On Coming After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception 9783110210309, 9783110204414

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Contents
Preface
Introduction
On Coming After
1. Apollo and the Argonauts:Two notes on Ap. Rhod. 2, 669 –719
2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica
3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica
4. Winged Callimachus
5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil
6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius
7. Callimachus and Heraclitus
8. Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena
9. Written in the Stars: Poetry and Philosophy in the Phainomena of Aratus
10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi
11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65
12. Plautus and Herodas
13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonisv. 55
14. Mime and mimesis: Theocritus, Idyll 15
15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica
16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.)
17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25
18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme
19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus
20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica
21. Virgil and Theocritus: A Note on the Reception of the Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus
22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus]
23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus
24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change
25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos
26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry
27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’)
28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 –12 revisited
29. The Reputation of Callimachus
30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality
Frontmatter
Contents
31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century
32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus
33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original
34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus
35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance
36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary
37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica?
38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius
39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry
40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton
41. Longus and Plato
42. Growing up in the ancient novels: a response
43. The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond interpretation?
44. ‘Philip the Philosopher’ on the Aithiopika of Heliodorus
45. Plato’s Symposium and the traditions of ancient fiction
46. Isis and the Language of Aesop
47. The curious incident …: polypragmosyne and the ancient novel
Backmatter

Citation preview

Richard Hunter On Coming After Part 1

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Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabe´ · Margarethe Billerbeck · Claude Calame Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds Richard Hunter · Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 3/1

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

On Coming After Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception by

Richard Hunter Part 1 Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI 앪 to ensure permanence and durability.

ISBN 978-3-11-020441-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

쑔 Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Cover Design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen

Contents Part 1 Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 On 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 to Athena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 9. Written in the Stars: Poetry and Philosophy in the Phainomena of 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

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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 the Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] . . . . . 384 23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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

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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 Hellenistic poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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

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47. The curious incident …: polypragmosyne and the ancient novel 884 General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897 Passages Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902

Preface A collection such as this probably requires an apology more than a Preface, but I hope that the bringing together of these pieces from the last thirty years will at least be found useful by students of ancient literature. The remarkable recent growth of collected volumes, ‘companions’, and conference papers perhaps gives volumes such as this more justification than some may have had in the past. I have resisted the temptation to revise (contenting myself with a few addenda and the up-dating of some references), even where the follies of past years seemed to demand correction, in part because, once started on the process of revision, ‘where do you stop?’ becomes an ever more insistent question. In particular, it should be noted that the bibliographical and editorial conventions of the original publications (including the spelling of ancient names) have been very largely preserved. This book would never have appeared without the remarkable and selfless labours of Antonios Rengakos, one of the Editors of Trends in Classics, and Evangelos Karakasis, both of who advised, scanned, edited and corrected with apparently indefatigable, and extraordinarily cheerful, 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 very grateful to Sabine Vogt of Walter de Gruyter Verlag for her support and encouragement at every stage, and to the editors and publishers of the original articles for the permission to reprint them here.

Introduction The papers collected in this volume fall broadly into four, certainly not wholly discrete, areas: Greek and Roman comedy and performance traditions after the fifth century, Hellenistic poetry and its reception at Rome, the Greek poetry of the Roman empire, and the ancient novel. These four areas of ancient literature have enjoyed different levels of interest in the last decades. The study of Greek comedy after Aristophanes has in many respects made significant recent advances.1 After the excitement of the publication of Menander’s Dyskolos in 1958 new papyri of Menander and (?) Menander have continued to accumulate, so that some long familiar plays, such as the Epitrepontes, are better known to us now than they were even just a decade ago, and our overall picture of Menander’s art grows ever more rounded; Geoffrey Arnott’s three-volume Loeb of 1979 – 2000 allowed new generations of students usable access to ‘the new Menander’, specialists are increasingly well served by commentaries (mostly, however, in languages other than English), and Colin Austin’s new OCT is eagerly awaited. Moreover, the monumental Poetae Comici Graeci of Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin has made the fragments of all Greek comedy ‘readable’ in a way they simply were not before, and individual studies, such as Geoffrey Arnott’s commentary on the fragments of Alexis, have at least given ‘Middle Comedy’ a recognisable shape, however deep our ignorance remains. There is now a secure enough base in place to move from textual recovery to interpretation. My impression, however, is that operations have stalled. Certain landmarks stand out, such as David Wiles’ The Masks of Menander (Cambridge 1991), and articles devoted to Menander still of course appear regularly, but I have no real sense of an academic community pushing hard at these plays and fragments to see what light they can shed, not just on theatrical and textual practice, but on Athenian society, its ideo1

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

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Introduction

logical assumptions and its modes of thinking; Susan Lape’s Reproducing Athens (Princeton 2004) is a reasonably isolated attempt to find a more layered socio-political context for these plays. A large conference I recently attended in Greece on ‘Space and Time in the Ancient Theatre’ (admittedly, not a scientifically conducted experiment) yielded not a single paper on Menander out of more than fifty presentations. Perhaps there is a feeling that we already know all there is to be known about Menander and that new texts merely confirm this – ‘surprises’ are no longer 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 an equally questioning response. Moreover, the relation between the substance of the plays and the society which gave them their context seems less angular and open to contestation than in the case of Aristophanes; these plays can go down without touching the sides. Perhaps, in fact, we are living through a period of neo-Plutarchanism (cf. the Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander), which is, paradoxically, doing Menander no favours.2 The current relative neglect of the literary study of Plautus is, in many respects, even more of a puzzle, if only because of the abundance of textual material with which to work. Some years ago I mused on why modern scholarship, particularly Anglophone scholarship, seemed more or less to have given up on Plautus;3 this battlefield – by some way the largest body of Republican poetry which we possess – has long since been largely left to Germans and Italians to dispute, though some significant American interventions in recent years have begun to reclaim bits of territory. I exaggerate of course, but it is one of the most remarkable facts of recent Classics publishing that we had to wait until 2007 for an English translation of Fraenkel’s Plautinisches im Plautus/Elementi Plautini, 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 essays in this present volume are devoted, of the relation between Plautine 2 3

4

On Plutarch’s essay cf. Chapter 3 of Critical Moments in Classical Literature (Cambridge, forthcoming). Review of E. Lefèvre, E. Stärk, G. Vogt-Spira (eds.), Plautus barbarus. Sechs Kapitel zur Originalitt des Plautus (Tübingen 1991) in N.W. Slater and B. Zimmermann (eds.), Intertexualitt in der griechisch-rçmischen Komçdie (Stuttgart) = Drama 2: 235 – 7. Plautine Elements in Plautus, trans. T. Drevikovsky and F. Muecke, Oxford 2007.

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plays and their Greek originals, a question taken in thought-provoking, though utterly different, directions in the last decades by Otto Zwierlein and Eckard Lefèvre and his colleagues,5 no longer really registers on the map of scholarly interests, though Plautine stagecraft and theatricality continue to attract significant contributions.6 ‘Certainty’ concerning the relationship between Menandrean and Plautine scripts can of course only be reached in very exceptional cases, such as that of Menander’s Dis Exapaton and Plautus’ Bacchides, but this general field deals in probabilities no more than many areas of literary study and it has the great virtue of forcing us to pay very close attention to the particularities of both Greek and Roman texts and thus to learn a great deal about the respective modes of thought and the representation of those modes in language; as such, the disrepair into which it has fallen may both surprise and disappoint. There are, nevertheless, some obvious reasons for the current relatively undernourished state of Plautine studies, particularly in the Anglophone academy: the Latin is hard, the metre (ut dicitur) is even harder, the text is in a difficult state and one does not have to adopt a position towards that of Zwierlein to recognise that it poses all kinds of problems of interpolation; moreover, for most of the plays, we lack the detailed historical context which we enjoy for later periods, though Matthew Leigh’s Comedy and the Rise of Rome (Oxford 2004) represents an innovative attempt to move the argument on. It is true that for some problems – such as the still naggingly fascinating question of the origin and affiliations of the cantica – we lack the evidence necessary to move towards a solution (or, at least, one which will command assent), but I suspect that we cannot fall back on such excuses. We live in a post-Ovidian age: is there now something faintly embarrassing in, particularly British and American, academic circles about devoting one’s time to a literary form which apparently glories in its transparency, farcical qualities and broad, popular appeal? The modern turn to ars has left Plautus behind, as surely as did the ancient. ‘Neo-Plutarchanism’ thus damages Plautus, here cast as the vulgar ‘Aristophanes’, no less than it does Menander. 5 6

Some guidance in my ’Bibliographical Appendix’ to the reprinting of G. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy (Princeton 1952, London 1994), and cf. also Lowe (n.1 above) 112 – 14. Cf., e. g., T.J. Moore, The Theater of Plautus (Austin 1998), C.W. Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (Cambridge 2006).

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Introduction

This pessimism about the study of comedy is, I hope, unnecessarily extreme (and I am aware that the picture of Classics in the UK weighs disproportionately on my mind), but – from the outside, at least – it may seem that the modern turn to ars has been as beneficial for the study of Hellenistic poetry as it has encouraged the neglect of Plautus. The principal moments in the revolution in the study of Hellenistic poetry are familiar: Gow’s Theocritus, Pfeiffer’s Callimachus, the editions of epigrams by Gow and Page, Vian’s Budé Apollonius, the regular Hellenistic workshops at Groningen inspired by Annette Harder, the Supplementum Hellenisticum of Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Peter Parsons. The flood of work shows no sign of drying up, and Luigi Lehnus’ Teubner of Callimachus and Annette Harder’s commentary on the Aitia are among the major publications currently anticipated; surprises which could not have been anticipated, such as the ‘Milan Posidippus’, have opened the bibliographical sluice gates even wider. What has emerged is not just the richness and variety of this poetry, and the study of Hellenistic poetry written after the golden Ptolemaic age is now beginning to benefit from such attention also, but also how different this poetry is in many respects from that of its Latin imitators. I do not think it is completely unfair to say that ‘once upon a time’ a dominant scholarly discourse regarded Hellenistic poetry, in as much as it did regard it, as Latin poetry written in Greek; such a view no longer, of course, requires rebuttal, but it is salutary, as well as pleasing, to remind ourselves every so often how far we have come. That said, the study of Hellenistic poetry now stands at something of a crossroads. Most of Hellenistic poetry now enjoys serviceable, in some cases outstanding, commentaries, though the gaps and the need for revision is always with us; thus, new full-scale commentaries on (particularly) the first four Hymns of Callimachus and, in my judgement, on the fourth book of the Argonautica are important desiderata. Authors outside the ‘premier league’, such as Euphorion and Nicander, are receiving serious philological attention (Philitas has two recent commentaries to his credit), and each of the major epigrammatists is slowly being picked off for the ‘commentary treatment’. Sensitive and scholarly monographs, both on individual authors and on themes which cut across authors and genres, have been produced. Where to go from here? There will, of course, always be individual problems requiring attention, and some large questions – such, for example, as the nature of Callimachus’ Hymns and their relationship to Hellenistic religious practice, or, in a quite different domain, the differences between Hellenistic poetry and

Introduction

5

its predecessors in the use of linguistic images and tropes – remain (perhaps surprisingly) under-investigated.7 Nevertheless, the fact that the world of Hellenistic poetry looks quite different now than it did twenty-five years ago, as also (very pleasingly) the age-profile of those engaged with it has dropped considerably, has perhaps not really penetrated beyond this engaged circle; both ‘sides’ may reasonably be thought to be at fault here. What is needed is a raising of the eyes, so that Hellenistic studies do not continue as a reasonably discrete, though now much enriched, field, but are brought into the mainstream of Greek literary study and thus make a full contribution to our understanding, both synchronic and diachronic, of the ancient world. Both those principally engaged with archaic and classical literature and the ‘Hellenistic circle’ have a responsibility to assist this process of cross-fertilisation. This does not, of course, simply mean something so banal as the hope that more people will work on Greek literature across the board (though that 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. It would, presumably, be absurd, for example, for someone interested in Greek tragedy not also to take a serious professional interest in Homer, but it seems at least ‘not abnormal’ for students of tragedy not to follow with equal attention what is happening in, say, Hellenistic poetry and the novel; the reverse is also, of course, true. Particularities and change over time must be respected, but it is hard to see how those particularities and that change can be properly understood except through serious comparative study. There are, of course, the inevitable institutional pressures towards specialisation, but – at least as far as Hellenistic poetry is concerned – too widespread a yielding to those pressures will lead to the gradual withering of the current impetus in Hellenistic studies, so that ‘the usual suspects’ will start talking only to themselves and the range of questions will become inevitably narrower, or at least more and more predictable, and the answers less and less important to everyone except those propounding them. This is precisely the fate that ‘once upon a time’ threatened to engulf the study of the ancient novel: an explosion of interest, itself of course an 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. Baumbach, A. Petrovic and I. Petrovic (eds.) Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram. Contextualisation and Literarization (Cambridge 2008).

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publications and conferences and a genuine sense of intellectual excitement and adventure, followed, however, by the inevitable hangover and a sense of dulling repetitiveness and surfeit. Here too the dangers of narrow over-specialisation were manifestly on view. If, however, there is room for optimism, as I believe there is, this is in part the result of the sheer number of people interested in the ancient novel (the fourth ‘International Conference on the Ancient Novel’ in Lisbon in July 2008 offered some 280 papers), many of whom are able to set the particular issues of this field within the wider context of ancient literature and society as a whole. Optimism arises principally, however, from the fact that the need to study the novel within the context of the high and later Roman empire and later antiquity more generally seems to have taken a firm hold; in particular, there is fruitful work being done at the 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 these studies have shed upon a whole range of central social and narratological issues, which have resonance far beyond the literature of the Roman empire; this is, of course, not to say that all those outside the ‘novel circle’ are indeed taking sufficient notice of how far this subject has progressed. The situation of the Greek poetry of the Roman empire and late antiquity might seem to be utterly different,8 but here too things can be seen to be moving. The Budé Nonnus, under the general direction of Francis Vian, towers monumentally over the landscape, but other new editions and a trickle of conferences (in Bordeaux on Dionysius Periegetes,9 in Zurich on Quintus of Smyrna,10 in Cambridge on the field in general11) suggest both a growing interest and a growing confidence that there is something there which it is worth being interested in. The number of labourers in the vineyard, many of them French or Italian, remains relatively small, but work of the highest quality is being produced. If it is unlikely that most of these poets, with the pos8 There is a helpful survey of the whole field (Greek and Latin) by Alan Cameron, ‘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).

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sible exception of Nonnus, will ever become ‘popular’ (in any meaningful sense), there is at least the hope that they too, with all they have to teach us about ways of engaging with the past, will be seen to be a proper part of ancient literary culture, and not just one more small, specialist interest. ‘Post-classical’ studies of all kinds have perhaps been the principal beneficiary of the widening of ‘Classics’ as a discipline, but – as I have been constantly reminded while confronting my past in the preparation of this volume – there remains a very great deal to do, if we are to understand the literature of the ancients and what it has to teach us.

On Coming After* Vice-Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen: There was a time, so it is said, when Inaugural Lectures were necessary so that people could see what the new man – for they were always men – looked like; most present would never get another chance, certainly not a second lecture. As with many such stories, facts ought not get in the way: in the first years of the Chair which I now occupy, the holder was in fact expected to lecture for a full hour five, subsequently reduced to four, times a week during terms and, except in times of plague, the Long Vacation – no regulations are laid down for the audience. If that were not enough, the first holder of this Chair under the new dispensation of 1546, Nicholas Carr, first of Pembroke and then of Trinity, was, so his biographer tells us, ‘obliged to resort to the practice of medicine in order to maintain his wife and family, the stipend of the Greek professor being insufficient for that purpose’. Well, the infirm of Cambridge need not worry just yet – the shortage of doctors in the NHS is acute, but not perhaps that acute … If Carr’s sad financial plight speaks to us of continuity between past and present, the myth about Inaugural Lectures shows us how times have changed, perhaps for the better; academic life is now such that it might be thought (though I would disagree) that we all see far too much of each other, in Tripos reform committees, Faculty Boards and the other meta-discursive situations of this life. Be that as it may, the bright optimism of the term ‘Inaugural’ conceals the painful truth that such occasions, for both lecturer and audience, are really about dealing with the weight of a hallowed past and hoping that the present is not as grim as it might appear; there is an almost inevitable element of navel-gazing to such gatherings – how on earth did we reach this situation? Most Inaugurals, alas, also imply a previous retirement and thus carry a sense of closure, bringing with it the fear (or is it hope?) of radical change, and a temptation, which in the past has not always been unjustified, to see the whole fortune of a subject as embodied in the holder of the relevant Chair. Even if I did be*

Inaugural Lecture delivered in Cambridge on October 17, 2001

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lieve in such a discontinuous model, it is far too early (and would be absurdly presumptuous) to attempt a summary of what geologists will come to call the ‘Easterling era’, but the earth can move in more than one way, and my concern today will be with the variety of ancient, specifically Hellenistic and specifically literary, constructions of and ways of dealing with, talking about, and characterising the past, all of which are in fact the taking of positions about the present. If my selection of texts must inevitably be minute, it is, nevertheless, not presumptuous (I hope) to hope that such a concern can help us to understand what we do now, and why we do it. If we do prefer a more developmental view of recent history, then it is of course Aristotle who shows us the way. In the Poetics Aristotle briefly traces the dramatic genres from their alleged origins in popular performances to the telos ‘the end’ of their proper nature, their phusis, most fully exemplified, as far as tragedy is concerned, by Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. From Homer, qua poet, descended both tragedy and comedy. Aristotle bequeathed to the western tradition a teleological and narrative form of literary history from which escape has proved remarkably difficult, partly of course because there is something deeply satisfying about closed narratives. It is temptingly easy to construct a similar narrative of the recent history of the Regius Chair of Greek. In the beginning was Denys Page who knew everything and from whom all forms of life descend, then Geoffrey Kirk who opened the world of Homer and epic to generations of students, then Eric Handley who restored Menander and New Comedy to us, and then my predecessor, Pat Easterling, whose name is almost synonymous with the study of tragedy, particularly Sophocles; in the Aristotelian model, it may be said, with Pat the Regius Chair reached its phusis and then ‘stopped’ (1pa¼sato). What follows in most ancient narratives is, as is well known, terminal decline or, at best, stagnation. If it might be thought that I have reason to view such narratives with suspicion, let me say that the briefest consideration of Pat’s monumental services to the study of Greek both within and without Cambridge will suggest that, as happens too often for comfort, there might just be something in Aristotle’s rather peculiar views. On a personal level, from my very first days in Cambridge Pat has been more than generous with her time, her advice and her wisdom, and I here record my heartfelt thanks to her; Sophocles famously gave hospitality to a divine snake, divine certainly, but a snake none the less – I hope that the parallelism is not exact.

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There are of course other narratives, both post and, in some cases, propter Aristotle, which one could tell. The poetry of the third century BC is full of representations of the relation between past and present, and this can be no accident of survival. In the fourth book of Apollonius’ Argonautica, the Argonauts, who carry all hopes and fears for the survival of Greek culture with them, are plunged into an impenetrable primeval darkness and lose their way, drifting in aimlessness and ignorance, not a 5 star in sight,1 not knowing how to rescue their civilising mission, until they are saved by the epiphany of a young (well, youngish) blonde god from the south east who brings enlightenment and restores a sense of direction and purpose. Fortunately, the ancients recognised that such epic narratives were a special form of fiction … The majority of my scholarly life has been devoted to literature which is conventionally categorised as ‘post-classical’, and if I begin with this stress upon my own sense of epigonal status, I hope I will be forgiven. I used to joke in lectures that the period after the death of Alexander the Great is usually called ‘the Wars of the Successors’ because no one knows or cares about their names; I don’t think I will be making that joke again. It is, however, with representations of succession that I am partly concerned in this lecture. We will, however, for once let Droysen rest in peace, and I will not trace again the origins of the idea of ‘the Hellenistic’ in modern scholarship. As far as modern literary history is concerned, the idea is of course more time-honoured than the name. Without going back to the laments of Schlegel and others about the decadence of Alexandrian literature, we find that in his Geschichte der griechischen Literatur of 1831 Friedrich August Wolf, the founder of modern Homeric studies, divided Greek literature from the beginnings to the end of Byzantium into 6 periods, of which the fourth indeed stretched from the death of Alexander until the battle of Actium, i. e. exactly the extent of what is now conventionally thought of as ‘the Hellenistic period’. Twenty years later Karl Otfried Müller simplified things by dividing all of Greek literature down to the high Empire into 3 periods which he labelled, the First, the Second, and the Third (this last indeed beginning with Alexandria). Müller did not – if you will allow 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 Exercise of 2001, by which the research of all Faculties and Departments in England was assessed; the outcome had very significant financial implications. ‘5 star’ was the best result possible.

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but his History was elegantly completed by his translator, John Donaldson (not the John Donaldson, I hasten to add).2 Donaldson was an Australian classicist (his brother made a fortune in sperm oil), a Fellow of Trinity, and his appointment to a headship in Bury St Edmunds is described by the National Dictionary of Biography as ‘unfortunate for the institution and for himself’ (absit omen), though it speaks approvingly of ‘the wholesome intellectual influence he exerted on the town, where he greatly improved the Athenaeum and raised the level of intellectual culture 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 examination. In his marvellous Inaugural Lecture of fifty years ago Denys Page said of a now famous papyrus fragment of drama on the subject of Gyges and the wife of Candaules: ‘look again at the language and style … we shall find the dignity, simplicity and reserve of the early [i.e. late archaic-early classical] period; where in it shall we find any of those features which we associate with Alexandrian literature of any type’ (or of those who study it, you may be tempted to add). Such a way of arguing finds countless parallels in the rhetorical and art criticism of antiquity. Dio Chrysostom’s laudatory account of the Philoctetes 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 and the old-style characters (pakai± Ehg) of the heroes’ (ch. 4) – even the craftiness of his Odysseus is an archaic form of guile, unlike modern pseudo-straightforwardness, with which, I dare say, many of us are very familiar (ch. 5). Euripides, on the other hand, is the complete opposite ( !mt¸stqovor) of Aeschylus (ch. 11), whereas Sophocles, ‘seems to come in the middle …’ (ch. 15), rather as Hellenistic rhetorical theory devised three kinds of prose style, the high, the plain, and one in the middle which draws from both the other two; three was ever a magic number. Book 10 of Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria is of course another fertile source for such critical attitudes.

2 3

Another John Donaldson was (and still is) the Assistant Curator of the Museum of Classical Archaeology in the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge. This speech (52) of Dio will be considered at greater length in Critical Moments in Classical Literature (Cambridge, forthcoming).

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A recent attempt to come to terms with Latin literary history reminds us that ‘a critique of periodization must begin by historicizing the notion of periodization itself’.4 Easier said than done, one might retort. Much of our evidence for ancient discussion of cultural periods comes in fact from the writers of Roman classicism, from the Atticists of the Augustan age through to Quintilian, together with those who parody them, such as Petronius. Here, for example, is the famous opening of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ essay On the ancient orators: ‘In the epoch preceding our own, the old philosophic Rhetoric was so grossly abused and maltreated that it fell into a decline. From the death of Alexander of Macedon it began to lose its spirit and gradually wither away, and in our generation had reached a state of almost total extinction. Another Rhetoric stole in, intolerably shameless and histrionic, illbred and without a vestige either of philosophy or of any other aspect of liberal education. Deceiving the mob and exploiting its ignorance, it not only came to enjoy greater wealth, luxury and splendour than the other, but actually made itself the key to civic honours and high office, a power which ought to have been reserved for the philosophic art. It was altogether vulgar and disgusting, and finally made the Greek world resemble the houses of the profligate and the abandoned: just as in such households there sits the lawful wife, freeborn and chaste, but with no authority over her domain, while a reckless harlot, bent on destroying her livelihood, claims control of the whole estate, treating the 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 indignity), the ancient and indigenous Attic Muse, deprived of her possessions, had lost her civic rank, while her antagonist, an upstart that had arrived only yesterday or the day before from some Asiatic sewer, a Mysian or Phrygian or Carian creature, claimed the right to rule over Greek cities, expelling her rival from public life. Thus was wisdom driven out by ignorance, and sanity by madness.’ (trans. S. Usher, adapted) I will not be concerned in this lecture with the substance and course of the debate between ‘Atticism’ and ‘Asianism’, though it is worth bearing in mind that just as in antiquity ‘Asianism’ seems always to have been a purely negative construct, created the better to parade the virtues of its ‘opposite’, so ‘Hellenistic’ has in the more recent past been another such negative construct (and it is of course no accident that the ancient period 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 politics at their heart). What we should, on the other hand, notice for the moment is the very continuity of critical language. What Dionysius has to say about ‘Asianic rhetoric’ mirrors almost exactly the treatment by Attic Comedy of ‘the new music’ of Timotheus and Philoxenus nearly 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 performance, which is made possible by the ignorance of the audience; ‘playing to the crowd’ (or the lecture questionnaire score) is now the name of the game (cf. Quintilian 10.1.43). For the writers and scholars of the Augustan age oR !qwa?oi – and their virtues – were what we would classify as ‘the ancients’ down to (roughly) the end of the fourth century BC, though of course divisions could be made within such a long period, and the critical language of periodisation was never meant to map smoothly on to a chronological table, in part because (of course) much more than mere chronology is at stake. It is less easy to establish where the poets and scholars of the third century themselves drew boundary lines, or rather what any such boundaries might have meant for them, in the way that we can see that !qwa?om and pakaiºm are already highly charged words for Thucydides and for certain self-consciously fashionable characters in Aristophanes. It will mean something that Eratosthenes did not carry his chronographical work on the Olympian victors beyond the death of Alexander, though we should be wary of leaping to the most obvious conclusions that one might draw from this apparent watershed. So too, Quintilian’s famous report that, in the late third and second century BC, Aristarchus and Aristophanes (of Byzantium) did not receive anyone ‘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 recall, the same people who, rather like the Quality Assurance Agency, thought that Homer deserved only 23 of the 24 available books of the Odyssey.5 The practice of the grammarians perhaps tells us more about the history of generic classification as a scholarly activity than it does about any sense of what divides the present from the past. More5

This refers to the scoring system in operation for the Quality Assurance exercise, by which the teaching of all Faculties and Departments in England was assessed; scores from 1 – 4 were awarded for each of 6 categories, making 24 the best possible result.

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over, there is evidence on the other side. There is, for example, no sign that the several quotations of Callimachus and the at least one each of Euphorion and Simias of Rhodes in the great first-century catalogue of 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 poetry presumably go back as far as Apollodorus in the mid-second century. Be that as it may, periodisation and the rise of scholarship can indeed hardly 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 of the late fifth century, and it is at least worthy of note that it is again in the Frogs (which has so often been thought by moderns to mark some kind of watershed) that we find perhaps the first dramatisation of the kind of literary scholarship which we so closely associate with the Hellenistic period. Here Euripides accuses Aeschylus of using ‘sheer massive mountains 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 lain awake through the long watches of the night trying to fathom what sort of bird a tawny horsecock was’ – this was in fact an emblem painted on a warship. Dionysus’ language of sleepless searching – the pursuit in fact of what would come to be known as a zetema — strikingly foreshadows that of later scholarship. Moreover, if it is true that his words pick up those of Phaedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus, ‘before now, during the long watches of the night, I have pondered the ways in which human lives are destroyed’, then the comic move from a great moral problem to the meaning of a rather silly gloss might be thought precisely to skewer what is wrong with ‘scholarship’ as narrowly conceived and practised. Be that as it may, it is texts of the third century which are replete with allusions to and anecdotes about ‘scholarship’, with – if you like – second-order reflection which knowingly reifies the activity into a discrete form of life and at the same time monumentalises the past. I offer just one famous example. One of Callimachus’ epigrams deals explicitly with the folly of the élitist self-delusion of the scholar who knows the technical names for things: I hate recycled poetry (poiema kuklikon), and get no pleasure from a road crowded with travellers this way and that. I can’t stand a boy who sleeps around, don’t drink at 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 which must be widely shared: ‘cyclic’ poetry, the broad highway, a promiscuous lover, a fountain available to all. The variety of the verbs in the first four verses marks the poet’s fastidiousness and care, whereas the very prosaic expression for the things which are rejected enacts at the verbal level the banality which is being imputed to them. What is rejected also involves or implies movement: the poem ‘which circles around’, the path with its bustling crowd, the boy who roams from one admirer to the next, the fountain to which one must travel; against this chaos is set the stillness of the scholar-poet, fixed in his opinions, and the privacy of his superiority. The final couplet modifies this picture. The play with echo suggests the emergence of a truth which previously was (consciously or unconsciously) suppressed;6 the poet’s brave words turn out to be a protective barrier which conceal as much as they reveal, and only the operation of echo, which is beyond human control, can unmask the truth. The ‘vulgar’, embodied in a popular, ‘non-élitist’ pronunciation which makes the echo possible, triumphs. The poem thus explores the fissure inherent in the whole business of seeking to write ‘élitist’ epigrams about desire, an emotion to which we are all vulnerable (it is always demosion) and one which is no respecter of aesthetic principles; it is not merely that the store of epigrammatic literary topoi is finite, but so is that of experience – hierarchies of literature are, in the end, as vain as hierarchies of kinds of lover. The word !qwa?or ‘ancient’ does not appear in Homer, though pakaiºr ‘of old’ does, and in contexts which suggest that this notion of ‘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 The vocabulary of periodisation turns out (unsurprisingly) to have as much to 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 question of naivety or pseudo-naivety as a poetic mode, and observed that one 6 7

Cf. G. B. Walsh, ‘Surprised by self: audible thought in Hellenistic poetry’ Classical Philology 85 (1990) 1 – 21, pp. 11 – 12. 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 the past and it had been forbidden to advance in certain directions or to penetrate below a certain phenomenological level … If we can put ourselves into the place of educated Athenians at the end of the fifth century B.C., a period in which philosophical, political, religious, scientific and historical thinking were developing at an almost explosive pace, we may, I think, be able to recapture the surprise we should have felt if someone had asserted that a century and a half later one distinguished poet would be writing, “And if you do this for me, Pan, may the boys of Arkadia not flog your sides and shoulders with squills when meat is short” (Theocr. 7.106 ff) … One can imagine, too, the despair of Thucydides if he had foreseen the drivel which Timaios (FGrHist 566) was to write about the mutilation of the herms (fr. 102, criticised by Plu. Nic. 1), a good example of the backwash of poetic convention into historiography’ (Theocritus p. lxix). These are serious charges, not really mitigated in the one case (Theocritus 7) by the presumably deliberate ignoring of context, speaker identity etc (to which I will return) and, in the other, by the wholesale swallowing (in which Dover is not alone) of Thucydides’ own (very idiosyncratic) claims for what constitutes historiography. What can these two cases in fact tell us about the Hellenistic literary response to coming after? Timaios of Sicilian Tauromenion, whose long life extended from the middle of the fourth to the middle of the third century BC, was the great historian of the Greek west – and the first Greek writer to concern himself seriously with the history of Rome; his history of Sicily and the west in 38 books was probably written during half a century of political exile in Athens, and may be seen, from one point of view, within the context of a remarkable flourishing of western Doric cultural and intellectual life in this period. As for the history itself, in the words of The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ‘Timaios took an extremely broad view of history, including myth, geography, ethnography, political and military events, culture, religion, marvels, and paradoxa’; in many ways, then, not just ‘extremely broad’, but also a very traditional kind of history. Whether or not it is right, with Frank Walbank, to label this ‘a more frivolous attitude to the past’ (Polybius p. 1) than Thucydides’ paraded sobriety may, however, be debated. Thucydides has, it must be admitted, nothing to rival Timaios’ discussion of the hedonistic life of the Sybarites (fr. 50), which reveals to us (inter alia) that they were the ‘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 the word for a chamber-pot appears nowhere in Thucydides, and his only mention of Sybaris is a programmatically incidental reference to the river of this name during a military narrative (7.35). Fortunately for all of us, however, it falls to others in this room to establish the parameters of historical enquiry. Labels stick, and in both antiquity and modern times, the label which has been stuck on Timaios is that of ‘pedant’, itself a notion hardly 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 a real scholar, then, almost ‘one of us’. Indeed, a climactic section of Felix Jacoby’s introductory essay on Timaios is concerned with the – to all of us highly culturally charged and to many of us personally important – question of whether the title ‘ein gelehrter’ is appropriately bestowed upon Timaios. Part of Jacoby’s self-confessedly ‘psychological’ answer is that Timaios’ blindness to his own faults and his constant polemic against, not just other historians, but figures such as Aristotle, his constant nit-picking (if you like), which brought the name ‘Epitimaios’ (the ‘blamer’), may ( Jacoby does not commit himself to the analysis) have been the result of a deep consciousness that he himself was nothing more than a dilettante without ‘wissenschaftliche Ausbildung’ who was not really up to the job of serious historiography (FGrHist IIIB pp. 537 – 8). ‘Dilettante’ is, of course, another wounding word: no graver charge can be brought against any ‘scholar’, and Timaios was both ‘pedant’ and ‘dilettante’. Polybius famously criticises him for doing all his research in libraries, without any practical experience of military affairs, topography, or the interviewing of witnesses: ‘Inquiries from books’, sneers Polybius, ‘may be made without any danger or hardship, provided only that one take care to have access to a town (polis) containing a wealth of written accounts (rpolm¶lata) or to have a library near at hand’ (12.27.4). (How different from the life of scholarship as we know it!) The sub-text seems to be that Athens, the polis where Timaios worked, like Alexandria, the site of the ancient world’s most famous library, is now merely ‘a university’, i. e. not part of 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, after all, 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 travel in pursuit of his enquiries, unlike the smug Timaios – is thus an early witness to the periodisation, and the stereotyping which accompanies it, which was to take such hold in critical circles in Rome a century and more later. In the light, incidentally, of modern directions in classical scholarship, we must also ask – if only to put off the answer for another day – what is lost and what is gained in the modern flight from the charge of ‘pedantry’, which – as Homer would say – the gods call ‘antiquarianism’. When is the flight from Realien the flight from reality? Polemic is, of course, always with us, however easy this is to forget amidst the soothingly understated modernism of Little Hall. What remains of Polybius’ all-out attack upon Timaios in his twelfth book bears eloquent, and in many ways extraordinary, witness to this. It also reminds us (again) how persistent over time are certain kinds of abuse: thus Dover’s accusation of ‘drivel’ against Timaios echoes Polybius’ charge of vkuaq¸a (12.12b.1), just as many of Polybius’ terms of abuse pick up those which Timaios himself had used. Polybius’ polemical luxuriance at Timaios’ expense is itself, however, a version, in rhetorical terms an aungsir or amplificatio, of what was for him and his readers a very famous text, the early programmatic chapters of Thucydides’ first book. After concluding his sketch of early Greek history (t± pakai², 1.20.1), Thucydides turns to the uncritical attitude that most men take to traditions about the past; he cites three specific examples: a popular belief about the end of the Athenian tyranny, and two facts about the Spartan constitution. No Hellenistic ‘pedantry’ here of course … Errors 2 and 3 we know to have occurred in Herodotus, but Thucydides names no one – the object of the attack is, at least on the surface, oR pokko¸. In Polybius some of the language of criticism remains the same, and is to be seen within a standard framework of intertextual allusion, but what is important is that Polybius’ polemical, scholarly practice takes as its starting point an authoritative ‘classical’ text and massively documents the kinds of failing at which Thucydides had merely gestured. Between Thucydides’ silent stiletto and Polybius’ strident shotgun lies, of course, a whole revolution in the use of books, the nature of education, and the nature of criticism, but here Polybius and the despised Timaios stand clearly on the same side of the divide; both illustrate the new world which we still inhabit. One of the most persistent and virulent strains in Polybius’ attack upon Timaios’ history, and particularly the speeches within it, is the charge 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 judgements, for we find it (and some of the very same examples used to illustrate it) repeated in Plutarch (Nicias 1.1 – 4) and ‘Longinus’ (4.1 – 3). It is ‘Longinus’ who preserves for us Timaios’ observation that Alexander conquered the whole of Asia ‘in fewer years than it took Isocrates to write the Panegyrikos about war in Asia’; for ‘Longinus’ such pursuit of novel witticisms (1pivym¶lata, sententiae) is forced and frigid – it is patently the product of the epideictic declamations of young men practising their own puerile humour upon each other (not unlike the Union Society or the House of Commons on a good day). ‘Longinus’ also cites the example which so upset Plutarch and Kenneth Dover: Timaios linked the Athenian disaster in his homeland of Sicily, in which the Syracusan leader Hermocrates, son of Hermon, played a central rôle, with the mutilation of the Athenian Herms shortly before the expedition’s departure. So too, it was not a good omen that the Athenian general Nikias, whose name means ‘victory’, had in fact at first declined to take part. We may of course argue about the level of ‘drivel’ involved here – we live in a world where strange things happen, particularly in times of real or alleged war, and rationalism is at least not obviously triumphant today – and it is, moreover, not entirely certain that these reflections were in the voice of the historian himself rather than one of his characters. Nevertheless, Thucydides had already noted that the Athenians 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 turned when 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 in the Athenian disaster (7.77.3), and events had proved that Nicias and those who took the mutilation of the Herms seriously were right all along. In writing from Athens the ‘Sicilian version’ of Athenian disaster, Timaios takes the Thucydidean account as his starting-point and expands upon it (another ‘amplification’), particularly in the gaps which Thucydides’ apparently rigidly austere selectivity sought to occlude, but in fact openly advertised. Specifically, we may speculate that Timaios took up and sharpened the tragic shaping of the Syracusan narrative in Thucydides, a shaping much discussed in modern scholarship: the rôle of the faceless divine, the daimonion, the ominous significance of names (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) being put to death, and has their bodies (in time-honoured fashion) exposed to public viewing (theama, fr. 102) all gesture towards familiar features of Athenian tragedy. This is not a matter of the familiar importance of dramatised pathos in Hellenistic historiography, but of a specifically appropriate literary shape to a real ‘Athenian tragedy’. The obvious parallel for the ‘Sicilian version’ of the Athenian catastrophe would be an Athenian version of the Persian catastrophe of the early fifth century, and Timaios may, as perhaps also Thucydides before him, have specifically had in mind just such a text, the Persians of Aeschylus, another dramatisation of a disaster of which the gods had given forewarning (vv. 739 – 41) and of which the lesson was that no one should ‘scorn their present lot and by 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 Athenians would have carried a brilliant textual power. It is at least tantalising that a not implausible ancient tradition has it that the Persians had in the fifth century been performed in Syracuse at the request of the tyrant Hieron 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 show us whether Thucydides’ rationality, constructed as the easy rationality of hindsight, was also subverted, so that the Athenian historian collapsed along with the power of his city. Let me now turn to Dover’s other exhibit.8 The meeting and songexchange of Lycidas, the unmistakable goatherd (or is he?), met by chance (or is it?) on a Coan country road, and Simichidas in Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll, the Thalysia, has a fair claim to be among, not only the most discussed, but also the most powerful and strangely compelling scenes of all Greek poetry; in part its hold over us lies not merely in the familiar attractiveness of the mysterious and riddling, but also in our pervasive sense of witnessing a confrontation across time, a dramatisation of historical development. Whereas Timaios demands that we acknowledge his textual suppletion, his ransacking of the past, the Thalysia teasingly veils its secrets in proclaiming only its pristine novelty. If, like the élitist Pindaric voice, Lycidas speaks ‘to those who understand’, it would seem that the young Simichidas, the ‘professional’ poet from the city with a repertoire of songs ready to hand (vv. 92 – 5), but now faced with his inaugural performance in front of the only audience 8

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

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which matters, is not to be included in this privileged group, for when it is his turn to sing he adopts a fiction of ‘poetic inspiration’, as though he has not understood what Lycidas has said to him: t¹m d³ l´t’ awhir jAc½m to?’ 1v²lam7 “Kuj¸da v¸ke, pokk± l³m %kka M¼lvai jAl³ d¸danam !m’ ¥qea boujok´omta 1shk², 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 Nymphs taught me too many other songs as I tended my herd on the mountain, excellent poems, which public report has perhaps carried even to the throne of Zeus. But this with which I shall do you honour is much the finest of them all: listen then, since you are dear to the Muses.’

Simichidas here sets himself as a latter-day Hesiod, whose poetic ‘initiation’ by the Muses as he herded his lambs on Mt Helicon is recorded in the opening of the Theogony. The very fiction which he employs marks him as a modern poet of a quite different kind from the model which he claims; divine inspiration, whether from the Muses or the more appropriately bucolic nymphs, is now merely a ‘technical’ gesture, a code shared between a poet and his audience. It is a code which Simichidas, like all modern professionals, can adopt or abandon at will, in accordance with the generic demands of any particular song. When, however, Lycidas offers the first performance of a song which he has ‘recently crafted on the mountain’, we have at least no prima facie reason to disbelieve him. Here is the opening part of Simichidas’ poem in A.S.F. Gow’s translation: ‘For Simichidas the Loves sneezed, for he, poor soul, loves Myrto as dearly as goats love the spring. But Aratus, dearest friend in all to me, guards deep at heart desire of a boy. Aristis knows, a man of worth, the best of men, whom Phoebus himself would not grudge to stand and sing, lyre in hand, by his own tripods – knows how to the very marrow Aratus is aflame with love of a boy. Ah, Pan, to whom has fallen the lovely plain of Homole, lay him unsummoned in my friend’s dear arms, whether it be the pampered Philinus or another. And if you do this, dear Pan, then never may Arcadian lads flog you with 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 in midwinter find yourself on the mountains of the Edonians, turned towards the river Hebrus, hard by the pole. And in summer may you herd your flock among the furthest Ethiopians beneath the rock of the Blemyes from where the Nile is no more seen. But do you leave the sweet stream of Hyetis and Byblis, and Oecus, that steep seat of golden-haired Dione, you Loves as rosy as apples, and wound for me with your bows the lovely Philinus, would him, for the wretch has no pity on my friend.’ The (to us at least) obscure proper names, the sense that the poem is full of in-jokes, the joking prayer to Pan, and the persistent detached irony are all suggestive again of an entirely modern, iambic mode. The very lowness of such poetry, its claim to a ‘popular voice’, made it a paradoxically perfect vehicle for the exploitation of the new possibilities of written poetry and new types of audience. Thus, for example, whereas Lycidas speaks in a prophetic, incantatory, semi-mystical manner which hints at a magical control of the world (the halcyons etc.) and recalls the originary link between poet and seer, Simichidas includes the description (which so offended Dover) of a distant, but allegedly contemporary, rustic magical rite, with which he himself has nothing to do and about which he has learned, so we are to understand, from a book. If the world of Simichidas’ in-jokes remains (perhaps deliberately) closed to us, he makes very sure that we understand his geographical and 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 and practices, 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 the party he will hold to celebrate the safe arrival in Mytilene of his beloved Ageanax, is very different: ‘Close by Tityrus shall sing how once Daphnis the oxherd loved Xenea, and how the hill grieved for him and the oaks which grow upon the river Himeras’ banks sang his dirge, when he was wasting like any snow under high Haemus or Athos or Rhodope or remotest Caucasus. And he shall sing how once a wide coffin received the goat alive by the impious presumption of a king; and how the bluntfaced bees came from the meadows to the fragrant chest of cedar and fed him on tender flowers because the Muse had poured sweet nectar on his

On Coming After

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lips. Ah, blessed Comatas, yours is this sweet lot: you too were closed within the coffin; you too, on honeycomb fed, did endure with labour the springtime of the year. Would that you had been numbered with the living in my day, that I might have herded your fair goats upon the hills and listened to your voice, while you, divine Comatas, did lie and make sweet music under the oaks or pines.’ Lycidas, unlike Simichidas, finds personal, exemplary comfort in the bucolic and aipolic heroes of his own world – Daphnis and Komatas – and what is important, as it had traditionally been in the poetic representation of myth, is how their stories, their p\hg, act as paradigms for his own experience. Moreover, this highly allusive text seems to assume an audience, whether that be just Lycidas himself or some wider group, to which those stories are known and significant. This allusive narrative mode, seen most famously in the song of Daphnis in Idyll 1, suggests ‘tradition’, as it also constructs for itself an interpretive community; here, literary allusiveness, intertextuality if you like, and mythic allusiveness function in similar ways. The different gods who question the fast-fading Daphnis in Idyll 1 embody different levels of knowledge and curiosity, thus dramatising the text’s construction of its audience, but this device also foregrounds that allusiveness which implies familiarity, while conjuring up the generic world of myth and constructing a community to whom that myth is significant, who need constantly to (re-) interpret it. It would be tempting to set this contrast between Lycidas’ high allusiveness and Simichidas’ plain specificity within that broad movement which we have come to know, and seek to deconstruct, as the shift from myth to mythology, but let me return first to what Simichidas actually says. The pursuit of novelty leaves, as I noted earlier, a world marked out by (often arcane) cult and ritual names, rather than by narratives of personal or collective significance. Many modern readers of Callimachus’ Hymns might feel at home within Simichidas’ ‘written’ religious world, in which the scholarly gloss is the standard discursive mode, but this ‘precision’ of names, which there is no reason not to connect with the prevalence of systematic written history, has a place in the wider evolution of mythic narrative. The modern study of fiction has taught us that detailed names and places are the ‘effects of the real’ which create the fictional illusion; this is an irony which Thucydides would presumably not have appreciated. Such detail goes hand-inhand with the telling of stories as coherent, self-contained wholes in which temporal and spatial sequence are of primary importance: we may think of, for example, Simaitha’s first-person narration of her affair

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with Delphis in Idyll 2. With hindsight we can see that the vast sea of Greek myth was fertile ground for the development of fictionalising instincts and the instinct for fiction: Walter Burkert once noted9 that what is distinctive and ‘utterly confusing for non-specialists and often for specialists’ about Greek myth is its extraordinarily profuse detail of names, genealogies and inter-relationships, with, in other words, (though Burkert certainly did not say this) ‘effects of the real’ waiting to happen. If we are forced to name a crucial moment in this process, the classicist may think of Aristophanes’ Euripides, whose prologising gods told ‘the whole story’ (Frogs 946 – 7), i.e organised disparate strands (and disparate names) into a coherent, connected narrative. As for Lycidas’ stories of Daphnis and Komatas, it is tempting to suggest that the allusive mode of telling, related forms of which are of course familiar enough from the choral lyric of the archaic and classical periods, is a direct response to developments in ‘systematic mythography’ and to what I have called the ‘fictionalising’ impulses which go with that systematisation. In the Bucolics, Theocritus thus imaginatively recreates or invents an oral style of ‘traditional tale’ beyond systematisation (and certainly beyond Simichidas) and only preserved in the folk memories of shepherds and goatherds. No more powerful dramatisation of what ‘coming after’ actually means survives from the extraordinary intellectual currents of the third century. There are, of course, periods of Greek teaching as well as of Greek literature. In his Inaugural of only 72 years ago, D. S. Robertson observed, ‘The Greek Professor is happily no longer expected to teach students their alphabet or declensions’; try telling that to the Classical Languages Committee. The deep commitment by the Faculty of Classics to the teaching of the Greek and Latin languages, and to innovation in that teaching, is in fact a major reason why I am very proud to be associated with this remarkable institution. This is, of course, not the easiest period for Greek and for Classics as a whole, despite the enormous contemporary interest in the ancient world and its imagining in successive ages, which was already justly celebrated by Professor Easterling in her London Inaugural of 1988 and which has just been so vividly demonstrated in the sell-out audiences for Jane Montgomery’s challenging production of Sophocles’ Electra.10 Adjustment to the times in which we live, to – 9 ‘Mythisches Denken. Versuch einer Definition an Hand des griechischen Befundes’ in H. Poser (ed.), Philosophie und Mythos (Berlin 1979) 16 – 39, p. 30. 10 The Cambridge Greek Play of 2001.

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for example – the disappearance of Greek from mainstream secondary education, has, however, been painful and occasionally divisive, particularly for those at the heart of whose universe stand the classical languages. I hope, however, that grand recipes for the future are not an inevitable part of Inaugurals. An obvious cliché would be to recall Rodney Wainwright, the lecturer from the University of North Queensland in David Lodge’s Small World, who does not know how to complete the crucial sentence of his lecture (an inaugural performance on the world stage) at a Future of Criticism conference: ‘The question is, therefore, how can criticism …’. He is, as you recall, saved by an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease; well, life is imitating art too often these days to allow such jests. I am, in any case, tempted to say that it is in fact not the future of criticism which concerns me – no doubt I will get plenty of that. One of my predecessors as a University Professor of Greek, to whom I should feel particularly close, Nicholas Ridley (successively student, Fellow, and Master of Pembroke), was burnt at the stake, though not perhaps for a poor seminar performance. More seriously, however, the whole future of ‘criticism’, of krisis ‘judgement’, about Greek literary culture depends crucially upon the training in the Greek language of future generations of students; the crisis for krisis is no longer just a feeble pun (has not been so for many years), and our concern must be, not just the future of so-called technical disciplines such as papyrology and palaeography, which (I think) there is good reason to hope will continue to attract highly talented specialists, but rather for the wide diffusion of an appreciation of the Greek literary heritage, as well as for the progress of higher-level understanding of these difficult and rewarding texts. I hope that it is another cliché to say that the furtherance of knowledge of the Greek language must be the principal, though not the only, duty of the Regius Professor, and I pledge myself to work tirelessly to that end. What makes this position so special, however, is the privilege of working in an institution which thinks not only about how we can 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, therefore, I do not plead for moderate, or even radical, change of direction – as, for example, did Ted Kenney and Anthony Snodgrass in their Inaugurals of 1975 and 1977 – it is not just because a glance at those lectures will reveal just how far we have moved in a very short time, and certainly not because very hard thinking and (perhaps radical) change will not be needed, but because the collective will is such that there

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seems no chance whatsoever of a return to the unexamined life of an earlier age. As long, then, as the University holds to the educational purposes which it publicly proclaims, unlike the young Heracles Classics at Cambridge does not face an inaugural choice between virtue and vice, between (in random order) the hard, indeed often physically demanding task of properly learning an inflected language and the pursuit of more easily attained and possibly more short-lived intellectual satisfactions. This is not because we do or should conceal the difficulties and often frustrations involved in learning Greek at what is roughly the same age as Heracles made his choice, but because the dichotomy and the labels attached to it are utterly false to the complex and variegated material which forms the substance of our subject and the philosophy which informs the way we teach and study it. There are, in fact, many paths from which someone at Cambridge interested in the ancient world has to choose, and in some Greek plays a more prominent rôle than in others; this is not a cause for regret, but rather a symptom of careful attention to the ends which we all have in view. The plural here is strictly necessary, of course. Introducing local primary-school children to Greek once a week in the Museum of Classical Archaeology, as has happened in the Faculty this year, must have a different purpose and criterion of success than teaching first-year undergraduates, but too often in the past we have saddled ourselves with a single – and I use the word advisedly – paradigm of what learning Greek looks and feels like. Post-modern diversity is here to be embraced and encouraged. One thing, however, I hope remains constant and unifying. When I was twelve I was fortunate enough to be offered the chance to learn Greek by a school (very many miles from here) 11 which had not otherwise 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 be for me the sources of what (most of the time) seems like a pleasure far surpassing the simple absence of pain, and this is an end we must not overlook and which we as teachers must do our best to allow others to enjoy. It may be that my colleagues in the Faculty do not think that I was placed among them to pursue pleasure, but let me end by thanking them once again for their support and by saying how much I look forward to the common pursuit in the years ahead. 11 Cranbrook School, Sydney.

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 Symplegades 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 Hyperboreans1; on the advice of Orpheus, they build an altar on the island to Apollo :~ior and perform sacrifices upon it. The episode2 concludes with the swearing of an oath of mutual help, and the poet tells us that a temple of jl|moia which the Argonauts built on the island was still standing in his day. We recognise here a very common pattern in Apollonius’ epic: a brief stop on the journey is marked by ritual and aetiology. 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 Argonauts by revealing to them (again in his role as a god of light) the island which they subsequently called )m\vg and on which they founded a cult of Apollo AQck^tgr3. The impenetrable darkness from which Apollo saves the heroes in the fourth book is the last peril of the whole voyage, but when they see him in Book 2, Colchis and the return journey lie in front of them. Nevertheless, the epiphany and the foundation of the temple to jl|moia emphasise that the worst peril of the outward journey, the Symplegades, has been successfully negotiated * 1 2 3

Museum Helveticum 43 (1986) 50 – 60 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 Scythians (as indeed was the usual view). The events on the island are marked off as a separate unit by Glor d’ … v\or (669) ~ Glor d] … v\or (720). 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’ account 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 possible use of Callimachus in the present episode cf. below pp. 38 – 41.

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and prepare the Argonauts for the tasks ahead4. This division of the poem is marked by vv. 762 – 771 in which Jason gives Lycus, the king of the Mariandynoi, a brief account of ‘the story so far’, beginning with the Catalogue of Heroes (762 – 763) 5 ; the ‘enchantment’ which Jason’s words work (cf. h]kcet’ !jou0 hul|m, 772) suggest that he is like a Phemius (cf. Od. 1, 337) or, rather, Odysseus himself (cf. Od. 17, 514, 521). We may indeed compare Apollonius’ technique here with the echo of the opening lines of the Odyssey at Od. 13, 88 – 92, an echo which points to a division of the poem into ‘Odysseus absent’ and ‘Odysseus present’6. The stop among the Mariandynoi is also marked by the deaths of the prophet Idmon and the steersman Tiphys, and so it would clearly be a mistake to interpret Apollo’s epiphany as a sign to the Argonauts that their luck has turned. We may perhaps see a foreshadowing of these grim events in the fact that the account of the Argonauts on Humi\r draws freely upon Homer’s description of the island across the water from the Cyclopes where Odysseus and his crew camp (Od. 9, 116 – 176) 7. Both islands not only provide an opportunity for rest and recovery, but also act as a prelude to disaster. The language8 and structure of Apollo’s epiphany are traditional: a divine appearance causes mortal h\lbor and is followed by prayers and worship (cf., e. g., Od. 3, 371 – 394). The god’s flowing hair9, the bow in his left hand10, and the quiver hanging down his back, however, well exemplify 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, compares Od. 23, 310—343, but the structural role of those verses is quite different. There is a good discussion of the Lycus episode in K. W. Blumberg, Untersuchungen zur epischen Technik des Apollonios von Rhodes (Diss. Leipzig 1931) 44. 7 Cf. Vian’s edition, pp. 275 – 276. 8 Cf. M. Campbell, Echoes and Imitations of Early Epic in Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden 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: Essays presented to Gilbert Murray on his seventieth birthday (Oxford 1936) 23, suggests that the description of Apollo would remind Apollonius’ readers of Ptolemy. 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.

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Striking also is the suddenness of the god’s appearance. The scene is presented as though Apollo is unaware of the Argonauts’ presence on the island; they see him but he does not see them. Such an experience was highly dangerous for mortal men, as Callimachus states baldly in the 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 a central 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 mortal and divine action, even when the mortals are, like the Argonauts, all related to gods (cf. 3, 365 – 366). There is very little direct contact in the Argonautica between the heroes and the major Olympian deities12, and confrontations with minor divinities are marked by the same apparent suddenness as is Apollo’s epiphany. After Heracles has been left behind, for example, Glaucus appears out of the sea to foretell the future, but although his opening words appeal to the lec\koio Di¹r bouk^ his intervention remains abrupt and mysterious (1, 310 – 1328) 13. So too in the fourth book, Triton appears very suddenly to aid the Argonauts after Orpheus has had the bright idea of using one of Apollo’s tripods to win over the local divinities (4, 1547 – 1591). These scenes are not merely examples of Apollonius’ many experiments with epic narrative, but are also part of a problem which the whole poem raises in a very acute 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 documented in M. Teufel, Brauch und Ritus bei Apollonios Rhodios (Diss. Tübingen 1939) 167 – 188 and cf. A. W. Bulloch (Cambridge 1985) on Call. Lav. Pall 101 – 102. 12 On the gods in Apollonius see H. de la Ville de Mirmont, Apollonios de Rhodes et Virgile (Paris 1894) passim; L. Klein, Die Gçttertechnik in den Argonautika des Apollonios 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.

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Apollo’s epiphany is at one level a poetic version of sunrise. Opinions will differ as to whether Apollonius invites us to understand that the physically exhausted14 and emotionally drained men interpret a natural phenomenon as a divine apparition. It is possible that Herodorus, a major source for this part of the epic15, had mentioned (in order to reject) this aetiology for the cult of Apollo :~ior, but unfortunately the relevant scholium is ambiguous16. Be that as it may, Apollonius has made the equation of Apollo and the sun17 absolutely clear by stressing the god’s golden hair and his brilliant eyes into which none of the heroes could look directly; later in the poem we are told that such eyes are a 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 in the present episode we see an elaborate version of this. The solar identity of Apollo also illuminates the role of Orpheus here. The poet par excellence takes a leading role in ritual throughout the epic and the links between Orpheus and Apollo require no special illustration. Nevertheless, Apollonius may have a particular legend in mind here. According to this story19, Orpheus rejected the worship of Dionysus and instead used to climb Mt. Pangaion every morning to worship the sun which he called Apollo. This story formed some part of Aeschylus’ Bassarai (cf. fr. 23a Radt). Whether or not Apollonius was thinking of that story here, the role of Orpheus points to the unity of all the events on 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; Thynias was 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 pqosacoqe}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. Wilamowitz, 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.

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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 take on the island does find an echo in the version of the Argonautic saga preserved in the fourth book of Diodorus Siculus. There we read that, at the suggestion of Heracles, the heroes swore to help each other again in the future after they had completed the quest for the Fleece (Diod. Sic. 4, 53, 4). Diodorus’ main source here is the rationalising account of the myth given by Dionysius Scytobrachion, and we 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 to understand his art. The foundations of the cults of Apollo :~ior and of jl|moia are not separate, unrelated events21, but part of one Apolline experience. The role of Orpheus stresses Apollo’s function as the god of music, and the links between musical and social ‘harmony’ would have been familiar to any educated contemporary of Apollonius. The most famous expression of these ideas is the opening passage of Pindar’s First Pythian, a poem in which Apollo is asked to help Hiero to guide his people 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 t¹ bloO, 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, fti taOta p\mta, ¦r vasim oR jolxo· peq· lousijµm ja· !stqomol_am, "qlom_ô tim· 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 his version. Rusten (n. 17 above) 85 – 92, makes Dionysius roughly contemporary with Apollonius and (p. 95) finds it impossible to decide priority in the two main incidents shared by the two writers, the halt at Samothrace and the epiphany 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 earlier poetry cf. Archilochus fr. 26, 5 – 6 West; Aesch. Ag. 1080 – 1082; Eur. Phaethon 224 – 226; Timotheus, PMG 800 (cf. below p. 59), and perhaps Hipponax fr. 25 West.

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

II. In historical times the island on which the Argonauts see Apollo was also known as Apollonia and was largely given over to the cult of Apollo25. This interest dominates Apollonius’ account, and two passages call for particular notice. The first is the description of the Argonauts’ arrival on the island (669 – 676): 670

Glor d’ out’ %q py v\or %lbqotom out’ 5ti k_gm 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\samter Humi\dor jal\t\ pokup^lomi ba?mom 5qafe. to?si d³ KgtoOr uR¹r !meqw|lemor Kuj_ghem 1nev\mg.

Apollonius uses the Glor … t/lor formula sparingly and with care26. The Glor clause may describe an action in ‘the real world’ which reflects or 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 the t/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; for some 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 too bl|moia and "qlom_a are important notions in pre-Socratic and sophistic thought, 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 Einzelschriften Bd. 13, 1960) 210 – 211 and Fränkel, Noten (n. 6 above) 141.

1. Apollo and the Argonauts

35

instances the Glor clause, as at 2, 669 – 671, describes a natural phenomenon. We may therefore reasonably enquire why Apollonius has chosen this particular moment to display his knowledge of the Homeric hapax !lvik}jg27. The Homeric scholia connect this word with kuj|vyr and k}cg, but the scholia to Aratus, Phaen. 747 make a connection with k}jor, the sacred animal of Apollo. I suggest, therefore, that !lvik}jg has a peculiar appropriateness as a time for seeing Apollo, and that Apollonius has helped us to see this by making the god travel Kuj_ghem. The cult 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 from k}jg ( !p¹ toO keujoO) in the course of Macrobius’ discussion of the cult title (Sat. 1, 17, 36 – 41). Macrobius is known to depend upon Apollodorus of Athens peq· he_m (FGrHist 244 F 95), but we can hardly assume that Apollodorus too had connected !lvik}jg and K}jior29. Even if he had done so, we would still not have traced the connection as far back as the time of Apollonius. Nevertheless, with or without grammatical precedent, Apollonius has established the connection by the repetition of the kuj-root; some confirmation that etymology and verbal games are important in this passage may be found in the account of the worship of Apollo in vv. 701 – 713:

705

710

!lv· d³ daiol]moir erq»m woq¹m 1st^samto, jak¹m Zgpai^om’ Zgpai^oma Vo?bom lekp|lemoi. s»m d] svim 1»r pa?r OQ\cqoio Bistom_, v|qlicci kice_gr Gqwem !oid/r· ¦r pote petqa_, rp¹ deiq\di Paqmgso?o Dekv}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 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 echo Phaen. 80, keptot]qg c±q t0 ja· t0 1pid]dqolem aUckg ; there is a sensitive discussion of vv. 669 – 671 by Fränkel in DLZ 51 (1930) 874. On the actual etymology of !lvik}jg cf. D. J. N. Lee, ‘Homeric kuj\bar and others’, Glotta 40 (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 derives this passage of Macrobius from Apollodorus.

36

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

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 tells was very old30. In particular, Apollonius has in mind the version of this story in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. In the Hymn, as in Apollonius, a group of weary seafarers found a new cult of Apollo with a title derived from their experience of the god, Dekv_mior in the Hymn, :~ior in Apollonius. 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 of the 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 the monster, suggests an etymology for the place-name Delphi; the juxtaposition of petqa_, rp¹ deiq\di Paqmgso?o (the actual location of Delphi) and Dekv}mgm points us towards this etymology. In the context of Apollo’s epiphany in the Argonautica, it may also be worth remarking that the Homeric Hymn presents Apollo and Helios working together for the destruction of the monster (368 – 374); there Apollo uses the power of the sun, rather than himself representing that power. The slaying of the Delphic serpent was traditionally an act of Apollo’s youth or even his earliest infancy. In Callimachus’ accounts in the Hymn to Apollo (cf. below p. 39 – 40) and in the fourth book of the Aetia32 Apollo was still a pa?r when he performed this act. At first sight, Apollonius’ indication of the god’s age (707) is puzzling. The style of the verse is, however, familiar from many hymns of praise33, and we may compare a typically Callimachean achievement of Apollo’s baby 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 scholars, like modern translators, disputed whether jak|m in v. 473 was adjectival or adverbial; jak¹m 1v}lmiom in v. 713 seems to give Apollonius’ view. For adjectival 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 documented by K. Keyssner, Gottesvorstellung und Lebensauffassung im griechischen Hymnus (Stuttgart 1932) 39 – 44.

1. Apollo and the Argonauts

75

37

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, 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 dedicated the hair cut from their head either in infancy or on reaching sexual maturity to a god, often Apollo34 ; the ancients connected joOqor with je_qeim, and that is obviously important for the interpretation of this passage35. 707 nicely hints that Apollo might one day cut his hair and dedicate it to himself. No wonder that the poet cuts in jocularly to ask the god’s forgiveness. His apology turns on the ambiguity of 5ti, which can mean ‘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_ of vv. 708 – 709, picking up the repetition of 5ti, assures us and the god that we were wrong. culm|r in v. 707 presents a further, and more difficult, problem. It has often been taken to mean ‘beardless’ and this would be very attractive37; Apollonius commonly denotes a man’s age by 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’s youthful beauty (Ap. 36 – 37): ja· l³m !e· jak¹r ja· !e· m]or· oupote Vo_bou hgke_air oqd’ fssom 1p· wm|or Gkhe paqeia?r.

Nevertheless, I have been unable to parallel either culm|r or nudus used by themselves to mean ‘beardless’. Three alternative approaches have been tried. One is emendation, but nothing very satisfactory has been devised38. Secondly, some critics have seen a reference to the nakedness 34 Cf., e. g., Euphorion, AP 6, 279 (= Gow-Page, Hellenistic Epigrams 1801 – 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 importance of 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 apparently used culm|r to mean ‘with shaven head’, !pesjuhisl]mor (fr. 265 West = Hesychius c 1001). 38 tumm|r Schneider, tuth|r Morel.

38

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

of Greek statuary39 ; 5ti is, however, awkward with this explanation which may also be thought to lack the desired wit. Thirdly, we may adopt the explanation of the scholiast who glosses culm|r as %mgbor : Apollo is already a joOqor, but not yet an 5vgbor40. Again the lack of a parallel for such a use of culm|r is disconcerting. If the word is sound, therefore, we might consider the possibility that the first half of v. 707 draws on the version of the legend in which Apollo was still 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 Dictaean cave as 5ti joOqor, 5ti vqes· m^pia eQd~r. If this is right, then Apollonius has, not untypically, combined two versions of the story in his narrative; indeed here the two versions appear side-by-side in the one verse. The aspect of this passage of the Argonautica which has attracted most 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):

100

Rµ Rµ pai/om !jo}olem, ovmeja toOto Dekv|r toi pq~tistom 1v}lmiom evqeto ka|r, Glor 2jgbok_gm wqus]ym 1pede_jmuso t|nym. 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 have looked rather to the opening story of Aetia 4 for Apollonius’ source41; the Apollonian scholia tell us that Callimachus also somewhere named the Delphic serpent Dekv}mgr (fr. 88 Pfeiffer) and if this was, as commonly assumed, in Aetia 4 then this would seem to strengthen the case for eliminating the Callimachean hymn as a possible influence upon Argonautica 2. Even relative poetic chronology is extremely difficult to establish for this period, but the full implications of the possible links 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 cautious discussion on p. 82 of F. Williams’ edition of Call. Ap. (Oxford 1978).

1. Apollo and the Argonauts

39

That both poets use the etymological games42 and changes of person traditionally associated with hymnic style is of no significance for relative chronology; Apollonius certainly did not need the Aetia to teach him the stylistic tricks of vv. 707 – 710. Of some interest perhaps are the similarity of v. 702, jak¹m Zgpai^om’ Zgpai^oma Vo?bom, to v. 21 of the Callimachean hymn, bpp|h’ Rµ pai/om Rµ pai/om !jo}s,, and the 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, however, be derived from either of these observations. Suggestive also is the word 1v}lmiom which both poets use. This word is first found here and at Call. fr. 384, 39 (The Victory of Sosibios) where t^mekka jakk_mije is described as )qwik|wou mija?om 1v}lmiom43 ; 1v}lmiom has been thought to be an invention of Callimachus, but no good argument for this has been produced44. The dating of The Victory of Sosibios is notoriously uncertain45, and Callimachus could have used the word in other now lost poems (for example, the opening of Aetia 4). The sudden appearance of this word in the parallel passages of Callimachus and Apollonius remains curious, however, and it may be worth suggesting that Callimachus’ emphatic toOto j Dekv|r toi pq~tistom 1v}lmiom evqeto (98 – 99) points to the ‘invention’ of the word 1v}lmiom as well as of the ritual cry. A new papyrus could, of course, easily destroy such a speculation. A further 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 three other places (1, 92; 3, 398. 1226), always at verse-end; 2, 706 is, however, the only occasion when he uses this verb with a non-human ob42 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 other Greek 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 a later 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.

40

Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

ject. Callimachus’ jat^maqer47 reproduces a Homeric hapax (Od. 11, 519) and reflects Homeric usage (cf. Il. 21, 485 h/qar 1ma_qeim). The evidence is thus quite inconclusive, but it may be thought that Callimachus here has slightly the better claim to priority. Two further matters deserve notice. Callimachus leaves us in no doubt about the nature of Apollo’s opponent, dail|mior h^q, j aQm¹r evir. In Apollonius Dekv}mgr is merely given the general epithet pek~qior48 and there is no explicit indication of what sort of creature it was. We may contrast 4, 1396 – 1398 where K\dym, the serpent of the Hesperides, is described explicitly as wh|mior evir, and Apollonius’ obvious interest in dragons is fully displayed at 4, 127 – 161. His silence at 2, 706 may therefore be added to the cumulative argument that he is writing in this passage with his eye on an already existing poetic version. A final consideration can be adduced which seems to me to add considerably to the weight of this argument. The derivation of the cry Rµ R^ from R]mai (b]kor) will have had a long history before Callimachus and Apollonius. It is visible already, I would suggest, in a brief passage of Timotheus preserved by Macrobius in his discussion of Apollo’s titles (PMG 800): s} t’ § t¹m !e· p|kom oqq\miom kalpqa?r !jt?s’ Nkie b\kkym, p]lxom 2jab|kom 1whqo?s 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 surely picks up, and is thus explained by, p]lxom. Be that as it may, the link between R]mai and the ritual cry to Apollo was certainly familiar in the third century49. Callimachus makes the derivation completely clear, but in Apollonius we have only t|noisi in v. 706 to help us. This may seem not very significant as all of Apollonius’ readers (ancient and modern) know already how Apollo killed the dragon, but it is worth noting that until Hermann Fränkel restored Vg Ve to the text of v. 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.

Addendum

41

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

Addendum This epiphany of Apollo is discussed again from a rather different perspective in Critical 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 sceptical eye over an earlier draft of this paper.

2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica* If Medea has attracted more readers to the Argonautica than any other character — thereby also determining which parts of the poem have become generally familiar — she has also provided critics of the poem with their major (sometimes their sole) topic for discussion.1 The main charge, particularly among critics writing in English,2 is that the various 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 inconsistency [Apollonius] either ignored deliberately in the confidence of his Medea in love, or, just possibly, may not have noticed. The same emotionally immature and helpless Medea is the competent, unfrightened servant of Hecate, the cool instructress of Jason in taming the bulls, the calm soother of the dragon… the behaviour of Medea later in the *

1

2

Classical Quarterly 37 (1987) 129 – 39 Earlier versions of this paper were read to seminars in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Sydney and Zurich; I am grateful to those audiences for much advice and criticism. I am also indebted to Dr D. C. Feeney who kindly commented upon the penultimate draft. The following works are cited by author name only: C. R. Beye, Epic and Romance in the Argonautica of Apollonius (Carbondale, 1982); M. Campbell, Studies in the Third Book of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (Hildesheim, 1983); H. Fränkel, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Munich, 1968); M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche (Rome, 1985); P. Hübscher, Die Charakteristik der Personen in Apollonios’ Argonautika (diss. Freiburg i.d. Schweiz, 1940); G. Paduano, Studi su Apollonio Rodio (Rome, 1972); U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung (Berlin, 1924). 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 be learned from E. Phinney, ‘Narrative Unity in the Argonautica, the Medea-Jason Romance’, TAPA 98 (1967), 327 – 41 and Campbell 37 – 77. Cf. Fusillo’s strictures (p. 287 n. 54)’ II problema della “doppia Medea” e forse il piu ozioso e il piu falsato nell’ impostazione di quelli su cui si e soffermata la bibliografia apolloniana’.

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

43

[fourth] Book is, against all reason, quite untouched by what we would think of as a shattering experience, at the very least destructive of any real trust between her and Jason … It is as if Apollonius has thrown in [Apsyrtus’ murder] without care or realisation of its consequence for the consistency of her character’.3 Behind criticism of this kind lies both an understandable desire to relate the characters of ancient literature, if not to our own experience, at least to what instinct tells us is possible, and the whole tradition of criticism which descends from the Poetics of Aristotle. In recent years other approaches have gained currency,4 but in this paper I shall explore the presentation of Medea as a whole (Part I) and particularly of her flight from Colchis (Part II) within a traditional framework in an attempt to clarify what seem to me to be critical misunderstandings.

I. Two related observations are in order at once. First, Medea’s ‘credibility’ can hardly be the object of serious debate. Whether or not homicidal sorceresses can also be impressionable virgins (and vice versa) is a subject about which people may reasonably disagree. Moreover, we are here concerned not with any young Colchian girl, but with the hypothesised adolescence of a familiar figure of myth and literature. The murder of Apsyrtus foreshadows the later murder of Medea’s own children, just as, mutatis mutandis, Heracles’ strangling of the snakes foreshadows his later elimination of some of Greece’s most hideous monsters.5 Such neat patterns may indeed be more common in myth and literature 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 both Book 3 and Book 4. Well known is 3.858 – 68: t/r oVgm t’ 1m eqessi jekaimµm Qjl\da vgcoO Jasp_gi 1m j|wkyi !l^sato vaql\sseshai,

3 4 5

C. Collard, ‘Medea and Dido’, Prometheus 1 (1975), 131 – 51 at 138 – 9. 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. Apsyrtus goes to his death like an !tak¹r p\ir (4.460); cf. also 3.747 – 8, Fusillo 338.

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Hellenistic Poetry and its Reception

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’ aqt¹r Yapeto?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 with chthonic powers and who stores the physical torment of others between her beautiful breasts. A less bizarre example of these contrasts, but one very relevant to the argument of Part II of this paper, occurs in the description of her flight to the Argo (4.50 – 3): oq c±q %idqir Gem bd_m, hal± ja· pq·m !kyl]mg !lv_ te mejqo»r !lv_ te duspak]ar N_far whom|r, oXa cuma?jer vaqlaj_der· tqoleq_i d’ rp¹ de_lati p\kketo hul|r.

So too, Medea’s last two appearances in the poem form a tellingly contrasted pair. At 4.1521 – 2 she and her maids flee when Mopsus is bitten by a snake: they behave like ordinary young girls.6 In her final appearance, however, the magic powers of her eyes save the Argonauts by causing the destruction of the bronze giant Talos (4.1651 – 88). Thus, the picture we have of her does not change; rather, different aspects are emphasised as the narrative moves through a wide range of action and emotion. We may compare the Medea of Euripides. She too is clever and dangerous, even if her magical powers are, until the end of the play, given less prominence than in Apollonius,7 but she is also a woman who expresses concerns which Euripides represents as common to all women8 and whose situation, that of being discarded in favour of another, is not peculiar to clever and dangerous women. 6 7 8

Vian’s note on 1521, ‘Médée a aussitôt compris le danger et le caractère irremediable de la blessure’, is hard to believe; contrast, e. g., Paduano 232. Cf. B. M. W. Knox, ‘The Medea of Euripides’, YCS 25 (1977), 193 – 225 at 211 – 16 ( = Word and Action, pp. 307 – 11). 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.

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

45

The murder of Apsyrtus is the hinge around which most discussion of Medea’s character has swung. Interpretation is hindered by the very elliptical narrative of the events surrounding the deed.9 Critics differ as to whether at 4.404 – 5 Jason reveals a plan to kill Apsyrtus which had been part of the Argonauts’ strategy all along,10 or whether the idea suddenly occurs to him as an ad hoc way of soothing Medea’s rage.11 What is crucial, however, is that the uncertainty the modern reader feels is precisely the situation in which the poet has placed Medea herself, and it is this uncertainty about her position that marks and determines her behaviour throughout the fourth book. She is no more clear than we are 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 the third 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 killed Creon and his daughter in Euripides’ Medea, just as Medea’s speech of reproof to Jason is clearly a reworking of the parallel speech in the tragedy (Med. 465 – 519). The tragic Medea makes no bones about what is likely 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 to which love can lead (627 – 43); the comparison of Apollonius’ curse on sw]tki’ =qyr (4.445 – 9) to a choral song has often been made. So too, the Apollonian Medea’s frightening potential has always been clear. In Book 3 she threatened to materialise on the other side of the world if Jason forgot her (3.1111 – 17),12 and here in Book 4 there is no doubting the seriousness of her situation. She will not merely be abandoned 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 complmentaire to 1116) that Medea is saying that she will torment Jason ‘comme un revenant’. Magical transport seems to suit her 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 arise merely 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

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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 resort to the same tactics with her which he used to calm Aietes.15 The horror of the murder of Apsyrtus, even if epic legend knew much more horrible versions,16 is real enough — echoes of the murder of Agamemnon17 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 events and not as an isolated and inexplicable catastrophe. Intimately connected with the question of Medea’s behaviour in Book 4 is, of course, her relationship with Jason. Much discussion, taking its cue from Wilamowitz,18 has been concerned to establish whether or not love still exists between the pair on the return journey. This discussion has, of course, been bedevilled by the fact that love is not always easy to identify and different observers may apply this label to different phenomena. A glance at what the poet tells us about the characters rather than what he gives them to say may, however, establish certain ‘facts’. During the meeting at the temple of Hecate love works on Jason as it had already worked on Medea (3.1022 – 4, 1078). Under its power, Jason tells Medea of his home (thus watering the seed of flight which had been planted earlier) 19 and promises to marry her if ever she were to come to Greece.20 Nevertheless, the gulf between them is not hidden.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

14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21

part of Medea’s way of avoiding Ariadne’s fate; this cloak was a gift from Hypsipyle, the first ‘Ariadne’ in the poem. Note 3.368/4.391, 740. Note 3.386 – 8/4.395 – 8; 3.396/4.410 (rpossa_mym). Apollonius avoids any gruesome butchery by Medea herself, cf. Hübscher 34 – 5. 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 literally, cf. 4.473 – 4) with the blood of a relative of one of them, come at the command of a divine voice to receive purification. The purifier, who is related to murderer and victim, is forewarned of the arrival in a dream. The crucial difference between the two works is the moral status of Orestes and Medea. ii. 196 – 7, 203, 21. Cf. 3.680 (Chalciope’s expressed wish to live Vma lgd] peq oumola J|kwym). Hübscher 12 – 13 well observes that Jason’s conditional undertaking is very typical of him. His partial revelation of the story of Theseus and Ariadne would, of course, have to be considered in any full account of his behaviour in this scene. Cf., esp., Paduano 199 – 200, Fusillo 259.

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to rejoice (3.1171). The group-solidarity of the Argonauts, which has always been an important feature of the expedition (cf. 1.336 – 7, 3.171 – 5) and which strongly distinguishes it from Homer’s account of Odysseus’ adventures, is here emphasised to mark the support which Jason enjoys: 2t\qoir (1163), s»m to?si (1165), Bq~ym 1r flikom (1166), bloO (1166). On the other hand, Medea, ‘stunned’ (1157), goes home silent and aloof to fail into a gesture of lonely mourning and despair (1159 – 62).22 This is the last we see of her until the opening of the fourth book. There, in her terror, she finds the heroes celebrating with an all-night party (4.69); the contrast between her emotions and theirs could not be greater. When she begs them to rescue her, offers to secure the Golden Fleece for them and reminds Jason of his promises, he ‘rejoiced greatly’ (92 – 3) and repeated his pledge to marry her in Greece. Vian23 comments, ‘Jason does not merely rejoice selfishly at the thought of getting the fleece; it is Medea’s presence which makes him happy.’ Such matters are, of course, hard to judge and there is certainly room for disagreement. Nevertheless, this passage should be set beside 3.1014 where Jason receives the magic drug from Medea ‘rejoicing’, and 4.171 where he lifts up the fleece again ‘rejoicing’. Joy is not otherwise an emotion which comes readily to Apollonius’ Jason. He rejoices when Heracles imposes his election as leader (1.350) — a scene rich in nuance and irony — and he tells Phineus that if the gods should restore the old man’s sight as well is his fortunes he ( Jason) would rejoice as much as if he had reached home (2.441 – 2). This is indeed Jason’s motivating impulse: the need to complete the tasks imposed by Pelias and the desire to get home. To these ends he exploits Medea who alone 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’s roar (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 to the fact that Medea’s only partner is herself. 23 Note complmentaire to 4.93. 24 Cf. Hübscher 18.

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That Medea protects Jason as a mother cares for her child25 is an idea which has already been suggested in the description of gathering night in the third book (3.747 – 8). This idea gives bitter point to Medea’s exploitation 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 tables are turned and Medea is equally helpless.26 Medea’s isolation, the tragic ironies of her position, have thus been carefully laid out long before the poet’s rueful intervention at the moment of her defloration (4.1165 – 7): !kk± c±q ou pote vOka dugpah]ym !mhq~pym teqpyk/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 that Achilles 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 placed warning that Medea and Jason will not ‘live happily ever after’. While the sleepless Medea waits to hear of Alcinous’ decision, her swirling emotions are compared to the spindle turned by a grieving widow as her children cry round about her (4.1060 – 7). Just at the point where Medea is formally to be given to Jason, the meaninglessness of the match 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 Medea’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: manire et cohrence (Rome, 1967), pp. 105 – 6. On the transference of the language 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 Chalciope at 3.730 – 2; that is not simple hypocrisy, as Medea’s motives are complex and apparently contradictory impulses exist side by side. 27 For other possible resonances in this simile cf. Hurst, op. cit., pp. 122 – 3, Beye 154, Fusillo 338.

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The two similes mark the progress of Medea’s suffering; neither gives any cause for optimism. Finally, Medea’s isolation is marked by echoes of Homer. The contribution of the Homeric Nausicaa to the Medea of Book 3 is widely recognised, and we seem to catch a bitter echo of this in 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/mai patq· 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 come from the innocence of a Nausicaa. Later, when she must plead with Arete, she is placed in the position of Odysseus in Odyssey 7 who begs Arete to intercede to secure safe passage home for him.28 That, of course, is the last thing Medea wants. Her actual words to Arete seem to rework not so much those of Odysseus’ plea to the queen as the hero’s first words to the queen’s daughter in Odyssey 6.29 In a ship full of heroes30 Medea is as alone as the shipwrecked Odysseus. When threatened earlier in the book, Medea was saved by the gruesome murder of her brother. Now she is saved by a hastily arranged marriage; the parallelism may be thought to point forward to the subsequent history 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 divine (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 Imitations 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 of any specific reference to Jason marks the increased seriousness of Medea’s position since the murder of Apsyrtus and the visit of Circe. For Wilamowitz (ii.203) Jason’s silence here was ‘das Allerbezeichnendste für die erloschene Liebe’, and subsequent critics have elaborated this view.

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II. Whereas the proem to Book 1 had asserted the poet’s independence from previous poets and reduced the prominence of the Muses (1.18 – 22),31 the invocation to Erato at the head of Book 3 assigns this Muse a leading role (loi 5mispe) beside the poet. At the head of the 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 breathing new life into familiar epic tags.32 Whereas Homer had pleaded human ignorance and physical weakness in his request to the Muses before the Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.484 – 93), Apollonius professes an inability to choose between two apparently exclusive alternative labels to attach to Medea’s flight from Colchis. Like Homer, Apollonius pleads lack of certain knowledge, but the ignorance is now not of action but of interpretation. Before considering why Apollonius has chosen this poetic strategy, we should note that it has a precedent even in our limited remains of Greek literature. In the eleventh Pythian Pindar considers two explanations of why Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon and Cassandra: p|teq|m mim %q’ Yvic]mei’ 1p’ Eqq_pyi svawhe?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. It may be true that men frequently find the actions of women inexplicable, and it may be thought revealing that both Pindar and Apollonius consider love or sex as possibly major motive forces in the action of their female characters — revealing of Pindar and Apollonius, that is — but we may also see here an illustration of the adoption by Hellenistic 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 privileged status for later poets.

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stance with respect to the narrative of mythical material than was the authoritative, but impersonal, Homeric voice. What then is the import of the invocation at the head of the fourth book? It is important that the five verses are replete with echoes of Medea’s suffering in the previous book: j\latom,33 d^mea34 and %tgr p/la dus_leqom35 all take us back to crucial stages in the earlier book. The new element, v}fa !eijek_g, is thus given prominence: to the picture of Medea in Book 3 a new detail is to be added. The grouping of ‘fragments’ of the earlier book at the head of Book 4 suggests that the new book is going to rework, and therefore revalue, scenes and language 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 of which contain some truth. First, the poet is calling attention to the fact that his version runs counter to the common tradition, in which Medea fled solely out of love for Jason.36 The key witnesses to that tradition are Pindar’s Pythian 4 and Euripides’ Medea. In Pindar, love makes Medea give Jason the necessary magic drugs and marriage is promised before the contest of the bulls (vv. 213 – 33); Jason ‘stole’ Medea (v. 250), and nothing is said of fear of her father. In Euripides’ tragedy, the nurse asserts in the prologue that Medea came to Iolcus because of her passion for Jason (v. 8); the chorus says that she left her homeland laimol]mai jqad_ai (v. 434), and Medea herself ruefully admits that she came pq|hulor l÷kkom C sovyt]qa (v. 485) and she links the evil which 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 motto for the opening of Argonautica 4: § patq_r, § d~lata, lµ d/t’ %pokir cemo_lam t¹m !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.

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

(Med. 645 – 53)

A second interpretation of the proem to Book 4 sees the poet concerned with 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 the gods have been at work on her (4.413, 1040), and Jason recognised this before he had exchanged a single word with her (3.973 – 4). As, however, Hera and Eros are responsible for the %tgr p/la dus_leqom and Hera 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 have in assessing Medea’s flight. Perhaps we too should not assume that the answer is an obvious one. Against the apparently authoritative statements of v. 11 and vv. 22 – 339 may be set the mocking remarks of the moon as she sees Medea fleeing to the ship (4.57 – 65). The moon picks up the language of the invocation’s first alternative (%tgr, !migq|m … p/la) to mock Medea’s passion. Of itself, this does not, of course, contradict the assertion of Hera’s responsibility for Medea’s flight as the fact of Medea’s passion is not in doubt. Nor is it a necessary, or even attractive, conclusion from these verses that the moon has misunderstood the immediate reason for the flight.40 Rather, the moon’s speech reinforces the illusoriness of the opening poetic dilemma, just as the verses which describe Medea’s decision to flee sustain a delicate interplay between the language of fear and the language of love. Hera’s responsibility for Medea’s abandonment of Colchis was announced in 3.1133 – 6 where Hera’s purpose, her vendetta against Pelias, was also stated. As in the third book (3.250, 818), Hera intervenes crucially at the opening of the fourth book to determine Medea’s action.41 In both books the temptation of suicide is rejected in favour of a 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 alternatives 40 As asserted by Fränkel 458 – 9 and Beye 146, 164; a better view in Livrea’s note on v. 55. 41 Cf. Campbell 52.

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great tasks which he must confront.42 In both books the movement takes the form of a journey. In Book 3, however, the journey is conducted in the light of day (3.823 – 4), whereas Medea’s flight needs the cover of night; in Book 3 Medea drives a waggon and is accompanied by attendants through the broad road (3.872 – 4), in Book 4 she flees alone, on bare feet, by the narrow back-streets (4.43); in Book 3 the people look away for fear of catching her eye, but in Book 4 she must cover her face for fear of being seen;43 in Book 3 she is compared to Artemis driving her deer-drawn chariot as the wild animals fawn around here in fear, whereas in Book 4 she is herself terrified and is successively compared to a deer, startled by the baying of hunting-dogs, and to a wretched slave-girl. Here too, then, Book 4 exploits the situations of Book 3 with powerful poetic effect. A direct Homeric model for the simile of the deer (4.12 – 13) is not easy to find, although a number of passages may have contributed something.44 The Iliadic flavour of the simile is, however, crucial to its interpretation: Medea’s fearful flight is like the rout of a soldier or an army in battle.45 If caught, she will suffer a terrible fate at the hands of her vengeful father. Her groans (v. 19) are expressed by the verb bquw÷shai, used by Homer of the groans of dying soldiers;46 the Iliadic reminiscences mark the seriousness of her struggle. Young deer, however, suggest other areas of meaning as well. The comparison of girls to deer is well-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 to me) emphasising Medea’s reduction to the status of a servant. mg|mde in 4.50 would suit the matching of the two scenes, but I do not believe that it can stand. Some of the parallels between Books 3 and 4 have now been noted by 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 emphasised by the description of Aietes’ procession, accompanied by !pe_qitor ka|r, at 3.1237 – 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 j b]bquwa jka_ym, is (despite v. 904) a pointedly oxymoronic description of Heracles. 47 Cf. h. Dem. 174, Bacchyl. 13.84 – 90, Eur. Ba. 866 – 76. For some of the associations of the fawn in these contexts cf. A. P. Burnett, Three Archaic Poets (London, 1983), pp. 93 – 4.

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might have guessed that it had found a place in amatory poetry even without 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 Horace the fawn has become separated from its mother; Medea is about to abandon her parents in favour of a man. It can be no more than a guess that a reader must see an erotic as well as an epic tradition behind Apollonius’ simile; if the guess were correct, however, the image would serve perfectly Medea’s ambivalent emotions. Interpretation of the simile of the slave-girl at vv. 35 – 40 is made difficult by the uncertainty of the text of v. 35. Broadly speaking, the critics may be divided into those who see the kgi\r of the simile escaping from servitude48 and those who have her being taken into it.49 The former view, which might seem superficially attractive, founders for want of an adequate interpretation of v. 39, eWsim !tufol]mg wakep±r rp¹ we?qar !m\ssgr.50 Medea is, therefore, probably compared to a girl from a rich family who has recently been captured in war and has entered slavery far from her homeland and who has not yet become accustomed to hardship and the demands of a cruel mistress. I would prefer to believe that Medea’s d}g, do}kia 5qca and j\lator are not the perils and hardships she is to face on board the Argo (as Fränkel and Vian argue), but rather emotional perils (cf. the echo of j\lator from v. 1). The Medea of Euripides too can claim, in an extravagantly rhetorical 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 with a recognised aspect of the Greek view of marriage. In a famous fragment of Sophocles’ Tereus, for example, a woman contrasts the pleasant life young girls lead in their father’s house (cf. Arg. 3.811 – 14) with the exile of marriage, which is merely a matter of trade (fr. 583 R): aT m]ai l³m 1m patq¹r Fdistom, 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 ‘in the power of’ cf. N. Hopkinson on Call. h. 6.62.

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¡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 similarities between Greek marriage and funerary ritual (vv. 27 – 9).51 With gestures familiar from the prelude to the death of women in tragedy, Medea finally abandons the virginal chamber which had played such a crucial role in the third book (3.645 – 64) 52 and opts, not for death, but for life and marriage. This tension is reflected in the otherwise surprising dissonance of eWsim (v. 39) and 1n]ssuto (v. 40), and in the echoes of Sappho, fr. 31 LP-V in the description of the physical symptoms of Medea’s terror. This most influential of amatory poems had naturally been used in the earlier descriptions of Medea’s passion;53 here the same poem is invoked to describe the consequences of that passion. What distinguishes vv. 15 – 19 from the Sapphic poem is the violence of Medea’s terror;54 in both love and fear she knew no half measures. I have been exploring some of the implications of the poet’s declared uncertainty which introduces the description of Medea’s flight. Beyond these verses, there are three passages in which the status of Medea’s flight is explicitly at issue. At 355 ff she reproaches Jason bitterly: she has brought disgrace upon women through her laqcos}mg, and left Colchis oq jat± j|slom !maid^tyi Q|tgti (360), trusting in Jason’s promises of marriage. Secondly, Circe’s speech of dismissal to Medea at 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 ignored. 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’Odysse (Paris, 1965), pp. 240 – 7.

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laqcos}mg. Any apparent contradictions may, of course, be explained

by the demands of each rhetorical situation,55 but there is perhaps more to it than just that. Circe’s view is plainly the Colchian view of Medea’s behaviour — when the poet tells us that Medea and her aunt speak in Colchian (731), this is not merely a playful recognition of the unreal linguistic assumptions of the plot — but there are other views also. The one action, Medea’s flight, is variously interpreted by Jason, Circe and Medea herself according to the partial knowledge which each has, as well as to the changing course of events. The poet thus exposes the frailty and relativity of explanation for human action, particularly when that action occurs within epic narrative. This is the problem to which the opening quandary has directed our attention. Behind Apollonius’ Medea lies not only the Euripidean character but also the figure of Helen, whose flight from Sparta with a n]mor provoked a war and whose motives had been variously analysed by poets, philosophers and historians.56 Helen’s power was an almost morethan-human beauty, whose dangerous force could be not unlike that of 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 Aphrodite which caused her to commit an 5qcom !eij]r, the abandonment of her home and family (4.259 – 64, 23.218 – 24). The regrets of the Iliadic Helen (3.171 – 80, 6.343 – 58, 24.761 – 75), moreover, clearly look forward to Medea’s bitter reproaches in Euripides and Apollonius. Apollonius indeed structures Medea’s dilemma in Book 3 as a choice between following the example of Penelope and becoming a Helen.58 So too, the question of how her flight should be judged, so crucial to Book 4, draws upon 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 Apology’, 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 description based on Penelope at Od 18.187 – 9, 19.516 – 17, and 3.793 – 4 (corresponding to Il. 3.411 – 12).

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Women in which Helen lays the blame for her behaviour on Aphrodite (vv. 940 – 50) and Hecuba blames Helen’s laqcos}mg (987 – 97); Gorgias’ 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 that the story of Helen embodies the clash between Europe and Asia,60 a conflict which has an important structural role in Argonautica 4. The Colchian maiden (cf. 4.2 – 5) rescues the Greek expedition and in return receives Greek protection (4.195 – 7, 202 – 5, 1074 – 7); knowledge of the disastrous consequences of this assimilation of a foreign body is something 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 Underworld: Usty Req¹m v\or Iek_oio, Usty mujtip|kou Peqsg_dor eqcia jo}qgr, lµ l³m 1c½m 1h]kousa s»m !mdq\sim !kkodapo?si je?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, concerned as they are with Vergil’s use in this passage of Callimachus and Catullus.62 The neglect is curious if only because Aeneas’ speech is introduced by a simile (6.450 – 5) taken from the fourth book of the Argonautica (4.1477 – 80). Both Medea and Aeneas plead that they left un59 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, ‘the women 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 the story. For the later linking of Medea and Helen cf. Propertius 2.34.5 – 8 (behind which 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.

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willingly, under the compulsion of, in Medea’s case, fear and, in Aeneas’, divine instructions. Aeneas wants to say that love would have made him stay; in her panic, Medea tries to conceal her passion as one of those common human misdemeanours.63 The difference is eloquent.

Addenda The bibliography on Medea, as indeed on every aspect of the Argonautica, has of course grown exponentially in the last twenty-five years; T. Papanghelis and A. Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden 2001) is the best introduction to critical trends and bibliography. I have discussed elements of the 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, Philosophy, and Art (Princeton 1997) is a wide-ranging collection of different approaches. 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 unconvincing.

3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica* ‘Jason … chosen leader because his superior declines the honour, subordinate to his comrades, except once, in every trial of strength, skill, or courage, a great warrior only with the help of magical charms, jealous of honour but incapable of asserting it, passive in the face of crisis, timid and confused before trouble, tearful at insult, easily despondent, gracefully treacherous in his dealings with the love-sick Medea but cowering before her later threats and curses, coldly efficient in the time-serving murder of an unsuspecting child (sic), reluctant even in marriage.’ So Carspecken put the case against Jason’s heroism.1 In the face of such an indictment, Lawall’s plea in mitigation, ‘it must be admitted that [ Jason] often reveals the qualities of a true gentleman’, seems somehow inadequate.2 Criticism since Carspecken has found various overlapping categories for Jason which both take account of the earlier negative judgements and preserve the centrality of his ‘personality’ and character in the poem: Jason is the quiet diplomat who works through consensus rather than force,3 his is a heroism of sex-appeal,4 he is an anti-hero,5 the *

1 2 3

Classical Quarterly 38 (1988) 436 – 53 I am indebted to members of the Cambridge Ancient Literature Seminar for much instructive criticism. The following works are cited by author and date only: 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 des Apollonios’, MH 17 (1960), 1 – 20; id., Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Munich, 1968); M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche (Rome, 1985); R. L Hunter, ‘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 Fourth Book 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. Carspecken (1952), 101. Lawall (1966), 168 n.13. E.g. Herter, RE Suppl. 13, 36; Vian (1978); G. Zanker, Realism in Alexandrian Poetry (London, 1987), pp. 202 – 3.

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embodiment of Sceptic ‘suspension of judgement’,6 or, alternatively, he is ‘one of us’, credible and lifelike.7 Carspecken himself tried a different tack: the poem is concerned not with individual heroism but with the heroism of the group (cf. 1.1, 4.1773 – 81).8 Some of these approaches have, in varying degrees, made a real contribution to the understanding of aspects of the Argonautica, and most can claim some support from that part of the literary tradition used by Apollonius which survives to us. Thus, for example, already in Pindar Jason deals with Pelias in the ‘diplomatic’ manner which becomes familiar in Apollonius,’ letting drip the soft words in his gentle voice, he laid a foundation of wise speech’ (Pyth. 4.136 – 8). In Euripides’ Medea, Jason’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 marriage with 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 ‘cyn4

5 6

7 8

C. R. Beye, ‘Jason as Love-hero in Apollonios’ Argonautika’, GRBS 10 (1969), 31 – 55; this view was closely foreshadowed by A. Hübscher, Die Charakteristik der 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’. 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. T. L. Klein, ‘Apollonius’ Jason: Hero and Scoundrel’, QUCC 13 (1983), 115 – 26 (and cf. already Beye [1982], 60). Klein’s interesting suggestion is, unfortunately, entirely improbable in the form in which he offers it. It is true that 1.1287 – 8 (on which see below p. 71 – 2), oqd] ti to?om 5por letev~meem oqd] ti to?om j AQsom_dgr, may call to mind Sceptic 1pow^, but Jason’s piety and propensity 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) differs markedly 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 develop an idea found at Lawall (1966), 149, lies in its attempt to tie the Argonautica to attested intellectual and social attitudes. However unsuccessful, this represents a considerable advance on vague generalising about ‘Hellenistic values’. There are, however, serious doubts whether a formal philosophy of Scepticism can be identified as early as the third century B.C. Cf. Fränkel (1960), 1; Beye (1982), 79; Zanker, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 201. Carspecken (1952), 111 – 25.

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ical’, has seemed to many critics the basis of Jason’s dealings with Medea in the Argonautica.9 It is, nevertheless, difficult not to feel dissatisfied with modern assessments of Apollonius’ Jason. Much of what has been written is little more than a by-product of what now seems a rather old-fashioned kind of Virgilian criticism — the ‘Virgil is unhappy in his hero’ school — and it ignores both Aristotelian and modern warnings10 against the assumption that an epic must have a single ‘hero’ of extraordinary skills at its centre. Even where due acknowledgement has been given to the fact that 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 typical when Hermann Fränkel writes of Jason’s behaviour after the loss of Heracles (cf. below p. 71 – 2): ‘For Jason, conscious of his responsibilities, the dilemma was insoluble, because the need to complete his great task was as powerful a force driving him forwards as the loyalty to his colleague which pulled him back. But the reticent poet [der zurckhaltende Dichter] says nothing of this [my italics], and here, as often, Apollonius’ Jason disappoints as the epic’s central figure.’11 The belief that close study of what Apollonius chose not to say may grant us access to the workings of his characters’ minds, particularly Jason’s, which in turn will lead to an understanding of the narrative, has certainly resulted in a more sophisticated criticism than the simple assertions of Jason’s ‘credibility’, but the great variety of Jasons available in the modern literature ought perhaps to make us pause to consider the value of the method in general. Part II of this paper, therefore, considers the principal passages from the first half of the Argonautica around which the debate has centred, and Part III explores one of the patterns into which the story of Apollonius’ Jason certainly does fall; as Apollonian criticism must always begin with Homer, Part I offers a brief survey of the similarities and differences between the heroes of the archaic and the Hellenistic epic. By way of preliminary, it may be useful to recall the Aristotelian position 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).

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very limited guide to the ways in which we should approach ancient texts, but Aristotle’s belief in the very close relationship between epic and tragedy12 at least makes his views of some interest here. For the sake of convenience I cite from Stephen Halliwell’s recent study of the Poetics: ‘Psychological inwardness is a major assumption in modern convictions about character, and this in turn leads to typical emphases on the uniqueness of the individual personality and on the potential complexities of access to the character of others. If character is thought of in strongly psychological terms, then the possibility readily arises that it may remain concealed in the inner life of the mind, or be only partially and perhaps deceptively revealed to the outer world; but, equally, that it may be glimpsed or intimated in various unintended or unconscious ways. Such ideas and possibilities, which find their quintessential literary embodiment in the novel … are by their very intricacy and indefiniteness the antithesis of the theory of dramatic character presented in the Poetic …. [For Aristotle] character is most clearly realised in the deliberate framing of ethical intentions which Aristotle calls prohairesis … character is a specific moral factor in relation to action, not a vague or pervasive notion equivalent to modern ideas of personality or individuality … dramatic characterisation, to correspond to Aristotle’s concept, must involve the manifestation of moral choice in word or action … when communicated through language, characterisation will take the form of declarations of decisions, intentions or motives … character [cannot] be obliquely indicated through any kind of speech’.13 The possible relevance of this summary to recent Apollonian criticism is immediately clear. Here, for example, is what Charles Beye has to say about Apollonius’ main character: ‘the emphasis now turns upon the inner life of the characters, that which is left unsaid. Jason now becomes deep, internal, and personal, as we know people to be. He is not public or emblematic. We have reached, in effect, the begin12 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 not Apollonius was actually familiar with Aristotelian doctrine is relevant only as a matter of literary history. There may have been a copy of the Poetics in the Alexandrian library, cf. Diog. Laert. 5.24, a list which some scholars believe to go back to the library’s inventory; I. Düring, Aristoteles (Heidelberg, 1966), pp. 36 – 7; R. Blum, Kallimachos und die Literaturverzeichnung bei den Griechen (Frankfurt, 1977), pp. 121 – 32.

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nings of the novel.’14 That Apollonius foreshadows later narrative genres has, indeed, become a critical commonplace,15 and one which I have no desire to upset. Nevertheless, it may be worth suggesting that criticism has now moved too far away from Aristotle’s emphasis on what actually happens, on events whose pattern gives meaning to a work, rather than on the unifying power of a particular psychological portrait. The patterns which will here be particularly significant are, of course, those which both reflect and diverge from Homeric ones; it is the failure to keep these patterns in the centre of the argument which is largely responsible for much of the critical embarrassment which Apollonius’ Jason has aroused.

I. The doubts and even despair to which Jason seems prone have close parallels in the Homeric epics. This obvious fact has been too often forgotten, and it deserved the restatement which it has recently received.16 Iliadic heroes are affected by fears and anguish just as strong as those which 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 bloody meal (Od. 9.295) matches closely the various shocks which the collective of Argonauts receives (cf. 2.408 – 10, 3.502 – 5, 4.1278 – 9). Odysseus’ reaction (Od. 10.496 – 500) to Circe’s proposal of a trip to the Underworld — ‘my heart broke within me; I sat on the bed and wept, and I no longer wished to live and see the light of the sun. But when I had had my fill of weeping and rolling around, I replied’ — is more overtly emotional than the group’s reaction to Phineus’ dread prophecies (2.408 – 10) or the reaction of both Jason and the Argonauts to the test which Aietes imposes (3.422 – 6, 502 – 4), but otherwise the scenes are 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 his community’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. Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (New York, 1966), p. 67, A. Heiserman, The Novel Before the Novel (Chicago, 1977), pp. 11 – 40. 16 H. Lloyd-Jones, SIFC 77 (1984), 71; A. W. Bulloch in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I (Cambridge, 1985), p. 591.

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privileges, and his desire for personal glory is crucial to an understanding of the Iliad and has been particularly well analysed by James Redfield.17 Apollonius’ heroes, however, are not bound to their communities in the same way as are the central heroes of the Iliad. The inhabitants of Iolcus do 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 it largely as an inescapable p|mor (1.246). At the very most, the outcome of 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 description in Thucydides 6 of the public departure of the Athenian fleet for Sicily, a passage which may have been in Apollonius’ mind.18 The opening catalogue of Argonauts does make clear that the expedition carries representatives from all over Greece, and this ‘Panachaeanism’ resurfaces briefly as Argos and Jason seek to win Aietes over (3.347, 391) and in the ‘Greek v. barbarian’ theme which runs through the fourth book. Nevertheless, only once does Jason appear to claim that the fortunes of Greece are intimately tied to the success of his enterprise.19 This passage, 4.195 – 205, describing Jason’s speech to the crew on the point of departure from Colchis, will demand attention in another context (below p. 83), but here its relevance lies in its ambivalence: !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}nym AQ^tgr bl\dyi p|mtomd’ Ulem 1j potalo?o. !kk’ oR l³m di± mg¹r !loibad·r !m]qor !mµq 2f|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/ar Uswolem· Blet]qgi d’ 1peqe_detai :kk±r 1voql/i A³ jatgve_gm C ja· l]ca jOdor !q]shai.

But do you protect her [Medea], as being the benefactor of all of Achaia and 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 Sicilian 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.

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force to prevent you passing from the river to the open sea. But all along the ship divide yourselves in two, and let one half sit and row, while the other half holds their ox-hide shields over them, a secure protection against enemy missiles, to protect our return. Now we have in our hands our children and our beloved native country and our aged parents; upon the success of our raid20 depends whether Hellas will know dejection or win great glory.

Jason, the foreign raider who has snatched both the king’s daughter and his favourite possession, adopts the rhetorical pose of the defender of a position against invasion — cf. Il. 15.494 – 9 (Hector), 15.661 – 6 (Nestor encouraging the Greeks in their defence of the ships), Aesch. Pers. 403 – 5 (the Athenians at Salamis) — as a prelude, not to stalwart defence,21 but to hasty flight. So too, Jason’s donning of armour (4.206), which follows this speech, is modelled on Odysseus’ entirely pointless arming before the meeting with Scylla (Od. 12.226 – 30).22 Both the literary history of the verses and the uniqueness of their tone within the Argonautica thus make problematic the status of Jason’s assertion that much is riding on their success, as far as Hellas is concerned. These verses do, however, look forward to the rest of Book 4 and to the future history of Jason and Medea. From the opening invocation to the Muse to tell of how ‘the Colchian maiden’ came to leave ‘the land of the Colchians’ Book 4 is heavy with Jason’s closing theme of Greek v. Barbarian, and Jason’s words here are in part a bitterly ironical foreshadowing of the supremacy of Greece which the Euripidean Jason throws in Medea’s face (vv. 536 – 8, 1330 – 1, 1339); so too, his stress immediately before this passage on Medea’s responsibility for the Argonauts’ achievements (4.191 – 3) must be read against Medea 526 – 33, where Jason proclaims Aphrodite to have been primarily responsible for his success. Beyond these resonances, however, these verses, 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 complmentaire to 4.205, makes rather too much of 1voql/i ; ‘military incursion’ and ‘enterprise’ can scarcely be distinguished when the latter consists of the former; if Vian’s punctuation is correct at 4.148, we should perhaps there consider !voql^m for 1voql^m. 21 In the version of Dionysios Scytobrachion, the Argonauts and the Colchians did fight in Colchis (cf. S Arg. 4.223 – 30, Diod. Sic. 4.48.4 – 5 = frr. 28 – 9 Rusten). 22 The motif of slashed mooring-ropes is taken from Odysseus’ hasty escape from the Laistrygonians (Od. 10.126 – 7). It is noteworthy that Valerius Flaccus chooses to use the motif more ‘heroically’, at the start of the expedition (1.487 – 9).

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faced in the Homeric poems and the difference in the social context of the two heroic narratives.23 Even the personal glory for which a Homeric warrior can hope is offered to the Argonauts only very conditionally. Failure will here lead only to a miserable and unsung death, where there will be no kleos to alleviate oblivion (2.889 – 93, 4.1305 – 7, cf. 4.401 – 3); anything less than safe return with the Fleece would be as if they had never set out. The subordination of all else in this extremely rich poem to this single obsessive end is a striking departure from the structural organisation of the Homeric poems. In a particularly desperate moment at the start of their Libyan adventures, the Argonauts wish that they had died ‘while attempting some great exploit’ (4.1255), like Hector before his final fight with Achilles (Il. 22.304 – 5), but, unlike Hector, they will not be offered the opportunity to do so. This passage in the fourth book is particularly instructive. The deadly calm which traps the Argonauts in the wastes of the Libyan Syrtis is a reworking and reversal of the storm which destroys Odysseus’ raft in Odyssey 5; the Libyan Bq_ssai who came to Jason’s aid out of pity correspond to Leucothoe in the Odyssey.24 As the divinely constructed Argo cannot perish in the waves (cf. 2.611 – 14), a death of quite another kind is made to threaten the crew.25 Whereas Odysseus in the storm regrets that he did not win kleos by dying gloriously in battle, the Argonauts wish for what amounts to death by shipwreck, a wish made particularly ironic by our knowledge that the Symplegades would have posed no threat on the return journey and that their wish would therefore not have been granted (cf. 2.604 – 6). Here then the gulf between Apollonius’ characters and those of Homer is particularly marked. The second important departure from Homer lies in the relationship between Jason and the other Argonauts, which is obviously and crucially different from that between Odysseus’ and his crew. The modern clich that Jason is primus inter pares is an unsatisfactory half-truth, but the hierarchical 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 the edition [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 becalmed (cf. 455, naufragii spes omnis abit).

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and, despite his grief at their plight, he is content to make love with Circe 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 restrain Odysseus from taunting the Cyclops, is as inconceivable in the Argonautica as Arg. 2.622 – 37, in which Jason bitterly reveals the crushing weight of responsibility which he feels for getting the Argonauts home safely (cf. below pp. 445-7), would be in the Odyssey. It is striking that in book 4 no Argonaut explicitly argues that Jason should abandon Medea, although the pact with the Colchians at 4.338 ff — however one interprets it — certainly exploits the motif,26 or criticises the killing of Apsyrtos; this apparently ‘natural’ possibility was not lost on the author of the later Orphic Argonautica where the crew is prevented from throwing Medea to the fishes only by Jason’s earnest entreaties (vv. 1170 – 7). Whereas Odysseus’ cunning and capacity for endurance strongly differentiate him from his largely anonymous crew, Jason, often !l^wamor rather than pokul^wamor, is marked by the absence of extraordinary intelligence and the supernatural skills enjoyed by some of the most prominent Argonauts (Heracles, the Boreads, Peleus, Lynceus, Orpheus). Jason does come into powerful conflict with two of his companions, Telamon and Idas, but the communal solidarity and mutual interdependence of the whole crew (cf. the lion simile of 4.1337 – 44) is a striking and familiar phenomenon, perhaps best expressed by Jason’s words as they sit concealed in the Colchian marshes (3.171 – 5): § v_koi, Etoi 1c½ l³m f loi 1piamd\mei aqt_i 1neq]y, toO d’ ulli t]kor jqg/mai 5oije. numµ c±q wqei~, numo· d] te lOhoi 5asi p÷sim bl_r· b d³ s?ca m|om bouk^m t’ !peq}jym Usty 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 to give it your assent; for common is our need, and common to all the right to speak. Let him who holds back his view and counsel in silence know that he alone deprives this expedition of its safe return.

The plan which Jason subsequently proposes reworks Odysseus’ words to his men at the start of the Cyclops episode (Od. 9.172 – 6) and his praise of the power of lOhor (3.188 – 90) associates him with Odyssean virtues, 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’s speech at 4.395 – 409 cf. Hunter (1987), 130 – 1.

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his crew is not described, Jason’s proposal is greeted with universal agreement (3.194 – 5). To find a Homeric parallel to this assembly in Argonautica 3 it is better to look to the opening of Iliad 14 where the depressed leaders of the Greek army hold a council.27 Agamemnon suggests preparations for flight by night as preferable to staying around to be caught up in a disaster. For this he is reproved by Odysseus, and he then (vv. 105 – 6) says that he will not force the Greeks to carry out his plan against their wishes and he invites suggestions from both young and old for a better plan ( !le_moma l/tim), whereupon Diomedes offers just such an improvement. Agamemnon’s appeal to democracy is a result of a confused and panicky despair; Jason says nothing that has not been said before (cf. 1.336 – 7), and his statement precedes, rather than follows, his own suggestion for action. For him, it is better to rely 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 common task ahead of them and urges them to choose b %qistor to lead them, regardless of anything else. Heracles is chosen instantly — who else could be b %qistor (cf. 1.1285)? — but he refuses and imposes the election of Jason. ‘Warlike’ ( !q^ior) Jason accepts ‘joyfully’. Clearly there is more at stake here than merely the acknowledgement and rejection of a version in which Heracles was the leader of the expedition,29 and critics have very variously interpreted his behaviour. Vian’s remarks are not untypical: ‘Jason is in no way diminished [by the scene]. He knows that, whether he likes it or not, the leadership falls to him, but he is at the same time aware of his inferiority to Heracles … Heracles’ voluntary 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, at pp. 23 – 5. 28 This word has caused considerable bother, cf. Vian (1978), 1028 – 9, M. Fantuzzi, Materiali e Discussioni 13 (1984), 94 – 5, but its ‘surface meaning’ seems quite appropriate 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. In Antimachus’ 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 Heracles the leadership] through sincere deference and diplomacy, in the hope that Heracles will refuse it’.31 Here again what the poet has chosen not to say is invoked to explain the narrative (cf. above p. 61). Equally unsatisfactory is what may be termed the ‘straightforwardly ironical’ reading of the scene — Jason enters as a ‘hero’ (the Apollo simile of 1.307 – 11) but is immediately shown up and embarrassed, his weakness revealed by the almost parodic epithet ‘warlike’.32 Such a reading appeals to modern sentiment, and does indeed show us one layer of the text’s meaning, but it is hard to think of any Greek hero (Homeric or Apollonian) who would not be ‘shown up’ when matched against Heracles. Rather, it is, as often, Homer who provides the starting-point from which we should read this scene. Jason’s speech, with its stress on the responsibilities of the leader to the group as a whole, suggests why the expedition could not be led by Heracles, a hero of notoriously solitary and idiosyncratic virtue.33 Jason is indeed b %qistor, if arete consists in the possession of appropriate qualities for a particular task and involves notions of what is fitting in a particular context. Such a view clearly reflects upon a major aspect of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in Iliad 1, a quarrel which, in one 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 to the title %qistor.34 In the Iliad Nestor seeks to calm tempers by refusing to 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 king whose power was more extensive. The Apollonian Heracles, more effective and less wordy than Nestor, similarly bases his instruction not on a strict hierarchy of absolute worth but on recognition of what is fitting and appropriate. Whether Apollonius was influenced by scholarly discussion of the ethical issues raised by the Homeric quarrel we do not know, although this quarrel is important again later in Arg. 1, again in connection with Heracles (below p. 71 – 2). What is clear, how30 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.

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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 understand what is going on in the Argonautica. The relationship between Jason and Heracles is not the same as that between Agamemnon and Achilles, but only by calling attention to the similarities can the poet stress the differences. Before setting out, the Argonauts pass the night in feasting on the shore (1.450 – 9). Not all is well, however, as Idmon has just prophesied both their successful return after ‘countless trials’ and his own death.35 During the symposium ‘the son of Aison, quite self-absorbed ( !l^wamor), was pondering on everything, looking like one depressed ( jatgvi|ymti 1oij~r)’. At this Idas accuses him of plotting in secret or of being afraid and he delivers a proud and blasphemous speech which leads to a nasty quarrel with Idmon. ‘Self-absorbed’ is Fränkel’s interpretation of !l^wamor here,36 whereas Vian believes that Jason, the vik\mhqypor par excellence, feels anguish in the face of Idmon’s now certain death.37 The structure of the passage, in which the passing of time since Idmon’s prophecy is stressed (1.450 – 2), makes Vian’s view improbable, and Fränkel rightly points to the echo of Jason’s remarks on 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. below p. 445). However that may be, Idas himself is unsure how to interpret Jason’s demeanour, and Idmon’s words at 1.479 – 80, ‘there are other consoling words with which a man might encourage a comrade’, would, if anything, seem to confirm, rather than weaken, Idas’ suspicions. Fränkel argues that Jason was not depressed, he just looked like it. Appearances can, of course, deceive, but they need not do so, and this is what is crucial here. Appearances give no access to truth: you cannot tell with certainty what someone is thinking or what his or her mood is from their facial expression. In particular, 1oij~r and related words are frequently used in literary descriptions of representations in works 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 the prophet’s son Euchenor at Iliad 13.663 – 72 rather than Achilles’ ‘death and glory’ 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 us to interpret action or, in Jason’s case, non-action. If a poet refuses to provide that information, he places us in the position of viewers of a painted scene and forces us to confront the very fragile basis upon which interpretations of mood and motive are made. In the present case a useful comparison may be made with Aeneid 1.208 – 9. After Aeneas’ speech of encouragement to his shipwrecked comrades, Virgil informs us that the hero’s words did not match his real mood: talia uoce refert curisque ingentibus aeger spem uultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem.

This is precisely the kind of guidance which, time and time again, we look for in vain in the Argonautica. I have argued elsewhere that such considerations are important in assessing the relationship in Book 4 between Medea and Jason,39 and I believe that Apollonius’ persistent discretion in this matter is in large measure responsible for the critical confusion over Jason which reigns in the modern literature. When the Argonauts discover that they have left Heracles behind, a fierce argument breaks out on board (1.1280 – 6). The exact terms of the quarrel are not given to us, and we are probably to imagine confused uproar and recrimination (cf. jokyi|r, 1.1284), involving both the reasons for Heracles’ abandonment and the course of action which they should now follow. Jason, however, ‘helpless and despairing ( !lgwam_gisim !tuwhe_r) said neither one thing nor the other, but he sat deeply crushed by the grim disaster, eating his heart’ (1.1286 – 9). Jason’s despair after the loss of the greatest hero requires no special explanation, although even here psychological criticism has been at work.40 When Telamon then quarrels with Jason, we know that the former’s assertion that Jason was behind the abandonment of Heracles is wrong (cf. 1.1274 – 5), but Telamon speaks in the irrationality of anger, like Achilles in Iliad 1, and his eyes blaze (1.1296 – 7) like those of Agamemnon 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 as much 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’Odysse (Paris, 1965), pp. 240 – 7.

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to violent action, as Athena restrains Achilles. These comparisons are not idle, as the scene of reconciliation between Telamon and Jason (1.1329 – 44) exploits motifs from the Iliadic quarrel in a complex intertextual pattern. Like Agamemnon (Il. 9.115 – 20, 19.88 – 9, 136 – 7), Telamon confesses to %tg,42 although he does not bring the gods into his defence, relying instead on a confession that he acted under the emotion of 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 flocks of 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 a whole,43 to Achilles’ renunciation of it in particular, ‘but now I have put an end to my anger, nor should I rage ceaselessly forever’ (Il. 19.67 – 8), to the pattern of Achilles’ relations with Patroclus, to Achilles’ taunt to Agamemnon as vikojteam~tate p\mtym (Il. 1.122), and to his regret that they had ‘raged in spirit-devouring strife because of a girl’ (Il. 19.58). So too, the Iliadic quarrel caused the temporary loss to 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 characters is displayed through a reworking of Iliadic motifs which stresses the Argonautic virtues of loyalty and solidarity rather than the highly personal Iliadic emotions. Our attention is also directed to the Homeric details which Apollonius has omitted: nothing remains of the Iliad’s great stress on the gifts of compensation which constitute a visible sign of apology and acknowledgement of wrong, and this too tells us much about the society of Argonauts. In as much as Jason and Telamon behave both like and unlike Agamemnon and Achilles we can, for what it is worth, be said to learn about their ‘characters’. What we cannot say is that revelation of ‘character’ is the dominant motive of the scene: the pattern of action in relation to Homer is what gives the scene its meaning. Similar considerations apply to the famous scene of the peira, 2.610 ff. After the Clashing Rocks have been safely passed, the steersman 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 statement, 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’s answer to Telamon is ‘highly ironical’, nor does Il. 22.159 – 61 which Beye adduces 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 should have refused to come on the expedition, that he is weighed down by the cares and responsibilities of leadership and that they are surrounded by 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 encouragement, and ‘Jason’s heart within him warmed as they urged him’ and he in turn echoes Tiphys’ encouragement. Nothing further is said about Jason’s attitude. This strange scene has been variously handled by modern critics: perhaps the only point not in dispute is that the scene has some connection with Agamemnon’s peira in Iliad 2, and this is clearly where discussion should start. Agamemnon’s almost disastrous testing of his troops comes at a starting-point, before the Catalogue of Ships, at what is the beginning of the poetic war (despite the unsung nine years which have preceded). So too, the passing of the Clashing Rocks marks the end of the major dangers of the outward journey and the beginning of the Colchian section of the poem.44 This sense of a new beginning is reinforced by echoes and reversals of two scenes which preceded the departure of the Argo. Jason’s despairing speech picks up his mother’s distressed words at his parting (1.278 – 82, cf. 2.624 – 6): where Jason before offered comfort, he now rejects 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, to lament his ate (1.290, 2.623). Secondly, the peira recalls Jason’s election as leader: here, as there, he stresses the responsibilities of power (1.339, 2.631 – 7), responsibilities which will not allow him to sleep, unlike Agamemnon who was reproved by the dream for sleeping too much (Il. 2.23 – 5); here he laments the loneliness of power, there he declared the solidarity of the group (1.336 – 7), and the affirmation of loyalty and support which he receives here is a kind of confirmation of the command which was entrusted to him then. It is, moreover, clear that Tiphys’ confident words correspond in some degree to the comforting but deceptive dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon, but Jason’s reaction seems more problematic, if no less peculiar, than Agamemnon’s. Before 44 Cf. Hunter (1986), 50. Such considerations are ignored by those who find the timing of the peira absurd, cf. e. g. P. Händel, Beobachtungen zur epischen Technik des Apollonios Rhodios (Munich, 1954), pp. 68 – 9.

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considering what explicit guidance Apollonius gives us here, two further aspects of the scene and its Homeric model deserve comment. The first and last parts of Agamemnon’s peira speech in Iliad 2 are repeated to the Greek leaders at the beginning of Iliad 9 (9.17 – 28): for Agamemnon, the disaster envisaged in the earlier speech of deception has come true. It is interesting that the bT-scholia on 9.17 interpret this second speech as a further peira, on the grounds that the reaction of Agamemnon and Nestor to Diomedes’ taunts differs so much from the reactions provoked by Achilles in Book 1. That Apollonius has Iliad 9 as well as Iliad 2 in mind is suggested by the reaction of the Argonauts to Jason’s speech (2.638 – 9, cf. Il. 9.50 – 1 and contrast 9.29 – 30), and the observation in the scholia both reminds us that Homeric speeches can raise interpretative problems just as acute as Apollonian ones and suggests that if Apollonius is deliberately setting us such a problem, he may not have seen the technique as so radical a departure from Homer as it may appear to us. Secondly, there is the actual substance of Jason’s speech. His opening confession of ate derives, of course, from the peira of Agamemnon (Il. 2.111, cf. 9.18), but whereas Agamemnon proposed the abandonment of the expedition and a return to Greece, Jason has nothing at all to offer. His statement that he should have refused to accede to Pelias’ command ‘even if it meant a pitiless death, my body broken limb from limb’ (2.625 – 6) is remarkably and, for Jason, uniquely physical. Critics have tended to pass over this remark in silence, perhaps because it does not seem to fit with the prevailing picture of the diplomatic Jason. Partly this strange remark may be a pointer to the problematic nature of the whole speech, but partly also, at this turning-point in the narrative, the poet looks forward to an even greater ate (cf. 4.449), the dismemberment of the young Apsyrtos — 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 most versions of the myth bought at a price like that for which Jason was prepared to pass up the whole expedition.45 These two explanations are, of course, not mutually exclusive, and they do not preclude an attempt to understand 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 seriously affect the argument: it is a familiar Apollonian technique to exploit readers’ 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 remarkably inept. The contrast between the personal worries of an individual and the greater worries on behalf of the collective which weigh upon a leader (2.633 – 7) is familiar enough,47 but the helmsman, who is responsible for everybody’s safe voyage, seems the very least suitable person to charge 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’s words thus points, as does his savage expression of regret which has just preceded, to the problematic nature of the speech. leik_wia 5pea are usually words of comfort, calming words.48 Naturally enough, such words need not convey the whole truth, being rather designed to create a certain effect in the hearer.49 leik_wia 5pea also occur where ‘soothing words’ is not really an appropriate meaning,50 but there seems to be no context remotely like the present one. What then of paqabk^dgm ? This normally seems to mean no more than ‘in reply’, but ‘deceitfully’ is certainly a possible sense (cf. SbT 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. At 3.1079 ff Jason, affected by ‘deadly love’, speaks paqabk^dgm to Medea; at the conclusion of the speech we are told that he had spoken leikiw_oisi jatax^wym a\qoisi. That speech begins with a promise that Jason will never forget Medea and concludes with some rather novel mythology about both Minyas and Ariadne; it is, therefore, anything but straightforwardly ‘true’. We may conclude that, in the peira scene, the poet directs our attention to what is most important about Jason’s speech — its relationship to ‘truth’ — but sets us a puzzle by choosing such an ambivalent introduction for it. Only after the speech do we

46 47 48 49

Fränkel (1968), 217. Cf. esp. Soph. OT 62 – 4. Cf. 1.294, 3.319, 385, 4.394, 1317, 1431. 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 participle there may, but need not, imply deceit. Cf. also 4.394, where the exact status of Jason’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.

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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 deceive, but certainly does place us in the context of Iliad 2. Jason then responds 1piqq^dgm after the crew’s encouragement has warmed his heart. At 2.847 this adverb must mean ‘by title, by name’, but the scholia on 2.640 have various attempts at it — vameq~teqom, paqqgsiastij~teqom, oRome· !mavamd|m, diaqq^dgm. The comparatives rightly suggest a contrast with paqabk^dgm, and indeed the later word, apparently meaning ‘openly, straightforwardly’, must be intended to suggest by contrast a meaning for the earlier. Nevertheless, 1piqq^dgm is itself rare 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 how to interpret a speech or how to move from what a character says to the ‘meaning’ behind it. For this purpose Agamemnon’s peira provided the classic poetic model. To a large extent, we confront Jason’s speech as his 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 Libyan desert), here by giving Ancaios, a son of Poseidon, the courage to speak to Peleus. Ancaios observes that both he and others on board are quite 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 greatly cheered by this positive spirit and he addresses the crew openly, basically repeating the substance of Ancaios’ speech, but making no actual proposal for a new helmsman. Jason, !lgwam]ym, replies that the potential helmsmen around him are more depressed than he himself is and he prophesies a miserable fate for them, wasting away where they are, bereft of kleos. At this, four Argonauts, including Ancaios, offer themselves as steersmen, and Ancaios is duly chosen. Fränkel54 and Vian55 have 52 Fränkel (1968), 214 – 15 argues strongly for the meaning ‘provoking (a certain reaction)’ rather than ‘testing’; as Fränkel himself admits, however, the distinction is not a sharp one, and the traditional interpretation seems protected by the echo of Iliad 2. 53 Paduano-Fusillo on 2.638 – 40. For 1piqq^dgm cf. Arat. Phaen. 261; at Phaen. 191 the meaning is doubtful, but Mair’s ‘expressly’ seems close to what is required. 54 Fränkel (1968), 240 – 4; this view is rejected by Paduano-Fusillo on 2.885 – 93. 55 Vian (1978), 1031, cf. note complmentaire 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; Ancaios approaches Peleus, who is not a possible rival for the job, out of a sense of tact. Jason does not wish to impose a choice among the many possible candidates, so he delivers a speech full of sarcasm and depression in order to prick the amour-propre of potential steersmen. The ploy succeeds, and both the expedition and its democratic structures are preserved. The episode would thus be in some ways comparable — though Fränkel and Vian do not make the comparison — to the scene among the Greeks after Hector has issued his challenge in Iliad 7. When no Greek responds to the challenge, Menelaos abuses them as effeminate cowards lacking in kleos, and he starts to arm himself for the duel; Agamemnon, however, restrains him and, after a lengthy intervention from Nestor, a number of Greek champions present themselves (Il. 7.92 – 169). The central difference between the two scenes is the crucial !lgwam]ym in 2.885, quite different from the Homeric ameid_fym describing Menelaos. Fränkel and Vian deal with this word in different ways. Both agree that Jason is here not ‘resourceless’; for Fränkel !lgwam]ym is therefore a corruption of, exempli gratia, !l^wamor ¦r, whereas Vian understands the word to refer to Jason’s embarrassment before the delicate task of choosing between rival candidates. With many details of this reading I would not disagree, but the emphasis seems misplaced. The loss of Tiphys, who safely negotiated the Argo through the Clashing Rocks, is clearly a crushing blow; though he was elected to his position (1.400 – 1), there was never any real doubt about the choice (cf. 1.105 – 10, 381 – 3). The strength of Jason’s despair, like his very positive attitude at 2.641 – 7, we recognise as similar to the sharp highs and lows of Homeric emotion, notably the fluctuations in Agamemnon’s mood. Whether such despair is consonant with our idea of what a leader should be is of no relevance here. Crucial to the scene is Hera’s intervention, and it is on the indirect nature of divine action — not really all that different from various interventions of Homeric gods — that the poet’s interest is here centred. This mistaken emphasis in the reading of Fränkel and Vian derives again from the modern behaviour of a central hero, rather than with a pattern of events.

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III. It is well known that Jason’s story has strong similarities with myths relating to other young heroes who undergo terrible ordeals before claiming their rightful place in adult society. Three heroes demand particular notice because Apollonius draws explicit attention to them. Aietes’ fire-breathing bulls are described (3.231) with an echo of the Homeric Chimaira, deim¹m !popme_ousa puq¹r l]mor aQhol]moio (Il. 6.182). The myth of the Chimaira, as told in Iliad 6, has interesting links with Jason’s story. Proteus sends the handsome Bellerophon to his father-in-law (Iobates), the king of Lycia, with letters which will ensure the young man’s destruction; Proteus, like Pelias, thus hopes to remove a better man from his kingdom, as well as to punish Bellerophon for the alleged outrage against his wife. Iobates receives Bellerophon hospitably (cf. Aietes at 3.299 – 316), but after reading the treacherous letter he devises a series of trials for the young man which he is not expected to survive. The Chimaira — the ‘equivalent’ of Aietes’ bulls — is one such test; another is the defeat of two hostile tribes, the Solymoi and the Amazons. At 3.352 – 3 Argos tells Aietes that Jason will subjugate one of his enemies, the Sauromatai (Sarmatians), as a quid pro quo for the return of the Fleece. It is noteworthy that this tribe was said to be descended from the Amazons and to retain certain Amazon characteristics.56 Argos’ offer may reflect a version of the saga in which the defeat of this tribe by the Argonauts was a condition imposed by Aietes, like the war enjoined on Bellerophon by Iobates. When Bellerophon successfully completed his tasks, the king gave him half the kingdom and one of his daughters in marriage; Jason will get both daughter and Fleece, though not with the king’s consent. The murder of Apsyrtos is compared to that of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and Aigisthos at 4.468, ‘like a slaughterer kills a great horned bull’, which reworks Od. 4.535 (= 11.411) ‘as someone kills an ox at its stall’. It is not, however, Aigisthos whom Jason closely recalls, but rather Orestes. Euripides has Orestes kill Aigisthos while the latter is sacrificing to the Nymphs, thus himself becoming the sacrificial victim, 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, Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians (Szeged, 1970).

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count of the death of Apsyrtos, struck down like a sacrificial bull57 in the shrine of Artemis. Both Orestes and Jason must receive purification for their actions by having the blood ‘washed off’;58 the patterns are certainly very alike, although the killing of the usurper Pelias is more clearly divorced from the death of Apsyrtos than the death of Aigisthos is from that of Clytemnestra. The similarities, moreover, go much further back in time. As a baby Jason was removed from the city of his birth to be brought up in the wild by the centaur Chiron, because of fear that his usurping uncle Pelias might act against the baby who had a rightful claim to the throne. When he had grown to manhood, he returned to Iolcos to reclaim his inheritance (Pind. Pyth. 4.101 – 15). This pattern is obviously very like that of the baby Orestes, saved from the bloodthirsty Aigisthos and deposited with Strophios in Phocis (Eur. El. 16 – 18). To the similarities in their later careers I shall return below (pp. 450-2). Most striking of all, and most exploited by Apollonius, are the parallels between Jason and Theseus. Like Jason, Theseus returned to the city of his father as a young man in his prime, a pa?r pq~hgbor (Bacchyl. 18.56 – 7, cf. Pind. Pyth. 4.158 of Jason), like Jason both a stranger and a citizen (cf. Pind. Pyth. 4.78). Theseus’ birth tokens, by which he 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’, although the 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; the test 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 Medea and 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 a young 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 Apollonius may be drawing a further link between Jason and Theseus by echoing a Callimachean passage about the latter. Relevant too is the suggestion that Callimachus’ Theseus owed something to Homer’s Telemachus, cf. J. K. Newman, ‘Callimachus and the Epic’, in Serta Turyniana (Urbana, 1974), pp. 342 – 60 at p. 350.

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Bacchylides 17, is recalled at Arg. 3.402 – 3 where Aietes offers to give up the Fleece once he has tested that the Argonauts are ‘either of the race of gods or in some other way no worse [than Aietes himself]’. 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 help is plainly on a par with Theseus’ success in the labyrinth against the Minotaur. The detailed working out of the parallels between Ariadne and Medea in the Argonautica and later literature is familiar enough to be omitted here. Less obvious perhaps are the shared motifs in the expeditions of the two heroes. The tribute of young men from which Theseus freed Athens was imposed after the death of Minos’ son, Androgeos, in mysterious circumstances in Attica. Minos prayed to Zeus for vengeance, and a plague and famine came upon the city. When the Athenians consulted the oracle, they were told to pay Minos whatever penalty he should demand (Apollodorus 3.15.7 – 8). With the story of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece this story shares the motifs of Zeus’ anger, plague, consultation of an oracle, a long sea-voyage and the death of a tyrant’s son. Finally — and it would be possible to pursue the parallels in these two stories at much greater length — it is noteworthy that Theseus’ desire to imitate and rival Heracles is a leitmotif of Plutarch’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 tragedies based on them a recurrent pattern which reflects the generational passage of a young man into adulthood. The work of Pierre Vidal-Naquet, in particular, has established in new detail the connection of such myths with 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, RE 15.1890 – 1927) that two very different accounts of Minos’ character were current in antiquity. Homer had given both Minos and Aietes the epithet ako|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 [Cambridge, 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.

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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, allowed the significance of the details of the Pindaric Jason — upbringing in 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 aspects of the Apollonian Jason. Orestes performs his retributive act through guile and cunning; the Sophoclean Orestes, in fact, reports Apollo’s oracle to the effect that he should ‘with trickery secretly carry out the just slaughter himself, unequipped with shields and an army’ (El. 36 – 7). Apollonius presents Jason’s acts of ploughing the field and slaying the earthborn men as complementary: the first requires heroic strength, aided by Medea’s magic drugs, the second relies on metis and on staying out of sight (k\hqgi, 3.1057, 1369). This complementarity points to Jason’s intermediate position on his passage from one stage of his life to another. His preparations for the contest are also interesting in this context. After he has smeared both himself and his weapons with the drug and the strength has entered him, he performs naked a kind of dance, like a prancing warhorse, shaking his shield and spear (3.1258 – 64). The shield and spear — 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 mind the pyrrhiche, an armed dance which presumably originated in preparations for war and which we know to have been performed at Athenian festivals 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 problme des Argonautes (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 Courtes (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 Graecorum capita quinque (RGVV 13.3, Giessen, 1913), J.-C. Poursat, ‘Les représentations de danse armée dans la céramique attique’, BCH 92 (1968), 550 – 615, and E. J. Borthwick, ‘P.Oxy. 2738: Athena and the Pyrrhic Dance’, Hermes 98 (1970), 318 – 31.

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kinds of blows and shots by swervings, and duckings and side-leaps upward or crouching’ (Laws 7.815a, trans. R. G. Bury), certainly suits both Jason’s movements at 3.1258 – 64 and also his actual battle with the cgceme?r. The Aristophanic personification of Old Education had contrasted those who fought at Marathon — the hoplite battle par excellence — with young men of the modern day who could not dance Athena’s pyrrhiche properly (Clouds 986 – 9), and it has been suggested that we should see in this dance an enactment of the passage of the ephebe towards hoplite status.70 Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that Apollonius presents Jason in a crucial transitional stage: halfway between Apollo, the model kouros,71 and the war-god Ares (3.1282 – 3), he prepares to meet the great test of his ‘manhood’. It is worth remarking that the only previous killing to Jason’s credit in the poem is that of the equally young prince Cyzicus (1.1026 – 35), and this was a ghastly mistake committed in the confusion of night, in a scene more reminiscent of the Doloneia than of the open duels of Homeric heroes. Finally, one further speculation about Jason’s test may be permitted. The trick of distracting the earthborn men by throwing a great stone into their midst not only associates Jason with the cunning of the ephebe, but perhaps also suggests the role of fighters like Tyrtaeus’ culm/ter, who, in contrast to and support of the p\mopkoi (hoplites), throw large stones and javelins at the enemy from the safety of shield cover (fr. 12.35 – 9 West = 8.35 – 9 GP, cf. Arg. 3.1369).72 Here too, then, Jason would be associated with a type of fighting which is marginal to the main military effort of adult males. The main object of the expedition, the acquisition of the Golden Fleece, is also achieved with the aid of Medea’s magical powers. She and 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 interpretation. 71 It is tempting to place in this context Orpheus’ account of Apollo’s slaying of the Pythian dragon, joOqor 1½m 5ti culm|r, 5ti pkoj\loisi cecgh~r. I would now be more inclined to such a view of this disputed passage than I was in Hunter (1986), 57. 72 The interpretation of this passage is (inevitably) disputed, cf. H. Lorimer, BSA 42 (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. A recently published fragment of Tyrtaeus refers to culmol\woi (P.Oxy. 3316).

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who begin while it is still dark get up (4.109 – 13). By a familiar Apollonian technique,73 this indication of time embraces the functions of a simile, and the possible significance of this night-hunt for Jason’s position will be obvious to anyone familiar with Vidal-Naquet’s work on ‘the Black Hunter’. Once the Fleece has been attained — with Jason playing very much the secondary rôle74 — his delight in it is compared to 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 far from clear,75 but the comparison of Jason to a young girl is certainly suggestive. It is well known that rites de passage are often characterised by games or ritual involving sexual reversal; at the moment of Jason’s greatest success — the acquisition of both the Fleece and Medea — the simile of the young girl paradoxically marks his readiness to assume his manhood. If this is correct, then his speech to the crew at their departure, 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 of war’ (4.206) to mark his new status. It may even be that his plan for the protection of the ship (4.199 – 202), a close pattern of shields to protect the rowers, is designed to suggest the hoplite phalanx, as well, presumably, as reflecting a historical reality.77 The interpretation of individual details will always be a matter for debate. More broadly, however, it is difficult not to associate Jason’s characteristic !lgwam_g, the doubts and occasional despair to which he is prone, with the ambivalent insecurity of Orestes in Euripides’ Electra and, to a lesser extent, Aeschylus’ Choephoroi.78 Both Orestes and Jason 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 corresponds, mutatis mutandis, to membership of the adult warrior class for Jason. 76 Livrea on 4.203 collects the relevant passages. For sex reversal in transitional rites 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 hoplite 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 in Ancient Greece (Brighton, 1981), pp. 160 – 1.

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necessary tasks which have been imposed upon them by oracular command.79 Two final observations are necessary here. First, as I have already noted, these patterns operate within the poem largely at the level of the individual episode, and we should not expect to find a simple linear progression through a transitional rite from beginning to end. Thus, at a very simple level, the killing of Apsyrtos follows, rather than precedes, the successful acquisition of the Fleece and the assumption of heroic rhetoric. Secondly, I have been assimilating certain patterns in the Argonautica to patterns in the mythic thought and literature of archaic and classical Greece, as well as to a military organisation which was for Apollonius quite obsolete. It may be objected that a poet of third-century Alexandria was no longer in touch with these patterns in such a way as to use them meaningfully in his poem. Such an objection can, I think, be met on its own terms by two complementary observations. The broad patterns in question are so widespread in both time and space that the onus of proof is clearly on those who would deny access to them to the inhabitants of third-century Alexandria. More importantly, the Argonautica is a creative recreation of a past age, both technologically and in terms of social values and attitudes. Its characteristic flavour derives from the tension between this hypothesised past age and the very Alexandrian concerns of much of the poetic material. In such a poem, the reprise of this familiar pattern from archaic and classical literature, as only one of a number of structural patterns through the work, is very far from surprising. The nature of heroism, and its particular instantiation in the ‘psychology’ of Jason, is not Apollonius’ central concern in the Argonautica. If Jason sometimes resembles the great heroes of Homer and sometimes wears a quite different aspect, it is because of Apollonius’ constant concern with the experimental, with testing the limits and possibilities of the epic form and with exploring what it has seemed to take for granted. This differentiates him both from Homer and, in a different way, from Virgil, who used the results of the experiments to produce a new synthesis. 79 Cf. Pind. Pyth. 4.159 – 67. Apollonius does not explicitly say that the expedition was commanded by divine oracle (contrast 1.8), but the motif of placating Zeus’ anger (2.1194 – 5, 3.336 – 9) perhaps suggests that we are to infer it. The latter passage raises, and leaves open, the possibility that Pelias has invented the oracle as an excuse to get rid of Jason.

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Addenda See the Addenda to the previous essay. Jason is also at the centre of much of Chapter 3 of Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry, and see also The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies 15 – 25. C. Pietsch, Die Argonautika des Apollonios von Rhodos (Stuttgart 1999) takes a rather different view of these matters. p. 66 Here and elsewhere I am conscious that I did not bring out sufficiently clearly how the potential for the obliteration of kleos in the Argonautica builds on 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 nell’antichit Greco romana: studi sulla danza armata (Pisa 1998).

4. Winged Callimachus* 1m· to ?r c±q !e_dolem oT kic»m Gwom t]tticor, h]|qubom d’ oqj 1v_kgsam emym. 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_dy pq~jiom 1j d_gr A]qor eWdaq 5dym, awhi t¹ d’ 1jd}oili, t¹ loi b\qor fssom 5pesti tqick~wim ako_i v/sor 1p’ 9cjek\dyi. oq m]lesir· MoOsai c±q fssour Udom ehlati pa?dar lµ kon_i, pokio»r oqj !p]hemto v_kour.

30

35

(Aetia fr. 1.29 – 38) 1

In ZPE 66 (1986) 269 – 78 Gregory Crane discussed the implications of Callimachus’ self-identification with the cicada in the light of the suggestion of earlier scholars2 that the poet here sees himself as Tithonus, but a Tithonus who is not abandoned by his beloved deities. The present note calls attention to a further pattern of meaning in the passage which may have important implications for its structure. Callimachus, the favourite of Apollo, longs to be b 1kaw}r, b pteq|eir. The reference is to the cicada, but the language can hardly be other than a reworking of the famous words which Plato puts in Socrates’ mouth at Ion 534b: joOvom c±q wq/la poigt^r 1stim ja· ptgm¹m ja· Req|m.3 Callimachus’ familiarity with this passage — which would hardly require proof — is in fact established by an echo of Ion 534c 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* 1 2 3

4

Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 76 (1989) 1 – 2 Supplements: v. 30 Lobel; v. 32 Hunt. Cf. A. Rostagni, RFIC n.s. 6 (1928) 23; H. Diller, Hermes 90 (1962) 120. 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. Hopkinson suggests that d_gr in v. 34 picks up Req|m, the third of Plato’s epithets for the poet. Cf., e. g. D. L. Clayman, Callimachus’ Iambi (Leiden 1980) 50. The humour of citing Plato’s Ion in a poem in which the poet defends himself by the example of Ion of Chios has strangely been lost on many critics.

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tainty of the echo; in any case, Callimachus elsewhere suggests a likeness between himself and the bee (h. 2.110 – 12). In his amusing speech at Ion 533c-5a Socrates argues that poets do not compose 1j t]wmgr, but rather 5mheoi, 5jvqomer and jatew|lemoi like bacchants; poets are merely 2qlgm/r t_m he_m.This position is directly opposed to Callimachus’ insistence upon t]wmg as the chief poetic criterion (fr. 1.17) and his self-presentation as the deliberate artist, composing pen-in-hand (fr. 1.21 – 2): ‘not for him the affectation of vatic inspiration’, as Neil Hopkinson has recently 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 his view of the poet. The famously problematic6 syntax of vv. 33 – 5 can now be seen as amusingly suggestive of the ecstatic, ‘possessed’, mode which Socrates ascribes to poets and into which Callimachus suddenly changes; the change is mediated through the echo of the Ion in v.32. The whole passage — so typical of Callimachus’ creative use of earlier literature — is thus a powerful assertion of poetic craftsmanship and lyric inspiration. One final speculation. The link between the ‘Reply to the Telchines’ (fr. 1) and the Dream (fr. 2) remains very unclear.7 We also know nothing of the dream’s circumstances. It is usually assumed to have occurred at night, but certain times of the day were also very suitable for dreams and encounters with the divine, and Socrates tells Phaedrus the myth of the cicadas 1m lesglbq_ai and stresses that they should not nod off into sleep in the heat like most men (Phaedrus 5

6

7

A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1988) 95. Critics differ as to whether vv. 21 – 2 refer to Callimachus’ first attempt at poetry or to his first efforts at writing when a little boy (so, e. g. W. Wimmel, Kallimachos in Rom, Hermes Einzelschrift 16, Wiesbaden 1960, 101). The former seems more likely (cf. the address !oid] and the imitations in Roman recusationes), although the superlative pq~tistom, pa?dar in v. 37, and the tradition that Callimachus was at one time a schoolteacher in Alexandrian Eleusis (Suda j 227 = Test. 1 Pfeiffer) — and therefore only too familiar with writing lessons – may be thought to suggest the latter. It may be in fact that Callimachus thinks of the two moments as coincident. 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. 113 n. 4; A. Kambylis, Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (Heidelberg 1965) 82 – 9; Hopkinson op.cit. 96 – 7. Cf. Crane art.cit. 275 – 8; A. Kerkhecker, ‘Ein Musenanruf am Anfang der Aitia des Kallimachos’ ZPE 71 (1988) 16 – 24.

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

Addenda The ‘Reply to the Telchines’ remains of course one of the most discussed passages 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 Callimachus to 1998 by Luigi Lehnus (Nuova bibliografia callimachea 1489 – 1998, Alessandria 2000). The language of the prologue in connection with Plato’s Ion is also 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 ‘Callimachean’ poet.

5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil* In a famous passage of the third book of the Georgics (3.209 – 41) Vergil describes two bulls righting over a formosa iuvenca; the bull which is at first beaten goes off to recover and prepare, returning to attack again its arrogant opponent. The description of the bull’s training blends the toughness of early man,1 the playfulness of a young animal, the suffering of the exclusus amator and the preparations of a human athlete: ergo omni cura uiris exercet et inter dura iacet pernox instrato saxa cubili frondibus hirsutis et carice pastus acuta, et temptat sese atque irasci in cornua discit arboris obnixus trunco, uentosque lacessit ictibus, et sparsa ad pugnam proludit harena.

230

(Georg. 3.229 – 34)

The phrase uentosque lacessit / ictibus has been variously handled by critics, but Page’s note – ‘he acts like a boxer’ – is very likely on the right track; cf. Aen. 5.375 – 7 of Dares answering the challenge to compete in boxing, talis prima Dares caput altum in proelia tollit,/ ostenditque umeros latos alternaque iactat / bracchia protendens et uerberat ictibus auras. Pugna (line 234) is used of a wide variety of sporting contests, but has, through pugnus, a natural affinity with boxing.2 uentosque lacessit / ictibus would, of course, be perfectly appropriate also for the warming-up of gladiators or fencers, and Richter took the phrase both here and in Aeneid 5 to be a poetic version of uentilare, which is twice found used absolutely of a gladiator practising or warming-up.3 An image from gladiatorial contests would suit the sharp horns of a bull, but uerberare rather suggests boxing, and it is, moreover, unclear why Vergil’s phrase should be semantically equivalent to uentilare (which may, in any case, have been used of boxers * 1 2 3

Classical Quarterly 39 (1989) 557 – 61 Cf. R. F. Thomas, Virgil, Georgics, II (Cambridge, 1988), on 229 – 31. Cf. Aen. 5.365. Thomas, however, refers the verse to ‘the sanding of the oiled body in wrestling’. Sen. Contr, 3 pr. 13, Sen. EM 117.25.

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as well as of gladiators). If it is correct that lines 233 – 4 hint at a likeness between the bull and a boxer, then new colour is given to certain earlier elements 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 of the deleterious effect on bulls of sexual passion may be not merely a borrowing from love-poetry but also transference to the bovine world of conventional wisdom about how athletes should conduct themselves.5 Moreover, a iuuenca as a prize in a boxing-match between two bulls gives an amusingly new resonance to an idea from the world of (literary) man: in Homer, Epeios and Euryalos box for a splendid mule, Bl_omom takaeqc|m… 2n]te’ !dl^tgm6 (Il. 23.654 – 5), and in Aeneid 5 Dares and Entellus compete for a iuuencus. 7 Behind Vergil’s poetic fancy lie many different ‘sources’. Some commentators have found the seeds of this passage in technical writing such 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 frequent mounting, 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 not allow any other bull to mate. But if another bull, trusting in his own strength, withstands and defeats him, then the second bull mates with the cows after that.’ Among poetic models, the lyric account of the fight between Heracles and Achelous for the hand of Deianeira at Sophocles, Trachiniae 507 – 30 has long been acknowledged as a particularly important forerunner.9 The river-god appeared in his bull form and his horns crashed against his opponent, while Deianeira sat far off awaiting the outcome in terror (cf. Trach. 24); in line 520 the fight is 4 5

6 7 8 9

Cf. Aen. 5.473 ‘hic uictor superans animis tauroque superbus’. 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 the Body in Antiquity (Oxford, 1988), pp. 12 – 15. There is a close parallel to this in the folklore of modern boxing. !dl^r and related words are frequently used of young girls, and Vergil may be exploiting this resonance. At Aen. 5.399 Entellus sarcastically refers to the prize as a pulcher iuuencus, cf. formosa iuuenca. Quoted by Schol. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 2.88 – 9a. 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.

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described in what looks like the technical language of wrestling ( !lv_pkejtoi jk_lajer). Sophocles does not actually say ‘they wrestled like two bulls over a heifer’, but the idea is clearly latent in the passage and is nearly explicit at the end of the ode, where Deianeira’s marriage is 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 Argonautica which is cited by commentators on the Georgics, but whose full importance has not yet been brought out. At Arg. 2.88 – 97 the final round in the boxing-match of Amycus and Polydeuces is compared to the meeting of two bulls in competition for a ‘grazing heifer’: #x d’ awtir sum|qousam 1mamt¸y, A}te ta}qy voqb\dor !lv· bo¹r jejotg|te dgqi\ashom. 5mha d’ 5peit’ -lujor l³m 1p’ !jqot\toisim !eqhe·r bout}por oXa p|dessi tam}ssato, j±d d³ baqe?am we?q’ 1p· oX pek]linem . b d’!_ssomtor rp]stg, jq÷ta paqajk¸mar, ¥lyi d’ !med]nato p/wum tuth|m. b d’ %cw’ aqto?o paq³j c|mu coum¹r !le_bym j|xe leta@cdgm rp³q ouator, ast]a d’eUsy N/nem . b d’ !lv’ ad¼mgi cm»n Eqipem. oR d’ Q\wgsam Fqyer Lim}ai . toO d’ !hq|or 5jwuto hul|r.

90

95

Whereas Vergil presents his bulls warring over a mate as boxers, Apollonius’ boxers are like bulls warring over a mate.10 The simile of lines 88 – 9 leads in to that of lines 90 – 2 where Amycus is compared to a man about to sacrifice a bull; the tables are turned, however, and Amycus himself becomes the sacrificial victim. cm»n Eqipem (line 96) is appropriate both for a beaten boxer and for the bull at a sacrifice,11 and the heroes’ shout suggests not merely the audience of a sporting-contest12 but also the ritual cry which attended sacrifice; Apollonius may in fact 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 corresponding to 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 made exclusively of ox-hide (cf. Philostratus, Gymn. 10) has had an important influence 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 terrified girl and a sacrificial victim. 12 Cf. Arg. 3.1370, Theocr. 22.99, Hom. Il. 23.847, 869.

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with Arg. 1.427 – 31, in his description of Entellus’ killing of the prize bull at Aen 5. 477 – 80,13 dixit, et aduersi contra stetit ora iuuenci qui donum astabat pugnae, durosque reducta librauit dextra media inter cornua caestus arduus, effractoque inlisit in ossa cerebro,

and the debt to the opening of Argonautica 2 throughout the boxing description in Aeneid 5 is well known.14 This may encourage us to look for further Apollonian influence in the ‘boxing match’ of Georgics 3. When the beaten bull returns to attack its opponent, its charge is described with a simile of a crashing wave (Georg. 3.237 – 41): fluctus uti medio coepit cum albescere ponto, longius ex altoque sinum trahit, utque uolutus ad terras immane sonat per saxa neque ipso monte minor procumbit, at ima exaestuat unda uerticibus nigramque alte subiectat harenam.

240

The simile is adapted15 from Iliad 4.422 – 6 which describes the Greeks moving, 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 5peita w]qsyi Ngcm}lemom lec\ka bq]lei, !lv· d³ t’ %jqar juqt¹m 1¹m joquvoOtai, !popt}ei d’ "k¹r %wmgm.

425

Apollonius too has occasion to describe the charge of bulls, during the account 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]tqg l_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. arduus in 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 passage. The reference to Amycus in line 373 directs our attention to Apollonius and Theocritus. 15 Cf. M. C. J. Putnam, Virgil’s Poem of the Earth (Princeton, 1979), pp. 194 – 5.

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This simile is indebted to Iliad 15.618 – 21 which describes the Greek battle-line as it resists the Trojans. Resistance was not the quality which Vergil wished to describe in Georgics 3, but he may have been led to use a wave-simile for his charging bull by this passage of the Argonautica. A further consideration, however, seems to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Vergil’s choice of Homeric model here has been influenced by his knowledge of Apollonius’ epic. The opening exchanges of the bout between Amycus and Polydeuces 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 tuth¹m Qdqe_gi pujimo?o jubeqmgt/qor !k}sjei Rel]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 burst in on a ship, whereas Polydeuces is the skilful pilot who averts the danger;17 the fact that Polydeuces and his brother had a traditional role as rescuers from shipwreck18 – a role given great prominence in the opening passage of Theocritus’ parallel poem (22.8 – 22) – foreshadows the ultimate futility of Amycus’ efforts. Like so many Apollonian similes, these verses have a complex Homeric origin, but two passages are particularly important. One is Iliad 15.624 – 9 (Hector attacking the Greek lines) which follows immediately after the Homeric model for the charge of Aietes’ bulls in Arg. 3, and the other is the same simile from Iliad 4 that Vergil reworked to describe the bull’s charge: jOla hak\ssgr and joq}ssetai (sinum trahit) point clearly to the adaptation (cf. Il. 4.422, 424). Vergil’s choice of Homeric model thus points again to the 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 the death 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 echoes of Callimachus’ Hecale. This lends colour to the suggestion (cf. Thomas ad loc.) 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.

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Vergil’s technique of allusion here is familiar enough, although a thorough investigation of how he used the Hellenistic epic remains a major desideratum.20 Other parallels between the two passages have less significance, but two further points may be mentioned. The shadow-boxing of Georg. 3.233 – 4 has its parallel in Arg. 2.45 – 7, where Polydeuces prepares for the fight. In both poems careful preparation is to pay off against an arrogant and careless opponent. Secondly, there is the phrase irasci in cornua (line 232). With more or less confidence, editors see here a borrowing 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 attacked by the bacchants). If this is correct — and caution in such matters is always necessary — then it is noteworthy that Malcolm Campbell has argued21 that Apollonius’ description of the contest of Amycus and Polydeuces is indebted to the Euripidean confrontation of Pentheus and Dionysus: the calm, beautiful young man confronts the brutish, ‘earthborn’ tyrant.22 Campbell also argued that oQmypºr of Polydeuces at Theocr. 22.34 showed that Theocritus had picked up the resonance of Apollonius’ account. Does Georg. 3.233 – 4 show that these allusions were not lost on Vergil? Opinions will differ, but no one will want to underestimate his appreciation of detail and nuance in the Argonautica.23

Addenda The study of Virgil’s use of Apollonius was notably advanced by D. Nelis, Vergil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Leeds 2001); cf. also The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies, Chapter 7. p. 91 I should certainly have cited Eros as a boxer at Sophocles, Trachiniae 441 – 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. Briggs in H. Temporini and W. Haase (edd.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der rçmischen Welt II 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.

6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius* Jason’s expedition for the Golden Fleece might almost have been designed as a narrative of cultural and racial difference and interaction. By the Hellenistic period, the geography and people of Colchis were familiar enough to learned Greeks1, but the power of the mytho-poetic construct was far greater than the desire for ethnographic exactitude. The myth told of a journey to the ends of the earth2, a terrible confrontation with the unknown and the “other”, and the ultimate triumph of a Panhellenic crusade and of Greek technology and daring3. Indeed, scholars of Hellenistic and later antiquity rationalised the story as an account of early colonisation and the quest for gold (cf. Strabo 1, 2, 39), an explanation which draws our attention to just how easily the tale could be used to account for or justify various forms of cultural imperialism. The role of cultural difference in the epic has largely been studied from the point of view of what we might call the obviously “ethnographic” passages, such as the Pontic voyage in the second half of Book 2. Here Apollonius is clearly working within the familiar pattern of Herodotean ethnography, which stresses inversion from a hellenocentric model4. Among my concerns in this paper will be the manner

*

1

2 3 4

S. Said (ed.), EKKGNISLOS. Quelques jalons pour une histoire de l’identit grecque (Leiden 1991) 81 – 99 I am indebted to the participants in the Strasbourg colloquium for much instructive discussion and to Philip Hardie and Dorothy Thompson for their comments on a written version of this paper. Cf. pp. 16 – 17 of Vol. II of Vian’s edition. The evidence for Ptolemaic interest in the Black Sea area continues to grow, cf. the contributions (in Russian with English summaries) of N. L. Grach in Vestnik Drevnei Historii, 1984, pp. 81 – 88 and L.Y. Treister, ibid., 1985, pp. 126 – 139. For Phasis as the world’s eastern boundary cf. my note on 3, 678 – 680. Cf. now M. Fantuzzi, “La censura delle Simplegadi: Ennio, Medea, fr. 1 Jocelyn”, QUCC n.s. 31 (1989), pp. 119 – 129. 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-

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in which Apollonius complicates and problematises the essential dichotomy at the heart of the Herodotean system, although I shall not deal directly with his ethnographies. More fundamentally, I want to raise the question of why a third-century Alexandrian poet, writing under royal patronage and, indeed, occupying perhaps the principal “academic” 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 deserves far wider airing than it usually receives. Both the date and place of composition of the poem in something like its final form are matters of debate, but the assumption of composition in Alexandria around the middle of the third century B.C., i. e. in the later stages of the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, is unlikely to be dangerously misleading5. The intellectual life and Weltanschauung of third-century Alexandria is a subject endlessly rich in opportunity for speculation. Thus, for example, certain features of Alexandrian poetry – its “realism” (of a very special kind), its high literariness and allusiveness – have recently been ascribed to a “cultural identity-crisis” allegedly experienced by Greek intellectuals in this new city perched on the edge of a barbarian wasteland, far from the seats of traditional Greek culture and without the ties of the traditional Greek colony6. The idea has its attractions, and it can be helpfully adduced to account in part for the importance in Alexandrian poetry of aetiology and of foundation legends of the remote Greek past. It would be easy enough to construct a reading of the Libyan adventures of the Argonauts in the fourth book as an allegory of the Alexandrian Greeks lost in the cultural desert of North Africa, saved only when they reach Euhesperides (modern Benghazi), a town whose attachment to the Ptolemaic cultural orbit was celebrated by the change of its name to Berenike in honour of the Cyrenean princess who married Ptolemy III Euergetes in 247 B.C.7; moreover, the second factor in their salvation is that, like Xen-

5 6

7

ture structurale”, ASNP3 8 (1978), pp. 949 – 1005; and F. Hartog, Le miroir d’Hrodote, Paris, 1980 [English trans., Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988]. For a recent survey cf. pp. 1 – 9 of my edition of Book 3 (Cambridge, 1989). Realism: G. Zanker, “The Nature and Origin of Realism in Alexandrian Poetry”, A&A, 29 (1983), pp. 125 – 145; literariness: P. Bing, The Well-Read Muse, 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. Cf. RE, 3, 284 – 286.

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ophon’s mercenaries (Anab. 4, 7, 24), they reach the sea (4, 1537 – 1619), a traditional touchstone of Greek consciousness. Be that as it may, such psychological reconstructions must be tempered with a little reflection. Alexandria was in many respects a Greek, rather than a Graeco-Egyptian, city, loosely attached to Egypt rather than a part of it. It was only natural for Alexandrians to associate themselves more with the large areas of the Aegean under Ptolemaic control or influence than with the Egyptian chora at their backs8. Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos is proof enough of that. Some scholars have argued further for an early Ptolemaic period in which, with official encouragement, Greek intellectuals took an interest in Egypt and its people, an interest which gradually withered as the third century progressed and the scholars became more inward-looking, more solely dependent upon the Greek intellectual heritage which they guarded, whereas others have seen persistent neglect by most Greek intellectuals of all things Egyptian9. On either view the high poetry of Alexandria would largely belong to a period when traditional Greek attitudes towards barbaroi reigned supreme. Using this “fact” in a reading of the poems, however, is a particularly delicate business. Callimachus, Apollonius and – for part of his career – Theocritus wrote under royal patronage, and the Ptolemies not only depended upon Egyptian wealth but also very clearly adopted Egyptian religious and institutional customs in their conduct of the kingship. Moreover, the very meaning, juridical and otherwise, which is to be attached to the terms “Hellene” and “Egyptian” in the context of Ptolemaic Egypt remains, at the very least, a matter of debate10. The whole ques8 For this general picture cf., e. g., C. H. Roberts, “Literature and Society in the Papyri”, MH, 10 (1953), pp. 264 – 279; R. Merkelbach, “Das Königtum der Ptolemäer 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 Abdera and 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 specifically Ptolemaic themes in Alexandrian poetry cf. H. Maehler, “Poésie alexandrine 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”, in Cleopatra’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,

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tion of Egypt and Egyptians was likely to have been one where court poets trod cautiously. Attic drama, which was so intensively studied in Alexandria, regularly presented Egypt as a barbarous and contemptible land, but such attitudes could clearly not be replicated in Ptolemy’s court. Too much weight should not be placed upon the remark of the absurd Praxinoa in Theocritus’ fifteenth Idyll: pokk\ toi, § Ptokela?e, pepo_gtai jak± 5qca 1n ¨ 1m !ham\toir b tej~m· oqde·r jajoeqc¹r dake?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 the immortals. No villain sneaks up on you like an Egyptian while you’re going along and does you mischief—the sorts of tricks those slippery rascals used to pull. They’re all as bad as each other, a nasty little handful, a cursed bunch!”

Far from showing that “Theocritus seems to participate … with Callimachus in a conspiracy never to reveal that Egypt is not a Greek land”, as one perceptive critic of these poems has put it11, this passage – with its witty satire on ignorance and prejudice – points clearly enough to a non-Greek Egypt ruled by Greek monarchs. (How Ptolemy understood the verses, if he ever read them, is a subject thankfully beyond conjecture.) Moreover, Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy praises the racial and cultural diversity of Egypt (17, 77 – 85), and it is thus obvious that the Ptolemaic court was not the right place for strident assertions of Greek cultural and racial superiority12. Too much loose talk about 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’s papyrus may, of course, render this assertion untrue, but it is at the moment 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 of the “obliteration” of Egypt in Alexandrian poetry is a helpful treatment of the subject. 12 Cf. P. R. Hardie, Virgil’s Aeneid: ‘Cosmos’ and ‘Imperium’, Oxford, 1986, pp. 129 – 131.

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one example of baqbaqij|r occurs in a rather interesting context. In the Hymn to Delos, the unborn Apollo tells his mother not to bear him on Kos for this is destined to be the birthplace of Ptolemy Philadelphus; the foetus then goes on to prophesy a time when both he and Ptolemy will have trouble with Celts – the reference is to the attack on Delphi in 279 and to a revolt by some of Ptolemy’s Gallic mercenaries which was put down at some time in the mid to late 270 s: ja_ v} pote num|r tir 1ke}setai %llim %ehkor vsteqom, bpp|tam oR l³m 1v’ :kk^messi l\waiqam baqbaqijµm 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 the late-born Titans raise up barbarian sword and Celtic war against the Hellenes…”

The only other example of “Hellenes” in Callimachus also occurs in the context of this Gallic invasion (fr. 379 Pf.) 13, and here we may be able to glimpse one of the ways in which the Ptolemies exploited the rich Greek inheritance of “anti-barbarian” rhetoric without exposing too much their own questionable status. The Greeks’ successful fifth-century defence against the Persians was the main source and inspiration of “anti-barbarian” rhetoric in classical literature and ideology14. The successors of Alexander, the “liberator” of Egypt from the Persians, inherited Athens’ patriotic mantle, and were able to adapt the rhetoric to fit a new situation, just as it had been adapted in the fourth century to accommodate the rise of Macedon. Thus we find the struggle against the Persians invoked in the Athenian decree of (?) 268/7 B.C. which marks the alliance of Athens, Sparta and Ptolemy at the start of the so-called “Chremonidean War” against Macedon, a decree which

13 !m\stasim in v. 2 and !mast^samter in the Hymn suggest self-variation by Callimachus 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 Greek and barbarian are polarised in classical Greek rhetoric is political”; the rhetoric was that of the democratic polis, and Ptolemaic Alexandria was certainly not that.

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hails Ptolemy as a tireless fighter for Greek freedom15 ; at the very least, Ptolemy will not have been displeased with the rhetoric. The fact that the Egyptians stand first after the Persians in the opening catalogue of attacking forces in Aeschylus’ Persai (vv. 33 – 40) shows just how the traditional rhetoric had to be stood on its head by the Ptolemies. So too the almost total silence about Egypt in the Argonautica 16 must be seen as a deliberate reversal of Herodotus’ Egyptian narrative, the longest and most prominent part of his account of the Persian empire. The silence speaks of how much has changed since Herodotus wrote. In the Hymn to Artemis Callimachus refers to the attack upon the temple of Artemis at Ephesus by invaders from the north in the seventh century B.C.: t_i Na ja· Aka_mym !kapan]lem Ape_kgse K}cdalir rbqist^r . 1p· d³ stqat¹m Rppglokc_m Ecace Jilleq_ym xal\hyi Usom, oV Na paq’ aqt|m jejkil]moi ma_ousi bo¹r p|qom Ymawi~mgr. ü deik¹r bqot_m, fsom Ekitem . oq c±q 5lekkem out’ aqt¹r Sjuh_gmde pakilpet³r oute tir %kkor fssym 1m keil_mi Jaustq_yi 5stam ûlanai most^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 as the sand, who live hard by the Strait of the Cow, daughter of Inachus. O wretched king, what a sin he committed! He was not destined to return again to Scythia, nor were any whose wagons stood in the Caystrian plain; for your bow is always set in front of Ephesus.”

It is an old, and now largely discredited, belief 17 that these verses hint at contemporary attacks upon Ephesus by Celtic invaders. This is not a view I wish to revive. Rather, I wish to stress that there seems every reason to suspect a “Ptolemaic” context for the verses, even if we cannot identify it with any precision. Ephesus was won and lost by Ptolemy more than once in the middle years of the third century, and played 15 Cf. H. H. Schmidt (ed.), Die Staatsvertrge des Altertums, III, Munich, 1969, no. 476, II. 7 – 21 (pp. 129 – 130). For both this decree and the associated war cf. N. G. L. Hammond and F. W. Walbank, A History of Macedonia, III, Oxford, 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 importantly, for our present purposes, Callimachus’ verses key us in, not only to Homer, but also to Herodotus’ Scythian ethnographies, which form a further significant part of his large-scale analysis of the clash of Greece and Persia. This again is the rhetoric which we should see behind the verses. The themes of hybris, sin and loss of nostos indeed suggest Aeschylus’ treatment of the Persian defeat in Persai. This Callimachean passage may merely be the tip of an iceberg, but our remains of Ptolemaic court poetry are too scanty to allow us to follow these developments in any detail19. In turning more directly to the Argonautica I begin from a detail in the passage just quoted from Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos. The unborn Apollo calls the invading Celts “late-born Titans”, thus establishing Ptolemy as an “Olympian” protector of Greece, indeed as Zeus himself, an image confirmed by Ptolemaic iconography. In a recent book Philip Hardie has explored the use of Gigantomachic and Titanomachic imagery for “political” purposes in the ancient world20 ; he rightly observes that, despite this passage of Callimachus, the Ptolemaic situation was less appropriate for the use of such imagery than was the situation of, say, the Pergamene kings or the Roman emperors. Nevertheless, the fact that Colchis and the Colchians have very close links with the Titans – Medea is the great-granddaughter of a Titan, Prometheus the son of one21 – might encourage us to explore the Argonautica for resonances of this kind. I single out here the boxing match between Amycus and Polydeuces which opens Book 2. Amycus, king of the Bebrycians, a tribe inhabiting the land between the Propontis and the Black Sea, is a violent, uncivilised bully, characterised 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 London, 1984, pp. 89 – 90. 19 Of particular interest are the fragmentary elegiacs of Supplementum Hellenisticum 958, which have been interpreted as referring to Ptolemy II’s suppression of his Gallic mercenaries and to coming war with L/doi, i. e. Antiochus (so LloydJones 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 clearly draws on the traditional fifth-century Attic picture of the eastern effeminate. If this interpretation of the fragment is correct, then it should be placed in the same 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 stranger who arrives, he is a clear example of a very prominent theme in the poem, that of correct and incorrect hospitality23. The setting of the centre of the poem in the Black Sea, which was called Axeinos, but then later Euxeinos24, foregrounds the theme of hospitality, much in the way that it is prominent in Euripides’ Iphigenia at Tauris, set in the same area. Critics have realised that Amycus’ fight with Polydeuces is presented as a clash between the forces of Olympian fairness and justice and dark, pre-Olympian chthonic forces, or as a kind of Gigantomachy, as made explicit in the comparison of Amycus to “a son of Typhoeus or a Giant” (2, 38 – 40 ; cf. Val. Flacc. Arg. 4, 236 – 238) 25. Heracles fought against Typhoeus in a poorly, but probably adequately, attested myth26 and against the Giants in some accounts of the Gigantomachy27 and in a euhemeristic version which presented the Giants as barbarous and uncivilised men exterminated by the hero as part of his civilising and hellenising function28. Polydeuces therefore here plays a Heraclean role, emphasised by the juxtaposition of this episode to the loss of Heracles at the end of Book 1, by Amycus’ instruction to the Argonauts to put up b %qistor against him (2, 15), and by reflections on Heracles’ absence at the end of the episode (2, 145 – 153). I shall return to Heracles in a moment, after having first noted one further aspect of how this fight is presented as a victory for specifically Hellenic values. Polydeuces is 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 the similarity to the Cyclops explicit, and his Amycus narrative borrows heavily from Vergil’s “Cyclops” episode (Aen., 3, 588 – 691). 23 For this theme cf. A. R. Rose, “Three Narrative Themes in Apollonius’ Bebrykian 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 euphemistic. 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 humorous 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 easy one. 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”, in Mlanges … 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 in the heavens, whose rays are the most beautiful when it appears in the dark evening sky” (2, 40 – 42). After his victory he is celebrated with a hymnos, as befits the victor (2, 161 – 163); whether we are to imagine an 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 Apollonius here alludes to Theocritus’ poem (or vice versa) —, or perhaps rather the ‘Hymn to Hercules’ at Aeneid, 8, 288 – 302 (which follows the destruction of Cacus, another chthonic monster) may be left open31. Certainly, however, the clear foreshadowing of Polydeuces’ divine status32 instantiates the familiar epinician theme of the “immortality” and the “divine grace” which is conferred on the victor. Thus the confrontation with Amycus is made to suggest a familiar pattern of Greek aristocratic heroics, rather than the brutal contest envisaged by the Bebrycian king. We do not know enough about how poets presented specifically Ptolemaic themes to attempt anything so banal as a straightforward equation between Polydeuces and Ptolemy or a reading of the episode as “cultural propaganda”. All we can do is to note the important place held by Heracles, who was of course Ptolemy’s ancestor33, and by the Dioscuri in royal cult and court poetry34, and the insistent theme of the success of traditional Greek aristocratic values which permeates this episode. If we cannot place the episode within a Ptolemaic context, we may nevertheless be prepared to accept that such a context exists. In comparing Alexander to Heracles, Plutarch quotes the Euripidean Hera29 Cf. Pind., Pyth., 8, 96, the aUcka di|sdotor which attends victory. For the arousing 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 an honorum 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 with Odysseus’ 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 frhptolemische 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.

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cles’ catalogue of the monsters sent against him, including “Typhons and Giants” (Mor. 341e, alluding to Eur. HF 1271 – 1273); Heracles was Greece’s greatest benefactor and already in the fourth century Isocrates held him up to Philip as a model for a proposed Hellenic campaign to the east (Phil. 109 – 115). Again it may be that an extant Alexandrian text merely allows us to glimpse what was a much more widely used political symbol. Here perhaps belongs the sculptural type of two wrestlers, the victor a handsome youth wearing a diadem and the loser a man of obviously non-Greek physiognomy, which has been interpreted as symbolising the victory of the Ptolemies over their barbarian enemies35. The matter is, of course, quite uncertain, but the statuettes perhaps lend credence to the suspicion that there is greater “political” depth in this Apollonian scene than is usually assumed. Secondly, we may now see how the fight with Amycus has ramifications 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 defined, how it grew out of what came before, just as the many aitia and foundation legends in the poem tell the material story of Greek civilisation. In this context the replacement of one kind of value by another is particularly important. Apollonius has reshaped Hesiod’s myth of Five Ages: the lawless bronze generation, not very different from the Giants37, is replaced by the juster generation of heroes. We see the slow but certain success of ultimately Hellenic values, celebrated in annual cult, just as the annual repetition of the epic (4, 1774 – 1775) ensures the kleos of the heroes and of the Argonautica in particular. In one sense the expedition covers all of time, as Argos’ narrative of “prehistoric” conquest and settlement in Book 4 makes clear (cf. the Appendix). 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 with the principal Colchian protagonists of the epic, Aietes and Medea. Francis 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 Exhibition Catalogue, MALA, 1989), pp. 165 – 166. I am grateful to Mme Anne Jacquemin of 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 the conflict between barbarism and hellenism plays itself out38. In the poem as a whole, however, the situation is rather more nuanced. The Colchian king is a complex literary portrayal deserving far closer study than I can offer here. A violent temper and a penchant for deceit and tyranny obviously oppose him not only to the quasi-democratic structures aboard the Argo, but also to Lemnos as it is governed by its women and to the Drepane of Alcinous and Arete. But Colchis has no monopoly on tyranny, as Pelias shows, and there are some apparently inconsistent elements in this picture of barbarian nastiness. Early references to Aietes establish an opposition between Greece and Colchis39, but there is no early suggestion that he is something of an inhospitable monster. The first word of reproach is the adjective ako|r which Jason applies to him in a highly problematic (and ? deceptive) speech (2, 890), where at the very least the word cannot be taken as an unmediated authorial description of the Colchian king40. More surprising in retrospect may seem Argos’ description to the Argonauts of Phrixos’ reception at the court of Aietes after he arrived on the flying sheep: t¹m l³m 5peit’ 5qqenem 2/ir rpohglos}mgisi Vun_yi 1j p\mtym Jqom_dgi Di_, ja_ lim 5dejto AQ^tgr lec\qyi, jo}qgm t] oR 1ccu\kine Wakji|pgm !m\edmom eqvqos}mgisi m|oio· t_m 1n !lvot]qym eQl³m c]mor. !kk’ b l³m Edg cgqai¹r h\me Vq_nor 1m AQ^tao d|loisim.

(2, 1146 – 1151) “Phrixos sacrificed the ram to Zeus Phuxios, and Aietes received him in his palace and, well disposed towards him, gave him in marriage his daughter Chalciope, without receiving a bride-price for her. We are their children. Phrixos died an old man in Aietes’ palace…”

I am interested here not in the apparent contradiction between this account and what Aietes himself later tells his subjects (3, 584 ff.), but rather with the Homeric pattern into which Aietes is here fitted. The pattern 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 he does not yet know (Od. 7, 311 – 315), has caused many critics, ancient and modern, to scratch their heads; Alcinous would certainly have allowed Odysseus to grow old gracefully in his palace, as Phrixos did in Colchis. This is by no means the only link between Aietes and the Homeric Alcinous, as the description of the Colchian royal palace and its marvels is heavily indebted to the description of Alcinous’ palace in Odyssee 741. On the other hand, very clear echoes associate Aietes with the grim and uncivilised Cyclops42. What is going on here? No one will doubt the lasting influence of the Homeric poems on the shaping of Hellenic identity and consciousness, particularly as they are reflected in high literature. Just as Odysseus oscillates between the society of the Cyclopes, whose solitary, autarkic lives without “market-places, where decisions are taken, and legal ordinances” define by opposition the value of the settled community, and the hyper-civilisation of the Phaeacians whose nearness to the gods is a dangerous over-stepping of boundaries, so the person of Aietes and his Colchian court combine elements of both extremes, thereby interpreting and giving a more solid reality to the tantalising links and similarities between Cyclopes, Phaeacians and Giants at which Homer hints. When Aietes functions as the traditional good host of epic, as he does when the sons of Phrixos arrive back at his court together with representatives of the Argonauts (3, 299 – 303), or adopts the standard value language in apparently inappropriate circumstances – “for it is not right for a man born agathos to yield to a kakoteros”, he asserts to Jason in explaining why the latter must prove himself against the fire-breathing bulls before being given the Fleece (3, 420 – 421) – we should not too hastily assume that this is to be read merely as cynical hypocrisy (though that is an important element of it). The depiction of Aietes – like the epic as a whole and, indeed, like Ptolemaic culture itself – challenges the oppositions and values of the Odyssey and, by implication, the apparent security of the Hellenic self-definition as we see it in Odysseus and his family. Medea also comes to the Argonautica with a rich dowry of literary and mythical associations. She both imitates and changes the pattern of Helen, whose flight from Greece with a handsome stranger provoked a clash between Europe and Asia, of the kind envisaged by the Apollonian 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, a barbaros who discovers and exposes Greek treachery and the inadequacy of 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 “honorary Greek” living in the wild and barbarous Pontus: while Aietes is characterised by ¡l|tgr, Medea’s main virtue is a merciful Bleq|tgr, which caused her to plead for the lives of strangers who were washed up on the coast. The opposition of these two qualities is, of course, a leitmotif of Greek discussions of Greek identity; most relevantly, we may recall Theophrastus’ definition of education as “a making gentle (BleqoOm) of men’s souls, taking away that which is animal-like and unfeeling (t¹ hgqi_der ja· %cmylom), so that character becomes more at one with others ( joim|teqa) and more flexible (rcq|teqa)” (Stobaeus, II, p. 240 W). We recognise this motif from a similar context in Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. In that play, the Greek virgin who was spirited away from imminent death to serve as Artemis’ priestess on the inhospitable Tauric coast reveals how her attitude has changed since she has been convinced by a dream that her last hope, her brother Orestes, has died: § jaqd_a t\kaima, pq·m l³m 1r n]mour cakgm¹r 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~leha d}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 strangers, bestowing tears upon those who shared your race whenever Greek men 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}smour).”

This passage makes very clear the link between being “Greek” and the exercise of certain virtues. Just as Aietes in part confounds traditional literary patterns of defining “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 traditional language of aidos as it applies to the female (3, 766 – 801); she is scared of public opinion and of bringing disgrace upon her family, and she recognises that any dealings with Jason will be interpreted as laqcos}mg (3, 791 – 797). Her association with death, magic and chthonic powers, on the other hand, is not merely – though it is this also – a way of representing the female “other” (Greek, Colchian, or whatever), but is also a challenge to the inherited pattern of “Hellene” and “barbarian”. It is she, Jason tells his men, who is the benefactor of Greece and saviour of the Argonauts (4, 190 – 198); Jason’s rhetoric makes of her too an “honorary Greek”. The deep irony is that she has in part been persuaded to help by the effect of Jason’s words at their meeting in Book 3 at the temple of Hecate. There Jason held out to her the promise of enjoying the benefits of Greek civilisation, in which disputes are settled by consensus (3, 1100). This is sophisticated deceit, as Apollonius’ text makes clear and as every reader of Euripides’ Medea knows; even the Greek origins of civilisation are to be challenged by Argos’ narrative in Book 4. Jason’s deceit is also a very Greek deceit, relying on the quasi-magical power of muthos whose praises Jason has sung before his first meeting with Aietes (3, 186 – 190) and of which Medea is to prove herself mistress when she lures her brother to his death in the fourth book. This is, however, one gift of Greek civilisation which Medea 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 at 4, 257 – 293 in which he tells the Argonauts how they should interpret Phineus’ prophecy that the return from Aia will be “a different journey”, 6teqor pk|or (2, 421). Argos takes his narrative back almost to the beginning of time, to a period before “evolution” was completed, when there were only the Arcadians “who are said to have lived before the moon” and the Egyptians. He tells of an expedition of conquest and settlement led from Egypt by an unnamed individual, among whose traces 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 which are found all the routes and the boundaries for those travelling, both over land and sea.

It is well understood – and made explicit by both the scholia and Valerius Flaccus (5, 418 – 422) – that Apollonius has here borrowed from the legends of the Egyptian king Sesostris (or Sesoosis or Sesonchosis) of whose expedition Herodotus gives a memorable account (2, 102 – 110) 45 ; Herodotus (2, 103 – 104) makes Sesostris the founder of the Colchian kingdom and asserts the racial identity of Egyptians and Colchians. It is an attractive hypothesis that the pillars46 inscribed with maps of the world are an amusing rationalisation of Herodotus’ story that the king set up monumental pillars (stelai) in the lands that he conquered, and that when he had conquered easily and without too much of a fight he had an image of the female genitals drawn on the pillars “to show that his opponents lacked manly spirit” (Hdt. 2, 102). Apollonius may also have been influenced by the characteristic form of the Egyptian obelisk with which he must have been familiar47; if so, these kurbeis inscribed with maps will be a Graeco-Egyptian mixture of an almost programmatic kind. Be that as it may, it is quite likely that Apollonius’ most immediate source was the late fourth-century account of Hecataeus of Abdera, partly preserved for us in Book 1 of Diodorus Siculus48. Hecataeus seems to have made of Sesostris a brilliant forerunner of Alexander, who was of course the most obvious example of a world conqueror and founder of cities. Vergil recalls this passage of the Argonautica in Book 3 of the Aeneid when he describes how Anchises interprets the instruction of Delian Apollo that the Trojans should seek their antiquam matrem, the land which 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 Livrea and Vian ad loc. The parallel/model of Sesostris’ stelai, however, suggests that it 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 arces Pergameae steterant; habitabant uallibus imis. hinc mater cultrix Cybeli Corybantiaque aera Idaeumque 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 must be his goal; Anchises’ mistake consists in not tracing the origins of the race far enough back. Why does Vergil recall Argos’ narrative in this place? As often, there are 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 religion 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 uses the same pregnant juxtaposition at 2, 1233 – 1234 in the context of Zeus’ birth50. Moreover, Crete was one of the lands which was believed to have been anciently called )eq_a or Ieq_g, the name which the Apollonian Argos gives to Egypt51. There is then, as often, an element of scholarly 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 on Aen., 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 and Crates). 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 early as Aesch., Suppl., 75.

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novel52, itinerary for the Argonauts, so the Cretan adventures of Aeneas may have been Vergil’s invention53. The structural similarity merely emphasises the difference: Argos pushes the Argonauts into a primeval and fantastic world, whereas the Trojans approach Crete through the very familiar chain of Aegean islands. At a rather deeper level, the two passages point towards an instructive difference between the two works. To take first the sources adduced by Argos and Anchises. Argos appeals to Egyptian sacerdotal tradition and to a written (or drawn) record54. There is here a clear element of pure literary fun. The fantastic geography of the return trip is “authorised” by an appeal to a sacred record; the learned poet is thus spared the necessity of having to take the responsibility for his creation55. It is tempting to recall Callimachus’ famous !l\qtuqom oqd³m !e_dy (fr. 612 Pf.), 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 reminiscent of Critias’ account of Solon’s conversation with Egyptian priests in the early sections of Plato’s Timaeus (21e-25d). When Solon adduces the antiquity of the Flood (22b; cf. Arg. 4, 266), the priests point out how relatively recent this was and note that Egyptian temples preserve written records of deepest antiquity, whereas the rest of the world suffers periodic catastrophe by fire or flood which not only destroys everything but also wipes out knowledge of the art of writing which then has to be re-invented. There is no sign that Apollonius’ Argonauts can write, and this makes more pointed the miraculous and mysterious survival of the prehistoric maps in Aia. Here Apollonius has extended and sharpened a Homeric situation. In Homer the only certain56 reference to writing is the famous s^lata kucq\ in the story of Bellerophon (Iliad 6, 168 – 170), where the scholia reveal that the scholars of later antiquity tried desperately to find an analphabetic explanation. These mysterious 52 On Apollonius’ sources see the excellent account on pp. 16 – 20 of Volume III of 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 and place-indications, or merely sketches. The former seems more likely; on the whole 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.

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signs are, however, a thing of the past, preserved as a memory rather than as a science, and are in any case assigned to a non-Greek, Proetus the Lycian. Apollonius’ one apparent reference to writing or drawing has greatly expanded the Homeric time-scale, in keeping with a general tendency of his work. Moreover, the use of the Homeric hapax cqaptOr emphasises the remoteness of the maps. At its only appearance in Homer (Od. 24, 229) this rare noun means “scratches (from thorns)”, and “scratches” might indeed be appropriate for the ancient representations 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 much more down-to-earth. The description of Anchises ueterum uoluens monimenta uirorum is rather curious. “Pondering the traditions of men of old” translates Williams, noting that si rite audita recordor in v. 107 “defines” the sense “traditions”; Williams is following Conington who also correctly noted that uoluens suggests “the notion of unrolling a volume”57. Vergil’s phrase gestures towards the inscribed pillars in Aia, but no one will, of course, suggest that Anchises actually consults documents. This phrase ought, I think, to bother Vergilian critics more than it apparently does58, but what is important here is that this phrase firmly anchors the passage within the context of Augustan antiquarian researches into the early history of Rome; Egyptian traditions about lost civilisations are literally a world away from this. I suggest, therefore, that Apollonius and Vergil operate with two rather different time-scales, and some confirmation of 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 Evander), merely reinforces the oddness. Dr. Neil Wright has suggested to me that the meaning might be “recalling [the inscriptions on] the statues of men of old” or “recalling [what he had been told was on] the statues of men of old”; this is certainly a distinct improvement on the vague “traditions”. The closest 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 Aeneas rather than the narrator, but the significant difference from both Apollonius and Homer remains. In following Argos’ advice the Argonauts in part retrace not only an expedition from the dimmest pre-history, but also a cosmogony itself. An echo of the opening of the description of Hephaestus’ shield (Iliad 18, 485 ~ Arg. 4, 261) takes us back before the construction of the universe was completed59. The passage past the scene of Phaethon’s catastrophe and the meeting with Circe’s “Empedoclean” creatures suggests that the Argonauts’ voyage is also a voyage through time. As the journey nears its end, the Argonauts meet Talos, the last remnant of the Bronze Age which preceded the Age of Heroes (4, 1641 – 1642), are plunged into a “black chaos” (4, 1697) from which Apolline light (? and enlightenment) saves them60, and then take part in the creation and destruction of islands through the clod which Triton gave to Euphemos. For the Argonautica the “present” is a time before Homer, before the beginning; the “past”, therefore, is a distant, all-embracing emptiness waiting for the poet to fill it. Anchises’ speech, like its Homeric model61, takes the history of Troy back before the foundation of the city to a time when people still lived in the forests. When Aeneas reaches Italy, Evander is able to take the story back to primitive, pre-Saturnian man (8, 314 – 320) 62, but in general Vergil’s interest in time is more concentrated and intense than that of Apollonius. At one level the Aeneid commemorates a new beginning for time, marked by Aeneas’ foundation of the Roman line. Whereas Homer began his shield with the encircling stars – or, as later scholars would have it, with the beginning of the universe – Vergil begins his with the immediate descendants of Aeneas (8, 628 – 629). Anchises’ great speech in the Underworld does indeed begin with a “phil59 For cosmogonical readings of Homer’s shield cf. Hardie, op. cit. (n. 12), passim and Id., “Imago mundi: Cosmogonical and Ideological Aspects of the Shield of Achilles”, JHS, 105 (1985), pp. 11 – 31. 60 For primeval chaos cf. Hes., Theog., 116. Hesiod juxtaposes the Olympian and Apolline 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 time structures of the two poems remains.

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osophical” cosmogony before passing to eschatology, but this first part63 is rather impersonal and set off from the “Parade of Heroes” in such a way that the two sections seem not merely consecutive but also parallel. The beginning of the Dardania proles is the beginning of a new history which will reach its climax in Augustus. Vergil has here learned from Apollonius, and has brought into sharper focus what the Greek poet chose to leave merely suggested and suggestive.

Addenda pp. 96 – 7 The ‘Egyptian element’ in Alexandrian poetry has been the subject of prominent and generally enlightening debate; there is a survey and some bibliography in my Theocritus. Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus 46 – 53. S.A. Stephens, 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 Hellenes: the case of Ptolemaic Egypt’ in I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Washington DC 2001) 301 – 22, and W. Clarysse and D. J. Thompson, Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt (Cambridge 2002) Vol. 2, 138 – 47 and passim. pp. 98 – 9 On the absence of b\qbaqor from Hellenistic poetry cf. further Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 357 – 8 and The Shadow of Callimachus 121 – 4. n. 19 On SH 958 cf. S. Barbantani, V\tir mijgv|qor. Frammenti di elegia encomiastica 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 et al. (eds.), Images and Ideologies. Self-definition in the Hellenistic World (Berkeley 1993) 45 – 6.

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

7. Callimachus and Heraclitus* eWp] tir, Jq\jkeite, te¹m l|qom 1r d] le d\jqu Ecacem, 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 wrote poetry; 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 ascriptions to Jq\jkgtor or Jqajke_dgr. Poems commemorating the immortality of someone’s poetry regularly seek to capture its flavour4, or indeed to allude to or re-write some of it, and it would therefore seem reasonable to wonder about the relationship between Heraclitus’ poetry and Callimachus’ poem. The locus classicus for such a poetic relationship is Ovid’s poem on the death of Tibullus (Amores 3, 9) which contains extensive reworkings of Tibullus’ verse, particularly of Tibullus’ own poem on death (1, 3), and which, in at least one place, seems to exploit * 1 2

3 4

Materiali e Discussioni 28 (1992) 113 – 23 Anth. Pal. 7, 80 = Callimachus, Epigram 2 Pfeiffer = XXXIV GP. I reproduce the text of Gow-Page. 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, but certainty is hardly to be obtained. In view of the myth of the nightingale, Callimachus’ reference to ‘nightingales’ might suggest lamentatory poetry, though of course other kinds of poetry are not excluded, and I give below some tentative reasons for thinking that Heraclitus ‘published’ at least one collection of funerary epigrams. We know a little more about Heraclitus if W. Swinnen, ‘Herakleitos of Halikarnassos, an Alexandrian poet and diplomat?’, Ancient Society 1,1970, pp. 39 – 52 is correct to identify the poet with a figure known from various proxenos inscriptions. Cf. below pp. 116 – 121. For this poem see also N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology, Cambridge 1988, pp. 69, 247 – 8. Cf. Gabathuler, op. cit. passim.

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Callimachus’ poem on Heraclitus5. We cannot, of course, go further with this line of enquiry in the absence of all but one probable example of Heraclitus’ verse, though that, being a funerary epigram, could well be described as a ‘nightingale’. If the guess of some scholars that Heraclitus himself called his poems !gd|mer, whether as a book-title or in the poetry itself, is correct, then Callimachus’ use of the word will indeed enact the survival of Heraclitus’ poetry. If, however, other echoes of Heraclitus 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 be room for a brief study of Heraclitus’ one surviving poem, together with a few related remarks about Callimachus’ commemoration of the poet6. Much of what I have to say will be speculative, but — like many of the best Greek epigrams — these poems are very clearly written as a provocation to speculation. Perhaps no literary genre makes such 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 concision makes ‘narrative silences’ an almost constitutive part of the genre. In these circumstances, the refusal to speculate amounts to no less than a refusal to read.

I. " j|mir !qt_sjaptor, 1p· st\kar d³ let~pym se_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 Gkhom eQr k]wor· ¡d_mym oqj %loqor cem|lam,

5

6

Am. 3, 9, 19 – 20, scilicet omne sacrum mors inportuna profanat; / omnibus obscuras inicit illa manus, seems to combine a ‘legalistic’ rewriting of Tibullus 1, 3, 4 with an echo of the final verses of Callimachus’ poem. For other Ovidian echoes cf. now G. D. Williams, ‘Conversing after dark: a Callimachean echo in Ovid’s exile poetry’, Class. Quart. 41, 1991, pp. 169 – 77. Callimachus’ poem has, of course, been much discussed, and my remarks will be limited to what I believe to be new. A brief bibliography (omitting standard editions): B. Snell, ‘Die Klangfiguren im 2. Epigramm des Kallimachos’, Glotta 37, 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 of Callimachus’, Ramus 11, 1982, pp. 48 – 56; N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology, cit., pp. 247 – 9; G. B. Walsh, ‘Surprised by self: audible thought in Hellenistic poetry’, Class. Phil. 85, 1990, 1 – 21, pp. 1 – 4.

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diss± d’ bloO t_jtousa t¹ l³m k_pom !mdq· podgc¹m c^qyr, 4m d’ !p\cy lmal|sumom p|sior’.

Who speaks the opening four verses? Wilamowitz7 detected the same undefined voice as that of Callimachus’ Hymns; Hopkinson provides a fuller reading along the same lines: ‘an ill-defined and undefinable speaker addresses a traveller and, apparently out of curiosity at the sight 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 the speaker of the first — curiosity aroused and satisfied’. Perhaps we can define the experience of reading this poem even more closely. The opening couplet suggests the observer coming upon a tomb. In the traditions of funerary epigram such an observer is very often a traveller, a passer-by, whose silent reflections and mental notes form the substance of the epigram;8 this is how we read the opening couplet. The third verse, however, makes us think again. ‘Traveller’ might mean ‘fellow-traveller’, but the leap would be difficult and hardly ‘natural’. An epigram by Antipater (Anth. Pal. 7, 427 = Antipater XXXII GP) 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, without the preceding ‘commentary’, these words are readily identifiable as belonging to the standard ‘passer-by’ of the funerary tradition (note especially v]q’ Udy and d]doqja). In Heraclitus, on the other hand, the voice which invites any traveller to join in the task of deciphering the cq\lla can only be that of ‘the poet’; looking back, we are forced to recognise that it is also ‘the poet’ who has ‘set the scene’ for us in the opening couplet. Why should ‘the poet’ have to study the epigram if it is his own creation? The answer, I think, lies in a particular development of the history of the epigrammatic form. Literary epitaphs are one manifestation 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 epigram is, therefore, to focus attention upon the conventions of the funerary epigram and upon the role of the poet in both creating and being con7 8

Hellenistische Dichtung, Berlin 1924, II, pp. 122 – 3. See now G. B. Walsh, ‘Callimachean passages: the rhetoric of epitaph in epigram’, Arethusa 24, 1991, pp. 77 – 105.

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strained by those conventions, cq\lla diajq_mamter, ‘making out the writing’, refers both to the enacted decipherment of an engraved tombstone partly covered by garlands, and to the interpretation of a poem which, as we shall see, offers puzzles to its readers. The interweaving word-order of the second couplet, mimetically signalled by peqist]kkeim, not only forces us to re-enact the business of decipherment, but also again focuses attention upon the epigram as a written form for the attention of readers. Set off against the first four verses, with their sophisticated concern with ‘poetic voice’, is the second half of the poem which represents itself as a straightforward, factual statement by the· deceased, a statement independent, as it were, of the creating poet. Juxtaposition to the first half of the poem, however, allows us to see that the ‘epitaph’ is no less the work of the poet than is the ‘introduction’; moreover, it is not merely the tombstone which speaks, but the verses are ‘read out’ for us by the same poetic voice of the ‘introduction’. This epigram clearly shows, therefore, that Heraclitus was interested in exploring the implications of a form of writing which, by its very nature, projected an ‘other’ voice, and assumed the anonymity of the poet. That such assumptions should here be tested to breakingpoint accords with all we know of Hellenistic poetry. It is tempting to go further than this in order to draw more general conclusions about this epigram, and indeed funerary epigram in general. The ‘traveller’ whom the poet addresses is in fact a reader on a poetic journey; the act of travelling, of walking past tombstones, is the act of reading. This poem seems to assume a real position within a ‘published’ collection of funerary epigrams, but the literary effect under discussion does not in fact depend upon this9. Originally, funerary epigrams were addressed to travellers because these formed the only readership for such inscriptions. When the epigram became a literary form, but one still very aware of its origins, the ‘fiction’ of travelling readers is maintained and acquires new significance. That poetry itself is a ‘journey’ is a long-established image, particularly familiar in this period from Callimachus (especially fr. 1, 25 – 8 Pf., picking up Pindar, Paean 7b, 10 – 14 M.), and Theocritus, Idyll 7; what we see in Heraclitus’ epigram is 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. Present and 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. ‘Sepulchral Epigram’) is very relevant here.

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cover the act of reading a series of epigrams which form the various stages along the path of the journey. Such revision and re-incorporation is again very typical both of the writing practices of the Hellenistic period and, in particular, of the peculiar position of funerary epigram, poised in creative tension between the epitaphic conventions of the past and the new freedoms of the present. When the tombstone speaks we hear the voice of a lady10 who fulfilled her socially allotted role by bearing children to the man to whom she had been given — ¡d_mym oqj %loqor may be ‘brave understatement’ (Hopkinson) but it is also a proud declaration of status. Her dead child will be a reminder of her husband, because he (?) will recall his father physically. In Hesiod’s Just City ‘women bear children resembling their parents’ (Op. 235), and this idea finds echoes throughout Greek and Latin literature;11 what will be a comfort to the dead woman is also a statement to the world at large of Aretemias’ virtue. Even in death Aretemias has not abandoned her husband, for she has left him a support for his old age; podgc|m and !p\cy resonate against each other to mark both this distinction and another: by death Aretemias has escaped the enfeeblement of old age. One aspect of the final couplet which has provoked remarkably little comment is the variation between !mdq_ and p|sior. The closest parallel is a famous passage of Sophocles’ Trachiniae (550 – 1): taOt’ owm voboOlai lµ p|sir l³m Jqajk/r 1l¹r 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 distinction does not of course hold good uniformly through classical literature, but it is hard to believe that Heraclitus does not intend some point by his use of these ‘synonyms’. For Aretemias, her surviving husband is both p|sir and !m^q, and it may be that the point is that as a living male 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 epi10 On the problems of her name cf. Wilamowitz loc. cit., Meillier loc. cit. I am doubtful about attempts to find significance in the lady’s name, or that of her husband. 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.

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gram thus asserts both faithfulness and submission. Other explanations of the opposition can, of course, not be ruled out, but it may well be thought that the very fact of the opposition, whatever its detailed interpretation, together with the invitation to decipherment in vv. 3 – 4, suggests that part at least of ‘the point’ of the epigram is to be found here. The tombstone wears garlands on its ‘brow’; let~pym (or perhaps better let~pyi) prepares for the full identification of tombstone and deceased in the second half of the poem. Garlands were a standard offering at the tombs of the dead, and the depiction of the deceased garlanded for ‘the symposium of the afterlife’ is a common motif of funerary iconography13. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that Hellenistic funerary epigram seems to avoid almost entirely14 the motif of the epitaphic garland. This will be part of the selectivity of any literary stylisation. For epigrammatists, garlands are par excellence the mark of the symposium and the komos; indeed they often act as a kind of metonymic sign which evokes the whole poetic world of eros and the symposium which lies at 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 prepared the ground for this. Aretemias has left life as one leaves a symposium — a common image —15 but she takes a ‘souvenir’ with her16 ; her husband, however, requires a guiding support, as one often did on such occasions. Slaves would meet their master outside the scene of a symposium to guide his tottering steps homewards; this is the image which Heraclitus has exploited here17. If my analysis is correct, Heraclitus ex13 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 epigram. 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 not relevant, as this looks like a Roman custom, presumably under the influence of Saturnalian gift-giving; cf. Athenaeus 6, 229c of Cleopatra imitating the Romans. 17 I have toyed with the idea that the fact that the garlands are Blihake?r points to the 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 epigram by couching one in the language and mode of the other, drawing attention to this by the strategically placed signal of st]vamoi ; in this, as we shall see, he shares a poetic concern with Callimachus himself 18. It might be, of course, that our habit of dividing epigrams by (primary) subject misrepresents the way that poets of the high Alexandrian period perceived this ‘genre’. The usefulness of the procedure, however, lies in allowing us to identify how a poet positions a poem within a large tradition and gives it a distinctive voice.

II. Central to Callimachus’ poem on Heraclitus is a set of oppositions between ‘now’ and ‘then’, ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘uncertainty’. The opening of the poem both anticipates the apparent certainty of its conclusion and creates the atmosphere of wretched doubt which colours the whole. Heraclitus’ ‘famous’ name, Jq\jkeite, is set off against tir ; Heraclitus survives even in the speech of the anonymous – death will not touch his name19. On the other hand, we are asked to reconstruct an initial situation, and here all is uncertainty. ‘Someone spoke [?of] your fate’. Did the poet know already (at some level of consciousness) that Heraclitus was dead? The majority of scholars have thought not, though some have followed J. A. K. Thomson20 in understanding that the casual mention of Heraclitus’ death opened an old wound in the poet; I shall adduce later a further reason why Thomson’s proposal deserves serious consideration. The uncertainty and doubt, however, is not of modern scholars’ making, but is a deliberate poetic strategy; eWpe … te¹m l|qom is an odd phrase21, which invites interpreta-

18 19 20 21

70e); the tombstone would therefore declare its continuing love. Blihake?r does not, however, seem the mot juste, and the fading garland was interpreted as a sign of love’s transience. Cf. esp. Walsh, art. cit. (n. 8). For the development of these ideas in Latin poetry cf., e. g., T. D. Papanghelis, Propertius: a Hellenistic poet on love and death, Cambridge 1987, Chapter 5. tir is also of course a novel use of the anonymous passer-by of the epitaphic tradition; as such, it serves as a generic marker within the poem. Class. Rev. 55, 1941, p. 28, followed by (e. g.) P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford 1972, I p. 579, Meillier, op. cit. 222. Aeschylus, Choephoroi 1074 is apparently parallel, but however that verse is interpreted (cf. Garvie ad loc.), tq_tor Gkh] pohem syt^q, / C l|qom eUpy express-

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tion and denies clarity: what happened to Heraclitus is unimportant beside the concrete memories of the time spent with him. This lack of clarity 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 (usually without discussion) have opted for ‘somewhere’, in which case the word will resonate against the certainness of locality in the address ne?m’ *kijaqmgseO23. Word order might be thought to favour ‘I suppose’, but the strongest argument is to be derived from the pointed contrast between the certain fact of Heraclitus’ poetry and the doubtful uncertainty of his body, expressed by words which no verb can fix in time or language 24. By making us read the poem as a deviation from ordinary funerary epigram, Callimachus forces upon us the absence of the tomb of the deceased. The tomb, particularly in epigrams for the shipwrecked whose bodies are absent, is normally used as a visible sign of what evokes the poem; we have, for example, seen Heraclitus himself exploit the 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 to the ‘nightingales’ for both comfort and the security of knowledge. Callimachus turns many of these same ideas to different use in another celebrated epigram for someone lost at sea: ¥veke lgd’ 1c]momto hoa· m]er, oq c±q #m Ble?r pa?da Diojke_dey S~pokim 1st]molem· mOm d’ b l³m eQm "k_ pou v]qetai m]jur, !mt· d’ 1je_mou oumola ja· jeme¹m s÷la paqeqw|leha.

(Epigram 17 Pf. = LV GP)

pou in this epigram conveys both the uncertainty of place and the more

general 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 problem at Ap. Rhod. Arg. 4, 4). That verse, therefore, des not fully alleviate the oddness 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 Grabinschriften II, Berlin 1958, p. 51, no. 185, and Leonidas XV GP quoted below. 23 For ‘somewhere’ cf. Beckby, Meillier loc.cit., Desrousseaux, Fraser loc. cit. For argument 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 indeterminate past, a tetq\pakai, with the current reality of the deceased’s poems, the poem for Sopolis evokes a distant heroic age — meaningful only through an allusion to the opening of Euripides’ Medea — and contrasts it with the sad present. The invention, the ‘birth’ (1c]momto), of ships has meant the death of the ironically named Sopolis; it is as though death can only be confronted through oppositions, which allow us to organise our thoughts into the appearance of order, as some kind of self-protection against horror. It may be worth dwelling a moment longer on pou to observe that Callimachus is here exploiting a familiar strategy of funerary poetry. A directly parallel case is Anth. Pal. 7, 652 (= Leonidas XV GP), a commemorative epigram for Teleutagoras. After remonstrating with the sea for its harshness, Leonidas turns to the situation faced by those left behind: w¡ l]m pou ja}gnim C Qwhub|qoir kaq_dessi tehq^mgt’ %pmour eqqe? 1m aQciak_i, Til\qgr d³ jem¹m t]jmou jejkaul]mom !hq_m t}lbom dajq}ei pa?da Tekeutac|qgm.

(Anth. Pal. 7, 652, 5 – 8)

As in Callimachus, we have the contrast of absence and presence, pointed by l]m … d] , and also the extended sense of pou covering both of its normal ‘meanings’. A related case is Anth. Pal. 7, 285 (= Glaucus II GP), where the tomb of Erasippus is both ‘nowhere’ and ‘everywhere’: oq j|mir oqd’ ak_com p]tqgr b\qor !kk’ 9qas_ppou Dm 1soq÷ir avtg p÷sa h\kassa t\vor, ¥keto c±q s»m mg_, t± d’ ast]a poO pot’ 1je_mou p}hetai aQhu_air cmyst± l|mair 1m]peim.

Glaucus has turned the uncertainty of pou into the central thrust of the whole poem, enacted through the indirect question introduced by poO pot’. Commentators on this poem rightly refer to Telemachus’ description of his father to the disguised Athene in the opening book of the Odyssey: !m]qor ox d^ pou ke}j’ ast]a p}hetai elbqyi je_lem’ 1p’ Ape_qou, C eQm "k· jOla juk_mdei

(Od. 1, 161 – 2).

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Here the context — Telemachus’ ignorance of Odysseus’ fate contrasted with the present and visible evidence of the suitors’ hybris — clearly allows us to see how the two ‘meanings’ of pou coalesce in the funerary tradition; in other words, an analysis such as mine which is based on semantic divisions must always to some extent misrepresent the process of reading. We also see how the structuring of such poetry around ‘absence’ and ‘presence’ is built into the very earliest layers of the literary embodiment of that tradition. This example is also interesting in that it shows how the missing and much missed Odysseus can function as the model for those presumed perished at sea; we shall see in a moment how Callimachus has both used and inverted this idea. I wish now to move to a second strategy of Callimachus’ poem, one which concerns the immortalising power of poetry. It would not be surprising if a poem, above all a Callimachean poem, in honour of a poet and attesting to the immortality of poetry were to use the rich heritage of Greek classical poetry. This is indeed what we do find with Callimachus’ poem for Heraclitus, though the matter has occasioned little comment. I shall be concerned here to identify and interpret echoes of Hesiod and Homer. The description of Hades as p\mtym "qpajt^r is a violent expression of the conception of Hades as the ‘universal host’, the pamdoje}r (Lycophron, Alex. 655). In counterpoint with !gd|mer, however, the phrase evokes both the ûqpuiai, the birds and/or winds of death familiar from archaic epic25, and the ûqpg, a bird of prey which, to judge from the passages gathered by D’Arcy Thompson26, was known for attacking other birds. Moreover, the transference to Heraclitus’ poems of the 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 the poem. This tale, in which the fate of the poet-nightingale, caught in the grim talons of the hawk, is left uncertain, darkens the apparent confidence of Callimachus’ final assertion. We may claim immortality for poetry, and the example of Hesiod shows that it is possible, but only time will tell; there is always the danger that we are merely ‘whistling in the dark’. Discussion of the third verse has largely been limited to the textual choice 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/Los Angeles/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 the relevance of the Homeric A]kior jat]du ;27 he also suggested that we feel the 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 refine MacQueen’s insight. Homer’s greatest talker is Odysseus. Alcinous tells him that he could listen 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 occasions upon which Homer brings to an end a scene of weeping with the verse: ja_ mu j’ aduqol]moisim 5du v\or Aek_oio eQ lµ jtk.

At Od. 16, 220 it is Odysseus and his son after their reunion, at 21, 226 it is Odysseus and his faithful servants, and at Il. 23, 154 the verses occur in the context of the general mourning for Patroclus. All three places evoke memory, friendship and loss. The emotional contexts range from deepest grief to relief and joy, but for Odysseus relief is always mingled with the sense of loss. I suggest that the motifs of weeping and sunset, which we find conjoined in Homer but separated in Callimachus, point to a typical poetic memory by the Hellenistic poet. Callimachus has turned the syntax around, but the Homeric contexts which well up through his poem layer the text with memory, past happiness and present suffering. If this analysis is correct, then we will also sense in the weeping poet of 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 the comrades the hero lost and evokes long buried griefs. Odysseus, the great survivor, is also condemned to be the perpetual mourner; this is the inverse of the pattern noted above in which Odysseus is the model for those missing at sea. Catullus too adopted an Odyssean ‘persona’ in his epitaphic farewell to his brother (Poem 101) 28, and we can now see that he had a Greek precedent for doing so, and indeed in a poet whom we know to have been of central importance for his elegiac poems. If I am correct in identifying the evocation of Odysseus as one of 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 the feast of the Phaeacians. The setting of Callimachus’ poem is deliberately unclear, as is the site where ‘someone spoke Heraclitus’ death’. Nevertheless, casual conversation and reflections upon friendship find a natural home in the symposium; the poem for Heraclitus may therefore be a Callimachean experiment in the mingling of types of epigram. We have already seen Heraclitus himself doing something similar. Secondly, Demodocus sings of what Odysseus already ‘knows’; he is indeed intimately involved in the action of the song. This may be relevant for the interpretation of the opening of Callimachus’ poem. Whereas Heraclitus’ poem remains within the (broadly defined) boundaries of the funerary form, while exploring, with considerable originality, the overt role of the poet in such a tradition, Callimachus moves completely away from these traditional forms; they remain, however, hovering over his poem, advertising its difference. In Callimachus the gradual shift from ‘real’ epitaph to ‘literary’ epigram has been taken a further, and decisive, stage: now there is no tombstone and no corpse, merely memory – not only of Heraclitus, but also of the whole poetic tradition into which Heraclitus has now been absorbed29.

Addenda Greek epigram is enjoying a golden age of study, thanks in part to the stimulus of the ‘Posidippus papyrus’ (cf. ch. 25 below). There is a good introduction to the subject and the bibliography in P. Bing and J. S. Bruss (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden 2007). Recent years have seen, e. g., excellent editions of Dioscorides (G. Galán Vioque, Diosc rides Epigramas, Huelva 2001) and Strato (L. Floridi, Stratone di Sardi, Epigrammi, Alessandria 2007), and editions of Asclepiades by Alexander Sens and Meleager by Kathryn Gutzwiller are eagerly awaited. On the arrangement of poems in books and reading as 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 Callimachus 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 Ancient Literature Seminar.

8. Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena* This paper aims to elucidate certain features of Callimachus’ Fifth Hymn in ways, which, I hope, will be suggestive for the criticism of all the Hymns. In particular, I am interested in exploring how the mythic and religious dimensions of Callimachus’ poetry can be sensibly discussed, while doing justice to the very strong sense of a changed world which the poems evoke; to this end the concluding section of the paper briefly examines related aspects of the Sixth Hymn to Demeter. Section 1 briefly places Hymns 5 and 6 within Callimachus’ hymnal project as a whole1, Section 2 considers the cultic frame in which Hymn 5 is set, Section 3 discusses the elegiac metre of the poem, Section 4 considers Callimachus’ treatment of the myth of Teiresias, and Section 5 seeks to set Hymns 5 and 6 within our study of Hellenistic culture as a whole.

1. At one very simple level, Callimachus’ Hymns re-write the Homeric Hymns; each, to a greater or lesser extent, borrows directly from its archaic predecessors. As we would expect, this rewriting may be marked in self-conscious ways. Thus, for example, vv. 7 – 17 of h. 6 represent a small-scale re-writing of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; this is, however,

* 1

Materiali e Discussioni 29 (1992) 9 – 34 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 possess form some kind of group and are, at some level, intended to be read as a unit 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 each other.

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not a poem which Callimachus is going to “do” all over again, as v. 17 makes clear2 : lµ lµ taOta k]cyler $ d\jquom %cace Dgo?.

Again as we would expect, the re-writing is full both of virtuoso variation from the model and of learned puzzles3. Moreover, having disclaimed any intention of repeating the Homeric Hymn, the subsequent narrative of Erysichthon’s attack on the tree does just that: a locus amoenus where nymphs play is invaded, the victim screams (Persephone Q\wgse, v. 20; the tree jaj¹m l]kor Uawem, v. 39), but the cries meet different responses (no one hears Persephone, Demeter hears the tree). After the description of the locus amoenus which Erysichthon will desecrate, vv. 29 – 30: he± d’ 1pela_meto w~qyi fssom 9keus?mi, Tqi|pai h’ fsom bjj|som =mmai

2

3

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 Malten thought that the verse referred to earlier poetry of Callimachus himself (cf. W. Kuchenmüller, Philetae Coi Reliquiae, diss. Berlin 1928, p. 55). In theory, any number 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 next note). 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. Of particular interest in this regard is Callimachus’ description of Demeter’s travels at vv. 10 ff. In the Homeric Hymn she wanders for nine days “over the earth” (v. 47), but Callimachus typically provides geographical specificity. I suspect that Callimachus evokes a journey from Sicily (cf. next note) to the extreme west of the world, then to the extreme east, back to the west (cf. Mimnermus fr. 5 Gentili-Prato = 12 West), and finally back to Eleusis; tq_r in v. 13 would therefore be quite precisely chosen. Against this is Hopkinson’s objection (note on v. 11) that “the rhetoric of the passage is decisively against this: we cannot have reference to the East sandwiched between two to the west”; I doubt, however, that this objection stands in the context of what is a 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, sees vv. 10 – 12 and 13 – 16 as representing two separate searches (the whole world and then Greece).

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proclaim a status for Callimachus’ hymn equal to that of its archaic precedent, 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 Pallas, defender of the city (1qus_ptokir), a quality which Callimachus, like the poet of the eleventh Homeric Hymn, sets off against the goddess’ potential destructiveness as peqs]ptokir (h. 5, 43). Homeric Hymn 28 describes the violent cosmic reaction to the birth of Athena from Zeus’ head, and it is this motif to which Callimachus gives prominence at the 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 be most closely associated with Athena, whose very birth was a sudden appearance in full battle-dress. Callimachus uses this first, natal epiphany of the 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 the whole notion of what epiphany means is at stake in this poem. Two of the major Homeric Hymns are also relevant. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter explores the theme of “goddess as mother”, a theme which Callimachus 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 the suffering which Demeter’s punishment brings to Erysichthon’s parents; in h. 5, however, it is “goddess as not-mother” which is crucial, as Chariclo’s suffering fails to persuade Athena whose lack of a mother is explicitly stressed (vv. 134 – 5). Secondly, the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite tells of an encounter between a mortal and a beautiful goddess during 4

5

My interpretation of the reference to Enna assumes that Callimachus placed the rape 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 my interpretation is correct, then this passage forms a partial exception to Peter Bing’s claim that “the Hellenistic avant-garde is of a piece in never expressing its relationship towards the literary heritage in agonistic terms” (The Well-Read Muse, Göttingen 1988, p. 61). Cf. G. O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford 1988, pp. 33 – 4. A late lexicon tells 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 unclear (cf. Allen-Halliday-Sikes on Hom. h. 28, 13), but it is tempting to believe that Callimachus wants us to know of this: there would then be a neat ring around the main part of the poem. For Athena and horses in general cf. M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, Cunning intelligence in Greek culture and society, Hassocks 1978, pp. 187 – 213.

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which the mortal sleeps with the naked goddess. Callimachus h. 5 plays, as we shall see6, with the potential eroticism of the meeting of Teiresias and Athena, and it follows a narrative pattern in which sex is indeed a crucial factor. More specifically, Athena appears in the Homeric Hymn to 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 she is one of three goddesses who remain impervious to Aphrodite’s power. Callimachus rewrites this “defeat” by Athena of the archaic laudanda by including in his Hymn to Athena the occasion upon which Aphrodite “defeated” Athena – namely, the Judgement of Paris. At the level of detail, we may note that Athena’s anointing of herself after exercise with her own product (v. 26) is encomiastic one-upmanship on Aphrodite who has the Graces anoint her with 5kaiom %lbqotom for her meeting with Anchises (Hom. H. Aphr. 60 – 2) 7. The most obvious difference between Callimachus’ hymns and their archaic models lies of course in what are traditionally called the “mimetic” hymns, 2 (Apollo), 5 (Athena), 6 (Demeter) 8. The question of how these hymns were “read” or “performed” continues to exercise modern scholarship, but will not be a primary concern in this paper9. These hymns as a whole seek to “envision” narrative through a powerful 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 compelled to 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. 268 n. 1) suggests. 8 “Mimetic” is not a particularly good term, but it is harmless enough, and some term is needed, provided that the important difference between h. 2 on the one hand and h. 5 and 6 on the other is not overlooked; cf. (most recently) M. Fantuzzi, Preistoria di un genere letterario: a proposito degli Inni V e VI di Callimaco, in Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’et ellenistica: scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili, Pisa 1993. 9 For recent surveys cf. M. R. Falivene, ‘La mimesi in Callimaco: Inni II, IV, V e VI’, Quad. Urb. 36, 1990, pp. 103 – 28, who notes that Callimachus’ intention is “rappresentare, imitare, testi-in-atto, e insomma mimare in scrittura una performance 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 and F. Cairns, Tibullus, Cambridge 1979, p. 121. S. Koster, ‘Kallimachos als Apollonpriester’ in Tessera. Sechs Beitrge 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 to everyone …” (h. 2, 9), and the reading (or performance) of a written text makes any such epiphany even more problematic. A myth about looking/not-looking such as that of Teiresias and Athena is peculiarly appropriate to a written text of this “mimetic” nature. We will never see the goddess, not only because ‘we’ are men (as opposed to women), but also because the poem ends as she appears (or does she?). In exploiting the traditional slippage between an image and what that image ‘represents’ — i. e. the whole problem of how to represent the divine – Callimachus raises the question of whether, in seeing an image or statue, we are ‘seeing’ the god as Teiresias saw her. Into the whole conception of the poem, therefore, is built a serious “religious” problem; to what extent it receives a serious answer is something to which I shall return.

2. The Bath of Pallas creates for us an Argive ritual in which the statue of Athena is taken out of the temple and bathed. There is no other evidence for such a ritual, but it is of a familiar type; the Athenian Plynteria is perhaps the most familiar example, although in that ritual it was apparently the clothing of the statue, not the statue itself, which was washed11. Bulloch is attracted by the suggestion that Callimachus’ knowledge of the Argive festival derived from the )qcokij\ of Agias and Dercylus which we know the poet to have used elsewhere12, and at several points Bulloch’s interpretation rests upon the assumption that “we probably lack certain crucial items of information which Callimachus could take for granted in his contemporary audience”. What is at stake here, of course, is the very nature of the cultic frame which Callimachus has created. Before considering this further, we should note that the status of the Homeric Hymns is currently being debated in a rather similar way. In particular, Clinton and Parker have recently taken opposed sides on the question of the “Eleusinian” nature of the Homeric Hymn Erlangen 1983, p. 9 – 21, interprets this question as addressed to an initiand into the 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 Grce archaique, Rome 1977, I, pp. 232 – 41. 12 Cf. Bulloch pp. 16 – 17.

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to Demeter13, and it is indeed that archaic poem which is so suggestive for Callimachus’ fifth and sixth Hymns, because, in Parker’s words, “in … the Eleusinian Mysteries the association between rite and myth, often in Greek religion so slight and external, was by contrast close and basic”; Callimachus too puts the problem of the relation between rite and myth at the centre of his poems, and modern scholars have found very diverse solutions for that problem. To refer to the details of a cult ritual entirely unknown to us in order to explain a sophisticated work of literature is, in principle, entirely valid, and in various cases can be shown to be so. Nevertheless, scholars should at least mention the possibility that there never was an Argive “Plynteria”, that Callimachus’ mimetic enargeia has envisioned the whole thing, that, to put it another way, our expectation of an external referent is itself Callimachus’ creation. Too often, perhaps, Callimachean criticism has relied on fr. 612, !l\qtuqom oqd³m !e_dy, to explain the otherwise inexplicable. Be that as it may, what interests me here is how reliance upon the assumption of external reference can mask what actually happens in the poem. On the larger question of the relation between the Teiresias narrative and the “Argive ritual” I hope that my views will emerge from the paper as a whole; Bulloch has argued (p. 24) that they may have already been linked in Argive legend — 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 passages where cultic reference has been used as an interpretative tool to see whether this in fact helps or hinders. The first is the opening passage relating to Athena’s care for her horses: 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 Atheniensia 16, 1986, pp. 43 – 9; R. Parker, ‘The Hymn to Demeter and the Homeric Hymns’, Greece & Rome 38, 1991, pp. 1 – 17.

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Rdq_ ja· Nah\liccar, 1vo_basem d³ pac]mta p\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 ritual, and to the modern reader the passage seems ambiguous: the address to the celebrants seems to have finished and a hymnal account of the Pq\neir HeoO to have begun … but then with v. 13 § Ut’ )waii\der at the beginning of the next section it becomes clear that vv. 5 – 12 also must have been spoken to the celebrants. Retrospectively the transition from v. 4 to vv. 5 ff. looks abrupt, and the selection of Athena’s care for her horses for particular mention is prima facie puzzling. We must assume that, quite apart from such care as the normal attribute of a good warrior, the bathing of the processional horses was an important first stage in the Argive ritual, even though no evidence for this survives …”. Is it “clear that vv. 5 – 12 … must have been spoken to the celebrants”? In purely general terms, we can point to Callimachus’ obvious experimentation with the boundaries between “hymn” and “narrative”, and to his familiar parenthetic style (even if his parentheses are normally introduced by c\q) 14. More specifically, we may ask who is addressed in vv. 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 should hurry 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 the poem; if this is correct, then not only is the absence of c\q from v. 2 explained, but the poem is seen to begin with what is tantamount to an aside, and we might well think such an opening very “Callimachean”. Alternatively, we might consider the possibility that vv. 2 – 3 are not spoken by the same person as v. 1: excited observations by more than one speaker would be a way of establishing the choric nature of the poem at the very outset. At one level, of course, this is a question of how to punctuate our printed texts15, but this apparently technical problem depends upon an appreciation of the fluid, puzzling interplay between “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 various interpretations of the opening verses which I am proposing can be used as arguments for (or against) the actual performance of the hymn.

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heart of the Callimachean experiment. Too great a concern with the external ritual referent flattens out this exciting interplay. We are still left to ask “why all this about horses?”. It does indeed show Athena as the careful and excellent warrior16, but without the supposed cultic reference it might be thought a little extreme. Here again, I would not wish to deny cultic reference, but I would rather stress that this is inadequate as an explanation for what is in the poem. It is cultus, rather than cult, which is central here. The washing of sweaty horses is set off against Athena’s exercise before the Judgement of Paris and against the different kind of washing which Teiresias interrupted (cf. further below). Moreover, from the point of view of hymnal form, the passage takes the place of the familiar listing of a god’s attributes, such as we find in the third verse of the Hymn to Zeus: Pgkac|mym 1kat/qa, dijasp|kom Oqqam_dgisi. The change from such a list to an excited narrative “parenthesis” is of a piece with the whole dramatisation of the hymn which occurs in the “mimetic” mode. The second passage which I wish to consider under this head is indeed the Judgement of Paris and, specifically, Athena’s preparation for it. She is described as running a great distance “like the Lacedaimonian stars beside the Eurotas”, and then anointing herself with oil to produce a marvellous flush on her skin (vv. 23 – 8). Bulloch interestingly argues that, through allusion to Theocritus 18, 22 – 32, we understand that Athena “is identified with the pure and exquisite kind of beauty represented by Helen, who combined femininity with very masculine Spartan athletics” (note on vv. 23 – 8). This is a beauty which the stupid Phrygian, Paris, could not recognise. Bulloch also wonders (p. 12 n. 2) whether the Argive cult involved a “beauty contest”, as we know other cults to have done; this would then “give an added dimension to the … Judgement of Paris”. He does not note that, on his view, in choosing Aphrodite whose bribe was Helen, Paris is actually (and ironically) choosing as his prize the ideal of beauty represented by Athena. Be that as it may, any consideration of this passage must begin from the place of the Judgement in the poem as a whole. In the mountains (v. 18) Paris sees goddesses who have chosen to display themselves to him. Of these goddesses, art of the classical period frequently depicts Aphrodite only partially clothed at the Judgement, and full nudity comes later in the Roman period17. From the early Hel16 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 Callimachus confronts 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 destroy his city. This bitter irony is, of course, by implication encomiastic of Athena, whose claims Paris scorned, but what is important for the present are the similarities and contrasts not only with the experience of Anchises in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, but also with that of Teiresias in the central narrative of Callimachus’ poem. Teiresias’ “sexual” encounter (cf. Section 4 below) ends with a blindness compensated for by gifts from Athena pokioOwor which, in some cases at least, will help to save his city (vv. 125 – 6) 19. As often in Greek poetry, then, the major narrative 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, she was worshipped at Sparta as Athena Keleutheia, at shrines supposedly established by Odysseus “when he had defeated Penelope’s suitors in running” (Pausanias 3, 12, 4) 20. One real or believed feature of Spartan female athletics is particularly relevant here: it was practised nude21. It is also perhaps relevant that such athletics were particularly associated with girls before marriage — indeed Xenophon (Lac. 1, 4) and Plutarch (Lycurgus 14, 2) interpret it as designed to promote healthy babies — and that Spartan girls had their hair cropped on their wedding-night; in both matters, 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 extent, but never makes the transitional moves that ordinary females make. To this extent — like, of course, Teiresias himself — she is both female and “male” (cf. v. 29). The reference to Spartan athletics thus establishes an open, socially approved form of female nudity in which Athena herself 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 witness 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 female intimacy, marked at the start of the Teiresias narrative by the removal of the 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 ceremonial p]pkor” (Bulloch on v. 70), but we must first look to the meaning of the poem as a whole to explain the prominence of this detail.

3. Before pursuing further the myth of Teiresias, I want to consider briefly perhaps the most discussed feature of the poem, its elegiac metre. Why the poem is written in elegiacs we shall never know, and Bulloch is very likely right that “there is no single reason for [it]” (p. 34). New texts constantly undermine our notions of literary history; in a matter such as this, we must always be aware of how much we do not know. Simonides’ elegiac “Hymn to Achilles”, recently unveiled by Peter Parsons, comes as yet another reminder of this constant truth23. Nevertheless, little that is new can, I think, be added about “Doric threnody” or about the possibility of an Argive tradition of elegiac hymns24. Some gain might be made from a consideration of the elegiacs as set in opposition to the hexameters of h. 625, but the results would remain very impressionistic. Rather, I want to consider again the now hoary problem of elegy 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 contrast to the deim|m of hexameter narrative — and suggested tentatively that this same quality dictated Callimachus’ choice of metre in this poem26. 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 which Hutchinson, op. cit. p. 16 observes: “the effect of parody would have been spoiled 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 Metamorphosis of Persephone, Cambridge 1987, pp. 99 – 114.

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and classical27, there is no clear evidence — beyond the predominant use of the elegiac couplet in funerary epigram — for a classical or Hellenistic link between 1kece?a and lamentation. The copious play in Latin poetry with flebilis elegia does not have a Greek counterpart, and 1kece?om in the required 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” (Bulloch p. 34). This second problem is one of “feel” which I cannot pursue here. My concern will be not “Why is h. 5 in elegiacs?”, but rather whether any particular part of the poem exploits the elegiacs for particular effects. The most obvious candidate here is, of course, Chariclo’s lament, where some progress may be possible. " m}lva d’ 1b|ase· ‘t_ loi t¹m j_qom 5qenar p|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]ssar ja· pq|jar oq pokk±r v\ea paid¹r 5weir.’ " l³m ûl’ !lvot]qaisi v_kom peq· pa?da kabo?sa l\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 lament strongly suggest funeral lament. The loss of sight is like the loss of life. This is made plain both by the reference to the nightingale’s lament, and by the choice of v\ea “lights” for “eyes”, which not only resonates against d|qjar (connected with d]qjolai), but also reinforces the finality of Teiresias’ fate: the light really has gone out. Moreover, the language of debt and financial transaction in v. 91, which is picked up 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 in Greek Poetry and Life, Essays presented to Gilbert Murray, Oxford 1936, pp. 206 – 10, B. Gentili, ‘Epigramma ed elegia’, in L’Epigramme grecque (Entretiens Fondation Hardt XIV), Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1967, 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 to mean “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 retention of intelligence in the Underworld (vv. 128 – 30) — this is a denial 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 killed. “The whole passage is poetically well-worn: the comparison is a stock one” notes Bulloch with full documentation (p. 206). Again, there may be more to be said. The myth of sexual offence, bodily maiming, metamorphosis, and the song of birds has a penumbra of suggestive resonances with the myth of Teiresias; clearly Callimachus wants some kind of analogy between narrative and mythic exemplum to be felt. More specific help may come from two passages of Latin poetry. Catullus uses the image of the nightingale to describe his perpetual lamentation for his brother: at certe semper amabo, semper maesta tua carmina morte canam, qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris Daulias, absumpti fata gemens Ityli. sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae … (65, 11 – 16)

As is now generally understood29, v. 12 programmatically announces a devotion to elegy, “sad songs”, as indeed Poem 65 is the first elegiac poem in what is thereafter an entirely elegiac corpus. This poem introduces carmina Battiadae, and is itself heavily indebted to Callimachus30. The image of the grieving nightingale recurs in Callimachus’ famous epigram 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 and Latin Epitaphs, Urbana, 111. 1942, repr. 1962, pp. 170 – 1; Bulloch pp. 217 – 18. 29 As far as I am aware, the observation was first made by T.P. Wiseman, Catullan Questions, 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 common etymology of !e_dy, !gd~m etc. from !e_. 30 I have discussed this in ‘Callimachean echoes in Catullus 65’, Zeitschrift fr 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. As Hopkinson observes, “the nightingale’s song was proverbially a lamentation (1kece?om): Heraclitus’ !gd|mer can be imagined as bewailing their own poet’s death”32. We have already seen, however, that the meaning “lamentation” for 1kece?om is not demonstrable for Callimachus’ time; nevertheless, this epigram is not without interest in the present context. Of Heraclitus’ poetry it is probable that only one example survives, a funerary epigram (Anth. Pal. 7, 465); Diogenes Laertius does, however, describe him as 1kece_ar poigt^r, and whether or not !gd|mer was actually the title of a collection of his poems, it now appears that at least a circumstantial case can be made for the view that Catullus had Greek, and probably Callimachean, precedent for the use of the nightingale’s song in programmatic connection with elegiac metre. For this tradition we may also cite a passage of Ovid’s Fasti which Stephen Hinds33 has interpreted as containing (in alternis) an explicit allusion to elegiac metre: quacumque ingreditur, miseris loca cuncta querellis implet, 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 nightingale’s lament (Ar. Birds 218), and at Eur. IT 1091, if the manuscript is to 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 us a 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 exploit and to some extent depend upon the fact that it is written in elegiacs. Two connected observations follow from this. First, the case for believing 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 an appropriate metre is seen to be a quasi-dramatic mimesis which evokes earlier threnodic poetry, particulary the threnoi of Attic tragedy. In the presentation of man’s at best partial knowledge of the divine, Callimachus, like Apollonius of Rhodes, was profoundly influenced by tragedy. Some of the details of this debt will be explored in the next section.

4. Callimachus’ story of Teiresias falls into a set of familiar patterns. At one level it is a story of male intrusion into female space, and three other examples of the type will help to shed light upon how Callimachus presents his narrative. The first is the famous Herodotean account of Gyges and the wife of Candaules (Herod. 1, 8 – 12), a story of the secrets of power and of male sight of female nudity. Both Candaules (implicitly) and his wife (explicitly) place a choice before Gyges, a choice which illustrates the relation between knowledge and power. Teiresias too gains knowledge through sight 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 wanted us to use it as a conscious analogue for his myth. Whether conscious or not, however, the importance of such “analogues” lies as much in difference as in similarity. The analogue both allows us to understand aspects of the poetic situation which do not need to be related explicitly, and, by difference, highlights what is particularly distinctive and central to the later writer’s presentation. To this extent, such suggested narrative analogues may be compared to the use of extended similes37. The second case is that of Pentheus, specifically the Pentheus of Euripides’ Bacchae. Some of the echoes of this tragedy in the fifth hymn are generally familiar, but a slightly fuller statement of what amounts to a detailed intertextual relationship may be helpful. Like Pentheus, Teiresias is led by a god (v. 81, Ba. 1080) to a locus amoenus in the mountains 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 usually applies to the darkening of grape clusters is a “Dionysiac signal” of the similarity. Both intrude upon an exclusively female performance, and both, with varying degrees of severity, are punished for it. Most striking of all, throughout the Bacchae (cf. 337 – 41, 1227, 1291), the fate of Actaion — the third of my three cases of male intrusion — resonates as a warning to Pentheus. Actaion is, of course, an expected exemplum in such a Theban story, and Callimachus’ Athena uses Actaion as a consolation rather than as a warning; nevertheless, despite the difference in the reason for the fates of the Euripidean and Callimachean Actaions38, it is hard not to believe that Callimachus is thinking of, and wants us to think of, Euripides’ tragedy. Even with the unfortunate textual loss of the lament of the Euripidean Agaue, which might have shown very interesting links with Callimachus’ poem, it is clear that the Bacchae is a fundamental text for the reading of the fifth hymn. The mother who rejected the god is replaced by the mother who was a special favourite of the god. Both suffer: Athena’s appeal to the immutable laws of Kronos (v. 100) resonates against Dionysus’ concluding appeal to the authority of Zeus (Ba. 1349). Athena’s gifts to Teiresias are obviously contrasted with the bleakness of the end of the tragedy, but the diversity of modern response39 shows how right Ovid was to inscribe explicitly an open response into his Actaion-narrative: rumor in ambiguo est: aliis uiolentior aequo uisa dea est, alii laudant dignamque seuera uirginitate uocant; pars inuenit utraque causas. (Met. 3, 253 – 5)

Ovid’s Actaion seems worse off than Callimachus’ Teiresias, but we can hardly feel confident that we know how we should respond to the Greek 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 Pallas’, Class. Ant. 7, 1988, pp. 72 – 90, at p. 78: “Callimachus has pulled out all the available stops to exculpate Athena”; for this view cf. also B. Otis, Ovid as an epic poet, 2nd ed., Cambridge 1970, pp. 134 – 5, 396 – 400. Mary Depew takes 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 transition, of sexual and generational passage. The young man encounters the female at a dangerous pool. Obvious comparisons may be made with Hylas, or Ovid’s Narcissus who, driven by thirst after hunting to drink at a beautiful pond, is captivated by the erotic image in the water (Met. 3, 407 ff) 40. Such a transition has a particular relevance to Teiresias who, in the most familiar version of his story, experienced life and sex as both man and woman. What evidence is there that Callimachus presents the story of Teiresias in “sexual” terms? First, there are simply our expectations founded upon knowledge of the story type; we do not require explanations of the links between blindness and sexual experience41, or much knowledge of Ovid, to sense what should be coming. Chariclo’s lament acknowledges the erotic privilege of Teiresias’ sight: eWder )hama_ar st^hea ja· kac|mar (v. 88); he has seen what should not be seen, just as, in the more usual version of his story, his special knowledge about sexual pleasure breaks boundaries which should be preserved. His blindness marks this transgression42, just as his prophetic gifts and retained intelligence mark him as a perpetual breaker of boundaries. Important aspects of Callimachus’ poem may be illustrated by comparison 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” is now well understood43, and vv. 70 ff of Callimachus’ fifth hymn are in fact often quoted in connection with it. Nevertheless, Ovid’s use of the pattern with which I am here concerned does not seem to have been fully appreciated44. In Amores 1, 5 it is the “god” who intrudes upon the 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, has erotic 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, Berwick, Victoria 1988, pp. 4 – 31, at pp. 4 – 11; T. D. Papanghelis, ‘About the hour 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 couplet might have perfectly introduced the story of a desirable nymph about to be sexually 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 mortal deliberately strips the “god” to expose her body to his eyes — note the stress on oculos (v. 17) 46 — and feasts his eyes and his pen upon the details of that body. The end is sex and a prayer for many such occasions. Amores 1, 5 therefore offers a complete overturning of the conventions and assumptions of stories such as that of Actaion. Callimachus’ aims are quite different, but shared themes can point to what is distinctive and important in the Greek poet. Ovid has a lot of fun with Corinna’s role in what happened — was she or was she not willing? 47 Ovid has transferred to the “god” an important theme normally associated with the mortal in the story type which we have been considering. The fact that both Teiresias and Actaion erred unwillingly is repeatedly stressed by Callimachus (vv. 52, 78, 113). Bulloch rightly notes that “intrusion on divine privacy is no less a crime because it is unintentional” (note on v. 52), but we may wonder whether he is correct that “the fact that Teiresias’ intrusion was unwitting is not in itself of much significance” (p. 48). Bulloch is rightly trying to prevent the modern reader from imposing an inappropriate moral frame upon an ancient text, but we may well suppose that the poet’s insistence upon Teiresias’ “moral innocence” in fact sets the problem high on the agenda. Moreover, we find this theme centrally positioned in all the stories we have been considering. The case of the Bacchae is notorious. Does Pentheus go to the mountain willingly or unwillingly? The power of Dionysus so confounds those categories as to call them entirely into question (cf. esp. Ba. 811 – 15). So too with Gyges. He has no desire to see the king’s wife, but he is confronted with the realities of power – ¢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 second “choice”, which is really no choice ( !macja_gm !kgh]yr pqojeil]mgm, !macj\feir … oqj 1h]komta : 1, 11, 4), Herodotus does not conceal what is really going on, aRq]etai aqt¹r peqie?mai. In asking why such stories foreground such problems, we must of course be wary of assuming 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, knowledge). Do we ever choose what we see? This problem can hardly be considered in isolation from views about the nature of vision itself; ancient philosophers seem in fact to have been less interested — though certainly not uninterested —48 in the relation between vision and will than in the mechanics of vision, although the two problems are of course 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 simply a matter of the traditional idea that “an important aspect of a god’s power was absolute control over whether or not he was visible to mortals” (Bulloch on vv. 101 – 2) — a control whose apparent “failure” in this case raises difficult questions about Athena’s role — but of the very nature of seeing, a faculty in which mortals and immortals are irremediably different. The second theme I wish to pursue briefly here is the related one of cognition. How is the intruder recognised? The brilliant opening of Amores 1, 5 still has serious commentators debating whether or not the poet was “expecting” a visit from Corinna that afternoon; at any rate, vv. 7 – 8, illa uerecundis lux est praebenda puellis, / qua timidus latebras speret habere pudor, clearly portray him as the controller, the artifex, of the situation. In his tale of Actaion, it is apparently the cries of the nymphs which draw Diana’s attention:

48 The mental and physical state of the viewer was, of course, often of prime importance; 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 Epicurean 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 between the “attention” of the mind needed to see what we want to see and that needed to imagine things. Even this theory, therefore, leaves “grey areas” for a poet to exploit. 49 For useful surveys of ancient theories of vision cf. D. C. Lindberg, Theories of vision from al-Kindi to Kepler, Chicago 1976, pp. 1 – 17; D.E. Hahm, ‘Early hellenistic theories of vision and the perception of color’, in P.K. Machamer and R.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 nymphae percussere uiro subitisque ululatibus omne inpleuere nemus circumfusaeque Dianam corporibus texere suis; tamen altior illis ipsa dea est colloque tenus supereminet omnes. (Met. 3, 177 – 82)

The emphasis is on how Actaion is seen, not on what he might have seen; 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 development in this motif of such stories. When Pentheus is settled in the fir-tree, he is more seen than seeing (Ba. 1075), and in the case of Gyges, 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 is an illustration of her intelligence and power. So too with the Callimachean Athena. The elision of anything like “and Athena saw him” after v. 78 suggests the goddess’ powers of cognition of a kind we readily accept in divinity. In one sense, it is all one whether she sees or not, because her power is not bound by physical constraints. Athena’s consolatory exemplum of Actaion is presented as a statement or prophecy in the future tense52, and this can hardly be dissociated 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 it mean to “pray to see a beloved son blind”? The final phrase, tuvk¹m 51 Contrast the anonymous “Gyges drama” (Trag. Adesp. 664 Kannicht-Snell) in which Candaules’ wife explains that she realised her husband’s guilt when she saw 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 rhetorical device and not because Athena is a prophetess” sits rather oddly with the gifts she bestows. 53 It may also be that the prophetic voice is evoked too in vv. 80 – 1. Those verses do 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, as most famously dramatised in the encounter of Teiresias and Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. Thus Callimachus has shaped his Athena in very specific ways, and the familiar classical opposition between two different kinds of knowledge or rationality54 is collapsed as she reaches out to grant powers not usually associated with her.

5. Some aspects of my account of Callimachus’ Hymn to Athena will doubtless seem more “serious” than is now fashionable; Callimachus ludens is, perhaps rightly, the now predominant image of this brilliant poet. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the realm of the presentation of the divine, where there is not even an agreed critical language with which to transcend unhelpful assertions about what poets did or did not “believe”55. Callimachus presents almost an extreme case of the general problem of “religion in literature”, of the relationship (if one exists) between what happens inside and outside texts56. A standard critical move for those who wish to negotiate around this problem is to draw a distinction between “religious” and “secular” categories. Thus, the emphasis on Chariclo’s feelings in h. 5 and on the embarrassed suffering of Erysichthon’s parents in h. 6 are alleged to show that Callimachus’ concerns are “secular”, not “religious”, i. e. not (to put it simply) “pertaining to the nature of the divine”. That there are differences in this 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 was not 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 believer in the traditional gods of Greece…”; note how the subject of religion in poetry leads G. O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic poetry, Oxford 1988, p. 3, straight to “what the 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 “religious/secular” is the appropriate category distinction; “non-literary/ literary” may be more apt. Thus even in an extreme case, such as Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter in choriambic hexameters (SH 676 – 680) which is explicitly written for the delectation of cqallatijo_ (SH 677), we should seek to understand the “religious” and cultic tale offered by the poem; learned paignia, too, have a social and intellectual context. About Chariclo I hope that enough has now been said; I therefore wish briefly to examine the story of Erysichthon in h. 6 to see to what extent it too escapes from this scholarly categorisation. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter records and celebrates the establishment of Demeter’s cult and tells a tale of separation followed by re-integration and happiness. Callimachus’ hymn confirms the continuing power of the goddess and tells an apotropaic tale of ultimate separation and misery. The rich plenty with which the archaic poem concludes (vv. 470 – 3) is replaced in Callimachus by the desolation of Triopas’ stores (vv. 104 – 10). Whereas in the Homeric Hymn the goddess’ anger was revealed by a general famine which threatened not only all mankind (vv. 305 – 11) but also the gods’ supply of sacrifices (vv. 311 – 12), in Callimachus’ hymn the anger is manifested by an illusory plenty — the riches of Triopas’ house (cf. vv. 69, 87 – 90) — which soon becomes a dearth in which sacrifice too suffers (v. 108 ja· t±m b_m 5vacem, t±m :st_ai 5tqeve l\tgq). The relationship between h. 6 and its archaic forerunner is thus a very good illustration of Callimachus’ creative use of his literary heritage. As is well understood, Callimachus sets the warning tale of Erysichthon within a Hesiodic moral frame58. The narrative is a dramatised exemplification of a central message of the Works and Days — the close link between pious observance and agricultural plenty. Framed by echoes 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 a tree”: 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 is true. The Hesiodic frame is well understood, but rather underplayed, by Hopkinson. 59 Note v. 22 ~ WD 828 (the final verse of Hesiod’s poem and known to have been a subject of dispute in Alexandrian scholarly circles), vv. 116 – 17 ~ WD 346 – 8.

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“worst case”, a man loved by Hunger and hated by Demeter (cf. WD 299 – 300), living proof of the Hesiodic dictum that “evil plans ( jajµ bouk^, cf. h. 6, 32) turn out worst for the planner” (WD 266). The crucial passage here is WD 336 – 48 where the link between piety and physical 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·H eQ 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 of house and home; with Erysichthon as a neighbour, your cattle really would be in danger. Here Callimachean “literalism” plays off against the archaic moral voice61. To this point I shall return. For the celebrants the tale is both a warning and a confirmation of their lucky position; soon they will eat62. Demeter is invoked to bring peace and prosperity (vv. 133 – 8), while the terrible fate of famine is reserved 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 Callimachus (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 stylistic chiasmus of !pewh^r — bl|toiwor — jajoce_tomer — 1whqo_. The apparent repetitiveness may be ascribed to the “naive” literalism of the poetic voice (a common mannerism in the Hymns), but in fact it is only apparent. Someone who is “hateful to Demeter” is undesirable as a bl|toiwor precisely because ipso facto they are a bad neighbour. The Hesiodic reference thus allows us to unpack 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 which seems relevant to Callimachus’ Sixth Hymn: “There is a traditional rite of sacrifice, which the archon performs at the public 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 castus and drive him out of doors, chanting, ‘Out with Bulimy, in with Wealth and Health’”. (Quaest. Conv. 6, 8; 693e-f, trans. Hoffleit)

Clearly, Callimachus does not offer any simple reproduction of this ritual pattern, which has normally been interpreted as a form of scapegoating, but the common elements are suggestive63. The pathetic reference to 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 of the disguised Odysseus (Od. 17, 219 – 22) 64. The king’s son has become the lowest of the low, leaving the house like the disgraced Oedipus or the slave “impersonating” Hunger. By seeking to conceal him within the house, rather than sending him out, his parents deny the ritual pattern and hasten their own ruin. It is, above all, the description of the excuses to which Erysichthon’s parents are reduced as they cover up for him (vv. 68 – 90) which has prompted critics to see the poem as “secular” rather than “religious”65. The phenomenon which these critics are trying to describe will be plain to every reader, but the analysis suffers from a residual commitment to “religion” as something which a modern western audience would recognise as such. The organisation of society — even, or rather particularly, “bourgeois” society — is put at risk by Erysichthon’s hunger. It is “dinners” and “weddings”, those quintessential markers of social union, 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 religion, 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 Eugenio 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 behaviour, established by Demeter, which separate us from the animals66. We may, 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 between the voice of h. 6 and the voice of any archaic poem should not be used as an excuse to shut off areas of meaning in the later text. The truth is that we have not yet found the proper language in which to discuss these extraordinarily complex poems67. Our problem is, moreover, not limited to Callimachus alone. Classical scholarship is still at something of a loss when it comes to the handling of mythic narrative in the Greek literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In very broad terms, there are two central problems. One is the effect of what Marcel Detienne called “the invention of mythology”, one manifestation of which is the writing and cataloguing of myth and legend such as we know Hellenistic poets to have practised in their scholarly lives and used in their poetry. What difference to the production and poetic use of myth does such activity make? Secondly, it is a common view that the “mythic thinking” of the archaic and classical periods had, by the third century, given way to some extent to different modes of thought which were, if not more rational, at least closer to modes that we ourselves would recognise. Thucydides, the sophists, and Plato are, of course, major figures here. That important changes had taken place is hard to deny, though the work of Geoffrey Lloyd in particular has shown us how misleading simplistic models of the replacement 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 literature of the Second Sophistic) are often assumed to be no more than codified stories, available to poets as narrative material, but lacking that intimate, if hard to define, connection with collective social thought that we regularly ascribe to myth68. Confirmation for such a view might be sought in the social position of Alexandrian poets: a marginal and privileged elite writing for their own amusement. It would, how66 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 was produced in a social and intellectual vacuum. It may, of course, be that the kind of evidence which has allowed real progress in understanding the “myths” of classical Athens and Augustan Rome simply does not exist for Ptolemaic Alexandria, or that the nature of the society itself is not amenable to such a study; if so, then the identification of various levels of humour and irony in mythic narrative may be not only a fruitful way to proceed, it may be the only way69. I do not, however, believe that that stage has yet been reached, and I hope that this paper has suggested some of the paths that still beckon. Finally, it is worth observing that the currently standard accounts of Hellenistic religion offer little assistance in this matter. There we are likely to find impressionistic assertions about the spiritual emptiness of life in the great conurbations, an emptiness which was slowly filled by the rise of new cults70. Change there obviously was — although some texts have been remarkably over-interpreted71 — and we must be conscious of the fact that some of this change is presumably concealed from us by problems of naming. “Athena” retains her familiar cult titles, but how can we detect realignments in intellectual and cultural patterns which may be subsumed under that name? Thus Claire Préaux began the chapter on religion in her standard two-volume Le monde hellnistique as follows: “We shall consider here only the gods who developed (volu) under the influence of the contact of cultures. We shall therefore not be concerned with Delian or Pythian Apollo, or with the traditional gods of Olympus”. That Delian and Pythian Apollo precisely did develop under the contact of cultures seems a very reasonable inference from Callimachus’ fourth hymn. What happened to Athena (and Demeter) we shall never know in full, but it would be silly not to see if we can make 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 the mythic in Hellenistic poetry cf. B. Effe, ‘Die Destruktion der Tradition: Theokrits mythologische Gedichte’, Rhein. Mus. 121, 1978, pp. 48 – 77. 70 No modern account is more powerful than E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the irrational, 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 in particular cf. A. D. Morrison, ‘Sexual ambiguity and the identity of the narrator in Callimachus’ Hymn to Athena’ BICS 48 (2005) 27 – 46. D. Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome (Cambridge 1998) contains much of interest to the Hellenist. p. 140 – 1 On the debt of Theocritus 26 to Euripides’ Bacchae cf. The Shadow of Callimachus 46 – 8. p. 148 – 9 On the ritual pattern of Callimachus’ Erysichthon cf. now C. A. Faraone, CA 23 (2004) 227 – 31.

9. Written in the Stars: Poetry and Philosophy in the Phainomena 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 constellations and their conjunctions and, secondly, of weather-signs in both heavenly bodies and other natural phenomena2. It draws extensively upon two prose sources which we can reconstruct with some confidence. For the constellations Aratus was very heavily indebted to the prose Phainomena of the pioneering astronomer Eudoxus, written perhaps as much as a century before Aratus’ poem; the debt was conclusively identified by the second-century B.C. astronomer Hipparchus, whose extant commentary (exegesis) on the works of Eudoxus and Ara*

1

2

Arachnion 2 (http://www.cisi.unito.it/arachne/num2/index2.html) I am grateful to Marco Fantuzzi, John Vallance and an audience at the Oxford Philological Society for instructive criticism of earlier versions of this paper. Due to the kindness of Professor D.A. Kidd, I was able (after the substantial completion of my own work) to see a draft of his forthcoming commentary on the Phainomena; I have added references to it where appropriate. The following works are referred to by author name only: M. Erren, Die Phainomena des Aratos von Soloi. Untersuchungen zum Sach- und Sinnverstndnis (Hermes Einzelschrift 19), Wiesbaden 1967; N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology, Cambridge 1988; A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Cambridge 1987; W. Ludwig, ‘Die Phainomena Arats als hellenistische Dichtung’, Hermes 91, 1963, 425 – 48. I cite the text from the edition of J. Martin (Florence 1956), and refer occasionally also to that of M. Erren (Munich 1971). The (admittedly flimsy) basis for this dating is the patronage of Antigonos Gonatas which Aratus enjoyed. For chronological arguments based on the similarity of the opening verse of the Phainomena to Theocr. 17.1 cf. Gow ad loc. and M. Fantuzzi, MD 5, 1980, 163 – 72. The structure of the poem has been much discussed, but I will be concerned with this only tangentially; a major break after v. 732 was diagnosed very early in its reception, (a papyrus text of the first century A.D. places a coronis before 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. Martin, ‘Les Phnomnes d’Aratos. Étude sur la composition du poème’, in L’astronomie dans l’antiquit classique, Paris 1979, 91 – 104.

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tus preserves many fragments of the former’s treatise3. Although Hipparchus – whose rhetoric has, of course, its own very specific agenda of self-advertisement – alleges that Aratus’ debt to Eudoxus was generally doubted before his own work4, there is no reason to believe that Aratus intended to conceal the debt nor to doubt that many, at least, of Aratus’ first readers fully understood the work’s genesis, as indeed all that we know of the standard techniques of third-century poetry suggests they were expected to do. The second part of the poem, on weather-signs, is clearly indebted to a lost treatise of the fourth-century, perhaps by Theophrastus, which is known principally from a surviving prose version probably later in date than Aratus (= Theophrastus fr. VI Wimmer) 5. Aratus’ use of written sources, in a poem whose stylistic and literary techniques clearly announce it as an ‘élite’ text6, raises general questions about ‘didactic’ poetry and the place of learning in the Hellenistic period, and to these I shall return. Two prominent features of the Phainomena must first be noted, as it is in the intersection of differing modes of presentation that the most characteristic, and perhaps most interesting, literary problems arise in this text; these will form the subject of this paper. What I shall not attempt here – but what is clearly a major desideratum – is what might be termed a ‘modern Hipparchanism’, that is, a detailed examination of how Aratus’ account of the heavens exploits and/or misunderstands contemporary ‘science’. Such an examination is vital, apart from anything else, if we are to see precisely how Ara3 4

5

6

For a brief and helpful account of Hipparchus’ work cf. J. Martin, Histoire du texte des Phénomènes d’Aratos, Paris 1956, 22 – 9. The standard edition is the Teubner of C. Manitius (Leipzig 1894). Cf. 1.2.1. These ‘many’ presumably include the ‘many others’ who, according to Hipparchus (1.1.3), wrote commentaries on Aratus’ poem before him. The story in the Lives that Antigonos Gonatas ‘told’ Aratus to versify Eudoxus’ work is presumably a post-Hipparchan fiction (cf. Knaack, RE 2.393), although the king’s ‘bon mot’ eqdon|teqom poie?r t¹m Eudonom might just be a contemporary joke. 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 been an 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 Schattentafeln’, S AW 240.2 (1962). For Aratus’ ‘typically Hellenistic’ use of Homer cf. the (rather limited) surveys by 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 and understanding the Phainomena as very much a text of its time, and one which forces us to be clear about what we can and cannot know about ancient reading and writing practices. Aratus presents his poem as a rewriting of Hesiod’s Works and Days7. The opening ‘Hymn to Zeus’ (vv. 1 – 18) is replete with Hesiodic phraseology8, and the echoing and chiastic style of the first four verses not merely enacts their message – that the world 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\kassa ja· kil]mer . p\mtg d³ Di¹r jewq^leha p\mter.

From Zeus let us begin. We men never leave him unspoken: full of Zeus are all the streets, all the meeting-places of men, full is the sea and 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

8

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 surprising if the Phainomena did not contain echoes of that poem. Callimachus’ epigram on Aratus’ poem (27 Pf. = 56 GP) may have both this poem and WD in mind; I wonder whether tropos in v. 1 evokes astronomical tropai. The facts have often been documented, cf., e. g., H. Schwabl, ‘Zur Mimesis bei Arat’, in Antidosis. Festschrift fr Walther Kraus zum 70. Geburtstag, Vienna/Cologne/Graz 1972, 336 – 56 and, more briefly, Hopkinson 138 – 40. The most striking echoes are: the repeated D_a, di\, Di|r (WD 2 – 4, Phain. 1 – 4), %qqgtom (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 at Theog. 22. The ‘pun’ was, to my knowledge, first suggested in print by W. Levitan, 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 in Verse 2 of the ‘Phainomena’’, HSCP 93, 1990, 281 – 5.

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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]listar t}mg . 1c½ d] je P]qs, 1t^tula luhgsa_lgm.

Muses from Pieria, who glorify by songs, come to me, tell of Zeus your father in your singing. Because of him mortal men are unmentioned and mentioned, spoken and unspoken of, according to great Zeus’ will. For easily he makes strong, and easily he oppresses the strong, easily he diminishes the conspicuous one and magnifies the inconspicuous, and easily he makes the crooked straight and withers the proud – Zeus who thunders on high, who dwells in the highest mansions. O hearken as thou seest and 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 Hesiod’s ‘double-headed’ construction9, and it has long been observed that the gliding transitions between subjects within the Phainomena, which avoid a systematic sectioning such as is familiar from Latin didactic, must be an attempt to reproduce the archaic manner. A remarkable similarity in the metrical technique of Hesiod and Aratus, involving a deviation by Aratus from the tendencies of his age, has even been noted10. More important for our present purposes is the relationship between the subject-matter of the two poems. There is, of course, much in the Works and Days about the use of nature and the movements of the stars to regulate one’s life, both in farming and sailing, and it is to farmers and sailors, although not to them uniquely11, that Aratus directs the didaxis of his poem (vv. 7 – 9, 42, 758 ff etc.) 12. Moreover, the most famil9 Cf., e. g., J. Farrell, Vergil’s ‘Georgics’ and the Traditions of Ancient Epic, New York/Oxford 1991, 163 – 4. West (p. 136 of his edition) notes that the title Works and Days is first attested in Lucian, but ‘was no doubt established a good 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 – 109 12 At one level there is here an obvious debt to traditional modes of self-presentation by poets, cf. the related trope at Call. H. 3.170 – 82, with the remarks of P. Bing, ZPE 54, 1984, 1 – 8. Observe the difference from the proem of Nicander’s Theriaca in which the poet tells his addressee that, after instruction from Nicander, he will be respected by ‘the ploughman, the oxherd, and the woodcutter’ (three likely victims of snakebite). Nicander’s three levels, instead of 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 passages serve to explain the situation in which man currently finds himself. As much as anything, it was the aetiological focus of the Works and Days which so commended it to Hellenistic and later poets. Finally, and by way of transition to the second crucial feature of the Phainomena, we may note an obvious and pointed contrast between the ethos of the two poems. The Works and Days presents us with an allpowerful and all- seeing Zeus (cf., e. g., 267 – 9) who is concerned with 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 from toil (42 jq}xamter …) 13. The themes of concealment and hiddenness are, of course, most prominent in the myths of Pandora and the Five Ages. The Zeus of the Phainomena, however, while also being all-seeing and concerned with justice, openly assists mankind through the omnipresence 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 the whole year he thought out which stars should most of all give men signs of the seasons, so that all things should grow without fail.

Much remains hidden and further ‘progress’ depends upon Zeus’ benevolence (vv. 768 – 71, quoted below), but the situation is much more promising than that which Hesiod offered (Phain. 771 – 2): b c±q owm cemeµm !mdq_m !mavamd¹m av]kkei p\mtohem eQd|lemor, p\mtg d’ f ce s^lata va_mym.

of the knowledge which Nicander possesses; cf. his repeated rhetoric of access to privileged information (oWda, Ther. 805, 811, 818, 829) which stands in sharp contrast to Aratus. It is in details such as this that Nicander’s true difference from the ‘Hesiodic’ tradition is to be seen; that the three levels are not always consistently maintained (cf. B. Effe, Dichtung und Lehre. Untersuchungen zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts, Munich 1977, 58 n. 6) does not diminish the programmatic significance of the opening. 13 The classic discussions of the theme of ‘hiding’ in Works and Days are those of J.-P. Vernant; cf., e. g., R. L. Gordon (ed.), Myth, Religion and Society, Cambridge 1981, 43 – 79.

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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: we must merely look around14. Zeus in fact actually ‘speaks’ (k]ceim) to men15 ; the Phainomena itself is a ‘sign’ of Zeus’ benevolence, – it comes in fact as a tejl^qiom (‘evidentiary sign’) from the Muses (v. 18) – whereas the Works and Days presents itself as the necessary product of hard times. The importance of Hesiod for Aratus is, therefore, not in doubt16. The second determinative influence which has been identified in the Phainomena is early Stoicism. The extant Lives make Aratus a pupil of Zeno and a contemporary at the court of Antigonos Gonatas of Zeno’s pupil, Persaios, and it is clear from the scholia that a Stoicising interpretation of the poem set in early17. An all-pervasive and beneficent Zeus, who can be identified with nature itself, and whose stars function as helpful signs for mankind seems clearly related to the Stoic cosmic principle. Here, however, modern interpretation must tread carefully. We can hardly speak of a firm body of ‘Stoic dogma’ at a date as early as that normally supposed for the Phainomena18, and the danger of reading later theory back into the poem is thus a very real one. Nevertheless, the risk is worth taking, not merely because a Stoicising reading proves (I believe) a fruitful hermeneutic strategy, but also because it is to some extent unavoidable. A complex intertextual relationship, such as that which Aratus sets up with Hesiod’s Works and Days, is always to some 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 as to whether Aratus was more a zelotes of Homer or of Hesiod; the main thrust of the dispute will have been stylistic (cf. esp. Vita II, p. 12 Martin). For what it is 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 to this 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 widespread technique of Hellenistic poetry and the manner in which the Stoics used the evidence of archaic poetry, ‘accommodating’ it to, or seeing in it mythical foreshadowings of, Stoic theory19. Aratus’ use of Hesiod does not, therefore, have to be specifically ‘Stoic’ in inspiration (although it is difficult to explain away all the circumstantial evidence); to ‘read’ Hesiod’s Zeus, for example, as a foreshadowing of intellectual patterns familiar in Aratus’ own day was a move of a type common in the poetic tradition – there are very clear examples in, say, Attic tragedy. A Stoicising reading, however, allows us to make the best use of the comparative texts still extant. It is a lucky chance that the Hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes, who succeeded Zeno as head of the Stoic ‘school’, has survived to allow us to see how a nearly contemporary Stoic ‘accommodated’ the traditional language and forms of hymnic poetry to a 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 tradition, and this is what I shall attempt in this paper. Finally, from the poetic point of view, Aratus’ apparent ‘combination’ of Hesiod with Stoicism would be analogous to other standard techniques of mimesis; in particular, Hellenistic poets and their Roman successors constantly echo 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 the seed 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 Stoic criticism 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.), Beitrge 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 Brder”. Festschrift fr A.Th. Khoury zum 60. Geburtstag, Würzburg 1990, 577 – 97.

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2. Cosmic Poetry For the Stoics, the universe (kosmos) is order (kosmos). The word re-echoes through Cleanthes’ hymn21. The earliest poets too were believed to have 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, in the Argonautica of Apollonius, an epic poem probably composed not long after the Phainomena. Aratus’ poem is not cosmogonical in the true sense, but it is certainly cosmological, and to this extent Aratus evokes the originary voice of the archaic theologos, ‘speaker about the gods’, while writing in a very new mode. Similar literary combinations abound in the poetry of the third century. Moreover, from a very early date, notions of kosmos were closely bound up with the idea of poetry and, particularly, truth in poetry. In a famous passage of Odyssey 8, Odysseus praises the Phaeacian bard Demodocus: ‘Demodocus, I admire you beyond any man; either it was the Muse who taught you, daughter of Zeus himself, or else it was Apollo. With what utter rightness ( jat± j|slom) you sing of the fortunes of the Achaeans – all they achieved and suffered and toiled over – as though you yourself were there or had talked with one who was! Come, change now to a later theme – the wooden horse and its fashioning ( j|slom)… If you recount all this for me in the fashion it deserves ( jat± lo?qam), then I will tell the world forthwith how the god has blessed you ungrudgingly with the 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, as they 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: The Cosmic Fragments (Cambridge 1954) 311 – 12, and H. Diller, ‘Der vorphilosophische 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, The Poet’s Voice, Cambridge 1991, 57 – 9.

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even clearer in the following passage from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes in which the young god first sings for Apollo: ‘He sang of the immortal gods and the dark earth, how they came to be in the first place and how each one was allotted his portion (lo?qa). First of the gods he honoured Mnemosyne in his song, the mother of the Muses, for she had received the son of Maia in her share. Then the glorious son of Zeus hymned the immortal gods according to their age and he told how each was born; he told everything in due order ( jat± j|slom) as he played the lyre in his arm’. (vv. 427 – 33)

Here, again in an originating cosmogony, the young god sings first of the division (lo?qa) of powers, and then of each god in turn, jat± j|slom. Notions of partition and of sequential order are of course very closely related, and as the passage from Odyssey 8 suggests, it is in that proper sequential order that the guarantee of truth lies25. These guarantees are a result of the sense that the kosmos of the song reflects the kosmos of the ‘real world’. This has been well described by George Walsh: ‘kosmos … an order of the world to which song must correspond as representation … kosmos in the song and kosmos of the world should not differ. The song viewed as an articulation of parts stands for one viewed as a representation of serially ordered facts, for the true song must reflect the world’s articulation with its own’26. In singing of the stars and of nature – for the Stoic a perfectly ordered kosmos – Aratus’ poem is its own guarantee of truth. A poem ‘about the kosmos’ must be a poem jat± j|slom. Moreover, in the Works and Days Aratus had an authorising model which also foregrounded order and sequence, as Hesiod sets out for us the passage of the year. The centrality of kosmos in its manifold senses sheds particular light on two important passages of the Phainomena. The first is the acrostic passage discovered by J.-M. Jacques (Phain. 783 – 7) 27: 25 I suspect that order and sequence are also relevant to the morphe of words at Od. 8.170 and 11.367 (where truth and falsehood are explicitly involved). I do not, of course, mean to suggest that kata kosmon and ou kata kosmon always involve 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, notion. 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 poetic kosmos, 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’,

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Keptµ l³m jahaq^ te peq· tq_tom Glaq 1oOsa eudi|r j’ eUg, keptµ d³ ja· ew l\k’ 1qeuhµr pmeulat_g . paw_ym d³ ja· !lbke_,si jeqa_air t]tqatom 1j tqit\toio v|yr !lemgm¹m 5wousa A³ 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 fine weather; if thin and her light very red, there will be wind; if, however, she is on the large side and her horns are dull and her light weak on the third and fourth nights, she is being dulled by the approach of the South Wind or of rain.

Some years after Jacques’ article, W. Levitan28 identified a further acrostic in the same area of the poem (vv. 803 – 6 p÷sa) and, more tentatively, a third (partial) acrostic immediately afterwards (vv. 808 – 12 seleg, suggesting sÞma and cognate verbs); recently, Michael Haslam has refined Levitan’s insight by noting l]sg, ‘mid-way’, split between the openings of vv. 807 – 829. Whereas Jacques and others30 connected the 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) and a programmatic marker of style and nothing more, Levitan rightly sought to make sense of it in terms of the central concerns of the poem. He noted that it followed very closely upon a passage which seems to invite us to look for such things (Phain. 768 – 72) 31: p\mta c±q oupy 1j 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.

28 29 30

31

A&A 13, 1967, 80 – 95 and (with good bibliography) E. Courtney, ‘Greek and Latin acrostichs’, Phil. 134, 1990, 3 – 13. ‘Plexed artistry: Aratean acrostics’, Glyph 5, 1979, 55 – 68. ‘Hidden signs: Aratus Diosemeiai 46 ff., Vergil ‘Georgics’ 1. 424 ff.’, HSCP 94, 1992, 199 – 204. 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 cultura greca da Omero all’et ellenistica. Scritti in onore di B. Gentili, Rome 1993, III 971 – 80. That the acrostic remained concealed until 1960 merely confirms Aratus’ words. On this passage see the helpful exegesis of Erren 255 – 7. The verses leave room for progress in theoretical and empirical science, because although the ‘signs’ are already present in the kosmos, they do not yet ‘signify’ because men have not yet discovered the sign.

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For not yet does Zeus allow us to know all things, but much remains hidden; if he wishes, Zeus will grant us this too presently, for he openly brings aid to the race of mortals, appearing on every side, and everywhere revealing his signs.

Moreover, the successful searching out of acrostic patterns recreates the activity of the anonymous ‘discoverer’ of the constellations who perceived the usefulness of joining together those stars which would make meaningful figures (vv. 373 – 82) 32. Just as this ‘discoverer’ revealed patterns which had always been there, and were ‘put there by god’, so a reader discovers meaningful ‘signs’ in the apparent randomness of the first letters of a succession of hexameters. The notion of 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 been used 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, illustrating the reciprocal kosmos which I have already discussed. Even if we wish to deny that Aratus’ choice of language carries a programmatic charge in the context of contemporary poetry, – and both chronology and a dearth of other comparative evidence make the matter at best uncertain34 —, the acrostic shows us how the pattern of the universe is reflected 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 is a central theme and in which there is an important, if shifting, relationship between the ordo visible in the skies and the ordo inscribed by the poet in his poem. The second passage which I wish to discuss under this head is Aratus’ 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 Phaenomena 367 – 385’, Antichthon 1, 1967, 12 – 15, and M. L. B. Pendergraft, ‘On the nature of the constellations: Aratus, Ph. 367 – 85’, Eranos 88, 1990, 99 – 106. Pendergraft’s interesting discussion rather overstates the ‘inconsistency’ between the namer’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 Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica Book III, Cambridge 1989, 37.

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a transition between the description of the individual fixed stars and that of the four celestial circles (Phain. 454 – 61): oR d’ 1pil·n %kkoi p]mt’ !st]qer oqd³m blo?oi p\mtohem eQd~kym duoja_deja dime}omtai. oqj #m 5t’ eQr %kkour bq|ym 1pitejl^qaio je_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 all through the twelve figures [of the Zodiac]. Not by looking at other stars could you mark the paths of these, since all move about. Long are the periods of their revolutions, and very far apart the signs of their conjunctions35. Of them I have no longer confidence: may I be competent to tell of the circles of the fixed stars and the signs in heaven.

In this praeteritio Aratus alludes to a notoriously difficult astronomical problem36, the discussion of which would certainly not be in keeping with 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 astronomical incompetence37: the planets (excluding the sun and the moon) are not in fact relevant to an account of star- and weathersigns intended (at least notionally) to be of use to farmers and sailors38. This, however, does not explain why Aratus chose to call attention to his ‘omission’ in such a prominent and striking way. Part at least of the explanation, I suggest, lies in the notion of kosmos. Although the planets are, of course, as much a part of the universe as are the fixed stars – indeed they are much more influential ‘signs’ according to certain ancient views – Aratus stresses their ‘uncertainty’ in order to emphasise the 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 eternal and regular recurrence in the face of moving time (Phain. 451 – 3): taOt\ je hg^saio paqeqwol]mym 1miaut_m 2ne_gr pak_myqa . t± c±q ja· p\mta l\k’ avtyr oqqam` ew 1m\qgqem !c\klata mujt¹r Qo}sgr.

These stars you can see returning in orderly succession as the years pass, for all these images are very firmly fixed in the heaven through the moving night.

You cannot, however, use the other stars to find the planets because the latter are all metanastai, ‘vagrants’. Not only can the poet and his readers not be ‘confident’ (v. 460) where to look to see the planets, but the same verse also suggests that they are not the kind of signs which inspire confidence that we can read them39. We may compare vv. 1142 – 4 where 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 them and to act upon our reading. Confidence comes from the repeated pattern (kosmos) of successful ‘sign-reading’; in this, the argument runs, the planets fail us. Such an interpretation anchors the passage firmly within the limited bounds of Aratus’ ‘didactic program’; poets, after all, only use an explicit praeteritio for subjects they do not wish to pass by. It is striking that in his Hymn to Zeus Cleanthes too contrasts the fixed kosmos of nature with the mad changeability and rush of the kakoi, the ‘bad men’: ‘[Reason, logos] is shunned and neglected by the bad among mortal men, the wretched, who ever yearn for the possession of goods yet neither see nor hear god’s universal law, by obeying which they could lead a good life in partnership with intelligence. Instead, devoid of intelligence, they rush into this evil or that, some in their belligerent quest for fame, others with an unbridled bent for acquisition, others for leisure and the pleasurable acts of the body … despite travelling hither and thither in burning quest of the opposite. (Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus 22 – 31, trans. Long & Sedley)

The kakoi are, of course, very different from Aratus’ planets, but the two play structurally related roles in their respective poems; both carry the 39 The unusual genitive after haqsak]or (cf. Erren 302) helps the double sense here. 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 difficulty of explaining the movement of the planets was not a serious threat to the idea of an ordered universe, but within the rhetoric of his poem Aratus gives their ‘quirkiness’ a particular importance. Finally, the passage on the planets also finds an instructive parallel in the archaic poem which we have seen to be central for the Phainomena, namely Hesiod’s Works and Days. The catalogue of ‘days’ concludes with a brief glance at the days which have not been mentioned (WD 822 – 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 are days of changeable omen, doomless, with nothing to offer. Different people commend 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 central contrast between days about which something certain can be said, i. e. the days of Hesiod’s catalogue (vv. 768 – 81), and days which ‘give an uncertain sound’, which may turn out good or bad, and are therefore not suitable material for ‘didactic poetry’. Hesiod’s poem ends (WD 826 – 8) with an affirmation of the power of knowledge to overcome uncertainty, an uncertainty that is a central principle of men’s lives (WD 483 – 4). That knowledge, and the power to offer it to others, is precisely what the poet claims for himself 40. Aratus’ poem carries this claim further by eliminating uncertainty not only from the poem, but also from the world itself.

3. Authority and Truth How and if poets spoke ‘the truth’ is a central concern of both the explicit 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 re40 Who better fits the prescription of the final three verses of WD than the poet himself ? Notice the echo of these Hesiodic verses in Archestratus’ ‘didactic’ culinary 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 tradition 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 Hesiodic Muses is the way in which the poet presents himself in the Works and Days. The authority of what Hesiod says in that poem stems from the authority invested in the traditional poetic form which he employs41, from the autobiographical mode of the poem – Hesiod knows these things, because he has experienced them – and from the Muses42. All three come together in a perhaps unexpected way when Hesiod turns to instructions about sailing: ‘When you want to escape debt and joyless hunger by turning your blightwitted 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, I have never yet sailed the broad sea, except to Euboea from Aulis, the way the Achaeans once came when they waited through the winter and gathered a great army from holy Greece against Troy of the fair women. There to the funeral games for warlike Amphidamas and to Chalcis I crossed, and many were the prizes announced and displayed by the sons of that valiant; where I may say that I was victorious in poetry and won a tripod with ring handles. That I dedicated to the Muses of Helicon, in the original place where they set me on the path of fine singing. That is all my experience of dowelled ships, but even so I will tell the design of Zeus the aegis-bearer, since the Muses have taught me to make song without 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 autobiografica 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 where the poet has no personal expertise43. The idea, of course, is not far from the blind Demodocus’ ability to tell well events at Troy, ‘as though he himself had been there or had heard from another who had’ (Od. 8. 491), but the Hesiodic passage marks an important statement of program, particularly when viewed from the perspective of later ages. Plutarch indeed excised vv. 650 – 62 from Hesiod’s poem as containing ‘nothing of value’ (oqd³m wqgst|m) 44, and Horace amusingly carried the Hesiodic position to its ‘logical’ conclusion in the Ars Poetica, where he undertakes to teach poetry, though he himself cannot be a poet because he is sane and therefore lacks the principal prerequisite of the poet (vv. 301 – 8) 45. Although Aratus does not emulate the Hesiodic importance attached to the autobiography of the poet as an authorising mode – perhaps because this would ill suit the Stoicising stress on the centrality of the fixed order of nature in which no individual is particularly important – it will become clear that the Hesiodic tradition is here, as everywhere, crucial for the Hellenistic poet. In fact, the gap which the Hesiodic verses opened allowed philosophers and ‘experts’ eventually to drive poets from the field. Whereas Parmenides and Empedocles had continued in the Hesiodic mode of using hexameters to offer access to truth and the avoidance of deceit46, the twin developments of prose writing and the idea of intellectual specialisation have always been seen as sounding the death knell for truly ‘didactic’ poetry. It was not, of course, that the use of metre alone was sufficient to condemn a text to the realm of ‘fanciful poetry’; the substance of what was written remained crucial. Thus Plato (Theaetetus 152e) can make a distinction between oR sovo_ (Parmenides, Protagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles) and oR poigta_ (Epicharmus, 43 R. M. Rosen has recently, and to my mind unconvincingly, interpreted these verses ‘programmatically’, in the context of Hesiod’s creation of his own poetic space vis-à-vis Homer, cf. ‘Poetry and sailing in Hesiod’s Works and Days’, CA 9, 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 generic marker, 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. Traglia, ‘Reminiscenze empedoclee nei Fenomeni di Arato’, in Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni, Turin 1963, 382 – 93.

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Homer), a distinction which clearly does not depend upon the use of metre, and Aristotle denied metre almost any significance in determining who was and was not a poet (Poetics Chapter 1, on Homer and Empedocles) 47; for Aristotle, ‘didactic poets’ were either theologoi (e. g. Hesiod) or physiologoi (e. g. Empedocles) or even (Met. N 4, 1091b 8) ‘partly theologoi’, depending on the mode of discourse used. Nevertheless, the claim of ‘metrically defined’ poetry to convey ‘useful information’ came under attack from a number of directions, most famously from Plato’s assault on the lack of knowledge of first the rhapsode and then the poet himself (Ion, Republic 10). It was the pleasure and sense of being charmed that we derive from poetry, as defined metrically, that made its lies so dangerous for Plato, and he ingeniously demanded that ‘the friends of the poets’ should defend its usefulness ‘without the aid of metre’ (Rep. 10.607d-e). It is both interesting and amusing to find Hipparchus precisely blaming the charm (charis) of Aratus’ verses for their general success in convincing people of their truth (1.1.7); this ‘Platonic’ tradition in the attack upon ‘didactic poetry’ is what Lucretius turns on its head when he uses the simile of the honeyed cup proudly to advertise the use of poetic charm for serious philosophic purposes (DRN 1.935 – 50 = 4.11 – 25). Manilius too gives the old charge a new 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: my theme 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 series of prose ‘handbooks’, technai, which shed important light upon developing notions of written authority48.

47 Cf. S. Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle, London 1987, 71; ‘Empedocles’ verse writings [are cited] to represent the use of language for directly affirmative purposes – any use of language, that is, which purports to offer true statements or propositions about some aspect of reality.’ Cf. below on poetry’s generalising power. 48 The standard discussion is M. Fuhrmann, Das systematische Lehrbuch, Göttingen 1960, 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 are important for a consideration of the Phainomena, namely the problem of the author’s knowledge, and the scope of a ‘didactic’ work. Whereas the so-called Rhetoric to Alexander49 and Xenophon’s Hipparchikos (On the Cavalry Commander) begin in mediis rebus and authority rests presumably both upon the nature of the work itself and the known position of the author,50 Xenophon begins his Peri Hippikes (On Horseriding) with an appeal to his long experience of the art and his desire to pass on the fruits of this knowledge to his philoi51. Here we can sense a desire to avoid the persona of ‘professional specialist’, a desire confirmed by the claim at the end of the work that it is directed towards the needs of the ordinary rider, the idiotes52. Xenophon is keen to set his work within the traditional frame of aristocratic philia, a frame which could be represented as threatened by newer, more ‘professional’, sources of knowledge. This analysis is, I think, confirmed by the closing sections of the same writer’s Kynegetikos (On Hunting). At the end of Chapter 12 Xenophon adopts what may reasonably be called a Hesiodic voice: ‘For among the ancients the companions of Cheiron to whom I referred learnt many noble lessons in their youth, beginning with hunting; from these lessons there sprang in them great virtue (arete), for which they are admired even today. That all desire Virtue is obvious, but because they must toil if they are to gain her, the many fall away. For the achievement of her is hidden in obscurity, whereas the toils inseparable from her are manifest. … But in the presence of Virtue men do many evil and ugly things, supposing that they are not regarded by her because they do not see her. Yet she is present everywhere because she is immortal, and she honours those who are good to her, but casts off the bad. Therefore, if men knew that she is watching them, they would be impatient to undergo

49 50 51

52

On specifically rhetorical handbooks see T. Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece, Baltimore-London 1991. I exclude the spurious prefatory letter. This in fact becomes the standard form, cf., e. g., the second-century grammatical tchne of Dionysius Thrax; a related form is found in the fragmentary technical treatises of Theophrastus. Ovid uses precisely the same rhetoric in his didactic mode, cf. AA 1.29, usus opus mouet hoc: uati parete perito, 3.791 – 2. The identity of Xenophon’s young philoi is disputed (cf. K. Widdra, Xenophon. Reitkunst, Berlin 1965, 72; Delebecque, Budé edition, pp. 10 – 12), but it is the language of philia which is important for present purposes. This final sentence is omitted in one of our two best witnesses to the text, and was condemned by Wilamowitz (Hermes 40, 1905, 146 – 7), but is defended (though for different reasons) by both Delebecque and Widdra. The considerations 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 would achieve her’ (On Hunting 12.18 – 19, 21 – 2, trans. Marchant).

After this passage, which looks back to Hesiod’s Arete, ‘in front of which the immortal gods have placed sweat, and a long, steep path, rough at first, leads to it’ (WD 289 – 91), but also seems to anticipate Aratus’ watching Dike, the concluding chapter of the work is an attack upon sophistai who, while professing to teach arete, write books on silly subjects full of ‘empty pleasures’ but no arete; if they teach anything, it is bad. Xenophon then goes on: ‘I am a layman (idiotes), but I know (oWda) that the best thing is to be taught what is good by one’s own nature, and the next best thing is to get it from those who really know something good instead of being taught by masters of the art of deception. I daresay that I do not express myself in the language of a sophist (sesovisl]myr); in fact, that is not my object: my object is rather to give utterance to wholesome thoughts that will meet the needs of readers well educated in virtue. … For I wish my work not to seem useful, but to be so, that it may stand for all time unrefuted. The sophists talk to deceive and write for their own gain, and do no good to anyone’ (On Hunting 13.4 – 5, 7 – 8, trans. Marchant, modified).

Xenophon solves the problem of how to present his ‘technical’ knowledge of hunting, a knowledge he is keen to display, without incurring the odium of being a ‘professional’, by distinguishing between kinds of art. He can be an ‘expert’ in a ‘good art’ and remain an idiotes who does not write sesovisl]myr. The use of the words has changed, but the Hesiodic inheritance is manifest. Both the care taken by Xenophon’s rhetoric and the obvious vulnerability of his didactic position point to the importance of the issues involved. To anticipate somewhat, one of the most telling aspects of the Phainomena is the complete elision of this traditional didactic rhetoric of truth and deceit. Aratus imposes a total system upon us; deceit is not a possibility because what is described is t± vaim|lema53. How different are both the task and the rhetoric of Lucretius who must argue from the seen to the unseen and appeal time 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’ Phainomena in the opening chapter (devoted to Lucretius) of G. B. Conte, Generi e Lettori (Milan 1991 = Genres and Readers, Baltimore 1994). For Conte, Aratus’ poem is ‘un brillante gioco tecnico- artistico’ (p. 19) in which the style and virtuosity of the text work against its contents; he contrasts the (undoubted) ‘integralità 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 discussed, a strategy which becomes standard in such works and is obviously designed to convey a sense of the completeness of the knowledge being offered55 ; the author then undertakes to discuss the sub-divisions one- by-one ( jahû 4m 6jastom). In On Horse-riding Xenophon notes that he will cover much the same ground as an existing treatise by one Simon, but he will also fill in all the gaps (‘I shall attempt to illuminate all that he has omitted’, 1.1), and in On Hunting, he undertakes to give a full account of each piece of equipment needed (2.2). In On the Cavalry Commander, however, he finds it necessary to deny both the wish for and the possibility of ‘omnicomprehensiveness’: ‘[the cavalry commander] must always act upon what chance offers56, and with 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 to know all of the future …’ (On the Cavalry Commander 9.1 – 2).

Here, as before, we can see Xenophon caught between the conflicting demands of the old and the new. Elsewhere in the same treatise he follows general hypomnemata (‘pieces of advice’) with the full details (6jasta), quite in the manner of the rhetorical treatises57. So too in his Constitution of the Spartans, which begins ‘unprofessionally’ with a kind of chance intellectual curiosity (‘Once upon a time it occurred to me … and I fell to wondering …’) 58, order, sequence and completeness are

55

56 57 58

paper has, I hope, demonstrated, Aratus has his own ‘integralità di significazione’, different though it is from Lucretius’. The virtuoso Hellenistic style is itself a manifestation of control and ordering, of kosmos. Conte’s view of Aratus is, of course, the standard one; cf., e. g., Farrell (above n. 11) 328, ‘[the Phainomena] makes its philosophical subject the paradoxical foil for its poetic qualities’. Cf. Aristotle’s criticism of earlier writers of technai for their lack of completeness, Rhet. 1. 1354a 11 – 16. The ‘apotheosis’ of this strategy is to be found in the Rhetorica ad Herrenium which impresses its omnicomprehensiveness upon us throughout the work; cf. the excellent survey of E. Rawson, ‘The introduction of logical organisation in Roman prose literature’, PBSR 46, 1978, 12 – 34 (= Roman Culture and Society. Collected Papers, Oxford 1991, 324 – 51). Or ‘come up with what happens to meet the situation’, reading 1mmoe?m (Madvig) for poie?m. Cf. 1.9, 3.1 Contrast the Poroi which begins with an unapologetic announcement of systematic enquiry. Clearly, the Xenophontic corpus contains different kinds of work, which must be distinguished (by audience?).

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overtly exhibited59. There is, then, a ‘rhetoric of completeness’ in the handbooks, 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 of his work as ‘serious history’ in comparison with the entertaining display-pieces of others (1.22). It should not now surprise us to find Hipparchus using precisely the same ‘rhetoric of completeness’ in the introduction 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 comprehensiveness 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 tell them all, and in any case Aratus wants us to observe for ourselves and to find our own ‘signs’. As so often, however, we may connect a feature of the Phainomena both with Aratus’ philosophical project and with the tradition of ‘didactic poetry’, for lack of completeness has always presented a problem for anyone wishing to understand poetic didaxis in any simple way. Thus, for example, Malcolm Heath60 has adduced the ‘astonishingly lacunose’ information in the Works and Days as an argument against seeing it as seriously ‘intended to instruct’. This argument is, I believe, open to many objections61, but the observation of poetry’s ‘incompleteness’ does throw light upon the poetic didactic mode, if we connect the ‘rhetoric of completeness’ in Thucydides and the handbooks 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, deals with the general, t± jah|kou, and is ‘more philosophical than history’, not merely because it tells of events linked by a causal nexus of necessity or probability, but also because we can extrapolate from, say, the fate of Oedipus 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 military matters accounts for the length of Xenophon’s work, which also by implication ‘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 poetry, which enables verses to be lifted out of their original context and applied to wholly new situations or taken to express general truths rather than specific, character-bound attitudes, encourages such extrapolation; this is indeed what lies at the base of ancient and modern practices of anthologising. Such transfer is in fact explicitly encouraged in Plutarch’s treatise How the Young Man Should Study Poetry, where the Stoic Chrysippus is in fact cited as a precedent (and Hesiod is the poet concerned) 62. The way in which we should approach the question of comprehensiveness in (non-mimetic) ‘didactic poetry’ is, I suggest, analogous to Aristotle’s treatment of mimetic poetry. If a poet tells us how to make a plough, it would be foolish to believe that we can extrapolate from this to the detailed carpentry necessary for a wagon. On the other hand, the plough, the work involved in making it, and the moral conditions which make it necessary, can stand, pars pro toto, as exemplary of the total working conditions of the farmer. ‘Didactic poetry’ does not have to be comprehensive to be ‘didactic’. It gives us examples, exemplary signs, from which we will be able to take our starting-point. The handbook, on the other hand, seeks to offer us a complete techne; in using the handbook, we give up active participation in the acquisition (or confirmation) of knowledge and entrust ourselves to the guidance of an expert63. Aratus was not, as Eudoxus was, an expert astronomer. I have noted before that there is no good reason to think that Aratus ever sought to conceal his debt to the scientist. Indeed, in an age when not only the specialisation of knowledge had triumphed, but – and this was an important factor in that triumph – gknowledge’ was now contained in books and catalogued in libraries, the use of expert written sources was the only way in which the poet could satisfactorily meet the ‘How do you know?’ challenge. An Eratosthenes could be both an expert and (in a small way) a poet, but that was exceptional. Aratus, on the other hand, was an ‘expert’ or ‘professional’ poet, and part of his expertise lay in knowing where to find things out; like Callimachus, 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 the same as Plutarch’s; was the philosopher attempting a joke? 63 Here again (cf. above) we can see an important difference between Aratus and Nicander who promises completeness (Ther. 837), even if that promise is unfulfilled (cf. Effe op. cit. 61 n. 12).

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were now to be found in libraries64. Plato might not have been satisfied with Aratus’ solution, but Hipparchus acknowledges that it might not be 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 at base a serious response to a crucial question of poetics. Aratus, of course, was not alone. Whereas Apollonius’ Orpheus is given the characteristics of an archaic theologos, his blind prophet Phineus speaks the language of didactic as he gives an account of Pontic geography, and he naturally relies upon written, prose sources65. Callimachus went further in the Aitia and sometimes named his prose sources66, a difference which is perhaps as much one of genre as of poetic judgement, but which throws a final light upon Aratus’ procedure. The constellations were ‘discovered’ and named long ago by a nameless man of high intellect (vv. 373 – 82). In these purely informational terms, Aratus has nothing of his own to contribute, not because he knows nothing of astronomy, but because the truth of what he sings is self-evident, once someone has taught us where to look. This is Aratus’ other response to the ‘How do you know?’ challenge: everyone knows – or could do, if they were willing to read god’s signs.

4. The Stars Look Down Stars are inescapable, and as such collect an extensive mythology. In many cultures they have been regarded as the eyes of god67, and at an early date Greeks adopted catasterism as an explanation for the presence of 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, The Well-Read Muse, Göttingen 1988. 65 On Phineus cf. my The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies, Cambridge 1993, 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 the considerations raised here, it is perhaps tempting to associate Phineus’ disclaimer of ‘comprehensiveness’ (Arg. 2.311 – 16, 388 – 91) with the didactic mode; for the other considerations operative there cf. Hunter loc. cit. 66 Frr. 75.54 (Xenomedes) and (?) 92 (Leandros). Fr. 75.55 and 76 show Calllimachus 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 we die?’ (vv. 830 – 2) points to a popular folklore belief; perhaps it is what mothers told their young children. In any event, the idea that the psyche escaped to the upper air after death was a familiar one at least as early as the fifth century,68 and the popular imagination presumably contrived many aetiologies for these objects of wonder69. The idea that the stars are ‘heaven’s eyes’ is prominent in an epigram which may be roughly contemporary with Aratus, though it is ascribed to Plato70 : !st]qar eQsahqe?r, !stµq 1l|r . eUhe cemo_lgm oqqam|r, ¢r pokko?r fllasim eQr s³ bk]py.

‘You look at the stars, my star. Would that I were the heaven, so that I could gaze at you with many eyes’.

At a quite different intellectual level, the Platonic Socrates sees the purpose of formal astronomy as the pursuit of ‘truth’, not (or not importantly) to provide weather information for ‘farmers, sailors and generals’71. Thus, at an early date, the existence and regularity of movement of the heavenly bodies became a standard argument in philosophy for the 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 important elaborations of these ideas about the stars. Two Platonic texts are particularly relevant. In the Epinomis, a work emanating from ‘Platonic circles’, we find the notion of stars as living beings which distinguish the good and the bad among us and which report to the gods everything that happens on earth (985a-b) 73. In the Timaeus, the fixed stars are eternal divine beings (40b), and to each was assigned by the demiurge a soul which rides upon it ‘as on a chariot’ (41e). After death the just man returns to his own star, whereas the bad man goes through successive de68 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 Greek and 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 the specialised 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 the fifth 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 culmination of these developments, we may note an account in Plutarch of the 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 the moon was rising bright and clear, while the sea everywhere was without a wave as if a path were being opened for their course, he bethought himself that the eye of Justice is not a single eye only, but through all these eyes of hers God watches in every direction the deeds that are done here and there 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 be situated. The most familiar reflection of these ideas in a non-technical context is the prologue of Plautus’ Rudens, an adaptation of a play of Diphilus from (?) the late fourth century75. The prologue is delivered by Arcturus 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 disparat qui facta hominum moresque, pietatem et fidem noscamus, ut quemque adiuuet opulentia. qui falsas litis falsis testimoniis petunt quique in iure abiurant pecuniam, eorum referimus nomina exscripta ad Iouem; cottidie ille scit quis hic quaerat malum: qui hic litem apisci postulant peiiurio mali, 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 normally 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 Rudens’, CQ 36, 1942, 10 – 14 [= Kleine Beitrge II 37 – 44].

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An attempt to distinguish what is Greek and what Roman here is not germane to the present enquiry; moreover, the ‘sinners’ of vv. 13 – 14 suggest 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 the stars and the maintenance of justice. In a famous passage of the Phainomena Aratus tells a story, a logos, in which Dike is literally a star, and so it is worth going back to the Works and Days, the central Greek text on dike and the central model for Aratus, to see whether we can see here a further case where Aratus has run Hesiod and later thought together. Hesiod’s strongest argument for the practice of justice is the impossibility of escaping Zeus’ eye: ‘You too, my lords, attend to this justice-doing of yours. For close at hand among men there are immortals taking note of all those who afflict each other with crooked judgements, heedless of the gods’ punishment. Thrice countless 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 is that maiden Right (Dike), daughter of Zeus, esteemed and respected by the gods in Olympus; and whenever someone does her down with crooked abuse, at once she sits by Zeus her father, Kronos’ son, and reports the men’s unrighteous mind, so that the people may pay for the crimes of their lords who balefully divert justice from its course by pronouncing it crooked.’ (WD 248 – 62, trans. M.L. West)

Dike is not one of the ‘countless immortal guardians’, but such an idea is at least not a very bold move from the Hesiodic text. Moreover, if Dike is to be made a star, as in Aratus’ myth, then perhaps Aratus ‘read’ or ‘constructed’ Hesiod’s ‘countless immortal watchers clad in air’ as the countless stars of heaven76. If this suggestion is correct, it would not mean that this is what Hesiod actually meant77, or that Aratus necessarily understood Hesiod in this way; rather Hesiod is read in such a way that his authority reinforces a later conception of Justice and the Stars. The older text is read as foreshadowing the later. Hesiod’s Myth of Ages presents a five-stage progression (or regression) towards the present misery 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 and Eirene, 5qcû ¡qe}ousi jatahmgto?si bqoto?si. The verb is something of a mystery, but the ancients glossed it as vuk\tteim (cf. West ad loc.), and this might aid 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 has most fully demonstrated78, by a reciprocal alternation between dike and hybris, and the long-noticed similarities between life in the Golden Age 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 has taken over Hesiod’s account79, and with it the gradual retreat of Dike; in Aratus this retreat becomes a gradual physical removal of personified Dike 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 Hesiod’s Aidos and Nemesis, Dike abandoned men to their fates. Unlike her Hesiodic counterparts, however, we can still see Dike when we look up in the night-sky. Aratus reduced Hesiod’s five ages to three, not principally to avoid the potentially embarrassing ‘juster and better’ age of heroes which succeeded the Bronze Age, but in part to fit his scheme of a kosmos shaped and decided ‘long ago’. The age of the Trojan and Theban wars, Hesiod’s heroic age, was not of the necessary antiquity; like the myths of Plato, Aratus’ myth of Dike must be set before ‘recorded history’. Moreover, the catasterism of Dike also carries exemplary force for the creation of the kosmos. We have already noted that in Plato’s Timaeus the just man returns after death to the star which the demiurge had allotted to him; there he leads a ‘blessed and congenial life’80. The catasterism of Dike is obviously parallel to this, and here again, I think, we may see a blending of Hesiod with later philosophy. In the Works and Days, the men of the Golden Age – with whom Aratus’ Dike is so closely associated – after death become ‘divine and revered spirits on the earth, good spirits, protectors from evil, watchers (phylakes) over mortal men, givers of wealth’ (WD 122 – 3, 126). They become daimones who ‘guard, keep their eye on’ mortal men; there is no reason to believe, as Wilamowitz did81, that Hesiod identified these daimones with the ‘countless immortal watchers/guardians’ of WD 252 – 5, but the similarity of wording might 78 Cf. Myth and Thought among the Greeks, London 1983, 3 – 72 79 The introductory k|cor … %kkor (v. 100) picks up 6teqor … k|cor which introduces Hesiod’s myth (WD 106). My account differs considerably from that of Erren 37 – 9, who, if I understand his argument, sees Aratus’ myth as an exemplary 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 been interpolated back into the passage on the daimones. Just as, therefore, Aratus may have constructed Hesiod’s ‘countless guardians’ as the stars, so I think the Dike myth shows us Aratus reading Hesiod’s Golden Age as the origin of the stars. To modern scholars such a reading may seem perverse, and to avoid misunderstanding I should perhaps stress again that there is, of course, no question of seeking to establish what Aratus thought Hesiod ‘really meant’; the earlier text is there to be exploited, not defended. Hellenistic didaxis is at base the interpretation of prior texts; as such, it is merely a special instance of the most prominent feature 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 that predecessor ‘meant’. What would a Stoic have made of Aratus’ myth? We are told that Chrysippus held that ‘men are changed into gods’ and that the stars are gods83, but at least one recent analysis has noted that this myth hardly seems a model of Stoic pronoia and has labelled it ‘a foreign body in the otherwise optimistic Phainomena’84. What such an analysis misses is the kind of optimism which Aratus promulgates. It is an optimism based on the benevolence of the guiding cosmic principle, which hymnal style calls Zeus. This is a benevolence evidenced by the signs which god offers to man as a help, not by a particularly ‘optimistic’ view of man’s current situation or of human morality. We should all do the best we can and use what god offers us, but without particular expectation (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 it means (although I have obvious sympathy with attempts to link it to the Golden Age), and because I think that my analysis of how Aratus has used the Hesiodic Myth 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 Hesiod-Interpretation in Arats Phainomena’, RhM 113, 1970, 167 – 82; G. Luck, ‘Aratea’, AJP 97, 1976, 213 – 34. Effe revives and refines Pasquali’s view, expressed in ‘Das Proömium des Arat’, in WAQITES Friedrich Leo zum sechzigsten Geburtstag dargebracht, Berlin 1911, 113 – 22, that the reference is to the primal wise 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 inevitably remain, bad and unhappy’85, then, when allowances have been made for the different meaning of moral terms, Hesiod and the Stoics to some extent come together, or – and this is crucial for Aratus – can be read as coming 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’ catalogue87, Cleanthes condemns the ‘disordered’ pursuit of (political) reputation, (commercial) profit and (bodily) pleasures. Both Stoic doctrine and the traditional catalogue form suggest that ‘the bad among mortal men’ (v. 22) covers pretty much all of mankind – except for the occasional Stoic sage – and it is hardly fanciful to see here a debt to the language 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 someone whose work falls short looks towards another, towards a rich man who hastens (spe}dei) to plough and plant and manage his household well, then neighbour vies with neighbour as he hastens (spe}domt’) to wealth: this strife 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 a vain attempt to escape the cosmic logos. What both poets share, of course, 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 expects his readers to do. We live in corrupt times, but nature works towards what is good and we must seek to discover that and to live in accordance with it. Knowing about the stars and weather-signs can only help us; neither stars, nor weather-signs, nor the myth of Dike, however, 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’ ‘inherently double aspect as both points of light and conventional figures’88. This is particularly the case with an author more concerned with the individual stars than with the overall movements and relationships in the heavens89. Even if the whole apparatus of aetiological catasterism is abandoned in favour of ‘pure science’, traces of the former are likely to linger in the less technical parts of any discussion. If we ask where Aratus drew distinctions within his poem between different kinds of material, then no absolutely clear answer will emerge, but certain suggestive patterns can 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 qualification eQ 1te¹m d^, ‘if the story is true’. This phrase can, of course, mean many different things90, and is here probably serving more than one purpose – marking, for example, an unusual version of the myth, a version which gives prominence to the benevolence of Zeus. In the context of Aratus’ didactic poem, however, it is not simply that the phrase ‘serves to enhance the objective tone proper to this kind of poetry’91, but rather that it stands here prominently to mark the first introduction of what cannot be seen, but must be narrated. This distinction lies at the very heart 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 helpful to label the story of the Bears as ‘myth’ rather than ‘astronomy’, but it is more important to see how Aratus uses this distinction in those parts of 88 G.O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford 1988, 216 – 17. Hutchinson’s discussion of Aratus is a sympathetic account of certain stylistic features of the work with which I am not concerned in this paper. Hutchinson is rightly much concerned with the confrontation of ‘the astronomical’ and ‘the mythical’, but he does not consider how Aratus suggests we distinguish the two. For Aratus’ poetic imagination cf. also Pendergraft art. cit. 104 – 6 and R. Caldini Montanari, ‘Illusione e realtà nel cielo dei poeti’, Prometheus 19, 1993, 183 – 210. 89 For this distinction cf. the helpful remarks of A. Stückelberger, ‘Sterngloben und 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 of disbelief in Euripides and others’, PCPS 22, 1976, 60 – 89 [= Collected Papers 236 – 64]. 91 Stinton, Collected Papers 240.

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his poem where it is applicable; in the weather-signs, of course, there is almost no ‘narrative’ in this sense because the aetiological apparatus is no longer relevant. Many of the most prominent ‘myths’ of the poem are indeed marked 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 the stress on descent and the family group, with its suggestions of Attic Tragedy, point to material of a ‘poetic’, ‘mythic’ kind. Within this grouping further attention is called to the ‘mythic’ status of the account when, after a description of how to identify Cassiepeia, the poet adds ‘you would say that she was mourning her child’ (v. 196) 92. The evocation of ‘the myth’ and the explicit refusal to countenance it as an explanation is here characteristic of a central tension in Aratus’ poem. Another common device for moving from the visible to evocation of the non-visible is the use of 1je?mor, ‘the one you know about’ to activate the reader’s knowledge of ‘myth’93. Thus, for example, Ariadne’s crown is ‘that crown you know about/have seen’ (v.71), and Andromeda is ‘that dread image’ (v. 197). This small point of technique reveals Aratus’ concern with distinguishing between the visible evidence of the stars and the inherited body of mythical knowledge which he could assume in his readers. There are, however, two important qualifications which prevent us from seeing the operation of very rigid distinctions within the poem. One is the fact that some ‘mythical’ material is introduced without apparent qualification: a case in point is the Lyre which Hermes set in heaven (vv. 268 – 71). More important perhaps is that throughout the poem the movements and appearance of the constellations are described in terms which appeal to their myths. Thus Ketos ‘rushes’ towards Andromeda (v. 354), the Hare is hunted (v. 384), the limbs of Andromeda are ‘weary’ (v. 704), and so forth; further illustration is unnecessary to make the point that the poem makes extensive 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, and in one place Aratus may comment directly upon it. When Aratus comes to 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’ avtyr eUqetai . 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. No star has disappeared from Zeus’ sky without a trace in all the time of which we know, but the story is told. By name those seven stars are Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete and revered Maia.

The translation offered follows the standard interpretation of these difficult verses, which goes back to the scholia. According to this view, Aratus explicitly denies the truth of the story of the loss of the seventh Pleiad – a story which the scholia tell us he himself treated in a now lost poem96 – by asserting again the fixed pattern of the kosmos established by Zeus; 1j Di¹r does not just mean ‘from the sky’. If this is correct, then there will be a contrast drawn between ‘the tales of men’ and the better evidence needed to establish truth. Erren, however, removes this contrast by understanding the reference of v. 259 to be to the missing Pleiad: ‘the star was not lost without a trace’, that trace being precisely the tales of men97. A full discussion would be beyond the bounds of this paper98, although it will be clear that the standard interpretation fits well with what we have seen to be a central concern of the poem. As with the passage on the planets, therefore99, Aratus here probably uses 95 Hipparchus points out that Aratus is actually wrong about this: you can see seven Pleiades if you try hard enough (1.6.14). 96 This was a consolatory poem To Theopropos (SH 103), cf. E. Maass, Aratea, Berlin 1892, 233 – 4. 97 ‘Immerhin ist der Stern nicht ohne Nachricht aus dem Haus des Zeus verlorengegangen’, p. 21 of his edition. 98 Crucial are the meaning of ceme/hem, which Erren implausibly understands of how the Pleiads arose, and the precise force of lakû autyr, which we might expect 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 foreground a crucial issue. The passage on the Pleiades both explains and explains away potential problems that arise throughout the description of the constellations: it is not always easy to match what you see to what you have been told. This question of the distinctions Aratus draws within his material is one prominent instance of the phenomenon with which I have been concerned throughout this paper, namely Aratus’ conscious manipulation of the multiple traditions which lie behind his poem. In a now outmoded form of criticism this might have been expressed as the opposition of ‘the poetry’ and ‘the message’; the history of, say, Lucretian criticism is of course full of such things. Rather than this, I think, we should speak in terms of different modes of organising experience. One mode is that of the (didactic) poet, another is that of philosophy, which after Plato and Aristotle tends towards systematisation and completeness, thereby increasing the gap between the two modes100. As a final study of the didactic, poetic mode, I wish briefly to note certain aspects of Aratus’ account of shipwreck, which offers an interesting case study in many of the things we have been considering. The passage on shipwreck (vv. 408 – 35) stresses the role of ‘ancient Night’ in setting out signs warning of storms because of her pity for men at sea (vv. 408 – 11, 419, 433 – 4). Night as the agent responsible for heavenly signs occurs elsewhere in the poem101, but the prominence of this feature here cannot be adequately explained on a purely Stoicising reading102. She does act as an agent of the cosmic principle, but it is not as a manifestation of that principle that she weeps (v. 409). A close parallel is again from the prologue to the Rudens, where Plautus (and probably Diphilus) combines the idea of Arcturus – a storm-sign with which the shipwreck passage in Aratus is closely connected – as a servant of Jupiter with the traditional notion that stars not merely act as weather-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 systematisation of philosophy, but also perhaps helps us to see how the philosophical project informs the poem. Aratus’ description of shipwreck makes no distinctions between the fates of ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ men, although shipwreck was a notorious instance in which the punishment of the unjust often involved the suffering of the innocent. For the Stoic, however, the future is determined, and popular conceptions of the moral status of those on board are neither here nor there; when viewed from this perspective, 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 his lightning from the side of the North Wind103, then after many sufferings they yet catch sight of each other on the boat.

Zeus is not a traditional saviour from shipwreck, a function that poetry normally gives to his sons, the Dioskouroi, and it is unclear whether it is to Zeus that the sailors are imagined to pray (which would again be unusual). Here also, then, the prominence of Zeus is a product of Stoicising ‘monotheism’ in which each part of nature works in harmony as part of a single organism. On the other hand, a simple Stoicising reading will not account for certain important details of the passage. What does paqamissol]moio mean? In what sense could Zeus be said ‘to pass near them’ (Martin), ‘[come] to their aid’ (Mair), ‘gegenwärtig erscheint’ (i. e. through his lightning, Erren). Moreover, t}wysim, particularly next to the humorous phrasing of v. 425104, might suggest a randomness of success hardly in keeping with Stoic determinism. Some help 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 of the open sea. That the rhetoric of poetry is thus different from that of philosophy is confirmed by the ‘pathetic fallacy’ of Night’s weeping, a fallacy enacted in language which describes heavenly phenomena in terms applicable to the struggling sailors themselves ( jula_momti m]vei pepiesl]mom 416, hk_bet’ 417); here nature moulds herself to man’s plight. Night, the ‘kindly’ time, euphrone, acts in accordance with her name. Analysis of this kind allows us to see that whereas systematic philosophy and science seek to close down options – to this extent they become 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 which characterises less ‘scientific’, more popular belief-systems. Modern discussion of ancient didactic poetry has largely focused upon ‘the author’s intention’ rather than on the reception of the poem by different readers, much as some ancient readers were bothered as to whether Aratus was a poet or an astronomer105. Obviously, the Phainomena will be read differently by a convinced Stoic and an un-philosophical reader; ancient theory which saw poetry as propaideutic to philosophy recognised that, as did the standard distinction in allegorising commentaries and technical handbooks between ‘specialist’ and ‘non-specialist’ audiences106. It is the choice of the didactic, poetic mode which precisely advertises the importance of the audience’s role. Aratus’ poem, unlike the work of Eudoxus or Hipparchus, is not merely about the universe, but is also universal in the sense that it presents itself as available to all, farmers, sailors, literary scholars. The poem continues in a new mode the age-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 the introduction to Hipparchus’ commentary: ‘I do not think any great intellectual effort is required to expound the meaning of the poem. For the poet is straightforward and concise, and can be clearly understood even by those with a moderate background in the subject. On the other hand, to understand what he has said about heavenly phenomena, to know which parts of his work agree and which disagree with the phenomena, this one might think is what is most useful and requires mathematical skill’ (1.1.4).

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project is to make us all see what we have always seen107, to ‘teach’ us what we have always known. In the works of Eudoxus he found a systematisation of knowledge and experience, which was not only itself a sign of god’s benevolence, but matched the ordered nature all around him; the poetic mode in which to express this cannot have been a difficult choice.

Addenda A revised version of parts of this essay appeared in Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 224 – 45. Since the essay first came out, the principal advances for the understanding of the Phainomena have been the editions of Kidd (Cambridge 1997) and Martin (Paris 1998) and the study of C. Fakas, Der hellenistische Hesiod: Arats Phainomena und die Tradition der antiken Lehrepik (Wiesbaden 2001). 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. Brunschön (Leiden 2007).

107 V. 733 ‘Do you not see? Whenever …’ draws attention to this concern. Such a question would normally refer to a one-time event (cf. Martin’s parallels ad loc.), 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, a visualisation which must of course be based on visual experiences and memories.

10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi* The mimiamboi of Herodas1 reveal familiar hallmarks of the poetry of the third century:2 characters drawn from socially humble backgrounds; a literary re-casting of sub-literary ‘genres’; the revival of an archaic metre;3 the free reconstruction of an artificial literary dialect;4 the reaching back to claim authority for poetic practice in a great figure of the past.5 Obvious links between the mimiamboi and the roughly contemporary ‘mime’ poems of Theocritus (especially Idylls 2, 3, 14, and 15) have always attracted attention since the publication of the major papyrus in 1891. No subject has, however, so dominated discussion of the mimiambs as the question of how they were intended to be presented to the public, and how indeed they were so.6 Were they merely to be * 1

2

3 4 5

6

Antichthon 27 (1993) 31 – 44 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 (Frankfurt 1949); R.M. Rosen, ‘Mixing of genres and literary program in Herodas 8’, HSCP 94 (1992) 205 – 16; C. Miralles, ‘La poetica di Eroda’, Aevum Antiquum 5 (1992) 89 – 113 There seems no good reason to question the consensus, based though it is on very thin evidence, that Herodas wrote during the second quarter of the third century, cf. Cunningham 1 – 3; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford 1972) 2.876 n.30; S. M. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos (Göttingen 1978) 94 n. 60, 349 – 52. The choliamb in fact was widely used in the fourth and third centuries, particularly in moralising verse; cf. G. A. Gerhard, Phoinix von Kolophon (Leipzig/ Berlin 1909) 202 – 27. On the language of Herodas see especially D. Bo, La lingua di Eroda (Turin 1962) and V. Schmidt, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Herondas (Berlin 1968). 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 preservation of Hipponax must make any conclusions very tentative. Some shared vocabulary seems certain, though here, as elsewhere, Degani overstates the case. In Mimiamb 8 Hipponax is primarily invoked as protos heuretes of choliambic verse (cf. Test. 20 – 44 Degani); for the distinction between ‘narrative’ (Hipponax) and ‘dramatic’ (Herodas) choliambs cf. further below. I do not mean to imply that many scholars have in fact realised that these are two separate issues, perhaps requiring different answers.

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read (privately), or to be ‘performed’ either by a solo performer (with or without the assistance of mute extras), or by a ‘troupe’ of actors? We must not assume, of course, that the mode of reception of all the mimiambs was the same, or that one poem was not at different times ‘performed’ in different ways. Moreover, the history of the debate since 1891, a history of which Giuseppe Mastromarco has given a full account,7 suggests that it is hardly possible on internal grounds alone to prove to general satisfaction that the poems were presented in one way rather than another. A feature which looks as if it derives from the script of an acted, or at least visualised, performance may always be merely a literary imitation of such a phenomenon within a text intended only for reading (or, at most, recitation). The scholarly consensus is that this is precisely what we do find, time and again, in the ‘mime’ poems of Theocritus, and probably also Herodas.8 That, however else they were transmitted, the mimiamboi also assume a reading public is likely enough on purely general grounds of literary history,9 and this too must complicate any investigation into their presentation. In these circumstances, the question of ‘how the mimiamboi were performed’ may become little more than a heuristic device for teasing out distinctive features of these poems, rather than an end in itself. Discussion of this matter seems in fact to have come to a halt precisely because it has been conceived purely as an investigation into theatrical and/or literary history, rather than as primarily an area of poetic criticism. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that this scholarly halt may have been premature; the subject of the presentation of the mimiamboi risked being left to ossify, either because it was considered no longer a problem or because there was insufficient evidence upon which to proceed. To anticipate somewhat, the (unoriginal) conclusion which will, I hope, emerge is of poems composed for the most part in a mode which strongly suggests, and was intended to suggest, ‘performance’ by more than one actor, rather than solo recitation; this is, of course, much 7 8 9

Cf. Mastromarco (n. 1 above), an unfortunately stilted English version (with some expansion) of Il Pubblico di Eronda (Padua 1979). The best discussion of this book is that of Marco Fantuzzi in Lingua e Stile 14 (1979) 721 – 4. For an attempt to distinguish Herodas and Theocritus in these matters cf. further below. Despite Mastromarco’s book, solo recitation seems to be the solution favoured by current scholarship. Cf. Mastromarco 95 – 6. The singular cek÷ir ; ‘do you laugh?’, at 2.74 is formally addressed to Thales, but is also equally effective if aimed at the individual reader or directed by a performer at one of the audience.

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the same conclusion as Mastromarco reached, though the route I shall follow will be rather different. I do not, however, wish to move from this conclusion to the historical question of how these poems were ‘actually’ disseminated. Although I personally am inclined to believe that the mimiambs were ‘performed’ and not just recited, profitable discussion of this question of literary history would require more solid textual or archaeological evidence than we possess; a comparison with our relatively full knowledge of the performance of Attic tragedy and comedy is here particularly instructive. I begin with the question of a reading public, the existence of which may be assumed on purely general grounds, but which may also be approached through the arrangement of the poems on the London papyrus. The obvious starting-points are the two poems, 1 and 8, which seem to bear directly upon the mimiamboi as literary artefacts. It is an old idea that Poem 1 does not appear first on the papyrus by chance, although any deliberate design need not, of course, have been due 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 poetry book’s—‘dedicatee’, a loose term which, we may add, should not necessarily be taken to imply any formal relationship between poet and ruler.11 Theocritus 14. 59 – 64, however, in which generous praise of Ptolemy as the best possible ‘employer’ for Greek mercenaries highlights traditional Greek virtues and the pleasures of polis life and which make it a reasonable (if hardly compelling) inference that Idyll 14 was written in an area of Ptolemaic influence, show that such praise need say nothing about the position of a poem within a ‘collection’.12 More of substance can perhaps be derived from the possibility, acknowledged by surpris10 Pace, e. g., L. Massa Positano, Eroda, Mimiamb I (Naples 1970) 15, little can, I think, 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 1 than 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 same blank space appears above it. We cannot therefore rule out the possibility that Poem 1 was preceded by other poems, and there is no reason to assume that the space above Poem 1 was reserved for a heading. 11 RhM 46 (1891) 636. Bücheler in fact thought that ‘the king’ was Ptolemy Euergetes; 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: Alcaeus and Megara’ WJA 18 (1992) 171 – 82.

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ingly few critics, that Metriche’s angry response to Gyllis’ speech alludes in an amusingly programmatic way to the choliambic verse in which Herodas writes: taOt’ 1c½ 1n %kkgr cumaij¹r ouj #m Ad]yr 1p^jousa, wykµm d’ !e_deim w~k’ #m 1nepa_deusa ja· 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 I would have taught her lame to sing a lame song and to consider my threshold no friendly place.

In Poem 8 Herodas appears to refer to the verses of himself and Hipponax as t± j}kka (v. 79), and Callimachus too refers to ‘lame’ choliambic verse.13 When taken together with the praise of Alexandria, such an allusion to the metrical form of the poem would certainly strengthen the case for seeing Poem 1 as somehow introductory, and intended at least in part for a reading audience. Certain general considerations might also lend weight to this idea. Poem 114 presents a visit by the ‘bawd’ (an unhappy term) Gyllis to a younger woman, Metriche, to persuade her to take a wealthy and attractive lover in the prolonged absence overseas of her man (? husband) Mandris. The poem thus combines two apparently common mime scenarios—women visiting each other (cf. Poem 6) 15 and ‘the bawd’ (cf. Athen. 14.621c)—both of which were also familiar in the comic tradition. It is noteworthy that in the poem in which, more than anywhere else in the extant corpus, Theocritus adopts the mode of literary mime, Idyll 15, he chose to begin with a ‘Damenbesuch’. It may therefore be suggested that the old lastqop|r embodies the spirit of Herodas’ ‘lame’ poetry, in a way which foreshadows the more elaborate and detailed female embodiments of Tragedy and Elegy in Ovid, Amores 3.1; Gyllis’ arrival literally ‘opens the door’ to a new poetic form, whose self-con13 Cf. fr. 203.14 t± wyk± t_jteim in a programmatic context. Among the scholars who 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 Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1988) 240; Miralles 94 – 9. 14 For recent studies of this poem cf. G. Mastromarco, ‘Eine alexandrinische Kupplerin’, WJA 16 (1990) 87 – 99, and Miralles 94 – 9. 15 Such a scenario is not, of course, limited to mime – the opening scenes of Menander’s Synaristosai (= Plautus, Cistellaria) and the third book of Apollonius’ 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 was designedly the first of an ordered collection, then it would be hard to resist the reading of it which I have given.17 On this reading, Poem 1 enacts, rather than states, a program, and to this extent it is comparable to Theocritus 1 rather than Theocritus 7 or Callimachus’ first iambos. Here then may be suggestive signs of a poetic collection designed for a literate and literary public. Poem 8 (The Dream) survives only in tantalising glimpses. A farmer wakes up his household with lavish helpings of abuse, and then tells one of them of a dream which he has just had. The details are obscure, but a goat which he was dragging along seems to have been taken, killed and flayed by goatherds. There is someone (probably a young man) dressed in a saffron tunic and fawnskin and wreathed with ivy; there is a game of askoliasmos (trying to balance on a greased wineskin), and an old man who threatens the farmer with a staff. The farmer interprets the dream as follows (I print Cunningham’s text): …….]v aWca t/r v[\qaccor] 1ne?kjom .j]akoO d_qom 1j D[iym]}sou aQ]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 loOmor pokk_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. I suspect that the same point is continued by 1n !cqoij_gr (v. 2), which is very likely the correct reading: the loudness of the knocking suggests the !cqoij_g of the knocker. ‘Door-knocking’ scenes are, of course, a familiar feature of many literary genres, especially comedy; the famous scenes in Plato’s Protagoras and Xenophon’s Symposium (1.11 – 12) may be influenced by comedy. 17 The anonymous referee rightly objects that Metriche merely tells Gyllis what she 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 difficulties in walking through the streets, vv. 13 – 16). My guess is that different modern readers will inevitably assign different weight to this objection.

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I was dragging the goat out of the gully, a gift from fair Dionysus; the goatherds violently tore it apart as they performed their rites and they dined upon the meat; many shall pluck my songs, which have cost me much toil, amidst the Muses. … Of the many who trod the air-tight skin I thought that I alone secured the prize, and my fate was like that of the angry 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 body of commentary as these fascinating, though broken, verses, and a full discussion, let alone a full doxography, is unnecessary here. Certain aspects are, however, relevant to the present enquiry. That the goat is a ‘gift from Dionysus’ is most plausibly interpreted as a reference to the (at least notionally) dramatic nature of the mimiamboi;18 Dionysus is likely to be the character referred to earlier as dressed in tunic and fawnskin, and the rustic game of askoliasmos will then probably glance at contemporary theories of the origin of drama.19 The threatening old man is all but certainly Hipponax himself,20 and it is an easy guess that his anger arises from the dreamer’s encroachment upon his own poetic space.21 Such a hypothesis will also give point to vv. 77 – 8 in which the apparent stress upon taking the second position after Hipponax will be intended to appease the archaic poet, the dire consequences of whose anger were only too well known.22 The tearing apart of the dreamer’s goat by goatherds performing Dionysiac rites at one level suggests a likeness between the dreamer and Pentheus or Orpheus,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, passim. Miralles 103 – 13 explores at length the links between Mimiamb 8, Hipponax 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 ‘adulteration’ of the iambus with drama, i. e. because Herodas has replaced iambos by mimiambos. 22 Cf. Hor. Sat. 1.10.48 – 9 of Horace’s own position with respect to Lucilius, inuentore minor; neque ego illi detrahere ausim / haerentem capiti cum multa laude coronam. The parallel is particularly interesting in view of satire’s obvious generic links 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 hardly be other than a way of saying ‘in the Museum (in Alexandria)’,24 although other levels of meaning are not of course ruled out; on the other hand, the ellipse and hyperbaton favoured by many critics, ‘many with the Muses’ (i. e. scholars) are, as Cunningham puts it rather mildly, ‘difficult’. A reference to the Museum takes us back to Poem 1 where it is listed among the delights of Alexandria. 1m Lo}sgisim might also, however, mean ‘in poetry, in their poems’,25 and some support for this interpretation may be found in the fact that these ‘many critics’ are depicted as ‘goatherds … performing religious rites’. We should here be reminded not merely of a traditional association, most familiar to us from Hesiod and Theocritus, between herdsmen and poetry,26 but also of the traditional link between the 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 the early history of both tragedy and comedy with Dionysiac performances, the dithyramb and the phallic song (Poetics 1449a 9 – 13), and Cratinus in his Pytine gave memorable expression to the equation of poetic inspiration with ‘an excess of Dionysus’.27 A famous passage of Plato’s Ion depicts all poets as ‘full of the god’, like bacchants: ‘All the good epic poets deliver all these wonderful poems not as a result of any craft, but under the spell of the god (5mheoi emter ja· jatew|lemoi). Likewise, the good lyric poets compose those wonderful lyric poems while not in their senses (oqj 5lvqomer emter), like dancing korybants. As soon as they enter upon harmony and rhythm, they are under the bacchic spell, and just as bacchants draw honey and milk from the rivers while under the spell, but cannot do so when in their right minds, so also this is what the souls of the lyric poets do, as they themselves say.’ (533e-4a)

24 So, e. g., Puelma Piwonka 346 n. 2. This interpretation seems to go back to Crusius (p. 76 of his fifth edition of the poems, Leipzig 1914); cf. also R. Herzog, 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 a type very familiar in dream interpretation, and it may be paralleled by Knox’s attractive 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.

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Thus the ‘Dionysiac rite’ of Herodas’ goatherds has clear associations with the writing of poetry and may thus provide a valuable clue to the nature of the attacks which Herodas foresees.28 Modern critics have delighted in seeking to identify a specific context for the vision of Herodas 8, and it must be admitted that this is a difficult temptation to resist.29 A dream with programmatic significance naturally reminds us of the prefatory dream to Callimachus’ Aitia;30 dreams are, however, also fully at home in comedy, and as such very suitable for the quasi-dramatic mimiamboi. The description of the poet’s works as ‘my labours’ (to»r 1lo»r l|whour) suggests the third-century language of literary p|mor (Theocr. 7.51 etc.),31 and the prediction of savage criticism obviously reminds us of the familiar picture of Alexandrian squabbling. It may even be that tikeOsim 1m Lo}sgisim, ‘pluck32 amidst the Muses’, belongs to the same rhetoric of abuse as Timon’s famous image of the quarrelsome scholar-birds (SH 786);33 Alexandrian poets seem to have given new and vivid life to the traditional image of the poet as a bird (an eagle, a nightingale etc.).34 Quarrelling scholars lead us directly to Callimachus’ first iambos in which Hipponax also appears, and it is perhaps hard to believe that this poem and Herodas’ eighth mimiamb are unconnected, although the nature of the connection can hardly be divined in the state of our present evidence; enough for the present to note the elaborate and learned poetic self-presentation in this poem, a self-presentation which we cannot but associate with 28 Similarly, we should interpret quite broadly the reference to poets ‘in the holy contests of Dionysus’ at Theocr. 17.112 – 14; even a limitation to epic and dramatic poets would be too narrow. 29 See the bibliography at Cunningham 194 n. 2, adding Puelma Piwonka 345 – 52. There is a helpful survey in Mastromarco 65 – 97. 30 Cf. Rosen 207 – 8, noting also the ‘initiations’ of Hesiod, Archilochus etc. It may or may not be significant that the passage of Plato’s Ion to which I have just 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 (= Asclepiades XXVIII. 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; Aristophanic influence on Alexandrian polemic is familiar from the Aitia prologue.

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similar phenomena in Alexandrian ‘avant-garde’ poetry. It is also noteworthy 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 to the audience’ form after the opening abuse of the slaves (vv. 1 – 15). There is thus a clear, and apparently untypical, break in this poem between the dramatic and the non-dramatic. Whereas Poem 1 enacts a program, Poem 8 states one. Poems 1 and 8 thus show signs of composition intended, at least partly, for an educated audience which probably read the poems. The ‘programmatic’ significance of Poem 1 would certainly be enhanced if it stood first in a collection, but that of Poem 8 remains wherever it was placed; clearer cases of the ancient ‘poetry-book’ warn us against assuming that explicitly programmatic poems have to come first or last.35 Gerhard36 in fact sought to group the first seven poems of the London papyrus into matching pairs, and Lawall37 produced a scheme covering Poems 1 – 8;38 only 6 and 7 are, however, undeniably connected (though the nature of the connection remains disputed), and it need hardly have been the poet himself who juxtaposed those poems. If it is not improbable that our collection retains traces of an arrangement of the poems made by Herodas himself (cf. Callimachus’ Iamboi39), scholarly consensus about those traces is perhaps truly unlikely; not merely the existence of the opening of Poem 9 and the ‘book fragments’ of Herodas, but also general considerations of the length of Hellenistic ‘poetry-books’40 should prevent hasty inferences from the order of Herodas’ poems on the London papyrus. Moreover, the extent to which meaning depends upon the ability of an audience to reflect at leiHorace, Satires 1.4 is a good example here. RE 8.1089 – 90. Theocritus’ Coan Pastorals (Washington 1967) 118 – 20. 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 that Poem 9 was either ‘the beginning of a second volume or … the beginning of a series of other mimes which were not included by Herodas in his original collection but were added by later writers’. 39 That Callimachus himself is responsible for the arrangement of the Iamboi cannot, 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. 35 36 37 38

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sure over a written text will always produce difference of opinion,41 and so it may be more profitable to turn to other considerations which arise from the substance of the poems. There is much in the mimiamboi about ‘looking’ and ‘seeing’, but the implications of this appeal to vision are curiously ambivalent. In Poem 2 Battaros urges the jury (and us) to look carefully at the naked Myrtale (vv. 68 – 71), but what (if anything) do we actually see, or imagine with the mind’s eye? Battaros is doing what comes naturally – displaying his wares to potential clients42 – but the implications of this passage for the mode of presentation of the mimiamboi are anything but straightforward. In Poem 4 we are apparently invited to see, or at least see through others’ eyes, some fairly elaborate works of art; if Battaros appeals to our visual 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 provocative play upon our wish to see the marvellous dildo which the women discuss; the description of it, with its emphasis on Koritto’s privileged sight, teasingly mocks our inability to see: !kk’ 5qca, jo?’ 1st’ 5qca· t/r )hgma_gr aqt/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’, GRBS 20 (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 poetics (the brilliantly fashioned baubon as an image for Herodas’ poems). To my mind, this reading contains more of interest than the same scholar’s ‘ritualist’ 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 represented. The standard view about the appearance of ‘naked’ women in Old Comedy (Wasps 1326 ff, Peace 846 ff, Lys. 1114 ff), that they were ‘impersonated by men wearing appropriately designed bodysuits and padding’ (Sommerstein 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 and for someone listening to a recitation.

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!kk’ A lakaj|tgr upmor, oQ d’ Qlamt_sjoi 5qi’, 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 workmanship of Athene, not Kerdon. When I saw them, Metro—he brought two with him—my eyes nearly popped out. We’re alone, so I can tell you: men can’t make theirs so straight and firm! Not only that, they’re as soft as sleep, and the laces are like wool, not leather; you’ll never find another cobbler who has a woman’s interests more at heart.’

This appeal to vision is then a central technique of the mimiamboi, and one which it is not unreasonable to link with the whole mimic tradition;46 it is indeed very likely that the sub-literary mime assumed and appealed to a much more elaborate stage-setting than the audience actually saw. In this context we can see that arguments, say, about the actual bother involved in staging Poem 447 carry very little weight. On the other hand, it may be argued that this knowing game of ‘revealing’ and ‘not revealing’ would carry particular force in a written literature which always asks us to ‘see’ what we cannot actually see.48 Here the mimiamboi may be thought not only to be poised between ‘reading’ and ‘performance’, but also in fact to acknowledge and exploit the problem of their own ‘performance status’. The modern debate about how the mimiamboi were performed thus turns out to have been pursuing one of the very models of reception which the text itself teasingly predicts.49 ‘Performance’, however, covers more than one mode. In seeking to choose 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 publicité Hérondas destinait-il ses mimes?’, REA 4 (1902) 5 – 35, at 7 – 8. It is important in assessing Legrand’s influential article to note its assumptions: ‘dans un poème où la réalitè est copiée d’aussi près …’ (p. 12). 48 For related concerns in Callimachus’ hymns cf. ‘Writing the god: form and meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena’, MD 29 (1992) 9 – 34 [= this volume 127 – 52]. 49 Another such potential mode of reception which Herodas himself inscribes in his poems is the ‘mimetic realist’ reading, which has also, of course, had a thorough airing in modern scholarship and remains very much alive; I discuss this with 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 do Gyllis 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 Gastron’s penis, could the verse be understood if Gastron—a speaking character—was not visible on stage?), 5.55 ff (where is Kydilla’s speech imagined to take place?). As I have already noted, general agreement on these questions may be hardly possible, because they depend upon subjective assessments of what is and is not possible in performances.50 More important may be the observations that every poem (including 8) assumes one or more mute characters (a feature familiar in all dramatic genres), every poem (except 8) has more than one speaking character, and in every poem one character predominates (i. e. has at least half of the spoken verses).51 The relative proportions and the number of ‘actors’ varies from poem to poem, but it is at least not unnatural to think of ‘performance’ by a small troupe dominated by the ‘leading mime’. Some refinement of these intuitions may be possible through a comparison with two poets who have much in common with Herodas— Menander, whose plays we know to have been performed, and Theocritus whose poems were almost certainly read and are normally assumed to have been recited when first delivered. A striking feature of the mimiamboi is that each of them contains a vocative address in either the first or the second verse;52 this may establish a setting (Poems 2, 4) or mark the dramatic status of the poem. Beyond this initial marker, however, Herodas’ scene-setting is minimal. With Theocritus, however, the case is both interestingly similar and different. The scene-setting in Theocritus 1, which there are good reasons for believing to carry special programmatic force,53 is careful and elaborate. The vocative address in the opening verse, aQp|ke, may remind us of Herodas, 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 the ability 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 )pomistif|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’ representation and instead foregrounds its artifice. Here perhaps is a measure of the distance between the mode of a performed text (Herodas) and that of one designed solely with readers in mind (Theocritus). In fact, the first four speeches of Idyll 1 all begin with a vocative address; this is not merely a way to establish the antithetical bucolic style and a poetics of t¹ poilemij|m and t¹ aQpokij|m, but it also overplays the ‘dramatic’ quality of the poem in a way which might be thought foreign to ‘real drama’. Idyll 2, a poem connected already in the scholia with the mimes of Sophron, begins, as does more than one poem of Theocritus, with an address to a slave, and v_ktqa makes clear that we are in the realm of love-magic. Here there seems little difference from a Herodan opening, but what follows is perhaps more significant. ‘Wreathe the bowl with fine crimson wool’ (v. 2, trans. Gow) gives, in ‘crimson’, precisely the detail which betrays the text written to be envisioned by readers; of course, this detail is also ritually correct and has to be spelled out for the benefit of an obtuse servant, but this difference from Herodan practice carries a certain suggestive force in the current context. The following verses begin formally as an explanation to the slave of what Simaitha is doing, but they soon become a private meditation upon her situation and her plans; they are, in other words, a monologue ‘to the audience’ of a kind familiar also in Menander, but strikingly lacking in 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 of Menander, but the absence of such monologues from Herodas can hardly be explained merely by a desire for brevity. With Herodas we feel the constant pressure for drama, for interaction between characters; in Theocritus 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 selfpresentation by the speaker and a narrative of his situation: jyl\sdy pot· t±m )laqukk_da, ta· d] loi aWcer b|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; Tityros drives them. Tityros, dear friend, graze the goats, and, Tityros, lead them to the spring.

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Both the komastic subject-matter (cf. Ath. 14.621c) and the semi-dramatic form with change, or at least refocusing, of scene point to a debt to the mimic tradition, but the difference between Theocritus and Herodas is here very clear. It may indeed be ‘rustically naïve’ to state aloud to no one in particular the nature of the business upon which one is engaged,54 but this is not something which happens in Herodas. This dramatic form, the ‘entrance monologue’, is of course familiar from Menander. Thus, for example, the soldier’s servant in Perikeiromene 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]moi eQr taqt|m eQsim oR sum^heir, toO v]qeim aqt¹m t¹ pq÷cla N÷iom. oqj 5wym d’ fpyr t!mtaOh’ !jo}sgi cim|lem’ 1jp]polv] le Rl\tiom oUsomt’ 1nep_tgder, oqd³ 4m de|lemor %kk’ C peqipate?m le bo}ketai.

(172 – 80) Our friend who was just now so blustering and warlike, the one who won’t let women keep their hair, is lying down weeping. I left him giving his friends 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 dispatched me 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 3 began with Metrotime saying ‘I have come to the schoolmaster’s so that he will give my son a thrashing …’. In the avoidance of such monologues which, as we have seen, are found in both Menander and Theocritus, Herodas seems to stand close to the genuine tradition of sub-literary mime, as far as our scanty fragments allow us to judge.55 Here again, 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 (Leipzig 1987); discussion, though far from persuasive where Herodas is concerned, in H. Wiemken, Der griechische Mimus (Berlin 1972). It is noteworthy that Legrand (above, n. 47) 23, having argued with great vigour for solo recitation in the case of Herodas, felt it necessary to hedge his bets by suggesting the use of a brief (unreported) prologue to set the scene, presumably along the lines of the opening 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 the first we will see Herodas aligned with a genuinely dramatic text, Menander, against Theocritus. The agonistic form of Idyll 5 is introduced by matching pairs of verses in which the antagonists tell us all we need to know—their names and occupations. The scenery is again depicted with care—a spring (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 further explanation (Herodas 3.57), the difference between the two poets again emerges clearly.56 When Komatas and Lakon come to choose an arbitrator, the former has a proposal: !kk± t¹m %mdqa, aQ k/ir, t¹m dqut|lom bystq^soler, dr t±r 1qe_jar t^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 that heather near you. It’s Morson.’

The pictorial detail of Morson’s activity is again what may be thought to betray not merely the bucolic text, but also the text designed with readers in mind. This, of course, is not to say that genuinely dramatic texts are short on pictorial detail – far from it —but the difference from the choosing of Smikrines as arbitrator in the second act of Menander’s Epitrepontes 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 d³ p\swy· t_ c\q soi leted_doum ; Suq. toOtom kabe?m bo}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 the opening verse of the poem.

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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 various ways, but it is hard not to believe that, at some level, we are dealing with the difference between ‘drama’ and literature intended for reading. Here we find Herodas aligned with the ‘dramatic’ text, and I believe that it is true to assert that this will always be the case except, as in the matter of ‘entrance monologues’, where he stands even closer than Menander to the norms of ‘unelaborated drama’.57 Idyll 15 is in some ways the exception which proves the rule. The opening ‘mimic’ section lacks the fullness of detail which we have found in other Theocritean poems—particularly in the introduction of characters (cf. vv. 60, 70 – 1, 87 – 8)—and the subject of the poem is of course close to Herodan interests. Both stylistically and metrically,58 we are here a long way from the ‘bucolic’ poems. Again, inferences about how Idyll 15 was ‘actually performed’59 are less important than seeing how an interest in this question can reveal the distinguishing characteristics 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 are inscribed within them. Idyll 15 is a highly experimental text, as the Hymn 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 the text explains the action to us, ‘someone is knocking on the door’ etc. Such ‘explanations’ 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 the mimic section break Callimachean rules frequently enough to show that we must be dealing with a deliberate stylistic effect, !mtikab^ (the sharing of a single 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 Thocrite (Paris 1898) 414 – 18; Legrand argues that any ‘reception’ of Idyll 15 other than ‘silent reading’ is inconceivable, because of the formal problems raised by (e. g.) changes of place and speaker. His discussion fails to convince because of the limiting assumptions upon which it is based.

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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 of the presentation of Herodas’ mimiambs. ‘Performance’, then, is not to be conceived as a purely historical question which can be isolated from the broad concerns of the text. We might in any case have expected that poems whose linguistic form is as sophisticated as the mimiamboi would show a similarly selfaware interest in the conditions of their own reception, particularly as we know that other contemporary poetry is marked by such an interest.60 That we can ask of Herodas some of the same questions which we ask of the canonical ‘Alexandrian avant-garde’ is a comforting, if unsurprising, conclusion.61

Addenda The best starting-point on the mimiamboi and modern bibliography is now the two-volume edition of the poems by L. Di Gregorio (Milan 1997, 2004); Oxford University Press is to publish a new English-language edition by G. Zanker. Further recent discussion in the papers of Kutzko, Männlein-Robert and Zanker in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker (eds.), Beyond the Canon (Leuven 2006).

60 Cf. the survey in P. Bing, The Well-Read Muse. Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets (Göttingen 1988). 61 This paper has benefited from the comments of a seminar audience at the Institute 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.

11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65*

4

8

12

16

20

24

etsi me assiduo confectum cura dolore seuocat a doctis, Ortale, uirginibus, nec potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus mens animi, tantis fluctuat ipsa malis — namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem, Troia Rhoeteo quem subter litore tellus ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis. < > numquam ego te, uita frater amabilior, aspiciam posthac? at certe semper amabo, semper maesta tua carmina morte canam, qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris Daulias, absumpti fata gemens Ityli. sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, ne tua dicta uagis nequiquam credita uentis effluxisse meo forte putes animo, ut missum sponsi furtiuo munere malum procurrit casto uirginis e gremio, quod miserae oblitae molli sub ueste locatum, dum aduentu matris prosilit, excutitur, atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu, 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 an introduction to a ‘translation’ of Callimachus, the idea is not a very bold one, but it has recently been explicitly dismissed on the grounds that what we know of Callimachus’ narrative is quite different to Catullus’ image of the young uirgo surprised by her mother into revealing the apple sent to her by her sponsus. 1 In Callimachus, the truth is revealed

* 1

Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 96 (1993) 179 – 82 Cf. H.P. Syndikus, Catull, Eine Interpretation. II (Darmstadt 1990) 197 – 8. It is noteworthy that, whereas Kroll notes the debt to Callimachus, Fordyce does not consider the possibility worthy of mention. Wilamowitz toyed with the

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by the oracular Apollo and by subsequent questioning of Cydippe by her father (fr. 75. 20 – 39); it is also very unlikely that Callimachus’ Cydippe kept the treacherous apple after she had been trapped into swearing to marry Acontius.2 In this note, I wish to assemble again the case for Catullus’ debt to Callimachus, and to comment briefly on the interesting implications of this for our understanding of Catullus 65. Acontius ‘sent’ Cydippe an apple which was also a letter to be read aloud; the inscribed token of love carried with it the required answering token from the beloved in the shape of the binding oath which Cydippe duly utters. As such, the inscribed apple is in pointed contrast to the inscription of the beloved’s name on trees (fr. 73), an inscription which Cydippe will never see or read and which can find no reciprocity from the beloved. Both Catullus 65 and 66 are pledges of the poet’s affection for Hortalus and therefore ‘apples’. Moreover, on at least one reading of the concluding verses of Poem 65, Poem 66 is in fact announced by the simile as an ‘apple’, and, on any reading, the resonance of 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 Poems 65 and 66 ‘apples’, they are also both carmina Battiadae.4 The detailed comparison of motifs is always a risky basis for argument because of the very nature of the commonplace. In this case we are also confronted with the problems of the various compositional techniques of Aristaenetus, our main source for the lost sections of Callimachus’ narrative,5 and of whether the epistolographer worked directly from Callimachus or from an intermediary paraphrase or from

2

3

4 5

idea of influence from Apollonius Rhodius’ similes of ‘everyday life’ (Hellenistische Dichtung II 304 – 5), but there is no concrete point of contact. This would be certain if — as I think likely — the action of !p]qqixem, ‘threw away’, at Aristaenetus 1.10.39 (quoted below) referred, on at least one level, to the apple and was derived from Callimachus; text and interpretation of that passage are, however, uncertain, cf. (for a different interpretation) W. G. Arnott, GRBS 14 (1973) 208. Cf. C. Witke, Enarratio Catulliana. Carmina L, XXX, LXV, LXVIII (Leiden 1968) 21. Commentators and translators are divided over the formal referent of the simile: is the ‘apple’ like tua dicta of v. 17 or like carmina Battiadae of v. 16? Cf. (respectively) the notes of Ellis and Quinn ad loc. The resonance I am exploring remains, of course, even with the former interpretation. For stylistic ‘Callimacheanism’ in Catullus 65 cf. J. B. Van Sickle, TAQA 99 (1968) 487 – 508 W. Clausen, HSCP 74 (1970) 85 – 94. For some brief remarks cf. Arnott art. cit. (n. 2).

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both.6 Nevertheless, the circumstantial case seems very strong here. With casto (v. 20) and the girl’s blush (v. 24) cf. Aristaenetus 1.10.39 – 45: t¹v 1qytij¹m k|com !p]qqixem aQdoul]mg, ja· Bl_vymom jatak]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· tosoOtom 1nevoim_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 for Cydippe’s mother in Callimachus, but it is striking that two of our other post-Callimachean sources feature a similar motif of the apple slipping unnoticed out of clothing. In Ovid, Acontius tells Cydippe that she should not be ashamed to tell her mother everything, including how he delivered 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 toOto t_m paqh]mym let]yqor !p]bake toO pqojokp_ou (1.10.29 – 30). The closeness of this passage to Catullus’ verses has, of course, been noted before,7 but it is worth adding to the circumstantial case here. Moreover, 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 already in the tradition. Other than the oath, we know virtually nothing about how Callimachus treated the incident at the temple, so it would be best not to leave any ‘coincidences’ out of account. 6

7

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) and the Diegesis give Cydippe’s oath in the same words which could not appear in elegiac verse. This is a strong, but not a conclusive, argument Cf. K. Dilthey, De Callimachi Cydippa (Leipzig 1863) 65, though he is not explicit on the subject; L. W. Daly, CP 47 (1952) 97 – 9. let]yqor, ‘careless, distracted’, is a late use (Aristaenetus 1.23.10, LSJ s.v. III 5), though hardly beyond Callimachus.

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After Cydippe, Acontius. Here we enter even deeper into speculation, but not, I hope, unprofitable speculation. In Poems 65 and 68 Catullus explores (among other things) the relationship between grief and love. The careworn and grief stricken figure of the opening verses of Poem 65 does not inevitably recall the distressed and wasted Acontius (cf. Aristaen. 1.10.51 – 2), but the idea may be worth entertaining. In a passage striking both for its imagery and for its dactylic rhythm, Aristaenetus 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 Callimachean model was suggested long ago,8 but it is worth here juxtaposing this passage to Catullus’ tantis fluctuat ipsa malis. The metaphor itself is, of course, a common one, and is used elsewhere by Catullus himself (64.97 – 8, of Ariadne’s erotic passion): the dactylic rhythm is also not conclusive, as Aristaenetus himself might well be responsible for this.9 There is, however, a further point to be made. It is well known that Callimachus’ Acontius was an influential model in subsequent Latin poetry: Vergil, Eclogue 2 and 10, and Propertius 1.18 are the most prominent examples.10 Acontius becomes the classic example of the hapless lover who pours out his woes in song to lonely nature. Part at least of his lament was given in direct discourse (frr. 73 – 4); like Theocritus’ Cyclops, Acontius was made a poet by love ( just as his love provided Callimachus’ Muse with material, fr. 75.77). The parallel is not idle because it is precisely the Cyclops with whom Acontius is combined in the figure 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»r pq·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 Kannicht), 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 Kallimachos (diss. Greifswald 1933) 37. Suggestive support for the idea might be sought in joq}sseo at Ap. Rhod., Arg. 4.448, where the image is of the storm-wave of love. 9 A comparison of Callimachus fr. 73 and Aristaenetus 1.10.60 – 1 is very instructive for the latter’s technique. 10 For Vergil cf. D. O. Ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy and Rome (Cambridge 1975) 85 – 9 and E. J. Kenney, ICS 81 (1983) 48 – 51; for Propertius cf. F. Cairns, CR 19 (1969) 131 – 4.

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echo in Callimachus’ narrative.11 Be that as it may, Catullus’ poem represents a clear inversion of the ‘Acontian’ idea: because of cura the poet cannot compose, and must instead be content with expressa … carmina Battiadae. His ‘removal’ (seuocat, v. 2) a doctis … uirginibus replays Acontius’ flight from his parents and usual company into the loneliness of nature.12 However weak or strong each individual point may be – and there may yet be more to be said —13 it seems hardly possible that Callimachus’ only relevance for the appreciation of Poem 65 lies in v. 16. If even some of the connections I have assembled here hold good, then Poem 65, and especially the concluding six verses, present a creative reworking of Callimachean ideas and motifs taken from an erotically charged aition from Aitia 3 as an introduction to a ‘translation’ of another erotically charged aition from Aitia 4. The very distance of the apple simile from its Callimachean ‘model’ is in fact crucial to its significance. The related, but contrasting, forms of re-writing represented by the two juxtaposed poems raise serious questions about the nature of imitatio, the use of literary models, and the role of the individual poet within a poetics 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 the repetition of a passage on his brother’s death in Poem 68 (or between 68a and 68b, if that is preferable) is a further manifestation of the exploration of the parameters of creativity, for that is the use to which Catullus has put Callimachus in Poems 65 and 66.14

11 Callimachus’ familiarity with Theocritus 11 seems suggested by Epigram 46 Pfeiffer (= 3 GP). 12 Witke, op. cit. (n. 3) 14, rightly noted how the opening verses could evoke the idea of the lovesick poet. 13 Acontius, vgco?r rpojah^lemor C ptek]air (Aristaenetus 1.10.57), may well be relevant. 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 on an earlier draft of this note.

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Addenda For futher discussion of Catullus’ translation practice in Poem 65 cf. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 474 – 5; there are important remarks at A. Barchiesi, HSCP 95 (1993) 363 – 5. The Letters of Aristaenetus have been given a full commentary with up-to-date bibliography by Anna Tiziana Drago (Aristeneto. Lettere d’amore, Lecce 2007).

12. Plautus and Herodas* The history of the reception of Herodas’ mimiambs1 has run the full gamut from enthusiasm for ‘the ancient realist’ to a rather weary dismissal in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, “aesthetic mannerism, not ‘realism’ […] the invitation to prurience and social snobbery which they convey makes them tedious”.2 What kind of ‘realist’ mode informs the mimiambs has always been a (perhaps the) central critical question, particularly for those who have tried to offer a general appreciation of the qualities of these intriguing texts. R. Ussher, for example, asserts: “Herodas’ characters […] are real people, captured in real moments of existence, and drawn with psychological perceptiveness. They are not realistic, inasmuch as they use language which no Greek of their day (or ever) spoke […] what is real is the society within which they live their sometimes unattractive lives […]”,3 and W.G. Arnott similarly seeks to distinguish between what he sees as Herodas’ exact “observation of the small, realistic details of low life”, his “observation of real-life conversations”, and the foolishness of any attempt to label his poems as ‘realistic’. Thus, he notes of Bitinna’s relenting at the end of Poem 5, “this is the way petty pride operates in petty human beings; Herodas’ observation of human behaviour is again exact”.4 A denial 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-

* 1 2 3 4 5

L. Benz et al. (eds.), Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels (Tübingen 1995) 155 – 69 This paper has benefitted from the constructive criticism of audiences at The Institute of Classical Studies in London and the University of Freiburg. 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. ‘The Mimiamboi of Herodas’, Hermathena 129, 1980, 65 – 76, 71. ‘Herodas and the Kitchen Sink’, G&R 18, 1971, 121 – 132. Sensible remarks in G. Zanker, Realism in Alexandrian Poetry, London 1987, 159 – 60.

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tus of the mimiambs, and are a constant reminder to the audience6 that they are not being offered unmediated access to ‘slices of life’. As to the second part of the dichotomy offered by Ussher and Arnott, the appeal to Herodas’ ‘exact observation’ and ‘psychological perceptiveness’ there is perhaps little that can be said. Everyone forms their own notions of what is ‘true to life’ on the basis of their own experiences (including their experience of art), and such things can hardly be the subject of argument. On the other hand, we may hope to find in the poems themselves a guide to approaching these problems. In this paper I wish to raise some general problems of ‘character’ and ‘voice’ in the mimiambs, as the background to a consideration of the speech of Battaros in Poem 2. My two strategies will be an examination of passages in the poems themselves which seem to be pointing us in a particular interpretative direction, and secondly a comparison with certain aspects of Plautine dramaturgy; suggestive points of contact between the Greek mimiambist and the Roman comic dramatist will, I hope, emerge. In Poem 4 two women visit a shrine of Asklepios to offer thanks for a cure from sickness. While their offering is being presented to the god by the sacristan, they admire the works of art in the shrine; the two sections of ‘art admiration’ are separated by some typically Herodan abuse of a slave (41 – 56). The women’s admiration for the works of art is based on their impressive likeness to life — you could believe them real (27 – 38, 57 – 78). Such a view of art is, of course, familiar in many contexts from the early Hellenistic period, and indeed reflects a ‘professional’ way of appreciating art;7 poetry, for example, offers us the cloak of Jason (Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1,721 – 767) and the palace decorations of Theocritus 15.8 Modern discussion of Herodas 4 has rightly refused to assume that what the women say about the works of art they see classifies them, without further ado, as stupid and uneducated, and some critics have indeed wished to see here reflections of Herodas’ own ar-

6 7 8

The nature of the audience for these poems is, of course, a matter of great debate; I have discussed these problems in: ‘The presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi’, Antichthon 27, 1993, 31 – 44 [= this volume 189 – 205]. Cf. J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology, New Haven / London 1974, 63 – 66, 125 – 138. I have discussed Jason’s cloak in: The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies, Cambridge 1993, 52 – 59.

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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 written text, even a dramatic text, of the viewing of a work of art inscribes within that text an analogy — perhaps a deliberately misleading one — of the reception of the written (or heard) text itself. Herodas 4 offers a very clear example of this, for it is not difficult to see the analogy between the women’s reactions to the temple artworks and the reactions to Herodas’ poem that the poet himself both anticipates and exploits, and which we have actually seen realised in the history of criticism since the publication of the London papyrus. In other words, the women are in part created as a potential audience for Herodas’ poems, but this is, of course, very different from seeing them as an ‘ideal’ audience and their reactions as authorially approved. By separating the two sections of ‘art criticism’ with a quintessentially mimiambic passage of slave abuse, Herodas forces us to confront the similarity and difference of the two kinds of ‘work of art’ on display, and to see the women as potential analogues of ourselves. On one hand, we are invited to reject the analogy because of the women’s gender, social class and language — ‘we are not like that!’ —;10 on the other, the inherent attractions of the women’s approach to what they see are very real. If, however, the ‘how true to life!’ school of criticism is to be applied to works of high plastic art, can we apply it to a scene of vulgar slave abuse (particularly one in archaising dialect) without realising its deficiencies, not to say banality? Herodas knowingly exploits a tradition of connecting comedy and subcomic mime with ‘life’; the idea that comedy (and probably, a fortiori, mime) is an ‘imitation of life’ was well established in the theoretical tra9 Cf. (with varying nuances) S. Luria, ‘Herondas’ Kampf für die veristische Kunst’, in: Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni, Torino 1963, 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 zu den Mimiamben des Herodas, Frankfurt 1991, 61 – 67; C. Miralles, ‘La poetica di Eroda’, Aevum Antiquum 5, 1992, 89 – 113, 100 – 102; S. Goldhill, in: S. Goldhill / R. Osborne (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture, Cambridge 1994, 221 – 222. 10 There are here many assumptions about Herodas’ audience, but I hope in this case that they are not too controversial.

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dition before the third century,11 and Herodas’ scene both dramatises that connection and exposes its limitations. The ‘realism’ of Herodas is thus a realism of irony, of the power of what we say both to reflect and to deflect truth. This is perhaps most obvious in Poem 2 (cf. below) and Poem 7, in which our uncertainty of the relationship between Kerdon and Metro and of what they are really talking about is the crucial element of the poem’s strategy.12 In Poem 4 we may point to the sacristan’s report of the success of the women’s offering: j\k’ wlim, § cuma?jer, 1mtek]yr t± Rq\ ja· 1r k_iom 1lbk]pomta . lef|myr outir Aq]sato t¹m Pai^om’ Epeq owm qle?r. Qµ Qµ Pa_gom, eqlemµr eUgr jako?r 1p’ Qqo?r t/isde jeU timer t_mde 5as’ 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 good things; no one has pleased Paieon more than you. Hie, hie Paieon! May you look graciously upon these ladies’ offerings, and upon any who are their 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 sought in this poem is one of ‘documentary realism’ we ought not to be satisfied with such an explanation. What is the tone (and the overtones) of the hyperbole? It is true that this god is a god of the people, and the women have displayed irreproachable piety, but can we really read this 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. Cunningham’s view (cf. ‘Herodas 6 and 7’, CQ 14, 1964, 32 – 35 and his edition) is that 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 Kerdon actually has first-hand experience of Metro’s body. 127 – 129 remain obscure, despite V. Schmidt, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Herondas, Berlin 1968, 117 – 127.

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laic elements in this address to the god,13 but the ‘parallel’ passages merely highlight what is different. Here we have not a public, choral performance on behalf of a city, but the humblest of offerings from a humble worshipper, and in spoken choliambics rather than sung lyrics. Kynno – if that indeed is the speaker’s name – stretches stylistically as she brings to the god ‘the herald of the walls14 of my house’, and the effect is a mixture of the comic15 and the bathetic as the god and all his retinue are summoned to enjoy the culinary pleasure offered by one small cock. The complexity of the reaction appropriate to such a passage is unsettling, and the creation of such uncertainty seems to be a persistent literary strategy in the mimiamboi. ‘Slices of life’ can never be understood without a context, and by depriving us of that context Herodas opens the way to an ironic reception, or at least does not permit us to discard the possibility of such reception. Poem 1 further illustrates 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 attractive as possible, and she is hardly acting out of altruism (cf. the reference to gifts in 65).16 More uncertain perhaps is whether or not we are to understand that Metriche believes her encomium of the young man. It is, however, clear that the drink of reconciliation at the end of the poem looks forward to future co-operation and mutual understanding; it opens possibilities, rather than closing them down. At one level, of course, this mode of speech and presentation which I have been investigating is merely the mimiambic version of the tradition of skilful, ambivalent speech which runs through the whole history of Greek literature; Kerdon, indeed, the ‘bald fox’ of Poems 6 and 7, is a very Odysseus of leather-workers.17 The success of such a mode depends, however, on a strongly typological view of character — ‘what young 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; the defence offered by G. Giangrande, QUCC 15, 1973, 92 is, however, inadequate. 15 t!p_doqpa d]naishe in 13 activates the familiar comic motif that the gods actually 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).

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words are in fact necessary to allow an audience to understand the dynamics of a situation. Here the mimiamboi stand quite close to New Comedy. To what extent Menander’s characters are individualised, in any meaningful sense of the term, may be debated,18 but it is hardly to be doubted that Menander exploits the traditional, generic conception of character as a motive force within his plays: young men, broadly speaking, behave like young men.19 Herodas’ relationship to the comic tradition has been much studied,20 and although his characters are for the most part drawn from a milieu which is not prominent in Comedy, a close relationship between the two seems hard to deny. The nature of the relationship has usually been seen in simple terms of ‘borrowing’ by Herodas, 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 of para-comedy than as ‘parody of comedy’, although the formal dramatic genre can hardly emerge unstained from this deformation.21 To what extent this strategy was assisted by the Hellenistic practice of re-performing bits of plays (especially Euripides and Menander) rather than whole plays we can only guess; we should, however, remember B. Gentili’s warning that this Hellenistic practice is potentially important for 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 the best point of reference for Menander: young men are 1pihulgtijo_ and tend to act upon their 1pihul_ai (particularly in matters of love), cf. Dysk. 50 ff; they are quick to anger, cf. Samia 616 ff; they have little concern with money because they 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 best a partial truth that “no Greek seems to have been acquainted with the phenomena which we classify under ‘youthful idealism’” (K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality, Oxford 1974, 104). 20 To the material gathered in the standard commentaries add H. Krakert, Herodas in 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 e il mimo di Eroda’, RIL 107, 1973, 760 – 772. 21 For many of the effects with which I am concerned ‘parody’ would be a perfectly appropriate label, but for others it would not, and so I prefer the broader (and vaguer) term.

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Comedy and those of Plautus.22 There is certainly an obvious relationship between this ‘anthologising’ habit and the single scenes with which Herodas presents us; here Plautus and Herodas may have taken the same strategy — concentration upon the single ‘scene’ — in rather different directions, but in both cases (as we shall see) the result is a kind of ‘deconstruction’ of comedy. However that may be, this phenomenon of what I have called ‘para-comedy’ is of crucial importance for the appreciation of the mimiamboi. Thus, for example, when Gastron pleads with his 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 New Comedy,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. In the mimiamboi (as also in Plautus) 25 the characters seem to play out rôles 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 constitutive element in the characteristic ironic mode which I have traced. Even a feature such as the prominent use of ‘proverbs’ and semi-proverbial 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 with musical notation’, ZPE 99, 1993, 30 – 32. 23 Cf. the commentators ad loc., adding Men. Samia 17 (with Gomme/Sandbach ad loc.), 138. At Petr. Sat. 130.1 ‘Polyaenus’ uses this argument to excuse his failure to commit a sexual indiscretion (he proved less than fully homo), and the effect of that passage, like Herodas 5,26 – 27, depends upon our knowledge of 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|r eQli. 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 two or three proverbs in succession so as to load his style with elegances. Almost all the proverbs in existence might be collected out of his plays”.

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which depends for its effect upon our familiarity with other standard modes of representation, such as those of comedy; such phrases, particularly when delivered in the archaising Ionic of Herodas, are essentially theatrical markers of rôle-playing. When viewed in this light, it is possible to see the relationship between drama and the mimiamboi as more fundamental than the mere study of shared motifs and characters might suggest. We could if we wish, for example, see Mimiamb 3 (The Schoolteacher) as a distorted and ‘low-life’ version of the typical comic scenario of wastrel son and angry parent, with Metrotime playing the rôle of Terence’s Demea,27 or Mimiamb 6 (A Private Conversation) as showing what women ‘really’ talk about when they get together (contrast, e. g., Menander, Synaristosai = Plautus, Cistellaria);28 whatever particular links there might be, these poems depend for their effect upon their audience’s knowledge of other, ‘higher’ modes and representations. It is the ironic perspective provided by that knowledge, even more than the linguistic form of the mimiamboi, which determines the very special nature 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’ Deipnosophistai: The player called a magode (lacyid|r) carries tambourines and cymbals, and all his clothes are women’s garments. He makes rude gestures (swim_fetai), and all his actions lack decency, as he plays the part of adulterous women or bawds (lastqopo}r), or a man drunk and going on a revel to his mistress. Aristoxenus (fr. 110 W2) says that hilarodia is serious and derives from tragedy (paq± tµm tqacyid_am eWmai), whereas magodia derives from comedy (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 tantalising 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 scale of Metrotime’s alleged sufferings (3m c±q st|l’ 1st· t/r sumoij_gr p\sgr jtk.) is a fair measure of the ‘distance’ between comedy and mimiamb. 28 A conversation about the merits of ekisboi is indeed preserved as Aristophanes fr. 592 K.-A.; unlike the women in Herodas, however, the Aristophanic women are unimpressed: “they are as like the real thing as the moon is like the sun; they look [good enough], but give no warmth”. S. Ciriello, Sileno 15, 1989, 83 – 88, argues that the fragment comes from The Lemnian Women.

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of paq\.29 I do not necessarily believe that the relationship between Herodas and comedy which I have sketched sheds any light upon this passage of Athenaeus, if only because it is far from clear that Herodas has anything to do with magodia, but it may be that we can see, in the mimiamboi and in magodia, two related exploitations of New Comedy, which very quickly established itself as a ‘classic’ dramatic repertoire available for more than one kind of ‘re-performance’. The Plautine version of the effect which I have been considering here deserves further attention. As I have noted elsewhere,30 Plautine comedy distorts Greek comedy by breaking it down into its constituent elements, by ‘showing how it works’, by exaggerating its standard conceits and assumptions, and the result is again something like a parody of Greek comedy. The recent renewal of interest in the popular and farcical affiliations of Plautine comedy, a renewal that is most associated with E. Lefèvre and his colleagues, is of particular relevance in evaluating this similarity between Plautus and Herodas. In my view, both writers play upon their audience’s knowledge of other modes to produce a complex representation in which we enjoy not merely the scenes presented to us ‘for their own sakes’, but also because we recognise (and laugh at) distortions of other, perhaps more ‘serious’, modes. As Herodas assimilates comic material to the ‘lower’ milieu of mime and iambos, so Plautus often assimilates the plots and characters of his Greek originals to the ‘lower’ milieu of Italian farce. I should add that these generalisations are broadly independent of the closeness or distance of Plautus from Greek drama for which anyone would wish to argue. Even where Plautus composes ‘off his own bat’, he is still exploiting and distorting the classic, authenticating tradition of Greek comedy. In the second part of this paper I wish to apply these general considerations to certain aspects of what is perhaps Herodas’ most famous creation, the pornoboskos Battaros of Poem 2. “I am also surprised, men of Athens, if you who hate pornoboskoi will be prepared to release those who have voluntarily prostituted themselves 29 Cf. Wilamowitz, Kleine Schriften II, 117 – 18; Maas RE 3A.159; E. Fraenkel, Elementi plautini in Plauto, Firenze 1960, 317 n. (= Plautinisches im Plautus, Berlin 1922, 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, München 1967, 8 – 9. Cunningham offers a brief but helpful overview of the sources on 3 – 11 of his edition of Herodas. 30 Drama 2, 1993, 235 – 237.

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(to»r 2j|mtar pepoqmeul]mour)”; thus Aischines in the course of his speech against Timarchus (Aisch. 1,188). In Poem 2 Herodas presents the speech to a Coan court of Battaros, a metic, a pornoboskos and a kinaidos. To what extent his speech may parody contemporary Coan conventions we cannot know,31 but it has long been recognised that the central motive force of the poem is the inversion of legal topoi familiar from our corpus of Attic forensic oratory.32 Although p|qmoi were probably not technically prohibited from speaking in Athenian courts (as opposed to the assembly),33 the whole idea is a preposterous inversion of the ideology and ethos of those courts; as J.J. Winkler put it, “[the kinaidos] constitutes a powerful image […] of a socially and sexually deviant male”.34 The inversion is here marked by Battaros’ name, as Aischines claims (1,126. 131; 2,99) that Demosthenes’ nickname B\takor could denote !mamdq_a ja· jimaid_a, although Demosthenes himself sought to explain it as the result of a childhood speech defect (cf. battaq_feim).35 Battaros is therefore a ‘lowlife’ alter ego of the greatest Attic orator of the classical period. Mimiamb 2 is, however, not merely an example of the devil quoting scripture; Battaros’ speech drives a wedge into the assumption of Attic forensic oratory that the man who is generally sober and law-abiding will also have been law-abiding on any particular occasion. Aristotle notes that the three qualities which make a speaker trustworthy are vq|mgsir, !qet^ and eumoia (Rhet. 2,1378a 6 – 9); Battaros offers a sublime picture of the opposite of all three. Aristotle also observes that the speaker must “put the hearers into the frame of mind of those who are inclined to anger, and […] show that his opponents are responsible for things which rouse men to anger and are people of the kind with whom men are angry” (Rhet. 2,1380a 2 – 4); with Battaros, however, we laugh rather than cry. At one level, the speech is a disaster; at another, it is a masterpiece. Moreover an impor31 The most recent investigator, C. Castello, ‘Sulla legislazione attribuita a Caronda nel secondo Mimiambo di Eroda’, in: G. Nenci / G. Thür (Hgg.), Symposion 1988. Vortrge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, Wien 1990, 361 – 368, seems inclined to take both the cited laws and their ascription to Charondas 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 his speech 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’ performance is as knowing as our response; he knows just what rôle he is playing. Scholars have rightly looked to comedy for Battaros’ immediate predecessors. The pornoboskos was a stock character of Middle and New Comedy,36 but legal problems are usually the last thing such a character wants (cf. Men. Kolax 132, Ter. Ad. 195); the pornoboskos of drama knows that he stands no chance before the popular courts. In bringing an action, then, Battaros simply inverts one more (comic) norm. In appealing to the public service he has performed by importing prostitutes (18 – 19), he may however have comic precedent. In a fragment of Philemon (fr. 3 K.-A.) an unknown speaker praises Solon’s establishment 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 institution which is ‘public-spirited and serves the general safety’ is a pornoboskos. Moreover, clear affinities have been noted between Battaros and Sannio, the leno of Terence’s Adelphoe, who probably derives ultimately from a play of Diphilos, but whose name also points towards the popular traditions of Italian farce.37 Like Battaros, Sannio loses one of his girls by force and, like Battaros, claims to consider this an outrageous affront to freedom and the rule of law; unlike Battaros, however, we never really believe that Sannio will pursue his ‘rights’ in a court of law (Ad. 163, cf. 248). The substance of Battaros’ complaint against Thales, foreshadowed in 24 – 25, is first set out in 31 – 40: mOm d’ oR l³m 1|mter t/r p|kior jakupt/qer ja· t/i cem/i vus_mter oqj Usom to}tyi pq¹r to»r m|lour bk]pousi jAl³ t¹m ne?mom oqde·r pok_tgr Ak|gsem oqd’ Gkhem pq¹r 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, Cambridge 1985, 72 with n. 25. For the farcical connections of his name cf. E. Rawson, PBSR 53, 1985, 98 (= Roman Culture and Society. Collected Papers, Oxford 1991, 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]shg oute m|lom oute pqost\tgm out’ %qwomta.

As it is, those who are really on the roof of the city, whose birth gives them far more cause for pride than his, they respect the laws; no citizen has ever thrashed me, the foreign guest, or come to my doors at night, or taken a torch and set fire to the house, or seized one of my girls by force and run off. But this Phrygian, who now calls himself Thales, but, gentlemen, used to be Artimmes, he has done all of these things, without respect for any law or magistrate38 or official.

The scenes which are here evoked are the very way in which pornoboskoi, particularly in literary and dramatic representations, made their money. What Battaros denies ever happened are the very things which are commonplace in comedy, and require no illustration.39 ‘No citizen has ever come to my doors at night …’; if so, Battaros must have conducted a singularly unsuccessful business. What under normal circumstances can be presented to a law-court as outrageous behaviour towards a peace-loving citizen is just what happens every night at a (comic) brothel. Just as the characters of New Comedy can move in a self-referential world in which ‘“everyday experience’ […] is only that which is sanctioned by repeated appearance on the comic stage”,40 so Battaros’ list of adunata are the very stuff of the literary milieu which spawned him. Moreover, when Battaros shows Myrtale to the jury and claims that Thales is responsible for her ‘plucked condition’ (t_klata),41 he is not (or at least not primarily), as some commentators have supposed, aping Hypereides who is said to have displayed his client Phryne to the jury,42 but rather doing what comes naturally – displaying 38 Cunningham and others are presumably correct to take pqost\tgr as a reference 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 humorous. 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 from Greek 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.

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his wares to potential clients. Battaros amusingly treats Myrtale as a ‘shy virgin’ whose only contact with men has been with her close male relatives (66 – 68); might we guess that this is to be understood as an actual sales-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 for money (79 – 83) inverts the Demosthenic rhetoric of “I could have taken 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’ displaying 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 according to the occupations of their clients, the main comic conceit of that scene seems to be that Ballio does precisely the opposite of what a pornoboskos should do when his girls display themselves to ‘an audience’: instead of making them seem attractive and desirable, Ballio runs them down as useless and wasteful. From a dramatic point of view, the purpose of this ‘characterisation’ is obvious: Ballio’s rôle is not permitted nuances or complications, he is the pure essence of leno. When Cicero described him as improbissimus et periurissimus leno […] persona illa lutulenta, impura, inuisa (Pro Quinto Roscio comoedo 20) the stereotyped, rather unimaginative colours – in part derived from the play itself —44 catch the certainty and definiteness of the rôle, which are played off against, first, the helpless vacillation and impotence of Calidorus and, then, the shifting craftiness of the Odyssean Pseudolus.45 Like Battaros, Ballio knows both his rôle46 and the rules of the game: Si. quid ait? quid narrat? quaeso, quid dicit tibi? Ba. nugas theatri, uerba quae in comoediis solent 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 exaggerated) 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’ ‘staging’ of the plot to cheat Ballio is Odysseus’ ‘staging’ of the plot to trick Philoctetes 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 has room for narrative development and surprise of a kind which is hardly possible within the scope of the mimiamb. The shorter form therefore makes greater demands upon our interpretative resources. With Battaros, we are not quite sure where we stand; we do not quite know how far our leg is being pulled. The humour of the central section of Battaros’ speech, 41 – 54 on the law concerning aQje_g, requires little explanation: the appeal to the universality of laws which are not made with specific individuals in mind (cf. Dem. 21, 29 – 30), the intimacy and vulgarity with which Battaros addresses the clerk of the court etc., are all easy enough to appreciate. Nevertheless, certain aspects of the legal humour have not always been well understood and deserve further comment here. In Attic law a d_jg aQje_ar could be brought against someone for unprovoked assault, and this was naturally closely associated with, though quite separate from, a d_jg bk\bgr, which sought restitution for damage to property.47 Coan law may, of course, have been different, but if, as seems likely, the assumed background is not unlike that of Attic law, then it is significant that whereas the scribe cites a law referring to physical assault (46 – 48), Battaros himself reads out clauses which deal indiscriminately with physical assault and damage to property (50 – 54). After all that has preceded, jCm bk\xgi ti ‘if he does any damage’ (54) is ridiculously bathetic. Moreover, whereas at Athens the d_jg aQje_ar was tilgt|r, i. e. the plaintiff had to suggest the damages,48 Battaros cites clauses with fixed penalties. The clauses that he cites are not only more specific than is customary in such laws, but are also uncannily appropriate to what he claims to have suffered. If the law that the clerk cites 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 intention’, 1j½m explains the ‘double penalty’ and adds to the ‘legal flavour’; to the instances cited by the commentators add perhaps Amycus’ oath at Theocr. 22,134 ‘not willingly to harm strangers in the future’. Nevertheless, a double penalty for wrong done to a slave-girl by a free man sounds a decidedly odd inversion of what we

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up as he goes along; he has, after all, taken the statute from the clerk and is ‘reading’ it out himself. Just as the ‘facts’ of the case are a comic mixture of the everyday and the shamelessly invented — there are no witnesses, as Battaros endearingly remarks (85) — so the ‘laws’ adduced in this case are a mixture of trite phraseology and novel content. Before pursuing this in detail, we may note here clear satire of Athenian legal practice in which laws could be partially or indeed erroneously cited and few of the jury would be the wiser;50 the form of the citation — vgs_, 5meile — alerts us to Battaros’ shamelessness. This reading may seem to presuppose an audience with very detailed knowledge of the law, but we easily overestimate the abstruseness of legal practice in a different culture, and we must always remember that the formal aspects of Herodas’ verse suggest (at least in part) an educated and indeed scholarly audience. ‘If someone beats on ( j|xgi) a door, let him pay a mina’ (50). Commentators 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 instead of the complex 1jj|xgi.51 In view, however, of the disingenuousness of 34 – 35 (cf. above), we should, on at least one level, understand j|xgi in its normal sense as another example of Battaros’ taunting shamelessness: knocking on someone’s door does not normally carry a fine. ‘If someone burns the house or oversteps the boundaries … ’ (52 – 53). I cite Cunningham’s note: “eqor is the stone marking the boundary between two areas of land […] hence the abstract boundary itself […] The extension to the walls of a house is […] difficult to explain.” There are a number of points to be made here. We ought perhaps not make too much of the fact that Battaros does not own the house which he alleges has been damaged, but merely rents it (64); this does, however, obviously affect his legal position and would certainly not escape the notice of a legally aware audience. What damage has 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 a person commits rape on the free man or the free woman, he shall pay one hundred staters […] and if the slave on the free man or the free woman, he shall pay double” (trans. R. F. Willets), and the similar ‘double’ provision at col. II 26. If indeed the clerk’s law is also absurd, this does not mean that Cunningham’s 5jym 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 Homosexuality, London 1978, 24 – 25. 51 Cf. esp. Lysias 3,6 (a komos to get a young boy) 1jj|xar t±r h}qar jtk.

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fire damage, whereas 65 t± qp]qhuq’ apt\ ‘the lintel scorched’ seems rather less serious. The real absurdity lies in ‘oversteps the boundaries’, a quasi-legal phrase which, if it has a meaning in such contexts, would refer either to a public invasion of territory or to trespass in a rural setting; cf. Pl. Laws 8,843c-d ‘Whosoever encroaches on his neighbour’s ground, overstepping the boundaries (rpeqba_mym to»r eqour), shall pay for the damage; and, by way of cure for his shamelessness and incivility, he shall also pay out to the injured party twice the cost of the damage (dipk\siom toO bk\bour)’ (trans. R.G. Bury). Thus Battaros has found an impressive, but entirely inappropriate, phrase to lend legal sonority to his citation of ‘the law’. What makes our laughter uneasy here is the knowledge that this is different only 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 oratory. What Mimiamb 2 does is to dismantle the structure of forensic persuasion by revealing how it operates through a series of codes which can readily be dissociated from ‘the facts of the case’; Battaros’ rhetoric unmasks the pretentious complacency of forensic topoi. It may not indeed be fanciful to see in Battaros and Myrtale a comic dramatisation, or even reductio ad absurdum, of the essentially erotic nature of peih~ in all its manifestations; ‘stripped’ of the theoretical considerations with which Gorgias, say, clothes rhetoric in the Helen, the arguments of the law courts are revealed for ‘what they really are’. In this wonderfully parodic speech, then, Herodas deserves to be recognised as a truly ‘satiric’ writer.52 In this paper I have explored some characteristic features of the mimiambs largely through an investigation of one poem. Despite this limited compass, I hope that one strategy which is shared by Herodas and Plautus is now clear: both writers exploit our knowledge of other texts and other contexts by the ironic deconstruction of those texts and contexts. That the historical explanation for this similarity lies in a shared debt to the popular traditions of mime and farce is a possibility which is well worth considering. 52 Dr. Nick Lowe makes the attractive suggestion that behind Herodas’ strategy here lies the ambivalent status of the written texts of Attic legal speeches themselves: what is their relationship to ‘what was actually said’? It would be the uneasy compromise embodied in these ‘scripts’ which would be part at least of Herodas’ target.

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Addenda Cf. above no. 10 for recent bibliography. p. 217 – 18 For a recent consideration of Gentili’s view cf. S. Nervegna, ‘Staging scenes or plays? Theatrical revivals of “old” Greek drama in antiquity’ ZPE 162 (2007) 14 – 42. pp. 222 For Sannio’s links with popular comedy cf. this volume 657 – 60.

13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonis v. 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 obvious, but there is more to be said about the reworking of this passage of Idyll 1, a poem whose central ‘lament’ for Daphnis, with its attendant ‘pathetic fallacy’, gave it a particular importance as a model for Bion’s Lament. In Thyrsis’ opening speech in Idyll 1 he expresses the fact that the goatherd is second only to Pan in musical skill by suggesting a gradation of 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 extension 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 and is part of an elaborate pattern of images of water and washing which runs 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 * 1 2 3

Materiali e Discussioni 32 (1994) 165 – 8 This note owes much to the criticism and encouragement of Marco Fantuzzi. jataqqe? is Stephanus’ certain correction of the transmitted ja· %qqei. Cf. Hom. Il. 2, 670; at Hor. c. 1, 28, 28 defluat is surely influenced by the ‘watery’ subject of that poem. 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 with the clear, ‘chattering’ waters of the fons Bandusiae; however conventional the picture (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

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evokes the collapse of the young goat, sacrificed to Pan as a preliminary to 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 the success of the Argonautic expedition sinks !lvot]qoisi peqiqqgdµr jeq\essim (Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1, 431). The description of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, d_jam wila_qar, at Aeschylus, Agamemnon 228 – 41 is a particularly suggestive example of the ‘flowing’ collapse of the victim5. In Bion, too, jataqqe? is part of a complex pattern of imagery which includes the shedding of tears, even by rivers (vv. 33 – 4), the flowing of blood (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 bitter address to Persephone (vv. 54 – 5 above) 6, Aphrodite treats the goddess of the Underworld as a successful rival ‘bride’ for her beautiful husband, thereby reversing the sex roles of the more usual topos by which the death of a young girl is seen as ‘marriage’ to (or rape by) death or Hades7. Such reversal responds to a level of meaning which lies at the very heart of the Adonis cult, as may be seen in the Adonis-song in Theocritus, Idyll 158. By rewriting the opening of Idyll 1, Bion also evokes the idea that Adonis has been sacrificed to Persephone, who now holds him forever; to die is to ‘flow down’ the river(s) of the Underworld towards the grim queen. Over Aphrodite’s outburst hovers the paradox that she herself cannot die (v. 53); ‘everything that is fair flows to Persephone’, only if what is immortal, and in particular Kypris herself, is excluded. p\mta qe? is, for Kypris, bitterly untrue. This is not merely a restatement of the unbridgeable gap between the immortals and us, but also speaks to the very nature of t¹ jak|m. The quality of

4 5 6 7

8

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 his brother). The compound verb is used of the flowing of blood from a wound at Hom. Il. 4. 149; 5, 870. 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 terram non sponte fluens. For generic parallels to this address cf. Fantuzzi’s note on v. 54. Examples are legion, cf. R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs, Urbana 1942 = 1962, pp. 192 – 4; Fantuzzi on v. 87; R. Seaford, ‘The Tragic Wedding’, Journ. Hell. Stud. 107, 1987, pp. 106 – 30. For marriage and sacrifice cf. also J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, London 1980, pp. 130 – 67. 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 fearful recognition 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 own lives. One text which uses some of these same ideas is Catullus 3, on the death of his girlfriend’s passer. In particular, vv. 13 – 15, at uobis male sit, male tenebrae Orci, quae omnia bella deuoratis: tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis,

are very like Lament for Adonis v. 55. Catullus has taken the whole process one stage further, by making death ‘the devourer’, an idea which is of course particularly appropriate in a poem on the death of a small bird and which seems to look forward to the well-known late antique and Byzantine epitaphs for animals10 ; Anth. Pal. 7, 203 – 6 is a series of poems on a partridge eaten by a cat. That death ‘devours’ its victims is an idea which has a strong hold on the popular imagination in many cultures; in Greek literature, for example, the figures of Polyphemus and Scylla exploit such terrors11. In his commentary on Bion’s poem, Fantuzzi cautiously accepts that Catullus is directly alluding to Bion12. If so, we have here a very good example of the much discussed technique whereby a poet combines allusion to a literary model with allusion to that model’s model13, and an example which shows us the (unsurprising) sensitivity of Catullus’ readings of Greek poetry. By combining the gnomic bitterness of Bion’s Aphrodite with the fate of the kid in Idyll 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 Gardens 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 may have been very close in time to each other; for a careful survey of the latter’s date cf. Fantuzzi’s edition pp. 141 – 5. 13 Cf., e. g., J. C. McKeown, Ovid: Amores, I, Liverpool 1987, pp. 37 – 45.

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this is that Catullus reads Bion as already hinting at this development: as the ‘lovely flesh’ of the kid in Idyll 1 is to be eaten, so Aphrodite’s bitter allusion hints that Persephone, whose name might be interpreted as ‘death by slaughter’14, is actually going to ‘eat’ the jak|r sacrifice which has been offered to her. Literary imitation is essentially a process of creative reading. If Catullus was not alluding specifically to Bion, then we have at least a further reminder of the persistence of certain generic ways of representing death in ancient literature. Choice between these alternatives is always going to be a matter of judgement, but the opening of Catullus 3, lugete o Veneres Cupidinesque, surely evokes the death of Adonis (cf. Bion, Lament v. 2 etc. 1pai\fousim =qyter), and this seems to me to weigh very heavily in favour of direct allusion.

Addenda J.D. Reed, Bion of Smyrna. The Fragments and the Adonis (Cambridge 1997) is a very important addition to the literature on Bion; some of the themes of the present note are, of course, picked up in my commentary on Idyll 1 in Theocritus. A Selection (Cambridge 1999).

14 No explicit link between Persephone and v|mor is found before Eustathius’ note on Od. 10, 491, but we can hardly rule out less explicit poetic evocations; it need hardly be said that the actual etymology of Persephone is not in question here.

14. Mime and mimesis: Theocritus, Idyll 15* This paper considers various related aspects of Theoc. 15: the poem’s concern with its own form, the relation of the poet to the ruling house, and the representation of important themes in Ptolemaic public ideology. These are all familiar subjects, but I shall argue that they are linked 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, their attention is first caught by the tapestries (t± poij_ka) 1 with their lifelike figures (t!jqib]a cq\llata, 5tula, 5lxuw’ oqj 1muvamt\): sov|m ti wq/l’ %mhqypor exclaims Praxinoa, before moving to describe a representation of Adonis with his first beard just showing. After a brief interruption, Gorgo draws attention to ‘the Argive woman’s daughter’, a pok}idqir !oid|r, and bound to sing something jak|m ; the song itself describes Aphrodite and the young Adonis in a marvellous tableau representing their ‘marriage’, and Gorgo responds with admiration: sov~tatom " h^keia jtk. This brief summary makes clear the obvious analogies between the two palace ‘artefacts’, the tapestries and the hymn, but those analogies allow more than one inference. It may be that we are simply supposed to understand that Gorgo and Praxinoa would respond with such admiration to anything beyond the normal sphere of their experience, and the point lies not in fact in any similarity of the song to the tapestries but precisely in their difference which we, but not the women, can appreciate; Gorgo and Praxinoa have only one register for admiration and use it across widely different categories. Whereas the women emphasise the ‘reality’, the ‘lifelikeness’, of the woven figures, the hymn in fact seems concerned to point the ‘unreality’, the fabulousness, of what it describes – p\mtessi jako?r (111) … * 1

M.A. Harder et al. (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen 1996) 149 – 69 Cf. Gow (1950) on v. 78 for this interpretation.

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fsa (112) … fssa (115) … pamto?a (116) … fssa (117)… p\mta

(118). This superabundance of good things which defy cataloguing may reflect a deliberate stress by Ptolemy and Arsinoe on the incredible riches of Egypt, a motif seen also in Theoc. 17 and in the standard representations of Arsinoe with a cornucopia ‘full with all the good fruits of the season’ (Ath. 11.497b-c),2 but there is also a more literary dimension. The analogies direct our attention to the relationship of the two ‘artefacts’, particularly as the designs on the tapestries (81 – 6) and the tableau described by the singer are pointedly similar. The ‘realism’ of the tapestries is based on a comparison with actual experience – they are 5lxuwa ; so also the hymn appeals to, and our response to it must be conditioned by, our experience of such poems (and such 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 ‘ordinary experience’. The effect of this is that the literary mime inscribes possible models of its own reception in the text. It does not require a long survey of the history of discussions of ‘mimetic realism’ to realise how closely the reactions of the women foreshadow familiar modes of critical response. We might not naturally choose Gorgo and Praxinoa as models for ourselves, and their reactions might seem ‘unsophisticated’ but the poem forces us to consider the basis and validity of our own critical judgements.4 This is made particularly sharp by the fact that the women claim to be Syracusans (v. 90) and they have apparently moved from that city to Alexandria. In as much as we may claim to ‘know’ anything about Theocritus, he too appears to have been a Syracusan who certainly worked, if not also lived, at Alexandria. Gorgo and Praxinoa, who describe the scene for us and thus act the role of the informing poet, are fashioned as a comically distorted image of ‘the actual poet’; their visit to the palace may be seen as a rendering of Theocritus’ 2

3 4

Cf. Thompson (1973: 32 – 3); on Theoc. 17 cf. Meincke (1965: 127 – 36). For tquv^ 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, particularly for moralising writers (cf. Phylarchos, FGrH 81 F 40, on the %jaiqor tquv^ of Philadelphos), and we must be wary of lessening the differences between earlier and later Ptolemies; nevertheless, the picture which emerges from the poetry written under Philadelphos is pretty consistent, and cf. Ath. 5.203bc. Cf. Gow (1950: 2.266): “the details of Arsinoe’s tableau are presumably drawn from life”. For the ‘historicity’ of Arsinoe’s festival cf. below n. 61. Cf. Goldhill (1994: 216 – 23).

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‘coming’ to the royal palace in Alexandria and his gaining of ‘admittance’ (i. e. royal patronage), whereas his charites in Theoc. 16, like many of the pressing crowd in Theoc. 15, failed to gain entry through the doors of the great.5 As embodiments of the poetic voice, Gorgo and Praxinoa guide us as we are usually guided by the poet; we cannot simply ignore their voice. The fact that a related strategy seems to be at work in Herodas’s fourth Mimiamb6 might suggest that this concern with 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 part of ‘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?lor as l_lgsir b_ou t\ te sucjewyqgl]ma ja· !sucw~qgta peqi]wym ‘an imitation of life encompassing both the permitted and the illicit’ (Diomedes xxiv.3.16 – 7 Koster),7 there was without doubt already in the third century a clear link between mime and ‘mimesis of life’; the women’s reactions to the tapestries, as we have seen, provide one model for the reception of the poem in which they appear. If, however, there is anything in the report of the Hypothesis in the scholia that Theocritus ‘modelled’ (paq]pkase) his poem on Sophron’s The Women at the Isthmian Festival,8 then we can see that this mimos is a mimesis in another sense too. 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 Corinthians by descent’ (v. 91) does not amusingly glance at Sophron’s mime, and it is pure speculation that Sophron too represented Syracusan women present 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 a crowd there is around the doors’, lend themselves easily to such a satirical reading. For a related reading of Theoc. 14 cf. Burton (1992: 240 – 2). The relation between poets and the ‘houses’ (real and metaphorical) of the great is a recurrent motif of Roman poetry (cf. now the overview in White 1993), and here too 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).

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in Alexandria of a new literary form, embodied in the amusing shapes of Gorgo and Praxinoa and in a rough hexametric technique which may seek to imitate in ‘verse’ the half-way house of Sophron’s rhythmical mimes.11 With their admission to the palace, the Syracusan mime tradition has reached the Alexandrian court.12 Such conscious self-reference, which may be described as a kind of literary history written into the poem, is hardly surprising in any product of Alexandrian poetry, but again we may wish to see a mode which is peculiarly adapted to the mime. Secondly, we can see that it is the literary mime of Herodas and Theocritus which foreshadows, in the implicit poetics of poetry itself, the connection between two senses of mimesis which we find in later poetic theory;13 these senses are the mimesis familiar from Aristotle’s Poetics, that is the transference of the inherent mimetic qualities of human beings to a criterion for (particularly dramatic) poetry as imitative of the actions of men, and mimesis as the imitation of literary models. The literary mime interweaves these two senses in such a way as to explore the relation between them. Thus, for example, Gorgo’s praise of the 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 to dramatise the artifice, the mimesis, of the ‘naturalism’ of this mime. Rather more complex perhaps is the episode which separates the admiration of the tapestries from the Adonis-song. A nameless man asks the women to be quiet because their broad vowels (as well as their ceaseless chatter) are driving him to distraction. ‘Unless’, as Dover (1971: 207) notes, ‘there has been interference with the transmitted text on a large scale’, the man too speaks in Doric. If we take this little scene at face value, then either, as Gow (1952: 290) puts it, ‘we are plainly invited to suppose that [despite the dialect of the text] he is not a Dorian’, or we must suppose that Syracusan Doric was thought to sound particularly broad in comparison with other Dorian accents or dialects.14 It seems to be generally true for Theocritus that ‘stylistic variation inside the same idyll does not depend on breaks in the convention of the dialect but on differences of vocabulary, theme and feel11 For the versification of Theoc. 15 cf. Fantuzzi (1995) and n. 49 below. For Sophron cf. Norden (1898: 1.46 – 8). 12 Cf. the remarks of Griffiths (1979: 84,120), on Theoc. 14 and 15 as corresponding male and female mimes. In connection with Theoc. 15 one would give 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).

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ings’,15 but the second explanation can hardly be ruled out; what for the man is an unbearably grating sound, is for Praxinoa pure and original Doric (vv. 90 – 3). Dialectal questions have, of course, a peculiar significance in a ‘genre’ which advertises its connections with ‘life’; to call attention to the apparent gap between the speech presupposed by what is actually said and the text itself is a striking way of dramatising the tension between literary artifice and the appeal to mimetic realism which lies at the heart of the literary mime of Herodas and Theocritus.16 As all the characters of the poem figure in a ‘Syracusan mime’ they will speak appropriately (cf. below), but what they say and how they say it dramatises the presuppositions of this awkward ‘genre’. In the realm of ‘high’ literature, linguistic style was a product of generic tradition (Ionic for epic, Doric colouring for high lyric etc.), not of the geographical location of the setting or the origin of the characters. This modified linguistic practice, then, is one part of the debt of Hellenistic mime to the comic tradition in all its manifestations, but its exploitation of the ironies thus made available suggests clearly the tastes and concerns of the 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 traditional language of high poetry which are most common elsewhere in Theocritus’ ‘Doric’ poems,18 namely masculine genitive singulars in -oio and dative plurals in -oisi or -aisi ; an unaugmented past tense appears certainly19 only in a homely sententia from Gorgo (v. 25),20 and there is no example of nu ephelkystikon. Theoc. 15 is certainly not unique 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 ‘reconstruction’ of the language of Hipponax. Nevertheless, the same aesthetic problem lies behind the practice of both poets. 17 Cf. Di Benedetto (1956: 53). Gallavotti’s text removes even some of these by reading, e. g., ja for jem in vv. 25 and 38. 18 I accept for the purposes of the present discussion the traditional distinctions within the Theocritean corpus (cf. Gow 1950: 1.lxxii); for fuller discussion cf. 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).

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and linguistic simplicity perhaps aligns this poem most closely with Theoc. 11, the song of the lovesick Cyclops. These poems have something else in common also—their principal characters are Syracusans, a fact which is noted explicitly in the course of the poems (11.7, 15.90). As Theocritus himself came from Syracuse, it would be unsurprising if the Syracusan dialect had had some influence on the Doric of his poems; that Theoc. 15 was indeed composed in the Syracusan dialect was argued by Victor Magnien (1920), but without conspicuous success, which was in any case hardly to be expected, given the dialectal mess presented by our papyri and manuscripts and the fact that the majority of dialectal alternatives are metrically equivalent. Nevertheless, it is in Theoc. 11 and 15, if anywhere, that we might be tempted to seek specifically Syracusan features. Two facts make the case of Theoc. 15 particularly interesting.22 One is the fact already considered that the poem itself 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 to the text, P.Hamburg 201 of the first century A.D., preserves a rare dialect 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\jeitai jkisl_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 ‘certain roughness 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 poem and nowhere else, and !v_jeuso (v. 42) which is said by the scholiast, on what authority 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 cent A.D.):]im Q Ant.: dyq_sdem codd. teste Gallavotti 23 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 so naturally they’re alive not woven. What a clever thing is man! And look at him; how marvellous he is, lying in his silver chair with the first down spreading from the temples, thrice-loved Adonis, loved even in death. Stranger. My good women, do stop that ceaseless chattering – perfect turtle-doves, they’ll bore one to death with all their broad vowels. Praxinoa. Gracious, where does this gentleman come from? And what business is it of yours if we do chatter? Give orders where you’re master. It’s Syracusans you’re ordering about, and let me tell you we’re Corinthians by descent like Bellerophon. We talk Peloponnesian, and I suppose Dorians may talk 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 it as a Syracusan form;24 it occurs, however, also at 4.3, a poem set in southern Italy, and is attested on Crete,25 and may therefore have had wider currency than we can now tell. Nevertheless, there seem to be good reasons for seeking ‘Syracusan features’ in the speech of the women. There are also good reasons for caution. Although the main features of the language of the Corinthian colonies are well understood, our knowledge of the Syracusan variant is very scanty indeed, and is far too reliant upon the vagaries of manuscript traditions; the epigraphic record is extremely thin.26 Attestations for ‘Syracusan dialect’ in the grammatical tradition very often mean no more than that a word was used by Epicharmus or Sophron, and we can hardly doubt that Theocritus’ Alexandrian readers were interested in the possible difference between an ‘echo’ of one of these Syracusan poets and a genuine feature of (archaising or contemporary) Syracusan speech. Moreover, analogies from other literary traditions (both ancient and modern), such as the presentation of non-Attic dialects in the comedies of Aristophanes, suggest that mimesis of speech forms – particularly for the purposes of humour or some other marked effect – is unlikely to be linguistically ‘accurate’ or consistent; it is ‘difference’ which is important for the reception of 23 24 25 26

Gallavotti’s report of the papyrus readings here is erroneous. Cf. Gow (1950) on 4.3; Gallavotti (1986: 10). Cf. Buck (1955: §§87, 119.5). Cf. Dubois (1989: 89 – 117).

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the represented speech. There has, moreover, been a natural tendency to seek specifically Syracusan forms which distinguish this poem from the other Doric poems of Theocritus. By seeing Theoc. 15 within the Theocritean corpus, however, the mimetic effect of the whole may be obscured, for when Praxinoa and Gorgo use Doric forms, the effect remains mimetically analogous to Syracusan speech, even when those forms were either not specifically Syracusan or in fact not actually in use in Syracuse. If no other Theocritean poem had survived, there would be little critical disagreement about the linguistic mimesis of the poem. It is not merely mimetic form, but also language, which has arrived in Alexandria. Against this background we may consider the nature of the Doric used in Theoc. 15. Third-century Syracusan used -ou and -our for the masculine genitive singular and accusative plural, rather than -y and -yr which are found in some West Greek dialects and throughout the manuscripts of Doric authors; the latter forms, though very far from universal in Doric speech, will have been adopted as the marked forms in literature because the alternative ‘Doric’ forms, -ou and -our, were also the forms of the Attic koine. Grammatical theorising and standardising makes evaluation of the tradition very difficult in such a matter;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 rigorous than correct,31 because this would lessen the perceived difference between the speech of Gorgo and Praxinoa and the Atticising koine; the possibility can, however, hardly be excluded. Other than xe, the following individual forms are particularly worthy of note: (i) 5mdoi (or 1mdo? ) in vv. 1 and 77 is classed as Syracusan by the grammatical tradition, but this will probably be a result of Theocritus’ 27 28 29 30 31

For the evidence cf. Molinos Tejada (1990: 60 – 3, 202 – 11). So also the MSS. So also POxy. 1618 and the MSS; PAntin. has wqgslo}r. So also the MSS; QAnt. has wqgst_. 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. Gallavotti (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 first major 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.

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use of the form; such forms are in fact quite widely attested in Doric and Aeolic areas.32 Nevertheless, it is not unlikely that the opening word of the poem (emphatically repeated at the end of the verse) was intended to carry a particular dialectal charge, and it may not be over-hazardous to guess that the form appeared in Sophron. The instructions to a named servant seem also to be a ‘cueing’ device of the mimic tradition (cf. Sophron frr. 14, 15, 17 K-A).33 Thestylis, the servant in Theoc. 2 who, as the scholia inform us, is derived from Sophron, is named in the opening verse of that poem in a similar ‘programmatic’ way. In v. 55 5mdom is universally transmitted, but there 1mdo? certainly deserves a place in the apparatus.34 (ii) dq_vor (v. 2) is another form which had disappeared entirely from the MS tradition, only to reappear in PAntin. The grammatical tradition regarded it as Syracusan, and illustrated it with a phrase which has been plausibly assigned to Sophron (fr. 10 K-A, cf. Gow ad loc.), and indeed to the scene upon which the Theocritean opening is based.35 Its appearance so early in the poem, like 5mdoi, will carry a programmatic charge. (iii) pe? (v. 33) is found only in PAntin. (PHamb. 201 and POxy. 1816 do not survive), but adverbs in -ei are a familiar feature of 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 particular charge. We must, however, always reckon with the possibility that other Theocritean examples have now been removed from our texts.38 32 Cf. Hopkinson on Call. h. 6.76. The Callimachean example – the only other literary attestation known to me – is spoken by Erysichthon’s mother, and that 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 also a very common mannerism of the mime (Sophron frr. 23, 25, 31 K-A, Herodas 1.73, 4.20, 6.12 etc.). 34 Elsewhere in the corpus only 27.20 where there are obvious reasons for keeping the ‘normal’ form (5mdom Q\mhg at verse-end). 35 Kaibel (1899: 156) also plausibly suggested that pot_jqamom (v. 3) derived from Sophron. 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.

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(iv) Usamti (v. 64) and Usati (v. 146) use a form of ‘to know’ which is attested for both Epicharmus (fr. 47.2 K-A) and the Pseudo-Epicharmea (fr. 280.1 K-A), whence the grammatical tradition classed it as Syracusan.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 seems reasonable to regard this form as linguistically marked. Cassio (private communication) further observes that in v. 146 fssa Usati is much further from the koine equivalent fs’ oWde than is cuma?jer Usamti of v. 64 and 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 be intended as a dialectally marked feature.41 (vi) l÷ (v. 89) is said by the scholiast to be a Syracusan form, but that is probably no more than a gloss on this passage; it is widely used by Herodas’ women,42 which does suggest roots in the mime tradition (? Sophron). The sum total may seem small,43 but the mimetic intention of the whole is clear, provided that mimesis is not taken to be an attempt to reproduce an historically accurate version of the speech of Syracusans living in Alexandria. An archaising debt to the language of Epicharmus and Sophron is, after all, quite a different matter from any attempt at a ‘realistic’ reproduction of contemporary speech. A further control might be sought in the speech of the characters other than Praxinoa and Gorgo, but this in fact provides ambiguous testimony. The few verses spoken by other characters (vv. 60, 61 – 2, 72, 73, 87 – 8) are, as far as the transmission allows us to see, broadly composed in the same manner of Doric as the speech of Gorgo and Praxinoa. Certainly, there is no obvious distinction between the two, even if the other characters do not use the rarer ‘Syracusan’ forms.44 The grammatical tradi39 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 Syracusan, because of the uncertainty of the reading; the emendation is criticised by Latte (1951: 255). 44 hgm (v. 62) in the mouth of an old woman is noteworthy, because this particle is very common in Epicharmus and Sophron and seems ‘almost confined to

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tion explained the Doric ‘broadness’ of which the stranger complains (v. 88) with reference to the long alpha which is so characteristic of all West Greek.45 A glance at vv. 78 – 86, the conversation of the women since entering the palace precinct, will confirm how prominent a feature of their language this is. Whether or not we are to imagine that the stranger is himself a Dorian,46 § d}stamoi !m\muta is presumably intended to mock the sounds the women are making. The language of Praxinoa and Gorgo is thus simply ‘marked’ by its difference from the ‘ordinary’ language of hexameter poetry, whether Ionic or Doric, a difference which consists in the absence of the most familiar features of poetic style. To this extent it lays a claim to a kind of ‘mimetic realism’ which associates it 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 extent the special and the individual in the speech of Syracusan women living in Alexandria. In a loose analogy, one might say that the panDoric features of their language correspond to the generic features of the literary mimesis (women visiting, ekphrasis of art etc.), so that both the form and the language of the poem illustrate its concern with the tension between the ‘artificial’ and the ‘real’. The language of the poem, no less than the characters and the ‘plot’, gestures towards ‘the realistic’ but determinedly refuses to embrace it. Moreover, as we have noted, to call attention to linguistic differences within a linguistically uniform poem highlights the mimetic artifice of a poetic form which claims on the surface to offer an unmediated representation of ‘reality’; as such, this is precisely the kind of sophisticated device we would 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 festival)’; it is commonly, and rightly, described in modern literature as ‘a hymn’. 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|lemai is correct in v. 23. 45 Cf. Gow (1950: ad loc.). 46 Cf. above p. 236 – 7.

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be seen by a comparison not only with extant cult hymns but also with the hymns of Callimachus; encomium of Aphrodite and Adonis is precisely what we would expect to find in a hymn to them. On the other hand, there is almost no poetry extant47 with which we may compare the Adonis-song, for Bion’s Lament for Adonis is entirely different in both form and occasion. The singer’s foreshadowing of lamentation for Adonis on the following day after the formal farewell of v. 131, a lamentation actually prefigured in the consolatio of the Catalogue of Heroes,48 both calls attention to how this song is not what we might expect 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 giving in lines 136 – 44 an advance monodic performance of what the chorus will sing next day’. Any such poem at a real festival is likely to have been an astrophic lyric song, composed in the traditional vocabulary and syntax of lyric; the fact that the metre of the Adonis-song is distinguished from the ‘mimic’ part of Theoc. 15 by its rather greater conformity to the norms of Theocritus’ ‘epicising’ poems49 perhaps points to such a mimetic effect. Moreover, the description of the tableau at vv. 112 – 22 uses the simple cumulative syntax and avoidance of sub-ordination which are a frequent mark of such astrophic lyric or verses which 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 luxuries which surround Adonis (vv. 112 – 7),51 and such a pattern should probably be seen as imitative of the rough correspondence between sense unit and rhythmical period which is regular in such lyric verse. Confirmation for this pattern may be sought in v. 123 which, if the pat47 The one fragment of Praxilla’s Hymn to Adonis in lyric dactyls (PMG 747) is a lament by the god himself; whatever the tone and interpretation of that fragment, 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 more elaborate structuring of the song into couplets cf. Ribbeck (1862: 571 – 2). Gallavotti’s structuring after two initial sextets (100 – 5 and 106 – 11) is 112 – 4,115 – 8,119 – 22,123 – 6 etc.; complete critical agreement in such a matter is hardly possible.

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tern were to continue, should be end-stopped, but which in fact breaks the pattern, thereby gaining increased emotional emphasis;52 the interlaced word-order and alliteration in the simile of vv. 121 – 2 mediate the transition to this exclamation. Whether, however, the hypostasised ‘model’ was in lyrics or hexameters,53 there is clearly another reason why the song is hard to parallel. The central part of the song is devoted to encomium of Berenice and Arsinoe and to the ecphrasis of the Adonis tableau.54 This ecphrasis may perhaps be seen as the equivalent of the sung description of cultic performance or sacrifice imagined as occurring simultaneously with the song; such descriptions are a not uncommon feature of celebratory hymns. On the other hand, the song has no narrative as such; the muthos of the royal house and the ecphrasis of the tableau have replaced any narrative of, presumably, the story of Aphrodite and Adonis. The content of the song is, of course, dictated by the design of Theoc. 15, not by what was ‘normally’ sung at real Adonis festivals. The singer takes over the role of Gorgo and Praxinoa in describing for us what we could not otherwise see, and the interplay between her voice and theirs is a crucial element in the whole. Thus, for example, the exclamation of vv. 123—4 (£ 5bemor, £ wqus|r, £ 1j keuj_ 1k]vamtor / aQeto_ jtk.) is the ‘lyric’ equivalent of the women’s reactions at vv. 78 – 86, just as both Praxinoa and the singer focus upon Adonis’ young beard (vv. 85, 130). It is, therefore, probably not too hazardous to guess that we would have to look for a very long time to find anything comparable in a ‘real’ festival song.55 In assessing the relation between the Adonis song and the picture of Alexandria 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 be worthy 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”.

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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 eighteen years or nineteen is the bridegroom; the golden down is still upon his lip; his kisses are not rough.

The key to understanding these verses lies in the fact that though the poem and the tableau celebrate the ‘marriage’ of Aphrodite and Adonis, the young god will ‘die’ on the following day; this section of the poem thus mixes the hymeneal and the funereal in a novel way which starts from the familiar epitaphic topoi of ‘death before/instead of marriage’ and ‘death as a marriage with Hades’, topoi which exploit the similarities between marriage and funerary ritual and which occur (unsurprisingly) in Bion’s extant Lament for Adonis (vv. 87 – 90), but moves beyond those topoi.57 The hinge of the strategy is the double sense of jk_ma (v. 127) as both ‘wedding-couch’ and ‘funeral bier’ (cf. LSJ s.v. 12). Eighteen or nineteen is just the age when young men die as soldiers, and this age indeed figures in both real and literary epitaphs for young men;58 moreover, the peculiar pathos of death before the first beard is grown is certainly attested as a conventional epitaphic motif by later sources,59 and it is not unreasonable to see that resonance here. In a way appropriate to the whole meaning of the cult, the ‘sex roles’ are reversed, for the bridegroom is here younger than the bride and it is he, not she, who is to die a pathetically early death; the epithet ‘rosy-armed’ (v. 128) is normally applied to women and so both points this reversal and is appropriate to the female perspective of the singer and the women admiring this essentially female festival. The Adonis cult gives the fullest expression to the similarity and (bitter) difference between sexual longing (p|hor) and the regret and longing which attends death; Aphrodite is part lover, part mother mourning the death of her young son, and the tableau representing them suggests both illicit lovemaking (‘incest’) and the grandiose style of Ptolemaic funerals. The poet has caught this strangeness with a powerful fusion of the language of weddings and funerals, which tran56 I print Rossbach’s emendation, though without any great confidence. Both text and 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).

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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 the wedding night. All discussion of the context of this song must begin with the close and complex association between Arsinoe II and Aphrodite.60 In staging an Adonis festival ‘Arsinoè se posait en Aphrodite et préparait son apothéose’ claimed Gustave Glotz (1920: 173), and provided that we remember (as Glotz had a tendency to forget) that we are dealing with a Theocritean poem and not a documentary account of a ‘historical’ festival, I see no reason to disagree.61 The opening invocation to a specifically Cyprian Aphrodite evokes, as has long been noted, Ptolemaic influence on the island (cf. Theoc. 17.36), and the standard dating of the poem to the late 270s62 adds resonance to the encomiastic citation of Miletos and Samos (v. 126), both of which were then in the Ptolemaic orbit. There is in this poem no getting away from the ruling house. The links 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 Berenice from mortal to immortal, dropping ambrosia into her woman’s breast.

I have pointed elsewhere63 to the different levels of interpretation exposed by the phrase ‘as men say’; whereas Gow and Dover look only to the fact that such phrases do not necessarily cast doubt on an assertion or may indeed strengthen one, another reading may see teasing play with 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 material) 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 (for which 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, but must also not be allowed to inhibit critical discussion. For the important socio-political rôle of public festivals in the early Hellenistic kingships cf. Dunand (1981: 13 – 40). 62 Cf. Gow (1950: 2.265). 63 Cf. Hunter (1993a: 157).

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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 mannered, 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 for such a ‘double reading’ is perhaps a marker of one kind of distinction between an Alexandrian poem and the archaic and classical literature to which Gow and Dover appeal. We find a similar ‘qualification’ towards the end of the song when the singer turns to the peculiar felicity of Adonis: 6qpeir, § v_k’ -dymi, ja· 1mh\de jAr )w]qomta Bl_heym, ¢r vamt_, lom~tator

(vv. 136 – 7) You, dear Adonis, alone of demigods, as men say, visit both earth and Acheron.

Many of the same nuances which surrounded the previous use are also visible here: ‘as men say’ is at one level encomiastic, at another perhaps curiously incongruous at this moment of high praise. The ‘myth’ of the royal house is linked to that of Aphrodite and Adonis —Arsinoe, as the person staging the festival and thus responsible for Adonis’ annual re-appearance, is indeed cast in the role of Aphrodite – but both are subject to this pattern of different readings. Nor should this surprise us, for both cultic ‘myth’ and royal apotheosis are areas where symbols and forms of language convey different things to different people and ‘truth’ consists in social function. Both the Adonis-myth and the apotheosis of Berenice are ideas to be exploited in various ways; both do depend crucially on ‘what men say’ for their significance. The trick of style which links these 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 the commentators cite, but Thetis’ action to preserve Patroclus’ body is particularly suggestive:64 Patq|jky d’ awt’ !lbqos_gm ja· m]jtaq 1quhq¹m st\ne jat± Nim_m, Vma b wq½r 5lpedor eUg.

(Il. 19.38 – 9)

64 Cf. Griffiths (1979: 122).

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Through Patroclus’ nostrils she dripped ambrosia and red nectar to preserve his flesh.

So too Hector’s body is preserved by Aphrodite (Il. 23.184 – 90) so that it 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 A½r jeil]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 1pekh½m oXom 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/or ja· 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, he is not eaten yet by dogs or birds, but he still lies there in Achilleus’ hut beside his ship, just as he fell. This is the twelfth day he has lain there, but his flesh is not decaying, nor the worms eating him, which feed on the bodies of men killed in war. Yes, Achilleus does drag him ruthlessly around the tomb 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 yourself how he lies there fresh as dew, and all the blood is washed from him, and there 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 the blessed gods have for your son, even for his dead body, as he is very dear 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 of Apollo of the silver bow’ (Il. 24.755 – 6). In his note on 23.184 – 91 Richardson observes that those verses and the parallel passages ‘have been taken as evidence for Greek knowledge of the practice of embalming’. Be that as it may, Theocritus’ evocation of Thetis’ preservation of the body of Patroclus does suggest to me that v. 108 has a reference in the world of Ptolemaic funerary practice. Perhaps it merely gratifies Alexandrian Greeks with their own familiarity with Egyptian mummification, brilliantly finding Homeric precedent for this practice, but per-

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haps also there is more. Alexander’s body must have been preserved in some way, whatever truth lies behind the extant accounts,65 and it is hardly bold to imagine that the early Ptolemies (and their queens) followed suit. We know little of the burial arrangements of the early Ptolemies, but Fraser (1972: 1.225) noted that, before Philopator built the central Sema of the royal house, ‘it seems likely that … the sanctuaries of the individual deified members … were in close proximity to the Sema of Alexander’. We must remember that it was the deification of Arsinoe herself which seems to have marked a major turning point in the development of the royal cult, and the deification of her mother may have been an altogether less grand, ‘more Greek’ affair.66 Nevertheless, 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 current queen is credited with this arrangement and thus fulfils at the ‘real’ level the function of Thetis and Aphrodite in Homer and of Aphrodite at the most straightforward level of Theocritus’ poem. Here too light is shed upon 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 the royal house. Patroclus and Hector are the most obvious examples of what Jean-Pierre Vernant (1991: 60 – 74, 84 – 91) has termed the ‘beautiful death’ of the warrior, that death in battle which guarantees perpetual 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 in death as he was in life (cf. Il. 24.410 – 23, Tyrtaeus fr. 10.21 – 30 West). Adonis ‘the beautiful’, who is always both bridegroom and lost lover, is not a martial hero, indeed in some ways is the very antithesis of such a hero for whom hunting and warfare are two sides of the same 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 the story of Agesilaos taken back to Sparta preserved in wax ‘because there was no 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 paragons of assertive masculinity like Ajax and Agamemnon … for he alone participates in the triumph of the cyclic female principle over death”. It is obviously tempting to relate Detienne’s whole construction of the ‘anthropology of

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and in another way like Berenice – in perpetual youth, his beauty, like theirs, preserved forever by divine grace. Like Hector and Patroclus also, Adonis’ death brings particular grief to those who loved him. Hector indeed is the subject of the most famous scene of organised female lamentation in Greek literature (Il. 24.719 – 76), and thus a comparison with Adonis is not created ex nihilo. It may even be that the description of Hector as :j\bar b ceqa_tator eUjati pa_dym ‘the eldest of Hecuba’s twenty sons’ (v. 139), is a specifically Hellenistic variation of Hecuba’s address to Hector in her lamentation as 1l_i hul_i p\mtym pok» v_ktate 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 Hecuba notes that, despite his efforts, Achilles was unable to raise Patroclus from the dead, and Patroclus’ ghost appears to plead for burial in a famous scene of Iliad 23.69 The catalogue of demigods70 has attracted critical censure principally because the heroes listed do not really fall into a category of Bl_heoi comparable to Adonis.71 We can, of course, never expect strict comparability when the great figures of the past are evoked as exempla, but the

68

69 70 71

spices’ to Egyptian practices of mummification in which the body was filled with spices; I have resisted the temptation. Homer’s Priam explicitly says that he had 19 sons ‘from one womb’, i. e. by Hecuba, but the Theocritean scholiast cite Simonides for the number 20 (PMG 559); 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 (? humorous) interpretation of the Homeric verses in which Hector is counted separately from ‘the 19’; thus t_m pokk_m is taken on this view not as ‘correct[ing] the emotional exaggeration of 494’ (Macleod) but as meaning ‘these many’. Leaf ad loc. indeed seems to exclude Hector from the grand total of 50. If we do have an allusion to a scholarly dispute, then this would be another reason to be cautious about dismissing the Adonis-song as mediocre hackwork. I record as a curiosity Legrand’s suggestion (Legrand 1898: 95 n. l) that 20 has replaced the Homeric 19 for metrical reasons. Gow (1952: 302) notes the possible influence of the ghost scene, but not of Iliad 24. It may be thought somewhat surprising that, as far as I know, deletion of vv. 136 – 42 has never been proposed, for v. 143 would follow perfectly well after v. 135. After death Adonis is a ‘demi-god’ in one sense, but as applied to the figures of the catalogue this term must principally denote ‘heroes’, ‘figures of the heroic age’, a usage perhaps deriving from Hes. Op. 160. Dover refers to 13.69, although the Argonauts as a group were notoriously ‘sons of gods’. Cf. further Hunter (1993: 103, 127 – 8). The discussion of the catalogue in Atallah (1966: 130 – 2) is too general to be helpful.

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apparent difficulty here is that, whereas consolation usually works by invoking greater figures who have suffered equally or more (Achilles citing Niobe, for example), here it may be thought that Adonis’ status is already qualitatively different (and higher) than the other figures listed. The more usual procedure may be well illustrated from a very interesting epitaph in choliambics (Bernand 71) for a young man, probably from Alexandria, and to be dated to the late Hellenistic or early imperial period.72 In the first, unfortunately broken, section the young man is praised as ‘alone among men (cf. 15.137) … he surpassed in virtue all those 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 stop grieving for the most familiar of reasons: oqde·r c±q 1n^kune t¹m l_tom Loiq_m oq hmgt|r, oqj !h\mator, oqd’ b desl~tgr, oqd’ aw t}qammor basikijµm kaw½m tilµm heslo»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?da Luqt_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 even the prisoner,75 not even the tyrant with his kingly power has ever thought to 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 will not repeat that material here. It would obviously be nice to believe that the young man died at the age of eighteen (cf. Theocritus’ Adonis), but the interpretation 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 end of v. 3 (although "m^q might there have been intended); I am inclined to attribute 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 not Hermes, the son of Maia, weep for his son Myrtilos carried away by the waves 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 all men and gods weep for Sarpedon, did he not lament? Did not the Macedonian, King Alexander, the son of Ammon who took the form of a snake to beget him?

Adonis has, however, escaped death, at least partially; although it is not strictly true that his regular alternation between earth and the Underworld is a unique privilege,76 the hymn suggests that even ‘dying’ for part of the year redounds to Adonis’ glory. Theocritus’ mythological catalogue turns the rhetoric of the epitaph on its head, while evoking its simple, repetitive style. It measures Adonis’ glory against the heroes of epic and tragedy: not just Hector and Patroclus from Homer, but 5pah’ (v. 138) hints at representations of Agamemnon’s fate on the tragic stage, where pathos was critical, and baqul\mior is clearly chosen to point to the circumstances of Ajax’s suicide, most famous in antiquity from Sophocles’ tragedy. Notable by his absence is the greatest hero of them all, Achilles, whose consolations to Priam in Il. 24 hover over the epitaph quoted above, in which he himself becomes a consolatory example. The presence of his son, Neoptolemus / Pyrrhus,77 however, is presumably dictated by more than the desire for alliteration with 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 Delphi;78 there are, therefore, points of contact with Adonis. By escaping safe from the war (v. 140) Neoptolemus did not enjoy ‘the beautiful death’ to which Adonis has laid claim. For a Greek the Iliad is the obvious text from which consolatory exempla may be chosen, as in the epitaph quoted above, but in the context of Theoc. 15 as a whole, we can hardly 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 a strange coincidence that Deucalion’s wife was called P}qqa. 78 One source indeed, Pausanias 1.4.4, reports that cult honours were first paid to him 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 in Theoc. 15.

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A poem that began as a reworking of Sophron has opened out to embrace the whole of human history (‘the Lapiths and the Deucalions of an earlier age’), just as the epitaph ranges from the pre-Olympian legend of Phaethon to Alexander. As the court of Philadelphus and Arsinoe is the telos to which Greek history has been moving, as Adonis surpasses the heroes of the past, so Theocritean mime lays claim to unexpected literary grandeur. Not for long, though; and not perhaps with complete seriousness. When Gorgo and Praxinoa have had their glimpse of another world, of a different kind of mimesis, they withdraw back to their own realm to wait for another year. Mime, after all, can never replace the centre, whether that be literary (Homer) or political (the Ptolemaic 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

Bibliography Atallah, W. 1966. Adonis dans la littrature et l’art grecs. Paris Bechtel, F. 1923. Die griechischen Dialekte II. Berlin Bernand, É. 1969. Inscriptions mtriques de I’gypte greco-romaine. Paris Buck, CD. 1955. The Greek Dialects. Chicago Burton, J.B. 1992. “The function of the symposium theme in Theocritus’ Idyll 14”. GRBS 33,227 – 45 Cairns, F. 1992. “Theocritus, Idyll 26”. PCPS 38, 1 – 38 Cartledge, P. 1987. Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta. London Cassio, A.C. 1993. “Parlate locali, dialetti delle stirpi e fonti letterarie nei grammatici greci”. In: Dialectologica Graeca. Madrid, 73 – 90 Denniston, J.D. 19542. The Greek Particles. Oxford Detienne, M. 1977. The Gardens of Adonis. Hassocks Di Benedetto, V. 1956. “Omerismi e struttura metrica negli idilli dorici di Teocrito”, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 25,48 – 60 Dubois, L. 1989. Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile. Rome, 89 – 117 Dunand, F. 1981. “Fête et propagande à Alexandrie sous les Lagides”. In: La FÞte, pratique et discours (Centre de recherches d’histoire ancienne 42). Paris, 13 – 40 Escher, L. 1913. De Sotadis Maronitae reliquiis. Diss. Giessen Fabiano, G. 1971. “Fluctuation in Theocritus’ style”. GRBS 12, 517 – 37 Fantuzzi, M. 1995. “Variazioni sull’esametro in Teocrito”. In: M. Fantuzzi and R. Pretagostini (eds.), Struttura e storia dell’ esametro greco. Rome, 221 – 64 Fraser, P.M. 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria. Oxford 79 This paper has benefited from the constructive criticisms of Albio Cassio, Marco Fantuzzi, and the participants in the Groningen Workshop. An expanded version is incorporated as chapter 4 in Hunter (1996).

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Gallavotti, C. 1986. “Pap. Hamb. 201 e questioni varie della tradizione teocritea”. Bollettino dei Classici 7,3 – 36 Glotz, G. 1920. “Les Fêtes d’Adonis sous Ptolémée II”. REG 33,169 – 222 Goldhill, S.—Osborne, R. (eds), 1994. Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture. Cambridge Griffiths, F.T. 1979. Theocritus at Court. Leiden —1981. “Home before lunch: the emancipated woman in Theocritus”. In: H.P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity. New York, 247 – 73 Gutzwiller, K. 1992. “Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice: fantasy, romance, and propaganda”. AJP 113, 359 – 85 Heinen, H. 1978. “Aspects et problèmes de la monarchie ptolémaique”. Ktema 3,188 – 92 Hunter, R. 1983. Eubulus, The Fragments. Cambridge —1993a. The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies. Cambridge —1993b. “The presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi”. Antichthon 27, 31 – 44 [= this volume 189 – 205] —1995. “Plautus and Herodas”. In: Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels. Tübingen, 155 – 69 [= this volume 212 – 28] —1996. Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge Janko, R. 1984. Aristotle on Comedy. London Kaibel, G. 1899. Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Berlin Latte, K. 1951. “review of Gow’s Theocritus”. Gnomon 23,252 – 7 —1968. Kleine Schriften. München Lattimore, R. 1962. Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs. Urbana Legrand, Ph.-E. 1898. tude sur Thocrite. Paris Lejeune, M. 1923. Les Adverbes grecs en -hem. Bechtel Maas, P. 1962. Greek Metre. Oxford Magnien, V. 1920. “Le syracusain littéraire et l’ldylle XV de Théocrite”. Mem. Soc. Ling. 21,49 – 85; 112 – 38 Manakidou, 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 – 113 Molinos Tejada, T. 1990. Los dorismos del Corpus Bucolicorum. Amsterdam Norden, E. 1898. Die antike Kunstprosa. Leipzig Olivieri, A. 1930. Frammenti della commedia greca e del mimo nella Sicilia e nella Magna Grecia. Napoli Pomeroy, S.B. 1984. Women in Hellenistic Egypt. New York Reich, H. 1903. Der Mimus. Berlin Ribbeck, O. 1862. “Theokriteische Studien”. RhM 17,543 – 77 Russell, D.A. 1979. “De imitatione”. In: D. West—T. Woodman (eds), Creative Imitation and Latin Literature. Cambridge, 1 – 16 Slings, S.R. 1993. “Hermesianax and the Tattoo Elegy (P.Brux. inv. E8934 and Q Sorb inv. 2254)”. FPE 98, 29 – 35 Stark, R. 1963. “Theocritea”. Maia 15,359 – 85

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Thompson, D.B. 1973. Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience. Oxford Tondriau, J. 1948. “La Tryphè, philosophie royale ptolemaïque”. REA 50,49 – 54 Van der Kolf, M.C. 1954. “Priamos”. RE 22, 1841 – 1907 Vernant, J.-P. 1991. Mortals and Immortals. Princeton Weber, G. 1993. Dichtung und hçfische Gesellschaft. Stuttgart White, P. 1993. Promised Verse. Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome. Cambridge, Mass.

Addenda A version of this paper was incorporated as Chapter 4 of Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry; for further discussion of Idyll 15 cf. also ‘Speaking in glossai. Dialect choice and cultural politics in Hellenistic poetry’ in W.M. Bloomer (ed.), The Contest of Language (Notre Dame 2005) 187 – 206. The language of Idyll 15, and of Theocritus more generally, is discussed by A. Willi in an important forthcoming paper, ‘“We speak Peloponnesian”: tradition and linguistic identity in postclassical Sicilian literature’. The fragments of Epicharmus and 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).

15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica* Epic poetry seeks to map the world, both as a physical and as an ideological construct. Just as Homer was the source of all literature, all philosophy, and all political science, so epic is the all-encompassing literary embodiment of all that is known. If it was the Shield of Achilles – itself both microcosm and macrocosm – which was for later ages the most obvious epic site where spatial and cultural dispositions were clearly interdependent,1 it was the Odyssey which taught for all time how geographic and cultural maps could never be totally distinct entities. The persistence of this pattern of thought in later Greek science (especially medicine) and ethnography has often been documented. Recent years have explored to excellent effect the consequences which this aspect of the Greek 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 understood that the Aeneid does not merely plot the foundation of Roman imperial power, but also marks out the space of that power, geographically, morally, and politically. A fundamental technique in Vergil’s project is the interplay of “epic time” and “historical time:” the institutions and ideology 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 the earlier history of this process, the Argonautica of Apollonius seems an obvious starting-point. The Argonautica — or so I have argued elsewhere – was a crucial text in the development of Vergil’s strategy, both because some of Apollonius’ concerns are similar to those of Vergil, and because the Roman * 1 2

Syllecta Classica 6 (1995) 13 – 27 Cf., e. g., P. R. Hardie, “Imago mundi: Cosmological and Ideological Aspects of the Shield of Achilles,” JHS 105 (1985) 11 – 31. P. R. Hardie, Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford 1986); C. Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the early Roman Empire (Michigan 1991) translating L’inventaire du monde: gographie et politique aux origines de l’Empire romain (Paris 1988). There is also much of interest on this subject in D. Quint, Epic and Empire. Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (Princeton 1993).

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poet chose to read the Greek epic in such a way as to fashion the prior text to his own purpose.3 Moreover, there are good reasons to think that the Argonautic story had always been a narrative in which the boundaries of “history” and “myth” were available for negotiation; the aetiological dimension was fundamental to the whole narrative, not merely a casual offshoot of it.4 More specifically, the Argonautica of Apollonius yields close parallels to some of Vergil’s techniques of “mixing time.” Thus, for example, it is now generally accepted that the account, in the mouth of Lykos, of the history of the Mariandynoi reflects recent events and, in particular, the political aspirations of the people of Heraclea Pontica (2.774 – 810);5 whatever the details, it is clear that mythic history is in this passage accommodated to recent history in a way that becomes very familiar in the Roman epic. Moreover, Apollonius lived in a period of considerable interest in geography and geographical writing, some of which is doubtless reflected in his epic.6 There are, therefore, reasons to hope that wider enquiries concerning the relation between the Argonautica and the political and social world in which it was written may not be fruitless, although this relation has, until recently, attracted remarkably little critical attention.7 In this paper I shall examine two different aspects of the Argonautic “map,” in both of which, however, we can see how the geographical and the moral or cultural parameters of the poem run together. In Section I, I shall deal briefly with the passage of the Argo through the Symplegades and the voyage along 3 4 5 6

7

Cf. R. Hunter, The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius: Literary Studies (Cambridge 1993) chapters 6 and 7. For a helpful survey cf. D. Braund, Georgia in Antiquity. A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia 550 BC-AD 562 (Oxford 1994) Chapter 1. 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 due episodi delle Argonautiche di Apollonio Rodio,” Prometheus 19 (1993) 154 – 68. On Apollonius’ geographical sources the introductions of F. Vian to the volumes of the Budé edition are invaluable; cf. also id., “Poesie et géographie: les retours des Argonautes,” Acadmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Comptes Rendus (1987) 249 – 62. Of contemporary geographers, one thinks particularly of the peq· kil]mym of Timosthenes of Rhodes, though there is no certain case where 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). Apart from the introductions and notes to Vian’s editions, the field is still largely held by R. Roux (Le problme des Argonautes [Paris 1949]) which does not seem to be much read, although it contains almost equal quantities of the interesting and the fanciful.

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the southern Pontic shore, and in Section II, I shall be concerned with the religious horizons of the epic.

I. Much of Book 2 of Apollonius’ Argonautica is devoted to the passage of the Argonauts eastwards along the southern shore of the Black Sea; the book ends with the arrival at Colchis. As is well known, the local historians of Heraclea, above all the roughly contemporary Nymphis, were a major source for this narrative.8 Apart from his regional history, Nymphis also wrote a history of Alexander and the epigonoi down at least to the accession of Euergetes, and this too suggests why Alexandrian scholars and poets might have found him of interest. More general Ptolemaic interest in the Black Sea region requires no special demonstration, for the cities of the southern Pontic shore had important and well-documented trading links with third-century Alexandria.9 Later history recorded that Heraclea itself had been “given” – whatever that might mean – by Lysimachus to his wife, the future Arsinoe II, and so that might have been another reason for early Alexandrian interest in the city.10 For Apollonius’ purposes, however, the poetic tradition concerning the Black Sea coast seems to have been far less rich than the geographic and ethnographic tradition, even when allowance is made for all that we have lost.11 Thus in Pindar’s Fourth Pythian the account of the Argonautic voyage moves straight from the Symplegades to the Phasis: 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 Heraclea cf. A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1971) 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 Hesiod is Aeschylus, Prometheus Vinctus vv. 706 ff.

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sumdq|lym jimghl¹m !lail\jetom 1jvuce?m petq÷m. d_dulai c±q 5sam fya_, 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’ 5peitem Ekuhom, 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, they besought the lord of ships, that they might escape the irresistible movement of the rocks that run together. For both were alive and used to roll more swiftly than the ranks of the loud-roaring winds, but at last that voyage of the demigods brought them their end. After that they came to the Phasis, where they pitted their might against the grim Colchians in the presence of Aietes himself. (trans. Braswell)

There is a similar elision of Pontic geography in a passage of Theocritus which, for all its difficulties, seems to rewrite vv. 208 – 12 of the Fourth Pythian: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 did not touch the clashing rocks, but escaped and came speeding into the deep Phasis like an eagle over a great expanse; whence from that day the rocks stand fixed.

Jacobs’ transposition of the second halves of vv. 23 and 24 would do something to alleviate the omission of the Pontic voyage, and for this reason has seemed very attractive to many editors,13 but the Pindaric model 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 Theocritus uses the adjective in a quite different way seems to me to argue for, rather than 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 Pindar’s technique to “lyric rapidity” whereas Apollonius indulges “the more leisurely manner of epic,” but there is more involved here than merely generic differences.15 In Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris also, the Symplegades are the key geographic marker, functioning almost as a metonymy for the whole Black Sea (cf. vv. 124 – 5); although there is some genuine sense of geography in the play,16 the coastline between the Rocks and the Crimea is very largely ignored. Apollonius’ two versions of a detailed Pontic periplous, on the other hand, are not merely a didactic tour de force or a literary game, in which his blind prophet more than makes up for the notoriously incomplete travel information provided by Homer’s Teiresias,17 or the result of anxiety not to miss any

14

15

16 17

nicht in den Phasis, sondern in den Pontus. Sie schiesst wie ein Adler nicht bloss auf der Passage gerade zwischen den Klippen durch, sondern so geht’s auf ihrer ganzen Fahrt.” Commentators have also seen the possible relevance of Argonautica 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 with changing V÷sim to P|mtom, and this has now been proposed by A. Griffiths in an important discussion which also revives Meineke’s deletion of v. 24, cf. “Customising Theokritos” in Theocritus, Hellenistica Groningana II, A. Harder et al., eds. (Groningen 1996) 101 – 18. If Idyll 13 is in some sense subsequent to the Argonautica, then a metaliterary reading in which Theocritus, “like an eagle over a great expanse,” rushes past (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 offer an amusing alternative to Apollonius’ catalogue; cf. L. E. Rossi, “L’Ila di Teocrito: epistola poetica ed epillio,” Studi classici in onore di Quintino Cataudella, vol. 2 (Catania 1972) 279 – 83 (especially 288), B. Effe, “Die Hylas-Geschichte bei Theokrit und Apollonios Rhodios,” Hermes 120 (1992) 309. That the first section of Theocritus 13 rewrites the proem of the Argonautica seems to me very likely, cf., e. g., G. Knaack, GGA 158 (1896) 884; G. Perotta, “L’Ilas di Teocrito,” SIFC 4 (1925) 88; Rossi (above, n. 14). M. Campbell (“Theocritus Thirteen,” “Owls to Athens.” Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover, E. M. Craik, ed. [Oxford 1990] 113 – 19) observes that Theocritus’ omission of the Pontic journey shows that his Argonauts are “fully fledged heroes who prosecute their voyage with an effortless ease.” Cf. E. Hall, “The geography of Euripides’ Iphigeneia among the Taurians”, AJP 108 (1987) 427 – 33. 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 technique cf. perhaps the rôle of Arete whose importance finally fulfils the central position proclaimed, but not really delivered, for her in the Odyssey, cf. Hainsworth’s introduction to Odyssey 7. For other aspects of Phineus’ prophecy cf.

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site of Argonautic legend, but point rather to central concerns of the epic. The fixing of the Rocks by the Argo’s passage is a powerful symbol of achievement; it marks the imposition of order and the creation of known space where before there was shifting and destructive disorder. The account of the passage through the Rocks suggests the cosmic battles of early Greek poetry. With 2.566 – 67: awe d³ p|mtor sleqdak]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»r sei|lemor

(Hesiod, Theogony 678 – 80 [Solmsen]) The boundless sea resounded all around, the earth crackled loudly, and the broad 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 knowledge and control through the eastward advance of Hellenic culture,19 which can then be manifested in the elaborate geography and ethnography of the southern Pontic shore, as Apollonius writes the cultural aetiology of this rich land. In this case, knowledge really is power. The pattern of “detailed prediction” followed by realisation dramatises the ordered control of (endlessly repeatable) geographical and ethnographic fact which follows upon the passage of the Rocks. What before was known only to a Phineus is now the common property of all Greeks, always available in the written accounts of those who have been 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 cosmic clash at Iliad 20.41 ff. 19 Cf. M. Fantuzzi, “La Censura delle Simplegadi: Ennio, Medea, fr. 1 Jocelyn” QUCC 31 (1989) 127 – 8.

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Argonauts; they remain ignorant of the fate of the Rocks, and their terror persists until Apollo finally grants them a return home at the end of Book 4. Apollo’s saving intervention at the “Melanteian Rocks” (“The Darkening Rocks,” 4.1707) 20 is a narrative reprise of Athena’s intervention at “the Dark Rocks” which represent the same threatening disorder and lack of control as the dark Aegean chaos (cf. 4.1699 – 1701 for the complete loss of geographical control).21 Just as the triumph of the passage of the Symplegades was followed by the mapped order of the Black Sea, so the trials of Book 4 and the epic itself close with the aetiology of Aegean and ultimately North African geography. The “didactic” catalogues of Hellenistic poetry may be seen as part of the wider project of classifying, reconstructing and adapting the Greek heritage which was focused on the Library at Alexandria.22 Such classification and adaptation is not to be underestimated by dismissing it as the rather unexciting pastime of scholars in libraries. It was, in fact, no less than the reclaiming and control of knowledge, and this can hardly be divorced from the other activities by which Hellenistic kingships, above all the Ptolemies, proclaimed both their power and their right to the Greek cultural inheritance. Not for the only time, we may here perceive suggestive parallels between Ptolemaic and Augustan intellectual culture; as so often, in looking to the past, the poets of the third century showed the way to the future.

20 The scholia associate “Melanteian” with one Melas, the son of the eponymous hero of Naxos. 21 Behind the Apollonian passage lies perhaps Odyssey 10.190 – 2 (Odysseus telling his 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 is meant at 4.1697, but may have had some influence upon Apollonius’ use of the idea. Pherecydes is also alleged to have identified w\or as water, cf. fr. 1a D-K. 22 G. Weber (Dichtung und hçfische Gesellschaft [Stuttgart 1993] 316 – 7) raises the question of the relation between poetic catalogues and political influence, but sees the question too narrowly.

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II. In a famous passage of Book 2 the exhausted Argonauts land on the island of Thynias and see a vision of the brilliantly gleaming Apollo as he passes on his way north to the Hyperboreans. They found a cult of “Apollo of the Dawn,” and then establish a shrine to Homonoia, a shrine which, so the poet tells us, is standing “still to this day” (2.717), though it features nowhere else in the ancient record.23 This scene is part of a contrast, devised by Apollonius to inform much of the epic, between Apollo, a sun god of beneficent power,24 and the older god Helios25 and his descendants whose light, whether it be the radiance of Aietes’ helmet (3.1228 – 30) or the sinister gleam in Medea’s eye (3.886, 4.726 – 9, 1669 – 72), is threatening and destructive. The episode itself belongs to the Heracleot narrative – Thynias was settled and presumably controlled from there26 – and Apollonius may well have found mention of the shrine in the local histories which he clearly used; the importance of homonoia as a prime Argonautic virtue requires no elaborate illustration. Nevertheless, there may be more to be said about the place of this shrine and the virtue it celebrates in the epic as a whole, and I begin, not in the Black Sea, but to the south on the island of Thera, a crucial Ptolemaic naval base and site of Ptolemaic cult,27 and, as the mother city of Cyrene, the subject of the final aetiology of the Argonautica, the prophetic episode of Euphemos and the clod of earth given to him by Triton. Dating probably from the latter years of Philadelphus’ reign and the early years of Euergetes, there survives from Thera a well known series of dedications by one Artemidorus from Perge in Pamphylia. Of particular interest is a temenos established by Artemidorus at the entrance to the city.28 Together with dedications to Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo and Ar23 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, Theogony 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

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temis (the patron goddess of his native Perge), this temenos also contained statues and altars to Hekate poku~mulor vysv|qor, Priapos, Tyche, the Samothracian gods, the Dioskouroi, Homonoia (to whom Artemidorus built an altar in accordance with the instructions of a dream), and perhaps also “the heroines” if the noun is correctly restored (IG WII.3, Suppl. 1340). We also find an inscribed Delphic oracle proclaiming 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, “a curious person,”29 the collection of gods honoured in his temenos does indeed suggest “a man of his time.”30 The disparate origins and regional affiliations of these divinities point clearly to the cultural interchange of the Hellenistic world. It may, then, be worthwhile to “map” Artemidorus’ religious world against that of the Argonautica; this first stage will be a fairly simple task, but the conclusions to be drawn from that map may be much more difficult. The Dioskouroi are themselves leading Argonauts, and Lykos announces the establishment to them of a temple on the Acherousian headland overlooking the Black Sea and a special temenos in front of his city (2.806 – 10); the temple is to be a landmark for sailors who look, in any event, for the special protection of the divine twins. Some scholars have wished to connect the temple with the divine cult of the Ptolemies themselves.31 Certainly the place of the Dioskouroi in Hellenistic and Alexandrian cult and poetry is well established: in his poem on the deification of Arsinoe (fr. 228 Pf.) Callimachus represented the dead queen as carried off by the divine twins, and abundant other evidence points to their significance in the Ptolemaic capital.32 Like

29 30 31 32

VI.15188. For modern discussion cf. Wilamowitz, Der Glaube der Hellenen, 2nd ed., 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. Selfidentity in Hellenistic Religion,” Images & Ideologies: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World, A. W. Bulloch et al., eds. (Berkeley 1993) 248 – 64, especially 260 – 1. Above, n. 28, 62. Ibid. 64. Cf. H. Fränkel, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Münich 1968) 516; M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche (Rome 1985) 125 – 6. 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

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so many Hellenistic divinities, it is their soterological aspect – they are heo· syt/qer as Artemidorus calls them (IG WII.3, Suppl. 1333) – which is most prominent in cult and the poetic presentations of that cult. Their special affinity with suffering humankind is forcefully dramatised by Apollonius at 4.588 – 594 where it is they who, on the orders of Zeus’ voice, pray for safe passage as the Argo enters the nightmare regions of central Europe, and they who indeed bring the Argonauts through safe (s|oi, 4.650); their rôle in this scene is a resolution of a nice poetic problem which might be thought peculiarly Hellenistic: how can the Dioskouroi save a ship on which they themselves are travelling? 33 The Dioskouroi are closely connected with another set of soterological divinities, “the Samothracian gods,” who are also honoured by Artemidorus and into whose mysteries the Argonauts are initiated so that they might sail with greater safety, sy|teqoi (1.915 – 21); that it is Orpheus, the central figure of the best known mystery-cult, who advises this step is presumably significant for the nature of the initiation and the blessings which it offered. We know that both Arsinoe, probably even before her marriage to Philadelphus, and Philadelphus himself supported major building activity at the cult-centre on Samothrace, and Ptolemaic favour may have been very important in the spread of the influence of this cult.34 Here again, then, we may see a close link between the religious world of the Argonautica and that of the Ptolemaic Mediterranean. Of Artemidorus’ other divinities, the “heroines” famously intervene to save the Argonauts in the Libyan desert in Book 4. Artemidorus may well 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 the other “Minyan heroes” (4.595) are afflicted with jatgve_g, and 4.1701 – 5 where 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, Samothrace. 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 poetry of Theocritus,” PCPS 41 (1995) 16 – 35. It is curious that the “s_kouqor comedy” (W. H. Willis, “Comedia Duciana,” GRBS 32 [1991] 331 – 53) seems to contain references both to Adonis (v. 7) and to “the Samothracian gods” (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 other hand, was a long established member of the Greek pantheon, although in the Argonautica it is her chthonic associations and terrifying powers which are most prominent. Her cult seems to have spread from Asia Minor west to the islands and north to the Black Sea; when Medea founds a shrine of Hekate on the Paphlagonian coast and performs rites in the goddess’ honour (4.246 – 52) 35 we are dealing again with the interweaving of past and present, with charting the religious map of Apollonius’ own day. From the point of view of the epic, Hekate’s early connection with Persephone and later close association with that goddess36 allowed Apollonius to create his Colchis as a place both of the brilliant Sun (Helios) and of the Underworld; the interpenetration of these two normally distinct realms is one of the most terrifying aspects of the disorder of Aietes’ kingdom. As for Priapos, he was originally a god of fertility and plenty whose cult seems to have moved south from Hellespontic Lampsakos; Artemidorus’ juxtaposition of this god to Hekate might seem a rather odd foreshadowing of the ribald meeting of the two in Horace, Satires 1.8, but even this association is perhaps not unparalleled,37 and Priapos is certainly found in Alexandrian contexts. His image appeared together with that of Dionysus, and apparently also in close association with those of Alexander and Ptolemy Soter, in the great pompe staged by Philadelphus.38 His rôle has been interpreted as “symboliz[ing] the potency of Alexander and Ptolemy, their successful rape of Persia, and the prodigious fruits of their triumph,”39 but more prosaic explanations for the presence of Dionysus’ son are also possible; his image, like most in the pompe, was in any case available for 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 from Tralles, cf. BCH 4 (1880) 337; T. Kraus, Hekate: Studien zu Wesen und Bild der Gçttin in Kleinasien und Griechenland (Heidelberg 1960) 32. 38 Callixenus apud Athenaeus 5.201c-d. Text and interpretation are both very difficult, cf. Herter (above, note 28) 12 – 14, E. E. Rice, The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphos (Oxford 1983) 99 – 108; whether there was one statue of Priapos or two is not germane to the present discussion. 39 A. Stewart, Faces of Power. Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley 1993) 257.

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god was ithyphallic (which cannot be regarded as certain),40 an erect phallos 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 Argonauts sail (1.933) contains in the epithet an allusion to the phallic god.41 If so, this would be a striking instance of how Apollonius’ epic gestures towards the contemporary. With Artemidorus’ dedication to Homonoia we encounter a widespread Hellenistic ideal, functioning in both public and private spheres, whose importance in the Roman epic tradition has recently been stressed by Francis Cairns.42 It is, of course, a quintessential Argonautic virtue, as the foundation of the temple on Thynias makes clear. Outside the world of the epic, we find (besides Artemidorus’ dedication) a cult of “Zeus Eleutherios and the Homonoia of the Hellenes” at Plataea at least as early as the third century,43 and then an increasing number of cults of Homonoia attested in subsequent centuries. It is an idea which seems to have strong Ptolemaic links.44 It may not be significant that the Glaukon honoured by the decree which attests the Plataean cult had, as the inscription records, a distinguished career in Ptolemaic service,45 but homonoia is also invoked in the famous treaty (IG II2 687) between Athens and Sparta at the time of the so-called Chremonidean War, a treaty which celebrates Ptolemaic support for those states against Macedonia. It may be in this context that Alexis fr. 246 K-A should be placed: 40 Cf. Rice (above, n. 38) 108. 41 So E. Delage, La Gographie dans les Argonautiques d’Apollonios de Rhodes (Bordeaux 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 Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge 1991) 46 – 48, 128 – 9. 43 Cf. R. Étienne and M. Piérart, “Un décret du Koinon des Hellènes à Platées en l’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, that the Argonautic altar on Thynias actually recalls the altar on Thera (so, tentatively, 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 pqoskab½m t/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 of King Ptolemy, and the same amount for the king’s sister, and two more for Homonoia—wine at its best, mixed half and half. In such light what stops me going on a komos without a lamp?

This passage is normally understood as referring to homonoia between Athens and Ptolemy II, although H. Heinen cautiously raises the possibility that the reference is rather to the homonoia between Ptolemy and his wife Arsinoe.46 This suggestion, whether correct or not, usefully serves as a reminder that the demarcation between “private” and “public” homonoia is not always easy to draw, particularly where rulers are concerned, and this has interesting consequences for the epic tradition. As early as the Odyssey, the blovqos}mg between Odysseus and Penelope marks on the private plane what is represented publicly by the good order and harmony in society at large which is destroyed by the suitors. The Apollonian heirs to this blovqos}mg are Arete and Alcinous who together ensure the Argonauts’ safety on Drepane. The scene of Arete and Alcinous in bed, a scene which marvellously dramatises their mutual understanding,47 has no better Homeric parallel than the famous scene at Odyssey 18.250 – 83 in which Penelope solicits gifts from the suitors and Odysseus rejoices48 at her cunning; both Odysseus and Alcinous know what game their wives are playing. I have suggested elsewhere that the Apollonian portrayal of Arete and Alcinous could hardly fail to call to the mind of Alexandrian readers their own ‘brother-sister’ rulers,49 and if, despite chronological uncertainties (cf. below), some version of this interpretation is correct, we would have a characteristic blend of epic tradition and contemporary resonance. Support for this view may be found in Theocritus’ encomiastic description of the 46 Untersuchungen zur hellenistischen Geschichte des 3. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Wiesbaden 1972) 135. 47 Cf. Vian, Note complmentaire (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 Philadelphus and Arsinoe: oupy tim± vamt· "de?m t|som !mdq· cumaij_m fssom 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 her lord (trans. Gow)

These verses, which clearly push back the “virtues” of the current ruling couple into the previous generation,50 suggest Homer’s account of Alcinous1 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 no other wife in the world is honoured, of all wives who rule a household under 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 apparent: ¤r je_mg peq· j/qi tet_lgta_ te ja· 5stim 5j te v_kym pa_dym 5j t’ aqtoO )kjim|oio ja· ka_m, oV l_m Na he¹m ¤r eQsoq|ymter deid]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 Alcinous and by her children and by the people here, who gaze at her as at a divinity and greet her with loyal words whenever she walks about the town, 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 considerations adduced by L. Koenen, “Die Adaptation ägyptischer Königsideologie am Ptolmäerhof,” in Egypt and the Hellenistic World, E. van’t Dack et al., eds. (Louvain 1983) 143 – 90, especially 161 – 2.

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The god-like honour paid to a wise queen is very suggestive when projected forward to Ptolemaic Alexandria.51 Hellenistic encomium found a rich vein of inspiration in archaic hexameter poetry. Alcinous himself is clearly figured by Apollonius as the “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 justice. aqt_ja d’ )kj_moor leteb^seto sumhes_,sim dm 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 in accordance with the agreement. In his hand he held the golden staff of legal authority with which he administered straight ordinances to the people in the city.

Even the light humour which plays over the allusion – Alcinous has been “got at” by Arete and the ultimate outcome is already a fait accompli — is typical of the poetry written under Ptolemaic patronage. As Alcinous himself has more than one archaic model, so he and Arete, the royal couple, are indebted both to their Homeric selves and to the “ideal couple” of Odysseus and Penelope. In the course of his enlightening 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 Andromache? I am sure neither Philadelphus nor Arsinoe would be flattered.”52 The obvious couple not mentioned by Griffiths is indeed Odysseus and Penelope, 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 than a 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 similarity between features of archaic epic and contemporary political ideology to offer “trans-historical” authority to the current rulers. The same is, I believe, true of Apollonius, and it is within this nexus of ideas that the Argonautic ideal of Homonoia is to be seen. It must be stressed that this interpretation does not depend upon any particular chronological assumptions about the composition of the Argonautica. Whether the relevant parts of the epic were first designed under Philadelphus and Arsinoe, after Arsinoe’s death, or even under Euergetes, they reflect familiar themes of Ptolemaic “ideology” which were not just restricted to one period. One very speculative pointer towards the reign of Euergetes may be the oath which Medea swears to Arete 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?si je?hem !vyql^hgm· (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1019 – 22 [Vian]) Be witness the holy light of Helios, be witness the rites of the night-wandering daughter of Perses, against my will did I leave my home in the company 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 in Callimachus’ famous poem (fr. 110.40 Pf.); the terms of the oath are known only from Catullus’ translation (inuita, o regina, tuo de uertice cessi, / inuita, Catullus 66.39 – 40), but if it were the case that Apollonius here echoes Callimachus’ witty lock, then he has “epicised” the oath by giving it a cosmic dimension, and was followed in this by Vergil who similarly ‘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 such matters, neither the fact of the allusion itself nor poetic priority can be firmly established. Nevertheless, Callimachus’ poem (if Catullus is at all a reliable guide) made much of the “brother-sister” relationship between Euergetes and Berenice, and an echo of such a poem would 53 For the importance of Apollonius for this famous “borrowing” cf. R. L. Hunter, “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 it may, I hope that the “political” dimension of Apollonius’ epic emerges clearly, regardless of these uncertainties as to the exact context. No figure is more familiar in the Hellenistic world than that of T}wg, the goddess “Fortune,” whose power was famously celebrated by Demetrius of Phaleron and who becomes a leitmotif of all speculation 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 narrative might sometimes appear, this cannot be ascribed to the workings of Fortune, at least if that goddess is understood in the most straightforward way. Here the Hellenistic epic might be thought strangely out of sympathy not only with the world which produced it, but also with its inheritance from Attic tragedy.55 Be that as it may, there is more than one causal principle at work here. As scholars of late antiquity well knew,56 neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey use the word t}wg,57 and Homer’s remarkable influence upon the Greek epic tradition in a detail of this kind can be seen in the fact that t}wg is also absent from Quintus of Smyrna and from Triphiodorus and occurs only three times in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.58 Such apparent archaising can itself hardly be the result of t}wg, and this will warn us (if warning were needed) against any assumption that there is a simple relation between the ideological world of a poem and that of the world which created it. Generic factors are clearly important here, and the extraordinary difference in this respect be54 Demetrius: FGrHist 228 F 39 = fr. 81 Wehrli. The best survey of Tyche is now G. Vogt-Spira, Dramaturgie des Zufalls. Tyche und Handeln in der Komçdie Menanders (Munich 1992) 1 – 74. The evidence for a cult of Tyche in Alexandria is late (Visser [above, n. 32] 42 – 3), but Tyche is not always to be distinguished from “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 of drama (Virgils epische Technik, 3rd ed., Leipzig and Berlin 1915) 339 – 40. Cf. also Encyclopedia Virgiliana (Rome 1984 – 1991) s.v. Fortuna. For other tragic features 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 Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford 1974) 420. That the absence of t}wg from Homer is responsible for Apollonius’ avoidance of the word was suggested by H. Fränkel, “Apollonius Rhodius as a narrator in Argonautica 2.1 – 140,” TAPA 83 (1952) 152. 58 2.669 and 3.356 in the metaphor of life as a sea-journey, and at 16.220 Dionysus addresses pok}loqve T}wg.

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tween, on the one hand, the Argonautica and the epic tradition and, on the other, the Greek “novels” in which the centrality of T}wg is unquestioned raises important questions about two genres which are often thought to be genetically linked.59 Moreover, it is clearly not possible always to differentiate between T}wg and other motive forces such as “fate,” and it might indeed be thought that epic poetry is precisely concerned to explore the overlap between such ideas.60 Some exploration 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 appears only twice, and in uninformative contexts, in the Homeric Hymns61 and not at all in Callimachus’ Hymns. As for the Argonautica, the divine favour which attends the Argonauts and which is spelled out in Phineus’ prophecy might seem to preclude a prominent rôle for “chance”. An episode such as the meeting with the sons of Phrixos (2.1093 ff) is a good 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 problematic – but Zeus’ rôle in arranging it is not concealed in the course of the episode itself, though typically it is expressed indirectly and not through an explicit scene of Olympian planning (2.1098, 1120, 1123 – 33). Here, where Vergil might have introduced fortuna, Apollonius carefully avoids any such suggestion. So too, much will depend on how “strong” a reading we wish to give to familiar features of epic such as narrative anticipations with l]kkeim, exemplified as Apollonius recounts how the Argonauts and the pursuing Colchians reached Drepane at 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 by no means a simple case of “coincidence”: Apollonius makes clear (v. 141) that the Bebrycians and the Mariandynoi were in constant dispute. The recent discussion of L. Nyberg, Unity and Coherence. Studies in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica and the Alexandrian Epic Tradition (Lund 1992) 46 – 58, apparently draws no distinction between T}wg and lo?qa. 61 At Hymnus ad Cererem 420 Tyche is one of Persephone’s companions, and the noun is used in the sense “good fortune” in a brief prayer to Athena at Hymnus 11.5. 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 hand appeared a huge force of Colchians …

Is some theological “fate” involved here, or is this the omniscient narrator, who knows what the next stage in the story is, refusing to allow the Argonauts’ joy to remain long unclouded? 63 The subsequent wqe~, “necessity,” which forced Jason and Medea to change their wedding plans and to marry on Drepane (4.1165) might also have been ascribed in a different genre to “chance”; the Greek epic, however, eschews such explanation. Like the figures of all Greek literature from Homer onwards, the characters of the Argonautica accept the reality of unexpected, often calamitous, events, but acceptance of the inscrutability of moira did not necessarily mean a recognition of the sovereignty of Tyche, if by this concept was understood a principle of “random chance”. Thus when Jason seeks to console his mother as the Argonauts depart, he does so with words which look to epic principles of self-reliance and endurance by rewriting the words of Hector to Andromache (Iliad 6.486 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|tgtor d\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 5lpgr tk/hi v]qeim· h\qsei d³ sumglos}mgisim )h^mgr Ad³ heopqop_gisim, 1pe· l\ka deni± Vo?bor 5wqg, !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 your tears will not prevent the suffering, but you will merely add grief upon grief. To mortal men the gods allot woes which cannot be foreseen: despite the 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 anticipations in Homer cf. I. J. F. de Jong, Narrators and Focalizers: the Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (Amsterdam 1987) 86 – 7, S. Richardson, The Homeric Narrator (Nashville 1990) 132 – 39.

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courage from the assistance of Athena and the favourable oracles of Phoibos, and moreover from the present help of the heroes.”

I hope that this brief discussion has skirted the dangers both of an overly lexical approach to interpretation and of presenting too monolithic a view of what we might, very broadly, call “Hellenistic ideology,” to say nothing of simplifying the wide range of experience implied by tyche; Artemidorus of Perge was, after all, celebrating his “success” in life, his agathÞ tychÞ, not (or, at least, not primarily) buying off the possibility that at any moment “chance” might overwhelm him. It was not only fully paid-up Stoics who refused to bow their knee to Tyche. 64 The relation between the ideological and theological world of an epic poem and that of the society in which it was composed is complex and shifting; 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 and technological world, is hardly surprising, but it must never be forgotten. If, moreover, there is an important “Ptolemaic” aspect to the epic, then this moral archaism is an important tool for the integration of the new order into the timeless Greek heritage. Some things, so the epic teaches us, do not change. The religious map of the Argonautica thus proves to be a remarkable fusion of elements from the epic heritage and from the “new world”. As the Argonauts themselves voyage both through known and unknown territory, so the poem both adopts and expands the territory of Homer. Such cultural and geographical expansion is indeed at the heart of Hellenistic civilisation.65

Addenda The geography of the Argonautica has been well treated by Doris Meyer in various discussions: cf. ‘Zur Funktion geographischer Darstellungen bei Apollonios Rhodios und in der “Perihegese an Nikomedes” (Ps.-Skymnos)’ in K. Döring, B. Herzhoff and G. Wöhrle (eds.), Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption (Trier 1998) 61 – 81, and ‘Apollonius as a Hellenistic geographer’ in T.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 implications 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 criticisms 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 santuario cireneo delle Nymphai Chthoniai’ QUCC 51 (1995) 133 – 7.

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 celebrate Attic festivals in the Alexandria of the poet’s own day. At Pollis’ party to commemorate the Attic festival in honour of Erigone, the aQ~qa, the poet2 met Theogenes, a visitor from the Aegean island of Ikos (modern Alonnisos):3 A½r oqd³ pihoic·r 1k\mhamem oqd’ fte do}koir Glaq 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 ne?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. ja· c±q b Hqgij_gm l³m !p]stuce wamd¹m %lustim fyqopote?m,4 ak_cyi d’ Fdeto jissub_yi. t_i l³m 1c½ t\d’ 5kena peqiste_womtor !ke_sou t¹ tq_tom, ewt’ 1d\gm oumola ja· ceme^m . ‘G l\k’ 5por t|d’ !kgh]r, f t’ oq l|mom vdator aWsam, !kk’ 5ti ja· k]swgr oWmor 5weim 1h]kei. tµm Ble?r— oqj 1m c±q !qust^qessi voqe?tai oqd³ lim eQr !teme?r avq}ar oQmow|ym aQt^seir bq|ym ft’ 1ke}heqor !tl]ma sa_mei—

* 1

2 3 4

5

10

15

Ramus 25 (1996) 17 – 26 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, libri primo e secundo (Pisa 1996). There is an earlier version of Fabian’s discussion in ‘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. ‘The poet’ is the simplest way to express the narrating first-person; I hope that the usual caveats can be taken as read. I print, with very few papyrological signs, the text of Pfeiffer-Massimilla; textual uncertainties do not, I think, affect the arguments of this essay. On this reading cf. below p. 283 and n., 21.

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

b\kkylem wakep_i v\qlajom 1m p|lati, He}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 Fqyor jah|dou pa[ ?r eQd|ter ¢r 1m]pou[sim je_mgm D peq· sµm [ ouh’ 2t]qgm 5cmyja· t[ ouata luhe?shai boukol]moir !m]wym.’ taOt’ 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.’

279 20

25

30

… nor did the day of the Jar Opening pass him by, nor when the Choes of Orestes bring a white day for slaves. And when he kept the yearly ceremony for Ikarios’ child—your day, Erigone, who are most pitied by women of Attica—he invited to a banquet his friends, and among them a stranger who had not been in Egypt for long, having come on some private business. He was an Ikian by birth, and I shared a couch with him—not by design, but the saying of Homer is not false that god ever brings like to like. For he too loathed draining goblets of neat wine, like the Thracians, but took pleasure in a small cup. To him I said, as the beaker was going round for the third time, when I had learned his name and descent: ‘This indeed is a true saying, that wine would have not only its portion of water, but also of conversation. 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 the drug of conversation into the tedious drink; do tell me in answer to my question all that my heart yearns to hear from you: Why is it the tradition of your country to worship Peleus, king of the Myrmidons? What has Thessaly to do with Ikos? For what purpose does [a girl] holding an onion […] the procession of the hero […] according to the account of those who know […] holding ears ready for those who are willing to tell their 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. But my 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 disguised 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,

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ptyw¹m !migq|m, dait_m !pokulamt/qa ; dr 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. !kk’ 1pe· owm dµ 5qca j\j’ 5llahem, oqj 1hek^sei 5qcom 1po_weshai, !kk± pt~ssym jat± d/lom bo}ketai aQt_fym b|sjeim Dm cast]q’ %maktom.’

20

25

(Od. 17.217 – 28) ‘Now indeed do the worthless lead the worthless and, as always, god brings like to like. Miserable swineherd, where are you taking this filthy creature, this loathsome beggar, this scavenger of banquets? He will be a lounger at many 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 he might drink whey and round out his thighs. But no—he has learned bad ways and will never keep at any work; instead, he means to go cringing and begging about the country to fill his never-sated belly.’ (after Shewring)

The Callimachean reworking shows a programmatically ‘un-Homeric’ word-order,5 but, as so often, the original context evoked by the echo is also significant. By moving after three rounds6 to the pleasures of conversation, Theogenes and the poet, like the characters of Plato’s Symposium, will certainly not be dait_m !pokulamt/qer, ‘scourges of the 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 the feast; 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 of confusion and sleep, thus reducing the free man to the status of a shack-

5

6 7

Cf. Massimilla 407, Pfeiffer on fr.6. I have considered whether part of the point here is that we may be tempted to read ¢r he¹r oq xeud^r together: ‘no lying god’ is not a bad description of Homer. Note also the echoing sound pattern of the Callimachean verse, aWmor jlgqij|r, aQ³m blo?om. For the fourth round as marking the descent into immodest drinking cf. Eubulus fr. 93 K-A (= 94 Hunter) with the notes of Kassel-Austin and Hunter. On the meaning of !pokulamt^q cf. Russo on Od. 17.220; it is not clear how Callimachus would have interpreted the word.

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

281

led slave.8 9keuheqe}r was a title of Dionysos at Athens and Attic Eleutherai; the cult statue of Dionysos Eleuthereus was associated with the theatre of the god at Athens (Pausanias 1.20.3). That Callimachus should allude to this manifestation of the god fits perfectly with the fact that his host was an Athenian interested in the festivals and cults of his home city. Moreover, his insistence on a fastidious independence is marked, as often in Callimachus, by a rare gloss: !tl^m ‘servant’, is the kind of language which ‘free’ men use.9 Callimachus has here appropriated and ‘personalised’ a long tradition of sympotic poetry on the subject of 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 between the moderate drinking and intellectual pleasures of the ‘Greek’ symposium and the drunken excesses of barbarian ‘others’, in this case Thracians, who ‘by definition’ drank unmixed wine in great quantities.12 Callimachus’ use of this theme was probably reinforced by the poet’s apparent innocence of sea-faring (27 – 34), for the imaging of the symposium (particularly one where wine flowed freely) as a sea-voyage was a very common one, as recent scholarship has fully investigated.13 Two sympotic models give shape to Callimachus’ rejection of heavy drinking. One is the ritual frame provided by the introductory verses. The aiora, ‘Swinging Festival’, commemorated Erigone who hung herself from the tree under which her father, Ikarios, was buried after he had been killed by shepherds crazed by Dionysos’ gift of (unmixed) wine.14 The first two festivals named in the surviving verses, the Pith8 Cf. Hesiod fr. 239 M-W. For the paradox cf. Propertius 3.5.21 mentem uincire Lyaeo (‘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 Odyssey’, in O. Murray (ed.), Sympotica (Oxford 1990), 213 – 20. 11 Thus, for example, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Hieronymus and Chamaileon all wrote treatises ‘On Drunkenness’, and cf. Plato Laws 1.637a-642b; cf. further below pp. 282 – 3. 12 Cf C. Corbato, Scritti di letteratura greca (Trieste 1991), 314. Alexis fr. 9.8 – 12 KA contrasts ‘Greek drinking’ characterised by moderately sized cups and pleasant 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 seminal discussion. 14 For Callimachus’ use of the ritual background cf. R. Scodel, ‘Wine, Water and the Anthesteria in Callimachus fr. 178 Pf.’, ZPE 39 (1980), 37 – 40.

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oigia and the Choes, were both parts of the Athenian Anthesteria festival, and this passage of Callimachus has played a prominent role in recent re-evaluations of that festival.15 Whether or not these verses confirm that the aiora was—or was believed by Callimachus to be—also part of the Anthesteria, part indeed of the third day of the festival (the Chytroi) as it has been traditionally conceived, need not concern us here. The Pithoigia and the Choes are clearly chosen because of their association with wine. The drinking contests which characterised the Choes presumably encouraged the drinking of neat or only lightly diluted 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 drained the lot in one go’, Ar. Ach. 1229);16 so too, the Choes pattern of solitary, silent drinking (in memory of the hospitality offered in Athens to the matricide Orestes) is one which Theogenes and the poet explicitly reject. The licence granted to slaves (1 f.) becomes, in the Callimachean view of the symposium, a distasteful subservience (19). This poetic pattern clearly informs the passage, regardless of whether the behaviour of Callimachus and his friend also reflects the progression of the Anthesteria itself.17 Neat wine and solitary drinking are also the hallmarks of the other rejected sympotic model which hovers over Pollis’ party. The Ikian’s rejection of excessive drinking is described in the language of pleasure and loathing (11 f.): ja· c±q b Hqgij_gm l³m !p]stuce wamd¹m %lustim fyqopote?m, ak_cyi d’ Fdeto jissub_yi.

15 Cf. the opposed positions of R. Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Iconography and Ritual (Ann Arbor 1992), esp. 119 – 21 – Hamilton (48 f) rejects the standard 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 with water has been the subject of much recent discussion; the most reasonable solution might be that each drinker was given a jug of neat wine and when he poured it into his cup could mix it or not as he chose (cf. Robertson [n. 15 above], 223 f., and contrast A. M. Bowie, Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Comedy [Cambridge 1993], 38; to drink it neat presumably increased one’s chances of 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 misplaced.

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

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For he too loathed draining goblets of neat wine, like the Thracians, but took pleasure in a small cup.

jiss}biom appears three times in the Odyssey, twice as a rustic bowl in which Eumaios mixes wine (14.78, 16.52), and once (9.346) as the vessel in which Odysseus offers Polyphemos his powerful wine. Although the word could perhaps be used of a drinking cup of ordinary dimensions,18 we are plainly to understand that Odysseus not merely served the Cyclops with very strong, neat wine,19 but also an unusually large amount 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 in line 12,21 Callimachus rejects the unmixed wine of barbarians at least implicitly – hence the later charges of being a ‘water-drinker’22 – and large cups quite explicitly. When Athenaeus discusses the use of large drinking cups, a practice which Chamaileon had claimed to be a recent import from the uneducated barbarians (fr. 9 Wehrli), it is precisely the jiss}biom offered to the Cyclops which is adduced to prove that very large cups had been in use ‘in the old days’ (Ath. 11.461c-d). Callimachus’ pointed oxymoron ‘a small kissubion’ thus evokes Odyssey 9, an allusion confirmed by the ‘pleasure’ which both drinkers find in their respective cups (Fdeto 12, Fsato Od. 9.353). Whereas, however, three of these capacious draughts befuddled the Cyclops sufficiently for Odysseus’ purposes (Od. 9.361), the third round is the sign for Callimachus and Theogenes to move on to the pleasures of intellectual conversation. The difference between the two occasions is further marked by the fact that 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 somewhat from 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 in one gulp’). Massimilla observes (408) that Homer uses wamd|m only at Od. 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 that later polemic elides the differences between, on the one hand, drinking ‘water’ and moderate drinking of ‘well diluted wine’ and, on the other, drinking ‘unmixed’ wine and wine that is only lightly diluted.

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companion at an early stage (14), whereas the Cyclops remains notoriously ignorant until the end (note Od. 9.355, ‘tell me your name’). Here again the point of the evocation seems clear: hard drinking at a symposium places you on the same level as the Cyclops, whose story—like that of Ikarios and Erigone—is a classic example of the dangers of wine. Callimachus has fused the drinking contests of the Choes with the fate of the Cyclops to produce a powerful negative image of rejected sympotic behaviour. The ‘perverted komos’ of Euripides’ Cyclops, in which Polyphemus is persuaded to perform the anti-social act of drinking strong wine by himself, confirms that Callimachus was operating within well established patterns of thought about social conduct.23 Fr. 178 Pf. cannot be placed with certainty within the overall structure of the Aitia, but, given our relatively full knowledge of the contents and order of Books 1, 3 and 4,24 there are very strong reasons for placing it in Book 2, and it would be fair to say that there is now something of a scholarly consensus in favour of a suggestion made by Anna Swiderek in 1951.25 Swiderek suggested that fr. 178 belonged to the opening of Book 2 and that it preceded fr. 43 Pf. (= 50 Massimilla), the ‘De Siciliae urbibus’, which is known to come from Book 2. Of particular interest in this context are lines 12 – 17 of the latter fragment: ja· c±q 1c½ t± l³m fssa jaq^ati t/lor 5dyja namh± s»m eq|dloir "bq± k_pg stev\moir, %pmoa p\mt’ 1c]momto paq± wq]or, fssa t’ ad|mtym 5mdohi me_aiq\m t’eQr !w\qistom 5du, ja· t_m oqd³m 5leimem 1r auqiom . fssa d’ !joua?r eQseh]lgm, 5ti loi loOma p\qesti t\de.

…..for certainly all the soft amber ointments and the fragrant garlands I then put on my head swiftly breathed no more, and of all that passed my teeth and plunged into the ungrateful belly nothing remained till the morrow; 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 Euripide come 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. 1 above), 137 – 40, 315 – 18 (who remains more cautious); A. Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton 1995), 133 – 40, Massimilla (n. 1 above), 145, 320, 400.

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These verses are followed in the papyrus by a paragraphos, which may mark the end of an episode or of a particular aetiological subject (e. g. a change from Ikos to Sicily); the poet appears to speak continuously until line 55, where he is immediately answered by Klio. Zetzel noted, only to reject, the possibility that frr. 178 + 43.1 – 55 were a single narrative by the poet to the Muses (in the course of the dream which seems to have occupied all of Books 1 and 2), and this scenario has now in fact been accepted by both Cameron and Massimilla and must be admitted 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 in his Sicilian knowledge. A passage on the perils of wine-drinking would come well from a poet who was asleep, which is (in literature as in life) a very common result of wine-drinking.26 If fr. 178 does indeed come from the opening episode of Book 2, then fr. 51 Pf. (= 60 Massimilla) — 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 of Aitia 2, can be seen to offer a ring composition through allusion to Athens, and perhaps specifically picks up (and gives new point to) )th_sim oQjt_stg in fr. 178.4. Be that as it may, the conjunction of the two fragments allows us to take further the analysis already offered of Callimachus’ account of sympotic behaviour, and perhaps also to draw conclusions of wider significance for the Aitia as a whole. Some of what follows gains point if the two fragments do indeed belong together at the opening 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 offered himself as a new Hesiod, but it is the Odyssey, with its many included tales and, in particular, four books devoted solely to Odysseus’ account of his diverse adventures, which was the crucial model against which the 26 These considerations make one wonder yet again about the circumstances of Callimachus’ dream: just when did he fall asleep? After a symposium? For another suggestion cf. ZPE 76 (1989), 2 [= this volume 87 – 8]. 27 I deliberately leave the ‘Reply to the Telchines’ out of account, because of the doubts about where it belongs. If Alan Cameron is correct in seeing it as indeed the introduction to Aitia 1 – 2, then the ‘Hesiodic’ relationship between the poet and the Muses in that fragment (lines 36 f, cf. Hes. Theog. 81 f) would fit with the argument which follows.

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Aitia was written. It was the much-travelled hero who ‘saw the cities of many men and came to know their minds’ (or, with Zenodotus, ‘customs’) whose physical journeys Callimachus recreates in the mind, leaving Alexandria only in dreams;28 eQseh]lgm in line 17 may point to this image, as the verb is properly used of loading a ship (LSJ s.v. 2), whereas the despised details of the menu ‘sink to the depths of the belly’, just as the endless food consumed by Erysichthon flowed like rivers ‘into the depths of the sea’ (H. 6.88 – 90). Not for Callimachus the dangers of shipwreck among the tables; whereas the Muses had charged Hesiod and his companions with being ‘mere bellies’, here the poet tells the Muses that he has no interest in the culture of food.29 Just as the Odyssean flavour of fr. 178 was unmistakable, so in fr. 43.12 – 17 we see the poet placed half-way between the Phaeacians and their mysterious guest. As an avid listener, the poet is like the Phaeacians,30 but as someone who recognises the curse of the belly, he resembles Odysseus himself (cf. Od. 7.215 – 21);31 the model to be rejected here is not just the professed hedonist, but precisely the Cyclops, whose devotion to his stomach had been turned by Euripides into a blasphemous worship (Cycl. 334 – 38). The professed lack of interest in garlands and food is not merely the declaration of an elitist, which takes its place within a long tradition of debate about the relative value of physical and intellectual experience,32 but also acts as an introductory recusatio to the following aition, the elaborate account of the origins of the cities of Sicily: this is 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 Cameron’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 as a listener cf. D. Meyer, ‘“Nichts Unbezeugtes singe ich”: Die fiktive Darstellung der Wissenstradierung bei Kallimachos’, in W. Kullmann and J. Althoff (eds.), Vermittlung und Tradierung von Wissen in der griechischen Kultur (Tübingen 1993), 317 – 36. 31 !w\qistor varies %maktor at Od. 17.228, 18.364. The adjective does not merely make a topical point about the ingratitude of the stomach (cf. Massimilla 323), but marks the symposium where the pleasures of the stomach dominate as lacking 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 Symposium and the Poet’, ICS 6 (1981), 205 – 14. 32 Cf. A. Barigazzi, Prometheus 1 (1975), 9 – 11. Callimachus may allude in particular to the famous ‘epitaph’ of Sardanapallos, SH 335.

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Matron’s parodic )ttij¹m de?pmom, SH 534),33 but rather a voyage, like Odysseus’, around the cities of Sicily (cf. Od. 1.3). Contrary to all accepted wisdom – ‘I hate’, says the proverb,34 ‘a drinking-companion with a memory’ – Callimachus proves to have a prodigious memory for what his fellow-symposiasts say. Callimachus’ ‘aural memory’ includes, 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 Callimachean 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 cup from which they are drinking (20), there is an obvious allusion to the (Egyptian!) drug which Helen placed in the wine of Menelaos and Telemachos to make them forget grief (Od. 4.219 – 26).37 It has often been observed that Helen’s drug works very like the power of poetry to erase sadness in Hesiod’s Theogony (98 – 103), and fr. 43 now allows us to see that, for Callimachus, conversation – ‘poetry’ in fact – is not merely a palliative against the tedium of drinking, but actually serves, quite unlike Helen’s drug, as an aid to memory. Theogenes replies to the poet’s ‘tell me 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, both by his own admission (27 – 30) and by Theogenes’ pointed echo (33) of Hesiod’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 Callimachus. 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 sailors who 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 may in fact owe more to Odysseus’ words at Od. 9.12 f. Qwa_mei is another typical example of Callimachus’ use of a rare word with contextual significance: the learned 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’ of those interests.

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649),39 is marked as a ‘Hesiod’ who acquires information (whether from the Muses or a human informant) and transmits it to others. Here again we may wish to see a renewal, in the opening of Book 2, of the ‘Hesiodic’ persona established in the opening sequence of Book 1. The figure of the learned, listening poet which emerges from these passages (whether or not they are to be combined) helps us to see the Aitia 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 information, but a gatherer who may remain stationary in one spot, whether it be a library or a symposium, rather than travelling the world like an Odysseus or a Herodotus. This aspect of the Callimachean persona finds an illuminating parallel in certain details of Polybius’ criticisms of the Sicilian historian Timaeus (c. 350 – 260 BC) in Book 12 of The Histories. Timaeus lived in Athens for fifty years (12.25 h.1 = FGrHist 566 F34), without any experience of fighting or knowledge of 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), Timaeus chose the easy path: ‘Inquiries from books may be made without any danger or hardship, provided only that one takes care to have access to 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 rather be an Odysseus, who has travelled the world and had wide experience in peace and war (12.27.10 – 28.1).40 This part of Polybius’ criticisms of Timaeus, whom Cicero called longe eruditissimus (‘by far the most learned’, 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 Callimachus and the Sicilian historian,41 but rather with a shared self-posi39 Cf. H. Reinsch-Werner, Callimachus Hesiodicus (Berlin 1976), 383 f. For the importance of this Hesiodic passage for the didactic tradition cf. my remarks in 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 contrasts his own eye-witness knowledge acquired through laborious travel with the ignorance 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 residence in 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 century.42 Secondly, there emerges a rather different, though related, aspect of the ‘programmatic’ significance of fr. 178 for Callimachean poetics than the stress on smallness and purity to which recent critics have rightly drawn attention.43 In the Aitia the Callimachean voice is constructed out of the appropriation and ‘personalisation’ of very traditional attitudes, ideas and poetic structures, and it, no less than the verses it utters, is a repository and channel for the whole of Greek tradition. Nevertheless, in an Athenian context, and one which specifically evokes the licence of a festival with close links to Athenian comic drama,44 that voice turns away towards the arcane traditions of a small island off the Magnesian coast, just as in the opening section of Book 3 the voice turns from the familiar pan-hellenic story of Herakles and the Nemean lion to the (to say the least) obscure Molorkos and his homely concerns. The ‘Athenian’ tradition, which was already on the way to being constructed as the ‘classical’ tradition, is thus both the necessary background to Callimachean poetry, but also part of what must be set aside as the poet marks out his own poetic space. Pollis’ party thus becomes not a bad metaphor for much that is important in Hellenistic literary culture.45

Addenda A version of this essay appeared in Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 76 – 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 great as 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’ victory at a Choes drinking contest with the victory of his own play in the dramatic competition. 45 On the relation of third-century culture to the Athenian tradition cf. further Fraser (n. 36 above), i.553 – 5, and my own Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge 1996), 1 – 3.

17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25* The 281 extant verses of Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 fall easily into three sections. In the first (1 – 84) 1 an old ploughman tells Heracles (who is not named) about the extensive estates of King Augeias, and then leads 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), and this title will most naturally apply to this opening section, although (as Gow notes) 2 we cannot, strictly speaking, rule out the possibility that this title was intended to head the whole poem. In 85 – 152 Augeias’ vast herds return to their stalls and Heracles overpowers a large bull which attacks the lionskin he is wearing; D, a composite fifteenth-century manuscript, preserves 1 – 84 after the rest of the poem and heads 85 – 281 with the title 9pip~kgsir,3 but otherwise 85 follows straight on from 84 in the tradition. In 153 – 281, which in all manuscripts follow directly after 152, Heracles tells Augeias’ son, Phyleus, the story of his conquest of the Nemean lion, as the two of them are journeying together from the countryside into the town. In the printed edition of Callierges (Rome 1516),4 a note following 24.140 and deriving from Musurus asserts that both the end of Idyll 24 and the beginning of the following poem (Idyll 25), here given the name Jqajk/r keomtov|mor, are missing. The discovery of the Antinopolis papyrus, which showed that verses have indeed been lost from the end of Idyll 24, seems to have confirmed the first half of this statement, which will, nevertheless, have been based on a literary judgement, not on manuscript evidence. Arguments concerning the date and authorship of the poem are naturally interconnected. There are strong, though not absolutely compelling, grounds for believing that the poet of Idyll 25 knew the Victoria * 1 2 3 4

M.A. Harder et al. (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen 1998) 115 – 32 For the abrupt opening cf. below (p. 305 – 6). Gow (1952: 2.438). On this manuscript see Gallavotti (1993: 341 – 8). Gallavotti (on 85) notes that D seems to treat 1 – 84 as a separate poem. On this edition cf. Gow (1952: 1.xlv-vi); Gallavotti (1993: 361 – 8).

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Berenices of Callimachus which all but certainly stood at the head of the third book of the Aitia (SH 254 – 269).5 The central myth of this elegy – Heracles’ confrontation with the Nemean lion and the hospitality extended to the hero by the humble Molorkos – finds both general and specific resemblances in Idyll 25, although the Idyll does not seem to exploit the aetiological aspect of the Nemean lion story, which was of course foregrounded in the epinician tradition.6 That the poems share a common debt to the Odyssey, particularly to the character of Eumaeus who shapes both the anonymous rustic of the Idyll and Callimachus’ Molorkos,7 need not assume special significance, in view of the fact that Eumaeus seems to lie behind virtually every Hellenistic representation of ‘the good countryman (or -woman)’.8 The interpretation of specific similarities of vocabulary, among which aQmok]ym (SH 257.21, Theoc. 25.168) is the most striking, will always provoke critical disagreement,9 but if it is true that Idyll 25 imitates the ‘Victoria’ (for which there is a t.p.q. of 245), it will be hard to believe, on the conventional dating, that it can be by Theocritus. 5 6

7 8

9

Cf. Parsons (1977: esp. 44); Henrichs (1977: 69 – 75). The strength of the case for a debt to Callimachus is underestimated by Kurz (1982: 10). There is obviously also a general similarity to Callimachus’ account in the Hecale of Theseus at the hut of Hecale (note esp. the exchange of questions in frr. 40 – 2 Hollis), but little emerges in detail. Note, however, that both Nemea (25.182) and Marathon (fr. 69.8 Hollis) are euudqor. Cf., e. g., Fuhrer (1992: 104). 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 character of this poem seems to have been the appropriately named bailiff Pheidon, another aged descendant of Eumaeus. Like Idyll 25, this poem exploited the barking dogs of Odyssey 14 (cf. 37 – 40). Wilamowitz thought the poem ‘early Hellenistic’ (1907: 73), and the affinities of subject-matter, if not structure, with Idyll 25 are certainly clear; Torraca speculates that both poems are the work of the same poet, but there is no obvious reason, beyond neatness, to believe this. The apparent use in 114 of 6dmom to mean ‘gift’ rather than ‘marriage-gift’ is normally listed among the similarities (cf. SH 254.1), but too much should not 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 in Callimachus, where m}lva follows immediately. If the Victoria and the Coma did indeed frame Books 3 and 4 of the Aitia, then it would be tempting to read m}lva at the head of fr. 110.91 to form a neat ring. Whether or not any of this is connected with the notorious problem of the wedding-ritual in Catullus 66 cannot be pursued here.

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If the story of the Nemean lion perhaps points towards Aitia 3, we should recall that Heracles’ cleaning of Augeias’ stables must have played some part in the aition in Aitia 3 for the ritual practice at Elis whereby men come armed to their wedding (frr. 76 – 7). The reason given by Callimachus for this practice seems to have been that Heracles married off the women of Elis to his soldiers after he had sacked Elis in revenge for Augeias’ treatment of him, but our knowledge of how exactly Callimachus handled this story is exiguous. It is, however, worth noting that Phyleus seems to have figured in this Callimachean aition. More tangible perhaps is the fact that in Aitia 1 Callimachus juxtaposed two stories in which Heracles meets men ploughing: a Lindian peasant whose ox is eaten by the hero (frr. 22 – 3 = 24 – 5 Massimilla), and the cruel Theiodamas who meets a sticky end (frr. 24 – 5 = 26 – 7 Massimilla). If the audience of Idyll 25 knew that the ne?mor of the opening verses was Heracles, either because it knew a title or because this information was contained in verses which have now been lost, then it would have been forgiven for thinking that it had entered upon one of those Callimachean stories. bo_m 1p_ouqor in 1, if that is the correct reading,10 will then gesture towards such stories in which Heracles actually takes one of the cattle away and/or kills it. The rustic’s little homily on the importance of respecting Hermes will then not merely expand upon Eumaeus’ piety towards that god (Od. 14.435), but will also evoke for us the knowledge that giving Heracles the wrong answer can have disastrous consequences; rather similar are 62 – 7 (by which time we, at least, are in no doubt as to the stranger’s identity) 11 in which the rustic delays asking Heracles about himself, ‘because it is hard to know the mind of another’. While the poem presents a polite and ‘courtly’ Heracles who, far from eating an ox in a situation where one would certainly not be missed, is never offered or requests a meal,12 it also exploits our knowledge of other representations of the great hero. When Heracles observes to the rustic that ‘god has made one man dependent upon another’ (50), we can only be amazed at how far this is from the suffering and self-sufficient hero of most nar10 Cf. Gow ad loc. 11 The mention of Augeias in 7 gives the game away; the narrator calls the stranger ‘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.

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ratives.13 To what extent, if any, we are to measure the ethos and detail of the poem specifically against these Callimachean stories we cannot say but, given the importance of the Aitia for subsequent poetry, the possibility that the Idyll poet is rewriting Callimachus is a real one. Many detailed echoes of Apollonius’ Argonautica have been claimed for Idyll 25,14 but their cumulative weight is, in my opinion, rather slight. Two passages of some importance deserve, however, a moment’s attention. One is the similarity between Heracles’ ‘victory’ over the bull Phaethon (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 onlookers.15 The possibility of a common source (? Callimachus’ Hecale) cannot be ruled out, but it would certainly suit an important theme of the Argonautica if literary allusion made Jason ‘follow after’ Heracles here.16 On the other hand, the second pair of passages seems to point in the opposite direction. Phaethon the bull is introduced in verses which seem remarkably like those in which Apollonius introduces the son of Aietes and Asterodeia (‘Star Lady’), Apsyrtus, whose ‘nickname’ is Phaethon: t_m l]m te pqov]qesje b_gv_ te ja· sh]mei ¨i Ad’ rpeqopk_gi Va]hym l]car, fm Na bot/qer !st]qi p\mter 5isjom, bho}meja pokk¹m 1m %kkoir bous·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 Phaethon, whom all the herdsmen likened to a star because he shone out bright and 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’, because he stood out among all the young men.

13 Chryssafis ad loc. prefers to take %kkou in 50 as neuter, ‘god made each man’s wants 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).

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Apsyrtus’ nickname is not original to Apollonius, and the conception of the young man as his father’s charioteer, like the more famous Phaethon, is central to the character;17 this may suggest Apollonian priority. Moreover, the Homeric model for Apsyrtus-Phaethon, Hector’s son Skamandrius-Astyanax, is likened to a star at Il. 6.401, and so Id. 25.138 – 41 may be an example of ‘window reference’, whereby a passage alludes both to a prior text and to the source of that text.18 If so, Apollonian priority would be certain. Not only, however, is the date of Book 3 of the Argonautica itself a thorny problem, but it seems unlikely that these methods will produce a universally agreed relative chronology – not an unusual situation with the poetry of the third century. Perrotta (1926) and Serrao (1962) have assembled an impressive linguistic and metrical case against Theocritean authorship of Idyll 25. The counter-argument (Gow [1952]; Kurz [1982]), or perhaps rather the argument for agnosticism, must be based upon the fact that such linguistic difference may have easy generic explanations; we would have expected Idyll 25 to behave (linguistically) much more like ‘epic’ than do other poems of the Theocritean corpus, and this is indeed what we do find.19 For what it is worth, my impression is that the stylistic arguments adduced in favour of Theocritean authorship stretch credulity a little too far, but I hope that nothing of what follows depends for its validity upon a particular view of the authorship. The three sections of the traditional division all revolve around Heracles’ cleansing of Augeias’ stables, a labour which is never mentioned in the course of the poem, but which must shape our reaction to the whole.20 Why, for example, would ‘stout-hearted’ Heracles marvel at the vast herds (114)? Is it because he is going to have to clean up all that dung? Commentators have long pointed out that the three sections – in the order of most manuscripts and all modern editions – can be fitted, easily enough, into the outlines of the story familiar from our main sources (Ps. Apollod. 2.5.5, Paus. 5.1.9 – 10), but whether or not that is the reading strategy which the poem actually invites is a more dif17 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 the transitions between the sections. Although 85 could follow directly from 84, periphrastic time-markers are a familiar device of Hellenistic and Roman narrative for beginning both the narrative itself (cf., e. g.,Theoc. 13.25 – 6) and important new sections within it (cf., e. g., Theoc. 24.11 – 2).21 Descriptions of the onward movement of time strongly suggest that time moves on in the narrative. Nevertheless, A]kior l³m 5peita is a Homeric half-line which occurs in the midst of tightly organised narrative, rather than as the obvious marker of a new development (Il. 7.421, Od. 19.433); as such, this verse suggests continuity (5peita), while gesturing towards a new beginning. More specifically, not only is 84 closural in the sense that it marks arrival at a destination,22 but both 1 and 85 have parallels in Homeric book openings.23 As for 152 – 3, the former both points to the ‘moral’ of the preceding scene (the extraordinary prowess of Heracles) and impressively concludes the description with a four-word hexameter beginning with a patronymic occupying the entire first half of the verse;24 153 has parallels in Homeric book-openings, and the action of ‘leaving the rich ploughlands for the town’ clearly instigates also a new direction in the narrative. There is here a much clearer disjunction in the narrative than at 84 – 5, and it is advertised, rather than concealed, by the fact that 154 (‘Phyleus and the mighty Heracles’) picks up 151 – 2. As for the conclusion of the poem, not only does Heracles himself mark the end of his narration, but death is perhaps the most common and final of all closural motifs.25 A tentative conclusion, based solely upon the formal markers in the text, might be that Idyll 25 presents an exploration of nar21 Cf., e. g., Kenney on Moretum 1 – 2. Particularly close to 25.85 – 99 is Culex 42 – 57 in which there is a similar interplay between the subject-matter of the 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 natural event, but a private signal to Augeas’ herds to begin their evening trek to the 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 pattern 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 resemblance’ seen by Gow to the end of the Iliad (and even less by the ‘echo’ of the 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 B tekeut^ … (118a15 – 7). On closure in general see Fowler (1989).

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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 I believe, the poem is not merely a set of three extracts from a larger whole 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 classical lyric which in so many other ways foreshadow Hellenistic narrative.27 The Argonautic narrative of Pindar, Pythian 4, for example, operates with the selectivity, ellipses and swift transitions familiar to the lyric manner, but with nothing remotely like the break at Idyll 25.152 – 3. Bacchylides 5.56 – 175 tells of Heracles’ fateful meeting with Meleager in the underworld, and the poet of Idyll 25 may well have been conscious of this narrative;28 that narrative proceeds, however, in a straightforward, linear fashion. Lyric poets rely, of course, upon the audience’s knowledge of the mythic events which both precede and follow their narratives (Bacchylides 5 and 18 are excellent examples); it may be that the ‘irony of the unspoken’ which is thereby created is not unlike the irony which hovers over the second ‘scene’ of Idyll 25, but this is something different from the narrative technique itself. In a broad generalisation, it may be said that the complexities of lyric narrative arise from rearrangement and/or enfolding, in such a way as to emphasise the poet’s control of narrative time and theme, rather than in the conduct 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 considering whether or not the text is lacunose; it is imposed by the ‘epic form’ of the verse, and indeed the poet could hardly have chosen a better way of marking the 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 who performed 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 conclusions 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 starting-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 others, the relation between archaic lyric narrative and Hellenistic and neoteric hexameter narrative remains insufficiently explored. A starting-point might be the difference between Pindar, Pythian 4 and Stesichorean narrative, about which 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 daughters at Bacchylides 11.40 – 112 may serve to illustrate both tendencies. To this extent, the true heirs of archaic lyric are (in their different ways) Callimachean narratives, such as the Hecale and the Victoria Berenices, and Catullus 64, rather than the narratives ascribed to Theocritus; even the juxtaposed narratives of Idyll 22, whose interplay is crucial to the 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 Theocritus is fully at one with the third-century reproduction of the lyric manner, but these similarities should not be used to elide the important differences. The ‘enfolding’ technique does not merely go back to lyric, but may also be seen as a miniaturising of the narrative structure of the Odyssey. In Idyll 25 Heracles’ account of the Nemean lion is indeed told within the context of another labour; unless, however, the text is more defective than is normally supposed, the Nemean story concludes the poem and is in fact the climax to which it has been leading, and there is no return to the history of relations between Heracles and Augeias. Like Augeias and his people, the Phaeacians have had a chance to marvel at the athletic prowess of Odysseus before he finally tells his story, but in Homer (as regularly in lyric) the story-teller brings his account back to the present context. Idyll 25 is often classed with the so-called ‘epyllia’, but it does not really fall within either of the two broad classes of such poem which our evidence suggests.30 On the one hand are ambitious poems such as Callimachus’ Hecale and the Hermes of Eratosthenes31 which ran well over a thousand verses; on the other are shorter narratives of, roughly speaking, between one hundred and three hundred verses. Neither, however, in the Odyssey nor in the Hellenistic ‘epyllia’ do we find a real parallel for a linear narrative in which narrative time seems always to progress, but we are merely given ‘excerpts’ from ‘the full story’. Unsurprisingly, the effect of Idyll 25 has been compared to a painted triptych lacking an obvious narrative centre.32

29 Cf. Bacchylides 15, 17, 19.15; Perrotta (1923: 216 – 17). On the opening of Idyll 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).

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The unusual structure of Idyll 25 is reinforced by the internal dynamics of the poem. Commentators point out that the fact that Heracles accompanies Augeias on his inspection (110 – 1) implies that ‘in the meantime’ (that is, presumably ‘between’ 84 and 85) he has explained who he is and why he has come. It is indeed a familiar Hellenistic practice to elaborate what might be thought inessential to ‘the plot’ and to pass quickly over ‘the main events’; the Victoria Berenices even offers what 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 all that he said in reply, this will I tell in full.

This seems like a fairly clear invitation to ‘take as read’ what the poet chooses to leave out,33 but two cautionary notes are necessary. Callimachus, more than almost any other ancient poet, was aware that there is no such thing as a ‘canonical version’ of a tale upon which all readers will agree; if he asks us to fill in the details, he is merely making us confront the same bewildering set of choices that confront the poet himself at every turn. Would any two readers, particularly readers of Callimachus, come up with the same story, let alone the story as Callimachus would have told it? If this general consideration should make us at least pause before adopting for any Hellenistic text a reading strategy of simple ‘supplementation’,34 the nature of Idyll 25 as a whole suggests that this is not the reading strategy which this particular text implies for itself. ‘Filling in the gaps’ is, of course, part of reading any text, not just Hellenistic ones, but it will not explain why the poet has chosen to write this poem in this way. To anticipate somewhat, ignorance, identity and recognition are central to the concerns of Idyll 25. At 162 ff Phyleus addresses Heracles first as ne?me and then as Fqyr (178), while asking him whether he is the person who killed the great Nemean lion, for Phyleus had heard an account of this deed from someone who was unable accurately 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 pictorialism. 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, rather than 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’s grandfather). 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 is nothing here which makes the inference that Phyleus does not know Heracles’ name inevitable;35 it is, however, not a question of whether or not it is possible to address someone, whose name you know, as ‘friend’ or ‘hero’, or of which reconstruction of the Augeias story best fits this exchange,36 but of why the poet gives Phyleus these forms of address. Heracles’ simple reference to Eurystheus and the %ehka which he has been commanded to perform can indeed be understood by a reader who has ‘filled in the gaps’, but it – and many other such features of the poem – must rather be seen in the context of the traditional epic concern with kleos. Whereas Odysseus comes to the court of Alcinous, to the hut of Eumaeus, and to his own palace ‘in disguise’, that is in clothes which are not his own, and is not recognised, in Idyll 25 Heracles is outfitted in the manner which proclaims his identity at all periods (‘lionskin and massive club’, 63), and yet he too is not recognised. What price then kleos or, rather, when does kleos begin? Idyll 25 confronts us with a world in which no one has ever heard of Heracles, and in which Heracles himself seems unclear of certain familiar ‘facts’ of his life. Thus, for example, the hero’s ignorance of the origin of the Nemean lion (197 – 200) may, with Gow, be put down to the variety of traditions available to the poet, although in the context of Heracles’ labours the predominant tradition, namely that Hera was responsible for it, as in Callimachus (fr. 55 = SH 267), cannot be far away; Heracles’ description of the lion in 199 ( !mdq\si p/la) seems indeed to echo Hesiod’s statement of Hera’s responsibility (p/l’ !mhq~poir, Th. 329). So too, the rustic’s observation that Heracles’ arrival is due ‘to the planning of some god’ (52) says more to us than it does to the characters, but more is at stake here than the ironies created by characters with partial knowledge and readers who ‘fill in the gaps’. The poet has chosen to present the story of the labours in a way which is related to a familiar technique 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 Hera35 Cf. Gow on 162, 173. 36 Cf. Zanker (1996: 419). 37 Cf. in general Barchiesi (1993).

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cles before poetic story-telling has gone to work on him and when the meaning of the labours on which he is engaged is quite obscure. In such circumstances, it might be unwise to enquire whether we are supposed to imagine that the killing of his children has already taken place. The elaborate play in the poem with Heracles’ identity and whether and at what stage it is revealed may be seen as reinforcing this concern to create a world ‘before kleos’. The poet ‘teases’ us with our expectation that, at some stage, Heracles will utter the equivalent of ‘I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, 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 understand, his own identity (50 is again important here); for all the characters in the poem he remains ‘utterly nameless’, as the Homeric Alcinous asserted that no man could be (Od. 8.552). A similar irony pervades another poem of the corpus in which ‘half-gods’ confront mortals, namely Idyll 22,38 but the narrative concerns of that poem are rather different. To what extent the idea of a ‘world without kleos’ is connected with the unusual form of Idyll 25 will be considered presently.39 It is not merely in the links between the three sections that the poet’s concern with variety and contrast is visible, but also in the nature and subject of the ‘scenes’.40 In the first, Heracles asks questions and receives a long and full answer; in the second, there is no direct speech, and the third is largely a narrative by Heracles himself, who takes over the role of epic poet, similes and all. Each of the three scenes ends 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 have done dreadful things to Odysseus (Od. 14.32), then a marvellous bull, and finally a truly epic lion. The obvious crescendo of the sequence is another 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 in the same direction. In the opening section it is Odyssey 14, Odysseus’ meeting with Eumaeus, which is particularly important; structural similarities to Od. 6 – 8, however, also prepare for Heracles’ narration, just

38 39 40 41

Cf. Hunter (1996: 63 – 73). Cf. below p. 307 – 8. Cf., e. g., Sanchez-Wildberger (1955: 21 – 4). 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, although the subject is ‘cattle of Helios’, it is the Iliadic manner which predominates. Whoever bestowed the title 9pip~kgsir realised the importance of Iliad 4,43 and beyond Agamemnon’s ‘review’ of his troops, it is the similes of Iliad 4 which are of particular importance. At 4.274 – 9 the mass of armed men around the Ajaxes is compared to dark storm clouds, driven over the sea by the Zephyr,44 which cause a goatherd to bring his flocks under cover. In Idyll 25 it is the l/ka of cattle which come numerous as rain-clouds;45 as these cattle are to be, in one sense, Heracles’ ‘opponents’, the martial resonance of the Iliadic simile is appropriate. So too, at Il. 4.422 – 6 (which immediately follows the conclusion of the 1pip~kgsir proper) the movement of the Greek army into battle is compared to a vast wave crashing on the sea-shore.46 Whereas, however, Homer draws a contrast between the roaring breaker and the silence of the Greek advance (4.429 – 31), the poet of the Idyll suggests a contrast between the soundless sweep of clouds and the noise (lujghl|r) of the cattle. Here we may feel the influence of Il. 4.433 – 5 where the noise of the Trojans is compared to the ‘bleating of countless ewes in the yard of a very rich man, as they wait to be milked’. This typical Homeric simile, which moves beyond the world of war to that of peaceful pastoralism in order to characterise (presumably unfavourably) the Trojans as they await the Greek onslaught, is here expanded into a full ‘genre scene’ of bucolic activity (96 – 107). This expansion of what is subordinate in the Iliad, though of course more prominent in the Odyssey, will have to be accounted for in any assessment of the poem. Before turning to consider the unusual form of the poem, it may be worth attempting a brief characterisation of the overall impression made by 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. also Frohn (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 general cf. Lyne (1989: esp. 92 – 9). 46 joq}ssetai is shared by the Iliad (4.424) and the Idyll (94), but it is common enough to make conclusions difficult. So too, it might be tempting to associate 115 – 7 with Il. 4.429 – 30, but little seems to hang upon this.

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there is plenty of time to talk, and even Heracles is not merely modest and gentlemanly, but positively loquacious. This expansiveness matches the vastness of Augeias’ estates. Augeias’ careful concern for his people and his property seems to foreshadow the virtue of the grandees of the Greek novel, such as Dionysios in Chariton’s Callirhoe and Dionysophanes in Daphnis and Chloe, both of whom pay visits to their country estates to ensure that everything is in order. Heracles too assumes that Augeias is a ‘good king’, almost on the Hesiodic model:47 eQ d’ d l³m #q jat± %stu l]mei paq± oXsi pok_tair d^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, and they are giving judgements there … (trans. Gow)

The herds which Augeias’ father, Helios, had given to him go one better than their Homeric relatives which neither increased nor – until Odysseus’ men came along – decreased in size (Od. 12.127 – 33); Augeias’ herds constantly increase (118 – 25). The small scale of Eumaeus’ well-ordered pigsty and of the Cyclops’ sheep pens48 becomes a pastoral operation on a truly ‘epic’ scale. At one level, it is obviously tempting to see some reflection of Hellenistic reality; whether or not such considerations could assist with dating the poem may be left as an important, but perhaps unanswerable, question. Although on mainland Greece the rise of very large mixed estates – of the kind suggested by the rustic’s description 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 landholdings in the early Hellenistic period also.49 If it is correct to see a sophisticated interplay between ‘epic time’ and modern reality,50 then this too 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 affect interpretation 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); Beckby ad loc. Legrand (1927: 67 – 71) offers a sensitive general appreciation of the poem.

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In order to understand the place of Idyll 25 within the development of post-classical literature, it will be necessary to move beyond strictly ‘narrative’ poems. Lycophron’s Alexandra begins with a ‘dramatic’ version 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 tale stretches out, forgive me, master.

As Idyll 25 ‘presupposes’ a speech by Heracles, so the Alexandra ‘presupposes’ questioning by the king. The Alexandra offers a familiar tragic form, the messenger-speech, extended to the length of an independent tragedy; the subject-matter of the poem is ‘epic’ in both scale and inspiration, as also is the monologic form, although complicated by the presence of two voices.51 To what extent the form of the Alexandra exploits a perceived affinity between epic and the tragic messenger-speech we do not know enough to say, but it seems reasonable to suppose that it is not only modern scholars who have explicitly drawn the connection;52 if tragedy as a whole indeed developed from epic, as at least one important branch of ancient scholarship argued, then Lycophron has collapsed tragedy back to its origins. At one level, then, the Alexandra recreates the birth of the tragic genre. At the same time, however, it is also the text of an elaborate, secondary ‘performance’, which presupposes the existence of ‘classical’ texts; central to this construction is the very Hellenistic practice of ‘anthologising’, i. e. copying and/or performing bits of plays, in particular ‘star turns’, rather than whole texts.53 This practice is clearly related to the rhapsodic recitation of epic, to which I shall shortly turn, but what is important in the present context is that the Alexandra suggests both a proto-generic form and a contemporary deconstruction or fragmentation of that form; or, perhaps better, 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).

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form is, at any rate, very much a historical sense. As such, its generic concerns will be seen to resemble those of Idyll 25. Another text which may shed light on these developments is the Megara, a poem which seems to have travelled with Idyll 25 in the course of transmission and which has in the past often been claimed to be the work of the same poet.54 This hexameter conversation between Heracles’ wife and his mother has clear links with the epic tradition, but it is drama which seems to have been the determinative influence on the form of the poem. The combination of an opening in medias res 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 disturbing dream which forebodes ill suggests the suspenseful opening of a drama (cf. perhaps E. IT). Like the poet of Idyll 25, the Megara-poet plays with the identity of the characters in a manner which evokes the mimesis of drama, rather than the diegesis of narrative.55 If the character of Megara seems to owe a debt to Sophocles’ Deianira,56 it is rather the Sophoclean models which all but certainly lie behind the very similar interview of Medea and Chalciope in Argonautica 3.673 – 741 that may have been decisive. The Megara-poet is no less interested than the Apollonius of Book 3 in the boundaries of drama and epic, and here too the practice of ‘anthologising’ may well have been a crucial influence. Whereas the Alexandra is a dramatic form on an epic scale, the Megara presents an epic form reduced to the scale of a scene from drama. This is less a ‘mixing of genres’ than an exploration of their relationship and history. In turning back to Idyll 25, it will be clear that, whereas this poem stays closer than either the Alexandra or the Megara to the epic tradition, its form may exploit the possibilities of scenic organisation which are a fundamental property of drama rather than epic. This seems a necessary gloss, particularly with regard to the opening of the poem, upon what has been a common (and otherwise helpful) approach to the Idyll’s

54 Good doxography in Breitenstein (1966: 13 – 20); for the transmission of the Megara cf. Vaughn (1976: 11 – 20), adding now P.Oxy. 4431. 55 Cf. Perrotta (1923: 216 – 18). Note 1 (‘mother’, but she is really ‘mother-inlaw’); 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 (‘the bow …’); 15 – 16, the killing of the children. 17 – 20 (‘With my own eyes I saw …’) may also allude to dramatic presentations of the myth. 56 Cf. esp. 41 – 5 with S. Tr. 31 – 5 (from the prologue).

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structure through the model of rhapsodic recitation.57 Thus as Homer’s Demodocus sings a particular ‘extract’ from a larger narrative continuum, so Idyll 25 would offer us three samplers from a large whole. This model may, however, lead us in a rather different direction from that in which it is normally taken. At a general level, the introduction to Demodocus’ song of the wooden horse does resemble the way some Hellenistic narratives begin: va?me d’ !oid^m, 5mhem 2k½m ¢r oR l³m 1uss]klym 1p· mg_m b\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 Argives had set their huts aflame, had boarded their ships and were under sail already, while the few left behind with great Odysseus … (trans. Shewring)

‘The Greeks had gone away, but Odysseus’ men [who will be the subject of the narration] … ’ offers a very brief contextualisation followed by the subject of the narrative proper; such a technique clearly foreshadows 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 in which the third ‘scene’ of Idyll 25 begins. A conscious alignment with (and not merely historical development from) the rhapsodic tradition may, therefore, be an important element in the development of (relatively) short hexameter poems, not merely in terms of how narratives begin 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~kg57 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; Iliad 22 is a good example: ‘So the Trojans in terror … but the Greeks …’. No less 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 at some length (8.504 – 13), whereas once the Greeks ‘pour forth from the horse’ the sack of the city hurries to completion (8.514 – 20). It is hard not to be reminded of, say, the expansive treatment by Moschus of Europa’s abduction, followed by the swift conclusion once Zeus reveals himself. Homer’s 5mhem 2k~m reappears in Callimachean narrative as %qwlemor ¢r (frr. 7.25, 75.56 – with the 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.

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sir, as a designation for part of Iliad 4 (presumably 223 – 421), probably

has its origins in the rhapsodic tradition (despite the fact that the first attestations for it are relatively late),60 and whoever introduced it into the tradition of Idyll 25 may have had these origins in mind. It is not impossible that Jqajk/r pq¹r !cqo?jom is intended also to evoke the ‘rhapsodic’ titles of Homeric episodes; these vary somewhat in form (they may describe an event or a location), and no canonical title for the meeting of Odysseus and Eumaeus is known.61 It is no argument against this ‘rhapsodic’ interpretation that the beginning of each section and the end of the second resemble Homeric book-divisions.62 Many, though not all, of what became the standard book-divisions will have been familiar as places ‘to start and stop’ long before they became a fixed part of textual tradition. We cannot, unfortunately, say anything certain about the divisions of the Homeric poems with which the poet of Idyll 25 was familiar. Nevertheless, the simple ‘rhapsodic’ interpretation of Idyll 25 cannot, as we have seen, be the whole answer; rather, we must look both to the ‘dramatic’ developments traced above and to broad tendencies 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 Heracles were those of Peisander of Rhodian Kameiros and of Panyassis of Halicarnassus. Peisander (7th-6th cent.?),64 who is celebrated in an epigram of Theocritus (22 Gow), is said to have written a Herakleia in two books; Panyassis (early 5th cent.) wrote a Herakleis in some 9000 verses and fourteen books, and we know that he treated the Nemean lion, traditionally – as in Idyll 25 – the first labour, in his first book.65 The story of the labours lent itself readily to ‘cyclic’ treatment and we can hardly doubt that there was a rich tradition of such poems, now largely lost to us; 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 14 found in MSS, but without (as far as I am aware) ancient authority; Eustathius and the scholia preserve light variations on a similar theme. 62 Cf. above p. 295. For the various arguments about the date of the Homeric book-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 battle with the Nemean lion.66 From the later third century we know of a fourteen-book Herakleia by Rhianus of Crete, but we know next to nothing of how he treated the subject. Aristotle singles out the poets of ‘Heracleids, Theseids, and such poems’ for unfavourable comparison with Homer because ‘they think that because Heracles was a single individual (eXr) the mythos [concerning him] ought also to be unitary (eXr)’ (Po. 1451a 20 – 2). For Aristotle, of course, ‘oneness’ in a tragic, and probably also an epic, mythos implied the mimesis of a single praxis in which the individual events followed each other by a close causal nexus 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 another story. The cyclic ab ouo mode is thereby both suggested and rejected. As the opening verse assumes prior narration, and not merely the existence of antefatti,68 the relation of the ‘unity’ of the text to the ‘unity’ of the mythos it tells becomes a central issue of interpretation; in the light of similar phenomena seen in other texts of the Hellenistic period, I am more inclined to see here the concerns of a poet than the accidents of textual transmission. I have considered elsewhere the possibility that certain forms of Hellenistic narrative were in part a response to Aristotelian ideas of unity.69 Whether there is any truth in this or not, Idyll 25 certainly offers a ‘oneness’ of some kind. Heracles occurs in all three ‘scenes’, Augeias is named in two and appears in one, Phyleus is named in one and appears in two; the poem apparently begins with Heracles’ arrival at Augeias’ estate and ends with his departure; the crescendo of animal challenges clearly invites a ‘unified’ reading. Nevertheless, this poem has no real praxis; its silences are deafening. It offers us not (merely) the break-up of literary ‘epic’ into constituent parts on the rhapsodic (or ‘anthologising’) model, but also (I would suggest) ‘pre-epic’, a form in which the silences wait for b poigt^r to fill them.70 Like the Alexandra, its generic 66 67 68 69

Cf. Henrichs (1977). Cf. Hunter (1993: 192). Cf. Giangrande (1969: 150). 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 quite different way.

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consciousness is historical.71 As with the play with Heracles’ identity, we are offered a world before kleos or, rather, before jk]a !mdq_m. The Hellenistic fondness for childhood and beginnings has now been extended to generic form.72

Bibliography Alcock, S.E. 1993. Graecia Capta. The Landscapes of Roman Greece. Cambridge Alpers, K. 1975. “Review of: L.W. Daly. Contributions to a History of Alphabetization in Antiquity and the Liddle Ages. Brussels. 1967”. Gnomon 47, 113 – 7 Asper, M. 1997. Onomata Allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos. Stuttgart Barchiesi, A. 1993. “Future reflexive: two modes of allusion and Ovid’s Heroides”. HSCP 95, 333 – 65 Bing, P. 1995. “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus”. A&A 41, 115 – 31 Bizzarro, F.C. 1979. “Elementi callimachei e teocritei in [Theoc.] XXV”. RendAccArchNapoli 54, 319 – 31 Breitenstein, T. 1966. Recherches sur le pome Mgara. Copenhagen Cameron, A. 1995. Callimachus and his Critics. Princeton Campbell, D.A. 1967. Greek Lyric Poetry. London Capone, G. 1939. L’ Omero alessandrino. Padua Davies, M. 1988. Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Göttingen Davison, J.A. 1955. “Peisistratus and Homer”. TAPA 86, 1 – 21 Duchemin, J. 1963. “A propos de l’Héraclès tueur de lion”. In: Miscellanea di Studi Alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni. Turin, 311 – 21 Feeney, D.C. 1986 “Following after Hercules, in Virgil and Apollonius”. PVS 18, 47 – 85 Fowler, D. 1989. “First thoughts on closure: problems and prospects”. MD 22, 75 – 122 Fritzsche, H. and Hiller, E. 1881. Theokrits Gedichte. 3rd ed. Leipzig Frohn, E. 1908. De carmine XXV Theocriteo quaestiones selectae. Diss. Halle Fuhrer, T. 1992. Die Auseinandersetzung mit den Chorlyrikern in den Epinikien des Kallimachos. Basel/Kassel 71 It is very tempting to associate this with the belief that, after Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey were preserved by rhapsodes in ‘scattered’ or ‘broken’ form, until put back together again at the behest of Peisistratus; for the evidence cf. Merkelbach (1952: 43 – 7). Merkelbach would date this theory as early as the fourth century, though few have been inclined to follow him (cf. Davison 1955); for recent discussion cf. Nagy (1996a: 69 – 71), (1996b: 65 – 112). 72 I am grateful to Marco Fantuzzi for his comments on an earlier draft, and to the participants in the Groningen Workshop for a stimulating discussion.

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Fusillo, M. 1984. “L’Alessandra di Licofrone: racconto epico e discorso ‘drammatico’”. ASNP 14.2, 495 – 525 Gallavotti, C. 1993. Theocritus quique feruntur Bucolici Graeci. 3rd ed. Rome Giangrande, G. 1969. “Review of: E. Livrea (ed.). Colluthus. II ratto di Elena. Bologna. 1968”. JHS 89, 149 – 54 Gentili, B. 1979. Theatrical Performances in the Ancient World. Amsterdam Gow, A.S.F. 1943. “GQAJKGS KEOMTOVOMOS (Theocr. Id. XXV)”. CQ 37, 93 – 100 — 1952. Theocritus. 2nd ed., Cambridge Gutzwiller, J. J. 1981. Studies in the Hellenistic Epyllion. Königstein Henrichs, A. 1977. “Zur Meropis: Herakles’ Löwenfell und Athenas zweite Haut”. ZPE 27, 69 – 75 Herter, H. 1975. Kleine Schriften. München Hunter, R.L. 1992. “Callimachus and Heraclitus”. MD 28: 113 – 23 [= this volume 115 – 26] — 1993. The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies. Cambridge — 1996. Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge Huxley, G.L. 1969. Greek Poetry from Eumelos to Panyassis. London Jacobsen, H. 1983. The Exagoge of Ezekiel. Cambridge Kroll, J. 1936. Theognis-Interpretationen (Philologus Suppl. 29). Leipzig Kurz, A. 1982. Le Corpus Theocriteum et Homre. Un problme d’authenticit. Bern/ Frankfurt Legrand, P. 1898. tude sur Thocrite. Paris — 1927. Bucoliques Grecs, II. Paris Linforth, I.M. 1947. “Theocritus XXV”. TAPhA 78, 77 – 87 Lyne, R.O.A.M. 1989. Words and the Poet. Oxford McKeown, J.C. 1987. Ovid: Amores, Vol. I. Liverpool Matthews, V.J. 1974. Panyassis of Halicarnassos. Leiden Merkelbach, R. 1952. “Die pisistratische Redaktion der homerischen Gedichte”. RhM 95, 23 – 47 Nagy, G. 1996a. Poetry as Performance. Cambridge — 1996b. Homeric Questions. Austin Parsons, P.J. 1977 “Callimachus: Victoria Berenices”. ZPE 25,1 – 50 Perrotta, G. 1923. “Arte e tecnica nell’epillio alessandrino”. A&R 4, 213 – 29 (= Scritti minori II 34 – 53) — 1926. “Teocrito e il poeta dell’ Jqajk/r keomtov|mor”. SIFC 4, 217 – 80 (= Scritti minori II 325 – 87) Powell, J.U. 1925. Collectanea Alexandrina. Oxford Sanchez-Wildberger, M. 1955. Theokrit-Interpretationen. Diss. Zürich Smith, B.H. 1968. Poetic Closure. A Study of How Poems End. Chicago Svennson, A. 1937. Der Gebrauch des bestimmten Artikels in der nachklassischen griechischen Epik. Lund Taplin, O. 1992. Homeric Soundings. The Shaping of the Iliad. Oxford Torraca, L. 1971. Epillio di Diomede, in appendice, Idillio XXV Pseudo-Teocrito. Naples Vaughn, J.W. 1976. The Megara (Moschus IV). Bern/Stuttgart West, 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. Berlin Zanker, G. 1996. “Pictorial description as a supplement for narrative: the labour of Augeas’ stables in Heracles Leontophonos”. AJP 117, 411 – 23.

Addendum A shorter version of this essay appeared in Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 210 – 15.

18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme* A concern with the methods and style of praise and blame recurs, unsurprisingly, throughout Callimachus’ Iambi. The iambos is the aggressive mode par excellence, and Callimachus is the most generically-conscious of poets; whether he is writing hymns, aetiological elegy or funerary epigram he is always overtly engaged with the history and development of the literary form in which he operates. The nature of iambic poetry is, however, the explicit subject of two poems in particular, Iambus 1 and Iambus 13, which thus have a special claim to be considered ‘programmatic’. The thirteenth Iambus returns to the choliambic metre of the first four poems, the metre most associated with Hipponax, who appears himself in the first Iambus as the authorising ‘voice’ for these poems, and is apparently spoken in the voice of the poet who to some extent takes up again the themes of Iambus 1 (and indeed of Aitia fr. 1); thus the temptation to see a “closed” poetry book, framed by these two poems, 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, but continues straight on with four further ‘lyric’ poems, as Horace wrote seventeen Epodes, has been much discussed;1 at the very least, one can say that it would show a suitably Callimachean disregard for ‘criticism’ to place the four most ‘atypical’ poems immediately after the poem in which he has claimed to be criticized for polyeideia. The issue has, of course, important implications not merely for Callimachus’ poetry, but also for our notions of Hellenistic poetry books – we might perhaps compare Herodas’ ‘programmatic’ eighth mimiambos which seems not to have closed a carefully arranged ‘poetry book’2 – but it is not my intention to pursue that subject here. Rather, I wish to look again at Iambi 1 and 13 to try to tease out the very Callimachean strategy which informs them.

* 1 2

Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 43 (1997) 41 – 52 Cameron (1995) 163 – 73 argues the case with great force, cf. also D’Alessio (1996) I 44 – 5, Fantuzzi (1993) 56 n. 62. Cf. Hunter (1993) 32 – 8 [= this volume 191 – 8].

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I. In vv. 1 – 19 of Iambus 13 we apparently hear the voice of a critic (here given the chance to speak directly, unlike the Telchines of fr. 1): [. out’] ]ysi sulle_nar out’ =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 verses draw the fire of inspiration. But if something [? fires] spirit or stomach, whether archaic or…, this is woven in and [?] they speak … Ionic and Doric and a mixture. What is the limit of your recklessness? Your friends will bind you up …’

The charge seems to be twofold. First, Callimachus has no right to attempt ‘Hipponactean’ choliambics because he has never even been to Ephesus; taken seriously, this charge might amount to the view that the choliambic ‘genre’ had a well-defined context which could not simply be moved wholesale to modern Alexandria. As we shall see, however, Callimachus is not one to let his ‘opponents’ talk sense. Secondly, Callimachus’ poems use ‘Ionic and Doric and a mixture’. The broken state of the text means that it is not entirely certain that this second charge relates specifically to the Iambi, but this seems in fact much the most likely interpretation. If this is correct, then either Callimachus is being accused of mixing up Ionic and Doric poems within the same poetry book or with mixing Ionic and Doric words in the same poem or both; !qwa?om in v.16 perhaps supports the second interpretation – Callimachus will ‘stick in’ a word, without regard to its obsolescence. Nevertheless, the first two alternatives are by no means quite distinct. Iambi 1 – 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 quintessentially Ionic heading of iambos. In fact, however, we ought not to take the critic’s charge too seriously. ‘Ionic’ and ‘Doric’ are chosen not merely as the two literary dialects in which the Iambi are actually written, but also as the two most prominent poetic languages, between them accounting for almost all of the tradition of high poetry, except for Sappho and Alcaeus; they are constructed as ‘opposites’, thus allowing a middle term (the ‘mixed’) to complete the verse. This pattern – ‘A or the opposite of A or something in the middle’ – is common and probably semi-proverbial,5 and its very familiarity allows us to sense that the critic’s outburst has few roots in reality: we will not need to be told who really is in need of tying up (v. 19). If the point is that some poems use both Ionic and Doric words or forms, or even ‘mixed’ forms, as for example do the Idylls of Theocritus, then ‘mixed’ may, on the surface, be an accurate description, but it ignores familiar facts of linguistic practice. Although our knowledge of third-century thinking about dialect is scanty indeed, it seems clear that individual poets would have been assigned to one dialect (Ionic, Doric, Aeolic); that poets used words or forms drawn from more than one dialect was well known and considered perfectly normal, but this did not alter the basic linguistic category in which a poet was classified.6 The use of, say, Aeolic forms in a Doric context did not render the poem linguistically ‘mixed’, except in a rather banal sense; if this is what ‘the critic’ means, then the ignorance of the utterance condemns itself. The link between the two charges is that of ‘authenticity’. However varied Hipponax’s poems actually were, they were all the product of a particular social context and were all written in Ionic. This seems to be what the Diegesis means when it tells us that Callimachus replied to the charge 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)

4 5 6 7

may, as D’Alessio notes, have a particular resonance in a poem connected with Aeolic Ainos. Cf. Fantuzzi ( 1993) 47 – 8. Cf. Hunter on Eubulus fr. 7.1 (= 6.1 K-A). Cf. A. C. Cassio, ‘Parlate locali, dialetti delle stirpi e fonte letterarie nei grammatici greci’, in Dialectologica Graeca (1993) 73 – 90, esp. 77 – 8. Cf. Clayman (1980) 48 – 51, Gutzwiller (1996) 131 – 2, with further bibliography.

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of these poems may have been an attempt to produce a literary version of Hipponax’s own rich variety, but it was not ‘authentic’. As with the ‘Reply to the Telchines’, however, Callimachus has placed in the mouth of his ‘critics’ features of his poetry which he wishes to advertise: the recreation of archaic poetic forms should not be, as his ‘critics’ are made to suggest, the search for a ‘historical authenticity’ in which the resulting poems, written in conditions as near as possible to those of the 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 Museum), but rather a flexible frame in which the various resources of the literary heritage could be used to produce a living poetry. The genres, whether defined by metre or subject, are not to be invoked to preclude imaginative composition. It is the genres, not the poems, which are the secondary and subordinate ‘invention’; whereas the genres are merely the result of scholarly convenience, poetry is the gift of Apollo and the Muses (cf. Iamb. 13.1). The argument has clear points of contact with the ‘Reply to the Telchines’. There Callimachus invokes Apollo’s blessing for a poetics which does not respect ‘tradition’ as narrowly understood: however we wish to interpret 4m %eisla digmej]r, it will designate, presumably with a good splash of Callimachean sarcasm, a literary style sanctioned by time-honoured practice. In the ‘Reply’, the old age which crushes the poet is, at one level, that consciousness of this traditional practice which threatens to hem his every move with qualification, deferral and doubt. On the other hand, the poet allows the Telchines to figure him as a child, because it is children who are free of literary and moral responsibility; when they tell Callimachus ‘to grow up’, what they mean is that he should adopt a poetics sanctioned by time and archaic practice, together with the moral seriousness that attends it. ‘Aged’ Callimachus, however, rejects both the poetics and the gravitas in favour of the ‘play’ of a child. So too, in Iambus 13 the critics demand a reproduction of the original performative context, a ‘going to Ephesus’, although poetry, as properly understood, is now possible only by a frank exploitation of the absence of that context.9 8

9

The repeated phrase is tinged with sarcasm; Pfeiffer connects it with the Amazons who deliberately maimed their male children and who were associated with 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 in the ‘Cologne Epode’ (SLG 478.39 – 41). 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 your divinely allotted field is tragedy’? No one, I think…

As we would indeed expect, this does not really meet the charge; Callimachus’ answer is part tease, part history lesson. Such a strategy of obliquity is in keeping with the informal argumentative style of iambos, and may be directly compared, for example, with the teasing evasions of Horace’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 writing in many different ‘genres’ was much more common in the late fourth and third centuries than in earlier periods: Timon of Phlius is reported to have written ‘epic poems, 60 tragedies, satyr plays, 30 comedies, silloi and cinaedic verses, “when he took time off from philosophy”’ (Diog. Laert. 9.110). Nevertheless, not even the most obtuse and archaizing ‘literary critic’ would have been surprised by the notion that the same poet could write elegiacs and hexameters; thus, antiquity believed that Homer wrote in more than one metre (cf. the Margites), and Sophocles wrote elegiacs.10 Callimachus has, of course, chosen his terms with care: ‘pentameters’ and ‘the heroic verse’ are much less generically exclusive than the following ‘tragedy’, and therefore prepare the way for it. The argument thus moves from the less to the more surprising claim, for the mention of tragedy evokes its ‘opposite’, comedy, and the absolute distinction between writers of these two forms, made famous by the Platonic Socrates at the end of the Symposium, seems only to possess sufficient t]wmg to recreate, self-consciously and fictionally, the conditions for their utterance … In these circumstances, why shouldn’t anyone who is sufficiently learned and skilled in representing the occasion-bound conditions of historicized genres be able to compose in any genre whatsoever?’. 10 Thus this passage of Callimachus should not be used to exaggerate ‘the strength and pervasiveness of the doctrine of fixity and its combination with the principle of metrical classification’ (D. M. Halperin, Before pastoral: Theocritus and the ancient tradition of bucolic poetry (1983) 202), though the importance of such a ‘doctrine’ as part of the intellectual context of Iambus 13 cannot be doubted.

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to have been somewhat weakened, never completely eradicated, in the Hellenistic period. That poets can (and did) write in different metres and ‘genres’ is, however, not an adequate answer to a charge of grouping together as ‘Hipponactean’ poems whose form was entirely non-Hipponactean. It may be, of course, that the broken state of the text causes us to lose the argument and that vv.30 ff. are not in fact part of the response to vv. 11 – 19; moreover, these verses avoid the matter of dialect entirely, and this too may have been pursued in the lost conclusion of the poem, although we will hardly expect the ‘iambic’ Callimachus to be concerned to produce a point-by-point rebuttal. Despite these uncertainties, an alternative, and perhaps more ‘Callimachean’ solution, presents itself. The Diegesis reports that in Iambus 13 Callimachus replied to those who criticized his polyeideia by claiming to imitate ‘Ion the tragic poet’; another ancient source (S Ar. Peace 835) tells us that Callimachus said that Ion wrote ‘many things’. Ion of Chios (second half of the fifth century) was indeed a very versatile writer; he is known, for example, to have written tragedies, elegies and lyric poems, as well as prose works of both a historical and a philosophical bent.11 It may be that the very broken vv. 43 – 9 preserve some of Callimachus’ reference to him. Ion would certainly serve as a counter-example to the proposition of vv. 30 – 2, but he would seem to contribute nothing to the question of the form of the book of Iambi. As for dialect, Ion wrote Ionic prose, but he will naturally have composed his poetic works in the dialect appropriate to each genre; we cannot say whether Ion was also adduced by Callimachus in the matter of poetic language. Nevertheless, it might be thought strange that Callimachus would align himself with a figure who, however prolific and however much he seems to us (and seemed to Callimachus?) to be a Hellenistic man ‘before his time’, certainly belonged to the second rank of classical literature; as an answer to his ‘critics’, the example of Ion is unlikely to have done Callimachus much 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 the Homereion in Chios 1984 (1986) 27 – 37; A. von Blumenthal, Ion von Chios. Die Reste seiner Werke (1939). Baton of Sinope wrote a monograph on Ion in the second 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 Callimachus 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 constantly made appeal. It may be, of course, that Callimachus’ point was that a man of Chios could write in various genres which had particular local associations (e. g. tragedy with Athens), without having to spend time in those places, thus meeting the charge about ‘never having been to Ephesus’, but that must remain guesswork. A rather different guess, however, suggests another answer. To the charge of never having ‘mingled with the Ionians’ Callimachus replies with the example of Ion of Chios, a man who shared a name with the eponym of the Ionians. It is at least curious that the biographical tradition records that Ion of Chios was ‘the son of Orthomenes, but called son of Xouthos [the putative father of Ion, the eponymous hero of the Ionians]’;13 what precisely lies behind this curious tradition is unclear (a comic joke?), but it perhaps suggests that part of Callimachus’ suitably joking (i. e. iambic) answer to his ‘critic’ was an equivocation between the two Ions. What, he may have suggested, was good enough for ‘the founder of the Ionians’ was good enough for him. Some colour may be lent to this suggestion by the wellknown fact that vv. 30 – 2 seem to rework a passage of Plato’s Ion in which Socrates is arguing that poets do not compose ‘by techne’ but by divine inspiration: ‘Because poets do not compose by techne and it is not by techne that they can say so many wonderful things about matters, as you can about Homer, but rather by a divine apportionment, each one can only compose well that towards which the Muse has directed him; so one man writes dithyrambs, another encomia, another hyporchemata, another hexameters, another iambics, and each of them is no good in the other kinds. This is because they are not speaking by techne but by a divine force, since, if through techne they knew how to speak well about one thing, they would be able to do so also about everything else …’ (Pl. Ion 534b7-c7)

Socrates’ argument is, of course, deliberately tendentious in its elision of the difference between poets and rhapsodes, but its falsity to known ‘literary history’ recalls Iambus 13; one need only look to Pindar to find a counter-example to Socrates’ allegation. The immediately preceding a ‘flawless’ but non-sublime tragedian, like Apollonius in epic and Bacchylides in lyric (De subl. 33.5), and it would not be unfair to see these writers as ‘Callimachean’ in ‘Longinus’ academic scheme (cf. Ovid, Am. 1.15.14 on Callimachus, quamuis ingenio non ualet, arte valet); Callimachus’ championing of him in Iambus 13 may have helped mould this later tradition, but it in turn cannot help us to understand Iambus 13. 13 Harpocration s.v. Ion, Suda i 487.

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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 feature that these two ‘programme’ poems share.14 A Socratic ‘persona’ for Callimachus, and particularly one marked by irony and tendentious argument, would, as we shall see, find its parallel in Iambus 1. Be that as it may, it is perhaps not very surprising that the later scholarly tradition occasionally had trouble in keeping Plato’s Ion and Ion of Chios separate,15 but we must at least consider the possibility that Callimachus has somehow run three different Ions together – the eponym of the Ionians, Ion of Chios and the Platonic character (evoked by the echo of Plato’s work). This would give particular point to the repetition (v. 64) of ‘mixing with the Ionians [the Ions ?]’ at the conclusion of a poem which can only have left any real ‘critics’ spluttering. Callimachus, however, has important patrons. The poem begins with the Muses and Apollo, and concludes with a rite conducted at the site of Apollo’s birth at Delos. Apollo was the father of the legendary Ion and founder and protector of Cyrene, Callimachus’ home city, just as Ephesus was not merely the home of Hipponax, but also site of the most famous cult of Apollo’s sister, Artemis (cf. h. 3.237 – 58). ‘Ionic’ [i.e. Callimachean] poetry thus has their special favour. It may be relevant that at the conclusion of the programmatic eighth mimiambos Herodas seems to establish himself as taking second place after Hipponax in singing choliambic verses ‘to the descendants of Xouthos [i.e. the Ionians]’; that poem too evokes the disputes of Alexandrian scholars, and many critics have wanted to see a direct link between it and Callimachus’ first and/or thirteenth iambus. Be that as it may, it may be worth entertaining the possibility that material in Hipponax about ‘the father of Ion/the Ionians’ has given rise both to Herodas’ proud declaration and to Callimachus’ rather more provocative claims. At this point, however, speculation has certainly gone too far.

II. If part of our difficulty in appreciating Iambus 13, apart from the wretched state of the text, is the problem of tone and irony, then this is merely a 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 has a name, but the position from which it speaks is at first a puzzle.16 Hipponax returns from the dead and gathers ‘the philologoi’ (or perhaps ‘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’ (the sculptor who, so later sources explain, committed suicide because of the ferocity of Hipponax’s poetic attacks upon him). The phrasing and enjambment, v]qym Ualbom oq l\wgm !e_domta j tµm Boup\keiom, is a clear provocation: the iambos is carried like a spear,18 but Callimachus/Hipponax 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 to a book of iambic poems, however, ‘Hipponax’s’ words seem to denote that Callimachus will offer us a poetic world which, though familiar, is profoundly changed, and part of our task as readers will be to measure the extent of that change and what it means.19 The tale which ‘Hipponax’ tells is a version of a famous story about the Seven Sages20 : on his death bed, Bathycles of Arcadia told one of his sons 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 of the 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 to catalogue my every agreement and disagreement with this literature. 17 For the alternate readings in the papyrus cf. Pfeiffer I 163. Bing (1988) 66 sees the scholars’ excitement as the result of scholarly interest in the return of a famous 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 the lost vv. 12 – 15. A joke at ‘scholarly high-mindedness’ would fit well in a poem with such clear affinities with comedy. On the vexed question of whether 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’ connection between Ualbor and Q\pteim (cf. Hipponax, Test. 21d Degani) rather than the more familiar link with b\kkeim. Cf., perhaps, the use of mittere in Catullus 116. 19 These issues have obvious importance for the whole idea of what constitutes a genre, in which ideas of similarity and difference are bound to play a central role, cf. the discussion of this aspect of Iambus 1 by D. Konstan, ‘The dynamics of imitation: Callimachus’ first iambic’ in M. A. Harder et al. (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic poetry (Hellenistica Groningana III, Groningen 1998) 133 – 42. E. A. Schmidt, Notwehrdichtung. Modern Jambik von Chnier 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 appeared in the contemporary choliambs of Phoenix (fr. 4 Powell, cf. Cameron [1995] 173).

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Sages. His son travelled to Miletus and offered the cup to Thales, but Thales 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 Thales for a second time. Thales then dedicated the cup to Apollo. Both the end of the poem and of the Diegesis are very broken, but it would seem that ‘Hipponax’ drew the (very un-Hipponactean) moral that the philologoi should adopt a similarly non-contentious spirit towards each other. As so often in Greek literature, then, a story from the Underworld is going to be (apparently) a moral tale about how we should live our lives. Callimachus’ principal source is said by Diogenes Laertius to have been Leandrios (or Maiandrios) of Miletus (Diog. Laert. 1.28 = FGrHist492 F18), but the story may at least have been mentioned in Hipponax’s own poetry. Fr. 63 West, in choliambs, would certainly fit 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 Callimachus’ Hipponax offers a different version of the story from that of the real Hipponax. Such a technique would be eminently Callimachean – we may compare how in the Aitia the ‘Hesiodic’ Callimachus provided a different genealogy for the Graces from that of Hesiod himself 21 – but it would also foreground issues of similarity and difference, which are to be so important in the poem.22 The story of Bathycles’ cup is a story of competition, both of competing Sages and competing versions, here told to a fiercely competitive group 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’ (Diegesis 6.9 – 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. Paschalis (ed.), Horace and Greek Lyric Poetry (Rethymnon 2002) 47 – 69; Barchiesi’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 of the 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 Apollo seems to mark the god’s approval of the Sages’ attitude. This complex of ideas — the judgement of sophia, the presence of phthonos, and the approval of Apollo — can hardly fail to call to mind other famous Callimachean ‘programmes’, notably the ‘Reply to the Telchines’ (fr. 1) and the conclusion of the Hymn to Apollo.25 Whereas the ‘Reply’ evoked a famous contest of sophia in the Underworld, the agon of Aristophanes’ Frogs, to provide a humorous structure for Callimachus’ opposition of two literary styles, Iambus 1 brings Hipponax back from the dead — itself a motif with strong comic resonance (cf. below) — to condemn the whole competitive business through the telling of a tale about another competition in sophia. Both the ‘Reply’ and the Hymn, however, suggest that it would be incautious to assume that the Diegesis provides an adequate account of the poem. In ‘Hipponax’s’ narrative the cup functions like the ‘apple of discord’ at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, but whereas the three beautiful goddesses proceeded to an ultimately destructive strife over who was ‘the most beautiful’, the Seven Sages reveal their wisdom precisely by refusing to claim the prize: the pursuit of vainglorious distinction is the opposite of true wisdom. This standard interpretation of the poem pays, however, too little attention to the particular mode of speech which the Sages use. Unfortunately, in what survives of the poem it is only Thales who speaks — and he indeed may have been the only Sage to use direct speech in the poem — but the large body of anecdote about the Sages, particularly Thales,26 shows them using a half-ironic and half-riddling mode in which the deep truth of what they say is for the listener to work out.27 The closest comparison here is with Socrates, who professed ignorance, but whose professions were notoriously regarded as ‘ironic’; moreover, the Platonic Socrates is constantly encouraging his interlocutors, particularly young men, to study with oth25 Cf. Cameron (1995) 145 – 6, who, however, considers only the relation with fr. 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 kind of ‘parody’ of the ‘Somnium’ from the Aitia. 26 Cf. Diog. Laert. 1.35 – 7. For some interesting remarks on the ‘agonistic’ mode of 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.

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ers, usually the sophists, for these were (doubtless) the ‘truly wise’. So too, the story of Bathycles’ cup is clearly an educative story for his son: it is the young man, as well as we ourselves, who is to interpret and therefore learn from the Sages’ behaviour. One story about Socrates seems to have particular relevance here. In Plato’s Apology Socrates tells the jurors how Chairephon asked the Delphic oracle whether anyone was wiser than Socrates and the oracle answered that no one was wiser (Apol. 21a). After many fruitless attempts to understand and disprove the oracle, Socrates concludes that Apollo must have meant that human wisdom is worthless, that Socrates’ wisdom lies precisely in his knowledge of his own ignorance, and that god alone is wise (Apol. 23a-b). Just so does Thales, after receiving the cup for the second time, dedicate it to Apollo. Socrates’ story, which is explicitly placed under the sign of spoudaiogeloion (Apol. 20d 4 – 5), could easily be misunderstood — the jurors’ react with h|qubor — and so could that of the Seven Sages. Whether or not the philologoi understood what was being said to them must remain a matter of conjecture; the picture of their malicious disputes which seems to emerge from the very broken vv. 78 ff perhaps suggests that Hipponax’s story did indeed act 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 pleading for peaceful coexistence, Callimachus/Hipponax has in fact asserted his claim to primacy by borrowing the ironic mode of the traditions of Thales and Socrates. Passing round the cup is a test which few know how to pass: to claim the prize, to proclaim oneself worthy, is a now out-dated form of self-advertisement, one more associated with, say, the assertions of an Old Comedy parabasis than with the nuanced ironies of the Callimachean mode. To refuse to claim the prize is thus always a strategy, a moment of deferral rather than defeat, which is not to be confused with an indifference to kleos. When Thales dedicates the cup, he proclaims that he had received this !qist/iom ‘twice’ (vv. 76 – 7); as the memory of Bathycles’ act fades, Thales leaves future generations a memorial of his own greatness, to interpret as they will. Comedy, in fact, is never far away in Iambus 1. In charting a transition from an iambic mode of open aggression to a more understated, ironic mode, Callimachus would have found a parallel in the perceived history of Attic comedy, which too was often represented as having moved from an ‘iambic’ mode of unlimited licence and mockery to

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one which relied rather upon rp|moia and indirectness.28 Attic comedy thus clearly had an important influence upon Iambus 1. The raucous opening, the banter with the listeners, the appeal for silence29 and the promise of brevity are all reminiscent of the joking style of the Aristophanic or Plautine prologus, as well perhaps as of the famous fragment of Sousarion, traditionally the protos heuretes of comedy (PCG VII 664); Pfeiffer noted both the debt to comedy and the paratragic motif of return from the dead in the opening verses, and we may also compare the rushing crowd of scholars to the entry of an Aristophanic chorus.30 So too the description of Pythagoras and his luckless followers (vv. 59 – 63) is in spirit very like much of Aristophanes’ Clouds.31 This evocation of comedy is used to suggest a broad analogy for the changes in iambic style which Iambus 1 has in part offered. It is noteworthy that Horace also, when he came in Sat. 1.4 to plot the space of his Satires against the Lucilian tradition, evoked analogous developments in the history of comedy;32 it seems very likely that it was Callimachus’ first Iambus which showed him the way here.33 Moreover, Callimachus has written the ‘generic history’ of his own iambi, by tracing a descent from 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 edition of the comic prolegomena. There are many problems in the interpretation of the Aristotelian material, but it is, I hope, uncontroversial that there was at last 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) vhomeqo_, cf. vv. 81 – 5, 100 – 3. The aerugo mera of Sat. 1. 4. 101 seems to pick up the Greek Q|r used of both ‘poison’ and ‘rust’; Kiesling-Heinze cite Antisthenes fr. 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 thinking of an etymology of Ualbor from Q¹m b\feim (S Hephaistion 215.1, 281.7 Consbruch; Hipponax, Test. 17a Degani)? The musa pedestris of the Satires is also central to the (ironical) claim in 1.4 that the sermones are not poetry; here again Callimachus’ pef¹r m|lor may have been decisive.

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programmatic poem shares in the constant concern of Hellenistic poetry to construct its own literary history.34 We do not, of course, have to take Callimachus/Hipponax’s protestations at face value; literary history is partly created within Hellenistic poetry in order to prove inadequate to explain the poems themselves. Here too the strategies of Iambus 1 and Iambus 13 (and Aitia fr. 1) are significantly similar: neat generic schematizations are the playthings of silly critics, not real poets. The juxtaposition of the querulous and rude Hipponax to the uplifting tale about Bathycles’ cup itself offers different ‘voices’ and holds out hopes that we are to hear both of these again; neither is cancelled out, and both are in fact authorized as ‘the voice of the poet’. The plea for non-contention appeals to a comic stress upon reconciliation and solidarity,35 but its effect may have been that of the divisive iambos. The promise not to sing ‘the battle with Boupalos’ leaves, as we have noted, other targets open, and there do indeed appear to have been such targets in subsequent poems. At one level, then, Iambus 1 does hold out the prospect of moving from an ‘iambic’ mode of attack against real and named persons to a ‘comic’ mode of more generalized satire (cf. Arist. Poetics 1451b 11 – 15) — this too is a hint upon which 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 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 volume 290 – 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.

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M. Depew, ‘Qalbe?om jake?tai mOm : genre, occasion, and imitation in Callimachus, frr. 191 and 203Pf.’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 122 (1992) 313 – 30. M.R. Falivene, ‘Callimaco serio-comico: il primo Giambo (fr. 191Pf.)’, in Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’ et ellenistica. Scritti in onore 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 fr 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, Callimachus’ Book of Iambi (Oxford 1999) and B. Acosta-Hughes, Polyeideia (Berkeley 2002). That frr. 226 – 9 Pf. belong to the book of Iambi (cf. n. 1 of the present article) has been argued again very strongly by E. Lelli, Callimaco. Giambi XIVXVII (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).

19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus* Simonides 22 W2 intrigues and tantalizes. Peter Parsons, to whom we owe this combination of POxy 2327 and 3965,1 tentatively interpreted both the journey described in the wretched tatters of the first verses and the “party” that occupies the main bulk of the fragment as a fantasy, perhaps of rejuvenation in the next life: “The extreme view would be this: The aged Simonides longs to escape (now, or after death), carrying his poetry, across the sea to the place of many trees, the Island of the Blest (Elysium), there to meet again the dead Echecratidas in all his desirable youth; they will join in the symposium; the wrinkled Simonides too will recover his youth”.2 In a full and careful discussion of the fragment, Sarah Mace argues that the journey was not a post-mortem fantasy, but a Utopian one—the aging poet desires to consort with a handsome 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 young patron, or a patron’s son, and the Utopian eroticism makes it clear that in 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 famous verses on the melting beauty of Theoxenos (fr. 123 Maehler). More recently, Dimitrios Yatromanolakis has seen in the fragments a female lament for Echecratidas or his son.4 *

1 2

3 4

D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds.), The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford) 242 – 54 The 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 and Fall.” Parsons 1992: 46 – 47. Parsons 1992: 49. In Hunter 1993 I proposed a different reconstruction on the basis of similarities with the propemptikon for Ageanax sung by “Lykidas” in Theocritus 7. For the sake of simplicity, I shall here adopt the broad outlines of the Parsons-Mace reconstruction, though the question of the relation of the 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 reconstruction of the latter. Mace 2001. Yatromanolakis 2001.

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The relation between 22 W2 and the other elegiac remains has also evoked some interest. Potentially the most fruitful suggestion, noted by both 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 Obbink’s words, “As in fr. 11 W2 [i.e., the main Plataea fragment], the poet … lays claim to his unique authorship of the poem, and secures it against tampering and rhapsodic expansion at the end, by means of a ranked comparison with Homer”.5 If something along these lines is correct, then it is likely that the immortal kleos of the heroes of the Trojan War and of the Plataean campaign stood in some kind of contrast to the aging body of the poet. Simonides was one of the conventional makrobioi of antiquity, “[poets] who lived to a ripe old age”,6 and it is indeed themes of immortality and aging that are the most striking shared element running through these fragments; this, rather than the relation between these fragments and the Plataea poem, is the thread which I wish to pursue here. In the sphragis that closes his Persai probably composed towards the end of the fifth century, Timotheus of Miletus claims to have been the object of momos, “blame,” from the young rulers of Sparta on the grounds that he “dishonors the older Muse with new songs”: !kk’ § wquseoj_haqim !]nym loOsam meoteuw/, 1lo?r 5kh’ 1p_jouqor vlmoir. Q^ie Pai\m . b c\q l’ eqcem]tar lajqa_ym Sp\qtar l]car "cel½m bq}ym %mhesim Fbar dome? ka¹r 1pivk]cym 1k÷i t’ aUhopi l~lyi, fti pakaiot]qam m]oir vlmoir loOsam !til_ . 1c½ d’ oute m]om tim’ oute ceqa¹m out’ Qs^bam eUqcy t_md’ 1j±r vlmym . to»r d³ lousopakaiok}lar, to}tour d’ !peq}jy,

5 6

05

10

15

Obbink 2001: 82. 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).

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kybgt/qar !oid÷m. jgq}jym kiculajqov~mym te_momtar Quc\r. pq_tor poijik|lousor iqve»r w]kum 1t]jmysem uR¹r Jakki|par < > Pieq_ahem· T]qpamdqor d’ 1p· t_i d]ja feOne loOsam 1m ¡ida?r . K]sbor d’ AQok_a mim )mt_ssai ce_mato jkeim|m . mOm d³ Til|heor l]tqoir Nuhlo?r t’ 2mdejajqoul\toir j_haqim 1namat]kkei, hgsauq¹m pok}ulmom oUnar Lous÷m hakaleut|m.

20

25

30

You who foster the new-fashioned muse of the golden cithara, come, healer Paian, as helper to my songs; for Sparta’s great leader, well-born, longlived, the populace riotous with the flowers of youth, buffets me, blazing hostility, and hounds me with fiery censure on the grounds that I dishonor the older muse with my new songs; but I keep neither young man nor old man nor those in their prime away from these songs of mine; it is the corrupters of the old muse that I fend off, debauchers of songs, uttering the loud shrieks of shrill far-calling criers. Orpheus, Calliope’s son, he of the intricate muse, was the first to beget the tortoise-shell lyre in Pieria; after him Terpander yoked his muse in ten songs; Aeolian Lesbos bore him to give glory to Antissa; and now Timotheus brings to new life the cithara 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 Callimachus was to make famous, is that no one of (Timotheus’) musical taste is prohibited access to his poetry (v. 215), “neither young man nor old man nor those in their prime,” and he fashions himself as the heir to the greatest lyric poets of tradition, Orpheus and Terpander, who are here brilliantly appropriated for Timotheus’ own musical project.7 Timotheus perhaps says nothing explicit about his own age in this passage,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 8

Cf. Hunter 1996:146 – 47. Qs^bam (v. 214) seems more likely to mean “in the prime of life” than “equal in age to myself.”

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213), and the rhetoric of his argument at least distance him from conservatism; his contempt for those of different musical tastes (216 – 20) is reminiscent of the impatience of the trendily modern “Weaker Argument” and the newly educated Pheidippides in Aristophanes’ Clouds. This relation between the age of the poet – his neotes, whether that be understood in purely chronological terms or in terms of the relationship he constructs towards poetic tradition – and the novelty of his songs was to have a long life in Greek and Roman poetry. When at the opening of Odes 3.1 Horace seems to echo Timotheus (215 eUqcy – arceo), his new 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^m t_jteshai· bqomt÷m oqj 1l|m, !kk± Di|r, ja· c±q fte pq~tistom 1lo?r 1p· d]ktom 5hgja co}masim, )p|kkym eWpem f loi K}jior· “…… !oid] , t¹ l³m h}or ftti p\wistom hq]xai. tµ]m LoOsam d’ ¡cah³ keptak]gm . pq¹r d³ s³] ja· t|d’ %myca. t± lµ pat]ousim %lanai t± 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. hgq· 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 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.

20

25

30

35

Begone, you baneful race of Jealousy! hereafter poetry by art, not by the Persian chain, and do not look to me for a song loudly resounding. It is not mine to thunder; that belongs to Zeus. For, when I first placed a tablet on my knees, Lycian Apollo said to me: “… poet, feed the victim to be as fat as possible but, my friend, keep the Muse slender. This too I bid you: tread a path that carriages do not trample; do not upon the common tracks of others, nor along a wide road, but on

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paths, though your course be more narrow.” , for we sing among those who love the clear voice of and not the noise of asses. Let bray just like the long-eared brute, but let me be the dainty, the winged one. Oh yes indeed! that I may sing living on dew-drops, free sustenance from the divine air; that I may then shed old age, which weighs upon me like the three-cornered island upon deadly Enceladus ….. for if the Muses have not looked askance at one in his childhood, they do not cast him from their friendship when he is grey. (Callimachus 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 of the Muses because its only concern is song (Plato, Phaedrus 259b-d). Against the heavy weight of “ass poetry” is set the fragile lightness of the winged cicada with its pure sound. An Aristotelian treatise on sounds classifies the song of the cicada as liguros “clear, high” and leptos “thin” (On things heard 803b19),11 and (to anticipate somewhat) we may note that the “[song] clear and full of desire” (Rleq|emta kic}m) which probably belongs to the voice of the poet at v. 17 of Simonides 22 W2 would well suit a “young” or rejuvenated singer. The cicada is, however, also a vulnerable creature resembling an old man,12 and one which can so easily be crushed by those who do not appreciate its special beauty. In one respect, however, Callimachus must confess to a likeness to 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 cannot be sloughed off. It crushes him as Sicily crushes the giant who rebelled against Zeus, and his only consolation – although no small one – is that the Muses do not abandon their favorites, unlike the dawn-goddess Eos 9 10 11 12

I print Massimilla’s text, and have kept papyrological marks to a minimum. Cf. Ambühl 1995. Good discussion of such descriptions of sound in Asper 1997: 177 ff. 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 things heard 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. Callimachus here may not merely be playing with a conventional piety (together with the familiar assimilation of Homer to “Zeus”), but he may also have an eye on Aristophanes’ Clouds, where not only does Pheidippides dismiss Aeschylus as x|vou pk]ym “full of bombast” (1366 f), but thunder is explicitly denied to Zeus by the impious Socrates and the buffoonish Strepsiades (374 ff); by implication, the Telchines are aligned with such tasteless creatures.

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who abandoned Tithonus (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 218 – 38). Still in old age the poet is able to write as he would wish: vv. 37 f rework famous verses from the prologue of Hesiod’s Theogony (81 – 84) both to demonstrate the continued poetic power which is the blessing of the Muses14 and, on any reconstruction of the relationship between “Reply” and “Dream,” to prepare for the “Hesiodic” scene that is to follow. The poet’s wish for rejuvenation seems to have been granted in that he proceeded to dream that he really was young again15 and was transported to meet the Muses on Helicon. Callimachus here replays Hesiodic experience in two related ways. Although in the proem to the Theogony Hesiod himself gives no indication of how old he was when confronted on the mountainside by the Muses, it is a reasonable guess that the Hellenistic age constructed Hesiod’s encounter with the Muses as an experience of his youth—the boy sent out “once upon a time” (Theog. 22) to look after the lambs16 – as also were the corresponding encounter between the Muses and the young Archilochus17 and the young Aeschylus’ dream of Dionysus.18 The Hesiodic text itself encourages such a construction by representing the meeting with the Muses as something that happened in the past, “once upon a time” (Theog. 22); Hesiod recalls what the Muses then said to him, as Callimachus recalls the youthful instructions he received from Apollo. Secondly, Callimachus seems to evoke a tradition, attested explicitly only in later antiquity, 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\mter 1r 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 hypothesis, cf. below at n. 33. Note the virtuoso combination of Homer, Hesiod, and Callimachus 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 upon which McKay 1959: 4 bases his claim that “It is taken for granted by the ancients that Hesiod [became a poet] at a venerable age.” 17 SEG 15.517, inscribed about the middle of the third century in the “Archilocheion” at Paros, cf. Kambylis 1963, below at n. 24. 18 When he was a boy, Aeschylus fell asleep while guarding grapes in the countryside, and Dionysus appeared to him and told him to write tragedy (Pausanias 1.21.2 = Aesch. Test. 111 TrGF).

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that may, as Ruth Scodel demonstrated,19 also be important for the choral song on old age in Euripides’ Heracles Furens (637 – 700), to which Callimachus makes explicit allusion (vv. 35 – 36 ~ HF 638 – 40) and which is important for this whole section of Callimachus’ prologue.20 As the Euripidean chorus asserts that it will never cease to “mingle the Graces with the Muses” (HF 673 – 75), so at the very head of his poem 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 the Graces (frr. 5 – 9 Massimilla). Whether or not the legend of Hesiod’s double life was known to Euripides (and Simonides?), it is clear that the Callimachean dream was merely one of a number of poetic strategies by which Hellenistic and Roman poets represented the great tradition (“passing on”) to which they felt themselves heir;21 the metempsychosis of Homer into Ennius (Ennius, Annales frr. 3 – 10 Skutsch) is, along with dream experience, perhaps the best known such strategy. If, however, Callimachus’ rejuvenation takes the form of a dream experience in which he reaches into the distant past to relive the experience of Hesiod, this may prompt us to ask about the nature of the “old age” which oppresses him. When interpreting this literally, we must always allow for humorous exaggeration. The Telchines have accused him of behaving like a child, though he is a grown man, and so he exaggerates just how old he is as part of the demonstration of the absurdity of their criticisms.22 Whatever view is taken of how old Callimachus actually was when he composed the “Reply,” it seems clear that there is more at stake here than just encroaching senility. The approach or arrival of the weakness of old age seems to have been 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 at a simple, literal level; it is rather a recognizable poetic code, even when 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” of Poseidippos (705 SH), in which the poet from Pella invokes the 19 20 21 22

Scodel 1980. Cf. Basta Donzelli 1991, Livrea 1997. See the excellent discussion of Bing 1988: 56 – 71. Cf., e. g., Lynn 1995: 180 n. 17. On the charge of being a “child” cf. Asper 1997: 149 – 50.

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Muses to join him in singing23 “hateful old age” and, perhaps under the influence of the (?) newly-founded Archilocheion on Paros, wishes to become a second Archilochus, as Callimachus was a “second Hesiod” with honors and a cult decreed by Apollo.24 While his poetry will find immortal kleos, he himself will find his own kind of eternity: lgd] tir owm we}ai d\jquom. aqt±q 1c½ c^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 Rhadamanthys, missed by the citizens and all the people, needing no staff to walk and speaking clearly to the multitude, leaving house and prosperity to my children. (Poseidippos, 705.21 – 5 SH)

What in Callimachus is a wish for rejuvenation is in Poseidippos a wish for good health up until death in old age,25 followed by a journey “on the mystic path to Rhadamanthys.” Whether we interpret this as meaning that Poseidippos was merely initiated into the “mysteries of the Muses” or that he was actually an initiate of a Dionysiac or “Orphic” cult,26 the language has a history of particular relevance in the present context. Poseidippos prays to remain aqhoep^r, “speaking properly,” to the end of his life, whereas the voice of Simonides 22 W2 imagines such fluency ( !qtiep]a myl_m ck_ssam, with West’s very probable supplement) to be the result of newfound strength;27 the prayer for bodily health to the last, being !sj_pym 1m poss_, finds many parallels throughout Greek literature, but it looks here like a reworking of Hesiod’s description of men of the Golden Age, “when there was no terrible old age, but ever undiminished in feet and hands they took pleasure in 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 discusses was also a very striking example of divine favor to a poet, and must have struck a 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 see below 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.”

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uses Hesiod to console himself with the Muses’ protection of their favorites and his own piety, Poseidippos prays for public honors from his own people28 and continued good health until old age, followed by the certain reward of the just initiate. Not for Poseidippos the impossible wish of becoming young again (cf. v. 25); his “immortality” will be more certain and more long-lasting. “Old age,” however “hateful” at the opening of the poem, seems itself now almost a mark of poetic distinction. This is, as we shall see, by no means an isolated third-century example.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 the poetics of the “slender Muse” and the narrow path. The sequence of thought suggests that the old age which crushes the poet is at one level what we have learned to call “the burden of the past,” that consciousness of tradition of Hesiod, Pindar, Euripides, Aristophanes, and the other great figures of the past whose voices well up through Callimachus’ verses, a consciousness that hems our every move with qualification, deferral, and doubt, and that, like old age, restricts the freedom of action we associate with “the light one, the winged one.” In Plato’s myth, cicadas were the first poets, free to sing and honor the Muses as they liked, with no constraining tradition of song behind them. It is Callimachus who, for us, makes the decisive move in understanding “rejuvenation” in terms of the literary tradition, thus completing the triangle of related ideas – the weight of years, the weight of tradition, and the hope for immortality. Tradition is figured in terms of human aging. Callimachus is old and weary, crushed by the immobilizing sense of the years that have preceded. When the Telchines tell Callimachus “to grow up,” what they mean is that he should adopt a poetics sanctioned by time and archaic practice (cf. Iambos 13), together with the moral seriousness that attends it. Callimachus rejects both the poetics and 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. Very like 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.

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the death of the Alexandrian poet Philikos of Corcyra, presumably composed near in time to his death (mid-third century b.c.e.):30 5qweo dµ laj\qistor bdoip|qor, 5qweo jako»r w~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 fair land of the god-fearing dead. Your head crowned with ivy, rolling forth your 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, a man 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 to the Isles of the Blessed, still “rolling forth” his lovely poems. This komos is particularly appropriate to a (dramatic) poet who was a priest of Dionysus (Ath. 5.198b-c), but it may also be worth asking whether the epigram evokes the blessed afterlife that an initiate of Dionysiac mysteries may expect. As such, Philikos will experience the happiness for which Poseidippos can only pray; his ability to take an active and productive 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 as it may, and however common the idea of a perpetuation in the afterlife of the habitual practices (real or constructed) of the present life,32 the link between poetic glory and old age is not merely the conventional one 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, FGE 460 f. David Sider has made the interesting suggestion that Philikos composed this 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\qessim. )m\jqeom. ewwor Y~mym, / l^t’ 1qat_m j~lym %mdiwa j.t.k.

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also with the presentation of poets and other sages of the archaic and classical past as “old” as well as “of old” (oR p\kai poigta_).33 The “old man” who appears in the programmatic dream of Herodas 8 is, fairly certainly, Hipponax himself; in Iambus 1.58, Callimachus presents Thales as an old man; Anacreon is commonly “old” (b pq]sbur, b c]qym) in the rich tradition of fictitious epitaphs about him and throughout the Anacreontea34, and Alcaeus of Messene designates both Hesiod and Hipponax as b pq]sbur.35 Much of the impetus comes, of course, from these poets’ own poetry and/or the legends about these makrobioi: “Hesiodic old age” was proverbial,36 and surviving fragments of Anacreon’s poetry make much play with his advanced years (cf. 395, 418 PMG). Nevertheless, it is hardly surprising (or new) that great age was invested with symbolic meaning also. Thus Dioscorides praises his older contemporary Machon as both ti t]wmgr / %niom !qwa_gr ke_xamom, “a remnant worthy of the ancient art” (i. e., Old Comedy), and as b pq]sbur.37 Machon may well have enjoyed a long life, but it is the interplay between his age and the nature of his art that is central to the rhetoric of the epigram. More striking still is one of 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|lemom Eqjq\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 the sleep which is due to all, Meleager son of Eucrates, who outfitted Eros, he of sweetness and tears, and the Muses with merry graces. Heavenborn Tyre and the sacred land of Gadara brought him to manhood, and Cos, the love33 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 Musa senis.” 35 AP 7.55.6, 7.536.1 (= HE 75,76). 36 Cf. Scodel 1980. 37 AP 7.708(= HE 1617 – 22).

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ly land of the Meropes, nursed his old age. If you are a Syrian, Salaam!, if a Phoenician, Naidios!, if a Greek, Chaire!, and say the same yourself. (AP 7.419 = HE 4000 – 7)

Meleager makes play with his advanced years at death also in two of the three other epitaphs that he composed for himself,38 but in the present poem he evokes a familiar rhetoric by which the epitaph will be read one day in the (distant) future by a passer-by and Meleager will long have become b pq]sbur in two senses, both “old when he died” and “an old/revered poet.” Meleager thus foresees, and to some extent constructs, his own passage into the pantheon of “great poets of the past.”39 This is the symbolic language that Callimachus actualizes when he implies that the Telchines want him to “act his age.” For Callimachus, however, the poetry of techne must not follow the patterns of the past, but must enact a radical break with the past; it must, in other words, be neos, that is, both “young” and “new.” It is a very Callimachean irony that such poetry is produced by a man whose “decades of years are not few” (fr. 1.6) and is sanctioned by the example of one of the “oldest” of past poets, namely Hesiod. Here, as elsewhere, it is the Telchines who misunderstand the poetry both of the past and the present. This association of age and sophia is neither new nor surprising, and finds its close counterpart in contemporary iconography. “In the Greek imagination, all great intellectuals were old … There exists no portrait of a truly young poet, and certainly not of a young philosopher.”40 From the very earliest representations, Homer is depicted as (sometimes very) “old,”41 but great age, as an almost inevitable characteristic of representations of great poets and thinkers of the past, seems to be a development of the third century.42 Of particular interest for Hellenistic poetry is a wretchedly preserved set of statues of poets and philosophers from 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 conclusions from 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 and Luce 1989. 41 Cf. Zanker 1995, ch. 4 (166 – 71 for Hellenistic images of Homer); Schefold 1997. Homer remains, of course, an old man in the sixth-century ekphrastic epigrams of Christodorus, AP 2.322, 325. 42 Cf. Zanker 1995: 68 – 75.

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identified in this group, then he was represented as a very old man indeed.43 However that may be, it is clear that, in the third century, the doubleness of “age” was expressed in the language of both plastic art and poetry. In seeking to trace the history of these ideas in archaic and classical poetry, we may begin again with the same stasimon of Euripides’ Heracles. Under the present dispensation, men, not even good men, can live, or more specifically “be young,” twice (HF 655 – 72); for some fortunate men the consolation for this is the kleos conferred by poetry. Bacchylides 3.88 – 92 (a poet who brings us very close to Simonides) expresses this conventional thought with neat economy: !mdq· d’ oq h]lir, poki¹m paq]mta c/qar, h\keiam awtir !cjol_ssai Fbam. !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 the bloom of youth. The light of arete does not, however, fade with men’s bodies, but the Muse nurtures it. (Bacchyl. 3.88 – 92)

It is presumably some version of this sequence that lies concealed in the tatters of Simonides 20.13 ff W2 on the immortality that Homer has conferred. For poets, moreover, there is, as the Euripidean chorus implies, a further consolation in the joy of singing that is itself a perpetuating of life, perhaps even, through the grace of the Muses, a rejuvenation. More ambiguous is the relationship between this rhetoric and eros. In different contexts, old age may be figured as bringing some release from the disturbing passions of eros (so, most famously, Sophocles and Cephalus at Plato Republic, 1.329b-d) or rejection by the objects of desire (Mimnermus 1 W), but in any case eros is intimately connected with the self-presentation of the poet as old. The apparently erotic content of 22 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 and Picard, figs. 47, 48, 51. The date of the individual sculptures and of the group as a whole remains disputed (early third or early second century?).

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=qor awt] le juam]oisim rp¹ bkev\qoir taj]q’ ellasi deqj|lemor jgk^lasi pamtodapo?r 1r %peiqa 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 me into the boundless nets of Kypris with enticements of every kind. Ah, I tremble at his attack, as a yoke-horse, a prize-winner but now in old age, enters the contest with the swift chariot unwillingly. (Ibycus, 287 PLG)

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 may begin with an echo of this poem of Ibycus, might owe a debt to Simonides, 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 of youth, and the immortality that Homer conferred; they allude also, as many scholars have noted, to Mimnermus’ famous lines (fr. 2) on aging and our likeness to leaves; there is, in other words, an overt engagement in these fragments with the poetic tradition. Stobaeus has in fact preserved a number of fragments of Mimnermus’ Nanno on the curse of old age (frr. 1 – 5), which suggest a “classic” status for this poet on this subject (as, for example, Sappho was in matters of eros): subsequent treatments may therefore call Mimnermus to mind, however fleeting the verbal echo.45 In one other case, at least, we know that Mimnermus was early associated with this theme: his wish (or that of a character in his poetry?) to die at age sixty “free of disease and grievous cares” (fr. 6) was explicitly corrected by Solon (fr. 20) to a wish to die at age eighty. Simonides 21 W2 also concerns the aging process, in this case a physical/sexual awakening, a transition, perhaps, from eromenos to potential erastes, from pais to neos (cf., e. g., Theognis 1319 – 20). Although the language of hybris and dike is the standard language of eros, it is also very 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.

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was, as we have seen, granted two lives, though how early the legend starts – and, in particular, whether it was available to Simonides – we cannot say. Be that as it may, Hesiod is par excellence the poet of aging, 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 eventually be born with grey hair, an age that will end up with no respect for dike, and no aidos, but hybris everywhere. The Hesiod of Works and Days, who speaks to Perses as an older advisor to an errant younger brother, seems important for these fragments of Simonides. The tone is didactic ( !kk± s» taOta lah~m j.t.k., 20.11 W2), the rejection of optimistic fantasy seems Hesiodic, and in particular 20.9 W2, however formulaic, 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 message is in many ways non-Hesiodic. The young never imagine that life will change, that they will grow old, but the poet, with the special sophia granted by tradition and his hopes for immortal kleos, he knows (note the pointed !m^q … !mdq_m at the end of successive verses, marking Homer’s knowledge of the human condition, 19.1 W2); but – and it is a big “but”— the poet also grows literally old, and all the sophia in the world does not prevent him from wishing to escape this mortality. Indeed, his very consciousness, his awareness of the truths of the tradition, what Callimachus, as we saw, fashioned as “the burden of the past,” makes him already “old” and adds a new burden – unlike other men, he cannot live carefree. Here is a very non-Hesiodic irony. It is the succession of poets – Homer, Hesiod, Mimnermus – that has taught Simonides that men, and poets, are like the succession of leaves; an allusion to Mimnermus’ allusion to Homer makes the point clear enough – poetic tradition and immortality merely emphasize the mortality of the poet’s own body.47 Perhaps, then, it was from Simonides that Callimachus drew some of his inspiration for the conception of “literary tradition” as a kind of aging; in any event, it is within this nexus of ideas that the famous Horatian passage on the successive generations of words (Ars Poetica 60 – 72) is to be placed.48 47 Simonides’ allusion to Homer “through” Mimnermus is an early example of what critics of Hellenistic and Roman poetry call “double allusion” or “window reference,” cf., e. g., McKeown 1987: 37 – 45. No device could be better suited to demonstrate the weight and depth of tradition. 48 Cf. Sider 2001.

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Much – too much – of this argument has been based on (unspoken) assumptions about the internal relationship of 19 – 22 W2. Papyri, however, invite supplements of more than one kind and, as we grow old, the temptation to see patterns within the broken fragments becomes a mechanism of survival. Simonides, who knew all about consolation, would certainly have understood that.

Bibliography Ambühl, A. 1995. ‘Callimachus and the Arcadian asses: the Aitia prologue and a lemma in the London scholion’ ZPE 105: 209 – 13 Andrews, N. 1998. ‘Philosophical satire in the Aitia prologue’ in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen) 1 – 19 Asper, M. 1997. Onomata Allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos, Stuttgart Basta Donzelli, G. 1991. ‘La seconda giovinezza di Callimaco (fr. 1, 32 ss. Pf.)’ in Studi di filologia classica in onore di Giusto Monaco (Palermo) 387 – 94 Bing, P. 1988. The Well-Read Muse: Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets, Göttingen Burkert, W. 1998. ‘Die neuen orphischen Texte: Fragmente, Varianten, “Sitz im Leben”’ in W. Burkert et al. (eds.), Fragmentsammlungen philosophischer Texte der Antike – Le raccolte dei frammenti di filosofi antichi (Göttingen) 387 – 400 Crane, G. 1986. ‘Tithonus and the prologue to Callimachus’ Aetia’ ZPE 66: 269 – 78 Falkner, T.M. and Luce, J. de (eds.), Old Age in Greek and Latin Literature, Albany Gabathuler, M. 1937. Hellenistische Epigramme auf Dichter, St Gallen Gutzwiller, K.J. 1998. ‘Meleager: from Menippean to epigrammatist’ in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen) 81 – 93 Hardie, A. 1997. ‘Philitas and the plane tree’ ZPE 119: 21 – 36 Harrison, S.J. 2001. ‘Simonides and Horace’ in D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds.), The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford) 261 – 71 Hollis, A.S. 1996. ‘Heroic honours for Philetas?’ ZPE 110: 56 – 62 Hunter, R. 1993. ‘One party or two? Simonides 22 West’ ZPE 99: 11 – 14 — 1996. Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry, Cambridge Kambylis, A. 1963. ‘Zur “Dichterweihe” des Archilochos’ Hermes 91: 129 – 50 Lauer, J.-Ph. And Picard. C. 1055. Les statues ptolmaiques du Serapieion de Memphis, Paris Livrea, E. 1997. ‘Callimachus senex, Cercidas senex ed i loro critici’ ZPE 119: 37 – 42 Lloyd-Jones, H. 1963. ‘The seal of Posidippus’ JHS 83: 75 – 99

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Lynn, J.K. 1995. Narrators and Narration in Callimachus, Diss. Columbia Univ., New York Mace, S. 2001. ‘Utopian and erotic fusion in a new elegy by Simonides’ in D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds.), The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford) 185 – 207 McKay, K.J. 1959. ‘Hesiod’s rejuvenation’ CQ 9: 1 – 5 McKeown, J. 1987. Ovid: Amores, Vol. I, Liverpool Obbink, D. 2001. ‘The genre of Plataea: generic unity in the new Simonides’ in D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds.), The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford) 65 – 85 Parsons, P.J. 1992. ‘3965: Simonides, Elegies’ The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 59: 4 – 50 Ridgway, B.S. 1990. Hellenistic Sculpture, Madison, Wisc. Rossi, Laura 1996. ‘Il testamento di Posidippo e le laminette auree di Pella’ ZPE 112: 59 – 65 Schefold, K. 1997. Die Bildnisse der antiken Dichter, Redner und Denker, 2nd ed., Basel Scodel, R. 1980. ‘Hesiod redivivus’ GRBS 21: 301 – 20 Sider, D. 2001. ‘“As is the generation of leaves” in Homer, Simonides, Horace, and Stobaeus’ in D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds.), The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford) 272 – 88 Wimmel, W. 1960. Kallimachos in Rom: die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit, Wiesbaden Yatromanolakis, D. 2001. ‘To sing or to mourn? A reappraisal of Simonides 22 W’ in D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds.), The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford) 208 – 25 Zanker, P. 1995. The Mask of Socrates: the Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity, Berkeley

Addenda Part of this essay was re-used in Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry 66 – 76. p. 331 The subject of Tithonus and aging poets has, of course, been given new interest 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 and S.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 Latin poetry’ in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds.), I papiri di Saffo e di Alceo (Florence 2007) 213 – 25.

20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica* 1. For antiquity, the Argonautica was an “epic” (5pg, 1popoi¸a, epos), just as the Homeric poems were. Apollonius himself marks his “generic status” in the opening verse through the phrase which designates the subject of his song, pakaicem´ym jk´a vyt_m. In the Odyssey, Demodokos is inspired by the Muse to sing jk´a !mdq_m (Od. 8.73), Achilles sings of jk´a !mdq_m when withdrawn from the fighting itself (Il. 9.189),1 and Phoenix tells Achilles that there have been “epic” parallels to his own situation (Il. 9.524 – 6):2 ovty ja· t_m pqºshem 1peuhºleha jk´a !mdq_m Bq¾ym, fte j]m timû 1pif\vekor w|kor Vjoi7 dyqgto_ te p]komto paq\qqgto_ tû 1p]essim.

This is what we have heard in tales of the past heroes too, when furious anger came on one of them—they could be won by gifts and words’ persuasion. (trans. M. Hammond)

The opening verse of the Argonautica therefore announces not, as in Homer, the subject of the poem, but rather its “genre”. More specifi* 1

2

T.D. Papanghelis and A. Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden 2001) 93 – 125 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 res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella (AP 73, cf. Epist. 2.1.251 – 2) gives a distinctively 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 “ordinary mortals”, including women. Too much should not be made of this, particularly if the phrase bears some relationship to h.Hom. 32.18 – 9, cf. Hunter (1993) 129 n. 110; the phrase may have been much more widespread in hymnic poetry than 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). Cf. below 354. For some reservations about the use of the phrase in Homer cf. Ford (1992) 57 – 67.

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cally, Apollonius “begins from Apollo” as did Homer in the Iliad (Il. 1.8 – 9), thus aligning his poem with the most authoritative of all epic texts, the Iliad.3 Unlike Homer, however, Apollonius is able to fill in the background to his narrative without the explicit help of the Muse; the poet now takes responsibility for his poem, and the selective account of the background in 1.5 – 17, itself a reworking of the corresponding section of Pindar’s Fourth Pythian,4 is a virtuoso demonstration of the poet’s freedom.5 Moreover, the poet parades a refusal to repeat the story of Athena’s building of the Argo because other poets have been there before (1.18 – 9); whatever Apollonius’ poetic sources may in fact have been, novelty and freshness are here deployed as genuine virtues. Telemachos’ admonition to his mother that men give the greatest praise to the newest song (Od. 1.351 – 2) is re-employed as Apollonius 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 design of epic from the primary model which Homer had depicted in his poems. In this model, the bard’s narration is always an act of memory and repetition; “the poet” tells the story as it has been told to him by the Muse.7 In the Hellenistic period this strategy was modified in various ways to meet the new conditions of a world in which knowledge of both past and present was now partly contained in books and poets were no longer the principal repositories of social memory and communal values. Changes in social structure, the successive attacks of the sophists, the views of Thucydides and Plato on the value and social authority of 3 4 5 6

7

For the recreation of the manner of rhapsodic performance here cf. Albis (1996) 19 – 20. Cf. Hunter (1993) 123 – 4. For the invocation to the Muses in 1.22 cf. below 349 – 50. 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 within such 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 “call upon”, though I do not regard that as a decisive objection. Cf. further 1.59; Fränkel (1968) 39; Giangrande (1973) 1. This is not intended to imply a particularly rigid view of the role of the Muses in 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 all contributed to a profound (if gradual) shift in the perception of poetry’s necessary relation to “the real world”. An anxiety and debate about the truth status of poetry and the fictionalising power of poets thus surfaces with ever-increasing persistence. One way of dealing with this changed situation is visible in Hellenistic didactic poetry, such as the Phainomena of Aratus which is in part a versification of the fourth-century prose Phainomena of the astronomer Eudoxos. As “truth” could now be stored in books and libraries, poets quite naturally looked there for the source of poetic material, as before they had relied upon “tradition” as transmitted by the Muses. Moreover, the collection of material within books changed the nature and conception of “tradition” itself. Although “innovation” in early narrative is often very difficult to establish,8 it is clear that the poets themselves were principal creators and memorialisers of socially significant traditions. It is entirely in keeping with this pattern that the earliest Greek historians and ethnographers in prose often turned to the poets for their material; by the third century the situation was in part reversed. The preservation of stories in written form slowly lent them a more fixed form, or at least gave urgency to the issue of “fidelity” to a tradition, whether or not that “fidelity” was ever checked or called into question. The existence and use of written “sources” reconfigured the old Hesiodic question of truth and falsehood in poetry;9 the very scholarly practice of source criticism, the ancient ancestor of modern Quellenforschung, confirmed a changed view of the way poetry worked. Although “sideshadowing and awareness of alternatives and sequels were essential features of [epic] poetics” already in Homer,10 the use of books reinforces an awareness of “competing” traditions. In the preHellenistic situation, variant traditions do not necessarily compete with each other for authoritative status; the “authoritative” version is precisely that one which is told at any particular time for particular reasons of context. A poet such as Pindar may call attention to a tradition in order to reject it as “untrue” in favour of a different tradition better suited 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 fuller bibliography. 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. Collection in written form, however, and subsequent study and repetition outside such an activating context provides a shaped, decontextualised tradition independent of its exploitation in poetry (or any other medium). In the Aitia Callimachus dramatises this process of narrative variation through the naming of prose sources and the emphasis given to competing aitia (cf. frr. 5 – 9 Massimilla, 75, 79 Pf.). It may in fact be the case that the tendencies considered here are enhanced when aetiology is a, or the, prominent narrative trope,11 for the aetiological imperative closes down some narrative options, and thereby privileges others, by dictating a telos towards which narrative must move. Apollonius himself displays both the (alleged) fixity of tradition and the existence of variants in a famous passage of the fourth book which is very likely indebted 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 patq¹r l¶dea mgkei_r 5tale Jqºmor7—oR d´ 2 DgoOr jke¸ousi whom_gr jakalgt|lom 5llemai ûqpgm7 Dg½ 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^istai oumola 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 fertile 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. Others say that it is the reaping scythe of chthonian Demeter, for Demeter once took up residence in the land and, out of love for Makris, taught the Titans how to harvest the rich crop. From that time the sacred nurse of the Phaeacians has been named Drepane [“Sickle”], and so too the Phaeacians themselves are born from the blood of Ouranos.

The apparently ironic apology to the Muses and competing explanations for 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 otherwise 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 category of t¹ pq]pom, “appropriateness, decorum”, particularly in view of the fact that the Muses are decorous virgins. As Hermann Fränkel noted,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 subject of the narrative, the “literary tradition” itself, as “style” may be separated from “substance”. The Muses who watch over the “style” of the whole poem may blush to hear a tale of castration, but it is the poet, not the Muses, who is responsible for telling the unpleasant aition. The giving of alternative aitia is in fact unusual in the Argonautica,15 and it is tempting to see an implicit causal link between this instance and the poet’s alleged distaste: alternative explanations, so the poet implies, may arise out of dissatisfaction (whether moral or aesthetic) with an existing aition. Whether we should go further and see Apollonius calling attention to the chronological priority of the “cruder” version (cf. pqot]qym 4.985), i. e. recognising the fact that taste changes over time, is less certain. Be that as it may, the reflection upon his own practice here both has Homeric roots and veers away radically from the “discretion” of the Homeric narrator; such a pattern is very typical for the Hellenistic epic. The poet’s own responsibility is humorously acknowledged again when he comes on the return journey to Medea’s rites in honour of Hekate on the Paphlagonian coast (4.247 – 52): ja· dµ t± l³m fssa hugkµm jo}qg poqsam]ousa tit¼sjeto – l^te tir Ustyq eUg 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 that day, however, the shrine which the heroes built to the goddess on the shore stands 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’ description of Demodokos (Od. 8.44 – 5): t` c\q Na he¹r p]qi d_jem !oidµm t]qpeim, fpp, hul¹r 1potq}m,sim !e_deim.

to him the god has granted the power above all others to give delight with his song, on whatever theme his spirit urges him to sing.

Although the importance of the poet’s thumos belongs to the traditional language of rhapsodic performance,16 the idea is here given a particular twist. In effect, the poet tells us in advance to blame his hul|r for anything untoward which he might sing; such a conceit seems to belong to Hellenistic constructions of the relationship between the poet and his model, far more than to archaic or classical predecessors. Very similar is Callimachus’ interrupted aition for a Naxian wedding ritual (fr. 75.4 – 9 Pf.): Nqgm c\q jot] vasi—j}om, j}om, Usweo, kaidq³ hul] , 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, shameless thumos, you would sing things which you are not sanctioned to sing. A lucky thing that you have not seen the rites of the dread goddess, since you would have vomited out their story also. Ah, much knowledge is a terrible burden for a man who cannot control his tongue: he really is a child with a knife.

The Hellenistic poet’s thumos now has a mind of its own! 17 Whereas Callimachus’ praeteritio appeals to widely known ritual events, and therefore does not need to be told for the audience to experience the pleasure of knowledge, Apollonius rejects that strategy in favour of what might be 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 the information which the poet witholds: “you will not learn anything from me, but you can go and see the place for yourselves”. Above all, the poet’s power to choose (unless his hul|r takes over) is strongly emphasised through the almost paradoxical implication that the poet would be able to tell of that of which “no one should be knowledgeable (Vstyq)”.18 Callimachus’ paradox is differently fashioned: his lament for the burden of “much knowledge” follows immediately upon the statement 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 to each other.19 More than one pattern of poet-Muse relationship is in fact staged through 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 considering marks an important shift in poetic consciousness. When asking the Muse to tell him the names of the Greek commanders at Troy and the numbers of ships which each brought, Homer apparently gives two related reasons why he would be unable to do this without them (Il. 2.484 – 93). First, the Muses are gods and therefore have true knowledge, whereas mortals only “hear reports” ( jk]or oWom !jo}olem),21 and secondly the task of such a catalogue is beyond the physical powers of a mortal acting without divine assistance. Before his Catalogue Apollonius too invokes the Muses, but the form of 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 5qenam pkaf|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 be to the process of writing “learned” poetry – once one conceives the desire to write on a particular subject, the necessary research must be done. 19 The description of Demeter as heµ vqijt^ is noteworthy; it suits the Demeter of 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.

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I now shall recount the lineage and names of the heroes, their voyages over the vast sea and all they achieved on their wanderings. May the Muses be the 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 nevertheless be drawn.22 No poetic success is possible without the Muses, not because they supply the information to the poet, i. e. (in the archaic model) are in fact the real singers who select the traditions which will constitute any particular performance,23 but because poetry is their business, and the poet, though personally responsible for what he tells, must have their favour constantly in mind; no poem will ever reach an audience without the approval of the Muses. In one sense, then, the meaning of this wish is not far from the corresponding wish with which the poem 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\my rlet]qym jal\tym jtk.

Be gracious, heroes, children of the blessed gods, and may these songs be from year to year ever sweeter for men to sing. For now I have reached the glorious conclusion of your struggles …

The formal farewell to the heroes24 asks their favour, lest they be offended either by anything the poet has said or because he is now going to stop (cf. 4.1775 – 7); the wish, however, for ever-increasing “sweetness” for his song is in essence a further wish for the Muses’ continued favour.25 Here too, then, a distinction between “subject” and “style”, made possible by the new-found responsibility and freedom of the poet (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 Massimilla): 5kkate mOm, 1k]coisi dû 1mix¶sashe kip¾sar we?qar 1lo?r, Vma loi pouk» l]mysim 5tor.

Come now, wipe your hands, rich with oil, upon my elegies, so that they last for many a year.

Like the Muses, the Graces offer the sweetness of style which guarantees longevity to the poet’s narrative. One sequence which raises many of these issues within a short space is the epiphany of the Libyan heroines to Jason as the Argonauts despair in the trackless desert. The Libyan scenes follow immediately upon the episode in Drepane where the wedding-bed of Jason and Medea was strewn with the Golden Fleece itself so that the wedding would be til¶eir ja· !o_dilor “an honoured subject of song”. This hope for the future, itself ironised by our knowledge of the real future which lay in store for Jason and Medea, echoes the only occurrence of !o_dilor in the Iliad or the Odyssey, Helen’s observation to Hector that the gods 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 events on Drepane have indeed assured the return of the Argonauts to Greece and thus made possible what will be a story known to everyone, the Libyan sequence threatens to wipe that future out. Here, where there is hope neither of nostos (4.1235, 1273 – 6) nor of heroic action (4.1252 – 7), the complete absence of spatial orientation marks the potential failure of the aetiological epic of journeying and the dissolution of Argonautic “solidarity” (4.1305 – 7; cf. 4.1290 – 3):28 ja_ m¼ jem aqtoO p\mter !p¹ fy/r 1k_ashem m¾mulmoi ja· %vamtoi 1piwhom_oisi da/mai Bq¾ym oR %qistoi !mgm¼st\ 1pû !]hk\.

There and then they would have all departed from life, the best of heroes with their task uncompleted, leaving no name or trace by which mortal men 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 having existed. So too, when Jason fails to understand the instructions delivered to him, as to a sick man in a dream, we are perilously close to a breakdown in the structures of epic as they were handed down from Homer, for epic dreams are normally followed by immediate action; that breakdown seems finally to arrive with the “failure” of the following extended simile (4.1337 – 44): G, ja· !ma@nar 1t\qour 1p· lajq¹m !¼tei aqstak]or jom_,si, k]ym ¦r, fr N\ tû !mû vkgm s¼mmolom Dm leh]pym ¡q¼etai7 aR d³ baqe_, vhocc0 rpobqol]ousim !mû ouqea tgk|hi b/ssai7 de_lati dû %cqauko_ te b|er l]ca pevq_jasi boupek\tai te bo_m. to?r dû ou m¼ ti c/qur 1t¼whg Nicedamµ 2t\qoio v_koir 1pijejkol]moio7 !cwoO dû Aceq]homto jatgv]er.

With these words he sprang up and, filthy with dust, shouted over the wastes to his companions, like a lion which roars as it seeks its mate through the forest; at the sound of its deep voice the mountain-glades far away resound, and the cattle in the fields and the herdsmen of the cattle shudder with fright. But Jason’s voice did not terrify the Argonauts, as it was a comrade calling to his friends. They all gathered round him, their heads lowered in despair.

The normal processes of epic are no longer working. They are restored, however, when Peleus is able to interpret correctly the appearance of the omen which the heroines had predicted;29 the appearance of a fast and powerful horse marks the end of the Argonauts’ ordeal in a nothingness without animal life (4.1240). Here now is the opportunity for truly “heroic” action (4.1375, 1383 – 4), for the Argonauts will have to carry the Argo on their backs. At this point, as at the opening of the fourth book and at the beginning of a new “itinerary” (4.552 – 6),30 the poet resigns his usual authority in favour of the Muses (4.1381 – 4): Lous\ym fde lOhor, 1c½ dû rpajou¹r !e_dy Pieq_dym. ja· t¶mde pamatqej³r 5jkuom alv¶m,

29 That Jason repeats the heroines’ speech in indirect speech, whereas a Homeric character would have repeated the direct speech, is not so much a “failure” of epic structures, but rather a characteristic feature of Apollonian epic, cf. Hunter (1993) 143 – 51. 30 Cf. Fusillo (1985) 370 – 1.

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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 report too I heard in all truth that you, much the greatest sons of kings, by your 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 an alleged inability to choose an explanation for Medea’s flight,31 here, like the asyndetic exclamation Ø b_,, Ø !qet0, it is a rhetorical device designed to emphasise the extraordinary nature of what the Argonauts achieved: “I did not make this up, it is all in the tradition”. The implication is that epic poetry is, to some degree at least, subject to the laws of t¹ eQj|r, “probability”, and any breach of these laws requires justification. The poet has not required such justification before this, and whether the carrying of the Argo is any less an affront to t¹ eQj|r than any 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 extended exploration of the limits of epic. In structural terms, the Libyan episode is marked as the equivalent of Odysseus’ wanderings in the land of the imagination:33 Odysseus is knocked off course by a north wind as he sails west around the bottom of the Peloponnese and is carried along for nine days (Od. 9.80 – 3); the Argonauts suffer a similar fate as they are sailing south-east and “the land of Pelops was just coming into view” (4.1231). This sense of replaying the Odyssey is reinforced by the emphasis in the immediately preceding Drepane-narrative upon the “Greekness” of the island, which is all but a homecoming for the Argonauts (cf. 4.997, 1074 – 5, 1103); Drepane is the Homeric Scherie (Corfu) on which Odysseus told his tale, and where—for all the oddities of the people—he found that “Greek” values, such as athletics and poetry, were prized. The Homeric Phaeacians were supernaturally skilled seafarers; the contrast with the Libyan Syrtis in which the science of navigation, that most Greek of skills, is entirely useless (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 Apollonius’ “rationalist” attitude. On this passage see also Goldhill (1991) 293. 33 Cf., e. g., Knight (1995) 125 – 7.

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In this empty nothingness the Argonauts are saved by the pity (4.1308) of the “heroines”, perhaps—though this is not made absolutely explicit—because of their status as “epic heroes” (4.1319 – 21): Udlem 1poiwol]mour wq¼seom d]qor7 Udlem 6jasta rlet]qym jal\tym, fsû 1p· whom¹r fssa tû 1vû rcqµm pkaf|lemoi jat± p|mtom rp]qbia 5qca j\leshe.

We know that you and your comrades went to gain the golden fleece; we know every detail of all your sufferings, all the extraordinary things you have endured on land and sea in your wanderings over the ocean.

These words echo those with which the Sirens seek to lure Odysseus to his doom by the promise of epic song about Troy (Od. 12.184 – 91); here, however, the kleos of the Argonauts saves them, even before they have completed their voyage. Epic poetry is the telling of “famed stories”. The Hellenistic epic intensifies this sense of repetition by the constant suggestion that the Argonauts are not merely journeying towards kleos, but are forever accompanied by, and measured against, previous accounts of their voyage. This palpable sense of a textured tradition is a fundamental feature of the aesthetics of the Argonautica. With the opening generic marker, pakaicem]ym jk´a vyt_m, comes a further mark of Hellenistic distance.34 In the Iliad, Phoenix evoked the deeds of “heroic men before us” in order to encourage Achilles to emulation; the story which he then tells still lives in his memory, though it is “long ago, not at all recent” (Il. 9.527). So too in the Odyssey, Demodokos sings of men and events of his own generation – Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, the fall of Troy. Most striking of all, in book 1 Phemios sings of the nostos of the Greeks from Troy (Od. 1.326 – 7), events which are of very recent happening and are indeed, at least for Odysseus, still going on. Here the poet fashions for us a glimpse of the beginnings of a particular song tradition. The poet of the Iliad himself, as opposed to his characters, draws a famous distinction between the heroic prowess of his characters and “men as they are now”,35 so that the epic itself tells of heroes (cf. Il. 1.4) “born long ago”, though those heroes themselves listen to “contemporary” stories and songs. This difference between the subject of Homer’s song and the subjects of which his 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 subsequent times”36 the epic past in Homer may be, Homer does not in fact emphatically foreground the temporal distance between himself and the subjects of his song, as Apollonius does in the very opening verse; even the slighting references to “men as they are now” are rhetorically not much stronger than Nestor’s unfavourable contrast between his own youth 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 temporal distance from the Argonauts, a distance which is one manifestation of a self-conscious generic placement: “epic” concerns men and events “long ago”. This poetic stance may now be seen to develop from a related positioning already found in the Homeric poems: it is not a matter of a radical break with the past through the creation of a quite new poetics, but rather of a rearrangement of emphasis giving new meaning to particular 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 down that 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, Apollonius seems in some respects to have gone against the predominant poetic trends of his Alexandrian context. It cannot, however, be too often stressed that the vast majority of Hellenistic hexameter narrative poetry has been lost, and that the meagre fragments which survive, together with 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, and even there important reservations are necessary. 37 This is not, of course, to deny the importance of such passages as the opening of Iliad 12 on the destruction of the Achaean wall (cf. Hunter [1993] 103 – 4, and De Jong [1987] 44 – 5), but it is the explicitness of the Hellenistic poet which is at 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 Cameron has argued forcefully that much of what has been taken for evidence of large-scale Hellenistic mythological epic in fact reflects relatively short poetry, often of an encomiastic or locally regional character.40 Apollonius’ other poetry of which we know, hexameter poems on “Foundations” and a choliambic poem about Kanobos, the site of a Ptolemaic temple of Sarapis, seem very firmly within the interests of the Alexandrian avant-garde, the best (and, in many respects, only) witness to which is Callimachus.41 The Argonautica was, moreover, a fashionable poem with the Roman neoterics (cf. Varro of Atax’s translation, Catullus 64 etc.), who fashioned themselves as the heirs of that Alexandrian avant-garde, and there is no suggestion in the Roman Nachleben that the Argonautica was in any way out of step with the modern “Callimachean” style. It is hard to believe that any such views would not have left traces in the explicit polemising of the Roman elegists against the writing of epic. Callimachus himself seems to have written no “epic” poem, as that term is now understood. The Hekale, a poem of uncertain length (?? c. 1200 hexameters),42 told the story of how Theseus, on his way to fight the bull of Marathon, was entertained in the Attic countryside by a woman called Hekale, when he took shelter in her hut from a storm; on returning after his triumph over the bull, the hero found that Hekale had died, and so he gave her name to the local deme and founded a shrine of Zeus Hekaleios. If much about the Hekale, particularly its aetiological focus and its interest in “ordinary” lives, recalls other areas of Callimachus’ œuvre, the “generic” resonance of the poem was clearly that 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 for the ethical presentation of the characters, the rarity, if not in fact total absence, of the intrusive authorial voice so familiar in the Aitia and the Hymns (and indeed in Apollonius’ Argonautica),44 and a verbal style 39 40 41 42 43 44

There is an important survey by Marco Fantuzzi in Ziegler (1988). Cameron (1995) 262 – 302. Cf. Hunter (1989) 9 – 12, Krevans (2000). Cf. Hollis (1990) Appendix II. Cf. in general Cameron (1995) 437 – 47. 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 direction 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 is a reasonable inference that, for Callimachus, this was “epic”, as he would write it. The wretchedly broken fragments of Callimachus’ treatment 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 certainly borrowed from them,46 than the Hekale—though they are also a warning 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 been drawn from the “Reply to the Telchines”, which stood at the head of the Aitia, and the conclusion to the Hymn to Apollo. Neither passage can be discussed in any detail here, though one issue from the opening of “the Reply” must be considered, as it is of the greatest importance for the poetics of the Argonautica. In these verses Callimachus claims that “the Telchines” criticise him because he did not write one continuous song (4m %eisla digmej]r) in many thousands of verses; he thus advertises the Aitia as not digmej]r. As a pejorative term applied to a poem, digmej]r might mean “continuous, unbroken”, i. e. poetry “in which the poet simply records one event after another without any structure or climax, as though writing a chronicle”;48 the obvious example of such a poem would be the Cyclic epics as represented by Aristotle (Po. 1459a37–b7), poems which started at a beginning given by chance or time (e. g. a hero’s birth) and carried on sequentially to a telos not following causally from the opening. A narrative of all the labours of Heracles would be such a poem.49 More positively, however, the word is used from Homer onwards of speech which is “complete and properly ordered”, and hence “accurate” (in both senses), “genau und vollstän-

45 46 47

48 49

editions, Hollis and D’Alessio note frr. 15, 65 and 149 as probable or possible examples of authorial apostrophe to a character; this type of “intervention” had, of course, good Homeric precedent. Cf. Hollis (1990) 12. On the style of the Hekale see also Fantuzzi (1988) 20 – 1, 25. Particularly close are Jason’s prayers (fr. 20.5 – 8 Massimilla, Arg. 4.1701 – 5). 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, Prometheus 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-designation at fr. 23.4 – 5. Cameron (1995) 343; for this sense cf. also Hunter (1993) 192 – 3. Cf. Hunter (1998) 128.

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dig”;50 to speak digmej]r in archaic epic is to speak well and without concealment or “economy with the truth”. So Odysseus replies to Queen Arete’s questions with an apology (Od. 7.241 – 2): !qcak]om, bas_keia, digmej]yr !coqeOsai j¶deû, 1pe_ loi pokk± d|sam heo· oqqam_ymer.

It is hard, queen, to give a complete account of my troubles, since many are those which the heavenly ones have given me.51

When Virgil’s queen asks Aeneas to tell his story she repeats this sense of fullness and ordering (Aen. 1.753 – 5):52 “immo age et a prima dic, hospes, origine nobis insidias” inquit “Danaum casusque tuorum erroresque tuos …” Come now, my guest, and recount to us from the very beginning the deceit of the Greeks and the sufferings and wanderings of yourself and your men …

Apollonius uses digmej]r of lengthy speeches which cover every detail in full, a style of speaking which the Argonautica sometimes rejects (cf. 1.648 – 9; 2.391; 3.401). The word is most neatly explained by Phineus who tells the Argonauts that he was punished for revealing Zeus’s mind 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 prophesying t± 6jasta digmej]r “every detail without omission” (2.391); the two phrases are virtually identical in meaning.53 In apparently denying this quality to the Aitia, however exactly the word is understood, Callimachus seems to advertise both the discontinuous, fractured nature of the Aitia as a whole and the partial, selective narrative on view in individual episodes (the narrative of “Akontios and Kydippe”, with its insistent si50 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 to associate 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 sequential order is imposed by geography (cf. 2ne_gr at 2.380, 395) reinforces the primary sense of the term. So too, Jason’s account to Lykos is told 2ne_gr (2.771), and it follows 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 to infer that narrative continuity and completeness was a live issue among those interested in poetics and to enquire where the Argonautica would fit in such a discussion. There is in fact an intriguing piece of evidence that the Argonautica did indeed figure in some such discussion. A cruelly torn papyrus of the second century A.D. seems to contain a comparison of the oQjomol_a of Apollonius’ poem with at least two other versions of the same story (SH 339A).54 One poem is apparently praised, as Homer is in the grammatical tradition, for its sumtol_a (not so much “brief writing”, but “writing in which every word matters”) 55 and use of paqejb\seir, “digressions”, which allow the reader some respite, whereas another poem seems 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 unknown critic classed as “more Homeric” and to what the phrase “continuous and of many verses” (sumew]si ja· pokust_woir) refers; the obvious temptation to see a contrast between Apollonian “wordiness” and some different “modern” treatment may be completely misleading. In his discussion of this papyrus, Rusten calls attention to a passage of 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 grounds that my narrative of events is incomplete and disconnected ( !tek/ ja· dieqqil]mgm). For example, after undertaking to give an account of the siege of Carthage I leave that in suspense and interrupting myself pass to the affairs of Greece, and next to those of Macedonia, Syria and other countries, while students desire continuous narrative and long to learn the issue of the matter I first set my hand to (fgte?m d³ to»r vikolahoOmtar t¹ sumew³r ja· t¹ t]kor Rle_qeim !joOsai t/r pqoh]seyr) . . . My opinion is just the reverse 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 desires 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 incapable of gazing constantly at one object, but requires variety and change in what is seen (B poijik_a ja· letabokµ t_m bqyl]mym) to stimulate it. But this is especially true as regards the intellect. For hard workers find a sort of 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 koci¾tatoi t_m !qwa_ym succqav]ym) were in the habit of giving their readers a rest in the way I say, some of them employing digressions dealing with myth or story and others digressions on matters of fact (tim³r l³m luhija?r ja· digcglatija?r jewqgl]moi paqejb\sesi, tim³r d³ ja· pqaclatija?r), so that not only do they shift the scene from one part of Greece to another, but include doings abroad . . . All historians have resorted to this device but have done so in a random way ( !t\jtyr), while I myself use it methodically (tetacl]myr). For these other authors, after mentioning how Bardyllis, the king of Illyria, and Cersobleptes, the king of Thrace, acquired their kingdoms, do not give us the continuation (t¹ sumew]r) or carry us on to what proved to be the sequel after a certain lapse of time, but merely insert these things as in a poem ( jah\peq 1m poi¶lati) and then return to the original subject. But I myself, keeping distinct all the most important parts of the world and the events that took place in each, and adhering always to a uniform conception of how each matter should be treated . . . obviously leave full liberty to students to carry back their minds to the continuous narrative (1p· t¹m sumew/ k|com) and the several points at which I interrupted it, so that those who wish to learn may find none of the matters I have mentioned imperfect and deficient.

The interest of this passage in the present context lies not so much in any novelty of terminology or thought—for both can be amply paralleled in ancient criticism – but in the fullness and clarity with which the issues are presented. There can, of course, be no simple transference from historiography to poetry, for Polybius is defending a synchronic narrative method in which, as it were, many narratives are in play at the same time but none is presented “continuously”; the appeal to the advantages of poijik_a suits the argument, though it is at least debatable whether Polybius’ method really could be described as an ordered (tetacl]myr) use of “digressions”. Be that as it may, the privileging of a narrative method other than the telling of a story largely without interruption all the way through to the end has an obvious resonance against both Callimachus’ 4m %eisla digmej]r and the critical language of the fragmentary papyrus. Relevant also is what Aristotle has to say about epic 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 single action (l_a pq÷nir). That is why I think the poets mistaken who have produced Heracleids or Theseids or other poems of this kind, in the belief that the plot would be one just because Heracles was one. Homer especially shows 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 was incidentally true of him, being wounded on Parnassus, for instance, or pretending to be mad at the mustering of the fleet, neither of which necessarily or probably implied the other at all; instead he composed the Odyssey about an action that is one in the sense I mean (peq· l_am pq÷nim oVam k]colem), 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 different sections so arranged that the whole is disturbed by the transposition and destroyed by the removal of any one of them; for if it makes no visible difference 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 case of 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 single whole living creature. Its plots should not be like histories; for in histories it is necessary to give a report of a single period, not of a unified action, that is, one must say whatever was the case in that period about one man or more; and each of these things may have a quite casual interrelation. For just as, if one thinks of the same time, we have the battle of Salamis and the battle of Himera against the Carthaginians not directed to achieve any identical purpose, so in consecutive times one thing sometimes happens after another without any common purpose being achieved by them. Most epic poets do make plots like histories. So in this respect too Homer is marvellous in the way already described, in that he did not undertake to make a whole 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 (oqj eqs¼moptor), or if it had been kept to a moderate length it would have been tangled because of the variety of events ( jatapepkecl]mom t0 poijik_ô). As it is he takes one part and uses many others as episodes, for example, the catalogue of the ships and the other episodes with which he breaks the uniformity of his poem (diakalb\mei tµm po_gsim).

Somewhat later, Aristotle actually tries to prescribe a length for epic, and the prescription seems remarkably like the 5,835 verses of the Argonautica (Po. 1459b 19 – 22, trans. M. Hubbard): One should be able to get a synoptic view of the beginning and the end [of an epic]. This will be the case if the poems are shorter than those of the ancients, 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 and attitude 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 the confirmation of Aristotle’s worst fears about historiography – it is clear that arrangement and structure, the relation of part to whole, are key issues of Hellenistic debate. The influence of peripatetic ideas in the Homeric scholia makes it very likely that a leading Alexandrian scholar such as Apollonius would have been in touch with the literary criticism of the Peripatos, but, whether this is so or not, everything suggests that Apollonius will have expected his readers to take particular note of the oQjomol_a of his poem as a major programmatic marker. If, however, it is easy enough to see how the Aitia is “discontinuous”, and what we know of the Hekale suggests that it too was at least very poij_kom, avoided the linear narrative of the cyclic epics rejected by Aristotle (who, as we have seen, specifically names “Theseids” as a type of poem particularly prone to structural weakness),57 and presented a single praxis of some kind, the case of the Argonautica is more problematic. Apollonius’ decision to write the story of the Argonautic voyage in a linear fashion, beginning at the beginning, reaching the turning-point halfway through (at the end of book 2) and finishing the moment the voyage ends (at the same spot where it began), offers (in one sense) a closed structure to which the term jujkij|m, “having the form of a circle”, might readily be applied; so too might digmej]r, if emphasis is given to the sense of chronological ordering and completeness suggested by the gloss sumew_r (sch. D on Il. 7.321). More than once, Apollonius calls attention to the outward claim of comprehensiveness which is implied in the traditional usage of the term. In book 2 he tells of the rites which followed the death of the prophet Idmon and the visible signs which 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· t¹ wqei½ !pgkec]yr Lous]ym vpo cgq¼sashai, t|mde pokissoOwom diep]vqade Boiyto?si Misa_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 in this case death) of one mortal, but through an enclosed narration much of that character’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 roller made from wild-olive and covered in abundant foliage. If under the Muses I must also tell without constraint of what follows, Phoibos instructed 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 ancient olive-wood; they, however, to this day glorify Agamestor rather than Idmon, 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, rather than Idmon; what forces him to do so is his duty to the Muses qua poet of the Argonautic story in all its myriad ramifications, but this apparent “necessity” merely calls attention to the poet’s freedom to include or exclude. “Comprehensiveness”, like all poetic qualities, is a matter of choice.59 So too, at 4.985, in the Drepane aition which was discussed above, the poet’s “unwillingness” (oqj 1h]kym) to tell the tale of Ouranos’ castration of his father in fact dramatises his choice to do so.60 At one level, then, Apollonius tells the story digmej]yr, but the ironic acknowledgement of the impossibility of “completeness”, the awareness that all narration is a process of selectivity, undermines the apparent assurance of the archaic category. In archaic epic the positive virtue of “telling the whole story”, of digmej]r narrative, can sit harmoniously with the fact that tellings (have to) begin at a certain point in the web of story; the essential narrative 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 not merely a matter of technique, but a way of representing a fundamental fact of the self-presentation of early epic song. In Hellenistic narrative, however, these two tendencies have to some extent been set in opposition, perhaps under the influence of other narrative modes, such as that of choral lyric, where overt selectivity and imbalance had always predominated. One result of these developments may be seen in narratives such as Moschus’ Europa, the so-called “epyllia”, another in the episodic 58 59 60 61

Cf. Livrea on 4.689. On “comprehensiveness” in the Argonautica cf. Fusillo (1985) passim. Contrast Fusillo (1985) 372 who regards the aition as “ineliminabile”. 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. The end of Aeneid 1, which we considered above, seems to evoke both kinds of narrative: Dido’s insistent questions (vv. 748 – 52) ask first for “epyllia”, 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 foreshadow what 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 narrative proper begins.63 On the other hand, there is in the Argonautica nothing corresponding 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 Apollonian catalogue might be taken as a “corrective” of the Homeric positioning —whereas there does seem to be a pointed contrast with the elaborate structuring of the Odyssey, which opens with the hero stuck on Kalypso’s island. Moreover, the Argonautica maintains a (relatively) deafening silence about events “before the poem began”, in marked contrast to Odysseus’ narration of his travels. Although we eventually learn of one of the reasons for Hera’s favour towards Jason (3.60 – 75) and there are various scattered hints about the circumstances of Phrixos’ flight from Greece,64 we hear almost nothing of Jason’s upbringing or the background to Pelias’ imposition of the quest; when Jason tells Lykos 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 linearity; when Odysseus recounts his adventures to Penelope (Od. 23.310 – 43), he follows precise chronological order, as he does with his main narration to the Phaeacians (except for his initial references 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’ families – whereas the ending of the Argonautica, which from one point of view seems radically abrupt, is, from another, surprising only in its com62 63 64 65

Cf. Hunter (1998). For ancient praise of Homer’s technique cf. Brink on Hor. AP 148. Cf. Hunter (1989) 21. This silence must be distinguished from the many included accounts of “previous 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 disputed in ancient transmission. An alternative “ending” (or, rather, beginning of a new direction) for the Iliad survives, ¤r oV cû !lv_epom t\vom >jtoqor, Gkhe dû ûAlaf½m/-qgor huc\tgq lecak¶toqor !mdqov|moio, “so they 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 continued”.66 The conclusion to the Argonautica formally substitutes the hope of ritual repetition (4.1774 – 5) for this expectation. As for the Odyssey, the alternative “end” determined by Aristophanes of Byzantium and later Aristarchus at 23.296, !sp\sioi k]jtqoio pakaioO hesl¹m Vjomto, to which the conclusion of the Argonautica may allude,67 again suggests the openness of epic endings. Every reader of the Argonautica carries knowledge of the future fates of Pelias, Jason and Medea beyond the 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 the privileged place epic gives to included narratives, both of direct relevance to “the principal story” (e. g. Achilles to Thetis in Iliad 1) and of more oblique significance (the stories of Nestor and Phoenix in the Iliad or of Menelaos in the Odyssey, for example).68 In this feature also, discretion within generic parameters, sometimes amounting to an apparent preference for silence, is the Apollonian hallmark. In part this is because of the new prominence of the narrator, who himself is able 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 in which aetiology, which binds the present to the past, has taken the place of “epic” stories which rather accentuate the divide between the two. This distinction between Homer and Apollonius is not, of course, absolute. Phineus’ account of his companion Paraibios (2.468 – 89) evokes familiar epic themes; Lykos’ narrative of Herakles at 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 wellknown setting. Nevertheless, the brevity and ellipse of Apollonian narrative are here striking. Jason himself “summarises the poem” for Lykos at 2.762 – 72, in a catalogue which makes Odysseus’ account of his adventures to Penelope (Od. 23.310 – 43) seem positively verbose. A similar impression is left by a comparison of Argos’ brief plea to the Argonauts for help (2.1123 – 33) with Odysseus’ speech to Nausikaa when in a not dissimilar predicament (Od. 6.149 – 85). So too, in response to Jason’s question as to the identity of the shipwrecked foursome, Argos provides an Apollonian version of the familiar genealogical self-presentation of the Homeric hero (2.1141 – 56). Probably the most famous such speech in Homer is Glaukos’ response to Diomedes at Il. 6.145 – 210 (“as are the generations of leaves, so are those of men . . .”), containing the lengthy narrative about Bellerophon, and that scene does indeed seem to have been in Apollonius’ mind. In both epics the speech of self-presentation leads to a recognition of relationship (Il. 6.215 ~ Arg. 2.1160). Having first rejected the importance of ceme¶ in the face of human change, Glaukos then expatiates at length, noting – with a typically heroic concern for kleos —that “many men know of my family already” (Il. 6.151).70 Argos dispenses with preamble: “That a descendant of Aiolos called Phrixos travelled to Aia from Hellas I have no doubt you yourselves are already aware”. We recognise a typical reworking of an archaic motif—the assumed fame of one’s family history – but the form of the reworking forces us to ask: “Why should these complete strangers (cf. 2.1123 – 4) know this”? Perhaps Argos is so self-absorbed that he cannot conceive of a human being ignorant of the story of the Golden Fleece, but perhaps rather the literate poet, always concerned to put ironising distance between himself and the discursive, repetitive style of archaic epic, not only cuts the storytelling 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 that the 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 approach to epic form that the latter avoids such a difficulty in the comparable scene of Achaemenides’ meeting with Aeneas and his crew (cf. Heinze [1915] 112 n. 4) by having Achaemenides recognise them as Trojans from clothes and weapons (3.596 – 7).

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feature of the Hellenistic epic. It is this poetic voice again which we hear 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 Apollonius’ readers would have been well aware) with a much more fantastic geography, but the very diversity of return routes which tradition recorded for the Argonauts imposed (at least the potential for) greater randomness and chaos to break up any sense of predictable linearity. The major 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 Phineus had prophesied a “different route” for the return voyage, and Argos tells them of the route marked out by a nameless traveller from the mists of time; Hera then sends a heavenly light to guide them and they head off north-west across the Black Sea. (ii) At 4.552 ff, as the Argonauts are sailing south down the eastern side of the Adriatic, Hera realises that Zeus requires them to be cleansed by Kirke and so she sends southerly winds that drive the Argo back up the Adriatic and into the Eridanos (Po), so that they can make the long and hazardous voyage around to the west coast of Italy where Kirke lives. The shift in direction is introduced by one of Apollonius’ rare addresses to the Muses (4.552 – 6): !kk\, hea_, p_r t/sde paq³n "k|r, !lv_ te ca?am Aqsom_gm m¶sour te Kicust_dar, aT jak]omtai Stoiw\der, ûAqc]gr peqi¾sia s¶lata mg¹r mgleqt³r p]vatai ; t_r !p|pqohi t|ssom !m\cjg ja· wqei¾ svû 1j|lisse ; t_mer sv]ar Ecacom awqai ;

How is it, goddesses, that beyond this sea, in the Ausonian land and the Ligurian islands called Stoichades, many clear traces of the Argo’s voyage appear? What necessity and need took them so far away? What winds directed them?

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Among other considerations,72 the appeal to the Muses, with its implied abrogation of responsibility, marks the suddenness, almost randomness of the change; the poet finds a “causal nexus” – Zeus’ anger at the killing of Apsyrtos – but even he is puzzled by the change (note pou in 4.557).73 “Necessity and need” ( !m\cjg ja· wqei¾) here drive an otherwise rudderless narrative. (iii) It is Hera’s intervention again which prevents the Argonauts from taking a fatal turning at the Herkynian Rock and directs them rather into the safety of the Rhône (4.636 – 44). (iv) It is the action of Hera and Thetis which gets the Argonauts moving again after the stop with Kirke. (v) After the Argonauts leave Drepane, things seem 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]loio pmoi0 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 a strong breeze blew; they sailed quickly on, propelled by the strength of the wind. It was not yet fated, however, for the heroes to step upon the Achaian land: first they must undergo further sufferings on the borders of Libya.

The Argonauts must go to Libya because it is aUsilom ; a human character quite naturally appeals to aWsa to explain events in retrospect, but for the 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 of divine interventions which save the Argonauts in North Africa and allow them to reach the Mediterranean again. In place, then, of the directed voyage of books 1 – 2, book 4 offers a patternless voyage which can only be explained in terms of divine interventions and a series of intertextual decisions. This is thrown into particular relief by a comparison with the principal intertext, Odysseus’ tale of his voyage. Odysseus is driven off course by north winds and carried for nine days (presumably southwards) to the Lotus-eaters; from there, no further direction is given (Od. 9.105 – 7). So too, when Odysseus and his men leave the Cyclops’ island, they simply start rowing and sail “further” (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 bag of winds, and they are pushed back to Aiolos; when Aiolos throws them out, they once again sail “further”, but with no indication of direction or 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 directions for the Underworld and after, and finally the gods take a hand after the eating of the Cattle of the Sun. Under the influence of ancient views of the geography of Odysseus’ travels, Apollonius has mapped the Homeric absence of spatial co-ordinates on to a more modern and “comprehensive” geography, and he has replaced the formulaic Homeric link between stops on the voyage by an almost equally random, 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 human scale: from Argos’ memory confirmed by omen, to Hera’s decisive and “necessary” intervention, and finally to the unexplained workings of aWsa.

3. A voyage-narrative was never going to be easy to accommodate within an Aristotelian scheme, and Aristotle would certainly not have looked for a causal nexus of necessity or probability in the various stages of Odysseus’ own tale. It is precisely this inherent inconsequentiality, the episodic partition imposed by the very nature of travel, which can be seen at the heart of the Western tradition of “romance”, as opposed to 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 and full of contest” (dqalatij¹m ja· 1mac¾miom), and the Odyssey which is largely narrative (digcglatij|m) is moving towards an important element of what was to become the traditional distinction (De subl. 9.13). Although the thought is not easy to follow in this chapter (and the text may be corrupt), it is clear that “Longinus” associates what he sees as the diminution of Homer’s power in the Odyssey, a relaxing of the stirring tension of the Iliad, with the increased prominence of t± luh¾dg ja· %pista ; even in those episodes of admitted power, 74 Cf. esp. Quint. (1993) 31 – 41 and passim.

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“the mythical element is predominant over action” (toO pqajtijoO jqate? t¹ luhij|m). In rewriting Odysseus’ adventures, Apollonius exaggerates (if anything) the element of t¹ luhij|m—the passage through the Planktai is perhaps the locus classicus—and it is tempting to see here a generic exploration of the nature of epic, in a way that to some extent foreshadows “Longinus”’ discussion of the Odyssey. Two (related) further 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-century concern with the distinction between “narrative” and mimesis (in Plato’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 the epic poet should do in his own person, that is, say as little as possible, since it is not in virtue of speaking in his own person that he is a maker of mimesis. Other poets are personally engaged throughout (diû fkou !cym_fomtai), and only rarely use mimesis; but Homer after a brief preface at once brings on a man or woman or other characterized person (%kko ti Ghor), none of them characterless, but all full of character.

The Argonautica holds something of a problematic position when examined by these criteria. On the one hand, the poet “speaks” far more than in Homer: some 71 % of the Argonautica is spoken by “the poet” rather than one of the characters, whereas the figure for the Iliad is 55 % and for the Odyssey only 33 % (as books 9 – 12 are entirely in the mouth of Odysseus).76 So too, the constant presence of a commentating and often ironising poet, “like the sheep dog who barks and nudges his flock down the path”,77 is entirely foreign to the Aristotelian ideal of a poet “who lets his characters do the talking”. On the other hand, the Argonautica seems to make important use of the dramatic tradition itself.78 It was a commonplace of ancient scholarship, as also for Plato and Aristotle, that Homer was the forerunner of tragedy, if not in fact 75 76 77 78

Cf. Po. 1459a 19 (with Lucas’ note); De subl. 9.13 (cited above). Cf. Hunter (1993) 138 – 9. Beye (1982) 13. Cf. Nishimura-Jensen (1996).

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the first tragedian,79 and tragedy’s engagement with, and often apparent avoidance of engagement with, Homer will have given tragedy a privileged 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 might be thought that scenes such as the leavetaking between Jason and Alkimede and the meetings of Hypsipyle and Jason not only exploit and evoke Homer (the mourning for Hektor, the meeting of Odysseus and 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 Medea in books 3 and 4 which acts as the catalyst for the poem’s closest reproduction 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 betwen Medea and Jason (4.350 – 420) clearly evokes the agon of Euripides’ play, as the murder of Apsyrtos may reflect similar narratives in tragedy.83 So too suggestive parallels with Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris have been identified, and it is clear that Medea and Iphigenia were partial analogues of each other in some mythical traditions.84 It is book 3, however, where the sense of “drama” is most palpable (and the proportion of direct speech by characters higher than anywhere else in the poem): the intriguing of the Colchian sisters immediately recalls the pairs of sisters in Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra, and it is in fact all but 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 tragedian underlies much of the language used by the Scholia, especially when they are discussing vividly dramatic scenes and those which arouse emotion (p\hor, oWjtor, 5keor etc.). tqac\de?m and 1jtqac\de?m are commonly used, although they 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 Olympus, all the action takes place in or near Aia, and the comings-and-goings in the palace seem deliberately designed to evoke the confined stage-settings of drama. If, then, some aspects of book 4, such as the predominance of t¹ luhij|m, seem designed to pull the epic away from what may well have been seen as narrative virtues in the critical traditions available to Apollonius and his readers, book 3 foregrounds the relation between epic and drama in a manner which (broadly speaking) moves in a rather different generic direction. Such stylistic unevenness may itself be thought characteristic of Hellenistic poetic experimentation.

4. Despite Aristotle’s rejection of the idea that writing about one man can give oneness to a poem, Achilles, Odysseus and Aeneas do all appear by name or periphrasis in the opening verse of their epics, as also does Callimachus’ Hekale, ûAjta_g tir. Jason, however, does not enter the Argonautica until the explanatory narrative of 1.5 – 17, and is never as central to Apollonius’ poem as Achilles or Odysseus or Aeneas are to theirs;86 nowhere is this difference between the organisation of the Homeric and Apollonian poems more visible than in the relatively small role which Jason plays in the complex events of the fourth book.87 The prominent announcement (1.20 – 2) and position of the Catalogue reinforces the statement of the opening verse that the subject of the poem will be pakaicem]ym jk´a vyt_m, “the glorious deeds of men of old”; so too, it is the whole collective of Argonauts to whom the poet bids farewell at the end of the poem, as the singer of the Homeric Hymns bids farewell to the god who has been the subject of his song. We may wish to see the group of Argonauts taking the place of “the central hero”,88 or prefer to see the poem as the story of an action, the bringing of the Golden Fleece to Greece, but the plurality of Argonauts imposes its own shape upon the generic pattern. We must be wary of over-interpreting the difference between Apollonius and Homer in this matter, but it is important that other epic models were also available to Apollo86 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 at Thebes]) 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 be seen as virtually equivalent to “descendants” and so this verse is not in fact parallel to Apollonius’ “generic” opening,90 nevertheless such a poem, like the “cyclic” Nostoi, is parallel to the Argonautica in having a plurality of “heroes” built into its very structure. So too, the Thebais clearly had a rich cast of warriors,91 and its opening verse, -qcor %eide he± pokud_xiom 5mhem %majter, “Sing, goddess, of thirsty Argos from which the lords . . .” (fr. 1 Davies), points to this multiplicity. The “cyclic” epics found critical favour neither with Aristotle nor, if Ep. 28 Pf. (“I hate the cyclic poem . . .”) is anything to go on, with Callimachus. How precisely the term jujkij|m is to be glossed and to which poems it applies are matters of very considerable debate,92 but the 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 later ages) by telling the stories of what happened before, between and after the Iliad and the Odyssey; some (if not all) were, like the Argonautica, very much shorter than the Homeric poems. The Argonautica is not on a Trojan theme, but deals with what, together with the Theban story, is the most prominent mythic complex set “before the Trojan War” and one to which Homer’s Kirke herself famously refers (Od. 12.69 – 72); the link between the two stories is plainest in the figure of the Argonaut Peleus, Achilles’ father, and is dramatised at 1.557 – 8 where the infant Achilles is shown to his father as the expedition sets off. Argonautic material played a prominent role in the Corinthiaca of Eumelos (? c. 700 B.C.) and the anonymous Naupactia, both of which Apollonius seems to have used;93 it would not, therefore, be dif89 One of the few modern discussions to take the relation between the Argonautica and 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 probably 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 affinities to what modern scholars regard as typically “cyclic” than to Homeric poetry.94 As far as we can judge, superhuman abilities, such as the vision of a Lynkeus95 or the (virtual) invulnerability of a Kaineus (1.57 – 64) or a Talos, were familiar “cyclic” motifs.96 Such characteristics are, of course, almost normal among the Argonauts. So too, the magical and the supernatural seem to have been far more prominent in the cyclic poems than in (most of) Homer; Medea’s lulling of the dragon or Kirke’s purificatory magic would be perfectly at home in such a poetic context, and for some of the “fantastical” tales which are recorded in the Argonautica a cyclic version and/or origin is known.97 So too the treacherous killing of Apsyrtos and the “grotesque” maschalismos performed by Jason on the young man’s corpse more easily find cyclic than Homeric counterparts; at a different aesthetic level, the apparent prominence of erotic romance in what we know of the Cycle has often been remarked, and the whole business of Zeus’ desire for Thetis, which plays such a prominent role at 4.790 – 816, almost certainly owes an extensive debt to the Cypria.98 It was the same poem which was the principal epic source for the character of the blasphemous Idas99 who appears from time to time in the Argonautica to express his displeasure like a frustrated reader. More important perhaps than cataloguing the cyclic forerunners of individual stories and motifs is the overall impression of a poem which revels in much that has no real Homeric analogue, even where verbal echo of the Homeric poems predominates. It is not too much, I think, to view Apollonius’ epic as a cyclic poem done in the “modern” (? Callimachean) style, which is not, of course, to say that it is the object of Callimachus’ distaste in Ep. 28; what Callimachus actually thought (or 94 The most helpful modern discussion is Griffin (1977) 39 – 53; cf. more briefly Davies (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. Titanomachia fr. 9 Davies. 98 Cf. Cypria fr. 2 Davies, Vian (21996) 175 – 6. From the point of view of the Argonautica (and Catullus 64), the loss of Nestor’s account of Theseus and Ariadne in 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 the extent of the material common to the two poets (whatever priority is preferred) suggests shared aesthetic goals, rather than hostility.

Bibliography Albis, R. V. 1996. Poet and Audience in the Argonautica of Apollonius, Lanham, Mass. Asper, M. 1997. Onomata Allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos, (= Hermes Einzelschrifften vol. 75), Stuttgart. Beye, C. R. 1982. Epic and Romance in the Argonautica of Apollonius, Carbondale – Edwardsville. Bowie, E. L. 1993. “Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry,” in C. Gill – T. P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World, Exeter, 1 – 37. Cameron, A. 1992. “Genre and Style in Callimachus,” TAPhA 122, 305-12. — 1995. Callimachus and his Critics, Princeton. Campbell, M. 1983. Studies in the third Book of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, Hildesheim. Carspecken, J. F. 1952. “Apollonius Rhodius and the Homeric Epic,” YClS 13, 33-143 Clauss, J. J. 1993. The Best of the Argonauts, Berkeley – Los Angeles. Conte, G. B. 1985. Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario, Turin. — 1986. The Rhetoric of Imitation, Ithaca. Davies, M. 1988. Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Göttingen. — 1989. The Epic Cycle, Bristol. De Jong, I. J. F. 1987. Narrators and Focalizers. The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad, Amsterdam. Edmunds, L. 1997. “Myth in Homer,” in I. Morris – B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer, (= Mnemosyne Supplementum vol. 164), Leiden, 415 – 41. Fantuzzi, M. 1988. Ricerche su Apollonio Rodio, (= Filologia e critica vol. 58), Rome. Feeney, D. C. 1986. “Epic hero and epic fable,” CompLit 38, 137 – 58. Ford, A. 1992. Homer. The Poetry of the Past, Ithaca. Fraenkel, E. (ed.). 1921. Aeschylus Agamemnon, 3 vols, Oxford. Fränkel, H. 1968. Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios, Munich. Franz, M. L. von. 1943. Die sthetischen Anschauungen der Iliasscholien, Diss. Zurich. Fusillo, M. 1985. Il tempo delle Argonautiche. Un’analisi del racconto in Apollonio Rodio, Rome. Giangrande, G. 1973. Zu Sprachgebrauch, Technik und Text des Apollonios Rhodios, Amsterdam. Goldhill, S. 1991. The Poet’s Voice. Essays in Poetics and Greek Literature, Cambridge.

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Griffin, J. 1977. “The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer,” JHS 97, 39 – 53. Harder, M. A. 1993. “Aspects of the Structure of Callimachus’ Aetia,” in M. A. Harder – R. F. Regtuit – G. C. Wakker (eds.), Callimachus, (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 1), Groningen, 99 – 110. Harder, M. A. – Regtuit, R. F. – Wakker, G. C. (eds.). 2000. Apollonius Rhodius, (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 4), Groningen. Hardie, P. 1993. The Epic Successors of Virgil. Cambridge. — 1997a. “Virgil and tragedy,” in C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge, 312 – 26. — 1997b. “Closure in Latin Epic,” in D. H. Roberts – F. M. Dunn – D. Fowler (eds.), Classical Closure, Princeton, 139-62. Heinze, R. 1915. Virgils epische Technik, Leipzig. Hollis, A. S. 1990. Callimachus, Hecale, Oxford. Hunter, R. 1987. “Medea’s Flight: The Fourth Book of the Argonautica,” CQ 37, 134 – 38. [= this volume 42 – 58] — 1989. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica Book III, Cambridge. — 1993. The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies, Cambridge. — 1998. “Before and after Epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25,” in M. A. Harder – R. F. Regtuit – G. C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 3), Groningen, 115 – 32. [= this volume 290 – 310] — 1999. Theocritus: A Selection. Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, and 13, Cambridge. Knight, V. 1995. The Renewal of Epic: Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius, (= Mnemosyne Supplementum vol. 152), Leiden. Köhnken, A. 2000. “Der Status Jasons: Besonderheiten der Darstellungstechnik in den Argonautika des Apollonios Rhodios,” in M. A. Harder – R. F. Regtuit – G. C. Wakker (eds.), Apollonius Rhodius, (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 4), Groningen. Krevans, N. 2000. “On the Margins of Epic: the Ktisis-Poems of Apollonius,” in M. A. Harder – R. F. Regtuit – G. C. Wakker (eds.), Apollonius Rhodius, (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 4), Groningen. Lynn, J. K. 1995. Narrators and Narration in Callimachus, Diss. Columbia. Malkin, I. 1998. The Returns of Odysseus, Berkeley. Nagy, G. 1996. Homeric Questions, Austin. Nishimura-Jensen, J. 1996. Tragic Epic or Epic Tragedy: Narrative and Genre in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, Diss. Wisconsin Madison. Pfeiffer, R. 1968. History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age, Oxford. Porter, J. R. 1990. “Tiptoeing through the corpses: Euripides’ Electra, Apollonius, and the Bouphonia,” GRBS 31, 255 – 80. Pratt, L. H. 1993. Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar, Michigan. Quint, D. 1993. Epic and Empire, Princeton. Rusten, J. S. 1982. Dionysius Scytobrachion, Opladen. Scodel, R. 1998. “Bardic Performance and Oral Tradition in Homer,” AJPh 119, 171-94. Séchan, L. 1926. tudes sur la tragdie grecque dans ses rapports avec la cramique, Paris.

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Theodorakopoulos, E.-M. 1998. “Epic Closure and its Discontents in Apollonius’ Argonautica,” in M. A. Harder – R. F. Regtuit – G. C. Wakker (eds.). 1998, Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 3), Groningen, 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: Chants I-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 by J.M. González, ‘Musai hypophetores: Apollonius of Rhodes on inspiration and interpretation’ HSCP 100 (2000) 269 – 92. p. 359 Cf. G.B. D’Alessio, ‘Le Argonautiche di Cleone Curiense’ in R. Pretagostini (ed.), La letteratura ellenistica. Problemi e prospettive di ricerca (Rome 2000) 91 – 112.

21. Virgil and Theocritus: A Note on the Reception of the Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus* Theocritus’ seventeenth Idyll has not always been well received by modern critics1 but it was clearly an important model of encomiastic poetry for Roman poets, just as Philadelphus himself was constructed by them as a model for certain aspects of Octavian/Augustus. Alessandro Barchiesi has recently shed much light upon Horace’s use of Theocritus’ encomiastic poetry2, and there may also be more to be said about Virgil’s exploitation of the Encomium. Echoes in the Eclogues suggest that Virgil saw the Encomium as an integral element of the Theocritean corpus, whether or not he read this poem in the same collection as the “bucolics”3. The opening verse of the Encomium, 1j Di¹r !qw~lesha ja· 1r D_a k^cete Lo?sai, is evoked at Ecl. 3. 60 f. and 8. 11. In the former case, the Latin verses clearly look also to the opening of Aratus’ Phainomena: ab Ioue principium Musae: Iouis omnia plena; / ille colit terras, illi meae carmina curae. Virgil has here imitated what probably he, and ancient interpretation generally4, saw as a Theocritean citation of Aratus within his own bucolic (i. e. ‘Theocritean’) poem. We cannot, of course, rule out the possibility that he has simply replaced the Muses of his principal structural model (Theocr. 5. 80 f) with the Aratean Zeus, but apart from general considerations 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 my songs even to the throne of Zeus”5 ; the Theocritean verse has often * 1 2 3 4 5

Seminari Romani di Cultura Greca 4 (2001) 159 – 63 Cf. Gow 1952, II, p. 325. Barchiesi 1996. This is not the place for a discussion of this complex matter, cf. Gow 1952, I, pp. IX-LII, Gutzwiller 1996. Cf. schol. Theocr. 17. 1 – 4a Wendel; Kidd 1997, p. 162 f.; Fantuzzi 1980, p. 165. Whether or not 3. 73, partem aliquam, uenti, diuum referatis ad auris, is also related to Id. 7. 93 does not affect this issue.

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been taken by modern critics as an indirect allusion to Philadelphus, and we should allow the possibility that Virgil too interpreted the verse thus (or drew on an existing interpretation along these lines) 6, and made the point clear by bringing the opening of the Encomium, in which Philadelphus is again another ‘Zeus’, and Id. 7. 93 together. As for Ecl. 8. 11, a te principium, tibi desinam, addressed to a patron7, this verse reworks the opening of the Encomium, and again exploits the Theocritean equivalence between ‘Zeus’ and the poet’s patron. Idyll XVII is an important model text for the encomiastic Golden Age prophecies of Ecl. IV, though the debt lies as much in the mere fact of an authorising model for encomium within a bucolic corpus as in specific verbal evocations8. Of particular interest is the future for the newborn child which the poet prophesies: ille deum uitam accipiet diuisque uidebit / permixtos heroas et ipse uidebitur illis, / pacatumque reget patriis uirtutibus orbem (Ecl. 4. 15 – 17). The promise of these verses seems 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 civilisation — seems to suggest the Ptolemies, whose Egypt was often described in Golden Age terms10, as one analogue for the new child. When Virgil begins his poem with an address to the Sicilian Muses, it is indeed natural to suppose that he wants us to think of the only poem in the Theocritean corpus which begins with an address to the Muses, and it is tempting (at least) to connect si canimus siluas, siluae sint consule dignae with the woodcutter simile of vv. 9 – 10 of the Encomium. Virgil thus integrates that simile into the bucolic project of the corpus as a whole. The importance for Virgil of Theocritus’ poem is also clear in Eclogue I. It has long been recognised that Tityrus’ cult for his benefactor is indebted to the sacrifices which Philadelphus and Arsinoe are said by Theocritus 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 another Apollo in those verses. 10 Cf. further below,

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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 notorious fact that the beneficent iuuenis is placed in the exact centre of the poem has rightly12 been connected in a general way with the “first-lastmiddle” topos of the opening verses of the Encomium, but it is precisely the central section of Theocritus’ poem which describes the birth of Ptolemy as a new Apollo, and it is the Apolline nature of the iuuenis which is also foregrounded by Virgil13. Virgil has sharpened the Theocritean device by giving his iuuenis the exact numerical centre of the poem, and such a development of what is present, but less focused in the model text is typical of Roman adaptation of Hellenistic techniques. Less attention has been paid to Virgil’s use of the praise of Egypt at 17. 77 – 85 in the famous laudes Italiae of Georgic II14 : luq_ai %peiqo_ te ja· 5hmea luq_a vyt_m k^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 favoured land (sed neque Medorum siluae ditissima terra, / nec pulcher Ganges …; v. 136 ff), but even within a context of arboriculture the absence of the proverbially wealthy Egypt (cf. esp. Athen. 5. 203b-c) from Virgil’s list of possible rivals for Italy is striking. Dionysius of Halicarnassus offers Egypt, 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 grain it is Egypt whose primacy he must acknowledge, though without actually having to name the country (1. 37. 2). Moreover, Virgil seems to go out of his way silently to evoke Egypt; some of the suggestions which follow are stronger than others, but the general point seems 11 12 13 14

Cf. Jachmann 1922, p. 115 n. 2; DuQuesnay 1981, p. 43 f. Cf. Wright 1983, p. 119. Cf. Wright 1983, pp. 118 – 120. There is a large bibliography, though the Theocritean associations of the passage have not, to my knowledge, been suggested before. Much of value can be traced through Thomas 1982, pp. 35 – 51.

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clear. Thus, for example, antiquity knew a number of allegedly “goldflowing” rivers, but the Nile was one of them15. Italy may have uer adsiduum atque alienis mensibus aestas (v. 149), but the country most famous for a perpetually warm climate was Egypt16 ; the “Golden Age” shared in fact many features with descriptions of Egypt, the true home of the paradoxical. 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 movement of the (absent) serpents may be significant17. The rulers most associated with gigantic pythons were in fact the Ptolemies, especially Philadelphus, for whom “incredible” specimens were said to have been captured 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 serious attention than it often receives. Against this background, it should come as no real surprise that the immediately following verses (vv. 155 – 157) are a reworking of vv. 81 – 84 of the Encomium: adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem, tot congesta manu praeruptis oppida saxis fluminaque antiquos subter labentia muros.

tot egregias urbes operumque laborem is an adaptation (with typical shift of sense) of the Greek %stea t|ssa bqot_m 5wei 5qca da]mtym (v. 81) 20, and the repeated tot replaces Theocritus’s arithmetical games, to which, however, adde is a playful allusion21. The rivers of v. 157, a stan15 Cf. v. 8 of the “Nile hymn” published by Cribiore 1995, Athen. 5. 203c; Gulick’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 writers 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.

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dard element in praises of Italy, take the place of Egypt’s Nile, as the towns perched on cliffs seem intended to surpass whalak± AUcuptor. The evocation of the Theocritean passage suggests a set of parallels and contrasts, not just between Italy and Egypt, but between Ptolemy and the maximus Caesar who is now said to be campaigning in the distant East to protect Italy, embodying for all the world the standard public rhetoric of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies22. Though the relationship between ‘king’ and land is different in the two cases, both are ‘Hesiodic’ good kings whose rightness both guarantees and is proved by the flourishing fertility of the land. Ascraeum … carmen with which the laudes ends (v. 176) thus makes a specific point within its context, as well as having more general generic significance. In evoking, but not naming, Theocritus’s Egypt, the land of Cleopatra, Virgil may have had ‘political’ reasons, but the strategy of this rhetoric is clear. The laudes Italiae seek to establish Italy and its ruler as the centre of the poetical world, and to do so they must efface Egypt and its rulers. How ultimately successful this Roman political rhetoric 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-supply, Rome has become the new Egypt, to the extent that Rome no longer needs Egypt (and specifically the Nile flood), but Egypt needs Rome, for it is Rome which supplied grain to Egypt during a recent drought when the river failed. Though Pliny does not, of course, say so, in supplying the Egyptians with grain in this time of crisis, Trajan is fulfilling one of the traditional duties of Pharaohs, a duty which the Ptolemies too had performed.23 Thus was the appropriation of Egypt complete.

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 1989 W. Clausen, A Commentary on Virgil, Eclogues, Oxford 1994 R. 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 to critics; note also Xen. Ages. 1. 28: contempt for the enemy increases the eagerness 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.

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I. M. LeM. DuQuesnay, Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue, in F. Cairns (Ed.), “Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar” 1, 1977, pp. 25 – 99 I. M. LeM. DuQuesnay, Vergil’s First Eclogue, in F. Cairns (Ed.), “Papers of the Liverpool 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 1997 A. B. Lloyd, Herodotus. Book II. Commentary 1 – 98, Leiden 1976 G. Posener, De la divinit du Pharaon, Paris 1960 C. Préaux, Le monde hellnistique, I, Paris 1978 A. Steinmeyer-Schareika, Das Nilmosaik von Palestrina und eine ptolemische Expedition nach thiopien, Bonn 1978 R. F. Thomas, Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry. The Ethnographical Tradition, Cambridge 1982 R. F. Thomas, Virgil. Georgics, I, Books I-II, Cambridge 1988 J.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.

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 of Ovid’s Heroides Peter Knox explains the inclusion of the much debated Epistula Sapphus as follows: ‘The Epistula Sapphus, which I do not believe to be Ovid’s, is an interesting poem in its own right, and I have included it as an illustration of the principle that a judgement against authenticity does not necessarily imply aesthetic condemnation’ (Knox [1995] ix). There is much of interest in this statement, beyond the question of the authorship of the Epistula Sapphus, with which I will not here be directly concerned.1 It is probably fair to infer that Knox asserts this ‘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 the breach, and anyone with any familiarity with traditional classical scholarship on poems of doubtful authorship will recognise at once that ‘aesthetic condemnation’ is indeed a dominant mode in such criticism. A proper account of the reasons for this would embrace much of Western cultural history, so I content myself here with two brief observations. Although questions of style are naturally central to disputes about authorship (cf. below), subject-matter has been no less at the heart of these arguments at crucial periods of scholarly history. Classical texts were for many centuries — perhaps still are — read as, and proclaimed to be, sources of moral instruction; the lessons of literature were used to cultivate appropriate ethical attitudes in the reader or student, attitudes which could of course vary with time or place or the identity of the teacher.2 The methodology and purposes of Plutarch’s How the Young Man Should Study Poetry remained one dominant mode of reading until surprisingly recently. A sense of the individual author, whose work could be represented as offering a clearly delineated profile from * 1 2

R. Gibson and C. Kraus (eds.), The Classical Commentary (Leiden 2002) 89 – 108 The battle continues (of course), cf. Rosati (1996). Cf. Sluiter (1999).

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which truths of importance about his or her work, life and culture can be won by study, was central to this didactic enterprise. Where better to look for a fulfilled example of someone who has learned those lessons than to the author himself ? ‘Euripides says …’ soon passes to ‘You should follow the example of Euripides …’. Once (the idea of) Euripides has become a guiding practical model, it naturally becomes vitally important not to accept non-Euripidean texts as the genuine article: choices about authenticity are not merely ‘textual’ matters, but concern the scholar’s very moral health, and that of his or her students. As far as style is concerned, descriptions of literary quality (in the broadest sense) very properly continue to play an important rôle in scholarly discussion of the authorship of literary works. Arguments that X’s style differs from Y’s must obviously lie at the heart of debate about whether a particular literary work is to be ascribed to X or Y. In one sense, it does not matter very much that in practice assertions of difference soon pass into assertions of superiority (of ‘quality’ in a narrower sense), though the dangers lurking here are plain to see: a poem judged ‘good’ will likely be assigned to a known poet of good ‘quality’. The discussion of ‘Style and authorship’ in Kenney (1996), a kind of sister volume to Knox’s, relies heavily upon such arguments (though with a tact and discretion which few could match),3 and is admirably honest in its conclusion: ‘the literary historian must always be uneasily conscious of the vast gaps in the record and the dangers of arguments from silence. Nevertheless there is still much virtue in Occam’s Razor: Magni poetae non sunt multiplicandi praeter necessitatem’ (p. 26). However tempted we may be to retort ‘Why not?’, in the present context what is important is the way in which the need to justify such a (spoken or unspoken) principle sometimes leads, almost inexorably, to commentary whose rhetoric is characterised by the award of ‘merits and demerits’. The crucial distinction between ‘not in the manner of X’ and ‘not very good’ proves, in practice, almost impossible to maintain, with potentially ruinous consequences for the writing of commentary. 3

Cf. Alessandro Barchiesi’s observation: ‘thoughts of spuriousness almost unavoidably encourage negative evaluation, but also set higher standards for the opposite view … Kenney’s appeal to the quality of the double letters as a self-evident criterion for authenticity is bound to appear irritating — although it is more understandable, in its undisguised subjectivity, than recurrent, objectivist invocations of Amores 2.18 as a witness to the authenticity or spuriousness of the single letters’ (1997) 40. For other considerations cf. Courtney (1998).

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The ‘authorless’ text (or that which is judged so) has, on the whole, received a cold reception from classicists; for reasons which lie deep in the heart of the history of the subject, classicists have, on the whole, never been very comfortable with the anonymous, and this anxiety may indeed surface in ‘aesthetic condemnation’. Knox’s positive approach is therefore much to be welcomed, even though his observation that ‘the author [of the Epistula Sapphus] was in many respects a talented poet’ (p. 14) might be thought to fall some way short of actual enthusiasm. The reasons for this curious unease, if my sense is accurate, will be complex and cannot be pursued at length here. There has perhaps been a feeling that such texts have ‘slipped through the net’, i. e. through that process of krisis, of collecting and categorising, of filtering and selecting, which lies at the very heart of the notion of ‘the classical’ and which scholars rightly trace back to their spiritual ancestors, the great figures of Alexandrian scholarship. However unfair it might seem, free-floating, ‘anonymous’ poems are cheating the system, and criticism will have its revenge. The range of possible situations with which the commentator is in fact faced is, of course, very large.4 Works may become associated in transmission with the oeuvre of a particular writer, though their original author had no intention to imitate, let alone commit fraud; the corpora of fourth-century oratory apparently offer excellent examples of this phenomenon. ‘Imitations’, on the other hand, may be subsumed within the body of the ‘original’ because of generic similarity (cf. Theocritus 8 and 9), or ‘forgery’ ranging from ‘intention to deceive’ (by author or subsequent editor) to more or less parodic homage, or simple accident. The questions to be asked of a ‘spurious’ text will to some extent, of course, vary as the commentator’s view of the situation he or she is confronted with emerges, but it is the questions which are not asked, simply because of the view taken of the work’s status, which most endanger the commentator’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).

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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 immediately recognise them as mine? Or, had you not read the author’s name, Sappho, would you not have known the origin of this short work? And perhaps you ask why mine are alternating verses, when I am more suited to the modes of the lyre: I must weep for my love; elegy is the song of weeping. The lyre does not suit my tears.

On 1 – 4 Knox comments ‘the opening of Sappho’s epistle is not well developed: the reason for her concern – Phaon is far away in Sicily – is not given until 11’. What is important in the present context is not whether this note commands assent, though, for what it is worth, it seems to me to miss the mark. Sappho imagines Phaon’s reception of the letter with two quatrains which each deal with one fantasised facet of that reception. Moreover, it is not Phaon’s absence that is the cause of her concern, but rather what that absence may betoken about his feelings for her; hence the worry about whether he will instantly recognise her writing (if yes, perhaps she is still in his thoughts …), and whether he will be curious about her unusual choice of metre (if yes, perhaps he is still interested in her …).5 It is also not important 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 important is the mode of ‘aesthetic condemnation’ into which Knox immediately slips, despite the brave words of the Preface, in a work which properly sets 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 and the harvests blaze. 5 6

On vv. 5 – 8 cf. now Rosati (1996) 213 – 16. 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 aspicere in ‘Ovid’.

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This comparison is said to be ‘less apt’ than in parallel Ovidian passages because Sappho’s passion is ongoing, not a sudden conflagration. Despite noting the agricultural metaphor in proueniunt (v. 14), Knox makes no comment upon the fact that Sappho’s description of herself as 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 of Sappho (fr. 47 Voigt) also passes unremarked.7 Would there have been these silences if the commentator had thought that the poem he was commenting upon was by Ovid? Knox may indeed admire the ES, but his commentary refers repeatedly to its ‘odd’, ‘inappropriate’, ‘ridiculous’ phrasing; it almost goes without saying that, in the poems considered to be by Ovid, such phenomena are regarded by the commentator (at least in the first instance) as a sign of probable corruption or interpolation. Even when the tone is appreciative, morever, doubts linger. On v. 154 we are told that ‘the imitation is not inert’ (as though inertness was to be expected), and the repetition in 123 – 4 ‘heightens the patho