human ob-

42 For the use of etymology in Hellenistic hymns cf. M. Hopkinson, ‘Callimachus’Hymn to Zeus’, CQ n.s. 34 (1984)139–148.

43 Eratosthenes too seems to have called t^mekka jakk_mije an 1v}lmiom, cf. Sch.Pind. Ol. 9. 1 (= FGrHist 241 F 44 = Archilochus fr. 324 West). The otherGreek words for ‘refrain’, 1pilek]dgla, 1p_qqgla, 1p_vheccla and 1p\d|r(cf. F. Williams on Call. Ap. 98) do not occur in extant literature until alater period, although 1pivh]cceshai occurs as early as Aesch. Ch. 457, cf. N.Hopkinson (Cambridge 1984) on Call. Cer. 1.

44 Certainly not in the works listed in F. Williams’ note on Call. Ap. 98.45 Cf. Herter, RE Suppl. 5 (1931) 407; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford

1972) II 1004–1005; P. J. Parsons, ZPE 25 (1977) 44–45.46 Apollonius’ aorist follows the text of, inter alios, Zenodotus, cf. Sch. Il. 11, 368

b.

1. Apollo and the Argonauts 39

ject. Callimachus’ jat^maqer47 reproduces a Homeric hapax (Od. 11,

519) and reflects Homeric usage (cf. Il. 21, 485 h/qar 1ma_qeim). The evi-dence is thus quite inconclusive, but it may be thought that Callimachushere has slightly the better claim to priority. Two further matters de-serve notice. Callimachus leaves us in no doubt about the nature ofApollo’s opponent, dail|mior h^q, j aQm¹r evir. In Apollonius Dekv}mgris merely given the general epithet pek~qior48 and there is no explicitindication of what sort of creature it was. We may contrast 4,1396–1398 where K\dym, the serpent of the Hesperides, is describedexplicitly as wh|mior evir, and Apollonius’ obvious interest in dragonsis fully displayed at 4, 127–161. His silence at 2, 706 may thereforebe added to the cumulative argument that he is writing in this passagewith his eye on an already existing poetic version. A final considerationcan be adduced which seems to me to add considerably to the weight ofthis argument.

The derivation of the cry Rµ R^ from R]mai (b]kor) will have had along history before Callimachus and Apollonius. It is visible already, Iwould suggest, in a brief passage of Timotheus preserved by Macrobiusin his discussion of Apollo’s titles (PMG 800):

s} t’ § t¹m !e· p|kom oqq\miomkalpqa?r !jt ?s’ Nkie b\kkym,p]lxom 2jab|kom 1whqo ?s<i> b]kor

s÷r !p¹ meuq÷r, § Ve Pai\m.

These verses seem replete with etymological games: !e· p|kom, !e_ …b\kkym, 2jab|kom… b]kor all seem to point to )p|kkym, and Ve surelypicks up, and is thus explained by, p]lxom. Be that as it may, the linkbetween R]mai and the ritual cry to Apollo was certainly familiar in thethird century49. Callimachus makes the derivation completely clear,but in Apollonius we have only t|noisi in v. 706 to help us. Thismay seem not very significant as all of Apollonius’ readers (ancientand modern) know already how Apollo killed the dragon, but it isworth noting that until Hermann Fränkel restored Vg Ve to the text ofv. 712 the whole point of the aetiology was lost on many critics.

47 Pfeiffer’s Index Vocabulorum mistakenly derives jat^maqer from jatemaq_feim.48 Cf. H. Ap. 374 p]kyq, Eur. IT 1249 c÷r pek~qiom t]qar.49 Cf. Clearchus fr. 64 W2 (Ath. 15, 701 c-d) and Duris, FGrHist 76 F 79 (Et.

Mag. 469, 45–47); the same explanation is given later by Aristarchus (Et.Mag. 469, 53) and the scholia to the present passage of Apollonius.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception40

Thus Seaton, for example, printed Y^ie which he translated as ‘Healer’without explaining why the nymphs should call Apollo by such aname at this critical moment. At least one intelligent critic thoughtthe nymphs’ cry to be merely a meaningless shout of encouragement50.That it certainly is not, but it is tempting to ascribe Apollonius’ very el-liptical treatment of the aetiology to the existence of Callimachus’Hymn. The case is, of course, far from proved, and so I leave it to othersto try to draw general literary lessons from the possible links betweenthese two passages51.

Addendum

This epiphany of Apollo is discussed again from a rather different perspective inCritical Moments in Classical Literature (Cambridge, forthcoming).

50 Blumberg (n. 6 above) 43.51 Cf., e. g., M, J. M. Margolies, Apollonius’ Argonautica; A Callimachean Epic (Diss.

Colorado 1981) 147–148. I am grateful to Neil Hopkinson for casting his scep-tical eye over an earlier draft of this paper.

Addendum 41

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of theArgonautica*

If Medea has attracted more readers to the Argonautica than any othercharacter — thereby also determining which parts of the poem have be-come generally familiar — she has also provided critics of the poemwith their major (sometimes their sole) topic for discussion.1 Themain charge, particularly among critics writing in English,2 is that thevarious aspects of Medea — awakening love, deadly magic, fratricide— form neither a consistent nor a credible whole. One quotation,from an article which explicitly aims to summarise recent criticism,may stand as representative: ‘[Medea’s passion] produced an inconsis-tency [Apollonius] either ignored deliberately in the confidence of hisMedea in love, or, just possibly, may not have noticed. The same emo-tionally immature and helpless Medea is the competent, unfrightenedservant of Hecate, the cool instructress of Jason in taming the bulls,the calm soother of the dragon… the behaviour of Medea later in the

* Classical Quarterly 37 (1987) 129–39Earlier versions of this paper were read to seminars in Cambridge, Corpus

Christi College, Oxford, Sydney and Zurich; I am grateful to those audiencesfor much advice and criticism. I am also indebted to Dr D. C. Feeney whokindly commented upon the penultimate draft. The following works arecited by author name only: C. R. Beye, Epic and Romance in the Argonauticaof Apollonius (Carbondale, 1982); M. Campbell, Studies in the Third Book ofApollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (Hildesheim, 1983); H. Fränkel, Noten zu denArgonautika des Apollonios (Munich, 1968); M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche(Rome, 1985); P. Hübscher, Die Charakteristik der Personen in Apollonios’ Argo-nautika (diss. Freiburg i.d. Schweiz, 1940); G. Paduano, Studi su Apollonio Rodio(Rome, 1972); U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung (Ber-lin, 1924).

1 Particularly helpful are Hübscher 10–38, Paduano and the survey by H. Herter,Bursian’s Jahresbericht 285 (1944/55), 291–4. Of criticism in English most can belearned from E. Phinney, ‘Narrative Unity in the Argonautica, the Medea-JasonRomance’, TAPA 98 (1967), 327–41 and Campbell 37–77.

2 Cf. Fusillo’s strictures (p. 287 n. 54)’ II problema della “doppia Medea” e forseil piu ozioso e il piu falsato nell’ impostazione di quelli su cui si e soffermata labibliografia apolloniana’.

[fourth] Book is, against all reason, quite untouched by what we wouldthink of as a shattering experience, at the very least destructive of anyreal trust between her and Jason … It is as if Apollonius has thrownin [Apsyrtus’ murder] without care or realisation of its consequencefor the consistency of her character’.3 Behind criticism of this kindlies both an understandable desire to relate the characters of ancient lit-erature, if not to our own experience, at least to what instinct tells us ispossible, and the whole tradition of criticism which descends from thePoetics of Aristotle. In recent years other approaches have gained curren-cy,4 but in this paper I shall explore the presentation of Medea as awhole (Part I) and particularly of her flight from Colchis (Part II) withina traditional framework in an attempt to clarify what seem to me to becritical misunderstandings.

I.

Two related observations are in order at once. First, Medea’s ‘credibil-ity’ can hardly be the object of serious debate. Whether or not homici-dal sorceresses can also be impressionable virgins (and vice versa) is asubject about which people may reasonably disagree. Moreover, weare here concerned not with any young Colchian girl, but with the hy-pothesised adolescence of a familiar figure of myth and literature. Themurder of Apsyrtus foreshadows the later murder of Medea’s own chil-dren, just as, mutatis mutandis, Heracles’ strangling of the snakes fore-shadows his later elimination of some of Greece’s most hideous mon-sters.5 Such neat patterns may indeed be more common in myth and lit-erature than in real life, but at any event simplistic notions of ‘credibility’have no place here.

The apparent paradoxes in the presentation of Medea occur in bothBook 3 and Book 4. Well known is 3.858–68:

t/r oVgm t’ 1m eqessi jekaimµm Qjl\da vgcoOJasp_gi 1m j|wkyi !l^sato vaql\sseshai,

3 C. Collard, ‘Medea and Dido’, Prometheus 1 (1975), 131–51 at 138–9.4 Cf., e. g., S. Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 169–98;

for a ‘revised Aristotelianism’ cf. J. M. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad(Chicago, 1975), pp. 20–3.

5 Apsyrtus goes to his death like an !tak¹r p\ir (4.460); cf. also 3.747–8, Fusillo338.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 43

2pt± l³m !em\oisi koessal]mg rd\tessim,2pt\ji d³ Bqil½ jouqotq|vom !cjak]sasa,Bqil½ mujtip|kom, whom_gm, 1m]qoisim %massam,kuca_gi 1m· mujt· s»m aqvma_oir vaq]essi.lujghl_i d’ rp]meqhem 1qelmµ se_eto ca ?a,N_fgr telm|lemgr Titgm_dor· 5steme d’ aqt¹rYapeto ?o p\ir ad}mgi p]qi hul¹m !k}ym.t| N’ F c’ 1namekoOsa hu~dez j\theto l_tqgi

F te oR !lbqos_oisi peq· st^hessim 5eqto.

Medea is here an aroused and arousing virgin who holds converse withchthonic powers and who stores the physical torment of others betweenher beautiful breasts. A less bizarre example of these contrasts, but onevery relevant to the argument of Part II of this paper, occurs in the de-scription of her flight to the Argo (4.50–3):

oq c±q %idqirGem bd_m, hal± ja· pq·m !kyl]mg !lv_ te mejqo»r!lv_ te duspak]ar N_far whom|r, oXa cuma ?jervaqlaj_der· tqoleq_i d’ rp¹ de_lati p\kketo hul|r.

So too, Medea’s last two appearances in the poem form a tellingly con-trasted pair. At 4.1521–2 she and her maids flee when Mopsus is bittenby a snake: they behave like ordinary young girls.6 In her final appear-ance, however, the magic powers of her eyes save the Argonauts bycausing the destruction of the bronze giant Talos (4.1651–88). Thus,the picture we have of her does not change; rather, different aspectsare emphasised as the narrative moves through a wide range of actionand emotion. We may compare the Medea of Euripides. She too isclever and dangerous, even if her magical powers are, until the end ofthe play, given less prominence than in Apollonius,7 but she is also awoman who expresses concerns which Euripides represents as commonto all women8 and whose situation, that of being discarded in favour ofanother, is not peculiar to clever and dangerous women.

6 Vian’s note on 1521, ‘Médée a aussitôt compris le danger et le caractère irreme-diable de la blessure’, is hard to believe; contrast, e. g., Paduano 232.

7 Cf. B. M. W. Knox, ‘The Medea of Euripides’, YCS 25 (1977), 193–225 at211–16 ( = Word and Action, pp. 307–11).

8 This, of course, simplifies a highly complex subject, cf. , e. g., S. C. Humphreys,The Family, Women and Death (London, 1983), pp. 72–3, Goldhill, op. cit,pp. 115–17.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception44

The murder of Apsyrtus is the hinge around which most discussionof Medea’s character has swung. Interpretation is hindered by the veryelliptical narrative of the events surrounding the deed.9 Critics differ asto whether at 4.404–5 Jason reveals a plan to kill Apsyrtus which hadbeen part of the Argonauts’ strategy all along,10 or whether the idea sud-denly occurs to him as an ad hoc way of soothing Medea’s rage.11 What iscrucial, however, is that the uncertainty the modern reader feels is pre-cisely the situation in which the poet has placed Medea herself, and it isthis uncertainty about her position that marks and determines her be-haviour throughout the fourth book. She is no more clear than weare what game Jason is playing. The actual manner of Apsyrtus’ death— lured by Medea’s false words and struck from behind by Jason —should surprise nobody. Medea’s guile was apparent already in thethird book in her handling of Chalciope (3.681–739) and her maids(3.891–912). It has, moreover, long been recognised that the d|kor

which lures Apsyrtus to his death recalls the d|kor which killedCreon and his daughter in Euripides’ Medea, just as Medea’s speech ofreproof to Jason is clearly a reworking of the parallel speech in the trag-edy (Med. 465–519). The tragic Medea makes no bones about what islikely to happen when a woman is wronged 1r eqm^m (cf. 265–6,1367–8), and the chorus of the play sing of the dangerous excesses towhich love can lead (627–43); the comparison of Apollonius’ curseon sw]tki’ =qyr (4.445–9) to a choral song has often been made. Sotoo, the Apollonian Medea’s frightening potential has always beenclear. In Book 3 she threatened to materialise on the other side of theworld if Jason forgot her (3.1111–17),12 and here in Book 4 there isno doubting the seriousness of her situation. She will not merely beabandoned like Ariadne,13 but handed over to her father whose taste

9 Cf. P. Händel, Beobachtungen zu epischen Technik des Apollonios Rhodios (Munich,1954), pp. 75–7, Vian’s edition of Book 4, pp. 20–1, Fusillo 283 n. 37.

10 Cf., e. g., Vian’s edition, p. 22. I do not find Vian’s reconstruction of Apsyrtus’strategy credible.

11 Cf., e. g., Wilamowitz ii.202. Beye 162 hedges his bets, perhaps wisely.12 I do not agree with Vian (Note compl�mentaire to 1116) that Medea is saying that

she will torment Jason ‘comme un revenant’. Magical transport seems to suither magical powers.

13 Catullus used Medea’s speech for Ariadne’s lament in Poem 64; note 4.385–7/Cat. 64.192–7. There are other more general similarities, which might arisemerely from the similarity of situation or from the common debt to Euripides.It is noteworthy that a cloak decorated with the story of Ariadne (4.423–34) is

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 45

for cruelty she well knows (cf. 3.378–9). Her desire to burn the Argo(4.392) in fact echoes an intention of Aietes himself (3.582,cf. 4.223); in her anger, she is her father’s daughter,14 and Jason must re-sort to the same tactics with her which he used to calm Aietes.15 Thehorror of the murder of Apsyrtus, even if epic legend knew muchmore horrible versions,16 is real enough — echoes of the murder ofAgamemnon17 as well as the poet’s !popolp^ of Eros (4.445–9)bear witness to that — but it comes as a climax in a pattern of eventsand not as an isolated and inexplicable catastrophe.

Intimately connected with the question of Medea’s behaviour inBook 4 is, of course, her relationship with Jason. Much discussion, tak-ing its cue from Wilamowitz,18 has been concerned to establish whetheror not love still exists between the pair on the return journey. This dis-cussion has, of course, been bedevilled by the fact that love is not alwayseasy to identify and different observers may apply this label to differentphenomena. A glance at what the poet tells us about the characters rath-er than what he gives them to say may, however, establish certain ‘facts’.

During the meeting at the temple of Hecate love works on Jason asit had already worked on Medea (3.1022–4, 1078). Under its power,Jason tells Medea of his home (thus watering the seed of flight whichhad been planted earlier)19 and promises to marry her if ever she wereto come to Greece.20 Nevertheless, the gulf between them is not hid-den.21 When they part, Jason goes back ‘rejoicing’ to his companions(3.1148) and tells them of Medea’s help, which causes them in turn

part of Medea’s way of avoiding Ariadne’s fate; this cloak was a gift from Hyp-sipyle, the first ‘Ariadne’ in the poem.

14 Note 3.368/4.391, 740.15 Note 3.386–8/4.395–8; 3.396/4.410 (rpossa_mym).16 Apollonius avoids any gruesome butchery by Medea herself, cf. Hübscher

34–5.17 4.468, cf. Od. 4.535, 11.411. It is interesting to compare the episode with Circe

to the Iphigeneia in Tauris of Euripides: a couple, stained (in Medea’s case liter-ally, cf. 4.473–4) with the blood of a relative of one of them, come at the com-mand of a divine voice to receive purification. The purifier, who is related tomurderer and victim, is forewarned of the arrival in a dream. The crucial differ-ence between the two works is the moral status of Orestes and Medea.

18 ii. 196–7, 203, 21.19 Cf. 3.680 (Chalciope’s expressed wish to live Vma lgd] peq oumola J|kwym).20 Hübscher 12–13 well observes that Jason’s conditional undertaking is very typ-

ical of him. His partial revelation of the story of Theseus and Ariadne would, ofcourse, have to be considered in any full account of his behaviour in this scene.

21 Cf., esp., Paduano 199–200, Fusillo 259.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception46

to rejoice (3.1171). The group-solidarity of the Argonauts, which hasalways been an important feature of the expedition (cf. 1.336–7,3.171–5) and which strongly distinguishes it from Homer’s accountof Odysseus’ adventures, is here emphasised to mark the supportwhich Jason enjoys: 2t\qoir (1163), s»m to ?si (1165), Bq~ym 1r flikom

(1166), bloO (1166). On the other hand, Medea, ‘stunned’ (1157), goeshome silent and aloof to fail into a gesture of lonely mourning and de-spair (1159–62).22 This is the last we see of her until the opening of thefourth book. There, in her terror, she finds the heroes celebrating withan all-night party (4.69); the contrast between her emotions and theirscould not be greater. When she begs them to rescue her, offers to securethe Golden Fleece for them and reminds Jason of his promises, he ‘re-joiced greatly’ (92–3) and repeated his pledge to marry her in Greece.Vian23 comments, ‘Jason does not merely rejoice selfishly at the thoughtof getting the fleece; it is Medea’s presence which makes him happy.’Such matters are, of course, hard to judge and there is certainly roomfor disagreement. Nevertheless, this passage should be set beside3.1014 where Jason receives the magic drug from Medea ‘rejoicing’,and 4.171 where he lifts up the fleece again ‘rejoicing’. Joy is not oth-erwise an emotion which comes readily to Apollonius’ Jason. He rejoi-ces when Heracles imposes his election as leader (1.350) — a scene richin nuance and irony — and he tells Phineus that if the gods should re-store the old man’s sight as well is his fortunes he ( Jason) would rejoiceas much as if he had reached home (2.441–2). This is indeed Jason’smotivating impulse: the need to complete the tasks imposed by Peliasand the desire to get home. To these ends he exploits Medea whoalone holds the key to success.24 His complete dependence upon her,emphasised by eVpeto d’ AQsom_dgr pevobgl]mor (4.149) and jo}qgr

jejkol]mgr (4.163), is suggested also in the description of the dragon’sroar (4.136–8):

de_lati d’ 1n]cqomto kewy_der, !lv· d³ pais·mgpi\woir, oV t] svim rp’ !cjak_dessim Uauom,No_fyi pakkol]moir we ?qar b\kom !swak|ysai.

22 The curious phrasing of 1162, 2/i jaj¹m 5qcom 1pinum~sato bouk/i, points tothe fact that Medea’s only partner is herself.

23 Note compl�mentaire to 4.93.24 Cf. Hübscher 18.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 47

That Medea protects Jason as a mother cares for her child25 is an ideawhich has already been suggested in the description of gathering nightin the third book (3.747–8). This idea gives bitter point to Medea’s ex-ploitation of Andromache’s famous plea to Hector (Hom. Il. 6.429–30)at 4.368–9:

t_ vgl· teµ jo}qg te d\laq te

aqtojasicm^tg te leh’ :kk\da ca ?am 6peshai.

In Colchis, Jason had been thus dependent upon Medea; now the tablesare turned and Medea is equally helpless.26

Medea’s isolation, the tragic ironies of her position, have thus beencarefully laid out long before the poet’s rueful intervention at the mo-ment of her defloration (4.1165–7):

!kk± c±q ou pote vOka dugpah]ym !mhq~pymteqpyk/r 1p]bglem fkyi pod_· s»m d] tir aQe·pijqµ paql]lbkyjem 1uvqos}mgisim !m_g.

Between the visit to Circe and the marriage on Drepane we learn thatAchilles is destined to marry Medea in the Elysian fields (4.811–15);this is not an idle utilisation of a variant myth, but a strategically placedwarning that Medea and Jason will not ‘live happily ever after’. Whilethe sleepless Medea waits to hear of Alcinous’ decision, her swirlingemotions are compared to the spindle turned by a grieving widow asher children cry round about her (4.1060–7). Just at the point whereMedea is formally to be given to Jason, the meaninglessness of thematch is marked by the figure of the woman who has lost a husband.27

This simile acts as counterpoint to the comparison of the onset of Me-dea’s passion to a fire lit in kindling by a working woman at 3.291–7.

25 For a different interpretation of 4.136–8 cf. A. Hurst, Apollonios de Rhodes:mani�re et coh�rence (Rome, 1967), pp. 105–6. On the transference of the lan-guage of family relationships to amatory contexts in general cf. C. W. Macleod,ZPE 15 (1974), 218 (= Collected Essays, p. 17).

26 aqtojasicm^tg in 369 clearly foreshadows Medea’s betrayal of Apsyrtus, cf.Frankel 481, Paduano 219. There is a similar effect at Eur. Med. 257 (cf.Page on 231). Medea exploits the same Homeric verses in her pledge to Chal-ciope at 3.730–2; that is not simple hypocrisy, as Medea’s motives are complexand apparently contradictory impulses exist side by side.

27 For other possible resonances in this simile cf. Hurst, op. cit. , pp. 122–3, Beye154, Fusillo 338.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception48

The two similes mark the progress of Medea’s suffering; neither givesany cause for optimism. Finally, Medea’s isolation is marked by echoesof Homer. The contribution of the Homeric Nausicaa to the Medea ofBook 3 is widely recognised, and we seem to catch a bitter echo of thisin the account of Medea’s tale to Circe (4.736–7):

v|mom d’ !k]eimem 1mispe ?m)x}qtou, tµm d’ ou ti m|yi k\hem.

When Nausicaa asked her father for a cart,

aUdeto c±q hakeq¹m c\lom 1nomol/maipatq· v_kyi· b d³ p\mta m|ei …

(Od. 6.66–7)

The substitution of v|mor for c\lor marks how far Medea has comefrom the innocence of a Nausicaa. Later, when she must plead withArete, she is placed in the position of Odysseus in Odyssey 7 whobegs Arete to intercede to secure safe passage home for him.28 That,of course, is the last thing Medea wants. Her actual words to Areteseem to rework not so much those of Odysseus’ plea to the queen asthe hero’s first words to the queen’s daughter in Odyssey 6.29 In aship full of heroes30 Medea is as alone as the shipwrecked Odysseus.When threatened earlier in the book, Medea was saved by the gruesomemurder of her brother. Now she is saved by a hastily arranged marriage;the parallelism may be thought to point forward to the subsequent his-tory of Jason and Medea.

28 Note Od. 7.142/Arg. 4.1012–13.29 Od. 6.149/Arg. 4.1014; the doubt about whether the addressee is human or di-

vine (cf. Livrea on Vkahi in 1014); Od. 6.175/Arg. 4.1025; Od. 6.180–2/Arg. 4.1026–8. For other Homeric passages cf. M. Campbell, Echoes and Imita-tions of Early Epic in Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden, 1981), p. 80.

30 Note the stress on the plurality of potential protectors at 4.1030. The lack ofany specific reference to Jason marks the increased seriousness of Medea’s po-sition since the murder of Apsyrtus and the visit of Circe. For Wilamowitz(ii.203) Jason’s silence here was ‘das Allerbezeichnendste für die erloscheneLiebe’, and subsequent critics have elaborated this view.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 49

II.

Whereas the proem to Book 1 had asserted the poet’s independencefrom previous poets and reduced the prominence of the Muses(1.18–22),31 the invocation to Erato at the head of Book 3 assignsthis Muse a leading role (loi 5mispe) beside the poet. At the head ofthe last book, the poet abandons the field entirely to the Muse,whom I take to be Erato, who is to take over the narrative herself :aqt^… he\ is thus a splendid example of Apollonius’ skill at breathingnew life into familiar epic tags.32 Whereas Homer had pleaded humanignorance and physical weakness in his request to the Muses beforethe Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.484–93), Apollonius professes an inabilityto choose between two apparently exclusive alternative labels to attachto Medea’s flight from Colchis. Like Homer, Apollonius pleads lack ofcertain knowledge, but the ignorance is now not of action but of inter-pretation. Before considering why Apollonius has chosen this poeticstrategy, we should note that it has a precedent even in our limited re-mains of Greek literature. In the eleventh Pythian Pindar considers twoexplanations of why Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon and Cassandra:

p|teq|m mim %q’ Yvic]mei’ 1p’ Eqq_pyisvawhe ?sa t/ke p\tqar

5jmisem baqup\kalom eqsai w|kom ;C 2t]qyi k]wez dalafol]mam

5mmuwoi p\qacom jo?tai ;(Pyth. 11. 22–5)

In Pindar also the action in question is the shameful deed of a female. Itmay be true that men frequently find the actions of women inexplica-ble, and it may be thought revealing that both Pindar and Apolloniusconsider love or sex as possibly major motive forces in the action oftheir female characters — revealing of Pindar and Apollonius, that is— but we may also see here an illustration of the adoption by Hellen-istic hexameter poets of a voice that was more suited to their ambivalent

31 On the much disputed rpov^toqer of 1.22 cf. most recently Fusillo 365–6.32 The desire to be read against Homer may also be marked out by echoes of

Il. 1.1 in 4.1 and Od. 1.1 in 4.2, cf. L. E. Rossi, RFIC 96 (1968), 159–60.That 4.1–2 is ‘a concentration of tags’ (M. Campbell, Mnem.4 36 [1983],155) does not disprove specific echoes, as the Iliad and the Odyssey have priv-ileged status for later poets.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception50

stance with respect to the narrative of mythical material than was the au-thoritative, but impersonal, Homeric voice.

What then is the import of the invocation at the head of the fourthbook? It is important that the five verses are replete with echoes of Me-dea’s suffering in the previous book: j\latom,33 d^mea34 and %tgr p/ladus_leqom

35 all take us back to crucial stages in the earlier book. The newelement, v}fa !eijek_g, is thus given prominence: to the picture ofMedea in Book 3 a new detail is to be added. The grouping of ‘frag-ments’ of the earlier book at the head of Book 4 suggests that thenew book is going to rework, and therefore revalue, scenes and lan-guage from Book 3. This is indeed precisely what happens.

Those who are not content merely to dismiss these verses as a jokey‘Callimachean conceit’ have offered two explanations for them, both ofwhich contain some truth. First, the poet is calling attention to the factthat his version runs counter to the common tradition, in which Medeafled solely out of love for Jason.36 The key witnesses to that tradition arePindar’s Pythian 4 and Euripides’ Medea. In Pindar, love makes Medeagive Jason the necessary magic drugs and marriage is promised beforethe contest of the bulls (vv. 213–33); Jason ‘stole’ Medea (v. 250),and nothing is said of fear of her father. In Euripides’ tragedy, thenurse asserts in the prologue that Medea came to Iolcus because ofher passion for Jason (v. 8); the chorus says that she left her homelandlaimol]mai jqad_ai (v. 434), and Medea herself ruefully admits that shecame pq|hulor l÷kkom C sovyt]qa (v. 485) and she links the evilwhich love works with separation from her country (vv. 328–30).The second stasimon deprecates 5qyter rp³q %cam 1kh|mter (v. 627)and places death before exile in verses which might serve as a mottofor the opening of Argonautica 4:

§ patq_r, § d~lata, lµd/t’ %pokir cemo_lamt¹m !lgwam_ar 5wousa dusp]qatom aQ_m’,oQjtq|tatom !w]ym.ham\tyi ham\tyi p\qor dale_gm

"l]qam t\md’ 1nam}sa-

33 Cf. 3.288—9 (the onset of love) %gmto j stgh]ym 1j pujima· jal\tyi vq]mer,961 (the first sight of Jason).

34 Cf. 3.661 (the simile of the m}lvg).35 Cf. 3.773, 798 (Medea’s suicide speech), 961, 973 (first encounter with Jason).36 Cf. p. 4 of Vian’s edition.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 51

sa· l|whym d’ oqj %kkor vpeq-hem C c÷r patq_ar st]qeshai.

(Med. 645–53)

A second interpretation of the proem to Book 4 sees the poet concernedwith the causation of human action: are we responsible for what we do,or are the gods?37 Later in Book 4, Medea herself has no doubts that thegods have been at work on her (4.413, 1040), and Jason recognised thisbefore he had exchanged a single word with her (3.973–4). As, how-ever, Hera and Eros are responsible for the %tgr p/la dus_leqom andHera for the v}fa (4.11, 22–3), the alleged dichotomy seems illusory.38

What remains, however, is the difficulty which the poet claims to havein assessing Medea’s flight. Perhaps we too should not assume that theanswer is an obvious one.

Against the apparently authoritative statements of v. 11 andvv. 22–339 may be set the mocking remarks of the moon as she seesMedea fleeing to the ship (4.57–65). The moon picks up the languageof the invocation’s first alternative (%tgr, !migq|m … p/la) to mockMedea’s passion. Of itself, this does not, of course, contradict the asser-tion of Hera’s responsibility for Medea’s flight as the fact of Medea’spassion is not in doubt. Nor is it a necessary, or even attractive, conclu-sion from these verses that the moon has misunderstood the immediatereason for the flight.40 Rather, the moon’s speech reinforces the illuso-riness of the opening poetic dilemma, just as the verses which describeMedea’s decision to flee sustain a delicate interplay between the lan-guage of fear and the language of love.

Hera’s responsibility for Medea’s abandonment of Colchis was an-nounced in 3.1133–6 where Hera’s purpose, her vendetta against Pel-ias, was also stated. As in the third book (3.250, 818), Hera intervenescrucially at the opening of the fourth book to determine Medea’s ac-tion.41 In both books the temptation of suicide is rejected in favour ofa movement towards Jason and the offering of her help in the two

37 Cf., e. g., H. Faerber, Zur dichterischen Kunst in Apollonios Rhodios’ Argonautica(die Gleichnisse) (diss. Berlin, 1932), p. 88.

38 Cf. (from a different perspective) Paduano 206.39 Cf. also Livrea on v. 4, citing Kühner-Gerth ii. p. 173 for ce attached to the

apparently preferable of two alternatives40 As asserted by Fränkel 458–9 and Beye 146, 164; a better view in Livrea’s note

on v. 55.41 Cf. Campbell 52.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception52

great tasks which he must confront.42 In both books the movementtakes the form of a journey. In Book 3, however, the journey is con-ducted in the light of day (3.823–4), whereas Medea’s flight needsthe cover of night; in Book 3 Medea drives a waggon and is accompa-nied by attendants through the broad road (3.872–4), in Book 4 sheflees alone, on bare feet, by the narrow back-streets (4.43); in Book 3the people look away for fear of catching her eye, but in Book 4 shemust cover her face for fear of being seen;43 in Book 3 she is comparedto Artemis driving her deer-drawn chariot as the wild animals fawnaround here in fear, whereas in Book 4 she is herself terrified and is suc-cessively compared to a deer, startled by the baying of hunting-dogs,and to a wretched slave-girl. Here too, then, Book 4 exploits the situa-tions of Book 3 with powerful poetic effect.

A direct Homeric model for the simile of the deer (4.12–13) is noteasy to find, although a number of passages may have contributed some-thing.44 The Iliadic flavour of the simile is, however, crucial to its inter-pretation: Medea’s fearful flight is like the rout of a soldier or an army inbattle.45 If caught, she will suffer a terrible fate at the hands of her venge-ful father. Her groans (v. 19) are expressed by the verb bquw÷shai, usedby Homer of the groans of dying soldiers;46 the Iliadic reminiscencesmark the seriousness of her struggle. Young deer, however, suggestother areas of meaning as well. The comparison of girls to deer iswell-established in poetry before the Hellenistic period,47 and we

42 Note the parallelism of 3.817 and 4.24–5, perhaps (as Dr Feeney suggested tome) emphasising Medea’s reduction to the status of a servant. mg|mde in 4.50would suit the matching of the two scenes, but I do not believe that it canstand. Some of the parallels between Books 3 and 4 have now been notedby A. Rose, ‘Clothing Imagery in Apollonius’ Argonautika’, QUCC 21(1985), 29–44 at 36–7.

43 Note also 3.874–5/4.45–6. Medea’s isolation from her people is emphasisedby the description of Aietes’ procession, accompanied by !pe_qitor ka|r, at3.1237–45.

44 Cf. Il. 10.360–2, 11.473–81, 544–7, 22.189–93.45 Cf. Il. 22.1 pevuf|ter A}te mebqo_ (of the Trojans); Homer calls v}fa the v|bou

jqu|emtor 2ta_qg (Il. 9.2). Cf. Beye 144–5.46 Nowhere else in Apollonius of a person, but note 2.831 of the dying sounds of

the boar which killed Idmon. Soph. Tr. 1071–2, fstir ¦ste paqh]mor jb]bquwa jka_ym, is (despite v. 904) a pointedly oxymoronic description ofHeracles.

47 Cf. h. Dem. 174, Bacchyl. 13.84–90, Eur. Ba. 866–76. For some of the asso-ciations of the fawn in these contexts cf. A. P. Burnett, Three Archaic Poets (Lon-don, 1983), pp. 93–4.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 53

might have guessed that it had found a place in amatory poetry evenwithout tantalising fragments of Anacreon (PMG 408), Sappho(fr. 58.16 LP-V) and Archilochus (the ‘Cologne Epode’, SLG 478, v.31) and Horace’s later exploitation in Odes 1.23. In Anacreon and Hor-ace the fawn has become separated from its mother; Medea is about toabandon her parents in favour of a man. It can be no more than a guessthat a reader must see an erotic as well as an epic tradition behind Apol-lonius’ simile; if the guess were correct, however, the image wouldserve perfectly Medea’s ambivalent emotions.

Interpretation of the simile of the slave-girl at vv. 35–40 is madedifficult by the uncertainty of the text of v. 35. Broadly speaking, thecritics may be divided into those who see the kgi\r of the simile escap-ing from servitude48 and those who have her being taken into it.49 Theformer view, which might seem superficially attractive, founders forwant of an adequate interpretation of v. 39, eWsim !tufol]mg wakep±r

rp¹ we ?qar !m\ssgr.50 Medea is, therefore, probably compared to agirl from a rich family who has recently been captured in war and hasentered slavery far from her homeland and who has not yet become ac-customed to hardship and the demands of a cruel mistress. I would pre-fer to believe that Medea’s d}g, do}kia 5qca and j\lator are not theperils and hardships she is to face on board the Argo (as Fränkel andVian argue), but rather emotional perils (cf. the echo of j\lator fromv. 1). The Medea of Euripides too can claim, in an extravagantly rhet-orical passage (vv. 253–8), that she was 1j c/r baqb\qou kekgisl]mg.This is not simply the distorting effect of bitterness, but has links witha recognised aspect of the Greek view of marriage. In a famous fragmentof Sophocles’ Tereus, for example, a woman contrasts the pleasant lifeyoung girls lead in their father’s house (cf. Arg. 3.811–14) with theexile of marriage, which is merely a matter of trade (fr. 583 R):

aT m]ai l³m 1m patq¹rFdistom, oWlai, f_lem !mhq~pym b_om·teqpm_r c±q !e· pa ?dar "mo_a tq]vei.ftam d’ 1r Fbgm 1nij~leh’ 5lvqomer,

48 Cf. G. Pompella, ‘Su Apollonio Rodio IV35–40’, Annali…Napoli 19 (1976/7),53–61, Beye 150.

49 Cf. Wilamowitz ii.212 n. 2, Fränkel 456, and the notes of Livrea and Vian.50 Pompella’s ‘teme di andare, è terrorizzata all’ idea di finire sotto la padrona’ (op.

cit. 57) simply cannot be got out of the Greek. For rp| with the accusative ‘inthe power of’ cf. N. Hopkinson on Call. h. 6.62.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception54

¡ho}leh’ 5ny ja· dielpok~leha

he_m patq~iym t_m te vus\mtym %po,aR l³m n]mour pq¹r %mdqar, aR d³ baqb\qour,†aR d’ eQr !kgh/ d~lat’, aR d’ 1p_qqoha.†ja· taOt’, 1peid±m eqvq|mg fe}ngi l_a,wqe½m 1paime ?m ja· doje ?m jak_r 5weim.

As Medea leaves for a life in exile, an exile that means marriage (vv. 29–30), Apollonius exploits, as many poets had before him, the similaritiesbetween Greek marriage and funerary ritual (vv. 27–9).51 With gesturesfamiliar from the prelude to the death of women in tragedy, Medea fi-nally abandons the virginal chamber which had played such a crucialrole in the third book (3.645–64)52 and opts, not for death, but forlife and marriage. This tension is reflected in the otherwise surprisingdissonance of eWsim (v. 39) and 1n]ssuto (v. 40), and in the echoes ofSappho, fr. 31 LP-V in the description of the physical symptoms of Me-dea’s terror. This most influential of amatory poems had naturally beenused in the earlier descriptions of Medea’s passion;53 here the samepoem is invoked to describe the consequences of that passion. What dis-tinguishes vv. 15–19 from the Sapphic poem is the violence of Medea’sterror;54 in both love and fear she knew no half measures.

I have been exploring some of the implications of the poet’s de-clared uncertainty which introduces the description of Medea’s flight.Beyond these verses, there are three passages in which the status of Me-dea’s flight is explicitly at issue. At 355 ff she reproaches Jason bitterly:she has brought disgrace upon women through her laqcos}mg, and leftColchis oq jat± j|slom !maid^tyi Q|tgti (360), trusting in Jason’spromises of marriage. Secondly, Circe’s speech of dismissal to Medeaat 739–48 is framed by echoes of the v}fa !eijek_g of the proem,and Jason becomes simply a nameless stranger to be contemptuously ig-nored. Finally, in her plea to Arete at 1014–28 Medea blames the %tg

to which all mortals are prone, denies that she left Colchis willingly —contrast Jason’s proud assertion at 194, tµm l³m 1c½m 1h]kousam !m\nolai

oUjad’ %joitim — but through the persuasion of hateful fear, and denies

51 Cf., e. g., J. M. Redfield, Arethusa 15 (1982), 188–91, R. Seaford, CQ 35(1985), 318–19.

52 Cf. JHS 105 (1985), 192.53 Cf. 3.284–90.54 For the very strong emotions indicated by ‘fire in the eyes’, cf. L. Graz, Le feu

dans l’Iliade et l’Odyss�e (Paris, 1965), pp. 240–7.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 55

laqcos}mg. Any apparent contradictions may, of course, be explainedby the demands of each rhetorical situation,55 but there is perhapsmore to it than just that. Circe’s view is plainly the Colchian view ofMedea’s behaviour — when the poet tells us that Medea and heraunt speak in Colchian (731), this is not merely a playful recognitionof the unreal linguistic assumptions of the plot — but there are otherviews also. The one action, Medea’s flight, is variously interpreted byJason, Circe and Medea herself according to the partial knowledgewhich each has, as well as to the changing course of events. The poetthus exposes the frailty and relativity of explanation for human action,particularly when that action occurs within epic narrative. This is theproblem to which the opening quandary has directed our attention.

Behind Apollonius’ Medea lies not only the Euripidean characterbut also the figure of Helen, whose flight from Sparta with a n]mor pro-voked a war and whose motives had been variously analysed by poets,philosophers and historians.56 Helen’s power was an almost more-than-human beauty, whose dangerous force could be not unlike thatof Medea’s magic:

aRqe ? c±q !mdq_m ellat’, 1naiqe ? p|keir,p_pqgsim oUjour· ¨d’ 5wei jgk^lata.

(Eur. Tr. 892—3)

The Helen of the Odyssey in fact is, like Medea, a worker in drugs(4.219–34),57 who claims to have been the victim of %tg from Aphro-dite which caused her to commit an 5qcom !eij]r, the abandonment ofher home and family (4.259–64, 23.218–24). The regrets of the IliadicHelen (3.171–80, 6.343–58, 24.761–75), moreover, clearly look for-ward to Medea’s bitter reproaches in Euripides and Apollonius. Apollo-nius indeed structures Medea’s dilemma in Book 3 as a choice betweenfollowing the example of Penelope and becoming a Helen.58 So too, thequestion of how her flight should be judged, so crucial to Book 4, drawsupon a rich tradition. Of particular importance is Euripides’ Trojan

55 Cf. Vian on 375, Beye 154.56 There is a useful survey by N. Zagagi, ‘Helen of Troy: Encomium and Apolo-

gy’, WS 98 (1985), 63–88.57 This passage is echoed at 3.803 (Medea’s drugs).58 Cf. 3.641 (corresponding to Il. 3.180, 6.344, 356), following a dream descrip-

tion based on Penelope at Od 18.187–9, 19.516–17, and 3.793–4 (corre-sponding to Il. 3.411–12).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception56

Women in which Helen lays the blame for her behaviour on Aphrodite(vv. 940–50) and Hecuba blames Helen’s laqcos}mg (987–97); Gor-gias’ alternatives,59 love as a god or love as !mhq~pimom m|sgla ja·

xuw/r !cm|gla (cf. Arg. 4.1015–17), offer a rather different choice,but point broadly in the same direction. Finally, it is important thatthe story of Helen embodies the clash between Europe and Asia,60 aconflict which has an important structural role in Argonautica 4. TheColchian maiden (cf. 4.2–5) rescues the Greek expedition and in returnreceives Greek protection (4.195–7, 202–5, 1074–7); knowledge ofthe disastrous consequences of this assimilation of a foreign body issomething which every reader must bring to the Argonautica.61

It is finally worth remarking that Vergil used Medea’s oath to Arete(4.1019–22) in composing Aeneas’ defence to Dido in the Under-world:

Usty Req¹m v\or Iek_oio,Usty mujtip|kou Peqsg_dor eqcia jo}qgr,lµ l³m 1c½m 1h]kousa s»m !mdq\sim !kkodapo ?sije ?hem !vyql^hgm·

per sidera iuro,per superos et si qua fides tellure sub ima est,inuitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi.

(Aen. 6.458–60)

The Apollonian model is curiously overlooked by Vergilian critics, con-cerned as they are with Vergil’s use in this passage of Callimachus andCatullus.62 The neglect is curious if only because Aeneas’ speech is in-troduced by a simile (6.450–5) taken from the fourth book of the Ar-gonautica (4.1477–80). Both Medea and Aeneas plead that they left un-

59 Helen 19.60 Cf., e. g., Isocrates, Helen 67, Zagagi, op. cit. , pp. 72–4.61 Herodotus makes the abduction of Medea the last in the series of actions which

inspired Paris to abduct Helen (1.2–3). His report of Greek opinion, ‘thewomen obviously would not have been abducted unless they had wanted it’(1.4.2), shows that the question of female attitude was already inherent in thestory. For the later linking of Medea and Helen cf. Propertius 2.34.5–8 (behindwhich may lie Arg. 4.445–9).

62 Cf. most recently J. Tatum, AJP 105 (1984), 440–4, S. Skulsky, AJP 106(1985), 447–55, J. Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life (London, 1985), p.159. With 4.1021 F. Rütten, De Vergilii studiis Apollonianis (diss. Münster,1912), p. 71 connected Aen. 4.361, Italiam non sponte sequor.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 57

willingly, under the compulsion of, in Medea’s case, fear and, in Ae-neas’, divine instructions. Aeneas wants to say that love would havemade him stay; in her panic, Medea tries to conceal her passion asone of those common human misdemeanours.63 The difference is elo-quent.

Addenda

The bibliography on Medea, as indeed on every aspect of the Argonautica, has ofcourse grown exponentially in the last twenty-five years; T. Papanghelis and A.Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden 2001) is the bestintroduction to critical trends and bibliography. I have discussed elements ofthe character of Medea in my commentary on Book 3 (Cambridge 1989)and in The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies (Cambridge 1993). J. J.Clauss and S. I. Johnston (eds.), Medea. Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Phi-losophy, and Art (Princeton 1997) is a wide-ranging collection of different ap-proaches.

n. 31 Cf. this volume 349–51.

p. 52 On the moon’s mockery of Medea cf. M. Fantuzzi, ‘Medea maga, la luna,l’amore (Apollonio Rodio 4, 50–65)’ in A. Martina and A.-T. Cozzoli (eds.),L’epos argonautico (Rome 2007) 77–95.

63 Vian’s attempt to deny this sense to jo}vgisi … !lpkaj_gisim in 4.1017 is un-convincing.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception58

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica*

‘Jason … chosen leader because his superior declines the honour, sub-ordinate to his comrades, except once, in every trial of strength, skill,or courage, a great warrior only with the help of magical charms, jealousof honour but incapable of asserting it, passive in the face of crisis, timidand confused before trouble, tearful at insult, easily despondent, grace-fully treacherous in his dealings with the love-sick Medea but coweringbefore her later threats and curses, coldly efficient in the time-servingmurder of an unsuspecting child (sic), reluctant even in marriage.’ SoCarspecken put the case against Jason’s heroism.1 In the face of suchan indictment, Lawall’s plea in mitigation, ‘it must be admitted that[ Jason] often reveals the qualities of a true gentleman’, seems somehowinadequate.2 Criticism since Carspecken has found various overlappingcategories for Jason which both take account of the earlier negativejudgements and preserve the centrality of his ‘personality’ and characterin the poem: Jason is the quiet diplomat who works through consensusrather than force,3 his is a heroism of sex-appeal,4 he is an anti-hero,5 the

* Classical Quarterly 38 (1988) 436–53I am indebted to members of the Cambridge Ancient Literature Seminar for

much instructive criticism. The following works are cited by author and dateonly: C. R. Beye, Epic and Romance in the Argonautica of Apollonius (Carbondale,1982); J. F. Carspecken, ‘Apollonius Rhodius and the Homeric Epic’, YCS 13(1952), 33–143; H. Fränkel, ‘Ein Don Quijote unter den Argonauten desApollonios’, MH 17 (1960), 1–20; id., Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios(Munich, 1968); M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche (Rome, 1985); R. LHunter, ‘Apollo and the Argonauts : Two Notes on Ap. Rhod. 2, 669–719’,MH 43 (1986), 50–60 [= this volume 29–41]; id., ‘Medea’s Flight: the FourthBook of the Argonautica’, CQ 37 (1987), 129–39 [= this volume 42–58]; G.Lawall, ‘Apollonius’ Argonautica: Jason as Anti-Hero’, YCS 19 (1966), 119–69;F. Vian, ‘üGSYM ALGWAMEYM’, Studi in onore di Anthos Ardizzoni (Rome,1978), Vol. 2, pp. 1025–41. G. O. Hutchinson. Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford,1988) appeared too late to be used in the preparation of this paper.

1 Carspecken (1952), 101.2 Lawall (1966), 168 n.13.3 E.g. Herter, RE Suppl. 13, 36; Vian (1978); G. Zanker, Realism in Alexandrian

Poetry (London, 1987), pp. 202–3.

embodiment of Sceptic ‘suspension of judgement’,6 or, alternatively, heis ‘one of us’, credible and lifelike.7 Carspecken himself tried a differenttack: the poem is concerned not with individual heroism but with theheroism of the group (cf. 1.1, 4.1773–81).8

Some of these approaches have, in varying degrees, made a real con-tribution to the understanding of aspects of the Argonautica, and mostcan claim some support from that part of the literary tradition used byApollonius which survives to us. Thus, for example, already in PindarJason deals with Pelias in the ‘diplomatic’ manner which becomes famil-iar in Apollonius,’ letting drip the soft words in his gentle voice, he laida foundation of wise speech’ (Pyth. 4.136–8). In Euripides’ Medea, Ja-son’s opening words are a rejection of inflexibility (vv. 446–7,cf. 621–2), and he claims to have tried to soothe the rulers’ anger(vv. 455–6), just as in the Argonautica he has to calm Aietes down(Arg. 3.385–96). So too, the Euripidean Jason argues that marriagewith a princess is the best way out of sulvoqa· !l^wamoi

(vv. 551–4), and such an attitude, which I for one would not label ‘cyn-

4 C. R. Beye, ‘Jason as Love-hero in Apollonios’ Argonautika’, GRBS 10 (1969),31–55; this view was closely foreshadowed by A. Hübscher, Die Charakteristikder Personen in Apollonios’ Argonautika (diss. Freiburg i.d. Schweiz, 1940),pp. 22–3. Cf. J. K. Newman, The Classical Epic Tradition (Wisconsin, 1986),p. 76 ‘[ Jason’s] heroism will smell of the boudoir’.

5 Lawall (1966); Fusillo (1985). Lawall’s article contains many acute observations,and it would be a pity if the very dated title deterred potential readers.

6 T. L. Klein, ‘Apollonius’ Jason: Hero and Scoundrel’, QUCC 13 (1983),115–26 (and cf. already Beye [1982], 60). Klein’s interesting suggestion is, un-fortunately, entirely improbable in the form in which he offers it. It is true that1.1287–8 (on which see below p. 71–2), oqd] ti to ?om 5por letev~meem oqd] tito?om j AQsom_dgr, may call to mind Sceptic 1pow^, but Jason’s piety and pro-pensity to despair (1.1286, 1288–9) would be anathema to a Sceptic sage:1pow^ was supposed to lead to !taqan_a, which is not Jason’s foremost quality.Jason’s attitude to the tasks imposed upon him (e. g. 3.386–95, 427–31) differsmarkedly from the unconcern of the Sceptic response, cf. M. Burnyeat in M.Schofield, M. Burnyeat and J. Barnes, Doubt and Dogmatism (Oxford, 1980),pp. 40–1. The value of Klein’s article, which despite its polemics, seems to de-velop an idea found at Lawall (1966), 149, lies in its attempt to tie the Argonau-tica to attested intellectual and social attitudes. However unsuccessful, this rep-resents a considerable advance on vague generalising about ‘Hellenistic values’.There are, however, serious doubts whether a formal philosophy of Scepticismcan be identified as early as the third century B.C.

7 Cf. Fränkel (1960), 1; Beye (1982), 79; Zanker, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 201.8 Carspecken (1952), 111–25.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception60

ical’, has seemed to many critics the basis of Jason’s dealings with Medeain the Argonautica.9

It is, nevertheless, difficult not to feel dissatisfied with modern as-sessments of Apollonius’ Jason. Much of what has been written is littlemore than a by-product of what now seems a rather old-fashioned kindof Virgilian criticism — the ‘Virgil is unhappy in his hero’ school — andit ignores both Aristotelian and modern warnings10 against the assump-tion that an epic must have a single ‘hero’ of extraordinary skills at itscentre. Even where due acknowledgement has been given to the factthat Jason plainly shares the limelight with several of his colleagues,there is among modern critics a persistent (and indeed not unnatural)curiosity in Jason’s ‘psychology’. It is, for example, entirely typicalwhen Hermann Fränkel writes of Jason’s behaviour after the loss ofHeracles (cf. below p. 71–2): ‘For Jason, conscious of his responsibili-ties, the dilemma was insoluble, because the need to complete his greattask was as powerful a force driving him forwards as the loyalty to hiscolleague which pulled him back. But the reticent poet [der zur�ckhaltendeDichter] says nothing of this [my italics], and here, as often, Apollonius’Jason disappoints as the epic’s central figure.’11 The belief that closestudy of what Apollonius chose not to say may grant us access to theworkings of his characters’ minds, particularly Jason’s, which in turnwill lead to an understanding of the narrative, has certainly resulted ina more sophisticated criticism than the simple assertions of Jason’s ‘cred-ibility’, but the great variety of Jasons available in the modern literatureought perhaps to make us pause to consider the value of the method ingeneral. Part II of this paper, therefore, considers the principal passagesfrom the first half of the Argonautica around which the debate has cen-tred, and Part III explores one of the patterns into which the story ofApollonius’ Jason certainly does fall ; as Apollonian criticism must alwaysbegin with Homer, Part I offers a brief survey of the similarities and dif-ferences between the heroes of the archaic and the Hellenistic epic.

By way of preliminary, it may be useful to recall the Aristotelian po-sition on dramatic character. Ancient literary criticism is, of course, a

9 On the links between the Euripidean and Apollonian Jasons cf. K. von Fritz,‘Die Entwicklung der Iason-Medea-Sager und die Medea des Euripides’,A&A 8 (1959), 33–106 at pp. 66–71.

10 Cf. e. g. D. C. Feeney, ‘Epic Hero and Epic Fable’, Comparative Literature 38(1986), 137–58.

11 Fränkel (1960), 4 (my translation).

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 61

very limited guide to the ways in which we should approach ancienttexts, but Aristotle’s belief in the very close relationship between epicand tragedy12 at least makes his views of some interest here.

For the sake of convenience I cite from Stephen Halliwell’s recentstudy of the Poetics : ‘Psychological inwardness is a major assumptionin modern convictions about character, and this in turn leads to typicalemphases on the uniqueness of the individual personality and on the po-tential complexities of access to the character of others. If character isthought of in strongly psychological terms, then the possibility readilyarises that it may remain concealed in the inner life of the mind, orbe only partially and perhaps deceptively revealed to the outer world;but, equally, that it may be glimpsed or intimated in various unintendedor unconscious ways. Such ideas and possibilities, which find their quin-tessential literary embodiment in the novel … are by their very intricacyand indefiniteness the antithesis of the theory of dramatic character pre-sented in the Poetic …. [For Aristotle] character is most clearly realised inthe deliberate framing of ethical intentions which Aristotle calls prohai-resis … character is a specific moral factor in relation to action, not avague or pervasive notion equivalent to modern ideas of personalityor individuality … dramatic characterisation, to correspond to Aristo-tle’s concept, must involve the manifestation of moral choice in wordor action … when communicated through language, characterisationwill take the form of declarations of decisions, intentions or motives… character [cannot] be obliquely indicated through any kind ofspeech’.13 The possible relevance of this summary to recent Apolloniancriticism is immediately clear. Here, for example, is what Charles Beyehas to say about Apollonius’ main character: ‘the emphasis now turnsupon the inner life of the characters, that which is left unsaid. Jasonnow becomes deep, internal, and personal, as we know people to be.He is not public or emblematic. We have reached, in effect, the begin-

12 Cf. S. Koster, Antike Epostheorien (Wiesbaden, 1970), pp. 51–72; J. C. Hogan,‘Aristotle’s Criticism of Homer in the Poetics’, CP 68 (1973), 95–108; Halliwell(next note) p. 258.

13 S. Halliwell, Aristotle’s Poetics (London, 1986), pp. 150–2, 156. Whether or notApollonius was actually familiar with Aristotelian doctrine is relevant only as amatter of literary history. There may have been a copy of the Poetics in theAlexandrian library, cf. Diog. Laert. 5.24, a list which some scholars believeto go back to the library’s inventory; I. Düring, Aristoteles (Heidelberg,1966), pp. 36–7; R. Blum, Kallimachos und die Literaturverzeichnung bei den Grie-chen (Frankfurt, 1977), pp. 121–32.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception62

nings of the novel.’14 That Apollonius foreshadows later narrative genreshas, indeed, become a critical commonplace,15 and one which I have nodesire to upset. Nevertheless, it may be worth suggesting that criticismhas now moved too far away from Aristotle’s emphasis on what actuallyhappens, on events whose pattern gives meaning to a work, rather thanon the unifying power of a particular psychological portrait. The pat-terns which will here be particularly significant are, of course, thosewhich both reflect and diverge from Homeric ones; it is the failure tokeep these patterns in the centre of the argument which is largely re-sponsible for much of the critical embarrassment which Apollonius’Jason has aroused.

I.

The doubts and even despair to which Jason seems prone have closeparallels in the Homeric epics. This obvious fact has been too often for-gotten, and it deserved the restatement which it has recently received.16

Iliadic heroes are affected by fears and anguish just as strong as thosewhich trouble the Argonauts (e. g. Il. 7.92–3, 9.9), and the !lgwam_g

which strikes Odysseus and his comrades after the Cyclops’ first bloodymeal (Od. 9.295) matches closely the various shocks which the collec-tive of Argonauts receives (cf. 2.408–10, 3.502–5, 4.1278–9). Odys-seus’ reaction (Od. 10.496–500) to Circe’s proposal of a trip to the Un-derworld — ‘my heart broke within me; I sat on the bed and wept, andI no longer wished to live and see the light of the sun. But when I hadhad my fill of weeping and rolling around, I replied’ — is more overtlyemotional than the group’s reaction to Phineus’ dread prophecies(2.408–10) or the reaction of both Jason and the Argonauts to thetest which Aietes imposes (3.422–6, 502–4), but otherwise the scenesare closely comparable. These similarities between the two epics are,however, less important than two broad and major differences.

The tension within a warrior between his role as a defender of hiscommunity’s security, for which the community rewards him with

14 Beye (1982), 24.15 For the Argonautica as a precursor of later romance cf. R. Scholes and R. Kel-

logg, The Nature of Narrative (New York, 1966), p. 67, A. Heiserman, The NovelBefore the Novel (Chicago, 1977), pp. 11–40.

16 H. Lloyd-Jones, SIFC 77 (1984), 71; A. W. Bulloch in The Cambridge History ofClassical Literature I (Cambridge, 1985), p. 591.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 63

privileges, and his desire for personal glory is crucial to an understandingof the Iliad and has been particularly well analysed by James Redfield.17

Apollonius’ heroes, however, are not bound to their communities in thesame way as are the central heroes of the Iliad. The inhabitants of Iolcusdo indeed come in large numbers to see them off (1.238–9, cf. 1.310)and take a certain pride in the expedition (1.244–5), but they see itlargely as an inescapable p|mor (1.246). At the very most, the outcomeof the expedition has real significance only for the family of the Aiolidai(cf. 2.1195, 3.339). In this context it is instructive to contrast the de-scription in Thucydides 6 of the public departure of the Athenianfleet for Sicily, a passage which may have been in Apollonius’ mind.18

The opening catalogue of Argonauts does make clear that the expedi-tion carries representatives from all over Greece, and this ‘Panachaean-ism’ resurfaces briefly as Argos and Jason seek to win Aietes over (3.347,391) and in the ‘Greek v. barbarian’ theme which runs through thefourth book. Nevertheless, only once does Jason appear to claim thatthe fortunes of Greece are intimately tied to the success of his enter-prise.19 This passage, 4.195–205, describing Jason’s speech to thecrew on the point of departure from Colchis, will demand attentionin another context (below p. 83), but here its relevance lies in its ambiv-alence:

!t±q uller, )wai_dor oX\ te p\sgr

aqt_m h’ rle_ym 1shkµm 1paqyc¹m 1oOsam,s~ete· dµ c\q pou l\k’, a_olai, eWsim 1q}nymAQ^tgr bl\dyi p|mtomd’ Ulem 1j potalo ?o.!kk’ oR l³m di± mg¹r !loibad·r !m]qor !mµq2f|lemor pgdo ?sim 1q]ssete, to· d³ boe_ar!sp_dar Bl_seer d^iym ho¹m 5wla bok\ym

pqosw|lemoi m|styi 1pal}mete. mOm d’ 1m· weqs·pa ?dar 2o»r p\tqgm te v_kgm ceqaqo}r te toj/arUswolem· Blet]qgi d’ 1peqe_detai :kk±r 1voql/iA³ jatgve_gm C ja· l]ca jOdor !q]shai.

But do you protect her [Medea], as being the benefactor of all of Achaiaand of you yourselves; for I have no doubt that Aietes will come in full

17 Nature and Culture in the Iliad (Chicago, 1975), pp. 100–1.18 Thucyd. 6.30–2, esp. 30.2. Similarities of language and idea could, of course,

simply arise from the similar situations. If, however, we are to think of the Si-cilian expedition, then the omens are not good for Jason.

19 Jason does, however, toy with these ideas as he seeks to win over Medea,cf. 3.990–6, 1122–7.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception64

force to prevent you passing from the river to the open sea. But all alongthe ship divide yourselves in two, and let one half sit and row, while theother half holds their ox-hide shields over them, a secure protection againstenemy missiles, to protect our return. Now we have in our hands our chil-dren and our beloved native country and our aged parents; upon the suc-cess of our raid20 depends whether Hellas will know dejection or win greatglory.

Jason, the foreign raider who has snatched both the king’s daughter andhis favourite possession, adopts the rhetorical pose of the defender of aposition against invasion — cf. Il. 15.494–9 (Hector), 15.661–6 (Nes-tor encouraging the Greeks in their defence of the ships), Aesch.Pers. 403–5 (the Athenians at Salamis) — as a prelude, not to stalwartdefence,21 but to hasty flight. So too, Jason’s donning of armour(4.206), which follows this speech, is modelled on Odysseus’ entirelypointless arming before the meeting with Scylla (Od. 12.226–30).22

Both the literary history of the verses and the uniqueness of theirtone within the Argonautica thus make problematic the status of Jason’sassertion that much is riding on their success, as far as Hellas is con-cerned. These verses do, however, look forward to the rest of Book4 and to the future history of Jason and Medea. From the opening in-vocation to the Muse to tell of how ‘the Colchian maiden’ came toleave ‘the land of the Colchians’ Book 4 is heavy with Jason’s closingtheme of Greek v. Barbarian, and Jason’s words here are in part a bit-terly ironical foreshadowing of the supremacy of Greece which the Eur-ipidean Jason throws in Medea’s face (vv. 536–8, 1330–1, 1339); sotoo, his stress immediately before this passage on Medea’s responsibilityfor the Argonauts’ achievements (4.191–3) must be read against Medea526–33, where Jason proclaims Aphrodite to have been primarily re-sponsible for his success. Beyond these resonances, however, these vers-es, by recalling the tone and manner of archaic and classical poetry,clearly mark the difference between Jason’s enterprise and the tasks

20 Vian, note compl�mentaire to 4.205, makes rather too much of 1voql/i ; ‘militaryincursion’ and ‘enterprise’ can scarcely be distinguished when the latter consistsof the former; if Vian’s punctuation is correct at 4.148, we should perhaps thereconsider !voql^m for 1voql^m.

21 In the version of Dionysios Scytobrachion, the Argonauts and the Colchiansdid fight in Colchis (cf. S Arg. 4.223–30, Diod. Sic. 4.48.4–5 = frr. 28–9Rusten).

22 The motif of slashed mooring-ropes is taken from Odysseus’ hasty escape fromthe Laistrygonians (Od. 10.126–7). It is noteworthy that Valerius Flaccus choo-ses to use the motif more ‘heroically’, at the start of the expedition (1.487–9).

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 65

faced in the Homeric poems and the difference in the social context ofthe two heroic narratives.23

Even the personal glory for which a Homeric warrior can hope isoffered to the Argonauts only very conditionally. Failure will herelead only to a miserable and unsung death, where there will be nokleos to alleviate oblivion (2.889–93, 4.1305–7, cf. 4.401–3); anythingless than safe return with the Fleece would be as if they had never setout. The subordination of all else in this extremely rich poem to this sin-gle obsessive end is a striking departure from the structural organisationof the Homeric poems. In a particularly desperate moment at the start oftheir Libyan adventures, the Argonauts wish that they had died ‘whileattempting some great exploit’ (4.1255), like Hector before his finalfight with Achilles (Il. 22.304–5), but, unlike Hector, they will notbe offered the opportunity to do so. This passage in the fourth bookis particularly instructive. The deadly calm which traps the Argonautsin the wastes of the Libyan Syrtis is a reworking and reversal of thestorm which destroys Odysseus’ raft in Odyssey 5; the Libyan Bq_ssaiwho came to Jason’s aid out of pity correspond to Leucothoe in theOdyssey.24 As the divinely constructed Argo cannot perish in thewaves (cf. 2.611–14), a death of quite another kind is made to threatenthe crew.25 Whereas Odysseus in the storm regrets that he did not winkleos by dying gloriously in battle, the Argonauts wish for what amountsto death by shipwreck, a wish made particularly ironic by our knowl-edge that the Symplegades would have posed no threat on the returnjourney and that their wish would therefore not have been granted(cf. 2.604–6). Here then the gulf between Apollonius’ characters andthose of Homer is particularly marked.

The second important departure from Homer lies in the relationshipbetween Jason and the other Argonauts, which is obviously and crucial-ly different from that between Odysseus’ and his crew. The modern cli-ch� that Jason is primus inter pares is an unsatisfactory half-truth, but thehierarchical organisation of the two voyages is certainly quite different.Odysseus is happy to be less than frank with his men (Od. 12.223–5)

23 There are some good remarks in the note on 4.190–205 at pp. 553–4 of theedition [Milan, 1986] by G. Paduano and M. Fusillo.

24 4.1308 1k]gqam ~ Od. 5.336 1k]gsem. Both divine speeches begin with j\lloqe

t_pt’ (4.1318, Od. 5.339).25 There is a rather similar effect at Lucan 5.424–60 where Caesar’s ships are be-

calmed (cf. 455, naufragii spes omnis abit).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception66

and, despite his grief at their plight, he is content to make love withCirce while his comrades are still in the pig-pen (Od. 10.336–47).An exchange such as Od. 9.941 ff. , where the crew seeks to restrainOdysseus from taunting the Cyclops, is as inconceivable in the Argonau-tica as Arg. 2.622–37, in which Jason bitterly reveals the crushing weightof responsibility which he feels for getting the Argonauts home safely(cf. below pp. 445-7), would be in the Odyssey. It is striking that inbook 4 no Argonaut explicitly argues that Jason should abandonMedea, although the pact with the Colchians at 4.338 ff — howeverone interprets it — certainly exploits the motif,26 or criticises the killingof Apsyrtos; this apparently ‘natural’ possibility was not lost on the au-thor of the later Orphic Argonautica where the crew is prevented fromthrowing Medea to the fishes only by Jason’s earnest entreaties(vv. 1170–7). Whereas Odysseus’ cunning and capacity for endurancestrongly differentiate him from his largely anonymous crew, Jason,often !l^wamor rather than pokul^wamor, is marked by the absence ofextraordinary intelligence and the supernatural skills enjoyed by someof the most prominent Argonauts (Heracles, the Boreads, Peleus, Lyn-ceus, Orpheus). Jason does come into powerful conflict with two of hiscompanions, Telamon and Idas, but the communal solidarity and mutu-al interdependence of the whole crew (cf. the lion simile of 4.1337–44)is a striking and familiar phenomenon, perhaps best expressed by Jason’swords as they sit concealed in the Colchian marshes (3.171–5):

§ v_koi, Etoi 1c½ l³m f loi 1piamd\mei aqt_i1neq]y, toO d’ ulli t]kor jqg/mai 5oije.numµ c±q wqei~, numo· d] te lOhoi 5asip÷sim bl_r· b d³ s ?ca m|om bouk^m t’ !peq}jymUsty ja· m|stou t|mde st|kom oWor !po}qar. 175

Friends, I shall tell you the plan which I myself favour, but it is for you togive it your assent; for common is our need, and common to all the right tospeak. Let him who holds back his view and counsel in silence know thathe alone deprives this expedition of its safe return.

The plan which Jason subsequently proposes reworks Odysseus’ wordsto his men at the start of the Cyclops episode (Od. 9.172–6) and hispraise of the power of lOhor (3.188–90) associates him with Odysseanvirtues, but whereas Odysseus gives orders (1j]keusa) and the reaction of

26 Medea, of course, has her own fears about the Argonauts’ plans; for Jason’sspeech at 4.395–409 cf. Hunter (1987), 130–1.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 67

his crew is not described, Jason’s proposal is greeted with universalagreement (3.194–5). To find a Homeric parallel to this assembly in Ar-gonautica 3 it is better to look to the opening of Iliad 14 where the de-pressed leaders of the Greek army hold a council.27 Agamemnon sug-gests preparations for flight by night as preferable to staying around tobe caught up in a disaster. For this he is reproved by Odysseus, andhe then (vv. 105–6) says that he will not force the Greeks to carryout his plan against their wishes and he invites suggestions from bothyoung and old for a better plan (!le_moma l/tim), whereupon Diomedesoffers just such an improvement. Agamemnon’s appeal to democracy isa result of a confused and panicky despair; Jason says nothing that hasnot been said before (cf. 1.336–7), and his statement precedes, ratherthan follows, his own suggestion for action. For him, it is better torely on pok]ym l/tir (4.1336) than on one pok}lgtir individual.

II.

When the Argonauts come to select their leader (1.331–62), Jason,‘wishing what was best for them (1uvqom]ym)’,28 stresses the commontask ahead of them and urges them to choose b %qistor to lead them,regardless of anything else. Heracles is chosen instantly — who elsecould be b %qistor (cf. 1.1285)? — but he refuses and imposes the elec-tion of Jason. ‘Warlike’ (!q^ior) Jason accepts ‘joyfully’. Clearly there ismore at stake here than merely the acknowledgement and rejection of aversion in which Heracles was the leader of the expedition,29 and criticshave very variously interpreted his behaviour. Vian’s remarks are notuntypical : ‘Jason is in no way diminished [by the scene]. He knowsthat, whether he likes it or not, the leadership falls to him, but he isat the same time aware of his inferiority to Heracles … Heracles’ volun-tary withdrawal fills him with joy because it re-establishes the natural

27 On this scene cf. M. Schofield, ‘Euboulia in the Iliad’, CQ 36 (1986), 6–31, atpp. 23–5.

28 This word has caused considerable bother, cf. Vian (1978), 1028–9, M. Fantuz-zi, Materiali e Discussioni 13 (1984), 94–5, but its ‘surface meaning’ seems quiteappropriate here.

29 As in Dionysios Scytobrachion, cf. Diod. Sic. 4.41.3, Apollodorus 1.9.19, J. S.Rusten, Dionysius Scytobrachion (Papyrologica Coloniensia X, 1982), pp. 96–7. InAntimachus’ Lyde Heracles did not go because he was too heavy for the Argo(fr. 58 Wyss = S Arg. 1.1289).

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order without upsetting anyone’s sensibilities’,30 and ‘[ Jason offers Hera-cles the leadership] through sincere deference and diplomacy, in thehope that Heracles will refuse it’.31 Here again what the poet has chosennot to say is invoked to explain the narrative (cf. above p. 61). Equallyunsatisfactory is what may be termed the ‘straightforwardly ironical’reading of the scene — Jason enters as a ‘hero’ (the Apollo simile of1.307–11) but is immediately shown up and embarrassed, his weaknessrevealed by the almost parodic epithet ‘warlike’.32 Such a reading appealsto modern sentiment, and does indeed show us one layer of the text’smeaning, but it is hard to think of any Greek hero (Homeric or Apol-lonian) who would not be ‘shown up’ when matched against Heracles.Rather, it is, as often, Homer who provides the starting-point fromwhich we should read this scene.

Jason’s speech, with its stress on the responsibilities of the leader tothe group as a whole, suggests why the expedition could not be led byHeracles, a hero of notoriously solitary and idiosyncratic virtue.33 Jasonis indeed b %qistor, if arete consists in the possession of appropriate qual-ities for a particular task and involves notions of what is fitting in a par-ticular context. Such a view clearly reflects upon a major aspect of thequarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in Iliad 1, a quarrel which, inone important sense at least, is about who is to ‘lead’ the Achaean army;the aspect in question is, of course, the problem of who has the right tothe title %qistor.34 In the Iliad Nestor seeks to calm tempers by refusingto grant anyone this title — Agamemnon is merely !cah|r and v]qteqor

(Il. 1.275, 281) — and by appealing to Agamemnon to respect Achilles’prize and to Achilles to give way before the greater til^ due to a kingwhose power was more extensive. The Apollonian Heracles, more ef-fective and less wordy than Nestor, similarly bases his instruction noton a strict hierarchy of absolute worth but on recognition of what is fit-ting and appropriate. Whether Apollonius was influenced by scholarlydiscussion of the ethical issues raised by the Homeric quarrel we donot know, although this quarrel is important again later in Arg. 1,again in connection with Heracles (below p. 71–2). What is clear, how-

30 Gnomon 46 (1974), 349.31 Vian (1978), 1028–9.32 Cf. e. g. Beye (1982), 31, 82–3. Jason is also ‘warlike’ at 2.122 (the battle with

the Bebrycians), and cf. the simile of the !q^ior Vppor at 3.1259–61.33 For Heracles in the Argonautica cf. D. C. Feeney, ‘Following after Hercules, in

Virgil and Apollonius’, PVS 18 (1986), 47–85.34 Cf. Il. 1.91, 244, 412.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 69

ever, is that Apollonius structures his narrative so as to offer a ‘reading’of a famous Homeric scene which in turn can help us to understandwhat is going on in the Argonautica. The relationship between Jasonand Heracles is not the same as that between Agamemnon and Achilles,but only by calling attention to the similarities can the poet stress thedifferences.

Before setting out, the Argonauts pass the night in feasting on theshore (1.450–9). Not all is well, however, as Idmon has just prophesiedboth their successful return after ‘countless trials’ and his own death.35

During the symposium ‘the son of Aison, quite self-absorbed (!l^wa-mor), was pondering on everything, looking like one depressed (jatg-vi|ymti 1oij~r)’. At this Idas accuses him of plotting in secret or ofbeing afraid and he delivers a proud and blasphemous speech whichleads to a nasty quarrel with Idmon. ‘Self-absorbed’ is Fränkel’s interpre-tation of !l^wamor here,36 whereas Vian believes that Jason, the vik\m-hqypor par excellence, feels anguish in the face of Idmon’s now certaindeath.37 The structure of the passage, in which the passing of timesince Idmon’s prophecy is stressed (1.450–2), makes Vian’s view im-probable, and Fränkel rightly points to the echo of Jason’s remarkson the duties of the leader at 1.339–40 (¨i jem t± 6jasta l]koito)and to the further use of this motif at 2.631–3 (on which cf. belowp. 445). However that may be, Idas himself is unsure how to interpretJason’s demeanour, and Idmon’s words at 1.479–80, ‘there are otherconsoling words with which a man might encourage a comrade’,would, if anything, seem to confirm, rather than weaken, Idas’ suspi-cions.

Fränkel argues that Jason was not depressed, he just looked like it.Appearances can, of course, deceive, but they need not do so, andthis is what is crucial here. Appearances give no access to truth: you can-not tell with certainty what someone is thinking or what his or hermood is from their facial expression. In particular, 1oij~r and relatedwords are frequently used in literary descriptions of representations inworks of art;38 just as in life actions do not necessarily reveal motives,

35 Idmon’s decision to follow the expedition probably picks up the story of theprophet’s son Euchenor at Iliad 13.663–72 rather than Achilles’ ‘death andglory’ choice.

36 Fränkel (1968), 75. Vian (1978), 1037.37 Vian (1978), 1037.38 Cf. 1.739, 764, Theocr. 1.41.

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so in literature we may need privileged, authorial information to help usto interpret action or, in Jason’s case, non-action. If a poet refuses toprovide that information, he places us in the position of viewers of apainted scene and forces us to confront the very fragile basis uponwhich interpretations of mood and motive are made. In the presentcase a useful comparison may be made with Aeneid 1.208–9. After Ae-neas’ speech of encouragement to his shipwrecked comrades, Virgil in-forms us that the hero’s words did not match his real mood:

talia uoce refert curisque ingentibus aegerspem uultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem.

This is precisely the kind of guidance which, time and time again, welook for in vain in the Argonautica. I have argued elsewhere that suchconsiderations are important in assessing the relationship in Book 4 be-tween Medea and Jason,39 and I believe that Apollonius’ persistent dis-cretion in this matter is in large measure responsible for the critical con-fusion over Jason which reigns in the modern literature.

When the Argonauts discover that they have left Heracles behind, afierce argument breaks out on board (1.1280–6). The exact terms of thequarrel are not given to us, and we are probably to imagine confuseduproar and recrimination (cf. jokyi|r, 1.1284), involving both the rea-sons for Heracles’ abandonment and the course of action which theyshould now follow. Jason, however, ‘helpless and despairing (!lgwam_-gisim !tuwhe_r) said neither one thing nor the other, but he sat deeplycrushed by the grim disaster, eating his heart’ (1.1286–9). Jason’s de-spair after the loss of the greatest hero requires no special explanation,although even here psychological criticism has been at work.40 WhenTelamon then quarrels with Jason, we know that the former’s assertionthat Jason was behind the abandonment of Heracles is wrong(cf. 1.1274–5), but Telamon speaks in the irrationality of anger, likeAchilles in Iliad 1, and his eyes blaze (1.1296–7) like those of Agamem-non in the same scene (Il. 1.103–4).41 The Boreads restrain his impulse

39 Hunter (1987), 130–1, 138.40 Cf. Vian on 1288, ‘il sait qu’Héracles n’a pas été victime d’un complot, mais ne

peut expliquer son absence que par quelque obscur dessein des dieux. Son!lgwam_g est une preuve de lucidité et non un signe d’incapacité’. In asmuch as such things can be determined, this seems to me incredible; %tg

(1288) need not point to the intervention of the divine.41 Cf., in general, L. Graz, Le feu dans l’Iliade et l’Odyss�e (Paris, 1965), pp. 240–7.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 71

to violent action, as Athena restrains Achilles. These comparisons arenot idle, as the scene of reconciliation between Telamon and Jason(1.1329–44) exploits motifs from the Iliadic quarrel in a complex inter-textual pattern. Like Agamemnon (Il. 9.115–20, 19.88–9, 136–7), Te-lamon confesses to %tg,42 although he does not bring the gods into hisdefence, relying instead on a confession that he acted under the emotionof grief. Jason’s declaration, ‘I shall not nurse a bitter wrath (l/mim)against you, though I was previously pained, since it was not for flocksof sheep nor for possessions (jte\tessi) that you raged in your anger,but for a comrade’ (1.1339–43), looks to the theme of the l/mir as awhole,43 to Achilles’ renunciation of it in particular, ‘but now I haveput an end to my anger, nor should I rage ceaselessly forever’(Il. 19.67–8), to the pattern of Achilles’ relations with Patroclus, toAchilles’ taunt to Agamemnon as vikojteam~tate p\mtym (Il. 1.122),and to his regret that they had ‘raged in spirit-devouring strife becauseof a girl’ (Il. 19.58). So too, the Iliadic quarrel caused the temporary lossto the Greeks of the ‘best of the Achaeans’ (Il. 1.244 etc., cf. above p.64), just as Telamon’s anger is roused by a similar loss to the Argonauts.

In this scene, therefore, the relationship between Apollonian char-acters is displayed through a reworking of Iliadic motifs which stressesthe Argonautic virtues of loyalty and solidarity rather than the highlypersonal Iliadic emotions. Our attention is also directed to the Homericdetails which Apollonius has omitted: nothing remains of the Iliad’sgreat stress on the gifts of compensation which constitute a visiblesign of apology and acknowledgement of wrong, and this too tells usmuch about the society of Argonauts. In as much as Jason and Telamonbehave both like and unlike Agamemnon and Achilles we can, for whatit is worth, be said to learn about their ‘characters’. What we cannot sayis that revelation of ‘character’ is the dominant motive of the scene: thepattern of action in relation to Homer is what gives the scene its mean-ing.

Similar considerations apply to the famous scene of the peira,2.610 ff. After the Clashing Rocks have been safely passed, the steers-man Tiphys delivers a speech full of optimism, reminding the crew

42 !vqad_gsim (1332) is the same idea as the second part of Agamemnon’s state-ment, 1pe· !as\lgm ja_ leu vq]mar 1ne_keto Fe}r (Il. 19.137).

43 This much is recognised by Beye (1982), 87. I do not, however, see why Jason’sanswer to Telamon is ‘highly ironical’, nor does Il. 22.159–61 which Beye ad-duces seem particularly relevant.

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both of divine favour for the expedition and of Phineus’ prophecy.Jason replies, however, leikiw_oir 1p]essi paqabk^dgm, that he shouldhave refused to come on the expedition, that he is weighed down bythe cares and responsibilities of leadership and that they are surroundedby hostile forces. After this speech the poet tells us that Jason had spoken‘testing the heroes’, !qist^ym peiq~lemor. The heroes in fact shout en-couragement, and ‘Jason’s heart within him warmed as they urged him’and he in turn echoes Tiphys’ encouragement. Nothing further is saidabout Jason’s attitude. This strange scene has been variously handledby modern critics: perhaps the only point not in dispute is that thescene has some connection with Agamemnon’s peira in Iliad 2, andthis is clearly where discussion should start.

Agamemnon’s almost disastrous testing of his troops comes at a start-ing-point, before the Catalogue of Ships, at what is the beginning of thepoetic war (despite the unsung nine years which have preceded). So too,the passing of the Clashing Rocks marks the end of the major dangers ofthe outward journey and the beginning of the Colchian section of thepoem.44 This sense of a new beginning is reinforced by echoes and re-versals of two scenes which preceded the departure of the Argo. Jason’sdespairing speech picks up his mother’s distressed words at his parting(1.278–82, cf. 2.624–6): where Jason before offered comfort, he nowrejects consolation (1.266, 294–305 leikiw_oir 1p]essi paqgcoq]ym

pqos]eipe, 2.621–2 leikiw_oir 1p]esi paqabk^dgm pqos]eipe· jT ?vu,t_g loi taOta paqgcoq]eir !w]omti ;) and is forced, like his mother, tolament his ate (1.290, 2.623). Secondly, the peira recalls Jason’s electionas leader: here, as there, he stresses the responsibilities of power (1.339,2.631–7), responsibilities which will not allow him to sleep, unlikeAgamemnon who was reproved by the dream for sleeping too much(Il. 2.23–5); here he laments the loneliness of power, there he declaredthe solidarity of the group (1.336–7), and the affirmation of loyalty andsupport which he receives here is a kind of confirmation of the com-mand which was entrusted to him then. It is, moreover, clear that Ti-phys’ confident words correspond in some degree to the comforting butdeceptive dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon, but Jason’s reactionseems more problematic, if no less peculiar, than Agamemnon’s. Before

44 Cf. Hunter (1986), 50. Such considerations are ignored by those who find thetiming of the peira absurd, cf. e. g. P. Händel, Beobachtungen zur epischen Technikdes Apollonios Rhodios (Munich, 1954), pp. 68–9.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 73

considering what explicit guidance Apollonius gives us here, two furtheraspects of the scene and its Homeric model deserve comment.

The first and last parts of Agamemnon’s peira speech in Iliad 2 arerepeated to the Greek leaders at the beginning of Iliad 9 (9.17–28):for Agamemnon, the disaster envisaged in the earlier speech of decep-tion has come true. It is interesting that the bT-scholia on 9.17 interpretthis second speech as a further peira, on the grounds that the reaction ofAgamemnon and Nestor to Diomedes’ taunts differs so much from thereactions provoked by Achilles in Book 1. That Apollonius has Iliad 9 aswell as Iliad 2 in mind is suggested by the reaction of the Argonauts toJason’s speech (2.638–9, cf. Il. 9.50–1 and contrast 9.29–30), and theobservation in the scholia both reminds us that Homeric speeches canraise interpretative problems just as acute as Apollonian ones and sug-gests that if Apollonius is deliberately setting us such a problem, hemay not have seen the technique as so radical a departure fromHomer as it may appear to us. Secondly, there is the actual substanceof Jason’s speech. His opening confession of ate derives, of course,from the peira of Agamemnon (Il. 2.111, cf. 9.18), but whereas Aga-memnon proposed the abandonment of the expedition and a returnto Greece, Jason has nothing at all to offer. His statement that he shouldhave refused to accede to Pelias’ command ‘even if it meant a pitilessdeath, my body broken limb from limb’ (2.625–6) is remarkably and,for Jason, uniquely physical. Critics have tended to pass over this remarkin silence, perhaps because it does not seem to fit with the prevailingpicture of the diplomatic Jason. Partly this strange remark may be apointer to the problematic nature of the whole speech, but partlyalso, at this turning-point in the narrative, the poet looks forward toan even greater ate (cf. 4.449), the dismemberment of the young Apsyr-tos — a version of the myth which the Argonautica will in fact avoid.The safe return to Greece for which Jason craves (2.637) was in mostversions of the myth bought at a price like that for which Jason was pre-pared to pass up the whole expedition.45 These two explanations are, ofcourse, not mutually exclusive, and they do not preclude an attempt tounderstand what is going on inside Jason’s mind. According to Fränkel,for example, Jason is indeed careworn with the worries of leadership,although not quite as worried as the speech suggests. The speech is

45 That Apollonius in fact uses a different account of Apsyrtos’ death does not se-riously affect the argument: it is a familiar Apollonian technique to exploit read-ers’ knowledge of rejected versions of the myth, cf. Fusillo (1985), passim.

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thus both deceptive and truthful.46 If so, however, it is also remarkablyinept. The contrast between the personal worries of an individual andthe greater worries on behalf of the collective which weigh upon a lead-er (2.633–7) is familiar enough,47 but the helmsman, who is responsiblefor everybody’s safe voyage, seems the very least suitable person tocharge with such selfishness. Not long afterwards, in fact, Tiphys’death leads the crew to despair that they will ever return safely(2.862–3, below pp. 447-8). The patent inappropriateness of Jason’swords thus points, as does his savage expression of regret which hasjust preceded, to the problematic nature of the speech.

leik_wia 5pea are usually words of comfort, calming words.48 Natu-rally enough, such words need not convey the whole truth, being ratherdesigned to create a certain effect in the hearer.49 leik_wia 5pea alsooccur where ‘soothing words’ is not really an appropriate meaning,50

but there seems to be no context remotely like the present one. Whatthen of paqabk^dgm? This normally seems to mean no more than ‘inreply’, but ‘deceitfully’ is certainly a possible sense (cf. S

bT Il. 4.6)which Apollonius may have used at least once elsewhere.51 Moreover,only once elsewhere do leik_wia and paqabk^dgm appear together. At3.1079 ff Jason, affected by ‘deadly love’, speaks paqabk^dgm toMedea; at the conclusion of the speech we are told that he had spokenleikiw_oisi jatax^wym a\qoisi. That speech begins with a promise thatJason will never forget Medea and concludes with some rather novelmythology about both Minyas and Ariadne; it is, therefore, anythingbut straightforwardly ‘true’. We may conclude that, in the peira scene,the poet directs our attention to what is most important about Jason’sspeech — its relationship to ‘truth’ — but sets us a puzzle by choosingsuch an ambivalent introduction for it. Only after the speech do we

46 Fränkel (1968), 217.47 Cf. esp. Soph. OT 62–4.48 Cf. 1.294, 3.319, 385, 4.394, 1317, 1431.49 Cf. 3.14–15 where Hera rejects the possibility that the Argonauts could make

Aietes give them the Fleece, 1p]essi paqaiv\lemoi … leikiw_oir. The participlethere may, but need not, imply deceit. Cf. also 4.394, where the exact status ofJason’s following speech remains a problem for both Medea and us (Hunter[1987], 131).

50 Cf. 2.467, 3.31, 4.732.51 3.107, though the interpretation there is disputed, cf. M. Campbell, Studies in

the Third Book of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (Hildesheim, 1983), pp. 16–17.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 75

seem to have a surer hold. Jason spoke ‘making trial of the heroes’,52

which does not necessarily imply that the speech was intended to de-ceive, but certainly does place us in the context of Iliad 2. Jason thenresponds 1piqq^dgm after the crew’s encouragement has warmed hisheart. At 2.847 this adverb must mean ‘by title, by name’, but the scho-lia on 2.640 have various attempts at it — vameq~teqom, paqqgsiasti-j~teqom, oRome· !mavamd|m, diaqq^dgm. The comparatives rightly suggesta contrast with paqabk^dgm, and indeed the later word, apparentlymeaning ‘openly, straightforwardly’, must be intended to suggest bycontrast a meaning for the earlier. Nevertheless, 1piqq^dgm is itselfrare enough to make its use here noteworthy, and it has been chosen,I think, because the ‘semantic centre’ of this whole episode is not‘the characterisation of Jason’,53 but rather the whole problem of howto interpret a speech or how to move from what a character says tothe ‘meaning’ behind it. For this purpose Agamemnon’s peira providedthe classic poetic model. To a large extent, we confront Jason’s speech ashis hearers do, and we must make of it what we can.

The death of Tiphys, following so soon after the loss of Idmon,causes general despair and loss of belief in a safe return (2.851–63).As at other crucial points, Hera intervenes (like the Bq_ssai in the Lib-yan desert), here by giving Ancaios, a son of Poseidon, the courage tospeak to Peleus. Ancaios observes that both he and others on board arequite capable of steering the ship, so they should get on with the job;like Jason after the crew’s reaction to the peira speech, Peleus is greatlycheered by this positive spirit and he addresses the crew openly, basicallyrepeating the substance of Ancaios’ speech, but making no actual pro-posal for a new helmsman. Jason, !lgwam]ym, replies that the potentialhelmsmen around him are more depressed than he himself is and heprophesies a miserable fate for them, wasting away where they are, be-reft of kleos. At this, four Argonauts, including Ancaios, offer themselvesas steersmen, and Ancaios is duly chosen. Fränkel54 and Vian55 have

52 Fränkel (1968), 214–15 argues strongly for the meaning ‘provoking (a certainreaction)’ rather than ‘testing’; as Fränkel himself admits, however, the distinc-tion is not a sharp one, and the traditional interpretation seems protected by theecho of Iliad 2.

53 Paduano-Fusillo on 2.638–40. For 1piqq^dgm cf. Arat. Phaen. 261; atPhaen. 191 the meaning is doubtful, but Mair’s ‘expressly’ seems close towhat is required.

54 Fränkel (1968), 240–4; this view is rejected by Paduano-Fusillo on 2.885–93.55 Vian (1978), 1031, cf. note compl�mentaire to 2.885 and Gnomon 46 (1974), 349.

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taken a similar view of this scene, which may be summarised as follows:the episode is designed as an illustration of Argonautic homonoia ; An-caios approaches Peleus, who is not a possible rival for the job, out ofa sense of tact. Jason does not wish to impose a choice among themany possible candidates, so he delivers a speech full of sarcasm and de-pression in order to prick the amour-propre of potential steersmen. Theploy succeeds, and both the expedition and its democratic structuresare preserved. The episode would thus be in some ways comparable— though Fränkel and Vian do not make the comparison — to thescene among the Greeks after Hector has issued his challenge in Iliad7. When no Greek responds to the challenge, Menelaos abuses themas effeminate cowards lacking in kleos, and he starts to arm himself forthe duel; Agamemnon, however, restrains him and, after a lengthy in-tervention from Nestor, a number of Greek champions present them-selves (Il. 7.92–169). The central difference between the two scenesis the crucial !lgwam]ym in 2.885, quite different from the Homericameid_fym describing Menelaos. Fränkel and Vian deal with this wordin different ways. Both agree that Jason is here not ‘resourceless’; forFränkel !lgwam]ym is therefore a corruption of, exempli gratia, !l^wamor¦r, whereas Vian understands the word to refer to Jason’s embarrass-ment before the delicate task of choosing between rival candidates.

With many details of this reading I would not disagree, but the em-phasis seems misplaced. The loss of Tiphys, who safely negotiated theArgo through the Clashing Rocks, is clearly a crushing blow; thoughhe was elected to his position (1.400–1), there was never any realdoubt about the choice (cf. 1.105–10, 381–3). The strength of Jason’sdespair, like his very positive attitude at 2.641–7, we recognise as sim-ilar to the sharp highs and lows of Homeric emotion, notably the fluc-tuations in Agamemnon’s mood. Whether such despair is consonantwith our idea of what a leader should be is of no relevance here. Crucialto the scene is Hera’s intervention, and it is on the indirect nature ofdivine action — not really all that different from various interventionsof Homeric gods — that the poet’s interest is here centred. This mistak-en emphasis in the reading of Fränkel and Vian derives again from themodern behaviour of a central hero, rather than with a pattern of events.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 77

III.

It is well known that Jason’s story has strong similarities with myths re-lating to other young heroes who undergo terrible ordeals before claim-ing their rightful place in adult society. Three heroes demand particularnotice because Apollonius draws explicit attention to them.

Aietes’ fire-breathing bulls are described (3.231) with an echo of theHomeric Chimaira, deim¹m !popme_ousa puq¹r l]mor aQhol]moio

(Il. 6.182). The myth of the Chimaira, as told in Iliad 6, has interestinglinks with Jason’s story. Proteus sends the handsome Bellerophon to hisfather-in-law (Iobates), the king of Lycia, with letters which will ensurethe young man’s destruction; Proteus, like Pelias, thus hopes to removea better man from his kingdom, as well as to punish Bellerophon for thealleged outrage against his wife. Iobates receives Bellerophon hospitably(cf. Aietes at 3.299–316), but after reading the treacherous letter he de-vises a series of trials for the young man which he is not expected to sur-vive. The Chimaira — the ‘equivalent’ of Aietes’ bulls — is one suchtest; another is the defeat of two hostile tribes, the Solymoi and the Am-azons. At 3.352–3 Argos tells Aietes that Jason will subjugate one of hisenemies, the Sauromatai (Sarmatians), as a quid pro quo for the return ofthe Fleece. It is noteworthy that this tribe was said to be descended fromthe Amazons and to retain certain Amazon characteristics.56 Argos’ offermay reflect a version of the saga in which the defeat of this tribe by theArgonauts was a condition imposed by Aietes, like the war enjoined onBellerophon by Iobates. When Bellerophon successfully completed histasks, the king gave him half the kingdom and one of his daughtersin marriage; Jason will get both daughter and Fleece, though notwith the king’s consent.

The murder of Apsyrtos is compared to that of Agamemnon byClytemnestra and Aigisthos at 4.468, ‘like a slaughterer kills a greathorned bull’, which reworks Od. 4.535 (= 11.411) ‘as someone killsan ox at its stall’. It is not, however, Aigisthos whom Jason closely re-calls, but rather Orestes. Euripides has Orestes kill Aigisthos while thelatter is sacrificing to the Nymphs, thus himself becoming the sacrificialvictim, in a description (El. 839–43) which is very like Apollonius’ ac-

56 Cf. Hdt. 4.110–17, Hippocr. Aer. 17, Pl. Laws 7.804e-5a, J. Harmatta, Studiesin the History and Language of the Sarmatians (Szeged, 1970).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception78

count of the death of Apsyrtos, struck down like a sacrificial bull57 in theshrine of Artemis. Both Orestes and Jason must receive purification fortheir actions by having the blood ‘washed off’;58 the patterns are certain-ly very alike, although the killing of the usurper Pelias is more clearlydivorced from the death of Apsyrtos than the death of Aigisthos isfrom that of Clytemnestra. The similarities, moreover, go much furtherback in time. As a baby Jason was removed from the city of his birth tobe brought up in the wild by the centaur Chiron, because of fear that hisusurping uncle Pelias might act against the baby who had a rightfulclaim to the throne. When he had grown to manhood, he returnedto Iolcos to reclaim his inheritance (Pind. Pyth. 4.101–15). This patternis obviously very like that of the baby Orestes, saved from the blood-thirsty Aigisthos and deposited with Strophios in Phocis (Eur.El. 16–18). To the similarities in their later careers I shall returnbelow (pp. 450-2).

Most striking of all, and most exploited by Apollonius, are the par-allels between Jason and Theseus. Like Jason, Theseus returned to thecity of his father as a young man in his prime, a pa ?r pq~hgbor (Bacch-yl. 18.56–7, cf. Pind. Pyth. 4.158 of Jason), like Jason both a strangerand a citizen (cf. Pind. Pyth. 4.78). Theseus’ birth tokens, by whichhe is finally recognised by his father the king, are a sword and sandals;59

the latter can hardly fail to remind us of ‘one-sandalled Jason’, althoughthe use of the token in the two stories is quite different.60 Like Jason,Theseus was put to the test by a descendant of Helios, Minos; thetest of Theseus’ divinity imposed by Minos, most familiar to us from

57 This is also, I think, the image suggested by cm»n Eqipe (4.471), cf. 1.427–31,3.1310 (where I accept 1qip|mta).

58 4.560, cf. Aesch. Eum. 281, 452, R. Parker, Miasma (Oxford, 1983),pp. 104–43, Hunter (1987), 131 n. 17.

59 Cf. Plut. Thes. 3.4; Herter, RE Suppl. 13, 1057.60 Here the loss of Callimachus’ Hecale is particularly to be regretted. Frr. 232–3

and 235–6 concern Theseus’ arrival in Athens and recognition first by Medeaand then by his father. Fr. 274, "qlo? pou j!je_myi 1p]tqewe kept¹r Uoukor j%mhei 2kiwq}syi 1mak_cjior, may suggest that Theseus was portrayed as ayoung ephebe, like Jason; Arg. 1.972 and Call. fr. 274 are obviously connected,and, if Kapp’s interpretation of the latter passage is correct, then Apolloniusmay be drawing a further link between Jason and Theseus by echoing a Calli-machean passage about the latter. Relevant too is the suggestion that Callima-chus’ Theseus owed something to Homer’s Telemachus, cf. J. K. Newman,‘Callimachus and the Epic’, in Serta Turyniana (Urbana, 1974), pp. 342–60 atp. 350.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 79

Bacchylides 17, is recalled at Arg. 3.402–3 where Aietes offers to giveup the Fleece once he has tested that the Argonauts are ‘either ofthe race of gods or in some other way no worse [than Aietes him-self]’. Jason uses the example of Ariadne to encourage Medea(3.997–1007), Medea herself contrasts Minos and Aietes(3.1106–7),61 and the overcoming of the bulls with Medea’s helpis plainly on a par with Theseus’ success in the labyrinth against theMinotaur. The detailed working out of the parallels between Ariadneand Medea in the Argonautica and later literature is familiar enough tobe omitted here. Less obvious perhaps are the shared motifs in the ex-peditions of the two heroes. The tribute of young men from whichTheseus freed Athens was imposed after the death of Minos’ son, An-drogeos, in mysterious circumstances in Attica. Minos prayed to Zeusfor vengeance, and a plague and famine came upon the city. Whenthe Athenians consulted the oracle, they were told to pay Minos what-ever penalty he should demand (Apollodorus 3.15.7–8). With the storyof the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece this story shares the motifs ofZeus’ anger, plague, consultation of an oracle, a long sea-voyage andthe death of a tyrant’s son. Finally — and it would be possible to pursuethe parallels in these two stories at much greater length — it is notewor-thy that Theseus’ desire to imitate and rival Heracles is a leitmotif of Plu-tarch’s Life of Theseus,62 and this recalls Heracles’ role in the Argonautica,particularly after he has left the expedition.63

Recent scholarship has recognised in these myths and the tragediesbased on them a recurrent pattern which reflects the generational pas-sage of a young man into adulthood. The work of Pierre Vidal-Naquet,in particular, has established in new detail the connection of such mythswith the institution and ritual of the ephebate.64 That the Argonauts as a

61 These verses exploit the familiar fact (cf. Strabo 10.48, Plut. Thes. 16.3, RE15.1890–1927) that two very different accounts of Minos’ character were cur-rent in antiquity. Homer had given both Minos and Aietes the epithetako|vqym (Od. 10.137, 11.322).

62 Cf. 6.6–7.2, 29.3 (%kkor oxtor Jqajk/r).63 Cf. Feeney, art. cit. (n. 33).64 Cf. ‘The Black Hunter and the Origin of the Athenian ephebeia’, PCPS 14

(1968), 49–64 (reprinted in R. L. Gordon [ed.],Myth, Religion & Society [Cam-bridge, 1981], pp. 147–62 and P. Vidal-Naquet, The Black Hunter [Baltimore,1986], pp. 106–28), and ‘The Black Hunter Revisited’, PCPS 32 (1986),126–44. Already E. S. Phinney, Apollonius Rhodius (diss. Berkeley, 1964), p.110, associated Jason with Parthenopaeus in Aeschylus’ Septem.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception80

whole pass through some kind of ‘initiation’ has long been recognised,65

as also of course have the ephebic features of a hero such as Theseus.66

Nevertheless, the impulse of Vidal-Naquet’s work has, for example, al-lowed the significance of the details of the Pindaric Jason — upbringingin the wild, uncut hair, return at the age of twenty, his ambiguous dress— to be better appreciated.67 These patterns will also throw light on as-pects of the Apollonian Jason.

Orestes performs his retributive act through guile and cunning; theSophoclean Orestes, in fact, reports Apollo’s oracle to the effect that heshould ‘with trickery secretly carry out the just slaughter himself, uneq-uipped with shields and an army’ (El. 36–7). Apollonius presents Jason’sacts of ploughing the field and slaying the earthborn men as comple-mentary: the first requires heroic strength, aided by Medea’s magicdrugs, the second relies on metis and on staying out of sight (k\hqgi,3.1057, 1369). This complementarity points to Jason’s intermediate po-sition on his passage from one stage of his life to another. His prepara-tions for the contest are also interesting in this context. After he hassmeared both himself and his weapons with the drug and the strengthhas entered him, he performs naked a kind of dance, like a prancingwarhorse, shaking his shield and spear (3.1258–64). The shield andspear — the weapons of both the Homeric warrior and the hoplite68

— are stressed again as Jason goes to the contest n»m douq· ja· !sp_di

(3.1279). The dancing and shaking movements strongly call to mindthe pyrrhiche, an armed dance which presumably originated in prepara-tions for war and which we know to have been performed at Athenianfestivals by all three age-classes of males, %mdqer, !c]meioi and pa ?der.69

Plato’s description of the dance, ‘it represents modes of eluding all

65 Cf. F. Graf, in J. Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology (London,1987), pp. 97–8, and the various speculations of R. Roux, Le probl�me des Ar-gonautes (Paris, 1949), Chapter 3, and J. Lindsay, The Clashing Rocks (London,1965); for Jason in particular cf. Heiserman, op. cit. (n. 15), pp. 16–20.

66 Cf. H. Jeanmaire, Couroi et Cour�tes (Lille, 1939), p. 323.67 Cf. C. Segal, Pindar’s Mythmaking: the Fourth Pythian Ode (Princeton, 1986),

pp. 56–60.68 Ephebes received !sp_da ja· d|qu after their first year of service and spent the

second year on guard duty (Arist. Ath. Pol. 42.4).69 IG ii.2 2311.72–4; for this dance in general cf. K. Latte, De saltationibus Grae-

corum capita quinque (RGVV 13.3, Giessen, 1913), J.-C. Poursat, ‘Les représen-tations de danse armée dans la céramique attique’, BCH 92 (1968), 550–615,and E. J. Borthwick, ‘P.Oxy. 2738: Athena and the Pyrrhic Dance’, Hermes98 (1970), 318–31.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 81

kinds of blows and shots by swervings, and duckings and side-leaps up-ward or crouching’ (Laws 7.815a, trans. R. G. Bury), certainly suits bothJason’s movements at 3.1258–64 and also his actual battle with thecgceme ?r. The Aristophanic personification of Old Education had con-trasted those who fought at Marathon — the hoplite battle par excellence— with young men of the modern day who could not dance Athena’spyrrhiche properly (Clouds 986–9), and it has been suggested that weshould see in this dance an enactment of the passage of the ephebe to-wards hoplite status.70 Be that as it may, there can be no doubt thatApollonius presents Jason in a crucial transitional stage: halfway betweenApollo, the model kouros,71 and the war-god Ares (3.1282–3), he pre-pares to meet the great test of his ‘manhood’. It is worth remarking thatthe only previous killing to Jason’s credit in the poem is that of theequally young prince Cyzicus (1.1026–35), and this was a ghastly mis-take committed in the confusion of night, in a scene more reminiscentof the Doloneia than of the open duels of Homeric heroes. Finally, onefurther speculation about Jason’s test may be permitted. The trick of dis-tracting the earthborn men by throwing a great stone into their midstnot only associates Jason with the cunning of the ephebe, but perhapsalso suggests the role of fighters like Tyrtaeus’ culm/ter, who, in con-trast to and support of the p\mopkoi (hoplites), throw large stonesand javelins at the enemy from the safety of shield cover (fr. 12.35–9West = 8.35–9 GP, cf. Arg. 3.1369).72 Here too, then, Jason wouldbe associated with a type of fighting which is marginal to the main mili-tary effort of adult males.

The main object of the expedition, the acquisition of the GoldenFleece, is also achieved with the aid of Medea’s magical powers. Sheand Jason leave the Argo in the early hours, at the time when hunters

70 P. Scarpi, ‘La pyrrhiche o le armi della persuasione’, Dialoghi di archeologia 1(1979), 78–97, accepted by Vidal-Naquet, ‘Black Hunter Revisited’ (n. 64),p. 136. I do not think that Laws 7.796b-c shows that this was Plato’s interpre-tation.

71 It is tempting to place in this context Orpheus’ account of Apollo’s slaying ofthe Pythian dragon, joOqor 1½m 5ti culm|r, 5ti pkoj\loisi cecgh~r. I wouldnow be more inclined to such a view of this disputed passage than I was inHunter (1986), 57.

72 The interpretation of this passage is (inevitably) disputed, cf. H. Lorimer, BSA42 (1947), 127; A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of the Greeks (London, 1967),pp. 66–7; W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War IV (Berkeley, 1985), p. 40. Arecently published fragment of Tyrtaeus refers to culmol\woi (P.Oxy. 3316).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception82

who begin while it is still dark get up (4.109–13). By a familiar Apol-lonian technique,73 this indication of time embraces the functions of asimile, and the possible significance of this night-hunt for Jason’s posi-tion will be obvious to anyone familiar with Vidal-Naquet’s work on‘the Black Hunter’. Once the Fleece has been attained — with Jasonplaying very much the secondary rôle74 — his delight in it is comparedto that of a paqh]mor who sees the full moon caught on her fine dress(4.167–73). The text and interpretation of the simile are both farfrom clear,75 but the comparison of Jason to a young girl is certainlysuggestive. It is well known that rites de passage are often characterisedby games or ritual involving sexual reversal; at the moment of Jason’sgreatest success — the acquisition of both the Fleece and Medea —the simile of the young girl paradoxically marks his readiness to assumehis manhood. If this is correct, then his speech to the crew at their de-parture, which I have already considered in another context (above pp.64–5), may be seen to mark his emergence from the period of testing.He speaks now as both ‘hero’ and hoplite,76 and he dons ‘the armour ofwar’ (4.206) to mark his new status. It may even be that his plan for theprotection of the ship (4.199–202), a close pattern of shields to protectthe rowers, is designed to suggest the hoplite phalanx, as well, presum-ably, as reflecting a historical reality.77

The interpretation of individual details will always be a matter fordebate. More broadly, however, it is difficult not to associate Jason’scharacteristic !lgwam_g, the doubts and occasional despair to whichhe is prone, with the ambivalent insecurity of Orestes in Euripides’ Elec-tra and, to a lesser extent, Aeschylus’ Choephoroi.78 Both Orestes andJason require support and encouragement to accomplish difficult but

73 Cf. Hunter (1986), 54–5.74 Cf. 4.149, 163, Hunter (1987), 132–3.75 Cf. now J. M. Bremer, CQ 37 (1987), 423–6, who rightly points to the erotic

and nuptial associations of the full moon. Marriage for the young girl corre-sponds, mutatis mutandis, to membership of the adult warrior class for Jason.

76 Livrea on 4.203 collects the relevant passages. For sex reversal in transitionalrites cf. e. g. the remarks of Vidal-Naquet, Black Hunter (n. 64), pp. 114–17.

77 Cf. Vian on 4.200. In the parallel scene at 2.1069 ff the comparison with a hop-lite phalanx is almost explicit (2.1075–8), cf. Paduano-Fusillo ad loc.

78 Cf. P. Vidal-Naquet in J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, Tragedy and Myth inAncient Greece (Brighton, 1981), pp. 160–1.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 83

necessary tasks which have been imposed upon them by oracular com-mand.79

Two final observations are necessary here. First, as I have alreadynoted, these patterns operate within the poem largely at the level ofthe individual episode, and we should not expect to find a simple linearprogression through a transitional rite from beginning to end. Thus, at avery simple level, the killing of Apsyrtos follows, rather than precedes,the successful acquisition of the Fleece and the assumption of heroicrhetoric. Secondly, I have been assimilating certain patterns in the Argo-nautica to patterns in the mythic thought and literature of archaic andclassical Greece, as well as to a military organisation which was for Apol-lonius quite obsolete. It may be objected that a poet of third-centuryAlexandria was no longer in touch with these patterns in such a wayas to use them meaningfully in his poem. Such an objection can, Ithink, be met on its own terms by two complementary observations.The broad patterns in question are so widespread in both time andspace that the onus of proof is clearly on those who would deny accessto them to the inhabitants of third-century Alexandria. More impor-tantly, the Argonautica is a creative recreation of a past age, both techno-logically and in terms of social values and attitudes. Its characteristic fla-vour derives from the tension between this hypothesised past age andthe very Alexandrian concerns of much of the poetic material. Insuch a poem, the reprise of this familiar pattern from archaic and classicalliterature, as only one of a number of structural patterns through thework, is very far from surprising.

The nature of heroism, and its particular instantiation in the ‘psy-chology’ of Jason, is not Apollonius’ central concern in the Argonautica.If Jason sometimes resembles the great heroes of Homer and sometimeswears a quite different aspect, it is because of Apollonius’ constant con-cern with the experimental, with testing the limits and possibilities ofthe epic form and with exploring what it has seemed to take for granted.This differentiates him both from Homer and, in a different way, fromVirgil, who used the results of the experiments to produce a new syn-thesis.

79 Cf. Pind. Pyth. 4.159–67. Apollonius does not explicitly say that the expedi-tion was commanded by divine oracle (contrast 1.8), but the motif of placatingZeus’ anger (2.1194–5, 3.336–9) perhaps suggests that we are to infer it. Thelatter passage raises, and leaves open, the possibility that Pelias has invented theoracle as an excuse to get rid of Jason.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception84

Addenda

See the Addenda to the previous essay. Jason is also at the centre of much ofChapter 3 of Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry, and see also The Argo-nautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies 15–25. C. Pietsch, Die Argonautika desApollonios von Rhodos (Stuttgart 1999) takes a rather different view of these mat-ters.

p. 66 Here and elsewhere I am conscious that I did not bring out sufficientlyclearly how the potential for the obliteration of kleos in the Argonautica buildson the Homeric idea (Iliad 12.70, 13.227, 14.70) of perishing m~mulor.

p. 81–2 The standard study of the pyrrhiche is now P. Ceccarelli, La pirrica nel-l’antichit� Greco romana: studi sulla danza armata (Pisa 1998).

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 85

4. Winged Callimachus*

1m· to ?r c±q !e_dolem oT kic»m Gwomt]tticor, h]|qubom d’ oqj 1v_kgsam emym. 30

hgq· l³m oqat|emti pame_jekom acj^saito%kkor, 1c]½ d’ eUgm ork[a]w}r, b pteq|eir,

ü p\mtyr, Vma c/par Vma dq|som Dm l³m !e_dypq~jiom 1j d_gr A]qor eWdaq 5dym,

awhi t¹ d’ 1jd}oili, t¹ loi b\qor fssom 5pesti 35tqick~wim ako_i v/sor 1p’ 9cjek\dyi.

oq m]lesir· MoOsai c±q fssour Udom ehlati pa ?darlµ kon_i, pokio»r oqj !p]hemto v_kour.

(Aetia fr. 1.29–38)1

In ZPE 66 (1986) 269–78 Gregory Crane discussed the implications ofCallimachus’ self-identification with the cicada in the light of the sug-gestion of earlier scholars2 that the poet here sees himself as Tithonus,but a Tithonus who is not abandoned by his beloved deities. The pres-ent note calls attention to a further pattern of meaning in the passagewhich may have important implications for its structure.

Callimachus, the favourite of Apollo, longs to be b 1kaw}r, b pte-q|eir. The reference is to the cicada, but the language can hardly beother than a reworking of the famous words which Plato puts in Soc-rates’ mouth at Ion 534b: joOvom c±q wq/la poigt^r 1stim ja·

ptgm¹m ja· Req|m.3 Callimachus’ familiarity with this passage — whichwould hardly require proof — is in fact established by an echo of Ion534c in Iambus 13 (fr. 203.31–3).4 Socrates’ ‘light, winged, and holy’poet is like a bee rather than a cicada, but this hardly weakens the cer-

* Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 76 (1989) 1–21 Supplements: v. 30 Lobel; v. 32 Hunt.2 Cf. A. Rostagni, RFIC n.s. 6 (1928) 23; H. Diller, Hermes 90 (1962) 120.3 G. O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford 1988) 80 n. 107 cites the Platonic

parallel to Callimachus’ verse but not, apparently, as its source. Dr N. Hopkin-son suggests that d_gr in v. 34 picks up Req|m, the third of Plato’s epithets for thepoet.

4 Cf., e. g. D. L. Clayman, Callimachus’ Iambi (Leiden 1980) 50. The humour ofciting Plato’s Ion in a poem in which the poet defends himself by the example ofIon of Chios has strangely been lost on many critics.

tainty of the echo; in any case, Callimachus elsewhere suggests a likenessbetween himself and the bee (h. 2.110–12). In his amusing speech at Ion533c-5a Socrates argues that poets do not compose 1j t]wmgr, but rather5mheoi, 5jvqomer and jatew|lemoi like bacchants; poets are merely 2qlgm/rt_m he_m.This position is directly opposed to Callimachus’ insistenceupon t]wmg as the chief poetic criterion (fr. 1.17) and his self-presenta-tion as the deliberate artist, composing pen-in-hand (fr. 1.21–2): ‘notfor him the affectation of vatic inspiration’, as Neil Hopkinson has re-cently put it.5

Thus in offering a poetics quite unlike that of the Platonic Socrates,Callimachus in fact adopts Socrates’ language and partially takes over hisview of the poet. The famously problematic6 syntax of vv. 33–5 cannow be seen as amusingly suggestive of the ecstatic, ‘possessed’, modewhich Socrates ascribes to poets and into which Callimachus suddenlychanges; the change is mediated through the echo of the Ion in v.32.The whole passage — so typical of Callimachus’ creative use of earlierliterature — is thus a powerful assertion of poetic craftsmanship and lyricinspiration.

One final speculation. The link between the ‘Reply to the Tel-chines’ (fr. 1) and the Dream (fr. 2) remains very unclear.7 We alsoknow nothing of the dream’s circumstances. It is usually assumed tohave occurred at night, but certain times of the day were also very suit-able for dreams and encounters with the divine, and Socrates tellsPhaedrus the myth of the cicadas 1m lesglbq_ai and stresses that theyshould not nod off into sleep in the heat like most men (Phaedrus

5 A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1988) 95. Critics differ as to whethervv. 21–2 refer to Callimachus’ first attempt at poetry or to his first efforts atwriting when a little boy (so, e. g. W. Wimmel, Kallimachos in Rom, Hermes Ein-zelschrift 16, Wiesbaden 1960, 101). The former seems more likely (cf. the ad-dress !oid] and the imitations in Roman recusationes), although the superlativepq~tistom, pa ?dar in v. 37, and the tradition that Callimachus was at onetime a schoolteacher in Alexandrian Eleusis (Suda j 227 = Test. 1 Pfeiffer)— and therefore only too familiar with writing lessons – may be thought tosuggest the latter. It may be in fact that Callimachus thinks of the two momentsas coincident.

6 A selection of criticism: Pfeiffer’s note quoting P. Friedländer, Hermes 64 (1929)383; H. Herter, Bursian’s Jahresbericht 255 (1937) 104–6; Wimmel op.cit. 113n. 4; A. Kambylis, Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (Heidelberg 1965) 82–9;Hopkinson op.cit. 96–7.

7 Cf. Crane art.cit. 275–8; A. Kerkhecker, ‘Ein Musenanruf am Anfang der Aitiades Kallimachos’ ZPE 71 (1988) 16–24.

4. Winged Callimachus 87

259a). If Callimachus’ dream took place in the heat of the day, theimage of the cicada may have formed part of the link between it andthe Reply. This is no more than a guess, but at least it would not bethe only such poetic encounter to be set at such a time (cf. The-ocr. 7.21).8

Addenda

The ‘Reply to the Telchines’ remains of course one of the most discussed pas-sages of Greek poetry; the starting point is now G. Massimilla, Callimaco. Aitia,libri primo e secondo (Pisa 1996). There is a very useful bibliography of Callima-chus to 1998 by Luigi Lehnus (Nuova bibliografia callimachea 1489–1998, Ales-sandria 2000). The language of the prologue in connection with Plato’s Ion isalso discussed by M. Depew, TAPA 122 (1992) 326–7.

8 Theocr. 7.139, t]tticer kakaceOmter 5wom p|mom, suggests the p|mor of the ‘Cal-limachean’ poet.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception88

5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil*

In a famous passage of the third book of the Georgics (3.209–41) Vergildescribes two bulls righting over a formosa iuvenca; the bull which is atfirst beaten goes off to recover and prepare, returning to attack againits arrogant opponent. The description of the bull’s training blendsthe toughness of early man,1 the playfulness of a young animal, the suf-fering of the exclusus amator and the preparations of a human athlete:

ergo omni cura uiris exercet et interdura iacet pernox instrato saxa cubili 230frondibus hirsutis et carice pastus acuta,et temptat sese atque irasci in cornua discitarboris obnixus trunco, uentosque lacessitictibus, et sparsa ad pugnam proludit harena.

(Georg. 3.229–34)

The phrase uentosque lacessit / ictibus has been variously handled by crit-ics, but Page’s note – ‘he acts like a boxer’ – is very likely on the righttrack; cf. Aen. 5.375–7 of Dares answering the challenge to compete inboxing, talis prima Dares caput altum in proelia tollit,/ ostenditque umeroslatos alternaque iactat / bracchia protendens et uerberat ictibus auras. Pugna(line 234) is used of a wide variety of sporting contests, but has, throughpugnus, a natural affinity with boxing.2 uentosque lacessit / ictibus would,of course, be perfectly appropriate also for the warming-up of gladiatorsor fencers, and Richter took the phrase both here and in Aeneid 5 to be apoetic version of uentilare, which is twice found used absolutely of agladiator practising or warming-up.3 An image from gladiatorial contestswould suit the sharp horns of a bull, but uerberare rather suggests boxing,and it is, moreover, unclear why Vergil’s phrase should be semanticallyequivalent to uentilare (which may, in any case, have been used of boxers

* Classical Quarterly 39 (1989) 557–611 Cf. R. F. Thomas, Virgil, Georgics, II (Cambridge, 1988), on 229–31.2 Cf. Aen. 5.365. Thomas, however, refers the verse to ‘the sanding of the oiled

body in wrestling’.3 Sen. Contr, 3 pr. 13, Sen. EM 117.25.

as well as of gladiators). If it is correct that lines 233–4 hint at a likenessbetween the bull and a boxer, then new colour is given to certain earlierelements of the passage: alternantes (line 220), uulneribus crebris (line 221),sanguis (line 221), plagas (line 226) and superbi/ uictoris (lines 226–7)4

may now all be seen to suggest a boxing-match. So too, the theme ofthe deleterious effect on bulls of sexual passion may be not merely a bor-rowing from love-poetry but also transference to the bovine world ofconventional wisdom about how athletes should conduct themselves.5

Moreover, a iuuenca as a prize in a boxing-match between two bullsgives an amusingly new resonance to an idea from the world of (literary)man: in Homer, Epeios and Euryalos box for a splendid mule, Bl_omomtakaeqc|m… 2n]te’ !dl^tgm6 (Il. 23.654–5), and in Aeneid 5 Dares andEntellus compete for a iuuencus.7

Behind Vergil’s poetic fancy lie many different ‘sources’. Somecommentators have found the seeds of this passage in technical writingsuch as Arist. HA 6.575a21–2, ‘the victorious bull (b mij_m t_m ta}-qym) mounts the cows; but when he is weak because of his frequentmounting, the beaten bull (b Btt~lemor) attacks him, and often wins’;cf. also a preserved fragment8 of Antipater, Peq· f~iym : ‘the strongest(!kjil~tator) bull in the herd mates with all the cows and does notallow any other bull to mate. But if another bull, trusting in his ownstrength, withstands and defeats him, then the second bull mates withthe cows after that.’ Among poetic models, the lyric account of thefight between Heracles and Achelous for the hand of Deianeira atSophocles, Trachiniae 507–30 has long been acknowledged as a partic-ularly important forerunner.9 The river-god appeared in his bull formand his horns crashed against his opponent, while Deianeira sat far offawaiting the outcome in terror (cf. Trach. 24); in line 520 the fight is

4 Cf. Aen. 5.473 ‘hic uictor superans animis tauroque superbus’.5 Cf. Philostratus, Gymn. 52, where however what is at issue is the effect of actual

sex rather than of sexual longing, and A. Rousselle, Porneia: on Desire and theBody in Antiquity (Oxford, 1988), pp. 12–15. There is a close parallel to thisin the folklore of modern boxing.

6 !dl^r and related words are frequently used of young girls, and Vergil may beexploiting this resonance.

7 At Aen. 5.399 Entellus sarcastically refers to the prize as a pulcher iuuencus, cf.formosa iuuenca.

8 Quoted by Schol. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 2.88–9a.9 For Ovid’s later use of the Trachiniae passage cf. F. Bömer, ‘Der Kampf der

Stiere’, Gymnasium 81 (1974), 503–13, and note on Met. 9.46.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception90

described in what looks like the technical language of wrestling (!lv_-pkejtoi jk_lajer). Sophocles does not actually say ‘they wrestled liketwo bulls over a heifer’, but the idea is clearly latent in the passageand is nearly explicit at the end of the ode, where Deianeira’s marriageis compared to the sudden separation of a young heifer (p|qtir 1q^la)from its mother. It is a small step from there to a passage of the Argonau-tica which is cited by commentators on the Georgics, but whose full im-portance has not yet been brought out.

At Arg. 2.88–97 the final round in the boxing-match of Amycusand Polydeuces is compared to the meeting of two bulls in competitionfor a ‘grazing heifer’:

#x d’ awtir sum|qousam 1mamt¸y, A}te ta}qyvoqb\dor !lv· bo¹r jejotg|te dgqi\ashom.5mha d’ 5peit’ -lujor l³m 1p’ !jqot\toisim !eqhe·r 90bout}por oXa p|dessi tam}ssato, j±d d³ baqe ?amwe ?q’ 1p· oX pek]linem . b d’!_ssomtor rp]stg,jq÷ta paqajk¸mar, ¥lyi d’ !med]nato p/wumtuth|m. b d’ %cw’ aqto ?o paq³j c|mu coum¹r !le_bymj|xe leta@cdgm rp³q ouator, ast]a d’eUsy 95N/nem . b d’ !lv’ ad¼mgi cm»n Eqipem. oR d’ Q\wgsamFqyer Lim}ai

.toO d’ !hq|or 5jwuto hul|r.

Whereas Vergil presents his bulls warring over a mate as boxers, Apol-lonius’ boxers are like bulls warring over a mate.10 The simile of lines88–9 leads in to that of lines 90–2 where Amycus is compared to aman about to sacrifice a bull; the tables are turned, however, and Amy-cus himself becomes the sacrificial victim. cm»n Eqipem (line 96) is appro-priate both for a beaten boxer and for the bull at a sacrifice,11 and theheroes’ shout suggests not merely the audience of a sporting-contest12

but also the ritual cry which attended sacrifice; Apollonius may infact have specifically in mind the sacrifice at Odyssey 3.447–58 (cf.the akokuc^ in line 450, and line 455 k_pe d’ ast]a hul|r correspondingto Arg. 2.97). Vergil certainly used Arg. 2.90–2 and 95–6, together

10 It is tempting to believe that the fact that ancient boxing ‘gloves’ were madeexclusively of ox-hide (cf. Philostratus, Gymn. 10) has had an important influ-ence in the creation of this image.

11 Cf. Il. 17.520–4, Arg. 4.471. Rather similar is Lucretius 1.92 of Iphigenia,‘muta metu terram … genibus summissa petebat’; the action suits both a terri-fied girl and a sacrificial victim.

12 Cf. Arg. 3.1370, Theocr. 22.99, Hom. Il. 23.847, 869.

5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil 91

with Arg. 1.427–31, in his description of Entellus’ killing of the prizebull at Aen 5. 477–80,13

dixit, et aduersi contra stetit ora iuuenciqui donum astabat pugnae, durosque reductalibrauit dextra media inter cornua caestusarduus, effractoque inlisit in ossa cerebro,

and the debt to the opening of Argonautica 2 throughout the boxing de-scription in Aeneid 5 is well known.14 This may encourage us to look forfurther Apollonian influence in the ‘boxing match’ of Georgics 3.

When the beaten bull returns to attack its opponent, its charge isdescribed with a simile of a crashing wave (Georg. 3.237–41):

fluctus uti medio coepit cum albescere ponto,longius ex altoque sinum trahit, utque uolutusad terras immane sonat per saxa neque ipsomonte minor procumbit, at ima exaestuat unda 240uerticibus nigramque alte subiectat harenam.

The simile is adapted15 from Iliad 4.422–6 which describes the Greeksmoving, like the Vergilian bull, to battle:

¢r d’ ft’ 1m aQciak_i pokugw]z jOla hak\ssgr

eqmut’ 1pass}teqom Fev¼qou vpo jim¶samtor.p|mtyi l]m te pq_ta joq}ssetai, aqt±q 5peitaw]qsyi Ngcm}lemom lec\ka bq]lei, !lv· d³ t’ %jqar 425juqt¹m 1¹m joquvoOtai, !popt}ei d’ "k¹r %wmgm.

Apollonius too has occasion to describe the charge of bulls, during theaccount of Jason’s trials in the third book:

5ddeisam d’ Fqyer fpyr Udom. aqt±q b to}r ce

ew diab±r 1pi|mtar û te spik±r eQm "k· p]tqgl_lmei !peiqes_gisi dome}lema j}lat’ !]kkair.

(Arg. 3.1293–5)

13 Cf. F. Rütten, De Vergilii studiis Apollonianis (diss. Münster, 1912), p. 19. arduusin line 480 may be another (cf. line 426) reflection of Arg. 2.90–1, but cf. Eur.El. 840.

14 Cf. Rütten op. cit. (n. 13), pp. 16–19 and Williams’ notes on the Aeneid pas-sage. The reference to Amycus in line 373 directs our attention to Apolloniusand Theocritus.

15 Cf. M. C. J. Putnam, Virgil’s Poem of the Earth (Princeton, 1979), pp. 194–5.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception92

This simile is indebted to Iliad 15.618–21 which describes the Greekbattle-line as it resists the Trojans. Resistance was not the qualitywhich Vergil wished to describe in Georgics 3, but he may have beenled to use a wave-simile for his charging bull by this passage of the Ar-gonautica. A further consideration, however, seems to prove beyond rea-sonable doubt that Vergil’s choice of Homeric model here has been in-fluenced by his knowledge of Apollonius’ epic.

The opening exchanges of the bout between Amycus and Polydeu-ces contain another wave-simile:

5mha d³ Bebq}jym l³m %man, û te jOla hak\ssgr

tqgw» hoµm 1p· m/a joq}ssetai, B d’ rp¹ tuth¹mQdqe_gi pujimo ?o jubeqmgt/qor !k}sjeiRel]mou voq]eshai 5sy to_woio jk}dymor.

(Arg. 2.70–3)

Amycus, a son of Poseidon,16 is like a mighty wave threatening to burstin on a ship, whereas Polydeuces is the skilful pilot who averts the dan-ger;17 the fact that Polydeuces and his brother had a traditional role asrescuers from shipwreck18 – a role given great prominence in the open-ing passage of Theocritus’ parallel poem (22.8–22) – foreshadows theultimate futility of Amycus’ efforts. Like so many Apollonian similes,these verses have a complex Homeric origin, but two passages are par-ticularly important. One is Iliad 15.624–9 (Hector attacking the Greeklines) which follows immediately after the Homeric model for thecharge of Aietes’ bulls in Arg. 3, and the other is the same simile fromIliad 4 that Vergil reworked to describe the bull’s charge: jOla hak\s-sgr and joq}ssetai (sinum trahit) point clearly to the adaptation (cf.Il. 4.422, 424). Vergil’s choice of Homeric model thus points again tothe confrontation of Amycus and Polydeuces in the Argonautica,which in turn looks forward to the charging bulls of Arg. 3.1293–5.19

16 The association of Poseidon with bulls — witnessed most dramatically in thedeath of Hippolytus — is also important here and in the Georgics passage.

17 The simile is later instantiated in the narrative at 2.580–7.18 Cf. Arg. 2.806–8, 4.593, 649–53, and the remarks of A. R. Rose, WS 97

(1984), 125.19 Apollonius’ account of Jason’s struggle with the bulls very likely contains ech-

oes of Callimachus’ Hecale. This lends colour to the suggestion (cf. Thomas adloc.) that Georg. 3.232–4 is indebted to Call. fr. 732 Pf., pokk± l\tgm jeq\essim

1r A´qa hul^mamta a verse of uncertain authorship which has been ascribed,with some probability, to the Hecale.

5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil 93

Vergil’s technique of allusion here is familiar enough, although a thor-ough investigation of how he used the Hellenistic epic remains a majordesideratum.20

Other parallels between the two passages have less significance, buttwo further points may be mentioned. The shadow-boxing ofGeorg. 3.233–4 has its parallel in Arg. 2.45–7, where Polydeuces pre-pares for the fight. In both poems careful preparation is to pay off againstan arrogant and careless opponent. Secondly, there is the phrase irasci incornua (line 232). With more or less confidence, editors see here a bor-rowing from the only earlier instance of the phrase in extant literature,Eur. Bacch. 743, taOqoi d’ rbqista· j!r j]qar hulo}lemoi (of animals at-tacked by the bacchants). If this is correct — and caution in such mattersis always necessary — then it is noteworthy that Malcolm Campbell hasargued21 that Apollonius’ description of the contest of Amycus and Pol-ydeuces is indebted to the Euripidean confrontation of Pentheus andDionysus: the calm, beautiful young man confronts the brutish, ‘earth-born’ tyrant.22 Campbell also argued that oQmypºr of Polydeuces at The-ocr. 22.34 showed that Theocritus had picked up the resonance ofApollonius’ account. Does Georg. 3.233–4 show that these allusionswere not lost on Vergil? Opinions will differ, but no one will wantto underestimate his appreciation of detail and nuance in the Argonauti-ca.23

Addenda

The study of Virgil’s use of Apollonius was notably advanced by D. Nelis, Ver-gil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Leeds 2001); cf. also TheArgonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies, Chapter 7.

p. 91 I should certainly have cited Eros as a boxer at Sophocles, Trachiniae441–2.

p. 93 On Arg. 2.70–3 cf. M. P. Cuypers, Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 1–310, A Commentary (Diss. Leiden 1997) 70–6.

20 For Apollonius’ influence on the Georgics, cf. the brief survey of W. W. Briggsin H. Temporini and W. Haase (edd.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der rçmischen WeltII 31.2 (Berlin/New York, 1981), pp. 955–8.

21 ‘Three Notes on Alexandrine Poetry’, Hermes 102 (1974), 38–46, at 38–41.22 H. Fränkel, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Munich, 1968), p. 157, had

cited Eur. Bacch. 543–4 in this connection, but he did not pursue the parallel.23 I am grateful to Michael Reeve for his comments on an earlier version of this

note.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception94

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica ofApollonius*

Jason’s expedition for the Golden Fleece might almost have been de-signed as a narrative of cultural and racial difference and interaction.By the Hellenistic period, the geography and people of Colchis werefamiliar enough to learned Greeks1, but the power of the mytho-poeticconstruct was far greater than the desire for ethnographic exactitude.The myth told of a journey to the ends of the earth2, a terrible confron-tation with the unknown and the “other”, and the ultimate triumph of aPanhellenic crusade and of Greek technology and daring3. Indeed,scholars of Hellenistic and later antiquity rationalised the story as an ac-count of early colonisation and the quest for gold (cf. Strabo 1, 2, 39), anexplanation which draws our attention to just how easily the tale couldbe used to account for or justify various forms of cultural imperialism.The role of cultural difference in the epic has largely been studiedfrom the point of view of what we might call the obviously “ethno-graphic” passages, such as the Pontic voyage in the second half ofBook 2. Here Apollonius is clearly working within the familiar patternof Herodotean ethnography, which stresses inversion from a helleno-centric model4. Among my concerns in this paper will be the manner

* S. Said (ed.), EKKGNISLOS. Quelques jalons pour une histoire de l’identit� grecque(Leiden 1991) 81–99I am indebted to the participants in the Strasbourg colloquium for much in-

structive discussion and to Philip Hardie and Dorothy Thompson for theircomments on a written version of this paper.

1 Cf. pp. 16–17 of Vol. II of Vian’s edition. The evidence for Ptolemaic interestin the Black Sea area continues to grow, cf. the contributions (in Russian withEnglish summaries) of N. L. Grach in Vestnik Drevnei Historii, 1984, pp. 81–88and L.Y. Treister, ibid., 1985, pp. 126–139.

2 For Phasis as the world’s eastern boundary cf. my note on 3, 678–680.3 Cf. now M. Fantuzzi, “La censura delle Simplegadi: Ennio, Medea, fr. 1 Joce-

lyn”, QUCC n.s. 31 (1989), pp. 119–129.4 Cf. M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche, Rome, 1985, pp. 162–167. Among

the most important Herodotean contributions are M. Rosellini and S. Said,“Usage des femmes et autres nomoi chez les ‘sauvages’ d’Hérodote: essai de lec-

in which Apollonius complicates and problematises the essential dichot-omy at the heart of the Herodotean system, although I shall not deal di-rectly with his ethnographies. More fundamentally, I want to raise thequestion of why a third-century Alexandrian poet, writing underroyal patronage and, indeed, occupying perhaps the principal “academ-ic” position available under that patronage, should write an Argonautica.The well-springs of such a lengthy artistic achievement are, of course,destined to remain hidden from us, but this aspect of the question de-serves far wider airing than it usually receives.

Both the date and place of composition of the poem in somethinglike its final form are matters of debate, but the assumption of compo-sition in Alexandria around the middle of the third century B.C., i. e. inthe later stages of the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, is unlikely to bedangerously misleading5. The intellectual life and Weltanschauung ofthird-century Alexandria is a subject endlessly rich in opportunity forspeculation. Thus, for example, certain features of Alexandrian poetry– its “realism” (of a very special kind), its high literariness and allusive-ness – have recently been ascribed to a “cultural identity-crisis” allegedlyexperienced by Greek intellectuals in this new city perched on the edgeof a barbarian wasteland, far from the seats of traditional Greek cultureand without the ties of the traditional Greek colony6. The idea has itsattractions, and it can be helpfully adduced to account in part for theimportance in Alexandrian poetry of aetiology and of foundation leg-ends of the remote Greek past. It would be easy enough to constructa reading of the Libyan adventures of the Argonauts in the fourthbook as an allegory of the Alexandrian Greeks lost in the cultural desertof North Africa, saved only when they reach Euhesperides (modernBenghazi), a town whose attachment to the Ptolemaic cultural orbitwas celebrated by the change of its name to Berenike in honour ofthe Cyrenean princess who married Ptolemy III Euergetes in 247B.C.7; moreover, the second factor in their salvation is that, like Xen-

ture structurale”, ASNP3 8 (1978), pp. 949–1005; and F. Hartog, Le miroird’H�rodote, Paris, 1980 [English trans., Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988].

5 For a recent survey cf. pp. 1–9 of my edition of Book 3 (Cambridge, 1989).6 Realism: G. Zanker, “The Nature and Origin of Realism in Alexandrian Po-

etry”, A&A, 29 (1983), pp. 125–145; literariness: P. Bing, The Well-ReadMuse, Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets (Hypomnemata,90), Göttingen, 1988, pp. 74–75. The whole of Bing’s discussion(pp. 50–90) is of considerable interest; see too the suggestive remarks of G.W. Most in Hermes, 109 (1981), pp. 188–189.

7 Cf. RE, 3, 284–286.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception96

ophon’s mercenaries (Anab. 4, 7, 24), they reach the sea (4,1537–1619), a traditional touchstone of Greek consciousness. Be thatas it may, such psychological reconstructions must be tempered with alittle reflection. Alexandria was in many respects a Greek, rather thana Graeco-Egyptian, city, loosely attached to Egypt rather than a partof it. It was only natural for Alexandrians to associate themselvesmore with the large areas of the Aegean under Ptolemaic control or in-fluence than with the Egyptian chora at their backs8. Callimachus’ Hymnto Delos is proof enough of that. Some scholars have argued further foran early Ptolemaic period in which, with official encouragement, Greekintellectuals took an interest in Egypt and its people, an interest whichgradually withered as the third century progressed and the scholars be-came more inward-looking, more solely dependent upon the Greek in-tellectual heritage which they guarded, whereas others have seen persis-tent neglect by most Greek intellectuals of all things Egyptian9. On ei-ther view the high poetry of Alexandria would largely belong to a pe-riod when traditional Greek attitudes towards barbaroi reigned supreme.Using this “fact” in a reading of the poems, however, is a particularlydelicate business.

Callimachus, Apollonius and – for part of his career – Theocrituswrote under royal patronage, and the Ptolemies not only dependedupon Egyptian wealth but also very clearly adopted Egyptian religiousand institutional customs in their conduct of the kingship. Moreover,the very meaning, juridical and otherwise, which is to be attached tothe terms “Hellene” and “Egyptian” in the context of PtolemaicEgypt remains, at the very least, a matter of debate10. The whole ques-

8 For this general picture cf. , e. g., C. H. Roberts, “Literature and Society in thePapyri”, MH, 10 (1953), pp. 264–279; R. Merkelbach, “Das Königtum derPtolemäer und die hellenistischen Dichter”, in N. Hinske (ed.), Alexandrien(Aegyptiaca Treverensia, I), Mainz am Rhein, 1981, pp. 27–35.

9 For a change cf. , e. g. Roberts, op. cit. (n. 8); O. Murray, “Hecataeus of Abderaand Pharaonic Kingship”, JEA, 56 (1970), pp. 141–171; Bing, op. cit. (n. 6), p.134, n. 82; against this view, E. G. Turner in The Cambridge Ancient History,ed. 2, VII, 1, Cambridge, 1984, pp. 126–128. For a recent attempt to trace spe-cifically Ptolemaic themes in Alexandrian poetry cf. H. Maehler, “Poésie alex-andrine et art hellénistique à Memphis”, Chronique d’�gypte, 63 (1988),pp. 113–136.

10 Cf. R. S. Bagnall, “Greeks and Egyptians: Ethnicity, Status, and Culture”, inCleopatra’s Egypt, Age of the Ptolemies, New York, The Brooklyn Museum,1988, pp. 21–27; K. Goudriaan, Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt, Amsterdam,1988; D. J. Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies, Princeton, 1988,

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius 97

tion of Egypt and Egyptians was likely to have been one where courtpoets trod cautiously. Attic drama, which was so intensively studiedin Alexandria, regularly presented Egypt as a barbarous and contemp-tible land, but such attitudes could clearly not be replicated in Ptolemy’scourt. Too much weight should not be placed upon the remark of theabsurd Praxinoa in Theocritus’ fifteenth Idyll :

pokk\ toi, § Ptokela ?e, pepo_gtai jak± 5qca1n ¨ 1m !ham\toir b tej~m· oqde·r jajoeqc¹rdake ?tai t¹m Q|mta paq]qpym AQcuptist_,oXa pq·m 1n !p\tar jejqotgl]moi %mdqer 5paisdom,!kk\koir blako_, jaj± pa_wmia, p\mter !qa ?oi.

(Theocr. , 15, 46–50)

“You have done many good things, Ptolemy, since your father joined theimmortals. No villain sneaks up on you like an Egyptian while you’re goingalong and does you mischief—the sorts of tricks those slippery rascals usedto pull. They’re all as bad as each other, a nasty little handful, a cursedbunch!”

Far from showing that “Theocritus seems to participate … with Calli-machus in a conspiracy never to reveal that Egypt is not a Greekland”, as one perceptive critic of these poems has put it11, this passage– with its witty satire on ignorance and prejudice – points clearlyenough to a non-Greek Egypt ruled by Greek monarchs. (How Ptole-my understood the verses, if he ever read them, is a subject thankfullybeyond conjecture.) Moreover, Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy praisesthe racial and cultural diversity of Egypt (17, 77–85), and it is thus ob-vious that the Ptolemaic court was not the right place for strident asser-tions of Greek cultural and racial superiority12. Too much loose talkabout barbaroi may have been rather too close to the bone.

In fact, Callimachus, Apollonius and Theocritus all fail (like Homer)to register a single example of the simple form b\qbaqor. Tomorrow’spapyrus may, of course, render this assertion untrue, but it is at the mo-ment a modest fact perhaps worthy of note. Moreover, Callimachus’

pp. 82–105; more generally, W. Peremans, “Égyptiens et étrangers dans l’Égypte ptolémaique”, in Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt, VIII. Grecs et Barbares,Vandoeuvres-Genève, 1962, pp. 121–166.

11 F. T. Griffiths, Theocritus at Court, Leiden, 1979, p. 85. Griffiths’ discussion ofthe “obliteration” of Egypt in Alexandrian poetry is a helpful treatment of thesubject.

12 Cf. P. R. Hardie, Virgil’s Aeneid: ‘Cosmos’ and ‘Imperium’, Oxford, 1986,pp. 129–131.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception98

one example of baqbaqij|r occurs in a rather interesting context. In theHymn to Delos, the unborn Apollo tells his mother not to bear him onKos for this is destined to be the birthplace of Ptolemy Philadelphus; thefoetus then goes on to prophesy a time when both he and Ptolemy willhave trouble with Celts – the reference is to the attack on Delphi in 279and to a revolt by some of Ptolemy’s Gallic mercenaries which was putdown at some time in the mid to late 270 s:

ja_ v} pote num|r tir 1ke}setai %llim %ehkorvsteqom, bpp|tam oR l³m 1v’ :kk^messi l\waiqambaqbaqijµm ja· Jekt¹m !mast^samter -qga

ax_comoi Tit/mer …(Call. H. 4 [Delos],171–174)

“One day in the future a common struggle shall come upon us, when thelate-born Titans raise up barbarian sword and Celtic war against the Hel-lenes…”

The only other example of “Hellenes” in Callimachus also occurs in thecontext of this Gallic invasion (fr. 379 Pf.)13, and here we may be able toglimpse one of the ways in which the Ptolemies exploited the richGreek inheritance of “anti-barbarian” rhetoric without exposing toomuch their own questionable status. The Greeks’ successful fifth-centu-ry defence against the Persians was the main source and inspiration of“anti-barbarian” rhetoric in classical literature and ideology14. The suc-cessors of Alexander, the “liberator” of Egypt from the Persians, inher-ited Athens’ patriotic mantle, and were able to adapt the rhetoric to fit anew situation, just as it had been adapted in the fourth century to ac-commodate the rise of Macedon. Thus we find the struggle againstthe Persians invoked in the Athenian decree of (?) 268/7 B.C. whichmarks the alliance of Athens, Sparta and Ptolemy at the start of theso-called “Chremonidean War” against Macedon, a decree which

13 !m\stasim in v. 2 and !mast^samter in the Hymn suggest self-variation by Cal-limachus in these two passages.

14 On this whole subject see now E. Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, Oxford, 1989.Hall observes (p. 13) that “by far the most important area in which Greekand barbarian are polarised in classical Greek rhetoric is political”; the rhetoricwas that of the democratic polis, and Ptolemaic Alexandria was certainly notthat.

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius 99

hails Ptolemy as a tireless fighter for Greek freedom15; at the very least,Ptolemy will not have been displeased with the rhetoric. The fact thatthe Egyptians stand first after the Persians in the opening catalogue ofattacking forces in Aeschylus’ Persai (vv. 33–40) shows just how the tra-ditional rhetoric had to be stood on its head by the Ptolemies. So too thealmost total silence about Egypt in the Argonautica16 must be seen as adeliberate reversal of Herodotus’ Egyptian narrative, the longest andmost prominent part of his account of the Persian empire. The silencespeaks of how much has changed since Herodotus wrote.

In the Hymn to Artemis Callimachus refers to the attack upon thetemple of Artemis at Ephesus by invaders from the north in the seventhcentury B.C.:

t_i Na ja· Aka_mym !kapan]lem Ape_kgseK}cdalir rbqist^r. 1p· d³ stqat¹m Rppglokc_mEcace Jilleq_ym xal\hyi Usom, oV Na paq’ aqt|mjejkil]moi ma_ousi bo¹r p|qom Ymawi~mgr.ü deik¹r bqot_m, fsom Ekitem . oq c±q 5lekkemout’ aqt¹r Sjuh_gmde pakilpet³r oute tir %kkorfssym 1m keil_mi Jaustq_yi 5stam ûlanaimost^seim

. 9v]sou c±q !e· te± t|na pq|jeitai.(Call. H. 3 (Artemis), 251–258)

“In his madness the outrageous Lygdamis threatened to sack your temple.He brought against it an army of horse-milking Cimmerians, numberless asthe sand, who live hard by the Strait of the Cow, daughter of Inachus. Owretched king, what a sin he committed! He was not destined to returnagain to Scythia, nor were any whose wagons stood in the Caystrianplain; for your bow is always set in front of Ephesus.”

It is an old, and now largely discredited, belief 17 that these verses hint atcontemporary attacks upon Ephesus by Celtic invaders. This is not aview I wish to revive. Rather, I wish to stress that there seems every rea-son to suspect a “Ptolemaic” context for the verses, even if we cannotidentify it with any precision. Ephesus was won and lost by Ptolemymore than once in the middle years of the third century, and played

15 Cf. H. H. Schmidt (ed.), Die Staatsvertr�ge des Altertums, III, Munich, 1969,no. 476, II. 7–21 (pp. 129–130). For both this decree and the associated warcf. N. G. L. Hammond and F. W. Walbank, A History of Macedonia, III, Ox-ford, 1988, pp. 276–289.

16 For the “Sesostris” passage cf. the Appendix, below.17 Cf., e. g., Bornmann’s edition, Florence, 1968, p. viii.

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an important role in dealings with the Seleucid empire18. More impor-tantly, for our present purposes, Callimachus’ verses key us in, not onlyto Homer, but also to Herodotus’ Scythian ethnographies, which form afurther significant part of his large-scale analysis of the clash of Greeceand Persia. This again is the rhetoric which we should see behind theverses. The themes of hybris, sin and loss of nostos indeed suggest Ae-schylus’ treatment of the Persian defeat in Persai. This Callimachean pas-sage may merely be the tip of an iceberg, but our remains of Ptolemaiccourt poetry are too scanty to allow us to follow these developments inany detail19.

In turning more directly to the Argonautica I begin from a detail inthe passage just quoted from Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos. The unbornApollo calls the invading Celts “late-born Titans”, thus establishingPtolemy as an “Olympian” protector of Greece, indeed as Zeus himself,an image confirmed by Ptolemaic iconography. In a recent book PhilipHardie has explored the use of Gigantomachic and Titanomachic im-agery for “political” purposes in the ancient world20; he rightly observesthat, despite this passage of Callimachus, the Ptolemaic situation was lessappropriate for the use of such imagery than was the situation of, say,the Pergamene kings or the Roman emperors. Nevertheless, the factthat Colchis and the Colchians have very close links with the Titans– Medea is the great-granddaughter of a Titan, Prometheus the sonof one21 – might encourage us to explore the Argonautica for resonancesof this kind. I single out here the boxing match between Amycus andPolydeuces which opens Book 2.

Amycus, king of the Bebrycians, a tribe inhabiting the land betweenthe Propontis and the Black Sea, is a violent, uncivilised bully, charac-terised by both Apollonius and Theocritus with echoes of another son of

18 Cf. RE, 5, 2794; R. M. Berthold, Rhodes in the Hellenistic Age, Ithaca and Lon-don, 1984, pp. 89–90.

19 Of particular interest are the fragmentary elegiacs of Supplementum Hellenisticum958, which have been interpreted as referring to Ptolemy II’s suppression of hisGallic mercenaries and to coming war with L/doi, i. e. Antiochus (so Lloyd-Jones and Parsons). The L/doi seem to be called rbqista_ te ja· %vqomer

(v. 9) and are described as softly luxurious (vv. 15–16) in a way which clearlydraws on the traditional fifth-century Attic picture of the eastern effeminate. Ifthis interpretation of the fragment is correct, then it should be placed in thesame context as the developments I have been discussing.

20 Hardie, op. cit. (n. 12), pp. 85–156.21 Cf. my note on 3, 865.

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Poseidon, the Homeric Cyclops22. In imposing a fight upon any strangerwho arrives, he is a clear example of a very prominent theme in thepoem, that of correct and incorrect hospitality23. The setting of the cen-tre of the poem in the Black Sea, which was called Axeinos, but thenlater Euxeinos24, foregrounds the theme of hospitality, much in theway that it is prominent in Euripides’ Iphigenia at Tauris, set in thesame area. Critics have realised that Amycus’ fight with Polydeuces ispresented as a clash between the forces of Olympian fairness and justiceand dark, pre-Olympian chthonic forces, or as a kind of Gigantomachy,as made explicit in the comparison of Amycus to “a son of Typhoeus ora Giant” (2, 38–40 ; cf. Val. Flacc. Arg. 4, 236–238)25. Heracles foughtagainst Typhoeus in a poorly, but probably adequately, attested myth26

and against the Giants in some accounts of the Gigantomachy27 and in aeuhemeristic version which presented the Giants as barbarous and un-civilised men exterminated by the hero as part of his civilising and hel-lenising function28. Polydeuces therefore here plays a Heraclean role,emphasised by the juxtaposition of this episode to the loss of Heraclesat the end of Book 1, by Amycus’ instruction to the Argonauts toput up b %qistor against him (2, 15), and by reflections on Heracles’ ab-sence at the end of the episode (2, 145–153). I shall return to Heraclesin a moment, after having first noted one further aspect of how thisfight is presented as a victory for specifically Hellenic values. Polydeucesis like the victorious recipient of a Pindaric epinician: he gleams with

22 Cf. my note on 3, 176–181. Valerius Flaccus (Arg., 4, 104–343) makes thesimilarity to the Cyclops explicit, and his Amycus narrative borrows heavilyfrom Vergil’s “Cyclops” episode (Aen., 3, 588–691).

23 For this theme cf. A. R. Rose, “Three Narrative Themes in Apollonius’ Bebry-kian Episode (Argonautika 2, 1–163)”, WS, n.f. 18 (1984), pp. 115–135.

24 Cf. Strabo, 7, 3, 6. The change is generally explained by modern scholars as eu-phemistic.

25 Cf. H. Frankel, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios, Munich, 1968,pp. 157–158; Id. in TAPA , 83 (1952), p. 146; Rose, op. cit. (n. 23), p.124. The great noise of the fight (2, 83–84) may be seen as an almost humor-ous re-use of the great noise of cosmic battles (cf. Hes., Theog., 678–683, 858).The use of pkgc^ for the strike of the thunderbolt makes the parallelism an easyone. The end of Typhoeus, 1pe· d^ lim d\lasse pkgc/isim Rl\ssar, / Eqipe

cuiyhe_r (Theog., 857–858), could easily be the end of a boxer.26 Cf. Bond on Eur., HF, 1217 f.; A. Loyen, “Hercule et Typhée”, inM�langes …

Alfred Ernout, Paris, 1940, pp. 237–245.27 Cf. Pindar, Nem., 1, 67.28 Cf. F. Vian, “La guerre des géants devant les penseurs de l’antiquité”, REG, 65

(1952), pp. 1–39, esp. pp. 11–15.

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the erotic power we associate with Pindaric victors29, “like the star inthe heavens, whose rays are the most beautiful when it appears in thedark evening sky” (2, 40–42). After his victory he is celebrated witha hymnos, as befits the victor (2, 161–163); whether we are to imaginean actual epinician ode30, a poem such as the first part of Theocritus 22(the Hymn to the Dioscuri) — and it is a nice thought that Apolloniushere alludes to Theocritus’ poem (or vice versa) —, or perhaps ratherthe ‘Hymn to Hercules’ at Aeneid, 8, 288–302 (which follows thedestruction of Cacus, another chthonic monster) may be left open31.Certainly, however, the clear foreshadowing of Polydeuces’ divine sta-tus32 instantiates the familiar epinician theme of the “immortality” andthe “divine grace” which is conferred on the victor. Thus the confron-tation with Amycus is made to suggest a familiar pattern of Greek aris-tocratic heroics, rather than the brutal contest envisaged by the Bebry-cian king.

We do not know enough about how poets presented specificallyPtolemaic themes to attempt anything so banal as a straightforwardequation between Polydeuces and Ptolemy or a reading of the episodeas “cultural propaganda”. All we can do is to note the important placeheld by Heracles, who was of course Ptolemy’s ancestor33, and by theDioscuri in royal cult and court poetry34, and the insistent theme ofthe success of traditional Greek aristocratic values which permeatesthis episode. If we cannot place the episode within a Ptolemaic context,we may nevertheless be prepared to accept that such a context exists. Incomparing Alexander to Heracles, Plutarch quotes the Euripidean Hera-

29 Cf. Pind., Pyth., 8, 96, the aUcka di|sdotor which attends victory. For thearousing beauty of the victor cf. the passages collected by C. M. Bowra, Pindar,Oxford, 1964, pp. 167–170.

30 Cf. Frankel, Noten…, op. cit. (n. 25), p. 164. In Valerius, Pollux receives anhonorum carmen from Orpheus (Arg., 4, 342–343).

31 vlmor occurs in Arg. only at 2, 161, and its only occurrence in Homer is Od, 8,429 of Demodocus’ song, but the context there also associates it closely withOdysseus’ triumph in the Phaeacian “games”.

32 Cf. 2, 806–810; Rose, op. cit. (n. 23), p. 126.33 Cf. Theocr., 17, 20–33. For a rather over-elaborate “Heraclean” reading of

Theocritus 24 cf. L. Koenen, Eine agonistische Inschrift aus �gypten und fr�hptole-m�ische Kçnigsfeste, Meisenheim am Glan, 1977, pp. 79–86; Griffiths, op. cit. (n.11), also has much of value. For the divinity of the Ptolemies in general cf. A.W. Bulloch, MH, 41 (1984), pp. 212–214 and Thompson, op. cit. (n. 10),pp. 125–138 (both with good bibliography).

34 Cf. P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford, 1972, I, p. 207.

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius 103

cles’ catalogue of the monsters sent against him, including “Typhonsand Giants” (Mor. 341e, alluding to Eur. HF 1271–1273); Heracleswas Greece’s greatest benefactor and already in the fourth century Iso-crates held him up to Philip as a model for a proposed Hellenic cam-paign to the east (Phil. 109–115). Again it may be that an extant Alex-andrian text merely allows us to glimpse what was a much more widelyused political symbol. Here perhaps belongs the sculptural type of twowrestlers, the victor a handsome youth wearing a diadem and the loser aman of obviously non-Greek physiognomy, which has been interpretedas symbolising the victory of the Ptolemies over their barbarian ene-mies35. The matter is, of course, quite uncertain, but the statuettes per-haps lend credence to the suspicion that there is greater “political” depthin this Apollonian scene than is usually assumed.

Secondly, we may now see how the fight with Amycus has ramifi-cations for a reading of the epic as a whole. The story of the Argonauts’expedition, particularly in Apollonius’ version, is a story of growth,transition, rite de passage36. The epic shows how the “heroic” age is de-fined, how it grew out of what came before, just as the many aitia andfoundation legends in the poem tell the material story of Greek civili-sation. In this context the replacement of one kind of value by anotheris particularly important. Apollonius has reshaped Hesiod’s myth of FiveAges: the lawless bronze generation, not very different from theGiants37, is replaced by the juster generation of heroes. We see theslow but certain success of ultimately Hellenic values, celebrated in an-nual cult, just as the annual repetition of the epic (4, 1774–1775) en-sures the kleos of the heroes and of the Argonautica in particular. Inone sense the expedition covers all of time, as Argos’ narrative of “pre-historic” conquest and settlement in Book 4 makes clear (cf. the Appen-dix). From Argos we learn that the evolution began with an Egyptian;the final result is Ptolemaic culture.

I wish now to move to consider these themes in connection withthe principal Colchian protagonists of the epic, Aietes and Medea. Fran-cis Vian has observed that in Book 3 there is a clear presentation of

35 Cf. H. Kyrieleis, “JAHAPEQ EQLGS JAI YQOS”, Antike Plastik, 12 (1973),pp. 133–146; Mind and Body, Athletic Contests in Ancient Greece ExhibitionCatalogue, MALA, 1989), pp. 165–166. I am grateful to Mme Anne Jacqueminof Strasbourg for drawing my attention to these statuettes.

36 Cf. R. L. Hunter, “‘Short on Heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica”, CQ, 38(1988), pp. 436–453 [= this volume 59–85], esp. pp. 448–452.

37 Cf. West on Hes., Theog., 50; my note on 3, 217–218.

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Aietes as an oriental despot and of Medea as a young girl in whom theconflict between barbarism and hellenism plays itself out38. In the poemas a whole, however, the situation is rather more nuanced.

The Colchian king is a complex literary portrayal deserving far clos-er study than I can offer here. A violent temper and a penchant for de-ceit and tyranny obviously oppose him not only to the quasi-democraticstructures aboard the Argo, but also to Lemnos as it is governed by itswomen and to the Drepane of Alcinous and Arete. But Colchis hasno monopoly on tyranny, as Pelias shows, and there are some apparentlyinconsistent elements in this picture of barbarian nastiness.

Early references to Aietes establish an opposition between Greeceand Colchis39, but there is no early suggestion that he is something ofan inhospitable monster. The first word of reproach is the adjectiveako|r which Jason applies to him in a highly problematic (and ? de-ceptive) speech (2, 890), where at the very least the word cannot betaken as an unmediated authorial description of the Colchian king40.More surprising in retrospect may seem Argos’ description to the Ar-gonauts of Phrixos’ reception at the court of Aietes after he arrivedon the flying sheep:

t¹m l³m 5peit’ 5qqenem 2/ir rpohglos}mgisiVun_yi 1j p\mtym Jqom_dgi Di_, ja_ lim 5dejtoAQ^tgr lec\qyi, jo}qgm t] oR 1ccu\kineWakji|pgm !m\edmom eqvqos}mgisi m|oio·t_m 1n !lvot]qym eQl³m c]mor. !kk’ b l³m Edgcgqai¹r h\me Vq_nor 1m AQ^tao d|loisim.

(2, 1146–1151)

“Phrixos sacrificed the ram to Zeus Phuxios, and Aietes received him inhis palace and, well disposed towards him, gave him in marriage his daugh-ter Chalciope, without receiving a bride-price for her. We are their chil-dren. Phrixos died an old man in Aietes’ palace…”

I am interested here not in the apparent contradiction between this ac-count and what Aietes himself later tells his subjects (3, 584 ff.), butrather with the Homeric pattern into which Aietes is here fitted. Thepattern is that of the Phaeacian king Alcinous whose apparent desire

38 Cf. pp. 19–21 of Volume II of Vian’s edition.39 Cf. 1, 245, 337. The theme reappears most importantly at 4, 190–205 (for

which cf. Hunter, op. cit. [n. 36], pp. 439–440 and 452).40 For the problems and interpretation of this speech cf. Hunter, op. cit. (n. 36),

pp. 447–448.

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to marry off his daughter to a newly arrived stranger, whose identity hedoes not yet know (Od. 7, 311–315), has caused many critics, ancientand modern, to scratch their heads; Alcinous would certainly have al-lowed Odysseus to grow old gracefully in his palace, as Phrixos did inColchis. This is by no means the only link between Aietes and the Ho-meric Alcinous, as the description of the Colchian royal palace and itsmarvels is heavily indebted to the description of Alcinous’ palace inOdyssee 741. On the other hand, very clear echoes associate Aieteswith the grim and uncivilised Cyclops42. What is going on here?

No one will doubt the lasting influence of the Homeric poems onthe shaping of Hellenic identity and consciousness, particularly as theyare reflected in high literature. Just as Odysseus oscillates between thesociety of the Cyclopes, whose solitary, autarkic lives without “mar-ket-places, where decisions are taken, and legal ordinances” define byopposition the value of the settled community, and the hyper-civilisa-tion of the Phaeacians whose nearness to the gods is a dangerousover-stepping of boundaries, so the person of Aietes and his Colchiancourt combine elements of both extremes, thereby interpreting and giv-ing a more solid reality to the tantalising links and similarities betweenCyclopes, Phaeacians and Giants at which Homer hints. When Aietesfunctions as the traditional good host of epic, as he does when thesons of Phrixos arrive back at his court together with representativesof the Argonauts (3, 299–303), or adopts the standard value languagein apparently inappropriate circumstances – “for it is not right for aman born agathos to yield to a kakoteros”, he asserts to Jason in explainingwhy the latter must prove himself against the fire-breathing bulls beforebeing given the Fleece (3, 420–421) – we should not too hastily assumethat this is to be read merely as cynical hypocrisy (though that is an im-portant element of it). The depiction of Aietes – like the epic as a wholeand, indeed, like Ptolemaic culture itself – challenges the oppositionsand values of the Odyssey and, by implication, the apparent securityof the Hellenic self-definition as we see it in Odysseus and his family.

Medea also comes to the Argonautica with a rich dowry of literaryand mythical associations. She both imitates and changes the patternof Helen, whose flight from Greece with a handsome stranger provokeda clash between Europe and Asia, of the kind envisaged by the Apollo-nian Alcinous as he tries to decide what to do with the fugitive Medea

41 Cf. my note on 3, 215–241.42 Cf. my note on 3, 176–181.

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(4, 1103)43. Hanging over the whole epic is the Euripidean Medea, abarbaros who discovers and exposes Greek treachery and the inadequacyof traditional Greek language to order the relations between the sexes.In a rationalising version possibly contemporary with the Argonautica44,Dionysius “Scytobrachion” presented Medea as a kind of “honoraryGreek” living in the wild and barbarous Pontus: while Aietes is charac-terised by ¡l|tgr, Medea’s main virtue is a merciful Bleq|tgr, whichcaused her to plead for the lives of strangers who were washed up onthe coast. The opposition of these two qualities is, of course, a leitmotifof Greek discussions of Greek identity; most relevantly, we may recallTheophrastus’ definition of education as “a making gentle (BleqoOm) ofmen’s souls, taking away that which is animal-like and unfeeling (t¹hgqi_der ja· %cmylom), so that character becomes more at one withothers (joim|teqa) and more flexible (rcq|teqa)” (Stobaeus, II, p. 240W). We recognise this motif from a similar context in Euripides’ Iphi-genia in Tauris. In that play, the Greek virgin who was spirited awayfrom imminent death to serve as Artemis’ priestess on the inhospitableTauric coast reveals how her attitude has changed since she has beenconvinced by a dream that her last hope, her brother Orestes, has died:

§ jaqd_a t\kaima, pq·m l³m 1r n]mourcakgm¹r Gsha ja· vikoijt_qlym !e_,1r hoql|vukom !maletqoul]mg d\jqu,>kkgmar %mdqar Bmij’ 1r w]qar k\boir.mOm d’ 1n ame_qym oXsim Acqi~lehad}smoum le k^xesh’, oVtim]r poh’ Ejete.

(Euripides, IT 344–350)

“In former times, my heart, you were placid and fall of pity towards strang-ers, bestowing tears upon those who shared your race whenever Greekmen fell into your hands. But now that dreams have turned me wild(%cqior), you strangers, whoever you are, will find me no kindly host (d}s-mour).”

This passage makes very clear the link between being “Greek” and theexercise of certain virtues.

Just as Aietes in part confounds traditional literary patterns of defin-ing “Greekness”, so too does Medea. Her responses to the emotional

43 Cf. R. L. Hunter, “Medea’s Flight: the Fourth Book of the Argonautica”, CQ,37 (1987), pp. 129–139 [= this volume 42–58], esp. p. 138.

44 Cf. p. 20 of my edition of Book 3.

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crisis which Jason’s appearance precipitates are couched in the very tra-ditional language of aidos as it applies to the female (3, 766–801); she isscared of public opinion and of bringing disgrace upon her family, andshe recognises that any dealings with Jason will be interpreted as laqco-s}mg (3, 791–797). Her association with death, magic and chthonicpowers, on the other hand, is not merely – though it is this also – away of representing the female “other” (Greek, Colchian, or whatever),but is also a challenge to the inherited pattern of “Hellene” and “barbar-ian”. It is she, Jason tells his men, who is the benefactor of Greece andsaviour of the Argonauts (4, 190–198); Jason’s rhetoric makes of hertoo an “honorary Greek”. The deep irony is that she has in part beenpersuaded to help by the effect of Jason’s words at their meeting inBook 3 at the temple of Hecate. There Jason held out to her the prom-ise of enjoying the benefits of Greek civilisation, in which disputes aresettled by consensus (3, 1100). This is sophisticated deceit, as Apollo-nius’ text makes clear and as every reader of Euripides’ Medea knows;even the Greek origins of civilisation are to be challenged by Argos’ nar-rative in Book 4. Jason’s deceit is also a very Greek deceit, relying on thequasi-magical power of muthos whose praises Jason has sung before hisfirst meeting with Aietes (3, 186–190) and of which Medea is toprove herself mistress when she lures her brother to his death in thefourth book. This is, however, one gift of Greek civilisation whichMedea is to come to regret.

Appendix:The Return Journey and the Route of Aeneas

I have already had occasion to refer more than once to Argos’ speech at4, 257–293 in which he tells the Argonauts how they should interpretPhineus’ prophecy that the return from Aia will be “a different jour-ney”, 6teqor pk|or (2, 421). Argos takes his narrative back almost tothe beginning of time, to a period before “evolution” was completed,when there were only the Arcadians “who are said to have lived beforethe moon” and the Egyptians. He tells of an expedition of conquest andsettlement led from Egypt by an unnamed individual, among whosetraces are maps left behind in his native city of Aia:

oT d^ toi cqaptOr pat]qym 6hem eQq}omtai,j}qbiar oXr 5mi p÷sai bdo· ja· pe_qat’ 5asim

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rcq/r te tqaveq/r te p]qin 1pimisol]moisim.(4, 279–281)

The people of Aia preserve their fathers’ writings, pillars (kurbeis) on whichare found all the routes and the boundaries for those travelling, both overland and sea.

It is well understood – and made explicit by both the scholia and Valer-ius Flaccus (5, 418–422) – that Apollonius has here borrowed from thelegends of the Egyptian king Sesostris (or Sesoosis or Sesonchosis) ofwhose expedition Herodotus gives a memorable account (2, 102–110)45; Herodotus (2, 103–104) makes Sesostris the founder of the Col-chian kingdom and asserts the racial identity of Egyptians and Col-chians. It is an attractive hypothesis that the pillars46 inscribed withmaps of the world are an amusing rationalisation of Herodotus’ storythat the king set up monumental pillars (stelai) in the lands that he con-quered, and that when he had conquered easily and without too muchof a fight he had an image of the female genitals drawn on the pillars “toshow that his opponents lacked manly spirit” (Hdt. 2, 102). Apolloniusmay also have been influenced by the characteristic form of the Egyp-tian obelisk with which he must have been familiar47; if so, these kurbeisinscribed with maps will be a Graeco-Egyptian mixture of an almostprogrammatic kind. Be that as it may, it is quite likely that Apollonius’most immediate source was the late fourth-century account of Heca-taeus of Abdera, partly preserved for us in Book 1 of Diodorus Siculus48.Hecataeus seems to have made of Sesostris a brilliant forerunner ofAlexander, who was of course the most obvious example of a worldconqueror and founder of cities.

Vergil recalls this passage of the Argonautica in Book 3 of the Aeneidwhen he describes how Anchises interprets the instruction of DelianApollo that the Trojans should seek their antiquam matrem, the landwhich was the original home of their race:

45 On this Egyptian king and his legends cf. Lloyd’s commentary on Hdt., 2,102–110, passim and Lexikon der �gyptologie, V (1984), s.v. “Sesostris III”.

46 The meaning of j}qbiar is admittedly much disputed; cf. the notes of Livreaand Vian ad loc. The parallel/model of Sesostris’ stelai, however, suggests thatit would not be misleading to think of publicly displayed pillars.

47 Cf. Lexikon der �gyptologie, IV (1982), s.v. “Obelisk”.48 Cf. Murray, op. cit. (n. 9); Fusillo, op.cit. (n. 4), pp. 53–54.

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tum genitor ueterum uoluens monimenta uirorum“audite, o proceres”, ait “et spes discite uestras.Creta Iouis magni medio iacet insula ponto,mons Idaeus ubi et gentis cunabula nostrae.centum urbes habitant magnas, uberrima regna,maximus unde pater, si rite audita recordor,Teucrus Rhoeteas primum est aduectus in oras,optauitque locum regno. nondum Ilium et arcesPergameae steterant ; habitabant uallibus imis.hinc mater cultrix Cybeli Corybantiaque aeraIdaeumque nemus, hinc fida silentia sacris,et iuncti currum dominae subiere leones.ergo agite et diuum ducunt qua iussa sequamur,placemus uentos et Cnosia regna petamus.nec longo distant cursu: modo Iuppiter adsit,tertia lux classem Cretaeis sistet in oris.”

(Aeneid 3, 102–117)

Anchises is, of course, mistaken, as si rite audita recordor in v. 107 hints,and on Crete the Penates appear to Aeneas to tell him that Italy mustbe his goal; Anchises’ mistake consists in not tracing the origins ofthe race far enough back.

Why does Vergil recall Argos’ narrative in this place? As often, thereare answers at more than one level. Egypt and Crete were both places of“origins”. In particular, both could claim to be the original sites of re-ligion and cult49, and cunabula in v. 105 suggests the legend of Zeus’birth on Crete, as does Curetum (v. 131) which resonates against Cretam(v. 129) to suggest an etymology for the island’s name; Apollonius usesthe same pregnant juxtaposition at 2, 1233–1234 in the context ofZeus’ birth50. Moreover, Crete was one of the lands which was believedto have been anciently called )eq_a or Ieq_g, the name which the Apol-lonian Argos gives to Egypt51. There is then, as often, an element ofscholarly one-upmanship in Vergil’s use of Apollonius. Furthermore,just as Argos’ speech introduces an unconventional, if not actually

49 For Crete cf. Sallust. , Hist, 3, fr. 14 Maurenbrecher, quoted by Servius onAen., 3, 104; for Egypt cf. Hdt., 2, passim ; Diod. Sic, 1, 9, 6, etc.

50 For the etymology cf. Pliny, HN, 4, 58 (citing Anaximander, Philistides andCrates).

51 For )eq_a of Crete, cf. Steph. Byz., s.v. )eq_a·, Aulus Gellius, NA, 14, 6, 4;Pliny, HN, 4, 58; Hesychius, a 1391. The name is applied to Egypt as earlyas Aesch., Suppl., 75.

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novel52, itinerary for the Argonauts, so the Cretan adventures of Aeneasmay have been Vergil’s invention53. The structural similarity merelyemphasises the difference: Argos pushes the Argonauts into a primevaland fantastic world, whereas the Trojans approach Crete through thevery familiar chain of Aegean islands.

At a rather deeper level, the two passages point towards an in-structive difference between the two works. To take first the sources ad-duced by Argos and Anchises. Argos appeals to Egyptian sacerdotal tra-dition and to a written (or drawn) record54. There is here a clear elementof pure literary fun. The fantastic geography of the return trip is “au-thorised” by an appeal to a sacred record; the learned poet is thus sparedthe necessity of having to take the responsibility for his creation55. It istempting to recall Callimachus’ famous !l\qtuqom oqd³m !e_dy (fr. 612Pf.), ignorant though we are of the speaker and context of those words.There is, however, more to Apollonius’ strategy than this.

As Vian and others have pointed out, Argos’ speech is very remi-niscent of Critias’ account of Solon’s conversation with Egyptian priestsin the early sections of Plato’s Timaeus (21e-25d). When Solon adducesthe antiquity of the Flood (22b; cf. Arg. 4, 266), the priests point outhow relatively recent this was and note that Egyptian temples preservewritten records of deepest antiquity, whereas the rest of the world suf-fers periodic catastrophe by fire or flood which not only destroys every-thing but also wipes out knowledge of the art of writing which then hasto be re-invented. There is no sign that Apollonius’ Argonauts canwrite, and this makes more pointed the miraculous and mysterious sur-vival of the prehistoric maps in Aia. Here Apollonius has extended andsharpened a Homeric situation. In Homer the only certain56 reference towriting is the famous s^lata kucq\ in the story of Bellerophon (Iliad 6,168–170), where the scholia reveal that the scholars of later antiquitytried desperately to find an analphabetic explanation. These mysterious

52 On Apollonius’ sources see the excellent account on pp. 16–20 of Volume IIIof Vian’s edition.

53 Cf. Williams on Aen., 3, 121 f. On this passage see now D. Quint, MD, 23(1989), pp. 20–21.

54 We cannot tell for certain whether to envisage maps with inscribed captions andplace-indications, or merely sketches. The former seems more likely; on thewhole subject cf. O. A. W. Dilke, Greek and Roman Maps, London, 1985.

55 Cf. L. Pearson in AJP, 59 (1938), pp. 455–456.56 The marking of the lots at Il. , 7, 175 ff. suggests pre-literate signs rather than the

use of the alphabet, cf. P. E. Easterling in JHS, 105 (1985), pp. 4–5.

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius 111

signs are, however, a thing of the past, preserved as a memory ratherthan as a science, and are in any case assigned to a non-Greek, Proetusthe Lycian. Apollonius’ one apparent reference to writing or drawinghas greatly expanded the Homeric time-scale, in keeping with a generaltendency of his work. Moreover, the use of the Homeric hapaxcqaptOr emphasises the remoteness of the maps. At its only appearancein Homer (Od. 24, 229) this rare noun means “scratches (from thorns)”,and “scratches” might indeed be appropriate for the ancient representa-tions to which Argos refers. More importantly, however, Apollonius’use of the word calls attention to the absence of writing in Homer:the noun that ought to mean “writings” is used for something muchmore down-to-earth.

The description of Anchises ueterum uoluens monimenta uirorum israther curious. “Pondering the traditions of men of old” translates Wil-liams, noting that si rite audita recordor in v. 107 “defines” the sense “tra-ditions”; Williams is following Conington who also correctly noted thatuoluens suggests “the notion of unrolling a volume”57. Vergil’s phrasegestures towards the inscribed pillars in Aia, but no one will, of course,suggest that Anchises actually consults documents. This phrase ought, Ithink, to bother Vergilian critics more than it apparently does58, butwhat is important here is that this phrase firmly anchors the passagewithin the context of Augustan antiquarian researches into the early his-tory of Rome; Egyptian traditions about lost civilisations are literally aworld away from this. I suggest, therefore, that Apollonius and Vergiloperate with two rather different time-scales, and some confirmationof this may be found in Aeneas’ casual reference to writing at 3,286–288:

aere cauo clipeum, magni gestamen Abantis,postibus aduersis figo et rem carmine signo:AENEAS HAEC DE DANAIS VICTORIBVS ARMA.

57 Cf. Aen., 1, 262 with Conington and Austin ad loc.58 Aen., 8, 312: exquiritque auditque uirum monimenta priorum (Aeneas with Evan-

der), merely reinforces the oddness. Dr. Neil Wright has suggested to methat the meaning might be “recalling [the inscriptions on] the statues of menof old” or “recalling [what he had been told was on] the statues of men ofold”; this is certainly a distinct improvement on the vague “traditions”. Theclosest Apollonian parallel (in a somewhat similar context) is perhaps 4,1747–1748, heopqop_ar :j\toio / hul_i pelp\fym.

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This is, admittedly, an isolated reference, put in the mouth of Aeneasrather than the narrator, but the significant difference from both Apol-lonius and Homer remains.

In following Argos’ advice the Argonauts in part retrace not only anexpedition from the dimmest pre-history, but also a cosmogony itself.An echo of the opening of the description of Hephaestus’ shield (Iliad18, 485 ~ Arg. 4, 261) takes us back before the construction of the uni-verse was completed59. The passage past the scene of Phaethon’s catas-trophe and the meeting with Circe’s “Empedoclean” creatures suggeststhat the Argonauts’ voyage is also a voyage through time. As the journeynears its end, the Argonauts meet Talos, the last remnant of the BronzeAge which preceded the Age of Heroes (4, 1641–1642), are plungedinto a “black chaos” (4, 1697) from which Apolline light (? and enlight-enment) saves them60, and then take part in the creation and destructionof islands through the clod which Triton gave to Euphemos. For theArgonautica the “present” is a time before Homer, before the beginning;the “past”, therefore, is a distant, all-embracing emptiness waiting forthe poet to fill it.

Anchises’ speech, like its Homeric model61, takes the history ofTroy back before the foundation of the city to a time when peoplestill lived in the forests. When Aeneas reaches Italy, Evander is able totake the story back to primitive, pre-Saturnian man (8, 314–320)62,but in general Vergil’s interest in time is more concentrated and intensethan that of Apollonius. At one level the Aeneid commemorates a newbeginning for time, marked by Aeneas’ foundation of the Roman line.Whereas Homer began his shield with the encircling stars – or, as laterscholars would have it, with the beginning of the universe – Vergil be-gins his with the immediate descendants of Aeneas (8, 628–629). An-chises’ great speech in the Underworld does indeed begin with a “phil-

59 For cosmogonical readings of Homer’s shield cf. Hardie, op. cit. (n. 12), passimand Id., “Imago mundi: Cosmogonical and Ideological Aspects of the Shield ofAchilles”, JHS, 105 (1985), pp. 11–31.

60 For primeval chaos cf. Hes., Theog., 116. Hesiod juxtaposes the Olympian andApolline opening of his poem to this dark and blank beginning of the universe.

61 Iliad, 20, 216–218 (Aeneas to Achilles).62 Aen., 8, 315: gensque uirum truncis et duro robore nata, may well, of course, allude

specifically to the Hesiodic Bronze Race, born from ash-trees (cf. Arg., 4, 1642,West on Hes., WD, 145–146), but the difference in emphasis in the timestructures of the two poems remains.

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius 113

osophical” cosmogony before passing to eschatology, but this first part63

is rather impersonal and set off from the “Parade of Heroes” in such away that the two sections seem not merely consecutive but also parallel.The beginning of the Dardania proles is the beginning of a new historywhich will reach its climax in Augustus. Vergil has here learned fromApollonius, and has brought into sharper focus what the Greek poetchose to leave merely suggested and suggestive.

Addenda

pp. 96–7 The ‘Egyptian element’ in Alexandrian poetry has been the subject ofprominent and generally enlightening debate; there is a survey and some bib-liography in my Theocritus. Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus 46–53. S.A. Ste-phens, Seeing double: intercultural poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley 2003)offers a good introduction, as well as a strong version, of the ‘Egyptianising’reading.

n. 10 On ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Egyptians’ cf. also D. J. Thompson, ‘Hellenistic Hel-lenes: the case of Ptolemaic Egypt’ in I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of GreekEthnicity (Washington DC 2001) 301–22, and W. Clarysse and D. J. Thomp-son, Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt (Cambridge 2002) Vol. 2, 138–47and passim.

pp. 98–9 On the absence of b\qbaqor from Hellenistic poetry cf. further Tra-dition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 357–8 and The Shadow of Callimachus121–4.

n. 19 On SH 958 cf. S. Barbantani, V\tir mijgv|qor. Frammenti di elegia enco-miastica nell’et� delle Guerre Galatiche: Supplementum Hellenisticum 958 e 969(Milan 2001).

n. 35 On depictions such as the king as a wrestler cf. L. Koenen in A. Bulloch etal. (eds.), Images and Ideologies. Self-definition in the Hellenistic World (Berkeley1993) 45–6.

63 On the relation between the two parts of the speech see esp. Hardie, op. cit. (n.12), pp. 66–83.

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7. Callimachus and Heraclitus*

eWp] tir, Jq\jkeite, te¹m l|qom 1r d] le d\jquEcacem, 1lm^shgm d’ bss\jir !lv|teqoi

A]kiom k]swgi jated}salem. !kk± s» l]m pou,ne ?m’ *kijaqmgseO, tetq\pakai spod_g,

aR d³ tea· f~ousim !gd|mer, Hisim b p\mtym

"qpajtµr )_dgr oqj 1p· we ?qa bake ?.

It is a natural interpretation of this famous poem1 that Heraclitus wrotepoetry; for what it is worth, Strabo (14, 556) refers to him as b poigt^r

and Diogenes Laertius (9, 17) as 1kece_ar poigt^r2. Anth. Pal. 7, 465 (=Gow-Page, The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams, 11. 1935–1942)3

is generally ascribed to him, after correction of the transmitted ascrip-tions to Jq\jkgtor or Jqajke_dgr. Poems commemorating the immor-tality of someone’s poetry regularly seek to capture its flavour4, or in-deed to allude to or re-write some of it, and it would therefore seemreasonable to wonder about the relationship between Heraclitus’ poetryand Callimachus’ poem. The locus classicus for such a poetic relationshipis Ovid’s poem on the death of Tibullus (Amores 3, 9) which containsextensive reworkings of Tibullus’ verse, particularly of Tibullus’ ownpoem on death (1, 3), and which, in at least one place, seems to exploit

* Materiali e Discussioni 28 (1992) 113–231 Anth. Pal. 7, 80 = Callimachus, Epigram 2 Pfeiffer = XXXIV GP. I reproduce

the text of Gow-Page.2 This ought to refer not just to epigrams, but to ‘elegy’ in a fuller sense, cf. M.

Gabathuler, Hellenistische Epigramme auf Dichter, diss. Basel 1937, p. 59 n. 57, butcertainty is hardly to be obtained. In view of the myth of the nightingale, Calli-machus’ reference to ‘nightingales’ might suggest lamentatory poetry, though ofcourse other kinds of poetry are not excluded, and I give below some tentativereasons for thinking that Heraclitus ‘published’ at least one collection of funer-ary epigrams. We know a little more about Heraclitus if W. Swinnen, ‘Hera-kleitos of Halikarnassos, an Alexandrian poet and diplomat?’, Ancient Society1,1970, pp. 39–52 is correct to identify the poet with a figure known from var-ious proxenos inscriptions.

3 Cf. below pp. 116–121. For this poem see also N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic An-thology, Cambridge 1988, pp. 69, 247–8.

4 Cf. Gabathuler, op. cit. passim.

Callimachus’ poem on Heraclitus5. We cannot, of course, go furtherwith this line of enquiry in the absence of all but one probable exampleof Heraclitus’ verse, though that, being a funerary epigram, could wellbe described as a ‘nightingale’. If the guess of some scholars that Hera-clitus himself called his poems !gd|mer, whether as a book-title or in thepoetry itself, is correct, then Callimachus’ use of the word will indeedenact the survival of Heraclitus’ poetry. If, however, other echoes ofHeraclitus lurk in Callimachus’ poem, we will have to wait for T}wg

to reveal them to us. In the meantime, I hope that there may beroom for a brief study of Heraclitus’ one surviving poem, togetherwith a few related remarks about Callimachus’ commemoration ofthe poet6. Much of what I have to say will be speculative, but — likemany of the best Greek epigrams — these poems are very clearly writ-ten as a provocation to speculation. Perhaps no literary genre makessuch a direct appeal to the reader’s powers of intellectual reconstruction,to the need to interpret, as does that of the epigram; the demand for con-cision makes ‘narrative silences’ an almost constitutive part of the genre.In these circumstances, the refusal to speculate amounts to no less than arefusal to read.

I.

" j|mir !qt_sjaptor, 1p· st\kar d³ let~pymse_omtai v}kkym Blihake ?r st]vamoi.

cq\lla diajq_mamter, bdoip|qe, p]tqom Udylem,keuq± peqist]kkeim ast]a vat· t_mor.

‘ne ?m’, )qetgli\r eQli· p\tqa Jm_dor· Euvqomor GkhomeQr k]wor· ¡d_mym oqj %loqor cem|lam,

5 Am. 3, 9, 19–20, scilicet omne sacrum mors inportuna profanat; / omnibus obscurasinicit illa manus, seems to combine a ‘legalistic’ rewriting of Tibullus 1, 3, 4with an echo of the final verses of Callimachus’ poem. For other Ovidian ech-oes cf. now G. D. Williams, ‘Conversing after dark: a Callimachean echo inOvid’s exile poetry’, Class. Quart. 41, 1991, pp. 169–77.

6 Callimachus’ poem has, of course, been much discussed, and my remarks willbe limited to what I believe to be new. A brief bibliography (omitting standardeditions): B. Snell, ‘Die Klangfiguren im 2. Epigramm des Kallimachos’, Glotta37, 1958, pp. 1–4; C. Meillier, Callimaque et son temps, Lille 1979, pp. 21–5; J.G. MacQueen, ‘Death and immortality; a study of the Heraclitus epigram ofCallimachus’, Ramus 11, 1982, pp. 48–56; N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthol-ogy, cit. , pp. 247–9; G. B. Walsh, ‘Surprised by self: audible thought in Hel-lenistic poetry’, Class. Phil. 85, 1990, 1–21, pp. 1–4.

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diss± d’ bloO t_jtousa t¹ l³m k_pom !mdq· podgc¹mc^qyr, 4m d’ !p\cy lmal|sumom p|sior’.

Who speaks the opening four verses? Wilamowitz7 detected the sameundefined voice as that of Callimachus’ Hymns ; Hopkinson providesa fuller reading along the same lines: ‘an ill-defined and undefinablespeaker addresses a traveller and, apparently out of curiosity at thesight of a newly dug grave, urges that they should read the inscription.The poem thus consists of a pair of speeches, the second quoted by thespeaker of the first — curiosity aroused and satisfied’. Perhaps we candefine the experience of reading this poem even more closely.

The opening couplet suggests the observer coming upon a tomb. Inthe traditions of funerary epigram such an observer is very often a trav-eller, a passer-by, whose silent reflections and mental notes form thesubstance of the epigram;8 this is how we read the opening couplet.The third verse, however, makes us think again. ‘Traveller’ mightmean ‘fellow-traveller’, but the leap would be difficult and hardly ‘nat-ural’. An epigram by Antipater (Anth. Pal. 7, 427 = Antipater XXXIIGP) shows clearly what is distinctive about Heraclitus’ strategy: "

st\ka v]q’ Udy t_m’ 1qe ? m]jum. !kk± d]doqja / cq\lla l³m oqd]m pou

tlah³m vpeqhe k_hou jtk. Standing at the head of the epigram, withoutthe preceding ‘commentary’, these words are readily identifiable as be-longing to the standard ‘passer-by’ of the funerary tradition (note espe-cially v]q’ Udy and d]doqja). In Heraclitus, on the other hand, the voicewhich invites any traveller to join in the task of deciphering the cq\llacan only be that of ‘the poet’; looking back, we are forced to recognisethat it is also ‘the poet’ who has ‘set the scene’ for us in the opening cou-plet. Why should ‘the poet’ have to study the epigram if it is his owncreation? The answer, I think, lies in a particular development of thehistory of the epigrammatic form. Literary epitaphs are one manifesta-tion of the divorce of the epigram from an association with real objects,but Heraclitus has re-evoked the idea of the poet, not just as a creator,but also as a memorialiser of something real; the poet reacts to a real,already inscribed, object. The strategy of the first half of the epigramis, therefore, to focus attention upon the conventions of the funeraryepigram and upon the role of the poet in both creating and being con-

7 Hellenistische Dichtung, Berlin 1924, II, pp. 122–3.8 See now G. B. Walsh, ‘Callimachean passages: the rhetoric of epitaph in epi-

gram’, Arethusa 24, 1991, pp. 77–105.

7. Callimachus and Heraclitus 117

strained by those conventions, cq\lla diajq_mamter, ‘making out thewriting’, refers both to the enacted decipherment of an engraved tomb-stone partly covered by garlands, and to the interpretation of a poemwhich, as we shall see, offers puzzles to its readers. The interweavingword-order of the second couplet, mimetically signalled by peqist]k-keim, not only forces us to re-enact the business of decipherment, butalso again focuses attention upon the epigram as a written form forthe attention of readers. Set off against the first four verses, with theirsophisticated concern with ‘poetic voice’, is the second half of thepoem which represents itself as a straightforward, factual statement bythe· deceased, a statement independent, as it were, of the creatingpoet. Juxtaposition to the first half of the poem, however, allows usto see that the ‘epitaph’ is no less the work of the poet than is the ‘in-troduction’; moreover, it is not merely the tombstone which speaks, butthe verses are ‘read out’ for us by the same poetic voice of the ‘introduc-tion’. This epigram clearly shows, therefore, that Heraclitus was inter-ested in exploring the implications of a form of writing which, by itsvery nature, projected an ‘other’ voice, and assumed the anonymityof the poet. That such assumptions should here be tested to breaking-point accords with all we know of Hellenistic poetry.

It is tempting to go further than this in order to draw more generalconclusions about this epigram, and indeed funerary epigram in general.The ‘traveller’ whom the poet addresses is in fact a reader on a poeticjourney; the act of travelling, of walking past tombstones, is the actof reading. This poem seems to assume a real position within a ‘publish-ed’ collection of funerary epigrams, but the literary effect under discus-sion does not in fact depend upon this9. Originally, funerary epigramswere addressed to travellers because these formed the only readershipfor such inscriptions. When the epigram became a literary form, butone still very aware of its origins, the ‘fiction’ of travelling readers ismaintained and acquires new significance. That poetry itself is a ‘jour-ney’ is a long-established image, particularly familiar in this period fromCallimachus (especially fr. 1, 25–8 Pf., picking up Pindar, Paean 7b,10–14 M.), and Theocritus, Idyll 7; what we see in Heraclitus’ epigramis the revision of this image, in the light of epitaphic conventions, to

9 For a related example in Dioscorides cf. P. Bing, The Well-Read Muse. Presentand Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets, Göttingen 1988, pp. 39–40.The whole of Bing’s discussion of these matters (see Subject Index s.v. ‘Sepulch-ral Epigram’) is very relevant here.

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cover the act of reading a series of epigrams which form the variousstages along the path of the journey. Such revision and re-incorporationis again very typical both of the writing practices of the Hellenistic pe-riod and, in particular, of the peculiar position of funerary epigram,poised in creative tension between the epitaphic conventions of thepast and the new freedoms of the present.

When the tombstone speaks we hear the voice of a lady10 who fulfil-led her socially allotted role by bearing children to the man to whom shehad been given — ¡d_mym oqj %loqor may be ‘brave understatement’(Hopkinson) but it is also a proud declaration of status. Her deadchild will be a reminder of her husband, because he (?) will recall hisfather physically. In Hesiod’s Just City ‘women bear children resemblingtheir parents’ (Op. 235), and this idea finds echoes throughout Greekand Latin literature;11 what will be a comfort to the dead woman isalso a statement to the world at large of Aretemias’ virtue. Even indeath Aretemias has not abandoned her husband, for she has left hima support for his old age; podgc|m and !p\cy resonate against eachother to mark both this distinction and another: by death Aretemiashas escaped the enfeeblement of old age.

One aspect of the final couplet which has provoked remarkably lit-tle comment is the variation between !mdq_ and p|sior. The closest par-allel is a famous passage of Sophocles’ Trachiniae (550–1):

taOt’ owm voboOlai lµ p|sir l³m Jqajk/r1l¹r jak/tai, t/r meyt]qar d’ !m^q.

In these verses p|sir must represent the legal position, ‘lord, master’,whereas !m^q denotes the physical relationship12. Such a distinctiondoes not of course hold good uniformly through classical literature,but it is hard to believe that Heraclitus does not intend some point byhis use of these ‘synonyms’. For Aretemias, her surviving husband isboth p|sir and !m^q, and it may be that the point is that as a livingmale who fathered her children (her !m^q) he will require support,but he will always be her ‘lord’ (p|sir), whether dead or alive; the epi-

10 On the problems of her name cf. Wilamowitz loc. cit. , Meillier loc. cit. I amdoubtful about attempts to find significance in the lady’s name, or that of herhusband.

11 Cf. West’s note ad loc.12 Cf. G. P. Shipp, ‘Linguistic notes’, Antichthon 11, 1977, 1–9, pp. 3–4, and the

remarks of Fehling quoted by Davies ad loc.

7. Callimachus and Heraclitus 119

gram thus asserts both faithfulness and submission. Other explanations ofthe opposition can, of course, not be ruled out, but it may well bethought that the very fact of the opposition, whatever its detailed in-terpretation, together with the invitation to decipherment in vv. 3–4,suggests that part at least of ‘the point’ of the epigram is to be foundhere.

The tombstone wears garlands on its ‘brow’; let~pym (or perhapsbetter let~pyi) prepares for the full identification of tombstone and de-ceased in the second half of the poem. Garlands were a standard offeringat the tombs of the dead, and the depiction of the deceased garlandedfor ‘the symposium of the afterlife’ is a common motif of funerary icon-ography13. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that Hellenistic funerary epi-gram seems to avoid almost entirely14 the motif of the epitaphic garland.This will be part of the selectivity of any literary stylisation. For epi-grammatists, garlands are par excellence the mark of the symposium andthe komos ; indeed they often act as a kind of metonymic sign whichevokes the whole poetic world of eros and the symposium which liesat the centre of so much of Greek epigrammatic production. Heraclitus’garlands are, therefore, unusual and attract attention. I suggest that,when we have ‘deciphered’ the poem, we see that p|sir means both‘husband’ and ‘drinking party’, and that the opening couplet has pre-pared the ground for this. Aretemias has left life as one leaves a sympo-sium — a common image —15 but she takes a ‘souvenir’ with her16; herhusband, however, requires a guiding support, as one often did on suchoccasions. Slaves would meet their master outside the scene of a sympo-sium to guide his tottering steps homewards; this is the image whichHeraclitus has exploited here17. If my analysis is correct, Heraclitus ex-

13 Much evidence is collected by M. Blech, Studien zum Kranz bei den Griechen,Berlin/New York 1982, pp. 81–108.

14 An exception is Leonidas of Tarentum, Anth. Pal. 7, 657 (= XIX Gow-Page),where the motif is at least partly indebted to the ‘pastoral’ setting of the epi-gram. I am particularly indebted to Marco Fantuzzi for his help here.

15 Cf. the material collected by J. F. Kindstrand, Bion of Borysthenes, Uppsala 1976,pp. 281–2.

16 The practice of taking !pov|qgta away from dinner-parties is probably notrelevant, as this looks like a Roman custom, presumably under the influenceof Saturnalian gift-giving; cf. Athenaeus 6, 229c of Cleopatra imitating the Ro-mans.

17 I have toyed with the idea that the fact that the garlands are Blihake ?r points tothe common idea that the collapsing garland marked the lover (cf. Callimachus,Epigram 43 Pfeiffer (= XIII GP); Asclepiades XVIII GP; Athenaeus 15, 669c-

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plores the relationship between funerary and sympotic-erotic epigramby couching one in the language and mode of the other, drawing atten-tion to this by the strategically placed signal of st]vamoi ; in this, as weshall see, he shares a poetic concern with Callimachus himself 18. Itmight be, of course, that our habit of dividing epigrams by (primary)subject misrepresents the way that poets of the high Alexandrian periodperceived this ‘genre’. The usefulness of the procedure, however, lies inallowing us to identify how a poet positions a poem within a large tra-dition and gives it a distinctive voice.

II.

Central to Callimachus’ poem on Heraclitus is a set of oppositions be-tween ‘now’ and ‘then’, ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘uncer-tainty’. The opening of the poem both anticipates the apparent certaintyof its conclusion and creates the atmosphere of wretched doubt whichcolours the whole. Heraclitus’ ‘famous’ name, Jq\jkeite, is set offagainst tir ; Heraclitus survives even in the speech of the anonymous– death will not touch his name19. On the other hand, we are askedto reconstruct an initial situation, and here all is uncertainty. ‘Someonespoke [?of] your fate’. Did the poet know already (at some level of con-sciousness) that Heraclitus was dead? The majority of scholars havethought not, though some have followed J. A. K. Thomson20 in under-standing that the casual mention of Heraclitus’ death opened an oldwound in the poet; I shall adduce later a further reason why Thomson’sproposal deserves serious consideration. The uncertainty and doubt,however, is not of modern scholars’ making, but is a deliberate poeticstrategy; eWpe … te¹m l|qom is an odd phrase21, which invites interpreta-

70e); the tombstone would therefore declare its continuing love. Blihake ?r doesnot, however, seem the mot juste, and the fading garland was interpreted as asign of love’s transience.

18 Cf. esp. Walsh, art. cit. (n. 8). For the development of these ideas in Latin po-etry cf. , e. g., T. D. Papanghelis, Propertius: a Hellenistic poet on love and death,Cambridge 1987, Chapter 5.

19 tir is also of course a novel use of the anonymous passer-by of the epitaphictradition; as such, it serves as a generic marker within the poem.

20 Class. Rev. 55, 1941, p. 28, followed by (e. g.) P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria,Oxford 1972, I p. 579, Meillier, op. cit. 222.

21 Aeschylus, Choephoroi 1074 is apparently parallel, but however that verse is in-terpreted (cf. Garvie ad loc.), tq_tor Gkh] pohem syt^q, / C l|qom eUpy express-

7. Callimachus and Heraclitus 121

tion and denies clarity: what happened to Heraclitus is unimportant be-side the concrete memories of the time spent with him. This lack ofclarity in all that pertains to Heraclitus’ fate is reinforced by pou, though(appropriately enough) this word too has been variously interpreted22.Most scholars have taken it to mean ‘I suppose’, though some (usuallywithout discussion) have opted for ‘somewhere’, in which case theword will resonate against the certainness of locality in the addressne ?m’ *kijaqmgseO23. Word order might be thought to favour ‘I suppose’,but the strongest argument is to be derived from the pointed contrastbetween the certain fact of Heraclitus’ poetry and the doubtful uncer-tainty of his body, expressed by words which no verb can fix in timeor language 24. By making us read the poem as a deviation from ordinaryfunerary epigram, Callimachus forces upon us the absence of the tombof the deceased. The tomb, particularly in epigrams for the shipwreckedwhose bodies are absent, is normally used as a visible sign of whatevokes the poem; we have, for example, seen Heraclitus himself exploitthe physical presence of the stone in an original and provocative way.Callimachus does something similar with the absence of visible signs.There can be no certainty even about death; that is why we cling tothe ‘nightingales’ for both comfort and the security of knowledge. Cal-limachus turns many of these same ideas to different use in another cele-brated epigram for someone lost at sea:

¥veke lgd’ 1c]momto hoa· m]er, oq c±q #m Ble ?rpa ?da Diojke_dey S~pokim 1st]molem·

mOm d’ b l³m eQm "k_ pou v]qetai m]jur, !mt· d’ 1je_mououmola ja· jeme¹m s÷la paqeqw|leha.

(Epigram 17 Pf. = LV GP)

pou in this epigram conveys both the uncertainty of place and the moregeneral uncertainty which always surrounds the fate of those lost at sea.Here too the cruel absence of the deceased is set off, again by l]m … d] ,against a solid presence, but in the case of Sopolis the presence is no

es the chorus’ uncertainty as to how to give a correct name (cf. the similar prob-lem at Ap. Rhod. Arg. 4, 4). That verse, therefore, des not fully alleviate theoddness of Callimachus’ collocation. Cf. further MacQueen, art. cit. (n. 6) 49.

22 For the collocation cf. ]» l]m pou …5]hamem in W. Peek, Attische GrabinschriftenII, Berlin 1958, p. 51, no. 185, and Leonidas XV GP quoted below.

23 For ‘somewhere’ cf. Beckby, Meillier loc.cit. , Desrousseaux, Fraser loc. cit. Forargument against this cf. MacQueen, art. cit. (n. 6) 55 n. 23.

24 See the excellent remarks of Walsh, art. cit. (n. 6) 2.

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comfort. Whereas the poem for Heraclitus contrasts an indeterminatepast, a tetq\pakai, with the current reality of the deceased’s poems,the poem for Sopolis evokes a distant heroic age — meaningful onlythrough an allusion to the opening of Euripides’ Medea — and contrastsit with the sad present. The invention, the ‘birth’ (1c]momto), of ships hasmeant the death of the ironically named Sopolis ; it is as though deathcan only be confronted through oppositions, which allow us to organiseour thoughts into the appearance of order, as some kind of self-protec-tion against horror.

It may be worth dwelling a moment longer on pou to observe thatCallimachus is here exploiting a familiar strategy of funerary poetry. Adirectly parallel case is Anth. Pal. 7, 652 (= Leonidas XV GP), a com-memorative epigram for Teleutagoras. After remonstrating with the seafor its harshness, Leonidas turns to the situation faced by those left be-hind:

w¡ l]m pou ja}gnim C Qwhub|qoir kaq_dessitehq^mgt’ %pmour eqqe ? 1m aQciak_i,

Til\qgr d³ jem¹m t]jmou jejkaul]mom !hq_mt}lbom dajq}ei pa ?da Tekeutac|qgm.

(Anth. Pal. 7, 652, 5–8)

As in Callimachus, we have the contrast of absence and presence, point-ed by l]m … d] , and also the extended sense of pou covering both of itsnormal ‘meanings’. A related case is Anth. Pal. 7, 285 (= Glaucus IIGP), where the tomb of Erasippus is both ‘nowhere’ and ‘everywhere’:

oq j|mir oqd’ ak_com p]tqgr b\qor !kk’ 9qas_ppouDm 1soq÷ir avtg p÷sa h\kassa t\vor,

¥keto c±q s»m mg_, t± d’ ast]a poO pot’ 1je_moup}hetai aQhu_air cmyst± l|mair 1m]peim.

Glaucus has turned the uncertainty of pou into the central thrust of thewhole poem, enacted through the indirect question introduced by poOpot’. Commentators on this poem rightly refer to Telemachus’ de-scription of his father to the disguised Athene in the opening book ofthe Odyssey :

!m]qor ox d^ pou ke}j’ ast]a p}hetai elbqyije_lem’ 1p’ Ape_qou, C eQm "k· jOla juk_mdei

(Od. 1, 161–2).

7. Callimachus and Heraclitus 123

Here the context — Telemachus’ ignorance of Odysseus’ fate con-trasted with the present and visible evidence of the suitors’ hybris —clearly allows us to see how the two ‘meanings’ of pou coalesce inthe funerary tradition; in other words, an analysis such as mine whichis based on semantic divisions must always to some extent misrepresentthe process of reading. We also see how the structuring of such poetryaround ‘absence’ and ‘presence’ is built into the very earliest layers of theliterary embodiment of that tradition. This example is also interesting inthat it shows how the missing and much missed Odysseus can functionas the model for those presumed perished at sea; we shall see in a mo-ment how Callimachus has both used and inverted this idea.

I wish now to move to a second strategy of Callimachus’ poem, onewhich concerns the immortalising power of poetry. It would not be sur-prising if a poem, above all a Callimachean poem, in honour of a poetand attesting to the immortality of poetry were to use the rich heritageof Greek classical poetry. This is indeed what we do find with Callima-chus’ poem for Heraclitus, though the matter has occasioned little com-ment. I shall be concerned here to identify and interpret echoes of Hes-iod and Homer.

The description of Hades as p\mtym "qpajt^r is a violent expres-sion of the conception of Hades as the ‘universal host’, the pamdoje}r

(Lycophron, Alex. 655). In counterpoint with !gd|mer, however, thephrase evokes both the ûqpuiai, the birds and/or winds of death famil-iar from archaic epic25, and the ûqpg, a bird of prey which, to judgefrom the passages gathered by D’Arcy Thompson26, was known for at-tacking other birds. Moreover, the transference to Heraclitus’ poems ofthe idea of the poet as nightingale allows Hesiod’s tale of the hawk(Uqgn) and the nightingale (Op. 202–12) to resonate at the end of thepoem. This tale, in which the fate of the poet-nightingale, caught inthe grim talons of the hawk, is left uncertain, darkens the apparent con-fidence of Callimachus’ final assertion. We may claim immortality forpoetry, and the example of Hesiod shows that it is possible, but onlytime will tell ; there is always the danger that we are merely ‘whistlingin the dark’.

Discussion of the third verse has largely been limited to the textualchoice to be made at the beginning and to the stylistic level of ‘to sink

25 Cf. E. Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry, Berkeley/LosAngeles/London 1979, 168–73.

26 A Glossary of Greek Birds, London/Oxford 1936, p. 55.

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the sun’. A step forward was made with MacQueen’s recognition of therelevance of the Homeric A]kior jat]du ;27 he also suggested that we feelthe presence of jatad}olai, ‘go down [into Hades]’, so that the phrase‘carries within itself the ring of death’. I believe that it is possible to re-fine MacQueen’s insight.

Homer’s greatest talker is Odysseus. Alcinous tells him that he couldlisten to the tales, which he tells like a poet, all through the long night(Od. 11. 368, 373–6). Odysseus is also involved in two of the three oc-casions upon which Homer brings to an end a scene of weeping withthe verse:

ja_ mu j’ aduqol]moisim 5du v\or Aek_oioeQ lµ jtk.

At Od. 16, 220 it is Odysseus and his son after their reunion, at 21, 226it is Odysseus and his faithful servants, and at Il. 23, 154 the verses occurin the context of the general mourning for Patroclus. All three placesevoke memory, friendship and loss. The emotional contexts rangefrom deepest grief to relief and joy, but for Odysseus relief is alwaysmingled with the sense of loss. I suggest that the motifs of weepingand sunset, which we find conjoined in Homer but separated in Calli-machus, point to a typical poetic memory by the Hellenistic poet. Cal-limachus has turned the syntax around, but the Homeric contexts whichwell up through his poem layer the text with memory, past happinessand present suffering.

If this analysis is correct, then we will also sense in the weeping poetof v. 1 an echo of Odysseus weeping at the song of Demodocus (Od. 8,521–2). In part Odysseus weeps because Demodocus’ song tells of thecomrades the hero lost and evokes long buried griefs. Odysseus, thegreat survivor, is also condemned to be the perpetual mourner; this isthe inverse of the pattern noted above in which Odysseus is themodel for those missing at sea. Catullus too adopted an Odyssean ‘per-sona’ in his epitaphic farewell to his brother (Poem 101)28, and we cannow see that he had a Greek precedent for doing so, and indeed in apoet whom we know to have been of central importance for his elegiacpoems. If I am correct in identifying the evocation of Odysseus as oneof the sources of the power of Callimachus’ poem, then two further

27 Art. cit. 50.28 Cf. G. B. Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation, Ithaca-London 1986, pp. 32–9.

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points are worthy of note. Odysseus hears Demodocus and weeps at thefeast of the Phaeacians. The setting of Callimachus’ poem is deliberatelyunclear, as is the site where ‘someone spoke Heraclitus’ death’. Never-theless, casual conversation and reflections upon friendship find a naturalhome in the symposium; the poem for Heraclitus may therefore be aCallimachean experiment in the mingling of types of epigram. Wehave already seen Heraclitus himself doing something similar. Secondly,Demodocus sings of what Odysseus already ‘knows’; he is indeed inti-mately involved in the action of the song. This may be relevant for theinterpretation of the opening of Callimachus’ poem.

Whereas Heraclitus’ poem remains within the (broadly defined)boundaries of the funerary form, while exploring, with considerableoriginality, the overt role of the poet in such a tradition, Callimachusmoves completely away from these traditional forms; they remain, how-ever, hovering over his poem, advertising its difference. In Callimachusthe gradual shift from ‘real’ epitaph to ‘literary’ epigram has been taken afurther, and decisive, stage: now there is no tombstone and no corpse,merely memory – not only of Heraclitus, but also of the whole poetictradition into which Heraclitus has now been absorbed29.

Addenda

Greek epigram is enjoying a golden age of study, thanks in part to the stimulusof the ‘Posidippus papyrus’ (cf. ch. 25 below). There is a good introduction tothe subject and the bibliography in P. Bing and J. S. Bruss (eds.), Brill’s Com-panion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden 2007). Recent years have seen, e. g., excel-lent editions of Dioscorides (G. Galán Vioque, Dioscrides Epigramas, Huelva2001) and Strato (L. Floridi, Stratone di Sardi, Epigrammi, Alessandria 2007),and editions of Asclepiades by Alexander Sens and Meleager by Kathryn Gutz-willer are eagerly awaited. On the arrangement of poems in books and readingas a ‘journey’, cf. K. Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic epigrams in context(Berkeley 1998). Some ideas relevant to these poems are discussed in J. S.Bruss, Hidden Presences. Monuments, gravesites, and corpses in Greek funerary epigram(Leuven 2005). On Virgil’s use of Callimachus’ poem cf. The Shadow of Calli-machus 132–4, with further bibliography.

29 This paper has benefited from the criticisms and suggestions of Peter Bing,Marco Fantuzzi, Alessandro Schiesaro and members of the Cambridge AncientLiterature Seminar.

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8. Writing the God: Form and Meaning inCallimachus, Hymn to Athena*

This paper aims to elucidate certain features of Callimachus’ Fifth Hymnin ways, which, I hope, will be suggestive for the criticism of all theHymns. In particular, I am interested in exploring how the mythicand religious dimensions of Callimachus’ poetry can be sensibly dis-cussed, while doing justice to the very strong sense of a changedworld which the poems evoke; to this end the concluding section ofthe paper briefly examines related aspects of the Sixth Hymn to De-meter.

Section 1 briefly places Hymns 5 and 6 within Callimachus’ hymnalproject as a whole1, Section 2 considers the cultic frame in which Hymn5 is set, Section 3 discusses the elegiac metre of the poem, Section 4considers Callimachus’ treatment of the myth of Teiresias, and Section5 seeks to set Hymns 5 and 6 within our study of Hellenistic culture as awhole.

1.

At one very simple level, Callimachus’ Hymns re-write the HomericHymns; each, to a greater or lesser extent, borrows directly from its ar-chaic predecessors. As we would expect, this rewriting may be markedin self-conscious ways. Thus, for example, vv. 7–17 of h. 6 represent asmall-scale re-writing of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter ; this is, however,

* Materiali e Discussioni 29 (1992) 9–341 I hope that the phrase “hymnal project” does not give a misleading impression,

but there do seem to be good reasons to think that the six hymns we possessform some kind of group and are, at some level, intended to be read as aunit and against each other, cf. , e. g., Hopkinson p. 13. This is, of course,very different from asserting that they were composed close in time to eachother.

not a poem which Callimachus is going to “do” all over again, as v. 17makes clear2:

lµ lµ taOta k]cyler $ d\jquom %cace Dgo ?.

Again as we would expect, the re-writing is full both of virtuoso varia-tion from the model and of learned puzzles3. Moreover, having dis-claimed any intention of repeating the Homeric Hymn, the subsequentnarrative of Erysichthon’s attack on the tree does just that: a locus amoe-nus where nymphs play is invaded, the victim screams (PersephoneQ\wgse, v. 20; the tree jaj¹m l]kor Uawem, v. 39), but the cries meet dif-ferent responses (no one hears Persephone, Demeter hears the tree).After the description of the locus amoenus which Erysichthon will dese-crate, vv. 29–30:

he± d’ 1pela_meto w~qyi

fssom 9keus ?mi, Tqi|pai h’ fsom bjj|som =mmai

2 Cf. the more general remarks of T. Fuhrer, Am. Journ. Phil. 109, 1988,pp. 67–8. Other interpretations of v. 17 have, of course, been offered: C.Cessi, Eranos 8, 1908, 124–5, saw a reference to Philitas’ Demeter, and Maltenthought that the verse referred to earlier poetry of Callimachus himself (cf. W.Kuchenmüller, Philetae Coi Reliquiae, diss. Berlin 1928, p. 55). In theory, anynumber of earlier texts might be involved (note the lyric hymn of Lasus,PMG 702 Page), but the Homeric Hymn is much the most likely (see nextnote). If in fact another text also is relevant, then Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter(SH 676–80) has as good a claim as any; cf. below p. 147.

3 Of particular interest in this regard is Callimachus’ description of Demeter’stravels at vv. 10 ff. In the Homeric Hymn she wanders for nine days “over theearth” (v. 47), but Callimachus typically provides geographical specificity. I sus-pect that Callimachus evokes a journey from Sicily (cf. next note) to the ex-treme west of the world, then to the extreme east, back to the west (cf. Mim-nermus fr. 5 Gentili-Prato = 12 West), and finally back to Eleusis; tq_r in v. 13would therefore be quite precisely chosen. Against this is Hopkinson’s objec-tion (note on v. 11) that “the rhetoric of the passage is decisively againstthis: we cannot have reference to the East sandwiched between two to thewest”; I doubt, however, that this objection stands in the context of what isa deliberate puzzle, cf. further Schneider ad loc., A. Griffiths, Journ. Hell.Stud. 108, 1988, p. 233. For a helpful discussion of the whole passage see P.Benvenuti Falciai, Sileno 10, 1984, pp. 55–62, who, however, seesvv. 10–12 and 13–16 as representing two separate searches (the wholeworld and then Greece).

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proclaim a status for Callimachus’ hymn equal to that of its archaic prec-edent, which is here represented by “Eleusis” and “Enna”4.

To come now to the fifth hymn, two of the minor Homeric hymns(11, 28) are addressed to Athena and celebrate her warrior-status as Pal-las, defender of the city (1qus_ptokir), a quality which Callimachus, likethe poet of the eleventh Homeric Hymn, sets off against the goddess’ po-tential destructiveness as peqs]ptokir (h. 5, 43). Homeric Hymn 28 de-scribes the violent cosmic reaction to the birth of Athena from Zeus’head, and it is this motif to which Callimachus gives prominence atthe conclusion of his hymn (vv. 131–6). “Epiphany”, “coming out”,has of course a special role in h. 2, 5 and 6, but of all gods it is to bemost closely associated with Athena, whose very birth was a sudden ap-pearance in full battle-dress. Callimachus uses this first, natal epiphany ofthe goddess to form a link between the closing gnome of the myth(vv. 133–6) and the teasing “Athena is really coming now” (v. 137)which introduces the epilogue5, thus allowing us to see that thewhole notion of what epiphany means is at stake in this poem. Twoof the major Homeric Hymns are also relevant. The Homeric Hymn to De-meter explores the theme of “goddess as mother”, a theme which Calli-machus allows to resonate both in Demeter’s appeal to Erysichthon (h.6, 46–7 t]jmom … t]jmom … t]jmom), and then, in sharp contrast, in thesuffering which Demeter’s punishment brings to Erysichthon’s parents;in h. 5, however, it is “goddess as not-mother” which is crucial, asChariclo’s suffering fails to persuade Athena whose lack of a mother isexplicitly stressed (vv. 134–5). Secondly, the Homeric Hymn to Aphroditetells of an encounter between a mortal and a beautiful goddess during

4 My interpretation of the reference to Enna assumes that Callimachus placed therape of Persephone in the archaic hymn in Sicily, cf. previous note, and N. J.Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Oxford 1974, pp. 76–7. If myinterpretation is correct, then this passage forms a partial exception to PeterBing’s claim that “the Hellenistic avant-garde is of a piece in never expressingits relationship towards the literary heritage in agonistic terms” (The Well-ReadMuse, Göttingen 1988, p. 61).

5 Cf. G. O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford 1988, pp. 33–4. A late lexicontells us that Athena was called Hippia because she leapt from Zeus’ head leh’Vppym “as the hymn to her shows” (Et. Magn. 474, 31). The reference is un-clear (cf. Allen-Halliday-Sikes on Hom. h. 28, 13), but it is tempting to believethat Callimachus wants us to know of this: there would then be a neat ringaround the main part of the poem. For Athena and horses in general cf. M. De-tienne and J.-P. Vernant, Cunning intelligence in Greek culture and society, Has-socks 1978, pp. 187–213.

8. Writing the God 129

which the mortal sleeps with the naked goddess. Callimachus h. 5 plays,as we shall see6, with the potential eroticism of the meeting of Teiresiasand Athena, and it follows a narrative pattern in which sex is indeed acrucial factor. More specifically, Athena appears in the Homeric Hymnto Aphrodite as the warrior goddess, master craftsman, builder of chariots(cf. Call. h. 5, 14) and teacher of weaving (vv. 8–15); in that poem sheis one of three goddesses who remain impervious to Aphrodite’s power.Callimachus rewrites this “defeat” by Athena of the archaic laudanda byincluding in his Hymn to Athena the occasion upon which Aphrodite“defeated” Athena – namely, the Judgement of Paris. At the level of de-tail, we may note that Athena’s anointing of herself after exercise withher own product (v. 26) is encomiastic one-upmanship on Aphroditewho has the Graces anoint her with 5kaiom %lbqotom for her meetingwith Anchises (Hom. H. Aphr. 60–2)7.

The most obvious difference between Callimachus’ hymns and theirarchaic models lies of course in what are traditionally called the “mim-etic” hymns, 2 (Apollo), 5 (Athena), 6 (Demeter)8. The question ofhow these hymns were “read” or “performed” continues to exercisemodern scholarship, but will not be a primary concern in this paper9.These hymns as a whole seek to “envision” narrative through a power-ful mode of enargeia, but not in any simple way. oqw bq\air ; “do you(sing.) not see?” asks the poetic voice (h. 2, 4), and we are compelledto answer “well, no”. The question may be a traditional one10, but

6 Cf. below, sect. 4.7 The Hymn to Aphrodite is, therefore, not quite as neglected in Greek literature as

R. Janko, Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns, Cambridge 1982, p. 151 (with p. 268n. 1) suggests.

8 “Mimetic” is not a particularly good term, but it is harmless enough, and someterm is needed, provided that the important difference between h. 2 on the onehand and h. 5 and 6 on the other is not overlooked; cf. (most recently) M. Fan-tuzzi, Preistoria di un genere letterario: a proposito degli Inni V e VI di Callimaco, inTradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’et� ellenistica: scritti in onoredi Bruno Gentili, Pisa 1993.

9 For recent surveys cf. M. R. Falivene, ‘La mimesi in Callimaco: Inni II, IV, V eVI’, Quad. Urb. 36, 1990, pp. 103–28, who notes that Callimachus’ intention is“rappresentare, imitare, testi-in-atto, e insomma mimare in scrittura una perform-ance orale: una mimesi di secondo grado” (p. 108), and F. Cairns, ‘Theocritus,Idyll 26’, Proc. Camb. Philol. Soc. 38, 1992, pp. 1–38.

10 Cf. Alcman 1, 50 with the remarks of A. Griffiths, Quad. Urb. 14, 1972, 13 andF. Cairns, Tibullus, Cambridge 1979, p. 121. S. Koster, ‘Kallimachos als Apol-lonpriester’ in Tessera. Sechs Beitr�ge zur Poesie und poetischen Theorie der Antike,

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the use to which it is put is not. After all, “Apollo does not appear toeveryone …” (h. 2, 9), and the reading (or performance) of a writtentext makes any such epiphany even more problematic. A myth aboutlooking/not-looking such as that of Teiresias and Athena is peculiarlyappropriate to a written text of this “mimetic” nature. We will neversee the goddess, not only because ‘we’ are men (as opposed towomen), but also because the poem ends as she appears (or doesshe?). In exploiting the traditional slippage between an image andwhat that image ‘represents’ — i. e. the whole problem of how to rep-resent the divine – Callimachus raises the question of whether, in seeingan image or statue, we are ‘seeing’ the god as Teiresias saw her. Into thewhole conception of the poem, therefore, is built a serious “religious”problem; to what extent it receives a serious answer is something towhich I shall return.

2.

The Bath of Pallas creates for us an Argive ritual in which the statue ofAthena is taken out of the temple and bathed. There is no other evi-dence for such a ritual, but it is of a familiar type; the Athenian Plynteriais perhaps the most familiar example, although in that ritual it was appa-rently the clothing of the statue, not the statue itself, which was wash-ed11. Bulloch is attracted by the suggestion that Callimachus’ knowledgeof the Argive festival derived from the )qcokij\ of Agias and Dercyluswhich we know the poet to have used elsewhere12, and at several pointsBulloch’s interpretation rests upon the assumption that “we probablylack certain crucial items of information which Callimachus couldtake for granted in his contemporary audience”. What is at stakehere, of course, is the very nature of the cultic frame which Callimachushas created. Before considering this further, we should note that the sta-tus of the Homeric Hymns is currently being debated in a rather similarway. In particular, Clinton and Parker have recently taken opposedsides on the question of the “Eleusinian” nature of the Homeric Hymn

Erlangen 1983, p. 9–21, interprets this question as addressed to an initiand intothe secrets of Apollo.

11 Cf. L. Deubner, Attische Feste, Berlin 1932, pp. 17–22; Bulloch pp. 8–9; C.Calame, Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Gr�ce archaique, Rome 1977, I, pp. 232–41.

12 Cf. Bulloch pp. 16–17.

8. Writing the God 131

to Demeter13, and it is indeed that archaic poem which is so suggestive forCallimachus’ fifth and sixth Hymns, because, in Parker’s words, “in …the Eleusinian Mysteries the association between rite and myth, often inGreek religion so slight and external, was by contrast close and basic”;Callimachus too puts the problem of the relation between rite andmyth at the centre of his poems, and modern scholars have foundvery diverse solutions for that problem.

To refer to the details of a cult ritual entirely unknown to us inorder to explain a sophisticated work of literature is, in principle, en-tirely valid, and in various cases can be shown to be so. Nevertheless,scholars should at least mention the possibility that there never was anArgive “Plynteria”, that Callimachus’ mimetic enargeia has envisionedthe whole thing, that, to put it another way, our expectation of an ex-ternal referent is itself Callimachus’ creation. Too often, perhaps, Calli-machean criticism has relied on fr. 612, !l\qtuqom oqd³m !e_dy, to ex-plain the otherwise inexplicable. Be that as it may, what interests mehere is how reliance upon the assumption of external reference canmask what actually happens in the poem. On the larger question ofthe relation between the Teiresias narrative and the “Argive ritual” Ihope that my views will emerge from the paper as a whole; Bullochhas argued (p. 24) that they may have already been linked in Argive leg-end — perhaps this was in fact the cultic myth associated with the rite— but there is, I think, more to be said. I shall examine briefly two pas-sages where cultic reference has been used as an interpretative tool to seewhether this in fact helps or hinders.

The first is the opening passage relating to Athena’s care for herhorses:

fssai kytqow|oi t÷r Pakk\dor 5nite p÷sai,5nite· t÷m Vppym %qti vquassolem÷m

t÷m Req÷m 1s\jousa· ja· " he¹r eutujor 6qpem·s_sh] mum, § namha· s_she Pekasci\der.

oupoj’ )hama_a lec\kyr !pem_xato p\weir,pq·m j|mim Rppei÷m 1nek\sai kac|mym·

oqd’ fja dµ k}hqyi papakacl]ma p\mta v]qoisa

te}wea t_m !d_jym Gmh’ !p¹ cacem]ym,!kk± pok» pq\tistom rv’ ûqlator aqw]mar Vppym

kusal]ma paca ?r 5jkusem ©jeam_

13 K. Clinton, ‘The author of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter’, Opuscula Athe-niensia 16, 1986, pp. 43–9; R. Parker, ‘The Hymn to Demeter and the Ho-meric Hymns’, Greece & Rome 38, 1991, pp. 1–17.

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Rdq_ ja· Nah\liccar, 1vo_basem d³ pac]mtap\mta wakimov\cym !vq¹m !p¹ stol\tym.

In his note on vv. 5–12 Bulloch observes: “Nowhere in this section[i.e. , vv. 1–12] is any direct reference made to the celebrants or the rit-ual, and to the modern reader the passage seems ambiguous: the addressto the celebrants seems to have finished and a hymnal account of thePq\neir HeoO to have begun … but then with v. 13 § Ut’ )waii\der atthe beginning of the next section it becomes clear that vv. 5–12 alsomust have been spoken to the celebrants. Retrospectively the transitionfrom v. 4 to vv. 5 ff. looks abrupt, and the selection of Athena’s care forher horses for particular mention is prima facie puzzling. We must assumethat, quite apart from such care as the normal attribute of a good war-rior, the bathing of the processional horses was an important first stagein the Argive ritual, even though no evidence for this survives …”. Is it“clear that vv. 5–12 … must have been spoken to the celebrants”? Inpurely general terms, we can point to Callimachus’ obvious experi-mentation with the boundaries between “hymn” and “narrative”, andto his familiar parenthetic style (even if his parentheses are normally in-troduced by c\q)14. More specifically, we may ask who is addressed invv. 2–3 of h. 5. According to the standard view, it is the kytqow|oi

who are here given the reason – in excited asyndeton – why they shouldhurry out, but other possibilities are open. Vv. 2–3, 5–12 and 14 could,in fact, be addressed by “the celebrant voice” to us, the readers of thepoem; if this is correct, then not only is the absence of c\q from v. 2explained, but the poem is seen to begin with what is tantamount toan aside, and we might well think such an opening very “Callima-chean”. Alternatively, we might consider the possibility that vv. 2–3are not spoken by the same person as v. 1: excited observations bymore than one speaker would be a way of establishing the choric natureof the poem at the very outset. At one level, of course, this is a questionof how to punctuate our printed texts15, but this apparently technicalproblem depends upon an appreciation of the fluid, puzzling interplaybetween “ritual reference” and “poetic gloss” which constitutes the

14 Cf. Hopkinson p. 99 n. 1; F. Lapp, De Callimachi Cyrenaei tropis et figuris, diss.Bonn 1965, pp. 52–3.

15 To avoid misunderstanding, I should add that I do not believe that the variousinterpretations of the opening verses which I am proposing can be used as argu-ments for (or against) the actual performance of the hymn.

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heart of the Callimachean experiment. Too great a concern with the ex-ternal ritual referent flattens out this exciting interplay. We are still leftto ask “why all this about horses?”. It does indeed show Athena as thecareful and excellent warrior16, but without the supposed cultic refer-ence it might be thought a little extreme. Here again, I would notwish to deny cultic reference, but I would rather stress that this is inad-equate as an explanation for what is in the poem. It is cultus, rather thancult, which is central here. The washing of sweaty horses is set offagainst Athena’s exercise before the Judgement of Paris and againstthe different kind of washing which Teiresias interrupted (cf. furtherbelow). Moreover, from the point of view of hymnal form, the passagetakes the place of the familiar listing of a god’s attributes, such as we findin the third verse of the Hymn to Zeus : Pgkac|mym 1kat/qa, dija-sp|kom Oqqam_dgisi. The change from such a list to an excited narrative“parenthesis” is of a piece with the whole dramatisation of the hymnwhich occurs in the “mimetic” mode.

The second passage which I wish to consider under this head is in-deed the Judgement of Paris and, specifically, Athena’s preparation forit. She is described as running a great distance “like the Lacedaimonianstars beside the Eurotas”, and then anointing herself with oil to producea marvellous flush on her skin (vv. 23–8). Bulloch interestingly arguesthat, through allusion to Theocritus 18, 22–32, we understand thatAthena “is identified with the pure and exquisite kind of beauty repre-sented by Helen, who combined femininity with very masculine Spar-tan athletics” (note on vv. 23–8). This is a beauty which the stupidPhrygian, Paris, could not recognise. Bulloch also wonders (p. 12 n.2) whether the Argive cult involved a “beauty contest”, as we knowother cults to have done; this would then “give an added dimensionto the … Judgement of Paris”. He does not note that, on his view,in choosing Aphrodite whose bribe was Helen, Paris is actually (andironically) choosing as his prize the ideal of beauty represented by Athe-na. Be that as it may, any consideration of this passage must begin fromthe place of the Judgement in the poem as a whole.

In the mountains (v. 18) Paris sees goddesses who have chosen todisplay themselves to him. Of these goddesses, art of the classical periodfrequently depicts Aphrodite only partially clothed at the Judgement,and full nudity comes later in the Roman period17. From the early Hel-

16 Cf. R. Renehan, Class. Phil. 82, 1987, p. 244.17 Cf. C. Clairmont, Das Parisurteil in der antiken Kunst, Zürich 1951, p. 109.

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lenistic period on, however, the type of the naked Aphrodite “at toilet”is common in sculpture18. This is the image with which Callimachusconfronts us in vv. 21–22. Paris’ reward is the beautiful Helen, i. e.he is rewarded with sex, but it is a reward which will ultimately destroyhis city. This bitter irony is, of course, by implication encomiastic ofAthena, whose claims Paris scorned, but what is important for the pres-ent are the similarities and contrasts not only with the experience of An-chises in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, but also with that of Teiresias inthe central narrative of Callimachus’ poem. Teiresias’ “sexual” encoun-ter (cf. Section 4 below) ends with a blindness compensated for by giftsfrom Athena pokioOwor which, in some cases at least, will help to savehis city (vv. 125–6)19. As often in Greek poetry, then, the major narra-tive of the poem is foreshadowed and set off by a similar, but different,short narrative, which foregrounds what are to be key themes.

Athena’s associations with athletics are well known. Specifically, shewas worshipped at Sparta as Athena Keleutheia, at shrines supposedly es-tablished by Odysseus “when he had defeated Penelope’s suitors in run-ning” (Pausanias 3, 12, 4)20. One real or believed feature of Spartan fe-male athletics is particularly relevant here: it was practised nude21. It isalso perhaps relevant that such athletics were particularly associatedwith girls before marriage — indeed Xenophon (Lac. 1, 4) and Plutarch(Lycurgus 14, 2) interpret it as designed to promote healthy babies — andthat Spartan girls had their hair cropped on their wedding-night; in bothmatters, the virgin Athena, with her full head of hair (vv. 31–2)22,stands apart. The Spartan Athena thus shares in the female to some ex-tent, but never makes the transitional moves that ordinary females make.To this extent — like, of course, Teiresias himself — she is both femaleand “male” (cf. v. 29). The reference to Spartan athletics thus establishesan open, socially approved form of female nudity in which Athena her-self willingly takes part; we might almost describe it as a “male” form of

18 Cf. LIMC s.v. Aphrodite, figs. 482–525; my note on Ap. Rhod. Arg. 3, 43–7.19 To what extent vv. 125–6 are bitterly ironic, given what we know of the

house of Labdacus, may be debated.20 Cf. Detienne and Vernant, op. cit. pp. 226–31. It is curious that Bulloch makes

no mention of this cult.21 Cf. Plutarch, Lycurgus 14–15, and the discussion of P. Cartledge, Class.

Quart. 31, 1981, pp. 91–2. Eur. Andr. 590–601 is a particularly interesting wit-ness here.

22 Like R. Renehan, Class. Phil. 82, 1987, p. 242, I am not convinced that !p¹… p]ngtai could be “misunderstood” as “cut off”.

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female nudity which is to be opposed to the private unveiling of femaleintimacy, marked at the start of the Teiresias narrative by the removal ofthe clasps from the robes of the goddess and her companion (v. 70):

dµ poja c±q p]pkym kusal]ma peq|mar

It may be true that “the Argive ritual may have involved a ceremonialp]pkor” (Bulloch on v. 70), but we must first look to the meaning ofthe poem as a whole to explain the prominence of this detail.

3.

Before pursuing further the myth of Teiresias, I want to consider brieflyperhaps the most discussed feature of the poem, its elegiac metre. Whythe poem is written in elegiacs we shall never know, and Bulloch is verylikely right that “there is no single reason for [it]” (p. 34). New textsconstantly undermine our notions of literary history; in a matter suchas this, we must always be aware of how much we do not know. Simo-nides’ elegiac “Hymn to Achilles”, recently unveiled by Peter Parsons,comes as yet another reminder of this constant truth23. Nevertheless, lit-tle that is new can, I think, be added about “Doric threnody” or aboutthe possibility of an Argive tradition of elegiac hymns24. Some gainmight be made from a consideration of the elegiacs as set in oppositionto the hexameters of h. 625, but the results would remain very impres-sionistic. Rather, I want to consider again the now hoary problem ofelegy and t¹ 1keeim|m, a discussion which goes back to Richard Heinze,who saw this as the tonal quality of Ovid’s elegiac narrative — in con-trast to the deim|m of hexameter narrative — and suggested tentativelythat this same quality dictated Callimachus’ choice of metre in thispoem26.

There are two immediate problems which must be faced at once.First, although the connection between 5kecor and lamentation is certain

23 Oxy. Pap. 3965. Note also SH 361, Crates’ elegiac hymn to Eqt]keia, on whichHutchinson, op. cit. p. 16 observes: “the effect of parody would have beenspoiled had the metre seemed a startling novelty”.

24 Cf. Bulloch pp. 36–8.25 Cf. Hopkinson pp. 16–17.26 R. Heinze, Vom Geist des Rçmertums 3rd ed., Stuttgart 1960, pp. 322, 377 n.

120. For an enlightening discussion of Heinze cf. S. Hinds, The Metamorphosisof Persephone, Cambridge 1987, pp. 99–114.

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and classical27, there is no clear evidence — beyond the predominant useof the elegiac couplet in funerary epigram — for a classical or Hellenisticlink between 1kece ?a and lamentation. The copious play in Latin poetrywith flebilis elegia does not have a Greek counterpart, and 1kece ?om in therequired sense does not seem to appear before the Roman period (cf.LSJ s.v. II 2). Secondly, there is the fact that to many modern readers“the Teiresias narrative … is not especially 1keeim|m in mood” (Bullochp. 34). This second problem is one of “feel” which I cannot pursuehere. My concern will be not “Why is h. 5 in elegiacs?”, but ratherwhether any particular part of the poem exploits the elegiacs for partic-ular effects. The most obvious candidate here is, of course, Chariclo’slament, where some progress may be possible.

" m}lva d’ 1b|ase· ‘t_ loi t¹m j_qom 5qenarp|tmia ; toiaOtai, da_lomer, 1st³ v_kai ;

ellat\ loi t_ paid¹r !ve_keo. t]jmom %kaste,eWder )hama_ar st^hea ja· kac|mar,

!kk’ oqj !]kiom p\kim exeai. £ 1l³ deik\m,£ eqor, £ :kij½m oqj]ti loi paqit] ,

G lec\k’ !mt’ ak_cym 1pq\nao· d|qjar ak]ssarja· pq|jar oq pokk±r v\ea paid¹r 5weir.’

" l³m ûl’ !lvot]qaisi v_kom peq· pa ?da kabo?sal\tgq l³m coeq÷m oWtom !gdom_dym

üce baq» jka_oisa, he± d’ 1k]gsem 2ta_qam.(vv. 85–95)

As commentators rightly note, the style and content of Chariclo’s la-ment strongly suggest funeral lament. The loss of sight is like the lossof life. This is made plain both by the reference to the nightingale’s la-ment, and by the choice of v\ea “lights” for “eyes”, which not only res-onates against d|qjar (connected with d]qjolai), but also reinforces thefinality of Teiresias’ fate: the light really has gone out. Moreover, thelanguage of debt and financial transaction in v. 91, which is pickedup again in vv. 102 (lish_ … lec\ky) and 105–6 (jol_feu … t]khor

aveik|lemom), is an amplification of the epitaphic topos that life is

27 Cf. the evidence collected by D. L. Page inGreek Poetry and Life, Essays presentedto Gilbert Murray, Oxford 1936, pp. 206–10, B. Gentili, ‘Epigramma ed elegia’,in L’Epigramme grecque (Entretiens Fondation Hardt XIV), Vandoeuvres-Geneva1967, pp. 39–81, and M. L. West, Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, Berlin/New York 1974, pp. 4–7. At fr. 7, 13 Callimachus seems to use 5kecoi tomean “poem(s) in elegiac couplets”.

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“lent” to us, and that sooner or later death calls in the loan28. Teiresias’“death” gives point to Athena’s compensatory gifts of long life and re-tention of intelligence in the Underworld (vv. 128–30) — this is a de-nial of death for the death he has suffered.

Chariclo is clearly, though implicitly, compared to Procne who,metamorphosed into the nightingale, grieves forever for the son she kil-led. “The whole passage is poetically well-worn: the comparison is astock one” notes Bulloch with full documentation (p. 206). Again,there may be more to be said. The myth of sexual offence, bodily maim-ing, metamorphosis, and the song of birds has a penumbra of suggestiveresonances with the myth of Teiresias; clearly Callimachus wants somekind of analogy between narrative and mythic exemplum to be felt.More specific help may come from two passages of Latin poetry. Catul-lus uses the image of the nightingale to describe his perpetual lamenta-tion for his brother:

at certe semper amabo,semper maesta tua carmina morte canam,

qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbrisDaulias, absumpti fata gemens Ityli.

sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mittohaec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae …

(65, 11–16)

As is now generally understood29, v. 12 programmatically announces adevotion to elegy, “sad songs”, as indeed Poem 65 is the first elegiacpoem in what is thereafter an entirely elegiac corpus. This poem intro-duces carmina Battiadae, and is itself heavily indebted to Callimachus30.The image of the grieving nightingale recurs in Callimachus’ famousepigram on the death of the poet Heraclitus (2 Pfeiffer = 34 Gow-

28 Cf. B. Lier, Philologus 62, 1903, pp. 578–83; R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek andLatin Epitaphs, Urbana, 111. 1942, repr. 1962, pp. 170–1; Bullochpp. 217–18.

29 As far as I am aware, the observation was first made by T.P. Wiseman, CatullanQuestions, Leicester 1969, p. 18. A. Barchiesi, Riv. fil. istr. class. 118, 1990, p.471, has made the attractive suggestion that semper … canam picks up the com-mon etymology of !e_dy, !gd~m etc. from !e_.

30 I have discussed this in ‘Callimachean echoes in Catullus 65’, Zeitschrift f�r Pap.und. Epigr. 96, 1993, 179–82 [= this volume 206–11].

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Page) in which the poet’s “nightingales” live on after his death31. AsHopkinson observes, “the nightingale’s song was proverbially alamentation (1kece ?om): Heraclitus’ !gd|mer can be imagined as bewailingtheir own poet’s death”32. We have already seen, however, that themeaning “lamentation” for 1kece ?om is not demonstrable for Callima-chus’ time; nevertheless, this epigram is not without interest in the pres-ent context. Of Heraclitus’ poetry it is probable that only one examplesurvives, a funerary epigram (Anth. Pal. 7, 465); Diogenes Laertius does,however, describe him as 1kece_ar poigt^r, and whether or not !gd|merwas actually the title of a collection of his poems, it now appears that atleast a circumstantial case can be made for the view that Catullus hadGreek, and probably Callimachean, precedent for the use of the night-ingale’s song in programmatic connection with elegiac metre. For thistradition we may also cite a passage of Ovid’s Fasti which StephenHinds33 has interpreted as containing (in alternis) an explicit allusion toelegiac metre:

quacumque ingreditur, miseris loca cuncta querellisimplet, ut amissum cum gemit ales Ityn,

perque uices modo “Persephone” modo “filia” clamat,clamat et alternis nomen utrumque ciet.

(Fasti 4, 481–4)

Already, of course, in the fifth century we find 5kecoi used of the night-ingale’s lament (Ar. Birds 218), and at Eur. IT 1091, if the manuscript isto be trusted, the halcyon sings an 5kecor oWtor (cf. v. 94 of Callimachus’hymn)34. It is also possible that the goddess’ pity in v. 95 activates for usa derivation of 5kecor from 5keor or 1kee?m35, and the sound of 1k]gsem

2ta_qam … 5kenem 5por (v. 95–6) almost seems to cry “elegy” at us36.In short, therefore, one passage of the poem at least seems to exploitand to some extent depend upon the fact that it is written in elegiacs.Two connected observations follow from this. First, the case for believ-ing that elegiac metre and lamentatory ethos were connected in the third

31 On this poem cf. ‘Callimachus and Heraclitus’, MD 28, 1992, pp. 113–123 [=this volume 115–26].

32 A Hellenistic Anthology, Cambridge 1988, p. 249.33 Op. cit. pp. 119–20, 162–3.34 I am not persuaded by D. Arnson Svarlien, Hermes 119, 1991, pp. 473–7, that

oWlom should be read for oWtom in Callimachus’ poem.35 Cf., e. g., Page , op. cit. p. 210, West, op. cit. pp. 7–8.36 I owe this last observation to Charles Segal.

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century is now, I hope, a strong one. Secondly, Chariclo’s lament in anappropriate metre is seen to be a quasi-dramatic mimesis which evokesearlier threnodic poetry, particulary the threnoi of Attic tragedy. In thepresentation of man’s at best partial knowledge of the divine, Cal-limachus, like Apollonius of Rhodes, was profoundly influenced bytragedy. Some of the details of this debt will be explored in the next sec-tion.

4.

Callimachus’ story of Teiresias falls into a set of familiar patterns. At onelevel it is a story of male intrusion into female space, and three other ex-amples of the type will help to shed light upon how Callimachus pres-ents his narrative.

The first is the famous Herodotean account of Gyges and the wife ofCandaules (Herod. 1, 8–12), a story of the secrets of power and of malesight of female nudity. Both Candaules (implicitly) and his wife (explic-itly) place a choice before Gyges, a choice which illustrates the relationbetween knowledge and power. Teiresias too gains knowledge throughsight and is empowered; I am tempted — though many may not be —to believe that the warning not to look upon t±m bas_keiam (h. 5, 52)directs us towards the story of Gyges and shows that Callimachus want-ed us to use it as a conscious analogue for his myth. Whether consciousor not, however, the importance of such “analogues” lies as much indifference as in similarity. The analogue both allows us to understandaspects of the poetic situation which do not need to be related explicitly,and, by difference, highlights what is particularly distinctive and centralto the later writer’s presentation. To this extent, such suggested narra-tive analogues may be compared to the use of extended similes37.

The second case is that of Pentheus, specifically the Pentheus ofEuripides’ Bacchae. Some of the echoes of this tragedy in the fifthhymn are generally familiar, but a slightly fuller statement of whatamounts to a detailed intertextual relationship may be helpful. Like Pen-theus, Teiresias is led by a god (v. 81, Ba. 1080) to a locus amoenus in themountains in the stillness of nature (vv. 71–4, Ba. 1051–3, 1084–5);Teiresias had been hunting, and Pentheus is famously both hunter

37 I have discussed the Hellenistic use of similes in The Argonautica of Apollonius:literary studies, Cambridge 1993, pp. 129–138.

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and hunted. Both are young men, their first beards just showing(vv. 75–6, Ba. 1185–7); it may be that peqj\fym (v. 76) which usuallyapplies to the darkening of grape clusters is a “Dionysiac signal” of thesimilarity. Both intrude upon an exclusively female performance, andboth, with varying degrees of severity, are punished for it. Most strikingof all, throughout the Bacchae (cf. 337–41, 1227, 1291), the fate of Ac-taion — the third of my three cases of male intrusion — resonates as awarning to Pentheus. Actaion is, of course, an expected exemplum insuch a Theban story, and Callimachus’ Athena uses Actaion as a conso-lation rather than as a warning; nevertheless, despite the difference inthe reason for the fates of the Euripidean and Callimachean Actaions38,it is hard not to believe that Callimachus is thinking of, and wants us tothink of, Euripides’ tragedy. Even with the unfortunate textual loss ofthe lament of the Euripidean Agaue, which might have shown very in-teresting links with Callimachus’ poem, it is clear that the Bacchae is afundamental text for the reading of the fifth hymn. The mother whorejected the god is replaced by the mother who was a special favouriteof the god. Both suffer: Athena’s appeal to the immutable laws of Kro-nos (v. 100) resonates against Dionysus’ concluding appeal to the au-thority of Zeus (Ba. 1349). Athena’s gifts to Teiresias are obviously con-trasted with the bleakness of the end of the tragedy, but the diversity ofmodern response39 shows how right Ovid was to inscribe explicitly anopen response into his Actaion-narrative:

rumor in ambiguo est: aliis uiolentior aequouisa dea est, alii laudant dignamque seuerauirginitate uocant; pars inuenit utraque causas.

(Met. 3, 253–5)

Ovid’s Actaion seems worse off than Callimachus’ Teiresias, but we canhardly feel confident that we know how we should respond to theGreek story.

38 On the various legends cf. L. R. Lacy, ‘Aktaion and a lost “Bath of Artemis”’,Journ. Hell. Stud. 110, 1990, pp. 26–42.

39 Extreme is J. R. Heath, ‘The blessings of epiphany in Callimachus’ Bath of Pal-las’, Class. Ant. 7, 1988, pp. 72–90, at p. 78: “Callimachus has pulled out allthe available stops to exculpate Athena”; for this view cf. also B. Otis, Ovidas an epic poet, 2nd ed., Cambridge 1970, pp. 134–5, 396–400. Mary Depewtakes the opposite position in ‘POxy 2509 and Callimachus’ Lavacrum Palladis:aQci|woio Di¹r jo}qg lec\koio’, Class. Quart. 44, 1994, 410–26.

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At another, but related, level, the story of Teiresias is one of tran-sition, of sexual and generational passage. The young man encountersthe female at a dangerous pool. Obvious comparisons may be madewith Hylas, or Ovid’s Narcissus who, driven by thirst after hunting todrink at a beautiful pond, is captivated by the erotic image in thewater (Met. 3, 407 ff)40. Such a transition has a particular relevance toTeiresias who, in the most familiar version of his story, experiencedlife and sex as both man and woman. What evidence is there that Cal-limachus presents the story of Teiresias in “sexual” terms? First, thereare simply our expectations founded upon knowledge of the storytype; we do not require explanations of the links between blindnessand sexual experience41, or much knowledge of Ovid, to sense whatshould be coming. Chariclo’s lament acknowledges the erotic privilegeof Teiresias’ sight: eWder )hama_ar st^hea ja· kac|mar (v. 88); he hasseen what should not be seen, just as, in the more usual version of hisstory, his special knowledge about sexual pleasure breaks boundarieswhich should be preserved. His blindness marks this transgression42,just as his prophetic gifts and retained intelligence mark him as a perpet-ual breaker of boundaries.

Important aspects of Callimachus’ poem may be illustrated by com-parison with Ovid’s version of this scenario in Amores 1, 5 (aestus erat…).That Corinna’s appearance in that poem is presented as an “epiphany” isnow well understood43, and vv. 70 ff of Callimachus’ fifth hymn are infact often quoted in connection with it. Nevertheless, Ovid’s use of thepattern with which I am here concerned does not seem to have beenfully appreciated44. In Amores 1, 5 it is the “god” who intrudes uponthe mortal’s midday repose in a locus amoenus. The “god” is clothed;

40 Aestu in v. 413 perhaps hints at the “middle of the day” topos.41 Cf. Bulloch pp. 22–3. I have toyed with the notion that the language of

vv. 99–100, oq c±q )hama_ai ckujeq¹m p]kei ellata paid_m / "qp\fem, haserotic resonances, cf. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 3, 1018–19 (with my note).

42 Cf. R. G. A. Buxton, ‘Blindness and limits: Sophokles and the logic of myth’,Journ. Hell. Stud. 100, 1980, pp. 22–37, at pp. 25–26.

43 Cf. W. S. M. Nicoll, ‘Ovid, Amores I 5’, Mnemosyne 30, 1977, pp. 40–8; S.Hinds, ‘Generalising about Ovid’ in A. J. Boyle (ed.), The imperial muse, Ber-wick, Victoria 1988, pp. 4–31, at pp. 4–11; T. D. Papanghelis, ‘About thehour of noon: Ovid, Amores 1, 5’, Mnemosyne 42, 1989, pp. 54–61.

44 Cf., however, Papanghelis, art. cit. p. 60: “But for toro, the opening coupletmight have perfectly introduced the story of a desirable nymph about to be sex-ually harassed while lying at midday under the canopy of a locus amoenus”.

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the mortal’s state of dress is, presumably, at best informal45. The mortaldeliberately strips the “god” to expose her body to his eyes — note thestress on oculos (v. 17)46 — and feasts his eyes and his pen upon the de-tails of that body. The end is sex and a prayer for many such occasions.Amores 1, 5 therefore offers a complete overturning of the conventionsand assumptions of stories such as that of Actaion. Callimachus’ aims arequite different, but shared themes can point to what is distinctive andimportant in the Greek poet.

Ovid has a lot of fun with Corinna’s role in what happened — wasshe or was she not willing?47 Ovid has transferred to the “god” an im-portant theme normally associated with the mortal in the story typewhich we have been considering. The fact that both Teiresias and Ac-taion erred unwillingly is repeatedly stressed by Callimachus (vv. 52, 78,113). Bulloch rightly notes that “intrusion on divine privacy is no less acrime because it is unintentional” (note on v. 52), but we may wonderwhether he is correct that “the fact that Teiresias’ intrusion was unwit-ting is not in itself of much significance” (p. 48). Bulloch is rightly try-ing to prevent the modern reader from imposing an inappropriate moralframe upon an ancient text, but we may well suppose that the poet’s in-sistence upon Teiresias’ “moral innocence” in fact sets the problem highon the agenda. Moreover, we find this theme centrally positioned in allthe stories we have been considering. The case of the Bacchae is notori-ous. Does Pentheus go to the mountain willingly or unwillingly? Thepower of Dionysus so confounds those categories as to call them entirelyinto question (cf. esp. Ba. 811–15). So too with Gyges. He has no de-sire to see the king’s wife, but he is confronted with the realities ofpower – ¢r oqj 1d}mato diavuce ?m, Gm 6toilor (Herod. 1,10,1) —and, like Teiresias, is led by higher authority to the place of spying(note Ecace, 1, 10, 1). When Candaules’ wife confronts him with a sec-ond “choice”, which is really no choice (!macja_gm !kgh]yr pqojei-l]mgm, !macj\feir … oqj 1h]komta : 1, 11, 4), Herodotus does not con-ceal what is really going on, aRq]etai aqt¹r peqie ?mai. In asking why suchstories foreground such problems, we must of course be wary of assum-ing that the same explanation (or set of explanations) will suit each case.Nevertheless, it is certainly tempting to associate the problematic of

45 In the comparable scenario of Catullus 32 the resting male is not naked.46 posito uelamine (v. 17) mischievously suggests that Corinna acted willingly, cf.

Call. h. 5, 70, Ovid, Met. 3, 192.47 For other examples of this theme cf. McKeown on vv. 15–16.

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willing choice and the problematic of sight (and its analogue, knowl-edge). Do we ever choose what we see? This problem can hardly beconsidered in isolation from views about the nature of vision itself ; an-cient philosophers seem in fact to have been less interested — thoughcertainly not uninterested —48 in the relation between vision and willthan in the mechanics of vision, although the two problems are ofcourse very closely connected, particularly where the viewer must“act” (or “assent”) to turn a perception into a reliable impression49.The tellers of the stories we have been considering were, however,very plainly interested in this problem50. In Callimachus, it is not simplya matter of the traditional idea that “an important aspect of a god’spower was absolute control over whether or not he was visible to mor-tals” (Bulloch on vv. 101–2) — a control whose apparent “failure” inthis case raises difficult questions about Athena’s role — but of thevery nature of seeing, a faculty in which mortals and immortals are ir-remediably different.

The second theme I wish to pursue briefly here is the related one ofcognition. How is the intruder recognised? The brilliant opening ofAmores 1, 5 still has serious commentators debating whether or notthe poet was “expecting” a visit from Corinna that afternoon; at anyrate, vv. 7–8, illa uerecundis lux est praebenda puellis, / qua timidus latebrassperet habere pudor, clearly portray him as the controller, the artifex, of thesituation. In his tale of Actaion, it is apparently the cries of the nymphswhich draw Diana’s attention:

48 The mental and physical state of the viewer was, of course, often of prime im-portance; cf. , e. g., Epicurus, On nature 25, 331 ff. Arrighetti ; Sextus Empiricus,Against the professors 7, 253–260 (English translation in A. A. Long and D. N.Sedley, The hellenistic philosophers I, Cambridge 1987, pp. 246–8). The Epicur-ean 1pibok^ may also be relevant, cf. C. Bailey, The Greek atomists and Epicurus,Oxford 1928, pp. 559–76. Lucretius (4, 777–815) certainly draws a parallel be-tween the “attention” of the mind needed to see what we want to see and thatneeded to imagine things. Even this theory, therefore, leaves “grey areas” for apoet to exploit.

49 For useful surveys of ancient theories of vision cf. D. C. Lindberg, Theories ofvision from al-Kindi to Kepler, Chicago 1976, pp. 1–17; D.E. Hahm, ‘Early hel-lenistic theories of vision and the perception of color’, in P.K. Machamer andR.G. Turnbull (eds.), Studies in perception, Columbus 1978, pp. 60–95.

50 For similar considerations in Vergil and Ovid cf. T. Krier, Gazing on secret sights.Spenser, classical imitation, and the decorums of vision, Ithaca, N.Y. 1990.

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qui simul intrauit rorantia fontibus antra,sicut erant, uiso nudae sua pectora nymphaepercussere uiro subitisque ululatibus omneinpleuere nemus circumfusaeque Dianamcorporibus texere suis ; tamen altior illisipsa dea est colloque tenus supereminet omnes.

(Met. 3, 177–82)

The emphasis is on how Actaion is seen, not on what he might haveseen; if he saw anything at all, it was only from the goddess’ neck up(vv. 182, 186). Here again Ovid stands at the end of a long line of de-velopment in this motif of such stories. When Pentheus is settled in thefir-tree, he is more seen than seeing (Ba. 1075), and in the case ofGyges, Candaules tells him to take care not to be seen (Herod. 1, 9,3), but the lady does see him as he slips out and “realises” (lahoOsa)that it was her husband’s doing. Her instantaneous understanding51 isan illustration of her intelligence and power. So too with the Calli-machean Athena. The elision of anything like “and Athena saw him”after v. 78 suggests the goddess’ powers of cognition of a kind we readilyaccept in divinity. In one sense, it is all one whether she sees or not, be-cause her power is not bound by physical constraints.

Athena’s consolatory exemplum of Actaion is presented as a state-ment or prophecy in the future tense52, and this can hardly be dissoci-ated from the nature of the gifts which she bestows upon Teiresias.Moreover, it may be that vv. 107–9,

p|ssa l³m " Jadlg·r 1r vsteqom 5lpuqa jause ?,p|ssa d’ )qista ?or, t¹m l|mom eqw|lemoi

pa ?da, t¹m Bbat±m )jta_oma, tuhk¹m Qd]shai,

are intended to evoke the riddling language of prophecy53; what can itmean to “pray to see a beloved son blind”? The final phrase, tuvk¹m

51 Contrast the anonymous “Gyges drama” (Trag. Adesp. 664 Kannicht-Snell) inwhich Candaules’ wife explains that she realised her husband’s guilt when shesaw that he was still awake (vv. 21–2).

52 Cf. Bulloch p. 218 on the “Hellenisticness” of this device. His observation,however, that “the example of Actaeon is placed in the future as a rhetoricaldevice and not because Athena is a prophetess” sits rather oddly with thegifts she bestows.

53 It may also be that the prophetic voice is evoked too in vv. 80–1. Those versesdo in any case look forward to Athena’s closing remarks (v. 127 b\jtqom, f oR

p|dar 1r d]om !ne ?) — ring composition! — in suggesting the familiar sight of

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Qd]shai, almost suggests the central paradox of the blind prophet, asmost famously dramatised in the encounter of Teiresias and Oedipusin Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. Thus Callimachus has shaped his Athe-na in very specific ways, and the familiar classical opposition betweentwo different kinds of knowledge or rationality54 is collapsed as shereaches out to grant powers not usually associated with her.

5.

Some aspects of my account of Callimachus’ Hymn to Athena willdoubtless seem more “serious” than is now fashionable; Callimachus lu-dens is, perhaps rightly, the now predominant image of this brilliantpoet. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the realm of the presenta-tion of the divine, where there is not even an agreed critical languagewith which to transcend unhelpful assertions about what poets did ordid not “believe”55. Callimachus presents almost an extreme case ofthe general problem of “religion in literature”, of the relationship (ifone exists) between what happens inside and outside texts56. A standardcritical move for those who wish to negotiate around this problem is todraw a distinction between “religious” and “secular” categories. Thus,the emphasis on Chariclo’s feelings in h. 5 and on the embarrassed suf-fering of Erysichthon’s parents in h. 6 are alleged to show that Callima-chus’ concerns are “secular”, not “religious”, i. e. not (to put it simply)“pertaining to the nature of the divine”. That there are differences inthis regard between a hymn of Callimachus and, say, an aretalogy of

the blind Teiresias led on to the tragic stage (cf. Soph. Ant. 988–90, OT 298).Note too how Athena’s t_r … da_lym (vv. 80–1) suggests the defensive “it wasnot a he|r”.

54 Cf., e. g., J.-P. Vernant, Mortals and immortals. Collected essays, ed. F. I. Zeitlin,Princeton 1991, pp. 306–7.

55 Extreme in this regard is P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford 1972, I,pp. 662–3, “… genuinely religious element [in the Hymns] … a true believerin the traditional gods of Greece…”; note how the subject of religion in poetryleads G. O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic poetry, Oxford 1988, p. 3, straight to “whatthe poets believed”.

56 For recent discussions of less extreme cases cf. D. C. Feeney, The gods in epic,Oxford 1991; J. D. Mikalson, Honor thy gods. Popular religion in Greek tragedy,Chapel Hill and London 1991.

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Isis is hardly to be denied57, but it may be wondered to what extent “re-ligious/secular” is the appropriate category distinction; “non-literary/literary” may be more apt. Thus even in an extreme case, such as Phi-licus’ Hymn to Demeter in choriambic hexameters (SH 676–680) whichis explicitly written for the delectation of cqallatijo_ (SH 677), weshould seek to understand the “religious” and cultic tale offered bythe poem; learned paignia, too, have a social and intellectual context.About Chariclo I hope that enough has now been said; I thereforewish briefly to examine the story of Erysichthon in h. 6 to see towhat extent it too escapes from this scholarly categorisation.

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter records and celebrates the estab-lishment of Demeter’s cult and tells a tale of separation followed byre-integration and happiness. Callimachus’ hymn confirms the con-tinuing power of the goddess and tells an apotropaic tale of ultimate sep-aration and misery. The rich plenty with which the archaic poem con-cludes (vv. 470–3) is replaced in Callimachus by the desolation of Tri-opas’ stores (vv. 104–10). Whereas in the Homeric Hymn the goddess’anger was revealed by a general famine which threatened not only allmankind (vv. 305–11) but also the gods’ supply of sacrifices(vv. 311–12), in Callimachus’ hymn the anger is manifested by an illu-sory plenty — the riches of Triopas’ house (cf. vv. 69, 87–90) — whichsoon becomes a dearth in which sacrifice too suffers (v. 108 ja· t±m b_m5vacem, t±m :st_ai 5tqeve l\tgq). The relationship between h. 6 and itsarchaic forerunner is thus a very good illustration of Callimachus’ crea-tive use of his literary heritage.

As is well understood, Callimachus sets the warning tale of Ery-sichthon within a Hesiodic moral frame58. The narrative is a dramatisedexemplification of a central message of the Works and Days — the closelink between pious observance and agricultural plenty. Framed by ech-oes of the Works and Days59, Callimachus’ poem tells of a Hesiodic

57 The two genres are directly confronted by A. Henrichs, ‘“Thou shalt not kill atree”: Greek, Manichaean and Indian tales’, Bull. Amer. Soc. Pap. 16, 1979,pp. 85–109.

58 Cf., e. g., H. Reinsch-Werner, Callimachus Hesiodicus, Berlin 1976,pp. 210–29, 371–3; her discussion is very uneven, but contains much that istrue. The Hesiodic frame is well understood, but rather underplayed, by Hop-kinson.

59 Note v. 22 ~ WD 828 (the final verse of Hesiod’s poem and known to havebeen a subject of dispute in Alexandrian scholarly circles), vv. 116–17 ~ WD346–8.

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“worst case”, a man loved by Hunger and hated by Demeter (cf. WD299–300), living proof of the Hesiodic dictum that “evil plans (jajµbouk^, cf. h. 6, 32) turn out worst for the planner” (WD 266). The cru-cial passage here isWD 336–48 where the link between piety and phys-ical survival is very clearly marked:

j±d d}malim d’ 5qdeim R]q’ !ham\toisi heo ?sim"cm_r ja· jahaq_r, 1p· d’ !cka± lgq_a ja_eim·%kkote d³ spomd/isi h}ess_ te Rk\sjeshai,Al³m ft’ eqm\fgi ja· ft’ #m v\or Req¹m 5khgi,¦r j] toi Vkaom jqad_gm ja· hul¹m 5wysim,evq’ %kkym ¡m/i jk/qom, lµ t¹m te¹m %kkor.t¹m vik]omt’ 1p· da ?ta jake ?m, t¹m d’ 1whq¹m 1÷sai·t¹m d³ l\kista jake ?m, fstir s]hem 1cc}hi ma_ei· HeQ c\q toi ja· wq/l’ 1cj~liom %kko c]mgtai,ce_tomer %fystoi 5jiom, f~samto d³ pgo_.p/la jaj¹r ce_tym, fssom t’ !cah¹r l]c’ emeiaq·5lloq] toi til/r fr t’ 5lloqe ce_tomor 1shkoO·oqd’ #m boOr !p|koit’, eQ lµ ce_tym jaj¹r eUg.

For Hesiod, Erysichthon would be a “bad neighbour” (cf. 6, 117 1lo·

jajoce_tomer 1whqo_)60 because you could expect no help from him,but we also understand that he would threaten to eat you out ofhouse and home; with Erysichthon as a neighbour, your cattle reallywould be in danger. Here Callimachean “literalism” plays off againstthe archaic moral voice61. To this point I shall return.

For the celebrants the tale is both a warning and a confirmation oftheir lucky position; soon they will eat62. Demeter is invoked to bringpeace and prosperity (vv. 133–8), while the terrible fate of famine is re-served for others. If this pattern suggests that of the “scapegoat”, we

60 bl|toiwor in the same verse seems to pick up the Hesiodic t¹m … fstir s]hem

1cc}hi ma_ei. This helps to confirm “neighbour” as the proper sense in Callima-chus (cf. Hopkinson ad loc).

61 Cf. Reinsch-Werner, op. cit. p. 221. Hopkinson gives strong support to,though he does not print, Meineke’s jajoda_lomer for the transmitted jajoce_-tomer in v. 117. The text is, however, sound, and not just because of the stylisticchiasmus of !pewh^r — bl|toiwor — jajoce_tomer — 1whqo_. The apparent re-petitiveness may be ascribed to the “naive” literalism of the poetic voice (acommon mannerism in the Hymns), but in fact it is only apparent. Someonewho is “hateful to Demeter” is undesirable as a bl|toiwor precisely becauseipso facto they are a bad neighbour. The Hesiodic reference thus allows us to un-pack the meaning of this stylised, hymnal utterance.

62 Cf. A.W. Bulloch, Amer. Journ. Phil. 98, 1977, p. 99.

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should not be surprised. Plutarch tells us of a rite at Chaeronea whichseems relevant to Callimachus’ Sixth Hymn :

“There is a traditional rite of sacrifice, which the archon performs at thepublic hearth but everyone else at home, called the driving out of bulimy(bouk_lou 1n]kasir). They strike one of the servants with wands of agnus cas-tus and drive him out of doors, chanting, ‘Out with Bulimy, in withWealth and Health’”. (Quaest. Conv. 6, 8; 693e-f, trans. Hoffleit)

Clearly, Callimachus does not offer any simple reproduction of this rit-ual pattern, which has normally been interpreted as a form of scapegoat-ing, but the common elements are suggestive63. The pathetic referenceto Erysichthon as b t_ basik/or as he sits begging at the crossroads (v.114) can hardly fail to remind us of the vaqlaj|r, as well of course as ofthe disguised Odysseus (Od. 17, 219–22)64. The king’s son has becomethe lowest of the low, leaving the house like the disgraced Oedipus orthe slave “impersonating” Hunger. By seeking to conceal him withinthe house, rather than sending him out, his parents deny the ritual pat-tern and hasten their own ruin.

It is, above all, the description of the excuses to which Erysichthon’sparents are reduced as they cover up for him (vv. 68–90) which hasprompted critics to see the poem as “secular” rather than “religious”65.The phenomenon which these critics are trying to describe will be plainto every reader, but the analysis suffers from a residual commitment to“religion” as something which a modern western audience would rec-ognise as such. The organisation of society — even, or rather particular-ly, “bourgeois” society — is put at risk by Erysichthon’s hunger. It is“dinners” and “weddings”, those quintessential markers of socialunion, to which his parents dare not send him, and it is Demeter, the

63 On the rite at Chaeronea cf. J. E. Harrison, Epilegomena to the study of Greek re-ligion, Cambridge 1921, pp. 1–5; C. I. Papazoglou, ‘BO£KILO£ ENEKASIS.5hilom jahaqt^qiom ja· comilij|m’, )hgm÷ 68, 1965, pp. 17–32; V. Rotolo,‘Il rito della BO£KILO£ ENEKASIS’, in Miscellanea di studi classici in onore di Eu-genio Manni, Rome 1980, VI, pp. 1947–61. For more general considerations cf.J. Bremmer, ‘Scapegoat rituals in ancient Greece’, Harvard Stud. Class.Phil. 87,1983, pp. 299–320.

64 For Erysichthon as a vaqlaj|r cf. E. Cassin, ‘Erysichthon ou le vain mangeur’in M. Detienne and others (eds.), Poikilia. Etudes offertes � Jean-Pierre Vernant,Paris 1987, pp. 95–121, at p. 111. For the echo of the Odyssey cf. K. J.McKay, Erysichthon: a Callimachean comedy, Leiden 1962, pp. 71–2; Bulloch,art. cit. pp. 108–12.

65 Cf., e. g., Bulloch, art. cit. p. 114; Hopkinson p. 8; Henrichs, art. cit.pp. 90–1.

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orderer of society, the heslov|qor (v. 18), who is responsible for this;Erysichthon’s punishment is to break those distinctions in social behav-iour, established by Demeter, which separate us from the animals66. Wemay, if we wish, call this “social”, but it is not clear that it does not also“pertain to the nature of the divine”. The very obvious differences be-tween the voice of h. 6 and the voice of any archaic poem should not beused as an excuse to shut off areas of meaning in the later text. The truthis that we have not yet found the proper language in which to discussthese extraordinarily complex poems67.

Our problem is, moreover, not limited to Callimachus alone. Clas-sical scholarship is still at something of a loss when it comes to the han-dling of mythic narrative in the Greek literature of the Hellenistic andRoman periods. In very broad terms, there are two central problems.One is the effect of what Marcel Detienne called “the invention ofmythology”, one manifestation of which is the writing and cataloguingof myth and legend such as we know Hellenistic poets to have practisedin their scholarly lives and used in their poetry. What difference to theproduction and poetic use of myth does such activity make? Secondly, itis a common view that the “mythic thinking” of the archaic and classicalperiods had, by the third century, given way to some extent to differentmodes of thought which were, if not more rational, at least closer tomodes that we ourselves would recognise. Thucydides, the sophists,and Plato are, of course, major figures here. That important changeshad taken place is hard to deny, though the work of Geoffrey Lloydin particular has shown us how misleading simplistic models of the re-placement of “non-scientific” by “scientific” ways of thinking can be.The upshot of this widely held view of cultural history is that“myths” in Alexandrian and later poetry (to say nothing of the prose lit-erature of the Second Sophistic) are often assumed to be no more thancodified stories, available to poets as narrative material, but lacking thatintimate, if hard to define, connection with collective social thoughtthat we regularly ascribe to myth68. Confirmation for such a viewmight be sought in the social position of Alexandrian poets: a marginaland privileged elite writing for their own amusement. It would, how-

66 For Demeter’s laws as establishing “civilisation” cf. Isocrates, Panegyr. 28; Diod.Sic. 5, 5, 2; Servius on Aeneid 4, 58 (where see Pease’s note).

67 The complexity is well summarised by Hopkinson pp. 12–13.68 It may not be flippant to observe that this procedure helps to turn Alexandrian

“scholar-poets” into people who look comfortingly like modern scholars.

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ever, be very naive to imagine that what Alexandrian poets wrote wasproduced in a social and intellectual vacuum. It may, of course, bethat the kind of evidence which has allowed real progress in understand-ing the “myths” of classical Athens and Augustan Rome simply does notexist for Ptolemaic Alexandria, or that the nature of the society itself isnot amenable to such a study; if so, then the identification of variouslevels of humour and irony in mythic narrative may be not only a fruit-ful way to proceed, it may be the only way69. I do not, however, believethat that stage has yet been reached, and I hope that this paper has sug-gested some of the paths that still beckon.

Finally, it is worth observing that the currently standard accounts ofHellenistic religion offer little assistance in this matter. There we arelikely to find impressionistic assertions about the spiritual emptiness oflife in the great conurbations, an emptiness which was slowly filled bythe rise of new cults70. Change there obviously was — although sometexts have been remarkably over-interpreted71 — and we must be con-scious of the fact that some of this change is presumably concealed fromus by problems of naming. “Athena” retains her familiar cult titles, buthow can we detect realignments in intellectual and cultural patternswhich may be subsumed under that name? Thus Claire Préaux beganthe chapter on religion in her standard two-volume Le monde hell�nis-tique as follows: “We shall consider here only the gods who developed(�volu�) under the influence of the contact of cultures. We shall there-fore not be concerned with Delian or Pythian Apollo, or with the tradi-tional gods of Olympus”. That Delian and Pythian Apollo precisely diddevelop under the contact of cultures seems a very reasonable inferencefrom Callimachus’ fourth hymn. What happened to Athena (and Deme-ter) we shall never know in full, but it would be silly not to see if we canmake use of texts which seem to be trying to tell us about these gods.We should not be put off just because these texts carry Callimachus’name.

69 For an attempt to use the presence of irony to construct a general view of themythic in Hellenistic poetry cf. B. Effe, ‘Die Destruktion der Tradition: The-okrits mythologische Gedichte’, Rhein. Mus. 121, 1978, pp. 48–77.

70 No modern account is more powerful than E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the irra-tional, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1951, pp. 243–4.

71 This is particularly true of the Athenian Hymn to Demetrius Poliorcetes.

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Addenda

For further discussion of Callimachus’ Hymns, both separately and as a group,cf. this volume 405–33 and Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 350–71; for other recent bibliography on the Hymns cf. 30 below. On Hymn 5 inparticular cf. A. D. Morrison, ‘Sexual ambiguity and the identity of the narratorin Callimachus’ Hymn to Athena’ BICS 48 (2005) 27–46. D. Feeney, Literatureand Religion at Rome (Cambridge 1998) contains much of interest to the Hellen-ist.

p. 140–1 On the debt of Theocritus 26 to Euripides’ Bacchae cf. The Shadow ofCallimachus 46–8.

p. 148–9 On the ritual pattern of Callimachus’ Erysichthon cf. now C. A. Far-aone, CA 23 (2004) 227–31.

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9. Written in the Stars : Poetry and Philosophy in thePhainomena of Aratus*

1. Introduction

The Phainomena of Aratus, probably composed in the period c. 280–260 B.C.1, is an account in 1154 hexameters of, first, the fixed constella-tions and their conjunctions and, secondly, of weather-signs in bothheavenly bodies and other natural phenomena2. It draws extensivelyupon two prose sources which we can reconstruct with some confi-dence. For the constellations Aratus was very heavily indebted to theprose Phainomena of the pioneering astronomer Eudoxus, written per-haps as much as a century before Aratus’ poem; the debt was con-clusively identified by the second-century B.C. astronomer Hipparchus,whose extant commentary (exegesis) on the works of Eudoxus and Ara-

* Arachnion 2 (http://www.cisi.unito.it/arachne/num2/index2.html)I am grateful to Marco Fantuzzi, John Vallance and an audience at the Ox-

ford Philological Society for instructive criticism of earlier versions of thispaper. Due to the kindness of Professor D.A. Kidd, I was able (after the sub-stantial completion of my own work) to see a draft of his forthcoming com-mentary on the Phainomena ; I have added references to it where appropriate.The following works are referred to by author name only: M. Erren, Die Phai-nomena des Aratos von Soloi. Untersuchungen zum Sach- und Sinnverst�ndnis (HermesEinzelschrift 19), Wiesbaden 1967; N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology, Cam-bridge 1988; A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Cam-bridge 1987; W. Ludwig, ‘Die Phainomena Arats als hellenistische Dichtung’,Hermes 91, 1963, 425–48. I cite the text from the edition of J. Martin (Flor-ence 1956), and refer occasionally also to that of M. Erren (Munich 1971).

1 The (admittedly flimsy) basis for this dating is the patronage of Antigonos Go-natas which Aratus enjoyed. For chronological arguments based on the similar-ity of the opening verse of the Phainomena to Theocr. 17.1 cf. Gow ad loc. andM. Fantuzzi, MD 5, 1980, 163–72.

2 The structure of the poem has been much discussed, but I will be concernedwith this only tangentially; a major break after v. 732 was diagnosed veryearly in its reception, (a papyrus text of the first century A.D. places a coronisbefore v. 733). For surveys of this problem and the evidence cf. Erren 227–33;Ludwig 429–39; id., Gnomon 43, 1971, 353; id., RE Suppl. 10. 30–1; J. Mar-tin, ‘Les Ph�nom�nes d’Aratos. Étude sur la composition du poème’, in L’astron-omie dans l’antiquit� classique, Paris 1979, 91–104.

tus preserves many fragments of the former’s treatise3. Although Hip-parchus – whose rhetoric has, of course, its own very specific agendaof self-advertisement – alleges that Aratus’ debt to Eudoxus was gener-ally doubted before his own work4, there is no reason to believe thatAratus intended to conceal the debt nor to doubt that many, at least,of Aratus’ first readers fully understood the work’s genesis, as indeedall that we know of the standard techniques of third-century poetry sug-gests they were expected to do. The second part of the poem, onweather-signs, is clearly indebted to a lost treatise of the fourth-century,perhaps by Theophrastus, which is known principally from a survivingprose version probably later in date than Aratus (= Theophrastus fr. VIWimmer)5. Aratus’ use of written sources, in a poem whose stylistic andliterary techniques clearly announce it as an ‘élite’ text6, raises generalquestions about ‘didactic’ poetry and the place of learning in the Hellen-istic period, and to these I shall return. Two prominent features of thePhainomena must first be noted, as it is in the intersection of differingmodes of presentation that the most characteristic, and perhaps most in-teresting, literary problems arise in this text; these will form the subjectof this paper. What I shall not attempt here – but what is clearly a majordesideratum – is what might be termed a ‘modern Hipparchanism’, thatis, a detailed examination of how Aratus’ account of the heavens ex-ploits and/or misunderstands contemporary ‘science’. Such an examina-tion is vital, apart from anything else, if we are to see precisely how Ara-

3 For a brief and helpful account of Hipparchus’ work cf. J. Martin, Histoire dutexte des Phénomènes d’Aratos, Paris 1956, 22–9. The standard edition is theTeubner of C. Manitius (Leipzig 1894).

4 Cf. 1.2.1. These ‘many’ presumably include the ‘many others’ who, accordingto Hipparchus (1.1.3), wrote commentaries on Aratus’ poem before him. Thestory in the Lives that Antigonos Gonatas ‘told’ Aratus to versify Eudoxus’work is presumably a post-Hipparchan fiction (cf. Knaack, RE 2.393), althoughthe king’s ‘bon mot’ eqdon|teqom poie ?r t¹m Eudonom might just be a contempo-rary joke.

5 For a discussion of the problems cf. O. Regenbogen, RE Suppl. 7. 1412–15.Aratus’ combination of astronomy and weather-signs is unlikely to have beenan original conception; a parallel prose text was published by C. Wessely,‘Bruchstücke einer antiken Schrift über Wetterzeichen’, SWAW 142.1,1900, cf. O. Neugebauer, ‘Über griechische Wetterzeichen und Schattenta-feln’, SAW 240.2 (1962).

6 For Aratus’ ‘typically Hellenistic’ use of Homer cf. the (rather limited) surveysby A. Ronconi, ‘Arato interprete di Omero’, SIFC 14, 1937, 167–202,237–59, and A. Traina, ‘Variazioni omeriche in Arato’, Maia 8, 1956, 39–48.

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tus understood the rôle of the poet to differ from that of the technician,a subject to which I shall return in general, rather than specific, terms.The present essay is concerned rather to sketch out a way of reading andunderstanding the Phainomena as very much a text of its time, and onewhich forces us to be clear about what we can and cannot know aboutancient reading and writing practices. Aratus presents his poem as a re-writing of Hesiod’s Works and Days7. The opening ‘Hymn to Zeus’ (vv.1–18) is replete with Hesiodic phraseology8, and the echoing and chias-tic style of the first four verses not merely enacts their message – that theworld is a kind of echo-chamber resounding with ‘Zeus’ – but is also an‘updating’ of the famous opening of the Works and Days (Phain. 1–4):

9j Di¹r !qw~lesha, t¹m oqd]pot’ %mdqer 1_lem%qqgtom . lesta· d³ Di¹r p÷sai l³m !cuia_,p÷sai d’!mhq~pym !coqa_, lestµ d³ h\kassaja· kil]mer . p\mtg d³ Di¹r jewq^leha p\mter.

From Zeus let us begin. We men never leave him unspoken: full ofZeus are all the streets, all the meeting-places of men, full is the seaand the harbours; everywhere it is Zeus whom we all need.

LoOsai Pieq_ghem !oid0si jke_ousai,deOte D_’ 1mm]pete, sv]teqom pat]q’ rlme_ousai.fm te di± bqoto· %mdqer bl_r %vato_ te vato_ te,Ngto_ t’ %qqgto_ te Di¹r lec\koio 6jgti.N]a l³m c±q bqi\ei, N]a d³ bqi\omta wak]ptei,

7 About any debt to the Astronomia or Astrologia ascribed in antiquity to Hesiod(frr. 288–293 MW) we can say nothing. It would, however, be very surprisingif the Phainomena did not contain echoes of that poem. Callimachus’ epigramon Aratus’ poem (27 Pf. = 56 GP) may have both this poem and WD inmind; I wonder whether tropos in v. 1 evokes astronomical tropai.

8 The facts have often been documented, cf., e. g., H. Schwabl, ‘Zur Mimesis beiArat’, in Antidosis. Festschrift f�r Walther Kraus zum 70. Geburtstag, Vienna/Co-logne/Graz 1972, 336–56 and, more briefly, Hopkinson 138–40. The moststriking echoes are: the repeated D_a, di\, Di|r (WD 2–4, Phain. 1–4), %qqg-tom (Phain. 2/WD 3–4), Phain. 3–4/WD 2–4, 101, Phain. 6/WD 20,Phain. 15/WD 822 (from the epilogue to Hesiod’s poem); on pqot]qg ceme^

(Phain. 16, WD 160) cf. below. If %qqgtom in v. 2 plays on the poet’s name,then we may compare the ‘play’ on Zeus’ name at WD 2–3 and Js_odom atTheog. 22. The ‘pun’ was, to my knowledge, first suggested in print by W. Lev-itan, Glyph 5, 1979, 68 n.18 and then (presumably independently) by D. A.Kidd, CQ 31, 1981, 353. Cf. further P. Bing, ‘A pun on Aratus’ name inVerse 2 of the ‘Phainomena’’, HSCP 93, 1990, 281–5.

9. Written in the Stars: 155

Ne ?a d’ !q_fgkom lim}hei ja· %dgkom !]nei,Ne ?a d] t’ Qh}mei sjoki¹m ja· !c^moqa j\qvei

Fe»r rxibqel]tgr, dr rp]qtata d~lata ma_ei.jkOhi Qd½m !_ym te, d_j, d’ Uhume h]listart}mg

. 1c½ d] je P]qs, 1t^tula luhgsa_lgm.

Muses from Pieria, who glorify by songs, come to me, tell of Zeus yourfather in your singing. Because of him mortal men are unmentioned andmentioned, spoken and unspoken of, according to great Zeus’ will. Foreasily he makes strong, and easily he oppresses the strong, easily he dimin-ishes the conspicuous one and magnifies the inconspicuous, and easily hemakes the crooked straight and withers the proud – Zeus who thunderson high, who dwells in the highest mansions. O hearken as thou seestand hearest, and make judgement straight with righteousness, Lord;while I should like to tell Perses words of truth. (WD 1–10, trans. M.L.West)

The bipartite structure of Aratus’ poem is presumably indebted to Hes-iod’s ‘double-headed’ construction9, and it has long been observed thatthe gliding transitions between subjects within the Phainomena, whichavoid a systematic sectioning such as is familiar from Latin didactic,must be an attempt to reproduce the archaic manner. A remarkable sim-ilarity in the metrical technique of Hesiod and Aratus, involving a de-viation by Aratus from the tendencies of his age, has even been noted10.More important for our present purposes is the relationship between thesubject-matter of the two poems. There is, of course, much in theWorks and Days about the use of nature and the movements of thestars to regulate one’s life, both in farming and sailing, and it is to farmersand sailors, although not to them uniquely11, that Aratus directs the di-daxis of his poem (vv. 7–9, 42, 758 ff etc.)12. Moreover, the most famil-

9 Cf., e. g., J. Farrell, Vergil’s ‘Georgics’ and the Traditions of Ancient Epic, NewYork/Oxford 1991, 163–4. West (p. 136 of his edition) notes that the titleWorks and Days is first attested in Lucian, but ‘was no doubt established agood deal earlier’.

10 Cf. H. A. Porter, ‘Hesiod and Aratus’, TAPA 77, 1946, 158–70.11 Cf. P. Bing, ‘Aratus and his audiences’, MD 31, 1993, 99–10912 At one level there is here an obvious debt to traditional modes of self-presen-

tation by poets, cf. the related trope at Call. H. 3.170–82, with the remarks ofP. Bing, ZPE 54, 1984, 1–8. Observe the difference from the proem ofNicander’s Theriaca in which the poet tells his addressee that, after instructionfrom Nicander, he will be respected by ‘the ploughman, the oxherd, and thewoodcutter’ (three likely victims of snakebite). Nicander’s three levels, insteadof the Hesiodic and Aratean two, mark the ‘professionalism’ and specialisation

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iar section of the Phainomena, the myth of Parthenos-Dike (vv. 96–136), is a close re-writing of Hesiod’s ‘Myth of Five Ages’; both passag-es serve to explain the situation in which man currently finds himself. Asmuch as anything, it was the aetiological focus of the Works and Dayswhich so commended it to Hellenistic and later poets.

Finally, and by way of transition to the second crucial feature of thePhainomena, we may note an obvious and pointed contrast between theethos of the two poems. The Works and Days presents us with an all-powerful and all- seeing Zeus (cf., e. g., 267–9) who is concernedwith justice, but whose mind (noos) is changeable and hard-to-know(483–4), and who has hidden from men the means of a life free fromtoil (42 jq}xamter …)13. The themes of concealment and hiddennessare, of course, most prominent in the myths of Pandora and the FiveAges. The Zeus of the Phainomena, however, while also being all-seeingand concerned with justice, openly assists mankind through the omni-presence of ‘signs’ (Phain. 10–13):

aqt¹r c±q t\ ce s^lat’ 1m oqqam` 1st^qinem%stqa diajq_mar, 1sj]xato d’eQr 1miaut¹m!st]qar oV je l\kista tetucl]ma sgla_moiem

!mdq\sim ¢q\ym, evq’ 5lpeda p\mta v}ymtai.

Zeus himself set signs in heaven, marking out the constellations, and for thewhole year he thought out which stars should most of all give men signs ofthe seasons, so that all things should grow without fail.

Much remains hidden and further ‘progress’ depends upon Zeus’ benev-olence (vv. 768–71, quoted below), but the situation is much morepromising than that which Hesiod offered (Phain. 771–2):

b c±q owm cemeµm !mdq_m !mavamd¹m av]kkeip\mtohem eQd|lemor, p\mtg d’ f ce s^lata va_mym.

of the knowledge which Nicander possesses; cf. his repeated rhetoric of accessto privileged information (oWda, Ther. 805, 811, 818, 829) which stands in sharpcontrast to Aratus. It is in details such as this that Nicander’s true differencefrom the ‘Hesiodic’ tradition is to be seen; that the three levels are not alwaysconsistently maintained (cf. B. Effe, Dichtung und Lehre. Untersuchungen zur Ty-pologie des antiken Lehrgedichts, Munich 1977, 58 n. 6) does not diminish the pro-grammatic significance of the opening.

13 The classic discussions of the theme of ‘hiding’ in Works and Days are those ofJ.-P. Vernant; cf. , e. g., R. L. Gordon (ed.), Myth, Religion and Society, Cam-bridge 1981, 43–79.

9. Written in the Stars: 157

For Zeus openly brings aid to the race of mortals, appearing on every side,and everywhere revealing his signs.

The open visibility of the sky above us carries its own persuasive force.In a sense, no argument is needed to support Aratus’ exposition: wemust merely look around14. Zeus in fact actually ‘speaks’ (k]ceim) tomen15; the Phainomena itself is a ‘sign’ of Zeus’ benevolence, – itcomes in fact as a tejl^qiom (‘evidentiary sign’) from the Muses (v.18) – whereas the Works and Days presents itself as the necessary productof hard times.

The importance of Hesiod for Aratus is, therefore, not in doubt16.The second determinative influence which has been identified in thePhainomena is early Stoicism. The extant Lives make Aratus a pupil ofZeno and a contemporary at the court of Antigonos Gonatas ofZeno’s pupil, Persaios, and it is clear from the scholia that a Stoicisinginterpretation of the poem set in early17. An all-pervasive and beneficentZeus, who can be identified with nature itself, and whose stars functionas helpful signs for mankind seems clearly related to the Stoic cosmicprinciple. Here, however, modern interpretation must tread carefully.We can hardly speak of a firm body of ‘Stoic dogma’ at a date asearly as that normally supposed for the Phainomena18, and the dangerof reading later theory back into the poem is thus a very real one. Nev-ertheless, the risk is worth taking, not merely because a Stoicising read-ing proves (I believe) a fruitful hermeneutic strategy, but also because itis to some extent unavoidable. A complex intertextual relationship, suchas that which Aratus sets up with Hesiod’s Works and Days, is always tosome extent an act of appropriation, of making the earlier text ‘speak’ in

14 For the case where the evidence of our eyes and that of tradition conflicts cf.below.

15 Cf. vv. 7–8 (in programmatic position), 732; weather-signs, as part of Zeus’system, also ‘speak’ (vv. 1048, 1071).

16 The ancient Lives and the Suda, in fact, preserve traces of a scholarly dispute asto whether Aratus was more a zelotes of Homer or of Hesiod; the main thrustof the dispute will have been stylistic (cf. esp. Vita II, p. 12 Martin). For what itis worth, Menecrates of Ephesus, a grammarian whom the Suda makes Aratus’teacher, seems to have written ‘didactic’ poems à la Hesiod (SH 542–50).

17 Cf., e. g., pp. 40–1, 49–50 Martin. The most thoroughgoing, and important,modern Stoicising reading of the poem is that of Erren; I am much indebted tothis work throughout.

18 For a helpful orientation cf. the remarks of D. Sedley in M. Schofield et al.(eds.), Doubt and Dogmatism, Oxford 1980, 4–7.

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certain ways. There are thus clear affinities between this widespreadtechnique of Hellenistic poetry and the manner in which the Stoicsused the evidence of archaic poetry, ‘accommodating’ it to, or seeingin it mythical foreshadowings of, Stoic theory19. Aratus’ use of Hesioddoes not, therefore, have to be specifically ‘Stoic’ in inspiration (al-though it is difficult to explain away all the circumstantial evidence);to ‘read’ Hesiod’s Zeus, for example, as a foreshadowing of intellectualpatterns familiar in Aratus’ own day was a move of a type common inthe poetic tradition – there are very clear examples in, say, Attic tragedy.A Stoicising reading, however, allows us to make the best use of thecomparative texts still extant. It is a lucky chance that the Hymn toZeus of Cleanthes, who succeeded Zeno as head of the Stoic ‘school’,has survived to allow us to see how a nearly contemporary Stoic ‘ac-commodated’ the traditional language and forms of hymnic poetry toa new world-view20. Aratus’ ‘accommodation’ is of a different type,but the subject-matter of his poem invites us to see it in the same tra-dition, and this is what I shall attempt in this paper. Finally, from thepoetic point of view, Aratus’ apparent ‘combination’ of Hesiod withStoicism would be analogous to other standard techniques of mimesis;in particular, Hellenistic poets and their Roman successors constantlyecho both an earlier passage of poetry and the (real or ‘constructed’)source of that earlier passage. Viewed from this perspective, Aratus‘reads’ Hesiod not merely as a forerunner of the Stoics, but as theseed from which they grew.

19 See A. A. Long, ‘Stoic readings of Homer’ in R. Lamberton and J. J. Keaney(eds.), Homer’s Ancient Readers, Princeton 1992, 41–66. Whether or not Stoiccriticism was allegorising in the full sense is not crucial to the present argument;for much valuable information cf. G. W. Most, ‘Cornutus and Stoic allegoresis :a preliminary report’ in ANRW II.36.3 (1989), 2014–65.

20 For Cleanthes’ hymn cf. Hopkinson 131–6; Long/Sedley 1. 326–7, 2. 326–7;A. W. James, ‘The Zeus hymns of Cleanthes and Aratus’, Antichthon 6, 1972,28–38; K. Sier, ‘Zum Zeushymnos des Kleanthes’, in P. Steinmetz (ed.), Bei-tr�ge zur hellenistischen Literatur und ihrer Rezeption in Rom, Stuttgart 1990,93–108; R. Glei, ‘Der Zeushymnus des Kleanthes’, in L. Hagemann and E.Pulsfort (eds.), “Ihr alle aber seid Br�der”. Festschrift f�r A.Th. Khoury zum 60. Ge-burtstag, Würzburg 1990, 577–97.

9. Written in the Stars: 159

2. Cosmic Poetry

For the Stoics, the universe (kosmos) is order (kosmos). The word re-ech-oes through Cleanthes’ hymn21. The earliest poets too were believed tohave written about the development of the universe, and ‘cosmogony’was generally held to be the first subject of poetry22. It is, for example,the subject of the first song of Orpheus, traditionally the first poet23, inthe Argonautica of Apollonius, an epic poem probably composed notlong after the Phainomena. Aratus’ poem is not cosmogonical in thetrue sense, but it is certainly cosmological, and to this extent Aratusevokes the originary voice of the archaic theologos, ‘speaker about thegods’, while writing in a very new mode. Similar literary combinationsabound in the poetry of the third century. Moreover, from a very earlydate, notions of kosmos were closely bound up with the idea of poetryand, particularly, truth in poetry.

In a famous passage of Odyssey 8, Odysseus praises the Phaeacianbard Demodocus:

‘Demodocus, I admire you beyond any man; either it was the Muse whotaught you, daughter of Zeus himself, or else it was Apollo. With whatutter rightness (jat± j|slom) you sing of the fortunes of the Achaeans –all they achieved and suffered and toiled over – as though you yourselfwere there or had talked with one who was! Come, change now to alater theme – the wooden horse and its fashioning (j|slom)… If you re-count all this for me in the fashion it deserves (jat± lo ?qam), then I willtell the world forthwith how the god has blessed you ungrudgingly withthe gift of inspired song’. (Od. 8. 487–98, trans. W. Shewring)

The notion of kosmos in this passage has been much discussed24, but‘proper order’ and ‘sequence’ are certainly of primary importance, asthey are also in the phrase jat± lo ?qam, literally ‘part for part’. This is

21 Note vv. 7, 19, 28.22 Cf. esp. P. R. Hardie, Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford 1986)

Chapter 1. On the history of the word kosmos cf. G. S. Kirk, Heraclitus: TheCosmic Fragments (Cambridge 1954) 311–12, and H. Diller, ‘Der vorphiloso-phische Gebrauch von KOSMOS und KOSMEIN’, in Festschrift Bruno Snell,Munich 1956, 47–60

23 Cf., e. g., Ar. Frogs 1032, Hor. AP 382. On Orpheus’ song (Arg. 1.496–511)cf. my The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies, Cambridge 1993,148–50, 162–3 (with bibliography).

24 I have found the first chapter of G.B. Walsh, The Varieties of Enchantment(Chapel Hill/London 1984) particularly helpful. Cf. also S. Goldhill, ThePoet’s Voice, Cambridge 1991, 57–9.

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even clearer in the following passage from the Homeric Hymn to Hermesin which the young god first sings for Apollo:

‘He sang of the immortal gods and the dark earth, how they came to be inthe first place and how each one was allotted his portion (lo ?qa). First ofthe gods he honoured Mnemosyne in his song, the mother of theMuses, for she had received the son of Maia in her share. Then the gloriousson of Zeus hymned the immortal gods according to their age and he toldhow each was born; he told everything in due order (jat± j|slom) as heplayed the lyre in his arm’. (vv. 427–33)

Here, again in an originating cosmogony, the young god sings first ofthe division (lo ?qa) of powers, and then of each god in turn, jat±

j|slom. Notions of partition and of sequential order are of coursevery closely related, and as the passage from Odyssey 8 suggests, it isin that proper sequential order that the guarantee of truth lies25.These guarantees are a result of the sense that the kosmos of the song re-flects the kosmos of the ‘real world’. This has been well described byGeorge Walsh: ‘kosmos … an order of the world to which song mustcorrespond as representation … kosmos in the song and kosmos of theworld should not differ. The song viewed as an articulation of partsstands for one viewed as a representation of serially ordered facts, forthe true song must reflect the world’s articulation with its own’26. Insinging of the stars and of nature – for the Stoic a perfectly ordered kos-mos – Aratus’ poem is its own guarantee of truth. A poem ‘about thekosmos’ must be a poem jat± j|slom. Moreover, in the Works andDays Aratus had an authorising model which also foregrounded orderand sequence, as Hesiod sets out for us the passage of the year.

The centrality of kosmos in its manifold senses sheds particular lighton two important passages of the Phainomena. The first is the acrosticpassage discovered by J.-M. Jacques (Phain. 783–7)27:

25 I suspect that order and sequence are also relevant to the morphe of words atOd. 8.170 and 11.367 (where truth and falsehood are explicitly involved). Ido not, of course, mean to suggest that kata kosmon and ou kata kosmon alwaysinvolve notions of truth and untruth, cf. further A. W. H. Adkins, CQ 22,1972, 12–14, although Gorgias’ assertion that ‘truth’ is the kosmos of logos(Helen 1) relies, I think, upon a well-established, rather than a paradoxical, no-tion. Relevant also is the assertion of the absurd Ion, ¢r ew jej|slgja t¹m

nlgqom (Pl. Ion 530d), a claim which reverses the traditional language of poetickosmos, and thus underlines Ion’s stupidity.

26 Op. cit. 8–9.27 ‘Sur un acrostiche d’Aratos (‘Phén.’ 783–787)’, REA 62, 1960, 48–61. On

acrostics in general cf. E. Vogt, ‘Das Akrostichon in der griechischen Literatur’,

9. Written in the Stars 161

Keptµ l³m jahaq^ te peq· tq_tom Glaq 1oOsaeudi|r j’ eUg, keptµ d³ ja· ew l\k’ 1qeuhµrpmeulat_g

.paw_ym d³ ja· !lbke_,si jeqa_air

t]tqatom 1j tqit\toio v|yr !lemgm¹m 5wousaA³ m|tou !lbk}met’ C vdator 1cc»r 1|mtor.

If the moon is thin and her light pure on the third day, there will be fineweather; if thin and her light very red, there will be wind; if, however, sheis on the large side and her horns are dull and her light weak on the thirdand fourth nights, she is being dulled by the approach of the South Wind orof rain.

Some years after Jacques’ article, W. Levitan28 identified a further acros-tic in the same area of the poem (vv. 803–6 p÷sa) and, more ten-tatively, a third (partial) acrostic immediately afterwards (vv. 808–12seleg, suggesting sÞma and cognate verbs); recently, Michael Haslamhas refined Levitan’s insight by noting l]sg, ‘mid-way’, split betweenthe openings of vv. 807–829. Whereas Jacques and others30 connectedthe kept^ acrostic solely with the famous kept|tgr of ‘Callimachean’poetry, i. e. had seen it as imitation of Homer (cf. Iliad 24. 1–5) anda programmatic marker of style and nothing more, Levitan rightlysought to make sense of it in terms of the central concerns of thepoem. He noted that it followed very closely upon a passage whichseems to invite us to look for such things (Phain. 768–72)31:

p\mta c±q oupy1j Di¹r %mhqypoi cim~sjolem, !kk’ 5ti pokk±j]jquptai, t_m aU je h]k, ja· 1saut_ja d~sei

Fe}r. b c±q owm cemeµm !mdq_m !mavamd¹m av]kkei

p\mtohem eQd|lemor, p\mtg d’ f ce s^lata va_mym.

A&A 13, 1967, 80–95 and (with good bibliography) E. Courtney, ‘Greek andLatin acrostichs’, Phil. 134, 1990, 3–13.

28 ‘Plexed artistry: Aratean acrostics’, Glyph 5, 1979, 55–68.29 ‘Hidden signs: Aratus Diosemeiai 46 ff., Vergil ‘Georgics’ 1. 424 ff.’, HSCP 94,

1992, 199–204.30 Cf. Vogt art. cit. 83–7 and Courtney art. cit. 10–11. See now R. Scarcia,

‘L’isopsefo di Arato’, in R. Pretagostini (ed.), Tradizione e innovazione nella cul-tura greca da Omero all’et� ellenistica. Scritti in onore di B. Gentili, Rome 1993, III971–80.

31 That the acrostic remained concealed until 1960 merely confirms Aratus’words. On this passage see the helpful exegesis of Erren 255–7. The versesleave room for progress in theoretical and empirical science, because althoughthe ‘signs’ are already present in the kosmos, they do not yet ‘signify’ becausemen have not yet discovered the sign.

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For not yet does Zeus allow us to know all things, but much remains hid-den; if he wishes, Zeus will grant us this too presently, for he openly bringsaid to the race of mortals, appearing on every side, and everywhere reveal-ing his signs.

Moreover, the successful searching out of acrostic patterns recreates theactivity of the anonymous ‘discoverer’ of the constellations who per-ceived the usefulness of joining together those stars which wouldmake meaningful figures (vv. 373–82)32. Just as this ‘discoverer’ re-vealed patterns which had always been there, and were ‘put there bygod’, so a reader discovers meaningful ‘signs’ in the apparent ran-domness of the first letters of a succession of hexameters. The notionof kosmos now allows us to carry Levitan’s important insight further.The words which are used to describe the heavenly bodies —kept|r

‘fine’, jahaq|r ‘pure’ (e. g. 383, 783) paw}r ‘fat’ – seem to have beenused as descriptions of poetic style in contemporary literary debate;this is most famously attested in the literary polemics of Callimachus33.By this device, poetry and its subject are seen to be symmetrical, illus-trating the reciprocal kosmos which I have already discussed. Even if wewish to deny that Aratus’ choice of language carries a programmaticcharge in the context of contemporary poetry, – and both chronologyand a dearth of other comparative evidence make the matter at best un-certain34 —, the acrostic shows us how the pattern of the universe is re-flected in the pattern of the poem. The stars are literally in the poem,and vice versa. Manilius too employs a related strategy in his Astronomica,a massive Stoic poem in which the regularity of heavenly movements isa central theme and in which there is an important, if shifting, relation-ship between the ordo visible in the skies and the ordo inscribed by thepoet in his poem.

The second passage which I wish to discuss under this head is Ara-tus’ explicit refusal to give an account of the planets. The passage forms

32 On the problems of this passage cf. D. A. Kidd, ‘The pattern of Phaenomena367–385’, Antichthon 1, 1967, 12–15, and M. L. B. Pendergraft, ‘On the na-ture of the constellations: Aratus, Ph. 367–85’, Eranos 88, 1990, 99–106. Pen-dergraft’s interesting discussion rather overstates the ‘inconsistency’ between thenamer’s rôle and that of Zeus.

33 For leptos cf. fr. 1.24 (leptaleos); for katharos, H. 2.111; for pachys fr. 398.34 The very ‘untechnical’ vagueness of these terms of approbation and disapproval

is crucial to the teasing way in which Callimachus uses them, cf. my Apolloniusof Rhodes, Argonautica Book III, Cambridge 1989, 37.

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a transition between the description of the individual fixed stars and thatof the four celestial circles (Phain. 454–61):

oR d’ 1pil·n %kkoi p]mt’ !st]qer oqd³m blo ?oip\mtohem eQd~kym duoja_deja dime}omtai.oqj #m 5t’ eQr %kkour bq|ym 1pitejl^qaioje_mym Hwi j]omtai, 1pe· p\mter letam\stai.lajqo· d] sve~m eQsim 2kissol]mym 1miauto_,lajq± d³ s^lata je ?tai !p|pqohem eQr 4m Q|mtym,oqd’ 5ti haqsak]or je_mym 1c½ %qjior eUgm!pkam]ym t\ te j}jka t\ t’ aQh]qi s^lata’ 1mispe ?m.

Mixed with them are five other stars, in no way like them as they whirl allthrough the twelve figures [of the Zodiac]. Not by looking at other starscould you mark the paths of these, since all move about. Long are the pe-riods of their revolutions, and very far apart the signs of their conjunc-tions35. Of them I have no longer confidence: may I be competent totell of the circles of the fixed stars and the signs in heaven.

In this praeteritio Aratus alludes to a notoriously difficult astronomicalproblem36, the discussion of which would certainly not be in keepingwith the style and level of the rest of the poem. There is, of course,no reason to see here a serious and rather embarrassing admission of as-tronomical incompetence37: the planets (excluding the sun and themoon) are not in fact relevant to an account of star- and weather-signs intended (at least notionally) to be of use to farmers and sailors38.This, however, does not explain why Aratus chose to call attention tohis ‘omission’ in such a prominent and striking way. Part at least ofthe explanation, I suggest, lies in the notion of kosmos. Although theplanets are, of course, as much a part of the universe as are the fixedstars – indeed they are much more influential ‘signs’ according to certainancient views – Aratus stresses their ‘uncertainty’ in order to emphasisethe fixed certainty of what he actually does describe. Put very loosely,the planets lack kosmos.

35 On this difficult verse see Kidd’s note ad loc.36 For Eudoxus’ solution cf. Arist. Met. k 1073b 17–32 (= Eudoxus D6 Lasserre).37 Aratus seems in fact to have dealt with the planets in another work (probably a

poem), the lost Kanon (= SH 90), cf. E. Maass, Aratea, Berlin 1892, 219–20,Kidd’s note on v. 460.

38 Cf., e. g., Ludwig 439–40, followed by Effe, Dichtung und Lehre (n. 14 above)41 n. 8. For a rather different emphasis cf. Erren 155–6.

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The passage on the planets is introduced by verses which stress eter-nal and regular recurrence in the face of moving time (Phain. 451–3):

taOt\ je hg^saio paqeqwol]mym 1miaut_m2ne_gr pak_myqa .

t± c±q ja· p\mta l\k’ avtyroqqam` ew 1m\qgqem !c\klata mujt¹r Qo}sgr.

These stars you can see returning in orderly succession as the years pass, forall these images are very firmly fixed in the heaven through the movingnight.

You cannot, however, use the other stars to find the planets because thelatter are all metanastai, ‘vagrants’. Not only can the poet and his readersnot be ‘confident’ (v. 460) where to look to see the planets, but thesame verse also suggests that they are not the kind of signs which inspireconfidence that we can read them39. We may compare vv. 1142–4where we are told that the congruence of two weather-signs brings‘hope’ (1kpyq^) and of three ‘confidence’ (h\qsor). It is, after all,god’s benevolence that both gives us signs and allows us to read themand to act upon our reading. Confidence comes from the repeated pat-tern (kosmos) of successful ‘sign-reading’; in this, the argument runs, theplanets fail us. Such an interpretation anchors the passage firmly withinthe limited bounds of Aratus’ ‘didactic program’; poets, after all, onlyuse an explicit praeteritio for subjects they do not wish to pass by. It isstriking that in his Hymn to Zeus Cleanthes too contrasts the fixed kosmosof nature with the mad changeability and rush of the kakoi, the ‘badmen’:

‘[Reason, logos] is shunned and neglected by the bad among mortal men,the wretched, who ever yearn for the possession of goods yet neither seenor hear god’s universal law, by obeying which they could lead a goodlife in partnership with intelligence. Instead, devoid of intelligence, theyrush into this evil or that, some in their belligerent quest for fame, otherswith an unbridled bent for acquisition, others for leisure and the pleasurableacts of the body … <But all that they achieve is evils,> despite travellinghither and thither in burning quest of the opposite. (Cleanthes, Hymn toZeus 22–31, trans. Long & Sedley)

The kakoi are, of course, very different from Aratus’ planets, but the twoplay structurally related roles in their respective poems; both carry the

39 The unusual genitive after haqsak]or (cf. Erren 302) helps the double sensehere. Kidd compares sov¹r jaj_m at Aesch. Suppl. 453; there, however,%idqir in the same verse is a crucial influence.

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rejected weight of change and disorder. For an astronomer, the difficul-ty of explaining the movement of the planets was not a serious threat tothe idea of an ordered universe, but within the rhetoric of his poemAratus gives their ‘quirkiness’ a particular importance.

Finally, the passage on the planets also finds an instructive parallel inthe archaic poem which we have seen to be central for the Phainomena,namely Hesiod’s Works and Days. The catalogue of ‘days’ concludeswith a brief glance at the days which have not been mentioned (WD822–5, trans. M.L. West):

aVde l³m Bl]qai eQs·m 1piwhom_oir l]c’ emeiaq .

aR d’ %kkai let\doupoi, !j^qioi, ou ti v]qousai.%kkor d’ !kko_gm aQme ?, paOqoi d³ Usasim.%kkote lgtquiµ p]kei Bl]qg, %kkote l^tgq.

These are the days that are of great benefit for men on earth. The rest aredays of changeable omen, doomless, with nothing to offer. Different peoplecommend different sorts of day, but few know that among those ones‘sometimes a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother’.

Interpretation of these verses is disputed, but there seems to be a centralcontrast between days about which something certain can be said, i. e.the days of Hesiod’s catalogue (vv. 768–81), and days which ‘give anuncertain sound’, which may turn out good or bad, and are thereforenot suitable material for ‘didactic poetry’. Hesiod’s poem ends (WD826–8) with an affirmation of the power of knowledge to overcomeuncertainty, an uncertainty that is a central principle of men’s lives(WD 483–4). That knowledge, and the power to offer it to others, isprecisely what the poet claims for himself 40. Aratus’ poem carries thisclaim further by eliminating uncertainty not only from the poem, butalso from the world itself.

3. Authority and Truth

How and if poets spoke ‘the truth’ is a central concern of both the ex-plicit and the implicit poetics of the Greek world from the earliest days.The history of this concern has often been written, and need not be re-

40 Who better fits the prescription of the final three verses of WD than the poethimself ? Notice the echo of these Hesiodic verses in Archestratus’ ‘didactic’ cu-linary poem (SH 169.4–5).

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peated here. Certain key periods in the history of this debate must,however, be identified, in order to allow Aratus’ exploitation of this tra-dition properly to be appreciated.

The Muses who appeared to Hesiod famously told him (Theog.26–8, trans. M.L. West),

poil]mer %cqaukoi, j\j’ 1k]cwea, cast]qer oWom,Udlem xe}dea pokk± k]ceim 1t}loisim blo ?a,Udlem d’ ewt’ 1h]kylem !kgh]a cgq}sashai.

‘Shepherds that camp in the wild, disgraces, merest bellies:we know to tell many lies that sound like truth,but we know to sing reality, when we will’

but more important here than the explicit declaration of the HesiodicMuses is the way in which the poet presents himself in the Works andDays. The authority of what Hesiod says in that poem stems from theauthority invested in the traditional poetic form which he employs41,from the autobiographical mode of the poem – Hesiod knows thesethings, because he has experienced them – and from the Muses42. Allthree come together in a perhaps unexpected way when Hesiod turnsto instructions about sailing:

‘When you want to escape debt and joyless hunger by turning your blight-witted heart to trade, I will show you the measure of the resounding sea –quite without instruction as I am in seafaring or in ships; for as to ships, Ihave never yet sailed the broad sea, except to Euboea from Aulis, the waythe Achaeans once came when they waited through the winter and gath-ered a great army from holy Greece against Troy of the fair women.There to the funeral games for warlike Amphidamas and to Chalcis Icrossed, and many were the prizes announced and displayed by the sonsof that valiant; where I may say that I was victorious in poetry and wona tripod with ring handles. That I dedicated to the Muses of Helicon, inthe original place where they set me on the path of fine singing. That isall my experience of dowelled ships, but even so I will tell the design ofZeus the aegis-bearer, since the Muses have taught me to make song with-out limit.’ (WD 646–62, trans. M.L. West)

41 See the survey in West’s edition pp. 3–25.42 For Hesiod’s ‘autobiography’ cf. G. W. Most, ‘Hesiod and the textualisation of

personal temporality’ in G. Arrighetti and F. Montanari (eds.), La componente au-tobiografica nella poesia greca e latina, fra realt� e artificio letterario, Pisa 1991, 73–92;for Hesiod and the Muses in the context of later ‘didactic’ poetry cf. now A.Barchiesi, Il poeta e il principe. Ovidio e il discorso augusteo, Roma-Bari 1994,171–5.

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Here is an explicit claim for the didactic role of the poet in areas wherethe poet has no personal expertise43. The idea, of course, is not far fromthe blind Demodocus’ ability to tell well events at Troy, ‘as though hehimself had been there or had heard from another who had’ (Od. 8.491), but the Hesiodic passage marks an important statement of pro-gram, particularly when viewed from the perspective of later ages. Plu-tarch indeed excised vv. 650–62 from Hesiod’s poem as containing‘nothing of value’ (oqd³m wqgst|m)44, and Horace amusingly carriedthe Hesiodic position to its ‘logical’ conclusion in the Ars Poetica,where he undertakes to teach poetry, though he himself cannot be apoet because he is sane and therefore lacks the principal prerequisiteof the poet (vv. 301–8)45. Although Aratus does not emulate the Hes-iodic importance attached to the autobiography of the poet as an au-thorising mode – perhaps because this would ill suit the Stoicising stresson the centrality of the fixed order of nature in which no individual isparticularly important – it will become clear that the Hesiodic traditionis here, as everywhere, crucial for the Hellenistic poet. In fact, the gapwhich the Hesiodic verses opened allowed philosophers and ‘experts’eventually to drive poets from the field.

Whereas Parmenides and Empedocles had continued in the Hesio-dic mode of using hexameters to offer access to truth and the avoidanceof deceit46, the twin developments of prose writing and the idea of in-tellectual specialisation have always been seen as sounding the deathknell for truly ‘didactic’ poetry. It was not, of course, that the use ofmetre alone was sufficient to condemn a text to the realm of ‘fancifulpoetry’; the substance of what was written remained crucial. ThusPlato (Theaetetus 152e) can make a distinction between oR sovo_ (Parme-nides, Protagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles) and oR poigta_ (Epicharmus,

43 R. M. Rosen has recently, and to my mind unconvincingly, interpreted theseverses ‘programmatically’, in the context of Hesiod’s creation of his own poeticspace vis-à-vis Homer, cf. ‘Poetry and sailing in Hesiod’s Works and Days’, CA9, 1990, 99–113.

44 Plutarch, fr. 84 Sandbach, from the scholion to the passage.45 AP 307–8, unde parentur opes, quid alat formetque poetam, / quid deceat, quid non,

quo uirtus, quo ferat error, are distinctively ‘didactic’ in style and serve as a genericmarker, cf. , e. g., Verg. Georg. 1.1 ff, R. D. Brown, HSCP 93, 1990, 315–21.

46 Cf., e. g., Parmenides fr. 10, Empedocles frr. 1.9, 17.14, 23.9–11, 111, 114.For a brief (and incomplete) account of Aratus’ use of Empedocles cf. A. Trag-lia, ‘Reminiscenze empedoclee nei Fenomeni di Arato’, in Miscellanea di studialessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni, Turin 1963, 382–93.

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Homer), a distinction which clearly does not depend upon the use ofmetre, and Aristotle denied metre almost any significance in determin-ing who was and was not a poet (Poetics Chapter 1, on Homer and Em-pedocles)47; for Aristotle, ‘didactic poets’ were either theologoi (e. g. Hes-iod) or physiologoi (e. g. Empedocles) or even (Met. N 4, 1091b 8) ‘partlytheologoi’, depending on the mode of discourse used. Nevertheless, theclaim of ‘metrically defined’ poetry to convey ‘useful information’came under attack from a number of directions, most famously fromPlato’s assault on the lack of knowledge of first the rhapsode and thenthe poet himself (Ion, Republic 10). It was the pleasure and sense ofbeing charmed that we derive from poetry, as defined metrically, thatmade its lies so dangerous for Plato, and he ingeniously demandedthat ‘the friends of the poets’ should defend its usefulness ‘without theaid of metre’ (Rep. 10.607d-e). It is both interesting and amusing tofind Hipparchus precisely blaming the charm (charis) of Aratus’ versesfor their general success in convincing people of their truth (1.1.7);this ‘Platonic’ tradition in the attack upon ‘didactic poetry’ is what Lu-cretius turns on its head when he uses the simile of the honeyed cupproudly to advertise the use of poetic charm for serious philosophic pur-poses (DRN 1.935–50 = 4.11–25). Manilius too gives the old charge anew twist in introducing the very technical third book of his Astronomica(Astr. 3.38–9):

impendas animum; nec dulcia carmina quaeras:ornari res ipsa negat contenta doceri.

Apply your mind to understand and seek not poetry that beguiles: mytheme of itself precludes adornment, content but to be taught. (trans.G.P. Goold)

From roughly the same time as Plato’s attack on the poets survives a ser-ies of prose ‘handbooks’, technai, which shed important light upon de-veloping notions of written authority48.

47 Cf. S. Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle, London 1987, 71; ‘Empedocles’ versewritings [are cited] to represent the use of language for directly affirmative pur-poses – any use of language, that is, which purports to offer true statements orpropositions about some aspect of reality.’ Cf. below on poetry’s generalisingpower.

48 The standard discussion is M. Fuhrmann, Das systematische Lehrbuch, Göttingen1960, which is, however, not particularly helpful on the issues discussed here.

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I wish here to focus upon two issues in these handbooks which areimportant for a consideration of the Phainomena, namely the problem ofthe author’s knowledge, and the scope of a ‘didactic’ work.

Whereas the so-called Rhetoric to Alexander49 and Xenophon’s Hip-parchikos (On the Cavalry Commander) begin in mediis rebus and authorityrests presumably both upon the nature of the work itself and the knownposition of the author,50 Xenophon begins his Peri Hippikes (On Horse-riding) with an appeal to his long experience of the art and his desire topass on the fruits of this knowledge to his philoi51. Here we can sense adesire to avoid the persona of ‘professional specialist’, a desire confirmedby the claim at the end of the work that it is directed towards the needsof the ordinary rider, the idiotes52. Xenophon is keen to set his workwithin the traditional frame of aristocratic philia, a frame which couldbe represented as threatened by newer, more ‘professional’, sources ofknowledge. This analysis is, I think, confirmed by the closing sectionsof the same writer’s Kynegetikos (On Hunting). At the end of Chapter 12Xenophon adopts what may reasonably be called a Hesiodic voice:

‘For among the ancients the companions of Cheiron to whom I referredlearnt many noble lessons in their youth, beginning with hunting; fromthese lessons there sprang in them great virtue (arete), for which they areadmired even today. That all desire Virtue is obvious, but because theymust toil if they are to gain her, the many fall away. For the achievementof her is hidden in obscurity, whereas the toils inseparable from her aremanifest. … But in the presence of Virtue men do many evil and uglythings, supposing that they are not regarded by her because they do notsee her. Yet she is present everywhere because she is immortal, and shehonours those who are good to her, but casts off the bad. Therefore, ifmen knew that she is watching them, they would be impatient to undergo

On specifically rhetorical handbooks see T. Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in An-cient Greece, Baltimore-London 1991.

49 I exclude the spurious prefatory letter.50 This in fact becomes the standard form, cf., e. g., the second-century grammat-

ical t�chne of Dionysius Thrax; a related form is found in the fragmentary tech-nical treatises of Theophrastus.

51 Ovid uses precisely the same rhetoric in his didactic mode, cf. AA 1.29, ususopus mouet hoc: uati parete perito, 3.791–2. The identity of Xenophon’s youngphiloi is disputed (cf. K. Widdra, Xenophon. Reitkunst, Berlin 1965, 72; Delebec-que, Budé edition, pp. 10–12), but it is the language of philia which is impor-tant for present purposes.

52 This final sentence is omitted in one of our two best witnesses to the text, andwas condemned by Wilamowitz (Hermes 40, 1905, 146–7), but is defended(though for different reasons) by both Delebecque and Widdra. The consider-ations adduced here may also be thought to tell in its favour.

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the toils and the discipline by which she is hardly to be captured, and wouldachieve her’ (On Hunting 12.18–19, 21–2, trans. Marchant).

After this passage, which looks back to Hesiod’s Arete, ‘in front of whichthe immortal gods have placed sweat, and a long, steep path, rough atfirst, leads to it’ (WD 289–91), but also seems to anticipate Aratus’watching Dike, the concluding chapter of the work is an attack uponsophistai who, while professing to teach arete, write books on silly sub-jects full of ‘empty pleasures’ but no arete ; if they teach anything, it isbad. Xenophon then goes on:

‘I am a layman (idiotes), but I know (oWda) that the best thing is to be taughtwhat is good by one’s own nature, and the next best thing is to get it fromthose who really know something good instead of being taught by mastersof the art of deception. I daresay that I do not express myself in the lan-guage of a sophist (sesovisl]myr); in fact, that is not my object: my objectis rather to give utterance to wholesome thoughts that will meet the needsof readers well educated in virtue. … For I wish my work not to seem use-ful, but to be so, that it may stand for all time unrefuted. The sophists talkto deceive and write for their own gain, and do no good to anyone’ (OnHunting 13.4–5, 7–8, trans. Marchant, modified).

Xenophon solves the problem of how to present his ‘technical’ knowl-edge of hunting, a knowledge he is keen to display, without incurringthe odium of being a ‘professional’, by distinguishing between kinds ofart. He can be an ‘expert’ in a ‘good art’ and remain an idiotes who doesnot write sesovisl]myr. The use of the words has changed, but the Hes-iodic inheritance is manifest. Both the care taken by Xenophon’s rhet-oric and the obvious vulnerability of his didactic position point to theimportance of the issues involved. To anticipate somewhat, one ofthe most telling aspects of the Phainomena is the complete elision ofthis traditional didactic rhetoric of truth and deceit. Aratus imposes atotal system upon us; deceit is not a possibility because what is describedis t± vaim|lema

53. How different are both the task and the rhetoric ofLucretius who must argue from the seen to the unseen and appealtime and again to naturae species ratioque (DRN 1.148)54. The second

53 Cf. the remarks of Erren 152–3.54 It will be clear that I cannot agree with the characterisation of Aratus’ Phaino-

mena in the opening chapter (devoted to Lucretius) of G. B. Conte, Generi eLettori (Milan 1991 = Genres and Readers, Baltimore 1994). For Conte, Aratus’poem is ‘un brillante gioco tecnico- artistico’ (p. 19) in which the style and vir-tuosity of the text work against its contents; he contrasts the (undoubted) ‘in-tegralità di significazione’ in Lucretius’ poem. As the previous section of this

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issue of importance which the handbooks raise is that of completeness.The Rhetoric to Alexander begins by sub-dividing the topic to be dis-cussed, a strategy which becomes standard in such works and is obvious-ly designed to convey a sense of the completeness of the knowledgebeing offered55; the author then undertakes to discuss the sub-divisionsone- by-one (jahû 4m 6jastom). In On Horse-riding Xenophon notes thathe will cover much the same ground as an existing treatise by oneSimon, but he will also fill in all the gaps (‘I shall attempt to illuminateall that he has omitted’, 1.1), and in On Hunting, he undertakes to give afull account of each piece of equipment needed (2.2). In On the CavalryCommander, however, he finds it necessary to deny both the wish forand the possibility of ‘omnicomprehensiveness’:

‘[the cavalry commander] must always act upon what chance offers56, andwith his eyes on the current situation, work towards what is advantageous.To give a written account of all he must do is no more possible than toknow all of the future …’ (On the Cavalry Commander 9.1–2).

Here, as before, we can see Xenophon caught between the conflictingdemands of the old and the new. Elsewhere in the same treatise he fol-lows general hypomnemata (‘pieces of advice’) with the full details (6ja-sta), quite in the manner of the rhetorical treatises57. So too in his Con-stitution of the Spartans, which begins ‘unprofessionally’ with a kind ofchance intellectual curiosity (‘Once upon a time it occurred to me …and I fell to wondering …’)58, order, sequence and completeness are

paper has, I hope, demonstrated, Aratus has his own ‘integralità di significa-zione’, different though it is from Lucretius’. The virtuoso Hellenistic style isitself a manifestation of control and ordering, of kosmos. Conte’s view of Aratusis, of course, the standard one; cf. , e. g., Farrell (above n. 11) 328, ‘[the Phai-nomena] makes its philosophical subject the paradoxical foil for its poetic qual-ities’.

55 Cf. Aristotle’s criticism of earlier writers of technai for their lack of complete-ness, Rhet. 1. 1354a 11–16. The ‘apotheosis’ of this strategy is to be foundin the Rhetorica ad Herrenium which impresses its omnicomprehensivenessupon us throughout the work; cf. the excellent survey of E. Rawson, ‘The in-troduction of logical organisation in Roman prose literature’, PBSR 46, 1978,12–34 (= Roman Culture and Society. Collected Papers, Oxford 1991, 324–51).

56 Or ‘come up with what happens to meet the situation’, reading 1mmoe?m (Mad-vig) for poie?m.

57 Cf. 1.9, 3.158 Contrast the Poroi which begins with an unapologetic announcement of sys-

tematic enquiry. Clearly, the Xenophontic corpus contains different kinds ofwork, which must be distinguished (by audience?).

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overtly exhibited59. There is, then, a ‘rhetoric of completeness’ in thehandbooks, which may be compared with Thucydides’ claim (5.26.1)to give a fully detailed account of the Peloponnesian war, ¢r 6jasta

1c]meto, a claim which is clearly of a piece with the presentation ofhis work as ‘serious history’ in comparison with the entertaining dis-play-pieces of others (1.22). It should not now surprise us to find Hip-parchus using precisely the same ‘rhetoric of completeness’ in the intro-duction to his account of the failings of Eudoxus and Aratus (1.1.9–11).

Aratus uses a form of praeteritio to explain the lack of comprehen-siveness in his account of weather-signs (Phain. 1036–7):

t_ toi k]cy fssa p]komtai

s^lat’ 1p’ !mhq~pour ;

Why should I tell of all the signs available to men?

There are so many signs in nature that it would be impossible to tellthem all, and in any case Aratus wants us to observe for ourselves andto find our own ‘signs’. As so often, however, we may connect a featureof the Phainomena both with Aratus’ philosophical project and with thetradition of ‘didactic poetry’, for lack of completeness has always pre-sented a problem for anyone wishing to understand poetic didaxis inany simple way. Thus, for example, Malcolm Heath60 has adducedthe ‘astonishingly lacunose’ information in the Works and Days as an ar-gument against seeing it as seriously ‘intended to instruct’. This argu-ment is, I believe, open to many objections61, but the observation of po-etry’s ‘incompleteness’ does throw light upon the poetic didactic mode,if we connect the ‘rhetoric of completeness’ in Thucydides and thehandbooks with Aristotle’s distinction between history and (mimetic)poetry. History deals with individual details in a chronological sequence,t± jahû 6jastom (Poetics 1451b 6–7). Mimetic poetry, however, dealswith the general, t± jah|kou, and is ‘more philosophical than history’,not merely because it tells of events linked by a causal nexus of necessityor probability, but also because we can extrapolate from, say, the fate ofOedipus to analogous possible occurrences in our own lives. Expanding

59 Cf. 1.3, 2.1, 5.1, 11.1, 12.7 (the fact that the Spartans overlook nothing in mili-tary matters accounts for the length of Xenophon’s work, which also by impli-cation ‘overlooks nothing’).

60 ‘Hesiod’s didactic poetry’, CQ 35, 1985, 245–63.61 Not least on the grounds of what is meant by ‘instruction’, cf. below.

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upon Aristotle, we can note that the prominent gnomic element in po-etry, which enables verses to be lifted out of their original context andapplied to wholly new situations or taken to express general truths ratherthan specific, character-bound attitudes, encourages such extrapolation;this is indeed what lies at the base of ancient and modern practices ofanthologising. Such transfer is in fact explicitly encouraged in Plutarch’streatise How the Young Man Should Study Poetry, where the Stoic Chrys-ippus is in fact cited as a precedent (and Hesiod is the poet concerned)62.The way in which we should approach the question of comprehensive-ness in (non-mimetic) ‘didactic poetry’ is, I suggest, analogous to Aris-totle’s treatment of mimetic poetry. If a poet tells us how to make aplough, it would be foolish to believe that we can extrapolate fromthis to the detailed carpentry necessary for a wagon. On the otherhand, the plough, the work involved in making it, and the moral con-ditions which make it necessary, can stand, pars pro toto, as exemplaryof the total working conditions of the farmer. ‘Didactic poetry’ does nothave to be comprehensive to be ‘didactic’. It gives us examples, exem-plary signs, from which we will be able to take our starting-point. Thehandbook, on the other hand, seeks to offer us a complete techne ; inusing the handbook, we give up active participation in the acquisition(or confirmation) of knowledge and entrust ourselves to the guidanceof an expert63. Aratus was not, as Eudoxus was, an expert astronomer.I have noted before that there is no good reason to think that Aratusever sought to conceal his debt to the scientist. Indeed, in an agewhen not only the specialisation of knowledge had triumphed, but –and this was an important factor in that triumph – gknowledge’ wasnow contained in books and catalogued in libraries, the use of expertwritten sources was the only way in which the poet could satisfactorilymeet the ‘How do you know?’ challenge. An Eratosthenes could beboth an expert and (in a small way) a poet, but that was exceptional.Aratus, on the other hand, was an ‘expert’ or ‘professional’ poet, andpart of his expertise lay in knowing where to find things out; like Cal-limachus, he can still appeal to the Muses (vv. 16–18), but the Muses

62 Mor. 34b. It would be rash to assume that Chrysippus’ concerns here were thesame as Plutarch’s ; was the philosopher attempting a joke?

63 Here again (cf. above) we can see an important difference between Aratus andNicander who promises completeness (Ther. 837), even if that promise is unful-filled (cf. Effe op. cit. 61 n. 12).

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were now to be found in libraries64. Plato might not have been satisfiedwith Aratus’ solution, but Hipparchus acknowledges that it might notbe fair to attack Aratus for what were Eudoxus’ mistakes (1.1.8). The‘versifying’ of prose treatises is not inherently an idle game, but is atbase a serious response to a crucial question of poetics. Aratus, of course,was not alone. Whereas Apollonius’ Orpheus is given the characteristicsof an archaic theologos, his blind prophet Phineus speaks the language ofdidactic as he gives an account of Pontic geography, and he naturallyrelies upon written, prose sources65. Callimachus went further in theAitia and sometimes named his prose sources66, a difference which isperhaps as much one of genre as of poetic judgement, but which throwsa final light upon Aratus’ procedure. The constellations were ‘discov-ered’ and named long ago by a nameless man of high intellect(vv. 373–82). In these purely informational terms, Aratus has nothingof his own to contribute, not because he knows nothing of astronomy,but because the truth of what he sings is self-evident, once someone hastaught us where to look. This is Aratus’ other response to the ‘How doyou know?’ challenge: everyone knows – or could do, if they werewilling to read god’s signs.

4. The Stars Look Down

Stars are inescapable, and as such collect an extensive mythology. Inmany cultures they have been regarded as the eyes of god67, and at anearly date Greeks adopted catasterism as an explanation for the presenceof some stars at least. A remark by a character in Aristophanes’ Peace,

64 On the importance of books to third- century poetry in general cf. P. Bing, TheWell-Read Muse, Göttingen 1988.

65 On Phineus cf. my The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies, Cambridge1993, 90–5. For the sources of this passage cf. U. Hoefer, ‘Pontosvölker,Ephoros und Apollonios von Rhodos’, RhM 5, 1904, 542–64; L. Pearson,‘Apollonios of Rhodes and the old geographers’, AJP 59, 1938, 443–59; P.Desideri, ‘Studi di storia eracleota’, SCO 16, 1967, 366–416. In view of theconsiderations raised here, it is perhaps tempting to associate Phineus’ disclaimerof ‘comprehensiveness’ (Arg. 2.311–16, 388–91) with the didactic mode; forthe other considerations operative there cf. Hunter loc. cit.

66 Frr. 75.54 (Xenomedes) and (?) 92 (Leandros). Fr. 75.55 and 76 show Callli-machus playing with the ‘truth’ of his source.

67 Cf. R. Pettazzoni, The All-Knowing God, London 1956, Index s.v. stars; W.Deonna, Le symbolisme de l’oeil, Paris 1965, 258–70.

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‘Isn’t it true what they say, that we become stars in the sky when wedie?’ (vv. 830–2) points to a popular folklore belief; perhaps it iswhat mothers told their young children. In any event, the idea thatthe psyche escaped to the upper air after death was a familiar one atleast as early as the fifth century,68 and the popular imagination presum-ably contrived many aetiologies for these objects of wonder69. The ideathat the stars are ‘heaven’s eyes’ is prominent in an epigram which maybe roughly contemporary with Aratus, though it is ascribed to Plato70:

!st]qar eQsahqe ?r, !stµq 1l|r . eUhe cemo_lgmoqqam|r, ¢r pokko ?r fllasim eQr s³ bk]py.

‘You look at the stars, my star. Would that I were the heaven, so that Icould gaze at you with many eyes’.

At a quite different intellectual level, the Platonic Socrates sees the pur-pose of formal astronomy as the pursuit of ‘truth’, not (or not impor-tantly) to provide weather information for ‘farmers, sailors and gener-als’71. Thus, at an early date, the existence and regularity of movementof the heavenly bodies became a standard argument in philosophy forthe existence of god or gods – we find it used later by the Stoics72 –and it is to philosophical texts of the fourth century that we owe impor-tant elaborations of these ideas about the stars. Two Platonic texts areparticularly relevant. In the Epinomis, a work emanating from ‘Platoniccircles’, we find the notion of stars as living beings which distinguish thegood and the bad among us and which report to the gods everythingthat happens on earth (985a-b)73. In the Timaeus, the fixed stars are eter-nal divine beings (40b), and to each was assigned by the demiurge a soulwhich rides upon it ‘as on a chariot’ (41e). After death the just man re-turns to his own star, whereas the bad man goes through successive de-

68 Cf. Euripides, Suppl. 532–6, Helen 1013–16; Alexis fr. 163 K-A; E. Rohde,Psyche, Tübingen 1898, II 384 n. 2, 387 n. 1; R. Lattimore, Themes in Greekand Latin Epitaphs, Urbana 1962, 31–4.

69 Note that Phain. 382 ‘no more does any star rise to our amazement (rp¹ ha}-lati)’ is deliberately paradoxical : all stars rise ‘to our amazement’, but not in thespecialised context which Aratus evokes.

70 Anth. Pal. 7.669 = ‘Plato’, Epigram 1 Page.71 Rep. 7.527d-e.72 Cf. Cicero, ND 2.12–15 (= Long/Sedley 54 C [Cleanthes]).73 On this text cf. M.P. Nilsson, ‘The origin of belief among the Greeks in the

divinity of the heavenly bodies’, HTR 33, 1940, 1–8.

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generative metamorphoses until he finds the right path again (42b-d).Here, then, as in the proverbial ‘eye of Justice’ attested already in thefifth century74, the existence of the stars acts as a protreptic to Justice,an idea which we shall find elaborated in Aratus. Finally, as the later cul-mination of these developments, we may note an account in Plutarch ofthe thoughts of Arion as he is carried to safety by the dolphins:

‘At the same time, observing that the sky was dotted with stars, and themoon was rising bright and clear, while the sea everywhere was withouta wave as if a path were being opened for their course, he bethought him-self that the eye of Justice is not a single eye only, but through all these eyesof hers God watches in every direction the deeds that are done here andthere both on land and on the sea’. (Moralia 161e-f, trans. F.C. Babbitt)

It is along the line that leads from Plato to Plutarch that Aratus is to besituated.

The most familiar reflection of these ideas in a non-technical con-text is the prologue of Plautus’ Rudens, an adaptation of a play of Diphi-lus from (?) the late fourth century75. The prologue is delivered by Arc-turus who explains the rôle of the stars to us (Rudens 6–21):

noctu sum in caelo clarus atque inter deos,inter mortalis ambulo interdius.at alia signa de caelo ad terram accidunt:qui est imperator diuom atque hominum Iuppiter,is nos per gentis alios alia disparatqui facta hominum moresque, pietatem et fidemnoscamus, ut quemque adiuuet opulentia.qui falsas litis falsis testimoniispetunt quique in iure abiurant pecuniam,eorum referimus nomina exscripta ad Iouem;cottidie ille scit quis hic quaerat malum:qui hic litem apisci postulant peiiuriomali, res falsas qui impetrant apud iudicem,iterum ille eam rem iudicatam iudicat;maiore multa multat quam litem auferunt.bonos in aliis tabulis exscriptos habet.

74 Cf. Soph. fr. 12 Radt; Livrea on Cercidas fr. 1.12. Although ‘god’s eye’ is nor-mally singular in Greek, Aeschylus offers four exceptions (Ag. 520–1, 776–8,Suppl. 812–13, Eum. 970–1 with Sommerstein’s note).

75 On the relevant verses see E. Fraenkel, ‘The stars in the prologue of the Ru-dens’, CQ 36, 1942, 10–14 [= Kleine Beitr�ge II 37–44].

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An attempt to distinguish what is Greek and what Roman here is notgermane to the present enquiry; moreover, the ‘sinners’ of vv. 13–14suggest both the complaints of Hesiod about his brother and the‘bribe-devouring basileis’ and the world of the Roman law-court.What rather is crucial is the link, found already in Plato, between thestars and the maintenance of justice. In a famous passage of the Phaino-mena Aratus tells a story, a logos, in which Dike is literally a star, and so itis worth going back to the Works and Days, the central Greek text ondike and the central model for Aratus, to see whether we can see herea further case where Aratus has run Hesiod and later thought together.

Hesiod’s strongest argument for the practice of justice is the impos-sibility of escaping Zeus’ eye:

‘You too, my lords, attend to this justice-doing of yours. For close at handamong men there are immortals taking note of all those who afflict eachother with crooked judgements, heedless of the gods’ punishment. Thricecountless are they on the rich-pastured earth, Zeus’ immortal watchers(phylakes) of mortal men, who watch over judgements and wickedness,clothed in darkness, travelling about the land on every road. And there isthat maiden Right (Dike), daughter of Zeus, esteemed and respected bythe gods in Olympus; and whenever someone does her down withcrooked abuse, at once she sits by Zeus her father, Kronos’ son, and reportsthe men’s unrighteous mind, so that the people may pay for the crimes oftheir lords who balefully divert justice from its course by pronouncing itcrooked.’ (WD 248–62, trans. M.L. West)

Dike is not one of the ‘countless immortal guardians’, but such an idea isat least not a very bold move from the Hesiodic text. Moreover, if Dikeis to be made a star, as in Aratus’ myth, then perhaps Aratus ‘read’ or‘constructed’ Hesiod’s ‘countless immortal watchers clad in air’ as thecountless stars of heaven76. If this suggestion is correct, it would notmean that this is what Hesiod actually meant77, or that Aratus necessarilyunderstood Hesiod in this way; rather Hesiod is read in such a way thathis authority reinforces a later conception of Justice and the Stars. Theolder text is read as foreshadowing the later. Hesiod’s Myth of Agespresents a five-stage progression (or regression) towards the present mis-ery which will result in the abandonment of men to their fate by Aidos

76 Relevant also may be Theogony 901–3 where the Horai, Eunomia, Dike andEirene, 5qcû ¡qe}ousi jatahmgto?si bqoto?si. The verb is something of a mys-tery, but the ancients glossed it as vuk\tteim (cf. West ad loc.), and this mightaid the idea of Dike as a ‘guardian’ or ‘watcher’.

77 As suggested by Pettazzoni op.cit.146.

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and Nemesis. The five ages are structured, as Jean-Pierre Vernant hasmost fully demonstrated78, by a reciprocal alternation between dikeand hybris, and the long-noticed similarities between life in the GoldenAge and the blessedness of the city in which men practise justice(vv. 112–19/225–37) make Hesiod’s myth a protreptic to justice,like Plato’s account of the stars in the Timaeus. Aratus’ vision hastaken over Hesiod’s account79, and with it the gradual retreat of Dike ;in Aratus this retreat becomes a gradual physical removal of personifiedDike from contact with men – first, in the silver age, to the mountains(vv. 115–28), and then finally, in the bronze age, to the stars. Like Hes-iod’s Aidos and Nemesis, Dike abandoned men to their fates. Unlike herHesiodic counterparts, however, we can still see Dike when we look upin the night-sky.

Aratus reduced Hesiod’s five ages to three, not principally to avoidthe potentially embarrassing ‘juster and better’ age of heroes which suc-ceeded the Bronze Age, but in part to fit his scheme of a kosmos shapedand decided ‘long ago’. The age of the Trojan and Theban wars, Hesi-od’s heroic age, was not of the necessary antiquity; like the myths ofPlato, Aratus’ myth of Dike must be set before ‘recorded history’. More-over, the catasterism of Dike also carries exemplary force for the creationof the kosmos.

We have already noted that in Plato’s Timaeus the just man returnsafter death to the star which the demiurge had allotted to him; there heleads a ‘blessed and congenial life’80. The catasterism of Dike is obviouslyparallel to this, and here again, I think, we may see a blending of Hesiodwith later philosophy. In the Works and Days, the men of the GoldenAge – with whom Aratus’ Dike is so closely associated – after death be-come ‘divine and revered spirits on the earth, good spirits, protectorsfrom evil, watchers (phylakes) over mortal men, givers of wealth’(WD 122–3, 126). They become daimones who ‘guard, keep theireye on’ mortal men; there is no reason to believe, as Wilamowitzdid81, that Hesiod identified these daimones with the ‘countless immortalwatchers/guardians’ of WD 252–5, but the similarity of wording might

78 Cf. Myth and Thought among the Greeks, London 1983, 3–7279 The introductory k|cor … %kkor (v. 100) picks up 6teqor … k|cor which in-

troduces Hesiod’s myth (WD 106). My account differs considerably from thatof Erren 37–9, who, if I understand his argument, sees Aratus’ myth as an ex-emplary story to show how human ‘Gottesbegriff’ has changed.

80 Timaeus 42b, cf. above.81 Hesiodos Erga, Berlin 1928, 70, 140.

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suggest this easily enough, and indeed WD 254–5 seem to have beeninterpolated back into the passage on the daimones. Just as, therefore,Aratus may have constructed Hesiod’s ‘countless guardians’ as thestars, so I think the Dike myth shows us Aratus reading Hesiod’s GoldenAge as the origin of the stars. To modern scholars such a reading mayseem perverse, and to avoid misunderstanding I should perhaps stressagain that there is, of course, no question of seeking to establish whatAratus thought Hesiod ‘really meant’; the earlier text is there to be ex-ploited, not defended. Hellenistic didaxis is at base the interpretation ofprior texts; as such, it is merely a special instance of the most prominentfeature of the poetry of this period as a whole82. The purpose of a poet’s‘interpretation’ of a predecessor is only rarely to establish what thatpredecessor ‘meant’.

What would a Stoic have made of Aratus’ myth? We are told thatChrysippus held that ‘men are changed into gods’ and that the stars aregods83, but at least one recent analysis has noted that this myth hardlyseems a model of Stoic pronoia and has labelled it ‘a foreign body inthe otherwise optimistic Phainomena’84. What such an analysis misses isthe kind of optimism which Aratus promulgates. It is an optimismbased on the benevolence of the guiding cosmic principle, which hym-nal style calls Zeus. This is a benevolence evidenced by the signs whichgod offers to man as a help, not by a particularly ‘optimistic’ view ofman’s current situation or of human morality. We should all do thebest we can and use what god offers us, but without particular expect-ation (cf. Phain. 1101–3). Aratus’ readers, ancient and modern, live in

82 I have deliberately omitted the problem of the meaning of the invocation in v.186 to Zeus, aqt¹r ja· pqot]qg ceme^, both because I do not know what itmeans (although I have obvious sympathy with attempts to link it to the GoldenAge), and because I think that my analysis of how Aratus has used the HesiodicMyth of Ages stands without it. Recent contributions include: Erren 28–9; D.A. Kidd, CQ 31, 1981, 356–7, and (with a different view) his note ad loc.(both unconvincing, to my mind); B. Effe, ‘Pqot]qg ceme^ – eine stoische Hes-iod-Interpretation in Arats Phainomena’, RhM 113, 1970, 167–82; G. Luck,‘Aratea’, AJP 97, 1976, 213–34. Effe revives and refines Pasquali’s view, ex-pressed in ‘Das Proömium des Arat’, in WAQITES Friedrich Leo zum sechzigstenGeburtstag dargebracht, Berlin 1911, 113–22, that the reference is to the primalwise men and inventors whom we know from later Stoicising theory (Seneca,Epistle 90 = Posidonius fr. 284 Kidd).

83 Cf. SVF II 810–11, 813–15, 1076–7.84 E. Pöhlmann, ‘Charakteristika des römischen Lehrgedichts’, ANRW I.3 (1973)

813–901, at p. 883.

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Hesiod’s Fifth Age. If for the Stoic ‘all human beings are, and inevitablyremain, bad and unhappy’85, then, when allowances have been made forthe different meaning of moral terms, Hesiod and the Stoics to some ex-tent come together, or – and this is crucial for Aratus – can be read ascoming together.

Let us consider again the passage of Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus(vv. 21–31) which has already been considered in the context of Aratus’reference to the planets86. In a version of the familiar ‘types of life’ cata-logue87, Cleanthes condemns the ‘disordered’ pursuit of (political) rep-utation, (commercial) profit and (bodily) pleasures. Both Stoic doctrineand the traditional catalogue form suggest that ‘the bad among mortalmen’ (v. 22) covers pretty much all of mankind – except for the occa-sional Stoic sage – and it is hardly fanciful to see here a debt to the lan-guage and ideas of Hesiod. The spoudµ dus]qistor ‘belligerent quest’,of v. 26 evokes Hesiod’s double eris (WD 11–26), but rewrites it :

‘[The good eris] rouses even the shiftless one to work. For when someonewhose work falls short looks towards another, towards a rich man who has-tens (spe}dei) to plough and plant and manage his household well, thenneighbour vies with neighbour as he hastens (spe}domt’) to wealth: thisstrife is good for mortals. So potter is piqued with potter, joiner with joiner,beggar begrudges beggar, and singer singer. (WD 20–26, trans. M.L. West)

What for Hesiod is spoude provoked by the good eris is for Cleanthes avain attempt to escape the cosmic logos. What both poets share, ofcourse, is the condemnation of the ‘mindless’ pursuit of kerdos, profit(e. g. WD 323–4) and the failure to understand the workings of justice.Cleanthes, then, uses Hesiod’s description of the current situation as a‘poetically valid’ account of life on earth. This too is what Aratus ex-pects his readers to do. We live in corrupt times, but nature works to-wards what is good and we must seek to discover that and to live in ac-cordance with it. Knowing about the stars and weather-signs can onlyhelp us; neither stars, nor weather-signs, nor the myth of Dike, howev-er, offer any kind of guarantee.

85 F. H. Sandbach, The Stoics, London 1975, 44.86 Quoted above.87 See Nisbet and Hubbard’s introduction to Hor. c. 1.1.

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5. Poetry and Philosophy

Only the most technical science can avoid using the stars’ ‘inherentlydouble aspect as both points of light and conventional figures’88. Thisis particularly the case with an author more concerned with the individ-ual stars than with the overall movements and relationships in the heav-ens89. Even if the whole apparatus of aetiological catasterism is aban-doned in favour of ‘pure science’, traces of the former are likely to lingerin the less technical parts of any discussion. If we ask where Aratus drewdistinctions within his poem between different kinds of material, thenno absolutely clear answer will emerge, but certain suggestive patternscan be established.

The very first catasterism of the poem is that of the Bears(vv. 26–44), and their ‘myth’ is introduced by the familiar qualificationeQ 1te¹m d^, ‘if the story is true’. This phrase can, of course, mean manydifferent things90, and is here probably serving more than one purpose –marking, for example, an unusual version of the myth, a version whichgives prominence to the benevolence of Zeus. In the context of Aratus’didactic poem, however, it is not simply that the phrase ‘serves to en-hance the objective tone proper to this kind of poetry’91, but ratherthat it stands here prominently to mark the first introduction of whatcannot be seen, but must be narrated. This distinction lies at the veryheart of the Phainomena, the ‘truth’ of which, as I have often stressed,is guaranteed by the evidence of our own eyes. We may find it helpfulto label the story of the Bears as ‘myth’ rather than ‘astronomy’, but it ismore important to see how Aratus uses this distinction in those parts of

88 G.O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford 1988, 216–17. Hutchinson’s dis-cussion of Aratus is a sympathetic account of certain stylistic features of thework with which I am not concerned in this paper. Hutchinson is rightlymuch concerned with the confrontation of ‘the astronomical’ and ‘the mythi-cal’, but he does not consider how Aratus suggests we distinguish the two. ForAratus’ poetic imagination cf. also Pendergraft art. cit. 104–6 and R. CaldiniMontanari, ‘Illusione e realtà nel cielo dei poeti’, Prometheus 19, 1993,183–210.

89 For this distinction cf. the helpful remarks of A. Stückelberger, ‘Sternglobenund Sternkarten. Zur wissenschaftlichen Bedeutung des Leidener Aratus’,MH 47, 1990, 70–81.

90 Cf. in general T. C. W. Stinton, ‘“Si credere dignum est”: some expressions ofdisbelief in Euripides and others’, PCPS 22, 1976, 60–89 [= Collected Papers236–64].

91 Stinton, Collected Papers 240.

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his poem where it is applicable; in the weather-signs, of course, there isalmost no ‘narrative’ in this sense because the aetiological apparatus is nolonger relevant.

Many of the most prominent ‘myths’ of the poem are indeedmarked as such by qualifications such as ‘there is a story’ or ‘men say’(cf. vv. 98, 100, 163, 216, 637, 645). Even where this is not the case,there are often markers of some change. Thus the group of Cepheus,Cassiepeia, Andromeda, Pegasus and Perseus is introduced as the‘long-suffering family of Cepheus, of the race of Io’ Jgv/or loceq¹m

c]mor Yas_dao (v. 179). Not only the affective adjective but also thestress on descent and the family group, with its suggestions of AtticTragedy, point to material of a ‘poetic’, ‘mythic’ kind. Within thisgrouping further attention is called to the ‘mythic’ status of the accountwhen, after a description of how to identify Cassiepeia, the poet adds‘you would say that she was mourning her child’ (v. 196)92. The evo-cation of ‘the myth’ and the explicit refusal to countenance it as an ex-planation is here characteristic of a central tension in Aratus’ poem. An-other common device for moving from the visible to evocation of thenon-visible is the use of 1je ?mor, ‘the one you know about’ to activatethe reader’s knowledge of ‘myth’93. Thus, for example, Ariadne’scrown is ‘that crown you know about/have seen’ (v.71), and Androme-da is ‘that dread image’ (v. 197). This small point of technique revealsAratus’ concern with distinguishing between the visible evidence ofthe stars and the inherited body of mythical knowledge which hecould assume in his readers. There are, however, two important quali-fications which prevent us from seeing the operation of very rigid dis-tinctions within the poem. One is the fact that some ‘mythical’ materialis introduced without apparent qualification: a case in point is the Lyrewhich Hermes set in heaven (vv. 268–71). More important perhaps isthat throughout the poem the movements and appearance of the con-stellations are described in terms which appeal to their myths. ThusKetos ‘rushes’ towards Andromeda (v. 354), the Hare is hunted (v.384), the limbs of Andromeda are ‘weary’ (v. 704), and so forth; furtherillustration is unnecessary to make the point that the poem makes exten-sive use of the ‘drama of the heavens’94. Nevertheless, the distinction

92 For other related uses of va_gr jem in Hellenistic poetry cf. Hunter op. cit.p. 132–3.

93 Cf. LSJ s.v. I 2.94 Good remarks on this aspect of the poem in Hutchinson op.cit.

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which I have outlined does inform much of the shape of the poem, andin one place Aratus may comment directly upon it. When Aratus comesto the Pleiades he acknowledges that there is a difference between‘myth’ and the evidence of our eyes (Phain. 257–263)95:

2pt\poqoi dµ ta_ce let’ !mhq~pour rd]omtai,4n oWa_ peq 1oOsai 1p|xioi avhaklo ?sim.oq l]m pyr !p|kykem !peuhµr 1j Di¹r !st^q,1n ox ja· ceme/hem !jo}olem, !kk± l\k’ avtyreUqetai . 2pt± d’ 1je ?mai 1piqq^dgm jak]omtai

)kju|mg Leq|pg te Jekaim~ t’ Ik]jtqg te

ja· Steq|pg ja· Tg{c]tg ja· p|tmia La ?a.

Men tell of the seven Pleiades, though only six are visible to our eyes. Nostar has disappeared from Zeus’ sky without a trace in all the time of whichwe know, but the story is told. By name those seven stars are Alcyone, Me-rope, Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete and revered Maia.

The translation offered follows the standard interpretation of these dif-ficult verses, which goes back to the scholia. According to this view,Aratus explicitly denies the truth of the story of the loss of the seventhPleiad – a story which the scholia tell us he himself treated in a now lostpoem96 – by asserting again the fixed pattern of the kosmos established byZeus; 1j Di¹r does not just mean ‘from the sky’. If this is correct, thenthere will be a contrast drawn between ‘the tales of men’ and the betterevidence needed to establish truth. Erren, however, removes this con-trast by understanding the reference of v. 259 to be to the missing Plei-ad: ‘the star was not lost without a trace’, that trace being precisely thetales of men97. A full discussion would be beyond the bounds of thispaper98, although it will be clear that the standard interpretation fitswell with what we have seen to be a central concern of the poem. Aswith the passage on the planets, therefore99, Aratus here probably uses

95 Hipparchus points out that Aratus is actually wrong about this: you can seeseven Pleiades if you try hard enough (1.6.14).

96 This was a consolatory poem To Theopropos (SH 103), cf. E. Maass, Aratea, Ber-lin 1892, 233–4.

97 ‘Immerhin ist der Stern nicht ohne Nachricht aus dem Haus des Zeus verlor-engegangen’, p. 21 of his edition.

98 Crucial are the meaning of ceme/hem, which Erren implausibly understands ofhow the Pleiads arose, and the precise force of lakû autyr, which we mightexpect to be strongly intensive (cf. vv. 21, 180, 452).

99 Cf. above.

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an authorial comment on the subject-matter of his poem to foregrounda crucial issue. The passage on the Pleiades both explains and explainsaway potential problems that arise throughout the description of theconstellations: it is not always easy to match what you see to whatyou have been told.

This question of the distinctions Aratus draws within his material isone prominent instance of the phenomenon with which I have beenconcerned throughout this paper, namely Aratus’ conscious manipula-tion of the multiple traditions which lie behind his poem. In a now out-moded form of criticism this might have been expressed as the opposi-tion of ‘the poetry’ and ‘the message’; the history of, say, Lucretian criti-cism is of course full of such things. Rather than this, I think, we shouldspeak in terms of different modes of organising experience. One mode isthat of the (didactic) poet, another is that of philosophy, which afterPlato and Aristotle tends towards systematisation and completeness,thereby increasing the gap between the two modes100. As a final studyof the didactic, poetic mode, I wish briefly to note certain aspects ofAratus’ account of shipwreck, which offers an interesting case study inmany of the things we have been considering.

The passage on shipwreck (vv. 408–35) stresses the role of ‘ancientNight’ in setting out signs warning of storms because of her pity for menat sea (vv. 408–11, 419, 433–4). Night as the agent responsible forheavenly signs occurs elsewhere in the poem101, but the prominenceof this feature here cannot be adequately explained on a purely Stoicis-ing reading102. She does act as an agent of the cosmic principle, but it isnot as a manifestation of that principle that she weeps (v. 409). A closeparallel is again from the prologue to the Rudens, where Plautus (andprobably Diphilus) combines the idea of Arcturus – a storm-sign withwhich the shipwreck passage in Aratus is closely connected – as a servantof Jupiter with the traditional notion that stars not merely act as weath-er-signs, but actually cause the weather (Rudens 67–9):

ego quoniam uideo uirginem asportarier,tetuli et ei auxilium et lenoni exitium simul:increpui hibernum et fluctus moui maritumos.

100 On poetry’s rejection of systematisation cf. above.101 Cf. vv. 470, 695, 755.102 For a helpful account of such a reading cf. Erren 67.

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By acting ‘off his own bat’ in the interests of justice, Arcturus is like‘Night herself’ (Phain. 419) who gives men signs. In considering Aratus’passage the parallel from Comedy points away from the systematisationof philosophy, but also perhaps helps us to see how the philosophicalproject informs the poem. Aratus’ description of shipwreck makes nodistinctions between the fates of ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ men, although ship-wreck was a notorious instance in which the punishment of the unjustoften involved the suffering of the innocent. For the Stoic, however,the future is determined, and popular conceptions of the moral statusof those on board are neither here nor there; when viewed from thisperspective, we see the planning in Aratus’ selection of material.

The lucky men are those whose prayers are answered(Phain. 426–9):

aU je Di¹r paqamissol]moio t}wysim

eqw|lemoi, boq]y d³ p\q’ !stq\x, !m]loio,pokk± l\k’ atk^samter flyr p\kim 1sj]xamto!kk^kour 1p· mgý.

If by their prayers they happen upon Zeus’ assistance, and he shows hislightning from the side of the North Wind103, then after many sufferingsthey yet catch sight of each other on the boat.

Zeus is not a traditional saviour from shipwreck, a function that poetrynormally gives to his sons, the Dioskouroi, and it is unclear whether it isto Zeus that the sailors are imagined to pray (which would again be un-usual). Here also, then, the prominence of Zeus is a product of Stoicis-ing ‘monotheism’ in which each part of nature works in harmony as partof a single organism. On the other hand, a simple Stoicising reading willnot account for certain important details of the passage. What doespaqamissol]moio mean? In what sense could Zeus be said ‘to passnear them’ (Martin), ‘[come] to their aid’ (Mair), ‘gegenwärtig er-scheint’ (i. e. through his lightning, Erren). Moreover, t}wysim, partic-ularly next to the humorous phrasing of v. 425104, might suggest a ran-domness of success hardly in keeping with Stoic determinism. Somehelp is gained from considering the ‘focalisation’ of the verses: ‘Zeus’might be the word of the Stoicising poet, but ‘passing by’ or ‘arriving’is rather the notion of an ordinary man thinking in anthropomorphic

103 On this verse see Kidd ad loc.104 That verse looks to the shipwrecked Odysseus at Od. 5. 319.

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terms, and t}wysim reflects the sailors’ experience of the chanciness ofthe open sea. That the rhetoric of poetry is thus different from that ofphilosophy is confirmed by the ‘pathetic fallacy’ of Night’s weeping,a fallacy enacted in language which describes heavenly phenomena interms applicable to the struggling sailors themselves (jula_momti m]veipepiesl]mom 416, hk_bet’ 417); here nature moulds herself to man’splight. Night, the ‘kindly’ time, euphrone, acts in accordance with hername.

Analysis of this kind allows us to see that whereas systematic philos-ophy and science seek to close down options – to this extent they be-come paradoxically like ‘history’ in the Aristotelian scheme – the poetic,didactic mode offers multiple readings which draw on diverse traditions.To this extent ‘didactic poetry’ often shares some of the diversity whichcharacterises less ‘scientific’, more popular belief-systems. Modern dis-cussion of ancient didactic poetry has largely focused upon ‘the author’sintention’ rather than on the reception of the poem by different readers,much as some ancient readers were bothered as to whether Aratus was apoet or an astronomer105. Obviously, the Phainomena will be read differ-ently by a convinced Stoic and an un-philosophical reader; ancienttheory which saw poetry as propaideutic to philosophy recognisedthat, as did the standard distinction in allegorising commentaries andtechnical handbooks between ‘specialist’ and ‘non-specialist’ audien-ces106. It is the choice of the didactic, poetic mode which precisely ad-vertises the importance of the audience’s role. Aratus’ poem, unlike thework of Eudoxus or Hipparchus, is not merely about the universe, butis also universal in the sense that it presents itself as available to all, farm-ers, sailors, literary scholars. The poem continues in a new mode theage-old position of the poet as communal repository of wisdom. Aratus’

105 Cf., e. g., Scholium Q to vv. 96–7 (Martin p. 124).106 Cf. already the distinction in the ‘Derveni Papyrus’ between ‘the many’ and

‘those who know rightly’ (Col. XXIII 1–2). Again we find this topos in theintroduction to Hipparchus’ commentary: ‘I do not think any great intellectualeffort is required to expound the meaning of the poem. For the poet is straight-forward and concise, and can be clearly understood even by those with a mod-erate background in the subject. On the other hand, to understand what he hassaid about heavenly phenomena, to know which parts of his work agree andwhich disagree with the phenomena, this one might think is what is most usefuland requires mathematical skill’ (1.1.4).

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project is to make us all see what we have always seen107, to ‘teach’ uswhat we have always known. In the works of Eudoxus he found a sys-tematisation of knowledge and experience, which was not only itself asign of god’s benevolence, but matched the ordered nature all aroundhim; the poetic mode in which to express this cannot have been a dif-ficult choice.

Addenda

A revised version of parts of this essay appeared in Tradition and Innovation inHellenistic Poetry 224–45. Since the essay first came out, the principal advancesfor the understanding of the Phainomena have been the editions of Kidd (Cam-bridge 1997) and Martin (Paris 1998) and the study of C. Fakas, Der hellenistischeHesiod: Arats Phainomena und die Tradition der antiken Lehrepik (Wiesbaden2001). Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus has been edited by J. C. Thom (Cleanthes’Hymn to Zeus [Tübingen 2005]), cf. Journal of Hellenic Studies 127 (2007)167–8), and (?) Theophrastus, On Weather Signs by D. Sider and C.W. Brun-schön (Leiden 2007).

107 V. 733 ‘Do you not see? Whenever …’ draws attention to this concern. Such aquestion would normally refer to a one-time event (cf. Martin’s parallels adloc.), but here the verb evokes both physical sight and mental understanding.This ‘oddity’ pertains both to the problem of reading a text about seeing,and to the mental effort required to ‘visualise’ what Aratus is talking about, avisualisation which must of course be based on visual experiences and memo-ries.

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10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi*

The mimiamboi of Herodas1 reveal familiar hallmarks of the poetry of thethird century:2 characters drawn from socially humble backgrounds; aliterary re-casting of sub-literary ‘genres’; the revival of an archaicmetre;3 the free reconstruction of an artificial literary dialect;4 the reach-ing back to claim authority for poetic practice in a great figure of thepast.5 Obvious links between the mimiamboi and the roughly contempo-rary ‘mime’ poems of Theocritus (especially Idylls 2, 3, 14, and 15) havealways attracted attention since the publication of the major papyrus in1891. No subject has, however, so dominated discussion of the mim-iambs as the question of how they were intended to be presented tothe public, and how indeed they were so.6 Were they merely to be

* Antichthon 27 (1993) 31–441 In the notes the following are cited by author’s name only: I. C. Cunningham,

Herodas, Mimiambi (Oxford 1971); G. Mastromarco, The Public of Herondas(Amsterdam 1984); M. Puelma Piwonka, Lucilius und Kallimachos (Frankfurt1949); R.M. Rosen, ‘Mixing of genres and literary program in Herodas 8’,HSCP 94 (1992) 205–16; C. Miralles, ‘La poetica di Eroda’, Aevum Antiquum5 (1992) 89–113

2 There seems no good reason to question the consensus, based though it is onvery thin evidence, that Herodas wrote during the second quarter of thethird century, cf. Cunningham 1–3; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford1972) 2.876 n.30; S. M. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos (Göttingen 1978) 94 n.60, 349–52.

3 The choliamb in fact was widely used in the fourth and third centuries, partic-ularly in moralising verse; cf. G. A. Gerhard, Phoinix von Kolophon (Leipzig/Berlin 1909) 202–27.

4 On the language of Herodas see especially D. Bo, La lingua di Eroda (Turin1962) and V. Schmidt, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Herondas (Berlin 1968).

5 The actual extent of Herodas’ debt to Hipponax may be debated; cf. E. Degani,Studi su Ipponatte (Bari 1984) 50–56 (with bibliography); the wretched preser-vation of Hipponax must make any conclusions very tentative. Some sharedvocabulary seems certain, though here, as elsewhere, Degani overstates thecase. In Mimiamb 8 Hipponax is primarily invoked as protos heuretes of choliam-bic verse (cf. Test. 20–44 Degani) ; for the distinction between ‘narrative’ (Hip-ponax) and ‘dramatic’ (Herodas) choliambs cf. further below.

6 I do not mean to imply that many scholars have in fact realised that these aretwo separate issues, perhaps requiring different answers.

read (privately), or to be ‘performed’ either by a solo performer (with orwithout the assistance of mute extras), or by a ‘troupe’ of actors? Wemust not assume, of course, that the mode of reception of all the mim-iambs was the same, or that one poem was not at different times ‘per-formed’ in different ways. Moreover, the history of the debate since1891, a history of which Giuseppe Mastromarco has given a full ac-count,7 suggests that it is hardly possible on internal grounds alone toprove to general satisfaction that the poems were presented in oneway rather than another. A feature which looks as if it derives fromthe script of an acted, or at least visualised, performance may alwaysbe merely a literary imitation of such a phenomenon within a text in-tended only for reading (or, at most, recitation). The scholarly consensusis that this is precisely what we do find, time and again, in the ‘mime’poems of Theocritus, and probably also Herodas.8 That, however elsethey were transmitted, the mimiamboi also assume a reading public islikely enough on purely general grounds of literary history,9 and thistoo must complicate any investigation into their presentation. In thesecircumstances, the question of ‘how the mimiamboi were performed’may become little more than a heuristic device for teasing out distinc-tive features of these poems, rather than an end in itself. Discussion ofthis matter seems in fact to have come to a halt precisely because ithas been conceived purely as an investigation into theatrical and/or lit-erary history, rather than as primarily an area of poetic criticism. Thepurpose of this paper is to suggest that this scholarly halt may havebeen premature; the subject of the presentation of the mimiamboi riskedbeing left to ossify, either because it was considered no longer a problemor because there was insufficient evidence upon which to proceed. Toanticipate somewhat, the (unoriginal) conclusion which will, I hope,emerge is of poems composed for the most part in a mode whichstrongly suggests, and was intended to suggest, ‘performance’ by morethan one actor, rather than solo recitation; this is, of course, much

7 Cf. Mastromarco (n. 1 above), an unfortunately stilted English version (withsome expansion) of Il Pubblico di Eronda (Padua 1979). The best discussion ofthis book is that of Marco Fantuzzi in Lingua e Stile 14 (1979) 721–4.

8 For an attempt to distinguish Herodas and Theocritus in these matters cf. fur-ther below. Despite Mastromarco’s book, solo recitation seems to be the solu-tion favoured by current scholarship.

9 Cf. Mastromarco 95–6. The singular cek÷ir ; ‘do you laugh?’, at 2.74 is formal-ly addressed to Thales, but is also equally effective if aimed at the individualreader or directed by a performer at one of the audience.

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the same conclusion as Mastromarco reached, though the route I shallfollow will be rather different. I do not, however, wish to move fromthis conclusion to the historical question of how these poems were ‘ac-tually’ disseminated. Although I personally am inclined to believe thatthe mimiambs were ‘performed’ and not just recited, profitable discus-sion of this question of literary history would require more solid textualor archaeological evidence than we possess; a comparison with our rel-atively full knowledge of the performance of Attic tragedy and comedyis here particularly instructive.

I begin with the question of a reading public, the existence of whichmay be assumed on purely general grounds, but which may also be ap-proached through the arrangement of the poems on the London papy-rus. The obvious starting-points are the two poems, 1 and 8, whichseem to bear directly upon the mimiamboi as literary artefacts.

It is an old idea that Poem 1 does not appear first on the papyrus bychance, although any deliberate design need not, of course, have beendue to the poet himself.10 Bücheler saw the praise of Alexandria and‘the king’ in vv. 26–36 as marking the poem’s—and hence a poetrybook’s—‘dedicatee’, a loose term which, we may add, should not nec-essarily be taken to imply any formal relationship between poet andruler.11 Theocritus 14. 59–64, however, in which generous praise ofPtolemy as the best possible ‘employer’ for Greek mercenaries highlightstraditional Greek virtues and the pleasures of polis life and which make ita reasonable (if hardly compelling) inference that Idyll 14 was written inan area of Ptolemaic influence, show that such praise need say nothingabout the position of a poem within a ‘collection’.12 More of substancecan perhaps be derived from the possibility, acknowledged by surpris-

10 Pace, e. g. , L. Massa Positano, Eroda, Mimiamb I (Naples 1970) 15, little can, Ithink, be inferred from the fact that Poem 1 starts on a fresh piece of papyrus.As far as the facsimile permits judgement, no more space is blank above Poem 1than on any subsequent sheet; where a poem ends at the very top of a column(i. e. 3.97 at the top of column 19 and 5.85 at the top of column 29), the sameblank space appears above it. We cannot therefore rule out the possibility thatPoem 1 was preceded by other poems, and there is no reason to assume that thespace above Poem 1 was reserved for a heading.

11 RhM 46 (1891) 636. Bücheler in fact thought that ‘the king’ was Ptolemy Eu-ergetes; Philadelphos is the usual choice of more recent scholars, cf. above n.2.

12 On the encomium of Ptolemy in Idyll 14 see the suggestive remarks of J. B.Burton, ‘The function of the Symposium Theme in Theocritus’ Idyll 14’GRBS 33 (1992) 227–45, at 240–2, and W. Beck, ‘Theocritus, Idyll 14: Al-caeus and Megara’ WJA 18 (1992) 171–82.

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi 191

ingly few critics, that Metriche’s angry response to Gyllis’ speech alludesin an amusingly programmatic way to the choliambic verse in whichHerodas writes:

taOt’ 1c½ 1n %kkgrcumaij¹r ouj #m Ad]yr 1p^jousa,wykµm d’ !e_deim w~k’ #m 1nepa_deusaja· t/r h}qgr t¹m oqd¹m 1whq¹m Ace ?shai. (1. 69–72)

I would not have put up with hearing this from any other woman, but Iwould have taught her lame to sing a lame song and to consider my thresh-old no friendly place.

In Poem 8 Herodas appears to refer to the verses of himself and Hippo-nax as t± j}kka (v. 79), and Callimachus too refers to ‘lame’ choliambicverse.13 When taken together with the praise of Alexandria, such an al-lusion to the metrical form of the poem would certainly strengthen thecase for seeing Poem 1 as somehow introductory, and intended at leastin part for a reading audience. Certain general considerations might alsolend weight to this idea.

Poem 114 presents a visit by the ‘bawd’ (an unhappy term) Gyllis to ayounger woman, Metriche, to persuade her to take a wealthy and attrac-tive lover in the prolonged absence overseas of her man (? husband)Mandris. The poem thus combines two apparently common mime sce-narios—women visiting each other (cf. Poem 6)15 and ‘the bawd’ (cf.Athen. 14.621c)—both of which were also familiar in the comic tradi-tion. It is noteworthy that in the poem in which, more than anywhereelse in the extant corpus, Theocritus adopts the mode of literary mime,Idyll 15, he chose to begin with a ‘Damenbesuch’. It may therefore besuggested that the old lastqop|r embodies the spirit of Herodas’ ‘lame’poetry, in a way which foreshadows the more elaborate and detailed fe-male embodiments of Tragedy and Elegy in Ovid, Amores 3.1; Gyllis’arrival literally ‘opens the door’ to a new poetic form, whose self-con-

13 Cf. fr. 203.14 t± wyk± t_jteim in a programmatic context. Among the scholarswho do reckon with such a reference in Poem 1 are Puelma Piwonka 342 n. 1;Massa Positano ad loc.; J. Stern, GRBS 22 (1981) 165; N. Hopkinson, A Hel-lenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1988) 240; Miralles 94–9.

14 For recent studies of this poem cf. G. Mastromarco, ‘Eine alexandrinische Kup-plerin’, WJA 16 (1990) 87–99, and Miralles 94–9.

15 Such a scenario is not, of course, limited to mime – the opening scenes ofMenander’s Synaristosai (= Plautus, Cistellaria) and the third book of Apollo-nius’ Argonautica are famous examples in other genres.

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scious lowness is marked by her crude beating (!q\sseim) on the door.16

At the very least, I think it is fair to say that if we knew that Poem 1 wasdesignedly the first of an ordered collection, then it would be hard toresist the reading of it which I have given.17 On this reading, Poem 1enacts, rather than states, a program, and to this extent it is comparableto Theocritus 1 rather than Theocritus 7 or Callimachus’ first iambos.Here then may be suggestive signs of a poetic collection designed fora literate and literary public.

Poem 8 (The Dream) survives only in tantalising glimpses. A farmerwakes up his household with lavish helpings of abuse, and then tells oneof them of a dream which he has just had. The details are obscure, but agoat which he was dragging along seems to have been taken, killed andflayed by goatherds. There is someone (probably a young man) dressedin a saffron tunic and fawnskin and wreathed with ivy; there is a game ofaskoliasmos (trying to balance on a greased wineskin), and an old manwho threatens the farmer with a staff. The farmer interprets thedream as follows (I print Cunningham’s text):

…….]v aWca t/r v[\qaccor] 1ne ?kjom.j]akoO d_qom 1j D[iym]}souaQ]p|koi lim 1j b_gr [1d]aitqeOmto

t]± 5mhea tekeOmter ja· jqe_m 1da_mumto,t± l]kea pokko· j\qta, to»r 1lo»r l|whour,tikeOsim 1m Lo}sgisim. ydecy[]to.t¹ lµm %ehkom ¡r d|jeum 5w[ei]m loOmorpokk_m t¹m %pmoum j~qujom patgs\mtym,jA t_i c]qomti n}m’ 5pqgn’ aqimh]mti. .] jk]or, ma· LoOsam, E l’ 5pea j[.ec’ 1n Q\lbym, E le deut]qg cm[.l. .r let’ Ypp~majta t¹m pakai[t]± j}kk’ !e_deim Nouh_dgir †epiousi†

(8.67–79)

16 For the significance of the verb cf. E. Mogensen, Hermes 104 (1976) 498–9. Isuspect that the same point is continued by 1n !cqoij_gr (v. 2), which is verylikely the correct reading: the loudness of the knocking suggests the !cqoij_g

of the knocker. ‘Door-knocking’ scenes are, of course, a familiar feature ofmany literary genres, especially comedy; the famous scenes in Plato’s Protagorasand Xenophon’s Symposium (1.11–12) may be influenced by comedy.

17 The anonymous referee rightly objects that Metriche merely tells Gyllis whatshe is in fact not going to do to her; pedantically, however, Gyllis’ song is‘lame’, even if she herself is not (though note also the stress on her difficultiesin walking through the streets, vv. 13–16). My guess is that different modernreaders will inevitably assign different weight to this objection.

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi 193

I was dragging the goat out of the gully, a gift from fair Dionysus; the goat-herds violently tore it apart as they performed their rites and they dinedupon the meat; many shall pluck my songs, which have cost me muchtoil, amidst the Muses. … Of the many who trod the air-tight skin Ithought that I alone secured the prize, and my fate was like that of theangry old man … glory, by the Muse, either my verses … in iambics …or second … after ancient Hipponax … to sing lame poetry to the Ionians…

Few passages of third-century poetry have given rise to so large a bodyof commentary as these fascinating, though broken, verses, and a fulldiscussion, let alone a full doxography, is unnecessary here. Certain as-pects are, however, relevant to the present enquiry.

That the goat is a ‘gift from Dionysus’ is most plausibly interpretedas a reference to the (at least notionally) dramatic nature of the mimiam-boi ;18 Dionysus is likely to be the character referred to earlier as dressedin tunic and fawnskin, and the rustic game of askoliasmos will then prob-ably glance at contemporary theories of the origin of drama.19 Thethreatening old man is all but certainly Hipponax himself,20 and it isan easy guess that his anger arises from the dreamer’s encroachmentupon his own poetic space.21 Such a hypothesis will also give point tovv. 77–8 in which the apparent stress upon taking the second positionafter Hipponax will be intended to appease the archaic poet, the direconsequences of whose anger were only too well known.22 The tearingapart of the dreamer’s goat by goatherds performing Dionysiac rites atone level suggests a likeness between the dreamer and Pentheus or Or-pheus,23 but as explained by the dreamer himself, it refers to an attack

18 So, e. g., G.O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford 1988) 240; Rosen, pas-sim. Miralles 103–13 explores at length the links between Mimiamb 8, Hippo-nax and Aristophanic comedy.

19 For tragodia as ‘goat-song’ see Brink on Hor. AP 220.20 Critics note that v. 60 may look to Hipponax fr. 8 Degani = 20 West.21 Rosen refines this guess so that the anger arises specifically from the ‘adultera-

tion’ of the iambus with drama, i. e. because Herodas has replaced iambos bymimiambos.

22 Cf. Hor. Sat. 1.10.48–9 of Horace’s own position with respect to Lucilius, in-uentore minor; neque ego illi detrahere ausim / haerentem capiti cum multa laude coro-nam. The parallel is particularly interesting in view of satire’s obvious genericlinks with mimiamb.

23 This is mediated through the pun on l]kea (v. 71) as both ‘limbs’ and ‘songs’ (cf.Longus, Past. 3.23.3). Disiecti membra poetae (Hor. Sat. 1.4.62) is not dissimilar.Perhaps Cadmus is a closer analogy than Pentheus himself : to»r 1lo»r l|whour(v. 71) almost puts the speaker in the relation of parent to his poetry.

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upon his poems. 1m Lo}sgisim, ‘amidst the Muses’, can therefore hardlybe other than a way of saying ‘in the Museum (in Alexandria)’,24 al-though other levels of meaning are not of course ruled out; on theother hand, the ellipse and hyperbaton favoured by many critics,‘many <of those concerned> with the Muses’ (i. e. scholars) are, asCunningham puts it rather mildly, ‘difficult’. A reference to the Muse-um takes us back to Poem 1 where it is listed among the delights ofAlexandria. 1m Lo}sgisim might also, however, mean ‘in poetry, intheir poems’,25 and some support for this interpretation may be foundin the fact that these ‘many critics’ are depicted as ‘goatherds … per-forming religious rites’. We should here be reminded not merely of atraditional association, most familiar to us from Hesiod and Theocritus,between herdsmen and poetry,26 but also of the traditional link betweenthe mania of poetic composition and religious, particularly Dionysiac,inspiration. This link is, of course, particularly important for dramatic,and thus by implication para-dramatic, genres; Aristotle connects theearly history of both tragedy and comedy with Dionysiac performances,the dithyramb and the phallic song (Poetics 1449a 9–13), and Cratinus inhis Pytine gave memorable expression to the equation of poetic inspira-tion with ‘an excess of Dionysus’.27 A famous passage of Plato’s Ion de-picts all poets as ‘full of the god’, like bacchants:

‘All the good epic poets deliver all these wonderful poems not as a result ofany craft, but under the spell of the god (5mheoi emter ja· jatew|lemoi). Like-wise, the good lyric poets compose those wonderful lyric poems while notin their senses (oqj 5lvqomer emter), like dancing korybants. As soon as theyenter upon harmony and rhythm, they are under the bacchic spell, and justas bacchants draw honey and milk from the rivers while under the spell, butcannot do so when in their right minds, so also this is what the souls of thelyric poets do, as they themselves say.’ (533e-4a)

24 So, e. g., Puelma Piwonka 346 n. 2. This interpretation seems to go back toCrusius (p. 76 of his fifth edition of the poems, Leipzig 1914); cf. also R. Her-zog, Philologus 79 (1923/4) 431; Mastromarco 69–70.

25 Considered ‘improbable’ by Knox ad loc.26 Cf. K.J. Gutzwiller, Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies (Wisconsin 1991). There may

be a play between aQ]p|koi (v. 69) and pokko_ (v. 71); such play would be of atype very familiar in dream interpretation, and it may be paralleled by Knox’sattractive suggestion that tekeOmter (v. 70) is picked up by tikeOsim (v. 72).

27 PCG IV pp. 219–232; cf. C.W. Macleod, Collected Essays (Oxford 1983)262–79.

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi 195

Thus the ‘Dionysiac rite’ of Herodas’ goatherds has clear associationswith the writing of poetry and may thus provide a valuable clue tothe nature of the attacks which Herodas foresees.28

Modern critics have delighted in seeking to identify a specific con-text for the vision of Herodas 8, and it must be admitted that this is adifficult temptation to resist.29 A dream with programmatic significancenaturally reminds us of the prefatory dream to Callimachus’ Aitia;30

dreams are, however, also fully at home in comedy, and as such verysuitable for the quasi-dramatic mimiamboi. The description of thepoet’s works as ‘my labours’ (to»r 1lo»r l|whour) suggests the third-cen-tury language of literary p|mor (Theocr. 7.51 etc.),31 and the predictionof savage criticism obviously reminds us of the familiar picture of Alex-andrian squabbling. It may even be that tikeOsim 1m Lo}sgisim, ‘pluck32

amidst the Muses’, belongs to the same rhetoric of abuse as Timon’s fa-mous image of the quarrelsome scholar-birds (SH 786);33 Alexandrianpoets seem to have given new and vivid life to the traditional imageof the poet as a bird (an eagle, a nightingale etc.).34 Quarrelling scholarslead us directly to Callimachus’ first iambos in which Hipponax also ap-pears, and it is perhaps hard to believe that this poem and Herodas’eighth mimiamb are unconnected, although the nature of the connec-tion can hardly be divined in the state of our present evidence; enoughfor the present to note the elaborate and learned poetic self-presentationin this poem, a self-presentation which we cannot but associate with

28 Similarly, we should interpret quite broadly the reference to poets ‘in the holycontests of Dionysus’ at Theocr. 17.112–14; even a limitation to epic and dra-matic poets would be too narrow.

29 See the bibliography at Cunningham 194 n. 2, adding Puelma Piwonka345–52. There is a helpful survey in Mastromarco 65–97.

30 Cf. Rosen 207–8, noting also the ‘initiations’ of Hesiod, Archilochus etc. Itmay or may not be significant that the passage of Plato’s Ion to which I havejust referred is also used in the ‘Reply to the Telchines’; cf. ZPE 76 (1989)1–2 [= this volume 86–8].

31 So, with particular point, of Erinna’s Distaff at Anth. Pal. 7.11.1 (= AsclepiadesXXVIII. 1 GP), 7.12.5.

32 Cf. Kassel-Austin on Cratinus fr. 276.33 For a new interpretation of this fragment cf. W. H. Mineur, Mnem. 38 (1985)

383–7.34 Cf. Theocr. 7.47–8 Lois÷m eqmiwer … 1t~sia lowh_fomti. The two fighting

cocks of the first version of Aristophanes’ Clouds may also be relevant here; Ar-istophanic influence on Alexandrian polemic is familiar from the Aitia pro-logue.

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similar phenomena in Alexandrian ‘avant-garde’ poetry. It is also note-worthy that, unless we are badly misled by the poor state of the text,only the address to the slave in v. 43 breaks the monologic ‘address tothe audience’ form after the opening abuse of the slaves (vv. 1–15).There is thus a clear, and apparently untypical, break in this poem be-tween the dramatic and the non-dramatic. Whereas Poem 1 enacts aprogram, Poem 8 states one.

Poems 1 and 8 thus show signs of composition intended, at leastpartly, for an educated audience which probably read the poems. The‘programmatic’ significance of Poem 1 would certainly be enhancedif it stood first in a collection, but that of Poem 8 remains whereverit was placed; clearer cases of the ancient ‘poetry-book’ warn us againstassuming that explicitly programmatic poems have to come first or last.35

Gerhard36 in fact sought to group the first seven poems of the Londonpapyrus into matching pairs, and Lawall37 produced a scheme coveringPoems 1–8;38 only 6 and 7 are, however, undeniably connected(though the nature of the connection remains disputed), and it needhardly have been the poet himself who juxtaposed those poems. If itis not improbable that our collection retains traces of an arrangementof the poems made by Herodas himself (cf. Callimachus’ Iamboi39),scholarly consensus about those traces is perhaps truly unlikely; notmerely the existence of the opening of Poem 9 and the ‘book frag-ments’ of Herodas, but also general considerations of the length of Hel-lenistic ‘poetry-books’40 should prevent hasty inferences from the orderof Herodas’ poems on the London papyrus. Moreover, the extent towhich meaning depends upon the ability of an audience to reflect at lei-

35 Horace, Satires 1.4 is a good example here.36 RE 8.1089–90.37 Theocritus’ Coan Pastorals (Washington 1967) 118–20.38 For Lawall, as for some other scholars who have entertained the notion of a

Herodan ‘poetry book’, the existence of Poem 9 (and probably more; cf.below) is something of an embarrassment. Lawall is forced to the view thatPoem 9 was either ‘the beginning of a second volume or … the beginning ofa series of other mimes which were not included by Herodas in his original col-lection but were added by later writers’.

39 That Callimachus himself is responsible for the arrangement of the Iamboi can-not, of course, be proved, but it is also not unlikely; cf. C. M. Dawson, YCS 11(1950) 140–5.

40 Cf. J. Van Sickle, ‘The book-roll and some conventions of the poetic book’,Arethusa 13 (1980) 5–42.

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sure over a written text will always produce difference of opinion,41 andso it may be more profitable to turn to other considerations which arisefrom the substance of the poems.

There is much in the mimiamboi about ‘looking’ and ‘seeing’, but theimplications of this appeal to vision are curiously ambivalent. In Poem 2Battaros urges the jury (and us) to look carefully at the naked Myrtale(vv. 68–71), but what (if anything) do we actually see, or imaginewith the mind’s eye? Battaros is doing what comes naturally – displayinghis wares to potential clients42 – but the implications of this passage forthe mode of presentation of the mimiamboi are anything but straightfor-ward. In Poem 4 we are apparently invited to see, or at least see throughothers’ eyes, some fairly elaborate works of art; if Battaros appeals to ourvisual memory of the female body,43 Poem 4 uses our familiarity with‘art classics’. So too, part of the appeal of Poem 6 is its provocativeplay upon our wish to see the marvellous dildo which the women dis-cuss; the description of it, with its emphasis on Koritto’s privilegedsight, teasingly mocks our inability to see:

!kk’ 5qca, jo?’ 1st’ 5qca· t/r )hgma_graqt/r aq/m t±r we ?qar, oqw· J]qdymor,d|neir. 1c½ l]m—d}o c±q Gkh’ 5wym, Lgtqo ?—QdoOs’ %l’ Qdl/i44 t¥llat’ 1nej}lgma·t± bakk_’ outyr %mdqer oqw· poieOsi—aqta· c\q eQlem45—aqh\· joq l|mom toOto,

41 I am thinking of such readings as that of J. Stern, ‘Herodas, Mimiamb 6’, GRBS20 (1979) 247–54, who sees in Poem 6 a burlesque of Orphic myth and ritual(handling the baubon suggests familiar mystic practices) and a statement of po-etics (the brilliantly fashioned baubon as an image for Herodas’ poems). Tomy mind, this reading contains more of interest than the same scholar’s ‘ritual-ist’ reading of Poem 1 (GRBS 22 [1981] 161–5).

42 I discuss Poem 2 at greater length in ‘Plautus and Herodas’ in L. Benz et al.(eds.), Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels (Tübingen 1995) 155–69 [=this volume 212–28].

43 If Poem 2 was actually performed, we can only guess at how Myrtale was rep-resented. The standard view about the appearance of ‘naked’ women in OldComedy (Wasps 1326 ff, Peace 846 ff, Lys. 1114 ff), that they were ‘impersonat-ed by men wearing appropriately designed bodysuits and padding’ (Sommer-stein on Lys. 1114) may be correct, but there is very little evidence for it.

44 I print Cunningham’s text, though I have no confidence in it.45 The claim of ‘dramatic’ characters to be alone is a familiar irony, but is certainly

not conclusive for the performance of the mimiamb; cf. , e. g., Propertius 1.18(haec certe deserta loca etc.) which will have different resonances for a reader andfor someone listening to a recitation.

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!kk’ A lakaj|tgr upmor, oQ d’ Qlamt_sjoi5qi’, oqj Ql\mter. eqmo]steqom sjut]a

cumaij· div_s’ %kkom oqj !meuq^seir.(6.65–73)

‘But his products! Heavens, what products! You will think it the work-manship of Athene, not Kerdon. When I saw them, Metro—he broughttwo with him—my eyes nearly popped out. We’re alone, so I can tellyou: men can’t make theirs so straight and firm! Not only that, they’reas soft as sleep, and the laces are like wool, not leather; you’ll never findanother cobbler who has a woman’s interests more at heart.’

This appeal to vision is then a central technique of the mimiamboi, andone which it is not unreasonable to link with the whole mimic tradi-tion;46 it is indeed very likely that the sub-literary mime assumed andappealed to a much more elaborate stage-setting than the audience ac-tually saw. In this context we can see that arguments, say, about the ac-tual bother involved in staging Poem 447 carry very little weight. On theother hand, it may be argued that this knowing game of ‘revealing’ and‘not revealing’ would carry particular force in a written literature whichalways asks us to ‘see’ what we cannot actually see.48 Here the mimiamboimay be thought not only to be poised between ‘reading’ and ‘perform-ance’, but also in fact to acknowledge and exploit the problem of theirown ‘performance status’. The modern debate about how the mimiamboiwere performed thus turns out to have been pursuing one of the verymodels of reception which the text itself teasingly predicts.49

‘Performance’, however, covers more than one mode. In seeking tochoose between the ‘acting’ of a troupe and recitation by a solo ‘player’,scholars have usually appealed to a series of passages which are alleged to

46 The connections of Petronius’ Satyrica with the mime tradition are well known,and that text revels in the possibilities of deceptive vision.

47 Cf., e. g., Ph.-E. Legrand, ‘Problèmes alexandrins II: à quelle espèce de publi-cité Hérondas destinait-il ses mimes?’, REA 4 (1902) 5–35, at 7–8. It is impor-tant in assessing Legrand’s influential article to note its assumptions: ‘dans unpoème où la réalitè est copiée d’aussi près …’ (p. 12).

48 For related concerns in Callimachus’ hymns cf. ‘Writing the god: form andmeaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena’, MD 29 (1992) 9–34 [= this vol-ume 127–52].

49 Another such potential mode of reception which Herodas himself inscribes inhis poems is the ‘mimetic realist’ reading, which has also, of course, had a thor-ough airing in modern scholarship and remains very much alive; I discuss thiswith regard to Poem 4 in ‘Plautus and Herodas’ (n. 42 above).

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pose difficulties for one interpretation or the other: 1.79 ff (what doGyllis and Metriche do while Threissa pours the drinks?), 4.19 ff(when does the sacristan appear, and how in fact is this whole poem‘staged’?), 5.1 (if Ed’ is the correct reading and the deictic refers to Gas-tron’s penis, could the verse be understood if Gastron—a speaking char-acter—was not visible on stage?), 5.55 ff (where is Kydilla’s speech im-agined to take place?). As I have already noted, general agreement onthese questions may be hardly possible, because they depend upon sub-jective assessments of what is and is not possible in performances.50

More important may be the observations that every poem (including8) assumes one or more mute characters (a feature familiar in all dramaticgenres), every poem (except 8) has more than one speaking character,and in every poem one character predominates (i. e. has at least halfof the spoken verses).51 The relative proportions and the number of ‘ac-tors’ varies from poem to poem, but it is at least not unnatural to thinkof ‘performance’ by a small troupe dominated by the ‘leading mime’.Some refinement of these intuitions may be possible through a compar-ison with two poets who have much in common with Herodas—Menander, whose plays we know to have been performed, and Theo-critus whose poems were almost certainly read and are normally as-sumed to have been recited when first delivered.

A striking feature of the mimiamboi is that each of them contains avocative address in either the first or the second verse;52 this may estab-lish a setting (Poems 2, 4) or mark the dramatic status of the poem. Be-yond this initial marker, however, Herodas’ scene-setting is minimal.With Theocritus, however, the case is both interestingly similar and dif-ferent.

The scene-setting in Theocritus 1, which there are good reasons forbelieving to carry special programmatic force,53 is careful and elaborate.The vocative address in the opening verse, aQp|ke, may remind us ofHerodas, but the locus amoenus is painted in such detail (vv. 1–2,7–8, 13, 21–3) that we are presented with an over-determined setting

50 Reviewers have frequently charged Mastromarco with underestimating theability of a single performer to project more than one role; cf. P. J. Parsons,CR 31 (1981) 110,1. C. Cunningham, JHS 101 (1981) 161.

51 Cf. Mastromarco 15–16.52 This seems, from what survives, to have been true also of Poem 9, the )pomi-

stif|lemai.53 Cf., e. g., F. Cairns, ‘Theocritus’ first idyll : the literary programme’, WS 97

(1984) 89–113.

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in which the detail works against any simple ‘mimetic’ or ‘realist’ rep-resentation and instead foregrounds its artifice. Here perhaps is a meas-ure of the distance between the mode of a performed text (Herodas) andthat of one designed solely with readers in mind (Theocritus). In fact,the first four speeches of Idyll 1 all begin with a vocative address; thisis not merely a way to establish the antithetical bucolic style and a po-etics of t¹ poilemij|m and t¹ aQpokij|m, but it also overplays the ‘dra-matic’ quality of the poem in a way which might be thought foreignto ‘real drama’. Idyll 2, a poem connected already in the scholia withthe mimes of Sophron, begins, as does more than one poem of Theo-critus, with an address to a slave, and v_ktqa makes clear that we are inthe realm of love-magic. Here there seems little difference from a Her-odan opening, but what follows is perhaps more significant. ‘Wreathethe bowl with fine crimson wool’ (v. 2, trans. Gow) gives, in ‘crimson’,precisely the detail which betrays the text written to be envisioned byreaders; of course, this detail is also ritually correct and has to be spelledout for the benefit of an obtuse servant, but this difference from Hero-dan practice carries a certain suggestive force in the current context. Thefollowing verses begin formally as an explanation to the slave of whatSimaitha is doing, but they soon become a private meditation uponher situation and her plans; they are, in other words, a monologue ‘tothe audience’ of a kind familiar also in Menander, but strikingly lackingin Herodas. In the mimiamboi, speech is always directed to an addressee;even the monologue of Poem 8 remains addressed to the servant Anna.Herodas’ poems are, of course, a great deal shorter than plays ofMenander, but the absence of such monologues from Herodas can hard-ly be explained merely by a desire for brevity. With Herodas we feel theconstant pressure for drama, for interaction between characters ; in The-ocritus 2, however, Thestylis remains a mere cypher. Idyll 3, like Idyll 2,has only one speaking character, but unlike Idyll 2 it begins with a self-presentation by the speaker and a narrative of his situation:

jyl\sdy pot· t±m )laqukk_da, ta· d] loi aWcerb|sjomtai jat’ eqor, ja· b T_tuqor aqt±r 1ka}mei.T_tuq’, 1l·m t¹ jak¹m pevikgl]me, b|sje t±r aWcar,ja· pot· t±m jq\mam %ce, T_tuqe jtk.

(3.1–4)

I go to serenade Amaryllis, and my goats graze on the mountain; Tityrosdrives them. Tityros, dear friend, graze the goats, and, Tityros, lead themto the spring.

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi 201

Both the komastic subject-matter (cf. Ath. 14.621c) and the semi-dra-matic form with change, or at least refocusing, of scene point to adebt to the mimic tradition, but the difference between Theocritusand Herodas is here very clear. It may indeed be ‘rustically naïve’ tostate aloud to no one in particular the nature of the business uponwhich one is engaged,54 but this is not something which happens inHerodas. This dramatic form, the ‘entrance monologue’, is of course fa-miliar from Menander. Thus, for example, the soldier’s servant in Peri-keiromene explains ‘to the audience’ why he has entered:

b sobaq¹r Bl ?m !qt_yr ja· pokelij|r,b t±r cuma ?jar oqj 1_m 5weim tq_war,jk\ei jatajkime_r. jat]kipom poo}lemom

%qistom aqto ?r %qti, ja· sumgcl]moieQr taqt|m eQsim oR sum^heir, toO v]qeim

aqt¹m t¹ pq÷cla N÷iom. oqj 5wym d’ fpyrt!mtaOh’ !jo}sgi cim|lem’ 1jp]polv] leRl\tiom oUsomt’ 1nep_tgder, oqd³ 4mde|lemor %kk’ C peqipate ?m le bo}ketai.

(172–80)

Our friend who was just now so blustering and warlike, the one who won’tlet women keep their hair, is lying down weeping. I left him giving hisfriends a meal—they have gathered round to help him bear his trouble.He’s got no way of knowing what is going on here, so he has dispatchedme to fetch a cloak, but really all he wants is for me to wear my legs out.

To transfer this form to the mimiamboi, it would be as if Herodas 3began with Metrotime saying ‘I have come to the schoolmaster’s sothat he will give my son a thrashing …’. In the avoidance of such mono-logues which, as we have seen, are found in both Menander and The-ocritus, Herodas seems to stand close to the genuine tradition of sub-lit-erary mime, as far as our scanty fragments allow us to judge.55 Hereagain, the mode of the mimiamboi is that of genuinely ‘performed’ texts.

54 Cf. the citation of vv. 1–2 as an example of !v]keia at Hermogenes, Id. 2.3 (p.322 Rabe).

55 For the texts see pp. 36–41 of Cunningham’s Teubner of Herodas (Leipzig1987); discussion, though far from persuasive where Herodas is concerned,in H. Wiemken, Der griechische Mimus (Berlin 1972). It is noteworthy that Le-grand (above, n. 47) 23, having argued with great vigour for solo recitation inthe case of Herodas, felt it necessary to hedge his bets by suggesting the use of abrief (unreported) prologue to set the scene, presumably along the lines of theopening of Theocritus 3.

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Although a similar analysis is possible for many of Theocritus’poems, I note merely two further, but very different, cases. In thefirst we will see Herodas aligned with a genuinely dramatic text,Menander, against Theocritus.

The agonistic form of Idyll 5 is introduced by matching pairs ofverses in which the antagonists tell us all we need to know—theirnames and occupations. The scenery is again depicted with care—aspring (v. 3), a named cliff (v. 16), and particular nymphs (v. 17);none of this is very elaborate, and yet when we compare it with, say,Metrotime’s allusion to the Muses as aUde, ‘these ladies’, with no furtherexplanation (Herodas 3.57), the difference between the two poets againemerges clearly.56 When Komatas and Lakon come to choose an arbitra-tor, the former has a proposal:

!kk± t¹m %mdqa,aQ k/ir, t¹m dqut|lom bystq^soler, dr t±r 1qe_jart^mar t±r paq± t·m nukow_fetai· 5sti d³ L|qsym.

(5.63–5)

‘If you like, we’ll call to the man cutting wood, the one collecting thatheather near you. It’s Morson.’

The pictorial detail of Morson’s activity is again what may be thought tobetray not merely the bucolic text, but also the text designed with read-ers in mind. This, of course, is not to say that genuinely dramatic textsare short on pictorial detail – far from it —but the difference from thechoosing of Smikrines as arbitrator in the second act of Menander’s Ep-itrepontes is very marked:

Suq. 1pitqept]om tim_

1sti peq· to}tym. Da. bo}kolai· jqim~leha.Suq. t_r owm ; Da. 1lo· l³m p÷r Rjam|r. d_jaia d³p\swy· t_ c\q soi leted_doum ; Suq. toOtom kabe ?mbo}kei jqit^m ; Da. !cah/i t}wgi. Suq. pq¹r t_m he_m,b]ktiste, lijq¹m #m swok\sair Bl ?m wq|mom ;Slij. rl ?m ; peq· t_mor ; (219–25)

Syr. We must turn this over to an arbitrator.Da. Fine, let’s choose one.Syr. Who then?Da. Anyone suits me. It’s only fair: why did I give you a share?

56 Admittedly, the Muses have been explicitly named in a similar context in theopening verse of the poem.

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi 203

Syr. Are you happy with this chap as judge?Da. By all means.Syr. In the name of the gods, good sir, could you spare us a little time?Smikr. You? What do you want?

The different style of the two passages may be explained in variousways, but it is hard not to believe that, at some level, we are dealingwith the difference between ‘drama’ and literature intended for reading.Here we find Herodas aligned with the ‘dramatic’ text, and I believethat it is true to assert that this will always be the case except, as inthe matter of ‘entrance monologues’, where he stands even closerthan Menander to the norms of ‘unelaborated drama’.57

Idyll 15 is in some ways the exception which proves the rule. Theopening ‘mimic’ section lacks the fullness of detail which we havefound in other Theocritean poems—particularly in the introductionof characters (cf. vv. 60, 70–1, 87–8)—and the subject of the poemis of course close to Herodan interests. Both stylistically and metrically,58

we are here a long way from the ‘bucolic’ poems. Again, inferencesabout how Idyll 15 was ‘actually performed’59 are less important thanseeing how an interest in this question can reveal the distinguishingcharacteristics of a text. Our tendency to lump together the various‘mime’ poems of Theocritus has perhaps done more harm than good,as we have paid insufficient attention to the real differences which areinscribed within them. Idyll 15 is a highly experimental text, as theHymn to Adonis with which it concludes and which has elicited very

57 Cf. A. Melero, ‘Consideraciones en torno a los Mimiambos de Herodas’, CFC 7(1974) 303–16, who, however, rejects performance for Herodas because thetext explains the action to us, ‘someone is knocking on the door’ etc. Such ‘ex-planations’ are, however, precisely what we find in (performed) comedy.

58 Cf. P. Maas, Greek Metre (Oxford 1962) 94 (on the ‘bucolic bridge’), S. R.Slings, ZPE 98 (1993) 32 (on ‘Attic correption’). The hexameters of themimic section break Callimachean rules frequently enough to show that wemust be dealing with a deliberate stylistic effect, !mtikab^ (the sharing of a sin-gle verse between more than one speaker) is much more common in Herodas’choliambs than in the hexameters of Theocritus (cf., e. g., Melero [above, n.57] 309–16), and here again the opening verses of Idyll 15 are unusual.

59 Cf. Ph.-E. Legrand, �tude sur Th�ocrite (Paris 1898) 414–18; Legrand arguesthat any ‘reception’ of Idyll 15 other than ‘silent reading’ is inconceivable, be-cause of the formal problems raised by (e. g.) changes of place and speaker. Hisdiscussion fails to convince because of the limiting assumptions upon which it isbased.

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varying critical responses, ought to have made clear. At the very least,Idyll 15 can throw only very ambiguous light upon the question ofthe presentation of Herodas’ mimiambs.

‘Performance’, then, is not to be conceived as a purely historicalquestion which can be isolated from the broad concerns of the text.We might in any case have expected that poems whose linguisticform is as sophisticated as the mimiamboi would show a similarly self-aware interest in the conditions of their own reception, particularly aswe know that other contemporary poetry is marked by such an inter-est.60 That we can ask of Herodas some of the same questions whichwe ask of the canonical ‘Alexandrian avant-garde’ is a comforting, if un-surprising, conclusion.61

Addenda

The best starting-point on the mimiamboi and modern bibliography is now thetwo-volume edition of the poems by L. Di Gregorio (Milan 1997, 2004); Ox-ford University Press is to publish a new English-language edition by G. Zank-er. Further recent discussion in the papers of Kutzko, Männlein-Robert andZanker in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker (eds.), Beyond theCanon (Leuven 2006).

60 Cf. the survey in P. Bing, The Well-Read Muse. Present and Past in Callimachusand the Hellenistic Poets (Göttingen 1988).

61 This paper has benefited from the comments of a seminar audience at the In-stitute of Classical Studies in London and of Antichthon’s anonymous referee.W. Puchner, ‘Zur Raumkonzeption der Mimiamben des Herodas’, WS 106(1993) 9–34, appeared too late to be taken into account.

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi 205

11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65*

etsi me assiduo confectum cura doloreseuocat a doctis, Ortale, uirginibus,

nec potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus4 mens animi, tantis fluctuat ipsa malis —

namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratrispallidulum manans alluit unda pedem,

Troia Rhoeteo quem subter litore tellus8 ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis.

< >numquam ego te, uita frater amabilior,

aspiciam posthac? at certe semper amabo,12 semper maesta tua carmina morte canam,

qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbrisDaulias, absumpti fata gemens Ityli.

sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto16 haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae,

ne tua dicta uagis nequiquam credita uentiseffluxisse meo forte putes animo,

ut missum sponsi furtiuo munere malum20 procurrit casto uirginis e gremio,

quod miserae oblitae molli sub ueste locatum,dum aduentu matris prosilit, excutitur,

atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu,24 huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.

It is an old idea that the final six verses of this poem reflect Callimachus’narrative of the love of Acontius and Cydippe. As the poem serves as anintroduction to a ‘translation’ of Callimachus, the idea is not a very boldone, but it has recently been explicitly dismissed on the grounds thatwhat we know of Callimachus’ narrative is quite different to Catullus’image of the young uirgo surprised by her mother into revealing theapple sent to her by her sponsus.1 In Callimachus, the truth is revealed

* Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 96 (1993) 179–821 Cf. H.P. Syndikus, Catull, Eine Interpretation. II (Darmstadt 1990) 197–8. It is

noteworthy that, whereas Kroll notes the debt to Callimachus, Fordyce doesnot consider the possibility worthy of mention. Wilamowitz toyed with the

by the oracular Apollo and by subsequent questioning of Cydippe byher father (fr. 75. 20–39); it is also very unlikely that Callimachus’ Cy-dippe kept the treacherous apple after she had been trapped into swear-ing to marry Acontius.2

In this note, I wish to assemble again the case for Catullus’ debt toCallimachus, and to comment briefly on the interesting implications ofthis for our understanding of Catullus 65.

Acontius ‘sent’ Cydippe an apple which was also a letter to be readaloud; the inscribed token of love carried with it the required answeringtoken from the beloved in the shape of the binding oath which Cydippeduly utters. As such, the inscribed apple is in pointed contrast to the in-scription of the beloved’s name on trees (fr. 73), an inscription whichCydippe will never see or read and which can find no reciprocityfrom the beloved. Both Catullus 65 and 66 are pledges of the poet’s af-fection for Hortalus and therefore ‘apples’. Moreover, on at least onereading of the concluding verses of Poem 65, Poem 66 is in fact an-nounced by the simile as an ‘apple’, and, on any reading, the resonanceof v. 3 in which poetry is described as dulcis Musarum … fetus allows the‘poem as apple’ assimilation to be felt clearly.3 Not only are both Poems65 and 66 ‘apples’, they are also both carmina Battiadae.4

The detailed comparison of motifs is always a risky basis for argu-ment because of the very nature of the commonplace. In this case weare also confronted with the problems of the various compositionaltechniques of Aristaenetus, our main source for the lost sections ofCallimachus’ narrative,5 and of whether the epistolographer worked di-rectly from Callimachus or from an intermediary paraphrase or from

idea of influence from Apollonius Rhodius’ similes of ‘everyday life’ (Hellenis-tische Dichtung II 304–5), but there is no concrete point of contact.

2 This would be certain if — as I think likely — the action of !p]qqixem, ‘threwaway’, at Aristaenetus 1.10.39 (quoted below) referred, on at least one level, tothe apple and was derived from Callimachus; text and interpretation of that pas-sage are, however, uncertain, cf. (for a different interpretation) W. G. Arnott,GRBS 14 (1973) 208.

3 Cf. C. Witke, Enarratio Catulliana. Carmina L, XXX, LXV, LXVIII (Leiden1968) 21. Commentators and translators are divided over the formal referentof the simile: is the ‘apple’ like tua dicta of v. 17 or like carmina Battiadae ofv. 16? Cf. (respectively) the notes of Ellis and Quinn ad loc. The resonanceI am exploring remains, of course, even with the former interpretation.

4 For stylistic ‘Callimacheanism’ in Catullus 65 cf. J. B. Van Sickle, TAQA 99(1968) 487–508 W. Clausen, HSCP 74 (1970) 85–94.

5 For some brief remarks cf. Arnott art. cit. (n. 2).

11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65 207

both.6 Nevertheless, the circumstantial case seems very strong here.With casto (v. 20) and the girl’s blush (v. 24) cf. Aristaenetus1.10.39–45: t¹v 1qytij¹m k|com !p]qqixem aQdoul]mg, ja· Bl_vymomjatak]koipe k]nim tµm 1p’ 1sw\tyi jeil]mgm ûte dialmglome}ousam

c\lom, dm selmµ paqh]mor j#m 2t]qou k]comtor Aquhq_ase. ja· tosoOtom1nevoim_whg t¹ pq|sypom, ¢r doje ?m fti t_m paqei_m 5mdom eWw] tima

N|dym keil_ma, ja· 1q}hgla toOto lgd³m t_m weik_m aqt/r diav]qeim ;both motifs occur also in Ovid’s treatment (blush: Heroides 20.6, 97,21.112; chasteness: Heroides 20.9–10). With furtiuo munere (v. 19) cf.Aristaenetus 1.10.27 k\hqai diej}kisar pq¹ t_m t/r heqapa_mgr

pod_m. It is true that we have no good evidence for a major role forCydippe’s mother in Callimachus, but it is striking that two of ourother post-Callimachean sources feature a similar motif of the apple slip-ping unnoticed out of clothing. In Ovid, Acontius tells Cydippe that sheshould not be ashamed to tell her mother everything, including how hedelivered the treacherous apple:

et, te dum nimium miror, nota certa furoris,deciderint umero pallia lapsa meo;

postmodo nescio qua uenisse uolubile malum,uerba ferens doctis insidiosa notis.

(Her. 20.207–10)

In Aristaenetus, the nurse picks up the apple diapoqoOsa t_r %qa toOtot_m paqh]mym let]yqor !p]bake toO pqojokp_ou (1.10.29–30). Thecloseness of this passage to Catullus’ verses has, of course, been notedbefore,7 but it is worth adding to the circumstantial case here. More-over, Ovid’s Cydippe hides the letter she is writing trepido … sinu(Her. 21.16); it is tempting to see here a re-use by Ovid of a motif al-ready in the tradition. Other than the oath, we know virtually nothingabout how Callimachus treated the incident at the temple, so itwould be best not to leave any ‘coincidences’ out of account.

6 Pfeiffer follows A. Vogliano, Papiri della Universit� di Milano I (Milan 1937) 115,in assuming an intermediary source because both Aristaenetus (1.10.37–8) andthe Diegesis give Cydippe’s oath in the same words which could not appear inelegiac verse. This is a strong, but not a conclusive, argument

7 Cf. K. Dilthey, De Callimachi Cydippa (Leipzig 1863) 65, though he is not ex-plicit on the subject; L. W. Daly, CP 47 (1952) 97–9. let]yqor, ‘careless, dis-tracted’, is a late use (Aristaenetus 1.23.10, LSJ s.v. III 5), though hardly beyondCallimachus.

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After Cydippe, Acontius. Here we enter even deeper into specula-tion, but not, I hope, unprofitable speculation. In Poems 65 and 68 Ca-tullus explores (among other things) the relationship between grief andlove. The careworn and grief stricken figure of the opening verses ofPoem 65 does not inevitably recall the distressed and wasted Acontius(cf. Aristaen. 1.10.51–2), but the idea may be worth entertaining. Ina passage striking both for its imagery and for its dactylic rhythm, Aris-taenetus apostrophises the suffering Acontius: t]yr owm t¹m de_kaiom –!kk’ oute hak\ttgr tqijul_ar oute p|hou joquvo}lemom s\kom eqlaq³r

!vgce?shai (1.10.47–8). That Aristaenetus is here close to the Callima-chean model was suggested long ago,8 but it is worth here juxtaposingthis passage to Catullus’ tantis fluctuat ipsa malis. The metaphor itself is, ofcourse, a common one, and is used elsewhere by Catullus himself(64.97–8, of Ariadne’s erotic passion): the dactylic rhythm is also notconclusive, as Aristaenetus himself might well be responsible for this.9

There is, however, a further point to be made. It is well known thatCallimachus’ Acontius was an influential model in subsequent Latin po-etry: Vergil, Eclogue 2 and 10, and Propertius 1.18 are the most promi-nent examples.10 Acontius becomes the classic example of the haplesslover who pours out his woes in song to lonely nature. Part at leastof his lament was given in direct discourse (frr. 73–4); like Theocritus’Cyclops, Acontius was made a poet by love ( just as his love providedCallimachus’ Muse with material, fr. 75.77). The parallel is not idle be-cause it is precisely the Cyclops with whom Acontius is combined in thefigure of Vergil’s Corydon in Eclogue 2. Nicias’ reply to Idyll 11, Gm %q’!kgh³r toOto, He|jqite· oR c±q =qyter / poigt±r pokko»r 1d_danam to»rpq·m !lo}sour, reworks the famous verses of Euripides’ Stheneboia,poigtµm d’ %qa / =qyr did\sjei j#m %lousor Gi t¹ pq_m (fr. 663 Kan-nicht), and it is tempting to suppose that these same verses figured by

8 Cf. Dilthey, op. cit. 69–70, followed by A. Dietzler, Die Akontios-Elegie des Kal-limachos (diss. Greifswald 1933) 37. Suggestive support for the idea might besought in joq}sseo at Ap. Rhod., Arg. 4.448, where the image is of thestorm-wave of love.

9 A comparison of Callimachus fr. 73 and Aristaenetus 1.10.60–1 is very instruc-tive for the latter’s technique.

10 For Vergil cf. D. O. Ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy andRome (Cambridge 1975) 85–9 and E. J. Kenney, ICS 81 (1983) 48–51; forPropertius cf. F. Cairns, CR 19 (1969) 131–4.

11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65 209

echo in Callimachus’ narrative.11 Be that as it may, Catullus’ poem rep-resents a clear inversion of the ‘Acontian’ idea: because of cura the poetcannot compose, and must instead be content with expressa … carminaBattiadae. His ‘removal’ (seuocat, v. 2) a doctis … uirginibus replays Acon-tius’ flight from his parents and usual company into the loneliness of na-ture.12

However weak or strong each individual point may be – and theremay yet be more to be said —13 it seems hardly possible that Callima-chus’ only relevance for the appreciation of Poem 65 lies in v. 16. Ifeven some of the connections I have assembled here hold good, thenPoem 65, and especially the concluding six verses, present a creative re-working of Callimachean ideas and motifs taken from an eroticallycharged aition from Aitia 3 as an introduction to a ‘translation’ of anothererotically charged aition from Aitia 4. The very distance of the applesimile from its Callimachean ‘model’ is in fact crucial to its significance.The related, but contrasting, forms of re-writing represented by the twojuxtaposed poems raise serious questions about the nature of imitatio, theuse of literary models, and the role of the individual poet within a po-etics such as that practised by both Catullus and (perhaps) Hortalus (cf.Fordyce on Cat. 95.3). That such questions were of concern to neoteric,as to later, poets hardly requires demonstration. It may well be that therepetition of a passage on his brother’s death in Poem 68 (or between68a and 68b, if that is preferable) is a further manifestation of the explo-ration of the parameters of creativity, for that is the use to which Catul-lus has put Callimachus in Poems 65 and 66.14

11 Callimachus’ familiarity with Theocritus 11 seems suggested by Epigram 46Pfeiffer (= 3 GP).

12 Witke, op. cit. (n. 3) 14, rightly noted how the opening verses could evoke theidea of the lovesick poet.

13 Acontius, vgco?r rpojah^lemor C ptek]air (Aristaenetus 1.10.57), may well berelevant. Did Acontius complain that Cydippe had forgotten her oath (cf.Cat. 65.17–18)?

14 I am grateful to Elaine Fantham and Ludwig Koenen for helpful comments onan earlier draft of this note.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception210

Addenda

For futher discussion of Catullus’ translation practice in Poem 65 cf. Traditionand Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 474–5; there are important remarks at A.Barchiesi, HSCP 95 (1993) 363–5. The Letters of Aristaenetus have beengiven a full commentary with up-to-date bibliography by Anna TizianaDrago (Aristeneto. Lettere d’amore, Lecce 2007).

17. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65 211

12. Plautus and Herodas*

The history of the reception of Herodas’ mimiambs1 has run the fullgamut from enthusiasm for ‘the ancient realist’ to a rather weary dis-missal in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, “aesthetic manner-ism, not ‘realism’ […] the invitation to prurience and social snobberywhich they convey makes them tedious”.2 What kind of ‘realist’mode informs the mimiambs has always been a (perhaps the) central crit-ical question, particularly for those who have tried to offer a general ap-preciation of the qualities of these intriguing texts. R. Ussher, for exam-ple, asserts: “Herodas’ characters […] are real people, captured in realmoments of existence, and drawn with psychological perceptiveness.They are not realistic, inasmuch as they use language which no Greekof their day (or ever) spoke […] what is real is the society withinwhich they live their sometimes unattractive lives […]”,3 and W.G. Ar-nott similarly seeks to distinguish between what he sees as Herodas’exact “observation of the small, realistic details of low life”, his “obser-vation of real-life conversations”, and the foolishness of any attempt tolabel his poems as ‘realistic’. Thus, he notes of Bitinna’s relenting at theend of Poem 5, “this is the way petty pride operates in petty human be-ings; Herodas’ observation of human behaviour is again exact”.4 A de-nial of any simple concept of the poems as ‘realist’, based upon language,metre and literary texture, may be accepted without further discussion;5

rather, these features overtly proclaim the mimetic, representational sta-

* L. Benz et al. (eds.), Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels (Tübingen 1995)155–69

1 This paper has benefitted from the constructive criticism of audiences at TheInstitute of Classical Studies in London and the University of Freiburg.

2 A. W. Bulloch on p. 612 of Vol. I. There is a survey of ‘realist’ views in G.Mastromarco, The Public of Herondas, Amsterdam 1984, 65–68.

3 ‘The Mimiamboi of Herodas’, Hermathena 129, 1980, 65–76, 71.4 ‘Herodas and the Kitchen Sink’, G&R 18, 1971, 121–132.5 Sensible remarks in G. Zanker, Realism in Alexandrian Poetry, London 1987,

159–60.

tus of the mimiambs, and are a constant reminder to the audience6 thatthey are not being offered unmediated access to ‘slices of life’. As to thesecond part of the dichotomy offered by Ussher and Arnott, the appealto Herodas’ ‘exact observation’ and ‘psychological perceptiveness’ thereis perhaps little that can be said. Everyone forms their own notions ofwhat is ‘true to life’ on the basis of their own experiences (includingtheir experience of art), and such things can hardly be the subject of ar-gument. On the other hand, we may hope to find in the poems them-selves a guide to approaching these problems. In this paper I wish toraise some general problems of ‘character’ and ‘voice’ in the mimiambs,as the background to a consideration of the speech of Battaros in Poem2. My two strategies will be an examination of passages in the poemsthemselves which seem to be pointing us in a particular interpretativedirection, and secondly a comparison with certain aspects of Plautinedramaturgy; suggestive points of contact between the Greek mimiamb-ist and the Roman comic dramatist will, I hope, emerge.

In Poem 4 two women visit a shrine of Asklepios to offer thanks fora cure from sickness. While their offering is being presented to the godby the sacristan, they admire the works of art in the shrine; the two sec-tions of ‘art admiration’ are separated by some typically Herodan abuseof a slave (41–56). The women’s admiration for the works of art isbased on their impressive likeness to life — you could believe themreal (27–38, 57–78). Such a view of art is, of course, familiar inmany contexts from the early Hellenistic period, and indeed reflects a‘professional’ way of appreciating art;7 poetry, for example, offers usthe cloak of Jason (Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1,721–767) and the palace decora-tions of Theocritus 15.8 Modern discussion of Herodas 4 has rightly re-fused to assume that what the women say about the works of art they seeclassifies them, without further ado, as stupid and uneducated, and somecritics have indeed wished to see here reflections of Herodas’ own ar-

6 The nature of the audience for these poems is, of course, a matter of great de-bate; I have discussed these problems in: ‘The presentation of Herodas’ Mim-iamboi’, Antichthon 27, 1993, 31–44 [= this volume 189–205].

7 Cf. J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology,New Haven / London 1974, 63–66, 125–138.

8 I have discussed Jason’s cloak in: The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies,Cambridge 1993, 52–59.

12. Plautus and Herodas 213

tistic program.9 How we should react to what the women say remains,however, to be investigated.

It is now a critical commonplace that the description in a writtentext, even a dramatic text, of the viewing of a work of art inscribeswithin that text an analogy — perhaps a deliberately misleading one— of the reception of the written (or heard) text itself. Herodas 4 offersa very clear example of this, for it is not difficult to see the analogy be-tween the women’s reactions to the temple artworks and the reactionsto Herodas’ poem that the poet himself both anticipates and exploits,and which we have actually seen realised in the history of criticismsince the publication of the London papyrus. In other words, thewomen are in part created as a potential audience for Herodas’ poems,but this is, of course, very different from seeing them as an ‘ideal’ audi-ence and their reactions as authorially approved. By separating the twosections of ‘art criticism’ with a quintessentially mimiambic passage ofslave abuse, Herodas forces us to confront the similarity and differenceof the two kinds of ‘work of art’ on display, and to see the women aspotential analogues of ourselves. On one hand, we are invited to rejectthe analogy because of the women’s gender, social class and language —‘we are not like that!’ —;10 on the other, the inherent attractions of thewomen’s approach to what they see are very real. If, however, the ‘howtrue to life!’ school of criticism is to be applied to works of high plasticart, can we apply it to a scene of vulgar slave abuse (particularly one inarchaising dialect) without realising its deficiencies, not to say banality?Herodas knowingly exploits a tradition of connecting comedy and sub-comic mime with ‘life’; the idea that comedy (and probably, a fortiori,mime) is an ‘imitation of life’ was well established in the theoretical tra-

9 Cf. (with varying nuances) S. Luria, ‘Herondas’ Kampf für die veristischeKunst’, in: Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni, Torino1963, 394–415; G. Lawall, Theocritus’ Coan Pastorals, Washington 1967, 119;L. Massa Positano, Eroda. Mimiambo IV, Napoli 1973, 9–10; O. Specchia,‘Gli studi su Eroda nell’ ultimo trentennio’, Cultura e scuola 70, 1979, 32–43;T. Gelzer, ‘Mimus und Kunsttheorie bei Herondas, Mimiambus 4’, in: C.Schäublin (ed.), Catalepton. Festschrift Bernhard Wyss, Basel 1985, 96–116;Zanker, Realism (n. 5) 43; F.-J. Simon, T± j}kk’ !e_deim. Interpretationen zuden Mimiamben des Herodas, Frankfurt 1991, 61–67; C. Miralles, ‘La poeticadi Eroda’, Aevum Antiquum 5, 1992, 89–113, 100–102; S. Goldhill, in: S.Goldhill / R. Osborne (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture, Cambridge1994, 221–222.

10 There are here many assumptions about Herodas’ audience, but I hope in thiscase that they are not too controversial.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception214

dition before the third century,11 and Herodas’ scene both dramatisesthat connection and exposes its limitations.

The ‘realism’ of Herodas is thus a realism of irony, of the power ofwhat we say both to reflect and to deflect truth. This is perhaps mostobvious in Poem 2 (cf. below) and Poem 7, in which our uncertaintyof the relationship between Kerdon and Metro and of what they arereally talking about is the crucial element of the poem’s strategy.12 InPoem 4 we may point to the sacristan’s report of the success of thewomen’s offering:

j\k’ wlim, § cuma ?jer, 1mtek]yr t± Rq\ja· 1r k_iom 1lbk]pomta .

lef|myr outirAq]sato t¹m Pai^om’ Epeq owm qle ?r.Qµ Qµ Pa_gom, eqlemµr eUgrjako ?r 1p’ Qqo ?r t/isde jeU timer t_mde5as’ apuigta_ te ja· cem/r üssom.Qµ Qµ Pa_gom, §de taOt’ eUg.

(4, 79–85)

Women, your sacrifice is splendid and correct, and foreshadows goodthings; no one has pleased Paieon more than you. Hie, hie Paieon! Mayyou look graciously upon these ladies’ offerings, and upon any who aretheir spouses or family. Hie, hie Paieon! So may it be!

On 80–81 Cunningham comments “doubtless a conventional remark”,and this may well be true, but unless we imagine that the effect soughtin this poem is one of ‘documentary realism’ we ought not to be satis-fied with such an explanation. What is the tone (and the overtones) ofthe hyperbole? It is true that this god is a god of the people, and thewomen have displayed irreproachable piety, but can we really readthis remark without irony? Consider too the women’s opening prayer.A number of studies have rightly pointed to familiar hymnic and formu-

11 Cf. the summary and bibliography at Zanker (n. 5) 144–145.12 Cf. G. Lawall, ‘Herodas 6 and 7 reconsidered’, CP 71, 1976, 165–169. Cun-

ningham’s view (cf. ‘Herodas 6 and 7’, CQ 14, 1964, 32–35 and his edition) isthat Poem 7 is much less nuanced than this, but 61–63 may just be a witticism,and it does not follow from the salesman’s compliments at 108–112 that Ker-don actually has first-hand experience of Metro’s body. 127–129 remain ob-scure, despite V. Schmidt, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Herondas, Berlin1968, 117–127.

12. Plautus and Herodas 215

laic elements in this address to the god,13 but the ‘parallel’ passages mere-ly highlight what is different. Here we have not a public, choral per-formance on behalf of a city, but the humblest of offerings from a hum-ble worshipper, and in spoken choliambics rather than sung lyrics.Kynno – if that indeed is the speaker’s name – stretches stylistically asshe brings to the god ‘the herald of the walls14 of my house’, and theeffect is a mixture of the comic15 and the bathetic as the god and allhis retinue are summoned to enjoy the culinary pleasure offered byone small cock. The complexity of the reaction appropriate to such apassage is unsettling, and the creation of such uncertainty seems to bea persistent literary strategy in the mimiamboi. ‘Slices of life’ can neverbe understood without a context, and by depriving us of that contextHerodas opens the way to an ironic reception, or at least does not per-mit us to discard the possibility of such reception. Poem 1 further illus-trates this technique. We will not imagine that Gyllis speaks ‘the truth’about Gryllos (50–67) because it is her job to make him sound as attrac-tive as possible, and she is hardly acting out of altruism (cf. the referenceto gifts in 65).16 More uncertain perhaps is whether or not we are to un-derstand that Metriche believes her encomium of the young man. It is,however, clear that the drink of reconciliation at the end of the poemlooks forward to future co-operation and mutual understanding; itopens possibilities, rather than closing them down.

At one level, of course, this mode of speech and presentation whichI have been investigating is merely the mimiambic version of the tradi-tion of skilful, ambivalent speech which runs through the whole historyof Greek literature; Kerdon, indeed, the ‘bald fox’ of Poems 6 and 7, isa very Odysseus of leather-workers.17 The success of such a mode de-pends, however, on a strongly typological view of character — ‘whatyoung men are like’, ‘what pornoboskoi are like’ — so that very few

13 To the standard commentaries add R. Wünsch, ‘Ein Dankopfer an Asklepios’,ARW 7, 1904, 95–116. For the style in general cf. E. Norden, Agnostos Theos,Berlin 1913, 168–176.

14 to_wym is certainly difficult, though I am not convinced that it is corrupt; thedefence offered by G. Giangrande, QUCC 15, 1973, 92 is, however, in-adequate.

15 t!p_doqpa d]naishe in 13 activates the familiar comic motif that the gods ac-tually dine upon what men sacrifice to them, cf. my note on Eubulus fr. 95.

16 Cf. Simon (n. 9) 48–49.17 For the play on his name cf. 7,72–75. For Kerdon as Odysseus cf. 6,58–62

(comparing Iliad 3,202–224).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception216

words are in fact necessary to allow an audience to understand the dy-namics of a situation. Here the mimiamboi stand quite close to NewComedy. To what extent Menander’s characters are individualised, inany meaningful sense of the term, may be debated,18 but it is hardlyto be doubted that Menander exploits the traditional, generic concep-tion of character as a motive force within his plays: young men, broadlyspeaking, behave like young men.19 Herodas’ relationship to the comictradition has been much studied,20 and although his characters are forthe most part drawn from a milieu which is not prominent in Comedy,a close relationship between the two seems hard to deny. The nature ofthe relationship has usually been seen in simple terms of ‘borrowing’ byHerodas, but a rather more nuanced picture seems possible.

The mimiamboi distort comic ideas and scenes by re-staging them at a‘low’ level of society; the result is perhaps better described as a kind ofpara-comedy than as ‘parody of comedy’, although the formal dramaticgenre can hardly emerge unstained from this deformation.21 To whatextent this strategy was assisted by the Hellenistic practice of re-per-forming bits of plays (especially Euripides and Menander) rather thanwhole plays we can only guess; we should, however, remember B.Gentili’s warning that this Hellenistic practice is potentially importantfor understanding the difference between the plays of Greek New

18 For relevant considerations and bibliography cf. P.G. McC. Brown, ‘Masks,Names and Characters in New Comedy’, Hermes 115, 1987, 181–202.

19 Aristotle’s account of young men in the Rhetoric (2,1389a3-b12) is perhaps thebest point of reference for Menander: young men are 1pihulgtijo_ and tend toact upon their 1pihul_ai (particularly in matters of love), cf. Dysk. 50 ff; they arequick to anger, cf. Samia 616 ff; they have little concern with money becausethey have not experienced lack, cf. Dysk. 797 ff; they act in pursuit of t¹

jak|m rather than t¹ sulv]qom, cf. Dysk. 77, 309 ff etc. It is, therefore, at besta partial truth that “no Greek seems to have been acquainted with the phenom-ena which we classify under ‘youthful idealism’” (K. J. Dover, Greek PopularMorality, Oxford 1974, 104).

20 To the material gathered in the standard commentaries add H. Krakert, Herodasin mimiambis quatenus comoediam Graecam respexisse uidetur, Diss. Freiburg 1902;A. P. Smotrytsch, ‘Die Vorgänger des Herondas’, AAnt.Hung. 14, 1966,61–75; B. Veneroni, ‘Allacciamenti tematici tra la commedia greco-latina eil mimo di Eroda’, RIL 107, 1973, 760–772.

21 For many of the effects with which I am concerned ‘parody’ would be a per-fectly appropriate label, but for others it would not, and so I prefer the broader(and vaguer) term.

12. Plautus and Herodas 217

Comedy and those of Plautus.22 There is certainly an obvious relation-ship between this ‘anthologising’ habit and the single scenes with whichHerodas presents us; here Plautus and Herodas may have taken the samestrategy — concentration upon the single ‘scene’ — in rather differentdirections, but in both cases (as we shall see) the result is a kind of ‘de-construction’ of comedy. However that may be, this phenomenon ofwhat I have called ‘para-comedy’ is of crucial importance for the appre-ciation of the mimiamboi. Thus, for example, when Gastron pleads withhis angry mistress to forgive him for ‘servicing’ a lady other than herself,

B_timm’, %ver loi tµm !laqt_gm ta}tgm.%mhqypor eQl’, Elaqtom.

(5,26–27)

Bitinna, let me off this one mistake. I’m human, I made a mistake.

it is our familiarity with this argument in the ‘serious’ contexts of NewComedy,23 as well as the slave’s equivocation with %mhqypor as both‘man’ and ‘slave’,24 which gives the verses their quasi-parodic force.There is more involved here than just a re-use of common motifs. Inthe mimiamboi (as also in Plautus)25 the characters seem to play outrôles which they and we know to be rôles; there is a self-conscious‘staginess’ in what they say, and this is perhaps the most important con-stitutive element in the characteristic ironic mode which I have traced.Even a feature such as the prominent use of ‘proverbs’ and semi-prov-erbial phrases is not merely an inherited generic feature26 or a vehicle for‘mimetic realism’, but rather marks an ironically distorted representation

22 Cf. B. Gentili, Theatrical Performances in the Ancient World, Amsterdam 1979. Cf.now M. Huys, ‘P.Oxy. LIII 3705: a line from Menander’s Periceiromene withmusical notation’, ZPE 99, 1993, 30–32.

23 Cf. the commentators ad loc., adding Men. Samia 17 (with Gomme/Sandbachad loc.), 138. At Petr. Sat. 130.1 ‘Polyaenus’ uses this argument to excuse hisfailure to commit a sexual indiscretion (he proved less than fully homo), andthe effect of that passage, like Herodas 5,26–27, depends upon our knowledgeof how the topos is usually used.

24 Cf. LSJ s.v. I 7. The equivocation is set up by the very similar 6, B_timma, doOk|reQli.

25 Cf. further below, and N. W. Slater, Plautus in Performance, Princeton 1985,160–162 for some suggestive remarks.

26 Cf. Demetrius, On Style 156 (trans. W. Rhys Roberts), “Sophron employs twoor three proverbs in succession so as to load his style with elegances. Almost allthe proverbs in existence might be collected out of his plays”.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception218

which depends for its effect upon our familiarity with other standardmodes of representation, such as those of comedy; such phrases, partic-ularly when delivered in the archaising Ionic of Herodas, are essentiallytheatrical markers of rôle-playing. When viewed in this light, it is pos-sible to see the relationship between drama and the mimiamboi as morefundamental than the mere study of shared motifs and characters mightsuggest. We could if we wish, for example, see Mimiamb 3 (The School-teacher) as a distorted and ‘low-life’ version of the typical comic scenarioof wastrel son and angry parent, with Metrotime playing the rôle ofTerence’s Demea,27 or Mimiamb 6 (A Private Conversation) as showingwhat women ‘really’ talk about when they get together (contrast,e. g., Menander, Synaristosai = Plautus, Cistellaria);28 whatever particularlinks there might be, these poems depend for their effect upon their au-dience’s knowledge of other, ‘higher’ modes and representations. It isthe ironic perspective provided by that knowledge, even more thanthe linguistic form of the mimiamboi, which determines the very specialnature of their ‘mimetic realism’.

This notion of ‘para-comedy’ might seem to bring us very close to(or even be derived from) a famous passage of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophis-tai :

The player called a magode (lacyid|r) carries tambourines and cymbals,and all his clothes are women’s garments. He makes rude gestures (swim_fe-tai), and all his actions lack decency, as he plays the part of adulterouswomen or bawds (lastqopo}r), or a man drunk and going on a revel tohis mistress. Aristoxenus (fr. 110 W2) says that hilarodia is serious and derivesfrom tragedy (paq± tµm tqacyid_am eWmai), whereas magodia derives fromcomedy (paq± tµm jylyid_am). For often magodes took comic scenarios(rpoh]seir) and acted them in their own style and manner.(Ath. 14,621c-d)

We simply do not have sufficient evidence to allow us to solve the tan-talising problems of this passage, and in particular the precise resonances

27 With 44–49 cf. Ter. Ad. 84–93, esp. 93 in orest omni populo. The smaller scaleof Metrotime’s alleged sufferings (3m c±q st|l’ 1st· t/r sumoij_gr p\sgr jtk.) isa fair measure of the ‘distance’ between comedy and mimiamb.

28 A conversation about the merits of ekisboi is indeed preserved as Aristophanesfr. 592 K.-A.; unlike the women in Herodas, however, the Aristophanicwomen are unimpressed: “they are as like the real thing as the moon is likethe sun; they look [good enough], but give no warmth”. S. Ciriello, Sileno15, 1989, 83–88, argues that the fragment comes from The Lemnian Women.

12. Plautus and Herodas 219

of paq\.29 I do not necessarily believe that the relationship betweenHerodas and comedy which I have sketched sheds any light upon thispassage of Athenaeus, if only because it is far from clear that Herodashas anything to do with magodia, but it may be that we can see, inthe mimiamboi and in magodia, two related exploitations of New Com-edy, which very quickly established itself as a ‘classic’ dramatic repertoireavailable for more than one kind of ‘re-performance’.

The Plautine version of the effect which I have been consideringhere deserves further attention. As I have noted elsewhere,30 Plautinecomedy distorts Greek comedy by breaking it down into its constituentelements, by ‘showing how it works’, by exaggerating its standard con-ceits and assumptions, and the result is again something like a parody ofGreek comedy. The recent renewal of interest in the popular and farci-cal affiliations of Plautine comedy, a renewal that is most associated withE. Lefèvre and his colleagues, is of particular relevance in evaluating thissimilarity between Plautus and Herodas.

In my view, both writers play upon their audience’s knowledge ofother modes to produce a complex representation in which we enjoynot merely the scenes presented to us ‘for their own sakes’, but also be-cause we recognise (and laugh at) distortions of other, perhaps more ‘se-rious’, modes. As Herodas assimilates comic material to the ‘lower’ mi-lieu of mime and iambos, so Plautus often assimilates the plots and char-acters of his Greek originals to the ‘lower’ milieu of Italian farce. Ishould add that these generalisations are broadly independent of thecloseness or distance of Plautus from Greek drama for which anyonewould wish to argue. Even where Plautus composes ‘off his own bat’,he is still exploiting and distorting the classic, authenticating traditionof Greek comedy.

In the second part of this paper I wish to apply these general con-siderations to certain aspects of what is perhaps Herodas’ most famouscreation, the pornoboskos Battaros of Poem 2.

“I am also surprised, men of Athens, if you who hate pornoboskoi willbe prepared to release those who have voluntarily prostituted themselves

29 Cf. Wilamowitz, Kleine Schriften II, 117–18; Maas RE 3A.159; E. Fraenkel, El-ementi plautini in Plauto, Firenze 1960, 317 n. (= Plautinisches im Plautus, Berlin1922, 331 n.). For the meaning assumed by my translation cf. LSJ s.v. C I 6a, P.Rau, Paratragodia: Untersuchung einer komischen Form des Aristophanes, München1967, 8–9. Cunningham offers a brief but helpful overview of the sources on3–11 of his edition of Herodas.

30 Drama 2, 1993, 235–237.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception220

(to»r 2j|mtar pepoqmeul]mour)”; thus Aischines in the course of hisspeech against Timarchus (Aisch. 1,188). In Poem 2 Herodas presentsthe speech to a Coan court of Battaros, a metic, a pornoboskos and a kin-aidos. To what extent his speech may parody contemporary Coan con-ventions we cannot know,31 but it has long been recognised that thecentral motive force of the poem is the inversion of legal topoi familiarfrom our corpus of Attic forensic oratory.32 Although p|qmoi wereprobably not technically prohibited from speaking in Athenian courts(as opposed to the assembly),33 the whole idea is a preposterous inver-sion of the ideology and ethos of those courts; as J.J. Winkler put it,“[the kinaidos] constitutes a powerful image […] of a socially and sexu-ally deviant male”.34 The inversion is here marked by Battaros’ name, asAischines claims (1,126. 131; 2,99) that Demosthenes’ nickname B\ta-kor could denote !mamdq_a ja· jimaid_a, although Demosthenes himselfsought to explain it as the result of a childhood speech defect (cf. bat-taq_feim).35 Battaros is therefore a ‘lowlife’ alter ego of the greatest Atticorator of the classical period. Mimiamb 2 is, however, not merely an ex-ample of the devil quoting scripture; Battaros’ speech drives a wedgeinto the assumption of Attic forensic oratory that the man who is gen-erally sober and law-abiding will also have been law-abiding on any par-ticular occasion. Aristotle notes that the three qualities which make aspeaker trustworthy are vq|mgsir, !qet^ and eumoia (Rhet. 2,1378a6–9); Battaros offers a sublime picture of the opposite of all three. Ar-istotle also observes that the speaker must “put the hearers into the frameof mind of those who are inclined to anger, and […] show that his op-ponents are responsible for things which rouse men to anger and arepeople of the kind with whom men are angry” (Rhet. 2,1380a 2–4);with Battaros, however, we laugh rather than cry. At one level, thespeech is a disaster; at another, it is a masterpiece. Moreover an impor-

31 The most recent investigator, C. Castello, ‘Sulla legislazione attribuita a Caron-da nel secondo Mimiambo di Eroda’, in: G. Nenci / G. Thür (Hgg.), Symposion1988. Vortr�ge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, Wien 1990,361–368, seems inclined to take both the cited laws and their ascription toCharondas at face value; few would be so trusting.

32 Fundamental is O. Hense, ‘Zum zweiten Mimiamb des Herodas’, RhM 55,1900, 222–231. For a recent discussion cf. Simon (n. 9) 83–93.

33 This seems a reasonable inference from Aischines’ silence on the subject in hisspeech against Timarchus.

34 The Constraints of Desire, New York / London 1990, 45.35 For further discussion cf. Headlam on 2,75–76.

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tant part of the effect of the whole is our suspicion that Battaros’ per-formance is as knowing as our response; he knows just what rôle heis playing.

Scholars have rightly looked to comedy for Battaros’ immediatepredecessors. The pornoboskos was a stock character of Middle andNew Comedy,36 but legal problems are usually the last thing such acharacter wants (cf. Men. Kolax 132, Ter. Ad. 195); the pornoboskos ofdrama knows that he stands no chance before the popular courts. Inbringing an action, then, Battaros simply inverts one more (comic)norm. In appealing to the public service he has performed by importingprostitutes (18–19), he may however have comic precedent. In a frag-ment of Philemon (fr. 3 K.-A.) an unknown speaker praises Solon’s es-tablishment of brothels:

dglotij|m, § FeO, pq÷cla ja· syt^qiom(ja_ loi k]ceim toOt’ 1st·m "qlost|m, S|kym)

It is not difficult to guess that this speaker who praises brothels as an in-stitution which is ‘public-spirited and serves the general safety’ is a por-noboskos. Moreover, clear affinities have been noted between Battarosand Sannio, the leno of Terence’s Adelphoe, who probably derives ulti-mately from a play of Diphilos, but whose name also points towards thepopular traditions of Italian farce.37 Like Battaros, Sannio loses one ofhis girls by force and, like Battaros, claims to consider this an outrageousaffront to freedom and the rule of law; unlike Battaros, however, wenever really believe that Sannio will pursue his ‘rights’ in a court oflaw (Ad. 163, cf. 248).

The substance of Battaros’ complaint against Thales, foreshadowedin 24–25, is first set out in 31–40:

mOm d’ oR l³m 1|mter t/r p|kior jakupt/qerja· t/i cem/i vus_mter oqj Usom to}tyi

pq¹r to»r m|lour bk]pousi jAl³ t¹m ne ?momoqde·r pok_tgr Ak|gsem oqd’ Gkhempq¹r t±r h}qar leu mujt¹r oqd’ 5wym d÷idar

36 Cf. R.L. Hunter, Eubulus. The Fragments, Cambridge 1983, 179.37 For Battaros and Sannio cf., e. g. Smotrytsch (n. 20) 69–70; Veneroni (n. 20)

237–240; R. L. Hunter, The New Comedy of Greece and Rome, Cambridge1985, 72 with n. 25. For the farcical connections of his name cf. E. Rawson,PBSR 53, 1985, 98 (= Roman Culture and Society. Collected Papers, Oxford1991, 470), Hunter, this volume 659–60.

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tµm oQj_gm qv/xem oqd³ t_m poqm]ym

b_gi kab½m oUwyjem . !kk’ a Vq»n owtor,a mOm Hak/r 1~m, pq|she d’, %mdqer, )qt_llgr,%pamta taOt’ 5pqgne joqj 1pgid]shgoute m|lom oute pqost\tgm out’ %qwomta.

As it is, those who are really on the roof of the city, whose birth gives themfar more cause for pride than his, they respect the laws; no citizen has everthrashed me, the foreign guest, or come to my doors at night, or taken atorch and set fire to the house, or seized one of my girls by force andrun off. But this Phrygian, who now calls himself Thales, but, gentlemen,used to be Artimmes, he has done all of these things, without respect forany law or magistrate38 or official.

The scenes which are here evoked are the very way in which pornobos-koi, particularly in literary and dramatic representations, made theirmoney. What Battaros denies ever happened are the very thingswhich are commonplace in comedy, and require no illustration.39 ‘Nocitizen has ever come to my doors at night …’; if so, Battaros musthave conducted a singularly unsuccessful business. What under normalcircumstances can be presented to a law-court as outrageous behaviourtowards a peace-loving citizen is just what happens every night at a(comic) brothel. Just as the characters of New Comedy can move ina self-referential world in which ‘“everyday experience’ […] is onlythat which is sanctioned by repeated appearance on the comicstage”,40 so Battaros’ list of adunata are the very stuff of the literary mi-lieu which spawned him. Moreover, when Battaros shows Myrtale tothe jury and claims that Thales is responsible for her ‘plucked condition’(t_klata),41 he is not (or at least not primarily), as some commentatorshave supposed, aping Hypereides who is said to have displayed his clientPhryne to the jury,42 but rather doing what comes naturally – displaying

38 Cunningham and others are presumably correct to take pqost\tgr as a re-ference to the chief Coan magistrates, cf. S. M. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos,Göttingen 1978, 199–205. The distinction between pqost\tgm and %qwomta

is presumably for these purposes academic and the tricolon bathetically humor-ous.

39 The possible exception is the burning of the house (though see Headlam ad loc.for such komastic threats, and note the end of Ar. Clouds).

40 Hunter, New Comedy (n. 37) 74; on 74–76 I discuss some examples fromGreek and Roman comedy.

41 The joke was first explained by A.E. Housman, ‘Herodas II 65–71’, CR 36,1922, 109–110 (= Classical Papers III 1056–1057).

42 Hypereides fr. 178 Jensen.

12. Plautus and Herodas 223

his wares to potential clients. Battaros amusingly treats Myrtale as a ‘shyvirgin’ whose only contact with men has been with her close male rel-atives (66–68); might we guess that this is to be understood as an actualsales-pitch used to raise the price of a particular girl? Be that as it may,Battaros’ ready willingness to hand her over to Thales in return formoney (79–83) inverts the Demosthenic rhetoric of “I could havetaken the money to drop the case, but I didn’t…” (cf., e. g.,Dem. 21,215–216).

The nearest parallel in extant dramatic literature for Battaros’ dis-playing of Myrtale is probably Ballio’s parade of prostitutes in Plautus’Pseudolus, which E. Fraenkel demonstrated to be very largely Plautus’own work.43 Apart from Ballio’s distribution of his prostitutes accordingto the occupations of their clients, the main comic conceit of that sceneseems to be that Ballio does precisely the opposite of what a pornoboskosshould do when his girls display themselves to ‘an audience’: instead ofmaking them seem attractive and desirable, Ballio runs them down asuseless and wasteful. From a dramatic point of view, the purpose ofthis ‘characterisation’ is obvious: Ballio’s rôle is not permitted nuancesor complications, he is the pure essence of leno. When Cicero describedhim as improbissimus et periurissimus leno […] persona illa lutulenta, impura,inuisa (Pro Quinto Roscio comoedo 20) the stereotyped, rather unimagina-tive colours – in part derived from the play itself —44 catch the certaintyand definiteness of the rôle, which are played off against, first, the help-less vacillation and impotence of Calidorus and, then, the shifting craft-iness of the Odyssean Pseudolus.45 Like Battaros, Ballio knows both hisrôle46 and the rules of the game:

Si. quid ait? quid narrat? quaeso, quid dicit tibi?Ba. nugas theatri, uerba quae in comoediissolent lenoni dici, quae pueri sciunt:

43 Elementi plautini in Plauto, Firenze 1960, 136–142 (= Plautinisches im Plautus,Berlin 1922, 143–150), 414. On the character of Ballio see the (rather exagger-ated) account in C. Garton, Personal Aspects of the Roman Theatre, Toronto 1972,169–188.

44 Cf. 360–368, 975, 1083.45 For Pseudolus as Odysseus cf. 1063, 1245; more broadly, Odysseus is intimately

connected with many major dramatic, and especially comic, themes and motifs(recognition, disguise, trickery). The ‘serious’ counterpart to Pseudolus’ ‘stag-ing’ of the plot to cheat Ballio is Odysseus’ ‘staging’ of the plot to trick Phil-octetes in Sophocles’ tragedy.

46 For metatheatre in Pseudolus in general cf. Slater (n. 25) 118–146.

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malum et scelestum et peiiurum aibat esse me.(Pseudolus 1080–1083)

Ballio’s self-confidence, of course, is in for a rude shock; drama hasroom for narrative development and surprise of a kind which is hardlypossible within the scope of the mimiamb. The shorter form thereforemakes greater demands upon our interpretative resources. With Bat-taros, we are not quite sure where we stand; we do not quite knowhow far our leg is being pulled.

The humour of the central section of Battaros’ speech, 41–54 onthe law concerning aQje_g, requires little explanation: the appeal tothe universality of laws which are not made with specific individualsin mind (cf. Dem. 21, 29–30), the intimacy and vulgarity with whichBattaros addresses the clerk of the court etc., are all easy enough to ap-preciate. Nevertheless, certain aspects of the legal humour have not al-ways been well understood and deserve further comment here. In Atticlaw a d_jg aQje_ar could be brought against someone for unprovoked as-sault, and this was naturally closely associated with, though quite sepa-rate from, a d_jg bk\bgr, which sought restitution for damage to prop-erty.47 Coan law may, of course, have been different, but if, as seemslikely, the assumed background is not unlike that of Attic law, then itis significant that whereas the scribe cites a law referring to physical as-sault (46–48), Battaros himself reads out clauses which deal indiscrim-inately with physical assault and damage to property (50–54). Afterall that has preceded, jCm bk\xgi ti ‘if he does any damage’ (54) is ri-diculously bathetic. Moreover, whereas at Athens the d_jg aQje_ar wastilgt|r, i. e. the plaintiff had to suggest the damages,48 Battaros citesclauses with fixed penalties. The clauses that he cites are not onlymore specific than is customary in such laws, but are also uncannily ap-propriate to what he claims to have suffered. If the law that the clerkcites sounds (comically) strange,49 Battaros’ clauses seem to be made

47 Cf. J. H. Lipsius, Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren, Leipzig 1915, 643–646,652–663.

48 Cf. Isocrates 20,19, Harpocration s.v. aQj_ar.49 In view of Dem. 21,43 and Aisch. 1,139, I follow Headlam in reading 1j½m

1p_spgi in 47, ‘follows her about with <evil> intention’, 1j½m explains the‘double penalty’ and adds to the ‘legal flavour’; to the instances cited by thecommentators add perhaps Amycus’ oath at Theocr. 22,134 ‘not willingly toharm strangers in the future’. Nevertheless, a double penalty for wrong doneto a slave-girl by a free man sounds a decidedly odd inversion of what we

12. Plautus and Herodas 225

up as he goes along; he has, after all, taken the statute from the clerk andis ‘reading’ it out himself. Just as the ‘facts’ of the case are a comic mix-ture of the everyday and the shamelessly invented — there are no wit-nesses, as Battaros endearingly remarks (85) — so the ‘laws’ adduced inthis case are a mixture of trite phraseology and novel content. Beforepursuing this in detail, we may note here clear satire of Athenianlegal practice in which laws could be partially or indeed erroneouslycited and few of the jury would be the wiser;50 the form of the citation— vgs_, 5meile — alerts us to Battaros’ shamelessness. This reading mayseem to presuppose an audience with very detailed knowledge of thelaw, but we easily overestimate the abstruseness of legal practice in a dif-ferent culture, and we must always remember that the formal aspects ofHerodas’ verse suggest (at least in part) an educated and indeed scholarlyaudience.

‘If someone beats on (j|xgi) a door, let him pay a mina’ (50). Com-mentators explain that j|pteim here must be used not in its usual sense of‘knock at’, but rather as ‘batter down’ (cf. 63 jat^qajtai), perhaps in-stead of the complex 1jj|xgi.51 In view, however, of the disingenuous-ness of 34–35 (cf. above), we should, on at least one level, understandj|xgi in its normal sense as another example of Battaros’ tauntingshamelessness: knocking on someone’s door does not normally carry afine. ‘If someone burns the house or oversteps the boundaries … ’(52–53). I cite Cunningham’s note: “eqor is the stone marking theboundary between two areas of land […] hence the abstract boundaryitself […] The extension to the walls of a house is […] difficult to ex-plain.” There are a number of points to be made here. We ought per-haps not make too much of the fact that Battaros does not own thehouse which he alleges has been damaged, but merely rents it (64);this does, however, obviously affect his legal position and would cer-tainly not escape the notice of a legally aware audience. What damagehas actually been done is also moot, as 36 and 52 suggest large-scale

might have expected in an actual law, cf. Law Code of Gortyn col. II 2–7, “If aperson commits rape on the free man or the free woman, he shall pay one hun-dred staters […] and if the slave on the free man or the free woman, he shall paydouble” (trans. R. F. Willets), and the similar ‘double’ provision at col. II 26. Ifindeed the clerk’s law is also absurd, this does not mean that Cunningham’s5<k>jym 1p_spgi ‘pulls her about and belabours her’, should be adopted;1j½m ‘with malice aforethought’ is just added for the legal atmosphere.

50 There is an excellent example at Aisch. 1,20–21; cf. K. J. Dover, Greek Homo-sexuality, London 1978, 24–25.

51 Cf. esp. Lysias 3,6 (a komos to get a young boy) 1jj|xar t±r h}qar jtk.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception226

fire damage, whereas 65 t± qp]qhuq’ apt\ ‘the lintel <has been>scorched’ seems rather less serious. The real absurdity lies in ‘overstepsthe boundaries’, a quasi-legal phrase which, if it has a meaning insuch contexts, would refer either to a public invasion of territory orto trespass in a rural setting; cf. Pl. Laws 8,843c-d ‘Whosoever en-croaches on his neighbour’s ground, overstepping the boundaries (rpeq-ba_mym to»r eqour), shall pay for the damage; and, by way of cure for hisshamelessness and incivility, he shall also pay out to the injured partytwice the cost of the damage (dipk\siom toO bk\bour)’ (trans. R.G.Bury). Thus Battaros has found an impressive, but entirely inappropri-ate, phrase to lend legal sonority to his citation of ‘the law’. Whatmakes our laughter uneasy here is the knowledge that this is differentonly in degree, not in kind, from the normal practice of law courts,at least as that practice was enshrined in the classics of Attic forensic or-atory.

What Mimiamb 2 does is to dismantle the structure of forensic per-suasion by revealing how it operates through a series of codes which canreadily be dissociated from ‘the facts of the case’; Battaros’ rhetoric un-masks the pretentious complacency of forensic topoi. It may not indeedbe fanciful to see in Battaros and Myrtale a comic dramatisation, or evenreductio ad absurdum, of the essentially erotic nature of peih~ in all itsmanifestations; ‘stripped’ of the theoretical considerations with whichGorgias, say, clothes rhetoric in the Helen, the arguments of the lawcourts are revealed for ‘what they really are’. In this wonderfully parodicspeech, then, Herodas deserves to be recognised as a truly ‘satiric’ writ-er.52

In this paper I have explored some characteristic features of themimiambs largely through an investigation of one poem. Despite thislimited compass, I hope that one strategy which is shared by Herodasand Plautus is now clear: both writers exploit our knowledge of othertexts and other contexts by the ironic deconstruction of those textsand contexts. That the historical explanation for this similarity lies ina shared debt to the popular traditions of mime and farce is a possibilitywhich is well worth considering.

52 Dr. Nick Lowe makes the attractive suggestion that behind Herodas’ strategyhere lies the ambivalent status of the written texts of Attic legal speeches them-selves: what is their relationship to ‘what was actually said’? It would be the un-easy compromise embodied in these ‘scripts’ which would be part at least ofHerodas’ target.

12. Plautus and Herodas 227

Addenda

Cf. above no. 10 for recent bibliography.

p. 217–18 For a recent consideration of Gentili’s view cf. S. Nervegna, ‘Stag-ing scenes or plays? Theatrical revivals of “old” Greek drama in antiquity’ ZPE162 (2007) 14–42.

pp. 222 For Sannio’s links with popular comedy cf. this volume 657–60.

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13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonisv. 55*

k\lbame, Peqsev|ma, t¹m 1l¹m p|sim. 1ss· c±q aqt\

pokk¹m 1leO jq]ssym, t¹ d³ p÷m jak¹m 1r s³ jataqqe ?.

So Aphrodite complains bitterly in Bion’s Lament for Adonis (vv. 54–5)1.That Bion’s choice of jataqqe ? is modelled on Theocritus 1, 5 is obvi-ous, but there is more to be said about the reworking of this passage ofIdyll 1, a poem whose central ‘lament’ for Daphnis, with its attendant‘pathetic fallacy’, gave it a particular importance as a model for Bion’sLament.

In Thyrsis’ opening speech in Idyll 1 he expresses the fact that thegoatherd is second only to Pan in musical skill by suggesting a gradationof prizes:

aU ja t/mor 6kgi jeqa¹m tq\com, aWca t» kax/i .

aU ja d’ aWca k\bgi t/mor c]qar, 1r t³ jataqqe ?" w_laqor· wil\qy d³ jak¹m jq]ar, 5ste j’ !l]kngir.

(Theocr. 1, 4–6)

Gow finds jataqqe ?, ‘falls to your lot’, hard to explain, except as an ex-tension of the idea that gods may ‘pour’ prosperity down upon mortals2.What is certain is that the word picks up the flowing springs of v. 2 andis part of an elaborate pattern of images of water and washing whichruns through the poem, a pattern that includes the death of Daphnis,w¡ D\vmir 5ba N|om (v. 140)3. More specifically, I suggest, the verb

* Materiali e Discussioni 32 (1994) 165–81 This note owes much to the criticism and encouragement of Marco Fantuzzi.

jataqqe ? is Stephanus’ certain correction of the transmitted ja· %qqei.2 Cf. Hom. Il. 2, 670; at Hor. c. 1, 28, 28 defluat is surely influenced by the ‘wa-

tery’ subject of that poem.3 Cf. C. Segal, Poetry and Myth in Ancient Pastoral, Princeton 1981, pp. 25–65.

Strikingly similar is Hor. c. 3, 13 where the red blood of a kid mingles withthe clear, ‘chattering’ waters of the fons Bandusiae; however conventional thepicture (cf., e. g., Theocr. 7, 135–6, H. P. Syndikus, Die Lyrik des Horaz, II,Darmstadt 1973, pp. 135–6), it is hard to believe that Horace was not thinking

evokes the collapse of the young goat, sacrificed to Pan as a preliminaryto the eating of its ‘lovely flesh’; as its life-blood and spirit ‘flow’ out4,the animal sinks, as the ox sacrificed by Herakles and Ankaios for thesuccess of the Argonautic expedition sinks !lvot]qoisi peqiqqgdµr

jeq\essim (Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1, 431). The description of the sacrifice ofIphigeneia, d_jam wila_qar, at Aeschylus, Agamemnon 228–41 is a partic-ularly suggestive example of the ‘flowing’ collapse of the victim5.

In Bion, too, jataqqe ? is part of a complex pattern of imagery whichincludes the shedding of tears, even by rivers (vv. 33–4), the flowing ofblood (vv. 9, 25, 65), the lavish wasting of expensive unguents(vv. 77–8), and the final washing of the corpse (vv. 83–4). In her bitteraddress to Persephone (vv. 54–5 above)6, Aphrodite treats the goddessof the Underworld as a successful rival ‘bride’ for her beautiful husband,thereby reversing the sex roles of the more usual topos by which thedeath of a young girl is seen as ‘marriage’ to (or rape by) death orHades7. Such reversal responds to a level of meaning which lies at thevery heart of the Adonis cult, as may be seen in the Adonis-song inTheocritus, Idyll 158. By rewriting the opening of Idyll 1, Bion alsoevokes the idea that Adonis has been sacrificed to Persephone, whonow holds him forever; to die is to ‘flow down’ the river(s) of the Un-derworld towards the grim queen. Over Aphrodite’s outburst hoversthe paradox that she herself cannot die (v. 53); ‘everything that is fairflows to Persephone’, only if what is immortal, and in particular Kyprisherself, is excluded. p\mta qe ? is, for Kypris, bitterly untrue. This is notmerely a restatement of the unbridgeable gap between the immortalsand us, but also speaks to the very nature of t¹ jak|m. The quality of

of Theocr. 1,1–8 (c. 3, 13, 14–16 and Theocr. 1, 7–8 are particularly close).Note too the pervasive ‘liquid’ imagery in Catullus 65 (on the death of hisbrother).

4 The compound verb is used of the flowing of blood from a wound at Hom.Il. 4. 149; 5, 870.

5 Cf. also the Latin version at Lucretius 1, 84–101. Latin regularly uses “defluo”of collapse to the ground (OLD s.v. 5c); at Aen. 11, 828 Camilla dies ad terramnon sponte fluens.

6 For generic parallels to this address cf. Fantuzzi’s note on v. 54.7 Examples are legion, cf. R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs, Ur-

bana 1942 = 1962, pp. 192–4; Fantuzzi on v. 87; R. Seaford, ‘The TragicWedding’, Journ. Hell. Stud. 107, 1987, pp. 106–30. For marriage and sacrificecf. also J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, London 1980,pp. 130–67.

8 On the Adonis-song of Idyll 15 cf. this volume 243–54.

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mortal beauty lies at least in part in its evanescence and in our fearfulrecognition that, unlike the beauty of the gods or the Form of beauty,it will certainly pass9. Adonis never grows old, but his annual ‘death’confronts his worshippers with the remorseless decline of their ownlives.

One text which uses some of these same ideas is Catullus 3, on thedeath of his girlfriend’s passer. In particular, vv. 13–15,

at uobis male sit, male tenebraeOrci, quae omnia bella deuoratis:tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis,

are very like Lament for Adonis v. 55. Catullus has taken the whole proc-ess one stage further, by making death ‘the devourer’, an idea which isof course particularly appropriate in a poem on the death of a small birdand which seems to look forward to the well-known late antique andByzantine epitaphs for animals10; Anth. Pal. 7, 203–6 is a series ofpoems on a partridge eaten by a cat. That death ‘devours’ its victimsis an idea which has a strong hold on the popular imagination inmany cultures; in Greek literature, for example, the figures of Polyphe-mus and Scylla exploit such terrors11. In his commentary on Bion’spoem, Fantuzzi cautiously accepts that Catullus is directly alluding toBion12. If so, we have here a very good example of the much discussedtechnique whereby a poet combines allusion to a literary model with al-lusion to that model’s model13, and an example which shows us the (un-surprising) sensitivity of Catullus’ readings of Greek poetry. By combin-ing the gnomic bitterness of Bion’s Aphrodite with the fate of the kid inIdyll 1, Catullus creates something wholly new. Another way of saying

9 Cf. the remarks of J.-P, Vernant, Mortals and Immortals, Princeton 1991,pp. 48–9. For Adonis as a ‘symbol’ of evanescence cf. M. Detienne, The Gar-dens of Adonis, Hassocks (Sussex) 1977, pp. 104, 119–20.

10 Cf. G. Herrlinger, Totenklage um Tiere in der antiken Dichtung, Stuttgart 1930;P.A. Agapitos, ‘Michael Italikos, Klage auf den Tod seines Rebhuhns’, Byz.Zeitschr. 82, 1989, pp.59–68.

11 Relevant too may be Callimachus’ description of Hades as p\mtym "qpajt^r

(Anth. Pal. 7, 80, 5–6 = Epigram 2 Pfeiffer/XXXIV G.-P.), cf. MD 28,1992, pp. 121–2.

12 Cf. n. on v. 55 ‘forse’; p. 142 ‘sembra presupporre …’. Catullus and Bion mayhave been very close in time to each other; for a careful survey of the latter’sdate cf. Fantuzzi’s edition pp. 141–5.

13 Cf., e. g., J. C. McKeown, Ovid: Amores, I, Liverpool 1987, pp. 37–45.

13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonis v. 55 231

this is that Catullus reads Bion as already hinting at this development: asthe ‘lovely flesh’ of the kid in Idyll 1 is to be eaten, so Aphrodite’s bitterallusion hints that Persephone, whose name might be interpreted as‘death by slaughter’14, is actually going to ‘eat’ the jak|r sacrificewhich has been offered to her. Literary imitation is essentially a processof creative reading.

If Catullus was not alluding specifically to Bion, then we have atleast a further reminder of the persistence of certain generic ways of rep-resenting death in ancient literature. Choice between these alternativesis always going to be a matter of judgement, but the opening of Catullus3, lugete o Veneres Cupidinesque, surely evokes the death of Adonis (cf.Bion, Lament v. 2 etc. 1pai\fousim =qyter), and this seems to me toweigh very heavily in favour of direct allusion.

Addenda

J.D. Reed, Bion of Smyrna. The Fragments and the Adonis (Cambridge 1997) is avery important addition to the literature on Bion; some of the themes of thepresent note are, of course, picked up in my commentary on Idyll 1 in Theocri-tus. A Selection (Cambridge 1999).

14 No explicit link between Persephone and v|mor is found before Eustathius’ noteon Od. 10, 491, but we can hardly rule out less explicit poetic evocations; itneed hardly be said that the actual etymology of Persephone is not in questionhere.

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14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15*

This paper considers various related aspects of Theoc. 15: the poem’sconcern with its own form, the relation of the poet to the rulinghouse, and the representation of important themes in Ptolemaic publicideology. These are all familiar subjects, but I shall argue that they arelinked by Theocritus’ exploitation of the range of meanings of mimesis,an idea given particularly dramatic force within a ‘mime’ tradition.

1. Realism and the language of Theoc. 15

When Praxinoa and Gorgo finally succeed in entering the palace, theirattention is first caught by the tapestries (t± poij_ka)1 with their lifelikefigures (t!jqib]a cq\llata, 5tula, 5lxuw’ oqj 1muvamt\): sov|m ti

wq/l’ %mhqypor exclaims Praxinoa, before moving to describe a repre-sentation of Adonis with his first beard just showing. After a brief inter-ruption, Gorgo draws attention to ‘the Argive woman’s daughter’, apok}idqir !oid|r, and bound to sing something jak|m ; the song itselfdescribes Aphrodite and the young Adonis in a marvellous tableau rep-resenting their ‘marriage’, and Gorgo responds with admiration:sov~tatom " h^keia jtk. This brief summary makes clear the obviousanalogies between the two palace ‘artefacts’, the tapestries and thehymn, but those analogies allow more than one inference. It may bethat we are simply supposed to understand that Gorgo and Praxinoawould respond with such admiration to anything beyond the normalsphere of their experience, and the point lies not in fact in any similarityof the song to the tapestries but precisely in their difference which we,but not the women, can appreciate; Gorgo and Praxinoa have only oneregister for admiration and use it across widely different categories.Whereas the women emphasise the ‘reality’, the ‘lifelikeness’, of thewoven figures, the hymn in fact seems concerned to point the ‘unreal-ity’, the fabulousness, of what it describes – p\mtessi jako ?r (111) …

* M.A. Harder et al. (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen 1996) 149–691 Cf. Gow (1950) on v. 78 for this interpretation.

fsa (112) … fssa (115) … pamto ?a (116) … fssa (117)… p\mta

(118). This superabundance of good things which defy cataloguingmay reflect a deliberate stress by Ptolemy and Arsinoe on the incredibleriches of Egypt, a motif seen also in Theoc. 17 and in the standard rep-resentations of Arsinoe with a cornucopia ‘full with all the good fruits ofthe season’ (Ath. 11.497b-c),2 but there is also a more literary dimen-sion. The analogies direct our attention to the relationship of the two‘artefacts’, particularly as the designs on the tapestries (81–6) and the ta-bleau described by the singer are pointedly similar.

The ‘realism’ of the tapestries is based on a comparison with actualexperience – they are 5lxuwa ; so also the hymn appeals to, and our re-sponse to it must be conditioned by, our experience of such poems (andsuch tableaux)3 in ‘real life’. Our sense of familiarity with ‘generic topoi’is in fact analogous to our sense of the familiarity and variety of ‘ordinaryexperience’. The effect of this is that the literary mime inscribes possiblemodels of its own reception in the text. It does not require a long surveyof the history of discussions of ‘mimetic realism’ to realise how closelythe reactions of the women foreshadow familiar modes of critical re-sponse. We might not naturally choose Gorgo and Praxinoa as modelsfor ourselves, and their reactions might seem ‘unsophisticated’ but thepoem forces us to consider the basis and validity of our own criticaljudgements.4 This is made particularly sharp by the fact that thewomen claim to be Syracusans (v. 90) and they have apparentlymoved from that city to Alexandria. In as much as we may claim to‘know’ anything about Theocritus, he too appears to have been a Syr-acusan who certainly worked, if not also lived, at Alexandria. Gorgo andPraxinoa, who describe the scene for us and thus act the role of the in-forming poet, are fashioned as a comically distorted image of ‘the actualpoet’; their visit to the palace may be seen as a rendering of Theocritus’

2 Cf. Thompson (1973: 32–3); on Theoc. 17 cf. Meincke (1965: 127–36). Fortquv^ as a Ptolemaic ideal cf. also Tondriau (1948: 49–54); Heinen (1978:188–92); Weber (1993: 70). tquv^ is, of course, a double-edged motif, partic-ularly for moralising writers (cf. Phylarchos, FGrH 81 F 40, on the %jaiqor

tquv^ of Philadelphos), and we must be wary of lessening the differences be-tween earlier and later Ptolemies; nevertheless, the picture which emerges fromthe poetry written under Philadelphos is pretty consistent, and cf. Ath. 5.203b-c.

3 Cf. Gow (1950: 2.266): “the details of Arsinoe’s tableau are presumably drawnfrom life”. For the ‘historicity’ of Arsinoe’s festival cf. below n. 61.

4 Cf. Goldhill (1994: 216–23).

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‘coming’ to the royal palace in Alexandria and his gaining of ‘admit-tance’ (i. e. royal patronage), whereas his charites in Theoc. 16, likemany of the pressing crowd in Theoc. 15, failed to gain entry throughthe doors of the great.5 As embodiments of the poetic voice, Gorgo andPraxinoa guide us as we are usually guided by the poet; we cannot sim-ply ignore their voice. The fact that a related strategy seems to be atwork in Herodas’s fourth Mimiamb6 might suggest that this concernwith its own reception is a genuine and persistent feature of a ‘genre’which was only too conscious of the fact that it was not really a partof ‘literature’. It is a genre constantly looking over its shoulder to see‘how it is going down’; its ‘lowness’ is of a very knowing kind.

Even if Theophrastus was not responsible for the definition of l ?loras l_lgsir b_ou t\ te sucjewyqgl]ma ja· !sucw~qgta peqi]wym ‘an imi-tation of life encompassing both the permitted and the illicit’ (Diomedesxxiv.3.16–7 Koster),7 there was without doubt already in the third cen-tury a clear link between mime and ‘mimesis of life’; the women’s re-actions to the tapestries, as we have seen, provide one model for the re-ception of the poem in which they appear. If, however, there is any-thing in the report of the Hypothesis in the scholia that Theocritus ‘mod-elled’ (paq]pkase) his poem on Sophron’s The Women at the IsthmianFestival,8 then we can see that this mimos is a mimesis in another sensetoo. There are two important aspects of this literary debt. One is that,just as Gorgo and Praxinoa have moved from Syracuse to Alexandria,so has the mime. Even if Praxinoa’s proud assertion ‘we are Corinthiansby descent’ (v. 91) does not amusingly glance at Sophron’s mime, and itis pure speculation that Sophron too represented Syracusan womenpresent at a Corinthian festival,9 Gorgo’s arrival at her friend’s house,not unlike the arrival of ‘the bawd’ in Herodas 1,10 marks the arrival

5 Such verses as 61–2, ‘Is it easy to get in then?’, and 65, ‘Look, Praxinoa, what acrowd there is around the doors’, lend themselves easily to such a satirical read-ing. For a related reading of Theoc. 14 cf. Burton (1992: 240–2). The relationbetween poets and the ‘houses’ (real and metaphorical) of the great is a recur-rent motif of Roman poetry (cf. now the overview in White 1993), and heretoo there is a Greek background which should not be ignored.

6 Cf. my remarks (and the bibliography) in Hunter (1995).7 For discussion and bibliography cf. Reich (1903: 263–74); Janko (1984:

48–9).8 Gow (1950: 2.265) enjoins caution in ascribing much except ‘the general idea’

to Sophron; for a less cautious approach cf. , e. g., Olivieri (1930: 181–2).9 Cf. Legrand (1898: 132).

10 Cf. Hunter (1993b); Miralles (1992: 89–113).

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 235

in Alexandria of a new literary form, embodied in the amusing shapes ofGorgo and Praxinoa and in a rough hexametric technique which mayseek to imitate in ‘verse’ the half-way house of Sophron’s rhythmicalmimes.11 With their admission to the palace, the Syracusan mime tradi-tion has reached the Alexandrian court.12 Such conscious self-reference,which may be described as a kind of literary history written into thepoem, is hardly surprising in any product of Alexandrian poetry, butagain we may wish to see a mode which is peculiarly adapted to themime. Secondly, we can see that it is the literary mime of Herodasand Theocritus which foreshadows, in the implicit poetics of poetry it-self, the connection between two senses of mimesis which we find inlater poetic theory;13 these senses are the mimesis familiar from Aristotle’sPoetics, that is the transference of the inherent mimetic qualities ofhuman beings to a criterion for (particularly dramatic) poetry as imita-tive of the actions of men, and mimesis as the imitation of literary mod-els. The literary mime interweaves these two senses in such a way as toexplore the relation between them. Thus, for example, Gorgo’s praise ofthe tapestries, kept± ja· ¢r waq_emta ‘how fine they are and how lovely’(v. 79), echoes the account of Circe’s weaving at Od. 10.222–3 todramatise the artifice, the mimesis, of the ‘naturalism’ of this mime.

Rather more complex perhaps is the episode which separates the ad-miration of the tapestries from the Adonis-song. A nameless man asksthe women to be quiet because their broad vowels (as well as theirceaseless chatter) are driving him to distraction. ‘Unless’, as Dover(1971: 207) notes, ‘there has been interference with the transmittedtext on a large scale’, the man too speaks in Doric. If we take this littlescene at face value, then either, as Gow (1952: 290) puts it, ‘we areplainly invited to suppose that [despite the dialect of the text] he isnot a Dorian’, or we must suppose that Syracusan Doric was thoughtto sound particularly broad in comparison with other Dorian accentsor dialects.14 It seems to be generally true for Theocritus that ‘stylisticvariation inside the same idyll does not depend on breaks in the conven-tion of the dialect but on differences of vocabulary, theme and feel-

11 For the versification of Theoc. 15 cf. Fantuzzi (1995) and n. 49 below. For So-phron cf. Norden (1898: 1.46–8).

12 Cf. the remarks of Griffiths (1979: 84,120), on Theoc. 14 and 15 as corre-sponding male and female mimes. In connection with Theoc. 15 one wouldgive much to know more of Sotades’ Adonis, cf. Escher (1913:32).

13 Cf. Russell (1979: 1–16).14 On the ancient conception of Doric and its local versions cf. Cassio (1993).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception236

ings’,15 but the second explanation can hardly be ruled out; what for theman is an unbearably grating sound, is for Praxinoa pure and originalDoric (vv. 90–3). Dialectal questions have, of course, a peculiar signif-icance in a ‘genre’ which advertises its connections with ‘life’; to call at-tention to the apparent gap between the speech presupposed by what isactually said and the text itself is a striking way of dramatising the ten-sion between literary artifice and the appeal to mimetic realism whichlies at the heart of the literary mime of Herodas and Theocritus.16 Asall the characters of the poem figure in a ‘Syracusan mime’ they willspeak appropriately (cf. below), but what they say and how they say itdramatises the presuppositions of this awkward ‘genre’. In the realmof ‘high’ literature, linguistic style was a product of generic tradition(Ionic for epic, Doric colouring for high lyric etc.), not of the geograph-ical location of the setting or the origin of the characters. This modifiedlinguistic practice, then, is one part of the debt of Hellenistic mime tothe comic tradition in all its manifestations, but its exploitation of theironies thus made available suggests clearly the tastes and concerns ofthe third century.

If the form of the poem offers a particularly loaded kind of mimesis,what of the details of the language? Although the occasional ‘Homeric’form appears,17 there is no example here of those features of the tradi-tional language of high poetry which are most common elsewhere inTheocritus’ ‘Doric’ poems,18 namely masculine genitive singulars in-oio and dative plurals in -oisi or -aisi ; an unaugmented past tense ap-pears certainly19 only in a homely sententia from Gorgo (v. 25),20 andthere is no example of nu ephelkystikon. Theoc. 15 is certainly notunique in this regard,21 but the combination of metrical ‘roughness’

15 Fabiano (1971: 522).16 For a similar use of a passage dividing two ecphrases in Herodas 4 cf. Hunter

(1993b). The tension between ‘subject’ and ‘linguistic style’ is, of course,quite differently figured in Herodas whose characters speak in an archaising ‘re-construction’ of the language of Hipponax. Nevertheless, the same aestheticproblem lies behind the practice of both poets.

17 Cf. Di Benedetto (1956: 53). Gallavotti’s text removes even some of these byreading, e. g., ja for jem in vv. 25 and 38.

18 I accept for the purposes of the present discussion the traditional distinctionswithin the Theocritean corpus (cf. Gow 1950: 1.lxxii) ; for fuller discussioncf. Hunter (1996: 28–45).

19 k]coler (v. 15) may be present (so Dover) rather than imperfect.20 Cf. Molinos Tejada (1990:268).21 Cf. Molinos Tejada (1990: 375).

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 237

and linguistic simplicity perhaps aligns this poem most closely withTheoc. 11, the song of the lovesick Cyclops. These poems have some-thing else in common also—their principal characters are Syracusans, afact which is noted explicitly in the course of the poems (11.7, 15.90).As Theocritus himself came from Syracuse, it would be unsurprising ifthe Syracusan dialect had had some influence on the Doric of hispoems; that Theoc. 15 was indeed composed in the Syracusan dialectwas argued by Victor Magnien (1920), but without conspicuous success,which was in any case hardly to be expected, given the dialectal messpresented by our papyri and manuscripts and the fact that the majorityof dialectal alternatives are metrically equivalent. Nevertheless, it is inTheoc. 11 and 15, if anywhere, that we might be tempted to seek spe-cifically Syracusan features. Two facts make the case of Theoc. 15 par-ticularly interesting.22 One is the fact already considered that the poemitself makes the dialect of the characters an important issue (vv. 80–95),and the other is that, in this same passage, much the earliest witness tothe text, P.Hamburg 201 of the first century A.D., preserves a rare dia-lect form which had been totally lost to the tradition:

Pq. p|tmi’ )hama_a, po ?a_ x’ 1p|masam 5qihoi,po ?oi fyocq\voi t!jqib]a cq\llat’ 5cqaxam.¢r 5tul’ 2st\jamti ja· ¢r 5tul’ !mdimeOmti,5lxuw’, oqj 1muvamt\. sov|m ti wq/l’ %mhqypor.aqt¹r d’ ¢r hagt¹r 1p’ !qcuq]ar jat\jeitaijkisl_i, pq÷tom Uoukom !p¹ jqot\vym jatab\kkym,b tqiv_kgtor -dymir, b jAm )w]qomti vikghe_r.Nem. pa}sash’, § d}stamoi, !m\muta jyt_kkoisai,tquc|mer

. 1jjmaiseOmti pkatei\sdoisai ûpamta.Pq. l÷, p|hem ¦mhqypor ; t_ d³ t_m, eQ jyt_kai eQl]r ;pas\lemor 1p_tasse· Suqajos_air 1pit\sseir.¢r eQd/ir ja· toOto, Joq_mhiai eQl³r %myhem,¢r ja· b Bekkeqov_m, Pekopommasist· kakeOler,dyq_sdeim d’ 5nesti, doj_, to ?r Dyqi]essi.

(15.80–93)

22 Theoc. 11 would require a separate investigation; commentators note a ‘certainroughness of dialect’ (Gow 1950: 2.209). Of particular interest are teoOr (v. 25,cf. Sophron fr. 59 J-A), t_m (accusative) which occurs three times in this poemand nowhere else, and !v_jeuso (v. 42) which is said by the scholiast, on whatauthority we do not know, to be a Syracusan form.

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80 xevomasam P.Hamb.: sv’ 1p|masam Q.Ant. codd. 82 !m- P.Hamb.,Q.Ant.: 1m- codd. 88 pkati\foisai Q.Ant. 93]qisd[ P.Oxy.1618 (5th centA.D.):]im Q Ant.: dyq_sdem codd. teste Gallavotti23

Praxinoa. Lady Athena, what workers they must have been that made them,and what artists that drew the lines so true! The figures stand and turn sonaturally they’re alive not woven. What a clever thing is man! And look athim; how marvellous he is, lying in his silver chair with the first downspreading from the temples, thrice-loved Adonis, loved even in death.Stranger. My good women, do stop that ceaseless chattering – perfect tur-tle-doves, they’ll bore one to death with all their broad vowels. Praxinoa.Gracious, where does this gentleman come from? And what business is itof yours if we do chatter? Give orders where you’re master. It’s Syracusansyou’re ordering about, and let me tell you we’re Corinthians by descentlike Bellerophon. We talk Peloponnesian, and I suppose Dorians maytalk Dorian. (trans. Gow)

xe (v. 80) is a third-person plural pronoun whose appearance in So-phron (fr. 90 K-A) caused the later grammatical tradition to regard itas a Syracusan form;24 it occurs, however, also at 4.3, a poem set insouthern Italy, and is attested on Crete,25 and may therefore have hadwider currency than we can now tell. Nevertheless, there seem to begood reasons for seeking ‘Syracusan features’ in the speech of thewomen.

There are also good reasons for caution. Although the main featuresof the language of the Corinthian colonies are well understood, ourknowledge of the Syracusan variant is very scanty indeed, and is fartoo reliant upon the vagaries of manuscript traditions; the epigraphic re-cord is extremely thin.26 Attestations for ‘Syracusan dialect’ in the gram-matical tradition very often mean no more than that a word was used byEpicharmus or Sophron, and we can hardly doubt that Theocritus’Alexandrian readers were interested in the possible difference betweenan ‘echo’ of one of these Syracusan poets and a genuine feature of (arch-aising or contemporary) Syracusan speech. Moreover, analogies fromother literary traditions (both ancient and modern), such as the presen-tation of non-Attic dialects in the comedies of Aristophanes, suggest thatmimesis of speech forms – particularly for the purposes of humour orsome other marked effect – is unlikely to be linguistically ‘accurate’or consistent; it is ‘difference’ which is important for the reception of

23 Gallavotti’s report of the papyrus readings here is erroneous.24 Cf. Gow (1950) on 4.3; Gallavotti (1986: 10).25 Cf. Buck (1955: §§87, 119.5).26 Cf. Dubois (1989: 89–117).

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 239

the represented speech. There has, moreover, been a natural tendencyto seek specifically Syracusan forms which distinguish this poem fromthe other Doric poems of Theocritus. By seeing Theoc. 15 withinthe Theocritean corpus, however, the mimetic effect of the wholemay be obscured, for when Praxinoa and Gorgo use Doric forms, theeffect remains mimetically analogous to Syracusan speech, even whenthose forms were either not specifically Syracusan or in fact not actuallyin use in Syracuse. If no other Theocritean poem had survived, therewould be little critical disagreement about the linguistic mimesis ofthe poem. It is not merely mimetic form, but also language, whichhas arrived in Alexandria.

Against this background we may consider the nature of the Doricused in Theoc. 15. Third-century Syracusan used -ou and -our for themasculine genitive singular and accusative plural, rather than -y and-yr which are found in some West Greek dialects and throughout themanuscripts of Doric authors; the latter forms, though very far fromuniversal in Doric speech, will have been adopted as the markedforms in literature because the alternative ‘Doric’ forms, -ou and -our,were also the forms of the Attic koine. Grammatical theorising andstandardising makes evaluation of the tradition very difficult in such amatter;27 the Hamburg papyrus offers ¨ in v. 47,28 wqgsl~r in v.63,29 but wqgstoO in v. 75.30 A modern editor who sought to impose-ou forms everywhere through the text might prove more rigorousthan correct,31 because this would lessen the perceived difference be-tween the speech of Gorgo and Praxinoa and the Atticising koine; thepossibility can, however, hardly be excluded. Other than xe, the follow-ing individual forms are particularly worthy of note:

(i) 5mdoi (or 1mdo ?) in vv. 1 and 77 is classed as Syracusan by thegrammatical tradition, but this will probably be a result of Theocritus’

27 For the evidence cf. Molinos Tejada (1990: 60–3, 202–11).28 So also the MSS.29 So also POxy. 1618 and the MSS; PAntin. has wqgslo}r.30 So also the MSS; QAnt. has wqgst_.31 Molinos Tejada (1990: 377) seems inclined to this option; she notes that -ou

and -our are found disproportionately often in the MSS of Theoc. 15. Gallavot-ti (1986: 4–5) suggests keeping wqgstoO as a ‘broad’ Syracusan form; his text,however, presents the other form. A particularly interesting case is Gorgo’s firstmajor speech at vv. 4–7; the many y-sounds presumably help to establish her‘character’, although there is significant manuscript support for -ou rather than-y.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception240

use of the form; such forms are in fact quite widely attested in Doric andAeolic areas.32 Nevertheless, it is not unlikely that the opening word ofthe poem (emphatically repeated at the end of the verse) was intendedto carry a particular dialectal charge, and it may not be over-hazardousto guess that the form appeared in Sophron. The instructions to a namedservant seem also to be a ‘cueing’ device of the mimic tradition (cf. So-phron frr. 14, 15, 17 K-A).33 Thestylis, the servant in Theoc. 2 who, asthe scholia inform us, is derived from Sophron, is named in the openingverse of that poem in a similar ‘programmatic’ way. In v. 55 5mdom isuniversally transmitted, but there 1mdo ? certainly deserves a place inthe apparatus.34

(ii) dq_vor (v. 2) is another form which had disappeared entirelyfrom the MS tradition, only to reappear in PAntin. The grammatical tra-dition regarded it as Syracusan, and illustrated it with a phrase which hasbeen plausibly assigned to Sophron (fr. 10 K-A, cf. Gow ad loc.), and in-deed to the scene upon which the Theocritean opening is based.35 Itsappearance so early in the poem, like 5mdoi, will carry a programmaticcharge.

(iii) pe ? (v. 33) is found only in PAntin. (PHamb. 201 andPOxy. 1816 do not survive), but adverbs in -ei are a familiar featureof Corinthian (and indeed other Doric) dialects;36 pe ? does, however,occur in Sophron (fr. 4 J-A = PSI 1214a8),37 and may here carry a par-ticular charge. We must, however, always reckon with the possibilitythat other Theocritean examples have now been removed from ourtexts.38

32 Cf. Hopkinson on Call. h. 6.76. The Callimachean example – the only otherliterary attestation known to me – is spoken by Erysichthon’s mother, andthat perhaps increases the likelihood that we are dealing with a ‘marked’(though not Syracusan) form.

33 Without hanging too much upon it, we should also note that v_ka in v. 2 is alsoa very common mannerism of the mime (Sophron frr. 23, 25, 31 K-A, Herodas1.73, 4.20, 6.12 etc.).

34 Elsewhere in the corpus only 27.20 where there are obvious reasons for keepingthe ‘normal’ form (5mdom Q\mhg at verse-end).

35 Kaibel (1899: 156) also plausibly suggested that pot_jqamom (v. 3) derived fromSophron.

36 Cf. Ammon. Diff. 423 Nickau; Lejeune (1923: 269); Molinos Tejada (1990:337–9).

37 Cf. Gow (1950: 2.34).38 Thus Ahrens restored pe? for p÷i in 2.1, and bpe ? for bp÷i or fpg in 4.24.

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 241

(iv) Usamti (v. 64) and Usati (v. 146) use a form of ‘to know’ which isattested for both Epicharmus (fr. 47.2 K-A) and the Pseudo-Epicharmea(fr. 280.1 K-A), whence the grammatical tradition classed it as Syracu-san.39 It occurs also in Pindar (P. 4.248) and elsewhere in Theocritus(5.119, 14.34). Although the Syracusan women also use oWda, it seemsreasonable to regard this form as linguistically marked. Cassio (privatecommunication) further observes that in v. 146 fssa Usati is much fur-ther from the koine equivalent fs’ oWde than is cuma ?jer Usamti of v. 64and also, unlike v. 64, makes use of the initial digamma of the verb;as such the later case is much the more ‘marked’ of the two.40

(v) In vv. 84–5 jkisl|r is treated as a feminine noun, which may beintended as a dialectally marked feature.41

(vi) l÷ (v. 89) is said by the scholiast to be a Syracusan form, but thatis probably no more than a gloss on this passage; it is widely used byHerodas’ women,42 which does suggest roots in the mime tradition (?Sophron).

The sum total may seem small,43 but the mimetic intention of thewhole is clear, provided that mimesis is not taken to be an attempt to re-produce an historically accurate version of the speech of Syracusans liv-ing in Alexandria. An archaising debt to the language of Epicharmusand Sophron is, after all, quite a different matter from any attempt ata ‘realistic’ reproduction of contemporary speech. A further controlmight be sought in the speech of the characters other than Praxinoaand Gorgo, but this in fact provides ambiguous testimony. The fewverses spoken by other characters (vv. 60, 61–2, 72, 73, 87–8) are, asfar as the transmission allows us to see, broadly composed in the samemanner of Doric as the speech of Gorgo and Praxinoa. Certainly,there is no obvious distinction between the two, even if the other char-acters do not use the rarer ‘Syracusan’ forms.44 The grammatical tradi-

39 Cf. Molinos Tejada (1990: 291 with n. 367).40 This may be relevant to the question of speaker attribution in v.64.41 Cf. Latte (1968: 528), Gow (1950: ad loc.). Latte also defends the bq_homter of

the MSS at v. 119 from potib\mter in the Sophron papyrus; that matter is,however, too uncertain to warrant discussion here.

42 Cf. Headlam on 1.85.43 I omit Wilamowitz’s attractive p\ppa (v. 16), which EM. 651.7 labels Syracu-

san, because of the uncertainty of the reading; the emendation is criticised byLatte (1951: 255).

44 hgm (v. 62) in the mouth of an old woman is noteworthy, because this particle isvery common in Epicharmus and Sophron and seems ‘almost confined to

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception242

tion explained the Doric ‘broadness’ of which the stranger complains (v.88) with reference to the long alpha which is so characteristic of all WestGreek.45 A glance at vv. 78–86, the conversation of the women sinceentering the palace precinct, will confirm how prominent a feature oftheir language this is. Whether or not we are to imagine that the strang-er is himself a Dorian,46 § d}stamoi !m\muta is presumably intended tomock the sounds the women are making. The language of Praxinoa andGorgo is thus simply ‘marked’ by its difference from the ‘ordinary’ lan-guage of hexameter poetry, whether Ionic or Doric, a difference whichconsists in the absence of the most familiar features of poetic style. Tothis extent it lays a claim to a kind of ‘mimetic realism’ which associatesit with the language of everyday discourse. On the other hand, it appears(as far as we can tell) to make no attempt to reproduce to any great ex-tent the special and the individual in the speech of Syracusan womenliving in Alexandria. In a loose analogy, one might say that the pan-Doric features of their language correspond to the generic features ofthe literary mimesis (women visiting, ekphrasis of art etc.), so that boththe form and the language of the poem illustrate its concern with thetension between the ‘artificial’ and the ‘real’. The language of thepoem, no less than the characters and the ‘plot’, gestures towards ‘therealistic’ but determinedly refuses to embrace it. Moreover, as wehave noted, to call attention to linguistic differences within a linguisti-cally uniform poem highlights the mimetic artifice of a poetic formwhich claims on the surface to offer an unmediated representation of‘reality’; as such, this is precisely the kind of sophisticated device wewould expect from Theocritus.

2. Adonis and Ptolemy

Gorgo introduces the song of the Argive woman’s daughter as b -dymir

(v. 90), presumably ‘the Adonis-song (which is a regular part of the fes-tival)’; it is commonly, and rightly, described in modern literature as ‘ahymn’. The opening and closing of the poem are indeed hymnic, as can

Homer and Sicilian literature’ (Denniston 1954: 288); Theocritus uses it freely,but not in the ‘epic-lyric’ poems. Conversely, vuk\nolai (v.72) in the mouth of‘the stranger’ will be the only ‘non-Doric’ future in the poem, unless has|lemaiis correct in v. 23.

45 Cf. Gow (1950: ad loc.).46 Cf. above p. 236–7.

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 243

be seen by a comparison not only with extant cult hymns but also withthe hymns of Callimachus; encomium of Aphrodite and Adonis is pre-cisely what we would expect to find in a hymn to them. On the otherhand, there is almost no poetry extant47 with which we may comparethe Adonis-song, for Bion’s Lament for Adonis is entirely different inboth form and occasion. The singer’s foreshadowing of lamentationfor Adonis on the following day after the formal farewell of v. 131, alamentation actually prefigured in the consolatio of the Catalogue ofHeroes,48 both calls attention to how this song is not what we might ex-pect an Adonis-song to be and evokes the full compass of the festival ;‘on a literal reading’, as Cairns (1992: 14) observes, ‘the singer is givingin lines 136–44 an advance monodic performance of what the choruswill sing next day’. Any such poem at a real festival is likely to havebeen an astrophic lyric song, composed in the traditional vocabularyand syntax of lyric; the fact that the metre of the Adonis-song is distin-guished from the ‘mimic’ part of Theoc. 15 by its rather greater con-formity to the norms of Theocritus’ ‘epicising’ poems49 perhaps pointsto such a mimetic effect. Moreover, the description of the tableau atvv. 112–22 uses the simple cumulative syntax and avoidance of sub-or-dination which are a frequent mark of such astrophic lyric or verseswhich emulate this mode.50 The opening eighteen verses of the song(vv. 100–17) fall easily into three sextets, the welcome to the gods(vv. 100–5), Aphrodite and the royal house (vv. 106–11), and the lux-uries which surround Adonis (vv. 112–7),51 and such a pattern shouldprobably be seen as imitative of the rough correspondence betweensense unit and rhythmical period which is regular in such lyric verse.Confirmation for this pattern may be sought in v. 123 which, if the pat-

47 The one fragment of Praxilla’s Hymn to Adonis in lyric dactyls (PMG 747) is alament by the god himself ; whatever the tone and interpretation of that frag-ment, it is interesting to find a female poet writing on such a subject.

48 Cf. below p. 251–3.49 Cf. Maas (1962: 94); Fantuzzi (1994); Slings (1993: 32). Cf. in general Stark

(1963: 375–7), and for the division of the corpus into different styles cf. Hunter(1996: 28–45).

50 For this style in ‘dithyrambic’ passages of comedy cf. Hunter (1983: 166–7)(citing Aristotle).

51 Cf. Gow (1950: ad loc.) for the punctuation there. For an attempt at a moreelaborate structuring of the song into couplets cf. Ribbeck (1862: 571–2). Gal-lavotti’s structuring after two initial sextets (100–5 and 106–11) is112–4,115–8,119–22,123–6 etc.; complete critical agreement in such a mat-ter is hardly possible.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception244

tern were to continue, should be end-stopped, but which in fact breaksthe pattern, thereby gaining increased emotional emphasis;52 the inter-laced word-order and alliteration in the simile of vv. 121–2 mediate thetransition to this exclamation. Whether, however, the hypostasised‘model’ was in lyrics or hexameters,53 there is clearly another reasonwhy the song is hard to parallel.

The central part of the song is devoted to encomium of Bereniceand Arsinoe and to the ecphrasis of the Adonis tableau.54 This ecphrasismay perhaps be seen as the equivalent of the sung description of culticperformance or sacrifice imagined as occurring simultaneously with thesong; such descriptions are a not uncommon feature of celebratoryhymns. On the other hand, the song has no narrative as such; the muthosof the royal house and the ecphrasis of the tableau have replaced anynarrative of, presumably, the story of Aphrodite and Adonis. The con-tent of the song is, of course, dictated by the design of Theoc. 15, notby what was ‘normally’ sung at real Adonis festivals. The singer takesover the role of Gorgo and Praxinoa in describing for us what wecould not otherwise see, and the interplay between her voice and theirsis a crucial element in the whole. Thus, for example, the exclamation ofvv. 123—4 (£ 5bemor, £ wqus|r, £ 1j keuj_ 1k]vamtor / aQeto_ jtk.) isthe ‘lyric’ equivalent of the women’s reactions at vv. 78–86, just asboth Praxinoa and the singer focus upon Adonis’ young beard(vv. 85, 130). It is, therefore, probably not too hazardous to guess thatwe would have to look for a very long time to find anything comparablein a ‘real’ festival song.55

In assessing the relation between the Adonis song and the picture ofAlexandria and its court offered in the first part of the poem,vv. 128–30 offer a way in:

52 The varying prosody of ¥ in the verse may also mark ‘mounting excitement’.53 In view of Adonis’ eastern connections, the lyric hexameters addressed to the

Great Mother in the fragmentum dubium of Menander’s Theophoroumene (F. H.Sandbach, Menandri Reliquiae Selectae, 2nd ed., Oxford 1990, p. 146) may beworthy of note in this context.

54 The pictorialism of this tableau is studied by Manakidou (1994: 104–18).55 Cf. Griffiths (1979: 26): “[the Adonis song] creates its own setting as real hymns

would never have had to do”.

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 245

t¹m56 l³m J}pqir 5wei, t±m d’ b Nod|pawur -dymir.ajtyjaidejetµr C 1mmeaja_dew’ b calbq|r·oq jemte ? t¹ v_kgl’. 5ti oR peq· we_kea puqq\.

Kypris embraces him, and the rosy-armed Adonis holds her. Of eighteenyears or nineteen is the bridegroom; the golden down is still upon hislip; his kisses are not rough.

The key to understanding these verses lies in the fact that though thepoem and the tableau celebrate the ‘marriage’ of Aphrodite and Adonis,the young god will ‘die’ on the following day; this section of the poemthus mixes the hymeneal and the funereal in a novel way which startsfrom the familiar epitaphic topoi of ‘death before/instead of marriage’and ‘death as a marriage with Hades’, topoi which exploit the similaritiesbetween marriage and funerary ritual and which occur (unsurprisingly)in Bion’s extant Lament for Adonis (vv. 87–90), but moves beyond thosetopoi.57 The hinge of the strategy is the double sense of jk_ma (v. 127) asboth ‘wedding-couch’ and ‘funeral bier’ (cf. LSJ s.v. 12). Eighteen ornineteen is just the age when young men die as soldiers, and this age in-deed figures in both real and literary epitaphs for young men;58 more-over, the peculiar pathos of death before the first beard is grown is cer-tainly attested as a conventional epitaphic motif by later sources,59 and itis not unreasonable to see that resonance here. In a way appropriate tothe whole meaning of the cult, the ‘sex roles’ are reversed, for the bride-groom is here younger than the bride and it is he, not she, who is to diea pathetically early death; the epithet ‘rosy-armed’ (v. 128) is normallyapplied to women and so both points this reversal and is appropriate tothe female perspective of the singer and the women admiring this essen-tially female festival. The Adonis cult gives the fullest expression to thesimilarity and (bitter) difference between sexual longing (p|hor) and theregret and longing which attends death; Aphrodite is part lover, partmother mourning the death of her young son, and the tableau repre-senting them suggests both illicit lovemaking (‘incest’) and the grandiosestyle of Ptolemaic funerals. The poet has caught this strangeness with apowerful fusion of the language of weddings and funerals, which tran-

56 I print Rossbach’s emendation, though without any great confidence. Both textand interpretation in this area of the poem are problematic.

57 For these topoi in general cf. Lattimore (1962: 192–4).58 Cf. CEG 2.709,739; AQ 7.466 (= Leonidas lxxi GP), 468 (= Meleager cxxv

GP).59 Cf. Lattimore (1962: 197–8).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception246

scends the apparent division of the poem into hymeneal (vv. 100–31)and funereal (vv. 132–42) sections; the farewell kisses of the dirge(Bion, Lament for Adonis 11–4, 45–50) are also the first kisses of thewedding night.

All discussion of the context of this song must begin with the closeand complex association between Arsinoe II and Aphrodite.60 In stagingan Adonis festival ‘Arsinoè se posait en Aphrodite et préparait sonapothéose’ claimed Gustave Glotz (1920: 173), and provided that weremember (as Glotz had a tendency to forget) that we are dealingwith a Theocritean poem and not a documentary account of a ‘histor-ical’ festival, I see no reason to disagree.61 The opening invocation to aspecifically Cyprian Aphrodite evokes, as has long been noted, Ptolema-ic influence on the island (cf. Theoc. 17.36), and the standard dating ofthe poem to the late 270s62 adds resonance to the encomiastic citation ofMiletos and Samos (v. 126), both of which were then in the Ptolemaicorbit. There is in this poem no getting away from the ruling house. Thelinks between Aphrodite and this house are first explicit in vv. 106–8:

J}pqi Di~maia, t» l³m !ham\tam !p¹ hmat÷r,!mhq~pym ¢r lOhor, 1po_gsar Beqem_jam,!lbqos_am 1r st/hor !post\nasa cumaij|r·

Lady of Cyprus, Dione’s child, you, as is the report of men, did change Be-renice from mortal to immortal, dropping ambrosia into her woman’sbreast.

I have pointed elsewhere63 to the different levels of interpretation ex-posed by the phrase ‘as men say’; whereas Gow and Dover look onlyto the fact that such phrases do not necessarily cast doubt on an assertionor may indeed strengthen one, another reading may see teasing playwith the apotheosis of the Queen Mother in a tone which can readily

60 There is a large bibliography; for some guidance (particularly on the Greek ma-terial) cf. Griffiths (1979, 1981); Fraser (1972: 1.229–40); Pomeroy (1984:30–8); Gutzwiller (1992: 365–7).

61 That Theocritus’ poem is a literary reflection of a real, ‘historical’ event (forwhich there is no other firm evidence) is the standard critical position, cf.,e. g., Weber (1993: 170–1). The matter is, of course, not unimportant, butmust also not be allowed to inhibit critical discussion. For the importantsocio-political rôle of public festivals in the early Hellenistic kingships cf. Du-nand (1981: 13–40).

62 Cf. Gow (1950: 2.265).63 Cf. Hunter (1993a: 157).

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 247

be matched in other court poems of Theocritus. The style of the verses,with the almost jingle-effect of !ham\tam !p¹ hmat÷r and the man-nered, quasi-chiastic interplay of mortal and immortal in !mhq~pym

¢r lOhor, 1po_gsar Beqem_jam, /!lbqos_am 1r st/hor !post\nasa

cumaij|r, reinforces the reality of both readings. The possibility forsuch a ‘double reading’ is perhaps a marker of one kind of distinctionbetween an Alexandrian poem and the archaic and classical literatureto which Gow and Dover appeal. We find a similar ‘qualification’ to-wards the end of the song when the singer turns to the peculiar felicityof Adonis:

6qpeir, § v_k’ -dymi, ja· 1mh\de jAr )w]qomtaBl_heym, ¢r vamt_, lom~tator

(vv. 136–7)

You, dear Adonis, alone of demigods, as mensay, visit both earth and Acheron.

Many of the same nuances which surrounded the previous use are alsovisible here: ‘as men say’ is at one level encomiastic, at another perhapscuriously incongruous at this moment of high praise. The ‘myth’ of theroyal house is linked to that of Aphrodite and Adonis —Arsinoe, as theperson staging the festival and thus responsible for Adonis’ annual re-ap-pearance, is indeed cast in the role of Aphrodite – but both are subjectto this pattern of different readings. Nor should this surprise us, for bothcultic ‘myth’ and royal apotheosis are areas where symbols and forms oflanguage convey different things to different people and ‘truth’ consistsin social function. Both the Adonis-myth and the apotheosis of Bere-nice are ideas to be exploited in various ways; both do depend cruciallyon ‘what men say’ for their significance. The trick of style which linksthese two ideas, therefore, points to a real affinity between them.

The verses describing Aphrodite’s deification of Berenice(vv. 106–8 cited above) have a number of close analogues which thecommentators cite, but Thetis’ action to preserve Patroclus’ body is par-ticularly suggestive:64

Patq|jky d’ awt’ !lbqos_gm ja· m]jtaq 1quhq¹mst\ne jat± Nim_m, Vma b wq½r 5lpedor eUg.

(Il. 19.38–9)

64 Cf. Griffiths (1979: 122).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception248

Through Patroclus’ nostrils she dripped ambrosia and red nectar to preservehis flesh.

So too Hector’s body is preserved by Aphrodite (Il. 23.184–90) so thatit avoids corruption:

t¹m d’ awte pqos]eipe di\jtoqor )qceiv|mtgr .

“§ c]qom, ou py t|m ce j}mer v\com oqd’ oQymo_,!kk’ 5ti je ?mor je ?tai )wikk/or paq± mg·autyr 1m jkis_gisi· duydej\tg d] oR A½rjeil]myi, oqd] t_ oR wq½r s^petai, oqd] lim eqka·5shous’, aV N\ te v_tar !qgiv\tour jat]dousim.G l]m lim peq· s/la 2oO 2t\qoio v_koio

6kjei !jgd]styr, A½r fte d ?a vam^gi,oqd] lim aQsw}mei . hgo?| jem aqt¹r 1pekh½moXom 1eqs^eir je ?tai, peq· d’ aXla m]miptai,oqd] pohi liaq|r· s»m d’ 6kjea p\mta l]lujem,fss’ 1t}pg .

pok]er c±q 1m aqt_i wakj¹m 5kassam.¦r toi j^domtai l\jaqer heo· uXor 2/orja· m]ju|r peq 1|mtor, 1pe_ svi v_kor peq· j/qi.”

(Il. 24.410–23)

Then Hermes the guide, the slayer of Argos, answered him: ‘Old man, heis not eaten yet by dogs or birds, but he still lies there in Achilleus’ hut be-side his ship, just as he fell. This is the twelfth day he has lain there, but hisflesh is not decaying, nor the worms eating him, which feed on the bodiesof men killed in war. Yes, Achilleus does drag him ruthlessly around thetomb of his dear companion every day, at the showing of holy dawn,but he cannot disfigure him. If you went there you could see for yourselfhow he lies there fresh as dew, and all the blood is washed from him, andthere is no stain on him. All the wounds have closed where he was struck –there were many who drove their bronze into him. Such is the care theblessed gods have for your son, even for his dead body, as he is verydear to their hearts’. (trans. Martin Hammond)

Despite Achilles’ maltreatment, Hector lies in Hecuba’s palace 2qs^eir

ja· pq|svator, ‘pristine and fresh, like one slain by the gentle darts ofApollo of the silver bow’ (Il. 24.755–6). In his note on 23.184–91 Ri-chardson observes that those verses and the parallel passages ‘have beentaken as evidence for Greek knowledge of the practice of embalming’.Be that as it may, Theocritus’ evocation of Thetis’ preservation of thebody of Patroclus does suggest to me that v. 108 has a reference inthe world of Ptolemaic funerary practice. Perhaps it merely gratifiesAlexandrian Greeks with their own familiarity with Egyptian mummi-fication, brilliantly finding Homeric precedent for this practice, but per-

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 249

haps also there is more. Alexander’s body must have been preserved insome way, whatever truth lies behind the extant accounts,65 and it ishardly bold to imagine that the early Ptolemies (and their queens) fol-lowed suit. We know little of the burial arrangements of the early Ptole-mies, but Fraser (1972: 1.225) noted that, before Philopator built thecentral Sema of the royal house, ‘it seems likely that … the sanctuariesof the individual deified members … were in close proximity to theSema of Alexander’. We must remember that it was the deification ofArsinoe herself which seems to have marked a major turning point inthe development of the royal cult, and the deification of her mothermay have been an altogether less grand, ‘more Greek’ affair.66 Neverthe-less, we are dealing here not with the documentary history of that cult,but with poetic evocations of it. This evocation of funerary practice is,of course, encomiastic of Arsinoe as well as her mother, as the currentqueen is credited with this arrangement and thus fulfils at the ‘real’ levelthe function of Thetis and Aphrodite in Homer and of Aphrodite at themost straightforward level of Theocritus’ poem. Here too light is shedupon the description of Berenice made ‘immortal from mortal’ (v. 106),for such an endless continuation of how the ‘dead’ looked when ‘alive’is precisely the point of mummification (cf. D.S. 1.91.7).

Here too, however, Theocritus forges links between Adonis and theroyal house. Patroclus and Hector are the most obvious examples ofwhat Jean-Pierre Vernant (1991: 60–74, 84–91) has termed the ‘beau-tiful death’ of the warrior, that death in battle which guarantees perpet-ual youth and beauty. In the case of the slain warrior ‘all is beautiful’(p\mta jak\, Il. 22.73); he lies, an object of wonder and desire indeath as he was in life (cf. Il. 24.410–23, Tyrtaeus fr. 10.21–30West). Adonis ‘the beautiful’, who is always both bridegroom and lostlover, is not a martial hero, indeed in some ways is the very antithesisof such a hero for whom hunting and warfare are two sides of thesame coin;67 nevertheless in death he lies, like Hector and Patroclus –

65 Cf. esp. Quintus Curtius 10.10.9–13, Strabo 17.1.8. We may compare thestory of Agesilaos taken back to Sparta preserved in wax ‘because there wasno honey’ (Plut. Ages. 40.3, cf. Cartledge (1987: 334).

66 Evidence and bibliography in Weber (1993: 252–4).67 Cf. Detienne (1977: 66–7); Griffiths (1981: 255): “Adonis … surpasses para-

gons of assertive masculinity like Ajax and Agamemnon … for he alone partic-ipates in the triumph of the cyclic female principle over death”. It is obviouslytempting to relate Detienne’s whole construction of the ‘anthropology of

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception250

and in another way like Berenice – in perpetual youth, his beauty, liketheirs, preserved forever by divine grace. Like Hector and Patroclus also,Adonis’ death brings particular grief to those who loved him. Hectorindeed is the subject of the most famous scene of organised female lam-entation in Greek literature (Il. 24.719–76), and thus a comparison withAdonis is not created ex nihilo. It may even be that the description ofHector as :j\bar b ceqa_tator eUjati pa_dym ‘the eldest of Hecuba’stwenty sons’ (v. 139), is a specifically Hellenistic variation of Hecuba’saddress to Hector in her lamentation as 1l_i hul_i p\mtym pok» v_k-tate pa_dym, ‘by far the dearest of all my sons in my heart’(Il. 24.748).68 As for Patroclus, in this very same lamentation Hecubanotes that, despite his efforts, Achilles was unable to raise Patroclusfrom the dead, and Patroclus’ ghost appears to plead for burial in a fa-mous scene of Iliad 23.69

The catalogue of demigods70 has attracted critical censure principallybecause the heroes listed do not really fall into a category of Bl_heoi

comparable to Adonis.71 We can, of course, never expect strict compa-rability when the great figures of the past are evoked as exempla, but the

spices’ to Egyptian practices of mummification in which the body was filledwith spices; I have resisted the temptation.

68 Homer’s Priam explicitly says that he had 19 sons ‘from one womb’, i. e. by He-cuba, but the Theocritean scholiast cite Simonides for the number 20 (PMG559); for discussion and catalogues of known names cf. Van der Kolf (1954:1844–7); Richardson on Il. 24.495–7. I suspect that 20 arose by a (? humor-ous) interpretation of the Homeric verses in which Hector is counted separatelyfrom ‘the 19’; thus t_m pokk_m is taken on this view not as ‘correct[ing] theemotional exaggeration of 494’ (Macleod) but as meaning ‘these many’. Leafad loc. indeed seems to exclude Hector from the grand total of 50. If we dohave an allusion to a scholarly dispute, then this would be another reason tobe cautious about dismissing the Adonis-song as mediocre hackwork. I recordas a curiosity Legrand’s suggestion (Legrand 1898: 95 n. l) that 20 has replacedthe Homeric 19 for metrical reasons.

69 Gow (1952: 302) notes the possible influence of the ghost scene, but not ofIliad 24.

70 It may be thought somewhat surprising that, as far as I know, deletion ofvv. 136–42 has never been proposed, for v. 143 would follow perfectly wellafter v. 135.

71 After death Adonis is a ‘demi-god’ in one sense, but as applied to the figures ofthe catalogue this term must principally denote ‘heroes’, ‘figures of the heroicage’, a usage perhaps deriving from Hes. Op. 160. Dover refers to 13.69, al-though the Argonauts as a group were notoriously ‘sons of gods’. Cf. furtherHunter (1993: 103, 127–8). The discussion of the catalogue in Atallah(1966: 130–2) is too general to be helpful.

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 251

apparent difficulty here is that, whereas consolation usually works by in-voking greater figures who have suffered equally or more (Achilles cit-ing Niobe, for example), here it may be thought that Adonis’ status isalready qualitatively different (and higher) than the other figures listed.The more usual procedure may be well illustrated from a very interest-ing epitaph in choliambics (Bernand 71) for a young man, probablyfrom Alexandria, and to be dated to the late Hellenistic or early imperialperiod.72 In the first, unfortunately broken, section the young man ispraised as ‘alone among men (cf. 15.137) … he surpassed in virtue allthose of his age … a child who seemed an old man in his wisdom’.In the better preserved section of the poem his mother is told to stopgrieving for the most familiar of reasons:

oqde·r c±q 1n^kune t¹m l_tom Loiq_moq hmgt|r, oqj !h\mator, oqd’ b desl~tgr,oqd’ aw t}qammor basikijµm kaw½m tilµmheslo»r !tq]ptour diavuce ? pot’ ¡i^hg·Va]homta Tit±m oqj 5jkaus’, ft’ 1j d_vqym

!p’ oqqamoO jat]pesem eQr p]dom ca_gr ;:ql/r d’ b La_ar oqj 5jkaus’ 2¹m pa ?daLuqt_kom !p¹ d_vqym j}lasim voqo}lemom ;73

oqd’ aw H]tir t¹m stemaq¹m 5stemem pa ?da,ft’ 1j bek]lmym hm/sje t_m )p|kkymor ;b d’ aw bqot_m te ja· he_m p\mtym %man74

Saqpgd|m’ oqj 5jkausem, oqj 1j~jusem ;oqd’ aw Lajgd½m b basike»r )k]namdqor,dm t_jtem -llym h]lemor eQr evim loqv^m ;

No one escapes the thread of the Moirai, no mortal, no immortal, not eventhe prisoner,75 not even the tyrant with his kingly power has ever thoughtto flee from the laws which cannot be changed. Did not Titan weep for

72 Bernand gives a full bibliography and many parallels from other epigrams; I willnot repeat that material here. It would obviously be nice to believe that theyoung man died at the age of eighteen (cf. Theocritus’ Adonis), but the inter-pretation of DEWOJTO on the stone in line 6 is disputed, cf. Bernand (1969:287, 289).

73 I do not think that the sense of this line implies corruption despite the ‘faulty’metre, for which cf. p\mtym %man three lines below and perhaps !m^q at the endof v. 3 (although "m^q might there have been intended); I am inclined to at-tribute the trimeters to the poet.

74 Cf. previous note.75 The sense ‘gaoler’ is not, I think, impossible here, cf. Kassel-Austin on Cratinus

fr. 201.

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Phaethon, when he fell out of the chariot from heaven to earth? Did notHermes, the son of Maia, weep for his son Myrtilos carried away by thewaves out of his chariot? Did not Thetis grieve for her mighty son,when he was killed by the arrows of Apollo? Did not the lord of allmen and gods weep for Sarpedon, did he not lament? Did not the Mace-donian, King Alexander, the son of Ammon who took the form of a snaketo beget him?

Adonis has, however, escaped death, at least partially; although it is notstrictly true that his regular alternation between earth and the Under-world is a unique privilege,76 the hymn suggests that even ‘dying’ forpart of the year redounds to Adonis’ glory. Theocritus’ mythologicalcatalogue turns the rhetoric of the epitaph on its head, while evokingits simple, repetitive style. It measures Adonis’ glory against the heroesof epic and tragedy: not just Hector and Patroclus from Homer, but5pah’ (v. 138) hints at representations of Agamemnon’s fate on the trag-ic stage, where pathos was critical, and baqul\mior is clearly chosen topoint to the circumstances of Ajax’s suicide, most famous in antiquityfrom Sophocles’ tragedy. Notable by his absence is the greatest heroof them all, Achilles, whose consolations to Priam in Il. 24 hoverover the epitaph quoted above, in which he himself becomes a conso-latory example. The presence of his son, Neoptolemus / Pyrrhus,77

however, is presumably dictated by more than the desire for alliterationwith Patroclus. His beauty is praised to his father in the Odyssey(Od. 11.522), and after his death he became the object of cult at Del-phi;78 there are, therefore, points of contact with Adonis. By escapingsafe from the war (v. 140) Neoptolemus did not enjoy ‘the beautifuldeath’ to which Adonis has laid claim. For a Greek the Iliad is the ob-vious text from which consolatory exempla may be chosen, as in the ep-itaph quoted above, but in the context of Theoc. 15 as a whole, we canhardly fail to read this list in metaliterary terms also.

76 Cf. Gow (1950) on v.137.77 The name Pyrrhus is first attested for the Cypria (fr. 16 Davies). We are perhaps

to be conscious of the etymology of this name, ‘ruddy’, just as is the colour(puqq\) of the down around Adonis’ lips (v. 130). It is, moreover, at least astrange coincidence that Deucalion’s wife was called P}qqa.

78 One source indeed, Pausanias 1.4.4, reports that cult honours were first paid tohim after he brought assistance against the Gaulish invasion in 278; it may,therefore, be that there is an element of topicality in the reference to him inTheoc. 15.

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 253

A poem that began as a reworking of Sophron has opened out toembrace the whole of human history (‘the Lapiths and the Deucalionsof an earlier age’), just as the epitaph ranges from the pre-Olympian leg-end of Phaethon to Alexander. As the court of Philadelphus and Arsi-noe is the telos to which Greek history has been moving, as Adonis sur-passes the heroes of the past, so Theocritean mime lays claim to unex-pected literary grandeur. Not for long, though; and not perhaps withcomplete seriousness. When Gorgo and Praxinoa have had their glimpseof another world, of a different kind of mimesis, they withdraw back totheir own realm to wait for another year. Mime, after all, can never re-place the centre, whether that be literary (Homer) or political (the Ptol-emaic palace); mime must always live at the edge, on the margins (cf.vv. 7–8), because it needs the centre in order to define its own place.79

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Tübingen, 155–69 [= this volume 212–28]—1996. Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. CambridgeJanko, R. 1984. Aristotle on Comedy. LondonKaibel, G. 1899. Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. BerlinLatte, K. 1951. “review of Gow’s Theocritus”. Gnomon 23,252–7—1968. Kleine Schriften. MünchenLattimore, R. 1962. Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs. UrbanaLegrand, Ph.-E. 1898. �tude sur Th�ocrite. ParisLejeune, M. 1923. Les Adverbes grecs en -hem. BechtelMaas, P. 1962. Greek Metre. OxfordMagnien, V. 1920. “Le syracusain littéraire et l’ldylle XV de Théocrite”. Mem.

Soc. Ling. 21,49–85; 112–38Manakidou, F. 1994. “Bemerkungen über die Beziehung zwischen Dichtung

und bildender Kunst: Bions Klage um Adonis und Theokrits 15. Idyll”.Prometheus 20, 104–18

Meincke, W. 1965. Untersuchungen zu den enkomiastischen Gedichten Theokrits.Diss. Kiel

Miralles, C. 1992. “La poetica di Eroda”. Aevum Antiquum 5,89–113Molinos Tejada, T. 1990. Los dorismos del Corpus Bucolicorum. AmsterdamNorden, E. 1898. Die antike Kunstprosa. LeipzigOlivieri, A. 1930. Frammenti della commedia greca e del mimo nella Sicilia e nella

Magna Grecia. NapoliPomeroy, S.B. 1984. Women in Hellenistic Egypt. New YorkReich, H. 1903. Der Mimus. BerlinRibbeck, O. 1862. “Theokriteische Studien”. RhM 17,543–77Russell, D.A. 1979. “De imitatione”. In: D. West—T. Woodman (eds), Crea-

tive Imitation and Latin Literature. Cambridge, 1–16Slings, S.R. 1993. “Hermesianax and the Tattoo Elegy (P.Brux. inv. E8934 and

Q Sorb inv. 2254)”. FPE 98, 29–35Stark, R. 1963. “Theocritea”. Maia 15,359–85

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Thompson, D.B. 1973. Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience. OxfordTondriau, J. 1948. “La Tryphè, philosophie royale ptolemaïque”. REA

50,49–54Van der Kolf, M.C. 1954. “Priamos”. RE 22, 1841–1907Vernant, J.-P. 1991. Mortals and Immortals. PrincetonWeber, G. 1993. Dichtung und hçfische Gesellschaft. StuttgartWhite, P. 1993. Promised Verse. Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome. Cam-

bridge, Mass.

Addenda

A version of this paper was incorporated as Chapter 4 of Theocritus and the Ar-chaeology of Greek Poetry ; for further discussion of Idyll 15 cf. also ‘Speaking inglossai. Dialect choice and cultural politics in Hellenistic poetry’ in W.M.Bloomer (ed.), The Contest of Language (Notre Dame 2005) 187–206. The lan-guage of Idyll 15, and of Theocritus more generally, is discussed by A. Willi inan important forthcoming paper, ‘“We speak Peloponnesian”: tradition and lin-guistic identity in postclassical Sicilian literature’. The fragments of Epicharmusand Sophron appear in Vol. I of R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae comici graeci(Berlin 2001), and cf. also J.H. Hordern, Sophron’s Mimes (Oxford 2004).

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15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica*

Epic poetry seeks to map the world, both as a physical and as an ideo-logical construct. Just as Homer was the source of all literature, all phi-losophy, and all political science, so epic is the all-encompassing literaryembodiment of all that is known. If it was the Shield of Achilles – itselfboth microcosm and macrocosm – which was for later ages the most ob-vious epic site where spatial and cultural dispositions were clearly inter-dependent,1 it was the Odyssey which taught for all time how geograph-ic and cultural maps could never be totally distinct entities. The persis-tence of this pattern of thought in later Greek science (especially med-icine) and ethnography has often been documented. Recent years haveexplored to excellent effect the consequences which this aspect of theGreek heritage had in Roman epic and in the Aeneid in particular;one need only think of the complementary, though very different,books of Philip Hardie and Claude Nicolet.2 It is now well understoodthat the Aeneid does not merely plot the foundation of Roman imperialpower, but also marks out the space of that power, geographically, mo-rally, and politically. A fundamental technique in Vergil’s project is theinterplay of “epic time” and “historical time:” the institutions and ideol-ogy of Augustan Rome are retrojected into (or, perhaps, mapped on to)the epic past, thus confirming that the new order, far from being “new”in an absolute sense, is of pristine antiquity. In seeking to understand theearlier history of this process, the Argonautica of Apollonius seems an ob-vious starting-point.

The Argonautica— or so I have argued elsewhere – was a crucial textin the development of Vergil’s strategy, both because some of Apollo-nius’ concerns are similar to those of Vergil, and because the Roman

* Syllecta Classica 6 (1995) 13–271 Cf., e. g., P. R. Hardie, “Imago mundi : Cosmological and Ideological Aspects of

the Shield of Achilles,” JHS 105 (1985) 11–31.2 P. R. Hardie, Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford 1986); C. Nicolet,

Space, Geography, and Politics in the early Roman Empire (Michigan 1991) trans-lating L’inventaire du monde: g�ographie et politique aux origines de l’Empire romain(Paris 1988). There is also much of interest on this subject in D. Quint, Epic andEmpire. Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (Princeton 1993).

poet chose to read the Greek epic in such a way as to fashion the priortext to his own purpose.3 Moreover, there are good reasons to think thatthe Argonautic story had always been a narrative in which the bounda-ries of “history” and “myth” were available for negotiation; the aetio-logical dimension was fundamental to the whole narrative, not merelya casual offshoot of it.4 More specifically, the Argonautica of Apolloniusyields close parallels to some of Vergil’s techniques of “mixing time.”Thus, for example, it is now generally accepted that the account, inthe mouth of Lykos, of the history of the Mariandynoi reflects recentevents and, in particular, the political aspirations of the people of Her-aclea Pontica (2.774–810);5 whatever the details, it is clear that mythichistory is in this passage accommodated to recent history in a way thatbecomes very familiar in the Roman epic. Moreover, Apollonius livedin a period of considerable interest in geography and geographical writ-ing, some of which is doubtless reflected in his epic.6 There are, there-fore, reasons to hope that wider enquiries concerning the relation be-tween the Argonautica and the political and social world in which itwas written may not be fruitless, although this relation has, until recent-ly, attracted remarkably little critical attention.7 In this paper I shall ex-amine two different aspects of the Argonautic “map,” in both of which,however, we can see how the geographical and the moral or cultural pa-rameters of the poem run together. In Section I, I shall deal briefly withthe passage of the Argo through the Symplegades and the voyage along

3 Cf. R. Hunter, The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius: Literary Studies (Cam-bridge 1993) chapters 6 and 7.

4 For a helpful survey cf. D. Braund, Georgia in Antiquity. A History of Colchis andTranscaucasian Iberia 550 BC-AD 562 (Oxford 1994) Chapter 1.

5 Cf. U. von Wilamowitz, Hellenistische Dichtung, vol. 2 (Berlin 1924) 237, n. 2;pp. 159–61 of vol. 1 of Vian’s Budé text; M. G. Palombi, “Mito e storia in dueepisodi delle Argonautiche di Apollonio Rodio,” Prometheus 19 (1993) 154–68.

6 On Apollonius’ geographical sources the introductions of F. Vian to the vol-umes of the Budé edition are invaluable; cf. also id., “Poesie et géographie:les retours des Argonautes,” Acad�mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Comptes Re-ndus (1987) 249–62. Of contemporary geographers, one thinks particularly ofthe peq· kil]mym of Timosthenes of Rhodes, though there is no certain casewhere the latter has been used (frs. 28 and 31 Wagner, on the Pontic area,are merely suggestive). For Timosthenes cf. P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria,vol. 1 (Oxford 1972) 522 (with bibliography).

7 Apart from the introductions and notes to Vian’s editions, the field is still largelyheld by R. Roux (Le probl�me des Argonautes [Paris 1949]) which does not seemto be much read, although it contains almost equal quantities of the interestingand the fanciful.

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the southern Pontic shore, and in Section II, I shall be concerned withthe religious horizons of the epic.

I.

Much of Book 2 of Apollonius’ Argonautica is devoted to the passage ofthe Argonauts eastwards along the southern shore of the Black Sea; thebook ends with the arrival at Colchis. As is well known, the local his-torians of Heraclea, above all the roughly contemporary Nymphis, werea major source for this narrative.8 Apart from his regional history, Nym-phis also wrote a history of Alexander and the epigonoi down at least tothe accession of Euergetes, and this too suggests why Alexandrian schol-ars and poets might have found him of interest. More general Ptolemaicinterest in the Black Sea region requires no special demonstration, forthe cities of the southern Pontic shore had important and well-docu-mented trading links with third-century Alexandria.9 Later history re-corded that Heraclea itself had been “given” – whatever that mightmean – by Lysimachus to his wife, the future Arsinoe II, and so thatmight have been another reason for early Alexandrian interest in thecity.10 For Apollonius’ purposes, however, the poetic tradition concern-ing the Black Sea coast seems to have been far less rich than the geo-graphic and ethnographic tradition, even when allowance is made forall that we have lost.11 Thus in Pindar’s Fourth Pythian the account ofthe Argonautic voyage moves straight from the Symplegades to the Pha-sis:

1r d³ j_mdumom bah»m Q]lemoi

desp|tam k_ssomto ma_m,

8 Cf. P. Desideri, “Studi di storiografia eracleota,” SCO 16 (1967) 366–416.9 Cf., e. g., M. I. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic

World (Oxford 1941) vol. 1, 585 ff, vol. 3, 1454–5.10 Cf. Memnon, FGrHist 434, chapter 5.4–5; H.S. Lund, Lysimachus (London

and New York 1992) 194–5. For a helpful account of the history of Heracleacf. A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 2nd ed. (Oxford1971) 148–53, and for the earlier period, S. M. Burstein, Outpost of Hellenism:the Emergence of Heraclea on the Black Sea (Berkeley 1976).

11 Hesiod’s account of Phineus may have been particularly important here, cf.Hunter (above, n. 3) 95. The geographical catalogue per se was, of course,no stranger to the poetic tradition; the most familiar example outside Hesiodis Aeschylus, Prometheus Vinctus vv. 706 ff.

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica 259

sumdq|lym jimghl¹m !lail\jetom

1jvuce ?m petq÷m. d_dulai c±q 5sam fy-a_, jukimd]sjomt| te jqaipm|teqai

C baqucdo}pym !m]lym st_wer· !kk’ E�dg tekeut±m je ?mor aqta ?r

Blih]ym pk|or %cacem. 1r V÷sim d’ 5peitemEkuhom, 5mha jekaim~pessi J|kwoisim b_am

le ?nam AQ^tô paq’ aqt`.(Pythian 4.207–13 [Snell-Maehler])

And, as they were hastening on into deep peril, theybesought the lord of ships, that they might escape theirresistible movement of the rocks that run together. Forboth were alive and used to roll more swiftly than the ranksof the loud-roaring winds, but at last that voyage of thedemigods brought them their end. After that they came tothe Phasis, where they pitted their might against the grimColchians in the presence of Aietes himself. (trans. Braswell)

There is a similar elision of Pontic geography in a passage of Theocrituswhich, for all its difficulties, seems to rewrite vv. 208–12 of the FourthPythian :12

s»m d’ aqt` jat]baimem ~kar euedqom 1r )qc~,ûtir juame÷m oqw ûxato sumdqol\dym maOr!kk± dien\ine bah»m d’ eQs]dqale V÷sim,aQet¹r ¦r, l]ca ka ?tla, !v’ ox t|te wo_qader 5stam.

(Theocritus 13.21–4 [Gow])

With [Heracles,] Hylas went down to the well-benched Argo, which didnot touch the clashing rocks, but escaped and came speeding into thedeep Phasis like an eagle over a great expanse; whence from that day therocks stand fixed.

Jacobs’ transposition of the second halves of vv. 23 and 24 would dosomething to alleviate the omission of the Pontic voyage, and for thisreason has seemed very attractive to many editors,13 but the Pindaricmodel is a good reason for resisting this change at least.14

12 Note bah}m of the danger from the Rocks at Pythian 4.207; that Theocritususes the adjective in a quite different way seems to me to argue for, ratherthan against, the borrowing.

13 Cf., e. g., Wilamowitz, Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin 1906)178–9: “… als die Argo durch die Symplegaden hindurch war, lief sie eben

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In his note on vv. 211–13 of Pindar’s poem, Braswell ascribes Pin-dar’s technique to “lyric rapidity” whereas Apollonius indulges “themore leisurely manner of epic,” but there is more involved here thanmerely generic differences.15 In Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris also, theSymplegades are the key geographic marker, functioning almost as ametonymy for the whole Black Sea (cf. vv. 124–5); although there issome genuine sense of geography in the play,16 the coastline betweenthe Rocks and the Crimea is very largely ignored. Apollonius’ two ver-sions of a detailed Pontic periplous, on the other hand, are not merely adidactic tour de force or a literary game, in which his blind prophet morethan makes up for the notoriously incomplete travel information pro-vided by Homer’s Teiresias,17 or the result of anxiety not to miss any

nicht in den Phasis, sondern in den Pontus. Sie schiesst wie ein Adler nicht blossauf der Passage gerade zwischen den Klippen durch, sondern so geht’s auf ihrerganzen Fahrt.” Commentators have also seen the possible relevance of Argonau-tica 2.1246–59 (Prometheus’ eagle seen just as the Argonauts reach Colchis), cf.Gow on 13.23 f, M. Campbell, “Argo and L]ca Ka ?tla,”Maia 26 (1974) 331.Doubtless like many others, when I first thought about these verses I toyed withchanging V÷sim to P|mtom, and this has now been proposed by A. Griffiths in animportant discussion which also revives Meineke’s deletion of v. 24, cf. “Cus-tomising Theokritos” in Theocritus, Hellenistica Groningana II, A. Harder et al.,eds. (Groningen 1996) 101–18.

14 If Idyll 13 is in some sense subsequent to the Argonautica, then a metaliteraryreading in which Theocritus, “like an eagle over a great expanse,” rushespast (i. e. omits) the rest of Argonautica 2, i. e. the Pontic voyage, is hard to resist.The effect would be not unlike that of ¨m evek|r ti (v. 18) which seems to offeran amusing alternative to Apollonius’ catalogue; cf. L. E. Rossi, “L’Ila di Teoc-rito: epistola poetica ed epillio,” Studi classici in onore di Quintino Cataudella,vol. 2 (Catania 1972) 279–83 (especially 288), B. Effe, “Die Hylas-Geschichtebei Theokrit und Apollonios Rhodios,” Hermes 120 (1992) 309. That the firstsection of Theocritus 13 rewrites the proem of the Argonautica seems to me verylikely, cf. , e. g., G. Knaack, GGA 158 (1896) 884; G. Perotta, “L’Ilas di Teoc-rito,” SIFC 4 (1925) 88; Rossi (above, n. 14).

15 M. Campbell (“Theocritus Thirteen,” “Owls to Athens.” Essays on Classical Sub-jects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover, E. M. Craik, ed. [Oxford 1990] 113–19) ob-serves that Theocritus’ omission of the Pontic journey shows that his Argonautsare “fully fledged heroes who prosecute their voyage with an effortless ease.”

16 Cf. E. Hall, “The geography of Euripides’ Iphigeneia among the Taurians”, AJP108 (1987) 427–33.

17 Cf. Heubeck on Odyssey 10.539–40 in A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey,vol. 1, A. Heubeck, S. West, J.B. Hainsworth, eds. For this Apollonian techni-que cf. perhaps the rôle of Arete whose importance finally fulfils the central po-sition proclaimed, but not really delivered, for her in the Odyssey, cf. Hains-worth’s introduction to Odyssey 7. For other aspects of Phineus’ prophecy cf.

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica 261

site of Argonautic legend, but point rather to central concerns of theepic.

The fixing of the Rocks by the Argo’s passage is a powerful symbolof achievement; it marks the imposition of order and the creation ofknown space where before there was shifting and destructive disorder.The account of the passage through the Rocks suggests the cosmic bat-tles of early Greek poetry. With 2.566–67:

awe d³ p|mtorsleqdak]om, p\mtg d³ peq· l]car 5bqelem aQh^q·

(Apollonius, Argonautica 2.566–67 [Vian])

The sea roared terribly and all around the great heaven thundered,

compare Hesiod, Theogony vv. 678–80 (the Titanomachy):18

deim¹m d³ peq_awe p|mtor !pe_qym,c/ d³ l]c’ 1slaq\cgsem, 1p]steme d’ oqqam¹r eqq»rsei|lemor

(Hesiod, Theogony 678–80 [Solmsen])

The boundless sea resounded all around, the earth crackled loudly, and thebroad heaven groaned as it was shaken.

As the Olympians put down their violent predecessors to impose order,so the passage through the Rocks marks the attainment of knowledgeand control through the eastward advance of Hellenic culture,19

which can then be manifested in the elaborate geography and ethnog-raphy of the southern Pontic shore, as Apollonius writes the culturalaetiology of this rich land. In this case, knowledge really is power.The pattern of “detailed prediction” followed by realisation dramatisesthe ordered control of (endlessly repeatable) geographical and ethno-graphic fact which follows upon the passage of the Rocks. What beforewas known only to a Phineus is now the common property of allGreeks, always available in the written accounts of those who havebeen there before. This knowledge is, however, not yet shared by the

Hunter (above, n. 3) 94–5, and for Arete ibid. 68–74 and below, pages 269–70.

18 Note also 2.553–4 with Theogony v. 705 t|ssor doOpor 5cemto he_m 5qidi

numi|mtym· there is also a general resemblance to the terrifying roar of the cos-mic clash at Iliad 20.41 ff.

19 Cf. M. Fantuzzi, “La Censura delle Simplegadi: Ennio, Medea, fr. 1 Jocelyn”QUCC 31 (1989) 127–8.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception262

Argonauts; they remain ignorant of the fate of the Rocks, and their ter-ror persists until Apollo finally grants them a return home at the end ofBook 4. Apollo’s saving intervention at the “Melanteian Rocks” (“TheDarkening Rocks,” 4.1707)20 is a narrative reprise of Athena’s interven-tion at “the Dark Rocks” which represent the same threatening disorderand lack of control as the dark Aegean chaos (cf. 4.1699–1701 for thecomplete loss of geographical control).21 Just as the triumph of the pas-sage of the Symplegades was followed by the mapped order of the BlackSea, so the trials of Book 4 and the epic itself close with the aetiology ofAegean and ultimately North African geography.

The “didactic” catalogues of Hellenistic poetry may be seen as partof the wider project of classifying, reconstructing and adapting theGreek heritage which was focused on the Library at Alexandria.22

Such classification and adaptation is not to be underestimated by dis-missing it as the rather unexciting pastime of scholars in libraries. Itwas, in fact, no less than the reclaiming and control of knowledge,and this can hardly be divorced from the other activities by which Hel-lenistic kingships, above all the Ptolemies, proclaimed both their powerand their right to the Greek cultural inheritance. Not for the only time,we may here perceive suggestive parallels between Ptolemaic and Augu-stan intellectual culture; as so often, in looking to the past, the poets ofthe third century showed the way to the future.

20 The scholia associate “Melanteian” with one Melas, the son of the eponymoushero of Naxos.

21 Behind the Apollonian passage lies perhaps Odyssey 10.190–2 (Odysseus tellinghis men that they have lost all sense of where they are). For Apollonius’ chaos cf.Hunter (above, n. 3) 167; I ought there to have noted the Stoic identification(SVF 1.103) of w\or as water, !p¹ toO w]eshai, which is clearly not what ismeant at 4.1697, but may have had some influence upon Apollonius’ use ofthe idea. Pherecydes is also alleged to have identified w\or as water, cf. fr. 1aD-K.

22 G. Weber (Dichtung und hçfische Gesellschaft [Stuttgart 1993] 316–7) raises thequestion of the relation between poetic catalogues and political influence,but sees the question too narrowly.

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica 263

II.

In a famous passage of Book 2 the exhausted Argonauts land on the is-land of Thynias and see a vision of the brilliantly gleaming Apollo as hepasses on his way north to the Hyperboreans. They found a cult of“Apollo of the Dawn,” and then establish a shrine to Homonoia, ashrine which, so the poet tells us, is standing “still to this day”(2.717), though it features nowhere else in the ancient record.23 Thisscene is part of a contrast, devised by Apollonius to inform much ofthe epic, between Apollo, a sun god of beneficent power,24 and theolder god Helios25 and his descendants whose light, whether it be theradiance of Aietes’ helmet (3.1228–30) or the sinister gleam in Medea’seye (3.886, 4.726–9, 1669–72), is threatening and destructive. The ep-isode itself belongs to the Heracleot narrative – Thynias was settled andpresumably controlled from there26 – and Apollonius may well havefound mention of the shrine in the local histories which he clearlyused; the importance of homonoia as a prime Argonautic virtue requiresno elaborate illustration. Nevertheless, there may be more to be saidabout the place of this shrine and the virtue it celebrates in the epicas a whole, and I begin, not in the Black Sea, but to the south on theisland of Thera, a crucial Ptolemaic naval base and site of Ptolemaiccult,27 and, as the mother city of Cyrene, the subject of the final aetiol-ogy of the Argonautica, the prophetic episode of Euphemos and the clodof earth given to him by Triton.

Dating probably from the latter years of Philadelphus’ reign and theearly years of Euergetes, there survives from Thera a well known seriesof dedications by one Artemidorus from Perge in Pamphylia. Of partic-ular interest is a temenos established by Artemidorus at the entrance tothe city.28 Together with dedications to Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo and Ar-

23 On this scene in general cf. R. Hunter, “Apollo and the Argonauts,” MH 43(1986) 50–60 [= this volume 29–41], and D.C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic(Oxford 1991) 75.

24 For Apollo as a sun-god cf. the evidence collected by Diggle on Euripides,Phaethon vv. 224–5 and Williams on Callimachus, Hymnus in Apollinem v. 9.

25 For Helios as belonging to a previous divine generation cf., e. g., Hesiod, The-ogony v. 371.

26 Cf. J. Ziegler, RE 6A.718–9.27 Cf. F. Hiller von Gaertringen, RE 5A.2297–8.28 For this temenos cf. IG WII.3, Suppl. 1330–50; F. Hiller von Gaertringen, Thera

III (Berlin 1904) 89–102; for Artemidorus cf. Prosopographia Ptolemaica

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception264

temis (the patron goddess of his native Perge), this temenos also con-tained statues and altars to Hekate poku~mulor vysv|qor, Priapos,Tyche, the Samothracian gods, the Dioskouroi, Homonoia (to whomArtemidorus built an altar in accordance with the instructions of adream), and perhaps also “the heroines” if the noun is correctly restored(IG WII.3, Suppl. 1340). We also find an inscribed Delphic oracle pro-claiming Artemidorus (? a future) !h\mator he ?or Fqyr (IG WII.3,Suppl. 1349) and a carved portrait of the man himself.

Whether or not it is true that Artemidorus was, in Cole’s words, “acurious person,”29 the collection of gods honoured in his temenos doesindeed suggest “a man of his time.”30 The disparate origins and regionalaffiliations of these divinities point clearly to the cultural interchange ofthe Hellenistic world. It may, then, be worthwhile to “map” Artemido-rus’ religious world against that of the Argonautica ; this first stage will bea fairly simple task, but the conclusions to be drawn from that map maybe much more difficult.

The Dioskouroi are themselves leading Argonauts, and Lykos an-nounces the establishment to them of a temple on the Acherousianheadland overlooking the Black Sea and a special temenos in front ofhis city (2.806–10); the temple is to be a landmark for sailors wholook, in any event, for the special protection of the divine twins.Some scholars have wished to connect the temple with the divinecult of the Ptolemies themselves.31 Certainly the place of the Dioskouroiin Hellenistic and Alexandrian cult and poetry is well established: in hispoem on the deification of Arsinoe (fr. 228 Pf.) Callimachus representedthe dead queen as carried off by the divine twins, and abundant otherevidence points to their significance in the Ptolemaic capital.32 Like

VI.15188. For modern discussion cf. Wilamowitz, Der Glaube der Hellenen, 2nded., vol. 2 (Basel 1955) 382–85; H. Herter, De Priapo (Giessen 1932) 233–35;S. G. Cole, Theoi Megaloi : the Cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace (Leiden 1984)61–64; F. van Straten, “Images of Gods and Men in a Changing Society. Self-identity in Hellenistic Religion,” Images & Ideologies: Self-Definition in the Hel-lenistic World, A. W. Bulloch et al., eds. (Berkeley 1993) 248–64, especially260–1.

29 Above, n. 28, 62.30 Ibid. 64.31 Cf. H. Fränkel, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Münich 1968) 516; M.

Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche (Rome 1985) 125–6.32 Cf., e. g., E. Visser, Gçtter und Kulte im ptolemaischen Alexandrien (Amsterdam

1938) 17–8; W. F. Von Bissing, “Il culto dei Dioscuri in Egitto,” Aegyptus

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica 265

so many Hellenistic divinities, it is their soterological aspect – they areheo· syt/qer as Artemidorus calls them (IG WII.3, Suppl. 1333) –which is most prominent in cult and the poetic presentations of thatcult. Their special affinity with suffering humankind is forcefully drama-tised by Apollonius at 4.588–594 where it is they who, on the orders ofZeus’ voice, pray for safe passage as the Argo enters the nightmare re-gions of central Europe, and they who indeed bring the Argonautsthrough safe (s|oi, 4.650); their rôle in this scene is a resolution of anice poetic problem which might be thought peculiarly Hellenistic:how can the Dioskouroi save a ship on which they themselves are trav-elling?33

The Dioskouroi are closely connected with another set of soterolog-ical divinities, “the Samothracian gods,” who are also honoured by Ar-temidorus and into whose mysteries the Argonauts are initiated so thatthey might sail with greater safety, sy|teqoi (1.915–21); that it is Or-pheus, the central figure of the best known mystery-cult, who advisesthis step is presumably significant for the nature of the initiation andthe blessings which it offered. We know that both Arsinoe, probablyeven before her marriage to Philadelphus, and Philadelphus himself sup-ported major building activity at the cult-centre on Samothrace, andPtolemaic favour may have been very important in the spread of the in-fluence of this cult.34 Here again, then, we may see a close link betweenthe religious world of the Argonautica and that of the Ptolemaic Medi-terranean.

Of Artemidorus’ other divinities, the “heroines” famously interveneto save the Argonauts in the Libyan desert in Book 4. Artemidorus maywell have first been introduced to them in North Africa, but their rôle

33 (1953) 347–57; H. C. Youtie, “Ostraka from Karanis,” ZPE 16 (1975)272–3; Weber (above, n. 22) 346–7.

33 Note the contrast between this scene, in which the Dioskouroi act while theother “Minyan heroes” (4.595) are afflicted with jatgve_g, and 4.1701–5where Jason’s saving prayers to Apollo do not prevent his tears and anguish,jat± d’ 5qqeem !swak|ymti / d\jqua.

34 For the evidence and discussion cf. B. Hemberg, Die Kabiren (Uppsala 1950)69–70, 213; G. Longega, Arsinoe II (Rome 1968) 39–42; P. M. Fraser, Samo-thrace. The Inscriptions on Stone (London 1960) 4–9; Cole (above, n. 28) 20–22(with notes, p. 112); M. Fantuzzi, “Mythological Paradigms in the bucolic po-etry of Theocritus,” PCPS 41 (1995) 16–35. It is curious that the “s_kouqorcomedy” (W. H. Willis, “Comedia Duciana,” GRBS 32 [1991] 331–53)seems to contain references both to Adonis (v. 7) and to “the Samothraciangods” (v. 22): a sign of Alexandrian authorship?

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in the Argonautica speaks volumes for the welcome which Apollonius’epic offers to deities with little epic pedigree. Hecate, on the otherhand, was a long established member of the Greek pantheon, althoughin the Argonautica it is her chthonic associations and terrifying powerswhich are most prominent. Her cult seems to have spread from AsiaMinor west to the islands and north to the Black Sea; when Medeafounds a shrine of Hekate on the Paphlagonian coast and performsrites in the goddess’ honour (4.246–52)35 we are dealing again withthe interweaving of past and present, with charting the religious mapof Apollonius’ own day. From the point of view of the epic, Hekate’searly connection with Persephone and later close association with thatgoddess36 allowed Apollonius to create his Colchis as a place both ofthe brilliant Sun (Helios) and of the Underworld; the interpenetrationof these two normally distinct realms is one of the most terrifying as-pects of the disorder of Aietes’ kingdom. As for Priapos, he was origi-nally a god of fertility and plenty whose cult seems to have moved southfrom Hellespontic Lampsakos; Artemidorus’ juxtaposition of this god toHekate might seem a rather odd foreshadowing of the ribald meeting ofthe two in Horace, Satires 1.8, but even this association is perhaps notunparalleled,37 and Priapos is certainly found in Alexandrian contexts.His image appeared together with that of Dionysus, and apparentlyalso in close association with those of Alexander and Ptolemy Soter,in the great pompe staged by Philadelphus.38 His rôle has been interpret-ed as “symboliz[ing] the potency of Alexander and Ptolemy, their suc-cessful rape of Persia, and the prodigious fruits of their triumph,”39 butmore prosaic explanations for the presence of Dionysus’ son are alsopossible; his image, like most in the pompe, was in any case availablefor interpretation by the spectators in more than one way, and if the

35 Here the scholia cite Nymphis as authority for Medea’s foundation of this cult(FGrHist 432 F 8).

36 Cf. R. Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica Book III (Cambridge 1989)note on 3.862.

37 A Pqi\piom ja· :jat]ou (sic) Aqk^ occurs in an imperial inscription fromTralles, cf. BCH 4 (1880) 337; T. Kraus, Hekate: Studien zu Wesen und Bildder Gçttin in Kleinasien und Griechenland (Heidelberg 1960) 32.

38 Callixenus apud Athenaeus 5.201c-d. Text and interpretation are both very dif-ficult, cf. Herter (above, note 28) 12–14, E. E. Rice, The Grand Procession ofPtolemy Philadelphos (Oxford 1983) 99–108; whether there was one statue ofPriapos or two is not germane to the present discussion.

39 A. Stewart, Faces of Power. Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley1993) 257.

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god was ithyphallic (which cannot be regarded as certain),40 an erectphallos does not necessarily signify unambiguously. Be that as it may,Priapos seems never to have made it into epic poetry, unless, that is,“holy Pityeia” (the site of the later Lampsakos) past which the Argo-nauts sail (1.933) contains in the epithet an allusion to the phallicgod.41 If so, this would be a striking instance of how Apollonius’ epicgestures towards the contemporary.

With Artemidorus’ dedication to Homonoia we encounter a wide-spread Hellenistic ideal, functioning in both public and private spheres,whose importance in the Roman epic tradition has recently beenstressed by Francis Cairns.42 It is, of course, a quintessential Argonauticvirtue, as the foundation of the temple on Thynias makes clear. Outsidethe world of the epic, we find (besides Artemidorus’ dedication) a cultof “Zeus Eleutherios and the Homonoia of the Hellenes” at Plataea atleast as early as the third century,43 and then an increasing number ofcults of Homonoia attested in subsequent centuries. It is an ideawhich seems to have strong Ptolemaic links.44 It may not be significantthat the Glaukon honoured by the decree which attests the Plataean culthad, as the inscription records, a distinguished career in Ptolemaic serv-ice,45 but homonoia is also invoked in the famous treaty (IG II2 687) be-tween Athens and Sparta at the time of the so-called ChremonideanWar, a treaty which celebrates Ptolemaic support for those states againstMacedonia. It may be in this context that Alexis fr. 246 K-A should beplaced:

40 Cf. Rice (above, n. 38) 108.41 So E. Delage, La G�ographie dans les Argonautiques d’Apollonios de Rhodes (Bor-

deaux 1930) 91.42 Virgil’s Augustan Epic (Cambridge 1989) 89 ff. For Homonoia in general cf. H.

Kramer, Quid valeat bl|moia in litteris Graecis, (diss. Göttingen 1915); Zwicker,RE 8.2266–7; M. Hopkinson, Callimachus. Hymn to Demeter (Cambridge 1984)134. For its political importance in the Hellenistic world cf., e. g., W. W. Tarn,Alexander the Great, vol. 2 (Cambridge 1948) 409–11; M. Schofield, The StoicIdea of the City (Cambridge 1991) 46–48, 128–9.

43 Cf. R. Étienne and M. Piérart, “Un décret du Koinon des Hellènes à Platées enl’honneur de Glaucon, fils d’Étéoclès, d’Athènes,” BCH 99 (1975) 51–75; W.C. West, “Hellenic homonoia and the new decree from Plataea,” GRBS 18(1977) 307–19.

44 Cf. Roux (above, n. 7) 76–7, 144–49. It seems most unlikely, however, thatthe Argonautic altar on Thynias actually recalls the altar on Thera (so, tentative-ly, Palombi [above, n. 5] 160).

45 Cf. Étienne and Piérart (above, n. 43) 56–58.

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1c½ Ptokela_ou toO basik]yr t]ttaqa

wutq_d’ !jq\tou t/r t’ !dekv/r pqoskab½mt/r toO basik]yr taut’, !pmeust_ t’ 1jpi½m¢r %m tir Fdist’ Usom Usyi jejqal]mom,ja· t/r jlomo_ar d}o, t_ mOm lµ jyl\sy

%meu kuwmo}wou pq¹r t¹ tgkijoOto v_r ;(Alexis, fr. 246 K-A)

Without drawing breath I have drunk four pots of pure wine in honour ofKing Ptolemy, and the same amount for the king’s sister, and two more forHomonoia—wine at its best, mixed half and half. In such light what stopsme going on a komos without a lamp?

This passage is normally understood as referring to homonoia betweenAthens and Ptolemy II, although H. Heinen cautiously raises the possi-bility that the reference is rather to the homonoia between Ptolemy andhis wife Arsinoe.46 This suggestion, whether correct or not, usefullyserves as a reminder that the demarcation between “private” and “pub-lic” homonoia is not always easy to draw, particularly where rulers areconcerned, and this has interesting consequences for the epic tradition.

As early as the Odyssey, the blovqos}mg between Odysseus and Pe-nelope marks on the private plane what is represented publicly by thegood order and harmony in society at large which is destroyed by thesuitors. The Apollonian heirs to this blovqos}mg are Arete and Alcinouswho together ensure the Argonauts’ safety on Drepane. The scene ofArete and Alcinous in bed, a scene which marvellously dramatisestheir mutual understanding,47 has no better Homeric parallel than thefamous scene at Odyssey 18.250–83 in which Penelope solicits giftsfrom the suitors and Odysseus rejoices48 at her cunning; both Odysseusand Alcinous know what game their wives are playing. I have suggestedelsewhere that the Apollonian portrayal of Arete and Alcinous couldhardly fail to call to the mind of Alexandrian readers their own ‘broth-er-sister’ rulers,49 and if, despite chronological uncertainties (cf. below),some version of this interpretation is correct, we would have a charac-teristic blend of epic tradition and contemporary resonance. Support forthis view may be found in Theocritus’ encomiastic description of the

46 Untersuchungen zur hellenistischen Geschichte des 3. Jahrhunderts v.Chr. (Wiesbaden1972) 135.

47 Cf. Vian, Note compl�mentaire (Paris 1981) to 4.1110 ; Hunter (above, n. 3) 161.48 This may lend some support to Vian’s interpretation of Qa_momto at 4.1096.49 Hunter (above, n. 3) 161–2.

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mutual affection of Ptolemy I and Berenice, the parents of Philadelphusand Arsinoe:

oupy tim± vamt· "de ?m t|som !mdq· cumaij_mfssom peq Ptokela ?or 2µm 1v_kgsem %joitim

(Theocritus 17.38–9 [Gow])

men say that never yet has wife so pleased her man as Ptolemy’s spouse herlord (trans. Gow)

These verses, which clearly push back the “virtues” of the current rulingcouple into the previous generation,50 suggest Homer’s account of Al-cinous1 admiration for Arete:

…tµm d’ )kj_moor poi^sat’ %joitim,ja_ lim 5tis’ ¢r ou tir 1p· whom· t_etai %kkg,fssai mOm ce cuma ?jer rp’ !mdq\sim oXjom 5wousim.

(Homer, Odyssey 7.66–68 [Allen])

… Arete, whom Alcinous made his wife and has honoured ever since as noother wife in the world is honoured, of all wives who rule a householdunder their husband’s eye. (trans. Shewring)

If Arete is indeed one epic model for the women of the royal house,then the significance of the following Homeric verses becomes appa-rent:

¤r je_mg peq· j/qi tet_lgta_ te ja· 5stim5j te v_kym pa_dym 5j t’ aqtoO )kjim|oioja· ka_m, oV l_m Na he¹m ¤r eQsoq|ymterdeid]watai l}hoisim, fte ste_w,s’ !m± %stu.oq l³m c\q ti m|ou ce ja· aqtµ de}etai 1shkoO·oXs_m t’ ew vqom],si ja· !mdq\si me_jea k}ei.

(Homer, Odyssey 7.69–74 [Allen])

Such has always been, and such still is, the honour paid to Arete by Alci-nous and by her children and by the people here, who gaze at her as at adivinity and greet her with loyal words whenever she walks about thetown, because she is full of helpful wisdom. If she takes kindly to anyone,she will be a peacemaker in his feuds. (trans. Shewring, adapted)

50 On the ideology of “love” in these verses cf. also the rather different consider-ations adduced by L. Koenen, “Die Adaptation ägyptischer Königsideologie amPtolmäerhof,” in Egypt and the Hellenistic World, E. van’t Dack et al., eds. (Lou-vain 1983) 143–90, especially 161–2.

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The god-like honour paid to a wise queen is very suggestive when pro-jected forward to Ptolemaic Alexandria.51

Hellenistic encomium found a rich vein of inspiration in archaichexameter poetry. Alcinous himself is clearly figured by Apollonius asthe “Hesiodic good king:”

oR d] te kao·

p\mter 1r aqt¹m bq_si diajq_momta h]listar

Qhe_gisi d_jgisim.(Hesiod, Theogony 84–86 [Solmsen])

All the people gaze upon him as he administers ordinances with straight jus-tice.

aqt_ja d’ )kj_moor leteb^seto sumhes_,simdm m|om 1neq]ym jo}qgr vpeq· 1m d’f ce weiq·sj/ptqom 5wem wquso?o dijasp|kom, è vpo kao·Qhe_ar !m± %stu diejq_momto h]listar.

(Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1176–9 [Vian])

Without delay Alcinous came out to reveal his decision about the girl inaccordance with the agreement. In his hand he held the golden staff oflegal authority with which he administered straight ordinances to the peo-ple in the city.

Even the light humour which plays over the allusion – Alcinous hasbeen “got at” by Arete and the ultimate outcome is already a fait accompli— is typical of the poetry written under Ptolemaic patronage. As Alci-nous himself has more than one archaic model, so he and Arete, theroyal couple, are indebted both to their Homeric selves and to the“ideal couple” of Odysseus and Penelope. In the course of his enlight-ening discussion of the Ptolemaic aspects of Theocritus’ poetry, F.T.Griffiths notes how many traps lay in store for a poet who wished to“assimilate” royal patrons to the figures and gods of Greek mythology:“Try to find a happy marriage in Greek myth. Hector and Androm-ache? I am sure neither Philadelphus nor Arsinoe would be flattered.”52

The obvious couple not mentioned by Griffiths is indeed Odysseus andPenelope, for twenty years apart, but finally reunited (even if Odysseus

51 The parallels could, of course, be taken further: the ruler’s piety (Odyssey 6.10,Theocritus 17.108), the powerful navy, and the glorious palace (with more thana suggestion of tquv^) all apply equally to Alcinous and Ptolemy.

52 Theocritus at Court (Leiden 1979) 68.

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must set off on his journeys again). Thus Theocritus exploited a similar-ity between features of archaic epic and contemporary political ideologyto offer “trans-historical” authority to the current rulers. The same is, Ibelieve, true of Apollonius, and it is within this nexus of ideas that theArgonautic ideal of Homonoia is to be seen.

It must be stressed that this interpretation does not depend upon anyparticular chronological assumptions about the composition of the Argo-nautica. Whether the relevant parts of the epic were first designed underPhiladelphus and Arsinoe, after Arsinoe’s death, or even under Euer-getes, they reflect familiar themes of Ptolemaic “ideology” whichwere not just restricted to one period. One very speculative pointer to-wards the reign of Euergetes may be the oath which Medea swears toArete as she beseeches her aid:

…Usty Req¹m v\or Iek_oio,Usty mujtip|kou Peqsg_dor eqcia jo}qgr,lµ l³m 1c½m 1h]kousa s»m !mdq\sim !kkodapo ?sije ?hem !vyql^hgm·

(Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1019–22 [Vian])

Be witness the holy light of Helios, be witness the rites of the night-wan-dering daughter of Perses, against my will did I leave my home in the com-pany of foreign men.

These verses, addressed to a queen (4.1014), perhaps rework the oath,by Berenice II’s head and life, which the lock of hair swears to her inCallimachus’ famous poem (fr. 110.40 Pf.); the terms of the oath areknown only from Catullus’ translation (inuita, o regina, tuo de uerticecessi, / inuita, Catullus 66.39–40), but if it were the case that Apolloniushere echoes Callimachus’ witty lock, then he has “epicised” the oath bygiving it a cosmic dimension, and was followed in this by Vergil whosimilarly ‘epicises’ Catullus’ translation of Callimachus in his adaptation(per sidera iuro / per superos et si qua fides tellure sub ima est / inuitus, regina,tuo de litore cessi, Aeneid 6.458–60).53 As is too often the case in suchmatters, neither the fact of the allusion itself nor poetic priority canbe firmly established. Nevertheless, Callimachus’ poem (if Catullus isat all a reliable guide) made much of the “brother-sister” relationshipbetween Euergetes and Berenice, and an echo of such a poem would

53 For the importance of Apollonius for this famous “borrowing” cf. R. L. Hunt-er, “Medea’s Flight: the Fourth Book of the Argonautica,” CQ 37 (1987) 138–9[= this volume 42–58].

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fit well into Apollonius’ refashioning of Alcinous and Arete. Be that as itmay, I hope that the “political” dimension of Apollonius’ epic emergesclearly, regardless of these uncertainties as to the exact context.

No figure is more familiar in the Hellenistic world than that ofT}wg, the goddess “Fortune,” whose power was famously celebratedby Demetrius of Phaleron and who becomes a leitmotif of all specula-tion about the course of human events.54 Apollonius does not use T}wg

(or t}wg) in the Argonautica; however episodic the structure of the nar-rative might sometimes appear, this cannot be ascribed to the workingsof Fortune, at least if that goddess is understood in the most straightfor-ward way. Here the Hellenistic epic might be thought strangely out ofsympathy not only with the world which produced it, but also with itsinheritance from Attic tragedy.55 Be that as it may, there is more thanone causal principle at work here. As scholars of late antiquity wellknew,56 neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey use the word t}wg,57 andHomer’s remarkable influence upon the Greek epic tradition in a detailof this kind can be seen in the fact that t}wg is also absent from Quintusof Smyrna and from Triphiodorus and occurs only three times in Non-nus’ Dionysiaca.58 Such apparent archaising can itself hardly be the resultof t}wg, and this will warn us (if warning were needed) against any as-sumption that there is a simple relation between the ideological world ofa poem and that of the world which created it. Generic factors are clear-ly important here, and the extraordinary difference in this respect be-

54 Demetrius: FGrHist 228 F 39 = fr. 81 Wehrli. The best survey of Tyche is nowG. Vogt-Spira, Dramaturgie des Zufalls. Tyche und Handeln in der KomçdieMenanders (Munich 1992) 1–74. The evidence for a cult of Tyche in Alexandriais late (Visser [above, n. 32] 42–3), but Tyche is not always to be distinguishedfrom “Agathe Tyche” and was closely associated with Isis, cf. Fraser (above, n.6) vol. 1, 240–43, Stewart (above, n. 39) 243–46.

55 R. Heinze traced Vergil’s use of “chance” in the Aeneid to the influence ofdrama (Virgils epische Technik, 3rd ed., Leipzig and Berlin 1915) 339–40. Cf.also Encyclopedia Virgiliana (Rome 1984–1991) s.v. Fortuna. For other tragicfeatures in the “religion” of the Argonautica cf. Hunter (above, n. 3) 80.

56 Cf., e. g., Macrobius, Saturnalia 5.16.8; Herzog-Hauser, RE 7A.1650.57 Homer does, however, use tucw\my in an appropriate sense; t}wg first appears

in extant literature in the Homeric Hymns, cf. N. J. Richardson, The HomericHymn to Demeter (Oxford 1974) 420. That the absence of t}wg from Homeris responsible for Apollonius’ avoidance of the word was suggested by H.Fränkel, “Apollonius Rhodius as a narrator in Argonautica 2.1–140,” TAPA83 (1952) 152.

58 2.669 and 3.356 in the metaphor of life as a sea-journey, and at 16.220 Diony-sus addresses pok}loqve T}wg.

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tween, on the one hand, the Argonautica and the epic tradition and, onthe other, the Greek “novels” in which the centrality of T}wg is un-questioned raises important questions about two genres which areoften thought to be genetically linked.59 Moreover, it is clearly not pos-sible always to differentiate between T}wg and other motive forces suchas “fate,” and it might indeed be thought that epic poetry is preciselyconcerned to explore the overlap between such ideas.60 Some explora-tion of the possible differences may, however, yield dividends.

It is perhaps unsurprising that poems which assume or inherit an“Olympian machinery” offer little scope to “chance”; t}wg appearsonly twice, and in uninformative contexts, in the Homeric Hymns61

and not at all in Callimachus’ Hymns. As for the Argonautica, the divinefavour which attends the Argonauts and which is spelled out in Phineus’prophecy might seem to preclude a prominent rôle for “chance”. Anepisode such as the meeting with the sons of Phrixos (2.1093 ff) is agood illustration of this.62 Not only has Phineus hinted at this meeting(2.388–9) – and prophecy will always make the workings of t}wg prob-lematic – but Zeus’ rôle in arranging it is not concealed in the course ofthe episode itself, though typically it is expressed indirectly and notthrough an explicit scene of Olympian planning (2.1098, 1120,1123–33). Here, where Vergil might have introduced fortuna, Apollo-nius carefully avoids any such suggestion. So too, much will depend onhow “strong” a reading we wish to give to familiar features of epic suchas narrative anticipations with l]kkeim, exemplified as Apollonius re-counts how the Argonauts and the pursuing Colchians reached Drepaneat virtually the same time:

59 For T}wg in the novels cf. , e. g., Molinié’s edition of Chariton, page 252; J. N.O’ Sullivan, A Lexicon to Achilles Tatius (Berlin and New York 1980) s.v.

60 Cf. Fränkel (above, n. 55). Pace Fränkel, however, Argonautica 2.135–42 is byno means a simple case of “coincidence”: Apollonius makes clear (v. 141) thatthe Bebrycians and the Mariandynoi were in constant dispute. The recent dis-cussion of L. Nyberg, Unity and Coherence. Studies in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argo-nautica and the Alexandrian Epic Tradition (Lund 1992) 46–58, apparently drawsno distinction between T}wg and lo ?qa.

61 At Hymnus ad Cererem 420 Tyche is one of Persephone’s companions, and thenoun is used in the sense “good fortune” in a brief prayer to Athena at Hymnus11.5.

62 Cf., e. g., G. Lawall, “Apollonius’ Argonautica : Jason as anti-hero”, YCS 19(1966) 121–69, especially 160–62.

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… l]kkom d³ bo0 5pi hyq^neshai·¨de l\k’ !cw_lokom stqat¹r %spetor 1neva\mhg

(Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1000–02 [Vian])

Soon, however, they would have to arm for battle, for right close at handappeared a huge force of Colchians …

Is some theological “fate” involved here, or is this the omniscient nar-rator, who knows what the next stage in the story is, refusing to allowthe Argonauts’ joy to remain long unclouded?63 The subsequent wqe~,“necessity,” which forced Jason and Medea to change their weddingplans and to marry on Drepane (4.1165) might also have been ascribedin a different genre to “chance”; the Greek epic, however, eschews suchexplanation. Like the figures of all Greek literature from Homer on-wards, the characters of the Argonautica accept the reality of unexpected,often calamitous, events, but acceptance of the inscrutability of moira didnot necessarily mean a recognition of the sovereignty of Tyche, if bythis concept was understood a principle of “random chance”. Thuswhen Jason seeks to console his mother as the Argonauts depart, hedoes so with words which look to epic principles of self-reliance and en-durance by rewriting the words of Hector to Andromache (Iliad6.486 ff) and Achilles to Priam (Iliad 24.522 ff):

l^ loi keucak]ar 1mib\kkeo, l/teq, !m_ar¨de k_gm, 1pe· oq l³m 1qgt}seir jaj|tgtord\jqusim, !kk’ 5ti jem ja· 1p’ %kcesim %kcor %qoio.p^lata c\q t’ !_dgka heo· hmgto ?si m]lousi,t_m lo ?qam jat± hul¹m !mi\fous\ peq 5lpgrtk/hi v]qeim· h\qsei d³ sumglos}mgisim )h^mgrAd³ heopqop_gisim, 1pe· l\ka deni± Vo ?bor5wqg, !t±q let]peit\ c’ !qist^ym 1paqyc0.

(Apollonius, Argonautica 1.295–302 [Vian])

“Please, mother, do not cause yourself too much bitter pain, since yourtears will not prevent the suffering, but you will merely add grief upongrief. To mortal men the gods allot woes which cannot be foreseen: despitethe pain in your spirit, have the courage to bear your share of these. Take

63 For a similar case at 4.1225–7 cf. Hunter (above, n. 3) 88 and (more generally)M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche (Rome 1985) 105–16. For such anticipa-tions in Homer cf. I. J. F. de Jong, Narrators and Focalizers: the Presentation of theStory in the Iliad (Amsterdam 1987) 86–7, S. Richardson, The Homeric Narrator(Nashville 1990) 132–39.

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica 275

courage from the assistance of Athena and the favourable oracles of Phoi-bos, and moreover from the present help of the heroes.”

I hope that this brief discussion has skirted the dangers both of an overlylexical approach to interpretation and of presenting too monolithic aview of what we might, very broadly, call “Hellenistic ideology,” tosay nothing of simplifying the wide range of experience implied bytyche; Artemidorus of Perge was, after all, celebrating his “success” inlife, his agathÞ tychÞ, not (or, at least, not primarily) buying off the pos-sibility that at any moment “chance” might overwhelm him. It was notonly fully paid-up Stoics who refused to bow their knee to Tyche.64 Therelation between the ideological and theological world of an epic poemand that of the society in which it was composed is complex and shift-ing; the fit is never exact. That the Argonautica archaises (at least in part)in the moral and ethical relations it portrays, as well as in its material andtechnological world, is hardly surprising, but it must never be forgotten.If, moreover, there is an important “Ptolemaic” aspect to the epic, thenthis moral archaism is an important tool for the integration of the neworder into the timeless Greek heritage. Some things, so the epic teachesus, do not change.

The religious map of the Argonautica thus proves to be a remarkablefusion of elements from the epic heritage and from the “new world”. Asthe Argonauts themselves voyage both through known and unknownterritory, so the poem both adopts and expands the territory ofHomer. Such cultural and geographical expansion is indeed at theheart of Hellenistic civilisation.65

Addenda

The geography of the Argonautica has been well treated by Doris Meyer in var-ious discussions: cf. ‘Zur Funktion geographischer Darstellungen bei Apollo-nios Rhodios und in der “Perihegese an Nikomedes” (Ps.-Skymnos)’ in K.Döring, B. Herzhoff and G. Wöhrle (eds.), Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Re-zeption (Trier 1998) 61–81, and ‘Apollonius as a Hellenistic geographer’ inT.D. Papanghelis and A. Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius(Leiden 2001) 217–35.

64 A fuller investigation of these matters might indeed have interesting implica-tions for the “epic” background of the Stoic aspects of the Aeneid.

65 I am very grateful to James Clauss and Mary Depew for their constructive criti-cisms of an earlier draft of this paper.

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n. 13 Cf. my note on Theocritus 13.23–4.

n. 28 On Artemidorus’ shrine cf. also A. Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World(Oxford 2005) 153–4.

p. 266–7 On the ‘heroines’ cf. L. Bacchielli, ‘Apollonio Rodio e il santuariocireneo delle Nymphai Chthoniai’ QUCC 51 (1995) 133–7.

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16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.)*

Callimachus fr. 178 Pf. (= 89 Massimilla)1 tells how the Athenian Pollis– the name is known from a citation in Athenaeus – continued to cel-ebrate Attic festivals in the Alexandria of the poet’s own day. At Pollis’party to commemorate the Attic festival in honour of Erigone, theaQ~qa, the poet2 met Theogenes, a visitor from the Aegean island ofIkos (modern Alonnisos):3

A½r oqd³ pihoic·r 1k\mhamem oqd’ fte do}koirGlaq iq]steioi keuj¹m %cousi w|er·

Yjaq_ou ja· paid¹r %cym 1p]teiom "cist}m,)th_sim oQjt_stg, s¹m v\or, Iqic|mg,

1r da_tgm 1j\kessem blgh]ar, 1m d] mu to ?si 5ne ?mom dr AQc}ptyi jaim¹r !mestq]veto

lelbkyj½r Udi|m ti jat± wq]or· Gm d³ cem]hkgm]jior, ¨i numµm eWwom 1c½ jkis_gm

oqj 1pit\n, !kk’ aWmor jlgqij|r, aQ³m blo ?om¢r he|r, oq xeud^r, 1r t¹m blo ?om %cei. 10

ja· c±q b Hqgij_gm l³m !p]stuce wamd¹m %lustimfyqopote ?m,4 ak_cyi d’ Fdeto jissub_yi.

t_i l³m 1c½ t\d’ 5kena peqiste_womtor !ke_sout¹ tq_tom, ewt’ 1d\gm oumola ja· ceme^m .

‘G l\k’ 5por t|d’ !kgh]r, f t’ oq l|mom vdator aWsam, 15!kk’ 5ti ja· k]swgr oWmor 5weim 1h]kei.

tµm Ble ?r— oqj 1m c±q !qust^qessi voqe ?taioqd³ lim eQr !teme ?r avq}ar oQmow|ym

aQt^seir bq|ym ft’ 1ke}heqor !tl]ma sa_mei—

* Ramus 25 (1996) 17–261 The following editions of Callimachus are cited by author’s name only: R.

Pfeiffer, Callimachus (Oxford 1949); K. Fabian, Callimaco, Aitia II Testo critico,traduzione e commento (Alessandria 1992); G. Massimilla, Callimaco, Aitia, libriprimo e secundo (Pisa 1996). There is an earlier version of Fabian’s discussionin ‘Il banchetto di Pollis’ in K. Fabian, E. Pellizer and G. Tedeschi (eds.),OIMGQA TE£WG : Studi triestini di poesia conviviale (Alessandria 1991), 131–66.

2 ‘The poet’ is the simplest way to express the narrating first-person; I hope thatthe usual caveats can be taken as read.

3 I print, with very few papyrological signs, the text of Pfeiffer-Massimilla; tex-tual uncertainties do not, I think, affect the arguments of this essay.

4 On this reading cf. below p. 283 and n., 21.

b\kkylem wakep_i v\qlajom 1m p|lati, 20He}cemer· fssa d’ 1le ?o s]hem p\qa hul¹r !joOsai

Qwa_mei, t\de loi k]nom !meiqol]myi·Luqlid|mym 2ss/ma t[_ p\tqiom u[lli s]beshai

Pgk]a, j_r ]jyi num[± t± Hessaki]j\,teO d’ 6mejem c^teiom id[. .]ut[….]qtom 5wousa 25

Fqyor jah|dou pa[ ?reQd|ter ¢r 1m]pou[sim

je_mgm D peq· sµm [ouh’ 2t]qgm 5cmyja· t[

ouata luhe ?shai boukol]moir !m]wym.’ 30taOt’ 1l]hem k]namto[r

‘tqisl\jaq, G pa}qym ekbi|r 1ssi l]ta,mautik_gr eQ m/im 5weir b_om . !kk’ 1l¹r aQ~m

j}lasim aQhu_gr l÷kkom 1syij_sato.’

… nor did the day of the Jar Opening pass him by, nor when the Choes ofOrestes bring a white day for slaves. And when he kept the yearly ceremo-ny for Ikarios’ child—your day, Erigone, who are most pitied by women ofAttica—he invited to a banquet his friends, and among them a stranger whohad not been in Egypt for long, having come on some private business. Hewas an Ikian by birth, and I shared a couch with him—not by design, butthe saying of Homer is not false that god ever brings like to like. For he tooloathed draining goblets of neat wine, like the Thracians, but took pleasurein a small cup. To him I said, as the beaker was going round for the thirdtime, when I had learned his name and descent: ‘This indeed is a true say-ing, that wine would have not only its portion of water, but also of con-versation. Therefore—for we do not pass conversation around in ladles,nor will you ask for it by gazing at the haughty brows of the cup-bearers,when the free man fawns upon the slave—let us, Theogenes, throw thedrug of conversation into the tedious drink; do tell me in answer to myquestion all that my heart yearns to hear from you: Why is it the traditionof your country to worship Peleus, king of the Myrmidons? What hasThessaly to do with Ikos? For what purpose does [a girl] holding anonion […] the procession of the hero […] according to the account ofthose who know […] holding ears ready for those who are willing to telltheir story.’ When I had spoken thus […] ‘Truly, you are thrice blessed,happy as few are, if you lead a life which is ignorant of sea-faring. Butmy life has been spent more among the waves than is that of the gull.’(after Trypanis)

Lines 9 and 10 allude to Melantheus’ abuse of Eumaios and the dis-guised Odysseus in Odyssey 17:

‘mOm l³m dµ l\ka p\cwu jaj¹r jaj¹m Bcgk\fei,¢r aQe· t¹m blo ?om %cei he¹r ¢r t¹m blo ?om.p/i dµ t|mde lokobq¹m %ceir, !l]caqte sub_ta,

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) 279

ptyw¹m !migq|m, dait_m !pokulamt/qa ; 20dr pokk/ir vki/isi paqast±r hk_xetai ¥lour,aQt_fym !j|kour, oqj %oqar oqd³ k]bgtar·t|m j’ eU loi do_gr stahl_m Nut/qa cem]shai

sgjoj|qom t’ 5lemai hakk|m t’ 1q_voisi voq/mai,ja_ jem aq¹m p_mym lec\kgm 1picoum_da he ?to. 25!kk’ 1pe· owm dµ 5qca j\j’ 5llahem, oqj 1hek^sei5qcom 1po_weshai, !kk± pt~ssym jat± d/lombo}ketai aQt_fym b|sjeim Dm cast]q’ %maktom.’

(Od. 17.217–28)

‘Now indeed do the worthless lead the worthless and, as always, god bringslike to like. Miserable swineherd, where are you taking this filthy creature,this loathsome beggar, this scavenger of banquets? He will be a lounger atmany men’s doors, rubbing his back against the posts, seeking for scraps,not swords or cauldrons. If you gave him to me to guard the farmstead,sweep out the pens and take green fodder to the young goats, then hemight drink whey and round out his thighs. But no—he has learned badways and will never keep at any work; instead, he means to go cringingand begging about the country to fill his never-sated belly.’ (after Shewr-ing)

The Callimachean reworking shows a programmatically ‘un-Homeric’word-order,5 but, as so often, the original context evoked by theecho is also significant. By moving after three rounds6 to the pleasuresof conversation, Theogenes and the poet, like the characters of Plato’sSymposium, will certainly not be dait_m !pokulamt/qer, ‘scourges ofthe feast’.7 Those who do not follow their lead, on the other hand,are little better than beggars who add nothing to the pleasures of thefeast ; aQt^seir (‘you will ask’, 19) picks up aQt_fym (‘seeking for’,Od. 17.222, 228) to point this implication. The really ‘free’ man (19)will have freed himself from the tyranny of ‘Dionysos the liberator’,‘the Looser’ who, paradoxically, ‘binds’ mind and body in the toils ofconfusion and sleep, thus reducing the free man to the status of a shack-

5 Cf. Massimilla 407, Pfeiffer on fr.6. I have considered whether part of the pointhere is that we may be tempted to read ¢r he¹r oq xeud^r together: ‘no lyinggod’ is not a bad description of Homer. Note also the echoing sound pattern ofthe Callimachean verse, aWmor jlgqij|r, aQ³m blo?om.

6 For the fourth round as marking the descent into immodest drinking cf. Eubu-lus fr. 93 K-A (= 94 Hunter) with the notes of Kassel-Austin and Hunter.

7 On the meaning of !pokulamt^q cf. Russo on Od. 17.220; it is not clear howCallimachus would have interpreted the word.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception280

led slave.8 9keuheqe}r was a title of Dionysos at Athens and Attic Eleu-therai ; the cult statue of Dionysos Eleuthereus was associated with thetheatre of the god at Athens (Pausanias 1.20.3). That Callimachus shouldallude to this manifestation of the god fits perfectly with the fact that hishost was an Athenian interested in the festivals and cults of his homecity. Moreover, his insistence on a fastidious independence is marked,as often in Callimachus, by a rare gloss: !tl^m ‘servant’, is the kind oflanguage which ‘free’ men use.9 Callimachus has here appropriatedand ‘personalised’ a long tradition of sympotic poetry on the subjectof correct and moderate behaviour10 and a more recent prose tradition,particularly associated with the peripatetics, of k|coi sulpotijo_.11 A

standard motif of such moralising was an alleged distinction betweenthe moderate drinking and intellectual pleasures of the ‘Greek’ sympo-sium and the drunken excesses of barbarian ‘others’, in this case Thra-cians, who ‘by definition’ drank unmixed wine in great quantities.12

Callimachus’ use of this theme was probably reinforced by the poet’s ap-parent innocence of sea-faring (27–34), for the imaging of the sympo-sium (particularly one where wine flowed freely) as a sea-voyage was avery common one, as recent scholarship has fully investigated.13

Two sympotic models give shape to Callimachus’ rejection of heavydrinking. One is the ritual frame provided by the introductory verses.The aiora, ‘Swinging Festival’, commemorated Erigone who hung her-self from the tree under which her father, Ikarios, was buried after hehad been killed by shepherds crazed by Dionysos’ gift of (unmixed)wine.14 The first two festivals named in the surviving verses, the Pith-

8 Cf. Hesiod fr. 239 M-W. For the paradox cf. Propertius 3.5.21 mentem uincireLyaeo (‘to shackle the mind with Lyaeus’, with Fedeli’s note).

9 Cf. Pfeiffer on fr. 507.10 Cf., e. g., K. Bielohlawek, ‘Gastmahls- und Symposionslehren bei griechischen

Dichtern’, WS 58 (1940), 11–30; W. J. Slater, ‘Sympotic Ethics in the Odys-sey’, in O. Murray (ed.), Sympotica (Oxford 1990), 213–20.

11 Thus, for example, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Hieronymus and Chamaileon allwrote treatises ‘On Drunkenness’, and cf. Plato Laws 1.637a-642b; cf. furtherbelow pp. 282–3.

12 Cf C. Corbato, Scritti di letteratura greca (Trieste 1991), 314. Alexis fr. 9.8–12 K-A contrasts ‘Greek drinking’ characterised by moderately sized cups and pleas-ant conversation with ‘the other sort’ which is ‘a bath, not a symposium’.

13 W. J. Slater, ‘Symposium at Sea’, HSCP 80 (1976), 161–70, remains the semi-nal discussion.

14 For Callimachus’ use of the ritual background cf. R. Scodel, ‘Wine, Water andthe Anthesteria in Callimachus fr. 178 Pf.’, ZPE 39 (1980), 37–40.

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) 281

oigia and the Choes, were both parts of the Athenian Anthesteria festi-val, and this passage of Callimachus has played a prominent role in re-cent re-evaluations of that festival.15 Whether or not these verses con-firm that the aiora was—or was believed by Callimachus to be—alsopart of the Anthesteria, part indeed of the third day of the festival(the Chytroi) as it has been traditionally conceived, need not concernus here. The Pithoigia and the Choes are clearly chosen because oftheir association with wine. The drinking contests which characterisedthe Choes presumably encouraged the drinking of neat or only lightlydiluted wine, on the model of the victorious Dikaiopolis, ja· pq|r c’%jqatom 1cw]ar %lustim 1n]kaxa (‘and I poured it in neat and drainedthe lot in one go’, Ar. Ach. 1229);16 so too, the Choes pattern of soli-tary, silent drinking (in memory of the hospitality offered in Athensto the matricide Orestes) is one which Theogenes and the poet explic-itly reject. The licence granted to slaves (1 f.) becomes, in the Callima-chean view of the symposium, a distasteful subservience (19). This po-etic pattern clearly informs the passage, regardless of whether the behav-iour of Callimachus and his friend also reflects the progression of theAnthesteria itself.17

Neat wine and solitary drinking are also the hallmarks of the otherrejected sympotic model which hovers over Pollis’ party. The Ikian’s re-jection of excessive drinking is described in the language of pleasure andloathing (11 f.):

ja· c±q b Hqgij_gm l³m !p]stuce wamd¹m %lustimfyqopote ?m, ak_cyi d’ Fdeto jissub_yi.

15 Cf. the opposed positions of R. Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Icon-ography and Ritual (Ann Arbor 1992), esp. 119–21 – Hamilton (48 f) rejects thestandard connection of the aQ~qa with the Anthesteria – and N. Robertson,‘Athens’ Festival of the New Wine’, HSCP 95 (1993), 197–250.

16 Whether or not the wine drunk during the Choes-contest was mixed withwater has been the subject of much recent discussion; the most reasonable sol-ution might be that each drinker was given a jug of neat wine and when hepoured it into his cup could mix it or not as he chose (cf. Robertson [n. 15above], 223 f., and contrast A. M. Bowie, Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Com-edy [Cambridge 1993], 38; to drink it neat presumably increased one’s chancesof finishing first. Callimachus’ point is not affected by the precise detail here.

17 Thus Hamilton’s criticism (n. 15 above, 120 f) of Scodel is to some extent mis-placed.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception282

For he too loathed draining goblets of neat wine, like the Thracians, buttook pleasure in a small cup.

jiss}biom appears three times in the Odyssey, twice as a rustic bowl inwhich Eumaios mixes wine (14.78, 16.52), and once (9.346) as the ves-sel in which Odysseus offers Polyphemos his powerful wine. Althoughthe word could perhaps be used of a drinking cup of ordinary dimen-sions,18 we are plainly to understand that Odysseus not merely servedthe Cyclops with very strong, neat wine,19 but also an unusually largeamount of it, which he proceeded to drink wamd|m, i. e. in one go.20

Even if the better attested oQmopote ?m is preferred to fyqopote ?m inline 12,21 Callimachus rejects the unmixed wine of barbarians at leastimplicitly – hence the later charges of being a ‘water-drinker’22 – andlarge cups quite explicitly. When Athenaeus discusses the use of largedrinking cups, a practice which Chamaileon had claimed to be a recentimport from the uneducated barbarians (fr. 9 Wehrli), it is precisely thejiss}biom offered to the Cyclops which is adduced to prove that verylarge cups had been in use ‘in the old days’ (Ath. 11.461c-d). Callima-chus’ pointed oxymoron ‘a small kissubion’ thus evokes Odyssey 9, an al-lusion confirmed by the ‘pleasure’ which both drinkers find in their re-spective cups (Fdeto 12, Fsato Od. 9.353). Whereas, however, three ofthese capacious draughts befuddled the Cyclops sufficiently for Odys-seus’ purposes (Od. 9.361), the third round is the sign for Callimachusand Theogenes to move on to the pleasures of intellectual conversation.The difference between the two occasions is further marked by the factthat the poet follows correct etiquette by learning the identity of his

18 Cf. Ath. 11.476 f-7e, and the sceptical discussion of A.M. Dale, ‘JISS£BIOM’,CR 2 (1952), 129–32. My treatment of Callimachus’ use differs somewhatfrom that of A. Rengakos, ZPE 94 (1992), 29.

19 Cf. Od. 9.205 !jgq\siom ; most modern scholars accept the scholiast’s gloss%jqatom as the sense of this word.

20 This is marked in Homer by the verb 5jpiem (‘drank down’, Od. 9, 353, 361);cf. Eur. Cycl. 417 5spas]m t’ %lustim 2kj}sar (‘he sucked it in, drinking it inone gulp’). Massimilla observes (408) that Homer uses wamd|m only atOd. 21.293 f, Antinous to Odysseus on the dangers of drinking.

21 In favour of fyqopote?m cf. Massimilla 408 (with bibliography) and E. Magnelli,RFIC 122 (1994), 480.

22 Cf. P. Knox, ‘Wine, Water, and Callimachean Polemics’, HSCP 89 (1985),107–19. It is not always made clear in scholarly discussions of this topic thatlater polemic elides the differences between, on the one hand, drinking‘water’ and moderate drinking of ‘well diluted wine’ and, on the other, drink-ing ‘unmixed’ wine and wine that is only lightly diluted.

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) 283

companion at an early stage (14), whereas the Cyclops remains notori-ously ignorant until the end (note Od. 9.355, ‘tell me your name’). Hereagain the point of the evocation seems clear: hard drinking at a sympo-sium places you on the same level as the Cyclops, whose story—like thatof Ikarios and Erigone—is a classic example of the dangers of wine. Cal-limachus has fused the drinking contests of the Choes with the fate ofthe Cyclops to produce a powerful negative image of rejected sympoticbehaviour. The ‘perverted komos’ of Euripides’ Cyclops, in which Poly-phemus is persuaded to perform the anti-social act of drinking strongwine by himself, confirms that Callimachus was operating within wellestablished patterns of thought about social conduct.23

Fr. 178 Pf. cannot be placed with certainty within the overall struc-ture of the Aitia, but, given our relatively full knowledge of the contentsand order of Books 1, 3 and 4,24 there are very strong reasons for placingit in Book 2, and it would be fair to say that there is now something of ascholarly consensus in favour of a suggestion made by Anna Swiderek in1951.25 Swiderek suggested that fr. 178 belonged to the opening ofBook 2 and that it preceded fr. 43 Pf. (= 50 Massimilla), the ‘De Siciliaeurbibus’, which is known to come from Book 2. Of particular interestin this context are lines 12–17 of the latter fragment:

ja· c±q 1c½ t± l³m fssa jaq^ati t/lor 5dyjanamh± s»m eq|dloir "bq± k_pg stev\moir,

%pmoa p\mt’ 1c]momto paq± wq]or, fssa t’ ad|mtym5mdohi me_aiq\m t’eQr !w\qistom 5du,

ja· t_m oqd³m 5leimem 1r auqiom . fssa d’ !joua ?reQseh]lgm, 5ti loi loOma p\qesti t\de.

…..for certainly all the soft amber ointments and the fragrant garlands Ithen put on my head swiftly breathed no more, and of all that passed myteeth and plunged into the ungrateful belly nothing remained till the mor-row; but the only things which I still keep are those that I laid in my ears.(trans. Trypanis)

23 On these aspects of Euripides’ Cyclops cf. L. E. Rossi, ‘Il Ciclope di Euripidecome j_lor mancato’, Maia 23 (1971), 10–38.

24 There is a useful summary by P. J. Parsons, ZPE 25 (1977), 46 f.25 J.Jur.Pap. 5 (1951), 234 n.18; for subsequent discussion cf. J. E. G. Zetzel, ‘On

the Opening of Callimachus, Aetia II’, ZPE 42 (1981), 31–33; Fabian (n. 1above), 137–40, 315–18 (who remains more cautious); A. Cameron, Callima-chus and his Critics (Princeton 1995), 133–40, Massimilla (n. 1 above), 145, 320,400.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception284

These verses are followed in the papyrus by a paragraphos, which maymark the end of an episode or of a particular aetiological subject (e. g.a change from Ikos to Sicily); the poet appears to speak continuouslyuntil line 55, where he is immediately answered by Klio. Zetzelnoted, only to reject, the possibility that frr. 178 + 43.1–55 were a sin-gle narrative by the poet to the Muses (in the course of the dream whichseems to have occupied all of Books 1 and 2), and this scenario has nowin fact been accepted by both Cameron and Massimilla and must be ad-mitted to be very attractive: the dreaming poet tells the Muses of Pollis’party and of all he learned at it, before asking them to fill in the gaps inhis Sicilian knowledge. A passage on the perils of wine-drinking wouldcome well from a poet who was asleep, which is (in literature as in life) avery common result of wine-drinking.26 If fr. 178 does indeed comefrom the opening episode of Book 2, then fr. 51 Pf. (= 60 Massimil-la) —

ovmejem oQjte_qeim oWde l|mg pok_ym

… because [Athens] is the only city which knows how to show pity

— which is cited by a scholion on Soph. OC 258 as the final verse ofAitia 2, can be seen to offer a ring composition through allusion to Ath-ens, and perhaps specifically picks up (and gives new point to) )th_simoQjt_stg in fr. 178.4. Be that as it may, the conjunction of the two frag-ments allows us to take further the analysis already offered of Callima-chus’ account of sympotic behaviour, and perhaps also to draw conclu-sions of wider significance for the Aitia as a whole. Some of what fol-lows gains point if the two fragments do indeed belong together at theopening of Book 2, but the value of the discussion does not, I think,collapse, should the hypothesis be unfounded.

In the dream which introduced Book 1,27 Callimachus had offeredhimself as a new Hesiod, but it is the Odyssey, with its many includedtales and, in particular, four books devoted solely to Odysseus’ accountof his diverse adventures, which was the crucial model against which the

26 These considerations make one wonder yet again about the circumstances ofCallimachus’ dream: just when did he fall asleep? After a symposium? For an-other suggestion cf. ZPE 76 (1989), 2 [= this volume 87–8].

27 I deliberately leave the ‘Reply to the Telchines’ out of account, because of thedoubts about where it belongs. If Alan Cameron is correct in seeing it as indeedthe introduction to Aitia 1–2, then the ‘Hesiodic’ relationship between thepoet and the Muses in that fragment (lines 36 f, cf. Hes. Theog. 81 f) wouldfit with the argument which follows.

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) 285

Aitia was written. It was the much-travelled hero who ‘saw the cities ofmany men and came to know their minds’ (or, with Zenodotus, ‘cus-toms’) whose physical journeys Callimachus recreates in the mind, leav-ing Alexandria only in dreams;28 eQseh]lgm in line 17 may point to thisimage, as the verb is properly used of loading a ship (LSJ s.v. 2), whereasthe despised details of the menu ‘sink to the depths of the belly’, just asthe endless food consumed by Erysichthon flowed like rivers ‘into thedepths of the sea’ (H. 6.88–90). Not for Callimachus the dangers ofshipwreck among the tables; whereas the Muses had charged Hesiodand his companions with being ‘mere bellies’, here the poet tells theMuses that he has no interest in the culture of food.29 Just as the Odys-sean flavour of fr. 178 was unmistakable, so in fr. 43.12–17 we see thepoet placed half-way between the Phaeacians and their mysteriousguest. As an avid listener, the poet is like the Phaeacians,30 but as some-one who recognises the curse of the belly, he resembles Odysseus him-self (cf. Od. 7.215–21);31 the model to be rejected here is not just theprofessed hedonist, but precisely the Cyclops, whose devotion to hisstomach had been turned by Euripides into a blasphemous worship(Cycl. 334–38). The professed lack of interest in garlands and food isnot merely the declaration of an elitist, which takes its place within along tradition of debate about the relative value of physical and intellec-tual experience,32 but also acts as an introductory recusatio to the follow-ing aition, the elaborate account of the origins of the cities of Sicily: thisis to be no ‘didactic’ poem on the courses of a dinner (contrast, e. g.,

28 This, of course, remains true of the poetry, regardless of whether Alan Camer-on’s picture of Callimachus as a frequent traveller be accepted.

29 The possible relevance of Hes. Theog, 26 was suggested by Fabian (n. 1 above),149.

30 On the Odyssean heritage of the Aitia and on Callimachus’ self-presentation asa listener cf. D. Meyer, ‘“Nichts Unbezeugtes singe ich”: Die fiktive Darstel-lung der Wissenstradierung bei Kallimachos’, in W. Kullmann and J. Althoff(eds.), Vermittlung und Tradierung von Wissen in der griechischen Kultur (Tübingen1993), 317–36.

31 !w\qistor varies %maktor at Od. 17.228, 18.364. The adjective does not merelymake a topical point about the ingratitude of the stomach (cf. Massimilla 323),but marks the symposium where the pleasures of the stomach dominate as lack-ing in that charis which is the dominant virtue of the well-ordered symposium,as Odysseus himself knew (Od. 9.5); cf. W. J. Slater, ‘Peace, the Symposiumand the Poet’, ICS 6 (1981), 205–14.

32 Cf. A. Barigazzi, Prometheus 1 (1975), 9–11. Callimachus may allude in partic-ular to the famous ‘epitaph’ of Sardanapallos, SH 335.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception286

Matron’s parodic )ttij¹m de ?pmom, SH 534),33 but rather a voyage, likeOdysseus’, around the cities of Sicily (cf. Od. 1.3). Contrary to all ac-cepted wisdom – ‘I hate’, says the proverb,34 ‘a drinking-companionwith a memory’ – Callimachus proves to have a prodigious memoryfor what his fellow-symposiasts say. Callimachus’ ‘aural memory’ in-cludes, of course, what he has read in books,35 and fr. 178.27, eQd|ter¢r 1m]pousi, (‘as those with knowledge assert’), may be a typically Cal-limachean allusion to his written sources (? the Ikiaka of Phanodemus).36

Such motifs would fit well in the introductory passage of a book.Memory is important also in fr. 178. When the poet suggests to

Theogenes that they throw the drug of conversation into the cupfrom which they are drinking (20), there is an obvious allusion to the(Egyptian!) drug which Helen placed in the wine of Menelaos and Tel-emachos to make them forget grief (Od. 4.219–26).37 It has often beenobserved that Helen’s drug works very like the power of poetry to erasesadness in Hesiod’s Theogony (98–103), and fr. 43 now allows us to seethat, for Callimachus, conversation – ‘poetry’ in fact – is not merely apalliative against the tedium of drinking, but actually serves, quite unlikeHelen’s drug, as an aid to memory. Theogenes replies to the poet’s ‘tellme all that my heart craves to hear from you’38 with an Odyssean lament(cf. Od. 5.306 f.) for a life spent at sea; the poet, on the other hand, bothby his own admission (27–30) and by Theogenes’ pointed echo (33) ofHesiod’s own profession of ignorance about ships and the sea (WD

33 It is relevant also that later antiquity knew a substantial literature on garlands(RE 11.1604), some of which was almost certainly available also to Callima-chus.

34 Cf. PMG 1002, with Page’s parallels.35 Cf. Fabian (n. 1 above), 151, Meyer (n. 30 above).36 Cf. Fabian (n. 1 above), 322 f.; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford

1972), i.732, Pfeiffer, however, interprets the phrase as a reference to sailorswho have actually visited Ikos.

37 For the other resonances of v\qlajom here cf. Massimilla 412.38 This grand wish (cf. G. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry [Oxford 1988], 27 f) reads

almost like a reworking of Sappho’s prayer to Aphrodite at fr. 1.26 f, but it mayin fact owe more to Odysseus’ words at Od. 9.12 f. Qwa_mei is another typical ex-ample of Callimachus’ use of a rare word with contextual significance: thelearned gloss points both to the scholastic nature of the poet’s interests and,just as importantly, to his ironic self-awareness of the seeming ‘triviality’ ofthose interests.

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) 287

649),39 is marked as a ‘Hesiod’ who acquires information (whether fromthe Muses or a human informant) and transmits it to others. Here againwe may wish to see a renewal, in the opening of Book 2, of the ‘Hes-iodic’ persona established in the opening sequence of Book 1.

The figure of the learned, listening poet which emerges from thesepassages (whether or not they are to be combined) helps us to see theAitia in the context of two important aspects of Hellenistic literature.First, there is the idea of the writer as a gatherer of vast amounts of in-formation, but a gatherer who may remain stationary in one spot,whether it be a library or a symposium, rather than travelling theworld like an Odysseus or a Herodotus. This aspect of the Callimacheanpersona finds an illuminating parallel in certain details of Polybius’ criti-cisms of the Sicilian historian Timaeus (c. 350–260 BC) in Book 12 ofThe Histories. Timaeus lived in Athens for fifty years (12.25 h.1 =FGrHist 566 F34), without any experience of fighting or knowledgeof topography; for Polybius, therefore, he illustrates the bubkiajµ 6nir,‘bookish attitude’ which will never produce vivid history (12.25 h.3,cf. 25e.7). By trusting his ears rather than his eyes (12.27.3), Timaeuschose the easy path: ‘Inquiries from books may be made without anydanger or hardship, provided only that one takes care to have accessto a town rich in documents or to have a library near at hand’(12.27.4, tr. Paton). The true historian, according to Polybius will ratherbe an Odysseus, who has travelled the world and had wide experience inpeace and war (12.27.10–28.1).40 This part of Polybius’ criticisms ofTimaeus, whom Cicero called longe eruditissimus (‘by far the mostlearned’, De Orat. 2.58), constructs a figure not unlike Callimachus’self-construction in the Aitia fragments I have been considering. This,of course, has nothing to do with any possible relationship between Cal-limachus and the Sicilian historian,41 but rather with a shared self-posi-

39 Cf. H. Reinsch-Werner, Callimachus Hesiodicus (Berlin 1976), 383 f. For theimportance of this Hesiodic passage for the didactic tradition cf. my remarksin Arachnion 2 (1995), 10 f [= this volume 167–8].

40 For a rather different use of the topos cf. Diod. Sic. 1.1.2. Diodorus too contrastshis own eye-witness knowledge acquired through laborious travel with the ig-norance of some other historians, ‘even some considered in the front rank’(1.4.1), though he too (like Timaeus) enjoyed a very long period of residencein a city with excellent ‘library facilities’ (Rome); cf. 1.4.3 f. Diodorus’ ‘travels’have been regarded with deep suspicion by modern scholars; cf. E., Schwartz,RE 5.663.

41 Cf. Fraser (n. 36 above), i.764–66.

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tioning of the writer in the changed cultural context of the third cen-tury.42

Secondly, there emerges a rather different, though related, aspect ofthe ‘programmatic’ significance of fr. 178 for Callimachean poetics thanthe stress on smallness and purity to which recent critics have rightlydrawn attention.43 In the Aitia the Callimachean voice is constructedout of the appropriation and ‘personalisation’ of very traditional atti-tudes, ideas and poetic structures, and it, no less than the verses it utters,is a repository and channel for the whole of Greek tradition. Neverthe-less, in an Athenian context, and one which specifically evokes the li-cence of a festival with close links to Athenian comic drama,44 thatvoice turns away towards the arcane traditions of a small island off theMagnesian coast, just as in the opening section of Book 3 the voiceturns from the familiar pan-hellenic story of Herakles and the Nemeanlion to the (to say the least) obscure Molorkos and his homely concerns.The ‘Athenian’ tradition, which was already on the way to being con-structed as the ‘classical’ tradition, is thus both the necessary backgroundto Callimachean poetry, but also part of what must be set aside as thepoet marks out his own poetic space. Pollis’ party thus becomes not abad metaphor for much that is important in Hellenistic literary culture.45

Addenda

A version of this essay appeared in Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry76–83. On Timaeus and Hellenistic literature cf. also pp. 16–20 above.

42 It ought not to be necessary to note that I am aware that continuity was as greatas change in this period.

43 Cf., e. g., Hamilton (n. 15 above), 121, and Cameron (n. 25 above), 136 f.44 For drama at the Anthesteria cf. A. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of

Athens2 (Oxford 1968), 15–17. In the Acharnians Aristophanes ‘equates’ victoryat a Choes drinking contest with the victory of his own play in the dramaticcompetition.

45 On the relation of third-century culture to the Athenian tradition cf. furtherFraser (n. 36 above), i.553–5, and my own Theocritus and the Archaeology ofGreek Poetry (Cambridge 1996), 1–3.

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) 289

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25*

The 281 extant verses of Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 fall easily into threesections. In the first (1–84)1 an old ploughman tells Heracles (who isnot named) about the extensive estates of King Augeias, and thenleads him to the stalls to find the king himself; the title Jqajk/r pq¹r!cqo ?jom precedes v. 1 in two manuscripts (of the same family), andthis title will most naturally apply to this opening section, although(as Gow notes)2 we cannot, strictly speaking, rule out the possibilitythat this title was intended to head the whole poem. In 85–152 Augeias’vast herds return to their stalls and Heracles overpowers a large bullwhich attacks the lionskin he is wearing; D, a composite fifteenth-cen-tury manuscript, preserves 1–84 after the rest of the poem and heads85–281 with the title 9pip~kgsir,3 but otherwise 85 follows straighton from 84 in the tradition. In 153–281, which in all manuscripts fol-low directly after 152, Heracles tells Augeias’ son, Phyleus, the story ofhis conquest of the Nemean lion, as the two of them are journeying to-gether from the countryside into the town. In the printed edition ofCallierges (Rome 1516),4 a note following 24.140 and deriving fromMusurus asserts that both the end of Idyll 24 and the beginning ofthe following poem (Idyll 25), here given the name Jqajk/r keomto-v|mor, are missing. The discovery of the Antinopolis papyrus, whichshowed that verses have indeed been lost from the end of Idyll 24,seems to have confirmed the first half of this statement, which will, nev-ertheless, have been based on a literary judgement, not on manuscriptevidence.

Arguments concerning the date and authorship of the poem are nat-urally interconnected. There are strong, though not absolutely compel-ling, grounds for believing that the poet of Idyll 25 knew the Victoria

* M.A. Harder et al. (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen 1998) 115–321 For the abrupt opening cf. below (p. 305–6).2 Gow (1952: 2.438).3 On this manuscript see Gallavotti (1993: 341–8). Gallavotti (on 85) notes that

D seems to treat 1–84 as a separate poem.4 On this edition cf. Gow (1952: 1.xlv-vi) ; Gallavotti (1993: 361–8).

Berenices of Callimachus which all but certainly stood at the head of thethird book of the Aitia (SH 254–269).5 The central myth of this elegy –Heracles’ confrontation with the Nemean lion and the hospitality ex-tended to the hero by the humble Molorkos – finds both general andspecific resemblances in Idyll 25, although the Idyll does not seem to ex-ploit the aetiological aspect of the Nemean lion story, which was ofcourse foregrounded in the epinician tradition.6 That the poems sharea common debt to the Odyssey, particularly to the character of Eumaeuswho shapes both the anonymous rustic of the Idyll and Callimachus’Molorkos,7 need not assume special significance, in view of the factthat Eumaeus seems to lie behind virtually every Hellenistic representa-tion of ‘the good countryman (or -woman)’.8 The interpretation of spe-cific similarities of vocabulary, among which aQmok]ym (SH 257.21,Theoc. 25.168) is the most striking, will always provoke critical disa-greement,9 but if it is true that Idyll 25 imitates the ‘Victoria’ (forwhich there is a t.p.q. of 245), it will be hard to believe, on the conven-tional dating, that it can be by Theocritus.

5 Cf. Parsons (1977: esp. 44); Henrichs (1977: 69–75). The strength of the casefor a debt to Callimachus is underestimated by Kurz (1982: 10).

6 There is obviously also a general similarity to Callimachus’ account in the Hecaleof Theseus at the hut of Hecale (note esp. the exchange of questions infrr. 40–2 Hollis), but little emerges in detail. Note, however, that bothNemea (25.182) and Marathon (fr. 69.8 Hollis) are euudqor.

7 Cf., e. g., Fuhrer (1992: 104).8 Of particular interest in the present context, alongside Callimachus’ Hecale, are

the fragments of a hexameter narrative set on Diomedes’ estate near Argos(P.Berol. 10566, cf. Powell [1925: 72–5]; Torraca [1971]); a central characterof this poem seems to have been the appropriately named bailiff Pheidon, an-other aged descendant of Eumaeus. Like Idyll 25, this poem exploited the bark-ing dogs of Odyssey 14 (cf. 37–40). Wilamowitz thought the poem ‘early Hel-lenistic’ (1907: 73), and the affinities of subject-matter, if not structure, withIdyll 25 are certainly clear; Torraca speculates that both poems are the workof the same poet, but there is no obvious reason, beyond neatness, to believethis.

9 The apparent use in 114 of 6dmom to mean ‘gift’ rather than ‘marriage-gift’ isnormally listed among the similarities (cf. SH 254.1), but too much shouldnot be made of this, given the state of preservation of Greek poetry. Moreover,I am not convinced that the ‘marriage’ connotations of 6dmom are irrelevant inCallimachus, where m}lva follows immediately. If the Victoria and the Coma didindeed frame Books 3 and 4 of the Aitia, then it would be tempting to readm}lva at the head of fr. 110.91 to form a neat ring. Whether or not any ofthis is connected with the notorious problem of the wedding-ritual in Catullus66 cannot be pursued here.

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 291

If the story of the Nemean lion perhaps points towards Aitia 3, weshould recall that Heracles’ cleaning of Augeias’ stables must have playedsome part in the aition in Aitia 3 for the ritual practice at Elis wherebymen come armed to their wedding (frr. 76–7). The reason given byCallimachus for this practice seems to have been that Heracles marriedoff the women of Elis to his soldiers after he had sacked Elis in revengefor Augeias’ treatment of him, but our knowledge of how exactly Cal-limachus handled this story is exiguous. It is, however, worth notingthat Phyleus seems to have figured in this Callimachean aition. Moretangible perhaps is the fact that in Aitia 1 Callimachus juxtaposed twostories in which Heracles meets men ploughing: a Lindian peasantwhose ox is eaten by the hero (frr. 22–3 = 24–5 Massimilla), andthe cruel Theiodamas who meets a sticky end (frr. 24–5 = 26–7 Mas-similla). If the audience of Idyll 25 knew that the ne ?mor of the openingverses was Heracles, either because it knew a title or because this infor-mation was contained in verses which have now been lost, then itwould have been forgiven for thinking that it had entered upon oneof those Callimachean stories. bo_m 1p_ouqor in 1, if that is the correctreading,10 will then gesture towards such stories in which Heracles ac-tually takes one of the cattle away and/or kills it. The rustic’s littlehomily on the importance of respecting Hermes will then not merelyexpand upon Eumaeus’ piety towards that god (Od. 14.435), but willalso evoke for us the knowledge that giving Heracles the wrong answercan have disastrous consequences; rather similar are 62–7 (by whichtime we, at least, are in no doubt as to the stranger’s identity)11 inwhich the rustic delays asking Heracles about himself, ‘because it ishard to know the mind of another’. While the poem presents a politeand ‘courtly’ Heracles who, far from eating an ox in a situationwhere one would certainly not be missed, is never offered or requestsa meal,12 it also exploits our knowledge of other representations ofthe great hero. When Heracles observes to the rustic that ‘god hasmade one man dependent upon another’ (50), we can only be amazedat how far this is from the suffering and self-sufficient hero of most nar-

10 Cf. Gow ad loc.11 The mention of Augeias in 7 gives the game away; the narrator calls the strang-

er ‘mighty son of Zeus’ in 42.12 Contrast Odysseus’ reception by Eumaeus and the return of the pigs at

Od. 14.409–56 which is attended by a meal.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception292

ratives.13 To what extent, if any, we are to measure the ethos and detailof the poem specifically against these Callimachean stories we cannotsay but, given the importance of the Aitia for subsequent poetry, thepossibility that the Idyll poet is rewriting Callimachus is a real one.

Many detailed echoes of Apollonius’ Argonautica have been claimedfor Idyll 25,14 but their cumulative weight is, in my opinion, ratherslight. Two passages of some importance deserve, however, a moment’sattention. One is the similarity between Heracles’ ‘victory’ over the bullPhaethon (145–9) and Jason’s yoking of the fire-breathing bulls (A.R.3.1306–10), accompanied in both cases by the wonderment of the on-lookers.15 The possibility of a common source (? Callimachus’ Hecale)cannot be ruled out, but it would certainly suit an important themeof the Argonautica if literary allusion made Jason ‘follow after’ Heracleshere.16 On the other hand, the second pair of passages seems to pointin the opposite direction. Phaethon the bull is introduced in verseswhich seem remarkably like those in which Apollonius introduces theson of Aietes and Asterodeia (‘Star Lady’), Apsyrtus, whose ‘nickname’is Phaethon:

t_m l]m te pqov]qesje b_gv_ te ja· sh]mei ¨iAd’ rpeqopk_gi Va]hym l]car, fm Na bot/qer!st]qi p\mter 5isjom, bho}meja pokk¹m 1m %kkoirbous·m Q½m k\lpesjem, !q_fgkor d’ 1t]tujto.

(25.138–41)

Far first of these in his strength and power and mettle was the mighty Phae-thon, whom all the herdsmen likened to a star because he shone out brightand conspicuous to see as he moved among the other cattle. (trans. Gow)

ja_ lim J|kwym uXer 1pymul_gm Va]homta

5jkeom, ovmeja p÷si let]pqepem Aih]oisi.(A.R. 3.245–6)

The sons of the Colchians called Apsyrtus by the name of ‘Phaethon’, be-cause he stood out among all the young men.

13 Chryssafis ad loc. prefers to take %kkou in 50 as neuter, ‘god made each man’swants different’, but this seems very weak.

14 Cf. esp. Perrotta (1926: 249–62).15 Brief notice of the similarity in Legrand (1898: 19 n. 2), and Gow (1943: 96 n.

1).16 Cf. Feeney (1986); Hunter (1993: 25–36).

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 293

Apsyrtus’ nickname is not original to Apollonius, and the conception ofthe young man as his father’s charioteer, like the more famous Phae-thon, is central to the character;17 this may suggest Apollonian priority.Moreover, the Homeric model for Apsyrtus-Phaethon, Hector’s sonSkamandrius-Astyanax, is likened to a star at Il. 6.401, and soId. 25.138–41 may be an example of ‘window reference’, whereby apassage alludes both to a prior text and to the source of that text.18 Ifso, Apollonian priority would be certain. Not only, however, is thedate of Book 3 of the Argonautica itself a thorny problem, but itseems unlikely that these methods will produce a universally agreed rel-ative chronology – not an unusual situation with the poetry of the thirdcentury.

Perrotta (1926) and Serrao (1962) have assembled an impressive lin-guistic and metrical case against Theocritean authorship of Idyll 25. Thecounter-argument (Gow [1952]; Kurz [1982]), or perhaps rather the ar-gument for agnosticism, must be based upon the fact that such linguisticdifference may have easy generic explanations; we would have expectedIdyll 25 to behave (linguistically) much more like ‘epic’ than do otherpoems of the Theocritean corpus, and this is indeed what we dofind.19 For what it is worth, my impression is that the stylistic argumentsadduced in favour of Theocritean authorship stretch credulity a little toofar, but I hope that nothing of what follows depends for its validity upona particular view of the authorship.

The three sections of the traditional division all revolve aroundHeracles’ cleansing of Augeias’ stables, a labour which is never men-tioned in the course of the poem, but which must shape our reactionto the whole.20 Why, for example, would ‘stout-hearted’ Heracles mar-vel at the vast herds (114)? Is it because he is going to have to clean upall that dung? Commentators have long pointed out that the three sec-tions – in the order of most manuscripts and all modern editions – canbe fitted, easily enough, into the outlines of the story familiar from ourmain sources (Ps. Apollod. 2.5.5, Paus. 5.1.9–10), but whether or notthat is the reading strategy which the poem actually invites is a more dif-

17 Cf. Hunter and Campbell ad loc.18 Cf., e. g., McKeown (1987: 37–45); Campbell ad loc. also notes the relevance

of Il. 2.480–1 for Idyll 25.138–41.19 For some further criteria and relevant considerations cf. Hunter (1996: 28–45)

and Svennson (1937: 70–2).20 Cf. Linforth (1947); Zanker (1996).

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ficult and interesting question. Consideration of it may begin with thetransitions between the sections.

Although 85 could follow directly from 84, periphrastic time-mark-ers are a familiar device of Hellenistic and Roman narrative for begin-ning both the narrative itself (cf. , e. g.,Theoc. 13.25–6) and importantnew sections within it (cf. , e. g., Theoc. 24.11–2).21 Descriptions of theonward movement of time strongly suggest that time moves on in thenarrative. Nevertheless, A]kior l³m 5peita is a Homeric half-line whichoccurs in the midst of tightly organised narrative, rather than as the ob-vious marker of a new development (Il. 7.421, Od. 19.433); as such, thisverse suggests continuity (5peita), while gesturing towards a new begin-ning. More specifically, not only is 84 closural in the sense that it marksarrival at a destination,22 but both 1 and 85 have parallels in Homericbook openings.23 As for 152–3, the former both points to the ‘moral’of the preceding scene (the extraordinary prowess of Heracles) and im-pressively concludes the description with a four-word hexameter begin-ning with a patronymic occupying the entire first half of the verse;24 153has parallels in Homeric book-openings, and the action of ‘leaving therich ploughlands for the town’ clearly instigates also a new direction inthe narrative. There is here a much clearer disjunction in the narrativethan at 84–5, and it is advertised, rather than concealed, by the fact that154 (‘Phyleus and the mighty Heracles’) picks up 151–2. As for theconclusion of the poem, not only does Heracles himself mark the endof his narration, but death is perhaps the most common and final ofall closural motifs.25 A tentative conclusion, based solely upon the formalmarkers in the text, might be that Idyll 25 presents an exploration of nar-

21 Cf., e. g., Kenney on Moretum 1–2. Particularly close to 25.85–99 is Culex42–57 in which there is a similar interplay between the subject-matter ofthe time description and that of the main narrative; cf. Gutzwiller (1981:32): “it seems that the westward turning of [Helios’] horses is not merely a nat-ural event, but a private signal to Augeas’ herds to begin their evening trek tothe barns”.

22 Gow notes that G Na ja_ opens the last verse of Il. 19 (but cf. also Od. 2.321).23 For the details see Gow ad loc. On the possible significance of the Homeric pat-

tern cf. below p. 305–6.24 Cf. 13.55 (at the start of a new movement).25 Cf., e. g., Smith (1968: 101–2, 176–8). I am unconvinced by the ‘general re-

semblance’ seen by Gow to the end of the Iliad (and even less by the ‘echo’ ofthe opening of that epic seen by Bizzarre (1979: 325–6)). For what it is worth,I am reminded rather of the close of Plato’s Phaedo (the death of Socrates), Fde Btekeut^ … (118a15–7). On closure in general see Fowler (1989).

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 295

rative continuity and disjunction, which is quite different in effect from,say, the articulation and structure of the different ‘scenes’ of Idyll 24.

It is also worth noting that the structure of Idyll 25, if indeed, as Ibelieve, the poem is not merely a set of three extracts from a largerwhole and if, in particular, there has been no textual loss before 1,26

does not find a real parallel in the narratives of archaic and classicallyric which in so many other ways foreshadow Hellenistic narrative.27

The Argonautic narrative of Pindar, Pythian 4, for example, operateswith the selectivity, ellipses and swift transitions familiar to the lyricmanner, but with nothing remotely like the break at Idyll 25.152–3.Bacchylides 5.56–175 tells of Heracles’ fateful meeting with Meleagerin the underworld, and the poet of Idyll 25 may well have been con-scious of this narrative;28 that narrative proceeds, however, in a straight-forward, linear fashion. Lyric poets rely, of course, upon the audience’sknowledge of the mythic events which both precede and follow theirnarratives (Bacchylides 5 and 18 are excellent examples); it may bethat the ‘irony of the unspoken’ which is thereby created is not unlikethe irony which hovers over the second ‘scene’ of Idyll 25, but this issomething different from the narrative technique itself. In a broad gen-eralisation, it may be said that the complexities of lyric narrative arisefrom rearrangement and/or enfolding, in such a way as to emphasisethe poet’s control of narrative time and theme, rather than in the con-duct of narrative itself ; Medea’s prophecy in Pythian 4 ‘preceding’ the

26 The d] in 1 of Id. 25 should not be given excessive weight in consideringwhether or not the text is lacunose; it is imposed by the ‘epic form’ of theverse, and indeed the poet could hardly have chosen a better way of markingthe relation between his poem and the inherited epic tradition. For initial d]in other texts cf. Kroll (1936: 91–6); Campbell (1967: 140–1); Jacobson(1983: 70). Related poetic experiments in other genres are familiar, cf. Ar.Lys. 1; Ov. Am. 3.7.1. Plutarch (Mor. 736e-f) reports that the rhapsode whoperformed at the marriage of Ptolemy II began from Il. 18.356, Fe»r d’ Nqgm

1j\kesse jasicm^tgm %kow|m te, and it would be tempting to draw wider con-clusions from this about ‘rhapsodic’ practice in the third century, cf. below p.305–6, Nagy (1996b: 161–2). This rhapsode’s very ‘political’ choice of start-ing-point is, however, a very special case; Il. 18.369 looks much more like the‘natural’ place to start.

27 Perrotta (1923) remains a fundamental contribution. Despite Perrotta and oth-ers, the relation between archaic lyric narrative and Hellenistic and neoterichexameter narrative remains insufficiently explored. A starting-point mightbe the difference between Pindar, Pythian 4 and Stesichorean narrative, aboutwhich we are constantly learning more.

28 Cf. Gow on 201.

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sailing of the Argo and the enfolded narratives of Proetus and his daugh-ters at Bacchylides 11.40–112 may serve to illustrate both tendencies.To this extent, the true heirs of archaic lyric are (in their differentways) Callimachean narratives, such as the Hecale and the Victoria Bere-nices, and Catullus 64, rather than the narratives ascribed to Theocritus;even the juxtaposed narratives of Idyll 22, whose interplay is crucial tothe meaning of the poem, do not imitate lyric technique. In other ways,of course, such as the fondness for abrupt openings in medias res,29 The-ocritus is fully at one with the third-century reproduction of the lyricmanner, but these similarities should not be used to elide the importantdifferences. The ‘enfolding’ technique does not merely go back to lyric,but may also be seen as a miniaturising of the narrative structure of theOdyssey. In Idyll 25 Heracles’ account of the Nemean lion is indeed toldwithin the context of another labour; unless, however, the text is moredefective than is normally supposed, the Nemean story concludes thepoem and is in fact the climax to which it has been leading, andthere is no return to the history of relations between Heracles and Au-geias. Like Augeias and his people, the Phaeacians have had a chance tomarvel at the athletic prowess of Odysseus before he finally tells hisstory, but in Homer (as regularly in lyric) the story-teller brings his ac-count back to the present context.

Idyll 25 is often classed with the so-called ‘epyllia’, but it does notreally fall within either of the two broad classes of such poem whichour evidence suggests.30 On the one hand are ambitious poems suchas Callimachus’ Hecale and the Hermes of Eratosthenes31 which ranwell over a thousand verses; on the other are shorter narratives of,roughly speaking, between one hundred and three hundred verses. Nei-ther, however, in the Odyssey nor in the Hellenistic ‘epyllia’ do we finda real parallel for a linear narrative in which narrative time seems alwaysto progress, but we are merely given ‘excerpts’ from ‘the full story’. Un-surprisingly, the effect of Idyll 25 has been compared to a painted trip-tych lacking an obvious narrative centre.32

29 Cf. Bacchylides 15, 17, 19.15; Perrotta (1923: 216–17). On the opening ofIdyll 25 cf. below p. 125.

30 Cf. Perrotta (1923), and (most recently) Cameron (1995: 437–53).31 Cf. SH 397.32 Cf. Kurz (1982: 44). We might compare the three scenes from the story of Io

which are depicted on Europa’s basket (Mosch. Europa 37–62).

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 297

The unusual structure of Idyll 25 is reinforced by the internal dy-namics of the poem. Commentators point out that the fact that Heraclesaccompanies Augeias on his inspection (110–1) implies that ‘in themeantime’ (that is, presumably ‘between’ 84 and 85) he has explainedwho he is and why he has come. It is indeed a familiar Hellenistic prac-tice to elaborate what might be thought inessential to ‘the plot’ and topass quickly over ‘the main events’; the Victoria Berenices even offerswhat looks like an explicit authorial comment on such an elision:

aqt¹r 1pivq\ssoito, t\loi d’ %po l/jor !oid/i .

fssa d’ !meiqol]myi v/se, t\d’ 1neq]y .

(SH 264.1–2)

Let him conjure up these things himself, and thus shorten the song; but allthat he said in reply, this will I tell in full.

This seems like a fairly clear invitation to ‘take as read’ what the poetchooses to leave out,33 but two cautionary notes are necessary. Callima-chus, more than almost any other ancient poet, was aware that there isno such thing as a ‘canonical version’ of a tale upon which all readerswill agree; if he asks us to fill in the details, he is merely making us con-front the same bewildering set of choices that confront the poet himselfat every turn. Would any two readers, particularly readers of Callima-chus, come up with the same story, let alone the story as Callimachuswould have told it? If this general consideration should make us atleast pause before adopting for any Hellenistic text a reading strategyof simple ‘supplementation’,34 the nature of Idyll 25 as a whole suggeststhat this is not the reading strategy which this particular text implies foritself. ‘Filling in the gaps’ is, of course, part of reading any text, not justHellenistic ones, but it will not explain why the poet has chosen to writethis poem in this way. To anticipate somewhat, ignorance, identity andrecognition are central to the concerns of Idyll 25. At 162 ff Phyleus ad-dresses Heracles first as ne ?me and then as Fqyr (178), while asking himwhether he is the person who killed the great Nemean lion, for Phyleushad heard an account of this deed from someone who was unable accu-rately to identify the hero in question. Phyleus thinks he remembers that

33 Cf. Fuhrer (1992: 71–5, 121–5); Bing (1995: 123–4).34 For Idyll 25 cf. Zanker (1996), who offers a valuable account of the poem’s pic-

torialism. Epigrams (cf. Bing [1995]) obviously offer a special case, but they too,I think, appeal to our desire to speculate, to make up our own stories, ratherthan to any simple process of ‘supplementation’, cf. Hunter (1992: 114).

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the informant identified the hero as a descendant of Perseus (Alcmene’sgrandfather). Heracles admits that he indeed was the slayer of the lion,for ‘this was the first task laid on me by Eurystheus’ (204–5). There isnothing here which makes the inference that Phyleus does not knowHeracles’ name inevitable;35 it is, however, not a question of whetheror not it is possible to address someone, whose name you know, as‘friend’ or ‘hero’, or of which reconstruction of the Augeias storybest fits this exchange,36 but of why the poet gives Phyleus theseforms of address. Heracles’ simple reference to Eurystheus and the%ehka which he has been commanded to perform can indeed be under-stood by a reader who has ‘filled in the gaps’, but it – and many othersuch features of the poem – must rather be seen in the context of thetraditional epic concern with kleos.

Whereas Odysseus comes to the court of Alcinous, to the hut ofEumaeus, and to his own palace ‘in disguise’, that is in clothes whichare not his own, and is not recognised, in Idyll 25 Heracles is outfittedin the manner which proclaims his identity at all periods (‘lionskin andmassive club’, 63), and yet he too is not recognised. What price thenkleos or, rather, when does kleos begin? Idyll 25 confronts us with aworld in which no one has ever heard of Heracles, and in which Hera-cles himself seems unclear of certain familiar ‘facts’ of his life. Thus, forexample, the hero’s ignorance of the origin of the Nemean lion(197–200) may, with Gow, be put down to the variety of traditionsavailable to the poet, although in the context of Heracles’ labours thepredominant tradition, namely that Hera was responsible for it, as inCallimachus (fr. 55 = SH 267), cannot be far away; Heracles’ descrip-tion of the lion in 199 (!mdq\si p/la) seems indeed to echo Hesiod’sstatement of Hera’s responsibility (p/l’ !mhq~poir, Th. 329). So too,the rustic’s observation that Heracles’ arrival is due ‘to the planning ofsome god’ (52) says more to us than it does to the characters, butmore is at stake here than the ironies created by characters with partialknowledge and readers who ‘fill in the gaps’. The poet has chosen topresent the story of the labours in a way which is related to a familiartechnique of Hellenistic poetry: we are pushed back ‘before kleos’,here not to witness the youth of a famous literary character (e. g. the‘early history’ of the Cyclops in Idyll 11),37 but rather to observe Hera-

35 Cf. Gow on 162, 173.36 Cf. Zanker (1996: 419).37 Cf. in general Barchiesi (1993).

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 299

cles before poetic story-telling has gone to work on him and when themeaning of the labours on which he is engaged is quite obscure. In suchcircumstances, it might be unwise to enquire whether we are supposedto imagine that the killing of his children has already taken place. Theelaborate play in the poem with Heracles’ identity and whether and atwhat stage it is revealed may be seen as reinforcing this concern to createa world ‘before kleos’. The poet ‘teases’ us with our expectation that, atsome stage, Heracles will utter the equivalent of ‘I am Odysseus, son ofLaertes, known to all men for my guile, and my kleos reaches heaven’(Od. 9.19–20), but Heracles himself does not yet know, or at least un-derstand, his own identity (50 is again important here); for all the char-acters in the poem he remains ‘utterly nameless’, as the Homeric Alci-nous asserted that no man could be (Od. 8.552). A similar irony per-vades another poem of the corpus in which ‘half-gods’ confront mortals,namely Idyll 22,38 but the narrative concerns of that poem are rather dif-ferent. To what extent the idea of a ‘world without kleos’ is connectedwith the unusual form of Idyll 25 will be considered presently.39

It is not merely in the links between the three sections that thepoet’s concern with variety and contrast is visible, but also in the natureand subject of the ‘scenes’.40 In the first, Heracles asks questions and re-ceives a long and full answer; in the second, there is no direct speech,and the third is largely a narrative by Heracles himself, who takesover the role of epic poet, similes and all. Each of the three scenesends with a confrontation between Heracles and animals – first dogs,who might have come off second best in a confrontation with ‘Heracles,son of Amphitryon’ (71), whereas their Homeric relatives would havedone dreadful things to Odysseus (Od. 14.32), then a marvellous bull,and finally a truly epic lion. The obvious crescendo of the sequence is an-other sign of the poet’s concern with similarity and difference.41 So too,the re-writing of Homer, particularly in the first two sections, points inthe same direction. In the opening section it is Odyssey 14, Odysseus’meeting with Eumaeus, which is particularly important; structural sim-ilarities to Od. 6–8, however, also prepare for Heracles’ narration, just

38 Cf. Hunter (1996: 63–73).39 Cf. below p. 307–8.40 Cf., e. g., Sanchez-Wildberger (1955: 21–4).41 Cf. the appreciation by Herter (1975: 461–2).

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as Od. 6–8 prepare for Odysseus’ narration.42 In the second section, al-though the subject is ‘cattle of Helios’, it is the Iliadic manner whichpredominates.

Whoever bestowed the title 9pip~kgsir realised the importance ofIliad 4,43 and beyond Agamemnon’s ‘review’ of his troops, it is the sim-iles of Iliad 4 which are of particular importance. At 4.274–9 the massof armed men around the Ajaxes is compared to dark storm clouds,driven over the sea by the Zephyr,44 which cause a goatherd to bringhis flocks under cover. In Idyll 25 it is the l/ka of cattle which comenumerous as rain-clouds;45 as these cattle are to be, in one sense, Hera-cles’ ‘opponents’, the martial resonance of the Iliadic simile is appropri-ate. So too, at Il. 4.422–6 (which immediately follows the conclusion ofthe 1pip~kgsir proper) the movement of the Greek army into battle iscompared to a vast wave crashing on the sea-shore.46 Whereas, howev-er, Homer draws a contrast between the roaring breaker and the silenceof the Greek advance (4.429–31), the poet of the Idyll suggests a con-trast between the soundless sweep of clouds and the noise (lujghl|r) ofthe cattle. Here we may feel the influence of Il. 4.433–5 where thenoise of the Trojans is compared to the ‘bleating of countless ewes inthe yard of a very rich man, as they wait to be milked’. This typical Ho-meric simile, which moves beyond the world of war to that of peacefulpastoralism in order to characterise (presumably unfavourably) the Tro-jans as they await the Greek onslaught, is here expanded into a full‘genre scene’ of bucolic activity (96–107). This expansion of what issubordinate in the Iliad, though of course more prominent in the Odys-sey, will have to be accounted for in any assessment of the poem.

Before turning to consider the unusual form of the poem, it may beworth attempting a brief characterisation of the overall impression madeby it. Like the movement of the cattle, the narrative seems leisurely:

42 Full discussion in Kurz (1982: 1747); for the use of Homer in Idyll 25 cf. alsoFrohn (1908).

43 For this cf. Kurz (1982: 35–6). On this title cf. further below p. 306.44 Given the appearance of the Zephyr here and at 4.423 (cf. below p. 124), it may

be significant that 91 lists only the south and north winds: deliberate avoidance?45 1kaum|lema in 90 is perhaps a word more appropriate to flocks (cf. 16.36),

which has here ‘trespassed’ into the simile. For the notion of ‘trespass’ in generalcf. Lyne (1989: esp. 92–9).

46 joq}ssetai is shared by the Iliad (4.424) and the Idyll (94), but it is commonenough to make conclusions difficult. So too, it might be tempting to associate115–7 with Il. 4.429–30, but little seems to hang upon this.

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 301

there is plenty of time to talk, and even Heracles is not merely modestand gentlemanly, but positively loquacious. This expansiveness matchesthe vastness of Augeias’ estates. Augeias’ careful concern for his peopleand his property seems to foreshadow the virtue of the grandees of theGreek novel, such as Dionysios in Chariton’s Callirhoe and Dionyso-phanes in Daphnis and Chloe, both of whom pay visits to their countryestates to ensure that everything is in order. Heracles too assumes thatAugeias is a ‘good king’, almost on the Hesiodic model:47

eQ d’ d l³m #q jat± %stu l]mei paq± oXsi pok_taird^lou jgd|lemor, di± d³ jq_mousi h]listar

(45–6)

But if he abides in the town among his burghers caring for his people, andthey are giving judgements there … (trans. Gow)

The herds which Augeias’ father, Helios, had given to him go one bet-ter than their Homeric relatives which neither increased nor – untilOdysseus’ men came along – decreased in size (Od. 12.127–33); Au-geias’ herds constantly increase (118–25). The small scale of Eumaeus’well-ordered pigsty and of the Cyclops’ sheep pens48 becomes a pastoraloperation on a truly ‘epic’ scale. At one level, it is obviously tempting tosee some reflection of Hellenistic reality; whether or not such consid-erations could assist with dating the poem may be left as an important,but perhaps unanswerable, question. Although on mainland Greece therise of very large mixed estates – of the kind suggested by the rustic’sdescription in 8–33 – seems, on our present (very limited) evidence,to have been a phenomenon of the late Hellenistic and Roman periods,there are some indications of a tendency towards larger individual land-holdings in the early Hellenistic period also.49 If it is correct to see a so-phisticated interplay between ‘epic time’ and modern reality,50 then thistoo will be seen to fit what emerge as the central concerns of the poem.

47 Cf. Gow and Chryssafis ad loc. The difficulties of the text do not really affectinterpretation here.

48 Cf. Kurz (1982: 33–4). All of Od. 9.219–22 is relevant to 12 and 97–8.49 Cf. Alcock (1993).50 Relevant here is the possibility that 183–5 amusingly allude to the absence of

‘lions’ from the Hellenistic Peloponnese, cf. , e. g., Legrand (1927: 69); Beckbyad loc. Legrand (1927: 67–71) offers a sensitive general appreciation of thepoem.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception302

In order to understand the place of Idyll 25 within the developmentof post-classical literature, it will be necessary to move beyond strictly‘narrative’ poems. Lycophron’s Alexandra begins with a ‘dramatic’ ver-sion of the exchange (answer to a question) which, in its epic version,begins Idyll 25:

k]ny t± p\mta mgtqej_r, û l’ Rstoqe ?r!qw/r !p’ %jqar . Cm d³ lgjumh/i k|cor,s}ccmyhi d]spot’ ·

I shall tell truly everything you ask, from the very beginning; if my talestretches out, forgive me, master.

As Idyll 25 ‘presupposes’ a speech by Heracles, so the Alexandra ‘presup-poses’ questioning by the king. The Alexandra offers a familiar tragicform, the messenger-speech, extended to the length of an independenttragedy; the subject-matter of the poem is ‘epic’ in both scale and inspi-ration, as also is the monologic form, although complicated by the pres-ence of two voices.51 To what extent the form of the Alexandra exploitsa perceived affinity between epic and the tragic messenger-speech wedo not know enough to say, but it seems reasonable to suppose that itis not only modern scholars who have explicitly drawn the connec-tion;52 if tragedy as a whole indeed developed from epic, as at leastone important branch of ancient scholarship argued, then Lycophronhas collapsed tragedy back to its origins. At one level, then, the Alexan-dra recreates the birth of the tragic genre. At the same time, however, itis also the text of an elaborate, secondary ‘performance’, which presup-poses the existence of ‘classical’ texts; central to this construction is thevery Hellenistic practice of ‘anthologising’, i. e. copying and/or per-forming bits of plays, in particular ‘star turns’, rather than wholetexts.53 This practice is clearly related to the rhapsodic recitation ofepic, to which I shall shortly turn, but what is important in the presentcontext is that the Alexandra suggests both a proto-generic form and acontemporary deconstruction or fragmentation of that form; or, perhapsbetter, it suggests that the two are identical. The poem’s sense of generic

51 A particularly enlightening discussion is Fusillo (1984).52 For the ‘epic’ omission of the augment in tragic messenger-speeches cf. Page on

E. Med. 1141.53 Cf. Gentili (1979).

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 303

form is, at any rate, very much a historical sense. As such, its genericconcerns will be seen to resemble those of Idyll 25.

Another text which may shed light on these developments is theMegara, a poem which seems to have travelled with Idyll 25 in thecourse of transmission and which has in the past often been claimedto be the work of the same poet.54 This hexameter conversation be-tween Heracles’ wife and his mother has clear links with the epic tradi-tion, but it is drama which seems to have been the determinative influ-ence on the form of the poem. The combination of an opening in mediasres with an enquiry about what is distressing Alcmene (cf. E. IA 34 ff,Men. Heros 1 ff, Plaut. Pseud. 1 ff) and a conclusion with a disturbingdream which forebodes ill suggests the suspenseful opening of a drama(cf. perhaps E. IT). Like the poet of Idyll 25, the Megara-poet playswith the identity of the characters in a manner which evokes the mimesisof drama, rather than the diegesis of narrative.55 If the character of Meg-ara seems to owe a debt to Sophocles’ Deianira,56 it is rather the Soph-oclean models which all but certainly lie behind the very similar inter-view of Medea and Chalciope in Argonautica 3.673–741 that may havebeen decisive. The Megara-poet is no less interested than the Apolloniusof Book 3 in the boundaries of drama and epic, and here too the prac-tice of ‘anthologising’ may well have been a crucial influence. Whereasthe Alexandra is a dramatic form on an epic scale, the Megara presents anepic form reduced to the scale of a scene from drama. This is less a ‘mix-ing of genres’ than an exploration of their relationship and history.

In turning back to Idyll 25, it will be clear that, whereas this poemstays closer than either the Alexandra or the Megara to the epic tradition,its form may exploit the possibilities of scenic organisation which are afundamental property of drama rather than epic. This seems a necessarygloss, particularly with regard to the opening of the poem, upon whathas been a common (and otherwise helpful) approach to the Idyll’s

54 Good doxography in Breitenstein (1966: 13–20); for the transmission of theMegara cf. Vaughn (1976: 11–20), adding now P.Oxy. 4431.

55 Cf. Perrotta (1923: 216–18). Note 1 (‘mother’, but she is really ‘mother-in-law’); 4 (‘your glorious son endures countless griefs’) ; 5 (‘like a lion … ’, cf.Theoc. 13.62 of Heracles); 11 (‘no one is more cursed by fate’) ; 13 (‘thebow …’); 15–16, the killing of the children. 17–20 (‘With my own eyes Isaw …’) may also allude to dramatic presentations of the myth.

56 Cf. esp. 41–5 with S. Tr. 31–5 (from the prologue).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception304

structure through the model of rhapsodic recitation.57 Thus as Homer’sDemodocus sings a particular ‘extract’ from a larger narrative continu-um, so Idyll 25 would offer us three samplers from a large whole.This model may, however, lead us in a rather different direction fromthat in which it is normally taken.

At a general level, the introduction to Demodocus’ song of thewooden horse does resemble the way some Hellenistic narratives begin:

va ?me d’ !oid^m,5mhem 2k½m ¢r oR l³m 1uss]klym 1p· mg_mb\mter !p]pkeom, pOq 1m jkis_gisi bak|mter,)qce ?oi, to· d’ Edg !cajkut¹m !lv’ idus/a jtk.

(Od. 8.499–502)

[The bard] began his utterance of the lay, taking it up where the Argiveshad set their huts aflame, had boarded their ships and were under sail al-ready, while the few left behind with great Odysseus … (trans. Shewring)

‘The Greeks had gone away, but Odysseus’ men [who will be the sub-ject of the narration] … ’ offers a very brief contextualisation followedby the subject of the narrative proper; such a technique clearly foreshad-ows later developments.58 We may perhaps compare Theoc. 22.137–40(the start of the Castor narrative), which in turn is not unlike the way inwhich the third ‘scene’ of Idyll 25 begins. A conscious alignment with(and not merely historical development from) the rhapsodic traditionmay, therefore, be an important element in the development of (rela-tively) short hexameter poems, not merely in terms of how narrativesbegin and end, but also in the apparent lack of concern with a central‘epic’ event.59 I shall return to this point. Secondly, the title 9pip~kg-

57 Cf., e. g., the introduction to the poem in the edition of Fritzsche-Hiller(1881); Wilamowitz (1906: 222).

58 Some Homeric book-openings themselves are suggestive in this context; Iliad22 is a good example: ‘So the Trojans in terror … but the Greeks …’. Noless interesting for the history of the ‘epyllion’ is the progress of Demodocus’song. Trojan deliberations as to what to do with the horse are handled atsome length (8.504–13), whereas once the Greeks ‘pour forth from thehorse’ the sack of the city hurries to completion (8.514–20). It is hard notto be reminded of, say, the expansive treatment by Moschus of Europa’s abduc-tion, followed by the swift conclusion once Zeus reveals himself. Homer’s 5mhem2k~m reappears in Callimachean narrative as %qwlemor ¢r (frr. 7.25, 75.56 – withthe irony that Xenomedes really did begin at the beginning, h. 3.4).

59 Cf. the remarks of Wilamowitz (1903: 102–3), and further below p. 306–7.

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 305

sir, as a designation for part of Iliad 4 (presumably 223–421), probablyhas its origins in the rhapsodic tradition (despite the fact that the first at-testations for it are relatively late),60 and whoever introduced it into thetradition of Idyll 25 may have had these origins in mind. It is not impos-sible that Jqajk/r pq¹r !cqo ?jom is intended also to evoke the ‘rhapso-dic’ titles of Homeric episodes; these vary somewhat in form (they maydescribe an event or a location), and no canonical title for the meetingof Odysseus and Eumaeus is known.61 It is no argument against this‘rhapsodic’ interpretation that the beginning of each section and theend of the second resemble Homeric book-divisions.62 Many, thoughnot all, of what became the standard book-divisions will have been fa-miliar as places ‘to start and stop’ long before they became a fixed part oftextual tradition. We cannot, unfortunately, say anything certain aboutthe divisions of the Homeric poems with which the poet of Idyll 25 wasfamiliar. Nevertheless, the simple ‘rhapsodic’ interpretation of Idyll 25cannot, as we have seen, be the whole answer; rather, we must lookboth to the ‘dramatic’ developments traced above and to broad tenden-cies in the history of Hellenistic narrative.

The life of Heracles was an obvious subject for epic narration (cf.Arist. , Po. 1451a16 ff).63 The two best known archaic poems on Hera-cles were those of Peisander of Rhodian Kameiros and of Panyassis ofHalicarnassus. Peisander (7th-6th cent.?),64 who is celebrated in an epi-gram of Theocritus (22 Gow), is said to have written a Herakleia in twobooks; Panyassis (early 5th cent.) wrote a Herakleis in some 9000 versesand fourteen books, and we know that he treated the Nemean lion, tra-ditionally – as in Idyll 25 – the first labour, in his first book.65 The storyof the labours lent itself readily to ‘cyclic’ treatment and we can hardlydoubt that there was a rich tradition of such poems, now largely lost tous; it seems likely, for example, that Idyll 25 and the Coan epic Meropis

60 Strabo 9.1.10, Plu. Mor. 29a. It is not in the list of such titles at Ael. VH 13.14.On these titles cf. Capone (1939).

61 Gow derives the title from iduss]yr pq¹r Eulaiom blik_a, a title for Odyssey 14found in MSS, but without (as far as I am aware) ancient authority; Eustathiusand the scholia preserve light variations on a similar theme.

62 Cf. above p. 295. For the various arguments about the date of the Homericbook-divisions cf., e. g., Alpers (1975: 116); West (1967: 18–25); Taplin(1992: 285–6).

63 Cf. the testimonia gathered by Davies (1988: 142–3); Bond on E. HF 359 ff.64 Cf. Davies (1988: 129–35); Huxley (1969: 99–112).65 Cf. Matthews (1974: 21–6).

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(SH 903A) shared at least one common source account of the battlewith the Nemean lion.66 From the later third century we know of afourteen-book Herakleia by Rhianus of Crete, but we know next tonothing of how he treated the subject. Aristotle singles out the poetsof ‘Heracleids, Theseids, and such poems’ for unfavourable comparisonwith Homer because ‘they think that because Heracles was a single in-dividual (eXr) the mythos [concerning him] ought also to be unitary (eXr)’(Po. 1451a 20–2). For Aristotle, of course, ‘oneness’ in a tragic, andprobably also an epic, mythos implied the mimesis of a single praxis inwhich the individual events followed each other by a close causalnexus of necessity or probability.67 Idyll 25 gestures towards a praxis— the cleaning of the Augean stables – but offers us none. A labour(the Nemean lion) is indeed narrated, but within the context of anotherstory. The cyclic ab ouo mode is thereby both suggested and rejected. Asthe opening verse assumes prior narration, and not merely the existenceof antefatti,68 the relation of the ‘unity’ of the text to the ‘unity’ of themythos it tells becomes a central issue of interpretation; in the light ofsimilar phenomena seen in other texts of the Hellenistic period, I ammore inclined to see here the concerns of a poet than the accidents oftextual transmission.

I have considered elsewhere the possibility that certain forms ofHellenistic narrative were in part a response to Aristotelian ideas ofunity.69 Whether there is any truth in this or not, Idyll 25 certainly offersa ‘oneness’ of some kind. Heracles occurs in all three ‘scenes’, Augeias isnamed in two and appears in one, Phyleus is named in one and appearsin two; the poem apparently begins with Heracles’ arrival at Augeias’estate and ends with his departure; the crescendo of animal challengesclearly invites a ‘unified’ reading. Nevertheless, this poem has no realpraxis; its silences are deafening. It offers us not (merely) the break-upof literary ‘epic’ into constituent parts on the rhapsodic (or ‘anthologis-ing’) model, but also (I would suggest) ‘pre-epic’, a form in which thesilences wait for b poigt^r to fill them.70 Like the Alexandra, its generic

66 Cf. Henrichs (1977).67 Cf. Hunter (1993: 192).68 Cf. Giangrande (1969: 150).69 Cf. Hunter (1993: 190–5). That the Aitia prologue has nothing to do with

such ideas has been argued by Asper (1994); my own view is unchanged. Cf.further Cameron (1995: 343–5).

70 Duchemin (1963) interprets the story of the poem as ‘pre-Homeric’ in a quitedifferent way.

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 307

consciousness is historical.71 As with the play with Heracles’ identity, weare offered a world before kleos or, rather, before jk]a !mdq_m. The Hel-lenistic fondness for childhood and beginnings has now been extendedto generic form.72

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NaplesVaughn, J.W. 1976. The Megara (Moschus IV). Bern/StuttgartWest, S. 1967. The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer. Cologne/Opladen

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Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von. 1903. Timotheos. Die Perser. Leipzig— 1906. Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker. Berlin— 1907. Berliner Klassikertexte V.1. BerlinZanker, G. 1996. “Pictorial description as a supplement for narrative: the la-

bour of Augeas’ stables in Heracles Leontophonos”. AJP 117, 411–23.

Addendum

A shorter version of this essay appeared in Tradition and Innovation in HellenisticPoetry 210–15.

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18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme*

A concern with the methods and style of praise and blame recurs, un-surprisingly, throughout Callimachus’ Iambi. The iambos is the aggressivemode par excellence, and Callimachus is the most generically-conscious ofpoets; whether he is writing hymns, aetiological elegy or funerary epi-gram he is always overtly engaged with the history and development ofthe literary form in which he operates. The nature of iambic poetry is,however, the explicit subject of two poems in particular, Iambus 1 andIambus 13, which thus have a special claim to be considered ‘program-matic’. The thirteenth Iambus returns to the choliambic metre of thefirst four poems, the metre most associated with Hipponax, who appearshimself in the first Iambus as the authorising ‘voice’ for these poems, andis apparently spoken in the voice of the poet who to some extent takesup again the themes of Iambus 1 (and indeed of Aitia fr. 1); thus thetemptation to see a “closed” poetry book, framed by these twopoems, is very strong. Whether or not we should resist this temptation,in view of the fact that the Diegesis marks no break after Iambus 13, butcontinues straight on with four further ‘lyric’ poems, as Horace wroteseventeen Epodes, has been much discussed;1 at the very least, one cansay that it would show a suitably Callimachean disregard for ‘criticism’to place the four most ‘atypical’ poems immediately after the poem inwhich he has claimed to be criticized for polyeideia. The issue has, ofcourse, important implications not merely for Callimachus’ poetry,but also for our notions of Hellenistic poetry books – we might perhapscompare Herodas’ ‘programmatic’ eighth mimiambos which seems not tohave closed a carefully arranged ‘poetry book’2 – but it is not my inten-tion to pursue that subject here. Rather, I wish to look again at Iambi 1and 13 to try to tease out the very Callimachean strategy which informsthem.

* Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 43 (1997) 41–521 Cameron (1995) 163–73 argues the case with great force, cf. also D’Alessio

(1996) I 44–5, Fantuzzi (1993) 56 n. 62.2 Cf. Hunter (1993) 32–8 [= this volume 191–8].

I.

In vv. 1–19 of Iambus 13 we apparently hear the voice of a critic (heregiven the chance to speak directly, unlike the Telchines of fr. 1):

[. out’] ]ysi sulle_narout’ =vesom 1kh~m, Ftir 1sti. al.[=vesom, fhem peq oR t± l]tqa l]kkomter

t± wyk± t_jteim lµ !lah_r 1ma}omtai .

!kk’ eU ti hul¹m C ’p. · cast]qa p. m.e.u.s. .[eUt’ owm 1p. … !qwa ?om eUt’ !pai..[toOt’ 1lp]pkejtai ja· kakeus[Yast· ja· Dyqist· ja· t¹ s}lleij[tom.teO l]wqi tokl÷ir ; oR v_koi se d^sousi jtk.

(fr. 203.11–19)

‘… neither having mixed with lonians nor gone to Ephesus, which is …,Ephesus, from where those who wish skilfully to give birth to limping vers-es draw the fire of inspiration. But if something [? fires] spirit or stomach,whether archaic or…, this is woven in and [?] they speak … Ionic andDoric and a mixture. What is the limit of your recklessness? Your friendswill bind you up …’

The charge seems to be twofold. First, Callimachus has no right to at-tempt ‘Hipponactean’ choliambics because he has never even been toEphesus; taken seriously, this charge might amount to the view thatthe choliambic ‘genre’ had a well-defined context which could not sim-ply be moved wholesale to modern Alexandria. As we shall see, how-ever, Callimachus is not one to let his ‘opponents’ talk sense. Secondly,Callimachus’ poems use ‘Ionic and Doric and a mixture’. The brokenstate of the text means that it is not entirely certain that this secondcharge relates specifically to the Iambi, but this seems in fact much themost likely interpretation. If this is correct, then either Callimachus isbeing accused of mixing up Ionic and Doric poems within the same po-etry book or with mixing Ionic and Doric words in the same poem orboth; !qwa ?om in v.16 perhaps supports the second interpretation – Cal-limachus will ‘stick in’ a word, without regard to its obsolescence. Nev-ertheless, the first two alternatives are by no means quite distinct. Iambi1–13 are in fact divided into poems written in Ionic (1–5, 8, 10, 12,13) and in Doric (6,7,3 9, 11), and are moreover rather traditional in

3 The ‘Aeolic’ tinges in this poem hardly qualify it as ‘mixed’ (pace, e. g., Dawson[1950] 132); such tinges are a familiar feature of Hellenistic literary Doric, and

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their linkage of particular metrical ‘genres’ with particular dialects;4

what is ‘new’ is the grouping of Doric poems under the quintessentiallyIonic heading of iambos. In fact, however, we ought not to take the crit-ic’s charge too seriously. ‘Ionic’ and ‘Doric’ are chosen not merely as thetwo literary dialects in which the Iambi are actually written, but also asthe two most prominent poetic languages, between them accounting foralmost all of the tradition of high poetry, except for Sappho and Al-caeus; they are constructed as ‘opposites’, thus allowing a middle term(the ‘mixed’) to complete the verse. This pattern – ‘A or the oppositeof A or something in the middle’ – is common and probably semi-prov-erbial,5 and its very familiarity allows us to sense that the critic’s outbursthas few roots in reality: we will not need to be told who really is in needof tying up (v. 19). If the point is that some poems use both Ionic andDoric words or forms, or even ‘mixed’ forms, as for example do theIdylls of Theocritus, then ‘mixed’ may, on the surface, be an accuratedescription, but it ignores familiar facts of linguistic practice. Althoughour knowledge of third-century thinking about dialect is scanty indeed,it seems clear that individual poets would have been assigned to one di-alect (Ionic, Doric, Aeolic); that poets used words or forms drawn frommore than one dialect was well known and considered perfectly normal,but this did not alter the basic linguistic category in which a poet wasclassified.6 The use of, say, Aeolic forms in a Doric context did not ren-der the poem linguistically ‘mixed’, except in a rather banal sense; if thisis what ‘the critic’ means, then the ignorance of the utterance condemnsitself.

The link between the two charges is that of ‘authenticity’. Howevervaried Hipponax’s poems actually were, they were all the product of aparticular social context and were all written in Ionic. This seems to bewhat the Diegesis means when it tells us that Callimachus replied to thecharge that he wrote ‘poems of many different kinds’ (pokueide_ai …poigl\tym); the charge is not that, during his life, he wrote in many‘genres’, but that the iambi are polymorphous.7 The variety (pokueide_a)

may, as D’Alessio notes, have a particular resonance in a poem connected withAeolic Ainos.

4 Cf. Fantuzzi ( 1993) 47–8.5 Cf. Hunter on Eubulus fr. 7.1 (= 6.1 K-A).6 Cf. A. C. Cassio, ‘Parlate locali, dialetti delle stirpi e fonte letterarie nei gram-

matici greci’, in Dialectologica Graeca (1993) 73–90, esp. 77–8.7 Cf. Clayman (1980) 48–51, Gutzwiller (1996) 131–2, with further bibliogra-

phy.

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 313

of these poems may have been an attempt to produce a literary versionof Hipponax’s own rich variety, but it was not ‘authentic’. As with the‘Reply to the Telchines’, however, Callimachus has placed in themouth of his ‘critics’ features of his poetry which he wishes to advertise:the recreation of archaic poetic forms should not be, as his ‘critics’ aremade to suggest, the search for a ‘historical authenticity’ in which theresulting poems, written in conditions as near as possible to those ofthe original (i. e. by going to Ephesus to ‘give birth to lame verses’),8

would be fit for nothing other than a museum (as opposed to the Mu-seum), but rather a flexible frame in which the various resources of theliterary heritage could be used to produce a living poetry. The genres,whether defined by metre or subject, are not to be invoked to precludeimaginative composition. It is the genres, not the poems, which are thesecondary and subordinate ‘invention’; whereas the genres are merelythe result of scholarly convenience, poetry is the gift of Apollo andthe Muses (cf. Iamb. 13.1). The argument has clear points of contactwith the ‘Reply to the Telchines’. There Callimachus invokes Apollo’sblessing for a poetics which does not respect ‘tradition’ as narrowly un-derstood: however we wish to interpret 4m %eisla digmej]r, it will des-ignate, presumably with a good splash of Callimachean sarcasm, a liter-ary style sanctioned by time-honoured practice. In the ‘Reply’, the oldage which crushes the poet is, at one level, that consciousness of this tra-ditional practice which threatens to hem his every move with qualifica-tion, deferral and doubt. On the other hand, the poet allows the Tel-chines to figure him as a child, because it is children who are free of lit-erary and moral responsibility; when they tell Callimachus ‘to grow up’,what they mean is that he should adopt a poetics sanctioned by time andarchaic practice, together with the moral seriousness that attends it.‘Aged’ Callimachus, however, rejects both the poetics and the gravitasin favour of the ‘play’ of a child. So too, in Iambus 13 the critics demanda reproduction of the original performative context, a ‘going to Ephe-sus’, although poetry, as properly understood, is now possible only by afrank exploitation of the absence of that context.9

8 The repeated phrase is tinged with sarcasm; Pfeiffer connects it with the Am-azons who deliberately maimed their male children and who were associatedwith Ephesus. I suggest that part at least of the resonance is again proverbial,cf. Archilochus’ bitter use of the proverb B j}ym spe}dousa tuvk± t_jtei inthe ‘Cologne Epode’ (SLG 478.39–41).

9 Cf. Depew (1992) 327–8, ‘The challenge to the contemporary poet, who …cannot possess the culture-specific authority to compose in traditional genres, is

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Callimachus’ direct answer to ‘the critics’ is preserved in part:

t_r eWpem aut. [….]k. e. .q.]s» pemt\letqa sumt_hei, s» d. ’ B. [q_io]m,s» d³ tqacyide.[ ?m] 1j he_m 1jkgq~sy ;doj]y l³m oqde_r jtk.

(fr. 203.30–3)

Who said … ‘You compose pentameters, and you hexameters, and yourdivinely allotted field is tragedy’? No one, I think…

As we would indeed expect, this does not really meet the charge; Cal-limachus’ answer is part tease, part history lesson. Such a strategy of ob-liquity is in keeping with the informal argumentative style of iambos, andmay be directly compared, for example, with the teasing evasions ofHorace’s Musa pedestris, when charged with moral levity (Sat. 1.4.33–65). As to the answer itself, it is true that the phenomenon of poets writ-ing in many different ‘genres’ was much more common in the latefourth and third centuries than in earlier periods: Timon of Phlius is re-ported to have written ‘epic poems, 60 tragedies, satyr plays, 30 come-dies, silloi and cinaedic verses, “when he took time off from philoso-phy”’ (Diog. Laert. 9.110). Nevertheless, not even the most obtuseand archaizing ‘literary critic’ would have been surprised by the notionthat the same poet could write elegiacs and hexameters; thus, antiquitybelieved that Homer wrote in more than one metre (cf. the Margites),and Sophocles wrote elegiacs.10 Callimachus has, of course, chosen histerms with care: ‘pentameters’ and ‘the heroic verse’ are much less ge-nerically exclusive than the following ‘tragedy’, and therefore preparethe way for it. The argument thus moves from the less to the more sur-prising claim, for the mention of tragedy evokes its ‘opposite’, comedy,and the absolute distinction between writers of these two forms, madefamous by the Platonic Socrates at the end of the Symposium, seems only

to possess sufficient t]wmg to recreate, self-consciously and fictionally, the con-ditions for their utterance … In these circumstances, why shouldn’t anyonewho is sufficiently learned and skilled in representing the occasion-bound con-ditions of historicized genres be able to compose in any genre whatsoever?’.

10 Thus this passage of Callimachus should not be used to exaggerate ‘the strengthand pervasiveness of the doctrine of <generic> fixity and its combination withthe principle of metrical classification’ (D. M. Halperin, Before pastoral: Theocri-tus and the ancient tradition of bucolic poetry (1983) 202), though the importance ofsuch a ‘doctrine’ as part of the intellectual context of Iambus 13 cannot bedoubted.

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 315

to have been somewhat weakened, never completely eradicated, in theHellenistic period. That poets can (and did) write in different metres and‘genres’ is, however, not an adequate answer to a charge of groupingtogether as ‘Hipponactean’ poems whose form was entirely non-Hippo-nactean. It may be, of course, that the broken state of the text causes usto lose the argument and that vv.30 ff. are not in fact part of the responseto vv. 11–19; moreover, these verses avoid the matter of dialect entire-ly, and this too may have been pursued in the lost conclusion of thepoem, although we will hardly expect the ‘iambic’ Callimachus to beconcerned to produce a point-by-point rebuttal. Despite these uncer-tainties, an alternative, and perhaps more ‘Callimachean’ solution, pres-ents itself.

The Diegesis reports that in Iambus 13 Callimachus replied to thosewho criticized his polyeideia by claiming to imitate ‘Ion the tragic poet’;another ancient source (S Ar. Peace 835) tells us that Callimachus saidthat Ion wrote ‘many things’. Ion of Chios (second half of the fifth cen-tury) was indeed a very versatile writer; he is known, for example, tohave written tragedies, elegies and lyric poems, as well as prose worksof both a historical and a philosophical bent.11 It may be that the verybroken vv. 43–9 preserve some of Callimachus’ reference to him.Ion would certainly serve as a counter-example to the proposition ofvv. 30–2, but he would seem to contribute nothing to the questionof the form of the book of Iambi. As for dialect, Ion wrote Ionicprose, but he will naturally have composed his poetic works in the dia-lect appropriate to each genre; we cannot say whether Ion was also ad-duced by Callimachus in the matter of poetic language. Nevertheless, itmight be thought strange that Callimachus would align himself with afigure who, however prolific and however much he seems to us (andseemed to Callimachus?) to be a Hellenistic man ‘before his time’, cer-tainly belonged to the second rank of classical literature; as an answer tohis ‘critics’, the example of Ion is unlikely to have done Callimachusmuch good.12 It was, rather, the great figures of the past, such as Hesiod

11 Cf. K. J. Dover, ‘Ion of Chios: his place in the history of Greek literature’ in J.Boardman and C.E. Vaphopoulou-Richardson (eds.), Chios, A conference at theHomereion in Chios 1984 (1986) 27–37; A. von Blumenthal, Ion von Chios. DieReste seiner Werke (1939). Baton of Sinope wrote a monograph on Ion in thesecond half of the third century.

12 This is not to say that Ion was not a respected figure (cf. Dawson [1950] 131),merely that he was not in the top league, and it is in that league where Calli-machus usually plays. It is to be noted that ‘Longinus’ makes Ion his example of

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and Hipponax himself, to whom the poets of the third century con-stantly made appeal. It may be, of course, that Callimachus’ point wasthat a man of Chios could write in various genres which had particularlocal associations (e. g. tragedy with Athens), without having to spendtime in those places, thus meeting the charge about ‘never havingbeen to Ephesus’, but that must remain guesswork. A rather differentguess, however, suggests another answer.

To the charge of never having ‘mingled with the Ionians’ Callima-chus replies with the example of Ion of Chios, a man who shared aname with the eponym of the Ionians. It is at least curious that the bio-graphical tradition records that Ion of Chios was ‘the son of Ortho-menes, but called son of Xouthos [the putative father of Ion, the epon-ymous hero of the Ionians]’;13 what precisely lies behind this curious tra-dition is unclear (a comic joke?), but it perhaps suggests that part of Cal-limachus’ suitably joking (i. e. iambic) answer to his ‘critic’ was anequivocation between the two Ions. What, he may have suggested,was good enough for ‘the founder of the Ionians’ was good enoughfor him. Some colour may be lent to this suggestion by the well-known fact that vv. 30–2 seem to rework a passage of Plato’s Ion inwhich Socrates is arguing that poets do not compose ‘by techne’ butby divine inspiration:

‘Because poets do not compose by techne and it is not by techne that they cansay so many wonderful things about matters, as you can about Homer, butrather by a divine apportionment, each one can only compose well that to-wards which the Muse has directed him; so one man writes dithyrambs,another encomia, another hyporchemata, another hexameters, anotheriambics, and each of them is no good in the other kinds. This is becausethey are not speaking by techne but by a divine force, since, if through technethey knew how to speak well about one thing, they would be able to do soalso about everything else …’ (Pl. Ion 534b7-c7)

Socrates’ argument is, of course, deliberately tendentious in its elision ofthe difference between poets and rhapsodes, but its falsity to known ‘lit-erary history’ recalls Iambus 13; one need only look to Pindar to find acounter-example to Socrates’ allegation. The immediately preceding

a ‘flawless’ but non-sublime tragedian, like Apollonius in epic and Bacchylidesin lyric (De subl. 33.5), and it would not be unfair to see these writers as ‘Cal-limachean’ in ‘Longinus’ academic scheme (cf. Ovid, Am. 1.15.14 on Callima-chus, quamuis ingenio non ualet, arte valet); Callimachus’ championing of him inIambus 13 may have helped mould this later tradition, but it in turn cannot helpus to understand Iambus 13.

13 Harpocration s.v. Ion, Suda i 487.

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 317

passage of the Ion (‘for the poet is a light and winged and holy thing …’)is evoked in the ‘Reply to the Telchines’, which is one further featurethat these two ‘programme’ poems share.14 A Socratic ‘persona’ for Cal-limachus, and particularly one marked by irony and tendentious argu-ment, would, as we shall see, find its parallel in Iambus 1. Be that as itmay, it is perhaps not very surprising that the later scholarly tradition oc-casionally had trouble in keeping Plato’s Ion and Ion of Chios sepa-rate,15 but we must at least consider the possibility that Callimachushas somehow run three different Ions together – the eponym of theIonians, Ion of Chios and the Platonic character (evoked by the echoof Plato’s work). This would give particular point to the repetition(v. 64) of ‘mixing with the Ionians [the Ions ?]’ at the conclusion ofa poem which can only have left any real ‘critics’ spluttering. Callima-chus, however, has important patrons. The poem begins with the Musesand Apollo, and concludes with a rite conducted at the site of Apollo’sbirth at Delos. Apollo was the father of the legendary Ion and founderand protector of Cyrene, Callimachus’ home city, just as Ephesus wasnot merely the home of Hipponax, but also site of the most famouscult of Apollo’s sister, Artemis (cf. h. 3.237–58). ‘Ionic’ [i.e. Callima-chean] poetry thus has their special favour.

It may be relevant that at the conclusion of the programmatic eighthmimiambos Herodas seems to establish himself as taking second placeafter Hipponax in singing choliambic verses ‘to the descendants of Xou-thos [i.e. the Ionians]’; that poem too evokes the disputes of Alexandri-an scholars, and many critics have wanted to see a direct link between itand Callimachus’ first and/or thirteenth iambus. Be that as it may, it maybe worth entertaining the possibility that material in Hipponax about‘the father of Ion/the Ionians’ has given rise both to Herodas’ prouddeclaration and to Callimachus’ rather more provocative claims. Atthis point, however, speculation has certainly gone too far.

II.

If part of our difficulty in appreciating Iambus 13, apart from the wretch-ed state of the text, is the problem of tone and irony, then this is merelya striking illustration of the fact that such problems of voice were clearly

14 Cf. Hunter (1989).15 Cf. Ion, Test. 3 and 4 von Blumenthal.

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central to the whole book of Iambi. In the first poem the voice itself hasa name, but the position from which it speaks is at first a puzzle.16

Hipponax returns from the dead and gathers ‘the philologoi’ (or per-haps ‘philosophoi’) together to listen to a tale.17 He claims that he comes‘carrying an iambos which does not sing of the battle with Boupalos’ (thesculptor who, so later sources explain, committed suicide because of theferocity of Hipponax’s poetic attacks upon him). The phrasing and en-jambment, v]qym Ualbom oq l\wgm !e_domta j tµm Boup\keiom, is a clearprovocation: the iambos is carried like a spear,18 but Callimachus/Hip-ponax is not ‘looking for a fight’, or rather not a fight with Boupalos,thus leaving the poet free to fight with anyone else. As an opening toa book of iambic poems, however, ‘Hipponax’s’ words seem to denotethat Callimachus will offer us a poetic world which, though familiar, isprofoundly changed, and part of our task as readers will be to measurethe extent of that change and what it means.19

The tale which ‘Hipponax’ tells is a version of a famous story aboutthe Seven Sages20: on his death bed, Bathycles of Arcadia told one of hissons to give a fine gold cup which he owned to the best of the Seven

16 Iambus 1 has a large (and ever increasing) bibliography; Vox (1995) lists many ofthe most recent studies, and cf. A.-T. Cozzoli, ‘Il I Giambo e il nuovo Qalb_feim

di Callimaco’, Eikasmos 7 (1996) 129–47. I have not thought it necessary tocatalogue my every agreement and disagreement with this literature.

17 For the alternate readings in the papyrus cf. Pfeiffer I 163. Bing (1988) 66 seesthe scholars’ excitement as the result of scholarly interest in the return of a fa-mous poet. Perhaps, but it is not unlikely that Hipponax offered some bribe,whether material or intellectual (e. g. the answer to a famous puzzle) in thelost vv. 12–15. A joke at ‘scholarly high-mindedness’ would fit well in apoem with such clear affinities with comedy. On the vexed question of wheth-er v. 1 is a citation from Hipponax himself cf. now Cavarzere (1996) 58–64.

18 I have wondered whether Callimachus wishes to evoke an ‘etymological’ con-nection between Ualbor and Q\pteim (cf. Hipponax, Test. 21d Degani) ratherthan the more familiar link with b\kkeim. Cf. , perhaps, the use of mittere in Ca-tullus 116.

19 These issues have obvious importance for the whole idea of what constitutes agenre, in which ideas of similarity and difference are bound to play a centralrole, cf. the discussion of this aspect of Iambus 1 by D. Konstan, ‘The dynamicsof imitation: Callimachus’ first iambic’ in M. A. Harder et al. (eds.), Genre inHellenistic poetry (Hellenistica Groningana III, Groningen 1998) 133–42. E. A.Schmidt, Notwehrdichtung. Modern Jambik von Ch�nier bis Borchardt (1990)123–30, offers a Callimachus who really means what he appears to say.

20 Cf. Diog. Laert. 1.27–9 for some of the various versions. The story also ap-peared in the contemporary choliambs of Phoenix (fr. 4 Powell, cf. Cameron[1995] 173).

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 319

Sages. His son travelled to Miletus and offered the cup to Thales, butThales refused and told the young man to give it to Bias of Priene;in this way the cup passed around all seven until it returned to Thalesfor a second time. Thales then dedicated the cup to Apollo. Both theend of the poem and of the Diegesis are very broken, but it wouldseem that ‘Hipponax’ drew the (very un-Hipponactean) moral thatthe philologoi should adopt a similarly non-contentious spirit towardseach other. As so often in Greek literature, then, a story from the Un-derworld is going to be (apparently) a moral tale about how we shouldlive our lives. Callimachus’ principal source is said by Diogenes Laertiusto have been Leandrios (or Maiandrios) of Miletus (Diog. Laert. 1.28 =FGrHist492 F18), but the story may at least have been mentioned inHipponax’s own poetry. Fr. 63 West, in choliambs, would certainlyfit a version of the story of the Sages:

ja· L}sym, dm ªp|kkym

!me ?pem !mdq_m syvqom]statom p\mtym

and Myson, whom Apollo declared the most sophron of all men.

If this fragment does refer to the ‘Sages and the trophy’ story, then Cal-limachus’ Hipponax offers a different version of the story from that ofthe real Hipponax. Such a technique would be eminently Callimachean– we may compare how in the Aitia the ‘Hesiodic’ Callimachus provid-ed a different genealogy for the Graces from that of Hesiod himself 21 –but it would also foreground issues of similarity and difference, whichare to be so important in the poem.22

The story of Bathycles’ cup is a story of competition, both of com-peting Sages and competing versions, here told to a fiercely competitivegroup of ‘scholars’.23 Above all, it is a story of competing ‘wisdoms’;Bathycles’ son is to give the cup ‘to the best of the seven sophoi’ (Diegesis6.9–10, p. 163 Pfeiffer).24 Whereas the scholars are currently exhibiting

21 Schol. Flor. 31–2 (= Pfeiffer I 13, Massimilla [1996] 76), Hes. Theog. 907–9.22 For a sceptical survey of the arguments about Hipponax’s telling of the Sages’

story cf. E. Degani, Studi su Ipponatte (1984) 46–7.23 Cf. A. Barchiesi. ‘Palingenre. Death, rebirth and Horatian iambos’, in M. Pa-

schalis (ed.), Horace and Greek Lyric Poetry (Rethymnon 2002) 47–69; Barchi-esi’s discussion, parts of which are summarized by Cavarzere (1996) 59–61,moves in a different but related direction to mine.

24 This perhaps adds colour to the original vikos|vour rather than vikok|cour ofthe Diegesis.

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phthonos (Diegesis 6.5), the Sages appear to act entirely without that(self-)destructive force, and Thales’ act in dedicating the cup to Apolloseems to mark the god’s approval of the Sages’ attitude. This complex ofideas — the judgement of sophia, the presence of phthonos, and the ap-proval of Apollo — can hardly fail to call to mind other famous Calli-machean ‘programmes’, notably the ‘Reply to the Telchines’ (fr. 1) andthe conclusion of the Hymn to Apollo.25 Whereas the ‘Reply’ evoked afamous contest of sophia in the Underworld, the agon of Aristophanes’Frogs, to provide a humorous structure for Callimachus’ opposition oftwo literary styles, Iambus 1 brings Hipponax back from the dead — it-self a motif with strong comic resonance (cf. below) — to condemn thewhole competitive business through the telling of a tale about anothercompetition in sophia. Both the ‘Reply’ and the Hymn, however, sug-gest that it would be incautious to assume that the Diegesis provides anadequate account of the poem.

In ‘Hipponax’s’ narrative the cup functions like the ‘apple of dis-cord’ at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, but whereas the three beau-tiful goddesses proceeded to an ultimately destructive strife over whowas ‘the most beautiful’, the Seven Sages reveal their wisdom preciselyby refusing to claim the prize: the pursuit of vainglorious distinction isthe opposite of true wisdom. This standard interpretation of the poempays, however, too little attention to the particular mode of speechwhich the Sages use. Unfortunately, in what survives of the poem itis only Thales who speaks — and he indeed may have been the onlySage to use direct speech in the poem — but the large body of anecdoteabout the Sages, particularly Thales,26 shows them using a half-ironicand half-riddling mode in which the deep truth of what they say isfor the listener to work out.27 The closest comparison here is with Soc-rates, who professed ignorance, but whose professions were notoriouslyregarded as ‘ironic’; moreover, the Platonic Socrates is constantly en-couraging his interlocutors, particularly young men, to study with oth-

25 Cf. Cameron (1995) 145–6, who, however, considers only the relation withfr. 1. Cameron seems correct in rejecting the suggestion of D. L. Clayman,ZPE 74 (1988) 280, that the appearance of Hipponax is to be read as a kindof ‘parody’ of the ‘Somnium’ from the Aitia.

26 Cf. Diog. Laert. 1.35–7. For some interesting remarks on the ‘agonistic’ modeof the Sages, cf. R. P. Martin, ‘The seven sages as performers of wisdom’, in C.Dougherty and L. Kurke, Cultural Poetics in archaic Greece (1993) 108–28,esp. 120 on the cup of Bathycles.

27 There is a good example in Pittakos’ pithy advice in Callimachus, Epigram 1.

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 321

ers, usually the sophists, for these were (doubtless) the ‘truly wise’. Sotoo, the story of Bathycles’ cup is clearly an educative story for hisson: it is the young man, as well as we ourselves, who is to interpretand therefore learn from the Sages’ behaviour. One story about Socratesseems to have particular relevance here.

In Plato’s Apology Socrates tells the jurors how Chairephon askedthe Delphic oracle whether anyone was wiser than Socrates and the ora-cle answered that no one was wiser (Apol. 21a). After many fruitless at-tempts to understand and disprove the oracle, Socrates concludes thatApollo must have meant that human wisdom is worthless, that Socrates’wisdom lies precisely in his knowledge of his own ignorance, and thatgod alone is wise (Apol. 23a-b). Just so does Thales, after receiving thecup for the second time, dedicate it to Apollo. Socrates’ story, which isexplicitly placed under the sign of spoudaiogeloion (Apol. 20d 4–5), couldeasily be misunderstood — the jurors’ react with h|qubor — and socould that of the Seven Sages. Whether or not the philologoi understoodwhat was being said to them must remain a matter of conjecture; thepicture of their malicious disputes which seems to emerge from thevery broken vv. 78 ff perhaps suggests that Hipponax’s story did indeedact more like an ‘apple of discord’ than a bringer of harmony: after all,its interpretation gave the scholars one more thing to quarrel about, and‘Hipponax’ was no longer there to be questioned. In apparently plead-ing for peaceful coexistence, Callimachus/Hipponax has in fact assertedhis claim to primacy by borrowing the ironic mode of the traditions ofThales and Socrates. Passing round the cup is a test which few knowhow to pass: to claim the prize, to proclaim oneself worthy, is a nowout-dated form of self-advertisement, one more associated with, say,the assertions of an Old Comedy parabasis than with the nuanced ironiesof the Callimachean mode. To refuse to claim the prize is thus always astrategy, a moment of deferral rather than defeat, which is not to beconfused with an indifference to kleos. When Thales dedicates thecup, he proclaims that he had received this !qist/iom ‘twice’(vv. 76–7); as the memory of Bathycles’ act fades, Thales leaves futuregenerations a memorial of his own greatness, to interpret as they will.

Comedy, in fact, is never far away in Iambus 1. In charting a transi-tion from an iambic mode of open aggression to a more understated,ironic mode, Callimachus would have found a parallel in the perceivedhistory of Attic comedy, which too was often represented as havingmoved from an ‘iambic’ mode of unlimited licence and mockery to

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception322

one which relied rather upon rp|moia and indirectness.28 Attic comedythus clearly had an important influence upon Iambus 1. The raucousopening, the banter with the listeners, the appeal for silence29 and thepromise of brevity are all reminiscent of the joking style of the Aristo-phanic or Plautine prologus, as well perhaps as of the famous fragment ofSousarion, traditionally the protos heuretes of comedy (PCG VII 664);Pfeiffer noted both the debt to comedy and the paratragic motif of re-turn from the dead in the opening verses, and we may also compare therushing crowd of scholars to the entry of an Aristophanic chorus.30 Sotoo the description of Pythagoras and his luckless followers(vv. 59–63) is in spirit very like much of Aristophanes’ Clouds.31 Thisevocation of comedy is used to suggest a broad analogy for the changesin iambic style which Iambus 1 has in part offered. It is noteworthy thatHorace also, when he came in Sat. 1.4 to plot the space of his Satiresagainst the Lucilian tradition, evoked analogous developments in thehistory of comedy;32 it seems very likely that it was Callimachus’ firstIambus which showed him the way here.33 Moreover, Callimachushas written the ‘generic history’ of his own iambi, by tracing a descentfrom Hipponax to Attic comedy and on to his own poetry. As such, this

28 Cf. esp. Arist. Poetics 1449a-b, and the various treatises gathered in Koster’s ed-ition of the comic prolegomena. There are many problems in the interpretationof the Aristotelian material, but it is, I hope, uncontroversial that there was atlast one strand of criticism which saw the matter in terms of ‘development’,rather than simply in the existence of two parallel types of comedy.

29 For other aspects of this appeal cf. Falivene (1993) 921–4.30 Cf. R. Kassel, RhM 101 (1958) 236 (= Kleine Schriften (Berlin/New York

1991) 398), Vox (1995) 276–7.31 On this passage cf. H. Lloyd-Jones, CR 17 (1967) 125–7 (= Academic Papers II

[1990] 128–30).32 Cf. Hermes 113 (1985) 486–90.33 Sat. 1.4.34 seems to echo v. 79 of the iambus, and Horace establishes himself at

the beginning of the poem as a ‘Callimachus’ in his criticism of Lucilius’‘muddy flow’; so too, those against whom Horace warns are (inter alia) vhome-qo_, cf. vv. 81–5, 100–3. The aerugo mera of Sat. 1.4. 101 seems to pick up theGreek Q|r used of both ‘poison’ and ‘rust’; Kiesling-Heinze cite Antisthenesfr. 82 Caizzi (apud Diog. Laert. 6.5) ‘as iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious(to»r vhomeqo}r) are eaten away by their own character’. Was Horace thinkingof an etymology of Ualbor from Q¹m b\feim (S Hephaistion 215.1, 281.7 Con-sbruch; Hipponax, Test. 17a Degani)? The musa pedestris of the Satires is alsocentral to the (ironical) claim in 1.4 that the sermones are not poetry; hereagain Callimachus’ pef¹r m|lor may have been decisive.

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 323

programmatic poem shares in the constant concern of Hellenistic poetryto construct its own literary history.34

We do not, of course, have to take Callimachus/Hipponax’s protes-tations at face value; literary history is partly created within Hellenisticpoetry in order to prove inadequate to explain the poems themselves.Here too the strategies of Iambus 1 and Iambus 13 (and Aitia fr. 1) aresignificantly similar: neat generic schematizations are the playthings ofsilly critics, not real poets. The juxtaposition of the querulous andrude Hipponax to the uplifting tale about Bathycles’ cup itself offers dif-ferent ‘voices’ and holds out hopes that we are to hear both of theseagain; neither is cancelled out, and both are in fact authorized as ‘thevoice of the poet’. The plea for non-contention appeals to a comic stressupon reconciliation and solidarity,35 but its effect may have been that ofthe divisive iambos. The promise not to sing ‘the battle with Boupalos’leaves, as we have noted, other targets open, and there do indeed appearto have been such targets in subsequent poems. At one level, then, Iam-bus 1 does hold out the prospect of moving from an ‘iambic’ mode ofattack against real and named persons to a ‘comic’ mode of more gen-eralized satire (cf. Arist. Poetics 1451b 11–15) — this too is a hint uponwhich Horace elaborated in Satires 1.4 — but it makes no promises.36

Bibliography

P. Bing, The well-read muse. Present and past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic poets(Göttingen 1988).

A. Cameron, Callimachus and his critics (Princeton 1995).A. Cavarzere, Sul limitare. Il <motto> e la poesia di Orazio (Bologna 1996).D.L. Clayman, Callimachus’ Iambi (Leiden 1980).G.B. D’Alessio, Callimaco (Milan 1996).C.M. Dawson, ‘The Iambi of Callimachus. A Hellenistic poet’s experimental

laboratory’, Yale Classical Studies 11 (1950) 1–168.

34 I have discussed various aspects of this phenomenon in ‘Before and after epic:Theocritus (?), Idyll 25’ in M.A. Harder et al. (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic poetry(Hellenistica Groningana III, Groningen 1998) 115–32 [= this volume290–310].

35 For this is a feature of comedy cf. S Eur. Or. 1691, Hunter (1983) 27 n. 1.36 I am grateful to Alessandro Barchiesi, Philip Hardie and a seminar audience at

Royal Holloway for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception324

M. Depew, ‘Qalbe ?om jake ?tai mOm : genre, occasion, and imitation in Callima-chus, frr. 191 and 203Pf.’, Transactions of the American Philological Association122 (1992) 313–30.

M.R. Falivene, ‘Callimaco serio-comico: il primo Giambo (fr. 191Pf.)’, in Tra-dizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’ et� ellenistica. Scritti inonore di Bruno Gentili III (Rome 1993) 911–25.

K. Gutzwiller, ‘The evidence for Theocritean poetry books’, in M.A. Harder,R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Hellenistica Groningana II,Groningen 1996) 119–46.

R.L. Hunter, Eubulus. The fragments (Cambridge 1983).— ‘Winged Callimachus’, Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 76 (1989)1–2

[= this volume 86–8].— ‘The presentation of Herodas’ mimiamboi’, Antichthon 27 (1993) 31–44 [=

this volume 189–205].G. Massimilla, Callimaco. Aitia, libri primo e secundo (Pisa 1996).O. Vox, ‘Sul Giambo I di Callimaco’, Rudiae 7 (1995) 275–87.

Addenda

Study of the Iambi has been importantly advanced by A. Kerkhecker, Callima-chus’ Book of Iambi (Oxford 1999) and B. Acosta-Hughes, Polyeideia (Berkeley2002). That frr. 226–9 Pf. belong to the book of Iambi (cf. n. 1 of the presentarticle) has been argued again very strongly by E. Lelli, Callimaco. Giambi XIV-XVII (Rome 2005).Ion of Chios is (rightly) enjoying more attention than for a very long time, cf.V. Jennings and A. Katsaros (eds.), The World of Ion of Chios (Leiden 2007).

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 325

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus*

Simonides 22 W2 intrigues and tantalizes. Peter Parsons, to whom weowe this combination of POxy 2327 and 3965,1 tentatively interpretedboth the journey described in the wretched tatters of the first verses andthe “party” that occupies the main bulk of the fragment as a fantasy,perhaps of rejuvenation in the next life: “The extreme view wouldbe this: The aged Simonides longs to escape (now, or after death), car-rying his poetry, across the sea to the place of many trees, the Island ofthe Blest (Elysium), there to meet again the dead Echecratidas in all hisdesirable youth; they will join in the symposium; the wrinkled Simo-nides too will recover his youth”.2 In a full and careful discussion ofthe fragment, Sarah Mace argues that the journey was not a post-mor-tem fantasy, but a Utopian one—the aging poet desires to consort with ahandsome boy on a make-believe island from where, as in all Utopias,old age is banished.3 On her view, the poem is an encomium of a youngpatron, or a patron’s son, and the Utopian eroticism makes it clear thatin the real world the poet is not in fact a potential suitor (he is far too old);for such erotic encomium Mace helpfully compares Pindar’s famousverses on the melting beauty of Theoxenos (fr. 123 Maehler). More re-cently, Dimitrios Yatromanolakis has seen in the fragments a female la-ment for Echecratidas or his son.4

* D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds.), The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and De-sire (Oxford) 242–54The title of this essay alludes in part to a memorable modern use of the idea that“human generations are as leaves,” in Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Spring andFall.”

1 Parsons 1992: 46–47.2 Parsons 1992: 49. In Hunter 1993 I proposed a different reconstruction on the

basis of similarities with the propemptikon for Ageanax sung by “Lykidas” inTheocritus 7. For the sake of simplicity, I shall here adopt the broad outlinesof the Parsons-Mace reconstruction, though the question of the relation ofthe poetic voice to the journey of the opening verses has not gone away;that Theocritus 7 echoes Simonides still seems to me probable, on any recon-struction of the latter.

3 Mace 2001.4 Yatromanolakis 2001.

The relation between 22 W2 and the other elegiac remains has alsoevoked some interest. Potentially the most fruitful suggestion, noted byboth Dirk Obbink and David Sider, is that some or all of the “leaves”and “erotic” fragments (19–22 W2) in fact belong to the Plataea poem,perhaps as a personal sphragis to an otherwise “public” poem. In Ob-bink’s words, “As in fr. 11 W2 [i.e., the main Plataea fragment], thepoet … lays claim to his unique authorship of the poem, and securesit against tampering and rhapsodic expansion at the end, by means ofa ranked comparison with Homer”.5 If something along these lines iscorrect, then it is likely that the immortal kleos of the heroes of the Tro-jan War and of the Plataean campaign stood in some kind of contrast tothe aging body of the poet. Simonides was one of the conventional mak-robioi of antiquity, “[poets] who lived to a ripe old age”,6 and it is indeedthemes of immortality and aging that are the most striking shared ele-ment running through these fragments; this, rather than the relation be-tween these fragments and the Plataea poem, is the thread which I wishto pursue here.

In the sphragis that closes his Persai probably composed towards theend of the fifth century, Timotheus of Miletus claims to have been theobject of momos, “blame,” from the young rulers of Sparta on thegrounds that he “dishonors the older Muse with new songs”:

!kk’ § wquseoj_haqim !]-nym loOsam meoteuw/,1lo ?r 5kh’ 1p_jouqor vl-moir. Q^ie Pai\m . 05b c\q l’ eqcem]tar lajqa_-ym Sp\qtar l]car "cel½mbq}ym %mhesim Fbardome ? ka¹r 1pivk]cym1k÷i t’ aUhopi l~lyi, 10fti pakaiot]qam m]oir

vlmoir loOsam !til_ .

1c½ d’ oute m]om tim’ ou-te ceqa¹m out’ Qs^bameUqcy t_md’ 1j±r vlmym . 15to»r d³ lousopakaiok}-lar, to}tour d’ !peq}jy,

5 Obbink 2001: 82.6 The standard list includes Homer, Hesiod, Anacreon, Simonides, Sophocles,

and Stesichorus, cf. Cic. De sen. 22–23, Val. Max. 9.12.8, Lucian, Macrob. 26.Simonides celebrates the fact that he is eighty years old in an epigram (28 FGE).

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 327

kybgt/qar !oid÷m.jgq}jym kiculajqov~-mym te_momtar Quc\r. 20pq_tor poijik|lousor iq-ve»r w]kum 1t]jmysemuR¹r Jakki|par <

> Pieq_ahem·T]qpamdqor d’ 1p· t_i d]ja 25feOne loOsam 1m ¡ida ?r .

K]sbor d’ AQok_a mim )m-t_ssai ce_mato jkeim|m

.

mOm d³ Til|heor l]tqoirNuhlo ?r t’ 2mdejajqoul\toir 30j_haqim 1namat]kkei,hgsauq¹m pok}ulmom oU-nar Lous÷m hakaleut|m.

You who foster the new-fashioned muse of the golden cithara, come, heal-er Paian, as helper to my songs; for Sparta’s great leader, well-born, long-lived, the populace riotous with the flowers of youth, buffets me, blazinghostility, and hounds me with fiery censure on the grounds that I dishonorthe older muse with my new songs; but I keep neither young man nor oldman nor those in their prime away from these songs of mine; it is the cor-rupters of the old muse that I fend off, debauchers of songs, uttering theloud shrieks of shrill far-calling criers. Orpheus, Calliope’s son, he of theintricate muse, was the first to beget the tortoise-shell lyre in Pieria;after him Terpander yoked his muse in ten songs; Aeolian Lesbos borehim to give glory to Antissa; and now Timotheus brings to new life thecithara with eleven-stringed measures and rhythms, opening the Muses’chambered treasure with its abundance of song. (791.202–33 PMG,trans. Campbell [adapted])

Timotheus’ response to “criticism,” a programmatic strategy that Calli-machus was to make famous, is that no one of (Timotheus’) musicaltaste is prohibited access to his poetry (v. 215), “neither young mannor old man nor those in their prime,” and he fashions himself as theheir to the greatest lyric poets of tradition, Orpheus and Terpander,who are here brilliantly appropriated for Timotheus’ own musical proj-ect.7 Timotheus perhaps says nothing explicit about his own age in thispassage,8 but though old poets can sing “new” songs (cf. Od. 1.351—2),the equivocation with neos, both “new” and “young” (cf. 203, 211,

7 Cf. Hunter 1996:146–47.8 Qs^bam (v. 214) seems more likely to mean “in the prime of life” than “equal in

age to myself.”

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception328

213), and the rhetoric of his argument at least distance him from con-servatism; his contempt for those of different musical tastes (216–20)is reminiscent of the impatience of the trendily modern “Weaker Argu-ment” and the newly educated Pheidippides in Aristophanes’ Clouds.This relation between the age of the poet – his neotes, whether thatbe understood in purely chronological terms or in terms of the relation-ship he constructs towards poetic tradition – and the novelty of his songswas to have a long life in Greek and Roman poetry. When at the open-ing of Odes 3.1 Horace seems to echo Timotheus (215 eUqcy – arceo), hisnew songs, “carmina non prius audita,” are sung “uirginibus puerisque.”The “old” relation is put to a new use.

It is Callimachus, the “fantastically” old man who sings new songs,who most fully teases out these themes:

5kkete Basjam_gr ako¹m c]mor.awhi d³ t]wmgi

jq_mete.] lµ swo_myi Peqs_di tµm sov_gm.

lgd’ !p’ 1leO div÷te l]ca xov]ousam !oid^mt_jteshai· bqomt÷m oqj 1l|m, !kk± Di|r, 20

ja· c±q fte pq~tistom 1lo ?r 1p· d]ktom 5hgjaco}masim, )p|kkym eWpem f loi K}jior·

“…… !oid] , t¹ l³m h}or ftti p\wistomhq]xai. tµ]m LoOsam d’ ¡cah³ keptak]gm .

pq¹r d³ s³] ja· t|d’ %myca. t± lµ pat]ousim %lanai 25t± ste_beim. 2t]qym Uwmia lµ jah’ bl±

d_vqou 1k]÷m lgd’ oWlom !m± pkat}m, !kk± jeke}hour

!tq_pto]ur, eQ ja· steimot]qgm 1k\seir.”t_i pih|lg]m. 1m· to ?r c±q !e_dolem oT kic»m Gwom

t]tticor. h]|qubom d’ oqj 1v_kgsam emym. 30hgq· l³m oqat|emti pame_jekom acj^saito

%kko]r, 1c½ d’ eUgm orkaw}r. b pteq|eir,ü p\mtyr. Vma c/qar Vma dq|som Dm l³m !e_dy

pq~jiom 1j d_gr A]qor eWdaq 5dym.awhi t¹ d’ 1jd}oili, t| loi b\qor fssom 5pesti 35

tqick~wim ako_i m/sor 1p’ 9cjek\dyi.…… LoOsai c±q fsour Udom ehlati pa ?dar

lµ kon_i, pokio»r oqj !p]hemto v_kour.

Begone, you baneful race of Jealousy! hereafter <judge> poetry by art,not by the Persian chain, and do not look to me for a song loudly resound-ing. It is not mine to thunder; that belongs to Zeus. For, when I first placeda tablet on my knees, Lycian Apollo said to me: “… poet, feed the victimto be as fat as possible but, my friend, keep the Muse slender. This too I bidyou: tread a path that carriages do not trample; do not <drive your chari-ot> upon the common tracks of others, nor along a wide road, but on

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 329

<unworn> paths, though your course be more narrow.” <I obeyed>, forwe sing among those who love the clear voice of <the cicada> and not thenoise of asses. Let <others> bray just like the long-eared brute, but let mebe the dainty, the winged one. Oh yes indeed! that I may sing living ondew-drops, free sustenance from the divine air; that I may then shed oldage, which weighs upon me like the three-cornered island upon deadly En-celadus ….. for if the Muses have not looked askance at one in his child-hood, they do not cast him from their friendship when he is grey. (Calli-machus fr. 1.17—38, trans. Trypanis [adapted])9

In place of the braying ass, traditionally a very un-Apolline animal,10

Callimachus chooses for himself the model of the cicada, beloved ofthe Muses because its only concern is song (Plato, Phaedrus 259b-d).Against the heavy weight of “ass poetry” is set the fragile lightness ofthe winged cicada with its pure sound. An Aristotelian treatise onsounds classifies the song of the cicada as liguros “clear, high” and leptos“thin” (On things heard 803b19),11 and (to anticipate somewhat) we maynote that the “[song] clear and full of desire” (Rleq|emta kic}m) whichprobably belongs to the voice of the poet at v. 17 of Simonides 22W2 would well suit a “young” or rejuvenated singer. The cicada is,however, also a vulnerable creature resembling an old man,12 and onewhich can so easily be crushed by those who do not appreciate its specialbeauty. In one respect, however, Callimachus must confess to a likenessto the ass, the quintessential beast of burden. However “light” his song,the poet bears a heavy burden (b\qor),13 that of old age, which cannotbe sloughed off. It crushes him as Sicily crushes the giant who rebelledagainst Zeus, and his only consolation – although no small one – is thatthe Muses do not abandon their favorites, unlike the dawn-goddess Eos

9 I print Massimilla’s text, and have kept papyrological marks to a minimum.10 Cf. Ambühl 1995.11 Good discussion of such descriptions of sound in Asper 1997: 177 ff.12 Cf. Iliad 3.148–53, Wimmel 1960: 111 f. For a discussion of the time at which

“old age” sets in cf. Cameron 1995: 174–84.13 The opposition that is evoked here is sharpened by the fact that baq}r is the

standard term for “deep” sounds, the opposite of an}r, cf. [Arist.] , On thingsheard 803a8 LSJ s.v. baq}r III 1. The loud “thundering” (cf. Asper 1997:196–98) that Callimachus rejects (v. 20) prepares for this opposition. Callima-chus here may not merely be playing with a conventional piety (together withthe familiar assimilation of Homer to “Zeus”), but he may also have an eye onAristophanes’ Clouds, where not only does Pheidippides dismiss Aeschylus asx|vou pk]ym “full of bombast” (1366 f), but thunder is explicitly denied toZeus by the impious Socrates and the buffoonish Strepsiades (374 ff); by impli-cation, the Telchines are aligned with such tasteless creatures.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception330

who abandoned Tithonus (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 218–38). Still inold age the poet is able to write as he would wish: vv. 37 f rework fa-mous verses from the prologue of Hesiod’s Theogony (81–84) both todemonstrate the continued poetic power which is the blessing of theMuses14 and, on any reconstruction of the relationship between“Reply” and “Dream,” to prepare for the “Hesiodic” scene that is tofollow.

The poet’s wish for rejuvenation seems to have been granted in thathe proceeded to dream that he really was young again15 and was trans-ported to meet the Muses on Helicon. Callimachus here replays Hesio-dic experience in two related ways. Although in the proem to the The-ogony Hesiod himself gives no indication of how old he was when con-fronted on the mountainside by the Muses, it is a reasonable guess thatthe Hellenistic age constructed Hesiod’s encounter with the Muses as anexperience of his youth—the boy sent out “once upon a time”(Theog. 22) to look after the lambs16 – as also were the correspondingencounter between the Muses and the young Archilochus17 and theyoung Aeschylus’ dream of Dionysus.18 The Hesiodic text itself encour-ages such a construction by representing the meeting with the Muses assomething that happened in the past, “once upon a time” (Theog. 22);Hesiod recalls what the Muses then said to him, as Callimachus recallsthe youthful instructions he received from Apollo. Secondly, Callima-chus seems to evoke a tradition, attested explicitly only in later antiqui-ty, that Hesiod was in fact rejuvenated and thus lived twice, a tradition

14 Note the elaborate variatio : Di¹r joOqai lec\koio – LoOsai, ceim|lemom

—pa ?dar. Callimachus’ ehlati … lµ k|nyi perhaps picks up Hesiod’s p\mter1r aqt¹m bq_si diajq_momta h]listar j Qhe_gisi d_jgisim.

15 Cf. Lynn 1995: 147 f, Andrews 1998: 14–17.16 “Ascraeo … seni” at Verg. Ecl. 6.70 does not, I think, argue against this hypoth-

esis, cf. below at n. 33. Note the virtuoso combination of Homer, Hesiod, andCallimachus at Quintus Smyrnaeus 12.308–10 rle ?r c±q p÷s\m loi 1m· vqes·

h^jat’ !oid^m, j pq_m loi 5t’ !lv· paqei± jatasj_dmahai Uoukom j Sl}qmgr 1m

dap]doisi peqijkut± l/ka m]lomti j.t.k. I do not know the evidence uponwhich McKay 1959: 4 bases his claim that “It is taken for granted by the an-cients that Hesiod [became a poet] at a venerable age.”

17 SEG 15.517, inscribed about the middle of the third century in the “Archilo-cheion” at Paros, cf. Kambylis 1963, below at n. 24.

18 When he was a boy, Aeschylus fell asleep while guarding grapes in the country-side, and Dionysus appeared to him and told him to write tragedy (Pausanias1.21.2 = Aesch. Test. 111 TrGF).

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 331

that may, as Ruth Scodel demonstrated,19 also be important for the cho-ral song on old age in Euripides’ Heracles Furens (637–700), to whichCallimachus makes explicit allusion (vv. 35–36 ~ HF 638–40) andwhich is important for this whole section of Callimachus’ prologue.20

As the Euripidean chorus asserts that it will never cease to “minglethe Graces with the Muses” (HF 673–75), so at the very head of hispoem Callimachus does just this, for the Muses are introduced in the“Dream” and are central to the whole structure of books 1 and 2,whereas the first aition of book I is the Parian ritual in honor of theGraces (frr. 5–9 Massimilla). Whether or not the legend of Hesiod’sdouble life was known to Euripides (and Simonides?), it is clear thatthe Callimachean dream was merely one of a number of poetic strategiesby which Hellenistic and Roman poets represented the great tradition(“passing on”) to which they felt themselves heir;21 the metempsychosisof Homer into Ennius (Ennius, Annales frr. 3–10 Skutsch) is, alongwith dream experience, perhaps the best known such strategy. If, how-ever, Callimachus’ rejuvenation takes the form of a dream experience inwhich he reaches into the distant past to relive the experience of Hesi-od, this may prompt us to ask about the nature of the “old age” whichoppresses him. When interpreting this literally, we must always allow forhumorous exaggeration. The Telchines have accused him of behavinglike a child, though he is a grown man, and so he exaggerates justhow old he is as part of the demonstration of the absurdity of their criti-cisms.22 Whatever view is taken of how old Callimachus actually waswhen he composed the “Reply,” it seems clear that there is more atstake here than just encroaching senility.

The approach or arrival of the weakness of old age seems to havebeen a familiar poetic topos (cf. Alcman 26 PMG [= 90 Calame], Eur.HF 637–700), which suggests that it may not be correct to read it ata simple, literal level; it is rather a recognizable poetic code, evenwhen the poet is in fact (and is known to be) old. For Callimachus,the best contemporary witness to the code is the so-called “Seal” ofPoseidippos (705 SH), in which the poet from Pella invokes the

19 Scodel 1980.20 Cf. Basta Donzelli 1991, Livrea 1997.21 See the excellent discussion of Bing 1988: 56–71.22 Cf., e. g., Lynn 1995: 180 n. 17. On the charge of being a “child” cf. Asper

1997: 149–50.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception332

Muses to join him in singing23 “hateful old age” and, perhaps under theinfluence of the (?) newly-founded Archilocheion on Paros, wishes tobecome a second Archilochus, as Callimachus was a “second Hesiod”with honors and a cult decreed by Apollo.24 While his poetry willfind immortal kleos, he himself will find his own kind of eternity:

lgd] tir owm we}ai d\jquom. aqt±q 1c½c^qai lustij¹m oWlom 1p· Uad\lamhum Rjo_lgm

d^lyi ja· ka_i pamt· poheim¹r 1~m,!sj_pym 1m poss· ja· aqhoepµr !m’ flikom

ja· ke_pym t]jmoir d_la ja· ekbom 1l|m.

Let no one shed a tear, but in old age may I travel the mystic path to Rha-damanthys, missed by the citizens and all the people, needing no staff towalk and speaking clearly to the multitude, leaving house and prosperityto my children. (Poseidippos, 705.21–5 SH)

What in Callimachus is a wish for rejuvenation is in Poseidippos a wishfor good health up until death in old age,25 followed by a journey “onthe mystic path to Rhadamanthys.” Whether we interpret this as mean-ing that Poseidippos was merely initiated into the “mysteries of theMuses” or that he was actually an initiate of a Dionysiac or “Orphic”cult,26 the language has a history of particular relevance in the presentcontext. Poseidippos prays to remain aqhoep^r, “speaking properly,”to the end of his life, whereas the voice of Simonides 22 W2 imaginessuch fluency (!qtiep]a myl_m ck_ssam, with West’s very probablesupplement) to be the result of newfound strength;27 the prayer for bod-ily health to the last, being !sj_pym 1m poss_, finds many parallelsthroughout Greek literature, but it looks here like a reworking of Hes-iod’s description of men of the Golden Age, “when there was no terri-ble old age, but ever undiminished in feet and hands they took pleasurein feasts, free of all ills” (WD 114 f). Whereas, therefore, Callimachus

23 With sumae_sate for the transmitted sumaeisade, rather than Friedrich’s sumae_-qate, particularly in view of v. 21. The text is very uncertain, however.

24 I follow Lloyd-Jones 1963: 88; the Delphic decree that Lloyd-Jones discusseswas also a very striking example of divine favor to a poet, and must have strucka particular chord with an initiate, if that indeed is what Poseidippos was.

25 For the poetic heritage of such a wish cf. Mimnermus fr. 6 W2, on which seebelow p. 339.

26 Cf. Rossi 1996: 65, Burkert 1998: 394 f. For the former view see Asper 1997:86, with bibliography.

27 Rossi 1996: 62 rather understands aqhoep^r as “speaking just things.”

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 333

uses Hesiod to console himself with the Muses’ protection of their fa-vorites and his own piety, Poseidippos prays for public honors fromhis own people28 and continued good health until old age, followedby the certain reward of the just initiate. Not for Poseidippos the impos-sible wish of becoming young again (cf. v. 25); his “immortality” will bemore certain and more long-lasting. “Old age,” however “hateful” atthe opening of the poem, seems itself now almost a mark of poetic dis-tinction. This is, as we shall see, by no means an isolated third-centuryexample.29

As for Callimachus, the wish to rid himself of the burden of old age,like the cicada, arises from Apollo’s poetic program: cicada poetics is thepoetics of the “slender Muse” and the narrow path. The sequence ofthought suggests that the old age which crushes the poet is at onelevel what we have learned to call “the burden of the past,” that con-sciousness of tradition of Hesiod, Pindar, Euripides, Aristophanes, andthe other great figures of the past whose voices well up through Calli-machus’ verses, a consciousness that hems our every move with qualifi-cation, deferral, and doubt, and that, like old age, restricts the freedomof action we associate with “the light one, the winged one.” In Plato’smyth, cicadas were the first poets, free to sing and honor the Muses asthey liked, with no constraining tradition of song behind them. It is Cal-limachus who, for us, makes the decisive move in understanding “reju-venation” in terms of the literary tradition, thus completing the triangleof related ideas – the weight of years, the weight of tradition, and thehope for immortality. Tradition is figured in terms of human aging.Callimachus is old and weary, crushed by the immobilizing sense ofthe years that have preceded. When the Telchines tell Callimachus“to grow up,” what they mean is that he should adopt a poetics sanc-tioned by time and archaic practice (cf. Iambos 13), together with themoral seriousness that attends it. Callimachus rejects both the poeticsand the gravitas in his extraordinary wish to start all over again.

The link which both Callimachus and Poseidippos forge between“old age” and poetic success is familiar in the Hellenistic period. Verylike Poseidippos’ Seal is the surviving part of an anonymous poem on

28 The model here is not merely Archilochus, but possibly also Philitas of Cos, cf.Hollis 1996, Hardie 1997.

29 The larger questions about the relation between “the Seal” and Callimachus’“Reply” will not be considered here.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception334

the death of the Alexandrian poet Philikos of Corcyra, presumablycomposed near in time to his death (mid-third century b.c.e.):30

5qweo dµ laj\qistor bdoip|qor, 5qweo jako»rw~qour eqseb]ym ax|lemor, V_kije,

1j jissgqev]or jevak/r euulma juk_ym

N^lata, ja· m^sour j~lasom eQr laj\qym.ew l³m c/qar Qd½m eq]stiom )kjim|oio

Va_gjor, f~eim !mdq¹r 1pistal]mou·)kjim|ou tir 1½m 1n aVlator < >

]o Dglod|jou

Go on your way, blessed wayfarer, go on your path, Philikos, to see the fairland of the god-fearing dead. Your head crowned with ivy, rolling forthyour lines of lovely song, go in revel [komos] to the Islands of the Blessed.Happy, that you saw the festive old age of an Alcinous, the Phaeacian, aman who knew how to live. Born of Alcinous’ line ……..Demodocus(980 SH, trans. Page [adapted])

Having lived to the same ripe old age as his countryman King Alcinous,who welcomed Odysseus at his court,31 Philikos is to pass in komos tothe Isles of the Blessed, still “rolling forth” his lovely poems. Thiskomos is particularly appropriate to a (dramatic) poet who was a priestof Dionysus (Ath. 5.198b-c), but it may also be worth asking whetherthe epigram evokes the blessed afterlife that an initiate of Dionysiacmysteries may expect. As such, Philikos will experience the happinessfor which Poseidippos can only pray; his ability to take an active andproductive part in a komos bears witness to the fact that, at the end,he was in fact !sj_pym 1m poss· ja· aqhoepµr !m’ flikom. Be that asit may, and however common the idea of a perpetuation in the afterlifeof the habitual practices (real or constructed) of the present life,32 thelink between poetic glory and old age is not merely the conventionalone that a long life is a sign of divine favor. Rather, it is to be associated

30 For discussion cf. Gabathuler 1937: 66–67, Fraser 1972: I 608–9, II 859, FGE460 f. David Sider has made the interesting suggestion that Philikos composedthis epitaph for himself ; cf. below on Meleager’s epitaphs for himself.

31 Scheria was standardly identified in antiquity with Corcyra.32 Cf., e. g., Antipater, AP 7.27 (= HE 260–269) on Anacreon, eUgr 1m laj\qes-

sim. )m\jqeom. ewwor Y~mym, / l^t’ 1qat_m j~lym %mdiwa j.t.k.

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 335

also with the presentation of poets and other sages of the archaic andclassical past as “old” as well as “of old” (oR p\kai poigta_).33

The “old man” who appears in the programmatic dream of Herodas8 is, fairly certainly, Hipponax himself; in Iambus 1.58, Callimachuspresents Thales as an old man; Anacreon is commonly “old” (bpq]sbur, b c]qym) in the rich tradition of fictitious epitaphs abouthim and throughout the Anacreontea34, and Alcaeus of Messene designa-tes both Hesiod and Hipponax as b pq]sbur.35 Much of the impetuscomes, of course, from these poets’ own poetry and/or the legendsabout these makrobioi : “Hesiodic old age” was proverbial,36 and surviv-ing fragments of Anacreon’s poetry make much play with his advancedyears (cf. 395, 418 PMG). Nevertheless, it is hardly surprising (or new)that great age was invested with symbolic meaning also. Thus Dioscor-ides praises his older contemporary Machon as both ti t]wmgr / %niom

!qwa_gr ke_xamom, “a remnant worthy of the ancient art” (i. e., OldComedy), and as b pq]sbur.37 Machon may well have enjoyed a longlife, but it is the interplay between his age and the nature of his artthat is central to the rhetoric of the epigram. More striking still is oneof the epitaphs which Meleager composed for himself :

!tq]lar, § n]me, ba ?me· paq’ eqseb]sim c±q b pq]sbur

evdei joilghe·r vpmom bveik|lemomEqjq\tey Lek]acqor, b t¹m ckuj}dajqum =qyta

ja· Lo}sar Rkaqa ?r sustok_sar w\qisim .

dm he|pair Emdqyse T}qor Cad\qym h’ Req± wh~m.J_r d’ 1qatµ Leq|pym pq]sbum 1cgqotq|vei.

!kk’ eQ l³m SOqor 1ss_, sak\l· eQ d’ owm s} ce Vo ?min,ma_dior· eQ d’ >kkgm, wa ?qe· t¹ d’ aqt¹ vq\som.

Go quietly by, stranger; among the god-fearing ones the old man sleeps thesleep which is due to all, Meleager son of Eucrates, who outfitted Eros, heof sweetness and tears, and the Muses with merry graces. Heavenborn Tyreand the sacred land of Gadara brought him to manhood, and Cos, the love-

33 Cf. Theocritus, Epigr. 21.1 on Archilochus (b p\kai poigt^r), Dioscorides AP,7.411.6 (= HE 1596) on Aeschylus (!qwa_ym . . tir Blih]ym), Bing 1988: 56 f,1988b.

34 Cf. Antipater, AP 7.27.10 (= HE 269); Leonidas, APl. 411.6 (= HE 1596);“Simonides,” AP 7.24.9 (= HE 3322); Ovid, AA 3.30 “uinosi Teia Musasenis.”

35 AP 7.55.6, 7.536.1 (= HE 75,76).36 Cf. Scodel 1980.37 AP 7.708(= HE 1617–22).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception336

ly land of the Meropes, nursed his old age. If you are a Syrian, Salaam!, if aPhoenician, Naidios!, if a Greek, Chaire!, and say the same yourself. (AP7.419 = HE 4000–7)

Meleager makes play with his advanced years at death also in two of thethree other epitaphs that he composed for himself,38 but in the presentpoem he evokes a familiar rhetoric by which the epitaph will be readone day in the (distant) future by a passer-by and Meleager will longhave become b pq]sbur in two senses, both “old when he died” and“an old/revered poet.” Meleager thus foresees, and to some extent con-structs, his own passage into the pantheon of “great poets of the past.”39

This is the symbolic language that Callimachus actualizes when he im-plies that the Telchines want him to “act his age.” For Callimachus,however, the poetry of techne must not follow the patterns of thepast, but must enact a radical break with the past; it must, in otherwords, be neos, that is, both “young” and “new.” It is a very Callima-chean irony that such poetry is produced by a man whose “decades ofyears are not few” (fr. 1.6) and is sanctioned by the example of one ofthe “oldest” of past poets, namely Hesiod. Here, as elsewhere, it is theTelchines who misunderstand the poetry both of the past and the pres-ent.

This association of age and sophia is neither new nor surprising, andfinds its close counterpart in contemporary iconography. “In the Greekimagination, all great intellectuals were old … There exists no portraitof a truly young poet, and certainly not of a young philosopher.”40

From the very earliest representations, Homer is depicted as (sometimesvery) “old,”41 but great age, as an almost inevitable characteristic of rep-resentations of great poets and thinkers of the past, seems to be a devel-opment of the third century.42 Of particular interest for Hellenistic po-etry is a wretchedly preserved set of statues of poets and philosophersfrom the exedra of the Sarapeion at Memphis: if Hesiod is correctly

38 AP 7.417, 418 (= HE 3984–93, 3994–99): the odd one out is at AP 7.421 (=HE 4008–21). On these poems cf. Gutzwiller 1998.

39 Our almost complete ignorance of Tellen makes it difficult to draw conclusionsfrom his designation as pq]sbur at Leonidas, AP 7.719.1 (= HE 2001).

40 Zanker 1995: 22. For much information on ideas about old age cf. Falkner andLuce 1989.

41 Cf. Zanker 1995, ch. 4 (166–71 for Hellenistic images of Homer); Schefold1997. Homer remains, of course, an old man in the sixth-century ekphrasticepigrams of Christodorus, AP 2.322, 325.

42 Cf. Zanker 1995: 68–75.

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 337

identified in this group, then he was represented as a very old man in-deed.43 However that may be, it is clear that, in the third century, thedoubleness of “age” was expressed in the language of both plastic artand poetry.

In seeking to trace the history of these ideas in archaic and classicalpoetry, we may begin again with the same stasimon of Euripides’ Hera-cles. Under the present dispensation, men, not even good men, can live,or more specifically “be young,” twice (HF 655–72); for some fortu-nate men the consolation for this is the kleos conferred by poetry. Bac-chylides 3.88–92 (a poet who brings us very close to Simonides) ex-presses this conventional thought with neat economy:

!mdq· d’ oq h]lir, poki¹m paq]mta

c/qar, h\keiam awtir !cjol_ssaiFbam. !qet÷r ce l³m oq lim}hei

bqot_m ûla s~lati v]ccor, !kk±LoOs\ mim tq]vei.

It is not permitted to a man to dismiss grey old age and recover again thebloom of youth. The light of arete does not, however, fade with men’sbodies, but the Muse nurtures it. (Bacchyl. 3.88–92)

It is presumably some version of this sequence that lies concealed in thetatters of Simonides 20.13 ff W2 on the immortality that Homer hasconferred. For poets, moreover, there is, as the Euripidean chorus im-plies, a further consolation in the joy of singing that is itself a perpetu-ating of life, perhaps even, through the grace of the Muses, a rejuvena-tion. More ambiguous is the relationship between this rhetoric and eros.In different contexts, old age may be figured as bringing some releasefrom the disturbing passions of eros (so, most famously, Sophocles andCephalus at Plato Republic, 1.329b-d) or rejection by the objects of de-sire (Mimnermus 1 W), but in any case eros is intimately connected withthe self-presentation of the poet as old. The apparently erotic content of22 W2, set in the world of the imagination rather than the real present,may in fact be a way of trying to buy eros off, rather as Ibycus seems (?ironically) to wish the passion away:

43 Cf. Lauer and Picard 1955, Ridgway 1990: 131 f. For “Hesiod” cf. Lauer andPicard, figs. 47, 48, 51. The date of the individual sculptures and of the group asa whole remains disputed (early third or early second century?).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception338

=qor awt] le juam]oisim rp¹bkev\qoir taj]q’ ellasi deqj|lemor

jgk^lasi pamtodapo ?r 1r %pei-qa d_jtua J}pqidor 1sb\kkei·

G l±m tqol]y mim 1peqw|lemom,¦ste veq]fucor Vppor !ehkov|qor pot³ c^qai!]jym s»m ewesvi hoo ?r 1r ûlikkam 5ba.

Once more with melting looks from under his dark brows Eros draws meinto the boundless nets of Kypris with enticements of every kind. Ah, Itremble at his attack, as a yoke-horse, a prize-winner but now in oldage, enters the contest with the swift chariot unwillingly. (Ibycus, 287PLG)

So, too, the opening poem of Horace’s fourth book of Odes, in which“the aging poet” resists the renewed call to Venus’ arms and which maybegin with an echo of this poem of Ibycus, might owe a debt to Simo-nides, in view of the Greek poet’s great importance for Odes 4.44

Simonides frr. 19–20 deal with the aging of man, the brevity ofyouth, and the immortality that Homer conferred; they allude also, asmany scholars have noted, to Mimnermus’ famous lines (fr. 2) onaging and our likeness to leaves; there is, in other words, an overt en-gagement in these fragments with the poetic tradition. Stobaeus has infact preserved a number of fragments of Mimnermus’ Nanno on thecurse of old age (frr. 1–5), which suggest a “classic” status for thispoet on this subject (as, for example, Sappho was in matters of eros): sub-sequent treatments may therefore call Mimnermus to mind, howeverfleeting the verbal echo.45 In one other case, at least, we know thatMimnermus was early associated with this theme: his wish (or that ofa character in his poetry?) to die at age sixty “free of disease and griev-ous cares” (fr. 6) was explicitly corrected by Solon (fr. 20) to a wish todie at age eighty.

Simonides 21 W2 also concerns the aging process, in this case aphysical/sexual awakening, a transition, perhaps, from eromenos to po-tential erastes, from pais to neos (cf. , e. g., Theognis 1319–20). Althoughthe language of hybris and dike is the standard language of eros, it is alsovery much the moral language of Hesiod’s Works and Days.46 Hesiod

44 Cf. Barchiesi 1996; Harrison 2001.45 Mimnermus’ use of Tithonus as an example of the miseries of old age (fr. 4)

may be relevant to Callimachus’ evocation of this figure. Cf. Crane 1986:269–78.

46 So too aQd~r (m. 9), but the supplement is uncertain at best.

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 339

was, as we have seen, granted two lives, though how early the legendstarts – and, in particular, whether it was available to Simonides – wecannot say. Be that as it may, Hesiod is par excellence the poet ofaging, for the Works and Days deals with the aging of all mankind;the poet himself lives in an age of aging (174 ff), when babies will even-tually be born with grey hair, an age that will end up with no respect fordike, and no aidos, but hybris everywhere. The Hesiod of Works andDays, who speaks to Perses as an older advisor to an errant youngerbrother, seems important for these fragments of Simonides. The toneis didactic (!kk± s» taOta lah~m j.t.k. , 20.11 W2), the rejection of op-timistic fantasy seems Hesiodic, and in particular 20.9 W2, however for-mulaic, finds its closest parallel in WD 40, m^pioi, oqd³ Usasim fsyi

pk]om Flisu pamt¹r j.t.k. The later poet speaks to the nepioi, the“young” as well as foolish, with the authority of age, though the mes-sage is in many ways non-Hesiodic. The young never imagine that lifewill change, that they will grow old, but the poet, with the special sophiagranted by tradition and his hopes for immortal kleos, he knows (notethe pointed !m^q … !mdq_m at the end of successive verses, markingHomer’s knowledge of the human condition, 19.1 W2); but – and itis a big “but”— the poet also grows literally old, and all the sophia inthe world does not prevent him from wishing to escape this mortality.Indeed, his very consciousness, his awareness of the truths of the tradi-tion, what Callimachus, as we saw, fashioned as “the burden of thepast,” makes him already “old” and adds a new burden – unlike othermen, he cannot live carefree. Here is a very non-Hesiodic irony. It isthe succession of poets – Homer, Hesiod, Mimnermus – that has taughtSimonides that men, and poets, are like the succession of leaves; an al-lusion to Mimnermus’ allusion to Homer makes the point clear enough– poetic tradition and immortality merely emphasize the mortality ofthe poet’s own body.47 Perhaps, then, it was from Simonides that Cal-limachus drew some of his inspiration for the conception of “literarytradition” as a kind of aging; in any event, it is within this nexus ofideas that the famous Horatian passage on the successive generationsof words (Ars Poetica 60–72) is to be placed.48

47 Simonides’ allusion to Homer “through” Mimnermus is an early example ofwhat critics of Hellenistic and Roman poetry call “double allusion” or “win-dow reference,” cf., e. g., McKeown 1987: 37–45. No device could be bettersuited to demonstrate the weight and depth of tradition.

48 Cf. Sider 2001.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception340

Much – too much – of this argument has been based on (unspoken)assumptions about the internal relationship of 19–22 W2. Papyri, how-ever, invite supplements of more than one kind and, as we grow old, thetemptation to see patterns within the broken fragments becomes amechanism of survival. Simonides, who knew all about consolation,would certainly have understood that.

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Addenda

Part of this essay was re-used in Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry66–76.

p. 331 The subject of Tithonus and aging poets has, of course, been given newinterest by the ‘Cologne Sappho’.

p. 333 On the ‘Seal’ of Posidippus cf. further this volume 555–6.

p. 335 On the poem on Philikos cf. M. Fantuzzi, ‘Mescolare il ludicro al serio:la poetica del corcirese Filico e l’edonismo dei Feaci (SH 980)’ in G. Lozzi andS.M. Tempesta, L’epigramma Greco. Problemi e prospettive (Milan 2007) 53–68.

p. 339 On Horace, Odes 4.1 and archaic Greek poetry cf. ‘Sappho and Latinpoetry’ in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds.), I papiri di Saffo e di Alceo (Flor-ence 2007) 213–25.

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20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica*

1.

For antiquity, the Argonautica was an “epic” (5pg, 1popoi¸a, epos), just asthe Homeric poems were. Apollonius himself marks his “generic status”in the opening verse through the phrase which designates the subject ofhis song, pakaicem´ym jk´a vyt_m. In the Odyssey, Demodokos is in-spired by the Muse to sing jk´a !mdq_m (Od. 8.73), Achilles sings ofjk´a !mdq_m when withdrawn from the fighting itself (Il. 9.189),1 andPhoenix tells Achilles that there have been “epic” parallels to his ownsituation (Il. 9.524–6):2

ovty ja· t_m pqºshem 1peuhºleha jk´a !mdq_mBq¾ym, fte j]m timû 1pif\vekor w|kor Vjoi7dyqgto_ te p]komto paq\qqgto_ tû 1p]essim.

This is what we have heard in tales of the past heroes too, when furiousanger came on one of them—they could be won by gifts and words’ per-suasion. (trans. M. Hammond)

The opening verse of the Argonautica therefore announces not, as inHomer, the subject of the poem, but rather its “genre”. More specifi-

* T.D. Papanghelis and A. Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius(Leiden 2001) 93–125

1 For Virgil’s “translation” of jk´a !mdq_m in the opening verse of the Aeneid cf.Conte (1985) 48–9 = (1986) 72–3. Horace’s designation of epic poetry as resgestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella (AP 73, cf. Epist. 2.1.251–2) gives a dis-tinctively public and Roman tinge to the idea. It is sometimes asserted (e. g.Carspecken [1952] 111) that the substitution of vyt_m for the Homeric!mdq_m in this phrase marks the difference between “heroes” and “ordinarymortals”, including women. Too much should not be made of this, particularlyif the phrase bears some relationship to h.Hom. 32.18–9, cf. Hunter (1993) 129n. 110; the phrase may have been much more widespread in hymnic poetrythan we can now establish. The debt to the Homeric Hymn cannot, however,be established purely on the basis of the prosody of jk´a, scanned as two shorts(cf. also 4.361). A form with long alpha is not certainly attested in early epic (cf.West on Hes. Th. 100, Wyatt [1969] 145).

2 Cf. below 354. For some reservations about the use of the phrase in Homer cf.Ford (1992) 57–67.

cally, Apollonius “begins from Apollo” as did Homer in the Iliad(Il. 1.8–9), thus aligning his poem with the most authoritative of allepic texts, the Iliad.3 Unlike Homer, however, Apollonius is able tofill in the background to his narrative without the explicit help of theMuse; the poet now takes responsibility for his poem, and the selectiveaccount of the background in 1.5–17, itself a reworking of the corre-sponding section of Pindar’s Fourth Pythian,4 is a virtuoso demonstrationof the poet’s freedom.5 Moreover, the poet parades a refusal to repeatthe story of Athena’s building of the Argo because other poets havebeen there before (1.18–9); whatever Apollonius’ poetic sources mayin fact have been, novelty and freshness are here deployed as genuinevirtues. Telemachos’ admonition to his mother that men give the great-est praise to the newest song (Od. 1.351–2) is re-employed as Apollo-nius sites himself in a line of epic poets that includes not only Homer,but also Homer’s bards, Phemios and Demodokos.6

This proclaimed freedom, however, distances the Apollonian designof epic from the primary model which Homer had depicted in hispoems. In this model, the bard’s narration is always an act of memoryand repetition; “the poet” tells the story as it has been told to him bythe Muse.7 In the Hellenistic period this strategy was modified in vari-ous ways to meet the new conditions of a world in which knowledge ofboth past and present was now partly contained in books and poets wereno longer the principal repositories of social memory and communalvalues. Changes in social structure, the successive attacks of the sophists,the views of Thucydides and Plato on the value and social authority of

3 For the recreation of the manner of rhapsodic performance here cf. Albis (1996)19–20.

4 Cf. Hunter (1993) 123–4.5 For the invocation to the Muses in 1.22 cf. below 349–50.6 It is tempting to use Od. 1.351, the only occurrence of 1pijke_eim in Homer, as

an argument in favour of Brunck’s 1pijke_ousim in 1.18 (cf. [Oppian] C.3.78–9); certainly the Homeric context would be very meaningful withinsuch a reworking. Even with Brunck’s change, the allusion to Od. 1.338 (cf. ,e. g., Clauss [1993] 20–1) would be unaffected. Elsewhere in the Argonautica,however, the compound verb means “call, give a name” and at 3.553 “callupon”, though I do not regard that as a decisive objection. Cf. further 1.59;Fränkel (1968) 39; Giangrande (1973) 1.

7 This is not intended to imply a particularly rigid view of the role of the Musesin Homer; for some of the positions which have been taken cf. De Jong (1987)45–53. On the distinction between bards and other story-tellers in Homer cf.Scodel (1998) and, in general, Ford (1992).

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poetry, and the organisation and practice of scholarship in Alexandria allcontributed to a profound (if gradual) shift in the perception of poetry’snecessary relation to “the real world”. An anxiety and debate about thetruth status of poetry and the fictionalising power of poets thus surfaceswith ever-increasing persistence. One way of dealing with this changedsituation is visible in Hellenistic didactic poetry, such as the Phainomenaof Aratus which is in part a versification of the fourth-century prosePhainomena of the astronomer Eudoxos. As “truth” could now be storedin books and libraries, poets quite naturally looked there for the sourceof poetic material, as before they had relied upon “tradition” as trans-mitted by the Muses. Moreover, the collection of material withinbooks changed the nature and conception of “tradition” itself. Although“innovation” in early narrative is often very difficult to establish,8 it isclear that the poets themselves were principal creators and memorialisersof socially significant traditions. It is entirely in keeping with this patternthat the earliest Greek historians and ethnographers in prose oftenturned to the poets for their material ; by the third century the situationwas in part reversed. The preservation of stories in written form slowlylent them a more fixed form, or at least gave urgency to the issue of “fi-delity” to a tradition, whether or not that “fidelity” was ever checked orcalled into question. The existence and use of written “sources” recon-figured the old Hesiodic question of truth and falsehood in poetry;9 thevery scholarly practice of source criticism, the ancient ancestor of mod-ern Quellenforschung, confirmed a changed view of the way poetryworked.

Although “sideshadowing and awareness of alternatives and sequelswere essential features of [epic] poetics” already in Homer,10 the use ofbooks reinforces an awareness of “competing” traditions. In the pre-Hellenistic situation, variant traditions do not necessarily competewith each other for authoritative status; the “authoritative” version isprecisely that one which is told at any particular time for particular rea-sons of context. A poet such as Pindar may call attention to a tradition inorder to reject it as “untrue” in favour of a different tradition better suit-ed to a particular rhetorical context (cf. , e. g., Pi. O. 1.28–53), but it is

8 For Homer cf. Nagy (1996) Ch. 4; Edmunds (1997) 415–41, both with fullerbibliography.

9 For some guidelines for the archaic period cf. Pratt (1993); Bowie (1993)1–37.

10 Malkin (1998) 37.

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precisely the activating context which is decisive for this rejection. Col-lection in written form, however, and subsequent study and repetitionoutside such an activating context provides a shaped, decontextualisedtradition independent of its exploitation in poetry (or any other medi-um). In the Aitia Callimachus dramatises this process of narrative varia-tion through the naming of prose sources and the emphasis given tocompeting aitia (cf. frr. 5–9 Massimilla, 75, 79 Pf.). It may in fact bethe case that the tendencies considered here are enhanced when aetiol-ogy is a, or the, prominent narrative trope,11 for the aetiological imper-ative closes down some narrative options, and thereby privileges others,by dictating a telos towards which narrative must move. Apollonius him-self displays both the (alleged) fixity of tradition and the existence ofvariants in a famous passage of the fourth book which is very likely in-debted to Callimachus (4.982–92):12

5sti d´ tir poqhlo ?o paqoit]qg Yom_oio!lvikavµr p¸eiqa Jeqaum¸, eQm "k· m/sor,Ø vpo dµ je ?shai dq]pamom v\tir—Vkate, LoOsai,oqj 1h]kym 1m]py pqot]qym 5por—è !p¹ patq¹rl¶dea mgkei_r 5tale Jqºmor7—oR d´ 2 DgoOrjke¸ousi whom_gr jakalgt|lom 5llemai ûqpgm7Dg½ c±q je¸m, 1m· d¶ pote m\ssato ca¸,Tit/mar dû 5daem st\wum elpmiom !l¶sashai,L\jqida vikal]mg—. Dqep\mg t|hem 1jk^istaioumola Vai¶jym Reqµ tqov|r7 ¤r d³ ja· aqto·aVlator Oqqam_oio c]mor Va_gjer 5asi.

At the head of the Ionian strait, set in the Keraunian sea, is a large and fer-tile island, where is buried, so the story goes (your gracious pardon, Muses!it is against my will that I relate a story told by men of earlier generations),the sickle with which Kronos pitilessly cut off his father’s genitals. Otherssay that it is the reaping scythe of chthonian Demeter, for Demeter oncetook up residence in the land and, out of love for Makris, taught the Titanshow to harvest the rich crop. From that time the sacred nurse of the Phaea-cians has been named Drepane [“Sickle”], and so too the Phaeacians them-selves are born from the blood of Ouranos.

The apparently ironic apology to the Muses and competing explanationsfor the name of the island call attention to several important issues of

11 For some important general considerations cf. Goldhill (1991) 321–33.12 Cf. Call. fr. 50 (= 43 Pf.). 69–71 Massimilla ; Vian (21996) 35. Unless other-

wise indicated, the translations are by the author.

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poetics.13 The passage implies that poetic traditions are (or should be)subject to considerations drawn from the rhetorical and scholastic cate-gory of t¹ pq]pom, “appropriateness, decorum”, particularly in view ofthe fact that the Muses are decorous virgins. As Hermann Fränkelnoted,14 we might have expected the poet here to apologise to Ouranos,but in this place the Muses are to some extent separated from the subjectof the narrative, the “literary tradition” itself, as “style” may be separatedfrom “substance”. The Muses who watch over the “style” of the wholepoem may blush to hear a tale of castration, but it is the poet, not theMuses, who is responsible for telling the unpleasant aition. The givingof alternative aitia is in fact unusual in the Argonautica,15 and it is tempt-ing to see an implicit causal link between this instance and the poet’salleged distaste: alternative explanations, so the poet implies, may ariseout of dissatisfaction (whether moral or aesthetic) with an existing aition.Whether we should go further and see Apollonius calling attention tothe chronological priority of the “cruder” version (cf. pqot]qym

4.985), i. e. recognising the fact that taste changes over time, is less cer-tain. Be that as it may, the reflection upon his own practice here bothhas Homeric roots and veers away radically from the “discretion” of theHomeric narrator; such a pattern is very typical for the Hellenistic epic.

The poet’s own responsibility is humorously acknowledged againwhen he comes on the return journey to Medea’s rites in honour ofHekate on the Paphlagonian coast (4.247–52):

ja· dµ t± l³m fssa hugkµm

jo}qg poqsam]ousa tit¼sjeto – l^te tir UstyqeUg l^tû 1l³ hul¹r 1potq}meiem !e¸deim—ûfolai aqd/sai7 t| ce lµm 6dor 1n]ti je_mou,f Na heø Fqyer 1p· Ngcl ?sim 5deilam,!mdq\sim axic|moisi l]mei ja· t/lor Qd]shai.

All that was done as the maiden prepared the sacrifice – let no one know,may my heart not urge me to sing of it! – I forbear from telling. From thatday, however, the shrine which the heroes built to the goddess on the shorestands still visible to later generations.

13 Cf. further below 367–8.14 Fränkel (1968) 550.15 Cf. 4.596–618 (the tears of the Heliades).

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The poet’s piety in drawing a veil over what must not be told(cf. 1.919–21) is expressed through an echo of Alkinoos’ descriptionof Demodokos (Od. 8.44–5):

t` c\q Na he¹r p]qi d_jem !oidµmt]qpeim, fpp, hul¹r 1potq}m,sim !e_deim.

to him the god has granted the power above all others to give delight withhis song, on whatever theme his spirit urges him to sing.

Although the importance of the poet’s thumos belongs to the traditionallanguage of rhapsodic performance,16 the idea is here given a particulartwist. In effect, the poet tells us in advance to blame his hul|r for any-thing untoward which he might sing; such a conceit seems to belong toHellenistic constructions of the relationship between the poet and hismodel, far more than to archaic or classical predecessors. Very similaris Callimachus’ interrupted aition for a Naxian wedding ritual(fr. 75.4–9 Pf.):

Nqgm c\q jot] vasi—j}om, j}om, Usweo, kaidq³hul] , s} cû !e_s, ja· t\ peq oqw bs_g7

¥mao j\qtû 6mej ou ti he/r Uder Req± vqijt/r,1n #m 1pe· ja· t_m Equcer Rstoq¸gm.

G pokuidqe_g wakep¹m jaj|m, fstir !jaqte ?ck~ssgr7 ¢r 1te¹m pa ?r fde laOkim 5wei.

For they say that once upon a time Hera – dog, dog, hold off, shamelessthumos, you would sing things which you are not sanctioned to sing. Alucky thing that you have not seen the rites of the dread goddess, sinceyou would have vomited out their story also. Ah, much knowledge is a ter-rible burden for a man who cannot control his tongue: he really is a childwith a knife.

The Hellenistic poet’s thumos now has a mind of its own!17 WhereasCallimachus’ praeteritio appeals to widely known ritual events, and there-fore does not need to be told for the audience to experience the pleasureof knowledge, Apollonius rejects that strategy in favour of what mightbe called the “compensatory aition”; the permanent memorial which the

16 For another variant cf. Call. Del. 1 tµm Req¶m, ¨ hul´, t_ma wqºmom . . . !e_seir ;The “reverse” of the idea appears not long afterwards, t_ toi hul/qer !joOsai ;(29, addressed to Delos).

17 For the history of this conceit and its fortune in Hellenistic poetry cf. Hunter(1996) 182–4.

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Argonauts left behind acts both as the guarantor of the poet’s faithfulness—“Medea really did perform secret rituals” – and as a substitute for theinformation which the poet witholds: “you will not learn anything fromme, but you can go and see the place for yourselves”. Above all, thepoet’s power to choose (unless his hul|r takes over) is strongly emphas-ised through the almost paradoxical implication that the poet would beable to tell of that of which “no one should be knowledgeable(Vstyq)”.18 Callimachus’ paradox is differently fashioned: his lamentfor the burden of “much knowledge” follows immediately upon thestatement that he does not know the Rstoq_g of the rites of Demeter.It is tempting to think that the two passages have some relation toeach other.19

More than one pattern of poet-Muse relationship is in fact stagedthrough the course of the four books. Thus at 4.552–6 and 4.1381(see below) the Muses do indeed seem to embody “literary tradition”.20

Nevertheless, the distinctiveness of the construction I have been consid-ering marks an important shift in poetic consciousness.

When asking the Muse to tell him the names of the Greekcommanders at Troy and the numbers of ships which each brought,Homer apparently gives two related reasons why he would be unableto do this without them (Il. 2.484–93). First, the Muses are gods andtherefore have true knowledge, whereas mortals only “hear reports”(jk]or oWom !jo}olem),21 and secondly the task of such a catalogue is be-yond the physical powers of a mortal acting without divine assistance.Before his Catalogue Apollonius too invokes the Muses, but the formof the invocation could hardly be more different (1.20–2):

mOm dû #m 1c½ ceme¶m te ja· oumola luhgsa_lgm

Bq¾ym dokiw/r te p|qour "k¹r fssa tû 5qenampkaf|lemoi7 LoOsai dû rpov¶toqer eWem !oid/r.

18 There is a certain temptation to understand this word as “researcher, enquirer”(cf. Rstoq_g) rather than “expert, knower”; one of the references would then beto the process of writing “learned” poetry – once one conceives the desire towrite on a particular subject, the necessary research must be done.

19 The description of Demeter as heµ vqijt^ is noteworthy; it suits the Demeterof the mysteries perfectly (cf. Richardson on h.Dem. 478–9, R. Seaford,Hermes 122 [1994] 284–5), but out of context might easily suggest Hekate.

20 For 2.845 cf. below 363.21 For this problematic phrase cf. De Jong (1987) 51–2.

20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica 349

I now shall recount the lineage and names of the heroes, their voyages overthe vast sea and all they achieved on their wanderings. May the Muses bethe hypophetores of my song!

The precise meaning of the wish that the Muses be the rpov¶toqer (?“inspirers”, ? “transmitters”) of the poet’s song has been much disputed,and unanimity may never be reached; certain inferences may neverthe-less be drawn.22 No poetic success is possible without the Muses, not be-cause they supply the information to the poet, i. e. (in the archaicmodel) are in fact the real singers who select the traditions which willconstitute any particular performance,23 but because poetry is their busi-ness, and the poet, though personally responsible for what he tells, musthave their favour constantly in mind; no poem will ever reach an audi-ence without the approval of the Muses. In one sense, then, the mean-ing of this wish is not far from the corresponding wish with which thepoem closes (4.1773–6):

Vkatû, !qist/er, laj\qym c]mor, aVde dû !oida·eQr 5tor 1n 5teor ckujeq¾teqai eWem !e_deim!mhq¾poir. Edg c±q 1p· jkut± pe_qahû Rj\myrlet]qym jal\tym jtk.

Be gracious, heroes, children of the blessed gods, and may these songs befrom year to year ever sweeter for men to sing. For now I have reachedthe glorious conclusion of your struggles …

The formal farewell to the heroes24 asks their favour, lest they be offend-ed either by anything the poet has said or because he is now going tostop (cf. 4.1775–7); the wish, however, for ever-increasing “sweetness”for his song is in essence a further wish for the Muses’ continued fa-vour.25 Here too, then, a distinction between “subject” and “style”,made possible by the new-found responsibility and freedom of thepoet (cf. Rj\my), is suggested. A very close parallel to Apollonius’wish26 is Callimachus’ invocation to the Parian Graces which seems to

22 For some relevant considerations cf. Fusillo (1985) 365–6; Hunter (1993) 125;Albis (1996) 20–1.

23 Cf. Ford (1992) 72–82.24 For the implications of this style of address cf. Hunter (1993) 127–8.25 Cf. Hesiod, Th. 96–7 on the man whom the Muses love, “sweet (ckujeq^)

speech flows from his mouth”.26 Cf. Harder (1993) 105.

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have rounded off the opening sequence of the Aitia (fr. 9.13–14 Mas-similla):

5kkate mOm, 1k]coisi dû 1mix¶sashe kip¾sarwe ?qar 1lo ?r, Vma loi pouk» l]mysim 5tor.

Come now, wipe your hands, rich with oil, upon my elegies, so that theylast for many a year.

Like the Muses, the Graces offer the sweetness of style which guaranteeslongevity to the poet’s narrative.

One sequence which raises many of these issues within a short spaceis the epiphany of the Libyan heroines to Jason as the Argonauts despairin the trackless desert. The Libyan scenes follow immediately upon theepisode in Drepane where the wedding-bed of Jason and Medea wasstrewn with the Golden Fleece itself so that the wedding would betil¶eir ja· !o_dilor “an honoured subject of song”. This hope for thefuture, itself ironised by our knowledge of the real future which layin store for Jason and Medea, echoes the only occurrence of !o_dilor

in the Iliad or the Odyssey, Helen’s observation to Hector that thegods sent this evil fate upon Paris and herself so that they would be!o_diloi 1ssol]moisi, “subjects of song for men in the future”.27 If eventson Drepane have indeed assured the return of the Argonauts to Greeceand thus made possible what will be a story known to everyone, theLibyan sequence threatens to wipe that future out. Here, where thereis hope neither of nostos (4.1235, 1273–6) nor of heroic action(4.1252–7), the complete absence of spatial orientation marks the po-tential failure of the aetiological epic of journeying and the dissolutionof Argonautic “solidarity” (4.1305–7; cf. 4.1290–3):28

ja_ m¼ jem aqtoO p\mter !p¹ fy/r 1k_ashemm¾mulmoi ja· %vamtoi 1piwhom_oisi da/maiBq¾ym oR %qistoi !mgm¼st\ 1pû !]hk\.

There and then they would have all departed from life, the best of heroeswith their task uncompleted, leaving no name or trace by which mortalmen might know them.

27 Cf. Goldhill (1991) 320. For this word cf. also Hunter (1999) on Theoc.Id. 13.9.

28 Cf. Hunter (1993) 126 and the essay of David Wray in Harder – Regtuit –Wakker (2000).

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In this poetics, the failure to “leave a trace” is as good as never havingexisted. So too, when Jason fails to understand the instructions deliveredto him, as to a sick man in a dream, we are perilously close to a break-down in the structures of epic as they were handed down from Homer,for epic dreams are normally followed by immediate action; that break-down seems finally to arrive with the “failure” of the following extend-ed simile (4.1337–44):

G, ja· !ma@nar 1t\qour 1p· lajq¹m !¼teiaqstak]or jom_,si, k]ym ¦r, fr N\ tû !mû vkgms¼mmolom Dm leh]pym ¡q¼etai7 aR d³ baqe_,vhocc0 rpobqol]ousim !mû ouqea tgk|hi b/ssai7de_lati dû %cqauko_ te b|er l]ca pevq_jasi

boupek\tai te bo_m. to ?r dû ou m¼ ti c/qur 1t¼whgNicedamµ 2t\qoio v_koir 1pijejkol]moio7!cwoO dû Aceq]homto jatgv]er.

With these words he sprang up and, filthy with dust, shouted over thewastes to his companions, like a lion which roars as it seeks its mate throughthe forest; at the sound of its deep voice the mountain-glades far away re-sound, and the cattle in the fields and the herdsmen of the cattle shudderwith fright. But Jason’s voice did not terrify the Argonauts, as it was a com-rade calling to his friends. They all gathered round him, their heads loweredin despair.

The normal processes of epic are no longer working. They are restored,however, when Peleus is able to interpret correctly the appearance ofthe omen which the heroines had predicted;29 the appearance of a fastand powerful horse marks the end of the Argonauts’ ordeal in a noth-ingness without animal life (4.1240). Here now is the opportunity fortruly “heroic” action (4.1375, 1383–4), for the Argonauts will haveto carry the Argo on their backs. At this point, as at the opening ofthe fourth book and at the beginning of a new “itinerary”(4.552–6),30 the poet resigns his usual authority in favour of theMuses (4.1381–4):

Lous\ym fde lOhor, 1c½ dû rpajou¹r !e_dyPieq_dym. ja· t¶mde pamatqej³r 5jkuom alv¶m,

29 That Jason repeats the heroines’ speech in indirect speech, whereas a Homericcharacter would have repeated the direct speech, is not so much a “failure” ofepic structures, but rather a characteristic feature of Apollonian epic, cf. Hunter(1993) 143–51.

30 Cf. Fusillo (1985) 370–1.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception352

rl]ar, § p]qi dµ l]ca v]qtatoi uXer !m\jtym,Ø b_,, Ø !qet0 Kib¼gr !m± h?mar 1q¶lour jtk.

This tale is the Muses’, I sing obedient to the daughters of Pieria. This re-port too I heard in all truth that you, much the greatest sons of kings, byyour strength and by your courage through the sandy deserts of Libya …

Whereas, however, the cause of the poet’s resignation at 4.1–5 was analleged inability to choose an explanation for Medea’s flight,31 here, likethe asyndetic exclamation Ø b_,, Ø !qet0, it is a rhetorical device de-signed to emphasise the extraordinary nature of what the Argonautsachieved: “I did not make this up, it is all in the tradition”. The impli-cation is that epic poetry is, to some degree at least, subject to the laws oft¹ eQj|r, “probability”, and any breach of these laws requires justifica-tion. The poet has not required such justification before this, andwhether the carrying of the Argo is any less an affront to t¹ eQj|r thanany earlier event is at least debatable,32 but here a moment of crisis,for both the narrative and epic itself, is signalled. In conclusion, then,the whole sequence of events in the Libyan desert may be seen as an ex-tended exploration of the limits of epic.

In structural terms, the Libyan episode is marked as the equivalent ofOdysseus’ wanderings in the land of the imagination:33 Odysseus isknocked off course by a north wind as he sails west around the bottomof the Peloponnese and is carried along for nine days (Od. 9.80–3); theArgonauts suffer a similar fate as they are sailing south-east and “the landof Pelops was just coming into view” (4.1231). This sense of replayingthe Odyssey is reinforced by the emphasis in the immediately precedingDrepane-narrative upon the “Greekness” of the island, which is all but ahomecoming for the Argonauts (cf. 4.997, 1074–5, 1103); Drepane isthe Homeric Scherie (Corfu) on which Odysseus told his tale, andwhere—for all the oddities of the people—he found that “Greek” val-ues, such as athletics and poetry, were prized. The Homeric Phaeacianswere supernaturally skilled seafarers; the contrast with the Libyan Syrtisin which the science of navigation, that most Greek of skills, is entirelyuseless (cf. 4.1260–77) could hardly be more pronounced.

31 Cf. Hunter (1987) 134–8.32 Fusillo (1985) 372–4 has a helpful, if rather too one-sided, discussion of Apol-

lonius’ “rationalist” attitude. On this passage see also Goldhill (1991) 293.33 Cf., e. g., Knight (1995) 125–7.

20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica 353

In this empty nothingness the Argonauts are saved by the pity(4.1308) of the “heroines”, perhaps—though this is not made absolutelyexplicit—because of their status as “epic heroes” (4.1319–21):

Udlem 1poiwol]mour wq¼seom d]qor7 Udlem 6jastarlet]qym jal\tym, fsû 1p· whom¹r fssa tû 1vû rcqµmpkaf|lemoi jat± p|mtom rp]qbia 5qca j\leshe.

We know that you and your comrades went to gain the golden fleece; weknow every detail of all your sufferings, all the extraordinary things youhave endured on land and sea in your wanderings over the ocean.

These words echo those with which the Sirens seek to lure Odysseus tohis doom by the promise of epic song about Troy (Od. 12.184–91);here, however, the kleos of the Argonauts saves them, even beforethey have completed their voyage. Epic poetry is the telling of“famed stories”. The Hellenistic epic intensifies this sense of repetitionby the constant suggestion that the Argonauts are not merely journeyingtowards kleos, but are forever accompanied by, and measured against,previous accounts of their voyage. This palpable sense of a textured tra-dition is a fundamental feature of the aesthetics of the Argonautica.

With the opening generic marker, pakaicem]ym jk´a vyt_m, comesa further mark of Hellenistic distance.34 In the Iliad, Phoenix evoked thedeeds of “heroic men before us” in order to encourage Achilles to em-ulation; the story which he then tells still lives in his memory, though itis “long ago, not at all recent” (Il. 9.527). So too in the Odyssey, Demo-dokos sings of men and events of his own generation – Agamemnon,Achilles, Odysseus, the fall of Troy. Most striking of all, in book 1 Phe-mios sings of the nostos of the Greeks from Troy (Od. 1.326–7), eventswhich are of very recent happening and are indeed, at least for Odys-seus, still going on. Here the poet fashions for us a glimpse of the begin-nings of a particular song tradition. The poet of the Iliad himself, as op-posed to his characters, draws a famous distinction between the heroicprowess of his characters and “men as they are now”,35 so that theepic itself tells of heroes (cf. Il. 1.4) “born long ago”, though those her-oes themselves listen to “contemporary” stories and songs. This differ-ence between the subject of Homer’s song and the subjects of whichhis bards sing may be seen as a fundamental part of Homer’s creation

34 For a possible relation with “cyclic” beginnings cf. below 372–3.35 Cf. Il. 5.302–4; 12.380–3, 447–50; 20.285–7.

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of a distant, heroic world. Nevertheless, despite the gap between “then”and “now”, and however “walled off absolutely from all subsequenttimes”36 the epic past in Homer may be, Homer does not in fact em-phatically foreground the temporal distance between himself and thesubjects of his song, as Apollonius does in the very opening verse;even the slighting references to “men as they are now” are rhetoricallynot much stronger than Nestor’s unfavourable contrast between his ownyouth and “the present lot” (Il. 1.271–2; 7.123–60).37 Apollonius,however, in both the proem and the closing envoi stresses his own tem-poral distance from the Argonauts, a distance which is one manifestationof a self-conscious generic placement: “epic” concerns men and events“long ago”. This poetic stance may now be seen to develop from a re-lated positioning already found in the Homeric poems: it is not a matterof a radical break with the past through the creation of a quite new po-etics, but rather of a rearrangement of emphasis giving new meaning toparticular elements within a pre-existing repertoire. Whereas, however,this generic placement emphasises distance between “then” and “now”,the powerful aetiological drive of the Argonautica works to break downthat distance and to problematise the nature of epic time.38

2.

In writing a relatively long narrative poem on a mythological subject,and one which clearly measures itself against the Homeric poems, Apol-lonius seems in some respects to have gone against the predominant po-etic trends of his Alexandrian context. It cannot, however, be too oftenstressed that the vast majority of Hellenistic hexameter narrative poetryhas been lost, and that the meagre fragments which survive, togetherwith the known titles, offer ample opportunity for disagreement

36 Bakhtin (1981) 15. Bakhtin’s very influential account of “the epic past”(ibid. 15–18) is really applicable only to the Iliad of all classical epics, andeven there important reservations are necessary.

37 This is not, of course, to deny the importance of such passages as the opening ofIliad 12 on the destruction of the Achaean wall (cf. Hunter [1993] 103–4, andDe Jong [1987] 44–5), but it is the explicitness of the Hellenistic poet which isat issue.

38 For aetiology in the Argonautica cf. Fusillo (1985) 116–58; Goldhill (1991)321–33; Valverde Sánchez (1989).

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about the nature and scope of the poems from which they derive.39 Ca-meron has argued forcefully that much of what has been taken for evi-dence of large-scale Hellenistic mythological epic in fact reflects rela-tively short poetry, often of an encomiastic or locally regional charac-ter.40 Apollonius’ other poetry of which we know, hexameter poemson “Foundations” and a choliambic poem about Kanobos, the site ofa Ptolemaic temple of Sarapis, seem very firmly within the interests ofthe Alexandrian avant-garde, the best (and, in many respects, only) wit-ness to which is Callimachus.41 The Argonautica was, moreover, a fash-ionable poem with the Roman neoterics (cf. Varro of Atax’s translation,Catullus 64 etc.), who fashioned themselves as the heirs of that Alexan-drian avant-garde, and there is no suggestion in the Roman Nachlebenthat the Argonautica was in any way out of step with the modern “Cal-limachean” style. It is hard to believe that any such views would nothave left traces in the explicit polemising of the Roman elegists againstthe writing of epic.

Callimachus himself seems to have written no “epic” poem, as thatterm is now understood. The Hekale, a poem of uncertain length (?? c.1200 hexameters),42 told the story of how Theseus, on his way to fightthe bull of Marathon, was entertained in the Attic countryside by awoman called Hekale, when he took shelter in her hut from a storm;on returning after his triumph over the bull, the hero found that Hekalehad died, and so he gave her name to the local deme and founded ashrine of Zeus Hekaleios. If much about the Hekale, particularly its ae-tiological focus and its interest in “ordinary” lives, recalls other areas ofCallimachus’ œuvre, the “generic” resonance of the poem was clearlythat of epic.43 This is suggested by the metre, the use of “epic” similes(which are otherwise very rare in what survives of Callimachus’ poetry),the extensive use of direct speech with its consequent implications forthe ethical presentation of the characters, the rarity, if not in fact totalabsence, of the intrusive authorial voice so familiar in the Aitia andthe Hymns (and indeed in Apollonius’ Argonautica),44 and a verbal style

39 There is an important survey by Marco Fantuzzi in Ziegler (1988).40 Cameron (1995) 262–302.41 Cf. Hunter (1989) 9–12, Krevans (2000).42 Cf. Hollis (1990) Appendix II.43 Cf. in general Cameron (1995) 437–47.44 Cf. Cameron (1992) 311–12; Hunter (1993) 115–16; Lynn (1995) 71–2.

The state of preservation of the text obviously enjoins caution, but the clear di-rection of what does survive can hardly be dismissed as pure chance. In their

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which is closer to Homer than is the style of Callimachus’ Hymns.45 It isa reasonable inference that, for Callimachus, this was “epic”, as hewould write it. The wretchedly broken fragments of Callimachus’ treat-ment in book 1 of the Aitia of the Argonauts’ return to Greece(frr. 9.19–23 Massimilla) may illustrate these stylistic differences—these fragments look more like the Argonautica, which all but certainlyborrowed from them,46 than the Hekale—though they are also a warn-ing against facile distinctions between “epic” and “elegiac” narrative.47

Much more wide-ranging inferences about Callimachus’ attitude to“traditional epic” (and hence perhaps to the Argonautica) have beendrawn from the “Reply to the Telchines”, which stood at the headof the Aitia, and the conclusion to the Hymn to Apollo. Neither passagecan be discussed in any detail here, though one issue from the openingof “the Reply” must be considered, as it is of the greatest importance forthe poetics of the Argonautica. In these verses Callimachus claims that“the Telchines” criticise him because he did not write one continuoussong (4m %eisla digmej]r) in many thousands of verses; he thus advertisesthe Aitia as not digmej]r. As a pejorative term applied to a poem, digmej]rmight mean “continuous, unbroken”, i. e. poetry “in which the poetsimply records one event after another without any structure or climax,as though writing a chronicle”;48 the obvious example of such a poemwould be the Cyclic epics as represented by Aristotle(Po. 1459a37–b7), poems which started at a beginning given by chanceor time (e. g. a hero’s birth) and carried on sequentially to a telos not fol-lowing causally from the opening. A narrative of all the labours of Hera-cles would be such a poem.49 More positively, however, the word isused from Homer onwards of speech which is “complete and properlyordered”, and hence “accurate” (in both senses), “genau und vollstän-

editions, Hollis and D’Alessio note frr. 15, 65 and 149 as probable or possibleexamples of authorial apostrophe to a character; this type of “intervention”had, of course, good Homeric precedent.

45 Cf. Hollis (1990) 12. On the style of the Hekale see also Fantuzzi (1988) 20–1,25.

46 Particularly close are Jason’s prayers (fr. 20.5–8 Massimilla, Arg. 4.1701–5).47 Of particular interest are the style of Aietes’ address at fr. 9.30 ff Massimilla (the

new !matq\peka, the colloquial 1poi^samt| le v|qtom (cf. E. Magnelli, Prom-etheus 24 [1998] 215–16), and the repeated soOshe which may also have a“non-epic” feel), the dialectology of fr. 13, and the extraordinary time-designa-tion at fr. 23.4–5.

48 Cameron (1995) 343; for this sense cf. also Hunter (1993) 192–3.49 Cf. Hunter (1998) 128.

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dig”;50 to speak digmej]r in archaic epic is to speak well and without con-cealment or “economy with the truth”. So Odysseus replies to QueenArete’s questions with an apology (Od. 7.241–2):

!qcak]om, bas_keia, digmej]yr !coqeOsaij¶deû, 1pe_ loi pokk± d|sam heo· oqqam_ymer.

It is hard, queen, to give a complete account of my troubles, since many arethose which the heavenly ones have given me.51

When Virgil’s queen asks Aeneas to tell his story she repeats this sense offullness and ordering (Aen. 1.753–5):52

“immo age et a prima dic, hospes, origine nobisinsidias” inquit “Danaum casusque tuorumerroresque tuos …”

Come now, my guest, and recount to us from the very beginning the de-ceit of the Greeks and the sufferings and wanderings of yourself and yourmen …

Apollonius uses digmej]r of lengthy speeches which cover every detail infull, a style of speaking which the Argonautica sometimes rejects(cf. 1.648–9; 2.391; 3.401). The word is most neatly explained by Phi-neus who tells the Argonauts that he was punished for revealing Zeus’smind 2ne_gr te ja· 1r t]kor, “sequentially and through to the end”(2.314), but must then pull himself up to prevent once again prophesy-ing t± 6jasta digmej]r “every detail without omission” (2.391); the twophrases are virtually identical in meaning.53 In apparently denying thisquality to the Aitia, however exactly the word is understood, Callima-chus seems to advertise both the discontinuous, fractured nature of theAitia as a whole and the partial, selective narrative on view in individualepisodes (the narrative of “Akontios and Kydippe”, with its insistent si-

50 Asper (1997) 218; Asper’s full discussion of this sense should be consulted. Cf.also Lynn (1995) 133–6.

51 Cf. also Od. 12.56; Hes. Th. 627. At fr. 30.8 Massimilla Callimachus seems toassociate Amej]r with rhapsodic performance.

52 The parallel passage at Od. 8.572 shows how readily digmej]yr and !tqej]yr,“accurately, truly”, overlap.

53 That the subject of Phineus’ narration is a coastal voyage in which sequentialorder is imposed by geography (cf. 2ne_gr at 2.380, 395) reinforces the primarysense of the term. So too, Jason’s account to Lykos is told 2ne_gr (2.771), and itfollows what we know to have been the order of the poem.

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lences, is a striking example). At the very least, it is not unreasonable toinfer that narrative continuity and completeness was a live issue amongthose interested in poetics and to enquire where the Argonautica wouldfit in such a discussion.

There is in fact an intriguing piece of evidence that the Argonauticadid indeed figure in some such discussion. A cruelly torn papyrus of thesecond century A.D. seems to contain a comparison of the oQjomol_a ofApollonius’ poem with at least two other versions of the same story (SH339A).54 One poem is apparently praised, as Homer is in the grammat-ical tradition, for its sumtol_a (not so much “brief writing”, but “writ-ing in which every word matters”)55 and use of paqejb\seir, “digres-sions”, which allow the reader some respite, whereas another poemseems to tell the story “at length all the way through”. Unfortunately,the state of the papyrus does not allow us to know which poem the un-known critic classed as “more Homeric” and to what the phrase “con-tinuous and of many verses” (sumew]si ja· pokust_woir) refers; the ob-vious temptation to see a contrast between Apollonian “wordiness” andsome different “modern” treatment may be completely misleading.

In his discussion of this papyrus, Rusten calls attention to a passageof Polybius (38.5–6) which discusses similar issues in the historians(trans. W. R. Paton, adapted):

I am not unaware that some people will criticise my history on the groundsthat my narrative of events is incomplete and disconnected (!tek/ ja· dieq-qil]mgm). For example, after undertaking to give an account of the siege ofCarthage I leave that in suspense and interrupting myself pass to the affairsof Greece, and next to those of Macedonia, Syria and other countries,while students desire continuous narrative and long to learn the issue ofthe matter I first set my hand to (fgte ?m d³ to»r vikolahoOmtar t¹ sumew³rja· t¹ t]kor Rle_qeim !joOsai t/r pqoh]seyr) . . . My opinion is just the re-verse of this ; and I would appeal to the testimony of Nature (v¼sir) herself,who in the case of any of the senses never elects to go on persistently (jat±t¹ sumew]r) with the same allurements, but is ever fond of change and de-sires to meet with the same things after an interval and a difference. . . .And the same holds good as regards the sense of sight. For it is quite inca-pable of gazing constantly at one object, but requires variety and change inwhat is seen (B poijik_a ja· letabokµ t_m bqyl]mym) to stimulate it. Butthis is especially true as regards the intellect. For hard workers find a sortof rest in change of the subjects which absorb and interest them. And

54 The basic discussion is Rusten (1982) 53–64.55 Cf. the Index to Erbse’s edition of the Iliad scholia s.vv. sumtol_a, s}mtolor,

Franz (1943) 26–7.

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this, I think, is why the most thoughtful of ancient writers (oR koci¾tatoit_m !qwa_ym succqav]ym) were in the habit of giving their readers a rest inthe way I say, some of them employing digressions dealing with myth orstory and others digressions on matters of fact (tim³r l³m luhija ?r ja· digcg-latija ?r jewqgl]moi paqejb\sesi, tim³r d³ ja· pqaclatija ?r), so that notonly do they shift the scene from one part of Greece to another, but in-clude doings abroad . . . All historians have resorted to this device buthave done so in a random way (!t\jtyr), while I myself use it methodi-cally (tetacl]myr). For these other authors, after mentioning how Bardyllis,the king of Illyria, and Cersobleptes, the king of Thrace, acquired theirkingdoms, do not give us the continuation (t¹ sumew]r) or carry us on towhat proved to be the sequel after a certain lapse of time, but merely insertthese things as in a poem (jah\peq 1m poi¶lati) and then return to theoriginal subject. But I myself, keeping distinct all the most importantparts of the world and the events that took place in each, and adhering al-ways to a uniform conception of how each matter should be treated . . .obviously leave full liberty to students to carry back their minds to the con-tinuous narrative (1p· t¹m sumew/ k|com) and the several points at which Iinterrupted it, so that those who wish to learn may find none of the mattersI have mentioned imperfect and deficient.

The interest of this passage in the present context lies not so much inany novelty of terminology or thought—for both can be amply paral-leled in ancient criticism – but in the fullness and clarity with whichthe issues are presented. There can, of course, be no simple transferencefrom historiography to poetry, for Polybius is defending a synchronicnarrative method in which, as it were, many narratives are in play atthe same time but none is presented “continuously”; the appeal tothe advantages of poijik_a suits the argument, though it is at least debat-able whether Polybius’ method really could be described as an ordered(tetacl]myr) use of “digressions”. Be that as it may, the privileging of anarrative method other than the telling of a story largely without inter-ruption all the way through to the end has an obvious resonance againstboth Callimachus’ 4m %eisla digmej]r and the critical language of thefragmentary papyrus. Relevant also is what Aristotle has to say aboutepic construction in the Poetics.

In Chapter 8 Aristotle discusses the nature of poetic mythos(Po. 1451a 16–35, trans. M. Hubbard):

Unity of plot is not, as some think, achieved by writing about one man . . .one man’s actions (pq\neir) are numerous and do not make up any singleaction (l_a pq÷nir). That is why I think the poets mistaken who have pro-duced Heracleids or Theseids or other poems of this kind, in the belief thatthe plot would be one just because Heracles was one. Homer especiallyshows his superiority in taking a right view here—whether by art or nature:

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in writing a poem on Odysseus he did not introduce everything that wasincidentally true of him, being wounded on Parnassus, for instance, or pre-tending to be mad at the mustering of the fleet, neither of which necessa-rily or probably implied the other at all ; instead he composed the Odysseyabout an action that is one in the sense I mean (peq· l_am pq÷nim oVam k]co-lem), and the same is true of the Iliad . . . a plot, being a mimesis of an action,should be a mimesis of one action and that a whole one, with the differentsections so arranged that the whole is disturbed by the transposition and de-stroyed by the removal of any one of them; for if it makes no visible differ-ence whether a thing is there or not, that thing is no part of the whole.

In Chapter 23 Aristotle returns to the subject again (Po. 1459a 17–37,trans. M. Hubbard):

Clearly one should compose [epic] plots to be dramatic,56 just as in the caseof tragedies, that is, about one whole or complete action with a beginning,middle parts, and end, so that it produces its proper pleasure like a singlewhole living creature. Its plots should not be like histories; for in historiesit is necessary to give a report of a single period, not of a unified action, thatis, one must say whatever was the case in that period about one man ormore; and each of these things may have a quite casual interrelation. Forjust as, if one thinks of the same time, we have the battle of Salamis andthe battle of Himera against the Carthaginians not directed to achieveany identical purpose, so in consecutive times one thing sometimes happensafter another without any common purpose being achieved by them. Mostepic poets do make plots like histories. So in this respect too Homer is mar-vellous in the way already described, in that he did not undertake to make awhole poem of the war either, even though it had a beginning and an end.For the plot would have been too large and not easy to see as a whole (oqjeqs¼moptor), or if it had been kept to a moderate length it would have beentangled because of the variety of events (jatapepkecl]mom t0 poijik_ô). Asit is he takes one part and uses many others as episodes, for example, thecatalogue of the ships and the other episodes with which he breaks the uni-formity of his poem (diakalb\mei tµm po_gsim).

Somewhat later, Aristotle actually tries to prescribe a length for epic, andthe prescription seems remarkably like the 5,835 verses of the Argonau-tica (Po. 1459b 19–22, trans. M. Hubbard):

One should be able to get a synoptic view of the beginning and the end [ofan epic]. This will be the case if the poems are shorter than those of theancients, and about as long as the number of tragedies offered at one sitting.

The first point to be made is that, for all the differences of subject andattitude between Aristotle and Polybius – and some of what Polybius

56 On this term cf. below 369–72.

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has to say about his synchronic method seems at first glance like theconfirmation of Aristotle’s worst fears about historiography – it isclear that arrangement and structure, the relation of part to whole, arekey issues of Hellenistic debate. The influence of peripatetic ideas inthe Homeric scholia makes it very likely that a leading Alexandrianscholar such as Apollonius would have been in touch with the literarycriticism of the Peripatos, but, whether this is so or not, everything sug-gests that Apollonius will have expected his readers to take particularnote of the oQjomol_a of his poem as a major programmatic marker.

If, however, it is easy enough to see how the Aitia is “discontinu-ous”, and what we know of the Hekale suggests that it too was atleast very poij_kom, avoided the linear narrative of the cyclic epics reject-ed by Aristotle (who, as we have seen, specifically names “Theseids” as atype of poem particularly prone to structural weakness),57 and presenteda single praxis of some kind, the case of the Argonautica is more problem-atic. Apollonius’ decision to write the story of the Argonautic voyage ina linear fashion, beginning at the beginning, reaching the turning-pointhalfway through (at the end of book 2) and finishing the moment thevoyage ends (at the same spot where it began), offers (in one sense) aclosed structure to which the term jujkij|m, “having the form of a cir-cle”, might readily be applied; so too might digmej]r, if emphasis is givento the sense of chronological ordering and completeness suggested bythe gloss sumew_r (sch. D on Il. 7.321). More than once, Apolloniuscalls attention to the outward claim of comprehensiveness which is im-plied in the traditional usage of the term. In book 2 he tells of the riteswhich followed the death of the prophet Idmon and the visible signswhich still persist (2.841–50):

ja· d¶ toi j]wutai toOdû !m]qor 1m whom· je_m,t¼lbor7 s/la dû 5pesti ja· axic|moisim Qd]shai,m¶ior 1j jot_moio v\kacn—hak]hei d] te v¼kkoir—,%jqgr tuth¹m 5meqhû ûAweqous_dor. eQ d] le ja· t¹wqei½ !pgkec]yr Lous]ym vpo cgq¼sashai,t|mde pokissoOwom diep]vqade Boiyto ?siMisa_ois_ te Vo ?bor 1piqq¶dgm Rk\eshai,!lv· d³ t¶mde v\kacca pakaicem]or jot_moio

%stu bake ?m, oR dû !mt· heoud]or AQok_dao]dlomor eQs]ti mOm ûAcal¶stoqa juda_mousi.

57 Like the Odyssey, the Hekale tells the story of a crucial episode in the life (and inthis case death) of one mortal, but through an enclosed narration much of thatcharacter’s past life is also revealed.

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This man’s tomb rises in that land a little below the Acherousian headland;as a marker visible to men of later generations, it is crowned by a ship’s roll-er made from wild-olive and covered in abundant foliage. If under theMuses I must also tell without constraint of what follows, Phoibos instruct-ed the Boiotians and Nisaians to pay honours to this man under the title“Protector of the City” and to establish a city around this roller of ancientolive-wood; they, however, to this day glorify Agamestor rather thanIdmon, the descendant of god-fearing Aiolos.

The apparent reluctance to tell the full story of this aition !pgkec]yr,probably “straight out, i. e. without euphemistic concealment”,58

seems to refer to the fact that the aition honours Agamestor, ratherthan Idmon; what forces him to do so is his duty to the Muses quapoet of the Argonautic story in all its myriad ramifications, but this ap-parent “necessity” merely calls attention to the poet’s freedom to in-clude or exclude. “Comprehensiveness”, like all poetic qualities, is amatter of choice.59 So too, at 4.985, in the Drepane aition which wasdiscussed above, the poet’s “unwillingness” (oqj 1h]kym) to tell thetale of Ouranos’ castration of his father in fact dramatises his choiceto do so.60 At one level, then, Apollonius tells the story digmej]yr, butthe ironic acknowledgement of the impossibility of “completeness”,the awareness that all narration is a process of selectivity, underminesthe apparent assurance of the archaic category.

In archaic epic the positive virtue of “telling the whole story”, ofdigmej]r narrative, can sit harmoniously with the fact that tellings(have to) begin at a certain point in the web of story; the essential nar-rative act is “taking up the tale from the point where . . .”, 5mhem 2k¾m,that narrative move which Callimachus replicates in his “Argonautica”(fr. 9.25 Massimilla).61 The in medias res structure of the Odyssey is notmerely a matter of technique, but a way of representing a fundamentalfact of the self-presentation of early epic song. In Hellenistic narrative,however, these two tendencies have to some extent been set in oppo-sition, perhaps under the influence of other narrative modes, such as thatof choral lyric, where overt selectivity and imbalance had always predo-minated. One result of these developments may be seen in narrativessuch as Moschus’ Europa, the so-called “epyllia”, another in the episodic

58 Cf. Livrea on 4.689.59 On “comprehensiveness” in the Argonautica cf. Fusillo (1985) passim.60 Contrast Fusillo (1985) 372 who regards the aition as “ineliminabile”.61 Cf. Lynn (1995) 162.

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structure of Theocritus 25.62 Apollonius “begins at the beginning” and“ends at the end”, thus both avoiding and dramatising the impasse. Theend of Aeneid 1, which we considered above, seems to evoke both kindsof narrative: Dido’s insistent questions (vv. 748–52) ask first for “epyl-lia”, and then – to keep Aeneas at the banquet for as long as possible –“the whole story”.

In both the Iliad and the Argonautica the opening verses foreshadowwhat is to come, and then a transitional passage (1.5–17; Il. 1.12–42)fills in some of the background up to the point at which the narrativeproper begins.63 On the other hand, there is in the Argonautica nothingcorresponding to the scenes of Iliad 2–4 which seem to belong “really”to the earlier part of the war – and the early placing of the Apolloniancatalogue might be taken as a “corrective” of the Homeric positioning—whereas there does seem to be a pointed contrast with the elaboratestructuring of the Odyssey, which opens with the hero stuck on Kalyp-so’s island. Moreover, the Argonautica maintains a (relatively) deafeningsilence about events “before the poem began”, in marked contrast toOdysseus’ narration of his travels. Although we eventually learn ofone of the reasons for Hera’s favour towards Jason (3.60–75) andthere are various scattered hints about the circumstances of Phrixos’flight from Greece,64 we hear almost nothing of Jason’s upbringing orthe background to Pelias’ imposition of the quest; when Jason tellsLykos his story (5pg), he begins precisely where the poem began,with Pelias’ instructions and the catalogue of Argonauts (2.762–3).65

A first-person voyage-narrative imposes, of course, its own kind of lin-earity; when Odysseus recounts his adventures to Penelope(Od. 23.310–43), he follows precise chronological order, as he doeswith his main narration to the Phaeacians (except for his initial referen-ces to Kalypso and Kirke, which act as narrative “tasters”,Od. 9.29–33). As for the end, both Homeric epics (as also the Aeneid)conclude with an episode not explicitly foreshadowed in the proem –the burial of Hektor, the battle between Odysseus and the suitors’ fam-ilies – whereas the ending of the Argonautica, which from one point ofview seems radically abrupt, is, from another, surprising only in its com-

62 Cf. Hunter (1998).63 For ancient praise of Homer’s technique cf. Brink on Hor. AP 148.64 Cf. Hunter (1989) 21.65 This silence must be distinguished from the many included accounts of “previ-

ous history”, cf. Fusillo (1985) 24–98.

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plete predictability: how else could the voyage-narrative have ended?By way of contrast, the actual end of both Homeric poems was disputedin ancient transmission. An alternative “ending” (or, rather, beginningof a new direction) for the Iliad survives, ¤r oV cû !lv_epom t\vom >jto-qor, Gkhe dû ûAlaf½m/-qgor huc\tgq lecak¶toqor !mdqov|moio, “sothey conducted the burial of Hektor, but there arrived the Amazon,daughter of great Ares, the man-slayer”, a phenomenon indicative of“the expectation in an oral tradition that an epic narrative will be con-tinued”.66 The conclusion to the Argonautica formally substitutes thehope of ritual repetition (4.1774–5) for this expectation. As for theOdyssey, the alternative “end” determined by Aristophanes of Byzanti-um and later Aristarchus at 23.296, !sp\sioi k]jtqoio pakaioO hesl¹m

Vjomto, to which the conclusion of the Argonautica may allude,67 againsuggests the openness of epic endings. Every reader of the Argonauticacarries knowledge of the future fates of Pelias, Jason and Medea beyondthe poem, but the formal ending could hardly be more solid or fixed,for the poet himself announces it as such.

A final consideration within the area of narrative continuity is theprivileged place epic gives to included narratives, both of direct rele-vance to “the principal story” (e. g. Achilles to Thetis in Iliad 1) andof more oblique significance (the stories of Nestor and Phoenix inthe Iliad or of Menelaos in the Odyssey, for example).68 In this featurealso, discretion within generic parameters, sometimes amounting to anapparent preference for silence, is the Apollonian hallmark. In partthis is because of the new prominence of the narrator, who himself isable to expand “tangential” stories at length (e. g. the story of Aristaios,2.498–528), and, as the Aristaios narration suggests, there is a sense inwhich aetiology, which binds the present to the past, has taken theplace of “epic” stories which rather accentuate the divide betweenthe two. This distinction between Homer and Apollonius is not, ofcourse, absolute. Phineus’ account of his companion Paraibios(2.468–89) evokes familiar epic themes; Lykos’ narrative of Heraklesat 2.774–810 suggests the various Herakles-epics known to antiquity,69

66 Hardie (1997b) 139. The verses are often associated with the Aithiopis, but cf.Davies (1988) 48 and (1989) 61.

67 For discussion and bibliography cf. Hunter (1993) 119–20, Theodorakopoulos(1998).

68 Cf. Hardie (1993) 99, “epic heroes themselves feel a strong pressure to narrate,by telling stories of past heroic events”.

69 Cf. Hunter (1998).

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and athletic competitions at funeral-games (2.780–5) is another well-known setting. Nevertheless, the brevity and ellipse of Apollonian nar-rative are here striking. Jason himself “summarises the poem” for Lykosat 2.762–72, in a catalogue which makes Odysseus’ account of his ad-ventures to Penelope (Od. 23.310–43) seem positively verbose. A sim-ilar impression is left by a comparison of Argos’ brief plea to the Argo-nauts for help (2.1123–33) with Odysseus’ speech to Nausikaa when ina not dissimilar predicament (Od. 6.149–85). So too, in response to Ja-son’s question as to the identity of the shipwrecked foursome, Argosprovides an Apollonian version of the familiar genealogical self-presen-tation of the Homeric hero (2.1141–56). Probably the most famoussuch speech in Homer is Glaukos’ response to Diomedes atIl. 6.145–210 (“as are the generations of leaves, so are those of men .. .”), containing the lengthy narrative about Bellerophon, and thatscene does indeed seem to have been in Apollonius’ mind. In bothepics the speech of self-presentation leads to a recognition of relation-ship (Il. 6.215 ~ Arg. 2.1160). Having first rejected the importance ofceme¶ in the face of human change, Glaukos then expatiates at length,noting – with a typically heroic concern for kleos —that “many menknow of my family already” (Il. 6.151).70 Argos dispenses with pream-ble: “That a descendant of Aiolos called Phrixos travelled to Aia fromHellas I have no doubt you yourselves are already aware”. We recognisea typical reworking of an archaic motif—the assumed fame of one’s fam-ily history – but the form of the reworking forces us to ask: “Whyshould these complete strangers (cf. 2.1123–4) know this”? PerhapsArgos is so self-absorbed that he cannot conceive of a human being ig-norant of the story of the Golden Fleece, but perhaps rather the literatepoet, always concerned to put ironising distance between himself andthe discursive, repetitive style of archaic epic, not only cuts the story-telling short but, in doing so, lays bare the assumptions of epic form.71

“Commentary” on inherited poetic techniques and themes is a central

70 For other relevant considerations here cf. Scodel (1998) 175–6. The claim thatthe genealogy is already famous is a familiar strategy of Iliadic heroes, cf.Il. 20.203–5, Ford (1992) 63–7.

71 It is instructive of the difference between Apollonius and Virgil in their ap-proach to epic form that the latter avoids such a difficulty in the comparablescene of Achaemenides’ meeting with Aeneas and his crew (cf. Heinze[1915] 112 n. 4) by having Achaemenides recognise them as Trojans fromclothes and weapons (3.596–7).

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feature of the Hellenistic epic. It is this poetic voice again which wehear shortly after through Jason’s words (2.1165–6):

!kk± t± l³m ja· 1saOtir 1m_xolem !kk¶koisi,mOm dû 6ssashe p\qoihem.

But we will talk of these things at a later time; now first put on clothes.

Homeric characters always had time to talk.In books 1–2, a relatively familiar geography and then the guiding

words of Phineus impose an order and predictability upon the voyage.On the return journey, however, not only are we dealing (as Apollo-nius’ readers would have been well aware) with a much more fantasticgeography, but the very diversity of return routes which tradition re-corded for the Argonauts imposed (at least the potential for) greater ran-domness and chaos to break up any sense of predictable linearity. Themajor shifts of direction in the return voyage are in fact as follows: (i)At 4.253 ff, while on the Paphlagonian coast, the heroes recall that Phi-neus had prophesied a “different route” for the return voyage, andArgos tells them of the route marked out by a nameless traveller fromthe mists of time; Hera then sends a heavenly light to guide themand they head off north-west across the Black Sea. (ii) At 4.552 ff, asthe Argonauts are sailing south down the eastern side of the Adriatic,Hera realises that Zeus requires them to be cleansed by Kirke and soshe sends southerly winds that drive the Argo back up the Adriaticand into the Eridanos (Po), so that they can make the long and hazard-ous voyage around to the west coast of Italy where Kirke lives. The shiftin direction is introduced by one of Apollonius’ rare addresses to theMuses (4.552–6):

!kk\, hea_, p_r t/sde paq³n "k|r, !lv_ te ca ?amAqsom_gm m¶sour te Kicust_dar, aT jak]omtaiStoiw\der, ûAqc]gr peqi¾sia s¶lata mg¹rmgleqt³r p]vatai ; t_r !p|pqohi t|ssom !m\cjgja· wqei¾ svû 1j|lisse ; t_mer sv]ar Ecacom awqai ;

How is it, goddesses, that beyond this sea, in the Ausonian land and theLigurian islands called Stoichades, many clear traces of the Argo’s voyageappear? What necessity and need took them so far away? What winds di-rected them?

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Among other considerations,72 the appeal to the Muses, with its impliedabrogation of responsibility, marks the suddenness, almost randomnessof the change; the poet finds a “causal nexus” – Zeus’ anger at the kill-ing of Apsyrtos – but even he is puzzled by the change (note pou in4.557).73 “Necessity and need” (!m\cjg ja· wqei¾) here drive an other-wise rudderless narrative. (iii) It is Hera’s intervention again which pre-vents the Argonauts from taking a fatal turning at the Herkynian Rockand directs them rather into the safety of the Rhône (4.636–44). (iv) Itis the action of Hera and Thetis which gets the Argonauts moving againafter the stop with Kirke. (v) After the Argonauts leave Drepane, thingsseem to be going well (4.1223–7):

Elati dû 2bdol\t\ Dqep\mgm k_pom7 Ekuhe dû owqor!jqaµr A_hem rpe¼dior7 oR dû !m]loiopmoi0 1peic|lemoi pqot]qy h]om. !kk± c±q ou py

aUsilom Gm 1pib/mai ûAwai_dor Bq¾essim,evqû 5ti ja· Kib¼gr 1p· pe_qasim atk¶seiam.

On the seventh day they left Drepane. At dawn the weather was clear and astrong breeze blew; they sailed quickly on, propelled by the strength of thewind. It was not yet fated, however, for the heroes to step upon theAchaian land: first they must undergo further sufferings on the bordersof Libya.

The Argonauts must go to Libya because it is aUsilom ; a human charac-ter quite naturally appeals to aWsa to explain events in retrospect, but forthe poet so to do is to advertise the “composite” nature of the narrative,to allow the seams in the “stitched song” to show. (vi) It is a series ofdivine interventions which save the Argonauts in North Africa andallow them to reach the Mediterranean again.

In place, then, of the directed voyage of books 1–2, book 4 offers apatternless voyage which can only be explained in terms of divine inter-ventions and a series of intertextual decisions. This is thrown into par-ticular relief by a comparison with the principal intertext, Odysseus’ taleof his voyage. Odysseus is driven off course by north winds and carriedfor nine days (presumably southwards) to the Lotus-eaters; from there,no further direction is given (Od. 9.105–7). So too, when Odysseus andhis men leave the Cyclops’ island, they simply start rowing and sail “fur-ther” (pqot]qy) to Aiolos’ island (Od. 9.565–10.1); from there they are

72 Cf. Fusillo (1985) 370–1, and above 345 ff.73 Cf. Hunter (1993) 108–9.

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heading in the right direction until the crew’s foolishness unties the bagof winds, and they are pushed back to Aiolos; when Aiolos throws themout, they once again sail “further”, but with no indication of directionor wind (Od. 9.77–9). The next stop is the Laistrygonians, and then,with precisely the same pattern, Kirke (Od. 9.133–5). Kirke offers di-rections for the Underworld and after, and finally the gods take ahand after the eating of the Cattle of the Sun. Under the influence ofancient views of the geography of Odysseus’ travels, Apollonius hasmapped the Homeric absence of spatial co-ordinates on to a more mod-ern and “comprehensive” geography, and he has replaced the formulaicHomeric link between stops on the voyage by an almost equally ran-dom, but poetically much more self-conscious, set of variations. Indeed,the three major shifts in direction for the Argonauts, (i), (ii) and (v)above, form a progressive sequence of “inexplicability” on the humanscale: from Argos’ memory confirmed by omen, to Hera’s decisiveand “necessary” intervention, and finally to the unexplained workingsof aWsa.

3.

A voyage-narrative was never going to be easy to accommodate withinan Aristotelian scheme, and Aristotle would certainly not have lookedfor a causal nexus of necessity or probability in the various stages ofOdysseus’ own tale. It is precisely this inherent inconsequentiality, theepisodic partition imposed by the very nature of travel, which can beseen at the heart of the Western tradition of “romance”, as opposedto the harsh teleologies of “epic”.74 Such a distinction has, of course,no real significance within ancient criticism, although “Longinus”’comparison between the Iliad, whose “whole body is dramatic andfull of contest” (dqalatij¹m ja· 1mac¾miom), and the Odyssey which islargely narrative (digcglatij|m) is moving towards an important ele-ment of what was to become the traditional distinction (Desubl. 9.13). Although the thought is not easy to follow in this chapter(and the text may be corrupt), it is clear that “Longinus” associateswhat he sees as the diminution of Homer’s power in the Odyssey, a re-laxing of the stirring tension of the Iliad, with the increased prominenceof t± luh¾dg ja· %pista ; even in those episodes of admitted power,

74 Cf. esp. Quint. (1993) 31–41 and passim.

20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica 369

“the mythical element is predominant over action” (toO pqajtijoOjqate ? t¹ luhij|m). In rewriting Odysseus’ adventures, Apollonius exag-gerates (if anything) the element of t¹ luhij|m—the passage through thePlanktai is perhaps the locus classicus—and it is tempting to see here a ge-neric exploration of the nature of epic, in a way that to some extentforeshadows “Longinus”’ discussion of the Odyssey. Two (related) fur-ther considerations might lend colour to this suggestion.

For both Aristotle and “Longinus” the best epics or epic plots are“dramatic” (dqalatij|m).75 In opposing the dqalatij¹m ja· 1mac¾miom

Iliad to the Odyssey which is largely digcglatij|m, “Longinus” is(whether by chance or design) a distant descendant of the fourth-centu-ry concern with the distinction between “narrative” and mimesis (in Pla-to’s sense, cf. Pl. R. 3.392c ff, Arist. Po. 1448a 20–5) and, in particular,of Aristotle’s praise for Homer’s self-concealment (Po. 1460a 5–11,trans. M. Hubbard):

Homer especially deserves praise as the only epic poet to realize what theepic poet should do in his own person, that is, say as little as possible, sinceit is not in virtue of speaking in his own person that he is a maker of mim-esis.Other poets are personally engaged throughout (diû fkou !cym_fomtai),and only rarely use mimesis ; but Homer after a brief preface at once bringson a man or woman or other characterized person (%kko ti Ghor), none ofthem characterless, but all full of character.

The Argonautica holds something of a problematic position when exam-ined by these criteria. On the one hand, the poet “speaks” far more thanin Homer: some 71% of the Argonautica is spoken by “the poet” ratherthan one of the characters, whereas the figure for the Iliad is 55% andfor the Odyssey only 33% (as books 9–12 are entirely in the mouthof Odysseus).76 So too, the constant presence of a commentating andoften ironising poet, “like the sheep dog who barks and nudges hisflock down the path”,77 is entirely foreign to the Aristotelian ideal ofa poet “who lets his characters do the talking”. On the other hand,the Argonautica seems to make important use of the dramatic traditionitself.78 It was a commonplace of ancient scholarship, as also for Platoand Aristotle, that Homer was the forerunner of tragedy, if not in fact

75 Cf. Po. 1459a 19 (with Lucas’ note); De subl. 9.13 (cited above).76 Cf. Hunter (1993) 138–9.77 Beye (1982) 13.78 Cf. Nishimura-Jensen (1996).

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the first tragedian,79 and tragedy’s engagement with, and often apparentavoidance of engagement with, Homer will have given tragedy a priv-ileged status for epic poets; the most familiar result of this status is the“tragedy of Dido” in the Aeneid.80

To what extent books 1 and 2 of the Argonautica are “dramatic” is,of course, a question where difference of opinion is legitimate. It mightbe thought that scenes such as the leavetaking between Jason and Alki-mede and the meetings of Hypsipyle and Jason not only exploit andevoke Homer (the mourning for Hektor, the meeting of Odysseusand Nausikaa etc.) but are also shaped in such a way as to suggest“drama”; other scenes also, most notably perhaps the Phineus-episode,seem indebted to Attic tragedy.81 It is, however, the character of Medeain books 3 and 4 which acts as the catalyst for the poem’s closest repro-duction of the tragic manner, and this is hardly surprising. Euripides’Medea was one of his most famous and most often performed plays,82

and it is the events of that play in which, as we are often reminded,the “success” of the epic quest will end. The angry confrontation be-twen Medea and Jason (4.350–420) clearly evokes the agon of Euripi-des’ play, as the murder of Apsyrtos may reflect similar narratives intragedy.83 So too suggestive parallels with Euripides’ Iphigenia in Taurishave been identified, and it is clear that Medea and Iphigenia were par-tial analogues of each other in some mythical traditions.84 It is book 3,however, where the sense of “drama” is most palpable (and the propor-tion of direct speech by characters higher than anywhere else in thepoem): the intriguing of the Colchian sisters immediately recalls thepairs of sisters in Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra, and it is in fact allbut certain that Apollonius makes important use here of Sophocles’lost Colchian Women.85 So too Aietes, the cruel and suspicious despot,probably owes not a little to the stage tradition of the tyrant. Book 3

79 Cf. N. J. Richardson, CQ 30 (1980) 270–1: “The idea of Homer as a tragedianunderlies much of the language used by the Scholia, especially when they arediscussing vividly dramatic scenes and those which arouse emotion (p\hor,oWjtor, 5keor etc.). tqac\de ?m and 1jtqac\de ?m are commonly used, althoughthey often mean little more than ‘to represent dramatically’”.

80 For a survey and bibliography cf. Hardie (1997a).81 Cf. Vian (21976) 142–9.82 Cf. Page’s edition lvii–lxviii ; Séchan (1926) 396–422.83 Cf. Porter (1990).84 Cf. D. Sansone, “Iphigenia in Colchis” in Harder – Regtuit – Wakker (2000).85 Cf. Campbell (1983) 41–2; Hunter (1989) 19.

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is also marked by a relative fixity of place: but for the scene on Olym-pus, all the action takes place in or near Aia, and the comings-and-go-ings in the palace seem deliberately designed to evoke the confinedstage-settings of drama. If, then, some aspects of book 4, such as the pre-dominance of t¹ luhij|m, seem designed to pull the epic away fromwhat may well have been seen as narrative virtues in the critical tradi-tions available to Apollonius and his readers, book 3 foregrounds the re-lation between epic and drama in a manner which (broadly speaking)moves in a rather different generic direction. Such stylistic unevennessmay itself be thought characteristic of Hellenistic poetic experimenta-tion.

4.

Despite Aristotle’s rejection of the idea that writing about one man cangive oneness to a poem, Achilles, Odysseus and Aeneas do all appear byname or periphrasis in the opening verse of their epics, as also does Cal-limachus’ Hekale, ûAjta_g tir. Jason, however, does not enter the Argo-nautica until the explanatory narrative of 1.5–17, and is never as centralto Apollonius’ poem as Achilles or Odysseus or Aeneas are to theirs;86

nowhere is this difference between the organisation of the Homericand Apollonian poems more visible than in the relatively small rolewhich Jason plays in the complex events of the fourth book.87 Theprominent announcement (1.20–2) and position of the Catalogue rein-forces the statement of the opening verse that the subject of the poemwill be pakaicem]ym jk´a vyt_m, “the glorious deeds of men of old”; sotoo, it is the whole collective of Argonauts to whom the poet bids fare-well at the end of the poem, as the singer of the Homeric Hymns bidsfarewell to the god who has been the subject of his song. We maywish to see the group of Argonauts taking the place of “the centralhero”,88 or prefer to see the poem as the story of an action, the bringingof the Golden Fleece to Greece, but the plurality of Argonauts imposesits own shape upon the generic pattern. We must be wary of over-in-terpreting the difference between Apollonius and Homer in this matter,but it is important that other epic models were also available to Apollo-

86 For the history of “the hero” in critical approaches to the epic cf. Feeney (1986)137–58.

87 Cf., e. g., Köhnken (2000).88 So Carspecken (1952).

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nius.89 Thus, the Epigonoi (“Descendants” [of those who fought atThebes]) began mOm awhû bpkot]qym !mdq_m !qw¾leha LoOsai,“Now again, Muses, let us begin to sing of younger men” (fr. 1 Davies),which might be thought to have had some influence upon Apollonius’opening pakaicem]ym . . . vyt_m. Although “younger men” may beseen as virtually equivalent to “descendants” and so this verse is notin fact parallel to Apollonius’ “generic” opening,90 nevertheless such apoem, like the “cyclic” Nostoi, is parallel to the Argonautica in havinga plurality of “heroes” built into its very structure. So too, the Thebaisclearly had a rich cast of warriors,91 and its opening verse, -qcor

%eide he± pokud_xiom 5mhem %majter, “Sing, goddess, of thirsty Argosfrom which the lords . . .” (fr. 1 Davies), points to this multiplicity.

The “cyclic” epics found critical favour neither with Aristotle nor, ifEp. 28 Pf. (“I hate the cyclic poem . . .”) is anything to go on, withCallimachus. How precisely the term jujkij|m is to be glossed and towhich poems it applies are matters of very considerable debate,92 butthe central specimens of the type were clearly poems such as the Cypria,the Aithiopis, the Little Iliad and the Nostoi which “completed” Homer(or at least appeared to do so, when viewed from the perspective of laterages) by telling the stories of what happened before, between and afterthe Iliad and the Odyssey ; some (if not all) were, like the Argonautica,very much shorter than the Homeric poems. The Argonautica is noton a Trojan theme, but deals with what, together with the Thebanstory, is the most prominent mythic complex set “before the TrojanWar” and one to which Homer’s Kirke herself famously refers(Od. 12.69–72); the link between the two stories is plainest in the fig-ure of the Argonaut Peleus, Achilles’ father, and is dramatised at1.557–8 where the infant Achilles is shown to his father as the expedi-tion sets off. Argonautic material played a prominent role in the Corin-thiaca of Eumelos (? c. 700 B.C.) and the anonymous Naupactia, both ofwhich Apollonius seems to have used;93 it would not, therefore, be dif-

89 One of the few modern discussions to take the relation between the Argonauticaand the “cyclic” epics seriously is Albis (1996), cf. 5, 7, 24–5.

90 Cf. above 343.91 Helpful survey in Davies (1989) 23–9.92 Cf. Pfeiffer (1968) 230; Cameron (1995) 394–9; Davies (1989) 1–8.93 Cf. Hunter (1989) 15–16 with bibliography. It is a great pity that we do not

know more of the probably archaic poem from which P. Oxy. 3698 derives;the broken column offers Orpheus, Jason, Mopsus and talk of m|stor and prob-ably marriage.

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ficult to see the Argonautic story as (in some senses) a “cyclic” one.Moreover, much of what happens in Apollonius’ poem has closer affin-ities to what modern scholars regard as typically “cyclic” than to Ho-meric poetry.94

As far as we can judge, superhuman abilities, such as the vision of aLynkeus95 or the (virtual) invulnerability of a Kaineus (1.57–64) or aTalos, were familiar “cyclic” motifs.96 Such characteristics are, of course,almost normal among the Argonauts. So too, the magical and the super-natural seem to have been far more prominent in the cyclic poems thanin (most of) Homer; Medea’s lulling of the dragon or Kirke’s purifica-tory magic would be perfectly at home in such a poetic context, and forsome of the “fantastical” tales which are recorded in the Argonautica acyclic version and/or origin is known.97 So too the treacherous killingof Apsyrtos and the “grotesque” maschalismos performed by Jason onthe young man’s corpse more easily find cyclic than Homeric counter-parts; at a different aesthetic level, the apparent prominence of erotic ro-mance in what we know of the Cycle has often been remarked, and thewhole business of Zeus’ desire for Thetis, which plays such a prominentrole at 4.790–816, almost certainly owes an extensive debt to the Cyp-ria.98 It was the same poem which was the principal epic source for thecharacter of the blasphemous Idas99 who appears from time to time inthe Argonautica to express his displeasure like a frustrated reader. Moreimportant perhaps than cataloguing the cyclic forerunners of individualstories and motifs is the overall impression of a poem which revels inmuch that has no real Homeric analogue, even where verbal echo ofthe Homeric poems predominates. It is not too much, I think, toview Apollonius’ epic as a cyclic poem done in the “modern” (? Calli-machean) style, which is not, of course, to say that it is the object ofCallimachus’ distaste in Ep. 28; what Callimachus actually thought (or

94 The most helpful modern discussion is Griffin (1977) 39–53; cf. more brieflyDavies (1989) 9–10.

95 Cf. Cypria fr. 13 Davies.96 For Lynkeus cf. Cypria fr. 13 Davies; for the invulnerability motif as it relates to

the “cyclic” Achilles and Ajax cf. Davies (1989) 58–61.97 For Zeus’ mating with Philyra in the shape of a horse (2.1231–41) cf. Titano-

machia fr. 9 Davies.98 Cf. Cypria fr. 2 Davies, Vian (21996) 175–6. From the point of view of the Ar-

gonautica (and Catullus 64), the loss of Nestor’s account of Theseus and Ariadnein the Cypria (31.38–9 Davies) is keenly felt.

99 Cf. fr. 14, 31.28–31 Davies.

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would have thought) of the Argonautica, we have no idea, though theextent of the material common to the two poets (whatever priority ispreferred) suggests shared aesthetic goals, rather than hostility.

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Paris.

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Theodorakopoulos, E.-M. 1998. “Epic Closure and its Discontents in Apollo-nius’ Argonautica,” in M. A. Harder – R. F. Regtuit – G. C. Wakker (eds.).1998, Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 3), Gronin-gen, 187–204.

Valverde, Sánchez. M. 1989. El aition en las Argonauticas de Apolonio de Rodas:estudio literario, Diss. Murcia.

Vian, F. 1974 (21976). Apollonios de Rhodes, Argonautiques. Tome I: ChantsI-II. Texte établi et commenté par F. V. et traduit par E. Delage, Paris.

— 1981 (21996). Apollonios de Rhodes, Argonautiques. Tome III: Chant IV.Texte établi et commenté par F. V. et traduit par E. Delage et F. V., Paris.

Wyatt, W. F. 1969. Metrical Lengthening in Homer, Rome.Ziegler, K. 1988. L’epos ellenistico. Un capitolo dimenticato della poesia greca, Bari.

Addenda

p. 350 on the problem of Arg. 1.22 there is a useful survey with bibliography byJ.M. González, ‘Musai hypophetores : Apollonius of Rhodes on inspiration andinterpretation’ HSCP 100 (2000) 269–92.

p. 359 Cf. G.B. D’Alessio, ‘Le Argonautiche di Cleone Curiense’ in R. Pretagos-tini (ed.), La letteratura ellenistica. Problemi e prospettive di ricerca (Rome 2000) 91–112.

20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica 377

21. Virgil and Theocritus: A Note on the Receptionof the Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus*

Theocritus’ seventeenth Idyll has not always been well received bymodern critics1 but it was clearly an important model of encomiastic po-etry for Roman poets, just as Philadelphus himself was constructed bythem as a model for certain aspects of Octavian/Augustus. AlessandroBarchiesi has recently shed much light upon Horace’s use of Theocritus’encomiastic poetry2, and there may also be more to be said about Vir-gil’s exploitation of the Encomium.

Echoes in the Eclogues suggest that Virgil saw the Encomium as an in-tegral element of the Theocritean corpus, whether or not he read thispoem in the same collection as the “bucolics”3. The opening verse ofthe Encomium, 1j Di¹r !qw~lesha ja· 1r D_a k^cete Lo ?sai, is evokedat Ecl. 3. 60 f. and 8. 11. In the former case, the Latin verses clearlylook also to the opening of Aratus’ Phainomena: ab Ioue principiumMusae: Iouis omnia plena; / ille colit terras, illi meae carmina curae. Virgilhas here imitated what probably he, and ancient interpretation general-ly4, saw as a Theocritean citation of Aratus within his own bucolic (i. e.‘Theocritean’) poem. We cannot, of course, rule out the possibility thathe has simply replaced the Muses of his principal structural model (The-ocr. 5. 80 f) with the Aratean Zeus, but apart from general consid-erations of coincidence, there may be a further pointer to the Encomium.The closest Theocritean analogy for illi [scil. Ioui] mea carmina curae is 7.93 in which Simichidas tells Lycidas that “report may have carried mysongs even to the throne of Zeus”5; the Theocritean verse has often

* Seminari Romani di Cultura Greca 4 (2001) 159–631 Cf. Gow 1952, II, p. 325.2 Barchiesi 1996.3 This is not the place for a discussion of this complex matter, cf. Gow 1952, I,

pp. IX-LII, Gutzwiller 1996.4 Cf. schol. Theocr. 17. 1–4a Wendel; Kidd 1997, p. 162 f.; Fantuzzi 1980, p.

165.5 Whether or not 3. 73, partem aliquam, uenti, diuum referatis ad auris, is also related

to Id. 7. 93 does not affect this issue.

been taken by modern critics as an indirect allusion to Philadelphus, andwe should allow the possibility that Virgil too interpreted the verse thus(or drew on an existing interpretation along these lines)6, and made thepoint clear by bringing the opening of the Encomium, in which Philadel-phus is again another ‘Zeus’, and Id. 7. 93 together. As for Ecl. 8. 11, a teprincipium, tibi desinam, addressed to a patron7, this verse reworks theopening of the Encomium, and again exploits the Theocritean equiva-lence between ‘Zeus’ and the poet’s patron.

Idyll XVII is an important model text for the encomiastic GoldenAge prophecies of Ecl. IV, though the debt lies as much in the merefact of an authorising model for encomium within a bucolic corpus asin specific verbal evocations8. Of particular interest is the future forthe newborn child which the poet prophesies: ille deum uitam accipietdiuisque uidebit / permixtos heroas et ipse uidebitur illis, / pacatumque regetpatriis uirtutibus orbem (Ecl. 4. 15–17). The promise of these versesseems to allude not merely to the Olympian scenes of the Encomium,but also to the categories of “god” and “hero” with which Theocritus’poem opens. So too, the allusion to the child’s Heraclean ancestry in v.179 — it was Heracles who ‘pacified’ the world and made it safe for civ-ilisation — seems to suggest the Ptolemies, whose Egypt was often de-scribed in Golden Age terms10, as one analogue for the new child. WhenVirgil begins his poem with an address to the Sicilian Muses, it is indeednatural to suppose that he wants us to think of the only poem in theTheocritean corpus which begins with an address to the Muses, and itis tempting (at least) to connect si canimus siluas, siluae sint consule dignaewith the woodcutter simile of vv. 9–10 of the Encomium. Virgil thusintegrates that simile into the bucolic project of the corpus as a whole.

The importance for Virgil of Theocritus’ poem is also clear in Ec-logue I. It has long been recognised that Tityrus’ cult for his benefactoris indebted to the sacrifices which Philadelphus and Arsinoe are said byTheocritus to offer to Soter and Berenice (vv. 126–130): hic illum vidi

6 There is, however, no trace of such an interpretation in the scholia.7 Cf. Clausen 1994, p. 236 f.8 The fullest discussion is DuQuesnay 1977, pp. 52–68, building on Kerlin 1908.

See also Clausen 1994, pp. 122–125.9 Cf. Clausen 1994, p. 122. Clausen on 4. 10 also suggests that Eileithyia’s rôle at

Ptolemy’s birth (Id. 17. 60–65) lies behind the prayer to Lucina at Ecl. 4. 10;tuus iam regnat Apollo certainly lends colour to the suggestion, as Ptolemy is an-other Apollo in those verses.

10 Cf. further below,

21. Virgil and Theocritus 379

iuuenem, Meliboee, quotannis / bis senos cui nostra dies altaria fumant (Ecl. 1.42–43)11. The debt is, however, pointed by a structural detail. The no-torious fact that the beneficent iuuenis is placed in the exact centre of thepoem has rightly12 been connected in a general way with the “first-last-middle” topos of the opening verses of the Encomium, but it is preciselythe central section of Theocritus’ poem which describes the birth ofPtolemy as a new Apollo, and it is the Apolline nature of the iuueniswhich is also foregrounded by Virgil13. Virgil has sharpened the Theo-critean device by giving his iuuenis the exact numerical centre of thepoem, and such a development of what is present, but less focused inthe model text is typical of Roman adaptation of Hellenistic techniques.

Less attention has been paid to Virgil’s use of the praise of Egypt at17. 77–85 in the famous laudes Italiae of Georgic II14:

luq_ai %peiqo_ te ja· 5hmea luq_a vyt_mk^iom !kd^sjousim avekk|lemai Di¹r elbqyi,!kk’ outir t|sa v}ei fsa whalak± AUcuptor,Me ?kor !mabk}fym dieq±m fte b~kaja hq}ptei,oqd] tir %stea t|ssa bqot_m 5wei 5qca da]mtym.tqe ?r l]m oR pok_ym 2jatomt\der 1md]dlgmtai,tqe ?r d’ %qa wiki\der tqissa ?r 1p· luqi\dessi,doia· d³ tqi\der, let± d³ svisim 1mme\der tqe ?r·t_m p\mtym Ptokela ?or !c^myq 1lbasike}ei.

Like Theocritus, Virgil uses a priamel form to lead into the favouredland (sed neque Medorum siluae ditissima terra, / nec pulcher Ganges …; v.136 ff), but even within a context of arboriculture the absence of theproverbially wealthy Egypt (cf. esp. Athen. 5. 203b-c) from Virgil’slist of possible rivals for Italy is striking. Dionysius of Halicarnassus offersEgypt, Libya and Babylon as Italy’s potential rivals in his laus Italiae (Ant.Rom. 1. 36. 3), and when Dionysius comes to the riches of Italy in grainit is Egypt whose primacy he must acknowledge, though without ac-tually having to name the country (1. 37. 2). Moreover, Virgil seemsto go out of his way silently to evoke Egypt; some of the suggestionswhich follow are stronger than others, but the general point seems

11 Cf. Jachmann 1922, p. 115 n. 2; DuQuesnay 1981, p. 43 f.12 Cf. Wright 1983, p. 119.13 Cf. Wright 1983, pp. 118–120.14 There is a large bibliography, though the Theocritean associations of the pas-

sage have not, to my knowledge, been suggested before. Much of value canbe traced through Thomas 1982, pp. 35–51.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception380

clear. Thus, for example, antiquity knew a number of allegedly “gold-flowing” rivers, but the Nile was one of them15. Italy may have uer ad-siduum atque alienis mensibus aestas (v. 149), but the country most famousfor a perpetually warm climate was Egypt16; the “Golden Age” shared infact many features with descriptions of Egypt, the true home of the par-adoxical. The absence of tigers, lions (quintessentially North African)and snakes (vv. 151–154) is indeed the stuff of the Golden Age (cf.Ecl. 4. 22–24), but Virgil’s emphasis upon the size and circular move-ment of the (absent) serpents may be significant17. The rulers most asso-ciated with gigantic pythons were in fact the Ptolemies, especially Phil-adelphus, for whom “incredible” specimens were said to have been cap-tured in “Aethiopia” and transported back to Alexandria, cf. Diod.Sic. 3. 36–37 (drawing on Agatharchides18), Aelian. nat. an. 16. 39,and just such a snake is figured on the Palestrina Nile-mosaic19. Servius’famous explanation of the Virgilian verses, sunt quidem serpentes in Italia,sed non tales, quales in Aegypto aut in Africa, thus deserves more seriousattention than it often receives.

Against this background, it should come as no real surprise that theimmediately following verses (vv. 155–157) are a reworking ofvv. 81–84 of the Encomium :

adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem,tot congesta manu praeruptis oppida saxisfluminaque antiquos subter labentia muros.

tot egregias urbes operumque laborem is an adaptation (with typical shift ofsense) of the Greek %stea t|ssa bqot_m 5wei 5qca da]mtym (v. 81)20,and the repeated tot replaces Theocritus’s arithmetical games, towhich, however, adde is a playful allusion21. The rivers of v. 157, a stan-

15 Cf. v. 8 of the “Nile hymn” published by Cribiore 1995, Athen. 5. 203c; Gu-lick’s note on the Athenaeus passage is misleading.

16 Cf. Herodot. 2. 77. 3 (with Lloyd’s note: 1976, p. 332 f).17 Contrast Thomas 1988, p. 185: “tanto here = magno, a snake is a snake, size has

nothing to do with venom or danger”. On this last point, at least, ancient writ-ers would disagree with Thomas.

18 Cf. Burstein 1989, pp. 125–132.19 Cf. Steinmeyer-Schareika 1978, p. 68.20 I have wondered whether adde is an aural echo of the oqd] which begins the

Greek verse.21 The basic sense of adde is, of course, “take into account also”, cf. OLD s. v. 12b.

21. Virgil and Theocritus 381

dard element in praises of Italy, take the place of Egypt’s Nile, as thetowns perched on cliffs seem intended to surpass whalak± AUcuptor.

The evocation of the Theocritean passage suggests a set of parallelsand contrasts, not just between Italy and Egypt, but between Ptolemyand the maximus Caesar who is now said to be campaigning in the distantEast to protect Italy, embodying for all the world the standard publicrhetoric of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies22. Though the relationshipbetween ‘king’ and land is different in the two cases, both are ‘Hesiodic’good kings whose rightness both guarantees and is proved by the flour-ishing fertility of the land. Ascraeum … carmen with which the laudes ends(v. 176) thus makes a specific point within its context, as well as havingmore general generic significance.

In evoking, but not naming, Theocritus’s Egypt, the land of Cleo-patra, Virgil may have had ‘political’ reasons, but the strategy of thisrhetoric is clear. The laudes Italiae seek to establish Italy and its ruleras the centre of the poetical world, and to do so they must effaceEgypt and its rulers. How ultimately successful this Roman politicalrhetoric was may be seen in a passage of Pliny’s Panegyric of Trajan(29–31): thanks to the efficient arrangements of trade and the corn-sup-ply, Rome has become the new Egypt, to the extent that Rome no lon-ger needs Egypt (and specifically the Nile flood), but Egypt needsRome, for it is Rome which supplied grain to Egypt during a recentdrought when the river failed. Though Pliny does not, of course, sayso, in supplying the Egyptians with grain in this time of crisis, Trajanis fulfilling one of the traditional duties of Pharaohs, a duty which thePtolemies too had performed.23 Thus was the appropriation of Egyptcomplete.

Bibliography

A. Barchiesi, Poetry, Praise, and Patronage: Simonides in Book 4 of Horace’s Odes,“ClA” 15, 1996, pp. 5–47

S. M. Burstein, Agatharchides of Cnidus. On the Erythraean Sea, London 1989W. Clausen, A Commentary on Virgil, Eclogues, Oxford 1994R. Cribiore, A Hymn to the Nile, “ZPE” 106, 1995, pp. 97–106

22 This rhetoric might also help with imbellem which has caused such trouble tocritics; note also Xen. Ages. 1. 28: contempt for the enemy increases the eager-ness to fight them.

23 Cf., e. g. , Posener 1960, p. 60; Préaux 1978, p. 202 f; for the Ptolemies, cf. the“Canopus decree” for Euergetes, OGIS 56.10–20.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception382

I. M. LeM. DuQuesnay, Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue, in F. Cairns (Ed.), “Papers ofthe Liverpool Latin Seminar” 1, 1977, pp. 25–99

I. M. LeM. DuQuesnay, Vergil’s First Eclogue, in F. Cairns (Ed.), “Papers of theLiverpool Latin Seminar” 3, 1981, pp. 29–182

M. Fantuzzi, 1j Di¹r !qw~lesha. Arat. Phaen. 1 e Theocr. XVII1, “MD” 5, 1980[1981], pp. 163–172

A.S. F. Gow, Theocritus, I-II, Cambridge 19522

K. Gutzwiller, The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books, in M. A. Harder – R. F.Regtuit – G. C. Wakker (Edd.), Theocritus, Groningen 1996, pp. 119–148

G. Jachmann, Die dichterische Technik in Vergils Bukolik, “NJA” 49, 1922,pp. 101–120

R. T. Kerlin, Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, An Overlooked Source, “AJPh” 29, 1908,pp. 449–460

D.A. Kidd, Aratus. Phaenomena, Cambridge 1997A. B. Lloyd, Herodotus. Book II. Commentary 1–98, Leiden 1976G. Posener, De la divinit� du Pharaon, Paris 1960C. Préaux, Le monde hell�nistique, I, Paris 1978A. Steinmeyer-Schareika, Das Nilmosaik von Palestrina und eine ptolem�ische Ex-

pedition nach �thiopien, Bonn 1978R. F. Thomas, Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry. The Ethnographical Tradition,

Cambridge 1982R. F. Thomas, Virgil. Georgics, I, Books I-II, Cambridge 1988J.R.G.Wright, Virgil’s Pastoral Programme: Theocritus, Callimachus and Eclogue 1,

“PCPS” n. s. 29, 1983, pp. 107–160.

Addenda

p. 378 Cf. further Theocritus. Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus 97–8.

p. 381 with n.18 Cf. L. Bodson, ‘A python (Python sebae Gmelin) for the King’MH 60 (2003) 22–38.

21. Virgil and Theocritus 383

22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and[Theocritus]*

1. Authenticity and its consequences

In the Preface to his 1995 Cambridge commentary on a selection ofOvid’s Heroides Peter Knox explains the inclusion of the much debatedEpistula Sapphus as follows: ‘The Epistula Sapphus, which I do not be-lieve to be Ovid’s, is an interesting poem in its own right, and I haveincluded it as an illustration of the principle that a judgement against au-thenticity does not necessarily imply aesthetic condemnation’ (Knox[1995] ix). There is much of interest in this statement, beyond the ques-tion of the authorship of the Epistula Sapphus, with which I will nothere be directly concerned.1 It is probably fair to infer that Knox assertsthis ‘principle’, which one might have hoped did not need spelling out,because he is in fact aware that it has too often been honoured in thebreach, and anyone with any familiarity with traditional classical schol-arship on poems of doubtful authorship will recognise at once that ‘aes-thetic condemnation’ is indeed a dominant mode in such criticism. Aproper account of the reasons for this would embrace much of Westerncultural history, so I content myself here with two brief observations.

Although questions of style are naturally central to disputes aboutauthorship (cf. below), subject-matter has been no less at the heart ofthese arguments at crucial periods of scholarly history. Classical textswere for many centuries — perhaps still are — read as, and proclaimedto be, sources of moral instruction; the lessons of literature were used tocultivate appropriate ethical attitudes in the reader or student, attitudeswhich could of course vary with time or place or the identity of theteacher.2 The methodology and purposes of Plutarch’s How the YoungMan Should Study Poetry remained one dominant mode of readinguntil surprisingly recently. A sense of the individual author, whosework could be represented as offering a clearly delineated profile from

* R. Gibson and C. Kraus (eds.), The Classical Commentary (Leiden 2002) 89–1081 The battle continues (of course), cf. Rosati (1996).2 Cf. Sluiter (1999).

which truths of importance about his or her work, life and culture canbe won by study, was central to this didactic enterprise. Where better tolook for a fulfilled example of someone who has learned those lessonsthan to the author himself ? ‘Euripides says …’ soon passes to ‘Youshould follow the example of Euripides …’. Once (the idea of) Euripi-des has become a guiding practical model, it naturally becomes vitallyimportant not to accept non-Euripidean texts as the genuine article:choices about authenticity are not merely ‘textual’ matters, but concernthe scholar’s very moral health, and that of his or her students.

As far as style is concerned, descriptions of literary quality (in thebroadest sense) very properly continue to play an important rôle inscholarly discussion of the authorship of literary works. Argumentsthat X’s style differs from Y’s must obviously lie at the heart of debateabout whether a particular literary work is to be ascribed to X or Y. Inone sense, it does not matter very much that in practice assertions of dif-ference soon pass into assertions of superiority (of ‘quality’ in a narrowersense), though the dangers lurking here are plain to see: a poem judged‘good’ will likely be assigned to a known poet of good ‘quality’. Thediscussion of ‘Style and authorship’ in Kenney (1996), a kind of sistervolume to Knox’s, relies heavily upon such arguments (though with atact and discretion which few could match),3 and is admirably honestin its conclusion: ‘the literary historian must always be uneasily con-scious of the vast gaps in the record and the dangers of argumentsfrom silence. Nevertheless there is still much virtue in Occam’sRazor: Magni poetae non sunt multiplicandi praeter necessitatem’ (p. 26).However tempted we may be to retort ‘Why not?’, in the present con-text what is important is the way in which the need to justify such a(spoken or unspoken) principle sometimes leads, almost inexorably, tocommentary whose rhetoric is characterised by the award of ‘meritsand demerits’. The crucial distinction between ‘not in the manner ofX’ and ‘not very good’ proves, in practice, almost impossible to main-tain, with potentially ruinous consequences for the writing of commen-tary.

3 Cf. Alessandro Barchiesi’s observation: ‘thoughts of spuriousness almost un-avoidably encourage negative evaluation, but also set higher standards for theopposite view … Kenney’s appeal to the quality of the double letters as aself-evident criterion for authenticity is bound to appear irritating — althoughit is more understandable, in its undisguised subjectivity, than recurrent, objec-tivist invocations of Amores 2.18 as a witness to the authenticity or spuriousnessof the single letters’ (1997) 40. For other considerations cf. Courtney (1998).

22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] 385

The ‘authorless’ text (or that which is judged so) has, on the whole,received a cold reception from classicists ; for reasons which lie deep inthe heart of the history of the subject, classicists have, on the whole,never been very comfortable with the anonymous, and this anxietymay indeed surface in ‘aesthetic condemnation’. Knox’s positive ap-proach is therefore much to be welcomed, even though his observationthat ‘the author [of the Epistula Sapphus] was in many respects a talentedpoet’ (p. 14) might be thought to fall some way short of actual enthu-siasm. The reasons for this curious unease, if my sense is accurate, will becomplex and cannot be pursued at length here. There has perhaps beena feeling that such texts have ‘slipped through the net’, i. e. through thatprocess of krisis, of collecting and categorising, of filtering and selecting,which lies at the very heart of the notion of ‘the classical’ and whichscholars rightly trace back to their spiritual ancestors, the great figuresof Alexandrian scholarship. However unfair it might seem, free-floating,‘anonymous’ poems are cheating the system, and criticism will have itsrevenge.

The range of possible situations with which the commentator is infact faced is, of course, very large.4 Works may become associated intransmission with the oeuvre of a particular writer, though their originalauthor had no intention to imitate, let alone commit fraud; the corporaof fourth-century oratory apparently offer excellent examples of thisphenomenon. ‘Imitations’, on the other hand, may be subsumed withinthe body of the ‘original’ because of generic similarity (cf. Theocritus 8and 9), or ‘forgery’ ranging from ‘intention to deceive’ (by author orsubsequent editor) to more or less parodic homage, or simple accident.The questions to be asked of a ‘spurious’ text will to some extent, ofcourse, vary as the commentator’s view of the situation he or she is con-fronted with emerges, but it is the questions which are not asked, simplybecause of the view taken of the work’s status, which most endanger thecommentator’s project.

To turn to the Epistula Sapphus itself :

(i) ecquid, ut aspecta est studiosae littera dextrae,protinus est oculis cognita nostra tuis?

an, nisi legisses auctoris nomina Sapphus,hoc breue nescires unde ueniret opus?

forsitan et quare mea sint alterna requiras

4 Some of this variety may be traced through Speyer (1971) and Pseudepigrapha I(Fondation Hardt Entretiens XVIII, Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1972).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception386

carmina, cum lyricis sim magis apta modis.flendus amor meus est : elegia flebile carmen.

non facit ad lacrimas barbitos illa meas.(ES 1–8)

When you saw the letters formed by my learned hand, did your eyes im-mediately recognise them as mine? Or, had you not read the author’sname, Sappho, would you not have known the origin of this shortwork? And perhaps you ask why mine are alternating verses, when I ammore suited to the modes of the lyre: I must weep for my love; elegy isthe song of weeping. The lyre does not suit my tears.

On 1–4 Knox comments ‘the opening of Sappho’s epistle is not welldeveloped: the reason for her concern – Phaon is far away in Sicily –is not given until 11’. What is important in the present context is notwhether this note commands assent, though, for what it is worth, itseems to me to miss the mark. Sappho imagines Phaon’s reception ofthe letter with two quatrains which each deal with one fantasisedfacet of that reception. Moreover, it is not Phaon’s absence that is thecause of her concern, but rather what that absence may betokenabout his feelings for her; hence the worry about whether he will in-stantly recognise her writing (if yes, perhaps she is still in his thoughts…), and whether he will be curious about her unusual choice ofmetre (if yes, perhaps he is still interested in her …).5 It is also not im-portant here whether we agree with Knox, quoting Richard Tarrant,6

that aspecta est (1), is ‘flat and lifeless’; in the meaning ‘catch sight of’,‘get a (first) glimpse of’, the verb seems to me entirely appropriate,but this may be a matter of taste as well as Latinity. What is importantis the mode of ‘aesthetic condemnation’ into which Knox immediatelyslips, despite the brave words of the Preface, in a work which properlysets out to demonstrate the inappropriateness of this mode of criticism.

(ii) uror ut, indomitis ignem exercentibus Euris,fertilis accensis messibus ardet ager.

(ES 9–10)

I burn as the fruitful field burns when the raging East Winds fan the fire andthe harvests blaze.

5 On vv. 5–8 cf. now Rosati (1996) 213–16.6 Tarrant (1981) 144; Tarrant in fact called the verb ‘vague, flat, and lifeless’, and

also noted that this would be the only example of the perfect passive of aspicerein ‘Ovid’.

22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] 387

This comparison is said to be ‘less apt’ than in parallel Ovidian passagesbecause Sappho’s passion is ongoing, not a sudden conflagration. De-spite noting the agricultural metaphor in proueniunt (v. 14), Knoxmakes no comment upon the fact that Sappho’s description of herselfas a fertilis ager makes it clear to Phaon that, like an absentee landlord,he is neglecting his estate and its potential ‘fruits’ (cf. Soph.Trach. 31–3): he should not be in the arua of Sicily, but home in Lesbos.That the ‘wind of love’ may in fact come from a surviving fragment ofSappho (fr. 47 Voigt) also passes unremarked.7 Would there have beenthese silences if the commentator had thought that the poem he wascommenting upon was by Ovid? Knox may indeed admire the ES,but his commentary refers repeatedly to its ‘odd’, ‘inappropriate’, ‘ridic-ulous’ phrasing; it almost goes without saying that, in the poems con-sidered to be by Ovid, such phenomena are regarded by the commen-tator (at least in the first instance) as a sign of probable corruption or in-terpolation. Even when the tone is appreciative, morever, doubts linger.On v. 154 we are told that ‘the imitation is not inert’ (as though inert-ness was to be expected), and the repetition in 123–4 ‘heightens the pa-thos’:

(iii) tu mihi cura, Phaon; te somnia nostra reducunt,somnia formoso candidiora die.

You, Phaon, are my love; you my dreams bring back, dreams brighter thanthe clear day.

‘Pathos’ there may well be, but perhaps the most striking thing aboutthese verses is the etymologising of Phaon’s name, a subject which (Ithink) Knox nowhere discusses, despite the real Ovid’s known love ofetymology. I assume that the meaning of the name is relevant elsewherealso, such as in 23 (fies manifestus Apollo) and in 187–8,

tu mihi Leucadia potes esse salubrior unda;et forma et meritis tu mihi Phoebus eris.

You can do more for my health than the water of Leucas; in both beautyand the help you give, you will be my Phoebus.

7 For other relevant passages cf. Hunter on Ap.Rhod. Arg. 3.967–72.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception388

where we must recall that Phoebus was connected (inter al.) with v²or

‘light’, or glossed as kalpqºm ‘bright’ etc.8 How much of this weaknessin the commentary (if weakness it be) can be put down to the commen-tator’s view of the poem’s authorship? Or, to put it another way, howdoes the ‘authenticity agenda’ affect the way commentaries are written. Ihave illustrated a general issue from Peter Knox’s excellent Ovid com-mentary9 to suggest that we are not dealing with a problem merely con-fined to straw men from the bad old days of literary connoisseurship.

Knox’s implicit acknowledgement that judgements about authentic-ity have often been associated with ‘aesthetic condemnation’ reveals themodern commentator to be (once again) the heir of the ancient. In con-sidering the authorship of literary works, ancient scholars, for whomquestions of authenticity, interpolation, plagiarism and literary fraudwere endlessly fascinating, had particular regard to waqajt¶q, that isto the individual flavour of a writer’s style:10

‘Apollonios of Rhodes declared that the Aspis was the work of Hesiod onthe basis of its character and from the fact that also in the Catalogue Iolaos isHeracles’ charioteer’ (Hypoth. Hesiod, Aspis)

‘From its very character one would judge that this speech was not by Dein-archos (for it is diluted and weak and frigid), but one would rather assign itto Demokleides or Menesaichmos or one of their kind’ (Dion. Hal. On De-inarchos 11)

Judgements of this kind were probably ‘a purely subjective aestheticcriticism’;11 the anecdotal tradition is full of the mockery of writerswho were not thought to measure up, and much serious ancient criti-cism has at its heart a sense that there are absolute standards of qualitywhich some reach and some do not. The history of the study of ‘inter-polation’ in Homer shows a constant reliance upon forms of ‘aestheticcondemnation’, whatever other considerations are also in play. The rec-ognition that subjects and styles have histories and contexts was in factsurprisingly slow to take hold in the critical tradition; Horace’s wittyclaim that, if Lucilius had lived in his day, he would have obeyed ‘Hora-

8 Cf. Et. Mag. 796.55–7.9 I declare an interest : since Knox’s commentary appeared, I have become one of

the General Editors of the series (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) to which itbelongs.

10 There is a useful collection of passages in Ritchie (1964) 13.11 Ritchie (1964) 14.

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tian’ precepts (Sat. 1.10.64–72) constantly surprises by its unusual his-torical sense.

Knox’s use of the phrase ‘aesthetic condemnation’ must not, ofcourse, be pushed too hard. The problem is, at one level, merely oneof terminology. If we replace his ‘not well developed’, ‘odd’, ‘inappro-priate’ and so forth with ‘in my judgement non-Ovidian’, we may seemcloser to ancient practice and on rather firmer ground. Thus Sir Ken-neth Dover in the Preface to his commentary on select poems of Theo-critus: ‘In excluding certain poems I have been guided in part by aes-thetic judgement, in part by the evidence for and against authenticity.These two criteria are for the most part in harmony with each otherand have led me in the same direction as the majority of scholars …’.It is a pity that Dover did not spell out what kind of ‘evidence’ hehad in mind, although he presumably meant ‘anything which I judgeto be relevant to the question of authenticity’. The two most obviousbodies of evidence, transmission and language, are both fraught withpotential traps. The transmission of the Theocritean corpus poses partic-ular problems for the scholar interested in the authenticity question;there is both sufficient consistency in the arrangement of the corpus(or corpora) in the ancient and medieval traditions to encourage a beliefthat positive results are possible, and sufficient uncertainty to discourageover-confidence.12 If Dover was referring also to linguistic criteria, thenthat is an even thornier area, and it is somewhat surprising that he de-cided to say nothing about it. As for ‘aesthetic judgment’, it may beworth observing that many critics, who lack Dover’s discipline and rig-our, have obviously found it very difficult to keep ‘aesthetic judgement’and ‘the evidence for and against authenticity’ as separate critical proc-esses until, with a gratifying mixture of pleasure and surprise, they findthe two to be ‘in harmony’. It is in fact unclear whether Dover meansthat he has excluded poems he does not think very good (whether The-ocritean or not) or only poems he considers non-Theocritean, whetherbecause they are ‘unworthy of Theocritus’ or not in the Theocriteanmanner or both. In the event, Dover omitted the poems which thescholarly consensus of this century has deemed non-Theocritean (Idylls8, 9, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27), together with the Aeolic paidika (Idylls 29and 30) and two further poems which have generally been regarded asTheocritean: Idyll 12, the monologue of a helplessly deluded paederast,

12 Cf. Gutzwiller (1996). New papyri can, of course, always change the picture:cf. POxy. 4431, fragments of Idyll 25.

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and Idyll 17, the encomium of Ptolemy;13 he appears not to have par-ticular doubts about the authenticity of any of these last four (cf. pp.xviii, 270).

The cases of Theocritus and Ovid raise different general, as well asparticular, issues. The Theocritean corpus very likely contains poemswhich range in date from the third century B.C. into the Christianera. The language of the earlier poems — the genuine Theocritus, ifyou like — is neither uniform14 nor, as far as we can tell, quite likeany poetic language which had gone before. Any attempt to explorethe linguistic character of these poems is seriously hampered by the var-ious degrees of editorial and scribal ‘normalisation’ (both in the directionof more and of less Doric colouring), which is presumably as concealedas often as it is overt in the papyri and the manuscripts. If we limit our-selves to what are usually understood as the ‘bucolic’ poems, it mightseem a reasonable assumption that the language of such poems evolvedover time, particularly as the ‘generic solidification’ of bucolic/pastoralliterature is essentially a post-Theocritean development.15 From oneperspective, the invention of the ‘bucolic genre’ was an act (or seriesof acts) of historical interpretation imposed upon some of Theocritus’poems by later poets. The existence of the ‘genre’ then provided a seriesof linguistic and motival codes by which the status of a poem could bedeclared. Some of these linguistic codes — for example, how ‘Dori-cised’ the language was to be — will never be recovered with any cer-tainty, for there are few clear signs, such as metre, which betray themwith certainty. Moreover, the once confident belief that so-called ‘hy-perdorisms’ are a mark of Theocritean imitators, not of Theocritus him-self, is slowly dissipating in the face of a recognition that what consti-tutes such forms may often be as much a matter of reception and inter-pretation as of linguistic fact.16 Be that as it may, only someone who be-

13 Idyll 17, a poem which has only recently come into its own, was perhaps not toDover’s taste nor, in his view, to that of ‘the learner in the sixth form, at uni-versity, or later in life’, Preface p. v; Gow calls it ‘stiff, conventional, and syco-phantic’. It is relevant that, in the Introduction to his commentary on Idyll 16(‘the Graces’, an encomium of Hieron of Syracuse), Dover claims that ‘Modernreaders are commonly repelled by an ancient poet’s flattery of a patron or po-tential patron’.

14 Cf. Hunter (1996) 28–45.15 Cf., e. g., Van Sickle (1976), Halperin (1983), Gutzwiller (1996).16 Thus Fantuzzi (1985) 42 points out that editors have traditionally changed the

transmitted v_kala to v¸kgla in ‘named’ poets (Theocritus, Bion etc.), but kept

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lieves that the ‘meaning’ of an ancient poem is separable from the lan-guage in which it is written will regard the state of the bucolic corpuswith equanimity.17 This, of course, is not to say that there are anyeasy paths which the commentator can follow in this matter. In hisgreat Cambridge commentary on Theocritus Gow essentially gave upon these problems, and anyone who has thought hard about themwill have a certain sympathy for this resignation in the face of the seem-ingly inevitable.

The basis of our sense of an author — particularly an author doingsomething quite new — is indeed very often stylistic, and here problemsof authenticity reveal how fragile our stylistic sense actually is ; in askingus to distinguish between one style and another, between the languageof a ‘bucolic’ poem of 250 B.C. and one of 150 B.C, such problemsraise central questions about the nature of poetic language and the con-struction of a poetic idiolect: just how idion is an idiolect? How this af-fects the writing of commentaries may be less important than the prin-ciple itself, but the practical consequences are serious indeed. A com-mentary upon a collection of poems handed down under a singlename invites — indeed imposes — reading by ‘author’, rather thanby any other principle, such as ‘genre’. The large-scale commentator,like Gow on Theocritus, traditionally seeks to build up a picture of apoet and his or her language; the ‘perfect’ picture will be a closed circle,its circumference guarded by internal cross references and parallels, likethe movie campfire protected by a circle of wagons. Problems of au-thenticity threaten the foundations of this approach: other poets, allthose pseudo-Theocrituses and pseudo-Ovids, keep getting in theway. They permit no closed circle, in which the ‘style’ of the authoris fixed as a series of lists and the commentator builds up an alleged au-thorial style by a system of samenesses and differences, rather as in theanalysis of a language. The different parts of a corpus are made bothto explain and to confirm each other, and there is no place for the reallyanomalous; the ‘grammar’ of the language will not allow it.

‘Pastoral’ poetry offers a very special case, for here the ‘anonymity’of the author is an important textual fact. Among the poems to whichVergil alludes in the Eclogues are Idylls 8 and 9, which are almost certain-

the ‘hyperdoric’ form in anonymous texts. For a further illuminating exampleand discussion cf. Cassio (1993).

17 Cf. Hunter (1996) 31–2.

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ly not by Theocritus.18 We may, if we like, assume either that Vergilhimself had no reason to doubt their authenticity or that — somethingwhich, at one level, is plainly correct and is the standard explanation —the Eclogues are a mimesis of a poetic style, not merely of one poet (The-ocritus). Already in the Epitaphios Bionos (? early first century BC), ‘bu-colic song’ is ‘Dorian song’ or ‘Sicilian song’, and for Vergil it is ‘Syr-acusan/Sicilian verse’ (Ecl. 4.1, 6.1, 10.51); to insist that this does notmean just ‘the poetry of Theocritus’ is not to split hairs. If Theocritusdoes not name himself in the Idylls, but merely confines himself to in-dications of his Sicilian origin (cf. 11.7, 28.16), so also Vergil remainsstrictly anonymous, though Mantua gets its due (Ecl. 9.27–8). Wemay contrast the sphragis at the end of the Georgics, where — in keepingwith the very different traditions of a didactic poetry which, in variousways, exploits the sense of the authority which attaches to a particularteacher — Vergil inscribes his name upon his poem, as does Ovid(twice) upon the didactic Ars Amatoria.19 Bucolic and pastoral poetry,on the other hand, which presents itself as the formalised version ofthe pre-literate songs of shepherds, whose names carry no resonance be-yond their own locality, and which, so far as we can see, Theocritus in-stigated, emphasises the shared continuity of a (constantly re-invented)tradition.20 In exploiting poems by more than one author — a fact ofwhich I, for one, would assume Vergil was conscious — the Romanpoet includes, rather than excludes, and this is true to the nature of pas-toral poetry. The very idea of individual authorship is reshaped in thetimeless sweep of tradition. Who was the first to ‘sing’ a particularsong was not the crucial question.

Vergil’s use of Idylls 8 and 9 is often ascribed to the nature of the‘edition’ of Theocritus with which he was familiar, whatever that

18 For Id. 8 cf. esp. Ecl. 7.1–5 (~ 8.1–4), 7.54–6 (~ 8.41–8); for Id. 9 cf.Ecl. 1.45 (~ 9.3), 3.58 (~ 9.1–2), 7.51 (~ 9.20–1).

19 AA 2.744, 3.812. Though Hesiod names himself only in the Theogony (v. 22)and not in the Works and Days, no poem is more personally marked than thelatter, addressed to his frequently named brother and telling the story of his fa-ther’s move to Ascra and his own trip to Euboea in pursuit of poetic success;Aratus alludes to his own name at Phain. 2, Nicander names himself in an acros-tic at Ther. 345–53, and cf. Dion. Perieg. 109–34 (Leue [1884]).

20 Some good remarks in Hubbard (1998).

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may have been.21 The collected ‘bucolic Muses’ of Artemidorus of Tar-sus (first half of the first century B.C.) remains a mysterious volume, butat the very least it is reasonable to believe that it contained poems byboth Theocritus and his successors. Even the scholarly world, then,may have recognised the peculiar force of ‘pastoral tradition’. Thecase must not, of course, be overstated. In the Augustan periodTheon wrote a zpºlmgla eQr Heºjqitom,22 which (presumably) coveredonly poems he thought to be by Theocritus, and Wendel at leastthought the same was true for the earlier ‘commentary’ of Asclepiadesof Myrlea.23 The matter is beset with uncertainty, but we can hardlydoubt that there was some activity of krisis, i. e. of trying to sort out‘real’ from ‘spurious’ Theocritus; the absence of certain poems fromthe papyrus record would seem to point in that direction.24 Neverthe-less, it seems at least curious that no trace of this activity is preserved inthe grammatical tradition; there is no notice of the ‘some say that thispoem is not by Theocritus’ kind. Distinctions were, of course, drawn.Quintilian praises Theocritus as admirabilis in suo genere (10.1.55), andTheocritus was by common consensus the best t_m t± boujokij± suc-cqax²mtym, though not in fact the first.25

2. [Theocritus] 23

‘Late’ (and imitative) poems become, almost inevitably, bad poems.Moreover, some of the poems in the Theocritean corpus which are al-most certainly relatively late are also in a very bad textual state; this is ofitself an interesting phenomenon, but one which cannot be pursued atany length here. Part of the reason presumably lies in the period oftransmission before (probably) generic factors led to their inclusion ina canonical bucolic corpus, when some of these poems at least almostcertainly did float free. Ancient scholars were, on the whole, as addictedto the cult of the famous name as are their modern counterparts, andunprotected texts suffered from neglect then as now. The second

21 Few matters in the history of bucolic are more controversial. I have found mosthelp in Wilamowitz (1906), Wendel (1920), Van Sickle (1976), Halperin(1983), Vaughn (1981), Gutzwiller (1996).

22 Cf. Wendel (1920) 44–5, 80–3; RE 5A.2056–7.23 Cf. Wendel (1920) 78–80.24 Cf. Gow (1952) I lxi.25 Anec.Est. p. 9 Wendel (cf. Van Sickle [1976] 18, 22–3).

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stage of the process is that poems which are ‘late and bad (and corrupt)’scarcely merit serious attention. Thus, Gow tells us, problems of dateand authorship with regard to Idyll 20, a monologue by a rusticwhose charms have been scorned by a girl from the city, are ‘of slightimportance in a poem so imitative and of so little merit’ (II, p. 365).26

On the contrary, we have so little Greek poetry from the crucial periodin the late second and first centuries B .C., when the Greek traditionpassed to Rome, that anyone even remotely concerned with that tran-sition must be interested in (at least) the date of Idyll 20.

An even clearer victim of the syndrome I have outlined is Idyll 23,the story of an erastes’ tragic passion for a cruel and heartless boy who, inGow’s translation of v.6, ‘would not bend in speech and intercoursealike’. Outside the beloved’s door the erastes pronounces a final paraklau-sithyron, prescribes his own epitaph, and finally hangs himself ; the heart-less boy is killed by a statue of Eros as he swims in the gymnasium. Thisis a poem (and a poet) of the greatest interest for, inter alios, anyone con-cerned with Latin elegy, perhaps above all with the eroticisation ofdeath in Propertius. For Gow, however, ‘the essential badness of thepoem is plainly due to the author not to the scribes. The narrative isbald, frigid, and improbable; the sentiment is sloppy, and embodiedin an address to the boy who, ex hypothesi, cannot hear it’. (This last fea-ture, as Gow knew very well indeed, is common to virtually all literaryparaklausithyra). Gow is certainly correct that the ‘text is grossly corrupt’,but his personal distaste for the poem has produced a commentarywhich, to borrow his own words about the Idyll, ‘is the least attractiveof the whole corpus’, one designed in fact, in Glenn Most’s words, ‘toshow that the text one is commenting on is not worth reading’. Idyll 23does not groan under a weight of secondary literature, but Gow failed tomention the only serious literary discussion of the poem then available.27

Even more serious is the very half-heartedness of his attempt to find ageneric context for the poem. The narrative has important analoguesin the exercises of the rhetorical schools, as Wilamowitz had pointed

26 It must be stressed that Gow does not, in fact, operate with a simplistic ‘non-Theocritean’ = ‘bad’ principle, as the helpful discussions of Idylls 8 and 25make clear.

27 Copley (1940), cf. id. (1956) 138–9. Radici Colace (1971) is a helpful study ofthe poem’s uariatio of language and motifs drawn from Homer and Bion’s Epi-taphios Adonidos. Idyll 23 is also treated more sympathetically in the recent edi-tions of B. M. Palumbo Stracca (Milan 1993) and O. Vox (Turin 1997).

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out,28 and in the narrative in Book 14 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses of howthe heartless Anaxarete was metamorphosed into a statue (of Venus Pro-spiciens) after her poor admirer Iphis hung himself at her door.29 Ovid’stale has long been connected with the very similar narrative of Arkeo-phon and Arsinoe, found in Antoninus Liberalis with the note that thetale occurred in Hermesianax’s Leontion (fr. 4 Powell). These ‘source’notes in the manuscript of Antoninus are of disputed value, but at thevery least we have here a cumulative circumstantial case for a thick(and early) Hellenistic literary texture; the reader of Gow’s commentarywould be pointed towards this background only by following up thebrief hints in the note on vv. 16 ff.

It is, however, a great virtue of the commentary form that it de-mands from the commentator ‘close reading’ (in the best possiblesense) of the commentated text, a kind of reading which Gow wasvery well qualified to perform, as his commentary shows time andagain; the difference between ‘commentary’ and ‘critical reading’ hasin fact been greatly overstated in classical studies,30 more as the resultof a particular style of nineteenth- and twentieth-century commentarythan for any constraints inherent in the commentary form. The exagger-ation is often manifested in the charge that the commentary form almostinevitably leads to a concentration upon the parts at the expense of thewhole;31 there are a number of well-known commentaries which couldindeed be adduced to support such a view, though I have to say that Ibelieve that the fault, where it exists, lies not in the form but in thecommentator. Be that as it may, for poems such as Idyll 23, which aretextually and interpretatively difficult and lack any real literary-historicalcontext in which they can readily be placed, the difference between‘commentary’ and ‘critical reading’ may be (almost) as much a matterof typography as of content. In what follows I will sketch an interpre-tation of Idyll 23 as an illustration of the artificiality of the barriers whichclassicists have too often erected.

28 Wilamowitz (1906) 81, citing Sopater, V 59 Walz.29 Cf. Fauth (1966).30 For the more flexible situation in other disciplines see, e. g., the essays in Sec-

tion A of Most (1999).31 Cf., e. g., Henderson (1980), Most (1985) 36–40, Ma (1994) 60–9, Goldhill

(1999) 411–18. To what extent the charge itself suggests that those who makeit are operating with a quite unreal sense of the kinds of claims commentariesshould make for themselves and of how they are read and/or used may be de-bated.

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The structuring irony of Idyll 23 is, despite the state of the text, clearenough:

cq²xom ja· tºde cq²lla t¹ so ?r to¸woisi waq²ssy7“toOtom 5qyr 5jteimem7 bdoipºqe, lµ paqode¼sgir,!kk± st±r tºde k´nom7 !pgm´a eWwem 2ta ?qom.”

(vv. 46–8)

Write also this epitaph which I scratch on your walls : ‘Love killed him.Traveller, do not pass by, but stop and say: “He had a cruel friend”’.

At one level, the closing 2ta?qom, ‘friend’, picks up a word which thedoomed lover has already tried to place in the boy’s mouth (45), becausehe sees their relationship in grandiose ‘epic’ terms, somewhat like thedeluded fantasies of the speaker of Idyll 12.32 This epic ideal of ‘comra-deship’ is recalled in the request of 44, tºde loi tq·r 1p²usom, ‘call out tome three times as follows’, which is not merely a reference to the triplecall necessary for the dead to hear, but alludes specifically to Odyssey9.62–6:33

5mhem d³ pqot´qy pk´olem !jawgl´moi Gtoq,%slemoi 1j ham²toio, v¸kour ak´samter 2ta¸qour.oqd’ %qa loi pqot´qy m/er j¸om !lvi´kissai,pq¸m tima t_m deik_m 2t²qym tq·r 6jastom !Osai,oT h²mom 1m ped¸yi Jijºmym vpo dgiyh´mter.

Thence we sailed on, glad enough to be snatched from death, yet sick atheart to have lost those others, the comrades that we had known; norhad I let the ships go from there till the ritual call had thrice been madefor each of these luckless men whom the Cicones had killed on theplain. (trans. Shewring)

The evocation of the epic past constructs the relationship as – perhapspathetically – paradigmatic, and prepares for the moral with whichthe poem is to conclude. Unlike the speaker of Idyll 12, however,the ill-fated lover is able to control the future: he prescribes not merelythe words with which the heartless beloved is to commemorate the deadon his tomb, but he also urges the boy to perpetuate his own heartless-ness forever in the words of passers-by. The final act of kindness forwhich he asks is also his revenge; the ‘ultimate’ (pam¼statom, 35) favour

32 Cf. Hunter (1996) 186–95.33 Cf. Radici Colace (1971) 333–4.

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he seeks from the cruel boy proves indeed to be the boy’s last act. ‘Eroskilled him’ is the epitaph of the lover (47), but is to be literally true ofthe eromenos.

The poetic justice enshrined in the narrative has something in com-mon with that of the Ovidian story of Anaxarete, the stony-hearted girlwho is turned to stone, but the poet of Idyll 23 has played this motifrather differently. The ‘stony boy’ (k²ime pa ?, 20)34 who refused tomake an offering of tears (38, 55) or to establish a permanent (stone)memorial is killed by a stone statue (58–60) and his spirit mingleswith the ceaseless restlessness of water. The death in a pool, a familiarenough motif,35 is here given further particular point by vv. 22–6where the erastes figures his own death as a journey to the water of for-getfulness:

!kk± bad¸fy5mha t¼ leu jat´jqimar, fpgi kºcor Glem !teqp´ymnum¹m to ?sim 1q_si t¹ v²qlajom, 5mha t¹ k÷hor.!kk± ja· Cm fkom aqt¹ kab½m pot· we ?kor !l´kny,oqd’ ovtyr sb´ssy t¹m 1l¹m pºhom.36

I journey where you have condemned me, where they say is the universalcure for the sorrows of lovers, where there is forgetfulness. But even if Itake it and drink it to the end, not even so shall I quench my passion.

The erastes is condemned to seek the pharmakon of ‘forgetfulness’37 in theUnderworld, a motif which probably here reflects epitaphic, rather thaninitiatory or philosophic ideas;38 though he foresees no respite even indeath, we sense that he will be allowed to find peace. The eromenos,however, whose cruel behaviour revealed that he had forgotten the

34 Note the assonance of kea¸mar j k²ime (19–20).35 Cf. Segal (1981) 47–65.36 The transmitted wºkom ‘anger’ would have some resonance with the theme of

vengeance after death (cf. n. 35), but ‘desire’ seems the required sense. If, how-ever, we should think of Helen’s pharmakon at Od. 4.220–1, then this mightlend some colour to wºkom (cf. %wokom in Od. 2.221).

37 Cf. Hunter on Theocritus 11.1–6.38 Cf. EG 244.10 Kaibel, a dead woman is pausipºmyi k²har kousal´ma pºlati,

‘bathed in the grief-ending draught of forgetfulness’, ibid. 204.11–12, a deadwoman addresses her husband, ‘I did not drink the final water (5swatomvdyq) of Underworld forgetfulness, so that, even among the dead, I wouldfind consolation in you’. For such ideas in other contexts cf. , e. g., Pl.Rep. 10.621a, Nilsson (1960), Zuntz (1971) 378–81 (the gold leaves).

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god’s power, is taught a cruel lesson which he will remember (and passon to others) forever: the concluding b c±q he¹r oWde dij²feim probablymeans not just ‘the god is a vengeful god’, but ‘the god knows how to, i. e.finds appropriate ways to, punish’. The boy who ‘forgot’ to utter thewords of the lover’s epitaph is finally given the voice of realisationafter death.

The language of the lover’s epitaph (47–8) has been anticipated bythe final plea to the eromenos : ‘do not pass by me, but stop and weep alittle …’ (37–8). The very first ‘passer-by’, the generalised addressee ofall epitaphs, is indeed the cruel boy himself. In refusing to heed the plea‘not to pass by’, just as he pays no attention to all the other requests thesuicidal lover makes of him (38–42),39 the doomed eromenos is cast inthe rôle of a very resistant ‘reader’. The poem thus not only celebratesthe power of eros, but also dramatises the power of an epitaph, and in-deed of poetry generally, to enact its will. We may thus wonder aboutthe context of Idyll 23: it is a brief anonymous narrative about love’spower, and the most ‘natural’ context for it would be as part of an at-tempt by the narrator to persuade a young man to yield to his desires.Telling the story of the erastes who killed himself out of despair ispart of a strategy for avoiding a similar fate.

39 There are some very difficult problems of text and interpretation in the parallelpassages 36–40 and 53–6. Thus, the lover asks the boy to ‘place his ownclothes around the [lover’s] corpse’, but in the event the boy ‘sullied all hisclothes on the corpse’. [Zimmerman (1994) 5 understands the clothes in ques-tion to be those of the dead lover (‘sullied’ by urinating?), but 1vabij² is diffi-cult with this interpretation (cf. v. 1)] . If the idea is of pollution attaching to acorpse, this phrase might be connected with the theme, hinted at a couple oftimes, that the boy should beware lest the lover pursue vengeance from beyondthe grave: note v. 42, where diakk²neir le ‘you will reconcile me’ may well becorrect. [For the first half of the verse Radici Colace (1971) 335 suggests oqd¼malai se di¾jem, cf. Bion, EA 53.] It is striking that in Ovid too the‘ghost’ motif appears: ipse ego, ne dubites, adero praesensque uidebor / corpore ut ex-animi crudelia lumina pascas (Met. 14.727–8). We are certainly not very far fromDido’s prayer for an avenger to arise from her bones, and for Aeneas to carrywith him the omen of her death (Aen. 4.625, 662).

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3.

Classical commentaries often aim not merely to explicate a particulartext, but also to be works of ‘wider interest’, which will be used, as in-deed some of the most famous modern commentaries are used, not un-like reference works.40 Of itself, such an aim seems both natural andwelcome, just as the author of, say, a thematic study of a text mayhope that students interested in other texts may learn from, and wishconstantly to refer to, the approach taken, the questions asked etc.The serious danger here is not that the accumulation of detail becomesan end in itself, divorced from any contact with the text it purports toilluminate, for in the (not infrequent) cases where this happens, readersand ‘users’ ought to be left to exercise their own discretion and judge-ment about the commentary they are reading and/or using. Rather, thegreater danger is that such accumulation does not serve a particular argu-ment about what a text means, but is used to offer a ‘complete’ pictureof part of the ancient world, one whose completeness is allegedly con-firmed by its apparent internal consistency (and vice versa). This drive forcompleteness may seem paradoxical, when what survives of ancient lit-erature and the cultures which produced it is so scanty, but no one whohas read far in the commentary literature of the last two centuries willdoubt its existence.

It must, however, be admitted that, by comparison with ‘booksabout’ and ‘literary studies’, the commentary form invites such ambi-tions, as (in some manifestations) it sets out to deal in sequential detailwith the grammatical and linguistic structure of a whole text. If lan-guage, one might suppose, surely also ‘meaning’? Relevant here arethe ‘natural’ tendency of commentary to exhaustive collection,41 andthe related fact that commentaries may reproduce material they havetaken over from their predecessors almost without change;42 the verylayout of the form suggests a ‘summation’ of all that has been saidabout a text up to the date of the latest commentary. Kurt Latte infact took Gow severely to task for taking over material not just fromhis predecessors but also from reference works, dictionaries and gram-mars, which any scholarly reader of Theocritus would be expected touse alongside a ‘commentary’, and thereby obscuring what was actually

40 Cf. Gibson (2002) 344–6.41 Cf. Gumbrecht (1999).42 On the tralaticious aspects of commentaries, see Kraus (2002) 11–13, 16–17.

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new in Gow’s Theocritus ;43 most readers will, however, be very gratefulfor Gow’s acquisitive habits.

Arrangement by ‘author’ has in the past proved a very useful organ-ising scheme by which such completeness can be set forth. The ancientworld (or at least its literature) could be seen as a progression of ‘greatnames’, each of which can be made more or less wholly accessiblethrough ‘comprehensive’ commentaries upon their work. Works ofdoubtful authorship, on the other hand, are an unwelcome reminderof the vastnesses of our ignorance, which the misleading tidiness ofthe ‘author’ approach tends to conceal; such works are therefore tobe shunted aside, as being unrepresentative ‘sports’ and/or simply sec-ond-rate. I exaggerate, of course, but I hope that it is clear that the issueswhich this paper has discussed stretch beyond the detailed interpretationof any particular poem and relate to the larger intellectual context andproject of many traditional commentaries. The rhetoric of comprehen-siveness, in fact, does a disservice not only to the commentary form, butalso to our understanding of the ancient world. It will, however, also beclear that the situation I have described is, in many respects, already out-of-date, thanks in part to a series of intellectual and methodologicalshifts within classics and the humanities generally. This is, of course,clearest in the case of classical Athens, where the growth of the studyof Athenian culture and society, and with it of texts as cultural docu-ments or social signs, has inhibited both the rhetoric of ‘completeness’and attempts to put that rhetoric into practice. It is, for example, my im-pression (no stronger) that, since Fraenkel’s Agamemnon, Anglophonescholars at least44 have on the whole held back from attempts to deal‘comprehensively’ with any tragedy; there might now seem somethingquixotic (to say no more) in such an undertaking, whether it be in com-mentary form or any other. In this new climate of social and culturalhistory, ‘peripheral author(ity)less texts’ have a quite new standing,

43 Latte (1951) 257, cf. Stephens (2002) 71–5 and contrast Legrand (1951) 371who has nothing but praise for the ‘summative’ appearance of the work:‘Cette édition monumentale … est une véritable “somme” de tout ce quenous pouvons, à l’heure actuelle, savoir de Théocrite, de tout ce qui peut con-duire à la connaissance et à la comprehension de ses oeuvres’.

44 There is an obvious irony here which I shall not pursue.

22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] 401

and the commentary form a whole range of new opportunities which itwould be a shame to waste.45

Bibliography

Barchiesi, A. 1997. Review of Kenney (1996), in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 8,40–7

Cameron, A. 1995. Callimachus and his Critics, Princeton.Cassio, A.C. 1993. ‘Iperdorismi callimachei e testo antico dei lirici (Call. Hy. 5,

109; 6, 136)’, in Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura Greca da Omero all’et�ellenistica, 903–10, Rome.

Copley, F.O. 1940. ‘The suicide-paraclausithyron: a study of Ps.-Theocritus,Idyll XXIII’, Transactions of the American Philological Society 71, 52–61.

— 1956. Exclusus Amator. A Study in Latin Love Poetry, Baltimore.Courtney, E. 1998. ‘Echtheitskritik: Ovidian and non-Ovidian Heroides

again’, Classical Journal 93, 157–66.Fantuzzi, M. 1985. Bionis Smyrnaei Adonidos Epitaphium, Liverpool.Fauth, W. 1966. ‘Aphrodite Parakyptusa’, Abh. Mainz 6, 331–437.Gibson, R.K. 2002, ‘“Cf. e. g.”: a typology of “parallels” and the role of com-

mentaries on Latin poetry’ in R.K. Gibson and C.S. Kraus (ed.), The Clas-sical Commentary. Histories, Practices, Theory, 331–57, Leiden.

Goldhill, S. 1999. ‘Wipe your glosses’, in Most (1999) 380–425.Gow, A.S.F. 1952. Theocritus, 2nd edition, Cambridge.Gumbrecht, H.U. 1999. ‘“Fill up your margins”. About commentary and

copia’, in Most (1999) 443–53.Gutzwiller, K. 1996. ‘The evidence for Theocritean poetry books’, in M.A.

Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker, eds. , Theocritus, 119–48, Gronin-gen.

Halperin, D. 1983. Before Pastoral : Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of BucolicPoetry, New Haven and London.

Henderson, J. 1980. Review of R.O.A.M. Lyne, Ciris. A Poem Attributed toVergil (Cambridge 1978), in Classical Review 30, 200–4.

Hubbard, T.K. 1998. The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in thePastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton, Ann Arbor.

Hunter, R. 1993. The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies, Cambridge.– 1996. Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry, Cambridge.Kenney, E.J. 1996. Ovid, Heroides XVI-XXI. Cambridge.Knox, P.E. 1995. Ovid, Heroides. Select Epistles, Cambridge.Kraus, C.S. 2002. ‘Introduction: reading commentaries/commentaries on read-

ing’ in R.K. Gibson and C.S. Kraus (ed.), The Classical Commentary. Histor-ies, Practices, Theory, 1–27, Leiden.

45 I am grateful to Roy Gibson, Christina Kraus, Glenn Most, and audiences inNottingham and Heidelberg for helpful criticism of earlier versions of thispaper.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception402

Latte, K. 1951. Review of Gow’s Theocritus, in Gnomon 23, 252–7.Legrand, P. 1951. Review of Gow’s Theocritus, in Revue des �tudes grecques 64,

371–9Leue, G. 1884. ‘Zeit und heimath des periegeten Dionysios’, Philologus 42,

175–8.Ma, J. 1994. ‘Black Hunter variations’, in Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological

Society 40, 49–80.Most, G.W. 1985. The Measures of Praise, Göttingen.Most, G.W. (ed.). 1999. Commentaries-Kommentare, Göttingen.Nilsson, M.P. 1960. ‘Die Quellen der Lethe und der Mnemosyne’ in Opuscula

Selecta III, 85–92, Lund.Pfeiffer, R. 1955. ‘The future of studies in the field of Hellenistic poetry’, Jour-

nal of Hellenic Studies 75, 69–73.Radici Colace, P. 1971. ‘La tecnica compositiva dell’ 9qast^r pseudo-Teocri-

teo (Idillio XXIII)’, Giornale italiano di filologia 23, 325–46.Ritchie, W. 1964. The Authenticity of the Rhesus of Euripides. Cambridge.Rosati, G. 1996. ‘Sabinus, the Heroides and the poet-nightingale. Some obser-

vations on the authenticity of the Epistula Sapphus’, Classical Quarterly 46,207–16.

Segal, C. 1981. Poetry and Myth in Ancient Pastoral. Princeton.Sluiter, I. 1999. ‘Commentaries and the didactic tradition’, in Most ed. (1999)

172–205.Speyer, W. 1971. Die literarische F�lschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum,

Munich.Stephens, S. 2002. ‘Commenting on fragments’ in R.K. Gibson and C.S. Kraus

(ed.), The Classical Commentary. Histories, Practices, Theory, 67–88, Leiden.Tarrant, R. 1981. ‘The authenticity of the letter of Sappho to Phaon (Heroides

xv)’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85, 133–53.Van Sickle, J. 1976. ‘Theocritus and the development of the conception of bu-

colic genre’, Ramus 5, 18–44.Vaughn, J. 1981. ‘Theocritus Vergilianus and Liber Bucolicon’, Aevum 55, 47–

68.Wendel, C. 1920. �berlieferung und Entstehung der Theokrit-Scholien, Berlin.Wilamowitz, U. von. 1906. Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker, Berlin.Zimmerman, C. 1994. The Pastoral Narcissus. A Study of the First Idyll of Theo-

critus, Lanham, Md.Zuntz, G. 1971. Persephone, Oxford.

Addenda

There has been increased interest of late in post-Theocritean bucolic and thetransition to the Eclogues – useful orientation and bibliography in the contribu-tions of Bernsdorff, Reed and Fantuzzi in M. Fantuzzi and T. Papanghelis(eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden 2006). Cf. alsoThe Shadow of Callimachus Chapter 4. On Idyll 20 see M. Fantuzzi, ‘The impor-

22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] 403

tance of being boukolos : ps.-Theocr. 20’ in M. Paschalis (ed.), Pastoral Palimpsests(Rethymnon 2007) 13–38.

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23. Imaginary Gods?Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus*

1. Introduction

The Alexandrian poets’ familiarity with popular cult hymns and thegreat hymns of the choral and lyric traditions, as well as the so-calledHomeric Hymns, is obvious from the surviving texts. What ideas theyhad, however, about what constituted the form and nature of ‘ahymn’, as indeed of poetic genres in general, remains in need of furtherresearch and, perhaps, new information. We have traces of scholarly at-tempts to classify the lyric poems, among which there were several typesof ‘hymns’ in a broad sense (paeans, dithyrambs, ‘hymns’ in the narrowsense, etc.)1 and, in addition, we have Hellenistic poems which cor-respond in form and content to whatever we may call ‘a hymn’ in a gen-eral sense. As for Callimachus, his obvious close familiarity with thework of Simonides, Pindar2, and Bacchylides may safely be assumedto have extended to their lyric hymns (paeans, dithyrambs, etc.)which were also the subject of intensive scholarly activity in the Alex-andrian Library. The Homeric Hymns have, on the other hand, left verylittle trace in the papyrus record and do not seem to have been the sub-ject of serious Alexandrian exegesis3 ; this apparent neglect, however,

* Callimaque (Entretiens sur l’antiquit� classique XLVIII, Vandoeuvres-Geneva2002) 143–87, jointly with Therese Fuhrer.

1 On the Alexandrian classification of poetry cf. A. E. Harvey, “The classificationof Greek lyric poetry”, in CQ 5 (1955), 157–75; L. Käppel, Paian. Studien zurGeschichte einer Gattung (Berlin 1992); I. Rutherford, Pindar’s Paeans (Oxford2001), 152–8; cf. also M. Depew, “Enacted and represented dedications:genre and Greek hymn”, in Matrices of Genre. Authors, Canons, and Society,ed. by M. Depew and D. Obbink (Cambridge, Mass./London 2000),59–79; C. Calame, “La poésie lyrique grecque, un genre inexistant?”, in Lit-t�rature 111 (1998), 87–110, esp. 103.

2 Cf. esp. T. Fuhrer, Die Auseinandersetzung mit den Chorlyrikern in den Epinikiendes Kallimachos (Basel/Kassel 1992).

3 That they were not completely neglected is suggested by two places whereh.Ap. seems to have affected the Homeric text, cf. The Ptolemaic Papyri ofHomer, ed. by S. West (Köln/Opladen 1967), 32–5.

contrasts strikingly with their obvious importance as model texts for theAlexandrian poets (Callimachus and Theocritus) and for, at least, Ovidafter them4.

What features of the Homeric Hymns were particularly attractive forthird-century elite poets is a question which is asked too rarely. Why didCallimachus pay such attention to these poems? Any answer to thisquestion must, of course, remain speculative, but in this paper wewish to approach the subject from a number of angles in the hope, atleast, of establishing some important parameters within which the mattermay be considered. It is worth saying at once that one possible answerwhich we will not consider may lie in the opportunities for poetic per-formance afforded by the Ptolemaic court5; it may be that hymnic writ-ing was positively encouraged, in part for the encomiastic opportunitiesit offered (cf. Section 5 below). Our concern, however, will be with theinner dynamics of the hymnic form, not with its social setting, and fourbroad concerns will structure the argument:

1) Hymnic form allowed poets to display their knowledge of cultsand rites from all over the Greek world, both in ‘mimetic’ form andthrough the use of elements of more traditional hymnic encomia (divineepithets, aetiology etc.). The gradual freeing of the hymnic form fromnecessary ties to a particular cultic locale allowed poets to include culticmaterial from the widest possible area: hymns, in other words, becomepanhellenic.

2) Hymnic narrative becomes correspondingly free, and poets are nolonger tied to particular narratives for particular settings. Hymns cannow accommodate both the arcane and the alarming, and the criticismof myth now also plays a much greater role.

3) Hymnic form allows poets to lay bare and experiment with thetechnique and rhetoric of encomium, for it is ‘praise’ towards whichevery element of the poems is directed. In particular, poets brokedown the boundaries of ‘mortal’ and ‘divine’ praise, thus re-drawingthe very categories of existence.

4 Cf. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, ed. by N. Richardson (Oxford 1974), 67 ff;S. Hinds, The Metamorphosis of Persephone. Ovid and the Self-Conscious Muse(Cambridge 1987); R. Hunter, Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry(Cambridge 1996), Chapter 2; A. Barchiesi, “Venus’ masterplot. Ovid andthe Homeric Hymns”, in Ovidian Transformations, ed. by Ph. Hardie, A. Barch-iesi, S. Hinds (Cambridge 1999), 112–26.

5 On this topic cf. G. Weber, Dichtung und hçfische Gesellschaft. Die Rezeption vonZeitgeschichte am Hof der ersten drei Ptolem�er (Stuttgart 1993).

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4) We will make use – as a heuristic device – of the possibility thatCallimachus put his Hymns together in a poetry-book, thereby creatinga dynamic system, a ‘language’ if you like, in which each poem and eachdivinity may be read in relation to all others; the resulting set of over-lapping relations in a divine hierarchy turns this poetry-book into a kindof Theogony. This assumption of a poetry-book is, of course, a large one,but one whose suggestiveness, to which we hope that the present essaycontributes, seems to us to justify it6. Even if we stop short of the as-sumption that the six extant poems which we call ‘hymns’ are intendedto be read as a unity, it is still legitimate, and now common practice inliterary scholarship, to see them as a (loose) system with inherent cross-references to each other.

2. The cultic imagination

The ‘rhapsodic’ Homeric Hymns were probably performed in very similarcircumstances to that of the epic recitations which they often preceded– competitions at festivals, aristocratic symposia and so on. It is standardscholarly practice to distinguish these hexameter poems from ‘culthymns’, usually choral and lyric, the performance of which formed animportant part of the religious celebration itself ; whereas the hexameter‘hymns’ concentrate upon praise of the god and an account of his or herplace in the divine scheme, and there is merely an understated (or evenjust implied) request for the god to favour the poet in return for hissong, ‘cult hymns’ have at their centre a request to a god for specificor general favour7. Such favour may extend to the very appearance orepiphany of the god; the ‘cletic’ hymn, literary versions of which are

6 For some bibliography cf. A. Kerkhecker, Callimachus’ Book of Iambi (Oxford1999), 277, adding M. W. Haslam, “Callimachus’ Hymns”, in Callimachus, ed.by M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (Groningen 1993), 111–25 andV. Knight, “Landscape and the gods in Callimachus’ Hymns”, in Papers of theLeeds International Latin Seminar 7 (1993), 201–11

7 Cf. A. Miller, From Delos to Delphi. A Literary Study of the Homeric Hymn to Apol-lo (Leiden 1986), 1–5; W. D. Furley, “Praise and Persuasion in Greek Hymns”,in JHS 115 (1995), 29–46. A useful introduction is J. M. Bremer, “GreekHymns”, in Faith, Hope and Worship. Aspects of Religious Mentality in the AncientWorld, ed. by H. S. Versnel (Leiden 1981), 193–215. There is also much rel-evant material in AION 13 (1991) which is devoted to L’inno tra rituale e letter-atura nel mondo antico.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 407

most familiar from the poetry of Sappho, will assume a special impor-tance for Callimachus, as two of his hymns (Apollo and Athena) recreatethe experience of (waiting for) epiphany, and there are reasons forthinking that the phenomena of epiphany did indeed assume new im-portance within Hellenistic religious experience. Nevertheless, the dis-tinction, at least in form, between rhapsodic and cultic hymns can beseen breaking down well before the Hellenistic period, and from thefourth century onwards survive a number of hexameter ‘hymns’which clearly occupied a genuine place in cultic performance. Callima-chus’ hymnal experiments with a semi-dramatic, mimetic mode are inpart a reflection of (and upon) this gradual fusion of originally separateforms.

In this changed situation of the gradual divorce of the cultic refer-ents and aetiology of literary hymns from the actual cultic experience ofthe audience8, the most important experience of the audience to whichthe poet appeals is that of prior texts, though we must acknowledge thatthe power of these poems cannot be explained solely in these terms.Much in the Hymns of Callimachus also appeals to a cultic imagination,which may of course be grounded in a shared experience of literary rep-resentations and local chronicles. Nevertheless, the so-called ‘mimetic’Hymns to Apollo, Athena and Demeter are merely the limit case of a con-stant appeal to active engagement with what is being described9. Suchmimeticism greatly elaborates the important rôle of deixis and of(self-)reference to the festival and its choruses in early hymns by actuallyscripting a context for performance, whereas such a context needed nosuch script when the poem was indeed part of a real performance10. Dis-cussion of Callimachus’ Hymns has too often been bedevilled by the(normally silent) running together of two questions which should, at

8 This has been the subject of a series of papers by Mary Depew, cf. “Mimesis andAetiology in Callimachus’ Hymns”, in Callimachus (n. 6 above), 57–77; “DelianHymns and Callimachean Allusion”, in HSCP 98 (1998), 155–82; “Enactedand represented dedications” (n. 1 above); cf. also W. D. Furley, “Apollo hum-bled: Phoenix’ Koronisma in its Hellenistic literary setting”, in MD 33 (1994),9–31, esp. 25–30; Rutherford (n. 1 above), 128–30 with the cautionary re-marks 177–8.

9 ‘Mimetic’ is in fact a rather unhelpful term (cf. M. A. Harder, “InsubstantialVoices: Some Observations on the Hymns of Callimachus”, in CQ 42[1992], 384–94), but it would be foolish to imagine that we can now getaway from it.

10 Cf. Depew, “Dedications” (n. 1 above).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception408

least in the first instance, be kept separate: “What kind of audience re-ception do these poems construct?”, and “How were these poems firstpresented and subsequently received?”11 An understandable fascinationwith the second ‘historical’ question may obscure the merits of askingthe first. A similar dichotomy operates with the world of cult whichthese poems call into being. Of primary importance is not how widelyfamiliar and practised such a cult as the Delian tree-biting (h. 4.316–24)‘really’ was;12 as it happens, the antiquarian tendencies (and a developingtourist trade?) of the third century may in fact have increased the actualpractice of rites believed to be ancient. Rather, what matters is that thepoems construct an audience interested in rites practised by others, oftenvery remote ‘others’, to a far greater degree than the lyric hymns and themajor Homeric Hymns13; rites, real or imaginary, now exist in a decon-textualised space from which they can at any time be drawn into poeticdescription. From a theological point of view, then, a god may be thesum of the rites practised, stories told, and epithets ascribed to him orher; the Hymn to Artemis is a very good example of this14. Such a textoffers itself as, to some extent, a historical record, a poetic version ofa ‘On the cults of Artemis’; its very form has been affected by contem-porary readerly and scholarly practices. Though the hexameter HomericHymns are themselves more ‘all-inclusive’, less narrowly bound in theirconcerns to a specific performance context than are lyric cult hymns,these tendencies inherent in the form are taken to new levels and innew directions in the third century.

In the Hymns to Athena and Demeter Callimachus abandoned the tra-ditional Ionic language of the hexameter hymn in favour of a DoricisingKunstsprache, itself heavily indebted to the language of epic. This choice

11 A. Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton 1995), 64 does seem to ac-knowledge the separateness of some version of these questions.

12 W. H. Mineur (Callimachus. Hymn to Delos. Introduction and Commentary [Leiden1984], on v. 317) asserts that the aorists of the description show that there is nocertainty that the rite was still in existence; he is right to call attention to this,but these tenses may fall into the very broad category of ‘the gnomic’ (Kühner-Gerth II 158–61).

13 Cf. Depew, “Delian hymns” (n. 8 above), 180.14 Cf. below pp. 161-4, and G. Vestrheim, “Meaning and Structure in Calli-

machus’ Hymns to Artemis and Delos”, in SO 75 (2000), 62–79. The Hymnto Artemis, whose structure and pattern has always been found so confusing,is the one example among the Hymns of a lengthy account of a major Olympianin the traditional mode of the Homeric Hymns; as such it has a particular impor-tance which has not always been recognised.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 409

has been plausibly traced to a creative imitation of the public choral po-etry of the archaic polis, in which Doric was the predominant dialectalcolouring15; it must also be relevant that the Hymn to Athena is set inDoric Argos (and is perhaps indebted to Argive sources)16, and theHymn to Demeter would, at least, not be out of place in Callimachus’home city of Cyrene17. The imaginative reconstruction of the choricmode in these hymns extends also to form; a central narrative is framedby dramatic indications of a cult celebration currently taking place (De-meter) or just about to begin (Athena), whereas in the Hymn to Apollo,which advertises its debt to the Ionic tradition, the opening mimetic in-dications do not recur at the end18. ‘Choral’ poetry composed to be readand recited thus sought a partial analogy to the performative elementinherent in the archaic texts19. As for the elegiac metre of the Hymnto Athena, this may not have had the central importance for ancientreaders which it has assumed for some modern scholars, whose aestheticsense is often shaped by the programmatic importance which theRoman elegists gave to the difference between hexameters and elegiacs.Callimachus may have been gesturing towards a real or believed tradi-tion of Argive elegy20, but the two metres had traditionally shared

15 Cf. M. Fantuzzi, “Preistoria di un genere letterario: a proposito degli Inni V eVI di Callimaco”, in Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all et�ellenistica. Scritti in onore di B. Gentili (Roma 1993), 927–46.

16 Cf. Callimachus. The Fifth Hymn, ed. by A. W. Bulloch (Cambridge 1985),16–17 on the possible use of the Argolika of Agias and Derkylos.

17 That the Hymn to Demeter has a Cyrenean setting has often been argued, as De-meter had important cult sites there (cf. , e. g., A. Laronde, Cyr�ne et la Libyehell�nistique [Paris 1987], 363–5; L. Bacchielli, “I ‘luoghi’ della celebrazionepolitica e religiosa a Cirene nella poesia di Pindaro e Callimaco”, in Cirene. Sto-ria, Mito, Letteratura [Urbino 1990], 5–33), and is not improbable, but N. Hop-kinson (ed.), Callimachus. Hymn to Demeter (Cambridge 1984), 38 is correct thatthere is not “a scrap of real evidence”. The festival is of a kind familiar through-out the Greek world; for the cult of Demeter in Alexandria and Egypt cf. D. J.Thompson, “Demeter in Graeco-Roman Egypt”, in Egyptian Religion. The LastThousand Years, ed. by W. Clarysse, A. Schoors, H. Willems (Leuven 1998),699–707. To what extent the dialect of Hymns 5 and 6 is distinctively Cyre-nean (Ruijgh’s thesis) is disputed.

18 Note however v. 97: Rµ Rµ pai/om !jo}olem.19 See the bibliography cited in n. 7 above.20 For the evidence cf. Bulloch (n.16 above), 36–8. For an argument that, in one

section of the poem at least (the lament of Chariclo), traditional associations be-tween elegiac metre and lament for the dead resonate strongly cf. R. Hunter,

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception410

much common subject-matter, and elegiac hymnal poetry is found else-where in both literary (e. g. Simonides’ Hymn to Achilles in his Plataeaelegy, fr.eleg. 22 West) and non-literary (the Second and Fourth IsisHymns of Isidorus)21 contexts.

A closely related appeal to cultic imagination is found in the Hymn toApollo. Important to the design of this poem are not only cult hymns toApollo (esp. paeans, as the frequent Rµ R^-cries suggest) but also the Ho-meric Hymn to Apollo, a poem upon which Callimachus was also to drawextensively in the Hymn to Artemis and the Hymn to Delos, which re-tellsthe same birth myth as the ‘Homeric’ poem. It may indeed be that theabsence of any explicit treatment of the birth myth in the Hymn to Apol-lo is in part to be connected with the existence of the Hymn to Delos;although the opening of the Hymn to Apollo does gesture towards theanalogy between epiphany and birth (or perhaps rather suggests birthas the originary epiphany) – the natal palm-tree (v. 4), the swan (v. 5,cf. h. 4. 249–55), the opening of doors attended by song – and althoughthe birth of the god recurs in the Pythian aetiology at the end of thepoem (v. 104), the hymn’s comparative silence about the divine birthmay otherwise surprise. If, however, we are to think of the hymns asin some sense a group to be read both separately and together, the sur-prise will be less.

The Homeric Hymn to Apollo is unlike the other poems in its collec-tion in at least two important respects. First, it seems to combine two,presumably originally distinct, hymns, one a ‘Delian’ hymn (vv.1–181) and the other a ‘Pythian’ composition which tells of the foun-dation of the most important centre of Apolline cult, Delphi. Secondly,the closing verses of the Delian section both describe explicitly a festivalon Delos, such as that at which the poem itself might well have beenperformed, and are also the only passage in the Homeric Hymns inwhich the poet makes extended reference to himself (Hom.-h.Ap. 165–77):

!kk’ %ceh’ Rk^joi l³m )p|kkym )qt]lidi n}m, 165wa_qete d’ rle ?r p÷sai . 1le ?o d³ ja· let|pishelm^sash’, bpp|te j]m tir 1piwhom_ym !mhq~pym

“Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena”, inMD 29 (1992), 9–34 [=this volume 127–52], esp. 136–40.

21 E. Bernand, Inscriptions m�triques de l’�gypte gr�co-romaine (Paris 1969), 633–6.These are, of course, of a much later date, but may well point to a persistenttradition.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 411

1mh\d’ !me_qgtai ne ?mor takape_qior 1kh~m .

§ joOqai, t_r d’ ullim !mµq Fdistor !oid_m1mh\de pyke ?tai, ja· t]yi t]qpeshe l\kista ; 170rle ?r d’ ew l\ka p÷sai rpojq_mash’ !lv’ Bl]ym .

tuvk¹r !m^q, oQje ? d³ W_yi 5mi paipako]ssgi,toO p÷sai let|pishem !qiste}ousim !oida_.Ble ?r d’ rl]teqom jk]or oUsolem fssom 1p’ aWam!mhq~pym stqev|lesha p|keir ew maieta~sar

. 175oR d’ 1p· dµ pe_somtai, 1pe· ja· 1t^tul|m 1stim.aqt±q 1c½m oq k^ny 2jgb|kom )p|kkyma jtk.

At the conclusion of his Hymn to Apollo, Callimachus imitates the archa-ic hymnal poet (‘Homer’) by making a claim for the artistic superiorityof his – the poet’s – own verse and puts this in the mouth of the verygod of poetry himself (Call. h. 2.105–13)22:

b Vh|mor )p|kkymor 1p’ ouata k\hqior eWpem . 105oqj %calai t¹m !oid¹m dr oqd’ fsa p|mtor !e_dei.t¹m Vh|mom ¢p|kkym pod_ t’ Ekasem ¨d] t’ 5eipem .

)ssuq_ou potalo ?o l]car N|or, !kk± t± pokk\

k}lata c/r ja· pokk¹m 1v’ vdati suqvet¹m 6kjei.Dgo ? d’ oqj !p¹ pamt¹r vdyq voq]ousi l]kissai, 110!kk’ Ftir jahaq^ te ja· !wq\amtor !m]qpeip_dajor 1n Req/r ak_cg kib±r %jqom %ytom.’wa ?qe, %man· b d³ L_lor, Vm’ b Vh|mor, 5mha m]oito.

It is Apollo, rather than poet himself, who thus proclaims that Callima-chus’ “songs are supreme for ever more” (Hom.h. Ap. 173) and whoplaces Callimachus in a structural parallel with the poet of the HomericHymn, thus authorising the claim of the poet to artistic superiorityand subsequent kleos. Whatever the verses mean in detail23 – and oneof the few things which ought to be undisputed is that Apollo herespeaks, appropriately enough, in the riddling language of oracles – itis clear that they privilege quality of verse over quantity. The familiaretymological play between pok}r and )p|kkym (cf. vv. 34–5, 69–70etc.) is here given a new direction with the suggestion that the god’s

22 The Callimachean passage is, in one sense, isolated from the rest of the poem(cf., e. g., Haslam [n. 6 above], 1 17), but the importance of the model inthe Homeric Hymn is regularly overlooked.

23 The bibliography is now very large, but may conveniently be followed throughM. Asper, Onomata allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Met-aphern bei Kallimachos (Stuttgart 1997), 109–25 and D. A. Traill, “Callimachus’Singing Sea (Hymn 2.106)”, in CPh 93 (1998), 215–22.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception412

name signifies !-pok}r, i. e. ‘not a lot’ (cf. vv. 108–9)24. The point ismade sharper if we compare the archaic hymn in which the poet prom-ises never to cease from hymning the god (vv. 177–8); Callimachus’Apollo has other ideas about how he would like to be celebrated. More-over, in the Homeric Hymn the usual promise “to remember the god (andanother song)” has already been converted into a request to the Delianchoir to remember the poet (vv. 166–7); god and poet are thus farmore closely bound together in this archaic hymn than is usually explicitin the hymnic mode. Callimachus takes this one stage further by virtu-ally equating the epiphany of the god with the performance of hispoem, and by making the god the spokesman for the poet’s own aes-thetic principles.

The description of the Delian festival may have influenced Callima-chus’ hymn in another way also. Instead of inscribing such a descriptionin his hymn, Callimachus makes his poem dramatic by inscribing itwithin a festival in the god’s honour, imagined as taking place duringthe performance of the hymn and thus making it a representation of acult hymn. Moreover, Apollo is precisely the god of singing anddance, and the performance of the Delian choir in the Homeric Hymnto this god re-enacts on earth the Olympian music which Apolloleads (vv. 131, 182–206). The suggestion in this hymn that the per-formance of ‘the blind poet’ himself is a mortal reflection of the divineaoidos Apollo is picked up in two ways by Callimachus.

First, Callimachus’ Apollo is indeed the divine model of the poet,just as the Zeus of the First Hymn is the divine model for the king,and his hymn in the god’s honour not merely effects the epiphany ofthe god, but in its power to put an end to the extreme of grief presentsitself as a perfect model of poetry (20–24)25:

oqd³ H]tir )wik/a jim}qetai aUkima l^tgq, 20bpp|h’ Rµ pai/om Rµ pai/om !jo}sgi.ja· l³m b dajqu|eir !mab\kketai %kcea p]tqor,fstir 1m· Vquc_gi dieq¹r k_hor 1st^qijtai,l\qlaqom !mt· cumaij¹r azfuq|m ti wamo}sgr.

24 Note too how Apollo’s words (vv. 108–10) pick up the play between pok}r

and p÷r of vv. 9 and 69–70. The paradox is sharpened by a suggested associ-ation between Vh|mor and vhom]y / (!)vhom_a.

25 On these verses cf. below pp. 422–3.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 413

The Hymn to Apollo thus forms a close counterpoint to the Hymn to Zeusin its debt to Hesiod’s Theogony (94–103):

1j c\q toi Lous]ym ja· 2jgb|kou )p|kkymor%mdqer !oido· 5asim 1p· wh|ma ja· jihaqista_, 951j d³ Di¹r basik/er . b d’ ekbior, fmtima LoOsaiv_kymtai. ckujeq^ oR !p¹ st|lator N]ei aqd^.eQ c\q tir ja· p]mhor 5wym meojgd]i hul_i%fgtai jqad_gm !jaw^lemor, aqt±q !oid¹rLous\ym heq\pym jke ?a pqot]qym !mhq~pym 100rlm^sei l\jaq\r te heo»r oT mkulpom 5wousim,aWx’ f ce dusvqosum]ym 1pik^hetai oqd] ti jgd]yml]lmgtai

.taw]yr d³ paq]tqape d_qa he\ym.

Whereas in the Hymn to Zeus it is v. 96 which is quoted (1j d³ Di¹r

basik/er jtk.), in the Hymn to Apollo it is the immediately followingHesiodic theme of the power of poetry, which comes from Apolloand the Muses, to postpone grief which is important. Moreover, inboth poems the evocation of Hesiod leads to the assimilation of thepoet’s king to (respectively) Zeus (h. 1.85–90) and Apollo (h.2.20–7)26.

Secondly, whereas the Homeric Hymn describes both the Olympianmodel and the earthly reflection, the Callimachean chorus tells of the‘mythical’ model for their present performances, namely the dances ofthe Dorians and the Libyan women which brought pleasure to Apollo(vv. 85–96)27. The emphasis on performance re-enactment of anevent in the immemorial past is typical of the Hellenistic historicalsense; the closing sections of the Hymns to Artemis and Delos offer anumber of parallel examples.

The exciting, but potentially frightening, experience of the god’snearness and his power to cleanse men of disease (vv. 45–6), of threat-ening monsters (vv. 100–4), and of the impure poison of envy and badpoetry (vv. 105–12), is a form of ‘possession’, such as that felt by thePythia at Delphi, and that possession should be disassociated from the‘mimetic’ form which the poem dramatises. The opening seismic move-ments which mark the nearness of the god (vv. 1–5)28, indicated for us

26 Cf. further below pp. 426–7.27 Cf. C. Calame, “Legendary Narration and Poetic Procedure in Callimachus’

Hymn to Apollo”, in Callimachus (n. 6 above), 37–55, esp. 46.28 It is tempting to see here some echo of the ‘trembling’ with which the other

gods greet the epiphany of Apollo on Olympus in the Homeric Hymn (v. 2 tqo-

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception414

by an unidentified voice which speaks with pious authority29, are a dra-matic version of the ‘natural’ phenomena which standardly attend di-vine epiphany30, and are thus seen to be particularly ‘Apolline’. Thefact that Hymns 5 and 6 also employ ‘mimetic’ frameworks should notobscure the meaning of such mimesis in Hymn 2. The presence andpower of Apollo inevitably evokes immediate praise; this is the lessonof the aitiology of the ritual cry in vv. 97–104. As this hymn is itselfa manifestation of the god, it demands our active response of praise;it cannot simply be received as narrative. The reception of the poemis itself the presence (t¹ 1pidgle ?m) of the god. We must respond.This Callimachus has ensured by the ‘mimetic’ mode in which he hasconstructed his poem; our response is choreographed by the responseof the choir.

The centre of the poem is formed from a series of verse-paragraphsmarked out by the god’s name (vv. 32, 42, 47, 55, 65) which celebratethe powers and spheres of the god. Pride of place is assigned to Apollo’straditional rôle in the founding of cities, an activity which, at least incultural memory, standardly began with an oracular response of thegod31. The longest section of the poem (vv. 65–96) tells of the found-ing of Cyrene, Callimachus’ home city, and the celebration of the godthere under the specifically Dorian epithet, Jaqme ?or32. That the poet’s

l]ousim). For the subsequent history of this motif in Roman poetry cf. A.Barchiesi, ‘‘Immovable Delos: Aeneid 3.73–98 and the Hymns of Callimachus”in CQ 44 (1994), 438–43.

29 S. Koster, “Kallimachos als Apollonpriester” in Tessera. Sechs Beitr�ge zur Poesieund poetischen Theorie der Antike (Erlagen 1983), 9–21, argues that the speaker isa “priest of Apollo” and the addressee (cf. v. 4) a young man being introducedinto the cultic mysteries of the god. The difficulty with this reading is that thelabel ‘priest’ is misleading, even allowing for the validity of the category; this ismerely one of the relationships between speaker and god which the poemevokes.

30 Particularly relevant, of course, is Apoll. Rh. 2.679–80 (the epiphany of Apolloat Thynias), “the whole island shook beneath his feet”; for other links betweenthat scene and Call. h. 2. cf. R. Hunter, “Apollo and the Argonauts: two noteson Ap. Rhod. 2.669–719” in MH 43 (1986), 50–60 [= this volume 29–41],esp. 57–60.

31 For an ‘Egyptian reading’ of this section cf. D. L. Selden, “Alibis”, in ClAnt 17(1998), 392–404.

32 Cf. R. Nicolai, “La fondazione di Cirene e i Karneia cirenaici nell’ Inno adApollo di Callimaco”, in MD 28 (1992), 153–73. These myths have alsobeen much discussed by Claude Calame; his publications are conveniently list-ed in the article cited in n. 27 above. For the Karneia cf. W. Burkert, GreekReligion (Oxford 1985), 234–6.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 415

city is a central site of Apolline cult is a manifest sign of the god’s favourtowards the poet and the special authority with which he speaks; thisdivine approval, and specifically approval for the extraordinary narrativeconstruction of the Cyrenean foundation story, is then most clearly con-firmed in the Apolline epilogue. Beyond this, however, it has also oftenbeen argued that we are to understand that the poem is in fact set at acelebration of the Cyrenean Karneia; such a view fits the evocation ofthe model for Karneian choral performance at vv. 85–96 (cf. above),but it may be more accurate to imagine a fluid ‘ritual context’ whichcan at one moment be the Cyrenean Karneia and at the next a celebra-tion in Delphi, for vv. 97–104 (the Pythian aetiology of the Rµ Rµ

pai/om cry) provide a further ‘mythical model’ for the celebrationbeing enacted through the poem.

Nevertheless, the central section of the poem owes a very clear debtto Pindar’s Fifth Pythian33, an epinician (celebrating the same chariotvictory as Pythian 4) for Arcesilas IV of Cyrene, which, at the veryleast, gives a particular prominence to the cult of Karneian Apollo atCyrene, if indeed its setting is not the Karneia itself (71–81):

5massem !kj\emtar Jqajk]or

1jc|mour AQcilioO te. t¹ d’ 1l¹m caq}ei

!p¹ Sp\qtar 1p^qatom jk]or,fhem cecemmal]moi

Vjomto H^qamde v_ter AQce@dai, 751lo· pat]qer, oq he_m %teq, !kk± Lo?q\ tir %cem .

pok}hutom 5qamom5mhem !maden\lemoi,-pokkom, te÷i,Jaqm^i’, 1m dait· seb_folem 80Juq\mar !cajtil]mam p|kim.

It is thus not improbable that it was precisely the ambiguous identity ofthe singers of Pythian 5, a matter discussed in antiquity as well as (end-lessly) by modern scholars34, from which Callimachus developed the ap-parently shifting location of the “speaking voice” in his Hymn to Apollo.

33 Cf., e. g., M. T. Smiley, “Callimachus’ debt to Pindar and others”, in Herma-thena 18 (1919), 46–72; M. R. Lefkowitz, “Pindar’s Pythian V”, in EntretiensHardt 31 (1985), 33–63, esp. 44–9; E. Krummen, Pyrsos Hymnon (Berlin/New York 1990), 95–151; Fuhrer (n. 2 above), 40–2; W. Kofler, “Kallima-chos’ Wahlverwandtschaften”, in Philologus 140 (1996), 230–47.

34 Cf. Krummen (n. 34), 138–9; Kofler (n. 33).

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As so often, he goes one step beyond his models. His reworking high-lights by exaggeration the problems that arise when a performative text,such as Pythian 5, is read away from performance; it is the read and writ-ten text that offers the limit case of the text as script. Be that as it may,the reworking of Pythian 5 (cf. esp. vv. 71–72 of Callimachus’ hymn)confirms the Hymn to Apollo as an offering to Callimachus’ “king” (v.27), although it would be rash to infer from this alone that that kingmust therefore, like Arcesilas, be ‘king of Cyrene’35. The Callimacheanscholiast – on what authority we do not know – identified Callimachus’“king” as Euergetes, and it is at least worthy of remark that Euergetes’marriage to the Cyrenean princess Berenice, celebrated by Callimachusin the Coma Berenices36, would make an appropriate (though, of course,by no means necessary) context for the prominence of Cyrenean tradi-tions in the hymn37. Callimachus’ poem thus not only effects the epiph-any of the god, but demonstrates, rather than merely describes, hispower.

Finally, the relatively greater prominence of ritual in Hellenistichymnic poetry (cf. Theocritus 26), the fact that, as Albert Henrichshas often observed, myth is increasingly presented as explanatory of rit-ual (i. e. aetiological), may also be seen, in part, as a related instance ofthe appeal to the cultic imagination. It is again important to rememberthat such poems are modern ‘versions’ of choral hymns, as well as of thehexameter Homeric Hymns. When reading becomes a, if not the, stan-dard mode of reception, poets must accommodate a potentially verywide plurality of sites of reception. There is no longer a performativecontext which allows ‘the unspoken’ to be understood by a collectiveaudience. Ritual is thus inscribed within the text.

3. ‘How shall I hymn you?’

In the Hymns to Athena and Demeter, the relation between the choice ofnarrative and the cultic frame is self-consciously problematised in wayswhich it is hard to imagine in ‘real’ choral poetry:

35 That the king is indeed Magas of Cyrene has often been suggested, cf. most re-cently Cameron (n. 11 above), 408–9. The position of a Ptolemy as Horus/Apollo is perhaps more relevant than Cameron seems to allow.

36 Cf. above p. 415–16.37 Cf. Callimachus, ed. R. Pfeiffer, II (Oxford 1953), pp. XXXVIII-XXXIX.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 417

5.55–6p|tmi’ )hama_a, s» l³m 5nihi . l]sva d’ 1c~ ti

ta ?sd’ 1q]y .lOhor d’ oqj 1l|r, !kk’ 2t]qym.

6.17–23lµ lµ taOta k]cyler $ d\jquom %cace Dgo ? .

j\kkiom, ¢r pok_essim 2ad|ta t]hlia d_je .

j\kkiom, ¢r jak\lam te ja· Req± dq\clata pq\ta

!staw}ym !p]joxe ja· 1m b|ar Gje pat/sai,"m_ja Tqipt|kelor !cah±m 1did\sjeto t]wmam 20j\kkiom, ¢r (Vma ja_ tir rpeqbas_ar !k]gtai)p< >Qd]shai

It would be difficult indeed to find an archaic parallel for the insouciantti of 5.55. Nevertheless, the starting-point for Callimachus’ techniquemay well be reflection upon the actual practice of archaic and classicallyric; modern scholars were certainly not the first to ask “Why is thisstory told here?”38 We may perhaps think of this problematising ofthe central narrative as a version of the traditional hymnic question“How shall I hymn you?” Implicit in that traditional topos was the ques-tion of the poet’s freedom to choose (Hom.h.Ap. 19–27):

p_r t\q s’ rlm^sy p\mtyr euulmom 1|mta ;p\mtgi c\q toi, Vo ?be, mol¹r bebk^atai ¡id/r, 20Al³m !m’ Epeiqom poqtitq|vom Ad’ !m± m^sour.p÷sai d³ sjopia_ toi %dom ja· pq~omer %jqoirxgk_m aq]ym potalo_ h’ ûka d³ pqoq]omter,!jta_ t’ eQr ûka jejkil]mai kil]mer te hak\ssgr.G ¦r se pq_tom Kgt½ t]je w\qla bqoto ?si, 25jkimhe ?sa pq¹r J}mhou eqor jqama/i 1m· m^syiD^kyi 1m !lviq}tgi ;

In the archaic poem the hymnic rhetoric functions like a priamel tothrow the poet’s choice into relief 39, but that ‘choice’ seems itself tohave been contextually (pre-)determined (cf. 169–76). It is this inher-ited hymnic rhetoric which Callimachus lays bare.

38 Good general remarks on hymnic myth in W. D. Furley, “Praise and persuasionin Greek hymns” (n. 7 above), 43.

39 Cf. W. H. Race, The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius (Leiden 1982),47–53; Depew (n. 8 above), 61–62.

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The two Callimachean narratives are, however, also importantly dif-ferent. In the Hymn to Demeter an obviously relevant40, if very untradi-tional, tale is told by the fasting women during their procession, whichwas the normal place for such hymnic myth. Whereas the Homeric Hymnto Demeter records and celebrates the establishment of Demeter’s cultand tells a tale of separation and famine followed by re-integration,blessedness and plenty, Callimachus’ hymn confirms the continuingpower of the goddess of the crops through an apotropaic tale of plentywasted by folly and leading to ultimate separation and misery. Erysich-thon’s punishment is to break those distinctions in social behaviour, es-tablished by Demeter the heslov|qor (v. 18), which separate us from theanimals. In the Hymn to Athena, however, the story of Teiresias is appa-rently told to fill in the time before the procession begins. If lOhor d’ oqj1l|r, !kk’ 2t]qym (56) is not merely an ‘Alexandrian footnote’ acknowl-edging the use of sources, but also a cautionary apology to the goddessfor any offence the story might cause41, there is here a further self-con-scious invitation to the reader to reflect on why the tale has been chos-en, for potential offence is the very last thing that a hymn ought tooffer42. Be that as it may, the crucial point is that, whereas for the archaicperformer a Delian context demanded a Delian narrative, the Argivecontext of the Hymn to Athena no longer ‘requires’ an Argive narrative:the poet claims to be really ‘free’, to have that power of choice to whichthe archaic hymnist could only pay lip service.

The story of Teiresias, who while hunting on Mt Helicon in Boeo-tia inadvertently saw Athena and his mother Chariclo bathing in thestream Hippocrene and was punished with immediate loss of sight,has of course many links to the Argive festival which Callimachus con-jures up, in which a statue of the goddess received a ritual bath43. Pher-ecydes seems to have been the main source for this rare story of Teire-sias, and there is no good reason to think that it was connected with theArgive Palladion before Callimachus brilliantly juxtaposed two different

40 The meaning of the Erysichthon story within a hymn to Demeter is discussedin Hunter, “Writing the god” (n. 20 above), 30–33.

41 Cf. T. C. W. Stinton, ‘“Si credere dignum est’’: some expressions of disbelief inEuripides and others”, in PCPS N.S. 22 (1976), 60–89, p. 66 (= Collected Pa-pers on Greek Tragedy [Oxford 1990], 243). The relevant parallels are collectedin Bulloch’s note and D. Kidd on Aratus, Phaen. 637.

42 On this passage cf. T. Fuhrer, “A Pindaric Feature in the Poems of Calli-machus”, in AJP 109 (1988), 53–68, esp. 66 f.

43 Cf. Hunter, “Writing the god” (n. 20 above).

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 419

‘baths of Pallas’, thus making the Teiresias story a quasi-aetiologicalwarning to Argive men not to catch sight of Athena. What is clear isthat such a myth about ‘looking’ is peculiarly appropriate to a writtentext of this mimetic, quasi-performative nature44. First, the poem evokesthe similarity and difference between the mental images excited by lit-erary enargeia and the experience of ‘epiphany’: is there a difference be-tween our ‘seeing’ Teiresias seeing Athena and epiphanic experience?Secondly, we will never in fact ‘see’ the goddess, not only because‘we’ are men, but also because the poem ends as she appears (or doesshe?), and because the acknowledged divorce of the written recreationfrom any ‘real’ occasion emphasises the artificiality of the mimesis.Moreover, in exploiting the traditional slippage between an imageand what that image ‘represents’ — i. e. the whole problem of howto represent the divine – Callimachus raises the question of whether,in seeing an image or statue, we are ‘seeing’ the god as Teiresias sawher45.

The ‘oddness’ of this usurpation by Athena of an ‘Artemis’ role fur-ther illustrates (and celebrates) the real freedom which poets now en-joyed. The inherited pantheon was a dynamic system of overlapping re-lations, narratives, and spheres of influence. By exploiting the new pos-sibilities offered by the use of written records, what we might in fact call‘the pursuit of oddness’, and by a highly allusive textual practice, Calli-machus’ interlocking Hymns exaggerated these tendencies to make thesystem more, rather than less, dynamic, and in so doing to foregroundthe controlling power of the poet.

4. Intruding upon Apollo

Like the Hymn to Zeus, the Hymn to Artemis begins with the god’s name,but whereas Zeus imposes himself as the only possible subject for song46,in the Hymn to Artemis a novel variation of the common hymnic topos of

44 ‘Looking’ and ‘seeing’ are, of course, also very important in the Hymn to Apollo,another epiphanic text.

45 Cf. N. Loraux, Les experiences de Tirisias (Paris 1989), 253–71 (= The Experiencesof Tiresias [Princeton 1995], 211–26).

46 Cf. below p. 430.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception420

‘forgetting’47 may suggest that praise of the goddess has been deferred, ifnot indeed, actually overlooked (h. 3.1–2):

-qtelim (oq c±q 1kavq¹m !eid|mtessi kah]shai)rlm]olem

Who might have forgotten Artemis? Two related answers suggest them-selves. The first is the (hexameter) hymnic tradition as a whole: thereare two fairly perfunctory Homeric Hymns to Artemis (9, 27), and the god-dess makes only a few brief appearances as an adjunct to her brother inthe Homeric Hymn to Apollo. More pointedly, however, there is the caseof Callimachus himself. In the corpus of his Hymns as we have it, theHymn to Artemis is surrounded by two contrasting rewritings of the Ho-meric Hymn to Apollo and, more specifically, the goddess appears onlyonce in the immediately preceding Hymn to Apollo : at vv. 60–3 herendless labour supplies the raw material from which her brother weavesthe wondrous altar of goats’ horns. To add insult to injury, her birth-place, according to the Homeric Hymn, was ‘Ortygia’ which in Callima-chus had become the site of Apollo’s marvel (h. 2.59). Artemis gets herown back, however: in Callimachus’ hymn to her, Apollo appears inthe servile role of unloading the dead animals from her chariot as shereturns to Olympus, in a scene which ‘steals’ Apollo’s arrival on Olym-pus from the Homeric Hymn in his honour (Call. h. 3.140–69 ~ Hom.-h.Ap. 1–13). Thus Callimachus has broken the Homeric Hymn into itsconstituent parts of ‘Apollo’, ‘Artemis’ and ‘Delos’, and ensured divinefavour by a strategy of ever-increasing length; if Apollo approves ofshort poems, then he will (of course) not be able to complain sincehis is the shortest of the poems48.

47 Cf., e. g., Hom.h.Dion. 19. In view of this topos at the opening of Callimachus’Hymn to Artemis it may be important that the motif occurs in the opening verseof the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Oq c±q 1kavq|m most naturally means ‘it is nolight thing…’ (i. e. it has dire consequences) not ‘it is not easy…’ (as P. Bing andV. Uhrmeister, “The Unity of Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis”, in JHS 114[1994], 19–34, p. 27). The consequences of annoying Artemis are uncom-fortably familiar from well-known stories, and a closing catalogue of thosewhom she has punished (vv. 260–67) secures a ring around the poem.

48 Delos’ poem, on the other hand, is the longest of all, and this may be seen as arecompense for the fact that she has never before had a ‘hymn’; if, moreover,she feels that she has had to wait too long, then it is the poet’s thumos, notthe poet himself, who is to blame (h. 4.1). For this ironic strategy cf. Call.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 421

The opening of Callimachus’ poem, therefore, appears to use thefact of a ‘poetry-book’ to set up a dialogue between poems and betweengods. The shrine of Artemis at Ephesus “would easily surpass Pytho” (v.250), a jibe whose full force derives from being read against the praise ofh. 2.34–5:

wq}sea ja· t± p]dika.pok}wqusor c±q )p|kkym

ja· poukujt]amor . Puh_m_ je tejl^qaio.

So too, the opening of the Hymn to Artemis (oq c±q 1kavq¹m !eid|mtessi

kah]shai) invites us to look back to the last poem, the Hymn to Apollo,and to read it again for signs of forgetting. Once we have done this, suchsigns are not difficult to find. Consider, for example, the case of Niobe,cited as one of the victims of Apollo who nevertheless falls under thespell of poetry in his honour (h. 2.22–7):

ja· l³m b dajqu|eir !mab\kketai %kcea p]tqor,fstir 1m· Vquc_gi dieq¹r k_hor 1st^qijtai,l\qlaqom !mt· cumaij¹r azfuq|m ti wamo}sgr.Rµ Rµ vh]cceshe

.jaj¹m laj\qessim 1q_feim. 25

dr l\wetai laj\qessim, 1l_i basik/i l\woito .

fstir 1l_i basik/i, ja· )p|kkymi l\woito.

The model here is Achilles’ famous account to Priam (in Iliad 24.602–17) of Niobe, also used as an exemplum of behaviour which might bethought paradoxical, in which Artemis kills Niobe’s six daughters andApollo her six sons. In Homer there is an even distribution of killingbetween the sibling gods; in Callimachus there is no word of Artemis.We could read her into the plural laj\qessim of v.25, but – particularlywhen we read back from the Hymn to Artemis – the chiastic game of thefollowing verses (26 f.) even squeezes her out of that by bringing thepoet’s king into the equation49. The best that the poet can do is toallow her to turn his words of praise against her brother (h. 3.6–9):

fr.75.5. There are excellent remarks on the Hymn to Artemis in Haslam (n. 6above), 117.

49 There is much characteristic verbal smartness in these verses: p]tqor is a surprisefor pat^q, as a counterpoint to the pathetic l^tgq at the end of v.20. )mab\k-ketai has a musical sense which is momentarily evoked by the parallel jim}qetai(a related ‘pun’ at fr. 75.43); just as v. 21 foreshadows the etymology of the rit-ual cry from pa?, pa ?, so v. 25 suggests the etymology from Vgli given the fateof Niobe’s children. On this passage cf. also Selden (n. 31 above), 378; Ruth-erford (n. 1 above), 122.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception422

‘d|r loi paqhem_gm aQ~miom, %ppa, vuk\sseim,ja· pokuymul_gm, Vma l^ loi Vo ?bor 1q_fgi,d¹r d’ Qo»r ja· t|na—5a p\teq, ou se vaq]tqgm

oqd’ aQt]y l]ca t|nom.’

The inversion of h. 2, and the childish desire for supremacy over herbrother in a poem (the ‘Artemis’) at whose heart will indeed lie eriswith ‘Phoebus’, makes plain the textual game upon which this encomi-um is based. The infant god’s request for pokuymul_g is perhaps not justa request for ‘many names’, as her brother has, but also for ‘the name ofpok}r’, a standard etymology for Apollo’s name, of which Callimachushas made much in the preceding poem (cf. h. 2.34–5, 69–70). By themiddle of the poem, the poet will have granted her even this (137–9):

eUgm d’ aqt|r, %massa, l]koi d] loi aQ³m !oid^ .

t/i 5mi l³m KgtoOr c\lor 5ssetai, 1m d³ s» pokk^,1m d³ ja· )p|kkym, 1m d’ oV seo p\mter %ehkoi…

The prominence of ‘sibling rivalry’ as a motif and narrative impulse inthe Hymn to Artemis is in fact too obvious to require lengthy discussion;in the Homeric Hymns in her honour, Artemis’ identity was already cru-cially dependent upon that of her brother, and Callimachus explores thepotential tensions within such familial structures. If, however, he re-wards the sister with her own hymn, he restores the balance in theHymn to Delos from which she is all but entirely absent.

Artemis makes in fact at most two appearances in the Hymn to Delos :the slavish50 Iris is compared to one of her hunting dogs (v. 228–9), acomparison which casts at best an ambiguous light on the goddess, andthe final verse may refer to her by circumlocution, ‘the girl whom Letobore’, though both text and interpretation are disputed. Artemis’ pain-less gestation and birth (h. 3.24–5) is thus written against Leto’s suffer-ings with the foetal Apollo in the following poem. The relative age ofApollo and Artemis is indeed a very grey area in the tradition. That theyare twins is an idea “surprisingly rare outside Pindar”51 and nothing inCallimachus’ Hymns suggests such a notion; though Delian cults of Ar-

50 She is in fact a ‘comic’ serva currens, cf. Hunter, Theocritus (n. 4 above), 96; forthe ‘breathlessness’ motif cf. Soph. Ant. 224; Ar. Av. 1122; R. Hunter, TheNew Comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge 1985), 165. On this scene cf.also Depew, “Delian Hymns” (n. 8 above), 171.

51 I. Rutherford, “Pindar on the Birth of Apollo”, in CQ 38 (1988), 65–75 p. 72.

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temis are amply attested52, it is Apollo alone with whom the island isintimately associated. The place of Artemis’ birth remains as mysteriousas the ‘Ortygia’ of the archaic Homeric Hymn to Apollo (v. 16).

5. ‘From Zeus are kings’

Throughout the first four hymns53, we are engaged in a constant strug-gle to control a shifting set of ways of talking about the nature of power– similes, analogues, suggestive juxtapositions54. In any state withstrongly centralised power, be it Alexandria or even Cyrene, writingof this kind is ‘political’, because of the distribution of power within so-ciety. The divinity or quasi-divinity of the ruler, even before the formalinstitution of ruler cult, can change the contours of the pantheon by of-fering a point of reference (the ruler) through which new overlappingspheres within the ‘generic system’ are created; here too it is reasonableto think that poets often ran ahead of more broadly disseminated repre-sentations. Moreover, the first two hymns in the collection, Zeus andApollo, establish fairly explicit links between human and divinepower; thereafter, the reader is always held by the possibility of a thor-oughgoing ‘system’ running through the corpus, particularly as bothOlympian and Ptolemaic structures are based on family relationships.Thus, for example, it is tantalising that a poem about Artemis is sur-rounded by two poems in honour of her brother Apollo, one ofwhich at least makes quite explicit the similarities between Apollo andPhiladelphus55. The hymns must be contextualised within the socialstructures which produced them, and it is here that Callimachus’ Alex-andrian context becomes determinative upon interpretation.

52 Cf. Ph. Bruneau, Recherches sur les cultes de D�los � l’�poque hell�nistique et � l’�po-que imp�riale (Paris 1970), 171–206.

53 It is worth pondering how the Hymns to Athena and Demeter are different fromthe rest in many more ways than just dialect.

54 Depew, “Delian Hymns” (n. 8 above), 175 n. 51 makes the nice suggestion that“Iris’ sycophantic address to Hera (h. 4.216–39) provide[s] a negative exemplarof more overt praise”.

55 P. Bing, The Well-Read Muse. Present and Past in Callimachus and the HellenisticPoets (Göttingen 1988), 126 n. 57 suggested, on the basis of certain shared mo-tifs between h. 3 and h. 4, that they were “originally companion pieces, the oneperhaps written for Arsinoe, the other for Philadelphus”.

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Hymnal writing and performance flourished at all levels of Hellen-istic society, as papyri and inscriptions amply attest, and the range of be-ings who were the object of hymnic praise was also greatly increased.The political upheavals of the later fourth century had placed the safetyof cities (and later empires) in the hands of powerful military dynasts,and we find many of these celebrated in similar terms and similar poeticmodes to those in which the Olympian ‘saviours’ or ‘protectors’ of citieshad earlier been, and continued to be, glorified56.

The distinction between men and gods, rather than some unchang-ing value associated with the language in which they were each descri-bed, was the crucial issue. Traditional Greek culture had always beenuneasy with men whose good fortune seemed to threaten the privilegesof the divine, and Pindar (like Homer before him) is constantly at painsto warn of the dangers and the unbridgeable divide which separates thetwo; in the third century and after, some men did in fact cross over, butonly in very particular circumstances and often only after death. The oldpattern persisted with remarkable tenacity: the apparently drily scholas-tic division in late antique rhetoric between ‘hymns’ to gods and ‘enco-mia’ to men is a manifestation of that persistence. Nevertheless, poemssuch as Theocritus 17 (Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus) and Callima-chus’ Hymns to Zeus and Apollo, like the epinician tradition beforethem, creatively explore the boundaries between ‘analogy’ and ‘identi-fication’ in ways which must have reflected the fluid search for newmodes of praise in a changed situation57. One modern difficulty in un-derstanding this poetry arises from the assumption that there must be asimple and consistent analogy between two classes of being who are de-scribed or praised in similar language; rather, we must consider the oc-casion-specific rhetoric of Greek praise and always be prepared to askafter the function of praise, rather than after some (probably illusory) ‘es-sential meaning’ for the terms in which the praise is couched. Praise ex-ists to offer thanks for benefactions received and/or to create the cir-cumstances for benefactions in the future; the pragmatics of hymnal dis-course may thus be a more useful subject than its ‘religion’.

56 For a helpful discussion and list of references to such compositions cf. Cameron(n. 11 above), 291–5: Kerkhecker (n. 6 above), 289 draws attention to Calli-machus’ generic sensitivity in avoiding ‘hymns’ directly addressed to mortalkings.

57 Cf. R. Hunter, Theocritus. The Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Berkeley 2003)94–6.

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A feature of the Homeric Hymns which assumes great importancewithin the changed conditions of poetic composition which prevailedin the Hellenistic period is that these poems have at their heart thelink between the past and the present. The hymns tell of the birth ofgods or the establishment of their powers or of incidents in the heroicpast which exemplify that power. Like mythological narrative in gener-al, the hymns look to the past for the validation of the present order,particularly where they touch upon the position of kings and patrons,for here, more than anywhere else, an authorising tradition is of thegreatest significance. Hymns thus take their place within the array oftechniques by which Hellenistic poets both sought continuity withthe past and also advertised their disjunction from it58.

There is no major Homeric Hymn to Zeus59 but the opening of Cal-limachus’ Hymn to Zeus evokes a setting where the celebration of Zeuswas a familiar act: the third introductory libation before the start of thesymposium proper was to Zeus Soter (Athenaeus 15.692 f-693c), andthe singing of paeans was a regular part of the symposium60. In the ab-sence of a formal model in the Homeric Hymns, Callimachus’ narrative ofthe birth and power of Zeus is, as has long been recognised, in part a re-writing of sections of Hesiod’s Theogony61; in describing the creation,coming to power and timai of Zeus, the Theogony is, in any case, impor-tantly like a hymn. If the central concern of the major Homeric Hymns isthe placing of their respective gods within the overall Olympianscheme, what Jenny Clay has termed “the politics of Olympus”, thenthe absence of a hymn to Zeus, the god who is responsible for thatscheme, is unsurprising; a ‘theogony’ which tells of the creation ofthe whole scheme must, on the other hand, inevitably be in somesense a ‘hymn to Zeus’. Moreover, Hesiod’s poem explicitly fore-grounds the relationships between Zeus and powerful men on earth,

58 Cf. Bing (n. 56 above), passim.59 Hymn 23 is a four-verse proem to Zeus.60 Cf. Rutherford, Paeans (n. 1 above), 50–2; thus, for example, Ariphron’s paean

to Hygieia (PMG 813) is most naturally associated with the standard sympotictoasts in honour of that goddess (Hunter on Eubulus fr. 94.2 [= PCG 93.3]).Relevant also are the hymnal themes of some of the Attic skolia, cf. PMG884, 885, 886, and cf. also the self-referential opening of one of Alcman’spaeans (PMG 98).

61 Cf. especially H. Reinsch-Werner, Callimachus Hesiodicus (Berlin 1976),24–73; W. Meincke, Untersuchungen zu den enkomiastischen Gedichten Theokrits(Diss. Kiel 1966), 165–82.

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the aristocrats whom Hesiod calls basileis, and between the basileis andpoets (Theog. 80–103). Both of these relationships are of crucial impor-tance to Callimachus writing in the world of the Alexandrian court,under the patronage of a new kind of basileus whose ‘assimilation’ toZeus seems to have been a commonplace of contemporary Greek poet-ry (Theocritus 17 etc.)62. The analogy between the master of Olympusand the great king on earth became a commonplace of Hellenistic king-ship theory, by no means restricted to the ambit of the Ptolemaic court,and is indeed foreshadowed in the Iliad in the similarity (and tragic dis-similarity) of Zeus and Agamemnon. A poem such as Pindar’s First Py-thian which establishes a close analogy between Zeus’ harmonious con-trol of the cosmos, based upon the crushing of his enemies, and Hier-on’s harmonious guidance of his people shows how powerful, and howtraditional, such ideas were. In his Hymn to Zeus Callimachus cites thispassage of Hesiod – 1j d³ Di¹r basik/er – to position himself within atraditional negotiation between poetic encomium and kingly power,while celebrating what was (in some ways) a radically new kind ofpower.

One crucial difference, however, between Callimachus and Hesiodis that, in the Theogony, the good king on earth follows (or imitates) theimmortal pattern of Zeus, at least in the functions of diakrinein, “ofphysical and intellectual distribution”, and imposing dispute settlement.In Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus, however, Zeus and the good king are, atleast potentially, fused together: we are almost dealing with one para-digm, rather than two related figures. Both the political and religious re-ality of the Ptolemy-Pharaoh, the first of whom was called, like Zeus,Soter, and the evolution of Greek poetic encomium contribute tothis change. Such a fusion, however, foregrounds questions of ‘control’:When is Ptolemy ‘like’ Zeus? Always, or only at certain moments and in

62 We hope that uncertainty as to the date of the hymn and the identity of “ourruler” (v. 86) does not rob these general considerations of all their force. Weourselves would identify the ruler as Philadelphus (cf. J. J. Clauss, “Lies and al-lusions: the addressee and date of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus”, in ClAnt 5[1986], 155–70; Cameron [n. 11 above], 10), but other proposals are current(Magas: C. Meillier, Callimaque et son temps [Lille 1979], 61–78; Soter: J. Car-rière, “Philadelphe ou Sôter? À propos d’un hymne de Callimaque”, in StudiiClasice 11 [1969], 85–93). For a reading of the Hymn to Zeus in the light ofEgyptian as well as Greek ideas cf. S. Stephens, “Callimachus at court”, inGenre in Hellenistic Poetry, ed. by M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker(Groningen 1998), 167–85.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 427

certain circumstances? How and when is Arsinoe ‘like’ Helen (The-ocr. 15.110)?63 As Egyptian monarchs, the Ptolemies were both insome sense divine, but were also mortals under the special protectionof the gods; this doubleness can be amply illustrated from the icono-graphy of the early reigns64. A sense of overlapping, of shared but notidentical characteristics, and of present copies of timeless models isthus built into the very nature of kingship. It is perhaps no accidentthat the allusive practice of Alexandrian poetry shows similar features:can a reader’s receptiveness to explicit allusion be controlled in such away as to block off (as far as possible) unhelpful associations and echoes;is one of the criteria of ‘rightness’ in reading knowing how far to read‘intertextually’ and when to stop?65

The Hymn to Zeus begins on a note of certainty (1–3):

Fgm¹r 5oi t_ jem %kko paq± spomd/isim !e_deimk~zom C he¹m aqt|m, !e· l]cam, aQ³m %majta,Pgkac|mym 1kat/qa, dijasp|kom Oqqam_dgisi ;

Zeus’ name stands, as is only proper, at the head of the hymn, and per-haps of the collection of hymns. Within this certainty, however, unset-tling doubts lurk, and not merely about the meaning of the riddlingthird verse66. At first we assume that the opening words mean “What

63 Cf. Hunter, Theocritus (n. 4 above), 165–6 on the “process of selective mem-ory” which the use of such mythological figures imposes und which poetsdramatise and ironise

64 Cf. Selden (n. 31 above), 350–1, 386 (with bibliography).65 Some of the issues are set out with great clarity in S. Hinds, Allusion and Intertext

(Cambridge 1998), esp. Chapter 2.66 On Pgkac|mym (Etym.Gen. : Pgko- MSS) cf. Pfeiffer II 41. The traditional in-

terpretation, current already in antiquity (cf. Scholia ad loc. ; Nonn.Dion. 18.266, and perhaps Hor. carm. 3.1.6–7 Iovis / clari Giganteo triumpho,in a very Callimachean context [S. J. Heyworth, “Some allusions to Callima-chus in Latin poetry”, in MD 33 [1994], 51–79, pp. 54–6]), of the first halfis “router of the Mud-born, i. e. the Giants (the cgceme ?r, “born from earth”)and/or the Titans”; if this were correct, we would have a brief allusion tothe establishment of Zeus’ rule, and this interpretation would seem to find sup-port in Theogony 820, “when Zeus had driven (1n]kase) the Titans from heav-en…”. Adolf Köhnken, “Pgkoc|mym 1kat^q. Kallimachos, Zeushymnos v. 3”,in Hermes 112 (1984), 438–45, however, has argued that the ‘Mud-born’ aremortals, traditionally fashioned by Prometheus from mud; 1kat^q will, there-fore, mean “gatherer, controller”, as of flocks of sheep, and this would be a Cal-limachean way of re-writing the Homeric poilµm ka_m, “shepherd of the peo-

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other than Zeus would it be better to sing at libations?”, and it is onlywhen we reach C he¹m aqt|m in v. 2 that we realise that the openingFgm|r actually belongs with spomd/isim, “at libations to Zeus”67. Al-though we have ‘misconstrued’ the syntax of the opening verse, wehave in fact correctly appreciated the meaning: Zeus is the only possi-bility, regardless of grammatical construction. Zeus, whose precociouspower (v. 57) is shared only with “our king” (vv. 87–8) and overturnsall our accepted notions of progression and generational succession(vv. 58–9), is the only certainty amidst the treacherous shoals of com-peting ‘mythologies’ (vv. 4–9), Cretan paradoxes (v. 8) and the untruthsof poets (vv. 60–5). That the opening verses themselves appear to bewritten ‘in competition’ with a famous Pindaric opening is itself a man-ifestation of the shifting layers of tradition68.

The verbal style of Callimachus’ opening is close to the opening of aPindaric prosodion (fr. 89a Sn.-M., presumably to Artemis):

T_ j\kkiom !qwol]mois(im?) C jatapauol]moisim

C bah}fym|m te Kat~

ja· ho÷m Vppym 1k\teiqam !e ?sai ;

Nevertheless it seems very likely that we are primarily to think of Pin-dar’s own Hymn to Zeus69 which began with a priamel listing of possibleTheban themes for song (fr. 29 Sn.-M.):

ple”. Not only would this interpretation offer the witty equation of human be-ings to sheep, but it would also play off the origins of men (‘mud’) against theorigins of the gods (‘sons of Ouranos’).

67 The syntactic ambiguity is noted already by the scholiast.68 The brilliant insubstantiality of the poetic voice in the Hymn to Zeus has often

been discussed, and we shall say little about it here; among recent accounts cf.N. Hopkinson, “Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus”, in CQ 34 (1984), 139–48; S.Goldhill, “Framing and Polyphony: Readings in Hellenistic Poetry”, inPCPS 212 (1986), 25–52; K. Lüddecke, “Contextualizing the voice in Calli-machus’ ‘Hymn to Zeus’”, in MD 41 (1998), 9–33.

69 This poem seems to have stood first in Aristophanes of Byzantium’s seventeen-book edition of Pindar (cf. Pfeiffer [1968], 183–4), but we cannot necessarilyextrapolate back from this to the scholarship of a previous generation; theremust, however, be a strong suspicion that Callimachus’ contemporaries alsoknew it in a very prominent position. For Horace’s use of Greek poemswhich were significantly placed in their respective books cf. A. Barchiesi, “Rit-uals in ink: Horace on the Greek lyric tradition”, in Depew-Obbink, Matrices(above n. 1), 167–82, esp. 171–3.

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Yslgm¹m C wqusak\jatom Lek_am

C J\dlom C Spaqt_m Req¹m c]mor !mdq_mC t±m juam\lpuja H^bam

C t¹ p\mtoklom sh]mor Jqajk]or

C t±m Diym}sou pokucah]a til±m 5C c\lom keujyk]mou *qlom_arrlm^solem ;

Against Pindar’s embarrassment of choice is set by Callimachus a confi-dence that there is only one possible subject for song. Pindar’s hymn ap-pears to have made extensive use of Hesiod’s Theogony, especially ifBruno Snell was correct in arguing that Pindar depicted Apollo andthe Muses performing at the wedding of Kadmos and Harmonia “eingrosses mythisches Gedicht … das vom Werden der Götter und Men-schen erzählte”70. In reading the Theogony as a ‘Hymn to Zeus’ Callima-chus is also interpreting Pindar. As Callimachus here appropriates Pindarand is soon to incorporate Homer, whose account of Achilles’ killing ofLykaon is re-written in Rheia’s creation of rivers to wash the new-borninfant71, so Zeus surpasses all other gods; the eternal constancy of Zeus’power (v. 2) is set off against the agonistic struggles of poets and themyriad voices of the poetic tradition. Another one of those voicesalso demands special attention. As has long been recognised, vv. 5–6which oppose the Cretan and Arcadian birth legends of Zeus seem torework parallel verses from the fragmentary Homeric Hymn to Dionysus(1–7):

oR l³m c±q Dqaj\myi s’, oR d’ Yj\qyi Amelo]ssgiv\s’, oR d’ 1m M\nyi, d ?om c]mor eQqavi_ta,oR d] s’ 1p’ )kvei_i potal_i bahudim^emtijusal]mgm Sel]kgm tej]eim Di· teqpijeqa}myi,%kkoi d’ 1m H^bgisim %man se k]cousi cem]shai

xeud|lemoi.s³ d’ 5tijte patµq !mdq_m te he_m te

pokk¹m !p’ !mhq~pym jq}ptym keuj~kemom Nqgm.

70 Die Entdeckung des Geistes (Göttingen 1975), 82–94. With fr. 30 L. cf. Hes.Theog. 901–6, which Pindar appears partially to ‘correct’.

71 Cf., e. g., A. Griffiths, in JHS 101 (1981), 160. J. K. Newman, “Pindar andCallimachus”, in Illinois Classical Studies 10 (1985), 169–89, pp. 184–5makes the interesting suggestion that the stress on the sudden appearance ofwater carries particular resonance as the Ptolemies, the heirs of the Pharaohs,were lords of the Nile; the reign of Zeus/Ptolemy thus ensures abundant fer-tility for thirsty Egypt. Cf. further Stephens (n. 62 above).

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Whereas the archaic poet himself declares the variant traditions of Dio-nysus’ birth to be ‘lies’ and imposes the ‘true’ account, in the case ofZeus Callimachus leaves the choice up to Dionysus’ father himself 72.Despite the loss of so much hymnic poetry, the relationship betweenthe two passages seems reasonably clear73. There may in fact havebeen a formal reason for Callimachus’ choice of model. Although thequoted verses survive only in the indirect tradition, the close of whatis pretty certainly the same poem introduces the text of the hymns inthe damaged Mosquensis manuscript of the early fifteenth century.This manuscript, which by common consent is the best witness to thetext of the hymns74 also preserves uniquely the Hymn to Demeterwhich follows the Dionysus-fragment; all other manuscripts beginwith the Hymn to Apollo (Hymn 3 in T.W. Allen’s standard Oxford ed-ition). It is not possible to tell from the manuscript how much of theHymn to Dionysus is lost nor whether this was the first hymn in thattext, though this seems indeed very likely. As the order of the preservedhymns is standard in the vast majority of witnesses75, there is a presump-tion that this order goes back to the collection of Homeric Hymns whichwas at some date incorporated into a larger collection of hymnic andHomeric material. If so, we must at least reckon with the possibilitythat the Hymn to Dionysus was the first poem in a collection of HomericHymns known to Callimachus. In the opening verses of his openinghymn, therefore, Callimachus may have alluded to the ‘opening’poems of the two major hymnic collections of the past, the ‘Homeric’and the Pindaric. In doing so, Callimachus not merely places himselfwithin a tradition, but calls attention to the written form of collected‘poetry-books’ which offered new possibilities for beginnings and ends.

The ludic wit with which Callimachus juxtaposes “the eternalZeus” with the story of his birth in all its physical detail is of a piecewith the games which he plays with notions of truth-telling and the

72 Is p\teq in v. 7 a hint at the model text being used?73 The Hymn to Dionysus also shares with the story of Zeus’ birth the motifs of

hiding the baby from the wrath of another god (in Dionysus’ case, Hera) andbirth on a thickly wooded mountain (cf. Call. h. 1.11, perhaps a rewriting ofthe description of Nysa in vv.8–9 of the archaic hymn). On this HomericHymn see now M. L. West, “The fragmentary Homeric Hymn to Dionysus”,in ZPE 134 (2001), 1–11.

74 The most accessible account is the Introduction to the edition of T. W. Allen-W. R. Halliday – E. E. Sikes (Oxford2 1956).

75 A small sub-group (HJK) have the order 8–18, then 3.1–186.

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‘Hesiodic’ claim of poetry to be able to convey both truth and falsehood(Theog. 22–28)76; the poet’s demand for “plausible fiction” (v. 65) isnot merely a way to dismiss the Homeric account of the division ofthe universe among the three sons of Kronos in favour of the Hesiodicversion77, but it also of course undermines any temptation we mighthave to ‘believe’ his own narrative of Zeus’ birth. The physical vivid-ness of this narrative is not merely a technique for disorienting the read-er, let alone a tool of ‘realism’, but is rather one of the ways in which itis made clear that what is at issue is not literal ‘belief’ in the story. Thestrategy of the poem is to divorce the power and nature of Zeus fromthe ‘mythology’ of Zeus, so that the former does not depend upon thelatter. The learned poet can have lots of fun with the absurdities of tradi-tional stories and the inconsistent tales of poets, and yet still expound therealities of power.

There is, moreover, a broader context of ‘religious’ ideas into whichCallimachus’ poem and its tradition fits78. Greek poetic reflection uponthe nature of Zeus, and hence upon the nature of power, tended tostress not the god’s (perhaps original) rôle as the elemental sky-god,but rather the universality and uncertainty of supreme power. WhenCallimachus excuses himself at the end of the hymn (92–3),

d_toq !pglom_gr, te± d’ 5qclata t_r jem !e_doi ;oq c]met’, oqj 5stai . t_r jem Di¹r 5qclat’ !e_sei ;

76 Particularly valuable is A. Barchiesi, Il Poeta e il Principe. Ovidio e il discorso au-gusteo (Bari 1994), 169–75.

77 Iliad 15.187–93. Appeals to t¹ eQj|r and t¹ piham|m are very common in theHomeric scholia, and we should catch here the tones of the scholar, as well asthe calculating peasant. There was a rich tradition of allegorising this Iliadic pas-sage, and it is not impossible that Callimachus alludes to an actual scholarly ar-gument; cf. Ps.-Heraclitus, Probl. 41.5 where the division is described as !m~-lakor. Moreover, in the Iliad ‘Hades’ is the name of one of the brothers, not aterm for the Underworld, and ‘Olympos’ remains common to all three(15.191–3); Callimachus is, therefore, demonstrating how scholars “play fastand loose” with the text in their interpretative arguments

78 S. Pietsch, Die Argonautika des Apollonios von Rhodos (Stuttgart 1999), 181–92 isa serious attempt to pay attention to the background of theological ideas in theHymn to Zeus, as well as to the poem’s obvious humour, though our analysiswould be very different.

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this is not to be dismissed as merely a “bold-faced inversion of one ofthe most conventional motifs of praise-poems”79 or as a ‘scholarly’ allu-sion to the absence of a major ‘Homeric Hymn to Zeus’, though it is, ofcourse, both of those things; there is no point seeking to celebrate orcatalogue ‘the deeds of Zeus’, to write, if you like, a Hymn to Zeuson the lines of Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis, because to do so is to mis-represent the nature of Zeus, and it is that nature which is the object ofhymnic form. To an important extent, Zeus is ‘process’, to be perceivedonly as the pattern of events which have already unfolded, what Aeschy-lus calls ‘Zeus’ valid law’, p\hei l\hor, “learning through experience”.Everything which happens is ‘Zeus’.80 This is, however, not a matter of‘what Callimachus believed’ (which we shall never know) or ‘the reli-gion of Callimachus’, but rather of the literary and cultural tradition inwhich his poem fits. So much about the style of his poetry seems rev-olutionary, that the traditional matrix of ideas into which it fits is oftenforgotten.

Addenda

Cf. 8 above. Callimachus’ Hymns continue to attract considerable attention, cf. ,e. g. , M. Vamvouri Ruffy, La fabrique du divin (Liège 2004), A. Ambühl, Kinderund junge Helden (Leuven 2005), I. Petrovic, Von den Toren des Hades zu denHallen des Olymp: Artemiskult bei Theokrit und Kallimachos (Leiden 2007).

p. 408 An important study of hymnic epiphany is J.F. García, ‘Symbolic actionin the Homeric Hymns: the theme of recognition’ Classical Antiquity 21 (2002)5–39

p. 429–30 G.B. D’Alessio has made a very strong case for believing that thepoem that stood first in the Alexandrian edition of Pindar, and of which wepossess considerable fragments, was not in fact a ‘Hymn to Zeus’, but a‘Hymn to Apollo’, cf. ‘Il primo inno di Pindaro’ in S. Grandolini (ed.), Liricae teatro in Grecia: il testo e la sua ricezione (Naples 2005) 113–49.

79 Haslam (n. 6 above), 116, cf. also Vestrheim (n. 14 above), 63–4. More prom-ising, though equally limiting, is Newman (n. 71 above), 185, “evidently [Zeus’deeds] have been sufficiently replaced by what we have heard of the deeds ofPtolemy”.

80 Some key texts: Aeschyl. Ag. 160–83; Soph. Trach. 1278; Eur. Tr. 884–8;Cleanth. Hymn to Zeus ; Arat. Phaen. 4.

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 433

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change*

The meeting and song exchange of Lycidas and Simichidas in Theocri-tus’ seventh Idyll, the Thalysia, has a fair claim to be among not only themost discussed1 but also the most powerful and strangely compellingscenes of all Greek poetry. Its hold over us lies in part not merely inthe familiar attractiveness of the mysterious and riddling, but also inour pervasive sense of witnessing a dramatization of changing fashion,and one in which the present confronts, but perhaps fails to meet thechallenge of, the past. In this chapter, I want to look anew at certain as-pects of this encounter in the hope of teasing out some strands of Hel-lenistic reflection upon poetic and cultural practice.

Thinking about Style

As the narrator, Simichidas, and his friends are walking from the town ofCos to a harvest festival in the countryside, they happen to fall in withLycidas (but is it “chance”?), who is very obviously a goatherd (or ishe?). Both Lycidas and Simichidas are poets, and they agree to an ex-change of “bucolic song” as they travel together. Lycidas introduceshis song as follows (Idyll 7.42–51):

So, with a purpose, did I speak, and the goatherd answered, sweetly laugh-ing, “I will give you my stick, because you are a young shoot all fashionedby Zeus for truth. So I abhor the builder who seeks to raise his house ashigh as the peak of Mt. Oromedon, and the cocks of the Muses wholabor in vain, crowing against the Chian songster. But come, let us quicklybegin bucolic song, Simichidas. And I – see, my friend, whether you likethis little song which I recently worked out (exeponasa) on the mountain-side.”

* H. Yunis (ed.), Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece(Cambridge 2003) 213–34

1 For recent bibliography, see Hunter 1999: 151, Köhnken and Kirstein 1995:279–96. In what follows I have not always thought it worthwhile to signalmy debts to and disagreements with the extensive modern discussion.

As has often been remarked, the final verses of this passage look to anideal of small-scale, careful workmanship (ponos, “labor”), which findsmany echoes in Hellenistic and Roman poetry.2 Theocritus’ contempo-rary, Posidippus, for example, portrays his soul in an epigram as “previ-ously laboring amongst books” but now tortured by desire.3 That Lyci-das’ stylistic effort took place “on the mountain” sits in paradoxical jux-taposition to this ideal of modern craftsmanship. In composing “on themountain”, Lycidas is, of course, replaying the setting of Hesiod’s meet-ing with the Muses in the opening of the Theogony, but Lycidas lays noclaim to such inspiration. Indeed, he himself plays the role of the Musesin promising to give his staff to the young Simichidas, who has just de-clared himself to be a “clear voice of the Muses” (Idyll 7.37). That dif-fering ideas about the sources of poetry are indeed relevant here is clearalso from Lycidas’ rejection of the “cocks of the Muses” who crowvainly against “the Chian songster” (i. e. , Homer). These verses seemplainly to rework one of the most famous passages of Pindar’s epinicians(Olympian 2.83–8):4

I have many swift arrows under my arm in their quiver that speak to thosewho understand, but for the generality they need interpreters. Wise is hewho knows many things by nature, whereas learners who are boisterousand long-winded are like a pair of crows that cry in vain against the divinebird of Zeus. (trans. Race, adapted)

The ideal of knowledge derived from “natural gifts” (physis) is here setagainst the poverty of “learning,” though the ancient commentators onthe Pindaric passage – with a fine eye for self-justification and advertise-ment – saw not just a hit at two of Pindar’s “rivals,” Simonides and Bac-chylides, but also a statement of the need for poetic commentary, whichwould be one further way in which Pindar anticipated Hellenistictrends.5 However we interpret these difficult Pindaric verses, the ideaof “learning” takes us very close to imitation (mimesis) as a model for po-etic composition and to what we might, with an eye on later develop-ments, be tempted to call “craftsmanship” (techne). Pindar’s dichotomy

2 Hunter 1999: 166. For ideas of ponos throughout the poem, see also Berger1984: 17–20.

3 1m b}bkoir pepomgl]mg (PA 12.98 = VI Gow-Page).4 There is a useful discussion by Cozzoli 1996: 7–36.5 Scholia Pindarica I.98 Drachmann. It will be relevant to the ideas pursued in this

essay that Dionysius of Halicarnassus similarly notes that the obscurity of Thu-cydides and Demosthenes “requires interpreters” (Lysias 4).

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 435

between nature and learning – or at least one strong reading of that di-chotomy – was at the heart of most ancient discussion of the sources ofpoetry; it was the almost unanimous view of ancient critics that the as-piring poet or orator needed in fact a mixture of natural gifts and studiedcraftsmanship: the requirements, as listed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus,are “natural gifts, careful study, laborious practice.”6

If, like Pindar, Lycidas speaks “to those who understand,” it wouldseem that Simichidas, the “professional” poet from the city with a rep-ertoire of songs ready to hand (Idyll 7.92–5),7 is not to be included inthis privileged group, for when it is his turn to perform he adopts thefiction of “poetic inspiration” as though he has not understood the mes-sage of Lycidas’ verses (Idyll 7.90–5):

After him I spoke in my turn as follows: “Lycidas my friend, me too theNymphs taught many other songs as I tended my herd (boukoleonta) onthe mountain, excellent poems, which public report has perhaps carriedeven to the throne of Zeus. But this with which I shall do you honor ismuch the finest of them all : listen then, since you are dear to the Muses.”

Simichidas sets himself up as a latter-day Hesiod whose poetic “initia-tion” by the Muses as he herded his lambs on Mt. Helicon is recordedin the opening of the Theogony. He is making a move very familiar inthe poetry of the third century, however relevant Hesiod is for bucolicpoetry in general and Idyll 7 in particular.8 We may think particularly ofCallimachus replaying Hesiodic experience in the Aitia or reconstruct-ing the voice of Hipponax in the Iambi. The very fiction that Simichidasemploys marks him, indeed, as a modern poet of a quite different kindfrom the model that he claims. Divine inspiration, whether from theMuses or the more appropriately bucolic nymphs, is now merely a“technical” gesture, a code shared between a poet and his audience. Itis a code that Simichidas, like all modern professionals, can adopt or

6 v}sir deni\, l\hgsir !jqib^r, %sjgsir 1p_pomor (On Imitation fr. 2 Usener-Ra-dermacher). For “art and nature” in the Hellenistic critics, see Brink 1971:394–5 on Horace, Ars poetica 408–18; McKeown 1989: 399–400 on Ovid,Amores 1.15.13–14. Hutchinson 1988: 203 noted, in order to reject, the pos-sibility that in Idyll 7.43–8 Lycidas may be referring to stylistic grandeur.

7 Lycidas teases Simichidas with the behavior of a parasite (24–5). If we ask whatSimichidas would give in return for entertainment, the answer must be not thejokes of a parasite, but poems. In some respects, Simichidas is a forerunner ofPetronius’ Eumolpus.

8 Partly, perhaps, as a result of Idyll 7, subsequent tradition made Hesiod a found-ing figure of pastoral; cf. Virgil, Eclogue 6.69–71.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception436

abandon at will in accordance with the generic demands of any partic-ular song. When, however, Lycidas offers the first performance of a songthat he has “recently crafted on the mountain,” we have at least noprima facie reason to disbelieve him.

Before moving to the two songs themselves, it will be worth settingthese ideas within a broader historical context. The most famous earlystatement of what we might call the ideal of “labor” (ponos) is the pro-grammatic chapters of the first book of Thucydides’ History. Here the“labor” of research (1.20.3, 22.3) is intimately linked to the pursuit ofan account that is saphes, both “true” and “clear” (1.1.3, 22.4), and ak-ribes, an “accurate and detailed” record of what was said and done(1.22.1–2). Those to whom Thucydides opposes himself are character-ized not merely by intellectual sloppiness (1.20.3), but in particular by areliance on “the mythical” in order to make their poems or logoi moreattractive to listeners; here style and subject are equally at fault. Overthese chapters there hovers a sense of another dichotomy, that betweenthe written and the oral (especially 1.22.4). As a stylistic and intellectualideal, “detailed accuracy” (akribeia) seems in fact to reflect an originaryuse for writing in the fields of record keeping, law codes, public decrees,and so forth, where the potential deceptiveness of oral traditions is mostto be deprecated (1.20).9 So, too, the fourth-century rhetorician Alcida-mas, in his work On the writers of written speeches or On sophists, a defenseof “improvised” speeches and an attack upon the use of carefully pre-pared texts, repeatedly associates such akribeia with written texts.10

Thucydides’ broad dichotomy between himself and all others finds afamiliar analogue in the stylistic and thematic distinction constructed be-tween Aeschylus and Euripides in Aristophanes’ Frogs. The facts are toowell-known to need rehearsing here. Put broadly, the swollen, grandstyle of Aeschylus, which depends for its effects on irrational, emotionalpower (ekplexis), is set beside the careful, clear, and accurate style ofEuripides. There is no exact fit either with Thucydides’ rhetoric orwith any simple dichotomy of nature-art, but both the basic distinction

9 On these dichotomies in Thucydides’ self-presentation, see Yunis 2003:198–201.

10 Cf. Alcidamas, Sophists 14, 16, 20, 25, 33–4. So, too, Alcidamas associates writ-ing with “working out speeches in detail” [kata mikron exergazesthai, Sophists16], a phrase that may remind us of Lycidas’ ekponein (p. 214), and with theimitation of one’s predecessors (Sophists 4), like Pindar’s “crows,” whosesong comes from mere “learning” (above p. 435). See Thomas 2003: 186–7,on Alcidamas.

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 437

between “grand” and “plain” and the link between stylistic and intellec-tual qualities (i. e., between the how and the what), which were to persistfor centuries, are already there for all to see.11 That the same or similarlanguage is used to describe both what was said and the style in which itwas said is crucial for the developments this chapter will trace, though acertain caution is needed. Thus, for later critics, Thucydides’ style, par-ticularly in the denser passages, was notoriously grand and “obscure”(asaphes),12 whatever intellectual virtues he might claim for his history.Nevertheless, the interplay of the stylistic and the intellectual willemerge as a fundamental leitmotif of what was ultimately a radicalshift in Greek literary culture.

It must be stressed that these critical categories, whether applied torhetoric or poetry, do not depend upon a distinction between the writ-ten and the oral, a distinction that, expressed in those terms, would bemeaningless in the ancient world. Nevertheless, at least two immediatequalifications to this assertion are necessary. First, it is clear that some ofthe stylistic distinctions between the grand and the plain do in fact cor-respond to observable distinctions in other cultures between oral and lit-erate “literature.”13 Second, from Aristophanes to Longinus and be-yond, the power of the grand style is intimately connected to its emo-tional effects upon an audience; the “transport” (enthousiasmos) of thepoet or orator is transmitted in performance to the minds of the audi-ence.14 In an instructive passage of his essay on Demosthenes, Dionysiusof Halicarnassus notes that the emotional thrill that he derives from read-ing a speech of Demosthenes makes him wonder what must have beenthe extraordinary emotional experience of the original audience whoactually heard the great man speaking. What is crucial here is that Dio-nysius sees in the words of the speech their own stage directions, as itwere.15 Here we see how the performative, oral mode (even when it

11 Wehrli 1946; O’Sullivan 1992. Demetrius, On Style 36 notes that some people(with whom he does not agree) hold that there are only two types of style, thegrand (megaloprepes) and the plain (ischnos), because these two can never be com-bined.

12 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias 3, Demosthenes 1, 10, Thucydides 24, etc. ForThucydides’ sublimity, cf. Longinus, On the Sublime 14.1, 38.3.

13 This is particularly so in the matter of redundancy and copia ; cf. Ong 1982:39–41. Cf. further Bing 1988: 46–7 on Callimachean aesthetics.

14 So, too, Plato’s portrayal of the Homeric rhapsode Ion; cf. Yunis 2003: 190–2.15 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demosthenes 22, cf. also 53. Cf. Thomas 2003 on

the oral features of epideixis as preserved in written texts of epideictic speeches.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception438

is of the imagination) has in fact very close links to notions of grandeur.Moreover, it is precisely this emotional and imaginative “transport” thatexplains and excuses the lack of “precision” and “accuracy” (akribeia) inthe grand and the sublime.

One manifestation of this dichotomy that I have been sketching isthe distinction, most familiar from an exposition in the third book ofAristotle’s Rhetoric (3.12), between the “written style” (lexis graphike)and the “performative style” (lexis agonistike). The “written style” is“most accurate” (akribestate), whereas the “performative,” marked bysuch techniques as lack of connectives (asyndeton) and repetition, is“most suited to delivery” (hypokritikotate). Two aspects of this chapterof the Rhetoric are of particular interest in the present context. In onepassage, Aristotle seems to link the presence or absence of “precision”(akribeia) to the type of speech being delivered: a public political speechto a large audience is the wrong place for precision because it is not sub-ject to very close inspection, whereas the courtroom, and particularly acase heard by only one judge, is the proper place: “where most hangs ondelivery, there is there least precision” [1414a15–16].16 Commentatorshave been puzzled by what seems to be a confusion between, or at leastrunning together of, “precision” as a stylistic quality and precise reason-ing or argumentation that will stand up to close examination.17 In fact,however, such ambiguity is, as we have seen, a feature of the discourseof akribeia at least from the Frogs on; the how and the what travel togeth-er. Second, “written” and “performative” describe stylistic tendencieswithin drama and oratory rather than actual differences in the intendedmode of reception; it is not that works that display the “written style”were only intended for reading.18 Nevertheless, the possibility, indeedperhaps inevitability, of a parting of the ways between reading and per-formance is here at least foreshadowed.19 This strikes with particularforce when Aristotle introduces a class of poets whom he calls “thepoets for reading” (hoi anagnostikoi, Rhetoric 1413b12–17):

16 The speaker of Antiphon 3.2.1–2 (Second Tetralogy) apologizes to the jury forwhat might seem like excessive akribeia ; cf. Dover 1968: 155. On this notion ingeneral, cf. Kurz 1970.

17 Cf. Cope 1877: 3.151–2 on Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.12.5, quoted with approval byKennedy 1991: 256.

18 Zwierlein 1966: 131. Demetrius, On Style 193 is particularly instructive here.19 Zwierlein 1966: 133.

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 439

But poets who write for reading are [also] much liked, for example, Chaer-emon (for he is as precise [akribes] as a professional speech-writer [logogra-phos]) and, among the dithyrambic poets, Licymnius. On comparison,some written works seem thin when spoken, while some speeches of [suc-cessful] orators seem amateurish when examined in written form. Thecause is that [their style] suits debate. (trans. Kennedy, adapted)

The logographos to whom the tragedian Chaeremon is compared mustget the details right, but he has nothing whatsoever to do with howhis writings are performed; that lies in the hands of others.

The style that is “most appropriate to delivery” is also likely to lack“precision” because the performance context excludes careful inspec-tion by the mass audience. This stylistic analysis of oratory has obviousroots in the realities of Athenian democracy, but it finds a close analogue(and perhaps descendant) in the later criticism of poetry, where the pop-ular audience is replaced by the individual reader or hearer. Longinusnotes that “strong and appropriate emotions and genuine sublimityare a specific palliative for multiple or daring metaphors, because theirnature is to sweep and drive all these other things along with the surgingtide (parasyrein) of their movement. Indeed, it might be truer to say thatthey demand the hazardous. They never allow the hearer leisure to countthe metaphors, because he too shares the speaker’s enthusiasm” (On theSublime 32.4, trans. Russell). To the idea of “hazard” I will return, but itshould be noted that we are here plainly in the realm of oral delivery –we have not in fact progressed far from the transport of both rhapsodeand audience in Plato’s Ion — and that the activity that is blocked off by“the transport of the sublime,” namely, “leisured examination,” is itselfredolent of the Thucydidean ideal, the Aristophanic Euripides, Aristo-tle’s account of “precision” (akribeia) in oratory, and the practices ofHellenistic scholarship.

The image of surging water (parasyrein) appears again in one of themost famous passages of On the Sublime (33.3–5):

All human affairs are, in the nature of things, better known on their worseside; the memory of mistakes is ineffaceable, that of goodness is soon gone.I have myself cited not a few mistakes in Homer and other great writers,not because I take pleasure in their slips, but because I consider themnot so much voluntary mistakes as oversights let fall at random through in-attention and with the negligence of genius. I do, however, think that thegreater good qualities, even if not consistently maintained, are always morelikely to win the prize – if for no other reason, because of the greatness ofspirit they reveal. Apollonius is an error-free poet in the Argonautica ; The-ocritus is very felicitous in the Idylls … but would you rather be Homer or

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception440

Apollonius? Is the Eratosthenes of that flawless little poem Erigone a greaterpoet than Archilochus, with his abundant, surging flood (parasyrein), thatbursting forth of the divine spirit which is so hard to bring under therule of law. Take lyric poetry: would you rather be Bacchylides or Pindar?Take tragedy: would you rather be Ion of Chios or Sophocles? Ion andBacchylides arc impeccable, uniformly beautiful writers in the polishedmanner; but it is Pindar and Sophocles who sometimes set the world onfire with their vehemence, for all that their flame often goes out withoutreason and they fall down dismally. Indeed, no one in his senses wouldreckon all Ion’s works put together as the equivalent of the one play Oe-dipus the King. (trans. Russell, adapted)

The influence of this “manifesto directed against what we may call theCallimachean ideal”20 on modern attitudes to Hellenistic poetry woulditself make for an entire book, but let us stay for the moment with an-cient attitudes. As has often been remarked, stylistic metaphors are re-markably persistent over time throughout antiquity. Thus, for example,loud thundering is the hallmark of Homer’s Zeus, Aristophanes’ Ae-schylus (Frogs 814), Callimachus’ Zeus, and perhaps his inimitableHomer (fr. 1.20 Pfeiffer), and the unsurpassable “greatness” (megethos)of Longinus’ Demosthenes (On the Sublime 34.4).21 So, too, the samefamous passages may remain central to critical discourses over centuries.Thus, the origin of the familiar image of the surging flood of languageseems to be an Iliadic simile describing Ajax attacking the Trojans (Iliad11.492–7):

As when a river swollen in winter spate courses down to the plain from themountains, sped by rain from Zeus, and sweeps into its current many deadtrees, oaks and pines, and washes a mass of driftwood into the sea, so thenglorious Ajax swept havoc over the plain, cutting down horses and men.(trans. Hammond)

It is this passage that lies behind Aristophanes’ description of Cratinus,like Archilochus another daring and unruly drunkard, at Knights526–8,22 Callimachus’ “great Assyrian river, which sweeps along

20 Russell 1989: 308.21 Asper 1997: 196–8.22 Both Aristophanes himself and the ancient scholastic tradition fashion “the

drunkard” Cratinus as a “grand” and daring poet who, unlike Aristophanes,paid insufficient attention to stylistic polish; cf. Cratinus PCG test. 2a (Cratinuslike Aeschylus), 11, 17, 19. Cratinus PCG fr. 198 is also relevant. Note that inthis same parabasis of Knights, Aristophanes represents himself as understandingwhat a tough job being a comic poet is and thus the need for a proper appren-ticeship. This is not quite Cratinean “nature” versus Aristophanic “craftsman-

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 441

much filth of earth and much rubble” (Hymn 2.108–9),23 and Horace’scontrast of himself and Pindar, which will bring us back to Theocritus(Odes 4.2.1–12,25–32):

Anyone who strives to compete with Pindar,Iullus, trusts in pinions by DaedaleanExpertise wax-joined and is doomed to name someGlassy-clear ocean.Like a mountain stream rushing down, which heavyRain has swollen over its recognised banks,Pindar seethes and unconfined races on withDeep-thundering voice.Winner of the crown of Apolline laurelWhether he rolls down in adventurous dithy-rambs his new-coined words and is borne along byFree-flowing rhythms, …Strong the air-stream lifting the Swan of DirceEvery time, Antonius, he soars aloft toSpacious cloudland. I, as a Matine bee inManner and method,Harvesting sweet thyme with intensive labourRound the woodland glades and the river-banks ofWatered Tibur, small-scale I fabricate myPainstaking lyrics.

(trans. Lee)

Much in Horace’s contrast between Pindar and himself requires littleexplanation in the light of the critical contrasts I have been tracing,but I note three points that are of particular relevance.

In the second stanza, Horace describes Pindar with a further adap-tation of the simile from Iliad 11 in order, I would suggest, to makethe point that Pindar’s power in part derived from his own aemulatioof Homer.24 Longinus notes that “imitation and emulation of great

ship” (techne and ponos), but it is not far from it. Perhaps, Cratinus himself ac-knowledges the constructed dichotomy in the famous PCG fr. 342.

23 The Homeric model is surprisingly often overlooked, but cf. Asper 1997: 116.Asper’s whole discussion of “Wassermetaphorik” (pp. 109–34) rewards closestudy. Note that the Homeric hapax !vuscet|m in the description of Ajax,which does not recur until Nicander and then Oppian, is glossed in the D-Scholia as suqvet|m, the word that Callimachus uses in the parallel passage.

24 Sources for Horace are sometimes sought in Pindar’s own verse, but no con-vincing passage has been adduced, though in principle the idea of a Pindaricmodel is perfectly sensible. The river “fed by rain” seems to go straight back

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception442

writers and poets of the past” is one path to sublimity (On the Sublime13.2). Further examples are Herodotus, Stesichorus, Archilochus, andPlato, who, like the rain-fed river that is Pindar, “diverted to himselfcountless rills from the Homeric spring” and reached the heights by dar-ing to compete with Homer. “It is a noble contest and prize of honour,and one well worth winning, in which to be defeated by one’s elders isitself no disgrace” (On the Sublime 13–4, trans. Russell). This is the pos-itive version of what in Horace is, quite literally (and, of course, ironi-cally), a “fear of flying.” It is at least suggestive that Horace’s verb forhow the rains cause rivers to swell, alere (“nourish”), is elsewhereused of intellectual nourishment of the relevant kind.25 Be that as itmay, much hangs on the identity and nature of the models you follow;this will become important when we return to Theocritus.

Second, if Pindar is an irresistible “life force,” Horace, with his in-tricate and laborious efforts, is a “poet” (carmina fingo), and one whoworks (or does not) to order, as this poem demonstrates. So, too, isthe Theocritean Simichidas, ever conscious of the need to measure him-self against other poets, and one who even has a favorite from his ownrepertoire; we may compare Plato’s rhapsode Ion, another competitiveprize winner with a strongly developed sense of his status with regard to“professional rivals” (Ion 530c). This does not, of course, mean that“singers” like Pindar and Homer are not “poets,” merely that withinthe dichotomy we have been tracing, an emphasis upon one’s professio-nal craft (techne) can go hand in hand with an alignment on the side ofcraftsmanship (techne also), as opposed to natural endowment andpower. Seen in this light, Longinus’ description of Apollonius as an“error-free poet” carries a loaded charge in both words. It is temptingto see here either a faded echo or a vigorous reconstruction of the grad-ual replacement in the fifth century of one kind of knowledge by amore professional and agonistic set of inquiries and experts.26

Finally, Horace sets the contrast of himself and Pindar within apoem that (in a narrow sense) is profoundly political; we should there-fore ask about the link between politics and style. What is wrong withthe emulation of Pindar is simply that it is too risky; one is almost cer-tain to crash like Icarus, so it is better to keep your head low like the

to Homer, and I wonder whether profundo / Pindarus ore mimics the alliterationof the Homeric passage.

25 Cf. Ars poetica 306–7, docebo …, quid alat formetque poetam, Velleius 1.17.5 alun-tur aemulatione ingenia.

26 Lloyd 1987: Chapter 2.

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buzzing bee. Here, Horace gives life to the stylistic metaphor of falling,27

itself very common in Longinus, and illustrates that critic’s observationthat “it may also be inevitable that low or mediocre abilities shouldmaintain themselves generally at a correct and safe level, simply becausethey take no risks and do not aim at the heights, whereas greatness, justbecause it is greatness, incurs danger” (On the Sublime 33.2, trans. Rus-sell). It is “risk taking” that unites great writers to the sociopolitical con-text in which they live. As the correspondent of Dionysius of Halicar-nassus puts it : “It is not possible to achieve great success in anythingwithout taking and facing the kind of risks that inevitably involve fail-ure.”28 In fact, Longinus is one of our witnesses to a cultural narrative,which flourished in the first century C.E.,29 according to which politicalquiescence, that is, an absence of democracy, is responsible for thedearth of literary grandeur (On the Sublime 44.2–5). In such a narrative,freedom of expression and greatness of thought go hand in hand withpolitical freedom. Risk taking (and its avoidance) is yet another phe-nomenon shared by subject and style. Unsurprisingly, then, a written“private” poetry (note how Horace represents his voice drowned outby the throngs cheering Augustus) is associated with a concentrationof power. When power lies with the one or the few, you have towatch what you write, for it will indeed be open to “close inspection”;one mistake, one nodding off, may be one too many. From our perspec-tive, of course, this is radically misleading in the case of, say, Pindar,who wrote for the commissions of powerful men, but it is easy enoughto understand how distinctions within classical power structures are flat-tened out by a critical narrative that looks back over centuries and isfundamentally concerned with the present, not the past. As it happens,Longinus rejects this “common explanation” for the decline in literarygrandeur in favor of a more moralizing, “philosophical” one. But ifsome of the stylistic differences I have been tracing, and their import,may be found on show in Idyll 7, then Simichidas’ self-presentation asa poet who may hope for (or even claims) royal patronage – this surelyis the implication of verse 93, “[my songs] which report has perhaps car-

27 %ptytor, !di\ptytor, p_pteim, etc.28 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Letter to Cn. Pompeius 2.15. For these ideas, and

Horace’s “theoretical” reservations, cf. Brink 1971: 363 on Horace, Ars Poetica352.

29 This remains true whatever date we assign to Longinus (on which, cf. Heath1999). For a summary of these narratives, cf. G. Williams 1978: Chapter 1.

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ried even to the throne of Zeus” – suggests perhaps that this culturalnarrative has relevance in the Hellenistic world also.30 Nor would thisbe surprising. To some extent, the first century C.E. modeled itselfupon the Hellenistic experience, both in its (partly self-constructed)“anxiety of influence” and in its adoption, or forcible rejection, of “Cal-limachean” ideals.31

From Songs to Poems?

The undoubted differences between the two songs of Lycidas and Sim-ichidas are perhaps easier to sense than to describe;32 descriptions such as“high” versus “low” and “lyrical” versus “comic” are not inaccurate,but simply not very helpful, and the first task must be to try to bemore precise about the qualities of these two poems.

Lycidas’ song falls roughly into four verse paragraphs (52–60,61–70, 71–82, 83–9) defined by repetition (52/61) and framing(61/69–70, 83/89).33 Connections between the sections and betweenindividual sentences are unelaborated — normally a simple connective(de, kai) suffices — and such noncomplex structures are very familiarin both classical lyric and its Hellenistic imitations.34 The most markedfeatures of the verbal style of this song, however, are a tendency to am-plification and repetition (a “fault” for which “Euripides” criticizes“Aeschylus” in Frogs 1152–76), features that work strongly against an-cient critical notions of “precision” (akribeia) and “clarity” (sapheneia).35

30 On the representation of poetic patronage in Hellenistic poetry, see Hunter2003: 24–45.

31 Relevant here is Velleius’ analysis of decline in terms of cyclical epochs at1.16–17; his parallel for what has happened to Rome is (unsurprisingly) post-classical Athens.

32 The bibliography is large. I have found particular profit in Krevans 1983; Segal1981: 135–48; Kühn 1958; Ott 1969: 157–9; Lawall 1967: 87–101; Walsh1985: 11–16.

33 Cf. Weingarth 1967: 127.34 “Lykidas’s song unfolds in the discursive manner familiar to us from Pindaric

odes (and, indeed, for choral lyric in general)” (Dover 1971: 155 on Idyll7.52–89).

35 So, too, hyperbaton: 80–1 (sila· … l]kissai), 82 (ckuj» … m]jtaq), repeti-tion: 52–3/61–2, 57/59 (contributing to grandeur and pathos), 84. Amplifi-cation is produced by lists : 57–8, 63–4, 68, 76–7, 88. On the rising tricolonof verse 68, a kind familiar in high poetry, see Hunter 1999: 278 on Idyll 13.45.It is tempting also to associate the repeated connective te with Demetrius, On

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 445

Poeticisms are not rare,36 and the history of reception shows how “un-clear” (asaphes) is the extraordinary expression “you labored through thespring of the year” (85).37 Lycidas’ use of epithets in particular marks a“poetic” style: for example, “hot love burns” (56), “to the box sweet-smelling with soft flowers” with a mannered chiastic arrangement (81),and “wet waves” (53–4), which not only has good parallels in high po-etry38 but might serve as an illustration of Aristotle’s dictum that “in po-etry it is appropriate to speak of white milk, but in prose it is less appro-priate” (Rhetoric 1406a12). As marks of “poetic” style, perhaps we oughtto add internal rhymes (62, 80) and matched synonyms (55–6, 74).39

The opening image, in which cosmic signs in some sense imitate thehuman characters, as Orion “sets his feet upon the Ocean” while Agea-nax heads for Mytilene (52–4), is a trope taken from the highest formsof poetry.40

At one level, the structure of Simichidas’ song is rather looser: thesense units are short,41 and the direction changes rapidly, though neverso as to create obscurity. Gilbert Lawall helpfully refers to Simichidas’“jocular, offhand manner as if he were extemporizing,”42 though weknow that this poem is Simichidas’ prize composition (91–5). Simichi-das’ level of diction is certainly “plain,” verging indeed on what ancientstylistic theory would call “humble” or “lowly” (tapeinon). Virtually hiswhole lexicon is derived from “ordinary words” (kuria onomata), the lan-guage appropriate to a style that aims at “precision” (akribeia) and “clari-ty” (sapheneia), as first and most properly exemplified in Euripides43 andone also appropriate to the low physicality of some of his subject matter.Simple epithets are sparsely used, largely in the more elevated prayer

Style 54, where such repetition is said to be capable of lending grandeur even toinsignificant things; Demetrius’ example is a list of Boeotian towns at Iliad2.497.

36 E.g., jaja?sim !tashak_aisim (79).37 5tor ¦qiom 1nep|masar.38 See Hunter 1999: 168 on this passage.39 Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1405a1 on the usefulness of synonyms to poets.40 To some extent, the verses function as what Philip Hardie, in his study of “gen-

eral correspondences between events in the natural cosmos and events in thehuman, historical world” in epic, calls a “cosmic overture” (Hardie 1986: 63).

41 Note the programmatically concise opening (96). For short kola as a mark of theplain style, cf. Demetrius, On Style 204. On the structure of Simichidas’ song,cf. Weingarth 1967: 151—2.

42 Lawall 1967: 95.43 Aristotle, Poetics 1458a19; Rhetoric 1404b24–5; Demetrius, On Style 190, 203.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception446

mode of 103–4 and 115–16. Repetition and variation take place with-in the plainest of ranges (99, 102). We may even wish to associate theharsh, mimetic alliteration of 109–10 with Demetrius’ observationthat such “harshness of sound” (kakophonia) may be conducive to “en-visionment” (enargeia), which is a particular feature of the plain style (OnStyle 219). Most striking of all, perhaps, is Simichidas’ careful use of con-necting and antithetical particles, which suggests an elaboration quite atodds with the loose “extemporizing” structure. He begins with a neatmen/ de opposition — every move in this poem is very much planned— but particularly remarkable is the (scarcely translatable) triple se-quence of such connectives at 106–14:

[I] And if (kei men) you do this, dear Pan, may the Arcadian lads not whipyou with squills about the flanks and shoulders, whenever meat is scarce.But if (ei de) you decide otherwise, [2] both (men) may you be bittenand with your nails scratch your whole body and sleep in nettles, and(de) may you [3] both (men) be on the mountains of the Edonians in mid-winter, turned towards the river Hebrus, near the north star, and (de) insummer may you herd among the furthest Ethiopians, beneath the rockof the Blemyes, from which the Nile can no longer be seen.44

In discussing the characteristics of elevated style, Demetrius notes:“Connective particles such as men and de should not answer eachother too exactly (akribos). Exactitude is petty” (On Style 53, trans.Innes). Later in the same treatise, Demetrius observes: ‘Asyndeton andlack of all connection leads to a complete lack of clarity (asaphes) ...This disconnected style is perhaps more suited to the immediacy of de-bate, and is in fact called the dramatic style (hypokritike), because the lackof connectives stimulates dramatic delivery, whereas the written style iseasier to read and because its parts are fitted together and, as it were, se-cured in place by connectives” (On Style 192–3, trans. Innes, adapted).Longinus too sees such careful patterning as inimical to sublimity (Onthe Sublime 22.1–2). Thus, Simichidas’ style tells a clear story: here ismodern poetry for a modern, literate audience.

The analysis of verbal style may be supplemented by other ap-proaches. In an important discussion, Nita Krevans contrasted Lycidas’

44 jeQ l³m taOt’ 5qdoir, § P±m v_ke, l^ti tu pa ?der / )qjadijo· sj_kkaisim rp¹

pkeuq\r te ja· ¥lyr / tam_ja last_foiem, fte jq]a tuth± paqe_g. / eQ d’

%kkyr me}sair, jat± l³m wq|a p\mt’ am}wessi / dajm|lemor jm\saio ja· 1m jm_-daisi jahe}doir· / eUgr d’ Idym_m ll³m 1m ¥qesi we_lati l]ssyi / =bqom p±q

potal¹m tetqall]mor 1cc}hem -qjty, / 1m dd³ h]qei pul\toisi paq’ AQhi|pessimole}oir / p]tqai vpo Bkel}ym, fhem oqj]ti Me?kor bqat|r.

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 447

use of high, archaic poetry (Sappho, Stesichorus, etc.) with Simichidas’recourse to classics of the lower iambic mode, such as Archilochus andHipponax, and with the obvious links in Simichidas’ poem to fashion-able third-century poetic forms, such as the curse poem and nearly con-temporary poets such as Asclepiades.45 Through a study of these echoesand the use of geography in the poem to evoke literary tradition, Kre-vans concluded that “Theocritus establishes two interwoven patterns ofopposition … the contrast between poetry which arises from divine ornatural inspiration and poetry which evolves from earlier poetry … Sec-ond, there is the contrast between the archaic authors, with their half-mythical world, and the immediate predecessors and contemporaries ofTheocritus.”46 It is certainly the iambic mode that is evoked by Simichi-das’ liberal use of (to us at least) obscure proper names, the sense that thepoem is full of in-jokes,47 the joking prayer to Pan, and the persistentdetached irony that is so remote from the true pathos that is productiveof elevation (Longinus, On the Sublime 8.4). This last quality could beextended to much Hellenistic poetry and is in good measure responsiblefor its lukewarm modern reception.

In recreating the iambic mode, as in his adoption of the Hesiodicfiction, Simichidas is again entirely modern. Poems such as Callimachus’Iambus 13 and Herodas 8 show that the modern imitation of archaiciambus was felt to be a particularly exemplary case of reconstructive po-etic archaeology; whatever popular poetic traditions continued unbro-ken, imitation of archaic iambus, particularly choliambic poetry, was anotable example of artful and artificial “resurrection,” and quite literallyin fact in the case of Callimachus’ Hipponax. The very lowness of suchpoetry – its claim to a “popular voice” — made it a paradoxically perfectvehicle for the exploitation of the new possibilities of written poetryand new types of audience. Thus, for example, whereas Lycidas speaksin a prophetic, incantatory, semimystical manner that hints at a magicalcontrol of the world (the halcyons, etc.) and recalls the original link be-tween poet and seer, Simichidas includes the description of a distant, butallegedly contemporary, rustic magical rite, with which he himself has

45 Cf. Weingarth 1967: 164–5; Seller 1997: 133–6. Lycidas’ song may, of course,also contain echoes of (e. g.) Philitas and other near-contemporary poets.

46 Krevans 1983: 212.47 We may see here one version of the technique for establishing a sense of com-

munity between poet and different audiences that Scodel 1996 has studied forAlcaeus, and Schmitz 1999 for the much-changed reception context of Calli-machus.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception448

nothing to do and about which he has learned, so we are to understand,from a book.

It must be stressed that there can be no suggestion that the stylisticcontrast between the songs of Lycidas and Simichidas is a simple“grand-plain” contrast, or even “oral-written.” Both poems, like bothcharacters, are of course Theocritean products that reflect Theocriteanpoetics.48 Moreover, the stylistic level of Lycidas’ song seems more“smooth” (glaphyron) or “decorated” than grand, and it would in anycase be more than surprising if the Theocritean contrast formed a perfectfit with any of the dichotomies of rhetorical teaching, let alone withLonginus’ treatise. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a sense inwhich, within the parameters of Theocritean poetics, the difference be-tween the songs is not merely an exemplification of two different ele-ments within contemporary poetry, but also maps or constructs an evo-lution in poetic style that has intimate links to wider cultural practice.The next step will be to see whether anything similar is observablewhen we move from style to subject.

A catalogued world

Simichidas’ interest in cult and geography that is (to us at least) obscureclearly belongs to his “modernity”; neither a connection of Pan withthe Thessalian plain of Homole, nor the Arcadian squill rite, nor the“rock of the Blemyes,” nor the spring of Hyetis are otherwise attested.It is not, however, these erudite fireworks, important though they are,to which I wish to draw attention here. If the world of Simichidas’ in-jokes remains (perhaps deliberately) closed to us, he makes very sure thatwe understand his geographical and cultic allusions. The cause of theArcadian rite is explained (108), the location of the “rock of the Ble-

48 Whether Theocritus thought primarily in terms of a written reception or recep-tion through recitation/performance for Idyll 7 may be thought relevant to thisdiscussion. Unfortunately, however, we must rely in this matter on general as-sessments of the Hellenistic context rather than indications specific to Theocri-tus. For what it is worth, my sense is that Theocritus’ poems are more open toboth modes of transmission and reception than is the work of Callimachus andApollonius, and it is tempting to associate this difference with the fact that thereis no evidence that Theocritus worked as a “scholar.” We may compare the pal-pable difference between Theocritus and “the Alexandrians” in terms of philo-logical engagement with the text of Homer within the poetry itself.

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 449

myes” specified (114), and the relevance of Oikous spelled out (116).Here is “precision” (akribeia) and (perhaps paradoxically) “clarity” (sa-pheneia) of what is said, as well as of how it is said. In his scholastic versionof the iambic mode, Simichidas offers no “mythic narrative” as such,just a world marked out by cult sites and practices. Lycidas, however,finds personal, exemplary comfort in the bucolic and aipolic heroes ofhis own world – Daphnis and Komatas – and what is important, as ithad traditionally been in the poetic representation of myth, is howtheir stories, their pathe, act as paradigms for his own experience.49

Lycidas’ telling — or rather the telling which he puts in Tityrus’mouth — of the stories of Daphnis and Komatas is highly allusive,that is, it seems to assume an audience, whether that be just Lycidashimself or some wider group, to which those stories are known and sig-nificant. I hope that the similarity of this last sentence to some familiar“definitions” of myth is apparent. Thus, Richard Buxton posits myth“as a narrative about the deeds of gods and heroes … handed on as atradition … and of collective significance to a particular social groupor groups.”50 How “traditional” the stories of Daphnis and Komataswere is, of course, unclear, and it is hardly worth asking how Lycidas“changes” the narratives to suit his own position. What is importantis that the allusive narrative mode, seen most famously in the song ofDaphnis in Idyll 1, suggests “tradition,51 as it also constructs for itselfan interpretive community. Here, literary allusiveness, intertextualityif you like, and mythic allusiveness function in similar ways.52 The dif-ferent gods who question Daphnis in Idyll 1 embody different levels ofknowledge and curiosity, thus dramatizing the text’s construction of itsaudience, but this device also foregrounds the allusiveness that impliesfamiliarity while conjuring up the generic world of myth and construct-ing a community to whom that myth is significant, who need constantlyto (re-)interpret it. A search for “the facts,” the “precise” details of“what happened,” would be misguided. Finally, we may note that Ly-cidas wishes to listen to songs that preserve the fame of great heroes; forhim, poetry is both a traditional form and a preserver of tradition.

49 Macleod 1983: 168–9.50 Buxton 1994:15, cf. Hunter 1999: 67. For discussion of such definitions, cf.

Bremmer 1986.51 Cf. Hunter 1999: 63. For the importance of tradition in the definition of “the

mythic,” see Burkert 1979: 17–8.52 Bing 1988: 74–5 offers a different, but perhaps complementary, account of lit-

erary allusiveness.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception450

It would be tempting to set this contrast between Lycidas’ high al-lusiveness and Simichidas’ plain specificity within that broad movementthat we have come to know, and seek to deconstruct, as the shift frommyth to mythology. But let me return first to what Simichidas actuallysays. The pursuit of novelty, another “vice” that Longinus saw as en-demic in his own day (On the Sublime 5.1), is obviously connected tothe self-conscious craftsmanship (techne) of the professional, but it leaves,as I noted earlier, a world marked out by (often arcane) cult and ritualnames rather than by narratives of personal or collective significance.53

Many modern readers of Callimachus’ Hymns might feel at home withinSimichidas’ “written” religious world, in which the scholarly gloss is thestandard discursive mode, but this “precision” of names, which there isno reason not to connect with the prevalence of systematic written his-tory, has a place in the wider evolution of mythic narrative. The mod-ern study of fiction has taught us that detailed names and places are the“effects of the real” that create the fictional illusion54 – an irony thatThucydides would presumably not have appreciated. Such akribeiagoes hand in hand with the telling of stories as coherent, self-containedwholes in which temporal and spatial sequence are of primary impor-tance, and here the link between saphes as “true” and saphes as “clear”comes into its own. If we leap forward from Thucydides to Theocritus,the narrative that most demands attention in this context is Simaitha’sfirst-person narration of her affair with Delphis in Idyll 2. This self-con-scious tale is replete with “effects of the real” – the names of Simaitha’scircle, her clothes, places in the town.55 We are here clearly dealing withsome kind of “realistic fiction,” and I would speculate that developmenttoward this new kind of literature is intimately connected to the differ-ing styles of mythic narrative in Hellenistic poetry.56 With hindsight, we

53 This is to be connected with the phenomenon whereby so much Hellenisticmythic narrative is presented as aetiological of ritual practice; Henrichs 1999is fundamental here.

54 Cf. Barthes 1986; Yunis 2003: 191 n. 5.55 Note the variation on the “where do I begin?” motif (Idyll 2.64–5), familiar

from the Odyssey onward; particularly helpful on this narrative is Andrews1996.

56 There is no evidence that what we call Idylls 1 and 2 were ever juxtaposed inancient editions, and a lot of evidence is against this; cf. Gutzwiller 1996. Virgilseems to have brought them together in Eclogue 8 on the formal grounds of theshared refrain. Nevertheless, critics have made the obvious connections be-tween Idyll 1 and Lycidas’ song and Idyll 2 (the song of Simaitha) and Simichi-

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 451

can see that the vast sea of Greek myth was fertile ground for the devel-opment of fictionalizing instincts: Walter Burkert once noted that whatis distinctive and “utterly confusing for non-specialists and often for spe-cialists” about Greek myth is its extraordinarily profuse detail of names,genealogies, and interrelationships with, in other words (though Burkertcertainly did not say this), “effects of the real” waiting to happen.57 If weare forced to name a crucial moment in this process, the classicist maythink of Aristophanes’ Euripides, whose prologizing gods told “thewhole story” (Frogs 946–7), that is, organized disparate strands (and dis-parate names) into a connected narrative; such “narrative exactness” (ak-ribologia) shows the way to later mythography.58 Of course, “graphy” —writing — has a place at the heart of these developments.59

As for Lycidas’ stories of Daphnis and Komatas, it is tempting tosuggest that the allusive mode of telling, related forms of which are fa-miliar enough from the choral lyric of the archaic and classical periods, isa direct response to developments in “systematic mythography” and towhat I have called the “fictionalizing” impulses that go with that sys-tematization. Quite different poetic responses to these same develop-ments in historiography and mythography are in fact on show in Calli-machus’ Aitia and Lycophron’s Alexandra. In the Idylls, Theocritus re-creates or invents an oral style of “traditional tale” beyond systematiza-tion (and certainly beyond Simichidas) and only preserved in the folkmemories of shepherds and goatherds. This would, in fact, be the man-ifestation in the field of myth of the aetiology of bucolic poetry as amode of popular song that is written into the surviving poems, partic-ularly Idyll 1.60 The Theocritean corpus makes clear that various themat-ic and stylistic developments that are usually treated separately are in factinterlinked in ways that shed light on the gradual, often imperceptible,changes in Greek culture that came with the ever deepening assimilationof literacy. Idyll 7 emerges as a remarkable dramatization of such change.

das’ song. This is indeed a helpful heuristic device for thinking about narrativetechnique, but we must not assume an authorized juxtaposition within a poetrybook.

57 Burkert 1979: 30.58 Cf. Demetrius, On Style 209.59 Rösler 1980.60 Hunter 1999: 61–2.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception452

Retrospect

I have so far ignored one text that seems at the heart of this whole sub-ject, namely, Plato’s Phaedrus. The relation of this dialogue to bucolicliterature has attracted previous critical attention,61 but there may yetbe more to be said.

Like Simichidas, Phaedrus has studied “books” (in his case the writ-ten speech of Lysias), but he seeks to conceal the fact, pretending insteadto rely on an imperfect memory of a once-heard speech (227a-8e); thespeech itself is one that Lysias had “written at leisure, over a long periodof time” (228a). Thus, Phaedrus’ intensive study of Lysias’ speechshould be viewed as a kind of second-level “labor” (ponos), imitativeof the “labor” of the original author, which itself recalls the Thucydi-dean ideal and looks forward to Horace’s demand for unremitting toilin writing. Be that as it may, the fact that it is Lysias who is the objectof imitation is suggestive for the reception of the Phaedrus in Idyll 7.When Phaedrus has delivered the Lysianic speech, he asks Socrates:“How does the speech seem to you, Socrates? Doesn’t it seem to youto be extraordinarily well done, especially in its language?” (234c,trans. Rowe). This seems to be the observation that Socrates picks upa few lines later: “Should you and I also praise the speech on thegrounds that its creator has said what he should, and not just becausehe has said things clearly (saphe) and in a well-rounded fashion andeach and all of his words arc precisely (akribos) turned?” (234c). Forlater ages, Lysias was indeed the model of pure, ordinary diction (saphe-neia), “precise language” (akribeia), “envisionment” (enargeia), and anartful artlessness that avoided all suspicion of poetic tropes and madehis speeches appear uncontrived and “natural.”62 The Phaedrus has clear-ly played its part in this characterization, but the scholastic reception ofLysias may also throw light on one reception of the Phaedrus. Havingsummarized Lysias’ stylistic virtues, Dionysius of Halicarnassus thencharacterizes him negatively (Lysias 13):

61 Hunter 1997, 1999: 14 (with bibliography), 145–6.62 Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias passim, especially 8,13. The negative side

to this is Alcidamas’ observation that logographoi aim to write speeches that ap-pear improvised and “shun akribeia,” thus showing (in Alcidamas’ view) the su-periority of real improvisation (fr. 1.13 Avezzù). This, too, is suggestive forSimichidas. Lysias’ “plainness” is an important element in Socrates’ feigned re-sponse of astonishment (ekplexis) to Phaedrus’ performance (234d); this is justhow one should not react to Lysias.

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 453

There is nothing sublime or imposing about the style of Lysias. It certainlydoes not excite us or move us to wonder, nor does it portray pungency,intensity or fear; nor again does it have the power to grip the attention,and to keep it in rapt suspense; nor is it full of energy and feeling, orable to match its moral persuasiveness with an equal power to portray emo-tion. … It is a conservative style rather than an adventurous one. (trans.Usher, adapted)

Horace, too, opted for safety before risk.63 Let me stress again that this isnot a matter of Simichidas being merely a “poetic Lysias” – too much ofhis song lies in the realm of the “vulgar” (to phortikon) for that – but thestylistic analogue between the two (which reinforces the similarity ofPhaedrus and Simichidas, both naive enthusiasts who encounter anironic wisdom beyond their understanding) is indeed suggestive withinthe overall relation between the Phaedrus and Idyll 7.

We do not need the ancient critics to help us ascertain that Socrates’formal speeches in the Phaedrus, particularly the second one, are charac-terized by poeticism and sublimity, but it is a help that they do.64 At onelevel, Socrates is the completely “natural,” untrained orator, though hisopening invocation to the Muses (237a) reveals by its playful etymolo-gizing that “inspiration” has little to do with what he will proceed tosay; the effect is perhaps not unlike the “mixed signals” that introduceLycidas’ song. Be that as it may, I intend no disrespect to Plato when Isay that he has anticipated Theocritus in dramatizing a cultural differ-ence, in which writing plays a central part, and which both manifestsitself in and is represented by perceived stylistic difference. There is,of course, another narrative one could tell.

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63 Longinus also implies that Lysias belongs with the “flawless” writers – thosewho do not take risks (On the Sublime 32.8, 35.2).

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Addenda

On ‘Longinus’ and the differences between sublime, ‘risky’ poetry and thatwhich is safe and flawless cf. also below pp. 549–55 and Critical Moments inClassical Literature (Cambridge, forthcoming). On Horace, Odes 4.2 cf. also‘Sappho and Latin poetry’ in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds.), I papiri diSaffo e di Alceo (Florence 2007) 213–25, pp. 217–19.

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25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos*

The first group of epigrams is one of many surprises on the Milan papy-rus, though perhaps it should not have been so. Lithika is indeed a genrenot previously well attested at so early a date,1 although the considerableinterest in precious stones in, say, the Periegesis of Dionysius, to whom aLithika or Lithiaka is also ascribed, should have led us to expect a richbackground in Hellenistic literature; it may indeed be that Poseidipposwas an innovator in this type of ecphrastic epigram.2 As for the title,Kihij² is not of course preserved on the papyrus, but lithika is indeedwhat these poems are; I shall continue to use the title, but shall returnpresently to the generic sense of the collection. As we cannot be surehow the roll originally began and ended, we must be very cautiousabout the structure of the whole, but – unless the preserved stichometricmarks were added after the roll was damaged – we certainly have thecomplete lithika section (though, of course, some individual poems

* B. Acosta-Hughes et al. (eds.), Labored in Papyrus Leaves (Washington DC 2004)94–104Earlier versions of this paper were presented at colloquia on Poseidippos at

the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington (April 2002) and in Florence( June 2002) and at seminars in Cambridge and Oxford. I am grateful to allthese audiences and to the editors of the volume for helpful criticism. A (ratherearlier) Italian version of this essay has appeared in the papers of the Florencecolloquium (Il Papiro di Posidippo un anno dopo [Florence 2002] 109–19). Ihave tried as far as possible to maintain the exploratory tone of the oral presen-tation and have not at every step cited and/or argued with the outpouring ofscholarship on these poems which has appeared or become known to mesince I drafted this essay. I would, however, in particular draw attention toBernsdorff (2002), Lapini (2002), and Petrain (2003) as three important contri-butions, all written quite independently of each other and of my essay; unsur-prisingly, the observations and conclusions of all four of us overlap in importantrespects.

1 Cf. Gutzwiller 1995.2 The lithika certainly do not weaken, and may be thought to add some colour to,

the case for Poseidippan authorship of SH 978, an ekphrasis of a bathing-house,if chronology allows this; cf. now Lehnus 2002: 12–13. The marvellously en-graved gem at Heliodorus Aithiopika 5.14 should also be taken into considera-tion.

are more complete than others), and the likelihood that the whole epi-gram collection began with this section seems overwhelming: PeterBing3 has called attention to how these poems would give a ‘brilliant’and programmatic opening to the collection through the obvious anal-ogy between the small-scale and detailed craftsmanship of gem-workingand the art of the epigrammatist. I turn first to the general shape of thelithika section.

The tattered remains of the opening poem offer (probably) Fgm[,perhaps – as the editors suggest – the start of the name of a lady whoreceived the gem as a gift, but whether or not this is correct, the pos-sibility that we here ‘commence from Zeus’ (cf. Aratus Phainomena 1,Theocritus 17.1 etc.), as we still would if the lady’s name began withthe god’s, may be at least given a certain colour by ‘Kronios’ in whatlooks like the second poem, presumably a reference to the jewellernamed also in I 32 (= AB 7.3) and perhaps I 25 (= AB 6.2); that thisname also suggests Zeus’ paternity, memorialised in the standard appel-lation Jqom¸ym or Jqºmior (pa ?r), is of course a speculation, but I thinkan attractive one. If there is anything in this, we cannot of course saywhether there was a corresponding close to the collection as awhole,4 but we do at least have the close of the lithika, IV 1–6 (=AB 20), a prayer to Poseidon which might remind us of the prayerswhich close hymns (e. g. the end of Callimachus Hymn to Demeter)5

and poetry books; Gregory Hutchinson6 has noted that the final iamati-kon (XV 19–22 = AB 101) ‘might be considered an adaptation of thehymnic close on !qet¶ and ekbor’. Be that as it may, the Aetia of Cal-limachus closes (fr. 112.8) with a prayer to Zeus to save the ‘house ofthe rulers’ (i. e. Ptolemy III and Berenice II), as the last lithikon seeksto keep ‘the land of Ptolemy’ and the islands free from earthquakesand other natural disturbance.7 Whether we should connect this withthe tradition, discussed by Alessandro Barchiesi in connection with Cal-

3 Bing 2002; cf. also Hutchinson 2002: 2–3.4 C. Austin prefers to make all of AB 19 and 20 one poem, but I follow the in-

dications of the papyrus and the arguments of Bastianini and Gallazzi.5 See Hopkinson’s note on vv. 134–7, Richardson on Homeric Hymn to Demeter

490–5.6 Hutchinson 2002: 1.7 For ‘the islands’ as a designation in the poetry of Poseidippos cf. HE 3102 and

perhaps SH 705.15. For the closing prayer cf. also Callimachus Hymn 5.142Dama_m jk÷qom ûpamta s²y.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception458

limachus and Virgil,8 that Delos, Apollo’s island, was !j¸mgtom (‘not sub-ject to earthquakes’)9 is not clear, but both Callimachus and Theocritusmake much of Apollo’s relationship to Delos as parallel to that of Ptole-my II to Cos, and a gesture here towards Ptolemy’s divinity would re-inforce the weight of the reminder of divine pleading in the secondcouplet.

The actual form of the prayer to Poseidon is a particularly interest-ing version of traditional modes: the god is first reminded of his powerto destroy (Helike), but then of his past willingness to listen to interces-sion (the da quia dedisti form);10 the central couplet lends the weight ofDemeter’s physical supplication (more possible for her than for a mor-tal)11 to the current prayer, for the goddess too has been in this positionof dependence (the assonance in 1j¼mgse and !jim¶tgm reinforces theparallelism). Her kissing of Poseidon’s hand, an unusual gesture in po-etic descriptions of supplication, perhaps recalls the only such Homericgesture, Iliad 24.478–9 where Priam kisses ‘the terrible man-slayinghands of Achilles, which had slain many of his sons’ (cf. also 24.506);the rôle of Poseidon’s ‘hand’ in the ‘natural’ destruction he causes hasalready been made clear in the previous, closely related epigram (III38 [= AB 19.11]).12 Unfortunately, we have no idea of the referenceof this couplet, but the poetic technique is noteworthy: although thesparing of any ‘Eleusis’ might reasonably be assigned to an intercessionby Demeter,13 the god’s previous granting of a prayer is here, as for ex-ample in Sappho fr. 1, itself a poetic fantasy of the poet (for who elsewould know of the relations between Demeter and Poseidon ?), and

8 Barchiesi 1994.9 Cf. Herodotus 6.98, Pindar fr. 33c.4, Schol. Callimachus. Hymn 4.11. Areas of

Ptolemaic power and influence in the Aegean and Asia Minor were, of course,prone to earthquakes, cf. RE Suppl. 4.351–8.

10 Cf., e. g., Pulleyn 1997: 17, 65–6.11 On mortal ‘supplication’ of the divine see, however, Pulleyn 1997: 56–7.12 It is probably at least worth noting that the Theocritean Cyclops who appears in

the previous poem (cf. below) fantasises about kissing Galateia’s hand (11.55).Alex Sens suggests to me that the motif of Poseidon’s hand varies the emphasisof earlier lithika on the skill of the sculptor’s hands.

13 Lehnus 2002: 13 argues that this is the Eleusis near Alexandria; for Demeter’simportant cult status in Alexandria cf. Fraser 1972: I 198–201. The matterseems to me, however, to remain at least open. If the Attic Eleusis weremeant, the closing lithikon would gracefully plot a shift of power (and divineprotection) from the mainland Greece of the classical period to the new Ptol-emaic realm of Egypt and the Aegean islands.

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos 459

this creates that intimate link between mortal and god which is so cru-cial for the granting of prayers.14 As for Poseidon, a god with whomanyone named ‘Poseidippos’ might have felt a special relationship,there is (as far as I know) not much evidence for his cult in Alexandria,15

but his famous connection with Euboean Geraistos (IV 5 [= AB 20.5])appears also in the Argonautica of Apollonius (3.1244) and in Callima-chus’ account of the birth-myth of Apollo (h. 4.199), and Ptolemaic in-terest in Euboea (and dedications at Geraistos?) in the middle of thecentury would certainly not surprise.16

Although the prayer to Poseidon is tied into the lithika through var-ious links with the preceding poem, it clearly also stands apart as a poemwhich is not about a single stone or rock, and this too strengthens itsforce as a closural prayer. Nevertheless, it closes something of a ringaround the lithika, in which both the opening and closing pairs arelinked together:17 we begin, as I have suggested, with Zeus and closewith Poseidon, and – in a complementary structure – we begin withAlexander (the Hydaspes, famous in the mid third century only as thesite of Alexander’s victory over Poros)18 and close with Ptolemy,Zeus’ representative and manifestation here on earth and Alexander’strue successor, as (e. g.) Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy makes clear.

The internal arrangement of the lithika has been briefly sketched outby the editors (p. 25): first, incised gems (I 2 – III 7 [= AB 1–15]), per-haps themselves divided into gems given as gifts (I 2–35 [= AB 1–7])and those not (I 36 – III 7 [= AB 8–15]); then, poems about ‘remark-able’ stones or rocks (III 8–41 [= AB 16–19]), and then the prayer toPoseidon of IV 1–6 (= AB 20). A new text such as this naturally testsour interpretative resolve (and our methodology) in finding patterns andmeaning in juxtaposition, and the Milan Poseidippos is no exception;

14 Marco Fantuzzi points out that Demeter is a very suitable ‘representative’ forthe initiate Poseidippos.

15 Cf. Visser 1938: 30.16 Cf., e. g., Walbank 1984: 246–8; the presence of Euboea in Callimachus’ cata-

logue of islands led by Delos, the centre of the pro-Ptolemaic Island League, atH. 4.20 is noteworthy in this regard. For different approaches to the ‘Ptolemaic’dimension of the lithika cf. Bing 2002 and Petrain 2003. There is another prayerto Poseidon on the new papyrus at AB 93.3.

17 Cf. further below.18 It is not obvious to me that Virgil Georgics 4.211 Medus Hydaspes is ‘an evident

use’ of Poseidippos, pace Hutchinson 2002: 3.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception460

Kathryn Gutzwiller has already opened certain lines of enquiry.19 Thelithika offer juxtaposed poems on mother-of-pearl (II 17–22, II 23–8[= AB 11–12]) and, very probably, juxtaposed poems about a preciousnecklace (I 24–9, I 30–5 (= AB 6–7). More interestingly, perhaps, wecan now see how II 39- III 7 (= AB 15 = Poseidippos XX G-P) beginswith a rejection of the ‘river topos’ of, say, I 1–2 (= AB 1) and I 30–1(= AB 7.1–2),20 as I 36 (= AB 8.1), out’ aqwµm 1vºqgse t¹ s²qdiom

oute cumaij_mj d²jtukor, ‘rejects’ the subject-matter of the immediatelypreceding pair of poems.21 The general impression is that the collectionbecomes more miscellaneous, and the stones get bigger, as we proceed,but nothing, I think, in either Theophrastus, On Stones or in Books 36and 37 of Pliny’s Natural History would have prepared us for the poemon the Euboean rock (III 28–41 = AB 19) or for the final poem (AB20). The first of this final pair is linked to what precedes by the openingnotion of ‘calculation’, for the central conceit of AB 19 seems to beexact measurement (cf. Callimachus, Iambus 6 on the exact dimensionsof the statue of Zeus at Olympia);22 in the current state of the text, anumber or measure appears in every verse of this poem except thethird, and who is to say that one should not be found there also. Asfor the final pair of poems themselves, they are both prayers to Poseidonin connection with his brutal natural power (with 2m· j¼lati in IV 1 (=AB 20.1) perhaps picking up III 31 [= AB 19.4]) and both identify fa-mous Euboean landmarks which were also very close together, the Ca-pharean rocks and the temple of Poseidon at Geraistos; both prayers fea-ture Poseidon’s ‘hand’ (III 38, IV 4 [= AB 19.11, 20.4]).23 The penul-timate lithikon is apparently imagined as delivered at the site of the rock(perhaps indeed actually inscribed upon the rock),24 and I do not see anyreason why the final poem could not be imagined as delivered at Ger-aistos itself.

19 Gutzwiller 2002a; cf. also Hutchinson 2002: 1.20 Cf. Bastianini-Gallazzi on II 9 (= AB 10.3).21 Cf. Gutzwiller 2002a: 4.22 On AB 18 cf. Luppe 2002.23 With III 38 (= AB 19.11) cf. Iliad 15.694–5 t¹m d³ (sc. >jtoqa) §qsem (§sem

Aristarchus, cf. AB 19.5) epishemj weiq· l²ka lec²kgi. It may be worth notingthat the first oionoskopikon, which follows immediately after the final lithikon, isabout dangers to shipping, for which this coast of Euboea was notorious, andthe second and third also have waves in them.

24 Cf. Lapini 2002 and Livrea 2003.

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos 461

The surprise of the final two poems is not lessened by the fact thatone of them is indeed about a lithos, though of a rather different kindthan all which have preceded. In interpreting this variety we are ham-pered by our ignorance of the generic expectations which titles such askihij², oQymosjopij², and tq|poi would raise in readers of an early col-lection such as this: how familiar, and how settled in meaning, weresuch titles? What kind of unity of subject do such titles lead us to ex-pect? Ought we to see the final two poems, or at least the penultimatepoem, as a kind of ‘generic joke’, which relies upon a familiar, but un-examined, sense of distinction between types of epigram, or rather as asign that category boundaries were still far from rigid? The rest of thecollection may suggest that the latter explanation is more likely, but afew brief observations about the rest of the collection will, I hope, in-dicate that the matter may not be straightforward.

The oionoskopika collect both poems about ominous ‘birds’ (oQymo¸)and about omens (oQymo¸) drawn from other spheres, but it is birdswhich predominate and which open the section (the first four poems)and which therefore establish a ‘generic sense’, from which the otherpoems can be seen to deviate; the final two poems, as with the lithika,are on related subjects and also differ from what has gone before, beingabout oQymosjopo¸ rather than about omens; as the lithika closed withPtolemy, the oionoskopika close with Alexander’s defeat of the Persians,which was, of course, for the Ptolemies a very ideologically chargedpiece of history. As for the dedicatory anathematika, one might havethought that this type of epigram was so common that it would havebeen easy enough to fill a section with ‘straightforward’ poems, butagain this proves not so: the first three poems (to Arsinoe) are indeeddedicatory poems of a very common kind, thereby suggesting that weare indeed in familiar territory, but the fourth, though linked to themthrough the figure of Arsinoe, is in fact quite different, being on thesubject of the temple and cult of Arsinoe as Aphrodite Euploia; thefinal two, apparently on a carved wolf and a tortoise shell, both appearto have been indeed dedicatory, but are again quite different from whathas preceded. As a whole, the section again forces us to wonder whatkind of unity is imposed by the collective title.

Like the anathematika, the epitumbia, if that is the correct title, collectepigrams of a very familiar, indeed perhaps the original ‘epigrammatic’,type; they are mixed in mode and voice, and a few are barely epitumbiaat all (cf. VIII 25–30 [= AB 52] on Timon’s sundial). The final twopoems are again linked: they are the only two which concern men,

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception462

and both use the theme of a happy death after a fulfilled life which re-quires no weeping. More striking perhaps is the fact that, although apasser-by is addressed at VIII 27 (= AB 52.3) earlier in the section,only in the final poem do we have the classic ‘stop, passer-by andlook at the tomb of …’; this is particularly notable as what is left ofthe tq|poi section suggests that these poems were standardly epitaphicand address to a passer-by was a regular feature. Perhaps, then, the ar-rangement of the epitumbia suggests an attempt to impose, rather thandisrupt, a generic identity at the conclusion; at the very least, itwould seem again that category-boundaries were very fluid or thatthe arranger of our new collection placed a high premium on genericsurprise and uncertainty. About the remaining sections there is less tosay. The !mdqiamtopoiij² and the Rppij² have been admirably discussedelsewhere;25 both sections end with ‘Ptolemaic’ subjects (Alexander, XI16–19 [= AB 70], and Ptolemaic chariot-victories, XIII 35-XIV 1 [=AB 88]), but it is noteworthy that the final two Rppij² are again closelylinked in subject and theme. In view of the patterns I have been tracing,it is perhaps important that the final mauacijºm clearly signals its affilia-tion in the opening word, maugcºm le jtk. , and that this is the only oc-currence of the word in the section; we have already noted how thefinal iamatikon functions closurally,26 and it is distinguished from theother poems in that section in being a request to Asclepius for ‘moderatewealth and health’.

In sum, there is clearly enough variety in the arrangement of thesections to enjoin caution; nevertheless, there are also suggestive indica-tions of play with ideas of ‘unity’ and ‘sameness’, and generic wit of thiskind fits easily with the early date of the papyrus: some categories aremore obvious and more settled than others, but others are being fash-ioned for the first time, perhaps never to return. The primary positionof the lithika, with its remarkable closing poems, alerts us to this aspectof readerly pleasure.

Let me now turn to the penultimate poem itself, the longest lithikonfor the largest rock, and one of the three fourteen-verse poems on thepapyrus.27 The god’s power, in the face of which all we can do is pray, ismarked by the difference between the opening of the poem, where we

25 Cf. Gutzwiller 2002b, and the essays of M. Fantuzzi in Acosta-Hughes-Kosme-tatou-Baumbach 2004 and in Gutzwiller 2005.

26 Cf. above p. 458.27 Cf. AB 74, AB 78, BG p.130.

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos 463

are all but certainly advised not to engage in the proverbially fruitless ac-tivity of counting waves,28 and its close, where we are told that, withtypical divine ease, Poseidon can ‘harvest the sea’, another proverbialwaste of time (at least for mortals).29 jatal¶seir, ‘you will reap’, averb of complex semantics,30 suggests that the wave knocks over, andthus covers, everything in its path (cf., e. g., Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite70–8, Plato Timaeus 25d); it is to be seen in counterpoint to Eqao ‘youlifted up’. The huge rock, which stands as testimony to the god’s pow-erful effort (marked by the heavy spondaic opening of III 32 [= AB19.5]), and which twice fills the first half of a hexameter with a singlemeasurement (III 32, III 40 [= AB 19.5, 13]), is larger than the mostfamous rock of the Odyssey, the Cyclops’ door-stone.31 In III 33 [=AB 19.6] sjaiot´qgm (s.v.l.)32 picks up Nestor’s description of the dan-gerous Cretan coast:33

!kk’ fte dµ ja· je ?mor Q½m 1p· oUmopa pºmtom1m mgus· ckavuq0si Lakei²ym eqor aQp»Xne h´ym, tºte dµ stuceqµm bd¹m eqq¼opa Fe»r1vq²sato, kic´ym d’ !m´lym 1p’ !{tl´ma weOej¼lat² te tqovºemta pek¾qia, Wsa eqessim.5mha diatl¶nar t±r l³m Jq¶tgi 1p´kassem,Hwi J¼dymer 5maiom ûIaqd²mou !lv· N´ehqa.5sti d´ tir kissµ aQpe ?² te eQr ûka p´tqg1swati/i Cºqtumor 1m Aeqoeid´i pºmtyi75mha mºtor l´ca jOla pot· sjai¹m N¸om ¡he ?,1r Vaistºm, lijq¹r d³ k¸hor l´ca jOl’ !po´qcei.

(Odyssey 3. 285–96)

But when he in turn had launched his ships again on the wine-dark sea andcame in his rapid course to the sheer headland of Maleia, then thundering

28 Cf. Gow on Theocritus 16.60.29 Cf. Theognis 105–7 (with van Groningen’s note) and certain ancient explan-

ations of !tq¼cetor, cf. LfgrE s.v.30 Cf. Jebb and Griffith on Sophocles Antigone 601, Petrain (2003). I have consid-

ered the possibility that !lgs²lemor at Odyssey 9.247 has been influential here(cf. below).

31 I remain sceptical that the corrupt opening of AB 19.9 really contained thename of Antaios, another monstrous son of Poseidon, though I have nothingbetter than the editors’ reconstruction to suggest; at the Washington conferenceDirk Obbink attractively suggested oqd’ AQtma?or b cuq¹r jtk.

32 Lapini 2002 proposes sjaiºteqom huqeºm. Petrain 2003 suggests that the unusualword is chosen to allow Polyphemos’ uncultured ‘gaucheness’ to resonate.

33 Cf. Bernsdorff 2002: 12.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception464

Zeus devised a distressing voyage for him, loosing upon him the violentbreath of whistling winds and rearing huge heavy waves that were moun-tains high. Then, dividing his company, he brought some ships to that partof Crete where the Cydonians lived by the waters of Iardanus. There is asmooth cliff in the misty deep at the verge of the territory of Gortyn; itstands sheer above the sea where the south-west wind drives a greatsurge towards the western headland, and the narrow rock-face checksthe great surge on its way to Phaestus.

Here a ‘small rock’ offers protection from a ‘great wave’, and v. 295,5mha Mºtor l´ca jOla pot· sjai¹m N¸om ¡he ?, has been broken up byPoseidippos and distributed over his poem;34 sjaiºr occurs only herein the Odyssey, and the scholia note that opinion was divided as towhether it meant ‘western’ or ‘deim¹m ja· %cqiom’, as it plainly does inPoseidippos. The echo links two coastlines which brought terrible dan-ger to ships (cf. Odyssey 3.298–9).

Poseidippos appears to have used, perhaps indeed conflated, twodistinct elements of Homer’s portrayal of the Cyclops. First, of course,there is the massive (Ak¸bator 9.243, l]car 9.313, 340) ‘door-stone’ towhich the Euboean rock is directly compared. The Cyclops can ‘lift itup high’ (rxºs’ !e¸qar 9.240, 340, cf. III 40 [= AB 19.13] Eqao),though ‘twenty-two four-wheeled wagons could not have raised itfrom the ground’ (9.241–2), a description which echoes in tetqajaiei-jos¸pgwum at III 40 (= AB 19.13); Odysseus tells us that he and his menwould not have been able !p¾sashai k¸hom ebqilom (9.305, cf. III 32[= AB 19.5]]pkehqa¸gm ¥sar … p´tqgm), whereas we have seen theCyclops do this ‘easily’ (9.313). The second part of Odyssey 9 whichis relevant here is vv.480 ff in which the blind and enraged monster at-tacks the departing Greeks: he ‘breaks off’ (!poqq¶nar 9.481, cf. ? III 30[= AB 19.3] !p[ …) a mountain peak and hurls it (j±d’ d’ 5bake 9.482)into the sea (contrast cf. III 31 [= AB 19.4] 1n´bakem); as the rock sinks itcauses a great wave (pkgluq¸r 9.486, a standard later term for ‘natural’floods and ‘tidal waves’ such as Poseidon is here asked not to cause)which drives the Greek boat towards the land. In the epigram, onegreat wave drove the huge boulder onto the shore, rather than intothe sea. After Odysseus has taunted him and he has learned the truthas to what has happened, Polyphemus prays to his father Poseidon (whohears the prayer), and then he ‘lifted up a far larger rock’ (pok» le¸foma

34 For another discussion of a Homeric reworking in the lithika cf. Bing 2002:4–6.

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos 465

k÷am !e¸qar 9.537, cf. III 40 [= AB 19.13]) and the pattern is repeated,except that this time the wave carries the Greeks to safety. It is clear,then, that there is a complex and sophisticated intertextual relationshipbetween the epigram and Odyssey 9. Where Homer shows us the terri-ble power of Poseidon’s son, in Poseidippos it is the divine father, nowmade to resemble his Homeric son, whose ‘great hand’ is to be feared.35

Nothing, however, is as surprising in this poem as the apparentecho36 of Theocritus’ lovesick Cyclops, and specifically of Theocritus6.6–7, b²kkei toi, Pok¼vale, t¹ po¸lmiom " Cak²teiaj l²koisim,dus´qyta ja· [Meineke: t¹m codd.] aQpºkom %mdqa jakeOsa, ‘Galateiapelts your flock with apples, Polyphemus, calling you ill-starred inlove and a goatherd’; we must ask how the Theocritean Cyclops andthe Theocritean text are superimposed upon the Homeric pattern, forwe clearly have here a very interesting example of so-called ‘windowallusion’ in which a model text is traced back in turn to its own model.37

Both Idylls 6 and 11 locate the young Cyclops on or near the sea-shore, and Idyll 11 places him ‘on a high rock’ looking out to sea(11.17–18, cf. OvidMetamorphoses 13.778–780), a detail which perhapsturned Poseidippos’ mind to the Cyclops. Be that as it may, thoughHomer’s monster might have been able to lift the Euboean rock, The-ocritus’ unhappy young Cyclops, ‘growing thinner [and hence weaker]day by day’ (11.69), could not have done so: the Theocritean rewritingof Homer allows Poseidippos both to use the great door-stone of theOdyssey and to surpass it, not merely in size, but by identifying a versionof the Cyclops who would have found the task beyond him. UnlikeTheocritus’ Cyclops, however, who could not swim and seemed to re-gard the sea as a nasty, inhospitable place, Poseidippos’ Polyphemos‘often went diving with Galateia’. This is at least odd. The editorsnote that d¼seqyr most naturally suggests that Poseidippos does notwant us to think that Polyphemos and Galateia are a ‘happy couple’,

35 Cf. Virgil Aeneid 3.624, magna manu of the Cyclops; note too how the VirgilianCyclops is given terrible earth-shaking powers which resemble those of his fa-ther (Aeneid 3.673–674). For the great hands of marine divinities cf. Ap.Rhod. 1.1313 stibaq/i … weiq_ (Glaukos) and D. Petrain (priv. comm.) addsmanu magna at Aeneid 5.241 of another sea god, Portunus, propelling a shipthrough the water.

36 The onus of proof seems to me clearly upon those who would deny allusion toTheocritus here.

37 Cf., e. g., McKeown 1987: 37–45.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception466

as they are in a rare, but probably Hellenistic, version of the story;38

rather, according to the editors, this Polyphemus appears to have hadthe courage to go swimming, and Polyphemus is indeed depicted inthe water near Galateia in Roman art.39 s»m Cakate¸ai does not, ofcourse, necessitate that Galateia welcomes his presence, but the editors’translation ‘dietro a Galatea’ reveals the awkwardness they feel. It maybe, as Richard Thomas has suggested, that we should understandjokulb¶sar conditionally, ‘the lovesick Cyclops could not have liftedit from the sea-floor, even if he dived frequently with Galatea’, or per-haps the swimming should be seen as taking place solely in the Cyclops’erotic fantasy (cf. Theocr. 11.54–62), but it is clear that aQpokij¹r

d¼seqyr identifies this Cyclops as ‘Theocritean’; the words are, as itwere, in inverted commas to mark citation. By viewing Homer throughTheocritus’ rewriting, Poseidippos can demonstrate that, though hemay ransack the text of Odyssey 9 for ways in which to describe thismassive boulder, the events and characters of that book offer no real par-allel to the marvel he is describing; what Theocritus has done to theHomeric monster has disarmed his threat. Whatever terrors the Homer-ic Cyclops held, he has now been ‘humanised’, reduced (by poetry) to a‘lovesick goatherd’. All that remains is the power of Poseidon: the gapwhich is thus opened between the text and its model is precisely wheremeaning lies.

Finally, let me return to the generic question. It may, or may not, berelevant that Homer too marks the distinction between past and presentby the ability of the figures of the past to hurl massive rocks whichwould be way beyond the powers of men ‘of the present day’ (Iliad5.302–4, 12.380–3, 445–9, 20.285–7), but like all Hellenistic poets,Poseidippos knew that all things flow from the Homeric source: justas Homer certainly wrote about bird omens, ship wrecks, and victoriesin chariot races, so – Poseidippos assures us – he also wrote lithika : youjust have to know where to look.

38 Cf. Hunter 1999: 242, 244. A number of scholars have observed that the com-bination of a lovesick Cyclops and the hurling of great rocks might make onethink of Ovid’s story of Acis and Galatea.

39 Cf BG on III 34–35 (= AB 19.7–8).

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos 467

References

AB = C. Austin and G. Bastianini, Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia, Milan2003

Acosta-Hughes, B., Kosmetatou, E. and Baumbach, M. (eds.), 2004. Labored inPapyrus Leaves, Washington DC

Barchiesi, A. 1994. “Immovable Delos: Aeneid 3.73–98 and the Hymns of Cal-limachus.” CQ 44: 438–43

Bernsdorff, H. 2002. “Anmerkungen zum neuen Poseidipp (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII309).” Gçttinger Forum f�r Altertumswissenschaft 5: 11–44 (online at http:www.gfa.d-r.de/bernsdorff.pdf)

BG = G. Bastianini and C. Gallazzi, con la collaborazione di C. Austin, Posi-dippo di Pella: Epigrammi (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309), Milan 2001

Bing, P. 2002. “Posidippus on stones : the first section of the new Posidip-pus papyrus (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309, Col I – IV 6).” Online at http :www.apaclassics.org/Publications/Posidippus/posidippus.html

2004. “Posidippus’ Iamatika” in B. Acosta-Hughes, E. Kosmetatou and M.Baumbach (eds.), Labored in Papyrus Leaves (Washington DC) 276–91

Fraser, P. M. 1971. Ptolemaic Alexandria, OxfordGutzwiller, K.J. 1995. “Cleopatra’s ring.” GRBS 36: 383–98.—2002a. “A new Hellenistic Poetry Book.” Online at http:

www.apaclassics.org/Publications/Posidippus/posidippus.html—2002b. “Posidippus on statuary.” in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds.), Il

Papiro di Posidippo un anno dopo (Florence) 41–60—ed. 2005. The New Posidippus, OxfordHunter, R. 1999. Theocritus. A Selection. Cambridge.Hutchinson, G. O. 2002. “The new Posidippus and Latin poetry.” ZPE 138:

1–10.Lapini, W. 2002. “Osservazioni sul nuovo Posidippo (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309).”

Lexis 20: 35–60Lehnus, L. 2002. “Posidippean and Callimachean queries.” ZPE 138: 11–13.Livrea, E. 2002. “Critica testuale ed esegesi del nuovo Posidippo” in G. Bastia-

nini and A. Casanova (eds.), Il Papiro di Posidippo un anno dopo (Florence)61–77

Luppe, W. 2002. “Ein gastlicher Stein: Poseidipp, Epigramm Kol. III 20–27(P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309)” MH 59: 142–4

McKeown, J. C. 1987. Ovid: Amores, Vol. I. Liverpool.Petrain, D. 2003. “Homer, Theocritus, and the Milan Posidippus (P.Mil.Vogl.

VIII 309, Col. III.28–41).” Classical Journal 98: 359–88Pulleyn, S. 1997. Prayer in Greek Religion. Oxford.Visser, E. 1938. Gçtter und Kulte im ptolem�ischen Alexandrien, AmsterdamWalbank, F. W. 1984. “Macedonia and Greece” in The Cambridge Ancient His-

tory, 2nd ed., VII.1 (Cambridge) 221–56

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception468

Addenda

The bibliography on the ‘Milan Posidippus’ is now, of course, enormous; V.Garulli, ‘Rassegna di studi sul nuovo Posidippo (1993–2003)’ Lexis 22(2004) 291–340 offers helpful guidance, including information about relevantwebsites (p. 336). Among important collections of papers may be mentioned K.Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus (Oxford 2005), M. Di Marco et al. (eds.),Posidippo e gli altri (Pisa/Rome 2005), and W. Lapini, Capitoli su Posidippo (Ales-sandria 2007). On AB 19 see, e. g., E. Livrea, ‘Un epigramma di Posidippo e ilCyclops di Filosseno di Citera’ ZPE 146 (2004) 41–6.

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos 469

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry*

1. Looking for the Catalogue

Hesiod’s importance for the poetry of the third-century BC is a familiarfact of literary history.1 Most famously, of course, Callimachus presentsthe Aitia as a Theogony for the modern day through the opening rework-ing of Hesiod’s meeting with the Muses on Mt Helicon (frr. 3–4 Mas-similla = frr. 1.41–5, 2 Pf.),2 thus himself laying claim to the title whichhis contemporary Hermesianax of Colophon bestowed upon Hesiod,p²sgr Eqamor Rstoq¸gr ‘keeper of all knowledge/research’ (Hermesianaxfr. 7.22 Powell).3 Hesiod’s most long-lasting influence on the westernpoetic tradition, however, is mediated through the Phainomena of Ara-tus; in its own right, and through its multiple Latin translations, thispoem on the constellations and weather-signs became one of the bestknown and most widely read of all classical texts in later antiquity and

* R. Hunter (ed.), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Constructions and Reconstruc-tions (Cambridge 2005) 239–65.

1 Many verbal echoes of Hesiod in Hellenistic and imperial Greek literature maybe traced through Rzach 1902, Schwartz 1960: 582–608, and West 1969 and1986. Of particular importance for individual poets are Campbell 1981 (Apol-lonius), Fakas 2001 (Aratus), and Reinsch-Werner 1976 (Callimachus); I ammuch indebted to these works. For the importance of the shrine of theMuses at Helicon in the third-century cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004:52, with earlier bibliography. The present chapter does not consider the Hel-lenistic Nachleben of the Hesiodic Aspis, though I hope to return to the matterelsewhere; whatever this poem’s relation to the Catalogue (cf. Martin 2005),some of its structural features (e. g. the profusion of similes at vv. 374 ff, cf.the end of Argonautica 3) foreshadow Hellenistic experimentation in interestingways.

2 For Hesiod and the Aitia cf. Cameron (1995) passim, Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunt-er 2004: 51–60, where I argue for an intellectual affiliation of the Aitia to (es-pecially) the Theogony, of a kind not considered by Cameron 1995 in his wish todownplay the links between the two poets (cf. esp. pp. 371–2). No one, ofcourse, would wish to deny ‘that Callimachus’s dreaming alter ego enjoyed anew and altogether unhesiodic relationship with the Muses’ (Cameron 1995:370), but that is another matter.

3 Cf. below pp. 495–6.

the Middle Ages.4 In the Phainomena, Hesiod (and, above all, the Worksand Days) is a model as ubiquitously visible as god’s heavenly signs, instructure, language, form and meaning,5 and this relationship was cele-brated by Callimachus in a famous, and very variously interpreted,6 epi-gram:

Jsiºdou tº t’ %eisla ja· b tqºpor7 oq t¹m !oid¹m5swatom, !kk’ ajm´y lµ t¹ lekiwqºtatom

t_m 1p´ym b Soke»r !p´lanato7 wa¸qete kepta·N¶seir, ûAq¶tou s¼mtomor !cqupm¸g.

Call. Ep. 27 Pf.

Hesiod’s is the song and the style; not the poet in every detail, but I wouldsay that the man from Soloi has skimmed off the sweetest of his verses. Hailsubtle phrases, the concentrated wakefulness of Aratus!

Unsurprisingly, it is certain Hesiodic ‘purple passages’ which seem to bemost important for third-century poets, and – given the status of ourtexts – those which we can most readily detect will, inevitably, befrom the Theogony and the Works and Days. Thus, the ‘poetic investi-ture’ of the Theogony lies behind, not only the introductory frame ofCallimachus’ Aitia, but also the extraordinary poetic journey of Theo-critus’ Seventh Idyll (Thalysia). So too, the famous passage on the rela-tions between the Muses, ‘kings’ (1j d³ Di¹r basik/er), and poets(Theog. 68–103) became a central text for poetic explorations of the na-ture of Ptolemaic kingship (Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus ; Theocritus, En-comium of Ptolemy),7 as also did the description of the ‘Just City’ from theWD, which supplies, for example, the paradigmatic model for the bless-ings of Ptolemaic Egypt in Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus(and cf. also Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 124–35).8 The Hesiodicmaiden Dike (WD 256–62) found unexpected new life as the ‘patronsaint’ of curse-poetry9 to whom the aggrieved could turn:

4 On the ancient reception of Aratus see E. Maass, Aratea (Berlin 1892), J. Mar-tin, Histoire du texte des Ph�nom�nes d’Aratos (Paris 1956), Kidd 1997: 36–48;useful summary by M. Fantuzzi in Der neue Pauly s.v. Aratos.

5 Cf. Fakas 2001, Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 224–45.6 Helpful survey in Cameron 1995: 374–9.7 Cf. Fuhrer-Hunter 2002: 164–75 [= this volume 424–33], Hunter 2003b.8 Cf. Hunter 2003b: 156, Erler 1987.9 Cf. below p. 497–8.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 471

le¸dgsem d³ D¸jg paqh´mor !h²matorFte !mapeptal´moir !tem³r bk´p[ei avhaklo ?sim],

1m d³ Di¹r Jqom¸dey st¶hesim 2dqi²ei.(SH 970.1–3)10

And Justice smiled, the immortal maiden who glares straight, eyes wide-open, and sits in the breast of Zeus, son of Kronos.

Aratus incorporated the maiden into his own version of the Hesiodic‘Myth of Ages’ (Phainomena 96–136):

kºcor ce l³m 1mtq´wei %kkor!mhq¾poir, ¢r d/hem 1piwhom¸g p²qor Gem,Eqweto d’ !mhq¾pym jatemamt¸g, oqd´ pot’ !mdq_moqd´ pot’ !qwa¸ym Am¶mato vOka cumaij_m,!kk’ !mal·n 1j²hgto ja· !ham²tg peq 1oOsa.ja¸ 2 D¸jgm jak´esjom.

(Aratus, Phainomena 100–105)

There is, however, another story current among men, that formerly shewas indeed on earth, and came face to face with men, and did not everspurn the tribes of men and women of old, but sat in their midst althoughshe was immortal. And they called her Justice.

The scholium on v. 104 cites v. 6 of the opening of the Hesiodic Cata-logue as the origin of Aratus’ notion that the immortal Dike used to ‘sitamong mortals’,

numa· c±q tºte da ?ter 5sam, numo· d³ hºyjoi!ham²toir te heo ?si jatahmgto ?r t’ !mhq¾poir.

(Hesiod fr. 1.6–7)11

For then were the feasts in common, common too the seats for the immor-tal gods and mortal men

and it does indeed seem very likely that the frame of the Catalogue ofWomen, which traces the history of the world from the free-minglingof gods and mortals to their ultimate separation in the catastrophic clo-sure of the Golden Age, has contributed to the Aratean vision. It is cer-

10 For the text cf. Huys 1991. For Dike in curse-poetry cf. also Euphorion, SH415 col. ii.

11 For other Hellenistic echoes of these verses cf. below p. 479–80.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception472

tainly tempting to see the ‘Hesiodic tag’ vOka cumaij_m in Phainomena103 as a ‘source’ allusion to the Hesiodic poem (cf. fr. 1.1).12

If echoes of the Theogony and theWorks and Days dominate the Hel-lenistic use of Hesiod, we need not put this down solely to the fact thatwe know far more about them than we do about the Catalogue. As far aswe can tell, the Catalogue was, throughout Hellenistic and later antiqui-ty, one of the ‘Hesiodic big three’, but it was always very much third ofthree. There will have been more than one reason for this – its originalstatus as a continuation of the Theogony not least among them – but wewill consider below other reasons why Hellenistic poets, however oftenthey drew genealogical or mythological details from the Catalogue, mayhave found it a less congenial text for ‘reworking’ than the other twoHesiodic poems. The division of Theogony from Catalogue was perhapsa product of third-century scholarship,13 but overt reflections of this inscholarly poetry are hard to find. An epigram variously ascribed toAsclepiades and ‘Archias’ describes Hesiod’s poetic output as laj²qymc´mor 5qca te … ja· c´mor !qwa¸ym … Blih´ym, ‘the genealogies ofthe gods, the Works, and the genealogies of the demigods of old’ (AP9.64.7–8 = HE 1024–5), and this would appear to refer to the threepoems, but all indications point to a date for the epigram well afterthe third century; as laj²qym c´mor cites Theogony 33 (as well as glossingHeocom_a) so c´mor !qwa¸ym … Blih´ym ‘genealogies of the demigods ofold’ might perhaps allude to c´mor judq_m basik¶ym ‘the race of glori-ous kings’ in a passage of the proem to the Catalogue which effectivelygives the subject of that poem as both the women of the heroic age andtheir sons (fr. 1.14–16).14 More tantalising for the third-century is thespeculation that Callimachus might have referred to the Catalogue aswell as the Theogony (‘Chaos’) and the Works and Days (v. 5 = WD265) in describing Hesiod’s meeting with the Muses at the head ofthe Aitia:

poil´mi l/ka m´lomti paq’ Uwmiom an´or Vppou

gGsiºdyi Lous´ym 2sl¹r ft’ Amt¸asem

12 Cf., e. g., Fakas 2001: 153–4.13 Cf. West 1966: 48–50. The argumentum to the Aspis preserves the information

that Apollonius defended its Hesiodic authorship, inter alia, by an appeal both toits kharaktÞr and to ‘the Catalogue’ (fr. 230), and it is likely enough (if not quitecertain) that this reflects Apollonius’ own wording.

14 We cannot, of course, rule out the possibility that some such phrase also occur-red earlier in the proem.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 473

l]´m oR W²eor cemes[] 1p· pt´qmgr vda[

te¼wym ¢r 2t´qyi tir 2_i jaj¹m Fpati te¼wei

]_ f¾eim %niom a[]em p²mter se7 t¹ ca[

] de pq¶sseim eqla[Callimachus, fr. 4 Massimilla (= 2 Pf.)

When the swarming Muses met the shepherd Hesiod as he herded hisflocks by the print of the swift horse … origins of Chaos … at thewater (?) of the hoof .. that one who fashions evil for another fashions itfor his own liver … worthy of living (?) … everyone you … doing

Unfortunately, nothing in this broken scrap allows us to go beyondspeculation,15 and if Callimachus did not in fact allude to the Catalogue,we would not be justified in concluding that he did not know it as aseparate poem. So too, Francis Cairns suggested that the forward refer-ence (in typical hymnic style) to another work (almost certainly theIambi) in the last verse of the ‘epilogue’ of the Aitia, aqt±q 1c½ Lou-s´ym pef¹m 5peili molºm, ‘but I shall advance to the prosaic pasture ofthe Muses’ (fr. 112.9 Pf.), alluded to the fact that the Theogony, thework against which Callimachus framed the Aitia, had a continuationin the Catalogue.16 The two cases are very different, but it would atleast be in Callimachus’ manner to allude to both editorial and rhapsodicpractice at this crucial moment.

The investigation of allusion to the Catalogue in later, particularlyhexameter, poetry must of course constantly take account both of thefragmentary and/or scholiastic nature of much of our evidence for theCatalogue and of the traditional, often ‘formular’ nature of its language.To take the nature of the evidence first. Many fragments of the Cata-logue are citations in mythographers or scholiasts for a particular geneal-ogy or version of a story which is also found in Hellenistic poetry: whenare the Hesiodic and Hellenistic citations to be linked? Thus, for exam-ple, we know from the scholia on Pindar’s Third Pythian that Hesiod(somewhere) told how a raven informed Apollo that Koronis, whowas bearing his child, was marrying Ischys, son of Eilatos (fr. 60).

15 Cf. Massimilla’s note on v. 6.16 Cairns 1979: 222–3; cf. also Koenen 1993: 91–2. Cairns’ suggestion is reject-

ed by Cameron 1995: 156 on inadequate grounds. Whether or not the ‘epi-logue’ is correctly placed at the end of Book 4 of the Aitia (cf. Cameron1995: 141–62) does not affect this discussion.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception474

This is the earliest attestation for the rôle of the raven (cf. also Phere-cydes, FGrHist 3 F3 = fr. 3 Fowler) which Pindar, whose principalsource seems to have been the Catalogue itself,17 omits ; the scholiast re-ports the story (Rstoqe ?tai c²q …) that, for its pains in bringing badnews, the god changed the bird from white to black, but the cited versesof Hesiod make no reference to this metamorphosis. Both the bad newsand the colour-change occur, however, in a famous passage of Callima-chus’ Hecale in which a crow appears to warn another bird against bear-ing bad news (probably the news of Hecale’s death) by forecasting thefate of the raven (fr. 74.14–20). Should we connect Hesiod and Calli-machus here?18 In Callimachus the strongest argument may, as often, belinguistic. The similarity of shape between Callimachus fr. 74.19 Hollis,bppºte jem Vkec¼ao Joqym¸dor !lv· hucatqºr, and Hesiod fr. 60.4EQkat¸dgr, Vkec¼ao diocm¶toio h¼catqa, a similarity which calls atten-tion to Callimachus’ ‘smoother’ metrics (an entirely dactylic verse,avoiding the Hesiodic fourth-foot spondee), suggests that we ought in-deed to connect the two passages: the aged Callimachean bird is thusseen to be familiar with the poetry of the past. Unfortunately, weknow no more about Hesiod’s telling of the story, and its place in hispoetry has been much debated; West doubts whether fr. 60 actuallycomes from the Catalogue.19

It is indeed likely that it was in the Argonautica where the richestHellenistic echoes of the Catalogue were to be found.20 A clear casewould seem to be the story of Kyrene and her son Aristaios whichApollonius tells in the second book of the Argonautica, in connectionwith the etesian winds which delay the crew’s progress. The scholiato Pindar’s famous telling of the story of Kyrene in Pythian 9 claimthat Hesiod’s ehoie of Kyrene was Pindar’s source and they quote theopening of the Hesiodic version:

17 Cf. Wilamowitz 1886: 58–62, D’Alessio 2005b: 234–5.18 Reinsch-Werner 1976: 365–6 is quite certain that Callimachus wants us to

think of Hesiod, though her arguments do not seem to me very strong.19 West 1985: 69–72. Apollonius’ brief allusion to the story (Arg. 4.616–17) may

go back to the Catalogue (cf. Schwartz 1960: 591). The ‘Koronis ehoie’ is a cen-tral topic of Dräger 1997.

20 For fragments of the Catalogue and the Megalai Ehoiai on Argonautic subjects cf.D’Alessio 2005a: 195–9.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 475

A’ oVg Vh¸gi Waq¸tym %po j²kkor 5wousaPgmeioO paq’ vdyq jakµ ma¸esje Juq¶mg

Hesiod fr. 215

Or such as beautiful Kyrene, her beauty that of the Graces, who dwelt inPhthia beside the waters of the Peneios.

One other fragment and a report in Servius (frr. 216–17) suggest thatHesiod’s telling at least included also Aristaios’ rôle as shepherd (cf. Pin-dar, Pyth. 9.64–5, Ap.Rhod. Arg. 2.507, 513).21 Apollonius’ introduc-tion of Aristaios seems to borrow directly from Pindar (and from Hesiodlying behind Pindar?):

5mha d’ ûAqista ?om Vo¸byi t´jem, dm jak´ousim)cq´a ja· Mºliom pokuk¶ioi ARlomi/er

Ap. Rhod. Arg. 2.506–7

There Kyrene bore to Phoebus Aristaios, whom the Haimonians rich ingrain call Agreus and Nomios.

h¶somta¸ t´ mim !h²matom,F/ma ja· "cm¹m ûApºkkym’, !mdq²si w²qla v¸koir%cwistom ap²oma l¶kym,)cq´a ja· Mºliom, to ?r d’ ûAqista ?om jake ?m.

Pindar, Pyth.9.63–5

[The Hours and Earth] will make him immortal, as Zeus and holy Apollo,a source of delight for dear mortals, closest companion of the flocks, to becalled Agreus and Nomios, but by others Aristaios.

The introduction of Kyrene, however, seems to look directly to Hesi-od:

Juq¶mg p´vata¸ tir 6kor paq± Pgmeio ?ol/ka m´leim pqot´qoisi paq’ !mdq²sim7

Ap. Rhod. Arg. 2.500–1

The story is told that Kyrene herded her flocks among men of a previousage beside the marsh of the Peneios

21 For the Kyrene-ehoie cf. West 1985: 85–9, citing earlier bibliography, D’Ales-sio 2005a: 206–7; it is at least of interest that the extensive Apollonian scholiaon this episode do not mention Hesiod. For a helpful account of the corre-spondences and differences in the various versions cf. Vian’s Note compl�mentaireto Ap.Rhod. Arg. 2.510.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception476

The apparent reworking of Hesiod fr. 215.2 in v.500, together with thedouble ‘source-note’ (‘the story is told’, ‘among men of earlier days’),22

would seem to clinch the matter. In the Argonautica, the tale of Aristaiosis part of an elaborate strategy of narrative delay (note the narrative ofParaibios at 2.467–89) to match the delay which the Argonauts expe-rience on their travels. The Hesiodic Catalogue does not have (or atleast not in the same sense) a central narrative like the Argonautica,and it may be that Apollonius here not merely alludes to one particularHesiodic ehoie, but, as part of his (post-Aristotelian) experimentationwith epic narrative form, evokes the whole world of ‘catalogue poetry’as a form of potentially limitless ‘delays’ and ‘expansions’ which movesto a different rhythm than that of teleological epic.

There is another, somewhat related, case during the same stop withPhineus. The sons of Boreas chase the Harpies away from Phineus sothat they will allow the old man to eat in peace. We know that inthe Catalogue (frr. 150–7) the story of how the Boreads pursued theHarpies as they carried Phineus around the world was told at somelength,23 although its context is unknown and there is no evidencethat it was there connected with the Argonautic story;24 between Hesi-od and Apollonius intervene so many (lost) texts that there is perhapslittle profit in seeking to establish detailed correspondences.25 Neverthe-less, Apollonius’ narrative organisation is here of some interest. In theHellenistic epic the pursuit lacks geographical specificity: the Harpiesfly off ‘far away across the sea’ (2.271–2), pursued by the Boreadswho would have caught them ‘far away at the Floating Islands’(2.285) but for the intervention of Iris. The Harpies then enter a caveon Crete and the Boreads return to Phineus and the crew to tellthem ‘what a distance’ (2.431) they had pursued the creatures. In Hesi-od, however, the pursuit is a lengthy and exotic catalogue of places and

22 Cf. Drexler 1931: 457. At Arg. 4.1381–2 another ‘source-note’, ‘this is theMuses’ tale, I sing as the follower of the Pierian maidens’, introduces the taleof the Argonauts carrying their ship across the Libyan desert; this seems tobe attested for Hesiod (fr. 241), but is for others as well (e. g. Antimachusfr. 76 Matthews = 65 Wyss).

23 Cf. West 1985: 84–5, D’Alessio 2005a: 195.24 For the details cf. pp. 142 ff of the first volume of Vian’s Budé Apollonius and

Cuypers 1997: 202–9.25 Thus, for example, a scholium to Arg. 2.296 explicitly cites Antimachus (fr. 71

Matthews = 60 Wyss) as the source for Apollonius’ explanation of the ‘TurningIslands’, whereas Hesiod’s version was slightly different (fr. 156).

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 477

peoples, some of them outlandish (frr. 150–3). This (from a Hellenisticpoint of view) somewhat chaotic periodos is replaced in the Argonauticaby the ordered and apparently drily sequential paraplous in which Phi-neus explains to the crew the route along the southern Black seacoast; that this paraplous separates the Boreads’ departure from their re-turn marks its structural equivalence to Hesiod’s wild chase, while thefact that it is spoken by Phineus, who in Hesiod was being carried help-lessly around the world, demarcates its difference.26 Apollonius thus heremarks out a poetic space quite different from archaic epic through theparade of geographic and ethnographic material appropriate to, and inform appropriate to, a new ‘scientific’ world.27

To turn now more directly to the question of language. Where theCatalogue is the only earlier attestation of a phrase or collocation, wemust be wary of leaping to conclusions, particularly in view of theloss of so much archaic epic; where the language of the Catalogue itselfhas archaic parallels we must proceed even more cautiously, without (onthe other hand) yielding to interpretative inertia.28 In the first book ofthe Argonautica, for example, the Argonauts enjoy themselves with thewomen of Lemnos and the whole city celebrates:

5mh’ b l³m g£xip¼kgr basik¶iom 1r dºlom §qtoAQsom¸dgr7 oR d’ %kkoi, fpgi ja· 5juqsam 6jastorJqajk/or %meuhem7 b c±q paq± mg· k´keiptoaqt¹r 2j½m paOqo¸ te diajqimh]mter 2ta ?qoi.aqt¸ja d’ %stu woqo ?si ja· eQkap¸mgisi cec¶heijapm_i jmis¶emti peq¸pkeom7 5nowa d’ %kkym!ham²tym GGqgr uXa jkut¹m Ad³ ja· aqtµmJ¼pqim !oid/isim hu´ess¸ te leik¸ssomto.

Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.853–60

The son of Aison set off for the palace of Hypsipyle, and all the others wentwhere chance led them, with the exception of Heracles. From his ownchoice he remained by the ship, together with a few comrades who stayedaway from the merry-making. Soon the city was full of joyful dancing and

26 Cf. Hunter 1993: 94–5.27 For a helpful introduction to geography in the Argonautica cf. Meyer 2001, cit-

ing earlier literature.28 Many of the allusions to the Catalogue in Callimachus’ poetry which are alleged

by Reinsch-Werner 1976 seem to me to lead to no interpretative gain andtherefore to be at best doubtful. Magnelli 2002: 38 plausibly identifies an originfor Euphorion, SH 415 col. 1.8 in Hesiod fr. 17a.12.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception478

the rich smoke of feasting; in their hymns and sacrifices they paid honourabove all other immortals to the glorious son of Hera and to Kypris herself.

In a passage which apparently appeared at least twice in the Catalogue(fr. 25.30–3, fr. 229.10–13), Hesiod tells of how Hera’s hatred forHeracles has turned to affection for the now divine hero who has mar-ried her own daughter Hebe:

t¹m pq·m l´m N’ Ewhgqe he± keuj¾kemor GGqg5j te he_m laj²qym 5j te hmgt_m !mhq¾pym,mOm d’ Edg pev¸kgje, t¸ei d´ lim 5nowom %kkym!ham²tym let² c’ aqt¹m 1qishem´a Jqom¸yma.

Hesiod fr. 25.30–3

Previously the goddess white-armed Hera hated [Heracles] of all the blessedgods and mortal men; but now she loves him, and honours him above allother immortals, except the mighty son of Kronos himself.

5nowom %kkymj !ham²tym ‘above all other immortals’ is language whichcan be readily paralleled eslewhere in epic, but both Hera and Heraclesare involved in the passages of the Catalogue and the Argonautica ; inApollonius, however, the Lemnians are celebrating Hephaestus, notHeracles, and the full force of the labours and of Hera’s oppositionstill awaits Heracles. The Hesiodic echo, if such it is, would remindus, as we are reminded elsewhere (cf. 1.1319, 4.1477–82), of Heracles’glorious future.

It is, of course, often the opening passages of works to which refer-ence is made; we have already noted a possible allusion in an epigram toHesiod fr.1.16 and seen Aratus perhaps alluding to the opening verse ofthe Catalogue, as well as taking over the proemial explanation of howgods and men used to live and dine together (fr. 1.6–7, above p.472). Fr.1.6 (cited above) seems indeed particularly resonant in the po-etry of the third-century. James Clauss observed that this anaphoric useof numºr is found three times in Hellenistic poetry (Theocritus 7.35–6,Ap.Rhod. Arg. 1.336–7, 3.173) but nowhere else in the poetic cor-pus.29 The Theocritean example is particularly interesting. Simichidas,the naively over-confident narrator, urges the mysterious goatherd Ly-kidas to join him in singing:

29 Clauss 1990. Oppian, Cyn. 4.42–4 shows a related, but not identical, usage.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 479

!kk’ %ce d¶, num± c±q bd¹r num± d³ ja· !¾r,boujokiasd¾lesha7 t²w’ ¦teqor %kkom amase ?.

Theocritus 7.35–6

“But come – common is our journey and common the bright day – let usjoin in bucolic song; perhaps each of us will derive some benefit.”

Simichidas is, like the Hesiod of the Theogony, to be presented with astaff by the (? divine) Lykidas, and an allusion to fr. 1.6–7 of the Cata-logue would here serve a double purpose. On one hand, it would furtherthe characterisation of Simichidas as the modern ‘professional poet’,ever ready with an allusion to earlier poetry to establish his credentialsas a ‘pure mouth of the Muses’ (v. 37).30 On the other, the original Hes-iodic context helps to confirm our growing suspicion that Lykidas is notall he seems to be (at least to Simichidas): this really is to be a ‘common’meeting of men and gods. The two examples in the Argonautica seem,however, less pointed. Clauss suggests that Hesiodic allusion in Jason’sspeech to his crew before setting out (1.336–7) reminds them (andus) of their common heroic parentage, and of course many Argonauts,being ‘sons and grandsons of immortals’ (Arg. 3.366), had indeed ap-peared in the Catalogue ;31 on arriving in Colchis the poet then hasJason echo the Hesiodic allusion of that earlier speech to remind thecrew ‘of the need for unified action’.32 However that may be, thebroad sweep of the Catalogue, which moves from the free mixing ofgods and mortals to the end of the age of the heroes, might wellhave influenced Apollonius’ presentation of the voyage of the Argo-nauts back into the recesses of the primeval past before their return toGreece and Greek cultural values.33

If it is profitable to seek allusions to the proem of the Catalogue, it isa natural complement to this search to look for borrowings from theCatalogue in Hellenistic poetic catalogues.34 Apollonius’ ‘Catalogue ofArgonauts’ indeed yields some apparently positive results (cf. below),and it is probably not rash to guess that a reference to ‘a tale which

30 For this characterisation of Simichidas cf. Hunter 2003a.31 Cf. Schwartz 1960: 592.32 Clauss also floats the idea that Callimachus, Hecale fr. 80.4–5 Hollis, vikone¸moio

jaki/rj lmgs|leha7 num¹m c±q 1pa¼kiom 5sjem ûpasim, ‘we shall remember yourhospitable hut; it was a lodging shared by all’ (perhaps in the mouth of Hecale’sneighbours), continued with a num¹m d´ …

33 Cf. Hunter 1991, Clauss 2000.34 On elegiac catalogue poetry cf. below pp. 493–9, Asquith 2005.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception480

poets tell’ in that catalogue (v. 59 about Kaineus) has the Catalogue in itssights.35 Nevertheless, the very nature of ‘genealogical catalogue poetry’,which imposes series of largely non-variable names, and the variety ofsources (both oral and written) which preserved such information, en-join caution about the interpretation of apparent intertextual allusion.Thus, for example, at Arg. 3.360–1 Argos explains to Aietes thatJason is related to them through his grandfather Kretheus:

%lvy c±q Jqghe»r )h²lar t’ 5sam AQºkou uXer,Vq¸nor d’ awt’ ûAh²lamtor 5gm p²ir AQok¸dao.

Ap. Rhod. Arg. 3.360–1

“Both Kretheus and Athamas were the sons of Aiolos, and Phrixos was thechild of Athamas son of Aiolos.”

Argos is drawing on some very recently acquired knowledge(cf. 2.1160–4), but behind his words we may be tempted to hear theHesiodic version:36

AQok¸dai d’ 1c´momto helistopºkoi basik/erJqghe¼r t’ Ad’ ûAh²lar ja· S¸suvor aQokol¶tgrSaklyme¼r t’ %dijor ja· rp´qhulor Peqi¶qgr.

Hesiod fr.10(a).25–7

The sons of Aiolos were sceptre-bearing kings, Kretheus and Athamas andwily Sisyphus and wicked Salmoneus and over-bearing Perieres.

Argos restricts his genealogical information to what is strictly relevant,but, if we yield to the intertextual temptation, his omission of ‘wily Sis-yphos, wicked Salmoneus and over-bearing Perieres’ increases our un-derstanding of why he succeeds only in making Aietes angrier and moresuspicious of the new arrivals at his court.37 To turn to the ‘Catalogue ofArgonauts’ itself : when, for example, Apollonius introduces the Argo-nauts from Oichalia,

t_i d’ %q’ 1p· Jkut¸or te ja· 7Ivitor Aceq´homto,OQwak¸gr 1p¸ouqoi, !pgm´or Eqq¼tou uXer,Eqq¼tou ¨i pºqe tºnom gEjgbºkor7 oqd’ !pºmgto

35 For Kaineus in the Catalogue cf. frr. 87–8.36 Cf. also Euripides fr. 929b Kannicht.37 Cf. Campbell 1983: 29–31, and the notes of Campbell and myself on

Arg. 3.317–66.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 481

dyt¸mgr, aqt_i c±q 2j½m 1q¸dgme dot/qi.Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.86–9

Next gathered Klytios and Iphitos, the guardians of Oichalia, sons of cruelEurytos whose bow was given to him by the Far-Darter ; but he gained noprofit from the gift, for he tried to rival the giver himself.

ought we to see an evocative allusion to their appearance in the Cata-logue?:

t_i d’ rpojusal´mg jakk¸fymor Stqatom¸jgEuqutom 1m lec²qoisim 1ce¸mato v¸ktatom uRºm.toO d’ uRe ?r 1c´momto Dg¸ym te Jkut¸or teTone¼r t’ !mt¸heor Ad’ 7Ivitor efor 7Aqgor.

Hesiod fr. 26.27–30

To Melaneus the fair-girdled Stratonike bore in the halls a very dear son,Eurytos. His sons were Deion and Klytios and godlike Toxeus and Iphitos,a shoot of Ares.

Hesiod certainly passes over the foolish Eurytos’ fate, a story whichApollonius will have known from (inter alia) Odyssey 8.224–8. Similarquestions arise over, say, the children of Pero (fr. 37.8–9,Arg. 1.118–21). Elsewhere, however, we may feel rather more confi-dent. When Apollonius notes that, had Meleager been only a littleolder when he joined the expedition, no Argonaut ‘except Heracles’(mºsvim c’ gGqajk/or) would have surpassed him (1.190–8), it is certain-ly tempting to see an echo of Meleager’s introduction in the Catalogue,where he is already second only to Heracles (fr. 25.1–13, with pk¶m c’gGqajk/or again at the head of a hexameter). Verbal echo may also signala debt to the Catalogue when Apollonius brings on the Euboean Kant-hos:

aqt±q !p’ Eqbo¸gr J²mhor j¸e, tºm Na J²mghorp´lpem ûAbamti²dgr kekigl´mom.

Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.77–8

Moreover from Euboia came Kanthos; Kanethos son of Abas had accededto his desires in sending him forth.

A ‘descendant of Abas’, i. e. an early inhabitant of Euboea, had also fea-tured within the ‘Catalogue of Suitors’ in the final book of the Cata-logue :

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception482

aqt±q !p’ Eqbo¸gr ûEkev¶myq eqwalor !mdq_mWakjydomti²dgr, lecah¼lym !qw¹r ûAb²mtym,lm÷to

Hesiod fr. 204.52–4

Moreover from Euboia came as a suitor Elephenor, leader of men, son ofChalkodon, commander of the great-hearted Abantes.

V. 53 of the Hesiodic passage also appeared in the Homeric ‘Catalogueof Ships’ (Iliad 2.541, cf. 4.464), and Apollonius allows this rich ‘cata-logue tradition’ to resonate within his own catalogue. The case ofshape-changing Periklymenos, however, shows that the relation be-tween the two ‘Catalogues’ is not everywhere the same. Hesiod givesa detailed account of this hero’s various manifestations as, for example,eagle, ant, bee or snake (fr. 33(a).12–18), as a preface to his fateful en-counter at Pylos with Athene and Heracles (fr.33(a).19–36), whereasApollonius, perhaps wishing not to give undue prominence to an Argo-naut never to be mentioned again, remains entirely at the level of thegeneral :

Poseid²ym d´ oR !kjµm

d_jem !peiqes¸gm Ad’, ftti jem !q¶saitolaqm²lemor, t¹ p´keshai 1m· numow/i pok´loio.

Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.158–60

Poseidon had given [Periklymenos] boundless strength, and the ability inbattle to become whatever he prayed to be when in the tight corners ofwar.

Apollonius, however, directs us to Hesiod’s more detailed descriptionby laqm\lemor at the head of v.160, picking up the beginning of Hes.fr. 33(a).20.38 An even more radical case of suppression of the traditionis Iphiklos, whose supernatural speed over fields of grain (Hesiod fr. 62,Iliad 23.636) is not even mentioned by Apollonius (1.45–8); Callima-chus, however, apparently alludes to the Hesiodic picture of Iphiklosat fr. 75.46, svuq¹m ûIv¸jkeiom 1pitq´wom !staw¼essim ‘the ankle of Iphi-klos which ran over the crops’.

38 For the subsequent tradition of this Hesiodic passage cf. Ovid, Met. 12.556–72.Unfortunately, we know virtually nothing of Periklymenos’ appearance in Eu-phorion (fr. 64 Powell).

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 483

2. Narrative structures

Hellenistic poets were clearly attracted by the ‘learning’ of the Theogony,by the engaged personal voice and didactic morality of the Works andDays, and by the autobiography written into both poems. As far aswe can see, the nature of the Catalogue was rather different. Whenevery allowance has been made for the state of the evidence and forthe fact that the texture of the poem appears, from what has survived,to have been uneven (cf. below), the poetics of the Catalogue emergeas perhaps more ‘impersonal’ and the poetic voice as less obviously in-trusive than in the other two poems; such things, of course, matteredvery much to Hellenistic poets.39

Ian Rutherford has called attention to the relative paucity of directspeech in the Catalogue fragments (and to the fact that there is as yet noexample of speech by a mortal woman) and proposed that catalogue-po-etry distinguishes itself by ‘a rapidity of presentation, and a focus on nar-ration rather than speech’.40 If this is broadly true, then in one way theCatalogue anticipated the greatly reduced rôle of direct speech in theonly Hellenistic epic which survives, the Argonautica ;41 the avoidanceof female speech, however, is entirely different from the way inwhich Hellenistic poets delighted to give their female characters avoice. Among the preserved fragments the primary instances of directspeech are:42 fr. 31, a prophecy by Poseidon to Tyro of the childrenshe will bear him (cf. Odyssey 11.247–53);43 fr. 41, a contextless half-verse which may or may not be from the Catalogue, 1c½ d’ 1n

!cqºhem Fjy ‘I have come from the countryside’;44 fr. 43.41–3, thequotation of the ‘law’ which is to settle the dispute between Erysich-thon and Sisyphos over Mestra;45 fr. 75.11–25, Schoineus announces

39 Cf. Hunter 1993: Chapter 5, with further bibliography.40 Rutherford 2000: 87–9. On direct speech in the Megalai Ehoiai cf. D’Alessio

2005a: 188–9.41 Cf. Hunter 1993: 138–51.42 Cf. Rutherford 2000: 87.43 It is noteworthy that Poseidon’s parallel prophecy is the only instance of direct

speech in the Odyssean ‘Catalogue of Women’, despite the conversationalframe (cf. vv. 231–4) and the use of indirect speech (vv. 236, 261, 306).

44 West’s suggestion that the speaker is Jason (cf. Pind. Pyth. 4.102) is perhapsgiven colour by Ap.Rhod. Arg. 1.5–11 (where Platt’s interpretation of dgl|hemas ‘from the countryside’ deserves serious consideration, cf. J.Phil. 35 (1920)72).

45 Cf. Osborne 2005: 19–20, Rutherford 2005: 107.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception484

the contest for Atalanta’s hand, and fr. 76.9–10, Hippomenes addressesAtalanta;46 fr. 136 may contain a prophecy or oracle quoted in directspeech; fr. 165.2, the final scrap of a divine speech to Teuthras is pre-served; fr. 211.7–13, a makarismos of Peleus by all the people. This isindeed a surprisingly small haul. Nevertheless, other factors suggestthat the Catalogue might indeed have offered a poetic model attractiveto Hellenistic imitators.

The Catalogue-poet makes no effort to conceal his views of thecharacters he describes: the epithets he attaches to the ‘good’ and the‘bad’ leave it very clear who belongs in which category. So too, thereare a few surviving instances of rather fuller judgements:fr. 10(a).97–8, ‘hidden is the (?mind) of Zeus, (?and no mortal) can di-vine it’, seems to round off the metamorphosis-story of Keyx and Al-cyone in suitably Hesiodic fashion (cf., e. g., Theog. 613, at the conclu-sion of the story of Prometheus); fr. 33(a).27–9 (Periklymenos, ashape-changer of a different kind), ‘he thought he would stop thestrength of horse-taming Heracles: foolish man (m¶pior), he did notfear Zeus’s brave-hearted son and his glorious bow which PhoebusApollo gave to him.’; fr. 43(a).52–4, ‘(Sisyphos was the cleverest ofmortals), but he did not know the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus, thatthe dwellers in heaven would not grant Glaukos children from Mestraand that his seed should be preserved among men’; fr. 61, m¶pior, drt± 2to ?la kip½m !m´toila di¾jei ‘foolish the man who abandons whatis readily available and pursues the unattainable’, perhaps to be connect-ed with Koronis (it is cited by (inter alios) the scholiast on Pindar,Pyth. 3.38), but whether in the mouth of the poet or one of his charac-ters is entirely unclear. In these instances the poetic voice is indeed nottoo far removed from the earnest pieties of a Pindar, or even the appa-rently pious earnestness of a Callimachus.

The Catalogue opens up a whole network of heroic poetry whichsometimes can seem like a giant system of cross-referencing to archaicepic – the accounts of Iphimede and Orestes at fr. 23(a).17–30 andof Bellerophon (fr. 43(a).81–7) are very obvious examples – or a‘source-book’ of narratives waiting to be written. A later poet could,as it were, write in the narratives which the Catalogue’s genealogicalfocus had suppressed. Not, of course, that all narratives in the Catalogueare suppressed; it is clear that the narrative texture of the poem was un-even and that the manner in which longer stories were elaborated also

46 On this episode cf. below p. 486.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 485

varied considerably. We can get some sense of the larger architecturalpatterns of the work from sequences such as frr. 30–5 (Salmoneus,Tyro and her children), fr. 43 (Mestra),47 frr. 72–6 (Atalanta), and, ofcourse, the ‘suitors of Helen’, with its extraordinary (and utterly unpre-dictable) aftermath.48 The ‘romantic’ Atalanta story, which could beseen as literalising the language of erotic ‘pursuit’ and ‘flight’ so familiarfrom Sappho and later literature, and which features (inter alia) a ‘naugh-ty’ breeze (fr. 75.9–10), a cunning lover (fr. 76), and a beautiful girlwho shuns ‘Aphrodite’s gifts’, only to be caught by them (fr. 76.6,10), seems indeed almost already formed as a short, independentpoem of considerable narrative sophistication. We may be particularlyreminded of the story of Acontius and Cydippe from Callimachus’Aitia, another tale of how the deities of love helped a man to gainthe woman he loved by tricking her with an apple.49 Very differentin construction and mode (the poet passes up, for example, the chanceto put a deceptive speech to Alcmene in Zeus’ mouth), if no less inter-ested in narrative ironies and no less suggestive for Hellenistic narrative,is the Alcmene-ehoie from Book 4 (fr. 195, Aspis 1–56), a story inwhich the necessary avoidance of sexual contact (vv. 15–19) becomesa transgressive excess, and in which Amphitryon ‘accomplishes’ a‘great (military) feat’ (vv. 22, 38) while Zeus ‘accomplishes’ his desireswith Amphitryon’s wife (v. 36).50

47 Cf. Rutherford 2005.48 Cf. Cingano 2005, Clay 2005.49 That Callimachus’ verses did indeed allude to the Atalanta-ehoie cannot be dem-

onstrated, but seems to me very likely, both on general grounds and in view ofsome specific indications (of uneven weight). (i) Hippomenes’ apples seem tohave been a gift of Aphrodite, and Aristaenetus at least (1.10.25 Mazal) reportsthat Acontius took his apple from ‘the garden of Aphrodite’. For the sources cf.Hunter on Theocritus 3.40–2. (ii) According to Aristaenetus, the lovestruckAcontius resolved on ‘marriage or death’ (1.10.21 Mazal), a dichotomywhich is very real in the case of Hippomenes (fr. 76.7–8). (iii) In AristaenetusCydippe’s servant ‘snatches up’ (!m¶qpasem, 1.10.28 Mazal) the apple, as doesAtalanta (fr. 76.18–19, with an apparent etymological play on -qpuia).

50 If the opening of Theocritus 24 alludes to the Alcmene-ehoie (cf. Fantuzzi inFantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 258), this is presumably an allusion to the Aspis ratherthan to the fourth book of the Catalogue. It is tempting to think that the de-scription of Alcmene at Aspis 4–10 — beautiful, clever, and ‘she honouredher husband as no other mortal woman has done’ — is not merely preparationfor her unwitting infidelity, but a specific glance at the description of Arete atOdyssey 7.67–8 ‘[Alcinoos] honoured her as no other woman on earth is hon-oured’. Such a reversal would not be out of place in a much later poem.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception486

A general influence of the Catalogue, with its very varied elaborationand predominantly light or even amused tone,51 upon the shape of laterpoetic structures must indeed be considered very likely. In a few cases,where the Catalogue shares subject-matter with a later poem, we mayalso be able to trace the outlines of a specific debt; one such case isthat of Moschus’ Europa. Europa’s only appearance in Homer is inthe catalogue of Zeus’s ‘conquests’ (Iliad 14.321–2), but a Homericscholiast tells the story: ‘Zeus saw Europa the daughter of Phoinixwhen she was gathering flowers in a meadow together with nymphsand fell in love with her. He came down and changed himself into abull and the breath from his mouth was saffron. In this way he deceivedEuropa, carried her off, transported her to Crete, and had intercoursewith her. Then he married her to Asterion the king of Crete. Beingpregnant she bore three sons, Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon.The tale is told by Hesiod (fr. 140) and Bacchylides (fr. 10 S-M).’52 Abroken papyrus fragment (fr. 141) offers us the end of the Hesiodic nar-rative:

]p´qgse d’ %q’ "kluq¹m vdyq]Di¹r dlghe ?sa dºkoisi.]patµq ja· d_qom 5dyjemN]vaistor jkutot´wmgrQdu¸]gisim pqap¸dessipa]tq· v´qym7 d d³ d´nato d_qom7jo¼]qgi Vo¸mijor !cauoO.5l]ekke tamisv¼qyi Eqqype¸gi,]patµq !mdq_m te he_m te

m¼]lvgr p²qa jakkijºloio.D d’ %qa pa ?d]ar [5tijt]em rpeqlem´i Jqom¸ymi

po]k´ym Bc¶toqar !mdq_m,L¸my te jqe¸omta] d¸jaiºm te gQad²lamhumja· Saqpgdºma d ?om] !l¼lom² te jqateq[ºm te.

Hesiod fr. 141.1–14

… crossed the briny sea … overcome by the tricks of Zeus … father [i.e.Zeus] (slept with her?) and gave her a gift … it was made by Hephaistos theglorious craftsmen … skilled heart … bearing it to her father; he receivedthe gift … to the daughter of noble Phoenix. … intended for the slender-ankled Europa .. the father of men and gods … from his fair-tressed bride.

51 Cf. Rutherford 2000: 86.52 Europa’s abduction by Zeus also figured (though at what length we do not

know) in the Europia of Eumelos of Corinth, cf. West 2002: 126–7.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 487

She bore sons to the mighty son of Kronos … leaders of many men …Minos the ruler and just Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, godlike, excellentand strong.

The fragment (and cf. frr. 144–5) continues with the futures and fam-ilies of Europa’s sons. There is nothing in the scholiast’s summary whichwould surprise in Hesiod (or Bacchylides), though we simply cannot saywhether Europa’s subsequent marriage to Asterion figured in the Cata-logue (though it fits a very familiar narrative pattern). Comparison of thisevidence with Moschus’s poem shows broadly the same narrative inboth poets, but also significant differences, particularly where Moschushas enriched the narrative from other parts of the poetic tradition (Euro-pa’s dream, the ecphrasis of the basket etc.).53 We do not, of course,know how extensive Hesiod’s narrative was, but it is a more than rea-sonable assumption that there was nothing in the archaic poem to matchthe active speaking rôle which Europa enjoys in Moschus;54 whether itis her response to her dream or her marvellous puzzlement as she istransported across the sea, Moschus’ heroine has much to say. Herethen it seems that the Hellenistic poet has indeed written in the detailsof a suppressed narrative, as also with the elaborate description of thepageant at sea (Europa 113–29); the opening verse of fr. 141 ‘… shecrossed the salt sea’ may in fact have been the sum total of attentionwhich Hesiod gave to the matter. As for Zeus himself, his ante-coitalprophecy (Europa 154–61, the virgin Europa certainly knew whatwas coming!), which bears a strong generic resemblance to the post-co-ital words of Poseidon to Tyro (Hesiod fr. 31.1–4, Odyssey 11.247–53),55 may perhaps have found some analogy in Hesiod before the pre-served fragment opens, but this seems in fact rather unlikely; the finalverses of Zeus’s speech, ‘you will bear me glorious sons, who will allbe sceptre-bearing (kings) among men’ (Europa 160–1), looks like a re-working of vv. 11–14 of the preserved Hesiodic fragment (cited above)in which it is the narrator who tells of the children. Though, moreover,Hesiod may indeed have given the divine bull an arousing saffron breath(cf. vv. 68, 91–2 of Moschus’s poem), it is hard to believe that therewas any equivalent of the erotic ‘foreplay’ in which Europa and the

53 Cf. esp. Campbell 1991: 1–3 to which I am indebted.54 Cf. above p. 484 on the apparent absence of female speech.55 Cf. the notes of Bühler and Campbell ad loc. Note too the greatly expanded

and varied (a female speaks!) version of this form at HH.Aphrodite 192 ff.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception488

bull indulge (Europa 93–6).56 As the bald ‘Europa’ with which the poembegins both gestures towards and entirely avoids the genealogical style ofa Hesiodic narrative (we do not learn her father’s name until v.7),57 sotoo, as Malcolm Campbell notes, the conclusion of the Europa, ‘she whowas before a maiden became Zeus’s bride, bore children to the son ofKronos and became a mother’ (vv. 165–6), looks like a marker ofthis poem’s space against that of the Catalogue, where the bearing ofchildren is just the beginning of the story.58

In the Catalogue Zeus, in a familiar narrative motif, gives Europa agold necklace59 made by Hephaestus, which she then passes to her father(cf. Apollodorus 3.4.1 = Pherecydes, FGrHist 3 F89 = fr. 89 Fowler);this was to become a ‘family heirloom’ with a rich and fateful futureover which Hesiod passes in meaningful silence.60 Moschus chooses toomit this as he brings things to a speedy end, but Europa takes withher to the fateful meadow another family heirloom which Poseidonhad given to her grandmother after their love-making (vv. 39–42),and which was also the work of Hephaestus; in sharp contradistinctionto the archaic ‘model’, Moschus describes the wondrous basket in lovingdetail. The decoration is ‘scenes from the life of Io’,61 another heroinefrom the Catalogue (fr. 124) whose story will have been told (in what-ever detail) not too far away from that of Europa. Moschus’ innovativeecphrastic structure of story within story must be seen, inter alia, as a var-iation upon and avoidance of the sequential catalogue-technique, in

56 Cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 219–20.57 The opening pote, again typical of Hellenistic narrative, is entirely foreign to

the Hesiodic manner.58 The last two verses of the Europa are, admittedly, textually uncertain, and here

we feel the loss of Bacchylides’s version particularly acutely. Were the phrasenot such a common one, it might be tempting to see in the immediately pre-ceding v. 164 kOse d´ oR l¸tqgm ‘he undid her maiden’s girdle’ an allusion toHesiod fr. 1.4, thus acknowledging Moschus’ debt to the Catalogue, cf. Camp-bell 1991: 1. For such abrupt conclusions as typical of Hellenistic narrative cf.Griffiths 1996.

59 This must be restored on the papyrus, but in view of the testimony to the sub-sequent history of the necklace it is hardly in doubt. Nicander apparently some-where used a version in which Zeus gave Europa a marvellous bronze dog cre-ated by Hephaestus (fr. 97 Schneider).

60 It was with this necklace that Eriphyle was to bring her husband Amphiaraos tohis doom at Thebes; for the various versions cf. Gantz 1993: II 506–8.

61 On this ecphrasis see Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 221–3.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 489

which one ‘story’ only gives way to another when it has been played outto the end.

Despite the very considerable gaps in our knowledge, then, Mo-schus’ Europa offers us a rare chance to see a Hellenistic poet overtly en-gaged with a text from the Catalogue. It might have seemed reasonableto entertain similar hopes of the narrative of Erysichthon in Callima-chus’ Hymn to Demeter, as substantial fragments survive of Hesiod’s nar-rative of Erysichthon and his daughter Mestra, apparently here repre-sented as Athenians (fr. 43).62 Whereas, however, Hesiod (in what sur-vives) says nothing about why Erysichthon is so hungry, Callimachus,on the other hand, has no mention of Mestra.63 His Erysichthon isyounger than Hesiod’s and certainly has no children; his disappearancefrom the poem, begging for scraps at the crossroads (vv. 114–15), leaveshis future open (contrast the Ovidian version), despite his desperatephysical condition (vv. 92–3). We ought perhaps, then, associate Calli-machus’s narrative with the Hellenistic interest in the ‘early lives’ ofcharacters known from the poetic tradition (e. g. the youth of Homer’sCyclops); moreover, just as Callimachus ostentatiously (v. 17) avoids re-telling at length the story of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, so a simplereworking of the Catalogue story would have occasioned surprise.There is, however, a possible trace of the ‘well-trodden path’ nottaken: Hesiod certainly used Erysichthon’s other name, AUhym ‘Burn-ing’,64 and explained it as a reference to his hunger (fr. 43(b)), and onthe basis of this and vv. 66–7 of Callimachus’ poem (Demeter castinto Erysichthon kil¹mj aUhyma jqateqºm ‘burning, powerful hunger’)Merkelbach restored vv. 5–7 of fr. 43(a):

t¹m d’ AUhym’ 1j²kessam 1p]¾mulom eVmeja kiloOaUhymor jqateqoO vOka] hmgt_m !mhq¾pym

aUh]yma d³ kil¹m ûpamterHesiod, fr. 43(a).5–7

Mortal men [called him Aithon] as a nickname, because of the [burning,powerful] hunger … burning hunger all men

Whether or not this reconstruction is correct, it is certain that the Hymnto Demeter is a very ‘Hesiodic’ poem, a narrative about piety, plenty, and

62 Cf. Rutherford 2005.63 Helpful survey in Hopkinson 1984: 18–26. For Ovid’s treatment of the story

cf. Hopkinson 1984: 22–4 and Fletcher 311–14.64 On this name cf. Levaniouk 2000.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception490

lack which is set within and illustrative of the morality of the Works andDays, and one which derives much of its effect from the productiveclash between a sternly archaising moral voice and a modern poeticstyle.65 Callimachus has thus written the missing narrative of Erysich-thon which lay apparently suppressed within the Catalogue,66 and in sodoing has maintained a ‘Hesiodic’ voice: this is how, so Callimachuswould have us (not) believe, Hesiod would have told the story.

If Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter looks only obliquely to a heritagein the Catalogue, the closely related Hymn to Athena may be rather moreengaged with the archaic poem.67 An Oxyrhynchus papyrus publishedin 1964 (POxy. 2509) contains a scene in which a daughter of Zeus, al-most certainly Athena, apparently tells the centaur Cheiron that in thefuture Dionysus will use Cheiron’s dogs on the mountain and that,when Dionysus ascends to heaven, the dogs will return to Cheiron.The broken last lines of the text appear to refer to Aktaion, and ifthis is correct, then it seems likely that the promise of future glory forthe dogs is offered to Cheiron as consolation for the fact that the dogshave torn apart Cheiron’s pupil, Aktaion.68 Lobel tentatively ascribedthe text to the Catalogue, and strong arguments have been adduced insupport of this view, despite Martin West’s continued disbelief.69 Hesi-od certainly told in the Catalogue (fr. 217A), perhaps in the Kyrene-ehoie, how Aktaion was torn apart by his dogs as a punishment for lust-ing after Semele.70 Mary Depew has suggested that Athena’s unusualconsolation to Teiresias’ mother for her son’s blinding in Callimachus’hymn – ‘the day will come when Aktaion’s parents would give anythingto receive back their son blinded, and besides I will grant Teiresias ex-traordinary mantic powers’ – looks back to the text of POxy 2509:

65 Cf., e. g., Reinsch-Werner 1976: 210–29, 371–3, Hunter 1992: 30–1.66 This is, of course, not a matter of whether Callimachus ‘invented’ the tree-fell-

ing, cf. Hopkinson 1994: 26, but of the narrative invitation which the Hesiodictext offers.

67 For the links (and contrasts) between the two poems cf. Hopkinson 1994:13–17.

68 Cf. Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.4.4.69 Cf. esp. Casanova 1969, Janko 1984. If the passage is from the Catalogue, then it

will, of course, have to be added to the examples of direct speech in that poem,cf. above p. 484–5.

70 For the various versions cf. Bulloch on Call. Hymn to Athena vv. 107–18, Lacy1990. The verses on Aktaion’s dogs cited by Apollodorus 3.4.4 (= Epica adespotafr. 1 Powell) are held by some also to be from the Catalogue, but need not beconsidered here. I would be surprised to learn that v. 7 at least was archaic.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 491

Athena, who has absolutely no understanding of maternal feelings, re-works a consolation for the death of Aktaion, which is based on whatwill happen in the future, to console her best friend for her son’s suffer-ing with the very thought of Aktaion’s coming fate.71 Aktaion has suf-fered for his desire for Semele and thus brought pain to Cheiron, butSemele’s glorious son will bestow honour which will be more than ad-equate recompense for that suffering. In both texts, Athena acts as Zeus’sdaughter and his closest agent. Moreover, as Depew pointed out, Char-iclo, the name of Athena’s friend in the Callimachean Hymn, is also thename which tradition gave to Cheiron’s wife (cf. Pindar, Pyth. 4.103with scholia),72 and such a putting together of homonymous charactersfrom disparate myths would hardly surprise in Callimachus. The sceneof Teiresias’ blinding also takes place in the Hesiodic spot par excellence,the pool of Hippocrene on Mt Helicon. The case is a strong one, andwe may add that the young Teiresias at his entry (vv. 75–6) is not un-like the Dionysus ‘on the mountain’ of the papyrus text, as well as per-haps suggesting the young Dionysus of the Bacchae, as part of the hymn’scomplex intertextual relation with that tragedy.73

There is no sign that Teiresias appeared in the Catalogue, though thestory of his two genders and his blinding by Hera for giving the ‘wrong’answer about sexual pleasure seems to have appeared in the Melampodia(frr. 275–6). Just as Moschus’ ecphrasis of Europa’s basket in the Europaoffers a way of combining analogous stories (both found in the Cata-logue) so as to avoid the sequential, catalogue form, so Callimachus jux-taposes the stories of Teiresias (apparently from Pherecydes) and Ak-taion (? from the Catalogue) in a way which not only avoids the formof a catalogue, but also does not have one story merely illustrative ofthe other, in the form of a warning example (as, for example, the Ak-taion story is used in the Bacchae, or the Meleager story in the Iliad).Here again, then, it is the stimulus towards narrative experimentationwhich the Catalogue bequeathed to later poets which is seen to be

71 Depew 1994; her whole argument should be consulted.72 In the papyrus text Cheiron’s partner is a ‘naiad nymph’; a misunderstanding of

this (if it is from the Catalogue) or a similar passage might have given rise to thereport in the Pindaric scholia that Hesiod named Cheiron’s wife Nais (fr. 42).As Lobel noted, this is an argument for the Hesiodic origin of the papyrus text;Depew’s alternative suggestion (p. 414), however, that ‘the Scholiast meant hisHesiod clause as a supplementary detail (Chariclo was a Naiad)’ is not the nat-ural way to read the note.

73 Cf. Hunter 1992: 23–4.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception492

most important. Even if POxy 2509 is not from the Catalogue, Callima-chus’ way of intertwining his stories is in part a product of the stimulusto collection and analysis of the ocean of mythical story which the Cata-logue, and poems like it, passed on to poets and scholars with the leisureand resources to benefit from that inheritance.74

3. Catalogues and Catalogue

According to a very commonly expressed view, the greatest debt ofHellenistic poetry to the Hesiodic Catalogue lies in a series of very im-perfectly known ‘catalogue poems’ which (in various ways) seem tohave gestured towards the Hesiodic form. We know nothing of the(hexameter or elegiac?) ‘Catalogue of Women’ of Nicaenetus (fr. 2 Po-well), but the equally mysterious Io ?oi (note the masculine form) ofone Sosicrates or perhaps Sostratos (SH 732) suggests what may be in-volved: the reduction of the rich scope and uneven texture of the Cata-logue to its most memorable, if not most significant, repetitive feature,which is used as a tool for connecting disparate stories or exempla.Scholarly attention has been focused, particularly by those interestedin the antecedents of Roman erotic elegy, upon a series of poems (?Philitas, Bittis, Hermesianax, Leontion, Phanocles, Erotes or BeautifulBoys) in which the catalogued stories were erotic in nature and, to agreater or lesser extent, the poet may have framed or interspersedthese stories with supposedly autobiographical material in the first per-son.75 Some evidence suggests that these poets looked to Mimnermus’Nanno (? second half of the seventh century) and Antimachus’ Lyde(late fifth-early fourth century BC) for authorising ‘classical’ modelsfor the form; Hermesianax and Antimachus were both from, and Mim-nermus at least associated with, Colophon. This elegiac form is thenoften represented as a kind of cross between the tradition of Colopho-nian ‘personal’ elegy and ‘Hesiodic’ catalogue poetry. The key questionin the present context will be just how deep the debt to Hesiod may be.

We may start with a general consideration. As far as we can tell (cf.above), the Catalogue was largely ‘impersonal’ in its poetic voice; there is

74 Cf. my remarks above p. 485.75 Helpful surveys in Cairns 1979: 214–24, Knox 1993, and cf. Asquith 2005.

About the Bittis we know practically nothing; to Knox’s discussion add Sbar-della 2000: 53–60, Spanoudakis 2002: 29–34.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 493

no sign, in our exiguous remains, of the kind of first-person materialfound in the Theogony and WD. If it is the case that these Hellenisticpoets saw themselves as recreating the Hesiod of the Catalogue inpoems containing an important ‘personal’ element, then it is to bestressed that this was an engagement with ‘the idea of Hesiod’, ratherthan with what we can reconstruct of the nature of the Catalogue itself.Our relatively rich information about Callimachus’ Aitia, in which –particularly in the first two books – the stories of cult origin were intro-duced and sometimes linked by first-person ‘autobiographical’ material,offers an important analogy here.76 The Aitia, so Alan Cameron, aboveall, has argued,77 was Callimachus’ very original version of this mode of‘Hesiodic elegy’ as it was to be found in, say, Antimachus and Herme-sianax; if so, Callimachus has reclaimed for his poem a ‘truer’ version of‘Hesiod’ than that which is imagined for the catalogue-poems, and it is,significantly, not the Hesiod of the Catalogue.

We are told by the Plutarchan Consolatio that Antimachus (Test. 12Matthews = 7 Wyss) consoled himself for the death of his beloved wifeby writing a full account of heroic sufferings (1naqihlgs²lemor t±r

Bqyij±r sulvoq²r). The source might be thought to make this informa-tion suspicious (and ‘wife’ may indeed be at best an approximation tothe lady’s actual status), but the general picture is also that painted byHermesianax (Test. 11 Matthews = 6 Wyss, cf. below) and there isno very good reason to doubt it. In the nature of things, women willhave played an important rôle in the Lyde, but it is also clear that thestyle and tone of these elegiacs was ‘epic’ and so was much of the ma-terial. The story of the Argonauts, for example, was treated at somelength, an account which was an important model for Apollonius. Nodoubt Antimachus knew the Catalogue and borrowed details from it,78

but, despite what is often asserted,79 there is no sign that the Cataloguewas for him a privileged model, and we have no evidence as to howone story was linked to another. It is much more likely that he gave aspecial place of honour to Mimnermus’ Nanno, which was perhaps infact no more than a collection of Mimnermus’ elegies, and Martin

76 Cf., e. g., Cairns 1979: 221–2.77 Cameron 1995, esp. Chapter XIII. The whole debate about Callimachus’ atti-

tude to Antimachus and his poetic descendants is not germane here.78 Cf., e. g., Wyss 1936: xx, Schwartz 1960: 584.79 Cf., e. g., Wyss 1936: xxii. When Hesiod and Antimachus are linked or com-

pared in the critical tradition, it is as ‘epic’ poets, cf. Antimachus, Test. 23–4Matthews = 25, 28 Wyss.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception494

West’s suggestion that the Hellenistic picture of this archaic poem (suchas it was) is largely the result of Antimachus’ fashioning of Mimnermusas a model for his own work is an attractive one.80

The Leontion of Hermesianax (early third century), in three books,clearly contained a series of (sometimes transgressive) erotic stories andcharacters drawn from all over the Greek world (frr. 1–6 Powell) ; thereis nothing to prove that women did not play a major rôle in every epi-sode. How these stories were linked together, we do not know. Athe-naeus, however, preserves a fragment from Book 3 of ninety-eight ele-giacs which one of his characters describes as a jat²kocor 1qytij_m andwhich pairs famous poets (from Orpheus to Philitas) and philosopherswith alleged girlfriends (fr. 7 Powell).81 Mimnermus, the ‘inventor’ ofthe ‘soft pentameter’, and hence a privileged model of Hermesianaxhimself, is here juxtaposed to Homer (who was in love with Penelope…). The shift from poets to philosophers is marked by a transitional pas-sage (‘not even the sternly virtuous could escape love …’, vv. 79–84),and some such introduction presumably preceded the opening of ourfragment, which is also the opening of the ‘catalogue’:

oVgm l³m v¸kor uR¹r !m¶cacem OQ²cqoioûAqciºpgm Hq/issam steik²lemor jih²qgm

*idºhem7 5pkeusem d³ jaj¹m ja· !peih´a w_qom …Hermesianax fr. 7. 1–3 Powell

Such as Thracian Argiope whom the dear son of Oiagros, equipped withhis lyre, brought up from Hades. He sailed to that horrible and inexorableplace …

The story of Orpheus, the longest in the passage, gives way to Mousaios(oq lµm oqd’ uR¹r L¶mgr jtk.), and then Hesiod himself :

vgl· d³ ja· Boiyt¹m !popqokipºmta l´kahqomgGs¸odom p²sgr Eqamom Rstoq¸gr

)sjqa¸ym 1sij´shai 1q_mh’ gEkijym¸da j¾lgm75mhem f c’ ûGo¸gm lm¾lemor ûAsjqaijµm

pokk’ 5pahem, p²sar d³ kºcym !mecq[\xato b¸bkourrlm_m, 1j pq¾tgr paid¹r !meqwºlemor.

Hermesianax fr. 7. 21–6 Powell

80 West 1974: 72–6. For Mimnermus as an ‘honorary Hellenistic poet’ cf. alsoSpanoudakis 2001: 426–8.

81 Cf. esp. Ellenberger 1907, Bing 1993. There is a commentary in Kobiliri 1998,and a new edition by C. Caspers and M. Cuypers is in preparation.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 495

I say too that Boeotian Hesiod, the keeper of all research, left his house and,being in love,82 came to the Heliconian village of the Ascraeans. There hesuffered much as he wooed Ascraean Ehoie, and as he sang he filled up allthe books of his catalogues, (?) taking his start from the girl first.

Interpretation and text of the final phrase are uncertain, but it wouldseem that, in addition to making a young lady of Ascra called ‘Ehoie’into Hesiod’s beloved and thus the Catalogue into a celebration ofher, Hermesianax represents the Catalogue as a series of episodes all be-ginning C oVg ; here is the simplification of a complex model to which Ihave already referred. In fact, Hermesianax’s catalogues of both poets (v.1) and philosophers (v. 85) begin oVg(m) l´m, but otherwise only v. 57(Sophocles) )th·r d’ oXa jtk. , v. 71–3 (Philoxenus) oXa timawhe·rj …cicm¾sjeir, and v. 89 (Socrates) oVyi d’ gesture towards the Hesiodicform, and all three examples are variations, not reproductions, of thatform; Hermesianax clearly takes pains to vary the way exempla are in-troduced, as a way of surpassing in refinement the Hesiodic model. It isalso at least worth noting that the pattern of vv. 25–6 finds its closest(indeed only) analogue in vv. 45–6 describing Antimachus:

cºym d’ 1mepk¶sato b¸bkour

Rq²r, 1j pamt¹r paus²lemor jal²tou.Hermesianax fr. 7. 45–6 Powell

He filled his sacred books with lamentations, ceasing from all suffering.

Does this pattern fashion a ‘special relationship’ between the Lyde andthe Catalogue? 83

It is obvious that Hermesianax’s version of Hesiod’s biographydraws closely upon Hesiod’s own account of his father’s life at WD633–40; genuine traces of the Catalogue, however, are hard to find,other than the young lady’s name. The compound participle !popqo-kip¾m is attested for the Megalai Ehoiai (fr. 257.3), and might havebeen intended to sound ‘Hesiodic’, and lm¾lemor (v. 24), the only ex-ample of ‘wooing’ in the extract, is perhaps a general reference to thesubject-matter of the Catalogue, if not a specific allusion to the ‘Cata-logue of Helen’s suitors’ (as, just conceivably, is the competition be-tween Alcaeus and Anacreon for Sappho’s love (vv. 47–56)). It is per-

82 This is an emendation for the meaningless ‘having’ of the transmission.83 For what it is worth, Hermesianax also uses !popqokip¾m of both Hesiod and

Antimachus (vv. 21, 44), cf. further below.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception496

haps not unfair to suggest that, for Hermesianax as probably for manyHellenistic and Roman poets, the form of a poem may nod to the Cata-logue, but when it comes actually to dealing with Hesiod, it is one of theother two Hesiodic poems which comes into play. Moreover, beyondthe passage on Hesiod, there is nothing particularly Hesiodic about Her-mesianax’s style or language; far from it in fact.84 The Leontion showsthat the Catalogue was known, not necessarily that it was closely read.

Much the same is true of what we know of Phanocles’ Erotes orBeautiful Boys.85 One fragment is a gnomic expression in the first person(fr. 2 Powell), but it is not known whether the voice is that of the poetor one of his characters. The major preserved fragment of 28 verses tells(again) of Orpheus:

C ¢r OQ²cqoio p²ir Hqg¸jior ûOqve»r1j huloO J²kazm st´qne Boqgi²dgm,

pokk²ji d³ sjieqo ?sim 1m %ksesim 6fet’ !e¸dymdm] pºhom jtk.

Phanocles fr. 1.1–4 Powell

Or how the Thracian son of Oiagros, Orpheus, loved with all his heart Ka-lais, the son of Boreas, and often he would sit in shady groves singing of hisdesire …

One other fragment (fr. 3 Powell) introduces Dionysus’ love for Adoniswith C ¢r,86 and it is a reasonable speculation that each new story wasintroduced by this formula, which was probably dependent upon averb of saying or knowing expressed in a (lost) introduction. Giventhe Hellenistic fondness for catalogue-poems and poetic catalogues,we may assume that such ‘sub-Hesiodic’ formulas were not uncommonin poems of more than one kind.87 Thus, for example, Euphorion usesvariations of E … E to move from threat to threat in two of his curse-

84 Cf. Ellenberger 1907: 58–67, 69, Huys 1991: 77–98.85 See Hopkinson 1988: 177–81 (citing further bibliography), Lloyd-Jones 1990:

212–14.86 The emendation of the transmitted eQd¾r looks certain.87 For fragmentary lists of exempla in Hellenistic elegy cf. Butrica 1996. In POxy

3723 (= SSH 1187) a new exemplum (Heracles) is introduced by the non-Hes-iodic ma· l¶m, but something ‘Hesiodic’ may lurk behind the ambiguous g at thehead of verses in POxy 2885 fr. 1 (= SH 964). Even if the Apollo and Muses ofAlexander Aetolus were catalogue poems (cf. Magnelli 1999), there is nothing‘Hesiodic’ about their manner or style.

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 497

poems (fr. 9 Powell, SH 415);88 another example of that genre, howev-er, the famous ‘tattoo elegy’, introduces each new threatened tattoo byst_ny d] ‘I will tattoo (on a particular part of your body) …’.89 The dif-ferent tattoos are separated from each other on the second-century BCpapyrus by paragraphoi, as also happens on some papyri of the Catalogue ;this is a good illustration of how the Hesiodic poem ‘could … be seen asa collection of … smaller units’,90 by the familiar mimetic process of re-ducing a model text to a univocal idea.

More interesting than these unsatisfactory (for present purposes)fragments is the song which the lovesick goatherd sings outside Amar-yllis’ cave in Theocritus’ Third Idyll :

Zppol´mgr, fja dµ t±m paqh´mom Eheke c÷lai,l÷k’ 1m weqs·m 2k½m dqºlom %muem7 " d’ )tak²mta¢r Udem, ¤r 1l²mg, ¤r 1r bah»m ûkat’ 5qyta.t±m !c´kam w¡ l²mtir !p’ mhquor üce Lek²lpour1r P¼kom7 " d³ B¸amtor 1m !cjo¸maisim 1jk¸mhgl²tgq " waq¸essa peq¸vqomor )kvesibo¸ar.t±m d³ jak±m Juh´qeiam 1m ¥qesi l/ka mole¼ymoqw ovtyr ®dymir 1p· pk´om %cace k¼ssar,¦st’ oqd³ vh¸lemºm mim %teq lafo ?o t¸hgti…fakyt¹r l³m 1l·m b t¹m %tqopom vpmom Qa¼ym9mdul¸ym7 fak_ d´, v¸ka c¼mai, Yas¸yma,dr tºssym 1j¼qgsem, fs’ oq peuse ?she, b´bakoi.

Theocritus 3.40–51

Hippomenes, when he wished to wed the maiden, took apples in his handsand accomplished the race; Atalanta saw, became crazed, and leapt into adeep passion.

Melampous the seer also led the herd from Othrys to Pylos. In Bias’arms lay the lovely mother of wise Alphesiboia.

Was not the beautiful lady of Kythera so driven to madness by Adonisas he herded his flocks on the mountains that she does not put him awayfrom her breast even in death?

Lucky in my view is Endymion who slumbers in a sleep without re-lease. Lucky too, dear Lady, I count Iasion, whose fate was such as younon-initiates will never learn.

We may imagine that the goatherd pauses for a ‘response’ after eachthree-verse section, and this effect is reinforced by the minimal links be-

88 Cf. Watson 1991: 96–7.89 Cf. Huys 1991. Identifiable ‘Hesiodic’ elements of style in this poem are all

from Theogony or WD, cf. Huys 1991: 86.90 Rutherford 2000: 89.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception498

tween the sections.91 Of these exempla, however, Atalanta and Hippo-menes (frr. 72–6),92 Melampous and Bias and (very likely) Alphesiboia(fr. 37), Adonis (fr. 139), and Endymion (fr. 10(a). 60–2) appeared inthe Catalogue, and Iasion’s story was told of Eetion (fr. 177), who waslater identified with Iasion,93 and there was another Iasion in the Cata-logue (fr. 185.6). It is more likely that this is a ‘parody’ of contemporarypoetry (very likely elegiac) than of Hesiod,94 and Theocritus has over-loaded the ‘Hesiodic’ material as a way of laying bare – as parody does –the history and affiliation of the parodied form. We may also note thatthe story of Melampous and Bias appears in the Odyssean ‘Catalogue ofWomen’ (Od. 11. 281–97) and that of Demeter and Iasion in the cata-logue of goddesses who slept with men in the Theogony (Theog. 969–74). Here then is a ‘mythical’ song with a personal frame of the kindthat historians of Roman elegy seek, and a poem which in someways may bring us closer to the Catalogue than do the so-called ‘cata-logue poems’. It would be left to Ovid fully to realise the potential ofthe catalogue form in a changed poetic world.95

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Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R. 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry,Cambridge

Fletcher, R. 2005. ‘Or such as Ovid’sMetamorphoses…’ in R. Hunter (ed.), TheHesiodic Catalogue of Women. Constructions and Reconstructions (Cambridge)299–319

Fuhrer, T. and Hunter, R. 2002. ‘Imaginary gods? Poetic theology in theHymns of Callimachus’ in F. Montanari (ed.), Callimaco (Geneva-Vandoeu-vres) 143–87 [= this volume 405–33]

Gantz, T. 1993. Early Greek Myth, BaltimoreGriffiths, A. 1996. ‘Customising Theocritus: Poems 13 and 24’ in M. A. Hard-

er, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 101–18Hopkinson, N. 1984. Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter, Cambridge—1988. A Hellenistic Anthology. CambridgeHunter, R. 1991. ‘Greek and non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius’ in S.

Said (ed.), :KKGMISLOS. Quelques jalons pour une histoire de l’identit� grecque(Strasbourg) 81–99 [= this volume 95–114]

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—1992. ‘Writing the god: form and meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena’Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 29: 9–34 [= this volume127–52]

—1993. The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies, Cambridge—1999. Theocritus : a selection, Cambridge—2003a. ‘Reflecting on writing and culture: Theocritus and the style of cul-

tural change’ in H. Yunis (ed.), Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culturein Ancient Greece (Cambridge) 213–34 [= this volume 434–56]

—2003b. Theocritus. The Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, BerkeleyHuys, M. 1991. Le po�me �l�giaque hell�nistique P.Brux.Inv.E 8934 et P.Sor-

b.Inv. 2254, BrusselsJanko, R. 1984. ‘P.Oxy. 2509 : Hesiod’s Catalogue on the death of Actaeon’

Phoenix 38: 299–307Knox, P. E. 1993. ‘Philetas and Roman poetry’ Papers of the Leeds Latin Seminar

7: 61–83Kobiliri, P. 1998. A Stylistic Commentary on Hermesianax, AmsterdamKoenen, L. 1993. ‘The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure’ in A. Bulloch, E. S.

Gruen, A. A. Long, and A. Stewart (eds.), Images and Ideologies: Self-defini-tion in the Hellenistic World (Berkeley) 25–115

Lacy, L. R. 1990. ‘Aktaion and a lost “Bath of Artemis”’ Journal of Hellenic Stud-ies 110: 26–42

Levaniouk, O. 2000. ‘Aith�n, Aithon, and Odysseus’ Harvard Studies in ClassicalPhilology 100: 25–51

Lloyd-Jones, H. 1990. Greek Comedy, Hellenistic Literature, Greek religion, andMiscellanea, Oxford

Magnelli, E. 2002. Studi su Euforione, RomeMartin, R. 2005. ‘Pulp epic: the Catalogue and the Shield’ in R. Hunter (ed.),

The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Constructions and Reconstructions (Cam-bridge) 153–75

Meliadò, C. 2003. ‘Un nuovo frammento esiodeo in uno scolio a Teocrito’Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 145: 1–5.

Meyer, D. 2001. ‘Apollonius as a hellenistic geographer’ in T. D. Papanghelisand A. Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden) 217–35

Obbink, D. 2004. ‘Vergil’s De pietate : from Ehoiae to allegory in Vergil, Phil-odemus and Ovid’, in Vergil, Philodemus and the Augustans, ed. D. Arm-strong et al. (Austin) 175–209.

Osborne, R. 2005. ‘Ordering women in Hesiod’s Catalogue’ in R. Hunter(ed.), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Constructions and Reconstructions(Cambridge) 5–24

Reinsch-Werner, H. 1976. Callimachus hesiodicus, BerlinRutherford, I. 2000. ‘Formulas, voice, and death in Ehoie-poetry, the Hesiodic

Gunaikon Katalogos, and the Odysseian Nekuia’ in M. Depew and D. Ob-bink (eds.),Matrices of Genre. Authors, Canons, and Society (Cambridge, MA)81–96

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—2005. ‘Mestra at Athens: Hesiod fr. 43 and the poetics of panhellenism’ in R.Hunter (ed.), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Constructions and Reconstruc-tions (Cambridge) 99–117

Rzach, A. 1902. Hesiodi Carmina. Accedit Homeri et Hesiodi Carmen, LeipzigSbardella, L. 2000. Filita. Testimonianze e frammenti poetici. RomeSchwartz, J. 1960. Pseudo-Hesiodeia. Recherches sur la composition, la diffusion et la

disparition ancienne d’oeuvres attribu�es � H�siode, Leiden.Spanoudakis, K. 2001. ‘Poets and Telchines in Callimachus’ Aetia-prologue’

Mnemosyne 54: 425–41—2002. Philitas of Cos. LeidenWatson, L. 1991. Arae. The Curse Poetry of Antiquity. LeedsWest, M. L. 1966. Hesiod. Theogony, Oxford—1969. ‘Echoes and imitations of the Hesiodic poems’ Philologus 113: 1–9—1974. Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, Berlin/New York—1985. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Oxford—1986. ‘Further echoes and imitations of the Hesiodic poems’ Philologus 130:

1–7—2002. ‘“Eumelos”: a Corinthian epic cycle?’ Journal of Hellenic Studies 122:

109–33Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U von. 1886. Isyllos von Epidauros, BerlinWyss, B. 1936. Antimachi Colophonii Reliquiae, Berlin.

Addenda

Interest in the Catalogue has been further promoted by the appearance of M.Hirschberger, Gynaikon Katalogos und Megalai Ehoiai. Ein Kommentar zu denFragmenten zweier hesiodeischer Epen, Leipzig 2004, and G. W. Most, Hesiod.The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments, Cambridge MA 2007.

n. 2 On Hesiod and the Aitia cf. further 30 below.

p. 473 Several reviewers have rightly pointed out that the Catalogue was not‘very much third of [the Hesiodic] three’ if the recovery of papyri is given seri-ous weight.

p. 498–9 On Theocritus 3 and Hesiod cf. now A.-T. Cozzoli, ‘Modalità di ri-cezione dell’epica arcaica in età ellenistica: l’Idillio III di Teocrito, Melampo e laMelampodia’ QUCC 86 (2007) 55–75.

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27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes(‘Pseudo-Scymnus’)*

The Periodos to Nicomedes (henceforth PN)1 is a periegetic account of theworld in ‘comic’ iambic trimeters, addressed to a King Nicomedes ofBithynia, either Nicomedes II Epiphanes whose reign lasted from 149BC for an unknown number of years or his son, Nicomedes III Eu-ergetes.2 The prologue of this work raises important questions of liter-ary history, criticism, and patronage, many of which we simply cannotanswer because we do not have sufficient evidence from this crucialtransitional period of later Hellenistic poetry. The purpose of the pres-ent paper is to open up this interesting text for further discussion; I amconscious that certain important aspects of the text receive hardly anytreatment here.

1. Comic Clarity

The opening verses identify the addressee and assert the chief hallmarksand virtues of comedy to be brevity allied to proper detail, clarity, andpsuchagogia :

p²mtym !macjaiºtatom B jylyid¸a,heiºtate basikeO Mijºlgder, toOt’ 5weit¹ ja· bqaw´yr 6jasta ja· vq²feim sav_r

* M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, and G. C. Wakker (eds.), Beyond the Canon (Gro-ningen 2006) 123–40

1 The standard text is Marcotte (2000). Korenjak (2003a) offers a Greek textbased on Marcotte (for divergences cf. also Korenjak [2003b]), together witha German translation and a brief Introduction and notes. The recent mono-graph of Boshnakov (2004) argues that the author was in fact Semos ofDelos, who is thus to be dated rather later than is usual, and discusses the sourcesfor the author’s account of Pontic geography.

2 For the date and identity of the addressee cf. Bianchetti (1990: 23–35), Mar-cotte (2000: 7–16), Boshnakov (2004: 4–6, 70–78). For a brief survey of therelevant kings cf. Der Neue Pauly s.v. Nikomedes 4–6.

ja· xuwacyce ?m p²mta t¹m rci/ jqit¶m.Periodos to Nicomedes 1–4

The most crucial virtue of all in comedy, most divine King Nicomedes, isto explain everything concisely and clearly and to win over (? entertain)every healthy judge.

There is some obvious irony in the prologue’s repeated stress on its ownbrevity (cf. also vv. 7, 13–15, 69–74, 91) and that of the work which itintroduces, but it is precisely the prologues of comedy which seem mostin the poet’s mind. Thus, for example, the very ‘factual’ prologues ofTyche in Menander’s Aspis, of Auxilium in Plautus’ Cistellaria (=Menander, Synaristosai), or the Lar in Plautus’ Aulularia (from Menand-er?) would seem excellent examples of what the PN has in mind. Thestress on brevity and clarity is in fact something of a topos of the Plautineprologue (cf. , e. g., Plaut. Aul. 1, Capt. 53, Cist. 155, Men. 6, Trin. 4),and one which forms the humorous background to such performancesas Mercury’s deliberate verbosity in the prologue to the Amphitruo (noteespecially the drawn-out formalities of vv.1–16). So too, the chattinessof Pan who opens Menander’s Dyskolos ought perhaps to be understoodagainst an audience expectation of ‘brisk, no-nonsense’ prologising dei-ties, or at least ones which claim this virtue. Pan in fact concludes hisaccount of the plot with a version of the same dichotomy betweent± jev\kaia (‘the main points’)3 and their detailed working-outwhich we find later in the PN prologue:

taOt’ 1st· t± jev²kaia, t± jah’ 5jasta d³exesh’] 1±m bo¼kgshe – bouk¶hgte d´.

Menander, Dyskolos 45–6

These are the main points – how they work out in detail [you will see] ifyou wish to – and please do wish!

to¼tym d’ fsa l³m eusgl² t’ 1st· ja· sav/1p· jevaka¸ou sumtel½m 1jh¶solai,fsa d’ 1st·m aqt_m oq sav_r 1cmysl´ma,b jat± l´qor taOt’ 1najqib¾sei kºcor.

Periodos to Nicomedes 69–72

3 For this idea in ancient criticism cf. the report that Zenodotus athetised the de-scription of Achilles’ shield because he thought that the jevakai¾dgr pqo´jhesirwas sufficient (schol. A, Iliad 18.483a).

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What is well known and clear I will set out concisely, paying attention onlyto the main point, but things which are not clearly known will be explainedin careful detail.

It is clearly within the same framework of motifs that we should set thewell-known criticism of prologising lajqokºcoi heo¸ by a very goodspecimen of the type (perhaps Dionysus himself) in a fragmentarycomic prologue preserved on papyrus (Adesp. 1008 K-A).4

PN (and perhaps Apollodorus before it) is therefore in touch withcomedy itself, not just with critical theory.5 So too, the language of‘judging’ in v. 4 takes us (in part) to the world of dramatic festivalsand the Hellenistic Artists of Dionysus, who carried Attic comedy allover the Greek world; in other words, to the world of performance.It is, however, most unlikely that the PN was (literally) performed be-fore the king; the ‘judge’ here is also a reader, a ‘critic’ of literature (cf.further below). The language of the opening verses is in fact poised be-tween ‘live performance’ and reading, between practice and theory, be-tween the theatrical experience of comedy and its reception throughprivate reading, recitation, and critical discussion; so too, as we shallsee, the author’s ‘brief meeting and conversation’ (6–7) with the kingis similarly situated between different models of patronage, some ofwhich play with (fictions of) face-to-face encounter between patronand ‘performer’.6 The use of the language of speech to describe whatthe written word ‘says’ is, of course, as common in ancient texts as itis in our own society, but it is here given a new and literal importance.

The stress on the brevity of the encounter between author and kingpicks up, of course, the comic virtues of which we have just heard, butit may also remind us in this context of Horace’s assurance to Augustusthat he will not delay the princeps long:

cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus,res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes,legibus emendes, in publica commoda peccem,si longo sermone morer tua tempora, Caesar.

Horace, Epistles 2.1.1–4

4 Recent discussion in Del Corno (1999).5 For brevity and clarity as hallmarks of comedy in literary theory cf., e. g., Dio-

nysius of Halicarnassus, On imitation 2 fr. II (II p. 207 U-R = IX, 2, 10 Aujac).6 Cf. further below on Horace, Satires 1.6.

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 505

Since you carry by yourself so many and such heavy burdens – protectingthe Italian state by arms, embellishing her with morals, improving her bylaws – I would harm the public good if I were to keep you long withmy talk, Caesar.

Verse 4 of the Epistle to Augustus is, I think, usually taken to mean, ‘if Iwere to waste your time with a long poem’, but the Periodos might makeus wonder whether the meaning is not rather ‘if I were to waste yourtime with a long introduction’; cf. PN 11–16:

boukºlemor owm soi pq_tom 1jh´shai sav_rt¹m !pokocisl¹m t/r fkgr sumt²neyr,aQt_ doh/mai t/i pqoejh´sei kºcomlµ pok¼m7 1lo· c±q jq¸metai kajymij_rpeq· lec²kym 1k²wista pqacl²tym k´ceim.5sti d’ $ cq²vy toiaOta.

I first wish to set out clearly for you an account of my whole work, andthus I ask to be allowed a few words of introduction. I have decided, inthe Laconian manner, to speak very briefly about large matters. The sub-stance of my writing is as follows.

Here the author requests the chance for a brief ‘oral’ introduction towhat he has written for a reception through reading.7 sermo ‘conversa-tion’ (Epistles 2.1.4) is, of course, also the word Horace uses for his ‘pe-destrian’, though hexameter, Satires, which – or so he argues in Satires1.4 – have very clear affiliations with comedy. In that poem, Horace re-calls the critical view, which many have wished to trace back to Theo-phrastus, that comedy is not ‘poetry’ because it differs from ordinaryspoken discourse only in the use of metre, and he uses this analogy tosuggest that, when writing satire, he himself is not a poet. The authorof PN also wishes to converse (diakec/mai, v.7) with his patron, but– unlike Horace – he does so in the metre which famously most resem-bles ‘prose’ (Arist. Rhet. 3.1404a31–2, 1408b34–5, Strabo 1.2.6 etc.);moreover, as we shall see, many aspects of the prologue of the workconspire to suggest that this is not a ‘poem’ and that the use of metreis certainly not to be taken as a sign that works of this kind are poetry.

7 It is tempting to see in the strategies of PN and Horace a conventional under-standing that the patron was in fact only expected to read the introduction of awork addressed to him. The necessary brevity of any preliminary remarks is, ofcourse, a familiar topos of many literary genres, cf. , e. g., ‘Letter of Aristeas’ 8‘so as not to be annoyingly garrulous by stretching out a long proem …’, Di-odorus Siculus 1.4.6.

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The Periodos in fact helps to fill in crucial areas of the Greek backgroundagainst which the programmatic elements of Horace’s hexameter worksare to be seen.

Like those works of Horace, the prologue of the PN also takes usinto the world of Hellenistic literary criticism. The virtues of comedyto which the opening verses point suggest not merely the virtueswhich comedy claimed for itself but also some of the standard !qeta·

kºcou (or k]neyr) of Hellenistic criticism: :kkgmislºr, sav¶meia, sum-tol¸a, pq´pom, jatasjeu¶ (cf. Diogenes Laertius 7.59). The list goesback to Theophrastus,8 but sumtol_a seems to be a later additionunder Stoic influence, and here we might wonder, as we shall again,how much the opening verses owe to Apollodorus of Athens, whoseChronika are the explicit model for the PN (vv. 16–49) and in whosework Stoic influence has long been detected; the PN itself declaresApollodorus a pupil of Diogenes (of Babylon) ‘the Stoic’ (v. 20),9

who is in fact regularly taken as the source for the list of ‘virtues ofspeech’ given in Diogenes Laertius 7.59 ( = Diogenes of Babylonfr. 24 von Arnim).10 Be that as it may, it is clear from Philodemus’ dis-cussion in On Poems 5 that sumtol_a as a poetic quality was the subjectof lively Hellenistic debate (cf. cols. VI-VII Mangoni);11 one of theviews which Philodemus rebuts in Book 5 saw good poetry as ‘the com-position (sunthesis) which clearly and concisely (sav_r ja· sumt|lyr)makes clear the underlying thought while preserving the poetic character’(col. XXXI.8–10 Mangoni), and this indeed is likely to be ‘indebted tothe Stoics’,12 as indeed the whole collection of views attacked by Phil-odemus has a Stoic colouring. !macjai|tatom in the opening verse ofPN seems also to catch some of the flavour of these debates, on towhich Philodemus opens a window, about the ‘necessary’ and ‘optional’characteristics of poetry (cf. col. VI.11–12, 21 on what is the pq_tom

8 Cf. Stroux (1912).9 Philodemus seems (the text is very broken) to associate Apollodorus, not with

Diogenes of Babylon, but with Panaetius, cf. Dorandi (1994) col. LXIX, withpp. 29, 170–171. In col. LIII there is (?) another ‘Apoll[…] of Athens’ who(with Panaetius) was a pupil of Antipater of Tarsus.

10 Cf. Asmis (1992: 403 n. 47).11 Recent discussion and bibliography by Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004)

454–5. There is a translation of On Poems 5 by David Armstrong in Obbink(1995: 255–269).

12 Asmis (1992: 406).

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 507

ja· 1k²wistom requirement, cols. VII.1–5 on what is ‘best’, XII.25 onwhat is ‘necessary’).

The stress in the prologue on the combination of usefulness (¡vek¸a)and pleasure (t]qxir) that the work will provide (vv. 8–10, 92–3) re-calls the critic Neoptolemus’ view, as cited by Philodemus (On Poems5.XVI Mangoni), that the ‘perfect poet’ combines psuchagogia with B

t_m !jouºmtym ¡v´kgsir ja· wqgsilokoc¸a (cf. Horace, Ars Poetica333–4).13 The use of xuwacyce ?m in v. 4 has naturally led Marcotte(2000: 26) and others to see here a simple compromise between Eratos-thenes’ famous rejection of the ‘factual’ basis of poetry, which was noth-ing but psuchagogia (Strabo 1.1.10, 1.2.3), and more optimistic views ofpoetry’s didactic possibilities.14 The matter may, however, be rathermore nuanced than that.

In the literary debates for which Philodemus is now an importantwitness, psuchagogia is a fundamental quality of all poetry and rhetoric,but how it operates is a fiercely contested issue. The word and its cog-nates are, of course, often used of the entrancing effect of poetry onmass audiences, but it is also clear that the nature of psuchagogia was infact by no means agreed. Thus, much of what survives of On Poems 1is taken up by Philodemus’ insistence against ‘the euphonists’ that psu-chagogia works through the meaning, not just the sound, of the verseand that it is (at least in part) a rational activity (cf., e. g.,cols. 109.9–11, 151, 166 Janko).15 Moreover, it is also clear that the na-ture of the audience involved was a crucial element in such debates.Thus Philodemus appears to see true psuchagogia as operative ‘withlogos’ on the souls of the educated (oR 1jpaideuºlemoi, Tract. D,fr. 19.1–5 Nardelli, cf. fr. 20 Nardelli), and different theories heldthat good poetry could ‘move the educated’ (On Poems 5, col.XXXVI.2–6 Mangoni) or that the best poetry was that which ‘exer-cised psuchagogia on the masses’ (Tract. D, fr.18.7–9 Nardelli). Wheredoes the claim that the psuchagogia of good comedy acts upon ‘everyhealthy judge’ (PN 4) fit in this discourse?

It is, of course, the ‘healthy’ man whose judgements about, say,sense perceptions (or indeed anything else) one would trust (cf. Plato,

13 The text of Philodemus is uncertain here (I adopt Mangoni’s text), but the gen-eral sense is not in doubt.

14 For other expressions of the Eratosthenic view cf. Janko (2000: 147–8) and forits background cf., e. g., Halliwell (2002: 269 n. 19).

15 Cf., e. g., Schächter (1927); Nardelli (1983: 115–116); Mangoni (1993: 319).

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Theaetetus 159c-d, 167a-b, Aristotle, EN 3.1113a22–31, 10.1173b20–5etc.), but it is here tempting to refer the health of the judge to the healthof his psuche. Psychic health is a familiar theme of the philosophical tra-dition descending from Socrates, who Plato makes wish that, when hefaces his ‘judge’ in the Underworld, he will be able to reveal a psuchewhich is ¢r rciest²tg, ‘in as healthy a state as possible’ (Plato, Gorgias526d4–5); the Stoics too expressed the need for a ‘healthy soul’ (cf. ,e. g., SVF III frr. 197, 278, 471). The rather remarkable expression inPN, which is clearly (if indirectly) encomiastic of Nicomedes, should,I think, be set both within this context and within the more purely lit-erary discussions of the nature of the audience for poetry. The ‘judge’whose approval is to be won will inevitably be both educated and ingood moral health. We ought perhaps here remember Aristotle’s discus-sion of the different modes of jesting, as exemplified by ‘the old’ and‘the new’ comedies, and how these modes reflect upon the characterand education both of those who make the jests and of those towhom they appeal (EN 4.1127b33–1128b9, cf. Horace, Satires1.4.78–106). The apparent implication of Aristotle’s discussion, that‘new comedies’ appeal to the eleutherios and the pepaideumenos(4.1128a19–25), has an obvious resonance for the claims in the PNabout the virtues of comedy and hence of the PN itself.

2. Didactic clarity

The author of PN adduces as his model Apollodorus’ chronographicwork16 in trimeters which has brought ‘immortal glory’ to King Attalosto whom it was dedicated (48–9), a parallel the significance of whichNicomedes will immediately grasp, though the author later spells itout for him (106–8). Apollodorus is not named, but allusively descri-bed:17

16 Cf. Jacoby (1902); id. FGrHist 244 F1–87. Jacoby (1902: 60–74) is a valuablesurvey of the iambic ‘didactic’ tradition. For the history of the discussion of theidentity of PN’s ‘Attic scholar’ cf. Boshnakov (2004: 10–19); Boshnakov him-self (2004: 27–31) argues that the author did not in fact know the scholar’sname, for he had never seen a complete copy of the text bearing the name.

17 Marcotte (2000: 43–46) very tentatively suggests that Apollodorus himself isthe author of PN, but this is (frankly) hard to believe (cf. Korenjak (2003a:12), Boshnakov (2004: 25, 43–53)), and what little metrical evidence can be

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 509

t_m ûAttij_m tir cmgs¸ym te vikokºcym,cecom½r !joustµr Dioc´mour toO StyijoO,sumeswokaj½r d³ pok»m ûAqist²qwyi wqºmom jtk.

Periodos to Nicomedes 19–21

… one of the genuine Attic scholars, who had been a pupil of Diogenes theStoic and had studied for a long time with Aristarchus …

The practice of alluding to poetic predecessors by geographic circumlo-cutions (the ‘man of Chios’ style) is of course very common, but herewe might first rather think of the practice of some hexameter ‘didactic’poets of referring to great predecessors and models by circumlocution:Empedocles on Pythagoras (Empedocles fr. 129 D-K) and the imitationof that passage in Lucretius’ praise of Epicurus (Graius homo, DRN 1.66)are the best known examples:18

Gm d´ tir 1m je¸moisim !mµq peqi¾sia eQd½rpamto¸ym te l²kista sov_m <t’> 1pi¶qamor 5qcym7dr dµ l¶jistom pqap¸dym 1jt¶sato pkoOtom,bppºte c±q p²s,sim aq´naito pqap¸dessim,Ne ?’ f ce t_m emtym p²mtym ke¼ssesjem 6jastomja¸ te d´j’ !mhq¾pym ja¸ t’ eUjosim aQ¾messim.

Empedocles fr. 129 D-K19

And there was among them a man of surpassing knowledge, master espe-cially of all kinds of wise works, who had acquired the utmost wealth ofunderstanding: for whenever he reached out with all his understanding,easily he saw each of all the things that are, in ten and even twenty gener-ations of men. (trans. Kirk-Raven-Schofield)

humana ante oculos foede cum uita iaceretin terris oppressa graui sub religione,quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebathorribili super aspectu mortalibus instans,primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contraest oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra;quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitantimurmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acreminritat animi uirtutem, effringere ut artanaturae primus portarum claustra cupiret.ergo uiuida uis animi peruicit, et extraprocessit longe flammantia moenia mundi

brought to bear on the question certainly does not point in that direction, cf.Jacoby (1902: 64–65); West (1982: 160).

18 Cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004) 228–9.19 I use the text adopted by Kirk-Raven-Schofield (1983: 218–19).

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atque omne immensum peragrauit mente animoque etc.Lucretius, DRN 1.62-74

When the life of man lay foul to see and grovelling upon the earth, crushedby the weight of religion, which showed her face from the realms of heav-en, lowering upon mortals with dreadful mien, it was a man of Greece whodared first to stand forth to meet her: him neither the stories of the godsnor thunderbolts checked, nor the sky with its revengeful roar, but allthe more spurred the eager daring of his mind to yearn to be the first tobreak through the close-set bolts upon the doors of nature. And so itwas that the lively force of his mind won its way, and he passed on far be-yond the fiery walls of the world, and in mind and spirit traversed theboundless whole … (trans. Bailey)

Two particular aspects of this tradition are noteworthy. Both Pythagorasand Epicurus are praised in what may seem rather hyperbolic terms, butin both cases the fervent praise of them as ‘supermen’ with more thanhuman intellectual gifts is general and universalising. Nothing couldbe more different from the explicit naming of Apollodorus’ teachersand intellectual affiliations. Moreover, the fact that Apollodorus is a phi-lologos marks him as a scholar, not a unique visionary like Pythagoras andEpicurus or even a poet (cf. the philologoi, perhaps rather than philosophoi,summoned by ‘Hipponax’ in Callimachus, Iambus 1), and raises the ex-pectation that his work was in prose; that the work was in fact metricalcomes as a pointed surprise in vv. 33–5. There is, of course, also an adhominem argument in play here. The mention of Diogenes of Babylonand Aristarchus as the teachers of the unnamed philologos flatters Nico-medes’ cultural grasp, just as the fact that the philologos was ‘Attic’ byboth birth and by the genuineness of his learning20 foreshadows theconceptual division of the world into (cultured) Greek and (uncultured)barbarian which is to inform the PN ;21 Nicomedes may be assured thatpaying attention to a work which follows in Apollodorus’ footsteps willdo nothing but good for his Hellenic credentials.22 Secondly, both Py-thagoras and Epicurus are praised for the superhuman reach of their un-derstanding: Pythagoras’ grasp covered ‘ten and twenty generations ofmen’, and Epicurus’ mind roamed far beyond the limits of our world.

20 For the implications of cm^sior cf. Jacoby on FGrHist 244 T2, Marcotte (2000:151).

21 For this shaping of the PN cf. Meyer (1998: 74–81).22 Marcotte (2000: 41–2) sees a kind of test for Nicomedes: someone with his

cultural claims must be able to identify the philologos.

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 511

With Apollodorus, however, the great reach is rather that of his scho-lastic enterprise: a brief account of all that was worthy of note in1040 years. Apollodorus, then, is for the PN ‘the great forerunner’,but, unlike Pythagoras and Epicurus, he is a near contemporary andwhat he has taught our author is a literary form, not a way of under-standing the world. Here, again, the PN marks out its own genericspace by using a didactic, poetic tradition in a quite new way, preciselyto differentiate itself from that tradition.

Although we have a reasonable idea of the nature of Apollodorus’Chronika, there are very few surviving fragments – other than passagesof Philodemus concerned with succession in the philosophical schools– which are long enough to allow any real appreciation of Apollodorus’undertaking. One of the lengthier excerpts (fr. 32 Jacoby) concerns Em-pedocles; the text is preserved in Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Empedoclesand has suffered various forms of adaptation to the prose in which it isnow embedded, but the general run is clear. I cite the text offered byMarcovich in his Teubner of Diogenes:

Gm l³m L´tymor uRºr, eQr d³ Houq¸ouraqt¹m meyst· pamtek_r 1jtisl´mour<b> CkaOjor 1khe ?m vgsim.eWh’ rpob²r7oR d’ RstoqoOmter ¢r peveuc½r oUjohemeQr t±r Suqajo¼sar let’ 1je¸mym 1pok´leipq¹r t±r ûAh¶mar !cmoe ?m tek´yr <1>lo·dojoOsim7 C c±q oqj´t’ Gm C pamtek_rrpeqcecgqaj¾r, fpeq oq<w·> va¸metai.

Diogenes Laertius 8.52 (= FGrHist 244 F32a)

He was Meton’s son, and Glaukos says that he went to the newly foundedcolony of Thurii … Those who claim that he was exiled from his home,went to Syracuse, and fought with the Syracusans against Athens seem tome completely wrong. For at that time he was either no longer alive orvery old indeed, and this does not seem to have been the case.

Among features of interest for PN are the citation of a named source (cf.PN 214, 370, 412, 565, fr. 15 Marcotte) and the historiographical, onemight almost say ‘Herodotean’ (or ‘Timaean’ or ‘Polybian’), manner inwhich predecessors’ views are rejected. It is a mode which PN usesagainst Herodotus himself:

b d³ gGqºdotor 5oijem !cmoe ?m k´cym1j t/r Jikij¸ar p´mte rp²qweim Bleq_m

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception512

eqhe ?am bdºm, ¢r aqt¹r Rstoqe ? cq²vym jtk.Periodos to Nicomedes fr. 25.11–13 Marcotte

Herodotus seems to show his ignorance when he says that the direct jour-ney from Cilicia lasts five days; his words are …

In manner, then, PN clearly aligns itself with the historiographic andgeographic traditions, as can be most clearly seen perhaps in its manydifferences from the later hexameter Periegesis of Dionysius, which bycontrast cites itself very clearly within an epic and didactic poetic tradi-tion.23 Nowhere is this difference more striking than in the citationaland mimetic technique of PN.

Certain of PN’s literary techniques are obviously familiar from highpoetry: Apollodorus is alluded to with a version of one of his own vers-es,24 and the proem of the Odyssey is reworked in a familiar manner(vv. 101–2).25 Moreover, as I have already noted, the prologue verylikely echoes Apollodorus in many places beyond the (very probably)verbatim quotation in vv. 37–44. We might perhaps compare the pro-logue of the somewhat later iambic Description of Greece by Dionysius,son of Calliphon,26 which claims to be ‘a brief and metrical accountof things said at greater length by old prose-writers’ (vv. 8–10), butwhich also seems clearly to echo PN.27 Nevertheless, the initial list ofPN’s sources (vv. 112–127), all of them prose, the practice of explicitlynaming sources within the body of the work (cf. above), and the divi-sion of his own research labours as heat^r, Vstyq and ‘traveller’

23 Cf. Hunter (2004).24 V.21 sumeswokaj½r d³ pok»m ûAqist²qwyi wqºmom (describing Apollodorus) is

usually taken as a borrowing from Apollodorus, FGrHist 244 F58.3 Rjamºm t’ûAqist²qwyi sumeswokaj½r wqºmom (about Melanthios of Rhodes), and itwould be a familiar poetic technique to echo a poet’s own words to describethat poet; Marcotte (2000: 42–43), however, reverses the relationship. Cf. fur-ther below.

25 On the figure of Odysseus here and in other geographical poems cf. Hunter(2004: 228–229).

26 Cf. Marcotte (1990). The author’s name is given in an initial acrostic.27 Vv. 18–19 seem indebted to the simile of PN 37–44; note also v. 21 tµm

pqaclate_am (cf. PN 49), v. 22 spoud\sar (cf. PN 6), v. 23 sulvikol²hgsom

(cf. PN 10). It is possible that the opening verses which (ironically, as wemay think) seek to distance the author from those who ‘appropriate thework of others’ is a direct glance at PN. Dionysius presumably means some-thing more sinister than normal mimetic techniques involving the ‘appropria-tion’ of material (cf. Brink (1971: 208–209)).

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 513

(vv. 128–36) all very clearly align PN with prose traditions (includingscholarly and scientific traditions).28 The PN was composed at a timewhen the intertextual practices of poets (and indeed of writers moregenerally) were increasingly theorised – one of the views which Philo-demus attacks in On Poems 5 held that good poetry consisted in ‘thegood imitation (t¹ ew lelil/shai) of the poems of Homer and thosehanded down like him’ (col. XXXIII.25–6 Mangoni)29 – and the ‘pro-saic’ citational practice of PN must thus be seen as having clear genericsignificance. Callimachus may occasionally cite prose sources of his po-etic materials or even, as in the notorious case of Xenomedes of Ceos,summarise part of their work,30 and didactic poets, as for example Aratusand Nicander, freely versified prose sources, but it would, I think, bevery difficult to parallel in Hellenistic poetry the open and verbatim quo-tation of an extensive (and obviously noteworthy) passage of a (not verydistant) model in order to justify one’s own literary practice. ‘Epitomes’and verbatim quotations are, perhaps paradoxically, not in fact ‘mimetic’in any literary-critical sense of that term.

According to PN, Apollodorus chose to present his Chronika inmetre because metre was an aid to taking in a great diversity of materialand retaining it in the memory and because the combination of historyand rhythmical expression (Rstoq¸a ja· k´nir 5lletqor) was productive ofcharis (vv. 33–44); he chose comic trimeters for the sake of their sapheneia(v. 34).31 Like comedy itself, Apollodorus took the material of his illus-trative simile ‘from life’ (v. 36):

¦speq c±q eU tir !makab½m h´koi v´qeimn¼kym kekul´mym pk/hor, oqj #m eqweq_r

28 Cf. Effe (1977: 185–187); Marcotte (2000: 22). With the division into differ-ent kinds of knowledge we should compare not merely historiographical tradi-tions, but also scientific ones. In the dedicatory epistle to Ptolemy (? Auletes)prefaced to Apollonius of Citium’s Commentary on Hippocrates, On DislocatedJoints, Apollonius distinguishes between his own developments and what hehad seen done when he was a pupil.

29 Cf. Asmis (1992: 408–410).30 Cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004: 63–66); Krevans (2004: 178–181).31 One element of that sapheneia, though of course not one on which the ancients

explicitly comment, is the freedom to ‘say what one wants to say’, including theuse of metrically difficult proper names, which the freedom of resolution in thecomic trimeter allows, cf. Korenjak (2003a: 13). We may contrast the extreme-ly strict trimeter of that most !sav]r of poems, the Alexandra of Lycophron, cf.Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004: 440) [= 2002: 522], with bibliography.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception514

to¼tym jqat/sai, dedel´mym d³ Naid¸yr,ovty kekul´mgm k´nim !makabe ?m taw»oqj 5sti, t_i l´tqyi d³ peqieikgll´mgm5stim jataswe ?m eqsjºpyr ja· pistij_r75wei c±q 1pitq´wousam 1m 2aut/i w²qim,ftam Rstoq¸a ja· k´nir 5lletqor pkej/i.

Periodos to Nicomedes 37–44

As when someone wants to pick up and carry a large number of loose bitsof wood, he will have problems, but will do it easily if the wood is tiedtogether, so it is not possible quickly to grab hold of words which are un-tied, but words which are held together by metre can be grasped firmly andtruly. Charm runs over the work which combines historical research andrhythmical language.

The origin of this simile lies in the use of vkg to denote the ‘material’ ofa poetic composition32 and in a creative exploration of the ‘literal’ and‘metaphorical’ senses of !makalb\meim, and it illustrates a very interestingstage in the long ancient debate about the function and nature of poetry.Metre is here seen as something quite separable from subject matter,something which is, if you like, an ‘optional (though desirable) extra’which binds the otherwise ‘untied’ material together, but in no way af-fects the nature of the material ;33 despite the resultant w\qir (v. 43), met-rical form carries with it no inevitable expectations of style or content(in particular, of course, there is no suggestion of fictional content).The evidence of Philodemus in particular has, as we have seen, madeclear just how debated in Hellenistic poetics was the relation betweenform and content; thus, for example, Neoptolemus is attacked for ‘sep-arating the composition of the style (B s¼mhesir t/r k´neyr) from thethoughts (t± diamo^lata)’ (On Poems 5, col. XIII.32-XIV.2 Mangoni).Nevertheless, we may be inclined rather to see in Apollodorus and PN adescendant of the Aristotelian views that the use of metre does not makea poet (Poetics 1447a28-b20, 1451b1–5)34 and that metrical discourse is

32 Cf., e. g., Theocr. 17.9–10 (with Hunter [2003: 105]), Rispoli (1988:76–105).

33 With the use of k}eim in this context cf. Horace’s soluere (Sat. 1.4.60).34 For different aspects of the later history of this view cf. Horace, Satires 1.4 on

comedy and satire (above p. 506), Petronius, Sat. 118.1–5 (Encolpius on theeffort involved in becoming a real poet), and Plutarch, How to Study Poetry16c on philosophical and didactic verses.

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 515

easier to remember than the non-metrical (Rhetoric 3.1409a35-b8).35 Bethat as it may, the apparent absence of any claim to stylistic elaborationstrongly differentiates this text from the claims and practices of hexam-eter ‘didactic’ poets.

One such text which shows us how the themes of Apollodorus andthe PN could be used in different circumstances is Lucretius’ famous ac-count of why he has written in verse (DRN 1.921–50, cf. 4.1–25).36

Lucretius aligns his work very clearly with the stylistic, not just (unlikethe author of PN) the metrical, aspects of the high poetic form he haschosen, but like the PN, he too is conscious that he is writing magnis …de rebus (1.931 = 4.6, cf. PN 15 peq· lec²kym … pqacl²tym). His as-sertion that obscura de re tam lucida pango j carmina (1.933–4, 4.8–9) ap-peals (inter alia) to the same virtue of sav^meia which is so important tothe PN (and, of course, to Epicurus);37 in particular we may here recallthe PN’s division of its subject-matter and way of working:38

to¼tym d’ fsa l³m eusgl² t’ 1st· ja· sav/1p· jevaka¸ou sumtel½m 1jh¶solai,fsa d’ 1st·m aqt_m oq sav_r 1cmysl´ma,b jat± l´qor taOt’ 1najqib¾sei kºcor.

Periodos to Nicomedes 69–72

What is well known and clear I will set out concisely, paying attention onlyto the main point, but things which are not clearly known will be explainedin careful detail.

If Lucretius claims to dip his poem musaeo … lepore (1.934, 4.9), PNclaims 1pitq´wousa w²qir for itself as a result of the use of metre (PN43); broadly speaking, we might say that the sweetening ‘honey’ of Lu-

35 It is noteworthy, though perhaps not more, that Aristotle observes that metricalspeech is more easily remembered than t± w¼dgm (Rhet. 3.1409b7–8) and PNdescribes Apollodorus’ work as an epitome p²mtym … t_m w¼dgm eQqgl´mym (v.32) immediately before discussing the mnemonic power of metre; whereas,however, Aristotle must mean ‘prose/speech without metre’, PN refers to ‘allthat has been said at abundant length’.

36 There is a helpful survey and discussion of the themes of the Lucretian passagein Gale (1994: 136–151).

37 Cf., e. g., Diogenes Laertius 10.13. A stress on sav^meia might have passedfrom Aristarchus to Apollodorus, and thence to the PN.

38 The claim to be ‘making clear’ what is difficult and obscure is, of course, a toposof scientific and technical prose; cf. again (see n. 28 above) the introductoryepistles to the three books of Apollonius of Citium’s Commentary on Hippocrates,On Dislocated Joints, and the closing words of that work.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception516

cretius’ style fulfils the same structural rôle as the PN claims for metre. Ifthe purpose of using metre was mnemonic, to allow us to ‘hold on to’the information of the PN, the Roman poet’s purpose in adopting thesetactics is rather his wish to ‘hold Memmius’ (and our) minds on his vers-es’ (1.948–9, 4.23–4), and this surely (though the standard commenta-ries are strangely silent) evokes xuwacyc_a, which the PN also claimsfor itself. Lucretius avoids the potential charge that poetic xuwacyc_a

is simply an irrational ‘enchantment’ by the repetition in different sensesof ratio (1.943, 946, 948 = 4.18, 21, 23), and we have seen that PN toonotes and avoids this danger (v.4). These similarities and differences be-tween the rhetoric of Lucretius and that of the PN remind us that, inthe phrase ‘didactic poetry’, the meaning of both words is up for grabs.

3. How to approach a patron

1c½ d’ !jo¼ym diºti t_m mOm basik´ymlºmor basikijµm wqgstºtgta pqosv´qeir,pe ?qam 1peh¼lgs’ aqt¹r 1p’ 1lautoO kabe ?mja· paqacem´shai ja· t¸ basike¼r 1st’ Qde ?m,Vm’ aqt¹r 2t´qoir p²kim !pacc´kkeim 5wy.

Periodos to Nicomedes 50–54

When I heard that you are the only contemporary king who displays thevirtue of a king, I decided to test this myself and to come to see what aking is, so that I might be able to report back to others.

What Apollodorus’ Chronika has done for Attalos, the PN will do forNicomedes (cf. also vv. 106–8), just as Theocritus offers to do for hispotential patrons what Homer and Simonides did for theirs (Idyll 16).Not, of course, that Nicomedes is currently an unknown: far from it,as vv. 50–1 (above) make clear. The king’s reputation has gone beforehim and so the poet decides to try his luck; Nicomedes’ hearth is alreadya common refuge for vikolahe ?r, and this too bodes well. First, howev-er, like Xenophon before joining Cyrus or Jason faced with the Argo-nautic expedition, the poet consults Apollo’s oracle at Didyma, whichencourages him in his undertaking (vv. 55–64); that the poet comeswith the god’s blessing carries a clear message for Nicomedes, andthis, together with the wish of v. 64 (he¹r d³ sumev²xaito t/i pqoai-q´sei), functions as the invocation to the god of poetry (cf. 60 lousg-c]tgm) at the opening of a poem (we may be – strangely – reminded

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 517

of Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.22). Here too, the PN does not set its face againstall poetic traditions.

The author decides (apparently) not merely to dedicate his poem toNicomedes, but to come himself in person t¸ basike¼r 1st’ Qde ?m, ‘to seewhat a king is’, and then to carry the news back to others. The issue wasof the greatest cultural and philosophical interest, but this author, wholikes to do his own research (vv. 128–36), is not to be satisfied withmerely reading the extensive corpus of Hellenistic kingship treatises;he will come to see for himself.39 Nevertheless, the plan of investigationis at least, as Marcotte (2000: 153) puts it, ‘étrange’.40 The implicationmay be that, just as Apollodorus was at home in the company ofkings, so – in order to complete the analogy – our poet too must broad-en his experience. The author of PN presents himself unsummoned,unlike Horace in Satires 1.6, another poet who speaks only briefly(pauca) to a great man before leaving him in peace:

nulla etenim mihi te fors obtulit : optimus olimVergilius, post hunc Varius, dixere quid essem.ut ueni coram, singultim pauca locutus(infans namque pudor prohibebat plura profari)non ego me claro natum patre, non ego circumme Satureiano uectari rura caballo,sed quod eram narro. respondes, ut tuus est mos,pauca: abeo, et reuocas nono post mense iubesqueesse in amicorum numero.

Horace, Satires 1.6.54–62

It was no chance that put you in my way: at one time Virgil, best of men,and then Varius told you about me. When I came into your presence, Istammered a few words through my gulps, because shyness gripped mytongue and prevented me from saying any more: I told you not that Iam the son of a distinguished father, not that I ride around my country es-tate on a Tarentine pony, but I told you what I am. In reply you said little,as is your custom; I went away, and nine months later you called me backand bid me be counted among your friends.

As both his supporters and Horace himself tell Maecenas ‘what Horaceis’ (vv. 55, 60), so our poet wishes to learn ‘what a king [in the truesense] is’, and where better to do so than from the only contemporary

39 I am grateful to Ruth Scodel for focusing my attention on this point.40 Marcotte’s very tentative suggestion ja¸ ti basikeO s’ eWt’ Qde ?m (cf. Men.

Perik. 159–160 Sandbach, S. Radt, ZPE 81 [1990] 8) offers very defectivesense.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception518

basileus who demonstrates basikijµ wqgstºtgr. Like Aeschinas in The-ocritus 14 (vv. 60–5), the poet of PN will present himself to the kingafter having heard of his ‘virtues’. Aeschinas will go to serve in Egypt asa mercenary soldier, whereas the poet of PN (apparently) travels to anaudience with the king. Both literary constructions may, however, beways of figuring a relationship between poet and (real or hoped-for) pa-tron, rather than ‘literally true’ undertakings;41 Gorgo and Praxinoa’strip to the palace in Idyll 15 is clearly another such literary imaging ofthe poet-patron relationship. This is not (necessarily) to say that weare to understand Satires 1.6.54–62 as a way of figuring Maecenas’first encounter with Horace’s poetry, rather than with the poet himself,though an account of ‘what Horace is’ (v. 55) is not a bad description ofthe autobiographical mode of these ‘conversations’, in which Horacehimself is a prime example of ‘how one should live’ (cf. vv. 65–70).42

Nevertheless, we are clearly here in the realm of the same fiction of per-sonal encounter as we find in PN, a fiction which, as we have seen,hangs together with language which situates the poem between oralpresentation and written reception. Horace too frames the openingsermo of Book 1 between a conversational gambit (qui fit, Maecenas, utnemo …) and a reference to written texts (vv. 120–1).

Another narrative of patronage may also be helpful here. In Virgil’sFirst Eclogue Tityrus tells of a young god who created for him the otiumwithin which he can make poetry (6–10). In order to ‘know’ (cognoscere)this god, Tityrus travelled to Rome and it was there that he found hisprotecting ‘patron’,43 tam praesens, as Nicomedes is an 1pivam´stator

!qwgc´tgr … vik²cahºr te pqost²tgr for the Periodos (vv. 103–4).44

As Marcotte notes,45 !qwgc´tgr suggests a similarity between Nico-medes and Apollo, the !qwgc´tgr par excellence,46 and links the ‘map-ping’ of the world which the poet will undertake with the real business

41 For ideas of patronage in Theocritus cf. Hunter (2003: 24–45).42 For other aspects of these verses cf. Gowers (2003: 78–79).43 It will, I hope, be clear that this analysis of Tityrus’ ‘patronage narrative’ does

not depend on any particular view of Virgil’s patronage at the time of the Ec-logues.

44 It is hard, despite Marcotte’s caution, not to see here a reference to NicomedesII Epiphanes, though the title of the son who succeeded him, Euergetes, wouldof course also have appealed to men looking for a patron. Boshnakov (2004:70–78) favours a date c. 120, under Euergetes.

45 Marcotte (2000: 13–15, 108).46 The term is, of course, by no means restricted to Apollo, cf. LSJ s.v.

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 519

of exploration and the founding of colonies. The association betweenthe royal house and the god has, in any case, already been firmly estab-lished in vv. 55–64. So too, as is well understood, Tityrus’ iuuenis isshaped as an oracular Apollo who gives his blessing to what the enquir-ing shepherd himself wished to do and to the reason why he had cometo Rome; as the poet of PN is encouraged by Apollo’s logos to presenthimself at Nicomedes’ hearth (vv. 62–3), which seems to mean (cf.above) to write poetry addressed to Nicomedes, so Tityrus is encour-aged by the Apolline iuuenis to carry on with his country pursuits,i. e. to write pastoral poetry,47 one aspect of which will be, in thewords of PN, ‘carrying report [of the patron] back to others’ (PN54). Virgil’s use of the motif of Tityrus, his creation and representative,‘travelling to the city’ may have derived its generic authority from akind of creative fusion between the Syracusan women of Idyll 15, cre-ations and representatives of the Syracusan poet, who travel to the royalpalace, and the Simichidas of Idyll 7 whose initiatory trip and encounterwith the (?) divine is ‘away from the city’ (v. 2), but PN allows us to seehow Virgil has also shaped a flexible set of ideas about the social positionof poetry in the late Hellenistic world and a flexible set of images forfiguring the encounter of poet and patron.

The body of material shared between PN and both Lucretius andVirgil reminds us (inter alia) how little we have of Greek poetry (inthe broadest sense) of the late second and early first centuries. In con-sidering the Greek background of the Latin poetry of the late Republicand early Empire we tend instinctively to return to the high period ofHellenistic, and particularly Alexandrian, poetry; the instinct continuesto serve us well, but the Periodos to Nicomedes issues a warning which lit-erary historians neglect at their peril.

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Addendum

There is a discussion of Boshnakov 2004, Marcotte 2000 and Korenjak 2003aby G. Shipley in CR 57 (2007) 348–54.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception522

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9–12revisited*

Callimachus’ ‘Reply to the Telchines’ can still provide surprises, or rath-er we are constantly reminded that we still have things to learn about it.1

Thus, for example, the very recent restoration of more of Sappho’spoem on old age has shed some new light from an unexpected quarteron the poetic voice which Callimachus adopted in ‘the Reply’.2 Nopapyrological observation on Callimachus of recent years, however,has been more disturbing than Guido Bastianini’s demonstration thataR jat± keptºm cannot be read at the end of v. 11 of fr. 1.3 The influ-ence of the now discredited reading on the modern discussion of bothGreek and Roman ‘Callimacheanism’ would itself make for a smallbook (if not indeed for a l]ca bibk_om), but Bastianini’s demonstrationdoes at least prompt a new look at these verses, even if only in a spirit ofever increasing despair. It should not be necessary to say that what fol-lows suppresses the doubts, caveats and footnotes which arise at everyturn.

……] ..qegm [ak]icºstiwor7 !kk± jah´kjei….pok» tµm lajqµm elpmia Heslovºqorto ?m d³] duo ?m L¸lmeqlor fti ckuj¼r, a[

] B lec²kg d’ oqj 1d¸dane cum¶.Callimachus fr. 1.9–124

* G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds.), Callimaco: cent’anni di papiri (Florence2006) 119–31

1 I am grateful to Kathryn Gutzwiller and to audiences in Florence and Thessa-loniki for their comments on versions of this paper, which is here reproducedsubstantially as delivered in Florence; I am conscious that the footnotes do notdo justice to the bibliography on this subject. I am grateful also to Claudio Me-liadò for sending me part of his unpublished dissertation, Frammenti papiracei dipoesia esametrica adespota (Catania 2003).

2 Gronewald-Daniel 2004a and 2004b; cf. also West 2005.3 Bastianini 1996.4 Massimilla’s text (adapted). For bibliographical surveys of the problems in these

verses cf. Wimmel 1960: 87–92, Pretagostini 1984: 121–36, Massimilla 1996:206–12, Allen 1993: 146–56, Asper 1997: 153–6.

Interpretations of these tormented verses fall, of course, into two broadcategories: either the long poems of Mimnermus and Philitas are com-pared unfavourably with shorter poems or the poetry of a third poet(? Antimachus) is compared unfavourably with the poetry of Mimner-mus and Philitas. In this paper I want to concentrate on the first of theseinterpretations, not necessarily because I am wedded to it, but rather be-cause I think it allows us to tease out aspects of these verses and theirlater reception at Rome to which sufficient attention has not alwaysbeen paid. To the second interpretation I will return briefly at the end.

I hope that a non-controversial statement of the broad outlines ofthe first view (deriving from the Florentine scholia) would go some-thing like this. In vv. 9–10 Callimachus compares ‘the lajq¶ (i. e.?tall) …’ unfavourably with ‘the bountiful Thesmophoros’ (an epithetof Demeter); here we probably have a comparison between twopoems of Philitas of Cos, of which one is, almost certainly, the Demeter(an epyllion on Coan legend and antiquities), but the identity of theother remains a matter for conjecture. In vv. 11–12 Callimachus claimsthat one of the poems of Mimnermus, the seventh century elegist fromColophon, a poem here described as ‘the lec\kg woman’, demonstratedthat poet’s sweetness (ckuj}tgr), whereas another did not. What that‘other’ was, of course, is now – after Bastianini – even more uncertainthan before. Luppe’s aV c’ "paka¸ toi/ m¶mier has won a certain favour,5

and it is at least worth reminding ourselves that Ovid’s poetry is sung bytenerae puellae (Amores 3.1.27) and that the poems themselves are teneri …Amores (Amores 3.1.69, cf. 3.15.1), but I have to say that, to my inexperteye, the reading of the papyrus still looks anything but secure.

The most important explanatory parallel for these verses of theAitia-prologue has long since been identified in the long fragment ofHermesianax which catalogues the great literary and philosophical lov-ers of the past:

L¸lmeqlor d´, t¹m Bd»m dr evqeto pokk¹m !matk±rGwom ja· lakajoO pmeOl’ !p¹ pemtal´tqou,

ja¸eto l³m MammoOr …Hermesianax fr. 7. 35–7 Powell

There is a clear implication in Hermesianax’s text that the poets previ-ously mentioned in the catalogue of poetic lovers – Orpheus, Musaeus,

5 Luppe 1997.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception524

Hesiod, and Homer – all wrote hexameters (only), and Mimnermus isindeed one of the competing ‘first inventors’ of elegiacs in a scholarlytradition attested later from Didymus (p. 387 Schmidt).6 When Herme-sianax describes the pentameter as lakaj|m ‘soft’, he refers to elegiaccouplets as a whole, not just to the pentameter (as also does Callimachusin Iambus 13, fr. 203.31), though it is the pentameter which gives thecouplet its ‘softness’; the Roman elegists too habitually call their versesmollis.7 Theorists did in fact point to and seek to explain the weaknessand collapse of the pentameter,8 a collapse which Ovid famously sug-gests is like the post-emissive flaccidity of a penis and/or (temporary)impotence (Amores 1.1.17–18, 27).9 Be that as it may, Hermesianax’scritical language for elegiacs – Bd¼r ‘sweet, pleasant’ and lakajºr ‘soft’– is very close to Callimachus’ description of at least one of thepoems (or collections) of Mimnermus, the ‘first inventor’ of elegy –ckuj¼r ‘sweet’ and (if Luppe were right) perhaps also "pakºr ‘soft’ –and this parallelism has perhaps even now not been sufficiently exploit-ed.

The Aitia prologue is clearly intended to be a provocatively impres-sionistic ‘reply’ to (real or constructed) criticism. Thus, lajq¶m is not the‘natural’ opposite of elpmior : elpmior is in fact even found with thesense ‘well-fed, large’ (LSJ s.v. II), and there are famous scenes ofboth the Homeric and the Callimachean hymns to Demeter in whichthe goddess’ great stature is crucial (cf. HDem. 188–9, 275–80, Call.h.Dem. 58). Whatever stood at the end of v.11 may well thus nothave been an obvious antonym of lec\kg ( just as it is dangerous to as-sume that ‘girls’ stood at the head of v. 12 to contrast with ‘woman’). Ofa literary work, the most natural meaning – if that is not too tendentiousa phrase – of l]car is ‘long’, and this resonates well against akic|stiwor.

6 The others are Archilochus and Callinus. For other authorities for this notice cf.De Stefani 1920: 451–2.

7 Cf., e. g., Owen on Ovid, Tristia 2.307, Fedeli on Propertius. 1.7.19, Kennedy1993: 30–4. For the Roman critical terminology of elegy in general cf. e. g.,Cairns 1979: 3–6.

8 The same passage of Didymus links the nature of the pentameter to the sup-posed original use of elegiacs in lamentation, ‘they joined the pentameter tothe hexameter; the former cannot keep pace with the power of the first line,but seems to expire and die away together with the fortune of the deceased’.Cf. Brink on Hor. AP 75–8. Brink notes that ‘Didymus’ description of themetre is highly metaphorical and a poetic source is not by any means excluded’.

9 Cf. Kennedy 1993: 59.

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 – 12 revisited 525

Of a woman the most natural meaning of lec\kg is ‘tall’, and tallnesswas an admired female characteristic (women in visions and dreamstend to be lec\kai), which is normally accompanied, at least in litera-ture, by physical beauty.10 The pattern is seen, for example, in a frag-ment of the fourth-century comic poet Theophilus, where an enthusi-astic lover describes the girl he loves as j²kkei jak/r, lec´hei lec²kgr,t´wmgi sov/r (Theophilus fr. 12.7 K-A). Here, then, is a lec\kg girlwho is also, in the best Callimachean manner, ‘skilled in techne’. Thusalthough lec\kg in ‘the Reply’ may be thought to draw some negativeresonance from the context which follows it, we cannot simply assumethat it is unremittingly pejorative in v. 12. Moreover, the use of lajq|min v. 15 to mean ‘far, from afar’ and of l]ca in v. 19 to mean ‘loudly’ isclearly intended to cloud, rather than clarify, the argument.

The direction of much critical discussion has in fact been deter-mined by the gloss of the preserved Florentine scholia on these verses:‘he compares the poems of Mimnermus of Colophon and Philitas ofCos which have few verses, saying that they are better than their11

poems of many verses’. The scholiast had of course more of the textthan we do – which is of course not to say that his interpretationmust be right – but all we can say is that Callimachus appears to saythat one poem (or set of poems) ‘taught that Mimnermus was ckuj}r,whereas “the tall woman” did not’; we may think that the Florentinescholiast is only drawing a natural conclusion, but there are groundsfor pause here. ‘Sweetness’ may of course be ascribed to any poet orpoem,12 but the fact that Hermesianax seems to apply Bd¼r and lakajºm

programmatically to elegiacs may suggest that Callimachus’ use of cku-j}r carries a particular charge: Callimachus does not, after all, use wordsthoughtlessly, and lekiwq|teqai in v. 16 would seem both to repeat andto vary the point. Theocritus associates Bd¼r with his bucolic verse(cf. 1.1, 65, 7.89 etc.),13 with reference to the sound of the pan-pipes,and Hermesianax’s terminology perhaps has a particular reference tothe aulos which was traditionally associated with elegiacs. It is alsoworth noting that, in describing how different types of poetic compo-

10 Cf., e. g., Verdenius 1949, Fordyce on Catullus 86.4.11 Cf. McNamee 1982.12 Meliadò (see n. 1) 16 n. 47 calls attention to an interesting passage of Eusta-

thius, where Homer is praised for being both akicºstiwor and ckuj¼r

(Hom. 369.43, p.583 van der Valk).13 Cf. Hunter 1999: 70–1.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception526

sition should be read out, Dionysius Thrax prescribes a kicuq_r mannerfor the reading of t± 1kece?a (Ars 2 = I 6 Uhlig). Following the scholiato Dionysius, modern scholars usually explain this as a reference to theassociation of elegy with mourning, which was traditionally ‘shrill’; inthis passage, however, which concerns reading jat± diastok¶m, Diony-sius moves, as we would say, by genre: tragedy, comedy, t± 1kece ?a,epic hexameters, lyric, and then finally oWjtoi (to be read rveil´myr

ja· coeq_r). We ought, therefore, perhaps not limit t± 1kece ?a to ‘lam-entation in elegiacs’, but rather understand the term more broadly of el-egiac composition,14 and it is difficult then not to recall Callimachus’kic»m Gwom j t]tticor (fr. 1.29–30), as the sound with which he wisheshis elegiacs to be associated; kicuq_r will, therefore, be something like‘clearly, sharply’.15 Be that as it may, ckuj}tgr ‘sweetness’ was later anidentifiable feature of rhetorical prose, to be found in poetic quotation,in mythical material, and in ‘sweet and pleasant’ subject-matter; as wedo not know to which poems Callimachus is referring, it is hard (tosay the least) to pursue the enquiry much further, but some speculationmay be in order.

The treatise On Style ascribed to Demetrius (?? first century BC) hasa very interesting discussion of the nature and sources of w\qir or w\qi-ter in literature; w\qir is not the same as ‘sweetness’, but the two qual-ities are often ascribed to the same writers and styles.16 If we set this dis-cussion alongside the account of rhetorical ckuj}tgr in the (?) late sec-ond-century AD treatise of Hermogenes,17 who also treats ‘pleasantness’(Bd}tgr) as essentially the same thing, we find that Sappho is the primaryexample of both qualities, both derive from descriptions of natural beau-ty and, above all, eros, and both can be found in myth and poetic diction,particularly epithets. ‘Demetrius’ may thus help us to reconstruct what adiscussion of poetic sweetness might have looked like. The discussionbegins by considering the interaction of style, for which the poet is sole-ly responsible, and subject-matter, which may or may not possess desir-able qualities such as w\qir :

14 Cf. further West 1974: 3–4.15 Cf. LSJ s.v. For further relevant passages on the sound of poetry cf. Krevans

1993: 157–8.16 For the links between w\qir in Demetrius and Hellenistic poetry cf. also Gutz-

willer 1998.17 Cf. Hunter 1983: 92–8, Wooten 1987: 75–81.

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 – 12 revisited 527

t± l³m owm eUdg t_m waq¸tym tos²de ja· toi²de. eQs·m d³ aR l³m 1m to ?r pq²c-lasi w²qiter, oXom mulva ?oi j/poi, rl´maioi, 5qyter, fkg B SapvoOr po¸gsir.t± c±q toiaOta, j#m rp¹ gIpp¾majtor k´cgtai, waq¸emt² 1sti, ja· aqt¹ Rka-q¹m t¹ pq÷cla 1n 2autoO7 oqde·r c±q #m rl´maiom %idoi aqcifºlemor, oqd³t¹m 7Eqyta ûEqim»m poi¶seiem t/i 2qlgme¸ai C c¸camta, oqd³ t¹ cek÷m jka¸-eim.

¦ste B l´m tir 1m pq²clasi w²qir 1st¸, t± d³ ja· B k´nir poe ? 1piwaqi-t¾teqa, oXom

¢r d’ fte Pamdaq´ou jo¼qg, wkyqg·r !gd¾m,jak¹m !e¸dgisim, 5aqor m´om Rstal´moio.

1mtaOha c±q ja· B !gd½m w²qiem aqm¸hiom, ja· t¹ 5aq v¼sei w²qiem, pok» d³1pijejºslgtai t/i 2qlgme¸ai, ja· 5sti waqi´steqa t_i te “wkyqg¸r” ja· t_i“Pamdaq´ou jo¼qg” eQpe ?m 1p· eqmihor, ûpeq toO poigtoO Udi² 1sti.

Grace of style has, therefore, a certain number of forms and characteristics.The grace may reside in the subject-matter, if it is the gardens of theNymphs, wedding-songs, love-stories, all of Sappho’s poetry. Such thingspossess grace, even if spoken by Hipponax, and the subject-matter has apleasantness of its own. No one would sing a wedding-song while angry,and no style can turn Eros into a Fury or a Giant or laughter into tears.While grace is sometimes inherent in the subject-matter itself, dictionmay lend added grace, as in (Odyssey 19.518–19)

As the daughter of Pandareos, the pale nightingale,Sings her lovely song at the very beginning of spring.

This refers to the nightingale which is a graceful bird, and to spring which isnaturally graceful, but the passage is much embellished by the style; the pas-sage acquires added grace from the description ‘pale’18 and ‘daughter ofPandareos’ applied to the bird. These are the contributions of the poethimself. (‘Demetrius’, On Style 132–3; trans. W. Rhys Roberts, adapted)19

Demetrius’ example of w\qir arising from both subject and style is thenightingale of Odyssey 19.518–19; the nightingale is of course a verycommon image for both poet and poetry,20 but Demetrius’ choice ofexample takes on new colour in the light of Callimachus’ ‘Reply’ (cf.v. 16 with Housman’s supplement). We should also remember in thisconnection that it is exactly this Homeric passage which Catullus usesin Poem 65 to mark his future poetry as ‘sad’, i. e. (very probably) ele-

18 The actual meaning of wkyqg¸r is disputed.19 I print Rhys Roberts’ text; variations from the transmitted text do not affect the

present discussion.20 Cf. Massimilla 1996: 215.

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giac and, specifically, elegiac in the manner of Callimachus (carmina Bat-tiadae).21

If Demetrius ascribes w\qir to Homer’s ‘personification’ of the bird,Hermogenes would certainly have regarded such mythical material asckuj}r. Moreover, as Demetrius makes clear, some themes are intrinsi-cally waq_emta. Demetrius opposes Eros (the waq_em subject par excellence)to a Fury (9qim}r) and a giant (c_car); is it just with hindsight that wemight be tempted to stick ‘generic’ labels on these figures? A Fury is aquintessential tragic figure (cf., e. g., Aristophanes, Ploutos 423), andoften used to symbolise the dramatic genre, as the giants were the sub-ject of theogonic poetry and are a standard example in Roman elegy ofthe subject-matter of the grandiose poetry which the elegists reject (cf.Propertius 2.1.19–20, 39–40, picking up the giant Enceladus at Call.fr. 1.36). As is clear from what follows, w\qir for Demetrius can readilybe found in epic (and doubtless tragedy), but Demetrius’ choice of ex-amples remains suggestive for (at least) Roman poetry.

As for Callimachus, his complaint about old age weighing upon himlike Sicily upon Enceladus echoes, of course, the opening of a famouschorus of Euripides’ Heracles, which has had a major influence uponthe opening sequences of the Aitia :22

" meºtar loi v¸kom7 %-whor d³ t¹ c/qar aQe·

baq¼teqom AUtmar sjop´kym1p· jqat· je ?tai, bkev²qymsjoteim¹m v²or 1pijak¼xam.

Euripides, Heracles Furens 637–41

In adding an explicit reference to the giant buried beneath Etna to thecomplaint of the Euripidean chorus, Callimachus has integrated this im-agery into a traditional opposition, which assumes considerable impor-tance also in the Hymn to Delos, between Apolline order and harmonyand the disorder represented by the Titanomachy and Gigantomachy(cf., e. g., Pindar, Pythian 1.1–20, Euripides, Ion 205–18), a disorderwhich is also for Callimachus that of the grandiose poetry which he re-jects (cf. Aristophanes, Frogs 825 cgceme? vus^lati of Aeschylus); how-ever Apolline the poet would wish to be, ageing imposes an unbridge-

21 For further discussion and bibliography cf. Hunter 1992: 21–2, Wray 2001:198–200.

22 Cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 73–4 with further bibliography.

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 – 12 revisited 529

able distance from the ever-youthful god. As Apollo is so closely con-nected in Callimachus’ poetry with his poetic ideals, it is perhaps unsur-prising that the subsequent tradition (at least) turned these two poles ofCallimachus’ self-presentation – the Apolline and the suppressed giant –into a clear generic opposition between types of poetry.

The consideration of Demetrius and Hermogenes could go further– it is, for example, clearly of some interest for Callimachus that Deme-trius sees ‘brevity of expression’ (sumtol_a)23 as productive of w\qir –but I hope it is clear that the Florentine scholiast’s interpretation ofvv. 11–12 may be, at best, a misleading simplification. When Propertiusfamously tells Ponticus plus in amore ualet Mimnermi uersus Homero: / car-mina mansuetus lenia [v.l. leuia] quaerit Amor (1.9.11–12), he reflects thetradition of Mimnermus as the ‘inventor’ of elegy and as a poet devotedto a mistress (‘Nanno’); he probably, however, also has this passage ofthe Aitia-prologue in mind,24 and what he is doing is drawing out theimplications of Callimachus’ ckuj}r against a background both of hisown agenda as a poet and of fairly widespread critical ideas, uponwhich I have here only touched.25 How much of this critical back-ground is relevant to the interpretation of Callimachus may of coursebe debated, but recognising that Callimachus has in mind particularly‘sweet’ qualities in one or more poems of Mimnermus allows us tosee that ‘the tall/big woman’ need not be as pejorative as the Romanpoets would sometimes lead us to believe. We can hardly doubt,given the rhetoric of the whole passage, that ‘the tall/big woman’ ishere regarded as second of two, but Callimachus is above all concernedto construct an ancestry for his own style. In some poem or poems ofMimnermus he found a ‘sweetness’ which Hermesianax perhaps sug-gests was thought to be a particular characteristic of the elegiac couplet;on the interpretation of Callimachus’ verses which I have been explor-ing, this ‘sweetness’ was absent from another poem or poems apparentlyby the same poet. Roman poets took this distinction and created a ge-neric edifice upon it.

23 For the critics’ ‘brevity’ and Hellenistic poetry cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004:454–5.

24 Cf. Fedeli’s note ad loc., though Fedeli accepts – as many would not – the im-portance of Antimachus for the Callimachean verses.

25 It is, of course, tempting to adduce Luppe’s lenia in support of "paka¸ in Cal-limachus (and vice versa – Fedeli and others adduce the now discredited jat±

keptºm in favour of lenia in Propertius).

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Let me return for a moment to questions of weight and size. In theweighing-scene of Aristophanes’ Frogs (vv. 1378–1410), which lies be-hind some of Callimachus’ set of contrasts in the ‘Reply’, the greaterweight of Aeschylus’ verses resides (comically) in their relatively‘heavy’ subject-matter (landscape v. a ‘flying’ ship, death v. airy Persua-sion, a pile of chariots and corpses v. a single weapon).26 It is, however,already clear in this text that weight of subject-matter cannot be di-vorced from stylistic weight, here measured in terms of the huge sizeand obscurity of Aeschylus’ words (vv. 923–30, 1056–60). By thetime of Callimachus, ‘weight’ was an integral part of the theory of styles.Moreover, theorists extended the concept of weight both ‘upwards’from individual words and verses to whole poems (and then genres)27

and ‘downwards’ from individual words to their constituent lettersand syllables. The critics whose work has become known to us throughPhilodemus’ On Poems place a lot of emphasis upon ‘weight’ in all itsmanifestations; thus in one place we hear of a critical scheme involving‘solider and bigger (le_fy) poems’ which require ‘fullness’ and ‘weight’(1lbq¸heia); critical discourse of this kind must be one of the languageswith which Callimachus plays in the ‘Reply’.28 In On Style ‘Demetrius’borrows the terminology of oR lousijo¸ to discuss the matter:

paq± d³ to ?r lousijo ?r k´ceta¸ ti emola ke ?om, ja· 6teqom t¹ tqaw¼, ja·%kko eqpac´r, ja· %kk’ acjgqºm. ke ?om l³m owm 1stim emola t¹ di± vymg´m-tym C p²mtym C di± pkeiºmym, oXom AUar, tqaw» d³ oXom b´bqyjem7 ja· aqt¹d³ toOto t¹ tqaw» emola jat± l¸lgsim 1nem¶mejtai 2autoO. eqpac³r d³ 1pal-voteq¸fom ja· lelicl´mom Usyr to ?r cq²llasim. t¹ d³ acjgq¹m 1m tqis¸,pk²tei, l¶jei, pk²slati, oXom bqomt± !mt· toO bqomt¶7 ja· c±q tqaw¼tgta1j t/r pqot´qar sukkab/r 5wei, ja· 1j t/r deut´qar l/jor l³m di± tµm lajq²m,pkat¼tgta d³ di± t¹m Dyqislºm7 pkat´a kakoOsi c±q p²mta oR Dyqie ?r.

Musicians are accustomed to speak of words as ‘smooth’, ‘rough’, ‘well-proportioned’, ‘weighty’. A smooth word is one which consists exclusively,or mainly, of vowels, e. g. Ai s [the name ‘Ajax’]. bebr�ken [‘he/she/it dev-

26 On the meaning of jah]kjei in v. 9 of the ‘Reply’, I remain in an unproductivestate of aporia, despite the attractive suggestion of Gargiulo 1992.

27 Of particular interest is the opposition in the preserved Life of Aeschylus (T 1Radt) between the grandeur and ‘weight’ of the poetry of Aeschylus, the‘epic tragedian’ par excellence, and t¹ sulpah³r keptºtgtor required by elegy(or epigram?). However this last phrase is interpreted and however indebtedthe whole analysis is to Aristophanes’ Frogs, it is noteworthy that this textseems to combine ‘lightness’ and a connection with mourning in its accountof t¹ 1kece?om.

28 On Poems 5, VII 25–32 Mangoni, cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 71–2.

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 – 12 revisited 531

oured’] is an instance of a rough word; and the very roughness of its for-mation is designed to imitate the action it describes. A well-proportionedword is one which partakes of both characters and shows a happy blendingof various letters. Weight consists in three things: breadth, length, and howthe word is shaped. bront [‘thunder’] , rather than brontÞ, may serve as anexample. This word derives roughness from the first syllable; and fromthe second it derives length owing to the long vowel, and breadthowing to the Doric form, the Dorians being accustomed to broaden alltheir vowels. (‘Demetrius’, On Style 176–7; trans. W. Rhys Roberts,adapted)

Despite Demetrius’ analysis,29 it is hard to believe that the ascription of‘bulk’ (t¹ acjgqºm) to the word for ‘thunder’ has nothing to do with theword’s meaning, and Callimachus’ rejection of bqomt÷m30 may thus notmerely be indebted to Aristophanes’ description of Aeschylus as the‘loud-thunderer’ (1qibqel´tar, Frogs 814) and to a probably familiar as-sociation, best known to us from the ‘Apotheosis of Homer’ relief ofArchelaos of Priene,31 between Zeus and Homer. The idea of the gran-diose poet as a god involved in cosmic battle may in fact have had a widecritical currency.

Philodemus quotes the following prescription for the poet from the(? late third – early second century BC) critic Andromenides:

de ? … lµ nemºstola lºmom 1jk´ceim, !kk± < ja·> j²kkista, j²kkista d’eWmai t± t±r sukkab±r 5womta pokko ?r cq²llasim 1spahgl´mar, ja·[eqg]w/ dq²nashai t¹ stºla ja· N¸pteim acj¾deir suk[kab±r] kal-pqot\[tym vh|]ccym, !kk± kalpqºtatom eWmai t¹ k²bda, ja· c±q j²[kki-stom j]a· toO kalpqo[t\tou] joquva ?om eWmai ja· toO st¸kbeim, ¢r aUtiomtoO vkoc¾dour 1m t/i diak´jtyi cimºlemom.

‘[the poet] must select (words) that are not only exotic to the mouth but<also> most beautiful, and those are most beautiful which have their syl-lables densely woven with many letters, and the mouth grasps euphoniousones and hurls weighty (acj~deir) syllables of the most resplendent (kal-pqot\tym) sounds; but lambda is the most resplendent, for it is most beau-tiful and chief among what is most resplendent and what gleams, as it is acause of the flamboyant (t¹ vkoc_der) in language.’ (Philodemus, OnPoems 1 181 Janko; trans. Janko)32

29 On the affiliations of this analysis cf. Chiron 1993: 118.30 The use of the infinitive brings Callimachus’ word very close to Demetrius’

long and broad Doric form. For ‘thunder and lightning’ in the description ofrhetorical writers cf. O’Sullivan 1992: 107–12.

31 Cf. Hunter 2004: 235–6, with further bibliography.32 See also 1 21 Janko.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception532

Here the poet is figured as Zeus hurling his blazing thunderbolts. Cal-limachus’ rejection of a ‘greatly sounding song’ (l´ca xov´ousa !oid¶)and the fact that both paw¼r and keptak´or suggest (inter alia) qualities ofsound33 may suggest that one element of the critical mélange which Cal-limachus has constructed as ‘the opposition’ may be a forerunner of such‘euphonist’ criticism, that is a criticism which emphasised the sound,rather then the verbal meaning, of poetry.

I conclude with two issues, both of which may require further evi-dence before we can feel confident about the answer. First, in seeking totease out some of the implications of Callimachus’ use of ckuj}r in theprologue to the Aitia, I started from what is still perhaps the dominantinterpretation of vv. 9–12. A rival interpretation of the crucial verseshas it, of course, that the short poems of Mimnermus and Philitas arethere compared to the longer poem or poems of a third poet (Antima-chus’ Lyde being the favoured option). The argument I have been trac-ing so far may perhaps suggest (and the matter should certainly not beput any more strongly than that) that the lec\kg cum^ at least was inhexameters, and hence, almost by definition, not glukeia ; this is, ofcourse, not a necessary conclusion, but nor – I think – is it just to bedismissed out of hand. As far as we know, Mimnermus did not writehexameters, and so the matters pursued in this paper may perhaps con-tribute something to the principal question which has driven discussionof this locus conclamatus.

Finally, we can hardly doubt that Callimachus regarded both the‘Reply’ and the Aitia which followed it as ‘sweet’.34 Indeed, it is tempt-ing to recall the belief that the swan, just before its death, sang a mourn-ful song (elegy?) which was also its sweetest utterance;35 it has oftenbeen thought that in the very fragmentary final two verses of what sur-

33 Cf., e. g., Krevans 1993.34 It is obviously relevant both to the Aitia and to its reception at Rome that im-

portant elements of the critical language I have been tracing were also appliedto the poetry of Hesiod, in deliberate counterpoint to the poetry of Homer.Most of the evidence is, of course, later than Callimachus, although he himselffamously refers to Aratus’ taking of t¹ lekiwqºtatom of Hesiod’s verses (AP9.507 = Epigram 27 Pf.). Dionysius of Halicarnassus counts Hesiod, alongwith Sappho, as an outstanding example of the ckavuq± k´nir (De comp.Verb. 23.9 = II 114.3 U-R, Dem. 40.11 = I 217.15 U-R) and in the De imi-tatione (2.1 = II 204.14–15 U-R) he notes that the hallmarks of Hesiod’sstyle are Bdom¶, amol²tym keiºtgr, and s¼mhesir 1llek¶r ; cf. also Velleius Pater-culus 1.7.1, Quintilian 10.1.52. A full discussion of this cannot be pursued here.

35 For texts and bibliography cf. Nisbet and Hubbard on Horace, Odes 2.20.10.

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 – 12 revisited 533

vives of the ‘Reply’ the (real or fictionally) ‘aged’ Callimachus did in-deed compare himself to a swan.36 Be that as it may, we should stillask in what the ‘sweetness’ of the Aitia resides?37 The first aition properof the poem, though one that still has at least one foot in the prologue, isthe ritual of the Charites (‘Graces’) on Paros, at the conclusion of whichthe poet (perhaps rather than the internal narrator)38 asks the goddessesto wipe their oiled hands upon his elegies so that they will last many ayear. Is this just because of a general and positive association of theCharites with the Muses and poetry, or is Callimachus thinking of spe-cific qualities which the Charites can bestow and which critics wouldcall w\qiter and/or ckuj}tgr? This question is, I think, related to thereception of the Aitia at Rome, particularly in the poetry of Propertius.At least until the fourth book, Propertius offers us a very skewed view ofthe Aitia : Callimachus and Philitas are his principal models not solelybecause of their pre-eminence in elegy and learned poetry, but becausethey are also constructed as love-poets. In 3.3, for example, Propertiusrewrites the dream of Callimachus as an initiation into love-poetry, thusretrospectively turning the Aitia into an erotic poem. What was the basisfor this? This is now a very old problem, but I do not think that it hasyet been satisfactorily answered.39 Are we dealing with a developmentwhich is purely internal to the programmatics of Latin poetry, a devel-opment in which Callimachus’ stylistic demands are now matched, aswe have seen was regular in the critical tradition, by an equally‘sweet’ and ‘graceful’ subject-matter,40 or did Callimachus himselfshow the way? How important was ‘Acontius and Cydippe’? Propertius’interpretation of fr. 1.11–12 suggests the directions in which discussionof Callimachus, the Mimnermus rediuiuus, might well have gone: howstrong, then, was the control which Callimachus himself exercised onhis own Nachleben?

36 Cf. Massimilla 1996: 230–1.37 One critic who has at least recognised that the question is worth asking is Lyne

1984: 18–19, but his answer lies in an aesthetics of ‘art for art’s sake’.38 For discussion and bibliography cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 52–4.39 The bibliography is, of course, huge; Puelma 1982 remains an important con-

tribution.40 Cf., e. g., Hutchinson 1988: 279–80, Cameron 1995: 473–4.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception534

Bibliography

Allen, A. 1993. The Fragments of Mimnermus, StuttgartAsper, M. 1997. Onomata allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer

Metaphern bei Kallimachos, StuttgartBastianini, G. 1996. ‘JATA KEPTOM in Callimaco (fr. 1.11 Pfeiffer)’ in M.S.

Funghi (ed.), jdo· dif¶sior, le vie della ricerca. Studi in onore di Fr. Adorno(Florence) 69–80

Cairns, F. 1979. Tibullus: a Hellenistic Poet at Rome, CambridgeCameron, A. 1005. Callimachus and his Critics, PrincetonChiron, P. 1993. D�m�trios, Du Style, ParisDe Stefani, A. 1920. Etymologicum Gudianum II, LeipzigFantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R. 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry,

CambridgeGargiulo, T. 1992. ‘L’immagine della bilancia in Callimaco, fr.1, 9–10 Pfeiffer’

Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 42: 123–8Gronewald, M. and Daniel R. W. 2004a. ‘Ein neuer Sappho-Papyrus’ Zeits-

chrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 147: 1–8—2004b. ‘Nachtrag zum neuen Sappho-Papyrus’ Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologie und

Epigraphik 149: 1–4Gutzwiller, K. 1998. ‘Meleager: from epigrammatist to Menippean’ in M. A.

Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry(Groningen) 81–93

Hunter, R. 1983. A Study of Daphnis & Chloe, Cambridge—1992. ‘Writing the god: form and meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athe-

na’ Materiali e Discussioni 29: 9–34 [= this volume 127–52]—1999. Theocritus, A Selection, Cambridge—2004. ‘Homer and Greek literature’ in R. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Com-

panion to Homer (Cambridge) 235–53Hutchinson, G. 1988. Hellenistic Poetry, OxfordKennedy, D. 1993. The Arts of Love, CambridgeKrevans, N. 1993. ‘Fighting against Antimachus: the Lyde and the Aetia recon-

sidered’ in in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (eds.), Callima-chus (Groningen) 149–60

Luppe, W. 1997. ‘Kallimachos, Aitien-Prolog V. 7–12’ Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologieund Epigraphik 115 (1997) 50–4

Lyne, R. O. A. M. 1984. ‘Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Callimachus, and l’art pourl’art’ Materiali e Discussioni 12: 9–34

Massimilla, G. 1996. Callimaco, Aitia, libri primo e secondo, PisaMcNamee, K. 1982. ‘The long and short of Callimachus Aetia fr. 1.9–12’ Bul-

letin of the American Society of Papyrologists 19: 83–6O’Sullivan, N. 1992. Alcidamas, Aristophanes and the Beginnings of Greek Stylistic

Theory, StuttgartPretagostini, R. 1984. Ricerche sulla poesia alessandrina, UrbinoPuelma, M. 1982. ‘Die Aitien des Kallimachos als Vorbild der römischen

Amores-Elegie’ Museum Helveticum 39: 221–46, 285–304 [ = M. Puelma,Labor et Lima (Basel 1995) 360–407]

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 – 12 revisited 535

Verdenius, W. J. 1949. ‘JAKKOS JAI LECEHOS’ Mnemosyne 2: 294–8West, M. L. 1974. Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, Berlin/New York—2005. ‘The new Sappho’ Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 151: 1–9Wimmel, W. 1960. Kallimachos in Rom, WiesbadenWooten, C.W. 1987. Hermogenes’ On Types of Style, Chapel HillWray, D. 2001. Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood, Cambridge.

Addendum

n. 34 On ancient accounts of Hesiod’s style cf. ‘Hesiod’s style: towards an an-cient analysis’ in F. Montanari, A. Rengakos and C. Tsagalis (eds.), Brill’s Com-panion to Hesiod (Leiden, forthcoming).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception536

29. The Reputation of Callimachus*

This paper1 concerns three related moments, stretching (probably) fromthe early imperial period to late antiquity, in the reception of Callima-chus; all attest to the importance attributed to this figure, but also to thevery different ways in which that importance was negotiated. Callima-chus and his poetry were awkward presences.

1.

Sebgqiamºr … t± l³m owm t_m %kkym poigt_m !ped´weto letq¸yr, t¹m d³Jakk¸lawom eQr we ?qar kab¾m oqj 5stim fte oq jat´sjypte t¹m K¸bumpoigt¶m7 !mi¾lemor d³ 1p· l÷kkom, Edg pokkawoO ja· t_i bibk¸yi pqo-s´ptue.

‘Severianus did not mind the works of other poets, but whenever he tookup Callimachus, he only had words of mockery for the Libyan poet. Whenhe was particularly upset, his habit was even to spit on the book.’ (Suda s

180 Adler = Callimachus T 85 Pfeiffer)

Under the lemma of ‘Severianus’ the Suda preserves extracts about thisman from Damascius’ Philosophical History, also known as the Life of Isi-dorus (i. e. the 5th century neo-Platonist from Alexandria).2 Severianuscame from a distinguished family and was to have a very active, if ulti-mately unsuccessful career (Damascius’ judgement on him is that henever allowed sufficient time for reflection before acting). As happensto many, Severianus wanted to be a philosopher, but his father ratherwanted him to make money by being a lawyer. As soon as his father

* D. Obbink and R. Rutherford (eds.), Culture in Pieces (Oxford, forthcoming)1 I am much indebted to Doreen Innes, Luigi Lehnus, Dirk Obbink, Lucia Praus-

cello, Richard Rutherford and an Oxford audience for helpful discussion andcorrections; the structure and style of the oral presentation has been preservedas far aspossible. It is a very great pleasure to be able to offer this paper to PeterParsons, as an utterly inadequate return for all that his work has taught me.

2 Cf. Athanassiadi 1999; Zintzen 1967 may also be consulted. On the problem ofthe title and nature of the work cf. Athanassiadi 1999: 39–42, 63–4. The pas-sage discussed here is fr. 108 Athanassiadi.

died, however, Severianus seized the chance for a long hoped-for trip tostudy with Proclus in Athens; he was on the point of setting out whenhe was stopped by a dream. He dreamed that he was seated on the ridgeof a mountain and that he was driving the mountain as though it was achariot; something seems to have gone wrong with the text at thispoint, but it would seem that fate led him in this curious position uptowards another life, one which ‘seemed to be lofty and grand, butwas rough (tqaw}r) and impossible to achieve (!m¶mutor)’. Severianusthus abandoned philosophy and, as Damascius says, ‘blessed quietness’(!pqaclos¼mg eqda¸lym), and threw himself instead into political life.He was an ambitious and stern man, did not like coming second, and(inevitably) ended on the wrong side; an apparently rather bloody careeras a judge came back in the end to haunt him.

Severianus was, however, also an extremely learned man and sup-porter of literary study; Damascius ranks him among the top three jqi-tijo_ of his lifetime (fr. 106b Athanassiadi = 276 Zintzen). Certainly, hisdream has a rich literary pedigree, befitting a man of wide reading inclassical literature. The trail begins with the Hesiodic path to Arete,which is ‘long and steep and rough (tqgw}r) at first’ (WD 290–1),and continues through any number of ‘life choices’ passages, many de-scending of course from Prodicus’ ‘Heracles at the crossroads’, one ofthe foundational texts of sophistic self-identity.3 We may, however,be reminded particularly of Lucian’s Dream (32 Macleod) in whichour hero has to choose, not between philosophy and politics, but be-tween Paideia and Sculpture. Paideia takes Lycinus in her chariot fora bird’s eye view of the world and of the fame that he will win;when he returns from the trip he is dressed in the fine robes of the pow-erful. Severianus’ dream may have lacked the irony of Lucian’s self-pre-sentation, but it itself may have been a Proclan way of setting Proclusaside. In his Life of Proclus Marinus relates how Athena, the guardiangoddess of Byzantium and goddess of wisdom, appeared to the youngProclus and turned him from the pursuit of rhetoric to that of philoso-phy (chap. 6, 9);4 this is not quite a ‘life choices’ dream on the Prodicanmodel, but it is not far away, and Severianus might have borrowed fromit to dignify his choice of the non-contemplative life.

3 Cf. Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 482–3.4 Cf. Saffey-Segonds 2001: 79.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception538

Severianus, then, was a man whose judgement, in both legal and lit-erary matters, was to be feared. Why did he spit on Callimachus?5 Per-haps the most obvious answer lies in fact in his connections with neo-Platonism, despite his turning away from the pursuit of wisdom. Weknow from Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Timaeus that Critias’ reportin that dialogue that his like-named grandfather was of the view that ifSolon had been given a chance to fulfill his career as a poet he wouldhave surpassed Hesiod and Homer and all other poets in fame (Timaeus21c-d) had caused deep worry, but that the explanation which literaryscholars had offered was that this (manifestly crazy) view had been putin the mouth of an Qdi~tgr ; moreover, it had been established longago by Porphyry’s teacher Cassius Longinus, the greatest authority ofhis day, that Plato had no peer as a judge of poets (Longinus fr. 34 Pa-tillon-Brisson). To this notice Proclus adds the perhaps now betterknown report of Plato’s preference for Antimachus (T 4 Matthews)over the fashionable Choirilos: ‘Callimachus (fr. 589 Pf) and Douris(FGrHist 76 F83) are thus talking idle rubbish when they claim thatPlato was not up to the task of judging poets. The text before usshows that his was the judgement of a philosopher’. Proclus’ standardmove in distinguishing between literary and philosophical learningneed not concern us here; suffice for the present that a criticism, suchas Callimachus’, of Plato was never to be forgotten or forgiven, and Se-verianus’ spitting may perhaps be traced to this old wound. It is normal-ly assumed,6 on the basis of this passage of Proclus, that it was Plato’swell attested fondness for Antimachus which led to Callimachus’ stric-tures, but another passage of Proclus refers to criticism of Plato’s poeticjudgement by some of Proclus’ (unnamed) predecessors because of theTimaeus passage, and Kroll and Festugière at least saw there a further ref-erence to Callimachus and Douris.7 The two grounds for grievanceprobably in any case infected each other: the fondness for Antimachusin later antiquity, and particularly among the neo-Platonists, is wellknown.8 If it is true that, in the Against Praxiphanes, Callimachus called

5 Cobet 1873 is worth recording: ‘Fastidio et ipse et contemno poesin Callima-cheam, sed nihil ad Severianum’; I imagine that the librarians of Leiden werevery relieved.

6 Cf., e. g., Pfeiffer 1968: 94, Cameron 1995: 304.7 Proclus, Commentary on the Republic 1.43.9–14 Kroll (cf. Festugière 1970:

61).8 Cf. Wyss 1936: lv-lvi, Matthews 1996: 75.

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 539

Aratus pokulah/ ja· %qistom poigt¶m (fr. 460 Pf.), then one can readilyimagine what later antiquity might have made of that judgement.9

It might prove interesting to collect all the extant references to Cal-limachus in the neo-Platonists and those in their orbit, but I have madeno attempt to do this systematically. Porphyry and Proclus both citeCallimachus in support of their views, though it is perhaps worthy ofnote that Proclus manages on both occasions to avoid naming Callima-chus explicitly (he is ‘the Cyrenean poet’ or just ‘some poet’).10 Of someinterest is the long discussion by Porphyry of the words "latqowi² and"qlatqowi².11 Thanks to Peter Parsons, we know that the former ofthese appeared in the great elegy for Berenice II which opened thethird book of the Aitia. Porphyry says that it is no surprise if many con-temporary critics of Homer get some things wrong, when even Calli-machus, who has the reputation for being !jqib´stator ja·

pokucq²llator, did not know the difference between these words,and he returns to Callimachus’ ignorance at the end of a rather labourednote. That most scholars now think that it was Porphyry who could notunderstand Callimachus, not Callimachus who could not understandHomer, may be left to speak for itself.12

Spitting declares allegiances as well as enmities ; the world moves inoppositions, and the opposite pole to Callimachus was, of course,Homer. Callimachus T 84 Pf. is taken from Eunapius’ account of therivalries among sophists (i. e. Professors of Rhetoric) to succeed Julianof Cappadocia in fourth century Athens:13

9 It has often been guessed that it was in this same work, in which Plato seems tohave appeared as a character, that Callimachus (or one of his characters?) criti-cised Plato’s judgement, cf. Immisch 1902: 273, Brink 1946: 25 n. 2, Pfeiffer1968: 136.

10 See fr. 588 Pf. and the citations apparatus in Pfeiffer’s edition of the Hymn toDelos 84–5; for Porphyry cf. frr. 413 (= Porphyry fr. 374 Smith), 427, 588Pf. This relative infrequency of citation contrasts markedly (if unsurprisingly)with the prominence of citations from Callimachus’ poetry in the Homericscholia; I count some 40 in Erbse’s edition of the scholia to the Iliad, but noexplicit citations from the grammatical works. Among Hellenistic poets, Calli-machus is followed in the Iliad scholia at some distance by Euphorion (12), Ara-tus’ Phainomena (8), Apollonius’ Argonautica (perhaps 5) and Theocritus (4).

11 Porphyry, Quast. Hom. 1.263–4 Schrader = Sodano 1970: 15–17 = Schlunk1993: 12–13.

12 Cf. Luppe 1978.13 On these events cf. Kennedy 1983: 137–41, Penella 1990: 85–8.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception540

B d³ aqtµ dºna t_m !mhq¾pym Pqoaiqes¸yi j!je ?mom !mt¶ceiqem, ¢se·Jakk¸lawor gOl¶qyi tir !mast¶seiem.

The same popular opinion set up Diophantus in opposition to Prohaere-sius, which is like setting Callimachus against Homer. (Eunapius XII 1,p. 49414 = Callimachus T 84 Pfeiffer)

Eunapius’ ‘Homer’ is Prohaeresius, the (Christian) sophist and teacher towhom the pagan Eunapius owed unrepayable personal debts;15 the lan-guage in which Eunapius describes Prohaeresius’ rhetoric, teaching, andindeed physical appearance is that of a god – he is b heiºtator Pqoai-q´sior (X 2.1, p. 486), Eunapius thought of him as !c¶qym ja· !h²ma-tom (X 1.3, p. 485) – and however debased the currency of such lan-guage was by this time, there is no doubting the power of the swaywhich this man, who ‘filled the oikoumene with his logoi and his pupils’(X 8.4, p. 493), held. Eunapius reports that after one of his marvellousperformances, built on a prodigious memory, the audience showed theirappreciation by licking his chest, as though he was a statue of a god (X5.4, p. 489). If, however, Eunapius knew how to praise, he certainlyalso knew how to stick the knife in: Prohaeresius’ enemies are depictedas snakes waiting to attack (X 4.1, p. 488), and Eunapius’ account ofProhaeresius’ rival, Diophantus, the ‘Callimachus’ of the story, is glori-ously venemous. According to Eunapius, Diophantus, who in fact deliv-ered a funeral oration for Prohaeresius, only got as far as he did becauseof the vh|mor of men (a very Callimachean motif) who never like to seeone individual, in this case Prohaeresius, as the undisputed master of afield. Here is part of the close of Eunapius’ brief notice about Diophan-tus: ‘The present writer knew Diophantus and often heard him speak inpublic. It has, however, not seemed appropriate to include in this workanything which the writer has remembered of those speeches, for thepresent work is a record of important men, not a satire … He lefttwo sons who devoted themselves to extravagance and money-making’(XII 4, p. 494).

The opposition which informs Eunapius’ contrast between Prohaer-esius and all his rivals is, as the opposition between Homer and Callima-chus shows, that of the difference between the god-given gifts of inspi-ration and the petty struggles of ordinary t]wmg, the lijqokoc¸a ja·

peqittµ !jq¸beia (X 6.14, p. 491) of ordinary sophists. Eunapius stresses

14 References to Eunapius follow the dual system of Giangrande’s edition (Rome1956).

15 On Prohaeresius cf. Penella 1990: 83–94.

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 541

Prohaeresius’ l´cehor v¼seyr ; the sophist speaks in a great flood (N¼dgmX 5.2, p. 489) and 1mhousi_m (X 5.3, p. 489), and his enemies are struckby thunderbolts (X 5.6, p. 490), such as a Zeus or the ‘Zeus of poetry’would hurl; he himself is not just a Socrates (X 7.2–3, p. 492), but alsoa character from Homer, a Priam or an Odysseus (X 3.6–4.2, p. 488).Opposed, as we have seen, to Homer is Callimachus. Consider the caseof the hapless Sopolis, another rival of Prohaeresius. Eunapius introdu-ces him as a piece of worthless scum brought in to make up the numbersof professors (X 3.9, p. 487), and his formal notice of Sopolis is worthreproducing in full :

ja· Sypºkidor Ajqo²sato pokk²jir b taOta cq²vym. ja· Gm !mµq eQr t¹m!qwa ?om waqajt/qa t¹m kºcom !mav´qeim biafºlemor, ja· t/r rciaimo¼sgrLo¼sgr xa¼eim aqicm¾lemor. !kk’ 5jqoue l³m tµm h¼qam Rjam_r, Amo¸cetod³ oq pokk²jir7 !kk’ eU pou ti ja· xov¶seiem 1je ?hem, keptºm ti ja· !shem³rpaqyk¸shaimem 5syhem toO he¸ou pme¼lator7 t¹ d³ h´atqom 1lel¶mesam, oqd³tµm pepiesl´mgm Nam¸da tµm Jastak¸am v´qomter. to¼tyi pa ?r 1c´meto7 ja·1pibebgj´mai toO hqºmou t¹m pa ?da v²sjousim.

The present writer often heard Sopolis lecture. He was a man who soughtto force his style to match that of the ancients and he strove to touch theMuse in sound health. But though he knocked loudly enough at her door,it did not open very often. If ever it did creak open a little, a faint and weakwhiff of the divine spirit slipped out from within; the audience, however,went mad, for they could not take even a single drop squeezed out fromCastalia. Sopolis had a son, and people say that this son too was electedto a chair. (Eunapius XIII, p. 494)

Beyond the marvellous barb of the closing v\sjousim (‘people say …’)and the presentation of Sopolis’ efforts at poetry as a piece of comicdoor-knocking, it is hard here not to be reminded by ‘the Castaliandrop’ of the small but pure Apolline trickle of the end of Callimachus’Hymn to Apollo, particularly when we remember Prohaeresius’ contrast-ingly great flood of words; that Sopolis’ inspiration is kept|m wouldseem also to point towards Callimachus. The key to understandingwhat lies behind Eunapius’ intellectual structure here is, of course, hisreference to Sopolis knocking on the Muse’s door, for this takes us di-rectly to a famous passage of Plato which was of great importance toneo-Platonists and late antique culture generally:

dr d’ %meu lam¸ar Lous_m 1p· poigtij±r h¼qar !v¸jgtai, peishe·r ¢r %qa 1jt´wmgr Rjam¹r poigtµr 1sºlemor, !tekµr aqtºr te ja· B po¸gsir rp¹ t/r t_mlaimol´mym B toO syvqomoOmtor Avam¸shg.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception542

But whoever comes to the doors of poetry without madness from theMuses, in the belief that craft (technÞ) will make him a good poet, bothhe and his poetry, the poetry of a sane man, will be incomplete16 andeclipsed by the poetry of the mad. (Plato, Phaedrus 245a)

Plato’s distinction between poets who write under divine inspirationand those who write merely 1j t´wmgr was to become a principal sourceof Homer’s authority in later antiquity.17 In his commentary on this pas-sage of the Phaedrus, the fifth-century neo-Platonist Hermeias (p. 98–9Couvreur) illustrated the distinction from, on the one hand, Homer andPindar and, on the other, Choirilos – rightly, I think, identified byAdrian Hollis as Choirilos of Samos – and Callimachus.18 Whereaspoets of technÞ ‘do not even approach the doors of the Muses’, inspiredpoets – Homer above all – ‘all but hammer on their doors and are filledfrom that source’. Eunapius’ treatment of sophists stands squarely inthese same traditions.

2.

Spitting on Callimachus inevitably calls to mind the infamous and anon-ymous distich which is Callimachus T 25 Pfeiffer:

Jakk¸lawor t¹ j²haqla t¹ pa¸cmiom b n¼kimor moOr7aUtior b cq²xar AUtia Jakkil²wou.

Anth. Pal. 11.275

Text and punctuation are disputed, and the meaning – apart from thefact that it is not flattering to Callimachus – anything but obvious.19

The emendation Jakk¸lawor in v. 2, a change which Luigi Lehnushas pointed out is not due to Bentley alone,20 is now regularly adoptedwithout discussion, as for example by Denys Page and by Alan Camer-

16 Commentators rightly note that !tek¶r both means ‘uncompleted’ and alsosuggests ‘uninitiated’.

17 Other passages too (e. g. Laws 3.682a) were, of course, adduced in support; cf.Proclus, Commentary on Timaeus 1.64 Diehl, Russell 1989: 326–8.

18 Cf. Hollis 2000, Hunter 2006: 92–3. For the connection between this obser-vation and ‘Longinus’, De subl. 33 (below p. 549) cf. already Immisch 1932:189–90, although Immisch identified Hermeias’ ‘Choirilos’ with the encomiastof Alexander.

19 For a tentative translation cf. below p. 547.20 Cf. Lehnus 1990: 291–2.

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 543

on, in the course of his helpful discussion of this epigram.21 The distichis bound to remain mysterious, but a little further ground-clearing maybe possible.22

It was observed long ago that the form of this distich resembles thedescription of the presentation copy of a book;23 we might think ofMartial’s apophoreta on literary texts (14.83–96), one of which mightbe rude about the book offered (14.196), or indeed of Crinagoras’ fa-mous poem on Callimachus’ own Hecale ( = T 28 Pfeiffer):

Jakkil²wou t¹ toqeut¹m 5por tºde7 dµ c±q 1p’ aqt_i¢mµq to»r Lous´ym p²mtar 5seise j²kyr7

!e¸dei d’ gEj²kgr te vikone¸moio jakiµmja· Hgse ? Laqah½m otr 1p´hgje pºmour.

toO so· ja· meaq¹m weiq_m sh´mor eUg !q´shai,L²qjekke, jkeimoO t’ aWmom Usom biºtou.

Callimachus’ is this chiselled poem; the man shook out all the Muses’ sailsin its composition. He sings of the hut of the hospitable Hecale and of thelabours which Marathon set for Theseus. May you too achieve the youthfulstrength of his hands, Marcellus, and an equal praise for a glorious life. (Cri-nagoras, Anth. Pal. 9.545 = XI G-P)

We might think also of Callimachus’ own epigram on Aratus’ Phainome-na :

Jsiºdou tº t’ %eisla ja· b tqºpor7 oq t¹m !oid_m5swatom, !kk’ ajm´y lµ t¹ lekiwqºtatom

t_m 1p´ym b Soke»r !pel²nato7 wa¸qete kepta·N¶sier, ûAq¶tou s¼lbokom !cqupm¸gr.

Hesiod’s is the subject-matter and the manner: not the ultimate of songs,but it may be that the man from Soli has skimmed off the sweetest of vers-es. Hail subtle lines, the evidence of Aratus’ sleeplessness. (Callimachus,Anth. Pal. 9.507 = Epigram XXVII Pf.24)

21 Page 1981: 17–18, Cameron 1995: 227–8.22 For the view that the distich mimics lexical entries, whether offering different

definitions listed asyndetically for ‘Callimachus’ or successive parodic entriesfrom a Callimachean ‘glossary’, cf. Cairns 1995.

23 Cf. Knaack 1891: 771, Susemihl 1891: 350–1, 895.24 The translation is intended as an aid to readers of this essay, not as an interpre-

tation of the poem; I discuss this poem further in F. Montanari, A. Rengakosand C. Tsagalis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hesiod (Leiden, forthcoming). For!oid_m in v. 1 cf. now POxy 4648.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception544

Callimachus’ poem is framed by the name of the source of Aratus’ in-spiration (Hesiod) and by Aratus himself ; for the author of the abusivedistich, which is framed rather by the repetition of Callimachus’ name,Callimachus can blame (aUtior) no one but himself.25 We might there-fore consider reading Jakkil\wou in v. 1, a text printed (together withJakk_lawor in v. 2) by Wilhelm Christ, though never, as far as I can as-certain, discussed by him.26 pa_cmiom, which commentators have founddifficult in its application to Callimachus himself, is not rare as a term todescribe a single piece or form of literature (cf. LSJ s.v. III 3), and is ofcourse paralleled by the Latin nugae (cf. Catullus 1, Martial 14.183 of theBatrachomyomachia). One of Leonides of Alexandria’s numerologicalgames uses the term for a presentation epigram:

t¶mde Keym¸dey hakeqµm p²ki d´qjeo LoOsam,d¸stiwom eqh¸jtou pa¸cmiom eqep¸gr.

5stai d’ 1m Jqom¸oir L²qjyi peqijakk³r %huqlatoOto ja· 1m de¸pmoir ja· paq± lousopºkoir.

Look once more at this example of Leonides’ flourishing Muse, a two-verse plaything of wit and grace. This will be a beautiful toy for Marcusat the Saturnalia, and at dinner-parties, and among those engaged withthe Muses. (Leonides of Alexandria, Anth. Pal. 6.32227)

With Anth. Pal. 11.275 Pfeiffer linked, as Callimachus T 25a, the finaltwo couplets of Martial 10.4:

qui legis Oedipoden caligantemque Thyesten,Colchidas et Scyllas, quid nisi monstra legis?

quid tibi raptus Hylas, quid Parthenopaeus et Attis,quid tibi dormitor proderit Endymion,

exutusue puer pinnis labentibus, aut quiodit amatrices Hermaphroditus aquas?

quid te uana iuuant miserae ludibria chartae?hoc lege, quod possit dicere uita ‘meum est’.

non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas Harpyiasqueinuenies: hominem pagina nostra sapit.

25 Eustathius (Hom. 1422.30) cites v. 2 of the anonymous epigram to illustrateaUtior in what Eustathius claims is the post-Homeric sense ‘guilty, deservingpunishment’. If Jakk¸lawor is retained in v. 1 (cf. below), the most likelysense of j\haqla will be ‘outcast’, ‘rubbish’, vaqlajºr.

26 Cf. Christ 1889: 402 [ = 1890: 437].27 Cf. Page 1981: 515–516.

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 545

sed non uis, Mamurra, tuos cognoscere moresnec te scire: legas Aetia Callimachi.

You who read of Oedipus and Thyestes in the gloom and Colchianwomen and Scyllas, what are you reading about but monstrosities? Whatuse to you will be ravished Hylas or Parthenopaeus and Attis, what usethe sleeping Endymion, or the boy who shed his drooping wings or Her-maphroditus, who loathes the waters which love him? What pleasure doyou get from the worthless mockery of a wretched sheet? Read this, ofwhich life can say ‘It’s mine!’. Here you will not find Centaurs or Gorgonsor Harpies: my page knows real people. But, Mamurra, you don’t want torecognise your own habits or to know yourself ; you can read Callimachus’Aitia. (Martial 10.4)

Martial’s subject is the earthy realism and immediacy of his poems incomparison to the arcane mythology of the Aitia. Pfeiffer presumablyassociated the two testimonia on the grounds of the shared hemistichwith which both poems end, but the earlier part of Martial’s poemshould also attract attention in the present context. Poem 10.4 is partof an introductory series to Book 10, and – like the distich against Cal-limachus – it develops from the form of a ‘book advertisement’ (hoc lege…); ludibria in v. 7 is clearly not too far away from pa_cmiom. As Lindsayand Patricia Watson note in their commentary, ‘Since ludibrium can alsomean a jest, there is an implication that it is elevated poetry which isfrivolous rather than the humble genre of epigram’.28 Martial may infact have been thinking of the Greek couplet, though I do not knowwhether that sheds any further light on its provenance.

For what it is worth, confronted with t¹ j²haqla t¹ pa¸cmiom as adescription of a poem of Callimachus, my first thought would havebeen of the Ibis, and it is, I suppose, not out of the question thatAnth. Pal. 11. 275 is intended as a mock ‘advertisement’ for thatpoem rather than for the Aitia.29 b n¼kimor moOr awaits (in my view) con-vincing interpretation,30 but applied to a literary work moOr is likely to

28 Cf. also Hutchinson 1993: 24.29 Watson 2005: 271 suggests that j\haqla picks up Callimachus’ own image

from the end of the Hymn to Apollo. He also suggests (an issue which I had pon-dered before reading his article) that pa¸cmiom picks up Callimachus’ self-pre-sentation as, in the view of the Telchines, writing pa ?r ûte.

30 Lucia Prauscello has attractively suggested that the reference may be to the (fre-quently mocked) ‘bookish’ character of Callimachus’ poetry, notably the Aitia ;the point would be that the tablet or pinax, a mark of the poet (cf. esp. Calli-machus fr. 1.21–2), was made of wood. Other usages which might be relevant

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception546

mean ‘intention, meaning’ (cf. , e. g., Plato, Symposium 222a2).31 A firstshot at a translation – reading Jakkil\wou in v. 1 – would therefore besomething like: ‘Callimachus’ is the piece of refuse, the plaything, thewooden (?) meaning; responsible is he who wrote the Aitia of Callima-chus’; much of course awaits elucidation.32 A final point. With eithernominative or genitive forms at the beginning and end of the distichwe have a stylistic trick which is in fact much more common in Latinthan in Greek.33 Here it might just be intended to be itself a parodyof Callimachus:34

)staj¸dgm t¹m Jq/ta t¹m aQpºkom Fqpase m¼lvg1n eqeor, ja· mOm Req¹r ûAstaj¸dgr.

A nymph snatched Astakides the Cretan goatherd from the mountain, andnow Astakides is a sacred one. (Callimachus, Anth. Pal. 7.518.1–2 = Epi-gram XXII, 1–2 Pf.)

3.

Wondering which poems of Callimachus (or was it a complete edi-tion?) Severianus is most likely to have spat on can help fill in an idleminute. One can imagine, for example, that no one with connectionsto the neo-Platonists would have cared much for the Hymns ;35 a glance

are rpºnukor of a poet or sophist who looks good, but is worthless ‘inside’ (i. e.whose wooden substance is coated with gold or silver, cf. Phrynichus, Praepar-atio Sophistica 115.12–15 Borries), and the book-collector’s suj¸mg cm¾lg atLucian, Adv. Indoctum 6 (where, however, the choice of adjective is influencedby the context).

31 I am inclined to compare tq|por in Callimachus’ epigram for Aratus (above p.544–5), but the matter is clearly not yet resolved.

32 Martin West notes that, with the genitive in v. 1 and Bentley’s nominative in v.2, one could also punctuate after pa¸cmiom: ‘Callimachus’ is the piece of refuse,the plaything; the wooden mind is responsible, Callimachus who wrote theAitia’.

33 Cf. McKeown on Ovid, Amores 1.9.1–2, Wills 1996: 430–5.34 A related, but different, effect is found in Callimachus, Epigram 19 Pf. It is very

unclear whether such framing is the effect signalled by Graecula quod recantat echoat Martial 2.86.3, but that poem is another rejection of ‘Callimachean’ poetry infavour of poetry such as Martial’s, which (ironically) is designed for a readershipof connoisseurs.

35 Lehnus 2002: 27 assumes that it was the Aitia, Callimachus’ best known and‘signature’ work, upon which Severianus vented his impatience.

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 547

at the Hymns of Proclus will show that we are moving in a very differentworld, and it is a nice irony that the survival of both texts was to be sointimately linked. Just as the poetic criticism of the neo-Platonists wasrooted in various modes of allegorical interpretation, which – as iswell known – had found little favour in the Alexandria of Callimachusand Aristarchus,36 so neo-Platonist poetry was a very different thingfrom the spare detachment of Callimachean verse. Porphyry tells aself-congratulatory story about one of his own poems:

At the feast in Plato’s honour I read a poem entitled ‘The sacred marriage’.Much of it was expressed mystically and in the veiled language of divineinspiration, and someone said that Porphyry was crazy; Plotinus, however,said in the hearing of everyone, ‘You have shown us the poet, the philos-opher, and the expert in mysteries’. (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 15)

No one would, I think, have said this about Callimachus. Just as he him-self was a cqallatij|r, so, in the anti-Callimachean tradition, his poetry– like, for example, that of Erinna – was an object of study for pedantsand cqallatijo¸, whereas Homer was a worthy study for true jqitijo¸.37

Crates of Mallos’ famous distinction (fr. 94 Broggiato) between the jqi-tij|r, who must be the master of all of kocijµ 1pist¶lg, and the cqal-latij|r, who needs to know only about glosses, prosody, and such mat-ters, is here broadened out (in a quite different philosophical environ-ment) to the kind of poetry which falls into their respective spheres.In many ways Callimachus was (perhaps paradoxically) an Aristotelian;Peter Struck has recently described the revolutionary Aristotelian idea of‘the poet as master craftsman, who produces a finely wrought piece ofart marked by clarity and elegance’, and that does not seem a bad de-scription of Callimachean ideals.38 A similar picture emerges from a con-sideration of poetic dianoia. Peter Green has remarked on how surpris-ingly little trace both allegorisation and rationalisation have left in theArgonautica of Apollonius,39 and even if he has overstated the case, thebasic point remains, particularly when we compare Apollonius’ epicwith Virgil’s. As for Callimachus, he did not write an epic as such,

36 Cf., e. g., Feeney 1991: 35–40. Lamberton 1986 offers a convenient introduc-tion to the later traditions of allegorical interpretation.

37 Cf., e. g., Antiphanes, AP 11.322 (= Callimachus T 71 Pf, Erinna T 11 Neri).For the explicit linking of Callimachus and Aristarchus cf. Philip, AP 11.347 (=LXI G-P); the final two verses are Callimachus T 70 Pf.

38 Struck 2004: 68.39 Green 1997: 25–40; cf. also Feeney 1991: 81–2 on Eros in Book 3.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception548

and what he did write neither suggested any real interest in allegoricalinterpretation nor offered the ‘higher interpreters’ any footholds fromwhich to operate within his text, should they have wished to do so.40

The poetry of inspiration and the poetry of pure technÞ differ inmuch more than just style. Perhaps the best known discussion of thissubject are the famous chapters (33–36) of On the Sublime about the dif-ference between ‘faultless’ and ‘sublime’ writing.41 ‘Longinus’ elsewhereacknowledges the place for allegorical reading of some at least of Hom-er’s sublime poetry,42 although he himself does not pursue this (and hisremarks on Homer’s gods in 9.7 are in fact of a decidedly non-allego-rical kind) and he lays no stress upon this style of interpretation in com-paring poets of the two kinds. Rather, he appeals to his own viewsabout ‘grandeur’ and the relative ‘size’ of different literary virtues.More than one modern reader of these chapters of On the Sublime hasbeen deafened by the silent absence of the name of Callimachus, for ev-erything from the opening reference to the jahaqºr tir succqave»r ja·

!m´cjkgtor (33.1) to Archilochus’ chaotic flood-tide (33.5) and on toour real admiration for big rivers (35.4) seems to point to the languageand imagery of the poet of Cyrene; Donald Russell has indeed calledthis section of On the Sublime ‘a manifesto directed against what wemay call the Callimachean ideal’.43 Callimachus’ apparent absencefrom On the Sublime deserves more attention than it often receives.

40 It is instructive to compare Callimachus’ dismissal of the Homeric story (Iliad15. 192–4) of the cosmic lot-drawing (Hymn to Zeus 60–7) with the later al-legorical interpretations of the scholia and ‘Heraclitus’, Hom. Probl. 41; Callima-chus’ alleged disdain for the Homeric story sounds not unlike ‘Heraclitus’ 41.5,but this attitude then takes them in very different directions.

41 I here accept the now most common dating of On the Sublime to the first cen-tury AD, although much of the argument would not be affected if the treatisewas significantly later; for the claims of Cassius Longinus (above p. 539) cf.most recently Heath 1999.

42 9.6–7, concerning the theomachia of Iliad 20, which seems to have been one ofthe earliest passages to be interpreted allegorically, cf. Plato, Republic 2.378d-e(probably echoed by ‘Longinus’ here), Theagenes fr. 2 DK, cited in the B scho-lia to Iliad 20.67. It is noteworthy that both Porphyry (1.240–1 Schrader fromthe same scholium) and ‘Longinus’ observe that the literal sense of the passageoffends against t¹ pq´pom, for this is not a common criterion of judgement inwhat survives of On the Sublime. There is, incidentally, no trace of such allego-rical readings in the fragments of Cassius Longinus; for him !kkgcoq¸a is matterof verbal style, cf. fr. 48.258–79 Patillon-Brisson.

43 Russell 1989: 308, cf. Fuhrmann 1992: 199–202. I have discussed some aspectsof this passage in Hunter 2003: 219–25.

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 549

The structure of ‘Longinus’’ discussion seems to be by genre, a termwhich is here helpfully vague but in which metre obviously plays an im-portant rôle: to Homer are opposed Apollonius of Rhodes and Theo-critus, both of whom wrote epos, though of very different kinds; to Pin-dar ‘in the field of l]kg’ is opposed Bacchylides, and ‘in tragedy’ Sopho-cles is opposed to Ion of Chios. The odd one out seems at first to be theopposition between Archilochus and the Erigone of Eratosthenes. Thestandard explanation, adopted for example by Wilamowitz and Rus-sell,44 is that iambus, of which Archilochus was the undisputed master,and elegy belong together as differentiated from both hexameters andlyric. There is no doubt that elegy and iambus are often treated togeth-er,45 but there may be more to be said here, before we accept this ap-parent anomaly in ‘Longinus’’ system.

It is of course no surprise to find Archilochus in a roll-call of sub-lime poets: throughout antiquity he travels with Homer as one of thetwo premier expressions of Greek poetic genius.46 It is, however, iam-bus, and particularly its aggressive power, with which Archilochus isnormally associated: for Theocritus, for example, Archilochus is simplyt¹m p²kai poigt²m j t¹m t_m Q²lbym (Epigram 21 Gow). Which iambicpoet could have been held up against him to exemplify flawless skillrather than flawed genius? In one sense, of course, this is idle specula-tion as ‘Longinus’ could doubtless have found an iambic poet and/or apoem, had he wanted to do so. That said, there were not many optionsavailable. One name of course occurs to us immediately – that of Cal-limachus – but here there were problems. Callimachus’ iamboi are avow-edly imitative of Hipponax, one of the other canonical iambists, and anopposition between Callimachus and Archilochus in the field of iambusmight well have looked at least rhetorically unconvincing. More funda-

44 Cf. Wilamowitz 1904: 238, Russell 1964: 159. Doreen Innes has suggested tome that we should see the contrast between Archilochus and Eratosthenes notas a contrast within a separate poetic category, but ‘as a coda to the epic genre’which ‘repeats with uariatio the overarching antithesis of the whole section’, i. e.between flawed genius and flawless skill. This is an attractive suggestion, interalia, because it leaves ‘Longinus’ operating with just the three ‘big’ genres –epic, tragedy and choral lyric – and removes genres which are naturally ‘un-sublime’, such as iambic and elegy. On the other hand, the rhetoric of the pas-sage and the transitional t¸ d´; seem to force us to ask what the link betweenArchilochus and Eratosthenes is; cf. further below p. 554–5.

45 Cf., e. g., Pfeiffer 1968: 182.46 Cf., e. g., Plato, Ion 531a, Dio Chrys. 33.11; a particularly striking statement is

Velleius Paterculus 1.5.

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mentally, however, we may well believe that iambic poetry did not fiteasily into a work concerned with vxor ; however we understand thepef¹r molºr of the epilogue to Callimachus’ Aitia (fr. 112.9), iamboiwere unelevated, and though this certainly did not rule out flashes of‘the sublime’, it made iambic less promising territory than, say, epic.Quintilian reports the view that, if Archilochus falls short of the highestplace in the poetic hierarchy, it is a fault of his subject-matter, not of hisingenium (10.1.60).47 So too, Galen contrasts the iambics of Archilochusand Hipponax with Homer 1m 2nal´tqyi tºmyi … rlm¶somtor and Pin-dar %isomtor rxgk_r (X.12 Kühn = Archilochus T 68 Tarditi) ; thechoice of verbs is there very telling. ‘Longinus’ refers to Archilochusin only two other places. In 10.7 there is a reference to an obviouslysublime passage describing a shipwreck; in his most recent note onthe passage, Russell refers this to the storm description in trochaic tet-rameters of frr. 105–6 West,48 but the actual identification of the pas-sage in question (and its metre) must remain uncertain. In 13.3 Archi-lochus is listed among the jlgqij~tatoi, and most scholars would, Ithink, accept that ‘Longinus’ could there be referring, and referring ac-curately, to all or any part of Archilochus’ output.

The structure of Longinus’ analysis of poets in chapter 33 is firsthexameter poetry, then Archilochus/Eratosthenes,49 then lyric, andthen finally tragedy; alongside ‘Longinus’ we may place the organisationof what survives of the epitome of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ On imi-tation50 – hexameters, lyric, tragedy, comedy – and of Quintilian’s ac-count of the Greek reading recommended for would-be orators in In-stitutio oratoria 10.1 – hexameters, elegy, iambus, lyric, Old Comedy,tragedy, New Comedy. The similarities between all three structuresare obvious, and it has long been accepted that, if Quintilian did not ac-tually use Dionysius himself, those two texts at least draw from a com-mon Hellenistic source.51 As ‘Longinus’ is all but certainly taking aim at

47 Juxtaposition to the ‘grand’ virtues of Pindar (10.1.61) reinforces the point.48 In the 1995 revision of the Loeb edition; some support is lent to this identifi-

cation by the citation of that poem by ‘Heraclitus’, Homeric Problems 5.3.49 Cf., however, above n. 44.50 Cf. Aujac 1992, Battisti 1997, Dion. Hal. II 202–14 U.-R.51 Cf., e. g., Steinmetz 1964. We may note also Horace, AP 73–85, where the

order of metrically defined ‘genres’ is epic (Homer), elegy, iambus (Archilo-chus), drama (as the heir of iambus), lyric; with Horace’s exiguos elegos (v.77) compare perhaps ‘Longinus’’ description of Eratosthenes’ Erigone as!l¾lgtom poi¶latiom (33.5).

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 551

Caecilius of Calacte, a contemporary of Dionysius and certainly onesharing many of his literary sympathies,52 it may be that he also reflectsa discussion in Caecilius which drew on similar sources to those of Di-onysius and Quintilian. It was not ‘Longinus’’ purpose to produce acomprehensive and consistent literary survey, but some conclusionsmay be drawn from the similarities between these three texts.

The absence of comedy from these chapters of ‘Longinus’ is mosteasily explained by the fact that comedy, like iambus, was not naturallypromising territory for the ‘sublime’, though even Aristophanes had hismoments (De subl. 40.2). Secondly, it is clear that, in both Greek andLatin literature (cf. 10.1.93–6), Quintilian treats elegy and iambusquite separately;53 he may have had a particular reason for wishing toinclude elegy – the desire to be able subsequently to name theRoman practitioners of a genre in which Graecos prouocamus (10.1.93)– but it is his choice of elegists which particularly attracts attention:

elegiam … cuius princeps habetur Callimachus, secundas confessione plu-rimorum Philetas occupauit.

In elegy Callimachus is considered the leading poet, with Philitas, in theopinion of most judges, taking second prize. (Quintilian 10.1.58)

Whether or not there was a standard Hellenistic list (or canon?) of el-egists, as there certainly was later (cf. Callimachus T 87 Pfeiffer), maybe doubted,54 but Quintilian’s failure to mention, say, Callinus or Mim-nermus remains striking. Callimachus’ fame in the Roman world cannotbe doubted (cf., e. g., Horace, Epist. 2.2. 100, Ovid, Amores 1.15.13),but – whatever the identity of the nameless judges to whom Quintilianappeals – elegy is the only poetic genre in his survey in which a Hellen-istic poet takes primacy, for Menander and New Comedy represent aspecial case; elsewhere, Quintilian has, of course, no qualms about nam-ing Hellenistic poets and does so freely in this chapter: beyond Philitasand Callimachus we have Apollonius, Aratus, Theocritus, Nicander,Euphorion.55 As for Dionysius, he moves directly from epos to lyric.

52 Cf. Russell 1964: 58–9.53 For this separation cf. also Dio Chrys. 18.8.54 Cf. Kroehnert 1897: 30, contra Steinmetz 1964. The choice of the relatively ob-

scure Callinus alongside Mimnermus in later lists could be explained in morethan one way. Flashar 1979: 85 seems to accept that Philitas and Callimachusappeared in Hellenistic lists as the latest poets to be included.

55 Steinmetz 1964 argues that, in taking a view of Greek literary history notmarked by unbridgeable epochal distinctions, Quintilian adopts a typically

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This could perhaps be the result of the activity of Dionysius’ epitoma-tor, or it could simply be that Dionysius saw no value for would-be or-ators in elegy, as Quintilian too treats Greek elegy as little more thanrelaxation after the serious business. Nevertheless, when we see whichelegists Quintilian names, whether or not he has taken the namesfrom an earlier (Greek) list, Dionysius’ reticence about elegy (at least)seems susceptible of another explanation.56 In what survives of his crit-ical works Dionysius never directly names a Hellenistic poet qua poet(Menander again being a special case);57 Callimachus is mentionedfour times, but only in his capacity as grammarian.58 If we only had Di-onysius’ testimony, we would have no idea that Callimachus ever wrotepoetry. In this damnatio memoriae, we see the full force of Dionysius’classicising agenda, and we see it perhaps also in the omission of elegyfrom the De imitatione.

What then of ‘Longinus’? He too could simply have passed overelegy in silence, but it may be that the temptation to stick the knifeinto ‘the Callimacheans’ proved too strong. There were, however, dan-gers. Callimachus’ reputation as an elegist, perhaps indeed the elegist (cf.Quintilian 10.1.58 above), stood second to none (including Archilo-chus); if Longinus had posed the question ‘Would you rather be Archi-lochus or Callimachus in the field of elegy?’, he could not be sure of theanswer. Callimachus was, not to put too fine a point on it, just too big afish, in both the Greek and Roman critical traditions,59 for ‘Longinus’to take on: Callimachus’ silent absence from the firing-line in On theSublime 33 is in fact a most eloquent tribute to his reputation. NicholasRichardson suggested that ‘Longinus’’ silence was owed to the fact that‘with his great range of invention, variety of style, and constant ability totake us by surprise, [Callimachus] stands apart from and above the other

Roman perspective. Stephen Harrison has suggested to me that Quintilian hassimply borrowed Callimachus and Philitas from Propertius 3.1.1; the influenceof Roman poetry on Quintilian’s lists can hardly be doubted, but althoughQuintilian explicitly cites Horace, Odes 4.2 in describing Pindar’s virtues at10.1.61, it is clear from Dionysius’ closely parallel account of Pindar that,there at least, Quintilian was using Greek sources as well as Horace.

56 Cf. Tavernini 1953: 24–5.57 At De comp. verb. 4 he mentions Sotadean verses.58 Isaeus 6, Demosthenes 13, Dinarchus 1, 9.59 For the imperial period at Rome cf. the remarks of Jaillard 2000 on a letter of

Hadrian in which Callimachus seems to be numbered among ‘the most note-worthy (1kkocil¾tatoi) poets of Greece and Rome’ (SEG 51 [2001], no. 641).

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 553

poets of his period’;60 that judgement would, I think, be shared by manymoderns, but we should rather seek an explanation within ‘Longinus’’own agenda and ideology. Callimachus was in fact almost that most par-adoxical of creatures, a third-century ‘classic’, a poet supreme in his owngenre, even when set in competition with the great figures of the past,and ‘Longinus’ simply could not allow ‘Hellenistic classics’. Eratos-thenes, on the other hand, famously t¹ b/ta, was never in any dangerof carrying off t¹ pqyte ?om (De subl. 33.1). Callimachus is the absentpresence made manifest through lesser mortals. Both Apollonius andEratosthenes were, in the ancient biographical tradition, pupils of Cal-limachus,61 and – for what it is worth – modern scholarship at least seesthe poetry of both as imitative of Callimachus: why shoot the organ-grinder when you can kill off his monkeys? As for the other poetsnamed, Theocritus is said in the biographical tradition, obviously onthe basis of Idyll 7, to have been a pupil of Philitas and Asclepiadesand is associated with Aratus, Callimachus, Nicander and Ptolemy Phil-adelphus,62 and Ion of Chios is a model famously appealed to by Calli-machus himself in Iambus 13.63 Nothing, we might think, would havesuited ‘Longinus’’ apparent purpose better than an opposition betweenHomer and, say, the Hecale, Callimachus’ toqeut¹m 5por (Crinagoras,Anth. Pal. 9.545.1, above p. 544), but Callimachus makes no explicitappearance in what survives of On the Sublime. Such studied neglect,both like and unlike Severianus’ public displays of distaste, speaks vol-umes.

Having selected the elegiac Erigone as his target, where then was‘Longinus’ to go? A poem about the invention of wine and a drunkenmurder might well, of course, have made a critic think of Archilochus,himself a famous drinker and devotee of the wine-god; if Erigone hungherself in Eratosthenes’ poem, Archilochus’ poetry had notoriouslymade the daughters of Lycambes do the same thing out of shame. Al-though the number of testimonia for Archilochus’ place in the pantheonof elegy is indeed far outweighed by those for iambus, there are enough

60 Richardson 1985: 398.61 Cf. Callimachus T 11, 12, 13, 15 Pf.62 Cf. Vita Theocriti A pp. 1–2 Wendel, ‘Anecdoton Estense’ p. 9 Wendel.63 We have more to learn about the choice of Ion to set against Sophocles; it may

be that Ion’s versatilty is relevant (cf. Eratosthenes’ many-sidedness), and I won-der also whether the fact that Ion related an anecdote about Sophocles whichAthenaeus at least thought worth preserving (13.630e-4 f = Ion fr. 104 Leurini)is relevant here.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception554

ancient indications and enough papyri, now of course happily joined bythe ‘Telephus’ of POxy 4708, to show that this side of his poetic activitywas certainly not entirely forgotten within scholarly classifications: hewas indeed claimed by some to be the inventor of elegy.64 Here isnot the place to discuss whether the ‘Telephus elegy’, which by anystandards is certainly jlgqij¾tatom, can help us with ‘Longinus’’ de-scription of how Archilochus’ flood carries with it pokk± ja· !moi-jomºlgta, but for the moment we should be content with recognisingthat the ‘Telephus elegy’ has perhaps slightly altered the balance of in-terpretation for this passage of On the Sublime.65

One of the poems which appears in Supplementum Hellenisticum in aform unrecognisable from that which it had twenty years before is theso-called ‘Seal’ of Posidippus (SH 705 = Posidippus 118 A-B). As sug-gested by Hugh Lloyd-Jones in 1963, Posidippus here wishes for him-self posthumous honours such as those which Archilochus enjoyed,but he also forbids weeping and lamentation at his death, thoughone may shed tears for the ‘Parian nightingale’.66 Why did Posidippuschoose Archilochus as the poet with whom to contrast himself ? Thestandard answer is (rightly) Archilochus’ fame and cult and perhapsthe new life given to that cult in the middle of the third century, towhich the ‘Mnesiepes inscription’ bears eloquent witness.67 Does,however, Posidippus also think of Archilochus specifically as a poetof elegiacs, and hence as the great founding figure of his own

64 Cf. Archilochus T 118, 146 Tarditi, Mimnermus T 21A, 21B Allen (all con-cerning rival claims to the ‘invention’ of elegy), Aristotle fr. 937 Gigon. Theabsence of Archilochus from Hermesianax fr. 7 Powell is open to more thanone interpretation. For the characteristics of the Alexandrian edition of Archi-lochus’ elegiacs cf. Obbink 2006: 1–2.

65 That ‘Longinus’ was indeed here thinking of Archilochus’ narrative elegies wassuggested, before the publication of the ‘Telephos’, by Bowie 2001: 51–2.Bowie pointed both to the general structure of ‘Longinus’’ synkrisis and tothe criticism of Archilochus’ abundantia in a passage (from a poem of unknownmetrical genre) about the rape of Deianeira at Dio Chrysostom 60.1 ( = Archi-lochus fr. 286 West), and suggested that both Dio and ‘Longinus’ had the samepoem in mind, perhaps the only ‘mid-length elegiac mythical narrative’ of Ar-chilochus to have survived. He further noted that, in describing the Erigone,‘Longinus’ uses a word, !l¾lgtom, which Archilochus had used (fr. 5 West)of the shield he had abandoned.

66 Lloyd-Jones 1963: 87–8, 90–2. There is now, of course, a huge bibliography;a good starting-point is still Dickie 1998: 65–76.

67 Cf. Clay 2004; for Posidippus cf. Clay 2004: 30–1.

29. The Reputation of Callimachus 555

‘genre’? Does ‘nightingale’ not just mean ‘poet’ here, but – particularlyin a context of mourning – evoke the nightingale as itself a mourner(cf. Aristophanes, Birds 217), itself an ‘elegiac’ bird?68 However thatmay be, Posidippus chose Archilochus, whereas Callimachus, in the‘Reply to the Telchines’, apparently chose Mimnermus, one of Archi-lochus’ rivals for the title of ‘inventor’ of elegy, as his authorising ar-chaic model.69 The ‘Reply’ and the ‘Seal’ are often thought to be re-lated intertextually – usually not to the credit of Posidippus, who is, ofcourse, among the list of ‘Telchines’ offered by the Florentine diegeseis– but we simply do not know enough about literary debate in the thirdcentury to know just how charged these respective choices of author-ity were. What with hindsight we can say is that the appeal to Archi-lochus and Mimnermus as models may be seen to evoke a dichotomywhich was to inform a great deal of later poetry and criticism.70

Whereas, however, Callimachus’ critical fame came to surpass thatof the model he claimed, Posidippus, though his wish for a statueseems to have been fulfilled, has never remotely threatened theluq¸om jk´or of the Parian nightingale.

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Hellenic Studies 106: 13–35

68 Cf., e. g., Callimachus, Anth Pal. 7.80.5 ( – Epigram 2 Pf.), Catullus 65.10–14.How early the elegiac couplet was specifically connected with mourning re-mains a difficult question: for some relevant considerations cf. Bowie 1986:22–7, Hunter 1992: 18–22, 2006: 29–30.

69 I have wondered whether the ‘Telephus elegy’ might shed light on Callima-chus’ rejection of long poetry concerning Fqyar (fr. 1.5).

70 I do not, of course, mean to imply that Posidippus’ choice of Archilochus in-volved a conscious rejection of Mimnermus (cf. AP 12.168 = Posidippus 140A-B), any more than we should assume that Callimachus turned his back onArchilochus (too much weight is often placed upon fr. 544 Pfeiffer). Whenin Odes 2.20 Horace both turns into a swan (cf. Call. fr.1.39–40) which fliesbeyond inuidia and also forbids mourning at his death, he may be combiningthe ‘Seal’ of Posidippus’ with Callimachus’ ‘Reply’; for possible links betweenthe ‘Seal’ and Odes 3.30 cf. Di Benedetto 2003: 14–15.

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— 2001. ‘Ancestors of Historiography in Early Greek Elegiac and Iambic Po-etry?’ in N. Luraghi (ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Ox-ford) 45–66

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Cairns, F. 1995. ‘Callimachus the “woodentop” (AP XI 275)’ in L. Belloni, G.Milanese, A. Porro (eds.), Studia classica Iohanni Tarditi oblata I (Milan) 607–15

Cameron, A. 1995. Callimachus and his Critics, PrincetonChrist, W. 1889. Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur, Nördlingen [2nd ed., Mu-

nich 1890]Clay, D. 2004. Archilochos Heros. The Cult of Poets in the Greek Polis, Washington

D.C.Cobet, C. G. 1873. ‘Severianus et Callimachus’ Mnemosyne 1: 204Di Benedetto, V. 2003. ‘Omero, Saffo e Orazio e il nuovo Posidippo’ Prome-

theus 29: 1–16Dickie, M. 1998. ‘Poets as initiates in the mysteries : Euphorion, Philicus and

Posidippus’ Antike & Abendland 44: 49–77Feeney, D. C. 1991. The Gods in Epic, 1991Festugière, A. J. 1970. Proclus, Commentaire sur la R�publique, ParisFlashar, H. 1979. ‘Die klassizistische Theorie der Mimesis’ in Le classicisme �

Rome aux Iers si�cles avant et apr�s J.-C. (Entretiens sur l’antiquit� classiqueXXV, Vandoeuvres-Geneva) 79–97

Fuhrmann, M. 1992. Die Dichtungstheorie der Antike, DarmstadtGreen P. 1997. The Argonautika by Apollonius Rhodios, BerkeleyHeath, M. 1999. ‘Longinus, On Sublimity’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological

Society 45: 43–74Hollis, A. 2000. ‘The reputation and influence of Choerilus of Samos’ Zeits-

chrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 130: 13–15Hunter, R. 1992. ‘Writing the god: form and meaning in Callimachus, Hymn

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— 2006. The Shadow of Callimachus, CambridgeHutchinson, G.O. 1993. Latin Literature from Seneca to Juvenal, OxfordImmisch, O. 1902. ‘Beiträge zur Chrestomathie des Proclus und zur Poetik des

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yrologie und Epigraphik 132:143–4Kennedy, G. A. 1983. Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, 1983Kroehnert, O. 1897. Canonesne poetarum scriptorum artificum per antiquitatem fuer-

untLamberton, R. 1986. Homer the Theologian, BerkeleyLehnus, L. 1990. ‘Notizee Callimachee II’ Paideia 45: 277–92

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— 2002. ‘Callimaco prima e dopo Pfeiffer’ in Callimaque (Entretiens sur l’anti-quité classique XLVIII, Vandoeuvres-Geneva) 1–33

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liquiae, LeipzigSchlunk, R. R. 1993. Porphyry, The Homeric Questions, New YorkSodano, A. R. 1970. Porphyrii quaestionum Homericarum Liber I, NaplesSteinmetz, P. 1964. ‘Gattungen und Epochen der griechischen Literatur in der

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Addendum

I return to some of the themes of this paper in Critical Moments in Classical Lit-erature (Cambridge, forthcoming).

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception558

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention ofmorality*

My concern in this paper is POxy XIX 2208 [MP3 198, LDAB 505]fr. 1 = Callim. fr. 4 Mass. ( = 2 Pf.):1

poil´mi l/ka m´lomti paq’ Uwmiom an´or VppougGsiºdyi Lous´ym 2sl¹r dt’ Amt¸asem

l]´m oR W²eor cemes[] 1p· pt´qmgr vda[

te¼wym ¢r 2t´qyi tir 2_i jaj¹m Fpati te¼wei 5]_ f¾eim %niom a[

] em p²mter se7 t¹ ca[] de pq¶sseim eqla[

When the bevy of Muses met the shepherd Hesiod as he grazed his flocksbeside the print of the swift horse … the creation (?) of Chaos … at thewater (?) of the hoof … a man who fashions harm for another fashionsit for his own liver … to live worthily (?) … everyone you … easy (?)to achieve

The indirect tradition allows us to know much more about this passagethan we might reasonably have hoped to do, and ever since the publi-cation of the papyrus it has been accepted that the passage comes fromthe Dream sequence which followed the “Reply to the Telchines” andpreceded the first aition (the Parian Graces). In this passage Callimachusapparently compared his dream experience to that of Hesiod’s meetingwith the Muses on Mt Helicon. Lobel and Pfeiffer understood vv. 3–5to be a statement that at that meeting the Muses taught Hesiod not justthe Theogony (v. 3), but also the Works and Days (v. 5),2 and this inter-

* G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds.), Esiodo: cent’anni di papiri (Florence 2008)153–64I am indebted to Lucia Prauscello, Helen Van Noorden, and members of the

audience in Florence for instructive criticism; Johannes Haubold kindly sup-plied information about Boys-Stones-Haubold forthcoming.

1 Papyrological marks are excluded unless they affect the argument.2 This reconstruction assumes that the locations referred to in vv. 1 and 4 are the

same (Hippocrene). There have been many efforts to find a reference to the

pretation has, I think rightly, held the field ever since and guided sug-gested reconstructions.3 The choice of the (?) creation of Chaos to standfor the Theogony is readily understandable. In vv. 104–13 of that poemHesiod invokes the Muses who have been the subject of the extendedproem and asks them to sing of the earlier gods, the creation of the cos-mos, and the Olympian gods and the distribution of honours and func-tions among them; vv. 114–16 conclude the invocation and move onto the first subject:

taOt² loi 5spete LoOsai ûOk¼lpia d¾lat’ 5wousai1n !qw/r, ja· eUpah’, fti pq_tom c´met’ aqt_m.Etoi l³m pq¾tista W²or c´met’7

Tell me these things, Muses who dwell on Olympus, from the beginning,and say which of them was created first. First of all was created Chaos …(Hesiod, Theogony 114–16)

Both !qw^ and pq~tista strongly mark – or could by later readers beseen as so doing – these verses as the beginning of ‘the poem proper’;Chaos is the first thing about which the Muses told Hesiod.4

On the standard interpretation of Callimachus fr. 4 Mass., Callima-chus has rewritten Works and Days 265, or perhaps 265–6 (which arecited both separately and together in antiquity),5 and made this rewritinga kind of ‘shorthand’ reference to the whole Hesiodic poem:

oX t’ aqt_i jaj± te¼wei !mµq %kkyi jaj± te¼wym,B d³ jajµ boukµ t_i bouke¼samti jaj¸stg.

The man who devises evil against another devises evil against himself ; evilplans turn out worst for the plotter himself. (Hesiod, Works and Days265–6)

Why has Callimachus chosen these verses to represent the whole Hes-iodic poem? The naively proverbial structure certainly captures an im-portant signature of Hesiodic expression, particularly when set withinthe refined structures of Callimachean verse and the Callimachean po-

Catalogue of Women in vv. 6–7 (cf. Asclepiades or Archias, AP IX 64 = HE1018–25).

3 Cf. Di Benedetto 1995.4 Cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004, p. 53, citing further evidence for Chaos as the ‘be-

ginning’ of the Theogony.5 Callimachus’ replacement of two Hesiodic hexameters by one may be seen as

part of the epideixis of a style which is truly keptak]om.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception560

etic voice, but the most obvious answer lies within the patterning of theopening of the Aitia. By using these Hesiodic verses, Callimachus canpick up in the Dream sequence the Reply’s theme of malignant phthonosand the damage it does to the liver of the malignant (fr. 1.8),6 an ideawhich is thrown into relief by Callimachus’ introduction of Hpaq

into his rewriting; the Telchines themselves become prime examplesof the wisdom of Op. 265–6. Lurking in the background will be theopposition between phthonos and Apolline wisdom which is most famil-iar to us from the close of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, but which is alsoof course a prominent structure within the Reply. Hesiod’s constructedposition as Callimachus’ forerunner and authorising model is thus rein-forced; both stand under the protection of Apollo and the Muses (cf.Th. 94–5), and both suffer from the machinations of those who reallyonly harm themselves. The Hesiodic couplet stresses – for our benefitand the benefit of the Telchines – that “evil plotting” has serious con-sequences for the plotters themselves, not just for their descendants ortheir societies (vv. 238–47). If we push the verses hard, we might saythat the spiteful muttering (1pitq}feim) of the Telchines amounts to“plotting” with the prospect of future “(evil) action” rather than actionin the present, and so this Hesiodic warning is precisely what they need.Callimachus, on the other hand, speaks directly and straightforwardly tothe Telchines in a demonstration of Qh}meim l}hour, whereas the Tel-chines’ indirect mutterings are as sjoki² as one could hope to find(cf. Op. 263–4).7

This Hesiodic couplet is cited in antiquity rather less often than onemight have expected. A distorted version of these verses was used beforeCallimachus by Demetrius of Chios to mock the long anabolai of themusician Melanippides (Aristotle, Rhet. III.1409b26–9), but later quo-

6 Cf., e. g., Cameron 1995, pp. 129–30; for further aspects of this presentationof the Telchines cf. Cozzoli 2008. The idea that vhomeqo_ damage themselves isa very common one (cf., e. g., Cingano on Pindar, Pythian II.91: Gentili 1995,p. 404).

7 I owe part of this formulation to Lucia Prauscello; for the contrast between themodes of speaking in fr. 1 cf. Hunter 1993: 190–1. I have pondered whether a‘Hesiodic’ reading of the Telchines’ complaints lends colour to Neil Hopkin-son’s suggestion to read vOkom ![kitqºm at the end of fr. 1.7, cf. Op. 241 (onthe consequences for a whole city of one bad man) fstir !kitqa¸mei ja·

!t²shaka lgwam²atai; for ![kitqºm cf. also Lehnus 1991. I forebear to observethat Op. 240 begins pokk\ji, as does Callimachus fr.1.1 with Pontani’s supple-ment.

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality 561

tations of Hesiod’s gnomic thought, sometimes indeed confused withCallimachus’ adaptation,8 do not really shed light upon Callimachus’choice, though they attest to the general familiarity of the thought.9

Perhaps the most interesting citation in the current context is the ap-pearance of versions of the Hesiodic verses as the moral of the openingepisode of the Life of Aesop, in prose in the (older) G text and in iambictrimeters in the W text; here the gnomic wisdom of Op. 265–6 bothintroduces the Life and marks it very specifically as a ‘Hesiodic’, andnon-Homeric, text.10 Nevertheless, although the Hesiodic idea there“evokes a whole poem and a whole ethos”,11 chronology may makeus unwilling to use the Life of Aesop as good evidence for a general rec-ognition in antiquity that these verses held a special place in the Worksand Days and could be used without further contextual support as a wayof referring to the poem (as its ‘opening’, if you like). More fruitfulmight be a reconsideration of the Callimachean passage itself.

On the standard interpretation of fr. 4 Mass., Callimachus here sug-gests, without actually insisting upon, the chronological priority of theTheogony over theWorks and Days ; this order, suggested of course by theworks themselves, has also been fruitfully explored by modern scholar-ship in terms of Hesiod’s narrative presentation of his poetic self.12

There is, however, more at stake in this order, when it becomes estab-lished as traditional reading practice, than mere chronology. To put itvery simply, the cosmos and the divine order must first be establishedthrough the performance of the Theogony, and then human moralityand the conduct of human life through the Works and Days ; there isthus a meaningful structure to this sequential narrative, not just an acci-dent of the flow of poetic inspiration. Moreover, this structure may bethought to be a ‘natural’ interpretation of the relevant passage of theWorks and Days itself. Hesiod appeals to the basik/r to practise justice,because (c\q in vv. 249, 252) Zeus’ “thrice countless” guardians andDike herself are watching (Op. 248–64). The verses with which weare concerned then follow, to some extent repeating the thought ofthe previous section, but also making more explicit that evil plotting,

8 Cf. West’s index fontium ad loc., Massimilla 1996, p. 71.9 A particularly interesting case is Josephus, Ant. Iud. XI.268 where the Hesiodic

wisdom is adapted to show the wisdom of the Jewish god.10 Cf. Hunter 2007, pp. 45–6.11 Hunter 2007, p. 46 n.23.12 Cf. Most 1993 and id. 2006, pp. XXI-II.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception562

not just evil actions, has nasty consequences for the plotter; Zeus’ eyewhich “sees and understands everything” (v. 267) is not explicitly saidto be the reason why “evil plans turn out worst for the plotter”, butthe juxtaposition, together with the sequence of thought which has im-mediately preceded, makes that inference overwhelmingly easy. Godsare a necessary precondition, as well as a reason, for human beings tobehave properly to one another. We may be strangely reminded ofthe famous verses of (probably) Critias in which Sisyphus argues thatthe idea of gods, “who hear everything which is said among mortalsand see everything which is done”, was invented by some very cleverman as a way of stopping mortals doing wrong secretly (fr. 19 K-S);the idea of that passage, despite its very contemporary resonances, isin fact a reworking of Hesiodic ideas, with ‘real’ gods replaced by fic-tional ones.13

Callimachus’ citation of the Works and Days fashions it as a poemabout morality and shared communal values. It is important not to over-state this; poems are cited in many different ways in antiquity, somemore meaningful than others. Moreover, it is broadly true that, withthe exception of particular forms of allegorical interpretation, ancientreaders were less concerned than some moderns with finding a “holisticreading” of a poem and more concerned with the memorable effects ofindividual parts ; the report that Anaxagoras was the first to show thatthe poetry of Homer was ‘concerned with (peq_) virtue and justice’ (Di-ogenes Laertius II.11) is very striking for its unusualness, though, in thestate of our ignorance of what Anaxagoras actually said, we cannot pushthis very hard.14 For us, on the other hand, it seems natural to think ofthe Works and Days as a text concerned with, a text ‘about’ some peoplemight say, morality, virtue and Justice (however !qet^ is to be under-stood in the Works and Days), but such an attitude is perhaps rarer inantiquity than we might have expected. The Aristophanic Aeschylussees its principal lessons as agricultural (Ranae 1033–4) and, whateverthe particular demands of the comic context in that passage, this wasto remain the dominant thrust of the poem’s reception. There are, ofcourse, high-profile exceptions to this sweeping generalisation. The

13 The idea was probably a commonplace of sophistic thought; cf. Antiphon onhow one should follow nomoi “in the presence of witnesses”, but phusis“when there are no witnesses present” (fr. 44a 1 DK-Pendrick).

14 The case of the Works and Days would differ from Homer in that ‘virtue andjustice’ are explicitly elements of the former.

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality 563

presence of Hesiod, both in thought and language, in some of Solon’smoralising and political elegiacs has been described as “pervasive”,15 andSolon’s concentration on Op. 213–326 has been argued both to fashion“a certain image of Hesiod” and to suggest “that Hesiod is already bythe early sixth century a definitive authority on d¸jg”;16 be that as itmay, by the time of Aratus’ Phainomena, at least, the special place of Jus-tice in the Works and Days had been firmly established, and inscriptionsattest to this continuing association (cf. e. g., Testimonia 105, 107 Most).At a less complex level, Hesiod must always have been an indefatigablesource of gnomic wisdom.17

Philosophical prose naturally engaged with the Hesiodic inheri-tance.18 The myth which Protagoras tells in Plato’s Protagoras aboutthe coming to mankind of aQd~r and d_jg and hence the habit of social-ised communality clearly reworks elements of Hesiod’s story of Prom-etheus and the poet’s exhortations to Justice, particularly his insistence(Op. 274–80) that it is this which defines the difference between man-kind and the animal kingdom. Hesiod himself is not mentioned byname, but it would in fact be very surprising if these Hesiodic verses,which play a significant rôle in later arguments about natural law, theeating of meat etc.,19 had not been brought into the fifth-century dis-cussion of natural law and the growth of civilisation. As for the famousverses on the “steep path to Arete” (Op. 286–92), which many haveseen as the direct or indirect ancestor of Apollo’s advice to the poetin the “Reply to the Telchines” and which are reworked as early as Si-monides PMG 579, these are cited three times by Plato as a familiarHesiodic cm¾lg,20 and it is particularly noteworthy that Xenophon’sSocrates uses them to introduce his telling of Prodicus’ fable of ‘Heracles

15 Irwin 2005, p. 155.16 Irwin 2005, p. 163 with n. 22.17 For Pindar’s use of Homer cf. , e. g., Ford 2002, pp. 79–80, D’Alessio 2005,

pp. 230–1. The history of the early reception of the Works and Days remainsto be written, but cf. West 1978, p. 61 for a brief orientation and Irwin1998 for part of the possible place of Archilochus within this history.

18 For various aspects of Plato’s engagement with the Works and Days cf. Buzio1938, pp. 132–45, Solmsen 1962 and Van Noorden 2007; Boys-Stones-Hau-bold forthcoming will put the subject, which is well beyond the scope of thisbrief essay, firmly on the scholarly map.

19 The relevant passages can be found through the apparatus of citations in West’sedition. For some discussion cf. Renehan 1981, pp. 254–6.

20 Cf. Plato, Protagoras 340d, Republic II.364c-d, Laws IV.718e-19a, Solmsen 1962,p. 176.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception564

at the crossroads’ (Memorabilia 2.1.20), a fable which in one sense may beseen as itself an extended gloss on the Hesiodic verses. The Works andDays thus played their part in fifth- and fourth-century debates aboutJustice and morality, and it may well be precisely to those debatesthat Callimachus fr. 4 Mass. directs us.

If the Works and Days teach us that life is hard and one has to get thebetter of one’s neighbour before he gets the better of you,21 from anoth-er perspective Op. 265–6 seem to point ahead to ideas that we most as-sociate with the Platonic Socrates; the Hesiodic scholia interpret theirlesson very much in a Platonic mode:

If we really knew that our attempts to harm others harmed ourselves more,we would avoid doing harm; for no one would willingly harm himself. Butthrough ignorance we are caught in this evil and, while thinking that weare benefiting ourselves, we are harmed by ourselves, and the harm wedo to ourselves is greater than the harm we do to others; for in suchcases we damage others with regard to their wealth, but we damage our-selves with regard to what is most important, our souls. It is our soulswhich are affected by doing injustice, whereas the person who is harmedis injured with respect to external things. (Scholium on Hesiod, Op. 265–6)

As this scholium seems to derive from the neo-Platonist Proclus, thePlatonic nature of this interpretation is not a cause for surprise;22 prob-ably from Proclus also stems the citation (scholium on Op. 207–12) ofThrasymachus, presumably the Thrasymachus of Republic 1, as an exam-ple of b t_m "qpajtij_m mºlor which the Hesiodic fable of the hawkand the nightingale encapsulates.23 Be that as it may, in his set of recipesfor how young men should be taught to read poetry, Plutarch (Moralia36a), who also wrote an extensive commentary on the Works and Days(frr. 25–112 Sandbach), had already connected Op. 266 with the doc-trines of the Gorgias and the Republic as an illustration of how teachersshould bring the poets into line with philosophical teaching, and anoth-er scholium on v. 266a, which cannot be traced certainly to the commen-taries of either Plutarch or Proclus,24 explicitly cites Socrates’ cross-ex-amination of Polos at Plato, Gorgias 474c on the subject of whetherdoing wrong is j\jiom and aUswiom than being wronged. So too, inhis commentary on Op. 286 (‘Very foolish Perses, I will give yousome good advice’), Plutarch contrasted Hesiod’s ‘philosophical charac-

21 For the ‘world of Hesiod’ cf. Millett 1984, Edwards 2004.22 Pertusi 1955, p. 90.23 Pertusi 1955, p. 76.24 Pertusi 1955, p. 91.

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality 565

ter’ in seeking to correct his brother through admonition (mouhete ?m)with other poets and philosophers who resorted to the abuse of thosewho had offended them:

[Hesiod] knew the saying of Socrates that every bad man is unwillingly bad,and thus requires admonition (mouhes_a) and will perhaps recognise his ownbadness.25 (Scholium on Hesiod, Op. 286 = Plutarch fr. 40 Sandbach)

Sandbach is doubtful that this reason for Hesiod’s mode of proceedingactually goes back to Plutarch, but the Platonising reading is certainlyof a piece with an ancient tradition of interpretation which we canstill identify.

Between Hesiod and Callimachus fall indeed the shadows of Socra-tes and Plato, the ‘inventors’ – when viewed from a certain perspective– of a theorised morality which should govern the way we live. There isan obvious analogy, which Callimachus may have seen, between the ar-guments of the Platonic Socrates with such as Thrasymachus in Republic1 and Callicles and Polos in the Gorgias and Hesiod’s attempt to per-suade his brother and the basik/r that d_jg should be the governingprinciple among mortals, rather than the (natural) rights of the “stron-ger” (oR jqe¸ssomer Op. 210) to behave as they wish against the weak,like hawks towards nightingales.26 Of particular importance in the pres-ent context may be the ‘devil’s advocate’ speech which Plato gives toAdeimantos in Republic II to persuade Socrates that his task is to showthe young men that justice must be chosen for its own sake, not becauseof any material or social advantage which arises from it (362e-7e).Homer and Hesiod are here naturally cited as standard sources for thecommon view that justice is a good thing because of its consequences(363a-b),27 and Op. 287–9 (“the hard path of virtue”) are adduced asa passage which “wizards” (c|gter) use to demonstrate the simplicityof a life of vice (364c-d), but the general thrust of Adeimantos’ argu-ment may owe more to Hesiod than is usually allowed; Hesiodic argu-

25 The Platonic Socrates says such things in more than one place, but the referencehere, as in the scholium on v. 15, may well be, as Pertusi 1955, p. 96 has it, toLaws V.731c.

26 The fable of the hawk and the nightingale has, of course, been interpreted rath-er differently by some modern scholars (cf. , e. g., Hubbard 1995, Nelson 1998,pp. 77–9), but ancient readers were on the whole in no doubt; for a helpfulreading of the fable cf. now Mordine 2006.

27 Socrates recurs to this passage and to these poets in claiming to have fulfilled hisundertaking at X.612b-c.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception566

ments have, of course, been adduced before as in a general way relevantto this speech,28 but there may be more to be said.

In putting forward arguments in favour of appearing rather thanbeing morally upright, on the grounds that it is appearance which willbring the reward, Adeimantos notes that if there are no gods or ifthey have no concern with human affairs, then there is no point in wor-rying forever about keeping our immorality secret (kamh\meim); if godsdo exist and are concerned with our affairs, it is precisely the poets(and particularly those who have given us the genealogy of the gods,i. e., presumably, above all Hesiod in the Theogony) who teach ushow to buy them off (365d-e). Here, as throughout this part of thespeech, Hesiod is not named, but in Hesiod t¹ kamh²meim is simplynot possible (or so Hesiod would like the basileis to believe, cf. v. 268oqd´ 2 k¶hei jtk.) because of Zeus’ numerous guardians (vv. 252–5),the maiden Dike herself and Zeus’ omnipresent eye. Adeimantos sharplypoints out that “all who claim to be supporters of Justice, like you Soc-rates, beginning from the original heroes (1n !qw/r Bq¾ym) whoseworks (k|coi) survive right down to men of the present day” (366d7-e2) find fault with injustice and recommend justice only because ofthe “reputation and honours and gifts” which arise from each. Itwould be tendentious to claim that the move from heroes to “men ofthe present day”, in the context of k|coi in praise of Justice, mustevoke Hesiod – clearly Plato is taking a fairly broad aim – but the pos-sibility is at least worth raising. No one, says Adeimantos, “either in po-etry or normal discourse (Udioi kºcoi)” has given an adequate account ofjustice and injustice “when they are in the soul of the possessor and es-cape the notice of gods and men”. If, he continues, the champions ofjustice had considered the matter as he suggests and trained the youngin that way, “we would not now be guarding against one another’swrongdoing and each would be his own best guardian (v}kan), out offear that by committing injustice he would dwell with (lit. “be sunoikoswith”) the greatest evil” (367a3–5). Here too, it may be difficult to re-sist the temptation to link “guardians of injustice” to Zeus’ “thricecountless immortal guardians of mortal men who watch over (vuk\s-sousi) dikai and wicked deeds” (Op. 252–3); in any case, the flavourof this part of Adeimantos’ speech does seem quite close to the Hesiodicverses with which we are concerned.

28 Cf., e. g., Solmsen 1962, pp. 173–4; see also Ford 2002, pp. 214–16 on thegeneral question of how Glaukos and Adeimantos use the poetry of the past.

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality 567

Adeimantos concludes by urging Socrates to “leave it to others topraise the rewards and reputation (that arise from justice), for while Icould endure others praising justice and finding fault with injustice inthis way … I could not endure this from you …” (367d). Who arethese “others”? Again, presumably, Plato’s aim is broad, but Hesiodseems to brood over this whole discussion. One other reader of Hesiodand Plato, at least, has trodden some way down this same path. Plutarchexcised all of Op. 267–73, according to part of the Proclan scholium :

If justice ought to be chosen (aRqetºm), even if there is no Providence(pqºmoia), and injustice avoided (veujtºm), it is clear that all this argumentis superfluous. Therefore Plutarch excises the seven verses [Op. 267–73] asunworthy of Hesiod’s judgement on justice and injustice. (Scholium onHesiod, Op. 270–3 = Plutarch fr. 38 Sandbach)

How much of Proclus’ argument in this note goes back to Plutarch maybe debated, but the argument itself seems clear enough: the existence ofa watching god and hence the possibility or otherwise of getting awaywith injustice ought to be irrelevant to a protreptic to justice, if justiceis worth choosing for its own sake. With Plutarch’s excision, vv. 265–6,the verses from which this set of soundings began, provide a suitablygnomic closure to the address to the basileis, before Hesiod turns backto his brother. If the scholium reproduces the Plutarchan argument atall fairly, then Plutarch is here in a very Platonic mode, and it is indeedAdeimantos’ plea to Socrates in Republic II which seems most clearlyevoked; vv. 270–2, which Plutarch removes, ask, as Adeimantosdoes, a very awkward question about the value of being just. Weneed not, of course, suppose that it was indeed this passage of the Re-public that Plutarch has specifically in mind, but the possibility thatone ancient reader at least – whether that be Plutarch or Proclus –brought this passage of Hesiod and this passage of Republic II into align-ment may be entertained. Plutarch’s critical method, which seeks toharmonise Hesiodic and Platonic teaching, will not, of course, be thesame as ours: for Plato, Hesiod – with all his talk of how difficult virtueis and of the agricultural rewards which flow from it – is part of theproblem, not the solution (cf. Republic II.363e-4d). Nevertheless, Plu-tarch and Proclus can illuminate the reception and importance of theWorks and Days in Greek culture for periods much earlier than thosein which they themselves wrote, and they may well shed light on Cal-limachus’ choice of Hesiodic passage with which to introduce the Aitia.

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception568

In their different ways both Callimachus and Plato attest to a readingof the Works and Days as a moral poem about how we should live; forCallimachus, such morality stands under the protection of, and is pro-moted by, Apollo. For Hesiod too, of course, piety and morality gohand-in-hand; it is the powerful presence of the divine which guaran-tees both. In the matter of piety, as with morality, the Works and Daysinevitably follows the Theogony, as knowledge of that divine presencenecessarily precedes pious attitudes; impiety is a mark of those, likethe cannibal Cyclops, who do not understand the power of the divine.Piety at many levels of sophistication is, of course, a striking hallmark ofthe poet’s persona in the Works and Days. Callimachus’ pious personathroughout the Aitia is thus in part an element of his ‘Hesiodic’ self-fashioning, as well as dictated by the subject-matter of the poem andby the special relationship with Apollo which the Reply establishes;we may, however, also wonder whether this is another way in whichthe Aitia presents itself as the sequel to the Theogony :29 not merely inthe fact that it tells of the rites and the cults of the gods whom the The-ogony has established, but that it promulgates the pious moral attitudeswhich the certain existence of the Olympian order requires, even ifthe nature or resonance of that ‘piety’ is irrevocably changed by Calli-machus’ knowing exploitation of tradition. What is clear, however, isthat the Telchines are disfigured in both moral and poetic terms:their malignancy, as Hesiod could have taught them, damages onlythemselves and they are, unlike both Hesiod and Callimachus, “nofriends of the Muse”. Callimachus’ apparent adoption of a Hesiodicmoral and religious position is thus intimately tied to his implicit andexplicit poetics, in which the use of moral and ritual language is an im-portant element;30 what Plato would have made of this Callimacheanmixture is probably beyond conjecture.

Bibliography

Asper 1997 = M. Asper, Onomata allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion po-etologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos, Stuttgart 1997

29 Cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004, pp. 51–60.30 Cf. e. g., Asper 1997, pp. 94–5, 98–9. The most prominent example is perhaps

jahaq|r, but the implications of 1shk|r at Hymn to Apollo 9 are also worthy ofreflection.

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality 569

Boys-Stones-Haubold 2008 = Plato and Hesiod, G. Boys-Stones and J. Haubold(edd.), Durham forthcoming [2008]

Buzio 1938 = C. Buzio, Esiodo nel mondo Greco sino alla fine dell’et� classica, Mi-lano 1938

Cameron 1995 = A. Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics, Princeton 1995Cozzoli 2008 = A T. Cozzoli, ‘“Come un fanciullo …” (Callim. fr.1, 6 Pf.)’, in

Callimachea II, A. Martina and A.T. Cozzoli (edd.), Rome forthcoming[2008]

D’Alessio 2005 = G. B. D’Alessio, ‘Ordered from the Catalogue: Pindar, Bac-chylides, and Hesiodic genealogical poetry’, in The Hesiodic Catalogue ofWomen. Constructions and Reconstructions, R. Hunter (ed.), Cambridge2005, 217–38

Di Benedetto 1995 = V. Di Benedetto, ‘Callimaco, fr.2, 4 Pf.’, RFIC 123(1995), pp. 169–71

Edwards 2004 = A. T. Edwards, Hesiod’s Ascra, Berkeley-Los Angeles 2004Fantuzzi —Hunter 2004 =M. Fantuzzi – R. Hunter, Tradition and Innovation in

Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge 2004Ford 2002 = A. Ford, The Origins of Criticism, Princeton 2002Gentili 1995 = Pindaro, Le Pitiche, edd. B. Gentili, P. A. Bernardini, E. Cingano

and P. Giannini, Verona 1995Hubbard 1995 = T. K. Hubbard, ‘Hesiod’s fable of the hawk and the nightin-

gale reconsidered’, GRBS 36 (1995), pp. 161–71Hunter 1993 = R. Hunter, The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies, Cam-

bridge 1993— 2007 = R. Hunter, ‘Isis and the language of Aesop’, in Pastoral Palimpsests.

Essays in the Reception of Theocritus and Vergil, M. Paschalis (ed.), Rethym-non 2007, pp. 39–58 [= this volume 867–83]

Irwin 1998 = E. Irwin, ‘Biography, fiction, and the Archilochian ainos’, JHS118 (1998), pp. 177–83

— 2005 = E. Irwin, Solon and Early Greek Poetry, Cambridge 2005Lehnus 1991 = L. Lehnus, ‘Callimaco fr. 1.7 Pf.’, ZPE 86 (1991), pp. 9–10Massimilla 1996 = Callimaco. Aitia, Libri Primo e Secondo, ed. G. Massimilla, Pisa

1996Millett 1984 = P. Millett, ‘Hesiod and his world’, Proceedings of the Cambridge

Philological Society 30 (1984), pp. 84–107Mordine 2006 = M. J. Mordine, ‘Speaking to kings: Hesiod’s aWmor and the

rhetoric of allusion in the Works and Days’, CQ 56 (2006), pp. 363–73Most 1993 = G. W. Most, ‘Hesiod and the textualization of personal tempo-

rality’, in La componente autobiografica nella poesia greca e latina fra realt� e arti-ficio letterario, G. Arrighetti and F. Montanari (edd.), Pisa 1993, pp. 73–92

— 2006 = Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, ed. G.W. Most,Cambridge (Ma) 2006

Nelson 1998 = S.A. Nelson, God and the Land, New York-Oxford 1998Pertusi 1955 = Scholia vetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies, ed. A. Pertusi, Milano

1995Renehan 1981 = R. Renehan, ‘The Greek anthropocentric view of man’,

HSCPh 85 (1981), pp. 239–59

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception570

Solmsen 1962 = F. Somsen, ‘Hesiodic motifs in Plato’, in H�siode et son influ-ence, Vandoeuvres-Genève, pp. 173–211

Van Noorden 2007 = H. A. Van Noorden, Hesiod’s ‘Myth of the Races’ in clas-sical Antiquity, PhD Diss. Cambridge 2007

West 1978 = Hesiod, Works and Days, ed. M. L. West, Oxford 1978.

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality 571

Richard HunterOn Coming After

Part 2

≥

Trends in Classics -Supplementary Volumes

Edited byFranco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos

Scientific CommitteeAlberto Bernabe · Margarethe Billerbeck · Claude Calame

Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen HindsRichard Hunter · Christina Kraus · Giuseppe MastromarcoGregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone

Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 3/2

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

On Coming AfterStudies in Post-Classical Greek Literature

and its Reception

by

Richard Hunter

Part 2Comedy and Performance

Greek Poetry of the Roman EmpireThe Ancient Novel

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

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Contents

Part 2

Comedy and Performance

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original . . . . . . . . . . . 612

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus . . . . . . . . . . . 627

35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance . . . . 643

36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary . . . . . . . . . . . 663

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? . . . . . . . . . . 681

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius . 700

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenisticpoetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

The Ancient Novel

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton . . . . . . 737

41. Longus and Plato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775

42. Growing up in the ancient novels: a response . . . . . . . . . . . . 790

43. The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond interpretation? . . . . . . 804

44. ‘Philip the Philosopher’ on the Aithiopika of Heliodorus . . . 829

45. Plato’s Symposium and the traditions of ancient fiction . . . . . 845

46. Isis and the Language of Aesop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867

47. The curious incident …: polypragmosyne and the ancient novel 884

General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897Passages Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902

Part 1

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IXIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1On Coming After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

1. Apollo and the Argonauts: Two notes on Ap. Rhod. 2, 669–719 29

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica . . . . . . . . 42

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

4. Winged Callimachus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius . . . . 95

7. Callimachus and Heraclitus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

8. Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn toAthena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

9. Written in the Stars: Poetry and Philosophy in the Phainomenaof Aratus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

ContentsVI

12. Plautus and Herodas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonis v. 55 . . . . 229

14. Mime and mimesis : Theocritus, Idyll 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica . . . . . . . . . . 257

16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme . . . . . . . . . . . 311

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus . . . . . . . . . . 326

20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

21. Virgil and Theocritus: A Note on the Reception of theEncomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] . . . . . 384

23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns ofCallimachus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . 470

27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 503

28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9–12 revisited . . . . . . . . 523

29. The Reputation of Callimachus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality . . . . . . . 559

Contents VII

Comedy and Performance

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century*

Although our evidence for the later development of Attic Comedy hasincreased greatly in the present century, the gaps in our understandingremain very wide indeed. One of the larger of these gaps concernsthe history of the comic chorus. In many matters connected with thechorus we must be content with an honest profession of ignorance.1 Ihope, however, that a new survey of the relevant passages may beable to clarify certain issues.

I. The Ekklesiazousai and the Ploutos

Discussion of the chorus in the last two extant plays of Aristophanes haslargely been concerned to establish what precisely is in the manuscriptsand how it got there,2 and with the meaning of WOQO£, i. e. with theexact nature of the choral performance, if there was a performance atthose places where this mark is found in our texts. Little further progressseems likely in this second direction. It may, however, be possible to de-termine with some degree of confidence whether or not there was achoral performance, whatever its nature might have been, at certain pla-

* Zeitschrift f�r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 36 (1979) 23–381 Cf. the remarks of F. H. Sandbach in A. W. Gomme and F. H. Sandbach,

Menander: A Commentary (Oxford 1973) 12. Among the more important dis-cussions of this subject are Capps, ‘The Chorus in the Later Greek Dramaetc.’, AJA 10 (1895) 287–325; Koerte, ‘Das Fortleben des Chors im gr.Drama’, Neue Jahrb. Alt. 5 (1900) 81–9; Bethe, ‘Der Chor bei Menander’, Be-richte kgl. s�chs. Ges. Wiss. Leipzig, Phil.-hist. Kl. , 60 (1908) 209–25; Maid-ment, ‘The Later Comic Chorus’, CQ 29 (1935) 1–24; Sifakis, Studies in theHistory of Hellenistic Drama (London 1967) Appendix I; id., ‘Aristotle EN4.2.1123a 19–24 and the Comic Chorus in the Fourth Century’, AJP 92(1971) 410–32; Pöhlmann, ‘Der Überlieferungswert der woqoO – Vermerkein Papyri und Handschriften’, WJA n.f. 3 (1977) 68–81. Of particular impor-tance for Roman drama is J. Andrieu, Le Dialogue Antique (Paris 1954) 54–86.

2 Cf. E. Handley, ‘WOQO£ in the Plutus’, CQ n.s. 3 (1953) 55–61, W. Koster,Autour d’un Manuscrit d’Aristophane �crit par D�m�trius Triclinius (Groningen andDjakarta 1957) 117–35, Pöhlmann art.cit. passim.

ces where in these two plays no words are preserved for the chorus. Myinvestigation will be based not on the evidence in the manuscripts forthe WOQO£ mark, but on the known structural role of choral perform-ances in both Old and New Comedy. That a chorus did actually per-form in the New Comedy i. e. that, when at the end of Act I a characterannounced the approach of “some drunken revellers”, “some drunkenrevellers” did actually appear and that this announcement was not sim-ply a matter of time-honoured convention, is, of course, an assumption,but one that seems justified in view of the inscriptional evidence for theexistence of a chorus,3 as we may well wonder what this chorus did if itdid not perform between the acts. The strongest internal4 argument forchoral performances in the New Comedy seems to me to be from thevariations in the stereotyped formula of introduction which appear onoccasion: cf. Men. Dysk. 230–2 and Alexis fr. 112 K-A; Latte’s sugges-tion5 that the vukajµ of Adesp. 1091.26 K-A is a further variation on thenormal formula is an attractive one. If this whole matter was one of con-vention, then these variations would seem particularly pointless. A cho-ral performance in these act-breaks remains, nevertheless, an assump-tion, but one that shall, I hope, prove more useful than dangerous.

1. Ekkl. 729/30: Here, in the fifth century, we would have expect-ed the parabasis.6 A particularly close parallel to this break is Ach. 201 ffwhere Dikaiopolis’ departure to arrange his goods in procession and hisreturn with the goods are separated by the parodos; similarly at 623 ffDikaiopolis’ departure and re-entry are separated by the parabasis. Inthe Ekklesiazousai Aristophanes may simply have repeated the pattern,leaving an empty stage in place of a choral performance.7 This, however,seems very unlikely. An empty silence of this kind, framed by the exitand re-entry of the same character is a very rare occurrence on theGreek stage, however brief the silence may be. Tragedy knows butone example. A. Eum. 33/4.8 The one possible instance9 in surviving

3 Cf. Sifakis loc.cit. (1967).4 The external evidence, such as the notices joll\tiom woqoO and l]kor woqoO in

ancient texts and references to a chorus such as Aischin. 1.157, has been collect-ed many times; for the former cf. now Pöhlmann’s article.

5 Gnomon 27 (1955) 497 (= Kleine Schriften [München 1968] 794–5). The sug-gestion of Capps that Heros fr. 1 Sandbach (= 8 Koerte) refers to a chorus is veryuncertain.

6 Cf. E. Fraenkel, Beobachtungen zu Aristophanes (Roma 1962) 164.7 Cf., e. g., p.xxviii of Ussher’s edition.8 Cf. O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977) 362.

Comedy and Performance576

Comedy in Greek is Men. Dysk. 908/9, where the break would be onlymomentary. Against this must be set the number of occasions in theNew Comedy when the exit and re-entry of the same character or char-acters to an otherwise empty stage are separated by an act-break,10 cf.Dis Exapaton 63/4, Dysk. 232/3, 783/4, Mis. 275/6, Perik. 266/7,Samia 420/1.11

The pattern of exit: empty stage: re-entry of same character is foundon a number of occasions in Roman Comedy, which had no chorus;these cases are difficult to judge, both because of the possibility thatthe Latin dramatists have altered their Greek models and because ourdetailed knowledge of the Greek New Comedy is restricted toMenander and we cannot necessarily assume that his five-act structurereflects a practice universal among the poets of his period. In only asmall number of cases can the act-breaks in the Greek originals be se-curely identified in Roman Comedy; the undertaking is not, however,a fruitless one, as witness the now confirmed break at Plaut. Bacch. 525(= Dis Exapaton 63), although this same example is also a clear call toexercise caution.12 The following cases are relevant to the present dis-cussion:

a) Asinaria 809/10: Although great uncertainty still surrounds theGreek original of the Asinaria,13 an act-break between the entry of Di-abolus and the parasite into the lena’s house and their re-emergence,now in full possession of the facts,14 is not improbable. The “contract”

9 Dr. Austin has kindly drawn my attention to Ar. Thesm. 279/80 where it ap-pears that the Old Man leaves and then reappears, the scene having changedin the meantime (presumably by use of the 1jj}jkgla). Unfortunately, it is un-clear whether he disappears from sight at this point or, for example, simplywalks around the orchestra. In any case, the changing scene distinguishes thisexample from the others under discussion.

10 All references to Menander use the numeration of Sandbach’s Oxford text.11 Epitrepontes 418/9 is not included as Onesimos presumably goes in when he fin-

ishes speaking at 414.12 The necessity for act-division at Bacch. 525 was seen by, e. g. A. Freté, REL 8

(1930) 43–6. This and other discussions are overlooked by N. Holzberg,Menander: Untersuchungen zur dramatischen Technik (Erlanger Beitr�ge 50, Erlangen1974) 44.

13 The most useful discussions are A. Traina, ‘Plauto, Demofilo, Menandro’, PP 9(1954) 177–203, F. Munari, ‘La composizione dell’Asinaria’, SIFC n.s. 22(1947) 5–32 and T. B. L. Webster, Studies in Later Greek Comedy2 (Manchester1970) 253–7.

14 The idea of Havet, RPh n.s. 29 (1905) 98, that a scene in which the lena ex-plained the situation to Diabolus has been omitted after 809 is unnecessary. The

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 577

would make a very suitable conclusion to an act, as it would certainlyhold audience attention across the break. Nevertheless, the Greek orig-inal of the Asinaria at this point is a possible parallel for Ar. Ekkl. 729/30.

b) Aulularia 627/8: An act-break in the Greek original at this pointseems out of the question, as speed is the essence of the humour here,(which is not the case at Ar. Ekkl. 729/30).15

c) Cistellaria 630/1: Act-break, during which the conversation of‘Melainis’ and ‘Selenium’ takes place, may be regarded as certain at thispoint in Menander’s Synaristosai.16

Trinummus 601/2: Act-break at this point in Philemon’s Thesauros iscertain, unless Philemon differed radically from the conventions ofMenander’s theatre; cf. Men. Dysk. 232/3 and Perik. 266/7 for a choralinterlude separating the exit of a character, (in these cases, as in the Tri-nummus, a slave), to fetch someone and the return of that character inconversation with the person who has been fetched.

Pseudolus 573/4: Pseudolus’ remark upon exit that the tibicen is toentertain the audience during his absence is most plausibly interpretedas reflecting a musical interlude in the Greek original.

Ter. Adelphoe 854/5: In broad terms, there are two possible in-scenations for the Menandrean original of this often discussed passage.Demea may have remained on stage after Micio’s departure to deliverhis monologue. This seems possible even with the traditional and, inmy view, certainly correct ascription of 854 to Micio rather than(with Kauer) to Demea.17 Such a view might find support in the obvi-ous parallelism between 81 ff. and 787 ff. In both places a debate be-tween the brothers is followed by a “characterising” monologue from

audience will have had no difficulty in understanding what it is that Diabolusand the parasite have discovered; Havet later abandoned the notion. Cf. alsoGeorgine Burckhardt, Die Akteinteilung in der neuen gr. und in der rçm. Komçdie(Diss. Basel 1927) 23–4.

15 I hope to discuss the Aulularia on another occasion (cf. this volume 612–26),but I should note that I suspect that this scene does not faithfully reproduceits Greek model. Freté, REL 7 (1929) 290, classes Aul. 628 with Captivi908/9, but in this latter scene it is not the same character who enters afterthe vacant stage.

16 For the act-divisions of the Synaristosai cf. Webster, Studies in Menander (Man-chester 1950) 91–7, Mette, Lustrum 10 (1965) 85–8, Ludwig, Entretiens Fon-dation Hardt 16 (1970) 47–58.

17 Cf. C. Conrad, The Technique of Continuous Action in Roman Comedy (Diss. Chi-cago: Menasha 1915) 77–8.

Comedy and Performance578

one of them.18 In fact however, the structural differences between thetwo monologues are as great as the similarities, and this indeed iswhat we should have expected from Menander: in formal terms,141–54 is an ‘Abgangsmonolog’ and 855–81 would be an ‘Über-gangsmonolog’.19 Those who adopt this interpretation place the startof the fifth Menandrean act at 786/7,20 where it is certainly not neces-sary21 and perhaps even harmful to the comedy of the scene,22 or even at712/3,23 which is far too early. These difficulties disappear with theadoption of the alternative hypothesis, which is that 854/5 representsthe break between the fourth and fifth Menandrean acts.24 The parallelof the Samia,25 a play which shows several similarities to the Adelphoe,26

is important here; in the Samia the fourth act ends with one old mancalming another down and then the two going off to prepare a wed-ding-feast. The fifth act begins with the quite unexpected speech ofMoschion, in which he declares his intention to stage the charade ofgoing off on military service. The parallel of the Samia seems to me al-most decisive for the structure of Menander’s Second Adelphoi.27 In anycase, a vacant stage without the WOQO£ mark is here out of the ques-tion.

d) Ter. Andria 171/2: Terence’s changes to the scene of expositionmake conclusions about the Greek original hazardous. In Menander,Simo may have remained on stage at (Terence’s) 171,28 as he perhaps

18 Cf. Holzberg o.c. 165.19 For these terms cf. F. Leo, Der Monolog im Drama (Abh. Gçttingen, 10/5, 1908)

48.20 Cf., e. g., Holzberg loc.cit.21 Cf. the fourth act of the Samia for the wild rushing in and out of houses.22 Cf. O. Rieth, Die Kunst Menanders in den Adelphen des Terenz, mit einem

Nachwort hgb. vom K.Gaiser, (Hildesheim 1964) 79–81.23 Cf. Webster, Studies in Menander 90.24 Cf. Burckhardt o.c. 11.25 Cf. Rieth o.c. 112–3.26 Cf., e. g., M. Treu, RhM 112 (1969) 244–5.27 Adelphoe 882 does not, as is often asserted, imply that Demea has not yet en-

tered the house at all, cf. the corresponding request to Syrus at 776; a close par-allel is Epitrepontes 142 where Habrotonon (?) comes out at the request of Char-isios to fetch back Chairestratos who probably came out earlier – why we donot know – and addresses him thus Waq_si]|r se pqosl]mei, Waiq]stqate. (Al-ternatively, Chairestratos and Habrotonon may have entered the stage togetherand the latter gone into the house, leaving the former to observe Smikrines).

28 Cf. Drexler, Hermes 73 (1938) 39–50. Lefèvre, Die Expositionstechnik in den Ko-mçdien des Terenz (Darmstadt 1969) 49–59.

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 579

did in the Roman play;29 alternatively, the divine prologue may, as fre-quently in Menander, have been postponed to this position,30 makingthis passage parallel to Heauton Timoroumenos 170/1. In any event,there is again no reason to postulate an empty silence at this point.

e) Ter. Heauton Timoroumenos 170/1: The clear parallel of the Aspismakes it all but certain that the coming and going of Chremes at thispoint marks the omission of the divine prologue which stood here inthe Greek play.31

f) Ter. Heauton Timoroumenos 873/4: An act-break at this point ofthe Greek original, during which the events which Menedemus pro-ceeds to narrate to Chremes take place, may be regarded as certain.

In short, Greek Comedy provides only three possible parallels to thedramaturgy assumed by those who deny a choral performance at Ar.Ekkl. 729/30, and of these only the most uncertain (the Greek originalof Asinaria 809/10) is really parallel, as in the two remaining instances(Men. Dysk. 908/9 and the Greek original of Aulularia 627/8) only afew moments of “real time” are necessary for the off-stage action. If,however, we assume that the chorus did perform at this point inEkkl. , then the scene will adhere to the norms of Greek dramatic prac-tice, norms which hold for both Old and New Comedy. The WOQO£

mark in our texts could have arisen in more than one way; the questionof its origin, however, should not be allowed to obscure considerationsof ancient dramatic technique.

2. Ekkl. 876/7: “no lapse of time whether actual or dramatic is nec-essary” (Ussher, p. xxviii of his edition). It is, however, clear from thej_lor of the young man that the dinner is imagined to take place be-tween 876 and 877.32 How did ancient Comedy handle the lapse of dra-matic time?33 In Menander, significant lapse of dramatic time occurs be-tween acts, although, of course, an act-break does not necessarily entail asignificant lapse of dramatic time. Thus, for example, a return trip with-in the town, (or the immediate countryside, if the play is set in the

29 Cf. Donatus on 173, Conrad o.c. 78. For a bibliography on this problem cf. B.Denzler, Der Monolog bei Terenz (Zürich 1968) 8 n. 29.

30 Cf. Holzberg o.c. 71.31 For the literature prior to the publication of the Aspis cf. Marti, Lustrum 8

(1963) 46–7, and Denzler o.c. 12 with notes 37–8; Denzler’s analysis appearsto take no account of P.Oxy. 2534 ( = Men. fr. 76 K-A), which was publishedby R. A. Coles and J. W. B. Barns in CQ n.s. 15 (1965) 55–7.

32 Cf. Pöhlmann art.cit. 75.33 For “time” in ancient drama cf. now Taplin o.c. 290–4.

Comedy and Performance580

country), may be completed within one act,34 and indeed within a fairlyshort time (cf. Mis. 237–59), but any longer trip is spread over at leasttwo acts.35 For Aristophanes general rules are harder to formulate, but itis clear that “significant” time lapse does not occur during a moment of

34 Although it cannot be assumed that Menander used a time scheme which wasuniversal in New Comedy, there are in fact very few difficult cases in theRoman plays. Trachalio’s errand at Rudens 779–839 is to the immediate neigh-bourhood (the beach) – for the intervening scene cf. Diggle, RhM 117 (1974)86–94; Parmeno fetches Pamphilus from within the town at Ter. Hecyra 815–41; an act-break can fall between Amphitruo 854 and 1009, and probably Mos-tellaria 528 and 541, cf. M.Knorr, Das gr. Vorbild der Mostellaria des Plautus (Diss.München 1934) 31–2. In general, I think it more likely that Plautus has on oc-casions successfully obscured the act-divisions and time-relationships of hisGreek models than that Menander differed radically from the other poets ofthe New Comedy. While we may only entertain doubts as to whether thebreak at Captivi 908/9 accurately reflects the Greek play (cf. Prescott, HSCP21 [1910] 37–9), it is clear that the Menaechmi is not the problem it is some-times held to be (cf. Hough, CP 31 [1936] 247, Webster, Studies inL.G.C.2 70): a necessary act-break at 446 brings the first part into line withthe Menandrean convention, and the quick arrival of the senex at 753 andthe slaves at 990 does not breach the familiar conventions. W. Steidle, ‘ZurKomposition von Plautus’ Menaechmi’, RhM 114 (1971) 247–61, has madethe attractive suggestion that Plautus added the scenes with the doctor to hismodel, presumably from another Greek play. They are, however, more integralto the play than he allows: there is a neat parallelism between 835 ff and 939 ff,i. e. both brothers behave in such a way as to convince others that they are mad.The call for slaves at 952–5, which Steidle considers weakly motivated in com-parison with 844, is in fact an amusing characterisation of the stupid and cow-ardly doctor. That the senex expects Menaechmus still to be with his wife whenhe returns with the doctor and that Menaechmus I does not connect the attackof the slaves with the previous scene do not seem to me particularly improbablein a Graeco-Roman Comedy. It might be suggested as an alternative that Plau-tus has expanded the first mad scene (835 ff) much beyond its original length;his audience will have been familiar with such scenes both from Comedy (cf.Ter. Phormio 6–8) and Tragedy (cf. Ennius’ Alcmeo fr. XV Jocelyn [ = 25–31 R3]). If this is right, then Plautus has used the call for slaves as a convenientway of stitching together his composite mad-scene. This suggestion would re-move the problem of the awkward length of time which it takes to get rid ofthe senex and would make the parallelism of 843 and 962 more pointed. On thisview, of course, 938 means either that 852 ff belong to the Greek Menaechmi orthat Plautus has covered his tracks with some skill.

35 Cf. Webster, Studies in L.G.C.2 190–1, Sandbach o.c. (n. 1) 19. The overseastrip in the Captivi is an extreme case, but still fits this pattern; if the originalfollowed the five-act scheme then the departure probably occurred in the sec-ond and the return in the fourth act.

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 581

vacant stage36 and that what may be termed “significant off-stage ac-tions” regularly coincide with choral performances;37 by this term Irefer to such events as the victory of the Sausage-seller in the boule(Knights 497–611), the education of Pheidippides (Clouds 1114–1131), the re-education of Philokleon (Wasps 1008–1122), and thebreak between the two halves of Frogs. The locus classicus for thosewho believe that “time” in Aristophanes is entirely anarchic has alwaysbeen the trip to Sparta of Amphitheos in the space of fifty lines in theAcharnians.38 It should be noted, however, that Amphitheos is a minorcharacter and that his trip takes place before the parodos — contrastLys. 1013–75 — and must, therefore, be covered by stage action ratherthan by a choral performance; it does not, and this is what is important,take place during a vacant stage. These considerations make it veryprobable that a choral performance of some kind occurred atEkkl. 876/7; for a choral performance “covering” an off-stage dinnercf. Lys. 1189–1215.

Two further observations may be made about this passage, (i) TheOld Hag stresses the length of time that she has been waiting, t_ poh’ûmdqer oqw Fjousim ; ¦qa d’ Gm p\kai. It is, I suppose, possible thatthis is merely a grotesque joke reflecting the eagerness of this characterfor a man, in which case the dinner may be “covered” by the duet of theHag and the Young Girl. I do not, however, think that this is the naturalway to interpret the passage, and two other passages where great stress islaid upon the length of time that a character has been waiting may becompared. In the Thesmophoriazousai the Old Man remains bound onstage waiting for Euripides during the parabasis (785–845); immediatelyafter the parabasis he expresses his impatience, Qkk¹r cec]mglai pqosdo-j_m· b d’ oqd]py. / t_ d/t’ #m eUg toqlpod~m. Similarly, in the Menaech-mi of Plautus the senex leaves the stage to fetch the doctor at 875 and

36 It is sometimes asserted that five days “elapse” at Lys. 705/6 (cf. R. Weissinger,A Study of Act-Divisions in Classical Drama [Iowa Studies 9, 1940] 37–8), butthis is quite misleading. The preceding parabasis is sufficient “to divert attentionaway from any unhelpful preoccupation with ‘clock time’” (Taplin o.c. 293), aswh³r in 725 neatly shows. This is, moreover, long forgotten when 6jtgm Bl]qam

occurs in 881.37 Cf. Weissinger o.c. 41, M. Landfester, Handlungsverlauf und Komik in den fr�hen

Komçdien des Aristophanes (Berlin und New York 1977) 210–12. R. Kent,TAPA 37 (1906), collects much material, but much of his analysis is misleading.

38 I see no sign that Aristophanes is here parodying stage conventions, as is sug-gested by C. Dearden, The Stage of Aristophanes (London 1976) 41–2.

Comedy and Performance582

returns six lines later complaining, lumbi sedendo, oculi spectando dolent, /manendo medicum dum se ex opere recipiat. An act-break in the original ofthe Menaechmi after 881 is likely enough,39 but in any case the complaintdoes not follow a momentarily vacant stage, and I think that the samecan be said for Ar. Ekkl. 877 with great confidence. (ii) The “loyal citi-zen” (Chremes?) leaves the stage at 871 after he has finished speaking,and the other man remains behind to speak five lines before departingalso. It appears to have passed unremarked that this is the earliest exam-ple in extant Comedy of the conventional ‘Abgangsmonolog’ familiarfrom the New Comedy; in such a situation “der nach einer DialogsceneZurückbleibende geht mit einer Rede ab” (Leo, Monolog 48), and thismonologue regularly consists of “a reaction to the preceding action orexisting situation and a statement of more or less immediate future ac-tion” and concludes “with a statement of the speaker’s intended move-ments and action” (Prescott, CP 37 [1942] 3). In chorusless RomanComedy such (and related) monologues often indicate the passing ofdramatic time,40 but such an interpretation of Ekkl. 872–6 would bequite foreign to Greek dramatic practice. We are not to imagine thatthe dinner takes place while one character announces that he is goingoff to dine.41

3. Ekkl. 1111/12: At this point no lapse of time is necessary, as themaid has had more than long enough to get drunk, and there is no con-ventional pattern which suggests a choral performance. A performancehere might also obscure the obvious, perhaps ironic,42 contrast betweenthe cries £ tqisjajoda_lym (1098 ff) and laj\qior l³m d/lor (1112 ff).

39 Cf. Freté, REL 8 (1930) 57.40 Cf. Prescott, ‘Exit Monologues in Roman Comedy’, CP 37 (1942) 1–21.

Monologues in Menander may cover “significant off-stage actions” (cf.Dysk. 639–65), but the use of short speeches to cover a considerable lapse oftime seems to be a purely Roman convention; the locus classicus is Plaut.Bacch. 526–9, cf. Handley, Menander and Plautus: A Study in Comparison (Inau-gural Lecture, London 1968) 14.

41 Menander appears to use such monologues to conclude sections within acts(Aspis 94–6, Dysk. 381–92, 514–21) more often than acts themselves (Epi-trep. 414–8 and, perhaps, Samia 614–5). The early tragic examples of this con-vention (E. Ion 1039 ff, IA 742 ff, cf. Leo, Der Monolog 28–9, Schadewaldt,Monolog und Selbstgespr�ch [Berlin 1926] 236) are naturally followed by choralsongs.

42 Cf. Gelzer, RE Suppl. Bd. 12.1497.

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 583

4. Ploutos 321/2: Some form of performance at this point seemslikely,43 even with the most sceptical interpretation of 1p’ %kk’ eWdor in 317.No lapse of dramatic time is necessary in this place.

5. Ploutos 626/7: We here expect that a “significant off-stage action”(the healing of the god) should be marked by a choral performance, and,further, that the passage of time before a messenger-speech should beclearly indicated, cf. Ach. 1174, Wasps 1292 etc44. In Menander thelapse of time before a messenger-speech is marked either by an act-divi-sion, (as with Demeas’ speech at the start of Samia Act III), or by an on-stage monologue (Dysk. 639–65).

6. Ploutos 770/1: This passage is greatly complicated by the difficultproblem of the god’s opening words, ja· pqosjum_ ce pq_ta l³m t¹m

Fkiom, / 5peita jtk. . The explanations offered have been many,45 butDenniston’s46 appears to hold the field at the moment,47 “Ploutos enterscontinuing a speech which he has begun off the stage”, in which case cewill have its regular function “to stress the addition made by ja_”. Thetechnique of entry in mid-conversation is already familiar in the latefifth century, cf. Ar. Wasps 1122, Frogs 830, S. Phil. 1222, E. IA303,48 but there seem to me to be certain difficulties in the way ofthis interpretation. It is quite unclear what we are to imagine the godas having said off-stage, as the parallel passages, (Men. Aspis 491, Fraen-kel on A. Ag. 503, Austin on Men. Samia 101), make it certain that theaddress to the sun and to Athens would be the healed god’s initial utter-ance. Secondly, it is unclear to whom Ploutos is speaking. It might beKarion, although the fact that no reference is made to him in thisscene makes it very likely that, despite 770, he did not reappear until

43 Cf. Handley art.cit. (n. 2) 59. The objection of Holzinger to a choral interludehere, that a further interruption to the ‘Handlung’ would be ‘störend’, seems todepend upon modern notions of dramatic construction.

44 Cf. P. Rau, Paratragodia: Untersuchungen einer komischen Form des Aristophanes(Zetemata 45, München 1967) 166, Taplin o.c. 293.

45 Meineke posited a lacuna, which has removed both a choral song and the open-ing of Ploutos’ speech, after 770, van Leeuwen a very unconvincing transpo-sition and lacuna, and Holzinger argues that ja· … pq_ta l³m … 5peita …te is a poetic variant of ja· … ja· … ja_. The ja· of 771 is, however, not par-allel with pq_ta and 5peita. Among emendations should be mentioned de ?pqosjume?m le (Blaydes), cf. Men. fr. 449 K-A.

46 The Greek Particles2 (Oxford 1954) 158.47 Cf. S. Radt, Mnem.4 29 (1976) 260.48 E. Hipp. 601 ff is different in kind, and for A. Eum. 64 cf. Taplin o.c. 363–4.

For a survey of related phenomena cf. Fraenkel o.c. (n.6) 103–4.

Comedy and Performance584

802.49 It is often maintained that Chremylos enters at 771 with the godand ‘‘lurks in the background’’ until 782.50 This is most unlikely, asb\kk’ 1r j|qajar should be the words of an entering character, whetherthey be purely expletive or specifically directed at the (invisible)51 crowdwhich has been detaining him.52 Chremylos makes it clear in his open-ing speech that he has been delayed 1m !coq÷i. In view of these difficul-ties I have toyed with the possibility that Ploutos’ ja· pqosjum_ ce

might be in response to a welcoming exhortation from the chorus.This is not to claim that Aristophanes wrote a special song for the choruswhich has been lost from our manuscripts, but it seems not impossiblethat the poet (as producer ?) continued to indicate or control the type ofditty to be sung even after he had ceased to write special songs for theplay. Other structural indications are, however, lacking in this place53

and the question of choral performance must remain an open one.7. Ploutos 801/2: Lapse of dramatic time may be necessary for the

magic refurbishing of Chremylos’ house, but that the scene could beplayed without a pause at this point seems clear.

8. Ploutos 958/9, 1096/7, 1170/1: No structural necessity or lapseof dramatic time calls for choral performance at these places, althoughpause is necessary in the last two cases if the play is to be performedby three principals.54

49 If the Ploutos was performed by only three actors, Karion, jyv¹r in this scene,would have to be played by an extra; if even a silent Karion entered the houseat 801 to re-emerge at 802, this might seem, in view of my earlier discussion, anargument in favour of a choral performance at 801/2. Rather, I think, the ear-lier discussion demonstrates the improbability of the hypothesis. If Karion doesnot return with the god at 771, then 770 might seem strange unless a choralperformance between these lines masked the discrepancy.

50 So, e. g., van Leeuwen and Holzinger.51 Contrast Dearden o.c. (n. 38) 178: “at 771 Wealth and Chremylus appear in

the orchestra surrounded by a large swarm of people whom the latter drivesoff (782)”.

52 The simple 1r j|qajar is normally a pure expletive, but cf. Hipparchos fr. 1 K-A; longer forms of this and related expressions normally have a specific object,although %pac’ eQr t¹ b\qahqom at Men. Dysk. 575 appears to be purely exple-tive, b\kk’ 1r j|qajar is used in both ways: Ar. Thesm. 1079 is presumably spe-cifically directed, but Clouds 133 (cf. Ach. 864) and fr. 462 may be purely ex-pletive. I prefer to take Wasps 835 as purely expletive rather than, with thescholiast, as a curse aimed at the dog inside the house.

53 760–1, however, suggest, but do not prove, that the chorus performed after770.

54 Cf. Handley art.cit. (n.2) 60.

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 585

Internal evidence therefore strongly suggests choral performances atEkkl. 729/30, 876/7, and Ploutos 321/2 and 626/7. There are, further,certain indications that the role of the chorus in the Ploutos should beextended even further. In general, if certain features of these plays fitpatterns familiar from both earlier Aristophanes and from Menander,it seems more sensible to adopt these patterns than to postulate techni-ques unique to two plays.

II. The Fragments

In this survey I shall follow broadly the order of the most recent full dis-cussion, which is that of Webster, Studies in Later Greek Comedy2 58–63.55

1. Aristophanes frr. 8 and 9 K-A: Of these passages from the Aiolosikonfr. 9, a ditty of five aristophaneans, might very well come from a choralsong; for the self-address § cuma ?jer cf. Lys. 686, Thesm. 598. Monodycannot, however, be ruled out and the thought is that expressed by Ly-sistrata at Lys. 138. Fr. 8 in trochaic dimeters is not necessarily choral,but this is the natural inference from bq_lem in the first verse.56 As Ar-istophanes wrote two plays entitled Aiolosikon (Ath. 9.372a) these frag-ments are normally assigned to the earlier version of indeterminate datein order to accord with Platonios’ statement that the fourth century playoqj 5wei t± woqij± l]kg (1.22–3 Koster).57 This may, however, be totake Platonios too literally; fr. 9 is reminiscent of the simple aeolics atEkkl. 289 ff.

2. Timokles fr. 27 K-A:

peq· d³ t¹m pam\hkiom

evdousi cq÷er, M\mmiom, Pkacc~m, K}jaCm\haima, Vq}mg, Puhiom_jg, Luqq_mg,Wqus_r, †Jomak_r†, Zeq|jkeia, Kop\diom.

55 For the passages which Webster includes and I omit cf. n. 77.56 For the “poetic” plural in Comedy cf. D. Bain, Actors and Audience (Oxford

1977) 198–200.57 Cf., e. g., Gelzer RE Suppl. Bd. 12.1413. P. Händel, Formen und Darstellungs-

weisen in der aristophanischen Komçdie (Heidelberg 1963) 128–130, has a usefuldiscussion.

Comedy and Performance586

Whether the ladies named in this fragment performed as a chorus in theOrestautokleides is a question which most critics sensibly leave open.Even if the ladies appeared on the stage, perhaps taking the place ofthe Eleven for a trial of Autokleides in the Parabyston (cf. fr. 28 K-A),58 it does not necessarily follow that they also performed choral num-bers. This play was presumably inspired by a reproduction of the Eume-nides, but unfortunately it cannot be dated more precisely than to sometime in the 330s or 320s.59

3. Heniochos fr. 5 J-A: It is a possible inference from this fragment thatthe cities to which the prologist60 refers formed the chorus of this play,but it is by no means a necessary inference. The speaker undertakes toname the cities which have gathered, and this distinguishes this playfrom the Birds of Aristophanes and the Cities of Eupolis (cf.frr. 245–7 K-A) where there is a choral parade during which the indi-vidual choreuts are introduced. Unfortunately, the date to be assigned tothis very interesting passage remains obscure and so does its place, if ithas one, in the later history of the comic chorus.61

58 Was Autokleides charged, as a jajoOqcor, with cumaij_m 5qca mujteq^sia

(-e_sia R: corr. Dobree) / jk]pteim rvaqp\feim te h^keiam J}pqim (Ar.Thesm. 204–5)? It is, of course, pure surmise that the Parabyston was men-tioned in this context in the play. I do not know who first identified the elevenhetairae with the Eleven of the Parabyston : Meineke thought of them simply asthe chorus and considered that the Eleven were also represented on the stage asin the Aeschylean model, cf. Historia critica comicorum Graecorum (Berlin 1839)432. I have not come across the other interpretation earlier than Maidment art.-cit. (n. 1) 13.

59 Autokleides’ period of notoriety is quite uncertain; he is mentioned so casuallyat Aischin. 1.52 that attempts to date Timokles’ play to the period of the Ti-marchos scandal (cf. Koerte, BPhW 26 [1906] 900–3, id. RE 6A.1261) mustbe doubtful. Elaborate chronologies have been devised on the basis of the ca-reers of the various hetairae, but cq÷er need not be strictly accurate for all ofthem and careers presumably varied greatly in length.

60 For mol_fete in v.8 cf. Men. Dysk. 1.61 The facts relevant to the dating are as follows: (i) The ‘Hesychian’ Life in the

Suda (cf. Schultz RE 8.1323–4, R. Wagner, Symbolarum ad comicorum Graecorumhistoriam criticam capita quattuor [Diss. Leipzig 1905] Cap. III, Adler’s edition ofthe Suda I xxi) describes Heniochos as jylij¹r t/r l]sgr jylyid_ar (g 392Adler). The conventional “epoch date” for the Middle Comedy seems tohave been 376–3 (cf. Kaibel, RE 1.2078); part of the reason may have been,I suggest, that this was the date of Anaxandrides’ first City victory: the reportthat he pq_tor … 5qytar ja· paqh]mym vhoq±r eQs^cacem (Suda a 1982

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 587

4. Alexis fr. 239 K-A:

mOm d’ Vma lµ pamtek_r Boi~tioiva_mgsh’ eWmai to ?r dias}qeim rl÷r eQhisl]moir,¢r !j_mgtoi mOm eWmai bo÷m ja· pome ?m l|mom

ja· deipme ?m 1pist\lemoi di± t]kour tµm m}wh’ fkgm,culmoOh’ arto»r h÷ttom ûpamter.

These eupolideans are most naturally either choral or delivered by acharacter leading a chorus, like Karion at Ar. Pl. 316 ff ;62 choice isnot easy, but it should be noted that self-address by a chorus in the sec-

Adler) suggests that he was regarded, by at least one tradition, as the pq_torerqetµr of the new form. (ii) If Heniochos’ Polyeuktos was named after an his-torical figure, then one of the at least two (cf. RE 21.1614–23) politicians ofthe second half of the fourth century is an obvious likelihood. (iii) The Pausonof fr. 4 is not obviously the same character as the starveling familiar from OldComedy (Ar. Thesm. 949, Pl. 602, Eupolis fr. 99.5 K-A), although he does ap-pear in a “food context”. The reference to beans recalls the very many jokes atthe Pythagoreans found in the Middle Comedy, but not the Old; the same jokeis put into a fifth century context at Philostr. Vit. Soph. 1.483. (iv) If Hyquj_ymis a true correction of the Suda’s Hyq}jiom (cf. Meineke o.c. [n. 58] 422), it ispresumably a proper name and the only man of this name of whom we knowanything is the fraudulent tax-collector of Ar. Frogs 362–3 (with S

R on 363)and 381. (v) The reference to the v|qoi in v. 11 has been thought to refer tothe Social War (cf. Webster, Studies in L.G.C.2 44), but, as is well known,the term s}mtanir replaced v|qor in the 2nd Athenian Confederacy (Theopom-pos FGrH 115 F 98), and I know of no evidence that the older term remainedin colloquial use. If the reference is rather to the empire of the fifth century,this does not, of course, date the play to 411, as is suggested by Edmonds inhis edition of the fragments. The gathering at Olympia may well come fromthe poet’s imagination rather than from history, and the description of Greekpolitics in 12–18 is vague enough to fit many periods of the late fifth or fourthcenturies. In short, a date in the first quarter of the fourth century fits all theevidence best, but any confidence would be misplaced. Did the play celebratethe foundation of the Athenian Confederacy in 377/6? Cf. Wilamowitz,Menander: Das Schiedsgericht (Berlin 1925) 145 n. 1.

62 Cf. Sifakis, AJP 92 (1971) 422–4. Sifakis also suggests that Euboulos fr. 2 K-A(= 3 Hunter), in iambic trimeters, is a further example of an invocation to achorus: at least as likely, I think, is that this fragment is a Middle Comedy ex-ample of a character speaking back into the house from which he enters. Thatsuch speeches are often addressed to women (Men. Aspis 164–6, Ter. Adelphoe511–2, 636–7, 888–9) is not surprising in view of the conventions concerningthe appearance of citizen women on the comic stage.

Comedy and Performance588

ond person plural would be without a certain parallel in extant Come-dy.63

5. Anaxilas fr. 12 K-A:

to»r l³m aqei<o>m|lour rl_m poi^sei d]kvajar † rkib\tourto»r d³ p\mhgqar, %kkour !cq~star k}jour,k]omtar.

This is a reworking of Odyssey 10.432–3, F jem ûpamtar C sOr A³ k]om-tar, and so may come from a monody by Eurylochos. On this viewrl_m presumably refers to Odysseus’ companions (who may, of course,have formed a chorus); if the lines were sung by the chorus, rl_m mayrefer to the audience. The metre, the dactylic length D-e-D64 followedby a pure cretic tetrameter, “should be choral” (Webster, o.c. 61). Weought rather to compare Antiphanes fr. 172 K-A, which is a standarddinner narrative65 and therefore likely to have been delivered solo, com-posed in a mixture of trochaic tetrameters and the dactylic length D-D.66 Thus, monodic performance (by Eurylochos) seems far the likelieralternative for this fragment.

6. Anaxilas fr. 13 K-A:

deim¹m l³m c±q 5womh’ r¹rN}cwor, § v_ke Jimgs_a

67

These aeolics may well be choral.

7. Euboulos frr. 102 and 103 K-A (= 104–5 Hunter): Lyric dactyls ofthis nature are most naturally interpreted as choral ; as choruses normallyadvertise themselves in the parodos, fr. 102 on the glories of the wed-

63 At Ar. Lys. 539 !pa_qet’ (Brunck: aUqesh’ RC) is accepted, inter alios, by Wi-lamowitz and Coulon.

64 In v. 1 Meineke’s aqei<o>m|lour, not otherwise attested before Hellenistic epi-gram, seems the best solution: for the various forms of this word cf. Fraenkel,Kleine Beitr�ge zur klassischen Philologie (Roma 1964) I 431–2.

65 Cf. Fraenkel, De media et nova comoedia quaestiones selectae (Diss. Göttingen 1912)22–3. Euboulos fr. 111 K-A (= 112 Hunter), a dinner narrative in stichic cretictetrameters, was also probably delivered solo.

66 Cf. Wilamowitz, Griechische Verskunst (Berlin 1921) 431.67 § v_ke, jmgsi÷m Meineke.

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 589

ding-night enhanced by fragrant garlands would fit well in the parodosof Stephanopolides,68 and we have a famous example of such a dactylicparodos in the Clouds of Aristophanes. It is clear, both from late Aristo-phanes and from Menander, that special provision was still made for theinitial entry of the chorus in the fourth century, cf. infra on the Rudens.The unusual (i. e. technical ?) language of frr. 99, 103 and 105 would fitwell in the mouths of professional garland-sellers.69

8. Alexis fr. 42 K-A:

1mtaOha peq· tµm 1sw\tgm de ? jeqj_darl÷r jahifo}sar heyqe ?m ¢r n]mar.

This fragment, from the Gynaikokratia, is obviously strikingly parallel tothe Ekklesiazousai of Aristophanes, but we should not be too hasty inassuming a choral role equally as large for Alexis’ play.

9. Adesp. 1032 K-A: It would appear from the mark WOQO£ in this textthat the choral interludes were handled in the normal New Comedyfashion; if, however, %mdqer in 18 and 26 refers to the chorus and thespeaker of 24–5, ûpamter Ble ?r c’ oR paq|mter jtk. , is the leader ofthe chorus then the chorus must have taken a more active role in thisplay than was normal. In New Comedy the vocative %mdqer regularlyrefers to the audience,70 but it is to be noted that virtually all cases71

occur in monologues or what amounts to a monologue. The facts arebest suited by the suggestion of Zuntz72 that we have here an exampleof a secondary chorus like the aduocati in the Poenulus of Plautus. Thesituation in Adesp. 1032 K-A is vaguely like that of the events at Eleusisreported in the Sikyonios of Menander; there %mdqer in a reported speech

68 W. G. Arnott, G and R n.s. 19 (1972) 68, suggests that AQc_diom in fr. 103.1 isan example of the naming of an individual choreut during the parodos, cf. Ar.Wasps 230 ff. , Lys. 24, 321, 293–4.

69 There is very little to be said for the suggestion of Fielitz, De Atticorum comoediabipartita (Diss. Bonn 1866) 10, that this play was the model for Naevius’ Corol-laria, which should be “The Play about a Garland”.

70 The instances are usefully collected by Bain o.c. (n. 56) 190–1.71 The apparent exception is Men. Dysk. 194, %mdqe[r in an aside. For %mdqer to

the audience in the earlier period cf. Diokles fr. 14 K-A and Ar. Pl. 802;those, like van Daele, who refer this latter passage to the chorus are, I feelsure, wrong, but I doubt that this can be demonstrated.

72 Mnem.3 5 (1937) 60.

Comedy and Performance590

was addressed to the crowd that gathered to watch the proceedings(Sik. 240, 269).

Roman Comedy has preserved two important pieces of evidence forthe history of the comic chorus. It must remain an open questionwhether the piscatores of Rudens 290–324 also performed as the regularchorus between the acts, if it is safe to assume the same structure for Di-philos as for Menander, but it is obviously tempting to equate theirentry and self-description with the parodos, i. e. the end of the firstact.73 As for the Poenulus, the structure of the Greek original74 doesnot emerge clearly from the Plautine version,75 but the slow entry ofthe aduocati recalls a number of choruses from the fifth century, and, al-though the aduocati appear in only one scene, they clearly trace their an-cestry from comic choruses. It is they, rather than the piscatores in Ru-dens, who best parallel the %mdqer of Adesp. 1032 K-A.76

The object of this survey77 has been simply to reassess the evidencein surviving Comedy itself for the role of the chorus in Middle and NewComedy. Of at least as much significance for the historian of drama as

73 The alternative end for the first act would be 184, but we would normally ex-pect at least two scenes and the prologue in the first act; I do not think that themetrical integration of the piscatores scene with the surrounding context carriesany great weight.

74 Probably the Karchedonios of Alexis, cf, K. Kunst, Studien zur gr.-rçm. Komçdie(Wien und Leipzig 1919) 123–31, Maurach’s edition pp. 58–61, Arnott, Dio-niso 43 (1969) 355–60.

75 Cf. the summary in Maurach’s edition pp. 229–31.76 For the Greek parallels to the entry of the aduocati cf. Maurach’s edition p. 241.

In particular, they recall the chorus of the Wasps in both character and occupa-tion; Wasps 258/Poenulus 516–7 is very striking.

77 I have omitted the following fragments which are often included in discussionsof this subject: Euboulos frr. 34 K-A (= 35 Hunter) and 137 K-A (= 139Hunter) – although the possibility of choral performance is not to be excluded,nothing in either subject-matter or, in view of Anaxilas fr. 12 K-A and Anti-phanes fr. 172 K-A, metre specifically argues for it ; Antiphanes frr. 108–9K-A – if any conclusion is to be drawn from these fragments and the titleKnights, it is that the play concerned a few individuals, perhaps only two,who join the cavalry, rather than that the fragments are “a description of thechorus by its leader” (Webster o.c. 62); Antidotos fr. 2 seems more likely tohave been addressed by a pompous parasite to a couple of his “students”than to be “a unique reference to the chorus after their entry” (Webster loc.-cit.). There is no pressing reason to think that the “guests” of Mnesimachos fr. 4ever appeared on the stage, let alone formed a chorus, and the later develop-ment of the choral formula (cf. Sandbach on Men. Epitrep. 169) is rather againstsuch an interpretation.

31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 591

the paucity of such evidence is, perhaps, the metrical variety revealed byfragments which were almost certainly delivered solo.78

Addenda

The later history of the chorus continues to attract attention, particularly in thelight of epigraphic evidence, cf. , e. g. , W.J. Slater, ‘Three problems in the his-tory of drama’ Phoenix 47 (1993) 189–212. The late plays of Aristophanes havebeen edited by Ussher and Sommerstein (Eccl.) and Sommerstein again (Pl.); seealso Sommerstein’s ‘Act division in Old Comedy’ BICS 31 (1984) 139–52.Two important publications for the history of Middle Comedy have beenH.-G. Nesselrath, Die attische mittlere Komçdie (Berlin 1990) and W.G. Arnott,Alexis. The Fragments (Cambridge 1996); both are relevant to several of the pas-sages discussed here. I returned to some of these passages in Eubulus. The Frag-ments (Cambridge 1983).

n.9 Cf. now the note of Austin-Olson on vv. 280–1.

n.34 TheMenaechmi has been further discussed, cf. , e. g. , E. Woytek, ‘Zur Her-kunft der Arztszene in den Menaechmi des Plautus’ WS 95 (1982) 165–82, A.Primmer, ‘Die Handlung der Menaechmi’ WS 100 (1987) 97–115, 101 (1986)193–222.

p. 587 On Heniochos fr. 5 cf. M. Revermann, ZPE 128 (1999) 25–8, with theresponse of M.L. West, ZPE 130 (2000) 12.

p. 587 On Alexis fr. 239 cf. Arnott, Alexis (above) pp. 669–75.

p. 590 Adesp. 1032 K-A was re-edited by Arnott in ZPE 102 (1994) 61–70.

78 I am very grateful to C. F. Austin and F. H. Sandbach for their helpful com-ments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Comedy and Performance592

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus*

The Trinummus1 is certainly neither the most read nor the most obvi-ously enjoyable of the plays of Plautus: Wilamowitz’s damning judge-ment has often been repeated with approval2. This play does, however,lend itself readily to the study of Plautus’ method in adapting Greekplays for the Roman stage; analysis of this play is not complicated byany serious structural problems, as the plot is simple and moves in astraight line. In this paper I propose to discuss two aspects of the Trinum-mus which illustrate different sides of Plautine method; in Part 1 I shallconsider the allegorical prologue figures of Luxuria and Inopia and inPart 2 the role of the slave Stasimus in the second half of the play.

1. Luxuria and Inopia

Wilamowitz3 argued that the allegorical prologue figures of the Trinum-mus were a creation of Plautus; he reasoned that since Luxuria and In-opia say nothing about the coming play, which was the function ofGreek prologists4, and nothing which is obviously taken over from

* Museum Helveticum 37 (1980) 216–301 In the footnotes the following works are cited by author name only: K. Abel,

Die Plautusprologe (Diss. Frankfurt 1955); E. Fantham, ‘Philemon’s Thesauros asa Dramatisation of Peripatetic Ethics’, Hermes 105 (1977) 406–21; Ed. Fraen-kel, Plautinisches im Plautus (Berlin 1922), translated by F. Munari as ElementiPlautini in Plauto (Firenze 1960); G. Jachmann, Plautinisches und Attisches (Berlin1931); P. Langen, Plautinische Studien (Berlin 1886); F. Leo. Plautinische For-schungen2 (Berlin 1912); T. B. L. Webster, Studies in Later Greek Comedy2 (Man-chester 1970). All references to Menander, unless otherwise indicated, followthe numeration of Sandbach’s Oxford Classical Text.

2 “langweilt man sich selbst bei Plautus”, Menander: Das Schiedsgericht (Berlin1925) 165; cf. Jachmann 226, H. Haffter, in: E. Lefèvre (ed.), Die rçmische Ko-mçdie (Darmstadt 1973) 100.

3 Op. cit. 148.4 Cf. Ter. Andria 5–7, nam in prologis scribundis operam abutitur, / non qui argumen-

tum narret sed qui maleuoli / ueteris poetae maledictis respondeat.

Greek they must be a Plautine conception5. It is certainly true that thereseems to be nothing in the pqopepqacl]ma of the play which would de-mand a narrative prologue of the type to which we are becoming accus-tomed in Greek New Comedy. One lesson, however, that Menander’sDyskolos has taught us is that we must not interpret too strictly the“need” of any play for a narrative prologue6. We are by no means atthe stage where a play of the Greek New Comedy may be assumedto have had a narrative prologue (divine or human) until it is provednot to have had, but it is true that the papyri have more to offer tothose who believe that most plays did have narrative prologues thanto those who hold the opposite view7. The obvious striving after nov-elty in the expository section of their plays by poets of the Greek NewComedy 8 probably resulted, however, in the complete omission of anyformal prologue in at least some plays and these two factors suggest thatthe structure of the expository part of the Trinummus will be as good aguide on this matter as the difficult question of “need”.

A preliminary problem which must be considered is that of the stagesetting assumed by our text of the Trinummus. Although Plautus pre-sumably visualised the stage arrangements when writing his script andthe three-door setting was standardised in the theatre both in his timeand the subsequent centuries, we need not assume that the arrangementswere the same at every performance of the Trinummus and, as our texts

5 Wilamowitz is followed, inter al. , by Jachmann 242, A. Körte, Philemon 7, RE19, 2 (1938) 2142–3, Abel 22–4, Fraenkel, Elementi 434. Wilamowitz furtherargued that, as Lesbonicus has long been inops, the sending in of Inopia is sillyand hence (of course) Roman. Webster 140 observes, however, that the youngman is “now at a new crisis because he has spent all the money from the sale ofhis father’s house”; I doubt in fact whether even this defence is necessary. Anycontradiction seems to be amply compensated by the effectiveness of the sceneand could just as well be Greek as Roman.

6 On the prologue of the Dyskolos cf. A. Schäfer, Menanders Dyskolos: Untersu-chungen zur dramatischen Technik (Meisenheim-am-Glan 1965) 31–4, and W.Ludwig, in: Entretiens Fondation Hardt 16 (1970) 84–90. An instructive discus-sion of the “need” for a prologue is D. Sewart, ‘Exposition in the Hekyra ofApollodorus’, Hermes 102 (1974) 247–60.

7 K. Büchner, Das Theater des Terenz (Heidelberg 1974) 484–97, is right to warnagainst the bland assumption of a prologue for any Greek play, but his attemptto deny narrative prologues to the Epitrepontes and Terence’s Greek models isunsuccessful.

8 Cf. Ed. Fraenkel, Class. Quart. 36 (1942) 12–3 (= Kleine Beitr�ge II 42) citingAdesp. 1008 K-A. A good example is the Cistellaria which combines both ahuman and a divine narrative.

Comedy and Performance594

are ultimately derived from various acting scripts9, it need occasion nosurprise that inconsistencies in these matters are sometimes to befound, and we should not be too quick to ascribe these difficulties to“Plautine carelessness”. With this general proviso, the evidence forthe Trinummus may be set out and assessed as follows: The house ofCharmides, which has been bought by Callicles, is on the stage (v.40, 124). Where is the entrance to the posticulum (v. 194) in which Les-bonicus new lodges? The most obvious alternatives10 are that Lesboni-cus and Stasimus use either the same entrance as Callicles or another ofthe doors which communicate directly with the stage-front11. The latteralternative may seem to require an initial effort of imagination from theaudience, but is much the more likely solution. V. 3, 12, 194, 390 and1085 strongly suggest that the posticulum is visible to the audience and v.600–1 spoken by Stasimus, ibo huc quo mi imperatumst, etsi odi hancdomum, / postquam exturbauit hic nos nostris aedibus, and v. 1078–85 inwhich Stasimus prevents Charmides from entering his former residenceare, at the very least, difficult to follow on the assumption that both thehouse and the posticulum were represented by the same door12. The factthat the sycophanta knocks at Lesbonicus’ former house (v. 868) is per-haps not to be explained as a detail intended to convince Lesbonicusthat Charmides, who is ignorant of what has happened, has despatchedthis messenger, as no attention is drawn by the poet to this fact; in theminds of the audience the other house is still a posticulum and, of course,the sycophanta must knock at the former residence in order to attractCharmides’ attention. As for Megaronides, the text clearly suggeststhat he is imagined to live “off-stage”. Only thus are v. 853–4, illequi me conduxit (sc. Megaronides), ubi conduxit, abduxit domum: / quae uo-

9 On the transmission of Roman dramatic texts cf. H. D. Jocelyn, The Tragedies ofEnnius (Cambridge 1967) 47–57.

10 On the alleged alley running between the houses at right-angles to the stage cf.W. Beare. The Roman Stage3 (London 1964) Appendix C, and id., Class. Rev.n.s. 4 (1954) 6–8.

11 For the former alternative cf. (most recently) V. Rosivach, Trans. Am. Philol.Ass. 101 (1970) 458–61, and for the latter A. Frickenhaus, Die altgriechischeB�hne (Strassburg 1917) 26 and K. O. Dalman, De aedibus scaenicis comoediaenovae (Kl.-Phil. Studien 3, Leipzig 1929) 22–3 and 77–8.

12 Cf. Langen 221–2. Not all of Langen’s objections are valid: v. 422 does notnecessarily refer to the door from which Lesbonicus has just entered, and v.390 refers, on my view of the stage arrangement, to the posticulum and not tothe house now owned by Callicles.

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 595

luit mihi dixit etc., comprehensible to the audience13, and the descriptionof Megaronides at v. 1147–8 seems to me to be good evidence for thisview; if he were a uicinus, this would almost certainly have been men-tioned. His apparent ignorance of local events during the first scene (cf.v. 193–4) is not, however, relevant here, since this ignorance is vital tothe expository function of that scene14. The lack of an exact parallel forhis initial entry15 is hardly an important obstacle in the way of this in-terpretation. As for Philto and Lysiteles, the most natural conclusionfrom the textually uncertain v. 276–7, quo illic homo foras se penetrauitex aedibus?, is, I think, that at v. 223 Lysiteles entered from a houseon the stage and that Philto does the same at v. 276; cf. Hegio’swords about Tyndarus at Captiui 533 when both have entered fromthe same stage-house, quo illum nunc hominem proripuisse foras se dicamex aedibus. In fact, however, there are considerable difficulties in theway of this view. At v. 590 Lesbonicus goes off with Philto to find Ly-siteles and at v. 627 the two young men enter the stage from one of theside-entrances (cf. v. 622–5); it seems an obvious inference from thisthat Philto and Lysiteles live “off-stage”. Similarly, the meeting of Ly-siteles and Stasimus (v. 1120) takes place off the stage16 and at v. 716 Ly-siteles presumably went home because he did not say that he was goinganywhere else17. In the final scene there is nothing to indicate that Char-mides and his new son-in-law are neighbours and, although the meetingof Stasimus and Lysiteles could be the result of the omission of a scenefrom the Greek original or even of “Plautine carelessness”, there is noreason not to adopt the simpler explanation, which is that Philto and

13 Cf. Rosivach, art. cit. (n. 11) 459.14 Cf. infra n. 25.15 This worried M. Johnston, Exits and Entrances in Roman Comedy (Diss. Colum-

bia 1933). There is, however, no reason why, for example, Diniarcus in theTruculentus should live on the stage. It is perhaps worthy of note that a similarvagueness surrounds two other Plautine senes who are, like Megaronides, cast inthe role of assistant to the leading senex. One is Apoecides in the Epidicus : thereseems no reason why he should live on the stage and either cum Apoecide (Fay,Leo) or et Apoecidem (Acidalius) conveys the sense demanded by v. 187 (cf.Duckworth on v. 186), but it would be open to any producer to place hishouse on stage if so desired. Secondly, Callipho in the Pseudolus certainlylives on the stage (v. 410–1. 952), but this house has no part to play in the ac-tion of the Latin play, cf. Jachmann 250–1; the contrast between Pseud. 411and Epid. 186–7 is instructive.

16 This is quite independent of the correctness of Ritschl’s domi in v. 1120.17 Cf. Rosivach, art. cit. (n. 11) 460.

Comedy and Performance596

his son live “off-stage”18. Only two stage-doors, therefore, are used inthis play, one by Callicles and one by Lesbonicus and his slave.

With his entrance monologue (v. 23–38) Megaronides immediatelyplaces himself in a class of comic characters, the most familiar member ofwhich is Chremes in the opening scene of Terence’s Heauton Timorou-menos. These are characters who stick their noses into other people’sbusiness; they are pokupq\clomer

19. An experienced Greek audiencewould know that Megaronides condemns himself from his ownmouth20, and by the end of the scene he has realised his folly. It doesnot affect this necessary interpretation of the opening scene that Mega-ronides’ later role in the play is entirely laudable (cf. v. 1147–8); his ex-perience has taught him a lesson and, in any case, it is far from certainthat Attic Comedy was more interested in “consistency of character”than in the value of the individual scene. Megaronides’ behaviour inthe opening scene accords, as has been recently emphasised21, withthe peripatetic idea that one has a duty to correct the faults of a friend.If Philemon and Megaronides are here indebted to contemporary moralphilosophy22, then the steeper and more comic is the latter’s fall from his

18 Langen 224 compromises by placing Philto’s house in the vicinity of the stagebut not quite on it.

19 The earliest example is Blepsidemos in Aristoph. Pl., cf. Leo 139, F. Wehrli,Motivstudien zur gr. Komçdie (Zurich 1936) 75–6; for Chremes cf. H. D. Joce-lyn, ‘Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto’, Antichthon 7 (1973) 14–46,and E. Fantham, Latomus 30 (1971) 979–81. V. 760–2 are too uncertain to beadduced as evidence of Megaronides’ ‘Geiz’, cf. A. Fleckeisen, Philologus 2(1847) 73 n. 7.

20 Megaronides pleads fides as the excuse for his actions and it is worth tracing thisword through the play. At v. 142 Callicles pointedly observes that Megaronidesis forcing a breach of fides upon him, after M. has earlier accused him of a vol-untary breach (v. 117, 128); after M. has seen the error of his ways his cures tuamfidem (v. 192) is a neat touch by the poet. The theme reappears in Stasimus’monologue (cf. Part 2 of this paper): the reference to those who male fidem serv-ant (v. 1048) in a matter of money recalls Callicles whose behaviour has beenthe very opposite, but who is to be suspected of “bad faith” by Charmidesand whose fides is to be stressed in the outcome (v. 1096. 1111. 1126). Thusit is Callicles who embodies fides in this play and the irony of v. 27 is apparent.

21 Fantham 410–12, following F. Zucker, Freundschaftsbew�hrung in der neuen Ko-mçdie, SB Leipzig 98, 1 (1950) 11–2.

22 The idea that one should correct one’s friends is an old one: Leo 139 n. 2 citesEur. Alk. 1008–10 and cf. Plat. Laws 1, 635 a; most aspects of the peripateticview of friendship have, of course, deep roots in traditional Greek thinking, cf.F. Dirlmeier, V_kor und Vik_a im vorhellenistischen Griechentum (Diss. München1931).

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 597

pretensions; that Callicles welcomes his friend’s interest (v. 90–6) mere-ly highlights the irony in this scene.

The scene between Megaronides and Callicles is striking first for itsvery great length; it is the longest first scene in extant Comedy23. Thenearest parallels are the Asinaria, the Pseudolus, and particularly the An-dria, Heauton Timoroumenos, Phormio and Hecyra of Terence in whichopening expository dialogues almost certainly replace Greek narrativeprologues24. That some at least of Callicles’ account must be known al-ready to Megaronides is no real objection to the dialogue form, sincethis is inherent in the expository function of the scene and is a phenom-enon which can be well paralleled25. It should, however, be noted thatexpository information given in a prologue may be later repeated in dia-logue and vice versa26, so that only minor changes in the first scenewould be strictly necessary to accommodate a narrative prologue aswell. Callicles and Megaronides make way for Lysiteles who proceedsto sing a canticum in which he outlines his decision to devote himselfto res rather than amor; he in turn is followed by Philto and then fatherand son converse. Fraenkel27 has observed that in the Latin play we donot learn Lysiteles’ name until v. 604 and that of his father until v. 432.Stranger than this, I think, is the fact that we do not learn what rolethese two men are to have in the drama until Lysiteles broaches the sub-ject of Lesbonicus in v. 326 ff. This may be because Plautus’ interests liefor the moment elsewhere, but it should be noted that, with one excep-tion, the only other example in ancient Comedy where the secondentry is not immediately comprehensible to the audience in the lightof the first scene or a narrative prologue is the Persa of Plautus, and

23 An obvious way to shorten the Greek scene is to ascribe the jokes of v. 42–66to Plautus, cf. J. Wright, Dancing in Chains (Rome 1974) 123; such captatio ben-euolentiae jokes are, however, a time-honoured part of the Greek comic tradi-tion (cf. , e. g., Aristoph. Knights 16–35) and Men. Samia 96–112 is a good rea-son for caution – ja· taOta l³m / 2t]qoir l]keim 1_lem (Samia 112–3) is not farfrom Plautus’ aufer ridicularia.

24 Cf. the relevant discussions in E. Lefèvre, Die Expositionstechnik in den Komçdiendes Terenz (Darmstadt 1969), and N. Holzberg, Menander: Untersuchungen zurdramatischen Technik (Nürnberg 1974); for the Hecyra cf. Sewart, art. cit. (n. 6).

25 The initial conversations of Aristoph. Pl. and Plaut. Curculio are good examples;Curc. 14 acknowledges and pokes fun at the convention.

26 Cf. Men. Dysk. 328–35 which largely repeats the relevant parts of Pan’sspeech.

27 Elementi 441. Ancient drama, in fact, abounds in similar “obscurities”, cf. J. An-drieu, Le Dialogue Antique (Paris 1954) 276–7.

Comedy and Performance598

in that play Saturio introduces himself at once with a stock parasite’smonologue28. The exception to which I referred is the Asinaria, oneof the plays which, like the Trinummus, opens with a lengthy dialogue.I believe that Havet29 was correct to identify the young man of I 2–3 asDiabolus the rival, not Argyrippus the unhappy lover; any audiencemight, however, be forgiven for believing this young man to be Argyr-ippus in the light of the opening conversation between the senex and hisslave30. In the Mostellaria, for example, a conversation about a youngman is followed by a lengthy canticum from that young man, and inthe Mercator Acanthio’s account of Demipho at the harbour is followedby Demipho’s entrance-monologue. This confusion in the Asinaria is, Ithink, a strong argument in favour of a narrative prologue in the Greekoriginal of that play31. As for the Trinummus, if the structural odditywhich I have noted requires an explanation, then more than one answersuggests itself. The unusual sequence of entries32, first Lysiteles and thenPhilto, may not accurately reflect the Greek play, and an easy explana-

28 G. Müller, Das Original des plautinischen Persa (Diss. Frankfurt 1957) 82–8, ar-gues for a narrative prologue in the Greek original of this play, but the positiveindications are very scanty. In Aristoph. Ekkl. the audience presumably realise athis entrance that Blepyros is Praxagora’s husband because they know (cf. v.33–4) that her house is “on stage”, regardless of whether she entered from astage house at v. 1 – I assume at least two on-stage houses for this play. In Trag-edy, the nature of the subject-matter means that characters may appear one afterthe other without a link or explanation, but even here the first scene regularlydirects our attention to the person(s) who will enter second, cf. Soph. El. 80,Eur. El. 48, Eur. IT 56.

29 Rev. Phil. 29 (1905) 94–103, cf. F. Munari, Stud. It. Fil. Class. , n.s. 22 (1947)17–8. Other critics (cf. Leo on v. 127) believe that Plautus simply took thisscene from another play. Havet’s change solves the problem of Demaenetus’knowledge of the twenty minae needed by his son (v. 89); the lena chargesboth young men the same and she implies at v. 231 that there is a rival. Thischange also makes sense of v. 533–4 and v. 634–5. Despite Cistellaria522–7, the harsh threats of Asin. 130 ff perhaps suit Diabolus better than thelove-struck Argyrippus.

30 J. Hough, Am. Journ. Phil. 58 (1937) 24–6, observes that we expect to see theamator after the first scene and that Diabolus is not a normal rival. Both obser-vations are true, but the most striking feature of the Asinaria, the very numberof different motifs and scene types which the play contains, explains both de-partures from the norm. On the character of this play cf. A. Traina, ‘Plauto,Demofilo, Menandro’, Par. Pass. 9 (1954) 177–203, and Webster 253–7.

31 Cf. G. Burckhardt, Gnomon 7 (1931) 422.32 Cf. Th. Ladewig, Philologus 17 (1861) 248–50; there is, however, no reason to

posit (with Ladewig) a lacuna between II 1 and II 2.

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 599

tion can be found in Plautus’ need to bring on the young man alone todeliver his canticum, for most of which there was probably no model inPhilemon. A word about this canticum is necessary at this point. An ap-parent contradiction between the views expressed by Lysiteles on amorand res and his very proper behaviour towards his father and Lesbonicushas worried certain critics33, but the contradiction is not, in fact, a realone. The amor which Lysiteles describes is that of the loose bachelorwho is involved with hetairai and the expenses that these womenbring in their train; there is no reason to doubt that his knowledgecomes from first-hand experience34. No normal35 Athenian equatedsyvqos}mg or 1cjq\teia for a young man with a monkish abstinence,and so this canticum does not destroy the pointed contrast in the play be-tween the two young men, who are clearly the descendants of Aristo-phanes’ jatap}cym and s~vqym

36. Lysiteles rejects this type of amor forthe proper path of family alliances, respect for inherited property and as-sisting poorer friends37; he makes the regular change from carefree youthto responsible adulthood. It is, therefore, possible that a core of Greekmaterial which originally formed a monologue by Lysiteles has been in-corporated into this canticum, and in the Greek monologue he may havemade both his past life and his present intentions clear to the audience.Nevertheless, a narrative prologue suggests itself as an obvious way tointroduce this character to the audience. If, on the other hand, the canti-cum had no counterpart whatsoever in the Greek play and, for example,Philto and his son originally entered together, a hypothesis which wouldhelp to explain the awkwardness of v. 276, then the need for such a pro-logue becomes pressing.

If Philemon’s Thesauros contained a narrative prologue, then thematters it covered can only be the subject of guesswork. Two possiblefeatures are, however, worthy of mention. The prologue may have out-lined Lesbonicus’ exact financial position which remains somewhat un-clear during the play. The small farm which he retains and which is of

33 Cf. Langen 222–4, I. Kistrup, Die Liebe bei Plautus und den Elegikern (Diss. Kiel1963) 35–6, E. Burck, Vom Menschenbild in der rçm. Literatur (Heidelberg 1966)47–8; for the amor / res contrast cf. Donatus on Ter. Adelphoe 94–5.

34 Pace, e. g., H.-W. Rissom, Vater- und Sohnmotive in der rçm. Komçdie (Diss. Kiel1971) 64.

35 Cf. W. S. Barrett on Eur. Hipp. 79–81.36 Cf. Leo 139, Wehrli, op. cit. (n. 19) 49.37 For the duty to help friends in financial trouble cf. Antiphanes fr. 226 K-A,

Men. Samia 15–6, Fantham 412–3.

Comedy and Performance600

crucial importance, as much of the central part of the play is concernedwith whether or not his sister is to receive it as a dowry, makes a rathersudden appearance at v. 50838. Ownership of a small farm is, of course,quite consistent with pem_a or !poq_a39, but a greater clarity would havebeen welcome, and a divine prologist could easily have given the nec-essary details. Secondly, a divine prologist would probably have fore-shadowed the return of Charmides, although the play as it stands con-tains a number of warnings (v. 156, 589–90, 617–9, 744–5) and it isclear that the audience is well prepared for this return without the actualtiming of the entry losing its effect40. Returns from overseas, whetheroccurring early or late in the drama, always appear to have been ade-quately foreshadowed41: in the Mostellaria (Philemon’s Phasma?), aplay with a technique of exposition similar in certain respects to the Tri-nummus42, the return of the father is clearly foreshadowed (v. 10, 57,77 ff) and the audience will have been in doubt only as to the timingof the arrival. Careful preparation in a similar situation occurs in Ter-ence’s Phormio (v. 147 ff)43, a play which seems to have lost a narrativeprologue in the course of adaptation into Latin44. In Menander’s Samiathe audience is given a clear hint in Moschion’s prologue (v. 5345) that itmay expect the return of the fathers at any time. The closest parallel tothe late return of Charmides is the return of Kleostratos in Act IV ofMenander’s Aspis, a return which is explicitly predicted in the prologue(v. 110–3) and foreshadowed again at v. 284–6 and probably elsewherein the lost central sections of the play. This last case differs from all the

38 Cf. Abel 23, who, however, misunderstands the issues involved.39 In the Dyskolos, pem_a (m. 209) is the curse which afflicts those who own a wyq_-

diom lijq|m (v.23).40 Contrast Rissom, op. cit. (n. 34) 167.41 Cf. P. Harsh, Studies in Dramatic “Preparation” in Roman Comedy (Diss. Chicago

1933, 1935) 14–5, Sandbach on Men. Aspis 283.42 The similarities are exaggerated by M. Knorr, Das gr. Vorbild der Mostellaria des

Plautus (Diss. München/Coburg 1934) 24–5, and D. Fields, The Technique ofExposition in Roman Comedy (Diss. Chicago 1935, 1938) 94–100.

43 Cf. Donatus on v. 149 mire paratur inopinatus subito aduentus senis: nam ipse ueniet,cuius epistolam sperat.

44 Cf. Lefèvre, op. cit. (n. 24) 81–3.45 For the text cf. Sandbach ad loc., and add now S. Slings, Zeitschr. f. Pap. u.

Ep. 30 (1978) 228. It is not necessary to believe, with H.-D. Blume, MenandersSamia: Eine Interpretation (Darmstadt 1974) 20–1, that Moschion has already re-ceived word that the old men are about to appear or that he himself sent Par-menon to the harbour to keep watch (despite Plaut. Stichus 150–4).

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 601

others in that the character who is to return is believed to be dead andnot just absent, and a divine prologue was necessary to put the recordstraight, as such a death would be out of keeping with the comictone; this example does, however, belong in the same general category.

It appears that, although there is no “need” for a prologue in Phi-lemon’s play, there are certain hints which point in that direction andnothing which tells positively against the hypothesis46. Before turningto the role of the prologue figures in the play, the extant Latin prologuemust be considered.

Fr. Osann47 excised the didascalic information in v. 18–20, togetherwith the other places in Plautine prologues where Plautus’ name is men-tioned or didascalic information given. This criterion was fully elaborat-ed by Ritschl48 and, although this view is normally disregarded now, thecircumstantial case against these passages must be considered a strongone. Terence clearly felt no need to provide full didascalic informationin his prologues, and in the Andria, the Eunuch and the Adelphoe whatinformation there is forms part of his polemic, not a separate part ofthe prologue49, and it seems more likely that later scholars or actors in-terpolated this information into some prologues than that Plautus pro-vided this information in some prologues and not others on an appa-rently random basis. Rather limited evidence, moreover, suggests thatin Plautus’ time plays were advertised in the name of the Greek poetrather than that of the Latin translator50. As for the use of the name Plau-tus, the one “fact” agreed by all is that this occurs three times in the Ca-

46 Pace Abel 22–3, a narrative prologue which hints at what is to happen doesnot, of course, detract from the significance of the choices made by the char-acters in the course of the play.

47 Analecta Critica Poesis Romanorum Scaenicae Reliquias Illustrantia (Berlin 1816)176. Th. Bergk, Opuscula Philologica I (Halle 1884) 615, placed a lacuna afterv. 17 to alleviate the suddenness of the transition to the didascalic details.

48 Parerga zu Plautus und Terenz (Berlin 1845/Amsterdam 1965) 233 ff. ; cf. H. D.Jocelyn, Yale Class. Stud. 21 (1969) 119–20.

49 Only in the Andria and the Eunuch does Terence name the author of his Greekoriginal ; in the Adelphoe he provides full information on the interpolated scenefrom Diphilos, but does not mention Menander; for HT 7–9 cf. infra n. 52. E.Handley, Dioniso 46 (1975) 119, has some useful remarks on the Plautine pro-logues.

50 Cf. Plaut. Rudens 86, H. D. Jocelyn, Yale Class. Stud. 21 (1969) 103 with n. 24,and id. Ennius (cf. supra n. 9) 5–7. The importance of Ter. Eunuch 19–20,nunc acturi sumus / Menandri Eunuchum, is somewhat diminished by the factthat this is in the context of the debate about contaminatio and the Greek models.

Comedy and Performance602

sina prologue, part of which at least is known to be post-Plautine, oncein a certainly post-Plautine section (v. 12), once in the didascalic infor-mation (v. 34), and once in the narrative of the plot (v. 65)51. To thismay be added the often observed fact that Terence always refers to him-self as poeta52 and names only dead poets, using circumlocutions for theliving; in doing this Terence is following a dramatic tradition as old asthe Aristophanic parabases53 and it would be Plautus who would be theodd man out in this regard54. I, therefore, consider the case against v.18–21 to be very strong and that against v. 8 only slightly less strong55.With a couple of exceptions56, however, the rest of the extant prologue

51 Casina 5–34 seems to me to form an integrated and coherent passage, but aconsideration of the problems of this prologue is well beyond the scope ofthis present paper.

52 K. Dziatzko, �ber die plautinischen Prologe (Progr. Luzern 1866) 2, cites Ter. HT7–9 as evidence for the possibility of saying ‘Terentius’, but this joke seems torefer to the Greek poet and there is, in any case, a great difference betweenusing a word and threatening in a joke to do so. Leo’s conclusions (p. 246)from this passage are equally unjustified.

53 Cf. Leo 239–40. Certain traditional features of the comic prologue made itwell suited to inherit the role of the parabasis, cf. W. Suss, ‘Zwei Bemerkungenzur Technik der Komödie’, Rhein. Mus. 65 (1910) 442–50, G. Jachmann,Terentius 36, RE 5 A, 1 (1934) 610.

54 Although poets as early as Hesiod (Theog. 22), Alkman (fr. 17.39.95b Page) andSappho (fr. 1. 65. 133 L.-P.) name themselves freely, this seems to have beenalien to the dramatic tradition throughout the Greek period: no credence isto be given to the well known lines ascribed to ‘Sousarion’ (fr. 1 K-A) andthere is at least a doubt about the origin of Plaut. Mostellaria 1149; on thiswhole subject cf. W. Kranz, ‘Sphragis’, Rhein. Mus. 104 (1961) 3–46. 97–124 (= Studien zur antiken Literatur und ihrem Fortwirken, Heidelberg 1967,27–78). Greek comic poets had no scruples about naming rivals (cf. , e. g.,Alexis fr. 184 K-A on Araros), but the circumlocutory style of Terence’s mal-euolus poeta is present at an early date, cf. Eupolis fr. 89 K-A on Aristophanest_i vakajq_i.

55 On the difficult problem of the word ‘Trinummus’ I can shed no light; for dis-cussion and bibliography cf. J. Stein, Am. Num. Soc. Mus. Notes 12 (1966)65–9.

56 V. 6–7 were deleted as a doublet of v. 4–5 by K. Dziatzko, De Prologis Plautiniset Terentianis Quaestiones Selectae (Diss. Bonn 1863) 25, and this case is certainlymore striking than the other repetitions discussed by J. Blänsdorf, Archaische Ge-dankeng�nge in den Komçdien des Plautus (Wiesbaden 1967) 144–53, and eventhan Asinaria 6–10. V. 6–7 are obviously tied to the Trinummus more closelythan are v. 4–5, but this fact is ambiguous in its implications. Brix-Niemeyer-Conrad ad loc. suppose that after v. 5 the speaker pauses to receive the assent ofthe audience and then starts afresh, but at Cas. 3 and Truc. 4 this procedure is

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 603

may well be Plautine and, in particular, there is no good reason to doubtthe genuineness of v. 1–5. Do these verses correspond to anything inPhilemon?

Frantz57 and Leo58 argued that the allegorical prologue was modelledupon certain scenes in Attic Tragedy in which gods travel in pairs59, andspecifically the Iris and Lyssa scene in the Herakles of Euripides. Thispostulated literary parentage might throw light upon the relevance ofthese characters to the play as a whole. The central apologia of Lesbo-nicus (v. 657–8), scibam ut isse me deceret, facere non quibam miser: / ita uiVeneris uinctus otio aptus in fraudem incidi60, clearly recalls Phaidra’s apol-ogia at Eur. Hipp. 380 ff 61:

t± wq^st’ 1pist\lesha ja· cicm~sjolem,oqj 1jpomoOlem d’, oR l³m !qc_ar vpo,oR d’ Bdomµm pqoh]mter !mt· toO jakoO%kkgm tim’· eQs· d’ Bdoma· pokka· b_ou,lajqa_ te k]swai ja· swok^, teqpm|m jaj|m,aQd~r te.

Like Phaidra, Lesbonicus associates his harmful erotic attachments62 andthe failure to do what is known to be right with otium (!qc_a andswok^

63). Although the theme is a very common one64, it is likelythat Philemon had this scene from Euripides in mind here; when inv. 667–73 Lysiteles describes the nature and power of Amor whichhas mastered Lesbonicus, he plays the role, mutatis mutandis, of the

made explicit. V. 16–7 are virtually identical to Ter. Adelphoe 22–3 and, al-though this does not condemn them, it is a reasonable basis for suspicion.

57 De Comoediae Atticae Prologis (Diss. Aug. Trev. 1891) 56–7.58 P. 201–2; cf. also P. Legrand, Daos (Lyon/Paris 1910) 509.59 This was a normal practice, cf. Ed. Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford 1957) 198 n. 2; for

this reason, and because Lucian himself is fond of personification, Timon 10 isno more than broadly relevant here.

60 otio aptus A, captus otio Hermann.61 Zucker, op. cit. (n. 21) 16 n. 27, and Webster 128 observe Hipp. 380–1a, but

not the continuation.62 I see no good grounds for the view of E. Lehmann, ‘Der Verschwender und der

Geizige’, Gymnasium 67 (1960) 73–90, that Plautus himself is responsible forthe erotic part of Lesbonicus’ activities.

63 By the end of the fourth century the distinction between !qc_a and swok^

often seems insignificant, cf. Demosth. 3, 35; 8, 53; Men. Dysk. 357. 366.755; J. André, L’Otium dans la vie morale et intellectuelle Romaine (Paris 1966) 55.

64 There is a useful collection of material in A. Woodman, ‘Some Implications ofOtium in Catullus 51. 13–6’, Latomus 25 (1966) 217–26.

Comedy and Performance604

Nurse in Euripides who replies to Phaidra’s speech of analysis with a de-scription of the power of J}pqir (Hipp. 443 ff) which found its way intothe anthological tradition (cf. Stobaios 4, 20, 5, IV p. 435 Hense). Iwould like to think that Philemon consciously gave a Euripideanform both his prologue and to this central scene65. The intimate connec-tion in ancient thought between the notions of “extravagance” (tquv^,luxuria) and “idleness” (!qc_a, swok^, otium) is well known66; the twoideas are often found together (Plat. Rep. 4, 422 a, Laws 10, 901 e), withthe regular progression of wealth leading to extravagance and idleness(Plat. Rep. 4, 422 a, Laws 11,919 b) which in turn lead to poverty,i. e. pem_a, !poq_a and inopia. A variant of this genealogy is one relevantto the case of Lesbonicus: 5qyr or amor is the result of tquv^ and otium.Theophrastos defined 5qyr as p\hor xuw/r swokafo}sgr (Stobaios 4,20, 66, IV p. 468 Hense [= Theophr. 114 fr. W.]), and evidence forthis commonplace is abundant67. This interpretation of the relevanceof the prologue for the play as a whole also fits well with the possibleinfluence of peripatetic ethics on the Trinummus, which Fantham has re-cently discussed: in the Aristotelean system !jqas_a ja· lakaj_a ja·

tquv^ are opposed to 1cjq\teia ja· jaqteq_a (EN 7, 1145 a 35) and,like Lesbonicus, the !jqat^r does not act in ignorance but knowsthat he is doing wrong (EN 7, 1151 a 21 ff), but he is also letalekgti-j|r and thus curable (EN 7, 1150 b 30). In short, the links that bind thedivine prologists to the main body of the play are strong ones, and are, Ithink, more likely to be the work of the original poet than of a lateradapter.

65 The question of how many of Philemon’s audience appreciated the parentageof these scenes is one relevant to a consideration of Philemon’s merits as a prac-tical dramatist, but only marginally useful as a criterion by which to judge theexistence of a tragic model. The neat contrast between model and imitation –the Nurse seeks to persuade Phaidra into sexual misdemeanour and Lysitelesseeks to persuade Lesbonicus out of it – means added enjoyment for thosewho see the point, and the others do not know what they are missing. I ac-knowledge, of course, the possibility in other cases of “unconscious” borrow-ing.

66 Cf. Fraenkel, op. cit. (n. 59) 211–3, and Woodman, art. cit. passim.67 Cf., e. g., Diogenes apud Diog. Laert. 6, 51, Longus Past. 1, 17; in the Dyskolos

Sostratos falls in love because Pan makes him do so, but he is just the sort oftquveq|r (cf. R. Kassel, Zeitschr. f. Pap. u. Ep. 12, 1973, 6) from whom suchbehaviour is to be expected, cf. v. 294–5. 755. Similarly, the servant’s re-proaches at Men. Phasma 28–43 reveal the type of well-to-do bachelor whois likely to fall in love with apparitions.

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 605

If it is correct that in Philemon’s Thesauros the goddess Tquv^ de-livered a narrative prologue, then the extant Latin prologue still requiresan explanation. It may be that Plautus reproduced in detail the Greekprologue and that remnants of the Plautine version are visible in thepresent text. More likely, I think, is the alternative, namely that Plautusomitted the narrative part of the prologue and kept only the dramaticappearance of the two figures. The extant text is, therefore, basicallywhat Plautus wrote, together with certain later accretions. Unfortunate-ly, the extant prologue of the Asinaria is too doubtful and that of theVidularia too uncertain for further conclusions to be drawn from theseplays about the extent to which Plautus foreshadowed Terence’s fond-ness for the expository dialogue68, but it seems likely that some of thePlautine plays which lack a prologue are examples of this same phenom-enon69. If in Philemon’s play the conversation between the two old mendid, to any great extent, reproduce information contained in a prologue,then the omission of this prologue by Plautus was a relatively simplematter. The traces of this surgery are faint, but clear enough.

2. Stasimus and the Talent Loan

Stasimus’ monologue in IV 3 is the subject of a lucid analysis by EduardFraenkel70. He observed that the monologue fails into two parts : v.1008–27 concern the loss of a ring at a drinking bout, and v. 1028–58 are reflections on current mores prompted by Stasimus’ experiencein being cheated of a talent which he had lent to a friend. Plautus hasclosed a ring around the whole with references at the beginning andthe end (v. 1009–11, 1058) to the beating that may be lying in storefor Stasimus. Although the two parts of the monologue are quite dis-

68 About the prologues of Caecilius we can say nothing, despite the intelligentspeculation of H. Oppermann, ‘Zur Entwicklung der Fabula Palliata’, Hermes74 (1939) 113–29; cf. also Jachmann, op. cit. (n. 53) 609–10. If it is truethat the Greek originals of the Asinaria, the Trinummus and the Vidularia allhad narrative prologues, it seems more likely that Plautus did not translatethese narratives than that his versions have all been lost in the course oftransmission. The same might well be true of the Truculentus, but Abel’s defence(p. 26) of the extant text is not wholly successful.

69 Turpilius was not necessarily imitating Terence when he used a dialogue inplace of Menander’s monologue for the opening of his Epiclerus (fr. I R.3).

70 P. 154–8 ( = Elementi 146–50).

Comedy and Performance606

tinct, the transition is eased by the fact that the lament over mores is a notunnatural outgrowth of the slave’s experience at the hands of his booncompanions. As Fraenkel notes, however, the first part of the mono-logue has absolutely nothing to do with the Trinummus and was presum-ably taken over by Plautus from another Greek play, whereas the secondhalf not only corresponds to Stasimus’ stated intention on leaving thestage at v. 728, but also is concerned with certain of the major themesof the play, notably fides71 and the decline of mores. It seems an obviousconclusion that it is the second part of Stasimus’ monologue which istaken from Philemon’s Thesauros72.

Despite these considerations, the very Roman colouring of the sec-ond part of the monologue is striking. I find it hard to believe that allthis talk of mores maiorum, leges, ambitio and honor corresponded closelyto anything in Philemon73; this is not, of course, to exclude someGreek basis for these reflections upon which Plautus has expanded74,since happy memories of the “good old days” and a lament for the cor-rupt nature of modern ways is a commonplace of orators and comicpoets at least as early as the fifth century B.C., andMercator 836–41 sug-gests that it was well known to Philemon. The main themes of Stasimus’monologue are most fully elaborated elsewhere in the play in the en-trance monologue of Megaronides (v. 27–38) and the correspondinglecture of Philto to his son (v. 281–300); that these themes form a co-herent pattern in the play perhaps suggests that they are the work of theoriginal poet rather than of Plautus, as normally it is a lack of coherencewhich is regarded as the hallmark of Plautine material. Some of thismonologue, however, is clearly not taken from Greek (e. g. v.1037–40), and it would be useful to be able to cite Bacchides 540–51as evidence of Plautus’ own interest in the subject of mores and false

71 Cf. supra n. 20.72 Stasimus has some of the characteristics of the seruus currens, but he is bearing no

message; cf. Amph. 984 ff where, however, the play with the comic topoi ismore than sufficient justification. It is not unlikely that in the Trinummusthese characteristics were added by Plautus for comic effect.

73 It seems very unlikely that v. 1037 reproduces a pun on the various senses ofm|lor.

74 Trin. 1057–8 echoes a formula found at Persa 75–6 after a passage of, at least,Roman colour and perhaps more, despite J. Partsch, Hermes 45 (1910) 598–602, and U. Paoli, Iura 4 (1953) 174–81. Charmides’ aside at v. 1041–2matches that of Euclio at Aulularia 523–4 during a section which has certainlybeen expanded by Plautus, cf. Fraenkel 137–40 (= Elementi 130–2).

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 607

friends, but the origin of that passage is, unfortunately, uncertain75. Atthe very least, I think, Plautus has as good a claim as Philemon to thecredit for fully working out this theme in the play76; his reasons fordoing this may be the subject of historical speculation77. In short, Plau-tus appears to have taken a monologue from one Greek play and to haveadded it to a second monologue containing a considerable original ele-ment and to have included the whole in his adaptation of the Thesauros.He has attached this new unit to his play by the theme of the talentwhich Stasimus has lent and lost. This enormous sum has naturallyaroused suspicion, and it has been combined with the harmless jokeof v. 413 to support the thesis that Stasimus’ thefts are a major causeof his master’s poverty78. There seems, however, to be nothing of sub-stance in this view79; it may be that Plautus has simply enlarged the sumnamed in the Greek play, since a slave could lend money at both Athensand Rome and other sums of money in Plautus seem to have beengreatly exaggerated80. Alternatively, the suggestion of H. J. Rose81

that talentum here refers not to the Attic talent but to the Siculo-Italiantalent, a very small sum of money, is very attractive and may well becorrect. In either case, the role of Stasimus in the second half of theplay perhaps requires a further examination.

At v. 717 Lysiteles and Lesbonicus leave the stage with their disputestill unsettled: Lesbonicus is resolved to give his farm as a dowry for his

75 Cf. E. Handley, Menander and Plautus: A Study in Comparison (Inaugural Lec-ture, London 1968) 17–8; H. Tränkle, Mus. Helv. 32 (1975) 118–23.

76 For v. 27–38 and v. 281–300 cf. Blänsdorf, op. cit. 203–5. 238–42.77 Cf. T. Frank, Am. Journ. Phil. 53 (1932) 152–6, and D. Earl, Historia 9 (1960)

235–43; it is perhaps worthy of note that, although the theme of money lentand lost because of evil mores doubtless occurred in Greek Comedy (cf. Axio-nikos fr. 10 K.), it appears at Ter. Phormio 55–6 in the mouth of a characterwho may well be a creation of Terence himself, cf. Donatus on v. 35, Lefèvre,op. cit. 88–102, and F. H. Sandbach, Bull. Inst. Class. Stud. 25 (1978) 132.

78 Cf. Brix-Niemeyer4 on v. 728, and E. Schild, Die dramaturgische Rolle der Sklavenbei Plautus und Terenz (Diss. Basel 1917) 75.

79 Cf. Langen 225–6 and Fraenkel 156 n. 3 (= Elementi 149 n. 1).80 Cf. Fraenkel, loc. cit. , and A. Watson, The Law of Persons in the Later Roman

Republic (Oxford 1967) 178–81; it is generally agreed that the dowries ofRoman Comedy are unrealistically exaggerated, cf. Gomme-Sandbach onMen. Epitr. 134 ff.

81 Class. Rev. 38 (1924) 155–7, cf. G. Shipp, Glotta 34 (1955) 141–3. Rose’s ex-planation, if correct, is not of course sufficient demonstration that these passagesare Plautine, as Plautus might merely have substituted the Italian talent for acorrespondingly small Greek sum.

Comedy and Performance608

sister, and Lysiteles is equally resolved not to accept it. Stasimus remainson stage and it is clear that he believes that Lesbonicus will win the argu-ment as he decides to collect a talentum which he had lent in the forum sothat he will have money for the soldiering expedition which he is cer-tain Lesbonicus will undertake, once all the property at home is exhaust-ed. This may seem slightly odd as Stasimus has no apparent reason tobelieve that Lysiteles will move from his stated position; it is odder, Ibelieve, that Stasimus’ monologue at v. 718–26 is both a repetitionand a parody of his monologue at v. 592–9 in which he expressedthe view that, if the farm was lost, Lesbonicus would take off inAsiam aut in Ciliciam82 to serve as a mercenary. In the second speechthis is replaced by a vision in which Lesbonicus attaches himself aliquemad regem and Stasimus is armed with a bow and arrows. The point of thissecond speech of Stasimus seems largely to be a series of jokes at theweakness of his master and to provide for the introduction of the talen-tum; in Bacchides 505 and 507–8 we have a clear illustration of Plautus’fondness for paq± pqosdoj_am jokes, and the suspicion that this speechin the Trinummus has been introduced by Plautus on the model of thecertainly Greek v. 592–60183 seems to me at least strong enough tobe entertained.

It may be objected that this speech of Stasimus belongs to a familiartype and that this type is known to be Greek, cf. Adesp. 1096, 13 ff. K-A; Plaut. Epidicus 81 ff; Pseudolus 394 ff 84; indeed Stasimus’ non sisti pot-est (v. 720) with reference to the soldiers’ boots of which he is thinkingdirectly echoes Epid. 84. I do not think, however, that this objection is adecisive one. That Plautus should use familiar comic forms in passages ofhis own creation is only what we would expect85 and, in any case, thePlautine material may begin at v. 719 rather than v. 717; it may, further,be significant that Trin. 718 ff. differs from the other examples of thisstyle in that the slave does not think up a plan of action with whichto deceive, but uses the monologue to express despair.

82 The mention of Cilicia perhaps suggests the campaigns of Seleukos in 296/5(cf. P. Grimal, Rev. Et. Lat. 46, 1968, 134), but the need for mercenaries inthis part of the world was by no means limited to that period, cf. G. T. Griffith.The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World (Cambridge 1935) 142–70.

83 V. 595–9 have a very close Greek parallel in Men. fr. *159 Austin (perhapsfrom the Karchedonios).

84 On these passages cf. T. Williams, Rhein. Mus. 105 (1962) 193–207, and Ed.Fraenkel, Mus. Helv. 25(1968) 231–4.

85 Bacchides 526–9 may be well paralleled from Greek Comedy.

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 609

In the above discussion I have suggested a rather moderate view,namely that v. 719–28 (or perhaps v. 717–28) are Plautus’ ownwork, but it may be possible to carry speculation one step further andconsider whether Stasimus’ very presence as an eavesdropper in III 3is a contribution of Plautus. V. 615–21 would make a very suitable“Abgangsmonolog” after Stasimus’ conversation with Callicles, beingexactly parallel to Grumio’s lament at Mostellaria 76–83, a play whichis quite probably adapted from an original by Philemon86. The unan-nounced entry of the two young men in the midst of a quarrel at v.627 would be a thoroughly Greek technique (cf. Soph. Phil. 122287,Eur. IA 303), and there is nothing in v. 622–6 which must comefrom Philemon. Stasimus is given only one bomolochic interventionin the course of the long debate (v. 705–10); this intervention maybe based upon a Greek reference to competitions for actors, but thereis no good reason why Plautus himself should not be responsible88. Inshort, although certain grounds for a decision on this question are lack-ing, there seem to be good reasons for believing that Plautus’ hand canbe detected here.

If the above reasoning is correct, then we can see Plautus preparingthe way for his own additions with greater care than is often thoughtcharacteristic of him. It is also significant, I think, that these additionsby Plautus grow from something already in his Greek model and arenot simply random accretions89.

Addenda

Subsequent bibliography includes A. S. Gratwick, ‘Curculio’s last bow: Plautus,Trinummus IV 3’ Mnemosyne 34 (1981) 331–50 and W.F. Richardson, ‘Num-mus in the plays of Plautus’ Prudentia 15 (1983) 27–34. The apparent structuralproblems of the Asinaria have been considered by J. C. B. Lowe, ‘Aspects of

86 Cf. Leo 136.87 For Phil. 1218–21 cf. O. Taplin, Gr. Rom. Byz. Stud. 12 (1971) 40–4; in his

edition Dawe casts doubt on the verses, but does not refer to Taplin’s discus-sion.

88 This passage would be the earliest evidence for actors’ competitions at Rome,but there is no evidence the other way, cf. Jocelyn, Ennius 23.

89 I am very grateful to H. D. Jocelyn for many helpful criticisms of previous draftsof this paper. F. H. Sandbach was also kind enough to comment upon an earlyversion.

Comedy and Performance610

Plautus’ originality in the Asinaria’ CQ 42 (1992) 152–75, and J. Henderson,Asinaria. The One about the Asses (Madison 2006) 224.

32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 611

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original*

The Aulularia1 has always been one of the most popular and most stud-ied of Plautus’ plays, both because of its intrinsic interest and quality andalso because of its later influence in the European dramatic tradition. Inthe large amount of scholarly work which has been devoted to this playthe identity of the author of Plautus’ Greek model and the alterationswhich Plautus may have made in this model have been much discussed.Research on these questions was, however, placed on a quite new foot-ing in 1958 by the publication of Menander’s Dyscolus : the striking sim-ilarities2 between these plays have now produced a loose consensus ofscholarly opinion, although the dissenting voice can still be heard.3

The two conclusions upon which most scholars who have written re-cently on this subject seem to agree are that the Plautine changes tothe Greek model were relatively minor, consisting in the omission ofone or two scenes and the expansion of a couple of others, and thatMenander was the author of the Greek original. Although it will be-come clear that I am very sceptical of the former of these propositionsand have at least an open mind on the latter, the aim of this presentpaper is simply to re-open discussion of the relationship between theAulularia and its Greek original by pointing to some problems which

* Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 27 (1981) 37–491 In the footnotes the following works are cited by author name only: S. Batzer,

Die Umformung der Aulularia (1956); Ed. Fraenkel, Plautinisches im Plautus (1922)which was translated by F. Munari as Elementi Plautini in Plauto (1960); W. Lud-wig, ‘Aulularia-Probleme’, Philologus 105 (1961) 44–71 and 247–62; T. B. L.Webster, Studies in Menander ed. 2 (1960). Volume XVI of the Entretiens de laFondation Hardt (1970) is cited as M�nandre and all references to Menander, un-less otherwise indicated, follow the numeration of Sandbach’s Oxford text.

2 Cf. W. Kraus, ‘Menanders Dyskolos und das Original der Aulularia’ in R. Muth(ed.), Serta philologica aenipontana (1962) 185–90 and C. Corbato, Studi Menan-drei (1965) 104–7. The differences between the two plays are well discussed byA. Schäfer, Menanders Dyskolos: Untersuchungen zur dramatischen Technik (1965)100–3 and W. MacCary and M. Willcock, Plautus: Casina (1976) 13–16.

3 The most important warnings against the assumption of a Menandrean originfor the Aulularia have come from F. H. Sandbach: cf. M�nandre 97–8 andthe note on p. 4 of the Gomme-Sandbach commentary.

have been neglected and to others which have not yet been satisfactorilyanswered. In Part I I discuss the division of the Greek original into fiveacts and the conclusions to be drawn from difficulties in this division andin Part II I examine a further problem in the Aulularia which might havesome bearing on the question of the authorship of the Greek original.

I.

I assume that the original of the Aulularia was divided into five acts bychoral performances, which are marked only by the note WOQO£ in ourtexts of Menander, and that the time-relationship between these actswas roughly as it is in Menander: short trips to somewhere in the vicin-ity of the stage-setting and back may be completed within the same act,but longer trips must be spread over at least two acts.4 The utility ofthese assumptions seems to me to outweigh whatever uncertaintymight surround them.

At 119 Euclio leaves to attend a local distribution of money and hereturns empty-handed at 178; an act-division seems necessary betweenhis departure and return and this presumably occurred either after theequivalent of 119 or just before Euclio’s return, in which case 177, nesciounde sese homo recipit domum, would be a Plautine makeshift to cover theact-division. A choice between these alternatives is not independent ofthe question of whether or not Plautus has omitted scenes in either placeor indeed before the entry of the Lar.5 The scholars who have argued forone or other of these hypotheses consider that we are introduced to theyoung lover Lyconides and his slave impossibly late in the play as itstands and they seek to remedy this by the inclusion of an appropriate

4 Cf. T. B. L. Webster, Studies in later Greek comedy ed. 2 (1970) 190–1 and W.G. Arnott, ‘Time, plot and character in Menander’, Papers of the Liverpool LatinSeminar 2 (1979) 343–60.

5 I think it most unlikely that Plautus has omitted scenes before the prologue, cf.N. Holzberg, Menander: Untersuchungen zur dramatischen Technik (1974) 43–5;the opposite case is argued by Ludwig 70–1. In extant Comedy divine prolo-gists announce the next entry if the prologue begins the play (Men. Dysc.,Plaut. Amph., Aul., Rudens; Plaut. Trin. 17 is a special case), but do not doso if the prologue is postponed (Men. Aspis, Periceir. , Plaut. Cist.). This maynot, however, have been an invariable practice and Plautus himself could be re-sponsible for Aul. 37–9; Webster 122 n. 4 sees Eur. Hecuba 52–3 as the modelfor Aul. 37–9, but the dramatic situations are quite different.

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 613

scene at either or both of these points in the Greek original. Although Ido not completely share this dissatisfaction, it is true that a scene involv-ing Eunomia and another character at the end of which Eunomia en-tered her brother’s house would fit neatly after 119, and the omissionby Plautus of such a scene would be an obvious way of avoiding the hi-atus between Eunomia’s exit and re-entry which would have beenmarked in the Greek play by a choral performance.6 A second act-divi-sion is required between the departure for the market of Megadorus andhis slave (264) and the return of the slave at 280 and it seems certain thatthis break occurred after 279, i. e. just after Euclio himself has left to dohis shopping.7 A further act-division is required to cover the events atthe grove of Silvanus where Lyconides’ slave made his successful at-tempt upon Euclio’s pot; this division presumably occurred eitherafter the equivalent of 681, i. e. as soon as Euclio and the slave haveset off for the grove, or more probably after 700.8 Although very fewcritics have resisted the obvious temptation to place a further act-divi-sion between 280 and 700 (or 681)9, there seems to me to be a strongcircumstantial case against this. In Menander’s Samia the frantic Niker-atos learns of the wrong which Moschion has done to his daughter atthe end of the fourth act (cf. Aulularia 790–802) and it may be worthnoting that in the Cistellaria (= Menander’s Synaristosai) Halisca’s des-perate song when she has lost the casket of recognition tokens(Cist. 671–704), which is very like Euclio’s lament at Aulularia713–30, almost certainly occurred in the fourth act of Menander’splay. It is clear from the Samia and from Terence’s Adelphoe that thefifth act of a comedy was not necessarily limited to the clearing up ofloose ends and our present evidence suggests that in Menander thefourth act was on the whole the climactic one.10 It therefore seems to

6 Ludwig 259–62 demonstrates that Eunomia and Lyconides do not share ahouse with Megadorus; this is, in any case, implied by the silence of the pro-logue as was realised by K. Kunst, ‘Zur Aulularia des Plautus’, Zeitschrift f�r dieçsterreichischen Mittelschulen 1 (1923/4) 212–36, p. 214.

7 For a shopping-trip ‘covered’ by an act-division cf. Men. Samia 198–283,Plaut. Bacch. 100–109 and, presumably, Plaut. Menaechmi 225–73.

8 Christopher Lowe points out that the break after 700 is more likely as Euclio’sdaughter is in labour at 691 but has been delivered of her child by 798.

9 I have found only W. Kuiper, The Greek Aulularia (1940) 32–3, but cf. also P.Legrand, Daos (1910) 479 and Georgine Burckhardt, Die Akteinteilung in derneuen griechischen und in der rçmischen Komçdie (1927) 50.

10 Cf. E. Lefèvre in G. A. Seeck (ed.), Das griechische Drama (1979) 342–3.

Comedy and Performance614

me probable that the final act-division of the Greek original occurredeither after 80711 or in the now lost ending and that more has beenlost from the end of the Aulularia than is normally imagined.12

If the third act of the Greek play is represented by 280–700 (or 681)of the Aulularia then this act would be a long one, but not in my viewimpossibly so. Some of the first scene with the cooks (II.4)13 and someof the monologue of Megadorus and his conversation with Euclio(III.5)14 show clear signs of Plautine verbal elaboration and in the Cistel-laria it is very likely that over 500 Plautine verses correspond to the sec-ond Menandrean act;15 the third act of Menander’s Epitrepontes is over280 Greek trimeters long. Nevertheless, the size of the section of theAulularia which corresponds to the third act of the original (if myscheme is correct) may provide a clue to the location of any major Plau-tine alterations in his model.

A second clue to the relationship between the Aulularia and itsmodel is perhaps provided by two omissions from the informationwhich the Lar familiaris gives the audience in his relatively brief 16 pro-

11 In favour of a break after 807 Christopher Lowe argues that the slave needs timeto hide the gold and I would add that a break at this point would help to explainthe curious similarity between 696–700 and 804–7; Plautus may have simplyrepeated an earlier passage when he needed to keep Lyconides on the stage todisguise the act-division. I cannot follow the discussion of this problem in Bat-zer 135–9.

12 The cooks may well have reappeared at the end of the play (cf. T. Williamsapud W. G. Arnott, Phoenix 18 [1964] 236–7) and at Men. Aspis 218 a cookcomplains that his work is interrupted when t]toje t_m 5mdom juoOs\ tir

k\hqai which reminds one of the end of the Aulularia; the cook in the Aspisis certainly referring to a stock comic situation, if not in fact to a particularscene from a particular play.

13 On this scene cf. E. Burck, ‘Zur Aulularia des Plautus (Vs. 280–370)’, WS 69(1956) 265–77 (= Vom Menschenbild in der rçmischen Literatur [1966] 36–44)and F. Klingner, ‘Über eine Szene der plautinischen Aulularia (280–349)’,SIFC 27/8 (1956) 157–70 (= Studien zur griechischen und rçmischen Literatur[1964] 114–25).

14 Cf. Fraenkel 137–40 (= Elementi 130–2).15 Cf. W. Ludwig in M�nandre 49–59.16 The 39 Latin trimeters of the Lar’s speech compare with 51 Greek trimeters in

the prologue of Menander’s Aspis, 49 in the Dyscolus, 51 in the extant part ofthe Periceiromene prologue and 53 Latin ones in the divine part of the Cistellariaprologue, to consider only Menandrean examples and not much longer pro-logues such as those of Mercury in the Amphitruo and Arcturus in the Rudens.Particularly striking in the Lar’s speech is the brevity of his description of Eu-clio’s character which is to be contrasted with Pan’s description of Knemon in

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 615

logue speech. The Lar does not inform us that Euclio has moved thegold from the hearth where he had found it, as is proved by 65, nuncibo ut uisam sitne (Pylades: estne codd.) ita aurum ut condidi, and fr. IIILeo-Lindsay, ego ecfodiebam in die denos scrobes ; this has misled morethan one critic,17 but it is perhaps of no great significance. More inter-esting is the failure of the Lar to inform the audience that there is a tem-ple of Fides on the stage, as is clear from the fourth (Plautine) act.18 Inextant Comedy a divine prologist, particularly if he or she appears as theopening scene of the play, provides full information about the housesrepresented on the stage,19 but after the Lar’s speech the audience isable to identify only the houses of Euclio and Megadorus, the senexde proxumo. Many explanations may be offered for the Lar’s silenceabout this temple — a lacuna in the text, the infamous ‘carelessness’of Plautus, or the scene which Plautus is alleged to have omitted beforethe prologue20 — but this omission may also give a further indicationthat we are justified in looking for Plautus’ handiwork in the middlesection of the play.

A minor problem of some interest is raised by the end of the Lar’sspeech. As the god would most naturally return into Euclio’s house afterhis speech, there must have been a slight pause after 39 in order to avoidan awkward confrontation between the divine and mortal characters

the Dyscolus and Tyche’s description of Smikrines in the Aspis ; it is, I think,partly as a result of this that scholars have been able to doubt whether auiditasreally is a part of Euclio’s innate nature.

17 A. Krieger, De Aululariae Plautinae exemplari Graeco (1914) 24, and D. Konstan,Arethusa 10 (1977) 309, think that the gold is still hidden in the hearth duringthe first part of the play and A. Klotz, Philologische Wochenschrift 61 (1941)590–1, supposes that after trying a number of locations Euclio had put thegold back in the hearth.

18 This temple is missing from the stage-setting in Nixon’s Loeb edition and cf.Wagner on v. 102, ‘there is a temple of Fides in the vicinity’.

19 If Pataikos’ house was on the stage in Menander’s Periceiromene, this was pre-sumably pointed out in the lost part of that prologue in which referencemust have been made to him, cf. Gomme-Sandbach, Menander pp. 501–2.In the Cistellaria it is stated before the postponed prologue that Demipho andPhanostrata live on the stage (100) and it is also probable that in Menander’splay these characters appeared in the first act in a scene which Plautus has ex-cised, cf. Webster 92 and W. Ludwig in M�nandre 54–5; the Greek prologistmay also have used a deictic to make their house clear, like 1mhad_ at Men.Dysc. 24. If Melaenis’ house was also on the stage (cf. E. Woytek, ‘Ein Cistel-lariaproblem’ WS 84 (1971) 110–22), then the lena identifies this by huic mer-etrici in v. 133.

20 Cf. n. 5 supra.

Comedy and Performance616

(unless the poet is extracting humour from the invisibility of the divine).This seems more satisfactory than to suppose that the Lar simply movesoff to one side21 or that in the Greek play he appeared on the roof orsuspended in the lgwam^.22 By itself this slight awkwardness does notsuggest any Plautine alteration of the original, but I shall refer to itagain below as part of the cumulative case for believing that the rela-tionship between the Aulularia and its model is not a simple one.

A consideration of the structure of the Greek play in terms of actsand an examination of the Latin prologue have both suggested thatthe middle section of the Aulularia requires closer investigation. It hasoften been observed that the role of the Fides-temple is restricted tothe fourth (Plautine) act and the events around this shrine are perhapssome of the most lively and surprising in the whole play. Euclio believesthat Megadorus’ intention is to make him drunk during the weddingcelebrations and so he decides to hide his pot in the temple of Fides,which is now mentioned for the first time (583).23 After Euclio’s depar-ture into the shrine, Lyconides’ slave24 enters and seats himself on thestage-altar in order to observe proceedings around the houses of Mega-dorus and Euclio and from this position he overhears Euclio announcingat least three times that he has hidden a pot of gold in the shrine. Eucliothen leaves the stage in order to wash before sacrificing; he could be in-tending to go to the public baths for a full wash as it is a special occasion,but more naturally we would suppose that he goes back into his houseto perform a ritual purification. In the case of the bridegroom Megado-rus who also leaves to wash at 579 it seems certain that he merely goeshome: we do not see him again after 579 but it is clear from IV.10 thatLyconides found him at home and persuaded him to renounce his claimto Euclio’s daughter. If Euclio did go back into his house, then it is per-

21 This is the view of Batzer (p. 1); in Aeschylus’ Eumenides the priestess mustleave by a side-exit at 63, but there this abandonment of the shrine has obvioussymbolic importance.

22 Cf. K. Abel, Die Plautusprologe (1955) 43.23 That this door represented a temple might, of course, have been made clear by

special decoration of some kind, but in the ancient theatre audiences were notnormally left to infer such things by themselves. On the Roman legal joke withwhich Euclio leaves the stage (v. 584–6) cf. A. Watson, ZRG 79 (1962) 329–34.

24 For the problem of the two slaves in the Aulularia cf. Ludwig 255–8 and B.Bader, Szenentitel und Szeneneinteilung bei Plautus (1970) 112–6. M. Marcovich,Illinois Classical Studies 2 (1977) 212–15, points out that we might have expect-ed Lyconides’ slave rather than Megadorus’ to be called ‘Strobilos’.

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 617

haps a little surprising that what caused him to rush out again was a coruoswhich called ab laeua manu25 (624), although this is not a difficulty whichI would wish to press too hard. Euclio now dashes into the temple anddrags out the slave after what must have been a very short void on thestage;26 after a thorough check of the slave’s person Euclio rushes backinto the shrine because he thinks that he hears further activity inside27

and he then re-emerges with the pot. He announces to the audiencehis intention to hide the pot in a grove sacred to Silvanus outside thecity-wall and then leaves the stage; the slave has, however, overheardhim again and he too heads for the grove. This repetition of the over-hearing-motif has been much criticised28 and, however effective suchslapstick would be on the stage, we ought to admit that such a repeti-tion without obvious point or conscious variation is without parallelin Menander and virtually without parallel in extant Comedy. The odd-ities in this scene are, moreover, not limited to the clash of Euclio andthe slave but begin as soon as the slave enters.

The entrance-monologue of the slave (587–607) is one of a series ofmonologues in Plautus on the theme of the seruus bonus and a good casehas been made by Fraenkel and others for regarding these as largely thework of Plautus himself.29 Such spying missions are, however, knownfrom Menander (Periceir. 172–85 and perhaps Ter. Andria 412–15)and so the slave’s entry is not by itself suspicious. As however theslave tells us that he has been sent to spy (speculatum 665) it is distinctlycurious that in 815 Lyconides informs the audience that he had sent the

25 The Greek bird might have been a j|qan, but an owl is as likely; cf. Men.fr. 844.11 K-A, Theophr. Char. 16.8, M. L. West on Hes. WD 747.

26 Such a hiatus in the middle of an act is most unusual in Greek drama; cf. ZPE36 (1979) 24–8.

27 This imaginary noise is never explained, although an explanation is hardly nec-essary for a character such as Euclio: cf. Xen. Symp. 4.30, Lucian, Gallus 29,Hor. Sat. 1.1.76–7, V. J. Rosivach, TAPhA 101 (1970) 450–1; Euclio’s sim-ilar behaviour at 202–3, 242–50 and 444–9 is, however, either explicitly mo-tivated or subsequently explained.

28 Cf. Legrand (n. 9) 403–4 and G. Norwood, Plautus and Terence (1932) 80–1.29 The other examples are Menaechmi 966–89, Mostell. 858–84 and Pseud. 1103–

23; cf. Fraenkel 243–5 (= Elementi 234–6 and 430) and G. Williams, Traditionand originality in Roman poetry (1968) 580. It is true that a feature which is com-mon in Latin comedy is likely to have a Greek ancestry (cf. D. Bain, Actors andaudience [1977] 154–5) and Men. fr. 314 K-A might come from such a mono-logue, but what is important is the prominence and frequency of this motif inPlautus.

Comedy and Performance618

slave to see the girl’s nurse and in 807 the nurse is said to know what ishappening although at the start of the play it seemed that she did notknow who had raped Euclio’s daughter.30 A further indication thatsomething is amiss in this scene may be given by 592–8 of the slave’sspeech: as these verses must refer to an erus who becomes involved ina wasteful love affair (presumably with a courtesan) and not to a manin Lyconides’ position and as 599 would follow quite naturally after591, the intervening verses were excised by Brix31 and most editorsadopt this solution. Wagner’s transposition of the verses after 60232

does not remove the inconsistency and so Brix was probably correctto see here one of the many cases in Plautus where two parallel passageshave been conflated.33 Nevertheless, in view of the other signs of diffi-culty to be found in this scene, it is worth noting the possibility thatPlautus composed 587–607 as a unit to stand where it does in the Au-lularia and was not too concerned with the inconsistency between thesentiment of 592–8 and the main plot of the play. Such a viewwould make Wagner’s transposition very attractive, but in any caseenough has been said to show that there is much in this scene whichcalls for an explanation.

It has occasionally been suggested that the temple of Fides and thescene in which it figures are additions by Plautus to his Greekmodel,34 but this view has never received the consideration which inmy view it deserves. If it were excised from the hypothesised Greekoriginal, then Euclio would decide at 580–6 to hide his pot in thegrove of Silvanus rather than in the temple of Fides and this would re-duce the size of the third Greek act to a more manageable length. If thisthesis is correct, then we cannot hope to recover the action of the Greekplay in this act, but 815 to which I have already referred suggests a scenein which the slave told Staphyla of the identity of the rapist and perhapsoverheard Euclio’s plan to hide the gold in the grove of Silvanus as hewas leaving the house after his discussion with Staphyla. The emphasis

30 Cf. Webster 121. Ludwig’s explanation (69–70) of these difficulties is quite un-convincing.

31 Neue Jahrb�cher f�r Philologik und Paedagogik 91 (1865) 56–7.32 W. Wagner, De Plauti Aulularia (1864) 27–9. Wagner is followed by Ussing

and Marcovich (n. 24) 213 n. 55.33 Cf. A. Thierfelder, De rationibus interpolationum Plautinarum (1929) 77, Batzer

98–102.34 This was the view of Krieger (n. 17) and Kuiper (n. 9).

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 619

on slapstick in the clash of Euclio and the slave outside the temple35 andthe innumerable jokes on fides, fidelis, and fiducia do not of course provethat the whole scene is of Plautine invention, but these may certainly beadded to the cumulative argument for this thesis which offers a neat sol-ution to some, though not all,36 of the problems of the middle section ofthe play. To this thesis it was objected long ago37 that the scene of theFides-temple fits well into the general scheme of the play: as each suc-cessive hiding-place proves insecure and all the gods in turn, the Lar,Fides and Silvanus, conspire against him Euclio is forced to move hisgold farther and farther from home until he finally loses it. With thisview of the pattern of the play I am in complete agreement, but I seeno reason to believe that anything which makes coherent dramaticsense in a Plautine play comes ipso facto from the Greek original ; theproblems in this section of the play to which I have pointed may alladmit of a quite different solution, but the thesis that Plautus himselfis responsible for the scene of the Fides-temple is not to be dismissedsimply because of preconceived notions about his lack of concernwith dramatic coherence.

II.

Even in the very small fraction surviving today of plays which werewritten in the New Comedy period there is enough evidence toshow how stylised this genre was and how similar plays by differentpoets could be. It may therefore be worthwhile, before turning to con-

35 For slapstick as a characteristic of Plautine comedy cf. G. Jachmann, Plautinischesund Attisches (1931) passim.

36 Any complete account of the Fides-scene would have to explain Euclio’s cor-rect description of Greek marriage practice in 613 (cf. Men. Samia 157–9), al-though this is not a serious objection to the thesis of Plautine workmanship.Ludwig’s suggestion (p. 63) that the third act of the Greek play ended afterII.7 is most unlikely as that act would then be entirely devoted to the slave’sconversation with the two cooks; Webster (p. 122), however, supposes thatPlautus has omitted scenes featuring Lyconides, his slave and Staphyla after362. On the short monologue of the cook at 398–405 cf. Fraenkel 163 n. 1(= Elementi 155 n. 1) who demonstrates that this speech is almost certainlyfrom the Greek play; to his examples should probably be added Men. Epi-trep. 603–9 and for the thought Webster 124 compares Ter. Adelphoe 375–81.

37 Cf. G. Jachmann, Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift 35 (1915) 1015, and W.Ludwig in M�nandre 76–7.

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sider the similarities between the Aulularia and the Dyscolus, briefly toexamine the relationship between other pairs of comedies which seemto us very alike.

The Mercator of Plautus, which is adapted from Philemon’s Emporos,shares a ‘dream-narrative’ with the Rudens, which is adapted from a playby Diphilus,38 but more significant here are the similarities between theMercator and the Casina (= Diphilus’ Kleroumenoi) which have oftenbeen observed.39 Both plays concern a contest between father and sonfor possession of a young lady and in both plays the father plans to‘enjoy’ the girl at his neighbour’s house. The conception of the twoplots is, however, quite different as the Mercator is not a ‘recognition’play and even in those scenes in which the greatest similarity mighthave been expected (Casina II. 3 ~ Merc. IV. 3–4) the differences arevery great indeed. This then is not a case of one poet imitating another,but of two poets working along different lines in the one tradition. Asecond instance which may be cited is the case of the Epitrepontes ofMenander and the Hekyra of Apollodorus (= Terence’s Hecyra). It is acommonplace of criticism that Apollodorus was deeply indebted toMenander’s play, but the way in which the alleged model has beenused is of particular interest: in the Epitrepontes a husband leaves hiswife and goes to a courtesan but does not touch her, whereas in the He-cyra a husband gives up a courtesan and returns to his wife but will havenothing to do with the wife physically; in the Epitrepontes it is the younggirl who has been raped who comes after the incident in a bedraggledcondition to the courtesan, whereas in the Hecyra it is the young manwho committed the rape who comes in a similar condition to the cour-tesan; in the Epitrepontes the young man during the rape loses the ring bywhich the final ‘recognition’ is to be achieved and in the Hecyra theyoung man takes the vital ring from the girl during the attack. If the tra-ditional view of the relationship between these two plays is correct,Apollodorus has changed the details of his model with great virtuosityand the similarities between the plays are of a quite different kindfrom those between the Aulularia and the Dyscolus.40 In the final case

38 Merc. 225–71 ~ Rudens 593–614, cf. Fr. Leo, Plautinische Forschungen ed. 2(1912) 162–5, Fraenkel 198–206 (= Elementi 187–95).

39 Cf. Leo (n. 38) 164 n. 1, Marx’s edition of the Rudens pp. 269–71.40 Sidonius Apollinaris’ description of the Epitrepontes and the Hecyra as similis ar-

gumenti (Epist. 4.12.1) is correct if argumentum means the pqopepqacl]ma of thetwo plays; for the ancient division between argumentum and oratio cf. H. D.Jocelyn, The tragedies of Ennius (1967) 24–8.

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 621

which I wish to consider here the two plays may or may not be by thesame poet. The fragmentary Vidularia of Plautus is very like the Rudens :a lonely coast, a shipwreck, a lost casket of recognition tokens, an honestfarmer, a young man from the city, an arbitration and a shrine of Venus.This ought to establish Diphilus as the author of the Greek original ofthe Vidularia even without the title Schedia which Studemund deci-phered in what remains of the prologue.41 Nevertheless, if the Rudensdid not exist, Menander would have a good claim to the Vidularia : tothe ‘atmospheric’ parallels of Menander’s Halieis and Leucadia wouldbe added the dispute between two slaves over a box of recognition to-kens, which occurs in a famous scene of the Epitrepontes, the fact that themotif of a man working as a labourer for his own father whom he doesnot recognise is known elsewhere in comedy only in Menander’s Herosand possibly also the Georgos,42 and the similarity between Sostratos inthe Dyscolus whose labours in the countryside give his body a tan(Dysc. 754) and Nicodemus in the Vidularia who, when told that hisbody is too soft and white for hard work, observes that the sun willsoon change that situation (Vid. 31–6).43

Although this survey could be extended much further, it should bealready clear that the similarities between the Aulularia and the Dyscolusare different in kind from the similarities between other related pairs ofcomedies. With these two plays it is not so much the details which arestrikingly alike but rather the general conception of the plot: both playscombine a ‘character-comedy’ with a romantic plot and the problems ofthe latter are solved when the leading figure of the ‘character-comedy’suffers a disaster but is saved by an act of kindness. This overall likeness,together with the other parallels between Menander’s work and the Au-lularia,44 means that the case for a Menandrean origin for the Aulularia

41 The reading Schedia is rejected by Marx, Rudens p. 213. For a detailed discussionof the Vidularia cf. W. Friedrich, Euripides und Diphilos (1953) 199–21.

42 In the Georgos Gorgias helps the distressed Kleainetos oRome·/mol_sar 2autoOpat]qa (58–9) and many scholars have picked up this clue; cf. Gomme-Sand-bach pp. 106–7. Plaut. Rudens 410 where Ampelisca says that the priestess Pto-lemocratia helped herself haud secus quam si ex se simus natae is perhaps a warningagainst overconfidence in the case of the Georgos.

43 For this motif cf. also Sosicrates fr. 1 K-A, TrGF Adesp. 161 and Ter. Adelphoe849 (from Menander).

44 The conflict between Megadorus and Lyconides finds its closest parallel inMenander’s Georgos (and cf. also Ter. Adelphoe 636–712); the misunderstandingbetween Lyconides and Euclio in Aulularia IV.10 is very like the scene betweenMoschion and his father in the fourth act of the Samia : cf. A. Katsouris, Tragic

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hardly requires the likeness of Choricius’ description of a character inMenander, Slijq_mgr b dedi½r l^ ti t_m 5mdom b japm¹r oUwoito v]qym

(32.73), to the description of Euclio at Aulularia 300–1, diuom atquehominum clamat continuo fidem,/de suo tigillo fumus si qua exit foras. Never-theless the case of the Rudens and the Vidularia perhaps justifies a fewdoubts and so I wish to consider a similarity between the Aululariaand the Dyscolus which may be ambiguous in its implications.

At the start of the third act of the Dyscolus Knemon tells his old serv-ant not to let anyone in while he is away working; he is of course a mis-anthrope in all matters but he specifically mistrusts the intentions of thestrangers (cf. toiwyq}woi 447). After the arrival of Sostratos’ mother andher party Knemon delivers a tirade on a familiar comic subject, the factthat the sacrifices are more for the benefit of the participants than of thegods (447–52).45 This monologue is not, however, an irrelevant pieceof traditional comedy as it is this sacrifice and party which Knemonwill be made to join at the end of the play and he must at this stage ap-pear completely isolated from these events. Immediately after his mono-logue follows the scene in which first Getas and then Sikon, comingfrom Pan’s shrine, try to borrow kitchen utensils from Knemon but re-ceive only blows. Aulularia 1.2 has much in common with this sequencein the Dyscolus. In that scene Euclio orders Staphyla to admit no oneduring his absence at the local distribution of money and he too deliversa tirade on a familiar theme, borrowing from one’s neighbours(89–100):

abi intro, occlude ianuam. iam ego hic ero.caue quemquam alienum in aedis intro miseris.quod quispiam ignem quaerat, exstingui uolo,ne causae quid sit quod te quisquam quaeritet.nam si ignis uiuet, tu exstinquere extempulo.tum aquam aufugisse dicito, si quis petet.cultrum, securim, pistillum, mortarium,quae utenda uasa semper uicini rogant,fures uenisse atque abstulisse dicito.profecto in aedis meas me absente neminemuolo intro mitti. atque etiam hoc praedico tibi,si Bona Fortuna ueniat, ne intro miseris.

patterns in Menander (1975) 140–3. Aulularia 255–387 is strikingly like the se-quence of action at Samia 170–404.

45 Cf. Handley’s commentary pp. 214–15.

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 623

Euclio does not want people in his house for the obvious reason of theburied gold, but these verses also characterise him as lijqok|cor (cf.Theophr. Char. 10.13) and %pistor (Char. 18.7).46 Nevertheless, it issomewhat surprising that this speech does not foreshadow any later ac-tion in the play, as 398–405 in which the cook in Megadorus’ housegoes to borrow an artopta from his friend in Euclio’s house but thenchanges his mind do not seem to fit the bill. By way of contrast,113–17 in which Euclio claims that people on the street are nownice to him because of his ‘hidden charms’ clearly function as dramaticpreparation for his encounter with Megadorus (182–9) and a similarcomplaint in the Rudens (133–6) about neighbours borrowing thingsforeshadows a splendid scene later in that play.47 This is hardly a seriousweakness in the Aulularia and there is certainly no good reason to con-sider the verses as a Plautine addition to the original as a number ofscholars, on quite diverse grounds, have done;48 this passage vividly il-lustrates how neurotic Euclio has become. I hope, however, that theslightly maturer technique of the Dyscolus in this matter may justify afurther speculation about the original of the Aulularia.

It is noteworthy that in the two extant New Comedy ‘borrowingscenes’ in the Dyscolus and the Rudens it is people from a shrine repre-sented on the stage who try to borrow something from a neighbour.49

Euclio’s list of forbidden items would well suit the lavish meal whichattended a sacrifice and so his tirade may be used to argue that therewas a temple represented on the stage in the Greek play. If it was thegod of the temple rather than the house-god who delivered theGreek prologue,50 then this would explain why it is so difficult tofind a Greek model for the Lar, why the prologue is not clear in its de-scription of the movements of the pot, why the prologue is silent about

46 On Euclio’s character cf. P. Enk, ‘De Euclionis Plautini moribus’, Mnemosyne 2(1935) 281–90, Ludwig 55–8 and Marcovich (n. 24). Euclio’s denial of fireand water is a particularly anti-social act; cf. Plaut. Rudens 434 (= 438 Marx)cur tu aquam grauare, amabo, quam hostis hosti commodat, Xen. Oec. 2.15, LongusPast. 3.6.3, Konstan (n. 17) 309–10.

47 Cf. Jachmann (n. 35) 71.48 Cf. Kunst (n. 6) 216–17, Batzer 21–3, C. Stace, CPh 70 (1975) 42.49 This type of scene is as old as the confrontation of Dicaeopolis and Euripides in

Aristophanes’ Acharnians.50 Ludwig 46–50 argues that 385–7, nunc tusculum emi hoc et coronas floreas:/haec

imponentur in foco nostro Lari,/ut fortunatas faciat gnatae nuptias, demonstrate thata house-god must have spoken the prologue in the Greek play; does 351 ofthe Epitrepontes mean that T}wg spoke the prologue of that play?

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the temple and, for what it is worth, it would also remove the slightawkwardness of the Lar’s movement at the end of the prologue. Theidentity of this Greek temple cannot be recovered with certainty. Aprologising P_stir is not impossible (cf. Theognis 831, 1137), althoughWilamowitz was probably correct to outlaw the idea of a temple toP_stir in Menander’s time as ‘ganz undenkbar’.51 An interesting possi-bility is raised by 100–2:

Euclio si Bona Fortuna ueniat, ne intro miseris.Staphyla pol ea ipsa credo ne intro mittatur cauet,nam ad aedis nostras nusquam adiit, quamquam prope est.

102 numquam D adit Leo quaquam Pylades est B: om. ceteri

It is an old inference from these verses that there was a shrine of Fortuna,i. e. T}wg, in the vicinity of Euclio’s house52 and T}wg would have beena very suitable prologist for this play as hgsauqo_ were normally consid-ered to be the gifts of T}wg ;53 it would also be very effective rhetoricallyif Euclio’s speech ended with a curse on the divinity of the temple atwhich his anger was directed. It may, therefore, be worth adding thatFides, Fortuna and Spes are known to have been linked together incult54 and so a temple to T}wg might well have suggested to Plautusthe comic possibilities of Fides. Unfortunately, critics have been inwide disagreement about the text and interpretation of 102: Leothought that the reference was to the idea that Fortuna wanders aroundthe streets and chooses to visit some houses but not others (Cassius Dio64.1–2, Suet. Galba 4, Sen. Dial. 2.15.5), and Wagner prints numquamadiit quaquam prope with numquam … quaquam forming a strong negative.I would not wish to insist upon the interpretation of the verses which Ihave outlined, but in a play where so much about the Greek original is

51 Menander: Das Schiedsgericht (1925) 136. The paroemiographers record a Req¹m

P_steyr in Athens (Diogen. 2.80, Apostol. 4.25), but no indication of date isgiven and the notice must be considered very doubtful. For what it is worth,I do not think that Skutsch was correct to infer from Casina 2 that Fides isthe prologist in that play.

52 This was observed as early as Lambinus and again by Eduard Fraenkel apudJachmann (n. 37) 1015 n. 3.

53 Cf. Arist. Rhet. 1.1362 a 9, id. Eth. Nic. 3.1112 a 27, Hor. Sat. 2.6.10, K. J.Dover, Greek popular morality in the time of Plato and Aristotle (1974) 174–5.

54 Cf. K. Latte, Rçmische Religionsgeschichte (1960) 182 n. 1, R. Nisbet and M.Hubbard on Hor. C. 1.35.21.

33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 625

unclear it would not be sensible to ignore clues of possibly major signif-icance.55

I have argued that in the Greek original of the Aulularia there was anon-stage temple and that the divine prologist entered from that temple,but that the action which takes place around the temple of Fides in theAulularia is largely an addition by Plautus to his Greek model. Even if,however, all of these hypotheses are correct, we cannot hope to recovermore than the broad outlines of the Greek play until a new papyruscomes to our assistance and so I do not wish to propose any comprehen-sive scheme for the original of the Aulularia, particularly as I have al-ready devoted too much space to speculation. My hope rather is thatby stressing the uncertainties to which an analysis of the Aulularialeads this paper will help to prevent some current notions about howPlautus transformed his originals from hardening into a rigid formula as-sumed to be applicable to every case. It is my impression that the varietyof approaches which Plautus adopted when reworking Greek plays is atleast as striking as the common thread which runs through all his work.56

Addenda

Helpful subsequent discussions include the edition of W. Stockert (Stuttgart1983), Arnott, Alexis (above under 2) pp. 859–64, and A. Primmer, ‘Der “Gei-zige” bei Menander und Plautus’ WS 105 (1992) 69–127. For the Vidularia cf.R. Calderan, Tito Maccio Plauto. Vidularia (Palermo 1982).

55 J. Blänsdorf, Archaische Gedankeng�nge in den Komçdien des Plautus (1967) 110–11, sees in the repetition introduced by profecto in 98 a typically Plautine figureof thought and speech, but this hardly proves that it is a Plautine insertion. Ofthe reference to Bona Fortuna Blänsdorf states ‘die grobkomische Uebersteiger-ung hat hier im Munde des Euclio keinen Platz’; Euclio’s remarks are, however,singularly mild by the standards of a Knemon. For the thought expressed cf. Ru-dens 501, Malam Fortunam in aedis te adduxi meas.

56 I am most grateful to David Bain and Christopher Lowe for many helpful com-ments on earlier versions of this paper.

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34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus*

In his remarkable doctoral dissertation Eduard Fraenkel comparedscholars working on post-Aristophanic comedy to parasites pickingover ‘yesterday’s leftovers’, and Middle Comedy he declared to be aselusive as an emaq sji÷r.1 Since 1912 our knowledge of Attic NewComedy has increased significantly, but Middle Comedy continues tooffer a de ?pmom uere )ttij|m, more emou sji\ than sji÷r emaq. The oldquestion of the origin and validity of the term ‘Middle Comedy’ stillmanages to attract interest2, but our most pressing need – new comictexts from the first eighty years of the fourth century – has not beenmet3. Middle Comedy has been described as a ‘Verlegenheitsbegriff’4,and the person asked to lecture about it might well sympathise withthe term. Nevertheless, a number of possible approaches to our presentcorpus of material are available – the typology of characters, Realien,politics, vocabulary and style – and, in view of the splendid edition ofPoetae Comici Graeci by Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin which is makingmany fragments really accessible for the first time, the time may be rightto look again at Middle Comedy as a whole. Here I will concentrate ononly two aspects of fourth-century comedy, albeit very important ones.First, by working back from Menander, I will consider what sorts ofcomic structures are visible in our fragments of the Middle period,and secondly I will examine one example of comedy’s presentation of

* Dioniso 57 (1987) 281–981 De media et nova comoedia quaestiones selectae (diss. Göttingen 1912), pp. 1, 63.2 For a summary and bibliography cf. my Eubulus: the fragments (Cambridge 1983)

4–6; add now R. Janko, Aristotle on Comedy (London 1984), 244–50, S. Hal-liwell, Aristotle’s Poetics (London 1986) 273–4. S. M. Goldberg, AJP 106 (1985)519, takes me to task, perhaps rightly, for not flogging this particularly wearyhorse a little further in Eubulus.

3 D. F. Sutton, ‘P. Lit. Lond. 77: a rebuttal’ ZPE 56 (1984) 33–4, restates hisbelief that CGFPR 350 is Middle Comedy. He may be right, but I havegiven my reasons for doubting it in ZPE 41 (1981) 19–24. My doubts remain.

4 T. Gelzer in G. A. Seeck (ed.), Das griechische Drama (Darmstadt 1979) 297 n.50.

the divine in a text which may or may not derive from a Greek comedyof the Middle period.

1.

A play of Menander is given shape and pattern by the interaction ofthree ‘structures’ into which the raw material of the drama is moulded:the division into five acts, the internal or dynamic structure, whichoften works in creative tension with the division into acts, and finallythe formal structures, in particular the alternation between monologueand dialogue or between spoken and musically accompanied verse.Our fragments of Middle Comedy allow us to say something aboutthe development of each of these three between the Ploutos and the Dys-kolos, but virtually nothing about their interaction.

The probably universal New Comedy division of plays into five actspresumably arose from a gradual fixing and standardising of a typical pat-tern, associated with the divorce of the chorus from the main action ofthe play. The Ekklesiazousai and the Ploutos clearly point the way ahead,but the seeds of the later pattern may be discerned already in the com-edies of the fifth century5. Here the fragments of Middle Comedy areonly helpful in as much as they occasionally demand or suggest the pres-ence of a chorus6 or, in at least one case, preserve part of a choral song inlyric dactyls for a chorus of ‘garland-sellers’ (Euboulos frr. 102–3 K-A= 104–5 Hunter). It is attractive to believe that this song formed theparodos of its play, just as Aristophanes’ chorus of clouds sings its firstsong in this same high-style rhythm. It may be that the piscatores ofthe Rudens show us the persistence of a special parodos in the New Com-edy period. The fact that in Menander, as probably in a fragment ofAlexis (fr. 112 K-A), the first entrance of the chorus is announcedand that this announcement can vary from play to play suggests againthat the parodos was the last choral structure to be abandoned completelyby poets. Here too may belong Aristotle’s reference to the man who re-

5 Cf. now A. Sommerstein, ‘Act division in Old Comedy’ BICS 31 (1984)139–52

6 Cf. “The comic chorus in the fourth century’ ZPE 36 (1979) 23–38 (= thisvolume 575–92), pp. 33–7.

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veals his bamaus_a ja· !peiqojak_a by “bringing on purple in the paro-dos, as at Megara, while comic choregos”7.

Although Menander’s comedies were probably all divided into fiveacts, the organisation of the plot shows striking differences from comedyto comedy. Three plays, Dyskolos, Epitrepontes, and Samia are sufficientlywell preserved to allow comment. The main emotional and comicweight in the Dyskolos falls in the fourth act, and particularly on Kne-mon’s speech in trochaic tetrameters. As is well known, some aspectsof this speech have links with tragedy — the stricken hero speaks hismind8 — and others can be traced through the comic tradition, for ex-ample the use of trochaic tetrameters for ‘didactic’ purposes9. Just asKnemon claims to have been taught that the ideal of self-sufficiencyis a pipe-dream (Dysk. 713–17), so a character in Antiphanes recom-mends a trip to the public latrine as a way of realising one’s commonhumanity (fr. 42 K-A). As Knemon recommends his solitary existenceas a cure for the world’s ills (Dysk. 743–5)10, so a character in Alexisrecommends removal of the stomach from the human anatomy(fr. 215 K-A). Menander, then, is writing in a well-established comicmode, but it is an isolated example of this mode in our still very limitedcorpus of this poet. The second act of the Dyskolos presents anothercountryman striving to deliver a formal lecture; and the same act of Epi-trepontes goes one better and shows us two countrymen, a shepherd anda charcoal-burner, arguing a legal matter before an arbitrator. The tragicaffiliations of this scene have long been noted and are, in fact, signalledby Menander himself11, but the comic tradition behind this scene hasperhaps received insufficient attention. Daos, the shepherd, relies on asimple statement of the facts (which his opponent happily admits) andan appeal to common sense (vv. 280–92), whereas his opponent argueswith the verbal and strategic devices of formal rhetoric, even if of a rath-er comic kind. This is much the same opposition that we find in varyingdegrees in the agones of Clouds, Wasps, Birds, Frogs and Ploutos, in which

7 EN 4.1123 a 23–4. The meaning of Aristotle’s example is, of course, disputed,cf. T. B. L. Webster in A. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy2

(Oxford 1962), p. 180.8 Cf. The New Comedy of Greece & Rome (Cambridge 1985), hereafter NCGR, p.

127.9 Cf. Handley’s edition of the Dyskolos, pp. 252–3; W. G. Arnott, G&R n.s. 19

(1972) 79–80.10 On these verses cf. NCGR 144–5.11 Cf. NCGR 134–6.

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 629

‘old-fashioned’ common sense and inherited wisdom are pitted againstmodern intellectualism and kocisl|r. There is little doubt that our frag-ments of Middle Comedy include remnants of such agones (cf. perhapsAntiphanes fr. 142 K-A, Anaxandrides fr. 34 K-A), but they are natural-ly difficult to identify in the absence of any scenic articulation. A frag-ment such as Anaxandrides 50 K-A (from the Pharmakomantis):

fti eUl’ !kaf~m, toOt’ 1pitil÷ir ; !kk± t_;mij÷i c±q avtg t±r t]wmar p\sar pok»let± tµm jokaje_am. Fde l³m c±q diav]qei.

You reprove me because I am an imposter? Why so? This art beats all oth-ers by far, except flattery. That art is certainly the best.

seems to speak with the same ironic voice as the ‘Unjust Argument’ ofClouds, but scenic contexts other than an agon could be imagined for it. Ihave speculated elsewhere12 that the famous fragment of Antiphanes onthe advantages which tragic poets enjoy (fr. 189 K-A) comes not, as isboth plausible and generally assumed, from a prologue but from anagon between the two dramatic genres (cf. Ar. Frogs), and it seemsvery likely that many of the moralising fragments of Middle Comedyderive from similar scenic structures. One particular form of debatewhich we may be able to trace through Middle Comedy from Aristo-phanes (cf. Wasps) to Menander (Dysk. 784–820, Epitr. 714–58 addingPOxy. 3532–3) and on to Plautus (Asin. 504–44, Persa 329–99) is thatin which a child seeks to correct the ‘morals’ or behaviour of his or herparent13. Here again we have a scene with both comic and tragic affili-ations (cf. Haimon and Kreon in Sophocles’ Antigone), and the NewComedy form was presumably crystallised during the Middle Comedyperiod. It is noteworthy that a character in Antiphanes (fr. 228 K-A)quotes from the debate between Haimon and Kreon to make a quitedifferent point:

t¹ d³f/m eQp] loi t_ 1sti ; p_meim v^l’ 1c~.bq÷ir paq± Ne_hqoisi weil\qqoir fsa

12 Cf. NCGR 158 n. 21.13 Cf. Antiphanes fr. 42 K-A, Anaxandrides fr. 54 K-A; p\teq is not, however, a

decisive indicator, cf. Gomme-Sandbach on Men. Epitr. 231. A further scrap isadded to the Epitrepontes scene by P. Mich. Inv. 4733, cf. M. Gronewald, ZPE66 (1986) 1–13.

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d]mdqym !e· tµm m}jta ja· tµm Bl]qambq]wetai l]cehor ja· j\kkor oXa c_metai,t± d’ !mtite_momh’ oRome· d_xam tim±C ngqas_am sw|mt’ aqt|pqelm’ !p|kkutai.

Tell me, what is living? I say that it is drinking. You see beside river tor-rents that all the trees which are soaked day and night grow tall and beau-tiful, whereas those that resist, as though they suffered from some thirstydryness, are utterly destroyed.

We may guess that if we had more fourth-century comedy we wouldsee here an example of the blending of a tragic form with its comiccounterpart. Unfortunately, we do not have the evidence to convertsuch speculation into something more tangible.

Dyskolos and Epitrepontes, then, use comic modes whose faint tracesare just discernible in our fragments of Middle Comedy. The Samia, onthe other hand, eschews formal debate, and its critical fourth act is givenover to lively three-sided farce; this play does, however, offer at theopening of the third act a monologue by Demeas of some eighty trim-eters in which he tells the audience what has happened inside the house.We recognise such a dramatic form both from earlier drama (cf. Ar.Ploutos 802–22, Eur. Alc. 747–72) and from elsewhere in Menander(cf. Dysk. 666–90). Characters who deliver such speeches may (cf. Plou-tos 821–2, Dysk. 685–9) or may not (Alcestis, Samia) offer motivationfor their entrance, although “psychological” explanations could nodoubt be devised for the latter cases. It is clear both from Menander(cf. Dysk. 543–5)14 and from the fragment of Philemon (fr. 82 K-A)in which a cook introduces his narrative by quoting from Euripides’Medea,

¢r Vleqor l’ rp/khe c/i te joqqam_i,k]nai lok|mti touxom ¢r 1sje}asa.

Desire has come over me to come out and reveal to the earth and sky how Iprepared dinner.

that poets were aware of the comic effect to be gained from ac-knowledging the artificiality of this theatrical convention. A passagefrom Plautus’ Casina shows us a very developed stage of the convention.

14 The irony of these verses works alongside the other aspects which critics haveidentified — the irrational behaviour of the lover (cf. Tib. 2.6.14) and the in-fluence of Pan.

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 631

Pardalisca comes out without explanation to tell the audience how thewomen are fooling their husbands inside the house (vv. 759–79) and isthen challenged by her master who comes out after her:

LYS. quid tu hic agis?PA. ego eo quo me ipsa misit. LYS. ueron? PA. serio.LYS. quid hic speculare? PA. nil equidem speculor. LYS. abi:tu hic cunctas, intus alii festinant. PA. eo.

LYS. What are you doing here?PA. I’m going where my mistress sent me. LYS. Really? PA. Seriously.LYS. Why are you spying here? PA. I’m not spying.LYS. Be off with you; you’re hanging about here, while all theothers are busy inside. PA. I’m going.

This exchange calls our attention to the fact that Pardalisca has beengiven no reason to emerge except to entertain and inform the audience.We may feel sure that Middle Comedy had a significant role to play indeveloping this convention.

A number of Middle Comedy fragments, again excellently collectedand analysed by Eduard Fraenkel15, clearly derive from fairly lengthy re-ports – to the chorus, the audience or another character – of the prog-ress of a banquet imagined to have taken place ‘off the stage’. Some ofthese speeches will have been parallel to the narratives of Karion in thePloutos and of Philemon’s cook, others will have been ‘messenger-speeches’ in the more usual sense of the term. In the case of Euboulos’Ion, for example, there can be little doubt, in view of the major messen-ger-speech in Euripides’ famous tragedy. The predominance of ‘banquetnarratives’ in our fragments is due partly to Athenaeus’ interests, but theapparent frequency of this narrative form remains noteworthy. The nar-rative report was one dramatic form which could accommodate thekind of verbal luxuriance which had previously been confined to thelyric parts of plays16. As the chorus diminished in importance, for what-ever reasons, poets used extended narratives in trimeters and occasion-ally more exotic rhythms (cf. Antiphanes fr. 172 K-A, Euboulos fr. 111K-A [= 112 Hunter]) to provide a comic effect related to that affordedby complex lyrics. Other factors, such as the influence of Euripidean

15 Op. cit. (n. 1) 13–32. For stylistic links between ‘banquet’ narratives and othermessenger-speeches cf. my introduction to Euboulos fr. 112 (= 111 K-A), add-ing Alexis fr. 263 K-A.

16 Cf. Eubulus (n. 2) pp. 19–20.

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tragedy, were, of course, operative as well, and the growing refinementof the comic monologue, which our fragments suggest, was not con-fined to accounts of extravagant eating. It is presumably chance thatthe two extant plays of Aristophanes from the fourth century both con-tain long reports of events ‘off-stage’, one with what looks like explicitacknowledgement of the conventionality of the device (Pl. 632), butthis does fit with the other phenomena I have mentioned. A fragmentof Antiphanes’ Metragyrtes (fr. 152 K-A) in fact sounds very like Karion’sreport of events in the temple of Asclepius:

t^m te pa ?d’ !ke_llatapaq± t/r heoO kaboOsam eWta to»r p|dar1j]keu’ !ke_veim pq_tom, eWta t± c|mata.¢r h÷ttom B pa ?r d( Fxat’ aqtoO t_m pod_m5tqix] t’, !mep^dgsem.

He told the girl to get some ointment from the goddess and then to rub hisfeet and than his knees with it. As soon as the girl touched and rubbed hisfeet, he leapt up.

One form of monologue where the continuity of comic tradition is veryreadily apparent is the prologue17. Karion’s opening speech in the Plou-tos, for example, finds a close echo in Sosia’s entrance speech in the Am-phitruo and allows us to see how a divine prologue has been grafted on toan existing comic structure and how Plautus has typically expanded hisGreek model18. The fragments of Antiphanes, in particular, suggest anumber of different prologue traditions. Fr. 19 K-A from the Aiolosclearly burlesques the tragic style and subject:

Lajaqe»r 5qyti t_m blosp|qym li÷rpkgce_r, t]yr l³m 1pejq\tei t/r sulvoq÷rjate ?we h’ art|m. eWta paqakab~m pote

oWmom stqatgc|m, dr l|mor hmgt_m %ceitµm t|klam eQr t¹ pq|she t/r eqbouk_ar,m}jtyq !mast±r 5tuwe ¨m 1bo}keto.

Macareus, struck by passion for one of his siblings, for a while controlledhis misfortune and kept himself in check. Then one day he took wine as

17 Much may still be learned from W. Frantz, De comoediae Atticae prologis (diss.Strasbourg 1891); for a general survey cf. NCGR 24–35.

18 Cf. E. Fraenkel, Plautinisches im Plautus (Berlin 1922) 181–4 = Elementi Plautiniin Plauto 172–5.

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 633

his general, wine which alone leads men’s recklessness in front of their pru-dence; rising up at night he achieved his desires.

We cannot tell whether or not this passage was delivered by a divineprologist, and a similar doubt attaches to fr. 210 K-A from the Hydria,a title which suggests (though does not, of course, prove) a recognitiondrama:

oxtor d’ dm k]cy

1m ceit|mym aqt_i jatoijo}sgr tim¹rQd½m 2ta_qar eQr 5qyt’ !v_jeto,!st/r, 1q^lou d’ 1pitq|pou ja· succem_m,Gh|r ti wqusoOm pq¹r !qetµm jejtgl]mgr,emtyr 2ta_qar· aR l³m %kkai toumolabk\ptousi to ?r tq|poir c±q emtyr cm jak|m.

The chap who I’m talking about saw and fell in love with a hetaira wholived next door. She is a citizen, but has no protector or relations. Her char-acter is golden and virtuous; she’s really a hetaira (lit. ‘companion’). Othergirls bring this essentially honourable title into disrepute by their evil char-acter.

It may be thought that the probable combination of a recognition dramawith the definitive character assessment in vv. 4–5 (cf. Men.Dysk. 34–6) points to an omniscient divinity, such as the prologisinggods of Menander. As is well known, such gods have antecedentsboth in Old Comedy and in tragedy, and it is a reasonable guess thatvery many mythological burlesques in the fourth century had divineprologues; traces of these have long been identified in our fragments19.Plautus’ Amphitruo, like the Ion of Euripides, has a prologue delivered byHermes/Mercury, and Meineke thought that he detected the presenceof Hermes in the following fragment which, after Hermann’s change of)qistov\mgr to )mtiv\mgr, is ascribed to the latter’s Ganymede (fr. 74 K-A)20:

bq÷ir ; 1m t/ide l³mb t_m Vquc_m t}qammor oQj_m tucw\mei

c]qym, †!p’ aqc/r† Kaol]dym jako}lemor.

19 Cf., e. g., CGFPR *215, Euboulos fr. 68 K-A.20 The etymologising of v. 3 recalls Eur. IT 32 and Helen 13–14 in prologues (cf.

Kannicht on Helen loc. cit.).

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… Do you see? Here lives the king of the Phrygians, an old man, who getshis name Laomedon (lit. ‘ruler of the people’) from …

We cannot know whether or not Hermes is involved in this fragment,but it may serve to remind us again that, although we think of MiddleComedy as the period in which tragic form most influenced comedy, itis often misleading to regard a dramatic form as originally belonging ex-clusively to either genre21. Should we associate Antiphanes fr. 74 K-Awith the pattern of the opening of Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousai(esp. vv. 26–30) and Frogs or with that of Sophocles’ Philoctetes,which also concerns a ‘rape’, though of a rather different kind fromthat presumably perpetrated or described in Antiphanes’ Ganymede? Fi-nally, Antiphanes fr. 166 K-A raises an interesting question:

pa ?r £m let’ !dekv/r eQr )h^mar 1mh\de!vij|lgm !whe·r rp| timor 1lp|qou,S}qor t¹ c]mor ¥m . peqituw½m d’ Bl ?m bd·jgquttol]moir abokost\tgr £m 1pq_ato,%mhqypor !mup]qbkgtor eQr pomgq_am,toioOtor oXor lgd³m eQr tµm oQj_amlgd’ ¨m b Puhac|qar 1je ?mor Eshiem,b tqislajaq_tgr, eQsv]qeim 5ny h}lou.

When I was a child I was brought here to Athens by a merchant; I am aSyrian by race. As we were being sold, this money-lender came upon usand bought us. He is unsurpassably wicked, the kind of man who bringsnothing except thyme into the house, not even any of the things whichthe thrice-blessed Pythagoras used to eat.

This passage seems to come from a narrative prologue, either postponedor initial22, delivered by a central character, like Moschion’s prologue inthe Samia. The story which he tells suggests a recognition drama23, andwe are therefore confronted with the possibility – these speculations cancarry no more weight than that – that a comedy of c. 340 B.C.24 whichpresented a recognition eschewed an omniscient prologue and the ef-fects of dramatic irony arising from it, preferring instead to rely on dra-matic surprise and a ‘knowing’ audience for any irony. If so, Terence’sabandonment of the narrative prologue is seen to be both a throwback

21 Cf. NCGR 117–18.22 The implications of bd_ (v. 3) are uncertain, cf. my note on Euboulos fr. 15.2 (=

14.2 K-A), adding J. Diggle, CR n.s. 29 (1979) 208.23 Cf. Eubulus (n. 2) pp. 159–60.24 Cf. fr. 167 K-A.

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 635

and an innovation, a phenomenon with many parallels in the history ofancient comedy. Alternatively, the prologue of the Curculio, split be-tween a human and a divine narrator, suggests another possible interpre-tation of these facts. Whatever the truth, it is questions like this which itis reasonable to ask of the fragments of Middle Comedy. For a less dis-jointed analysis we have to go elsewhere.

2.

It is no surprise that scholars interested in the history of comedy be-tween Aristophanes and Menander have regularly turned in search ofenlightenment from the Greek kekeill]ma to the Roman cena dubia.No play of Plautus can be said with certainty to derive from a Greekcomedy of the ‘Middle’ period, but a reasonable case can at least bemade for the Persa25 and the Amphitruo. In choosing here to discussbriefly the presentation of Mercury in the Amphitruo, I do not wishto be understood necessarily to share the belief in a Middle Comedyoriginal for this play. I remain agnostic, but, if pressed, I would saythat I can see no good reason not to place the original in New Com-edy26. Nevertheless, the Amphitruo is crucial evidence for mythologicalburlesque, which played such a prominent part in Middle Comedy,and it can hardly be overlooked in any consideration of this ‘darkage’. I shall examine only one aspect of Plautus’ play – the role of Mer-cury – in an attempt to suggest that some current notions of how an-cient comedy burlesqued the gods are, if not wrong, perhaps too simple.Discussion of the roles of Jupiter and Mercury has naturally concen-trated on how their behaviour is assimilated to that of their humancomic counterparts, in particular that of Mercury to the slave or para-

25 Woytek has made an interesting case for regarding the Persa as an adaptation of avery late, i. e. nearly contemporary, Greek play. Problems remain, however (cf.H. D. Jocelyn, CR ns. 33 (1983) 196–7). Woytek’s comparison of the Persaand the Asinaria is instructive, but two features demand further investigation:the vast metrical difference between the two plays (although this may, ofcourse, be a purely Plautine phenomenon), and the fact that Persa does notseem openly to exploit earlier comedy as Asinaria does.

26 Cf. Eubulus (n. 2) p. 20 n. 2, adding now H. Tränkle, ‘Amphitruo und keinEnde’. LG 40 (1983) 217–38 and E. Lefèvre, Maccus Vortit Barbare: vom tragi-schen Amphitryon zum tragikomischen Amphitruo (Abhandlungen Mainz, 1982.5).

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site who assists a lover in his affairs27, and on how the pattern of eventsin this comedy bears a striking resemblance to the pattern of Euripides’Bacchae28. I will be concerned rather with how the play exploits aspectsof the ‘real’, as well as the comic, Hermes/Mercury.

Mercury presents himself as the god of commercial exchange – mer-cimoniis (v. 1), with a play on his name – and as the divine messenger(vv. 1–16). He has taken the form of the slave Sosia whose first appear-ance is as the human counterpart of the divine nuntius (cf. v. 195). Atone level, Sosia’s message – the report of the battle with the Teleboeans– is a lie, a mendacium; he himself happily admits that lying is his normalmode of discourse (v. 198). Two points call for comment here. A ‘mes-senger-speech’ delivered by a character who saw nothing of what he re-ports, but merely repeats and embroiders hearsay (v. 200), seems tomock lightly the conventional omniscience of the messenger, particular-ly in tragedy, and is of a piece with the ‘playing with conventions’which is such a prominent aspect of this play29. Secondly, Hermes isthe divine model for both messengers and liars; it is in the nature ofcommunication that it should be so30. The Homeric Hymn to Hermesmakes lying one of the young god’s fundamental properties (cf.vv. 13, 260 ff, 368 ff). The form of the messenger-speech in the Amphi-truo exploits and dramatises this aspect of the nature of Hermes. More-over, when the god prepares to meet his human counterpart and ob-serves me malum esse oportet, callidum, astutum admodum (v. 268), wesmile because we know that these are the god’s very qualities – pok}-tqopor, aRlukol^tgr, Apeqopeut^r, dokovqad^r, jajolgd^r as theHymn calls him (vv. 13, 282, 389). Only someone like Sosia wouldtrust the fides of Hermes (vv. 391–2). The ‘Hermaic’ quality of thecomic slave is already apparent in the scene between Karion and Hermesin Aristophanes’ Ploutos; Hermes the thieving deserter (cf. Ar.Pl. 1150–1), an eQqgmij¹r he|r who does not covet military glory (cf.Hom. Il. 21.497–501 with scholia), and Sosia the lying coward aretruly alike.

27 Cf., e. g., D. Guilbert, ‘Mercure-Sosie dans l’Amphitryon de Plaute’ LEC 31(1963) 52–63.

28 Cf. W. H. Friedrich, Euripides und Diphilos (Munich 1953) 271–3; F. Stewart,‘The Amphitruo of Plautus and Euripides’ Bacchae’ TAQA 89 (1958) 348–73.

29 Cf. Friedrich op. cit. 263–78, NCGR 79–82.30 Cf., in general, L. Kahn, Herm�s passe ou les ambiguit�s de la communication (Paris

1978).

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 637

As Sosia approaches his master’s house through the nocturnalgloom, he sees a menacing figure in the street and takes terrible fright.Hermes, of course, not merely protects travellers31 but also poses a greatdanger to them. With this scene we can hardly do better than comparePriam’s encounter with the disguised god in Iliad 24, where the oldking, like Sosia (v. 295 dentes pruriunt), shows physical symptoms offear32. Hermes traditionally works at night33, and in the Amphitruo hehas a ‘long night’ in which to work his tricks. When he pretends toSosia that he is an official uigil nocturnus (v. 351), it is hard not tothink of the mujt¹r apypgt^q of the Hymn (v. 15). Sosia, moreover,finds Mercury ante aedis (v. 293), guarding the house as pukgd|jor

(cf. h. Herm. 15). Athenians, at least, would have understood what itmeant to have Hermes in front of the door, but this aspect of thegod was by no means confined to Athens. Hermes stood at the door,controlling the boundary between inside and out and ‘repelling thievesbecause he is himself the thief’34. In the comedy, however, he keeps outthose who rightly belong inside.

A later scene of the play recalls and parallels the scene of Mercuryand Sosia. This is, of course, the scene in which the god, pretendingto be the drunken Sosia, refuses to admit Amphitruo to his ownhouse (vv. 1009 ff). This scene has connections with a number of differ-ent comic traditions. It is a kind of reverse komos in which a man ratherthe worse for drink and wearing a wreath refuses entry to a sober hus-band who has every right to the woman inside. We should rememberalso comedy’s fondness for scenes involving the doorway35. It is indeedtempting to think of Hermes stqova ?or (cf. Ar. Pl. 1153) when Mercu-ry accuses Amphitruo of nearly breaking the door off its hinges (v.1026)36, and of Hermes the divine oQmow|or37 when, as far as our brokentext allows us to judge, he pours water over Amphitruo from his vant-age-point on the roof. Two scenes from earlier comedy are particularly

31 Cf., e. g., Hom. Il. 24.334–5, Gow on [Theocr.] 25.4.32 Il. 24.358. Priam’s servant (v. 355) leaps to the same kind of conclusions as does

Sosia.33 Cf., e. g., h. Herm. 15, 97, 290, 578.34 J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Thought among the Greeks (London 1983) 129.35 Cf. Ar. Frogs 37 ff, 465 ff, Ekkl. 976 ff. , Men. Dysk. 456 ff, Plaut. Asin. 381 ff,

Bacch. 581 ff, L. Radermacher, WS 43 (1922/3) 107–108.36 Cf. Asin. 388 for this motif.37 Cf. Sappho fr. 141 LP, Ar. Peace 433 ff, Eitrem, RE 8.780. I was remiss in not

referring to this aspect of Hermes in my note on Euboulos fr. 96 (= 95K-A).

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relevant here. In Aristophanes’ Peace, Hermes acts as heaven’s door-keeper and gives Trygaios a very rude welcome38. At Ploutos 1097 ffthere is a reversal of this scene-type: Hermes seeks admission, but isrudely rebuffed by a slave door keeper39. These three comedies all pres-ent variations on a comic routine based on an important function of the‘real’ Hermes. Just as Mercury ‘plays’ the comic messenger (vv. 984 ff),so he ‘plays’ the comic door-keeper. In neither case, however, does hehave to step outside his own traditional nature and attributes; it is funnyto see a god pretending to be an imperfect model of himself.

Hermes is the god of sleep and dreams40 and it has frequently beenremarked that the Amphitruo is full of references to sleeping, dreamingand waking41. When Sosia observes that Mercury is the chap whowill put him to sleep (v. 298) or when Mercury considers how manymen his fists ‘have put to sleep’ (vv. 303–6), we recognise the irony.If Amphitruo and Alcmena think that they are in a dream, it is hardlysurprising with such an adversary. If the pattern of the play resemblesthat of the Bacchae, it is Mercury, not Jupiter, who plays ‘the Dionysusrole’; as the action of the tragedy represents some aspects of the meaningof Dionysus, so the comedy shows us part of what ‘Hermes’ means. Atany event, it is clear that the ‘religious texture’, if I may use such a grandterm, of the comedy is both thicker and more subtle than many criticswould have us believe. It is a play in touch not only with the traditionsand techniques of the comic stage, but also with the realities of tradi-tional Greek religious thinking. I should stress that this conclusion is,to me at least, deeply unsurprising. It seems, moreover, very unlikelythat this was the only mythological burlesque of which this was true.

If what I have been saying, or even part of it, is true, then this mightbe thought to have consequences for the nature and date of the Greekoriginal of the Amphitruo, were it not for two related problems which Ihave left out of account. These are the question of the relationship ofthe Greek Hermes to the Roman Mercury and the whole problem of

38 Cf. A. C. Cassio, Commedia e partecipazione (Naples 1985) 59.39 Whether or not Hermes does actually knock at Karion’s door, as the scholiast

and modern editors assume, is far from clear. Plaut. Asin. 381–91 and Ter.Ad. 636–41 show that there is more than one way to play such a scene. Similarproblems arise at Ekkl. 976–7.

40 Cf., e. g., h. Herm. 14, Hom. Il. 24.343–4, Od. 5.47–8.41 Cf., e. g., W. E. Forehand, AJP 92 (1971) 644–6, N. W. Slater, Plautus in Per-

formance (Princeton 1985) 171. Relevant passages include 313–14, 407, 621,696–8, 702, 726, 738.

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 639

‘Plautinisches’ in the Amphitruo. The former is a matter of dispute evenin the standard histories of Roman religion42, and raises important the-oretical issues far beyond the scope both of this paper and of my com-petence. The second is a particularly cluttered path where only thebrave will tread: as Sosia might have said, inritabis crabrones. The presen-tation of Mercury in the play does, I think, shed some light on bothproblems, but I cannot pursue these matters here. I wish, rather, to re-turn to the prologising gods of New Comedy to note that the role ofMercury in the Amphitruo can suggest a way of approaching thevexed question of the relationship between these gods and the playsin which they appear. I shall limit my remarks to a very brief indicationof how such an inquiry should proceed in the case of the Dyskolos, asthis is the only play preserved in Greek in which the prologue is deliv-ered by a familiar divinity rather than an abstraction and because Panseems an obvious character to follow his father Hermes.

Discussion of Pan’s role has naturally centred upon his effect on Sos-tratos and the ironies which arise from the audience’s knowledge thatthe divine has intervened in the young man’s life43. Less attention hasbeen paid to Pan’s role in the story of Knemon. Where this has beendiscussed44, the fifth act of the play is seen as the fun-loving god’s tri-umph over the sour and unsociable farmer whose style of life suggestsa rejection of the god not far removed from Hippolytos’ rejection ofAphrodite45. The apparently cruel mockery which Sikon and Getas in-flict on the old man in fact represents the forced ‘socialisation’ which isnecessary in order to enjoy Pan’s blessings. There is certainly some truthin this view, although we may agree with Armin Schäfer that Sikon andGetas ‘show no sign of divine inspiration’46. The jolly, musical side of

42 Contrast G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Rçmer2 (Munich 1912) 305 withF. Altheim, Griechische Gçtter im alten Rom (RGVV 22.1, Giessen 1930) 73–7.The discussion of the Amphitruo in B. Combet-Farnoux,Mercure Romain (Rome1980) 406–11 is uninformative.

43 Cf. P. J. Photiades, ‘Pan’s prologue to the Dyskolos of Menander’ G&R n.s. 5(1958) 108–22; W. Ludwig, ‘Die plautinische Cistellaria und das Verhältnisvon Gott und Handlung bei Menander’ in Entretiens Fondation Hardt XVI,pp. 45–110; P. Borgeaud, Recherches sur le dieu Pan (Geneva 1979),pp. 241–7. On the style of this prologue see also S. M. Goldberg, ‘The styleand function of Menander’s Dyskolos prologue’ SO 53 (1978) 57–68.

44 Cf. Photiades (n. 43) 112, Borgeaud (n. 43) 242.45 Eur. Hipp. 88–113 and Men. Dysk. 11–13 may usefully be compared.46 Menanders Dyskolos: Untersuchungen zur dramatischen Technik (Meisenheim am

Glan 1965), p. 69.

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Pan does indeed alleviate the hardship of a life spent ‘farming the rocks’,just as Polybios explains that the dwellers in Pan’s homeland, Arcadia,avidly pursue music and the gaiety of festivals in order to soften thehardness of character which is produced by the harshness of the lifethey must lead and the climate in which they must live(Polyb. 4.21.1–4). One of the verbs used by Polybios, 1ngleqoOm, recallsto us Getas’ remark at Dysk. 902–3; t¹ d’ fkom 1st·m Bl ?m / ûmhqypor

Bleqyt]or (Kassel : -teqor), ‘it is absolutely essential that we tame theman’. Schäfer has suggested that a humorous use of Theophrastanideas on education lies behind these verses47, and an interpretation interms of Pan’s sphere of influence may complement, not oppose,such a view. Before proceeding, it may be worth noting that thesame set of ideas, and perhaps the same word, lies behind an exchangebetween Bacchis and Pistoclerus in Plautus’ Bacchides (v. 73):

B: ah, nimium ferus es. P.: mihi sum. B.: malacissandus es.

Here too a ‘wild’ creature is ‘softened’ to the delights of parties, al-though there are obvious differences between these characters and Kne-mon and his tormentors. The parallel confirms the light irony withwhich Menander treats the idea that such a ‘softening’ is necessarilyan improvement.

Pan, the cave-dwelling god who operates largely in the remotecountryside or on the margins of towns and cities, raises by his very ‘op-positeness’ the problem of why men bind themselves together in socialunits48. Knemon’s acknowledgement that the dream of pure autarky isindeed a dream (Dysk. 713–17) provides one answer to that problem,just as the double marriage of the play celebrates the continuity of thefamily and, thereby, of social cohesiveness. Sostratos’ exposure to com-edy’s version of life in the countryside is matched by Knemon’s expo-sure to the life of the city, as comedy sees it. At the boundary of the twostands Pan.

In the Amphitruo, then, and to a lesser extent in the Dyskolos, theprologising god is important not merely for what he says or for his directintervention in the action, but also because some of the events of theplay fall into patterns which we recognise as belonging to that god’ssphere or set of associations. This suggests that we should not necessarily

47 Ibid., pp. 71–4.48 The Homeric Cyclopes are relevant here, cf. NCGR 145 with 173 n. 9.

34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 641

approach the question of the effect of such a god on the action of his orher play in too literal-minded a way. Much, of course, will depend onthe nature of the particular divinity. Nevertheless, considerations such asthese should cause us to pause before we assume too readily that we cangrasp the nature of mythological burlesque in Middle Comedy, eventhough no single example of the genre survives, at least in the originalGreek. I am sorry to end on a negative note, but the nature of the evi-dence hardly gives cause to hope for more.

Addenda

The Amphitruo continues to attract scholars, cf. , e. g., N. W. Slater, ‘Amphitruo,Bacchae, and metatheatre’ Lexis 6 (1990) 101–25, Z. Stewart, ‘Plautus’ Amphi-truo : three problems’ HSCP 100 (2000) 293–9; there is a recent edition by D.M. Christensen (Cambridge 2000), which considers the Greek original onpp. 47–55.

n. 3 Cf. D. F. Sutton, Papyrological Studies in Dionysiac Literature (Oak Park, Il-linois 1987).

p. 640–1 On the end of the Dyskolos cf. this volume 655–7 and Fantuzzi-Hunter, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 415–17.

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35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenisticperformance*

1. Cultured movements

In Chapter 26 of the Poetics Aristotle raises the question of whether epicor tragic mimesis is ‘superior’ (bekt¸ym):

‘One might pose the question whether epic imitation or tragic is superior.If the less vulgar (Httom voqtij¶) art is superior, and in all cases what is ad-dressed to a superior audience is less vulgar, then it is perfectly clear that theart which imitates indiscriminately is vulgar. Assuming that the audience isincapable of grasping what the performer does not supply in person, theyengage in a great deal of movement (as second-rate pipers (oR vaOkoi aqkg-ta¸) spin round if they have to imitate throwing a discus, and drag the cho-rus-leader about if they have to play the Scylla). Tragedy is like that. This isin fact the opinion which older actors held about those who came afterthem; Mynniskos used to call Kallippides ‘monkey’ because of his excesses,and Pindaros was viewed in much the same way. The whole art of tragedystands in the same relation to epic as these do to the others. So it is arguedthat epic is addressed to decent audiences (heat±r 1pieije ?r) who do notneed gestures, while tragedy is addressed to second-rate audiences (va¼-kour); if, then, tragedy is vulgar, clearly it must be inferior (we¸qym).

First of all, this is not a criticism of the art of poetry but of the art of per-formance. A rhapsode performing epic poetry can make exaggerated use ofgestures (like Sosistratos) ; so can a singer (this is what Mnasitheos of Opusused to do). Next, not all movement is to be disparaged (any more than alldance is), but only that of inferior (va¼kym) persons. This is the objectionthat used to be made against Kallippides, and is made now against others,on the grounds that the women they imitate are not respectable. Also, trag-edy has its effect without movement, just as epic does: its quality is clearfrom reading. So if tragedy is superior (jqe_ttym) in other respects, thiscriticism at any rate does not necessarily apply to it. …’ (Poetics 1461b26–1462a 14, trans. M. Heath).

This fascinating text links ‘realistic’ acting in the form of imitative ges-tures to the moral qualities of the audience; such exaggerated gesturesare the tricks of actors catering to vulgar tastes. So too, Aristotle else-

* P. Easterling and E. Hall (eds.), Greek and Roman Actors. Aspects of an AncientProfession (Cambridge 2002) 189–205

where observes that hypokrisis ‘delivery’, in both drama and oratory, wasrightly considered vulgar (voqtij|m), and therefore only the subject ofserious study at a comparatively late date (Rhet. 3.1403b 22–30).1 ForAristotle, tragic gestures are in fact vitally important and, as far as possi-ble, are to be visualised by the poet as he composes (Poet. 1455a 29–34);they are, however, also to be strictly controlled in the interests of deco-rum (t¹ pq]pom). When Kallippides played female rôles in tragedy, hemay have made things too ‘realistic’.2 Plato too had censured excessive‘imitative’ effects (cf. Rep. 3.396b5–9, 397a3–7), but whereas Plato hadbeen principally concerned with what mimesis would do to the soul ofthe imitator, Aristotle’s downplaying of the performative element ofdrama is of a piece with a whole élite attitude to personal bearing andthe moral qualities which that bearing reflects.3 Paul Zanker has ex-pressed it thus:

‘In Classical Athens, the appearance and behaviour in public of all citizenswas governed by strict rules. These applied to how one should walk, stand,or sit, as well as to proper draping of one’s garment, position and move-ment of arms and head, styles of hair and beard, eye movements, and thevolume and modulation of the voice … Almost every time reference ismade to these rules, they are linked to emphatic moral judgements, wheth-er positive or negative. They are part of a value system that could be de-fined in terms of such concepts as order, measure, modesty, balance, self-control, circumspection, adherence to regulations, and the like … It isno wonder that the individuals depicted on gravestones, at least to themodern viewer, look so stereotyped and monotonous.’4

With Aristotle’s strictures on mimetic performance and the very mar-ginal place he gives to the staging of plays we seem to be watching

1 Cf. Wiles (1991) 19–20. For the rôle of gesture in fourth-century oratory andexpressions of similar disapproval cf. Dem. 18.232 (with Wankel’s note), Hall(1995).

2 Cf. Janko’s note on Poetics 1462a10–11.3 ‘Élites’ are, of course, very hard to define and lie, to some extent, in the eye of

the beholder, but Aristotle’s division of the citizen body (Politics 4.1291b17–30) into the demos, i. e. the ‘ordinary people’, and the gnorimoi, the ‘known’/’notable’ ones, who stand out for ‘wealth, nobility of birth, arete, educationand the like’ serves well enough for the (élite) rhetoric (both Greek andRoman) of the whole timespan with which we will be concerned. For somerelevant considerations cf. Ober (1989) 11–17.

4 Zanker (1995) 48–9. Much relevant material is discussed in J. Bremmer,‘Walking, standing, and sitting in ancient Greek culture’ in Bremmer-Rooden-burg (1991) 15–35. Plutarch is a central witness for this élite discourse; cf.Hunter (2000).

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‘the birth of a new form of élite performance’.5 After Aristotle, the cul-tural élite of the later Hellenistic and Roman world would in fact con-stantly represent themselves as reading or listening to readings of ‘the lit-erary classics’, including drama,6 rather than joining public audiences. Inthis (Platonic) narrative of cultural history, the tyranny of an uneducatedaudience had destroyed poetry’s civilising and educative force; in orderto preserve that force, the only proper audience for poetry now was ei-ther oneself, or oneself and a few like-minded friends, who would giveproper attention to the text, not to a frivolous performance in which itmight be clothed. The gradual change from a performative, communalculture to the narrower circulation of ‘texts’ paradoxically offered a wayto preserve, while reshaping to a less universal need, poetry’s didactic,communal function.

The subsequent tradition took its cue from Plato and Aristotle andcarefully censored excessively ‘mimetic’ effects. Much of our evidencecomes from Roman rhetorical writers who saw that actors had some-thing to teach the aspiring orator but, partly reflecting the contemptfor actors which is a standard element of Roman élite discourse,7 alsotook pains to warn against excessive mimicry and ‘hyper-realism’; theorator was to play the hardest rôle of all — concealing his theatrical mas-tery.8 Of particular importance is the distinction Quintilian draws be-tween the ‘movements’ of different characters in plays: in fabulis iuuenumsenum militum matronarum grauior ingressus est, serui ancillulae parasiti pisca-tores citatius mouentur, ‘on the stage, young men, old men, soldiers andmatrons move in a stately fashion, whereas slaves, serving-girls, parasitesand fishermen move more rapidly’ (11.3. 112).9 In part, such prescrip-tions are to be seen within the long history of élite self-fashioning, char-acterised by remarkably close attention to ‘body language’, gait and ges-ture. Aristotle’s lecak|xuwor, ‘great-souled man’, ‘walks slowly, has a

5 I owe the phrase to Mary Depew.6 Cf. Dio 18.6–7 on the advantages of having someone read Menander to you.7 Cf. Edwards (1993) 98–136.8 Cf. Cicero, De orat. 2.242, Quintilian 1.111–3, 11.3.91, 181–3 (on the playing

of the opening of Terence’s Eunuchus). On this material cf. Fantham (1982),(2002) 370–3. See also Graf in Bremmer-Roodenburg (1991) 36–58 andConnolly (1998).

9 Cf. 11. 3. 178 on the differing styles of the comic actors Demetrius and Strato-cles. For the Greek background here cf. Wiles (1991) 192–208.

35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance 645

deep voice and speaks calmly’ (EN 4.1125a 12–14). A character in aplay by Alexis comments specifically on the importance of gait :10

4m c±q mol¸fy toOto t_m !mekeuh´qymeWmai, t¹ bad¸feim !qq¼hlyr 1m ta?r bdo ?r,1n¹m jak_r7 ox l¶te pq²ttetai t´korlgde·r c±q Bl÷r, l¶te tilµm dºmta de ?2t´qyi kabe ?m, v´qei d³ to ?r l³m wqyl´moirdºngr timû ecjom, to ?r dû bq_sim Bdom¶m,jºslom d³ t_i b¸yi, t¹ toioOtom c´qart¸r oqj #m art_i jt_ito v²sjym moOm 5weim·

(Alexis fr. 265 K-A)11

‘For this is one thing which I regard as unbecoming to any gentleman,namely walking gracelessly in the street, when it is possible to do so withbeauty. This is something where no one exacts a tax from us, nor mustone acquire it by paying a fee to another. Those who do walk with finessegain an increase in their standing, those who see them are rewarded withpleasure, and kosmos is added to life. What man with any pretensions tocommon sense would not acquire such a prize for himself ?’

The identity of the speaker is unknown, but the concern with what be-fits a free man, with doxa, ‘reputation/standing’, which involves the be-lief that other people look at you in the street, and with ‘good order’(kosmos) all suggest the values of the élite. As the context is clearly some-thing which has happened or been narrated in the play, and it is reason-able to suppose that the speaker regards himself as a positive model ofhow to walk (and perhaps indeed parades around the stage in the ap-proved manner), it is tempting to understand ‘the onlookers’ here (v.6) as, in part, a metatheatrical reference to ‘the audience’. Be that as itmay, in a very similar passage of Plautus12 a metatheatrical dimensionis hard to resist (Poenulus 522–3):

liberos homines per urbem modico magis par est graduire, seruile esse duco festinantem currere.

Free men should proceed through the city at a moderate pace; I regardrunning and hurrying as what slaves do.

10 For other relevant passages cf. Arnott (1996) 741.11 For the textual difficulties of vv. 3–5 cf. Arnott (1996) 741–2.12 Arnott has argued that the Alexis fragment is the original of the Plautine verses

which are spoken by the aduocati (cf. RhM 102 (1959) 252–62), but the matterseems to me unproven.

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The ‘running slave’ of Roman Comedy, who enters in haste with animportant message,13 carries a socio-political, as well as a theatrical, res-onance. Stage discussion of ‘how to walk’ can thus shed light on whatactors actually did on the stage. Horace expresses his disdain for Plautinefarce in comparison with the sophistication and educative value ofGreek tragedy (and perhaps also Menander) by representing Plautus asrunning in disorderly fashion across the stage, concerned not with artbut with getting paid:

aspice Plautusquo pacto partis tutetur amantis ephebi,ut patris attenti, lenonis ut insidiosi,quantus sit Dossennus edacibus in parasitis,quam non astricto percurrat pulpita socco.gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere, post hocsecurus cadat an recto stet fabula talo.

(Horace, Epist. 2.1.170–6)14

See how Plautus maintains the rôle of the young man in love, of the carefulfather, of the pimp who lays traps for you; see what a Dossennus he isamong greedy parasites, how he runs across the stage with his shoesloose. He’s desperate to pocket the cash and beyond that doesn’t carewhat the play is like.

In view of the persistence of theatrical metaphors for the conduct of or-dinary life, it is not surprising that theatrical traditions followed analo-gous paths to those of the élite’s concern with physical and moral de-portment. The actor’s prologue of Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos di-vides stage rôles into two broad types:

ne ille pro se dictum existumetqui nuper fecit seruo currenti in uiadecesse populum: quor insano seruiat?de illius peccatis plura dicet quom dabitalias nouas, nisi finem maledictis facit.adeste aequo animo, date potestatem mihistatariam agere ut liceat per silentium,ne semper seruus currens, iratus senex,edax parasitus, sycophanta autem inpudens,auarus leno adsidue agendi sunt seni

13 For the seruus currens as a stock character cf. Ter. Eun. 36, HT 37. I do not meanto imply that there is no Greek background here, cf. Csapo (1993).

14 On this passage cf. Jocelyn (1995).

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clamore summo, cum labore maxumo.(Terence, HT 30–40)

This is not to be regarded as a defence by that man who recently made thepeople in the street give way to a running slave: why be a slave to a mad-man? The poet will speak further about that man’s errors in the course offuture plays, unless he put an end to his slanders. Give this play a fair hear-ing, and allow me to perform a quiet play in silence, so that I don’t alwayshave to act the running slave, the angry old man, the greedy parasite, theshameless trickster, and the rapacious pimp; I’m an old man, and thoseparts need a lot of shouting and a lot of physical effort.

The point is not just that the actor claims to be too old for ‘lively’ parts,but that those parts somehow lack dignity; the line from this theatricalconcept of a fabula stataria, ‘a stationary play’, one ‘lacking violent move-ment’,15 to the privileged concepts of élite ethics is shown by a passageof Cicero which adapts this language to the practices of oratory:

uolo enim ut in scaena sic etiam in foro non eos modo laudari, qui celerimotu et difficili utantur, sed eos etiam quos statarios appellant, quorum sitilla simplex in agendo ueritas, non molesta. (Brutus 116)

As on the stage, so I wish that in the forum also praise should be bestowednot only on those who accomplish rapid and difficult movements, but alsoon those who are termed ‘stationary’, in whose acting there is a ‘truth’which is straightforward, not irksome.

simplex ueritas indicates a whole ‘moral’ attitude, not just a style of ora-tory; so, Aulus Gellius (NA 2.23.12) castigates Caecilius for replacingwhat in Menander is ‘taken from the life of men, and is simple andtrue and gives pleasure’ (de uita hominum media sumptum, simplex etuerum et delectabile) with buffoonery more suited to mime.

It is indeed the plays of Menander, and to some extent New Com-edy as a whole, which hold a specially privileged place in this con-struction of an élite world. No theme is more prominent throughoutancient writing about Menander than his pre-eminence in the reflectionof ethical character (t¹ Ahijºm), and as such he was always likely to ap-peal to Hellenistic and Roman élites, almost obsessively concerned withhow they looked and how they really were inside. For both Greek andRoman élites of the early imperial period, much of the experience ofMenander may have come through ‘readings’ at occasions such as din-

15 Cf. further Jocelyn (1995) 243–4.

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ner-parties, rather than in fully staged theatrical performances.16

Menander had been fully appropriated into élite literary culture; dramahas become literature. It is indeed likely enough that readings or per-formances from drama at dinner-parties and other social gatheringsavoided excessively imitative effects ; such an inference, at least, makessense of the extreme mimesis that reigns in Trimalchio’s house of horrorsin the Satyrica.

We must not assume, of course, that reality corresponded closely tothe picture painted by a literature concerned to mark out the properspace of the educated. It is certainly possible to identify aesthetic tech-niques and styles which seem to belong to the ‘book culture’ of an élite,rather than to a more widespread performance culture,17 and whichwere presumably a prime weapon with which the élite marked itselfoff from the chaos beneath it. Nevertheless, the construction of any sim-ple ‘élite’ — ‘popular’ dichotomy within the rich patterns of Hellenisticperformance would simply be untrue to the rich spectrum of ‘theatre’which that world offered. Doubtless, some members of the culturedélite stayed away (? ostentatiously) from popular and often vulgar‘mimes’,18 just as they made clear in their writings what kinds of sym-potic entertainment they enjoyed, but there is no reason to imaginegreat gulfs between the classes in what was watched in the theatres:the élite attended and offered enthusiastic patronage for all kinds of the-atrical performance. Nevertheless, the ideological picture, the portrait ofitself which the élite wished to present, emerges clearly enough. Asoften, a letter of Pliny, standing in a long tradition of discussion as towhat type of entertainment and conversation is proper at gatheringsof cultured men (cf. Pl. Prt. 347b-8a), suggests the issues with greatclarity. With a demonstration of admirable ‘philosophical’ mildness,Pliny advises a correspondent not to be too angry with the entertain-ment provided at a dinner-party, though he certainly shares his friend’srefined taste:19

16 Cf., e. g., Fantham (1984). For what can be said on the other side cf. Jones(1993) and Green (1994) 144–71.

17 Cf. Hunter (1996) 7–13, comparing Theocritus 2 and the Fragmentum Grenfel-lianum.

18 Cf. below pp. 650–5.19 For Pliny’s tastes in entertainment cf. also Epist. 1.15.2, 3.1.9, 9.36.4. Plutarch

speaks elsewhere of entertainment at symposia including ‘mime-actors, imper-sonators (Ahok|coi) and performers of Menander’ (Mor. 673b); for the subjectin general cf. Jones (1991), Davidson (2000).

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‘I have received your letter, in which you complain of being highly disgust-ed lately at a dinner, though exceeding splendid, by a set of buffoons, lewdentertainers and clowns (scurrae cinaedi moriones) who were wanderingaround the tables. But let me advise you to smooth your brow a little. Iconfess, indeed, I admit nothing of this kind at my own house; however,I bear with it in others. “And why then” (you will be ready to ask) “shouldyou not have them yourself ?” The truth is, because the soft gestures from acinaedus, the pleasantries from a buffoon, or the idiocies of a clown, give meno entertainment, as they give me no surprise. It is my taste, you see, notmy principles, that I plead against them. And indeed, what numbers arethere, think you, who find no pleasure in the entertainments with whichyou and I are most delighted, and consider them either trivial or weari-some! How many are there, who as soon as a reader, a musician, or acomic actor is introduced, either take their leave of the company, or ifthey continue at the table, show as much dislike to this kind of diversion,as you did at those awfulnesses (prodigia), as you call them! Let us beartherefore, my friend, with others in their amusements, that they in returnmay show indulgence to ours. Farewell.’ (Pliny, Epist. 9.17, trans. W. M. L.Hutchinson, adapted)

2. Miming drama

A standard move of the discourse I have been tracing is a contrast be-tween, on the one hand, texts and performance styles which are morallyimproving and, on the other, the ‘debased’ traditions of ‘mime’. In fact,however, when we move away from élite texts which are concerned todemarcate the boundaries of culture, those boundaries become veryhard to find.

‘Mime’ is a term used by modern scholars to cover a very widerange of ancient performances, from solo singing to ‘playlets’ performedby a small group of ‘actors’, almost anything in fact which does not fitthe classical categories of tragedy, satyr drama, and comedy. In the pres-ent context such looseness is useful, for it is true to the strategy of éliterhetoric.20 A crucial text here is a tantalisingly brief account (14.620a-21 f), drawing on Hellenistic sources, of types of performance in Athe-naeus’ Deipnosophistai (c. 200 AD). The passage repays detailed consid-eration.

20 For ‘mime’ see Reich (1903), Wüst, RE 15. 1727–64, Cunningham (1971) 3–11, Wiemken (1972), McKeown (1979), Fantham (1989), Csapo-Slater (1995)369–78, and the essays in Section III of Benz-Stärk-Vogt-Spira (1995).

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Athenaeus begins with ‘performances’ of Homer by the so-called‘Homeristai’.21 The Hellenistic ‘performance’ of Homer ranged fromprivate reading and recitation through singing and full-blown acting,and this very spectrum reinforced within élite discourse a distinction be-tween ‘serious’ study and reading and the theatrical pleasures of thecommon people. It is telling that Petronius has Trimalchio’s ‘Homeris-tai’ (Sat. 59) engage in violent mimetic action. That such performancesare seen as debasements of ‘high’, educative texts will emerge as a centralleitmotif of the mode of self-representation which we are considering.Athenaeus then lists various kinds of solo performer, about most ofwhom we know very little — hilaroidoi, simoidoi, magoidoi, lysioidoi. Itis typical of élite attitudes that Strabo (late first century BC) views thelast three of these forms as ‘corruptions’ of the practices of earlierlyric poets.22 About the magoidos Athenaeus proceeds to report:

‘The player called a magoidos (lacyid|r) carries tambourines andcymbals, and all his clothes are women’s garments. He makes rude ges-tures (?),23 and all his actions lack decency (kosmos), as he plays the partof adulterous women or bawds or a man drunk and going on a revel tohis mistress. Aristoxenus (fr. 110 W2) says that hilarodia is serious and de-rives from tragedy (paq± tµm tqacyid_am eWmai), whereas magodia derivesfrom comedy (paq± tµm jylyid_am). For often magoidoi took comic sce-narios (rpoh]seir) and acted them in their own style and manner’.

Such performers scandalise by their absence of decorum and taste,but the hypothesised relation with ‘formal drama’ sheds importantlight not only upon mime itself, but also upon élite attitudes to it. What-ever the exact nature of this relationship,24 such performances are per-ceived as a ‘perversion’ of classical drama. With Athenaeus’ next catego-ry, the ionikologoi and kinaidologoi, it is the explicit sexual nature of bothverses and performance25 which élite discourse represents as vulgar, andindeed subversive. It is striking that the most famous such performer,Sotades of Maroneia, was believed to have fallen foul of Ptolemy Phil-adelphos because he joked about Ptolemy’s marriage to his sister Arsinoe(Ath. 620 f-21a).26 Just as Sotadean verse (an ionic tetrameter) ‘parodies’

21 Cf. Husson (1993), Nagy (1996) 158–86.22 Strabo 14.1.41. The verb Strabo uses is paqavhe_qeim.23 The exact sense of swim_fetai is uncertain.24 Cf. Hunter (1995) 160–3.25 Note Strabo 14.1.41 on the ‘mimetic’ quality of cinaedic verse.26 Cf. Hunter (1996) 78–9.

35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance 651

the repetitive structure and regularity of the hexameter, and the kinaidoschallenges the assumptions of the male hierarchy by ‘performing’ as aman who enjoyed the passive rôle in homosexual intercourse, so Sotadesis made to embody a threat to good ‘political’ discipline. It is of funda-mental importance that the discourse of theatrical decorum and kosmos isone in which the élite had a real political stake. The excessive theatri-cality of a Trimalchio threatens to lay bare what is hidden by this veilof ethical values: to turn the ‘theatre’ of master-slave relations intoreal theatre, as Trimalchio does, is potentially destabilising in wayswhich he certainly would never have imagined.

If we turn from what is said in our sources about mimes to thechance survival of papyrus texts, a rather similar picture emerges. Thestandard collection27 begins with the so-called Fragmentum Grenfellianum(2nd cent. BC), a solo song in which a woman (presumably played by aman) adopts the rôle of exclusus amator to complain bitterly that she hasbeen abandoned by her lover.28 Faint echoes of familiar themes fromhigh poetry, but the substitution of a ‘female’ voice, mark this text asanalogous to, but also pointedly distinct from, the modes of high clas-sical poetry. Two prose texts (2 and 3 Cunningham) of the second orfirst century BC are ‘scripts’ for more than one actor, and show themesfamiliar from the New Comedy: hopeless infatuation and a man, theworse for drink, going on a komos to his beloved. Here we seem tohave clear evidence for the close relationship between ‘mime’ and com-edy, which is also asserted by the scholastic tradition and suggested by aterracotta lamp of the late third century BC showing three performersand inscribed lilok|coi rpºhesir gEjuq², ‘mime-speakers, plot, Moth-er-in-law’ (a familiar comic title).29 So too, the best known mime-text, the Charition mime (6 Cunningham),30 restages the escape-plot ofEuripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris on the shores of an outlandishly barbarianIndia; if the narrative motifs, such as escape by intoxicating the enemy,are familiar enough, the extreme ‘vulgarity’ of what survives, in whichfarting plays a major rôle, seems worlds removed from Euripidean mel-odrama. This is perhaps less ‘parody’ than ‘para-drama’.

27 Cunningham (1987) 36–61.28 For more detailed discussion cf. Hunter (1996) 7–10. The closest parallel may

be the female rôle in the ‘love duet’ of Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazousai, cf. Olson(1988), Parker (1997) 546.

29 For hypothesis as a generic name for a kind of dramatic mime cf. Plut.Mor. 712e.For the lamp cf. Watzinger (1901), Bieber (1920) 176–7.

30 Cf. Santelia (1991).

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A similar picture emerges again from the extant mimiamboi of Her-odas (first half of the third century BC). These choliambic poems are acurious cross between the traditions of the dramatic mime and the ar-chaic Ionic iambos of Hipponax, a cross forged by the literary-historicalinterests of the sophisticated poets of the high Hellenistic period. Heretoo, however, the ‘high’ traditions of epic, forensic oratory (Mim. 2),31

and comedy are replayed at a ‘lower’ level which casts ambivalent lightupon the model texts: thus, for example, the high moral tone of NewComedy is amusingly stained by the common mime-scenario of a mis-tress who forces her male slaves to satisfy her lust (Mim. 5, Adesp. 7 Cun-ningham). The social exchanges of formal drama become revelations ofwhat women really talk about when alone — adultery (Mim.1) and mas-turbation (Mim. 6). In feeding off ‘high’ culture, ‘lower’ performancetraditions, and the literary imitations of them written by Herodas andTheocritus, dramatised the ambivalent status of epic, tragedy and com-edy, which — partly because of a deadening fossilisation of rôles —could no longer deliver on the grand moral and educational promiseswhich they made and which were made for them. Society hadmoved on. Elite rhetoric constantly drew attention to the ‘lower’ tradi-tions of mime in order to advertise what it perceived as its own superi-ority; mime itself constantly evoked ‘higher’ traditions, but with a rathermore complex agenda.

Of particular interest is a text preserved on a copy probably writtenin the early first century A.D., perhaps not far from its compositiondate:

p]aid¹r 1v¼kassem b v¸kor lou tquv_mt´]jmom tgq_m 1m ta ?r !cj²kair!poqoOlai poO bad¸sy. B maOr lou 1qq²cg.t¹m j]atah¼liom !pok´sar eqmiha lou jka¸yv]´qe t¹ 1qm¸om tqovµm aqtoO peqik²bytoO law¸lou toO 1peq²stou toO gEkkgmijoO.w²qim to¼tou 1jako¼lgm l´car 1m t_i b¸yija· 1kecºlgm laj²qior, %mdqer, 1m to ?r vikotqov¸oir.xuwolaw_7 b c±q !k´jtyq Astºwgj´ louja· hajahakp²dor 1qashe·r 1l³m 1cjat´kipe.!kkû 1pihe·r k¸hom 1lautoO 1p· tµm jaqd¸am

31 Cf. Hunter (1995).

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jahgsuw²solai. rle ?r dû rcia¸mete, v¸koi.(Frag. mim. fr. 4 Cunningham = GLP 75 Page)32

‘From its childhood my friend (? Tryphon) guarded it, watching over itlike a baby in his arms. I know not whither I may go: my ship is wrecked.I weep for the darling bird that I have lost! Come, let me embrace its chick,this child of the fighter, the beloved, the gallant Greek! For his sake I wasaccounted a success in life, I was called a happy man, gentlemen, amongthose who love their pets. I fight for life — my cock has gone astray: hehas fallen in love with a sitting hen [or with ‘Thakathalpas’] , and left mein the lurch. I will set a tombstone above my heart, and be at rest. Andyou, my friends — goodbye to you!’ (trans. Page, adapted).

This is a lament for a prize fighting-cock which has apparently not died,but rather fallen in love (with a hen) and fled the coop; the final linesseem to be a resolution to commit suicide. From the earliest days (i. e.the Iliad), lamentation was a discourse which gave a special place tothe norms and consensual values of society. The importance of the fam-ily and respect for parents, as well as the qualities of the deceased, arestandard lament themes: the lament is a very public, communal dis-course, and this parodic lament obviously gestures towards such tradi-tions. The speaker alludes to his doxa — he was ‘called fortunateamong pet-lovers’ — and it is at this moment that we get the addressto the audience (%mdqer, ‘gentlemen’), because reputation and status isprecisely a matter of communal consent — this is something whichthe audience will understand. The speaker is male — it was maleswho indulged in cock-fighting — but public lamentation was essentiallya female discourse, and in the anguish of our speaker we hear distantechoes of the heroines of high literature (cf., e. g., Apollonius,Arg. 1.284–91). Here then is a further suggestion that one feature ofthe mime tradition, certainly not an inevitable or necessary one, was achange of gender voicing by rôle transference; one aspect of the dis-tinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ performance forms, if the hierarchi-cal terminology is to be retained, lay in the maintenance or subvertingof inherited rôles and voices. Such transference, as we have seen in thecase of kinaidologia, makes such traditions (at least potentially) culturallyand morally subversive; in the context of the élite rhetoric of paideia,

32 Papyrological marks have been kept to a very minimum, and I will not considerhere the many problems of the text which do not affect the argument. So too,the old problem of whether or not the text is rhythmical will be left out of ac-count, cf. Cunningham’s introductory note.

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such traditions lack kosmos, they disturb proper social and moral hierar-chies. As Plutarch memorably puts it, ‘they throw one’s soul into greaterconfusion than any amount of drink’ (Mor. 712 f). For a Plutarch, ofcourse, such disturbance is also connected with the frank eroticism ofsome of these performances. Whereas the sexy Dionysos and Ariadnemime in Xenophon’s Symposium arouses the diners so much that ‘theunmarried swore that they would get married, and the married menmounted their horses and rode off to enjoy their own wives’(Symp. 9.7), Plutarch outlaws mimetic paignia from the dinner-party asstaging things which should not even be seen ‘by the slaves who fetchour shoes’ (Mor. 712e-f).

3. Mimic elements in New Comedy

New Comedy itself is, of course, a major source for and reflection ofélite values, particularly in its focus upon the continuity and stabilityof the oikos, i. e. of the wider family unit and the property whichwent with it. In the light of the foregoing discussion, it may beworth asking whether our extant New Comedy texts construct atruly homogeneous culture, or whether the plays themselves foreshad-ow the later developments, and in particular the distinction between‘high’ and ‘low’ performance and acting modes, which we have beentracing.

Of the plays which have survived, it is probably Dyskolos which ismost obviously concerned with social solidarity and cohesion. What isat issue in Dyskolos is socialisation, some kind of normative education,the inculcation of particular social and moral values. Through Knemon,who shuns human society because of his distaste for what he sees as thehypocrisy of human motives (cf. 447–53, 719–20), Menander exploresthe difference between being lisop|mgqor ‘a hater of wickedness’ andbeing lis\mhqypor ‘a hater of men’; in Knemon the difference maybe thought to have collapsed. The result, from one point of view, is awithdrawal which society simply cannot tolerate, because such a with-drawal threatens society itself. At another level, however, the apparentlybitter realism of Knemon’s Weltanschauung is shown to be an inadequateresponse in the face of communal strategies, such as festive sacrificing,which make up for in positive ‘social’ results what they may lack inself-analytical frankness. Comedy itself is implicated in this ‘noble lie’,

35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance 655

through the fashioning of a double end to the play around different per-formance traditions.

At 867–73 the two young men, Gorgias and Sostratos, take theirleave of Knemon and of the play, and proceed to join the party insidethe cave:

Sy. Ble ?r dû Uylem. Co. S¾stqahû, rpeqaisw¼molaicumain·m 1m taqt_i —Sy. t¸r b k/qor ; oq pqºeioQje ?a taOtû Edg mol¸feim p²mta de ?.

(Dysk. 871–3)

So. Let’s go.Go. Sostratos, I feel very embarrassed — there are women in there …So. What nonsense! Get a move on. All of this is oikeion to you now.

The ‘high comedy’ thus closes with an expression of properly decentmanners and an affirmation that the oikos has been preserved and broad-ened (873 oikeia). The closing scene which follows, in which Sikon andGetas tease Knemon mercilessly, functions not merely as a reprise of theearlier door-knocking scenes in which he had abused them, but incor-porates into the play a ‘low’ or farcical reflection of the main action,marked by the use of nearly unparalleled iambic tetrameters to the ac-companiment of the aulos. The use of music, the extravagant gestureand dancing and the rare, perhaps old-fashioned metre seem somethingof a throwback to a livelier style of comedy, as though Menander wasexploiting his awareness (and that of his audience?) of the generaldrift of comic history. The values promulgated by the ‘high drama’are almost parodied by the self-serving plans of the slave:

hºqubºr 1stim 5mdom,p¸mousim7 oqj aQsh¶setû oqde¸r7 t¹ dû fkom 1st·m Bl ?mûmhqypor Bleqyt´or7 jgde¼olem c±q aqt_i,oQje ?or Bl ?m c¸metû7 eQ dû 5stai toioOtor !e¸,5qcom rpemecje ?m.

(Dysk. 901–5)

‘There’s a lot of noise; they’re drinking – no one will notice. The mainthing is that we must make this man tame. We’re related to him by mar-riage, he is a member of the family (oikeios). If he’s always going to be likethis, it won’t be easy to put up with.’

Oikeios (904) picks up Sostratos’ closing words and marks the pervertedvariation of socialised values which we are about to witness. Knemon

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must be ‘trained’ in the ways of the élite symposium: comedy had in-deed long used the correct conduct of the symposium as the markerof correct social behaviour (cf. the finale of Ar. Wasps). What Getasand Sikon offer in fact is an extraordinary inversion of the komos inwhich the paraclausithyron (serenade) precedes the drinking; Knemonis forced to witness ‘socialised behaviour’ turned upside down andmade ridiculous, very far from the p|tor jak|r, ‘jolly party’, (855–6)which the other characters are now enjoying inside Pan’s cave. Inwhat could be taken for an almost paradigmatic confirmation of ‘thetwo cultures’ view of the Hellenistic world, the values of comedy areboth confirmed and lightly ironised by a scene which derives a quite dif-ferent kind of humour from an exploitation of the same comic motifs ;the smutty, genital jokes of 892 and 89533 offer a rather low-life per-spective upon the formal marriage formula of 842–4:

!kkû 1ccu_ pa¸dym 1pû !qºtyi cmgs¸ymtµm hucat´qû Edg leiq²jiºm soi pqo ?j² te

d¸dylû 1pû aqt/i tq¸a t²kamta.

I now betroth my daughter to you, young man, for the begetting [lit.ploughing] of legitimate children, and I bestow a dowry of three talentsupon her.

Knemon had wished to remove himself entirely from society; his ‘pun-ishment’ consists of removal from the realm of ‘civilised’ comedy into aquite different mode of performance where parodic farce stains the val-ues of the higher mode.

A suggestive parallel for this dramatic technique of doubling and in-version is to be found in Terence’s Adelphoe (‘The Brothers’), which wasbased on a play of the same title by Menander. Here the abduction ofCtesipho’s beloved and the subsequent rough handling of the pimp San-nio, which follows the opening confrontation of the older pair of con-trasted brothers, Micio and Demea, and which was, at least in part,added by Terence from the Synapothnescontes (‘Those Who Die Togeth-er’) of Diphilos (cf. vv. 6–11), functions as a kind of parodic reprise ofthe opening debate. Like the fathers, Sannio appeals to notions of aeq-uum (‘the equitable’) and iniuria (‘wrong’), and, like them, the pimp

33 Just as Sikon takes Getas’ question of 891 as the opportunity for a sexual joke onp\sweim, ‘suffer’ and ‘be penetrated anally’, so Getas in 895 puns on Sikon’s useof !mast/mai, ‘get up’ and ‘get it up’, cf. Hunter on Theocr. 1.151–2.

35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance 657

must put up with iniuria adulescentium, (‘the outrages of young men’,207); his threat to exact the full measure of his ius, ‘legal rights’,(163) is a farcical version of the strict legality to which Demea had ap-pealed in his complaints against Aeschinus (84–6) and which Micio hadrejected as inappropriate to the business of fatherhood (51–2, ‘I do notthink it necessary to enforce the full measure of my rights in all things’).When Syrus advises Sannio that it would be to his financial advantagenot to insist on the strict letter of his rights, but rather to oblige his cli-ents (adulescenti esses morigeratus, 218), we can hardly fail to recall the dif-ferences between Micio and Demea which the opening scenes had laidout with such clarity. When Sannio refuses to follow the slave’s adviceand Syrus observes that Sannio is destined to be a failure as a pimp, nescisinescare homines ‘you don’t know how to entrap men’, the languageevokes the behaviour of the flatterer and the prostitute to foreshadowwhat will be an important theme at the close of the play. There Demea’sassertion that the point of his final charade of generosity was to showMicio that his popularity non fieri ex uera uita neque adeo ex aequo etbono, j sed ex adsentando indulgendo et largiendo, ‘does not derive from asincere way of life nor from the pursuit of the equitable and good,but from complaisance, indulgence and extravagant generosity’(987–8) makes the point that not only does Micio’s attitude turn othersinto flatterers (cf. 877–80),34 but Micio himself is characterised by thehypocrisy and feigned attitudes of the flatterer. In Demea’s view,Micio has made the classic mistake of confusing ‘friendship’ (philia)with ‘flattery’ (kolakeia or areskeia); his behaviour is that of the Aristote-lian areskos35 or the more familiar kolax,36

ille suam semper egit uitam in otio, in conuiuiis,clemens placidus, nulli laedere os, adridere omnibus.

(Ad. 863–4)

34 The best commentary on these verses is Arist. EN 8.1159a 12, ‘Because of loveof honour most men prefer to be loved rather than to love; that is why mostmen like flatterers’.

35 Cf. EN 4.1126b 13–14: ‘some men are thought to be obsequious (%qesjoi),viz. those who to give pleasure praise everything and never oppose, butthink it their duty to give no pain to the people they meet’ (trans. W. D. Ross).

36 Cf. Plut.Mor. 50b ‘Just as false and counterfeit imitations of gold imitate only itsbrilliancy and lustre, so apparently the flatterer, imitating the pleasant and at-tractive characteristics of the friend (toO v¸kou t¹ Bd» ja· jewaqisl´mom), alwayspresents himself in a cheerful and blithe mood (Rkaq¹m ja· !mhgqºm), with nevera whit of crossing or opposition’.

Comedy and Performance658

He has passed his entire life in ease and social jollity; always forgiving andcalm, never offended anyone, has a smile for everyone …

These are the issues which are jokingly previewed in the banter of Syrusand Sannio. So too, Sannio’s disingenuous appeal to his own ‘free’ status(182–3) and Aeschinus’ possibly improvised claim that the girl is free-born (193–4) moves to a farcical mode the ‘who is free?’ theme of thecentral drama, embodied rather more high-mindedly in Micio’s viewsabout the education of liberi (57). So too, the debt of reciprocal gratitudewhich Aeschinus should owe Micio on the basis of the first scene be-comes, in the second, a sum of money owed to a greedy pimp. Inshort, the central themes of the framing play are here replayed in a‘lower’, more farcical mode.

From this perspective, Sannio bears an interesting name, whichpoints in two (related) directions. sannion seems to be a word for thepenis (cf. Hesychius s.v.), and therefore appropriate to the pimp’strade, but sannio appears at Cicero, De Oratore 2.251 as a word (appar-ently) for a performer in a clownish and low entertainment; Cicero isdiscussing appropriate types of humour:

hoc etiam animaduertendum est, non esse omnia ridicula faceta. quid enimpotest esse tam ridiculum quam sannio est? sed ore, uultu, uoce, deniquecorpore ridetur ipso; salsum hunc possum dicere atque ita, non ut eiusmodi oratorem esse uelim, sed ut mimum.

‘It is also important that not everything which is laughed at is witty. Forwhat could be more to be laughed at than a clown (sannio). But he produ-ces laughter with his face, his expression, his voice, his whole body. I couldsay this is amusing, but in the way a mime-actor is amusing, not as I wouldwish an orator to be.’

What is absurd about this ‘buffoon’ is precisely that excessive mimicrywhich we have already seen to distinguish ‘serious’ from ‘clownish’ ac-tors and actors from orators. Though Sannion and Sannon are attestedhistorical names, sannas is an old word for an idiot,37 and sannion appearswith this sense at Arrian, Epict. 3.22.83. Among the known bearers ofthe name is a third-century komoidos who performed at Delphi (Stepha-nis 2211), and the possibility that such names had ‘theatrical currency’ inthe Greek world, as well as the Roman, is strengthened by the nameSannyrion which Alciphron gives to one of the leaders of the mimoi

37 Cf. Kassel-Austin on Cratinus fr. 489, Rhinthon fr. 20 K-A (where it is tempt-ing to see a ‘theatrical’ term).

35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance 659

at his farcical ‘banquet of the philosophers’.38 Be that as it may, Noviuswrote an Atellane farce called Sanniones,39 and there are thus good rea-sons to associate the name of Terence’s leno, as well as the scene inwhich he appears, with theatrical traditions of a rather ‘lower’ kindthan formal comedy; unsurprisingly, brothel-keepers and slave-traderswere familiar characters in the mimic tradition. If this analysis is correct,Terence has pointed to the different levels inscribed in his play by givinghis leno a name from the traditions of farce and mime. That the themesof the leno’s scene replay the themes of the framing drama — a kind of‘play within the play’ technique — reminds us of what we have alreadylearned from both Athenaeus and the papyri, namely that ‘mimes’, bothGreek and Roman, often borrowed the plots of ‘formal comedy’ andperformed them in their own style.

Both Dyskolos and Adelphoe are concerned with ‘education’ in be-havioural and social norms, precisely those themes which later élitemoralists saw as most valuable in New Comedy. These plays, moreover,highlight these themes by juxtaposing versions of them as interpreted bydifferent traditions of performance. Such an inclusive practice marks thegenuinely theatrical nature of these scripts, a nature which was alwayslikely to be obscured once the texts had moved from the stage to theschoolroom.40

Bibliography

Arnott, W. G. (1996). Alexis: the Fragments. A Commentary. Cambridge.Benz, L., Stärk, E. and Vogt-Spira, G. (eds.) (1995). Plautus und die Tradition des

Stegreifspiels. Tübingen.Bieber, M. (1920). Die Denkm�ler zum Theaterwesen im Altertum. Berlin and

Leipzig.Bremmer, J. and Roodenburg, H. (eds.) (1991). A Cultural History of Gesture.

Cambridge.

38 Alciphron 3.9.10 Benner-Fobes, cf. Reich (1903) 429–30. ‘Sannyrion’ is listedamong legendary idiots at Aelian, VH 13.15. Alciphron’s other mime-leader,‘Philistiades’, most likely evokes the famous, though very mysterious, mime-poet Philistion (cf. Wüst, RE 19.2402–5), and ‘Phoibades’ the citharode canhardly fail to recall the divine citharode himself, Phoebus Apollo.

39 Cf. Frassinetti (1953) 72; Rawson (1991) 470, discussing Diod. Sic. 37.12 (agelotopoios called Saunio or Sannio).

40 I am much indebted to Mary Depew, Pat Easterling, Edith Hall, Susan Lape,David Wray, and many seminar audiences for their helpful criticisms of earlierversions of this paper.

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—(1997) A Cultural History of Humour. Cambridge.Connolly, J. (1998). ‘Mastering corruption. Constructions of identity in

Roman oratory’ in S. R. Joshel and S. Murnaghan (eds.), Women and Slavesin Greco-Roman Culture (London) 130–51.

Csapo, E. (1993). ‘A case study in the use of theatre iconography as evidencefor ancient acting’ Antike Kunst 36: 41–58.

Csapo, E. and Slater, W. (1995). The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor.Cunningham, I.C. (1971). Herodas, Mimiambi. Oxford.—(1987) Herodae Mimiambi cum appendice fragmentorum mimorum papyraceorum.

Leipzig.Davidson, J. (2000). ‘Gnesippus paigniagraphos : the comic poets and the erotic

mime’ in D. Harvey and J. Wilkins (eds.), The Rivals of Aristophanes (Lon-don) 41–64.

Edwards, C. (1993). The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge.Fantham, E. (1982). ‘Quintilian on performance: traditional and personal ele-

ments in Institutio 11.3’, Phoenix 36: 243–71.—(1984). ‘Roman experience of Menander in the late Republic and early Em-

pire’, TAPA 114: 299–309.—(1989). ‘Mime: the missing link in Roman literary history’ Classical World

82: 153–63.—(2002). ‘Orator and/et actor’ in P. Easterling and E. Hall (eds.), Greek and

Roman Actors (Cambridge) 362–76.Frassinetti, P. (1953). Fabula Atellana. Saggio sul teatro popolare latino. Genoa.Green, J. R. (1994). Theatre in Ancient Greek Society. London.Hall, E. (1995). ‘Lawcourt dramas: the power of performance in Greek forensic

oratory’ BICS 40 (1995) 39–58.Hunter, R. (1995). ‘Plautus and Herodas’ in Benz-Stärk-Vogt-Spira (1995)

155–69 [= this volume 212–28].—(1996). Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge.—(2000). ‘The politics of Plutarch’s Comparison of Aristophanes and Menand-

er’ in S. Gödde and T. Heinze (eds.), Skenika. Beitr�ge zum antiken Theaterund seiner Rezeption (Darmstadt) 267–76.

Husson, G. (1993). ‘Les homeristes’ Journal of Juristic Papyrology 23: 93–9.Jocelyn, H. D. (1995). ‘Horace and the reputation of Plautus in the late first

century BC’, in S.J. Harrison (ed.), Homage to Horace (Oxford) 228–27.Jones, C. P. (1991). ‘Dinner theater’, in W. J. Slater (ed.), Dining in a Classical

Context (Ann Arbor) 185–98.—(1993). ‘Greek drama in the Roman empire’, in R. Scodel (ed.), Theater and

Society in the Classical World (Michigan) 39–52.McKeown, J. C. (1979). ‘Augustan elegy and mime’ Proceedings of the Cambridge

Philological Society 25: 71–84.Nagy, G. (1996). Poetry as Performance. Cambridge.Ober, J. (1989). Mass and �lite in Democratic Athens. Princeton.Olson, D. (1988). ‘The “love duet” in Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae’ CQ 38:

328–30.Parker, L. P. E. (1997). The Songs of Aristophanes. OxfordRawson, E. (1991). Roman Culture and Society. Collected Papers. Oxford.

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Reich, H. (1903). Der Mimus. Berlin.Santelia, S. (1991). Charition Liberata (P.Oxy. 413). Bari.Watzinger, C. (1901). ‘Mimologen’ MDAI 26: 1–9.Wiemken, H. (1972). Der griechische Mimus. Bremen.Wiles, D. (1991). The Masks of Menander. Cambridge.Zanker, P. (1995). The Mask of Socrates. The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity,

trans. A. Shapiro. Berkeley.

Addenda

p. 643 The essays of Csapo and Slater in the Greek and Roman Actors volume alsodiscuss this passage of the Poetics.

p. 647 Horace’s attitude to Plautus is discussed at greater length in Critical Mo-ments in Classical Literature (Cambridge, forthcoming).

p. 652 There is now a useful edition of the Fragmentum Grenfellianum by ElenaEsposito (Il fragmentum Grenfellianum [P.Dryton 50] , Bologna 2005).

pp. 656–7 Cf. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 416–17.

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36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary*

This paper1 considers a few of the ways in which ancient poets, particu-larly tragedians, and theorists of poetry explored the boundary betweenthe visible and the unseen, and how they exploited this boundary as(inter alia) a crucial marker of generic identity.

1.

I begin from one of the most familiar ancient texts on the proper limitsof the visible in drama:

aut agitur res in scaenis aut acta refertur.segnius inritant animos demissa per auremquam quae sunt oculis subiecta fidelibus et quaeipse sibi tradit spectator: non tamen intusdigna geri promes in scaenam multaque tollesex oculis quae mox narret facundia praesens:ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidetaut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreusaut in auem Procne uertatur, Cadmus in anguem.quodcumque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

Horace, Ars Poetica 179–88

The most obvious parallels for Horace’s rules as to what can and cannotbe shown, rules which in his commentary Brink would trace to Neo-ptolemus of Parium, have long been collected.2 Thus, for example,the bT-scholia on Iliad 6.58–9, where Agamemnon urges Menelaosnot to spare any Trojan, not even an unborn child, note that such bestialcruelty rouses the hatred (t¹ l ?sor) of the hearers with their human sen-

* Eikasmos 16 (2005) 179–911 I am very grateful to audiences in Bari, Bologna, Melbourne, Rethymnon,

Rome and Thessaloniki for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.I have here kept as close as possible to the oral form of the paper; as a result,footnotes and bibliography are minimal.

2 To the commentaries add Bremer 1976, Brink 1963: 114.

sibilities, and so tragedians have such murders happen off-stage, eitherwith the cries of the dying only heard by those on stage and by the au-dience (as, most famously for us, in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon— to which Ishall return) or with events subsequently narrated by a messenger;3 thescholiast explains that the tragedians are afraid that, if such actions areshown on stage, they themselves will incur the hatred of the audience,along with the horrible events (lµ aqto· sullisgh_si to ?r dqyl´moir).The language of ‘hatred’ is very striking here (cf. further below), butthe suggestion that poetry has a range of resources with which tomeet different situations echoes a major feature of the ancient concep-tion of poetry, both dramatic and non-dramatic. The matter is well ex-pressed by the words put into the mouth of the (slightly envious) sculp-tor Pheidias by Dio Chrysostom in the course of a famous disquisitionon the nature of artistic composition (12.64):

For poetry is an abounding (daxik]r) thing and in every respect resourceful(eupoqom) and self-reliant (aqt|molom), and by the resources of the tongueand a multitude of words it is able by itself to express all the plans of thesoul, and whatever it conceive concerning any shape or action or emotionor magnitude, it can never be at a loss, since the voice of a messenger relateseverything with perfect clearness …

As for Horace’s examples, modern scholars might argue that there is noneed to show the actual killing of Medea’s or Thyestes’ children, for thefocus of any dramatisation of the relations of Medea and Jason or ofThyestes and Atreus is not the killings themselves, but rather their ante-cedents and consequences; so too, the metamorphoses of Procne andCadmus are certainly neither central to, nor even strictly necessaryfor, the plots in which they appear. Nevertheless, the thrust of Horace’sargument clearly lies elsewhere. His verses both extol the advantagewhich drama has over narrative – what we see with our ‘trustworthyeyes’ is more immediately xuwacycij|m than what we hear, presumablybecause ‘in real life’ it is our eyes which we trust (a point which Dio alsomakes in Oration 12) – and also suggest that a proper sense of decus or t¹pq]pom will place limits on what can be directly shown.4 Lines of de-scent to this passage can be traced from Aristotle’s observations in thePoetics that poets who seek to arouse terror through monstrous spectaclehardly deserve the name of tragedians (Poetics 1453b7–11) and that epic

3 Cf. the scholia to Sophocles, Ajax 815 and Electra 1404, Brink 1971: 244–5.4 Cf. Brink 1971: 247 on v.183.

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is more tolerant of t¹ haulast|m and t¹ %kocom than is tragedy (Poetics1460a11–18).5

Another very familiar system of classification is also important forHorace’s verses, though that importance has not always been properlyunderstood. One of the most important theorists in this area, Ascle-piades of Myrlea (early first century BC), divided Rstoq_a into ‘thetrue, the false, and the as if true’ (Sextus Empiricus Adv.Gramm. 252). In one citation of Asclepiades’ theory, Sextus Empiricusgoes into rather more detail :6

In addition to this, one of the subjects of history is history (Rstoq_a), anoth-er is myth (lOhor), and the third is fiction (pk\sla). Of these, history is anexposition of true things which actually happened, such as that Alexanderdied in Babylon poisoned by plotters, and fiction is when things which didnot happen are told like those that did, such as comic plots and mimes,while a myth is an exposition of things which have not happened andare false, such as when ‘they sing that’ the race of venemous spiders andsnakes was born ‘from the blood of the Titans’ [Nicander, Theriaca 8–10] and that Pegasus sprang from the head of the Gorgon when her throatwas cut [cf. Hesiod, Theogony 280–1] and that the companions of Dio-medes turned into sea birds, Odysseus into a horse, and Hecuba into adog. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Grammaticos 263–5 (trans. D.L. Blank)

The examples of ‘impossible and false things’ which Sextus cites makeclear the association of lOhor with the wilder edges of epic,7 but theyalso have an obvious interest for the passage of Horace from which Istarted, and I will return to this in a moment; first, however, we maynote another ancient system of classification which seems related tothat of Asclepiades. A well known bT-scholium on Iliad 14.342–51 de-fends the love-making of Zeus and Hera from Plato’s censure by mak-ing sub-divisions within the material of poetry:

tqe ?r d´ eQsi tqºpoi, jah’ otr p÷sa po¸gsir heyqe ?tai7 b lilgtij¹r toO !kg-hoOr, vikop²tyq, lisoc¼mgr, %pistor, paqqgsiast¶r7 b jat± vamtas¸amt/r !kghe¸ar, dm de ? lµ jat± l´qor 1net²feim, oXom, fti xuwa· ce¼omtai ja·kakoOsi, p²mtyr 1qe ? tir ja· ck_ssam 5wousi ja· bqºcwom7 tq¸tor d³ b

5 Cf. further Section 3 below on the pursuit of Hector by Achilles in Iliad 22.6 For discussion and further parallels see Blank 1998: 266–70. The roots of

Asclepiades’ system are of course very old; passages such as Callimachus,Hymn to Zeus 65 and Plautus, Pseudolus 401–3 suggest that poets of the highHellenistic period were able already to play with such distinctions.

7 In the passage to which Sextus alludes, Nicander ascribes the story of the originsof venemous creatures from the blood of the Titans to Hesiod.

36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary 665

jah’ rp´qhesim !kghe¸ar ja· vamtas¸am, J¼jkyper, Kaistqucºmer ja· taOtat± peq· he_m.

There are three categories under which all poetry may be considered: thatwhich is mimetic of the truth – the person devoted to his father, thewoman-hater, the suspicious man, the free speaker; that which involvesimaginative elaboration of the truth,8 and which is not to be examinedin detail, in the manner of deducing from the fact that the ghosts [in Odys-sey 11] can taste and talk that they have tongues and throats; and thirdly,that which involves surpassing the truth as well as elaborating imaginativelyupon it – the Cyclopes, the Laistrygonians, and these passages about thegods [like Iliad 14].

The scholiast’s first category clearly corresponds to Asclepiades’ ‘plasma/ the as if true’, whereas the second and third are both subsumed intoAsclepiades’ final category of (untruthful) muthos ; the scholium offersnothing corresponding to Asclepiades’ first category of the factuallytrue because (presumably) it is dealing solely with poetry and poetry— by a familiar ancient concept — excludes the factually or historicallytrue.

Just as Asclepiades illustrates his second class of (what we might – Ihope not tendentiously – call) ‘plasmatic fiction’ from ‘comic plots andmimes’, so the scholium’s class of the ‘mimetic of the truth’ clearly looksto the characters of New Comedy: Lisoc}mgr and -pistor are titles ofMenandrean plays, and Vikop\tyq the title of comedies by Antiphanes,Posidippus, and Turpilius. Now, character is also at the heart of the sec-tion of the Ars Poetica which immediately precedes the passage fromwhich we began. The playwright, says Horace, must compose realistic(within, of course, the parameters of received notions about charac-ter-types) and consistent characters (vv. 154–78); the principal line ofinfluence here descends, of course, from Aristotle’s Rhetoric, but ofthe dramatic genres it is again comedy which is most evoked. Tragic‘character’ had to some extent already been dealt with in vv. 119–27,in which Horace advises poets either to stick to the known characteris-tics of known characters (the angry Achilles etc) or to ‘invent’ thor-oughly consistent characters. Horace’s strategy in this section of theArs Poetica, however, is to deal with ‘drama’ as though it were a singlewhole, and he moreover disguises his debt to systems such as that ofAsclepiades by combining it with a concern with decorum and with

8 I borrow the translation of Halliwell 2002: 305. For further discussion see Mei-jering 1987: 67–98, Halliwell 2002: 305–7, Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 139–40.

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the use of messenger-speeches: we are allowed to see plasmata, but mu-thoi should only be heard.

Horace’s list of t± haulast\ is in fact a very mixed one. The lan-guage in the first two examples suggests plays in which the horror is laidon very thickly indeed: Medea ‘butchers’ (trucidet) her children, andAtreus, nefarius like some pantomime villain, openly ‘cooks’ the organsof Thyestes’ children, as though striving for his first Michelin star. As forthe metamorphoses of Procne and Cadmus, both occurring, of course,though Horace does not spell this out, after unspeakable horrors, here itwould seem that it is Horace’s sense of belief (incredulus) which is offend-ed. Here again classifications such as Asclepiades’ can help us to under-stand the Roman poet’s strategy.

We know and accept that ‘myth’, particularly outlandish lOhoi ofmetamorphosis and cannibalism, is false (xeud^r), and so to put it onstage, before our eyes, which believe what they see, destroys the con-ventional understanding between playwright and audience, an under-standing founded upon a shared knowledge that what is usually drama-tised is ‘as if true/mimetic of the true’ events. A scholarly critic likeHorace knows about such classifications and conventions, and tobring such muthoi before his eyes is merely to offend him and his refinedsensibilities; vv. 91–2, indignatur item priuatis ac prope socco / dignis carmi-nibus narrari cena Thyestae, had already made clear that the cena Thyestae isa subject for narratio, not for scenic presentation. The scholarly and in-deed elitist implications of odi (we think of Odes 3.1.1 and Callimachus’1wha¸qy t¹ po¸gla t¹ jujkijºm jtk.) are an important signal of Horace’sargument here; Horace has in fact adopted the language of t¹ lise ?mwhich we saw in the scholium to Iliad 6.58–9, but given it his own,we might think very Horatian, nuance. The rejected scenes offendagainst canons of taste and educated, aesthetic judgement. (It is worthrecalling that these scenes of metamorphosis take us back to the snakesand birds of the proem which must not go together (v. 13), in anotherpassage in which Horace lays down the law and establishes his educated,didactic voice). We may further recall Aristotle’s dismissal of the%tewmom effect of ‘scary scenes’ and of t¹ teqat_der (Poetics1453b1–11), a passage which clearly also aligns itself firmly againstany idea of ‘mass entertainment’; when Aristotle notes that ‘one mustnot seek any pleasure from tragedy, but only that which is oikeion toit’ (1453b10–11), we (and he) may recall Plato’s (elitist) lamentsabout what happened to poetry when the ‘pleasure’ of the popular au-

36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary 667

dience came to dictate what was composed (Laws 3.701a-e). Horace’sattitudes, as so often, have a long history.

2.

When we move from theory to practice, the apparent limits of action onthe tragic stage can only be discussed within the broader context of how‘drama’ is conceived and of the significance of the boundaries betweenthe seen and the unseen. To what extent fifth-century tragedians them-selves policed the conventions of ‘viewing’ and ‘hearing’ which Horaceexploits in the passage we have been considering is a very interestingquestion, but one which cannot be pursued at any length here. Certainpassages might indeed be thought almost to allude to such self-imposedrestrictions: Euripides’ Medea repeatedly sends her children inside(vv. 1053,9 1076), and at the end of Sophocles’ Electra Orestes insiststhat Aigisthos enter the palace to be killed and Aigisthos taunts himwith an unwillingness to do the deed in the light of day(vv. 1491–9); the poetic justice of ‘death within the house he himselfhas stained’ may here be combined with obedience to dramaturgicaland conventional necessity.10 What is clear, however, is that Horace’sverses have a complex relationship with one of the most important, al-most indeed programmatically generic, of tragedy’s concerns. In its pre-sentation of space ‘off’ and ‘on’, the ‘unseen’ and the ‘seen’,11 tragedydramatises the difference between ‘viewing’ and ‘listening’ as one of dif-ferent sorts of belief and knowledge; Plato was to dismiss the images ofthe theatre as ‘imitations’ quite distanced from ‘reality’, but tragedy’sown epistemological concerns are not to be underestimated. I want toconsider this a little further through what is perhaps the most obvioustragic scene for the purpose, but also one to which Horace offers alead, namely the Cassandra-scene of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.

Cassandra ‘sees’ Thyestes’ dead children holding their own organs(vv. 1215–1222, cf. 1096, 1125) and she knows (eQd]mai) the truth (v.1196). What, however, do the chorus know? In their first exchange

9 Onofrio Vox notes that vv. 1053–5 suggest that the audience are to be exclud-ed from Medea’s infanticide as profani were excluded from seeing ritual action.

10 Cf. Kaibel on v. 1493.11 The bibliography is, of course, huge; Padel 1990 and Rehm 2002 offer guid-

ance of different kinds.

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with the prophetess (vv. 1101–6), the chorus claim not to understand(to be %idqir of) her words, which for the audience evoke the comingkilling of Agamemnon, but to have recognised (cicm~sjeim) her allu-sions to Thyestes’ children, ‘for the whole city screams (of the matter)’.The chorus’ ‘knowledge’ – so, I think, we are to understand – is basedon ‘what everyone has heard’, it is the ‘talk of the town’;12 it is in factnot so different from the knowledge of ‘myth’ which we might attributeto the watching audience. When Cassandra confronts the chorus withher knowledge, they are forced to admit her powers:

haul²fy d´ sou,pºmtou p´qam tqave ?sam !kkºhqoum pºkimjuqe ?m k´cousam ¦speq eQ paqest²teir.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1199–1201

The echo of Odysseus’ praise of Demodocus seems unmistakable:

Dglºdoj’, 5nowa d¶ se bqot_m aQm¸fol’ "p²mtym7C s´ ce LoOs’ 1d¸dane, Di¹r p²ir, C s´ c’ ûApºkkym.k¸gm c±q jat± jºslom ûAwai_m oWtom !e¸deir,fss’ 5qnam t’ 5pahºm te ja· fss’ 1lºcgsam ûAwaio¸,¦r t´ pou C aqt¹r paqe½m C %kkou !jo¼sar.

Homer, Odyssey 8. 487–91

In Cassandra’s case, of course, Apollo really is responsible, as her imme-diate answer to the chorus makes clear, l\mtir l’ ûApºkkym t_id’1p´stgsem t´kei (v. 1202). The chorus ‘translate’ Cassandra’s knowledgeinto a pattern familiar to them – hence the evocation of the Odyssey –but Cassandra’s ‘sight’ has in fact moved a step beyond the powers ofDemodocus. Odysseus is able to judge Demodocus’ performance be-cause he really was at Troy; the chorus of the Agamemnon have lessground for certainty.

Although Cassandra’s insight is compared, both by the chorus(1093–4) and herself in echo (1184–5), to the tracking of a hunting-dog, it is not Cassandra who in this scene embodies the ‘hermeneuticprocess’ and the interpretation of signs, but rather the chorus itself(probably also compared to a hunting-dog at 1245); Aeschylus drama-tises their stumbling progress towards understanding:

12 It would be nice to be able to appeal to v. 1197, kºcyi pakai±r t_md’ "laqt¸ardºlym, for support here, but k|cyi has been doubted (West obelises), and, ifsound, it can hardly go with eQd]mai in v. 1196, as Fraenkel takes it.

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Ja. Q½ pºpoi, t¸ pote l¶detait¸ tºde m´om %wor l´ca,l´c’ 1m dºloisi to ?sde l¶detai jajºm,%veqtom v¸koisi, dus¸atom7 !kj± d’2j±r !postate ?.

Wo. to¼tym %idq¸r eQli t_m lamteul²tym,1je ?ma d’ 5cmym7 p÷sa c±q pºkir bo÷i.

Ja. Q½ t²kaima, tºde c±q teke ?r ;t¹m blod´lmiom pºsimkoutqo ?si vaidq¼masa, p_r vq²sy t´kor ;t²wor c±q tºd’ 5stai7 pqote¸mei d³ we ?q’ 1jweq¹r aqecol´ma.

Wo. oupy num/ja7 mOm c±q 1n aQmicl²tym1paqc´loisi hesv²toir !lgwam_.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1100–1113

Cassandra’s first utterance tells of a new, but non-specific (except per-haps for %veqtom v¸koisim) catastrophe, and the chorus claim not to un-derstand (%idqir). She then becomes more detailed – a husband, a bath –and the chorus respond oupy num/ja … !lgwam_. We may be remind-ed of Socrates’ young interlocutors in a Platonic dialogue trying to grasphis meaning as he leads them forward. Despite the fact that failure to un-derstand the language of prophets is a familiar enough dramatic motif(Oedipus and Teiresias are the most notorious couple), the chorus ofthe Agamemnon is sometimes presented in modern criticism as at leastslow to grasp the obvious, as being a bit ‘thick’, but this is to miss thethrust of the dramatist’s concern. One audience – the one sitting inthe theatre – suspects, on the basis of what it has ‘heard’ (from, interalios, Homer and other poets) that it knows what is going to happen;another audience, the chorus, must seek to understand as Cassandra’swords unfold. The gap between how these two audiences interpret(or fail to interpret) her words marks how ‘meaning’ is retrospectivelyimposed upon the interpretation of oracular utterance. Nevertheless, al-though the experience of the chorus is, in some respects, quite differentfrom that of the audience, there are areas of intersection (as there alwaysare). ‘I say’, declares Cassandra, ‘that you shall see (1pºxeshai)’ — a verbthat might make us think of epoptic mysteries – ‘the death (l|qom) ofAgamemnon’ (1245); the line is addressed to the chorus, but it is astrue for the audience, who may well feel themselves addressed directlyhere. Of course, there is also a pointed dramaturgical misdirection,which perhaps exploits the conventional limitations of stage-action

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from which I began: l|qor is an ambiguous word, and what the choruswill actually ‘see’ (when the inside is brought out) is the king’s corpse.

What prompts Cassandra’s unusually explicit declaration (v.1246) isthe chorus’ repeated confession that, though they know exactly whatshe is talking about with regard to Thyestes, the second half of her mes-sage remains obscure:

tµm l³m Hu´stou da ?ta paide_ym jqe_mnum/ja ja· p´vqija, ja· vºbor l’ 5weijk¼omt’ !kgh_r oqd³m 1ngijasl´ma7t± d’ %kk’ !jo¼sar 1j dqºlou pes½m tq´wy.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1242–5

In the best kind of tragedy, according to Aristotle, ‘terror and pity’(vq¸tteim ja· 1kee ?m) would come over someone who just heard thestory of a play without actually seeing it, ‘as would happen if someonewere to listen to the plot of the Oedipus’ (Poetics 1453b2–7). The chorusof the Agamemnon feels ‘shuddering and fear’ at (apparently) the verythought of the banquet of Thyestes; this is not the kind of experiencewhich Aristotle has in mind, but their horror, like that of a theatricalaudience, does indeed depend upon the imaginative memory of pasthorrors either seen (in the theatre) or heard about (in story andmyth), not upon the kind of awful spectacle which Horace deprecates.vq_tteim and its cognates are used by Plato of the effect of the terrifyingimages of the Underworld which poets inflict upon their audiences (Re-public 3.387c), and it is hard here not to think of Gorgias’ famous de-scription of the effect of poetry (including, we may assume, tragedy,if tragedy is not in fact particularly in his mind): to»r !jo¼omtar eQs/kheja· vq¸jg peq¸vobor ja· 5keor pok¼dajqur ja· pºhor vikopemh¶r jtk. ,‘there comes over the audience a shuddering full of fear, a pity full oftears, and a longing mixed with grief’ (Helen 9). In the Agamemnon,the pity will indeed also arrive, but it is for Cassandra herself, not forthe children of Thyestes: § tk/lom, oQjt¸qy se hesv²tou lºqou (1321).

In its negotiation of the permeable boundary between ‘viewing’ and‘listening’, between ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’, a boundary whose explorationseems here almost a programmatic marker of genre, tragedy uses variousmodes and structures for allowing exchange: the messenger-speech andthe ekkyklema are the two most obvious. Cassandra herself, of course,who can ‘see’ things ‘offstage’ is another such medium; the Agamemnonuses all three devices. In a well-known fragment of fourth-century or

36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary 671

perhaps Hellenistic tragedy (Adesp. 649 K-S), Cassandra ‘sees’ the duelbetween Achilles and Hector which is happening ‘offstage’ and describesit to Priam.13 It is an attractive idea that part of the power of that scenearises from the appearance on stage (i. e. inside Troy where Cassandraand Priam are standing) of Deiphobus, for Cassandra may have ‘seen’(in her prophetic mind) Athena disguised as Deiphobus beguiling Hec-tor to stand his ground (Iliad 22.226–47); the sudden entrance of thereal Deiphobus carries genuine dramatic power. Such an interplay be-tween the prophetess ‘seeing’ in her mind and the audience and otheractors seeing with their eyes would be a very striking theatrical effect.Seneca, of course, combined (as it were) the Cassandra-scene of Ae-schylus’ play with scenes such as that of the anonymous papyrus tohave his Cassandra describe the murder of Agamemnon as it is takingplace within the stage-building (Seneca, Agamemnon 867–907). What-ever the literary history of such an effect, the fact that the ‘Cassandra-poet’ realised the dramatic potential of this scene from Iliad 22 is itselfworthy of note in the present context, and I will return to this epic mo-ment in order to push the pursuit of these themes a little further back intime.

First, however, there is another area of dramatic technique on whichthis Cassandra-text (Adesp. 649 K-S) sheds light. Cassandra ‘sees’ typicalheroic actions (spear-throwing etc) taking place offstage; what she sees isa kind of narrative, Homer’s narrative in fact. The description of ‘off-stage actions’, by for example messengers, is of course usually limitedto actions in the past; accounts of what is present in the time of narra-tion and visible to one or more characters, but not to the audience, arenormally rather descriptions of people or objects — we might think ofthe teikhoskopia of Euripides’ Phoenissae, to which I will return. By theend of the fourth century, however, the technique seems to haveevolved. In Plautus’ Rudens, which is based on a comedy by Diphilus,a slave describes the scene as two shipwrecked girls survive hugewaves and make it safely to shore (Rudens 154–80); he watches thisscene unfold from the stage, but the girls are invisible to the audienceuntil they enter in the following scene. We cannot of course be surethat Diphilus, as well as Plautus, had this dramatic narrative, though itseems overwhelmingly likely; shipwreck descriptions were very dearto the heart of Greek poets. The technique of Diphilus-Plautus herefinds, I think, very few ancient parallels, and for once the word ‘evolu-

13 For bibliography and further discussion cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 433.

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tion’ might be justified. We can contrast this scene, not just with theteikhoskopia-scenes, but also with the tattered remains of the correspond-ing scene in Aeschylus’ Diktyoulkoi in which (probably) Diktys and Si-lenus see (offstage) the seaweed-covered casket in which Danae andPerseus were set afloat (fr. 46a Radt). There may there have been a ‘nar-rative’ in the Diktyoulkoi of the struggle of mother and child, i. e. one ofthe characters on shore might have described the coming-ashore as hap-pens in the Rudens, but what survives of the text makes that in fact veryunlikely; in the fifth-century satyr-play, what is seen from the land is astrange object, in the comedy of a century and a half later, it is an ex-citing piece of action.

3.

To conclude, I return briefly to the confrontation of Hector andAchilles in Iliad 22. This famous scene is given its own viewing audiencewithin the narrative: ‘old Priam was the first to see him …’ (v. 25), andPriam is soon joined by Hecuba (v. 79); they, however, fail to persuadetheir son (v. 91), who remains unmoved, like some Sophoclean hero,until the fateful approach of Achilles. The presence of an audience forthe race around the walls is not merely recalled by the repeated refer-ence to the walls at v. 144 and v. 146 and implied by the very ‘athletic’nature of the scene (cf. esp. vv. 159–60, 162–6), but is made explicitboth with regard to the gods (v. 166) and with regard to the Achaeanarmy, to whom Achilles signals that they must not intervene(vv. 205–7). A vital technique of enargeia here is precisely to evokefor the listening audience ‘theatrical’ occasions such as athletic contests,and we may well wonder at the particular effect of this passage when itwas recited at festivals where athletic contests actually took place.

This was not, however, the reason why this scene attracted the at-tention of ancient critics. In the Poetics Aristotle twice refers to the epi-sode of the chase: at 1460a11–17 he uses it as an illustration of the factthat epic is more receptive to t¹ %kocom and hence to t¹ haulast|m

than is tragedy, because the agents are not actually seen; the pursuit‘would be laughable on stage, with the Greeks standing still and not pur-suing, and Achilles prohibiting them with nods, but in the epic this isnot noticed’. At 1460b26 the pursuit becomes an example of an aduna-ton which nevertheless serves proper poetic purposes. In using this ex-ample, Aristotle may have been influenced by or reacting to contempo-

36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary 673

rary Homeric criticism.14 The Homeric scholia tell us that the fourth-century Homeric critic Megakleides15 had claimed that the whole busi-ness (taOta p²mta) of the duel between Achilles and Hector was a plas-ma, i. e. an implausible poetic fiction (bT-schol. Iliad 22.36, 205–7 =Megakleides fr. 6 Janko): ‘for how could Achilles have kept back somany thousands with a nod?’. Megakleides probably had other groundsfor criticism as well, but the controversial nature of this complex episodeand its apparent use in debates about what is appropriate to drama andwhat to narrative ought to make us look at it again.16

The chase around the walls is in fact a remarkable piece of narrative.It may be simplest to set it out in tabular form:

136–8 Hector takes off with Achilles in pursuit139–44 Bird simile145–6 Narrative: ‘they ran …’147–57 The washing troughs and the marvellous streams158–61 ‘They were not running for an ordinary prize …’162–66 Horse-race simile166–87 Events on Olympus188 Narrative189–93 Hunting simile194–8 Narrative of respective tactics199–201 Dream simile202–4 Address to the audience: ‘How could Hector have

escaped, unless …’205–7 Narrative: the nod of Achilles208–13 Zeus’ weighing214 ff. The intervention of Athena and the beginning of the

end.

14 Cf. Gudeman 1934: 410.15 On Megakleides cf. Janko 2000: 138–43; for this critic and the shifting uses of

plasma in ancient criticism cf. Papadopoulou 1999.16 From the bT-scholia to Iliad 22. 36 we learn that there was a zetema as to why

no other Greek had fought Hector in Achilles’ absence, and a corrupt T-scho-lium on 22.205–7 (= Megakleides fr. 6a Janko) suggests that the issue of howanyone could fight against Achilles’ divinely made arms had been raised. Thatanyone could escape from ‘swift-footed’ Achilles was also a cause for scholarlysurprise.

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If the pursuit was indeed the subject of Megakleides’ criticism, one cansee why he might have thought that there was poetic plasma (though notin the technical Asclepiadean sense) here; we might recall that Aris-tarchus athetised the dream simile of vv. 199–201, which is criticisedin the scholia as stylistically and intellectually weak, as inconsistentwith what is said elsewhere, and as damaging to the sense of Achilles’pre-eminent speed. More than one modern scholar continues to be dis-turbed by the passage, and Bentley’s deletion of vv. 202–7 still finds aplace in West’s apparatus. The narrative poet has in fact pulled out all ofthe stops in a passage which itself seems to push at the boundaries of nar-rative, in an attempt to convey an extraordinary scene, even by Homer-ic standards. The bT-scholia on vv. 147–56 (the streams and washingtroughs) comment appropriately: ‘With marvellous skill the poet didnot leave the time of the pursuit empty, but as though providing occu-pation for the hearers, he says that the heroes are running, and he him-self entertains (xuwacyce ?) the audience’. The poet of the ‘Cassandra-drama’ (Adesp. 649 K-S) seems to be an early witness to this unusualpower of this scene from Iliad 22; he has used Cassandra, who herselfbreaks down the barrier between seen and unseen, between narrativeand drama, in a dramatisation of the Homeric scene’s particular brandof enargeia.

The teikhoskopia of Book 3, which is pathetically echoed by thescene we have been considering in Iliad 22 — Priam finds himselfagain on the walls but to witness a sight of a very different kind, andnow sees Achilles who was so ominously absent from the teikhoskopia— holds a very special place in the history of the exploration of theboundaries between ‘viewing’ and ‘listening’. The messenger in Ae-schylus’ Septem, who brings the ‘unseen outside’, i. e. the encircling Ar-gives with their shield-signs, inside the walls of Thebes and on to thevisible stage, may owe it not a little.17 In Euripides’ version in the Phoe-nissae, as of course (even more so) in Aeschylus, the armour of the un-seen warriors is important, whereas in Homer it is merely the physicalstature of Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax, and Idomeneus to which atten-tion is called. The bT-scholia on Iliad 3.166 try to explain the ‘anach-ronism’ of the teikhoskopia by suggesting that Priam did not ask Helenfor this information previously because the Greeks were then wearingarmour and it would have been easy to make mistakes about identity,

17 Cf. further Hunter 2004: 243.

36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary 675

as famously happened in the case of Patroclus.18 It is tempting, if notmore, to speculate that the origins of such a zetema and its solutiongo back to the fifth-century flourishing of Homeric studies,19 and assuch are reflected in Euripides’ virtuoso rewriting. The young Anti-gone’s ignorance is more ‘plausible’ than that of Priam, and we maythus wish also to add this scene to the development of ‘realism’ indrama, in which Euripides is usually (and rightly) given a pivotal rôle.Be that as it may, it is noteworthy that Euripides gives particular stressto verbs of seeing in his teikhoskopia (cf. Phoenissae 127, 131, 141–4[del. Stahl] , 147, 161); there are, of course, Homeric precedents (cf.Iliad 3.234–6), but it may be that Euripides felt a special need to en-courage the enargeia of spectators who cannot see what the characterson stage can ‘see’. So too, the stage-business with the ladder as Antigonemounts the wall makes very clear that this is ‘theatre’, not narrative.

Bibliography

Blank, D. 1998. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians, OxfordBremer, J. M. 1976. ‘Why messenger-speeches?’ in J. M. Bremer, S. L. Radt,

C. J. Ruijgh (eds.), Miscellanea Tragica in honorem J. C. Kamerbeek (Amster-dam) 29–48

Brink, C. O. 1963. Horace on Poetry. Prolegomena to the Literary Epistles, Cam-bridge

—1971. Horace on Poetry. The ‘Ars Poetica’, CambridgeFantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R. 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry,

CambridgeGudeman, A. 1934. Aristoteles Peq· Poigtij/r, Berlin/LeipzigHalliwell, S. 2002. The Aesthetics of Mimesis, PrincetonHunter, R. 2004. ‘Homer and Greek literature’ in R. Fowler (ed.), The Cam-

bridge Companion to Homer (Cambridge) 235–53Janko, R. 2000. Philodemus, On Poems Book 1, OxfordMeijering, R. 1987. Literary and Rhetorical Theories in Greek Scholia, GroningenPadel, R. 1990. ‘Making space speak’ in J. J. Winkler and F. I. Zeitlin (eds.),

Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (Princeton) 336–65Papadopoulou, T. 1999. ‘Literary theory and terminology in the scholia: the

case of pk\sla’ Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 43: 203–10Rehm, R. 2002. The Play of Space, PrincetonRichardson, N. J. 1975. ‘Homeric professors in the age of the sophists’ Proceed-

ings of the Cambridge Philological Society 21: 65–81

18 Cf. also Schrader 1880: I 56.19 Cf., e. g., Richardson 1975.

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Schrader, H. 1880. Porphyrii quaestionum Homericarum ad Iliadem pertinentium re-liquias, Leipzig.

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Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica?*

My title may surprise, as a good proportion of the scholars who havegiven any thought to the Orphic Argonautica (henceforth ‘OA’) havewondered whether its author was conscious at all. The problems ofthis text are certainly not to be underestimated: on one side, a very cor-rupt tradition of a difficult and obviously linguistically idiosyncraticpoem; on the other, a literary technique, particularly with regard tothe treatment of the poem’s principal model, the Argonautica of Apollo-nius, which seems utterly inconsistent, lacking in all rhyme or reason.Hermann Fränkel indeed considered the diction and the ‘entire artisticcharacter’ of the author to be ‘irrational and capricious’ and was pessi-mistic that ordinary scholarly methods could make much progress in un-derstanding what was going in this poem.1 In this paper I want to pickaway at one particular issue – the poem’s sense of its own ‘genre’ – tosee whether there are at least interesting questions which can be asked,even if many answers will continue to elude us; in this undertaking Iwill, of course, lean heavily upon Francis Vian’s excellent Budé editionof 1987.2

1.

§man Puh_mor led´ym, 2jatgbºke, l²mti,dr k²wer Akib²tou joquv/r Paqmass¸da p´tqgm,sµm !qetµm rlm_7 s» d´ loi jk´or 1shk¹m ap²ssair7p´lpe d’ 1p· pqap¸dessim 1la ?r 1tulgcºqom aqd¶m,evqa pokuspeq´essi bqoto ?r kic¼vymom !oidµm 5Ap¼sy Lo¼sgr 1vetla ?r ja· pgjt¸di pujm/i.mOm c²q soi, kuqoeqc´, v¸kom l´kor !e¸domtihul¹r 1potq¼mei k´nai t² peq ou pote pqºshem5vqas’, ftam B²jwoio ja· ûApºkkymor %majtorj´mtqyi 1kaumºlemor vqij¾dea j/k’ 1p¸vasjom, 10hmgto ?r !mhq¾poisim %jg, lec²k’ eqcia l¼stair7

* M. Paschalis (ed.), Roman and Greek Imperial Epic (Rethymnon 2005) 149–681 AJP 65 (1944) 398 (review of Venzke [1941]).2 Where the reading is not at issue I print Vian’s text.

!qwa¸ou l³m pq_ta W²our !l´caqtom !m²cjgm,ja· Wqºmom jtk.

(OA 1–13)

‘O Lord who rules over Pytho, far-darter, prophet, whose lot is the Parnas-sian rock with its lofty peak, yours is the power I hymn. May you grant meglorious fame, and send to my mind a true-speaking voice, so that, throughthe command of the Muse and with the aid of my solidly-wrought lyre, Imay deliver a clear song to the numberless races of mortals. And now, Oworker with the lyre, singer of sweet songs, my spirit rouses me to speakof things of which I never previously told, when I was harried by thegoad of Bacchos and lord Apollo and spoke of their terrible shafts, remediesfor mortal men and great mysteries for initiates. First I sang of the inescap-able necessity of ancient Chaos, and of Time …’

After a six-verse invocation of Apollo, Orpheus (apparently) addresses,though does not name, Mousaios (cf. v. 308)3 and explains to him thatthe song which follows will be quite new: while he had been under theecstatic inspiration of Bacchus and Apollo, he had sung to Mousaios‘Orphic’ cosmogonic and religious poetry of a kind which antiquityknew well, but now that he is no longer so inspired, freed as we subse-quently learn by his mother’s action (v. 104), he will tell how Jasoncame to Thrace to ask for his assistance in the Argonautic expeditionand the subsequent history of the expedition. The not-to-be-repeatedpoetry of the past is listed in a catalogue of ‘Orphic’ poems whichbegin with the Chaos of the ‘Orphic Rhapsodies’.4 This recusatio has aformal model5 in Apollonius’ rejection of the story of the building ofthe Argo which had been the subject of previous poets’ songs(Arg. 1.18–19), but – as we shall see – its closest analogues seem tolie elsewhere.

In very loose generic terms, we might say that the shift which Or-pheus marks is that from didactic to epic.6 Throughout antiquity the

3 The difficulties of v. 7–8 are ignored or played down by too many critics, in-cluding Luiselli 1993 in his otherwise very helpful account of the proem. Afterwhat has gone before it seems very hard to understand v. 7 as addressing anyoneother than Apollo, though v. 9 makes this seems highly unlikely. There is a justappreciation of these difficulties in Giangrande 1993, 148, but I cannot share hisview that the double proem of the Orphic Lithika sheds much light on theproem of OA.

4 Cf. West 1983, 38, 252.5 Missed by Venzke 1941, 26.6 For ancient generic considerations of ‘didactic poetry’ cf. Koster 1970, 130–51,

Effe 1977, 19–22.

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Hesiodic and Orphic poetic traditions intertwine at every turn, and the‘Hesiodic’ flavour of Orpheus’ catalogue of the poetry of his past is un-mistakeable; the closeness of the two traditions is, of course, most ob-vious in the Theogony and in later Orphic poems such as the Ephemerides(cf. Hesiod’s ‘Days’), which was addressed to Mousaios (fr. 271 Kern).7

Much Orphic poetry was indeed addressed to Mousaios, who variouslyappears in ancient accounts as Orpheus’ son, pupil, and successor,8 andin the OA he fulfills the ‘addressee’ rôle of didactic poetry, familiar fromHesiod’s feckless brother on;9 thus in the catalogue Orpheus remindsMousaios that from him he had ‘learned’ about divination (v. 33).10 A‘didactic’ strain persists, of course, in OA, just as ‘epic’, most notablyHomer, was a genre of instruction throughout antiquity: Mousaios isfirst addressed explicitly at v. 308, where his attention is drawn to thecareful ritual description which follows and from which, we are to un-derstand, he is to learn, and in general the extensive ritual descriptions ofthe poem should not be dismissed as merely lending ‘Orphic colour’.Nevertheless, the generic shift to ‘epic’ represented by Orpheus’ ‘previ-ously unheard’ song is very clear. Raffaele Luiselli points out that theopening invocation to an Apollo who seems indistinguishable fromthe Apollo of the pagan literary tradition is already a marker for theknowing reader that this is not the usual voice of ‘Orpheus’,11 and wemay add that Orpheus’ initial explanation to Mousaios, hul¹r 1potq¼meik´nai jtk. (8), ‘my heart bids me to tell you …’, picks up Alcinous’ de-scription of the Homeric ‘epic’ bard par excellence, Demodocus: t_i c²qNa he¹r peq· d_jem !oidµm / t´qpeim, fppgi hul¹r 1potq¼mgisim !e¸deim,‘for the god gave him the special gift of song, so that he might give de-light in whatever way his spirit urged him to sing’ (Od. 8.44–5).

Certain elements of Orpheus’ proem may, however, remind us ofanother epic beginning with very clear generic concerns, the openingof Ovid’s Metamorphoses :

in noua fert animus mutatas dicere formascorpora: di, coeptis (nam uos mutastis et illa)

7 Cf. Kern 1922, 274–9.8 For the testimonia cf. Kern 1922, 50–1; West 1983, 39–44.9 Cf. A. Schiesaro, P. Mitsis, J. Strauss Clay (eds.), Mega Nepios = MD 31 (1993).

10 Cf. the opening of the proem to the collection of ‘Orphic Hymns’: ‘Learn,Mousaios, the rites …’.

11 Luiselli 1993. Luiselli seems justified in his scepticism that this opening invoca-tion is a marked reworking of Orph. Fr. 62 Kern.

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 683

adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundiad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen.

(Ovid, Met.1.1–4)

‘My spirit moves me to tell of shapes changed into new bodies: Gods,breathe favourably upon my enterprise – for you have changed this too– and lead my unbroken song from the first beginnings of the universedown to my own times.’

With Ovid’s opening cf. OA 8–9 (cited above), and with the prayer fordivine favour cf. OA 3–4; Orpheus’ catalogue of his previous poetrydoes indeed cover prima … ab origine mundi down to his own time,and begins, as do both Hesiod’s Theogony and Ovid’s Metamorphoses,from chaos. Curiously (or not), the opening of the Ovidian Orpheus’song in the Metamorphoses also marks a generic shift of repertoireaway from the same kind of poetry which the Orpheus of OA consignsto his own past:

‘ab Ioue, Musa parens, (cedunt Iouis omnia regno)carmina nostra moue. Iouis est mihi saepe potestasdicta prius: cecini plectro grauiore Gigantassparsaque Phlegraeis uictricia fulmina campis;nunc opus est leuiore lyra, puerosque canamusdilectos superis, inconcessisque puellasignibus attonitas meruisse libidine poenam.’

(Ovid, Met.10.148–54)

‘From Jupiter, mother Muse, (all things yield to the command of Jupiter)begin my song. Often before have I sung the power of Jupiter: with aheavier plectrum I have sung the Giants and the victorious thunderboltsscattered over the Phlegraean fields. Now I require a lighter lyre: let mesing of boys loved by the gods above, and of girls, distraught with illicitfires, whose desires have earned them punishment.’

In Ovid, Orpheus moves ‘down’ the generic scale from theological po-etry of epic grandeur to lighter themes of love, which evoke (inter al.)Hellenistic catalogue elegy, such as we know it from Hermesianaxand Phanocles, and which are more suited both to his current situationand to the pastoral nemus which the bard’s music has gathered aroundhim. The Argonautic Orpheus’ shift from ‘didactic-cosmogonic’ to‘narrative’ epos is perhaps more of a sideways move (cf. further below).

It is, of course, hard to know what, if anything, to make of thesesimilarities. The recusatio in all its forms is, as is well known, muchmore at home in Latin than in Greek poetry, and examples such as

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Culex 26–34, a list of themes (and their generic flavour) which are notto be found in the poem which follows, well illustrate the pattern ofwhich OA shows an interesting variant. On the Greek side, we mayperhaps think of Bion fr. 10, a catalogue of the ‘bucolic’ songs whichthe poet used to sing and which he tried to teach Eros, but all ofwhich he has forgotten since all he can now sing is 1qyt¼ka, and of cer-tain poems of the Anacreontea.12 It is, however, the poetic biography ofVirgil which offers the clearest analogue for the movement from didac-tic to narrative epic, as also for certain other elements of the genericconsciousness of the poem (cf. below). Later antiquity constructed Hes-iod too as moving from pastoral to grand themes through the interven-tion of the Muses (an easy enough ‘reading’ of the proem of the Theog-ony), but – as, for example, in the well known acrostic poem of imperialdate in which Hesiod turns his back on pastoral after his ‘initiation’ —13

such a tradition is of course not interested in ‘narrative epic’. OA thusstands as an isolated Greek witness to a consciousness of distinctivetypes within epos available to a single poet; the opposition of thetypes themselves was, of course, exploited as early as the Contest ofHomer and Hesiod.

2.

As it happens, OA too stages a song-contest between two great poets,Orpheus and Cheiron,14 as well as the now traditional contest betweenOrpheus and the Sirens (OA 1268–90). Whereas Apollonius’ Argo-nauts perhaps see15 but certainly do not meet Cheiron and his family,in OA Orpheus and his comrades visit the centaur’s cave, are enter-tained by him, and Orpheus and his host compete in song as after-din-ner entertainment. The scene itself is a version of a standard epic ‘hos-pitality scene’, appropriate to the new epic voice of Orpheus. When,however, the Argonauts find Cheiron listening with pleasure (vq´mard’ 1pet´qpeto We¸qym, ‘Cheiron delighted in his heart’, v. 398) to the

12 Cf. Reed on Bion fr.10.12–13, citing M. Fantuzzi, ‘On the metre of Ana-creont. 19W’, CQ 44 (1994) 540–2, and Rosenmeyer 1992, 96–106.

13 POxy. 3537 (ed. P. J. Parsons), cf. Agosti 1997, Bernsdorff 1999.14 Vian and others have sought for predecessors of this episode in Latin epic (Val.

Flacc. 1.252–73, Silius Ital. 11.459 ff) ; cf. Nelis 2005.15 deid_sjeto in Arg. 1.558 leaves uncertain whether Peleus actually sees the baby

Achilles held up on the shore.

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 685

lyre-playing of the young Achilles, we may be reminded, not just ofscenes from art,16 but also of the embassy to Achilles in Iliad 9, whichfinds the hero vq´ma teqpºlemom vºqlicci kice¸gi, ‘delighting his heartwith the clear lyre’ (9.186, cf. 189). Like Achilles (Iliad 9.193), Cheironleaps up (!mºqouse, v. 400) when he sees the visitors and proceeds tooffer lavish, if rustic, hospitality. This echo of the Iliad, if correctly iden-tified, reminds us of Orpheus’ masterly control of narrative epic, just aswe are about to see him perform in a different, but more familiar, genre.A song-contest in such a setting inevitably suggests pastoral, and Or-pheus’ cosmogonic performance may in fact seem strangely reminiscentof that of another half-beast in a cave, the song of Silenus in Eclogue 6,who is explicitly compared to Orpheus (Ecl. 6.30) and whose song isclearly indebted to both ‘Orphic’ (e. g. Arg. 1.496 ff) and ‘didactic’ po-etry (Lucretius etc.).17 In another connection, Martin West has speculat-ed that there existed ‘some sophistic fable of a contest betweenMousaios and Orpheus, like the contest between Homer and Hesiod’,18

and it is certainly tempting to wonder what other lost ‘great fights’ liebehind the OA’s conceit.

In generic terms, the contest of Orpheus and Cheiron matches nar-rative epic against theogonic didactic, and echoes of Hesiod in theopening verses of Orpheus’ account of his own song (421 ff) do indeedsuggest that there is something of the ‘Homer vs Hesiod’ about this con-test.19 According to Orpheus, Cheiron’s epic was a tale of jk´a

jemta¼qym, more specifically the battle with the Lapiths and the cen-taurs’ clash with Heracles in Arcadia; what is particularly remarkableabout this is, of course, that both of these battles resulted in terrible de-feats for the centaurs, in some versions indeed in the death of Cheironhimself.20 These stories traditionally depicted Cheiron’s colleagues (atleast) as violent, stupid, and drunken, and so we will want to askabout the ‘focalisation’ of Orpheus’ account of Cheiron’s song; abqi-loh¼lym ‘violent-hearted’ (v. 415), !tashak¸gr ‘recklessness’ (v. 416),l´mor oWmor 5ceiqem ‘wine roused their spirits’ (v. 418): is this reallyhow Cheiron depicted his colleagues?21 It may be that these were in-

16 Cf. Vian’s note on 398.17 For Silenus and Orpheus cf. Breed 2000, citing earlier bibliography.18 West 1983, 43.19 See the loci similes collected by Vian.20 Cf. my note on Theocr. 7.149–50.21 The matter is not treated adequately in the narratological account of OA in

Sánchez Ortiz 1996.

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deed the two best known (or the only two) ‘centaur-Iliads’, but at thevery least the choice of subject weights the contest strikingly in Or-pheus’ favour. So too does the manner of the telling. Orpheus is atfirst shy about competing, restrained by aidos from matching himselfagainst an older man (vv. 409–10) – verses with a clear ‘didactic’ mes-sage for Mousaios —, until Cheiron himself urges the ‘unwilling’ narra-tor to take part. Cheiron’s performance is given six verses, two of whichare devoted to the ‘beautiful’ lyre which Achilles passes to his tutor, andno audience reaction is described (vv. 413–18). In Orpheus’ hands,however, the lyre is k¸ceia, ‘of pure sound’ (v. 419), and Orpheus de-scribes his own voice as lek¸cgqur, ‘honeyed’ (v. 420, cf. v. 432); after aten-verse summary of his theogonic song, Orpheus describes how (asusual) nature gathered to listen in wonder to his voice, just as Cheironhimself signalled his pleasure in Orpheus’ song: the outcome of thiscontest is thus never in doubt (cf. v. 448). To Orpheus’ reliability as anarrator I shall return.22

3.

On three occasions the poet of OA breaks off his narrative or calls ex-plicit attention to the process of poetic selection.

The first such ‘break off’ occurs in the brief account of the Ar-gonauts’ stay at Lemnos:

Simtiaja?r d’ avqOsim 1j´ksalem ¡j¼akom maOmK¶lmyi 1m Acah´gi, tºhi jaj± 5qca lel¶keihgkut´qair7 aR c²q jem !ist¾samto sume¼moursv/isim !tashak¸gisi, ja· B jkutµ g£xip¼keia1kdol´mair jqa¸mesje, cumaij_m eWdor !q¸stg. 475!kk± t¸ soi peq· t_mde pok»m kºcom !lvad¹m eQpe ?m,fssom 1v’ Vleqom §qsem !caua ?r Kglmi²dessiJ¼pqir 1qytotqºvor Lim¼air eQr k´jtqa lic/mai ;v¸ktqoir g£xip¼kgm 1qato ?r 1d²lassem ûI¶sym,%kkgi d’ %kkor 5lijto7 ja· 1jkek²homto poqe¸gr, 480eQ lµ !potqop¸oir 1mopa ?r hekn¸vqom¸ h’ vlmyiBlet´qyi hekwh´mter 5bam pot· m/a l´kaimam,eQqes¸gm poh´omter, 1pelm¶samto d³ lºwhou.

(OA 471–83)

22 Cf. Section 4 below.

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 687

‘We landed our swift ship on the rugged Sintian coast of holy Lemnos,where the women had committed monstrous acts. In their outrageousness,they had killed their husbands, and famed Hypispyle, finest among them inbeauty, ruled over them with their consent. But what is the point of declar-ing a long account of these matters to you, how Kypris, nurse of passion,stirred desire in the noble Lemnian women to make love with the Miny-ans? Through the powerful charms of love, Jason possessed Hypsipyle, andthe other Argonauts made love with the other women. They would haveforgotten their voyage, had they not been bewitched by my restraining ut-terances and mind-bewitching song and so gone to the dark ship, longingfor rowing and mindful again of their task.’

The structure of the passage broadly follows the Apollonian model, withsevere curtailment of length: arrival at Lemnos (471–2a, cf.Arg. 1.607–8; in both poems the island is identified by its ‘prehistoric’inhabitants, the Sinties), the women’s crime (472b-4a, cf. Arg. 1.609–19), Hypsipyle’s position (474b-5, cf. Arg. 1.620–26), the encounterof the Argonauts and the Lemnians (476–80a, cf. Arg. 1.633–860),the departure (480a-3, cf. Arg. 1.861–914). This is one of the moststriking abbreviations of the whole poem – %kkgi d’ %kkor 5lijto,‘the other Argonauts made love with the other women’, (480) is a par-ticularly noteworthy epitome (cf. cf. Arg. 1.849–60, esp. 854) – and theself-conscious reference to the brevity of the account (v. 476) is a point-ed reworking of the first such break-off in Apollonius’ poem, which oc-curs precisely within the Lemnian episode:

!kk± t¸ l¼hourAQhak¸dey wqei¾ le digmej´yr !coqe¼eim ;

(Arg. 1.648–9)

‘But why should I give a complete account of the stories of Aithalides?’

Whereas Apollonius breaks off in order to return to ‘the main story’,Orpheus decides to dispense with the whole pok»r kºcor, ‘long tale’,of the model text, a prolixity which consists not merely in the verylength of the Apollonian episode, but also in its diversity and digressive-ness (the fate of Hypsipyle’s father, the assembly at Lemnos, the ekphrasisof Jason’s cloak with its included mythic stories, the nuanced exchangesbetween Jason and Hypsipyle etc.); here really was a challenge for theepitomator, but Orpheus simply sees no point in the literary game.The decision to get in and out of Lemnos as quickly as possible may,of course, be connected with the narrator’s notorious rejection of the

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love of women (a rejection which ultimately cost him his life);23 be thatas it may, Orpheus brilliantly uses erotic language in vv. 481–3 to ex-plain how the ‘magic’ powers of his music were more potently seduc-tive than the charms of the women.24

At vv. 858–9 Orpheus introduces a summary of (roughly) theevents of Book 3 and the first part of Book 4 of Apollonius’ Argonautica :

mOm d´ soi, § Lousa ?e, paqadqol²dgm !coqe¼syoX² peq aQmºloqoi Lim¼ai p²hom Ad’ fs’ 5qenam·

‘Now, Musaios, I shall give you a summary account of all which the ill-fated Minyans did and suffered.’

The language of v.859 picks the words of Odysseus to Demodocus, inwhich the hero describes the subject of the bard’s poetry:

ûAwai_m oWtom !e¸deir

fss’ 5qnam t’ 5pahºm te ja· fss’ 1lºcgsam ûAwaio¸(Od. 8.489–90)

‘You sing of the fate of the Achaeans, all that they did and suffered, and allthe labours of the Achaeans.’

Odysseus’ words function almost as a definition of (Iliadic) epic, as isclear also from the way in which Apollonius too introduces his ownsubject :

mOm d’ #m 1c½ ceme¶m te ja· oumola luhgsa¸lgmBq¾ym dokiw/r te pºqour "k¹r fssa t’ 5qenampkafºlemoi7

(Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.20–2)

‘I now shall recount the lineage and names of the heroes, their voyages overthe vast sea and all that they achieved on their wanderings.’

As the reference to wandering makes clear, here is the Odyssean, ratherthan the Iliadic, version of ‘what constitutes epic’ (cf. Od. 1.2–4). Or-pheus uses similar language again in the third passage to be considered

23 Cf. Vian 1987, 15. This might also explain why Orpheus does not give himselfa role at the wedding of Jason and Medea (vv. 1331–46; contrast Arg. 4.1159,1193–5).

24 For Orpheus’ reliability as a narrator here cf. Section 4 below.

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 689

under this head, namely the introduction to the brief summary of Argo-nautic adventures in North Africa and the Mediterranean:

5mha t¸ toi, Lousa ?e hegcem´r, 1nacoqe¼syfss’ 5pahom Limu/er bloO pot· S¼qtim !¶tair,C p_r 1nes²yhem "kipk²cjtoio poqe¸gr,fssa d’ %q’ 1m Jq¶tgi p²hom %kcea tetkg_ter jtk.

(OA 1347–50)

‘To what purpose, god-born Mousaios, should I now tell you in detail allthat the group of Minyans suffered through the winds at Syrtis, or howthey were rescued from their wandering voyage over the sea, and all thepains they endured and suffered at Crete …’

‘Wandering’ and ‘suffering’ tell their own story – it is ‘epic’ with whichthe narrator here dispenses.25 Moreover, just as vv. 858–9 (cited above)had drawn our attention to a major, and very clearly demarcated, epi-sode of the Argonautica, so too v. 1346 ()lpqaj¸ou jºkpoio diapq¶s-sousa j´keuha, ‘[the Argo] cutting its path through the gulf of Ambra-cia’), immediately before the apostrophe to Mousaios, picks upArg. 4.1228 (jºkpom 1p¾mulom ûAlbqaji¶ym, ‘the gulf named for theAmbracians’), which immediately precedes the ‘magical’ journey to Syr-tis (Arg. 4.1229 ff). This latter shift in Apollonius’ Argonauts’ fortuneshad been clearly marked as a new and major episode by echoes ofOd. 9.80 ff, the beginning of Odysseus’ adventures (losing the Pelo-ponnese, nine days of drifting caused by akoo¸ northerly winds etc.),and m|stor in Arg. 4.1235 had marked that passage generically.26 Thusin both cases, Orpheus’ rhetorical address to Mousaios marks the radicalcurtailment of a well-defined and complex episode in the model text, anepisode which itself almost constitutes a mini-epic.

The language I have been tracing could of course be used of anycomplex narrative, not just ‘epic’ poetry, though it is tempting to be-lieve that when Xenophon of Ephesus’ characters set up at the end ofthe Ephesiaka a graphe27 p²mtym fsa te 5pahom ja· fsa 5dqasam, ‘ofall they had suffered and done’, the ‘epic’ heritage of the novel resonatesstrongly. Perhaps, however, the most famous use of such language is infact to differentiate poetry from history: at Poetics 1451b 6–11 Aristotlecharacterises the historical mode as t¹ jah’ 6jastom [k´ceim], t¸

25 For such language cf. also Clare 2002, Chapter 1.26 Cf. in general Knight 1995, 125, 146–7.27 I take this to be a written record, rather than a painting.

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ûAkjibi²dgr 5pqanem C t¸ 5pahem, ‘giving a detailed account of what Al-cibiades did or what he suffered’, whereas poetry pursues ‘the general’.Aristotle’s view of what constitutes epic and tragic ‘poetry’ was ofcourse not universally shared, but epic poets seem at least to haveused the language, with certain shifts of meaning, of both elements ofhis definition of history (namely, a detailed account jah’ 6jastom andan account of ‘doing and suffering’) as part of their own sense ofgenre, a fact which is not without interest for the history of the relationsbetween these two narrative forms. Later poets found this language, ofcourse, already waiting in the Homeric texts. Thus, whereas Homer’sSirens tempt Odysseus with their knowledge of ‘all the sufferings (fsa… lºcgsam) of the Greeks and the Trojans at broad Troy throughthe will of the gods’ (Od. 12.189–90), i. e. of the Iliadic epic tradition,Apollonius’ Libyan ‘heroines’ tell Jason that they know of the epicthrough which he is currently living:28

Udlem 1poiwol´mour wq¼seom d´qor7 Udlem 6jastarlet´qym jal²tym, fs’ 1p· whom¹r fssa t’ 1v’ rcqµmpkafºlemoi jat± pºmtom rp´qbia 5qca j²leshe

(Arg. 4.1319–21)

‘We know that you went to gain the golden fleece; we know every detailof all your sufferings, all the extraordinary things you have endured on landand sea in your wanderings over the ocean.’

Here the generic signals, ‘labours, wandering etc.’, are very clear, and itseems likely that 6jasta (1319) is to be added to the list of such signals.So too, at 4.730 ff Medea tells her aunt (in Colchian!) the epic story sofar, and the poet’s account of this is again couched in the language Ihave been tracing:

B d’ %qa t/i t± 6jasta dieiqol´mgi jat´kene,Jokw¸da c/qum Re ?sa, baq¼vqomor AQ¶taojo¼qg leikiw¸yr, Al³m stºkom Ad³ jeke¼hourBq¾ym, fsa t’ !lv· hoo ?r 1lºcgsam !´hkoir,¦r t’ !pomºsvim %kunem rp´qbia de¸lata patq¹rs»m pais·m Vq¸noio. vºmom d’ !k´eimem 1mispe ?m)x¼qtou, tµm d’ ou ti mºyi k²hem7

(Arg. 4.730–6)

28 Cf. Hunter 1993, 126.

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‘In reply to her detailed questions the daughter of cruel-minded Aietes gavea full and gentle response in the Colchian language. She told of the expe-dition and the heroes’ travels, of all their efforts in the tough challenges,how her anguished sister had persuaded her to act falsely, and how shehad fled away with the sons of Phrixos from fear of her father’s violence.Of the murder of Apsyrtos she did not speak, but Circe’s mind was not de-ceived.’

t± 6jasta (Arg. 4.730) does not merely prepare for Medea’s silenceabout her brother’s death, but – together with the language of suffering– identifies her re-telling of ‘epic’ for what it is; we may compare theintroduction to Odysseus’ summary to Penelope of what he knows ofthe Odyssey :

aqt±q b diocemµr ûOduse»r fsa j¶de’ 5hgjem!mhq¾poir fsa t’ aqt¹r aif¼sar 1lºcgse,p²mt’ 5kec’7 B d’ %qa t´qpet’ !jo¼ous’, oqd´ oR vpmorp ?ptem 1p· bkev²qoisi p²qor jatak´nai ûpamta.

(Od. 23.306–9)

‘Noble Odysseus gave her a full account of all the troubles he had causedmen and all that he himself had grievously endured; she took delight as shelistened, and sleep did not come over her eyes until he had related every-thing in order.’

In the other epic summary of the Argonautica, as Jason and Lykos ‘delighttheir hearts with words (5pessim)’ (2.761), Jason tells his host 2ne¸gr ‘insequence’ (2.771) of the events so far, including (in an obvious referenceto the ‘Catalogue’) ‘the family and name of each (2j²stou) of his com-panions’ (2.762–3); here too a ‘rhetoric of completeness’ may be asso-ciated with the generic sense of ‘epic’,29 as it very clearly is already inone of the Homeric models for Lykos’ reception of the Argonauts,Odysseus’ stay with Aiolos:

l/ma d³ p²mta v¸kei le ja· 1neq´eimem 6jasta,]kiom ûAqce¸ym te m´ar ja· mºstom ûAwai_m7ja· l³m 1c½ t_i p²mta jat± lo ?qam jat´kena.

(Od. 10.14–16)

29 For the ‘rhetoric of completeness’ as a way in which technical handbooks dis-tinguished themselves from ‘didactic poetry’ cf. my remarks in Fantuzzi-Hunter2004, 233–5.

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‘For a whole month he entertained me and enquired about every detail –Troy, and the Argive ships, and the Achaeans’ homeward voyage. I gavehim a full account in due order.’

A particularly striking example of such language occurs as Triphiodorusdecides to bring his ‘swift song’ (v. 5) of Troy’s final hours to a close:

p÷sam d’ oqj #m 5cyce lºhou w¼sim !e¸sailijqim²lemor t± 6jasta ja· %kcea mujt¹r 1je¸mgr.Lous²ym fde lºwhor7 1c½ d’ û peq Vppom 1k²ssyt´qlator !lvi´kissam 1pixa¼ousam !oid¶m.

(Triphiodorus, Capture of Troy 664–7)

‘I could not tell of the whole flood of carnage, telling in complete detail thesufferings of that night. That is a labour for the Muses. For myself, I amguiding my song, like a racing horse, very close to the finish.’

Homer had called upon the Muses’ help immediately before the vastundertaking of the Catalogue (Il. 2.484–93), but Triphiodorus aban-dons the whole epic business to the Muses: lºwhor wittily replaceslOhor in Apollonius’ ‘apology’ at 4.1381 for the story of how the Argo-nauts carried their ship on their shoulders, Lous²ym fde lOhor, ‘this isthe Muses’ story’, and suggests the poet’s distaste for a ‘long epic’, inwhich the poet must ‘labour’ as long as his characters. Whereas wefirst read vv. 664–5, ‘I could not tell of the whole flood of carnage, tell-ing in complete detail the sufferings of that night’, as referring to thepoet’s incapacity (cf. Il. 2.488, picked up by Triphiodorus 664), whatfollows shows that this poet is not incapable, simply unwilling.30 Thegeneric consciousness of an ‘epyllion’ writer is here overtly on show,and I hope to have suggested that the abbreviating poet of OA sharessomething of this self-knowledge.

4.

The language of epic ‘labour’ appears for the first time in OA as Or-pheus responds to Jason’s request:

t¹m l³m 1c½ l¼hoisim !leibºlemor pqos´eipom7“AQsom¸dg, t¸ le taOta paqaiv²lemor 1qee¸meir,

30 For further epic (and other) parallels to these verses cf. the notes in the Budéedition of Triphiodorus.

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 693

evqa jem 1r Jºkwour Lim¼air 1pi¶qamor 5khy,mg· s»m eqs´klyi pke¼sar 1p· oUmopa pºmtom ;Edg c²q loi ûkir jal²tym, ûkir 5pketo lºwhym, 100¢r Rjºlgm 1p· ca ?am !pe¸qitom Ad³ pºkgar,AQc¼ptyi Kib¼gi te bqoto ?r !m± h´svata va¸mym.ja¸ l’ !p’ !kgte¸gr te ja· 1n oUstqou 1s²ysel¶tgq Blet´qg, ja¸ N’ eQr dºlom Ecacem "lºm,evqa t´kor ham²toio j¸wy let± c¶qai kucq_i.”

(OA 97–105)

‘In response I addressed him as follows: “Son of Aison, why do you makethis beseeching request of me, that I should travel to Colchis as a help forthe Minyans, sailing in your sturdy boat over the wine-dark sea? Already Ihave enough of labours, enough of toils ! I travelled over the boundlessearth and its cities, revealing oracles to men in both Egypt and Libya.My mother rescued me from wandering and from the gadfly and broughtme to my home, so that I might die during grim old age.”’

Here Orpheus fashions himself as an Odysseus, now finished with ‘la-bours’ and ‘wandering’ and ready to meet a death in old age (cf.Od. 11.135–6); such self-fashioning shows how completely Orpheushas absorbed his new rôle as epic poet. The address to Jason echoes31

Odysseus’ initial refusal to take part in the Phaeacian games:

t¹m d’ !paleibºlemor pqos´vg pok¼lgtir ûOdusse¼r7“Kaod²la, t¸ le taOta jeke¼ete jeqtol´omter ;j¶de² loi ja· l÷kkom 1m· vqes·m E peq %ehkoi,dr pq·m l³m l²ka pokk± p²hom ja· pokk± lºcgsa,mOm d³ leh’ rlet´qgi !coq/i mºstoio wat¸fymHlai, kissºlemor basik/² te p²mta te d/lom.”

Od. 8.152–57)

‘Cunning Odysseus addressed him in reply: “Laodamas, why do you urgeme to this with abusive words? Griefs, not games, are what concerns myheart. Previously I suffered very much and laboured greatly, and now Isit in the midst of your gathering, making my request of the king andthe whole people.”’

Odysseus is an epic hero ‘in retirement’; echoes of the proem(cf. 1.1–4)32 make that clear, to the audience, if not to Laodamas.33

31 Cf. Sánchez Ortiz 1996, 198–9.32 Thus pºkgar at OA 101 perhaps picks up %stea at Od. 1.3.33 That the proem of the Odyssey may be taken only to introduce the story of

Odysseus’ wanderings, not of his adventures when back on Ithaca, is importantfor the generic significance of ‘wandering’.

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So too, Orpheus is dragged out of ‘retirement’ to take part in an epicventure and become thereby an epic poet.

The turn to epic in ‘old age’ (itself, of course, a very flexible con-cept)34 finds its closest parallels in some of the language of Roman rec-usatio poetry: thus Propertius, with very obvious disingenuousness, aetasprima canat Veneres, extrema tumultus ‘let my youth sing of love-making,my old age of wars’ (2.10.7). It may, therefore, be that this idea is simplypart of the shift from didactic to narrative epic, but if, as with Virgil,epic occupies both the final poetic stage of a poet’s life and the finalyears of his life tout court, then it is indeed reasonable enough to associateepic with ‘old age’.35 Ancient views of Homer do not really offer muchparallel material, though his opera minora were naturally placed chrono-logically earlier than the major poems.36 Of some relevance, however,to the OA may be the famous assessment of the Odyssey in ‘Longinus’,On the Sublime :

‘In the Odyssey … Homer demonstrates that when a great mind begins todecline, a love of story-telling characterizes its old age. We can tell that theOdyssey … was his second work from various considerations … The Odys-sey is simply an epilogue to the Iliad … most of the Odyssey consists of nar-rative, which is characteristic of old age. Homer in the Odyssey may becompared to the setting sun: the size remains without the force … Wesee greatness on the ebb … Homer is lost in the realm of the fabulousand incredible (1m to ?r luh¾desi ja· !p¸stoir pk²mor) … I am speakingof old age – but it is the old age of a Homer. The point about all these sto-ries is that the mythical element in them predominates over the realistic.’(De subl. 9.11–14, trans. D.A. Russell)

As the subject of the Odyssey follows after that of the Iliad, so both epiccharacters and epic poets tend to ‘fictional story-telling’ in old age;Homer is like his own Odysseus, ‘wandering’ amidst marvels,37 and Or-pheus, to whom redounds the kleos of both poet and character (cf. OA3), can hardly escape such a critical fusion. The move from ‘didactic’ to‘epic’ is analogous to the move from the Iliad to the ‘mythical’ Odys-sey.38

34 Cf., e. g., Cameron 1995, 175–81.35 Bernsdorff 1999, 73 n. 36 rightly raises the question of whether this idea lies

behind Call. fr. 1. 5–6, or at least certain ‘readings’ of that passage.36 Cf. Bernsdorff 1999, 72.37 Text and interpretation here are admittedly very uncertain, cf. Russell ad loc.38 That the Iliad was indeed far more ‘didactic’ than the Odyssey, i. e. had a much

more prominent rôle in ancient education, is clearly relevant here, cf. , e. g.,Morgan 1998, 105–11, Cribiore 2001, 194–7.

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 695

In the opening invocation to Apollo, Orpheus asks the god for a‘true’ utterance (OA 4, cited above p. 149).39 This version of the tradi-tional appeal is seen by Giangrande40 as preparing the reader (perhapsparadoxically) to hear ‘wondrous, incredible tales … which are never-theless true’: to insist on truth is, as Lucian knew, to advertise fiction.Such an interpretation fits well with the Odyssean strain of the poemand the self-consciousness which I have been teasing out. Nevertheless,the appeal to truth must, at least in retrospect, acquire significance in thelight of the relationship between OA and Apollonius’ Argonautica.41

Where Orpheus’ account differs from that of Apollonius, he (and hiscreating poet) knows that we will know; when, for example, Orpheusexplains that it was his intervention that brought the Lemnian dallianceto an end, we have another account, Apollonius’, which flatly contra-dicts this one. To explain, as is often done,42 that the poem presents itselfas an ‘archaic’ composition pre-dating the Argonautica looks only to itsform, not to the business of how it is to be read; it would seem, inany case, that the poet does not set great store by attempting to concealhis relationship with the Hellenistic epic.43 At the heart of such prob-lems lies (again) the apparently random fluctuations of how the OAuses (or does not use) its principal model; entirely free compositionseems to jostle cheek-by-jowl with very close paraphrase. In consideringthis matter, critics have been a little too trusting of Orpheus as narrator(perhaps lulled by their general low opinion of the poem), or at leasthave not fully taken on board his Odyssean character. Odysseus as!kaf¾m, the character who lays claim to personal achievements andqualities which are not his, is a familiar ‘reading’ of Odysseus, and Or-pheus lays claim to this mantle too. When there is a clash of authority,we may of course simply note to ourselves that all poets are liars and thatthe Argonautic expedition is ‘pure fiction’ anyway, so that the questionof ‘who is correct?’ does not arise. Such an approach is true at the scho-lastic level, but untrue to the importance ancient poets ascribed to mod-els and authorities and to the mode of reading and interpretation whichOA plainly implies.

39 The sense is clear, though the text at the end of the verse is uncertain.40 Giangrande 1993, 156.41 Cf. Luiselli 1993, 305.42 Cf., e. g., R. Keydell, RE 18.1333–4.43 Cf. Vian 1987, 21, Luiselli 1993, 305.

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire696

When we do enter the spirit of agonistic reading which the OA es-tablishes, we may be tempted always to prefer Apollonius’ account tothat of Orpheus, for Apollonius came first and has of course no personalstake in the matter; Apollonius himself was not, in the strict sense, anArgonaut. Nevertheless, we cannot ever be sure, and it is precisely Or-pheus’ apparently chaotic use of his model which creates that doubt:when some details match Apollonius exactly, we are clearly not dealingwith an absurd ‘pack of lies’. As Strabo (and doubtless others) observed,the most plausible way of lying is to mix in some truth (Strabo 1.2.9). Itis the close, though partial, use of Apollonius which bestows authorityupon the whole of Orpheus’ account and offers whatever claims tocredibility his differences from Apollonius might have; our doubtsabout his alazoneia arise precisely from the ‘authority’ which he has nest-ed in the text. So too, the fact, which regularly surprises critics,44 thatOrpheus is not more central to the poem than he actually is, that weare not offered one Orpheus-centred episode after another and indeedthat some incidents of the Argonautica in which Orpheus plays a rôlefind no place in OA,45 strengthens our uncertainty: compared to the Ar-gonautica, the OA is certainly written ad maiorem gloriam Orphei – it isafter all his magic and his skill which secures the Fleece, the object ofthe expedition – but this poem is not how we would expect a ‘braggartOrpheus’ to magnify his own rôle, for it seems too understated for that.The OA is thus to be seen as a brilliant exercise, not in undermining theauthority of the past, but in how to create one’s own literary space whenconfronted with that solid wall of authority.

There is, however, at least one reader who will be taken in com-pletely and who will not (be able to) play Orpheus’ intertextual andOdyssean game. Mousaios, the devoted Orphic pupil, is unlikely tohave read the Argonautica : these are events of which Orpheus hasnever spoken before (OA 8–9, 49), a new kind of mystery now re-vealed to the young man’s eager ears. Mousaios has no ‘control’ textor past experience by which to judge whether what he hears is true,‘like truth’, or mythos, pure and simple: his saving grace is that he has

44 Cf., e. g., Vian 1987, 14–15.45 The most striking case is perhaps the omission of Orpheus’ ‘hymn’ to Apollo at

Thynias (cf. 714), but OA says nothing of this epiphany ( just as, indeed, Apollois all but written out of the poem after the opening invocation – perhaps a re-venge for his rôle (v. 9) in Orpheus’ earlier ‘madness’; for the exceptionscf. 382, 1299, 1356).

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 697

no reason or need to worry about such academic distinctions, but canlisten to the ‘truth’ of ‘his master’s voice’ with a heart unsullied byworry. We, however, cannot escape the literary past.

Bibliography

Agosti, G. 1997. “P.Oxy. 3537r: etopea acrostica su Esiodo”, Zeitschrift f�r Pap-yrologie und Epigraphik 119: 1–5.

Bernsdorff, H. 1999. “Hesiod, ein zweiter Vergil? (Bemerkungen zuP.Oxy.3537R, 3–28)” in S. Döpp (ed.), Antike Rhetorik und ihre Rezeption(Stuttgart) 63–83.

Breed, B.W. 2000. “Silenus and the imago uocis in Eclogue 6”, Harvard Studies inClassical Philology 100: 327–39.

Cameron, A. 1995. Callimachus and his Critics. Princeton.Clare, R. J. 2002. The Path of the Argo. Cambridge.Cribiore, R. 2001. Gymnastics of the Mind. Princeton.Effe, B. 1977. Dichtung und Lehre. Munich.Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R. 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry,

CambridgeGiangrande, G. 1993 “Poetic programmes in the Orphic corpus”, Habis 24:

147–58.Hunter, R. 1993 The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies. Cambridge.Kern, O. 1922. Orphicorum Fragmenta. Berlin.Knight, V. 1995. The Renewal of Epic. Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of

Apollonius. Leiden.Koster, S. 1970. Antike Epostheorien. Wiesbaden.Luiselli, R. 1993. “Contributo all’interpretazione delle Argonautiche orfiche : stu-

dio sul proemio” in A. Masaracchia (ed.), Orfeo e l’orfismo (Rome) 265–307.

Morgan, T. 1998. Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds. Cam-bridge.

Nelis, D. 2005. “The Orphic Argonautica and the epic tradition” in M. Paschalis(ed.), Roman and Greek Imperial Epic (Rethymnon) 169–92.

Rosenmeyer, P. A. 1992. The Poetics of Imitation. Cambridge.Sánchez Ortiz de Landaluce, M. 1996. Estudios sobre las Argon�uticas rficas.

Amsterdam.Venzke, H. 1941. Die orphischen Argonautika in ihrem Verh�ltnis zu Apollonios

Rhodios. Berlin.Vian, F. 1987. Les Argonautiques Orphiques. Paris.West, M. L. 1983 The Orphic Poems. Oxford.

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Addendum

n.13 On POxy 3537 see now G. W. Most, ‘Two Hesiodic papyri’ in G. Bas-tianini and A. Casanova (eds.), Esiodo: cent’anni di papiri (Florence 2008) 55–70.

37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 699

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis ofDionysius*

That Callimachus and, particularly, Apollonius of Rhodes were impor-tant models and sources for Dionysius Periegetes is well known.1 Else-where I have considered Dionysius’ intellectual debt to the didactic ex-ample which these poets offered2, but here I wish to illustrate the mim-etic technique of the Periegesis by a few examples chosen from Diony-sius’ use of these two poets, in the hope that this brief essay may act as astimulus towards the full-scale treatment which the subject deserves. Inthe first section I consider “allusion” and textual borrowing, and Section2 discusses the most notable and familiar feature of Dionysius’ style.

1.

In considering Dionysius’ use of earlier poetry we must be constantlyaware of how much Hellenistic poetry we have lost, and – just as im-portantly – try to exploit that awareness in our reading, not just paylip-service to it. Moreover, although a specific model in surviving po-etry for a particular passage or phrase is often very obvious, both the na-ture of our evidence and Dionysius’ mosaic-like technique of workingmean that we must simply accept that there will be many places wherewe can do little more than collect “parallel passages” from earlier poetryto try to gauge what Dionysius is up to, without assuming a specific re-

* D. Accorinti and P. Chuvin (eds.), Des G�ants Dionysos. M�langes offerts F.Vian (Alessandria 2003) 343–56

1 Cf. Schneider 1882, pp. 21–24, Kuiper 1896, Index, s.v. Dionysius Periegetes,Bernays 1905, pp. 34–46; for echoes of Callimachus and Apollonius, the“fontes” in Tsavari’s edition (Ioannina 1990) are very largely derived fromSchneider. A new consideration of Dionysius’ poetic echoes is a major desid-eratum for the study of this poet. For Apollonius’ influence in imperial epicmore generally cf. Vian 2001.

2 Cf. this volume 718–34.

lationship of mimesis between Dionysius and any of these passages.3 Fur-thermore, it is clear that Dionysius’ interest in the original context of thetexts he echoes varies very widely. Thus, for example, it would seemobvious that when, in the course of his fervent celebration of Rome,he writes (v. 355)

U~lgm til^essam, 1l_m l]cam oWjom !m\jtym,

he has deliberately chosen a model from the “epilogue” of Callimachus’Aitia, celebrating the Ptolemaic royal house:

wa ?qe, FeO, l]ca ja· s}, s\y d’ [fko]m oWjom !m\jtym.(fr. 112.8)4

This politically charged echo takes its place in the long history of howRome and her rulers appropriated, in order to surpass, the language andideas of Alexandrian encomium and self-projection.5 Elsewhere, how-ever, we may doubt whether an original context resonates so strongly,if at all. One mode of Dionysian imitation is well illustrated by his ob-vious borrowing from Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus in the account of Ar-cadia:

j±d d³ l]sgm m/som jo_kgm wh|ma maiet\ousim

)qj\der )pidam/er rp¹ sjopiµm 9qul\mhou, 4155mha L]kar, fhi Jq÷hir, Vma N]ei rcq¹r Y\ym,Hwi ja· ¡c}cior lgj}metai vdasi K\dym.

(Dion. Per. 414–417)

K\dym !kk’ oupy l]car 5qqeem oqd’ 9q}lamhor,keuj|tator potal_m, 5ti d’ %bqowor Gem ûpasa)fgm_r· l]kkem d³ l\k’ euudqor jak]eshai 20awtir . 1pe· tgl|sde, U]g fte k}sato l_tqgm,G pokk±r 1v}peqhe saqym_dar rcq¹r Y\ymEeiqem, pokk±r d³ L]kar ¥jwgsem "l\nar,pokk± d³ Jaq_ymor %my dieqoO peq 1|mtorQkuo»r 1b\komto jim~peta, m_sseto d’ !m^q 25pef¹r rp³q Jq÷h_m te pok}sti|m te Let~pgm

dixak]or· t¹ d³ pokk¹m vdyq rp¹ poss·m 5jeito.(Call. , H. 1.18–27)

3 The best guide to many of these issues is the second chapter of S. Hinds, Allu-sion and Intertext, Cambridge 1998.

4 Cf. Pfeiffer ad loc.5 Cf., e. g., Hunter 2001.

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 701

Dionysius’ extraordinary pattern of four different prepositions and con-junctions (5mha … fhi … Vma … Hwi) seems not merely to mimic theplenitude of the local rivers, but also proudly to assert and advertisethe poet’s power to influence and control. Of the seven Arcadian riversof the Hymn, Dionysius re-uses four, and another, the Erymanthos, isreplaced by the homonymous mountain-range; the first word (andname) of Callimachus’ catalogue, “Ladon”, becomes the last word(and name) of Dionysius’, but the Callimachean ordering is otherwiseabandoned. Other “fragments” of the original are, however, preserved:rcq¹r Y\ym remains a verse-end, and ¡c}cior moves from the “child-bed of Rheia” to the Iaon. The Arcadians are )pidam/er, as in v. 14of the Hymn, but )qj\der )pidam/er in fact comes from 4.263 of Apol-lonius’ Argonautica, where it ends, rather than as in Dionysius begins, theverse. The assertion of difference through a borrowing from a poetother than the principal model is in fact a very common Dionysian tech-nique. Further questions, however, arise in connection with the presentexample: Did Dionysius etymologise )pidam/er as “non-drinkers”, alabel thus paradoxically (in)appropriate to a catalogue of rivers, as inCallimachus it suits people for whom the rivers did not yet flow?6

Did Dionysius insert the Apollonian phrase into an imitation of Calli-machus because he took Apollonius to be an earlier imitator of thissame Callimachean passage? For us, the Hymn to Zeus is all but certainlyconsiderably earlier than Book 4 of the Argonautica, but was it so, andwas the matter important, for Dionysius? I see no way of answeringthese questions.

Callimachus’ description of the birth of Apollo on Delos in theHymn to Delos is exploited more than once by Dionysius. I beginwith vv. 1056–1062 on the wealth of Persia:

loOmoi c\q t’ )s_gr basike}tatom 5hmor 5wousi,loOmoi d’ %spetom ekbom 1m· lec\qoisim 5hemto,bpp|te Lgiom_gm ja· S\qdiar 1nak\panam.wq}se\ toi je_mym l³m 1p· wqoz te}wea vyt_m,wq}sea d’ Rppe_oisim 1p· stol\tessi wakim\, 1060wqus_i d’ !lv· p|dessim 1josl^samto p]dika

.

t|ssor c±q svisim ekbor !pe_qitor.(Dion. Per. 1056–1062)

6 For the etymology cf. Eustathius on v. 414, Hopkinson 1984, pp. 141–143.

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Although it might be thought that the polyptotic anaphora of wqus|r invv. 1059–1062 need not be indebted to the even more extended exam-ple of the same phenomenon at Call. , H. 4.260–264, the immediatelypreceding mention of Maionia (v. 1058) makes it very likely that Dio-nysius did indeed have this passage of Callimachus in mind, cf. H.4.249–250 j}jmoi … / Lgi|miom Pajtyk¹m 1jujk~samto kip|mter,and the case will, I think, be strengthened by the other instances of imi-tation of this passage.

In vv. 525–532 Dionysius comes to the Cyclades and the Sporades,and the passage is marked by two striking images which may in part owetheir place in the poem to the fact that we are here in the last part of thesecond acrostic (EQLGSEPIADQIAMO£), where Dionysius is both con-strained by the need to begin verses with the correct sequence of lettersand also free to “indulge” himself creatively more than usual, as witnessthe simile of the snake at vv. 123–125 in the first acrostic.7

aT d’ )s_gr pq~tgm aWsam k\wom, !lv·r 1oOsai 525D/kom 1jujk~samto, ja· oumola Jujk\der eQs_ .

N}sia d’ )p|kkymi woqo»r !m\cousim ûpasai,Rstal]mou ckujeqoO m]om eUaqor, ewt’ 1m eqessim!mhq~pym !p\meuhe j}ei kic}vymor !gd~m.m/soi d’ 2ne_gr Spoq\der peq· palva_mousim 530oXom ft’ !mev]koio di’ A]qor eUdetai %stqa,rcq± m]vg jqaipmo ?o bigsal]mou boq]ao.

(Dion. Per. 525–532)

V. 526 derives from Call. H. 4.300–301, )steq_g hu|essa, s³ l³m peq_

t’ !lv_ te m/soi / j}jkom 1poi^samto, and v. 527 comes from v. 279 ofthe Hymn, p÷sai d³ woqo»r !m\cousi p|kger. In Dionysius’ universe itis no surprise that Delos and the Cyclades are cited from their celebra-tion in the greatest of Hellenistic poets, and that Callimachus’ implicitetymological games (cf. v. 198, as well as vv. 300–301) are nowmade explicit ; for the image of the nightingale, however, which hashere perhaps replaced the swans of the Callimachean poem, Dionysius’source is the famous simile of the nightingale which Homer places inPenelope’s mouth in the nineteenth Book of the Odyssey :

¢r d’ fte Pamdaq]ou jo}qg, wkyqg ;r !gd~m,jak¹m !e_dgisim 5aqor m]om Rstal]moio,demdq]ym 1m pet\koisi jahefol]mg pujimo ?sim, 520

7 Cf. Reeve 1996–1997.

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 703

F te hal± tqyp_sa w]ei pokugw]a vym^m,pa ?d’ akovuqol]mg ]tukom v_kom, fm pote wakj_ijte ?me di’ !vqad_ar, joOqom F^hoio %majtor,¢r ja· 1lo· d_wa hul¹r aq~qetai jtk.

(Od. 19.518–524)

Whether in Dionysius kic}vymor !gd~m is an “inserted” fragment ofTheocritus (cf. 12.7–8) may be debated, but j}ei (v. 529) is remarkableenough to tempt the thought of a “lost source” (not always a sign of de-spair). At issue perhaps is less the correctness of Dionysius’ ornithology(cf. Arist. , HA 5.542b 26–27, 8.632b 20–27) or the rare application ofjue ?m / j}eim to a bird than surprise at the absence of an explicit referenceto the most famous element of the “nightingale in spring” topos, namelythe bird’s lament.8

The Sporades are honoured with a striking and rare image: theygleam visibly like stars after the wind has cleared the sky of clouds. Be-hind this image perhaps lurk the famous simile of Iliad 8.555–561 inwhich the Trojan campfires are compared to the stars on a clear nightand the related image of a bright night after Zeus has cleared the cloudsat Iliad 16.297–300, but “island stars” are found twice in Pindar: atPaean 125–6 Aegina is the “bright star of Zeus Hellanios”, and in theGymn to Zeus (fr. 33c.5–6) “far-seen star of the dark earth” is thename given by the gods to the island which men call Delos.9 Whetheror not the second passage contains an allusion to Delos’ earlier name ofAsterie,10 Callimachus certainly explains clearly the earlier name atvv. 36–38 of the Hymn :

oumola d’ Gm toi

)steq_g t¹ pakai|m, 1pe· bah»m Fkao t\vqom

oqqam|hem ve}cousa Di¹r c\lom !st]qi Usg.(Call. , H. 4.36–38)

8 For the topos cf. , e. g., Bulloch on Call. , H. 5.94–95. Emendation (!we ?mmight be suggested by Homeric Hymn to Pan 17–18 with Ilgen’s interpretation)is, in these circumstances, an unattractive option. Neil Hopkinson observes thatj}eim might link the nightingale to Apollo’s birth on Delos. A formal model forvv. 528–529 might be sought in Hes., fr. 204.129–130 M.-W., ¦qgi 1m eQaqi-m/i, fte t’ %tqiwor ouqesi t_jtei / ca_gr 1m jeuhl_mi tq_tyi 5tei tq_a t]jma.

9 The latter passage was noted in connection with Dion. Per. 531 by Reeve1996–1997, p. 250, who suggests that the “star passage” is an allusion to Aratus,who also included an acrostic in the Phainomena.

10 Cf., e. g., Rutherford 2001, p. 371.

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We may therefore speculate that the influence of the CallimacheanHymn has spread from the Cyclades to the neighbouring Sporades.One further text must, however, be brought into play. In the Argonau-tica, one of Dionysius’ principal model texts, the Sporades are men-tioned at the end of the fourth Book, when Apollo reveals to the Argo-nauts the island of Anaphe, which appears to them as a bright gleam(aUckg) through the impenetrably black darkness in which they hadfound themselves, a darkness broken by “no stars and no bright raysof the moon” (4.1696–1697). For Dionysius all the Sporades shineout like stars, but it may have been the little “Revealed Island” whichgave him the clue.

The final passage to be considered in this connection is the descrip-tion of the Ionian coast at vv. 826–838:

t\ym d’ !lvot]qym ce boqeiot]qgm 1s_doiopaqak_gm =vesom, lec\kgm p|kim Yowea_qgr,5mha he/i pote mg¹m )lafom_der tet}jomtopq]lmyi 5mi ptek]gr, peqi~siom !mdq\si haOla.Lgiom_g d’ 1p· t/isim 1p’ !mtok_gm tet\mustai 830Tl~kyi rp’ Amel|emti, t|hem Pajtyk¹r bde}ymwqus¹m bloO d_mgisim 1vekj|lemor jekaq}fei .

toO d’ #m 1p· pkeuq/isi jah^lemor eUaqor ¦qgij}jmym eQsa_oir kicuqµm epa, to_ te jah’ vdyq5mha ja· 5mha m]lomtai !enol]mgr 5ti po_gr· 835pokko· c±q keil_mer 1m )s_di tgkeh\ousim,5nowa d’ %l ped_om Lai\mdqiom, 5mha JaLstqouFsuwa pavk\fomtor 1piqq]ei !cka¹m vdyq.

(Dion. Per. 826–838)

The description of the temple at Ephesus is a good illustration of Dio-nysius’ technique, for his three-verse description (vv. 827–829) is aclose reworking, with an obvious striving after uariatio, of three versesof Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis :

so· ja· )lafom_der pok]lou 1pihul^teiqai1m jote paqqak_gi 9v]syi bq]tar Rdq}samtovgc_i rp¹ pq]lmyi, t]kesem d] toi Req¹m Zpp~.

(Call. H. 3.237–239)

The most striking change here is the substitution of pq]lmyi 5mi ptek]grfor Callimachus’ vgc_i rp¹ pq]lmyi, a change which simplifies Calli-

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 705

machus’ mannered and difficult syntax,11 but seems also a deliberate cor-rection of the model. Ptek]a was believed to be an ancient name forEphesos,12 and so this may be a rare case where Dionysius uses a learn-edly allusive aetiology, without explicitly signalling it as such. It musthave given him enormous pleasure to “out-Callimachus” the masterhimself within an imitation of that master. The second half of v. 829seems to be another example of Dionysius’ signature technique of theinclusion of a “fragment” of one poet within the reworking of another,cf. Ap. Rh., Arg. 1.1307 h\lbor peqi~siom !mdq\si ke}sseim (of the“waving” tombs of the Boreads), 4.1430 h\lbor peqi~siom (the Hesper-ides);13 whether it is relevant that a ptek]g is involved in the latter pas-sage (cf. 4.1427), I do not know.

With Maeonia, the Paktolos, and swans we return to Callimachus’Hymn to Delos, vv. 249–252:

B l³m 5vg· j}jmoi d³ he¹m l]kpomter !oido_Lgi|miom Pajtyk¹m 1jujk~samto kip|mter 2502bdol\jir peq· D/kom, 1p^eisam d³ kowe_giLous\ym eqmiher, !oid|tatoi petegm_m.

(Call. H. 4.249–252)

Although Callimachus does not explicitly use the very common idea ofthe Paktolos as a “golden” river,14 we ought perhaps to feel it activatedby the following stress on the gold which attended Apollo’s birth(vv. 260–264);15 in other words, our initial puzzlement as to why thePaktolos is chosen is subsequently erased. Other than in Callimachusand Dionysius, swans are associated with the Paktolos only atArg. 4.1300–1304:

C fte jak± m\omtor 1p’ avq}si Pajtyko ?oj}jmoi jim^sysim 2¹m l]kor, !lv· d³ keil½m2qs^eir bq]letai potalo ?| te jak± N]ehqa .

¢r aR 1p· namh±r h]lemai jom_gisim 1he_qar

11 Cf. Bornmann ad loc.12 Cf. Eustathius on v. 827, S Theocr. 7.65b Wendel, Steph. Byz., s.v. Ptek]a, J.

Keil, Ptelea 3, in RE XXIII 2 (1959), c. 1480.13 The collocation goes back to Od. 16.203 oute ti haul\feim peqi~siom out’

!c\ashai.14 Cf. J. Keil, Paktolos, in RE XVIII 2 (1942), c. 2439.15 Cf. above p. 703.

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pamm}wiai 1keeim¹m Q^kelom ¡d}qomto.(Arg. 4.1300–1304)

Here, more explicitly than in Callimachus, the repeated stress on the“beauty” of the river and the yellow hair of the young women16 suggestthat the poet is indeed mindful of the Paktolos’ most famous association.In both Hellenistic poets, of course, the swans are fully contextualised:in Callimachus by their association with Apollo, and in Apollonius bythe association of their song with imminent death. Nevertheless, it isdifficult not to believe that one poet has taken the association ofswans with the Paktolos from the other, and most would, I think, iden-tify Apollonius as the borrower here. If so, Apollonius has expanded thesimple idea of “Maeonian swans” by borrowing, for the second of a pairof similes, from the second simile in the great set of similes which intro-duces the Homeric Catalogue of Ships :

t_m d’, ¦r t’ aqm_hym petegm_m 5hmea pokk\,wgm_m C ceq\mym C j}jmym doukiwode_qym, 460)s_yi 1m keil_mi Ja{stq_ou !lv· N]ehqa5mha ja· 5mha pot_mtai !cakk|lema pteq}cessim,jkaccgd¹m pqojahif|mtym, slaqace ? d] te keil~m,¤r t_m 5hmea pokk± me_m %po ja· jkisi\ym1r ped_om pqow]omto Sjal\mdqiom

.aqt±q rp¹ wh½m 465

sleqdak]om jom\bife pod_m aqt_m te ja· Vppym.5stam d’ 1m keil_mi Sjalamdq_yi !mhel|emtiluq_oi, fssa te v}kka ja· %mhea c_metai ¦qgi.

(Il. 2.459–468)

In so doing, Apollonius may be constructing his Callimachean model asitself gesturing towards this Homeric passage, by the familiar techniqueof “window reference” or “double allusion”.17 Be that as it may, Dio-nysius has gone one better by including a full-scale rewriting of this Ho-meric passage,18 which allows him to include not just the Paktolos, fromCallimachus and Apollonius, but also the Cayster, which flows into thesea at Ephesos, and where Homer had placed the great flocks of birds; itought not now to surprise us that, for Dionysius, Maeonia is to be cele-brated through its most famous product, the “Maeonian poet” himself.

16 Cf. Livrea ad loc. For other aspects of these verses cf. Reitz 1996, pp. 133–135.17 Cf. e.g, McKeown 1987, pp. 37–45.18 This too may be marked by a “fragment” of another poet, if Fsuwa jawk\fom-

tor is correctly read in v. 838, cf. Theocr. 6.12.

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 707

As well as thoroughly re-arranging the Homeric details – rather than thebirds “sitting”, the human listener may do so; “spring” moves from aseparate image in Homer (the fighters are as many as the flowers in aspringtime meadow, Il. 2.467–468) etc. – Dionysius also seems to com-ment on the processes of mimetic uariatio with his observation that“there are many meadows in Asia…”; the innumerability of the Ho-meric birds and fighters becomes the innumerability of mimetic possi-bilities: one does not have to limit oneself to the Cayster.19

In turning to Dionysius’ use of Apollonius’ Argonautica, I will focusupon the most obvious example of that debt, namely Dionysius’ versionof the Apollonian Phineus’ account of the southern shore of the BlackSea (Arg. 2.345–401). Dionysius moves west from Colchis, whereasPhineus, and subsequently the Argonauts, move eastwards towards Col-chis, but Dionysius follows the Apollonian Phineus’ order of geographyand Pontic tribes almost exactly (in reverse); the differences consistmerely of the omission of one tribe (the Sapeires, Arg. 2.395) and afew geographical features, including two which played important roleswithin the Argonautic plot (Thynias and the Island of Ares).20 Thevery unusual faithfulness of the imitation of Phineus’ paraplous is precise-ly marked, and intended to be understood as such, by the one majorgeographical discrepancy between the two poets. Dionysius tells a ver-sion of the story of Sinope which associates her with the Thermodon(vv. 774–779); Phineus did not mention Sinope, but a different(though related) version of her story is told in the course of the Argo-nautic voyage itself (Arg. 2.946–961), where she and her city are placed(correctly) well to the west of the Thermodon.21 Dionysius’ variant ver-sion of the story of Sinope borrows details not only from Apollonius’Sinope, but also from the same poet’s account at Arg. 4.566–570 of an-

19 Ov., Her. 7.2 associates swans with the Maeander, another major river of thearea (cf. Dion. Per. 837). Mineur on Call. , H. 4.250 suggested that Callimachushad used the Paktolos as “a mere variation for the Cayster”. This seems unlike-ly, both in view of the Apollonius passage, and in view of the habitual care Cal-limachus seems to take over such matters.

20 Also omitted are the “Ankon” (Arg. 2.369–370), the “Long Beach”(2.364–365), and the Black Headland (2.349).

21 For the various myths cf. Vian, Note compl�mentaire to Arg. 2.953.

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other daughter of Asopos, the girl who gave her name to “Black Cor-cyra”.22

In re-writing Phineus’ geographical catalogue, Dionysius also raidsnot only other prose and poetic sources (the description of the entranceto Hades at vv. 788–792 is an excellent example), but also the Argonau-tic voyage itself, to produce a complex and sophisticated mimesis.Whereas Apollonius had offered an elaborate description of the manychannels of the Thermodon (2.972–984), for Dionysius the river isnoteworthy for its precious stones and crystal (vv. 780–783), a particu-lar interest of Dionysius; in describing this crystal oX\ te p\wmgm / wei-leq_gm Dionysius echoes a passage of the Argonautic Black Sea voyagewhich he had otherwise omitted, namely the description of the caveof Hades:

1j d’ aqt/r eUsy jataj]jkitai Epeiqom d³jo_kg vpaiha m\pg, Vma te sp]or 5st’ )_dao 735vkgi ja· p]tqgisim 1pgqev]r, 5mhem !utlµpgcuk_r, ajqu|emtor !mapme_ousa luwo ?osumew]r, !qcim|essam !e· peqit]tqove p\wmgm,F te lesglbqi|ymtor Qa_metai Aek_oio.

(Arg. 2.734–739)

It is tempting to speculate that in the brilliant crystal of the ThermodonDionysius offers a “rationalising” explanation of Apollonius’ paradoxo-graphical “white ice”. A related mimetic technique is seen in Dionysius’account of the Chalybes,

to ?r d’ 1p· ja· W\kuber stuvekµm ja· !pgm]a ca ?amma_ousim, loceqoO dedagj|ter 5qca sid^qou,oV Na, baqucdo}poisim 1p’ %jlosim 2stg_ter, 770oupote pa}omtai jal\tou ja· azf}or aQm/r.

(Dion. Per. 768–771)

which combines elements of the two Apollonian passages which dealwith this tribe:

let\ te sluceq~tatoi !mdq_mtqgwe_gm W\kuber ja· !teiq]a ca ?am 5womter,

22 Note )syp_da in the same sedes (v. 775, Arg. 4.567), the verse-endings m\s-sato w~qgi (v. 776) and m\ssato jo}qgm (Arg. 4.567), and the motif of deten-tion away from the native land (v. 778, Arg. 4.568).

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 709

1qcat_mai – to· d’ !lv· sid^qea 5qca l]komtai jtk.(Arg. 2.374–376)

to ?si l³m oute bo_m %qotor l]kei oute tir %kkgvutakiµ jaqpo ?o lek_vqomor, oqd³ l³m oV cepo_lmar 2qs^emti mol_i 5mi poila_mousim .

!kk± sidgqov|qom stuvekµm wh|ma catol]omter 1005§mom !le_bomtai biot^siom. oqd] pot] svimA½r !mt]kkei jal\tym %teq, !kk± jekaim/ikicm}i ja· japm_i j\latom baq»m atke}ousi.

(Arg. 2.1002–1008)

Thus, for example, in Dionysius’ phrase stuvekµm ja· !pgm]a ca ?am (v.768), the first adjective comes from Arg. 2.100523 and the second is an“auditory” variation (of a kind to which modern critics should pay moreattention) of Apollonius’ !teiq]a (2.375).

2.

The most striking stylistic feature of Dionysius’ poem is his fondness forvarious forms of anaphora, epanalepsis, and repetition. Sometimes thesought-after effect seems easy to discern. Thus at vv. 441–443,

t_i p\qa Puh_mor hu|em p]dom, Hwi dq\jomtorDekv}mgr tqip|dessi heoO paqaj]jkitai bkj|r,bkj|r, !peiqes_gisim 1pivq_ssym vok_dessi jtk.

(Dion. Per. 441–443)

the repeated bkj|r wraps around the verse-break like the body of thegreat snake being described, as the curling ivy similarly covers averse-division at Theocritus 1.29–30. At vv. 354–355 the anaphoricTiber literally cuts “lovely Rome” in two, and the verse structure imi-tates the doubleness of the divided city:

H}lbqir 2kiss|lemor jahaq¹m N|om eQr ûka b\kkei,H}lbqir 1uqqe_tgr, potal_m basike}tator %kkym,H}lbqir dr Rleqtµm !pot]lmetai %mdiwa U~lgm,

23 The scholia on Arg. 2.1005–1006 make clear that stuvek|r was a much dis-cussed “gloss”.

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U~lgm til^essam, 1l_m l]cam oWjom !m\jtym. 355(Dion. Per. 352–355)24

More commonly, however, such repetitions, particularly when intro-ducing further information about a proper name, seem little morethan a stylistic mannerism. A simple and common type may be illustrat-ed from vv. 248–250,

Al³m fsoi H^bgm 1qijud]a maiet\ousim,H^bgm ¡cuc_gm, 2jat|lpukom, 5mha cecym½rL]lmym !mt]kkousam 2µm !sp\fetai I_.

(Dion. Per. 248–250)

and a more complex variant from vv. 195–197:

to ?r d’ 1p· Jaqwgd½m poku^qatom !lp]wei fqlom,Jaqwgd~m, Kib}ym l]m, !t±q pq|teqom Voim_jym,Jaqwgd~m, Dm lOhor rpa· boz letqgh/mai.

(Dion. Per. 195–197)

Even Tycho Mommsen, one of Dionysius’ greatest modern admirers,saw this stylistic feature as a blemish, but one he was prepared to forgive,“es hat eben jeder Dichter seine Schwächen”;25 Ewen Bowie consideredthe technique “perhaps overworked”, but has been one of the very fewscholars to seek a contextualised explanation for the four occasions onwhich a place-name is repeated three or four times, usually at thehead of the verse (vv. 195–197, 350–356, 793–796, 815–819).26

There may be more to be said about the antecedents and effects ofthis style, and here I wish merely to give renewed emphasis to one as-pect of the earlier use of this stylistic trope, which may shed light uponthe effect which Dionysius sought.

It is, of course, Homer who supplies the models for later poets:

aqt±q Puqa_wlgr %ce Pa_omar !cjukot|nourtgk|hem 1n )lud_mor, !p’ )nioO eqq» N]omtor,)nioO, ox j\kkistom vdyq 1pij_dmatai aWam.

(Il. 2.848–850)

Miqe»r aw S}lghem %ce tqe ?r m/ar 1@sar,

24 On the echo of Callimachus in v. 355 cf. above p. 701.25 Mommsen 1895, p. 807.26 Bowie 1990, pp. 74–75.

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 711

Miqe»r )cka@gr uR¹r Waq|poio t’ %majtor,Miqe}r, dr j\kkistor !mµq rp¹ ]kiom Gkhem

(Il. 2.671–673)

)mdqol\wg, huc\tgq lecak^toqor Iet_ymor,Iet_ym, dr 5maiem rp¹ Pk\jyi rkg]ssgi

(Il. 6.395–396)

tq_tor d’ Gm -sior Fqyr,-sior zqtaj_dgr, dm )q_sbghem v]qom VppoiaUhymer lec\koi, potaloO !p¹ Sekk^emtor.

(Il. 12.95–97)

!kk’ b l³m AQh_opar letej_ahe tgk|h’ 1|mtar,AQh_opar, to· diwh± deda_atai, 5swatoi !mdq_m,oR l³m dusol]mou zpeq_omor, oR d’ !mi|mtor.

(Od. 1.22–24)

Aristarchus observed that whereas such epanalepsis was common in theIliad, the Ethiopians of 1.22–23 were the only example in the Odys-sey.27 As striking, however, is the fact that whereas Homer clearlyuses such turns of style both when narrating in the third-person andwhen one of his characters is speaking, there is a very clear bias inthe distribution of examples. Of the twelve Homeric cases listed byWills,28 seven are in the voice of the narrator (Il. 2.671–673, 837–838, 849–850, 870–871, 6.395–396, 12.95–96, Od. 1.22–23), andfive are spoken by characters (Il. 6.153–154, 7.137–138, 18.398–399, 21.85–86, 157–158); of the six Iliad examples in the firstgroup, four come from the Catalogue of Ships, and a fifth (12.95–96)from a passage which may be considered a “mini-catalogue”. Thesixth (6.395–396) may perhaps be explained as an emotive touch at amoment of great emotional power (the introduction to Andromache’slast meeting with her husband before his death). Be that as it may,the Homeric scholia see the device as one of emphasis, and the rhetor-ical and educational traditions, in which Dionysius will have been steep-ed, distinguish three categories of use:29 to provide information (cf.Od. 1.22–23), to introduce a character (cf. Il. 2.671–673), and to rein-force a trait of character (cf. Il. 20.371–372).

27 Cf. the scholia to Il. 2.837–838, 6.154, 6.396, 7.138,12.96.28 Wills 1996, pp. 125–126; cf. also Fehling 1969, pp. 183–184, S. West on

Hom., Od. 1.23–24.29 Cf. Hermogenes, pp. 423–425 Rabe.

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For the Pseudo-Plutarchan work on Homer which cites a couple ofHomeric examples, including Od. 1.22–23, such repetitions “reveal theemotion (j_mgsir) of the speaker and also move the hearer” (2.32); thisis a hardly surprising (and certainly not unique) gloss upon the standardexplanations, but it assumes particular interest when applied to places inwhich the Homeric narrator, rather than one of his characters, is speak-ing, or to a poem, such as the Periegesis of Dionysius, in which there isonly one speaker, the narrating poet. What kind of emotion does thepoet wish to convey? The fact that the “Catalogue of Ships”, the au-thorising Homeric model for later Periegeseis, contains four exampleswithin a relatively brief space (Il. 2.671–673, 837–838, 849–850,870–871), and that the only example in the Odyssey became a standardreference for later poetry and geographical writing, is suggestive for thehistory of such repetitions; Dionysius’ familiarity with the dividedEthiopians of the Odyssey and with ancient scholarship upon them isclear enough from vv. 179–180 and 218–219.

Stylistic repetitions of this kind are standardly thought of as a Hel-lenistic mannerism,30 although, as Jeffrey Wills has rightly emphasised,31

there are in fact fewer cases in extant poetry than such a label might haveled us to expect. Certainly, a more nuanced characterisation of the fig-ure in Hellenistic poetry is required in order to appreciate Dionysius’usage. I limit myself to Callimachus32 and Apollonius, though a morecomplete re-examination of the poetic corpus is a clear desideratum.33

There are only two examples34 in extant Callimachus of what I willcall a “Dionysian” epanalepsis with a proper name. The first is Hymn toDelos 224–225:

)steq_g d’ amolast· paqeqwol]mgm 1j\kessem,)steq_g, p|mtoio jaj¹m s\qom

.oWsha ja· aqt^.

(Call. H. 4.224–225)

30 Cf., e. g., Kroll’s very useful note on Catullus 64.61. Further discussion and ear-lier bibliography in Gimm 1910, pp. 87–94.

31 Cf. Wills 1996, p. 128; for later poetry see also Gerlaud’s note on Triphiodorus448–449.

32 A basic resource here is Lapp 1965, pp. 54–65.33 I have said nothing about Latin poetry, because of the excellent and readily

available treatment in Wills 1996.34 The emphatic repetition of Jqe?om eqor at H. 5.40–41 is an obviously related

phenomenon, but no “new information” is added in the second member.

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 713

This case is a perfect illustration of Pseudo-Plutarch’s dictum: the fawn-ing Iris is here trying to stir Hera’s wrath against the island which hasgiven Leto shelter.35 Different in its effect but still very clearly showingthe emotion of the speaker is Hymn to Demeter 7–8:

=speqor 1j mev]ym 1sj]xato (pam_ja me ?tai ;)=speqor, fr te pie ?m Dal\teqa l_mor 5peisem.

(Call. H. 6.7–8)

Callimachus, then, seems to restrict this particular form of epanalepsis to“character speech”. Apollonius, however, whose importance to thiswhole stylistic area is well recognised,36 seems to offer more fertile ma-terial.

The “classic” type is illustrated by three examples, all in the mouthof characters rather than that of the narrator, from the fourth book:

oWoi d’ 5sam )qj\der )pidam/er,)qj\der, oT ja· pq|she sekgma_gr rd]omtaif~eim, vgc¹m 5domter 1m ouqesim

(Arg. 4.263–265)

!t±q ja· 1r AUokom 1khe ?m,AUokom fr t’ !m]loir aQhqgcem]essim !m\ssei .

(Arg. 4.764–765)

A³ paq± Sj}kkgr stuceq¹m jeuhl_ma m]eshai —Sj}kkgr Aqsom_gr ako|vqomor, Dm t]je V|qjyi

mujtip|kor :j\tg, t^m te jke_ousi Jq\taiim —.(Arg. 4.827–829)

Of these passages two are echoed by Dionysius: 4.263–265 at v. 415,and 4.764–765 at vv. 461–463.37 Apollonian examples in the voiceof the narrator again show an interesting distribution: 1.87–88 (theCatalogue), 1.191–192 (the Catalogue), and 3.861–862, which is aspecial case, as it imitates the multiple invocations, and almost the“voice”, of a character:

35 A similar instance in direct speech, though not with a proper name, is the rep-etition of wqus|m at fr. 384.14–15 (Sosibios).

36 Cf., e. g., Wills 1996, pp. 128–130.37 Cf. Wills 1996, p. 162 n. 87.

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2pt\ji d³ Bqil½ jouqotq|vom !cjak]sasa,Bqil½ mujtip|kom, whom_gm, jtk.

(Arg. 3.861–862)

There are, of course, elsewhere other related mannerisms in the mouthof the narrator, but it is again the Catalogue of Argonauts which showsgreatest interest in such effects.38 A case such as 1.202–203 seems toshow self-consciousness about the familiar Homeric form, for here the“new information” provided by the second verse in fact underminesthe first :

s»m d³ Pakail|mior K]qmou p\ir ©kem_oio,K]qmou 1p_jkgsim, ceme^m ce l³m Jva_stoio.

(Arg. 1.202–203)

The fourth book, from which the three “classic” examples cited abovewere drawn, seems in fact notably different in this matter, as in manyothers, for here we find a number of related stylistic experiments inthe voice of the narrator:

aqt±q 1pe_ t’ -ccouqom eqor ja· %pyhem 1|mta)cco}qou eqeor sj|pekom paq± Jaukiajo ?o.

(Arg. 4.323–324)

aqt±q 5peit’ 1p· t/isi paqa· J]qjuqam Vjomto,5mha Poseid\ym )syp_da m\ssato jo}qgm,A}jolom J]qjuqam, 2j±r Vkeioumt_dor aUgr.

(Arg. 4.566–568)

oT pq·m l]m pote dµ Simtg_da K/lmom 5maiom,K^lmou t’ 1nekah]mter rp’ !mdq\si Tuqsgmo?siSp\qtgm eQsav_jamom 1v]stioi.

(Arg. 4.1759–1761)

The second of these examples, in which the repeated name occurs notin adjacent verses but in the first and third of a triplet, is particularly in-teresting, as here again the narrator seems to gesture towards, while re-fusing to use, the familiar form, a dislocation marked by the shift from

38 Cf. 1.41–42,58–59,71–73 etc.; 1.955–957 offers a related, but significantlydifferent effect.

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 715

“Corcyra” as a place (clearly indicated as such by v. 567) to the name ofthe eponymous heroine.39

The conclusion, then, is neither surprising nor novel: Dionysius fol-lowed and extended Homeric and Apollonian precedent in imparting tohis Periegesis the engaged and emotional tone which epanalepsis brought,but which both earlier poets had (with certain exceptions) restricted to“character speech”; the primary exceptions are the Catalogue form,where such figures seem not merely allowed, but positively soughtout, and the fourth book of the Argonautica, which seems to mark a sty-listic “advance” towards Dionysian freedom. Dionysius’ use of the fig-ure is, therefore, an acknowledgement of generic debt; it is one of theways in which he writes into his poem the literary history of the form hehas chosen.40

Bibliography

Bernays 1905 = U. Bernays, Studien zu Dionysius Periegetes, Heidelberg 1905Bowie 1990 = E. L. Bowie, Greek poetry in the Antonine age, in D. A. Russell

(ed.), Antonine Literature, Oxford 1990, pp. 53–90Fehling 1969 = D. Fehling, Die Wiederholungsfiguren und ihr Gebrauch bei den

Griechen vor Gorgias, Berlin 1969Gimm 1910 = R. Gimm, De Vergilii stilo bucolico quaestiones selectae, Diss. Leip-

zig 1910Hopkinson 1984 = N. Hopkinson, Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus, “CQ”

N.S. 34,1984, pp. 139–148;Hunter 2001 = R. Hunter, Virgil and Theocritus: a note on the reception of the En-

comium to Ptolemy Philadelphus, “SemRom” 4,2001, pp. 159–163 [= thisvolume 00]

Kuiper 1896 = K. Kuiper, Studia Callimachea I, Leiden 1896Lapp 1965 = F. Lapp, De Callimachi Cyrenaei tropis et figuris, Diss. Bonn 1965McKeown 1987 = J. C. McKeown, Ovid: Amores, I, Liverpool 1987Mommsen 1895 = T. Mommsen, Beitr�ge zu der Lehre von den griechischen Pr�-

positionen, Berlin 1895Reeve 1996–1997 = M. D. Reeve, A rejuvenated snake, “AAntHung” 37,

1996–1997, pp. 245–258Reitz 1996 = C. Reitz, Zur Gleichnistechnik des Apollonios von Rhodos, Frankfurt

1996Rutherford 2001 = I. Rutherford, Pindar’s Paeans, Oxford 2001

39 For Sinope, another beloved daughter of Asopos who gave her name to a place,cf.above pp. 350-351.

40 I am grateful to Neil Hopkinson and Michael Reeve for their comments on anearlier draft of this essay.

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire716

Schneider 1882 = M. Schneider, De Dionysii Periegetae arte metrica et grammatica,Diss. Leipzig 1882

Vian 2001 = F. Vian, Echoes and imitations of Apollonius Rhodius in late Greek epic,in T. D. Papanghelis, A. Rengakos (edd.), A Companion to Apollonius Rho-dius, Leiden 2001, pp. 285–308

Wills 1996 = J. Wills, Repetition in Latin Poetry, Oxford 1996.

Addenda

The most recent edition of the Periegesis is E. Amato, Dionisio di Alessandria: De-scrizione della terra abitata (Milan 2005). For recent discussion and bibliographycf. also E. Amato, ‘Per la cronologia di Dionisio il Periegeta’ Revue de Philologie77 (2003) 7–16, and J. Lightfoot, ‘Catalogue technique in Dionysius Perie-getes’ in K. Carvounis and R. Hunter (eds.), Signs of Life? Studies in laterGreek hexameter poetry (forthcoming). Cf. also 39 below.

38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 717

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions ofHellenistic poetry*

1.

Dionysius frames his Periegesis with echoes of the opening and closingframe of Apollonius’ Argonautica. For the opening of the poem this isgenerally acknowledged:1

!qwºlemor s´o, Vo ?be, pakaicem´ym jk´a vyt_mlm¶solai oT Pºmtoio jat± stºla ja· di± p´tqarJuam´ar basik/or 1vglos¼mgi Pek¸aowq¼seiom let± j_ar 1¼fucom Ekasam ûAqc¾.

(Arg. 1.1–4)

Taking my start from you, Phoibos, I shall recall the glorious deeds of menof long ago who, at the command of King Pelias, propelled the well-benched Argo through the mouth of the Pontos and between the DarkRocks to gain the golden fleece.

!qwºlemor ca ?²m te ja· eqq´a pºmtom !e¸deimja· potalo»r pºki²r te ja· !mdq_m %jqita vOka,lm¶solai ûYjeamo ?o bahuqqºou7

(Dion. Per. 1–3)

In beginning to sing of the earth and the broad sea and the rivers and thecities and the uncountable tribes of men, I shall recall the deep stream ofOcean.

The final envoi of Dionysius’s poem is usually associated in general termswith the closing farewells of archaic and Hellenistic hymns.2 In fact,however, this farewell to the lands and seas and the Ocean of the open-ing invocation, which have formed the subject of Dionysius’s song,

* Revue des �tudes Anciennes 106 (2004) 217–311 Cf. Müller’s note on Eustathius’ commentary on the opening verse (GGM II

216–17). Effe (1977) 193 rather stresses Dionysius’s undeniable debt to thePhainomena of Aratus (cf. below p. 727 and Vox (2002)); note in particularhow Dionysius makes Ocean resemble Aratus’ Zeus (v. 28).

2 Cf. the ‘fontes’ in Tsavari’s edition.

seems to have two direct antecedents.3 One is the closing invocation atHesiod, Theogony 963–4, together with the echo of those verses in v.267 of Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos :4

rle ?r l³m mOm wa¸qet’, ûOk¼lpia d¾lat’ 5womter,m/so¸ t’ Epeiqo¸ te ja· "kluq¹r 5mdohi pºmtor.

(Hes. Theog. 964–5)

Now farewell, you dwellers on Olympus, and islands, and continents andbriny sea within.

p¸omer Epeiqo¸ te ja· aT peqima¸ete m/soi(Call. h. 4.267)

[Delos addresses the] ‘fertile mainland stretches and the islands which sur-round me’

Dionysius, however, also picks up Apollonius’ farewell to the !qist/er,5

a label which recalls and varies the pakaiceme ?r v_ter of the openingverse, and his wish for the future of his poem:

Vkat’, !qist/er, laj²qym c´mor, aVde d’ !oida·eQr 5tor 1n 5teor ckujeq¾teqai eWem !e¸deim!mhq¾poir. Edg c±q 1p· jkut± pe¸qah’ Rj²myrlet´qym jal²tym, 1pe· ou tir ullim %ehkorawtir !p’ AQc¸mghem !meqwol´moisim 1t¼whg,out’ !m´lym 1qi_kai !m´stahem, !kk± 6jgkoica ?am Jejqop¸gm paq² t’ Aqk¸da letq¶samterEqbo¸gr 5mtoshem ûOpo¼mti² t’ %stea Kojq_m,!spas¸yr !jt±r Pacasg¸dar eQsap´bgte.

(Arg. 4.1773–81)

Be gracious, heroes, children of the blessed gods, and may these songs befrom year to year ever sweeter for men to sing. For now I have reachedthe glorious conclusion of your struggles, since no other challenge con-fronted you as you sailed up from Aegina, nor did wind-storms blockyour path, but undisturbed you sailed past the coast of the Kekropianland and past Aulis within Euboea and the cities of the Opuntian Lokrians,and gladly you stepped out on to the shores of Pagasai.

3 Cf. now Vox (2002).4 A nice example of ‘window allusion’; cf. , e. g., McKeown (1987) 37–45.5 I would accept Fränkel’s emendation, but the echo of the opening verse is not

dependent upon it.

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 719

Edg c±q p²sgr l³m 1p´dqalom oWdla hak²ssgr,Edg d’ Ape¸qym sjoki¹m pºqom7 !kk² loi vlmymaqt_m 1j laj²qym !mt²nior eUg !loib¶.

(Dion. Per. 1184–6)

For now I have traversed the swell of the whole sea, and now too the twist-ing path of the continents. May the blessed gods themselves grant me a re-ward worthy of my song.

Dionysius has ‘traversed’ the world, as the Argonauts themselves did;1p´dqalom bears also the sense ‘treat briefly’,6 thus not only markingthe poet as both ‘author’ and ‘fellow traveller’, a position in whichApollonius too clearly, if implicitly, placed himself (note the poet’s ‘ar-rival’ in 4.1775),7 but also gesturing, with suitably ‘epic’ restraint, to the‘brevity topos’ of periegetic poetry, which is, for example, repeatedlyspelled out (at ironical length) in the proem of the iambic Periegesisoften referred to as ‘Pseudo-Scymnus’ or the Periodos to Nicomedes(GGM I 196–9).8 Moreover, Dionysius offers his pupils and readers achance themselves to become Argonauts when he first spells out thepurpose of his poem:

mOm d´ toi Ape¸qou luh¶solai eWdor "p²sgr,evqa ja· oqj 1sid¾m peq 5woir euvqastom apyp¶m71j toO d’ #m ceqaqºr te ja· aQdoi´steqor eUgr,!mdq· paq’ !cm¾ssomti pivausjºlemor t± 6jasta.

(Dion. Per. 170–3)

But now I shall tell you the shape of the whole land-mass, so that, eventhough you have not seen it, you may have a clear vision; as a resultyou will be honoured and more revered as you explain every detail to aman who is ignorant.

Apollonius twice uses pivausjºlemor t± 6jasta, ‘explaining every de-tail’, of Jason (3.1165, 1346),9 the leader of the expedition which servesas an authorising model for Dionysius’ journey of the mind. As Homer

6 Cf. LSJ s.v. 1pitq´wy II 5.7 Cf. Vox (2002) 167–8 with earlier bibliography.8 Cf. Marcotte (2000), S. Bianchetti, pkyt± ja· poqeut². Sulle tracce di una Peri-

egesi romana (Florence 1990), Meyer (1998) 72–81; this volume 503–22. Notealso the appearance of the topos in the proem of the iambic poem of Dionysius,son of Calliphon, (GGM I 238, Marcotte [1990]) v. 10, taOt’ 1ll´tqyr

Ngh¶set’ 1m bqawe? wqºmyi. F. Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik (Berlin 1902)60–74 is a valuable survey of the iambic didactic tradition.

9 These are the only two occurrences in Arg. , but cf. 1.1097.

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and Apollonius are Dionysius’ two most important poetic models, soOdysseus10 and Jason are exemplars upon whom the attentive (cf. v.882–3) reader of the Periegesis may model himself. Finally, it may benoted that Apollonius’ proem is also echoed in the invocation to theMuses which introduces Dionysius’ account of the peoples of Asia:11

mOm d’ #m 1c½ ceme¶m te ja· oumola luhgsa¸lgmBq¾ym dokiw/r te pºqour "k¹r fss² t’ 5qenampkafºlemoi7 LoOsai d’ rpov¶toqer eWem !oid/r.

(Arg. 1.20–2)

I now shall recount the lineage and names of the heroes, their voyages overthe vast sea and all they achieved on their wanderings. May the Muses bethe inspirers12 of my song!

mOm ce l³m 5hmea p²mta di¸nolai, fss’ !q¸dgka1mma¸ei7 LoOsai d’ Qh¼mtatom Uwmor %coiem.

(Dion. Per. 650–1)

Now I shall range over all the tribes which dwell there clear to be seen:may the steps of the Muses be straight and true.

By means of the Apollonian frame Dionysius turns Apollonius into aprivileged forerunner: Why? Some reasons are not difficult to guess.Dionysius will almost certainly have regarded Apollonius as, like him-self, an Alexandrian,13 and one whose hexameter poem was not onlyfull of geography and made, as the scholia to Apollonius make clear, ex-tensive use of geographical texts, as Dionysius himself does, but also onewhose heroes traversed the world in a great circle. The Apollonianscholia, which may well contain material from scholarship contempo-rary with Dionysius,14 also make clear that Apollonius was read as a geo-graphical and mythographical authority, to be set alongside the vast re-sources of learned Hellenistic prose.15 Apollonius thus combined thetwo principal features of Dionysius’ poem, epic style and authoritative

10 Cf. below.11 Cf. already the scholiast on Dion. Per. 651.12 The meaning of rpov¶toqer is of course hotly disputed, but the matter does not

affect the present argument.13 For the evidence cf., e. g., Hunter (1989) 1–4.14 The date of Loukillos and Sophokleios who are named in the subscription to

the Laurentian manuscript, is quite uncertain, but Wendel placed them (not im-probably) in the second century AD; cf. further Maehler (1993) 105–9.

15 For Apollonius and Hellenistic geography cf. Meyer (1998) and (2001).

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 721

geographical subject-matter. Moreover, the synoptic ‘bird’s eye vision’of the world, which was identified as early as Eustathius as a remarkablecharacteristic of Dionysius’ poem,16 finds close parallels in Apollonius’epic, though not of course there alone. In a famous passage of thethird book, well known to Dionysius,17 Eros flies down to Earth to be-guile Medea and the world opens before him:

b/ d³ di³j lec²koio Di¹r p²cjaqpom !ky¶m,aqt±q 5peita p¼kar 1n¶kuhem Oqk¼lpoio,aQheq¸ar. 5mhem d³ jataib²tir 1st· j´keuhor 160oqqam¸g7 doi½ d³ pºkom !m´wousi j²qgmaoqq´ym Akib²tym, joquva· whomºr, Hw¸ t’ !eqhe·rA´kior pq¾tgisim 1qe¼hetai !jt¸messi.meiºhi d’ %kkote ca ?a veq´sbior %stea t’ !mdq_mva¸meto ja· potal_m Reqo· Nºoi, %kkote d’ awte 165%jqier, !lv· d³ pºmtor, !m’ aQh´qa pokk¹m Qºmti.

(Arg. 3.158–66)

Through the fruitful orchard of great Zeus he went, to emerge at the cel-estial gates of Olympos. From this point the road from heaven descends,and two peaks of soaring mountains hold up the sky, heights of theearth, where the risen sun blushes red with its first rays. In his passagethrough the vast sky, the fertile earth, the cities of men and the sacredstreams of rivers opened up beneath him; elsewhere were mountain-peaks, and all around the sea.

It is less important that the catalogue of ‘earth-cities-rivers-mountains-sea’ is close to Dionysius’ own subject (cf. vv. 1–2, 1181–3) thanthat the perspective of the two poets is here very similar; va¸meshai isa standard verb in Dionysius for how geographical features ‘come intoview’. Behind this passage of Apollonius lies a rich archaic tradition;the scholia trace a particular debt to a poem in which Ibycus describedthe rape of Ganymede (with whom the Apollonian Eros has just beenplaying),18 but it is likely that this is not the only influence on the pas-sage, nor of course on Dionysius (the Eratosthenean Hermes gazingupon the cosmos is never far away). Be that as it may, it is also relevantthat Aphrodite has just bribed her son with a marvellous ball, which is

16 Cf. GGM II 210–11, Jacob (1990) 23–7.17 150 echoes Arg, 3.161, 1110 echoes 3.163, and 389 perhaps echoes 3.162.18 PMG 289, cf. Hunter on Arg. 3.158, and Campbell on Arg. 3.158 f and on

159–63. Campbell draws attention to the report that the wandering soul of Ar-isteas saw ‘the earth and the sea and the rivers and the cities and the tribes ofmen’ (Test. 19 Bolton); cf. further below p. 730.

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire722

suggestive of the cosmic globe and perhaps of third-century spheres de-picting the universe.19 These two passages suggest a poet with concernsvery close to the didactic tradition in which Dionysius places himself. Afurther passage which has been associated with a developing geographic,and indeed cartographic, sense is the famous (and famously difficult)simile of Arg. 2. 541–8 which compares Athena’s swift movement ona cloud to the flashing thoughts of a homesick traveller (cf.Il. 15.80–3):20

¢r d’ fte tir p²tqghem !k¾lemor – oX² te pokk±pkafºleh’ %mhqypoi tetkgºter, oqd´ tir aWatgkouqºr, p÷sai d³ jatºxio¸ eQsi j´keuhoi -svyit´qour d’ 1mºgse dºlour, %ludir d³ j´keuhorrcq¶ te tqaveq¶ t’ Qmd²kketai, %kkote d’ %kkgi 545an´a poqv¼qym 1pila¸etai avhaklo ?sim7¤r %qa jaqpak¸lyr jo¼qg Di¹r !¸nasah/jem 1p’ ûAne¸moio pºdar Humg¸dor !jt/r.

(Arg. 2.541–8)

As when a man who wanders far from his own land – as indeed we wretch-ed men often do wander, and no land seems distant, but all paths are spreadbefore us – can picture his own home, and as he sees in a flash the paththere over land and sea, his thoughts dart quickly and his eyes grasp oneplace after another, just so did the daughter of Zeus swiftly leap downand place her feet on the Thynian coast of the Inhospitable Sea.

This passage, whose force depends upon the power of the mind to en-vision distant places, describes an experience comparable to the ecphras-tic power of the complete poems of both Apollonius and Dionysius(note esp. v. 171 of Dionysius (cited above) evqa ja· oqj 1sid¾m peq

5woir euvqastom apyp¶m, ‘so that, even though you have not seen it,you may have a clear vision’):21 we are all turned into ‘wanderers’ with-out leaving home.22

Other than the Homeric poems, the Argonautica is in fact probablythe most important poetic model for Dionysius. In particular, of course,Phineus’ account of the southern shore of the Black Sea(Arg. 2.345–401) inscribes within Apollonius’ text a small-scale exam-ple of Dionysius’ own ‘genre’ (narrowly understood), and one which

19 Cf. Campbell on Arg. 3.135–41.20 Cf. Meyer (1998) 69–70, Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004) 101–2.21 Cf. Jacob (1990) 28–35.22 For the use of the figure of Odysseus in this connection cf. below p. 229.

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 723

Dionysius copied with extraordinary and very unusual fidelity.23 So too,Argos’ account of the ‘prehistoric’ circumnavigation of an unnamedEgyptian (Arg. 4.259–93), a text which Dionysius knew well,24 togetherwith Apollonius’ Argonauts’ actual return route, gave the Argonauticathe scope and breadth of a c/r peq¸odor. Unlike a ‘didactic’ poet, how-ever, Apollonius gave no explicit indication of how his poem was to beread, what it was to be ‘good for’. I have argued elsewhere25 that Apol-lonius has in fact inscribed within his poem the generalising power ofHomer’s epics and, in particular, the educational purposes to whichthose epics were put. It is, however, very noticeable that the scholiause Apollonius as a geographical and ‘mythological’ authority, and itis here that his particular importance for Dionysius lies : Dionysiusreads his illustrious Alexandrian predecessor as a ‘didactic’, geographicaltext.26

2.

Ngid¸yr d’ %m toi koip¹m pºqom aqd¶sailicai²ym ûAs¸gr7 b d´ toi kºcor 1m vqes·m 5sty,lgd’ !m´loir voq´oito pomgh´mtym w²qir 5qcym.eQ c²q loi s²va t¶mde jatavq²ssaio j´keuhom,G t²wa j#m %kkoisim 1pistal´myr !coqe¼oir 885ja· potalo»r pok¸ym te h´sim ja· ca ?am 2j²stgm.

(Dion. Per. 881–6)

Easily could I tell you of the remaining path of the lands of Asia. Let mywords remain in your mind, and do not allow the grace of these worksover which I have laboured to be carried away by the winds. If you canform a clear vision of this path, then perhaps you could give a knowing ac-count to others also of the rivers and the situation of the cities and of everyland.

The promise of vv. 884–6 is, of course, not really fulfilled: the rapidityof Dionysius’ outline of Asia would not really allow a reader to offer a‘knowledgeable’ account of ‘each land’. The very rapidity, however, ispart of the poet’s rhetoric of command – information is somethingwhich he can ‘easily’ supply (cf. vv. 345, 707, 881), as demonstrated

23 Cf. Hunter (2003) = this volume 700–17.24 Arg, 4.263–4 is echoed at v. 415 and 4.287 at v. 315.25 Cf. Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004) 98–104.26 Cf., e. g., Jacob (1990) 47–50.

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire724

by the very flow of names and places with which we are bombarded.This rhetoric of poetic ‘ease’ (Ne?a, Ngid¸yr) is one which Nicanderalso foregrounds in both his extant poems (Ther. 1, Alex. 4). Tradition-ally, of course, ‘ease’ is a characteristic of divine action (Hes.Theog. 442–3, WD 325 etc.), or of the action of ‘godlike’ kings (Hes.Theog. 90), whereas human life, except perhaps in a Golden Age or aHesiodic ‘Just City’, is characterised by the absence of ‘ease’ (Hes.WD 43, Virg. G. 1.122 etc.); the exception proves the rule – what hu-mans find ‘easy’ is precisely ignorance and sloth (WD 287–92). Diony-sius, like Nicander before him, uses the language of ‘ease’ as part of hisself-presentation as a poet who can dispense knowledge, as Zeus dis-penses success and failure. ‘Learning’ is genuinely empowering: thosewho heed the poet will themselves have ‘easy’ access to knowledge(cf. v. 280).

This rhetoric of ‘ease’ throws into particular relief those passages inwhich the poet admits his inability to supply information:

tºssar l³m m¶sour 1p´wei Nºor ûYjeamo ?oeqqut´qar7 6teqai d´ t’ !peiqes¸ai cec²asim,aR l³m 1p· pqowo/isi Kibust¸dor !lvitq¸tgr,aR d’ ûAs¸gr, aR d’ awte peq· jk¸sim Eqqype¸gr. 615%kkai d’ %kkohi m/soi !pe¸qitoi, aR l³m rp’ !mdq_mmaiºlemai ja· mgus·m 1p¶qatom fqlom 5wousai,aR d³ bah¼jqglmo¸ te ja· oq ma¼tgisim 2to ?lai,t_m oq Ng¸diom loi 1misp´lem oumola pas´ym.

(Dion. Per. 612–19)

Such are the islands of greater extent which the stream of Ocean holds in.There are countless others, some amidst the flows of the Libyan sea, othersof the Asian, and others again near the sweep of Europe. The countless is-lands in different places differ from each other: some are inhabited by menand have excellent anchorage for ships, others have steep cliffs and are un-suitable for sailors, and it is not easy for me to tell the names of all of them.

1j toO !peiq´sioi potalo· jamawgd± N´ousim,oR l³m pq¹r boq´gm, oR d’ 1r mºtom, oR d’ 1p· Nipµm 645euqou ja· fev¼qoio7 t¸r #m p²mtym emol’ eUpoi ;oq l³m 1pymul¸gm l¸am 5kkawem, !kk’ 1m 2j²stgioumol’ 5wei stqov²kicci7 t± d’ #m je¸moisi l´koito!mdq²sim, oT jat± w_qom blo¼qiom oWjom 5wousi.

(Dion. Per. 644–9)

From this [the Taurus mountains] countless rivers flow roaring down, someto the north, some to the south, some towards the blast of the east wind and

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 725

the zephyr. Who could tell the names of all of them? No single label hasbeen allotted to them, but each small stream has its own name: let thesebe the concern of the men who have their homes bordering each stream.

tºssoi l³m jat± ca ?am rp´qtatoi %mdqer 5asim7%kkoi d’ 5mha ja· 5mha jat’ Ape¸qour !kºymtailuq¸oi, otr oqj %m tir !qivqad´yr !coqe¼saihmgt¹r 1¾m7 loOmoi d³ heo· N´a p²mta d¼mamtai.aqto· c±q ja· pq_ta hele¸kia toqm¾samto 1170ja· bah»m oWlom 5deinam !letq¶toio hak²ssgr7aqto· d’ 5lpeda p²mta b¸yi dietejl¶qamto,%stqa diajq¸mamter, 1jkgq¾samto d’ 2j²styilo ?qam 5weim pºmtoio ja· Ape¸qoio bahe¸gr

(Dion. Per. 1166–74)

Such are the leading men over the earth. Others, beyond counting, wanderhere and there over the continents : no mortal man could give a clear ac-count of them, but only the gods can easily accomplish everything. Theyit was who marked out the first foundations and revealed the deep pathof the measureless sea; they gave signs of all that is constant in life by mak-ing the patterns of the stars, and they allotted to each man a share in the seaand the deep land.

In the face of the ‘boundlessness’ of the material, the poet must resignhis task, not because he is incompetent, but because only gods could en-compass the breadth of the material :27 here the rhetoric clearly descendsfrom Homer’s invocation to the Muse before the “Catalogue of Ships”,itself of course a very important ‘didactic’ text for later ages. Any rhet-orical pretence that a poem could give a ‘complete’ account of the in-habited world had in fact already been undercut in the iambic descrip-tion of Greece by Dionysius, son of Kalliphon (vv. 124–5),28

%kkai d’ eQs·m 1m

Jq¶tgi pºkeir, t²r 1stim 1qc_der vq²sai jtk.

There are other cities in Crete, of which it would be tedious to tell …

but epic hexameters do not perhaps always allow such honesty. Be thatas it may, in discussing vv.648–9 (quoted above), Eustathius notes thatthese verses illustrate t¹ pawuleq]r (‘the broad brush approach’) in Di-

27 Xenophon, Mem. 1.4.17 is a very interesting part of the intellectual history ofthis idea.

28 Cf. Marcotte (1990).

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire726

onysius’s poem and refers to Hesiod’s very similar remark about rivers,the children of Ocean, at Theogony 369–70:

t_m emol’ !qcak´om p²mtym bqot¹m %mdqa 1mispe ?m,oR d³ 6jastoi Usasim, fsoi peqimaiet²ousi.

It is hard for a mortal man to relate the names of all of them, but those wholive around each of them knows that name.

This Hesiodic plea of difficulty, which itself is obviously related to theinvocation before the Homeric Catalogue, has been taken over by Di-onysius to provide an authorising model for his inability; at the sametime, Dionysius has drawn from the Hesiodic text the inference thatnot only are individual river names known only to those who dwellby them, but it is also only to them that these names are of interest.

As is well recognised, Dionysius’s final plea of inability to encompassthe boundless diversity of his material (vv. 1166–80, partly quotedabove) is heavily indebted to the Phainomena of Aratus, particularly tothe proem:29 a ‘world full of Zeus’ becomes at the end of the poem a‘world full of Aratus’. Moreover, in now stressing that only the godscan do everything ‘easily’ (1169), Dionysius goes back to Aratus’ prin-cipal forerunner, the ‘Hymn to Zeus’ which opens Hesiod’s Works andDays.30 In an extraordinary poetic move, Dionysius makes his own in-ability to be ‘comprehensive’, itself a familiar topos of ‘didactic’ poetry,31

a confirmation of the divine order: the stars offer a stable (5lpeda) basis,but all else is diversity and, so we may suppose, change. That diversity is‘literally’ expressed through the sound-play of 1167, %kkoi d’ 5mha ja·

5mha jat’ Ape¸qour !kºymtai, an effect which Dionysios may in facthave derived from Phain. 1101–2:32

ovty c±q loceqo· ja· !k¶lomer %kkohem %kkoif¾olem %mhqypoi jtk.

So it is that we men live in struggle, all of us wandering in different places.

For Aratus the stars are helpful signs established by god for suffering menand are themselves signs of divine pity and care; Dionysius has taken this

29 Cf., e. g., Effe (1977) 192–3, Jacob (1990) 73–4.30 On the didactic use of this topos cf. above p. 724–5.31 Cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004) 233–5.32 Commentators ad loc. note Od. 17.376, !k¶lom´r eQsi ja· %kkoi.

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 727

one stage further so that human and geographic diversity is itself a signof divine care. Just as, however, the Phainomena itself is a sign of Zeus’scare,33 so too the Periegesis takes its place in the wider scheme of things:it is not, after all, merely erudition for the sake of erudition.

3.

Christian Jacob has rightly focused our attention upon Dionysius’s en-thusiasm for the acquisition of knowledge about the world, a knowl-edge whose principal importance seems to lie, not in any practical useto which it may be put, but rather in the fact that it can be displayedto others, with consequent gains for one’s status and esteem (172–3,884–6).34 Dionysius here seems to represent a development, whichwe might be tempted to call ‘scholastic’, from the ‘Hesiodic’ rhetoric,in which poetry has important practical consequences for the addresseein his every day life (WD passim, and esp. the conclusion, vv. 826–8).This is the rhetoric to which Aratus in the Phainomena remains commit-ted, and which Nicander echoes, while in fact subverting it:

Ne ?a j´ toi loqv²r te s¸mg t’ akyv¾ia hgq_m!pqoid/ t¼xamta k¼sim h’ 2teqakj´a j¶deur,v¸k’ gEqlgsi²man, pok´ym jud¸state pa_m,5lpeda vym¶saili7 s³ d’ #m pok¼eqcor !qotqe¼rbouja ?ºr t’ !k´coi ja· aqoit¼por, ewte jah’ vkgmC ja· !qotqe¼omti b²kgi 5pi koic¹m adºmta,to ?a peqivqash´mtor !kengt¶qia mo¼sym.

(Nicander, Theriaca 1–7)

Readily, dear Hermesianax, most honoured of my many kinsmen, and indue order will I expound the forms of savage creatures and their deadly in-juries which smite one unforeseen, and the countering remedy for theharm. And the toiling ploughman, the herdsman, and the woodcutter,whenever in forest or at the plough one of them fastens its deadly fangupon him, shall respect you for your learning in such means for avertingsickness.

The peasant farmer or agricultural labourer may ‘respect’ (!k´ceim) Her-mesianax for his learning, but that learning will do them no good: when

33 Cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004) 225.34 Cf. Jacob (1982) 229.

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire728

the snakebite comes, the illiterate will only be able to wish that they toohad read Nicander.35

In the representation of the desire to accumulate ‘knowledge’, Cal-limachus has an importance for Dionysius as the poet of intellectual en-quiry, beyond the echoing of individual passages and phrases and be-yond even his status as the ‘Alexandrian’ poet par excellence. The pressingneed for ‘facts’ finds its strongest (and perhaps wittiest) expression in1053, eQ d´ se ja· P´qsar Qd´eim ckuj»r Vleqor aRqe ?, ‘if sweet desire toknow also of the Persians seizes you’, where the sexual desire of aParis (cf. Il. 3.446) or a Zeus (cf. Il. 14.328) is translated into a cravingto know, indeed to ‘see’ (Qd´eim) the Persians, a craving which will besatisfied only by the ‘vision’ which an ecphrastic verbal account (aqd¶-saili, 1054) can offer.36 Such a naively scholastic enthusiasm finds nobetter parallel than the voice of the Aitia, in which the childlike enthu-siasm of the poet revels in the display of his own erudition.37 Particularlyclose to the tone of v. 1053 is the narrator’s plea to the Ikian stranger atAitia fr. 178.21–2 (= 89.21–2 Massimilla):

fssa d’ 1le ?o s´hem p²qa hul¹r !joOsaiQwa¸mei, t²de loi k´nom …

‘All that my spirit yearns to learn from you, tell me this …’

Here the emotive gloss Qwa¸mei (‘yearns’) lends to the poet’s wish (to hearabout the traditions of a small Aegean island) something of the same im-balance of the ‘sweet desire’ for Persian ethnography which Dionysiusimputes to his pupil.38 Both Callimachus and Dionysius derive (atleast much of) their information from books, as Dionysius all but ac-knowledges when he explains why he is able to describe the Caspiansea, although he has never been there, as – like Hesiod (and Callima-chus) – he is not one for long sailing trips:

35 If Hermesianax was a doctor (cf. Theriaca 495–6, Jacques [2002] lxix-lxx), thiswill obviously be important for the interpretation of the proem; nevertheless, itis unlikely that many poor rustics were included in Hermesianax’s patients.

36 Vox (1999) 172 notes that there is also an authorising didactic precedent inHesiod, Works and Days 618, eQ d´ se mautik¸gr duspelv´kou aRqe ?.

37 For discussion of Callimachus’ curiosity cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004)59–60.

38 On this passage of the Aitia cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter (2004) 77–83; forQwa¸mei cf. ibid. 80 n. 143.

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 729

!kk² le Lous²ym voq´ei mºor, aVte d¼mamtaimºsvim !kglos¼mgr pokkµm ûka letq¶sashaiouqea t’ Epeiqºm te ja· aQheq¸ym bd¹m %stqym.

(Dion. Per. 715–17)

But I am transported by the mind of the Muses, who without aimless wan-dering can measure the vast sea and the mountains, the continent and thepath of the stars through the air.

Hesiod too held the Muses responsible for his ability to reveal the Fgm¹rmºom aQciºwoio, ‘mind of aegis-bearing Zeus’, despite his very limitedexperience of ships (WD 661–2), but for Dionysius it is the ‘mind ofthe Muses’ which ‘transports’ him, as others recklessly put their livesat risk in ‘transporting’ goods by sea. The development from the Hes-iodic formulation may make us think of the ‘shamanistic’ experiencesof an Aristeas of Proconessus,39 but it marks in fact the scholasticbook-learning which lies behind Dionysius’s work; the Muses here em-body, as they often do, ‘education’: Eustathius rightly glosses the ‘mindof the Muses’ as aR 1j t_m lah¶seym cm¾seir, ‘the knowledge whichcomes from education’ (p. 343.29–30 Müller). Dionysius’s way of writ-ing, the plundering, dismantling, and recombination of earlier poets andprose-writers, displays his mastery of the task in hand. This is Hesiodseen through the lens of the long tradition of Hellenistic antiquarian po-etry and prose, and a long debate – in which Polybius’ scathing criticismof Timaios is one of the prominent landmarks – about the relative meritof learning based on research from books and that from first-hand ex-perience, but it is again Callimachus of whom we may be tempted tothink.

At the opening of the Aitia Callimachus dreamt that he encounteredthe Muses on Mt Helicon, a dream described by one ancient witness as‘raising Callimachus from Libya to Helicon and transporting him(Ecacer … v´qym) into the midst of the Muses’ (AP 7.42.5–6); Diony-sius, then, is not merely the new Hesiod, he is also the new Callimachus,who can be an ‘Odysseus’ without leaving the library or, as Dionysiushimself puts it, mºsvim !kglos¼mgr.40 The topos had been laid out ex-

39 Cf. Jacob (1990) 26.40 For Callimachus as an ‘Odysseus’ in the Aitia cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter

(2004) 78–80. There are suggestive remarks about the ‘global’ outlook of Cal-limachus’s prose works in Lelli (2002).

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire730

plicitly more than two centuries before by ‘Pseudo-Scymnus’,41 which,in an echo of the opening of the Odyssey,42 offers its reader:

oqw· tµm ûOduss´yr!maden²lemor, ¦r vasim oR lOhoi, pk²mgm,1p· t/r Qd¸ar d³ jatal´mym eqdailºmyr,oqw· lºmom 2teqºvukom !mhq¾pym b¸om,1hm_m fkym cm¾set’ %stg ja· mºlour. (vv. 98–102)

Not undertaking the wanderings of Odysseus, of which the myths tell, butremaining happily in his own land, he will know not only the varying lifeof men, but the cities and customs of all peoples.

It may be the figure of Odysseus before the Phaeacians (cf. Od. 11.3681pistal´myr jat´kenar) who also resonates in Dionysius’s offer to hispupil at 884–6 (already cited above):43

eQ c²q loi s²va t¶mde jatavq²ssaio j´keuhom,G t²wa j#m %kkoisim 1pistal´myr !coqe¼oirja· potalo»r pok¸ym te h´sim ja· ca ?am 2j²stgm.

If you can form a clear vision of this path, then perhaps you could give aknowing account to others also of the rivers and the situation of the citiesand of every land.

If Dionysius nowhere more closely specifies the nature of ‘the mind ofthe Muses’, this is in accord with the high generic demands of hexam-eter poetry. We may contrast not merely Callimachus’ occasional nam-ing of his sources in the elegiac Aitia, but more particularly the listing ofnamed sources in the proem to the iambic ‘Pseudo-Scymnus’ (vv. 109–27) and the more general reference to pakaio· succqave ?r ‘ancientwriters’ in the proem of Dionysius, son of Kalliphon (v. 9). The ‘high-est’ genre imposes the most ‘sublime’ standards, and it is indeed the au-thor of On the Sublime who can shed important light upon Dionysius’claims. In his famous discussion of the difference between the inconsis-tency of achievement often visible in the most sublime writers and theflawless mediocrity of others, ‘Longinus’ comments on the innatehuman desire for the grand and the paradoxical :

41 Cf. this volume 503–22.42 The Zenodotean mºlour is noteworthy, cf. Nicolai (1991), Marcotte (2000)

155.43 Cf. above p. 724.

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 731

‘What then was the vision which inspired those divine writers who dis-dained exactness of detail and aimed at the greatest prizes in literature?Above all else, it was the understanding that nature made man to be nohumble or lowly creature, but brought him into life and into the universeas into a great festival, to be both a spectator and an enthusiastic contestantin its competitions. She implanted in our minds from the start an irresistibledesire for anything which is great and, in relation to ourselves, supernatural.

The universe therefore is not wide enough for the range of humanspeculation and intellect. Our thoughts often travel beyond the boundariesof our surroundings. If anyone wants to know what we born for, let himlook around at life and contemplate the splendour, grandeur, and beautyin which it everywhere abounds. It is a natural inclination that leads usto admire not the little streams, however pellucid and however useful,but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and above all the Ocean. Nor dowe feel so much awe before the little flame we kindle, because it keepsits light clear and pure, as before the fires of heaven, though they areoften obscured. We do not think our flame more worthy of admirationthan the craters of Etna, whose eruptions bring up rocks and whole hillsout of the depths, and sometimes pour forth rivers of the earth-born spon-taneous fire. A single comment fits all these examples: the useful and nec-essary are readily available to man, it is the unusual that always excites ourwonder.’

(‘Longinus’, De subl. 35.2–5, trans. D.A. Russell)

The combination of intellectual speculation going beyond the con-straints of our surroundings and the extraordinary power of great riversto excite our admiration may well remind us of Dionysius’ claims: this isno ordinary text, but one which lays claim to the highest purposes ofliterature. As for the fact that the most sublime writers reject akribeiaas an ideal, we have already noted Eustathius’ correct identification ofDionysius’ ‘broad brush approach’, which does not, of course, meanthat Dionysius is not concerned for the accuracy of his account (cf.esp. vv. 895–6). Nevertheless, there is a clear contrast with the claimswhich ‘Pseudo-Scymnus’ makes to Nicomedes:

1j t_m spoq²dgm c±q Rstoqgl´mym tis·m1m 1pitol/i soi c´cqava t±r !poij¸arjt¸seir te pºkeym, t/r fkgr te c/r swed¹mfs’ 1st· pkyt± ja· poqeut± t_m tºpym.to¼tym d’ fsa l³m eusgl² t’ 1st· ja· sav/1p· jevaka¸ou sumtel½m 1jh¶solai,fsa d’ 1st·m aqt_m oq sav_r 1cmysl´ma,b jat± l´qor taOt’ 1najqib¾sei kºcor,¦ste, basikeO, t¹m p²mta t/r oQjoul´mgr

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire732

5weim se peqioqisl¹m 1pitetlgl´mom jtk.(Periodos to Nicomedes 65–74)

Using the scattered researches of others, I have written you a short accountof the colonies, the foundations of cities, and the places accessible by sea orland over almost the entire world. I will set out for you in brief the impor-tant and certain facts about these places, noting the essential ; things whichare not clearly known will be examined in careful detail. Therefore, King,you will have a complete abbreviated survey of the entire inhabited world.

The repeated stress in the proem of ‘Scymnus’ upon the sapheneia of thecomic trimeter (vv. 3, 11, 34) is in keeping with these claims to akri-beia :44 this is the closest which poetry gets to the detail and clarity ofprose. The distinction which ‘Scymnus’ makes between the style andmetre of his work, on the one hand, and its subject, on the other, pointsin the same direction. Style and metre are a deliberate choice made sub-sequently to the choice of subject: the reasons for the choice of ‘comictrimeter’ are its clarity of expression, its power to involve and lead thehearer (psychagogia, v. 4), and the fact that it aids memory and retention(vv. 33–44).45 Such a distinction is entirely foreign to the claims of theepic tradition into which Dionysius places himself : the Muses provideboth grand subject and grand style – the two are not to be separated.

Bibliography

U. Bernays, 1905. Studien zu Dionysius Periegetes, HeidelbergB. Effe, 1977. Dichtung und Lehre, MunichM. Fantuzzi and R. Hunter, 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry,

CambridgeS. Hinds, 1998. Allusion and Intertext, CambridgeN. Hopkinson, 1984. ‘Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus’ Classical Quarterly 34: 139–

48R. Hunter, 1989. Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica, Book III, Cambridge— 2002. ‘Theocritus and the style of cultural change’ in H. Yunis (ed.), Written

Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece (Cambridge) 213–34[= this volume 434–56]

44 Cf. Hunter (2002).45 The simile of the bundle of wood ‘tied together’ by metre which ‘Scymnus’

cites from Apollodorus obviously exploits the use of vkg for the ‘subject matter’of a literary work, cf. , e. g., Hinds (1998) 11–14.

39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 733

— 2003. ‘Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius’ in D.Accorinti and P. Chuvin (eds.), Des g�ants Dionysos: M�langes de mythologieet po�sie grecque offerts Francis Vian (Alessandria) [= this volume 700–17]

C. Jacob, 1982. ‘Le sujet et le texte. Sur l’identité de Denys le Périégète’ Lalies4: 215–39

– 1990. La description de la terre habit�e de Denys d’Alexandrie ou la leÅon de g�o-graphie, Paris

J.-M. Jacques, 2002. Nicandre, Oeuvres, Tome II, ParisK. Kuiper, 1896. Studia Callimachea I, Leiden.E. Lelli, 2002. ‘Il fantastico Atlante di Callimaco’ in E. Lelli (ed.), Arma virum-

que. Studi di poesia e storiagrafia in onore di Luca Canali (Pisa/Rome) 31–40.J. C. McKeown, 1987. Ovid: Amores, Vol. I, LiverpoolH. Maehler, 1993. ‘Die Scholien der Papyri in ihren Verhältnis zu den Scho-

liencorpora der Handschriften’ in F. Montanari (ed.), La philologie grecque l’�poque hell�nistique et romaine (Vandoeuvres-Geneva) 95–141

D. Marcotte, 1990. Le po�me g�ographique de Dionysios, fils de Calliphon, Louvain—2000. G�ographes Grecs, Tome I, ParisD. Meyer, 1998. ‘Zur Funktion geographischer Darstellungen bei Apollonios

Rhodios und in der “Perihegese an Nikomedes (Ps.-Skymnos)”’ in AntikeNaturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption (Trier) 61–81

—2001. ‘Apollonius as a Hellenistic geographer’ in T. D. Papanghelis and A.Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden) 217–35

R. Nicolai, 1991. ‘Zenodoto e Pseudo-Scymno (Hom. Od. 1,3)’ Rivista di filo-logia e istruzione classica 119: 181–7

M. D. Reeve, 1996/7. ‘A rejuvenated snake’ Acta Antiqua Hungarica 37: 245–58

C. Reitz, 1996. Zur Gleichnistechnik des Apollonios von Rhodos, FrankfurtI. Rutherford, 2001. Pindar’s Paeans, OxfordM. Schneider, 1882. De Dionysii Periegetae arte metrica et grammatica, Diss. LeipzigI. Tsavari, 1990. DIOM£SIO£ AKENAMDQEYS OIJO£LEMGS PEQIGCGSIS,

IoanninaO. Vox. 1999. ‘Noterelle di epica ellenistica’ Rudiae 11: 163–72—2002. ‘Dionigi Alessandrino e Apollonio Rodio: cornici innodiche’ Lexis 20:

153–70.

Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire734

The Ancient Novel

40. History and Historicity in the Romance ofChariton*

Uniquely among the Greek romances which survive in a manuscripttradition, Chaireas and Callirhoe1 is in one obvious sense ga historicalnovel’.2 Set in the period following the failure of the Athenian expedi-tion to Sicily and filled with characters whose names and positions cor-respond to those of historical characters, the work, at one level, seeks toevoke a world long past, whatever date between c. 100 B. C. and c. 150A. D. we may wish to give to the romance itself.3 In this essay I wish toconsider how Chariton uses this sense of the past as a constitutive featureof his work, and how he uses his readers’ awareness of the differencesbetween his narrative and historiography (of all kinds) as a literary strat-agem of considerable sophistication to advertise the romance’s virtuesand generic affiliations.

* W. Haase and H. Temporini (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der rçmischen Welt II34.2 (Berlin/New York 1994) 1055–86

1 I use this title because it is found in the only manuscript of the work and is fa-miliar, although what little other evidence there is — the conclusion of thework, tos\de peq· Jakkiq|gr sum]cqaxa, P. Michaelidae I, where the work ap-pears to be cited as t± peq· Jakkiq|gm digc^lata, and perhaps Persius 1.134 hismane edictum, post prandia Callirhoen do — perhaps points rather to ‘Callirhoe’ orthe ‘tales (digc^lata) concerning Callirhoe’, vel sim. For further discussion cf.Plepelits 28–9, Hunter 1–2.

2 Cf. Hägg (1987). It is, however, clear that antiquity knew more than one suchwork; most important for the study of Chariton are the remains of the Romanceof Metiochus and Parthenope, in which the heroine was the daughter of Polycratesof Samos and the hero the son of Miltiades of Athens, cf. G. Maehler, ‘Der Me-tiochos-Parthenope-Roman’, ZPE 23 (1976) 1–20, and T. Hägg, ‘Metiochusat Polycrates’ court’, Eranos 83 (1985) 92–102.

3 The question of the date has been amply treated elsewhere by Plepelits 4–9 andRuiz Montero (1980) and (1987) 89. Papyri forbid a date much later than c.160 A. D., cf. Lucke.

I. The Historiographical Frame

Of the central characters of the work the following are readily identifi-able in history:4

a) Hermocrates, the father of Callirhoe, was the Syracusan politicianwho organised the successful opposition to the Athenians.

b) Artaxerxes, the Persian king, is clearly Artaxerxes II Mnemon, whoruled 404–358 B.C., and is the subject of one of Plutarch’s Lives.

c) Stateira, the Persian queen to whom Chariton assigns a major role, isknown from historical sources as the wife of Artaxerxes II.

Some minor characters also have names drawn from history, while theiractual identity has been distorted: Bias, the strategos of Priene (4.5.7,5.6.8), presumably owes his name not only to its appropriateness for acommander (‘Man of Force’), but also to Bias of Priene, one of theSeven Wise Men of archaic Greece; Pharnaces, the Lydian satrap,bears a name familiar from various eastern potentates;5 Rhodogoune,the beautiful Persian eclipsed and then befriended by Callirhoe, isknown from Plutarch, Artax. 27.7, as the name of one of Artaxerxes’daughters; Rhodogoune’s father, Zopyros, and her husband, Megaby-zos, presumably reflect the Persian Megabyzos, son of Zopyros, in Thu-cydides 1.109; so too, many critics have wanted to see in Ariston,Chaireas’ father and a political opponent of Hermocrates (1.1.3), a char-acter derived from Ariston of Corinth, a clever and resourceful admiralon the Syracusan side in the fighting with the Athenians (cf.Thuc. 7.39.2; Plutarch, Nicias 25.4; Diod. Sic. 13.10.2). Somewhat dif-ferent is the case of the wicked son of the tyrant of Rhegium (1.2.2),who draws colour from the reference in the sixth book of Thucydides– a crucial text for Chariton – to an early tyrant of that city, Anaxilas(Thuc. 6.4.6).

The central characters themselves, Chaireas and Callirhoe, take useven further away from ‘real’ history. The heroine has been connected6

with a daughter of Hermocrates, whose name is not recorded, whomarried the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse; according to Plutarch(Dion 3; cf. Diod. Sic. 13.112), this woman was so physically abused

4 The historical setting of the narrative has been much studied, cf. Perry (1930)100–2; Plepelits 14–19; Salmon; Zimmermann; Scarcella 344–52.

5 Cf. D. Miller, RE 19.2 (1938) 1849–53, s.v. Pharnakes.6 Cf. Perry (1930) 101–2; Plepelits 30–2.

The Ancient Novel738

by Syracusans hostile to her husband that she committed suicide. Thesimilarities between this story, which presumably involves rape and sex-ual outrage of various kinds7, and Chaireas’ kick to his wife’s stomach,which leads to her premature burial, may appear small, but both concerntyranny and in both stress is laid upon the wrong-doers as an unholyband of plotters.8 It is, therefore, not unlikely that traditions concerningthis woman lie behind the figure of Callirhoe, particularly as she toomarries a man called Dionysius. As for Chaireas, no single historicalcharacter has moulded his presentation, in which rhetorical and novel-istic influences predominate,9 but two historical models may be partic-ularly important in shaping his bold and imaginative generalship as hefights on the side of the Egyptian revolt in Books 7 and 8. Traditionsconcerning Alexander the Great’s siege of Tyre in 333/2 B.C. haveclearly influenced Chaireas’ successful stratagem for taking the samecity in the romance (7.3–4),10 and the suggestion that Chariton hasalso been influenced by the figure of the Athenian admiral Chabriasis an attractive one.11 Chabrias, whose name is very like that of Chari-ton’s hero, commanded the Egyptian fleet in the attack upon Syriamounted by the Egyptian king Tachos in 360 B.C., during the reignof Artaxerxes II, and it is likely enough that he too is evoked by Chair-eas’ exploits. No single historical event, however, lies behind the Egyp-tian revolt portrayed by Chariton, which rather combines many differ-ent traditions into a plausible combination.

Scholars have long since collected the anachronisms which it is notdifficult to find in Chariton’s presentation of the historical setting.12

Thus, the reign of Artaxerxes II did not quite overlap with the life,let alone the period of greatest influence, of Hermocrates who diedin 408/7 B.C.; Miletus only became a Persian possession in 386B.C.; the use of the theatre for public assemblies (1.1.12, 8.7.1) reflectslate Hellenistic, rather than classical, practice, and so on. Most striking of

7 Plutarch writes of “terrible physical outrages contrary to nomos” deim±r ja·

paqam|lour vbqeir.8 Diodorus presents the attack upon Dionysius’ wife as a ‘pledge of their com-

mon cause for the attack upon Dionysius’. Cf. Chariton’s presentation of themutually suspicious suitors finally making common cause in order to attackChaireas (1.2.1).

9 Cf. below pp. 765–70.10 Cf. Zimmermann 343; Plepelits 17–18.11 Cf. Salmon, and already W. Bartsch 5 and Rohde 523 n. 2.12 Cf. Plepelits 14–15; Scarcella 347–9; Hägg (1987) 196.

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 739

all perhaps, from a modern perspective, is the way that the romancetreats the failure of the Athenians at Syracuse and the defeat of Athensas virtually identical events. None of these anachronisms, however, actsas an obvious ‘foreign body’ within the narrative, as – to take an ex-treme case – space technology would in a modern historical novel setin the nineteenth century.13 The picture of the classical period whichChariton paints is consistent and, in its own terms, plausible enough.As Hägg has put it, “accuracy and authenticity in historical fiction is… to be seen in relation not to historical reality, but to the picture ofan age which writer and reader share from reading the same historybooks. For instance, Chariton’s image of the Great King and hiscourt … will have impressed his contemporary readers as authentic aslong as it did not manifestly depart from the image given by Herodotus,Xenophon, and Ctesias. It is completely irrelevant that we happen toknow better”.14 At one level this is obviously true, but at another itwill become clear that Chariton exploits his readers’ superior knowledgeof history to create sophisticated effects which play with notions of truthand fiction. In other words, the general ‘plausibility’ of the historical set-ting nevertheless leaves a gap in our willingness to accept it, and it is thisgap with which Chariton teases us.

Together with the use of historical traditions in shaping the charac-ters goes an important debt to historiography in certain crucial scenes.Thus, the participation of the whole people at the launching of thesearch-vessel from Syracuse, and the mixture of emotions which attendsthe event (3.5.2–3), recall, appropriately enough, Thucydides’ descrip-tion of the launching of the Athenian expedition aimed at the destruc-tion of Syracusan freedom (6.30–1), and – though this may be morespeculative – the return of Chaireas and Callirhoe in triumph (8.6)seems to reflect accounts of Alcibiades’ triumphant return to Athensfrom Samos in 407 B.C.15 Alcibiades, of course, had been intimatelyconnected with Syracusan fortunes, and Chaireas is explicitly comparedto him at 1.1.3.16 The grim choice placed before Callirhoe at 6.7.7 by

13 Perhaps the best candidate is the reference at 2.1.6 to “Adrastus, who has thegreatest experience of law”; here it is tempting to suspect some kind of privatejoke by Chariton, the lawyer’s clerk. Even if this is correct, however, the effectis not of jarring anachronism.

14 Hägg (1987) 196.15 For this return cf. Duris, FGrHist 76F 70; Diod. Sic. 13.68.2–3; Plutarch,

Alcib. 32; Athenaeus 12.535c–d.16 On this passage cf. below p. 765–6.

The Ancient Novel740

the king’s eunuch Artaxates – sleeping with the king in return for mag-nificent gifts and the husband of her choice or horrible torture fromwhich death would be a longed-for release —17 inevitably recalls thechoice of death or empire (and a wife) which Candaules’ wife laid be-fore Gyges (Hdt. 1.11.2). We therefore measure Callirhoe’s nobility ofmind against Gyges’ understandable decision to commit an ‘immoral’act for personal advantage.18 It is, however, not Herodotus, but Xeno-phon’s Anabasis which provided the model for Chariton’s narrative ofGreek mercenaries engaged in a revolt against Artaxerxes II.

Throughout the central ‘Persian’ books of the romance, with theirconcern with the details of Persian policy-making, court arrangementsand military organisation,19 the pervasive influence of Herodotus andXenophon (particularly the Cyropaideia) is clearly felt ; these authorsare also commonly recalled at the level of the individual word andphrase.20 Particularly to be regretted in this connection is the loss ofthe twenty-three colourful books of Ctesias’ Persica, which (despite Plu-tarch’s disparagement of Ctesias)21 served as a major source for Plu-tarch’s Life of Artaxerxes. The only extensive fragment of Ctesias’ ownwords which survives is of particular interest for the study of Chariton:

1c½ l³m se 5sysa ja· s» di’ 1l³ 1s~hgr . 1c½ d³ di± s³ !pyk|lgm ja·!p]jteima aqt¹r 1laut|m . oq c\q lo_ su 1bo}kou waq_sashai

. 1c½ d³taOta t± jaj± ja· t¹m 5qyta … oqj aqt¹r eRk|lgm . b d³ he¹r owt|r 1stimjoim¹r ja· so· ja· %pasim !mhq~poisim … 1c½ c±q soi jataq\solai l³moqd]m, 1pe}nolai d] soi tµm dijaiot\tgm eqw^m . eQ l³m s» 1l³ d_jaia 1po_g-sar…

“I saved you and it was by me that you were saved. But I have been ruinedby you and have killed myself, because you were unwilling to grant meyour favours. I did not of myself choose these evils and this passion, butthis god is one in whom you and all mankind share… I will call down

17 Chariton seems to have taken this motif from Xenophon, Anab. 3.1.29 “[thosewho rebelled against the king] are being beaten, tortured, outraged and thepoor wretches cannot even die, though they desire to”.

18 4.2, in which Chaireas and Polycharmus are saved from crucifixion, perhapsowes something to Herodotus 1.86 (Croesus on the pyre).

19 Good examples at 4.6.5 (the king consults his philoi), 5.2.2 (each satrap has theirown set of quarters in the capital city, Babylon), 5.4.5 (the location of the royalcourt), 6.8.7 (Cyrus’ arrangements for military contributions).

20 Cf. Papanikolaou 17–21; his list of ‘borrowings’, however, contains both plau-sible and very implausible examples.

21 “Ctesias stuffed his work with all manner of unconvincing and crazy stories”(Artax. 1.2).

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 741

no curses on your head, but will make this prayer on you behalf, the fairestthat can be: if you had acted justly by me …” (POxy. 2330, trans. C. H.Roberts)

This letter, from a man to a woman whom he believes to have wrongedhim, can hardly fail to recall Chaireas’ letter to Callirhoe at 4.4.7–10:

h\matov l³m c±q %mhqypor £m pqosed|jym, t¹m d³ s¹m c\lom oqj Ekpisa.!kk’ Rjete}y, letam|gsom. jatasp]mdy to}tym lou t_m cqall\tym

d\jqua ja· vik^lata. … !kk± 1fgkot}pgsa. toOto Udi|m 1sti vikoOmtor.d]dyj\ soi d_jar. 1pq\hgm, 1do}keusa, 1d]hgm. lµ loi lmgsijaj^sgir toOkajt_slator toO pqopetoOr· j!c½ c±q 1p· stauq¹m !m]bgm di± s] , so·lgd³m 1cjak_m. eQ l³m owm 5ti lmglome}seiar, oqd³m 5pahom . eQ d³ %kko ti vqo-me ?r, ham\tou loi d~seir !p|vasim.

“I expected death, as I am a man, but I never imagined that you wouldmarry. But I beg you, change your mind. Over these words I pour outto you my tears and my kisses. … I was jealous: lovers are. I have paidyou full requital : I was sold, I was enslaved, I bore chains. Do not bearagainst me a grudge for my hasty kick; for you I have been placed upona cross, but I uttered no reproach against you. If you still remember me,my sufferings are nothing; but if this is not how you feel, you will con-demn me to death.”

Stylistically, Chaireas’ letter falls somewhere between the passage ofCtesias and the mannerism of Cleitophon’s letter to Leucippe at AchillesTatius 5.20.5 – it is in fact not unlike the letter of Leucippe herself at5.18.3–6 – but the similarities are sufficient to emphasise how muchthe Persica might have told us both about Chariton, and about the de-velopment of the romance in general.

One significant trend in Greek historiography after the classical pe-riod was away from the self-proclaimed austerity of a Thucydides andtowards a more overtly dramatic, emotional and rhetorical style aimedclearly at delighting and moving readers.22 The links between this

22 A very selective bibliography: F. Wehrli, ‘Die Geschichtsschreibung im Lichteder antiken Theorie’, in: Eumusia: Festgabe f�r H. Howald (Zurich, 1947)54–71; F. W. Walbank, ‘History and tragedy’, Historia 9 (1960), 216–34 (=Id., Selected Papers 224–31); Id., ‘Profit or amusement: some thoughts onthe motives of Hellenistic historians’, in: Purposes of History (Studia Hellenistica30, Leuven, 1990) 253–66; Wiseman; Woodman; E. Gabba, ‘True and falsehistory in classical antiquity’, JRS 71 (1981) 50–62. I am concerned herenor with what may or may not be true about Thucydides’ way of writing his-tory, but how ‘the idea of Thucydides’ can be used by later historians to demar-cate their own positions. A similar phenomenon is observable in the use byHellenistic and Roman poets of ‘the idea of Homer’.

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kind of writing, which we associate particularly with historians such asDuris and Phylarchus, and the romance of Chariton were thoroughlyinvestigated by Werner Bartsch. A classic program for this style isfound in the letter of Cicero (Ad fam. 5.12) in which Cicero asks Luc-ceius to write a monograph on his consulship. Cicero notes that thestory is full of the kind of exciting vicissitudes which are both worth de-scribing and which will delight readers, producing a mixture of amaze-ment, anxiety, joy, despair, hope and fear. It is obvious that at one levelChariton seeks to exploit a similar range of audience reaction, often bydescribing the emotions of the fictional onlookers or hearers.23 This de-vice is particularly prominent in the final book as Chaireas tells his taleto the admiring Syracusans, and cf. 3.4.1,

“everyone rushed to the shore, and there was a swirl of conflicting emo-tions as they wept, wondered, enquired and refused to believe, for thestrange tale had bowled them over (1n]pkgtte).”

So too, Cicero’s observation that

“if the historical account reaches a glorious conclusion, the mind is filled bya most delightful pleasure in reading” (Ad fam. 5.12.5)

inevitably recalls the introduction to Chariton’s final book:

mol_fy d³ ja· t¹ tekeuta ?om toOto s}ccqalla to ?r !macicm~sjousim Fdi-stom cem^seshai … oqj]ti kgiste_a ja· douke_a ja· d_jg ja· l\wg ja· !po-jaqt]qgsir ja· p|kelor ja· ûkysir, !kk± 5qyter d_jaioi 1m to}tyi ja· m|li-loi c\loi.

“I think that my readers will find this last book very delightful… There isno more piracy, slavery, trials, battles, suicide, war and conquest, but hon-ourable love and lawful marriage” (8.1.4).24

Two areas where similarities between Chariton and Hellenistic histori-ography are particularly clear are the didactic, moralising tone of thework – what in historiography is the important element of t¹

¡v]kilom – and its links with drama.The didactic, moralising flavour of Chaireas and Callirhoe is not hard

to illustrate. On one hand, the narrative is frequently punctuated bybrief gnomai which serve to confirm that the characters and their actionsconform to familiar human patterns: “a woman is easily caught whenshe imagines that she is loved” (1.4.2, not, of course, about Callirhoe);

23 Cf. Hägg (1971) 260.24 On this passage cf. below p. 754–5.

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“conscience is powerful and truth supreme” (3.4.13); “by nature bar-barians arc crazy about women” (5.2.6); “an unhappy man is easily de-ceived” (7.1.4). Such maxims are also sometimes expanded into length-ier disquisitions. Thus,

“by nature man clings to life and not even in the most desperate plight givesup hope of a change for the better; the creating (dgliouqc^samtor) god hasimplanted this instinct in everybody so that they cannot escape from themisery of life” (3.3.16).25

Here too we may also place the explanation of why Eros is depicted inliterature and the visual arts with a bow and a torch (4.7.6), a rational-ising explanation explicitly linked to the reflections of an educated man(!mµq pepaideul]mor).26

Certain important events in the romance are shaped in a didacticmould. That Theron’s comrades should die miserably of thirst, sur-rounded by undrinkable water and their ill-gotten but useless gains(3.3.11), has the stark moral clarity of a parable. On the other hand,Hermocrates’ refusal (3.4.15–16) to allow delay in Theron’s execution,although such delay might have assisted the search for his daughter, hasbeen criticised as a naive device for avoiding an early end to the narra-tive; in fact, however, it is a powerful manifestation of what is one ofthe principal themes of the work – the supremacy of the rule of lawover inequality and tyranny, and is an important defining act in the pre-sentation of Hermocrates’ position.27 Closely related to this theme aretwo others, the supremacy of Greeks and Greek culture over all thingsbarbarian, and of free men (particularly those of high birth) over slavesand those of low status.28 The former theme employs not merely the di-chotomy traditional in Greek thinking, but also the Thucydidean rep-resentation of the contrast between Periclean Athens and the otherGreek states. Thus Pericles’ proud assertion about the Athenian pursuit

25 The context is Theron threatened with death by thirst on his drifting ship. Thesentiment may be thought to sit oddly with Chaireas’ repeated (and repeatedlyunsuccessful) attempts at suicide, but it is in fact confirmed by his behaviourwhen enslaved in Caria, “though he wished to die, he was prevented by theslender hope that he might one day see Callirhoe again” (4.2.1).

26 For this explanation cf. Plutarch, Mor. fr. *135 Sandbach.27 Cf. below p. 763–4.28 Cf., e. g., 2.10.7 (Callirhoe well-born and ignorant of the cunning of slaves),

6.6.5 (the queen’s jealousy bound to be terrible, when even a Greek like Chair-eas fell victim to this emotion), 6.7.12 (the awe which barbarians feel for theGreat King); Zimmermann 331–3; Bowie 94; Fusillo 60–1.

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of beauty becomes a brusque dismissal of the Tyrians in the mouth of aSyracusan (!):

ak_coi ja· jatavqom^sei let’ !kafome_ar, oq vqom^lati let’ eqbouk_arwq~lemoi.

“they are few in number; disdain and bluster, not prudence and good plan-ning are their specialties” (7.3.9).29

These themes are most fully embodied in the characters of Artaxates, theGreat King’s eunuch, and Dionysius, the governor of Ionia who marriesCallirhoe. Artaxates, “a eunuch, a slave, a barbarian [who] knew noth-ing of Greek nobility of mind (vq|mgla :kkgmij¹m eqcem]r)” (6.4.10),imagines that Callirhoe will be willing to sleep with the King on a casualbasis (6.7.7). Dionysius, on the other hand, is an educated and sensitiveGreek in the service of the Persians, and, like the narrator himself,30 isable to see through Persian superstition to the ‘reality’ of events.31 Ather first meeting with him, Callirhoe appeals to Greek solidarity and pai-deia, and she uses the paradigm of the hospitality of the Homeric Alci-nous to win him over (2.5.10–11); Dionysius’ noble bearing in hisdarkest hour when the final truth that he has lost Callirhoe is revealedto him (8.5.10–15) shows him to be a worthy foster-father for herchild. This positive moral evaluation of Dionysius is reinforced by liter-ary echo: twice (2.7.4, 3.1.3) a dark, Homeric mist is said to descendover him when he receives amazing or frightening news. No othercharacter is affected in quite this way,32 and the device suggests notonly his sensibility, but also his ‘Greekness’: his behaviour is assimilatedto the most notable pattern of Greek heroics. In the end, however, hehas to settle for the Persian happiness of great political power (8.5.12),rather than the Greek ideal of homonoia towards which we are directed;Callirhoe’s request to him not to marry again (8.4.5, 8.5.15) makes thiscontrast very clear.

29 Cf. Thucyd. 2.40.1 vikojakoOl]m te c±q let’ eqteke_ar ja· vikosovoOlem %meu

lakaj_ar. The echo is noted by, inter alios, Perry (1930) 105 n. 17 and Anderson(1982) 18.

30 Cf. 6.8.3 (the outbreak of the revolt), “the rumour-mongers and the prophetssaid that the King’s dream had foretold what would happen”.

31 Cf. 6.2.7–8: Dionysius realises that the King has fallen in love and that his“dreams” are merely a pretence.

32 Other characters do, of course, suffer analogous shocks, cf. Callirhoe at 1.1.14etc.

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 745

One particular lesson dear to the heart of Hellenistic historians wasthe lower of Fortune, Tyche.33 Chariton’s characters constantly appeal toFortune, and the narrator himself makes repeated observations on therole of this tyrant “which is the only force against which human reason-ing (kocisl¹r !mhq~pou) has no power” (2.8.3), although its role with-in the narrative is carefully circumscribed. Of the major incidents of theromance, only Callirhoe’s pregnancy (2.8.3–4),34 the discovery of thepirate ship floating somewhere in the Mediterranean (3.3.8), the discov-ery by Dionysius’ men of the letters from Chaireas and Mithridates toCallirhoe (4.5.3), and the sudden revolt in Egypt which breaks offevents in Babylon (6.8.1) are explicitly ascribed by the narrator to theworkings of Fortune.35 The most extraordinary of these cases is clearlythe finding of Theron’s ship, and the narrator takes the opportunity toreflect upon the fact:

B l³m owv !mhqyp_mg bo^heia pamt\pasim Gm !shem^r, B t}wg d³ 1v~tisetµm !k^heiam, Hr wyq·r 5qcom oqd³m t]keiom

.

“Human aid was entirely ineffectual, but Fortune brought the truth tolight, Fortune without which no action may be brought to accomplish-ment” (3.3.8).

In a fictional literary narrative, ‘Fortune’ as a motive force will alwaysinvolve a negotiation between the author and readers who are awarethat in such a narrative even random ‘chance’ is planned;36 in the presentcase, Chariton’s wry acknowledgement of the devices of fiction createsa distance between himself and his narrative, such as is more often asso-ciated with Longus and Achilles Tatius. To this extent the effect differsfrom that of a historian who must ascribe to ‘Fortune’ events believed to

33 Cf. W. Bartsch 8–9; F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius I(Oxford, 1957) 16–26.

34 On this passage cf. below p. 758–9.35 1.1.6 (the first meeting of the lovers 1j t}wgr, but under the management of

Eros), and 7.2.2 (the finding in the Egyptian army of someone who spokeGreek jat± t}wgm) should perhaps be added. At 8.1.3 Aphrodite is said to over-turn Fortune’s wretched plans. On Fortune in the work cf. Laplace 101–112.

36 It may be objected that I assume a level of sophistication beyond that whichought to be assumed for Chariton’s readers (and can be demonstrated formany modern readers of fiction). I hope that the present essay will amply dem-onstrate Chariton’s ‘sophistication’, and that of his ‘implied reader’; I doubt thatwe know anything for certain about his real readers, but I see no reason toimagine that they did not appreciate what they were reading.

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be ‘real’, that is, whose ‘reality’ does not depend upon an imaginativeentering into a fictional world.

Like Hellenistic historiography, Chaireas and Callirhoe shows plainlythe influence of classical drama. In common with all the novelists, Char-iton frequently compares the action of his story to a drama,37 partly as adevice for enargeia, for helping his readers envisage the action he de-scribes:

t_r #m vq\sai jat’ !n_am 1je ?mo t¹ sw/la toO dijastgq_ou ; po ?or poigtµr1p· sjgm/r paq\donom lOhom ovtyr eQs^cacem ; 5donar #m 1m he\tqyi paqe ?-mai luq_ym pah_m pk^qei

.p\mta Gm bloO, d\jqua, waq\, h\lbor. 5keor,

!pist_a, eqwa_.

“Who could worthily describe the appearance of that court-room? Whichpoet has ever produced on the stage so extraordinary a happening? Youwould have thought yourself in a theatre awash with a myriad of mixedemotions – tears, joy, amazement, pity, disbelief, prayers; all were there,mingled together” (5.8.2).

There are also specific borrowings from classical drama. Chaireas’ kick38

resembles in both motive – angry jealousy – and narrative function thesoldier’s assault on Glycera’s hair in Menander’s Periceiromene39, andwhen Callirhoe spurns Dionysius’ love and he is unwilling to use hisforce, we are inevitably reminded of the situation of Thrasonides inMenander’s Misoumenos. Of particular interest is Dionysius’ complaintto Leonas at 2.6.1:

“I am completely wretched and hated (liso}lemor) by Eros. I have buriedmy wife, and the new slave, whom I hoped was Aphrodite’s gift to me,flees from me….”

Whether or not this is an explicit acknowledgement of debt to Menand-er, Chariton certainly does illustrate Dionysius’ later plight with a quo-tation from the Misoumenos (4.7.7 = Misoumenos A9 Turner). A furtherdebt to drama has been seen in the structure of the romance. Reitzen-stein40 divided Chaireas and Callirhoe into the canonical five ‘acts’ of

37 Cf., e. g., 1.4.2 (“the creator of the drama [against Chaireas] discovered a sec-ond actor …”); 1.4.8 (“that evil slanderer arranged the scene …”); 4.4.2 (“For-tune has imposed a miserable drama upon you…”); 6.3.6 (“she has preparedthis whole drama…”). For discussion of the matter in general cf. Kuch 17, Fu-sillo 34–6, 70.

38 For this scene of. below p. 765–70.39 Cf. Corbato; Borgogno.40 Cf. Reitzenstein 95–6.

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Hellenistic drama (1.1.1–3.2.17, 3.3.1–4, 5–6, 7, 8), and this has beenwidely, though not universally, accepted.41 Whether or not this repre-sents a pattern intended by Chariton, these divisions have nothing ex-cept their number in common with the dynamic structure of a Menan-drian comedy (at least as far as we are at present able to reconstructthis).42 The plot summaries prefaced to Books 5 and 8, clear marks ofliterary ‘closure’ at the ends of books,43 and the description of Book 8as ‘this final book (s}ccqalla)’ rather suggest a different division ofthe work, perhaps into individual books.

II. The Narrator’s Voice

A very marked characteristic of both the so-called ‘sophistic’ novelists,Longus, Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus, and of Petronius and Apuleiusis the literary self-consciousness of their narrative voice.44 With regardto Chariton’s narrative voice, recent critics have not been unanimous.Thus, for Arthur Heiserman “[Chariton’s] almost obsessive play withthe paradox and the intrigue, his arch comments about drama, recogni-tion, reversal, and catharsis, all suggest that his art derives as much fromtheories of narrative as from naive imitations of history”45; for GrahamAnderson on the other hand, “among the four competent (sic) narratorsChariton is probably the most anonymous, or rather the least obtrusive… the final effect is of the competent and economic presentation of aparticular story by a skilled storyteller, rather than one more example

41 Cf. Perry (1967) 141–3; Plepelits 13. For some valid objections cf. Müller119–20 and Kuch 20. Holzberg 53 proposes a fourfold division into pairs ofbooks (Callirhoe: Chaireas: Chaireas and Callirhoe: Chaireas), with each halfof the work occupying one papyrus roll.

42 For the internal structure and act-division of New Comedy cf. R. L. Hunter,The New Comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge, 1985) 35–42; Id., ‘Middlecomedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus’, Dioniso 57 (1987) 281–98 [= this vol-ume 627–42].

43 Book 1 closes with lamentation by Callirhoe and then sleep; Book 2 with herdecision to marry Dionysius; Book 4 with a decisive movement away fromIonia; Book 5 with grief and attempted suicide; Book 6 with war and the leav-ing of Babylon; Book 7 with the ‘suspense’ of the lovers in the same place butnot knowing it, and a meeting foreshadowed.

44 For Longus cf. Hunter; for Achilles Anderson (1982) 23–32, S. Bartsch; forHeliodorus Winkler and Morgan.

45 Heiserman 87.

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of the mannerisms of a genre”.46 The matter is important in the presentcontext, because our assessment of how Chariton exploits the historicalsetting and the historiographical frame of his work must be firmly root-ed in a more general consideration of literary self-consciousness.

Before turning to narrative voice proper, it is worth noting thatChariton has not inconsiderable stylistic and literary pretensions, suchas make the search for narrative self-consciousness a quite reasonableone.47 His clear and rhythmical prose is adorned with quotations fromepic, historiography and oratory, and with stylistic devices such as rhym-ing parallelisms,48 effective chiasmus,49 and alliteration.50 His style en-compasses extended metaphor – Dionysius’ emotional ‘storms and ship-wreck’ at 2.4.4 and 3.2.6 are part of a complex net of associations whichlink Callirhoe to the sea and to the goddesses who came from the sea,Thetis and, above all, Aphrodite —51 and simile.52 When the royal huntis described (6.4.2–4), artistically arranged cola, ring composition and acareful use of synonyms mark a raised level of style, in keeping with thegrandeur of the material and a subject we know to have been used in therhetorical schools.53 So too, we find a few conceits of which a second-century sophist would have been proud.54 There remains, of course, aconsiderable difference between the style of Chariton and that of, say,Achilles Tatius, but there is more than enough stylistic evidence ofthe ‘literary’ nature of Chariton’s work.

46 Anderson (1984) 36.47 Cf. Heibges, Papanikolaou, L. D. Reeve, ‘Hiatus in the Greek novelists’, CQ

21 (1971) 525–8.48 Cf. 5.9.8 di± t/r v}seyr eqst\heiam ja· di± paide_ar 1pil]keiam.49 Cf. 2.9.1 mij^sei syvqos}mgm cumaij¹r lgtq¹r vikostoqc_a.50 Cf. 2.4.4 of Dionysius’ suffering.51 Cf. 1.1.2, 1.14.1. 3.2.14–17, 4.7.8, 6.3.4, 8.6.11; below p. 760–1.52 Note especially 8.1.10: Chaireas and Callirhoe hear themselves addressed

(¦speq tim³r 1m vq]ati bahe ? bebaptisl]moi l|kir %myhem vymµm !jo}samter,“like people at the bottom of a deep well hear a faint voice from the top”).

53 Cf. Libanius 8.487–9 Foerster. For Chariton and rhetoric in general cf. Ander-son (1982) 19.

54 Cf. Chaireas’ mannered lament at 3.10.4 (probably echoing Plato, Symp. 180a I,208d2–4); toso}tyi d³ 5done jqe_ttym 2aut/r, fsyi t¹ pq|teqom t_m %kkym

cumaij_m, “Callirhoe seemed to surpass herself by as much as before she sur-passed other women” (5.5.8); Ap_stoum d³ flyr fti d}mata_ tir paq’ 1lo·

1loO cem]shai dumat~teqor, “I did not believe that anyone with me wouldbe powerful enough to have more power than me” (6.3.2).

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 749

Chariton overtly intervenes in the story in a number of ways.55 Hecan emphasise the marvellousness of an event by asking “Who couldproperly describe it”,56 urge upon us the value of his story, “it’sworth hearing what happened” (2.8.3), and stand outside the narrativeto guide our reactions, “I think that then even the king would havewanted to be Chaireas” (6.9.4). Authorial intrusions such as these arenotably absent from Longus and Achilles Tatius, and have been various-ly interpreted. Some critics see in them signs of Chariton’s close linkswith popular, oral story-telling of a kind far removed from the literaryfiction of the Second Sophistic.57 For others they indicate, in howeverrudimentary a way, the beginnings of self-conscious literary narration.58

These two views are, of course, not wholly incompatible. “It’s worthhearing what happened” is both naive and knowing in the way thatthe conclusion to the proem of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, lector intende:laetaberis, blends the traditions of sophisticated writer and oral fabulist.So too, the plot summaries which head Books 5 and 8 may be seenas borrowed from the techniques of oral narration, or as a specificallyliterary imitation of Xenophon’s Anabasis,59 depending upon which as-pect of the work one wishes to stress.

In a number of places Chariton calls attention to his work as a storyor a set of tales. Thus Callirhoe defends her silence before Dionysius onthe grounds that she does not wish “to seem a liar and to tell tales (dig-c^lata) which uninformed hearers would not believe” (2.5.9), and Di-onysius encourages her to speak with the assurance that “every splendidstory (kalpq¹m di^cgla) is less grand than you” (2.5.10). Even if wechoose not to believe that this last utterance not only refers to Callirhoe,the character in the fiction, but also hints at the telling of her story, i. e.Chariton’s Callirhoe, it is clearly a small step from such passages to themore obvious play of Longus and Achilles Tatius with the fictionalityof their narratives.60 After Polycharmus and Chaireas realise that the

55 Cf. Hägg (1971) 96, Fusillo 117–19, I. Stark in Kuch 98–9.56 Cf. 1.1.12, 1.6.2, 4.1.11, 5.6.2, 8.1.14, 8.4.I.57 Cf. Scobie 22–3.58 Cf. Stark 258.59 The summaries which introduce ‘Anabasis’ 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are spurious, but

probably pre-date Chariton.60 It is worth noting that digc^lata is used for both “true tales in the context of

the novel” (3.2.7, 3.4.1, 4.3.5) and “false tales in the context of the novel”(1.10.6, 2.4.7, 2.5.9 etc.); this is, of course, not surprising, but there aregood reasons to assume that Chariton has exploited this doubleness. In Xeno-

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king has left Babylon, they determine to join the rebels in the belief thatCallirhoe has been awarded to Dionysius. Polycharmus asserts that 5mdo-nom ja· to ?r vsteqom 1sol]moir di^cgla jatake_pomtar fti d}o >kkgmer

!dijgh]mter !mtek}pgsam t¹m l]cam basik]a ja· !p]hamom ¢r %mdqer, “itwill be glorious to leave behind for future generations the tale of howtwo Greeks who had been wronged paid the Great King back anddied as men” (7.1.8). To the Egyptian leader they quote the words ofHector when he realises that Athena has tricked him and that death isimminent:

lµ l±m !spoud_ ce ja· !jkei_r !poko_lgm,!kk± l]ca N]nar ti ja· 1ssol]moisi puh]shai.

“May I not die ignobly without a fight, but having done a great deed forfuture generations too to learn” (7.2.4, cf. Il. 22.304–5).

Such a concern for kleos finds a very appropriate home in the militarynarrative which dominates the last two books. It is in fact not onlymale characters who reveal this traditional concern with their fame. Arelated phenomenon is Callirhoe’s plaintive di^cgla ja· t/r )s_ar ja·t/r Eqq~pgr c]coma, “I have become a common story throughoutAsia and Europe” (5.5.3), and there is at least something wrily amusingin her wish (2.9.5) that her unborn child, when grown up, should go toSicily to tell his father and grandfather his mother’s story (t± t/r lgtq¹rdigc^sgi). How self-conscious these devices are in a work of prose fic-tion is an obvious subject for disagreement, but Apuleius too uses a ver-sion of this strategy when Charite promises Lucius that “the simple storyof ‘the princess escaping from captivity on an ass’ back’ will be listenedto in stories and kept alive by the pens of learned men” (Met. 6.29).61

The kleos of the fictional characters is the kleos of the fiction.Two particular passages of interest for this subject are Chariton’s di-

rect addresses to his readers which open and close the work and alsoclose the proem to the final book.

phon of Ephesus, also, characters refer to their past history as ‘my stories’ (t±1l± digc^lata), cf. 3.1.5, 3.2.15, 5.1.3, 5.9.7; here too it is significant thatevents exist not just ‘for themselves’, but to be narrated to an audience.

61 Cf. Hunter 44. Leucippe’s defiance of Thersander at Ach. Tat. 6.22.2–3 isclosely related to these examples: “You do not realise that your shamelessnesswill win me greater praise. If you kill me in your madness, people will say Leu-cippe was a virgin after the boukoloi, a virgin after Chaireas, a virgin even afterSosthenes …”.

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 751

Xaq_tym )vqodisie}r, )hgmac|qou toO N^toqor rpocqave}r, p\hor1qytij¹m 1m Suqajo}sair cem|lemom digc^solai, “Chariton of Aphrodi-sias, secretary to Athenagoras the lawyer, I shall recount a story of lovewhich took place in Syracuse”;62 tos\de peq· Jakkiq|gr sum]cqaxa,“such is my narrative concerning Callirhoe”. These two statementsframe the romance. In announcing himself at both ends of his workin this way, Chariton differs from Xenophon of Ephesus who, if thetext of what seems to be an epitome can be trusted, begins in mediisrebus and whose only formal conclusion is to end the work with thenames of his two lovers, and he stands closest to Longus, with whomhe is usually thought to have little in common. The style of the openingsentence is obviously intended to recall fifth-century historiography,hereby placing us in the proper atmosphere for this tale of Syracusan‘history’; Chariton’s most obvious models for this placing of nameand place of origin at the head of the work are Hecataeus, Herodotusand Thucydides. What we shall be reading, then, is like a continuationof, or extended footnote to, their work. On the other hand, as Müllerhas excellently analysed,63 there is a witty tension between the historio-graphical form of the opening, familiar in contexts of great publicevents, and the announced subject, ‘a story of love’, which immediatelysuggests a fictional (poetic) tradition of private and hidden lives. There isa similar counterpoint in the final juxtaposition of Jakkiq|gr andsum]cqaxa, a standard verb for the writing of history. That we are as-sured at the beginning that this story really did happen (cem|lemom)64

points clearly to the paradox. Müller well compared the opening ofSeneca’s Apocolocyntosis, quid actum sit in caelo ante diem III idus Octobrisanno nouo, initio saeculi felicissimi, uolo memoriae tradere, where the tensionis between the dry historiographical form and the fact that the narratedevents took place in caelo.

62 The exact sense of this opening sentence may be disputed: does p\hor 1qytij|mjust mean “a story of a love affair”, as the translators take it, a story whoseknown bounds far exceeded Syracuse, or does it refer specifically to theyoung couple’s first meeting (cf. 1.1.6, 3.2.6), or even to Chaireas’ kick?

63 Cf. Müller 123–4; Kuch 68 well notes that “das recht Prosaische der Vorstel-lung, das jedoch der Reputation des Verfassers dienen soll, wird dann abgelöstdurch die doch verlockende Intention des Autors, eine Liebesgeschichte zu er-zählen”.

64 For t± cem|lema as the proper subject of history, cf., e. g., Thucyd. 1.22.4, Arist.Poet. 145la36.

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A comparison of the opening of Chaireas and Callirhoe to the way inwhich Cleitophon’s narrative is introduced in Achilles Tatius will throwfurther light upon Chariton’s exploitation of various literary traditions:

“Though the entire painting was worthy of admiration, I devoted my spe-cial attention to this figure of Eros leading the bull, for I have long beenfascinated by passion, and I exclaimed, “To think that a child can havesuch power over heaven and earth and sea.”

At this point a young man standing nearby said, “How well I know65 it– for all the indignities Love has made me suffer (tosa}tar vbqeir 1n 5qytorpah~m).”

“And what have you suffered, my friend? You have the look, I know itwell, of one who has progressed far in his initiation into Love’s mysteries.”

“You are poking up a wasps’ nest of narrative. My life has been verystoried.” (sl/mor !mece_qeir … k|cym t± c±q 1l± l}hoir 5oije).

“Well sir, by Zeus and by Eros himself, please don’t hesitate. The morestoried the better.” I clasped his right hand and we walked to a grove near-by where many plane trees grew in dense array and a stream meandered,cold and clear as if from fresh-melted snow. When we had found a lowbench to sit on, I said, “See, here we have the perfect spot for yourstory – a delightful place (t|por Bd}r) and a setting most appropriate fortales of love.” (Achilles Tatius 1.1–2, trans. J. J. Winkler)

Cleitophon here lays claim to knowledge, to the “this has happened” ofthe historical narrative. The irony of this claim within the romance tra-dition requires no detailed elaboration; the opening chapters of, say,Apuleius’ Metamorphoses are full of such pointers. The equivalent inChariton’s third person narrative – beyond the assertion of cem|lemom– is the narrator’s status as rpocqave}r, a status which suggests amove away from the authorial control of the material to the accuraterecording of ‘external fact’, again the ‘this has happened’.66 Moreover,Cleitophon’s complaint of vbqeir suffered at the hands of love acts asthe same generic marker as Chariton’s p\hor 1qytij|m, or Rstoq_am 5qy-

65 MSS are divided between taOta #m eQde_gm and taOta #m 1de_jmum.66 O. Müller 124: “Empfehlung, an den Leser, dem damit bedeutet wird, daß der

Autor ein Mann ist, der sich aufs Hören und gewissenhafte Niederschreibenversteht”. Others have wanted to see this role of answering the potential‘how do you know?’ challenge to the author, the guarantee of authenticity,as performed by the closing device of a public assembly (8.7.9–8.8.11)where the events of the novel are re-told, cf. , e. g., A. Wouters, ‘The eQj|mer

in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe IV 39,2; “Beglaubigungsapparat?”’, Sacris Erudiri31 (1989/90) 465–79, p. 474. This seems to me unnecessary – there is no hintof this in the assembly scene – and we have seen that any ‘guarantee of histor-icity’ is made problematic from the very first sentence of the work.

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tor, t}wgm 1qytij^m and p\mta 1qytij\ in the proem of Daphnis andChloe; such generic self-reference seems in fact to have been a genericfeature of ancient romance, and this is important in assessing how theseworks were classified in antiquity and how their authors thought ofthem. We find also in this chapter of Achilles Tatius the same concernwith truth, pleasure and fiction as is now familiar from Chariton 1.1.1and 8.1.4. In Achilles these concerns appear in the particular form orthe lOhor-k|cor distinction,67 and are amplified by echoes of Plato’sPhaedrus, a ‘classic’ discussion not only of things erotic but also of thedifferent fields of rhetoric and truth;68 Achilles makes the point with abrilliant pun on t|por which shows the ‘real’ setting, the place, to bemerely a creation of rhetoric, a topos.69 Chariton’s concern, then, withthe gap between ‘history’ and ‘fiction’ is not his alone, although it ishis in a very special way because of the historical setting and charactersof his work.

mol_fy d³ ja· t¹ tekeuta ?om toOto s}ccqalla, to ?r !macim~sjousim Fdi-stom cem^seshai

.jah\qsiom c\q 1sti t_m 1m to ?r pq~toir sjuhqyp_m.

oqj]ti kgiste_a ja· douke_a ja· d_jg ja· l\wg ja· !pojaqt]qgsir ja· p|ke-lor ja· ûkysir, !kk± 5qyter d_jaioi 1m to}tyi ja· m|liloi c\loi.

“I think that this final account will be the most pleasant for my readers, forit will cleanse away the sadness of the earlier books. No longer will there bepiracy and enslavement, lawsuits and battles, suicide, war, and the captureof cities, but honourable love and lawful marriage” (8.1.4).

With this declaration Chariton introduces the denouement of his work.It has long been recognised that, whatever else it suggests, katharsion re-tains a distant echo of the katharsis effected by poetry in Aristotle’s Poetics(1449b 28).70 This prompts a closer examination of the ideas which liebehind this sentence; it will become clear that there is an important linkbetween Chariton’s concerns here and those of the opening sentence.

67 Cf. Hunter 47.68 The allusion to the famous locus amoenus of the Phaedrus (230b-c) is manifest ; for

the Phaedrus in the literature of the Second Sophistic cf. L. Trapp, ‘Plato’sPhaedrus in second-century Greek literature’, in: D.A. Russell (ed.), AntonineLiterature (Oxford, 1990), 141–73.

69 Note that Hermogenes quotes this very passage of the Phaedrus to illustrate ek-phraseis which produce Bdom^ (cf. Bd}r in Achilles) and ckuj}tgr

(pp. 331.22–332.2 Rabe). Such sweetness of style is, of course, intimately as-sociated with mythoi and love, cf. Hunter 92–8.

70 Cf. most recently Rijksbaron.

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Thucydides’ famous discussion of the principles behind his work(1.20–2) became the starting-point for all subsequent historiographicaltheorising; it is echoed time and again in Hellenistic reflection on thewriting of history. Two aspects are particularly relevant here. First,the apparent Thucydidean rejection of ‘pleasurable fiction’ in favourof the benefit to be derived from a truthful, but not necessarily ‘pleas-ant’, account gave rise to much consideration of the desirable balancebetween ‘usefulness’ (¡v]keia) and ‘pleasure’ (t]qxir).71 Neither theorynor practice, of course, ever envisaged a completely strict division be-tween, on the one hand, pleasure-giving fiction (usually associatedwith poetry) and, on the other, a truthfulness which was indifferentto pleasure and usually associated with prose.72 Much ancient scholar-ship, for example, was at pains to stress the accurate historical and geo-graphical information to be found in Homer (cf., e. g., Strabo 1.2).Nevertheless, both sides of a traditional way of presenting the Thucydi-dean dichotomy are clearly present in Chariton: the didacticism whichbenefits readers, and the pleasure of fiction.

A second, and perhaps more speculative, matter concerns Chariton’sdescription of his audience as ‘readers’. Thucydides apparently distin-guished between those who wish to listen to or read73 a work for pleas-ure (1.21.1, 1.22.4) and those “who wish to have a clear view of whathappened” (1.22.4). Polybius regularly describes his potential audienceas oR !macim~sjomter or oR 1mtucw\momter, but he also distinguished be-tween ‘hearers’ of history or tragedy and the ‘scholars’ (vikolahoOmter)of history;74 the former were, in Walbank’s translation, ‘casual readers’.Elsewhere, Polybius notes (9.2.6) that his purpose is “not so much thereaders’ pleasure as benefit for the serious student (oR pqos]womter)” and(10.26.10) that his method is oQje ?om (rather than Bd}) for “both writersand readers”; the despised Phylarchus, on the other hand, is accused of“trying to evoke pity in his readers” (2.56.6). Dionysius of Halicarnas-sus75 distinguished three types of potential readers, “those seriously con-cerned with the rhetoric of public life, or with speculative philosophy,and those who want some trouble-free entertainment from reading his-

71 Cf. Hunter 48–9; Walbank (above n. 22).72 Cf. Bowie 91–2, Wiseman, Woodman.73 Cf. Gomme on 1.21.74 Cf. Polybius 2.56.10, 7.7.8, 11.19a.2.75 Cf. C. Schultze, “Dionysius of Halicarnassus and his audience”, in: I. S.

Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman (eds.), Past Perspectives (Cambridge,1986) 121–41.

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 755

tory”.76 To the first two kinds correspond the rhetorical (1mac~miom) andspeculative aspects of history; unfortunately, a lacuna conceals the typerelevant to those reading for pleasure,77 but a later passage (AR 11.1.2)makes clear that the essentially serious interests of the first two groupsare opposed by Dionysius to the harmless pleasure sought by the thirdgroup. In another work, Dionysius identifies the first task of the histor-ian (a task performed better by Herodotus than by Thucydides) as find-ing a noble (jak^m) subject which will please the readers,78 and in the DeOratore Cicero makes the orator M. Antonius say that he reads historyfor pleasure because, unlike poetry and philosophy, it is accessible tomen who are not eruditissimi (ch. 59). Behind Chariton’s references tohis ‘listeners’ (2.8.3) and his ‘readers’ (8.1.4), therefore, lies the longstruggle to appropriate Thucydides’ distinction between two types ofpossible use for history to a wide variety of different types of writing;juxtaposition to a claim for the pleasure to be derived from this readingactivates for us the resonances of this literary history. The final book isthus introduced by the same concerns and the same problematic distinc-tions as introduced the work as a whole.

III. Reading Callirhoe

A particular aspect of the general problem raised in the preceding sec-tion is that of ‘character’. How can we ‘read’ a piece of such highly ty-pological literature as an ancient novel, when that novel professes to be‘historical’? How can we say anything about Chariton’s characterswhich is not merely (or also) about the characters of the wholegenre? How does Chariton invite us to generalise ‘historical’ experi-ence? In this and the following section I shall consider these problemsas they arise in connection with Chariton’s two central characters, Cal-lirhoe and Chaireas.

:qlojq\tgr b Suqajous_ym stqatgc|r, oxtor b mij^sar )hgma_our,eWwe hucat]qa Jakkiq|gm toumola, ‘‘Hermocrates, the Syracusan strate-gos, the one who defeated the Athenians, had a daughter whose name

76 AR 1.8.3, plainly echoing Thucyd. 1.22.4.77 Stephanus’ supplement <ja· Bde_ar> would admirably suit the present argu-

ment, but other supplements are also possible; in the Loeb edition Cary propos-es <ja· digcglatij/r>.

78 Dion. Hal. Pomp. 3.

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was Callirhoe …” (1.1.1). The important thing here is not what histor-ical traditions may (or may not) lie behind the figure of Hermocrates’daughter,79 but how Chariton presents her. The narrator needs to tellus her name, revealing a presumption that we do not know it. Nextto her father, someone we all know, “the one who beat the Athenians…”, this is like the juxtaposition of p\hor 1qytij|m and cem|lemom. His-tory (Hermocrates) and fiction, or at least para-history (Callirhoe). Inthe first three chapters of the romance Callirhoe’s name recurs onlytwice. Once in 1.1.5 where the happy couple set out on the fatefulday of their meeting, — i. e. the beginning of the story, and again in1.1.8 in a report in indirect speech of Chaireas’ despairing words tohis parents; we take the word there as part of what he actually said,and as an indication that he knows who it is with whom he has fallenin love.80 Otherwise, in these opening chapters, Callirhoe is B paqh]mor

(1.1.8, 1.1.14, 15) or after marriage B cum^ (1.3.3, 1.3.5, 1.3.7), exceptat 1.3.1 where she is B j|qg and her liminal status as a new bride is pre-cisely what is at issue: she can not yet appear in public.81 Chariton’scareful use of nomenclature is very important: this is to be a narrativeof statuses, and Callirhoe’s status – virgin, wife, mother – is to be crucial.In part her problem is a confusion of statuses: whose wife is she? She is amother who gives her child away. Her marriage to Dionysius is not, inthe world of the novel, a real marriage; it does not represent a transitionfrom paqhem_a.82 For Dionysius, his marriage is ‘proved’ by the birth of

79 Cf. above p. 738–9.80 We are, I think, to understand that Callirhoe did not know the identity of the

man she met in the street. Her prayer to Aphrodite at 1.1.7 “make my husbandthe man whom you showed to me” suggests this, and her ignorance would suita paqh]mor who had not been out before (1.1.5); 1.1.14 “she did not knowwho she was going to marry” would also then be nicely pointed. (Her igno-rance of course also dramatises a real or imagined position of women at mar-riage).

81 LSJ s. m. j|qg is very confused. For Chariton’s care in nomenclature in generalcf. T. Hägg, “Some technical aspects of the characterization in Chariton’s ro-mance”, in: Studi classici in onore di Quintino Cataudella (Catania, 1972) II545–56. For the motif of the public reserve of the newly married girl cf. He-liodorus 6.11.1.

82 Nothing is said by anyone – and it is Plangon’s silence which is most surprising(after all, she knows about abortions) – about why Dionysius finds nothing butjoy in his wedding-night. Some modern critics have wondered why he is notapparently bothered by his wife’s absence of virginity, although parallels inmyth and literature (Euripides, Ion ; Menander, Epitrepontes) are available. If

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the child which, in a sense, also retrospectively proves his wife’s status atmarriage; for us it ‘disproves’ it.

In dealing with one of the changes of status which Callirhoe under-goes in the course of the work, that from bride to mother, Charitondoes not eschew a physical ‘realism’ based upon contemporary science,and this is one way in which the experience of ‘a historical’ charactermay he generalised. Callirhoe’s pregnancy is a stratagem of Fortune,83

but it is explained as the result of the vigorous and equal desire whichthe young couple felt for each other during the early days of their mar-riage (2.8.4). This idea, apparently natural enough, in fact accords withsome ancient medical theory.84 Her failure to notice her pregnancy dur-ing its first two months is, as the narrator observes (2.8.5), hardly sur-prising in view of the stressful time she has had, and doctors (as wellas women) were well aware that apparent irregularities in the menstrualflow were in fact perfectly regular.85 We must, moreover, see in Callir-hoe’s feigning of seasickness (1.11.2, 1.13.9 cf. 2.2.8) a hint by the au-thor at the revelation to follow; Soranus recommends that women suf-fering from what is now termed morning sickness should fast for a day,like sea-travellers who can prevent sea-sickness in this way.86 That “atthe beginning of the third month Callirhoe’s belly began to swell”(2.8.5) has been criticised as unrealistic,87 but not only do such thingsfollow no immutable pattern, it is Plangon, who is very experiencedin these matters, who makes the decisive discovery. Finally, Callirhoe’sdeath-like collapse after she has been kicked by Chaireas88 is explainedby Chariton in what may be termed, in comparison with his normal

we are to be bothered about such things, a number of answers suggest them-selves: he was so happy he didn’t care or didn’t notice or didn’t understand;or perhaps a quite different conception of ‘virginity’ is operative, cf. G. Sissa,Le Corps virginal (Paris, 1987) [= Ead., Greek Virginity (Cambridge, Mass.1990]).

83 Cf. above p. 746.84 Cf. Soranus, Gyn. 1.36–7; [Arist.] HA 11.636b14–18. I am grateful to Dr.

Helen King for her advice in these matters.85 Cf. Soranus. Gyn. 1.49.2–3. Soranus also observes that active women or

women going on long journeys pass less blood in menstruation (1.22.6).86 Gyn. 1.49.2–3. For ancient views on nausea in pregnancy cf. A. Rousselle, Por-

neia. De la ma�trise du corps la privation sensorielle (Paris, 1983) 59–60 [Engl.translation: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity (Oxford, 1988) 42–3].

87 Cf. Hägg (1971) 27 n. 1.88 For this scene and its origins cf. below p. 765–70.

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style, medical language,89 while stress is laid upon the fact that the burialfollowed unusually quickly after the collapse (1.5.7). In having the forceof the kick affect Callirhoe’s ‘diaphragm’, Chariton both explains hercollapse and prevents us asking (in retrospect) why the foetus was notdamaged by the blow, as common sense, medical wisdom,90 and a com-mon narrative pattern91 would otherwise have suggested.

“… Callirhoe, a maiden of amazing beauty and the ornament (%cakla) ofall Sicily. Her loveliness was not mortal but divine, and not of a Nereid ormountain nymph, but of Aphrodite Parthenos herself” (1.1.1 – 2).

Thus we do not learn what Callirhoe looks like, just that she is incred-ibly, divinely beautiful. The technique of introduction here is familiarenough in the Greek and Latin romances, and the lack of specificityin the physical description may in part be ascribed to a desire to avoida physiognomic reading.92 Rohde commented upon this lack of specif-icity in describing female beauty, which he saw as a peculiarly Greekphenomenon, and he connected it with the richness of Greek statuary,familiarity with which allowed the novelists a shorthand way of indicat-ing the physical perfection of their heroines (and heroes).93 “Idealisation[is] the first step toward a suspenseful and melodramatic threat of dese-cration”94 and this is indeed just what constantly threatens heroines suchas Callirhoe. Comparison of beautiful women to statues is indeed socommon throughout ancient literature – the locus classicus being Lucian’sImagines95 – that Heliodorus is able to turn it round in a striking way:when the bandits see Charicleia, they assume that their friends musthave plundered a temple and that she is either the priestess or a livingstatue of the goddess, aqt¹ 5lpmoum … t¹ %cakla (Heliodorus 1.7.2).This tradition is surely an important resonance in the description of Cal-lirhoe as %cakla t/r fkgr Sijek_ar. “Le vrai trésor de la Sicile” translatesMolinié, “the pride of all Sicily” is Reardon’s version, and such render-ings do certainly capture a primary sense of the phrase. We must, how-

89 1.4.12, 1.8.1; note especially di\vqacla, !mapmo^, and the attractive conjec-ture of Zimmermann !v]seyr (1.8.1). Cf. Molinié 23.

90 Cf. Hippocrates, Mul. 1.25 (Littré 8.66).91 Cf. below p. 767.92 For the potential of a physiognomic reading, cf., e. g., Philostratus Iun.,

Imag. 3.93 Rohde 165–6, echoed by Hägg (1983) 17.94 M. Riffaterre in ICAN II 73.95 Cf. Pl. Charm. 154c; Men. Dysc. 677 (with the note of Gomme-Sandbach);

Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. C. 1.19.6; McKeown on Ovid, Am. 1.7.51.

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ever, allow full play to %cakla as ‘statue’, particularly as it is matched bythe words linking Chaireas to statues and paintings of handsome malefigures (1.1.3),96 and this resonance deserves closer attention than ithas normally received. I begin with the scene in Book 2 of Callirhoein the bath:

eQsekhoOsai d³ Ekeix\m te ja· !p]slgnam 1pilek_r, ja· l÷kkom !podusa-l]mgr jatepk\cgsam ¦ste 1mdedul]mgr aqt/r haul\fousai t¹ pq|sypom

¢r he ?om pq|sypom 5donam QdoOsai· b wq½r c±q keuj¹r 5stikxem eqh»r laq-laquc/i timi floiom !pok\lpym . tquveq± d³ s\qn, ¦ste dedoij]mai lµ ja· Bt_m dajt}kym 1pavµ l]ca tqaOla poi^sgi.

“The women went in, rubbed her with oil, and wiped it off carefully;when she undressed, they were even more awestruck – indeed, althoughwhen she was clothed they admired her face as divinely beautiful, whenthey saw what her clothes covered, her face went quite out of theirthoughts. Her skin gleamed white, sparkling just like some shining sub-stance; her flesh was so soft that you were afraid even the touch of a fingerwould cause a bad wound” (2.2.2, trans. B. P. Reardon).

Despite some uncertainties concerning the text, it is clear that the motifof the flesh which would be bruised by touching is a motif of ‘realistic’art criticism; one thinks particularly of the ‘naive’ women looking atstatues in Herondas 4.59–62 and Ovid’s Pygmalion with his belovedcreation:

oscula dat reddique putat loquiturque tenetqueet credit tactis digitos insidere membriset metuit, pressos ueniat ne liuor in artus

(Met. 10.256–8).

We can, I think, be more specific than this. The association of Callirhoewith, and comparison to, Aphrodite is recurrent throughout the novel;the two are often confused by onlookers. A famous statue of Aphroditeby Praxiteles on Knidos represented the goddess just before her bath –copies often have the robe that she has just taken off hanging besideher.97 That this is the statue type which Chariton has in mind cannot

96 For this passage cf. below p. 765. %cakla is translated as ‘cult statue’ by K.Scott, “Ruler cult and related problems in the Greek romances”, Classical Phi-lology 33 (1938) 380–9, p. 384, but his concerns are very different from mine;whether or not at this date an %cakla was specifically a cult statue is not im-portant for my argument.

97 Cf. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich and Munich,1981–1999) s.v. Aphrodite 391–408.

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be proved, but seems likely enough. That it is, however, a statue that isbeing evoked should not be in doubt: laqlaquc/i evokes l\qlaq ‘mar-ble’.98 An interesting analogue and contrast may be drawn with the in-troduction of Circe in Petronius’ Satyrica :

… mulierem omnibus simulacris emendatiorem. nulla uox est quae formameius possit comprehendere, nam quicquid dixero, minus erit. crines ingeniosuo flexi per totos umeros effuderant, frons minima et quae radices capillo-rum retro flexerat, supercilia usque ad malarum scripturam currentia et rur-sus confinio luminum paene permixta, oculi clariores stellis extra lunamfulgentibus, nares paululum inflexae et osculum quale Praxiteles habere Di-anam99 credidit. iam mentum, iam ceruix, iam manus, iam pedum candorintra auri gracile uinculum positus: Parium marmor exstinxerat. (Satyrica126.1.13 – I8)

Here Petronius has clearly perpetrated a joke on the reader’s voyeuristicexpectations. We expect Encolpius to praise or comment upon, for ex-ample, Circe’s breasts, even if they are concealed (cf. Ach. Tat. 1.1.10),but we are led – as Encolpius is soon to be – down the garden path. Pet-ronius, of course, is notoriously salacious, Chariton notoriously ‘decent’.The suggestion that Chariton encourages us to linger over an image ofnaked female flesh, filling in the details as we go, might therefore seeman improbable one; and yet it fits with a consistent pattern of imagery inthe work.

One of the most famous occurrences of the Knidian Aphrodite inliterature is in [Lucian’s] Amores. The central concern of that workare the relative merits of heterosexual love-making and paederasty.The statue itself is not described in any detail, but a front view of it caus-es the heterosexual Charicles to start kissing it (ch. 13), while the backview produces an outburst of enthusiasm from the paederast Callicrati-das (ch. 14). The viewers are told the story of a young man, crazed withlove for the statue, who locked himself in the temple overnight, and a

98 Note how translators cope with this: Blake and Plepelits adopt ‘marble’, Rear-don ‘some shining substance’.

99 Encolpius compares Circe to a Praxitelean Artemis; Jahn suggested reading Di-onen, a standard poetic name for Venus, instead of Dianam (Encolpius beinggiven to poetic language) and Müller and Heseltine are clearly attracted bythe conjecture. It is an interesting problem – Dianam would suit Circe’sclaim to be relatively inexperienced in sex (127.1), and Encolpius praisesthose parts of the body which are overtly visible on a lady wearing a tunic,whereas Aphrodite-statues – for which Praxiteles was much more famous –are more likely to have been naked. Encolpius may, of course, have got hisart history wrong.

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 761

blemish on the goddess’ thigh records the appalling thing which hap-pened during that night. Callicratidas is quick to point out that theyouth made love to the statue paidij_r (17). This story can offer veryuseful guidance to the way in which Chariton has used the idea of ‘Cal-lirhoe as a statue’.

Statues are almost limitlessly readable – we encode our own pat-terns, our own desires upon them; the familiar phenomenon of ‘her-maphroditic’ statues seems to be, in part, both a recognition of thisfact and a more explicit provocation to the same kind of ‘open’ responsethat the Knidian Aphrodite evokes in the story. When the sculpturalmode is transposed (or, perhaps better, transplanted) to literature, thisopen readability is not lost. So too, the proem of Daphnis and Chloeovertly raises the question of the narrative’s potential to create desireand to remind the reader of his or her own past and present desires,100

and in Achilles Tatius Cleitophon coyly admits that a logos erotikos stokesup desire (1.5.6). On a rather more mundane level, Theodorus Priscia-nus, a doctor of late antiquity, recommended the reading of love-ro-mances as a cure for impotence in males.101 Chariton’s novel is not,of course, in any simple sense pornographic, if we take that to mean“intended to arouse male sexual desire”. Rather, the ‘Callirhoe = stat-ue’ equation, prominently positioned at the head of the romance,where, as we have already seen, there are other programmatic and ge-neric indicators shared with the so-called ‘sophistic’ romances,102 is acentral stratagem both in allowing us to generalise from Callirhoe’s ex-perience to our own,103 and in preventing any naively simple acceptanceof the ‘historicity’ of the work.

Arthur Heiserman described Chariton’s work as “a fantasy of eroticpower … in conflict with, and therefore sanctioned by, a fantasy of

100 Cf. especially F. I. Zeitlin, “The poetics of eros : nature, art, and imitation inLongus’ Daphnis and Chloe”, in: D. M. Halperin, J.J. Winkler, and F. I. Zeitlin(eds.). Before Sexuality. The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient CreekWorld (Princeton, 1990) 417–64.

101 Cf. Hunter 51 n. 108.102 Cf. above p. 748–56.103 I do not, of course, mean to imply that such ‘generalising’ holds good only for

female readers of the romance; our ‘experience’ includes our imaginative expe-rience. I believe that the famous passage describing Menelaus and ‘lovely stat-ues’ at Aeschylus, Agamemnon 416–19 reflects the same set of ideas that I havebeen exploring for Chariton.

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moral power’’.104 According to this view, Callirhoe is a woman who isdesired by every man who sees her, but who remains faithful and chaste,even through a second, consummated marriage. Chariton points us to-wards this important paradox, which forms a crucial structuring patternin the whole work, in the very opening chapter by comparing Callir-hoe’s beauty to that of )vqod_tg paqh]mor, “Aphrodite the virgin”.105

Callirhoe carries with her the charms and dangers both of the goddessof desire and of the untouched (and untouchable) virgin. To expressthis in terms influenced by Tanner’s study of adultery in the nine-teenth-century novel, we would say that Chariton has produced a so-cialised narrative of adultery, a triumph of the patriarchal order, an adul-tery that actually confirms rather than threatens that order. Nowhere issuch an order more visible than in the structures of public power, and itis clearly part of the ‘Callirhoe-fantasy’ that her power extends acrosscontinents and to the thrones of kings. To this public side of CallirhoeI now turn.

Chariton’s Syracuse is, in modern terms, a guided democracy, not infact fabulously unlike the Syracuse of Thucydides,106 but also not veryfar from ‘Sophistopolis’, the imaginary city of the declaimers whichDonald Russell described in his ‘Greek Declamation’. There is, as inthe declaimers, a stqatgc|r – Hermocrates – who exercises ‘executiveauthority’ and gives what amounts to binding advice in times of crisis. Areading of Thucydides would certainly not have suggested that Hermo-crates was personally in charge of military operations against the Athe-nians, but it is easy enough to see how writers of later antiquity assimi-lated his position to situations more familiar to them.107 Hermocrates’reasonableness, his preference for the request over the order(cf. 3.4.16), and his strict adherence to the rule of law, even when hisown daughter’s safety is at stake,108 are set against the absolute powerof the Great King and the fear and flattery which that power inspires.

104 Heiserman 77.105 Laplace 124 rightly notes that the epithet sets up Aphrodite as a rival in power

to Athena Parthenos; this is part of Syracuse’s ‘usurpation’ of Athenian glory,cf. below p. 764.

106 Cf. Gomme – Andrews – Dover on Thucyd. 7.55.2.107 Cf. Zimmermann 336–7. Diodorus 13.96.3 describes Hermocrates as “he who

defeated the Athenians in war” (jatapokel^samtor), cf. Chariton 1.1.1; forHermocrates as a serving admiral cf. Diodorus 13.34.4 where he is describedas b pqyte}ym t_m pokit_m.

108 Cf. above p. 744.

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We may be reminded not only of the stqatgc|r of a declamation, butalso of a princeps acting through auctoritas, rather than of the control ex-ercised by the Thucydidean Pericles.

In Chariton’s Syracuse, as in ‘Sophistopolis’, “there is a popular as-sembly, easily moved to tears or anger and even to riot” and “potentialtyrants are a constant danger’’.109 We expect tyrants (or sons of tyrants)to plot against democracies; here they plot against Callirhoe’s marriage,which was not merely sanctioned (indeed instigated) by the Syracusanpeople, but is also a symbol for its power and freedom. The differencebetween Hermocrates and Syracuse, on the one hand, and the tyrants ofthe other states, on the other, is related to the ‘Greek v. barbarian’theme which is so prominent through the work.110 At 3.4.16 Hermo-crates insists that the rule of law must take precedence over the chanceof getting more information out of Theron, and he urges an embassy tomake enquiries: tµm 1keuh]qam !pok\bylem. Doubtless the sense is, asReardon translates, “she is a freeborn woman – let us recover her”,but we surely also hear 1keuheq_am resonate. The loss of Callirhoe has de-prived Syracuse of its ‘freedom’; it has done what the Athenians failed todo, a point virtually spelled out in 3.4.18:

5bkepem !p¹ toO stauqoO tµm h\kassam 1je_mgm, di’ Hr aQwl\kytom 5veqetµm :qlojq\tour hucat]qa Dm oqj 5kabom oqd³ )hgma ?oi.

“from his cross [Theron] looked out over that sea, across which he hadtransported as a prisoner the daughter of Hermocrates, a girl whom noteven the Athenians had captured”.

5kabom, “captured” would be at least as natural if used of a city as of anindividual; it is as if Callirhoe had been the object or the Athenian ex-pedition.111 Callirhoe thus embodies the state. Not only does thelaunching of the search-vessel from Syracuse (3.5.2–3) recall Thucy-dides’ description of the launching of the Athenian expedition(6.30–1),112 but the recovery of Callirhoe replays the day of celebrationof the great victory over the Athenians (8.6.10), and the Syracusans ‘ap-propriate’ the Athenians’ finest hour, the victory over Persia, as Chaireasreturns laden with Persian spoils (8.6.12). ja· pok]lou ja· eQq^mgr Gm

bloO t± Fdista, 1pim_jia ja· c\loi, “victory and marriage are the sweet-

109 Russell 22.110 Cf. above p. 744–5.111 Cf. Müller 126.112 Cf. above p. 740.

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est parts of war and peace”, we are told (8.1.12), and in Callirhoe theycome together. Another way of looking at them is as the public and pri-vate sides of the same coin, and this interplay of public and private,which is always important in the ancient romances where ‘privatelives’ are played out against the affairs of state,113 assumes particular im-portance in a ‘historical’ novel. This is most obvious in scenes such asthe trial at Babylon, and in the figure of the Great King, Artaxerxes,who is torn between public function and private emotion. From themoment of the lovers’ meeting at a public festival (1.1.4), the relation-ship of Chaireas and Callirhoe is never a purely private affair – there isalways a state interest, in as much as Callirhoe is to some extent thestate.114

Callirhoe, then, embodies political power over which men struggle– and not just democratic power, as it is through her that two satraps andthe Great King play out their power games. She is placed at the centre ofa shifting set of related polarities – truth/fiction (was there really such awoman? – Chariton is well aware of the historical uncertainties), pub-lic/private, power over others/Love’s power over oneself, war/peace –and the literary forms which traditionally embodied those polarities.115

IV. Reading Chaireas

Chaireas is introduced as being as handsome as sculptors and depictAchilles, Nireus, Hippolytus and Alcibiades.116 Achilles and Nireuswere the two handsomest Greeks at Troy (Iliad 2.673–5), andGippolytus combines beauty, powerful sexual attractiveness, and notori-ous chastity; he too, like Chaireas, suffered at the hands of Aphrodite.Alcibiades is the paradigm of beautiful brilliance, a man of affairs, an ero-

113 Cf. Fusillo 77–9.114 For an exploration of how these features may contribute to a reading of the

work as a ‘reaction’ to Roman power cf. Edwards. I am grateful to Prof. Ed-wards for sharing with me further, as yet unpublished, work in which he ex-pands these ideas.

115 There is obviously an important relationship between these polarities and theirliterary embodiments and Bakhtin’s work on the ‘dialogic’ form of the novel.

116 For the mixing in this list of ‘mythical’ and ‘historical’ characters cf. below p.770–1.

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tikos without par, famously attractive, like Chaireas (cf. 1.3.6),117 to bothsexes. Nevertheless Chaireas has received even worse treatment at thehands of modern critics than has Callirhoe, despite this intriguing intro-duction. There has been some fruitful interest in the apparent gap be-tween his decisive role and ‘macho’ joking in the wars of Books 6–7(see esp. 7.6.10) and his more usual despair and indecision; a step for-ward is represented by Helen Elsom’s observation that the fact that hecan only really be ‘a man’ when he believes that he has lost Callirhoefor good is related to the gender patterning of the whole work.118 Itis indeed the case that as soon as she is recovered, Chaireas devoteshis attention to her rather than to his duties (8.6.9), and it is she whonow has to teach him how to be cunning with his men (8.2.4). It is,however, not with these later scenes that I shall be concerned; rather,I want to go back to his attack upon his wife to show how this sequenceof action is crucially integrated into Chariton’s concern with history andhistoricity. At one level, it appears to be merely a ‘genre-scene’, familiarfrom a range of ancient literature: man hits /does violence to his be-loved girl. Chariton presents us with one extreme – he’s ‘killed’ her;Ovid gives us another – he’s messed up her hair (Amores 1.7).119 At an-other level, however, the scene may be thought programmatic of manyof Chariton’s most important concerns.

Chariton presents this scene twice in order to develop a sense ofprogression and climax. On the first occasion, Chaireas returns fromthe countryside and sees outside his house the signs of a komos and alarge crowd of sightseers; he then 1mhousi_m eQstq]wei “rushes in crazed”(1.3.3). He beats on the door which a maidservant opens and 1pipes½m

t/i Jakkiq|gi tµm aqcµm let]bakem eQr k}pgm jtk. Momentarily – and,in view of what is to follow, with a kind of narrative foresight – we aretempted to translate “attacking Callirhoe he (vented) his anger”, butlet]bakem “he changed” changes everything.120 On the second occasion,

117 Cf. Plutarch, Alcib. 1.3, Diod. Sic. 13.68.5, Plepelits ad loc. B. Effe, “Der grie-chische Liebesroman und die Homoerotik. Ursprung und Entwicklung einerepischen Gattungskonvention”, Philologus 131 (1987) 97, wrongly asserts thatChariton’s work excludes all references to homosexuality.

118 ICAN II, 87. For the use in these books of traditions concerning Alexander cf.above p. 739.

119 Ovid too treats his crime as potential sacrilege, vv. 5–6 (with Mc Keown’s notefor the type of legal argument).

120 His bloodshot eyes (a standard sign of anger) find an interesting parallel at Men.Epitr. 900 (Sandbach) in the slave’s account of how Charisios abused himself

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a more elaborate plot will give Chaireas the evidence of hid own eyes.He asks to see the grim sight

fpyr eqkoc~teqom 1laut¹m !m]ky .Jakkiq|gr c±q ja· !dijo}sgr ve_solai.

“so that with better reason I might kill myself ; for I shall spare Callirhoe,though she wrongs me” (1.4.7).

I think that the ‘natural’ way to read this is that Chaireas’ words envisagethe possibility of killing a wife taken in adultery, an act not permissibleunder the Greek laws we know most about, those of classical Athens.121

This is, of course, not the only way to take it – he could be sparing herharsh legal penalties, or merely the shame of exposure and divorce. Ishall consider shortly another reason for thinking that the ‘natural’way is the right way, but we may note here the irony that Chaireasdoes in fact ‘kill’ her, as far as anyone in Syracuse knows.

In kicking his (as it is to turn out) pregnant wife, Chaireas acts out afamiliar pattern in the stories of the cruelty of tyrants.122 Similar deedsare described in various narrative traditions to Periander (Diog.Laert. 1.94), Cambyses (Hdt. 3.32), Herodes Atticus (Philostratus, VS2.1.8) and Nero (e. g. Tacitus, Ann. 16.6.1, Suetonius, Nero 35.3). Par-ticularly close is the story of Periander whose angry action was prompt-ed by “the slanders of his serving-women”.123 Thus, jealousy here re-duces Chaireas to the level of the ‘tyrants’ who are plotting againsthim; he ‘imitates’ them in becoming their tool. It is probable alsothat Chaireas’ action was a signal to the alert reader that Callirhoewas in fact pregnant; the narrative pattern seen here and in the storiesof tyrants is by no means confined to these contexts.124

angrily when he realised how unfairly he had treated his wife. It may be worthrecalling that Gerald Browne, “Ad Charitonem 1.3.7” (AJP 102 [1981] 321),suggested that 1.3.7 ‘concealed’ a catalectic trochaic tetrameter, eujokoi d³

to?r 1q_s_m <eQsi> aR diakkaca_, a sentiment, if not a metre, which wouldfit easily into current reconstructions of the end of the Epitrepontes.

121 Cf. Dem. 59.85–7; D. Cohen, “The Athenian law of adultery”, RIDA3 31(1984) 147–65. One of the most interesting features of Lysias I is preciselythe speaker’s silence about what happened to his wife from the point of discov-ery on.

122 Cf. W. Ameling, “Tyrannen und schwangere Frauen”, Historia 35 (1986)507–8.

123 Ameling notes that this story “paßt … den vielen hellenistischen Novellismen,die sich um die Person Perianders rankten”.

124 At Heliodorus 1.10 Demainete falsely alleges that when Knemon discoveredthat she was pregnant he kicked her in the belly.

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When Chaireas sees the ‘adultery’ unfold before his eyes, he can nolonger control himself but “rushes in to kill the adulterer caught in theact (1p’ aqtov~qyi)” (1.4.10). Reardon’s footnote “This was legal inGreece”, accompanied by a reference to Lysias 1, is typical of commen-tators, but there is more to be said in the context of Chariton’s concernwith ‘historicity’. Given that Chaireas acts in a fit of jealous passion, thescene need not in fact strictly be predicated upon a law allowing the kill-ing of an adulterer caught in the act, but on the other hand 1p’ aqto-v~qyi has the air of a legal phrase, and again this seems to be the ‘nat-ural’ interpretation. Where was it legal to kill an adulterer so caught?For only two states, classical Athens and Rome before Augustus estab-lished special courts, can we feel reasonably confident that, under certaincircumstances, the law permitted summary execution of an adulterer.Our knowledge of the law in other states is of course very patchy,but where we do have relatively trustworthy evidence adulterers caughtin the act appear to have been punished in other, often brutal, ways;125 itwould not, of course, be surprising if other Greek states, at various pe-riods, had (at least in theory) the same rigorous law as Athens,126 but it isimportant to register that, at the very least, Chariton archaises by assim-ilating the law of fifth-century Syracuse to that of the best-known (par-ticularly to a legal clerk) classical city.127 At one level, this has historicalverisimilitude, and certainly does not jar with the rest of the novel; butit also points us again towards Chariton’s concern with the status of histale.

Death or the threat of death for adulterers is common enough in thenarrative fiction of later antiquity;128 it obviously possesses a narrativepower denied to less violent legal processes. In particular, it is in theworld of declamation (both Greek and Roman) that adultery is rife

125 Cf. J. H. Lipsius, Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren (Leipzig, 1915) 433; R.F.Willets, The Law Code of Gortyn (Berlin, 1967) 28; S.G. Cole, “Greek sanctionsagainst sexual assault”, CP 79 (1984) 97–113; G. Hoffmann, Le Ch�timent desAmants (Paris, 1990).

126 One attested explanation for the proverb ‘axe of Tenedos’, an explanation at-tributed to, inter alios, Aristotle (fr. 593 Rose), is that ‘a certain king’ enacted alaw that a man catching a couple in adultery could kill them both with an axe;he then had this harsh penalty enforced when his son was so caught. We need,however, give little credence to the story or the legal situation it assumes, cf.Fiehn, RE 5A.1 (1934) 495, s.v. Tenedos I.

127 The influence of Lysias I is particularly important here.128 Cf, e. g., Apul. Met. 9.25; Lucian, Toxaris 17; Heliodorus 1.11 ff.

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and adulterers summarily killed. Two of the elder Seneca’s Controuersiae(1.4, 9.1) are based on a law which is stated as “an adulterous couplecaught in the act may be killed without penalty, provided that bothare killed”.129 With the world of declamation fits the paradox of Chair-eas’ self-condemnation at 1.5.4–5:

dglos_ai le jatake}sate. !pestev\mysa t¹m d/lom, vik\mhqyp|m 1stim #m

paqad_t] le dgl_yi. toOto ¥veikom pahe ?m, eQ ja· heqapaim_da :qlo-jq\tour !p]jteima. tq|pom fgt^sate jok\seyr !p|qqgtom, we_qoma

d]dqaja Reqos}kym ja· patqojt|mym. lµ h\xgt] le, lµ li\mgte tµm c/m,!kk± t¹ !seb³r jatapomt~sate s_la.

“Stone me to death in public; I have robbed our community of its crown-ing glory! It would be charitable to hand me over to the executioner; thatwould have been my proper punishment if it had been merely Hermo-crates’ servant girl I had killed; try to find some unspeakable way to punishme. I have done something worse than any temple robber or parricide. Donot give me burial ; do not pollute the earth – plunge my criminal body tothe bottom of the sea!” (trans. B. P. Reardon)

Self-condemnation is one of the commonest legal processes in ‘Sophis-topolis’ as well as being very familiar in the novel tradition.130 We mayin this case even be able to be more specific than this. Behind Chaireasself-loathing lies, I suggest, the Herodotean Adrastus who unwittinglykilled Croesus’ son and then, unlike Chaireas, succeeded in killing him-self at his victim’s tomb. Such a resonance lends significance to the ‘re-ligious’ tone of Chaireas’ speech, for Adrastus had come to Croesus tobe purified for the killing of his own brother; I would thus hazard theguess that ‘Adrastus pleads to be put to death’ was a standard theme inthe rhetorical schools. The figure of Adrastus certainly lies behind thesad story of Menelaus killing the boy he loved at Ach. Tat. 2.34.

For the study of Chariton this analysis has an importance beyondthat of simple literary history. Chariton has deliberately made problem-atic the question of which ‘frame’ or ‘code’ we should use when readingthese scenes. Do we use a historical one, a comic one,131 a rhetorical/de-clamatory one? How are we to read Chaireas’ near-fatal kick? Even ifwe are to understand that this blow was aimed at the adulterer ratherthan at Callirhoe, the assumption of a kind of realism in this scene, de-

129 Cf. S. E. Bonner, Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Liv-erpool, 1944) 120; Russell 33–4.

130 Cf. Russell 35 ff; Ach. Tat. 7.7, Heliodorus 8.8.5.131 It is particularly tempting to think of Menander’s Orge.

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spite the care which Chariton has taken over the medical details,132 pres-ents almost insuperable problems to the interpreter.133 Rather we mustrecognise in this scene an interplay of various codes which, and this iscrucial, we are supposed to recognise. We notice the legal situation –historically plausible, but also problematic; we recognise that the situa-tion Chaireas finds himself in is both ‘possible’, that is, conforms tosome extent with our experience (real or imaginary) of both literatureand life, but is also shaped by the adultery-narrative of Lysias 1,134 andby the historical tradition. Chaireas is a man destroyed by wild, innatejealousy (8.4.4), but he is also playing out the role of Adrastus, as atother times he plays out Homeric roles. Another way of saying this isthat the fact that, as scholars since Rohde have painstakingly shown,many genres have contributed to and are exploited in the ancientnovel is of interest not just as ‘literary history’ but as a central pieceof information which we bring to our reading of these texts, and in par-ticular of Chariton’s work.

V. Conclusion

The successful plot against Chaireas’ marriage finds a close analogue inDemainete’s scheme against Knemon at Heliodorus 1.1. 1–12, a storyset in classical Athens which assumes that under certain circumstancesboth partners in adultery could be killed (even stoned, cf. Chariton1.5.4). We cannot, however, use Heliodorus to dismiss the scenes inChariton with which I have been concerned as merely a “typicalnovel scenario”, even if we believe that Heliodorus borrowed fromChariton, because Chariton’s overt concern with “being a historian”– which is a quite different concern from, say, Heliodorus’ use of his-toriographical devices135— forces us to read his typical novel motifs invery specific ways.

132 Cf. above p. 758.133 There is a good illustration of the difficulties in the note of Plepelits ad loc, who

finds himself reduced to citing a ‘parallel’ from Melville’s ‘Billy Budd’.134 Trenkner 159 does not convince me that Chariton 1.4 is independent of Lysias

1.15 – 28, although she is correct in identifying Lysias’ debt to the novella tra-dition. Cf. further U. Albini, “Noterelle esegetiche”, PP 17 (1962) 383–4.

135 Cf. Morgan.

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Set against the historiographical frame is Chariton’s overt assimila-tion of his action and characters to the patterns of myth136 and Homericpoetry. Callirhoe is as faithful and as beautiful as Penelope,137 but alsohas the power of Helen to cause unhappiness;138 Chaireas variously sug-gests Odysseus, Achilles (4.1.5), Diomedes (7.3.5, 7.4.6) and Hector(3.5.6, 7.2.4), and the relationship of the two lovers is constantly com-pared to that between Achilles and Patroclus, a friendship notoriouslyfaithful even after death.139 The quotations and allusions to Homerserve, of course, more than one purpose, and Müller argued that Char-iton actually saw himself as an epic poet.140 Rather, he consciously ex-ploits the gap between epic and historiography, and the fact that Greekhistory had constantly appropriated epic to its own patterns, to create anew literature which openly proclaimed its appropriations.

Hägg’s quite proper conclusion from his examination of ‘Chaireasand Callirhoe’ as a historical novel was that Chariton’s aim “was …to create that titillating sensation peculiar to historical fiction, whichis the effect of openly mixing fictitious characters and events with his-torical ones. This is not to try to pass the novel off as something else,but, rather, to make the most of the contrast; in his first and last senten-ces, Chariton shows that he is well aware of the possibilities”.141 Theopening chapters immediately juxtapose Hermocrates and his daugh-ter,142 Alcibiades and Nireus;143 the central problem of ‘historical fiction’is thus posed at the very head of the novel. In the introduction to thefinal book we learn for the first time that Chaireas’ sufferings were a de-liberate punishment by Aphrodite for the wrong he had done to Callir-hoe. Although this goddess’ influence has, of course, never been far

136 Prominent examples are the paradigms of Ariadne (cf. 1.6.2,3.3.5 – with anequivocation between Dionysus and Dionysus – , 4.1.8, 8.1.2), and of Orestes,Pylades and Electra.

137 Cf. 4.4.5, 4.7.5.138 Cf. 1.2.1, and the remarks of Laplace; at 5.5.9 linked Homeric quotations re-

ferring to Helen and Penelope emphasise Callirhoe’s various powers.139 Cf. 1.4.6, 2.9.6, 4.1.3, 5.2.4, 5.10.9, Chaireas’ attitude at 7.4.10 is strongly rem-

iniscent of Achilles’ attitude to fighting after the death of Patroclus.140 Müller 133 4; cf. the remarks of Kuch 60 n. 21.141 Hägg (1987) 197.142 Cf. above, p. 756–7.143 This is, of course, not to say that there was any permanent difference in ‘status’

between Alcibiades and Nireus, even if much more was ‘known’ about the for-mer, cf. Thucyd. 1.3, 1.9–11; Herodotus, however, distinguishes between theearlier period of Minos and the ‘generation of men’ (3.122.2).

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away, the only actions explicitly ascribed to her are Callirhoe’s two mar-riages,144 and the motif of the wrathful god has not been used before,except ironically at 7.5.3 where Callirhoe raises the possibility that shehas wronged the goddess. The only earlier indication of Aphrodite’smotive was that she shared her son’s taste for paradox and change(2.2.8). The most famous instance of this motif is the wrath of Poseidonin the Odyssey, and it can hardly be without significance that Chaireas’punishment has turned him into an Odysseus !p¹ d}seyr eQr !matok±r

di± luq_ym pah_m pkamghe_r, “wandering with countless sufferingsfrom west to east” (8.1.3). Chariton introduces this motif at the headof the final book because he wishes to mark this gap between ‘history’and ‘epic’, a gap signalled in this chapter by the reference to Paris andHelen. Chariton here acknowledges the two poles between which hiswork swings, and which this essay has investigated. It was not modernscholars who first discovered the links which bind epic, historiography,and romance.

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digms and Modern Perspectives, International Conference on the Ancient Novel 2(Hanover, N. H. 1990).

H. Kuch (and others), Der antike Roman. Untersuchungen zur literarischen Kommu-nikation und Gattungsgeschichte, Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts fürAlte Geschichte und Archäologie der Akad. d. Wiss. der DDR 19 (Berlin,1989).

M. Laplace, ‘Les légendes troyennes dans le roman de Chariton, Chairéas etCallirhoe’, REG 93 (1980), 83–125.

C. Lucke, ‘Zum Charitontext auf Papyrus’, ZPE 58 (1985), 21–33.G. Molinié, Chariton. Le roman de Chair�as er Callirho� (Paris, 1979).J. R. Morgan, ‘History, romance, and realism in the Aithiopika of Heliodoros’,

Classical Antiquity 1 (1982), 221–65.C. W. Müller, ‘Chariton von Aphrodisias und die Theorie des Romans in der

Antike’, Antike und Abendland 22 (1976), 115–36.A. D. Papanikolaou, Chariton-Studien. Untersuchungen zur Sprache und Chronolo-

gie der griechischen Romane, Hypomnemata 37 (Göttingen, 1973).B. E. Perry, ‘Chariton and his romance from a literary-historical point of view’,

AJP 51 (1930), 93–124.— The Ancient Romances. A Literary-historical Account of their Origins, Sather Clas-

sical Lectures 37 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967).K. Plepelits, Chariton von Aphrodisias, Kallirhoe, Bibliothek der griechischen Literatur

6 (Stuttgart, 1976).B. P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley, 1989).— ‘Theme, structure and narrative in Chariton’, YCS 27 (1982), 1–27.— review of Molinié’s edition, RFC 95 (1982), 157–73.R. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererz�hlungen (Leipzig, 1906).A. Rijksbaron, ‘Chariton 8,1,4 und Aristot. Poet. 1449b 28’, Philologus 128

(1984), 306–7.E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman und seine Vorl�ufer (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1914).C. Ruiz Montero, ‘Una observación para la cronología de Cariton de Afrodi-

sias’, Estudios Cl�sicos 85 (1980), 63–9.— La Estructura de la Novela Griega (Salamanca, 1998).D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge, 1983).P. Salmon, ‘Chariton d’ Aphrodisias et la révolte égyptiénne de 360 avant J.C.’,

Chronique d’�gypte 56 (1961), 365–76.A. M. Scarcella, ‘Metastasi narratologica del dato storico nel romanzo erotico

greco’, in: Atti del convegno internationale ‘Letterature classiche e narratologia’(Perugia, 1981), 541–67.

G. Schmeling, Chariton (New York, 1974).

40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 773

A. Scobie, Aspects of the Ancient Romance and its Heritage. Essays on Apuleius, Pet-ronius, and the Greek Romances, Beitr�ge zur klassischen Philologie 30 (Meisen-heim am Glan, 1969).

I. Stark, ‘Zur Erzählperspektive im griechischen Liebesroman’, Philologus 128(1984), 256–70.

T. Tanner, Adultery in the Novel. Contract and Transgression (Baltimore, 1979).S. Trenkner, The Greek Novella in the Classical Period (Cambridge, 1958).J. J. Winkler, ‘The mendacity of Kalasiris and the narrative strategy of Helio-

dorus’ Aithiopika’, YCS 27 (1982), 93–158.T. P. Wiseman, Clio’s Cosmetics. Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature (Leices-

ter, 1979).A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (London and Sydney, 1988).F. Zimmermann, ‘Chariton und die Geschichte’, in: R. Günther and G. Schrot

(eds.), Sozialçkonomische Verh�ltnisse im alten Orient und im klassischen Alter-tum, Deutsche Historiker-Gesellschaft. Tagung der Sektion Alte Ge-schichte der Deutschen Historiker-Gesellschaft vom 12.–17. 10. 1959 inAltenburg (Berlin, 1961), 329–45.

Addenda

There are now two reliable and accessible texts of Chariton – G. P. Goold’sLoeb (1995) and B. P. Reardon’s Teubner (2004). The bibliography, as onthe ancient novel generally, is voluminous, and little point would be servedin trying to give a proper account here (or for the essays which follow);much of the recent bibliography on Chariton may be reached through S. D.Smith, Greek Identity and the Athenian Past in Chariton: the Romance of Empire(Groningen 2007) and T. Whitmarsh (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to theGreek and Roman Novel (Cambridge 2008). Other recent discussions includeJ. Alvares, ‘Chariton’s erotic history’ AJP 118 (1997) 613–29, R. K. Balot,‘Foucault, Chariton, and the masculine self’ Helios 25 (1998) 139–62, and S.Schwartz, ‘Callirhoe’s choice: biological vs legal paternity’ GRBS 40 (1999)23–52.

n. 1 On titles, cf. T. Whitmarsh, ‘The Greek novel: titles and genre’ AJP126 (2005) 587–611.

n.3 On dating cf. E. Bowie, ‘The chronology of the earlier Greek novelssince B. E. Perry: revisions and precisions’ Ancient Narrative 2 (1992) 47–63.

n.84 Add Plutarch, Moralia 681 f: ‘they say that conception is more likelywhen those who have intercourse love each other’.

p.768 On the possible use of Lysias 1 cf. further the discussions of K. Kap-paris and J. R. Porter in Hermes 128 (2000) 380–3 and 131 (2003) 433–40.

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41. Longus and Plato*

That Longus’ work contains echoes of Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus,the two ‘erotic’ works which held a primary, ‘classic’ status in the sec-ond century A.D. is well known; the practice of allusion to these twoPlatonic works was ‘part of the standard learning of any rhetorician’,1

as Michael Trapp’s helpful essay fully demonstrates,2 and recent scholar-ship on Daphnis and Chloe (henceforth D&C) has continued its assiduoussearch for verbal and thematic allusions to them.3 As far as the Phaedrus isconcerned, the similarities between I 22.4, Ehek|m ti, Acm|oum f ti

h]kousi. toOto l|mom Eidesam, fti t¹m l³m v_kgla, tµm d³ koutq¹m

!p~kesem, and Phaedrus 255d, 1q÷i l³m owm, ftou d³ !poqe ?· ja· ouh’fti p]pomhem oWdem oqd’ 5wei vq\sai jtk. , and between II 7.1 and Phaed-rus 249d 6, which both concern the ‘wings’ which Love gives to thesoul, have long been noted, and further detailed echoes may yet awaitdetection4. So too, in 1983 I suggested that Plato’s story of the originof cicadas (Phdr. 259a-d) may be relevant to the incident of the tettixand the following story of the phatta (I 25–7),5 and the passing years

* M. Picone and B. Zimmerman (eds.), Der antike Roman und seine mittelalterlicheRezeption (Basel 1977) 15–28

1 R. L. Hunter, A Study of Daphnis & Chloe, Cambridge, 1983, 109 n. 43.2 M. B. Trapp, Plato’s Phaedrus in second-century Greek literature, in Antonine Liter-

ature, ed. by D.A. Russell, Oxford, 1990, pp. 141–73. B. D. MacQueen,Myth,Rhetoric, and Fiction. A Reading of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe, Lincoln and Lon-don, 1990, gives a prominent place to Longus’ engagement with the Phaedrus,and although I cannot agree with the arguments of that book (cf. Classical Jour-nal 87 [1992], pp. 175–8), it has stimulated me to think again about this wholematter. I should also note that, since 1983, D&C has been the subject of a minorflood of critical work, some of it very sophisticated; I have not thought itworthwhile always to footnote my agreements and disagreements with thisbody of work.

3 See especially G. Danek and R. Wallisch, ‘Notizen zu Longos, Daphnis undChloe’, in Wiener Studien 106 (1990), pp. 47–60.

4 Thus, for example, I would like to believe that Lykainion’s lesson at III 18.3–4is indebted (almost by way of parody) to Phaedrus 256a; note esp. spaqc_m-svqic_mta, peqib\kkei-peqib\kkeim ; Danek-Wallisch, ‘Notizen’, p. 58 preferto connect 256a with III 9.5 (Daphnis and Chloe’s father).

5 Hunter, Study, pp.56–7.

have not brought much reason to change my mind. At one level, suchallusions – even the more structural final example – fall well within theusual field of ‘the literary texture’ and need not carry special signifi-cance, beyond signalling the author’s awareness of a central, authorisingtext. Thus, Trapp dismisses the debt to the Phaedrus of the novelists as agroup – not just Longus – as ‘used to infuse either a modicum of phi-losophy, or a little of the stylistic sweetness for which [the Phaedrus] wasso admired by the rhetors’;6 the picture of Longus’ use of Plato present-ed in my 1983 book was not essentially different from this. Such a pic-ture is, however, if not wrong, at least inadequate, and it is that inade-quacy that I hope to go some way towards repairing in this paper. I shallconfine myself largely to the Phaedrus, though this by no means exhauststhe possible Platonic aspects of D&C ; the novel’s overt concern withmimesis, for example, might allow a fruitful confrontation with the Re-public.7

In exploring what can be gained from a confrontation between no-velist and philosopher, I shall oscillate between a literary-historical claimabout the genesis, as well as the meaning, of D&C, and a less complexclaim merely about its meaning; in the latter instance, confrontationwith the Phaedrus functions more as a heuristic device than as an explan-atory model. The justification for such a procedure — which is not un-like that of Walter Forehand’s attempt to read the gardens and orderedspaces of the novel as both analogous to and derived from the cave ofthe Republic —8 is of course that the two claims can often hardly be sep-arated, particularly in view of Plato’s status in the second century. Itwill, I hope, emerge that while I am sympathetic to the larger, geneticclaim, little of what follows actually depends upon it.

6 Trapp, Phaedrus 155.7 Cf., e. g., B. Zimmermann, ‘Liebe und poetische Reflexion. Der Hirtenroman

des Longos’, in Prometheus 20 (1994), pp. 193–210. Zimmermann also consid-ers the claim of the proem that D&C will ‘remind he who has loved’ in thecontext of Platonic anamnesis theory. Michael Reeve has pointed out to me astriking verbal similarity between the opening of Proem 3 (Qd|mta le ja· hau-l\samta jtk.) and Plato. Rep. 2.359d 5; the echo, if this is what it is, helps toconfirm Reeve’s punctuation for Longus.

8 W. E. Forehand, ‘Symbolic gardens in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe’, in Eranos74 (1976), pp. 103–12.

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1.

I begin with the famous episode of the Phaedrus in which Socrates bothshows himself knowledgeable about the rape of Oreithyia by Boreas andrefuses to cast doubt upon its truth, noting that he accepts what is com-monly held (peih|lemor t_i molifol]myi, 230a 1); in particular, he re-fuses to ‘rationalise’ the story away by reducing it to what is probable(t¹ eQj|r), as the sophoi would do, on the grounds that there are somany myths that a rationaliser will need ‘a lot of leisure’, and becauseit would be ridiculous for a man who does not yet know himself tobe concerned with such matters (Phdr. 229b-230a). This episode does,of course, more than one job for Plato.9 It foregrounds the questionof how to read myths and rejects one obvious ‘clever’ method ofdoing so. In rejecting what we might call, rather grandly, the appealto science, Socrates does however suggest another, perhaps more fav-oured, reading: ‘I inquire … not into these but into myself, to seewhether I am actually a beast more complex (pokupkoj~teqom) andmore violent (1pitehull]mom) than Typhon, or both a tamer and a sim-pler creature, sharing some divine and un-Typhonic portion by nature’(230a 3–6, trans. Rowe). Here it is clearly not just a matter of men hav-ing reason where Typhon does not, but also of the potential of monsterslike Typhon to represent emotional facts about ourselves. A distinctionis thus at least adumbrated between ‘clever’ rationalisation – Oreithyiawas not carried off by Boreas but blown over by the north wind –and what we might call, for want of a better (and perhaps less anachron-istic) term, allegorical readings. Plato clearly has his eye here on priorand contemporary exercises in ‘allegorisation’, such as he refers to ex-plicitly in the Republic (‘we must not accept into the city battles ofthe gods such as Homer depicts, whether allegorised or not’ (out’ 1mrpomo_air pepoigl]mar oute %meu rpomoi_m) II 378d 5–7).10 The impor-tance of this kind of reading for the remainder of the Phaedrus hardlyrequires demonstration. Such allegorising of poetic myth was, of course,a common strategy, particularly in later antiquity, but it is important tobe reminded that Longus’ readers will have been prepared, might indeedhave expected, to read the muthos of Chloe (II 27.2) in this way, and I

9 Cf., e. g., G. R. F. Ferrari, Listening to the Cicadas, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 1–36;C. Osborne, Eros Unveiled. Plato and the God of Love, Oxford, 1994, pp. 96–8.

10 Cf. R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, Oxford, 1968, p.10; D. C. Fee-ney, The Gods in Epic, Oxford, 1991, pp. 8–12.

41. Longus and Plato 777

shall return to this point. Both Plato and Longus thus offer an aetiologyof eros expressed in mythic terms.

There is a further matter here which leads us towards D&C. Socra-tes describes the skill needed for myth rationalisation as %cqoij|r tir

sov_a ‘a boorish/rustic kind of cleverness’ (229e 3). This might surpriseus, as simple belief in muthoi might be thought more obviously %cqoijom

than ‘clever’ rationalisation. In the context, however, we can hardly failto associate Socrates’ choice of adjective with the setting in which hefinds himself.11 Plato wishes to associate such rationalising activitywith the setting in a locus amoenus : both the rationalisations and the set-ting are waq_emta ‘charming’ (note 229b 7, 229d 2, 230b 6), and Socratesrejects both in favour of the pursuit of self-knowledge which is primar-ily an activity of the city. The country setting has nothing to teach Soc-rates (230d 3). When therefore the narrator of D&C enters upon hislocus amoenus, which is in fact, as we shall see, the literary space of thePhaedrus, and proclaims a tale that will bring instruction as well as de-light, the Phaedran background, at the very least, ironises the claim.This is particularly so as what the novel has to teach us is itself expressedin Platonic terms, and it is to the novel which I now turn.

The Platonic opposition between muthos and logos, an oppositionwhich we may gloss in various ways — ‘imagination-science’, ‘descrip-tion-metaphor’, ‘fiction-truth’ —, is explicitly signalled in D&C andmay be thought to inform the whole work.12 The description of thegrowth and functioning of eros operates within two broad modes of ex-planation which are set in creative tension with each other. One wemay fairly call the ‘mythic’ mode, the muthos being that which is explic-itly declared to be Eros’ purpose (II 27.2). This mode depends in partupon one of the most familiar features of the novel — the ‘incredible’inability of Daphnis and Chloe to discover how to make love. To ask ofthis muthos ‘is it true?’ (or even ‘credible’, what Socrates calls jat± t¹

eQj|r, Phdr. 229e 2) is to ask the wrong question, as Phaedrus did besidethe Ilissos (229c 5). The other fundamental mode of the novel is basedupon the readers’ experience and knowledge; this mode is most clearlyinstantiated in the characters of Philitas, Lykainion, Gnathon and the

11 It is noteworthy that the Aristophanic Socrates charges Strepsiades with being!cqe?or … ja· sjai|r, ‘rustic and stupid’ (Clouds 655). For further discussioncf., e. g., R. B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato. Ten Essays in Platonic Interpretation,London, 1995, 174.

12 Cf., e. g., Hunter, Study, pp. 47, 114 n.99.

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narrator himself. From the interweaving of these two modes Longus hascreated his tale.

The ‘mythical’ mode is most obvious in the three short includednarratives of loss and metamorphosis, the stories of the phatta (I 27),of Syrinx (II 34), and of Echo (III 23).13 Like the novel which framesthem, these stories both tell a ‘once upon a time’ story which explainssomething in our world (wood-pigeons, pan-pipes, echoes), and alsopresent a mythical paradigm for crucial features of the relations betweenthe sexes, as Daphnis and Chloe come to know them: the strength ofthe male, the loss of the female, and the inevitable violence of male de-sire.14 These included stories follow the development of the narrative inas much as the absence of an explicit relationship of eros between thetwo cowherds in the phatta story reflects the fact that in Book I Daphnisand Chloe do not know what eros is, and the word and its cognates areused only by the narrator. The cowgirl’s sense of loss and helplessnessafter the musical victory of the young man suggests Chloe’s despairthat she is not as beautiful and musical as Daphnis (I 13–14) and also,we might suspect, a male author’s representation of the perceived femaledesire to share the privileged status of the male. The increasing violencethrough the three stories must, at some level, reflect the approachingconsummation of the young people’s love, and the fact that it is againDaphnis who tells the echo story suggests his new status as possessorof special knowledge after his lesson from Lykainion. He can nowtake over the rôle of praeceptor which, until that time, had been held suc-cessively by Philitas and Lykainion. His knowledge of echo (eQd½r t¹

pqatt|lemom, III 22.1) in fact points to a wider knowledge, recently ac-quired. He is moving from one world to another, or from being a figurein one mode of representing experience to a figure in another.

Longus seems explicitly to direct us towards these competing modesof explanation in the episode of Echo (III 21–3). Here Daphnis is theexperienced praeceptor, whereas Chloe is hearing an echo for the firsttime and must therefore be told its muthos. At the very least. Longusplays with our uncertainty as to whether Daphnis knows the ‘true’explanation of the phenomenon and thus ‘believes’ the muthos whichhe tells Chloe no more than we do (cf. III 22.1, 22.4, 23.5). The parallel

13 On these stories cf. Hunter, Study, pp. 52–7 (with bibliography).14 On these features of the novel cf. especially J. J. Winkler, ‘The education of

Chloe: hidden injuries of sex’, in The Constraints of Desire, New York and Lon-don, 1990, pp. 101–26.

41. Longus and Plato 779

with the presentation of eros in the novel is at least suggestive: Daphnisand Chloe are introduced to the muthos of eros before they learn its sci-ence. The incident of the echo points in several different directions.One, to which I shall return, is mimesis, for an echo stands as thelimit case where nature must ‘imitate’ man, for without human initiativeno music is produced (cf. III 23.4–5). Nature, in fact, acts like an eqca-mom, a man-made tool (III 21.4).15 For the moment, however, we maynote that the explanation of the echo effect which is offered by the nar-rator (III 21) has, unsurprisingly, important points of contact with thesurviving ‘scientific’ explanations of the phenomenon, of which themost important are Aristotle, De anima II 419b26–420a3, [Arist.] Prob-lems XI 23.901 b17–23, 51.904b27–33, Lucretius IV 565 ff, and Phil-oponus’ commentary on the De anima passage (pp. 360.19–363.14Hayduck).16 The importance of the hollow setting for the productionof an echo is found in these sources, and I think that it is clear thatIII 21.4 seeks to reproduce the flavour of a technical discussion, notmerely by the use of such words as aqk~m and eqcamom, but also bythe explicit contrast between conditions in which sound is lost in theair and those under which an echo is produced.17 Like Longus, Lucretiusalso juxtaposes a ‘scientific’ and a ‘mythic’ explanation of the phenom-enon of echo; his myth is full of imaginary satyrs and nymphs and a mu-sical Pan (IV 580–94).18

The opening chapters of the Phaedrus, therefore, provide an impor-tant origin for one of the central focuses of D&C. Moreover, just asPlato seems to link the question of the use and interpretation of mythwith an opposition between urban and rural settings, so Longus intro-duces this same opposition through the fishermen whose songs producethe echo: ‘they were hurrying to get their freshly caught fish to the cityin good condition for one of the rich men there’ (III 21.1). Here we cansee that muthos-logos, country-city, phusis-techne are related and analo-gous pairings which shape the text: the fishermen’s livelihood dependsupon fresh fish reaching ‘one of the rich’ (we may imagine the phrase as

15 It may be that III 21.4 images the hollow glen not as ‘a musical instrument’ butas a living body; both aqk~m and eqcamom would suit such a reading, cf. esp.Arist. PA III 664a 25–32. I offer this suggestion without great confidence in it.

16 Philoponus’ commentary is partly reproduced in the Suda (g 685).17 With III 21.3 cf. Lucr. IV 569 praeterlata perit frustra diffusa per auras.18 There is a similar juxtaposition of explanations at Lucian, De domo 3.

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focalised by the fishermen themselves), and these ‘rich’ inhabit a worldbeyond muthos.

Although the two modes of explanation which I have been explor-ing inform the whole work, they do not always operate at the same levelof explicitness as we have found in the incident of echo. Often the ‘sci-entific/realistic’ mode is merely implicit and works through Longus’ re-liance upon his readers’ knowledge. We know (or think we know) thefacts of life, and so they do not have to be inscribed explicitly in the text.When they are, most notably in the scenes of Philitas’ instruction (II3–7) and Lykainion’s seduction of Daphnis, it is important that thesecharacters must present themselves to Daphnis and Chloe in the ‘myth-ic’ mode, Philitas with his account of the epiphany of Eros, and Lykain-ion with her story of the dream appearance of the Nymphs (III 16.2).We have already seen how the ‘experienced’ Daphnis must introduceChloe to the phenomenon of echo through the ‘mythic’ mode. If weinterpret the stratagems of Philitas and Lykainion as amusingly knowing— they are very much creatures of logos—19 we must nevertheless admitthat they are here serving a larger pattern in the work which goes be-yond mere characterisation. Many of us would, after all, admit thatwhether love is to be understood in mythic or physical terms is stillan open question.

One aspect of the harsher world of logos is logos as ‘definition’, thesearch for the correct name or names, which was of course a crucialpart of the Socratic-Platonic search for knowledge. In D&C this searchis the search for both the name and the nature of eros, and this searchmust be conducted within the world of muthos, as only in that worldis eros unknown. Thus Dryas and Lamon are unable to name the littlewinged boy armed with bow and arrows, whom they see in a dream(I 8.2), despite their advanced years. When Chloe’s emotions are firststirred by Daphnis in the bath, we are told that she had not evenheard anyone ever say ‘the name/noun of love’ (I 13.5), and her‘naive’ suffering is described as she ‘searches for the name/noun oflove’ (I 15.1). Her would-be seducer Dorkon, however, knows ‘both

19 See the excellent discussion of G. Bretzigheimer, ‘Die Komik in Longos’ Hir-tenroman “Daphnis und Chloe”’, in Gymnasium 95 (1988), pp. 515–55. Someaspects of Bretzigheimer’s analysis have been criticised by K.-H. Stanzel, ‘Früh-lingserwachen auf dem Lande. Zur erotischen Entwicklung im Hirtenromandes Longos’, in W�rzburger Jahrb�cher f�r die Altertumswissenschaft 17 (1991),p. 153–75.

41. Longus and Plato 781

the name and the deeds (5qca) of love’ (I 15.1). When Daphnis is sim-ilarly afflicted, he laments that he cannot even name the disease fromwhich he suffers (I 18.1); without knowing what eros is, ‘he tastes thedeeds and words of love for the first time’ (I 19.1). Recent criticshave rightly seen here an instance of one of Longus’ prime concerns,the question of whether eros and the behaviour associated with it is ‘nat-ural’ or an ‘artificial’ cultural construction.20 Rather than rehearse thisnow familiar discussion, I wish to dwell for a moment on the fact ofthe search for the name.

When the children have received from Philitas what amounts toboth the name and the definition of eros (II 7.7), they must proceedto see whether their experiences match the definition (II 8.2–5), butthe transition to logos through logismos is a gradual one:

When they were left on their own, now that they had heard for the firsttime the word “love” (t¹ =qytor emola), they felt a spasm of pain intheir souls; and when they went home to their farms at night, they com-pared their own experiences with what they had heard.

Lovers feel pain – and so do we. They neglect their food – and we haveneglected ours in the same way. They cannot sleep – and that is happeningto us at this moment. They seem to burn – and there is a fire inside us.They long to see each other – and that is why we pray for the day tocome more quickly. Surely this is “love”, and we are “in love” witheach other without realising it. Or is it that this is love and that I aloneam in love?21 But why then do we feel the same pain? Why do we seekeach other? Everything that Philitas said is true. (II 8.1–4)

It is one of the paradoxical ironies of eros that recognition of it involveswanting physical satisfaction for it, which is tantamount – as is naturalwith a disease – to getting rid of it (cf. III 14.1, t¹ l|mom 5qyta

paOom v\qlajom). This paradox is most explicit in the description ofthe second spring when the behaviour of the animals affects Daphnisand Chloe who were svqic_mter ja· pok»m Edg wq|mom 5qyta fgtoOm-ter, in Gill’s translation, ‘blooming with youthful energy, … long since… searching for love’ (III 13.3). In fact, eros is a name now well knownto them; what they do not know is what to do about it. Thus Reeve is

20 Cf. esp. Winkler, ‘Education’; F. I. Zeitlin, ‘The poetics of eros: nature, art,and imitation in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe’, in Before Sexuality, ed. by D.M. Halperin, J. J. Winkler, and F. I. Zeitlin, Princeton, 1990, pp. 417–64;D. Teske, Der Roman des Longos als Werk der Kunst, Münster, 1991; D. F. Ken-nedy, The Arts of Love, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 77–82.

21 The text at this point is uncertain.

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right to give Valckenaer’s 5qytor <5qca> a place in the apparatushere.22

A further instance of the search for logos through logismos may beseen in the aftermath of Lykainion’s lesson in Book III. Daphnis’ know-ledge is still incomplete, he is !qtilah^r (III 20.2), and he can only en-gage in reasoning (kocisl|r, III 20.1) within his own limited horizons:‘he shrank from pestering’ (diowke ?m)23 Chloe for more than kisses andembraces. He did not want her to cry out at him as though he wasan enemy or weep as if she was hurt or bleed as though she had beenkilled.24 For being newly instructed, he was frightened of the bloodand thought it was only from a wound that blood came.

What I have traced as the novel’s concern with naming and de-finition, Gerlinde Bretzigheimer has traced as a comic version of thephilosopher’s development from ignorance to knowledge. If, to quoteAristotle, ‘all men by nature aim for knowledge’, here the knowledgeconcerned is ‘how to make love’, and Daphnis and Chloe do finally at-tain wisdom.25 The Platonic works in which sexual arousal and thecontemplation of physical beauty were represented as a stimulus tothe philosophic pursuit were clearly suited to Longus’ project. The anal-ogy is, of course, an ironical and humorous one, suggesting as it doesthat Platonic eros is nothing more than a nice-sounding excuse for hang-ing around with pretty boys. Moreover, as we have already noted in thecontext of the opening conversation of the Phaedrus, the place and stylein which Daphnis and Chloe conduct their search seems entirely wrong.The rural beauty of the locus amoenus is, paradoxically, just the wrongplace in which to try to learn ‘the facts of life’; the Aristotelian desirefor knowledge is inevitably doomed to prolonged frustration by thevery texture of its setting. It is not merely the Platonic heritage which

22 Note that Schönberger keeps the transmitted text, but feels compelled to trans-late as ‘die jung und blühend waren und sich schon seit langer Zeit nach Be-friedigung ihrer Liebe sehnten’. A relevant parallel with which to defend thetransmitted text might be Theocritus 2.143, 1r p|hom Emholer %lvy.

23 This and related expressions are regularly used to mean ‘to importune, pester forsexual favours’ (cf., e. g., Plato, Alc. I 104d; Xen. Symp. 8.4; Theocr. 29.36)and so the use here – with Daphnis as ‘embedded focaliser’ – reveals the quan-tum leap in his knowledge since his lesson with Lykainion. For his ‘shrinking’,ejmor, cf. Alcibiades’ mistaken view of Socrates at Pl. Symp. 218c.

24 Castiglioni’s deletion of jah\peq pevomeul]mg from Lykainion’s speech at3.19.2 is surely correct (though it is retained by Schönberger and Vieillefond).

25 Bretzigheimer, ‘Komik’, pp. 524–9.

41. Longus and Plato 783